Also, I'm not convinced that heating up the water actually does anything.
Showing posts with label RECIPES. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RECIPES. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Another attempt at egg dye....
Also, I'm not convinced that heating up the water actually does anything.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Dyed Deviled Eggs
I have been trying for years to find decent ways to dye eggs naturally. If you are dying the shells, the flavor doesn't matter. But I like to dye the part you eat and make funky looking deviled eggs. This year, I tried for yellow on the egg white part. I read in a magazine to use carrot tops, which I cut up and brought to a boil in some water, then let cool and added vinegar before adding the eggs. I let them sit in the fridge for several hours. The result? Slightly off-white eggs. So I pulled out the old stand-by, and so far the only way I've found to dye eggs naturally: a chopped beet in hot water with a little vinegar. The longer you let the whites soak, the darker the color.
The photo here, taken this morning after the carrot failure, shows eggs that soaked in beet water for about 30 minutes. They are very hot pink and really don't look like anything natural at all, which is why they are fun to take to parties! I would have mixed some avocado in with the yellow mash, but my avocado went bad.
The photo here, taken this morning after the carrot failure, shows eggs that soaked in beet water for about 30 minutes. They are very hot pink and really don't look like anything natural at all, which is why they are fun to take to parties! I would have mixed some avocado in with the yellow mash, but my avocado went bad.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Super Bowl Food!
Superbowl Sunday might have something to do w/ football, maybe something about commercials- but it's also like having a Thanksgiving of appetizers! Anticipating a large crowd joining us for the big game, I decided to make some old favorites and get a little creative with other ones.
First, I made olive dip. This dip has been in the family for at least 60 years. It's amazingly good and the ingredients are: neufchatel cheese (similar to cream cheese), sour cream, black olives, green olives and salt. Here's a helpful tip I discovered not too long ago, since I almost never use a whole can of black olives: if you transfer the black olives to a glass jar and put them in the fridge (get them out of the can as soon as it's opened), they will last as long as the green ones do!
Next, I made veggie pizza appetizers. I used to live in Okoboji, and during those summers all of the adults in the resort would meet on the sun deck, I think on Sundays, and bring appetizers (all the kids would run around between the lake and the food). Someone always brought veggie pizza, and it was one of my favorites. You take a tube of crescent rolls, the kind that pops when you open it (I know, I'm using store bought crescent rolls. Shame, shame...) and lay it out flat on an ungreased cookie sheet. Ungreased because those store bought rolls come with lots of built-in grease! Convenient! You need to pinch the perforated areas together and push the edges out to make the whole thing a little bigger.
Then bake it according to the directions, but on the low end of the time. For example, mine said to bake at 375 for 11-13 minutes, and I had them in for 10 minutes which was long enough. Just so they are starting to brown.
I don't know why I'm saying "they", because "they" are no longer crescent rolls, it is now an appetizer crust and should be used in the singular. I'll try to be more grammatically correct. So, let IT cool. Meanwhile, mix a package of neufchatel cheese with 1 package (or 2 T) dry ranch dressing and 1/2 c mayo (I used nayonaisse, because that's what I have). Spread the cheese mixture over the cooled crust, then top with chopped veggies, chopped really fine, into tiny little pieces. I bought a thing of broccoli and used 2/3 of it, which was probably too much. I cut a thing of cauliflower in half, and that was definitely too much. I bought a thing of radishes and used them all, and could have had more. (I don't know what the correct term for the "things" of the veggies are- probably a head of cauliflower, but the broccoli and radishes come in a rubber band, so I assume that measurement is up to the store or the distributor.) I was going to add celery and carrots, but I ran out of room. I topped the whole thing with shredded cheese and pressed it all down. 
It's better with more veggies, but the cheese doesn't stay on top as well with all the veggies, so use your own judgment on the amount. It's sat in the garage over night, so it will was nice and chilled for the Superbowl party. Another great thing about Superbowl Sunday in the midwest- you have a giant walk-in fridge if you have an attached garage!
I also made deviled eggs. I was thinking about doing something green and yellow for the Packers (I'm a Chiefs fan, but when it comes down to the final game, I'll side with the "local" team. Plus, my dad's a cheese head.) Deviled eggs already come with yellow, so I thought I would dye the whites green. Then, when looking up what to use for natural dyes, I found something I made a long time ago- I mashed an avocado and mixed it in with the yellow yolk part of the deviled egg to make it green. So, I decided to do 1/2 green eggs w/ yellow middles and 1/2 yellow eggs w/ green middles!
I had some spinach in the freezer, so I heated that up with some water. After awhile, it didn't have much color and looked pretty brown. I added some dried parsley. It started to smell like tea. It got more green, and I added the hard boiled white eggs (cut in half). After sitting a little while, the eggs were beginning to turn pretty brown.
I gave up on the experiment, dumped the swampy water and replaced it with-gasp!-green food coloring and water. It looked much more St. Patricksy that way. The yellow eggs were dyed with turmeric and water heated a little and mixed up. They were definitely looking pretty yellow! 
I let them both soak in their colors over night.
As you can see above, the green food coloring turned the eggs more of a blue-green, not exactly Packers colors. I'm not sure if that's because they started out brown instead of white, I will have to continue this experiment. I used 1/2 avocado mashed up with the yellow filling for the yellow eggs, it didn't turn out as green as I would have liked. They stayed green for awhile, but next time I'll add a little lemon juice to keep them from turning brown.
I decided to make cupcakes- something out of a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, converting a peanut butter cake recipe without the topping into a cupcake recipe with chocolate frosting. They turned out pretty good, you can taste the peanut butter but it's subtle, so not exactly like a peanut butter cup. But we did find football-themed cupcake holders! Paper ones, compostable!
Our 12 year old cat likes to move around between all the kitchen chairs, so after we moved them into the living room for the party, we found her sitting on top of the kitchen table, next to the plate of cupcakes. Upon inspection, 4 had been licked at, so we carefully scooped the frosting off of the parts she had tasted!
My husband made some pretty good bean dip, so I started soaking the beans Saturday, they are a mixture of black beans, great northern beans and kidney beans. This is completely an experiment.
After a day of soaking, all the white great northern beans turned purple from the black beans!
They were cooked in the slow cooker on low for 4 hours, which turned out to be perfect. Then they, with lots of other ingredients: hot peppers, onions, garlic, spices, and more were put in the food processor until smooth. Good hot or cold!
He also made taquitos with corn tortillas, cheese & avocadoes, which were a big hit. I had to wait until I was done singing along to Slash before I enjoyed a couple.
Our guests brought a wide variety of snacks as well: flavored pecans, dip, a fruit dessert, spicy spam, raspberry/cream cheese, pistachios, cashews, little pecan cupcake shaped things, carrots and more!
First, I made olive dip. This dip has been in the family for at least 60 years. It's amazingly good and the ingredients are: neufchatel cheese (similar to cream cheese), sour cream, black olives, green olives and salt. Here's a helpful tip I discovered not too long ago, since I almost never use a whole can of black olives: if you transfer the black olives to a glass jar and put them in the fridge (get them out of the can as soon as it's opened), they will last as long as the green ones do!Next, I made veggie pizza appetizers. I used to live in Okoboji, and during those summers all of the adults in the resort would meet on the sun deck, I think on Sundays, and bring appetizers (all the kids would run around between the lake and the food). Someone always brought veggie pizza, and it was one of my favorites. You take a tube of crescent rolls, the kind that pops when you open it (I know, I'm using store bought crescent rolls. Shame, shame...) and lay it out flat on an ungreased cookie sheet. Ungreased because those store bought rolls come with lots of built-in grease! Convenient! You need to pinch the perforated areas together and push the edges out to make the whole thing a little bigger.
Then bake it according to the directions, but on the low end of the time. For example, mine said to bake at 375 for 11-13 minutes, and I had them in for 10 minutes which was long enough. Just so they are starting to brown.
