Latin Yum-Yums

Don't mind the sazon stains.

A few weeks ago I was bragging on Facebook about this awesome dinner I made featuring a carnitas recipe I found on Pinterest and Puerto Rican-style rice, and a bunch of people started hounding me for the recipes. So I'll share them with you all here.

The rice is part of a recipe the Big Guy got from a lady he worked with when we lived in Orlando, Florida. Liz was half Puerto Rican and half Polish. Her cooking could get interesting, to say the least. But this was one of her Latin favorites. The Big Guy fell for this recipe when Liz brought some to work and shared with him. He told her his Midwestern white-bread wife needed to learn to make stuff like that, so she wrote down the recipe for me. It's a little sketchy on details (but I'm learning all the best recipes are), so I'm sharing it here with my modifications made through trial and error. You can see in the photo it's been well-loved (and a little splattered-upon).


Chicken Wings & Yellow Rice

1/2 cup (or less) cooking oil
2 packets Goya Sazon con Azafran (yellow packet)
2 large serving spoons full tomato sauce
1 Tbsp salt (or to taste)
dash of oregano
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp sugar
12 chicken wings/drumettes
2 cups long-grain rice
2 cups water

In a dutch oven or medium stock pot, combine first 7 ingredients and wings. Saute wings until lightly browned. Add rice and water and stir together, making sure you can see the rice under the surface of the water. Boiling uncovered on high, let the rice "dry," stirring occasionally. When water is pretty much all absorbed, turn heat down to low, stir rice up into a mound, cover with aluminum foil and place lid on pot. Cook for about 30 minutes on low. After 30 minutes, stir - scraping all the burnt rice up off the bottom of the pot. (Hint: You're going to want a wooden spoon or metal spatula for this part. It really does get burnt and stuck on down there.) Check to see if rice is tender. Turn off heat, cover the pot, and let sit for another 10 minutes. Stir and serve.

Homemade pressure cooker? Sure, why not?

**To make rice only, reduce cooking oil to 1/8-1/4 cup and omit chicken wings.**

I can hear you now..."BURNT rice??" Yes, burnt rice. I freaked out the first time I made it, until the Big Guy told me to calm the hell down. That's what it's supposed to be like. I didn't believe him...until I took my first bite. In the middle of all my perfectly cooked rice were these little bits of crunchy grains that EXPLODED with flavor. It was so amazing. Black beans pair really nicely with this rice.

The carnitas recipe is based on a couple different recipes I found on Pinterest, but mainly the version found on My Kitchen Escapades. Here's my adaptation and a little meat porn.

 


Pork Carnitas
(adapted from My Kitchen Escapades)

8 lb bone-in pork butt (trimmed and cut into 2" cubes) (Could also use a 4 lb boneless butt, trimmed and cubed)
1 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
1 large onion, peeled and halved
2 bay leaves
1 tsp dried oregano
5 cloves garlic, smashed
2 Tbsp fresh lime juice
2 C water
1 medium orange, juiced and keep the spent halves

Adjust oven rack down to lower-middle position and preheat to 300 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a large, oven-safe Dutch oven, including orange juice and spent orange halves. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-high heat, uncovered. Cover and place in preheated oven. Cook 2-3 hours, or until meat falls apart easily when tested with a fork. (Mine took a full 3 hours.)

Remove pot from oven, move oven rack up to middle position and turn oven to broil. Using a slotted spoon, remove meat from the pan and place on a large, foil-lined jelly roll pan. Remove and discard everything else from the cooking liquid and place pot over high heat. Cook liquid down until thick and syrupy, about 20-30 minutes. There should only be about 1 cup of liquid left when you're finished.

In the meantime, break chunks of meat up using two forks. Pull each large cube of meat into about three pieces and discard any hunks of fat or gristle that didn't break down during cooking. Once liquid is reduced, gently stir meat into liquid, trying not to break up the meat any further. Season with additional salt and pepper, if needed.

Return pork and liquid to baking sheet and spread meat out evenly in a single layer. Broil until meat is well-browned and slightly crispy, about 8-10 minutes. Using a large spatula, turn meat over and broil on other side until well-browned and crispy, about 5-8 more minutes. Serve on tortillas with your favorite toppings.

We used corn tortillas, lightly toasted in a skillet, and topped them with a little bit of queso quesadilla cheese (TRY IT! Sooo much more flavor than jack cheese or Mexican blend!), chopped romaine lettuce, sour cream and sliced onion. You could also add some cilantro - or use it instead of lettuce - if that's your thing. I, personally, hate cilantro, so we did not use it.

The queso quesadilla cheese was so delicious, we also sprinkled some over the top of our rice. You can never have enough cheese. Cheese is good. Cheese makes everything better. Here was the finished result:

Tackling Martha

Tackling Martha Stewart sounds like fun. Taking that snooty broad down and wiping that smug smirk off her face would be.... Wait, that's a different blog. What I'm talking about is tackling Martha's RECIPES, not her physical person. Because that would be illegal. And two felons don't make a wicker basket or some shit. I digress.

In a post a couple months back, I told you about the book my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas several years ago: Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. I made a meme and everything. You should go check it out. I still giggle when I see it.

Well, that blog post has been taunting me for weeks now, and so I finally dusted off that book, re-read some of the recipes I had flagged years ago, flagged a bunch of new ones, and picked my first recipe to try. I wanted to try a nice, simple sandwich bread, so I went with Pullman Bread on page 297.

The recipe sounded simple enough, and even though I don't have a lidded pullman loaf pan, she said I could still make the recipe. So I got started early in the day, allowing plenty of time for all the rising, punching, rising, shaping, and rising again. Finally, I had a beautiful pan of swollen yeast dough, perfectly rounded on the top like I imagined it would be. I referred back to Martha for the baking instructions, which, of course, all talked about the lid and opening and closing it. So I double-checked what I had read earlier about baking without the lid and I double-checked for specific instructions about baking sans lid. At the top of the page, Martha (or I should say Martha's recipe-writing minion) clearly says, "If you prefer a loaf with a rounded top, you can bake the dough without the lid in place; the baking time should be the same."

Lying bitch.

