A Little Nostalgia

While we were in Louisiana last weekend, we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner one night and on the dessert bar they had these sugar coated peanuts that tasted just like these pink peanut patties that we used to get as kids. They are so good! I haven't seen them in ages, I'm sure you can still get them out there somewhere. They're one of mom's favorite candies. They're very similar to a pecan praline, but are a little more chewy. When we got back I started looking for a recipe because I was sure someone out there loved them too and had replicated them. I found this recipe and decided to give it a whirl yesterday.

Cooking to Soft Ball, still got 40 more degrees to go. It takes a while and seems like it'll never get there, but it eventually does. When it does get there, and you add the powdered sugar, this stuff gets super thick and gooey and it's so hard to stir but you gotta keep it moving so the sugar crystals form. When your arm is about to burst into flames from the burning, it'll finally start losing gloss and then you know it's time to drop them!

I buttered some cookie cutters and filled those first and then just dropped the rest by spoonful on the parchment. I removed the cookie cutters after it had set enough to keep shape but not completely cool and they slid right out and I had some really cute shaped patties. The preliminary tasting was promising, After they had set undisturbed a few hours I ate one and it was amazing! The texture was so close, maybe not perfectly perfect, but really really close and the taste was nearly spot on. The key is to used RAW peanuts, not roasted ones. It makes a huge flavor and texture difference. I think these will have to go on my yearly Christmas candy list. I'm sure the color of them would have been better if I used red food coloring instead of pink and I didn't add very much, flavor and texture was the important part.

Dinner from Scratch

I was feeling a little bored about 2:30 this afternoon and decided to make some marinara sauce from scratch using all the tomatoes I had ripening on my counter from the garden. This is quite a lengthy process, the longer you cook it, the better the flavors. Last summer was my first attempt at this, and it turned out ok but not great.

First, blanch fresh ripe tomatoes for 1 minute. Cool in ice water and slip the skins off.

Core and cut out bad or tough spots, cut tomatoes in half or quarters and squeeze out seeds and juice. Crush the meat. This is a pretty messy process.

Yep, all over the floor and myself too. I'm happy this year I can put all the "waste" into my composters to go back into the garden. I love my composters.

Saute some onions, peppers (from the garden), and garlic. Add the tomatoes and cook for 30 minutes at least. Add some fresh herbs like basil, oregano, rosemary, and thyme from the garden.

Keep cooking! You can finally see a reduction of liquid. Add salt and pepper and taste and adjust.

Once it has reduced enough to start sticking if you don't watch it, puree in a food processor. I only did about  90% cause I wanted a few little chunks of seasoning for texture. Add some more fresh herbs and cook until you're ready to serve.

Serve with some oven fried eggplant (also from the garden) and fresh bread. Yummy Yum. It still is hard to believe this is the end result of tomatoes from my garden. Lots of work but very rewarding!

Wheat Bread

Our ward was doing a wheat order of some high gluten white wheat, good for bread, and I finally decided to take the plunge and buy some for food storage. I've been reluctant for a while to buy whole wheat just because I wasn't sure how to use it. After all I have had an unopened bag of wheat flour in my pantry for a couple months now. Intentions were good but I just never got around to using it. After I put in my order for four 6 gallon buckets of wheat I started baking to see if I could even use this stuff.

I modified my White Bread Recipe and used half whole wheat flour. I also added one tsp of vital wheat gluten and substituted honey instead of sugar. I am really happy with how it turned out! Very light, springy, and delicious. The kids ate 2-3 rolls each for dinner and Brandon and I polished off the pan. Next day we ate 85% of the loaf between all of us before we were just "breaded out" We don't eat a lot of bread to begin with.

I also made chocolate chip cookies the next day and substituted half the all purpose flour with whole wheat and they turned out fabulous too. I guess using whole wheat flour isn't that big of a deal after all! I've been wanting to try a whole wheat pie crust. I know the bran can be prone to burning, but pumpkin pie in a whole wheat crust is sounding pretty good! I guess now that I have the wheat coming, I should invest in some kind of mill/grinder. There are so many out there, it's hard to choose.

