Buttermilk Scones

Today, I made this buttermilk scone recipe from the Food Network. They turned out perfectly and so yummy! I halved the recipe and it worked out just fine.

Ingredients
3 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup currants (optional)
1 tablespoon heavy cream or regular milk, for brushing
A little bit of sugar, for sprinkling

Do it!
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a large bowl. Add butter and mix with your fingertips to a coarse meal. Add buttermilk and mix just until combined. Add currants, if desired.

Transfer dough to a floured board and divide into 2 parts. Roll each to 3/4 inch thick rounds. Cut each round into 8 wedges and place slightly separated on a greased baking sheet. Brush the tops with the cream or regular milk and sprinkle with sugar, then bake for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Devour!!

Broccoli Goat Cheese Quiche

Over the weekend, I happened upon purchasing a dozen farm-fresh eggs from a woman with a ranch in Halfmoon Bay. They are small and delicate, and so beautiful (some of them are blue!). So, I made a quiche!

And -- oh my god. So delicious. Here's what happened:

Ingredients:
Crust
1 3/4 cups flour
1 stick of butter, cut in little pieces
1 egg
water
salt

Filling
1 head of broccoli, cut into florets
one medium yellow onion, diced
goat cheese, crumbled
parmesan, finely grated
paprika
cumin
2 cloves garlic
salt
3 or 4 eggs, depending on size
1 1/2 cups milk
dollop of dijon mustard

Do it!
1. Make z crust! Put flour, salt and butter in a food processor and process until the mixture is pebbly. Transfer to a mixing bowl and move all the dry stuff to the side to create a little crater in the middle, into which you shall now crack your egg. Use a fork and scramble the egg a little bit, then use a mixing spoon to start slowly incorporating the flour. Add water as needed (probably not more than a few tablespoons) the create a nice dough. Knead with your hands and separate into two equally-sized balls, then refrigerate for an hour.
2. After an hour, take the dough out of the fridge and roll out one of the balls into a thin crust and lay it in your tart pan. Press the dough against the bottom and sides of the pan to release air bubbles, then prick the dough with a fork to prevent it from popping up when baked. Refrigerate again while you're getting the filling ready. Alternatively, you could leave it out and actually cook it for 7-10 minutes before adding the filling. This gives the crust more substance and it's less apt to be soggy in the final product - I might try this next time.
3. Preheat oven to 375. Saute onions, add garlic, add paprika and cumin and salt, then add broccoli. Cook until broccoli is tender-crunchy.
4. Crack 3 or 4 eggs into a mixing bowl and beat well.
5. Add milk and mustard, then process the whole mixture to remove lumps.
6. Take your shell out of the oven and spread the cooked veggies in the bottom of the pan. Add goat cheese and parmesan (in the future, I might add the cheeses to the milk/egg mixture to ensure more even cheese action - doing it this way you'll end up encountering big bites of goat cheese here and there, but if that's your thing, by all means go right ahead), then pour the eggy mixture over the top.
7. Bake for 35-40 minutes and enjoy!

Alfalfa Sprouts

I made my own sprouts, you guys! It is so easy. Let me tell you about how I did it.

I put two tablespoons of alfalfa seed in a jar (in retrospect, this was WAY too much. Not only did I end up having to split the crop into three different jars as they grew, but now I have way more sprouts then I can actually eat on my own) with 8 tablespoons of water. General rule is 4 times as much water as you have seeds. Cover the jar with some cheese cloth or stocking material and soak the seeds overnight.


After 8-12 hours, drain and rinse the seeds, roll the jar around a little to get the seeds evenly spread out, and place the jar kind of on its side and sort of upside down in a dish (it will sort of leak water so you want to make sure you have something to catch the water with).

Rinse and drain the seeds a few times each day for 5-6 days. Use high water pressure to keep the sprouts loose, or you can take them out of the jar when it's starting to look kind of crowded in there and break them up by hand. You may end up having to transfer some to new jars because there isn't enough room for all the sprouts to grow together. Eventually your jar will look like this:


And then you can take them out of the jar and eat them! Yum! You can also de-hull your sprouts, which this website is really great at explaining.

Vegetarian Minestrone

Mmm, soup. I recently lost my soup pot, which I found to be a major tragedy, but I finally got around to getting a new one. You guys, this pot is huge and awesome! I love it. So, now I'm making soup. This is based off a soup on allrecipes.

