Only Tuesday – again

days on end, in the kitchen, Wee Bairn Leave a comment

I found a stick of butter I didn’t know I had hiding in the very back of the freezer, and as I held its frozen self in my hand I realized that everything was going to be ok. It wasn’t the end of the world after all – it was only Tuesday. I laughed a little to myself, then burst into tears and when I was done crying I couldn’t remember what I needed the butter for in the first place.

Welcome to cooking with a woman entering her 30th hormonal week of pregnancy. I am growing and slowing and laughing and crying all at the same time. It is taking me longer to get up our stairs and I am completely winded when I finally reach the top. My appetite is enormous and while the rest of the world seems to be enjoying their spring greens, I am plotting how to inconspicuously add potatoes to the menu.

Comfort food – that’s what I want. I imagine it must sound insane to those of you not in the throws of prenatal life, but I just want pasta for dinner. Pasta and sausage – preferably with a side of potatoes and bread and butter, please. I would drink heavy cream if I thought for one minute that I could get away with it and pour gravy on my oatmeal. Maybe it’s because I spent the first few months not being able to stomach anything but grapefruit slices and sour candy. Who knows!  The problem to be solved is how to cook hearty, but healthy. How to mix Spring green with my cravings for Winter heaviness, in short – how to eat potatoes more often and yet not gain several hundred pounds in the process.

I think I may have found at least one solution, one of my family’s favorite meals that we lovingly called “Poverty Dinner”. There really is nothing ‘poor’ about it other than being inexpensive and easy to make. It’s a tasty, filling sort of one dish meal that worked perfectly with the first greens that braved the uncertain glory of Spring.

 

Poverty Dinner

4 potatoes, washed and cubed

1/2 lb lean ground beef

1/2 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

several good handfuls of washed greens; spinach, baby kale, swiss chard, etc.

2-3 Tablespoons of oil or butter for cooking

salt and pepper

 

Potatoes and ground beef, comfort food at its finest, mixed with vitamin-packed greens fresh from the garden or market, making a simple meal that can be cooked up after a day in an office or in the field.

I like to use my big cast iron skillet for this. Heat the frying pan over medium heat and then add the oil and the potatoes then cover. Let the potatoes cook for a little while before adding the garlic and onions so that they don’t get too overdone by the time the potatoes are tender. Once the potatoes are feeling a little giving, break up the ground beef into the pan and stir well. Keep an eye on it to make sure that the ground beef gets cooked thoroughly. Another way to do this, although it changes the ‘one-dish’ nature of the meal, is to let the potatoes cook all the way and then remove them to cook the beef. Either way, you may need to add a little bit of water to the pan to keep the beef moist while it’s frying. If you’ve kept everything together, return the cover and let the potatoes finish cooking. Otherwise, return everything to the pan and reheat.

Now – here’s the super healthy part you’ve been so patiently waiting for. Once your potatoes, onions and beef are completely cooked, heap the greens on top. There will be a little bit of water clinging to them from washing which will help steam them. Cover and reduce the heat to low. In a few minutes the greens will have wilted and steamed and completed your meal. Season with salt and pepper as you desire and you’re ready to go!

Enjoy!

the first man whose heart I won and the cookies that did the job

in the kitchen, passionate life, Will Cook For Food Leave a comment

Roger lived up the road from the tiny homestead we lived on when I was a teenager. “Up the road” is common enough to hear out there, even though all the roads are flat as can be. To this day, my brothers and I have to say the words in our best ‘German Midwest bachelor farmer’ accent, followed by a deep sigh and then, “Poor Bob….” It’s become a tradition, and you’ll have to ask me about it another time.

But – back to Roger. I believe he parked his old truck on our front lawn the first day of fair weather the year we moved there, introduced himself and told us in great detail about having died after a heart attack and how the miraculous physicians at the Toledo hospital had resurrected him. My brothers and I stood amazed and slightly terrified on the stone driveway, but we very quickly came to realize that Roger had a talent and deep passion for telling amazing and terrifying stories, and sometimes they were even true.

