Well no news yet! We haven't even gotten our offer submitted as there was a snafu with our mortgage approval *sighs*. We should have that resolved Monday, so hopefully we can submit our offer Tuesday and keep our fingers crossed that we hear back quickly!
I'm so excited, though, that I've already started desigining our "we've moved!" address update cards and Liam's baptism invitations. I've even planned the menu for their birthday party in July! We would have such a nice big backyard that it's a barbecue with lawn games and maybe even an inflatable bounce castle for Chloe. :) As for Liam's baptism, I've been putting it off all this time just hoping we'd be able to host the reception at our own home, and it looks like my waiting will actually pay off in a really unique and special baptism! Our pastor has suggested the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter when he does a special service entitled "remembering God's promises." It starts at 8:30pm. We start outside on the small hill where the church's remembrance cross sits, process into the narthex where it will be dim and the baptismal font will have been moved. He will be baptized there, then we'll all process into the sanctuary which will be brightly lit and decorated for Easter Sunday. It serves as a transition from the darkness of Friday and the light and joy of Sunday and I honestly think I'm going to cry like a baby. :) We'll host a dinner before the service starts and it should be the first thing we host in our new home! So exciting. :)
Ok, somebody stop me from getting my hopes up then dashed again. Surely you would think by now I would be so cynical that I wouldn't be planning anything. Alas, my hopeful positivity makes that impossible and I'll be doomed to a broken heart if bad news awaits us on Monday. Ah well, "'tis better to have loved and lost then never loved at all," right? :)
Our computer is still defunct, though we did purchase a new logic board off ebay last night for Brian to install. Here's hoping it works after that!
And last but not least, as far as this week's menu is concerned, it's a mish-mash of what's already on hand and what's easy and inexpensive. :) I'm anticipating an emotional week so I don't want a lot of new stuff to mess with or anything overly complicated. Thus, the menu reads:
SUNDAY: teriyaki chicken
MONDAY: spring pot roast with tomato rice
TUESDAY: turkey smoked sausage, sweet n sour cabbage, peas, and sour cream chive mashed potatoes
WEDNESDAY: ham and bean soup with yeast rolls
THURSDAY: tandoori chicken with flatbread and hummus
FRIDAY: eggs a la new goldenrod
SATURDAY: rustic italian hobo dinner
Tonight is Brian's teriyaki chicken he requested last week. It didn't get made because we had an impromtu "date" night (Liam was with us while Chloe was hanging with Aunt Sarah) and went out to eat for fried food with some cocktails. We needed it, and I don't think he minded. :) I wanted to make vegetable egg rolls to go with it, but I forgot to purchase egg roll wrappers yesterday (doh!) So, I may make a case to go get some restaurant egg rolls because they just sound delicious. And yes, I know that egg rolls are Chinese and teriyaki chicken is Japanese, but I like them together so oh well. :)
Monday needs to be simple and tasty. It'll be a rough day of shuffling Chloe back and forth to school, waiting to hear on our mortgage, then if all goes well, picking up Brian from work and going straight to our realtor's office to write an offer. So, spring pot roast I can toss in the crockpot in the morning and forget about it until 20 minutes before serving. Yum.
Tuesday is an oldy but a goody and incredibly easy. I'll just fry-up some turkey smoked sausage in a little butter, steam some peas and toss them with a little butter and sea salt, chop up some red cabbage and simmer it in apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, brown sugar, and caraway seeds, and lastly make some mashed potatoes with sour cream and chives stirred in. Yum yum gimme some! :)
Wednesday will utilize 1 pack of dried great northern beans, 1 onion, some leftover bits of ham and ham bone I've got in the freezer, and some leftover Midwestern Boil pot liquor from the freezer. That's it. All you need for a tasty meal. I'll make up some easy yeast rolls to go with it and it should be simple, filling, and tasty.
Thursday uses some garam masala rubbed chicken in the freezer. I'd previously cooked it for test kitchen 1 of my rose petal chicken. I used a homemade and fresh ground garam masala rub that was absolutely delicious but completely overwhelmed my rose petal sauce. I popped it in the freezer and knew it would make a tasty dish with some rice here in a bit, so that's what we're doing! I'd love to try my hand a making naan bread, because I love it, but we'll see if I'm that ambitious. I may just make up some fluffy flat bread and serve it with hummus on the side.
Friday is using some frozen hard boiled eggs sitting in my freezer from the restaurant. I thought it would be fun to take a dish from the old American south - eggs a la goldenrod - and transform it into something actually tasty. :) Do any of you remember eggs a la goldenrod? It's basically hard-boiled eggs that you separate the whites from the yolks. The whites get stirred into a basic white sauce (flour, butter, milk, salt, pepper) while the yolks get grated on top. You serve the whole thing on toast. It's.... bland. So, I'm going to take my hard-boiled eggs, put them on toast, and make them taste good. More on this later in the week. :)
Saturday is a favorite I've made many times lately: rustic italian hobo dinner. Some manner of bread will accompany this meal because you HAVE to have something to soak up the stew sauce.
And that's it for this week! Last week I promised some recipes from the menu, so here we go! They're not as hashed-out as I'd like since my process is all screwy without my computer. I'm not documenting things as well, nor am I photographing anything (though our SLR is FINALLY getting fixed!). So again, these are my absolute best estimates but you may need to adjust things here or there to suit you better.
Irish Potato Soup (a take on my colcannon)
Yield: about 2 quarts
3 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 C butter, divided
1 1/2 quarts of water to start (adding more as needed as it cooks)
sea salt and pepper
1/2 t white pepper
1/2 a large head green cabbage, sliced into coleslaw-sized pieces
2 bunches green onions, chopped
1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Peel and chop the potatoes into small 1 inch squares by halving them lengthwise, then halving the halfs. Then set them down onto the blunt edge and dice. Place the cubes into a stock pot with the water (just enough to cover the potatoes) and 1/2 C of the butter. Bring to a boil, and simmer over medium-low heat for several hours, seasoning with sea salt and pepper,. In the last 30 minutes before serving, melt the remaining butter in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the cabbage and cook down until soft, about 10 minutes. Then add the green onions and parsley. Season with sea salt and pepper and cook 5 minutes more. When everything is soft, add it in its entirety to the potatoes. Add more water to thin it as you like and season with sea salt, pepper, and white pepper to taste. Serve warm.
*Bacon is an optional addition to this and is quite good with it. You may fry it in the pan you plan to cook the greens in so that the grease becomes part of the butter mixture. I like it vegetarian, but some colcannon offers rasher bacon as a protein. It depends on your preference.*
Texas Hash
Yield: enough for a family of 6 hearty appetites
48 ounces tomato sauce
2 pounds frozen green beans
1 to 2 pounds ground beef
1 very large sweet onion, chopped
about a 1/3 to 1/2 C sugar
plenty of sea salt and pepper
about 1 T chili powder
In a large skillet brown the ground beef with the onion. Drain and return it to the skillet. Add the seasonings, tomato sauce, and green beans. Cook until green beans are done. Serve over cheddar mashed potatoes.
*This time I wanted to fix this in the morning and forget it to make my day run easier. I browned the beef in a skillet, drained it, then added everything to a crockpot on low. I waited until an hour before I planned to serve it to toss in the green beans and turned the crockpot up to high*
2/21/2011
What I Did for Valentine's Day
So people always ask casually, "Are you doing anything special for Valentine's Day?" either because they are and want to share or because they aren't and want to live vicariously (and perhaps have an example or two to take back to the ever-popular "is Valentine's Day a real holiday argument"). :)
To set the record straight, I like Valentine's Day. To me it's less about romance and more about being a bridge between winter and spring. See, Geoffrey Chaucer makes mention of the birds beginning to pair up two by two on the feast of St. Valentine in his "bird poem". The feast of St. Valentine, on the other hand, is a Catholic feast day for more than a few Saint Valentine's who were all marytered on February 14th. How romantic... :) I much prefer the imagery of seeing birds beginning to mate to thoughts of beheadings, don't you? Birds mating means one thing: babies. Eggs will be laid, nests sat on, and soon there will be babies harkening a new cycle of life, the rebirth of the Earth's natural cycle in spring. Now that's damn romantic. :)
This year Brian and I didn't do much. We spent a rare dollar going out to eat on Sunday with our kids in toe, selecting for the sake of ease a chain restaurant known for soup, salad, and breadsticks. While it's hard to mess-up salad and breadsticks, I had to pull a Gordon Ramsay and spit my entree out. I was physically unable to swallow it, despite a pep talk going on inside me saying, "You can do this! Don't make a scene. Just swallow then don't eat any more..." The cloth napkin provided no simple and discrete reprieve, so I had to wrench the paper napkin out from under the breadsticks and pretend to use it to blow my nose while I spit the contents of my mouth out into and and for good measure wiped my tongue with the other end, just in case I'd missed a spot. It was THAT BAD. *shudders* Honestly, I could have told them I was a chef and knew without doubt that the chicken they had served me was horribly freezer-burnt, but instead I said, "I'm sorry, but I can't eat this. It tastes almost freezer burnt." They, of course, didn't make me pay for the meal and offered to make another one, which I politely declined. Not exactly romantic, but meh - the kids didn't make a scene and Chloe ate plenty of salad, so I was a happy camper. :)
Not exactly romantic, I know. :) That's alright because my mind was focused on creating romance for other people. With this image of the day being a bridge between winter and spring, I wanted to focus on strong seasonal flavors meshed with some spring ingredients and woven together with more than a little whimsy. Valentine's Day should be elegant, yes, but it should also be fun. It's a celebration, afterall! Why all the black tie and stuffy steaks with overwrought sauces?
My final menu for this dinner read:
Course 1: champagne-butter basted lobster tail on homemade chocolate french bread with white chocolate beurre blanc and strawberry spice drizzle.
Course 2: peanut soup with bittersweet chocolate finished with orange oil.
Course 3: chocolate mushroom pate stuffed roasted breast of chicken with rose petal sauce, beet and potato mash and chocolate zucchini salad.
Course 4: chocolate cake with white chocolate blackberry mousseline, hazelnut praline buttercream, and semisweet chocolate ganache.
Each course was designed to not only incorporate chocolate but also either a fruit or a flower - typical Valentine's Day accompaniments. In addition, I used two kinds of nuts to highlight the nut-filled chocolates going into so many heart-shaped boxes. My color scheme was neutral, with pops of pink. So, whites, creams, and browns were accented with the strawberry color in Course 1, nothing in course 2, the bright pinks in the beets and rose petals in Course 3 and the blackberries in Course 4. Soooo pretty. :)
Peanuts, mushrooms, beets and potatoes are all typical winter foods that I've made a point to highlight, then off-set them with some very spring/summer ingredients with the use of strawberries, blackberries, roses, oranges, and zucchini. All in all, I was really pleased with the interplay and the element of whimsy. I wish I had delectable photographs to share with you all, but I don't. I was so engrossed in my plating I forgot to take photos. I'll have to ask if any of the guests have photos they can share, since I like having records of my plates. :)
Course 1 was served in a soup bowl. I set a slice of toasted chocolate french bread in the center then mounded it with lobster, drizzled the beurre blanc directly over it then did a design of 4 red dots to one side (of the strawberry spice drizzle). It was beautiful.
Course 2 was simple. I served the peanut soup in a soup bowl, piled some toasted chopped peanuts in the center, then drizzled the orange oil in an abstract spiral around the peanuts. I considered a rose petal for color, then felt it was superfluous. It had a pleasing, neutral tone to it that made Course 3 all the more vibrant.
That picture of Course 3 is fairly close. That was test-run 1, which looked beautiful but wasn't the taste I was after. This chicken isn't stuffed and the spice rub I ended up with was much more delicate. Everything else looks the same, though. It was stunning. People gasped when we brought them out, then once back in the kitchen I hear happy, "mmmmmmms" coming from them. Ahh satisfaction.
