The Chow Review

Cream of Mushroom Soup

2012-01-24T14:06:00.000-08:00

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
5 stalks celery, chopped
2 pounds crimini mushrooms, chopped
5-10 dried shitake mushrooms
8 cups water (or broth)
1 can evaporated milk (can substitute milk, cream, half and half, etc.)
3 Tbsp oil

In a large pot, melt butter. Let brown just a bit, and stir or whisk in flour very well. Let it get a little color, and slowly whisk in water or broth. Add dried shitake mushrooms, and bring to a simmer. Simmer 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a large skillet. Add celery and crimini mushrooms- saute until softened, about 15 minutes.

Add celery and mushrooms, with pan juices, to soup pot, bring to a boil, and simmer 15 minutes. Add 1 can evaporated milk and heat through. Salt and pepper to taste.

If desired, thin down with a little more water before serving- the longer this sets, the thicker it gets. I cooked it in the afternoon, and added another 2 cups of water before dinner.

Cioppino!

2012-01-18T21:42:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, my husband and I picked up a mixed bag of seafood from Costco. It had loads of goodies, like mussels, rings of calimari, dime-sized bay scallops, and smallish shrimp. Everything in the bag seemed to be prepared so that it could all cook in the same amount of time. The mussels were partially open, which told me that had been pre-cooked. The shrimp were small, as were the scallops, which meant they could cook in the same amount of time. It took the guess-work out of the preparation, for sure! When I looked at that bag, all I saw was seafood stew. Although, now that I think about it, those would all lend themselves to jambalaya or paella, as well. I'll let you know what I do with the other half of the bag!

If you do not happen to have a mixed bag of seafood waiting for you in your freezer, almost anything will work here. Crab would be amazing, or clams. Just pick up a few pounds of your favorite seafood, and you will love this dinner. We served this piping hot, with a loaf of fresh honey wheat bread and a nice green salad.

Cioppino, LoLo Style
(Adapted from Giadda de Laurentiis, www.foodnetwork.com)

1 onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 small can tomato paste
2 regular cans diced tomatoes, in their juice
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp. dried parsley
1/2 tsp. crushed bay leaves
6 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
2 tsp. salt
3 pounds mixed seafood (small scallops, shrimp, calamari and mussels)
Fresh ground black pepper and Tabasco, to taste

1. In a large dutch oven (I loved my ceramic coated Le Creuset for this, but any heavy pan will work), heat up a dollop of olive oil, then add your chopped onion and garlic. Cook until they are translucent, about 10 minutes. (This step is entirely up to you, but I've found that when making soup, if an onion is at all crunchy going into the broth..it will stay that way, or simply disintegrate.)

2. Add a little water to deglaze the pan, then stir in the tomato paste. Cook that until it smells divine, then add the remainder of the ingredients, except for the seafood, pepper and Tabasco.

3. Cover and simmer at least 30 minutes, then blend with an immersion blender. 10 minute before you are ready to serve, add the seafood and cook until just done, in order of necessary cooking time.

Season table side with hot sauce and pepper. Serve with fresh whole wheat bread and a crunchy green salad.

How to Cook Beans

2012-01-09T14:35:00.000-08:00

A basic method, but I do this a lot in our kitchen, so definitely worth knowing! I'll give the most basic method (quick and slow versions) and you can fancy it up however you please.

I am using dried onions and dried garlic here- in my experience, these work better than fresh. The end result is sweeter and more married.

--Myrnie

Ingredients:
2 cups dried beans (1 pound)
about 1 Tbsp baking soda
Water
Salt
bay leaves
pepper
dried onions
dried garlic

Serves four

Clean:
Pour dried beans into a large pot and cover with cool water- swish them around with your hand to clean any dust or debris off. (I've never found any, but it's not uncommon to find small sticks or stones.) Use your hand to scoop out any beans that float, or anything else that shouldn't be there. Drain off the water, and cover again, so when you stick your pointer finger on top of the beans, the water comes up to your second knuckle. Add a shake or two of baking soda.

Soak:
For a quick soak, put the pot on the stove and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Watch it, because it will foam up quite a bit (because of the baking soda.) Let cook 2 or 3 minutes, remove from heat, and drain and rinse. This will give you a fine pot of beans, but they will not be pretty. The skins might come off, and the beans might lose their shape during cooking.

For a slow soak, leave the pot of beans on the counter overnight. You might need to add more water, if they soak it all up. Drain and rinse.

Cook:
On the stovetop: Fill pot with water again, two finger knuckles above the beans. Add 1 tsp salt per pound of beans. Add flavorings- for pinto beans, since they're served straight from the pot, I like a tablespoon or two of dried onions, some good shakes of granulated garlic, 2 or 3 dried bay leaves, and a teaspoon of black pepper if I want it spicy. If I'm doing black beans or white beans, I often stop with just salt, since the beans are normally made into something else later. Bring to a boil, and lower to a simmer- let cook until tender, 2 to 3 hours depending on how hard they're simmering. They keep just fine on the stove, so you can get these done in the afternoon, and keep them warm till dinner.

In the crockpot, add beans and seasonings as listed above, and cook on low for 6 or 7 hours (for best results) or high for 4 or 5 hours.

I like to serve beans over rice, plain or sauteed with oil, garlic, onions, salt, and pepper before cooking. I set out sour cream, shredded cheese, all the types of hot sauce I can find, and chopped onions.

Cooked beans can be portioned out and frozen for later.

This is my favorite recipe for black beans: Chipotle Black Bean Chili. Amazing with sour cream and a squeeze of lime juice.

Coconut Curry Pumpkin Soup (Vegan)

2012-01-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

This soup is thick and creamy, with a bit of spice from the curry powder (I used a yellow curry powder.) A green curry paste would be phenomenal here, and you could use a different creamy liquid rather than my coconut suggestion. Almond or cashew milk would be amazing, or just evaporated milk. Maybe yogurt or sour cream? Just be sure to not overcook the soup once you've added that last creamy ingredient, so it doesn't "break." Or, for a simpler soup, omit the creamy part altogether- I love how forgiving veggie soups are. This made good use of frozen pumpkin puree, roasted from this years' garden pumpkins. We served this with lots of fresh bread, for dipping!

--Myrnie

Coconut Curry Pumpkin Soup
Serves 8

Ingredients:
4 cups pumpkin puree
8 cups water
2 heaping Tbsp curry powder
2 tsp salt
1 onion, sliced
5 cloves garlic, minced or grated
small knob of ginger, minced or grated
3 Tbsp oil

1 can coconut milk (can substitute cream, evaporated milk, other thick creamy liquid like a nut or hemp milk)

Heat oil in a soup pot over medium heat- add onions, garlic, and ginger. Stir until fragrant and lightly cooked, 30 seconds to a minute. Add water, and remaining ingredients (except coconut milk). Heat to a simmer, and let cook 20-40 minutes until slightly reduced. Remove from heat, puree with an immersion blender, and stir in 1 can coconut milk.

Mushroom and Egg Tart

2011-12-01T12:32:00.000-08:00

A base of baked puff pastry, topped with a pan of cooked-down onions and mushrooms, and topped with perfectly-set eggs.

I think yes.

This was a huge hit for dinner the other night- the husband, six-year-old, and myself polished this off with no problem, along with a big green salad. It took some time, but most of the prep could be done ahead of time for a quick meal prep later. If you pre-baked the pastry shell, and cooked the mushrooms and onions, all that would be left is piling them into the oven and baking.

This came from the November '11 edition of Everyday Food. I've marked, and tried, so many recipes from that edition- definitely shelf-worthy, with the rest of my cookbooks!

The original ingredients called for shitake mushrooms and tarragon, and parmesan cheese for dusting. Here is how I made it.

Crimini and Egg Tart

Serves 3 as main course, or six as side dish

Ingredients:
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
3/4 pound crimini mushrooms, cleaned
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves
sea salt and ground pepper
6 large eggs

1. On a piece of parchment paper, unfold puff pastry. Cover with a sheet of cling film, and roll out to 11x14 inches. Remove cling film, and use a sharp paring knife to trim pastry edges straight. A half inch from the edge of the dough, using your paring knife, lightly cut partially through the dough. Transfer pastry, on parchment paper, to a rimmed baking sheet. Use a fork to prick all over, inside the scored border. Refrigerate 20 minutes.

2. Turn oven on to 375. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly caramelized (10 to 15 minutes.) Using a large glass measuring cup, or a small fry pan, crush mushrooms lightly. Finish chopping with a knife into 1/4-1/2" pieces. Add mushrooms and thyme to caramelized onions and cook until mushrooms are soft and dark, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Deglaze pan with a few tablespoons water, if necessary.

3. Bake puff pastry until light golden, about 15 minutes. Remove from oven and top with mushroom mixture, staying within border. Crack eggs into a small bowl or cup, and carefully pour eggs on top of mushroom mixture. Bake until whites are set and yolks are still runny (about 10 minutes) or longer if you like your eggs more cooked. I thought it was perfect after about 20 minutes.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-11-29T19:17:00.001-08:00

This was an experiment...a delicious one. I received the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook for my birthday a few days ago, and I am SO excited to try a few of the recipes out. They are well-laid out, and well-explained, and well-proved. Last night, I asked my daughter what she would like to bake today, and her answer was chocolate chip cookies! The recipe looked pretty familiar, so I decided to play with it a little. I subbed in whole wheat flour for the white flour, and used olive oil for half of the butter. The result was a chewy, hearty, nutty cookie that is absolutely wonderful. I wouldn't call these healthy...but definitely a healthier version of a lunchbox favorite!

LoLo's Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
(adapted from Cook's Illustrated Cookbook, Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies)

1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 oz) whole-wheat flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 stick (4 oz/ 8 Tbsp.) butter
6 Tbsp. olive oil
3/4 cup packed (5 1/4 oz) brown sugar
1/2 cup (3 1/2 oz) granulated sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 large egg plus 1 large yolk
1 1/4 cups (7 1/2 oz) chocolate chips

1. Set up your oven rack to the middle of the oven, and preheat to 275. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats. Whisk together flour and baking soda in a medium bowl, and set aside.

2. In a medium sized skillet, melt your stick of butter over medium-low heat. It will foam. Keep swirling and wait for the foam to subside, using your nose to watch for danger. You want the butter browned, but not burnt. When the foam goes down, your butter should be a nice chestnut color. Take it off the heat and mix in your olive oil. Dump your butter mixture into a large heatproof bowl.

3. To your large bowl, add brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt and vanilla. Whisk until totally incorporated. Add your egg and egg yolk, and whisk until the mixture is smooth and lump free. Set the mixture aside for 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 seconds. Repeat this process two more times until the mixture is thick, smooth and shiny. Use a rubber spatula to fold in your flour mixture just until combined, then add your chocolate chips. Make sure there are no streaks of flour. Roll your dough out into 2" (3 Tbsp.) balls and place 2" apart on your prepared cookie sheets.

4. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time 10-14 minutes, until the edges are just set but the centers are still puffy and soft. Underdone will give you a soft, chewy cookie. Cooking until set all the way through will give you a light, crisp cookie. Let the cookies rest on the pan for a minute after removing them from the oven, and then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Lemon Chess Pie

2011-11-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

This was still a bit jiggly when it was done, and a knife came out wet, but it set up in the fridge. Kind of like lemonbars, but not nearly as sweet or tart :)

I can't remember where this recipe came from, and had to search for it in my e-mail. Luckily, I sent a copy to my MIL! It's really, really good.

-Myrnie

Lemon Chess Pie

Ingredients:

1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell (use your favorite pastry recipe or purchase frozen piecrust)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 Tblsp. flour (or 1 T flour and 1 T cornmeal)
5 large eggs
freshly grated zest of one lemon
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup butter, melted

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325°.
Place pie crust in 9-inch pie plate...and flute edges.
Combine sugar and flour in mixing bowl.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating at medium speed with mixer until well blended.
Add lemon zest, lemon juice, and melted butter. Mix well.
Pour filling into the prepared pie crust.
Bake on lower rack of oven for 45 minutes at 325°F...or until puffed and golden brown in colour.
When cool...cut and serve each wedge with a dollop of whipped cream...and a sauce of fresh raspberries or blackberries

Brown Sugar Buttermilk Pie

2011-11-14T22:09:00.000-08:00

You need this pie, but if you eat this pie...eat nothing else. With three eggs, 2 egg yolks, and 3/4 of a stick of butter, there's no messing around here! BUT (and this is a big but. Ahem.) You need this pie.

I cook a lot. A lot, a lot. And this is the best thing to come out of my kitchen in a long time! Crispy pie crust. Soft custard. Nutmeg that floats to the top. Add this to your Thanksgiving line up, folks.

(If you don't subscribe to Martha's "Everyday Food" magazine, PLEASE do. It's that good.)

Brown-Sugar Buttermilk Pie
from Everyday Food originally, in my own words

3 Tbsp flour
3 large egg eggs, plus two more large yolks, beaten
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, room temperature
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
6 Tbsp unsalted butter

Press your favorite single-crust pie crust into a glass pan, and bake at 425 for about 10 minutes.
Put 6 tablespoons of butter in a small sauce pan on the stove, over medium heat, for 8-10 minutes and let it melt and cook. It's going to froth up, and it's going to turn brown. Swirl the pan occasionally, especially towards the end. When the froth subsides, and it's nut-brown, it's done!
In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, eggs, and brown sugar until smooth. Whisk in buttermilk, nutmeg, and cinnamon until combined. This pie, with such small amounts of spices, is already heavily spiced. I wouldn't recommend increasing them at all.
When the butter is done, immediately whisk it into the buttermilk mixture. It will foam up dramatically, be prepared! Pour mixture into baked pie shell, and bake at 425 for 25-35 minutes, until the custard is set but still jiggly. This will continue to cook a bit as it cools.
Let cool completely, 2 hours, before serving. Can be refrigerated up to 3 days.

(If you use this pie crust recipe, you won't be sorry! It mixes together with a fork, IN THE PIE PLATE. Then you just smash it out with your finger tips. No rising, either, so it's perfect for this. My mom has always, as long as I've known her, left her pie crust behind when she eats pie. It's just wasted calories, when she could be eating more filling! She ate this crust, and relished it :)

--Myrnie

Sweet Potato Dessert Soup with Tong Yuen

2011-11-11T23:29:00.001-08:00

After a long day of sick kids, cancelled plans and one truly awful dinner (made by yours truly), Lo Gung and I both deserved something tasty (and filling..since dinner was so nasty). This is what came to mind. I had a few sweet potatoes in the refrigerator, and some ginger that was only getting spicier by the day. Sweet potato dessert soup (fan syu tong seui) is kind of a perennial staple around here. However, I am an absolute sucker for anything involving glutinous rice flour, so I got fancy and threw a few fresh tong yuen into the mix. The result was tasty, satisfying…and almost made us both forget about the long day we had just survived.

Aunt LoLo’s Sweet Potato Dessert Soup with Tong Yuen

Makes 2-4 servings

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1” pieces (fan syu)

3-4” knob of ginger, peeled and cut into 1/2” chunks (geung) (fyi – ginger is super easy to peel – scrape it with a spoon)

1 lime-sized chunk of Chinese rock sugar (bing tong)

1/2 of a dried satsuma peel (chaang pei)

15-20 plain glutinous rice dumplings (tong yuhn) (recipe here) (to make 15-20 dumplings, you will need approximately 1/2 cup glutinous rice flour and less than 1/4 cup water)

Water (4 rice bowls full)

1. Put your water, ginger and satsuma skin into a medium sauce pan, cover, and bring to a boil.

2. Add your chopped sweet potato, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until potatoes are almost fork tender.

3. Meanwhile, prepare your tong yuen. When the sweet potatoes are about 2 minutes from being done, drop your tong yuen into the simmering water. Continue to cook until the tong yuen float, then add your rock sugar and stir to melt. Taste the broth, and add more sugar if necessary.

Enjoy!

Tong Yuen

2011-11-11T23:27:00.001-08:00

My apologies. This post has been sitting in my queue for…well, since the Super Bowl. I didn’t want to publish it until I could successfully use it to make my own tong yuen. And tonight…I did it! Tong Yuen are very simple, if you know what you’re looking for. Simply combine glutinous rice flour with enough water to make a dough. Easy peasy.

Tong Yuen are one of my favorite Chinese treats. One of my companions introduced them to me when I was a missionary in Hong Kong. We were both craving something sweet and, since I was freshly arrived from America, my sweet companion was scouring the grocery store for ice cream that didn’t cost half of our weekly food budget. “No,” I said. “I don’t want something that sweet…” Right after she picked her jaw up off the floor (she knew I had a sweet tooth!), she grabbed a package of tong yuen from the freezer department. “Try these!” she said. We brought them home and boiled them up. They were delicious! Soft and chewy, filled with sweet black sesame seed paste, they were amazing. They are still one of my favorite ways to satisfy a sweet tooth, but I rarely get to enjoy them. They aren’t too expensive ($4 a package for the good ones), but I always seem to want to save them for a Special Occasion.

When my mother in law came to visit this month and told me she knew how to make them herself, I was so excited! She whipped these up, literally, an hour before we took her to the airport to fly home. They come together quickly, but create a lot of dirty dishes as there are several components coming together.

The trickiest part is, of course, making up the tong yuen. They are a simple mixture of glutinous rice flour and water. That’s it!

This is too dry.

This is too wet.

This is just right! It should resemble…playdough? It’s similar to the Gaak you might have played with in elementary school (cornstarch and water). It stretches if you pull slowly, but snaps off if you pull quickly. You need to be able to roll it out into firm balls that will hold their shape. Just keep adding glutinous rice flour, or water, until you’ve got it right. My MIL started out with 2 cups of flour, and then decided to just mix up the whole bag. We made it our lunch. Yum!

The boiled, and syruped, tong yuen waiting in a pan to be eaten.

Our “dipping plate.”

One very excited Lo Gung. He hadn’t had his mothers homemade tong yuen in years! (I was smarter than him, though. While he was busy watching the Super Bowl, I was hovering near his mother in the kitchen, hoovering up any unclaimed tong yuen as fast as I could. Heh.

These are very “traditional”. MaMa laughed when I said I wanted to learn. These are the treats of her youth, not the lovely filled ones you can find in Asian grocery stores now. However, I think these are just perfect. If you like fillings in your dumplings, you could definitely use this recipe to wrap up some red bean paste or sesame seed paste.

MaMa’s Tong Yuen

Makes enough for 4-6 people

Ingredients:

Dip:

2 Tbsp. sesame seeds

3 tsp. white sugar

1/4 cup nuts (cashew, peanuts, almonds, etc. Whatever you want.)

Syrup:

2 bars Chinese brown sugar (pin tong) (these are sold in Asian grocery stores and look like small bricks)

1/4 cup water

Tong Yuen:

2 cups glutinous rice flour, plus extra for adjustments

1/2 cup water, plus extra for adjustments

1. Prepare a medium sized pot and fill it about half way with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer until you are ready to cook your tong yuen.

2. In a small sauce pan, combine your pin tong (Chinese brown sugar) and water. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is completely dissolved. You may need to help it along by breaking up the sugar bars with your spoon.

3. In the bowl of a small food processor, pulse your nuts until coarsely ground. (Alternately, you can put your nuts in a plastic bag and use a mallet or rolling pin to bash them up.) It should look like chunky cornmeal when you are done. Combine with your white sugar and sesame seeds in a small bowl, and set aside.

4. In a bowl, combine your glutinous rice flour and 1/2 cup water. Mix it with your fingers and adjust the water or glutinous rice flour until you have the right consistency. Do not over-mix this. Over-mixed tong yuen are chewy, gummy, dense tong yuen. Not good eats. Use three-four fingers to lightly mix the flour and water together, sort of pinching and folding until everything is right. You should be able to roll it out into balls that will keep their shape. It will look a little like spackling!

5. When your tong yuen are rolled out, carefully lower them into your simmering water. Return to a boil, and cook until the tong yuen float (about 2-3 minutes).

6. When the tong yuen are finished cooking, use a spider or slotted spoon to fish them out of the water and into the pot of syrup. Stir to coat, then use your spider or slotted spoon to remove to a serving dish. You can sprinkle with your nut/sugar mixture, or allow your guests to dip their tong yuen individually as they eat them.

Enjoy!

Gai Mei Bau (Rooster Tail Bun)

2011-11-10T22:13:00.001-08:00

Hello, all! Welcome to my crazy. I am trying (and trying and trying) to recreate the Hong Kong Gai Mei Bau (雞尾包). It is my husband’s favorite bakery bun, and we haven’t found any great ones near our home. Oh, I’m sure they’re out there, but I’m too lazy to drive around and test buns from all the local bakeries to find a great one!

I’m just lazy enough to stay home and test recipe after recipe to figure out how to make them myself. Because that is how my crazy works.

My first attempt was using a recipe from Auntie Yochana (here). They were delicious. I omitted the Mexican Cream topping, as well as the egg wash and the sesame seeds. (They would have been delicious, I’m sure, but at that point in the day, I was tired of adding butter to my creation, and I was just tired in general. So…there.)

Oh my goodness, guys. These buns were seriously delicious. However, as tasty as they were, they didn’t taste like the real buns. The filling was declared “right” by Lo Gung, and so I will keep that portion of the recipe. The bread portion came out tasting a lot like the Australian Toaster Biscuits I loved to eat when I was a kid (and didn’t realize how much butter could be packed into a baked good. Mmmm…those were the days!).

