I'm Not Cheap, I'm Poor

All Wrapped Up - Pretzel-Wrapped Bratwursts

2014-08-09T20:35:00.001-07:00

Yep, this is the perfect football food

It's been a long time since I posted here. Over a year. Why? Because I got in a food funk...making the same things over and over again. Honestly, there's only so many times I could expect people to read about tortillas and fried rice. Luckily for my family, I've started to branch out again. What motivated me? Football! Nothing screams for good, salty food like football season - things like giant soft pretzels with cheese sauce or bratwursts smothered in spicy mustard. While they're good individually, they're even better combined.

The only drawback of this as a football food is that they take a couple hours to make. Nobody has time to make these when football is on! Luckily, they're just as good re-heated, so you can make them on Saturday and not miss a single Jim Harbaugh tantrum or Ndamukong Suh head stomp.

The main reason these take so long is the pretzel dough, which takes a little over an hour to prepare (mostly rise time) I used Alton Brown's recipe, which makes eight pretzels, and doubled it, since I had 10 bratwursts. Honestly, it would have been better to just divide the dough into 10 parts, as the ratio of pretzel to bratwurst was a bit high for my taste - I wanted the grease from the brat and the salt of the pretzel in every bite, and it just didn't happen.

Really, for all I've complained about the time commitment, the KitchenAid did most of the work here. All I had to do was pour ingredients in and set timers. KitchenAid Mixers are the world's best inventions. I will cut anyone who tries to take mine away.

While the dough rose, I cooked the brats, so they had time to cool before I had to touch them. I was pretty proud of myself for thinking ahead like this, because normally, I'm the chump who's trying to handle lava-hot food without burning herself.
Also thinking ahead (not because of any marvel that made me suddenly more organized and thoughtful - I was getting hungry!), I remembered to boil the water and pre-heat the stove before the dough was done rising. Usually, when I make pretzels, I shape them and have to stand around sighing impatiently while I watch water heat up. Not today! Today, I was all over that nonsense!

The top two sides for bratwursts - combined

If you like onions with your bratwursts, now would be the time to start cooking them. I wasn't on top of it enough to think of that. Probably because I'm not the biggest onion fan, although most people I know are. Slice onions, saute them in butter, add beer, and ignore except for the occasional stir. If you time it right, they'll finish right when the pretzels do. If not, say they're done anyway - they'll be cooked enough that nobody will know the difference. I'd suggest using a light beer, since the IPA I grabbed ended up making the onions a bit too hoppy tasting.

I hadn't really thought out how I was going to cover the bratwursts with the pretzels, just that I wanted to. I decided to go with an artsy spiral wrap that worked out really well, as long as the ends were sealed. Some came out looking a little awkward, as I got to the end and realized I had a lot of dough left. As I said earlier, if I had divided the dough into more pieces, I wouldn't have had this issue. Live and learn.

I added some green chiles to a few of them, just to see how they'd turn out. Freaking awesome, that's how. I highly suggest adding stuff. I will make these again with jalapenos. I also plan on making some with a stripe of mustard down the middle of the dough, and maybe some grilled onions for my husband. Pretty much anything that would taste good and not fall out (sadly, I don't think cheese would withstand the boiling and baking) should be added here.

Then comes the least fun part - standing over the pot of boiling water in front of a 450 degree oven. Each pretzel has to be boiled for 30 seconds before getting an egg wash and salt, and then they go in the oven. Deciding to make these on an 80-degree day was not my smartest move. Except they were delicious, and I had a beer during the boiling, so it wasn't all that bad. Plus, they came out looking pretty cool, so I felt like a rock star.

I'm not sharing. Make your own.

We only had one left, which I threw in the freezer to see if they freeze well. If they do, I'll set aside a day to make a triple batch of these just to freeze for an easy game-day meal.

Serve hot with beer-braised onions and spicy brown mustard. Or cheese sauce. Or both; I won't judge.

Recipes:

Pretzel-Wrapped Bratwursts
1 ½ cups warm water
1 T sugar
2 t kosher salt
1 T yeast
22 ounces all-purpose flour (4 ½ cups or so)
2 T melted butter
Vegetable oil
10 bratwursts
20 cups water, divided
2/3 cup baking soda
1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 T water
kosher salt or pretzel salt for sprinkling
OPTIONAL:
Green chiles, jalepenos, grilled onions, garlic, mustard

1) Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam.

2) Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix until well combined.

3) Knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes.

4) Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

5) While the dough is rising, add the bratwursts to 10 cups of the water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 10 minutes, then remove the bratwursts from the water and set aside to cool.

6) 10 minutes before the dough is done rising, put the remaining 10 cups of water on the stove to boil and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

7) If making beer-braised onions, start them now (recipe below)

8)Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper

9) When the dough is risen, divide it into 10 equal pieces (about 4 ounces each)

10) Pat each piece of dough into a 2”x10” rectangle. Add any additional ingredients in a thin strip down the middle of the dough.

11) Working from one end, wrap a bratwurst in each piece of dough, being careful to seal the ends.

12) Add baking soda to the boiling water (be careful – it will fizz up!)

13) Boil each pretzel-wrapped bratwurst for 30 seconds, then remove from the water with a large spatula or a strainer such as you'd use when deep frying.

14) Place on the parchment-lined cookie sheet, brush with egg wash, and sprinkle with kosher salt or pretzel salt.

15) Bake at 450 degrees for 12-14 minutes.

Serve hot with spicy brown mustard, beer-braised onions, and beer.

Beer-Braised Onions
2 onions
2 T butter
12 oz beer (lighter flavors are better)

1) Slice the onions as thinly as you can.

2) Melt the butter over medium heat

3) Add the onions to the melted butter and saute over medium heat for 10 minutes, until the onions are soft and starting to caramelize

4) Add the beer and reduce heat to medium-low

5) Cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid is gone, 20-30 minut

These Muffins are Jammin'

2013-05-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

I love this book.

I own cookbooks. Many of them. I get sucked in by the pretty pictures and delicious looking recipes, then they sit on a shelf and don't get a lot of use. I blame the internet. It's just so convenient, and I can compare several versions of a recipe before deciding which to try.

There is one cookbook I use on a regular basis, however. My trusty Fannie Farmer's Baking Book. I have yet to make a recipe from this book that came out poorly. While I'd like to claim that this is all due to my rad-awesome baking skills, the truth is that the book is just full of wonderful recipes.

It also allows something the internet doesn't – the ability to browse when I feel like making something, but don't have anything specific in mind. I was in that mood this weekend; the only thing I knew was that I wanted something sweet-ish that wasn't a cookie.

I settled on jam muffins. A basic muffin with a delicious jam center? There was no way I could resist that,

especially given the simplicity of the recipe.

Yes, two muffins. One just isn't going to cut it. Trust me on this.

It should be lumpy still.

It's a very basic recipe – no fancy ingredients – that takes maybe three minutes to make. Three minutes is well within my acceptable morning effort range. Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, mix the wet ingredients in another*, then mix until just combined. Then you get to drink coffee while smugly reflecting on what an awesome mom you are for making

your kids fresh muffins for breakfast and blithely ignoring the fact that this means you can delay feeding them actual food for a couple more hours so you can drink more coffee and look at the internet.

The "hard" part is done. Time to lick the jam spoon!

The only effort involved is getting the jam filling in, and that's really not any effort at all – a layer of batter, a dollop of jam, and top it with more batter. Actually, I was a little concerned about my ability to assemble the muffins without creating a mess; I'm not known for my delicate touch and the recipe specified not letting the jam touch the sides. Luckily, however, I had a nice thick blackberry jam that one of my co-workers gave me for Christmas. It held together in a ball, even when I put the remaining batter on top.

What? This isn't a muffin!

These came out beautifully. They're not cupcakes in disguise like so many of the modern "muffin" recipes; they have just a hint of sweetness in them...and then you get to the jam. There is just enough jam in the middle to get a little bit with every bite. There's probably less jam in each muffin than I'd put on them if I was adding it after they baked, but it feels more decadent to eat something with a pocket of jam in the middle. The only problem is that the recipe only makes a dozen and Zoey and Parker insisted they get their fair share, also. We ran out way too quickly.

Mini loafs maximize the jam.

Then Randy had a wonderful thought. “I bet these would make great mini muffins,” he said. Brilliance! It was a hypothesis that I had to test. You know, for science. While I was at it, I decided to make a mini-loaf as well. They were every bit as good in those formats, also. I'm pretty sure there is no shape that this recipe would not taste fantastic in.

Runny just doesn't cut it.

While the shape doesn't matter, the filling does. Unfortunately, I ran out of the blackberry jam, and had to do with a runnier grape jelly for the last few mini-muffins. It didn't work out nearly as well – the consistency of the jam is important. You need a thick jam that won't run out into a thin layer. A thinner jam or jelly won't stay in the center and you lose that element of fruity sweetness in every bite. Marmalade or preserves would be wonderful.

The thinner jelly (right) just doesn't work.

And yes, we made two batches in one day and ate most of them that same day. I blame the kids. Zoey had “I need another muffin,” on repeat and Parker toddled behind her shrieking his agreement. On the second go-round, I added a tablespoon of grated lemon peel to the batter. Honestly, I didn't notice a huge difference. I'm not sure if it's because my lemon peel is old (at least three or four years) or because I was in a bit of a muffin coma, but it didn't take away from the flavor at all. I know I'll make these again and try with fresh lemon zest to see if I can't get a little bit of citrus kick in there.

Who needs Starbucks?

RECIPE

Makes 12 muffins or 14 mini muffins and one mini-loaf

2 c flour

1T baking powder

1t salt

¼ c sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup milk

8T melted butter

1T vanilla

1T lemon zest (optional)

12 tsp thick jam or preserves.

Pre-heat oven to 400

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl*

Mix sugar, eggs, milk, butter, vanilla, and lemon zest in a large bowl.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until just combined.

Grease a muffin tin. Fill each cup 1/3 full of batter.

Put a teaspoon of jam in the center of each cup, being careful not to let it touch the sides.

Fill the cups the remainder of the way.

Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. (for mini-muffins, reduce time to 15-18 minutes)

*Full disclosure – I only used two bowls because I didn't realize what I had done until it was too late. Usually, I mix the wet ingredients first and then just dump all the dry stuff on top without mixing it together. If I feel ambitious, I'll put them through a sifter to mix them, but I hate dirtying a second bowl for three seconds of mixing. That's just silly.

Two bowls? What was I thinking? That's more to clean!

Pip Pip Cheerio! English Muffins 2.0

2013-05-20T06:47:00.000-07:00

I know I've posted about EnglishMuffins before. And I know I've posted about sourdough before. I can't help myself. I love all things sourdough (even cookies!) and when you add in the low level of effort it takes to get hot, fresh English Muffins on the weekend, there's just no way I can resist these.

The best part about these – other than eating them – is that almost all of the work happens overnight while I sleep, thanks to the magic of the sourdough starter. Also, unlike many other English Muffin recipes, these don't require any special equipment; the dough is thick enough that you don't need rings to contain and shape it.

This is a wet starter

This is also a wet starter.

Friday night, mix your starter, flour, and milk. The only complicated part of the recipe is judging how much milk to use. The original recipe for these calls for a difference depending on whether your starter is wet or stiff. Unfortunately, “wet” is a fairly broad term – my starter varies from a pancake batter consistency to something closer to muffin batter. Both qualify as “wet” starters.

Yep, beer time!

Basically, I eyeball it, adding a little more milk or flour until the resultant sponge comes together in a loose ball when I stir it, but it's still visibly wet and sticky.

Then, cover the bowl with foil or plastic wrap and go enjoy your evening. Your work is done for the next 8-12 hours.

Salt, baking soda, and honey.

In the morning, the sponge should be quite a bit thicker than it was when you went to bed, but still fairly loose. Mix in the last three ingredients: salt, baking soda, and honey (or molasses). Spray a cookie sheet with Pam and sprinkle some cornmeal on it.

Seriously, don't skimp. This stuff is sticky.

Now you are ready to cut out your English Muffins. Due to the consistency of the dough, it is essential to put down a good layer of flour on the counter. Use more than you think you need and cover a larger area than you think you should. Trust me on this. Sprinkle more flour on top of the dough and flatten out to 3/4” thick. Cut out in 3-inch rounds, using whatever you have on hand: biscuit cutter, water glass, mason jar ring, etc. Re-form the scraps to cut out more (make sure there's more flour underneath the dough!) until you've used all the dough.

Place the rounds on the oiled cookie sheet and sprinkle more cornmeal on top. Cover them with a towel and go drink coffee for an hour or so. You've earned it!

Just after cutting out

Nice and poofy!

After the muffins have rested and risen for about an hour, it's time to cook them. Heat a griddle to 350 or a skillet to medium-high (I turn the dial to 7). Once it's heated, cook the muffins for 4-5 minutes per side. They are done when the sides are firm and they are browned on both sides. You'll notice that these poof up quite a bit while they cook. Mine usually deflate once they cool off, but retain the soft, chewy texture they get from their griddle “spring”.

While you are cooking the English Muffins, fry up some eggs and bacon to stuff inside that little bit of deliciousness. Or skip the protien and go for butter and jam, which is Zoey's favorite. Breakfast is served!

A perfect breakfast sandwich, complete with Tapatio!

These are also a great size to use for hamburgers if you don't have buns. I rarely have hamburger buns, and I'm still trying to find a recipe that I can consistently get good results from. These, however, I almost always have on hand, and they work wonderfully!

RECIPE

½ cup active sourdough starter

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup milk (if using a stiff starter, use 1 ¼ cup milk)

1 T honey

1 tsp baking soda

¾ tsp salt

cornmeal for dusting

Mix starter, flour, and milk until a loose dough forms. Cover and let sit 8 hours or overnight.
In the morning, add honey, baking soda, and salt and mix well.
Turn out onto a floured board, sprinkling more flour on top of the dough
With your hands, flatten the dough to ¾” and cut out 3” rounds
Place rounds on an oiled cookie sheet dusted with cornmeal, dusting the top with more cornmeal.
Cover and let rise for about an hour
Cook on skillet or griddle heated to medium-high (350 degrees or turn dial to 7) for 4-5 minutes on each side

Homemade McNugget Meal - I'm Lovin' It!

2013-05-09T06:57:00.001-07:00

I love cooking. That doesn't mean I always feel like cooking when I get home. And yeah, we try to keep some easy dinners on hand in the freezer, but sometimes we're out of them...or just sick of them. On those days, the following conversation occurs:

“We should just go get dollar menu food.”

“Perfect! You go.”

“Me? I'm not going, you go!”

“Screw that, I'm not going anywhere, but you totally should, it sounds really good.”

“You know, it really doesn't make sense to spend the money on fast food.”

“I suppose you're right.”

“It does sound good, though, if you want to go get it...”

“Nah. You're right, we shouldn't spend the money. Besides, it's healthier to eat at home.”

And then I make dinner. Not because it's cheaper or healthier, although it is, but because any amount of effort in the kitchen is somehow less than getting in the car and driving the mile to McDonald's. Usually on these nights, I end up making chicken nuggets and fries. This isn't what we'd have ordered, but it's significantly less effort than making buns, grinding beef (if we even have any) and making hamburgers.

