Catastrophe

This dish was first served to me on a campout, when I was 14. Now, when I say campout, I mean that a few leaders agreed to take a group of about twenty 14 year olds camping, to pass off some merit badge requirements for our summer camp. As we sat in a planning meeting, trying to hammer out the details, one of the leaders off-handedly mentioned that his family owned two condos near the area we were talking about camping in. All the eyes in the room were suddenly on him...and that, kids, is how my Great 4th Year Camp Out happened in a condo near the shores of Lake Chelan.

The strange digs didn't deter the more rugged of the leaders from feeding us true camping fare, though! Brother Potter pulled out a huge dutch oven in the morning and proceeded to cook us a one-pot camping feast. He called it, simply, Catastrophe.

The recipe is incredibly forgiving, and fairly adaptable. Basically, this is a mixture of breakfast meat, potatoes, onions, eggs,  and (if you like), cheese. Breakfast meat can be sausage or bacon, the potatoes can be hash browns, canned potatoes, or cubed potatoes. Some recipes call for cheddar, some call for Velveeta, and I leave it out entirely.

So. That's clear as mud, eh? I'll give you what I do for my family of 4. With a side of fresh fruit, this is a great breakfast for a lazy Saturday morning, or a fun dinner for a busy weeknight!

Catastrophe
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
1/2 pound of bacon, raw, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 cups of hash browns (I use the cartons of dried hash browns, and use 1 carton)
6 eggs, scrambled

Toppings: (Take your pick)
Cheese
Ketchup
Hot Sauce

In a large dutch oven, cook your bacon until it starts to lose its fat and is sizzling. Add your chopped onions and continue to cook until the bacon and onions are cooked to your liking.

Drain off the fat (or leave it in, if you're feeling feisty), and add your hash browns. Don't stir too much at this point - you want the hash browns to get a little crispy, instead of just steaming them. Let them cook in the remaining bacon grease for a few minutes, then use a spatula to sort of turn the potatoes over, in clumps. Let them brown again. Repeat the process, stirring to break up the browned potatoes, until everything is looking nice.

Finally, add your beaten eggs and continue to cook (gently folding the mixture), until the eggs are completely cooked.

Scoop into bowls and serve with your choice of toppings. My kids prefer ketchup!

Aunt LoLo's Apple Blackberry Pie

The other day, I decided that what my family needed was an apple pie. Ever have one of those days? When you just really, really need a pie, to make everything right in the world?

I only had 4 apples left from the crate of apples I bought in the fall, so I dug through the freezer and grabbed a bag of blackberries I picked last summer to make sure I had enough filling. A search online gave me a pie crust recipe that didn't involve digging my food processor out of the back of the cupboard, and I got to work.

The pie was, unexpectedly, delicious. Probably the yummiest pie I've ever made! The real star of the show, though, was the crust. As my husband dug into his piece, he asked, "Where did you get the crust?" "Oh, I made it." "No, I know you made the pie, but where did you get the crust??" He thought I bought it. The crust is tender and flaky, and just a bit salty, to counteract the sweetness of the filling. This is a keeper!

Aunt LoLo's Apple Blackberry Pie
Makes one 9" pie

Crust: (recipe adapted from here)

Fill a measuring cup with ice and water. Set aside.

In a high powered blender, or food processor*, combine:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt

Turn the blender on at the lowest speed (variable 1) and slowly increase to medium speed (variable 5). Blend for 10 seconds, then remove the plug from the middle of the lid.

With the blender running, drop in:
3/4 cup Crisco

Blend for 5 seconds.

Add:
5 Tbsp. ice water

Blend until just combined. This should not form a ball. You just want it all equally damp.

*If you are using a food processor, you should be pulsing at each step to combine. 

Prepare your counter with two largish pieces of plastic wrap. Dump your damp dough onto one of the pieces and carefully knead it a few times until it makes a ball. Divide the ball in half, shape each half into a disc, and wrap them up their own pieces of plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour.

Assembling the pie:

Preheat the oven to 425 and set aside a 9" pie dish.

