Biscotti

Ever since tasting a biscotti sample at the grocery store before Christmas, I've been on a biscotti kick. Last week I finally decided to make some. It was my first time and they came out super good. Next time I want to make a copy-cat version of the ones I tasted at the store (chocolate chunk and pistachio).

I used this recipe as a guide, but modified it by adding orange zest, almonds, and chocolate chips, and swapping out half the sugar for maple syrup.

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon orange or mandarin zest
• 1 cup coarsely chopped almonds
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 375F. Beat wet ingredients plus zest in large bowl. Mix flour and powder in a small bowl, then stir into wet ingredients. Mix in almonds and chocolate chips. Scoop out half the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or silicon sheets. Oil your hands and shape dough into a rope shape the length of the pan. Pat down to 1/2" thick. It will be about 4" wide, depending on your pan length. Repeat on a second pan. Bake 25-30 minutes until slightly browned. Cool on racks until you can handle them. Cut with a pizza cutter into 1/2" thick slices. Return to pans, cut side up and bake for 6-10 minutes. Flip over to other cut side for another 6-10 minutes. They should cool to be crispy, perfect for dunking in coffee, milk, or cocoa. 

The recipe made two giant cookies.

I used a pizza cutter to slice them while still warm.

After the second baking I let them cool a bit...

...and then made a silly face instead. 

I brought them to the office so folks can munch on them with an afternoon coffee now that we have a Keurig maker. One of the guys said, "How DARE you bring those in here? Ooooh that's dangerous, girl." I laughed and pointed out that he didn't have to open the tin, he could have just walked on by. He said, "I have to tell you, those are the third best biscotti I've ever had...no wait, those are the three best biscotti I've ever had. I ate three already this morning!" What a nice compliment!

Summer 2013 Garden Tally

Well, I am finally done processing all of my 2013 garden produce. I know, it's just about time to start planting the 2014 garden.

What got me to the finish line were the dried spices I had stowed away in the laundry room until I had time to deal with them.  In the evenings I like to settle down on the couch to watch a show before bed. I like to have something for my hands to do while in front of the TV and rubbing the seeds off dried plants filled that need.

Throughout last summer I collected dill seed heads whenever I was in the garden and spotted some. I stuffed them into paper sacks, which I left open to dry. It took me weeks of rubbing, but I finally finished with a quart jar nearly overflowing.

Last spring I planted cilantro here in Gualala during spring break. By the time we moved up here the place was a weed-veggie jungle and I didn't remember anything about the cilantro. I found the scraggly plants when I was weeding one of the beds. By then it was flowering and the honey bees really liked it, so I left it alone to go to seed. The heads were sort of scattered throughout the plant so I hacked them all down once they had dried in the garden and brought them home. Our kitchen table was piled high with the dead plants for a few days. Dave and I would watch something on the laptop while rubbing the seeds off. We got a whole quart!

In the fall, before it got too cold (not that it ever really got cold this last year), we walked around the neighborhood and collected wild fennel seed heads.  The stuff is a weed around here. One of our neighbors asked what we were doing and he commented that he'd never even tasted fennel. I said it was a common spice in sausage and after he smelled some that I crushed in my hand he realized he had eaten it his whole life. I was able to get a pint so I might take a few tablespoons to him so he can try cooking with it.

As I was putting the dill and fennel away this morning I realized just how many seasonings I've been able to grow.  Herbs are obvious: the green or "herbaceous" part of any plant like basil. But spices always seemed like something regular people just purchase, rather than grown. Not so: I was able to grow lots of seeds for seasoning.

Top: serrano peppers from my dad, lemon verbena leaves, fennel seeds, mint leaves, Thai peppers from my dad.
Bottom: dried onions, coriander, dill leaves, dill seeds, tarragon leaves.

And here is some of the rest of our dried foods stash. We haven't tried everything yet, but I can report that the zucchini works well in lasagna instead of noodles (just rehydrate for a few minutes with hot water until they're pliable) and the carrots resemble fresh ones when cooked in soup. The bell peppers are good enough to eat like crackers!

Some of our dried veggies and fruits from last year. Zucchini and yellow squash, bell peppers, carrots, apples, peaches, apricots, beans, and eggplant. I haven't tried the eggplant yet but I'm not confident that we'll like it.  Maybe in lasagna?

