saturday bits and bytes

Pete took this photo during a self-portrait session this morning; I needed a shot for my website, which I am updating today. I like the mood of this shot, the soft light, the gold bokeh in the background.

It's quiet today. The wind outside is blowing the warm air out and spitting random raindrops onto my windows. We're supposed to get severe weather soon. I have periodic spasms that let me know that the barometric pressure is unstable. It's true what the old-timers say - you really can feel it in your bones.

I got up before Pete and Piper and got a bit of work done this morning; I have more to do before the day is done.

Piper got into my misplaced pills while I was shooting, and wrangled another bath out of us by covering herself in salmon oil (she just had one last night). I'm grateful everything I take is food-based, and that she won't be harmed by anything. I'm afraid that doesn't really atone for my brain-fogged, bad mom moment. Ahem. I have to get over it. She's fine. Fishy, but fine.

I made a new vegetarian chili for lunch. Soup is always wonderful for a gray day, you know. The cinnamon and cardamom twisted this right out of the Mexican chili I'm used to eating, but it was fantastic with corn chips and avocado. My mother-in-law will love this one - it uses bulgur wheat!

I'm excited that tomorrow, I'll get to post an article I wrote a few months ago for Ungrind.

Pete has left with Piper now to go find a movie for me that he's wanted to get me for a while. It's not one he's terribly excited to watch, but he doesn't get terribly excited about flowers either, and he likes to buy those for me. He really is very kind to me. As husbands go, this one is the best, I think.

And now I suppose I should get back to work. I hope your Saturday is lovely!

Morning Recipe

Every time I smell bacon in the morning, when I get up early and the sun is up and ready for the day, when the birds are singing and the air is fresh, I remember waking up at my grandma's house. She would always be up earlier than the rest of us, getting breakfast ready - eggs, bacon, fresh homegrown handpicked fruit, her homemade granola. In December, I sent out a batch of her granola for Christmas "from Grandma." I meant to include the recipe, but I forgot, and it took me until yesterday (after thinking of this in December) to get a photo too. Rather pathetic, I'd say (with a fuzzy English accent that I'd have to have Pete do to get anywhere near correct)...

Enjoy this one. It's from my heart.

garlic chicken avocado club, or...

Feel free to copy or print - we just made this one up!

Credit: The "DDO" designation came from our friend Gabe and his family when we served it to them just before he left our neck of the woods for his new job in the wild woolly west.

On December 9

Is someone praying for us? The last few days have seen a lot of productivity at our house, herxheimer reaction and all! Last night, we had Gabe and Pete's supervisor, Danielle, over to our house to help out with Christmas cookies. For the first time since I've been married, my Christmas shopping is nearly finished and I actually have Christmas cookies in my house in early December. I guess we're behind on December weather (today the temperature is in the 70's), but we're a bit ahead on the stuff we've wanted to do!

Take a look at what we made yesterday (besides the sugar cookies Piper tested in her own baking endeavor):

Chocolate Crackles
Easy, easy, easy!

1 package Devil's Food Cake mix
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 tsp. water
1/2 cup butter
Powdered sugar

Combine everything but sugar. Mix until well blended. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in powdered sugar. Place on greased baking sheet. Bake at 375° for 8-10 minutes.

ADDITIONAL VARIATION: My friend H left me a note on Facebook about her amazing revised version of this recipe. She altered it only slightly, using "red velvet cake mix, [adding] peppermint flavoring, [and rolling] them in finely crushed peppermint candy."

Mom's Crinkles
One of my favorite recipes in the colder months. I love the spicy Christmas scent. These cookies are best served warm with a glass of milk. They make great dippers!

3/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix first three ingredients until very creamy; add molasses. Sift dry ingredients into mix. Blend and chill. Roll into 1-inch balls. Roll in sugar. Bake at 375° 10-13 minutes.

Popcorn Balls
This buttery, sugary sweet treat has been the center of family Christmas memories for years. It takes a team of people, but the results are fantastic.

1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp. salt
16 cups popped popcorn

Heat all ingredients except popcorn to simmering in Dutch oven over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Add popcorn. Cook, stirring constantly, until popcorn is well-coated, about 2 minutes. Place on wax paper. Cool slightly. Dip hands into ice water; shape mixture into 2-inch balls. Cool completely. Store in plastic bags or Tupperware container.

Yield: 8 popcorn balls

Cream Cheese Walnut Muffins
I always double this recipe. A huge favorite, these cookies just don't last!