To distract you from my extreme levels of laziness, here's a picture of one excited birthday girl!

The best thing about this meal is that it can all cook at once in the oven. I can throw it in, and go sit down for a little bit. On the type of evening where I want to get fast food, sitting down is high on my priority list.

The process starts by pre-heating the oven to 420. Throw 2-3 pieces of bread in the oven to dehydrate while it preheats. My oven takes forever and a day to get up to heat, so it works out pretty perfectly. Your mileage may vary. You may prefer to buy bread crumbs or use cornflakes so you can skip this step. Really, whatever makes your night easier is the solution here, with the caveat that you need some sort of bread-type product.

The less motivated I am, the bigger these fries get

While waiting for the oven, peel up a bunch of potatoes. How many depends on size and relative hunger, but my general rule of thumb is one mid-sized potato per person. I count Parker and Zoey as full people, both because Parker eats like Paul Bunyan and because I know Randy and I will clean house on any leftovers. And if we don't, potatoes are so cheap that it's only a waste of $0.07, which I'm willing to live with.

Anyway, once the potatoes are peeled, cut them into 1/4” (ish) slices, then rotate and cut those into strips.

Just like with the Brussels sprouts recipe, throw them in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag to season them. I love my Ziploc; they let me mix things up without making a mess or coating my hands with oil and spices. Here again, you have a lot of options. I try to mix up the seasonings, but I always use olive oil to coat the potatoes, then add salt and pepper and curry powder, or garlic, or parmesan, or...

All the extra oil sticks to the bag!

Give the bag a few good shakes to coat all the fries evenly – or, if you're brave, give the bag to your kid to shake, then dump it out onto a greased cookie sheet. After a quick shake to get the fries in an even-ish layer, toss the bag, and half the prep work is done.

There's no such thing as over-garlicked fries

The chicken nuggets are almost as easy, although a bit messier. Dice up about a pound of chicken breasts or

thighs. I personally prefer the flavor of thighs, but I'm more likely to have boneless breasts, so I go with the breasts. Nothing about de-boning a chicken thigh says “low effort” to me. After cutting the chicken up into bite-sized pieces, comes the prep for the only mildly effort-ridden part of the dinner – breading the nuggets.

Size varies with motivation here, too

By this point, the bread is usually nice and dried out. If not, I declare it dried out enough because I'm not waiting! A few quick pulses in the food processor creates nice bread crumbs. If the bread isn't fully dried out, some of the crumbs might be a bit on the large side, but hey, it just gives better texture, right? (It's really not hard for me to justify taking shortcuts here, if you haven't noticed). Two or three pieces of bread will create around a cup of crumbs. Add an equal amount of flour and some spices and the breading is done.

There's no way to avoid egg hands

Beat up a couple of eggs to dip the chicken in. Coat the chicken in eggs, then the bread crumb mixture, a few pieces at a time. Try to ignore the nasty buildup of egg and flour on your fingers. It's inevitable and there's no point in cleaning it off until the process is done.

I'm sure at this point, you are wondering why I don't bust out the magical Ziploc to solve the problem. Sadly, this is the one area my trusty Ziploc has failed me in. Not enough of the breading sticks, and what does stick does so unevenly, as the chicken pieces try to stick to each other instead of the breading. Momentarily putting up with hands that feel like they're turning into the Tree Man's is a small price to pay.

Go crazy with the breading; it's worth it

Once the chicken is breaded, it goes on a greased cookie sheet and both pans go in the oven for 15 minutes, while you sit down with a drink of your choice. After 15 minutes, pull the chicken out, and flip the fries. Cook the fries for an additional 15 minutes while you relax some more.

There's only about 10-15 minutes of active effort involved, which is about as long as it would take to go and get food from the drive through. And it comes with the benefit of being cheaper, healthier, and (most importantly) not requiring you to put on shoes and leave the house.

Mo-om! Quit taking pictures so I can eat!

RECIPES:

Baked French Fries

4 medium potatoes

1 T olive oil

1 ½ tsp salt

1 tsp pepper (or to taste)

optional: 1 T curry powder (Seriously, try this. You won't regret it!)

1T chili powder

¼ c grated Parmesan cheese

1T minced garlic

Pre-heat the oven to 420
Peel the potatoes
Cut the potatoes into 1/4” sticks
Put potatoes, oil, and seasonings into a gallon-size Ziploc and shake until all fries are evenly coated
Put fries in a single layer on a greased baking sheet.
Bake for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through.

CHICKEN NUGGETS

1 lb chicken

2 eggs

2-3 pieces of bread (or 1 c bread crumbs)

1 cup flour

2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 ½ tsp chili powder

½ tsp cumin

½ tsp paprika

Pre-heat the oven to 420 degrees.
Put the bread in the oven to dry out as the oven pre-heats
Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces
Beat the eggs
Mix the flour and spices together.
Remove the bread from the oven and pulse in a food processor until you have small, even crumbs
Add the crumbs to the flour mixture and mix thoroughly.
Working with a few pieces at a time, coat the chicken in the egg mixture
Press the chicken into the bread crumb mixture until coated thoroughly and evenly
Place the on a greased baking sheet
Bake for 15 minutes

Simple Pancakes and Sinfully Easy Strawberry Syrup

2013-04-29T06:52:00.000-07:00

Pancakes are one of those things that are ridiculously easy to make, but seem like they'd be a pain without one of those just-add-water mixes. Even though making them from scratch only involves a few ingredients, the thought of all that measuring first thing in the morning tires me out. What can I say? I'm just not a morning person.

Basic ingredients

Luckily, I found a recipe for a good pancake mix (along with several others). One batch of the mix makes enough for around five batches of pancakes. I can make the mix whenever I want and then just add the wet ingredients and have pancakes in the morning. That's an acceptable level of effort for me.

What? It fits..

I usually make a double batch of the mix; that's as much as the biggest bowl I own will hold. Actually, it's a little more than the bowl will hold, so I make a bit of a mess as I mix it all up. However, the end result is

enough mix for 10-11 batches of pancakes, so I don't have to make it all that often.

After I had made it a couple times – and had to look up the recipe each time – I got smart, and just wrote it down and taped it to the container. This also helps prevent me from thinking it's just regular flour and trying to make bread out of it...which has almost happened a couple of times.

This level of mess is not unusual for me

Children walking nearby may get messy as well

These pancakes are one of Zoey's favorite meals, so it made sense to make them for her birthday. I thought I'd get fancy and make them in shapes, using cookie cutters. That was a Bad Plan. It probably would have worked okay if I had chosen simpler shapes and thought to spray the cutters. However, it was morning so I did neither. A couple problems arose. First, because the batter couldn't spread out, it went up, making the world's thickest pancakes. I could adjust for that, however, and the pancakes cooked fine. Unfortunately, I had to mangle them to get them out of the cutters.

It started well...

What? It's OBVIOUSLY a stegosaurus...

Lesson learned; pancakes should be round unless made by someone with the talent to free-hand shapes. In case there was any doubt, I am not that person. It doesn't really matter, since both of my kids get their pancakes cut up before eating them anyway, but I feel like they should at least know the pancakes were cool at one point.

To compensate for the lack of neat pancakes, I made some strawberry syrup to go on top of the boring rounds.

The syrup was really easy to make – equal parts sugar and water, and about twice that in strawberries. I think. I didn't really measure the berries, just threw them in. They were frozen and stuck together, so measuring would have been a pain in the rear, and it was still morning.

Sugar. With water. MIB style

Since I used frozen berries, I didn't worry about chopping them up since I knew they'd get mushy when they thawed anyway (yay for less effort!). If it was later in the year, and local berries were ripe (curse you, people that live in areas that already have ripe strawberries...I'm looking at you, Californians!) I would probably cut them in half and/or mash them up a bit before adding them to the sugar and water.

And some berries

As is, however, I just dissolved the sugar in the water, added the berries, and stirred every once in a while as I made the pancakes. The berries were so soft, that I just had to mush them a little with the spoon to get them to fall apart fully. By the time the pancakes were done, so was the syrup. The recipe made a lot, so I have a pint jar of deliciousness left in the fridge; we didn't exactly go light on it, either! I'm sure Zoey will take care of that in short order. Unless Randy beats her to it, that is.

Who needs pancakes? Just eat the syrup!

RECIPES:

PANCAKE MIX:

6 c all-purpose flour

2 c whole wheat flour

2 c powdered milk

½ c sugar

3 T baking powder

1 ½ T salt

Mix all ingredients together. And store.

PANCAKE RECIPE:

Makes approximately eight 6-inch pancakes.

2 c pancake mix

1 ½ c water

2 T oil

1 egg

Pour pancakes onto a hot skillet. Cook until bubbles form and pop. Flip. Cook until pancakes puff slightly and steam.

STRAWBERRY SYRUP RECIPE

1 c water

1 c sugar

2 c strawberries (10-15 large berries)

Create a simple syrup by combining the water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat (between 6 and 7 on my dial) until all the sugar is dissolved and the liquid is clear.

If working with fresh berries, quarter the berries and mash them slightly with a fork or the back of a spoon. Frozen berries can be added whole.

Add the berries to the simple syrup and heat to a boil, stirring occasionally, and breaking up large clumps with the spoon.

Boil for 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. Remove pan from heat, and allow to cool and thicken for 5-10 minutes.

Simple, Wonderful, Sprouts (Brussels, that is)

2013-04-23T06:19:00.000-07:00

My obsession with brussels sprouts started just about three years ago – shortly after Zoey was born. Before then, the fell into the category of “vegetable that I don't know much about” along with “what's with the spelling” and “things a lot of people hate for some reason”. Basically, I never ate them, but didn't have any reason why.

Delicious mini-cabbages!

Then, when Zoey was three weeks old, we went on a road trip. The main purpose was to surprise Randy's parents, which we did. However, we also visited my friends Lisa and Erik in San Francisco. They had also just had a baby, so we wanted to catch up and exchange oohs and ahs. On that visit, Erik made grilled Brussels sprouts and changed my world for the better.

Brussels sprouts have the advantage of being related to cabbage. I know that for many people, this isn't exactly a selling point, but since I only shop once a month, I adore vegetables that stay fresh a long time in the fridge. Cabbage relatives top the list. After I've eaten the salad greens, tomatoes (technically a fruit, but who cares), the summer squashes, beans, and peas, I come to the cabbage-types – broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts.

All cut up and severed-finger free

I always buy a huge bag of brussels sprouts because I know that no matter how many I get, we'll eat them all and go looking for more. They are that good.

They are also ridiculously easy to make. I don't care how bad of a cook someone is, these are within their grasp. The only danger is possibly cutting a finger instead of a sprout. However, I'm pretty accident prone and I've avoided it thus far, so I'm guessing the average person is more than safe.

Once you have trimmed the stem end off the brussels sprouts and cut them in half, you get to have some fun. Dump then into a gallon ziploc bag (or back in the bag you bought them in, if you used them all. Pour in some olive oil, salt, and pepper and then shake it all up.

Coated and ready

I love this method because it doesn't require me to dirty a dish or get my hands funky mixing it all up. I know what you're thinking...why do you have to use hands? That's what spoons are for! That's because you've never seen the disaster zone I can make with awkwardly sized food and a spoon. Bags are just better all around. Another benefit is that excess oil and seasonings stick to the side of the bag rather than the food, which helps fool-proof these.

After that, it's just a matter of tossing them on a broiler pan and broiling them for four minutes/side or so. Erik the Skilled made them on his barbecue. I am less talented, and also like to eat them year-round, which

precludes using the barbecue. My broiler is a good substitute.

Almost good enough to eat raw

Usually, I eat a good half-dozen before I get dinner dished up. While it's hard to call it the best part, since it's all good, I especially enjoy the single leaves that have fallen off – they are crispy and salty and wonderful in every way. I could eat them all day.

I dare you to eat these and not love them. They are irresistible.

That's it! It's a nice, simple recipe that makes life better for all involved.

RECIPE

1 lb brussels sprouts

1 T olive oil

1 ½ t salt (or to taste)

1 t pepper (or to taste).

Trim the hard end of the stems, then cut each sprout in half lengthwise

Put in a bag with oil, salt, and pepper, and shake until evenly coated.

Place the top rack of the oven 6” under the broiler (second highest setting)

Broil sprouts for 3-4 minutes, flip, and broil for 3-4 additional minutes or until tender.

Pitas: Not Such a Pain After All

2013-04-17T06:45:00.000-07:00

I have an addiction to pitas. I love that you can use them as a pocket (fun!), a thick tortilla, funny shaped bread, a utensil to shovel humus down your gullet, or even a pizza crust. Basically, they work for whatever I need at the moment, which lets me be an awful lot lazier about what I'm going to make on any given day. Anything that lets me be lazy is tops in my book!

"Failed" pitas? I don't believe they exist

As with most things, it took a few trials for me to feel comfortable making pitas. Since it seemed so complicated, the period between trials consisted of several years...as in I moved multiple times between attempts. I was sure there was a reason that the internet abbreviation for pain in the ass is PITA. I was, happily, wrong about that.

Really, you only need two things – a flat cooking surface (cast iron griddle or pizza stone) and a hot oven. That's the big secret. Not too much to it, really. I had the hot oven, but not the griddle. I had read you could use a heat-proof frying pan or a cookie sheet turned upside down, but neither worked well for me. I had resigned myself to not making pitas...not really much of a loss, I thought. Then came my mom's birthday; we threw her a Greek-food themed party, mostly so she could eat lamb. She loves lamb, but my dad loathes it, so it's a rare treat for her.

All it needs is a little hummus. Or a lot of hummus.

I couldn't go Greek without hummus and pitas, though, so I had to acquire a griddle. My first attempt was to

just ask my mom to use hers – she has owned a big cast-iron griddle for as long as I can remember. In my mind it will always be the Pancake Griddle (yes, in capital letters). Unfortunately, she forgot to bring it with her the one time we met up before her birthday, so she bought me one of my own as an early birthday present. I love it. It cooks all my tortillas and flatbreads and is one of the most wonderful things in the world.

I found a recipe on The Fresh Loaf, which I find is one of the more reliable places for all things bread related. Those people are serious about their breads, let me tell you! It is quite easy – only six ingredients, which I appreciate, and just under three hours start to finish.

They can rest now, while you sip wine

They start the same way most breads start – activating the yeast, then mixing in the other ingredients and kneading. As usual, I use my Kitchen Aid* to do this, so I don't have to put in any more effort than adding flour here and there to prevent sticking. I usually have to add quite a bit at this point, because the recipe I use calls to add more water if the flour isn't absorbing; I don't like adding liquid late in the game, because it always seems to make a mess. I just start with the larger amount and add as much more flour as it needs. Once the dough is a good form, knead it for 10 minutes. It seems like a long time to knead it, but hey – after it's done, you get to walk away for 90 minutes or so while it rises!

