So more pre-Christmas cookie baking at my place this morning. Actually I spent most of my day in the kitchen, baking up different things, and still have a few more I'd like to make.
First up was Raisin Ruglachs, the recipe for which I found in a little Robin Hood Flour booklette that came in the mail. They looked cool, though mine look absolutely nothing like the picture. I learned really quickly that I am not very good at making even cuttings, getting 12 out of a circle, and after the first half of the dough, gave up and went with 8 instead. The end product was much larger than it should be, but they were neater looking. And they still tasted good, the combination of raspberry jam, cinnamon, sugar and cocoa, all rolled up in a cream cheese dough with raisins. My youngest son loved them, my oldest hated them. Oh well.
Next on my list was Pistachio-Cranberry Biscotti Straws, which I found in my December 2006 Fine Cooking Magazine. The picture for these is lousy, sorry about the blur, though you can still see the pieces of pistachio and cranberries in them.
You can also see they are very thick, mostly because I can't read. I read, then reread, then reread every recipe I make, as well as keeping the recipe nearby to consult with. In this case, I couldn't seem to grasp what 1/3 inch was, and instead cut my biscotti into what I considered a good size. So my version resulted in 13 thick, but nice and crunchy (and very yummy) biscotti, rather than the 2 1/2 dozen the recipe suggests can be made. Hehehe. 
The last of today's baking was more shortbread, this time Shortbread Meltaways, again from the Robin Hood magazine. These cookies actually are on page 8, whereas the Rugalachs are on page 9. Funny how that worked out.
I barely tried these cookies, not being in the mood for shortbread, but from the amount left on the plate when I cleaned up after dinner, these went over very well. I know both my children tried them and enjoyed them, and my husband told me I wouldn't like them at all so I should just leave them all for him. I think that was a compliment.
So plan for tomorrow involves making some brownies, but not for Christmas. Instead my children and I are contributing to a package going out to a Canadian soldier who is stationed in Afghanistan, though we don't know the name of the person who will be getting them, and won't unless they choose to write us back. Brownie bites seem like a good choice, and I know they handle mailing well.
Happy first weekend in December everyone!
More cookies
Bowls full of potatoes
Winter finally arrived in Ottawa on Friday. And it came in with vengance! Snow, and ice, blowing and freezing everything in sight! It was the kind of day that said, "Stay in your pj's, put the fire on, and find a book, cause we are not going outside today!"
Unfortunately, I had to go outside. Work, picking up kids, essentials like that.
My plan ahead for dinner that night involved nachos with cheese. Low key, simple, loved by all and a break from routine and proper meals.
I, however, wanted something warmer, healthier, and that would make up for having to get out of my pj's and facing the cold, icy world. I wanted soup. And I didn't care if no one else in the house would eat it (they didn't.)
With my food processor doing the shredding for me, this soup assembled in minutes. And not having to peel the sweet potatoes really helped as well!
Minor changes - I didn't put in a chipotle pepper but instead sprinkled in a bit of cayenne pepper. I didn't really want to open a can for one pepper, and also didn't want too much spice. I wanted to taste the potatoes. I also sprinkled in a bit of fresh nutmeg, just to provide some balance with the cinnamon.
This soup looked, and smelled, alot like an apple sauce (which is probably the only reason my children were willing to try the first, and only, spoonful that they ate.) It tasted, however, like extra smooth sweet potatoes, not overwhelming, not too much of cinnamon, and had a slight background heat to it. Just enough to warm up that final bit. And exactly what I both wanted, and needed, as the first storm of winter blew around my house.
Happy Onion Day!
I'm a little late (Blogger problems whenever I tried to do this), so Happy Belated Onion Day!
In Berne (Switzerland) the annual Zibelemärit (onion market) is be held on the fourth Monday in November. This year it will take place on Monday, 27th November. More than 50 tons of onions - in artistically woven plaits - are offered on this day on more then 300 market stalls.
No, I haven't suddenly taken up researching onions or events around onions. Last week, Ivonne over at Cream Puffs in Venice posted a bunch of fascinating little items, included among them information about a blog event celebrating the humble onion, hosted by Zorra of Kochtopf. Sounded like fun to me.
I'm sorry to say I was uninspiring in my selection. I didn't go searching among my books for something new and fancy to make but fell back on simple and warm. Warm has been a very important part in meal making lately, with the weather usually involving rain and strong winds (instead of snow.) With the prerequists of onions, simple, and warm in mind, what else would I make but French Onion soup?
Again, no recipe involved. Instead I slowly sauted up a bunch of sweet onions with some olive oil and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper. When they reached the color I wanted, I added some stock, deglazing as I mixed the liquid and onions together. Crostini's, toasted in the oven, were floated in the bowls of soup (I don't own proper onion soup bowls, but do own some larger sized Corningware remekins that are perfect for this,) topped with freshly grated Gryere cheese and placed under the broiler. I love cheese, so my bowl had two crostini and extra cheese. :-)
A "plain" but comforting tribute to the onion, usually an unassuming background guest to most meals, highlighted in a bowl of warmth.
Cheers oh mighty Onion!
Only One month until Christmas?
OMG! I better get started on my cookie baking now!
Oh wait, I started already. :-)
Actually, I didn't start out with the plan to get a head start on my Christmas baking. It just ended up happening that way in the end.
My oldest son has been sick the last few days, home from school with a high fever. He is not, however, old enough to be on his own even for the 30 minutes it would take me to get back and forth to school to drop off and later, pick up, his younger brother. So my neighbour, whose daughter is in the same school and has the same hours as my youngest, has been kind enough to do drop off and pick up for me. So my Christmas baking started out as a way to say thanks to her. Funny how things morph from one plan to another so quickly!
Friday afternoon, while my oldest slept off some of his fever, I got busy in an uncluttered kitchen, alone with my stand mixer and ingredients. (It is amazing how much more quickly I can knock out a recipe without 4 year old help.) All my butter was frozen for future use, so recipe options were slightly limited. But knowing my neighbour, I knew she would appreciate a plate full of Ginger cookies. I didn't take a picture of these because I had already posted about them here. The recipe makes more than 3 dozen large sized cookies - more than enough to give her a big thanks and to stash some away in the freezer for when the house is filled with people.
Making ginger cookies put me into an odd frame of mind. Not sure how, but it led me to thinking about my Grandfather. Normally when I am baking cookies, the voice of my grandmother is in my head (sometimes way in the background,) telling me how she never had the patience for cookies, but she could knock out a pie in a jiffy! So baking cookies didn't lead me to think of my Grandfather, but baking coconut macaroons pointed me in his direction.
My Grandfather is in his late 70's, and still likes to tell stories about how when he was a kid he stole packages of shredded coconut from the local store so he could just eat it straight. I once bought a whole coconut so that we could crack it open, educate my oldest son about it, then have it on hand so my Grandfather could snack on fresh coconut for the rest of his visit.
These cookies are very easy to make: Mix together in a large bowl 3 egg whites, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 cup of white sugar, until light and frothy. Add in 5 1/3 cups of sweetened flaked coconut. Scoop by rounded tablespoon (this is where a nice scoop comes in handy) on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake 20 - 30 minutes at 350F, or until they are golden brown. They won't spread while baking, but keep a close eye out because the edges will burn quickly if you don't. Allow to cool on wire rack before chomping down on a few. Store in airtight container.
These cookies will not make it to Christmas, but were so simple to make that I can whip up a new batch even when I only have a few minutes of time. Which is good, because I've promised my Grandfather I will bake him some when we go up to visit next. Or when he comes here.
Btw, like my pretty new plates? I treated myself to a set of dishes yesterday, square white plates and bowls with Platinum rims. I don't know why some people think I am hard to buy for - you can always buy me fun dishes or cooking items!