He was sixty-five and retired from a life of doing anything and everything that was dangerous and just barely decent. When he was young, brave and insanely good-looking he shipped himself off to the jungles of who-knows-where to fight some smokey war and when he came home he married a fiery Quaker girl and kept right on fighting. He was a widower now with not much adventure left in his hard-used heart, so he took up with our farming ventures and was always deeply interested in whatever it was we had going on. He would park his truck on the side of the road and lean against our fence and talk for hours if we’d let him. He never came in the fence, never stepped foot inside the house, he was just as happy as could be standing on the side of the road telling stories and doling out advice.

One day I baked him cookies and he ate them right there.

“Annie – I swear you’re gonna make some poor shmuck a good wife someday! Mark my words. Why, if I were a hundred years younger, your mama would have me to deal with!”

I blushed deeply and didn’t know what to say. I was fifteen and still reeling from the dizzying heights of my most awkward phase.  ”You know, you remind me something of my Marty – she was quiet and all domestic and ornery as heck! ” I tucked his words inside and kept them there as protection against the spinsterhood I saw rapidly approaching (at fifteen!!)

He would spoil us with warm, juicy Indiana melons in the summer – a luxury we could never really afford, and we baked for him. One spring he presented me with the loveliest yellow rose bush that fragranced my entire garden. He watched us ‘grow out our pinfeathers’ as it were, and go from a bunch of ambitious kids to a handful of dreamy-eyed young adults bent on moving far from home and finding adventure of our own.

 

Roger’s Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter or shortening

1 cup each brown and white sugars

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon each baking soda and salt

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats

1 cup raisins

I admit, this recipe doesn’t seem to hit the mark health-wise but it certainly reminds me of good times and the sweet man who lived up the road and made a very awkward, frizzy-haired teenager feel pretty with his blatant praise. In my old recipe notebook I’ve scribbled out the proportions for tripling the recipe, which goes to show you how well-loved these cookies were, simple though they be!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together the fat and sugars then beat in the eggs until the mix is ‘fluffy’. Add the vanilla and stir again, then add your dry ingredients. Stir to combine well then drop the cookies with a cookie scoop onto a lightly greased baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Share with a neighbor, served with icy milk on a warm Spring day.

 

the preggo ten

10 things tuesdays 1 Comment

Wow – has it really been several short decades since I did a 10 Things Tuesdays?

You can all throw your tomatoes now, I won’t duck or deflect – I promise.

This 10 has to do with – you guessed it – being pregnant (which I very much still am)!
Enjoy…

 

10 Things About Being Pregnant:

1) I now look pregnant. For months people have been saying,  ”But you don’t *look* pregnant!!” which was somewhat distressing because my clothes started not to fit almost immediately. Immediately, I say. I felt extremely pregnant really fast and I have to say that I am glad I finally look like it to the rest of the world! I have a decent baby bump that sticks out and gets me stuck in tight places and makes me look like a mama.

2) 25 weeks – that’s how far along I am. 15 weeks left. Craziness.

3) It’s a BOY! Yes, we found out. No, it’s not a secret. Yes, I am thrilled. No, I don’t feel like it’s ruined any surprises. Yes, we have a name. No, that’s not a secret either… it’s Bruin. Yes, I can’t wait. No, he is not named after the hockey team. Sorry.

4) The sickness finally stopped around 22 weeks – one of the reasons why this blog-o was so cruelly neglected, I was sick out of my mind. I am sure other women have had it much worse and I certainly don’t mean to say that it was unbearable, but I am not a good sick person. I like to be able to do what I want, when I want and I want to feel good while I am doing it.

Can we say, “Proud and Stubborn Mama!”

Can we say, “Lesson Time!”

I feel as though I took the crash course “How to Not Be a Miserable Person but Deal with All Things with Thankfulness and Patience and Joy” and just slid through by the skin of my teeth. I won’t be posting my report card on this blog *that’s* for sure!  At any rate, I am so exceedingly thankful to be feeling better. So thankful. So happy. I’ll take tired, I’ll take sore, I’ll even take spacey and ditzy and hormonal – the sickness is over!! I was definitely humbled my the first half of this pregnancy, and that’s a good thing. I was expecting to breeze right through it on strength of mind and steeliness of will. Um – no.

