Peaches

In addition to feeling adventurous at the Farmers Market, my friend insisted that I buy some good old peaches while I was there. So I bought a nice big bucket of them and decided to have some fun with desserts. I found a nice recipe for Whole Wheat Peach Kuchen in my Simply in Season cookbook (p. 156). While in the middle of making it, my work-wife stopped over and asked what I was making. I said, "I think it's called koo-CHEN...?" Then she looked at my recipe and said, "Oh, you mean KOO-ken? It means 'cake' in German." So... apparently it's cake (but honestly, it's more like a cross between a pie and a cheesecake, but whatever).

Crust
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 Tbs sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup butter

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in butter until crumbly. Pat mixture over bottom and sides of a pie pan. (Note: I really think this may have been slightly too much crust for my pie pan; however, this pan was a little shallower than my glass Pyrex pan, so maybe I just need to use a deeper pan. Beats me, but you may want to consider adding slightly less flour.)

Filling 1
4 cups peeled peach halves
3 Tbs sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Arrange peaches cut-side-down on top of crust. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over peaches and bake at 400°F for 15 minutes.

Filling 2
1 cup yogurt or sour cream
1 egg
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine and pour over peaches and continue baking for 30 minutes or until set.

Who doesn't love a good kuchen?

So the kuchen was pretty good. It was a nice way to mix things up. The creamy topping was superb (I ate quite a bit of it before I dumped it on top of the peaches!). One issue I had was that when I decided to make it, I probably didn't have quite enough peaches yet and they were very small on top of it. So next time I'll definitely need some more!

After I ate all the kuchen up, I decided I wanted more peaches, so I bought another bucket the next week. This time, I wanted to take an old favorite at my house and make it from scratch.

My mom made this really yummy and easy dump cake. Basically you grease a cake pan with a stick of butter. Then you add two cans of pie filling (same flavor or you can do a different flavor on each end) and then pour a box of yellow cake mix on top. Finely slice up the rest of the butter stick and lay it evenly across the top of the cake mix. Bake at 350°F for about an hour.

So even though my mom's recipe is super delicious, I wanted to try to make it from scratch. One thing that really got me when I read Kitchen Counter Cooking School was the part where her husband came to the realization that boxed cake mix is nothing more than flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt (and a bunch of preservatives to keep it 'fresh'. Bottom line is that it's really not any more difficult to make a cake from scratch, but there's this stigma that it's actually really hard and that's why you make the boxed stuff. So I decided to try out their recipe for cake mix (p. 207) and I substituted fresh fruit and honey for the pie filling.

1 stick butter

Peaches

Strawberries

Honey

2 1/2 cups flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 3/4 cups sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Cut up and peel fruit into medium chunks. Cover with honey in a bowl and let sit for a few hours or overnight. Grease 9x13 cake pan with butter stick. Spread fruit/honey mixture over bottom of the pan. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt, and then pour on top of fruit. Sprinkle little butter slices over the top of the cake mix so that the pan is well-covered. Bake at 350°F for about 1 hour. Cool and serve with cream or ice cream.

Yums.

Again, I think the cake mix recipe may have been a bit too much for what I was doing, so I will probably cut back a little bit next time, maybe to 2 cups flour, 1 1/4 cups sugar (it was a little too sweet), and maybe 2 tsp baking powder. It was still very delicious and what I really love about dump cake is that it is just as good when it's leftovers the next day. And the next day too... if it lasts that long. So I'd say it was a pretty successful transformation that will need some minor adjustments to reach perfection.

Kale

Lately I've been very experimental at the Farmers Market. A couple weeks ago, I bought a bag of kale and was like, "I have no idea what to do with this, but I'll figure something out." The farmer recommended kale chips and a few other things, but didn't give me a recipe card, so I forgot half the things they told me I could do. Instead, I opted to check out my cookbooks for some inspiration. I realized that my Farmer John's Cookbook had not been getting the attention it deserved, so I started there and found a great recipe for Cajun Corn and Kale Salad (p. 226). Since I'd already bought a couple ears of corn, it seemed like a perfect way to go through my purchases. Below is my very modified version of this because I didn't have a lot of the ingredients, so I just adapted it to make it work.

2 ears sweet corn
as much kale as your heart desires
salt
1 sweet pepper
1 hot pepper
1 tomato
1 onion
1 clove garlic
leftover cucumber
olive oil
lemon juice
cayenne pepper
black pepper
ground mustard
thyme? (I don't remember if I had some, but the recipe called for it)

Bring large pot of water to boil. Add corn ears. Turn off heat and let sit for about 5 minutes. Pull out corn to cool and remove kernels from cob.
Re-heat water and add kale with a sprinkling of salt. Cook for about 5 minutes. Strain and cool. Remove excess liquid and finely chop.
Cut up other ingredients and mix everything together. Season with additional salt.

 Behold, sweet deliciousness.

I added a lot of cayenne pepper, so it was pretty spicy, but I absolutely loved it! I took it to my neighbors' place, who were serving Korean food for dinner that night. Normally I wouldn't think Cajun-style salad would go with Korean food, but they were making spicy food so it actually complemented everything quite well. It really was a great summer salad that can add a refreshing taste to just about anything. I'm really excited to make it again.

I also made some kale chips using a pretty basic recipe.

kale

olive oil

sea salt

pepper

lemon juice

additional flavors/spices, if you're so inclined

Wash kale and cut into bite-sized pieces. Sprinkle with additional ingredients on a cookie sheet. Bake at 275°F for about 20 minutes or until crisp, turning once halfway through.

Crispy Little Kale Bits

 

So the first thing you need to know about kale chips is that they are pretty gross if they aren't completely dry and crisp. But if they're done, they're alright. There's not much to brag about, but kale is so good for you, I don't really mind eating it this way to get the nutrients out of it.

I haven't been as good about making smoothies lately, but I think once I get myself back on board, I would like to try adding a little bit of kale to them. It doesn't really taste like much and seems to blend in pretty well, so that's my next step I think.

Summer Squash

If you've been wondering where I've been hiding the last few weeks, I've been buried in school work and eating more burgers and pizza than I care to admit. But now that school is out, I'm slowly getting back into my cooking groove. Arlond and I visited the farmer's market this week and picked up lots of yummy food–most of which I haven't done anything with, yet. But I'm slowly working on it.