Peel, core, and chop :
4 medium sized apples

In a large mixing bowl, combine:

Chopped apples
1 lb. frozen blackberries, thawed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup corn starch

Stir to combine, and set aside.

Remove your wrapped pie crusts from the refrigerator. Flour your countertop, and unwrap one pie crust disc. Roll it out until it is 12" across, and carefully move into your pan. The easiest way is to carefully fold it in half over your hand, and then unfold it into the pan. Settle your crust into the pan, making sure you aren't stretching it at all. Trim it so that the top of the crust is about even with the edge of the pan. Fill the crust with your prepared fruit mixture, stirring it first in the bowl to make sure the corn starch is evenly distributed.

Unwrap the second crust and roll it out so it is approximately 10"-11" across. Drape it across your filled pie crust. Go around the edges of the pan, rolling the excess crust under and using your fingers to press it into a pretty shape. Use a sharp paring knife to poke about a dozen holes in the top crust. Sprinkle with coarse sugar if desired, or brush with milk or egg wash.

Place the pie on a cookie sheet, just in case it boils over, and bake it until the top is lightly browned, about 30 minutes.

Apple Cranberry Bundt Cake

This is a riff on an old family recipe, from my Great-Grandma Susie. She raised her family in a small home in the Alabama swamps. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to spend much time down South, but from the stories that I hear, it was a rare day when you wouldn't find an apple cake waiting on her sideboard for unexpected company. Her cake recipe makes a rich, smooth cake that keeps moist for over a week (thanks to a generous helping of chopped apples and oil).

Today's version included applesauce in lieu of half of the oil (to lighten it up just a smidge), a little extra brown sugar to make things extra sticky, and a few handfuls of fresh cranberries. Topped with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and a dollop of whipped cream, this was a holiday winner! I served this cake after our formal Christmas Eve dinner with family.

Apple Cranberry Bundt Cake
Serves 12-20

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 tbsp lemon juice
3-4 medium apples (cored, sliced and chopped)
2 cups fresh cranberries*

(These can be washed and thrown in whole, or chopped if you prefer your berries to have a little less bite.)

Preheat your oven to 350.

Grease and flour a large bundt cake pan and set aside. (This is an extremely sticky cake - be generous with the greasing and the flouring!)

In a large bowl, whisk together all your dry ingredients.

In a 2 cup measuring cup, measure out your applesauce, oil, eggs and vanilla. Add enough lemon juice to equal 2 cups of liquid, about 3 tbsp.

Add your wet ingredients to your dry ones and stir to combine. This batter is thick, and that is ok. Just mix it up. Fold in your fruit, making sure it is evening distributed.

Spoon your finished batter into your prepare bundt pan, and smooth out the top.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, use a spatula to loosen the sides, and carefully flip the cake out onto a cooling rack to cool completely. If you're lucky, the cake will have cleanly slid out of the pan. If you're even more lucky, there will still be a small amount of cake stuck to the inside of the pan. Scoop it out with a rubber scraper, eat the evidence, and sift a generous amount of powdered sugar onto the finished cake before serving. Nobody will ever know the difference!

Top each slice with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

Sticky, Crumby Fruitcake

If you hate fruitcake, you can just go ahead and stop reading right now. Myrnie and I, co-authors on this blog, both happen to adore fruitcake with a passion. We grew up eating our grandmother's fruitcake every Christmas, the "proper" way - sliced thick and topped with a generous slab of sharp cheddar. Grandma's fruitcake was dense and tended to the dry side (since our loaf wasn't allowed to be soaked in rum), but we always thought it delicious as we didn't know any different.

Grandma, rest her soul, has been gone for over five years now. It was time for Myrnie and I to try and bring back the fruitcake tradition. We both started with bargain bin neon fruit assortments and went from there. Myrnie found a copy of what she believes is the recipe Grandma used. I went with a recipe from King Arthur Flour that was titled Fruitcake Even Fruitcake Non-Lovers Will Love. (Now THAT is a mouthful!)