I don't know why I'm saying "they", because "they" are no longer crescent rolls, it is now an appetizer crust and should be used in the singular. I'll try to be more grammatically correct. So, let IT cool. Meanwhile, mix a package of neufchatel cheese with 1 package (or 2 T) dry ranch dressing and 1/2 c mayo (I used nayonaisse, because that's what I have). Spread the cheese mixture over the cooled crust, then top with chopped veggies, chopped really fine, into tiny little pieces. I bought a thing of broccoli and used 2/3 of it, which was probably too much. I cut a thing of cauliflower in half, and that was definitely too much. I bought a thing of radishes and used them all, and could have had more. (I don't know what the correct term for the "things" of the veggies are- probably a head of cauliflower, but the broccoli and radishes come in a rubber band, so I assume that measurement is up to the store or the distributor.) I was going to add celery and carrots, but I ran out of room. I topped the whole thing with shredded cheese and pressed it all down. 
It's better with more veggies, but the cheese doesn't stay on top as well with all the veggies, so use your own judgment on the amount. It's sat in the garage over night, so it will was nice and chilled for the Superbowl party. Another great thing about Superbowl Sunday in the midwest- you have a giant walk-in fridge if you have an attached garage!I also made deviled eggs. I was thinking about doing something green and yellow for the Packers (I'm a Chiefs fan, but when it comes down to the final game, I'll side with the "local" team. Plus, my dad's a cheese head.) Deviled eggs already come with yellow, so I thought I would dye the whites green. Then, when looking up what to use for natural dyes, I found something I made a long time ago- I mashed an avocado and mixed it in with the yellow yolk part of the deviled egg to make it green. So, I decided to do 1/2 green eggs w/ yellow middles and 1/2 yellow eggs w/ green middles!
I had some spinach in the freezer, so I heated that up with some water. After awhile, it didn't have much color and looked pretty brown. I added some dried parsley. It started to smell like tea. It got more green, and I added the hard boiled white eggs (cut in half). After sitting a little while, the eggs were beginning to turn pretty brown.
I gave up on the experiment, dumped the swampy water and replaced it with-gasp!-green food coloring and water. It looked much more St. Patricksy that way. The yellow eggs were dyed with turmeric and water heated a little and mixed up. They were definitely looking pretty yellow! 
I let them both soak in their colors over night.
As you can see above, the green food coloring turned the eggs more of a blue-green, not exactly Packers colors. I'm not sure if that's because they started out brown instead of white, I will have to continue this experiment. I used 1/2 avocado mashed up with the yellow filling for the yellow eggs, it didn't turn out as green as I would have liked. They stayed green for awhile, but next time I'll add a little lemon juice to keep them from turning brown.I decided to make cupcakes- something out of a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, converting a peanut butter cake recipe without the topping into a cupcake recipe with chocolate frosting. They turned out pretty good, you can taste the peanut butter but it's subtle, so not exactly like a peanut butter cup. But we did find football-themed cupcake holders! Paper ones, compostable!
Our 12 year old cat likes to move around between all the kitchen chairs, so after we moved them into the living room for the party, we found her sitting on top of the kitchen table, next to the plate of cupcakes. Upon inspection, 4 had been licked at, so we carefully scooped the frosting off of the parts she had tasted!My husband made some pretty good bean dip, so I started soaking the beans Saturday, they are a mixture of black beans, great northern beans and kidney beans. This is completely an experiment.
After a day of soaking, all the white great northern beans turned purple from the black beans!
They were cooked in the slow cooker on low for 4 hours, which turned out to be perfect. Then they, with lots of other ingredients: hot peppers, onions, garlic, spices, and more were put in the food processor until smooth. Good hot or cold!He also made taquitos with corn tortillas, cheese & avocadoes, which were a big hit. I had to wait until I was done singing along to Slash before I enjoyed a couple.
Our guests brought a wide variety of snacks as well: flavored pecans, dip, a fruit dessert, spicy spam, raspberry/cream cheese, pistachios, cashews, little pecan cupcake shaped things, carrots and more!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Yogurt Whole Wheat Bread w/ Herbs
This recipe is for a bread maker. If you don't have one (and you want to make bread) you should go get one, it is definitely worth the effort. Here is the one I currently use (it's my 2nd). It's on the spendy side, but that's because I had a simple one that I used for about a decade, so I knew I would use the hell out of this one- it has manual settings that are difficult to find on most models.Anyway, if your bread maker wants to know what size of loaf you are making, this will be for a 2 lb. loaf.
Also, It took me a long time before I became brave enough to try a bread recipe using yogurt. But when I did, it became the most popular type of bread made in our house, and it works great as sandwich bread too!
Okay, here's the recipe:
1 c yogurt (plain or vanilla)
1 1/2 T olive oil
2 T maple syrup
1 t. salt
1 3/4 c whole wheat flour
2 c all purpose flour
1 T gluten
2 T wheat germ
1/2 c warm water
2 t. active dry yeast
3 large garlic cloves, minced
fresh thyme (dry works too)
fresh rosemary (dry works too)
a dollop of olive oil
First, measure out the warm water and make sure it's not hot. It should be around room temperature, or 80 degrees at most. Add the yeast to it, set aside.
Next, add all the ingredients in the list down to the wheat germ to the bread maker (make sure the paddle(s) are in place first). Then add the water/yeast mixture and start the machine on a medium crust/wheat setting. After a few minutes, check the dough to see if it needs to be adjusted. If you touch it and dough sticks to your finger, add a little flour. If you touch it and it seems really dry (usually having a hard time moving around) add a little water. If you touch it and you don't get any dough on your finger and it looks like real bread dough, it's perfect!
Meanwhile, heat up the olive oil in a pan and add the garlic. I have a cast iron pan that I like to use to help flavor the pan. Stir for about 1 minute, and add the thyme and rosemary. Let it cook another 1-2 minutes until it's lightly browned. When the fruit/nut beeper goes off, add the garlic & herb mixture. When the bread starts to bake, it will smell extra nice with this addition.This bread works great as a side to almost any meal, or as sandwich bread for almost any sandwich. To make it last longer, keep it in a plastic bag in the fridge.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Preserving Pears
Sometimes we joke that we bought our yard and the house came with it. That's because in the warm months, there are times when the house gets neglected because we are focusing our energy on the backyard, which includes mature fruit trees- 1 pear and 1 apple, 3 raised bed gardens, a 200 square ft. rain garden, 2 compost bins, and-most recently-aronia berry bushes and 2 paw paws! The fall is filled with lots of preserving, and in the past we couldn't go through the pears fast enough- even dehydrating them (which is excellent) only uses a few at a time, and the thing with pears is that they are ripe for about a week, so the window to do something with all that tasty fruit is small!So, I wanted to share what I did this year.
First, I boiled some water and got a big bowl of ice water ready. I had the idea that I was going to hold the pear by the stem and dip it in the water, then put it in the ice water to cool (to make it easier to remove the skin, like you do with tomatoes). This didn't end up working, because it takes pears much longer to soften their skins than tomatoes. I ended up dropping a couple of pears into the boiling water and removing them with a slotted spoon after a few minutes. Still, the skins did not just rub off.
I ended up using a paring (pear-ing) knife to peel off the peal, but it was worth using the boiling water method first, because peeling off a softened skin is much easier than a hard one.Once the skin and core were removed, I sliced the pear and put it in a bowl with a little water and lemon juice in it.
When I was done, I put the pear slices in quart ziplocks with some of the acidic water, tried to squeeze as much air out as possible, and stuck them in the freezer for use in desserts this winter!
Don't forget to compost!Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Best (Super) Foods!
Lately, I have been finding a lot of lists compiling SUPER foods- the best for your health. Do they agree? Let's look at 3 sources. (* means it shows up on more than one list)
1st, from Environmental Nutrition:
Avocado*
Blueberries*
Brazil Nuts
Broccoli
Butternut Squash
Edamame
Flaxseed
Kale*
Kiwi
Lentils
Onions
Quinoa
Sardines
Tomatoes*
Yogurt
Next, it's from Forbes (here's the link)
Raw chocolate
Honey
Avocado*
Pumpkin
Black tea
Eggs
Cinnamon
Tomato paste*
Blueberries*
Wasabi
Advice from Dr. Terry Wahls:
Kale*
Collards
Mustard greens
Romaine lettuce
Spinach
Leaf lettuce
Parsley
Bell peppers
And here is a great food pyramid!