Since the directions said to rotate the pan halfway through the first 45-minute baking interval, I opened the oven about 20 minutes in. Much to my surprise, I had one seriously dark loaf in the oven! And according to Martha/Martha's minions, I still had 55 more minutes of baking time to go. Yikes! So I carefully tented the loaf with foil, reduced the heat as directed (albeit 25 minutes earlier than indicated) and let it go another 5-10 minutes. At that point, I looked again - still dark brown - and tapped on it. Hollow-sounding, like it should if it were done. So I decided to just pull it out and check the bottom. My beautiful, dark brown loaf slid easily from the pan, and when I tapped on the bottom - hollow-sounding! I moved it to a cooling rack and decided to just see what happened.

About 20 excruciating minutes later I was a bad girl and carved a slice off of the still-warm loaf and schmeared it with butter. Oh my Land O' Lakes! That was one delicious, perfectly baked slice of bread! Which can only mean two things:

1. I am Super Baker. Hear me roar.
2. Martha and her minions are fallible. 

In other words, Martha's baking instructions are wrong. You're WRONG, Martha! WRONG! And even though you're WRONG, I am Super Baker, and I made one helluva delectable loaf of bread. Warning: graphic food porn image shown below...

Isn't that sexy? Sure, it's a little dark, but on the inside it's white - but not too white - soft, dense but with a light texture, and slightly salty. I may not go back to store-bought after this. Now the hunt is on for a lidded pullman loaf pan to see what kind of difference that makes, though, with regard to the baking instructions.

Tonight had breakfast for dinner - a longtime favorite of mine - and I sliced up the rest of this loaf for some rich, thick French toast. Yummers! Turns out this is the perfect bread for French toast!

Suck it, Martha. I will conquer you and your terror-inducing recipe book filled with errors.

Love, Krista

Family Traditions

Christmas has come and gone, and it was all such a blur. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, whatever you may celebrate. Ours was quiet and peaceful, just the way I like it. Bonus: I managed to revive two family recipes this year.

This year I continued my tradition of making homemade gift baskets and bags for family and friends, though weather and illness prevented me from doing all that I wanted to do and delivering all the finished goods within the necessary timeline. Here's to better success next year!

I tried some new cookie recipes and was sadly disappointed. If any of you have any tips or tricks for successfully using a cookie press, please share them! I just ended up with a glob of cookie dough hanging from the end of the press without releasing to the cookie sheet. It reminded me of the old Play-Doh Fun Factory...minus the fun. Maybe it was the dough I used (though the recipe specifically stated it was for use in a cookie press), but I ended up so frustrated I quit and tried rolling and cutting my shapes instead. That was spectacularly awful as well. My dough spread out into shapeless blobs of chewy grossness instead of the light, buttery, whimsical shortbread cookies I was going for. This photo I saw on Pinterest kind of depicts my cookie strife:

Disclaimer: This is not me. I am not a skinny blonde. (Though my kitchen is exactly this shade of green. Weird.)
This is some random chick from Imgur: http://imgur.com/dcY336C

So, in true Krista fashion, I got pissed off, threw it all away and moved on to the next recipe.

One family recipe I revived this Christmas was my grandmother's sugar cookies. Again, they spread out more than I wanted, which I didn't understand. Mom and I used to make them every year, and every year they were beautiful. This year not so much. I might try them again for Easter or something and see what I did wrong. But they were tasty, if a little flat. My goal for this year had been to learn to make royal icing. I had visions of my grandmother's sugar cookies lovingly decorated with fancy hard icing, but as happens so often, life got in the way and I ran out of time.

Our freezer cooking group had planned to meet mid-month to make goodies to swap for our homemade gift baskets and help one another with some larger tasks, like making my grandmother's Swedish meatballs - my favorite family food tradition. Sadly, sickness and work got in the way - though surprisingly it wasn't MY illness or work this time! My mom also lacked the spare time to make these delicious bites of meaty goodness as well, so for the first Christmas in memory, we didn't have them, which made me very sad. We still had the cocktail wieners and some frozen meatballs in grandma's traditional beer/chili sauce, but it wasn't even close to the same. I may have to schedule a game night just as an excuse to make some damn meatballs. They are so time-consuming, with all the rolling and browning, but every savory bite is worth the effort.

In an effort to make up for the lack of meatballs - and in the spirit of trying new yeast recipes - I reached out to my Great Aunt Ethel for her yeast roll recipe. I've heard about these light and fluffy "biscuits", as she calls them, for decades, but I've never had the opportunity to taste them. When my grandmother was alive, she and my Pa hosted dozens of extended family and friends on Christmas Eve, and according to Mom, Aunt Ethel would bring her delicious rolls to town with her, already risen and ready to pop in the oven for dinner. After my grandmother passed away (before my second birthday), our family's Christmas Eve traditions changed and slowly each part of the extended family began to form their own annual traditions closer to their homes across Indiana and Kentucky. I know how much my mom misses these Christmases that pre-date my memory, so I decided to bring a piece back to her.

It's been many years since Aunt Ethel (now near 90 years of age) attempted to make her biscuits but, bless her heart, she gave it a go after Thanksgiving just for me, since these rolls were never made from a written recipe. It was always just one of those "use about this much flour and knead until it feels like this" processes. Unfortunately, too much time and memory had faded for her to make them successfully, but she knew she had taught her daughter Pam to make them several years ago. Though she warned me, Pam makes hers differently now.

Hip-hip-hooray for Pam taking notes on the original process and then saving them where she could easily find them! A few emails later and I had Pam's notes on Aunt Ethel's original yeast roll method. They were loose, and I was a little nervous starting out, but as I carefully walked through the process I could see and feel what was conveyed in the notes, and I knew I was on the right track.

Once you start working with yeast recipes, you get a feel for what's right and what's not right. Like I talked about in an earlier post, your fingertips come to learn what "lukewarm" feels like exactly, and you just know it's right. So I credit my recent baking experiences with giving me the knowledge I needed to successfully make these rolls. They were so beautiful as they were rising.

