It seems like a good time to get back to basics. I’m talking about simple, quick, easy weeknight meals. Nick’s been requesting pasta lately, and I am more than happy to oblige. People have been telling me to make pasta alla’amatriciana forever, but I have only just now gotten around to it, thanks in part to a reminder from The Hungry Dog. I mean, bacon in spicy tomato sauce? Sign me up! I only wonder why it’s taken me so long to get around to making this, because if there’s a fantastic meal to come out of the pantry, it’s this one.
As for the old favorite, this is something I used to whip up almost every other Friday night, especially when our Italian market in Dallas burned down and set up temporary shop in the liquor store across from one of our favorite bars. It was super convenient to have a couple of happy hour beers, then go pick up some fresh raviolis (porcini being the favorite) and whatever tomato products our pantry was lacking before inviting a handful of friends back to the house and cooking up a big pot of tomato cream sauce for those scrumptious raviolis.
The trick is this: after softening/slightly caramelizing some diced onion in olive oil with salt, red pepper flakes, and fresh thyme or dried oregano, throw in a couple spoonsful (spoonfuls?) of tomato paste, and let it cook, stirring frequently, until it gets browned and roasty smelling. That’s when you deglaze with red wine, balsamic vinegar, chicken stock, or even water. Scrape up the delicious fond from the bottom of the pot and add a can or two (depending on how many people you’re feeding) of tomatoes, pre-diced or whole, diced by hand. Simmer while the raviolis cook, and just before serving, stir in an ounce or two of cream.
It turns out that even slight changes like switching dried pasta for filled, fresh pasta, or switching out bacon for cream in the tomato sauce, make having pasta for dinner two nights in a row not only viable, but desirable.
When it snows, I love to cook all day with the Food Network channel in the background. Usually, everyone else in my family is outside, so I want the house to smell delicious when they come in, and I want to have something yummy to fill their tummies.
There are many healthy options for soups and stews that incorporate vegetables and lean meats. I make sure that the meals I serve are full of nutrients because I know my family will also want to eat high fat foods, especially on snow days. Along with the healthy food, I will definitely bake some goodies like cookies and brownies. But, I will leave an assortment of fruits sitting out and readily available for an easy snack.
It seems like a lot of work sometimes, usually just during the work week when I might be tired. But, most of the time, I really enjoy cooking. It is a creative outlet, taking ingredients and making something delicious for my family to eat. I have to remember to keep it simple, because when I get too much going on, I get stressed about the outcome and then it’s not as much fun.
Almost like running. When I get consumed with my performance, my runs aren’t as much fun because of the effort involved. But, when my race times improve because of my hard work, I am pleased. When I was at the track this past week for my speed workout, as I was running 400s, I was thinking “this feels awful”, until I crossed the finish and heard my results.
When we want to improve at anything, I suppose, the process becomes more challenging and stressful. But, if we truly want to get better, we will feel satisfied with the end results. The quest for that satisfaction is what drives us to push through those challenging, sometimes painful moments.
This recipe goes back to my early days of marriage in 1952. It came from either a Crisco or Sunbeam mixer cookbook (two of my favorite sources at that time) and I made it countless times. The crumb topping is very sparse and light but is just right for the cake which is richer than most coffeecakes. I have always called it my “best coffeecake”.
BEST COFFEECAKE
1/2 cup shortening (Crisco)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 Tblsp. baking powder
1 cup milk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9″ baking pan.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, place the shortening, sugar and egg. Beat until light and fluffy.
In a separate medium bowl, mix together the flour, salt and baking powder.
Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with flour, and beating until well blended after each addition.
Pour into a greased and floured 9″ pan. Sprinkle the following topping on the top of the cake:
TOPPING
1-1/2 Tblsp. melted butter
4 Tblsp. granulated sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 Tblsp. flour
In a small bowl, mix together the butter, sugar and cinnamon. Stir in the flour and mix well. Crumble over the top of the unbaked cake.
Bake cake @ 400 degrees F for approximately 25 minutes, until cake tests done.
Cool for 10 minutes on a rack. Cut into squares to serve while still warm.
In the early 1960s my husband and I were raising three children in a 1922 house on Maple Drive in Oakley (Cincinnati).
I used to bake this cake as a treat during the evening when we didn’t have money for snacks like potato chips and soft drink. I would omit the crumb topping and after it was cool, frost it with some powdered sugar icing and sprinkle raisins on top.
ICING FOR TOP OF CAKE
1 Tblsp. softened butter or margarine
1 Tblsp. undiluted evaporated milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup powdered or confectioners’ sugar
Dash of salt
Place all of the above ingredients in a mixer bowl and beat until smooth. An additional drop or two of evaporated milk can be added gradually to make a good spreading consistency. Frost top of cooled cake while still in the pan and sprinkle about 3 Tblsp. of raisins on top.
The three kids (age 2, 6 and 8), my husband and I would eat the entire cake that evening while watching television.
I’m not normally a big pizza fan, and nor are the family, but we have tried making Pizza at home and our opinion and liking of pizza is slowly rising.
This Recipezaar recipe is one of our homemade efforts and was a hit, especially with Kiwidutch Daughter. (Anyone with fussy children will totally understand how many brownie points a recipe earns when this happens !)
She helped make the Pizza’s as well… Little brother Master Four tried hard to help but got side-tracked into stuffing himself with salami instead, ah well, good intentions little man… LOL.
I had on hand: a very small amount of portuguese chorizo sausage, large rounds of salami and 2 cooked rookworsts ( = large smoked sausages, similar-ish (but better) to frankfurters), the pizza bases came from Ecoplaza (totally organic grocery) it’s the first time I tried these and they taste great!
Little Miss smeared the tomato sauce onto the bases, and put the meat onto one while I did the other, and she got busy adding the cheese, more like a blizzard of the stuff then a dusting, but oh well, that’s kids in the kitchen for you.
We also added a little green pepper and these cooked up in no time. This recipe gets plus points for using leftover meats successfully, WITH organic bases successfully, for letting daughter loose in the kitchen and having fun AND getting her to happily enjoy eating the end result.
For me it was simple to make and the 2 pizzas did us great for a weekday meal in a bit of a rush.
This is recipe that is open to many variations of leftover meats as you like, leftover diced roast chicken, those last slices of ham in the packet that need using up, salami, of the sausages left over from the weekend BBQ that you put in the fridge and are now looking lonely. An excellent recipe to reduce needless food waste, and it tastes brilliant too ! Thanks Mandy!
I’ve printed Mandy’s recipe here with her permission and she mentions in her recipe that she got it got it from a “Take 5 Ingredients Book”.
Ingredients:
30 cm pizza crusts, with
tomato sauce
1 cup pizza cheese, grated
2 chorizo sausages, sliced
125 g cocktail franks, sliced
60-100 g smoked ham, shredded
2 tablespoons barbecue sauce
Directions
1. Place pizza base on a lightly greased oven tray, top with half the cheese, then sliced meats and ham followed by remaining cheese.