And Course 4 I was particularly proud of, too. I wound up making individual cakes in large mega muffin tins, slicing them in half, and piping filling in. They looked like uber tall, colorful whoopie pies. Elegant yet incredibly whimsical. :) I served them on an oval plate, setting my cakes just to one side, sprinkling them with toasted chopped hazelnuts, then grouping some rose petals on the other side of the plate for balance. Again, I caught people whipping out their cell phones to snap pictures. :)
Alright, enough bragging. I have recipes to share!!!
The cake was an absolute pain in the rump to make. But let me tell you, it was darn near the best thing I've ever eaten. Totally worth it. :) After the cake, I'm sharing the beet and potato mash, the chicken with rose petal sauce, and the chocolate french bread. Enjoy!
Valentine's Day Ultimate Chocolate Cake
Cake:
Yield: 2 9 inch rounds or 12 large muffin sized cakes
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 C boiling water
3 large eggs
1 T vanilla extract
1 t chocolate extract
1 T strong fresh brewed coffee
2 C flour
2 C sugar
1 T plus 1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
12 T butter, softened
Boil water in a glass measuring cup in the microwave then whisk in the cocoa powder. Let cool slightly. Meanwhile, in a stand mixer combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix 30 seconds on low then add the butter. Mix on medium speed until butter has been cut-in and all the dry ingredients are wet. In the lightly cooled cocoa mixture, add the eggs, the coffee, and the extracts, beating lightly with a fork. Add 1/3 of the mixture to the stand mixer, turn the mixer on and beat on high 30 seconds. Add the second third, beat on high 30 seconds. Add the last third and beat on high for 1 minute. Scrape the bowl and pour into prepared muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 15 to 17 minutes.
*To make this in regular cake pans, simply omit the extra teaspoon of baking powder (leaving you with only 1 T) and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. You can prepare these up to 24 hours in advance without drying them out (if covered very well once completely cool). Or up to 3 days in advance if you use a simple sugar syrup to moisten the cakes ahead of time. Boil 1 C water with 1 C sugar just until sugar is dissolved. Let cool completely then pour over cakes.
Chocolate Hazelnut Praline Filling:
Yield: enough to fill 1 cake
1 C salted butter, softened
1/2 C nutella spread
2 C powdered sugar
2 T frangelico liqueur
1 T water
1/3 C plus 1/4 C caramel crunch (recipe follows)
In a mixing bowl, beat softened butter until very light and fluffy - about 2 minutes. Add nutella and beat 2 more minutes. Add powdered sugar in batches, beating until all has been incoporated fully. Add frangelico and water and beat 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Fold in the caramel crunch.
*Note. Caramel crunch will soften if prepared more than 1 day ahead of time. You can prepare the frosting up to the caramel crunch as many as 4 days before you plan to use it, and stir in the caramel just before filling.*
Caramel Crunch for Praline Filling:
Yield: enough for 2 batches of hazelnut praline filling
1 C sugar
1/3 C water
1/8 t cream of tartar
In a small saucepan combine everything and cook over medium-low heat, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Once dissolved, stop stirring (don't touch it!) and set a thermometer in the pan. Cook until it reads 300 degrees F - or until it's a nice amber color.
Meanwhile set a silpat or piece of foil onto a baking pan. If using foil, spray it lightly with Pam. When caramel has reached 300 degrees, immediately pour it onto the lined baking pan. Let it harden and cool completely.
Once completely cool, break up the pieces with a knife and set them into a food processor. Process until a fine dust results and store in an air-tight container for up to 3 weeks. It can be kept frozen several months.
White Chocolate Blackberry Mousseline:
Yield: enough to fill and frost a 9 inch cake
1 pound unsalted butter
1 C sugar
1 C blackberry puree
1/4 C water
5 large egg whites
1/2 t plus 1/8 t cream of tartar
6 ounces melted and cooled white chocolate
In a mixing bowl, beat the butter until very smooth and creamy then set aside in a cool place (not the fridge). In a small saucepan heat 3/4 C sugar with 1/4 C water, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is bubling. Stop stirring and reduce the heat to low. Boil the syrup until it reaches 248 to 250 degrees and immediately transfer it to a glass measuring cup sprayed very lightly with Pam.
Meanwhile, in a stand mixer beat the egg whites until foamy then add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form when the beater is raised. Gradually beat in the remaining 1/4 C sugar until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised. Time this step to be complete when your syrup is at temperature. You do not want to use cool syrup - it must be 248 to 250 degrees.
With the beater off, drizzle in a 1/4 C of the syrup then immediately kick the mixer on to high. Do this a few more times until the eggs are tempered to temperature (so they won't scramble) then add the rest of the syrup and turn the mixer on to medium and continue beating until cool, about 2 minutes.
Beat in the butter on medium speed 1 T at a time. The mixture may seem to thin, but it will thicken by the time all the butter has been added. If it starts to look curdled, increase the speed slightly and beat until smooth before continuing to add more butter.
Lower the speed and add the blackberry puree and the white chocolate, beating until incporated.
Blackberry Puree for Mousseline:
Yield: about 2 C
24 ounces frozen blackberries
2/3 C sugar
2 T lemon juice
Set the bags of frozen berries in the microwave (make sure the bags are sealed and no holes are present) and heat on low for 3 to 5 minutes until all the berries are very soft. Set a colander over a bowl or measuring cup and open the berries into the colander, letting all the juices drip into the measuring cup. Lightly press (but do not squish) the berries to juice them until you have 1 full cup of blackberry juice.
In a saucepan, combine the blackberry juice with the sugar and heat until the mixture reduces to 1/4 C. Meanwhile, in the colander, press the berries firmly so that it mashes the berries. Often running a scraper on the bottom-side of the colander will aid in more puree coming through. This way you are seeding the puree as you do it, rather than pureeing in processor and straining. Just push firmly, scrape the bottom so more plops into the bowl, and continue pressing. You should have about 1 C of fruit puree when it's all said and done. Stir in the lemon juice and the reduces sugar syrup and ta da! Puree. :)
Semi-Sweet Chocolate Ganache:
Yield: enough to frost (not fill) 1 9 inch cake
9 ounces semi sweet chocolate
1 C heavy cream
Heat cream to nearly boiling (scalded). In a mixing bowl place chocolate chips then pour very hot cream over, whisking to melt the chocolate until smooth. Let cool in the refrigerate as much as 1 day ahead. Whip it with an electric mixer or stand mixer until it is light and fluffy, then frost the cake.
Valentine's Day Rose Petal Chicken
Rose Petal Sauce:
prepared rose petal jam
3 T cold butter
1/2 C chicken stock mixed with 1 1/2 T cornstarch
Combine rose petal jam with chicken stock mixture and bring to a boil for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the cold butter until melted. Set aside and serve warm over the chicken.
Chicken:
Yield: 2 chicken breasts
2 organic, free-range, hormone/antibiotic-free boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 T herbes de provence
sea salt and pepper
2 T olive oil
Butterfly the chicken by cutting evenly in the middle on the length side of the chicken until it opens with a 1/2 inch hinge on one side. Season inside and out with the herbes de provence, sea salt and cracked pepper. Drizzle olive oil over the chicken and let rest a few hours or overnight in the fridge.
Fill each chicken breast with 3 T of the chocolate mushroom pate and tie on either end and in the middle with butcher's twine, pulling the twine to even the chicken in the thicker parts (so that it looks like an even tube). Roast in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, rest 10 minutes then slice into 4 to 5 medallions per breast. Serve with roasted beet and potato mash and rose petal sauce.
Roasted Beet and Potato Mash :
Yield: about 6 portions
3/4 C fruity red wine
6 red beets, peeled and sliced into half moons
4 russet potatoes, peeled and sliced in half moons
3 large cloves garlic, chopped
sea salt and pepper to taste (dont' be stingy!)
1/2 C vegetable oil
1/2 C half n half
4 T butter
1/4 C chicken stock
Add peeled and sliced beets, potatoes, and garlic to a mixing bowl and add the vegetable oil, sea salt, and pepper. Toss to coat them dump into a lightly greased roasting pan. Pour the red wine over. Roast in a 375 degree oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until beets are very soft (they will take longer to soften than the potatoes). Toss the hot vegetables into the stand mixer and mash with the paddle attachment until most lumps have worked out. Heat butter, half n half, and chicken stock together in the microwave until warm then add to the stand mixer in batches, working it in until it is the desired consistency. Add extra sea salt and pepper as it needs it. Serve hot.
Chocolate Mushroom Pate Stuffed Chicken:
Yield: a shy quart
3 pounds mushrooms, roughly chopped (a wild mix is best)
1/4 C butter
sea salt and pepper
8 ounces cream cheese
7 ounces goat cheese
1 T chocolate extract
Melt butter over medium high heat and add mushrooms, cooking until golden brown. Season with sea salt and pepper then transfer the contents of the pan (including the flavorful liquid) to a food processor. Add the cream cheese and process until smooth. Add the goat cheese and chocolate extract and pulse until incorporated - 4 to 6 times. Taste and season with extra sea salt as necessary.
Chocolate French Bread
Yield: 2 loaves
1 T plus 1 t yeast
1/2 C warm water (110 degrees F)
1 T salt
2 C lukewarm water
6 to 7 C bread flour
2 T unsweetened cocoa powder
a spray bottle filled with clean water set to the "mist" setting
Combine the yeast in the warm water and let it cream about 5 minutes. Add the salt and cocoa powder to the lukewarm water and whisk until no lumps remain. Add the creamy yeast water and combine. In a stand mixer measure out 5 C of bread flour and mix with the paddle for 30 seconds. Drizzle in the water mixture and beat until well-combined, adding another cup of flour or two at the end. Trade the paddle for the dough hook attachment and knead for 10 to 15 minutes, adding flour if necessary to make a smooth, elastic ball of dough that wraps around the hook and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
Place in a greased bowl, turning to grease the surface and let rise until double (about 1 hour). Punch dough down and let rise until double (30 to 45 minutes). Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 2 portions. Cover and let rest 10 minutes, then roll out each portion into a 15 by 12 inch rectangle. Starting from the long side, roll up into an even log, tapering the ends to seal the dough. Slice 1/4 inch slits into the top of the loaves. Place the loaves seam side down diagonally on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal, cover and let rise 1 to 1 1/2 hours (alternatively, "proof" them in the oven on the "warm" setting and spritzing every 10 minutes with water. It should cut the rising time in half).
Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes, spritzing with the water every 15 minutes (to get a crisp crust). Cool and slice.
*Note. If you want a sweet chocolate french bread, you may add some sugar - up to 1/2 C. If you want a more milk chocolate flavor, use chocolate extract in place of the cocoa powder - about 2 T should do it. This recipe is for a savory application, so the bread has a full cocoa flavor without being sweet. It did, however, make some killer french toast!!!!!!*
To set the record straight, I like Valentine's Day. To me it's less about romance and more about being a bridge between winter and spring. See, Geoffrey Chaucer makes mention of the birds beginning to pair up two by two on the feast of St. Valentine in his "bird poem". The feast of St. Valentine, on the other hand, is a Catholic feast day for more than a few Saint Valentine's who were all marytered on February 14th. How romantic... :) I much prefer the imagery of seeing birds beginning to mate to thoughts of beheadings, don't you? Birds mating means one thing: babies. Eggs will be laid, nests sat on, and soon there will be babies harkening a new cycle of life, the rebirth of the Earth's natural cycle in spring. Now that's damn romantic. :)
This year Brian and I didn't do much. We spent a rare dollar going out to eat on Sunday with our kids in toe, selecting for the sake of ease a chain restaurant known for soup, salad, and breadsticks. While it's hard to mess-up salad and breadsticks, I had to pull a Gordon Ramsay and spit my entree out. I was physically unable to swallow it, despite a pep talk going on inside me saying, "You can do this! Don't make a scene. Just swallow then don't eat any more..." The cloth napkin provided no simple and discrete reprieve, so I had to wrench the paper napkin out from under the breadsticks and pretend to use it to blow my nose while I spit the contents of my mouth out into and and for good measure wiped my tongue with the other end, just in case I'd missed a spot. It was THAT BAD. *shudders* Honestly, I could have told them I was a chef and knew without doubt that the chicken they had served me was horribly freezer-burnt, but instead I said, "I'm sorry, but I can't eat this. It tastes almost freezer burnt." They, of course, didn't make me pay for the meal and offered to make another one, which I politely declined. Not exactly romantic, but meh - the kids didn't make a scene and Chloe ate plenty of salad, so I was a happy camper. :)
Not exactly romantic, I know. :) That's alright because my mind was focused on creating romance for other people. With this image of the day being a bridge between winter and spring, I wanted to focus on strong seasonal flavors meshed with some spring ingredients and woven together with more than a little whimsy. Valentine's Day should be elegant, yes, but it should also be fun. It's a celebration, afterall! Why all the black tie and stuffy steaks with overwrought sauces?
