Wo0o0o0o0o0oT!!!!!!111one1

I thought it would never get here, but it's official :) 10 days off from work, woohoo! I worked my last second shift tonight. Before I went in to work, I made these Chocolate Thumbprint cookies to give to the people at work who have helped me so much. They were a really big hit, and I wish I'd made more because it wasn't nearly enough to give to everyone I wanted to. I only got to eat one of them. ;) My husband and I went to eat at our new Friday evening ritual, eating at a Chinese restaurant over by where I work. The waitress has our order memorized, and it's not busy even at 8:00 pm on a Friday night. Tonight was a bit annoying because they had a large party in the room in the back, and there were some really annoying loud teenage girls. But it didn't stop us from enjoying our food.

We will be very busy tomorrow, getting things ready for the family coming in. Our friends are going to stop by to take a look at the house, now that we have furniture in it. We have to get groceries, and finish fixing up the place.

Oh, and.......W0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0T!!!!!!!

Food Coma

Our second shift had a potluck luncheon tonight, and since I'm the firsunsecon supervisor I came back for it. In case you aren't familiar with that, that's a first shift supervisor who has to stay late and help take care of second shift issues until our new supervisor comes onboard. One of our guys is from Utah and had never had Southern food before. So we decided it would be a bring your favorite Southern dish potluck. I made a pot of black-eyed peas, some fried potatoes and a pan of cornbread. It turned out pretty good, and I thought I was doing good to stay awake for the drive home. But since my mind is always on either eating food, planning on what I'm going to eat for the next meal, plotting out what I'm going to cook the next day, and making menu plans for weeks in advance I decided to get a headstart on tomorrow.

I've seen some Ethopian recipes that intrigued me, but for most of them you need two particular ingredients: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbere and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niter_kibbeh. So tonight when I got home and my latest order from http://www.penzeys.com/ was here, I got on the ball to make some. Berbere is the spice mix, and you are supposed to toast the spices after you mix them. Let me tell you, that's a good way to clear out your sinuses. I didn't even make it as hot as they call for in the recipe I used. The niter kibbeh is heating on the stove right now. Tomorrow I'm going to be making my first Ethopian dish, a recipe called Yetakelt Wat which is a cabbage stew. I'm hoping that it turns out okay, because I bought black cardamom seeds instead of the green pods. Somehow it reminds me of smoke and cough syrup. :)

Homestretch

There is exactly one working week until the long holiday break, and I can't wait. I can barely fathom 11 days off without working. The closest I have come to that is 10 days between when we left NC and moved here. But that was hardly a vacation. Of course we'll be busy this time too, with the In-Laws coming with the 4 and 5 year old nephews. But I won't be having to worry about work :)

To finish the banana marathon, I made the Banana Pineapple Snack Cake I posted earlier. I froze the rest of the bananas because I'm not really in the mood for more banana goodness. I think people at work are starting to hide when they see me carrying in a plastic container now :)

Tonight I created a new recipe, surprise, it is for a soup :) It came out pretty good. A bit of a change up from the bean and lentil creations I've been making lately, which is a relief to the spouse.

Cream of Cauliflower Soup
1 medium head of cauliflower, broken into florets
1/4 c. butter or margarine
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 Tbs. flour
1 tsp. ground mustard
1/2 tsp. smoked Spanish paprika
1 tsp. dried thyme
2 c. stock
2 c. milk, soy or dairy
Salt and Pepper to taste
2 Tbs. nutritional yeast (or use 1/2 c. or so of shredded cheddar)
Heat stock in a soup pot and bring to a boil. Add the cauliflower and then cook until tender. Remove cauliflower from the pot and mash. Retain 2 c. of the cooking liquid and set aside. Melt the butter or margarine in the soup pot. Add the onion and celery and saute until onions begin to brown. Stir in the flour and spices and toss to coat the vegetables evenly. Add the stock and milk and whisk to combine. Add the cauliflower and nutritional yeast or cheese and stir well to combine. Reduce heat to low and continue to cook until soup thickens to desired consistency.

