Lavender Blue

Credit Crunch: My Weekly 3-2-1 Menu

2012-01-30T11:11:00.000-05:00

If I walk into the grocery store without a plan, I am likely to start tossing things into my cart simply because I am hungry or I see something that looks good at the time. Of course nine times out of ten, I get home and those impulse buys get forgotten the moment they get put away.

With my meals planned out, I only buy the items I need for that week instead of getting suckered into purchasing everything that catches my eye.

Traditional weekly menu plans weren't working for me. I needed to find a way to be very flexible in order to accommodate my daughter's ever-changing schedule. I also didn't want to be stuck with excessive leftovers.

One day it dawned on me that I didn't have to cook elaborate dinners for every night of the week. I didn't have to make a recipe and then eat leftovers for the next four days to use it up. I also didn't have to designate specific nights for specific meals. All of that may work great for a different family, but it wasn't working at all for mine. I needed something much more simple, and my idea for the 3-2-1 Menu Plan was born.

The concept is so simple, I really don't know how it eluded me for so long. Each week, I only plan to prepare three dinner recipes. Two nights we eat leftovers or something incredibly simple like sandwiches. One night I pull something from my freezer, which I keep stocked with meals I prep in advance, and other quick things like frozen pizza or Lean Cuisine dinners. That leaves one more night per week that isn't planned out - to allow for eating out or visiting with family/friends.

Here is my 3-2-1 Menu for this week:

3 Dinner Recipes:
Greek Salad
Roasted Shrimp with Thyme with steamed brown rice and broccoli
Crock-pot Pork Loin Chops with mashed sweet potatoes

2 Leftovers/Sandwiches Nights

1 From the Freezer night: Corky's Ribs, with coleslaw and cornbread

Writing "Something"

2012-01-28T09:58:00.000-05:00

It has been over a year since I last wrote here. I can't tell you how many times I have sat down to write and found myself unable to untangle the thoughts filling my head. It was a year of major changes - some good, some really not very good at all, but necessary. Thinking and writing about food was still very much a part of my life, but I wasn't in much of a sharing mood.

Back when I was still in school, my creative writing teacher shared a simple but valuable writing tip with me that I have never forgotten:

Write something... every single day.

It doesn't matter if what you write has any substance or meaning. He didn't care if all we wrote that day was a string of random words. I distinctly recall a few defiantly moody days when all I wrote down in my creative writing journal was the same letter over and over again. Something is better than nothing, right? The idea worked...eventually. Since I was used to writing something down each day, eventually those stories and thoughts cramming my brain would find their way onto the page. And sometimes those somethings were really worth reading.

I have a lot of great ideas to share with you and I am really excited to start blogging again. Strawberry season has just begun and the weather is warming up (Hey, I live in Florida after all). Already the ideas are flowing. To those of you still here visiting and reading, thank you for being so patient.

Having My Own Aarti Party: Massaged Kale & Mango Salad

2010-08-24T11:54:00.013-04:00

Last weekend, Aarti Sequeira, recently crowned the latest Next Food Network Star, made her official Food Network debut with her new cooking show, Aarti Party. Since I had already been following Aarti's fun and unique pre Food Network Star "Aarti Paarti" cooking vidoes over on Youtube, I was pretty certain all along that she would be a serious contender all along and was so elated when she won. It was awesome to see a fellow food blogger win such a big competition!

Aarti is really quirky and friendly and all of her videos are so approachable, with really clever interpretations of Indian fusion dishes. Her recipes are not the wild and crazy attention grabbing type of fusion, but rather the more comfortable, yes-you-can-make-this-at-home type, each given Aarti's unique personal flair, with usually a hint or more of Indian spices and ingredients.

I watched her first Food Network episode, which featured a chicken tikka masala inspired version of sloppy joes, Bombay Joes, as well as some incredibly easy and beautiful looking Early Grey & Pistachio flavored kulfi ice cream pops, and a Massaged Kale & Mango Salad. I chose to make the salad, which immediately intrigued me, having previously been scared to death to try making anything with kale at home. I will usually taste anything, and have no fear of eating new foods, but sometimes cooking with them is another matter entirely.

I am not really sure why I feared making kale, although I'm quite certain that, in part, it had to do with an utter lack of knowledge about properly preparing it. I had visions in my head of sloppy, murky, mushy overcooked greens. This cool crisp light & fruity salad instantly erased that unpalatable image from my mind and I overcame my kale inhibition, rushing to the market to grab a healthy, fresh bunch of cavola negro kale. If I was going to give kale a go for the first time, I wanted to try the supposedly most flavorful variety.

The salad was indeed easy to prepare, with only a handful of simple ingredients ... kale, some freshly squeezed lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil, Kosher salt, honey, and some freshly diced mango. The aroma released from deep green leaves while giving them their "massage" was heavenly, and as Aarti had promised, almost banana like. The salad had a really nice crispness to it and the flavor was so unique, slightly sweet without being sugary, light and tropical. Addictive and refreshing on a hot Florida night.

I measured absolutely nothing accurately; this was one of those easy recipes you can make using your eyes and measure by feel and taste alone. I left out the pumpkin seeds, since my daughter would not even consider taking a bite otherwise. And besides, pumpkin seeds aren't the sort of thing I typically have hanging out in my pantry anyway. I did not miss them at all. This is a great salad and I hope to give more of Aarti's recipes a try in the future.

Nature Valley Granola Bars Giveway Winner Announced

2010-08-12T16:10:00.005-04:00

A big thank you to all of the folks who stopped by to enter my Nature Valley Granola Bars Giveaway. I wrote out all the entries on pieces of paper, including extra entries for anyone who chose to use multiple methods to enter the giveaway, and had my daughter mix them up and draw the winning name.

Congratulations to Karen Harris.

Please send me an email using the "contact me" link to the left with your mailing info so I can let the folks at My Blog Spark and Nature Valley know to send you your prize.

My First Giveaway (Thanks to Nature Valley Granola Bars)

2010-08-05T20:04:00.010-04:00

When the folks at Nature Valley Granola Bars and My Blog Spark offered to sponsor a giveaway on my blog, I have to say that I was thrilled. Since I already really do eat and enjoy Nature Valley granola bars fairly regularly, it is pretty easy for me to recommend them to you. I, of course, eat them as they are intended, as a crunchy portable snack. They are handy as a mid afternoon salty-sweet energy pick me up, easily tucked into your purse or backpack.

However, I actually usually use them more often in recipes, grinding them up into a graham cracker type pie shell base or sprinkled over ice cream. I have even made a delicious creamy and crunchy chicken salad recipe that uses Nature Valley granola bars crushed up and stirred into the mixture. The chicken salad recipe was actually based on a Pillsbury Bake-Off finalist's recipe and is one I have been enjoying for a few years now. I will share a new recipe I created for the giveaway below, but first I want to tell you about the giveaway!

Nature Valley is sponsoring a special event called The National Parks Project, a fundraiser to help promote and preserve the many beautiful parks across the US. Nature Valley sent me a box of their granola bars, which have specially marked wrappers that you can send in to help raise money for the charity event. They also sent me a really nice gift pack complete with a backpack, a compass, a flashlight key chain, a bright neon green water bottle, and a book called 1000 Places to See Before You Die. They have also agreed to send one lucky Lavender Blue reader the same gift pack.

If you would like a chance to win this cool gift pack, then please follow the instructions below. You can enter once for each method. You may enter any time starting now until Wednesday August 11 at 11:59pm Eastern US time. The winner will be announced sometime the next day, Thursday August 12, so be sure to check back to see if you have won. If you are the winner, you will need to contact me via email so I can get your mailing info. If I don't hear back from the winner within 3 days, a new winner will be drawn.

How to enter the Nature Valley Granola Bars Giveaway (you may choose one or all of these methods, each method counts as 1 entry, for a total of 4 possible entries per person) :

Post a reply to this thread commenting on this article. Only genuine responses will be accepted, not spam.
Post a message about this giveaway on your own blog and link back to this article (be sure to post that you have done so in a reply here).
Sign up to be a Follower using the Google Friend Connect link on my blog and mention it in a reply here (if you are already a follower, just mention that you are).
Comment on this giveaway, mentioning Lavender Blue, on at least one social networking resource (Twitter, Facebook, whichever you participate in) and post that you have done so as a reply here.

Here is what the gift pack looks like - I thought it was really quite nice.

Now I couldn't just post about a giveaway and not provide you with some sort of recipe, so here is what I created with one of my free sample granola bars.

I bashed up one of the granola bar packs, which actually contains 2 bars, leaving some large chunks. I used the crumbled chunks of granola bar as crunchy layers in my parfait, with alternating ribbons of berries, and red, white, & blue colored yogurt. It is very simple to make and of course can be altered to suit your own tastes with different fruits and yogurt flavors. Since the event is honoring our National Parks, I thought it most fitting to stick to a patriotic theme.

Patriotic Picnic Parfaits
(serves 1-2)

1 packet Nature Valley Granola Bars (2 crunchy bars inside the sleeve), bashed until crumbly
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup fresh strawberries, diced or sliced
1 container vanilla yogurt
1 container strawberry yogurt
1 container blueberry yogurt

Per serving: Place a layer of granola on the base of a tall clear parfait glass, then add a few spoonfuls of vanilla yogurt. Sprinkle some blueberries on top, being generous, then add a few more spoonfuls of yogurt, only this time use blueberry flavor. Repeat layers using strawberries and strawberry flavored yogurt. Garnish with more mixed berries on top.

Strawberry Mango Muffins and The Crazy Fridge Disaster

2010-07-18T10:04:00.020-04:00

My morning yesterday began quite normally. I woke up, made some coffee while still half asleep. I wandered around unpacking a bit and checked my email before starting my day. It was supposed to be a somewhat lazy Saturday morning, after a grueling week of doing nothing but searching for jobs, applying for jobs, driving around looking for job signs. /sigh I needed to relax big time!

My grand plan was to do some therapeutic baking, something I hadn't done in what felt like ages. Between low carb dieting, moving, and a general paring down of ingredients over the past month, I hadn't really had time to bake much of anything. Besides, now that I have such an adorable and fairly roomy kitchen to work in, I wanted to play.

The first sign of trouble surfaced when I opened the fridge to grab some eggs and milk. Instead of a bracing, cool breeze, I was hit with a fairly tepid not quite cool feeling when I opened the fridge door. I assumed that I must have left the door ajar when I grabbed the creamer for my coffee earlier. Oh if only that were the case! But at the time, it was certainly far simpler to assume I had been my usual clumsy self and, not being used to my new side by side opening fridge, must have not shut the door tightly.

I wanted to make some muffins, but I still hadn't decided which type of muffins I felt like making. Looking around in the fridge, I noticed that I still had a small amount of fresh strawberries left over from my purchase at the farmer's market earlier in the week, and the few that remained were not looking very happy. I picked out the ones that were too far gone and salvaged about 6 decent sized berries. I also still had a ripe mango, another of my farmer's market purchases. I didn't have a recipe for strawberry mango muffins, but it sounded like an appealing combination, so I went with it and started creating.

I assembled some basic muffin ingredients on the counter... flour, milk, eggs, baking powder, salt. I have a favorite blueberry muffin recipe that calls for mashing up some of the blueberries into the batter, and thought that might serve as a good starting point for these muffins. My mango was very, very juicy and parts were just a bit mushy, so I mashed up about 1/2 cup, and diced the rest into bite sized chunks. I was hoping the mashed mango would provide a nice balance of moisture and fruity flavor to the batter, and possibly brighten the color as well. My tiny handful of strawberries only amounted to roughly a half cup, which was really less than I would have liked, but there wasn't much I could do about it at the time. I also chopped up some macadamia nuts I had lying around, thinking they would add a nice bit of crunch to the streusel topping I was planning to sprinkle over the batter.

I realized at this point that I had forgotten to grab some butter, so I went back to the fridge, laid my hands down on the sticks of butter and felt them sink a bit under the pressure of my fingers. While the butter was still cold to the touch, it was clearly a lot softer than it should have been coming straight from the fridge. Concern set in now as I began to feel the contents of my fridge. Everything was definitely still cool, but definitely not as cold as normal and the entire interior felt like a cooler at the end of a long picnic, after the ice has started to melt. Opening the freezer door, I breathed some sighs of relief.. everything inside still seemed frozen and cold, and the fan was running. I turned the temperature control a bit cooler on the fridge side and proceeded with my muffins, hoping that would solve the problem.

I mixed up a quick and easy streusel topping by rubbing a small amount of butter with flour, sugar, and the chopped nuts. In retrospect, I would not use salted macadamias again, as their salty bite was too strong for these muffins. I would either try to find unsalted, or use a different nut .. perhaps Brazil nuts or almonds.

Unfortunately, after my muffins had been baked, cooled, and sampled, my fridge was still not cooling properly, so it was time to give the landlord a call and see about having a repairman come out. I found the manual to see if I could troubleshoot in the meantime, but I had already checked everything suggested in the book. I poured myself a soda, reached into the freezer for some ice and my heart sank. The ice bin had water in it... meaning the freezer was beginning to thaw out as well.

I spent a few hours waiting for the landlord to call back, which felt like an eternity. All of my perishable foods went into cooler bags with the remaining ice. Finally, around dinner time, the serviceman called and gave me the bad news... he had been swamped all day with emergencies and was not going to be able to fix my fridge until Monday the earliest. All I could think of was all of my food melting and spoiling over the next couple of days, and how I wasn't going to be able to replace it since my finances are so very tight right now.

Luckily, the repairman was awesome and was able to take the time to talk me through a temporary fix over the phone. I have never in my life done any sort of handy repairs on household appliances, so I was pretty impressed that he was able to get me to do this on my own. After figuring out which breaker switch to turn off (a feat in itself... why do those breaker panels NEVER seem to have things labeled correctly?), I had to remove all of the food, pry loose all of the trays, scrape away some ice buildup covering six tiny metal screws in the back of the fridge interior. It isn't like I have a huge arsenal of household tools to work with here folks, I was working with my cheap pink girly tool kit I had thankfully picked up at the local discount store. I wasn't working with quality equipment and my experience level was zero.

My task was to pry free the screws, remove the long metal plate, and find out what the metal coils and wiring looked like behind the panel. The serviceman was expecting .. correctly as it turned out.. that they would be covered by a wall of ice at least 3" thick. The only way to get my fridge to work at all and have any hope of saving my food was going to depend on me being able to remove that ice, since it was preventing the fridge from operating correctly. My next step was to lay out some towels, grab a power strip and my hair dryer and start melting that ice in intervals. It seems that a hair dryer can be powerful enough to actually melt the metal components of the freezer motor, something to think about next time you are blasting your hair.

It took a while, but eventually I did manage to get all of the ice thawed and cleared from the motor without getting the water all over my hair dyer and electrocuting myself. The panel back in place, I cleaned up the water, turned the breaker back on and had a running fridge again, at least for a few days. The repairman explained that until he is able to fix the real problem, the one causing the ice to build up like that in the first place, it will just continue to create a new layer of ice. But yay.. at least my food was saved!

And now, finally, the muffin recipe....

Strawberry Mango Muffins
(12 servings)

dry mixture:
2 cups all purpose flour or plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp poppy seeds (just 'cause I thought they'd look pretty)

wet mixture:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar or caster sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup mashed mango pulp
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1 cup diced mango
1/2-1 cup diced strawberries

Streusel topping:
4 Tbsp all purpose flour or plain flour
4 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/4-1/3 cup chopped unsalted nuts (macadamia, almonds, brazil, whatever you prefer)
2 tbsp unsalted butter

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, making a well in the center. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in one egg at a time, mixing well after each. Add the mango pulp and the extract and combine well. Stir in the diced mango and strawberries, being careful not to crush them.

Mix together the streusel ingredients in a smaller bowl, adding the nuts last. Personally, this is easiest using your fingers to rub the ingredients together into clumps, making sure to leave the mixture very crumbly.

Pour the wet mixture into the well you made in the dry ingredients and stir just enough to combine the ingredients together, leaving no pockets of dry flour. Overmixing will result in tough chewy muffins, so don't use your electric mixer here.

Spoon the batter into 12 greased muffin tins and sprinkle the crumbly streusel topping evenly over each. They should look like snowy rubble-topped mounds.

Bake in a preheated 375 F oven for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick tests clean when you stick it into the largest looking muffin. Allow to cool in the tins for at least 10 minutes before attempting to pry them free. Enjoy warm or cool.

Notes: The muffins turned out beautiful and their texture was light and fluffy, with just enough crumb to make them true muffins and not cupcakes. I was very happy with their light sweet but not too sweet flavor, and the streusel topping was soft and powdery. The only things I would change would be to add more strawberries (a full cup) and unsalted nuts, as I already mentioned above. Oh... and perhaps almond extract instead of vanilla, especially if I went with chopped almonds in the topping.

Balsamic Drizzled Strawberries

2010-07-17T10:27:00.018-04:00

Fresh ripe plump red strawberries always seem to scream summer to me. When I was a kid growing up in New York, there were many local farms within a days drive where we could go pick our own berries. Actually, in New York, there are tons of "pick your own" type places for just about everything that can be locally grown. To let a kid loose in a field full of fresh strawberries growing in low bushes in the sun was such a great adventure and a thrilling experience. There were bugs to chase, farm rows to run wildly through, laughing and giggling, and everywhere you could look, little green bushes spotted heavily with delicious red berries.

We always ate more than we ever managed to take home, as our juice-stained mouths and fingertips easily proved. It was a great way to spend a lazy summer day.

I haven't been to a pick your own farm in years, but the next best thing is to pick up a box at a local farmer's market. As I did when I was a kid, I ate nearly half of them just out of hand, but the rest I sliced, sprinkled with the tiniest bit of sugar, and then drizzled with a touch of strawberry basil balsamic vinegar. I know this may sound a bit weird, but the taste was really quite amazing. It was slightly tangy, but the sugar brought out the sweetness of the berries, and the hint of basil was a really nice touch. The vinegar tasted so good, I even tipped my glass to drink every last drop.

Balsamic Drizzled Strawberries
(serves 1-2)

1-2 handfuls fresh strawberries, hulled, sliced
1 tsp sugar, to taste
1 tsp strawberry basil balsamic vinegar (I used Archer Farms brand)

Slice berries, then sprinkle with sugar and drizzle with some of the vinegar. Allow to macerate a few minutes, if you can stand to wait that long. Spoon into serving dishes and enjoy.

The Ultimate Bacon Sandwich, Fresh from the Farmer's Market

2010-07-15T08:01:00.026-04:00

You may recall that I recently made a trip to my local farmer's market and picked up some gorgeous fresh fruits & vegetables, to include a huge vine ripened meaty beefsteak tomato. A real tomato, not one of those yellow-orange almost plastic tasting grocery store tomatoes. Truly fresh tomatoes that have actually grown in a field under the shining sun have a lovely aroma and a luscious, juicy taste and texture. The kind of tomato that when you slice into it, juices flow freely down the sides of your counter, your arms and makes your kitchen smell like a garden.

My grandfather used to grow beefsteak tomatoes in his back yard. I can fondly recall grabbing the bright red globes whole and chomping down into them like apples. They were so sweet and delicious, they tasted just perfect right off of the vine.

A childhood favorite of mine has always been a Bacon, Lettuce, & Tomato Sandwich aka the Classic BLT. I can remember my dad making them for me in the summer, and I am sure that my grandma fixed her fair share of bacon sandwiches for me as well.

A bacon sandwich hardly needs a recipe, but here is a mouthwatering pictorial of my step by step How To Make a Bacon Sandwich, mainly because the photos turned out so yummy looking that I had to share ;)

Step 1: Grab your handy dandy Hello Kitty toaster & insert bread. Seriously, I am such a girl.

Step 2: Slice one huge ripe farm fresh beefsteak tomato, season with salt & pepper. Summer in a slice.

Step 3: Slather toast with some mayonnaise or Miracle Whip (Yes, I am one of those people).

Step 4: Layer on some crispy lettuce....

Step 5: The beefsteak tomato slices.....

Step 6: Bacon.... Crisp delicious bacon

Step 7: Stack, slice, and devour. Yum. Are you hungry now?

My Farmer's Market Haul

2010-07-13T20:21:00.018-04:00

One of the very cool things about my new home is its proximity to a local farmer's market. It is quite literally around the corner, just down the street from where I live, less than a few minutes drive. Almost close enough to walk to if it wasn't so incredibly hot and humid out.

A lot of the so-called farmer's markets in this region are often just small stalls that sell a lot of not necessarily local produce. I had nearly given up on them altogether. But this particular stand is the real deal, located at the edge of a genuine farm, jutting up against the very fields where much of the produce sold was grown. Not everything was local, but they certainly put on a good effort and most everything was abundant and fresh. I found the prices to be fairly reasonable, and certainly a bit more economical than some of the local chain grocery stores in this area.

I picked up a couple of deep emerald colored poblano peppers, some bright orange fleshed sweet potatoes, a huge beefsteak tomato, a fat juicy red bell pepper, an enormous mango, and a box of fresh strawberries.

While the guy at the counter was ringing up my fruits & veggies, I noticed they also happened to sell Ale 8 One ginger soda, a specialty soft drink made by a tiny company in Kentucky. I had recently heard Betty over at bettyskitchen sing its praises, so when I saw it sitting in their tiny soda fridge, I picked up a bottle to try. My bottle was a tiny bit flat actually, but the flavor was still refreshing. It doesn't have the same crispy bite that ginger ale does, but is slightly more fruity. I liked that it wasn't overly sweet and syrupy tasting.

My grand total was a fairly reasonable $7.63. Not too bad for the quality and amount of items I purchased.

My Own Personal Piece of the Key Lime Pie...

2010-07-12T15:51:00.033-04:00

After what seemed like endless days of torrential downpours, it finally stopped raining long enough for me to take a proper look in my new garden and of course snap some photos.

I love the garden.. it is so private and shady and honestly feels a bit like my own secret garden, tucked away from the rest of the world, complete with a fountain, butterflies, a wall of whistling bamboo, and a slew of more plants and flowers I can't even begin to name, having little to no experience with tropical flora.

One thing I did recognize immediately is this adorable little Key Lime tree full of tiny bright green limes. They aren't quite ripe yet, as Key limes will get a more yellow hue when ripe. I am so excited about this tree! It has been so long since I have had a fruit tree, and this will be my first citrus tree ever.

There are a lot of beautiful tropical plants and flowers in my garden, most of which I am unfamiliar with. Hopefully some of you kind readers will be able to help me identify some of them and even offer some tips on how to care for them.

There are two different sets of these rather large leafy ground plants, their leaves bursting with pink and red tongues.

The center of the garden is covered in these mostly green plants, interspersed with tall shooting purple flowers that remind me of firecrackers. Butterflies love this section of the garden. They were unfortunately a bit camera shy.

There is also a small pond with a fountain. I love the Asian feel. The owner may bring over some Koi fish for the pond. My daughter is going to love that!

Next to the fountain is a tiny patch of pink speckled leaves.

This innocent looking red flowering plant covers a large portion of the back edge of the garden. It seems to have taken over and may be a weed or possibly native ground cover, I am not really sure. Even if it is a weed, it is really very pretty, so I don't think I will try to pull it up.

