A Passion for Food

Recently, if you took a look at my facebook page, all you would see is status updates about food... mostly baking updates. I either have no life, or I have a serious passion for cooking. I don't even think I understood just HOW much I love cooking until a week or so ago. I really really LOVE to cook, bake, ice, decorate, saute', fry, knead, mix, whisk, chop, mince, and eat. It's a passion, and I am starting to think it is what I was born to do.

I always wanted to be a chef, to run a restaurant... but life got in the way of my childhood dreams. When I was a teenager I worked in a restaurant as a cook - probably my first job that didn't involve babysitting. I loved it... and then I started thinking about other things - like how could I own a restaurant and have my holidays and weekends? How could I own my own restaurants and not have to get up early in the morning? And there were no culinary schools anywhere near Dayton, Wyoming. And using this line of reasoning, I proceeded to talk myself out of my dream. I went to school for something practical - to be an English teacher.

Funny thing about that - I didn't give a crap about being an English teacher. I really didn't. I had no passion for teaching. I had no passion for grammar or for good literature (although I really do tend to look down on people who use poor grammar, and I do LOVE to read.) It wasn't a good substitute. So I dropped out after a couple of semesters.

I toyed with the idea of going back to cooking, but cooking doesn't pay the bills, and I needed money. I ended up in my current career - working for doctors to get their bills paid by insurance carriers. Do I have passion for this? No. I don't particularly like doctors, generally speaking... And I am convinced insurance carriers were invented by the devil. And after doing this work for the past (oh, God...) 13 years (?) I am burned out. A bad side effect of this business is that you tend to end up jaded and disliking humanity in general. It's hard to see the good in people when you spend your days arguing with beauracrats and being berated by doctors because they aren't getting the money they think they deserve.

And now that I am 37 years old, I realize that I hate my job. I hate it. I have no passion for it. I do it because I have to. I need to pay the bills, I need to support my family.

I also realize what it is that I WANT to do - I want to be a chef. I want to be a pastry chef. I want to run a catering business. I want to bake beautiful cakes for beautiful brides... I love all of it.



For me, the food I make makes people happy. It brings a little bit of love and happiness into their lives, and it is something I do. Something I can give to others that makes life a little sweeter. Someone asked me the other day after looking at a picture of a cake I decorated (I am taking a WONDERFUL cake decorating class right now - here are the websites from my teacher, Zubia Kahn: http://zubiaswiltonclasses.shutterfly.com/ and http://www.giveemcake.com/ ) if I really thought all the work I put into a cake like that was worth it since it only took a few minutes for people to eat it. In my mind, it is completely worth it. These things are a large amount of work, but it is the kind of work that I love to do.



This past summer I made up my mind to go to culinary school. This winter I decided I NEED to go to culinary school. It is my calling. It is my passion. I will do it.

So, no recipe this time... sorry, folks! Just a lot of rambling about food and cooking!

Fourth of July Pie

Summer brings with it certain flavors that you cannot find at any other time of the year: homegrown tomatoes, fresh melons, peaches, and of course, strawberries. When I was a kid I used to go berry picking and end up eating more berries than I brought home. I'm sure if I went berry picking today it would be the same. Strawberries and watermelon are what summer tastes like to me, and this pie is a good way to showcase the beautiful red color of the strawberries for Independence Day.

I brought this pie with me for the Fourth of July celebration at my husband's Aunt Mary's house. They celebrate there every year, but I have always been allowed to bring my leftovers home. Not this year. I was actually booed by the guests when I tried to walk out with the remains of the pie.

Red White and Blue Pie
(makes 2 pies)

Crust:
1 1/2 c gingersnap crumbs
1 1/2 c graham cracker crumbs
6 tbsp sugar
12 tbsp butter

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, divide between two pie pans. Press into the bottom and up the sides of the pans with the flat end of a measuring cup. Bake empty crusts at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Let cool completely before filling.

Filling:
(this is so bad for you, but I justify it by saying I'm only going to make this pie once a year.)

3 quarts fresh strawberries
2 tubs of Marzetti's strawberry glaze (I am working on finding a recipe for homemade glaze, so if you have one, please let me know!)
1 cup heavy cream
sugar to taste
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 pint of fresh blueberries

Wash the strawberries and blueberries. Trim the stems, leaves, and bad spots from the strawberries. Keep any strawberries with no bad spots separate and cut these in half. Use these nice strawberries on the top of the pie.
Whip the cream until stiff. Add vanilla and sugar to taste. Don't make the cream too sweet or the pie can be overwhelmingly sweet.

Divide the imperfect berries into the two crusts. Arrange the more perfect berries on top of the cut up ones. Pour the glaze on top of the strawberries. Use a spoon or spatula to make sure the glaze covers all of the berries. Pour half of the whipped cream on top of the strawberries and then scatter the blueberries on top of the whipped cream.