So. Here’s the filling recipe (adapted from Yochana’s Cake Delight!)

Coconut Filling for Buns

250 gm. Butter, softened
250 gm. shredded coconut
120 gm. plain flour
100 gm. powdered milk
1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

When I made my initial batch of buns, I made a half batch, and froze half of my filling mixture. If that doesn’t work out well….well, then, I will let you know.

My next attempt at the dough will be using this recipe, from Hong Kong Breads.

The first recipe I tried involved custard powder, which is fabulous in other applications, but I don’t think it quite works here. I’ll let you know how this goes!

Pan Seared Tilapia with Mandarin Orange Sauce

2011-11-01T21:40:00.001-07:00

If this was a fancy restaurant, I might call this Mandarin Orange Pan Seared Tilapia with Crisped Ginger and Garlic. Whatever.

This was quick, delicious, and (amazingly) totally adored by everyone at the table. Including the five year old who would prefer to eat Nutella and bread five times a day.

Mandarin Orange Tilapia

Ingredients:

Tilapia filets

1/2” knob of ginger, julienned

5 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

Olive oil

1 tin Mandarin Oranges

3 tsp corn starch

Green onions, to garnish

1. In a small sauce pan, stir together the can of mandarin oranges (including the juice), and the corn starch. Cook over medium heat until bubbly and thickened.

2. Meanwhile, in a skillet, combine a drizzle of olive oil with the ginger and garlic. Turn on your heat to medium high, and heat the oil until the garlic and ginger just start to sizzle and smell good.

3. Add your tilapia (carefully dried on paper towels!) and cook until golden and done, approximately 3-4 minutes per side.

4. Serve the tilapia over rice, with the orange sauce, and garnish with sliced green onions.

Enjoy!

Flourless Chocolate Crisps

2011-10-28T22:49:00.001-07:00

Adapted from Kumquat

Ingredients:

3 cups powdered sugar

2/3 cups sifted cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

2 tsp vanilla

2-4 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 and line two cookie sheets with silicone mats or parchment paper.

In a bowl, combine your powdered sugar, cocoa powder, salt, chocolate chips and vanilla. Add two egg whites, and give it a stir. It will probably look like wet chalk. Add another. Maybe another. You’re looking for anything between brownie batter (a slightly thicker cookie) and Elmer’s Glue (a thinner cookie).

When desired consistency is reached, put your cookies by spoonful onto your cookie sheets. Two tablespoon-sized heaps will give you 24 cookies. One tablespoon-sized heaps will give you smaller cookies, and more of them.

Bake 14 minutes per sheet, or until the cookies are shiny on top and slightly cracked. Cool a few minutes on the cookie sheet, then carefully move your paper/mat to your cooling rack. When you are able, peel your cookies off and allow them to finish cooling on the rack.

Marshmallow Popcorn Treats

2011-10-28T14:15:00.001-07:00

Marshmallow Popcorn Treats

Makes two 9x13 pans- can be halved

Pop one cup of popcorn.

In a large pot over medium low heat, melt 3/4 cup shortening. Add 1 large bag of mini marshmallows, about 10 cups, and melt them, stirring occasionally. You want to keep the heat low, so the sugar doesn't cook too much and make your treats crispy! Stir in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

Pour the marshmallow mixture over the popcorn, and mix quickly before it cools off too much. I did this in another large pot, or you could do it in batches in a big bowl. This is a LOT of popcorn! The easiest way is to grease your hands and just dig in and mix it around- wait just a minute or two for the sugar to cool enough to handle.

Press lightly into two well-greased 9x13 pans and let cool. Turn onto a cutting board and cut into squares.

Whole Grain Corn Bread

2011-10-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

This is, hands down, my favorite corn bread. It's sweetened, but not sweet. It's made with freshly ground corn and wheat, so it's filling. It's soft and hearty and moist, with little crunchy bits of corn, and so, so good. The original recipe is from the side of the Alber's Corn Meal box. I've doubled it, and substituted freshly ground grains.

This is fantastic with chili or beans. I like it plain, and some in my family smother it with butter and honey. I remember, growing up, drizzling molasses over my corn bread- I highly recommend it! (Plus, molasses is a good source of iron.)

Whole Grain Corn Bread
1 heaping cup popcorn, ground into coarse flour
1 heaping cup winter white wheat, ground into fine flour, plus more (see below)
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
2 cups milk
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten.

Measure out 2 cups of corn meal and 2 cups of wheat flour. (I normally grind a bit of extra wheat flour, to make sure I have 4 cups of grain flour total, since I can more easily use up excess wheat flour than corn meal.) Mix with dry ingredients in a bowl.

In a large measuring cup, combine liquid ingredients- stir to beat eggs. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry, with as few strokes as you can. As soon as everything is wet, stop mixing- lumps are OK!

Baked in a greased 9x13 pan, at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

2011-10-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

Every member of my family, including the infant, loved this soup. L.O.V.E.D. Also, it had a boat load of vegetables in it.

Cream of Broccoli Soup
2 heads broccoli, chopped
1/2 head celery, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 Tbsp. oil
1/4 cup flour
2 Tbsp dried onions
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
8 cups water
Chicken base or bullion (I used 2 tsp)
1 1/2 cups powdered milk (or amount indicated on package for 2 quarts of water)
Cooked corn, optional

Heat oil in a large pot, and add chopped vegetables, granulated garlic, and dried onions. Saute until softened, and stir in flour. Cook a few minutes, then add a little of the water and clean the bottom of the pot. Add the rest of the water and worcestershire sauce . Once heated through, add powdered milk. Let simmer, stirring often to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pan, until carrots are softened. Puree in a blender (or with an immersion blender) and pour through a colander to strain. We served ours with corn stirred in.

You could also add potatoes, or other mild flavored vegetables like cauliflower, or young turnips.

If you have extra milk, that could easily be substituted for the powdered milk and water.

LoLo’s Marmalade Cake

2011-10-09T22:54:00.001-07:00

This cake was an experiment, to use up part of a quart of lemon marmalade I had in the refrigerator. (Why do I have a quart of marmalade? Well, because I canned it! I put it in a quart jar to save time, so I didn’t have to can a half dozen tiny jars. Guess the joke’s on me. Nobody likes the marmalade!)

This is rather loosely based on a cake I found here, on Orangette. The way I made it, it was sticky, and sweet, and absolutely awesome. Even the kids loved it. So. If you have large quantities of marmalade on your hands, give it a go!

LoLo’s Marmalade Cake
Ingredients:
2 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
4 large eggs
½ tsp. table salt
1 cups sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup olive oil
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup marmalade (I used lemon, and it was quite tasty)

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare your pan. I used a jelly roll pan, lined with a Silpat. Whatever you use is probably fine, just adjust baking time accordingly. A bundt cake will take longer to bake than a 9x13 pan or a jelly roll pan. This is a STICKY cake, so whatever you use, either line it with silicone or parchment paper, or grease and flour liberally!

1. In a bowl, sift together your flour and baking powder. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine your eggs and salt. Beat until light and frothy. Gradually add your sugars and mix until combined. Slowly add your flour mixture and mix just until combined. Add your olive oil, vanilla and marmalade. Mix again, just until everything is incorporated.
3. Scrape the batter out into your prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out batter free. (A few crumbs stuck to the stick are ok.) (I baked mine in a 1/4 sheet pan, luckily on top of another 1/2 sheet pan. This cake has some lift to it! If baking in a 1/2 sheet pan, start checking it at 40 minutes.)

EDITED TO ADD: (11/10/11) When the cake is cool, spread it with glaze, wait about 20 minutes, and then cut into small pieces. These are awesome...like lemon blondies.

Glaze recipe:
1 cup powdered sugar
Lemon juice (about 8 Tbsp.)

Mix powdered sugar and enough lemon juice to make a drizzly glaze. Spread over the cooled cake.

These were amazing...like lemon bars in a cake form.

Healthy Mac and Cheese

2011-10-09T22:42:00.001-07:00

Guys, help me out here. I got this recipe from a friend. All I know is that it is copied from chapter 15 of a cookbook, and it is officially called “Healthy mac and Cheese, Believe it!” For all I know, it’s from a diet book. (Come to think of it, it probably is from an Eat-Clean book.)

Wherever it’s from, this friend (Jen) came over on Friday with a dish of it and I ate way, way too much. It is absolutely delicious, and totally crave-worthy. I wouldn’t say it’s a trick-you version of mac n’ cheese, but it’s absolutely delicious in its own right. The whole point of Jen bringing it over was to try it together, and tweak it if it needed it. Here’s what we came up with.

Healthy Mac and Cheese

(Adapted)

Ingredients

2 Tbsp. olive oil

2 Tbsp. flour (any kind – whole wheat, gluten free, etc.)

3/4 cooked, mashed sweet (or regular) potato

3/4 cup liquid (low-fat or skim milk, or broth) heated to just warm

1 cup yogurt cheese (made by draining plain yogurt in cheese cloth)

2 Tbsp. grated parmesan cheese

Sea Salt and Pepper, to taste

Worcestershire Sauce, to taste (about 1 Tbsp.)

Nutmeg, to taste (about 1/2 tsp.)

3/4 pound whole grain pasta

Panko bread crumbs

1. Cook your pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside. Also, grease a small casserole pan and set aside.

2. Meanwhile, in a skillet, heat your olive oil over medium heat and add your flour. Whisk to make a roux – don’t let it burn! Gradually add your warmed liquid (milk, broth, etc.) and continue to whisk and cook until thick. Add potato puree and continue stirring.

3. Add parmesan cheese and yogurt cheese. Add salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and nutmeg to taste. Add your noodles and stir to combine. Taste again, and adjust seasoning if needed.

4. Move your sauced pasta into your prepared casserole pan and sprinkle liberally with panko bread crumbs. Broil in the oven just until the bread crumbs turn golden brown. Serve hot.

You may also stir in steamed veggies, or sliced chicken, to make this into a one-pot meal.

Enjoy!

Tomato Pepper Carrot Puree (Raw Spaghetti Sauce)

2011-10-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

Staring down a pile of ripe tomatoes, I knew I wanted pasta sauce for my freezer. I knew that I wanted to make a huge batch, eat some for dinner, and freeze the rest. I knew that dinner was in 30 minutes. So, I punted (which is a luxury I can afford, when I don't intend on preserving the final product in a jar, on the shelf.)

After finding this recipe and taking stock of what I had, I scoffed at the suggested three tomatoes, grabbed as many things from my fridge as I dared, and came up with this.

Technically, I'm going to call it a tomato-carrot-bell pepper puree. Eat it cold and plain, it's gazpacho. Warm it up and thin it down with some chicken stock, it's a nice warm soup base. Cook it down thicker, and it would make an excellent spread for crackers or little toast points or crusty baguette rounds. Use it as a pizza sauce. Do what I did, and spoon some into a hot pot of drained pasta, add back some of the starchy pasta water, and stir it over low heat till the sauce is thick and clingy on the noodles. The main thing to remember is it's raw, it's delicious, and it's fast. Oh, and it's smooth. Very, VERY important to my kids.

Tomato Pepper Carrot Puree
Makes about 5 Cups

1/4 cup olive oil
10 medium sized tomatoes, halved (I used Early Girls and very, very fat Romas from the garden)
3-4 cloves garlic
1 small onion, halved
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp dried basil (use fresh if you have it- I made ALL of my basil into pesto yesterday)
2 Tbsp white vinegar (for a little kick, and to keep it bright looking)
2 red bell peppers, topped and seeded, then torn into quarters
2 good-sized carrots, chopped into 1" cubes
Pepper

Start with the first eight ingredients, but only put in two or three halved tomatoes. Blend well- as you can, add the rest of the ingredients. I have a workhorse of a vintage VitaMix, you might need to adjust things or use a food processor at home. Grating the carrots would also help in smaller blenders. Taste test, and add more basil or salt or pepper or garlic or red pepper, or whatever you fancy.

As a pasta sauce, I'd say this made enough for about 5 pounds of pasta.

Alton Brown’s Super Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-10-09T08:33:00.001-07:00

(from LoLo’s Cooking School, session 2)

The Chewy

(Adapted from Alton Brown’s Good Eats: The Early Years)

(I ADORE this cookbook. If you do not have it, I HIGHLY recommend it. Not only are the recipes foolproof, but the book is packed full of interesting culinary facts, scientific facts and trivia bits from the Good Eats cooking show.)

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, melted and cooled

2 1/4 cup (12 oz) flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt (3/4 tsp. table salt)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup (2 oz) white sugar

2 cups (8 oz) brown sugar

1 large egg + 1 egg yolk

2 Tablespoon milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups (12 oz) chocolate chips

1. Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter and the two sugars. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.

3. In a third (small) bowl, whisk together the egg, egg yolk, milk and vanilla extract.

4. Lower the mixer speed to low, and slowly add the egg mix. Mix until totally combined, about 30 seconds.

5. Still on low, slowly add the flour mixture to the mixing bowl, stopping several times to scrape down the sides.

6. When the flour is all mixed in, put the mixer on its slowest setting, and add the chocolate chips.

7. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for one hour, then preheat your oven to 375. Position the racks in the top and bottom thirds of the oven.

8. Scoop the dough onto parchment or silicone lined cookie sheets, and bake two sheets at a time, 10-15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through cooking. Cool the cookies on a wire rack.

Chinese Tomato Salad

2011-08-17T22:35:00.001-07:00

The day’s haul from Mom’s greenhouse, getting a cool bath in the sink

I made this salad the other day, after picking some truly gorgeous tomatoes (red roma and yellow cherry) from my mother’s greenhouse. This salad is so light and refreshing – it’s perfect for a summer meal. The dressing is so striking, this dish will work with winter-time grocery store tomatoes, but summer time is the BEST time to enjoy this dish!

Chinese Tomato Salad

Adapted from The Asian Cookbook, from Parragon Publishing

(I don’t usually link to books on Amazon, but this book is one of my favorites, and very inexpensive. I highly recommend it!!)

Ingredients:

Tomatoes (2 large, or enough to fill a small serving dish), sliced

Chopped green onions (I used the top 5-6” of three green onions)

Chopped garlic (2 cloves)

Sesame Oil (1/2 tsp)

Rice Vinegar (1 Tbsp)

Salt (1/2 tsp)

Pepper (white or black, one pinch)

Sugar (one generous pinch)

Combine your green onions, garlic, sesame oil, rice vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar in a large bowl. Whisk, and taste. Adjust seasonings to taste. Add your sliced tomatoes, gently fold to coat and transfer to a serving dish. Garnish with additional sliced green onions if desired.

Optional: If using only large tomatoes, the tomato slices can be arranged in a ring on a serving platter, and the completed dressing can be spooned over the top.

Can be made ahead of time. Serve at room temperature.

Brown Rice Jumble Bowls

2011-07-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

This is an easy, super yummy, weeknight dinner idea. Everyone in the family enjoyed customizing their own bowl- I set out the rice and bowls of toppings, and let the kids just go to town. Ernie didn't mix anything at all, just had little piles of everything she loved (rice, parmesan, chicken, and cucumbers) and Mimi just chose rice and shredded cheddar cheese- I didn't list the cheddar below because it doesn't quite fit with the flavor profile, but I knew Mimi would eat it!

This has unlimited variations, but this is what I used. You could substitute other grains- quinoa or wheat berries would be amazing, or even pasta! If the toppings you use are chewy or unwieldy, chop them small- I chose to cut my mushrooms and chicken rather finely, but left the cucumbers and tomatoes big enough to grab with a fork. An asian-inspired bowl would be delicious, with steamed edamame and a ginger-sesame dressing.

Remember when you cook brown rice that it takes much longer than white rice. I cooked two cups of brown rice with three cups of water in my rice cooker on the "brown rice" setting, and it took about an hour. I love the flavor and chewiness of brown rice, but often forget to leave myself time to cook it!

Cooked brown rice
Chopped tomatoes
Chopped cucumber
Finely chopped cooked chicken
Finely chopped white mushrooms
Minced chives
Grated Parmesan cheese
Balsamic vinaigrette

Cheater S’Mores

2011-07-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

So…s’mores aren’t exactly rocket science. For those of you that didn’t grow up in America, a s’more is a treat we enjoy as children, usually around a campfire. It is short for “some more” as in “I want some more.” The classic version is a marshmallow, skewered on a long stick, and roasted over a campfire. The crispy, gooey marshmallow is then sandwiched with two squares of graham cracker and a piece of chocolate…almost always Hersheys, because it’s the only chocolate in the right shape.

That’s all very well and good, but campfires aren’t always plentiful around Suburbia. One night, I had the brilliant idea to skewer my marshmallow on a long lobster fork and roast it over an open flame…on my gas stove. Hrm. Well, it was toasty and gooey, but it wasn’t quite right.

Then I figured, as long as I was butchering a classic, I might as well take it all the way.

And my kids’ new favorite treat was born.

LoLo’s Cheater S’mores

Ingredients:

Graham crackers

Marshmallow

Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread. peanut butter is delicious here, too.)

Spread one square of graham cracker with Nutella, and put the other square on a plate with one marshmallow on top. Microwave your marshmallow clad graham cracker for 15-20 seconds (be sure to watch it – it’s pretty impressive to see a marshmallow the size of an apple!). Take your plate out of the microwave, and smash your Nutella-smeared graham cracker on top.

Hand it to a toddler, stand back, and enjoy the view.

Oh, and you might want to have a wet rag handy. Just in case.

A Vanilla Cake That Looks Like Cake

2011-07-09T16:05:00.001-07:00

My fellow Chow-ians…I give you a vanilla cake. It is not a “white cake”, because it involves egg yolks…so it’s yellow. But it’s tall! And fluffy! And it looks like a cake. My father will laugh when he hears this, but I spent all weekend trying to recreate, from scratch, what would take me $.99 with a box. My father’s grandmother was brilliant, both in the classroom and in the kitchen. Her husband was a scientist. They both appreciated a good cake…and knew that the easiest way to get one was to take advantage of all the science and work that went into the boxed mixes. They drilled that fact into their grandson, who in turn passed the wisdom on to me – Use The Box.

And, can I vent for a moment? Indulge me. Last weekend, I baked four white cakes. Why? Because the second one didn’t turn out how I wanted it to…neither did the third. Or the fourth. The first one was for us, and I used Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake recipe. It makes the most amazing cupcakes – tiny crumb, moist, tender. However, my cake? Didn’t rise more than 1/2”. Not acceptable, but it was just for us, so…what are you going to do, right? (After some research, it turns out that great cupcake recipes don’t often translate to great cake recipes. However, great cakes can usually be made into great cupcakes. Weird, right? It’s sad, too, since Dorie’s cake was intended to be baked as a cake! However, she knows all about the issues with the cake, going so far as to nickname it “The Cake that Won’t Rise.” She has no idea why her cakes work and ours don’t.) The second cake was an “order” from a friend, for her mother’s birthday. It was the same recipe, baked in a 9x13 pan. It hardly rose. I tried again, to make a second layer for the cake (since the first cake couldn’t very well be split). I followed the directions exactly…and got the same results.

The next day, after hours of research the night before, I tried another recipe…just to see what would happen. It was the Cook’s Illustrated White Cake. Not only was the rise as sad as Dorie’s cake when baked in a 9x13 pan, but the texture of the cake was something like sweet, butter-laden cornbread. It was great with strawberries and whipped cream…but it wasn’t the white cake I was looking for. (It was at this point that I started to get just a little bit Mad at The Universe. Seriously, folks – if a white cake should be WHITE, why does it rely on temperamental YELLOW butter??!) (I realize now, after some more research, but I probably could have solved a lot of my problems by just substituting in shortening for the butter. And my cake would have been white.)

Finally, I came across King Arthur Flour’s Golden Vanilla Cake. Not only did it use ingredients I commonly kept in the cupboard (who keeps cake flour around??!), it came with a KAF guarantee, oodles of great reviews, and a handful of horrible reviews…followed by responses from the KAF team with suggestions for the bakers, or offers of telephone assistance, or both. When I found the recipe (in the middle of the night), I very nearly jumped out of bed and baked it right then and there. However, I decided that the quest for a Great Vanilla Cake wasn’t worth a 2 am bed time, so I held off.

Kids? I’ve found My Vanilla Cake recipe. Huge thanks to King Arthur Flour for another great recipe!

To find the recipe go here. And please, if you can, use a kitchen scale and the “weight” option to get the recipe in ounces instead of cups.

Hong Kong Egg Waffles (Gai Daan Jai) (雞蛋仔)

2011-07-08T22:09:00.001-07:00

(Gai Dan Jai, and the Nordic Ware Egg Waffle Pan. The pan is currently only available in America at Williams-Sonoma, for about $50. Or you could go to Hong Kong and buy one there. Your choice. But going to Hong Kong seems a bit drastic, just for a pan. There are no other American options besides mail-order, so I was pretty thrilled when I saw this pan come through my inbox.)

These were my favorite street-vendor treat in NYC’s Chinatown, and my husband has fond memories of eating these as a child on the streets of Hong Kong. Even my Mother in Law couldn’t contain her excitement when she saw the pan I had brought home from the mall. “My grandpa used to make me gai dan jai every Saturday for breakfast when I was a little girl!” My Mother in Law is a fabulous cook, and nothing I do in the kitchen ever excites or surprises her. When I served her her first homemade gai dan jai in 50 years…her eyes sparkled, and she actually giggled. It was worth every penny for that pan. (Actually, these waffles sell for $3 each on the streets of NYC, so the pan really isn’t that bad of a deal.)