When we baked the first batch up at Mom's house on Christmas Eve, though, they were HUGE (like Grands biscuits on steroids) and ever-so-doughy in the middle. But everyone agreed they were delicious, and Mom said they tasted "just right." Score! The Big Guy liked them so much he sweetly asked me to go through the entire six-hour process again on Christmas Day for dinner with his folks. I couldn't say no to those big blue eyes, plus I wanted to try again with smaller rolls and a little melted butter after baking. So, on Christmas Day, I made them half the size of the previous day, and when I pulled them out of the oven (at the Big Guy's suggestion), I brushed them with some melted butter before serving. HOLY YUM! We were so excited to tear into them (and the rest of the meal) that I forgot to take a picture until we were digging into the second pan. Now, mind you, there were only four of us eating these things, so I think I can safely say they were a hit!

So, here is a great big THANK YOU to Aunt Ethel and my cousin Pam for helping me bring back this yearned-for recipe and Christmas tradition in our family.

I hope all of you enjoyed your holiday traditions this year - and maybe even added a new one or brought back an old one. Here's to a happy and healthy 2014, y'all!


Top of page photo credit: Mukumbura via photopin cc

Things to be thankful for

In Southern Indiana, Fall brings beloved "sweater weather" alternating with shorts and t-shirt weather. It's good times. Except when those alternating weather patterns bring tornadoes, like they did last week. Some of the little towns in Illinois where my mother-in-law grew up were hard hit by the killer storms, as were some Southern Indiana towns. It was a similar situation to November 5, 2005, when a twister cut a path through my hometown and many smaller towns, taking lives and destroying scores of homes - like that of my current next-door neighbors, who are blessed to have lived through it. I'm thankful that this time our city was spared, and I pray for those who were affected by this November's tornadoes.

I'm thankful for so many things that it would be hard to list them all. We are blessed beyond belief. But one thing I've been particularly thankful for recently is my friends. As you grow up and grow older, friends come and go. Those you thought would be with you til the end of time fade gently away; those you've been with through thick and thin suddenly decide there is no room for you in their lives anymore; those you quickly bonded with and shared laughs with in adulthood just as quickly move back out of the picture through physical distance or busy schedules; those you thought you'd lost in growing up come back into your life and bring a new and different joy; and those you've simply been acquainted with - sometimes for years - you wake up one day to realize have slowly, quietly become the ones you hold closest to your heart.

One of those old school friends (should I say imaginary high school nemesis?) helped make this freezer cooking adventure a reality. I'm thankful for my friend Christina and for her being back in my life. She's smart, witty, caring (no matter what she says), giving, a good cook, and a helluva mom and wife. And I have her to thank for introducing me to her neighbor and fellow freezer cook Kathi.

A fellow animal lover and all-around super-nice person, Kathi has been fun to cook and plan with, and I've enjoyed getting to know her. She was even nice enough to share her dad's chili recipe with me - which was used in last weekend's freezer cooking adventure. And even better - she's letting me share it with y'all. Enjoy!


My Dad's Chili
Courtesy of Kathi F.

1 lb ground chuck
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 large can condensed tomato soup
1 15.5 oz can diced tomatoes
1 medium can Brooks chili beans
Chili powder to taste
5 handfuls of elbow macaroni (optional)

In large pot, saute onion in oil until caramelized (fancy for browned). In a separate skillet, brown the ground chuck; drain. Add drained beef to onions. Add tomato soup, diced tomatoes, chili beans and chili powder. Fill tomato soup and Brooks cans with water and add to pot. Stir well.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, then reduce to simmer for at least an hour, stirring periodically. (I do not cover because I like my chili thicker and not so runny.)

OPTIONAL: Add macaroni about 10 minutes before ready to serve. Chili is done when pasta is al dente.

TIP: For thicker chili, cook uncovered; turn heat off when done and let sit for a bit.


photo credit: Vox Efx via photopin cc

What the heck is a "pilau" anyway?

I am such a dork sometimes.

There's this recipe I found in Southern Living magazine about 10 years ago and have been making ever since. It's called Chicken & Smoked Sausage Pilau. And for 10 years, every time I made it, I thought to myself, "What the heck is a pilau?" But I never thought until this week to just Google the damn word. Turns out it's just another variation of "pilaf." Which got me thinking, what exactly is a pilaf anyway? I know in general American restaurant terms it's just seasoned rice. But since general American restaurants have a tendency to generally bastardize everything, I looked up the term pilaf as well.

Here's what Dictionary.com tells me about pilaf/pilau:

pi·laf

  [pi-lahf, pee-lahf]  Show IPA

noun

1.

a Middle Eastern dish consisting of sautéed, seasoned rice steamed in bouillon, sometimes withpoultry, meat or shellfish.

2.

rice cooked in a meat or poultry broth.

Also, pi·laff, pilau, pilaw.

Origin: 
1925–30;  < Turkish pilâv  < Persian pilāw

Ahhh, that makes sense! The recipe is basically chicken, smoked sausage and rice. But the time, labor and seasonings make it so much more than what those three simple ingredients imply. And so it quickly became a favorite in our home. And since the recipe makes way too much for two people to eat - even taking leftovers and lunches into consideration - I always freeze half of it for later.

So, for my freezer cooking friends, here's the recipe - with my modifications from over the years. 

Chicken & Smoked Sausage Pilau
Adapted from Southern Living
(Cook time: approx. 1.5 hours; Serves 8-10)

Photo source: MyRecipes.com

5 lb whole chicken or whole chicken cut up
2 lb smoked sausage, sliced into 1" pieces
1 large bunch fresh thyme (or 2 tsp dried)
2 bay leaves
2 carrots, cut in half
3 celery ribs (including leafy parts), cut in half
2 large sweet onions, chopped
1-1/2 Tbsp seasoned salt
1/2 Tbsp black pepper
8 cups water
4 cups long-grain rice

In a large stockpot, bring all ingredients EXCEPT rice to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, 1 hour. Remove from heat and let stand 15 minutes. Remove and discard celery, carrots, thyme stems and bay leaf from stock, reserving stock in stockpot.* Remove chicken and cool slightly. Remove skin and bones, then coarsely chop chicken.

Saute sausage in large skillet until browned. Drain, if needed. Add chicken and sausage to reserved stock in stockpot and bring to a boil. Stir in rice and return to boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 20 minutes or until stock is absorbed and rice is tender.