In conclusion, for a nutrition-boost, make a meal that includes avocado, blueberries, tomatoes and kale. Now you know what to put on the grocery list!
1st, from Environmental Nutrition:
Avocado*
Blueberries*
Brazil Nuts
Broccoli
Butternut Squash
Edamame
Flaxseed
Kale*
Kiwi
Lentils
Onions
Quinoa
Sardines
Tomatoes*
Yogurt
Next, it's from Forbes (here's the link)
Raw chocolate
Honey
Avocado*
Pumpkin
Black tea
Eggs
Cinnamon
Tomato paste*
Blueberries*
Wasabi
Advice from Dr. Terry Wahls:
Kale*
Collards
Mustard greens
Romaine lettuce
Spinach
Leaf lettuce
Parsley
Bell peppers
And here is a great food pyramid!
In conclusion, for a nutrition-boost, make a meal that includes avocado, blueberries, tomatoes and kale. Now you know what to put on the grocery list!
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Okara!
I have been attempting to make homemade tofu lately, with local organic Iowa soybeans. The first try was pretty successful, despite the amount of time it took and the difficulty of the clean-up afterward. The second time, I tried to triple the batch and I wasn't as successful. I didn't have proper equipment for that quantity and in the end, it didn't turn out as firm as I would have liked. But when you make homemade tofu or soy milk, you get a lot of okara, which is the by-product of making tofu/soy milk. Literally, in Japanese, it translates to "honorable shell". It is high in fiber, protein and nutrients. Some Japanese farmers use it for livestock feed, it also can be an ingredient in high-protein cat and dog food, and it can be good for us humans to eat too!
First, I'll give you a rough outline of how tofu is made. You mix soybeans and water, blend it into a milky substance, and bring it to a boil. Then you pour that into a multiple-folded cheesecloth or a fine-woven towel in a strainer, and the part that strains out is the soy milk. After squeezing as much milk out as possible, you have dried-out pulpy stuff left, which is the okara. (You can then go on to heat up the soy milk and add nigari salt, which coagulates it, and pour it back into the cheesecloth- "tofu stock" will strain out and what's left in the cheesecloth is the curdled soy milk, or tofu).
In my experience of making tofu twice, I ended up with more okara than tofu. It can be composted, or frozen for future use, but I'm the adventurous type, so I did some research and found this blog- all about okara! I also got some ideas from The Book of Tofu and I have made chicken-less (or un-chicken) nuggets, okara muffins, okara cookies, okara granola, and okara english muffin bread. The baked goods don't necessarily taste much different, but they are much more filling, and good for you!
On the off-chance that someone out there on the world wide web is looking for something to do with their okara, I will be posting some of these recipes for you soon.
Above: less then half of the okara from 3 lbs. of soybeans used in chocolate-banana muffins, carrot-almond muffins, chocolate chip cookies, english muffin bread and granola!
First, I'll give you a rough outline of how tofu is made. You mix soybeans and water, blend it into a milky substance, and bring it to a boil. Then you pour that into a multiple-folded cheesecloth or a fine-woven towel in a strainer, and the part that strains out is the soy milk. After squeezing as much milk out as possible, you have dried-out pulpy stuff left, which is the okara. (You can then go on to heat up the soy milk and add nigari salt, which coagulates it, and pour it back into the cheesecloth- "tofu stock" will strain out and what's left in the cheesecloth is the curdled soy milk, or tofu).
In my experience of making tofu twice, I ended up with more okara than tofu. It can be composted, or frozen for future use, but I'm the adventurous type, so I did some research and found this blog- all about okara! I also got some ideas from The Book of Tofu and I have made chicken-less (or un-chicken) nuggets, okara muffins, okara cookies, okara granola, and okara english muffin bread. The baked goods don't necessarily taste much different, but they are much more filling, and good for you!
On the off-chance that someone out there on the world wide web is looking for something to do with their okara, I will be posting some of these recipes for you soon.
Above: less then half of the okara from 3 lbs. of soybeans used in chocolate-banana muffins, carrot-almond muffins, chocolate chip cookies, english muffin bread and granola!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Maple Apple Crisp
I had a bunch of apples to do something with, so I searched on supercook.com but didn't find much there, but while browsing recipes on the all recipes website, I found this recipe among the "apple desserts" category. I changed it a bit, see my recipe below.
*6 apples- a good mix of red, green, reddish yellow and reddish green (peeled, cored, sliced)
*3/4 c pure maple syrup^
*1/2 c flour
*1/2 c rolled oats
*1/2 c brown sugar
*pinch of salt
*1/2 t cinnamon
*1/2 t nutmeg
*1/4 c butter, softened
Preheat oven to 375.
Butter a baking dish. Put apples in it, pour in syrup and mix it all up.
In a small bowl, mix flour, oats, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the soft butter and mix it up with your fingers until it's crumbly. Then pour the crumbly mixture on top of the apples and get it all covered up.
Bake for 35 minutes.
I have a glass baking dish, so when I peaked inside to see how it was coming along, I noticed that the liquidy bottom (mostly syrup with some juice from the apples) was boiling up through the entire dish. I took that as a good sign.
^A note on syrup: someone on all recipes commented that you should use real pure maple syrup and not regular maple syrup. I recently went to the store to buy some cheaper maple syrup for cooking with, and found out that most of the "maple syrup" on the shelf is something like high fructose corn syrup with artificial maple flavor. I found one that boasted on the label "no high fructose corn syrup!" so I looked at the ingredients and the 1st ingredient was light corn syrup. Yeah, I guess that's not high fructose, is it? I bought Hy-Vee's Grand Brand pure maple syrup. It wasn't organic but it was affordable, and the ingredient list said: pure maple syrup. I have organic pure maple syrup at home, but at $15 a bottle, that stuff is only going on pancakes- not in baked food.
*6 apples- a good mix of red, green, reddish yellow and reddish green (peeled, cored, sliced)
*3/4 c pure maple syrup^
*1/2 c flour
*1/2 c rolled oats
*1/2 c brown sugar
*pinch of salt
*1/2 t cinnamon
*1/2 t nutmeg
*1/4 c butter, softened
Preheat oven to 375.
Butter a baking dish. Put apples in it, pour in syrup and mix it all up.
In a small bowl, mix flour, oats, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the soft butter and mix it up with your fingers until it's crumbly. Then pour the crumbly mixture on top of the apples and get it all covered up.
Bake for 35 minutes.
I have a glass baking dish, so when I peaked inside to see how it was coming along, I noticed that the liquidy bottom (mostly syrup with some juice from the apples) was boiling up through the entire dish. I took that as a good sign.
^A note on syrup: someone on all recipes commented that you should use real pure maple syrup and not regular maple syrup. I recently went to the store to buy some cheaper maple syrup for cooking with, and found out that most of the "maple syrup" on the shelf is something like high fructose corn syrup with artificial maple flavor. I found one that boasted on the label "no high fructose corn syrup!" so I looked at the ingredients and the 1st ingredient was light corn syrup. Yeah, I guess that's not high fructose, is it? I bought Hy-Vee's Grand Brand pure maple syrup. It wasn't organic but it was affordable, and the ingredient list said: pure maple syrup. I have organic pure maple syrup at home, but at $15 a bottle, that stuff is only going on pancakes- not in baked food.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Magazine Recipe: Tortellini with Eggplant & Peppers
From Real Simple Magazine.
