I got a few things from my "to do" list done before the week was up. In fact, I came in just under the wire by descaling the espresso machine this morning. Speaking of coffee -- I have a Rancilio Silvia Espresso Machine
Ah espresso -- sweet elixir of life!
Right now I'm so sick I can't taste a thing, but as soon as I'm feeling better, I want to try out one of the many recipes I've bookmarked over the past few weeks. Take a look at the goodness!
Oh, if only this cold would disappear so I could tast things again!
I'm a big fan of using up leftovers and since I work from home, it's probably a little easier for me, but it still takes some effort. I mean, who really wants to keep eating the same thing over and over. So in order to keep things interesting, I've developed a couple of tricks.
First of all, I embraced stock. Yes, I never throw out a bone without first simmering it with a few veggies, maybe some garlic or other aromatics (ginger, perhaps?) I freeze the stock in manageable portions so that I can thaw just what I need. If you have stock, you have soup. For instance, last night we had chicken, roasted carrots and a grain/pasta blend. The carrots were all eaten, but I took the other leftovers, threw in a handful of peas and added stock, brought it to a boil and there you have it, instant soup.
Another thing I love to do is to keep tortillas in the freezer. You can put pretty much any leftovers you have between two tortillas, add a little cheese and get a tasty quesadilla. This week I had a mushroom & mozarrella quesadilla that was delicious and took only 5 minutes to heat up. In the same vein, I have been known to make an omlette and throw whatever leftovers in in that I had on hand. Cheap and good!
What are your leftover tricks?
I like to make homemade pizza a couple of times a month and often experiment with different pizza crusts. If I'm feeling lazy and have recently been to Trader Joe's, I use their pre-made dough. Sometimes it has a bit too much spring though and can be a pain to roll out thin -- which is how I like it. I've used the basic dough from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
A month or two ago I tried the "Neo-Neapolitan Pizza Dough" -- by accident. I meant to try another recipe, but the page must have flipped on me while I was pulling some ingredients out of the cupboard and this is what I ended up making. Unfortunately, I didn't use the high gluten flour (probably because the recipe I meant to make didn't require it) and the results were a little disappointing.
This time I used the "Napoletana Pizza Dough" recipe and it was a dream! The dough was very relaxed and easy to work with. The flavor was excellent and the texture was crispy-chewy. The other nice thing about this dough is that I was able to freeze half of it and now I'll have more dough ready for next time we want pizza.
In case you are interested -- here's a semi-recipe for making pot pies.
First you need some chicken or turkey. I made a half turkey breast the night before and cut the left over turkey into cubes, then reserved the bones to make stock.
Make stock --
Throw bones in pot, add a carrot or two, a small onion or shallot roughly chopped and a clove of garlic cut in half. If you have other things you want to add -- root vegetables, celery, etc -- go ahead. Cover with water and add salt & pepper to taste. Allow to simmer for at least an hour, 2 hours is better.
If you don't want to make stock, just buy canned stock, but it is *so* easy to make stock -- just try it, you will be so happy!
Make crust --
You can use any crust recipe you like (not one that has sugar -- think savory). For mine I took out my food processor, threw in 1 c. flour, 1/4 tsp. salt and 10 Tbsp good quality butter cut into cubes. Pulse until crumbly. Add egg yolk while food processor is running. Then add icy cold water -- maybe 2-3 Tbsp. The dough will come together in one big chunk and that's when you know you've added enough water. Take it out, flatten it into a disk and wrap it in plastic wrap or wax paper and stick it in the fridge. You can do this hours in advance if you like.
Make sauce --
Put some butter or butter & olive oil in a saucepan -- maybe a couple Tbsp of each depending on how much sauce you want to make. Add a small onion or shallot finely chopped. Cook a couple minutes. Add potatoes and root veggies -- cubed -- and cook a few minutes. Don't cook them too long or they will start to break down. Then add flour -- 3 Tbsp or so -- and cook about a minute so flour cooks but doesn't burn! When it gets frothy and bubbly and looks like it is sticking to the bottom of the pan, start to add chicken stock. I used about 2 1/2 cups. Add a cup of milk (or cream if you are feeling decadent) and bring to a boil -- now is the time to add things like peas and corn as well as the cubed, cooked turkey or chicken. When sauce starts to thicken, it's ready.