If you're not serving an army or are unwilling to eat leftovers of the same thing for a week, freeze some! Cool half of finished meal completely, place in gallon freezer bag, squeezing all excess air out of the bag as you close it. Press contents out to flatten bag and freeze. To reheat, thaw in refrigerator overnight and nuke for a couple of minutes. If rice is too dry for your liking, add a splash of chicken stock.

*I often get the veggies and herb stems out of my stock by placing a colander or sieve over a large mixing bowl and straining the stock into the bowl. Then dump the stock back into the pot. It can be downright maddening to chase soft pieces of carrot and those ninja bay leaves around in hot, murky chicken stock with a frickin' slotted spoon.

Freezer Cooking Adventure #2

It seems like Fall is the craziest season of the year for me. At work, clients are wrapping up their programs for the year and beginning to plan their Q1 initiatives. In Tupperware, it's vendor fair season with lots of craft shows and Christmas bazaars. And in the Masonic organizations the Big Guy and I are members of, there are numerous Fall fundraisers and events, our annual Shrine circus on Thanksgiving weekend, and week after week of Christmas parties on the horizon. It seems that every weekend is jam-packed with activities, and the weeknights aren't much better. Folks like to think couples without kids have all this free time on our hands, but life is what you make it. And the Big Guy and I make our non-working days and nights full of friends, fellowship and opportunities to give back to this world that has given us so much.

All of these long working hours, meetings, events, and activities make for busy weeknights and the temptation to grab takeout or go out to eat, because even though it takes just as long to drive to a restaurant and eat there as it does to cook at home it just seems easier to let yourself be waited on than to stare into the fridge wondering what the heck to make, spend a half hour on your feet in the kitchen preparing something and then deal with the clean-up. Add to all this the fact that we both now go to bed by 8:30-9:00 each night because we're getting up at 4:30 for work (Big Guy) or the gym (me), and our evenings are maddeningly brief. But all this eating out and takeout food gets expensive! Plus, I'm trying desperately to lose all the weight I accumulated in my 20s, so I really want to gain more control over the type and quality of food I'm putting in my body.

As I wrote about before, these factors led a few friends and me to try the freezer cooking method of dinner planning. Our first session was a little crazy and we learned a lot of valuable lessons about what worked well and what didn't. So when we started planning session #2, we went in with all our notes about our previous experience and worked hard to make this session go more smoothly. The biggest lesson I learned from our first experience was that, even though freezer cooking days are long and challenging - and your body tells you about it the next day - it is so worth it! I came home with a couple of weeks' worth of heat-and-eat meals that were much more nutritious than takeout and nearly as easy. The Big Guy is a fan because neither of us is stressing out over dinner, and it's budget-friendly. Yes, the initial investment is high because of the volume of food being prepared at once. But spread out over all the meals you end up with in the freezer, the savings are incredible - especially if you plan your shopping right and take advantage of major grocery store sales on meat and staples.

Here's a summary of the lessons learned and applied from Freezer Cooking Adventure #1:

• Planning sessions are a must! 
• The first go-round, we did have a planning session that went very well. Where we hit a bump, though, was that only 3 of the 4 planned participants attended, so the fourth person was not quite up to speed with the game plan. 
• Tip: Planning sessions don't have to take much time. Our first one was a couple hours long, but we were all new to this and there was lots to discuss. Our second one only took one hour early on a Saturday morning. We all met at a centrally located Starbucks, had coffee, mapped out our plan, and then went our separate ways to kick off our weekends.
• No additional participants may be added after the planning session.
• Part of what made our first freezer cooking day awkward and difficult was that the person who did not attend the planning session decided to invite one more person to join us. No big deal, right? Wrong. During planning, we carefully multiplied and divided to ensure we were making the same amount of each recipe for each family. We shopped for exactly the right amount of ingredients. We showed up for cooking day and were surprised to find one more person there expecting to exchange meals when we had not planned for her. She was a lovely person and we enjoyed cooking with her, but the division of meals ended up being off. Some people were shorted and everyone was a bit uncomfortable. 
• Create a place for online collaboration and tweak it until it works for your group. 
• We began planning our first session through Facebook private messaging. This was good because it allowed everyone to be in on the conversation, but the downside was that if you added anyone after the conversation started, the new participant couldn't see the conversation history. Plus, all the scrolling and back and forth was hard to keep up with. 
• For the second go-round, we created a private Facebook group. This allows us to share recipe and planning files under a single tab, have separate conversations under individual posts, create events with maps (helpful when not everyone knows where everyone else lives), share recipes and ideas, and add new people without having to recap information for them. Once they're in the group, they can see the entire group history and all files.
• If you're Pinterest-obsessed (like me), create a group board to share recipes and ideas. Click here to visit ours!
• Pay attention to grocery store ads and "loss leaders," then plan your recipes accordingly.
• Loss leaders are those incredibly deep discounts stores offer from time to time to bring shoppers in the doors. If you have a large freezer, stock up on expensive items like meat when they're on sale cheap. For instance, Schnucks had leg quarters in 10 lb bags for 49 cents/pound several weeks ago. I bought 20 lbs and separated them into gallon freezer bags for later use. Later they had whole chickens cut up for 99 cents/lb. I bought three packages and did the same thing - flash froze the pieces and individually bagged each chicken. I kept the wings and backs out separately and put them all together in their own bag to make chicken stock later. So, when planning this latest freezer cooking day, I had the 20 lbs of bone-in chicken I needed already on hand. Just thawed in the fridge before cooking day and I was ready!
• Tip: Do not freeze, thaw and refreeze raw ingredients. It diminishes the quality and taste. Only freeze your meat before cooking day if you're going to thaw and COOK it like I did. Once it's cooked, you can refreeze it without hurting the quality or taste.
• Create multiple work areas to keep from tripping over one another.
• Last time we had one very large table in the kitchen for all of our ingredients, prep, assembly and packaging. There was no counter space, and while the table was enormous, it just wasn't sufficient or effective for our needs. We were constantly on top of one another.
• This time we had four distinct work areas: 1) stove and surrounding counter space - for cooking and cooling; 2) sink and surrounding counter space - for keeping up with dishes throughout the day; 3) prep table & snack table in the kitchen - normally a breakfast nook, the existing kitchen table was pushed to the corner and became the snack/drink zone, the big bay window became the equipment storage area, and a small folding table became a prep station for cutting meat and chopping veggies; 4) long folding table in dining room - for staging/measuring ingredients, labeling bags/packaging, assembling meals and planning.
• Start planning your next freezer cooking day during downtime in your current cooking day - like when you stop for a lunch break. You may or may not work out all the details at that time, but it helps to get a jump start to keep you on track.