This wall of tall thin bamboo towers above the entire length of the back wall of the garden, providing much needed shade and excellent privacy.

One tree has a peculiar trunk... it seems to grow lengthwise along the ground. It has smooth shiny leaves and is just beginning to show some yellow buds.

The leaves seem similar to those on the lime tree, only there is no evidence of fruit and the trunk is very different. Any idea what this could be?

I seem to recognize these plants ... I think they might be called elephant ears? Not really sure.

This is yet another huge tropical plant with wide toothy leaves and a shiny surface.

Here is another tree, again with very shiny, almost waxy leaves with crisp edges. This also looks similar to the lime tree, but with slightly different leaves.

And finally, this small patch of ruffled leaves reminds me a lot of spinach, although I can't imagine it could possibly be edible.

Credit Crunch: Asian Lemon Stir Fry with Prawns

2010-07-11T11:00:00.025-04:00

It feels SO GOOD to be cooking in my own kitchen again. No more cleaning up after someone else before I can begin, no more worries that someone devoured my ingredients before I could use them, no more having to maneuver around someone else's countertop clutter. Amazing, simply an amazing feeling! I felt so free and it was very inspiring, cooking-wise.

After a few hours of searching through my kitchen boxes, I had finally located my plates and some cooking utensils, so it was, at long last, time to get back to my normal routine of cooking at home. After a couple of weeks of far too many take out meals and tv dinners, I was really craving a home cooked meal. My budget is rather restricted at the moment, until my divorce woes are fully behind me and until I land a full time day job. Therefore, anything and everything I already have in my fridge, freezer, and pantry (mainly stuff I dragged with me when I moved out) has to be eaten up before I can even consider buying new ingredients.

Since I had been eating so much take out food, and my favorite thing to grab and go is typically something Asian, I had about a cup or so of leftover steamed rice and perhaps 3/4 cup of really lovely Chinese lemon sauce hanging out in the fridge, begging to be used. The sauce was what I had saved from a nice lemon chicken meal from my formerly local Chinese restaurant, where they actually make their own stir fry sauces and dips. It is a thick, translucent neon yellow colored sauce, very lemony, and quite sweet, but not so sweet that you feel as if you are eating a dessert. It has a nice sour tang from the fresh lemons.

Oddly, the remnants of the last meal I ate in my old home were converted into one of the first meals I created in the new one. There must be some weird karma at work here.

I dug around in my fridge for any vegetables that might work out nicely in a stir fry dish. I had a sweet crunchy yellow bell pepper, some celery, spring onions, a handful of button mushrooms, a clove of garlic, some pre-cooked frozen jumbo shrimp, some pickled sushi ginger, and some wok oil in my cupboard.

Just pretend the bottle of Japanese Mirin you see in the photo is actually wok oil - I had grabbed the wrong bottle for the photo and didn't notice until I started cooking. Yes, sometimes I really am that scatterbrained. I also added in a splash of Sriracha hot sauce to tame the sweetness of the lemon sauce a bit, which was an afterthought while cooking, so that also missed the photo shoot.

As I usually do when I am creating something off the top of my head, I set out my ingredients in a line on my counter and just started cooking, first heating a bit of oil in my wok, then stir frying the aromatic ingredients first (garlic, ginger, spring onions), adding strips of bell peppers, slices of celery, and then the mushrooms, cooking each until they had just begun to soften up. I rinsed the frozen prawns under some cool water, a trick to rid them of that I've-been-hanging-out-in- the-freezer taste, then popped them into the wok and gave everything a good toss. Within a couple of minutes, the shrimp was fully thawed, so I added the lemon sauce (lemon slices and all) and let the ingredients simmer and meld just long enough for the rice to reheat in the microwave.

The results? Honestly, it tasted really good.. much better than I had expected when I first stared at that little tub of shimmering yellow sauce in my fridge. The bits of pickled ginger and lemon slices gave the entire dish a really nice bright, fresh and unexpected flavor.

Asian Lemon Stir Fry with Prawns or Shrimp
serves 1-2

2 tsp wok oil or any oil suitable for stir frying
1 clove garlic, minced
2-3 tsp pickled ginger, chopped
2 spring onions, cut into 1 1/2" pieces, chopping a tiny bit of the green tops to use as a garnish
1 stalk celery, sliced thinly
1/2 yellow bell pepper, cut into strips
5-6 fresh button mushrooms, sliced
1 handful frozen prawns or shrimp, rinsed under cool water and slightly thawed (cut into smaller pieces if desired)
1/2-3/4 cup Chinese lemon sauce (with some thinly sliced lemon)*
1 dash Sriracha hot sauce, optional
1 1/2 cups cooked steamed rice

Heat oil in wok. Saute garlic, ginger, and spring onions just a couple of minutes until they release their aroma. Add bell peppers and stir fry 1 minute, then add the celery and continue stir frying another minute or so, add the mushrooms, stir fry until all of the veggies are still a little crisp, but beginning to soften. Toss in the shrimp and cook until the shrimp has just heated through. Immediately add the lemon sauce (and some hot sauce) if desired and stir, dropping the heat some to allow the sauce to bubble and simmer gently. Serve over steamed rice, garnished with some of the reserved spring onion tops.

*NOTE: I would imagine leftover sweet & sour sauce or sweet chili sauce would work out just as well in this.

A Home of My Own

2010-07-09T08:11:00.012-04:00

As I have been hinting at over the past year, big changes are in store for my life. While I wish these were all positive changes, they really aren't very pleasant at all. I am still looking for a good solid job that matches my education, skills, and most importantly... needs. Bills have to get paid after all! After numerous moves, and struggling to get out of a marriage that was failing fast and hard, I am finally at the top of the gigantic cliff I have been trying to climb. For some time now, I have been staring at what seemed to be a huge mountain of obstacles blocking my way, but at least one step has finally been accomplished... I have moved out. For the first time in a long time, I have my own place to live, my own keys, and hopefully, a piece of my life back.

I am still digging out from under a pile of boxes, bags, and clutter, without much time to really get to unpack and carefully set things up the way I would like to. My priority at the moment is to find a decent job that doesn't require me to say something like "May I take your order please?" or "Paper or plastic?" Freelance writing isn't going to pay all of my bills at the moment, so it is time for some heavy pavement pounding.

So for now, it is back to unpacking, job hunting, and legal headaches. I have a really cute retro-80s/early 90s kitchen that I am pretty excited to start cooking in, so never fear.. recipes and food photos are on the horizon. Just bear with me a little bit longer while I find some air to breathe, rest my feet, and find my plates that are buried in one of these boxes somewhere...

Welcome to my Whirlwind!

2010-06-27T10:27:00.005-04:00

Just in case any of you have been wondering where on earth I have been and looking for more yummy recipes, please bear with me a little longer. Longtime readers of my blog may recall that about this time last year, I was in the middle of moving from London, England back to the US. Almost exactly one year later I am once again in the middle of moving, only this time it won't be overseas, but just 25 minutes away from where I live now. The good news is that after this move, I should stay put for a while (I hope). Once I am settled in and I get my kitchen set up, I will be back to bringing you more of my recipe creations and taste tests. So hang in there loyal readers and all of you new visitors...I hope to have things up and running again over the next month and hopefully be able to bring you video demos as well.

Childhood Cooking Memories: I'll have mine yellow & white please!

2010-06-06T12:09:00.013-04:00

I can remember sitting around the table at the local Friendly's restaurant with my family on a typical Sunday. Sundays were very often the day we'd go out for breakfast or if we had slept in too late, brunch. On the day in question, I can recall quite clearly my reply to the waitress when she asked me how I'd like my eggs.

"I'd like a yellow & white please!" I declared.

She looked at me as if I had spoken in another language.

"Oh.. do you mean Sunny Side Up?" she asked.

"Nope, I want a yellow & white.. you know.. half white, half yellow?"

Still confused, the waitress turned and stared pleadingly at my parents for some assistance. They kind of shrugged and weren't much help, they didn't really have any clue about what I was asking for either. My dad asked me to explain and finally deciphered from my childish babble that what I really wanted was two fried eggs, their yolks popped immediately upon hitting the pan, and spread ever so slightly so that the yolks and the whites cooked through, but in separate clear patches of solid white and yellow. This would be what happens to tired parents who serve their kids food that turned out not quite right and tried to be sly and give it a cute name, in order to get their kids to still eat it. "I made you something special today... look.. it's a yellow & white egg, I made it on purpose, just for you! Because I love you!"

I'm pretty sure I ended up with scrambled eggs that day at Friendly's, a minor yet lingering disappointment.

Since I am still eating way more eggs than I thought humanly possible while trying to stick to a lower carb eating regimen, I have been trying to come up with new and exciting ways to serve my eggs. Having already long exhausted the standard varieties this month, today I produced a variation on the yellow & white, adding some chopped colorful bell peppers on top of the freshly cracked in the pan eggs, just after popping the yolks and giving the pan a slight swirl.

Yellow & White Eggs
serves 1

2 eggs
salt & pepper to taste
1 Tbsp bell peppers, seeded, finely chopped (any color you like or a medley)
nonstick cooking spray or butter

Heat a small skillet over medium, adding some butter or cooking spray if needed. Crack in 2 eggs (I left out one of the yolks but that isn't necessary). With the edge of your spatula, quickly pop the yolks, and swirl the pan gently, to give the egg a marbled appearance. Immediately sprinkle with the peppers and season to taste. After edges start to firm up, flip the egg over and cook for a few more seconds to brown the other side. Serve immediately.

Grilled Steak Dinner.. this is healthy eating? Really!!

2010-05-23T13:08:00.023-04:00

I have to admit, I have never been a big steak fan. I can vividly remember sitting at the dinner table as a child staring with great displeasure at the London Broil sitting in the center of the table. I absolutely dreaded steak night, and begged for only the very end bits that were hopefully so well done, they tasted more like charcoal than beef. Unfortunately, my parents are rather good cooks, so the steak was usually perfectly rare, not a charred bit to be found. The bright pink meat and its red juices scared the heck out of me and there was just no chance I was taking a bite.

My parents weren't the type to stand for rebellious or picky eating; it was eat your dinner or you may not get up from the table, period. Whenever I was faced with the dismal challenge of eating all of my steak, I would defiantly remain at the table for what seemed to me like hours, dangling my feet and playing with my fork, cutting and re-cutting my meat, trying to hide it in my napkin, or tuck some under my vegetables, sneaking some onto my unwitting younger sister's plate, anything I could think of to give my parents the impression that I had eaten whatever mystical amount "enough" was that evening. I begged, I bargained with offers of doing extra chores, I attempted pouty faces and tears, and I am certain threw a few fits (which of course only landed me in worse trouble).

I can recall a particular ride home from Girl Scouts in a friend's car, when somehow a conversation about food drifted to me talking about how much I despise steak for dinner, and complaining about how frequently we seemed to eat it. This baffled the other kids. The friend's shocked mother remarked "I really wish I could afford to have steak dinners often enough to be sick of them!" I felt a bit ashamed at that, it had never occurred to me that steak might be considered expensive or special, or that others might consider it a treat. The very next time, and every time thereafter, I ate my steak when served without complaint. I still didn't enjoy eating it, but I had been humbled by those remarks and wanted my parents to know I appreciated their efforts.

It took me many years to overcome my extreme distaste for steak, but I did come around eventually. It still isn't my favorite meal, but I outgrew the need to eat it burnt to a crisp and learned to enjoy the meat medium, not quite at the still mooing stage, but certainly still flush pink enough to be considered tender.

My daughter adores steak and could probably devour one every night and be quite content. It is her favorite thing to order at a restaurant, perhaps because she is so very rarely served one at home. Since steak is most definitely on the "good foods" list for low-carb diets, and they also happened to be on sale, I obliged my daughter's request and grilled some NY strip loin steaks, massaged lightly with extra virgin olive oil, and seasoned with Montreal Steak Seasoning blend, along with a side salad and green beans.

Eating Healthier: You say Potato.. I say Celeriac

2010-05-21T10:18:00.015-04:00

I have to admit that I have always been a bit hesitant to try cooking with celeriac. This rather homely looking root vegetable isn't exactly the showiest item sitting in a bin on a grocer's shelves. It looks a bit more like something you might have dug up from your garden and tossed into the pile of tree branches, rocks, and other unwanted garden bed clutter. It hardly appears edible, and certainly doesn't scream to me "eat me eat me!"

As I was planning out which main dish recipes I wanted to try this past week, it was with an almost glum determination that I decided to finally give celeriac a try. I have actually eaten celeriac before, but only raw in a salad, and only at restaurants. Despite my lack of experience cooking with celeriac, quite a few of the low carb recipes I had been looking at called for this odd little veg, and I thought it might be high time to give it a real chance in my kitchen. I settled on a low carb interpretation of the Spanish tapas recipe, Patatas Bravas, which is usually some form of cubed potatoes tossed in a ruddy colored paprika infused sauce. Obviously, this being a low carb recipe, the potatoes were exchanged for cubed and sauteed celeriac. The recipe I used came from Neris & India's Idiot-Proof Diet Cookbook (page 133).

Basically, you peel and cube a medium sized knob of celeriac, scraping off all of the brown fuzzy bits until it resembles a potato. The skin was a bit stubborn and required a second go around with my vegetable peeler, but otherwise it was not difficult to prep. The next step is to saute the little cubes in some olive oil until they get all golden and tender. Honestly, despite the fact that these smelled nothing like potatoes cooking, they sure did look identical to the real thing. Visually, things were looking up already.

The sauce was a fairly standard patatas bravas red sauce.. a mix of tomatoes, sea salt, garlic, a bit of onion, fresh chili for a little hint of spice, and of course paprika. I have some wonderful smoked paprika that I had brought back with me from a little Spanish imports market on Portobello Road in London, which really helped bring a lot of rich flavor to the dish.

I thought the flavor was pretty good. It wasn't really all that comparable to a plate of authentic patatas bravas, but I still enjoyed it. The celeriac, when cooked this way, took on a very soft and almost creamy texture. I'd love to serve it without the sauce as a side to some eggs, as a healthier alternative to hash browned potatoes. The celeriac tasted much more like a parsnip than a potato however, and my daughter was unfortunately not fooled. She refused to eat more than a few forkfuls. Also, although this was considered a main course recipe in the cookbook I used, I have always thought of this sort of thing as more a starter or perhaps a hearty vegetable side dish.

Eating Healthier: Indian Spiced Eggs and other Breakfast Musings

2010-05-18T10:32:00.024-04:00

Normally I am not much of a big-breakfast-eater kind of girl, certainly not on ordinary weekdays. Don't get me wrong ... on a cozy weekend morning I like nothing better than to enjoy a calm morning baking some blueberry muffins or savoring some fresh, homemade waffles. My typical weekday breakfasts usually would be a piece of fruit, coffee (there is always coffee in my world), and a serving of yogurt with a little bit of honey drizzled on top or a sprinkling of crunchy granola. If I can get my hands on a really good chewy, malty, truly NY style bagel, then a freshly baked seed coated or rye slathered with cream cheese hits the spot every time.

Weekday eggs for breakfast have never really been my thing. I do like eggs, I love them in quiches and omelettes or poached and dropped into soup or over a salad. I can't tell you just how many "egg-mayo" (aka egg salad in the US) sandwiches I used to eat in London, where you could easily grab one at just about any sandwich shop or grocery store. I am the first one to grab for a deviled egg on an appetizer tray, unless my daughter beats me to it. But I rarely feel like making one for breakfast on just an ordinary run of the mill morning. Like pancakes and waffles, breakfast eggs seem more like hearty weekend food to me.

It was therefore with some trepidation that I started out my week of lower carb eating facing what seems like an endless amount of breakfasts involving eggs. So far over the past 6 days (starting last Thursday), I have eaten eggs for breakfast nearly every day. It feels a bit discomforting to laugh in the face of my usual mindset of what is the "norm." Here is my diary of "what I ate for breakfast" so far:

prosciutto strips wrapped around buffalo mozzarella
poached eggs with sauteed baby bella mushrooms
baked avocado with salsa, crumbled bacon, and buffalo mozzarella melted on top
eggs "over easy" with crispy bacon strips
slices of ham wrapped around strips of more mozzarella and avocado
Indian Spiced Scrambled Eggs

The Indian Spiced Scrambled Eggs were based on a recipe from Neris & India's Idiot-Proof Diet Cookbook. They were certainly a bit more fussy than I would normally feel like bothering with on a weekday, but since I happened to have all of the ingredients, and because I had fond memories of eating similar dishes in the past, I gave them a try. And honestly, other than a bit of chopping, this was really quite easy to prepare.

The basic idea is quite simple, really: First, chop up a small spicy chili (I used a jalapeño, which I partially de-seeded, not wanting fire quite so early in the morning), a small tomato, a bit of fresh cilantro (aka coriander), and whisk that all up with a couple of eggs (organic & brown in my case). Season with a pinch of salt, pepper, and tiny bit of ground coriander seed and cumin. Next, slice up some onion and sauté in a bit of butter and olive oil, I used only a teaspoon of each and perhaps 1/4 of a smallish onion. Once the onion softens up and begins to turn a golden color, drop in the egg mixture and toss everything around scrambled eggs style until everything is cooked to your liking. A really nice breakfast, definitely filling, and it sure didn't feel like I was dieting.

Happiness & Sunshine

2010-05-16T09:45:00.036-04:00

I have recently had the honor of being nominated for my very first blogging awards. Since I don't have much experience with memes and blogging awards, please forgive me for being a bit clueless about the process and for my slight tardiness in responding. As some of you may be aware of already, my life has recently been spinning a bit, well... erratically. I keep waiting for all of the craziness to go away, for my life to go back to some semblance of normal, but I still have to be patient a bit longer for that to happen.

The only way I know of to stay on top of all the stress and pressure and downright miserable-ness of it all is to try to stay cheerful. It is very easy to turn very sour or even a bit mean and grouchy when faced with seemingly endless struggles, and yes there have been times when I have cried myself to sleep over it ... or grabbed a bag of trail mix (my crutch food) and nibbled away nervously while thinking about what on earth I will do to resolve things. But mainly, I just try to wake up each morning as if everything was all a bad dream. I start over and try to do whatever I can to keep a smile on my face. Cooking and baking have always been one of my biggest outlets for creating some joy in an otherwise dreary day. After all, who can be that miserable when you can smell brownies baking?

I try to keep the details of my personal trials and tribulations fairly private, so forgive me for not going into great detail about everything that is going on in my life. I'd really rather share a smile and a cookie with you all anyway :) Since I am trying really hard to stick to this new diet I am trying out this week, I sadly have no cookies or other goodies today, but I can at least share this with you instead:

Chocolate Chip Ginger Cookies

Thank you to Karen of Eat Drink Wash Up, who blogs about her creative versions of recipes from both the US and England, and Judy of Bebe Love Okazu, who shares recollections of her Japanese and Chinese family recipes, for these two awards. Your kindness really brightened my day and I really appreciate it. I enjoy reading both of your blogs and you have both given me such inspiration to try new recipes.

As part of the Happiness Award, I have been asked to list 10 things that make me happy, so here you go:

10 Things That Make Me Happy

1) seeing my daughter's eyes sparkle and her face glow when she is doing something she truly loves

2) my best friend, who lives much too far away, but talks to me every single day

3) the sound of birds chirping

4) holding a baby in my arms

5) baking treats for someone I love

6) freshly brewed coffee, especially first thing in the morning

7) chubby bumblebees in a garden

8) cute cuddly animals

9) the scent of lavender

10) the color blue

As part of both the Happiness and Sunshine Awards, I have been asked to spread the joy around by mentioning some of the blogs that bring me happiness and brighten my days. I know that some of you don't participate in awards or tags, but I want to mention you just the same, even if you can only accept this with a smile. If you wish to, you may pass on either or both of these awards to some of the blogs that inspire you, or you can just have a seat and nibble a few cookies. :)

So here are my nominees, which will be for both awards, since each of your blogs have brought me both Sunshine and Happiness:

Marie from A Year from Oak Cottage - you have always been there to cheer me up and offer words of wisdom, and your Canadian and English recipes are fantastic

TulipFairy from Tulip's Kitchen - for giving me the inspiration to try out healthy recipes and reminding me to actually use all of those kitchen gadgets I bought

Edith from Precious Moments - seeing your lovely decorated cakes and all of your other amazing baked goods always makes me want to run to my kitchen and start baking something

Anne from Anne's Food - for sharing your delicious Swedish recipes and adorable photos of your beautiful cats and precious baby

Coleen from Coleen's Recipes - everything you have shared on your blog makes me so hungry, especially those yummy baked goods

Deb from Kahakai Kitchen - your photos make all of your recipes look so delicious, you always inspire me to try new ingredients and try out wonderful healthy fish dishes, soups, and salads

Charlene & Kevin from Welcome to Our World - for sharing your Malaysian recipes and your quick & easy US recipes, reading your blog makes me homesick for NY in a happy way

Eating Healthier: Day 1 Ham & Feta Salad

2010-05-13T19:26:00.033-04:00

I have a confession to make. I have had an extremely rough year and have found myself falling into the dreaded seeking-comfort-in-food trap. The person staring back at me in the mirror could, quite frankly, stand to lose a few pounds. I need to seize control before things get out of hand. So today I am attempting to turn over the proverbial new leaf and have started reading through my copy of Neris & India's Idiot-Proof Diet (as well as the companion cookbook), which is essentially a low-carb type eating plan. At this point, I am more interested in getting my feet wet, not taking the whole diet plunge just yet. The recipes sound pretty good, so I figured it was worth a try.

NOTE: Before I begin, I do need to clarify something. While looking up the link to share with you for the Idiot-Proof Diet I am trying out, I learned that there is actually another entirely different diet plan with almost the identical name (theirs does not have a hyphen). I know nothing about that other plan and thought I should mention it only to clear up any possible confusion. Also, I am not being paid by anyone to mention this plan nor do I personally know the creators and I have not been asked to mention their books. I am just sharing something I am trying out for myself.

My First Day:

Breakfast: The book had a list of no-brainer type quickie breakfast ideas. My typical breakfast would usually be a serving of yogurt, a piece of fruit, and some coffee - but today I went with the IPD's suggestion to have some slices of prosciutto wrapped around a small serving of fresh buffalo mozzarella. I'm not convinced that my usual breakfast is any less healthy, but I was willing to try something new.

In the IPD world, coffee with caffeine is supposed to be a no-no, but that is just not happening. Happily, a splash of cream is on the "OK to eat" list, although sugar is not allowed. I don't add sugar to my coffee anyway, so at least I was still on track there.

Lunch: Ham & Feta Salad (pictured above), based on a suggestion from the cookbook.

Basically, my interpretation was a hearty handful of mixed leafy greens, a farm fresh tomato cut into wedges, a small block of feta cheese (1 ounce) cut into cubes sprinkled over the lettuce, and a few slices of deli ham torn and strewn over the top. I had to break a rule here - I used fat free honey mustard dressing, but just a tiny spoonful. I don't even like fat free stuff, I bought it by mistake and now I am stuck having to use it up. Why is fat free dressing bad? It has a lot of added sugars. Oh yeah, and it doesn't taste all that fantastic either.

Dinner: (Note to self: Eating out is a real toughie when you are trying to stick to a new eating plan).