Seven Layer Dip for Liz

Well, as I am sure you can tell from the dates on this blog, I have not been posting. Please forgive me, gentle reader. I was feeling really strange last month and thought it was just stress, so I took some time to relax and cut out anything extra, such as this blog. It didn't help, so I ended up going to the doctor and found out I have hyperthyroidism - basically, my body's metabolism is going WAY too fast. Thankfully the doctor put me on some medicine and I am starting to feel better now. One upside to the condition (kidding here, of course) is that I can eat whatever I want and still lose weight!

My dear friend Liz sent me a request for a recipe I used to bring to potlucks occassionally - Seven Layer Dip... or as my Mom used to call it "Bean Plate." Which sounds awful, but is a pretty accurate and concise description of the dish.

Seven Layer Dip (Bean Plate)

1 can refried beans
1 small container sour cream
1 can salsa
shredded lettuce
2 cups (or more) shredded cheese
1 chopped tomato
2 or 3 green onions, chopped
One bag of tortilla chips

Layer all of the ingredients, starting with the refried beans and ending with the onions in a oblong cake pan or any other pan or plate you might like. Serve with tortilla chips.

Variation: leave off the lettuce and add guacamole... or add taco meat, or whatever you like on tacos - make it 10 layer dip if you like!

Lasagna

Me and my brother Izaak watching our new brother Gabriel in his cradle

There are certain food memories that really stick in my mind from when I was very small… a neighborhood kid giving me a Nestle Crunch candy bar when I was about two years old and not allowed to eat sweets… dragging my spoon through cream of mushroom soup and trying to get the next bite before the soup was able to cover the bottom of the bowl again… sharing the wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey with my uncle Grant (he got the biggest part, and I was so upset I didn’t get my wish that he gave me the bigger part!)

One of these memories was the lasagna that one of my Mom’s friends brought when my brother Gabriel was born. I was about six years old, and I don’t think I had ever had lasagna before. It was so good that this is the touchstone of lasagna I still compare all lasagnas too, especially all vegetarian lasagnas – because this one had no meat in it… and the woman who made it told us we could use tofu (yes, TOFU) for the filling. The unexpected spices in the sauce and the filling are what really make this lasagna stand apart and above all other lasagnas in my mind. Cloves and bay leaf in the sauce bring out the flavor of the tomatoes, and the nutmeg in the filling makes the cheese and spinach pop.



I think of Gabe every time I make this lasagna. He has a family of his own now, complete with his own Gabriel, Jr.





Lasagna

Cook 1 lb lasagna pasta.
Grate 8 oz. mozzerella cheese.

Sauce:
Saute a small onion with garlic. Add a quart of tomatoes and a small can of tomato paste. Season with 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/2 bay leaf, 2 whole cloves, 1/2 tsp basil, 1/2 tsp oregano, and a sprinkle of sugar. Cook until bubbly

Filling:
Mix thoroughly 1 lb. ricotta cheese, cottage cheese, or tofu, 2 beaten eggs, 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/8 tsp pepper. Cook and drain one 9 oz, pkg of chopped spinach. Add this to the tofu mixture.

In a rectangular baking pan, layer ingredients in this order:

1/3 of the sauce
1/2 of the pasta
All of the filling
1/3 of the sauce
1/2 of the mozzarella
1/2 of the pasta
1/3 of the sauce
1/2 of the mozzarella
Parmasan cheese

Cover loosely with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. (I usually end up baking it longer. I also take off the foil at about 30 minutes so the cheese can get a little brown on top.

This is good at the first serving, but even better as leftovers on the next day.

Migas

I never heard of Migas until I made my recent trip to Austin. My brother's girlfriend Elizabeth ordered them at the Magnolia Cafe, and informed me that they are on the menu at most restaurants there.

Migas are eggs with whatever you like scrambled in - and then you add tortilla chips to the scramble as well. There is something about corn tortillas (chips or otherwise) and eggs that just goes so well together!

This morning I made my first Migas, and here is the recipe, although your imagination is the limit.

Migas
2 eggs
1/4 small onion, diced
1/4 red bell pepper, diced
1/4 c shredded cheddar
3 tbsp chopped roasted green chiles
handful of tortilla chips
1 pat of butter

Melt the butter in a pan, add all above ingredients, scramble, then eat.

Pancakes on Sunday

I made a batch of pancakes this morning - and I started thinking about pancakes... I love them... if they are done right. And the funny thing is, this is one of very few things that I don't make from scratch. Mainly because I haven't found a recipe I like enough, and because the mixes make good pancakes.

So, now you all know me for the hypocrite I am. I extoll the greatness of home cooked food, and yet I use pancake mix. I should hang my head in shame.

But, my pancakes are better than the way they tell you to make them on the box.

The trick is to buy a mix that has you add eggs to the mix, and also to add more milk than they tell you to... the batter should be relatively thin, or you end up with thick, chewy pancakes that taste like pan-caca. So keep adding milk until the mixture runs off the ladle and easily spreads itself into a pancake when it hits the pan.