 The final tally for all frozen, canned, and dried "put up" food for 2013 was:

• 12 quarts plum pulp (will make jam or fruit leather later)
• 14 pints no-pectin plum jam
• 12 pints pectin plum jam
• 3 trays dried apricots
• 24 quarts canned apricots (for FIL)
• 7 gallons frozen apricots (for pies)
• 26 cups frozen strawberry peaches (for pies)
• 14 pints pineapple apricot jam
• 11 pints low-sugar apricot jam
• 9 pints low-sugar apricot peach jam
• 4 quarts apricot simple syrup (left over from canning--excellent mixed with champagne or rum)
• 24 quarts canned pears (my dad actually did this for me using pears given to the Bowers by their lawyer...the guy's family operates a produce packing plant and gave them some cases of fruit after one of their meetings...weird, right?)
• 2 quarts canned pear simple syrup (good with champagne)
• 5 dehydrator loads of zucchini
• 4 pints dried onions (grown in Davis)
• 2 gallons frozen blackberries (for jam or pies)
• 30 pounds canned green beans (my dad and Jennifer helped with this)
• 5 gallons frozen green beans
• 10 quarts Gravenstein apples (for pies)
• 6 quarts dried Gravenstein apples (for snacking)
• 14 pints candied jalapenos (canned)
• 12 cups frozen pesto
• 4.5 quarts fermented peppers for hot sauce (jalapenos, peppinos, Hungarian hot wax--will be ready next month)
• 3 quarts fermented cayenne-garlic (accidentally got some yogurt along with the whey inoculate in there)
• 7.5 quarts canned tomato basil sauce
• 11 quarts frozen rosemary pizza sauce
• 9 quarts frozen ratatouille
• 4 quarts frozen chopped chard
• 7 quarts frozen hot salsa fresca
• 15 pints canned chipotle salsa verde
• 18 pints canned salsa verde
• 1 pint dried bell peppers (store bought)
• 1 quart dried carrots
• 1 quart dried figs (from a local family)
• 1 quart coriander seed
• 1 quart dill seed
• 1 pint fennel seed (wild)

We purchased some of the produce from a local family ranch (some basil and tomatoes and beans) but most of it was from our garden. You can see why settling down to write my dissertation was so hard during the summer--never mind the distractions of moving, starting a new job, and my mom's passing. In the next few weeks I'll spend my evenings planting seeds in peet pellets to get our 2014 garden started. 

Holy Granoly

I've been making this granola for several years now. It's a modified version of Megan's Granola on AllRecipes.com. Once Jennifer entered our family, I started making it gluten free instead so I can share it with her.

This recipe is a great way for us to use up the dark honey we harvest each September. It's a little intense in flavor kind of like a mild molasses.

This granola is soooooooooo yummy!

Granola

• 8 cups rolled oats
• 1.5 cups oat bran
• 1.5 cups unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1 cup sunflower seeds (the cheapest ones are in the snack packs at the store--they're salted so I just rinse them in a sieve first)
• 1 cup pumpkin seeds
• 1 cup finely chopped almonds (I pulse whole almonds in the food processor)
• 1 cup finely chopped pecans (again with the food processor)
• 1.5 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 brown sugar
• 1/4 maple syrup (it's okay to use maple flavored syrup like Log Cabin)
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 (or more) cups dried fruit, such as cranberries, raisins, chopped apricots or apples

I used to make the granola all at once, but then we had Eddie so now I break it into parts over a whole day: measure out dry ingredients, make sauce, bake, cool, mix in fruit and package for storage...and then the dreaded clean up.
Here are all the dry ingredients.

The sauce calls for what seems like a lot of oil. But per serving it's only 1.5 teaspoons. I omitted the oil once and it stuck really badly to the foil. 

I always use my giant restaurant supply store bowls when making granola--it makes a lot!  Here it is uncooked.

I stir and rotate the pans every 6-7 minutes to prevent burning.

Dave and I like having some clumps mixed in with the loose granola so I try to cook at least 1/3 of the recipe a little longer than the rest to preserve some clumps. Even better is to use extra sauce in one portion for better clumping.

You can use any dried fruit in the granola--we usually add raisins and cranberries.

Half gallon jars are about as tall as a cereal box so it'll slide right into the cabinet next to our other cereals.

Enjoy!

Marry Me, Korean Beef

Last weekend I was stumped about what to make for dinner each night this week.  Here in Gualala, Mondays and Tuesdays have become crock pot or frozen Costco pizza nights to make evenings easy since we both work those days.  So Sunday I prepared a crock full of pumpkin soup mostly using items from the freezer (pumpkin, black beans, beef stock, tomatoes), amped up with coriander, cumin, and garam masala. I love most soups topped with yogurt and cilantro so I had to buy the latter to complete the meal. The crock moved from the fridge to the cooker at at noon on Monday when I popped out of work for an errand.  I love living 2 minutes from work!