5) El’Ditzoid. What was I saying? Where was I going? What was I doing? What? Why? Huh? I don’t remember. I can’t think. My brain has died. I’m so sorry, can you start again? I can’t quite figure that out. I don’t remember how I got here. Was I asleep? Did I eat already?  When did I say that? You already said that? Math? What do you mean I ate my piece already?  ’Nuf said.

6) Gymnastics. It’s what Bruin loves to do best. If this little boot is *half* as active out of the womb, we have some fun times ahead of us! I lay in bed in the morning and imagine him spinning and punching and kicking all at once because I am SURE that is what he is doing in there and will continue to do until I get up and get something to eat. He does not like to be hungry. Not. At. All.

7) Crazy curly hair has been downgraded to crazy thick wavy hair. Interesting. And, even though I know I flirt with ‘oversharing’ when I say it, the hair on my legs has all but stopped growing (nice) and I have a beard (not so nice). Hair – it does crazy things under the influence.

8) Cravings? Not so much. I craved spaghetti for a couple of weeks, then pickles and now I’m just hungry. I drink a lot of smoothies packed with good things like chia seeds, coconut oil, flax seeds, fruit, homemade yogurt, etc. and they seem to be doing a pretty good job of keeping my cravings at bay. I do, however, thoroughly enjoy *other* people’s cooking and will eat monstrous portions of it when I have the opportunity.  Food weakness? Organic Cheese Puffs. No joke. I’m trying hard to stay away from junk food and caffeine and too much sugar, but organic cheese puffs….. yum.

9) Exercise? I do ‘labor-prep yoga’ and take walks. Sometimes. I fail. A lot. But I have glorious plans to do better tomorrow. Really.

10) 15 weeks left and I have quite the list of things yet to do. It’s just hitting me now in the past couple of days that this thing is happening, and we’ll be there in no time at all. There were three of us young pregnant ladies in our church at the same time, all 10 weeks apart. The first one had her baby a little while ago and the next will reach her appointed time in a month – you know what that means, folks – I’m next. It’s like waiting in line for a scary ride. I’m frantically taking notes as I watch the ones before me bravely step up for their turn and I can’t help but feel like I have absolutely no idea what I am doing. It’s exciting, and I’m looking forward to having this baby in my arms, but boy howdy – there’s quite a bit to get through before that happens!

God is good and we pluck on. I am blessed to have so much love and support from my dear husband and family and friends, it’s overwhelming.

We shall do well.

Until next time… What’s your life looked like for the past few months? Can you sum it up in 10 things? Please share!

bread in a dutch oven – O the brilliance

in the kitchen, passionate life Leave a comment

Someone is getting a gold star.

I’m not sure who it is but I have tucked a shiny new star in my pocket along with a handful of confetti and a recording of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and when I find that wonderful person I am going to tag them with the star, baptize them with glitter and give them a round of applause, because they’ve made my bread-baking life into something glorious.

What happened? Go ahead and ask because I would love to tell you. Go ahead.

I read a book in which someone wrote that someone else said (the mystery person I am searching for) that you can reproduce the effects of crusty, hearty artisan loaves hitherto unattainable to myself by simply baking them in a covered Dutch Oven. Oh yes. Oh yes indeed.

Thank you, lovely random man, because it works. It really, truly, honest-to-goodness works. I’ve done it twice now.

Baking a basic ‘lean’ bread dough (flour, salt, yeast and water) in an oiled Dutch oven creates a gorgeous loaf of bread fit for the snoodiest of artisan tables. My husband and I love a good rustic crust you can tear at and dip into stew without the threat of disintegration and I’ve finally achieved it. Seriously folks, this can only be topped by giving birth (which I am fully intending on doing in a few short months).

The best part is that it’s so simple. So Simple. I made baguettes once and it was an elaborate process, absolutely worth it in the end but very time consuming and impractical for everyday eating. After hours of rising and kneading and rising and kneading, I baked the baguettes in a hot oven where an iron pan was sitting in the bottom. To this day I am not sure exactly *how* I managed it, but somehow I slipped the bread into the oven and poured a glass of water into the pan before shutting the door quickly and tightly. The hot pan immediately created the steam bath needed as the final step in making a truly chewy crust. Success, but at a price.