You can do add ins as well... Today I did 1/2 a mashed banana and a 1/2 cp of chopped pecans. Another one of my favorites is chopped cooked bacon. Or apples and cinnamon. Or the traditional blueberries. The best way to make blueberry pancakes is to use frozen blueberries and add them AFTER you have already poured the batter into the pan, so you can spread them out evenly. And if you just want ultimate decadence in a pancake, add chocolate chips and serve it with whipped cream or peanut butter.

An Omelet from Austin

While I was in Austin a week ago we ate at a little place called The Magnolia Cafe, where their slogan is "Open 24 hours a day 8 days a week." Awesome place. Had one of the best omelets I have ever had, filled with pico de gallo, jack cheese, and avocados. Soooo good.

So, here is my best recreation of this fantastic omelet:

Scramble two or three eggs with a tablespoon of milk. Heat a small pan over medium-high heat. Melt a pat of butter in the pan, then pour in the eggs. Move the pan and eggs around over the heat until almost cooked through. Add pico, chopped avocado, and cheese, then flip half of the eggs over to cover the mixture. Cook for about 30 seconds more, then turn out onto a plate. Enjoy.

So, the question still remains - how do you make pico de gallo? And for some of you, what is pico de gallo?

Pico de gallo is a fresh salsa made from tomatoes, onions, cilantro, and jalapenos. I can eat it by the spoonful (or tortilla chip.)

Pico de Gallo
5 roma tomatoes, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
3-5 tbsp lemon juice or lime juice
salt to taste.

Since the size is different with tomatoes and onions, try to get twice as much tomato as onion in your bowl. The above measurements are only a guideline.

Mix all ingrendients in a bowl, let sit for at least 15 minutes before serving. Once you have added the lemon juice and salt the tomatoes will start to break down a little bit. Serve with tortilla chips, or in any way you would serve salsa.

As a side note - I make a big batch of this whenever I feel a cold coming on... The heat from the jalapeno and the vitamin c from the onion and tomato burn the cold right out of my system. However, you end up with some pretty terrible onion breath as a side effect.

My Favorite Breakfast Tacos

My dear friend Liz and I used to eat these almost every weekend. Usually we would serve them with Liz’s red chile on top (a red chili pepper based sauce – the recipe is below.) Since I am a nursing mom, and my baby doesn’t appreciate it when I eat super hot food, I just use a couple of drops of Tabasco on top instead. I heartily endorse the red chile, though! It’s good also as an enchildada sauce if you tone it down with some tomato sauce, too.

Anna and Liz’s Breakfast tacos
(makes 4 tacos, enough for two party girls the morning after a night of clubbing in Vegas)

1 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, sliced thin
4 eggs
4 corn tortillas
1/3-1/2 c shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Liz’s red chile (recipe below)


Fry the onion in butter until almost burnt over medium heat. Cook your eggs over hard (pop the yolk and let it cook, then flip it over and cook the other side.) Heat corn tortillas directly on the burner if you have a gas stove or a glass topped electric stove. If you have an older electric with the coils, use a pan or you’ll make a huge mess. Top each tortilla with an egg, some onions, cheese, and chile.


Liz’s Red Chile
1 bag dried red chilies (in the Mexican food section of the grocery store)
Water
Garlic, oregano, salt to taste.


Pull the stems off the dried chilies. Shake out the seeds and remove as much membrane as possible. Rehydrate the chilies in enough water to cover them by simmering on the stove, or let soak overnight. Put the rehydrated chilies in the blender, blend with the water from rehydrating until smooth. Add the spices and salt to taste. Pour mixture in a saucepan and simmer over low/medium low heat until reduced to desired thickness. Taste, and correct seasoning. Add tomato sauce to cut the heat if desired.

Stuffed French Toast

Stuffed French toast is a decadent breakfast, and it’s very easy to make. The first time I ever heard of stuffed French toast was at the Skillet Café in Las Vegas. Everything on the menu there is good. If you make a trip to Vegas and want some good old fashioned diner food, look up the Skillet Café. The Skillet Café made their stuffed French toast with cream cheese and fruit preserves, but I make mine with cream cheese and dried fruit.

Stuffed French Toast

For each piece of French toast you will need:
2 slices of French bread or Texas toast
1 tbsp cream cheese
1 tbsp dried cranberries -or- 1 chopped dried apricot and 1 tsp chopped pecans
1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp milk
Butter for sauteeing

Spread the cream cheese on one of the slices of bread, cover with the dried fruit, and or nuts. Use the other piece of bread to make a sandwich. Dip the sandwich in the egg and milk mixture, and then fry it in a hot pan with melted butter. Turn when golden brown, and then brown the other side. Serve with maple syrup.

The Trick to Great Hashbrowns

My first job as a cook was at The Hitchin’ Post Café in Dayton, Wyoming. Looking back, I think it was one of my favorite jobs of all time… I was in high school and worked with a great bunch of people – I was learning a lot about food, and I was doing something I enjoyed for money! I took it all for granted back then – I thought all jobs were like that. Oh, how wrong I was.