Crust
1 cup softened margarine
8 oz. cream cheese
2 cups sifted flour
1/4 tsp. salt

Beat first three ingredients together; add salt. Work in flour. Refrigerate 6 hours or overnight. When ready to bake, roll dough and cut to fit mini muffin tins.

Filling
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 Tbs. melted butter
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups chopped walnuts
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix well and fill crusts about 2/3 full. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes. Cool before removing from muffin tins.

Nana's Messy Suggestion

Yesterday while I was baking cookies, I gave Piper table privileges to work on her own baking project in accordance with my mom's suggestion that the messiest projects are sometimes the most fun. I don't know how it was for Pip, but I enjoyed grabbing these memories on camera!

Her recipe?

a little flour
a little sugar
a few raisins
some marshmallows
a dab of milk

Just enough stuff mixed up together for a little girl to enjoy a decent mess.





Though she wasn't really into the whole mash and shape and cut thing, she also sampled (and loved) a bit of sugar cookie dough from one of my recipes:

Swedish Butter Cookies

1 cup butter
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Cream everything but flour together. Add flour and mix well. Dough will be soft but not sticky. Roll out and cut with cookie cutter. Bake at 400° for 8-10 minutes. Caution: Cookies burn easily!

Oh. My. Gosh.

You ever eat something that is so exactly what you wanted you can't get over it?

I just did.

This is why I am blogging about the chocolate chip cookie I just ate. I think I've been craving one for months.

WOW.

I feel like I've died and gone to heaven.

Not really. But golly was it good!

Candied Butternut Squash and Cranberries

I threw this recipe together with turkey breast and my mom's Bran Refrigerator Rolls last night, and happened to taste it before we sat down to dinner. It was so good, I actually remembered to photograph it for a post before it all disappeared! The long bake time on this caramelized the squash (it had sweet, crispy edges) and the cranberries added a lovely pop.


One butternut squash, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup cranberries
1/3 cup maple syrup
3 tbs. coconut oil or butter
1/2 tsp. salt
Dash of cloves

Place squash and cranberries in 13"x9"x2" pan. Drizzle maple syrup over squash and cranberries. Distribute coconut oil or butter evenly around pan. Sprinkle salt and cloves evenly.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Because Piper Needs to Eat

Piper is eating lots of food now. We're still working on the weaning thing, but she's really enjoying the supplemental food we give her. I usually try to make dinners that she can eat with us, and when we're eating something she can't have (she's allergic to dairy), I have to think of something else. With the brain fog I experience, sometimes, it's pretty tough to come up with something interesting to feed her, and she does like variety. It's easier for me to have a set list of meal ideas so I can have ingredients on hand.

Since I'm fresh out of creativity this week, I'm posting to ask for some meal ideas. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, whatever comes to mind. What have you tried with your kids? What did your mom do for you?

And yes, this post is a TOTAL bid for comments. ;-)

What's In the Cupboard?

Wish I'd photographed it, but it can't be helped now.

Last night, I tried something quick with what we had in the house that came out beautifully.

*6 individually frozen pieces of chicken sauteéd until tender with spices from la Madeleine, salt, pepper, and a dash or two of garlic powder
*Tri-colored linguine cooked al dente
*1/2 cup white wine
*1/8 cup sherry
*1 TBS red wine vinegar
*1/3 cup olive oil
*1/4 cup chopped onion
*1/4 cup sundried tomatoes
*1/4 cup kalamata olives

I cooked the chicken and the linguine, set it aside, and then cooked the rest of the ingredients until the onion was tender and the sauce was reduced and slightly thickened.

I served the sauce over the chicken and the linguine with summer squash sauteéd in olive oil with salt, pepper, and garlic.

The flavors were rich, but light, and they actually made Pete want to slow down and savor them! (This is a particular goal of mine when I cook - he eats five times as fast as I do, so it's wonderful to see him enjoy a meal instead of just scarfing it!)

The proportions in this dish made enough for two.

Sunday Brunch

Crepes with Cherry-Nectarine Compote
Score one for improvisational cooking! We liked this dish best after we lined our crepes with sour cream.

Crepes:

2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
1 Tbs vegetable oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup flour

Mix well. Heat greased non-stick skillet on medium heat. Drop 3 tablespoons mix into pan. Brown on one side, remove from pan. Keep warm.