Having been in a baking mode, today I decided to continue on with it. I had taken one block of butter out of the freezer, so I was prepared for making a butter based cookie. Looking through my traditional recipes, I wasn't smilling. Every year I make a whipped shortbread recipe, which was fine when I was a more inexperienced cook. Not only am I not an inexperienced cook, I'm a more finicky eater. I really don't like that recipe much, it never turns out the way I wanted, and the 10 minutes of whipping, to me, makes them too floury, and easily breakable. I want my shortbread to be tender, but not so tender that they fall apart when you pick them up.
With that in mind, I decided to try the recipe for Multiple Personality Shortbread cookies from Today's Parent. Not too multiple though - I doubled the recipe and made plain shortbread with half then added semi-sweet chocolate chips for the other half. I haven't tried the plain yet, have only tried the chocolate version, but think next time I will use milk-chocolate chips instead.
Though the children both tried them and hmmmm'd through their cookies, then told me that I made the best cookies ever! What greater praise can a home baker get? :-)
The real test will be to see how these handle freezing and defrosting.
I still have plans for several more types of cookies, including sugar cookies (a quiet day project to do with the children), chocolate-caramel squares, and I'm open minded enough to take suggestions from others for a few more recipes, so if you have one and think I should try it, send it along!
Now if you will excuse me, there is a container full of coconut cookies in my kitchen, calling my name.
PS. Speaking of cookies - check out my entry for this months Does My Blog Look Good in This.
For this one I submitted my picture of star cookies that I made for my son's birthday last month.
Generally when I submit a picture for this (this is my 3rd or 4th time), I'm usually reasonably happy with the quality of my pic, until I see the other entries. Then I just feel like I need to go take some photography lessons. And buy some new dishes. And backdrops. I'm not the only one, but oh well.
Falling behind on my blogging
I took a few extra shifts at work last week, not a huge amount of hours since each shift is only 3 hours long, but enough that I was distracted from my usual routine in regards to cooking and blogging. So here is a make-up post of some of the things I have made since last week, up to today!
I'm finding certain blogs are more "useful" to me than others, though I enjoy reading alot of them and my list of blogs grows with every event. The recent comfort event yielded 7 new blogs for my list! Good thing I love to read! However for recipes I tend to actually print out and cook, one blog has been tagged by me several times: Elise at Simply Recipes. She was one of the first blogs I tagged on Bloglines.
So it was a copy of a recipe from Elise's blog I turned to when I decided to roast a whole chicken last week. She had recently posted about a roasted garlic chicken, and I had immediately printed it off and gone shopping. Of course it took me a few days to actually get around to making the chicken, but eventually I did.
This chicken sat in a brine in my fridge for 24 hours, the brine made up of roasted garlic, lemon juice, water, salt, pepper and a bayleaf. It smelled amazing, especially considering it was raw chicken! Once roasted, the chicken itself was very moist and had good flavor, but I did not notice any of the flavor, or any further odor of roasted garlic. Sad, so sad. I love garlic. Despite that, I will make this chicken again. I will simply add more garlic and roast it 10-15 minutes longer so that my chicken is the dark, golden color of Elise's chicken.
Friday was a PD day for both my children. They both went to work with me that morning, then came home to a lazy afternoon. That lazy afternoon included making cupcakes with Mom though, including icing. Not a bad way to spend a day off school.
Our cupcake choice that day was for carrot cupcakes, with a cream cheese icing, a recipe I had used before, which can be found online at Today's Parent. Both boys helped out, with my oldest measuring out ingredients carefully, and my youngest pouring things into the mixer. I probably should have taken a picture but really didn't want icing sugar all over my camera.
The final result looked like these ones in the picture - I did the icing, not one of the children, and the last of those cupcakes were eaten today, making them the longest lasting cupcakes this house has seen in awhile!
Saturday night was date night for my husband and I. I took along my camera to the restaurant and will blog about that at a later time, pictures included.
Sunday night I made hamburgers, by request, but put my own spin on them. Double cheese burgers, but not the usual double of two patties. Instead these had cheese stuffed inside them as well as melted on top of them.
I was after a Tex-mex flare to my burgers, and had intended to use some salsa in or on them (but was personally distracted by coleslaw for on them later.) Lean ground beef was seasoned with salt, pepper and cumin, then bound together with an egg. I can't for the life of me remember what else I put into the burgers for seasonings, but those ingredients I am sure of.
After mixing the meat mixture up, I shapped them into very thin patties, using some waxed papper, piled high the shredded Monterey Jack cheese in the middle, then topped them with another thin patty before sealing them closed and trapping the cheese inside. It was already black outside when I needed to cook them, so I opted for a frying pan rather than the bbq. Still these burgers ended up with good color and very little of the cheese managed to escape the center. Served with coleslaw and flavorful potato chips, dinner was simple but yummy, something we all neeed to have while watching the Grey Cup.
Now I skip ahead a few days to day's dinner, chicken enchiladas, again a recipe I have made many times before, though I always consult my printed copy before I ignore it.
At one point this recipe came from a Weight Watchers CD I own (somewhere - I like cookbooks in every form.) Though if someone who initially wrote this recipe were to come in and see my version, I suspect they wouldn't recognize it as their own. For starters, mine uses flour tortillas instead of corn. And I don't measure much. I swap out green peppers for any other color, and I like cheese, so I use more than is called for. Plus the original produced 8 - 6 inch tortillas filled. Mine produced 14, using 8 inch tortillas. More is better, right?
Today I did something else a bit different while making it, though - I poached the chicken in chicken broth with some pepper. This allowed me to work on my veggies while not paying attention to the chicken, and resulted in meat that was very moist and flavorful. I will be doing this again the next time I want precooked chicken of any kind, it was that good.
This dish was supposed to be served with a simple salad with a ranch dressing, but instead I had it alone with just some sour cream. One of my children now has a fever (and not much interested in eating,) and the other informed me that he just wanted tortilla with cheese to dip, no chicken, no veggies, no sauce. Since it meant more enchiladas for my husband and I, I was not going to argue.
I'll post the recipe for the enchiladas after I have had a chance to look at my original and figure out the changes I made. Then I'll post the recipe I actually made!
Chicken Enchiladas
Sauce:
1 1/2 cups canned whole tomatoes, drained, or 1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes, drained (but reserve liquid in case you need to thin out sauce.)
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 garlic cloved, minced
1 1/2 teaspoon mild or hot chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1/4 teaspoon salt
pinch ground red pepper, or pepper flakes
pink cinnamon
In a food processor or blender, combine all the ingredients and puree until smooth. Transfer to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, simmer, stirring occasionally for 20 minutes, until thickenend.
Enchiladas:
1 teaspoon vegetable or olive oil
1 cup diced red bell pepper
1 cup diced green bell pepper (I used yellow and orange instead of green.)
1 cup diced onions, I prefer red onion here
14 8" flour tortillas
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked and shredded (try poaching in a pan with some chicken stock and pepper, bring to a boil then reduce and simmer until chicken is cooked through. Allow to cool a bit before shredding with two forks.)
2 cups Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
Preheat the oven to 375F.
In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil. Add vegetables and cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently for about 5 minutes or until vegetables are softened.
Spread 1/4 cup tomato mixture into bottom of 13 x 9 pan (I prep two pans because one is two small.)
Assembly:
Place a tortilla onto a work surface. Spoon about 1 large tablespoon of bell pepper mixture into the center of the tortilla, in a line. Top with about equal amount of shredded chicken and cheese. Roll up to enclose filling. Place seam-side down in prepared pan. Repeat until out of tortillas, chicken and pepper mixture. You should still have about 1 cup of cheese left.
Top tortillas evenly with remaining sauce then sprinkle evenly with remaining cheese.
Bake 25-30 minutes, until heated through and bubbling.
Comfort from the kitchen
I was reminded yesterday that one of my favorite blogs Cream Puffs in Venice, was co-hosting an event called "Dishes of Comfort." Ivonne's single serve rice pudding dish, her choice for comfort on an autumn day, set my thoughs down the creamy dessert path in search of my own "dish of comfort" from my childhood.