Thursday nights are when my daughter has her skating lessons. By the time skating is over, it is already past dinner time and she is usually fairly ravenous, so most of the time we plan to eat out afterward. Knowing that I wouldn't be eating at home, it was probably not the best day to start trying out a new eating plan. Then again, if I waited for the perfect night every day, chances are great that I would come up with a brand new excuse not to start each and every day.

I still tried to stick to my plan ..mostly. Since I knew Cracker Barrel has a low-carb section on their menu, it was at least easy for me to select something reasonable, which was Grilled Chicken Tenderloin Strips, with turnip greens, green beans, and sweet potato casserole. The sweet potato casserole was the only item that broke the "rules" so I didn't feel that bad about eating them. Oh yes, and the biscuit & corn muffins they bring out with your meal... temptingly delicious little things. I will have to work hard to resist them next time. Tonight however, I was unsuccessful.

Simple Comfort Food: Miniature Potato Kugels

2010-05-12T10:11:00.019-04:00

Last night I wasn't feeling terribly inspired to cook anything particularly elaborate for dinner. I knew I had some really nice fat, juicy chicken & apple sausages hanging out in the fridge, so I decided to grill them up. To serve alongside them, I tried out a new recipe for mini potato kugels. This particular version of a kugel was the savory type; think of something similar to a potato pancake, only baked into a casserole. They are really quite scrumptious and very easy to make.

The concept of making individual portions of a potato kugel had never occurred to me before. I have to say that this was a brilliant discovery! I actually am quite excited to try making mini portions of all of the kugels I make, as this was such a convenient way to prepare them. I made just half the recipe and I really was kicking myself for not making triple the amount. These were really so good.

The basic idea here is to grate up a potato, a carrot, and a small amount of onion, mix it with an egg and some matzo meal to bind it, and heavily season with salt & pepper. How incredibly simple is that? For my half recipe I baked these for only about 40-45 minutes, just until the edges started to get really golden and just a bit brown and crispy.

Small Batch Mini Potato Kugels
(as adapted from Babycat's recipe here)
makes 6 individual portions

Ingredients:
1 medium-large yellow skinned potato (Yukon Gold), peeled and grated, you will need 1 cup once grated
1 small carrot, peeled, grated
2 Tbsp onion, grated
1 large egg, beaten lightly
1/8 cup canola oil
1/8 cup matzo meal or cracker crumbs or plain bread crumbs
1/2-1 tsp salt, to taste
1/2 tsp pepper, or to taste

Preheat your oven to 350 F and grease 6 muffin tins. Grab your grater (or a food processor) and using the larger holes, grate your potato, carrot, and onion into a large bowl. Whisk together the egg and oil, then add this to your grated vegetables. Mix together, then add the matzo and seasonings. Don't be too skimpy on your seasonings, as potato kugels can often taste quite bland. Be careful with the pepper, however. My daughter is always very quick to point out that I use too much pepper, so if you are not terribly fond of it, you might use less than I have suggested.

In any case, mix everything and portion the mixture out into your muffin wells. Bake for about 40-46 minutes, until they are golden and just beginning to brown on the edges. Serve immediately. They will be soft, savory and there won't be any leftovers.

Credit Crunch Lunches: Leftover Grilled Chicken Tenderloin Salad

2010-05-01T09:37:00.014-04:00

I have always been a fan of using up my leftovers in new ways, even if it is something as simple as a salad. Right now, when times are still a bit tough financially, this is not only desirable, but essential. The other night I had made some grilled chicken tenderloins after marinating them overnight in a simple mix of Italian salad dressing, a little honey, and some lime juice. As I often do, I made a bit extra.

For lunch the following day, I decided to mix up a quick and easy salad using up some of the leftover chicken and some vegetables I had on hand in my fridge. I tore up some crisp green Romaine lettuce hearts, sliced up a really juicy fresh vine ripened tomato, added a handful of shredded carrots and grated just a tiny sprinkling of mature sharp Cheddar from Vermont over the top. Next, I added chunks of the cold chicken, then tossed it all together with a very small amount of light Ranch dressing. This not only was surprisingly tasty, but it also was quite photogenic so I decided to share it with you today.

Comfort Food Basics: Gigantic Meatballs aka Italian Mini Meatloaves

2010-04-29T09:34:00.017-04:00

I really wish I could tell you that my life has been less crazy lately, that all of the issues I have been dealing with in my personal life have been magically resolved and everything is smooth sailing from here on out. Unfortunately, that is not the case quite yet. I am incessantly busy, there is a whole lot of stress flying around, and wow job hunting is such a challenge! In addition to my own chaos, the daily tasks of ordinary life still persist, which means picking up my daughter and taking her to her skating lessons and making sure that she gets good healthy meals. It is soooo tempting to just eat out on these busy nights, and alas, I find myself falling into the trap many folks do, you know the one. The it is too late to cook, let's just grab something trap.

This kind of thinking actually goes against everything I have believed for so long. Cooking for me has never been a chore or something that "takes too long." Why then am I taking the bait and eating out, when it is far more cost effective to eat in, not to mention far more soothing and healthful to create my own meals? It is a brand new bad habit that I am determined to put a stop to, or at least put a huge crimp in. Last night, even though I was stuck in traffic while driving my kid home from an appointment, I resisted the urge to just pull into Cracker Barrel on the way home. I knew I had some fresh lean ground beef waiting in my fridge and a home cooked meal was, if not minutes away, at least not more than an hour. Actually, it look a lot less than that, as it turns out. And these little tiny bundles of meat and gooey, oozing mozzarella cheese were just the thing to remind me that eating at home is truly a comfort in itself.

See the cheese just beginning to ooze out of the side? Mmmmmm

Gigantic Meatballs aka Mini Italian Cheese-Stuffed Meatloaves (as adapted from an Apron's recipe)
(serves 4)

1-1 1/4 pound lean ground beef (I used 93% lean)
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups marinara sauce (homemade or store bought), divided
1 large egg
1/2 cup dried Italian seasoned bread crumbs
4 sticks of mozzarella string cheese (or just cut 4 logs of cheese from a larger block)

optional garnishes:
extra marinara sauce
fresh parsley, minced
Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

Preheat oven to 400 F. Lightly grease a baking pan big enough to hold 4 mini meatloaves. If you bought the string cheese, be sure to unwrap them from their plastic sheaths now. Do you have any idea just how hard it is to open little string cheese sticks when your hands have meatloaf mixture all over them? I do, hence the recommendation ;)

In a large bowl, combine the meat with the chopped onions, 3/4 cup of the sauce, egg, and bread crumbs. Mix together well by hand until everything is combined together nicely. Shape into 4 portions. Take each portion of meat and form it around a stick of cheese, making sure the meat covers every speck of cheese. If you leave any gaps, then the cheese will start oozing out of the meatballs and all over your pan instead of of melting nicely inside the meatloaf.

Pop the meatloaves into the prepared baking pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, until they are cooked through. Remove from oven and let rest about 5 minutes or so, to allow the molten cheese middles some time to cool slightly. While the meatloaves are resting, heat up the remaining 3/4 cup sauce. If you prefer more sauce, you might want to go ahead and heat up a little extra. Once the sauce is hot enough, spoon some over each meatloaf. Before serving, you might also want to spoon a bit of extra sauce directly onto the spot on your plate where you will set the meatloaf. Garnish with a little fresh parsley and freshly grated Parmesan cheese, if you like.

I served these with some leftover broccoli casserole and some red potatoes that were simply cooked for 12 minutes in the microwave, then tossed with some garlic butter and fresh parsley, as suggested in the original recipe.

Japanese Style Pasta? Yes, really!

2010-04-28T09:57:00.014-04:00

A few nights ago, when pressed for time and with limited ingredients in my house, I stumbled across a recipe online for this Japanese style pasta dish, Napolitan, as presented by Frances on CWD. This is not at all Italian style, so before any of the purists out there start getting too irate about a few of the, shall we say, non traditional ingredients in this recipe, please remember that this is a Japanese dish. It was inspired by Italian cooking, yes, but this is something unique to Japanese culture, their spin on things, with touches that pleased their palate and reflected the ingredients readily available at the time of the recipe's inception. Try, if you can, to suspend any preconceived notions about how Italian foods should taste, and simply embrace the dish for what it is - a simple pasta dish with veggies and ham. It really is a nice, tasty, and rather inexpensive meal. Yes, I know there is a tiny bit of ketchup in there. It works, I promise you.

What follows is my version of Frances' recipe, with a few changes I made based on what I had on hand in my kitchen at the time.

Japanese Napolitan Pasta (as adapted from a recipe shared by Frances at CWD)
(serves 2-4)

1/2 large onion, cut into slivers
1 small handful baby bella mushrooms, sliced thinly (Frances used white button mushrooms)
1 medium green bell pepper, seeded, cut thinly into strips
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
6 slices Canadian bacon, cut into strips (turkey ham would be fine here)
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, minced
6 1/4 cups water
2 tsp salt
6 ounces thin spaghetti
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 Tbsp ketchup
2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated, plus more for garnish
1 1/2 tsp unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

Make sure you have all of your veggies and the meat chopped and sliced before you begin cooking anything.

Fill a large pot with the water and add the salt. Yes, add the salt now, before it boils. Bring the water to a simmer only for now.

Meanwhile, get to work on the vegetable sauce mixture. Heat olive oil in a deep skillet or wok and saute the onions until they begin to soften up and turn a light golden color. Don't worry about browning them too much. Add the garlic and continue cooking and stirring until you can smell the aroma of garlic (this only takes maybe a minute). As soon as you can smell that delicious scent of garlic cooking, add the mushrooms and the Canadian bacon, tossing and cooking until the mushrooms begin to soften slightly. Add the green bell peppers, cooking for just a minute or two to soften.

Add the ketchup. Don't be scared - it is such a small amount and it really does add a lovely color. Remember your pot of simmering salted water? Grab a ladle and scoop out some water (about 3 Tbsp) and add it to the pan. Like magic, your ketchup will melt and the sauce will take on a glossy sheen. There will not be a lot of sauce, this is intentional. Turn off the heat and allow the sauce to rest while you cook the pasta. I dropped a lid on to keep the sauce from drying out.

Raise the heat on the remaining salted water and add the pasta once the water has come to a full boil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. When the pasta is almost ready, remove the lid from your pan full of vegetable sauce and turn on the heat to about medium-low. Stir in the Parmesan cheese and the butter until both have melted into the sauce.

Scoop the cooked pasta noodles directly into the vegetable sauce, keeping most of the water in the cooking pot, but allowing the noodles to still be quite wet. Toss and serve, garnished with fresh minced parsley and some additional cheese.

NOTE: While the actual Japanese way is to use canned powdered Parmesan cheese, it really is perfectly fine to use freshly grated Parmesan instead. Back when this recipe was originally made, freshly grated Parmesan was very likely not something available or common in a typical household. However, since I always do have a wedge of fresh Parmigiano Reggiano hanging out in my fridge, that is what I prefer to use.

Nothing like a little baking controversy to stir things up at the Bake-Off

2010-04-20T09:49:00.017-04:00

Last week, the winner of the most recent Pillsbury Bake-Off was finally announced. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I have been trying to complete a project of sorts - testing out every grand prize winning Bake-Off winner, as well as some of the finalists entries that I felt like trying. I had already tried a few of this year's finalists recipes out, such as Java Glazed Cinnamon Rolls, as well as Mini-Greek Turkey Burgers and Blueberry-Almond Creme Muffins. I actually thought the blueberry muffins had an excellent shot at winning, as they were not only beautiful to look at and easy to make, they were so delicious and called for really ordinary ingredients. Even though I was not an entrant in the contest, I anxiously awaited the announcement of the winner this year, which was presented on the Oprah Winfrey show. Out of the four main category prize winners, the million dollar grand prize winning recipe was Sue Compton's Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups.

Almost immediately the Pillsbury forums were filled with many comments questioning the appropriateness of the winner. Some questioned its ease, limited actual baking, and heavy use of ready made ingredients. Well, as I have been studying the winning recipes very carefully over the past several months, I can tell you that one thing they seem to always look for is a clever way to use a common or prepared ingredient and turn it into something very different from its original form, either by creating something unexpected, such as turning breakfast waffles into stuffing as in Baked Chicken and Spinach Stuffing (Grand Prize Winner #42) or a clever new cooking method, such as the water rising technique used in the Nut Twists (Grand prize Winner #1). While it may be true that the current winning recipe didn't involve much scratch baking, that has not been a requirement of the contest for many years, so there really isn't much to complain about there. In fact, all entrants are required to utilize sponsored ingredients, many of which are things like prepared cookie dough and other ready made items.

However, one complaint that did perhaps ring a bit true was over the originality factor. Just how unique and creative was this recipe, making it worthy of such a generous prize? Whether or not Sue Compton intended to or not, her recipe does seem awfully similar to another prize winning recipe from a 2004 Taste of Home cooking contest for Coffee Ice Cream Cups. While technically there are some differences, they are really two variations of the same really clever idea.

Actually, the idea of using cookie dough to create dessert cups is even less original. Recipes from The Pampered Chef and even a previous Bake-Off category winner used this technique (Choco-Peanut Butter Cups). So OK, fine, so she might have seen cookie cup desserts before and perhaps was inspired to come up with her own version, but this does not mean she cheated. The judges loved her spin on it and felt hers was original enough. At some point, you just have to understand that with the nature of recipe sharing, especially over the internet, clever new cooking methods can easily become household standards. What if the winner had instead been the fish tacos? Would we all have been hunting down every pre-existing version and saying see look, she copied? A quick Google search for fish tacos recipe draws 615,000 results. So to all the naysayers and sour grapes out there, why not give Sue Compton the benefit of the doubt?

As for the recipe itself, I made it over the weekend and it was really cute and tasty, if a bit fiddly to make. I think kids would have a blast helping out with this, especially the part where you get to dunk the cookie cups into the melted chocolate and then roll them around in the sugary nuts. A note of caution - you need a lot of freezer space to store these. I somehow missed that part of the instructions until I was scooping the ice cream. Finding space for 24 mini ice cream filled desserts in a well stocked freezer can be quite a challenge.

Baking the Bake-Off: Easy Crescent Danish Rolls

2010-03-30T07:40:00.018-04:00

This weekend while reading through the latest updates on the Pillsbury Bake-Off website, my daughter and I noticed this recipe for incredibly simple danish rolls made out of Pillsbury crescent rolls and a handful of other ordinary ingredients. It has been a while since I have prepared and shared with you a recipe from the Pillsbury Bake-Off contest, so this seemed like a nice thing to try that I actually had the time to make. It also required very little shopping - the only thing I didn't have handy was crescent rolls, and that was easily remedied with a quick run to the store.

I had originally set out to bring you each and every Pillsbury contest grand prize winner in the order it won, but I soon realized that preparing the recipes in such a strict order was a bit unrealistic. I still very much want to continue testing all of the grand prize winners, but I might not necessarily present them in chronological order. I also would like to be able to open up the field a bit, sometimes sharing recipes that I have tested that were finalists or category winners, and not only the grand prize winners. I actually have already snuck in a few of the non-winners previously, and no one seemed to mind. ;)

The 1975 Pillsbury Bake-off was a rather unique contest year. Two recipes took home the grand prize title, including Easy Crescent Danish Rolls . The recipe was a huge hit and has since become a classic, with variations appearing in many community cookbooks across the country and adapted and shared all over the web. As you can see from my photo of the ingredients above, the recipe calls for fairly typical items, at least in a US kitchen. Certainly in my kitchen, in any case. I can see why such a recipe captured so much attention. Easy, inexpensive, really attractive looking, quick to prepare, and the taste is really good for something made in 10 minutes.

True to the recipe name, these were very easy and despite being just a bit messy to eat, with the cream cheese filling hot and bubbly and oozing out the sides, they were quite tasty. I will make them again, varying the citrus and jam and extract flavorings. I think raspberry with lime would be amazing in this recipe. I would cut the filling in half though next time, to cut down ever so slightly on the messiness. Also, the vanilla tints the icing a pale brown color, which I found a bit unpleasant. I would recommend a white vanilla if you want a nice color contrast and pure white icing.

Note: I used light cream cheese and skim milk this time, and there really was no problem with taste or texture. I almost always use light cream cheese in recipes normally without any issues. For my preserves, I used a delicious strawberry jam I had bought at a local farm stand called The Girls in Boca Raton, near where my mother lives. They have a huge assortment of home canned jams and jellies and the most adorable old fashioned ice cream counter and candy shop.

The Elusive Starbucks Raspberry Muffins: Take 1

2010-03-25T09:08:00.013-04:00

Regular readers of Lavender Blue may recall that a while back, I posted a reader poll requesting input from all of you on which item from the Starbucks bakery counter I should try to recreate. The winner was the Low-fat Raspberry Sunshine Muffin. I really love these buttery tasting, slightly citrusy muffins studded with lush lumps of juicy red raspberries. It is really hard to imagine they are low-fat, because they don't have that gummy, awful "I have been lightened up" taste that many diet baked goods seem to take on.

Having made a similar, albeit full fat version of these muffins many times before, I confidently thought I could use my old standby recipe as a model, and then consult my cookbooks and online resources to find ways to remove the fat and at the same time, get as close to the flavor and look of the actual Starbucks muffins as I could. My main influences this time were my favorite recipe for raspberry muffins and a low-fat muffin I found on Eating Well's website here. I entered everything into my trusty Mastercook program and crunched numbers until I was able to get the fat and calories down to 6 grams of fat per muffin and under 200 calories, which is about what the actual Starbucks muffins supposedly contain.

When converting the recipes, I wanted to stay away from whole wheat flour, as I was fairly certain Starbucks does not use whole wheat in their version. I also tried to incorporate certain flavors I had detected while sampling their muffins, namely lemon zest, yogurt, a hint of orange flavor, and of course the raspberries. My results came out ok, but I am not quite there yet. The flavors were close and the muffins looked very similar to the Starbucks version, but the texture was way off. Mine were a bit too springy and spongy, clearly a diet muffin. My daughter knew in a second that these were not the real thing. So, I still need to work out the proportions.

In case you are curious, here is the recipe I came up with:

Not Quite There Yet Starbucks Raspberry Sunshine Muffins
(makes 12 muffins)

Dry ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp dry buttermilk powder*
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients: (I think this is the main area that needs work)
1/2 cup water*
2 large eggs
1/4 cup nonfat plain yogurt
3 tbsp canola oil
1/4 tsp lemon flavoring
1/4 cup orange juice

Fruit:
1 lemon, zest of (reserving some of the juice for the topping)
1 1/2 cups frozen raspberries, unthawed (this amount was way too much, I'd use only 3/4-1 cup next time)

Topping:
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp granulated sugar
lemon juice, as needed to mix ingredients together

Preheat oven to 400 F and line 12 muffin tins with paper liners (Starbucks uses large squares of folded parchment that have radiating points).

Mix together the dry ingredients in one large bowl and make a well in the center. Mix together the wet ingredients and then pour them into the well you made in the flour. Stir just enough to combine, leaving a few small lumps but no dry patches. Gently fold in the fruit.

Fill the muffin tins with the batter. Combine the flour, butter and sugar for the topping using a fork or pastry blender, adding a small amount of the lemon juice for flavor. You just want to get crumbs here, not a paste, so do not overwork this. (This was one of the areas that needs improvement, as I had trouble getting this to form nice crumbs, perhaps due to having my butter a bit too soft.) Sprinkle a little of the crumb mixture over each muffin. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the muffins are puffed and golden on top, and a toothpick tests clean. A word to the wise: Allow to cool before eating or the hot, molten berries will burn your tongue!

*NOTE: I used buttermilk powder + water this time, however next time I would just use real buttermilk or just more yogurt.

And the World Goes Round

2010-03-18T16:28:00.000-04:00

I am so sorry to have left you all hanging for such a long gap of time. I am still out here, still cooking and baking and testing out new recipes. I still am trying to figure out the recipe for those Starbucks muffins I promised you all in my poll. I hope to get those tackled and posted soon for you. My world is a bit chaotic at the moment and I have not been able to really keep up with writing. I have a few things to share with you when I get some breathing room, but for the past month and probably for the next several, I will be in a state of upheaval, so my blog postings will be less regular than they had been.

Time flies when you aren't having fun too, as long as you have lots to do and not enough time to do it all.

The Tale of the King Cake That Wasn't

2010-02-11T13:30:00.019-05:00

Once upon a time I used to live in Louisiana. It wasn't for a terribly long time, just a few years. Until then, Mardi Gras was not a holiday I had ever celebrated or even knew much about, other than it looked like some wild party and involved wearing a lot of colorful beaded necklaces. I never got into the party aspect of Mardi Gras, but while I was there, I did learn to love the food. And of course for me, with my love of baking, my favorite part of Mardi Gras food has to be the King Cake, a tricolored sweet bread flavored with cinnamon sugar, often filled with sweetened cream cheese and sometimes fruit. Chunks of King Cake go great with a cup of morning coffee. Typically, a tiny plastic baby or a dried bean is inserted into the cake before baking, to bring good luck to the person who gets the slice and to determine whose job it is to bake the cake next year.

There is a neat little place in southwestern Louisiana called Vermilionville, which is one of those re-enactment type museum villages.. the sort of place where they restore or at least replicate buildings from some historical period reflecting the past of the region. Employees dressed in clothing of the time period, etc. I had been drawn to the kitchen area when I visited, where a lady was demonstrating a quick and easy version of King Cake. She gave me a little pamphlet with the recipe, but explained that the recipe wasn't really terribly accurate. I jotted down a few notes and enjoyed a sample of the cake. Unlike the usual yeasted versions, the Vermilionville recipe was based on a biscuit dough. It was good, a bit sweet, and definitely had a different taste, a bit more flaky.

Unfortunately for me, I did not try out the recipe while the employee's improved instructions were fresh in my mind. I instead tucked the recipe pamphlet into my jammed box of recipe clippings and forgot about it. After all, when I lived in Louisiana still there were plenty of bakeries selling gorgeous and delicious ready made King cakes. I meant to try the recipe out, but didn't get around to it until after I moved away from the area.

Since I was just testing out the recipe and the only person who would be sharing it with me is my daughter, I decided to leave out the plastic baby. It wasn't as if she'd be making the cake next year for me if she got the slice with the baby since she is, sadly, completely uninterested in learning how to bake. The dough seemed at first to come together nicely .. it was fast to make, there was no rising time since it was not yeast based, and it rolled out smoothly without being sticky. One of the things I had been warned about was to cut down the filling in half from what was printed on the pamphlet, which I did. However, even that amount was far, far too much. It oozed and cracked the surface of the dough, preventing the cake from ever fully cooking inside. My results were a gummy, gooey, inedible mess. I did try baking it longer, but that just seemed to make matters worse. Disgusted, I promptly tossed out my cake and picked up a version at the local grocery store.

This is what I get for leaving out the traditional bean/baby that gets inserted into the dough before baking!

What you see pictured above is my cake, which at least least looked pretty.. on one side only. I might try to work with the recipe again and see if I can get it right, maybe for next year. For now, the shop bought variety will have to do.

