In honor of back to school, I’ve decided to cook the alphabet. A little A-Z of recipe goodness. Today’s post is brought to you by the letter G. Stay tuned for the rest to come.
Gnocchi with mushrooms in rosemary butter
Inspiration found here.
In honor of back to school, I’ve decided to cook the alphabet. A little A-Z of recipe goodness. Today’s post is brought to you by the letter G. Stay tuned for the rest to come.
Inspiration found here.
In honor of back to school, I’ve decided to cook the alphabet. A little A-Z of recipe goodness. Today’s post is brought to you by the letter E. Stay tuned for the rest to come.
One of the biggest challenges in feeding any mini human is getting them to eat their veggies, and Mini Sous Chef is no different. Kettle and I are always trying to devise new veggie containing options that will please her peculiar palatte. She is an odd one sometimes. She loves miso soup with extra tofu, but won’t touch peanut butter with a ten foot pole. But there are a few vegetables that she will gobble up, including edamame and corn. This led Kettle and I to attempt to develop an Edamame Succotash this summer worthy of Mini Sous Chef’s attention. We thought we’d come up with an idea that she’d love. However, even though she liked all of the ingredients individually, she unfortunately didn’t like the salad. At all.
But Kettle and I sure loved it. So with a little extra tweaking, it became a mainstay of our summer salad rotation. Not only is it simple to prep and easy to scale up, but it is also quite healthy and flavorful. It features one of my favorite summer veggies, sweet corn, and utilizes my favorite summer cooking method, grilling (which can be substituted with broiling in the event of rain or lack of grill). It makes a great side dish, salad for a cookout, or quick lunch out of the refrigerator. It’s lovely eaten hot or cold. The ingredient list is flexible and the ratios can be changed to favor items you like more or less. Below is the combination we thought worked best.
1/2 bag of shelled edamame (about 6 oz), drained
1 medium red pepper
4 ears of corn, still in husks (can use frozen, roasted corn from the cob)
3 tbsp Green Onion tops (green ends), thinly sliced
2+1/2 tbsp Olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
To roast the red pepper, grill (or broil) the red pepper whole, until skin is slightly charred on all sides. Remove the peppers from the grill and allow them to cool. Peel and dice the peppers and set them aside. Skin should peel away easily after roasting. Remove silk from corn and wet down husks with a quick rinse in water. Roast ears on grill or in oven (400 F) for about 20 minutes until husks are browned, turning several times. Let corn cool, remove husks, and cut corn from cob (To add some additional flavor, grill the ears of corn for a few minutes to char slightly). Heat olive oil in skillet on medium-high heat. Saute green onions for 2-3 minutes, until they begin to soften. Add diced red pepper and saute for 2-3 minutes more. Mix in corn and continue to saute 2 minutes. Add edamame and cook for 4-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm or cold.
Enjoy!
In honor of back to school, I’ve decided to cook the alphabet. A little A-Z of recipe goodness. Today’s post is brought to you by the letter D. Stay tuned for the rest to come.
I’ve really wanted to get into canning. My grandmother canned all types of things when I was little (relishes, pickles, jams, etc), but I never had a chance to take advantage of her knowledge before she passed away. I regret that now big time. She had the advantage of using things directly from my grandfather’s garden. It was big as he often overplanted resulting in any visitor being sent home with at least one brown bag full of produce, lopsided pumpkins, or other piece of garden bounty. I have fond memories of wondering the rows with him and snacking on fresh green beans as we go. How I cherished those memories and wish I could relive a tenth of it.
But, as luck would have it, canning is hot right now. However, my inner nerd is petrified of giving Kettle botolism and therefore ruining my canning career and killing off my test audience. That would be a big downer. When our summer CSA started free mini-workshops at pick-up and announced the first one would be pickling, I nearly came unglued I was so excited. Finally, someone with decades of experience trapped in a room with me, stuck answering all my questions.
The good news is that pickling is essentially the gateway method to harder types of canning. It’s simple, you can’t really mess it up, and better yet, you can’t really kill anyone with it (unless they OD on your pickles because they are so awesome). To put it nicely, my inner nerd flourished at the CSA workshop. Did I sit front and center and show up 15 minutes early? Yes and yes. Did I take notes and email the lovely woman with additional questions? Of course. Did I enviously eye other people’s veggies to pickle and wish I had thought of it? Yes, and I may have even bummed spare veggies off them just to try.
