Crock Pot, Part II

So it turned out okay, I suppose. It made for a good hearty dinner. Truthfully, it was a little bland, which is easy to remedy. Next time I'll add a bay leaf or two, some sea salt and black pepper. That might do the trick. Of course with our teensy weensy family we have LOADS of leftovers which is never bad. As it was cooked in the crock pot, the meat turned out really super tender and the potatoes were exactly right. G gobbled everything up, but M turned her nose up at the pork. She thought she was holding out for ice cream, but at our house the rule is "If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat." So she did not get any ice cream, and we now can have lots of pork sandwiches.

What's in the Crock Pot?

About 8 Fingerling potatoes
About 4 Boiler Onions, peeled
1 Shallot, peeled and cut into chunks
1 Pork Tenderloin cut
1 Peeled whole apple
A sprinkling of Mrs. Dash, grill flavor

Arrange the ingredients in order, with the meat on top. Sort of nestle the apple in the middle with the meat wrapped around it. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

I don't know how it's going to turn out, because its cooking right now. I'll post an update.

Salmon Patty Yumminess!!

One 6oz. package of wild caught Alaskan Salmon
3 Tblspoons Pastured Butter
One Shallot Finely diced (or chopped or whatever manner of cutting up you prefer)
One Garlic Clove Finely diced (see addendum for shallot)
One leftover biscuit, crumbled up
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
Italian Spices, salt, pepper, etc. to taste.

Melt butter in a small frying pan on low heat.

Mix remaining ingredients and form into patties. Turn heat up to medium, no higher than that, and place patties in pan. Cook each side about 3-4 minutes until golden brown.

Serve with romaine lettuce leaves or whatever you want to make.

Mmmmmm!! Tasty, and a good source of Omega 3s!!

Yes, I believe I am that much of a dork...

... enough even to post it on the world wide web. So in honor of the next movie coming out soon, and of the Halloween holiday's just around the corner. I decided to make a batch of cookies. I had wanted to try this out just to see how they looked. You can't really see in the picture but the cookies with the white frosting have a little bit of sparkle in them if you hold them up in the sunlight. The other cookies are darker, furrier and hopelessly unrequited.

Oh, and the cookie recipe is a basic sugar cookie recipe except with whole wheat flour. This makes them less sweet to offset the icing.

Cookies:

1 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs

4 cup flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Cream sugar & butter. Add vanilla, eggs. Add dry ingredients, mix well and chill. Cut into shapes or rounds (or do what I did and form them into balls and squash them). Bake at 375 for 5-6 minutes.

Then the icing is just some store bought butter cream icing with white sprinkles mixed in for the white ones, and decorative frosting for the black ones. I was trying to make them look like fur but I don't think I succeeded. That's okay. This was just a test batch.

Oh, and I can't figure out how to flip the picture over so its the right way.

Kitchen Snippets

Here's a few details about my culinary habits. Nothing earth shattering, but whatever...

1. I usually use cucumbers in a big cucumber salad.

Slice and peel the cucumbers. Put them in a bowl with water and vinegar, about 1/2 and 1/2. Add some sugar, about 1/2 a cup. Salt and pepper. and stick it in the fridge.

This way you can have cucumbers any old time you want. Plus, it goes really well with Italian food of which we have been eating a lot of lately.

2. Sometimes I eat cheese. No crackers, just cheese.

And that orange stuff that comes in little squares of plastic that some people put on sandwiches, that is not cheese and I would normally not have it in my kitchen. Fie! Fie!

3. My first starter cookbook is the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. It's the one with the red and white checkered cover. Everyone should have one even if you are only slightly cookishly inclined.

4. I'm beginning to like Agave Nectar. For one, it's dark instead of white like sugar, which goes with the whole "goth food" thing. For two you can put it in Kool-Aid and it doesn't make you all "g-g-g-g-g-g" the way sugar does. It also is good on cereal.

5. I like to use fair trade cocoa.

6. MSG is icky. Instead of the packets that come with Ramen noodles I use a few broth cubes from the freezer and melt them down to put over the noodles. Plus, it tastes better this way too.

7. I use old bananas and turn them into banana bread. Not too original I know, but you would be surprised how many people just throw away perfectly good bananas just because they are a little brown.

Well, there you go. Just a tiny glimpse into the world of Gothgirl.

Cheesy Bread Pudding

This little ditty is actually something I made up. I sort of modified a bread pudding recipe until it was no longer sweet and had a bunch of cheese and meat in it. Yum. You will need:

1 lb. ground meat, I used turkey.

4 eggs

3 cups of cubed bread, I used the saved up heels of loaves of bread.