Anyway, while we were there, one of the farmers was selling yellow summer squash. My parents never really cooked squash for us when we were kids, so I've never been really comfortable eating it. I usually would just pick around it if it were in something. I did eat zucchini bread and things like that, but not much of anything else. Recently, I was served raw summer squash slices and I figured I'd try them out. And they were pretty good. I enjoyed their light, nutty flavor and they weren't so watery like cucumbers. So I bought some at the grocery store to put in my minestrone-ish soup, and that worked out really well, too. So I checked out the squash and asked the farmer how he liked to prepare them so I could get some more ideas. He said he ate them raw and would boil them, but only just a little bit, and said his wife made this really good stuffing with cottage cheese and cornbread with it. I could see the sweet fondness he had for the dish as he recalled just how much better it tasted two or three days after it had been cooked. He turned to his wife and asked if she had the recipe and she pulled out a half piece of paper with the recipe for squash cornbread. So I bought a basket of squash and took the recipe home and sat on it for a few days until I finally forced myself to stop being lazy and make it before the squash went bad. The recipe called for an 8x12 pan, which is way too big for me to eat by myself, so I opted for a half-portion, as detailed below:

Squash Cornbread:

1/2 cup boiled chopped squash (drain through colander)
1/2 stick butter (melted)
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/2 chopped onion
1 chopped jalapeno pepper (the recipe called for 1 can of chopped green chilies, but I opted to go with fresh peppers instead)
1 egg
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Whatever 1/2 a pinch of salt is (You can also substitute a box of cornbread mix for the last four ingredients)

Mix all ingredients. Bake at 375°F in greased 8x6ish pan for about 25 minutes.

I meant to take a picture before I started eating it, but I forgot.

All in all, it was pretty delicious. It's definitely a great side to add on to a meal and relatively quick and easy to make. I put the rest in the fridge, so we'll find out tomorrow just how good the leftovers are.

So after I made my mini-squash cornbread, I still had two more squashes to use up. I pulled out my Simply in Season and looked for some ideas. I found a recipe for zucchini cookies, and figured it was close enough to what I needed.

Yellow Squash Cookies (adapted from Simply in Season, p. 166):

3/4 cup butter (softened)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups summer squash (shredded)

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Cream butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Add egg and beat until fluffy. Mix in flour, baking powder, salt and vanilla. Slowly stir in squash and chocolate chips. Drop onto greased baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 375°F. (Note: Bake cookies as soon as they are mixed. If the batter stands too long, it will get a bit watery).

You can never go wrong with cookies.

So I was a little short on chocolate chips, but I had one Hershey's bar and cut that up and added it in too. I think what I liked most about these cookies was the nutty flavor without the nuts. Call me crazy, but I really hate nuts in my baked goods. Not because I dislike nuts, but I dislike having hard bits of nut inside my soft, gooey cookies and brownies and cake. So it was nice getting that flavor while still having an overall soft consistency. 

So summer squash is definitely a go for me. I'm not sure if Arlond's going to get on board, but I'll make sure he tries some when he gets home and see what he thinks.

Creamy Pesto

My new favorite meal is pasta with creamy pesto sauce, which I made on a creative whim the other day. I recently read Kitchen Counter Cooking School, which I'll review later, but one of the chapters talked about how inexpensive and easy it is to make pasta sauce, so I've been making lots of pasta sauce lately. In particular, I've been making lots of Alfredo sauce. Between Kitchen Counter Cooking School and Better Homes and Gardens, this is roughly my recipe:

1 clove garlic (chopped)
Olive oil
1 cup heavy whipping cream
Parmesan cheese
Salt
Pepper
Pasta water (optional)

Sauté garlic in olive oil in small sauce pan over medium heat. Add heavy whipping cream and stir occasionally. When sauce thickens to point where you can scrape with spoon and see bottom of the pan, add pasta water if you need more sauce and boil down to same thickness. If not, add Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. And voilà! Alfredo sauce.

I've also been making pesto with roughly this recipe: 

Basil
Parsley
Olive oil
Pine nuts

Mix together in food processor or Magic Bullet until it looks like pesto. You can also add garlic and Parmesan cheese.


One thing I've learned is that you can spoon portions of fresh pesto into ice cube trays and freeze them for later use, which has been very handy since it's pretty much impossible to make one serving.

So one day, I was making pasta and couldn't decide if I wanted to use my frozen pesto or my heavy whipping cream before it went bad. And that's when I said, "Why don't I just mix them together?"

 Best. Idea. Ever.

So basically I made my Alfredo sauce and then dropped a pesto cube into the pot and let it melt as I mixed it. Then I poured it over my pasta and it was perfect. The only downside is that I seem to be an expert at making exactly one serving too many and the Alfredo sauce tends to separate when I put it in the fridge. It still tastes fine but it's not the same as when it's fresh.

Pears

My grandpa and uncle sent us some pears for Christmas. And not just any pears... Harry & David Pears.

Sweet, juicy deliciousness.

I remember my grandparents used to send these to my family when I was little. They were always such a treat because they're so tender and sweet. If you can't tell by the picture, we got about 2 dozen of them. I was afraid they would go bad before we would have a chance to eat them all, but luckily Arlond's family had come down to visit, so they helped us work on them.

When Arlond was little, his family put together a cookbook and Arlond's contribution was a recipe for Pear Pie. So, naturally, we made it:

6-8 pears

3/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

dash of salt

Peel pears and cut up. Mix sugar, flour, salt, and spices, and add to pears. Fill a 9-10" pie crust base with pears and dot with butter. Cover with top crust and sprinkle sugar on top. Bake at 400°F for 50 minutes.

Check out my fancy cut-outs. Yep, I did those by hand!

 

In addition to the pie and eating them by hand, I also added them to quesadillas and in fruit smoothies. Then when we finished them off, I used the boxes to store delicate Christmas ornaments, which was probably the best idea ever.

Thanksgiving

In case you were unaware: Thanksgiving happened.

Since my husband and I moved away from our families this summer, it was the first time we were having a big holiday on our own. We certainly missed our families, but we wanted to do something fun instead of wallowing over the holiday weekend. One of Arlond's co-workers graciously invited us into her home on Thanksgiving, where we had a very yummy traditional turkey dinner.

Then on Saturday, Arlond and I invited some friends over and had our very own Thanksgiving feast. We'd both helped out with big holiday meals before, but this was the first time we did it on our own. So naturally, it was an adventure.

First things first, we had to decide on a menu. After careful debate, we finally settled on the following:

Organic Free-Range Roasted Turkey
Gravy
Mediterranean Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Deviled Eggs
Cranberry Sauce
Sweet Potato Casserole
Persimmon Bread Pudding
Pumpkin Pie

Note: Our friends also brought rolls, salad, and green bean casserole.