Ingredients
1 tbsp butter
2 garlic cloves, diced
1/2 or 1 whole onion, chopped
4 cups vegetable stock, or 2 cups stock and 2 cups water (or the water you just boiled a bunch of corn in, if you're me) - you may need up to 5 more cups depending on how watery you like your soup.
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 large potato, cubed
2 carrots, chopped
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans
3 cups fresh corn kernels
1 large zucchini, sliced
2 cups uncooked pasta of your choice
A couple dollops of salsa
Cheese to taste (parmesan or other yummy distinctively-flavored cheese)


Process
1. Melt butter in your awesome soup pot (if you don't have an awesome soup pot, what are you waiting for?)
2. Saute garlic for a second then add onions and saute until they smell awesome (this is the best part of cooking anyway, right?)
3. Add stock, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, seasoning
4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
5. Add corn, zucchini, beans, and pasta, and simmer for another 10-15 minutes until the veggies are tender.


Yay for easy soups! Yay for SF being cold enough in the summer for me to want to make soup! Haha.

Sweet Corn

I now have a 16 quart stock pot, so I made a LOT of corn.


That's all.

Veggie Deep Dish

So as I mentioned before, I have a springform pan now - and this means, I can make deep dish pizza. Last night, I did! It was, I have to tell you, really awesome.

I found this recipe for deep dish and followed it pretty closely. I also used the bread & honey pizza dough recipe that I love, but tweaked it a little (not too successfully, unfortunately. Oh well).

You Need
For the crust:
1 cup warm water
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 (1/4 oz) packet of active dry yeast (the book says "not the rapid-rise stuff!" but that's what I used and it was fine.)
2 tablespoons olive oil (and more for drizzling)
3 cups flour (I used 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1 1/2 cups bread flour, and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour. It was kind of a Frankenstein's Monster, and was kind of the wrong consistency, but tasted yummy)
1 teaspoon salt

For the innards
1 (28-ounce) can crushed or diced tomatoes (the chunkier the better)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons red wine
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning or 2 tablespoons fresh, chopped Italian herbs
1 1/2 teaspoons dried onion (I used fresh)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini
1 bell pepper
½ teaspoon salt
Fresh ground pepper to taste
Throw some smoked paprika in there if you have it. Duh.

Cheese
2 cups shredded/grated mozzarella
2 TBSP parmesan or romano cheese

You Do
Preheat oven to 400.

Crust
Make your pizza dough (using b & h's instructions). Give yourself enough time; this will take at least an hour, and ideally a few hours. You definitely don't need as much of it as the recipe gives you; I used all of it and it was too crusty. I'd guess probably 3/4 of the ball you end up with should do the trick, but I'll get back to you when I try it again. Anyway, take your springform pan and pour a TBSP of olive oil in the center. Place your dough in the middle of the pan and press it down with your fingers toward the edges and about halfway up the sides. Prick it with a fork. Bake the crust for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven.


Innards
Saute your garlic and onion, add your zukes and pepps, saute for a bit. Then add all the other jazz, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Puttin' it all together
Take your pre-cooked-a-little-bit crust and layer 1 cup of mozzarella on the bottom. Add as much of the sauce as will fit, like so:


... then throw the rest of the cheese on top (including the parm/romano) and dust with some oregano. Bake for 35-40 minutes, rotating every 15. The pizza is done when the crust is browned and the cheese is bubbly and delicious-looking.


I invited some friends over, so I really had to be successful, or they would have been angry and hungry. Luckily, they were pleased:

Sweet Potato Fries

Super super easy. It'll take you about half an hour, maybe a bit more.

You need
Sweet potatoes or yams
Olive oil
Basil
Salt
Pepper
Cardamom
Cinnamon
Cloves
Paprika
Cayenne
2 garlic cloves

You Do
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with tin foil and set aside.

Slice up your potatoes or yams into fry-shaped wedges. Put em in a big bowl with a healthy amount of olive oil and diced garlic. Add spices with abandon, giving the cayenne, salt and paprika the most shakes and the cardamom the fewest. Stir around until wedges are well-coated with spices.

Transfer the wedges to your lined baking sheet and spread out into 1 even layer. Bake for 30-ish minutes, turning once to make sure they cook evenly.

Devour!