Ah the Starbucks Bakery Counter... pleasure

2010-02-03T09:18:00.029-05:00

I think it is high time I held another fun little poll. Now a word about these polls...last time it took me what felt like ages before I was able to present you with what I felt was an accurate enough recipe to represent the winning poll selection. If you have forgotten (and likely you may well have since it was back before Thanksgiving that I held my first and until now only poll... ), here is the link to the previous one, a selection of Cracker Barrel items, the winner being a moist and please-give-me-more-ish chocolate fudge cake.

Cinnamon Cake

I love, truly LOVE coffee. I am definitely one of those people who cannot begin a day without fueling on several cups of piping hot and most certainly caffeinated coffee. I drink it both for the pep and the flavor and quite honestly how can anyone ever not be awoken by the heavenly scent of freshly brewed coffee? I know I can't possibly resist. I am perfectly content to brew my own at home, with either my lovely french press when I am not feeling lazy or more typically with my not-quite-as-good-but-works-when-half-asleep automatic drip machine. If I am out and about and there is a Starbucks in the vicinity, I am certainly very often persuaded to plunk down my $3.75ish and order a drive-thru grande.

Mixed Berry Cake with Crumb Topping

Normally my trips to Starbucks have consisted of a long wait on line for a cup of coffee and by the time I have approached the finish, I tend to just get my coffee and be on my merry way. I have rarely even glanced at the bakery counter before. I am a bit of a baked goods snob actually, preferring my own home baked items to most served in cafes and bakeries, no matter how prettily they have decorated their muffins and cakes. I always tell myself ... I can make that at home, no need to buy it here.

This weekend, as I stood before a surprisingly line free Starbucks counter, I took a closer look at what they had to offer. Everything looked quite tempting really.. a selection of really nice plump slices of cakes, muffins, sparkling donuts, huge oatmeal cookies bejeweled with cranberries, sultanas, and raisins, vanilla bean flecked iced mini scones. I decided to buy a selection and take everything home to analyze (ok fine...sample) and no, I certainly didn't eat everything all in one sitting and yes I shared.

Banana Mini Chocolate Chip Cake

The cakes and the muffin I chose were all labeled as "reduced fat" versions and I have to say, they neither looked diet-y nor did they taste even remotely so. Considering how much fat and calories must be in a typical non-reduced muffin or cake slice, I suppose it is quite possible that "reduced fat" in this case is only a small reduction really. Still, if it tastes and looks good, I am all for saving a few calories. The cookie and the scones were fully-loaded versions.

Personally, I thought the cakes and muffin were perfect - not too sweet and very soft and rich tasting, with the right amount of soft, crumbly texture and moisture. The cookie was marvelous although far too massive and slightly too sweet after a few bites. I loved it, but would prefer to just have tiny cookies rather than one massive one, no matter how delightful it is to grasp a huge cookie in one's hand and begin to nibble. The scones are one of their most popular items, but for me were a bit stale and dry tasting. More cookie than scone. I liked them, but I wished mine were a bit more fresh.

Raspberry Sunshine Muffin

I would be very happy to try to recreate all of these treats, but I will try to focus on just one for now. This is where you lucky readers come in.... please make your selection in the poll in the sidebar and also optionally leave a comment telling me why you chose it (and mention anything else you love from the Starbucks bakery that I might have missed).

Oatmeal Cranberry Raisin Cookie

*NOTE: The mini vanilla bean scones were finicky and refused to come out nice and clear in my photos. They are the three small white almost egg-shaped items on the plate in the main picture.

Copycat Panera Broccoli Soup and a bowl of Homemade Caesar Salad with Croutons and Parmesan Crisps

2010-02-02T07:04:00.017-05:00

How is that for a mouthful of a title, eh? Well it is only 7 AM-ish in the morning and I have only had one cup of coffee so far, so that is about the best my brain can come up with at this hour, forgive me.

Last night I tried out a recipe I found for Copycat Panera Bread Broccoli Soup. When I used to live in Connecticut, there was a little Panera Bread shop right next to the video game store. Since I am also an avid gamer, I spent a lot of time perusing the shelves, looking for great deals on used games and to see what new things had just been released. And of course while I was there I just had to stop in and see what Panera was serving as the soup of the day. How could I possibly resist when you could smell their bread baking all the way down the street?

I usually ordered a cup of soup when I stopped in and although I can't actually remember if I sampled their version of Broccoli soup or not (although it is very likely since I love broccoli soup), I do remember loving all of the soups I did try. Their soups were always hearty and rich and wipe-the-bowl-clean-with-your-hunk-of-bread good. So I was pretty excited to find a recipe that claimed to be a copycat of one of their soups.

The recipe was quite easy to follow really, just a simple matter of making a roux, adding in some half and half and chicken stock and letting it reduce a while, then steeping some broccoli, carrots, and sauteed onions until they soften and meld with the base of the soup, and finishing it off with a handful of grated Cheddar cheese and a dusting of nutmeg. Rich velvety comfort on a spoon. It was so hard to not go for another serving. My daughter was unfortunately less impressed, although she did eat every bit of hers as well.

To accompany the soup, or rather, to devour while hungrily waiting for the soup to cool, I made a Caesar Salad. I had been watching one of my favorite YouTube cooking channels, Betty's Kitchen, and she had been doing a three part demo series on Caesar Salad. This reminded me that I had not made my version of this classic salad in a really long time. You can find the recipe here. I did however, make Betty's Buttery Croutons, which were simply buttered stale bread (I used honey wheat) that get toasted in the oven and stirred occasionally until they are crisp and golden. I skimped a little too much on the butter, so mine turned out more like plain toast cubes than croutons, but they were still crunchy and tasted fine.

I also made Betty's Parmesan Cheese crisps, which are just grated Parmesan melted in the oven until they become thin little crispy wafers, to adorn the finished salad. I had seen this done on other cooking shows as well and just hadn't gotten around to trying it myself before. What an easy and tasty garnish - very elegant. I would certainly make these again.

Baking the Bake-Off: Testing out Java Glazed Cinnamon Rolls

2010-01-28T13:16:00.006-05:00

I had some time this morning to throw a simple breakfast together. I know the picture doesn't jump out and scream "simple" but I assure you, this was a pretty easy and highly uncomplicated dish to make. I had been looking over the list of the current Pillsbury Bake-Off contest finalists and the recipe for Java Glazed Cinnamon Rolls seemed like something I would really enjoy a lot. In fact, it was one of the recipes I had been secretly rooting for as a potential winner for the upcoming event.

The only thing I needed to buy specifically for this recipe was a tube of Pillsbury Grands biscuits with cream cheese icing. This is not an ingredient I buy very often, but since I had not made any Pillsbury Bake-Off recipes in a while, I decided to grab a can of the dough and give this recipe a try. Basically the recipe doctors up the basic cream cheese icing that comes with the dough, giving it a bit more flavor by adding coffee, nuts, and white chocolate. It sounded and looked great.

While the idea was very creative, I didn' t notice enough difference in the final product from the taste of the rolls made without the additions. It just didn't have enough coffee flavor for me. Nothing is wrong technically with the recipe - it works as directed and the rolls do taste good, just not that wow I had been hoping for.

The Fluffiest, Lightest, Most Delicious Scones Ever!

2010-01-26T11:21:00.013-05:00

When I lived in England, I was able to get my hands on freshly baked scones every day. Every grocery store carried several versions and there was always a local cafe or tea shop that baked them fresh. Since moving back to the US, I have been testing out various versions and while all of them have been pretty good, this particular recipe turned out so very tall and fluffy and light; the best I have tasted by a mile.

Oddly enough, the recipe isn't even a version from the UK, but rather is a variety made popular in Australia. The basic recipe is really quite simple - just a mix of self-rising flour, full fat cream, and some fizzy lemon-lime soda (called lemonade in the UK and Australia). I am certain that American or Canadian style ginger ale would also work out beautifully, but don't use ordinary non-fizzy lemonade. The carbonation is what gives these scones their lovely light texture and lift. However, don't expect these to taste lemony - the soda is there mainly as a raising agent, not for much flavor. I am happy to report that diet Sprite worked out just fine. You do need the real deal for the cream though - no low-fat substitutions will do, as the fat is absolutely required for the recipe to work. You will note there is otherwise no butter or oil in the recipe, so the cream is quite crucial. Sorry to all the dieters who got excited over the diet-soda-is-ok bit.

Some versions add a bit of sugar, I did not. I didn't feel it was necessary at all in the final product. This type of scone is meant to be split and served with some jam and clotted cream or some whipped cream, so there really is no need to add sugar to the dough itself. I personally like mine with a bit of butter and jam, and that is all.

Australian Style Scones (aka Lemonade Scones)
(makes about 8-10 round scones)

4-4 1/2 cups self-rising flour (I used White Lily brand)
1 cup heavy cream (or double cream or whipping cream)
1 cup lemon-lime soda (fizzy lemonade) such as Sprite, 7-Up, or ginger ale
1-2 Tbsp milk, to brush on top (optional)

to serve: jam, lemon curd, butter, clotted cream or whipped cream

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Sift 3 1/2 cups of the self-rising flour into a large bowl, then stir in the soda and the cream until combined. The mixture will be quite wet at this point. Do not over mix the dough. If it forms a ball, then you can now dump it onto a floured surface, sprinkle with a bit more of the flour, and knead gently for just long enough for it to start to smooth out - seriously only a minute or two. If you knead too long, not only will you overwork the gluten in the flour, but the moisture will start to saturate the dough, making it too wet again.

You may need to keep adding more flour as this dough will be quite moist - but do not add more than 4 1/2 cups total to the entire recipe. Your humidity on the day you make this will affect how much or how little you actually will need. This time, I needed 4 cups total.

Pat the dough out into a large oval shape - it should be quite thick, perhaps 1/2"-1" tall. Using a floured drinking glass, punch out rounds of dough. You will hear a squooshing sound as you push the glass into the puffy dough. Do your best to not twist the glass when you remove it - just lift it.

Yes, the dough shapes will look a bit lumpy, shaggy and wet. You will be staring at them and thinking something surely must be wrong here! Everything is normal.

Place the rounds onto a lightly greased baking sheet, leaving space between each. If you like a brown looking top, then lightly brush each with some milk or cream before baking. I did not do this. Bake for about 10-15 minutes or until they are puffed up tall and the bottoms are just slightly browned. Yes, they will appear quite pale and might at first glance seem underdone, especially if you skipped the milk brushing step. If you keep baking them until they are brown, they will be tough as hard tack when you bite into them, so please do not over bake them!

If you split one open, the insides should be light, fluffy, tender and there should be no wet/raw spots. The outside should be slightly crisp. Split them open, spread with butter, cream of your choice, and jam, as desired.

NOTE: Measurements given are in volume not weight, using American measuring cups.

Cookbook Review: Baking with the Amish Cook

2010-01-19T08:45:00.017-05:00

I am rather excited to tell you about the most recent cookbook I had the chance to review, The Amish Cook's Baking Book by Lovina Eicher with Kevin Williams. If you read my previous post on Lovina's first book, The Amish Cook at Home, you will already know that I really enjoyed her first cookbook. While The Amish Cook at Home was more of a peek into the Amish world and culture through food, The Amish Cook's Baking Book focuses a bit closer on the recipes, although there are still plenty of enjoyable stories about the Amish way of baking and Lovina's own personal stories as well.

With this next installment in the series, Lovina has truly outdone herself, bringing a huge sampling of wonderful looking Amish baking recipes. As I read through the book the first time, I kept marking off recipes that I wanted to try. When I was was done, nearly every recipe in the book had been earmarked! For someone who loves to bake, this is a treasure trove of delicious recipes.

It was very difficult for me to select just a few recipes to prepare for you, especially when it came down to bread. I already love bread in general, and there were so many tempting choices. I finally settled on Dilly Bread (page 50). This looks gorgeous when it is done baking, with tiny bits of dill and onion scattered throughout. It does not have an overly oniony taste, however. The crust came out golden and crisp, with the inside tender, soft, and moist. Lovina suggests using this as a sandwich bread and also makes this into dinner rolls. I was quite happy eating a slice on its own, with a bit of butter or dunked into some warm spaghetti sauce. Some of the other tempting bread recipes include Homemade Bread (a basic Amish style white bread loaf), Cheesy Bread, Hobo Bread, Double-Cinnamon Bread, Pineapple Bread, and Strawberry Bread, among others. There is even a recipe for Amish Style doughnuts with a sweet glaze and also one for soft pretzels.

My daughter specifically requested that I make Lovina's Lemon Squares (page 170). These were a bit tricky to photograph, as they are quite soft in the middle. These came out very chewy, sticky, and sweet. Actually, for my tastes they were a bit over the top in the sweetness factor, although I suspect many people would find it just right. They have a lovely bright yellow hue. Among the other tasty bars & brownies to choose from are Oatmeal Bars, Pecan Pie Bars, Butterscotch Brownies, Honey Bars, Toffee Nut Bars, and Delicious Peanut Butter Swirl Bars.

My favorite recipe of the three I tested by far was Monster Cookies (page 114). These cookies are bursting with chocolate and oats. Imagine a crisp oatmeal cookie with a hint of peanut butter, loaded with chocolate chips and M&Ms candies.. and you have monster cookies. These were easy and incredibly delicious. They also kept really well - it took about 10 days before they became stale. These would be a great choice for lunchbox or after school snacks. There are many recipes floating around for variations of Monster Cookies, but this particular version really stood out for me, perhaps because it contains more butter, chocolate, and M&Ms than many other versions I have seen. Rich, delicious, wonderful cookies. Other cookie recipes included are Honey Spice Cookies, Thimble Cookies, Homemade Buttermilk Cookies, Broomstick Cookies, Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies, and more.

The other sections of the book - an entire chapter on pies, one on cakes, and another on special occasion recipes specific to Amish traditions are equally drool-worthy. From the beautiful photography, the variety of tempting recipes, and the charming smattering of notes from Lovina's children on the ways they help out with some of the recipes, this cookbook is a great find. The Amish Cook's Baking Book would make an excellent gift for any home baker, especially one interested in Amish foods. Recommended.

An Evening with Nigella: Scallops & Chorizo Dinner

2010-01-17T10:16:00.021-05:00

Two unexpected events happened yesterday. Last night, I had originally wanted to use up some Italian sausage I had in the freezer, simmering it into a hearty meat sauce for pasta. However, I had to put that plan on hold as when I checked on my thawing sausages a few hours before meal time, they were still covered in ice crystals, despite an overnight thaw in the fridge. /Sigh. So, now I needed to figure out something else to make, and my tummy was already grumbling for dinner. I recently wrote about how I am trying very hard to avoid making extra trips to the grocery store, and to cut down on unessential food purchases. Well, last night I broke my own rule and did make a stop in the grocery store to pick up a few ingredients for my last minute change of plans meal. It made me feel a bit like a dieter sneaking a candy bar.

When I noticed that scallops were on sale, I decided that I would make some recipes I had seen presented on an episode of Nigella Express, a Spanish themed menu of tapas inspired dishes : Scallops & Chorizo, Chickpeas with Arugula & Sherry, and Shrimp with Maryam Zaira Sauce. I also served some Amish Dill Bread on the side (which you will hear more about soon). The meal was super simple and came together really fast. The Scallops came out juicy and tender, perfectly cooked, with a nice smoky flavor from the chorizo. The chickpeas dish looked lovely, with the mound of rocket wilting over the top, and the delicious aroma of cumin was very promising. Unfortunately, this dish didn't have quite the punch I expected and also tasted like it needed more simmering time. The canned chickpeas were still a bit too firm and didn't absorb enough of the flavors. It tasted ok, just not something I would make as a last minute dish again. As for the dipping sauce for the shrimp, I had to make a significant change to the recipe - I didn't have any harissa in the house and the local grocery store didn't have any, so I instead used chipotle mayo and still added the lime juice and honey. This worked out very well, if a bit spicy.

And to relieve some of my guilt over my shopping trip, the only ingredients I bought for this meal were the arugula, the seafood, the chipotle mayo, and the chorizo. I had all of the other items at home already. Just pretend I didn't also buy a few other items, ok?? ;)

The Tale of the Enormous Grapefruit

2010-01-14T18:03:00.014-05:00

Often when I am wandering in the produce department of any market, I am very often tempted by any strange or unusual fruits and veggies that catch my eye. About a week ago, I spied some enormous looking grapefruits sitting in a crowded special bin next to the other citrus fruits. A big gold label slapped on the rind announced that this was actually a Pomelo, and it was locally grown. Without hesitation, I decided to lift this behemoth of a fruit into my cart and was dead certain I would enjoy it for breakfast over the next few days. However, as is often the case with my odd fruit and veggie purchases, the pomelo sat in the fridge waiting to be eaten. At home it seemed far too large to eat as a breakfast dish, and my daughter glanced at it and wanted to know why there was a huge melon blocking her food in the fridge.

Luckily, I happened to stop by a Publix grocery store on another night when they were doing one of their free cooking demonstrations. It just so happened that the meal of the day was a chicken salad with a grapefruit based dressing. Their recipe called for 3 normal grapefruits, so I was sure I could use my one hefty pomelo instead. I already had all of the other ingredients at home, so it was absolutely added to my menu for the week.

Let me tell you that juicing a pomelo is no easy task! It was far too big for my juicer, so I had to cut it into halves, and then quarter one half in order to make the fruit pieces small enough to use in my hand juicer.

The recipe calls for an odd ingredient.. lemon curd. Lemon curd is like a thick bright yellow lemony jam. Thicker and stickier and far sweeter than say something like apple butter. It is like lemon meringue pie in jam form. It is not usually the first thing I would think to add in a dressing for a chicken salad. However, countered with the sourness of the citrus, it really did work. The salad was incredibly simple to make - just cook some chicken breasts, slice and toss them over some mixed greens with some grapefruit segments, and the citrusy lemony dressing drizzled on top. I would make this again without question, although I would make far less dressing, as I had at least a cup leftover.

Grapefruit & Chicken Salad (based on a recipe found here)
(serves 2-3)

3 pink grapefruits or 1 huge pomelo, juice some to get 1 1/3 cups juice, cut the rest into segments for the salad
1/2 cup lemon curd
1/2 tsp minced garlic
3 skinless boneless chicken breasts
sea salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tbsp canola oil
mixed salad greens

Season chicken on both sides with some salt and pepper, then cook in a hot skillet with a little bit of oil over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes per side, or until cooked through. Slice thinly. While the chicken is cooking, whisk together the grapefruit juice, lemon curd, and garlic until smooth. Place a hearty handful of washed salad greens onto a plate, scatter some of the grapefruit segments and chicken strips on top, drizzle with some of the dressing.

Note: The original version also called for 1 Tbsp of black sesame seeds in the dressing, which makes the salad look really pretty. I did not have any and since I seldom use them, I didn't want to buy a whole bottle just for this one recipe, so I left them out.

The recipe card also suggested making some simple Cheese Crisps (essentially open faced grilled cheese sandwiches) to go alongside the salad. This was just some bakery fresh multigrain bread, buttered lightly with a slice of cheese on top, toasted in a 425 F oven for 5 minutes. I used Amish Havarti cheese, which was nice and mild and didn't overpower the flavors in the salad.

Chicken Breasts with Fennel & Olives

2010-01-13T08:48:00.014-05:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am actively trying to use up all of the meats and veggies I already have hanging out in my fridge and freezer, to try to economize a bit more. I have been pretty good about resisting the temptation to run to the grocery store when I am out of an ingredient this week, and instead just working with recipes that can be a bit more flexible, allowing for substitutions from my pantry. Since I tend to keep things well stocked (read that as a bit overstocked), it isn't really that difficult to find ingredients that will work together and create a delicious meal.

A kind member of Recipezaar, SarasotaCook, suggested this dish to me, just off the top of her head. She often makes a similar version of this dish, and since it called for a lot of the ingredients I have been wanting to use up, I was definitely willing to give her suggestion a try. Basically, she marinates chicken overnight in a mix of olive oil, salt and pepper, some lemon juice, and oregano. The chicken is then browned on both sides in a bit of butter and oil, then the meat is set aside while you prepare the vegetables, a simple mix of fennel, tomatoes, garlic, and olives. The chicken is later returned to the pan to continue cooking and soaking in all the rich flavors from the veggies and pan juices. It turned out really good and was very easy. Here is my interpretation of her great idea:

SarasotaCook's Chicken with Fennel & Olives (my interpretation)

2 bone-in split chicken breasts (mine were very large, so this amount made about 3 servings)

marinade:
1/2 lemon, wedged
1-2 glugs extra virgin olive oil
sea salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tbsp dried oregano, to taste

1 tsp butter
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 cup white wine (I used white zinfandel, 1 mini bottle)
1 small head fennel, bulb only, very thinly sliced
1/2 large red onion, very thinly sliced
1 tsp minced garlic
sea salt, to taste
black pepper, to taste
1 (15 ounce) can fire roasted diced tomatoes (I used Muir Glen organic)
1 cup chicken stock (reduced sodium), or more as needed
1-2 Tbsp capers, drained
1 cup mixed olives (good deli quality), pitted, roughly chopped or halved

Season chicken with salt & pepper, pop into a ziptop bag and add a glug or two of olive oil. Squeeze the lemon wedges over the chicken, and then drop the rinds into the bag. Mix well, seal the bag, and let marinate overnight in the fridge.

Heat a skillet(I used cast iron) over medium-high heat. Add a small amount of butter and oil and allow to heat. Add the chicken and brown on both sides. Remove chicken to a plate to keep warm. Remove some of excess oil from the pan, leaving behind some of the pan juices and any browned bits, then splash in the wine and let it deglaze the pan. After the wine has had a chance to bubble for a couple of minutes, add the fennel, onion slivers, and the garlic, stirring to coat with the pan juices. Allow to cook, lowering the heat slightly if needed, until the veggies are softened and have absorbed most of the liquid, about 5 minutes or so.

Add the tomatoes, juice and all, the chicken broth, capers, and olives, and season to taste, if needed. Add the chicken back to the pan and allow to cook uncovered until the chicken is fully cooked (I let it cook 15 minutes, then popped it into a 350F oven for another 10 minutes to finish up). Serve over couscous.

NOTE: I deboned the cooked chicken and served it sliced with the sauce all around it.

Success! Copycat Version of Cracker Barrel Double Fudge Cola Cake

2010-01-10T21:29:00.016-05:00

Shortly before the holidays descended upon me and my world got excessively busy, I had put up a poll asking all of you which Cracker Barrel recipe you most wanted me to recreate next. I have already shown you my copycat versions of two of their delicious chicken salads, Copycat Cracker Barrel Applefest Chicken Salad and Just Like Cracker Barrel's Chicken Salad in case you missed those. The winner of the poll was Cracker Barrel's Double Fudge Cola Cake, a deep dark chocolate fudge sheet cake topped with a moist fudgey chocolate icing and served warm, with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on the side. In honor of their 40th anniversary, Cracker Barrel returned this famous cake to their menu for one year, starting 31 August 2009.