Occasionally I’m at the grocery store and I see one of those frozen packages of ravioli or tortellini and I think “that would make a quick and easy meal”. Then I mix it with regular ol’ pasta sauce and it’s eh, okay. But alas! I have found something you can do with that boring old bag of frozen tortellini sitting at the back of your freezer! Get together these: Olive oil 4 medium eggplants, cut into 1/2” pieces (why don’t they just say “bite sized pieces”?) 3 bell peppers, whatever colors you like, chopped up however thick you like Because it is from the Real Simple magazine, you will want to add salt & pepper, of course 6 cloves of garlic, because no matter what the recipe calls for, I always up the amount of garlic, minced ¼ t red pepper flakes (or I would do a couple of shakes rather than try to measure it) 3 cups vegetable broth. I have those little boullion cubes, and I heat them up w/ 3 cups of water to make the broth. And if you have an open container of free range chicken broth in the fridge, you might as well use it up before it goes bad. I think you basically just want to use something w/ more flavor than water here. 1 pound package of frozen cheese tortellini ½ c fresh basil (the original recipe called for parsley, so use that if it sounds better to you. It just seems to me that basil+pasta=yum. ½ c grated asiago cheese, or however much you want. Take out a large skillet. I use a wok, that was sold as a wok because it has that shape, but really it’s just a large pan. Whatever, I use it for almost everything. I bought it at Sunrise Asian Grocery in Eugene, Oregon. That place is awesome, it used to be the post office. Heat the oil in the pan over med-hi heat. Add the eggplant, bell peppers, salt & pepper. Stir occasionally, the vegetables should begin to soften, around 8 minutes. Add the garlic and pepper flakes and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Add the broth & tortellini. Cover & simmer over medium heat, stir it occasionally, about 12-15 minutes. Add the basil (or parsley) and ½ of the asiago. Stir it up well, then dish it into bowls & sprinkle with more asiago. This is an easy one pot meal, which means not much clean up! Goes good w/ homemade bread or a good crusty artisan bread.
Occasionally I’m at the grocery store and I see one of those frozen packages of ravioli or tortellini and I think “that would make a quick and easy meal”. Then I mix it with regular ol’ pasta sauce and it’s eh, okay. But alas! I have found something you can do with that boring old bag of frozen tortellini sitting at the back of your freezer! Get together these: Olive oil 4 medium eggplants, cut into 1/2” pieces (why don’t they just say “bite sized pieces”?) 3 bell peppers, whatever colors you like, chopped up however thick you like Because it is from the Real Simple magazine, you will want to add salt & pepper, of course 6 cloves of garlic, because no matter what the recipe calls for, I always up the amount of garlic, minced ¼ t red pepper flakes (or I would do a couple of shakes rather than try to measure it) 3 cups vegetable broth. I have those little boullion cubes, and I heat them up w/ 3 cups of water to make the broth. And if you have an open container of free range chicken broth in the fridge, you might as well use it up before it goes bad. I think you basically just want to use something w/ more flavor than water here. 1 pound package of frozen cheese tortellini ½ c fresh basil (the original recipe called for parsley, so use that if it sounds better to you. It just seems to me that basil+pasta=yum. ½ c grated asiago cheese, or however much you want. Take out a large skillet. I use a wok, that was sold as a wok because it has that shape, but really it’s just a large pan. Whatever, I use it for almost everything. I bought it at Sunrise Asian Grocery in Eugene, Oregon. That place is awesome, it used to be the post office. Heat the oil in the pan over med-hi heat. Add the eggplant, bell peppers, salt & pepper. Stir occasionally, the vegetables should begin to soften, around 8 minutes. Add the garlic and pepper flakes and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Add the broth & tortellini. Cover & simmer over medium heat, stir it occasionally, about 12-15 minutes. Add the basil (or parsley) and ½ of the asiago. Stir it up well, then dish it into bowls & sprinkle with more asiago. This is an easy one pot meal, which means not much clean up! Goes good w/ homemade bread or a good crusty artisan bread.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Magazine Recipe: Roasted Chicken, Apples & Leeks
5-6 chicken legs
3 small crisp apples, like Braeburn
4-5 leeks, according to the original recipe, “halved crosswise and lengthwise”. In other words, quartered, I would think.
Sprigs of fresh rosemary
Olive oil
Hey, hey! Salt & pepper, and my addition- garlic salt in addition to, or instead of regular salt.
Okay, this is going to seem strange at first. But follow the directions, and you shouldn’t be disappointed.
Preheat the oven to 400. Take out a large baking sheet with rims, or edges, or something to keep stuff from sliding off. The original recipe called for the apples to be “quartered”. But I disagreed, so I cut the apples in half, and then each half into thirds. In other words, or in another word, the apples should be sixthed rather than quartered. Or would it be sexed? No, we don’t want to go there. Sixthed. I may have just coined a new term because Word is giving it the old squiggly red underline. Also, it is good to have an apple corer for this. Apple corer is one of the top 10 items everyone should have in their kitchen. #1 being a large fork. I should make a blog of my top 10 necessary kitchen items. But that’s in the future, and right now, you are trying to make this damn recipe and the oven is preheating and you didn’t come here to read a novel, so back to the recipe….
Once your 3 apples are sixthed into 18 pieces, put them on the baking sheet with the chicken legs, leeks, rosemary and spices. Oh, did you cut off the tops of the leeks? You should have. Remove the tops if you forgot that part.
If you have one of those olive oil dispensers that you pump and spray with, spray a bunch of oil all over your dish. But you probably don’t have one, because I only just recently found out they existed, and then I had to search for awhile to find one. So, slowly pour a little oil over the food and carefully toss it around until it all seems coated. Your hands will become quite oily and you’ll want to wash them, with soap. Do not, by any means use Pam or any other kind of artificial cooking spray. Because I said so.
Put the baking sheet in the oven and set the timer for about 20 minutes. When the timer goes off, turn the chicken to the other side. Drool over the dinner you’re about to enjoy. Don’t drool into the pan, especially if you’re sharing the meal with anyone. Put the dish back in the oven and set the timer for 20-25 more minutes. When the timer goes off, check the fattest leg to make sure it’s done, and if it is, take it out of the oven, turn the oven off and let it cool for at least 5 minutes.
This dish should feed 3 people, but if you have 3 people eating it, you might use 6 legs instead of 5 to avoid fist fights. Serve with bread and wine, if you want to. You will be surprised at how good it is. I was.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Magazine Recipe: Indian Goulash
The original recipe is here.
*2 cups dry brown rice w/ 5 cups water, if using my rice cooker
*olive oil
*1 onion, chopped
*3-4 cloves garlic
*several chopped tomatoes from the farmer’s market or your garden, if it’s July or August in Iowa, if not, a large can of diced tomatoes should do the trick.
*1 lb. eggplant. This would be about 3 normal sized eggplants, but since they come in such a variety of sizes, it’s good to weigh them. Of course, you can have more or less, I don’t think it will alter the recipe too much. Cut them into 1/2” pieces, but please, don’t get out the ruler.
*1-2 jalapeno peppers, or something to make it spicy
*1 ½ or maybe 2 ½ T curry powder. If you live, or visit, Iowa City, or you want to support a spice guru online, check out Cocina del Mundo’s Authentic Curry Spice.
(Hey, wait a minute! Real Simple just went beyond salt & pepper! Hooray!)
Oh, wait… the next thing on the list is:
*salt & black pepper
*And my spice additions: garlic salt, cayenne (to taste)
*1 15 oz can chickpeas, rinsed
*fresh basil
*¼ c plain yogurt
Cook the rice.
Meanwhile, sautee the onion & garlic. Add the tomatoes, eggplant, spices and cook, stirring occasionally, the original recipe says “until fragrant”, but I cooked it longer than that. Add 1-2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the eggplant is tender, 12-15 minutes. Stir in the chickpeas and cook about 3 min. more. Remove from the heat, stir in the basil.
Serve over the rice with a dollop of yogurt.
I renamed this recipe, because it has an Indian flavor, but it reminded me of the goulash I make, but with rice instead of macaroni noodles, Indian spices instead of chili spices, chickpeas instead of kidney beans, eggplants instead of whatever veggies/meat/tempeh go in goulash, and yogurt instead of sour cream. See the connection?
*2 cups dry brown rice w/ 5 cups water, if using my rice cooker
*olive oil
*1 onion, chopped
*3-4 cloves garlic
*several chopped tomatoes from the farmer’s market or your garden, if it’s July or August in Iowa, if not, a large can of diced tomatoes should do the trick.
*1 lb. eggplant. This would be about 3 normal sized eggplants, but since they come in such a variety of sizes, it’s good to weigh them. Of course, you can have more or less, I don’t think it will alter the recipe too much. Cut them into 1/2” pieces, but please, don’t get out the ruler.
*1-2 jalapeno peppers, or something to make it spicy
*1 ½ or maybe 2 ½ T curry powder. If you live, or visit, Iowa City, or you want to support a spice guru online, check out Cocina del Mundo’s Authentic Curry Spice.