2. Bake in a preheated oven at 200.C for approx 15 mins or until base is crisp and the top is golden.
3. Remove from oven and drizzle with barbeque sauce to serve.
It was interesting watching the furore on the web yesterday about the iPad (or for some moments not watching it, as the fuss caused the net to temporarily stutter and stall). For the record, before I say what I thought was particularly interesting, I will one day get an iPad, I know I will, not because I want my life branded with Apple logos, if Apple brought out something duff, I wouldn’t want it, I for example am typing this on my HP (not Apple laptop) and I haven’t opened my browser using Safari either (even though my iTunes account keeps trying to persuade me) but when Apple produce something that is priced at a level I could at least possible attain to, something that is user friendly, simple, well thought out, innovative and most importantly imaginative (is imagination even in Bill Gates vocabulary?), I want it. And in the case of the iPad, I specifically want it because of it’s price point, at the starting level of $499 (around £300), ok I don’t have that money laying round the house, but when my not particularly reliable (HP) laptop finally gives up the ghost, what am I going to do? Find nearer £400 (at least) to replace it, for something that, compared to the iPad, is big, clunky and takes up space, put it this way, not exactly something I can snuggle up in bed with or spend £300 on something that I can confidently predict, for what I use a laptop for, do pretty much an excellent job, and at the same time do so much more, in a far more user friendly manner, Steve Jobs, you win again. So, I won’t be getting an iPad when it comes out, I have to eek out as much life as I can out of this laptop, but when it dies, I’m jumping ship.
I am particularly excited about what the third party developers are going to do with this, I can think of two particular fields of apps that I use regularly in my own life, that I think could be amazing on an iPad. Notably cookery books and pre-school / early Primary year programs. There has already been an explosion in some rather neat pre-school / early primary apps on the iPhone, which my kids adore, talking, interactive books and simple games that help numeracy, literacy and hand – eye coordination (Boy Lacer adores the Sesame Street Waiter game), I think on the larger scale of the iPad, there could be some amazing, far more detailed and even more interactive things produced for small children. And I’m excited about what this sort of technology (not necessarily produced by Apple), will mean for my children by the time they’re in secondary school, I remember my secondary school years, they were lessons interspersed with the experience of being a pack horse, as I lugged a straining back pack and an over flowing carrier bag, full of large ringbinders and textbooks, around the school grounds, it’s well documented, the damage bags like that do to children’s spines. I think I can fairly confidently predict that my children will not have that problem, Girl Lacer will just be slipping her generic tablet into her small bag and on it will be all her text books and all her notes and I am glad.
As for cookery apps, I already use my iPhone a lot in the kitchen, if I’m cooking from a recipe on the web, I’d much rather take my phone into the kitchen than my laptop, just down to size, and Jamie Oliver and BBC Good Food, amongst others, have already produced excellent, interactive recipe books, imagine what that could be like when the app is the actual size of a book, complete with audio and video clips, it’ll be fantastic!
So, what did I find really fascinating about the iPad furore yesterday? The number of people complaining about it. Last time I checked, when a group of people enthuse enthusiastically about something, it is impolite, if you’re not interested in said subject, to point that out, well maybe if you’re stuck in a car with an Apple bore, in a traffic jam, maybe then, but when you’re in an open public forum, if what is currently being discussed bores you, you switch off your generic piece of technology you profess to be not that bothered about, it’s just a tool after all, and go and do something else. That’s what interested me yesterday, the number of people who weren’t switching off, but instead were moaning. In fact on my Twitter stream, I’ve seen more people talking negatively about people talking too much about the iPad, than people actually talking about the iPad, so now who’s continuing the ‘excessive’ conversation?
I am feeling a great sense of accomplishment today!
I started the day out by getting the kids off to school….(okay, nothing new about that) but then…. I made myself some good old fashioned southern grits!
Have you ever had them?
Now I was thinking this was some great thing….this making grits.
Right?
I mean I am not from the south but I know it’s a pretty popular dish (or maybe I am off the deep end)
My dear hubby used to eat it when he lived in Florida….so that must mean everyone likes them right? (right?)
But when I made them…I took at step back and looked….and yea…
all I see is malt-o-meal!
WTH?
Okay.. a little let down, but I haven’t tasted them yet…that’s the secret! its not the look, its the taste
So…I asked the dear hubby…”what should I put on them?” His reply…”maybe some butter and sugar…maybe even a little milk” enjoy! waalaa!
Okayyyy…I’m still thinking Malt-o-meal. So I added what he so lovingly suggested, took my first bite…. and …YEP!
NADA. NOTHING. No feeling of O MY GOSH those are the best! Or…O my I have been missing out on this stuff all my life! NOPE.
I had all this build up and I got Malt-o-meal. Now don’t get me wrong I like it. I just don’t get it.
I will try a couple recipes with them and see if I get that O GOLLY MISS MOLLY this is super delish with one of those and keep you posted!
Anyway,
after my breakfast of champions (wait that’s wheaties)…..guess what I did?
I GOT ON THE TREADMILL! all by myself !
So proud of myself. 20 whole minutes.
(ok, so its not a long time but come on, I was just saying yesterday I need help and I suck at this..so give me break!)
20 minutes is better than no minutes! Now to do it again tomorrow is the hard part! **sigh**
Then, I got some work done and ran an errand to a sale a town over to look for baskets. I hit the jackpot!
I got 3 for my Bella Baby gals.
Now you have to understand, these are not always easy to find. You can search high and low some days and never find a basket you need. So I was thrilled to actually get 3 in one place! and I got a good sale price on them all. Double Jackpot!!
I’s doing good right!Now you see why the sense of accomplishment today! run, shop, work….not a bad day! But I’m not done..O no!
I also got 3 things accomplished on my 101 list! THREE!
I did the fine art page. Wait that was yesterday, should have added that then I suppose!) # 82 and I will continue to add to that often!
and I did #86 and #87 …I created two newsletters today! One for clients and one for my staff! I will be doing staff ones every month and I will do client ones atleast bi-monthly!
How fun! It wasn’t hard, but it was a lot of thought and consideration. Detail. Glad to get those off to a good start!
3 more things. DONE. DONE. DONE!
I am on a what you call a ….. ROLL! or….. I made my list to easy.
and soon I will probably reach a stand still of …HOW THE H*LL do I get the rest of these done?! But until then I will keep rollin’ rollin’
No big photography time today.
I did add my photo of the day! but the widget isn’t working! so I decided to add a photo of the day page. What the hay..why not. I will add a photo here and for the next month they will be things I can’t live without. well, you know what I mean!
and I got these baskets for my house. (duh! like I would not get something for my house! … and they are a perfect fit with my hodge podge theme!)
you can stack them, or have them seperate. you can use them on the top and you can use them to keep stuff in. So versatile! I have multi-tasking furnishings! Here is something interesting…look at how you can make the same two baskets look so different with some tweaks in photoshop!
like totally different baskets! right? I love photoshop.