Oh, how differently this works! After the first rising, the dough is kneaded down and then placed in the oiled dutch oven to rise again. Then, when the dough is doubled and the oven is heated to the right temperature, the loaf is brushed with olive oil, sprinkled with coarse salt and the cover is placed on top. This bakes for 20 minutes and the bread makes its own steam – how clever is that?!? Once the crust is firmed, the cover is removed and the bread finishes baking, browning and bubbling and making itself perfect.

Perfect, I say. We can hardly wait to eat it – and often don’t. Is there anything better than fresh, hot bread drowning in butter? Or – perhaps fresh hot bread dipped in garlicky olive oil and balsamic vinegar? I didn’t think so.

***throws glitter and claps***

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Cooking with Quinoa

in the kitchen, Will Cook For Food Leave a comment

There has been a lot of talk about Quinoa. It first appeared as a food that would put those who ate it in the “Health Nut” camp but has recently become more of a mainstream curiosity.

Quinoa (pronounced ‘Keen-wah’) is a funny little food – at first glance people are tempted to call it a “grain” when indeed it is a “seed”. A very small seed and prominent member of the Goosefoot species of plants. I’m sure most of you have fought valiant battles against quinoa relatives who love to pop up in the fertile soil of your garden year after year. Back home we called them ‘ironweeds’ or ‘pigweeds’ or even ‘lambs’ quarters’ and when young they actually make a tasty and nutritious substitute for spinach at the dinner table – but that’s beside the point.

Quinoa is an ancient food from Peru and surrounding areas. The Incas considered it to be a sacred crop which caused their new Spanish neighbors to hold quinoa in distain. It was even outlawed for a time and the natives were forced to grow the more European wheat. What the Spanish didn’t know and what we are now finding out is that the Incas had good reason to hold their quinoa dear. Though it be tiny and a relative of plaguing weeds, quinoa has an impressive resume. Full of fiber, magnesium, iron, calcium, as well as being a complete protein in its own right, quinoa is gluten free and easy to digest. It’s also a smart plant, having a built-in defense system which causes it to be distasteful and even gastrically upsetting when eaten before the outer coating has been removed. The crop is easier to protect from critters that would sneak in and steal it before harvest. Most quinoa sold in the grocery stores has already been processed to remove the coating so when you purchase it (which I sincerely hope you do!!) it’s ready to be cooked and enjoyed.

How do we enjoy it, you ask? I have read that it can be considered ‘an acceptable substitute for rice’, but other than giving you a good idea of the broad range uses, I don’t think it does quinoa justice. I have found it to be so much more than ‘acceptable’ and so much more than a ‘substitute’!

My mom taught me to cook quinoa with a basic ratio of two parts liquid to one part quinoa and I have never had that fail me. Adding one cup of quinoa to two cups of slightly salted boiling water or stock, letting it cook until the water has boiled down to the level of the quinoa (8-10 minutes) and then putting the heat to low and covering it to ‘steam’ for 10 or so minutes more will give you a delightful, 2 cups (roughly) of cooked quinoa to serve plain as a side dish or to use in another recipe. The portions I just described will serve about 4 people.

Cooked quinoa is tender but still has a nice texture to it. It isn’t lumpy or soupy or mushy but can be ‘fluffed’ with a fork and the seeds will be separate. Another way you can tell is that the slim white ‘tail’ on each seed becomes loose, giving them an artsy look, as if they are wearing hats adorned with long feathers.

Once you have the basic recipe down and are ready to have some fun with it, there is certainly fun to be had! My latest quinoa craving has been satisfied by adding sautéed onions and chopped raw kale to the quinoa as it is cooking. So easy, so healthy, so very delicious. Another favorite method in my house is to start out by sautéing fat slices of sweet leeks in a bit of olive oil before adding chicken stock and then the quinoa. Oh. My. Word.