While trying to research this recipe, I found numerous versions of cola cake floating around the internet. Some contained nuts, others a marshmallow topping, some had both the marshmallows and the nuts on top. After recently eating this cake at an actual Cracker Barrel restaurant, it was clear that either the recipe now being served has been changed a bit or many of the so-called copycat versions, while very likely also quite good cakes, are not quite the same as what is served in the restaurant today. The version I was served was a square of warm dark chocolate cake, very moist and sweet and with a springy texture. The icing was definitely a fudgey consistency, not fluffy like a buttercream, and was glossy, although not quite a ganache either. It was more reminiscent of the sort of icing you might find topping a chocolate glazed donut, with a slight crispness on the top, although thicker and not quite so crisp. There were no nuts at all and no visible marshmallows.

I finally found a recipe here that sounded like it could be very close, so I gave it a try, and with a few slight changes, I think it is very nearly the same cake as the 2009 version served today. I actually think the cake tasted even better than the restaurant version. Here is the recipe including my changes:

Copycat Cracker Barrel 40th Anniversary Double Fudge Coca-Cola Cake (adapted from a version found on Copykat.com)

(makes one large 9x13" sized sheet cake)

1 (12 ounce) can Coke (or other cola), divided
2 (4 ounces each) sticks unsalted butter (each stick = 1/2 cup), divided, at room temperature
1 (1 ounce) square semisweet chocolate
1 cup miniature marshmallows (measured by volume not weight)
1/2 cup shortening (I used butter flavor Crisco) (measured by volume)
1/2 cup canola oil or sunflower oil
3 tsp vanilla extract, divided
2 cups granulated white sugar or caster sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk (I used 2% fat)*
3 Tbsp powdered buttermilk*
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/3 cups White Lily all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups unsweetened dark chocolate cocoa powder, divided
1/4 cup chocolate syrup (I used Fox's U-Bet)
2 cups powdered sugar or icing sugar

Before you begin, open your oven and arrange the baking racks so that one of them is set near the top, making sure there is plenty of room on that top shelf for your pan and for the cake to rise a bit. Normally cakes are baked in the center of the oven, but not this one. Preheat your oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a 9x13" rectangular sheet cake pan. You will also need a small saucepan, a whisk, an electric mixer, and 3 mixing bowls.

Measure out just 1 cup of Coke and just 1 stick of the butter and place along with the square of semisweet chocolate into a small saucepan. Set the remaining cola aside for now, and place the other stick of butter in a medium mixing bowl, setting it aside to come to room temperature.

Meanwhile, bring the mixture in your saucepan to a boil, stirring with a whisk or slotted spoon often. As soon as it boils, add the mini marshmallows, stir to coat, lowering the heat a bit to prevent a boil-over. Continue to stir until everything has fully melted and blended together, and there are no longer any white streaks remaining from the marshmallows. It should look shiny and wet, like unset fudge. Set this fudge mixture aside to cool a bit (I let mine sit for about 5 minutes, then poured it into a plastic bowl and popped it into the fridge for about another 5 minutes while I continued with the next step).

In a large mixing bowl combine the shortening, oil, and just 2 tsp of the vanilla. Add the granulated sugar and mix well. Add in both eggs and the milk and beat well, using an electric mixer, until light and fluffy. Scrape any batter that is creeping up the sides of the bowl with a spatula, as needed.

In yet another mixing bowl (last one I promise!), combine the buttermilk powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set a mesh strainer/sieve over the top of the bowl and add the flour, shaking the strainer so that the flour sifts down into the bowl. If you happen to have a flour sifter, you can use that instead, but a mesh strainer works just fine. Measure out just 3/4 cup of the unsweetened cocoa powder and sift that through the sieve as well. Remove the sieve and give the mixture a quick stir.

Add half of the flour mixture into the shortening & egg mixture, beating until smooth.

Remember your fudge mixture you have cooling? Give that a quick stir and then add just a bit of it to the shortening mixture and beat well. Continue adding the fudge in small amounts until all of it has been beaten in and well combined. The reason you are adding it slowly is to prevent the still somewhat warm mixture from scrambling your eggs.

Add the other half of the flour mixture now, mixing until combined and then for another 4 minutes. Set a timer. You are trying to incorporate air into your batter, so no skimping on the time here. Your batter should be thick and smooth.

Pour the cake batter into your prepared pan and pop it into the preheated 350 F oven to bake on the TOP rack. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick poked into the center of the cake comes out with no streaks on it. Do not overbake! Set the cake onto a cooling rack to cool somewhat. You will still want it to be a bit warm when you add the fudge icing, but wait long enough for it to no longer be so very hot that your icing just melts completely upon contact. Before you walk away, take your toothpick and poke a bunch of holes all over the surface of the cake.

Remember the bowl with the stick of butter in it from way back in the beginning? By now it should be nice and soft. Go grab the rest of that can of coke and measure out about 1/3 cup. Add that to the butter, along with 1 tsp vanilla, and the remaining 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder. Add the chocolate syrup and mix well until everything is smooth. Now add in 1 cup of the powdered sugar and blend well, then add the remaining 1 cup powdered sugar. The icing should be shiny, smooth, and a bit gloopy, not stiff. It should not be watery, but more like the consistency of thick hot fudge sauce. If it is too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar, or if it seems a bit too dry, add a little more cola.

Pour this entire mixture over the warm cake and spread evenly. Allow this to sit long enough to set up a bit, about 20-30 minutes, roughly. Some of the fudgey icing will ooze into your toothpick holes and you need to give it time to do that. The surface will also take on a sheen and harden ever so slightly. Serve with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on the side while the cake is still a little warm, if desired.

*NOTE: If you don't have buttermilk powder, you may instead use 3/4 cup buttermilk instead of the milk and buttermilk powder. Or, you can make a buttermilk substitute by placing 2 tsp lemon juice into a measuring cup, then adding enough milk to fill 3/4 cup, and then allowing that to sit for 5 minutes to thicken. You will not need to make any adjustments to the dry ingredients.

Credit Crunching: Using up what's already here

2010-01-09T09:08:00.006-05:00

Sometimes, one of the hardest things for a foodie to do is to not go to the grocery store/farmer's market/specialty market. Let foodies loose in a store that sells any sort of ingredients and we tend to drag home a bit more than we set out to buy in the first place. Ok, fine, sometimes it is a lot more. Or at least I do. I can almost never resist picking up a new spice blend or the latest new-to-me vegetable or fruit, the more unique or bizarre the better. I love to experiment and explore new foods. However, such practices are terrible when credit crunching, and alas, at the moment, I am firmly in the save money camp.

So my current goal is to use my pantry supplies as my "specialty market," rediscovering some of those oddball items I have accumulated and actually use them up. I have a freezer full of ingredients stashed away: meats, veggies, and fruits galore. Instead of running to the store for more, even if I am out of something a recipe calls for, I am trying my hardest to glue myself to the floor and not even think about heading out for more. Because you see, if I go to the grocery store for one item, it feels like a waste of the trip and gas, so I peruse the aisles for sales and anything I might need later. I have gone through my cupboards, made a list of everything in my fridge and freezer and made a battle plan.. a menu that should hopefully take me through the next week or so. A menu that ideally will keep me happily cooking and experimenting in my kitchen without digging deeper into my pockets.

For my first recipe, I didn't exactly wander too far into the land of experimentation. I simple found a recipe I hadn't tried before that seemed appealing and used up some items I had lurking in my pantry. It has been freezing cold around here lately, so I was wanting to make homemade soup. I had some frozen mixed veggies hanging out in my freezer that I really wanted to use up in one fell swoop and soup seemed the most logical choice. I found this recipe for a Vegetable Soup, which not only used up my entire bag of frozen vegetables, but also the last scraps of orzo I still had stashed away from making Orzo with Thyme & Lemon Zest as well as some canned tomatoes and broth. It was easy and satisfying.

Cookbook Review: The Amish Cook at Home

2010-01-04T12:01:00.035-05:00

I think it is quite fitting that my first blog post of the new year is a review of a book that seems to epitomize the concept of frugal eating and home cooking with mostly home grown ingredients. In the current economy, many of us are searching for new ways to stretch our dollars and make our food budgets go a bit further. Our first lady, Michelle Obama, is on a per sonal mission to encourage our nation to explore the local community for our farm fresh local ingredients, often a cheaper, healthier, fresher alternative to relying solely on supermarkets.

When I lived overseas, I used to relish the weekly walks to the local farm stand (Obsthof) where I lived in Germany, where the produce was abundant, inexpensive, and freshly grown. Even in London, where I most recently lived, farm fresh produce was available in every community on nearly every corner at little vegetable stands and green grocers. Even in the bigger markets, each item was clearly labeled with the farm the food had come from. While international fare was also available, it was marked as such, and the trend was clearly to select foods that had fewer "miles" on them... local over imported was the way to go. I really enjoyed this aspect of food shopping overseas, and when I moved back to the US, it was a hard adjustment to go back to the old way of massive bulk sized packaging and foods from unknown locations on the shelves. Many foods do indicate the country of origin, but it isn't always clear or noticeable. And there certainly isn't a green grocer on practically every corner.

In the US, the Amish have been in on this secret to wholesome, frugal eating for years. It is deeply embedded in their culture. Most Amish communities still rely on home gardens, self-reared and butchered meats, home canning, sewing etc as just part of their normal, daily lives. Some modern conveniences have begun to enter their kitchens, such as refrigeration, modern plumbing, and even some commercially prepared ingredients, but overall, they still offer a good example of how to use local, seasonal foods to both an ecomonical and nutritional advantage.

I was recently given the opportunity to review The Amish Cook at H ome, by Lovina Eicher, with Kevin Williams. Expecting this to be a typical cookbook, I was in for a bit of a surprise. This book is really one woman's account of her life as part of an Amish community, her daily activities and chores with her family and church, her seasonal gardening, and her family history. This is a peek into her unique life, something to be read and enjoyed, with recipes included along the way to highlight each season. The book is studded with breathtakingly beautiful photographs by Betsy Blanton, depicting not only some of the lovely recipes included in the book, but also charming images of the Amish community.

Now onto the recipes themselves... the book is broken down into the four seasons, describing the types of foods Lovina would typically harvest and prepare when they are most appropriate seaonally. In the Spring chapter, there are recipes using dandelions, peas, radishes, strawberries, rhubarb and asparagus from Lovina's garden, morel mushrooms plucked from the woods.

I prepared the Pancakes with Fresh Strawberries (page 50), as winter here in Florida is more like spring. I was able to use locally grown Plant City strawberries. The pancakes were quite easy to make and were very light and puffy. They are tiny silver dollar sized cakes, with no sugar in the batter. A hefty tablespoonful of vanilla gives them a lovely aroma and flavor. I did sprinkle a bit of sweetener onto my berries, which was plenty sweet enough for me.

Moving onto the Summer chapter, Lovina describes her schedule and methods for planting and harvesting onions, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, corn, and surprisingly, jalapeno peppers. As she details in her book, the Amish have a foothold in Mexico as well, and thus recipes for Mexican influenced foods have begun to appear on the tables of the modern American Amish family. Lovina provides recipes for home-canned salsa, relish, pickles, and vegetable juice, hot pepper butter, stuffed tomatoes, carrot cake, vegetable casseroles, and dessert bars made from carrots and zucchini.

As I have mentioned previously, I have a particular love for zucchini, so naturally I had to try out the Zucchini Bars (page 67). These were so easy to prepare that I had the entire batter ready to pop into the oven before my preheating timer had gone off. I did skip one step, peeling the zucchini, since I like the pretty green flecks from the skin. Just look at that gorgeous raw batter! These tasted like blonde brownies, with loads of chocolate and butterscotch chips in each bite. These were really delicious and moist and I think would go over well with otherwise finicky vegetable-hating children.

In the Fall chapter, the emphasis shifts more towards hearty casseroles and pies with recipes for Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Bread, Apple Crisp, Chicken Chowder, Chicken Potpies, Sourdough Bread and Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls, to name a few. In the Winter section, several holiday treats such as Noel Cookies, Cinnamon Pudding, and Sour Cream Cookie Cut-Outs are included, as well as a selection of beef, sausage and ham recipes. Although I had originally planned to make a selection of holiday goodies from the fall and winter chapters, my little trip to the hospital and then the subsequent trip to my mom's for the holidays meant I did almost no holiday baking. I did give Farmer's Breakfast (page193) a try however, which was a nice simple medley of vegetables, leftover ham, and eggs. This was a nice, tasty breakfast, although a bit heavy on the butter for my tastes.

In reading The Amish Cook at Home, I first had to overcome some incorrect preconceptions I had about the way the modern Amish family eats. Several recipes call for some commercially prepared items (canned soups and Velveeta cheese, for example) that struck me as not quite fitting my apparently false image of a people who never touch anything that isn't 100% homemade. While it is indeed true that the Amish culture promotes a heavy reliance on home grown and home-made ingredients, it is no longer unheard of or unusual to include some modern prepared ingredients. The recipes I tried were very tasty and I very much enjoyed reading about life in the modern Amish world. It was quite eye-opening and an interesting read. Leave this book out on your coffee table, it is one your guests will be able to savor even if they are not interested in cooking, for the photographs and story alone.

Quick and Easy Bread Pudding

2009-12-18T08:02:00.013-05:00

I have a huge backlog of recipes I have cooked, baked, eaten, photographed and just not found the time to blog about yet. In addition to being a bit busy with the holidays coming, I also found myself on an unexpected visit to the hospital for a few days. I am recovered and I am fine now, and actually in quite good health, but I sure haven't been up to much writing and cooking over the past week or so. So what I bring you today is actually something I made fairly recently, but never got a chance to write about, a really quick and tasty version of Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce I found on Amy's Kitchen.

Bread pudding is a great credit crunching type recipe, as it uses up stale bread, turning it into a really delicious dessert. The bread gets torn up and soaked in a custard, then baked until puffed and golden. Typically, a sweet, rich, creamy sauce is ladled over the top of the baked pudding, often with brandy or some other liqueur added. However in this version, there is no alcohol used at all, making this very kid friendly. It may not be the fanciest bread pudding you have ever made, but it is a nice simple recipe to turn to when you just want a quick and easy dessert fast.

Amy's Kid Friendly Bread Pudding (adapted from a recipe found here)
(about 4-6 servings)

6 slices stale (but still a little soft) bread, torn into cubes
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon or mixed spice
1 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 1/2 cups milk (I used either skim milk or 2%), divided
1 package instant vanilla pudding mix (4 serving size)*, divided in half

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a small 9" square glass baking dish. Fill a kettle with some water and set it to boil. Tear up the bread and place into the dish. Measure out just 1 cup of the milk, add the egg, sugar, and spice and whisk together until blended. Measure out just half of the dry pudding mix and add to the milk mixture. Pour over the bread.

Set the filled baking dish inside a 9x13" metal baking dish. Set the nestled pans onto the center rack of your preheated oven (you may want to pull the rack out a bit). Go grab your kettle of recently boiled water and carefully pour enough water into the METAL PAN to surround the glass baking dish with about 1" high water. DO NOT pour any water into the glass baking dish.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until the pudding is puffed and golden and is no longer soupy. Remove the glass pan from the water filled metal pan. Allow to cool a few minutes while you prepare the simple sauce, which is just a matter of mixing up the remaining half packet of pudding mix with the remaining 1 1/2 cups of milk. You may pour the sauce over the entire casserole or serve on the side to ladle over individual portions. Allow the sauced pudding to rest 15 minutes so the sauce can soak in a bit. This tastes great warm, but also quite good after it has been chilled.

*If you don't live in the US, then I think you can instead try using Bird's custard powder, although a few adjustments may need to be made. I would use enough powder for 2 portions when adding it to baked pudding itself, but for the sauce, I would recommend preparing a small amount of the custard as directed on the package.

Something to be Thankful For: Part 4, Turkey Leftovers

2009-12-08T06:52:00.023-05:00

I realize my Thanksgiving posts have all run just a bit late...it is halfway to Christmas already and I am still writing about my turkey. Last post on this for a year, I promise! I had a lot of leftover turkey this year, since I was only serving 2 people but still wanted to make a full roasted bird for the holiday. Since I am always very big on credit crunching, having leftover meat to use throughout the next week is a positive in my mind. I unfortunately did not get all of my creations on film this year, but at least a few of them did manage to get snapped in time.

There are a few specific dishes I try to make every year to use up the seemingly endless supply of leftover turkey meat. Usually, some of my leftovers find their way into a turkey sandwich. This year I made some paninis using my indoor grill. I used some nice hearty bread, layered with slices of turkey breast meat, roasted red peppers, avocado slices, Emeril's NY Style Brown Deli mustard, and Swiss Cheese. They turned out pretty tasty, very cafe-like.

I also made a Lazy Turkey Dinner in a Bowl, which was just some leftover mashed potatoes and corn mixed together and mounded in a bowl, topped with chunks of cooked turkey, with some maple gravy on top and heated all together. Not exactly the fanciest of meals, but I was tired and far more interested in spending time with my best friend than cooking endless meals. On another night, I tried out this version of Turkey Tetrazinni (pictured above), a pasta dish with a creamy white sauce which I topped with panko crumbs and a bit of Parmesan cheese. It turned out fairly well, although not quite as flavorful as some different versions I had made in the past.

One of the new things I tried out this year was a really great recipe for Turkey Enchiladas. I decided to use my dark meat in this, mixing it with some mild Tequila & Lime flavor salsa, a bit of cheese, some of my leftover corn, and just a tiny bit of diced jalapenos (enough to give it some flavor but not enough to make the enchiladas too hot). These were really good and so very fast and easy to throw together at the last minute. I will likely make these again with chicken leftovers as well.

I usually make some form of a turkey soup. This year, I made some wonderful Turkey Chowder, which was so simple and was perfect for my remaining white meat. I used the rest of my evaporated milk in place of some of the half & half cream called for in the recipe. It came out so luscious, smooth and creamy. This chowder had me wishing I had more leftovers, even after eating turkey all week. It was a great find and will definitely be making a return to my table next year when I am faced with more leftovers.

Something to be Thankful For: Part 3, Holiday Pies

2009-12-07T15:23:00.008-05:00

I think pie has to be one of my all time favorite dessert categories. I am a huge fan of desserts in general, but if I had to choose between a cake, ice cream, or pie, I usually will choose the pie hands down. In fact, I'd rather have a pie instead of a birthday cake. Since my birthday always fell very close to (or sometimes on) Thanksgiving, my family birthday "cake" was actually a Thanksgiving pie with a candle stuck in the center, while everyone gathered around the table and sang in harmony. My Grandma Dolores always remembered to make me a special lemon meringue pie for my birthday, which is still one of my favorite pie flavors.

My mom made (and still makes) fabulous pies. Her crust was always so crisp and light and she always managed to make them look so perfect. It took me a long time to get my pie crusts to taste right, and although I can get them to look nice enough, Mom is still the champion when it comes to an artful looking pie crust.

This year, I decided to make Betty's Pecan Pie, which I tried for the first time. I have made quite a few different versions of pecan pie through the years, and while I liked all of them, I hadn't found that special recipe yet, the one that would make me stop seeking new pecan pie recipes. Pretty sure this one will be my new favorite for now. It turned out so moist and nutty, plus it looked beautiful.

I also made my trusty Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie using fresh pumpkin, which I have been making ever since I first obtained the recipe from a friend. She didn't use fresh pumpkin in hers, but for me the fresh pumpkin is what makes this pie so special. It hardly takes any time at all to make fresh pumpkin puree. Simply wash and cut a small pie pumpkin into about 4 wedges, scoop out the seeds, pop into a steamer basket and let steam over boiling water, covered, until tender. The time varies depending on how big your pumpkin is, but generally 15-20 minutes should do the trick. The skin peels off so easily once the pumpkin is cooked, and a simple whirl with a stick blender creates a perfectly smooth, stringless puree.

The pie itself is a snap to throw together once you have your puree cooked and cooled. I actually like it better using skim versions of the milks, as it comes out less heavy, although you can use regular whole milk if you prefer. I have a deep dish pie plate that just barely holds all of the filling, but you could also use two smaller pie plates and just make an extra pastry shell.

Something to be Thankful For: Part 2, The Rolls

2009-12-04T09:08:00.006-05:00

Mmmm soft fresh hot rolls. My holiday meal would not ever be complete without some fresh hot homemade bread. I can always remember my mother baking bread, watching the dough rise in pans she set in a sunny windowsill. My Aunt Marg also made a killer bread that she served at Thanksgiving and I can still remember the delicious taste and aroma (hopefully I will someday get my hands on her wonderful recipe). I grew up with zero fear of making bread dough, since from my earliest recollections of any sort of kitchen activity, I can remember someone in my family baking bread, and I often helped out with the kneading process. I always found it soothing and quite fun really to squash the dough between my fingers and push and pull at it until it became a soft, pliable ball of yeasty smelling dough.

For these particular rolls, the kneading is actually done in my bread machine, which is a huge time-saver on busy holidays, especially when you have guests and about a million other things to be doing besides taking up an entire counter for kneading and rolling out dough. So for those of you who did not have quite such an idyllic bread baking childhood experience, you might want to give this recipe for Whole Wheat Honey Rolls a try. The flavor and texture of these rolls is so tender and delicious, I have yet to find a usually-a-wheat-bread-hater type who has refused to eat them. You still get the pleasure of rolling the dough into balls for the rolls, but the mess and the work of the mixing and kneading is all neatly handled inside the bread machine. They bake very quickly, so you can pop these into your oven right before serving and have a delicious basket of freshly made rolls on your holiday table by the time your gravy is ready and the turkey carved.

Something to be Thankful For: Part 1, the Turkey

2009-12-03T00:45:00.023-05:00

I had a really great Thanksgiving holiday and I hope you all had just as enjoyable a time as I did. My best friend, Josh, came to visit and I cooked a nice big Thanksgiving dinner, even though it was just the two of us eating. I think I am pretty much incapable of making a tiny holiday meal. As a kid, my family holiday meals were true feasts, always plentiful with an array of delicious side dishes and desserts, homemade bread, and of course a huge juicy turkey and gravy. Since we couldn't possibly eat everything, I did cut out a few of the usual dishes I might typically make, but it was still a pretty hearty table of food once it was all prepared.

I was very happy that for once in my life the turkey was actually almost fully thawed by the time I was ready to prepare it for the oven. I can't even count how many times I have stood around in the past changing out water in a metal sink every 30 minutes, trying to quick thaw a bird at the last minute. Luckily, this year I had remembered to allow for an extra thawing day and it made all the difference in the world. 4 full nights for my nearly 13 pound turkey did the trick.

As luck would have it, despite having a very accomodating thawed bird ready to go, my turkey preparation was still heavily delayed by two rather unfortunate events. The first was forgetting to make the special maple butter in advance, which I use to rub all over the turkey, giving it a a gorgeous shiny skin and a delicious flavor. I was supposed to prepare the butter mixture the night before, so that it could be chilled and spreadable the next day. But...I...forgot.

So...early in the morning I had to stand around reducing apple cider and maple syrup for what always seems like ages, and then mix it with the herbs and butter... and then once that rather time consuming step is finished, let the butter mixture chill enough to be able to gob it all over the skin of the bird and rub some under the skin too. Pant pant gasp gasp. Every year while making this butter I have sworn I will have to find another recipe next year that does not make me slave away just to make a butter rub... and every year after tasting my turkey and its wonderful herbally, slightly sweet and buttery gravy I remember exactly why I keep returning to this recipe year after year after year.

