Like Father, Like Son

My friend Derek and his wife had a baby last week, named Harrison. I made a onesie to commemorate Derek's first tattoo, and kindly asked that he send me a picture of said onesie and said tattoo when they got around to it (apparently babies take up a lot of time or something). They got right to it! Congrats, you guys.

Mexican Coffee

Mi Amiga Mary directed me to this delicious Mexican Coffee recipe. I had to convert the measurements from mL to tsp, but I think everything worked out as it should.

1/2 cup ground coffee beans
1/3 cup chocolate syrup
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 cup milk
4 Tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla

In coffee filter, mix coffee grounds, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Brew coffee as usual (I made 8 cups). Combine milk, chocolate syrup, and brown sugar in saucepan over medium heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour sugar mixture into hot coffee(or vice versa), add vanilla.

This is delicious. Next time I make it I might toss a pinch of cayenne pepper in with the coffee to give it a little more of a kick.

Anticipation Cookies

On Election Day (hereafter referred to as "Obama Day"), I took the day off work so I could be sure to vote. I walked to my polling place at 10 am, voted in less than 5 minutes, then started freaking out because THERE WAS NOTHING MORE I COULD DO. I realize this is not entirely true, but since I was suffering from election exhaustion and could not bear the idea of braving the streets to beg others to vote on my party's lines. I did make some calls from the Obama site, which made me feel a little better, but also creeped out by the fact that it was so easy to get people's first and last names, phone number, age and sex. And polling place. Anyway, I passed a little more time by baking cookies. This particular recipe comes from the inside of the oatmeal container and is called "Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies." Magic!

-2 sticks softened butter
-1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
-1/2 cup granulated sugar
-2 eggs
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1 1/2 cups flour
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon cinnamon
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-3 cups oats
-1 cup raisins (I used the rest of what I had, plus handfuls of chocolate chips and walnuts)

Heat oven to 350. Beat together butter and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, add to egg mixture. Mix well. Stir in oats and raisins, etc. Drop in rounded tablespoons onto an un-greased cookie sheet (I used an ice cream scoop for ease and extra large cookies). Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool one minute on cookie sheet, then transfer to wire rack.

They worked! Obamarama!

Egg rolls that aren't so bad for you

I've always been kind of grossed out by the frying process when it happens in my home. The first time I made egg rolls, I fried them in vegetable oil on my stove top in a college apartment, burned half the wonton wrappers, and had to live with the odor of burnt oil for what may have been weeks. Plus the oil splattered all over the stove, which was not fun to clean up, and probably got a few dirty looks from my roommates. Oops. To my disappointment, I really like both making and eating egg rolls, so I searched far and wide (google) for a solution.
I found it! Instead of frying the egg rolls, I bake them! The first attempt involved brushing the egg rolls with vegetable oil and then baking them. The result was OK, but not great. They were not very crispy and tended to fall apart. Plus, still covered in oil and probably not that great for you. My search continued (google). Finally I came across a recipe that involves baking the egg rolls, but instead of brushing them with oil, you brush them with an egg wash. They do not turn out as crispy, nor do they give you the satiety produced by a crispy greasy mouth full of fat. But again, going for a little health here. They do, however, maintain a solid wrapper for the tasty innards of your egg roll.

You can pick from a variety of items for egg roll stuffing. My recipe usually involves ground turkey, shredded cabbage, grated carrots, and some kind of peanut sauce. I cook the ground turkey first with some chopped onions and pressed garlic, salt, pepper, and cumin to taste.

The cabbage and carrots are easily sliced and diced using the appropriate food processor blades. Mix all ingredients together in a big bowl, add pre-made peanut sauce (or, if you have your own recipe for peanut sauce, please let me know).

Egg roll wonton wrappers are usually pretty readily available in the produce section of the grocery store. I am not even going to try to explain how to wrap these things, there is a really good visual aid on the back of the wrapper packaging.