My final menu for this dinner read:
Course 1: champagne-butter basted lobster tail on homemade chocolate french bread with white chocolate beurre blanc and strawberry spice drizzle.
Course 2: peanut soup with bittersweet chocolate finished with orange oil.
Course 3: chocolate mushroom pate stuffed roasted breast of chicken with rose petal sauce, beet and potato mash and chocolate zucchini salad.
Course 4: chocolate cake with white chocolate blackberry mousseline, hazelnut praline buttercream, and semisweet chocolate ganache.
Each course was designed to not only incorporate chocolate but also either a fruit or a flower - typical Valentine's Day accompaniments. In addition, I used two kinds of nuts to highlight the nut-filled chocolates going into so many heart-shaped boxes. My color scheme was neutral, with pops of pink. So, whites, creams, and browns were accented with the strawberry color in Course 1, nothing in course 2, the bright pinks in the beets and rose petals in Course 3 and the blackberries in Course 4. Soooo pretty. :)
Peanuts, mushrooms, beets and potatoes are all typical winter foods that I've made a point to highlight, then off-set them with some very spring/summer ingredients with the use of strawberries, blackberries, roses, oranges, and zucchini. All in all, I was really pleased with the interplay and the element of whimsy. I wish I had delectable photographs to share with you all, but I don't. I was so engrossed in my plating I forgot to take photos. I'll have to ask if any of the guests have photos they can share, since I like having records of my plates. :)
Course 1 was served in a soup bowl. I set a slice of toasted chocolate french bread in the center then mounded it with lobster, drizzled the beurre blanc directly over it then did a design of 4 red dots to one side (of the strawberry spice drizzle). It was beautiful.
Course 2 was simple. I served the peanut soup in a soup bowl, piled some toasted chopped peanuts in the center, then drizzled the orange oil in an abstract spiral around the peanuts. I considered a rose petal for color, then felt it was superfluous. It had a pleasing, neutral tone to it that made Course 3 all the more vibrant.
 |
| My practice run of Course 3 |
And Course 4 I was particularly proud of, too. I wound up making individual cakes in large mega muffin tins, slicing them in half, and piping filling in. They looked like uber tall, colorful whoopie pies. Elegant yet incredibly whimsical. :) I served them on an oval plate, setting my cakes just to one side, sprinkling them with toasted chopped hazelnuts, then grouping some rose petals on the other side of the plate for balance. Again, I caught people whipping out their cell phones to snap pictures. :)
Alright, enough bragging. I have recipes to share!!!
The cake was an absolute pain in the rump to make. But let me tell you, it was darn near the best thing I've ever eaten. Totally worth it. :) After the cake, I'm sharing the beet and potato mash, the chicken with rose petal sauce, and the chocolate french bread. Enjoy!
Valentine's Day Ultimate Chocolate Cake
Cake:
Yield: 2 9 inch rounds or 12 large muffin sized cakes
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 C boiling water
3 large eggs
1 T vanilla extract
1 t chocolate extract
1 T strong fresh brewed coffee
2 C flour
2 C sugar
1 T plus 1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
12 T butter, softened
Boil water in a glass measuring cup in the microwave then whisk in the cocoa powder. Let cool slightly. Meanwhile, in a stand mixer combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix 30 seconds on low then add the butter. Mix on medium speed until butter has been cut-in and all the dry ingredients are wet. In the lightly cooled cocoa mixture, add the eggs, the coffee, and the extracts, beating lightly with a fork. Add 1/3 of the mixture to the stand mixer, turn the mixer on and beat on high 30 seconds. Add the second third, beat on high 30 seconds. Add the last third and beat on high for 1 minute. Scrape the bowl and pour into prepared muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 15 to 17 minutes.
*To make this in regular cake pans, simply omit the extra teaspoon of baking powder (leaving you with only 1 T) and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. You can prepare these up to 24 hours in advance without drying them out (if covered very well once completely cool). Or up to 3 days in advance if you use a simple sugar syrup to moisten the cakes ahead of time. Boil 1 C water with 1 C sugar just until sugar is dissolved. Let cool completely then pour over cakes.
Chocolate Hazelnut Praline Filling:
Yield: enough to fill 1 cake
1 C salted butter, softened
1/2 C nutella spread
2 C powdered sugar
2 T frangelico liqueur
1 T water
1/3 C plus 1/4 C caramel crunch (recipe follows)
In a mixing bowl, beat softened butter until very light and fluffy - about 2 minutes. Add nutella and beat 2 more minutes. Add powdered sugar in batches, beating until all has been incoporated fully. Add frangelico and water and beat 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Fold in the caramel crunch.
*Note. Caramel crunch will soften if prepared more than 1 day ahead of time. You can prepare the frosting up to the caramel crunch as many as 4 days before you plan to use it, and stir in the caramel just before filling.*
Caramel Crunch for Praline Filling:
Yield: enough for 2 batches of hazelnut praline filling
1 C sugar
1/3 C water
1/8 t cream of tartar
In a small saucepan combine everything and cook over medium-low heat, stirring, until sugar dissolves. Once dissolved, stop stirring (don't touch it!) and set a thermometer in the pan. Cook until it reads 300 degrees F - or until it's a nice amber color.
Meanwhile set a silpat or piece of foil onto a baking pan. If using foil, spray it lightly with Pam. When caramel has reached 300 degrees, immediately pour it onto the lined baking pan. Let it harden and cool completely.
Once completely cool, break up the pieces with a knife and set them into a food processor. Process until a fine dust results and store in an air-tight container for up to 3 weeks. It can be kept frozen several months.
White Chocolate Blackberry Mousseline:
Yield: enough to fill and frost a 9 inch cake
1 pound unsalted butter
1 C sugar
1 C blackberry puree
1/4 C water
5 large egg whites
1/2 t plus 1/8 t cream of tartar
6 ounces melted and cooled white chocolate
In a mixing bowl, beat the butter until very smooth and creamy then set aside in a cool place (not the fridge). In a small saucepan heat 3/4 C sugar with 1/4 C water, stirring constantly until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is bubling. Stop stirring and reduce the heat to low. Boil the syrup until it reaches 248 to 250 degrees and immediately transfer it to a glass measuring cup sprayed very lightly with Pam.
Meanwhile, in a stand mixer beat the egg whites until foamy then add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form when the beater is raised. Gradually beat in the remaining 1/4 C sugar until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised. Time this step to be complete when your syrup is at temperature. You do not want to use cool syrup - it must be 248 to 250 degrees.
With the beater off, drizzle in a 1/4 C of the syrup then immediately kick the mixer on to high. Do this a few more times until the eggs are tempered to temperature (so they won't scramble) then add the rest of the syrup and turn the mixer on to medium and continue beating until cool, about 2 minutes.
Beat in the butter on medium speed 1 T at a time. The mixture may seem to thin, but it will thicken by the time all the butter has been added. If it starts to look curdled, increase the speed slightly and beat until smooth before continuing to add more butter.
Lower the speed and add the blackberry puree and the white chocolate, beating until incporated.
Blackberry Puree for Mousseline:
Yield: about 2 C
24 ounces frozen blackberries
2/3 C sugar
2 T lemon juice
Set the bags of frozen berries in the microwave (make sure the bags are sealed and no holes are present) and heat on low for 3 to 5 minutes until all the berries are very soft. Set a colander over a bowl or measuring cup and open the berries into the colander, letting all the juices drip into the measuring cup. Lightly press (but do not squish) the berries to juice them until you have 1 full cup of blackberry juice.
In a saucepan, combine the blackberry juice with the sugar and heat until the mixture reduces to 1/4 C. Meanwhile, in the colander, press the berries firmly so that it mashes the berries. Often running a scraper on the bottom-side of the colander will aid in more puree coming through. This way you are seeding the puree as you do it, rather than pureeing in processor and straining. Just push firmly, scrape the bottom so more plops into the bowl, and continue pressing. You should have about 1 C of fruit puree when it's all said and done. Stir in the lemon juice and the reduces sugar syrup and ta da! Puree. :)
Semi-Sweet Chocolate Ganache:
Yield: enough to frost (not fill) 1 9 inch cake
9 ounces semi sweet chocolate
1 C heavy cream
Heat cream to nearly boiling (scalded). In a mixing bowl place chocolate chips then pour very hot cream over, whisking to melt the chocolate until smooth. Let cool in the refrigerate as much as 1 day ahead. Whip it with an electric mixer or stand mixer until it is light and fluffy, then frost the cake.
Valentine's Day Rose Petal Chicken
Rose Petal Sauce:
prepared rose petal jam
3 T cold butter
1/2 C chicken stock mixed with 1 1/2 T cornstarch
Combine rose petal jam with chicken stock mixture and bring to a boil for 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the cold butter until melted. Set aside and serve warm over the chicken.
Chicken:
Yield: 2 chicken breasts
2 organic, free-range, hormone/antibiotic-free boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 T herbes de provence
sea salt and pepper
2 T olive oil
Butterfly the chicken by cutting evenly in the middle on the length side of the chicken until it opens with a 1/2 inch hinge on one side. Season inside and out with the herbes de provence, sea salt and cracked pepper. Drizzle olive oil over the chicken and let rest a few hours or overnight in the fridge.
Fill each chicken breast with 3 T of the chocolate mushroom pate and tie on either end and in the middle with butcher's twine, pulling the twine to even the chicken in the thicker parts (so that it looks like an even tube). Roast in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, rest 10 minutes then slice into 4 to 5 medallions per breast. Serve with roasted beet and potato mash and rose petal sauce.
Roasted Beet and Potato Mash :
Yield: about 6 portions
3/4 C fruity red wine
6 red beets, peeled and sliced into half moons
4 russet potatoes, peeled and sliced in half moons
3 large cloves garlic, chopped
sea salt and pepper to taste (dont' be stingy!)
1/2 C vegetable oil
1/2 C half n half
4 T butter
1/4 C chicken stock
Add peeled and sliced beets, potatoes, and garlic to a mixing bowl and add the vegetable oil, sea salt, and pepper. Toss to coat them dump into a lightly greased roasting pan. Pour the red wine over. Roast in a 375 degree oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until beets are very soft (they will take longer to soften than the potatoes). Toss the hot vegetables into the stand mixer and mash with the paddle attachment until most lumps have worked out. Heat butter, half n half, and chicken stock together in the microwave until warm then add to the stand mixer in batches, working it in until it is the desired consistency. Add extra sea salt and pepper as it needs it. Serve hot.
Chocolate Mushroom Pate Stuffed Chicken:
Yield: a shy quart
3 pounds mushrooms, roughly chopped (a wild mix is best)
1/4 C butter
sea salt and pepper
8 ounces cream cheese
7 ounces goat cheese
1 T chocolate extract
Melt butter over medium high heat and add mushrooms, cooking until golden brown. Season with sea salt and pepper then transfer the contents of the pan (including the flavorful liquid) to a food processor. Add the cream cheese and process until smooth. Add the goat cheese and chocolate extract and pulse until incorporated - 4 to 6 times. Taste and season with extra sea salt as necessary.