Once it's risen, put the griddle in the oven on the middle rack (make sure the other rack is below that) set the oven to pre-heat to 420 degrees, then punch the dough down, divide it up into 8-12 pieces, depending on how large of pitas you want, and then walk away for another 20 minutes to let the gluten relax. I suggest having a glass of wine and relaxing on your glutes as well. Symmetry is key.

This is a large pita

Once your wine, er, dough is done resting, comes the labor-intensive part. Sprinkle a little flour on the counter and roll the dough out to 1/8”-1/4” thick. Put it on griddle and let it cook for three minutes. If you have a large enough griddle, you can cook two at a time. While you wait, roll out another pita (or two, look through the oven door to see if the pita in the oven is puffing as it should – not that you can do anything about it if it's not – and sip some wine while you wait for the timer. Repeat until all pitas are cooked.

If the pitas aren't puffing, it's usually one of two things – they were rolled to thick or the oven isn't hot enough. I get about an 80% puff rate. There are always a few that don't work right, but I just use them for non-pocket purposes.

The Perfect Puff

These freeze really well, much better than most breads, in my opinion. That led me to attempt to make a double batch. While the recipe doubled easily, I didn't like how long I had to stand in the oven cooking pitas. I found that a much more effective way was to start a second batch when the first batch finished rising, so I got a nice break from being in the kitchen. And I got boatloads of pitas. Win-win!

RECIPE

3 cups flour*
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon sugar or honey
1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, roughly at room temperature
2 tablespoons olive oil, vegetable oil, butter, or shortening

*Can be any combination of flours – I use 2 cups all-purpose and 1 cup whole-wheat.

1)If you are using active dry yeast, follow the instructions on the packet to active it (see the note on yeast above). Otherwise, mix the yeast in with the flour, salt, and sugar. Add the olive oil and 1 1/4 cup water and stir together with a wooden spoon. All of the ingredients should form a ball. If some of the flour will not stick to the ball, add more water (I had to add an extra 1/4 cup).

2) Once all of the ingredients form a ball, knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes.

3) When you are done kneading the dough, place it in a bowl that has been lightly coated with oil (I just spray it with cooking spray) Form a ball out of the dough and place it into the bowl, rolling the ball of dough around in the bowl so that it has a light coat of oil on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and set aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately 90 minutes.

4) When it has doubled in size, punch the dough down to release some of the trapped gases and divide it into 8-12 pieces.Eight pieces will result in 8”-10” pitas (as pictured above), while 12 will result in 6”-8” pitas.

5) Roll each piece into a ball, cover the balls with a damp kitchen towel, and let them rest for 20 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so that it'll be easier to shape.

6) While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 420 degrees. Put the griddle or baking stone in the oven to preheat as well.

7) After the dough has relaxed for 20 minutes, spread a light coating of flour on a work surface and place one of the balls of dough there. Sprinkle a little bit of flour on top of the dough and use a rolling pin or your hands to stretch and flatten the dough. You should be able to roll it out to between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick. If the dough does not stretch sufficiently you can cover it with the damp towel and let it rest 5 to 10 minutes before trying again.

8) Open the oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the hot baking surface. They should be baked through and puffy after three minutes.
Repeat until all pitas are cooked.

*Just after Christmas, we found a deal on a more powerful KitchenAid and pounced – it's big and shiny and way more powerful. The kneading hook seems to be much more effective at stretching the dough too. I adore it.

Look how pretty and red and shiny it is!

Suckered by the Sun

2013-04-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

My great grandmother used to say "If there's enough blue in the sky to make a pair of Dutchman's breeches, it'll be nice." While I'm not sure what percentage of blue sky that is (depends on how much the Dutchman in question eats, I suppose), I do know that Washington has a habit of showing little patches of blue sky that are just big enough to sucker you outside so it can rain on you, especially in the spring.

Won't someone think of the poor, homeless gnomes?

However, in a perfect alignment of the stars, a week of sunny weather coincided with my spring break. Temperatures actually hit the seventies - I had to decide if I should put on sunscreen to protect my pasty white Washingtonian complexion. Such good fortune meant my whole family spent as much time outside as we could, since it's been raining pretty steadily since, oh, October. It also meant we saw how much work we needed to do to get the garden ready.

The strawberries needed weeding, as did the garlic bed. The compost desperately needed turning and some direct sun to dry it out. The bean vines that we neglected to pull off the trellis last fall needed removal. The blueberries needed separating and transplanting. Luckily, the prospect of spending time in the sun made all of these tasks downright fun – and that's not a word I use lightly when weeding is involved.

This is a bed of pre-shortcake

Parker mainly ate dirt, while I started with the strawberries – last year, we got five sad strawberry starts from my mom. They got even more pathetic when we left them on our patio table for a few weeks after Parker was born. Once we finally planted them, though, they spread like wildfire. Once I had pulled all the weeds out, I was impressed with how many berry plants we have. By next summer, the bed will be fully filled in – weeds won't even have a chance to get started.

Surprise garlic

The garlic bed was a bit of a surprise – we planted garlic last year, but our cat promptly killed it by sleeping in it. We put rocks in between the garlic plants to discourage him, but he apparently just saw a hot stone massage and kept on sleeping in the garlic. We didn't get much, to say the least. Apparently, though, we missed some when we pulled up what we DID get out of the bed last year, because this year, we have a good half-dozen plants doing quite well. So far, the cat hasn't noticed.

My mom was kind enough to donate some well-composted horse manure again. Somehow, with three horses, she never has a shortage! We got one truckload to top off all the garden beds. Randy dug it all in. Last year, we simply filled the beds with the composted manure and planted in that; we didn't dig up the turf at all. This year, Randy went deeper. It was easy to tell when he hit native soil; the rocks scraping against the shovel made it more than evident. Happily, the beds are crawling with worms of all sizes – I love to see that! It means the soil is healthy and the plants will grow.

Look at those worms - three just in that clump!

We got a few planters from Home Depot for the blueberries – last year, all four plants were in one Rubbermaid tub. We got a few berries anyway (it would have been more, but I showed Zoey what they were and it was Game Over). We also put down a thick layer of manure on the ground under them – we're going to try to transplant some strawberries over here, too, since it's impossible to have too many strawberries.

They're much happier now.

Finally, we got the gutters in the greenhouse filled up. We got the greenhouse from Randy's parents last summer and haven't really used it yet, so it will be quite the exciting endeavor this year. We put three gutters on either side; last fall when we got it set up, we planted a variety of herb seeds and seeds we saved from our garden. Nothing grew. Imagine my surprise when we opened it up to find two pea plants in full bloom! By the end of the week, they even had pods growing on them – peas in April? Inconceivable!

Surprise peas!

Mostly, we plan to use the greenhouse for tomatoes and peppers, which we've never grown. Peppers need warm nights, which don't happen here during the optimal time to plant peppers, so we're going to track how warm the greenhouse stays at night to see if it's feasible...and then try it anyway. Randy discovered a packet of pepper seeds we got with bottles we ordered a couple of years ago when we made hot sauce; he decided to give them a try to see if they'll grow. He soaked the seeds for a few hours and then planted them in a pot in our bedroom (the only room that has a windowsill and no children). Hopefully they grow – and survive transplanting!

Greenhouse gutters - waiting for peppers!

After doing all the prep work, we were almost ready to start planting – the warmth had us convinced that it really is almost summer, and everything would grow just fine. After all, we found peas not only in the greenhouse, but sprouting in one of the garden beds, self-started from dropped seeds last fall. Then Washington remembered what month it is and started to rain and cool off again, putting us back into wait mode. At least now all the prep work is done, so when it warms up for real, we'll be ready to plant immediately.

Stick O' Butter Sundays

2013-04-06T14:14:00.002-07:00

Butter: the new diet food!

Let's start with the obvious. This is not a healthy recipe. Unless, of course, you count butter as a health food. It is, however, a recipe for the Holy Grail of hashbrowns.

I'm a sucker for restaurant hash-browns – perfectly browned, with each piece of potato distinctly separated from the next. For years, I thought such perfection would always elude me at home. The result of my best efforts at hash-browner-y was gooey, gray, and inconsistently browned. The hash-browns tasted good, especially with hot sauce and ketchup, but fell far short of the utopic dish found at fine dining establishments such as Mr. Bill's and IHOP.

Then, via the magic of Cook's Illustrated, I found them – the perfect hash-browns. Luckily for my waistline, they are fairly time consuming. Unfortunately for said waistline, they are worth it...and since Randy likes them even more than I do, they're hard to pass up on a weekend.

Irresistible fluffy, buttery, perfect hash-browns

Start by peeling four or five medium potatoes. I know most of the nutrition in a potato resides in the skin, but let's face it – health's not a prime consideration when hash-browns are involved. Peeling seems like an extra step, but it helps the texture a lot – when the potatoes cook, the skins separate and create little pockets of dissonance in an otherwise harmonious plate. I resisted peeling for a long time, because the last thing I want in the morning is a breakfast that requires more work than necessary, but after a few trials (and repeated badgering by Randy) I saw the light.

Once you have your potatoes peeled, it's time to grate them. Any grater will work, but I have found that a food processor – or in my case, the grating attachment for my KitchenAid – provides a bit better texture. I don't know why this is – the speed the potatoes are grated at, the relative sharpness of the grating blade (my box grater is at least 15 years old), or pure imagination. Whatever it is, I believe it's better, and since using the KitchenAid is both faster and comes with a 100% less chance of skinning my knuckles, I'm sticking with it.

I used to consider the resulting pile of grated potatoes ready for the pan...and that's why I never got good hash-browns. Apparently, what makes the potatoes glump together is the extra starch on the shreds, mixed with too much moisture. That means there are two more steps to take before the taters can hit the pan.

NOW they're ready for the pan

First, rinse the shreds until the water runs clear. Then, dump the potatoes into a dish towel and wring

as much water out as humanly possible. Do not skimp on this step. The more water you remove here, the better the final product will be. If needed, call in reinforcements when your arms get tired. You'll know you're there when the shreds feel almost dry to the touch and don't cling to each other.

Now grab a stick of butter, take a deep breath and channel your inner Paula Deen. Heat a large saute pan over medium/medium-high heat (6.5 is the magic spot on my dial). Add half a stick of butter to the pan. Yep. Four tablespoons. I know what you're thinking. You're wondering why you only used half. Don't worry – more will come later.

Let the butter melt and brown slightly, then add the potatoes, spreading them out into an even layer. IF you like to season your hash-browns in the pan, salt and pepper them now; I hardly ever remember that part. Let them cook for three minutes, then cover the pan and cook for an additional six minutes.

Now comes the fun part – flipping them. Grab a plate and place it face-down on top of the potatoes. Holding the plate in place with one hand, turn the pan upside down, and lift it. It will come away revealing a beautifully browned plate of wonderfulness. Sadly, they're not done yet.

Step one: Plop down a plate

Step Two: Flip it - don't let go of the plate!

Step Three: Remove pan.

Remember that remaining half stick of butter? Now's when it comes into play. Add two tablespoons of butter* into the pan and let it brown up. Then slide the potatoes off the plate into the pan. Use a spatula to tuck any stray pieces down around the edges, and let cook for another six minutes.

More butter! Yay!

Then sit back and enjoy. When you're done, try to resist the urge to make more. I once made over ten pounds of them. Granted, it was for a crowd, but it was still a wee bit excessive. And worth it.

*I know, I know, there are still two tablespoons left. Usually if I'm making hash-browns, I use the rest of the butter making omelets. At this point, that's the healthy part of the meal!

Best. Breakfast. Ever.

Recipe:

4-5 medium potatoes

6 tablespoons butter

salt/pepper to taste

*Peel and grate the potatoes

*Rinse the grated potatoes under cool water until the water runs clear

*Using a dish towel, wring as much water as possible out of the potatoes. They should feel dry to the touch

*Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat.

*Melt four tablespoons butter in the pan, allowing it to brown slightly.

*Add the potatoes to the pan. Spread them out evenly and let them cook for three minutes

*Cover and cook for six additional minutes.

*Remove lid and invert a plate over the potatoes. Holding the plate against the potatoes with one hand, use the other hand to flip the pan so the hashbrowns are on the plate.

*Return the empty pan to the heat and brown two additional tablespoons of butter in it.

*Slide the hashbrowns from the plate into the pan, browned side up.

*Cook for six minutes, uncovered.

Poppy Seed Cake - Some Assembly Required

2013-02-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

This Christmas made it official. Randy and I are now adults. Not because we have two kids; since we spend as much time playing with their toys as they do, I think we actually lose adulthood points there.

Here, kids, make your own!

No, we're adults because our respective parents have cut us off from the traditional Christmas treats. In our bag of Christmas cookies from my mom was a scroll declaring “The Christmas Cookie Fairy is retiring,” and coldly informing us we'd have to make the cookies ourselves if we wanted them. I have to check with my lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

Randy's mom went one better – she send the ingredients and recipe to Grandma Butcha's Poppy Seed Cake (the same cake that, although I've been with Randy for over a decade, I've only ever been granted a few measly slices of) “some assembly required”. This is what Randy looks forward to most at Christmas. When the package arrives from his parents, he digs through everything until he finds the cake. Only once he has the cake safely secured does he look at what else his parents sent. Needless to say, the lack of a cake was a shock to his system.

The first step is always wine.

Since we had been abandoned and left out in the cold to fend for our own holiday treats, there was only one thing to do. We called Randy's brother over (remember kids, always use the buddy system!) to try and muddle through the best we could.

Wait, we need WHAT?

Being adults, we started by having a glass of wine. Box wine, because while we might be adults, we're all still broke. Feeling properly mature, we lined up the ingredients, including cake mix, pudding, and a million and twelve poppy seeds, only to discover that we were short one. Cream Sherry. What? Do adults really keep that kind of thing on hand? What's it good for? I am positive that I have never once thought, “What I need right now is a nice glass of sherry!”

None of us wanted to leave to go get sherry – not that it would have taken long, as the liquor store is only half a mile away. As we stood there, all staring at each other desperately trying to figure out how to con one of the others into taking the trip, I remembered: we did have some sherry on hand. It was leftover from the Drunken Pears we made as Christmas gifts. It was exactly the right amount for two batches of poppy seed cake, too.

Yes, I was really happy about my poppy seeds!

Come to think of it, that's probably why adults have things like sherry around – they needed some as part of a recipe once and it lasts forever because no-one actually drinks it. While ours didn't last forever (not even for a month), it was because we made things like Drunken Pears that used quite a bit at once. We went through a large bottle and I couldn't come close to telling you what sherry tastes like.

Once we finally had all the ingredients lined up, we braced ourselves for the intricacies of the recipe...only to find there are none. The recipe is pretty simple – mix all ingredients together, pour in a pan and bake. We had a slight hiccup when we realized we didn't have a bundt pan (must be one of those adult things). For some reason, we also decided we couldn't use the loaf pans I have plenty of.

I have no idea why we did this, either

The problem was quickly rectified, however, when we found some mini bundt pans – I have no idea why I own them, other than they are silicon and I went through a phase of “Ooooh! Neat silicon baking things!” – and a football cake pan my friend gave me for my birthday.