I maked a cake

I made a cake! I'm really proud of myself. Making cakes isn't something I really do, mostly because I usually lack the proper equipment. But! Last week I bought a springform pan from Sur La Table and this weekend set about making this cake. The only thing I did differently was substitute all-purpose flour for 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 bread flour. I like that combo, even if it's something I came up with out of necessity rather than any kind of baking genius.

You Need
1 small to medium orange
1 lemon
6 ounces raw almonds
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
4 large eggs, ideally at room temperature
½ tsp. table salt
1 ½ cups sugar
2/3 cup olive oil
Confectioners’ sugar, for serving

You Do
... Follow Orangette's instructions. I'm too lazy to write them all out. I'll just say - watch when you pour the olive oil in, you will get these really cool batter caverns that close up after a few seconds.


Oh my god also the wiki article I linked to up there just taught me I can use this pan for PIZZA MAKING. Little Star, get ready for some competition.

Corn muffins

I made corn muffins! Yum. I did a bit of experimenting on these, which was fun and successful! Yay.

I started with this recipe and did some substitutions based on what I had around. They were great!

You Need
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup bread flour (I used the pastry and bread flours because I didn't have any all-purpose flour. Feel free to use 1 cup of all-purpose if you prefer.)
1/3 cup honey
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup walnut oil
1 cup plain yogurt

You do
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F, butter your muffin tins. Mix your dry ingredients together, add your wet ingredients. Mix everything together nicely, then spoon into muffin tinnies. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean.

I think I had to cook these for a little while longer because of the yogurt - play it by ear. Since I used honey instead of sugar, these were more like cornbread muffins than regular corn muffins; sweet-tooth-people may want to add more honey (or just use sugar).

Farfalle with Brussels Sprouts and Pistachio

I ate something like this over the weekend and made it my project tonight to recreate it in some capacity. I think I succeeded!


This is a tangy, nutty pasta salad with few ingredients but big flavor. I hope you like it.

You Need
1 lb brussels sprouts
3/4 to 1 lb farfalle (bowtie) pasta
1 lemon
1 little shallot
3/4 cup pistachios
1 tbsp butter
salt & pepa


You Do
Cut the tough ends off your sprouties, remove gross leafies, and slice into little... slicies. See below.


Put water on for the pasta. Chop up your shallot nice and small and start some butter in the pan. Add the shallots, saute for a bit then add sprouties. Saute again until the sprouts start browning and softening a bit. Toss in the pistachios, saute a little bit more, add salt n' pepa for taste. When the pasta is done, drain and add everything together. Add the juice from the lemon, more pepper and salt if you need it, and enjoy!


Yomyomyom

Millions of peaches, peaches for me

Hello team! Yesterday I needed to blow off some steam (pun pun pun) so I made a small batch of Spice Peach jam using a recipe and inspiration from my most recent acquisition, The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest. Guys, this book rocks. If you have any interest in canning, drying, freezing or otherwise hanging on to your fruits, veggies and recipes - this is the book. The instructions are thorough and user-friendly, with helpful anecdotes from the author's personal experience of a lifetime of preserving. This recipe came from that book, as did all the instructions for making it through my first attempt at home canning, and (so far; I'm hoping) the experiment was fully successful. Go me!

Here's how it happened.

I got motivated. I picked up the book at the cookery store down the street from me, and have been reading up on the equipment I need and the time investment I should count on for the process over the past week. Yesterday, I picked a recipe, knowing peaches wouldn't be available at the farmer's market too much longer, and set out to collect equipment and ingredients.

I stopped by the hardware store on my way to the farmer's market and bought a flat of (12) 1/2 pint jars. I also searched unsuccessfully for a jar lifter and (foolishly) forwent buying a canning funnel. It worked out pretty well without either piece but would have been easier with.

Ran off to the farmer's market and bought some veggies for the week; scored a free handful of hot chilies; and collected the 7 huge peaches I'd need for my recipe. Nom nom nom.

Now - for the good stuff.

Equipment
I'll just say right off the bat that I did not really have the appropriate equipment for this adventure. The large soup pot I use for everything, all the time is not really tall enough for canning - you're supposed to allow for 2 inches of extra water ("boiling room") above the jars when using the boiling water bath canning method, which only sort of worked when I laid the jars on their side (which I hear is a bad idea as the jars can crack). Anyway. I also didn't have a canning rack, which is supposed to sit on the bottom of the pot so the jars don't come in contact with the hot pot bottom. Lacking this piece put me in constant fear that my jars would explode while boiling, which turned out to (of course) be unfounded worry-worting.