Chocolate French Bread
Yield: 2 loaves
1 T plus 1 t yeast
1/2 C warm water (110 degrees F)
1 T salt
2 C lukewarm water
6 to 7 C bread flour
2 T unsweetened cocoa powder
a spray bottle filled with clean water set to the "mist" setting
Combine the yeast in the warm water and let it cream about 5 minutes. Add the salt and cocoa powder to the lukewarm water and whisk until no lumps remain. Add the creamy yeast water and combine. In a stand mixer measure out 5 C of bread flour and mix with the paddle for 30 seconds. Drizzle in the water mixture and beat until well-combined, adding another cup of flour or two at the end. Trade the paddle for the dough hook attachment and knead for 10 to 15 minutes, adding flour if necessary to make a smooth, elastic ball of dough that wraps around the hook and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
Place in a greased bowl, turning to grease the surface and let rise until double (about 1 hour). Punch dough down and let rise until double (30 to 45 minutes). Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 2 portions. Cover and let rest 10 minutes, then roll out each portion into a 15 by 12 inch rectangle. Starting from the long side, roll up into an even log, tapering the ends to seal the dough. Slice 1/4 inch slits into the top of the loaves. Place the loaves seam side down diagonally on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal, cover and let rise 1 to 1 1/2 hours (alternatively, "proof" them in the oven on the "warm" setting and spritzing every 10 minutes with water. It should cut the rising time in half).
Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes, spritzing with the water every 15 minutes (to get a crisp crust). Cool and slice.
*Note. If you want a sweet chocolate french bread, you may add some sugar - up to 1/2 C. If you want a more milk chocolate flavor, use chocolate extract in place of the cocoa powder - about 2 T should do it. This recipe is for a savory application, so the bread has a full cocoa flavor without being sweet. It did, however, make some killer french toast!!!!!!*
2/20/2011
The Weekly Meal Plan: Almost All Better
Good morning everyone! Once again I've commandeered my parents' computer long enough to post! :)
We're all beginning to feel a lot better. Liam had a really rough night, but I think that was our fault. He hadn't run a fever most of the day yesterday, so we went ahead and fed him a solid meal last night (his first in several days) and I'm almost positive it upset his tummy. I wound up walking him up and down the hallway for an hour until my arms and back began to scream at me (he weighs 19 pounds now) so we sat, rocked, and watched some Backyardigans until he finally fell asleep an hour later. Whew! I'm sure it doesn't help that he's currently cutting two teeth at the moment. Poor Little Man!
Despite illness, we went ahead and looked at houses on Friday night. We've waited so long to be able to do this we just had the "nothing will stop us now," attitude. :) We wound up finding a house we absolutely love! The only problem is the asking price is a little high for us, so we're going to offer less and see what happens. I hope we get it, though. I'll share more if we actually get it. :)
Since we're all starting to feel better, I went ahead and meal-planned this week. It's been a few weeks since I've done a large grocery trip, so I'm excited to go, actually.
SUNDAY: homemade pizzas: margherita and plain cheese
MONDAY: texas hash with salad
TUESDAY: cilantro-lime pork tacos, sofrito rice and refried beans
WEDNESDAY: irish potato soup
THURSDAY: maple apple hobo dinner
FRIDAY: chicken teryiaki with rice
SATURDAY: bbq sammies, broccoli mac n cheese, sweet potato salad
Alright, tonight is some relatively simple and plain "we're almost all better" food. :) It's way out of season and won't taste nearly as good as it should, but it's what this crew is craving so I aim to please - I'll make-up the "sauce" for my summer margherita pasta and put it on my homemade pizza crust, top it with a little mozzarella and parmesan and we'll call it done. The plain cheese will be a simple pizza sauce made from tomato paste then probably mozzarella, parmesan, and maybe meunster or swiss. Salads with italian dressing and it'll be a crowd pleaser that won't make any of us sick!
Tomorrow night is texas hash. I've previously listed a rollover texas hash, but this is the original non-leftovers version. It's a similar concept minus the beans: ground beef, tomato sauce, green beans, onions, chili powder, sugar. Serve it on potatoes = simple. I'll try to give a more concrete recipe sometime this week if I can get on the computer. It's another one of those I simply have never bothered to measure or write down. I just dump stuff in until it tastes right. :)
We must be feeling the early-teaser Spring February has brought us because I woke up with a severe hankering for cilantro-lime tacos. :) So, since I already cooked a boston butt, I just divided it into two bags - one for bbq and one for shredded pork carnitas. I'll just make-up the sauce, toss it in the pork, and fill the tacos. Some variation of sofrito rice, as always, will accompany the dish as will some simple refried beans.
Next will be Irish potato soup. This will basically amount to my colcannon recipe (It's almost St. Patty's day!) loosened into soup form. Colcannon is mashed potatoes with greens mixed in. My mix usually involves parsley, green onions, cabbage, and sometimes kale. I'll try to post a recipe sometime this week on this one, too. I'll probably make some oatmeal bread or even yeast rolls to go with it.
The maple-apple hobo dinner is loosely based on the squash-apple hobo dinner with apple cider glaze that I felt was somewhat successful but not as tasty as I wanted. I found an Ina Garten recipe for a roasted butternut squash salad that I thought looked super yummy, so I'm taking that as new inspiration and translating it into hobo dinner form. It should be really tasty and nutritious. I love these hobo dinners precisely for the reason that it gets a bunch of veggies in our plates all at once. Yum!
Brian has requested chicken teryiaki, so there you go. :) I'll make a quick sauce out of rice wine vinegar, mirin, brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger and garlic. I'll cook chicken, toss in the sauce, add a little green onion and matchstick carrot action, then add the sauce and a spot of cornstarch to thicken and voila. Steam some rice and dinner is done! :)
And finally, on Saturday will be the bbq sammies I made last Saturday and stuck in the freezer. It'll be my homemade bbq sauce, as always (we're addicted to it) and my homemade mac n cheese that I'll add some steamed broccoli to, then my roasted sweet potato salad. A veritable feast, I'd say!
Lastly, I hope to have time to update the recipe index. It takes me a bit of effort to maintain it, but even I find it super handy so I'll keep at it. :) I'm missing recipes from the past few posts, so look for those additions this week. I hope everyone has a happy President's Day. I'm almost finished reading "The Seasons on Henry's Farm" (not quite as good as "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" but still a good read) and I think in honor of the holiday I'm going to read President George W. Bush's memoir "Decision Points." I've had it on my list since it came out and thought it sounded like a fascinating read, regardless of your political affiliation. :) We shall see!
Oh! I forgot! We ordered all of our seeds yesterday for our garden! I guess we're hoping we get this house? :) I have 4 kinds of tomatoes, 2 kinds of potatoes, 3 kinds of onions, beets, celery, butternut squash, golden delicious squash, summer squash, zucchini, all kinds of herbs, edible flowers, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, corn, cabbage, 4 kinds of lettuce.... man I could go on. :) We're so excited! Hopefully I'll have good news soon. :)
We're all beginning to feel a lot better. Liam had a really rough night, but I think that was our fault. He hadn't run a fever most of the day yesterday, so we went ahead and fed him a solid meal last night (his first in several days) and I'm almost positive it upset his tummy. I wound up walking him up and down the hallway for an hour until my arms and back began to scream at me (he weighs 19 pounds now) so we sat, rocked, and watched some Backyardigans until he finally fell asleep an hour later. Whew! I'm sure it doesn't help that he's currently cutting two teeth at the moment. Poor Little Man!
Despite illness, we went ahead and looked at houses on Friday night. We've waited so long to be able to do this we just had the "nothing will stop us now," attitude. :) We wound up finding a house we absolutely love! The only problem is the asking price is a little high for us, so we're going to offer less and see what happens. I hope we get it, though. I'll share more if we actually get it. :)
Since we're all starting to feel better, I went ahead and meal-planned this week. It's been a few weeks since I've done a large grocery trip, so I'm excited to go, actually.
SUNDAY: homemade pizzas: margherita and plain cheese
MONDAY: texas hash with salad
TUESDAY: cilantro-lime pork tacos, sofrito rice and refried beans
WEDNESDAY: irish potato soup
THURSDAY: maple apple hobo dinner
FRIDAY: chicken teryiaki with rice
SATURDAY: bbq sammies, broccoli mac n cheese, sweet potato salad
Alright, tonight is some relatively simple and plain "we're almost all better" food. :) It's way out of season and won't taste nearly as good as it should, but it's what this crew is craving so I aim to please - I'll make-up the "sauce" for my summer margherita pasta and put it on my homemade pizza crust, top it with a little mozzarella and parmesan and we'll call it done. The plain cheese will be a simple pizza sauce made from tomato paste then probably mozzarella, parmesan, and maybe meunster or swiss. Salads with italian dressing and it'll be a crowd pleaser that won't make any of us sick!
Tomorrow night is texas hash. I've previously listed a rollover texas hash, but this is the original non-leftovers version. It's a similar concept minus the beans: ground beef, tomato sauce, green beans, onions, chili powder, sugar. Serve it on potatoes = simple. I'll try to give a more concrete recipe sometime this week if I can get on the computer. It's another one of those I simply have never bothered to measure or write down. I just dump stuff in until it tastes right. :)
We must be feeling the early-teaser Spring February has brought us because I woke up with a severe hankering for cilantro-lime tacos. :) So, since I already cooked a boston butt, I just divided it into two bags - one for bbq and one for shredded pork carnitas. I'll just make-up the sauce, toss it in the pork, and fill the tacos. Some variation of sofrito rice, as always, will accompany the dish as will some simple refried beans.
Next will be Irish potato soup. This will basically amount to my colcannon recipe (It's almost St. Patty's day!) loosened into soup form. Colcannon is mashed potatoes with greens mixed in. My mix usually involves parsley, green onions, cabbage, and sometimes kale. I'll try to post a recipe sometime this week on this one, too. I'll probably make some oatmeal bread or even yeast rolls to go with it.
The maple-apple hobo dinner is loosely based on the squash-apple hobo dinner with apple cider glaze that I felt was somewhat successful but not as tasty as I wanted. I found an Ina Garten recipe for a roasted butternut squash salad that I thought looked super yummy, so I'm taking that as new inspiration and translating it into hobo dinner form. It should be really tasty and nutritious. I love these hobo dinners precisely for the reason that it gets a bunch of veggies in our plates all at once. Yum!
Brian has requested chicken teryiaki, so there you go. :) I'll make a quick sauce out of rice wine vinegar, mirin, brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger and garlic. I'll cook chicken, toss in the sauce, add a little green onion and matchstick carrot action, then add the sauce and a spot of cornstarch to thicken and voila. Steam some rice and dinner is done! :)
And finally, on Saturday will be the bbq sammies I made last Saturday and stuck in the freezer. It'll be my homemade bbq sauce, as always (we're addicted to it) and my homemade mac n cheese that I'll add some steamed broccoli to, then my roasted sweet potato salad. A veritable feast, I'd say!
Lastly, I hope to have time to update the recipe index. It takes me a bit of effort to maintain it, but even I find it super handy so I'll keep at it. :) I'm missing recipes from the past few posts, so look for those additions this week. I hope everyone has a happy President's Day. I'm almost finished reading "The Seasons on Henry's Farm" (not quite as good as "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" but still a good read) and I think in honor of the holiday I'm going to read President George W. Bush's memoir "Decision Points." I've had it on my list since it came out and thought it sounded like a fascinating read, regardless of your political affiliation. :) We shall see!