Many people since WWII are searching for all kinds fo products on the internet. And it is easy to find suppliers for the desired products, what isn’t that easy is to find good suppliers. Be it wallpapers for interior decorating or healthy food for eating like broccoli, beer, cheese, chickens for dinner and the like. For the more exotic test one maybe looking for turtles, a good winery or what establishes a good life even if one is dieting. Anyway, we will continue to give news on suppliers directories that will help those looking for good products.
This morning I woke up and it was pouring. The last thing I wanted to do was get out of bed, but I promised myself I I would wake up early and start doing abs every morning. Goal accomplished! That extra five minutes in the morning seems so huge when I’m in bed, but really, it’s only five minutes.
As for my eats, I started off with an amazing hodge podge of cereals: banana nut cheerios, kashi cinnamon, and the best new cereal ever —> CHOCOLATE CHEERIOS. If you have a sweet tooth, these are a must have!
I’m a complete kid at heart, so I also sweetened it up with chocolate soy milk by SoySlender. They make the best soymilk, and I have such a hard time finding it in vanilla so I figured why not just have the chocolate! It was yummy!!! I also had a banana and a cup of coffee. I’m not going to lie, I start off many mornings this way. I have no creativity time when it comes to breakfast. I am usually sprinting out the door because I read too many blogs when I should be getting ready.
After school, I went to spinning class instead of zumba. My unlimited dance membership doesn’t start until Feb. 1st, so I figured I’d go back to spinning. I do love a good spinning class, and I definitely enjoyed it, but I’m thinking I still enjoy Zumba more.
Speaking of zumba, check out www.zumba.com for zumba classes in your area. I haven’t looked for videos, but I now that they’re out there.
Oh, and I succeeded in another goal today .. I packed lunch and cooked dinner! Dinner was MMMM-azing tonight. I made butternut squash fries, grilled tuna, and some broccoli. I am uber proud of myself.
I’m sending this girl to the curb….
I hope you had a good Monday!!
Question of the day: What’s your favorite cereal? How about your favorite breakfast??
Mark Bittman might be one of my favorite cookbook authors and blog writers. He has a food blog on the New York Times called Bitten where he features simple recipes that I like to check out when I need inspiration for a quick meal.
A couple of nights ago I made his Spiced Red Lentil Dal. It was a simple and tasty dinner for me and my husband, not too heavy but still filling. I added some cardamom seeds too.
Potato Salad. I decided to try my hand at this one day and upon looking up some recipes, it turns out you can pretty much throw it together out of stuff in your fridge and be fine. One of the big decisions will be whether you want to use olive oil or mayonnaise. If you’re health conscious, olive oil is the clear choice (because mayonnaise is opaque. Ha Ha oh these jokes are terrible). If your mom used mayonnaise and you’re confident you cant’ live without it… don’t. I used both.
The recipe I used called for pickle juice so naturally I went to the grocery store to pick it up, forgot why I was there, ended up purchasing beer instead, and came home all the happier. The rest of it I pretty much followed and it turned out pretty darn good. I do, however, feel the need to throw my own 2 cents into this.
My suggestions?
If you’re going to use a lot of onion in it… make sure it’s a mild one. The last thing you want in potato salad is a strong onion bite.
When adding parsley, always use fresh, and add it little by little so you don’t accidentally add Way more than is necessary. (this didn’t happen to me… but a friend I know… yea… just don’t do it.)
If you’re already boiling the potatoes, throw a couple of eggs in there too. That way you kill 2 birds with one stone (or pot of boiling water, as it is).
Mine came out fantastic, in spite of disproportionate amounts of parsley… overbearing onions… and the barely noticeable absence of pickle juice. So the moral of this story? You can’t really mess this one up. Just add things little by little and taste it as you go. If it tastes like potato salad… you’re heading the right direction.
Ingredients
3 or 4 mid sized Russet potatoes
4 Tbsp juice from Kosher dill pickles
3 Tbsp finely chopped dill pickles
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 cup chopped red onion
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 or 2 chopped scallions, including the greens
1-2 hard boiled eggs, chopped (optional)
1 medium carrot, finely chopped (optional)
1/2 red bell pepper, raw or roasted, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
After my last post I could not leave you all without introducing you another truely Australian recipe I love to make on Australia Day and any other time throughout the year that I fancy – Pumpkin Scones
I am sure you have all heard of Scones (In Australia we pronouce them as Skon not Skoan) and most have even tasted a variety or 2. Some have experienced the joy that comes from devowering a light as air scone, while others have been tortured with a hard as a rock scone. Obviously the aforementioned version is preferable. Very few however have tried the Pumpkin Scone. So allow me to introduce you to a real gem.
My recipe comes from the lady who made them famous, Lady Florence Bjelke-Petersen (or Lady Flo as she’s known), a Queensland senator during the late 80s and early 90s and wife of former Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. During her time as a senator she became well-known for her pumpkin scones, her reputation for them rivalling that of her political career. “I hope they remember me first for being a senator, who just happened to make pumpkin scones,” recounts Florence. And the secret to these golden nuggets? Cook the pumpkin the night before and chill it in the fridge. I always use Queensland Blue pumpkin but I am sure any deliciously sweet pumpkin would work fine.
Lady Florence Bjelke-Petersen’s Famous Pumpkin Scones Degree of difficulty: Low
You need:
1 Tblsp butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup mashed pumpkin (cold)
2 cups Self raising flour
Method:
Beat together butter, sugar and salt with electric mixer.
Add egg, then pumpkin and stir in the flour.
Turn on to floured board and cut.
Place in tray on top shelf of very hot oven 225-250c for 15-20 minutes.
Remember when we made pumpkin ravioli and saved the ones with the store-bought wonton wrappers in the freezer for future use? Well, this time, instead of a classic brown butter and sage sauce, I decided to cook them up finger-food style as toasted pumpkin ravioli, not too unlike the toasted ravioli Rachael Ray inspired us to make a while back.
Ingredients:
Frozen pumpkin ravioli
Egg
Seasoned breadcrumbs
First dip the ravioli in the egg, then coat with breadcrumbs. It’s easy to work with still-frozen pasta.
Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 25 minutes at 350 degrees, flipping once in the middle.
Serve warm with sauce for dipping*.
If you’ve already done all of the work of forming the raviolis, this is a very easy way to make a special appetizer for a party or date night.
*We made a tomato and mayonnaise dipping sauce seasoned with cilantro and basil, but you can dip these in plain tomato sauce, or even stick with brown butter sauce for dipping.
Everyone knows it’s unhealthy to eat too much sugar, but sometimes, substitute sugar alternatives like aspartame or Splenda can cause their own problems. Yes, these things are not caloric, but because they are chemically based, some people can’t tolerate them. In addition, it’s not yet known just what long-term effects these sweeteners may have.