A picture of some of the staff at the Hitchin' Post at Prom in 1990

I learned a lot at that place. The first lesson I learned about food was how to make crispy hashbrowns from real potatoes. Before this lesson, every time I would attempt hashbrowns I would end up with a grey gooey mass at the bottom of my pan – the polar opposite of the crispy brown bits of heaven I wanted to serve up next to my eggs in the morning.

But there is a trick to making any fried potato become crisp… (this goes for French fries, too.) The potatoes need to be pre-cooked in order to get the crispiness out of them. For hashbrowns the best bet is to use leftover baked potatoes, or just boil whole potatoes and then cut them up or shred them when they are cooled.

These are my husband’s absolute favorite food when mixed with bacon and cheese. Feel free to add what you like – they are good with sour cream on top, too!

Hashbrowns
5 potatoes, washed and cooked whole (boiled and cooled)
1 medium onion, chopped
½ green pepper, chopped
4-5 tbsp olive oil

Heat a skillet at medium high heat. Add the oil, and then the vegetables. Turn occasionally and cook until brown. Turn them only every 5 minutes or more so they get a nice brown crust. Cook until they reach the desired doneness.

A Week of Breakfasts After a Week of No Blogs

I have to offer a quick apology for my lack of blog entries in the past week – things got a little busy with a baby who wouldn’t take naps and a trip to Austin, Texas to visit my brother Seth with my Momma. My trip to Austin has inspired me by the food we ate while we were there, so I am back to blogging with a lot of fresh ideas.

…I love weekend breakfasts – you know, the kind you make when you have had enough sleep and you have enough time to actually cook. Back in my partying single days I would take a shortcut with my roommate, Jojo and head to the IHOP down the street for breakfast. Every Saturday she would wake me up by jumping on my bed and chanting “IHOP SATURDAY!!!” over and over until I finally got up and got dressed.

Now that I have a baby it’s a little different. I am usually awake a lot earlier, and it’s usually a baby who wakes me up – and she is not chanting “IHOP SATURDAY!” But I still make an effort to have a nice breakfast once a week. And since my daughter makes sure I am awake earlier than everyone else, I have plenty of time to make breakfast while my daughter watches from her high chair.

So, prepare for a week of breakfast recipes!

Below is the best recipe I have found for cinnamon roll dough. Use either bread flour or the added gluten to get the nice chewy texture right. All purpose flour will make a very cakey roll.

I love to knead dough as a stress reliever, but who actually has the time to knead dough by hand once you have kids? Personally, I don’t. Sure, my arm muscles don’t get the workout they used to when I was a baker, but I don’t need to arm wrestle anyone anymore. Solution – use a bread machine to make the dough, and then bake it yourself. I used to hate bread machines, but my opinion has recently changed… I don’t use my bread machine to bake bread, but I do use it for the dough application.

Cinnamon Rolls
(makes about a dozen rolls)

1 egg plus enough hot water to make one cup
¼ c oil
1/3 c sugar
1 tsp salt
3 ½ c bread flour (or 3 ½ c all purpose flour plus 1 ½ tbsp gluten)
1 ½ tsp yeast
½ c softened butter
½ c sugar
¼ c cinnamon (or more)
¾ c chopped pecans
¼ c melted butter
½ c brown sugar
½ c white sugar

Add all ingredients to the bread machine, set it on the dough setting and let it run. Once the dough is done, roll it out into a rectangle. Spread it with ½ cup of softened butter, sprinkle with ½ c white sugar and ¼ c cinnamon. Roll it up into a roll and cut into 1 inch rolls.

In an oblong cake pan melt ¼ c butter – cover this with the remaining sugars and the chopped pecans. Place the rolls on top of this mixture. Let rise until double in size. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Turn the pan upside down to release the rolls.

Once the rolls are in the pan you can put the pan in the refrigerator covered in plastic wrap and then bring it out an hour before you want to bake the rolls. This works really well if you want to do all the work the day before.

Another Foray into Gardening

Maybe I should put a new subheading about how this blog is also about gardening... but then again, gardening is all about food for me, and it is spring. And technically the article I am so excited about is in the dining and wine section of The New York Times... so it's still about food.

THIS is what I am so excited about. The Obamas are planting A VEGETABLE GARDEN on the White House Lawn... not only for the tasty goodness of something fresh from the garden, but to encourage the whole country to eat locally grown food, and to show their own daughters where their food comes from, something I am a bit passionate about. In my opinion, everyone should be aware of how their food comes about, be it vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, or fowl.

I had the luxury (luxury?) of growing up in the country, of being a part of raising my own food. Besides just the vegetable garden and some fruit trees, we had goats, chickens, pigs, geese, ducks, and rabbits. And as my cousin Brianna says (her facebook page is where I swiped this article) I believe animals can be friends and food (not that I would eat my cat - I would have to be pretty hungry for that to happen... and I have a feeling she'd be pretty tough... just kidding, my cat is safe.) Anyway, I have a certain respect for my food and what it took to get it on my plate. And it makes my food taste better. I want to pass that respect on to my daughter, so that she can understand and respect the life of the thing she is eating, whether it is meat or plant.