2 1/4 cups milk

3/4 cup cheddar

3/4 cup mozzarella

Oregano

Basil

Measurements are of course completely arbitrary. First I toasted the bread cubes in the oven for about 10 minutes at 300. This actually sort of over toasted them so maybe five minutes. Meanwhile I mixed up the eggs, milk, cheese and spices. Here you can also add red pepper or whatever you want to. Then I mixed the meat and bread cubes tossed together in a 2 quart, oven safe pan. Pour the egg mixture over this and bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. When a knife comes out of the middle with a clean blade, then it is done. That is a knife that you use yourself. It's not going to magically produce a knife like Harry Potter's hat or anything.

A do over, this time with pictures.

The exact recipe as it is written on whatever long lost website I found it on, goes like this:

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3 eggs

water as needed.

Incidentally, the dough does freeze pretty well and the following is from a thawed out wad of dough from the freezer. It took about two days to completely thaw out in the fridge. Once it was thawed I put it onto a well floured surface, like so:

Let's see, next I divided this piece up into two smaller wads, took a rolling pin and rolled the first piece out as flat as possible. Once that was done I took the pizza cutter and cut the dough into this strips which might resemble fettuccine, like so:

Once this was done I transferred the strips onto a plate, covered with a paper towel and placed it in the freezer for just over an hour. In the mean time I defrosted some frozen leftover chicken soup. That took about an hour. During this time I also started some salted water boiling. One thing I learned recently is that I have been making the mistake of under salting my pasta water. You want the water to resemble sea water and be just slightly murky, maybe a couple of tablespoons per 4 quarts. Or so says Rachel Ray on some episode that I don't currently remember. Once all this was ready I took out the frozen dough strips and snapped them in half as to be more manageable and to fit into the pot of water more efficiently. Now it looks like this:

I transferred the noodles by quick handfuls into the rapidly boiling water and stirred frequently for about 3 minutes to prevent sticking. I then drained the noodles the usual way and added them to the now simmering chicken soup. This was enough for a light dinner (2 small helpings, or 1 large helping) for me, my hubby and my toddler daughter, who picked out the noodles and didn't eat any of the chicken.

Tada! Pasta from scratch. I think this is a good thing to make ahead so it will all be ready and not be overwhelming when you have nothing to eat and end up ordering Chinese food. The point is to NOT order Chinese food because you already have something yummy and easy to make in the freezer, thereby saving yourself some money. Nothing against Chinese food. Maybe I'll track down a good homemade Pad Thai and try that next.

And yes, I know Pad Thai is not Chinese but Thai.

Homemade Pasta

Yes, folks. Homemade pasta.

I have always considered pasta something that one buys, or comes from a tree or whatever. I just never put that much thought into it. But some time ago, I began to wonder just what would homemade pasta entail. How much work goes into it? I mean it had to originate somewhere besides a pasta factory. So I did a little online sleuthing and came up with the following recipe for egg noodles:

2 cups of flour
a few dashes of baking powder
and 2 largish eggs
Some water and salt

Many recipes say to do this part on the counter but I chickened out and did this part in a large mixing bowl. Combine flour, baking powder and a dash of salt. Make a well in the center. Add eggs. Mix with a fork from the center until dough becomes sticky. Then work it together with your hands, adding water a little at a time until dough is pliable. This part is supposed to be part of the 'magic' or 'art' or 'science' or whatever it is that separates magical cooking type of people from those of us who eat cereal a lot. Anyway, when the dough "feels right" roll it into a ball.

In several recipes this part calls for the use of a pasta machine but, my favorite recipe said that Italian grandma's have been doing this just fine with their bare hands for generations, so that's how I elected to do it. On a well floured surface knead the dough until smooth. Divide into three or four small segments. Roll one section as flat as you would like for it to be and then cut with a knife or pizza cutter into long or short, flat strips. These strips can be laid out to dry or hung up on a wire rack. They can also be plunged immediately into fast boiling water, but this part is tricky.

I wanted to go ahead and use my pasta so I already had a pot of salted water boiling rapidly. Once I sliced up my pasta into small rectangles I took my large spatula and scooped it up off the counter and into the hot water. The directions said to stir keep the water boiling and stir frequently to keep pasta from sticking, and only to boil for about 3-4 minutes since pasta is already soft.

When I felt like the pasta was done, (more 'magic cooking art') I drained it out. This yielded probably about 1/2 of pasta or two helpings.

I ate mine with some chicken soup that I had made with leftover chicken and veggies in a chicken broth. It was quite tasty. Even my husband approved, saying that they seemed a lot heartier than what you would buy at the store.

While the turnout of the noodles was nowhere near the store bought kind (they seemed more like dumplings), I did enjoy the process and hope to set aside a day for pasta making sometime in the near future. This way we can have some on hand, I will get practice at it, and most importantly I WILL KNOW WHAT I AM EATING!! which is really what this whole experiment is about.

By Popular Demand...

The Yummus recipe!!

Take one can of Garbanzo beans, (I know it's not very real or whatever, but it's what I had on hand), throw them in the blender.