You can add all different things to the sauce. I had a couple potatoes, carrots and peas, so that's what I added, but corn, mushrooms, celery and other veggies would work!
Assemble --
Roll out dough and cut to size. If you are using little crocks or ramekins, turn them upside down on the dough and cut around them with a knife. You could also use a casserole dish or pie plate. Whatever you have really. The dough might be getting soft at this point, if so, throw it back in the fridge.
Ladle sauce into dishes, being careful not to overfill -- things will bubble up in the oven. I put down some aluminum foil on a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides) and put the crocks on that -- so worth it because clean up of baked on sauce would be a nightmare.
Cut slits in dough and then place it on top of dish/es. Press down edges to seal a bit. Brush the tops with a simple egg wash (1 beaten egg and 1 Tbsp water). Place in oven preheated to 350 and bake until crust is golden brown -- you want to make sure the crust is thoroughly cooked!
Enjoy your pie!
Over the weekend we drove out to a local orchard to pick up some apples. I was absolutely amazed by the multitude of varieties they had available and had fun picking out this selection for applesauce. I read that applesauce is best when a variety of different sweet apples are used, so I just randomly picked up some that were marked as "good sauce apples".
As I peeled, cored and sliced the apples, I cut off little bits to nibble. As you can see, the flesh of each of the different varieties is remarkably unique -- some were shockingly white, others green and yet others a creamy yellow. Likewise they each had a different aroma and taste. While some were very sweet, others were floral and even a touch spicy.
My yield was quite pathetic. Out of that bowl of apples I got only 2 1/2 pints, so it was more of an exercise in canning than an actual "putting up" of apples. I think we'll have these jars finished off in a couple weeks. Making the sauce was remarkably easy and next time I'll definitely go for a bigger batch.
Easy Applesauce
Peel, core and slice apples. As you slice them, throw them in a big pot that has about 1 in. of water in the bottom and the juice of a lemon (maybe two lemons for a bigger batch). The lemon will keep your apples -- and sauce -- from turning brown.
Cook apples until soft -- maybe 15-20 minutes. Drain off much of the water reserving some in case your sauce is too thick.
Put the cooked apples through a sieve or food mill, or alternately throw them in a food processor or blender and process.
Place in jars and eat within a couple of weeks. To can, place in sterilized jars and process in a hot water bath for about 20 minutes.
We finally tried the pickles this weekend and they were a winner! Nice and garlicky. So now that they have been taste tested I feel like I can share the recipe:
Dill Pickles from the pantry of BoogaJ
Tools & Ingredients:
3 - 1 pint canning jars with lids -- since these are refrigerator pickles you can use the plastic lids instead of the sealing kind
About 6-7 pickling cukes
3 c. H2O
1 c. Apple Cider Vinegar
2 Tbsp. Salt -- non iodized!
Garlic Cloves
Fresh Dill
Soak cleaned cukes in ice water for about 2 hours.
Put jars and lids through dishwasher cycle or clean them thoroughly and boil to sanitize.
Boil water, vinegar and salt for about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile cut cukes into quarters lengthwise and trim length if necessary. You want the cukes below the shoulder of the jar so they will be completely covered by the liquid. If you have little tiny cukes, I bet you could just use them whole.
Smash garlic cloves with side of chef's knife -- remove skin and discard. Place a smashed garlic clove in the bottom of each jar.
Place a good sized sprig of dill in each jar.
Add pickles -- really shove them in and fill up as much of the jar as possible. Top each jar with another smashed garlic clove and more dill.
Pour hot vinegar mixture over cukes, filling jar almost to the top.
Screw lids on jars and let sit on the counter for 24-36 hours. Refrigerate and eat in 1-2 weeks.
There seem to be lots of pickling cucumbers at the farmer's markets right now, so I hope you find this recipe useful. And if you have a favorite pickle, I would love to hear about it!
