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.

The cost of a meal

I recently read this article about the cost of cooking versus the cost of fast food. The current idea is that cooking costs less than fast food, but in actuality those numbers only take into account the price of labor when it is outsourced (e.g., fast food). When you factor in the potential labor costs for cooking at home, the price more than triples and makes the convenience of fast food seem worth the extra couple bucks.

I have mixed feelings about the idea of introducing the labor costs to home-cooked meals. First off, unless you are a chef, you don't get paid to cook. Secondly, unless you'd otherwise be working every waking minute, you won't be out a portion of your paycheck either. On the other hand, many people do find cooking to be a lot of effort and not a lot of fun, so it may sort of seem like working without getting paid, so it is something to consider.

To that end, the author proposes we place a greater emphasis on the joys of cooking, and I couldn't agree more. I love being able to provide a gift so intimate as nourishment to my friends and family and being able to share that sense of community with them. I also like having total control over the things I put in my body, and I sleep easily knowing so much more about what I ate and where it came from. I like trying new things and seeing if I can make my food even better through little tweaks here and there, and I absolutely love the sense of accomplishment I feel when I've pulled off a truly successful meal. Not enough people know these joys, and it's such a shame.

The problem is, as Michael Pollan also pointed out, nobody really knows how to cook anymore. Who is going to teach us the joys of cooking if no one can cook? Sure, some people know how to cook, but upper-middle-class white people have a bit of an edge over inner-city African-Americans, in that they don't live in food deserts and can afford to take a class or two if they're so inclined.

The author suggested that the public school system take on the task, to which I scoff and say, "Good luck with that!" With the egregious budget cuts the entire education system is taking, there's no way anyone's gonna convince schools to re-instate home economics classes. I was lucky enough to take two sessions of home economics while in middle school and I can tell you right now I learned little to nothing about cooking and barely any more about sewing. This from a predominantly white mid-size town with excellent facilities (5-6 full kitchen work stations and about 30 sewing machines).

While I think utilizing the school system has the potential to be highly effective if done right (with a focus on money management and food preparation), I don't think this is feasible unless we find a magic money tree somewhere. Instead, we need to focus on what we can do and what we can teach. Everyone knows how to cook something, even if it's just a grilled cheese sandwich. Start there. Teach your kids how to make the best grilled cheese sandwich there ever was. Then send them to their aunt or their neighbor or their church to learn something new. Provide opportunities to learn whenever possible and try to learn with them. Help them to associate cooking with their sense of community and to take pride in their endeavors.

On the other side of this, we need to make infrastructure changes to eliminate food deserts and make healthy foods an affordable alternative through subsidies and education.

But a lot of these ideas are long-term goals. What can we do right now to make dining in more affordable? My answer: Cook in bulk. Last Tuesday I made about 12 servings of lasagna and 7 servings of pancakes and put most of them in the freezer. Sure, it was a lot of work on Tuesday, but over a week later I have severely cut down my cooking time and I have something I can grab'n'go when I'm rushing between work and school. If your freezer is big enough, cook a few different things all at once so you have options instead of eating lasagna every day (not that I'm complaining!). Cooking 12 servings of lasagna instead of 2 servings probably took an extra 10 minutes and I got an extra 10 meals out of the work. Same goes for the pancakes: A double batch will take 10 extra minutes but will double your servings at the end. Furthermore, it will save money in addition to time because you can buy food in bulk instead of buying single-serving containers.

Tada! Look at me try and solve the world's problems like I think they're easy. Or at least hand out a couple crutches to get by on.

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.