The change in baking pans made it a bit odd to figure out the timing, but we figured with another glass or two of wine, we'd get through just fine. Luckily, this cake freezes well, because we made two batches and ended up with a boatload of it. We also have enough poppy seeds to make us mildly concerned about a raid from the feds.

It took a bit longer to bake, but it was fun to slice into!

These are a great individual size to freeze.

RECIPE:

1 package Duncan Hines Yellow Cake mix

1 package french vanilla instant pudding

2 oz. Poppy seeds

4 eggs

1 cup sour cream

½ c vegetable oil

½ cup cream sherry

*Pre-heat oven to 350

*Grease and flour pans

*Combine all ingredients and beat on medium for 2 ½ minutes

*Bake 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean

Makes:

1 bundt cake

OR
2 loaf pans

OR
3 small foil loaf pans

OR
6-8 mini bundt cakes

Risotto: Raising the Bar for Rice

2012-11-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

One of our favorite ways to fancy up rice is to make a risotto. It feels a lot fancier than just plain rice, and barely costs more, since we have 15-20 quarts of stock in our freezer at any given time, and the rest of the ingredients can be changed to fit what we have on hand.

Creamy, delicious risotto or boring old rice... it's no contest!

Serious chefs say that you need a short-grain rice such as arborio rice to really make this work. Pish posh, I say. Granted, there is some science behind it, but arborio rice costs a lot more than plain ol' white rice. To me, this is more about the technique and flavor than about having the “perfect” creamy risotto.

That said, all of these pictures are with arborio rice because I was feeling splurge-y and bought some. Consistent I am not.

The main thing that risotto requires is time. It calls for adding stock to the rice slowly – a cup or so at a time – and stirring a lot. I have read several recipes that say you can add all the liquid at once and skip the stirring if you have a wide enough pot. I split the difference and add the stock slowly but rarely stir it. It lets me feel like I'm doing it the “real” way, but without all that effort. Whichever method you're using, it WILL take at least 30 minutes, so plan accordingly.

Make extra of this because it's impossible to resist snacking on

Start by deciding what extras you want in your risotto. This is one of the reasons I like it so much: it's versatile and customizable. My standard additions are mushrooms, onion, and garlic. However, you can put in pretty much anything you like. I've had success with spinach, broccoli, red bell peppers, and peas. Cook your additions to the level you like and then remove them from the pan. This will prevent them from being cooked to death while the rice cooks.

Unfortunately, this will also make the house smell good and your family insist on dinner NOW. It's a double-edged sword, really.

Leftover bits of garlic will flavor the rice nicely

When your additives are done sauteing, add a little olive oil to the pan and add your rice. Stir it around for a couple of minutes to get it all nice and warmed up and a little golden. Tell everyone that no, dinner isn't almost ready. Trust me, they'll ask.

If you have some white wine, start off by adding about ½ cup of wine. When that has absorbed – or if you are a) out of wine or b) don't want to share your wine with the rice – start adding the stock, 1-2 cups at a time. Stir as often as you feel necessary, adding more broth as each addition is absorbed.

The rice will start to look poofy and soft after about the third addition. Sadly, it's not done yet. If you don't believe me, try a piece. Tricksy little rices. About now, I usually have to make the choice - do I negotiate with the Toddler Terrorist and give her some sort of small snack to tide her over, knowing the demands will only increase? Or do I try to pretend the tantrum explosion isn't happening? Either way, I'm screwed, so if there's wine open, I have a glass and power on.

At this point, you'll want to check the rice between each addition of stock. The risotto will start to thicken and look creamier (especially if you use arborio rice). A batch that starts with 1 ½ cups of rice will take 6-8 cups of stock or, as I measure, two bags from the freezer.

I always think it's about done at this point. It's not. Boo.

When the rice has finished cooking, add in any extras you have, along with a good handful of Parmesan cheese. I use the powdered stuff because I'm broke and WinCo has it in bulk. We go through a fair amount of it. A couple tablespoons of cream cheese can also up the creamy factor, as can, well, cream. This time, I added a couple ounces of mozzarella, since I had it out for the chicken I was cooking. Really, whatever you want goes, although I highly suggest Parmesan in there somewhere.

After, and only after, you have tasted it, season it as you wish. Since the Parmesan is salty, it's important to taste it before you add any additional salt. I usually add a little salt, some pepper and some turmeric. Stir it all around really well and let it sit off the heat for a couple of minutes to thicken up/spread the flavor, then dig in!

I always make a giant batch, because it saves well and that means the following night's dinner is going to be low-effort, and there will be some left for lunches, too. I'm a big fan of leftovers for lunch - it means I just have to grab the Tupperware out of the fridge and go - no thought, no effort.

RECIPE

1 cup sliced mushrooms*

½ cup finely diced onions

2 T minced garlic

1 ½ cups rice

2 T olive oil

½ cup wine (optional)

6-8 cups stock

1/3 cup powdered Parmesan (½ cup fresh shredded)

2 oz grated mozzarella

½ tsp turmeric

Salt and pepper to taste

*Can be replaced with broccoli, spinach, asparagus, or whatever else sounds good at the time

Heat one tablespoon of the olive oil over med-high heat.

Add the mushrooms, onions, and garlic and cook until the mushrooms have shrunk and onions are translucent (5-10 minutes)

Remove the mushroom mixture from the pan and set aside

Return the pan to the stove and reduce the heat to medium low

Heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil

Add the rice and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring frequently

Add wine, if using, and stir constantly until all wine is absorbed

Add 1-2 cups of stock, stirring frequently until all the stock is absorbed. Repeat until rice is al dente (if you run out of stock, just use water)

When the rice is al dente and nearly all the stock is absorbed, add mushroom mixture, Parmesan and mozzarella.

Stir to combine, and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add turmeric, salt and pepper

Remove from heat and let sit for five minutes to thicken up.

A Turkey Trifecta

2012-10-23T19:33:00.001-07:00

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Any day that centers around ridiculous amounts of good food is tops in my book! I also love that it's the season of cheap meat. In the next couple of weeks, turkeys will go on sale and stay that way until the new year. Depending on where you shop, you can get a 20 pound turkey for around $5. Last year, Randy and I found fresh, never-frozen turkey for 50 cents per pound. For some reason, we didn't buy twelve of them. We won't make the same mistake this year.

I forgot to take a shot of the turkey, so here's Parker instead

One of the best things about Thanksgiving is the leftovers – it's universally acknowledged. Nothing beats the next day's turkey sandwiches. Also universally acknowledged, though, is how tired most people get of their leftover turkey before it's gone. This keeps most people from cooking more than one or two turkeys a year, which I see as a tragic missed opportunity.

I love turkey and eat it in some form or another year-round. Mostly because it's cheap, but also because it's so versatile. WinCo usually has turkeys for around $1/lb, which is as cheap as you can expect meat to be without a special sale. The problem is, you have to buy at least 12 pounds of it. Without a large family gathering, 12 pounds of any meat is excessive – and most turkeys are closer to 20 pounds.

We've developed a method to get the most out of a turkey without having to eat our way through an entire bird in one fell swoop. The first step is to discard the notion of cooking the entire bird at once. That seems easiest, but it results in way too much turkey, which is why I rarely cook a whole turkey. Well, that and the fact that I have trouble cooking whole birds – it's not nearly as easy as it seems. Something always goes wrong. Always.

In order to manage the bird, we divide it into three basic sections.

Section One: Wings and Drumsticks:

The wings and drumsticks have a good amount of meat, but are a pain to de-bone. I never realized how many tendons are in a drumstick (eleventy billion) until I tried to separate the raw meat from them once. I never tried again – it's that much of a pain. Since they are so annoying to deal with raw, I bake them, then strip the meat off – it's a lot easier to separate the meat from the bones/tendons when it's cooked. This meat gets packaged up and frozen for later use in tacos or turkey sandwiches.

I use the broiler pan so I don't have to fish the meat out of the fat

Section Two: Breasts and Thighs

This really covers anything that's left that is relatively easy to remove; although mostly it's breast and thigh meat, there's meat from the back involved also. We aren't particularly meticulous at this stage; our knives aren't that sharp and Randy's fingers are half-frozen (I'm not allowed to use knives in this situation because I'm too prone to cutting parts of myself off). This is about getting the most useful amounts of meat on, not getting every last bit. The scraps that are left behind have a purpose.

The bread we used in lieu of buns for our turkey burgers!

The meat Randy removes at this stage gets ground. At this point, we can use it for a variety of different purposes: turkey burgers, bratwursts, or breakfast sausage. If we plan to use the ground meat to make brats or sausage, we add the skin to the pile of meat to grind; without the extra fat the skin provides, the sausage comes out a bit too dry. This is the biggest cost-saver, since ground turkey can cost up to $3.99/lb and turkey shaped into burgers or seasoned as sausage is even more expensive.

When making burgers, we tend to go very basic – just ground turkey formed into patties. Every once in a while, we add a binder such as eggs or bread crumbs, but not often. Turkey burgers freeze very well either raw or frozen – just put a piece of parchment paper or wax paper between patties. Foil works also, but tends to get stuck to the patties a bit more readily.

Step Three: Scraps and Bones

Pepper ends, kale stems, and veggie bits

What's left is a mangled, hacked-apart carcass, a neck, and the packet of organs – a pile of extras that is perfect for making stock. I love making stock because it's basically free food. The only ingredients you need are things you would have otherwise thrown out, and the result is a good base for any number of recipes. I keep a big bag of veggie scraps in my freezer to use in stock – things like the ends of onions and carrots, stalks from salad greens, tops of radishes and peppers, and pretty much anything else that gets cut off when I use vegetables. I put all the turkey scraps and bones in the crock pot, add a couple handfuls of veggies, cover it all with water, turn it on low and go to bed.

It looks good even uncooked!

When the stock is done, I separate out the bones and veggies and throw them out. I also strain out the meat scraps. Usually, this is about two pounds of meat. At this point, I can go in a couple different directions with the stock. I can cool it then pour it into quart-sized Ziplocs to freeze - this is the most versatile option, as I can later use the stock in any number of recipes (although I mostly use it for soups and risottos). If I go this route, I freeze the meat separately to use later in a soup or casserole. Alternatively - and more efficiently as far as most meals created at one shot - I can add the meat back in and make soup or chili. Either way, I end up bagging and freezing a crock pot full of goodness.

The End Result:

We just broke down a 17-lb turkey and got the following:

21 turkey burgers (6 ½ lbs of meat)

1 lb of cooked turkey from the legs/wings – enough for two taco dinners or one hot turkey sandwich dinner.

1 lb of turkey sausage

3 one-gallon Ziplocs of turkey soup (about half-full each)

Bonus picture of Zoey in a pot

By dividing the meat up this way, we get a variety of meals out of every turkey and never have to worry about getting burned out on turkey. I'm not thinking that I'm eating pound after pound of turkey leftovers – I'm having a burger or chili or biscuits and gravy. An even better benefit is that in the time it takes to make a turkey dinner, you end up with several mostly prepared meals, which is always nice for a low-energy night, and a lot cheaper and healthier than either fast food or a TV dinner. After a couple of turkeys get broken down, there's even a good variety of meals to choose from, so you don't get burned out on any one thing.

Not-So-Gluten-Free Chips

2012-10-14T19:32:00.002-07:00

I wrote 90% of this post almost three months ago. Then Parker interrupted me, and I somehow never returned. Inertia being what it is, I never posted it, and never returned, despite good intentions. Part of it was the school year starting up again, but mostly, I just got out of the habit. I hope to change that now that I've adapted a bit to the trick of balancing the school year, a toddler, and an infant. (The trick is to get things done in the 45 minutes span of time after the kids go to sleep and before I hit the wall). I have at least three other posts partially done, so the next couple of weeks should be painless enough to get me back in the habit. Hooray! Also, this is a bit picture-shy as I managed to lose the final-product pictures somehow. Shame on me.

In my quest to explore gluten-free foods, I scoured the bulk section of Winco for any unusual flour. I didn't do much research other than looking up a few recipes and noticing they all called for either a pre-mixed “gluten-free blend” or a wide variety of flours. I figured if I went through and bought all the unusual flours I could, I'd be set up.

In a way, I was right. I had a variety to work with and was able to make a few delicious treats. I made one glaring error, though. Spelt. Sneaky, devious, delicious spelt flour. As it turns out, spelt is a cousin of wheat. It's far enough removed that people with wheat allergies can still eat it...but closely related in that it contains gluten. Which explains a lot about the reaction my sister-in-law had to the supposedly safe meal I fed her. I feel bad about that.

It even LOOKS like wheat flour

That means that the spelt tortilla chips I made, while delicious, are not gluten-free like I had thought. This bums me out a bit, since after my failure with crackers, I thought I had redeemed myself with a crispy gluten-free snack option. Foiled again.

Making these chips starts with making the tortillas themselves, and the process is very similar to making a flour tortilla. I used this recipe. I meant to replace the oil with lard, as I do with flour tortillas, but forgot. I was hungry, and not thinking straight; please forgive me.

The tortillas, like most of the gluten-free recipes I tried, were a little on the sticky side (therefore reinforcing my misconceptions about spelt). They cooked up quickly and just slightly denser than a flour tortilla, similar to the difference between white and whole-wheat bread. Which, in retrospect, makes a lot of sense.

They cook up nicely - more on the order of corn torts

I couldn't just leave these as tortillas, though, because the entire endeavor began with a craving for nachos. Not only was the pantry devoid of tortilla chips, my sister-in-law can't eat corn. Therefore, we had to make our own chips. Making chips from tortillas is pretty simple, and (as with most things made at home) healthier than the processed option.

I cut the tortillas into chip-sized wedges and then baked them. I wanted them to be lightly salted but not overly so and I didn't want too much oil involved. To solve this, I sprayed the baking sheet lightly with cooking spray and then sprinkled salt on it before laying down the tortilla wedges. I lightly sprayed and salted the tops, then threw them in the oven for a few minutes on each side. They came out with a crispy exterior and just a hint of chewiness in the middle.

Chips! Wonderful chips! You'll have to imagine them as nachos, because that picture is lost.

I couldn't let it end there - nachos, remember? I topped them with chopped chicken (left over from the night before), pico de gallo, and grated pepperjack and cheddar cheese, then tossed the whole mess under the broiler to melt it into a pile of amazing goodness.

The flavor was great – somewhat like wheat (gee, wonder why?) and just barely salty. I will definitely make these again. I just won't feed them to Megan.

RECIPE

2 cups spelt flour

½ tsp salt

¼ c oil

2/3 c warm water

*Pre-heat oven to 415

*Heat a cast-iron griddle over high heat, then turn down to 7-8 on the dial OR use an electric griddle set to 375.Add water to flour until you have a dough that is soft but not sticky. If the dough is too sticky, just add a little flour.

*Working with 1.5 ounce pieces (ping-pong ball size), either roll or press into 6-inch tortillas.

*Cook for 1-2 minutes on each side, until dark spots begin to form.

*Put on a plate and cover with a damp towel until all tortillas are cooked.

*Stack the tortillas 2-3 high and cut into 8 wedges

*Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and sprinkle lightly with salt.

*Lay out wedges in a single layer (you may need to do this in two batches).