Final note -- I mentioned the root beer that we made at the beginning of August. We tried it the week after we bottled it and it was flat and not so good. We let it sit in the refrigerator a couple more weeks and now it is fizzy and wonderful! Lesson learned -- be patient with carbonation using ale yeast. I'm planning on trying lemon lime soda or ginger ale later this week if time permits. I'll try to post more info on the whole soda making process then.
Can you guess what we made this weekend? This photo may be a bit misleading, so here is another. . .
And here is the last photo which just might give it away. . .
So what could it be?
When it comes to food, I think I'm pretty hard to please -- or really easy to please depending how you look at it. I love fresh, natural, real foods -- something that is starting to become difficult to find in the modern supermarket where even apples are pre-sliced and coated in some kind of "freshness" chemical. But I digress. . .
Here is my idea of the perfect summer lunch -- fresh, toasted bread topped with pesto, farmstand tomato slices and fresh mozzarella. Add a side of lemonade and it's heaven! I'm sure I would get tired of this eventually, but I plan to eat it every day this week if my supplies hold out.
I mentioned that I made strawberry jam last week. I've seen lots of people around the blogs making freezer jam, but I chose to make small batch jam -- 2 jars worth which is a good amount for our family of 3. This was all brought on by the fact that I bought a huge bucket of strawberries at the farmer's market -- huge! I swear it didn't look that big when I was at the market -- but over an hour into cutting up the strawberries I was wondering what I was thinking.
I knew I had to figure out how to use these up, so I headed to the internets and found a recipe for small batch jam and even a video. I pretty much followed it -- adding the extra step of using a candy thermometer to make sure the jam was up to the "jelly" stage before taking it off the heat -- 220 degrees I believe.
That photo up top is lunch -- the jam on home baked bread. I used the good old Artisan Bread in 5 Min recipe but this time I mixed it up by subbing local, organic, stone ground wheat (also purchased at said farmer's market) for half of the AP Flour. More dense, but still quite tasty.
What did I do with the rest of the strawberries? Strawberry Yogurt -- frozen variety loosely based on David Lebovitz's recipe. I actually used one of those big tubs of Fage greek yogurt so it was more creamy. And I used so many strawberries that I didn't have room in the ice cream maker so I made some frozen popsicle things too -- which were even better than the frozen yogurt and easier. Go figure.
I love blueberries! Seriously, I eat them almost every day -- sometimes twice a day. So when they are in season, I like to take advantage. Back in 2005 I made up a recipe for blueberry crisp and thank goodness for the blog, because that is where I had to go to find it again. In order to try to be a better recipe keeper, I'm starting to make recipe cards. Here is the one for my blueberry crisp recipe:
Just click on it to download the pdf version of the recipe card. I often create recipes on the fly and jot them down on little slips of paper that end up here and there, so I'm going to try to put more of them on these types of cards and I'll post them on the blog as often as I get my act together to do it.
Jam was also made. More on that tomorrow. . .
This summer -- as part of homeschooling and part of life, really -- I am teaching Maddie to cook. Since I take nutrition very seriously, I didn't want to start her out cooking the usual junky foods that kids like.
So what do you teach a kid to cook that is simple but nutritious? I didn't turn to a kids' cookbook, but rather turned to Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food
Talking a little more about nutrition, we are quickly becoming mostly vegetarian -- eating meat only a couple times a week and then only in small portions. If you want to learn more about why the Western diet is killing us, check out Bittman's Ted talk:
I've also been riding around Chicago in a limo with my family:
We have 3 brother-in-laws in the family and their birthdays are all around the same time of the year (Sept/Oct). We used to have individual get togethers for each one, but three years ago my mom suggested one fancy dinner instead of three pizza/bbq type things. It was so much fun that we've been doing it every year.
This year we took a limo so that everyone could enjoy a few beverages and we went up to Chicago to Keefer's. Very nice place!
I've also been cooking and baking quite a bit. Recently I made the Crumb Coffeecake from The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion
THen today I pulled out Beth Hensperger's The Bread Bible
Speaking of Beth Hensperger, I just love her cookbooks and have had great success making everything I've ever tried from them.
Another thing I've been trying to do on a regular basis is cook dinners from scratch. I love to cook and bake and got away from this habit when Maddie was little and work was eating up all my free time, but as I step back from work a bit and Maddie becomes independent I find I have more time. So, I've been trying to cook things fresh, organic and whole.