Kitchen prep area - small folding table and
big bay window (and wine, of course!)

Stove prep area - remember to take into consideration
how many large burners you will need!

Dining room staging/assembly/planning area

This was an incredibly long day, and more valuable lessons were learned (which I'll recap for you next time), but in the end we each walked away with 8 meals or meal components to make our weeknights or breakfast times easier. (Breakfast on the go turns out to be a big need for this particular group.) And many of them were HEALTHY. Added bonus. Here's what we ended up splitting between 4 cooks:

• 8 pans of ready-to-bake lasagna
• 8 bags of chicken & smoked sausage pilau
• 4 gallons of chili
• 104 individual baked oatmeal cups
• 24 individual portions of chicken cordon bleu
• 48 breakfast burritos
• 96 ready-to-bake biscuits
• 80 sausage & cheese turnovers

I'll try to share more recipes once I get approval from the group (some of these are personal recipes) and once I have the actual recipes in hand. That's another TIP: create a binder and use it to store all your freezer meal successes! That way, you'll have a handy resource for recipes you know work well and that everyone in your group likes.

Cooking with homemade pumpkin puree

Oh my gosh! Time flies when you're having fun! I meant to publish this post within a day or two of writing about our homemade doggie treat adventure, but time just got away from me. And now that I've been sufficiently chastised by more than one person for not being quick enough about it, I'm committed to publishing this before I head to bed tonight! (Thanks for the prod, Angie & Steve-O.) :)

Because I've been making a serious effort to bring fewer processed foods into our home this year, I was determined to finally try making my own pumpkin puree this fall, rather than buying the super-convenient canned pumpkin like I've always done. (And I needed material for my blog. Hahaha)

I googled a few different options for making pumpkin puree and ended up with this approach:

1. Buy two small sugar - or pie - pumpkins. 
2. Using a large, sturdy knife, cut the stem straight off. 
3. Then halve the pumpkins from the top down and scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff. Rinse off the seeds and save them for roasting separately. 
4. Place pumpkins cut side down on a large, edged baking sheet and roast for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees. 
5. Let cool slightly and then carefully remove the skins, using tongs or a fork if needed. The skins will peel right off. 
6. Transfer the cooked pumpkin to a food processor or blender and process until smooth.

My two pumpkins produced about 7-8 cups of puree.

Please do this. I implore you. It's so, so simple, and you're not eating all those preservatives from the canned stuff. Plus, the best part is that your whole house will smell like Thanksgiving. It's not a spice smell, not a turkey smell, not even really a PUMPKIN smell...I can't even describe it. It's just the smell of Thanksgiving and warmth and good things on the table. Do it. Make your own pumpkin puree. And then make these dogs treats.

Rising to the occasion

Over the course of this food blogging journey, I've heard several friends say in response to my posts about yeast breads that they're intimidated by working with yeast. I'll let you in on a little secret: I was too the first dozen or so times I tried it. But then, through trial and error, I learned the trick to it. So now it's just a matter of having the time. Because I won't lie - baking with yeast takes time. I know, I hear you saying, "but I don't have time to fiddle around with yeast. Those recipes take HOURS...sometimes all day!" Guess what? I don't have time either. That has been my excuse many times for not trying a new yeast recipe. But I've discovered we do have time. I work long hours, have a second job, and I'm heavily involved in non-profit and social organizations, but I still have time. And so do you, if you really want to try. I'm not going to give you that old lame-ass line about how we make time for the things that are really important to us, because - let's be honest - unless baking is your career, experimenting with yeast recipes isn't REALLY important to anyone, including me. But it is fun for me. It's something I enjoy doing. And it produces beautiful, delicious, and sometimes impressive results. So I've learned how to make time for it, even with my crazy schedule. Its really not that hard. It's all about time management and advance planning. And not getting in over your head right away, thus scaring yourself off from ever trying again.

Start simple. Start with homemade pizza crust. I found a recipe on Pinterest that is simply amazing. And easy! It's now my default homemade pizza crust. Does this mean I'll never buy the little Jiffy or Chef Boyardee boxes again? No. That Chef Boyardee sauce is delish, and sometimes the $.50 box of Jiffy mix is just way more convenient. But if you plan ahead a little for your meals, you can enjoy a fresh, chewy, pizza parlor-style crust straight from your own oven. It bakes up best when you make and bake it fresh, but it works great frozen too. I currently have about four balls of this pizza dough in my freezer. It doesn't take any more effort to double the dough recipe when you're making it and then follow the directions at the link above for freezing it uncooked. Then, when I'm in the mood for pizza, I just grab one from the freezer, put it in the fridge to thaw overnight, and the next evening when I get home from work, dinner is done in 15 minutes.

So, what's the trick about yeast I've learned? Temperature. It is just that freaking simple. The liquid you add the yeast to must the right temperature. Too cool and the yeast doesn't "wake up" or activate; too hot and you kill the yeast. Use a thermometer if you must, but I just wing it. I've come to learn what the "just right" temp is for working with yeast. A lot of recipes will tell you it's around 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit. I dunno. It's like the perfect bathwater.