While my mother used to cook alot when I was young, it is usually my grandmother's cooking I recall most when thinking of food. Her making apple pies, once I recall her making raspberries pies with me, with berries we'd picked just for my little birthday pie. Dessert was a requirement for just about every meal, as it is for her and my grandfather now. On those cold dreary days when she didn't want anything too fancy, my grandmother would pull out her box of Minute Tapioca and make a potfull to be enjoyed after dinner.
With those thoughts in mind, and a recipe dog eared in my August 2006 Cooking Light, I decided to make an old fashioned tapioca pudding, not from the box, but using real small pearl tapioca. Which I happened to have picked up when I first read the recipe, but had not yet gotten around to making it.
I admit, I've never made the tapioca from a box. I've eaten it, as well as the kind that comes in the mini snack sized pudding containers. I had high hopes that tapioca made from scratch, with real pearls, would be much more flavorful and soothing than the boxed kind.
I was disappointed.
It was good. The texture of the pearls was more pronounced than in the minute kind. But it couldn't hold up to my memory of the pudding my grandmother used to make sometimes. I have the feeling that nothing would. Afterall, you can't compete with a memory and expect to come out ahead.
I ended up making a few changes to the printed recipe. I substituted 1 cup of light cream, 10%, for some of the 2% milk. Mostly because I had it in the fridge and needed to use it. My timing was different - the recipe called for low heat for 30 minutes or until thickened. My pot was plenty thick in less than 15 minutes, and starting to scorch the bottom of the pot. Again, when it came to cooling it in an ice bath, my pudding was cool and thick well before the 15 minutes given in the recipe.
Looking at the online recipe now, copied here, I see readers only rated it 3 out of 5 stars. I think I can agree. As I said, it was good, but not so overwhelmingly good that I would seek out the pearl tapioca at a specialty store again rather than using the little red box that I can buy at a normal grocery store.
All this making, talking and reading about comfort food, however, has given me a craving for home made macaroni and cheese. Maybe for dinner tomorrow night.
Note: I forgot earlier to mention the name of the other co-host to Dishes of Comfort: Orchidea of Viaggi e Sapori. Thanks to both Ivonne and Orchidea!
Last minute dessert request
I hadn't planned on making dessert tonight. Though my little guy was hoping I would make him some rice krispie squares (which we can do tomorrow together.) His dad though, had a bad day and requested dessert. His actual request was for rhubbarb crumble with butter tarts on top of it, and macaroons on top of the butter tarts.
I didn't take him seriously.
But I did throw together a rhubbarb crumble for him, just to ease the day a little bit.
I always have lots of rhubbarb in my freezer. The reward, I guess, from planting a bush in my garden a few years ago. The stuff freezes amazingly well, and seems to keep forever. I can never tell the new bags from the old bags, they always look alike!
I didn't measure anything for the filling, simply threw the rhubbarb in a pan with some sugar, a sprinkly of nutmeg, some flour for thickening, and a nob of butter. I didn't bother adding any water, since the rhubbarb was coming straight from the freezer. While it stewed, I pulled out the crumble recipe I use for apple crumble and crumble pie, posted about here.
While we ate dinner (nothing fancy, meatballs with honey garlic sauce, steamed sugar snap peas and jasmine rice,) the crumble cooked.
Served with ice cream, I hope it made up a bit for the icky day.
Another pasta
I don't normally make lasagna. I buy it premade and pop it in the oven. The one recipe for lasagna I occassionally make (as in every couple of years,) involved 4 or so eggs, 3-4 pounds of different cheeses, breadcrumbs, sauce, and spinach as well as the noodles. Alot of work, and I couldn't eat it, it was too rich!
My husband, however, loves lasagna. Second only to spaghetti for him.
And my children will eat it too - or at least the noodles part.
So I decided to try making a lasagna for dinner, just not the fancy, heavy kind. And I didn't bother with a recipe either. (That really amazes my 7 year old, that I can make things without a recipe.)
I used no boil noodles, and a simple tomato and herb sauce that I watered down a bit. Separately I mixed together a package of frozen, chopped spinach, that I had defrosted and wrung dry, with a 500ml tub of extra smooth ricotta cheese, half a finely chopped red onion, some salt, pepper and a bit of freshly grated nutmeg. I layered the cheese mixture between noodles and sauce, making for 3 layers of lasagna (12 noodles for the pan I was using), then covered it with parmessan cheese before putting some foil on top and popping it into a 375F oven.
While the lasagna cooked, I chopped garlic. Lots and lots of garlic. Which I mixed with butter and slathered onto a few panini style buns I'd picked up that day, making my own garlic bread. it was so yummy, I should have made more. Though if I'd done that, I wouldn't have eaten any lasagna, garlic bread being one of my food weaknesses.
My lasagna turned out very well, with obvious layers of cheese and noodles, tender but not over done, or too rich. It wasn't light, but no lasagna ever is. Nor was it heavy though. Instead it was just the right balance, a filling and reasonably healthy cheese and spinach lasagna. I served it with the garlic bread I'd made as well as some caesar salad.
I think my husbands eyes lit up when he saw dinner, surprised that I would make him a lasagna. I was just happy to be in the kitchen, making something that everyone would eat.
Next time I think I'll make more garlic bread. Just in case.
Standing up for my own tastebuds
As in, I wanted fish for dinner. Fish with some crunch to it, but not the premade, frozen tempura battered fish that I know my family will eat, but real fish. My fishmonger suggested tilapia, so I went with his suggestion. Tilapia it would be, pan fried with a crispy coating. Close enough to battered without deep frying, healthier than the frozen stuff.
My coating was simple: breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, parsley, salt and pepper. I cut each fillet in half, then dipped them in a mixture of egg and water before coating them in the bread crumbs. My pan was waiting, hot, with a combination of melted butter and olive oil, ready for the fish.
Oh it was good. It was very good. (Even the small bit left over the next day, reheated in the oven.) The outside was crunchy and flavorful, the inside mild and flaky. Even my picky seven year old liked it and complimented me on it.
I'm glad I decided to make what I wanted to eat instead of caving into the food likes and dislikes of the rest of the household. Everyone ended up eating it, and I enjoyed being able to cook something that I would like, no matter what anyone else felt about it.
In a food funk
I've not had alot of luck with new and different recipes when it comes to feeding my family lately. I can bake anything and they will eat it, but when it comes to meals, it has been very miss and miss lately. So this post is about some of the misses I've had, leading up to dinner tonight.
Last month I made two recipes in one night for dinner, one from memory, having seen it on Barefoot Contessa but not written it down or found it on FoodTV, for zuchinni gratin. I paired it up with parmesan chicken, which I had long ago bookmarked from Elise over at Simply Recipes. I didn't end up blogging about these simply because I came down with the flu the day after I made them, and by the time I was feeling better, it seemed a little late. And I had other things to blog about by then.
The chicken bites of parmesan were well received by everyone in the family. Crunchy, juicy and full of wonderful flavor, these were popular. There were no left overs. That was the good news.
The bad news was no one but me would eat the zuchinni gratin. Filled with pieces of zuchinni, sliced onions, a light cream sauce and covered in cheese and breadcrumbs, I found them to be a wonderful accompaniment to the crunchy chicken bites. They were soft and mellow, though still with a bite of texture to them. It was comfort food, a healthy side to the not very healthy chicken.
This dish ended up being brought over to my neighbours house to try, where it was liked by everyone, and a copy of the recipe was requested. Too bad I didn't actually have one and was just trying to remember what she had done!
Then a week or so went by where I didn't cook at all, being sick, being competely uninterested in food in any form. When I was better, I wanted to make up for being unable to cook, so I started out with spaghetti and meatballs (not pictured.)