Even though these are technically waffles, in Hong Kong they are hardly ever eaten for breakfast. These are generally served piping hot, in a small paper sack, and enjoyed while walking home from school.

Hong Kong-Style Egglet Waffles (Gai Dan Jai) (雞蛋仔 )

(Adapted from Christine’s Recipes)

(This recipe is in grams, and that is honestly the best way to make it. It’s super easy – put your bowl onto your digital scale, pour in your ingredient until you reach the desired amount, tare off, and do it again! If you do not have a digital kitchen scale, I have included approximate “American” measurements.)

Ingredients:

140 g. (1 1/4 cup) all-purpose flour

7.5 g (1 1/2 tsp.) baking powder

1 T. custard powder (instant vanilla pudding will work here, and is MUCH easier to find.)

28 g. (2 Tbsp.) tapioca starch (available at any Asian market for approximately $1 for a small bag)

2 eggs, beaten

140 g (heaping 1/2 cup) white sugar

28 g. (approx. 2 Tbsp.) evaporated milk (coconut milk is also a tasty choice here)

140 ml (2/3 c.) water

2 tsp. vanilla

oil for your pan

1. Sift together your flour, baking powder, custard powder and tapioca starch.

2. Add your eggs and sugar, and beat well to combine.

3. In a small bowl, mix together your milk, water and vanilla. Gradually add to your flour mixture, and beat until there are no lumps.

4. Refrigerate the batter for one hour before using. (This step is not strictly necessary, but I did find that it made a nicer, lighter waffle.)

5. When your batter is done resting in the fridge, pull it out and prepare your Egg Waffle Pan. (Any waffle pan would work, but it wouldn’t make the signature egglet shape that gives these waffle their name.)

6. Separate your pan, lightly grease both sides, and preheat.

7. To make your waffles: pour approximately 3/4 cup batter into one side of the pan, and shut the lid. Wait about 30 seconds, flip the pan over, and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Be careful not to get the pan too hot – your waffles will burn before they are finished cooking.

8. Remove from the pan and place on a wire rack. Serve warm. These can be pulled apart and eaten as is, or wrapped up with berries and cream.

Ginger Cookies

2011-07-08T16:36:00.001-07:00

I found these while looking for a tasty afternoon snack for the kids and I. Oh boy, were these tasty! My favorite cookie texture – tender and chewy, almost like a brownie, but gingery and spicy.

Ginger Cookies

Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book

Approximately 120 cookies

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

4 tsp. ground ginger

2 tsp. baking soda

1 12 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups shortening

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup molasses

Preheat oven to 350

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together your flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt.

2. In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat your shortening on low speed for 30 seconds, then add sugar. Beat until well combined, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. (You can skip this this scraping step if you have a rubber edged blade, such as the Beater Blade.) Add your eggs and molasses and mix until combined. Add all your flour at once and mix in what you can with the mixer, then finish the job with a wooden spoon if necessary.

3. Use a small scoop to pull out balls of cookie dough approximately 1” in diameter (your hands would work here, too). (Balls of dough can be rolled in sugar at this point, if you like. You’ll need about 3/4 cup total.) Arrange cookies 1 1/2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets, and bake 8-9 minutes, or until the cookies are puffed and just slightly browned on the bottom. Don’t overbake these! Allow to cool on the sheet for one minute, then remove to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Sweet Potato “Mac n’ Cheese”

2011-07-04T13:41:00.001-07:00

This dinner was based off of a recipe found here, at Finding Joy in My Kitchen. It was such a hit, even with the Sweet Potato Haters in the group, that I just have to get this written down for posterity.

I made a huge batch of the sauce (enough for two pounds of pasta) and froze half of it, before mixing the other half with one pound of pasta for our dinner that night. I’m on a freezer-stocking kick, and half of nearly everything I make ends up in the freezer. I have marinated meat, pizzas, spaghetti sauce, etc. YUM. If you do not want this much sauce, by all means, just cut the recipe in half. Oh, and I used evaporated milk, because I had it in the fridge and it needed using up. Feel free to use whatever you like.

Sweet Potato “Mac n’ Cheese”

(makes 2 pounds of pasta)

Ingredients:

2 pounds pasta

3-4 medium sized sweet potatoes, cut into 2-3” chunks (mine were nearly white inside)

2 medium carrots, cut in 2-3” chunks

1 cup sliced onion (2-3 medium)

4 cloves garlic, sliced

1 cup milk, chicken broth or water

Oil

Salt, Pepper and Sugar to taste

1. Prepare your sweet potatoes: Place your sweet potatoes and carrots in a soup pot, add cool water just to cover the veg, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes and carrots are tender, about 15-20 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, prepare your pasta and onions and garlic. Bring a large pot of water to boil, and cook your pasta according to package directions, being careful not to overcook. Drain it when it is done, and return it to the pot.

3. In a sauté pan, heat 1-2 teaspoons of oil and add your onions and garlic. Cook until soft, 5-7 minutes.

4. When your sweet potatoes, carrots, onions and garlic are all done in their respective pots, combine all four in a blender or food processor with your milk and blend well. Season to taste with salt, pepper and sugar.

5. Now that your sauce and your pasta are done, it’s time to combine! Dump your delicious sauce over your pasta, and add a few handfuls of cheese. Cheddar would be great, or parmesan. Let yourself go wild here! You don’t need much, so you can splurge here.

Enjoy! My husband enjoyed his bowl with hot sauce on top…whatever floats your boat.

Banana Bars

2011-06-16T13:04:00.001-07:00

Well, hi there. This is a recipe that was a STAPLE in Myrnie’s repertoire a few years ago. Babies, and lactose intolerance, came between her and her beloved banana bars…but we are bringing them BACK. The recipe comes from her mother-in-law’s kitchen, and is just a simple, straightforward banana bar. These are dense and sweet and excellent cold.

I made these a few days ago and had to adapt to what I had in my fridge – a little vanilla yogurt to replace the sour cream I didn’t have, with an extra banana thrown in to finish out the “wet ingredients.” However, these are much better if made following the ingredients listed below.

Debbie’s Banana Bars:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Prepare your pan. (I used a half-size jelly roll pan, lined with a silicone baking mat. A 9x13, greased and floured, would give you thicker bars, but fewer of them.)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed bananas

Sour Cream Frosting (recipe to follow)

In a bowl, whisk or sift together your flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In the large bowl of your electric mixer, cream together your butter and sugar. Then add eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Beat to combine. Stir in the mashed bananas. Add your flour mixture, and stir to combine.

Dump into your prepared pan, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the pan comes out dough free. Cool and frost.

Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
2 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 - 4 cups powdered sugar

Whip together cream cheese and butter. Add vanilla and enough powdered sugar to make the icing hold a peak.

Review: Our Best Bites (Fresh-Squeezed Lemonade)

2011-05-11T11:49:00.001-07:00

(Woohoo! Amateur photography skills + low light = blurry cover shots! Oy. But you get the idea.)

(Amazing lemonade recipe, clever layout with serving size, a note telling you this is a make-ahead kind of recipe and ideas for variations.)

(Ingredients for amazing lemonade recipe. The secret ingredient is missing from this picture though…)

Recently, I was at a church function where a bunch of ladies got together to learn how to put together hanging baskets. We wanted to make refreshments that would highlight herbs you could grow at home. I made these lavender brownies, and someone else made some scrumptious lemon bars. (Hey! You CAN grow lemons indoors!) The hostess told me she had found a great recipe for lemonade and asked me to mix it up while she was finishing the final prep work for the evening’s lesson. I was pretty tickled when she pulled out the new Our Best Bites cookbook, written by Kate Jones and Sara Wells. Both girls used to attend this congregation, and we all have fond memories of them and are INSANELY proud of them. (Their cookbook, by the way, ought to hit ALL the Costco warehouses nationwide sometime this week. Talk about awesome! The book is also on sale right now on Amazon.com, even lower than last week when I bought mine!)

I was excited to try the recipe, because I accidentally left my copy of the book at my sister’s house on Mother’s Day, and haven’t been able to really get into it yet. Boo. And this recipe? Did not disappoint.

The original recipe calls for making a simple syrup, and flavoring it with lemon and lime juices, then adding some mint. You let that steep, and then strain the mint out. The resulting syrup is then mixed with ice water to make lemonade. I didn’t have that much time, so we used super-fine bakers sugar mixed into cold water, plus lemon juice and lime juice. I washed the mint and threw it into the pitcher. When it was time to serve the lemonade, we put some ice into a pitcher and strained the lemonade into that.

It. Was. Amazing. I think I had four glasses. At first, people couldn’t pinpoint the mint in the mix. It was subtle, but gave it an extra little kick that was totally addicting.

If you see this cookbook at Costco this week, I highly recommend it! You can also find the cute girls blogging over at Our Best Bites.

PS – I was not paid, recompensed or otherwise acknowledged for writing this review. As I said, I know the girls who wrote this cookbook and want to try out their recipes and let you guys know about it. That is all. Thanks!

Lavender Brownies

2011-05-11T08:24:00.001-07:00

Oh, I know they don’t look like much. Just some fudgy brownies, from a box. In fact, what makes these brownies so special is something so subtle, you could miss it completely if you’re not paying attention. You might think they taste a little different…just a smidge floral perhaps?

And you’d be right.

The lavender in these was so subtle, but so delicious. I was really surprised! The lavender I used was bought from a tea shop in China, so it is not as fresh as what I could gather from my own yard. These brownies were made as refreshments for a class at church on building your own hanging baskets, and meant to highlight what you could do with herbs from your own garden. (The surprise hit of the night was the Herb Hanging Basket. Brilliant, right? Stick seven of your favorite herbs in a hanging pot, hang it…and enjoy a slug-less and bunny-less herb garden all summer long!)

(Please note – I doubled the recipe and baked it in a Silpat-lined half-sheet jelly roll pan for about 30 minutes, and they were perfect. I probably should have stuck them in the freezer for about 10 minutes before cutting them, though, to help me get the edges prettier.)

(Also, this would absolutely work with a from-scratch brownie recipe. Brownies aren’t a favorite around here, so I don’t make them very often. That being the case, I haven’t tried to make them from-scratch since I was about 13. I didn’t want to experiment on my friends at church, so…a mix it was! I used a Milk Chocolate mix, and that was perfect.)

Lavender Brownies

Ingredients:
1 boxed brownie mix (or your favorite brownie recipe)
(Ingredients required for your mix. Generally water, oil and eggs)
2 Tbsp. dried lavender flowers, plus extra for garnish

The night before, open your bag of brownie mix and add the lavender. Twist the top shut, shake to combine, and let sit overnight. This marinates the flavor of the lavender into your brownies. (If you are making brownies from scratch, the night before you bake them, measure out the required sugar and add your lavender to that. Let the sugar and lavender sit overnight and bake as usual the next day.)

On baking day, prepare your brownies and bake as directed. Before baking, sprinkle more lavender across the top of the brownies.

Serve sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Review: Cupcake Royale

2011-05-05T23:53:00.001-07:00

A few months ago, the hubs and I purchased a coupon for cupcakes from a local bakery, Cupcake Royale. It took us several months to USE the coupon, because of the stipulation that cupcake orders be placed before noon, the day before you intend to pick up your cupcakes. (And I? Don’t think that far ahead, in general.)

The cakes came in an attractive, and clever, box. (Pink is always a hit around here, and the addition of a crown sealed the deal with the Princess set.)

Cupcake Royale boasts of local and seasonal ingredients, and lists their vendors on the side of the box as proof.

This side of the box made very little sense to me, as it seemed to be supporting the rights of home bakers to sell their own cupcakes, commercial-kitchen free. But I could be wrong about those sentiments.

Now…ready to meet the kids??! When I placed my order, I told them four or five cupcakes that I absolutely must have (vanilla with pink icing, lavender, cookies and crème and mint) and asked them to fill out the rest of the box with whatever looked best.

Overall, I really preferred the vanilla cupcakes. The chocolate ones crumbled to bits as soon as you bit into them. The vanilla ones, though, had a gorgeous tight crumb, like a light pound cake. My favorite icing was the lavender, which had just a hint of lavender flavor and was very refreshing! The icing on the Lemon Drop was also quite nice.

The shop was cozy and comfortable, and the staff very friendly. Overall, I wasn’t blown away by the cupcakes, though. They were beautiful, and tasty, but they were no Crumbs. (Crumbs is high on the list of things I miss from living on the East Coast. *sigh*)

PS – I can’t decide if my review is good or bad. I have spent so much time the past few months perfecting my favorite cupcake recipes…I was mostly just disappointed that boutique cupcakes weren’t as tasty as my homemade ones. When cupcakes first hit the scene, when I was in high school, I remember going to a shop and ordering a beautiful cupcake from the gleaming glass hutch. I took a bite…and was so disappointed. It was beautiful, and dry. Ick. It wasn’t until my cupcake buying adventures on the East Coast that I realized store-bought cupcakes could be drool-worthy. Perhaps my box had sat out too long? However, when I ordered my cupcakes, they preferred that I pick them up in the afternoon. Perhaps they had been sitting in that box since the evening before. I have no idea. When talking with other friends, they raved about Cupcake Royale, so perhaps going in and buying a cupcake a la carte is a different experience.)

(

The Big Girl Bakes A Soda Pop Cake

2011-05-04T14:40:00.001-07:00

Please don’t hate me, but I’m about to show you a recipe that I would NEVER make myself. Never would I look at the calendar, see that I have guests coming, and say, “Oh! I know! I’ll make that thing I blogged about the other day!” Not this time.

But I would totally let my four year old make it, and if she did…I would serve it to you with a smile. Because sometimes, teaching culinary confidence to the pre-k set is more important than from-scratch and gourmet. (All that said, this cake is surprisingly tasty, and very addicting. It has the added benefit of being egg and dairy free, other than whatever is already present in your ingredients.)

(Oh, and if you’ve been reading Chow Review for a while, you will totally recognize this recipe. Last time, we used a yellow cake mix with a store-brand lemon-lime soda. This time, it was chocolate cake mix with 7Up. It was very good!)

Behold: Soda Pop Cake!

So, you take these two things…

…and give them to a child with a bowl and a spoon.

When she says, “Hey! Let’s add dried cranberries!”, just nod and say yes. It’s her cake, after all.

While she’s doing all her mixing and mastering, spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray and pre-heat your oven to 350.

Help her pour all the batter into the pan, and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Soda Pop Cake
makes one 9x13 cake

Ingredients:
1 boxed cake mix
1 can of soda pop

Preheat oven to 350 and spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Set aside.

In a bowl, stir together the cake mix and soda pop.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Honey White Cinnamon Chip Bread

2011-04-28T22:08:00.001-07:00

This bread is one of my most favorite creations of late. It is sweet, and spicy, and yummy enough to slice up and eat as-is for breakfast.

You start by making these cinnamon chips ahead of time. They need to be completely cool and broken up before you can move on to the bread part of your day, so I make a big batch once every few weeks, and store them in a Mason jar in the cupboard.

Mix up a batch of your favorite bread, and knead in 1/3-1/2 cup of cinnamon chips. Allow to rise as usual, shape into a loaf, and bake.

Oh, and FYI? Sugar is hydroscopic…meaning that it sucks water out of its surroundings. (That’s the reason you can dump sugar on slice strawberries, and come back to a bowl full of smooshy berries and cups of juice.) Your bread dough will be able to handle a little extra flour, since it will get wetter as it rises.

Now, if you don’t have a favorite bread recipe, or are not sure it’s going to work in this instance, I’ll help you out.

Aunt LoLo’s Honey White Cinnamon Chip Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups warm water

1 tbsp. yeast

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tsp. salt

6-7 cups flour (or 3 cups whole wheat and 3-4 cups white flour)

1/3-1/2 cup cinnamon chips

In the bowl of your mixer, combine your water, yeast and honey. When you can see your yeast foaming, add the olive oil, salt and 6 cups of flour. Add more flour, gradually, until the dough is pulling away from the sides of the dough. Dump in your cinnamon chips and continue to knead until the chips are mixed in. Add more flour if you need it.

Remove your dough from the mixing bowl, spray the bowl with cooking spray, and put the dough back in. Turn to coat, cover with a damp towel, and place in a warm, draft-free area to rise. When the dough has doubled in size, and can hold a dent when you poke it with two fingers, it is ready to divide. Divide in half.

To form your loaf, take one piece of the dough and pat, stretch and poke it into a long oblong (like a pizza crust) then roll it up tightly to form a loaf. Pinch the seam together, and tuck the ends under. Place it in a greased 9x5 loaf pan, and repeat with the other loaf. Allow to rise until the loaves are a little less than double their original size. While the loaves are rising in their pans, preheat your oven to 350. Bake for 30-38 minutes, or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when you tap it.* Remove from the pan as soon as possible, and cool on a wire rack.

*Yes, you’ll need to pop a hot loaf out of a hot pan to tap on it, but it’s totally worth it. Nothing’s worse than cutting open your cooled bread and finding dough in the middle. The best way to do this is to pull one loaf pan out of the oven and shut the oven. Hold the pan with one hot-padded hand, and flip the bread into the other hot-padded hand. Set down the pan, remove the hot pad from that hand, and use your finger nail to tap the bottom of the bread. If it doesn’t sound hollow, pop the bread back into the pan, and stick it back in the oven. The whole process should take about 30 seconds, so the bread doesn’t cool down too much.

Cinnamon Chips

2011-04-27T22:12:00.001-07:00

I cannot take credit for this recipe. It’s floating around in various places, but it is always the same…so if anybody knows who to give credit to, let me know!

A few weeks ago, I stopped by a local bakery and picked up a few loaves of bread. Both were so good, that I set about to recreate them at home!

One of the loaves was a white bread with cinnamon chips. They weren’t like the ones you can buy at the grocery store, though – the chips weren’t waxy, like cinnamon flavored chocolate chips. They were little crumbles of sugar and cinnamon. I believe they are available online from one or two specialty stores, and then…there was this one recipe. I modified it a bit – the original recipe called for teaspoons and tablespoons, and made enough filling for one loaf of bread. It took half an hour in a 250 degree oven, plus cooling time, and I just figured there had to be a faster way!
1. Combine ingredients in a skillet and mix with a fork. Cook until bubbly.

2. Pour onto a lined cookie sheet (greased tin foil, parchment paper and silicone liners are all great options here).

3. Allow to cool completely, then break it up into chunks.

4. Store in an airtight container, at room temperature. It will keep for several weeks.

I’m going to give this to you in “parts”. If you want enough for one loaf, substitute in “teaspoons” for “parts” (and remember that 3 tsp. = 1 Tbsp. That will save you some grief, trying to count to 9.) If you would like enough to fill a mason jar, and make closer to six loaves, then substitute “1/4 cup” for “parts.”
Cinnamon Chips:
2 parts corn syrup
2 parts shortening
3 parts cinnamon
9 parts sugar

Combine all ingredients in a skillet with a fork, and then cook over medium low heat until bubbly and gooey, stirring with a silicone spatula or similar. When the mixture is ready, pour it into a prepared (lined) cookie sheet and allow to cool completely. Break into small pieces and store in an airtight container. Will keep at room temperature for several weeks.

Mix it into your favorite white (or wheat!) bread to make this.

Potato Pancakes (i.e.–Easter Redux)

2011-04-26T21:45:00.001-07:00

Edited to add: My father reminded me that these pancakes are also awesome with a dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of chives.

According to family tradition, this is my father’s absolute favorite way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. (Also, according to tradition…this recipe goes back to bachelor days, so we know it’s a goody!)

The biggest surprise was that the four year old ate it! The two year old had two bites, in exchange for two strawberries. (But he did finish all of his ketchup.) Eh – you win some, you lose some.

So, here you go – Easter on a plate!

Poppy’s Potato Pancakes
Ingredients:
3 cups mashed potatoes
1 egg
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cheese (I used swiss)
1/2 cup ham, cut into bite-size chunks
Salt and Pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl
Preheat a griddle over medium heat, with some canola oil.

In a bowl, combine all ingredients with a spoon. Use a small scoop to scoop out balls of the dough and put it on your pre-heated skillet. Cook until brown and toasty on the one side, then flip over and use a spatula to smash it into a patty shape. When the second side is golden, you might want to flip it back to the first side just to crisp it up.

Enjoy hot, with a little ketchup. Delish!

A Rosy Posy Cake!

2011-04-08T14:19:00.001-07:00

A sweet friend of mine turned 26 and, as everyone knows, that is an occasion that calls for CAKE. (Besides that fact, I was looking for nearly any excuse to bake another cake. I seem to have misplaced my Cake Mojo, and I want it back! The icing…is hiding a multitude of flaws.)

I followed the directions from here, and was pretty pleased with the results! I put on a “crumb layer” using some leftover pink buttercream from the freezer. Then, I made the roses using my usual chocolate frosting recipe, subbing in mint extract for half of the vanilla extract called for. Even with filling, and crumb coating, the cake in a separate frosting, one batch of icing was still not quite enough to do up this cake. Just a note for future reference.

Cake and frosting recipe here.

PS – I think part of my issue is my oven temperature…and the amount of baking soda the cake calls for. I used the King Arthur flour site to convert the cake measurements to weight, so I’m sure that I measured everything correctly. However, I don’t think I baked it long enough. The edges of the cake just crumbled off, and after I iced the cake and cut into it, the middle was like fudge. Not exactly what I was going for. So, next time…bake it longer, knock down the baking soda to 1 tsp. instead of 1 1/2, and add a smidge more salt, for more contrast with the super sweet icing.

