Keeping warm in the kitchen

You may have heard: it's kinda cold out. Like schools-closed, work-canceled cold. Perfect for some baking.

The children (and the husband) all napped at the same time this afternoon, and I found some peace in the kitchen.



Sipping some warm cider while making bread dough, to the sound of nothing, was pretty much heaven.

Pumpkin muffins were also on the agenda, made with some homemade pumpkin puree.



I used a slightly different pumpkin-cooking method than in the past (this one). It was awesome--not at all watery, which is often an issue for me. I think the key is to roast it dry rather than steam it.

I had a helper for pumpkin prep yesterday. She's a pretty cool buddy to have.

I love Jeni's*

I am a fan of ice cream. If you know me in the real world or have been reading for a long time, this is no surprise to you.

And while I love many, many ice creams, I do have a very favorite: Jeni's Salty Caramel. I happened upon Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams while on a trip to Columbus and thought it was some pretty yummy stuff. Then I was able to find some pints locally. I tried a few flavors (all very, very good), eventually hitting upon the Salty Caramel flavor. And then I was in love. Seriously. I never branch out anymore. If I'm in the market for a fancy (pricey but worth it) pint of ice cream, it will be Jeni's Salty Caramel.

But that is not the end of the love story, my friends. Jeni's has a book! So the other day I got my hands on Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home and found that it included a recipe for the Salty Caramel ice cream! Yay! So many exclamation points!**

It was a bit more complicated and time consuming than my usual ice cream recipes, but it was manageable. And it is tasty. I'd say mine turned out not quite as good as the pints, but it was close. Definitely a decent substitute when buying $10 pints of ice cream doesn't seem like a good option. Although given my love of those pints, I probably consider it a good option way more than is reasonable.

So consider this my recommendation. For both the book and the store-bought ice cream. Find it.*** Eat it. Thank me.

*This is not a sponsored post or anything. Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams does not know I exist. I love them anyway. And I think my real-life people (like my co-workers) are tired of hearing me evangelize about an ice cream brand.

**In looking up links for this post, I discovered that the recipe is also available online here.

***There is a Jeni's coming to Chicago! To my old neighborhood! I cannot wait to make a field trip.

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Pumpkin pie, take two

This is my second attempt to write about my kitchen adventures from this past Monday. I scrapped the first attempt because, to be honest, it got a bit whiny.

See, I had taken the day off after a weekend out of town, and I had plans. Plans that included baking bread, making granola, and getting some other kinda-fun-kinda-necessary cooking tasks off the to-do list on the chalkboard.

But instead it ended up being a day of mishaps and trying to roll with it. Flexibility is not always (ever?) my strong suit, and neither is accepting my own boneheaded mistakes, so the day was a bit of a challenge.

It all started when I happened to notice that one of our pumpkins, happily stored in the pantry since our fall harvest, was suddenly looking a bit squishy. Wanting to save as much of it as possible from a compost-bin fate, I decided that immediate pumpkin surgery was necessary. I cut it up and put it on the stove to cook. Adelaide helped me pick out the seeds that were still edible (we roasted them using this method). And then I had a couple cups of pureed pumpkin sitting around, so, naturally, pie!

Let's just say, it was not my best work. I won't go into all the details, but in a seriously "duh" moment I baked the pie crust without weighting it, and it shrank down to a flat disc on the bottom of the pie pan. No side crusts. Not even full coverage of the bottom of the pie pan.

There were other "disasters" that day, both related to the pie and not.* And when all was said and done, I'd accomplished zero of the tasks on my original to-do list. I was disappointed. And I felt (and wrote) whiny about it.

BUT...



Looking at the ill-tempered novel I initially wrote about the day made me stop, shake my head, and get a grip. Day spent in the kitchen with my adorable little helper (who was soooo proud of herself for helping with the pumpkin seeds and the leftover pie crust)? Check. Rotting pumpkin salvaged? Check. Totally edible if somewhat ridiculous-looking pie** for dessert? Check. Time to get to the rest of it (or not...it's not like you don't live blocks from a grocery store, Sarah) another day?  CHECK.