I actually find that I'm loving Everyday Food
So, I have been doing something besides playing Zelda -- really I have. In fact, I have some book reviews to post very soon!
My grandmother on my mom's side was Irish, so I suppose I have a good bit of Irish in me. Growing up my mom often made corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick's Day and I always loved it. A special treat that only appeared once a year. Since I've left home, I've tried making this dish a few times, but it was never quite as good as I remembered my mom's being. This year I brought out the big heavy cast iron pot and started over 3 hours before dinner time. This heavy pot and the long cooking time did the trick! It was so good!
I also made some Irish bread. And while not very authentic, it was delicious. I made it in an angel food cake pan to cut down on cooking time -- thus the shape. And if you are interested -- I used the recipe from the The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion
And you can't for get the beer! Some nice Irish Stout -- Beamish Irish Stout to be exact.
I also made a non-Irish dessert -- the Salt Lick Bars that were posted over at Bake and Shake. Yummy! (Although I didn't use enough salt on the top. I only had the fine grained sel de mare and really needed the flaked or larger grained stuff.)
Lots of crafting to photograph and talk about soon! Knitting and Quilting and Cross Stich -- Oh My!
I've been obsessed with the idea of a grilled Nutella & banana sandwich since I saw a picture on the Nutella website. So I picked up a bunch of bananas at the grocery this week and I have to say that I was not disappointed -- yum!
In other news, the rest of my fabrics arrived today. This means that quiltmaking will definitely commence next week.
I've also gotten a great response on the Pincushion Challenge, so I'll be working on getting together the website for that next week. I can't wait to get that underway so I can see what you all come up with!
Okay, back to work. . .
In typical overachiever fashion, last night I whipped up a batch of Chocolate Shortbread from my new favorite cookbook -- Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook
These are very good and well they should be with three sticks of butter going into one pan of them! And speaking of pans. I consider myself a reasonably decent baker. I have *numerous* baking pans and cookie sheets, but no Martha, I do not have a 8" X 12" pan. I have 4 - 9" X 13" pans and even a 7" X 11" pan, but I do not have an 8" X 12" pan. Am I the only one? (BTW, the recipe did just fine in a 9" X 13", thank you very much!)
Conversation in our kitchen as I was feverishly whipping these up while Pete cooked dinner (read microwaved Stouffer's & Kid Cuisine - god love him for putting up with me!):
Maddie: Mommy, why are you doing that?
Pete: Because she likes to do that kind of stuff.
Me: Because I'm having a crisis.
Pete: And she's eating her way though it.
was this super cool cookbook!
No, it wasn't even a cooking seminar. It was a business seminar (he's a credit manager for a big Chicago based real estate company), but Charlie Trotter was there giving away and signing cookbooks. How cool is that?
Update. . . I had a chance to look through this cook book last night and it is *excellent*! It has pictures of everything and explains how to cook and prepare pretty much any food. It's called The Cook's Book
I felt so domestic yesterday! As we sat and drank our coffee and ate our donuts, we watched the Food Network. Rachael Ray was making mac & cheese from scratch and I got it in my head to do the same.
Now when I want to cook or bake something I usually scour my vast cookbook collection, search the internet and then come up with a hybrid recipe. However, yesterday I found a recipe that needed little change -- Fannie Farmer's Classic Baked Macaroni & Cheese. I switched out whole milk for the milk & cream and I omitted the breadcrumbs because I felt lazy. The mac & cheese got a thumbs up from the whole family. (How could it not -- did you see the nutrition info -- yikes!!) The only change I would make is to use a very sharp cheddar next time.
After the mac & cheese was consumed, I decided to take the new sewing machine out for a spin. Working without a pattern, I came up with this nifty little pouch. Look at the tiny little seems I can make with this new machine:
Is that cool, or what? My zippers have never before looked this good! The pouch is fully lined and I even used bias binding to cover the seems inside. Bias binding is my nemesis and I still can't get it to look as perfect as I would like. I'm winning the battle of the zipper though, so I do have some hope that bias tape will eventually yield to my will!
Can anyone recommend some good basic sewing books?