Our Favorite Chocolate Cake

2011-03-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

So, this is just for your benefit. A sort of public service announcement. (Ok, and it’s for me, too, so I don’t lose track of these recipes.)

If you are looking for an awesome chocolate cake recipe, go here. It’s absolutely, positively awesome. Perfect for cupcakes and layer cakes.

You’re welcome.

(PS – If you want my favorite white cake recipe, go here.)

You’re welcome!

Creamy Pasta with Chicken and Broccoli

2011-03-13T15:02:00.001-07:00

Of all the dishes I made for a recent House Party featuring Philadelphia Cooking Crème, this was the least favorite.

That said, I also had it ready about 40 minutes too early, and it was nearly impossible to serve by the time the guests arrived. Heh. Oops!

This is a really simple take on something I prepare quite often for my family.

Creamy Pasta with Chicken and Broccoli

1 pound bowtie, or other shaped, pasta

3 cups broccoli florets, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, sliced or diced, and cooked in a little olive oil

1 tub Italian Philadelphia Cooking Crème

Milk (optional)

Bring a large pot of water to boil and cook pasta according to directions. Three minutes before the pasta is scheduled to finish cooking, add your broccoli to the pasta water and finish cooking. Drain the pasta and broccoli, reserving about 1 cup of the cooking water.

Return your pasta, broccoli and chicken to your pot and stir in Cooking Crème. If needed, stir in enough pasta water (or milk) to loosen up the sauce.

PS – This recipe was made with Philadelphia Cooking Crème, which was given to me free of charge for review purposes. The coupons came in a box full of “swag” for me and my guests, including a new skillet, and other kitchen wares and coupons. I was not otherwise compensated.

Creamy Sausage Breakfast Casserole

2011-03-13T14:52:00.001-07:00

I think Breakfast Casserole is the best thing to call this. It’s a pot of potatoes, onions, peppers , cheese, crème and sausage, baked until it’s all melty and delicious. It’s very rich, and insanely comforting. It was a favorite at a recent House Party highlighting Philadelphia Cooking Crème, and there was just enough left over afterwards for me to have a bowl when I came home late that night from a speaking engagement.

(Ok, yeah. That sounds way fancier than it was. I gave a ten minute presentation to a large group at church about how to use blogging and our online presence as a good example and represent our church. Still, I came home at 9:30 starving, and this hit the spot!)

Creamy Sausage and Potato Breakfast Casserole

5 potatoes, peeled and chopped

2 small onions, diced

1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 tub Original Philadelphia Cooking Crème

Salt and Pepper to taste

2 sausages or bratwurst, sliced

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

Preheat your oven to 375. Spray a covered baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. In a large bowl, combine potatoes, onions, bell pepper and Cooking Crème. Taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper. Dump your potato mixture into your baking dish and top with sliced sausage. Cook, covered, for 30 minutes. Remove the dish from the oven, top with cheddar cheese, and return to the oven. Bake another 20 minutes uncovered, or until the cheese is golden and crispy around the edges.

Creamy Teriyaki Rice

2011-03-13T14:30:00.001-07:00

This was hands-down my husband’s favorite dish at a recent House Party featuring Philadelphia Cooking Crème. My brother liked it as well. The combination of teriyaki sauce and crème isn’t an obvious one, but it definitely had fans! We left the rice plain and had this on the side as a topping, but if your entire crowd is dairy-loving, then you can go ahead and mix this together. It is good either way.

Creamy Teriyaki Rice

(Adapted from original Kraft recipe, found here)

Cooked Rice

3 cloves garlic, sliced

4 slices ginger, minced

2 tbsp. oil

1 package frozen peas

4 carrots, julienned or shaved

1 tub Original Philadelphia Cooking Crème

Teriyaki sauce, to taste

Put oil, ginger and garlic in a skillet and place over medium heat. Cook until the garlic is fragrant, about 1 minute. Add carrots and cook until tender, about two-three minutes. Remove carrots, garlic and ginger to a bowl and set aside. Cook peas until thawed and bright green, breaking apart with a wooden spoon. Add carrot mixture back in and stir to combine. Add cooking crème and stir. Season to taste with teriyaki sauce and serve over rice.

Perfectly Awesome Party Cake

2011-03-10T14:06:00.001-08:00

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake, from Baking, From My Home to Yours

Makes two 9” round cakes, or 30 cupcakes. These are lovely little white cupcakes, flecked with orange zest and flavored with vanilla. The crumb is small and tight, and they are just fabulous.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups AP flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/4 cups milk (I used homemade buttermilk – 2 Tbsp. lemon juice, plus milk to 1 1/4 cups)

4 large egg whites

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 tsp. orange zest (optional) (originally lemon) (I used orange, but might leave it out next time and simply make a vanilla cake.)

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract (originally pure lemon extract)

Preheat oven to 350 and prepare pans. Prep with butter and flour if you are baking round cakes, or line muffin pans with paper liners. I made cupcakes and filled two 12-pocket muffin pans, plus an extra 6 cupcake liners on a baking sheet.

In a medium bowl, sift together flower, baking powder and salt. Don’t cheat and use a whisk this time. Go with the sifter.

In a small bowl, combine your milk and egg whites. Whisk these up, and set aside.

In the bowl of your mixer, combine your sugar and zest, if using. Mix with your fingers until it smells fabulous and looks slightly damp, then add in your butter and beat on medium speed in your stand mixer for 3 minutes, at least, or until light and fluffy. (This took about four minutes for me, as my butter was still a little cold when I put it in.) Add your extract.

Add in 1/3 of your flour mixture, then half of your milk, 1/3 of your flour, the rest of your milk, then the rest of your flour. You want to beat this cake well, but (experience has taught me that) no matter how carefully you add your flour and milk, it will FLY if your mixer is still humming along on medium. Slow it down, add your next ingredient, then speed it up as quickly as you are able to, without slopping your ingredients out the sides.

When everything is in the bowl, leave it on medium and give it a good mix for another two minutes. This makes a rather sturdy, and fluffy, cake batter. It reminded me of un-set marshmallows.

Spoon your batter into your prepared pans, and bake, on the center shelf in your oven. 30-35 minutes for 9” rounds, or about 25 minutes for cupcakes. They are done when a toothpick, inserted into the middle of the cake, comes out batter-free. Cool in the pans for a few minutes, then carefully remove your cakes to wire racks to finish cooling.

I will warn you – my cupcakes puffed up just above the edge of my paper liners and looked adorable. When they cooled, however, the cakes shrank back on themselves, giving me a perfectly flat plain to pipe my icing onto. Some of them were filled less than others, and actually pulled away from the paper liner. You want them 2/3 full.

This makes a sturdy, but light, cake with a tiny crumb. Just what I was looking for! This is a cake that can be sliced, stacked, filled or (possibly?) carved. I’ve found my vanilla cake recipe!

PS – I frosted these with Bright White Icing, from Better Homes and Gardens. It’s a basic shortening/powdered sugar/milk frosting, with vanilla, almond extract and added pink food coloring. Quick and easy!

Pai Gwat (Chinese Spareribs)

2011-02-13T22:03:00.001-08:00

During my mother in law’s most recent visit, I took a major stab at cataloguing some of our favorite recipes. This is definitely a keeper! These ribs are tender, salty and completely yummy.

MaMa’s Pai Gwat (Spareribs)

Ingredients:

1 lb pork spareribs

1/4 cup Soy Sauce

1 tbsp. Sugar

2 tbsp. Cornstarch

4 cloves Garlic, minced

2 tbsp. Oyster Sauce

2 Tbsp. oil

1. A few hours before (or, even better, the evening before!), prepare your marinade. Combine soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch, garlic, and oyster sauce in a large plastic zip-top bag or bowl (with a lid). Adjust seasonings to taste. Add your spareribs and stir to coat. Cover and refrigerate until you are ready to cook.

2. When it is time to cook your spareribs, prepare a dutch oven with 2 Tbsp. of oil, over medium heat. Add your marinated spareribs, stir around a bit so they don’t stick. Cover and cook until tender, about 45 minutes.

3. Remove the lid, spoon off the collected oil from the bottom of the pan and replace it with water. (Just eyeball it. Spoon the oil into a bowl, then add that much water back into the pot.) Cook a few more minutes to heat and combine. Serve over rice.

Miso Ginger Dressing

2011-02-11T08:05:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite parts of a meal in a sushi joint is the ubiquitous salad that comes while I'm waiting for the main event. My go-to sushi place has an amazing miso dressing that is totally crave-able. This comes pretty close! Best part? Because it's Mark Bittman, the dressing comes together in about 5 minutes, thanks to my food processor.

Miso Ginger Dressing
Adapted from Mark Bittman's recipe here, in the NYT.

1/4 cup olive oil (the original recipe called for peanut, grapeseed or rapeseed)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
scant 1/4 cup miso paste (or less, as your taste dictates. Start with a few Tbsp. and work up.)
1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
2 medium carrots, roughly chopped
1 inchlong piece fresh ginger, sliced
Salt and pepper to taste

Pop all the ingredients, except for the salt and pepper, into the bowl of your food processor. Blend until well combined and the carrots are in little bits. Season with salt and pepper, and you're done!

I keep mine stored in the refrigerator, in a mason jar. Be sure to put a layer of plastic wrap under the lid so that the vinegar doesn't react with your metal ring.

Boot Jai Go

2011-02-10T22:08:00.001-08:00

Boot Jai Go (Little Pudding Bowls)

(Adapted from this recipe here.)

Ingredients:

1 cup hot water

4 Tbsp. sugar

1/2 cup cold water

3/4 cup rice flour

1 Tbsp. tapioca starch

1/4 tsp. almond (The original recipe called for 1 tsp., but I found this to be way too strong.)

1. Prepare a way to steam your puddings. Ideally you will steam them in mini muffin cups, so find a way to make that work. Otherwise, use very small bowls. Spray your cups, muffin tin or ramekins with cooking spray.

2. In a medium bowl, mix together your hot water and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Add your cold water, rice flour and tapioca starch whisk until completely combined. Add your extract and mix for another 30 seconds. (As I mentioned above, I used 1 tsp. of almond extract, and it was way too much. I would cut this down to 1/4 tsp. next time. These should be fairly flavorless puddings – the fun is in the texture. Like an edible, soft eraser. Heh.)

3. Pour your pudding mixture into your prepared tins/bowls/etc., filling them only 80%. You may top with red beans if you like. (My ramekins were way too large for this project, even at just 4 oz. These steamed for nearly an hour. Oops.) If using mini muffin tins, steam for 10 minutes. The puddings will rise slightly, and the edges will become slightly translucent.

4. Cool for a few minutes, then carefully remove the puddings from their cups. Run a knife around the edge, then gently *pop* them out with a spoon. Serve warm, or wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill.

Raspberry-Rhubarb Thumbprint Cookies

2011-02-09T22:52:00.001-08:00

(Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens, “Jam Thumbprints”)

Aunt LoLo’s Thumbprint Cookies

Makes 30 cookies

Ingredients:

2 eggs, separated

2/3 cup shortening

1/2 cup white sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup white sugar (extra, for rolling. Colored sugar would be fun here, too.)

1/2 cup Raspberry-Rhubarb preserves, or your favorite jam or preserves

1. In the large bowl of your mixer, beat your shortening on medium for 30 seconds, so it’s light and fluffy. Add your egg yolks and vanilla and beat until combined. Lower the speed and mix in your flour. Gather your dough into a disk, ball or baton (whatever floats your boat), wrap it in plastic wrap, and chill it in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

2. Preheat your oven to 375, and prepare a large baking sheet with a silicone mat, parchment paper or Pam. Roll your dough out into 1” balls, roll in sugar, and place on your cookie sheet, 1” apart. By off-setting the rows, I could fit 30 cookies onto one sheet. Carefully put a thumbprint into each ball, smashing it into a cratered disc. (You’ll need that crater after baking, for filling with jam!)

3. Bake the cookies for 10-15 minutes, or until the bottom edges just barely start to brown. (If your craters have puffed out while you were baking the cookies, carefully use your thumb or the back of a spoon to push them back down before the cookies cool.) Pull them out, let them cool for a few minutes, and remove them to a rack to cool. When they are completely cool, spoon about 1/2 tsp. jam into each crater.

Enjoy! These are a very rich little cookie, but not so smothering as a normal thumbprint cookie. The shortening makes the difference.

Jyu Lei (Pork Tongue)

2011-01-31T07:00:00.000-08:00

Guys, we’re good friends by now, right? And we can tell each other anything? Well. I have to tell you….that I’ve dabbled in the “Nasty Bits.” I don’t think I will ever develop any real affection for chicken feet or monkey brains (I haven’t tried brains…and not sure that I ever will!), but tongue? Well, now that’s just good eats.

My first experience with pork tongue was in Hong Kong. I was a fairly new missionary, and a church member had invited my companion and I to eat dinner at her house. Just before we arrived, she had run down to the street market and come back with a bag of mixed meat, as far as I could tell. It all was pork, but most of the pieces had bones in them. I was unfamiliar with the skill of nibbling the meat off the tiny bones, and then spitting the bones out. Frustrated, I looked into the bowl for something that might not be all bone. Finally, I found something that looked like it was all meat. Excited, I picked it up with my chopsticks, tapped it off on my rice, and brought it up to my mouth. Only then did I really look at it. It was the front three inches of a tongue. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I didn’t want to offend my hostess, so I carefully ate it. I couldn’t get over the fact that I had two tongues in my mouth, and only one was for chewing.

It wasn’t until I met my mother in law that I had pork tongue again. And I have to say, hers is delicious. The meat itself has very little flavor – just a vague reminiscence of organ meat. The marinade is so fragrant, full of garlic, ginger and soy sauce. Are you ready to get started?

First, pick out your meat. Just choose a package with tongues that are…pretty. Or at least, not overly ugly!

Prepare a small pot of water over high heat. When the water starts to boil, add in your tongues. They only need to cook for about 5 minutes, just until the outside turns white.

Pull them out and…well, this is the most time consuming part. All that white part? It needs to come off. My mother in law uses a paring knife, and about 45 minutes, to clean off 3 tongues.

The white part is tough, and not good eats.

Once you get the tongues cleaned off, set them aside and pull out some mui choi (salted turnip). You don’t need too much…just about 12” of it. Run it under cool water to clean off any extra dirt and some of the salt. Chuck your mui choi into a small bowl of water, and set it aside.

Now, it’s time for some flavor! Grab your pot, make sure it’s reasonably dry, and add about 1 Tbsp. oil, two cloves of garlic (smashed and minced) and two slices of ginger (also, smashed and minced). Cook over medium heat until you can smell the ginger and garlic and the oil is hot. (This cooking method is called “bau”, and it’s pretty standard practice for almost any Cantonese recipe.) Once the oil is hot and fragrant, add in your cleaned pork tongue. Stir those around to coat in oil, then add 1 Tbsp. soy sauce (si yau), 1 Tbsp. tamari (lou chau) and 1/2 tsp. salt.

When your soy sauce mixture has come to a boil, add 1/2 cup water, cover, and cook until the tongues are tender, about 30 minutes. While the tongues cook, go and find your mui choi. Cut it into bite sized pieces, and throw them into the pot about half way through the cooking time. (This cooking process is called “mun”, and is basically braising…on the stove. Right?)

To serve, slice the tongue into 1/8” slices and serve with rice.

MaMa’s Braised Pork Tongue

Makes 3 pork tongues

Ingredients:

3 pork tongues

2 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced

2 slices of garlic, smashed and minced

1 Tbsp. oil

1 Tbsp. soy sauce

1 Tbsp. dark soy sauce (tamari or lou chau)

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup water

1 piece of mui choi (salted turnip), washed, soaked and chopped.

1. Boil your tongues in a pot of water for 5 minutes, or until the outside turns white.

2. Remove from heat and carefully clean off the white outer layer from all three tongues. Dump out your water.

3. In the pot, add your oil, garlic and ginger. Heat until fragrant, then add in your tongues. Stir to coat, then add in soy sauce, dark soy sauce and salt.

4. Heat until boiling, then add water. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

5. Add mui choi, cover and cook another 15 minutes, or until tender.

Slice and serve with rice. Enjoy!

Ching Bo Leung Dessert Soup

2011-01-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

ETA: If you are pregnant, or on your period, please use caution when cooking up herbal Chinese dishes. Cooling herbs can harm a fetus in the first trimester, according to Chinese mothers, and (from my own experience) cooling herbs during certain parts of your cycle can be...well, it's not fun. (Sorry guys. Just keeping it real.) Now. Read on!

Yes. Ching Bo Leung. It means…it’s a dessert soup that clears up pesky yiht hei. And, umm…well, yiht hei is, as far as I can explain it, an imbalance in the body. It’s an imbalance of cold and hot, in Chinese lingo, and pH balance problem in Western lingo. I think. Anyhow, too much yiht in you will give you zits, canker sores, bad breath, etc. Nothing good! Luckily, there are things you can eat to counteract the yiht (which comes from eating too many rich foods…like chocolate cake. And hamburgers. And things that are yummy.) There are piles and piles of herbs that the Chinese use to get themselves back on track when they’ve overindulged. And, luckily for me, the addition of sugar does not hamper the effects of these herbs. Yea!

Ready to make some Chinese dessert soup? Let’s go!
First, let’s meet some new friends. (With the help of my lovely mother in law, who we call MaMa)
Wai San

Lin Ji

Yuk Juk

Yi Mai

Longan

Got all that? Great! Now, let’s rally the troops.
You’ll need (per person):
1 egg (raw, in the shell)
4 wai san (Chinese yam)
5 lihn ji (lotus seed)
5 lung ngan yuk (dried longan fruit)
Plus, per pot:
2 yuhk juk (solomon’s seal)
1 Tbsp. yi mai (millet, or coix seed. I’ve heard it both ways)
Water
Rock Sugar

Find your soup pot and fill it about 3/4 of the way with water. Add your eggs, whole, and bring to a boil.
Meanwhile, grab your dry ingredients (except the longan) and pop them into a small bowl. Fill the bowl with water, and use your hands to swirl and swish. You want all the dust, sand, grit and history washed off of your fabulous dried herbs.

You’re going to repeat the process a few times, and then fill the bowl again and let everything soak for a minute.
Plunk your Longan into a smaller bowl, and do the same thing with them. Set aside your Longan.

When your pot comes to a boil, carefully add your (washed) dried ingredients from the larger bowl. (Remember, the longan are set aside for now.) Use your hands to carefully fish out the cleaned ingredients. If you were to just pour the whole bowl into your pot, you’d still have plenty of sand and grit in your soup. Not tasty.

Reduce your heat to low, and simmer your soup for three hours. Half an hour before you are ready to serve it, add your longan and rock sugar, to taste. Cook for 30 minutes, and serve.

Enjoy!

Aunt LoLo’s Baked Potato Soup

2011-01-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

So, there I was. I had thrown five potatoes into the oven a few nights before to roast…and the kids simply couldn’t wait for the potatoes to finish before they ate their dinner. And so the five potatoes sat. And waited. And yearned for their turn on the dinner table.

Finally, I’d had enough of staring at those potatoes. They were going to be dinner, and they were going to be delicious.

And they were.

(Inspired by Better Homes and Gardens, “Baked Potato Soup”)

Ingredients:

5 baked potatoes

2 cups grated cheddar

2 Tbsp. snipped green onions

3 Tbsp. butter

3 Tbsp. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

6 cups skim milk

6 sausages, diced and sautéed (I used cheddar bratwurst, and they worked really well in this soup)

Frozen peas (to taste. I added 1/3 of a small package, because that’s what was in the freezer! More would be better – they add a pretty green to the soup, a nice pop, and a touch of sweet)

Sour cream, to garnish

1. Scoop flesh from baked potatoes. Discard skins.

2. In a large soup pot, melt the butter, then add your flour, salt and pepper. Stir to make a roux, then add your milk all at once. Stir to combine, and do your best to break up all of the clumps of flour. Add the green onions.

3. Cook the milk/flour mixture for 12-15 minutes, or until bubbly. (The recipe I was referencing said to cook until thick and bubbly. I never saw that happen. What DID happen was that the milk scalded, and smelled heavenly.) Stir this mixture often! The flour will want to burn and stick to the bottom, and that is not good eats.

4. Add your baked potato flesh, broken into small chunks, the cheddar cheese and your sausage. (If you’ve just cooked it, be sure to add in the rendered oil as well. Because it’s tasty, and I say so.) Cook, stirring often, until everything is heated through and starting to meld together. Break out the immersion blender and give it a few good pulses if you are into that sort of thing.

5. Finally, add your frozen peas, turn off the heat and round up some bowls and spoons.

Even my picky four year old loved this one!

Uber Charged Chili

2011-01-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

This chili was part planned, part accident and part desperation.

I used two small acorn squash, roasted in the oven until tender. When I turned on the oven to roast some potatoes to go with my chili…the acorn squash were waiting for me. Alone, and forgotten. Oops! There was also a block of tofu in the refrigerator that needed to see the light of day or forever hold its peace.

Served over rice, this makes a really hearty dinner! I recommend eating it with something – anything – fresh. Like salad. Or raw carrots. Or an apple. Or something that isn’t brown and cooked to within an inch of its life. I used the slow cooker to cook the beans, and then finished the chili on the stove. This is something you could leave on in the morning, after soaking the beans overnight, and then finish them up quickly after work.