The verdict? We both prefer our versions best. Figures, eh? Hers came out as dense and sliceable and yummy as we remember Grandma's being. Mine came out sticky and soft and delicious and I can't stop eating it.

(Myrnie? This is your cue to get your recipe written down here so we don't lose it!)

My fruitcake, ready to pop into the oven. 

An inside shot of my finished fruitcake. Check out those glorious day-glo fruits! That's my favorite part...

Half of a finished mini loaf. The other half was my breakfast. Just keeping it real, folks.

I give you...my new favorite fruitcake recipe. I made a few tweaks, so I'll go ahead and share my take here. The original recipe includes slightly different spices, a different assortment of fruit, and a lot of nuts. I didn't have all-spice, I prefer the neon fruit from the baking aisle, and I don't like nuts in my cake. So...there ya go.

Aunt LoLo's Sticky Fruitcake
(adapted from King Arthur Flour's recipe here)

As I prepared this, it makes 12 "mini loaves", or it could make one giant 9x5 loaf

Ingredients:
2 pounds "fruitcake mix" (sold in plastic tubs in the baking section during the holidays - includes cherries and candied citrus peel)
8-10 (minimum) chopped dates
1/2 to 1 cup of juice (I used a cherry/grape/apple blend)
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. baking powder
4 eggs
3 cups flour
2 tbsp. cocoa
1/4 cup dark corn syrup

Glaze (I used straight agave syrup, but simple syrup is what is recommended in the original recipe) (Simple syrup is made by cooking equal parts sugar and water in a pot until the sugar dissolves.)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare a half sheet pan by lining it with parchment paper. Set aside.

1. In a medium saucepan, combine your assortment of fruit, and your juice. Cook it over low to medium heat, stirring occasionally. The idea is to plump up your fruit. Mine was particularly chewy, so I added a few extra splashes. When you can easily chew a piece of the fruit, you're good to go. Set the pot aside to cool.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine your softened butter and your brown sugar. Cream those two things together until they are nice and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add your salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and baking powder.

3. Add the eggs, one at a time. Scrape the bowl well after each egg (or use a plastic paddle with rubber scrapers on it).

4. Add your flour, cocoa, and corn syrup. Mix until everything is very well combined.

5. Turn off the mixer, remove the bowl, and dump your batter into the largest mixing bowl you have (at least 6 quarts). (If your mixer has a 6 quart bowl, you're good to go. Just take the bowl off the mixer.)

6. Stir in your plumped fruit and any leftover juice. Make sure everything is combined.

7. Carefully scrape all of your fruited batter into your prepared pan. Pop your pan into the oven, and set the timer for 90 minutes. Start checking it every ten minutes after an hour. The cake is done with a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs, not a smear of dough.

8. When the cake is done, carefully remove the pan from the oven (you have nearly 3 pounds of yumminess there - it's heavy!). Immediately brush the top with your glaze of choice and then set the pan aside to cool. When the cake is completely cool, flip it out onto a cutting board and use a long, sharp knife to slice it up.  I cut mine into 12 "mini loaves". Wrap each piece up carefully and tightly in plastic wrap.

Enjoy!

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Venison Stroganoff

A generous friend gifted us with a few pounds of ground venison. This is what I came up with! Everyone loved it, which surprised me. I had never worked with venison before, but a quick search gave me the idea to try Stroganoff. I called up my Dad, our family Stroganoff Expert. He instructed me to combine ground meat, onions, garlic, roux, broth, mushrooms and sour cream (plus a few more details as to how to do it). I thanked him, and got to work. I didn't have normal mushrooms...but I did have enoki! I threw some onions into a pan with some olive oil, and unwrapped the venison. Erm. It was frozen. Into the pot it went, with some flour (for the roux bit) and then...some water, because honestly? My roux was burning. (Sorry, Dad. I'm not great at following directions when babies are pulling on me.) 

Anyhow. It came out tasty - that is the main thing to keep in mind here! 