(Hey, wait a minute! Real Simple just went beyond salt & pepper! Hooray!)
Oh, wait… the next thing on the list is:
*salt & black pepper
*And my spice additions: garlic salt, cayenne (to taste)
*1 15 oz can chickpeas, rinsed
*fresh basil
*¼ c plain yogurt
Cook the rice.
Meanwhile, sautee the onion & garlic. Add the tomatoes, eggplant, spices and cook, stirring occasionally, the original recipe says “until fragrant”, but I cooked it longer than that. Add 1-2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the eggplant is tender, 12-15 minutes. Stir in the chickpeas and cook about 3 min. more. Remove from the heat, stir in the basil.
Serve over the rice with a dollop of yogurt.
I renamed this recipe, because it has an Indian flavor, but it reminded me of the goulash I make, but with rice instead of macaroni noodles, Indian spices instead of chili spices, chickpeas instead of kidney beans, eggplants instead of whatever veggies/meat/tempeh go in goulash, and yogurt instead of sour cream. See the connection?
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Magazine Recipe: Chicken & Bok Choy Stir-fry
The original recipe from Real Simple is here.
This is a good thing to make when the farmer’s market is full of bok choy and you don’t know what to do with it all.
4 chicken breasts from the local organic farm
Lots of bok choy, quartered lengthwise
¼ c bragg
¼ c bbq sauce
6-8 green onions, thinly sliced
basmati rice
I cooked the basmati rice in the rice cooker, 1 ½ c dry, and I had more than enough. Next time I would probably use 1 cup, and I didn’t write down how much water I used. Oops.
I cooked the chicken in water and flavored it with salt & pepper until browned on the outside. When it was cool enough to handle, I cut it up into bite-sized chunks to add to the meal. In doing this, I cut off all of the salt & pepper flavor. So, next time I would remove the skin before seasoning and browning the chicken. You might be saying “well, duh!” but I bet you’ve made dumb cooking mistakes in the past, too, right? So, thanks to me, you just avoided making a dumb mistake (or maybe you went to the store and bought boneless, skinless chicken breasts like the original recipe called for, in which case, you’re cheating!) Now, the chicken pan is sitting there with chicken flavor in it, and you can add the bok choy and ¼ cup water to the pan. Cover and cook about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the bragg, bbq sauce and green onions in a bowl. Add to the pan and bring it to a boil. Then add the cut up chicken pieces and toss until heated through. Serve on the rice.
But wait! It could be better.
We ate this and it seemed strange to mix BBQ sauce with rice. Next time I want to make this recipe with apricot preserves and ginger instead of BBQ sauce. It also seems like it could use more spice, it was kind of bland. Which reminds, me: how come all of these magazine recipes call for the following spices:
Salt
Pepper
Seriously, that’s it! I admit, I own just about every damn spice and spice combination you can imagine, but I know I’m not the only one. I’ve been to other people’s kitchens and snooped in their spice racks. They, too, own more than SALT & PEPPER! Are the Real Simple readers so uncreative that they can’t go beyond salt & pepper when making a home cooked meal?!? There, I’ve said it. I feel better.
This is a good thing to make when the farmer’s market is full of bok choy and you don’t know what to do with it all.
4 chicken breasts from the local organic farm
Lots of bok choy, quartered lengthwise
¼ c bragg
¼ c bbq sauce
6-8 green onions, thinly sliced
basmati rice
I cooked the basmati rice in the rice cooker, 1 ½ c dry, and I had more than enough. Next time I would probably use 1 cup, and I didn’t write down how much water I used. Oops.
I cooked the chicken in water and flavored it with salt & pepper until browned on the outside. When it was cool enough to handle, I cut it up into bite-sized chunks to add to the meal. In doing this, I cut off all of the salt & pepper flavor. So, next time I would remove the skin before seasoning and browning the chicken. You might be saying “well, duh!” but I bet you’ve made dumb cooking mistakes in the past, too, right? So, thanks to me, you just avoided making a dumb mistake (or maybe you went to the store and bought boneless, skinless chicken breasts like the original recipe called for, in which case, you’re cheating!) Now, the chicken pan is sitting there with chicken flavor in it, and you can add the bok choy and ¼ cup water to the pan. Cover and cook about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the bragg, bbq sauce and green onions in a bowl. Add to the pan and bring it to a boil. Then add the cut up chicken pieces and toss until heated through. Serve on the rice.
But wait! It could be better.
We ate this and it seemed strange to mix BBQ sauce with rice. Next time I want to make this recipe with apricot preserves and ginger instead of BBQ sauce. It also seems like it could use more spice, it was kind of bland. Which reminds, me: how come all of these magazine recipes call for the following spices:
Salt
Pepper
Seriously, that’s it! I admit, I own just about every damn spice and spice combination you can imagine, but I know I’m not the only one. I’ve been to other people’s kitchens and snooped in their spice racks. They, too, own more than SALT & PEPPER! Are the Real Simple readers so uncreative that they can’t go beyond salt & pepper when making a home cooked meal?!? There, I’ve said it. I feel better.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Magazine Recipe: Healthy Vegan Tangy & Spicy Chickenless Chicken
Here is a link to the original recipe in Real Simple magazine.
2 c brown rice dry, with 5 c water in rice cooker
1 box quorn chickenless chicken nuggets (frozen)
½ c apricot preserves
2 T cider vinegar
2 T bragg (amino acids, healthier than soy sauce)
2 t grated fresh ginger (but how can you measure fresh ginger? Just eye it)
olive oil
6 stalks celery, thinly sliced
25 snow peas, ends removed
2 jalapenos
4 cloves garlic, sliced
6 green onions, thinly sliced
Cook the rice however you usually cook rice. The notes above work for my rice cooker, but I assume, like all kitchen appliances, that they all have their own quirks, so you can use the notes above if you are cooking the rice at my house.
Meanwhile, bake the chickenless nuggets, 10 minutes on each side. If you are using Quorn, there will be 14 nuggets. There always are. You don’t have to be a vegetarian to eat chickenless nuggets. They just seem a bit healthier, or maybe just less cruel than supporting the companies that inhumanely raise the chickens whose chicken parts end up in other brands of frozen chicken nuggets. And yes, this section of the meal does call for some processed food, but that’s what makes this meal easy and achievable on a weeknight, rather than spending a bunch of time cutting up the meat from a local free-range organic chicken, making homemade bread crumbs, and creating your own chicken nuggets. I have done that, by the way, and believe me, when you go to that much work you end up creating something very delicious that you don’t want to taint with rice and cider vinegar and soy sauce. But I digress…..
In a bowl, whisk together the apricot preserves, bragg, vinegar and ginger. This is fun when you have a cool colorful whisk with curly cue ends on it, like I’ve got. Also, I have been cooking a lot lately with apricot preserves. The Quorn chickenless chicken nuggets, for example, have a recipe for a dipping sauce on the back, which is ½ apricot preserves, ½ bbq sauce (I’ve been using Sweet Baby Ray’s Sweet & Spicy lately) and some fresh ginger. I’ll use ginger powder if I’m out of fresh ginger. It makes a great sauce.
Anyway, Heat the oil in a large skillet over med-hi heat. Add the celery & carrots and stir it up. After a couple of minutes, add the snow peas, jalapeno, green onions and garlic.
Note- I got some snow peas from the farmer’s market and rinsed them and tossed them in the dish, and then I learned that you’re supposed to remove the ends. So, I learned something, and if you didn’t know you were supposed to do that either, than you just learned something too!
Another note- I always put a non-latex glove on my left hand when I cut up jalapenos. Because I hold the peppers with my left hand while holding the knife with my right hand. Because the first time I cut jalapenos I didn’t wear a glove and I felt a constant flame coming out of my palm for the rest of the evening, no matter how many times I washed my hand. It was an invisible flame, and I couldn’t light a candle with it, but it was there, I’m telling you.
When the garlic starts to brown (you might need to turn the heat up), add the cooked chickenless nugs, the sauce, and toss it all together well. You don’t want to add the nugs too soon or the breading layer will come off of them.