High fructose corn syrup, too, is undesirable in large amounts in your daily diet, but if you do not want to suffer the potential side effects from the chemically based artificial sugar alternatives and suffer the issues stemming from the high glycemic index from high fructose corn sugar or the issues from too much regular sugar then what do you do. Which sugar alternative is best for you?
One of the best sugar alternatives from either regular sugar or chemical sweeteners is honey. Honey is natural; it tastes good and incorporates trace amounts of B vitamins, and has bactericide attributes in any case. The problem is that honey in its liquid form can be tricky to store. Although it never goes awful it can also crystallize thus possibly making it hard to utilize. And, let’s face it. It can be sticky and messy to use too, potentially making cooking, baking, and mixing beverages an untidy business.
Because of that, a great substitute sugar alternative that still has all of honey’s beneficial properties without the storage problems comes in the form of organic honey crystals. Organic honey crystals provide the taste and sweetness of honey, but in a dry form that’s easy to use and store. It’s economical as well; because it’s so easy to use and store, you can stock up and simply keep it on hand.
How do you utilize organic honey crystals as a sugar substitute?
Just like crystallized sugar, organic honey crystals can be employed in no matter what you do, cook, beverage, etc. They stock just like sugar so there is no concern about having to own large tubs of honey for use. It is easy to assess on a one-is-to-one proportion just as you do with sugar. Organic honey crystals are acceptable for something you would ordinarily use sugar for and essentially just replaces sugar in cooking, baking and beverages.
A healthier sugar alternative
In addition, healthy organic sugars like organic honey crystals can be a healthy alternative to refined sugars even for type 2 diabetics, when used in moderation. Of course, anyone suffering from type 2 diabetes should check with his or her healthcare practitioner before using this or any other type of sweetener. (Along the same lines, babies under one year should never be given honey or organic honey crystals, since there is a slight risk of contracting food poisoning this way; anyone over the age of one year should be able to use these and other honey-based sweeteners without any risk of food poisoning.)
Besides all of this, though using organic honey crystals as a sugar substitute simply renders you a better taste with honey sweet flavor without all of the hassle and mess up. It is simple to apply and stock and you will get a better taste with a touch of nourishment with this sugar substitute. Give organic honey crystals a try to see if they don’t make your life a lot sweeter.
To find cooking recipes ready-made employing a substitute sugar identified as organic honey crystals just take a look at the Mama Healthy website to obtain one of the best alternative to sugar out there.
Phew – I got behind on my blog and it has been making me anxious. So, I have a very relaxed first period and I have my lovely coffee next to me, so I can catch up on a few things.
First, my WI was yesterday – I am officially -5 lbs! So, that was really exciting, I am already looking forward to this week because Carl has some extra time off so we can do a good grocery shopping together and cook together today and Thursday – which we rarely get to do.
As for my weekly goals, here is how they went:
Goals Update:
1. Start reading a new book Started The Oracle by Margaret Atwood
2. Begin redecorating the spare bedroom. Started and finished – Carl hung the rods up and put the curtains up last night!
3. First, start going through stuff int he spare bedroom (BOO) Organized the closet, and then found out Carl tidied it up some more last night after I went to bed!
4. Send some poetry to my former professor for an Alumni publication Sent him 5-6 poems!
5. Do my new work DVD 3x 2x more by Sunday
Eh…I did it once. I really need to find a DVD I actually LIKE doing – so far they’ve either been too complicated or too boring. Maybe Tae Bo? ANY SUGGESTIONS?!
Now, for this week’s goals:
1. Cook at least 3 healthy meals for myself/Carl. Last week was a lot of eating whole wheat pasta on the run because I was busy working on something or doing something – this week I would like to really cook!
2. Bake something healthy (I’m thinking Orange Cranberry quinoa muffins!) – I need snacks, and I hate to buy processed snacks. I might have to sneak some chocolate into them…
3. Find an exercise video I will like AND do it 2x! Tae Bo? Biggest Loser? Sweating to the Oldies? I am going to use Amazon to hunt something down.
4. Start eating breakfast during the week. I never eat breakfast, which is a horrible habit. I need to get up and eat SOMETHING. Either a yogurt or an instant breakfast or something.
5. Spend less money! I am such a spender – any time I see something on sale, I buy it. If I saved the amount I spend, Carl and I could do something really fun together!
Just before bedtime last night, the W proclaimed loud and proud “Tomorrow we are watching Glee on DVD!” I half flinched and half laughed to myself when she said this because if there is one thing I have learned in my 6+ years of being married to this woman it is this–when she is sleepy you cannot trust what she says. It’s not that she lies, it is that she cannot or does not remember what she says during sleepy time. At periodic times in our marriage this has caused me much grief. For example I will ask her a question about something, she’ll answer…and then later claim to have no idea what I am talking about or doing as I follow through on our earlier conversation. In the interest of full disclosure, I do the same thing to her too when I am sleepy…so I guess we’re even. All that is to say last night when she said we’d be watching Glee on DVD today she was sleepy. It hasn’t happened yet…and I am betting it won’t.
What did happen today is I was all set to go to the YMCA for a workout. I’ve been kind of lazy and taking it easy after hurting my back, but I do need to get back into exercise mode. Today was the day because she told me that if I did not start going (i.e. today) then she’d pull my membership. Seeing how I have to go along with her, I was all dressed in my running shorts, t-shirt, low cut cotton white socks and my running shoes. I grabbed my YMCA id card, wallet, keys, ipod…but I couldn’t find the headphones. After I looked and looked I sent the W a text (She was already at the Y during all of this). She responded that she did not know where my headphones are and “I am using mine.” About 2 minutes goes by and my phone beeps again with an incoming text. It read “Oops I have yours!” in reference to my headphones.
I was honestly thinking that since she’d been at the Y for a while now, by the time I got down there she’d be done and I could just get the headphones from her. Instead she told me to take the dog on a walk and to “come to the Y later”. So I once again changed my clothes and got ready to take the dog on a walk.
Earlier in the day she did tell me to take the dog on a walk around the neighborhood at some point in the day, so I knew it was coming, I was just hoping to do it after the Y. Also earlier I was given explicit directions not to let the dog run sprints at the park because it’s too soggy outside and the other day after our walk Ellis came in, jumped on the couch and smeared a nice amount of mud all over the leather. So Ellis and I went walking for 45 in the neighborhood. I didn’t realize that her being a full blooded Boxer also meant she is part bloodhound. The walk would have been at least 15 minutes quicker if she didn’t have to stop and smell every damn thing under the sun. It’s like she’s never been outside before.