*Lightly sprat the top of the wedges with cooking spray and sprinkle with salt.

*Bake for 6-8 minutes on each side.

Gluten-free Goodies

2012-08-06T13:39:00.002-07:00

I have one word to describe gluten-free baking: sticky. I'm used to bread dough that is cohesive, kneadable, and shapable. Gluten-free dough is none of those things. It varied from batter to a thick, tacky dough.

I didn't take a lot of notes or pictures along the way, because I was too busy visiting and just plain forgot. Other than the bread I made, I only have one picture, and that only because Randy asked if I took pictures of the process. Whoops. I'll make up for it by posting about everything all together.

My GF flour stock: rice, spelt, soy, flax, and tapioca

First, the bread. When I was researching recipes, I looked for recipes that a) called for ingredients I had on hand and b) were simple. This was a bit frustrating, since most recipes call for “gluten-free flour mix” or something similar. That's just dandy if you want to go out and buy some pre-mixed combination. I did not. I had several types of gluten-free flour, and had to find a good mix or a recipe that specified flour types. To compound it, I also had to make recipes corn-free (the one mix I had all the ingredients for called for masa).

I settled on this recipe. I liked it because it was simple...and I had a lot of brown rice flour.

It looks neat, but not like bread dough!

As I watched the batter (I can't call it dough) mix, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it would rise and turn into anything resembling sandwich bread. The consistency was more like banana bread than any other bread I've ever made. I poured it into the loaf pan, for crying out loud!

Ready to rise

It did rise well, however – both times (more on that in a minute). I was surprised with how much volume it gained, since the batter was so loose – I wouldn't anticipate it being able to hold the gasses in like most yeast breads, or at least without something like a lot of beaten egg whites like angel food cake. Shows what I know!

The top does have a neat texture, though

The difference shows up when it's baked, as the loaf doesn't get the nice domed top that normal bread does. It stays pretty flat, and the final product is reminiscent of a sponge in appearance (thankfully, it tastes much better!) and has a light texture. Randy described it as “floofy”. I didn't try it, for some strange reason, but Randy and Megan both approved.

This is my first attempt - the top fell in a bit

Another difference from the bread I'm used to is my ability to gauge doneness. Usually I've got a pretty good eye, but not in this case. The recipe called for using a thermometer to measure the internal temperature. “Bah!” I said. “I'll be able to tell when it's done” I said. Then I cut into my loaf after it cooled and said “Blargh! That's not anywhere near done enough.” I started over, and used a thermometer. The results were much better. Weird how that works out...

One downfall – the recipe says to not store it in the fridge, or it will get soggy, and the shelf life is only three or four days. I know that part of that is the lack of preservatives and high sodium content of store breads, but part is also that I'm used to sourdough which naturally has a longer shelf life.

PART DEUX: Bread sticks

A little later into Megan's visit, I made bread sticks. Ok, I meant to make bread sticks, and made mini-baguettes instead. Impatience mixed with the stickiest dough ever seen on Earth got the best of me.

They're as tasty and healthy as they look

This was a bit more complicated recipe; not only did it call for multiple flours, the dough is much more difficult to work with. I have no pictures because I didn't think to take any, and if I had, I'd have had to wash my hands even more than I did to destickify.

The recipe is multi-purpose – make two baguettes, nine mini-baguettes, or 18 bread sticks. I ended up with 10 mini-baguettes, even though I was aiming for bread sticks. It's completely my fault, too. The recipe called for putting the dough in a gallon Ziploc bag, then cutting the corner to squeeze the bread sticks out (again – bread dough you squeeze like pastry? Weird...)

Again, these are more textured than I'm used to; the flax meal helped.

The problem was that I got frustrated putting the dough in the quart-sized Ziploc and decided that rather than go through the process twice, I'd just force it all to fit. That didn't work out well – I should have just done two batches. The frustration that resulted from my efforts to force the dough to submit led me to cut too large of a hole in the corner of the bag. Since I was committed and NOT going to start over, I just rolled with the giant bread stick idea.

I really should have paid attention to the recipe when it told me to grease any dough I was going to handle, since it wouldn't work otherwise. They weren't lying. This stuff is sticky and uncooperative. It's also delicious. I started with this recipe but made some changes based on the flours I had on hand.

As far as I can tell, gluten-free flours can be interchanged with no difference in consistency, just flavor. I've only successfully made four gluten-free recipes, though, so I could be completely wrong.

And now, the recipes! Hooray!

GLUTEN-FREE SANDWICH BREAD RECIPE

Ingredients

1 ¾ cups warm water

1 packet (2 ¼ t) yeast\2 ½ cups brown rice flour*

2/3 cup corn starch

2/3 cup dry milk powder

1 T xantham gum

1 t salt

2 T vegetable oil

2 eggs

Combine water and yeast in a small bowl to proof

Whisk the dry ingredients together

Add remaining ingredients

Using an electric mixer, mix dough on med-high for five minutes (use paddle attachment of stand mixer)

Lightly grease a 9”x5” loaf pan and pour the batter in, spreading evenly.

Cover the dough lightly with greased foil or plastic wrap and let rise for one hour or until dough is just over the top of the loaf pan.

Preheat oven to 350

Bake for 55 minutes or until internal temperature is between 208-211 degrees

Cool on a wire rack.

*Every gluten-free blog, recipe, and advice column I read stressed that when measuring GF ingredients, you have to use a spoon to fill the measuring cup, then level it with a straight edge (back of a butter knife). Apparently, scooping the flours directly with the measuring cup can compact them too much and mess up the recipe.

GLUTEN-FREE BREAD STICK RECIPE

Ingredients

1½ Cups Cornstarch
½ Cup Spelt Flour
2¼ Cups White Rice Flour
¼ Cup Soy Flour
¼ Cup Flaxseed Meal
1½ Tablespoons Xanthan Gum
2 Teaspoons Salt
1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
1 Package Active Dry Yeast
1 Teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Tablespoon Honey
1/3 Olive Oil
2 Eggs
1 Egg White
1¾ Cups Warm Water (110-115°F)

Yield

  (9) mini baguettes (½ Cup of dough each), or
  (2) baguettes (half of dough per baguette), or
  (18) bread sticks (¼ Cup dough each)

Directions
Place cornstarch, flours, flaxseed meal, Xanthan gum, salt, garlic powder and yeast in mixing bowl; mix. Add, vinegar, sugar, honey, oil, eggs, egg white and lastly the warm water; mix (slowly). Increase speed to high and beat for 4 minutes.

Coat two cookie sheets with cooking spray.

Work with the amount of dough necessary to form a single baguette, mini-baguette, or bread stick - whichever you prefer (half the dough, ½ cup dough, or ¼ cup dough) - at once.

Place dough on cookie sheet (allow room for the baguettes or bread sticks to expand as they rise).
Spray all exposed batter generously with cooking spray (this will help you form the baguettes - without cooking spray, dough will be sticky and extremely difficult, if not impossible, to work with).

With hands, form dough into long thin ropes, with thickness of shape depending on which variation you are making. Repeat as necessary making enough loaves to use all your dough. For mini baguettes and bread sticks, putting the dough in a gallon bag and snipping the corner can help ensure consistency in size.

Sprinkle tops of baguettes with salt and add any other desired topping (poppy seeds, sesame seeds, etc). Allow to sit in a warm, dry location (free of drafts) covered loosely with plastic wrap for 40 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375° and bake (middle rack of oven):  
  35 minutes for baguettes, or
  25 minutes for mini baguettes, or
  20 minutes for bread sticks.

I Am the Lorax, I Speak For the Trees

2012-08-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

I wish you would believe I drew this, but you won't and I didn't.

Randy's sister is in town for the week – hi, Megan! - so I neglected to write the regular Monday post, but that doesn't mean I've been slacking. Next week will be a gluten-free bonanza – bread, muffins, and bread sticks. Maybe even drinks served in hollowed-out pineapples. It's been a good week.

I made gluten-free bread - quite the different experience

Then these GF blueberry muffins, which were delicious!

Then we had pineapple drinks, and I coincidentally forgot to take pictures of the GF bread sticks.

I did want to make sure I didn't totally skip all posts this week, so here's the regular Thursday garden update.

Baby bean!

It's a week for small successes. Our beans are finally starting to show up. We had tons of blossoms, but no beans showed up. I was getting discouraged, but then a few tiny little beanlettes showed up. These things are everywhere; I'm looking forward to eating them. I'm even more excited because we'll probably have enough to make pickled green beans, which I love.

The pumpkins are still winning the production race – there are now well over a dozen pumpkins started...on just one plant. We have three. Time to start looking up pumpkin recipes!

Itty-bitty pumpkins!

Future pickle!

The cucumber plant has decided to join the party, and has several small cucumbers on it, with more blooms coming out every day.

Similarly, the squash has eight or so small squashes growing.

[insert witty caption here]

Even the poor broccoli and cauliflower plants – the plants that Zoey helpfully weeded a week ago – are still alive. Six of the original eight, anyway. Most of them are a bit beat-up and rough around the edges, but alive is alive!

The photographer should learn not to cast shadows like that...

It's growing, growing, growing!

2012-07-26T15:42:00.001-07:00

Our garden is in a bit of a holding pattern at the moment. The peas are done, except those we are keeping for seeds, but nothing else is producing. Boo!

Next year's plants are in there...

We decided to leave quite a few peas on the vine – more than we are planning to save seeds from. The wisdom of that immediately became clear, since Zoey picks a handful of peas every time she goes outside. I'm not going to complain about her eating too many veggies! Some of the peas are clearly getting beyond their prime, which is good; our research said to leave them on the vine until they were all shrivelled up. More waiting!

While the peas haven't shrivelled up, some of our bean leaves have. I'm not sure what's up with that. It goes beyond mere wilting – they're dark green and dehydrated-looking, almost like they had a mid-life change-of-career and became shrinky-dinks. I keep tearing off those leaves and throwing them away, but I don't know if it matters. Aside from the occasional shrunken leaf, the beans look healthy and are flowering like mad. Still no actual beans, though. Waiting sucks.

Not sure what causes this. Alien ray guns?

Pumpkin in the making

I'm also waiting on something to grow on...well, pretty much all of the other plants. The pumpkin stopped just producing leaves and made a flower! That means that we will get at least one mini-pumpkin off that giant plant. There are maybe a dozen more buds that look like they might produce...but they might be more leaves in disguise. Grrr. Our other squash plants are just leaves, leaves, and more leaves at this point.

Lots of leaves...hopefully it will lead to lots of squash!

It's a flower, I promise

Our poor little cucumber, for all its lack of impressive size, has three flowers on it. Take that, pumpkin! I don't know if it will ever grow to any sort of normal cucumber plant size or not. It might be a bit of a sad year for everything but peas and beans.

The cucumber does, however, have an easier road than our poor broccoli and cauliflower plants. Last week, Zoey helped me weed by carrying the pulled weeds to the bucket. The next day, she took it upon herself to weed some more. With not much to choose from, she designate all of the broccoli and cauliflower plants as weeds and executed them. We replanted them, but odds are still out on whether or not they'll make it. If they do, they earned it!

Come on, lil guy! You can make it!

Likewise, our strawberries – which we didn't expect to live – have made a remarkable comeback. Not only did they flourish enough to produce two whole berries, they managed to survive the cat using them as a bed. Now, they're putting out runner after runner, and in the past week or so, the total number of rooted plants has more than doubled. I'm liking this trend for next year!

Go forth and multiply!

That's a year's worth

Also promising for next year is our compost. We compost everything except meat and dairy (because those supposedly attract rats). This is partly to have nice compost to spread in our gardens, to compliment the main filler of composted horse manure (thanks for the poop, Mom!) and partly to save space and stink in the trash. Since we rent, we didn't want to build anything large for our compost, and we wanted it contained, so we used a couple of large Rubbermaid bins, and drilled holes in them to allow for some air flow.

Up close - looks good except for the moisture!

Unfortunately, we forgot to drill holes in the bottom of the bins, so the compost is very wet. We are also not as diligent about turning it as we should be. We took the lids off so the compost can dry out a bit while the weather is nice, and when it's a bit dryer (and therefore lighter) we will flip the bins over and drill holes in the bottom so this doesn't stay a problem. The compost is looking decently decomposed, and there are quite a few worms living in it, so I'm going to say it's healthy. We'll work that into the gardens when we pull out the current crop of stuff and before we plant any sort of winter stock. If, that is, we get around to trying any fall or winter planting. Time will tell!

Beer Me!

2012-07-23T17:33:00.001-07:00

Bottles ready for beeeeeeeeeeeeeer!

Here it is – the post you've all really been waiting for. The post about beer. After all, it's summer – the season of beer!

Making your own beer is actually very simple. The problem is you have to wait nearly a month between starting the process and drinking the beer. If you already have some on hand, that's not a problem. For the person who wants a beer and doesn't have one, it can be irritating.

Loosening up the mix

The easiest way is to start with an extract kit. You can buy these at most home brew stores. You probably have a home brew store near you and didn't even know it. Centralia has one. So does Chehalis. And Olympia. The kit is a can of hop malt extract; it's a liquid with the consistency of molasses. Depending on the kit, it will make five or six gallons of beer. The only additional ingredient you will need is corn sugar.

You need very little in the way of equipment. A large stock pot, a fermenter (food-grade five-gallon bucket), an air lock, hydrometer, and a bottle capper. None of these are terribly expensive. Oh, and bottles. You need about 60 empty beer bottles (pop-top, not twist-off). Start working on those now! We like the Kirkland brand bottles because they are smooth, so if we're giving beer as gifts, we can put on our own labels easily. We also enjoy emptying the bottles.

You want to make sure all of your equipment is sterilized; they sell sterilizer (iodine) for cheap and it lasts for a long time. You don't want to have anything funking up your beer.

Mmm. Malt.

To begin, put the extract can in a sink of hot water to loosen up the liquid. Boil the amount of water designated on the can – some call for as little as one gallon, others call for all the water to be boiled. Pour the extract and the boiling water into the fermenter and stir until everything is evenly combined.

All mixed together

Next, you want to activate your yeast. The kit will come with a packet of yeast designed for the type of beer you're brewing. There are a surprising number of yeasts out there! Put the yeast in a bowl with around a cup of warm water (110 F or so) and a tablespoon of corn sugar.

While the yeast wakes up, add cold water until you reach the total volume (five or six gallons, depending). With the kit we just made – Munton's Connoisseurs Wheat Beer – we boiled one gallon of water and added five gallons of cold tap water.

Once the temperature of the mixture is 100F or cooler, you can add the yeast. If you add it while the mixture is too hot, you will kill the yeast. At this point, you also want to add the corn sugar. This will come out to a little over two pounds. Again, stir it all up quite well, so everything is interacting with each other nicely.

Use a hydrometer to measure the gravity of the beer. There's a lot of science involved that I'm not super solid on; if you are really interested, here's the wiki!. Basically, it's a good way to track if your beer is mixed correctly or not, and when it's done. The kit will tell you an original gravity (OG) number and a final gravity number (FG). Any kit – canned extract or not – should tell you these numbers. The bigger the difference between the OG and the FG, the higher the alcohol content.

