Eat One, Knit Too

Flowers in the Garden

2010-08-04T21:50:00.001-04:00

Pi Day

2010-07-22T22:09:00.003-04:00

Okay, so Pi Day is back in March, four months ago. But in the spirit of the event I did make a pie, and here it is. It was a black bottom pie (Better Homes and Garden cookbook), and boy was it ever good.

Sugar Bombs

2010-02-12T20:42:00.003-05:00

They're not really called sugar bombs, but they sure do taste like them. They are basically meringue with chocolate chips in them, baked at a low temperature until dry but still chewy. An excellent way to use up extra egg whites.

The Holidays

2010-01-07T13:58:00.002-05:00

Yes, it's been awhile since I've posted. I'll try to be better about it now. Anyway, here are a few photos I found hiding on my camera:

This is a whole wheat soda bread from Bernard Clayton's Book of Breads. It's a little richer than most soda breads because it has eggs and butter in it. It's very good, and it's a quick and easy way to make a loaf of whole wheat bread without spending a whole day on it (takes about an hour).

This is parsely from my garden. Once the weather turned cool I pretty much ignored my garden, but one day around Thanksgiving I noticed that my parsely was thriving. Maybe it likes cold weather. There was a lot growing in the herb garden, but also a little plant that must have seeded itself in one of the raised beds. I harvested them at the end of November, before it froze. I've since put the leaves in the freezer so that I can use them for cooking over the winter. (Note: parsely doesn't seem to freeze as well as basil, but since I'll only use it in sauces it's not really a big deal. I did not freeze them in ice cube trays, which is the recommended method, I just washed and dried the leaves and threw them in a freezer bag, which is what I do with basil.)

This is a cinnamon breakfast cake from The Cake Mix Doctor (I left out the nuts). A couple of red and green sprinkles makes it a Christmas cake. I made four of them during the Christmas season: two for school, one for work, and one for DH to take to work. It was well received everywhere.

Zinfandel of Beef

2009-11-07T12:23:00.003-05:00

I made the zinfandel of beef recipe from Julia Child's The Way to Cook. I did use a bottle of burgundy instead of zinfandel, but it sure was tasty.

To the stew I added some braised garlic cloves (whole garlic cooked in butter on low heat, covered, for about 20-30 minutes).

The garlic and the cooking butter was put into the stew just before serving.

Enchiladas and Beans

2009-11-07T12:10:00.003-05:00

The enchilada recipe that I use is from Martha Stewart, here. Usually when I make the sauce I'd make a double batch and freeze half, to have on hand for the next time. I recently found that Trader Joe's enchilada sauce is very similar to the sauce from this recipe, so I used that in the version below:

I usually serve enchiladas with pinto beans (recipe from The Border Cookbook) and yellow rice.

Cabbage Strudel

2009-11-07T12:03:00.003-05:00

I found this recipe for cabbage strudel on the New York Times web site. I just had to try it. I've become more fond of cabbage lately, so a new recipe is always welcome. Besides, phyllo dough makes everything taste good, right?

This was very good, and not difficult, but the cabbage should be cooked at least a day in advance because it has to be cold when rolled in the phyllo. I served it with pork chops and noodles, but that was completely unnecessary. The strudel and a good loaf of bread would make a fine dinner on its own.

A Few Odds and Ends

2009-08-31T18:25:00.005-04:00

In the past few days/weeks since I've posted, I've made some dishes that haven't appeared here yet.

First, the tomato tart from Martha Stewart's Living:

It is a great way to use up some of the summer tomato bounty, except that this year there is no bounty, and is just a yummy way to eat tomatoes. It's made with roasted garlic and fontina cheese baked in a pie crust, and then sprinkled with a little fresh basil when it comes out of the oven. Only problem with this one is that it takes almost an hour to cook, so it requires some advance planning.

Next is chicken paprikash from the Frugal Gourmet's Immigrant Ancestors:

This is a good cool, rainy day meal. There was enough for two dinners; the first night I served it with noodles and corn, and the next night I served it with spatzle and corn.

A few weeks ago DS and I spotted these at the farmers' market:

Purple potatoes. I roasted them with a little salt, pepper and poultry seasoning.

The Veggies of Summer

2009-08-10T21:44:00.006-04:00

It's August, and the farmer's market is overflowing with produce. We've been feasting on corn, summer squash, tomatoes, new potatoes, peaches, apples (Ginger Golds, one of the first varieties available in the season), and melons. My garden is doing okay, but we've had better years. It's been cool and wet this year, and the threat of late blight is hanging over the tomatoes.

At the moment, however, they are fine, and we've been harvesting a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes (I think cherry tomatoes only come in bumper crops). A few days ago I made cherry tomatoes in a balsamic vinegar sauce (Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone).

The tomatoes are sauted in butter, then simmered in balsalmic vinegar with a bit of chopped onion or shallot tossed in. They were very good.

Another veggie dish I made last week was the Smoked Cheese and Vegetable Casserole from Thanksgiving 101 by Rick Rodgers. Again, pretty simple. Summer squash, zuchini, onion, garlic, rosemary, corn and green pepper with a topping of bread and smoked cheese. Excellent. I made this the last two Thanksgivings and it was a hit.

For Garlic Lovers Only

2009-08-02T13:37:00.003-04:00

Skordalia, sometimes called garlic mayonaise (a complete misnomer, as there is no mayo in real skordalia) is Greek dip/sauce made of some combination of white bread (or potatoes or both), ground almonds, olive oil, lemon juice and a good amount of fresh garlic. This all gets blended together until smooth sauce forms, which is served with meat, fish, veggies, or eaten as a bread dip.