Next I have to clean up the kitchen. The other thing I have learned in my 6+ years of marriage to the W is “I’ll do it” has different ways of being understood. I understand it to mean “I will get to it at some point during the day.” She understands it to mean “right now.” Cleaning up the kitchen is not a big deal, but it was another one of her instructions for me to follow today, so I’m including it in the post…and it was kind of annoying to have to do it “right now” because I was chatting with a friend online at the time. But who am I to argue with her this year?
Finally I am able to change (again) and get ready to go to the Y. This time I have the headphones to go with the ipod so I am ready to roll. I get there, stretch, and put the ipod on just before I go to hit the treadmill. Only to hear 7 seconds on my Lolo Jones playlist before the battery on the thing dies. This sucks. I loathe the YMCA music selections.
So now I’m home, off to shower and then cook our dinner–penne vodka. I’m cooking every night this week which I don’t mind because she has a really busy week…BUT I’m still hoping she forgets about Glee tonight. I really really really watch to watch “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain.
The Italian Cheesecake (from Mission I) that I made last time was not that big a success. Bah — let’s call it was it was — a failure. It looked real good on the outside, but it didn’t have much going on inside (sort of like the Saturn Sky sports coupe). However, I don’t like being defeated, so I had to return to the scene of the (culinary) crime and take this challenge on again in order to secure some respect. This time, however, I’m jumping over to a NY style cheesecake. Besides, my wife is a fan of the NY cheesecake and I need to maintain at least some modicum of harmony in my castle. So I get to kill two birds with one stone with this one.
Of course, there’s a third reason too. A budding Goombah has to have a successful cheesecake recipe up his sleeve. It’s the baking version of a sauce, so it’s a fundamental part of a Goombah’s repertoire (at some point, you need to add Italian bread too, but first things first). So until you get the basics down, there’s just no sense moving on to anything else. So back to the cheesecake we go.
So this time around I decided to kick Artuso’s to the curb (sorry guys, love your stuff otherwise) and go with Raina’s recipe from the comments in the Italian Cheesecake post. Raina’s Italian and she lives in New York, so that makes her a full Goombette. That also means that the recipe is authorized for the Goombah Gourmet to use without losing any points from his rep (look, a New York Italian can’t take a recipe for a New York cheesecake from a German living in Utah). Besides, if the cake doesn’t taste any good, I can just blame her. Fuggetaboutit. That’s a Goombah rule: always remember to cover your ass when you are cooking and baking. If someone else can take the fall, make it happen.
Don’t Be a Crust Hata
An essential element to being a Goombah is being persistent in pointing out why other people aren’t Italian, or why they couldn’t cut it as Italians. Of course, if they really aren’t Italian, that’s easy. But if they happen to have the right birth certificate with Italian parents on it, you have to look for other things to rule them out as inauthentic. So you need a list of things that allow you to say “no real Italian does that.“ One of those things is not eating the crust on a pizza. Did you ever know someone who ate pizza and then didn’t eat the crust? I mean come on. The crust is one of the best parts. No real Italian leaves a pile of folded up crusts on the plate a the end.
Real Italians take the crust seriously. That includes the cake crust. Since I’m not screwing around this time, I’m not messing with the pasta frole from the Italian Cheesecake. I’m not stunad — I get burned once, I move on. It was too plain and I didn’t like it. So this time we’re going rogue, er… graham. We’re leaving the reservation. No worries, Goombahs. A graham crust is about as easy to put together as your morning expresso. It’s fun too.
Crust Ingredients, with a Mighty Impressive Wooden Weapon and Baking Implement
1 ½ cups of mashed up graham crackers (typically, requires 1 ½ packages of graham crackers)
¼ cup of sugar
6 tablespoons of butter
Let’s get started. Believe me – once you make this crust, you’ll scoff at the idea of buying that ready made crap in the store. Who needs it? Real Goombahs go scratch. That’s another Goombah rule.
First, put the graham crackers (as many as you can) into a zipped up sandwich bag. Most recipes say to put them into a food processor and mash them up, but geez — don’t do that. Instead, use a rolling pin and beat the hell out of the crackers in the bag. Look, it’s a great way to relieve a little of that pent up stress or anger that you know every Goombah has deep inside (growing up in New York, I knew a lot of Goombahs — they all have anger management problems). So if you’re like me and you want to stay on the right side of the law, you can just take your frustrations out on the bag. Afterward I know I felt better, anyway. A little therapy with your baking.
After you have that done, add the mashed up crackers to a medium bowl and add the sugar and mix it up. Then melt the butter in a sauce pan and add it to the crackers/sugar mix.
Adding the Hot Butter Action
Once that gooey warm butter is in there, use your hands and really mix it up good (wash your hands first, Goombah). I liked this part even better than smashing up the graham. Those mashed up graham crackers feel good in your hands when they are mixed up with the warm melted butter. I took my time on this stage to savor the tactile experience. It reminded me a little of that sculpting scene in Ghost. If you wind up liking this part too, keep it to yourself and don’t tell anyone. It sounds weird.
Once you’re done, add the mix to your 9 inch springform pan. Use your hands to press it down so that you’ve got about a ¼ inch crust all the way around, and press it good against the sides. At this point I departed a little from Raina’s recipe, and I baked the crust in the oven at 375 for 10 minutes (she didn’t say to cook the crust). This sets the crust nice, and it browns up the edges a little. Not a big departure, and besides you need to personalize a recipe a little. I know Goombahs can be a little conformist in nature, but I have to shake things up once in a while. You know, get wild.
Once you’ve done that, cool it on the baking rack while you get the filling ready, which is next up.
The Crust
Get Your Filling Straight: Piling on the Calories
Look, this is a cheesecake. So you’re gonna have to just accept a few things. Like that it’s going to have a lot of calories in it. There’s no getting around it. So don’t mess around with all that low-fat cream cheese nonsense. Just eat less cake, or eat more and embrace getting fat. Look, both of my Italian grandmothers were fat. They didn’t care. Maybe my grandfathers did, but they never complained about the food so I guess they were okay with the trade-off.
The Caloric Explosion: Filling Ingredients
3 Philadelphia Cream Cheeses (8 oz packages each)
1 ½ cups of sugar
3 eggs
It’s an easy set of ingredients to remember – for each cream cheese, add 1 egg and ½ cup of sugar. Nice and simple!
To start, remember that it’s important to make sure that your cheese and the eggs are at room temperature when you get ready to mix them together. Why? I don’t know. Something about how the components of each mixing better with one another when they are at room temperature. I don’t get that stuff because I’m not a chemist (you know any Goombah chemists?). But that’s what “they” say, so that’s what I’m doing. If you want to be a maverick, don’t do it. If you do, don’t blame me when your cake turns out like shit.
Once those bad boys are at room temperature, it’s time to mix. This was an exciting moment for me, because it meant I got to finally test drive my new baby. So I polished her up for the maiden voyage and she was ready to roll.
