Tag Archives: cook books

Storable Crackers

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A couple of weekends ago I tried my hand at making some homemade crackers to store in the new pantry.  I used a recipe from my go to book, Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it by Karen Solomon.  The recipe has different flavor options as well as instructions to use the same base recipe to make breadsticks if you’d like.

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I was able to use the food processor to mix up the dough.  First, I did a quick mix of my dry ingredients: flour, sugar, salt and pepper.

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After a couple of pulses, I added in an egg and a bit of water.

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I pulsed the ingredients until the dough formed large crumbs but would hold together when pinched.

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From there, I created a large ball of dough on a floured cutting board.

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Next, I cut the dough ball in half and rolled the dough into 12 x 12 squares (roughly) per the instructions.  From there they took a quick pass in the refrigerator for about half an hour.

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After the 30 minutes, the recipe instructed me to roll the dough out into 1/4″ – 1/8″ thick sheets.  Well, to roll it out into the 12 x 12 squares, they were already a little less than 1/4″ so instead of wadding the dough back up and re-rolling, I went ahead and started cutting out my crackers. I used my trusty ruler to cut out 1″ x 1″ squares, salted the tops and pierced each square with my fork.

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From there, they went right into the oven for about 10 minutes.  The came out slightly browned and puffed up just a bit.

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They were a bit heartier than your average Saltine or Ritz cracker.  They almost reminded me of a savory shortbread.  They were filling enough that you only needed a handful to get your fix.  The only downside with these guys is that they only keep for about a week.  We still had about half to get through when they started to go a little stale on us.  I think next time around I’ll keep half on hand and freeze the other half.  According to the book you can keep them frozen for a few months before you have to worry about them.

In other news. We woke up to a inch or two of snow this morning and we’re supposed to get anywhere from 6-10 inches by the end of the day tomorrow.  Blerg.

Grandpa and Sweet Corn Ice Cream

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Hi All.  So as you may have noticed I’ve been MIA for awhile again.  Unfortunately my quick trip home for a weekend high school reunion turned into an extended stay.  My Grandpa passed away last week and I was home to be with family until about halfway through the week last week.  I spent many weekends and afternoons after school at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm house.  Without a doubt that’s where I (along with other family members) got a taste of real gardening.  They had not only one but two large vegetable gardens, the smaller of the two wouldn’t even fit in my backyard.  On top of that, they had a few berry bushes scattered throughout the back yard and always had a sweet corn patch in the field to make sure we had more than enough corn to freeze and last us through the winter.  I’m talking a 10 seater dining room table stacked with pots and pans of corn cut from the ears and ready to store.  Because of that, I’m sure Grandpa would have gobbled up what I made this weekend.

For my birthday, long time friend bought me the cookbook,The Sunset Edible Garden Cookbook: Fresh, Healthy Cooking from the Garden.  I don’t think I even had it all the way out of the bag and tissue paper before she said, “They have a recipe in there for Sweet Corn Ice Cream! you have to make that!” So, seeing as I had a grocery sack full of fresh from the field corn on the cob from Iowa, I went for it.

We tripled the recipe to make use of more of the corn we had.  The original recipe called for just 2 ears and with the various sizes I had, I ended up using 7. After the corn had been cut from the ears, I popped it in the food processor until it was really smooth.

I combined the milk, cream, and corn per their instructions and let it get to a simmer on the stove.

While that was warming up I separated 12 egg yolks and whipped that up with sugar.  When the cream mixture was simmering, I added in the egg mixture after tempering it first so we didn’t end up with scrambled eggs.

After that had time to thicken on the stove , I poured it into a large bowl and covered with cling wrap.  For anyone new to making ice cream don’t wait for it to reach a real thick consistency, it really just needs to be thick enough you could run your finger down the middle of a spoon and the cream doesn’t run back together.

I let the mix chill in the fridge overnight to make sure it was chilled all the way through.  The next morning I took the cling wrap off the top and stirred in some vanilla extract.