Arrange the egg rolls on a lightly greased baking sheet. Whisk one egg in a small bowl, brush liberally over the tops of the egg rolls. Use another egg if necessary. It is ok if some of the egg mix collects under the eggrolls, it adds a little scrambled egg taste that is pretty familiar in stirfry or fried rice. aka, yum.

I baked these at 350 for about 15 minutes. The finished egg rolls have a shiny appearance and are good to eat.

I have to confess that these things do not keep as well in the fridge as fried egg rolls do, so try to eat them all in one sitting or have a party or something.

Ginger Pumpkin Bread

Thanks to Everyday Food Magazine for winning me all sorts of compliments on this tasty fall-flavored bread.

Ingredients:
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1.5 sticks), melted, plus more for pan
2.5 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground ginger (I usually use the prepared kind that is in a tube in the produce section, fresh grated ginger works too)
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin puree
3 large eggs

Preheat oven to 375. Butter and flour two 8.5 x 4.5 inch (6 cup) loaf pans, set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, ginger, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together sugars, pumpkin, melted butter, and eggs; add flour mixture, and stir until just combined (If using fresh ginger, mix with 2nd bowl of ingredients).

Divide batter between 2 prepared pans. Bake 50-60 minutes, or until it passes the toothpick test. Let cool 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Drizzle with sugar glaze (below).

Sugar Glaze
In a small bowl, mix 1.5 cups powdered sugar with 2-3 tablespoons water until mixture is smooth but thick. I have also tried this with milk for a creamier texture. Drizzle over loaves and let dry for 15 minutes before serving.

Pets

Most people probably know that Steve and I are proud owners of the cutest dog on the planet, Dr. Cornelius Gibson. Here is the best picture I have ever taken of him.


And here is a picture of his cousin, a Grizzly Bear at the Minnesota Zoo.

Did I ever tell you how to make Margherita Pizza on the grill?

I thought not. I made this during the height of the tomato onslaught of '08, and was quite good.
Start with one of those Betty Crocker "just add water" pizza crusts. Make it according to directions (by adding water, I presume), and roll it out on a floured surface. I put mine on this metal grate-thing that is supposed to be for grilling vegetables that would otherwise fall through the grates of the grill. Help with a name, anyone? Or, if you are feeling brave, you can just paint some olive oil on the surface of the crust and toss in on the grill, oil-side down. Grill for a few minutes; long enough for the crust to be done on the outside, but not cooked all the way through. Brush the top of the crust with oil and flip it over. This was the hardest part for me, I think because I didn't have enough oil on the crust. Once flipped, top the pizza with round cuts of fresh mozzarella cheese, about 3 chopped tomatoes, a few handfuls of chopped fresh basil leaves, maybe 1/3 cup chopped red onion, and salt and pepper. Grill until the cheese melts, which is not very long.

"It's Delicious!" --Steve McPherson

Best Brownies. Ever.

Steve says these brownies are like high school cafeteria material: a nice flaky top but still half-baked and gooey in the middle. Excellent. This recipe is from Everyday Food Magazine (thanks, Martha), which includes nom-ular variations such as cream cheese, mocha, chocolate chip, and nut. I opted for mocha.
Ingredients:
8 tbsp unsalted butter (1 stick), cut into pieces, plus more for pan
1 cup flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp instant espresso powder

Preheat oven to 350.
Brush 9x9 inch pan with butter and line with parchment paper (leave edges hanging over so you can pull it out of the pan easily when you are finished. Mix flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Place butter, chocolate, and espresso powder in a large heat-proof bowl and set over a pan of boiling water. Stir occasionally until smooth (2-3 minutes), remove bowl from pan. Add sugar, mix to combine. Add eggs, mix to combine. Add flour mixture, mix just until moistened. Transfer to prepared pan, smooth top.
Bake until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes. Cool in pan for 30 minutes (if you can stand it). Lift brownies from pan using overhanging parchment paper.