Now, your choice- you can serve it scooped on top of the rice, or you can dump the rice into the skillet and mix it all up.
Eat it, like it, and then comment on by blog how much you liked it.
2 c brown rice dry, with 5 c water in rice cooker
1 box quorn chickenless chicken nuggets (frozen)
½ c apricot preserves
2 T cider vinegar
2 T bragg (amino acids, healthier than soy sauce)
2 t grated fresh ginger (but how can you measure fresh ginger? Just eye it)
olive oil
6 stalks celery, thinly sliced
25 snow peas, ends removed
2 jalapenos
4 cloves garlic, sliced
6 green onions, thinly sliced
Cook the rice however you usually cook rice. The notes above work for my rice cooker, but I assume, like all kitchen appliances, that they all have their own quirks, so you can use the notes above if you are cooking the rice at my house.
Meanwhile, bake the chickenless nuggets, 10 minutes on each side. If you are using Quorn, there will be 14 nuggets. There always are. You don’t have to be a vegetarian to eat chickenless nuggets. They just seem a bit healthier, or maybe just less cruel than supporting the companies that inhumanely raise the chickens whose chicken parts end up in other brands of frozen chicken nuggets. And yes, this section of the meal does call for some processed food, but that’s what makes this meal easy and achievable on a weeknight, rather than spending a bunch of time cutting up the meat from a local free-range organic chicken, making homemade bread crumbs, and creating your own chicken nuggets. I have done that, by the way, and believe me, when you go to that much work you end up creating something very delicious that you don’t want to taint with rice and cider vinegar and soy sauce. But I digress…..
In a bowl, whisk together the apricot preserves, bragg, vinegar and ginger. This is fun when you have a cool colorful whisk with curly cue ends on it, like I’ve got. Also, I have been cooking a lot lately with apricot preserves. The Quorn chickenless chicken nuggets, for example, have a recipe for a dipping sauce on the back, which is ½ apricot preserves, ½ bbq sauce (I’ve been using Sweet Baby Ray’s Sweet & Spicy lately) and some fresh ginger. I’ll use ginger powder if I’m out of fresh ginger. It makes a great sauce.
Anyway, Heat the oil in a large skillet over med-hi heat. Add the celery & carrots and stir it up. After a couple of minutes, add the snow peas, jalapeno, green onions and garlic.
Note- I got some snow peas from the farmer’s market and rinsed them and tossed them in the dish, and then I learned that you’re supposed to remove the ends. So, I learned something, and if you didn’t know you were supposed to do that either, than you just learned something too!
Another note- I always put a non-latex glove on my left hand when I cut up jalapenos. Because I hold the peppers with my left hand while holding the knife with my right hand. Because the first time I cut jalapenos I didn’t wear a glove and I felt a constant flame coming out of my palm for the rest of the evening, no matter how many times I washed my hand. It was an invisible flame, and I couldn’t light a candle with it, but it was there, I’m telling you.
When the garlic starts to brown (you might need to turn the heat up), add the cooked chickenless nugs, the sauce, and toss it all together well. You don’t want to add the nugs too soon or the breading layer will come off of them.
Now, your choice- you can serve it scooped on top of the rice, or you can dump the rice into the skillet and mix it all up.
Eat it, like it, and then comment on by blog how much you liked it.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Magazine Recipes
I’m one of those people who will browse through a magazine, find the recipe section, and tear out the recipe if I think there is a slight chance I might make it someday. So after I did this for awhile, I found a growing pile of torn out magazine pages, and in a rare moment of free time, I organized them in a binder, by category. They stayed there until recently, when my husband and I realized we were going out to eat practically every night while fresh food from the local farmer’s market was rotting away in the fridge and going straight to the compost pile. So, I pulled out my binder of magazine recipes and made a list of what to buy at the farmer’s market and grocery store, and ended up making a new recipe about every other night of the week. Being me, of course, I altered all of the recipes. And a few of the recipe titles. I will be posting these recipes to this blog, along with the link to the original recipe and my notes, and you may do what you want with this information. You’re welcome.
Monday, August 30, 2010
How to Be Organized in the Kitchen?
Do you ever make a great recipe and say things like “wow, that turned out awesome, I should make it again!” and then you relax on the couch all night with a satisfied belly full of food and you never actually write down what you did or how you altered the recipe, and then you try to make it again later and you dig through your recipes and cookbooks and say “I must’ve written notes down somewhere!”? Yeah? Then, you and I have something in common! So, it has been suggested lately that I start a cooking journal.
I have mixed feelings on such a thing, and here are a few reasons why:
1. I have a camp journal. If you’ve ever camped with me, you know all about the camp journal.
2. I have a travel journal. For notes while traveling.
3. I have a dream journal. It’s really pretty interesting, to me anyway.
4. I have a miscellaneous journal full of many things, including random lists, like good band names and bumper sticker ideas.
5. I have a garden journal with notes on all the food planted in the yard, and ideas for the future.
6. I have numerous sketch journals, in various sizes, for fun.
7. I have a few cookbooks that I’ve written notes all over.
8. I have a binder full of magazine clippings of recipes (see the next blog).
9. I have a dang recipe box!
10. I have a journal of beer recipes.
11. I have a blog with recipes!
So, I’ve managed to come up with 11 reasons, but I’m still debating internally:
a. Wouldn’t another journal add to my clutter of numerous journals and recipe books? or….
b. Would a cooking journal keep me from searching through all those cookbooks, recipe books, and binders only to say: “I must’ve written notes down somewhere!”
I have mixed feelings on such a thing, and here are a few reasons why:
1. I have a camp journal. If you’ve ever camped with me, you know all about the camp journal.
2. I have a travel journal. For notes while traveling.
3. I have a dream journal. It’s really pretty interesting, to me anyway.
4. I have a miscellaneous journal full of many things, including random lists, like good band names and bumper sticker ideas.
5. I have a garden journal with notes on all the food planted in the yard, and ideas for the future.
6. I have numerous sketch journals, in various sizes, for fun.
7. I have a few cookbooks that I’ve written notes all over.
8. I have a binder full of magazine clippings of recipes (see the next blog).
9. I have a dang recipe box!
10. I have a journal of beer recipes.
11. I have a blog with recipes!
So, I’ve managed to come up with 11 reasons, but I’m still debating internally:
a. Wouldn’t another journal add to my clutter of numerous journals and recipe books? or….
b. Would a cooking journal keep me from searching through all those cookbooks, recipe books, and binders only to say: “I must’ve written notes down somewhere!”
Sunday, August 29, 2010
New Blogs
After trying to put all the pieces together about our Easter meal, I finally just published the darn blog. But, the way this blogspot thing works, it publishes it to the first date you saved the draft, under April in this case. To make it easier, if you want to read about Easter, click here!
Meanwhile, I'm on a break from cakes- something about summer heat and hot ovens not pairing up very well. But I have been experimenting on a lot of new recipes, so they will be posted in the next week or two, one at a time. Enjoy!
Meanwhile, I'm on a break from cakes- something about summer heat and hot ovens not pairing up very well. But I have been experimenting on a lot of new recipes, so they will be posted in the next week or two, one at a time. Enjoy!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Homemade Vanilla Extract
We use real vanilla extract (as in, not imitation) for a lot of things. Homemade kahlua, homemade ice cream and much more. The stuff is expensive! So I was excited to hear that you can make your own. The first thing I heard was to stick a vanilla bean in a bottle of vodka. I went online to do some research and found a little more to it than that:After searching several sites looking at quality and prices, I was happy to find that the best deal was also organic! I bought some bourbon vanilla beans from this site.
I then looked at 2 recipes online: the first recipe
and the second recipe.
The first seemed stronger, so I made mine closer to that one.
I mixed the ingredients all together on April 25th.
8 vanilla beans sliced down the middle, scraped and chopped, all added to a sterilized quart jar.
I did this by taking each bean half and running the knife (sharp side up) along the inside to scrape out the "caviar" of the vanilla bean, before chopping up the bean skin.
I poured 2 cups vodka on top (40% alcohol), sealed tightly and shook vigorously.
Here's the plan:
Week 1: Shake daily
Week 2-4: Shake every other day.
Week 5: Let it age, check taste.