*Highlights include: The filling for the pie was too loose, probably because I didn't bother to drain off enough liquid from the homemade pumpkin puree. I burned the tomato sauce for dinner. Oh, and I managed to burn a hot dog bun to death in the microwave.

**As always, I used the Deluxe Butter Crust recipe from The Joy of Cooking. And I used the pumpkin pie filling recipe in that book too. It's the second time, and the first time the filling turned out great. This time, it tasted great but was a mess, but I don't blame the recipe.

Favorite apple pie

Stop the presses: I have a new favorite apple pie. Adam says he still prefers my old standby, but this Breton Apple Pie has won my heart.

I cooked and then froze the filling in the fall, after our apple picking weekend. I'd never frozen apple pie filling before, but it worked like a charm. The awesome thing about this pie is the crust. It's kind of like a sugar cookie, but better, and with apple pie filling sandwiched inside. So, you know, amazing.

 

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More apples

After using about 40 pounds of the apples for the applesauce adventure, I was left with about 10 pounds for non-sauce purposes. Non-sauce purposes = pie.



A few pounds were immediately turned into this pie. It was tasty, but tasty just like my usual apple pie. The extra step of a sugary-buttery layer under the bottom crust didn't seem to add much. Well, except extra tricky stuck-to-the-pan issues while serving. In my estimation, a nice idea, but not really worth it. Maybe drizzling some sort of caramel sauce over the top of an everyday apple pie would work? Hmmm.



The remaining apples were peeled, cored, sliced, and cooked for a little bit with some cinnamon and sugar, and they are now waiting patiently (I assume) in the freezer to become pies sometime later this fall/winter.

Can it

Holy crap, you guys, I canned applesauce! This is, as far as I am concerned, the kind of thing that should be breathlessly exclaimed to anyone who might be willing to listen to me speak for more than a couple of seconds. Because, and maybe you missed this the first time, I CANNED APPLESAUCE! Now that I've internet-yelled it at you, I'm sure you understand the majorness of the situation.



Seriously, though, I am pretty excited about this, as it is my first foray into the world of canning.* It made me feel all self sufficient, which is, of course, awesome. I have yet to put the jars away on the pantry shelves because looking at them reminds me that I am now a canning rockstar finally got up the courage to try this thing I've been wanting to try for ages. And that it (so far...I think...we haven't eaten it yet...) worked out pretty well.



It was both easier and harder than I thought it would be. Easier because it is actually fairly uncomplicated...just heating and boiling and such. Harder because it took forever for anything to boil, putting things into and out of big pots of boiling water is kinda scary, and I'm still a little bit (irrationally) afraid that I'll botulize** my family.



I used about 40 pounds of apples, canned 7 quarts of sauce and froze the rest (about another 6 quarts, I'd say, but the containers are of varying sizes so it's hard to be precise). Not exactly enough to satisfy our applesauce needs for the year--Adelaide loves her some applesauce--but it still feels like quite the accomplishment!




*Well, aside from "helping" my dad can stuff from our garden. I remember very little other than that canning pickles made the house hot and smelly like vinegar.

**Totally a word. Not at all made up. Also, I followed all the instructions and know that everything should be fine, so I'm not AFRAID afraid, but I am a worrier and can't quite shake it completely. You know how it goes.

The best kind of apples

I must admit, I was getting a bit down about the apple situation this year. Due to the early warm-up in March followed by the return to colder temps in April, there were a lot of fruit tree crop failures around here. I had been hunting for someplace to go apple picking for a reasonable price, or even someplace to pick up a bunch of well-priced "seconds," but I was coming up empty.

So imagine my delight when we arrived downstate for a family visit last weekend and the in-laws mentioned that their backyard apple tree is full of apples this year...and that we were welcome to all the apples we could pick!



We picked about 50 pounds, most of which will become applesauce. Ask me how excited I am. (Hint: So freakin' excited!)