The Banana Marathon

My friend's wife picked up a case of bananas or two when she went shopping today. Normally I like bananas okay, but I usually don't get them used up before they get too mushy for me to want to use them. So when I became the custodian of three bunches of them today I wasn't sure what I would be able to use them for and if I could stomach that much banana-flavored goodness. You see, I already have four containers of frozen banana mush that I was waiting to use for baking, and I don't have any more containers for it. The problem is that not only am I going to be eating all of my banana baked goods, she's going to be trying to pawn off hers on me too. Which is what I plan to do to her. I don't know if I'll be able to look at a banana after this. I wasn't sure if I was up for the challenge, but I've started the marathon.

My first entry is a recipe for Monkey Bars. It's a recipe that I veganized out of Cooking Light, my favorite magazine ever. I substituted the rice milk for buttermilk, and 1/2 cup of extra banana for the egg whites that the recipe calls for. Because of the extra banana, it's more flavorful, but a little sweeter than the original recipe. If you don't like sweet that well, then cut down the brown sugar a bit to compensate for the extra banana.

Monkey Bars
1/2 c. raisins
1 1/2 Tbs. apple juice
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. packed brown sugar
1/4 c. margarine or butter, softened
1 c. mashed ripe banana
3 Tbs. rice milk, or buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine the raisins and apple juice in a microwave bowl. Microwave at high for 1 minute, and set aside. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl, stirring well. Set aside. Combine brown sugar and margarine in a large bowl, and beat until well blended. Add banana, milk and vanilla, mixing well. Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in raisin mixture. Spread the batter into an 8-inch square baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until golden. Cool the bars completely on a wire rack.

P.S. I'm willing to start a betting pool on how long it's going to take the people at work to start hiding from me when I bring in a container of baked goods. :)

New Baby

We were out grocery shopping today when I saw this over in the florist section. I'm a sucker for orchids at any time, but since winter seems to have finally set in spring gardening season seems to be a long way off. It's been a pretty quiet day otherwise, I tried out a new recipe for a plum upside-down cake that turned out quite tasty but not very photogenic. It stuck when I was trying to take it out and the top got a little botched. ;)

We found out today that my in-laws and our nephews are coming to visit for Christmas, so we are going to be decorating and doing stuff for Christmas after all. We haven't had a tree or ornaments before, so I'm going to try to come up with some crafty things the kids can put together to decorate the tree with. And since we will have people to cook for it should be fun. :)

Holiday Party

Tonight is the company holiday party, which I'm not crazy about going to. But since I'm a supervisor it's one of those things that you have to do. I'd prefer to stay home and do other stuff, but oh well. We went out this morning to do a bit of shopping, and when I got home I felt like baking something. I saw a post earlier on the PPK forum for some Brown Sugar Shortbread and thought I'd try it out. I've had a shortbread pan for a long time and never really used it. So here's the outcome. :)

Recipe is found here:

http://www.postpunkkitchen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=15863

Scroll down to the sixth post :)

Vacation

It's the third day in the four day weekend and I've started getting restless. :) We stayed home again, both of us had the blahs and didn't feel like doing anything. I made a pot of lentil chili and am slowly working my way through the stack of recipes that I have to try out. The original recipe didn't taste all that flavorful so I had to doctor it up a bit. Here's the recipe:

Lentil Chili

1 Tbs. canola oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 Tbs. chili powder
1 Tbs. paprika (I used half smoked Spanish paprika and half sharp paprika)
½ tsp. dried thyme
2 c. dried lentils
4 c. stock
1 14.5 ounce can petite diced tomatoes
½ c. ketchup or tomato paste
3 small potatoes, chopped