2nd recipe says you can add 1 t per cup of dark rum to sweeten.
I came up with 8 beans because the first recipe called for 1 oz. of beans per cup of vodka.
1 oz=4.5 beans. That would be 9 beans for 2 cups. The 2nd recipe called for 6 beans/2 cups. I met them in the middle with 8. Plus, scraping out the caviar and chopping up the beans will probably make it stronger.
Above: What the vanilla extract looked like with everything in it, before being shaken.
I'll add more photos to update the progress.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Easter Meal
With a 16 lb. organic turkey in the freezer (thanks to our amazing neighbors) we decided to invite a bunch of people over for Easter dinner. Having never made an actual turkey (just the tofu-kind), we got some advice and ingredients and set to work.
First of all, I had at least 3 different people recommend the Reynold's Oven bag to cook the turkey in. My husband and I are both anti-cooking-anything-in-plastic so we said no. We wanted to learn the old-fashioned way.
On Tuesday, I took the turkey out of the freezer and put it in the fridge to start thawing. I never would have taken it out 4 days before, but by golly- it still wasn't completely thawed by Saturday morning! (We had Easter dinner on Saturday so that we could cook all day). That morning, we put the turkey in a sink full of cold water for an hour or so. Reason #1 of how necessary our kitchen remodel was- the turkey filled the sink and we never would have been able to do that in our old sink, which was half as tall!
After a few hours and the removing of the nasty stuff in the plastic bag that I guess all turkeys come with, I chopped up some onion, garlic, celery and carrots and stuffed them up in that turkey (after taking it out of it's bath). I was told to use paper towels and dry the turkey off. We use about one roll of paper towels every 2-3 years, so I had to go looking for them. I used to be one of those people who grabbed a 6 pack of bleached paper towels every time I went to Target- but in the last few years, I've learned they really aren't as necessary as you would think! It doesn't take much to cut back on the bad habit of paper towel usage. Anyway, by the time I returned to the turkey with my 2 paper towels, it was already dry! So: use a few paper towels to pat the thing dry, or wait 5 minutes and let it air-dry.
I used butter and rubbed it all over the turkey. This is the part that might be gross to some people. You are getting a little intimate with a dead and de-feathered bird, rubbing slimy stuff up under the armpits and all, but it wasn't too bad. At this point, if your house is anything like mine, and you've got raw poultry sitting out, your cats and dog might start to drive you nuts due to the tempting smell. It's a good time to remind them that it's Easter, not Thanksgiving, and they should be enjoying the beautiful spring weather.
By the way, you should have had your mom bring a large pan if you do not own one yourself, and now it's time to put the turkey in that pan and stick it in the oven! Meanwhile, make a zillion side dishes.
I started with deviled eggs the night before. Because it was Easter, I decided to dye them. I used a beet that had been in the fridge a little too long and cut it up, then cooked in in a little water. After slicing up the hard boiled eggs and separating the yolks out, I put the whites in a bowl with the beet juice and let it sit in the fridge overnight, resulting in some very dark pink eggs.
That part was pretty cool, and the beets don't affect the taste of the egg much. The part I messed up was the yolks. I should have just left them yellow, but I decided to experiment and I added some turmeric (which did affect the taste) and maybe too much paprika. The yolks looked more like a skin-tone and didn't match the pink part too well, but they still got eaten. And they made for some good conversation.
Recipe for Dyed Deviled Eggs:
Hard boil a dozen free range eggs by bringing a pot of water (with some salt if you want) to a full boil, carefully adding the eggs to it (it helps to have a designated large wooden spoon for this. I do.) Once the last egg is in, set the timer for 11 minutes. When the timer goes off, turn off the heat (remove from the burner if you have an electric stove) and set the timer for another 11 minutes. When the timer goes off, rinse the pot with cold water until it feels cool to the touch.
Then crack the egg shells off and compost them. Rinse the eggs. Cut in half the long way. Remove the yellow yolk part and put in a bowl. Dye as you wish.
Add to the yolks: 1 T mayonnaise or nayonnaise if you like the vegan stuff, 1 T vinegar, and one squirt of mustard. Dye as you wish. Mash it all together and scoop the yellow stuff into the white (or formerly white if you dyed it) stuff and top with paprika! Eat any of the ones that fell apart or don't look as pretty before putting them on an attractive platter.
As you can see above, I had the eggs out as an appetizer with a nicely decorated table- with tulip confetti and a bunny cut-out. I was trying to Martha Stewart-out the table!
While my mom and I cooked several sides, I put my dad in charge of the relish tray. My rules: it has to be colorful and on an attractive ceramic platter. His rules: It has to include olives and radishes. (He made a trip to the store).
Mom had recently made a Russian meal using Buckwheat, so she wanted to do a buckwheat side dish. We added lots of mushrooms and it looked good, but the buckwheat has a taste and smell somewhat similar to burning plastic. She wanted to pitch the leftovers, but I said no- let me experiment, and with the leftovers, I came up with a pretty darn good tasting dish!
Here's my experiment:
Buckwheat/Rice dish recipe (to be added as soon as I locate it!)
After all that dreading of facing the daunting task of cooking a real turkey (without a plastic bag!) it really wasn't that hard! The secret was calibrating the thermometer with a scientific thermometer. As homebrewers, we happen to have that stuff laying around the house. We knew our thermometer was off, but we found out it was 30 degrees off! We got it to be accurate, and the turkey came out of the oven at just the right temperature! (180 degrees).
Reason #2 of why our kitchen remodel was necessary- we could have 5 or 6 people actively involved in the meal preparation/table setting all at one time!
Other side dishes included a large mixed-green lettuce salad, homemade bread, green bean casserole (my secret recipe- involving sauteed onions, mushrooms and white pepper!) and a few more. Needless to say, there were plenty of leftovers despite the 8 people eating all this food.
With everyone gone and just two of us to tackle all the leftovers, we got all the meat off the turkey we could, and despite a few turkey sandwiches made with some homemade chevre from a friend of ours- excellent combination!- we couldn't tackle it all, so we froze some chunks of turkey meat. I then took the carcass and loosely followed directions from "Joy of Cooking". I put it in our very large Cuisinart Slow Cooker with some water and veggies and let it cook slow for a day. I tried skimming the fat off the top, but since it never really boiled, not much came to the top. I ended up refrigerating it before going though it, and that worked pretty well. For one thing, it was cool enough to handle. I pulled the meat off and saved the non-bony-fatty stuff and when I got it all out, I poured the rest into pint mason jars and froze them for later. The frozen meat will go in a future pot pie. We do own a deep freeze, which makes all of this a bit more possible!
First of all, I had at least 3 different people recommend the Reynold's Oven bag to cook the turkey in. My husband and I are both anti-cooking-anything-in-plastic so we said no. We wanted to learn the old-fashioned way.
On Tuesday, I took the turkey out of the freezer and put it in the fridge to start thawing. I never would have taken it out 4 days before, but by golly- it still wasn't completely thawed by Saturday morning! (We had Easter dinner on Saturday so that we could cook all day). That morning, we put the turkey in a sink full of cold water for an hour or so. Reason #1 of how necessary our kitchen remodel was- the turkey filled the sink and we never would have been able to do that in our old sink, which was half as tall!
After a few hours and the removing of the nasty stuff in the plastic bag that I guess all turkeys come with, I chopped up some onion, garlic, celery and carrots and stuffed them up in that turkey (after taking it out of it's bath). I was told to use paper towels and dry the turkey off. We use about one roll of paper towels every 2-3 years, so I had to go looking for them. I used to be one of those people who grabbed a 6 pack of bleached paper towels every time I went to Target- but in the last few years, I've learned they really aren't as necessary as you would think! It doesn't take much to cut back on the bad habit of paper towel usage. Anyway, by the time I returned to the turkey with my 2 paper towels, it was already dry! So: use a few paper towels to pat the thing dry, or wait 5 minutes and let it air-dry.
I used butter and rubbed it all over the turkey. This is the part that might be gross to some people. You are getting a little intimate with a dead and de-feathered bird, rubbing slimy stuff up under the armpits and all, but it wasn't too bad. At this point, if your house is anything like mine, and you've got raw poultry sitting out, your cats and dog might start to drive you nuts due to the tempting smell. It's a good time to remind them that it's Easter, not Thanksgiving, and they should be enjoying the beautiful spring weather.