From there it got ladled into our ice cream maker.

I packed the surround of the bucket with layers of ice and rock salt and turned it on.  I checked the ice every 15 minutes or so to make sure the ice cream tin was covered.  We used to have a smaller machine that didn’t have as much space for ice around the outside.  I think that makes a big difference in how long it takes for the ice cream finish up.

After about an hour this is what my ice cream looked like.  Sort of like soft serve.  From there it went into the freezer to ripen for the rest of the day.

We didn’t try it until really late Saturday night but, OH MAN!  So good!  It was like taking the best creamy corn you’ve ever had in your life and then freezing it and adding a pinch of sweet.  I had more on Sunday night and tried it with just a bit of sea salt.  I thought since I like my corn on the cob with butter and salt, it would make it even better.  It was still good but I don’t think it really added anything to it.  We still have the better part of a gallon to eat, and I’m more than ok with that.

Springtime Frittata

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Hi There.
So it’s safe to say I’m more than a day late on this post.  Sorry about that, work got away from me a little this week.  But as promised, here’s the frittata I was telling you about.  I used a recipe from Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks.  I was given her latest cookbook for Christmas this year and I’ve enjoyed every recipe I’ve tried so far.

Making a frittata was fairly easy and it’s a flexible recipe that allows you to use whatever veggies are in season. I used new potatoes, shallots, peas and my farmer’s market eggs.  One of the biggest things I liked about this recipe was that it allowed me to use up 10 of the 12 eggs!  I always run into having about half a dozen left over after baking something or just making an omelet.  They’ll sit there until i’m not sure when I bought them and then it’s just a waste of food.  No longer!

 

Making this did get me thinking about some of my kitchen supplies.  My skillet was a bit small and the straight sides made it difficult to run my spatula around the side to keep the edges from getting too brown.  My spatula is also permanently curled on the end from forcing it…. maybe I just created the perfect frittata spatula

Orzo Salad

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Remember that photo I posted back on Sunday of every pot and pan I own, dirty, on the counter?  Well besides the cookies and icing, the rest of the mess came from making myself lunches for the week.

Since I started doing this blog, I’ve been making a concentrated effort to bring my  lunches to work.  It helps save money but it also makes it possible for me to know what’s going into my food.  I’d gotten stuck in a little bit of a rut, cycling in between sandwiches (deli meat and bread from MN, cheese from WI) or pasta casseroles (meat, pasta and cheese from MN).  Not horrible, but definitely getting old and a little on the heavy side.

So this week, to change it up, I took out a cook book I haven’t tapped into to find something new.  I found an Orzo Salad recipe in Super Natural Every Day.  The cookbook is written by Heidi Swanson.  She also writes the blog for 101 Cookbooks.  It’s a great blog full of vegetarian recipes and her pictures make everything look like a million bucks.

Back to the salad.  First up, I got my Orzo into some boiling water to cook.While that was going, I cooked up some frozen broccoli in place of fresh, fresh isn’t very available in MN the second week of February.

With the broccoli done (frozen cooked up pretty fast in hot water) I made my pesto with 2 Cups of the broccoli, 2 cloves of garlic, 2/3 pine nuts and 1/3 cup parmesan cheese and lemon juice in the food processor.  The recipe called out only using a portion of the pine nuts but I tossed them all in:)

When that was pretty well blended I added in the creme fraiche and olive oil and blended until smooth.

By the time the pesto was finished the orzo had finished cooking.  I drained it, rinsed it with cold water and drained again.

Then I added about 2/3′s of the pesto in with the pasta until it was pretty evenly coated.  The rest I’ll use for another quick pasta dinner this weekend.

I bought an avocado per the recipe (obviously not a local product) and chopped it up and blended with a little more lemon juice to help prevent browning.  It didn’t last past the second day, it just got too brown and gross.  I would only use it if you had access to really fresh avocados and were going to be serving it that day.