LoLo’s Uber Charged Chili
(Makes one large pot of chili – about 4 quarts)
Ingredients:
3 cups dry pinto beans
Water
8 oz. salsa
1 block of tofu
3 cups of cooked acorn squash (or whatever you have on hand. Pumpkin or butternut might be nice, too!)
1 can of diced tomatoes, unseasoned
1 tsp. crushed bay leaves
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. paprika
Salt, sugar and pepper to taste

Garnish:
Sour cream
Grated cheddar cheese

Soak the beans overnight. Pick out any that float, are discolored, or are otherwise ugly. Also remove anything from the pot that isn’t a bean, or water.

In the morning, drain the beans. Add the beans to your slow cooker, cover with water by about 1”. Cook on high for 8 hours.

Remove the cooked beans to a large soup pot, taking off some of the water if there is too much covering the beans. You want it to cover by about 1/4” in the new pot.

Add the tomatoes, salsa, bay leaves, cumin and paprika to the beans and stir to combine.

In a food processor, combine the squash, tofu and a few scoops of cooked beans. Puree, then stir into the pot of beans.

Season to taste with salt, pepper and sugar. Hot sauce can also be added at this point, or at the table, if you do that sort of thing.

Served over rice, with something fresh and green on the side, this makes a fabulous, and hearty meal. Enjoy!

Chinese Corn Soup Egg Drop Soup

2011-01-06T14:10:00.001-08:00

This is one of my favorite Chinese soups. It’s quick, it’s sweet, it’s hearty…and did I mention it’s quick?

A lot of Chinese-style soups need to simmer for hours, pulling all of the tasty vitamins and flavors from the vegetables and meats into the broth. The result is a rich, dark broth that is nearly fat free, and full of nutrients.

This soup is perfect with a bowl of rice, some chicken and some veggies. Even kids love it!

Chinese Corn and Egg Drop Soup

Ingredients:

1 can of “cream style” corn

1 can’s worth of water, chicken broth or vegetable broth

1 egg, beaten

Salt, Pepper and Sugar to taste

Green Onions, sliced, for garnish (not pictured)

1. In a saucepan, combine the corn and water. Heat over medium high heat until simmering.

2. Carefully stir the soup clockwise until all of the soup is swirling. While the soup is still moving, carefully stream in your beaten egg. Allow to sit for one minute, or until the egg just starts to set, and then stir again (clockwise). (Ok, fine. You could stir counter clockwise if you want to…just be sure to pick one direction and stick with it, alright? Good. Moving on.)

3. As soon as the eggs are set, remove your soup from the heat and season to taste with salt, pepper and sugar. Sprinkle with sliced green onions and serve. 吃飯 ! (Dinner’s served!)

Spicy Tuna Chirashizushi

2010-12-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

This was a quick lunch-time riff on my daughter's favorite kind of sushi roll. Not so much a recipe as a reminder that sushi isn't difficult!

Chirashizushi means scattered sushi- vinegared rice topped with fillings! Super simple.

I didn't have any spicy chile sauce mixed up, and planned on putting quite a bit of toppings on my daughter's bowl and didn't want it too spicy, so I went with a mix of mayo and sweet chile sauce, mixed into a can of tuna fish.

I keep extra zumeshi, the highly seasoned rice vinegar, in my cupboard so that made this even easier. (If you follow the link, I recommend cutting the salt way back.)

For Ernie's lunch, I served up a bowl of white rice and mixed in a few teaspoons of zumeshi. I topped this with the spicy tuna mix, a generous sprinkle of sesame seeds, and torn up nori (this time it was actually Korean-style roasted seaweed, which is oily and salted and very brittle.) Is it authentic? No, probably not. But nutritionally a step above the white-rice-and-teriyaki she loves so much, it was an easy lunch and a good reminder to keep some staples on hand!

Parmesan Puff Twists

2010-12-30T22:28:00.000-08:00

These puffy twists taste like the best Cheez-It you've ever had.

They were a huge hit at our Christmas Eve dinner, especially with the guys- I sent a triple batch with my husband to a "family guys watching a bowl game" evening tonight, and I don't expect to get many back!

Super simple to make- lay out a square of puff pastry, season with kosher salt and pepper, and sprinkle with grated parmesan. I like to lightly roll it with a pin, to get the cheese good and stuck so it doesn't fall off!

Cut the sheet in half length-wise, then into strips, with a pizza cutter. Thin strips (1/4 to 1/2 inch) bake up crispy like a cracker, thicker strips are more tender and flaky.

Pick up each piece with two hands and twist 2 or 3 times before laying on a cookie sheet- you'll want to lightly smash down the edges so it stays stuck on the sheet. I did batches on silicone mats, and batches without- both cooked fine, but the batches without the mats wanted to stick to the trays and needed a spatula to pop them off.

Bake at 350 10-15 minutes, until puffy and golden! You can let them get a bit toasty and golden for a nuttier flavor, or pull them out when they're pale and mild. Your call, but they taste an awful lot like the best Cheez-its you've ever had!

Parmesan Puff Twists

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed (follow the directions on the package, I used Pepperidge Farms)
a large pinch of kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper
2 or 3 Tbsp grated parmesan

Lay out the puff pastry on a cutting board, and seal any cracks by pinching together with your fingers. Season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with cheese. Lightly roll with a rolling pin to push the seasonings into the dough, and then cut in half length-wise, then cut into strips. Twist each strip before arranging on a cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 10-15 minutes. Serve hot or room temperature.

(Original recipe came from a forum thread on Seriouseats.com that I can't find any more! I've modified slightly- they said to use an egg wash instead of a rolling pin.)

Pasta with Mozzarella in a Spicy Cream Sauce

2010-12-25T13:19:00.001-08:00

I made this up for dinner a few nights ago when my husband was going out of town. I wanted enough to feed us for the rest of the week, so I used two pounds of pasta, but this recipe could easily be cut in half. Once you’ve mixed your pasta and sauce, everything else is just to taste. A cross between a stove-top lasagna and a risotto, this is a hearty meal, perfect for cold winter nights!

Aunt LoLo’s Creamy, Spicy Pasta

2 pounds spaghetti (broken in half) or your favorite pasta

1 jar of sauce, plus 1-3 jars of water (depending on pasta)

2 cups salsa

6 oz. heavy cream

2 cups mozzarella cheese

In a dutch oven, combine dry pasta, spaghetti sauce and enough water to cover the noodles. Cook over medium heat, adding water as necessary and stirring often, until the noodles are soft. (Approximately 20 minutes). Stir in salsa and a few glugs of cream. Stir to combine and cook a few more minutes to combine flavors. The sauce should be creamy and coat the noodles with very little liquid left over. The noodles will absorb a lot of water – you are cooking them almost like a risotto.

When the noodles taste nice, smooth them out and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Put them in the oven under a high broiler and cook just until the cheese is toasty, bubbly, and brown in a few spots.

Enjoy with a nice salad!

Nutritional Bars (Barritas Nutrivas)

2010-11-20T21:56:00.000-08:00

These are very, very similar to the survival bars but they don't have as long of a shelf life because of the additional goodies included, and they are baked instead of steamed. They turn out more like cookies, but are not too sweet and are very filling and yummy. (I'm thinking these are the perfect post-baby food to have on hand: nutritious, filling, and one-handed!)

Nutritive Bars
Ingredients:
3 cups oats
2 1/2 cups powdered milk
1 cup brown sugar (not packed)
3 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp plain gelatin (2 packets)
2 Tbsp warm water
1/2 cup liquid milk, warmed

Mix all ingredients by hand in a bowl, one at a time, softly.

Add mix ins like raisins, nuts, chocolate chips, peanuts, almonds, etc. (In class we had coconut, chocolate chips, raisins, and walnuts!)

Form into cookies, and place on a foil-lined pan. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.

If you want to store these as emergency food, let cool 12 hours and wrap individually in tin foil. Store in a cardboard box for 6 months. 1 bar can sustain a person 3 days.

Survival Bars

2010-11-20T21:47:00.000-08:00

According to hermana Taylor, these will last 5 years, and in a desperate situation 1 bar is enough to sustain a person for 3 days. It wouldn't be fun, though, since these are tiny! Dense little guys though, and super tasty- they really taste like milk and honey bars, but not too sweet. These are very filling!

She used brown paper that she found in the paint section at the hardware store, a roll of thin-ish brown paper about 8 inches high, like what a painter would tape up to block paint from splattering on the floor. It wasn't exactly what she wanted, though. I imagine parchment paper would work- this paper was thin but crisp, and she cut it into 8 inch squares. And certainly cheaper than parchment, I would imagine.

Survival Bars
Ingredients:
3 cups oats
2 1/2 cups powdered milk
1 cup brown sugar (not packed)
3 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp plain gelatin
2 Tbsp warm water
1/2 cup liquid milk, warmed

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, using your hands if necessary, gently adding one ingredient after another.

Scoop out about 2 Tbsp balls, and form into bars. Roll each in a paper square, and fold the ends in. When all the dough is formed and wrapped, place in a large pot on a steamer basket, with boiling water underneath, and tuck a plastic grocery sack over the top of them, and cover the pot with a lid. Steam for 30 minutes.

After they have steamed, remove the bars from the pot and unwrap- they are finished if they easily come off the paper. They will be quite dense.

Let cool for two days on a plate covered with a towel.

Wrap each bar in a new square of paper, and then in aluminum foil. Mark each bar with the date, and store in a cardboard box (like a shoe box.)

These will last for 5 years, and one bar can sustain a person for 3 days. (But I imagine your children will be MUCH HAPPIER if you had three bars a day for them!!)

Survival Atole

2010-11-20T16:57:00.000-08:00

A very nourishing whole-grain drink, served hot. It's delicious and comforting, and perfect for a cold day!

The recipe here would make enough to serve probably a hundred! USE THIS AS A RATIO GUIDE. Our teacher was using Tablespoons of ground, toasted grains to make enough for everyone in the class to have a taste.

Survival Atole
4 pounds wheat
2 pounds rice
2 pounds garbanzo
2 pounds millet (or more wheat if not available)
2 pounds peanuts
2 pounds lentils

Toast each seed or grain separately in a skillet, and grind separately into powder in a blender.

Combine desired amounts of ground grain/beans/etc. in a pot with water and a cinnamon stick. Add milk or condensed milk or powdered milk, and heat.

(I'm sorry this recipe is vague- I think it's just to taste.)

Meatball Soup (Albondigas de Trigo)

2010-11-20T16:48:00.000-08:00

Spicy broth, and enormous meatballs. This is a complex soup, and delicious.

Broth:
Blend chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (available canned in the hispanic section of the grocery store) with 5 or 6 medium tomatoes, and some garlic. Pour into pot with about 8 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add salt to taste.

Meatballs:
Mix 2 cups cooked wheat berries with:
1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup oats
a little salt
a little cumin

Form meatballs around 1/4 pieces of hardboiled eggs, and drop into simmering soup.

Let cook until meatballs are fully cooked.

Breaded Fried Steak (Milanesa de Trigo)

2010-11-20T16:44:00.000-08:00

The recipe calls for 1 pound of ground beef, but I've sampled these prepared with just a handful of meat and with no meat at all- you just can't go wrong, either way. Anything breaded and fried, with this many savory elements going on, is going to be amazing. The entire class was kind of going nuts over these, they are amazing.

Milanesas
1 pound ground beef
2 cups cooked wheat berries
diced onion
diced parsley (about half a plateful)
salt and pepper
4 eggs
bread crumbs

Blend wheat with eggs, incorporate remaining ingredients in a bowl, and make into small balls. Roll in the breadcrumbs, flatten very thin (1/4 inch), and fry in a skillet with oil.

These are good on their own, with pico de gallo or salsa, or wrapped up in a corn tortilla.

Wheat Hamburgers (Hamburguesa de Trigo)

2010-11-20T16:39:00.000-08:00

These patties are completely meatless, and completely delicious. I wouldn't say this tastes like a hamburger, but it IS amazingly yummy- you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would turn down one of these sandwiches down.

Wheat Hamburgers
2 cups cooked wheatberries
1 cup chopped mushrooms
2 cloves garlic, minced
pepper
1 spoon mustard
2 eggs
salt

Blend wheat and eggs. Add remaining ingredients. Form into hamburger patties and cook in a skillet.

Serve on buns with lettuce, tomato, and american cheese.

Pico de Gallo with Wheat (Pico de Gallo con Trigo)

2010-11-20T16:23:00.000-08:00

The cooked wheat berries add a nice heft to this salad/topping. And...because this class was taught to latinas, the point was more that you could add wheat, because everyone already knew how to make a basic pico de gallo, so no amounts are given in our handout!

Pico de Gallo
Onion
Tomato
Cilantro
Avocado
Serrano chile peppers
Cooked wheat berries
Salt
Lime Juice

Combine first five ingredients, then add the cooked wheat berries and add salt and lime juice to taste.

(To prepare wheat berries, soak overnight and let drain 24 hours. Cook in boiling water 15 minutes.)

Oat Horchata (Agua de Avena)

2010-11-20T16:19:00.000-08:00

A delicious oat and milk drink, flavored with cinnamon. Be sure and serve over lots of ice, this is really refreshing!

Oat Horchata
2 cups oats, soaked
Cinnamon
Half Gallon milk
sugar to taste
ice

Blend soaked oats, with soaking water and a stick of cinnamon or about a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Combine with milk, sugar, and ice, and serve. This makes a lot of horchata.

Wheat Jam (Marmalada de Trigo)

2010-11-20T16:15:00.000-08:00

I learned this recipe at a cooking class held by the Relief Society in my Spanish Branch. It doesn't taste like oranges, and it doesn't taste like wheat. It kind of tastes like cinnamon apple sauce....impossible to describe, but exceptionally delicious!

Wheat Jam

1 cup cooked wheat berries

1 cup sugar

Juice from 2 oranges (a glass full)

1 stick of cinnamon

In the blender, mix the wheat with the orange juice. (It should still be fairly lumpy.) Add cinnamon and sugar to taste, and blend. Cook in sauce pan on stove over low heat until thick.

(To prepare wheat: Soak overnight, and let drain 24 hours. Cook for 15 minutes in boiling water.)

Low-Lactose Mushroom and Chicken White Sauce

2010-11-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

The big girl requested macaroni and cheese for lunch today, which I agreed to on the condition that whatever I made, she ate! I didn't have to worry, because she LOVED this. (Who doesn't love white sauce?)

I made this low lactose, because my lactose-intolerant daughter currently has some wiggle room in her "I can handle that" lactose bucket. I included cream for a bit of richness, but you could easily take out the cream entirely, and replace the butter with something like bacon drippings, to make this completely lactose free. Soy milk has the same amount of fat as whole milk, so you'd still have a silky sauce I think. The soymilk I make for my daughter and use in my cooking is lightly sweetened and flavored, about 2 tablespoons of sugar for 2 quarts of milk, plus 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla. Unsweetened and unflavored is preferable, but harder to find as most plain soy milk isn't actually plain. I figured that the extra sugar would make this taste more like my kids' favorite packaged noodles, and I was right. The mushrooms and extra browning steps, plus chicken base, added enough depth of flavor that she never noticed I didn't actually put cheese in. Thus proving that macaroni and cheese from a box doesn't actually taste like cheese. (I did let them sprinkle parmesan on top, though.)

Low-Lactose Mushroom and Chicken White Sauce

Ingredients:
2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons flour
soy milk, about 1 1/2 cups
cream, about 1/4 cup
1/2 teaspoon chicken stock base
1 can button mushrooms, undrained
pepper to taste

1/2 pound dry pasta, cooked
1 cup reserved pasta cooking water

Make a simple white sauce by melting the butter over medium heat in a saucepan. If you want a little extra flavor, let it cook just a bit longer to get some color. Whisk in the flour, and again if you'd like some extra flavor let this roux get some color. Start slowly adding soy milk, stirring to completely break up clumps of the roux, and gradually add all of the soy milk, plus a splash of cream. Add the mushrooms with their canning water (again, for a bit of extra flavor), and let the sauce simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Pepper to taste.

Stir into hot cooked pasta over low heat or just residual heat if the burner is still hot, and add 1/4 cup of pasta water at a time and let cook briefly until thickened and the noodles are coated with sauce. (I like to place my colander in my serving bowl to drain the noodles- the bowl catches the pasta water I need when I sauce the noodles, and the hot pasta water heats my serving bowl. Just dump out the water when your noodles are ready, and fill!)

Pasta all Norma (Pasta with Red Sauce and Sautéed Eggplant)

2010-11-01T22:42:00.000-07:00

I found a new recipe to use up an eggplant in the crisper drawer. Ernie helped me pick out the recipe, and was totally excited about it all day, and refused to take more than one bite. Oh well, Daddy and I thought it was delicious!

The recipe is from here so I won't copy paste it, but basically you warm up your favorite red sauce, add an entire sauteed onion, and an egg plant that's been cubed, salted, left to drain, tossed with a bit of flour, and sauteed in garlic-infused olive oil until it's brown on the inside and melty soft on the inside. Mix the whole sauce concoction with a bit of cheese, and stir it into a pound of pasta.

I loved the eggplant, I was eating it like popcorn! Since I'd never cooked eggplant before, I wasn't sure what to watch for, but next time I will definitely let it get totally soft when I cook it, instead of leaving a little bite to it. I'm looking forward to many more eggplant while they're in season, without any of this pasta razzmatazz!

Spaghetti Squash and Veggie Bake

2010-10-17T20:43:00.000-07:00

I threw together a casserole-ish meal today before church, so all we had to do to get ready for our weekly Family Meal was throw it in the oven when we got home and wait for guests to bring the breads and dessert! Quite the life, I tell you. Plus, after dinner there was only one pan to wash. (Well, two, because I made a pot of pasta as well.) This looked alarmingly soupy when it came out of the oven, so much so that I made pasta so I could pretend that the entree was ACTUALLY a really big baked pan of sauce. It solidified again after 5 or 10 minutes, making the pasta irrelevant for everyone except the kids, and everyone really enjoyed it. Definitely a make-again!

As always, amounts are up to you, but I'm going to list what I did. I had an "empty the fridge"type of vibe going on, so play around! I had a large (Costco-sized) open bottle of sauce to use up too- if you'd rather make your own, that's great! Diced tomatoes or canned tomatoes would be a really great substitute too, and not so soupy. Just add them at the end of the saute process to the other vegetables, and skip everything that refers to the sauce.

Ingredients:
1 spaghetti squash

1 large jar spaghetti sauce
white vinegar (optional)

oil
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic,chopped
1 ear of corn, cut off the cob
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced carrot rounds
a pinch of red pepper flakes
ground black pepper

4 cups grated mozzarella cheese

To prepare the spaghetti squash, cut in half and scoop out seeds. Rub the flesh with olive oil and place cut-side-down on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 30-60 minutes until a sharp knife easily pierces the skin and flesh. Set aside until cool enough to handle.

Heat spaghetti sauce (if using) over low heat. Add white vinegar a tablespoon at a time if sauce is too sweet for your liking, until it tastes the way you want it to.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a large skillet, and saute the onion and carrots until softened, then add the remaining ingredients and finish sauteeing.

In a large casserole pan (I used a dutch oven) spread a bit of sauce, half the spaghetti squash (scrape out of shell with a fork), and half the veggie mixture. Top generously with shredded mozzarella, then repeat the four layers. You can refrigerate this until you're ready to cook, which I recommend doing as it helps the flavors meld together.

Bake covered at 350 until hot and bubbly, then remove lid and let it brown a bit. I let mine bake about an hour, straight from the fridge, and left it uncovered for an additional 20 minutes or so. But mine was so saucy, there was no danger of it over-browning.

Make Your Own Drinkable Yogurt

2010-10-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the drinkable yogurts at the store? Perhaps in technicolored packaging, meant for kids? Super simple to make! They're only thinned-down yogurt, after all. I hesitated to post this- it's so basic, but such a quick and easy and NUTRITIOUS snack. (Probiotics, low fat, good protein...it's nutritious, right?)

I like to plop some yogurt into one of those plastic tupperware shakers- you know, the kind with a big ol' star insert and a flip top lid? Pour in milk, and then whatever flavors look good that day. Today it was honey and a bit of thin jam, I just used the liquid-ish portion of my favorite plum jam and left the fruit chunks behind for another day's sandwich. I make my own yogurt, and it's pretty tart, so that's why the double dose of sweet. Plus, I'm pregnant. I just really like sweets, OK?

This makes an easy and quick breakfast, or an afternoon snack. A spoon and a big cup would probably work just as well, but you'd have to work a little harder to get the lumps out, and I don't like to work that hard!

I actually prefer my yogurt this way, it gets rid of any texture issues left over from my childhood.

Pineapple-Sage and Green Onion Cheese Ball

2010-10-11T14:39:00.001-07:00

Is there anyone that doesn’t love a good cheese ball? In my family, every New Years Eve found us with a counter full of chips, chocolates, Christmas cookies, pretzels, dips…and a cheese ball. Always a cheese ball. They were those yellow ones, covered in slivered almonds.

Those are tasty, of course, and will always hold a special place in my heart, but now that I have made my own a few times…I don’t think there’s any going back.

I started out in the garden, where I have a rather robust Pineapple Sage plant. I had never heard of Pineapple Sage before this year, but it’s exactly what it sounds like. A sage plant with emerald leaves…that taste like pineapple.

After that, I took a few hints from a recipe I found in a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Some cream cheese, some butter, handfuls of a shredded cheddar and Monterey mix, plus some green onions from my windowsill.

I wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap and left it in a round bowl overnight to cure in the refrigerator.

In the morning, it got a good roll around in chopped toasted pecans and more chopped pineapple sage.

It was quite a hit!

Aunt LoLo’s Pineapple Sage and Green Onion Cheese Ball

Makes one large cheese ball, appropriate for a large party. Recipe can be adapted to your tastes, and the size of your group.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine:

16 oz. cream cheese, softened

4 oz. butter, softened

2 c. mixed shredded cheese

2 T. milk

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. cracked pepper

1/4 cup snipped green onions

1/4 cup chopped pineapple-sage

Mix with the paddle attachment until the ingredients are well combined. Line a bowl with plastic wrap, letting it hang over the edges of the bowl, and press your cheese mixture in. Wrap your overhanging wrap over the cheese and press. Leave the cheese ball in the refrigerator overnight to cure.

On the day of the party, unmold your cheese ball and cover with:

Toasted, chopped pecans and extra pineapple sage

Serve with crackers.

Cold Marinated Artichoke Heart Dip

2010-10-08T14:50:00.001-07:00

I made up this recipe for a baby shower recently. I wanted the flavor of marinated artichoke hearts, but didn’t have a way to conveniently fuss with a hot dip. All of the recipes I could find were for hot dip and, although it is one of my favorite things in the world, I just didn’t have a way to do it for this party.

Enter…the food processor. Enjoy!

Aunt LoLo’s Cold Marinated Artichoke Heart Dip

In the bowl of a food processor, fitted with a blade, combine:

2 cups mayonnaise

16 marinated artichoke heart quarters

Pulse or blend until the artichokes are finely chopped and the mixture looks dip-able. Season with salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste.

Remove the dip to a bowl with a lid (preferably a non-plastic one, so it doesn’t leave its scent behind) and refrigerate overnight for best flavor.

Best served ice cold. (It just tastes better. Go figure!)

Tastes great with veggies or crackers.

Best Sugar Cookies INTHEWORLD!

2010-10-08T14:44:00.001-07:00

These are the best sugar cookies in the world, with a big bowl of cream cheese frosting.

The kidlets like them with sprinkles.

Or you can take the more classical approach.

These cookies are soft. They melt in your mouth. They’re delicious. I’m embarrassed to say it, but they taste just like the Lofthouse cookies that you can find in nearly any Pacific Northwest grocery store bakery. (Except, of course, that they aren’t full of preservatives and can’t be kept at room temperature for up to three weeks before they start to suffer.) That, to me, is the highest compliment I can give a sugar cookie. I adore Lofthouse cookies.

When I was in high school, one of my youth leaders at church made incredible cookies. They were so good, in fact, they could even lure my usually shy mother away from her home, and caring for my three younger siblings, and into various church functions.

As one particular function was approaching (Young Women in Excellence), this youth leader and I were given charge of organizing an edible favor for the other young women, and their parents. Since Karen, the leader, made such delicious cookies, my mother suggested (begged?) that I suggest those as favors. And that I ought to help with the prep. And take notes.

With Karen’s permission, I did take notes. Our baking day still stands out vividly in my mind. It was during our Christmas break, and we had quite a snowstorm. At 11 am, there was still a foot of snow on the ground, and a good six inches of slush in the roads. (If you know Seattle, you know that is odd.) I carefully picked my way through the slippery slush, walking the four blocks to Karen’s house. I can still remember how impressed I was with her efficient kitchen. She had a pantry in the hall, just outside of the kitchen, with pre-cut sheets of parchment paper. It blew my mind, at the time, seeing a kitchen that was so specialized for one branch of the culinary arts. In fact, it might have been her that first gave me the notion that every kitchen should have a cookie jar, and every week should find the cookie jar replenished.

I recently threw a baby shower for a friend at church, and made the cookies for the first time in nearly 15 years. I had never attempted to make them myself. Even though I had the recipe, I never found a reason to use it. These are not cookie-jar cookies, and most parties around here call for cupcakes, not decorated cookies.

My first attempt (a double batch) was tasty, but my technique was off. Obviously, my note-taking skills were a little off. I didn’t watch the order of the ingredients, or the mixing going on between adding ingredients to the bowl!

I tried again, another double batch, and made nearly perfect cookies. (The original cookies included almond flavoring, instead of vanilla. If I can get my hands on some good quality almond flavor, then I’ll be in business!)

One more note – most sugar cookie doughs are refrigerated before they can be rolled or cut. This dough does not need to be refrigerated. This is a major plus, since these cookies can go from cupboard to oven in about 15 minutes. They can be frosted as soon as the cookies are cool.

Best Sugar Cookies in the World

Adapted from Karen Palmer’s recipe

If rolled out 1/4” thick, this makes 14 large cookies. The recipe can be doubled, or tripled.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Crisco

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla or almond flavoring

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 1/2 cups flour, divided

Preheat the oven to 400 and prep two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

Cream together:

3/4 cup Crisco

1 cup white sugar

With the mixer on medium low, add:

2 eggs, one at a time

1 tsp. vanilla or almond flavoring

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

When everything is uniformly mixed in, add :

two cups of flour

Mix just until flour is incorporated evenly.

Place a cup with 1/2 cup flour in it next to your workspace, and then sprinkle your workspace liberally. Turn out the dough and carefully roll it out. You want it thick, 1/4-1/2 inch. Cut out your cookies and carefully remove to a prepared baking sheet. (I used a flat metal spatula for this, and cut out my cookies with a 3” biscuit cutter.)

Bake for 8-9 minutes, but check them often through the glass after 6. As soon as the bottom edges begin to turn golden, you want to take the cookies out of the oven.

While the cookies are baking, gently re-form and re-roll the remaining dough. Make sure you sprinkle your workspace with flour again. Cut out cookies and repeat above process. On your second cookie sheet. (It is important that you use at least two cookie sheets, since the sheets need to be COOL when the cookies are placed on them.)

(The original recipe indicates that dough should ONLY be rolled out twice. I rolled mine out three or four times. The third time was OK. The fourth time, and the cookie I made from patting together the resulting scraps, were perfect warm out of the oven. They didn’t make it further than that, but I imagine they’d be a bit tougher.)

Allow to cool on the baking sheet for one minute, and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Icing: (makes enough to ice 4 dozen cookies)

In an electric mixer, combine:

6 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup corn syrup

3 T. butter, softened

1/2 cup water

1 tsp. vanilla

Beat until smooth, and add dye as desired.

This makes a thick icing, suitable for spreading with a spatula but perhaps not still enough for intricate piping. It stays quite soft, and so is not really appropriate for individually wrapped cookies, and the cookies should NOT be stacked without waxed paper between them.

Creamed Tuna with Peas

2010-10-07T22:48:00.001-07:00

When I was a little girl, I adored something called Tuna Wiggle. (I think it could also be called Tuna Noodle Casserole, but I had my trusty little Klutz cookbook, and they called it Tuna Wiggle. So…Tuna Wiggle it is.)

Tuna Wiggle was one of the first things I learned to cook. It usually came in the form of Creamed Tuna on Toast. This was even easier to make, and the recipe went something like this: In a medium saucepan, combine one can cream of mushroom soup, one drained can of tuna, one 1 lb. bag of frozen peas. Add a little milk if it’s too thick. Serve it on toast, and eat with a knife and fork.

As tasty as that was, when I was craving something creamy and warm and tuna-ish the other day, I knew I could do better. (Besides, I had not one can of cream of anything in the pantry.)

And I think I’ve done it. It starts with a basic white sauce, using the recipe that my father taught me. He, in turn, learned it from his grandmother. Add to that a can of your favorite tuna, as many frozen peas as you like, and a few generous handfuls of cheese, and you have a delicious and grown-up version of a childhood favorite!

We served this over rice because I’d been craving some creamy, cheesy casserole-type rice, but it would be equally delicious over noodles, toast or quinoa!

(Ok, so nothing’s different from the original recipe except that I used a homemade cheese sauce instead of the canned cream of mushroom soup. Still, it’s something that I don’t keep in the pantry anymore. If you do…well, then, follow the recipe above.)

Creamed Tuna with Peas

Ingredients:

2 T. butter

4 T. flour

2 cup milk

2 cups grated cheese

1 pound frozen peas

1 can tuna, drained

salt and pepper, to taste

In a skillet, melt your butter. When it is good and melted, add your flour and stir it up. Cook this for 2-3 minutes to make sure your finished product doesn’t have a Raw Flour Taste. (Not good, my friends!) Pull out your milk jug and add milk, a little at a time, whisking as you go to make sure you don’t get any lumps. Continue to stir in milk, whisking like mad, until you get the consistency that you want. (2 cups is really an approximation. I usually just pull out the jug, and keep adding milk until it looks right.) As the sauce continues to cook, it will thicken, so this whole process will take a few minutes.

Once your sauce is to the consistency that you like, it’s time to add your peas and tuna. When the peas are cooked through, then it is time to add the cheese. Make sure it doesn’t boil after this point, because the sauce will revolt and leave you with…something not great. (I’m not sure what will happen. This fact was so drilled into me as a child, I’ve never let it boil! I think the cheese will cook and fall apart, leaving chunky, oily sauce.) Season with salt and pepper, and you’re golden!

Serve over rice, noodles, quinoa, boiled wheat or anything else that would benefit from a creamy, lovely sauce!

Fresh Tomato Sauce

2010-10-04T21:56:00.000-07:00

Made a quick tomato sauce for dinner tonight from our blemished tomatoes- it was done by the time the pasta was pulled out of the pot, and killed a big pile of ugly roma and early girl tomaters. PLUS, it was delicious, if a bit runny. My dried spices are getting a bit low- I would have added basil if it were available, but neither cupboard nor garden is abundant in basil right now!

The amounts are approximate.

2 pounds slicing tomatoes (10-15 small tomatoes)
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried oregano

Heat oil in a skillet, and add minced garlic. Cook until fragrant, and add chopped tomatoes. Add remaining ingredients, cover, and let simmer. Taste for seasoning. Smash a bit if you like.

A Birthday Carrot Cake!

2010-09-13T22:03:00.001-07:00

I have been drawn to the kitchen nearly all my life. When I was 5, my mother (bed-ridden with a pregnancy) would send me downstairs to make her a sandwich for lunch. When I was 9, my father took my twin sister and I into the kitchen and taught us how to read a recipe.

There were several years following this momentous occasion where….Interesting Dinners resulted from our novice attempts at cooking. One particular meatloaf stands out in my mind. The recipe called for breadcrumbs, and dehydrated onions. The recipe helpfully suggested that if you did not have any breadcrumbs, you could toast bread and break it up. Having never seen breadcrumbs, per-say, I took the second option. And broke it up into one inch chunks. Then, tackling the onion problem…I looked through the spice cupboard, checking every ingredient label as I went. Finally, I found something that had onions in it – Onion Powder! So I put in three tablespoons of that.

The resulting meatloaf looked like brain (from the bread “crumbs”) and tasted like pure onion. It took me a long time to live down that onion loaf….

The other thing I could not get right was cake. I tried one, from the same cookbook, and it came out looking (and feeling) like a golden, buttery brick.

My father told me to chalk it up to experience…and that I had just re-invented the Pound Cake.

Needless to say, with the many other options available to me in the kitchen, it has taken me a long time to return to cake making. If I can get perfect results with Betty Crocker and an egg….who am I to mess with perfection!

My friends, it has taken me over 15 years…but I have finally found a few cakes that I can (successfully!) turn out for parties, celebrations and the like. The first is Pioneer Woman’s Chocolate Sheet Cake, with a few modifications. (I like to throw in a few dashes of Saigon Cinnamon now, to kick it up a bit. Mmm.)

The other cake I can successfully turn out?

Dorie Greenspan’s Carrot Cake. I first used it to cater a wedding luncheon this summer, and have since used it to celebrate two birthdays. It’s a hit. Nothing very unique about it…except that it turns out exactly how a carrot cake should be – not too sweet, not too spicy, and never dry. Just…perfect.

Bill’s Big Carrot Cake

(adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan)

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. ground cinnamon (I use Saigon cinnamon. It tastes like red-hots.)

3/4 tsp. salt

3 cups grated carrots (approximately 9 carrots) (a food processor makes this really quick!)

1/2 cup moist raisins, or dried cranberries (both are good!)

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

4 large eggs

(The original recipe also includes nuts and coconut, but we don’t like nuts in cakes, and I never have coconut on hand. So…there ya go.)

Preheat your oven to 325 and prepare your pans. I like to use 2 9” pans, or make cupcakes. (Depending on the size of your cupcakes, this can make anywhere from 12-24.) You can also use 3 9” pans for more frosting-space, but I only have two. Spray well with cooking spray, or smear with butter, and flour liberally. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a small bowl, stir together the carrots and raisins or cranberries.

Using a stand mixer, with your paddle attachment, beat together the sugar and the oil, on medium speed, until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, and keep on beating until the batter is even more smooth. Take the speed down to low and add in the flour mixture until just mixed. Carefully mix in the chunky stuff, and divide the batter into your prepared pans.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until the cake just begins to pull back from the edges of the pan and a toothpick stuck into the middle comes out batter-free.

Cool the cakes for 5 minutes on a cooling rack, then run a small flexible rubber scraper around the outside and turn the cakes out onto racks to cool.

(The cakes can be wrapped up once they’re cool and kept at room temperature overnight, or in the freezer for two months.)

Frosting:

(This is a pretty generic Cream Cheese frosting, and easy to dress up)

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese

1 stick (8 Tbsp.) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 pound (3 3/4 cup) powdered sugar, sifted

Flavoring (1 Tbsp. lemon juice, 1/2 tsp. pure extract, 1 tsp. vanilla, etc.)

Beat the cream cheese and butter together, in a stand mixer (with the paddle attachment) until creamy. Carefully add the powdered sugar and mix until it is smooth. Gradually add in your flavoring, adjusting to taste.

Now go forth and build the Carrot Cake of your dreams! This really does make excellent little cupcakes, or a rather elegant (and easy!) birthday cake.

(Another excellent quality of this cake is that, if you were to leave a few cupcakes un-frosted, you now have an excellent dairy-free dessert for any lactose intolerant nieces that might be lurking around your kitchen!)

Review: Mallard Ice Cream, Bellingham WA

2010-09-13T21:10:00.001-07:00

(Two scoops of Lavender Chocolate ice cream)

Oh, my friends. I have a problem. A few weeks ago, we took a (very tasty) trip to Richmond, BC. On the way home, my devious Sister in Law and I snatched the GPS away from my husband (the driver) and programmed in a short pit-stop. In Bellingham, WA.

Now, there’s nothing in Bellingham, except for Western Washington University…and Mallard Ice Cream.

This wouldn’t be a problem, except that now that I’ve tasted the best ice cream in the world…I can’t possibly be expected to ever buy a carton of ice cream from the grocery store again!

In a stroke of genius, I sent in the (now thoroughly disgruntled) driver and his sister to pick out two bowls of ice cream for the four adults in the car to share. I volunteered to stay behind with the sleeping babies. (The remaining adult, my Father in Law, quickly abandoned ship when he realized he would be stuck in a warm car with just sleeping babies to look at.)

My husband, Lo Gung, came back changed. He was ranting and raving like a man possessed. Basil Raspberry! Vanilla and Black Pepper! Lavender and Coconut!

Mallard Ice Cream, supposedly, has over 500 flavors under its belt, but only 30 (or so) are for sale on any given day. They will happily give you a spoonful of this, or of that, for as long as it takes you to make up your mind…and even have a special scoop for “undecideds” – Half this, and half that!

We ended up with two bowls. One Lavender and Chocolate Chunk and the other Coconut Chocolate Chunk.

Both? Were out of this world amazing.

Which is why I can’t bring myself to buy ice cream anymore. *sigh*

If you ever find yourself on I-5, in Northern Washington State, make sure to stop by Mallard Ice Cream! You’ll be glad you did!

Easy Mac n’ Cheese, LoLo Style

2010-09-10T22:20:00.001-07:00

Not to be confused with Myrnie’s recipe for Easy Macaroni and Cheese.

This? Is my go-to macaroni and cheese recipe. I love it because it uses one pot, one colander, mug, whisk and a wooden spoon. Also? The sauce isn’t thickened with flour. Flour’s fine, but I always get the proportions wrong, and it has to cook for a good five minutes before you know if you got it right or not. And then it’s hard to fix.

This recipe is thickened with cornstarch, or tapioca starch. Hello, instant gratification! (Oh, and the kidlets all love it.

Easy Mac n’ Cheese, LoLo Style

Ingredients:

Salted water

1 pound pasta (macaroni, rigatoni, Seattle Space Needle…whatever)

Cornstarch, or tapioca flour

Milk

Grated Cheddar cheese.

Tools:

Soup pot

Wooden spoon

Whisk

Mug

Colander

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook one pound of pasta. While the pasta is cooking. put a colander and a mug in the sink. When it’s cooked just right, head over to the sink. First pour the water over the mug to fill it, and then drain the rest of the pasta into the colander. Let it just chill out in the sink for a second.

Swing by the cupboard and grab the cornstarch (or tapioca starch). Stop by the refrigerator and grab the milk and a bag of shredded cheddar cheese.

Now you’re back at the stove, whisk in hand. Make sure your milk, cheese, starch and that mug of water from the sink are handy. Pour in enough milk to cover the bottom of the pot by about 1/2”. Then put in two heaping spoonfuls of your cornstarch. Turn the heat to medium, and whisk it up. It will be a little gloppy at first, but keep whisking until it’s smooth. When it’s smooth, start throwing in handfuls of cheese. You might want to switch back to the wooden spoon at this point. It takes quite a bit of cheese to make a tasty pasta…four of five handfuls. If it gets too thick, thin it down with the pasta water, or a little more milk.

Finally, dump your pasta back into the pot and stir to coat. Kill the heat, and VOILA! Easy, sheeny, cheesy yummy macaroni and cheese.

Krab Toast

2010-09-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

I had a few sticks of mock crab left over from a recent sushi night, and came up with these rich toasts. They were great with a bowl of tomato soup. I had 2 sticks of mock crab, and it made three small toasts- you can modify this however you wish. Of course, this crab salad is also great in a pasta salad, or as part of a sushi roll! For pasta salad you could add celery and whatever else looked good that day.

Krab Toast
2 sticks mock crab, finely minced
about 2 Tbsp mayonnaise
about 1 Tbsp finely minced onion

grated cheese

Stir together first three ingredients and spread on pieces of bread (or toast if you'd like these firmer when you finish), and top with grated cheese. We used mozzarella and a bit of parmesan. Broil until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Garden Fresh Tomato Soup

2010-09-03T13:52:00.000-07:00

The original recipe for this can be found here. I mostly followed the recipe, but upped the onion, omitteed cloves, changed up the cooking method, and never bothered to measure my tomatoes.

Garden Fresh Tomato Soup
Based on a Recipe from AllRecipes.com

About 4 cups chopped fresh tomatoes (I used a mixture of yellow plum and roma)
1/4 of a small yellow onion, sliced
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
2 cups chicken broth
salt to taste
sugar to taste (up to 2 tsp)

In a medium pot cook tomatoes and onions on medium high heat to slightly wilt and roast. Stir in butter and flour to form a roux- let cook and bubble until thickened. Stir in 2 cups chicken broth, vigorously, scraping up bits from the bottom of the pan. Let simmer 20 minutes, and puree with a stick blender.

Pour soup through a wire mesh strainer into serving bowl (to strain out any large chunks of tomato skin) and season to taste with salt and suger. I didn't use any extra salt, as my broth was from bullion powder and already quite salty.

Oatmeal Lemon Cranberry Muffins

2010-08-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Phew, now THERE is an unwieldy title. These muffins are based on the muffin recipe in Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) anniversary edition cookbook. Believe me when I say it is almost always my first stop for a "base" recipe.

I doubled the recipe and used the "oatmeal muffins" option (reduce the flour and add oatmeal) and then riffed from there. Here's my final recipe, it made 20 large muffins (about a 1/4 cup of batter each.) The nice thing about using these silicone muffin liners is that I could use them, free standing, on a baking sheet and didn't need to worry about filling empty spots with water. The water is one of my pet peeves- it wicks onto the oven mitts and burns me, sloshes, makes so much steam my smoke alarm goes off when I open the oven, and I can't just dump all the muffins onto a cooling rack. These are Le Creuset brand, I highly recommend!

The muffins came out nice and light, without the bitter baking soda flavor I often find in muffins. The lemon wasn't overpowering or bitter, which is nice too and hard to do with oils I've found. You could probably substitute a bit of lemon juice and rind for the same effect, and reduce the milk accordingly. One thing I'm not sure of is the effect of the lemon oil on the milk- I mix lemon juice and milk for a buttermilk substitute, and I didn't notice any thickening of the milk mixture before I stirred it in, but the "buttermilk effect" might account for why these turned out so light and airy.

Oatmeal Lemon Cranberry Muffins
Based on a recipe from BHG

a scant 2 2/3 cup AP flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup white sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
a few handfuls of dried cranberries

1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup cooking oil
2 eggs, beaten
a few drops of pure lemon oil (just a tiny dribble)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix dry ingredient and wet ingredients separately, then just barely stir together. Spoon into muffin tins or liners and bake 18-20 minutes at 400 degrees until they test done in the centers. Best served warm.

Notes: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cranberries, lemon oil, and vanilla were not included in the original recipe.