Next, we had to figure out how to make all of this. We'd made mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, and deviled eggs a million times, so that was no problem, but pretty much everything else was a first. My dad is the ultimate turkey expert, so I called him and made him tell me everything there is to know about cooking turkey. I took notes on an envelope. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

"How many people are you serving? 8? You'll probably need at least a 12-pound turkey so you have leftovers." (This was WAAAAAY too much turkey. I really probably only needed 8-9 pounds, but I think we ate most of it... eventually.)
"Defrost the turkey." (I just bought a non-frozen one. Check.)
"I don't really know what the recommended cooking temperature and time are off hand. Just look them up online. There are charts." (Note: These charts are all for conventional turkeys...which will come into play as the story progresses...)
"Find a stuffing recipe you like. Try to find a really moist stuffing so your turkey will be moist too. I really like stuffing so I stuff as much stuffing into every nook and cranny of the bird. Once the bottom gets full, I'll shove some in the neck cavity too. Toothpicks are really good for holding everything in. I usually still have more stuffing leftover, so I'll wrap it up in foil and cook it next to the turkey." (Yeah, my dad really is obsessed with stuffing. I never really cared for it and was really only making it for the sake of a moist bird. The side pouch is a good way to set stuffing aside for your vegetarian friends and family, too!)
"Put your turkey in a foil pan or a roasting pan if you have one, but the foil pan will work. Then pour milk all over it. Pour until you've got between 1/2 and 1 inch pooled at the bottom of the pan. Then take a stick of butter and rub it all over the turkey. Like, the whole stick. Then put it in the oven and every 15-20 minutes rub more butter on it. Just use one of those pop-up timers so you'll know when it's done." (The butter and milk sounds pretty ridiculous, but it is amazing. My dad makes the best turkey ever, so this is solid gold advice right here.)

So then I asked my dad about making gravy:
"I'm not really that great at making gravy. It usually tastes good, but it always looks bad. It's probably because the turkey juice is so buttery. So I'd recommend trying to skim off as much grease as possible before starting. But stir the turkey juice in a sauce pan on low heat and slowly add in flour and water until it looks like gravy. If it's too thin, add more flour. If it's too thick, add more water. If you need more gravy, you can just water it down some more and then add more flour to thicken it back up."

So there you have it. My dad's uncanny turkey wisdom. Next I had to figure out about stuffing. As I mentioned more subtly earlier, I hate stuffing. Savory stuffing tastes like over-parsley-ed soggy bread, and I have a strong aversion to sweet stuffing (my dad's preferred choice) because I just can't accept mixing sweetness and meat juice together. It just doesn't seem right. So I perused my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and found a recipe for Mediterranean Stuffing (p.481):

8 cups Italian bread cubes
3/4 cup chopped bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon rosemary
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 cup parsley (I think I toned this down a bit though)
1 to 1 1/4 cup chicken broth

1. Place bread cubes in single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake at 375°F for 10 minutes or until golden, stirring once, set aside.
2. Cook bell pepper, onion, and garlic in hot oil for about 4 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice, rosemary, and cayenne pepper. Toss bread cubes, onion mixture, and parsley in a large bowl. Drizzle with enough broth to moisten.

Better Homes and Gardens also hooked me up with an amazingly easy recipe for cranberry sauce (p. 522):

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
2 cups cranberries

Combine sugar and water in medium saucepan and bring to a boil for 5 minutes to dissolve sugar. Add cranberries. Return to boiling, then reduce heat. Boil gently and uncovered until cranberries pop, stirring occasionally.

I had recently bought some persimmons from the farmer's market and wasn't sure what to do with them until I found the recipe for persimmon bread pudding on the Whole Foods website.

For the pumpkin pie, I wanted to use real pumpkin instead of the canned pumpkin, so I compared notes between my mom and Better Homes and Gardens, and used this recipe:

Crust:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter
4-5 tablespoons cold water

1. Mix flour and salt in medium bowl and add butter and mash in until butter is in pea-sized pieces.
2. Sprinkle water over mixture and blend. Repeat until dough is moistened. Form into a ball.
3. Roll out dough until about 12 inches wide. Place in pie pan and trim edges.

Pie:
2 cups puréed pumpkin (Cut up pumpkin and roast for about an hour. Peel and purée.)
1/2 cup sugar
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 heaping teaspoon ginger
1/4 heaping teaspoon nutmeg
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cloves
2 eggs
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine pumpkin, sugar, and spices. Add eggs, beat lightly with a fork until combined. Gradually add cream, stir until just combined.
2. Place pie pan and crust on oven rack and carefully pour filling into pastry shell. Cover edge of pie with foil to prevent over browning. Bake 25 minutes, remove foil and bake another 25 minutes until it passes the toothpick test.

Then the big day came. We had most of the ingredients on hand, but we had to buy a few things that day. We inevitably made three trips to the grocery store when it was all said and done, but oh well. We started off with prepping the turkey and the stuffing:

Our beautiful turkey friend, "Hank", named after his cousin on New Girl

Thanks to my crafty chicken de-boning skills, I easily pulled this right out. I'm pretty sure it's Hank's man parts, but Arlond tried to convince me that it was his neck. Either way, I'm not ashamed to admit that I played with it for like 10 minutes before Arlond made me throw it away.

 

Everything started off really well and was going smoothly. And then Hank had a little surprise for us about an hour before he was supposed to be done...

Arlond: "Uh... Hank's done."

Me: "What do you mean, he's done?! He's got like another hour!"

Arlond: "No. the pop-up popped up. I checked with the meat thermometer and he's done."

This is when things started to get crazy.

Between the two of us, we had just started the deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, and bread pudding. And now the turkey needed to be carved and gravy needed to be made. So the bread pudding and sweet potato casserole got finished up first so we could throw them both in the oven. Then we had to get the deviled eggs done so they were out of the way because they were EVERYWHERE. Arlond continued to work on his little mashed potato project by himself and the cranberry sauce was pretty self-sufficient and only needed an occasional stir-up from me. Meanwhile I'm praying someone will show up early and save us from this nightmare (PS: No one did). And Hank pretty much got the shaft after he got done early.

Why did he get done so early you ask? Here is my theory: As I mentioned previously, Hank was an organic free-range turkey. Conventional turkeys are actually grossly mis-proportioned because they are systematically bred to have the biggest breasts possible (everyone's favorite part... except me). Their breasts are so big they can't even stand up or walk. Turkey production is so messed up that almost no one raises turkeys that are reproduced the old-fashioned way. Instead, humans have to artificially inseminate the lady turkeys. (For more information, check out this article, or read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). This sounds pretty awful and I wanted Hank to have a happy and full life. So as a result, his breasts were significantly smaller than a conventional turkey's breasts and so the section of the turkey that typically takes longest to cook because it's so big didn't take as long for Hank.

So about 45 minutes later when everything else was finally under wraps, Hank sat patiently waiting for more attention. We stuck him back in the oven for 15 minutes or so to warm him back up, and I think this ultimately led to his slight drying out. He wasn't dry dry, but he wasn't as juicy and tender as my dad's turkeys. A work in progress and not too bad for a first attempt, if I do say so myself.

After we took Hank back out of the oven, I drained the leftover turkey juice into the sauce pan and started adding flour. I was going very slowly and patiently, adding flour little by little. Once it got nice and thick, I added some water. This is about when I realized I should've been alternating flour and water, because it started getting even thicker. So I basically had a brown paste with a mild gravy flavor. Once I got it back to an appropriate consistency, I salted the bejeezus out of it and called it good. Not the best gravy ever, but passable. And again, now I know for next time.