Once the three cheeses are in there, use low power mix (setting 1) and let it cream up those cheeses nice and good. You’ll have to spatula the stuff off the beater implement a few times until it gets soft and creamy. Switch up from setting from 1 to 2 and back again. No higher than 2, though. You don’t want any air in the mix, or you’ll get more cracks in the cake later and then your cake will suffer on presentation.
Vroom!
After a few minutes, when you’ve got a decent cream texture worked up, add the sugar, slowly, allowing it to be mixed thoroughly. Once that’s done, add one egg at a time, letting it get thoroughly mixed in before adding the next one.
Let it mix for a minute or two and then add the filling to the springform pan with the graham crust bottom.
Before putting the cake in, place a pan of water under the rack you are putting the cake on. This will function as a water bath, which prevents the cake from drying out too much.
Every Cheesecake Loves a Good Sauna
Okay, cut it out. Stop looking at the inside of my stove trying to see whether it needs to be cleaned out better than it is. Stay on task and pay attention to the instructions: place the cake in so that it is centered in the oven above the water bath.
Now go do something else. Don’t hover over your cake. Go make some collections from the store owners in need of ‘insurance’, or hang out on the corner for a bit with the boys. Wax the Z-28, whatever. Just don’t open the oven door! If you open the door, you’ll let a draft in and then – BAM!! – the cake will collapse. Cheesecakes are like Italian women — they are very sensitive to small changes in their environments and don’t react well as a consequence. I know you’ll want to open that door and touch it, or get a better view of it. Don’t. If you give in, you’ll doom the cake.
Bake the cake until the top starts to get brownish elements to it. Raina said 35 minutes, but there was no brown to be seen at this point (ovens vary). So I left dropped the temp to 360 and then left it in for a total of 1 hr (don’t leave it in at 375 for an hour). You know, ovens vary. I need an oven thermometer so I can figure out what’s up inside that thing.
In any case, when it starts to slightly brown, shut off the heat and leave it in the oven to slow cool for another 1 hr (which is typical for cheesecakes). In hindsight, I probably over did it (I think mine came out slightly overcooked).
Houston, We Have a (Crack) Problem
Right after I turned off the heat, I looked through the oven window to check the progress of my little princess. As I peered in, all I could think was – as my mother would say –afongool! A crack! (if you are a non-Goombah, go look it up). Bah! A big ass crack right running right down the center of my cake. Just like the Grand Canyon. It was massive.
Just Say No to Crack
I mean, come on…WTF?? I didn’t mix things for too long. I used a water bath. I even sang to the mix before I put it in the oven. I was a good boy. Bah. It is what it is. What are you gonna do? I can see that I’m going to take a hit on presentation here (though of course I could always hide it with fruit), but the more important thing is the final rating for goombaliciousness. As long as we’re okay on that, I think I’ll consider this mission a “W.”
Once you’ve had it in the oven cooling for an hour, take it out and put it on a baking rack for an hour or so to let it come to room temperature. Once that’s accomplished, put it in the fridge and let it sit overnight at least. Cheesecake is better once it’s properly chilled.
Presentation Time…the Catwalk
The cake has been cooling for hours in the fridge, so now it’s time to take it out, pull off the springform sides and put a little powdered sugar on it. Posing for final shots, here it is:
I am Cake, Hear Me Roar
And posing with proud papa,
If you look to the left in the picture, there’s a Chinese scroll. You can only see the bottom half. In English it says “to know the self is enlightenment.” (It’s from the Tao Te Ching). In this case, it’s true: I have found my inner Goombah, and I am enlightened.
Final Results:
We need the final taste test. This came after the homemade gnocchi meal (next post to come out tomorrow), so we were good and full by the time we cut the cake up, but with still a bit of room left over for a slice. It was well worth the wait. As a matter of fact, it was amazing.
A Slice of Love
Each of the food testers in this situation (including Iron Chef Rolla) took one bite and said that it quite honestly might be the best cheesecake they’d ever had. I was amazed, given that my Goombah Gourmet skills are not at that level, and the last cake (the Italian cheesecake) didn’t come out so well (although — for those of you interested, Iron Chef Rolla liked the Italian cheesecake, so it might be that the wife and I just don’t care for this type of cake much). The results:
But back to this cake. The presentation suffered for reasons pointing to the baker (me) not the recipe maker. Two problems: (a) the huge crack down the middle and (b) the edges were a bit overdone, giving it a slightly burnt appearance. These are easy fixes, but it hurt presentation.
But what about Goombahliciousness? Fuggetaboutit. 9.5. This cake flew in from cake heaven. Just the right level of moist and a perfect texture and perfect taste. I can nitpick the product to give it a 9.5 instead of a 10, but what I find is again an error I made, not an error in the ingredients. Since I overcooked, the graham top edges were a little overdone. As well, I should have not departed from the instructions and baked the graham crust first. It was good, but could have been more crumbly, and that requires just letting the graham crust bake for the only time when the filling is baking. But these two are easy fixes, and it didn’t detract much at all from the cake, which is pretty much perfect. These are nitpicks.
I had to stop myself from eating a second piece, and I can assure you the thought of hitting this cake with a fork later on in the refrigerator did occur to me on numerous occasions!
In fact, my wife was playing with the idea (before trying the cake) of having a “bake off” — her family’s famous cheesecake recipe against this one. After trying the cake, she admits that she’s a bit intimidated about having that bake-off. She doesn’t seem too confident that her recipe will be able to stand up (and the story is that whoever eats her family’s cheesecake walks away converted to that recipe forever). It’s the power of the Goombah recipe.
All props to Raina on this one, as it’s her recipe. Amazing! This recipe is a serious keeper. You (that’s YOU Goombah) would be a fool not to whip this thing up for yourself.
NEXT UP: Next Sunday’s challenge — Ciabatta (Italian Bread). I’ll have my post up tomorrow detailing the dinner that preceded this cheesecake — homemade gnocchi. It was a success.
Vegetable broth, potatoes, carrots, sweet onion, garlic, parsley. Cook until soft, then add the previously cooked beets and fresh ginger. Mix all ingredients. Add parsley.
Fine barley, green peas, red, green, red pepper, sweet onion, parsley.
I read Michael Pollan’s new book Food Rules last night. He says you can read it in under an hour, and he is absolutely correct. It’s a fun little book with 64 easy-to-remember rules about buying, preparing and eating food. The rules are all intended to be clarifications of Pollan’s three main food rules:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
If you are interested in food and cooking, and you think a lot about what you’re going to eat, then you are probably, like me, already following many of these food rules. I have a few food rules of my own that fit into Pollan’s ethos and that have served me well. They are:
Keep the 4 C’s out of the house: cookies, candy, chips and cola. This helps prevent mindless snacking.
Designate special occasions for special foods. For instance, I make a big breakfast on Sundays — only on Sundays. I pick a holiday or other special day once a month or so to make a dessert, but otherwise stay away from sugary treats altogether.