Oh! I forgot! We ordered all of our seeds yesterday for our garden! I guess we're hoping we get this house? :) I have 4 kinds of tomatoes, 2 kinds of potatoes, 3 kinds of onions, beets, celery, butternut squash, golden delicious squash, summer squash, zucchini, all kinds of herbs, edible flowers, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, corn, cabbage, 4 kinds of lettuce.... man I could go on. :) We're so excited! Hopefully I'll have good news soon. :)
2/18/2011
Sick Food
Alright, I have the computer and everyone else is napping but me and Chloe, so.... HA HA! :)
We're all very sick. Liam has a doctor's appointment this afternoon, but the poor guy right now is running a 102 fever even with Tylenol. Brian is just out of it and can't stay awake, my parents are down for the count, too. While I have a sore throat, a cough, a stuffy nose, and general malaise, I'm the best of the lot so responsibilities for keeping this family and household running are falling on me. Chloe is miraculously immune and is running around as energetic and sunny as always. At least it's nice out and the backyard is one big giant mud pit for her to run around in. :)
Since we're all sick, I made my chicken noodle soup for dinner last night. I'm convinced eating this soup and drinking my chammomile, lavender, and honey tea are what is keeping me fairly healthy (all things considering). I know I've gone back and forth on whether to share my secret soup, but I just can't help it. It's power is too great to be contained. :)
Since I wasn't intending to share it, I haven't ever written it down and am unsure of quantities. These are my best guesses, though.
My Magic Healing Chicken Noodle Soup
Yield: about 4 quarts
2 chicken breasts
5 carrots, sliced into coins
3 stalks celery, diced including the hearts and stems
1 large sweet onion, diced
1 pound medium width egg noodles (homemade, frozen, or dried)
about 3 quarts homemade chicken stock (or boxed/made from "better than bouillon" soup base)
the juice of 1 very large lemon, about 2 T
2 to 4 T honey (to taste - more helps your throat)
1 T plus 1 t herbes de provence
1 t plus 1/4 t dried lavender flowers
sea salt and pepper
Place stock in stockpot and bring to a boil. Add whole chicken breasts and poach until done and soft, about 20 minutes. Remove to a cutting board and dice. Add back to stock. Cut-up remaining vegetables and add to stock, then season with everything else (but the noodles). Boil for 10 minutes then add the noodles and cook until done - about 10 more minutes. Add a little more lemon juice and the 1/4 t lavender just before serving for fragrance. Serve with crusty bread.
It's magical against all kinds of sickness and Chloe practically licks the bowl, so a win-win, I'd say. :)
Tonight for dinner I've got bbq made since boston butt's were on sale. We'll see if any of us feel like that, though. It may be an Irish Potato Soup night.... we'll see.
We're all very sick. Liam has a doctor's appointment this afternoon, but the poor guy right now is running a 102 fever even with Tylenol. Brian is just out of it and can't stay awake, my parents are down for the count, too. While I have a sore throat, a cough, a stuffy nose, and general malaise, I'm the best of the lot so responsibilities for keeping this family and household running are falling on me. Chloe is miraculously immune and is running around as energetic and sunny as always. At least it's nice out and the backyard is one big giant mud pit for her to run around in. :)
Since we're all sick, I made my chicken noodle soup for dinner last night. I'm convinced eating this soup and drinking my chammomile, lavender, and honey tea are what is keeping me fairly healthy (all things considering). I know I've gone back and forth on whether to share my secret soup, but I just can't help it. It's power is too great to be contained. :)
Since I wasn't intending to share it, I haven't ever written it down and am unsure of quantities. These are my best guesses, though.
My Magic Healing Chicken Noodle Soup
Yield: about 4 quarts
2 chicken breasts
5 carrots, sliced into coins
3 stalks celery, diced including the hearts and stems
1 large sweet onion, diced
1 pound medium width egg noodles (homemade, frozen, or dried)
about 3 quarts homemade chicken stock (or boxed/made from "better than bouillon" soup base)
the juice of 1 very large lemon, about 2 T
2 to 4 T honey (to taste - more helps your throat)
1 T plus 1 t herbes de provence
1 t plus 1/4 t dried lavender flowers
sea salt and pepper
Place stock in stockpot and bring to a boil. Add whole chicken breasts and poach until done and soft, about 20 minutes. Remove to a cutting board and dice. Add back to stock. Cut-up remaining vegetables and add to stock, then season with everything else (but the noodles). Boil for 10 minutes then add the noodles and cook until done - about 10 more minutes. Add a little more lemon juice and the 1/4 t lavender just before serving for fragrance. Serve with crusty bread.
It's magical against all kinds of sickness and Chloe practically licks the bowl, so a win-win, I'd say. :)
Tonight for dinner I've got bbq made since boston butt's were on sale. We'll see if any of us feel like that, though. It may be an Irish Potato Soup night.... we'll see.
Service Interruption
So, if you hadn't noticed it has been a long time since I updated. While I wanted to take more breaks from the internet, I did not intend to abandon my blog. :) Our lovely and much loved Macintosh has literally bit the dust. It will cost almost as much to repair as it would to simply buy a new one, an expense we don't wish to incur at the moment since we're actually going TONIGHT to look at 3 houses. Woohoo!
What that means.... this blog will be rather quiet for a bit. I'm sorry! I'm hopping on my parents' computer when I can, but I don't have enough time in these brief stints to do a full update with recipes, fun anecdotes, or photos.
I have been reading lots of really awesome books I want to share with you all. I also completed my Valentine's Day Wine Dinner at work and it was a huge success. (Though I forgot to photograph my plates!) I have lots of yummy recipes to share, alas.... they will all have to wait.
Hopefully we can offer on one of these houses tonight and get moved soon! With this move will come a shift in my cooking attitude I'm eager to share with you all. In the meantime, eat more beets. They're delicious. :)
What that means.... this blog will be rather quiet for a bit. I'm sorry! I'm hopping on my parents' computer when I can, but I don't have enough time in these brief stints to do a full update with recipes, fun anecdotes, or photos.
I have been reading lots of really awesome books I want to share with you all. I also completed my Valentine's Day Wine Dinner at work and it was a huge success. (Though I forgot to photograph my plates!) I have lots of yummy recipes to share, alas.... they will all have to wait.
Hopefully we can offer on one of these houses tonight and get moved soon! With this move will come a shift in my cooking attitude I'm eager to share with you all. In the meantime, eat more beets. They're delicious. :)
2/02/2011
On Baby Food and Food Culture
So I happened to check my stats today and notice that someone navigated to my blog via google using the search term "can you feed an infant campbells soup." Let me address this with a question: why would you want to? Is it convenient? Cheap? All you've got in the cabinet?
This seems like a good time to write a quick bit about homemade baby food. I've raised two kids without ever purchasing a jar of baby food and without using any of the pre-pack "healthy step foods" designed to look like the unhealthy snack food habitually eaten by adults (that most of us would never give a child because it's not good for them - um, irony?) The only packaged things, in fact, I've ever given Chloe or Liam (as infants) are the Earth's Best Organic rice cereal and oatmeal. Since it begs answering, as a toddler, Chloe now gets things like raisins in a package, some kinds of whole grain crackers, or if we're on a car-trip maybe a Kashi bar. (And yes, I did and do formula feed. No, it wasn't my first choice. Am I the world's worst mother for formula-feeding? No. Are you the world's worst mother if you buy jarred baby food? No. But, it's my blog so I get to say what I want.) :)
While I don't feel like an expert on baby-food making, I do know how I've fed my kids has worked for them both. They grow/grew like weeds, were always fairly healthy, and - at least for Chloe - has turned out to be able to tolerate plenty of cuisine-types snubbed by some other kids her age. Chloe eats a wide variety of things and isn't afraid to give something new a try most times. If she is, it's usually fatigue and if I try again on another day she'll dive in with relish. Is this a result of my baby-food making? Perhaps. One can't say for sure because certain kids will be, no matter how hard an adult tries, picky eaters.
Liam is 6 months old and eats three meals a day. His breakfast is usually oatmeal with some kind of fruit puree or organic yogurt mixed in. His lunch is usually a vegetable puree. His dinner is usually rice cereal with a fruit and/or vegetable puree mixed in. Once I get him through all his green veggie tastes, I'll start him on lean meat proteins, and those will be added occasionally to the dinner mix.
At 4 months, Liam started with one meal a day. His first was bananas. I have a mini food processor, so it was a snap to take a fresh banana and buzz it in the processor until smooth. If it was too thick, I simply added a little formula. He moved on to apples, pears, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, avocado (which he hated!), and carrots - also not a big fan of at first.
Those were his "first tastes," that trying time when every meal every day for 7 straight days is the same thing. This helps both baby and parents be on alert for any allergic reactions, that way there's no question what caused it if something of concern arises. Once I get through first tastes, though, I get a little more lenient. As long as I'm not introducing a new food every day, I let him have something new maybe twice a week, spaced-out a few days. If he was going to react to something, then I at least have a narrow field of selection and can also tell by the time.
His first tastes took us nearly all of the two months between 4 and 6 months. In the last week we slowly introduced yogurt. This is not an easy thing for the body to learn to digest, and indeed, the formula-fed baby has the leg-up on learning to digest cow's milk. However, Liam has a very sensitive tummy and is on a sensitive formula (though not a soy-based formula). For ANY baby, no matter disposition, starting with a tablespoon of yogurt is what's recommended. Any more and you'll likely have one very upset baby. Despite this caution, we still had one very upset baby and so dosed him with a little colic calm and a lot of leg pedaling. He eventually burped profusely, settled down, and went right to sleep.
So far this week, he's had blueberries and peas mixed in to his new routine. He will also lap-up his carrots quite happily now when mixed with apple. Those are his two new tastes, with next week planning to bring green beans and mangoes into the mix. I haven't planned further than that, though Lord knows there's a plethora of choices I'm bursting to try him on. :)
For the simple fruit purees, all I do is peel and dice the fruit, then steam it either on the stove-top or in the microwave in a glass container. Roasting actually preserves more of the fruit's natural goodness, however, when I tried roasting and pureeing, the result was a mealy puree with little lumps intolerable for a 4 month old (though would be killer for one with teeth). Steaming is the next best thing and requires just a small amount of water and a few minutes of time in something with a tight-fitting lid.
The vegetables, on the other hand, can be roasted to lovely results. Sweet potatoes and squash are so flavorful and naturally tender, they don't require anything additional. I just peel them, dice them, set them into a foil packet and roast them until squishy. Vegetables such as peas and carrots, I've found, don't roast as well and so I go back to the steaming method.
For either method, the next step is to puree while still hot, either in a food processor (like me), a blender, a food mill, or even a mortar and pestle if you're patient. If the puree is too thick, add a little water, then spoon into ice cube trays, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze until each puree is frozen solid. Dump the cubes out into a bowl and portion as you see fit. For now, I just freeze a large quantity of like cubes in a freezer baggie and pull out a cube or two as I need it. When he gets to more sophisticated meals, where I'm using multiple cubes at every meal, I'll portion them in "meal packs," so that anyone, even if they're not me, can fix him an acceptable dinner. :)
Since Liam didn't enjoy the slightly more bitter flavor of carrots (which are pretty sweet, even if not as sweet as the squash or potato), I was worried he wouldn't take to his peas. I am not one to think that baby food must be bland or season-less. In fact, as Chloe progressed beyond her first tastes, her palette became open to a world of seasonings and taste sensations that she quite enjoyed. It's no different with Liam. I added a very small amount of butter, a tiny bit of sea salt, and a pinch of tarragon to his peas and the boy gobbled it up. Mint would have also worked well with the peas, or basil. Any herb that would add natural sweetness, since humans are predisposed to like sweet. :) The salt, too, brings out the natural flavor of the peas so, especially off-season starchy frozen peas, can taste much better. Baby's palettes are VERY sensitive, so season with a very light hand. Even a pinch of tarragon tastes like a sea of tarragon to the taste buds that have never had such a flavor before. A little goes a very long way, so just be cautious.