Looks like gravy to me

Then after everyone showed up, we had a lovely meal:

My excellent carving job (I had no idea what I was doing)

 Deviled Eggs, Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce, and Sweet Potato Casserole

Persimmon and Chocolate Bread Pudding

Made-from-scratch Pumpkin Pie 

So in the end, it wasn't perfect, but it was delicious and rewarding. Everyone enjoyed everything and had a good time hanging out. It was definitely a learning experience, and I'm excited for my next big holiday so I can show off my mad skillz (Easter, anyone?).

Food Politics

I finally finished reading "Food Politics" by Marion Nestle last month. I'm not gonna lie, it's kind of a tough read, but definitely worth it.

Basically, the whole point of the book is to bring attention to the fact that the FDA basically has no power and every time it tries to assert itself, it loses even more ground. Nestle discusses this from several different angles and also gives a rough time line of what the FDA has done (or been stopped from doing) over the last 40 or so years.

What was especially disparaging was the way food companies began being able to put "health claims" on their packaging and in their advertising, mostly thanks to the supplement industry. The supplement industry helped build a grassroots effort to allow consumers the "right to choose" what is best for them. After the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), the supplement industry was allowed to put health claims on their products, even if those claims had little or no scientific evidence to back them up. Following this was the creation of functional foods, the sole purpose of which is to act as a "healthier" alternative to traditional food. Companies marketing functional foods made the claim that these foods had added supplements and under DSHEA, they had the right to advertise the things that made them so "healthy."And so they did. And now everything in the supermarket seems to have one health claim or another on it.

Furthermore, the FDA seems to be blocked from every possible side. Nestle talked about her time working on the Surgeon General's Report on Nutrition and Health, and how she was explicitly told she would not be allowed to make any recommendations that would suggest that a person eat less of any particular food because the food industry would pull its financial support from the elected officials responsible for its release. As such, Nestle had to resort to attacking specific nutrients rather than types of food. Instead of telling people to eat less red meat, she had to say "Choose a diet low in saturated fat." These types of statements are confusing to consumers and allow other equally unhealthy foods to take advantage of advertising their low-fat status (even though they are full of sugar or high fructose corn syrup). Even more interestingly, the FDA has no control over what gets put in advertising that is not on the package, because that has to go through the FCC.

What's worse is that the FDA has 120 days from when a food company petitions to put a health claim on its product to determine if the claim is accurate and must prove it is inaccurate within that time frame in order to prohibit its use. If the 120 days expires, the claim is automatically approved. And should the FDA later determine the product is unsafe, the FDA can't actually do anything about it. They can only "request" that a food company recall the product. As you can imagine, the FDA is totally underfunded for such a task and so most of these petitions go through without so much as an eyelash batted at them.

Nestle's book is very technical, so it's a slow read. But the information is invaluable and really makes me think carefully about the health claims I hear, where I hear them, and who is paying for them. As Michael Pollan said, if a food makes a health claim, it probably isn't real food. Words to live by right there.

In other book news, I'm currently working on "The Story of Sushi" by Trevor Corson, which is mostly a bookumentary on a group of aspiring sushi chefs. Most of it is sort of funny stories about their time at sushi school, but there are a lot of interesting bits about how sushi is made traditionally and how sushi has changed over time and since its arrival in the United States. I don't have much time for it now that school is started, but I'm slowly working my way through it. I also bought a fun book called "Insanewiches" by Adrian Fiorino, which is basically a picture/cook book of crazy sandwiches. Not all of them are healthy (Most notably the Quadruple Down, featuring four fried chicken breasts, bacon, cheese, mayo, etc. I'm having a heart attack just looking at the picture), but there are many that are at least reasonably good for you. And they're cute. So I will probably make some and post them on here at some point.

Leftovers

Let me just preface this whole post with something. Generally speaking, I hate leftovers. There are a few exceptions to this rule (lasagna), but for the most part, I'm pretty sick of eating something after one or two days in a row. Furthermore, my husband is not really any better, which is apparently weird.

One time, a few years back, I was at my (male) friend's parents' house and I was trying to make room for the food that was going to be dinner that night, and with three teenage boys living at home, there wasn't much room left. So I threw away my friend's leftovers from the day before thinking, Who's gonna eat these leftovers when we have all this fresh food that needs to be eaten? And that's when I found out that you're apparently not supposed to touch a man's leftovers. Ever. Unless they're my husband's leftovers. You can throw those away because he's not gonna eat them unless I make it happen.

That being said, I'm trying to do three things in regards to leftovers:

1. Figure out how to make things in smaller portions.

2. Re-invent my leftovers to take on a new form.

3. Freeze everything else.


I've successfully made a few things with smaller portions. My best accomplishment to date, is making mini-lasagna. My original recipe is for a 9x13 pan, but my husband and I could barely finish it. I would usually eat three or four big pieces and make him eat at least three (He is not as big of a fan of these leftovers as I am). So we cut it down to a 9x9 pan, which makes about 5 servings, which is just enough for the two of us. More recently though, I made lasagna for myself is an 8x6 which was just right with about three servings. I've also made a single serving eggplant burger, chicken, and a few other things. My biggest problem tends to be anything with eggs or yeast, because you can't really include half an egg or half a yeast packet, can you?

Going along with making smaller portions, I've also been working on purchasing smaller portions. Sometimes when I'm at the farmer's market, I'll see these huge baskets of tomatoes or okra or strawberries or whatever, and I know there's no way I'd be able to finish the whole basket. Some of the farmers have been kind enough to offer me a half-portion or allow me to buy the amount I need. I had a really nice farmer at one market that was selling a big basket of tomatoes for $4. I told him I really only needed one or two, so he gave me two "ugly" tomatoes for $1. Another farmer was selling quarts of strawberries and I didn't think I could use that much, so she offered me a pint for half the price.

My other problem area is meats. I feel silly asking for only half a pound of ground beef, but when I'm only making food for one or two, that's really all I need. So I've been brave and asked for the amount I need.

My other other problem area is restaurant leftovers. I never seem to eat them after we leave the restaurant. Why I ask them to box them up is beyond me, but I do it. In order to prevent this whole predicament, I usually try to get my husband to share something with me. Unfortunately, we often have different tastes or he's "really hungry" and won't want to share. Last time we compromised and I got a small dish (quesadilla appetizer) and he got a big dish that I also wanted (burrito) and we split them.

Reinventing has been my most successful endeavor, I think. It is especially good with leftover meat dishes from restaurants. My leftover steak from Benjy's? I put it in my omelet the next day. My leftovers from the Vietnamese place? Omelet. My leftovers from my fajitas? Stir-fry, though they might've made a nice omelet too, I don't know. I put leftover chicken on salads. Leftover ribs can become pulled pork sandwiches. The list goes on. My biggest problem is just not knowing how to make it different from what I was already eating, but throwing stuff in my omelets seems to work pretty well as a fallback plan for now.