Cap it off with an air lock, and set the fermenter somewhere warm with a relatively stable temperature – big temperature swings can impact the process. We use our kitchen counter, but the garage would work as well. Then you let it sit. And stare at the air lock, waiting for it to bubble. The bubbles mean the yeast is doing its thing and the beer is fermenting. When it's at it's peak, it will bubble every three seconds or so.

Transferring to secondary fermenter.

Leave the beer in the fermenter for a week or so, until the bubbling stops and the hydrometer tells you you have reached the FG. Once your brew measures at the FG, you should leave it in the fermenter for another 24 hours and re-measure the FG to make sure there's no more action happening. We are usually too impatient to wait, and it hasn't been a problem for us.

See the funk? That's why.

At this point, you need to transfer your beer to a secondary fermenter. If you only have one, you can transfer it to any large, sterilized container(s). You don't want to skip this step, because it leaves all of the residues and funkiness behind in the original fermenter. If you only have one fermenter, clean it out, sterilize it, then return the beer to it.

Put your bottles through the rinse cycle of your dishwasher to sterilize them, and put your bottle caps in a pot of water on the stove and bring to a boil, then turn off. Again, you want everything sterile to avoid funking up your beer! Doing this step here also allows the beer to settle and any remaining residue to sink to the bottom.

When your bottles are sterilized, add sugar to each bottle – around ½ teaspoon per bottle. Then pour beer into the bottle. Fill the bottle until about the base of the neck. You'll know you've gone too far if beer spurts out of the top.

Beer!

Uncrimped cap.

Using the capper to seal it up

Cap the bottles and then let them sit for a couple of weeks in a warm-ish place. When you think they are ready, put a few in the fridge to cool off, then pour a glass. If it tastes good and is carbonated, they're ready! If it either tastes bad or is not carbonated, let it sit longer. Never give up on beer – if it doesn't taste good, just let it sit a while longer. Some batches take longer than others to finish. We have had beers that tasted like swill after the recommended bottling time that tasted phenomenal a month or so later. Likewise, some beers taste great at the two-week mark!

This is the most basic level of home brew – you can buy kits that include dried malt extract and hops and grains you add in and customize. We generally stick to the cans because they're easy and cheap. They cost $20-$30 and yield around 60 beers. Also, our experience has been that the more complicated kits take longer to mature. I'm not patient at the best of times, and waiting months for beer to mature is maddening!

Eat Your Greens!

2012-07-19T18:58:00.000-07:00

Great googly moogly, our garden has exploded!

We picked peas last weekend, and a crapton more appeared. Yes, crapton is the technical term. You weren't aware of that? Against our initial judgement, we let Zoey know about picking peas. Because, really, what's the worst that happens? She eats vegetables?

She was a big fan of every part of the process: picking them off the plant, putting them in the basket, and eating them. Well, eating part of them. She took a big bite out of the middle of each pea, then put it in the basket and picked another one.

Really, the only downside came when we finished and took the basket away. She was Not Happy with us.

Since then, she's been picking a few peas every time she goes outside, which is fine. There are plenty left (and even some new flowers!) and it keeps her happy.

Zoey was too busy eating peas to pose for me. Luckily Parker helped out.

As far as the rest of the garden, it's loving our weather.

After they finish building their wall, they'll put in an irrigation system.

The beans have grown past the top of their fencing and decided to create their own latticework of tangled vines. They're just starting to flower; I have high hopes for a big crop, since green beans are just below peas on my list of favorite fresh veggies.

Bean blossoms

The mini-pumpkins are trying to take over the world. I'm looking forward to painting some with Zoey for Halloween, and trying a bunch of recipe ideas with the rest. A pumpkin shell with soup inside? Miniature cheesecakes in a pumpkin shell? Stuffed with wild rice? There are zillions of recipes – both sweet and savory – for these little gems, which is good, because I have a feeling we'll have a lot!

Pumpkins with Zoey for scale purposes

Bonus Zoey picture because I couldn't decide which I liked best

Even the plants that initially struggled are thriving now. Our sole surviving cucumber (out of the several we planted) is finally getting some height to it.

Still not that impressive

The leaves look neat - hope the squash does, too

A couple of different squash plants have started to really put out lots of leaves. It's probably too late for them to catch up to the pumpkin, but I have a feeling they're going to try! I hope we get enough that we struggle to find ways to eat them all. Somehow, I doubt we will, since only two plants are any size at all, and I have no idea how many squash we'll get off one plant. I also don't know what kind they are, since the seeds were in an envelope helpfully labeled 'squash'. I know think they're some sort of summer squash, but beyond that? No clue.

Despite our best efforts to kill them via late transplanting, the broccoli and cauliflower plants we got from my mom are even starting to look like they'll produce something. We even planted them too close and re-transplanted them in an effort to test their hardiness. Those plants are survivors! No idea which is which any more. It's going to be like Christmas when we find out what all of our plants are. Good thing we like surprises, especially when they're almost guaranteed to be pleasant.

Brocciflower? Caulolli? Delicious!

This one lived!

The one disappointment so far is our garlic. We got several kinds from my sister, and they initially looked like they were going to thrive. However, the cat decided the garlic bed was just the right size for him to sleep in (1'x7') and killed most of the plants. We only have a few sad survivors left. Next year will be different; we put several large rocks on top of the bed to reduce the comfort factor.

They're putting out runners like champs!

Our strawberries also received the 'cat compactor' treatment, but have come back nicely. I'm hoping they will put out lots of runners and produce more than two berries next year!

In Which I Fail Miserably

2012-07-17T16:51:00.002-07:00

Failing. I don't like it. Sadly, it happens to the best of us sometimes. It happens to me frequently.

This week, I was going to write a post about taquitos. Except my tortillas cracked and deformed and the taquitos were hideous, so I didn't want to take pictures of them or write about them.

Then I was going to write about the gluten-free goldfish crackers I made. Except they didn't turn out very crackery.

I very successfully made a birthday cake from scratch for my best friend's birthday get-together...but I failed to take pictures of it, so it won't work as a blog post either.

That leaves me with only one option – write about my failures.

Failure #1: Taquitos

This is a great way to use extra cooked turkey, and they freeze well, provide nice snacks for football season, etc. I like knowing extra uses for turkey because they're cheap, but it doesn't take much to get tired of eating turkey every night.

This time, we ended up with extra turkey because we made turkey bratwursts, but only used the breasts and thighs because the rest is too much of a pain to de-bone. The legs and wings, we cooked up so we could use the turkey in taquitos.

First problem: over filling. Always.

This was a good plan, and still will happen...but I have to figure out some logistics first. See, I thought I'd be brilliant and use freshly made corn tortillas, even though I never had. I followed all the same steps as for store-bought torts, including briefly frying them in oil before rolling. However, the tortillas cracked like except for one or two. I almost took pictures of the successful pair I managed to make, but thought that was cheap.

So it's back to the drawing board for that one. I have to figure out if it's better to roll them in the raw tort or if fresh torts don't need to be softened in oil or if it's some other problem (did I make them too thick? Too dense (dry) of dough? I'll try some more and hopefully have answers soon.

I gave up in disgust and made the taquitos into deep-fried tacos. Which actually didn't taste too bad.

One step above Jack In the Box tacos. That step is real meat.

Failure #2: Gluten-free Goldfish Crackers

This was in response to a request for crunchy gluten-free, egg-free crackers. Most of the recipes I found for gluten-free crackers called for either eggs or almond meal. WinCo's bulk section doesn't have almond meal (although it does have xantham gum, so score!), so I had to write those off, since I'm too ~~cheap~~ broke to buy baking ingredients in any other form. The only recipe I found that I had the ingredients for was the goldfish.

The dough looked good at this stage. Tricksy dough.

They wanted me to use a goldfish cookie cutter...because we all have one of those lying around! I opted for the smallest cutter I own – a train. Except the crackers kept breaking before I got them onto the pan, so I just put the dough on the pan and cut them into square-ish shapes.

The fist batch just glommed together when they baked.

They tasted good to me, although Zoey took one nibble and declared it trash. Seriously, she said “Uck, trash!” and repeated it until I threw the cracker away for her. That does wonders for the ego, let me tell you! However, even at the smallest size, they were slightly chewy in the middle. And I don't think goldfish crackers were what the original request had in mind, anyway. So back to the drawing board there, too. In this case, I'll probably just try to find a better recipe. One that doesn't involve cheese (or uses a cheese like Parmesan, which is less melty/chewy than cheddar).

They came out either over-cooked or chewy. No in-between stage.

Failure #3: No pictures of my sole success

My best friend came over on Saturday for a birthday barbecue...and everyone knows you can't have a birthday gathering with no cake! I made a Hoosier Cake out of my Fannie Farmer cookbook. I chose it because a) I had all the ingredients on hand and b) it included a cup of coffee.

Instead of a cake, here's Parker. He's big.

I even made it despite the fact that the recommended frosting was called Gravy Frosting. Seriously? Gravy Frosting? Can you have a less appealing name without resorting to toilet humor? (No really, I challenge you!)

The cake came out nicely – it was chocolaty with just a hint of coffee flavor. The frosting was much tastier than the name implies. I'm guessing it got the name from the fact that about half of it was a thick flour/milk roux...fairly gravy-esque. I still would suggest renaming it. It was not too sweet, as many frostings are, even though I put too much on the cake. I'm pretty sure there's not supposed to be an almost 1:1 cake-to-frosting ratio. Whoops.


Zoey's eating an apple. Imagine she's eating cake. Or not.

This, at least, has a very simple solution. Take pictures of everything. I mean EVERYTHING. Oatmeal for breakfast? Pictures. Make a salad? Pictures. Clean the fridge? Pictures (of Randy cleaning, of course. I hate cleaning the fridge). Change a diaper? Yeah, probably not pictures of that one.

In the meantime, I'll take a cue from Zoey and not have a care in the world.

Welcome To the Jungle, We've Got Peas and Beans

2012-07-12T17:42:00.001-07:00

What? A mid-week post? You know it!

I actually intended to post this last week, but got distracted by the sunshine and bratwurst making. However, it's been a couple of months since I posted about our gardening adventures, and thought an update was in order.

Beans last week

Beans this week - they're taking over!

However, the pictures I took last week are no longer good, so I had to go play in the sun with my camera again. Shucks darn.

We simplified many of our garden plans from our original plan based on the seeds my parents donated and our lack of adventuresome spirit around my due date. For example, I really didn't want to lug my belly down to the FFA sale, so we have no tomatoes. Sadly. I'm going to try to convince my neighbor to give me one really good tomato to harvest seeds from for next year. We'll see how that works out.

What we ended up with was primarily peas and beans, which I'm OK with, since they're my favorites! They are also pretty low-maintenance, which is what we need this year! We also planted some squashes, cucumbers, and mini pumpkins. Later, my mom donated some broccoli and cauliflower starts. We got potatoes from my sister, but lost them somewhere in the garage until it was too late to plant them. Whoops!

I can't really blame Zoey for eating these!

Aside from vegetables, we planted a few strawberries (also from my mom. Have I mentioned what a kind, wonderful woman she is?) and our blueberries. We didn't get a lot from the berries – only two strawberries achieved any size at all, and we got maybe a dozen blueberries. By which I mean Zoey got a dozen blueberries. Someone, who may or may not be me, showed her the berries on the bush and she took it upon herself to harvest them all. This was the first year we've gotten any blueberries, though, so we were excited.

So how has it turned out? Results are mixed at this point. We planted all of the seeds at the beginning of May, when it was still on the cool side. This was a mistake for most things. We got a couple of pumpkins and squashes to sprout, but only one cucumber came up out of the several we planted...and it was sick and sad until recently.

The peas and beans did fantastically, although the beans got off to a slower start than the peas. The peas are starting to develop, and hopefully we'll be able to pick them in a couple of weeks. The beans haven't flowered yet, but given their growth recently, I anticipate a healthy crop of beans as well.

Peas were starting to form last week...

And this week, I'm tempted to pick them!

The broccoli and cauliflower were victims of neglect for a while, but are now planted and recovering nicely. And so we wait...and make more plans.

He thought he was safe...

But the pumpkin came for him in the night.

When Randy's parents came to visit, they brought us a wonderful greenhouse. This should help us make our own starts next year, and have a more productive start to our garden. Also, Randy plans to try growing peppers, which require a bit more heat. We'll see how it works out. So far, it's just a greenhouse with no shelves, although we do have a folding table we might donate to the cause.

Oh yes, we have plans for this...

Also, we want to try to save our own seeds. In theory, this will mean a better crop next year, as we'll save the seeds from the plants that do the best. If we manage to do this for several years straight, we'll end up with seeds perfectly adapted to our soil/climate/growing season. Since we don't know if it will work or not, though, we're going to hedge our bets and plant half the garden with our saved seeds and half with store seeds for a side-by-side test. If ours work, then there's another cost saver for future years! And if not...well, we'll have learned a lesson.

We're also looking into fall/winter planting. Given the requirement of going out in the rain and gloom to care for them, however, that might dwindle. It's a lot easier to stay motivated at this time of year, when the sun is shining every day!

The gnomes will watch over all (and hopefully weed for us, too!)

Bring On the Bratwursts!

2012-07-08T19:57:00.003-07:00

I've said before how much I love my Kitchenaid mixer. Not only does it serve in its primary function as a mixer, it has oodles of attachments to play with. By far, the one I use the most is the meat grinder. Often, there are cuts of beef on sale for cheaper than ground beef (and without the potential presence of the dreaded “pink slime”). Even better, it has a sausage stuffer on it, enabling us to make our own bratwursts.

Making bratwursts is remarkably simple: grind the meat, add seasonings, and stuff into casings. The hardest part is finding the casings...and that's as simple as going to your closest meat market. If you're squeamish about using natural casings, you can also order collagen casings online.

Enough hog casings for 100 lbs of bratwursts

How the casings come packaged will vary based on the store selling them. At one of the markets near me, they just cut off a length from what they have soaked and prepared for their use that day...if they have enough out, they'll cut some off and put it in a baggie. The other only sells it by the hank – which is enough for about 100 pounds of sausages. Luckily, it can be sealed up with a Food Saver – making 100 lbs of sausage in one shot would be difficult! Regardless of which store I go to, I've never paid the same price twice for casings. I think the person working just guesstimates a price based on...something. The hank is more standardized in price – $25-30, and is much more economical in terms of per-pound cost; the shorter length tends to run about $1/pound. This time, the hank cost us $30.

We've been slowly buying meat to turn into bratwursts for the past few months; every time we go shopping, we buy a pork shoulder or a turkey. This month, we had trouble closing our freezer after we got back from shopping, so knew it was time to get to work making brats (and time to get a bigger freezer!)

Before we started, though, we had to strategize – this much sausage would take a while to make, and with a toddler and an infant, we just weren't going to have the time to get it done in one shot, unless we stayed up all night, sacrificing precious, precious sleep. Since that wasn't going to happen, we decided to spread the process out over three days (if we were making a smaller batch, we would have made it in one day).