I have no idea what breed of apples these are, but I know from a few years ago that they are perfect for applesauce and make a decent pie, too. And I know that they were free, fun to pick, and a nice surprise, all of which make them pretty darn great.



Adelaide was kind of hilarious about the squishy dropped apples that were on the ground. When she'd come across one, she'd stop, point, and kind of freak out. File "It's just a squished apple, it's okay" under sentences I didn't think I'd ever have to repeat fifty times in one day.



So, applesauce: freeze it or can it? In the past I've only frozen it because my batches have been really small. This seems like it might be a canning-worthy batch, though. I don't know if I have the freezer space for this kind of haul. But, on the other hand, I am a little afraid of canning. It just seems complicated. On the other other hand, I want to learn to can sooner or later, so maybe I should just jump in. Either way, I suppose I'd better figure something out soon, because there are a lot of apples in the basement and possibly more on the way!

Highs and lows (and tomatoes)

The garden this year had it's ups and downs.

The bad: The corn was ravaged by squirrels. The cucumbers gave us a couple of good weeks of production before dying a mysterious death. Rabbits (we think) ate the broccoli, though it may still give us a little something. And the wildlife ate 5 of our 10 tomato plants at the seedling stage. I still don't seem able to grow onions. The potatoes were almost a total bust (worse than last year, even). And the carrots are strangely stunted and have bad spots (huh? this has never happened to us before).

The good: Beans! The green beans were awesome again. The black beans rock my world. Fresh lettuce from the garden is the best thing ever. The basil went bonkers. We have four good-sized pumpkins growing! And we're getting a pretty decent crop of tomatoes from our surviving plants.



To hold on to some of the tomatoey goodness, I oven roasted them and put them away in the freezer to use for pasta sauce some dreary winter day. I used the method in The Homemade Pantry. It was easy and smelled good, but I won't be able to report on the tasty (I hope!) results for a few months.



Remarkably, even though the "bad" list looks longer than the "good" list, it still feels like victory. We grew some food; we got to eat it; it was yummy. I mean, can you honestly look at those roasted tomatoes and tell me it's not a win?

Pesto!

Okay...I thought I had published this post, oh, two weeks ago or so. But I logged on today to finally post again and saw this still sitting here as a draft. But it also says published 7/28. But it didn't show up on the homepage when I checked. But somehow I had already linked to it on flickr. Huh. So, possibly delayed, possibly not, here's some pesto.

Our basil is going bonkers this year, which is awesome. I am making pesto.



Basil-Walnut Pesto

Ingredients

2 ounces parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 cup walnuts
2 large garlic cloves
2 cups basil leaves
1/2-3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste

Directions

I make this in a small Cuisinart processor, so these directions are for that. But if you're not using such a thing, just chop and mix and stir. Start with the grated cheese and the walnuts in the processor and grind until well chopped/combined. Add basil, garlic, oil, salt and pepper. Alternate between the grind and slice buttons a few seconds at a time until the  mixture comes together.

Trial and error

I bought won-ton wrappers at the grocery store to use for dinner the other night.



Conclusion: I have no idea how to wrap up a won-ton wrapper.

But Adam said he liked the meal and would eat it again, so that's a win.

Pita pizzas

Adam does not really cook. And by "Adam does not really cook," I mean "Adam really, really does not cook." But every now and then, he has a sudden inspiration regarding food that works out wonderfully for me. Because I like things that are delicious.

Last week, we made pita pizzas. Very easy. Very delicious.



Just take some pitas. Ours were from Whole Foods because I didn't feel like making any from scratch. Brush them with olive oil. Then add a little shredded mozzarella, if you want. Or not. Top them with yummy things like tomatoes, spinach, arugula, sauteed cucumbers*, and artichoke hearts. Then top with plenty of feta. Broil on low until the cheese gets a little melty and/or the pita edges start to get a little brown. Devour.



*Cucumbers chopped small and sauteed in olive oil with a little salt and pepper = soooo good. Just a heaping helping of that over pasta with a little feta and some halved cherry tomatoes? An insanely easy and great dinner.