By the way, you should have had your mom bring a large pan if you do not own one yourself, and now it's time to put the turkey in that pan and stick it in the oven! Meanwhile, make a zillion side dishes.
I started with deviled eggs the night before. Because it was Easter, I decided to dye them. I used a beet that had been in the fridge a little too long and cut it up, then cooked in in a little water. After slicing up the hard boiled eggs and separating the yolks out, I put the whites in a bowl with the beet juice and let it sit in the fridge overnight, resulting in some very dark pink eggs.
That part was pretty cool, and the beets don't affect the taste of the egg much. The part I messed up was the yolks. I should have just left them yellow, but I decided to experiment and I added some turmeric (which did affect the taste) and maybe too much paprika. The yolks looked more like a skin-tone and didn't match the pink part too well, but they still got eaten. And they made for some good conversation.Recipe for Dyed Deviled Eggs:
Hard boil a dozen free range eggs by bringing a pot of water (with some salt if you want) to a full boil, carefully adding the eggs to it (it helps to have a designated large wooden spoon for this. I do.) Once the last egg is in, set the timer for 11 minutes. When the timer goes off, turn off the heat (remove from the burner if you have an electric stove) and set the timer for another 11 minutes. When the timer goes off, rinse the pot with cold water until it feels cool to the touch.
Then crack the egg shells off and compost them. Rinse the eggs. Cut in half the long way. Remove the yellow yolk part and put in a bowl. Dye as you wish.
Add to the yolks: 1 T mayonnaise or nayonnaise if you like the vegan stuff, 1 T vinegar, and one squirt of mustard. Dye as you wish. Mash it all together and scoop the yellow stuff into the white (or formerly white if you dyed it) stuff and top with paprika! Eat any of the ones that fell apart or don't look as pretty before putting them on an attractive platter.
As you can see above, I had the eggs out as an appetizer with a nicely decorated table- with tulip confetti and a bunny cut-out. I was trying to Martha Stewart-out the table!While my mom and I cooked several sides, I put my dad in charge of the relish tray. My rules: it has to be colorful and on an attractive ceramic platter. His rules: It has to include olives and radishes. (He made a trip to the store).
Mom had recently made a Russian meal using Buckwheat, so she wanted to do a buckwheat side dish. We added lots of mushrooms and it looked good, but the buckwheat has a taste and smell somewhat similar to burning plastic. She wanted to pitch the leftovers, but I said no- let me experiment, and with the leftovers, I came up with a pretty darn good tasting dish!
Here's my experiment:
Buckwheat/Rice dish recipe (to be added as soon as I locate it!)
After all that dreading of facing the daunting task of cooking a real turkey (without a plastic bag!) it really wasn't that hard! The secret was calibrating the thermometer with a scientific thermometer. As homebrewers, we happen to have that stuff laying around the house. We knew our thermometer was off, but we found out it was 30 degrees off! We got it to be accurate, and the turkey came out of the oven at just the right temperature! (180 degrees).
Reason #2 of why our kitchen remodel was necessary- we could have 5 or 6 people actively involved in the meal preparation/table setting all at one time!Other side dishes included a large mixed-green lettuce salad, homemade bread, green bean casserole (my secret recipe- involving sauteed onions, mushrooms and white pepper!) and a few more. Needless to say, there were plenty of leftovers despite the 8 people eating all this food.
With everyone gone and just two of us to tackle all the leftovers, we got all the meat off the turkey we could, and despite a few turkey sandwiches made with some homemade chevre from a friend of ours- excellent combination!- we couldn't tackle it all, so we froze some chunks of turkey meat. I then took the carcass and loosely followed directions from "Joy of Cooking". I put it in our very large Cuisinart Slow Cooker with some water and veggies and let it cook slow for a day. I tried skimming the fat off the top, but since it never really boiled, not much came to the top. I ended up refrigerating it before going though it, and that worked pretty well. For one thing, it was cool enough to handle. I pulled the meat off and saved the non-bony-fatty stuff and when I got it all out, I poured the rest into pint mason jars and froze them for later. The frozen meat will go in a future pot pie. We do own a deep freeze, which makes all of this a bit more possible!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Spent Grain Bread
I made this bread while brewing the Vernal Black IPA on the equinox, 3/20/10. The spent grains consisted of crystal 60, black malt and roasted barley. I have made this bread several times while my partner or I are brewing, and I have tweaked the recipe to get this result. Since almost all of the sugars from the grains have steeped into the beer (wort), the bread isn't very sweet. I have 6 T of sugar going into it, but next time I think I'll try adding honey or maple syrup and see if that makes it better. The rest of the recipe is great, though- and I think the best results involve using spent chocolate malt. (To the non-brewers, it's a grain, not a drink)
Here is the recipe for a 2 lb. loaf using a breadmaker:2.5 t active dry yeast
5 oz luke warm water (not too warm)
6 T sugar
2 1/2 c white flour
1 1/2 c barley flour
1.5 t poppy seeds
2.5 t sunflower seeds
2.5 t sesame seeds
2 1/2 c spent grains, pushed down into the cup and possibly heaping over the top
2 T gluten
2 t garlic salt
1 1/3 T dry milk
2 T butter
Add the yeast to the water and let it sit while you add all the other ingredients to the bread pan. Then stir up the cup of yeasty water and pour it in. Turn on the bread machine- for a medium crust, white bread setting, and go back to brewing beer.
If you time it right, you will have the smell of baking bread right when you are finishing up the tasks of brewing, and you will start to daydream about kicking back with a homebrew (from the last batch) and a freshly baked slice of bread!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Cinnamon Apple Pancakes
This is a recipe I made up on my own, heavily relying on the pancake recipe from The Joy of Cooking.
Ingredients:
¾ c unbleached white flour
¾ c whole wheat flour
3 T raw sugar
1 ¾ t baking powder
1 t salt
half or more of an apple, diced
A couple shakes of cinnamon, ground
2 eggs, cage free
1 1/8 c milk, hormone free
1 T butter, unsalted
Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl.
Melt butter in your cast iron butter dish over a burner on the stove. If you don’t own a microwave and your toaster oven is broken, that’s how I roll…..
Beat eggs and scrape out the shell pieces. Add milk. Add butter and stir as you add it.
Add the liquids all at once to the dry ingredients. Add the diced apples. (I don’t peel my apple, but I do like to remove the core). Stir just enough so that you don’t have clumps of flour.
Let the mixture sit for awhile. It’s got baking powder in it so it needs to do its thing.
Heat up your griddle. I have a non-stick one that doesn’t require any oil or butter. It’s amazing. It’s not Teflon, but you still have to be careful not to scratch it.
I’ve been cooking pancakes for years almost every weekend. Therefore, I’m pretty awesome at knowing exactly when to flip the pancake. Look for bubbles to begin forming. If you aren’t sure, test a corner and see if it is going to stay together. Practice makes perfect. That’s why I’m perfect.
I like to make several individual batches of the dry ingredients so that it’s quick and easy at 11:30 am. Sometimes, on weekend mornings when I finally roll out of bed and think about food, I’m more motivated to make something if it’s quick and easy and there isn’t much measuring involved. I also always have gifts to give friends & family when I visit! Homemade pancake mix!
You are probably going to make several pancakes, especially if you’re one of those crazies who
likes little tiny pancakes stacked on the plate. I like plate-sized pancakes, and I find them easier to make, but that’s me. So you should go buy a pancake/tortilla warmer.This is one of those kitchen items I bought and immediately I didn’t know how I had survived so long without owning such an amazing piece of equipment. You know what I’m talking about- when you go to a Mexican restaurant and get fajitas and they bring the tortillas in a little version of this thing to keep them all warm. It really works great- once all the pancakes are made, you bring the warmer to the table and they are all equally hot! (Don’t leave them in there too long, though- the condensation will make them soggy!) Serve them with really expensive real maple syrup and butter. Refrigerate the leftover pancakes and eat them cold with no toppings. I’m not kidding- they are awesome that way too, especially with coffee or black tea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)