Supposedly you can keep these in an airtight container for 2 days, but let's be honest, these things are not lasting that long.

Roast Chicken with 49 Cloves of Garlic

Hooray! The Joy of Cooking arrived at my house and all is well. I made an all-Joy meal the other night, which included Roast Chicken with 40 (technically there were 49) cloves of garlic, and roasted peaches. I was pretty pleased with the chicken roasting process, as I have never done it before and it seems a little intimidating. Turns out it is really easy. The only part that I found, um, disgusting was removing the spine from the chicken. The recipe doesn't actually call for this, but my dad suggested it so that the chicken could actually be stuffed, so to speak. It worked out really well but was gross.

Chicken with 40 (49) cloves of garlic, From The Joy of Cooking:
One 3.5-4 lb Chicken
Rub the skin with Olive Oil
Mix:
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp sage
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp black pepper
Rub mixture on the skin and in the cavity.
Place 1 quartered lemon in the cavity.
Place the chicken, breast side up in a casserole, cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours (up to 24). Preheat oven to 375 degrees with rack in center.
Add:
3 garlic heads, separated but not peeled.
1 3/4 cups chicken stock
1 cup dry white wine
Bring to a boil on the stove, when boiling cover and place in the oven. Cook at 375 for 25 minutes, then increase heat to 450 and cook for an additional 30-45 minutes. Add chicken stock or wine as needed to keep liquid in the bottom of the pan.
Optional: Remove 6+ garlic cloves, peel and mix with2 tbsp minced fresh parsley or finely shredded basil. Mix paste in with the sauce.

I used extra garlic cloves to make garlic mashed potatoes...yum yum.


And then dessert! Baked Stuffed Peaches.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Halve 4 peaches.
Mix 1/2 cup orange juice and 1/4 cup powdered sugar until sugar dissolves. Toss peaches in juice mixture until evenly coated.
In a food processor, mix 1/3 cup slivered almonds, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar. Pulse until almonds are small pieces. Add 1 tablespoon cold butter and pulse until crumbly (I forgot to add the butter so ended up just putting small pats on top of each peach). Divide the almond mixture among hollows of peaches. Bake until pan juices are bubbly, about 15-20 minutes.

Pot Roast

I have had a hankering for some pot roast since the first day it started to feel like fall. Here's how it went down:

Ingredients:
2 lb beef chuck Shredded/chopped/minced carrots, onions, and garlic
Various spices
Red Wine

Brown the beef on all sides w/ butter and a little flour. Add shredded carrots (I used 2, do not grate your fingers), 1 chopped onion, and 3 minced garlic cloves. Fill pot with water up to about 1/4 of height of roast. I added about a cup of red wine. This smells amazing. As for spices, my dad suggested thyme, and other recipes suggested marjoram and bay leaf. I have bay leaves but never have actually used them in cooking, so this was a must. Remember to remove bay leaf when you are finished, they are not totally edible. Dashes of thyme and marjoram. Also smells amazing. Cover and cook for about an hour, flipping the beef once. Keep the heat low so the juice doesn't boil like crazy. After an hour, scoop some of the juice/water/wine mix out into a small bowl and whisk in some flour to the thickness of your liking. Think gravy. Return this concoction to the pot. Chop up some potatoes, carrots and onions and add them to the pot. I may have added way too many potatoes, but hey, I'm Irish. Cook until the meat is tender and the potatoes are done.