One of Chloe's favorite meals at around 7 months, indeed, I think it was her first ever taste of chicken, was a puree I intend to replicate for Liam. Chicken can be pureed fine enough if diced and poached in chicken stock or broth (or even plain water). Into the poaching liquid with the almost-soft chicken I'd toss some sweet potato and golden raisins. Puree it all until smooth, adding a pat of butter or a little more water as necessary, season with a touch of salt and a dash of cinnamon and ta da! Delicious gourmet baby food in under 20 minutes. :) When she got even a little older, I'd add nutmeg and pepper to the mix. As the palette develops, more complex flavor variations should be introduced so that it becomes accustomed to (and even learns to) taste and enjoy. Flavorless food is joyless food, and therefore meal-times will always be a battle. Food should be savored and enjoyed, even as a baby. :)
One of my favorite tricks was to just take whatever it was we were having for dinner and puree it all together. If you're like me, then you plan a meal with complimentary flavors anyway, so that your first bite is always (a la Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl) "the perfect bite." Am I alone in this? I take a bit of everything on my plate, making sure not to miss a single spice component or garnish, and voila - yum. :) I think that was Funny Girl... now I'm not so sure. It's the one with Jeff Bridges? Oh well, I digress - this works well for on the spot baby dinners, too.
Once Liam gets some chompers, which he is currently working mightily on, I'll start him on finger foods. I know all the developmental books say to start them now, but that's only if you want to use the packaged dissolving stuff. If you're extra finicky about following the guidelines, sometimes an oyster cracker crumbled, or even a graham cracker crumbled, can solve this necessary developmental milestone. For now I'll settle with the fact that Little Man knows how to use his hands because a) he grabs the spoon and feeds himself most of the time b) he finds the smallest speck of something in the carpet and puts it in his mouth, much to my dismay and c) is able to grasp his sippy cup and give himself a drink.
On the matter of sippy cups, a quick note about juice. I never gave Chloe juice until the age of 2, and that was only as a natural remedy to help curb some of the occasional irregularity she did not enjoy. It is only natural-pressed 100% apple juice, and it is only 4 ounces per day. Juice, most of the time, is not fruit. It's mostly sugar, contains a fraction of the amount of nutritional value a piece of whole fruit does, and most importantly, teaches your child that water is an inferior taste selection. Water only, please. Chloe now requests juice, since she's had its sweet nectar, but I let her know we only have apple juice in the morning with our breakfast. That's the routine. I don't waiver. She knows this, and so puts up only a symbolic struggle before accepting her water and drinking it down.
Tangent - I was appalled when I was looking for a daycare for her when I was told that she HAD to have juice, and the best they could do was to water it down to a 1:4 ratio of juice to water. Excuse me? Even the daycare I eventually selected had to have a doctor's note NOT to give her juice. Omigod, USDA daily value food pyramid of suckiness, I hate you. End Tangent.
There's a lot of mystique being advertised about homemade baby food. There's "guidelines" on how to "safely" do it. Um. OK? Have you died from any of the meals you've made yourself? No? Good, that means you probably know how to handle food safely. Go about your business and just make your kid some food. Believe it or not, food that has been made in a factory, placed in a box, scanned and moved on a forklift onto a box truck, then shipped across the country, unloaded onto another forklift, then unpacked and stocked onto a shelf is in no way cleaner than the food you make fresh in your kitchen. On the contrary, at least you know what the conditions are in your kitchen and that your hands and utensils are clean. Indeed, if you purchase from a local farm, you could even shake hands with the person growing your baby's food and know it was sourced with loving care and attention without the use of pesticides, GMOs, or any other unsavory treatment that results from mass-produced mono-crop farming.
That last bit might seem tangental, but it's not. Bear with me here. The mystique and "scare" of homemade baby food is nothing but illusion. It's another myth brought to us by a food culture dominated by the market, not the farmer - you know, that person that actually grows the food and knows what's good for you and what isn't? The market and its profit margin decides what foods we will buy and eat, not us. How is that possible? Advertising dollars. Food companies spend millions of dollars in advertising to convince us we don't know how to cook, the food we cook is unsanitary, it's too time-consuming, or too expensive. Meanwhile, a piece of chicken now contains 30% more calories than it did 20 years ago simply because someone decided it would be a good use of excess corn.
Making your baby's food yourself is a small step in the right direction. It's about taking back what's basic, what's ours - our food supply. It's worth it. It's worth planting a garden. Worth the trip to the farmer's market. Worth the extra 15 cents for the organic apple instead of the regular one at your market. This as been a mind-blowing week, from the "discovery" that taco bell beef isn't real beef, to the USDA lifting the ban on importing chickens from China (um avian flu, anyone), to the fact that the blueberries in your packaged box of cereal aren't real blueberries. And it doesn't stop here. If you think taco bell is the only fast food operation to be serving 33% beef-product, then you're delusional. Which, sadly, most of us are......
I'm in the middle of reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." It says everything I've ever wanted to think yet was afraid to think. Brian and I had put these thoughts on hold because we simply weren't ready for them. I get that. You don't have to be ready yet, but do think on it. Come spring, when we get our house, I've got a lot of changes I want to make to the way we interact with our food supply chain. I'll be blogging about it, of course, sharing my triumphs and trials just like always. I'm a real person. I have real fears and feelings. I'm not perfect. I've journeyed out of the land of Betty Crocker boxed scalloped potatoes to now, where nothing I make contains processed food, and now I'm just continuing on. Taking back what has historically been all of humankind's from the beginning of time: the seasons of the Earth and the food bounty each has to offer.
So no. Dear random internet searcher, do not feed your baby Campbells soup. Please. If you do, then he won't be any better than us. And if future generations aren't any better than we are today, then what's the point?
This seems like a good time to write a quick bit about homemade baby food. I've raised two kids without ever purchasing a jar of baby food and without using any of the pre-pack "healthy step foods" designed to look like the unhealthy snack food habitually eaten by adults (that most of us would never give a child because it's not good for them - um, irony?) The only packaged things, in fact, I've ever given Chloe or Liam (as infants) are the Earth's Best Organic rice cereal and oatmeal. Since it begs answering, as a toddler, Chloe now gets things like raisins in a package, some kinds of whole grain crackers, or if we're on a car-trip maybe a Kashi bar. (And yes, I did and do formula feed. No, it wasn't my first choice. Am I the world's worst mother for formula-feeding? No. Are you the world's worst mother if you buy jarred baby food? No. But, it's my blog so I get to say what I want.) :)
While I don't feel like an expert on baby-food making, I do know how I've fed my kids has worked for them both. They grow/grew like weeds, were always fairly healthy, and - at least for Chloe - has turned out to be able to tolerate plenty of cuisine-types snubbed by some other kids her age. Chloe eats a wide variety of things and isn't afraid to give something new a try most times. If she is, it's usually fatigue and if I try again on another day she'll dive in with relish. Is this a result of my baby-food making? Perhaps. One can't say for sure because certain kids will be, no matter how hard an adult tries, picky eaters.
Liam is 6 months old and eats three meals a day. His breakfast is usually oatmeal with some kind of fruit puree or organic yogurt mixed in. His lunch is usually a vegetable puree. His dinner is usually rice cereal with a fruit and/or vegetable puree mixed in. Once I get him through all his green veggie tastes, I'll start him on lean meat proteins, and those will be added occasionally to the dinner mix.
At 4 months, Liam started with one meal a day. His first was bananas. I have a mini food processor, so it was a snap to take a fresh banana and buzz it in the processor until smooth. If it was too thick, I simply added a little formula. He moved on to apples, pears, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, avocado (which he hated!), and carrots - also not a big fan of at first.
Those were his "first tastes," that trying time when every meal every day for 7 straight days is the same thing. This helps both baby and parents be on alert for any allergic reactions, that way there's no question what caused it if something of concern arises. Once I get through first tastes, though, I get a little more lenient. As long as I'm not introducing a new food every day, I let him have something new maybe twice a week, spaced-out a few days. If he was going to react to something, then I at least have a narrow field of selection and can also tell by the time.
His first tastes took us nearly all of the two months between 4 and 6 months. In the last week we slowly introduced yogurt. This is not an easy thing for the body to learn to digest, and indeed, the formula-fed baby has the leg-up on learning to digest cow's milk. However, Liam has a very sensitive tummy and is on a sensitive formula (though not a soy-based formula). For ANY baby, no matter disposition, starting with a tablespoon of yogurt is what's recommended. Any more and you'll likely have one very upset baby. Despite this caution, we still had one very upset baby and so dosed him with a little colic calm and a lot of leg pedaling. He eventually burped profusely, settled down, and went right to sleep.
So far this week, he's had blueberries and peas mixed in to his new routine. He will also lap-up his carrots quite happily now when mixed with apple. Those are his two new tastes, with next week planning to bring green beans and mangoes into the mix. I haven't planned further than that, though Lord knows there's a plethora of choices I'm bursting to try him on. :)
For the simple fruit purees, all I do is peel and dice the fruit, then steam it either on the stove-top or in the microwave in a glass container. Roasting actually preserves more of the fruit's natural goodness, however, when I tried roasting and pureeing, the result was a mealy puree with little lumps intolerable for a 4 month old (though would be killer for one with teeth). Steaming is the next best thing and requires just a small amount of water and a few minutes of time in something with a tight-fitting lid.
The vegetables, on the other hand, can be roasted to lovely results. Sweet potatoes and squash are so flavorful and naturally tender, they don't require anything additional. I just peel them, dice them, set them into a foil packet and roast them until squishy. Vegetables such as peas and carrots, I've found, don't roast as well and so I go back to the steaming method.
For either method, the next step is to puree while still hot, either in a food processor (like me), a blender, a food mill, or even a mortar and pestle if you're patient. If the puree is too thick, add a little water, then spoon into ice cube trays, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze until each puree is frozen solid. Dump the cubes out into a bowl and portion as you see fit. For now, I just freeze a large quantity of like cubes in a freezer baggie and pull out a cube or two as I need it. When he gets to more sophisticated meals, where I'm using multiple cubes at every meal, I'll portion them in "meal packs," so that anyone, even if they're not me, can fix him an acceptable dinner. :)
Since Liam didn't enjoy the slightly more bitter flavor of carrots (which are pretty sweet, even if not as sweet as the squash or potato), I was worried he wouldn't take to his peas. I am not one to think that baby food must be bland or season-less. In fact, as Chloe progressed beyond her first tastes, her palette became open to a world of seasonings and taste sensations that she quite enjoyed. It's no different with Liam. I added a very small amount of butter, a tiny bit of sea salt, and a pinch of tarragon to his peas and the boy gobbled it up. Mint would have also worked well with the peas, or basil. Any herb that would add natural sweetness, since humans are predisposed to like sweet. :) The salt, too, brings out the natural flavor of the peas so, especially off-season starchy frozen peas, can taste much better. Baby's palettes are VERY sensitive, so season with a very light hand. Even a pinch of tarragon tastes like a sea of tarragon to the taste buds that have never had such a flavor before. A little goes a very long way, so just be cautious.
One of Chloe's favorite meals at around 7 months, indeed, I think it was her first ever taste of chicken, was a puree I intend to replicate for Liam. Chicken can be pureed fine enough if diced and poached in chicken stock or broth (or even plain water). Into the poaching liquid with the almost-soft chicken I'd toss some sweet potato and golden raisins. Puree it all until smooth, adding a pat of butter or a little more water as necessary, season with a touch of salt and a dash of cinnamon and ta da! Delicious gourmet baby food in under 20 minutes. :) When she got even a little older, I'd add nutmeg and pepper to the mix. As the palette develops, more complex flavor variations should be introduced so that it becomes accustomed to (and even learns to) taste and enjoy. Flavorless food is joyless food, and therefore meal-times will always be a battle. Food should be savored and enjoyed, even as a baby. :)
One of my favorite tricks was to just take whatever it was we were having for dinner and puree it all together. If you're like me, then you plan a meal with complimentary flavors anyway, so that your first bite is always (a la Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl) "the perfect bite." Am I alone in this? I take a bit of everything on my plate, making sure not to miss a single spice component or garnish, and voila - yum. :) I think that was Funny Girl... now I'm not so sure. It's the one with Jeff Bridges? Oh well, I digress - this works well for on the spot baby dinners, too.
