New Idea!

I'm constantly bookmarking and printing and emailing to myself different recipes I want to try. Instead, I think I'm just going to start posting them here! Then I'll be more motivated to actually try them, and post about them.

I also have a new little toy that will soon make it's debut among these pages...

This recipe is from this week's Terra Firma newsletter. Yay CSA!

Chicken Fricasee — If you don’t eat meat, make this stew with extra potatoes as well as summer squash.

Ingredients
Canola oil
Olive oil
1 lb. chicken breast/thighs/wings
1 or 2 onions
2 cups seeded, cored and thinly sliced sweet peppers (they suggest Gypsy peppers)
4 cups diced tomatoes
a handful of chopped basil leaves
1 cup diced green olives
1-2 pounds of potatoes
red chili flakes

Process
Preheat the oven to 375.
Heat 1 T. canola oil in a frying pan and fry 1 lb. of chicken breasts, thighs, or wings until browned on both sides. Remove from heat and set aside.
Heat 3 T. olive oil in a cast iron skillet and add 1 large or 2 medium onions, thinly sliced, in half rounds.
When the onion is soft, add 2 C. seeded and cored sweet peppers, also thinly sliced as well as a dash of red chile flakes.
Cook for 7-10 minutes on medium high heat, then add 3 minced cloves of garlic. Saute another 1-2 minutes, then add 4 C. diced tomatoes, a handful of chopped Basil leaves, and 1 C. diced green olives. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, clean and dice 1-2 lbs. of potatoes. Add to the sauce with the chicken and its juices, if using.
Bake, covered, for 40 minutes or until the potatoes and chicken are tender and fully cooked. Season with salt and pepper.

Calzones

With inspiration from bread and honey, I decided to embark on a calzone-making adventure. It was really successful! Yum yum. I made the pizza dough a day early, using another b & h recipe. There's actually a funny story about that -- I knew I wanted to make the calzones the next day, so I just wrapped the dough up in saran wrap and put it in the fridge. HILARIOUS mistake, as when I opened the fridge the next morning, the dough had continued to rise and these bulbous, crusty growths had popped through the wrapping! I decided it probably wasn't a big deal and just ripped off the growths and used the dough as normal. Wish I'd thought to take picture of them -- maybe I'll do it again one of these days just to have the photographic evidence. The pizza dough was seriously the bomb, though, and perfect, so use it!

Here's what I did.


Ingredients
You can really use whatever you want. I used my favorite pizza toppings!
1 green bell pepper
black olives
pepperoni
tomato sauce
fresh mozzarella
pizza dough

Process
Preheat oven to 500 degrees (I KNOW- don't do this in the summer unless you live in San Francisco!)

Chop up the bell pepper, olives and pepperoni. You'll have to use your best judgment on ratios, but if it looks delicious you've probably pretty much done it right. So you'll chop them all up and put them in a bowl, then add your mozzarella (also either grated or in small chunks) and tomato sauce. A word on the sauce: don't add too much! It'll get fairly watery inside the calzone, so you don't need as much as you think you do. Trust me.

Ok, so you have your awesome-looking mixture of calzone innards. Put that aside. Take your pizza dough and tear or cut off baseball-sized pieces to roll out into calzone casing. Lightly flour your rolling surface and roll out a piece of pizza dough until it is very thin and circular. Add your calzone filling onto half the rolled-out dough, fold over the other half and pinch the sides so they stay put.


Once you've made a few, you'll be ready to put your first batch in the oven. I used the amazing cast iron grill pan I splurged on in the fall, and it worked really well! I found that I could cook about 3 at a time, so I lightly dusted my pan with cornmeal and laid the calzones on the pan. Put 'em in the oven for about 5-7 minutes, then flip them over and cook for another few minutes.


Let them cool a little on top of the stove after you take them out, then eat like crazy!


Yum!!

Dad's Rice Pudding

Rice pudding was a staple of my childhood diet. Of course, at the time, I consistently demanded my dad make one bowl without any raisins just for me-- I've learned since then.

Without further ado, here's my dad's recipe - just as he said it.

Here goes:

(Based on 4 cups of uncooked rice)

Cook rice in oat milk (pressure cook or otherwise)

Put cooked rice in the bowl you are going to put in the oven.

Add oat milk until it is very soupy.

1 cup Agave syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

Add and beat in eggs (1.5 per cup of uncooked rice---gotta love those ½ eggs:)

One to two cups of raisins

Add a healthy dose of love

Mix until “frothy”

Put in oven at 350 for a least an hour (time can vary depending on size of bowl etc---just watch and don’t let it burn