Cherry-Nectarine Compote

2 cups frozen cherries
1 half nectarine, diced
1 Tbs brown sugar
1 Tbs white wine

Place berries in pan on high heat. Bring to boil. Add brown sugar and cook down until juice has thickened to a sauce-like consistency. Reduce heat to low. Add nectarine and wine. Simmer, stirring occasionally, on low heat ten minutes. Serve over crepes.

By Request

On Saturday, we had some good friends over - well, we've probably seen them four times in our lives (counting Saturday's visit), but we consider P and E good friends. We had lunch and conversation that left us laughing, thoughtful, and encouraged in the Lord.

P asked me for a couple of recipes that I used on Saturday, so I decided I would post them here to have them on record.

Summer Steak Salad

1-2 flank steaks, marinated in 3/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup lime juice, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 tsp salt, grilled to taste, and sliced.
2-3 avocadoes, diced
1 small package cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cucumber, peeled and diced
1 bag spring mix or red lettuce

Toss together in large salad bowl and serve. Top with lime-raspberry vinaigrette.


Lime-Raspberry Vinaigrette
This is my own concoction. You can play with amounts as you like.

1/4 cup lime juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/8 cup raspberry wine vinegar
1/8 cup cider vinegar
1 Tbs dijon mustard
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt

Shake together in well-sealed cruet until blended. Serve over steak salad.


Mom's Zucchini Bread
One of those nice-to-have-if-you-garden recipes

Combine:
3 eggs
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil

Add:
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups flour
2 cups grated zucchini

Bake in two greased and floured loaf pans or in one bundt pan for 50 minutes at 350°.

Chicken Scampi

2-3 chicken breasts, sliced
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
1 small onion, chopped
10 garlic cloves, sliced
1/2 c butter
1/2 c white wine
1 c heavy whipping cream
2 tsp. Italian seasoning
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
Pasta of choice for four

1.) Prepare pasta.

2.) While pasta is cooking, add butter, chicken, and vegetables to a large frying pan over medium heat. Sauté with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning until vegetables are tender. Add wine, cook until wine is reduced.

3.) Add cream. Cook until sauce is slightly thickened.

4.) Spoon over pasta. Serve warm.

When I use this recipe with farfalle or other small pasta, I like to cook the sauce together with the pasta for a bit before serving. It's not so easy to do that with angel hair pasta, though.

This is a modified recipe. Thanks to the Alexandria Girls' Trifecta for the inspiration. Their recipe does not appear that I can tell, but it was Leeann who first served us scampi.

My Mom - and Chicken Marinade

The last couple of weekends, we've gotten to see my parents for a sister/babysitter pick-up and a 4th of July/Piper's birthday celebration. During our visits, we got to observe something I had forgotten about my mom (even though we talk almost every day).

My mother, the oldest daughter of a Dutch father (his whole family came over from the Netherlands), has this incredible ability to mispronounce words. She attempts to pronounce things phonetically in an upstate-New-York-turned-Dutch-turned-Virginia-turned-exhausted-Mom accent and comes out with some of the funniest combinations I've ever heard.

Last weekend, she raved about the "wasibasi" sauce that goes with fried green beans. While I was looking for a birthday cake for Piper, I ran across a recipe that called for "Crico." On Friday, as my dad was preparing the marinade for the best grilled chicken in the whole world, he started picking on my mom about the "paltry" seasoning included.

We've gotten really good at translation - and there is nothing so fun as watching my mom die laughing when we start picking on her about it!

Anyway, here is our family favorite chicken marinade:

Cornell Chicken Marinade

2 c cider vinegar (or red or white vinegar. Combinations are nice.)
1 c olive oil
1 egg, beaten (Does this bring the "boiling in its mother's milk" into play?)
2-4 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
1 TBS poultry seasoning

For best flavor, marinate chicken in refrigerator overnight.

Feeding Piper

Can sometimes be extremely interesting. For the last two weeks, she has flatly refused to accept any food I offer her on a spoon. This is disconcerting, especially since her pediatrician is concerned that she dropped from the 30th percentile into the 3rd percentile on her weight gain. I'm counting calories - UP.

This is one method we have tried that has shown promise. Would you believe that there is oatmeal in that popsicle?



I think she knows...

Raspberry Chicken

I had to post a link to this recipe. My sister, Kate, is totally into cooking these days - so much so that she has a blog for her favorite recipes. Her friends check it all the time for dinner ideas.