The Native Americans believe that all life is connected, that we should show respect for the earth and the way it provides for us. This is the respect I am talking about teaching my child, and something that I believe allows me to prepare my food well. I heard one chef describe it as "respecting the ingredients." I try my best to respect my food, and to show my love through whatever I prepare.

The article is well worth the read. And so is any work you put into a garden... and if you can't garden, take the time to find a farmer's market in your area.

Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta
1 large baguette, sliced
1 clove garlic
4 heirloom tomatoes (use good ones, please! The grocery store variety will just taste like water. I like to use a variety of colors - yellow, red, green, purple.)
1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
salt to taste

Toast the sliced bread in the oven for about 5 minutes at 200 degrees, or throw them on the grill to get them toasted. Cut the garlic clove in half and then rub it on the bread slices - it will kind of grate itself on the hard bread. Cut up the tomatoes into small chunks. Dress with the balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and salt. Serve on the bread slices.

By the way, the White House chef is the one overseeing the garden, so I think I'm pretty safe in adding this to the blog.

My Mother, Queen of Substitutions

That's a picture of my Momma and me as a baby. Isn't she beautiful? She still is today... in fact, if you know any nice single men, let me know.

I learned to cook from my mom and my dad, but mostly from my dear Momma... which is funny, because I don't think she likes to cook all that much. But she let me play with the pots and pans on the floor when I was very little, and she made sure we all ate together as a family when dinner time came around every night. She managed to feed a family of six plus any stray neighborhood kids on a shoestring budget. The kids I went to school with were always kind of amazed we ate together around a table every night without turning on the T.V.

I have a lot of memories of my mom in the kitchen - she used to grind her own flour with a grinder that clamped on to the kitchen table, and I remember she had a hand grinder for coffee beans. When we would go to the grocery store she would let me have one coffee bean from the bulk containers so that I could smell it. Maybe that's why I love coffee so much - I associate it with my mother.

She also taught me substitutions for recipes when I would try to cook something and we were out of an ingredient... Mayonnaise can be substituted for egg; allspice for cinnamon, nutmeg, or cloves (I think Momma actually thought that allspice was made from "all spices" but it's not. I learned that a few years back and was actually quite amazed that it was a spice in and of itself.) I think all of "substituting" had a pretty big influence on my cooking - I can make something out of a bunch of nothings... oatmeal for breadcrumbs, yogurt for sour cream, lemon juice and milk for buttermilk... even coffee creamer for powdered milk.

Here's the most recent thing she taught me to make. It's good, and I wouldn't make any substitutions:

Turkey Wraps

Tortillas (or rice wraps)
Turkey
cream cheese
cucumber slices
alfalfa sprouts
cranberry sauce

Just wrap everything in a tortilla and eat it. Simple enough.

Glazed Corned Beef

Happy St. Patrick's Day almost a day late! Here is my version of the typical corned beef dinner for St. Patrick's...

Anna's Corned Beef
1 corned beef brisket with seasoning packet
2 tbsp spicy brown mustard
2 tbsp brown sugar or honey
1/8 tsp ground cloves
4-5 potatoes, cut up
1 large onion, cut in large chunks
2 or 3 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
1 small head of cabbage, also cut into chunks

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Place the brisket in a roasting pan or dutch oven. Mix together the mustard, seasoning packet, brown sugar, and cloves together in a small bowl. Use this to cover the brisket. Add the potatoes, onion, and carrots around the brisket. Cover, and bake for 3 hours. When the brisket is done, transfer the contents of the dutch oven to a serving dish, and put back into the oven once you have turned it off to keep the meat warm. Pour the reserved liquid into a pan, add the cabbage and cook on medium high heat until the cabbage is cooked through. Enjoy.

A Sidetrack into Gardening

Nature is a constant source of amazement for me. Everything runs in a cycle, one thing taking care of the next which in turn nourishes the first. It’s really quite beautiful.

Every spring when I start my garden I am reminded of this process, especially when I look at my beautiful compost… yes, beautiful compost. I love it. I take the pieces of food that we cannot use – egg shells, potato and banana peels, coffee grounds, along with grass clippings and some paper from my shred pile, and it turns into this wonderful rich dark fertilizer for the next batch of plants I grow (and it would be even better if I could get my hands on some manure, but that is just wishful thinking on my part!) So, the food we don’t use (and that the animals eliminate) ends up nourishing the food we grow the next year. On first glance, this might seem like a disgusting process, but in reality it just shows the wonderful cycle of nature and how one thing takes care of the next.

When I was growing up my family always had a garden, and a very large compost pile. We grew tons of vegetables every year – tomatoes, peppers, onions, potatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, radishes, beets, squash… by far my favorite was the tomatoes. There is just nothing like a home grown tomato. Those pathetic little hydroponic things you get from the store can hardly be recognized as a tomato once you have had the real thing.