LoLo Banana Bundt Cake

2010-08-06T15:04:00.001-07:00

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking, From My Home to Yours” (Classic Banana Bundt Cake)

Ingredients:
3 cups AP flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup olive oil
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
About 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about four medium bananas), very ripe
1 cup plain yogurt

Preheat your oven to 350, with a rack in the middle. Prepare your Bundt pan by greasing it well. (I used cooking spray.)
In a medium bowl, whisk or sift together flour, baking soda and salt.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the olive oil and sugar until well-combined and smooth-ish. Add the vanilla and then the eggs, one at a time, beating for about one minute after each egg goes in to make sure it is well incorporated. Turn the mixer down to low, and add in your bananas. Finally (still on low), mix in half the flour mixture, then all of the yogurt, and then the rest of the flour mixture. Remove all of the batter to your Bundt pan and smooth out the top.
Bake for 65-75 minutes, or until a toothpick in the deepest part of the cake comes out clean. (Check it at 30 minutes – if it’s getting too brown for your liking, cover it loosely with tin foil for the rest of the baking time.) Cool the cake pan on a rack for 10 minutes, and then take the cake out of the pan and let it finish cooling on the rack.
This is even better the next day!

Plum Mustard Dipping Sauce

2010-07-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

I love to dip ham and cheese turnovers in this or sweet potato fries. It's fantastic on ham sandwiches as well! You can use any jam or mustard, but my favorite combo is plum jam from our italian prune tree in the backyard and honey mustard. The first person that can give me a honey mustard recipe that tastes like French's honey mustard wins my gratitude! It would probably be phenomenal with a good stone-ground, course mustard.

Fruit and Mustard Dipping Sauce
Jam
Mustard

Stir to combine. Yes, that's it! I normally just mix it on my plate because NO ONE else in my family will eat mustard, and I don't eat meat often enough to make up a larger batch. If anyone tries to store it in the fridge, let us know how that works? I imagine it would be just fine.

Apricot Frozen Yogurt

2010-07-20T21:42:00.000-07:00

Nectarine Frozen Yogurt
Ingredients
2 cups vanilla yogurt
8 apricots
Sugar to taste

Rinse, halve and pit apricots, and blend with yogurt and sugar in a bowl using a hand blender. Skins will either be blended up or will wrap around the blade of the immersion blender- you can clean them out when you're done. Taste for sweetness and add sugar as needed.

Pour into ice cube trays and freeze until solid. Working with half the batch at a time, "pulse" cubes in a food processor 20-30 times until finely blended and it's gathered into one or two "football shaped" balls. Serve it up! It will be a little on the soft side- you can refreeze if you like to "ripen." Because of the low fat content, this has a grainy/flaky consistency- if it's made with a proper ice cream custard base, it's quite creamy and perfect! (HT to Kenji Alt-Lopez for this technique)

Glass Noodles with Cucumber and Shrimp

2010-07-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

Serves 4
Glass Noodles with Shrimp and Cucumber
4 bundles glass noodles (mung bean thread noodles)
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, chopped a few times into large pieces
cucumber, halved, seeded, and sliced
5-10 shrimp, cooked
2-4 Tablespoons oil
basil leaves
Sauce (sweet chili sauce, soy, terriyaki, etc.)

Heat 2 Tbsp oil in a wok over high heat until it smokes- add the onions and garlic, and stir for a few minutes until they smell good and are softened. Scrape into a bowl and set aside. Add more oil to the wok if you need to and let it heat. Add noodles and stir fry quickly until translucent, about 2 minutes- they want to stick together, so stir and separate and lift as best you can. Scrape noodles into a bowl and set aside.

Let everyone make their own noodle bowls, and top with sauce.

Creamy Lemon Pasta

2010-07-17T22:35:00.000-07:00

Creamy Lemon Pasta
Paraphrased From Moosewood Restaurant: Simple Suppers

In a small skillet on low heat, melt 1/4 cup butter. Add 1 cup of cream, and heat slowly. Stir in 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice and set aside.

Stir sauce into 1 pound of cooked pasta, with a cup of grated parmesan cheese. Thin with reserved pasta water if needed. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (We didn't need any salt, but everyone peppered theirs lightly at the table.)

Balsamic Parmesan Vinaigrette

2010-07-17T22:34:00.001-07:00

Balsamic Parmesan Vinaigrette
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar (white or red is good)
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 Tablespoon mustard (all I have is yellow, but dijon would be amazing)
2 garlic cloves, finely minced or smashed
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
3/4 cup olive oil

Dump everything into a screwtop jar and shake shake! It's best if it gets to sit for a while. This is exceptionally garlicy- dial it back if you don't want it so strong.

Oven Baked Salmon

2010-07-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

Oven Baked Salmon
Sprinkle salmon fillets with your favorite seasoning salt liberally, and wrap individually in foil. Place in a single layer in a baking pan and bake at 350 until flaky. (Ours were frozen so it took about an hour.) Our favorite seasoning salt is Cavendar's Greek Seasoning- it's amazing on green beans and eggs, too.

Dipped in yoshida sauce and topped with slices of sweet onion and pineapple is another family favorite, as is lemon slices, onions, and generous pepper.

Spicy Mayo Sauce

2010-07-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

I mix this with canned tuna for a kid-friendly pantry version of "spicy tuna roll" sushi.

Spicy Mayo Sauce
1/2 cup mayonnaise
3 Tablespoons sriracha sauce (to taste- you'll be surprised how much you can use before this gets spicy)
2 or 3 Tablespoons rice vinegar

Mix mayonnaise and sriracha sauce in a bowl, and add enough vinegar to make a sauce. It shouldn't be runny, but more like the consistency of salad dressing. Decant leftovers into a squeeze bottle and use to garnish the top of your sushi rolls- this stores well in the refrigerator.

Skillet Croutons

2010-07-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

Makes enough for 2 exceptionally large bowls of salad.

Skillet Croutons
2 thick slices of bread (I used 3-day-old french bread), sliced into cubes
3 or 4 Tablespoons olive oil
seasoning (I used Cavendar's greek seasoning)
2 Tablespoons parmesan cheese

Stir everything together and tip into a preheated skillet on medium high heat, in a single layer. Let brown and flip. If the heat is on the high side, the outside will brown while the inside will be chewy and spongy with the oil (delicious!) If the heat is lower, you will get a crunchier crouton before it starts to burn. Shake and stir skillet occasionally.

LoLo Coconut Pumpkin Masala Chicken

2010-05-19T17:37:00.001-07:00

I’m not really sure what to call this. I don’t understand what the individual words mean, but as I understand it “tikka” means “pieces” and “masala” is…the gravy the Brittish added to Chicken Tikka because they like gravy! Heh. Either way, this is oh-so-tasty. To an American palate, this would be Chicken Coconut Pumpkin Tikka Masala…or something like that. Whatever. (Oh, and the pumpkin? It was a shot in the dark to get more veggies into my fruit n’ bread ONLY kid. It was a success!)

Yummy!

Aunt LoLo’s “Secret Ingredient” Chicken Coconut Tikka Masala

Ingredients:

2 split chicken breasts (bone in, skin on) (You can substitute any chicken here. If your chicken is already cooked, add it at the end.)

1 tbsp. oil

1 medium onion

1 tbs. minced garlic

1 tsp. tikka masala paste

1 can (6 oz) tomato paste

2 cups pureed pumpkin (yes, really – it takes on an awesome earthy quality and really rounds out the sauce! Besides- SNEAKY VEG. Yes, please.)

1/2 cup water

1 tsp. chicken base

1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk

In a dutch oven, heat up your oil and throw in your diced onion and minced garlic. Cook until the onions are translucent, about five minutes. Add tikka masala paste, tomato paste, pumpkin, water, chicken base, and a few scoops of the thick stuff on the top of the can of coconut milk. (Don’t shake it before you open the can! Coconut milk naturally separates into the cream, and the water.) Stir to combine.

Add your chicken, splash the sauce over it to coat, cover the pan, and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.

When the chicken is cooked, carefully remove it from the sauce, remove and discard the skin, and then use a fork to tear the rest of the chicken into pieces. Discard the bones, and return the cooked meat to the pot. Add the rest of the coconut milk, stir to combine, and allow to thicken over low heat. Season to taste with more tikka masala paste and chicken base or salt. A spoonful of sugar is nice as well. (I was making this for kids, so I went pretty light on the tikka masala paste!)

Serve with rice spiced with a pinch of cinnamon, a half pinch of cloves and a teaspoon of chicken base mixed in before cooking.

Tofu Fruit Whip (Or Fruity Pudding)

2010-05-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

Try this recipe if you don't like tofu. Really. The uproar, grimaces, groans that were heard when I announced the dessert were quickly replaced by..."Um. I like it. Can I have some more?" I lost count, but I think most people had at least 3 servings.

A more common version of tofu "pudding" involves melting a measure of chocolate chips equal in weight to your tofu, mixing together in a blender, and letting set up in the fridge. I've done that with extra-firm tofu, plus a little peanut butter, to great results. (It was firm, like cheesecake, although a little grainy.)

This turned out more like a mild yogurt- not too sweet, but addicting and light. Try it, you'll like it! We used the last of a raspberry compote from the last of Mom's frozen raspberries, but thought that peach, banana, or strawberry would all be good ones to try next. I'm not sure if it was the citric acid in the raspberries, or the extra liquids I added, but this never set up into pudding- it was definitely yogurt consistency. (It was also pretty good with mint-chocolate sauce drizzled on top. Yum.)

Tofu Fruit Whip
3 14-ounce boxes of silken tofu
3/4 cup mashed raspberries
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup soy milk (add if this won't blend)

Blend all together in a blender until smooth- decant into a bowl and refrigerate.

Sweet Cherry Pie

2010-05-01T21:41:00.000-07:00

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we grow sweet cherries. Lots and lots and lots of sweet cherries. I've never seen a sour cherry in the store, and wouldn't you know: most cherry pie recipes are for sour cherries!

Smitten Kitchen saved the day, again. Summer 2009 was a bumper crop year for sweet cherries around here like I've never seen before- we picked up 13 pounds of gorgeous bings one day for a dollar a pound, and spent the evening washing, pitting, bagging, and freezing fruit.
Here is her recipe, excerpted from Smitten Kitchen. I used my berries straight from the freezer- the pie took a little longer to bake. There's enough corn starch here to thicken the juices admirably, but definitely let it cool and thicken, especially if you use frozen berries. (The directions say to leave the juice behind...well, that wasn't possible.) The tiny bit of almond extract adds an exceptional flavor- I definitely recommend it! I left the butter out, and it was delicious still. So delicious that I hid it after our family meal, so no one would ask to take it home. That was a bad thing...but this pie...well, it's just that good!

Sweet Cherry Pie
Dough for a double-crust pie
4 cups pitted fresh cherries (about 2 1/2 pounds unpitted)
4 tablespoons cornstarch
2/3 to 3/4 cup sugar (adjust this according to the sweetness of your cherries)
1/8 teaspoon salt
Juice of half a lemon
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into small bits
1 egg, beaten with 2 tablespoons water
Coarse sugar, for decoration
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Stir together the cherries, cornstarch, sugar, salt, lemon and almond extract gently together in a large bowl.
Roll out half of chilled dough (use larger piece, if you’ve divided them unevenly) on a floured work surface to 13-inch round. Gently place it in 9-inch pie pan, either by rolling it around the rolling pin and unrolling it over the pan or by folding it into quarters and unfolding it in the pan. Trim edges to a half-inch overhang.
Spoon filling into pie crust, discarding the majority of the liquid that has pooled in the bowl. Dot the filling with the bits of cold butter.
Roll out the remaining dough into a 12-inch round on a lightly floured surface, drape it over the filling, and trim it, leaving a 1-inch overhang. Fold the overhang under the bottom crust, pressing the edge to seal it, and crimp the edge decoratively. Brush the egg wash over over pie crust, then sprinkle with coarse sugar.
Cut slits in the crust with a sharp knife, forming steam vents, and bake the pie in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350°F. and bake the pie for 25 to 30 minutes more, or until the crust is golden. Let the pie cool on a rack.

10 Minute Cookies

2010-04-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to include a recipe, because the recipe isn't the important thing here.

The important thing is that you can go from frozen butter to an entire batch of cookies baking at 350 in about 10 minutes.

Yeah baby, let's do it!

Start with your butter. I'm making chocolate chip cookies- a nice dense cookie dough. And one that Ernie requests EVERY.SINGLE.WEEK. You know this is true.

Grab the butter out the freezer (or fridge) and nuke it till soft. Or melted. Doesn't really matter. These cookies won't be spreading, no way, no how. (Melted butter makes your cookies spread. You want tall and soft cookies, refrigerate the dough. Sugar cookies? That's the secret.)

Add your sugars and beat beat beat. Then add all the rest of the good stuff - the flour, the baking powder, the vanilla, the eggs, etc. (I was following the instructions on the back of the chocolate chip bag...all the way till "oats" I thought I was doing chocolate chip cookies. Turns out there's TWO recipes on there, who knew! Blogosphere, meet my chocolate oat bars.)

Take that whole bowl of batter and smash it into a 9x13 inch pyrex pan and toss it in the oven and walk away. Ten minutes in the kitchen, tops. (Oh, and if your kids want to help, meaure the ingredients into a bowl (or cup), and let them dump their bowl (or cup) into YOUR bowl. MUCH easier, trust me. My 18-month-old helped me make these today, while her sister helped...eat my chocolate chips.)

Bake at 350 for about half an hour, till the edges are golden brown. (Start checking at 20 minutes.)

Enjoy!

Aunt LoLo's Sweet Beans

2010-04-19T19:03:00.000-07:00

This recipe is dedicated to my friend, Sam. *mwah*

Ok, so I've been trying to phase my house over to more Real Food. This means, in general, that I'm trying to make whatever I can. From scratch.

This is my latest attempt. I wanted to make the classic canned baked beans...without the pork. (Because who keeps three square inches of pork belly around, just to make a serving of beans?! Not me - that's who.)

My method was to look at the back of my can of generic "beans and franks", mentally delete all of the ingredients that weren't....food....and go from there.

I thought they turned out really great! The beans were a little tough-skinned, but I think that's just because it was an older bag of beans. (Any bean gurus out there that can clue me in on a way to get softer skins?)

Aunt LoLo's Sweet Beans

2 cups dry pinto beans
1 tsp. dry onions (My Bean Master sister says dry onions taste better in beans than fresh. If using fresh, chop up about half of an onion, and saute before adding to your beans. Hat tip to Myrnie!)
1/3 cup white sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 oz. canned tomato paste

Prep your dry beans - cover them with water, and swirl them around a bit. Pull out anything that floats, or anything that isn't a good-looking bean. (Anything black, wrinkled, split...those are all trash.) To soften the beans, either soak them overnight in cold water, or cover with water and bring to a boil. Either way, drain the water off afterwards, replace it with fresh water (about 2" over the beans).

Into the water, add all of the remaining ingredients to your pot, except your tomato paste. (Myrnie told me once that tomato products seem to stunt the cooking of the beans...I've never tried to tempt fate!) (And yes, Myrnie taught me how to cook dry beans. I still call her nearly every time I try to mix up a pot!)

Simmer the beans until they are soft, and then add your tomato paste. (BTW, 3 oz. is about half a can. Eyeball it...or add the whole can. Just add to taste!)

After a few minutes more simmering, taste the beans. Add more salt, sugar, vinegar, ground pepper...whatever flavor you're missing, chuck it in there. Just be sure to use a light hand - once it's in there, you can't get it back!

Pasta and Broccoli with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce

2010-04-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

This started out as a salad dressing, inspired by a recipe here. The fact that it wasn't a very good salad dressing is most likely a user error - I adapted the recipe to what I had on hand.

Gorgonzola Dressing

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together:
2/3 cup buttermilk (I used 2 Tbsp. lemon juice + enough fresh milk to equal 2/3 cup)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 cup mayonaise

Then stir in 6 ounces of Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled.

Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Like I said, this was a kind of wimpy salad dressing. If you look at the original recipe, I left out the garlic and the pancetta, and added mayonaise (to thicken it up a little bit). So, again, this was a user error! The dressing will keep in the refrigerator for three days.

On the third day, I boiled 1 pound of pasta, and added a small crown of broccoli (chopped) to the pot during the last three minutes of cooking time.

After draining that, I tossed in my left over Gorgonzola dressing. It was amazing! The dressing had gained a bit of pungency during the three days, as the Gorgonzola flavor seeped into the creamy base. When I tossed the sauce into the hot pasta, the bits of crumbled Gorgonzola melted and got all stretchy. Mmmmm....

The big surprise of the night was how much the kids liked it! The three year old had two bowls full, and the one year old had three helpings! Making the dressing three days ahead of time seems a bit fussy for just a pasta dish, but I will definitely be experimenting and trying this again. I'm sure I could mix this up while the pasta was cooking, and the flavor wouldn't suffer. Just a bit of creamy stuff, thinned out with milk, and some gorgonzola. I will probably skip the lemon juice step next time and just use fresh milk, or cream if I have it.

Food Revolution, Episode 4

2010-04-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Suburban Housewife Uprising: Food Revolution, Episode 4

If you've missed it, I've started a new blog to talk about Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution...and all the other issues it brings up. My review of this episode is hanging out over there. Go check it out!

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

2010-04-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

For posterity. And Aunt LoLo who has lost this recipe each of the four times I've sent it to her over the years. *mwah* I believe this originated with my mother-in-law's little sister.

Before you start, have cooked broccoli on hand, and 1 cup of broccoli cooking water. How much? Up to you. 1/2 a Costco bag is good for a big pot of this.

In a large pot, melt 1/4 cup butter and saute 2/3 cup chopped onion. (An onion. Chop an onion. Or two. I really like onions)

Add 1/2 cup flour and whisk well to make a white roux.
Add 2 cups chicken broth, 1 cup broccoli water, 4 cups dairy (could be half cream, I use all milk), 1/2 tsp Worchestershire sauce, 3/4 tsp salt (taste first!!). Mix all together, add broccoli and heat. Add 1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese, or more to taste.

Don't let this boil, or it will curdle.

RIP

2010-04-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time there was a set of cute stoneware bowls - one large, one small. The big one made anything look great, from bread dough to cookie batter. It could also hold loads of water for small hands to splash in on a summer day. (Do you see where this is going?)

A note to y'all - if you have a favorite stoneway bowl, and a toddler boy...never leave the two of them alone. Just don't do it.

RIP, sweet yellow bowl. Your smaller sister will carry on the tradition in your honor.

Twinkie, Deconstructed

2010-04-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

In case you missed it, the Twinkie turned 80 yesterday. (And a Big Ol' Happy Birthday to ya!)

First, a confession - I like Twinkies. I can't remember the last time I ate one, but I probably wouldn't turn one down if handed to me. Even knowing what's in it. What can I say - I'm a sucker for a moisty, springy cake! (Someone please file that away for my birthday, ok? Thanks. Moving on.)

In this vide, the man who wrote the book Twinkie, Deconstructed gives a quick explanation of what goes into a Twinkie. He talks about the rocks, the petroleum products...the things that aren't food. (Although, the rocks are broken down into salt, baking powder and baking soda, so I guess I have no issue with those.) When asked if there is anything wrong with having these ingredients in your food, he says, "If there is, then there's something wrong with ALL of our processed foods! And some people do have a problem with that...so they can eat more whole foods."

There's the rub. Those things are in everything from jarred salad dressings to most store-bought breads. They were added to give things a better shelf life, a better mouth-feel, a better look. I can understand that, really, I can. I guess my question is this - when, exactly, did food become a product to sell, instead of just something to eat? Why do we have to eat cakes that were made up to a month ago? Why do we want salad dressing that was made a year ago? Is it the branding? The ease of simply opening a package and having food to eat? The way the flavor is the same behind every jar, seal and wrapper?

Whether out of laziness or frugality, I've stopped buying most packaged foods. While I can pat myself on the back for doing my part to lead a healthier lifestyle...the truth of the matter is, I'm hungry. Most of the time. It's one thing to not buy the food. It's another to figure out what you are going to eat at lunch time, and snack times, and breakfast time, and...you get the idea. I need to give some thought to what we are going to eat, if breaking open a bag of chips or a box of cookies is no longer an option!

Watch the video, and then weigh in. Also, please tell me what to eat? Thanks a ton.

Food Revolution, Episode 3

2010-04-05T19:09:00.000-07:00

We're back!
We're in beautiful Huntington, Virginia.
If you'd like to follow along with my comments, head over to ABC.com and look for episode "103." The link is at the bottom of this post.

1. Alice has issues...control issues? She's mad that she's in the test kitchen, and she thinks that the processed foods are better for the kids, because it makes them happy?

2. Rhonda, the district food supervisor, is letting Jamie into one of the high schools as well. This is a good sign!

3. The student body is, apparently, completely dependent on french fries for their emotional and mental well-being. That will probably be one of the first things that has to go.

4. He's putting together his little army - all the kids he can round up to help with the Food Revolution. And he's going to put them in the kitchen! Man, if I was in high school, I would SO be there.

5. All of these kids have either major weight-related health issues themselves, or have been intimately affected by weight issues in their families. That group of kids...that IS the revolution.

6. Homemade yogurt and homemade shepherd pie?! That sounds absolutely amazing. And it's just FOOD - no additives.

7. "It tastes good. That's not the point." We know that Alice is here for the money...and that whole kitchen might run better if she either got herself on board, or took herself out. ?? What do you do in a situation like that? She's good at what she does, but she's poisoning the project.