Heat the oil in the bottom of a saucepan. Add onions, garlic and spices and sauté until onions begin to soften. Add lentils and toss to coat. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until lentils and potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving today. We went to our friend's house and had dinner with him and his family. I made some stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and some gingersnap cookies. The stuffing that I made was a bit different than the same old same old, and I really liked it. I made the recipe from combining elements of several different ones and this is what I came up with:

Black Eyed Pea, Fennel and "Sausage" Cornbread Stuffing
2 Tbs. Canola oil
2 regular or vegetarian sausage patties
1 small onion, chopped
1 c. fennel bulb, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp. dried sage
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. smoked Spanish paprika
Salt and Pepper to taste
3 c. cornbread, crumbled
1 c. black-eyed peas, cooked (or 1 14.5 oz can, drained and rinsed)
2/3 c. broth
1 egg or egg substitute (I used 1 Tbs. ground flax seed whisked with 3 tbs. water)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat the canola oil in an iron skillet over medium heat. Fry the sausage patties until browned and then remove from the skillet. Let cool, and then crumble. Set aside. Add the onion, fennel, carrot, clove and spices in the skillet and saute until vegetables are softened. In a large bowl, add cornbread, vegetable mixture, black eyed peas, broth and egg and toss to combine. Return to the skillet and bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until browned.


The cornbread that I made was the maple cornbread from the Vegan Lunchbox site. It gives the stuffing a really deep rich flavor:

2/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup canola oil
1 cup plain soymilk

Stir above together. In another bowl whisk together:

1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 TB baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Mix wet and dry together and pour into a greased 9x9 square pan. Bake for 35 minutes at 350 (or in miniloaf or muffin pans for about 25 minutes), until tester comes out clean.

Lunch Lady Scoops

I've been in a baking mood again, and I baked the Pumpkin Muffins from the November Cooking Light tonight. I am still trying to figure out if I put an extra 1/2 cup flour in it, I lost count while I was making them. The batter/dough turned out stiffer than muffins normally are, so I used the first part to make mini-muffins and the second part to make in cookie form. I used coarse sugar on the top of the cookies and flattened them a bit. I have to say that the cookies won hands down over the muffins. I have to say that my favorite kitchen tool at the moment are lunch lady scoops. It makes cookies and muffins so much easier to put in pans.

We went shopping this afternoon and ordered my new reading chair and a bookcase. We weren't able to find any that stores had in stock around here that we liked, so we had a place order us some. Unfortunately it won't be in until January because the factory closes down for the last two weeks of December. But I'd rather wait for what I want to get delivered than to settle for something less because I can get it now.

The weather has been beautiful for the last few days, warm and sunny with just a bit of chill in the air. The nights have been clear and cold. It's perfect sweater wearing weather so I have brought all of mine out of the storage bin. I'm starting to make out plans for what to make for Thanksgiving, paging through all of my cookbooks. We are going to dinner at my friend's house, and I'm going to be bringing sides. Definately mashed potatoes and gravy (his wife likes to make instant), maybe some stuffing and some other veggie sides. A pie of some sort is definately going to be in order, I just haven't decided what kind.

Pearly Whites

I've had to have some pretty major dental work in the last month or so, for some reason about a month after we got here I started getting really bad toothaches. I ended up having to have a root canal and had stress fractures in my teeth so I had to have a crown put on one of them. Since the root canal was on a visible tooth, the dentist suggested to me that I might want to consider bleaching my teeth before they put in the permanent crown, so that they can match it to the new color. I haven't ever been a really vain person, not high maintenance by any stretch of the imagination. But I have been noticing over the last couple of years that I'm starting to see the consequences of that lack of attention, and one of the things was that my teeth were looking pretty dull. Not yellow or green or anything bad like that, just not very bright. So I decided to give it a whirl :)

Today was the big day, and I went in to have the procedure done. I have to say, it's one of the oddest things that I have ever been through. Two hours in the dentist chair with a heat lamp stuck in front of my face wasn't the preferred way to spend the day, but I can't argue with the results. My smile is much brighter, and that's only after the initial office treatment. I still have at home treatments to do to even out the whitening. I'm definately glad that I got it done, but maintaining it will be key. I don't want to have to fork out that kind of money again :)