In the restaurant, opt for a seafood or vegetarian entree. I find that my choices are generally healthier this way.
Be a half-vegetarian. We eat vegetarian meals at home about half the time (3-4 nights a week on average).
It’s okay to eat french fries every once in a while. I love french fries!
Once I started following these rules last fall, especially #1 and #2, I have managed to maintain my weight at a number that I am pleased with, even through the holidays. And I am sure I am eating well. For instance, I am snacking a lot more on fruit, nuts and yogurt now that I don’t have any junk food around.
Soup is probably the dish that makes it easiest to stick to the food rules. Broth-based soups are low in fat and calories, are generally full of vegetables or totally vegetarian, and must be enjoyed slowly, sitting at the table (unless you are more adept than I at not spilling hot liquids on the couch). Hot soup is also very satiating, so when you eat soup at the start of a meal, you eat less overall.
Once you know the basic procedure for making soup, it is a simple matter to throw one together whenever you’re at a loss for what to make for dinner. Last night, I was cooking for one, since my husband still isn’t feeling well in the whole GI area. In less than a half-hour, I threw together a vegetable soup using an onion, a few small potatoes, some green beans, a can of whole tomatoes and a container of chicken stock. I always grate some Parmesan on top for the extra umami it brings. Extremely yummy, simple to make, and the leftovers will make a nice lunch or freeze well for later.
Do you ever look at packaged food and wonder where it came from and what it looked like in its original form? While my step kids were growing up I often wondered whether they knew what wheat or a tomato plant looked like or that potatoes didn’t grow on trees. You would be surprised how far removed we have managed to get from the land and its bounty.
I obviously knew that maple syrup came from the maple tree but I never stopped to ponder how the syrup is harvested from the tree, until a few years ago when a chance trip to Vermont offered the perfect occasion to visit a maple farm. The syrup is essentially the sap of the tree which is stored in the roots over the winter and rises in spring. In its most rudimentary form, spouts are pushed into the bark and branches, all connected with a tubing system that ends up in large buckets where the syrup drops into. The first harvesting yields the so-called Grade A syrup (then further subdivided in 2 more grades), which is a light amber colour and very mild in flavor. The second harvesting gives us Grade B, my favourite, darker, stronger and with a definite personality. It’s the most prized in cooking and I often use it in place of sugar – it’s less refined than sugar and more complex in taste. There is also a grade C that I have never seen for sale and it’s probably used for byproducts.
After years, actually decades, of bowls of cereal for dinner, I graduated to a more refined version of “breakfast at night” – oatmeal with nuts, raisins and maple syrup. None of the instant crap – it takes only 10 minutes to make perfect oatmeal.My preference is for rolled oats rather than steel-cut but I suppose it’s a matter of taste – I find the rolled oats to be more satisfying in their “chewiness”. A touch of yogurt or, better still, kefir will keep your intestinal flora healthy and the maple syrup will make you forget brown sugar ever existed.
RECIPE
3/4 C Rolled Oats
1 1/2 C Water
2 T Raw almonds
1 T Golden raisins
2 T Yogurt or Kefir
1 ts Salt
Maple Syrup to taste
Bring water to boil in a small pan and add salt. Drop the oats and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook until all water has been absorbed, stirring often.
Pour oatmeal into a bowl and add almonds, raisins, yogurt and mix well.
Add 2 or 3 T of maple syrup or to taste.
Plop yourself onto the couch with a cup of tea and a movie for the ultimate comfort experience.
One of the things that I loved about reading Julia Child’s Memoir, “My Life In France” is her descriptions of her cookware. By her own admission, she was quite the kitchen gadget fiend, and outfitted her kitchen with professional equipment long before kitchenware companies marketed “professional” lines to home chefs. But what really struck me was how durable all her equipment was – her copper pots, giant stone mortar and pestle, and sturdy whisks were meant to last a lifetime.
By comparison, a lot of the stuff in my kitchen is plastic. Spatulas? Plastic. Cutting boards? Plastic. Plates? Plastic (well, melamine). For awhile I had plastic mixing bowls, although I upgraded to those nesting glass ones. Even my new food processor (which I love with the fire of a thousand suns) has a large plastic ring in the lid that allows it to latch closed.
And don’t get me wrong, I love me my silicone spatulas. But especially now that I don’t have a dishwasher, I’ve realized that there’s a big downside to plastic – it smells.
Like, it really smells.
Whenever I chop garlic on one of my plastic cutting boards, no matter how hard I scrub them, they always smell faintly of garlic. My silicone spatulas have a vaguely savory, garlicky smell, borne of stirring various tomato sauces and stir fries. My flat silicone spatula I use for flipping eggs smells . . . well, like eggs. And my Tupperware smells like soap – I’ve actually had to throw some of it away because it made my food taste soapy.
The smell thing is a huge problem for baking – like, if you’re chopping tomatoes on a garlicky cutting board, it’s not the end of the world – but if you’re chopping chocolate or strawberries it’s a big problem. Once I made a vanilla custard that had an “off” savory flavor – it took me awhile, but I realized the culprit was my spatula. Before rolling out pastry, I always sniff my cutting board to make sure that it doesn’t smell strange. And the one time I made a garlicky sauce in the food processor, I had to wash the lid a couple times in the hottest water I could before that plastic implement in the lid stopped smelling like garlic.
So far I’ve dealt with the plastic problem by trying to have separate plastic tools for my pastry and baking, but I always worry that something will leak through and I’ll end up with an off-tasting frosting. The food processor lid is especially worrisome, since I don’t really want to have to buy a separate lid just for processing savory stuff.
I know that plastics are the future and everything – but sometimes I wonder if they’re just creating a whole other set of problems to deal with. Especially for us bakers without dishwashers.
While on a quest to cook more at home to both save money and eat better. I decide to take inspiration for Jules and Julia, and cook all the recipes from my favorite cook book. I was totally amped. I spent a productive day going to the store and hunting down all the fresh ingredients for my dish, $60 dollars later (what was this about “saving money”) and the day mostly gone I start to soak the beans. Beans take 8 hours to soak! Eight hours! Now I could have gone the “short route” where you boil the beans, cutting the time down to two hours, but I needed to leave the house and run some more errands.
Oh, then life came into play. Everything too way too long, five minutes at the home store turned into and hour daze, focus was lacking at the other grocery store I had to go to and milk and butter turned into an other $65 of food I’m sure we’ll not eat in the next few days, oh and, I also needed to get gas where the line was 10 cars long.
Then night fell and it was time to cook dinner. But there was the small fact of BEANS! They now needed to cook for two more hours! We were starving after a full day and not willing to eat at 10pm! So the beans went into the fridge, for the next day.
Right, the next day. I did cook at home but after spending all day looking at wedding venues I had no time to cook for 2 hours and again we were unwilling to eat past 9pm. So back to the fridge for the next day.