It took years for me to figure out how to make this right, but I finally found a recipe in the Complete Middle East Cookbook (see the entry on Green Beans in Oil). The batch in the picture was a little stiff and should have been thinned out with a little olive oil or lemon juice. It was, and I had to admit this, just a tad too garlicky; one clove less would probably sufficed. Still it was good, especially with the cherry tomatoes I've been harvesting from the garden.

Corn Beans and Squash

2009-07-19T22:47:00.009-04:00

The week we were away the corn must have grown two feet. It also produced tassels and ears. After not seeing the garden for a week it was quite a shock to pull into the driveway and find this:

The corn is taller than I am and has actual ears on it, and the squash plants (Sweet Dumpling) have teeny little squashes on them. No beans yet, but here's still time.

The tomatoes are doing great, should have a few cherry tomatoes ripen tomorrow. Picked some hot peppers and one sweet pepper.

I am a little concerned about the tomatoes, as there is a tomato blight in the Northeast. I think I should spray a fungicide to keep them going this summer.

Speaking of veggies, I made Summer Vegetables Cooked in Their Own Juices (From Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers Markets by Deborah Madison). It's basically a stew of vegetables, cooked with the garlic and herbs on the bottom, and the veggies layered according to how long the veggies take to cook (the ones that need more time are on the bottom of the pot). After it's all done, serve it with a basil puree (basically pesto without the pine nuts). I served this for dinner with a loaf of Italian bread and some sauteed chicken breasts.

Potatoes and Beans

2009-07-01T21:51:00.002-04:00

I made a very good potato and bean dish a couple of days ago (recipe from The Classic Vegetable Cookbook by Ruth Spear). Boiled about a pound of small potatoes and cut them in quarters. Mix with one pound of cooked green beans. Top it off with pesto, and mix everything together. It was very good.

No picture because it's all gone.

It's a Nice Day for a Roast Chicken

2009-06-21T21:32:00.007-04:00

Okay, so the rain and the cool weather is getting old now. Thursday was another one of those cool rainy days we've been having so much of lately. Seemed like a good day for a roast chicken. I don't normally make roast chicken during the summer, because it's too hot to turn the oven on, but Thursday was chilly enough the oven needed to be turned on, just to warm the house up a bit.

I made my standard roast chicken: stuffed the cavity with a cut up lemon and some fresh rosemary; rubbed the skin with olive oil and sprinkled on salt, pepper, sage and thyme. Perfect chicken every time.

As much as I like roast chicken, I really dislike picking the meat off the carcass after dinner, but it must be done. The leftover meat went into the fridge (turned into quesedillas for dinner the next day and many lunches after that) and the skin and bones became a lovely stock:

I used half the stock to make a batch of frijoles for dinner on Friday, and the rest went into the freezer for another day.

The first blueberries arrived at the farmer's market over a week ago. So last weekend I made a blueberry crisp

and today I made a blueberry pie

It looks like the time has come to buy my blueberries by the flat and start to freeze them for the winter. I froze 3 flats last year (they were cheap) and am hoping that I'll be able to do the same this year, but I'm afraid the wacky weather might not be so good for the blueberry harvest.

Speaking of harvesting, I picked my first batch of peas last weekend:

Got about two spoonfulls worth. Thank goodness I bought a pound of peas from the farmer's market to go with them.

Beer Bread

2009-06-13T17:07:00.004-04:00

The weather has been strange, and Thursday was pretty chilly, at least by June standards. And on a chilly day, the best way to warm things up is to bake bread.

I wasn't in the mood for a yeast bread, not even the relatively quick Cuban bread from Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Bread. I decided to make beer bread. I found the recipe year's ago in the Creme de Colorado Cookbook, and it is very easy: 3 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 3-4 tablespoons sugar, and a 12 oz bottle of beer. Mix it up, put in a greased loaf pan, pour a stick of melted butter over it, and bake at 350 for about 50-55 minutes. Easy.

Many years ago I cut the butter down to 1/2 a stick. Tastes just as good but isn't nearly as greasy. Now, the same recipe appears in Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Bread but with an interesting twist: he adds 1/2 cup of chopped fresh oregano to the batter. I decided to give it a try, especially since my oregano is trying to take over the herb garden. Harvesting 1/2 a cup worth sounded like a pretty good idea.

And yes, it was. The oregano gave the bread a completely different flavor. Very tasty. A good way to keep the herbs in the garden in check, use up a cheap bottle of beer, and get a fresh loaf of bread for dinner.

Carrots

2009-06-10T19:52:00.005-04:00

I learned something interesting about carrots yesterday.

I bought a beautiful bunch of carrots from the farmer's market. They were long and thin with lovely, fresh green tops. So I wanted to cook them yet preserve their shape, in other words, not peel them. They were so thin that most of the carrot would disappear if I peeled them.

So I looked up carrots in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madsen. And she said that if you put the carrots in cold water, brought the water to a boil, added salt, and cooked them, the skins would slide right off. And you know what? They did. It was lovely.

So I boiled them, skinned them, then sauted them in butter with onion and parsely, and ended up with this:

Okay, there were more of them. I took the picture after dinner, not before. But you get the idea.

Strawberry Chiffon Pie

2009-06-08T19:39:00.004-04:00

It's strawberry season. And I always make, at least one time during strawberry season, a strawberry chiffon pie.

It's a classic. Mashed strawberries gelled with unflavored gelatin; folded into merangue and whipped cream, chilled until set (this pie takes some time to put together). It's tasty, creamy and airy; one of the best pies around. I brought it to a cookout on Saturday and it was a hit. I should try some of the other chiffon pie recipes around (raspberry, orange, lemon).

Last night for dinner I made the Asparagus and Smoked Trout Frittata from the NYT website . (I meant to take a picture before we ate it, but in the rush to get food on the table kind of forgot.)