The set-up was awesome. The organizers brought a whole variety of recipes, herbs, and spices and let us have at it. There were only about 8 or 10 of us in the class, so there was plenty of time for me to accost the experienced canners without monopolizing their time. We discussed variations, family methods, and ways to mix it up. I focused on making dilly beans. They are my favorite pickled snack and they make a fantastic garnish for bloody mary’s. I also made a jar of cucumber pickles and jammed a few extra veggies in just for fun (carrot coins and radish halves). I used garlic, dill, black mustard seeds, all spice, and coriander seeds to flavor my pickles along with a classic cold pack pickle brine. After packing all the ingredients, the jars were topped and left at room temperature in a cool dark place for 5 days. Once a day I did invert each jar to recirculate the spices. On the sixth day, I put the jars in the refrigerator to stop the pickling process and on the seventh day, we ate. Overall, major pickling success. I may get a little more creative next time and add other spices (hot peppers) or more spices, but we had no problems eating them all.
Care of the lovely ladies at our CSA
Brine
1+1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup coarse kosher salt
5+1/2 cups water
Spices (use as desired)
3 sprigs dill
1 clove garlic, halved
coriander seeds
black mustard seeds
all spice seeds
Place spices in the bottom of jar. Tightly pack cleaned veggies upto 1/2 inch from the top of the jar. Fill jar with brine to cover veggies (but no higher that 1/4 from top of the jar). Cap and leave at room temp in a cool place for 5 days. Stored in the refigerator for 24 hours and then eat. They won’t last long!
Enjoy!
Green beans are my most favorite vegetable.
based on a chocolate ice cream found here.
2+1/4 cups heavy cream
3 tbsp unsweetened dark cocoa powder
3 tbsp unsweetened milk cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
pinch of salt
3oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1 oz milk chocolate, chopped
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
Curry powder to taste (I used 2 tsp)
Whisk together cream, cocoa powder, sugar and salt on stove and bring to boil. Whisk in chopped chocolate until melted, then whisk in milk, curry, and vanilla. Chill mixture in the refrigerator. Once cool, pour into ice cream maker and let stir for about 15-20 min (or as recommended by machine). Transfer to freezer and enjoy!
In honor of back to school, I’ve decided to cook the alphabet. A little A-Z of recipe goodness. Today’s post is brought to you by the letter B. Stay tuned for the rest to come.
There aren’t too many recipes I can say are family recipes. My mother, though I love her dearly, is definitely not known for her cooking. At least not in a good way. Simple was the name of the game growing up. She always made sure we ate well. Colorful and balanced plates were always achieved. But creativity and flavor were not always a focus. When I think back on my mom in the kitchen, I have vivid memories of the few items she did well. They were the few items she made from scratch and she made them very well and the scents and tastes of those items bring me great joy.
Banana bread is one of them. Even now when the wafts of warm banana bread fill the kitchen, I’m taken back to cooking with my mom. Instead of lamenting the ugliness of overripe bananas, mom would dig out the old recipe card, tucked somewhere on the cookbook shelf in the livingroom. The cookbooks were hidden on the very bottom, left shelf, tucked behind the rocking chair, as they were not used often. In fact, I can’t remember her actually using any of the books except to hold the tinged old recipe card with the banana bread recipe.
Now I too have a well aged index card that I keep stashed away with the simple recipe for banana bread. It’s the only recipe I actually keep on an index card, the rest are in a word document. I have a fondness for pulling it out whenever we end up with overripe bananas.
2-3 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
2 eggs
1 stick butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
greased bread pan, I like a simple butter flour combo for this recipe
Bake at 350 for 45-55 min.
Nothing fancy here. Just mash the bananas and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Occasionally I will add a little cinnamon for some extra depth of flavor, but it good just as it’s written. Serve warm with cream cheese or just plain.
Enjoy!
Based on this recipe.
Ingredients:
3 quarts popcorn, popped
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
peanuts (or candy) to taste
Combine brown sugar, butter, salt, and corn syrup in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and continue to boil for 2 minutes with continuous stirring. Remove from heat and add vanilla and baking soda. Mixture will begin to foam up, so continue stirring. Slowly fold caramel into popcorn. Once well combined, add in peanuts (or other item of choice). Lay mixture flat (or as flat as you can) on greased cookie sheet and bake at 250°F for 10-15 (turn mixture once).
Enjoy!