Lazies

I seem to have a serious case of the lazies lately. Work has slowed down a bit and I'm not having to work as much overtime. It was getting pretty bad for a while and I was about burnt out. Now that it's slow though, I've been getting bored and don't feel like working. Go figure. ;)

I've been trying to have healthier lunches to take with me, so I don't end up hitting the junk machines and such. Today I had Tofu Dill Salad Sammiches which turned out pretty decent. For tomorrow I made some lentil soup tonight - Lentil Soup with a Hint of Fruit. It sounded a bit odd, but it turned out pretty good. The soup was sweet, savory and tart. Definately a change from the usual standby.

http://www.molliekatzen.com/recipes/recipe.php?recipe=lentil_soup

The Perfect Autumn Cookie

Tonight felt like a cookie baking night, and I've been wanting to try these for a bit. They are Pumpkin-Cranberry oatmeal cookies. They turned out really good. I like my new oven because it is very hard to burn things in it. Plus with my new cookie sheets and cookie scoop it makes baking them a snap. I was planning on bringing some in to work with me tomorrow, but the question is...will there be any left? :)

The Bean-Hater

I think that almost anyone should be able to see a trend with my cooking, and it is that I love cooking things with beans. When I was a young girl growing up in Arkansas, we ate beans at almost every meal. There wasn't enough money to go around, and beans are very filling. But not only that, they taste delicious and I could eat them every day. Unfortunately I married someone who does not like...nay, hates beans. To his credit, he likes lentils and black eyed peas but that's about it. So normally I make black eyed pea or lentil soups and stews. But every now and then I have to make something with beans.

One of my favorite things to eat when I was growing up was a stew that my maternal grandmother used to make, one that she called San Francisco Stew. It was similar to baked beans in a way, only it was a stew. I was thinking that she put sauerkraut in it, but my mom doesn't remember that and thinks that I added it myself when I was eating. Regardless, I have been wanting the recipe for a long time but she died a few years back and our family is estranged so no recipe for me. I have a vague recollection of it but it's been at least 16 years since I last had any. So below is my first attempt at recreating her stew. It is a sweet and sour soup, very filling and would be great with cornbread. :)

Wincel's San Francisco Stew

1 (14.5 oz) can Great Northern Beans
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
2 Tbs. butter or margarine
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 c. molasses
2 Tbs. smoked Spanish paprika
2 tsp. ground mustard (not prepared)
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1 c. stock
1 c. sauerkraut

Heat oil in a medium saucepan, and add onions. Saute onions until they become translucent. Add remaining ingredients. Stir to combine, and then simmer for about 15 minutes or until it begins to thicken.

Dal Makhani

It's gotten cold outside, and one of the recipes I've been wanting to try to make for a long time now is Dal Makhani, or Madras Lentils. I'd gotten a pre-packaged version from the supermarket a while ago and liked it but didn't like the butter related saturated fat and cholesterol. So I had been meaning to find a recipe and try to make my own. I searched the internet and found several promising ones, and combined elements of each to make my own. Here's the version that I came up with. If you haven't had it before, it's kind of like a lentil chili. Very flavorful but not hot.

Dal Makhani

1 c. lentils
4 c. stock
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled
2 garlic cloves
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 green chilies, finely chopped
¼ c. butter or margarine (I used Earth Balance margarine)
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. chili powder
½ tsp. smoked Spanish paprika (optional,not authentic but adds a little depth with the smokiness)
1 (14.5 oz) can petite diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (14.5 oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Salt to taste
Juice from 1 lemon
1 Tbs. brown sugar (again option, not authentic but cuts some of the acidity from the lemon and tomato)

Combine lentils, ginger and garlic with stock in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer, cover. While the lentils are cooking, prepare the onions and chilies. Heat butter or margarine in a soup pot over medium heat. Add onions, chilies and spices to oil and sauté 5 minutes. Add kidney beans and tomatoes, stir to combine. When lentils are tender, remove ginger and garlic from pot, and add lentils to the soup pot. Make a paste from the garlic and ginger and return to the soup pot. Stir well to combine, reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Add lemon juice and brown sugar, stir well to combine.