Add quinoa to soups instead of noodles or rice, use plain cooked quinoa in casseroles and and quiches. You can even cool it and sprinkle the seeds on salads. Your possibilities boarder on being endless and you will certainly not be doing any harm to incorporate this amazing food into your diet!  So go forth and enjoy…

 

yes I am this person

in the kitchen, passionate life 6 Comments

I got out my old calculator the other day and figured out that we spend (theoretically) $400+ a year on yogurt – alone. ALONE. That’s a ton of yogurt, but we eat it almost every day in our wicked-healthy-morning-smoothies and there is no way I am giving those up so I decided to crunch some numbers and see what it would cost to make my own yogurt each week.

I am not normally a person who likes to do math, in fact, I will go great distances to *avoid* having anything to do with numbers, but I am a sucker for saving a penny. I admit it – I love to save money. Not like, saving as in not spending it in the first place, but saving as in spending a *little* when you could have spent *a lot*. Beating the system.

Buying in bulk delights my soul, and my own mother can attest to the fact that shopping at the damaged discount food store gives me giddy goosebumps (and she might be the only person on earth who understands why). You would think I had a been set free with  unlimited credit in an upscale fashion boutique. It’s almost embarrassing – but any hesitation I might have (were I a more normal person) disappears the moment I find a slightly dented box of organic, free-range chicken broth for $.99 when I know For A Fact that the same product, undented, would cost $5. It’s all thrills and chills from there on out, my friends. No shame – only Gain.

So – knowing that about me, of course you believe that I actually sat down and figured out what it would cost me to make my own yogurt. Sometimes making things yourself is not always the cheapest way out – sometimes it is the best way in terms of *value*, but it doesn’t always cost *less*. Well, I have good news, very good news. Not only is it cheaper to make my own yogurt (saving us a whopping $250+ per annum) but I can make it fresher and simpler and I dare say Better than the store brand.

Isn’t it wonderful when you actually get rewarded for doing the right thing? Like deciding to make your own organic yogurt and being able to save a couple hundred bucks a year? It’s stinking Awesome – and that’s why I am writing this.

First – the recipe. It’s actually many recipes modge-podged together until I liked it and so far it’s worked pretty well. There’s no telling the difference between my yogurt and the expensive store brand. (So there.)

Yogurt

2 quarts of whole milk; it can be pasteurized, but skip the “ultra-pasteurized” stuff  (I know, I know – “BUT THE FAT!!!” I’m sorry, but milk fat makes good yogurt and happy people and if you scratch under the surface of all those fat labels you will find that there really isn’t that much of a difference between whole milk and 2%… go ahead and get the whole, you’ll thank me.)

1 package (1 Tablespoon) of plain, unflavored gelatin, available in the jello section of your local grocery hang-out (this is to give the yogurt more of a ‘store-bought’ texture, and to add a little protein and gelatin to the finished yogurt, both of which are really good for you.)

6-8 Tablespoons already made plain yogurt (this can be purchased at the store or saved from the last batch you made…)

A 3-4 quart pot for heating the milk

2 sterile (or really, really clean) glass quart containers with lids

a wooden spoon

a funnel (optional, but really handy!)

a candy or cheese thermometer

a small cooler or ice chest for incubating (I have an old two-person picnic cooler…)

Alrighty then. First off, dump the milk into your pot and then sprinkle the package of gelatin over the surface of the milk. Turn on the burner to medium to gently start to heat the milk. Stir the milk so that the gelatin dissolves and the milk doesn’t begin to scorch on the bottom. The milk has to reach between 100 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit, so while you are waiting (in between stirrings…) distribute the yogurt starter between the two jars. When the milk has reached temperature, gently fill the two jars – this is where the funnel comes in handy! Now stir with your wooden spoon so that everything is mixed well and comfy-like. Cap those bad boys and set them in your small cooler.

I’ve read lots of ways to do this part and have honestly only ever done one of them, but it works for me so I haven’t had any inkling to mess with it. I welcome your input and experiences – if something works even better, by all means – share it with the class!

I run hot tap water (about 110 degrees) and fill the cooler so that the jars are in a nice bath up to their shoulders. Then I put the cover on, wait 8 hours and pull them out. Into the fridge they go to set and in the morning we have fresh yogurt for breakfast. Yum.

The gelatin really makes the creamiest consistency which is even better if you wait a whole day, but we haven’t been able to wait to dip into that first jar.