The second issue arose from the same procedure. While I was waiting for the cider-syrup mixture to reduce, I got some phone calls and well... talking on the phone while I am cooking always seems to get me into trouble. I do it all the time and really should have learned my lesson by now, but alas, such was not the case this time. While chattering away, I failed to notice the mixture boiling and oozing over the edges of the saucepan, leaving a bubbling sticky caramelized :cough: burnt mess all over my stovetop. I was actually able to salvage what remained in the pan, which had remarkably not burned at all and was finally at the exact 1/2 cup mark I had been waiting for so anxiously. I cleaned up the mess, buttered up my Tom Turkey and finally Thanksgiving dinner was underway.

Now wouldn't you know it, my silly turkey was done early this year. I stared at my digital thermometer with great distrust when my timer went off at the 2 hour mark. I glared at the pop up turkey button that had also decided to point out to me that, yes, somehow my turkey was already done before I had even peeled a single potato or heated up my freshly cut corn. I gave the legs a wiggle and poked at a thigh with a knife, using a spoon to catch the drippings to detect any hint of pink juices. I wasn't quite sure the juices were clear enough, and so I let Tom roast another 30 minutes longer while I quickly threw my side dishes together. I felt much better after the extra 30 minutes of cooking time and at this point, the legs were not just wiggly, they pried free easily. I covered the whole bird in foil and let it rest for another 30 minutes while I made some gravy from the pan drippings and a small amount of the maple butter mixture I had set aside before rubbing the skin earlier.

To accompany the Maple Roast Turkey and Gravy, I served corn scraped fresh from the cob and sauteed in butter and some cornstarch, freshly boiled and mashed potatoes, crock pot stuffing, and some chunks of butternut squash tossed in a little butter, oil and cinnamon and roasted for about 30 minutes while the turkey was resting and the gravy was bubbling away. I also made some delicious whole wheat honey rolls (more about those later). Everything turned out very tasty and we had a great time.

My breakfast at Cracker Barrel and a poll

2009-11-21T15:13:00.015-05:00

In case you haven't noticed my new feature yet, off to the right hand side of my blog is a little "choose my next recipe" poll. For my first topic, I chose a selection of menu items from Cracker Barrel restaurant, since I enjoy their food so much. I ate there again this morning for breakfast and snapped a few quick and somewhat blurry shots of three of the items in the poll. I meant to get a picture of the cake too, but I forgot to order a piece to take home.

The apples are a regular side dish staple at the restaurant. Generously sized wedges of soft, tender Golden Delicious apples, sauteed in a brown sugary buttery glaze. I get them nearly every time I have breakfast there. They are so popular that they even started selling them in jars to take home. I do have a nice version of something very similar that I have served alongside steak and ham that is really yummy.

The cranberry orange pecan muffins are a special item they have on their holiday menu right now. It is a luscious orange juice-drenched fluffy muffin, full of cranberries, and encrusted with oats, chopped pecans and brown sugar. I kind of hope they let this one stick around as a regular part of the menu.

The pecan pancakes are really scrumptious. Chock full of nuts and light and airy... with a crispness around the edges and an almost lacy appearance. I know they use buttermilk pancakes as their base, but I am not totally certain about how they make them so lacy. I have a few ideas that I could test out though.

The missing cola cake is a nice big square of moist warm dark chocolate cake with a thin layer of gooey fudge icing on top, which they serve with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on the side. They bring this menu item out only during their anniversary or perhaps during other special occasions.

I might end up making them all at some point, but right now, your votes will determine which I try to tackle first. Hope you enjoy my new feature and I look forward to seeing which recipe wins :)

Copycat Recipe: Attempting Cracker Barrel's Applefest Grilled Chicken Salad

2009-11-18T15:06:00.019-05:00

This past fall, Cracker Barrel restaurant introduced a limited time menu called Applefest. All of the dishes featured apples in some form, and all of them looked really good. I was able to sample a few of the dishes from this special menu, since I tend to eat at Cracker Barrel a couple of times a month. One of the items I enjoyed most was their Applefest Grilled Chicken Salad, which was a marinated grilled chicken breast served atop a bed of lettuce, with chunks of gorgeous red crisp Gala apples, crisp bacon, candied pecans, a generous sprinkling of blue cheese crumbles, and served with a sweet and tangy apple cider vinaigrette on the side. It was absolutely delicious and a refreshing dinner. It also looked beautiful when they presented it, with the little chunks of apples all around the rim of the plate.

What you see pictured above is my attempt to recreate the recipe at home. The salad was very easy to get right, since the basic elements were pretty standard. I did try to make an apple cider vinaigrette clone, but my first attempt was not very successful. I tried mixing up some canola oil, apple cider, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper, and a bit of cinnamon. This sounded like a good plan to me, but unfortunately I got my proportions a bit off as I was paying more attention to the grumbling in my tummy than I was to careful dressing concoctions. The dressing tasted good, but was not quite what I had tasted at the restaurant. Hopefully I will be able to nail the recipe and update this in the future. However, in the meantime, the raspberry walnut salad dressing tasted really nice with this salad. I think any of the fruitier, sweeter salad dressings would go equally well.

I also added a new feature on my blog... off to the top right side there is now a weekly poll. This week it is about Cracker Barrel recipes, but the topics will change as the mood strikes me. I will try to prepare the selection with the highest votes.

Copycat Cracker Barrel Applefest Grilled Chicken Salad
(serves 2)

2 skinless boneless chicken breasts
1/2 cup raspberry walnut salad dressing (roughly, I didn't measure)
1 bag mixed salad greens (iceberg, radish, carrot, romaine)
2 firm Gala apples (or another crisp sweet-tart red eating apple), cut into chunks
lemon juice, to keep apples from turning brown
4 strips bacon, cooked crisp, drained
2 tbsp blue cheese, crumbled
2 tbsp Maple Glazed pecans, chopped (or any glazed/candied pecan)
apple cider vinaigrette or raspberry walnut salad dressing, to taste

Place about 1/2 cup or so of salad dressing into a ziptop type plastic bag along with the chicken, seal, and smoosh the sealed bag to coat chicken pieces evenly. Marinate in the fridge overnight. Grill until cooked all the way through on an indoor grill, thin slice and set aside, keeping warm.

Divide salad greens between two plates. Set the apple chunks in a ring all around the outer edges of each plate, red skin side facing outward. Sprinkle nuts over the salad. Place the chicken slices in the center, then sprinkle blue cheese crumbles over the top (I had this backwards in the photo). Break each piece of crispy bacon in half or crumble it up if you prefer, and place over the top of the salad. Serve with apple cider vinaigrette or another fruity, sweet salad dressing of your choice on the side.

Moist & Tender Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread

2009-11-10T10:42:00.007-05:00

Yes, I know, I have already blogged about zucchini bread previously. I'm sorry to be a bit repetitive here, but zucchini bread is, after all, one of my all time favorites and I make a lot of it. It isn't even because it is "healthy" or that I am trying to pass off vegetables to my kid through baked goods (although those are quite pleasant side perks). I simply love the taste, the scent, the glorious smell of zucchini bread baking. It is delicious, moist, wonderful. If you have avoided eating it because you fear veggies in your baked goods, time to dig into your courage box and give some a try.

Last time I shared with you a recipe that came from one of my good friends. You can find that scrumptious and very different version here. This is yet another recipe I begged off of a former neighbor shortly after devouring several slices that she happily handed out to everyone who happened to be standing outside in the courtyard one fall day. She didn't say one peep about what was in it, or as it turns out... what was not in it. She just smiled and passed her plates around. Men, women, children, picky teens, all took a slice and came back for more. Not one single word about it being a whole wheat bread. And no one at all could have dreamed that this bread contains not one drop of butter, oil, margarine or shortening.

I had always thought of "diet" baking to be the sort of thing you suffered through if you had to cut something out for a sick relative or a person trying to lose a few inches. Diet baked goods usually taste rubbery or gummy or flat or well....just plain awful. I avoid them. I would rather just eat less of the real thing. This recipe doesn't taste remotely healthy or "dietized." It tastes like there is a heap of butter or something in there to make it taste so good. That would be the zucchini folks. Try it, it is really quite amazing.

Carol's Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread (you can see my printable version here)
(makes 1 round 9" cake layer sized loaf)

dry ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves

wet ingredients:
6 egg whites
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup buttermilk (or use milk soured with some lemon juice)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups fresh shredded zucchini, unpeeled, about 1 medium (measured by volume not weight)

Spray a 9" round baking pan with nonstick spray and preheat your oven to 350F. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of this mixture.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites just until foamy, but still liquidy. To the beaten egg whites, gently stir in the buttermilk, applesauce, vanilla, using a wooden spoon not a mixer. Stir in the zucchini. Pour this wet mixture into the well you made int he dry ingredients. Using a wooden spoon, gently stir together the wet and dry ingredients into a wet batter, just until there are no more dry patches.

Pour the batter into your prepared cake pan and bake in the center of your preheated oven for about 40-50 minutes, or until a tothpick tests clean. Allow to cool at least 10 minutes in the pan before attempting to remove to a wire rack to cool fully.

My attempt at the California Salad from The Melting Pot

2009-11-03T08:48:00.014-05:00

One night fairly recently, my daughter and I stopped in at The Melting Pot, a restaurant that serves nothing but fondue in various forms. I knew nothing at all about the place, only that the idea of fondue for dinner sounded fun and delicious. I also had some vague recollection of some tv chef like Rachel Ray stopping at a similar place (for all I know it may very well have been another branch of the same chain) and chatting it up with a family who was having a blast dipping their meal. A hasty glance at the menu reassured me that if we shared our meal, it was going to be somewhat affordable, so we took the plunge and gave it a try.

I have to say the prices are a bit steep. Ok, perhaps more than just a bit. Out of touch with reality steep, so much so that there was no question we would not be ordering a fondue that included any form of meat. Just the cheese fondue starter alone was $15 and that was only cheese and some veggie dippers! Our waiter was very nice and said that many people share the orders and recommended we start small. We could always order more things if we found our tummies still grumbling. We ordered their famous Swiss fondue, which was a mix of Swiss cheese, flavored with some garlic, wine, and Kirschwasser. Then the waiter proceeded to make the fondue right at the table (each table is equipped with a hot plate). Me being me, I watched carefully and took notes on how this was made, so that I could make my own version at home. You will have to wait for that recipe, but it is definitely on my menu - it seemed very easy to prepare and I am certain I can make it for less money at home.

Since a meal of melted cheese didn't sound terribly filling, and it was not, we also ordered two of their salads. Unlike most restaurants that only have a small selection of side salad choices, The Melting Pot had quite a few different and tasty sounding options. My daughter stuck to the familiar, a Caesar Salad, while I chose the California Salad, which was described as a mixture of greens with walnuts and a raspberry vinaigrette. It was served with a shaker of their own brand of Garlic & Wine seasoning that you can sprinkle over the top if you like. It was really good and I was happy to discover that they sell their seasoning at the restaurant.

With the taste of the salad fresh on my mind, I wrote down what I could remember about it and on my next trip to the grocery store, bought the ingredients. I originally planned to make my own dressing, but the cost of the ingredients I had been planning to use were a bit steep, so I decided instead to buy a bottle of Paul Newman's Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette, which sounded exactly like what I had been served at the restaurant anyway. The rest of the ingredients were very basic, fresh ripe plum tomatoes, Gorgonzola cheese, a mixture of salad greens, and chopped walnuts.

Melting Pot's California Side Salad
(serves 1)

1-2 handfuls of mixed salad greens (red oak lettuce, romaine, Bibb, endive, etc), torn
1-2 plum tomatoes, diced into cubes or sliced
1 Tbsp chopped black walnuts
1-2 Tbsp Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (I went a bit too heavy on mine)
1-2 tsp red onion, finely chopped (I am not sure if they actually included this, but I thought it added a nice burst of color and flavor), optional
2 tsp Paul Newman's raspberry walnut vinaigrette, to taste
1/4 tsp Melting Pot's Garlic & Wine Seasoning, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, optional

Place tossed salad greens on a serving plate, and then sprinkle on the tomatoes, cheese, and nuts. Drizzle with a bit of salad dressing to taste, and a sprinkle of salad seasoning and some freshly ground black pepper, if desired.

Happy Halloween: Caramel Apples

2009-10-31T21:47:00.020-04:00

Happy Halloween everyone! I made some simple caramel apples by dipping firm Granny Smiths into melted caramel squares thinned with a little water. Taking a suggestion from Betty over at Betty's Kitchen, who recently made the same recipe, I rolled mine in some butter toffee candied peanuts. These are easy, messy, and oh so rich and gooey. These need to be chilled to firm up, but you will want to remove them from the fridge about 10-15 minutes before you want to eat them, as they get rock hard when cold. I personally like to slice mine into wedges rather than try to chomp into the huge gooey apple.

Simple Caramel Apples (adapted from Kraft)
(makes 3-4 large apples)

50 squares soft caramel candies, unwrapped (one 12 oz. bag) or soft toffee (such as Thornton's)*
1 Tbsp water (or use 2 Tbsp if melting on the stovetop)
3-4 popsicle sticks
candied nuts or or raisins or chocolate chips or coconut

Place caramels and water into a glass dish and melt in the microwave for about 2 minutes, or until melted thoroughly. Meanwhile, jab a popsicle stick firmly into each apple. Dunk apples in the melted caramel, then roll the bottom of the coated apple in nuts or whatever other crunchy decoration you prefer. The decorating step is optional; however, rolling the bottom in something crunchy helps make a nice base for the apples to stand upright. Place on a wax paper lined plate and pop in the fridge to chill until firm, about 30 minutes to an hour.

Remove from fridge about 10-15 minutes before serving. If you wish to slice them, use a big butcher's knife to cut the sides off of each apple, then slice the sides into smaller pieces. This makes the apples a lot easier to eat and share.

*American caramels come in tiny 1" cubes, so if you plan to use Thorton's soft toffee instead, you will probably not need 50, since their toffee is sold in somewhat larger pieces.

Baking the Bake-Off: Project #3 Chocolate Starlight Cake

2009-10-28T14:07:00.013-04:00

Well it has been some time now since my last Pillsbury Bake-Off project. I actually was pretty certain that I had made the Double-Delight Starlight Cake years ago, back when I first picked up my old copy of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Cookbook. It sounded and looked like something I would really enjoy - a rich, creamy, homemade chocolate layer cake with a luscious sounding chocolate cream cheese mint icing.

The basic idea for the cake is very clever: prepare a batch of icing, using some in the cake batter and the rest to decorate the finished cake. The idea is supposed to make the cake very moist and tender. Unfortunately, both times that I have tried this cake, I was a little disappointed. It is indeed a good cake, and the icing has a great creamy texture and nice minty flavor. However, while I wouldn't go so far as to say this cake is dry, it isn't at all, it is not quite as moist as some more modern chocolate cakes that I have tried.

This cake was very easy to make, and I am certain you could adapt the basic concept to any type of frosting and cake flavor. I think I prefer a richer chocolate flavor in my chocolate cakes; there just wasn't enough choco punch in this to really satisfy me. The icing is very good and worth trying.

Cucumber Salad and Swedish Meatballs the Easy Way

2009-10-26T15:30:00.016-04:00

One of my favorite quick and easy no fuss meals when I have about zero time to cook but don't want to just grab some take-out is to make Swedish Meatballs. I have made homemade versions, albeit Americanized attempts that never quite matched the luscious versions I tasted in Europe. Eventually I will find that perfect match of meatball and sauce that screams "I am really Swedish!" but for now, I have to satisfy my cravings with something that is at least really yummy to eat, if not homemade. Ikea, if you are lucky enough to live near one, not only sells home furnishings, but has a small section of imported Swedish foods, to include all the fixings for a nice meatball meal: packets of cream sauce seasoning, jars of lingonberry jam, and even bags of meatballs in the freezer case.

The meatballs can be baked in the oven in about 15-20 minutes (or microwaved if you must, but I like them better baked), during which time I whisk together the cream sauce seasoning with some half & half instead of the directed cream, and toss together a simple Swedish style cucumber salad. I serve a nice spoonful of the jam on the side, to eat along with the meatballs. I suppose you could use whole berry cranberry sauce if you needed to, but cranberry is much more tart and the berries are bigger. If you can get your hands on some real lingonberry jam, it is really worth it. You can use the extra jam to serve with Swedish style pancakes (similar to crepes).

Swedish Style Cucumber Salad
(serves 4-6)

1 English cucumber, sliced thinly
finely diced red onion, optional, to taste
sour cream, to taste
apple cider vinegar, a splash to taste
a pinch or two of sugar
salt and pepper, to taste
a pinch of dill

I am sorry to be so vague here but I really don't measure this at all. I slice the cucumber and toss it in a small bowl with a bit of onion (which makes it look pretty but can definitely be left out if you are a purist or just hate onion). I add a bit of salt and pepper, a pinch of sugar and some dill, a splash of vinegar and then a few spoonfuls of sour cream and stir. I go very, very light on the sour cream as a little really can go a long way. After everything has a very light coating of dressing, I throw the bowl into the fridge to chill while I finish preparing the meatballs and the cream sauce.

A Few Meals with Betty

2009-10-19T22:53:00.024-04:00

It feels like ages since my last post, even though it has been less than a week. I have actually been cooking, but I have been so busy, that I just haven't had much time to blog about what I have been preparing. Since the recipes over at Betty's Kitchen are so economical and easy, I have been turning to her collection a lot lately for inspiration. She seems to choose recipes that are often similar to things I typically like to prepare at home, but with a simpler and slightly different twist. Her recipes are also often somewhat healthier versions of some old favorites, which I really appreciate.

One night I made her Cajun Style Shrimp, which was the simplest thing to prepare and tasted so rich and delicious. I actually make something similar for parties using Cajun seasoning and butter, but this was a nice change and really was delicious. I served the shrimp with rye toast, some sliced tomatoes, and Betty's Lima Bean Casserole.

The shrimp turned out great and I will definitely make it again. I used precooked peeled shrimp and only let them marinate for 15 minutes. Then I heated the shrimp only until they were warmed through. The lima bean casserole was good, although my daughter wasn't terribly pleased to see one of her least favorite vegetables on her plate. She did end up eating it, partly because I snuck some broccoli in as well, which she really enjoys. I also substituted cream of celery soup for the mushroom soup. It was a nice casserole, but probably not something that I will make regularly.

On another night I tried out Betty's Chicken Nuggets, which I think has just been crowned my new standard nuggets recipe. The chicken is cut into chunks, coated in some butter and then dredged in crushed Ritz crackers. I used Roasted Vegetable flavor Ritz which really gave them a nice flavor. The nuggets came out nice and crispy and were moist and tender on the inside. Really, really good. I served them with her Loaded Baked Potatoes and some honey mustard, which was simply some Dijon mustard mixed with a bit of honey.

I also tried out Crazy Eight Can Soup, which turned out great. This very easy recipe doctors up ordinary minestrone soup with corn, fire roasted tomatoes, and chili beans, mixed with a pound of browned lean ground beef. I am sure you could leave out the meat or use ground turkey instead if you prefer. Next time I will use Progresso's minestrone, which is not condensed, in place of the condensed version called for in the recipe, as I prefer the flavor and I find it to be less salty. This made a huge pot of soup, enough to enjoy for lunch all week long and plenty extra to store in the freezer.

Achieving Cracker Barrel's Chicken Salad

2009-10-14T21:02:00.009-04:00

If you have ever eaten at a Cracker Barrel restaurant, you might have tried their wonderful chicken salad plate. For a while, when I first got back to the US after living abroad, every time I went to Cracker Barrel I only ordered their chicken salad plate. It is so very scrumptious that I could not bring myself to order anything else. There was something different about it that I just could not easily place, which is odd because I make lots of chicken salads at home. After making numerous different versions, I was sure I would have hit on that hidden taste.

As luck would have it, I happened to land on this recipe one day. It sounded very promising and I noticed right away that there were two ingredients that stood out to me as different. The first was the use of two types of chicken - both home cooked poached chicken along with some canned chicken. I had always just used home cooked chicken, or a rotisserie chicken at least. But canned? I don't even typically buy canned chicken meat. The other ingredient that caught my eye was the use of a bit of sour cream in the dressing. That instantly made sense to me, I could almost taste the difference that would make just thinking about it.

I did not follow the recipe exactly, but I did use it as a guide to capture that taste I was longing for. I started off with just one pound of my own micro-poached chicken breasts, which I chilled and diced. I also used one large can of chicken meat, which I broke up into shreds with a fork. This was quite a bit more canned chicken meat than the recipe had called for, but I really didn't want to measure out just half. As for the dressing ingredients, I used a bit more sour cream and added some salt and white pepper. Since I really only cared about the chicken salad itself, I did not make up the salad plate the way it would be served in the restaurant, which is with lettuce, tomato, hard boiled eggs, and a wedge of cheese. I simply scooped out a portion onto a bed of torn romaine lettuce leaves, and garnished it with some pecan halves.

The taste was really spot on. I was shocked, and I was delighted. I had finally found a version I loved and that really captured the flavors of the Cracker Barrel version. The sour cream definitely seemed to make the dressing work perfectly, and the mixture of the shredded and chunked chicken gave the salad the correct texture.

Here is my adapted version, based on the recipe linked above:

Just Like Cracker Barrel's Chicken Salad
(serves about 6)

1 pound poached chicken breast meat (about 4 skinless boneless halves), cut into chunks
1 large can (12.5 ounces) canned chicken meat (I used a reduced fat/salt version), drained
1 small celery rib, diced very finely
1 Tbsp red onion, diced very finely
1 Tbsp sweet pickle relish

dressing:
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/4-1/3 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp Miracle Whip salad dressing
salt and white pepper, to taste

Combine salad ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix together dressing ingredients, then toss with the chicken mixture to coat. Chill well and then taste and adjust seasonings, adding more dressing ingredients as needed.

Serve atop a bed of lettuce, garnished with either pecan halves or the Cracker Barrel way, with tomato, hard boiled eggs, and cheese.

A Classic Blueberry Muffin

2009-10-10T09:17:00.024-04:00

For some reason lately, I have been really in the mood for muffins for breakfast. Baking muffins is a wonderful way to start your weekend. Most muffin recipes are very easy to make, as long as you remember to not stir the batter to death (more on that later), and the ingredients are usually simple things most people who like to bake have on hand anyway. In about 10 minutes, you can usually whip up the batter, add in your fruits or other flavorings, and bake. In a half hour or so you have a lovely batch of warm, tender, fluffy, delicious muffins and your house smells like a coffee shop.

Since my waistline would not be happy with me if I ate the entire batch, I usually set aside however many I plan to serve and eat over the next few days, then give a few away and freeze the rest. My neighbors are usually quite appreciative of my excess baking treats and the rest that do make their way into my freezer sit there quite happily for up to one month. I freeze them in individual portions, so that I can take one out while I am getting ready in the morning. They keep really well frozen and thaw out quickly.

One of my favorite blueberry muffin recipes came out of an old community cookbook published in the 1980s, and the recipe supposedly came from Jordan Marsh's cafe, which was known for its sugar topped blueberry muffins. Jordan Marsh used to be a big department store, but eventually got gobbled up by the bigger Macy's. Luckily for the world of blueberry muffin eaters, one of their head bakers and holder of the cherished muffin recipe went into business on his own, selling bakery items for several years under the name The Jordan Marsh Muffin Company. Unfortunately, this shop eventually closed after the baker retired, and that icon of the 80s was gone for good.