A very productive Saturday

I have been working on getting into a pretty nice Saturday routine. Sleep in, take Gibson to the dog park, lounge around, make some delicious foods. Yesterday I threw in ordering The Joy of Cooking and subscribing to Martha Stewart Living (a long-time dream of mine). I am excited.
As previously mentioned on this blog, we bought into a CSA this summer. It has been great and not so great. As Steve puts it, "you really have to love vegetables" in order to enjoy the CSA. I do love vegetables, but have felt a little overwhelmed by the quantities of things that I don't necessarily know how to use, slash do not have the gastronomic capacity to consume it all on my own. Yesterday, I decided to do something about the tomato situation in our house. Again, love tomatoes but had about 4 gallons of them yesterday. I did a little internet research and "triangulated" recipes, as my dad would say, and made up this number. My true inspiration was the tomato-basil soup at The French Meadow in Minneapolis, which Steve and I often refer to as "crack soup." It has insanely addictive qualities.


Calley's Tomato Basil (Crack) Soup

About 20 tomatoes, various sizes and varieties (I honestly didn't count them)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 small onions
1 can chicken broth
about a cup heavy cream
1 cup loosely packed basil leaves
3 tablespoons butter
Blanch tomatoes, remove peels and seeds. Puree in small batches in food processor. Try to get all the big lumps out. It turns out that tomatoes are really acidic and turn your fingernails yellow and your skin to paper. Awesome!!
In your big pot that you will be cooking the soup in, melt butter and saute the onions and garlic until soft. Add tomato puree, chicken broth and cream. Chop the basil (I used a mini-food processor) and add that in too. Salt and pepper to taste. Heat to your liking. I am going to freeze some of this, so I'll let you know how well it keeps in a couple of months.

Next on my list of things to do yesterday was to finish a birthday gift I had been working on for our friend Courtney. She loves robots--please, please! visit her blog and read her Wall-E story. Start here, then read this. It is truly heartwarming. I found this Sublime Stitching robot iron-on and knew I must put it on something for Courtney, decided on dish towels and then found out that her birthday was coming up. What a happy coincidence! She liked them, I am happy to report.



Finally, I decided to make this sage-walnut pesto recipe I found on this blog. I have a sage plant on my deck garden that I haven't used all summer, and decided this sounded like a pretty yummy dish. And I was correct. It tastes a lot like regular pesto, minus the sometimes-overwhelming garlic flavor. The sage flavor is pretty subtle, though I think you could mix pretty much any leaf with olive oil and cheese and get the same general flavor. Next week I am going to make geranium leaf pesto.


This one I ate on as an open-faced pesto and smoked swiss on wild rice multi grain bread. It went very well with the crack soup.

Coconut Curry Chicken in the Crock Pot

I discovered this blog called "A year of CrockPotting" in which the blogger has spent much of the past year making something in the crock pot every day. Ambitious. I was drawn to this Thai Chicken Curry recipe, but made a few modifications. I really like the sweet potatoes in the recipe, but the chicken turned out a little tough. I think next time I will try to cook it longer or keep the chicken closer to the bottom of the pot so it breaks down a little bit more and takes on more of the saucy flavor. I ate this with brown rice and made everyone at work jealous of my lunch. Yum!

Burn-your-face-off Guacamole

I picked up some avocados and jalapenos at the produce market the other day, and made up some guacamole.

Ingredients:
2 avocados
2-3 garlic cloves
1 Jalopeno, chopped with ribs and seeds removed
2 smallish tomatoes, chopped
Salt and pepper

Mash up the avocados and mix in all the other ingredients. Salt and pepper to taste.

I ate the guac with red-hot-and-blue corn chips, which are also hot. This stuff did not last very long in our house.

State Fair 08!

Sorry I have fallen behind on my posting, I blame my computer and the internet for being rude to me. Also... State Fair!! Thank you to the 2-4 people who have continued to look at my blog daily. I seriously doubt it is on purpose. Allow me to return to business with a gastronomical summary of my two (2!) trips to the Minnesota State Fair. Beautiful. Let us begin with day one with Steve and Nell...bring on the unflattering photos

Steve was immediately drawn to the "Big Fat Bacon" stand...rightfully so. The bacon is large, is on a stick and is glazed with maple. Yes.

Mini Donuts...The world's most perfect breakfast food.