Add:

2 tablespoons of Olive Oil
2 tablespoons of Lemon Juice
1 garlic clove
a dash of cinnamon.

Blend well until mushy. If you have a food processor use that instead. I kept having to take a spatula and scrape the sides down to make sure it all got chopped, but it still turned out pretty chunky.

Also, I made mine too garlicky and I ended up feeling gross all day after eating it. I will probably experiment with roasting the garlic next time to try to get a milder flavor. Incidentally, I did pick up the garlic at the fabbo little veggie stand on Southland Drive. I think I have mentioned them before...

One can also add Tahini, but we don't have any and I don't really know what it is either. That's why I am not Paula Deen but the Gothgirl. =)

Summer Squash and Pesto Dip

In case anyone hadn't noticed, it's that time of year again. When you can't turn around and someone is handing you a plastic grocery bag full of zucchini and yellow squash. You sneak park the car down the street, turn off all the lights, refuse to answer the door, but low and behold the bag o squash turns up hanging on the handle of your front door just the same. Not that I am opposed to them, they're just, you know, everywhere.

Well, here's a little ditty to help you use up some of that pesky squash, and it's actually quite delicious.

Mix together about a cup of flour.
Add seasoning salt, onion salt, and pepper to your taste.

Slice on summer squash into medium slices.
Dip in egg wash (an egg tossed with a dollup of milk, or fake milk).
Dredge in flour mixture.

Fry lightly in heated oil until golden brown.

For pesto dip, I sort of cheated and just mixed mayo and store bought pesto together. A few spoonfuls of each. However my two year old really liked the pesto dip with her number-shaped chicken nuggets. Hehe.

But there you go. The fried squash even came in handy reheated the next day to substitute for potato chips with a sandwich at lunch. I feel healthier already!

Easy Curry Gravy and Pasta Mystery

I made curry gravy. No, you don't understand. I made curry gravy.

And I didn't even measure anything.

Here's what I did.

A dollop of margarine, melted in a frying pan. (about a Tablespoon)
A Tablespoon of flour.
About 1/2 cup of liquid (stock, water, or milk for a creamier sauce).
Stir until slightly bubbly on lowish heat.
Add about 1/2 a teaspoon of curry powder, or more to taste.
Stir just about a minute more until smooth.

Remove from heat. Sauce will thicken.

I ate mine with rice, leftover chicken and a dollup of yummy homemade hummus (yummus?) for lunch today. Mmmm. I still feel sort of like a brain surgeon when I figure stuff like this out. I don't know why it's such a mystery, but it is. I'm sure I can't be the only one who feels this way.

In other news we at the Gothgirl household have a tendency to nibble in the evenings while watching out winding down TV for the day. However last night for dinner we had a lovely pasta dish with some ground pork, mushrooms and spinach. The difference between this dish and our usual fare was that this time the pasta was whole wheat pasta instead of regular pasta. Yum. As the evening progressed I realized I still felt quite full and satisfied and had NO urge to nibble or graze or whatever you want to call evening snacking. Hm. I am wondering if there is a connection between the whole wheat vs. white pasta and the full tummy feelings. I shall research and report back.

The Beef Stock situation, part 1

Soup stock has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I'm not sure why, but I have never really understood the science behind it. I know it is fairly easy and takes a long time to boil, but that has been the extent of my stock knowledge. Until recently. I have always wanted to explore making homemade soup stock and recently I did so. First I researched several recipes and methods including a phone call to my cooks-everything-from-scratch sister. The time allotted for boiling ranged anywhere from a mere four hours to a full 24-36 hour investment if you have a crock pot. I do not have a crock pot so I improvised a little. I started in the early afternoon and boiled for about eight hours. Then refrigerated everything and boiled around eight more hours the next day. But I am getting ahead of myself. First I collected the following ingredients:

Beef rib bones

1 Onion

2 Carrots

Some celery

2 cloves of garlic

and you are supposed to add about a quarter cup of vinegar or lemon juice to help leach all the calcium out of the bones.

Chop everything maybe once or twice. Don't bother peeling the onion or anything. Just throw it all in the pot with about 8 cups of water.

I brought all of this to a boil, put on a lid and turned it down to simmer. I regularly checked on it and kept adding a small amount of water as it boiled down. About four hours in, I realized that I had forgotten the vinegar. So I did. Of course having read so many recipes and heard so many suggestions, I accidentally added a cup and a half of vinegar. This is not recommended.

At this point I also drained out the veggies by pouring the stock into a strainer over a large bowl. I picked out the bones to add back in, but threw away the vegetables. I always thought this was a waste, but it turns out that all of the vitamins and what not have been leached into the broth/ water so now your stock is becoming really healthy and the vegetables have become pretty much useless. Yay. So I added the bones back it and put it all back on the stove, returned to a boil and put it back down to simmer some more.