One year

Adelaide turned one last Wednesday, and on Saturday we had a little party for her with the extended family.

It's hard to believe that a year has passed since we first met this wonderful little person, but every day she is less "baby" more "toddler," so I guess it must be true. And even though it's hard to believe a whole year has passed, sometimes it's also hard to believe that it was only a year ago that she was a tiny sleepy/fussy little baby burrito bundle instead of the wiggly, giggly kid she is today.



It would be difficult to overstate how much she loved her birthday cake and ice cream (in that, at least, she is her mama's kid for sure). I tried out this chocolate cake recipe, and I've decided it has a slight edge over the Hershey's recipe I'd been using. So for her party I made the new chocolate cake again, but I made it as cupcakes (just reduce the baking time to 20-25 minutes). And I iced them with this icing, but I added about 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Verdict: Yum!





Side note: I ordered cute cupcake papers and was disappointed to realize that, with chocolate cake anyway, it was almost a total waste.



Also: I also need to tell you about the gift I made, but that's its own post. Soon!

A list of food-ish things

I have this mish-mash of food-related stuff I've been meaning to post but, for some reason, keep not getting around to. So I'm just going to brain dump it here and now.

1. The Hearty Brown Lentil Soup in Love Soup. I've made few things from this book so far, and I've liked them all, but this is number one for ease, yum, and being filling. Plus, it makes a lot. I'd recommend the book if you, uh, love soup. Especially if you're a vegetarian (which I am): all the recipes are vegetarian, but there's still lots of basic, hearty stuff.

 

2. Black bean patties with corn relish and avocado cream sauce. I made these for the Super Bowl. Really good. Relatively easy. Only change I'd make is less lime in the avocado cream sauce. It was insanely limey.

3. Easy, yummy guacamole. I don't know why/how, but I have had bad luck with making guacamole. This was easy and yummy (as I said two sentences ago, but maybe you forgot?). I forgot the onions - after everyone left following the Super Bowl, I was putting away some chips and saw an onion on the counter and was all, where'd that come from? - but it was still really good, amazingly enough, even though it's so simple.

4. Speaking of things I've had bad luck with: chocolate birthday cake. It's Adam's birthday, which means chocolate-cake-baking time. I went with the Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Cake recipe for the third year in a row, what with it being the only non-fail chocolate cake recipe I've ever made. It's in the oven now, so wish me luck!

5. Lasagna in the slow cooker. This recipe was really easy, gave me a good use for some of the pesto I made and froze this summer and fall, and turned out pretty darn tasty. I recommend it. I made it yesterday afternoon and was able to forget about it (except for the part where it made the house smell like deliciousness) until we were ready to sit down to eat dinner. Awesome.

6. From months and months ago (how is this not already in a post?): I made my own pumpkin puree. Yeah, I was pretty proud of myself. We bought a jack-o-lantern pumpkin for Adelaide this fall, but we just left it intact on the front porch rather than carving it. So after Halloween, I decide to make use of it. I love doing stuff like that because it makes me feel all resourceful and what have you. Plus I love eating pumpkin seeds. Anyway, I'd never cooked a pumpkin or made a puree out of its guts, so I used this helpful tutorial. It took a lot longer than instructed to cook my pumpkin (it was huge, and took about an hour with the stovetop steaming method). But it worked! Hooray! And I cooked the seeds as instructed here.

Hoosier Pie

I really didn't post about this back around Thanksgiving? Really? I didn't mention the recipe that turned Adam around on the concept of pecan pie?

Because it is pretty darn good.



Now, I like pecan pie. I prefer a Thanksgiving offering that includes both a pecan pie and a pumpkin pie so I can enjoy some of each. This year, we hosted Thanksgiving (for the first time! and we all survived!). I delegated pumpkin pie to my mom, but I knew I wanted to try the Hoosier Pie recipe from A Homemade Life. I read it a few months ago and made a note of the Hoosier Pie recipe.