Okay, this was excellent. First of all, I loved smoked fish, and asparagus, and together they were great (actually I kept nibbling at the trout when I was cutting it up -- we're lucky it made it into the frittata). DH said it was a little salty, a side effect of the fish, but that didn't bother me. I would be happy to make this again. I would also be happy to buy some slabs of smoked trout and eat them right out of the package.

Peas were at the market on Friday, so I bought a pound (shelling or English peas, not snow peas). We had them for dinner, with a little butter and chives. Very tasty. My peas should be ready for harvest this weekend. I won't get a whole meal out of them, but they'll supplement this week's market purchase.

Let the Grilling Begin!

2009-05-31T20:33:00.005-04:00

So, the grill has been cleaned and prepped, and last week I grilled almost every night. We had steak, burgers, chicken, salmon, and, one of my favorites, grilled pork sate (recipe from Bon Appetit, early 1990s).

This dish is good with rice. I made asparagus to go with it (it being asparagus season), but peas go well with it, too.

Yes, it's asparagus season. I bought a lot of it this weekend; I need to get it into the freezer, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I did spend Friday night processing strawberries for the freezer. I took the kids strawberry picking and we managed to pick 9 quarts of berries. Really ripe, flavorful, wonderful strawberries. Took us maybe 20 minutes or so. I froze 6 quarts of berries (washed, hulled, sliced and packed in bags in one cup portions). Most of them will probably end up in oatmeal during the winter. The fresh berries we've been eating as is and also with shortcake.

Last weekend I made a batch of Strawberry Shortcake Cookies (from this month's issue of Martha Stewart's Living magazine). They were very good (really did taste like strawberry shortcake), but very rich (made with heavy cream and butter). They don't keep very well, either, but to be honest, there weren't that many left after dinner.

The garden is doing great. Tomato plants are growing by leaps and bounds. I've got some actual pea pods on the pea plants and the herbs are looking great. Corn is up, but it seems a little small; I guess I should give it some time. The pepper plants don't seem to be growing as fast as I thought they would, but it's still early so I'm not fretting. Yet.

Garden Update

2009-05-24T20:31:00.007-04:00

The garden is really taking off now. The roses and iris are beautiful:

I have two pink rose bushes (they live in the herb garden). They are very fragrant and a lovely pale pink. The iris are actually dark purple, not the blue that came out in the picture. Beautiful. I wish iris bloomed all summer.

The sage is blooming, too (this is new, as it was planted last year and only blooms in spring).

I also have a red Portugal pepper growing on one of the plants,

and the corn is sprouting.

I decided not to plant carrots this year (ended with up orange stubs last year), so I bought two Purple Prudens plants for that space. They are an heirloom tomato, similar to a Brandywine. (Easier to grow, I hope. I grew Brandywines a couple of years ago and lost a lot to blossom end rot. Very frustrating, as it hit just when a tomato was ready to harvest.) These will have to be the last tomato plants I put in this year (I have 11 total). I've used my last tomato cage.

I also put in four jalapeno pepper plants. Can't have too many hot peppers, you know. They're great in collards.

So, it looks like we'll get some rain tonight, which is very much needed. Hasn't rained in about a week; we could use a good soaking. (The rain barrel is almost empty, too. Needs a refill.)

Strawberries

2009-05-16T10:10:00.005-04:00

The first local strawberries were at the farmer's market yesterday. So of course I bought some.

And they are so good. So much better than the ones shipped in from the West Coast.

Strawberries need angle food cake. I made one (from a mix. I've never made angel food cake from scratch for the simple reason that I wouldn't know what to do with the dozen left over egg yolks). Angel food cakes need to be cooled off upside down. Beer bottles are very good for that.

And the finished product was a lovely, airy, angel food cake.

Topped with strawberries and, for some of us, whipped cream (I skip that part), it made a very tasty dessert.

Spring at the Farmer's Market

2009-05-10T10:19:00.003-04:00

On Friday I visited the farmer's market (was not able to go last weekend) and sort of went a little nuts at all the good stuff there:

This all came from the same stand. Leeks, lettuce, arugala, asparagus, green onions, beets, yellow and red onions. We've been having salad for dinner every night. I made half a bunch of asparagus with dinner on Friday (pork chops and corn bread). The leeks were cooked in a little broth with chicken and cayenne pepper for dinner last night. We'll have the beets with hamburgers and the rest of the asparagus in an asparagus tart. Salads all week long. I didn't buy spinach or radishes. I'm told that the strawberries are a few weeks away, and all the rain we had last week didn't help matters much; veggies need sun (of which there is a whole lot today).

So now I'm faced with clearing out my freezer before stocking up with this year's goodies. I still have one container of Hungarian gravy base (which I'll make up this week for the peppers); some green peppers (they'll be used up before new peppers appear in August); blueberries (I'm using them up in my oatmeal in the morning); one pack of green beans (which I can cook up for lunch if there's too much fresh stuff for dinner); and some tomato sauces and salsas. The sauces will be used up before tomatoes are available, but I'm not sure what to do with the salsa. Not too thrilled with it; maybe I can use it in frijoles some time. I'm going to ditch the freezer blueberry jam (don't like the texture and it doesn't taste a whole lot like blueberries) and there's a batch of beans I'm getting rid of as I did not like how they turned out. The only true failure is the bag of sliced, cooked beets in the freezer -- fresh is now available; need to think about how to deal with the frozen.

I planted my basil, parsley, tomatoes and peppers on Friday; put geraniums along the front walk yesterday morning. I want to get four more parsley plants in hopes of having a better harvest than last year. Put in two varieties of peppers (sweet green and hot red Portugals) and three tomatoes (red cherry, Rutgers, and one Ramapo, which will go in the upside down planter). Today I'll plant the corn and fill the window boxes.