Freezing things has also worked pretty well. I already freeze my pizza dough because it makes enough for two large pizzas, but now I've started freezing it in smaller portions and I make mini-pizzas. I've also been making batches of pancakes and freezing whatever I don't eat. This has been the best thing ever because it makes making breakfast so easy. I just pop a couple in the microwave and BAM! Breakfast is served.

I added banana slices one time but I don't think they froze as well. They were excellent fresh though!

Whole Wheat Pancakes (From Better Homes and Gardens, p. 137)

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

2 tablespoons packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 1/2 cups milk

3 tablespoons cooking oil

1. In a large bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl use a fork to combine egg, milk, and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be slightly lumpy). If desired, stir in desired fruit.

2. For each standard-size pancake, pour about 1/4 cup batter onto a hot, lightly greased griddle or heavy skillet, spreading batter if necessary. For dollar-size pancakes, use about 1 tablespoon batter. Cook over medium heat for 1 to 2 minutes on each side or until pancakes are golden brown, turning to second side when pancakes have bubbly surfaces and edges are slightly dry. Serve warm. If desired, top with syrup.

Meatballs was another very freezable meal. I can add a few to spaghetti, make meatball subs, or just eat them by themselves. What I really like is that I can put all of them in one freezer bag and pull out just what I need.

 Open-Faced Meatball Sandwich

Meatballs (from The Newlywed Cookbook, p. 72)

1 pound lean ground beef

1 small onion, diced (about 1/2 cup)

1/4 cup Italian-style dry bread crumbs

1 egg

2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley (or just regular, dried parsley, or Italian seasoning)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 teaspoons olive oil

1. In a large bowl, combine beef, onion, bread crumbs, egg, parsley, salt, and pepper. Mix well with your hands and form mixture into 16 2-inch meatballs.

2. Heat oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add meatballs and sauté 5-7 minutes, or until browned on sides.

Top with marinara, cheese, etc. Same goes for the leftovers. Just dump whatever you want on them and throw them in the microwave.

Okra and Eggplant

Hello, blogosphere. It's been a while. Here's a quick update on my non-foodie life: I've been working a lot. And I started school again in August. So I've had zero time for blogging. BUT! I have had time for cooking. And eating. Which we will discuss. Today.

So as I mentioned in my previous entry, I decided to experiment with the okra and eggplant that I bought at the farmer's market. I've eaten okra a few times prior to this, but I'd never cooked it on my own. Eggplant, on the other hand, was completely foreign to me. And so, my adventure began.

For my first cooking experience with okra, I decided to stick with something simple, so I pan-fried it. Basically I sliced it, covered it in olive oil, covered it in bread crumbs, and tossed the whole thing in the frying pan for a while.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly "covered" in bread crumbs, but you get the idea.

The final result was pretty good. Not amazing, but definitely edible. After I got tired of that, I still had quite a bit of okra left over, so I had to start getting creative. This is when I learned an incredibly important fact: You can put okra in just about anything. And so I did. Okra got put in salads. Okra got put in fajitas. Okra got put in chili. Okra has also made several appearances in my omelets. 

Okra, Tomato, and Feta Omelet. And also a bagel.

My adopted brother, Ben (who grew up in the South), told me the ONLY way to cook okra is to fry it in butter. I haven't yet tried this method, but it's on my list.

Perhaps the biggest complaint I hear about okra is how slimy it is, but there are ways to get around this. As noted in this blog, oil-based cooking works better than water-based cooking. I've also heard that cooking them whole works better than slicing them, but I haven't tried this technique yet. Overall, I would say my okra experience includes a mild slime, but it's not so bad. Probably my best results come from mixing it with a lot of other stuff, such as the omelets and fajitas. It blends pretty seamlessly, and therefore slime-lessly. Truth be told, I don't even notice it most of the time, and neither does my husband when I sneak it in his food.

 Eggplant has been more of a problem for me.

My first eggplant experiment was awesome. I made this eggplant burger and it was such an excellent meat substitute:

Mmm... cheesy.

Eggplant Burgers (from Simply in Season, p. 143)

2 tablespoons oil

2 teaspoons wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Whisk together in a small bowl. Cut 1 large eggplant into 1/4-inch thick slices to make 12-16 slices. Brush with oil mixture. Place on grill over medium-high heat. Close lid and cook, turning and brushing occasionally with remaining oil mixture, until tender, 5-10 minutes. Remove from grill. (Eggplant slices may be cooked under the broiler or sautéed in a fry pan until tender.

Simply in Season recommends adding cheese, tomatoes, red peppers, fresh basil leaves, etc. I just added the cheese, which was perfect.

After the excellent first attempt, I thought eggplant would be another successful venture. But I was wrong. Oh so wrong.

I tried a few other recipes and I just couldn't get them right. The eggplant always came out wet and chewy. It wasn't bad, but I just didn't like it very much, and it quickly became difficult finding ways to eat it. Here are some that I tried and maybe I'll try them again later and see if I have better luck.

Spicy Roasted Eggplant (from Simply in Season, p. 121)

1/2 cup fresh cilantro sprigs (chopped)

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

pinch of ground cinnamon

Stir together. Cut 1 large eggplant in 1/4-inch slices. Brush cilantro mixture on both sides of eggplant slices and transfer to greased baking pan. Broil eggplant 5-6 inches from heat until golden and cooked through, about 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Results:

Meh.

Broiled Eggplant with Crunchy Parmesan Crust (From Farmer John's Cookbook, p. 177. I used their recipe for making my own mayonnaise, but I did a pretty bad job. I think it's one of those things you have to follow the directions closely, or else. Maybe I'll make/buy better mayo and this will turn out better next time. Also, you can never have too much cheese.)

Oil for greasing the baking sheet

mayonnaise

eggplant, cut into 1/4-inch slices

freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 1/2 cup)

1. Preheat the broiler. Lightly oil a baking sheet.

2. Spread mayonnaise sparingly on both sides of each eggplant slice, then dip the slices in the grated Parmesan cheese, thoroughly coating both sides.

3. Arrange slices in a single layer on the oiled baking sheet and place under broiler until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Flip the slices and broil until golden brown and crunchy on top and the eggplant is soft, about 3 minutes more.

Result:

Served with pan-crusted tilapia, bread, and of course, fried okra

I really think the mayo was to blame for this one. I'm going to retry it later. And maybe make the mayo right this time.

Poached Eggs, Revisited.

The other day I was watching TV and while I was flipping through channels I saw that Julia Child's cooking show was about to come on, so naturally I decided to watch it.

Hilariously enough, it was the episode in which she makes poached eggs, so I attempted to pick up some tips from the master and see if I could make any more sense out of her poached egg nonsense.

Basically, the entire segment was nearly word-for-word out of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She recommended using that dang poaching spoon again. But she also offered a new technique: The vortex.