See, Adam has said for years now that he doesn't like pecan pie. Fair enough, I guess. Well, no. Not fair. I couldn't just let that be. I needed to make him like pecan pie. (Healthy, I know.) And Hoosier Pie was going to be my secret weapon. Sure, it is a pecan pie. But it has chocolate! And liquor! And it is Hoosier Pie. This may not be a selling point for everyone, but Adam is from an Indiana family and is a lover of Hoosier basketball, so for me, this was like a little gift from the baking gods. Because with a name like that, he had to at least try it.

And he did try it. And he liked it. Ha! Winning!



The big pie went pretty quickly, too quickly to get photos, but I used some extra pie crust to make some mini pies a few days later. Rest assured, it was just as tasty in mini form.

(This recipe looks like the one.)

French macaroons

Oh, did you think I was going to start that whole "posting more regularly" thing ever right away? No, no...I totally meant to go a few weeks without posting and then start up with renewed vigor in mid January. I know you believe me because I would never ever lead you astray.

So, French macaroons.

The subtitle here should be "Now with 75% less failure."

I tried French macaroons a few years ago, and the failure at that time was complete. Those babies hit the trash before anyone, even Adam, caught sight of them. And you know that's bad, because I will eat anything with sugar in it. I even ate the fail fudge.

The degree of failure involved in that experience explains why I have been too afraid to try them again until the promise of backup in the form of my sister-in-law. So together we made a fresh attack. And it was not a total failure! Marginal success is mine!



These were some ugly cookies (the one in the photo was, by far, the best of the bunch), which is sad because I feel like half the point of macaroons is all the dainty, pretty fanciness. These were huge, due in part to the fact that they spread after piping and in part to some complete malfunction of spacial estimation on my part. (The book said to pipe two-inch rounds, but we ended up with at least one cookie sandwich that was bigger than my fist.) But, hey! They tasted fine. And I was quite proud of my first foray into real buttercream for the filling. All the cookies were eaten! None of them were thrown away! (Feeling good about the end result is easier when the bar is low. Very, very low.)

Buoyed by this lack of complete failure, I have already committed to a "next time" even! Let's just hope I do a little better with that commitment than I have with the "post more regularly" commitment thus far.

Old news: apples

I hate trying to post after having not posted for, uh, let's just call it quite some time. It feels like whatever material I use to get back into regular (I very much hope it will be regular, but I don't dare to promise) posting should be good. Extra good, even. But that's kind of a lot of pressure. So I'm just going to pick up where I left off and give you a very outdated post about apples. Because we made our first-ever orchard trip at the beginning of October and, holy cow, how did it get to be December already?

So...apples.

We got them. And we made stuff out of them.



Pies. I use the recipe for uncooked apple pie filling and deluxe butter pie crust from The Joy of Cooking and like them very much. (Best pie crust ever. Butter is awesome. In my little world, shortening-heavy pie crust recipes are for people who care more about "flaky" than flavor. Which is obviously insane.)



Applesauce. For the baby, so it is unsweetened and silky smooth. She isn't eating it yet, so I can't report on the success of the venture at this time.



Wondering what to do with all the peels? Crispy apple snacks!



I had lots of peels from the applesauce (no food mill plus target audience of baby equaled peeling the apples) and didn't want them to go to waste (even composty waste). So I spread them on a cookie sheet, sprinkled them with cinnamon, and baked them at 200 degrees for a couple of hours. Once cooled, they were crunchy and yummy. Though the long, bent, crispy strands did sometimes remind me of giant bug legs, which was unfortunate. I was pretty (crazily) happy about the apple peel snacks. I felt very thrifty and resourceful. I like that.

Anyway...I hope to be back soon and more often. I'm working on things. Truthfully, it's not that I haven't had things to post, as evidenced by the fact that I've been sitting on these photos for more than a month. And it's not that I haven't wanted to post. But the past few months I've felt as though I can either make the time to post, or I can make the time to DO the things I would otherwise post about. It's felt hard to make room for both. But I do love sharing here, so I think I need to work on making that time a bit more regularly than I have been.