Spaghetti always goes over well, meatballs are another hit and miss item. This time the children decided they were a miss without trying them. They worked for me, and for my husband.
I followed that meal up with another family favorite, baked ham with Poppa's sauce. Only I couldn't remember where I had put Poppa's sauce recipe, so I went from memory: gingerale, crushed pinapple with juices, brown sugar, honey, mustard and corn starch. I'm sure the preportions weren't exactly right, and I didn't bother measuring, but the sauce came out pretty close to the original created by my father-in-law and tasted very fine on the slow cooked, bone in ham. The biggest ham eater of our family, my husband, agreed, and ate alot of it between dinner that night and left overs for lunch. The children informed me they didn't like that kind of chicken and declined eating it. (Too bad I hadn't made chicken.)
There were a few days of left overs: left over pasta (thumbs up), left over ham and sauce with scalloped potatoes instead of mashed (thumbs down from children, up again from spouse.)
Then there was last night, moroccan chicken. This received several big thumbs up from my neighbours, including a phone call from her little girl telling me how much she loved the chicken I had made (which I thank her very much for, I was really needing the good review by then,) since they were the recipients of most of this meal when my family again declined to eat it.
I'm tempted to go on a creative cooking strike (again) but the last time I did that, I ended up frustrated from being unable to cook, and my family was completely happy eating things that came out of a box or a can.
Instead I have decided to creatively cook for myself. I will attempt to cook items for my family that they are likely to eat, and I will make something separate for me. Or I will cook and they either will or won't eat it, but I won't stress about it. I'll have lunch left overs instead.
With that philosophy in mind, I ended up at my local grocery store after school with two children who wanted to go home to play. Too bad, it was time to figure out what to make them for dinner. They surprised me; they were offered samples of linguini noodles with alfredo sauce, and both of them inhaled it.
Sounded good to me, so premade alfredo sauce in the cart, linguini noodles as well. Husband won't like it, but we had jarred sauce at home that he could have with his pasta instead, though I did decide to make some mild Italian sausages for the children and spouse as well, making the pasta with alfredo the side dish instead of the full meal. I had the feeling that the children would be unable to eat too much alfredo.
Sausages, however, were not what was on the menu for me. I wanted seafood, something I rarely get to eat because, again, I am the only member of my family who will eat it. 
I love my fishmonger. He is friendly, knowledgable, and understands that I don't often buy fish when the rest of them won't eat it, but I frequently visit his department, both so I can see what is in, and because the kids, despite not eating it, love to visit the fish and see what new and funky things he has. Today he had bay scallops and shrimp for my alfredo. (And talapia fillets which I plan to make into "fish sticks" tomorrow for dinner.)
I'm sure some purists are shaking their head in disgust that I would use premade alfredo sauce, as well as having a jar of pasta sauce in my pantry. Oh well, too bad. I wasn't going to make alfredo from scratch, not with all the warm reception my cooking has had lately (and they had just tried the Farm Boy sauce and were willing to eat it at home, so let's not mess with what little works with them.) And jarred pasta sauce is a great emergency staple, one that is available for oops last minute meals. Beside's, I wasn't going to eat it, I was eating the alfredo, loaded with the scallops and shrimp, extra parmesan cheese mixed in and topping the pasta. Yum!
I hope everyone else has had an easier time feeding their families lately. Guess I should go find some outlets to my creative needs in the kitchen through my stand mixer. Wonder if I have enough flour?
Sneaking in a new recipe
I received my latest copy of Fine Cooking magazine late last week, the December 2006 issue, and finished the magazine with a long list of recipes I wanted to make. A bit unusual for me - I love to read magazines and cookbooks, I don't cook out of them that often. To have a magazine with so many recipes I want to try is amazing!
While I plan to make the cover recipe of prime rib roast for Christmas, right now it is November, a cold, rainy November, so instead I wanted to make warm and hearty. The article on braised chicken caught my attention, and the recipe for braised chicken legs with carrot juice, dates and spices made my attention sit up and notice! This was what I was looking for - hearty, warm and different. (And it is on page 58 for those who get the magazine. If not, the website hasn't updated for this issue yet.)
I should say that there has always been a good chance that no one other than myself would enjoy this meal. (Actually, that isn't true - my kind neighbour has said she will eat and enjoy anything I cook, so she frequently ends up with stuff that the rest of my family refuses to eat. I personally think I feed her quite well!) The addition of carrot juice and dates with chicken makes this a bit of a risk, but no risk, no gain. For all I know it could become one of my families favorite chicken recipes!
However, knowing how highly unlikely that is, I decided to boost my odds but making this while the children were at school. What they didn't see go into the chicken, they couldn't complain about. My children love carrots, but I suspected they would turn their noses up at carrot juice. And while I hoped to pass dates off as just very large raisins, I wouldn't worry too much if they chose not to eat them.
So to start, my version looks absolutely nothing like the picture in the magazine. Mine was brownish, theirs was a deep, warm red. Did I use the wrong kind of carrot juice? I hope not, I used juice that I made myself that afternoon! Maybe they had a specific type of cinnamon, one with tones of red in it. Sorry, mine was regular cinnamon. Same with the ground ginger and the cumin. No red anywhere. Yes my onion was red, as the recipe called for, but when you cook red onions, you know they lose their color.
And I definitely did not have a large enough pan for this. Those pieces of chicken were very crowded in my saute pan! Oh well.
I found this quite tasty, not too strong, but very flavorful. I love cumin, but could not taste it, though the cinnamon was the dominant spice, as I couldn't taste the ground ginger either. The chicken was tender, fall off the bone, the onions soft and melting. The dates didn't exactly grab me, I found them instead to be a bit too sweet and overwhelming. Perhaps if I had added them in earlier, or chopped them smaller instead of in half, they would have been softer and more mellow. However, eaten together with a bit of chicken and rice, they melted in nicely.
No idea yet how this meal will be received by my husband. My children have both decided they don't like it, they've never liked it and they won't ever like it, without even trying it or knowing what it was. Somedays it doesn't pay to try something new.
Regardless of how he feels, I have promised my neighbour at least one piece of chicken to try, so I still have hope that at least someone will like what I made for dinner tonight.
CBBP #2 - My package came!
Huge box waiting for me in my mail box today (okay the key to get into the package door was waiting for me in my mail box, but inside the door was a huge box!) All the way from Calgary, Alberta, where I lived as a child and haven't been to since I was about 12 or 13.
What an amazing package from Sara of I Like to Cook!
I actually opened it up while sitting at the playground after school, trying to stop the packing popcorn from flying away, while fighting off children wanting to eat the Kettle corn, with friends curious as to what I'd received! And what a package!
The first thing I saw was the Kettle corn, or Cowboy Popcorn. Then I saw a little post it note warning me of fragile items, which ended up being wrapped in a fabric shopping bag from Planet Organic. The items were a bottle of chilli garlic sauce and a jar of cranberry chutney. Also in the box was a jar of curry masala, a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, a large container of creamed honey, Sara's favorite type of honey, and a bar of cucumber and comfrey soap, very well wrapped.
My children can't wait until I break open the popcorn, and I can't wait to try out all the rest of my goodies, including the popcorn!
Thanks so much Sara!
It's good to be "home"
It's been over a week since I did much of anything in the kitchen. I was sick, a cold that turned into a flu, that aggravated my asthma, which aggravated the flu more, endless cycle of coughing and not getting better. A few days with an inhaler, a few nights of sleep, and I'm still coughing, but not as much and not as badly. Best of all, I am ready to both cook, and eat again.
I've so missed being able to cook.
Actually, when I was really sick, the only thing I really wanted was sleep, but if I had been getting that, I probably would have missed cooking too. Or at least eating.
So last night I cooked dinner for my family. Nothing too fancy; pork chops and carrots in a taryaki sauce, steamed yellow beans, and some steamed spaghetti squash for me. No pictures, no recipe, just what was thrown together. It was good to be back in the kitchen.