The Peter Reinhart bagels I've started making work almost the same way - make a whole bunch and store in the freezer! I made a batch this weekend and got tons accomplished at the same time. I made my sponge (or starter) Saturday morning (which took all of 5 minutes) and set it aside to work its magic for the next two hours. In the meantime, I baked a cake, took a shower, ran some errands and had lunch with the Big Guy. When we got home the yeast sponge was all bubbly and huge, so it was time to get to work on the second stage - making the dough. It took about 15 minutes to mix and knead the dough, which can be done a bit faster if you have a stand mixer with a dough hook. I usually go the mixer route, but this weekend I was feeling the "need" to knead. It felt good to work out some frustrations on a piece of dough and to actually feel this living food change texture and shape under my hands. Then it was time to rest the dough for 20 minutes (Facebook break!) and after that the Big Guy helped me shape the bagels. Don't tell him I said this, but his came out prettier than mine. Another 20 minutes rest and they were ready to be covered and put in the fridge until Sunday. When I finally remembered them this evening it was after 8 p.m. and I was fading fast (short night last night). But before my clothes were out of the dryer, the bagels were done. All it took was a little two-minute bath in some boiling water and 10 minutes in the oven. Voila! Three weeks' worth of weekday breakfast complete! I bag each bagel individually in sandwich bags and then shove as many sandwich bags as I can into a gallon freezer bag. I take a gallon bag to work with me, and when I get to work in the morning, I pull one out of the freezer, let it sit on my desk for about a half hour, and then it's ready to pop in the toaster. Easy peasy.

Since I've mastered Peter Reinhart's bagel recipe, the next goal I've set for myself is to tackle the ever-intimidating, always time-consuming Martha. I've always been of the opinion that Martha Stewart is a hack. Of course she can do all these dumb crafts and make fancy, professional-looking pastry - the woman has staff who do it for her! And if she's actually doing it herself, bully for her. She has staff to attend to everything else while she bakes! I don't have staff. I have a demanding full-time job, a second... never mind. We covered all that in the first paragraph. Simply put, she's a big old fraud. Ain't nobody got time for all that.

Enter my mother-in-law. She knows how much I love to bake and cook, so for Christmas a few years back, she thoughtfully gave me a huge recipe book: Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. I eagerly poured over the pages looking for my first recipe to make. And then Sweet Brown's words starting rolling through my head again: AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT! And it's spent the years since sitting on my recipe book shelf in my kitchen, taunting me. But now I think it's time to dust it off and tackle old Martha. I may not be a stay-at-home wife, but I know I can make time for this. I will not let this book continue to tease and berate me from the shelf. I can find the time to make croissants, dammit.

I'm sitting here on Sunday night reflecting over my weekend. This weekend I managed to do the following:

1. Go to the gym
2. Deep-clean my bathroom
3. Bake a cake with this AMAZING strawberry cream cheese/buttercream/whipped cream frosting
4. Make a batch of 16 bagels
5. Do my grocery shopping and other errand-running
6. Have lunch at a new restaurant with the Big Guy
7. Go to a girls' night in party and have some fun
8. Go to church
9. Make pancakes for breakfast
10. Visit with the in-laws, who dropped by to deliver some farm-fresh eggs
11. Go to a Scentsy party
12. Make pumpkin chocolate chip blondies (SO good)
13. Fix meatloaf with mashed potatoes and corn for dinner tonight
14. Fix a big pot of chili to eat throughout this week since it's Fall Festival week and I won't be home at all
15. Wash and dry two loads of laundry and fold the leaning tower of previously done laundry
16. Write this blog post

And I STILL got to take two naps, and I'll be hitting the sheets at a respectable 10:15 p.m. tonight. Not too shabby. See, it's all about having a plan and sticking to it. Here are a few planning tips that have made my crazy life a little bit more manageable:

• Before going to the grocery store on Friday night or Saturday morning, sit down and plan exactly what you're going to cook for the next seven days. Assign a meal - or a dining out break - to each day. Then build your shopping list accordingly. Not only will you spend less money at the grocery store if you stick to a list, but you'll have less food waste at the end of the week if you stick to your meal plan.
• On Friday evening, outline the "must-accomplish" tasks for your weekend. Jot them down on a scrap of paper or in your phone. Do those things first so you can have time left to play.  
• Enlist your partner's help. This weekend's baking/cooking adventures were made possible only by the mad dishwashing skilz of the Big Guy. He kept the kitchen in tip-top shape between every recipe so I didn't lose valuable time on clean-up. And he left me alone during my naps. I love that guy. 

What are your tips for better time management? And what are your thoughts on baking with yeast? Do you do it? Why or why not? Comment below. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Now it's after 10 p.m. and I'm beat. Good night! Gym time comes early tomorrow!

Brains...BRAINS!!!

First, let me be clear. This is not a post about zombies. Christina, I know you got all excited, but just calm yourself down. No zombies here. Except this guy:

Here in my hometown of Evansville, Indiana, we are fortunate to play host to the second-largest street festival in the country. What's the first? Mardi Gras, of course. Let that sink in just a little bit. This tiny river city (not a small town, but not a large city, either) in Indiana is home to a festival that is second only to MARDI GRAS. I still cannot for the life of me understand why the Food Network and Travel Channel are not beating down our door. Heaven knows I've email them enough times. But I digress...

In its 92nd year, the Fall Festival draws more than 200,000 people each year and features parades, carnival rides and midway, talent shows, live music, and - of course - FOOD. More than 126 individual food booths, in fact. Each booth is run by local not-for-profit groups, such as churches, schools, private clubs, scouts, and fraternities. And many make it their mission to try to have the most outlandish, grease-laden or bizarre food item for sale on the street.

My fascination with the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival began in middle school, when my dad's Shrine unit opened a booth at the festival, selling hamburgers, cheeseburgers, Polish sausage, curly fries, pizza, and soft drinks (or "sody pop", as my dad was so fond of putting on the menu board). I would tag along with my parents when they worked their volunteer shifts in the booth, and I usually got put out front selling soft drinks - a thankless job. Some chilly October evening go outside for a few hours and fish cold cans of soda out of barrels of ice or ice water a few hundred times. It sucks. But the people-watching from the sidewalk makes up for it in spades.

Now a member of a Masonic- and Shrine-affiliated body myself, I have a booth of my own to work each year. And we don't have a menu of typical fair food. We, too, have an outlandish, grease-laden, and bizarre treat for sale. In fact, it's the ONLY thing we sell: Brain Sandwiches. Read it again if you have to: Brain Sandwiches. Little brains from fat little piggies all battered up and fried like a delicious, organ-filled fritter, served on a white bun with pickles and onions. And people cannot get enough of them. Although the Big Guy didn't seem to sure about it when he tried his first one a couple of years back.