I remember visiting a Jordan Marsh store years ago, although I sadly never got to sample one of their famed muffins. Therefore, I am not certain if these taste exactly like the originals, but they are quite scrumptious muffins. Versions of this muffin are all over the internet, but this particular version is a bit different because it particularly mentions crushing some of the fresh berries into the batter first, and also has the sugar coated tops. I also have this recipe posted here already if you would like an easy to print and less long-winded version.

Before you begin, I must tell you a few things about this recipe. First, you really must use cupcake liners or your muffins will stick like mad to the tins, even if you have fairly good quality nonstick pans that you have greased well. Trust me, I tried, and I offer my picture of a sadly torn muffin as evidence. Also, having made these with butter, margarine and shortening before, I have to say my current preference for this recipe is to use the margarine. It seems to make them a bit softer and puffier. I used butter this time and although they still tasted really yummy, for that coffee shop domed-top look, the margarine really does the trick best. You can also mix half butter and half margarine or shortening if you prefer.

The third and most important rule about this recipe is to use fresh berries only, frozen just make them soggy. Even if you thaw and drain the berries, which you would need to in order to mash some of them into the batter, they just come out subpar. If you can't get your hands on fresh blueberries, you can either use a different fresh berry or I am sorry to say, a different recipe.

Ok, lecture over, we can now begin ;)

Jordan Marsh Fresh Blueberry Muffins (as adapted from a recipe found in Enough to Feed an Army)

(12 large muffins)

2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries, washed and drained well (do not use frozen, sorry)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup margarine or butter or shortening, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup milk
coarse sugar, for topping the muffins (demerara works well, or sanding sugar)

Preheat your oven to 350 F and line 12 muffin tins with cupcake liners. You might also want to grease the tops of your tins around the edges of the holes, as these muffins will tend to grow out a bit.

Mash 1/2 cup of your berries and set them aside for now. Mix together your dry ingredients: the baking powder, salt, and flour. Sprinkle a few spoonfuls of the flour mixture over your remaining whole berries and toss them to coat. You don't need a lot - this is just to dust them with a little bit of the flour mixture so that they won't all sink to the bottom of the pans while baking.

Cream together the butter and sugar until it is well blended, then beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well after you add each. Beat in the mashed berries. Put your mixer away and grab a wooden spoon and stir in some of the flour mixture, some of the milk, and then some more of the flour mixture, alternating until it has all been mixed in. Remember when I mentioned earlier about not stirring your muffin batter to death? Overmixing muffin batter just makes it tough and makes your muffin tops flat. You just want to get everything blended, not beaten.

Gently stir in your flour dusted whole berries. Scoop the thick batter into your muffin tins. Sprinkle coarse sugar over the tops of each muffin. I was all out of demerara sugar when I made these for the picture, so they are missing their lovely, crunchy, sparkly tops.

Bake for about 25-35 minutes, testing with a toothpick to see if they are done. The toothpick might come out wet if you poke it into a berry, so don't be alarmed. If, however, you see wet batter sticking to your toothpick, the muffins are not quite ready yet. Allow the muffins to cool for about 10 minutes in the tins before removing them to wire racks to cool. These are best when still a little warm.

Blog Hopping: Pasta and Spinach Salad at Betty's Kitchen

2009-10-06T08:10:00.018-04:00

I wonder how many other bloggers and foodies out there do the same thing I do. I see a new cooking show or find a new blog and get so absorbed with the recipes that I have to try a bunch of them right away. I really enjoy seeing what others are making and trying out their new or at least new to me recipes, or their somewhat different variations on things I make all the time. Sometimes trying a slightly new version of your same old recipes brings them new life or in some cases offers a cheaper or faster alternative when you are credit crunching or just pressed for time.

Lately, Betty's Kitchen has caught my attention. She has a series of easy homestyle recipe videos that focus on simplicity and often are quite healthy renditions of some old favorites. All of her recipes contain very few ingredients, and the cost is often right on target with my current budget. I have already mentioned making her tasty muffins and chili cheese nachos previously. Last night I prepared Betty's Spinach Salad with Blueberries & Strawberries and her Baked Penne Rigate.

I love fruity spinach salads and often make my own versions, although I hadn't made one in a while. This easy version was the perfect thing on a night when I didn't really have time to be more elaborate, and it went over very well with my daughter, who was home sick with a bad cold and only wanted salad and fruit for dinner. I left out the cheese this time.

Italian Style pasta bakes are something I make a lot. They are very economical and are the type of dish that tends to please everyone. Baked Penne Rigate calls for ingredients I almost always have on hand ... pasta, spaghetti sauce, ground beef, Italian sausage .. and also would use up some of the cheese I had leftover from making lasagna last week, making this the perfect choice for me. For people who don't like tons of cheese in their pasta bakes, this is perfect, as it only calls for a few slices of mozzarella (I used leftover provolone instead) and a half cup of Parmesan. This was delicious and very meaty. I used Italian style turkey sausage and extra lean ground beef, and also added a bit of garlic.

Credit Crunch Dinners: Chili Three Ways

2009-09-30T09:57:00.006-04:00

Considering how easy and inexpensive chili is to make, you would have thought I would make it much more often. Not only are beans extremely cheap, they also taste great and pack a huge nutritional punch. And chili has to be one of the ultimate credit crunching meals. It just stretches so far - I made a fairly small batch a few nights ago and had more than enough to enjoy it for several meals afterwards.

The first night, I simply served it as is, garnished with some shredded cheese and chopped raw red onions for a bit of color and crunch. I used a recipe I found here that called for a crockpot. What a great idea! Why had it never occurred to me to make chili in a slow cooker before? I think I am still on the hunt for the perfect chili recipe for my tastes, but the crockpot method was a real winner.

The next night, I transformed some of the leftover chili into Chili Cheese Nachos. Using a recipe I found here as a guide, I added some refried beans with mild green chilies to some of my crockpot chili leftovers and heated it up. I then poured that over some tortilla chips, sprinkled cheese over the top, and baked at 400F for about 5-10 minutes, until the cheese was fully melted. I then garnished the nachos with some jalapeno slices and sour cream.

Meal three was just Chili Dogs, steamed hotdogs with some of the chili-refried beans mixture spooned on top, and garnished with red onions and brown mustard.

Lasagna Dinner with Peach Cobbler for Dessert

2009-09-29T12:13:00.019-04:00

My daughter had a friend sleep over this weekend, so I decided to make my standard, easy lasagna for dinner. This is one of those simple recipes I can make without really thinking about it, and it generally seems to please anyone who tastes it. It makes a ton of food, but the remaining servings freeze beautifully. I normally would have made my own sauce for this, but I wasn't feeling up to making it this time, so I tried some bottled sauce by Emeril Lagasse; about 1 full jar is plenty for this recipe.

I start by parboiling the noodles, which is simply dipping them into boiling water for a few minutes until they become pliable. I then set them out on cooling racks while I get the rest of the ingredients ready. It costs a lot more to buy the "no boil" lasagna noodles and I have found that if you simply use the ordinary dry lasagna sheets, they sometimes can rob too much moisture from the rest of the recipe. Parboiling them doesn't take very long at all, the noodles retain their shape enough to lay them straight in the pan without tearing, and the lasagna comes out with the correct balance of moisture.

This particular version of lasagna is more the Italian-American style, meaning there is no bechamel sauce as would be more typical in true European versions. The filling is simply a mixture of ricotta cheese (or in a pinch you can use well drained small curd cottage cheese), some chopped parsley, some freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and some shredded mozzarella, bound together with an egg or two and seasoned with some garlic, salt and pepper. I then layer the parboiled noodles, some meat sauce, and some of the filling, then top it all off with some slices of provolone or mozzarella cheese, cover tightly with foil, and bake for about 45 minutes. After baking, I allow the lasagna to rest while I heat up some garlic bread in the oven. The resting period allows the lasagna to settle and cool slightly, so you don't end up scalding your tongue or having gloppy cheese oozing all over when you cut into the slices. You can find my Lasagna recipe already posted here.

My local grocery store had huge, gorgeous Georgia peaches on sale this week, so I decided to try out Paula Deen's recipe for Fresh Peach Cobbler. There seems to be quite a difference in the types of cobblers you get, depending on where they are served and who makes them. Some versions have the filling on the bottom, and a cookie like dough is placed on top of the filling in small rounds. Other versions have a somewhat wetter batter-like topping that gets haphazardly dropped on top of the filling, almost like dumplings. Paula's version starts with the batter on the bottom, with the filling set on top. As the cobbler bakes, the filling sinks and the batter rises, producing an almost cake like topping. It was very good, not too rich, just right. And what a difference it makes using fresh peaches. This made just a small family sized cobbler, which was perfect.

I was in the Mood for Muffins

2009-09-26T08:55:00.025-04:00

I recently discovered Betty's Kitchen and her very nice collection of simple, easy recipes. When I saw her video demo of Cracklin' Oat Bran Muffins, I knew right away that I had to give them a try. Cracklin' Oat Bran cereal is very crunchy, as if you bashed up a crunchy honey & cinnamon granola bar. I've always kind of liked it, although I have never actually eaten it as a breakfast cereal, but rather as something to nibble on for energy in a snack mix. Using Cracklin' Oat Bran as an ingredient in a muffin sounded really clever and definitely something I wanted to test out.

In Betty's recipe, two cups of this cereal get soaked for about 20 minutes in milk. The softened mixture then gets stirred into a quick, extremely easy, and very tasty muffin batter of self-rising flour, a little sugar, an egg, and a very small amount of oil (the recipe is in the link above). They puffed up into nice tall, golden domes, making them look very appealing. The outside crisped up just a bit more than I would have personally liked, but the interior was soft and pillowy and oh so tasty. For a healthier muffin, these really worked out well.

They tasted so rich and buttery, but there is not actually any butter added to the recipe, just a little canola oil. If you don't have any Cracklin' Oat Bran, I think you could easily substitute crunchy granola or break up some granola bars. I will certainly be making these again. These even passed the I'm-getting-older-so-now-I'm-suddenly-picky daughter test, although she did suggest adding some chopped apples next time.

Zucchini Pineapple Tea Loaf

2009-09-20T11:27:00.006-04:00

I have fond memories of eating zucchini bread as a child. I remember clearly the first time I ever tasted it, sitting outside in my neighbor's yard on a sunny day. I was handed a gorgeous slice of bread that tasted more like cake, with a cinnamony cookie-like scent, speckled with nuts. I can remember how the sunlight made the tiny green flecks of the zucchini look like emerald chips scattered across the bread. It was delicious and I was from that moment on, hooked. Zucchini bread had entered the ranks of my favorites foods on earth. Sadly, since I was very young at the time, I was not quite at the age where I was comfortable demanding recipes, and in fact, was probably not even cooking much yet without the assistance of my grandmother or mom. If mom ever pried the recipe out of my neighbor, it has probably been lost, as I can't remember mom ever making it.

I tried a lot of zucchini bread recipes, enjoying many of them, even though none quite matched that first slice in taste. I had finally found a recipe I liked a lot, enough to repeat making, and for a while, that was "my" zucchini bread recipe. But then I moved next door to a bubbly, friendly decorating student named Tobi. She also loved to bake and offered me a zucchini bread baking challenge. She bet me that hers was better, and I was up for it. I was a winner either way, with two loaves of a favorite treat to test out. I baked my then favorite recipe, she baked hers. And well, one bite into hers and I knew she had a real winner. It was so moist and tender, and the color was beautiful. The secret to its moistness and flavor was crushed pineapple. She very kindly shared the recipe, and a long-standing friendship was started.

So here I give you Tobi's Fabulous Zucchini-Pineapple bread:
(makes 2 loaves)

wet mixture:
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups shredded zucchini (leave the skin on)
1 cup canola or sunflower oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups sugar
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained

dry mixture:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 F and have ready two 9x5" sized loaf tins, lined with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, thoroughly mix together the wet ingredients. In a small bowl, mix together the dry ingredients and the nuts. Combine the two mixtures together, stirring with a wooden spoon only long enough to combine everything together, leaving no dry patches. Overmixing will make the bread flat and tough. Pour the bread batter into the prepared pans and bake for about 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a toothpick tests clean when poked into the center. If the bread is browning too much, tent with foil.

Allow the loaves to cool completely in the tins. If you try to take them out too soon, they will fall apart into a pile of moist crumbs. If you can stand to wait even longer, this bread tastes better after being chilled overnight.

Cooking with Melissa: Yummy Shrimp Linguine with Roasted Broccoli

2009-09-19T08:40:00.017-04:00

Since moving back to the US, I have had a dire lack of really good and fresh seafood, which strikes me as highly ironic. Florida is so very much in contact with huge bodies of water, it just seemed natural to me that fresh seafood would not be hard at all to come by. Unfortunately, at least in this area of Florida, I haven't found a great source for fresh fish yet. I am still on the hunt, and I am certain I will track down something, I am even keeping cooler bags in my trunk just in case I spy something while out exploring. Shrimp, at least, is one of the few fish items I have always found acceptable after freezing, so Melissa's Lemony Shrimp Scampi and Linguine jumped out at me and cried make me, make me!

Shrimp was even on sale, for $4.99/pound, and her recipe only required 3/4 lb, so I was already off to a good start. As luck would have it, broccoli, lemons, and linguine were also all on sale, so this meal was definitely not only fitting the theme of her "10 dollar promise" on the show, but my budget was pretty happy about it too ;) All of the remaining ingredients were kitchen staples, so I was in and out of the store very quickly.

I started heating the water for my pasta while I prepped my ingredients. I can tell you right now that "easy peel" on a package of frozen shrimp is a slight misnomer. The shells have a slit cut into them, so that you can peel it apart and remove it faster than if you had to make the slits yourself. This only ended up saving a minimal amount of my time, as every single shrimp still had a nasty black sandy vein. This has to be one of the most tedious and miserable tasks in cleaning shrimp. It took ages. AGES. And I still had to butterfly each shrimp afterwards! Grr. Needless to say, my pasta was completely cooked and waiting for me by the time I even started the shrimp stock.

While the shrimp stock was bubbling away, I decided to get my broccoli in the oven. It was very simple - drizzle each stalk with olive oil, add some seasoning, then roast for 15 minutes, flip over, sprinkle on a touch of Parmesan and roast a little longer. (Melissa's recipe said another 5 minutes, next time I am going with 10). I have to say that this part of the meal was its shining star. What a wonderful, delicious, easy to make side dish. The broccoli stalks looked gorgeous and roasting them made them taste like a snack, something you want to pick up with your fingers and nibble on the sly. I think I have a new favorite way to serve broccoli. The recipe can be found here.

The shrimp and sauce took almost no time at all to cook. Once the stock was finished, it was just a matter of sauteeing the shrimp briefly, removing them from pan, adding the sauce ingredients and letting the sauce reduce down. I refreshed my slightly dried out linguine with some boiling water and added it to the sauce, which it happily drank up. The shrimp, sauce, and pasta all get tossed together and then it is finally ready.

It turned out delicious, although I think the shrimp would have been better served if they had been cooked at the very last minute in a separate pan, as they were perfect when I first removed them, but got cold and almost overcooked while sitting in their own steam waiting on the sauce reduction. This is a good recipe with great flavor, but I think I will still go back to my usual and much simpler go-to scampi recipe, which is every bit as good and does not require quite as many messy and time-consuming steps.

Putting my own spin on traditional Manx Bonnag

2009-09-15T09:56:00.008-04:00

I have been hosting a two month long culinary tour of the British Islands & Ireland over on Recipezaar.com and this week's stop is the Isle of Man. Not the most well known of the islands, recipes for Manx cuisine are pretty hard to track down. One of the more famous and traditional dishes Manx food is known for is the Bonnag, a sweet bread that although it may resemble an Irish Soda bread, really tastes nothing like it. It has a smooth, crisp crust with a light, soft interior. This is a true slicing bread, and it tastes great toasted and served with some whipped butter and jam.

I researched quite a few different recipes floating around the internet on various Isle of Man websites, and decided to come up with my own version, which I tested using American measuring cups (which measure by volume not weight). I had noticed a bit of disparity from recipe to recipe in the amount of flour to use, which I suspect had a lot to do with people confusing the amount of ounces to use when converting from Metric to Imperial.

Some recipes call for just a plain bread, without fruit or spice, but I had some dried cranberries I needed to use up, so I opted for a berry studded version. It turned out really nice, tender and delicious. Sweet without being too cakey sweet. Perfect with a cup of tea.

Manx Style Berry Bonnag (somewhat based on a version found here)
(makes 1 loaf)

2 tsp lemon juice
1 cup milk (I used skim milk, any is fine), scant, plus a bit extra for brushing the top later
3 cups all purpose flour (plain flour), plus extra for kneading
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 pinch salt
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup dried cranberries (or any dried berry)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C)

Pour lemon juice into a measuring cup, then fill to the 1 cup line with milk. Do not stir! Allow to rest for 10-15 minutes. It should thicken a bit. Meanwhile, mix together the dry ingredients (except the dried berries), then rub in the butter until it has been fully incorporated. Stir in the berries. Make a well, then pour in the vanilla and the milk mixture, stirring just enough to combine everything, leaving no dry patches. If you overmix, the dough will get pretty tough, so try to be gentle.

Take a look at your dough.. it should be still quite soft and a bit wet, but it should not still be a gloppy batter. If it is, then add a bit more flour until you do have a mass you can actually scrape out of the bowl into a ball. Drop the dough ball onto a lightly floured surface, then sprinkle a bit more flour over the top of the dough. Dust your hands with some flour while you are at it. Knead very, very gently - just a few times - over handling the dough will make it terribly chewy and dense. Put the dough into a greased 8" round cake tin and slash the top with a knife, making an X. Brush the top with a tiny bit of milk.

Bake for about 45-55 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean and the loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow on the bottom if you tap it. Allow to cool for 30 minutes on a wire rack before slicing.

Baking the Bake-Off: Project 2 Kiss Me Cake

2009-09-13T09:05:00.008-04:00

For the next installment in my Baking the Bake-Off project, I tackled the second winner, from way back in 1950, which was an orange coffeecake called "Orange Kiss Me Cake." This recipe sounded very promising, as I usually love coffeecakes (any excuse to dunk something into coffee...). When comparing my old thrift shop find Pillsbury Bake-Off cookbook and the online version of the recipe, I was very happy to see that this time, there had not been any changes to the ingredients (barring the suggestion to use butter or margarine instead of shortening). Pillsbury's site has assumed today's home cook will use both a food processor and an electric mixer, so they updated the instructions somewhat, which I did find both appropriate and helpful. The main change being that in the original version, you were instructed to hand grind a whole orange, nuts, and raisins together. Thank you Cuisinart for the 2 minutes this step took! I can't imagine having to hand grind those ingredients.

One part of the recipe that stuck out at me was the use of an entire orange. Many citrus based based recipes do call for using the zest and juice of a fruit, but in this recipe, after juicing the orange, the instructions in both versions say to grind up the entire remaining rind and pulp. I hesitated here. Haven't I always been instructed to be careful when zesting? To not dig too deeply down into the bitter white pith hiding beneath the luscious orange colored part of the peel? This recipe seemed to call for the entire thing, pith and all, the only suggestion was to remove the seeds. I decided I wanted to be true to the original recipe, and despite my strong inclination to just scrape off the zest and dig out the flesh, I did as instructed and dropped the whole thing into the bowl of my food processor, added the nuts and raisins, and hit the switch. The smell was wonderful, a strong earthy orangey aroma.

The rest of the cake was pretty straighforward - all of the batter ingredients get mixed together and poured into a large 9x13" pan, baked, then the warm cake is drizzled with the orange juice and liberally coated with cinnamon sugar and nuts. Then there was agonizing hour long wait for the cake to cool and for the juice to setttle into the cake. I plucked off a nut in anticipation. I brewed coffee. Tick Tick Tick.

Finally the hour was up and I could taste the cake. My daughter surprisingly loved it, which I had not expected since she had wrinkled her nose at the Chocolate Orange Drizzle Cake I had made a few months ago. I liked it, could see why it won.. it was a brilliantly economical recipe, and very very moist. Personally, this cake was a bit too orangey flavored for me, in the way orange soda is too orangey and sweet. I could have done with less potent orange and more cinnamon and nut. Or perhaps use grapefruit or lemon .. or maybe even key lime instead, with macadamia nuts.

Discovering a Classic: Red Beans & Rice

2009-09-12T13:00:00.000-04:00

You would think that after having lived in several different states in the Southern US, I would have at least tasted the classic Red Beans & Rice before. Growing up in the Northeast, this was not a dish I had been familiar with as a kid. It was not served at home, and I can't recall ever seeing it on a menu. Even when I eventually moved and lived in the South, I still don't remember seeing this advertised on many restaurant menus, unless it perhaps was part of some horrible buffet line on a theme night. If I had tasted it at all, it had not left an imprint on my taste buds and certainly had not been homemade. I think this is more of a home-style dish anyway, not really the sort of thing you would normally even expect to find on a menu. It is inexpensive to make, comforting, and so very easy to prepare. And it is really very tasty. I honestly don't know how I spent my life without it until now.

There are several ways to make this dish, but here is the way I prepared it:

Red Beans & Rice (somewhat based on Goya's recipe)
(4 servings)

2 tsp olive oil, approximately (most versions call for more, but I was happy with this amount)
1 small onion, diced (about 1/2 cup)
2 stalks celery, diced
1 small red bell pepper, seeded, diced
1 pkg Hillshire Farms cooked smoked sausage (I used turkey sausage, as it is less greasy and I like the taste), sliced into rounds) or a few cups of diced ham chunks
1-2 (15 ounce size) cans red or pink beans, drained, rinsed well, and drained again
1 packet Sazon Goya seasoning (I used the Cilantro & Annato flavor) or about 2-3 Tbsp Creole or Cajun Seasoning
1/4-1/2 cup unseasoned tomato sauce or passata
1/4-1/2 cup water
3-4 cups hot cooked rice

Heat oil in a large skillet, then add the onions, peppers, and celery. Saute for about 5-10 minutes over about medium-low heat until the veggies have softened up somewhat. Add the sausage slices and allow to cook about 10 minutes, until the meat has fully heated through, or in the case of the sausage, until it looks like it is covered with droplets of water. Add the beans, tomato sauce, water, and your seasoning blend of choice. I like the Sazon Goya blend because it gives a nice color and flavor without making it taste too salty. Allow this to simmer over low heat for another 10 minutes. Mix the sauce with hot cooked rice and serve. Simple, easy, yummy.

Sometimes.... Cookies are Required

2009-09-08T11:15:00.014-04:00

I believe there are certain times in one's life when cookies are required. One such time is when you miss someone you love, or that person is unwell and you want to give him or her a huge box of comfort. My grandma had a stroke recently, so she most certainly qualified for a gigantic box of home baked cookies on both counts. I had already been planning to make some cookies as a birthday gift for my best friend, so I decided to have a massive baking day to send them both some home baked hugs and cheer.