This morning the children and I had a breakfast date with old friends from out of town, but I had made a commitment before I came down sick, to make a baked good as part of the fundraising efforts for my son's taekwon-do school, who was hosting a large tournament today and wanted to have items for sale in the cafeteria. I was originally going to make chocolate chip cookies but when I woke up this morning, way too early, I didn't want to make cookies. I wanted to make brownies.
I am happy to say I managed to meet my original commitment and donate a batch of brownies to the fundraising efforts. I only hope they all sold out!
Having made a batch of brownies though, I promptly gave them all away, much to the dismay of my children (bags of Halloween candy notwithstanding, they are so hard done by!) So I made a second batch, with the help of my youngest son. This time I made them a little more kid friendly, putting them into individual mini-muffin tins and adding some Smarties to the bottoms. Both these things allowed my son to have a job: put the paper liners in the cups, and put a Smartie, his choice of color, on top of each of the brownies.
The brownies are extra chocolatey, and the house was filled with the scent of them baking (despite the big slow cooker filled with spaghetti and meatballs, made between the two batches of brownies.)
These little morsels of chocolate should be just about perfect for me. Unused to eating too much, or things that are too rich or decadent after a week of soup and orange juice, bite size brownies provide perfect portion control. And the Smartie on top of the brownies with the Smarties on the bottom reminds me that those brownies (36 of 48 of them) are meant for the children.
I don't miss doing dishes, or cleaning up the counter, but I'm happy to be back in my kitchen.
Seasonal baking
I had been playing around with whether or not I wanted to take part in Canadian Blogging by Post #2: Seasonal Bounty. It sounded fun, but I wasn't sure what I would make, or if I could make something that would provide me with items that could easily be mailed off, especially not items that would break the bank doing so!
Earlier this week I finally made up my mind to participate, so of course I am waiting until the last possible minute to post my recipe entry, and then send it off!
With the theme of Seasonal Bounty in mind, I finally chose to make some apple sauce bread, taking advantage of all the wonderful apples that are available at this time of year. I've made apple sauce bread for my family before - it's something that is nice to make in place of banana bread, and just as simple to make. However, knowing I was going to be doing a "special" blog about this bread, I decided I needed to "kick it up a notch!"
First I decided to make my own apple sauce, which I do every apple picking season, rather than use the convenient jars (which I didn't have, but I also didn't have apples, so had to go shopping either way.) I wanted this apple sauce to be the star of the bread, not the supporter. With that in mind I set out washing and chopping up apples. Not peeling, however. I wanted that pink tinge to the sauce. After cooking down the apples and pureeing them (a hand immersion blender is a handy thing to have), I ran the sauce through a sieve, something I don't normally do. The sauce that came out was smooth and fresh, with the pinkish color I was looking for.
Then I kicked it up some more.
Back to the stove the apple sauce went, with a few additions this time: cinnamon, fresh grated nutmeg, and a touch of cloves. Covered and with low heat, I wanted the consistency of apple butter. Which means patience, something I don't always have alot of. When I was satisfied, the sauce was a darker, thicker apple sauce, with the scents of the spices wafting through my house.
The next notch up involved a bit of an add in - not my families usual favorite of dried cranberries and chocolate chips, but chopped up, dried apples. I felt dried would be better than fresh in this case, hoping they would retain a bit of their shape and texture through the baking, which I didn't think fresh apple chunks would do. I wanted more apple bite in the bread, not just more subtle apple flavor.
Finally I was ready to actually start baking. The batter is easy enough, using the creaming method for butter and sugar. Add in the eggs and vanilla. The usual way to start. This batter had a bit of added milk in addition to the apple sauce, helping to keep the final product moist.
I admit I almost forgot to add in the cinnamon to the batter with the dried ingredients, but caught myself just in time! The last item in was the chopped up apple pieces, mixed in by hand so as not to overwork the batter. I wanted a light textured bread, not a brick!
The two loaves baked up brown and tall, again making the house smell all warm and comfortable (a necessity with the head colds in the family this week!) And as hoped, the pieces of apple were visible throughout the loaves, and still had a bit of a bite to them! Horray!
I am very pleased with how this bread came out. The apple flavor is not subtle, nor are the spices, but neither are they overwhelming. This bread is so much tastier than the original version! I may have a hard time going back to it when I need a quick bread for lunches around here!
Now to send this blog off to Jasmine so I can participate in Blogging by Post!
Apple Sauce Bread (From the Pillsbury: The complete book of baking)
This is a variation on the banana bread recipe found in the book
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup margaine or butter, softened
2 eggs
1 cup apple sauce (jarred is okay, homemade is better)
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 - 1 cup chopped up, dried apples
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease bottom only of 9x5 or 8x4 loaf pan (I have no idea what size I have but I always have enough for 2 loaves.) In large bowl, beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Bean in eggs. Add applesauce, milk and vanilla. Blend well.
In a small bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Mix well. Add to apple sauce mixture; stir just until ingredients are moistened. Stir in chopped apples.
Pour into greased pans, bake at 350F for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in pan before turning out on wire rack.
Apples sauce (my grandmother used to have this funky funnel that she used for making apple sauce, which I don't have, but you can make it without.)
apples
spash of water
dash of salt
sprinkle of sugar
cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, optional and to taste
Clean apples and remove core. Cut them into big chunks and put into a heavy bottomed pot. If the apples are very wet, you do not need to add more water. Sprinkle a small pinch of salt on the apples, and a bit of sugar, how much sugar depending on how sweet you like your apple sauce and how sweet your apples are to begin with. If you want, now is the time to add spices. Put the lid on the pot and cook over medium-low heat, coming to check and stir the apples every once in awhile. They are done when all the pieces are soft and broken down - some of the apple flesh itself actually looks like it is foaming. Using an immersion blender (or moving in batches to a regular blender if you don't have an immersion), puree the apples until smooth, skin and all. If you want extra smooth apple sauce, strain the sauce through a sieve to remove the bits of skin that don't puree up fine. Store in an airtight container in the refridgerator for about a week - though it never lasts that long with my children. Can also be frozen.
You'll need a few extra napkins with dinner tonight
I didn't plan to make icky, sticky, yummy ribs for dinner last night. I'd actually planned to make steak and double baked potatoes. Until I went into my freezer for steak, saw I had one simmering steak (no idea why one, or why the simmering kind), then saw a package of short ribs underneath it. Spareribs sounded so much better than steak all of a sudden, and didn't require me to bbq in the rain or snow.
I seriously considered making my grandmother's sweet and sour sauce again. Afterall, it is a family favorite that everyone loves, I can make it with my eyes closed, and it is nearly foolproof. With a cold coming on, I wasn't up for anything complicated. But I'd made it recently and wasn't sure if I had any pinapple. Honey garlic was next on my list, mostly because I had a jar of prepared sauce in the pantry. Premade sauce didn't appeal much either, though the honey garlic part still did. So I made my own.
I wanted more control over the ribs than simply making a sauce, pouring it over them and throwing it in the oven, but I didn't want to have to hover. Which is why, I think, I decided to pull out my big electric frying pan with the nice domed lid. I could start the sauce in the pan, add the ribs, and keep an eye on them as they baked with the closed lid, stirring frequently without loosing all the heat.
Honey garlic sauce is fairly easy to make. Equal parts of honey and soya sauce, add in garlic to 
the strength you want, mix it well to make sure the honey is melted into the soy, pour it on whatever you are making. Sometimes I measure. Sometimes I don't. Today was an I don't day. I added a generous amount of honey to the hot pan, then added in the soy and mixed them together, watching them sizzle and foam. The kitchen smelled instantly wonderful. Knowing garlic mellows as it cooks, I wanted lots of garlic going in, and I wanted it in early enough that it would add its flavor into the sauce early in the cooking. The picture on the left is the sauce just as I've thrown in the rough chopped garlic.