Surprisingly Not Awful

4 o'clock rolls around every day and I think, crap, what do I make for dinner? Well I opened the fridge and found a lot of stuff nearing the end of its age including some carrots and cabbage from the garden. I was pretty determined this year to actually use my cabbage. So a little hocus pocus later, out came dinner. I was really worried it was going to be horrendous because I was literally just throwing ingredients and seasonings in the pot hoping it would turn into something edible. When I finally sat down and took the first bite I exclaimed "Wow! That's surprisingly not awful. It's actually pretty good." Since I originally planned to make sweet and sour pork, this is really similar. We ate it on rice.

Pork With Vegetables


Ingredients:
1 lb pork cut in cubes
1 onion chopped
1 green bell pepper chopped
handful of carrots chopped
2 small heads of cabbage cut in thin strips
salt and pepper to taste
dash red pepper
good sprinkle garlic powder
2 fair splashes of apple cider vinegar
2 big plops of brown sugar
4 sage leaves cut in thin strips
2 large pinches of dried thyme
1 can chicken broth
2 Tbsp corn starch

Directions:
Brown pork in a little oil. Add vegetables and cook 10 minutes. Add half the broth and remaining ingredients except corn starch. Cook until cabbage is tender, about 25 minutes. Mix corn starch with remaining broth and add to pot, cook just until thickened. Add water as necessary. Serve on hot rice.

When in Doubt, Throw it Out

I'm sure that phrase applies to a lot of things, but in the context of this post, I'm talking about a roux. For those of you that don't know, a roux is a cooked flour and oil mixture and is the base of many Cajun dishes. It takes skill and practice to know when your roux is just right, and takes just a little hesitation to go past the point of perfection.

When Brandon goes out of town, I tend to cook all the things he doesn't like and just completely indulge. Some months ago my brother had given me some fish he caught on a trip and I've been saving it for just the right day. One of my absolute favorite fish dishes is Courtbouillon, I sometimes call it Fish Gravy. I like it best with catfish, but Brandon abhors catfish and so I never buy it. I can usually get him to eat tuna, tillapia, or salmon so that's typically what I keep around.

Like all things delicious, fish gravy starts with a roux, a dark roux. The darker usually the deeper the flavor. As I was making the roux it was coming along quite well. It got the point where my Cajun sense started tingling and I felt very compelled to add the onions yet for some reason I ignored it and my brain said, just a little darker, it'll be more delicious. So I waited just one more minute and I immediately felt like I messed up. It didn't look burnt or smell burnt, but I was sure it wasn't right. Against my Cajun sense again, I went ahead and added the onions and thought perhaps it would all even out ok. I still felt wrong about it, yet again I went ahead and added the V8 juice and seasonings. At this point, it just really didn't feel right, I pressed on hoping with some simmering it would work out. I tasted, it wasn't right. A few minutes later, I tasted again and it wasn't wrong, but it wasn't right either. Mom's words rang out in my head as they had done earlier: "Oil and onions are cheap, seafood is not." I took it off the fire, dumped it all in the sink and started over.

You were probably hoping that I went through with it all and it was delicious, but no, I started over and finally I felt right again. I cooked up the second batch of roux and I listened to when my Cajun sense told me to add the onions and I obeyed. It was worth the extra time, it was worth dumping those ingredients. When I nestled that fish in the gravy and cooked it just to tender, I knew I'd done it justice.

It was SO good. What a reward. The kids gobbled it down too, always a plus.

A Whole Bunch of Crock

Brandon has been working for ExxonMobil now for 5 years and that company is not called the golden handcuffs for nothing. They really take care of their workers. Benefits are great, compensation is fabulous, and they're always offering gifts and incentives. For Brandon's 5 year anniversary at Exxon he was allowed to choose a gift from a pretty large catalog. Most of the stuff was meh ok, but there was also a pretty nice crock pot in the mix. I have one pretty old, small crock pot that I got from a couple in our ward when we first got married. I was always kind of interested in getting a newer one with a removable bowl and a few more features. The day after Brandon brings his gift home I decide to take it for a spin for dinner that night. I found a well reviewed whole chicken recipe, prepped it up and set it to cookin' on low for 7 hours.

The verdict: meh, it's ok. Brandon really liked the chicken, but I sure wish I had used my usual baked chicken recipe. It was very tender, like stuff in a slow cooker should be. I need to work on my crock skills. Every time I make something in there I never really like it as much as I'm expecting to. I'm asking you, what are your favorite slow cooker recipes?