As much as I love to garden, we don’t have any land on which to plant or even have a compost pile. But I don’t let this stop me. I have a compost pile – it’s in some old five gallon buckets that originally contained a bulk purchase of kitty litter. It still decomposes just fine – I just leave the lids slightly askew so those bacteria can get oxygen… and to turn the compost I just put the lids back on tight and shake the contents a bit every couple of days. And as for my garden, it grows on our deck in containers – which I get for next to nothing, because you can plant in anything that holds dirt, for the most part. I get my planters from garage sales and thrift stores… Everything from popcorn tins and lunchboxes to laundry baskets lined with plastic and old mixing bowls. I have a pile of potential planters in the garage right now just waiting for the last frost to pass.

And my tomatoes are already sprouted, along with my thyme, some basil, and a chile pepper or two. Can’t wait for summer and all those yummy tomatoes.

Serendipity and Pizza Snacks

Serendipity is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for."

Sometimes things that shouldn't combine well combine so well it is surprising. And the result ends up being a much greater than the sum of its parts.

Most of my really great friendships are like this. My friend Liz and I became friends in high school because we were both involved in the speech team... and both of us had good personal hygiene, which was more than could be said about most of our teammates. We figured it was in both of our best interests to become friends so we could share a room on trips and not suffer through body odor. She thought I was kind of weird, I thought she was kind of preppy. Turns out we had a lot more in common than we thought. A great number of the great adventures in my life have involved Liz. We were roommates and party girls in Las Vegas for a few years, we were in each other's weddings. Somehow we even ended up living in Missouri at the same time (her husband, a Marine, was stationed here, and my husband's family lives here, too!) I also had the great privilege of being present when her son Caleb was born. After twenty (twenty??) years and several states, we are still the best of friends. And all we were looking for was someone who wore deodorant!!

Well, onto the topic of food... (you knew I would get around to it, didn't you?) My Grandpa used to make these wonderful little appetizers called Pizza Snacks. I loved them until I learned the recipe. The recipe involves ingredients I would never combine with each other - rye bread, Mexican Velveeta, and hot sausage... It was just weird.

But they sure taste good. Even though they don't have much in common with Pizza. I never have figured out why they are called Pizza Snacks. I guess I should just stop thinking about it and just enjoy it for what it is... Serendipity.

Pizza Snacks
1 lb hot pork sausage
1 lb ground beef
1 lb mild Mexican Velveeta cheese
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
1 loaf of party rye, sliced.

Cook meat together, drain well. Add cheese and seasoning, mixing well until cheese is melted. Spread mixture on party rye. Bake at 400 degrees until centers bubble, about 10 minutes.

To freeze: do not bake. Freeze snacks on a tray, once frozen pack in Ziploc bags. 15 minutes before serving, place frozen snacks on a lightly greased cookie sheet and heat in a 400 degree oven until centers bubble. Serve hot.

A Leftover Kind of a Day

This was just one of those days for me... My daughter was up every two hours last night crying because she is teething. The cat gave us a wake up call by knocking over the contents of my desk onto the floor and then running around the bedroom like a mad thing... then my computer wouldn't connect to my work's server, and when it did it ran as slow as a turtle going up hill. I spent most of the day on hold listening to terrible music or talking to automated systems which were slightly more intelligent than the actual people I got when I hit zero.

My daughter didn't want to take her morning nap because she I let her sleep late... and when lunchtime came she smeared her prunes in her hair, which caused an impromptu midday bath. It was one of those days.

And then it was dinner time. Did I want to cook? No. And I love to cook. But today was one of those days. I wanted nothing more than to head out the door and let someone else do the cooking. However, in this economy we were not going to eat out unplanned. What to do, what to do?

Leftovers. But my husband despises leftovers. I have therefore devised ways to re-invent leftovers with only minimal labor. That's what I did tonight. There are a lot of ways to do this - here's some ideas:

Leftover pot roast can be cut up and thrown in the bottom of a baking dish and covered with mashed potatoes - bake it and it's Shepherd's Pie.

Leftover chili becomes burritos if you add some cheese and wrap it in a tortilla. Or pour it in a baking dish and cover it with some cheese and cornbread batter. Bake it and you have chili pie.

Leftover chicken - cut it up, add your leftover veggies from the night before, throw it in the bottom of a pan with some chicken stock. Cover that with some store bought biscuit dough and bake... or take the cold meat and thow it on leftover salad with some cheese.

Leftover rice becomes fried rice pretty easily. Fry up some onion and garlic in a pan, add the rice, a scrambled egg, and some soy sauce and you've got fried rice.

So tonight was a night for chili pie... and on the way out the door to the gym to work out my frustrations with the day my daughter spit up down my leg. Tomorrow will be better.

Chris' Favorite Rice

My husband Chris loves rice, so I spend a lot of time experimenting with rice dishes and different types of rice and different ways to cook it. This dish is by far his favorite. It pairs well with roasted chicken.