DAY ONE: Cutting and Grinding

Gotta sharpen the blade!

We decided to focus on pork for the simple reason that one of our pork shoulders was thawed and we couldn't fit that and all three turkeys in the fridge. I think they were the same cut of meat, but they were labeled differently – one was called a “pork picnic roast” and the other was a “pork shoulder roast”. The only difference I saw was the pork picnic roast had more bones. In the end, $45 of pork shoulders yielded 29.25 lbs of ground meat.

One of three hunks o' pork

All cut up

Randy cut the meat into strips small enough to feed through the grinder (the instructions call for 1” chunks, but I've found that strips work just fine, as long as the diameter is not too large) and ground it all up. He then packaged it in gallon Ziploc bags – five pounds per bag. This process took two hours and three beers.

Get your grind on!

When all the grinding was done, we threw the bones in the crock pot and let it simmer overnight both to make stock, and to get some more meat off of the bones. This sounds a little penny-pinching, I know, but we ended up getting nearly two pounds of additional meat, which we drenched in barbecue sauce for sandwiches. We also got three quarts of stock.

DAY TWO: Seasoning

While Randy cut, ground, and packaged the meat on day one, I had child duty and looked up recipes in our sausage book this wonderful book. Luckily for my decision-making abilities, I was limited in my choices by the ingredients we have on hand. Plain bratwursts were a guarantee, as was a spicy version – we made double batches of both of those. However, with nearly 30 lbs of meat, we wanted to try some new variations as well. I settled on Garlic Sausage and Southwest Sausage.

Just a touch more heat, please!

That meant on the second day, we were ready to season the meat. We were not precise in our measurements according to the recipes, since most of them called for four pounds of meat and we had five pounds for each recipe. Also, we wanted to make the spicy sausages much spicier than the recipe (we had made it before).

Randy had the pleasure of mixing the seasonings into the cold meat. I was excited for him to do it; usually it's my job and I know how much it hurts after a bit...at least until your fingers go completely numb! By the last couple of batches, he had figured out how to minimize the time required. He spread the meat out in the bowl as thinly as he could and evenly sprinkled the seasonings over it so there were fewer clumps of spices. It still requires several minutes of mixing to get everything evenly distributed.

Randy before he mixed the meat. That joy left about 20 seconds later

At that point, we put the ground meat back into the bags to sit overnight. This was mainly because it's much easier to stuff the casings when you have two people, so we had to wait until Zoey was asleep. It's too much to hope that both kids will sleep at the same time at this stage, but Parker is at least more or less stationary. The thought of chasing a toddler down with sausage hands is not fun.

A secondary, but also valid, reason was to let the spices meld and develop the flavors in the sausages. Given our general lack of patience, we were going to cook the brats the day we stuffed them; if we had seasoned and stuffed on the same day, the flavor wouldn't be the same.

This doesn't adequately show the loss of feeling in his fingers

The final step for day two was to prep the casings. They come packed in salt, which has to be rinsed off thoroughly. We pulled one long strand of casings out of the hank and rinsed it under cold water, then put it in a bowl of cool water to soak for 30 minutes. Then we put the casings in a Ziploc with fresh water and put it in the fridge to wait for the next day.

This process took one hour and one glass of wine to complete.

DAY THREE: Stuffing and cooking

This started with putting Zoey down for her nap and convincing Parker that he liked his swing. Once both kids were contained, we rushed to action. Sadly, this meant we didn't get any pictures of the process. While it is tempting to use the longest strand of casings possible – both to maximize the look of the final product (who doesn't want a 30-foot string of sausages?) and to minimize the times I have to tie a knot in slippery casings, I've learned that anything over around six feet makes it difficult to twist the sausages into links.

Stuffing the sausages takes quite a bit of patience and a little trial and error in the technique used. The ground meat feeds through the stuffer quite slowly. To complicate matters, if you push too much meat through at a time, the plunger gets stuck and pulling it out creates an air pocket, which turns the casings into a balloon. Randy has mastered this end of it; he pushes the plunger down 2/3 of the way and then feeds more meat in. This ensures a steady flow of meat into the casings with no air pockets. Yet again, patience is the key – if you rush this, it will end up creating more work and frustration. If you do end up with an air pocket, just pop it with a toothpick and keep going.

The other aspect is holding the sausages as they are stuffed. Because our stuffer is an attachment to the Kitchenaid, it's about a foot over the counter. This means the weight of the stuffed sausages drags down the casings, resulting in thin, sad sausages unless someone supports the sausages as they are stuffed. The trick is moving the casings along so the sausages are full but not overfull; overfilling means the bratwursts will burst when twisted into links. We were reminded the hard way of this, as I overstuffed the garlic brats and had several split open while I was twisting them into links; I had to remove some of the sausage and try to tie off casings that had already been stuffed. Profanity ensued, and I ended up relegating those sausages to immediate cooking.

Casualties of over-stuffing;See the meat exploding out of the end? Tragic, but still tasty!

It's also important to remember to leave a few inches of empty casing at the end, so you can tie a knot. Thankfully, this is easy to remember, and I didn't have to swear at this stage! It's better to leave a little more room than you need than not leave enough. Twist the stuffed casing into 4-5 inch lengths – you want to give it three or four turns. When you cut the links apart, the ends will stay sealed. I really don't know how it works, but it does – I suspect magic.

Some meat will always be lost – what is left in the tube of the stuffer. Because we had so many different batches, we didn't bother to clean the stuffer after each one; instead, we tried to sequence our stuffing to flavors that would match well, as we knew we'd have some blended sausages. Spicy-Southwest, Southwest-Garlic, etc. This way, we ended up losing the least amount of meat possible – maybe enough for one bratwurst.

Totally worth all of the effort!

The stuffing process took the two of us (in varying degrees of cooperation due to necessary child wrangling) three hours and three beers.

We ended up with 111 bratwursts. Even with overestimating the cost of the seasonings at five dollars, that comes out to a price of $0.54/brat, or $2.00/lb. The WinCo brand bratwursts sell for $3.99/lb and have who knows what quality of ingredients. I couldn't find an ingredient list for the WinCo brand, but Johnsonville (which costs a little more) has the following ingredient list:

Pork, water, corn syrup and less than 2% of the following: salt, dextrose, monosodium

glutamate, flavorings, BHA, propyl gallate, citric acid.

I like the vagueness of “flavorings”; it lets me use my imagination!

Zoey and her grandpa waiting for bratwursts

Aside from knowing exactly what “flavorings” are in my sausages, I discovered – completely by accident – another health benefit. My dad has breathing problems, and some additive in the store bratwursts messes up his breathing. These don't. Needless to say, he likes the freshly made version a lot better. We are making him about 15 pounds of them – enough to keep him in stock for a while!

Some of these recipes call for differently ground meat – some call for a double grind (coarse, then fine), some call for one grind on fine, some for one on coarse. We did one coarse grind for all of it – the batch was big enough to make switching out the blades a pain in the butt - and didn't double grind any of it. I didn't notice a difference between these and the previous batches where we did the double grind.

My favorite of the four variations was the spicy, followed by the garlic because of their stronger flavors. The other two were also tasty, but it's hard to beat a good spicy bratwurst, and I believe garlic should be one of the main food groups, so that's an automatic win. Actually, with both the spicy and garlic recipes, we doubled the quantity of the main seasoning to enhance the flavor a bit more.

We also altered the directions that call for the meat to sit in the freezer for a short stint between steps. Since we refrigerated the meat overnight between steps, we didn't need to freeze it. All this does is chill the meat so it travels through the grinder better. A long stay in the fridge has the same effect. When making a smaller batch, I include the freezer step.

RECIPES

Process for all variations:

Prepare the casings if needed, by rinsing off any salt, then placing in a bowl of cool water for 30 minutes. Run cool water through the casings before stuffing.*

Cut the meat into 1-inch cubes. Freeze for 30 minutes to firm up before grinding.

Grind meat through the coarse plate of a meat grinder

In a large bowl, add seasonings and mix well, using your hands.

Stuff mixture into prepared casings, prick air pockets, and twist into 4-to-5-inch lengths. Cut the links apart with a sharp knife or scissors.

Refrigerate for up to three days or freeze.

Bratwurst

6 feet hog casing

5 lbs ground pork shoulder or butt (make sure there is some fat!)

1 t white pepper**

1 t kosher or coarse salt

½ t crushed caraway seed

½ t dried marjoram

¼ t allspice

Garlic Sausage

6 feet hog casing

5 lbs ground pork shoulder or butt (make sure there is some fat!)

½ c white wine

3 T minced garlic**

1T plus 1t kosher or coarse salt

2t sugar

1t black pepper

½ t ground ginger

¼ t allspice

¼ t cinnamon

¼ t nutmeg

¼ t ground thyme

Sicilian-Style Hot Sausage

6 feet hog casing

5 lbs ground pork shoulder or butt (make sure there is some fat!)

2T kosher or coarse salt**

1T black pepper

2T habanero chili powder

¼ cup crushed red pepper

Southwest Pork Sausage

6 feet hog casing

5 lbs ground pork shoulder or butt (make sure there is some fat!)

1T plus 1t kosher or coarse salt**

1 T black pepper

2t crushed red pepper

1t coriander

1t cumin

½ t chili powder

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

*If desired, you can soak the casings again, this time adding 1T white vinegar for each cup of water. This softens the casings and makes them more transparent so the end product looks nicer.

**all measurements are for rounded spoons, as the base recipe was for four pounds of meat rather than five

Bagels - The Freshly Baked Breakfast

2012-06-30T14:08:00.001-07:00

Who can resist this?

I have made bagels a few times throughout the years, with varied success. Usually, the flavor is good, but the height/density can get iffy. Sometimes, they turn out fine (although misshapen when compared to bakery bagels), but other times they look perfect after rising, look perfect in the water...and look like someone sat on them when they come out of the oven. Flat, dense, and not particularly apetizing.

Hrm. Research suggests that over-risen bagels will collapse when boiled, but these didn't – the collapse came in the oven. I'm guessing the reason is the same, though. The only thing I can see that might change it is, unfortunately, being more patient in the process. I feel like Indiana Jones... “Patience. Why does it always have to be patience?!?”

On the surface, this is counterintuitive; it seems that rushing the process (not letting the bagels rise as long) would solve the problem. However, the main step I have failed to follow in my bagel endeavors is adding more time. Most recipes call for retarding the rise in a refrigerator for at least six hours, and preferably overnight. The longest I ever made it was two hours.

Pfiffle, I thought, that's just unnecessary steps to make people feel fancy schmancy with their baking. Unfortunately, it seems to actually make a difference. Luckily, sourdough has helped me see the light in stretching out the process.

Also, Zoey and Parker rarely give me enough time to go through all the steps in one day, anyway.

I decided to go with the base recipe from The Fresh Loaf. They have good forums there that explain the steps and help troubleshoot – I like to check them out when looking up new baking recipes/techniques.

Of course, I didn't follow it completely, as I like adding stuff into my bagels – cheese and jalapenos for Randy and me, and cinnamon/raisin for Zoey. And me.

Also, the recipe calls for bread flour, which I keep putting off buying because it costs twice as much as all-purpose and I'm cheap. And it calls for malt powder which I don't have and couldn't find in WinCo's bulk section (if I can't find a baking ingredient there, it's dead to me)*; I used honey instead, which this recipe said was acceptable as a substitute.

It starts much like sourdough – making a sponge out of about half the flour and yeast and all of the liquid. It's a relatively short rise for a sponge (two hours), and then the remaining ingredients get added and kneaded in. (Full disclosure: I forgot to add the honey here and had to put it in halfway through the knead. It worked, but I don't recommend it. Ever.) This is a different method than the more typical throw-everything-in-a-bowl-and-mix-well routine I've seen before, and has the benefit of activating the yeast before the main flour is in, so the bagel dough itself doesn't have to rise that long.

Sadly, bagel dough is too stiff for my Kitchenaid to knead while I do other things; I have to knead it by hand. The one time I tried to make the mixer do it for me, it made angry sounds and threatened to quit. I rely on it too much to have that happen, so I relented and agreed to knead by hand in the future.

Almost good enough to eat raw. Only not.

At the end of the knead, I split the dough in half and added in the extra ingredients before dividing and shaping the bagels. If I wasn't making two flavors, I'd have added these in sooner, but it works equally well either way – it's just a bit easier to mix them in before the dough gets too stiff. Two minutes of kneading ensured the ingredients got equally distributed.

The standard method for shaping bagels is to roll the dough into a ball, stick your thumb through the middle, and stretch the dough until it is a ring 4-5 inches in diameter. You can also roll the dough out into a 4-5” circle then poke a hole in the middle. Or make a rope 8-10” long and then pinch the ends together to form a ring. I tried all three so you can see the difference and so I could see if there was a difference in the end result.

Left to right: rolled out, hole-in-ball, and rope methods

After baking

As you can see in these pictures, there is a discernible difference, mainly with the bagels that I rolled out. However, that was probably due to me over-enthusiastically flattening the dough – a problem I had with the hamburger buns I made last week as well. The poke-a-hole-in-the-ball method is my favorite because it seems to have less potential for me to mess it up and those bagels came out looking the most bagel-y, but all three methods are about the same level of effort, so pick your poison.

What could all that meat be for? Stay posted...

After shaping, let the bagels rise for 20 minutes, then throw them in the fridge overnight. I was silly and made these on the day of our monthly shopping trip, when fridge space is at a premium. Whoops.

Then I was done for the night, which was kind of nice. I celebrated with a beer. Not one of Randy's, because those are being bottled today (a nice Hefeweisen from a kit – made 6 gallons just in time for the sun – they should be carbonated and ready to drink in a couple of weeks).

Boil, my pretties!

The next morning, I boiled and baked the bagels. Boiling separates bagels from bread and gives them their distinctive chewiness. The morning cooking worked out well, since the kids tend to be more cheerful in the morning. Also, I had fresh bagels for breakfast! Even better, my hopes that the longer timeline would help solve the Great Bagel Flattening were upheld. Hooray!

The bagels probably would have risen more had I used a higher-gluten flour (bread flour), but these came out just dandy, so I can pinch my pennies a bit longer.

We probably ate them a little sooner than we should have, because Zoey was standing behind me the entire time saying “Okay, mama, want dinner. Okay, mama, I eat now. Okay, mama, blue seat” (The seat in question is her booster seat). I felt like Gordon Ramsay was standing behind me yelling “How LONG? Get it together! It's a simple breakfast, for God's sake!” Luckily, these don't take long to cook!

My Ultimate Eggwich (fried egg, cheese, bacon, avocado, and tomato. Not low-cal)

*Luckily for my gluten-free experimentation, I discovered they carry xantham gum in bulk.