First on my baking list had to be some form of Chocolate Chip Cookies. I have a few favorite recipes I turn to for this quintessential and universally loved cookie, sometimes adding coffee for a mocha flavor, or peanut butter in place of some of the butter for a really rich nuttiness, or stirring in other crunchy bits such as dried cherries or walnuts. This time however, I stuck with a basic plain chocolate chip recipe I have made several times before, and just used really terrific chocolate, Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet baking chips. The recipe I used can be found here.

I also made a huge batch of my favorite Spice Cookies which are crispy on the outside like a gingersnap, and chewy on the inside. The scent of these cookies baking is so amazing! The dough is heavily laced with a mix of ginger, cloves, cardamon, cinnamon, and nutmeg. As these bake, your whole house smells as if you live inside a gingerbread castle. I have the recipe posted here.

My stepmom has a really good Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe, so I made a batch of those as well. It was only after tossing in a huge handful of nuts that it occurred to me that my grandmother might not want nuts in her cookies. I tried to recall ever being served anything at her house that contained nuts, and while my head was filled with images of pound cakes, rice pudding, and lemon meringue pie, I could not recall a single treat my grandmother has ever made for me that contained nuts.

Then again, perhaps she thinks I dislike nuts, and therefore never made anything that contained them for me. I used to have a slew of so-called childhood food allergies, which included nuts, although to be very honest I ate them on the sly all the time and never once got sick. I knew full well why the doctor thought I was "allergic to nuts" - my great grandma and I had polished off two massive bags of family-sized peanut M&Ms in one day and that would make any kid sick.

Anyway .... I decided at the last minute to leave out the oatmeal cookies from my Grandma's box and only sent them to my best friend, who as it turns out loves nuts in his cookies but isn't terribly fond of raisins in them. /sigh

Luckily, I also tried out a new recipe for Lemon Crinkle Cookies that made up for the whole raisin-nut faux pas. Like the spice cookies, these were crispy and crinkly on the outside, chewy on the inside ... only these have a soft ribbon of delicious lemony goodness in the center that magically appears while baking. You can't quite see it well in the photo, but the outside is covered in glistening coarse white sugar. These were incredibly scrumptious and I really wished I had made a double batch.

Oh, and in case you were all wondering, my dad sent word that my grandmother is doing quite well. The women in my gene pool are a bit like rubber bands - we tend to bounce back from medical adversity really well. She made a full recovery after her stroke, and is back to her usual self, with no loss of any of the things you normally would associate with such a traumatic event. I know it would be quite romantic to think the cookies had some special powers, but actually she made this recovery before a single cookie had been baked.

And as for my best friend.. he loved the birthday cookies, even polishing off all of the oatmeal cookies, raisins and all.

Souper Sundays: Pear Gazpacho

2009-09-06T13:16:00.011-04:00

For this week's Souper Sundays event, hosted by Deb at Kahakai Kitchen, I decided to make Pear Gazpacho. I can vividly recall the first time I ever tasted this unique soup. I was sitting outside in the backyard of my friend Vicky's beautiful farmhouse rental in the outskirts of Bonn, Germany. It was unseasonably hot, but not unbearably so, and an absolutely beautiful bright and still sunny summer evening. All of the food served was delicious, all prepared by Vicky and her husband at home. One of the stand-outs was this unusual version of the classic Spanish cold soup, gazpacho, which Vicky served in tiny shot glasses garnished with a dollop of crème fraîche and some tiny slivers of fresh basil. It was so refreshing on that hot day and so pretty and elegant.

This is not at all a traditional version, it is only gazpacho in its resemblance to the original, a mere nod towards Spain. In fact, it is quite possibly Vicky's own creation. When I asked if she would share the recipe with me, I remember her blushing slightly, as if apologizing for its simplicity. It contains only three ingredients, plus seasonings and garnish. This went over very well with the women at the party, not so much with the men. When I made this at home, my daughter liked it, but also added "I don't like so many herbs in my soup."

Pear Gazpacho (based on my friend Vicky's recipe)

1 (15 ounce) can pears in juice, undrained
1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes, seasoned with basil, oregano & garlic
fresh basil, cut into chiffonade strips
crème fraîche or sour cream, to garnish
salt and pepper, to taste

Puree the pears and tomatoes together in a blender. Add some fresh basil and pulse to blend. Season to taste. Chill several hours until cold. Serve in shot glasses or bowls, garnished with a dollop of crème fraîche or sour cream, and a few extra strips of fresh basil.

Cooking Along with Melissa: Salmon Fishcakes Supper

2009-09-04T12:09:00.024-04:00

As you may remember, last week I tried out some of the recipes from the new The Next Food Network Star cooking program on Food Network, $10 Dinners with Melissa D'Arabian. Since I'd had a reasonable amount of success last time, and simply because I am really enjoying the show so far, I decided to make her next menu as well this week. She prepared something I already am very familiar with, Salmon Fishcakes, which I make pretty much any time I have leftover salmon. To accompany the salmon fishcakes, she made some oven roasted asparagus and an orzo pasta side dish. As always, Melissa promised that everything would be fairly inexpensive and easy to prepare. While I am not quite as concerned about the ease of a given recipe, I am always concerned about the cost, especially these days when constantly reminded of how many other people out there still need a decent job. And after all, the entire premise of the show is to prove that you can serve 4 hungry people a nice meal with a budget of just $10.

Off to the market I ran.. well erm ... ok I drove. Running to the market is something I blissfully could do in London, not in the sweltering heat of Florida. Ok fine, so I never actually ran.. but I did quite often walk to the market at least. Anyway.. my first stop, as always, was the produce department. Melissa did mention that the asparagus called for in her recipe might be pricey when it is off season, but would fit her $10 meal budget when it is fresh and in season. Florida only seems to have two seasons, nearly endless summer and something less humid than summer. Does this mean my asparagus was going to be cheap? Nope, $2.49 a pound and a tiny bundle weighed over a pound, so the asparagus was bypassed for some much more reasonably priced and very fresh looking broccoli. I decided I would simply steam the broccoli as usual and just add the vinaigrette Melissa had used on her asparagus at the end. This worked out ok, but neither my daughter nor myself were huge fans of the flavor of the vinaigrette with the broccoli.

I already had some Orzo in the house that I had dragged with me all the way from London, and all of the remaining ingredients for this dish were standard items I always have in my kitchen anyway: lemon zest, chicken stock, basic seasonings, garlic. The only thing I needed to buy for it was the fresh thyme, since I no longer have a fresh herb garden to randomly pluck from like I did back in the UK. /sigh. Well, at least this was not pricey, and honestly I am certain you could substitute whichever herb you like as long as it is colorful and fresh. The orzo, just in case you didn't happen to tuck some into your bags upon leaving London, did indeed fit the budget - it was about $.99 for a whole box, and you only use 3/4 cup in the recipe for 4 servings.

Next stop was the canned foods aisle for a tin of canned salmon. I was really very hesitant about this ingredient, since I don't usually like it canned. When I make my own version of fishcakes, I use up whatever leftover fresh fish I had made the night before. However, Melissa had pointed out that the canned salmon was very inexpensive and would taste great in her fishcakes. I decided that if the same tin Melissa had used was on sale, I would give it a try. I stood before the rows of red tins and glared at the little sale card. I could have chosen the smaller pretty pink cans of de-boned and de-skinned salmon, but they were more pricey, and I was trying to stick to the spirit of the tv show here. So I dropped the red Alaskan on sale salmon into my cart and mentally groaned at the thought of having to pluck out all the nasty bits of slimy skin and brittle edible bones. Does anyone besides the family cat ever actually eat those bones anyway? /shudder.

As for the orzo recipe, the remaining ingredients needed were all staples in my house, a potato, a small onion, some breadcrumbs, basic seasonings, a bit of mayo, a little Parmesan, Dijon mustard, bacon. The thought of a bit of bacon and potato mixed into my fishcakes filler sounded very appealing to me, not to mention I had a half bag of potatoes as well as some leftover bacon to use up in my fridge at home.

The entire menu, barring the 20 minutes I had to spend plucking bones out of my canned salmon, really came together very quickly and with great ease. The fishcakes were very straightforward - mix everything together, form into small patties, roll in some seasoned breadcrumbs and pan fry in what seems to me to be an excessive amount of oil. My usual recipe for fishcakes requires only a tiny bit of oil. I really don't think you need you need 1/2 cup, 1/4 cup total was fine and even then, I'd still use less next time.

Despite my misgivings about the canned salmon, these little cakes were flavorful, and filling. I thought the bacon in these was wonderful. I would make them again, but I would definitely prefer to use leftover fresh salmon or, if I really wanted to stick to canned fish, I'd try them with albacore tuna in water. I think smoked haddock would also be marvelous in this particular recipe. If you'd like to try out Melissa's recipe, you can find it here.

As for the side dishes, I was pretty happy with how the orzo turned out in general. Melissa had described it as having an almost risotto-like consistency, a bit creamy and smooth, only using pasta instead of rice. I'm not sure I'd quite call it creamy in the same sense, but it was definitely a different and tasty way to serve orzo, an ingredient which I have usually relegated to the role of a soup noodle. In this recipe, the orzo gets cooked in chicken broth that has been flavored with some fresh garlic and hot pepper flakes, although there was absolutely no heat at all in the finished dish. You could easily add any sort of seasoning you prefer to this, and just keep the same method of simmering it slowly in the stock to give it that smooth texture. The recipe for the Orzo with Thyme & Lemon Zest can be found here.

Baking the Bake-Off: Project 1 Nut Twists

2009-08-30T10:10:00.010-04:00

Ah the great Pillsbury Bake-Off! Something about that famed contest has always intrigued me, although I have never personally had the opportunity to join in the fun and excitement. Throughout my life, I have eaten several of the recipes that had once taken home the grand prize, without even realizing they had originated in that grande dame of American baking contests. I had no clue that recipes such as Peanut Blossoms, a bake sale classic, and the delicious Tunnel of Fudge Cake had gotten their start in the Pillsbury Bake-off. There are some fantastic recipes that have made their way through that contest!

My boxes of household goods have finally all arrived from London and I am currently digging my way through them unpacking. If I can ever get fully moved in, find a stable job, and my life is slightly less complicated than it is at the moment, I would love to enter the Bake-Off someday, especially since the competition is now held in, of all places,.. Florida! Yay! I have so many ideas that I would love to try out on the judges and see what they think. Well maybe someday .. at least it is a more realistic possibility now that I live closer to the event itself.

Recently, the Food Network has started re-airing the most recent competition, gearing up towards the next big event in 2010. Inspired by the show, I decided to do something I had been meaning to do for years... start baking the Bake-off recipes, one by one. I had already made some of the recipes in the past, but never sat down and methodically went through the prize winners, year by year, trying out each one and seeing for myself why each of them won that huge prize. Hopefully, I will be able to continue my quest to bake them all off and write about my journey.

The very first winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off, back in 1949, was No-Knead Water-Rising Twists. The twists are somewhat like cinnamon buns, only without icing and they are of course shaped differently. Pillsbury's website has a modified version up that has "modernized" the recipe to make it easier for today's cooks. After making the recipe using the original version, I have a better understanding of why they did this. However, I still wanted to try the actual version of the recipe that won, tricky steps and all. It was, after all, the recipe that launched such a classic, massive contest... I really didn't want to try the quickie version. It just felt like cheating to me. Luckily for me, I happen to have a copy of one of the first Pillsbury Bake-Off cookbooks, a treasure picked up at a yard sale. If you would like to try the updated version, which I imagine is still quite good and for all I know, may indeed be an improvement, you can find the new recipe here.

As I began preparing my ingredients for the recipe, I immediately noticed some significant changes... the amount of flour was 3 cups in the original, and the modern version is 2 1/2-3 1/2 cups. The modern version uses more sugar, less salt, fewer eggs and nuts, butter or margarine instead of shortening, and more milk. That seems like a lot of changes to me! The methods used to mix the ingredients were updated as well, and some of those changes account for the simple fact that we have more gadgets and electric kitchen tools at our disposal than most home cooks would have had access to back in 1949, so I can see why such updates were suggested. There is no longer a need, in the US, anyway, to scald milk, as our milk comes pasteurized. It simply needs to be warmed up so that the fat can be melted and blended into it smoothly.

There was one change that did stand out to me though that made me scratch my head and wonder why they changed it, since it is quite possibly a huge reason why this recipe stood out from the pack in the first place... they had removed the "water rising" method. It seems to me a bit odd to call a recipe "water-rising" when the dough is actually left to rise in the usual way, in a bowl until doubled, covered with a damp cloth. Isn't that just normal "air-rising?" While I was perfectly happy to use an electric mixer for part of the process, I was determined to at least try out the old fashioned "water-rising" technique, a process that involves wrapping the dough in a tea towel, tying it up, and leaving it to rise in a bowl of warm water. Yes.. the dough soaks in water, yes the dough is and should be quite damp. It reminded me of the way a Clootie Dumpling is traditionally prepared. Perhaps this change was based on the assumption that not many cooks these days have a pile of clean tea towels lying around just waiting to be used to soak dough in. Realistically, this is probably a pretty accurate assumption.

The water-rising method was actually pretty cool. I found it fascinating seeing the wet mass of raw dough get tied up neatly into its cloth sack and left to soak in its warm bath. As the dough rises, it begins to float higher and higher in the bowl, until it is truly bobbing like a raft. Upon opening the cloth, I was delighted to see that the dough had really changed dramatically during its soak - it had grown and instead of just being a sticky wet mess, it had elasticity and although still a very wet dough, did not glue itself to my fingers like paste. It is still pretty sticky, but it is supposed to be, as the next step is scooping out blobs of the dough with a spoon and then dropping them into a dish of cinnamon, sugar, and nuts, and letting them roll around and get coated with all that yummy goodness. The dough then gets stretched into long twists or "S" shapes and placed onto greased baking sheets, ready to puff up in the oven. The original made 2 dozen twists, the modern version suggests only making 1 dozen, mine ended up being 1 1/2 dozen.

These were really light in texture and not overly sweet, perfect with a cup of hot tea or dunked into coffee. I would personally like more cinnamon, so next time I might add a bit more. These didn't keep very well, which was a shame as they were really great the first day. I think the leftovers would be really nice torn up and used in a bread pudding.

Here is the version I used, as found in Pillsbury's Best 1000 Recipes Best of the Bake-Off Collection, 1959:

No-Knead Water-Rising Twists, (based on the original version by Mrs Ralph E. Smafield)
(1-2 dozen breakfast buns)

1/2 cup shortening, butter, or margarine (original used shortening)
3 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk, warmed
1/4 cup water, lukewarm
2 packets of active dry yeast (each packet is 2 1/4 tsp)
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted, divided
3 large eggs, unbeaten

Topping:
3/4 cups chopped nuts (I used pecans)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon (or more to taste)

Combine shortening, sugar, salt, vanilla, and warm milk until smooth, allow mixture to cool to lukewarm. (The modern version suggests mixing these in a saucepan on the stove, which I think is a good suggestion).

Meanwhile, combine yeast with the warm water and allow to sit until frothy, about 5 minutes. Add this to the shortening mixture. Add in half of the flour and beat until smooth (you can use a sturdy mixer for this step if you prefer). Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Since I was sitting around anyway, I went ahead and mixed up the ingredients for the topping in a small bowl and set them aside. I also greased two baking sheets (next time, I would line them with parchment instead).

Add in one egg at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the remaining flour gradually until it is all combined and you have a smooth dough without any lumps or dry spots.

Get out a clean tea towel and a large, deep bowl. Now, since you will be soaking your dough wrapped inside a cloth, you want to be certain this towel is not only clean, but be certain you have not used any fabric softeners or dryer sheets when you washed it, as they tend to leave behind a residue that I doubt anyone wants to be ingesting. I have a pretty unreasonably large collection of clean cloths I specifically use only for baking, so for me this was not a problem. I suspect you would get similar results placing the dough inside a plastic airtight baggie, so next time I might test that out as an alternative. The modern version suggests allowing the dough to rise in a bowl covered with a damp cloth and plastic wrap.

Lay out your towel and place the dough in the center. The dough will be like a thick wet batter. Gather up two edges of the cloth and tie them together, leaving enough room inside for a large pocket of air; repeat with the opposite corners. The idea is to contain the dough inside the cloth, leaving enough room for it to grow inside the cloth. Set the dough sack into a large bowl and then pour in warm water all around the sides, filling the bowl nearly full. Allow the dough to sit in its bath for about 35-45 minutes, or until the dough has risen to the top of the water.

Preheat your oven to 375 F. Remove the dough sack from the water and set it into a clean bowl. Open the cloth - the dough's texture will have changed considerably, but it should still be a fairly soft and somewhat wet dough. Grab your prepared baking sheets, your cinnamon nut topping, and an ordinary flatware tablespoon. Scoop out a nice sized blob of dough and drop it into your topping bowl. Roll the dough ball around to coat it thoroughly, then lift it, shaking off the excess, and then stretch it to about 8" in length. Twist the dough like a corkscrew and then place onto the baking sheets - you can leave them straight like batons or curve the dough into "S" shapes or snail shapes as you prefer. This would be a great part to let kids do with you, as it was easy and quite fun to work with.

Pop the twists into the oven and allow them to bake for about 12-15 minutes (the modern version suggests 8-16). They should be puffed and lightly golden, and they may still appear slightly glistening on the exterior. Remove to wire racks to cool slightly and eat while still warm.

The Chicken, the Orange, and the Great Big Messy Kitchen

2009-08-25T19:48:00.033-04:00

Oh wow, so where do I begin on this one? This was supposed to be such an easy, inexpensive, just elegant meal. Hah! Have you ever had one of those nights when no matter what you do, everything just seems to be going against you. I started off with a great plan, a simple plan: Watch new cooking program, buy ingredients, cook incredibly easy recipes, enjoy relaxing meal. The show was the new $10 Dinners with Melissa D'Arabian, the latest winner of The Next Food Network Star. She made it look easy and promised everything was really cheap to make.

List in hand, I rushed down to my local grocery and was very pleased to see bone-in chicken breasts (for the Chicken à l'Orange) were on sale this week, at a mere $.99 a pound, a huge savings! The recipe only calls for chicken, honey, salt and pepper, oil, and some frozen OJ concentrate. Melissa made some crispy potatoes to serve as a side dish, I already had a nice big sack of Yukon Golds sitting in my pantry at home. The remaining items were for the salad, a fennel cole slaw. I wasn't really sure about that slaw, but I thought, what the heck, I will give it a try - it is supposed to be inexpensive and I do like the taste of licoricey fennel even if my daughter probably would not. $2.99 a pound for a vegetable! I dug through the pile and tried to find the smallest, lightest bulb.. plunked it into the scale and gasped ... it weighed in at 1 1/2 pounds. I just wasn't about to spend $4.50 on one vegetable for a salad I was likely going to be the only one eating. So no slaw, just a simple tossed salad instead.

Now you would think that with a recipe that only has 3 main ingredients, I would have easily remembered them all. I somehow managed to forget all about the orange juice concentrate, an ingredient I never usually buy. I had regular orange juice in the house, but I wasn't sure if it would really work in this case without reducing it far longer than I felt like bothering with. So back to the store I went for the missing OJ concentrate.

OK because I don't feel like writing this anymore, some key points: The pan I used to brown the chicken in was too small and I did the thing I have always been warned never to do - I crowded the pan. And alas, my poor chicken suffered miserably. It took forever for the skin to brown, since everything was basically steaming in the very small pot. I eventually gave up struggling with it and used the pan my potatoes had browned in to brown some of the chicken. It worked much more quickly that way, of course. Amazing thing following the directions is, huh? Once my chicken skin was nice and brown, I finally was able to pop it into the oven, glistening with the OJ sauce to bake for... did I read that correctly.. only 15 minutes at 375 F? Well, my potatoes were already roasting and I put my faith in the tv show's hostess and hoped for the best. The chicken was of course not done in 15 minutes. In fact, it took more like 35 minutes. By which point my lovely crispy potatoes had been sitting done on the counter for 10 minutes already and had gotten slightly soggy.

Then came the deboning part of the process. Oh my goodness what a task that was. Trying to remove a sticky orange sauce coated piece of chicken from its bone without destroying the shape of the meat itself was a tricky procedure. After much grumbling and a very messy cutting board, I did manage to pluck out the offending bones and sliced up my lovely looking chicken meat. The skin however did not survive the process, I am sad to report. Since I rarely eat chicken skin anyway, I wasn't exactly heartbroken, but it does look a lot more attractive with the golden crispy skin still on.

The chicken did end up tasting good and I am sure it would turn out even better if I had used the right sized pan. The potatoes were tasty too, if a bit oily and slightly soggy, but overall, no major complaints. Ah well, so much for getting right to the point and making this short.

Sorry for the grumbly mood. I really need to stockpile some chocolate for days like this. If you would like to try these recipes, they can be found here.

My Favorite Banana Bread

2009-08-24T12:50:00.024-04:00

Banana bread is one those amazing recipes that seems to be universally loved, and for which there are thousands and thousands of variations. Everyone has their own spin on banana bread, and really - I can't think of a banana bread that I have tried and not liked. I am a huge fan. I have several favorite varieties - one has special additions like toffee and chocolate, another bakes into a batch of coconut topped muffins, yet another has a caramelly crumb topping, some are plain and some are chock full of nuts and fruit. This particular version is the recipe I make most often, and it is a real winner. I haven't met a soul who can resist eating more than one slice of this banana bread.

The first time I served this recipe to guests, the entire two loaves were gone in minutes. I had never seen banana bread inhaled so quickly. As soon as they ate a slice, they immediately went back for seconds, thirds, until every crumb was gone.

I can't claim credit for creating this recipe...that honor goes to Mysterygirl from Recipezaar, and the original version of this wonderful recipe can be found here.

My Favorite Banana Bread (adapted from Mysterygirl's version on Recipezaar.com)
(2 loaves, 12 slices each)

wet ingredients:
2/3 cup canola oil or sunflower oil
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups mashed over-ripe bananas (the darker the better), about 4-5 small bananas

dry ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 small box vanilla instant pudding mix (4 serving size)*
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup chopped nuts, optional (I like walnuts or macadamia nuts)

Preheat oven to 325 F. Combine the wet ingredients in one large bowl, the dry ingredients in a smaller bowl. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, mixing just enough to combine. A few stray lumps are fine, larger ones can be poked with the back of your spoon. Just make sure there are no dry patches in the batter. Grease and lightly flour two 9x5" loaf pans and line the bottoms with parchment. Bake until the loaves are golden and a toothpick poked into the center tests clean, about 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes. Cover loosely with foil towards the end of baking time if the edges are browning too quickly.

Now I know this next part is really hard to do at this point, because you have the delicious aroma of freshly baked banana bread wafting through your house and all you want to do is dig in. Have patience! Allow the bread to cool in the pans at least until the pans are cool enough to touch. Then force yourself to wait the agonizingly long time it will seem for the bread to cool fully on wire racks. Cutting into this ultra moist banana bread too early will just make the bread fall to pieces. And yes, this would be from personal experience.

*NOTE: If you can't get the instant pudding mix, try instant custard powder, such as Bird's. Just use the amount of dry powder that would make 4 servings.