One of the ingredients in the dish is chicken stock. You can substitute chicken boullion if you would like, but the chicken stock is a lot better for you, and is a way you can get the very last bit of nutrition from your vegetables and your meat. The trick to good stock is to not let it get to a boil. If you let stock boil with any meat in it, you end up with greasy stock. Once you have a few bubbles coming up from the bottom, turn down the heat and let it simmer. I find the best way to do this is to start it in a big pot and then transfer it to my slow cooker once it has started to simmer. Then I walk away for a couple of hours. When you come back, you have stock!

I keep a large plastic bag in the freezer to which I add onion peels (the WHOLE peel, the papery part, too), carrot peels and tops, celery tops, and any sprigs of thyme, marjoram, and parsely that I don’t end up using in cooking before it goes bad. When it comes time to make the stock, I just throw the contents of the bag into the stock pot with whatever meat I have – leftover bones from a whole chicken or turkey, turkey necks from the store, or a real soup bone. All of them work just fine. My family jokes that it looks like cooked garbage... but they don't complain about the result.

I freeze the stock into ice cubes and then store them in a plastic bag in the freezer until I need it.


Chris’s Favorite Rice
2 tbsp olive oil
½ medium onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 c uncooked rice
2 c chicken stock

Sautee onion, celery, and carrot until soft. Add rice, continue to cook until rice has turned very white. Add chicken stock, cook 20 minutes or until rice is done.

Food = Love

My daughter hurt herself today - she's still pretty wobbly at six months old and fell over because she was playing to hard. Nothing serious, just bumped her head. My instinct as a mom was to hug her, kiss her, and then nurse her. Food in a lot of ways shows love and provides comfort. Now, in some cases it can be taken to an extreme and we end up with people who try to compensate for lack of love with an over intake of food, but our first comfort in life is provided by food and closeness with our mothers. How wonderful is that?

Both sides of my family show love with food, and the following is one of the recipes I remember from my childhood, requested by my cousin Michelle. I made it tonight with dinner - it goes really well with pot roast - and I am shocked I had enough left to take a picture for the blog.

Herb Loaf
1 loaf Vienna bread, unsliced (French works fine, too)
3/4 c butter (the recipe card says margarine, but I think margarine is evil. Use butter, please!)
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
dash cayenne
3/4 tsp paprika
3/4 tsp dried savory
1/2 tsp dried thyme

The recipe card calls for you to cut all the crust off the bread and cut the remaining loaf in triangles. My favorite part of the bread IS the crust, so I kinda skipped that part.

Mix the butter with the herbs and then spread them all over the bread slices. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Serve hot.

Chicken Wings 500 Ways

I love is chicken wings... My friend Melanie got me hooked on them many years ago. They are the perfect food for parties, those little bite sized peices of meat become the vehicle for whatever flavor you want to go for - Asian, Mediterranean, Buffalo, barbeque, jerk, Hawiian... whatever you like it goes on chicken wings.

Most people fry their wings, but I prefer to marinate them, then bake at around 400 degrees for ten minutes, flip them and go for another ten minutes. Then I throw them into a sauce of choice and back into the oven to broil (not bake) for another five minutes. The high heat makes the skins nice and crispy, and the sauces make them taste wonderful.

Here are some of my favorite marinades - unfortunately, I don't measure these out, so feel free to play around with the proportions. Marinate them overnight for the best flavor.

Buffalo Wings: marinate in buttermilk, garlic salt, and a couple dashes of hot sauce. Once you bake them, spin them in melted butter and Louisiana hot sauce. I dip them again after they come out from under the broiler.

Asian wings: marinate in 1/2 a can of good ginger ale and a couple tablespoons of soy sauce. Spin them in a decent teriyaki sauce after they are done baking.

Mediterranean/Italian wings: marinate in balsamic vinegar, red wine, olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic, basil, and oregano. Divide the marinade in half and keep the second half for the wings when they are done baking. Add parmesan cheese to the second half of the marinade.

And the list goes on and on. These are also good cooked on a grill and then spun in sauce.

If anyone comes up with any combinations they like, please feel free to post them in the comments!

Fish on Fridays

My husband's side of the family are all Catholic... and since it is Lent, there is no "meat" served on Fridays. However, there is a loop-hole in the Lent celebration. Fish. Fish is not considered "meat" during the Lenten fast. Meat in ancient times was considered the food of the rich, so to abstain from meat during the fast was to eat the food of the poor. Also, since fish did not appear to have much blood, it was not considered to be meat. Not being raised Catholic myself, I find these customs fascinating.

In any case, it's time to break out the fish recipes unless I want to be inundated with Long John Silver's and Captain D's... Not that I mind a good greasy peice of fried fish once in a while, but there are so many other ways to enjoy fish.

Anyway, this is my latest dish for the family... It's yummy and it's very rich.