Typically, I base my short term meal planning on some ingredient that I will have on hand for a desired dish, just to use it up. Not knowing what else to make for the week and being without our CSA box until spring, I went to my Pinterest recipes board to get some ideas.  I spied something that made me remember a Korean beef recipe on my friend's blog AND a similar recipe in a magazine for Thai beef. I liked aspects of both, so I combined them.  Since I omitted key Thai ingredients like fish sauce and basil, it ended up tasting more like Korean food.

And....it was amazing.  Dave liked it so much that he had a second small serving instead of his piece of candy from the advent calendar.  Yeah, it was that good. Thank you, Leah, for posting your Korean beef recipe on your blog a few months back!

The pictures I took were terrible because it was already dark out and our kitchen lighting SUCKS.  But trust me, you should make this.

You can't see it in this crappy picture, but it was a very pretty meal since I used yellow and red bell pepper. This would be excellent made for a pot luck.

Korean Beef (with spinach)

Beef

• 1.5 T oil
• 1 t sesame oil
• 1/2 t (or more) red pepper flakes
• 6 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• 1.5 pounds ground beef, 15-20% fat
• 1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
• 1/2 cup beef or chicken stock
• 1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 t minced ginger
• 3 cups packed spinach, whole leaves (although I would double that next time)

Salad

• 2 medium carrots, julienned
• 1/2 cucumber, seeded and julienned
• 1 bell pepper, julienned
• Handful of cilantro, chopped
• 2 scallions, sliced thinly
• Juice of 2 limes
• 1 t sugar
• 1 t sesame oil
• 1 t sesame seeds (garnish)
• More pepper flakes (garnish)

In a large skillet, heat oils on high, cook pepper flakes and garlic for just 30 seconds. Add beef and flatten out on bottom of skillet for maximum browning. Brown heavily, 8-10 minutes.

Add soy sauce, stock, sugar, and ginger and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium and scrap up brown bits from bottom of pan. Fold in spinach and let wilt, about 2 minutes.

Remove from heat to a warmed oven until ready to serve.

Make the salad by mixing all ingredients together.

Serve beef over rice and top with salad and garnishes.

Even Eddie liked it!  But first he insisted on cutting up his salad.

I hope the rest of the week is just as yummy!  (Although I doubt anything could top that beef...)  We're using up the left over rice as a substitute for pasta in a tuna salad served inside romaine heart leaves tonight.  Tomorrow we'll use up some frozen corn for corn cakes with goat cheese since we have everything on hand for that, including locally made fresh goat cheese.  Mmmm.  I wriggled my way onto a local goat cheese maker's email list and picked up my first batch last week. It's really good.

Halloween 2013

Guess what Eddie was for Halloween?  If you're not sure, think about these facts:

• He's a boy
• He thinks he's really strong and tough
• He's four
• He loves weapons

Answer: NINJA!

He debated on his costume for a couple of weeks...until we got to the store last month and he spied the double sword/double sai ninja weapon pack on the shelf.  HE NEEDED TO HAVE THESE WEAPONS IN HIS POSSESSION.  So he promptly decided to be a ninja.  

Have you ever seen such a cute ninja?  You can tell from his mouth that he was making sound effects for me as he posed.

And of course he was the cutest (I mean FIERCEST) ninja around.  But he's a terrible ninja because they're supposed to be quiet and sneaky and he thumps his feet wherever he goes.  

We didn't need to decorate the house for Halloween this year because it was scary enough with all the CRAP everywhere.  

See?  It's like a creepy hoarder's house: piles of crap everywhere.  We had to move two bedrooms out for carpet installation and the only semi-available space was the soon-to-be-downstairs-kitchen.  

The entry way into the house.  Looky there, a kitchen cabinet in a box!  Next to a new stove in a box!  SIGH.

But we did hang our inflatable spiders and spider lights and ate off of paper Halloween plates. And we carved our pumpkins.

Dave's, Eddie's, mine.  We let Eddie draw a face using a permanent pen, then we cut the shapes for him, and he gets to erase the pen marks with nail polish remover.  

There was a parade and a party at preschool that morning and I attended both.  The preschoolers led the parade and got to go through a 5th grade classroom, where they were each given a goody bag.  Back in the classroom there was an impressive spread of festive foods--I didn't eat any because seeing all the slobbery kids touching everything grossed me out.  But I'm glad they all enjoyed the treats!