After making sure everything was mixed well, and tasting the sauce just in case I needed to adjust preportions (I did, I needed more honey), I added in the cut up short ribs, made sure they were all coated, turned down the heat and put the lid on. This gave me lots of time to make some rice in the steamer and prepare some asparagus for roasting.
The ribs came out tender, ooey, gooey and very, very good. Clean up was easy as there were no baked on bits of sauce and garlic in a caserole dish, and there were plenty of napkins available when licking sauce off the fingers weren't appropriate.
I bought myself a present!
Can you guess?
Too easy!
An ice cream machine! This has been on my wish list for longer than I had wanted a stand mixer for. This first batch I made, vanilla of course, used the recipe from the book that came with my little toy. I even went out and bought a vanilla bean.
Next batch. I wish I could remember who's blog I got this recipe from. I wrote it down instantly this summer, I think it was featured in a Sugar High Friday, but I can't remember who posted it originally! (So if you know, please comment or PM me so I can link it!)
Isn't it a pretty color? And the dark flecks in it are more blueberries, added while the machine was still mixing and churning.
Unfortunately I have a bit of a cold right now, so I had a really hard time with tasting the flavors of both of these. They were both very creamy, and smooth. Even if I hadn't known, I would have been able to say that real cream was used in both of them. In this case it was most of what I could taste, though my husband, the bigger vanilla fan, told me it was great. I'll have the kids try the blueberry later and tell me what they think, and in the meantime I will curse my bad karma that I had to get a cold that mutes my own tastebuds just when I finally get to make homemade ice cream!
On the bright side, at least I will have some nice cold, soothing treats to eat as my throat gets more and more raw from coughing.
Next plan is to try making vanilla frozen yogurt.
Chili Sunday
It was a chili Sunday, in more ways than one. I had already planned this meal for dinner that night, well before the snow and ice came down earlier in the day. It just seemed like a good family meal to warm up with. And because it included some chips and cheese, one that seemed hopeful the children would also eat. (Cause personally I get tired of spaghetti, even though no one else seems to!)
I saw this recipe watching Rachel Ray's new talk show one day. It was reasonable to make on a weeknight, had a reasonable balance of vegetables and lean meats, and was different from the usual chilli recipes that I see, the kinds that include beans, which my family, including me, won't eat. Those dark chunks you see in the sauce - they aren't kidney beans, they are pieces of sausage!
I did make a few changes. I have never seen Andouille sausage anywhere, so I used a spicy, smoked chirizo instead. I reduced the amount of tabasco from 4 tablespoons to more like 1/2 a teaspoon - I didn't really want my kids running off screaming of heat, but I had also used a spicy sausage, so the two had to balance. And since I have an extreme dislike of green peppers, but like every other kind, I swapped it out for half each of a red and yellow pepper. Beside's, they looked prettier!
I served this with lime flavored tortillas, and some blue corn tortillas, as well as shredded cheddar, the called for green onions, and some sour cream, for when it needed a little mellowing. And a few glasses of milk.
I was happy to sit down to dinner with my family that night. Both children ate the chili, not just the chips and cheese. And both of them enjoyed it. My oldest son, the harder to please child, started his meal with the comments of, "Cool! I get a whole bowl of sauce!" And knowing it was chili and not sauce, he still ate it! It was pretty good for left overs the next day as well.
So does anyone in Ottawa know where I can get some Andouille sausage?
One day in the kitchen
I've had work, or a volunteer obligation, every day this week except Wednesday. My one and only day off.
Turns out it was my day home with my sick child, but as he was content to lay down most of the day, I was able to get into the kitchen and get a bit of my own rest therapy.
First up on my agenda was banana bread, partially the need to get rid of the 3 over ripe bananas on my counter. Not egg-less banana bread though. With the allergy notifications posted in my oldest son's class, and not an egg allergy among them, I went back to the family favorite banana bread recipe.
Augmented, as usual, with a handful of chocolate chips and dried cranberries.
The two loaves came out of the oven brown, and filling the house with aromas of melted chocolate and warmed banana. Mmmmmm. Even my sick son asked for a piece right away, not after it has cooled, but instantly please!
While this loaf freezes well, it rarely has to be frozen in this house. 
Since I was getting a rare opportunity to do some baking, I also wanted to make some bread for the children's lunches. I had planned to make the honey and oatmeal bread they both seem to like so much, but a quick inventory of my flour supply showed me I didn't have enough flour to make that bread. What I did have, though, was a bag of rye flour, in addition to what was left of my regular flour. Carraway seeds were also on hand, specifically with the plan of one day making some light rye bread.
I had no idea if they children would eat it, but what the heck? Might as well try it.
Like my previous attempts at making bread, I used the recipe that came in the book with my stand mixer. This dough mixed together easily enough, though it came out of the bowl a bit sticky. It rose well and shapped easily into two, roundish loaves. The smell of bread baking wasn't the usual scent, but wasn't unpleasant. Instead it was rather nutty.
The verdict? The children would eat it. At home that is. I packed it into both their lunches the next day and both came home with most of their bread. The husband, on the other hand, seemed to enjoy it. Not only did he have some with his dinner, he had some in his lunch for the next few days. Personally, I preffered the light rye I occassionaly buy at the deli (and I find the honey oatmeal bread too heavy for my liking, so I seem to like making homemade bread, just not eating it much.) And piled high with smoked meat and a light slather of mustard. Course I could buy some smoked meat and try it. Maybe next time.
The last thing I made that day didn't involve baking, but dinner. I wanted a dinner that made use of the excess chicken I'd baked for dinner the night before, plus would be good on a cold, icky day. And with a sick child in the house, what better choice than soup?
A quick search of my pantry, in need of some restocking, showed I had some canned corn, diced tomatoes and one container of chicken stock. I also had on hand an avocado, some green onions, cilantro and tortilla chips. Sounds like the fixin's for a Mexican style soup to me?
The basic soup contained some sauteed onions, and white rice. The juices from the canned tomatoes joined in with the chicken stock as part of liquid, as did the juices from the can of corn. I seasoned the soup with a bit of salt and pepper and some cumin, one of my favorite spices.
I diced up the chicken and put it aside on a plate, along with the green onions, avocado and cilantro, shredded up some cheddar cheese, and turned soup night into a soup style bar. Served with a generous side of tortilla chips, these were lime flavored, some cheese melted on top, and my choice of add ins, my family had a healthy and hearty soup to warm on them on a cold day.
And I had some much needed time in the kitchen to relax me on what has been a very long week.
Banana Bread (sorry, no idea where I got this recipe from, it's just the one I've been using for several years)
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
3-4 ripe, mashed bananas
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup vegetable oil
handful each chocolate chips and dried cranberries (optional)
Preheat oven to 350F.
In large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients until cinnamon is fully incorporated.
In smaller bowl, mix together the bananas, eggs, vanilla and oil. This will not want to mix together but will eventually come together, just be persistant. Add the banana mixture to the flour and mix until no more large lumps of flour are seen. If you want, add in the chocolate chips and cranberries.
Pour mix into two standard size bread pans that have been greased in advance. Bake for 50-60 minutes, checking after 45 if using a larger sized bread pan.
Remove from pans to cool on a wire rack. (Members of this household don't like to wait until the bread is cool before eating - and enjoy it with butter, especially warm with the butter melted into the bread.)
Enjoy!
Birthday treats for my little boy!
My little boy turned four on Friday the 13th, and was quite excited to be doing so. He'd been counting down the number of "sleeps" until his actual birthday, as well as to his birthday party with his friends, which came the next day.
To help him celebrate his birthday, I baked up some cookies for him to bring to the recreation program that I work at, which he attends with me, before he heads off to school in the afternoon.