Fish Florentine

2 lbs orange roughy fillets (approximately 8 fillets) but really any white fish will work

1/2 the zest of one lemon

salt and pepper

3 tbsp butter

Pat the fish completely dry. Season fillets with lemon zest, salt, and pepper. Cut the fillets in half. Pan fry the fish in the butter over medium heat until just cooked. Remove from heat and set aside while you make the sauce.

Sauce:

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

2 c milk

1 10 1/2 oz box of frozen spinach, thawed and drained of excess liquid

3 oz shredded Monterey Jack cheese

4 oz cream cheese, cubed

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2 dashes of hot sauce (Tabasco is nice.)

Melt the butter in a large pan, once melted add the flour and stir until combined. Gradually add the milk to the mixture stirring constantly until you have a nice white sauce. Add the spinach and the cheeses. Stir until the cheeses have melted. Add nutmeg and hot sauce. Stir to combine. Correct seasoning with salt and pepper, and add more milk if you need to thin down the sauce.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Line a baking dish with non-stick foil unless you like to do dishes, which I don't. If you do like to do dishes, grease the pan. Put down one peice of fish, then cover with sauce. Add the next peice of fish, and then top with sauce. Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.

Serves 8.

I have made this dish with pollack filets as well and it still comes out great.

Jezebel Sauce

My grandparents on my father's side of the family were foodies before they called them foodies. They were part of a gourmet club. They traveled around the country and the world and sampled every food they could find. They had a profound influence on my taste in food, and without them I don't know what kind of table manners I might have developed.

Recently, my Grandma passed away and I was fortunate enough to inherit all of her cookbooks and recipe boxes. There were more cookbooks than I could possibly keep - boxes and boxes of them that are now sitting in storage waiting for me to dig into them. And while the cookbooks were fantastic, the best thing were the recipe boxes, full of hand written recipe cards and menu plans, complete with dates and guest lists (just to make sure you didn't feed the same people the same meals twice!) Some of these recipes were cherished family favorites, and some were things I had never seen before.

Jezebel Sauce is one I remember the grown-ups eating. Us kids didn't seem to like it much back then, but now I find it addicting. The combination of sweet and hot is just... yummy. I understand why this recipe is listed frequently as the appetizer course on so many of Grandma's menus.

Jezebel Sauce

1 18 oz jar of apple jelly

1 18 oz jar of pineapple or apricot preserves (or pineapple-apricot preserves)

1 c hot horseradish (not horseradish sauce - you want unadulturated horseradish)

4 tsp dry mustard

2 tsp pepper

Mix together until combined. Let stand for 2-3 days so the flavors can blend. If you eat it right away it will have too strong of a bite. Store in the refrigerator. Keeps indefinately (at least according to the recipe card.) Serve with cream cheese or cold meats on Ritz crackers. Also good with caviar.

A Little About Me and Food

My mom tells a story about how when I was a toddler I wandered into the garden and pulled a green pepper off one of the plants. I started eating it like an apple, which apparently horrified my Grandma, who scolded me for picking something out of the garden without permission. Mom explained to her that it was fine - she would rather have me eating something like green peppers from the garden than a lot of other things.

Now, I am by no means a health food nut, despite the organic gardening/make your own granola/no sugar hippie family in which I grew up. I do, however, love GOOD food... and I believe that just about any food tastes good if it's prepared properly.

I have had many requests for recipes on my facebook page from friends and family and decided rather than sending recipes out multiple times it would be easier to just post them all in one place, and a blog seems like the best option.

So, in honor of that green pepper that started me on the path of loving food, I have named my blog "The Green Pepper." Hope you enjoy... and in honor of my friend Jojo, here are my recipes for Baba Ganoush and Tabouli.

Baba Ganoush
1 or 2 eggplants, depending on size, peeled and sliced
1 medium onion, chopped and sauteed
extra virgin olive oil
dried oregano
juice of two lemons

Saute' the eggplant slices in olive oil over medium-medium high heat. As the eggplant slices are finished, layer them in a baking dish, alternating layers with the sauteed onions. Sprinkle each layer with dried oregano and a sprinkle of lemon juice. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Dump the whole thing in the blender and blend until smooth, or simply mash it up with a potato masher if you like it a little less refined. Both methods work. Add salt if needed. Serve with pita bread.

You can serve this warm or cold, depending on what you like. I have also made it with balsamic vinegar for the lemon juice... and a certain gluten-intolerant friend of mine likes this with corn tortilla chips instead of the pita.


Tabouli
2 cups cooked couscous, cooled (say that five times fast!)
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
1 small to medium onion, finely chopped
2 medium tomatoes, finely chopped
1 bunch parsely, minced
small handful minced mint leaves (another tongue twister!)
juice of two lemons
1/4 c olive oil
salt to taste

Combine all inrgedients in a large bowl and serve. Simple as that. For my gluten intolerant friends, you can use cooled rice instead of the couscous. To make it more of a couscous consistency, I dump the cooked rice out onto the cutting board and then run my knife through it like you would if you were chopping nuts or herbs. It tastes just as good!