The idea behind this method is that you create a vortex in your barely simmering pan of water and the spinning motion keeps the egg intact so it doesn't end up being poached scrambled (see my first attempt at poaching an egg).

Huh...I thought. That sounds like fun to try. And so I did. And I attempted to document simultaneously, which probably led to the ultimate demise of this plan. Nonetheless, here are the results.

Notice how the whites are going everywhere while following the path of the vortex.

So once again, Julia Child fails at teaching me how to properly poach an egg. What's even funnier is that all of the eggs she cooked without the poaching spoon thing ended up about as bad as mine. Perhaps the best part of the segment was when she said (in her boisterous and seemingly drunk voice): "Theeeeeese eggs are nottttttttttt very pretty. They would not be gooooooood enough to serve unless yoooooooooooooooooooou have a lot of saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauce on toppppppppppp of them!"

After my failed vortex, I made another egg using my co-worker's method of letting the egg poach itself.

The one on top that looks halfway decent is my co-worker's method. The one underneath with the yolk hanging out is Julia Child's method. You be the judge.

Despite this, I may have to continue trying to catch Julia Child's show. Just so I can have a good laugh.

Rhubarb

I have been having a hell of a time figuring out what to do with rhubarb. The first couple bundles I bought this season I ended up throwing away because they went bad before I figured out what to do with them. But I really wanted to do something with it, so I kept buying it. All of the recipes I came across called for unusual ingredients or complicated preparation and so I just wasn't interested. Finally, I pulled out my Simply in Season cookbook for some inspiration. I found the Roasted Rhubarb recipe (p. 74) and thought, Ahhhh perfect! Below is the recipe in the book:

4 cups rhubarb (chopped)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup orange or lemon juice
2 tablespoons candied ginger or fresh ginger root (minced)
1 teaspoon orange or lemon peel (grated)

Combine in baking pan. Spread evenly and bake in preheated over at 450F until rhubarb is soft but retains its shape, about 25 minutes. Stir, cool slightly, and serve with ice cream or yogurt.

Okay, so this was actually far from perfect because I didn't have any candied ginger or fresh ginger root or fresh orange or lemon peel (remember all those unusual ingredients?!). And I definitely didn't have 4 cups of rhubarb either. But this was doable. So I tweaked it a little and made it work. Here is my modified recipe:

1 1/2ish cups rhubarb (chopped)
honey (enough to lightly coat rhubarb)
big splash of lemon juice
healthy sprinklings of ground ginger and lemon peel

Cook as stated above.

This was definitely a much smaller batch, so I may have over cooked it just a little, but it was still very good paired with some local vanilla yogurt. With the yogurt, it was just enough for two small servings.

So my next visit to the market, I decided to get some more rhubarb and try it again. I was at the Monday market (which is a lot smaller than the Wednesday market) and I saw some rhubarb and asked for a bundle of it. The farmer smiled sheepishly and informed me that I was looking at chard, not rhubarb. Oh, how embarrassing. Nobody had any rhubarb that day. The chard farmer said he almost brought some but decided against it at the last minute. Oh well.

I went to the market again last night and bought some legit rhubarb (and I can plainly see the difference between it and chard now). I also bought some strawberries, so I decided to tweak the recipe even more today. Here is my final version:

2ish cups chopped strawberries and rhubarb (I probably had 1/3 strawberries and 2/3 rhubarb, but a 50/50 ratio would be ideal)
honey (enough to lightly coat)
big splash of lemon juice
healthy sprinklings of ground ginger and lemon peel

Combine in baking pan. Then add the Better Homes and Gardens streusel topping from page 126:

In a small bowl stir together 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 3 tablespoons packed brown sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter until the mixture resembles course crumbs.

Sprinkle on top of strawberry rhubarb mixture (you could probably double the streusel recipe if desired) and bake at 450F for 18 minutes.

Pure Strawberry Rhubarb Heaven

Excellent on its own and probably even better with yogurt or ice cream, but I was out. I ate about half already, so I would say there are two servings without the dairy, three-to-four with it.

I'm pretty sure I have a new favorite summer dessert. Just saying...

Kohlrabi

On one of my recent market visits, one of the farmers was selling kohlrabi for $1, so I figured I'd try it out. I've never had kohlrabi before, let alone made it, so this was going to be a new adventure for me.

I recently acquired a copy of Simply in Season, which is an excellent resource for all those unfamiliar fruits and veggies at the market. I looked up kohlrabi and it said to boil it for 30-35 minutes, then chop it up and serve with the typical vegetable fare (seasoning, butter, cheese, etc). So I did.

Is it just me or is it a little warm in here?

 

I boiled that ugly sucker for a good half hour, flipping it over halfway through so the stuff sticking out could be submerged too. And I think for most of the time I kept the lid on to try and steam it, or something. Then I pulled it out, cut it up into bite-size pieces, and added some melted butter, salt, and pepper.

Tada!

I was a little wary of this stuff. I took a bite of it while it was still raw and it sort of reminded me of raw broccoli (not my favorite). I'd never had it before so I really had no idea what to expect of the final product, so I took my first cooked and seasoned bite and my initial reaction was "This tastes just like corn."

I figured it was just because I season corn the exact same way, but after my husband tried it, he said the same thing. So I think kohlrabi is the hybrid baby of corn and broccoli, and honestly, it's pretty delicious. I haven't been back to the market to pick up some more yet, but it's definitely on my list.

One bulb is just right for two regular-sized servings or one main course-ish sized serving. This is perfect for me because my husband still won't eat very much, if any, so when I get stuck eating a big portion, I'll at least be able to eat all of it. But if he does decide to eat a little bit, then there's enough to share too.

TV Cooking/Home Cooking

A while back I found this really great Michael Pollan essay about cooking shows. It's pretty long, but basically he makes a point about how incredibly odd it is that people are cooking less and less, yet they are watching more and more food and cooking shows. Pollan suggests that this infatuation stems from a conflict between a general fear of cooking (e.g., the unknown) and a general love of food. Cooking shows allow people to become familiar with cooking from a safe distance and zero chance of failure. A great analogy Pollan gave was that cooking shows are like sporting matches: A lot of people watch them, but few actually do it themselves.

I never really understood cooking shows. When I was little, before the Internet was as far-reaching as it is today, I didn't know how people could possibly keep up with the likes of Martha Stewart and Paula Deen. Why would people watch these cooking shows if they can't make the food? Now, with the Internet, they can preview the show and pick out their favorite recipes online, so it makes a little more sense.

But then we get to cooking competition shows. I can't taste the foods they're making, so how do I know if it's any good?! This was the question I always asked with these shows. Other competition shows, like American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and Project Runway have results that I can see and hear, so I know if the winner is actually good or not. And yes, presentation is important (and so I can get down with cake decorating and other art-based food competitions), but bottom line is that it can look horrible and actually be pretty tasty, or it can look beautiful and taste like plastic.