Parading kiddos!  Since he couldn't carry his weapons at school, he opted for a knight helmet instead.

Eddie and his friend Charlie were super excited to find glow-in-the-dark teeth in their goody bags. 

Eddie went straight for the blue gummy worm jello mold.

That night, we took Eddie trick-or-treating along Gualala Court, one of two places kids go around here. It's a loop, actually, and most of the houses were decked out for the holiday. One even had flame throwers (cue four year old boy enthusiasm for gratuitous displays of flames).  His best buddy, Mason, and another friend were there so Dave and I got to socialize with their parents.  

Mason the storm trooper, Eddie the ninja, and Rylan the ninja turtle.

All total, Eddie got 29 pieces of candy--I know this because he counted it that night and again every single night thereafter.  He thinks that's a LOT of candy and we're going to let him think it is.  No one needs to tell him that his mama used to haul home half a pillow case full when she was his age.   

For dinner that night we had a decorated Costco take-and-bake pizza.  Pinterest had all sorts of ideas on decorating pizzas so I combined three ideas into one. It looked best uncooked.

I hope everyone had a fun, safe Halloween this year! I saved the best part of this post for last...the gif of Ninja Eddie.

I canNOT get enough of these gifs!

Homemade Kraft Mac-n-Cheese

While poking around on household management and cooking blogs, I stumbled upon references to using cheddar cheese powder at home. I was curious, so I bought some off of Amazon.  Eddie loves mac-n-cheese for an easy lunch or dinner so that was my first trial recipe with it. 

Before preparing an actual box of Kraft Mac-n-Cheese one day, I measured out the dry pasta and orange cheese powder first.

1 1/4 cups dry macaroni noodles

1/3 cup cheese powder

Cook, drain, and add:

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup butter or margarine

You can use cheddar cheese powder and whatever noodles you want to make the same thing at home.   It's also good on popcorn for a movie snack.  We find that it doesn't stick to the popcorn as well as commercial cheesy popcorn snacks so we just dip our popped corn into it.

Costco Pizza

I love making my own pizza--kneading the dough, spreading on last summer's homemade canned marinara sauce, decorating it with lots of veggies.  But sometimes laziness or lack of time creeps into my life and I still want yummy pizza.  So we modify the Costco 'take and bake' pizzas to suit our tastes.

For only $9 they sure are a good deal.  Here's how we modified a pepperoni pizza yesterday:

Pepperoni overload!  This is how the pie came from the store.  It's blurry but you get the point: too much pepperoni.  It'd be covered in puddles of grease if we left it all on there.  Bleh.

I removed most of the meat, saving it in the freezer for a future pizza.

I added yellow bell peppers, fresh tomatoes, and some garlic chives.

I thought it could use more green so I dolloped on some basil pesto.

And this is what it looked like after baking.  I like a slightly crunchy crust so I let it cook a bit longer than the directions call for.  Plus, with all the extra water in the fresh veggies it needs a bit more time.  

Our modified pizzas rival any local pizzeria, especially considering the price! I have a feeling these take-and-bake pizzas will be a regular part of our bimonthly Costco runs once we move to Gualala.  

When we get the cheese pizzas, we spoon off half of the cheese before decorating it with veggies and whatnot.  They come with SO MUCH CHEESE and I just don't like that much of it.  I keep whatever I remove for another cooking project.  Since the pizzas are sold to be cooked later, I make sure to use the cheese or extra meat in a fully cooked meal for safety.

Daddy's Roast Rub

Most weeks my dad makes a roast, either beef or pork. I've asked him for the recipe too many times to admit...which means it's time to post it here on the blog so my forgetful self can look it up whenever I need to.

Thyme Roast

• pork or beef roast, 3-3.5 pounds
• 3/4-1 teaspoon powdered thyme
• 3/4-1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2-3/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 (or more) cloves of garlic
• olive oil, as needed to make a paste

Make a paste of the oil and seasonings by crushing and mixing them using a mortar and pestle (or use a fork on a plate).

Pat the roast dry with paper towels.

Rub the herb paste all over the meat.

Place meat into a plastic bag and squeeze out the air. Let it marinate in the fridge for a good 3-5 days, mushing around the big once a day to massage the flavorings into b the meat.

To cook, place in a casserole or dutch oven, uncovered at 400 F for 20 minutes. Then cover the dish and reduce the temperate to 275 F for 3-5 hours.