Anywho, it take a lot of work to get all those little piggy brains ready for cooking, and that's just what we did this week. Every member of my unit - plus some outsiders who were nice enough to volunteer to help us out - spent hours this week sitting around tables "cleaning" brains. I won't go into the particulars, but you know how it is when you prepare an animal or cut of meat - there is some trimming, picking, "cleaning-up" to be done before you can cook it. Same with brains. For someone like me, who had to be excused from Biology class in high school before I barfed all over my group when we started dissecting a frog, this is a chore I dread every year. But it's all for a good cause, and it's only once a year, so I take the Big Guy's advice and "suck it up, Buttercup!" and get the job done. I do enjoy the fellowship that takes place during the cleaning, though. Sitting with a group of ladies for hours at a stretch with nothing to do but talk makes for some interesting stories and a lot of laughter. 

Midweek this year, though, we experienced incredible sadness in the midst of our fun and fellowship, and our time in the Brain Booth at the Fall Festival will not be the same. One of the originators of our famous brain sandwiches was taken from us. In a previous post, I briefly mentioned Miss Wilda, who was one of Miss Mary's dearest friends. After a day of cleaning brains, Miss Wilda went home for the evening and quietly passed away. I will never forget her or the impact she had on my life. Our organization owes much to the leadership and passionate dedication of this elegant lady. Always dressed to the nines, Miss Wilda was the picture of class and dignity, and I am honored to have been her friend these past few years. 

Next week we will honor Miss Wilda with walk-throughs and a memorial service conducted by the officers of our order. And the week after that, we will work our tails off in the Brain Booth and remember these two incredible women who devoted their lives to Masonic service and to their fellow man. We will laugh at remembrances, and I'm sure we'll shed a tear or two as well. It's going to be a grueling week, but I can't wait for it to get started. Check back for a recap of the Fall Festival in a couple of weeks, complete with photos of - you guess it - brain sandwiches. 

Pinterest to the rescue!

I love Pinterest. I guess you could say I'm slightly addicted. But I have good reason to be! I've found over this past year that, whenever I'm in a pinch, Pinterest is there to rescue me. For example, last night around 9 p.m. the Big Guy and I realized we had forgotten to run to the store to get a crucial ingredient for my crock pot Italian beef sandwiches, which were on tonight's dinner menu (yum!). How on Earth was I going to make Italian beef without the Italian dressing? And since it would be going in the crock pot around 6 a.m. before I left for work, there would be no picking it up the next day. I sat there in my yoga pants thinking, "Do I REALLY want to get dressed and go to the grocery at 9 p.m.?" And then I remember my dear friend Pinterest.

A paltry 10-second search turned up dozens of recipes for homemade Italian dressing. I quickly scanned them, and before I could've driven to Schnucks I was in the kitchen whipping up my very own batch of Homemade Zesty Italian Dressing! No getting dressed, no conversation with the furbabies about why they couldn't go with me, no $2.50 spent for processed crap - just some vinegar, olive oil, seasonings and dried herbage. Everything I needed was readily on hand in my cabinets.

That is what I love so much about Pinterest. I'll find myself scratching my head over what to make for dinner, or I'll freak out because I'm missing an ingredient, or I'll be cursing a home project that I just KNOW there has to be an easier way to tackle. And then I'll turn to my dear digital friend Pinterest, and soon all is right with the world. Seriously, if you aren't on Pinterest already, you should be. It's the cat's pajamas.

Now that we have all that out of the way, wanna hear more about those Italian beef sandwiches? They're not Chicago-style Italian beef; they're cheater Italian beef. But I still think they're the bomb-diggity. My favorite chef friend Mel taught me how to make these back in the early years of our marriage when I was just realizing how much I enjoyed cooking. I watched her every time she cooked or baked. I tried to pick up tips where I could, but since she didn't use a lot of recipes I almost always ended up failing spectacularly. I needed a RECIPE, dammit. Specific instructions to follow. I'm good at following instructions. So when she made these sandwiches and told me that even I couldn't screw them up, I knew I'd found a winner. Over the years, as I've come into my own as a cook, I've added my own little twists to her original two-ingredient, three-step process. Here's my version:

Crock Pot Italian Beef Sandwiches

1 beef chuck roast
16 oz bottle of Zesty Italian dressing (or make your own!)
Hoagie buns or Italian mini-loaves, cut in half
Mayonnaise
Sliced provolone cheese

Sear chuck roast in a couple tablespoons of butter and olive oil (this step can be skipped if you oversleep and are running late to work in the morning). Place in crock pot and pour dressing over top. Cook on low at least 8 hours. Remove roast from crock pot and shred meat, discarding fat and gristle. Return meat to crock pot while you prepare the bread.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice buns or loaves in half, lengthwise, and spread top half generously with mayo. Tear cheese slices in half and arrange on bottom half of bun so that the whole area is covered. I usually use two slices of cheese per sandwich - sometimes more. We like cheese in our house. Support your local dairy farmer! Using a slotted spoon, scoop shredded meat onto buns. Cover and loosely wrap in foil, leaving top of packet open so sandwiches can toast. Place wrapped sandwiches on baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bread is toasty.

Dip your sandwiches in the au jus from the crock pot, or eat them straight-up. Either way, you're gonna need a napkin. Enjoy!

Labor Day in the kitchen with the Big Guy

I have apologize for how late this post is in coming. I have so much to cover that it's going to epic...like Homer or some shit. The last two weeks have been a blur! But the Big Guy and I had a wonderful Labor Day weekend. We spent a large portion of it in the kitchen, whipping up new and tasty treats. I love it when my honey cooks or bakes with me...as long as he doesn't talk to me when I'm measuring ingredients! (He screwed himself up this time by talking while he was measuring, and I had a good laugh at him.)