Last summer, a couple of my friends were really into Top Chef, so we got together each week to watch it and have dinner. I didn't really care that much about the show (Most of the good parts were the bits of "drama" between the contestants), but I liked that we'd each take turns cooking dinner and eating together before the show. Since then, our group shifted and merged into another group and now we do Movie Night instead. Each week we watch two movies that are related somehow and make a dinner that fits with the week's theme (i.e., The Hunt for Red October, Red Dawn, and Russian cuisine). It's pretty fun and forces us to get creative sometimes and try making new things, like syrniki.

However, Pollan fears that actual, legitimate cooking may be lost forever. With the far-reaching availability of pre-packaged, processed, and fully-cooked "food," who needs to cook anymore? Further, who even knows how to cook? Does heating up a can of soup or making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich count? It shouldn't, but it does.

Young adults like me learned very little about cooking from their parents. I can work my way around the kitchen, but I can guarantee you that I was offered nowhere near the same expertise from my mother that she had from her mother. My mom gave me a few favorite family recipes and showed me the basics for cooking, but most of what I cook now I learned from the Internet, cookbooks, other cooks, or from having the courage to try something new.

My husband is the same way, though he doesn't have quite as much enthusiasm for trying new things as I do. His father doesn't know how to cook anything more than making a sandwich or heating up leftovers in the microwave. I've often wondered what he ate for the ten years that he lived alone before he met his wife, but I'm too shy to ask. Or I'm afraid to hear the answer. But anyway, as a result of my father-in-law's complete and utter lack of cooking knowledge, my mother-in-law forced my husband and his brother to learn how to cook, though I think his little brother may have gotten off a little easier because I'm not sure I've actually seen him cook real food on his own, but I could be wrong.

So I guess we're two people that give a sliver of hope to future cooks, but I know way too many people that rely heavily on pre-packaged, processed food that requires little more than water and heat. The sad thing is that their kids won't know the difference because no one's mom or dad will actually cook from scratch. Hell, they might even think boxed cake mix is cooking from scratch, rather than just buying a pre-made one from the store. What's even worse is the stigma associated with cooking from scratch. It seems to be fading somewhat, but there was definitely a time in my life where it was kind of uncool to have your parents cook from scratch. When you had a birthday, you wanted Pizza Hut and store-bought cake for your party, not a homemade three-course meal with Grandma's red velvet cake. You wanted to go to McDonald's for dinner, not Mom's goulash. Homemade food seemed so...simple. If you could afford the luxury of already prepared food, why should you bother cooking? You could have your food now, instead of having to go to the trouble of making it over the next hour.

Pollan's advice is simple: Cook more. Eat whatever you want, as long as you cook it yourself. When you do, it's fresher, healthier, and hopefully tastier (though who knows what your cooking capabilities are). It's also cheaper and, if you shop wisely, better for your local economy and the environment. So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm not perfect, but I'm getting better.

Yeast, Hot Cross Buns, Homemade Pizza

I finally got the ingredients together to make my great grandmother's hot cross buns. I had never made anything that used yeast before or anything that needed to rise before I made it, so I was pretty intimidated by this less-than-helpful recipe. Nonetheless, I am never one to let fear stand in the way of my cooking adventures, so I bought a couple yeast packets and went to work.

Lucky for me, my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook also has a recipe for hot cross buns (p. 157), so I pretty much followed the entire second half of that recipe as a guide for the missing half of my great grandmother's. Interestingly, the Better Homes and Gardens recipe started with "These slightly sweet rolls often are served during the Easter season," which made me realize that they are actually hot CROSS (as in Jesus) buns. More information about traditional hot cross buns can be found here.

Anyway, here is my modified recipe all in one piece:

1 c. scalded milk
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. butter
1/3 tsp. salt

Combine above and cool to lukewarm. Mix 1 tsp. sugar with 1 yeast cake, dissolve in 2 Tbsp. warm water. Add to above mixture, then add:

1 beaten egg
1/2 c. raisins
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. allspice
3 1/2 to 4 c. flour

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately soft dough (3 to 5 minutes total). Shape into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface of dough. Cover; let rise in a warm place until double in size (about 2 hours).

Punch dough down. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Meanwhile, lightly grease two baking sheets; set aside. Divide dough into 20 pieces. Gently pull each piece into a ball, tucking edges under to make smooth tops. Place balls 1 1/2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Cover; let rise until nearly double in size (about 1 hour).

Preheat oven to 375°F. Using a sharp knife, make crisscross slashes across the top of each dough ball. Brush egg whites over rolls. Bake about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove buns from baking sheets. Cool slightly on wire racks.

Tada!

Not gonna lie, this is pretty much what you would get if you made cinnamon raisin bread into buns, but they are delicious (particularly when they're fresh from the oven). Also, yeast is not that bad to work with (other than the smell...). I took the remainder of my batch to work the next morning where they were quickly gobbled up.

But before that, I decided to use my remaining yeast packet to try out Better Homes and Gardens' homemade pizza recipe (p. 150):

2 1/2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour

1 packet active dry yeast

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 cup warm water (120°F to 130°F)

2 tablespoons olive oil

In a large mixing bowl combine 1 1/4 cups of the flour, the yeast, and salt; add warm water and oil. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping bowl. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes total). Divide dough in half. Cover; let rest for 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425°F. Grease two 12-inch pizza pans or large baking sheets. If desired, sprinkle with cornmeal. On a lightly floured surface, roll each dough half into a 13-inch circle. Transfer dough circles to prepared pans. Build up edges slightly; prick dough with a fork. Do not let rise. Bake about 10 minutes or until light brown. Spread pizza sauce onto hot crusts and top with desired meat (pepperoni), vegetables (skip), and cheese (smoked mozzarella). Bake about 10 minutes more or until bubbly. Cut each pizza into eight wedges. Makes 8 servings (2 wedges). 

NOTE: You can take half the dough and freeze it to use later and just make one pizza.

Now, this recipe was ridiculously easy and I didn't get a picture because I gobbled up that pizza so fast there was none left to photograph. This happened both times I made it. It was that delicious.

Also on the subject of breads, the co-op was having a sale on extra-ripe bananas, so I decided to remake my banana bread. This time, I baked it at 325°F for about 80 minutes and it came out perfectly. So, now we know.

Also, after much thought, I've decided to retire my goal of cooking one thing out of my grandmother's cookbooks each week. The main reason being that upon further inspection, they were not the best cookbook choices for this experiment. The PTA cookbook and my grandmother's handwritten cookbook were almost nothing but desserts, the omelets and crepes book was just omelets and crepes (and all of them had too many weird ingredients), the Pomeranian cookbook was hardly Pomeranian at all, and my Julia Child manual was more a lesson in how to cook than what to cook (and, quite honestly, I seem to do better developing my own style of how to cook than listening to Julia, or anyone else for that matter). Also, I'll be moving for school in the next couple months, so I'll probably have to give the cookbooks back to Grandpa before long anyway.