Sausage by The Sausage Sisters. Chunks of Sausage wrapped in some kind of breadiness, smothered in spicy peanut sauce.

Lemonade in a classic State Fair cup.

Cheese Curds. This picture will make everyone who has moved away from Minnesota insanely jealous and everyone else insanely nauseated.

I call this one the Bluth Banana. Chocolate-covered frozen banana with sprinkles (or jimmies, depending on how you roll). Sorry about the suggestive nature of this photo.

Sno-cone. Steve asked the vendor what the best flavor is, and without hesitation he replied, "Blue raspberry and lime." He was right.

Nell noms on some french fries.

Day Two with Amanda and Margaret!

Pronto pup. They use a paint brush to apply the ketchup and mustard.

The best damn ear of corn you will ever eat. I am not really sure how they do it. And they have compost bins for the ears. My personal trainer inexplicably called me at this point in my day at the fair, asked me what I was eating, and congratulated me on how well I was doing so far. Glad she didn't call me on day one.

Sweet Martha's Cookies and All-You-Can-Drink Milk. This is a feat, considering you have to jog half way across the fairgrounds from the cookie stand to the milk booth while carrying a teetering pile of piping hot cookies. It is truly a tragedy to see how many cookies fall to the ground and are stomped on my humans and animals alike. Milk and cookies go really well together, it turns out.

Best deal of the day! You buy a pitcher of really crappy beer and get a basket of fries for free! A total steal at 18.75. Not joking.

This was a new one for me: Walleye cakes from this place called Giggles. I guess it was the best new food at the fair in 2002 and I was still all caught up with getting my cheese curds and seeing the butter heads. These babies have walleye, salmon, wild rice and panko flakes in them...ohhhh so delicious. Excellent while watching the lumberjack show.

Aaaand finally, Australian battered potatoes by moonlight. I only ate a few bites of these but are adorable because they come with an Australian flag in them, and are smothered in ranch dressing. When I tried them, I thought of when Aunt Selma tries smoking a cigar for the first time and said, "That's like smoking five cigarettes at once!" Well, think of french fries x5. And smothered in ranch dressing.

Two Takes on Pickles. (easy)

I love making pickles because when you feed them to your friends everyone is super-impressed and the general response is, "You MADE these?!" It feels great because it only takes, like, 15 minutes to make these and as with all meals containing mostly vinegar and sugar, they are delicious. So here it is ... Dill Pickles versus Asian Pickles, both recipes from Everyday Food Magazine. (Free Martha.)

Dill Pickles:
4-6 Cucumbers (the little Kirby ones are best), quartered lengthwise
1 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons coarse salt
1 teaspoon dill seed
2 garlic cloves, smashed

Put the quartered cukes in a pan that is big enough to lay them all flat and be able to cover them with liquid. I used a 9 x13 Pyrex pan. In a medium saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar, salt, dill seed, garlic, and 2 cups water. Bring to a boil and stir until salt and sugar are dissolved. Once they've dissolved, pour liquid over cukes, making sure the seed side of the spears is submerged, for better absorption.
Put that pan in the fridge for at least 2 hours, then transfer to Tupperware of some variety. Keep them in liquid until ready to serve. The flavor gets stronger the longer they stew. The recipe says good for 2 weeks, but I don't see what could go wrong with all that vinegar.

Take 2! Super Fun Happy Times Asian Pickles!!

This recipe starts the same as the dill pickles, with the quartered cuke spears in a Pyrex pan. THEN!

Cut 1-2 carrots in half lengthwise and then 1/2 inch diagonal slices.
In saucepan, combine:
1 cup rice vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons coarse salt
1 2-inch piece ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, smashed
2 cups water

And then as above ... Bring these items to a boil, simmer and stir until sugar and salt are dissolved. Pour over cukes. Refrigerate for 2+ hours. The ginger flavor grows as they sit. Deee-lish!