Aunt LoLo's Venison Stroganoff

Ingredients: 

1 pound ground venison

1 large onion, chopped

2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp. flour*

2 cups water

1 bundle enoki mushrooms, woody end removed, chopped

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

2 cups frozen peas

salt and pepper, to taste

1/2 cup greek yogurt

In a dutch oven, brown your ground venison. Add your chopped onion, and sauté until soft. Add your flour, stir to combine, and cook until golden (about 2 minutes). Add your water, mushrooms, garlic powder and frozen peas. Stir. Cook, covered, until the peas are done (about 10 minutes). Uncover and continue to cook until the sauce thickens. Turn off heat and stir in the greek yogurt. 

Serve over noodles or brown rice. 

Enjoy! 

*This recipe can be made Gluten Free by using cornstarch or a similar thickener, instead of flour. You can make a slurry of the thickener and some cool water and stir it in at the end, when you are cooking the sauce uncovered to thicken it up. 

Chow Review: Lunchbox Laboratory

Cinnamon Life Crunch and Key Lime milkshakes

Deep fried dork balls

Portabello, goat cheese and balsamic onion burger with sweet potato fries

Lunchbox Laboratory Review
989 112th Ave NE, Bellevue, WA // 425-505-2676

Pros: Really fun flavors, with unique combinations. The burgers are absolutely huge. I chose one with a portabello steak, and finished the whole thing. My sweet potato fries were blistered and crispy and delicious. The dork balls (duck and pork) were tasty, and just really fun to order. (Go on - I dare you. Say "dork balls" and DON'T smile. See? Not possible.) The standout of the night, for me, was my Key Lime milkshake. I love key lime pie, and this was spot on. I also appreciated the long, skinny, rectangular plates. The tables were cozy, and the plate shape shows attention to detail. The restaurant decor was fun, in a kitschy retro/mod kind of way. 

Cons: The restaurant is inside of an urban living/shopping building. The only restrooms are around the corner and down the sterile, empty concrete hall...and they are locked. You need a passcode from the waitress to get in, which you wouldn't KNOW until you actually got down there. Maybe there was a restroom in the restaurant, but I didn't see it. Also, the prices were a bit steep. We had a discount, through a corporate discount card, and still paid $50 for two burgers, two shakes, and an appetizer. Ouch.

Everyday Fettuccine Alfredo

A few days ago, Mr. LoLo and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. (D'aww.) We had already gone out, by ourselves, the previous weekend, so the actual day of our anniversary was spent at home. I tried to choose a menu that would get the whole family excited, but was also not TOO damaging to my post-baby weight loss efforts. This alfredo recipe uses very little dairy, compared to a classic cream based alfredo. In fact, the sauce is almost half vegetables. Not too shabby! Perhaps "every day" is going a little far, but I would definitely put this pasta dish into our regular rotation. I served this with a side of roasted broccoli. 

Everyday Fettuccine Alfredo

(Adapted from here, on FoodNetwork.com)

1 head cauliflower, chopped

2 cups water

3 cloves garlic

2 cups frozen peas

1/2 cup cream

3 cups grated aged cheddar

Salt & Pepper to taste

Fettuccine, cooked al dente

In a saucepot, combine your cauliflower and water. Cover and cook over medium for 25-30 minutes, or until your cauliflower is very, very tender. (Add your garlic to the pot as well if you prefer a milder garlic flavor. I added mine later, as I prefer my garlic quite strong.) 

(At this point, you can turn off the stove and set your cauliflower aside until you are ready to get dinner prepared. I did this step a few hours ahead of time.) 

(Time to cook your noodles! Put on a pot of water, and cook your noodles according to package directions while your sauce is being blended.) 

Pour your cauliflower and water into a blender, along with your garlic (if you haven't already added it), and puree until it is completely smooth. Return the puree to your sauce pot, add your frozen peas, put it over medium low heat, and heat until your peas are cooked. Stir in your cream and set aside. 

When your noodles are finished, drain them, return them to their pot, and pour the cauliflower pea mixture over the top. Sprinkle in a little of the cheese at a time, stirring well between each addition. If the sauce is too think, splash in a little extra milk or cream. 

Enjoy!