Here's what I did have:

Aforementioned soup pot
Aforementioned jars and lids
Wooden spoon
Ladle
Smaller saucepans for boiling jar lids and transferring jam from large pot

And that's really all you need, at least to do it in the bootleg fashion I'll describe below. Hurrah!

Ingredients
4 pounds ripe but firm peaches, or about 7-8 large ones
5 cups (I KNOW) sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

That's it. Seriously. I was totally terrified by the 5 cups of sugar thing but what're you gonna do? I don't eat that much jam anyway.

Process
Phew. Bear with me folks, this is going to be a long one.

1. Peel, pit and chop your peaches. Chop 'em into small, bite-sized chunks; they'll break down a fair amount during cooking, but you'll be left with some amount of chunkiness, so make 'em small.

2. Throw all the ingredients in a large pot and cook on medium heat until sugar is dissolved.


3. Turn up the heat a bit and bring ingredients to a boil (DON'T put the lid on right now or you will be dealing with goopy sugary mess all over your stovetop. I did this TWICE, actually TWICE, and kept having to switch burners so I could clean the crap off the one I'd been using). Boil forever, or probably an hour, until mixture reaches 220 degrees F or until a glob of mixture slides off your spoon without glomming. You know what I mean. Look up "sheeting" if you don't.

5. While you're waiting, you can clean your jars and ready the lids. Since we're boiling our finished jars for longer than 10 minutes, the empty jars don't need to be fully sterilized first - just soak them in warm, soapy water for a little while and rinse/dry them well. Place your lids in a pot of gently boiling water to prepare the sealant. You don't need to boil the screw-tops; leave those with the jars.


5. In my case, since the only pot I had that was large enough to hold 4 pounds of chopped peaches was also the pot I planned to can in, I had to ladle the finished fruit goop into a smaller pot. Kind of a pain but not that big of a deal. I cleaned out my soup pot and filled it halfway with water, then brought it close to boiling (it's supposed to be 180 degrees but I didn't have a thermometer and it worked out ok. Hah!).

5. Fill your jars! If I had a canning funnel, this is where it would have really come in handy. As it was I had to ladle small amounts very carefully into each jar, then clean any drips off with a wet dishtowel. The jars should be filled with 1/4 inch of "headspace," or the space between the very top of the jar and the filling. Too much headspace translates to too much air for the boiling/vacuum-creating process to suck out, leading to an incorrect seal. Too little and the jars can overflow as the contents expand. Make sure you clean the outside of the threading carefully so the screw-tops don't stick. Add your lids and screw-tops and you're ready to can! Yuss!


6. The water in your boiling-water-bath-canner should be slowly boiling now, or at least with those little bubbles at the bottom that appear before boiling; add your jars. I just placed mine on their sides so they'd be fully submerged. Add more boiling (or hot) water so the water level is 2 inches above the tops of the jars. Bring to a vigorous boil.


7. Once boiling, set a timer for 15 minutes and turn down the heat to maintain a gentle boil throughout the 15 minutes. I had trouble with this because I kept getting distracted by Harry Potter on TV, so I'd go back to the pot to check and find that it stopped boiling entirely, but as long as you have at least a 5-minute attention span you should be ok.

8. When the timer goes off, get those jars outta there. Again, this would be a great point at which to have the correct equipment, but lacking a jar-lifter I executed a precarious ladle-and-wooden-spoon balancing act and tipped the jars right-side up onto a dishtowel. Let them cool for 12-24 hours and check the seal. If the lid does NOT compress, you've got yourself a seal! Good job!

So there you have it, folks. Real life home-preserving, without any exploded jars or spoiled frutas. I can't wait to try out this jam! Yum yum!

More Stuffed Peppers (Vegetarian)

One of the best things to have come from writing this blog, and from cooking more in general, is that I feel much more empowered to make things up as I go along. The other night, I made things up to fantastic success!

This was inspired by the similarly fantastic success of the camp-gourmet adventure a few weeks ago. I received 2 yummy little red bell peppers in my CSA, and I decided to cook up some tofu and quinoa to stuff them with. It turned out SO well and I ate the leftovers for dinner the next day.