RECIPE

Sponge:
1 teaspoon instant yeast ($0.03)
4 cups flour (500g) ($0.32)
2 1/2 cups water

Dough:
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast ($0.01)
3 3/4 cups flour (470g) ($0.30)
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon honey

Additions:

4 oz cheddar cheese, grated

1/3 – ½ cup nacho jalepenos, chopped roughly

1- 1 ½ c raisins

1 rounded tablespoon cinnamon

Finishing touches:
1 tablespoon baking soda for the water ($0.01)
Cornmeal for dusting the pan ($0.02)

The Night Before
Stir the yeast into the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and stir until all ingredients are blended. Cover and allow to rise for two hours.
Stir the additional yeast into the sponge.
Add 3 cups of the flour, the honey, and the salt into the bowl and mix until all of the ingredients form a ball. Add in any additional ingredients (blueberries, raisins, cheese, etc.) here if you are making the whole batch the same
Work in the additional 3/4 cups of flour to stiffen the dough, either while kneading. The dough should be stiffer and drier than normal bread dough, but moist enough that all of the ingredients are well blended.
Pour the dough out of the bowl onto a clean surface and knead for 10 minutes.
**If you are making multiple flavors, divide the dough in half and add your additional ingredients here**
Split the dough into a dozen small pieces around 4 1/2 ounces each.

Roll each piece into a ball and set it aside. When you have all 12 pieces made, cover them with a damp towel and let them rest for 20 minutes.
Shape the bagels by poking a hole in the middle of each ball and stretching to desired size
Place the shaped bagels on an oiled sheet pan, with an inch or so of space between one another (use two pans, if you need to). If you have parchment paper, line the sheet pan with parchment and spray it lightly with oil before placing the bagels on the pan.
Cover the pan with plastic and allow the dough to rise for about 20 minutes.
Put covered pans in the refrigerator until morning.

In the morning:

Preheat the oven to 500.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

(optional) Add one tablespoon of baking soda to the water

When the pot is boiling, drop a few of the bagels into the pot one at a time and let them boil for a minute. Use a large, slotted spoon or spatula to gently flip them over and boil them on the other side.

Before removing bagels from the pot, sprinkle corn meal onto the sheet pan.
Remove bagels one at a time, set them back onto the sheet pan.
**If you are topping your bagels rather than mixing extras in, top them here, while the bagels are still moist**

When all the bagels have boiled, place the sheet pan into the preheated oven and bake for 5 minutes.

Reduce the heat to 450 degrees, rotate the pan, and bake for another 5 minutes until the bagels begin to brown.

Remove the pan from the oven and let cool

Corn Tortillas: Better Than You Can Imagine

2012-06-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

I know I just wrote about fried rice as the best go-to meal for left-over meat, but tacos provide an equally good (and quicker) option. I love tacos more than any food except pizza...and tacos are catching up now that I know how wonderful fresh tortillas are.

The dough should just stick together in a ball

What's not to love? There's a great mixture of flavors, temperatures (hot meat and beans, cold tomatoes and sour cream), and textures. Even the most basic of tacos – the taco truck fare that is a small corn tort with little more than some tender, shredded meat in it – has a strangely comforting feeling about it.

I always wondered why the corn tortillas from restaurants and taco trucks were so much better than those I bought at the store. The answer: freshness. The store-bought corn tortillas always seemed a bit dry and, well, stale. While cheap, they aren't really worth it, although they do fry up well in oil for a semi-crunchy shell.

I am in love with my tortilla press. Sorry, Randy.

However, with the acquisition of our tortilla press and the relative ease of making flour tortillas, I decided to give corn torts a whirl. While even simpler than flour tortillas ingredient-wise (masa and water), corn tortillas are a little more challenging to me.

The first batch drove me to profanity. I followed the directions on the bag of masa, and the dough seemed to be the right texture. It pressed out into beautiful rounds...which then stuck to the parchment paper and wouldn't come loose in anything close to one piece.

Randy the Tortilla Master had to step in and save dinner and my sanity. He figured out two things that make corn tortillas a whole lot less frustrating.

First, the dough should actually look a little on the dry and crumbly side, but be just wet enough to form into a cohesive ball in your hand. If the tortillas are sticking, they are probably too wet. Add a little masa and things will be fine.

So much easier than trying to peel it off the paper!

The second trick is to leave the tortilla on the parchment paper until you have it on the griddle. Put the tortilla in the pan (tort side down, of course – you're not trying to toast the paper!) and then peel the paper off. It comes off a little easier, and even if there is a slight tear, the tort is already cooking and is easily repaired.

These cook at a lower temperature and take longer than flour tortillas. They cook for about two minutes on each side, which means a batch takes longer. Because of this, I highly suggest cooking them on a griddle so you can cook several at a time without using every burner on your stove.

Randy actually used the griddle and a pan so he could cook four at a time. I don't blame him. I was irritated both at my failure and at his easy success. Yes, I am petty enough to be upset when someone succeeds where I have not. Especially when I'm hungry. However, feeding me is always an easy way to cheer me up, and since he's a smart man, Randy got things cooked as quickly as possible.

The one on the right is flipped - these barely darken when cooked

The tortillas turned out brilliantly. It's almost like a completely different food than the supermarket tortillas. They are tender and soft and flavorful and just the right size for a small taco. Zoey has begun announcing out of the blue “OK, Mama, I want tortilla.” I think she phrases it as if I offered one to her so I'll feel obligated to follow through. Clever, clever girl.

RECIPE:

2 cups (180 grams) masa

1 cup water

*Mix masa and water until you have a dough that is just moist enough to come together in a ball.

*Divide into 12 equal portions (roughly 1.5 ounces each) and press or roll into 6-inch rounds.

*Cook on a griddle set to 300F or in a pan over medium heat for two minutes each side.

*Place on a plate and cover with a damp cloth until all tortillas are cooked.

*Devour.

SPECIAL REQUESTS?

In July, I'm going to experiment with gluten-free recipes. I have no idea what I'm doing or where to start, so I'm pretty excited – I love making new things! There's just so much out there that I'm lacking direction, so I'm turning to you. What do you want me to try? (Results most definitely not guaranteed, but I'll give it my best shot and let you know where my mistakes happen).

Fried Rice - In 30 Minutes, You'll Want It Again!

2012-06-18T07:31:00.002-07:00

Big bowl of yum

One of our favorite ways to stretch leftovers is with fried rice. When I first made this several years ago, Randy was skeptical. Fried rice should be left to restaurants, he thought. I soon converted him, to the point that he now suggests I make it even when we have no leftovers to use in it.

Leftover BBQ works perfectly.

I like cooking this because it is so versatile and uses a little bit of whatever I have on hand, rather than sticking to a strict recipe. I've made it with leftover teriyaki, barbecue, even meat cooked in mushroom soup. I usually include eggs, but it's good without. Fresh veggies and frozen both work well (and again, you can choose to include pretty much whatever vegetable you want). I also like it because I get to eat fried rice when I'm done!

While I don't stress about having the exact right ingredients to make fried rice, I have found some seasonings make a big difference. The main one? Fish sauce. It surprised me when I first discovered it – I don't even remember why I decided to put it in. Probably because I had a bottle of it in the cupboard forever and thought something along the lines of “Fish sauce and fried rice are both Chinese* Therefore, they should be good together.” And they were, therefore proving the infallibility of my logic.

If you are missing some of the seasonings, you can always just mess around with what you have on hand. At one point or another, I have made this successfully while missing one or more of the seasonings, and I change it slightly each time I make it – the different result each time is one of the joys of making fried rice. This works because with fried rice, the technique is as important as the ingredients. As with most recipes, patience is the key when making fried rice. If you rush it, you end up with a dish that tastes like fried rice, but has the wrong texture. Patience plays into texture in two ways.

See how the grains are separate? Hard to do with fresh, hot rice.

First, fried rice is best when made with leftover rice. Whenever we have rice for dinner, I make a full 6-cup rice-cooker full, even though we never eat that much. That way, we can have fried rice the next day. Day-old rice works better than freshly cooked because it dries out a little, and the grains separate more easily.

If, like me, you sometimes forget to make rice ahead of time (or forget to put the rice in the fridge overnight and end up tossing it) you can still achieve this effect to a lesser extent by cooking your rice a couple of hours ahead of time, then separating it as much as possible and putting it in the fridge. If you have room, spread it out on a cookie sheet; if not, use the widest dish you can – you want to increase the surface area as much as you can. This might seem like a petty step, but it really does make a difference.

Look at all that goodness!

The other time that patience comes into play is during the cooking. You want to be sure to let the rice cook long enough so the flavors blend and so the rice gets the right fried texture. I'm not a patient person by nature, so I have to distract myself with cleaning or something similar to prevent myself from messing with the rice too much or getting bored and deciding it's done prematurely.

Other than that, the main effort involved is in prep – chopping up the meat into small pieces, scrambling eggs, cutting veggies (if using fresh), etc. Once all the chopping is done, it's mostly a matter of waiting for the rice to fry up to the right consistency.

In the recipe below, all measurements are of the “ish” nature – I more or less just dump things in on top of the rice in the wok and then adjust if it tastes off. I did measure the oil the last time I made it because that's a delicate balance – you want enough to coat the rice and let it fry, but not so much that the end product is greasy.

Taking pictures prevents me from eating it too soon!

We make this as our full dinner, but it can easily be made as part of a Chinese food feast with some egg rolls and sweet and sour pork (recipe forthcoming!). It holds up well as leftovers, and I often will have it for lunch the following day.

*Wikipedia informs me that fish sauce is actually used more in Vietnamese and Thai cooking. It is used in some parts of China, though, so I wasn't totally ignorant and wrong. Just mostly.

RECIPE

2 cups leftover meat

4 eggs

1-2 cups vegetables

4-8 cups cooked white rice

4 T vegetable oil

2 t sesame oil

2 T fish sauce

2 T rice vinegar

2 T soy sauce

2 T teriyaki sauce

1 t 5-spice

1 t ground mustard

½ t ground ginger

*Dice meat into small (¼ – ½”) cubes

*Scramble eggs and set aside

*Dice up vegetables into small (¼ – ½”) cubes

*Heat vegetable oil and sesame oil in wok or large frying pan over medium high heat until a piece of rice sizzles when it's dropped in

*Add rice to oil and stir well to coat with oil. Let fry, stirring occasionally for 4-5 minutes

*Add fish sauce, rice vinegar, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, 5-spice powder, mustard, and ginger. Mix well to evenly season the rice.

*Cook, stirring occasionally for 10-15 minutes.

*Add meat, vegetables, and eggs, and mix well.

*Cook, stirring occasionally, until the meat and vegetable are hot (5-10 minutes)

Linked to This Week's Cravings at The Daily Dish

Sourdough...Cookies?

2012-06-10T11:07:00.002-07:00

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this sourdough thing. Making a loaf or two every week has helped, as did all the tips I got from people who have much more experience than I do! One thing I figured out early on is that I have to be patient – giving it more time really makes a big difference in the end product.

I also figured out some techniques to increase the sour flavor. The one I settled on was to use a little bit of rye flour in the starter. Some people also use citric acid, but to me that seems like cheating. I'm not sure why one added ingredient is legitimate in my mind and the other is cheating, but there you go. There are plenty of other things I want to try to improve the basic recipe, but I have to be patient and get some more ingredients. Luckily, I'm on break until September, so I have lots of time to play with it! I've put my updated recipe at the bottom of the post.

See those bubbles? That's an active starter!

Now that I have the basics down, I thought I'd look around and see what else I can use my starter for, despite Randy's plaint of “Why does everything have to be sourdough?” I love sourdough and will make ALL THE THINGS out of it!

Luckily for me (not so much for Randy), it appears that you can use sourdough starter in pretty much everything you bake. Some things are just variations of other recipes that I like – whole-grain sourdough bread and sourdough English muffins. Many of the other recipes I found made a lot of sense – things that regularly call for sour cream or buttermilk like pancakes or coffee cake.

One, though, made me scratch my head. Sourdough sugar cookies. Um...what? That just doesn't compute. However, there are dozens of recipes out there, so they must be decent. Of course I had to try it!

I figured it it was win-win – either I they would turn out delicious and I'd have a tasty treat...or they'd be unappetizing and I'd avoid stuffing my face with cookies.

I fed my starter – but only once instead of twice, since the rise wasn't as important (and the recipe called for baking powder and baking soda, and eggs which act as leaveners as well). It got nice and poofy – I've fed it a lot in the past couple of weeks as we are re-building our bread stock, so it's nice and active.

Many people talked about adding different ingredients into the base recipe (due to trying to make them edible, Randy would say), so I thought I'd experiment with several variations in the same batch. Some, I left plain, some I topped snickerdoodle style with cinnamon and sugar, and some I put dried cranberries in.

The dough was very soft and I worried that they would spread a lot, but they kept a very nice shape. They came out very light – the lightest cookies I've ever made. I was, at first, unimpressed with the flavor of the plain cookie; it wasn't bad, it was just a bit blah. These are not very sweet cookies. However, it left a pleasant, lingering taste in my mouth.

The cookies with added flavor were better. The snickerdoodle flavored variety tasted, well, like snickerdoodles, but with a lighter texture. The real winner, though, was the cranberry cookie. They tasted very similar to scones. If I make these again, I will add cranberries to the entire batch.

Look at that poofy texture!

Overall, I am calling this experiment a success. The biggest evidence of success was that Randy – who

didn't even want to try them – couldn't stop eating them.

RECIPE (Total Cost: $1.24)

½ cup butter, softened ($0.63)

1 cup white sugar ($0.26)

1 egg ($0.12)

1 cup sourdough starter

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour ($0.14)

2 tsp baking powder ($0.01)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract ($0.08)

¼ tsp baking soda (< $0.01)

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease or line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

*In a large bowl, cream the butter with the sugar.

*Beat in the egg and sourdough starter.

*Stir in remaining ingredients and beat until smooth.

*Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets

*Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes

UPDATED SOURDOUGH BREAD RECIPE

To keep the starter alive, feed it every couple of weeks or so - remove one cup of starter and replace with 3/4 c flour* & 1/2 c water, mixing in. (If it has separated, just stir it back together).

To make the bread:
1 cup starter
5 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 c water
1T salt
optional: 2T wheat bran (helps rise and be less dense)

The day before baking: Feed the starter at least twice, leaving it out on the counter. You want to get it super active; this helps it rise farther and faster. I was skeptical, but it makes quite a big difference.

The night before you bake the bread, combine starter, water, and 2 1/2 cups of the flour. Mix until smooth, then cover and let sit out until the morning. Feed the remaining starter as described above and put it back in the fridge.

In the morning, add in the salt and remaining flour to make a dough.**
Let rest 10 minutes
Knead 10 minutes

Let rise until doubled. This takes about 3 hours at my house, but yours is usually a bit warmer, so may take less time for you.
Shape into loaves and let rise until doubled again. This takes about six hours for me, but again, may take less for you. I usually start checking after three hours or so
Bake @ 400 for 55-60 minutes

*You get a better sour flavor if you replace 2T of the flour with rye flour, but it's completely optional. Also, these measurements are customizable - if it gets stiffer than you want, up the water; if you seem to be losing starter, put more flour/water in.

**I've noticed that SD dough tends to be a bit wetter than other dough. This is especially notable when kneading (it holds form and kneads well, but has a tendency towards getting sticky) and after the first rise, it'll need a dusting of flour. I usually dust it lightly with flour AND grease the bowl lightly when it's rising to keep the sticking issues down.