Pasties

I was recently reminded of pasties by one of my friends, who is from Montana and hasn't had them in a long time. Not the pasties that you wear, but the ones that you eat. :) They are a meat-filled pie, that was passed down from Cornish miners, and are very prevalent in most areas with mining history. The miners would take a pasty with them, and heat them up on shovels using a candle for heat. The area that I lived in Minnesota was on the Iron Range and mining is a big industry there. I only had pasties a few times while I was there and helped to make them once. So I didn't have a very strong foundation to go from. But the internet is a wonderful thing, and I found this web resource that had a bunch of recipes:
http://www.wideopenwest.com/~awesley5155/pastie.html

I combined elements from several of them, and used a picture from http://www.pasty.com/ to see how the pastry should be folded. Pie crusts have never been my strong suit, but Madelyne Lawry's recipe on the first link had a very good pie crust. It even survived my fumbling around with it, and for the most part turned out really good. This is in spite of the fact that I realized that I left my rolling pin up in North Carolina, so I had to use the bamboo utensil holder in the kitchen to roll out the dough. Just goes to show that you don't need to have a lot of high priced equipment to make good food. :) Needless to say I stopped by Linens N' Things and picked up a new wooden french rolling pin for future pasty needs. :)

A Time for Reading

Every year I re-read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Almost every year anyway, I did get oversaturated while the movies were out and all of the propaganda was flying. But usually in the fall time of the year I get the urge to read them again. This year I plan on reading them all and then watching the movies when I am finished. It'll give me something to do in my free time anyway. I've been so tired on the weekends that I haven't been leaving the house except to get groceries.

I did get some cooking in this weekend though, made the above pictured Caribbean stew with maple cornbread. The stew turned out pretty good, very flavorful and smelled wonderful. I made some rice crispie treats using almond butter and brown rice syrup, they turned out really nice and nutty flavored. The best though was the pancakes that I made for breakfast yesterday morning, they were light, fluffy and had a wonderful taste to them. I got halfway through eating two of them and couldn't finish. Definately know which ones I'm making from now on. :)

Heaven on Earth

This is the first weekend since we've moved here that I actually had energy and wanted to do something. We have some plants to put out before it gets too cold, so we were wanting to check out one of the local nurseries that we've driven by a couple of times. I have been to some nice nurseries in NC, but NOTHING compared to this one. The name of the place is Bennett's Nurseries, and it is located right next door to a water gardening store called Across the Pond. Bennett's is a huge nursery, and the areas in between the greenhouses are almost like a botanical garden. They serve free drinks to their customers, and have live music on Saturdays. ;) Across the Pond was almost as good. They have a koi breeding facility and a huge variety of fish. They have everything that you would need to start a pond, pallets of stone that you can buy, and a very large section with bird feeders and garden statuary. I didn't want to go home, but we had plans for the evening!

I was having a chili cook-off with my friend last night, and we were going to have a bonfire. So I went home to start cooking. The recipe that I made was Tigua Indian Green Chili from James Villas' Stews, Bogs and Burgoos cookbook. It's a really hot and spicy chili that makes your nose run. It turned out pretty good, I was happy with it. We ate chili and then went outside to burn stuff. :) The evening was beautiful. It was really chilly out and it was clear so you could see all of the stars in the sky. We were there until late last night, so I'm still a big groggy this morning.