Spring Flowers

2009-05-03T20:43:00.004-04:00

I took these pictures last week but did not have time to post them:

Bleeding heart.

Lilacs.

We planted the bleeding heart a couple of years ago. I was afraid it had been removed at the end of summer by some overzealous flowerbed neatening, but it came back in its full glory. The lilac was one of the first things we planted when we bought the house. It blooms gloriously every spring, and is now spreading along the patio. In a few years it will be a perfect privacy screen.

Ginger Snaps

2009-04-23T21:00:00.004-04:00

I like ginger snaps, ginger bread, spice cookies and other ginger/spice confections. And yesterday I got the urge to make a batch of ginger snaps.

They turned out okay, but not fabulous. The recipe was from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and the dough was a little dry (not sure why), and of course I made the cookies bigger than they should have been, so they had to bake longer, so they got a little darker than they should (still taste good, though, even if now they are hard as rocks).

Now, my dad made fabulous ginger snaps. They were a rolled cookie, and each one was cut with a 2 inch round cookie cutter, all uniform and pretty. And his recipe, whatever it was, made a ton of cookies (his recipes generally made a ton of whatever it was he was making). I rarely have the time or patience for rolled cookies, except for Spice Crisps, a cookie recipe I found in Bon Apetit in the early/mid 90s. Thin, crisp and very spicy. Yum. (But more work than I was willing to put in after work yesterday. I make them around Christmas.)

Green Beans in Oil

2009-04-18T18:05:00.016-04:00

When I was an undergraduate I spent about 7 weeks in Greece. The food was fabulous, and I was especially fond of a dish of green beans cooked in a tomato sauce. For years I tried to replicate the recipe with no success, not until I bought a copy of The Complete Middle East Cookbook by Tess Malos. In the Lebanon/Syria/Jordon section she has a recipe called Green Beans in Oil, which closely approximates the beans I had in Greece. And I do like them so much, I could make a meal of just these beans and a good loaf of bread. Except in the summer, when a fresh ear of corn and a fresh tomato (with that loaf of bread) makes a pretty good dinner, too.

Managed to do a lot of gardening the last two days. Prepared all the existing beds for planting, put new strawberry plants in one of the strawberry pots:

and planted a new thyme plant in the herb garden (the dog dug up the last one).

The peas are growing,

except in one row for some reason, so I planted arugula there.

So the plan for this year is: replace the two dead blueberry bushes with live ones, like this, but maybe bigger;

try carrots again here (I worked the soil so maybe I'll get real carrots and not little stubs);

put in a three sisters garden (corn, squash and beans); plant tomatoes (Ramapos this year, if I can get my hands on them); plant basil, parsley and dill in the herb garden; put cherry tomatoes in the upside down planter; and put hot peppers in the window box by the back door. We are in the process of opening up new beds (maybe next weekend, weather permitting), and in them I'll plant sweet peppers and maybe some cucumbers. (I'm avoiding members of the cabbage family because they always seem to be eaten by some kind of bug, and we aren't big fans of eggplant, zuchinni and summer squash so they're out.)

DH took down a dying tree near the driveway, and although I'd really like to replace it with an apple tree, it looks like that won't be happening. So I have to figure out what to put over there.

Could just fill the area with blueberry bushes, or maybe a different variety of tomatoes (one can never have too many tomatoes). Two other bushes along the side of the house will soon be taken down and I'm thinking of replacing them with hazelnuts, something I've wanted to plant since we bought the house. Have to look into that.

A Little Baking

2009-04-06T19:27:00.008-04:00

I made banana muffins for breakfast yesterday. The kids love muffins, specifically banana muffins and cinnamon muffins (aka French Breakfast Puffs). Sometimes I make blueberry (my favorite), but the kids just pick out the blueberries, and what's the point of that? Anyway, when I make muffins (fairly frequently), I'll make banana if there are some overripe bananas lying around, and cinnamon if there aren't. Both recipes are from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (1989 ed.) They are quick and easy.

Today I made the Farm Wife's Fresh Pear Tart from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. This is one of my favorite cakes. It's full of pears and studded with cloves. The batter has no leavening at all, which confused me the first time I made it, but it produces a very dense cake that surrounds the pears. It's very different from a light and fluffy cake, and honestly, I really like it.

I used the last of my cloves, though, so I'm going to have to place an order with Penzey's for more spices.

In other news, my peas have finally started sprouting. I'll post a photo when they get a little bigger (at least bigger than the weeds). And I restarted the Flow top; I'm now at the point I was when I ripped it out. Hopefully I can get some good knitting in....

Curried Chickpeas and Chapatis

2009-04-04T19:56:00.008-04:00

It's Lent, which means no meat on Fridays. So for the last few Fridays we've had pizza (half cheese/half onions and peppers), macaroni and cheese and tomato, and pancakes. And yesterday it was curried chickpeas and chapatis. The recipes are from The Colour Book of Indian Cooking. The chickpeas are cooked in a sauce of chilis, onions, turmeric, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, tomato sauce and chicken broth. Very flavorful, and can be as hot or mild as you'd like.

The chapatis go well with the chickpeas, and are not difficult to make. Maybe a little time consuming, but not hard. Made of whole wheat flour and water (so they're good for you) and, hey, even the kids like them. (Go figure. DD won't even whole wheat white bread, but she'll eat whole wheat chapatis.)

Yes, that's Olivio in the photo. I use butter for everything, but when it comes to something to spread on bread, toast, etc., I use Olivio.

The Peas Are Not Growing

2009-04-01T20:22:00.003-04:00

Not much else to say. They should have sprouted by now, but the only things sprouting are weeds.