8. They need to raise $80K to train all of the cooks. Or just get the kids to do it. Heh.

9. Everything takes money, doesn't it? Moving back to real food...oddly enough, takes more money than the fake food.

10. Fries are a vegetable, y'all. Jamie is just figuring out that we count fries as veg and ketchup as fruit. Jamie is ticked. His dish was full of veg and NOT optional. The regular meal (a chicken sandwich and a bunch of french fries, with an optional salad) was going out like hotcakes...sans salad. So his meal was reprimanded (with veg built in, but not ENOUGH) and the other meal went out (with plenty of veg, that nobody was taking). How does that make sense? Bureaucracy, my friends. Red tape, and it's silly.

11. I don't agree with...the wandering around the lunch room and stealing back the french fries. I mean, come on - the kids have got to know they aren't healthy. How embarrassing would it be to have your crispy fries snatched right off your tray at lunch time!

12. These kids are not chefs, obviously, and they're cooking for senators. Umm...I hate to be a kill-joy, but a senator is still just a person who grew up eating Mom's casserole for dinner and cold cereal for breakfast. Still, it's a fundraiser, so it's got to wow and convince.

13. Jamie is so funny when he's angry. He tries to kill you with kindness, to your face. Still, I admire the way he keeps his cool. (Oh, and he said he was serving pumpkin...and it looks like he's cooking butternut squash. I don't know how it is in England, but here in the US...they're different gourds. Heh.)

14. And...our prodigal chef is back! Rob had to dash off for football practice. It's interesting - football takes precedence over a dinner that could change their (health) lives. Ok, maybe not this one dinner...but still.

15. Poor little Robert - he's got to just be a freshman. Those kids are all tired.

16. "I never had a famous chef cook for me. It tastes really good." It will be great to see what they say when they find out the meal was cooked by a bunch of...non-chefs! It REALLY makes the case for Jamie's revolution. If six high schoolers can cook a fabulous, fresh meal and serve it to 80 people...then 6 grown ladies, with years of experience, should be able to do the same for a high school every day! Yes, it will take time. It will take a lot of organization...but most good things in life do!

17. Here's the big reveal! "I started to cook because I was rubbish at everything else." Well, that's a great reason to go into a profession!

18. The boy that went through lock up makes SUCH an eloquent argument. If lock-up had had programs like this...he would have come out with a job, a hobby, and a way to help others. How true is that?!

19. Those six kids are inspiring. They are standing in front of their friends and family, and BEGGING for the means to facilitate this change.

20. "You guys make the change, and I'll believe it." That's our boy, Ryan (the one from lock-up). As parents, and adults, we do have the responsibility. We buy the groceries, we cook the meals (generally). This is our responsibility.

That's the whole show! Jamie still needs to raise his $80,000 to keep the lunch program rolling. Can you imagine...restaurant quality food in schools?

I know that there are people who just don't think about food. They eat because they have to, and they move on with the more important things in life. I must admit, I'm a little more on the Jamie side of things. I make food because I love to watch family and friends eat it. I love to see the look on friends' faces when I tell them that my daughter, Ming Wai, made the bread they are eating, because generally they assume it came from a supermarket bakery. Preparing food for my family is a priority for me. We organize our day around the meals, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. People might argue that focusing on food so much can lead to weight issues...but I think it's just the opposite. When food is forbidden, shunned or an embarrassing topic, I think that is when kids learn to hoard food, or develop unhealthy eating habits. It is my job to get at least three healthy meals in front of my kids every day, and teach them what to expect from their food, and how to get it for themselves. How to make those good choices.

How do you organize food in your houses? I loved the suggestions last week from you guys. This week, for lunch, my kids have been working on an enormous pot of pasta and broccoli that I cooked up. It's backfired a bit, as Siu Jeun (my son) is more interested in throwing the pasta around on the deck than he is in eating it. One friend (hi, Casey!) suggested that I serve finger foods - slices of bread, cheese, meat, fruit and veg. I love this idea because anything left after lunch can be put back into its containers, instead of being thrown away!

Episode 103 can be found here.

Food Revolution, Episode 2

2010-04-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

Episode 102

Soo...here we go! I'm watching these, as I can, on ABC.com, and would love to hear your thoughts on these matters. Are you joining the revolution? Or do you stand by your Twinkies as Breakfast Food stance. (I totally just made that up.)

1. Defending himself on the radio...ouch. He's getting pounded.
We start off the episode with a very crabby DJ ripping on Jamie. Poor guy.

2. The grinding of the chicken....that is absolutely nasty. But I thought he said they didn't make nuggets here that way.
So, I was a little confused. He said he had this fool-proof experiment to get kids off their nuggets. Then he said that, luckily, in this country nuggets weren't made this way anymore. So...was he just trying to make gross nuggets so the kids wouldn't eat them, or was he trying to educate them as to how nuggets were made??

3. The. experiment. failed. I have chills. CHILLS y'all. THEY ATE THE NUGGETS. Knowing there were ground up bones and skin and gizzards in there.
Umm...yeah. After watching Jamie grind up an entire chicken carcass - bones and all- and then bread it and fry it...the kids still. ate. it. I have no words.

4. That pea costume...is cracking me up. It's so. bizarre.
The pea costume was just weird. Maybe if it didn't look so completely bizarre and...bouncy? I was really distracted by the bouncing.

5. I love the idea of getting the kids excited for their foods!

6. It still failed. Big. Fat. Fail. Nobody ate the lunch.
Jamie pumped the kids up, got them really excited about all the veg and fresh things...and...still, nobody ate his lunch. :-(

7. The Food Test. We eat healthy here, and I'm sure my daughter couldn't name off those vegetables. Granted, she's 3. Still...I don't really like this test. Five year olds just don't know the names of these things. Sorry.

8. Poor lady lied. Of course, she couldn't...she's a church lady. Still...there are signs that fast food joints were visited this week.
The sweet lady who has volunteered her family for a Food Makeover couldn't get through the week with the proscribed meals and menus. Change is hard!

9. That girl, Katie, is FOUR?! She's so tall!
The daughter in the Guinea Pig family. She would TOWER over my three year old!

10. Starting to scare the parents...he's in 6th grade, and he might already have diabetes.
So sad. One of their sons is only in 6th grade, and he already has some of the tell-tale signs of diabetes.

11. No doctor EVER says "complications of diabetes are terrible" right before he finds out, and tells the parents, if the kid has diabetes!!
I understand that diabetes is a serious diagnosis, but if I took my (fat) kid in for a physical, and the doctor sat me down and told me how terrible a positive diagnosis for diabetes would be...before he's given me my results...that's just cruel.

12. "When you hear that your son is morbidly obese, it kind of hurts. You helped put him there." BINGO. As mothers, we have a major responsibility...to not say 'yes' to every request the kids make. It's so hard, but it's our job. (Or whoever is the caregiver.)

13. More sugar in chocolate milk than soda. I did not know that.

14. That truck load of fat is NASTY.
Jamie loaded up a truck with enough fat to represent the fat consumed, by the entire school, in a month. It was a dump truck, y'all. A DUMP TRUCK full of fat. Ewwww...

15. Mrs. Blake saw a problem and she fixed it." Now they know their veg. Does it make them more likely to eat them??
The teacher in the classroom that failed the Veg Test took it up on herself to educate her kids. Several days later, when Jamie came back for a rematch, the kids aced it. I wonder if knowing all of that makes them any more likely to dig into a piece of slippery eggplant...

16. I'm gonna cook me some chicken stir-fry, yo!" Love it.
One of the sons in the Guinea Pig family (sorry - I'm awful with names, but you know who I'm talking about) has been taken under Jamie's wing. He wants to help him get some kitchen chops and, in the process, boost his self esteem. And now...he's going to cook some chicken stir-fry, yo!

17. "Kids. can. cook."
I do not doubt for a moment that kids can cook. Should all kids be allowed in the kitchen? There, I'm not so sure. To a certain degree, sure. My daughter, Ming Wai, is actually a great help in the kitchen and is party to almost all my baking projects. My son...granted, he's only 15 months old. Still, I can see it in his eyes - he'll be the kid that would rather throw than stir. Maybe he can be my official taste tester...

18. Not using a knife means you have no use for 'real' food. Hrm...I don't really agree.
I send a lunch at least 4 times a week with my husband, and there is never any need for him to use a knife. If an item needs cutting, I snip it up before hand. Otherwise, he runs the risk of flinging bits of steak or chicken all over the office while he's trying to cut it. In fact, MOST of the food I serve in this house does not need a knife. Maybe that's just the Chinese influence - I noticed, when I lived in Hong Kong, that the cook cuts everything into bite sized pieces before cooking it. If there's a bone in the way, they chop straight through that. That way, everything can be eaten with chopsticks or a spoon. So...I guess I have an issue with the over-generalization of the statement. However, that didn't stop me from serving pancakes to the kids the next morning, and handing Ming Wai a knife and showing her how to cut up her own pancakes!

19. Teachers in the lunchroom showing the kids how to use knives and forks...and getting them to eat.
I did like the idea that, in England, teachers roam the lunch room, correcting table manners and encouraging children to eat their lunches.

20. Alice is here for the money. Heh.
Alice, of course, is the Not-A-Lunch-Lady with a major attitude. (She prefers to be called the Cook.)

21. He gets to stay for a few weeks. Good news! Now, HOW is he going to stay in budget, and get the kids to like the food?

The full episode can be found here.

I'm really liking what I'm seeing. It does make me think, though...why is it that there are 450 children buying lunch every day?! How hard is it, really, to pack a sandwich in the morning? I have no plans to buy lunches for my kids when they're in elementary school. I've just always planned on packing it. The show does talk about healthy food at home, too, which is good...but I'm really curious as to why it appears that the entire school body is eating off red plastic trays at lunch time, instead of out of brown paper sacks...

Wouldn't that be a more interesting revolution?

Food Revolution, Episode 1

2010-03-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing various reactions to Jamie Oliver's show on ABC, Food Revolution. The basic premise is this: Jamie helped re-shape the food scene at the schools in his native England, and has now turned his sights on America. He has two children of his own, and is concerned about the obesity epidemic sweeping our two nations. He figures if he can at least get good food into the kiddies at school, they might grow up to cook good food themselves.

As a starting point for his revolution, Jamie chooses a small town in Virginia. This town has been named as the most obese town in our nation...which makes it a proper challenge for our healthy Englishman and his crusade.

I'm watching the show online, and I'll list a few of my observations here. I would love to hear what y'all have to say about this. Do you see anything wrong with serving pizza for breakfast? (I don't.) Do you see anything wrong with chicken nuggets and strawberry milk for lunch...and dinner? (Guilty, if Dad's out of town.) What do you serve your kids for lunch if they're at home? Are you like me? When they get hungry, I have about two minutes warning before Cry-mageddon breaks out and the world dies a slow (and noisy) death. That's exactly enough time to make a cup of instant ramen, or a plate of chicken nuggets...which is why we end up eating one of those two things nearly every day. I usually end up snitching a nugget or two to tide me over, and then eating something else while the kids are down for "quiet time" after lunch.

I'm really interested to see where this show goes. I'm assuming, since it's a Let's Get Healthy! type of show that he's going to meet some resistance, and then we'll be shown a few tear-jerking success stories at the end. Do I think he can change the entire town? No. Do I think he can change a few families, possibly saving their lives? Yes.

(If you'd like to follow along, the link to this episode is at the end of this post.)

So, Jamie is in Virginia...and he's meeting with some resistance. LOTS of resistance.

I'll share my thoughts:

1. I love pizza for breakfast. If prepared right, I don't see a problem with it. However...the pizza they're reheating for breakfast most likely isn't prepared with health in mind.
Jamie is absolutely stunned that they serve pizza for breakfast. What?! It's a bread, some protein, some cheese. Granted, sausage and mozarella isn't a healthy breakfast. However, with some tweaking, I think they could make a perfectly acceptable breakfast pizza.

2. "Everything's got crap in it." I agree. There's so much junk...and I know I'm putting in my kids.
Jamie is looking at labels on the food they serve. The lunch lady defends her boxes of food product. "See? The first ingredient is chicken. I'm fine with that." There are at least 20 ingredients after that that AREN'T chicken. Jamie is NOT fine with that.

3. "They're not eating what they're supposed to be eating. It's being thrown away." ~Jamie
The lunch ladies cooked everything from a box...except for the rolls. Those were made from scratch...and were universally thrown away by the kids, along with any fresh fruit they had taken. Chicken nuggets, and accompanying dipping sauces, never found their way to the trash bin.

4. The most obese city in the most obese region in the most obese country...in the world. (the pastor, describing their town, per a national health report)
Jamie sits in on a sermon by the local Baptist pastor, and is relieved to find a kindred spirit. The pastor, afterwards, sits down with Jamie and pulls out an album of the members of the congregation. On each page, he can point out at least one person who has obesity related health issues, or who has died in the past year from those issues.

5. The lunch ladies don't agree with him. They don't think it can be done, preparing everything from scratch every day.
Jamie wants them to stop buying packages of salad, and instead chop their own. He says it can be done just as fast as opening a bag. The five lunch ladies do not agree with him. Mostly Alice - she's giving him a hard time. She is kind of the head chicken in the coop, and is getting more and more fed up with Jamie telling her and the other women that their current lunches are bad for the kids.

6. Piling up all that food that the family eats is NASTY. All golden brown - all cheese, all fried.
Jamie visits a family from the Baptist congregation who has agreed to work with him. First he sits them down and chats for a minute...then pulls out a list of everything they eat in a week, categorized. The mom is duly upset...but he drives it home by taking her into the kitchen, and preparing every single thing they eat during the week, breakfast lunch and dinner, and piling i on the table. They first notice that it looks disgusting - pancakes, a dozen pizzas, fried stuff - and then they notice that everything on the table is golden brown. Everything is cheesy or fried! Not a speck of green to be seen.

7. I'd do anything for them...but I'm killing them.
Talking to Jamie after the whole food pile up thing. She wants the world for her children, but she now realizes that she's holding them back by feeding them food that will cut their lives short.
8. I love that they buried the deep fat fryer!

9. I LOVED the mom's prayer when she buried the fryer. So touching.
Jamie wants to bury the deep fat fryer, the most used appliance in the kitchen. As he's burying it, he jokingly asks the Mom to offer a word of prayer. She does...and it's beautiful.

10. This is making me think. I think our dinners are, in general, acceptable. Lots of raw ingredients...with a few jars of pasta sauce on hand for emergencies. Breakfast for the kids is almost always homemade bread with peanut butter or cereal with skim milk. Lunch...that's our weakness. We're playing all morning, and I need lunch that can be ready in minutes and WON'T force me to give the one year old a bath afterwards. That mostly rules out dinner leftovers. We have instant ramen or chicken nuggets...almost every day. N.A.S.T.Y. I can't eat that every day, so I either have leftovers, or eat something later while the kids are in their "quiet time".

11. It's interesting...the woman in charge of all the region's school lunches is not overweight...not in the slightest. She obviously doesn't eat what she's serving. But...all her little school-kids ARE overweight. Is there so much red-tape within the whole set up that she is FORCED to serve this stuff...rather than start from scratch, figure out the nutritional information in REAL food and serve that instead? I can see how nutritional labels would make it all easier...

12. Jamie thinks he's going to win - his fresh stuff against pizza. He's delusional.
Jamie sets up his food, head to head, against the Lunch Ladies' food: pizza vs. baked chicken drumsticks and green salad. Hrm. Sorry, dude. You're not going to win this fight.

13. "Have I seen women like Alice before? Yeah. Do they scare me? Yeah. Am I going to have nightmares about her? For a while." Ha!
Remember, Alice is 'head hen' in the lunch lady squad. And she is NOT a fan of Jamie at this point.

14. Processed foods won. Obviously.
Referring to the chicken vs. pizza contest above. *sigh*

15. And...he got it. Take away the bad choices - kids will take the "processed" choice. Every time.
Jamie realizes what he must do to "win" is to simply take away the pizza/nugget options. Tomorrow, it's all "his" food.

16. Disaster strikes - the local paper takes a bunch of Jamie's quotes and mixes them around to make him sound like some sort of pig-headed, patronizing brat of a chef. Now he's got to make it right.
The principal and entire lunch lady squad are LIVID. The article includes quotes like "their eating habits would make the hairs on your arms stand on end" and "their knowledge on nutrition is anemic." He was talking of a specific family that he had worked with, but the local paper has twisted it up to say that he was talking about the entire town. The residents, apparently, are accustomed to being portrayed as stupid and backward in the media...and now think that Jamie is just here to laugh at the fat, stupid Americans. Immediately following this discussion, a news crew shows up to interview Jamie and he tries to set the record straight - he is here to help, and he's here because he cares, and he thinks the residents of this town are wonderful, wonderful folk. The end.

17. Jamie has taken time away from his family...because he thinks he can make a difference. And he's trying. And nobody wants him here. He's following his heart...and he's trying.
Jamie starts crying. He's away from his two kids, and his wife, because he thinks he can help. I'm not sure how much of this show is gimmick. Why is an Englishman here to help us with this problem? Probably because he's already built a reputation around this sort of thing. Kind of like Alice Waters here...but we can still take him seriously, whereas Alice is portrayed as a zealot and irrational in our media.

My brain is whirling. This show...is great if you haven't started to take these steps. If you're already living a one-ingredient-to-a-package lifestyle...this might be good entertainment for you.

It's made me think - last year, my sister and I both had a contest to see who could lose their baby weight first. We very nearly tied. We did moderate exercise and cut out dairy, as both of us had children with varying degrees of NASTINESS after eating milk. (Seeing as how we were those kids' primary food sources...this meant that no dairy could pass our lips if we wanted to have happy days.) Looking back on it, I'm not sure if the weight loss was from cutting out the dairy...or if was simply because we were forced to make most things from scratch. As I recall, I ate a lot of vegetables, lean meat and white bread with peanut butter that year...and my food has never tasted better.

Even now, I'm still trying to make more things from scratch. Summer is coming, and I'm going to try to incorporate more fresh veggies into our diet. (This will be easier this year than in years past...as I expect my mother and sisters - both gardeners - to have more produce than they know what to do with. Heh. I have an idea.....)

If you haven't watched this, the full episode may be found here. I would love to hear your thoughts!!

Aunt LoLo's Chocolate Granola Bar Cookies

2010-03-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

*Edited - The amount of sugar should have been one cup total, not two cups.
I could call these LoLo/Myrnie/Lera Oatmeal Cookie/Bars. Ok, that's an awful name....but I'm really not sure what to call these! The original recipe came from Lera, at The Sky is Pink. The lovely and affable Myrnie tried the recipe, and changed it just a smidge, patting it into a cookie sheet instead of scooping into balls. The result was a large sheet of cookies that disappeared at an alarming rate.

Then the recipe landed at Casa LoLo. And you KNOW I can't leave well enough alone. I tweaked, and I fiddled, and I forgot, and I compensated...and I came up with my Perfect Snack. I always make these before road trips, because they are healthier than other cookies, just sweet enough to be a treat for the kids, and with all the oatmeal and dried fruit, they have serious Staying Power. (Not to mention Magical Fiber Properties, but we won't go into that here. This is a food blog, after all.)

I like to press the mix into a 9x13 pan, and then cut the cookies into at least 42 small squares. Bite size! I grab one every time I pass the cookie jar. The perfect little mouthful...

Aunt LoLo's Chocolate Granola Bar Cookies
(Makes 1 cookie sheet full. Cut as desired.)

Ingredients:
4 cups regular oatmeal (Quick Cooking oats will give you a more tender cookie.)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar (loosely scooped) (Alternately, leave out the white sugar and use 1 cup of brown sugar for a chewier cookie.)
1 cup canola oil (Olive oil would work as well)
1 tsp. vanilla
2 beaten eggs
1 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. Saigon cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1 cup dried fruit
Chocolate Chips

The night before:
In a large bowl, combine your oatmeal, sugars and canola oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let it set out overnight (or at least a few hours. Or not at all. You know, it's totally up to you.)

*Note - if you were to use quick-cooking oats here, you would get a much more tender cookie. I like them chewy, with distinct bits of oatmeal. To each their own!

Baking Day:
Preheat your oven to 350 and grease your pan of choice. (A 9x13 pan will give you thicker, chewier cookies. A cookie sheet will give you thinner, slightly crispier cookies.) Add to your oatmeal mixture vanilla, eggs, flour, salt, cinnamon, ginger and mixed dried fruit. (Use whatever is on hand. Chop it all up to approximately raisin-sized chunks, and you're good to go. Craisins, dried pineapple and raisins make an awesome mix.) Mix with a spoon, and then with your hands, making sure all of the flour is incorporated and the dough is uniformly wet. Dump your dough into your prepared pan, and mash it into submission. Make sure it is uniformly thick, and spread all the way to the edges of the pan.

Bake approximately 15 minutes for a 9x13 pan, or until the edges just start to turn golden. Remove from the oven, and immediately scatter chocolate chips across the top. (About 3/4 cup should do it.) Wait 5 minutes, or until the chips are glistening. That means they are ready to bend to your will. Muahahahahah. Get your off-set spatula and go to town, spreading out the chocolate chip icing. (Alternately, you could have used parchment paper to line your pan and then dumped the whole thing onto a cutting board before adding the chocolate chips. It might make it easier to cut up later.) Now walk away. Let your cookies sit for at least 45 minutes, or until the chocolate is hardened. Now you can cut it up into as many pieces as you like! I really prefer teeny, tiny cookies so that they are one comfortable bite.

Enjoy!