Last night, we checked the blog for a craving I had for her Raspberry Chicken, chicken simmered in a raspberry cream sauce. It was so good, we're having it again tonight (and we didn't have leftovers last night!). Tonight we're having it with pasta and vegetables in a white sauce.

It's an easy dish once you translate the recipe, so I thought I would post it here for my friends who sometimes look for easy dinner solutions. Special thanks to TheKate!

Raspberry Chicken

Dinner Tonight

I needed a post, so I decided to put up my menu for tonight. Nothing too complicated, so only one recipe included.

Dinner:
NY Strip Steak, broiled in my new toaster oven
Garlic Sweet Potato Fries, also broiled in my new toaster oven
Green Beans, steamed (not broiled)

Dessert:
Baked Apple Pie

Grandma's Perfect Pie Crust

*flour - 1 cup + 2 Tbs
*salt - 1 tsp
*Mazola corn oil - 1/3 cup
*water - 3 Tbs

Mix dry ingredients first, then add oil. Add water. Roll out between two layers of wax paper.
Makes one crust.

NOTE: Recipe can be doubled, but the crusts are best when made separately.

Something New

I've been trying to expand our quesadilla/sweet potato fries diet by adding one new recipe per shopping trip. Last week's recipe was a huge success - a potato-free almost-stew served over egg noodles. We liked it so much, I decided it was worth sharing the recipe! (I'm kicking myself for not taking a photo...)

Beef Daube Provençal

From Cooking Light Magazine, November 2004.

Ingredients:
2 teaspoons olive oil
12 garlic cloves, crushed
1 (2-pound) boneless chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 2-inch cubes
1 1/2 teaspoons salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
1 cup red wine
2 cups chopped carrot
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1/2 cup less-sodium beef broth
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
Dash of ground cloves
1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 bay leaf
3 cups cooked medium egg noodles

*Preheat oven to 300 °.
*Heat oil in a small Dutch oven over low heat.
*Add garlic; cook 5 minutes or until garlic is fragrant, stirring occasionally. Remove garlic with a slotted spoon, and set aside. Increase heat to medium-high.
*Add beef to pan; sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook 5 minutes, browning on all sides. Remove beef from pan.
*Add wine to pan; bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits.
*Add garlic, beef, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, carrot, and next 8 ingredients (through bay leaf), and bring to a boil.
*Cover and bake at 300° for 2 1/2 hours or until beef is tender. Discard bay leaf. *Serve over noodles.

Note: To make in a slow cooker, prepare through Step 2. Place beef mixture in an electric slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 5 hours.
Yield: 6 servings

Fun in the Kitchen

So, not everything I attempt in the kitchen comes out like my pizza.

Yesterday morning, I concocted a pretty good drink with the help of my blender and a little imagination:

Prepare and cool 1/2 cup Republic of Tea's Wild Berry Plum Green Tea
Combine in blender with:
Ice
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
3/4 cup half-n-half
1/4 cup condensed milk

Blend until frothy and enjoy.

This drink was an almost perfect copy of Starbucks' Green Tea Latte - only not as overpoweringly sweet. Plus, it is a GORGEOUS lavender color. Which I liked. :-P

Recipe for Disaster

It began with a pizza crust...

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 TBS olive oil
1 cup water

No yeast necessary. Dump ingredients in bread machine for an hour on pizza crust setting. Crust will be unusually elastic, but don't worry.

Add toppings as usual, including extra sauce for the necessary run-and-burn-and-smoke-up-the-entire-house effect.

Set your oven at 450 degrees.

Bake until charred. Open windows will be required to avoid asphyxiation.

Pizza should be hard, crust should be tooth-breaking. Fresh sauce can be added to improve flavor. It won't help.

Be sure to leave remaining sauce, dirty dishes, and leftovers sitting out for 12 hours.

Menu: A December Evening

Fun Movie: License to Wed (If you like The Office, you will love this one!)

Music: Arcangelo Corelli's Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 8 "Christmas"

Lighting: Christmas Tree


Dinner:

Grandma's Gourmet Beef Fricassee

Butternut Squash with Cloves, Cranberries, and Maple Syrup

Mom's Bran Refrigerator Rolls

Spinach Salad with Fresh Strawberries and Raspberry Vinaigrette


Dessert:

Homemade Apple Pie with Real Cinnamon Whipped Cream

Real Hot Cocoa

(recipes available upon request)