No point in posting a photo, since it looks much like it did on March 15.

The Flow Tank

2009-03-29T16:38:00.003-04:00

I started a new knitting project a couple of weeks ago, the Flow tank top by Norah Gaughan, using Seduce yarn in the shade called Adirondak Chair. I don't knit often, and I'm slow to boot, so it takes forever for me to finish a project. I've finished about three inches on this one when, last night, I came to the sad conclusion that the size is all wrong. I remeasured everything this morning, and it's true; if I just keep going along, I'm going to end up with a tank top that is huge.

So I'm going to have to rip it out, change needle sizes and start over. It's frustrating, especially since I did do a swatch, but there's no point in putting a lot of effort into a knitted project knowing that it won't turn out right. Besides, I'm really not that far along; if I actually sat down and knit every night I'd make it up fairly quickly.

So, here it is before I rip it back (I really do need to stop taking pictures of everything from above).

Cashew Brittle

2009-03-24T20:59:00.011-04:00

A recent issue of Martha Stewart's Living had a recipe for cashew bars. Looked easy enough, so I tried them. Turns out they are really good, and easy to make, so I've made them often (but not often enough, some would say). I made one big change: I don't use a loaf pan, and I'm not lining anything with plastic wrap. (The plastic wrap just sounds wrong, so the first time I made it I used wax paper. Bad idea; it stuck and I couldn't get it all off.) The loaf pan made bars that were very thick and nearly impossible to cut. So now, I butter a dinner plate and spread the brittle on the plate. The brittle pops off (usually, have to be sure to butter the plate well) and is thin so is easily broken into bite sized bits. The recipe is small though, and I really should double it.

I've used almonds successfully, but cashews are preferred here. And sometimes (if I remember, and I didn't remember today) I'll toss in some flax seeds, too.

The best part, though, is that I get to fry oatmeal, just the way Lisa Douglas cooks her oatmeal on Green Acres!

Cashew bars cooling on plate.

Cashew bars broken into pieces.

Comfort food

2009-03-22T22:54:00.006-04:00

We had meatloaf tonight. It's a good Sunday dish, as there will be enough for dinner tomorrow as well.

With the meatloaf I made a batch of black eyed peas and collard greens. Both recipes are from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. The collards recipe was a generic greens recipe (I think), and I've modified it to use olive oil (not butter). I also try to make it spicy, and although collards need lots of salt, I do try to go easy with the salt.

Southern Style Black Eyed Peas.

Collard greens.

Anyway, both dishes were very good (I love collards) and there's plenty of each for tomorrow's dinner (and maybe lunch, too).

Whoopie Pies!

2009-03-21T22:51:00.005-04:00

The New York Times ran an article on whoopie pies (here) with a recipe here. So I was inspired to make a batch, following the NYT recipe.

They turned out great, but they are not for the faint of heart. Not difficult to make, but the butter cream did take awhile (it's no small feat incorporating two sticks of butter into some sugar and egg whites. Thank goodness for electric mixers.) They are very rich (it's those two sticks of butter), I could only eat 1/2 of a pie, and that was pushing it (the kids couldn't finish their halves, which is saying something). I won't be making these very often.

The NYT article mentioned pumpkin spice flavored whoopie pies. Now, that's a recipe I'd like to get my hands on....

Failed Carmel Sauce

2009-03-18T22:07:00.003-04:00

I made carmel sauce a couple of days ago, following the recipe in Julia Child's The Way to Cook. I've done this before and ended up with a gloriously rich, deep brown, sweet carmel sauce. But something went very wrong with this batch. The syrup never turned a carmel color, and after I added the cream it did not get thick. So I ended up with a thin, runny, dirty cream-colored sauce. Tastes fine, but I'm going to have to ditch this batch and try again (the vanilla ice cream calls, you know).

No photo. Too sad.

It's March, Time to Plant the Peas

2009-03-18T22:02:00.003-04:00

I planted peas on Saturday (St. Patrick's Day is the traditional day for planting peas, but I figured a couple days early won't hurt anything).

It's not pretty now, but if all goes well, I'll have peas in 65 days.

Waffles and, Finally, Some Photos

2008-12-28T22:15:00.003-05:00

I received a camera for Christmas, so now I'll be able to add pictures to this blog. And the first one:

A stack of Belgian waffles, made this morning with our brand new Belgian waffle maker, received as a gift from Aunt M. Today is DH's birthday, so what better morning to break in the waffle maker? I tried the "classic" recipe from the waffle iron manual, which turned out nicely, but was horribly complicated and produced way, way too many waffles (the waffles in the photo now live in the freezer). So next time I'll try the "overnight" recipe, which looks easier and produces fewer waffles.

Mmmm. Waffles.

Butternut Squash

2008-11-09T15:44:00.003-05:00

About a year ago, I got a great recipe for butternut squash from a coworker (see here). I was never a big fan of squash, but have made it from time to time, usually acorn, never butternut. This particular recipe, from Afghanistan, is very good. So I made it for dinner last night. It was a big squash, so I now have a lot of leftovers, some of which I'll have for lunch this week and some of which will go into the freezer for another day. Instead of serving it with nan bread, which I've done in the past but did not have time for yesterday, I made chapatis, which were very good. And they're whole wheat, which makes them that much healthier. I made some chicken breast as well, and all in all it was a good dinner.

Tonight I'll be making a roast chicken. It'll be my standard recipe: stuff the cavity with fresh herbs from the garden (rosemary, thyme and sage), sprinkle the skin with salt, pepper, thyme, and sage. If I had a lemon I'd put that in there, too, but I don't. No big deal. We will have roasted potatoes (Yukon Gold) and collard greens. Usually I spice up the greens with red pepper, but tonight I might use some of my jalapenos. We will have leftovers for dinner tomorrow (I don't have time to cook on Mondays), and I'll find other ways to use up the chicken. I always make stock from the bones.