We started out by going on a shopping adventure that Saturday. I wish I had taken a picture of all the yummy goodness we purchased at our local processor, Dewig Meats. We picked up Cheese Beef Sticks (summer sausage), Cheese Polish Sausage (heaven!), German Bologna, "Not-So-Center-Cut" Ham (love that name), Smokey Links, Pastrami, Grippos BBQ Sauce, and a new, locally produced, bottled taco seasoning that the creators were sampling in the store. Instead of that nasty packet of dried spices and preservatives, this contains real ingredients like tomatoes, peppers, onions, etc., without the chemicals. And it's a hometown product! We also grabbed sandwiches in the store to eat while we browsed. I love that they just ask for a donation for these treats, which goes to a local charity. I had the best hot dog you could ask for and the Big Guy had bratwurst (gag). Both served on a slice of white bread folded over - nothing fancy!

Care for some meat "loaf"?

Meat in tube form. Porky goodness.

Where the magic happens.

The only thing we could not get at Dewig's that we wanted was chicken. They don't handle it. So, off to the Old Fashioned Butcher Shoppe! If you've never purchased a fresh whole chicken from a locally sourced butcher shop, go do it. You can tell just by looking at the skin and the size of the bird how differently its been raised than those large-scale commercially produced chicken. (Yes, Tyson, I'm looking at you.) And if you're intimidated by breaking down a whole chicken (like I am), the butcher will do that for you in a jiffy for free.

That evening we went to a friend's house for an experimental game of "Chopped" - Couples' Edition. J is a Pampered Chef consultant who I met several years ago and later became friends with while doing vendor events with Tupperware. She and her husband, C, and the Big Guy and I went head-to-head in a cooking competition using the same (not-so-secret) "mystery box" items. I think the boys had as much fun as we did, and I learned that I'm not the only one who's a little OCD about how my kitchen is organized. At least I haven't pulled out the label maker to mark which cabinet things go in (though maybe I should...hmmmm). C delighted in taking us all around the kitchen and pantry to show us where she's placed labels and which ones are outdated. We also had appletinis. J and I may have been a little buzzed. In short, a good time was had by all.

Sunday morning, we were terrible Methodists and skipped church to take a little road trip to meat mecca and Food Network/Travel Channel-featured Moonlite Bar-B-Q. They have the most AMAZING Sunday brunch buffet featuring stuff you don't find any other day of the week. Perfectly wet scrambled eggs, insanely salty cured bacon, savory smoked sausage, homemade donuts, fried chicken, and then - of course - bbq and all the fixins. Yes, 100 miles round trip is a long way to go for breakfast. But the drive with the Big Guy on such a beautiful sunny day made it all worth while.

Sunday afternoon we got busy in the kitchen.

Not like that. Dirty birds.

We dove in and tried something I've been talking about for a long time - and even blogged about recently - but never committed the time to: homemade bagels! The pictures below tell the story.

Little balls of dough resting on Day 1.

Fresh from the fridge on Day 2 and ready for their hot bath.

The Big Guy wanted to mark one as "his." At least, I hope that's what he's doing. Gross.

Bath time! That giant stockpot is Tupperware, by the way. Want one? I can hook you up. I know a lady.

Bagel toppings ready to go (sesame seeds, poppy seeds, coarse sea salt).

The Big Guy even took photos for me so I could move quickly from boil to topping.

Still warm from the oven...mmmmm.

Yes, making bagels is a two-day process. But when you stop and think about it, it's really not that bad. I spent about three to three and a half hours on Day 1 making the sponge, dough, and forming the bagels. But really it was only more like an hour because most of that time was just resting. Day 2 went very quickly. I think I was done in 30 minutes. I made average-sized bagels (more like Lenders, not giant like Panera Bread) and got 16 out of the batch. That's three weeks of workday breakfast which would've cost me around $14, plus gas, had I gotten them from a bakery every day. I'll try to figure out the food cost next time I make them, but I'm estimating it cost me about $3 to do this at home. That's a savings of almost $200 per year. Plus I get to take out any frustrations on the dough while I'm kneading! Win-win! I did learn something in the process. The original poster (Smitten Kitchen) said all her toppings fell off, so she would try an egg wash next time. I had the same problem but only with my sesame seeds. Lesson learned. Egg wash next time for sure!

Fatty McGee begged for a snack the whole time. Look at those sugar lips. Is he the cutest or what?

Short story I have to share. A couple of years ago the Big Guy had a second job driving a delivery truck for the local donut bakery in the mornings. Every day I begged him to bring me home a sesame seed bagel, and sometimes he obliged. One morning, as he was grabbing my warm, fresh bagel from the rack, he started talking to the owner of the bakery and asked him if they had ever tried making sea salt bagels (like the ones at Einstein Brothers that I loved so much when we lived in Florida). Owner had never heard of such a thing and thought it was a great idea. Said he would experiment with it and see how it turned out. Never heard of him trying it and Big Guy went on to a different second job. Now, here we are two years later and sea salt bagels have never shown up on the menu. But they have in my kitchen, and guess what, Donut Bank? I think we're breaking up. 

My homemade bagels were a huge success. They're pretty freakin' yummy - and chewy. Very authentically stiff and chewy, not doughy or soft and bread-y. And they freeze great as well. I put each bagel in a sandwich bag and then put as many as I could fit into a gallon freezer bag. Each morning at work I just pull one out and let it sit on my desk for a half hour to hour to thaw and then pop it in the toaster oven. Couldn't be happier. 

Before we got down with the bagels, Big Guy and I starting prepping the chicken for Monday's cooking adventure. We used this recipe for brine to keep the chicken moist while smoking it (using only herbs from our garden, thankyouverymuch). On Monday, the Big Guy pulled out the smoker and got to work.

Look at all that fresh chickeny goodness.

See those giant man-beast hands? I swear it's a perspective thing. We were not smoking tiny
chicken parts on a smoker the size of a dinner plate. My man just has giant man-beast hands.

Throughout the whole process, the skinny dog was Losing. His. Mind. He loves chicken more than almost anything in the world. This is his happy face:

It's a smile. I promise.

We were all smiles, too, when those beautiful pieces of fowl came off the smoker a few hours later. The Big Guy smelled like a campfire - a delicious, lickable campfire. This is some pretty tasty yard bird right here. Still have a bit left in the freezer that we'll be using to make homemade BBQ pizzas later. I'll post about that too. But right now, I'll just leave you with this...

Mouthwatering, isn't it?