Ingredients
Bell peppers (1 per person) - more if they are little baby peppers like mine were
Package of tofu (not super soft, not super firm)
Pre-cooked quinoa, or couscous, or Italian couscous, or rice, or whatever (about 1/2 a cup, but you can use more if you want)
1 or 2 little tomatoes, chopped
1 little onion



Garlic (2 + cloves)
Curry powder
Cumin



Process
-Preheat oven to 350
-Cut the top off your bell pepper (the top being the part with the stem), core, and place open-side-down on a cookie sheet.
-Drizzle pepper with olive oil, maybe some garlic salt if you're feelin' it, and pop it in the oven for 15 minutes.



-Saute finely chopped onions and garlic in olive oil for a few minutes, then add tomatoes.
-Throw a bunch of curry powder in there: probably a tablespoon or so, then let things hang out and get delicious for a few minutes.
-Meanwhile, slice the tofu, then take slices in your hands and CRUSH. This is the best and most fun part of making this dish. Crush the tofu into a bowl until it's all crumbled and delicious-looking. If you're like me, eat a little bit of the raw tofu to hold you over (yum yum yum).
-Add the tofu to your onions-garlic-tomato mixture and combine thoroughly. You may want to add some more curry powder at this point, but taste it first. Add as much cumin as you want, depending on your spiciness threshold. I don't remember how much I added, whoops! :) Probably not very much, as I am a spiciness wimp.
-SALT AND PEPPER
-Add your precooked quinoa. I think I ended up putting in about 1/2 a cup, but you can add as much or as little as you want. My dish ended up being more about the tofu than the quinoa, so you may want to add more if you're into that.

Don't forget about your pepper. Take it out of the oven and tip it over so the steam can escape, let it cool for a little while, then stuff with tofu mixture and eat-eat-eat. Leftovers keep for a few days, and will be delicious re-heated and added to a brand new roasted pepper. This is my new favorite meal, and will probably make an appearance in my dinner regimen two or three times a week from now on. It's just SO quick and easy! Love it!

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

Cheesy Potatoes and Green Beans

Oh my god you guys, last night I did something awesome.

I was rooting around in my fridge to find something for dinner, and came across a bag of new potatoes and a bag of green beans. What delicious thing could I concoct these ingredients, I asked? I thought back to my dinner on Saturday night at this delicious Eritrean restaurant where we were served an amazing okra in a tomatoey, oniony sauce-- and it dawned on me: I could make a tomato-ey, onion-y, and best of all, CHEESY, stew!

Ingredients
3 new potatoes, washed and cut into bite-sized-ish pieces
1 "bag" of green beans (1 pound? Maybe?)
1 small heirloom tomato
1/2 cup tomato sauce (in retrospect, I probably wouldn't have used this. It had too many of its own spices in it and overwhelmed the flavor of the dish. Try tomato paste, or just a bunch of fresh tomatoes chopped up!)
a little less than 1/2 cup water
1/2 a sweet onion
1 clove of garlic
coriander
cumin
salt & pepper

Do It!

1. Saute chopped garlic with a dash each of the spices until it starts smelling awesome.
   
2. Add the onions and cook for a few more minutes, then add the chopped tomato(es).
   
3. Cook these for a few more minutes, then add the potatoes and cook for (another) few minutes.
   
4. Add water and tomato sauce, stir well, cover and cook for 4-5 minutes or until the potatoes aren't quite hard as rocks anymore.
   
5. Add the chopped green beans, stir and re-cover. Cook everything together for a few more minutes until all the liquid is more or less dissolved.
   
6. Add finely grated sharp cheddar cheese, more salt, and pepper to taste.

Tada! I even had enough leftover for lunch today. This would be an excellent potluck dish and makes for easy and yummy leftovers!

Summer Fruit Crisp

Here's another stellar selection from one of my favorite blogs, smitten kitchen. I've made this one two or three times since I first found the recipe, and have been changing it slightly to fit my tastes each time. These have served me very well as work-day breakfasts--with a little yogurt--and I've added many different types of fruit. Delish!

The ingredients are very variable depending on how much fruit you use. I haven't measured it very exactly, so you'll just have to see what works for you!

Ingredients
For the filling:
6 or 7 very ripe apricots
2 ripe peaches
blueberries
raspberries
3 or so tablespoons of flour
2 or 3 tablespoons of sugar
Honey

For the crumbles
2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup flour
a little sugar
a little salt
2 tablespoons of butter, melted
About 1/2 a cup (I think? Maybe more...) warm water-honey mixture
a few dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg on top

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350.
Prepping the fruit--specifically the apricots--is the best part of this dish. Just tear them into quarters and plop 'em in a bowl. Tearing fruit! Awesome!