The problem with books

The problem with books is that they make me want to ditch all the practical, everyday things I am supposed to be doing with my time. You might be tempted to believe that the problem seems to be with ME rather than with books, but I assure you that you are mistaken.

I went to the library last weekend. God, I love libraries. Lovely places just bursting with books (and movies! and music!). And they let you take things home! For free! And if they don't have a book you want just hanging around, they will have one delivered from another nearby-ish library. Also for free! It is a magical place, I tell you.

But the point is, I checked out some "just for fun" books. And started reading. And didn't want to spend any time over the weekend without a book in my hands. And, to be frank, the book I was reading wasn't even that good (it was fine, but not great, not a real page turner). But reading is just so delicious.



Speaking of delicious: cookbooks. Specifically, the newest addition to my collection: Love Soup. Now, you might think that a cookbook would not give me the problem mentioned above. After all, cooking ends with food. To eat. Which is pretty darn practical. But then why did I spend all my post-baby-bedtime time last night looking at cookbooks and even cooking food, only to realize around 8:30 that I had no plan for dinner? I do have an interesting little eggplant and roasted garlic dip as an appetizer for tonight. (Why did no one tell me roasting garlic was so easy? Seriously, people. I needed to know that. I could have been roasting garlic all this time, but I have not been!) And I have plenty of new plans for future (soupy) dinners.



Another problematic book I'm dealing with right now: Wee Wonderfuls. So much awesome! Why would I want to spend time sewing nice practical things like a tablecloth or curtains when I could be sewing the cutest little toys ever? I hope Adelaide likes stuffed toys, because she's going to be getting some.

Though I am proud to say I actually did pull myself away from my bookish world this weekend long enough to sew the tablecloth. Which is good, because it was terribly easy and should have been done long, long ago. But more on that another time.

Dinner last night (with terrible photos)

Sloppy (lentil) joes.



Potatoes and cabbage in the crockpot.



The best brownies ever.



The sloppy joe recipe is for the crockpot too, but I used the stovetop variation. Also, last night was actually sloppy joe leftovers, because that recipe makes a lot. (And I forgot to take an on-the-bun picture every darn time we ate them. Drats.) I think it makes about 10 sloppy joes. That's a lot of sloppy joes for two people. I'm starting to feel weird about the phrase "sloppy joes" because I've typed it too many times. Adam had the genius idea of adding ground cumin to these before reheating them on night two. Much improved. Not that they were bad before, because they weren't. But they were definitely more yummy with cumin. Also, I left out the bell pepper.

The potatoes and cabbage were decent. I'd make the dish again. But next time I'd remember to put the garlic in at the beginning instead of saying "Oops!" a half hour before dinner and rushing to saute some garlic on the stovetop and throw it into the crockpot several hours too late.

And the brownies. Oh, the brownies. Have I told you about these brownies before? (Aha! A search of my archives reveals that I have not! The KH brownies were very good, but these are, I think, even better and easier. ) They are so good and fudgey. The first time I made them we only let them cool for an hour and they were tasty but way too gooey and fall-apart. This time I baked them 30 minutes (which is an extra five) and let them cool for four hours before cutting. Still tasty, but also structurally sound!

Also: I have the cutest little kitchen supervisor ever.

In the kitchen

Using up some end-of-the-carton strawberries in some strawberry lemonade (inspired by this post).



Enjoying the harvest.



Especially the fresh green beans with a little butter - soooo good.

And the salads.



And enjoying some of the neighbor's harvest too. Some sage passed across the backyard fence made its way into a very, very yummy (and easy!) pasta dish.



My version is a mashup of this recipe and one in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Pasta with Brown Butter, Parmesan, and Sage

Ingredients
1 pound pasta
10 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped fresh sage
1/4 cup grated parmesan

Directions
Cook pasta.

Meanwhile, heat butter in a frying pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add salt and sugar and stir to combine. Continue cooking and stirring occasionally until butter is a light caramel color, about 10 minutes. Add the sage and wait for the bubbling to subside, then cook another minute or two.

Toss pasta, butter and sage, and parmesan.