And now for the numbers:

I was purchasing 2 quarts of brand-name organic yogurt a week from the store.

2 quarts= $8.00 a week x 52 weeks = $416.00 a year

Now, here are the figures for the homemade, bear with me now…

I had all of the equipment, which was a bonus

1 gallon of organic milk = $4.00  = $1.00 per quart

1 box plain gelatin (four packets) = $2.20 = $.55 per pack (roughly)

1 container start up yogurt (enough to start 6 quarts of yogurt) = $2.20 = $.40 per quart

So that is an $8.40 start up cost, but I don’t have to buy the gelatin or the starter yogurt every time…

Every quart of homemade yogurt costs me $1.58 to produce. I guess if you want to get hardcore about it (and don’t we all) you could count electricity for the stove and time and the hot water, bringing it up to a generous $2.00 a quart, which is *still* half of what I was paying.

((***It’s still worth it.***))

I know I absolutely geeked-out on this one, but I was too excited not to share.

Do you have some nerdy heart-throb of a money-saving habit you would like to share? Please do…

dealing with failure with grace, or, beating the Kitchen Mob at their own game and looking good while doing it

in the kitchen, passionate life, Will Cook For Food 5 Comments

So what happens when a recipe goes wrong? I mean, really wrong – BAD – and for no apparent reason.

Who do we blame? What excuse do we make to ourselves and the world around us?

I think every home chef needs a Fall Guy, some thing or some one one who can step in and take some of the heat off the cook who really has done their level best, followed a recipe to the letter and still ends up disappointed.

I have my proverbial scape goat  and I call it – The Kitchen Mob. We can’t all be culinary superstars and ‘they’ know it. When something goes wrong with a recipe that I’ve tried in good faith, I know exactly what’s going on – it’s a case of kitchen thuggery, pure and simple. Sabotage of the same ilk as fast food menu pictures (because really, who has EVER gotten a burger that looks like that in real life…) and ideas for children’s parties in women’s magazines (“…make these adorable cake pops for your 3rd grader’s class party – it’s as easy as 1-2-spend all day and $50 dollars creating something that took our expert test kitchen staff a whole month and four years of rigorous culinary training to make…”)

I object. Not just to cake pops, but to the whole elaborate Kitchen Mob scene. I object to “Them”.

Is it to keep us humble? Is it to keep us on our toes? Is it to keep us from becoming complacent and lazy? Do we really seem this desperate for a little excitement in our lives?

What about my carrot cake – now buried and wept over – the cake I so carefully made for my beloved on Valentine’s Day? If we had wanted a slab of carrot-flavored play dough I am sure there are easier and less heartbreaking ways to achieve that. I followed the recipe – perfectly – and it bombed.

After such an incident, I find myself looking for something a little fool-proof, something that I can whip up like a pro and look good serving to boot, something I KNOW will turn out perfectly and get my confidence back up where it should be. Then I am ready to return to the ring once more and take on the Kitchen Mob and all their schemes. I am going to share such a recipe, a  loud “HA!” in the face of failed attempts for that home chef out there who has had a frantic week, or whose computer spontaneously combusted while they were frantically trying to type out their cooking column, or who just happened to pick a bad recipe out of the stack… this is for you. We shall beat them at their own game and laugh while we do it.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Serves 1

You will need:

2 slices of bread

2 Tablespoons peanut butter

2 teaspoons soft butter

2 Tablespoons jam of your choice

 

There’s nothing quite like a properly made peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My mom makes a darn good PB&J and served with a glass of cold milk – well, it doesn’t get much better than that.

On one of the slices of bread, spread out your peanut butter making sure to cover the Entire Surface Of The Bread. This is important, folks. The whole “I hate the crusts” fiasco was probably started by some hasty person who never smoothed the fillings all the way to the edge. It’s important that you do this with the butter on the other slice of bread, too. The butter keeps the jelly from seeping through the bread and making it too soggy – blech. After the slice is sufficiently buttered, slather on your jam. Introduce the two slices, marry them together and get ready for your happily ever after – it never fails. This is a story that always has a happy ending, a recipe that works time after time. We have beaten the Kitchen Mob and all is well with the world once more.

Enjoy!