Mix all the "for the filling" ingredients together in a bowl, then transfer to a baking dish. Mix the dry ingredients and spices together in a separate bowl, then add the butter and water-honey mixture until you have a crumbly mixture. Don't over-water! Add the liquids slowly and stop when chunky clusters start to form.

Spread the crumbles evenly over the top of the fruit in the baking dish, then bake for 25-ish minutes. Keep an eye on it once you pass the 20 minute mark; you're looking for bubbling to indicate it's done. If you let it go too long the fruit will bubble up all on the sides and swallow the crumbles. You can eat it hot with ice cream or cold with yogurt. I've been eating it for breakfast and it is perfect that way! Enjoy!

Halibut

That, my friends, was one delicious piece of halibut. I sort of followed this guy's advice, which was very helpful-- but I did some tweaking.

Here's how it happened:


Ingredients
Halibut
Milk
Butter
Seasonings (I just guessed. Mostly thyme I think? That sounded good.)

Preparation
Preheat your oven to 375
Place the (cleaned) halibut in a dish, as shown, with some milk (or soymilk) not quite covering the fish. Throw some spices on there: as I said above, I just guessed about what I thought might go well. I think I ended up with some thyme, basil, salt 'n' pepa (dur) and maybe garlic salt? Maybe. Experiment with other spices! Hooray!

Then, throw a patty of butter on the top. Mmm, butter.


The recipe I was working from suggested cooking this bad boy for 1.5 hours in a 325 degree oven. I think it was closer to 25 minutes at 350 degrees--- but honestly, I don't remember. Sorry! You'll just have to ballpark it.

I think I remember this needing a little salt, so maybe add some extra salt with those spices. Maybe adding paprika or chili flakes or something might also be good. Who knows! The kitchen is for experiments. Rah! (Dinosaur noise)

Fathers Day

As many of you know, my Dad is pretty awesome. Especially in the kitchen--- most of whatever little culinary intuition I might have comes from watching him. I can't even count how many times I've called him to ask how long I should bake a potato or if it's safe to put a pyrex bowl in the oven.

I have a couple other "Dad" recipes I should put up here sooner or later, but seeing as it was just Fathers Day and he recently sent me this beautiful recipe, I thought this would serve well as a debut. He even included a lovely photograph to accompany the instructions!

Enjoy.

Super Easy Baked Custard --- with Cinnamon and Nutmeg


Ingredients:
4 cups “plain” rice milk (Pacific Foods brand preferred---although other brands and soy milk would likely be fine)
5 eggs
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 tablespoons Agave Syrup sweetener
Tiny pinch of Nutmeg
Cinnamon “lightly” sprinkled to cover top

Preparation:
Beat together milk, eggs, salt, and sweetener. Pour into custard cups; place cups in a pan with hot tap water nearly to the top of the custard line. Sprinkle on the cinnamon and nutmeg and bake at 325 degrees F for about 90 minutes----or until custard is set. This varies widely with the depth and size of what you are baking the custard in. A knife inserted in the center should come out clean. Makes 6----1 cup size----Pyrex custard cups. Best chilled after baking-----then eat like crazy!

Greek-ish Pasta

I love this pasta. It is amazingly easy and delicious, my two favorite things when it comes to food! This is definitely a potluck-worthy dish, as well. Great for the summer!

Ingredients
Pasta
Feta
Kalamata olives (pitted)
Olive oil
Thyme
Basil
Oregano
Any other yummy herbs you have on hand (except parsley... I hate parsley.)

Do ittttt
Make your pasta (if you need help with this... google it?)
Make your herb-and-olive-oil dressing:

1. Put olive oil in a bowl (I just kind of guess on the quantity. Obviously it depends how much pasta you're making, but if I make enough for just me I would guess that I use a tablespoon and a half. But that's a guess.)
   
2. Add herbs (I use dried b/c I never have fresh, meh)
   
3. Swirl it around

Chop up your olives and crumble your feta. When the pasta is done, drain well and then put it back in the pot. Add your olive-oil-and-herb dressing and mix well. Transfer the pasta to a serving receptacle and top with olives and feta.

Enjoy!