Broccoli Wrapped Meatballs

Some years ago mom made up this recipe to make use of the abundance of broccoli leaves we had in the garden that year. When I started my own winter garden I couldn't wait to make this, it's now a staple I must make every year! Broccoli leaves are a great alternative to other greens such as collars, mustard, and turnips which have much stronger flavor. Broccoli leaves can be prepared all the same ways but they have a milder and more familiar flavor, making them quite acceptable to finicky palates.

To go along with our meatballs this evening, the kids helped me pick carrots and broccoli from the garden. It's been pretty neglected out there because I don't care to venture out in the cold. That's the great thing about winter gardening, it really just kind of takes care of itself.

Broccoli Wrapped Meatballs

10 Medium Broccoli Leaves
1 lb ground beef
1 onion chopped fine
Italian bread crumbs
Minute Oatmeal
Tony Chachere's to taste

Prepare the broccoli leaves by blanching them in water for a few seconds to make them pliable. Cool and cut out the large center stem without cutting the entire leaf in half. Mix together ground meat, chopped onion (you can use less if you prefer), fair dash of breadcrumbs and oatmeal to bind the mix (I sometimes add an egg too). Season to taste.

Roll a small chunk of the meatball mix into a ball and lay one leaf with the cut ends slightly overlapping. Start rolling and tucking the leaf around the meatball to the end. Place seam side down in a casserole dish. Repeat with remaining leaves and meat. Pour half a can of prepared spaghetti sauce over the meatballs and bake at 375 degrees F for 40-50 minutes until done. Sprinkle with cheese if desired.

I would venture to say you could probably feed 3-4 people with the meatballs, but between the kids and I we ate 5. I probably could have kept going but I decided I should leave some for Brandon when he gets back from Dallas. He went to watch the BYU/Tulsa bowl game.

The kids love eating vegetables from the garden that they got to help grow and pick. Ian is a huge broccoli fan and zoey loves carrots, but she prefers them raw instead of steamed. I seriously love these Danver 156 carrots, they're so sweet and their flavor is so intense!

The best white bread ever!

Makes delicious loaves or soft perfect rolls. It's all about the gluten so make sure you knead it just right!


INGREDIENTS
1 envelope Active dry yeast (quick rise)
1/4 cup very warm water (tap hot)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup scalding hot milk (microwave 1.5 min)
1 egg –lightly beaten
4 cups of sifted bread flour
2 Tablespoons of melted butter for brushing rolls

DIRECTIONS
Sprinkle the yeast over very warm water in a large bowl.  (warm water should feel comfortably warm when dropped on wrist)  Stir until yeast dissolves.

Add sugar, the 1/4cup butter and salt to hot milk and stir until the sugar dissolves and butter is melted.  Cool mixture to 105 to 115 degrees.

Add milk mixture to yeast, then beat in egg.  Beat in 4 cups of flour, one cup at a time to form soft dough.  Use some flour to dust a pastry cloth.  Knead the dough lightly for 5 minutes, working in the remaining flour (use it for flouring your cloth and hands).

Place dough in a warm buttered bowl; turn greased side up.  Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 30-45 min.

Punch dough down and knead 4 to 5 minutes on a lightly floured pastry cloth.  Dough will be sticky, but use as little flour as possible for flouring your hands and the pastry cloth, otherwise the rolls will not be as feathery light as they should be.

Pinch off small chunks of dough and knead into round rolls, well organized gluten.  Place in neat rows, not quite touching, in a well-buttered 13x9x2 pan. Cover rolls and let rise in warm place until doubled, 30-45min.
Brush tops of rolls generously with melted butter, then bake in a 375' oven for 14-18 minutes or until nicely browned.