Once Liam gets some chompers, which he is currently working mightily on, I'll start him on finger foods. I know all the developmental books say to start them now, but that's only if you want to use the packaged dissolving stuff. If you're extra finicky about following the guidelines, sometimes an oyster cracker crumbled, or even a graham cracker crumbled, can solve this necessary developmental milestone. For now I'll settle with the fact that Little Man knows how to use his hands because a) he grabs the spoon and feeds himself most of the time b) he finds the smallest speck of something in the carpet and puts it in his mouth, much to my dismay and c) is able to grasp his sippy cup and give himself a drink.
On the matter of sippy cups, a quick note about juice. I never gave Chloe juice until the age of 2, and that was only as a natural remedy to help curb some of the occasional irregularity she did not enjoy. It is only natural-pressed 100% apple juice, and it is only 4 ounces per day. Juice, most of the time, is not fruit. It's mostly sugar, contains a fraction of the amount of nutritional value a piece of whole fruit does, and most importantly, teaches your child that water is an inferior taste selection. Water only, please. Chloe now requests juice, since she's had its sweet nectar, but I let her know we only have apple juice in the morning with our breakfast. That's the routine. I don't waiver. She knows this, and so puts up only a symbolic struggle before accepting her water and drinking it down.
Tangent - I was appalled when I was looking for a daycare for her when I was told that she HAD to have juice, and the best they could do was to water it down to a 1:4 ratio of juice to water. Excuse me? Even the daycare I eventually selected had to have a doctor's note NOT to give her juice. Omigod, USDA daily value food pyramid of suckiness, I hate you. End Tangent.
There's a lot of mystique being advertised about homemade baby food. There's "guidelines" on how to "safely" do it. Um. OK? Have you died from any of the meals you've made yourself? No? Good, that means you probably know how to handle food safely. Go about your business and just make your kid some food. Believe it or not, food that has been made in a factory, placed in a box, scanned and moved on a forklift onto a box truck, then shipped across the country, unloaded onto another forklift, then unpacked and stocked onto a shelf is in no way cleaner than the food you make fresh in your kitchen. On the contrary, at least you know what the conditions are in your kitchen and that your hands and utensils are clean. Indeed, if you purchase from a local farm, you could even shake hands with the person growing your baby's food and know it was sourced with loving care and attention without the use of pesticides, GMOs, or any other unsavory treatment that results from mass-produced mono-crop farming.
That last bit might seem tangental, but it's not. Bear with me here. The mystique and "scare" of homemade baby food is nothing but illusion. It's another myth brought to us by a food culture dominated by the market, not the farmer - you know, that person that actually grows the food and knows what's good for you and what isn't? The market and its profit margin decides what foods we will buy and eat, not us. How is that possible? Advertising dollars. Food companies spend millions of dollars in advertising to convince us we don't know how to cook, the food we cook is unsanitary, it's too time-consuming, or too expensive. Meanwhile, a piece of chicken now contains 30% more calories than it did 20 years ago simply because someone decided it would be a good use of excess corn.
Making your baby's food yourself is a small step in the right direction. It's about taking back what's basic, what's ours - our food supply. It's worth it. It's worth planting a garden. Worth the trip to the farmer's market. Worth the extra 15 cents for the organic apple instead of the regular one at your market. This as been a mind-blowing week, from the "discovery" that taco bell beef isn't real beef, to the USDA lifting the ban on importing chickens from China (um avian flu, anyone), to the fact that the blueberries in your packaged box of cereal aren't real blueberries. And it doesn't stop here. If you think taco bell is the only fast food operation to be serving 33% beef-product, then you're delusional. Which, sadly, most of us are......
I'm in the middle of reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." It says everything I've ever wanted to think yet was afraid to think. Brian and I had put these thoughts on hold because we simply weren't ready for them. I get that. You don't have to be ready yet, but do think on it. Come spring, when we get our house, I've got a lot of changes I want to make to the way we interact with our food supply chain. I'll be blogging about it, of course, sharing my triumphs and trials just like always. I'm a real person. I have real fears and feelings. I'm not perfect. I've journeyed out of the land of Betty Crocker boxed scalloped potatoes to now, where nothing I make contains processed food, and now I'm just continuing on. Taking back what has historically been all of humankind's from the beginning of time: the seasons of the Earth and the food bounty each has to offer.
So no. Dear random internet searcher, do not feed your baby Campbells soup. Please. If you do, then he won't be any better than us. And if future generations aren't any better than we are today, then what's the point?
2/01/2011
Holy Update Batman!
Holy Cow it's been a week since I updated!
Alright, so in all truth I have written several posts. I just haven't finished them.... :) Dunno - time's been limited for the internet this week, which I've frankly enjoyed a little. We all need a break every now and then. In fact, I'm considering taking a forced break to help restore some balance in my life. I'll be on every now and again, and will update, I just won't be on the mom board as much or facebook, twitter, etc.... When I have been on the internet recently, I've been doing massive amounts of research in preparation for what Brian and I are now terming "Our New Life."
You see, 4 years ago Brian and I happened to both be coming from a class in Herron and going to class in Cavanaugh Hall. We were acquainted through my ex-husband, so we decided to walk together. Soon walking together turned into talking together, and soon talking together meant deep conversations so enjoyable we'd lose track of time and accidentally skip our classes. We talked about everything, but what we didn't realize was most of it centered around our values. The more we talked about those values together, the more we began to place each other into our goals and dreams. The more we did this, the more our goals and dreams became one - the shared vision of a couple: land, a modest home, self-sustainability, simplicity, kids.
It's this system of values - this "back to basics" ideal - that ultimately united us in love, and so it's this ideal that we kind of put on hold for 3 years so we could move-in with my parents, have our children, and get Brian his college degree. My degree, even so close, will have to wait still. We didn't really choose this, it really chose us. We didn't plan either of our children, rather we just let them happen naturally as God saw fit. We didn't have any money and for the longest time, Brian had no job. We clung to this ideal of land and our own house, but it seemed so far away. The vision and dream was still there for both of us, but I am a positive and Brian is a negative. I am water and he, for lack of a better word, is a steel wall. I am at the beginning of a book, and he has raced to the end. :)
This journey has tested us. It's ripped us each to our cores and forced us to examine our values under a harsh light of reality. It's brought into question how we think, feel, and "do" food, education, and friendship. It's focused energy on helping us discern better our needs from our wants, our priorities from our obligations. For this reason, this testing, I am immensely grateful for the past 3 years. I think Brian and I will come out of this experience stronger as a couple and as individuals. And I think, finally, we're both on the same page of the book. I think this experience has taught us the beauty of trust, not just in one another, but in God.
On the recommendation of a friend, we're doing our own little book club. I'm currently reading, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver and Brian is reading "On Henry's Farm," by Terra Brockman. Both books are filled with useful tidbits, convicting facts, and an over-arching theme of simplicity, back to basics, and love. Both are showing just how far I have yet to travel if I'm going to get to the vision we've dreamed, but it's a good distance. I love the path as much as the destination and to help curb my enthusiasm I spent hours dreaming of how we'd lay out our new garden and what yummies I'd grow (umm... everything.) :)
I've also been doing a ton of research on education, education reform, education revolution, creative-thinking, standardized testing, and well, anything else you can think of remotely related to education. I always said if I wasn't going to be a chef, I'd make one heck of a research analyst. My capacity to gather hoardes of sources, pour through them at lightning speed, then synthesize them to draw the best conclusion is impressive and something I enjoy doing. So, I've been doing it, I've made no permanent conclusions though I have drawn some smaller conclusions that I don't like too much. That's the sticky part about research - sometimes your conclusions can frighten you....
Anyway - wow. In the middle of all of this reading and research, Liam has learned to get around all by himself! He doesn't crawl just yet, but he manages to get pretty far by a variety of scooting, turning, and rolling methods. :) He's quite pleased with himself and Chloe thinks it's a hoot. She'll get down and roll with him, which sends them both into fits of giggles that just about melt this momma's heart. It was Liam's 6 month birthday Sunday at 4:49am. It's flown by which scares me somewhat. All the more reason to get our own home as soon as possible.
Poor Little Man is still in his co-sleeper. He's getting a wee bit too big for it, but I think we can keep him in it another few months until we move out. I'm hoping we can, at least. If not we'll have to re-maneuver our bedroom to fit Chloe's old crib....yikes.
Well, it's the beginning of week 2 of this new meal plan and so far so good. We spent a boatload last week, but other than some essentials I'd anticipated (amounting to about $20), there's been no need for a grocery run this weekend. What's good, too, is I can already envision my menu for next week and see that I have quite a bit of stuff to work with. Perhaps a large once a month trip, with little trips every week or two weeks is my new mode of operation. At least until we get our super garden and my need for grocery trips is nominal. ;)
So, to recap last week's menu was -
TUESDAY: roasted chicken with roasted vegetables and salad
WEDNESDAY: rollover chicken chow mein
THURSDAY: rollover bbq burrito bar
FRIDAY: rollover french onion chicken pot pie, two-ways
SATURDAY: rollover pizzas
SUNDAY: glazed ham, potatoes au gratin, and corn
If that looks a little different, well it's because I moved some things around. No big. :) It was all pretty tasty, so naturally I have some recipes to share! First up to bat is the whole roasted chicken. Chickens were .88 cents a pound at my market the other week, so I bought 3 and decided to roast them all at once, carve them, and save most of the meat for upcoming dinners. This idea worked beautifully and the chicken was scrumptious. :)
Roasted Chicken with Bernaise Sauce and Roasted Vegetables
Yield: 1 whole chicken - enough to feed a family of 5 plus leftovers for chicken salad
Chicken:
1 whole chicken, gizzards removed, rinsed with cool water, and patted dry
1/2 C butter
2 T Old Bay Seasoning
sea salt and pepper
the zest of 1 large lemon
2 to 3 large carrots, roughly chunked
2 to 3 stalks celery, roughly chunked
1 onion, roughly chunked
Soften butter and stir in the Old Bay, sea salt, pepper, and lemon zest. Slather all over the chicken and inside the cavity, then let rest in the fridge several hours. Remove and bring to room temperature. Stuff the cavity with as much carrots, celery, and onions will fit, then set the remaining vegetables in the roasting pan. Tie the legs together with butcher's twine and set the chicken on top of the vegetables in the roasting pan, tucking the wings underneath the body. Roast at 400 for about 20 minutes per pound or until the juices run clear if you gently press the tip of a knife in between the leg and thigh. Let the chicken rest a good 20 minutes before carving. Save the body for stock!
Roasted Vegetables
3 to 4 russet potatoes (or any kind you've got) cut into half moons
1 onion, sliced
3 to 4 carrots, peeled and diced
3 to 5 cloves of garlic, diced
any other veggie you'd like to add :)
1/4 C olive oil
sea salt and pepper
white pepper
1/4 C butter, diced
a good handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
3 longer sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped
Combine everything in a mixing bowl and toss well to combine. Place in a casserole dish and let roast about 40 minutes, or until everything is fork-tender.
Bernaise Sauce (Thanks to Ina Garten for this most delicious bernaise sauce):
¼ C white wine vinegar
¼ C white wine
2 T minced shallots
3 T chopped fresh tarragon leaves, divided
sea salt and pepper
3 extra large egg yolks
½ pound unsalted butter, melted
Place the vinegar, wine, shallots, and tarragon leaves in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and let cook at medium heat for 5 minutes or the mixture is reduced to a few tablespoons. Cool slightly.
Place the cooled mixture with the egg yolks and sea salt (about ½ t) in a blender or food processor. Blend for 30 seconds. With the blender on, slowly pour the hot butter. Add the remaining 2 T of tarragon leaves and blend only for a few seconds. If it seems too thick, add a tablespoon of white wine.