The Freezer is Full

2008-11-03T10:35:00.003-05:00

I succeeded in filling my freezer with the bounty of summer, so much so that there is literally no more room for anything, which is a probem, because I am constantly coming up with things to stuff into the freezer. Things like 1/2 a loaf of corn bread, or a dozen bagels, or frozen raviolis, or a batch of soup. I've got to get the tendency to freeze things under control until I start making some progress in using up what's in there.

And what is in there this year? I have frozen 2-3 flats of blueberries (they were cheap this year), lots of green peppers (my plants were very productive), and tomato sauces and purees (bought 1/2 a bushel of tomatoes for $8 and spent a weekend cooking and pureeing). I used the tomatoes from my garden to make salsas. The freezer also has asparagus (makes great pasta, in a cream sauce with proscuitto), green beans, apple sauce, and blueberry spread (my first attempt at a non-cooked preserve). I have a couple of batches of paprika gravy, some soups (spicy chicken, curried chicken, curried eggplant, and smothered cabbage). There's french fries, a frozen pizza, frozen ravioli, ground beef, sausage and chocolate ice cream as well. And let's not forget the whole chicken, which takes up a fair amount of space and just might find itself being dinner on Sunday (DD has been lobbying for roast chicken).

The little freezer upstairs (the top half of the fridge) has the hot peppers I grew, as well as three bags of basil (hope that's enough to get through the winter). There's some peppers and blueberries, beets, chicken breast, ground beef, corn bread, cranberries, spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce. And other things I'm sure I forgot.

Heaven forbid we lose power this winter and I lose the contents of my freezer. A lot of work went into putting those fruits and veggies up, and I would be sorely disappointed if I lost them. But should we find ourselves snowed in for a week, at least we won't starve.

A Quick Knitting Update

2008-11-01T20:48:00.002-04:00

I am currently working on a scarf for my FIL. It's a navy blue washable wool with four cables running up it. An easy pattern that is knitting up nicely.

Over the summer I made a scarf for DD from a ribbon yarn I picked up at a store in the Finger Lakes. Last time I knit with ribbon yarn; it twists something terrible while knitting, so I was constantly untwisting the yarn. But the scarf turned out nicely.

Also made a pair of socks for DS, but they turned out to be a little small and a couple of dropped stitches resulted in holes, which I haven't fixed yet.

Cabbage

2008-11-01T20:21:00.002-04:00

I bought a giant cabbage at the farmer's market last weekend. Okay, it didn't seem so giant when I bought it, but we couldn't get it in the fridge without chopping it into 4 big pieces.

So then I had to do something with the cabbage. I took a quarter of it and made a batch of smothered cabbage soup, from Marcella Hazan's Classic Italian Cooking. I added bacon to it, because, well, it seemed like a good idea. And it was. It turned out to be a pretty good soup, but not the best cabbage soup I've made. Probably will not be making it again.

The rest of the cabbage I cooked up according to a recipe from my mother: slice the cabbage, put it in a big pot with olive oil, saute for a little while, add 1-2 cups of water, 3-6 boullion cubes, some sugar and some nutmeg. This is a very yummy way to make cabbage, and I've made enough to freeze for later. That one cabbage went a very long way.

A Good Day in the Kitchen

2008-06-22T14:18:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was an excellent day in the kitchen. I made:

1) applesauce, from old soft apples that no one was going to eat (peel, core, chop and cook with a little water and a cinnamon stick until soft, mush with a potato masher).

2) spicy chicken soup. The day before I cooked a whole chicken on the grill (cut in half, marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, rosemary and black pepper) and from the carcass I made a nice, dark broth (the grilled skin had a lot to do with the color of the stock). To the stock I added the remaining chicken meat, a diced onion, some broccoli leftover from dinner the night before, a little pasta I found in the fridge, sprigs of thyme and rosemary from the garden, salt, pepper, and lots of red pepper. This soup has a kick to it. It's now sitting in the freezer.

3) blueberry cream. The recipe is from Kaffehouse by Rick Rodgers, a Christmas gift from DH. It's supposed to go inside a roulade, but I was in no mood to try to make a rolled cake, having never done it before. So I decided to make the cream (using fresh local blueberries), and serve it in

4) crepes, which turned out pretty good, but the filling is pretty rich and should probably be tempered by a larger piece of cake, rather than a thin crepe. Still good, though, and I have resolved to one day make a roulade. Should start by making sure I have the right pan on hand. Oh, and crepes are a wonderful invention. In the past I've kept some in the freezer and they definitely come in handy. They are great to have around when I've made a batch of paprika gravy (from the Frugal Gourmet's Our Immigrant Ancestors). There's always a lot, and chicken paprika crepes is a good way to use some up.

And then for dinner we had burgers on the grill, with roasted new potatoes tossed in fresh parsley.

The farmer's market has been hopping. Went twice this week. Took my mother on Thursday so she could get bread and lunch meat from the Polish deli for her road trip (they left on Friday morning). I bought strawberries (getting near the end of the season), sweet cherries (the best I've had in years. I'll never by from the grocery store again), broccoli, onions, cabbage, beets and asparagus. But that wasn't enough, no, returned on Saturday with DD for the Blueberry Festival (free blueberry cake and blueberries on sale). I bought a flat of blueberries (used a pint for the blueberry cream and froze the rest), more strawberries and cherries, carrots (for some reason, not seen too often at the market), and new potatoes. I'll have to get another flat of blueberries next week so that I can make sure the freezer is properly stocked (I eat them in oatmeal in the winter).