Guess what, I was lazy and we got pizza. I refuse to learn how long beans keep for after being rehydrated, these beans will be cooked!
So the beans are being cooked tonight, when I finish blogging, cleaning, looking at more wedding venues and having a snack before my 10pm meal tonight. Please tell me when I will have time or money to cook! Maybe around 11pm, when I’m still digesting my wonderful bean dish I’ll look for a new cook book.
Anyone know of a cook book named, “Vegetarian Bean-less Meals that Take Less than 10 minutes to Make and Taste Like You Know What Your Doing”? That would be perfect!
After a couple of friends (thanks Cameron and Suzanne) have recommended Fine Cooking Magazine to me so I bought the most recent issue. I really enjoyed the magazine and think I might have to add to my growing list of cooking magazines!
One of the articles I read was a how-to on braising short ribs — the old-fashioned way in a dutch oven. On the Fine Cooking website, they have a very cool interactive feature that allows you to build your own recipe by selecting your braising liquid, flavorings (e.g., garlic, rosemary, ginger), aromatics (e.g., celery, carrots, onions, fennel), deglazing liquid, finishes, and garnishes. The tool then produces a recipe with the appropriate quantities and instructions based on your ingredient selection.
It’s just something that I threw together but WOW, it WAS GOOD!! There’s no measured ingredients, but if you’re any kind of cook at all, have faith in your taste buds!
Pad Thai Glazed Ribs
1/4 cup or so of Oyster Sauce
1/8 cup or so of Pad Thai sauce
Couple of Table Spoons of Rice wine vinegar
Couple of Teaspoons of Hot Chili Sauce (if you like some heat to it)
5 spice powder
Ribs (I got pork ribs, you can get what you want)
Turn your oven on to bake at 350 f. sprinkle the 5-spice powder on your ribs and put them in the oven till the ribs are almost done. Pull out the ribs and put the mixture of the first 3-4 ingredients on your ribs and turn your oven to it’s “Braise” or “Broiler” setting. Put the ribs back in and let the sauce crust up. I usually pull them back out for a slathering once or twice before being done.
When I pulled these ribs out, there was INCREDIBLE color to them! Almost as good to look at as to eat!
I made some chicken burgers today and thought I would share the recipe with you as they were very tasty indeed! It’s really easy to make and I think you’ll enjoy the result (unless you’re vegetarian, in which case you’d be best to stay away)
You will need
about 100g of chicken per burger
half a medium sized onion per two burgers
a teaspoon of Rosemary for every two burgers
a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce for every two burgers
a teaspoon of honey
one egg yolk (or more if you’re making more than 4 burgers)
salt and pepper to taste
Chop up the chicken and the onion (on seperate boards with a seperate knife, hygeine fans), and put these in a bowl with all the other ingredients. Mix them all together. If the mixture doesn’t seem to hold together, it can be helped with some tomato sauce (if you don’t mind a bit of tomato flavour- if you do, try adding another egg yolk). Take the mixture and put it into piles of equal size, which you can then shape into a burger shape. Leave it in the fridge for a bit.
When it comes to eating it, grill it for four minutes on each side and serve in a burger bun with lettuce and mayonnaise or any other condiment you desire.
Yes, these pictures will capture the craziness that happens in a normal everyday weekend at our house. The Waterdown Haggerts really stir up this sleepy little village as you’ll be able to judge for yourselves by the pics below.
Cat:
Not on the menu
We do not serve this on our space liner. They may, however, serve it at the penal colony on Mars.
Bethany:
Future hair
This is the way I wore my hair today as I was visiting space and I didn’t want the solar winds to blow it away.
Andrew:
Superman's house
Cat, Bethany and I spent all day recreating the exact architecture from Superman and the Ice House of Krypton. This is our backyard at midnight.
We got our first major snowfall of the season and my oldest daughter came to spend the day with me and do a little shoveling. For supper, I made our go-to meal on a cold winter day – potato soup with homemade yeast rolls.
Here are my previously posted recipes for Potato Soup and Yeast Rolls.
For dessert, I went back to a recipe I had first made in 1989 from a cookbook called Blue Ribbon Cookies. It was a nice finish to a hearty, body-and-soul warming meal.
CARROT BARS WITH ORANGE CREAM FROSTING
Carrot Bars:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9×9″ baking pan
1/2 cup canola oil
1 egg
2 Tblsp. water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 Tblsp. sour cream
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
3 Tblsp. chopped nuts
3 Tblsp. raisins
1/2 cup grated carrots
In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, egg, water, sugar, sour cream and vanilla.
In a separate small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt and ginger. Add the dry ingredients to the oil mixture and blend well. Stir in the nuts, raisins and grated carrots.
Spoon mixture into a 9×9 greased and floured baking pan. Bake @ 375 degrees F for 20-25 minutes until the top is golden brown. Cool in pan placed on a rack.
When the bars are cool, frost with:
ORANGE CREAM FROSTING
1 Tblsp. softened butter
1-1/2 oz. softened cream cheese
3/4 Tblsp. orange juice concentrate
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
Place above items in a small bowl and whisk until smooth. Frost top of bars.
Cut into squares to serve.
I’m not a big fan of snow, but being able to share a meal with my daughter in front of the fireplace makes it a lot more pleasant.
Potato Salad. I decided to try my hand at this one day and upon looking up some recipes, it turns out you can pretty much throw it together out of stuff in your fridge and be fine. One of the big decisions will be whether you want to use olive oil or mayonnaise. If you’re health conscious, olive oil is the clear choice (because mayonnaise is opaque. Ha Ha oh these jokes are terrible). If your mom used mayonnaise and you’re confident you cant’ live without it… don’t. I used both.
After my last post I could not leave you all without introducing you another truely Australian recipe I love to make on Australia Day and any other time throughout the year that I fancy – Pumpkin Scones
or Splenda can cause their own problems. Yes, these things are not caloric, but because they are chemically based, some people can’t tolerate them. In addition, it’s not yet known just what long-term effects these sweeteners may have.
So this time around I decided to kick Artuso’s to the curb (sorry guys, love your stuff otherwise) and go with Raina’s recipe from the comments in the Italian Cheesecake post. Raina’s Italian and she lives in New York, so that makes her a full Goombette. That also means that the recipe is authorized for the Goombah Gourmet to use without losing any points from his rep (look, a New York Italian can’t take a recipe for a New York cheesecake from a German living in Utah). Besides, if the cake doesn’t taste any good, I can just blame her. Fuggetaboutit. That’s a Goombah rule: always remember to cover your ass when you are cooking and baking. If someone else can take the fall, make it happen.
Crust Ingredients, with a Mighty Impressive Wooden Weapon and Baking Implement
Adding the Hot Butter Action
The Crust
The Caloric Explosion: Filling Ingredients
Vroom!
Every Cheesecake Loves a Good Sauna
Just Say No to Crack
I am Cake, Hear Me Roar
A Slice of Love
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