This is great on sandwiches or just sliced as a meat course with dinner. The drippings should definitely be saved and used for cooking mushrooms or making the best dang gravy you ever did taste.

I have no idea why I didn't take a photo of the finished roast, fresh out of the oven back in November when I started this post.  (I also don't know why I never published it!)  But here's a look at a similar roast I cooked yesterday for my aunt and cousin, along with mint-cilantro-lemon pesto and a loaf of cranberry pecan oat bread:

Thanksgiving Feasting 2012

To kick the day off, we all slept in.  Edward, Jennifer, and I went downtown on Wednesday night to a bar, where Dave met up with us for a late night drink.  My folks graciously stayed at our house with sleeping Eddie until after midnight.  Everyone except Eddie awoke very sleepy on Thanksgiving morning.

For breakfast I made some gluten free pancakes, two kinds of sausage patties, and a giant frittata using late season tomatoes from my dad's garden.  It was a delicious way to start a marathon cooking day.
This year, everyone helped cook something, which was nice for me since I usually end up doing 95% of the cooking.  I think I probably did only about 75% this year.  

Dave and Jennifer made the chocolate mousse.

Jennifer making mousse.

We had soooooooooo many side dishes that we could have completely skipped the meat.  Because of Edward and Jennifer's food allergies, we had chicken instead of turkey and everything else (besides the bread) was gluten free.  I really don't think anyone would have been able to tell it was all gluten free.  Here's what we made:

• Roasted chicken
• Yams
• Stuffing (made with gluten free bread cubes, sausages and olives)
• Greens (mostly from my dad's garden)
• Two kinds of cranberry sauce
• My dad's pickled green beans
• My dad's fermented green tomatoes
• Gravy (roux made with sweet rice flour)
• Stuffed mushrooms
• Broccolette slaw
• Warm Brussels sprouts salad (the BEST way to eat this veg)
• Green salad with apples and poppy seed dressing (given to us by the neighbors as a thank you for hosting their kids while they cooked)
• Olive focaccia
• Braided wheat bread
• Olive wheat bread
• "Pumpkin" pie with gluten free crust (I used butternut squash instead and you couldn't tell)
• Apple pie with gluten free crust (as link above but made with pecans instead of coconut)
• Chocolate mousse

With 7 people we didn't even finish off one chicken.  Who needs meat when you have so many side dishes?

Thanksgiving buffet, with more on the table.

I had hoped we'd eat at 5:30 pm and for the FIRST time ever in the history of me cooking a giant meal, we sat down a half hour early.  

My mom set the table with her mother's cross-stitched linens and my dad's mom's silver and china.  

The silverware was "polished" using my mom's grandma's aluminum pan.  Edward, Dave, and Jennifer were in charge of the silverware; they were really into it.  Unlike traditional polishing, which removes some of the silver metal (thereby wearing it down), this electrochemical reaction just converts the dark silver sulfide (formed from the silverware and sulfur in the air) back to shiny silver.  Ta da, so fun!

Chemistry in action!

Jennifer was so excited about this technique because she and Edward have real silver flatware as their everyday utensils and she doesn't want to have to polish it all the time.

Eddie was nap-free that whole day and he surprised us by doing quite well during dinner.  I almost let him watch a few shows while us adults ate our magnificent meal because I feared he'd be cranky and restless.  As my dad said, "it'd be better to be thankful he wasn't ruining dinner than to wish he wasn't at the table in the first place."  It made me laugh, especially when he offered to justify anything that way for me.  After getting up from his seat a few times, he settled down to eat, drink cider and milk from his own wine glasses, and tell us lots of stories about bears breaking into our house.  

Regaling Uncle and Auntie about some big bears.

Toward the end of the meal, Eddie trotted off to his room to get a stack of dress up hats for us all to wear.  

After Eddie was in bed that night, us adults settled into the living room with some dessert and a rented copy of The Expendables 2.  It was crap so I ended up going to bed at 9:30 pm, shortly after my folks headed back to their hotel.  I was exhausted from cooking all day and it was sooooooooooo nice to assume a horizontal position.

Shoot, everyone was exhausted.

The recipe was called "death by chocolate" and I believe it.  We omitted the chocolate cookie crust to make it gluten free and it was already way too rich.

If it looks like pumpkin pie, and it tastes like pumpkin pie, then it is pumpkin pie...even if it's make with roasted butternut squash instead, right?

I am forever thankful for my supportive and quirky family, my hard working husband, our incomes, the freedoms of our country, our rambunctious Eddie, our health, and much, much more.  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!