Peas and Pork Chops

Typically when most 18-year-olds leave for college, they know how to cook a few choice things, among them, toast and ramen. For me, I couldn't really do either of those very well, some how I had difficulty remembering to put water in my bowl of ramen before I microwaved it. Yes that happened more than once. But when I arrived in Provo, UT with all my worldly possessions, there was only one thing I could cook, and that was Peas and Pork Chops. I'm pretty sure I was in High School when my parents instituted a dinner night for each kid, they had to decide what was for dinner and tell mom, she'd get all the ingredients and tell us how to cook it if need be and then we would make that for dinner. I'm sure there were other things I made for dinner on my night but after the rave reviews of my Peas and Pork Chops, I don't think I ever made anything else. Mom would always tell everyone how delicious my Peas and Pork Chops were, that making this dish was one of my greatest talents.

My brother and I, whom I lived with at college until I got married, ate Peas and Pork Chops an awful lot and first. While it is a really delicious meal, when its the only thing you're eating, it gets pretty old pretty fast. I didn't really start learning to cook until after I got married. I somehow needed to impress my new husband with my awesome domestic skills. We ate a lot of Peas and Pork Chops as newlyweds until I slowly learned how to cook other things, there was a potato cheese soup we ate a lot too. I now have an overflowing bookshelf and recipe drawer of delicious things I've learned to make and love. But every now and again, we come back to that familiar old favorite, Peas and Pork Chops. She ain't much to look at, but she sure is delicious.

Peas and Pork Chops

1 to 2 lbs Pork Chops or cuts, my favorite is country style ribs with white and dark meat, but a classic bone in chop makes the best flavor. Alternative to Pork: boiled eggs. no really, it's yummy!

3 cans Peas, I like to use the small early peas, but the regular ones are fine too

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

Cajun seasoning to taste, I like to use Tony Chachere's

Heat a large skillet with 2 Tbs oil. Season chops heavily and brown both sides in pan but don't cook all the way through, allow a nice dark brown crust to form on the pan bottom. Remove chops and add onions and more oil if needed. If using boiled eggs, just heat oil and saute onions, boil eggs separately. Saute until clear, about 3 minutes, deglaze the plan with some water and scratch up all the yummy bits. Add two cans of the peas with juice, cover and simmer for 15 minutes stirring occasionally. Add seasoning if needed, usually not. Add the last can of peas sans water. Cook uncovered on medium until some of the peas begin to break and make gravy. Add the pork (or shelled boiled eggs) back to the pan and cook just until the meat is done. Serve over hot rice.

This makes the best chops, but you can also use the lazy person way and not remove the chops, but if you go this route, you need to cook the chops much much longer so they are very tender and falling from the bone so they regain moisture. Anything been just barely done and falling off the bone is going to be dry, tough, and difficult to eat. As Alton Brown would say: not good eats!

Oven Fried Eggplant

1 large eggplant, sliced inch thick

1 egg

seasoned breadcrumbs to coat

olive oil

Coat a baking sheet with the oil, dip each slice of eggplant in the egg and then coat well in crumbs and lay on the oiled sheet. drizzle lightly with more oil. Bake at 380 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Broil on low for another 5-7 minutes. They should be sizzling around the edges and tender when pierced with a fork.

This is one of my favorite ways to eat eggplant, well actually I like them deep fried better, but this way is delicious and less mess. Even though I only had three eggplant plants this year, I put 8 quarts of eggplant in the freezer and then ripped out the plants even though they were still going, I just couldn't bear to put anymore in the freezer. If you're looking to get into gardening, eggplant is an incredibly easy to grow, high yield, tolerant plant. It's a great success. Look for my eggplant dressing in a later post. Even if you don't like eggplant (like Brandon) you'll love this dressing!

Mushroom and Chicken Alfredo

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts
1/2 lb pasta of your choice
1 cup whole milk
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup shredded parmesan
1 large clove of garlic, minced
1 box mushrooms, thinly sliced
3 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp butter
1.5 Tbsp flour
dash cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp dry thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Heat olive oil in pan and cook chicken 8-10 minutes til brown on both sides and cooked in center. Remove from pan to plate. Add 1 Tbsp butter to pan and  saute mushrooms until tender. Remove from pan. Wipe out pan, add 2 Tbsp butter, garlic, cayenne, and thyme, cook 2 minutes. Add flour, cook 1 more minute, add milk and cream, reduce heat and cook until thickened, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to very low and sprinkle Parmesan in small batches and carefully stir in to avoid lumps. Cook 5 more minutes. Add mushrooms and chicken back to sauce if desired and serve over cooked pasta.