The next night I took some of the leftover chicken and made a quick stir-fry out of it. It's not really an authentic chicken chow mein, but it tasted pretty good and used-up ingredients I keep readily on hand. I've been fiddling with chicken chow mein for awhile, trying to get it delicious, and this is the closest I've come. :)
Chicken Chow Mein
Yield: 5 servings
Sauce:
½ C reduced sodium tamari soy sauce
1 ½ C water or chicken stock
¼ C oyster sauce
½ fresh lime, squeezed
3 heaping T cornstarch
¾ t sesame oil
Stir-Fry:
8 turns of the pan sesame oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 inch piece of fresh ginger, minced
1 to 2 fresh red chiles, seeded and diced finely
1 large portabella mushroom cap, diced small
2 bunches (about 10 to 12) fresh green onions, diced
2 carrots, julienned
3 stalks celery, diced (or you can use bok choi)
4 ounces fresh cilantro
1 T dried coriander
¼ t white pepper
½ fresh lime, squeezed
about 1 1/2 C roasted chicken, skin remove and sliced into pieces (for me this was 2 legs and a breast)
3 packs of ramen noodles, any flavor, seasoning packets discarded, medium width egg noodles, or rice - pick one :)
In a small bowl combine all the sauce ingredients and set aside. Make your desired noodle or rice.
In a wok or large saute pan, heat the sesame oil. Once hot add all the mushrooms, carrots and celery. Season with the coriander and white pepper. Cook 3 minutes until just beginning to get tender and add the garlic, chiles, green onions, and ginger. Cook 30 seconds until very fragrant then squeeze the lime over. Add the chicken and the sauce. Cook until sauce bubbles and begins to thicken. Remove from heat and stir in the cilantro. Taste and add more white pepper as needed. Serve over the rice or noodle of your choice.
The next night was one of my absolute favorites: rollover bbq burrito bar!! Everyone in my family goes crazy for this meal and it's easy because, unless they beg, everyone can make their own burritos, so I just have to assemble ingredients and leave instructions. :) This falls under the "cooking with leftovers: mexican-style dishes" post that is in the works, so I'll go ahead and give the instructions and everything here.
Rollover Burrito Bar (copycat Qdoba)
Leftover meat or fresh – nearly any kind
Leftover rice or fresh
Some kind of salsa
Some kind of shredded cheese
Burrito-sized (usually at least 10 inches) flour tortillas
Some kind of bean (optional)
Mixed vegetables, cooked at high-heat until crisp-tender (optional)
Sour cream (optional)
Guacamole (optional)
Olive oil
Additional seasonings and herbs (optional)
Set-out each component in individual bowls so people can fill their burritos as they please.
It’s helpful to go in this order:
Tortillas (steamed and in foil to stay warm)
Rice
Salsa/bean
Vegetables
Meat
Cheese
Sour cream
Guacamole
Leave space at the end of your line for rolling-up the burrito. To roll, scoot the filling to the lower third of the tortilla and make sure it’s center. Fold-in both sides slightly then roll over once and tuck as you go. Finish rolling so the seam is down, then place rolled burrito into foil squares to keep it together.
You CAN set the burrito into a hot oiled pan and brown on all sides if you want a Chi-Chi’s style “twice-grilled” burrito. This is also quite tasty, though different from the Qdoba “steamy” burrito.
Then, if you want to make it just like Qdoba with that handy foil holder - just take a square of foil, set the burrito into it, and fold neatly. Ta da! :) Burrito just like take out!
Tortilla
The only thing you need to do with the tortillas is steam them. Lay them on a plate with a wet tea towel or paper towel on the bottom of the plate then set another wet towel over the tortillas. While its best to work with individual tortillas, do what you’ve got to do for efficiency purposes. Microwave the stack until it’s nearly too hot to handle (the time will depend on how many you stack). Peel back the wet towel and grab the first tortilla to roll. Cover the others remaining to keep them steamy.
Meat
If you don’t have leftover meat, you can literally use almost any kind of meat in Mexican dishes. To season meat so that it tastes a little more authentic, you have several choices, but the most common would be:
1. ground chipotle powder
2. ground cumin
3. smoked paprika
Any of these can be mixed together or used solo and are often best when off-set by fresh squeezed lime juice and a little sea salt and pepper.
Often Mexican-style meat will be stewed or cooked twice. For instance, you can brown ground beef, drain it, then season it and add some water or beef stock and cook until the water cooks completely out. You can slow-cook pork in stock, citrus, and any of the spices above for a shredded-style filling. You can then add bbq sauce for a bbq filling (I usually add some ground chipotle to the bbq sauce if I do this).
Rice
For the rice, I just simplify my sofrito rice:
1 C long grain white rice
2 ½ C chicken stock
a few strands saffron
olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
¼ red chile pepper, seeded and diced
a good handful cilantro, chopped
You can also substitute packaged rice or just stir in some lime juice or cilantro to some leftover plain white rice. Since Qdoba uses plain white rice with cilantro added, that would be the easiest way to copycat it.
Salsa
For the salsa, I take:
1 can black beans, drained and thoroughly rinsed
1 C frozen corn
1 small can diced tomatoes
the juice of 1 very juicy lime
1/8 t smoked paprika
1/8 t cumin
1/8 t sea salt
cracked pepper
a good handful of cilantro, chopped
Combine all but cilantro in a small saucepan and bring to a bubble. Let simmer gently 5 minutes, remove from heat and stir in cilantro.
You can also substitute any kind of jarred or canned salsa or pico de gallo of your choice.
Vegetables
For the mixed vegetables, I take:
1 red bell pepper, sliced
1 green bell pepper, sliced
1 large sweet onion, sliced
olive oil
Heat olive oil until it’s nearly smoking – very very hot. Turn down heat to medium-high. BE CAREFUL and add the vegetables all at once while standing a good bit back. Let vegetables sit undisturbed about 3 minutes then give them a good toss, they should be slightly brown (like the veggies you get in restaurant fajitas). Do the same thing on the other side then scrape into a bowl and set aside.
Guacamole
For the guacamole, I take:
2 avocados, very ripe but not brown
the juice of 1 lime
a dash of sea salt
I am an avocado purist. I don’t like onions or other stuff mixed into it generally, though you certainly can mince some onion and chiles and stir it in. Tomatoes, too. All that stuff sometimes goes into guacamole. For me, though, I really enjoy the pure, creamy avocado flavor. Just open the avocado in the center using a paring knife. Stick the knife into the large brown seed firmly so that it catches, then pull it out. Then just take the knife and cut across then down the avocado, dicing it while it’s stick in the skin. Then invert the skin and scrape it all out into a bowl. Squeeze in the lime juice, sprinkle with salt, and mash together with a fork.
The next night was my momma's birthday, so I wanted to make her something special. It was a new recipe I took inspiration from another mom and man was it delicious! So tasty, in fact, I'm sending it in to my sous to be served at the restaurant. :)
French Onion Pot Pie
Yield: enough for 2 deep dish 9 inch pies
Filling:
3 C onions, thinly sliced
¼ C butter
2 C chicken stock
1 C heavy cream
about 1 t sea salt and cracked pepper, to taste
about ½ t white pepper, to taste
1 C plus ¼ C tawny port
1/2 C flour
2 to 3 C roasted chicken, chunked
8 ounces sharp white cheese, such as swiss or Monterey jack shredded
12 ounces sharp cheddar cheese shredded
Pie Crust:
Yield: 1 bottom and top crust
1 t poppy seeds
1 t caraway seeds
3 C flour
12 T butter
1/3 C shortening
6 to 8 T very cold water
1 T sugar
1 t salt
Prepare the pie crust: Combine the flour, sugar, salt, poppy seeds, and caraway seeds together in a mixing bowl. Dice the cold butter into small pieces and place in the bowl, then scrape the shortening in. Using your clean hands, press and pinch the butter into the flour until all of the flour has been "wetted" with the butter and the flour has begun to chunk into pea-sized pieces. You should be able to push it together in your palm and have it hold a shape. Set a well into your flour and add the water, then use a rubber scraper to combine in until the dough is wet.
Flour a board and dump the dough out. Knead it until it is tacky - about 8 times. Shape into a ball then cut it in half. Roll it out and press it into the bottom of a lightly greased pie tin. Prick the crust lightly with a fork and par-bake in a 350 degree oven just about 5 minutes.
To make the filling: Melt butter in pan and add the onions. Cook until soft and add the 1 C of tawny port. Let cook until almost evaporated then stir in the flour and cook about 3 minutes. Add the chicken stock, heavy cream and seasonings. Let bubble about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, the remove from heat and stir in the chicken, cheeses, and remaining 1/4 C of port. Taste for seasonings.
Pour over the par-baked bottom crust then roll out the top crust and set on top. Cut 4 slits into the center of the top pie crust to help vent steam and press the edges of the top crust into the bottom to seal. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.
Alright, to re-cap again, this week's menu is:
MONDAY: chimichurri pesto pot roast with rice and green beans
TUESDAY: rollover spicy tomato soup
WEDNESDAY: rollover spicy chicken pitas
THURSDAY: creamed peas and potatoes over toast
FRIDAY: midwestern boil
SATURDAY: rollover arroz con pollo
SUNDAY: rollover saiman
I've already made the chimichurri pot roast, which was so so so very yummy! In fact, it's being dubbed my -
Spring Pot Roast
Chimichurri pesto:
Yield: about 2 C
4 ounces fresh cilantro
2 ounces fresh basil
1 ounce fresh flat-leaf parsley
6 cloves garlic, smashed open
¼ C walnut oil
1 fresno pepper, seeded and roughly chopped
1/3 C red wine vinegar
the juice of 1 medium lemon
¼ t sea salt
½ C olive oil
1 chuck roast
1 C red wine
3 C beef stock
For the pesto: Combine everything but olive oil in a food processor and process until a paste, add olive oil in thin steady stream until desired consistency. Can be made ahead and frozen or kept in fridge for up to 1 week.
Place the meat in the crockpot and add the white wine, beef stock and pesto. Stir to combine. Season the meat liberally with sea salt and pepper then set into the juices. Cook 8 to 10 hours. Remove about 2 C of the pot liquor from the crockpot and add 1 C heavy cream and 2 to 3 T of flour, whisking rapidly so no lumps form. Bring it to a boil to thicken and let cook 5 minutes. If it isn’t thick enough, add more flour. Serve pot roast with its sauce over spicy tomato rice.
Spicy Tomato Rice
Yield: about 3 C cooked
1 C basmati, jasmine, or plain long grain rice
1 ½ to 2 C water
3 strands saffron
¼ Fresno chile pepper, seeded and diced
¼ large red onion, minced
3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
sea salt and pepper
1/8 t smoked paprika
2 T tomato paste
olive oil
Heat 2 turns of the pan of olive oil in a skillet or wide-bottomed small stock pot. Add the onions, garlic, and chile pepper and cook 30 seconds. Add the rice and let brown 3 minutes. Add the tomato paste and smoked paprika, and stir to combine.
Meanwhile, heat the water with the saffron in a microwave safe container for 2 minutes to let the strands steep. Add to the browning rice, stirring to combine the tomato paste well. Season with a little sea salt and pepper and bring to a rapid boil. Stir once, reduce heat to very low, cover and cook 20 minutes without opening the lid. Fluff rice to combine and serve with pot roast.
And that brings us up to speed! In about 2 hours Armageddon is supposed to start... or at least that's how the weather forecasters are acting. :) No, we are expecting about 2 inches of ice accumulation, making the roads pretty much a skating rink. Hooray! Where's my skates? :) We've got a propane camper stove, sleeping bags, lots of food, candles, and a fireplace in the event we are one of the anticipated 2 million people to lose power. I think we'll manage. I hope everyone else can, as well. Be safe! I'm off to make spicy tomato soup while I still can. :)
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