Today I think we are going to hang around the homestead til later, I brought some work home with me so that I wouldn't be so far behind on Monday, so hopefully I can make some progress. We'll see anyway. :)

Honey Bunny

I've been trying to figure out some healthier snacks to have around the house and to take to work. So I found a recipe that sounded interesting on one of my favorite food forums, and it was for Honeybee No-Bakes. Basically almond butter balls shaped like bees. I almost had a heart attack at the price of a jar of almond butter so I used peanut butter instead. I'd really like to try it with almond butter, but $13 for about 1 cup is a bit steep for me right now. I guess if I factored in how much I spent on other junk food though it could probably be justified. ;)

So here is a link to the original recipe. My bees ended up looking more like rabbits, so I have officially changed their title to Honey Bunnies. They tasted pretty good, they were a bit sticky so I have them in the refrigerator. They could use some more oat bran or something.

Recipe: http://shmooedfood.blogspot.com/2006/04/honeybee-no-bakes.html

I'm thinking that mine turned out a bit sticky because her recipe called for a honey substitute, and while they might taste similar they probably don't have honey's ability to stuck moisture out of the air and into the food. So maybe adding a bit more oat bran would do the trick. Not sure, but I was pretty happy with them. :)

Oh-Em-Gee

I've been wanting to start a new fantasy series for a while, but hadn't found one that caught my attention. We were at the book store on Friday evening and my eye was caught by a book with a very lovely cover, and the description looked very interesting. The name of the book was "The Iron Tree" by Cecilia Dart-Thornton. OMG. I ran a bath in the whirlpool tub tonight and settled in to a good read. I finished page one and was baffled...hubby came in and I started reading him some of the paragraphs and couldn't stop laughing. It has to be the most pretentiously written book that I have ever read. It's like she wrote the whole thing using a thesaurus or something, using words that just don't fit the story/setting at all. Things that might seem okay in a sci/fi book where a geeky scientist was talking possibly, but not a fantasy book with a young protagonist. Finally after reading the second page I threw the book down and vowed to take it back to the store tomorrow. I don't know that I have ever not made it past the first two pages before giving up, it's a new record. :)

First Meal in the New House

Tonight I cooked my first meal in our new house. Since I've been working late most nights since we moved in we've either eaten out or my husband has cooked. Tonight was the first time I've actually had enough time and energy to make anything. So since I've been craving it, and looking for an excuse to make my favorite gravy I made a veggie loaf and some mashed taters and gravy. It turned out pretty good except that it's hard to make the loaf with the correct consistency. As it is written it tastes really good, but is a bit mushy. I tried to make it a bit firmer by reducing the potatoes and adding more oats but that didn't win rave reviews from the home team. Maybe if the oats used were those that are cut finer it would have worked. Anyway, here are the recipes:

The meatloaf can be found at http://www.recipezaar.com/148722.

I've been experimenting with healthier mashed potatoes, and tonight I boiled the potatoes in vegetable stock, drizzled them with some olive oil and whipped it with some soy milk. I missed the tang that I have been getting by using buttermilk, so next time I make them I'll probably mix a tablespoon or so of lemon juice with the soy milk first.

The best part of course is the gravy. I adapted a recipe that I found in cooking light, which was for a Thanksgiving turkey with a molasses/sherry glaze and the gravy was made vegetables cooked under the turkey and the drippings. Since I don't really want to make the turkey I needed to figure out how to make it without. The result is a very healthy low-fat gravy that tastes nothing like a low-fat gravy. The way that I make it is actually vegan, but you'd never know it. Here is the recipe:

Harvest Vegetable Gravy

2 Tbs. canola oil
1 carrot, chopped in small pieces
1 celery stalk, chopped in small pieces
1/2 c. onion, finely chopped
2 Tbs. molasses
2 Tbs. cooking sherry
2 Tbs. soy sauce
2 c. stock (I use vegetable)
3 Tbs. flour

Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat, and add the carrot, celery and onion. Saute until the carrots soften and the onion caramelizes and begins to brown. Add the flour and toss to coat. Mix the stock, molasses, sherry, soy sauce and stock. Add the stock mixture to the saucepan, and stir until thickened.