Tonight we're having fish, asparagus, and some kind of bread, maybe soda bread or cheese muffins. I'll have to poke around and see what kind of recipies I've got.

Thank Goodness for the Freezer

2008-06-18T21:10:00.002-04:00

My mother and her gentleman friend have been visiting for the past few days. We took them on a two day excursion to the Finger Lakes region of New York, about a five hour drive from where we live. So we returned home today around 5:00. And instead of ordering out, which is so tempting to do when coming home from a long drive, I pulled a container of spaghetti sauce and meatballs out of the freezer and made spaghetti and meatballs. With a salad (from the garden) and a loaf of Italian bread picked up at the store, we had dinner with minimal effort, and it was great to eat real cooked food after a few days of restaurant food (which gets old fast). A stocked freezer is a good friend.

Rhubarb

2008-05-25T20:11:00.002-04:00

Today, for the first time, I ate rhubarb. And it was yummy. Wonder why I waited for so long. Anyway, I made a crisp with rhubarb, strawberries and an apple. Turned out a little runny, and the rhubarb is tart, but it was a good crisp, and I'll just have to make it again.

The farmer's market was hopping yesterday. In addition to the rhubarb, I bought asparagus, hot house tomatoes, onions, strawberries, and... beets! Really hoping there would be beets this weekend, and there were, so I bought enough for dinner tomorrow and to freeze some for later.

Tonight's dinner was an asparagus frittata, from Marcella Hazan's Classic Italian Cooking. It stuck to the pan (didn't use non-stick), so it broke and looked awful, but it tasted good. (Could have used more salt.)

Spaghetti and meatballs

2008-05-23T22:41:00.003-04:00

Today I made a big pot of spaghetti sauce with meatballs. The sauce recipe is from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines, but I make the following modifications:

substitute a can of tomato sauce for one can of crushed tomatoes
reduce red wine to 1 cup
omit mushrooms
add diced green peppers
increase crushed red peppers to 1 teaspoon

And today, well, no basil (horrors!). The basil in the garden is struggling with the chilly weather we've had, and I couldn't bring myself to cut off what few good leaves they have. And I don't have any dry basil in the house. Why should I? It's available from the herb garden in the summer, and I freeze a bunch for use in the winter. (Note to self: freeze a lot more this summer. Running out of basil in March is not good.)

DH found the meatball recipe from a now defunct men's magazine that he used to get. Very simple, but the key is to put the meatballs in simmering sauce to cook (not fry or bake them). I've always had a terrible time when frying meatballs because they tend to stick to the pot, but no more. These are terrific.

The recipe makes enough for many meals. We ate tonight, the rest of the meatballs and sauce were divided into two large containers and put in the freezer for later. Each container will be enough for dinner and a few lunches. I might make a batch of spaghetti sauce with no meatballs so that I have sauce on hand for lasagna or some other pasta.

A little knitting news: I used some of my birthday money to subscribe to Interweave Knits. It's the sort of thing I would not spend my own money one, but birthday money, that's something else....

The First Strawberries

2008-05-17T20:40:00.002-04:00

The produces is really starting to roll now. Today at the farmer's market I bought spinach, asparagus, red lettuce, arugala, green onions, leeks, and....the first strawberries of the season. Fresh local strawberries taste a million times better than the ones in the grocery store. I might make strawberry shortcake, or strawberry chiffon pie, or just eat them as is. We'll have a few weeks now to enjoy our local strawberries.

Finally, Some Knitting

2008-05-10T20:16:00.002-04:00

I finished a pair of socks for DD last night; stayed up a little late doing so, but they are done and turned out quite nicely. Made of Sockina Colori in a brown/blue colorway, size 3 needles at 8 stitches to the inch. Started them at Easter. I'll make a pair for DS next using the same kind of yarn in a red/orange color. Will post a picture later.

Visited the farmer's market today. Bought arugala, radishes, asparagus, hothouse tomatoes, and some dill for planting. Waiting expectantly for strawberries.

Today we had tacos, a first, since we in the past it has always been burritoes. All we did was change the wrapper, but it went over well. Had to make a new batch of beans, frijoles alla charra from The Border Cookbook by Cheryl Alters Jamison. I never buy refried beans anymore; always make my own. This recipe is very good, but I have found that using chipoltle chilis instead of jalpenos improves the beans. I freeze the bulk of the beans, usually enough for four more meals.

Tomorrow we'll be having the asparagus tart that I found many years ago in Bon Apetit. Asparagus is in season, and now is the time for eating it.

Frozen Pizza and Gumdrops

2008-05-03T15:53:00.003-04:00

We went to a concert last night, so I opted to make something quick for dinner. Had some homemade pizza in the freezer, and I popped it in the oven. First of all, 10 minutes at 400 degrees was not enough to make the onion and pepper pizza hot, but it seems to have been long enough for the plain one. Most importantly, though, it didn't turn out quite as good as I'd hoped. Some things don't freeze well, and I'm adding homemade pizza to that list. Fresh is best (which is why I make pizza in the first place).

This afternoon I whipped up a batch of orange flavored gumdrops. The recipe is from Homemade, by the editors of Readers Digest. It was easy, pretty quick for candy (and no thermometer involved, just boiling for 5 minutes), and I had all the ingredients on hand. They are sitting in the fridge cooling off; later tonight I'll cut them up and roll them in sugar.

Visted the farmer's market yesterday and bought asparagus and spinach. There were no radishes or I'd have picked up another bundle or two. Perhaps next week.

A Note About Biscotti

2008-05-01T19:47:00.001-04:00

When toasting biscotti, turning the oven temperature up higher does not make the biscotti toast faster. It makes them burn. Remember that next time.