I think, in the stead of this goal, I'll make a new goal to make one new recipe each week, regardless of its origin. The point of the previous goal was to make healthier food, and I can better make that point if I have more sources available to me.

Oatmeal Crispies

For this week's recipe from my grandmother's cookbooks, I finally pulled a recipe from the PTA cookbook. I chose Mrs. John Palmer's recipe for Oatmeal Crispies because I had all the ingredients and it looked simple enough. The instructions were not fail-proof, but I was feeling adventurous. Here is the recipe (I halved it because I always make way too many cookies!):

1 cup fat (I used butter)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
3 cups quick cooking oatmeal
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla

Make into roll and chill or form into balls and press out with a fork. This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies, and they are good.

Not gonna lie, when I first read the recipe, I said to myself: Oh cool. I don't even have to bake them.

But then I thought about it some more, because there's raw egg, baking powder and baking soda in the recipe. Wait a minute, I thought, why would you put baking powder and baking soda in something you weren't going to bake? And why does she call them cookies later? Cookies are baked.

So after a short debate with myself, I decided these were, in fact, meant to be baked cookies. Then I gave my best annoyed face to the more-than-likely-late-Mrs.-John-Palmer for not giving me some kind of baking instructions. Any kind of baking instructions. Seriously, who bakes cookies by chilling them?!

After looking at a few more cookie recipes, I decided to just wing it. I put them in the oven for 9-10 minutes at 350 degrees, and they came out perfectly. Win. And they were good. Double win.

I do want to try to make my great grandmother's hot cross buns recipe, but I need to buy raisins, yeast, and allspice beforehand. Maybe next week I'll be feeling that ambitious.

I started Food Politics this week, but it's been slow-going and I'm not even out of the introduction yet. I think I'm going to like it though, once I get enough time to sit down and enjoy it for an hour or two.

Poached Eggs and Hollandaise

For this week's recipe from one of my grandmother's cookbooks, I chose to make poached eggs and hollandaise sauce from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I made deviled eggs last night, which my husband and I nearly instantaneously devoured, so I was kind of on an egg kick already.

I loved the scene in the film Julie & Julia where Julie attempts to make poached eggs, and I thought there was no way it could be that hard. My cooks at work do it all the time and it never turns out like that soupy mess she made. But I hadn't yet done it myself, so I figured now was the time to learn.

I felt like the poached egg thing was kind of cheating because I already knew the basics on how to poach an egg (just break the egg over boiling water and wait til it's done cooking), and so it wasn't much of a recipe. So, I opted to do two "recipes" this week and finally learn how to make hollandaise sauce as well, because, let's face it, I wanted to learn how to take angels and unicorns and make them into the most delicious elixir known to man.

Surprisingly, Julia's recipe did not call for angels, unicorns, or any other mythical creatures. I chose the blender recipe (p. 81-2), which is actually incredibly simple and still tremendously yummy. Julia claims an 8-year-old child could make it, and I'm fairly certain that's still true. Here is the recipe, it makes about 3/4 cup:

3 egg yolks
2 T. lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
Pinch of pepper
1 stick butter

Place the egg yolks, lemon juice, and seasonings in the blender jar (or the Magic Bullet).
Cut the butter into pieces and heat it to foaming hot in a small saucepan (or microwave).
Cover the jar and blend the egg yolk mixture at top speed for 2 seconds. Uncover, and still blending (or not, in my case), immediately start pouring on the hot butter in a thin stream of droplets. (You may need to protect yourself with a towel during this operation.) By the time two thirds of the butter has gone in, the sauce will be a thick cream. Omit the milky residue at the bottom of the butter pan. Taste the sauce, and blend in more seasonings if necessary.
(*) If not used immediately, set the jar in tepid, but not warm, water.

Done. 3/4 cup of Heaven ready to go. This recipe is much more lemony than the one we use at work, but it's quite amazing and I have zero complaints. However, since it's on the lemony side, I would not be opposed to halving the amount of lemon and focusing on the delicious buttery goodness.

Next I began to make my poached eggs. Here is Julia's recipe:

Pour 2 inches of water into the pan or skillet and add 1 tablespoon of vinegar per quart of water. Bring to the simmer.
Break one of the eggs, and, holding it as closely over the water as possible, let it fall in. Immediately and gently push the white over the yolk with a wooden spoon for 2 to 3 seconds. Maintain the water at the barest simmer and proceed with the other eggs in the same manner. After 4 minutes, remove the first egg with the skimmer and test with your finger. The white should be set, the yolk still soft to the touch. Place the egg in the cold water; this washes off the vinegar and stops the cooking. Remove the rest of the eggs as they are done, and poach others in the same water if you are dong more.
(*) The eggs may remain for several hours in cold water, or may be drained and refrigerated.

Alright, I said, this seems simple enough. I broke my first egg and, mere centimeters from the water, I dropped it in. I went for the wooden spoon, but it was already too late. The whites had gone everywhere. I tried to keep them together, but it just would not happen. Here is the final result.

I'd like to call this style of egg "Poached Scrambled"

So, that was an utter failure. For the second egg, I ditched the wooden spoon and went for the larger silicon spoon thinking, the only reason Julia didn't use a silicon spoon was because she didn't have one. I decided this time to put the spoon in the water so that it would be immediately ready to rein in the wily whites. I tried to get even closer to the water when I dropped in the second egg, and once again the whites went everywhere. I did manage to keep the egg intact, though, as you can see below.

This one actually looks like it could've been served at the restaurant, but certainly not one of our best.

So Egg #2 was a solid improvement, but I wanted more. This time, I thought, what if I crack the egg into the spoon and then put the spoon and egg in the water simultaneously? Brilliant, I thought. So I set the spoon down on the stove top, cracked open the egg over the spoon and then...

Yeah... that's Egg #3 down there.

The egg managed to slide right off the spoon, through the heat coils and down through the dip pan into limbo. I momentarily panicked not knowing how to get the egg out of there. Will it fall into the oven? Will it just burn up when I use those coils next? What if my stove smells like eggs forever?! Luckily, the drip pan actually comes right off and I could stick my hand and a paper towel down into limbo to snatch it up.

Not to be deterred by this obviously bad idea, I tried it again. This time, however, I realized that there's more in the egg than can fit in the spoon, but I managed to keep it mostly together until it got to the water, where it once again went everywhere.

Egg #4

The end result was better than the poached scrambled monstrosity known as Egg #1, but not nearly as good as Egg #2, in which the yolk was still soft, but I figured I at least had enough egg to make a sort of Eggs Benedict with my creations.

I toasted and buttered a large piece of sourdough bread and topped it with Egg #2 and Egg #4 and then smothered the whole thing in my hollandaise (which I reheated immediately prior). It was phenomenal.

Tada!

I garnished with a little paprika, but forgot to take a picture afterward (actually, I was just really hungry). But as I said, great breakfast and once I master egg poaching, it should be relatively easy to repeat.