Together we made these froggy sugar cookies, baked on a stick for easier eating. I had gone out and purchased a bit of piping equipment so I could pipe icing onto the frogs, the remainder of the butter cream from the previous weekends cake. As I piped the icing around the frogs, and gave them a bit of icing for the eyes, he carefully chose the confetti dots to go on that icing.
This was one of the first times I have every tried using a piping bag for icing, so I was a bit nervous and unsure about how they would turn out. I think for my first time they turned out fairly well, but I will need a larger bag than what I purchased initially. And a few more tips.
I hadn't intended to be making frog cookies when I first started this. Initially I was going to make all stars, again on sticks. My star cookie cutter, however, is big. Big enough that one star cookie is about the same as 3 cookies. I did think to test it out, made a few, then decided, oh yes, that cookie would be way to big for these 2, 3 and 4 year olds. They would be perfect, however, in place of a birthday cake that evening, while we were at a friends house for dinner (though she did get him a cake as well, and he ate both cake and cookies, happy as can be.)
These cookies were my second attempt at piping icing, and I was very happy with how they came out. A smaller tip would have allowed for more detail, though there hadn't been one available when I purchased this one. Oh well, reason to go shopping again!
All this icing work had been in preperation for the "cupcakes" requested for the party. As I said in a previous post, it had been suggested to me that I not bake cupcakes from scratch with the kids, most of whom were not going to eat much of the cake anyways since they never do at a party.
I had also had the request of a specific type of cake, chocolate with vanilla icing, but knew some kids wouldn't eat that, so I went with a mix of flavors, chocolate with vanilla icing, then with chocolate icing, as well as vanilla with vanilla, then with chocolate. And I put them into ice cream cones to make eating easier.
Learned a bit here. When you are making cupcakes in ice cream cones, underfill them. I think in the end I ended up with about a tablespoon of batter in each cone. On the ones that had more than this, even with my leaving room for expansion, the batter puffed, over flowed, and lent a realistic image of the ice cream having melted down the side of the cone.
Oh. And next time I need to find a better way to carry these out to the party. The tray worked fine when I didn't have to move the cupcakes, but as soon as I did, a bunch went flying. Good thing I had made lots of extra. Though the ones that made it to the party did not look as pretty as the ones I started out with. And again, I had fun piping icing, with the star tip this time.
The kids didn't care that they weren't as pretty, and were happy to have a cupcake that they could hold without getting their hands all dirty. But most importantly, the birthday boy was happy with his birthday party cupcakes, and was proud to hold one in his hand while we all sang happy birthday to him!
Now I think I need a few days break from baking sweets! Or at least birthday treats! Only four months to go before the next child's birthday party!
So apparently I tried to poison my family with dinner last night
No, no one died. Or was even sick. They just didn't like dinner and made lots of faces.
I liked dinner, a roasted red pepper sauce served over bowtie pasta. My youngest child liked the sauce and pasta just fine until he heard both his father and his older brother announce that they didn't like it, then he changed his mind.
I saw this on an episode of Chef at Home that I came accross while channel surfing last week. I liked the look of the vibrant red sauce, tossed with hot pasta and baby spinach and decided I needed a bit of a change from the usual tomato based sauce. Plus according to Michael Smith, his own son didn't know it wasn't tomato sauce until he was told it was peppers. Sounded good to me.
I had to omit the baby spinach as no one is selling spinach in any form but frozen right now. So to add some greens into dinner, I served my pasta along side a caesar salad, as well as adding a warmed baguette. Turns out it was a good thing I did.
You'll note from my picture that my sauce did not come out a vibrant red color but orange instead. I don't know why, I roasted 4 very large red peppers along with garlic and onions, a bit of fennel seeds, all tossed in olive oil, then pureed them with a bit of water, but I still ended up with orange. What did he do to make his red?
This sauce did not taste anything like a tomato sauce, so again I don't know how his son didn't know, but was mild, sweetish, and creamy. I couldn't taste the fennel, nor any of the garlic. Actually I couldn't really taste red pepper either. The mild brightness of the sauce, however, was what I needed, a break from the usual tomato based sauces my family likes so much.
So if anyone else makes this (and I wanted to try it with yellow until my family squashed my hopes of a new standby recipe,) let me know if you were able to get the proper color, or if you found it comparable to a tomato sauce.
Thanksgiving pot luck
We went to a friends for their 2nd Annual Pot Luck Thanksgiving dinner on Monday. Normally I would have baked something in advance, but as we were out of town all weekend, I really did not have a chance to bake something that would be portable enough to make the 4 hour trip and still be fresh and tasty. At least not something that the hostess wasn't already providing.
So I made an appetizer, a soft cheese baked with brown sugar, maple syrup and covered with cashews, served with various crackers. Easy to make, easy to bring to a potluck, big on flavor.
Now that's my idea of a good pot luck contribution!
Baking away from home
We were away from home all weekend, up visiting family for Thanksgiving weekend. And because of the timing, the family also had a little birthday celebration for my youngest son, who will be turning four on the 13th of this month.
Afterall, it isn't often we are all together in one location, the 3 siblings, with their children.
(I'm sure this next part will make some people laugh, but most "bloggers" nod in agreement.)
While packing up for the trip, I not only made sure to pack the kids lots of clean clothes, made sure we all had toothbrushes (though mine got helpfully unpacked by a child trying to help Mommy clean up the bathroom.) I also packed my stand mixer, along with some round cake pans, a couple of recipes, and my yeast. If I was going to be doing any baking for my family, I needed my essential tools! (The yeast was for a batch of focaccia bread I made to go with Thanksgiving dinner.)
Saturday morning I was up early, though not as early as usual since my children were visiting their grandparents and getting them up early. I decided to tackle the cake to be part of the thanksgiving/birthday celebration the next night. I had brought with me a recipe for a chocolate cupcake that I had read recently on the Canadian Baker's blog, which I wanted to try in cake form.
First off I should have also brought some cocoa with me as I have no idea how old the cocoa was from my grandmother's cupboard. Using her cocoa, I forged ahead with the recipe. I started out with one batch, poured them into the pans and instantly decided that would not be enough batter for a two layer cake. So I made second batch and got them both in the oven. Oddly, the batches ended up different colors. Since I had put 2/3 of the batter from the first in one pan, then the balance in the other, before I made the second then repeated, I ended up having cake that was two toned chocolate. I don't know if anyone else noticed it, but I certainly did.
The next morning I tackled the icing. I had the recipe with me for the chocolate butter cream, but the birthday boy had specified he wanted vanilla icing on his cake (and his cupcakes next weekend too), so I had to wing it. I knew I would need more than the recipe provided, even with adding additional icing sugar to make up for taking out the chocolate. What I ended up doing was creaming a full pound of room temperature butter, then adding in a full 1 kg bag of icing sugar with a bit of milk and some vanilla. Voila, buttercream icing. Way more butter cream icing than I would need for this cake! So I brought the rest home to use later in the week when I am making cupcakes for the birthday party (sorry, there will not be a recipe - the 4 year old has asked for cake mix, and since these little kids are known for not eating much of their cupcakes, I have agreed, which is why I had to have this one as homemade.)
After icing the cake, I put two boys in charge of decorating it: 14 year old uncle and 7 year old brother. Uncle had chose Skittles for the decoration motif and the two of them patterned their way around the edges, added a few on top to go with their pattern, then dotted the sides with the remainder. I added the red icing ribbon and the Happy Birthday on top.
I was disappointed with how dry the cake turned out, figure it was much better as cupcakes, but the children were all quite happy with it, including the birthday boy who frequently eats the icing but little actual cake. Some of the adults added whipped cream to their pieces, but gladly gave up their Skittles to the children. I gave up my Skittles but left the whipped cream for the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.
Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend!
Family comfort food
I have been eating this particular meal for as long as I can remember. My grandmother made it, my mother made it, even my husband makes it sometimes. It is warm and comforting, as well as filling.
Sheppard's Pie. Or Pate Chinoix.
I'm always surprised when I see this on restaurant menus, and I scoff at the premade frozen versions you see in the grocery store. First of all, it is fairly easy to make. Second of all, it uses wierd vegetables in it!
I don't know if this is authentic, or just because my grandfather is a corn freak, but I've always had it with creamed corn as the vegetable layer only. (Oh and the grandfather part? It is true - as a child in school, he used to trade away his desserts for other kids bowls of cream corn. If you make it when he is at dinner, make one portion entirely for him and an equal amount for everyone else!)
So for those who don't know how to make it, it really is simple:
Start by putting some potatoes on. You are making mashed potatoes. So if you like yours with the skins, leav'em on! If you don't like the skins, peel'em off! I like lots of potatoes in mine, the non-skinned, really creamy kind.
While the potatoes are cooking, brown up some ground beef. Anywhere between 1 1/3 pound and two, depending on how hungry you are, how many people will be eating it. Got a huge crowd? Brown up enough for two pans.
When the beef is almost done, add in some chopped onion, chopped garlic, a few dashes of Tabasco sauce and a few dashes of Worchestershire sauce. I don't know if my mother or grandmother do that, but we've found we like the added flavor it provides.
Drain the fat out and add the beef to the bottom of an oven proof casseroll dish. I like Corningware.
Top the meat with canned creamed corn, how much depending on the size of your dish and how much beef you have. I like a good layer, solid, covering the beef completly, but not so thick that you are eating creamed corn with a bit of beef. Drop a few spots of butter on that corn, and if you want, add a bit of salt and pepper to the layer.
By now your potatoes should be ready and mashed. So scoop them up and drop them on top of the corn. You want a solid layer, completely covering the corn, but, and this is important, do not push the potatoes down to compact them! Tonight I used one of my cookie scoops to put the potatoes on, then used a fork to smooth them out so there weren't any gaps.
Add a bit more butter to the top of the potatoes, spreading around the little bits so that when they melt they cover as much of the top as possible. Then I like to sprinkle it with paprika, which makes it look pretty and adds a very subtle touch to the flavor.
Bake the entire thing in a 350F oven until the tops looks golden, and you can see bubbles of corn juice trying to break through the sides of the potatoes.
Last really important step. Really important.
Let it sit for about 10 minutes!
Not only does this let it cool down a bit so you don't scorch your mouth, but it also lets the corn juices meld back in so you don't end up with a soggy sheppards pie! (I admit, sometimes my family can't wait and we eat it right away anyways with no complaints.)
This keeps very well as left overs, if there are any, and also freezes fairly well for longer storage.
Happy comfort eating!
Happily back in the kitchen!
It was a long weekend, away from my family for most of the time, with no time to cook, even if I did end up coming home sooner than expected each day. My husband took care of the meals and the children for the weekend, leaving me free to focus on my first aid training (which I did not find very informative.)
So I was very happy to get back to my family and my kitchen this morning (yes, in that order) and had promised my little guy that he and I would make brownies together this morning. I had been wanting to try out the egg-less brownie recipe I had found at All Recipes, and needing to spend some one on one time with my son was just the reason I needed to make them.
Most substitutions I've read about for eggs involve apple sauce, bananas or gelatin. So I was surprised to see this recipe where the substitution was 1/3 cup of flour, cooked with 1 cup of water until thick. Sound enough principal, so I tried it.
I am not sure I will be trying it again.
The brownies came out alright, the batter was thick and chocolatey (and since it was egg free, the spatula was lickable for my little helper.) When they were cooled, they looked like dense, fudgey brownies. Both my children liked them, which is good since they were for them, but I didn't like them. I found them gummy and lacking in chocolate flavor, despite the 2/3 cup cocoa powder in them. I doubt adding chocolate chips into the batter would have helped much.
However, mission accomplished: one more egg-free treat for the lunch box, and one morning spent with my son.
Next I wanted to tackle making focaccia. I've been reading various recipes everywhere, on alot of blogs, in magazines and books. With my newfound like of making fresh bread, focaccia seemed the next logical step for me.
Awhile back I had dog-eared the pages of my Canadian Living magazine so I could easily locate their recipe for focaccia, the simplist of all the recipes I had seen before. Or rather, the plainest.
I did ignore some of their instructions, such as the kneading by hand portion. Afterall, I do own a kick-butt mixer for a reason! And I didn't have either bread flour or coarse salt, so I used all-purpose and kosher.
I have already had a request that this bread be put into tomorrow's lunch box, along with some soup, so that it can be dunked. It was one of the only things my oldest son ate for dinner. And the first thing my youngest son ate as well.
So they must have liked it!
I think next time I would prefer the coarse salt, less salty in flavor and more obvious in texture, plus I would probably like to add a few herbs. It was good bread, I enjoyed it, and I am quite pleased with how it turned out. Now I am ready to be a bit more adventurous with it though.
So bread and dessert provided for, my next plan was for dinner. Actually, I didn't have a plan. Just something that would work with the focaccia, provide some juices for dipping. So I hit the store and wandered, without children, and took my time deciding what to make.
The first thing that sparked my imagination was chicken. That actually happened before I went in the store, carry-over from an episode of Barefoot Contessa that I watched the other day. Think juices from the chicken being mopped up by the slices of focaccia.
Next I spotted carrots. Chicken and carrots, items both of my children like and will usually eat.
Somewhere in there I thought of making orzo as a side, probably sometime after I wandered past the gourmet kitchen of my store where they had a salad made from orzo. I wanted it more simple though, so orzo with butter and cheese, which I wondered if the children would eat. They would if it was any other kind of pasta, so I was hopeful.
Then I ran accross some leeks and decided to try leeks in the orzo. I like leeks and chicken. Though my hopefullness about my children eating it did go down a fair bit. Oh well, I could always put aside some plain for them.
As I was picking up potatoes for tomorrow nights dinner, I spotted the nicest looking brussel sprouts I've seen in awhile, so into a bag they went, and dinner was set!
Then I made a minor change to the menu. All along I had planned to saute my leeks in butter and olive oil, then I figured I'd toss them with the orzo along with the grated parmesan cheese and a bit more butter. I still sauted them, but then I topped my chicken thighs with them and popped the two into the oven, covered in foil. I probably should have taken the foil off sooner, to allow the chicken to brown, but by then I'd gotten busy and forgot. Oh well, so the chicken thighs weren't browned. They were still tasty, and the leeks weren't overly crisp.
I like brussel sprouts, but generally I am the only one who eats most of them. My husband will take a few, the children like to break them apart and then say they are full, having never actually tried one (hence I had to make carrots so there was something they would eat.) I wanted them a bit different than the usual cook them, add a bit of butter, grate cheese over them. Again I was remembering a Barefoot Contessa episode. I didn't have pancetta though, so I simply sauted them in butter and olive oil, again, then added a bit of liquid, put the lid on, and let them steam themselves done. It worked, they were different. (And I preferred them the normal way, with my cheese.)
I was fairly satisfied in the end. Balanced, flavorful, fairly healthy. Lots of juices from the chicken to dip the focaccia in. And leftovers for tomorrows adult lunches.
Oh and incidentally, my children both ate their carrots, ignored the brussel sprouts, ate some chicken (which I had taken the leeks off of), and one looked at the orzo, the other took one bite. and both devoured their focaccia, without any dipping.
I'm happy to be back in the kitchen again. (Not so happy about the fussy kids part though.)
No cooking, no updates!
I'm on a two day first aid and cpr course this weekend, a necessity for my new job, so all the cooking responsibility has been handed over to my husband!
He're hoping today won't be too exhausting and I have lots of energy to get back into the kitchen tomorrow. Been wanting to try my hand at making Focacia lately!
Happy eating!
PS: Here is a picture to tide people over - the apples I stuffed and baked off last weekend! (Husband really liked them, he ate his, one son's and half of mine!)