Besides the salad, I cooked up 3 chicken breast with just a little bit of salt and pepper, shredded them and then used them to top the salad.  It was a really good change of pace and made me feel a little healthier come Friday.

It’s BACON Part II

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Alright folks, tonight is the moment of truth.

I’ve been curing my pork belly in the fridge for over a week.  I checked it at one week and it was still a little soft in spots, so I added more salt and gave it a couple more days of massaging and flipping.  I took it out today and it felt firm all over and just look at the edge in the picture, doesn’t it already look like bacon?

I just popped it in the oven where it needs to roast for a couple of hours until it’s fully finished.  I’ll be checking on it regularly for the rest of the night.  Friday night we’ll have the big taste test and see how it worked out.  I’m really looking forward to it, hope you are too:)

It’s BACON!!!!!!!

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Tonight I started the long process of curing my own bacon and I am SO excited. I followed the recipe from Jam It, Pickle it, Cure it. Man I love this book…

Anyway, I started out with about 3 pounds of pork belly. Clancey’s didn’t have any large slabs available when I went to look for it so I picked up 3 smaller pieces instead.

I rinsed each piece and dried it per the directions. I only had to trim one small piece off the belly. I was pretty lucky to get even pieces.

I set the pork belly to the side and got together the rest of the curing ingredients. I started with 1/2 cup sugar.

Then added and mixed in 1 tablespoon blackstrap molasses and mixed it well.

Then added 2 tablespoons of kosher salt

Then 1 teaspoon ground black pepper and 1 teaspoon curing salt. Be careful when using curing salt. The person who gave it to me at Clancey’s recommended wearing gloves when using it.

After everything’s mixed together you start massaging it into the pork belly to get it nice and coated. Make sure you get all the little nooks and crannies.

Once you’re satisfied with the coating, I just put it in a gallon sized zip-loc and popped it in the fridge. Now we wait…. I’ll flip and massage it once a day and we’ll see how it is in a week. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. If we’re lucky we’ll be eating home cured bacon next weekend:)

Zucchini Tian

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Last week for we tried something new to bring to work for lunch.  We were getting pretty stuck in a rotation of ham, turkey, or tuna salad sandwiches.  Zucchini Tian seemed like a nice, warm change of pace.  Not to mention a great new way to use the zucchini we had from the backyard garden.

I got the recipe from The Illustrated Step by Step Cook.  Every time I pick it up I think about more things I’d like to try, it’s full of really great pictures.  Anyway, back to the Tian.

First things first, I chopped up our zucchini and got it cooking in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.  We were able to get the 2 1/4 pounds needed from the 1 zucchini The Hubs had pulled from the garden.  Awesome!  As you can see, it barely fit in my poor little pan.

While that was cooking I chopped up 2 small onions and 3 cloves of garlic.  Once the zucchini was done, I popped it out of the pan on to a large cutting board and added more oil the chopped onion and garlic to the pan to sizzle until the onions were nice and soft but not browned.

While the onion mix was cooking, I chopped the zucchini up in to smaller pieces and started up about 1/3 cup of rice, cooking until it was not quite done.  When I was finished with the rice, I put the zucchini, onions and garlic, and rice into a bowl and mixed it up.  Then I added in some chopped up parsley and parmesan cheese.  The recipe called for 1/4 cup cheese but I like to go a little bit over when it comes to anything cheesy:)  Once it was thoroughly mixed, I then added in 2 eggs one at a time.  The recipe called for 3 but it was one of those days when you don’t realize it until you’re out of something until it’s too late, whoops!

When everything was well mixed I spread it all out into a a glass baking dish and popped it into the oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes and then bumped it up to 400 for another 10 -15 until it was nice a golden brown on the edges.

I really liked bringing the Tian in for lunch, it re-heated in the microwave pretty well and was a welcome change from sandwiches and pretzels.  I’ll definitely try making it again but I’m thinking about using their Spinach and Mushroom Variation they have listed out instead, yum!  I’ll also make sure I check and see how many eggs I have before I start!