Black Bean Soup and Biscotti

2008-04-30T20:08:00.003-04:00

Tuesdays are a little harried, and I look for something quick and easy for dinner. This week the choice was black bean soup and cornbread. The soup recipe is from Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely. It's quick, tasty, and makes just enough to toss in the freezer for a couple of future lunches. And on top of all that, beans are good for you.

The cornbread recipe is from the Better Homes and Garden cookbook, although I've used others in the past. I prefer cornbread with an equal amount of cornmeal and flour; recipes with more cornmeal produce a bread with texture that is hard on the mouth. Also, I find that the cornmeal from Hodgson Mill produces a superior cornbread.

Today I was overcome with the urge to make biscotti. The biscotti recipe I use is from my father. I add no nuts or fruit, preferring it plain (only with the anise flavoring). I do use half whole wheat and half white flour, something I'm sure my father didn't do, but it works well. The biscotti are a little drier, but once they are toasted there is no obvious difference. It's a good recipe and makes a ton of cookies (even though I cut the original recipe in half). I'll be set for cookies for a while now.

I Write in My Cookbooks

2008-04-26T17:00:00.002-04:00

I was taught that books are to be treasured and taken care of. They were to be treated gently, with respect, and never, ever written in. I still believe that, but I have been making an exception in the case of my cookbooks. When I modify a recipe, which is not infrequently, I will make note of it in the cookbook. It's the only way I'll remember what I've been doing, and what's the point of fiddling with a recipe if you don't remember it next time. So, most recently I scribbled in Bernard Clayton's Complete Book of Breads. I really like the Cuban Bread recipe, but have recently been making three smaller loaves rather than the two called for. I've also stopped slashing the top -- makes slicing the bread hard. Three loaves bake for 35 minutes.

This week's menu:

Saturday -- Burritoes
Sunday -- Asparagus bundles, bread, salad
Monday -- Chicken stirfry and rice
Tuesday -- black bean soup
Wednesday -- pizza
Thursday -- Grilled chicken breast, roasted potatoes, veggie
Friday -- Kielbasa and sauerkraut

Last week's menu was followed everyday except Thursday -- had no tomatoes on hand, so I made pancakes instead of BLTs.

Visited the farmer's market today. Picked up some asparagus, spinach and radishes -- the first of the season for all three. Also bought some collard plants and tomatoes. Planted the collards, but am holding off on the tomatoes until next weekend or the weekend after. Picked up three pepper plants yesterday: jalapenos, serranos and Anaheims. Will plant the same weekend as the peppers. Still need to get a six pack of sweet peppers, parsely and dill. Also planning on planting carrots and bush beans from seed.

It's Grilling Season

2008-04-19T22:06:00.002-04:00

We brought the grill out today and enjoyed our first grilled meal of the season. Hamburgers. Always a hit. They do taste so much better when cooked on the grill (I use the George Foreman grill in the winter, but it just isn't the same).

This week's menu:

Saturday - hamburgers
Sunday - pasta with roasted tomato sauce and procuitto, salad, bread (if I have time to bake)
Monday - I have a meeting; DH and kids are one their own
Tuesday - pizza night
Wednesday - chili and cornbread (in the freezer; thought we'd have it last week)
Thursday - BLT's
Friday - lamb sausage, polenta

Made the first visit of the season to the farmer's market. Not much going on, but the farmers I usually chat with were there (I honestly didn't expect them to be), and they said that there will be asparagus next week. Yum. I bought potatoes and a six pack of basil plants and then checked out the rest of the market. Nothing else for today, but next week I might get my tomato and pepper plants.

In Praise of the Lentil

2008-04-16T20:19:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I made curried lentils with dinner (recipe from The Colour Book of Indian Cooking edited by Eileen Turner). I also make a lentil curry based on the Lentils and Rice recipe in Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely. The two recipes are very different, but both good, and the one I make will depend on my mood at the time.

I am very fond of lentils. Mujaddara, a dish of lentils and rice, is believed to be the "mess of pottage" that Esau sold his birthright for. I'm still on the lookout for the perfect mujaddara recipe.

My favorite lentil soup recipe is from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. I've tried a few others, but I think I'll stick with this one.

The First Post

2008-04-13T08:39:00.003-04:00

I enjoy cooking, and I enjoy eating what I cook. But with two kids, and a full time job, and various meetings and activities, the only way I can cook is to have a plan. So before I do my grocery shopping, I come up with a menu for the week, based on the schedule for the week, what is available in the freezer and pantry, and family requests. The menu for this week is:

Saturday - homemade pizza
Sunday - chicken, potatoes, salad and veggie
Monday - ground beef and rice, lentils, veggie
Tuesday - chili and cornbread
Wednesday - takout pizza
Thursday - pasta with roasted tomato sauce
Friday - ???

Last night I made pizza. DH believes that one cannot have too much pizza in the house, so I doubled the recipe, making four pizzas instead of the usual two. The dough recipe is from Julia Child's The Way to Cook; the only time I use a different dough recipe is when I make pizza on the grill. The sauce is from Jamison and Jamison's Born to Grill.

So what's on four pizzas? One was half plain/half pepperoni; another was sausage, peppers and onions (my favorite); the third was half plain/half sausage; and the last was half plain, half sausage and peppers.

The plan for tonight is sauteed chicken breast, roasted potatoes, a salad and a veggie. Pretty basic, no cookbook involved.

Tuesday is a busy night in our house, so I always plan on something easy. This week it will be the chili and cornbread in the freezer; only needs heating up, and we're done. Wednesday is pizza night in our house, although sometimes we'll get Chinese, much to the disappointment of DH and DS.