Whew!

Once bedtime rolled around I let the broth cool, then poured it into a large bowl with a lid, bones and all and stuck it in the refridgerator.

The next morning I put it back in the pan, returned to boil and turned it back down to simmer for about another eight hours.

Stay tuned for part two!

Find the Food!!

Ladies and Gentlemen! Let's play "Find the Food"!! Listed below are actual ingredients written from a can of vegetable stock that I, GothGirl recently purchased.

INGREDIENTS: VEGETABLE BLEND (FROM WATER, CARROT, CELERY, ONION JUICE CONCETRATE), WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SALT, MONOSODIUM GLUTIMATE, DEXTROSE, AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, NATURAL FLAVORS, DISODIUM INOSINATE AND DISODIUM GUANYLATE, CARROT POWDER, EXTRACT OF CARROT

Since 'from concentrate' isn't really real because it was first boiled down and then reconstituted, I don't really count that as food, and 'powder' isn't really real because carrots are not in their natural form, powdery, and extract isn't really real either because if it were the actual thing then that would be listed. And everything else is either a chemical or a sugar (or both!), so then the only thing left is 'natural flavors'. Hm. I can think of a lot of natural flavors that I prefer not be in my soup.

Let's say just say that I am henceforth jumping on the 'make your own soup stock' band wagon.

Meatballs, my way.

You will need:

1 to 1 1/2 pounds ground beef, turkey, pork, or chicken.
2-3 cloves garlic, diced.
2 slices of bread crumbs.
2 eggs.
Oregano
Basil
Sage

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl mix all ingredients including a generous sprinkle of the spices. I used my hands to mix everything. Then in a large 15x10 baking pan flatten out the meat into one large rectangle. Using a large knife divide the meat into 24 squares, then roll each square into a ball and place back in the pan. This should create uniform sized balls according to the Better Homes and Garden Cook Book. In my case it did not. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

The resulting meat balls are very garlicy and yummy. We had ours with spaghetti and a rather plain mushroom tomato sauce which complimented the meatballs quite well.

Mmmmm!

Beef Broth and Local Veggies.

So I've been thinking about trying to be more stretchery with our food supply and my sister's blog gave me a bit of an inspiration. We recently enjoyed some ribs (homegrown at that) that my MIL brought us and I thought about saving the bones to make some stock. Seeing as we constantly have, like eight tupperware thingys of leftover vegetables in our fridge at any given time, I thought it might be cool to make some stock to throw together some soupage for lunches and what not. Stock, veggies and a handful of elbows just to round it out. Or maybe drop biscuits depending on my mood. I haven't made the stock yet but I will post on how it goes. First I have to go buy some onions.

That being said there is a fabbo little veggie stand on Southland Drive. She has said that she tries to sell at prices that rival the grocery store. She also stays out on days different than Sunday. I want to say Tuesday and some other day, but I can't find her website. I'll have to keep an eye out and find out.

Lentil Bread Recipe

So by popular demand... okay one person, but you take what you can get. Here is the recipe. This is a combination of a few recipes I got off the internet and I didn't record the sources. First I will put the real ingredients, and then I will put what I did. Here goes.

1 1/3 cup water
2 cups wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1 cup cooked lentils rinsed
2 Tblspns Olive Oil
2 Tblespns Honey
1 Teaspoon salt
1 packet yeast. 2 1/2 teaspoons

Oh, and the lentils can be used from left over lentil soup, which traditionally has curry in it but in my case did not. It had ham. So first I put the warm water in a bowl with the yeast and set aside. Then I mixed everything else except the flour into a large mixing bowl. Instead of olive oil I used canola. Instead of honey I used sugar and water mixed together. And instead of wheat flour I used 4 cups of white all purpose flour. So call the recipe police. Anyway, the last step is to mix as much flour in as possible, then knead the dough for a bit. I usually do this step in the bowl still. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for twenty minutes.

Next, heat some oil in the frying pan. Once the dough is done setting take a wad and roll it into a golf ball sized ball and then gently smash it flat. Dredge it in some more flour and place into the hot oil. Cook both sides till golden and crisp. The bread will puff up while cooking. Drain onto a plate with a few paper towels.

This is really yummy when fresh but can easily be refridgerated and reheated in the microwave for about 30 seconds each. Also, the bread does have some official fancy authentic Indian name but I can't bring myself to call it that since I changed all of the ingredients.

Viking Chicken

Take one whole chicken.
Rub with butter, margarine or cooking spray.
Rub chicken all over with a cut garlic clove.
Sprinkle with spices, italian or otherwise.
With a medium sized spoon, separate the skin above the breast of the chicken. Stuff the cut up garlic clove under the skin.

Pour about 3/4 a cup of coke over the chicken. Pour some under the seperated skin and also into the cavity of the chicken.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours.