Hot like an oven!

I used to think that I wasn't very good at cooking, per se, at least the kind that came from the top of the stove.  I had experimented and had both successes and failures in my trial and error procedures, and done alright with a few tried and true recipes.  One thing I knew I could do, kick ass and take names at, however, was bake.

Baking is one of my favorite things in this entire world to do.  I love the science behind it -- you mix this amount of this, and that amount of this, add a certain degree of heat for a certain time, and you get an end product.  Baking is exact, not like cooking which you can admittedly wing at times.  I have gotten the hang of winging cooking (it frustrated R. to no end that it has become my main way of cooking, when he's a 'follow-the-recipe' kind of guy), and have improved on top of the stove. But the oven remains my true domain.  I will always succeed when there is an oven involved.

My roommate jokes that whenever I get sincerely bored, or have a really terrible day, she can tell my the smell of baked goods coming from the kitchen.  If it's something savory and healthy like whole wheat muffins, a quiche, or baked meats, then she would know I was bored. If it was chocolatey, or sugary, it was a very bad, terrible day.

Today, I'm bored.  It's entering the summer rainy season, and R. doesn't get home until later this evening from his conference, and I'm procrastinating on packing (again. It's going to be a theme through next week, trust me).  So I went to my pantry, realized I had some whole-wheat flour, the basics for say, muffins, and some frozen blueberries that needed to be used up.  And what better time than the present, yeah?

I google a lot of baking things, and compare and contrast recipes in order to find ones that I can usually mash together and get a good result. www.cooks.com is one of the main sources for my searches, or www.allrecipes.com.  I found a couple of recipes for whole-wheat blueberry muffins at their simplest, and decided on mainly this recipe as my basis for my muffin adventure.

The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of honey, and while I had honey on hand, I didn't have that much.  So I took my winging skills from cooking and went to work.  I've been baking long enough that I have been able to get a sense of what works and what doesn't, and finally feel confident enough to make substitutions.  If I had apple sauce, for instance, I would have substituted that for the oil in the recipe (but I didn't).

Here is the final version of the recipe that I used:

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup of milk (I splashed a little vanilla extract in, for an extra delicious flavor)
• 1/4 cup of oil
• 1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 brown sugar (in place of honey)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup (really, I just threw a whole bunch in. I love them!) of frozen blueberries

Heating the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit, I combined all the ingredients in the bowl, and gently folded in the blueberries.  I filled the cups to about 2/3 way full, and drizzled a small amount of honey on top, and baked them for 20 minutes.

They came out absolutely gorgeous golden brown, slightly crunchy on top from the honey, and super juice from the blueberries which had burst into deliciousness during baking. I think I'm in love with a new recipe, and it works wonderfully.  I'm happy. I have successfully staved off another boring afternoon by baking, and now, blogging.  Now, I'm off to hunt up some more recipes to try in the coming weeks.  I leave you with some pictures of the delicious muffins:

Happy Boredom-Baking!
-A

I have an addiction.

It's not a bad addiction (depending on how you look at it). In fact, it has proven to be really good at times.

Hi, my name is A., and I have an addiction to breakfast food.

My absolute favorite breakfast food is pancakes, but I'll be content with pretty much anything breakfast related.  Sausage, eggs, toast, muffins, crepes, waffles, breakfast sandwiches, breakfast bowls, quiches: You name it, I'll probably love it.  A post-concert ritual that my best friend and I started back in freshman year was to go to Village Inn or some other breakfast oriented (even the sleazy all-night Diner on campus) and have breakfast in celebration of a concert well (or sometimes, badly) done.  At 11 at night.  I love breakfast.

Now, I also have a problem with my addiction.  Pancakes are the one thing which I honestly fail (95% of the time) at making successfully.  I have no idea why, but pancakes never come out right for me.  They're always burned, not cooked through, or some combination of Not Right that makes them Crappy Pancakes.  Even though I always eat my Crappy Pancakes in shame, I will freely admit that it's probably not the best idea to have me at the stove to make them.  R., however, makes them really well.  He's surprised me with chocolate-chip pancakes on more than one occasion, and it always makes my week.

While we're admitting addictions and other negatively-connotated things, I have another admission.  I have Appliance Envy.  My childhood memories of having pancakes at my Grandma's house (those were Really Special Mornings) included her electric griddle, that she still uses today, even though it's probably a good 15-20 years old.  It heated evenly and perfectly, and always produced perfect pancakes. I envy that griddle.  In my dream kitchen, there would be a griddle surface built into the range, all because of that griddle at my Grandma's house from my childhood.

Obviously, I can't have pancakes and breakfast delights every morning, especially with my crippling failure at making them.  I usually settle for cereal or a bagel, something to grab on the way out the door and easy to eat while driving (shh, I know it's a bad habit. But I don't do well in the mornings, and am perpetually rushed.  It's one of the few things I can multi-task to save time).

I was playing around with egg recipes the other day, and found that baking scrambled eggs in a pie dish on a low temp (around 300 degrees) cooked them perfectly, and gave you an almost-quiche texture.  So I mixed in some sweet-and-spicy prepackaged tuna, salt and pepper into about 6 eggs, and baked for about 25 minutes at the low heat, checking pretty regularly to avoid Burnt Eggs (one of the great sins of the universe).  When it was pretty much done except for a little watery spot in the middle, I generously piled shredded cheese on top and turned on the broiler for about 3 minutes.  Ta-da, Egg-Tuna-Casserole!

While the Egg-Tuna-Casserole was delicious, I couldn't finish it all in one sitting.  R. is still out of town, and I haven't even bothered to try to readjust my cooking proportions, because he'll be back on Friday and I'll be back to making things for two people.  Until then, I just cook half as much and eat the same thing, sometimes variated, twice.

This morning I got called into work, and mistakenly turned off my alarm after it went off -- and didn't wake up until about 20 minutes before I Had To Be Out The Door.  I scrambled and got dressed and ready for work, but I needed something to eat for breakfast that could be a) eaten while driving, obviously, and b) a lasting meal that would keep me full for a while.  I took the remaining Egg-Tuna-Casserole, nuked it really fast, put it between two pieces of whole-wheat-whole-grain toast with a little mustard and called it a sandwich.  It was delicious!  And, the combination of whole grains and super-protein from the eggs and tuna kept me full for a long time. Victory for leftovers!

I'm babysitting a friend of mine's 10-year-old daughter overnight tomorrow night, and being as she's one of the coolest kids I know on the face of the planet, I want to make something special for her.  She's adamant that I'm not really babysitting her, I'm just a friend that is staying overnight so she doesn't get scared alone while her Mom is out of town.  Exactly, kid, what I thought I was doing!  I have basic baking ingredients around, and some delicious blueberries in the freezer that need to be used up.

I think this mission calls for muffins!
Here's to friends who keep you safe, and indulge your breakfast food addictions,
-A

Leftovers

I love leftovers.  They're pretty great, and you can find ways to make what was the entirety of one meal into a completely different thing by using them in another.  Leftovers are wonderful.  Leftovers are creative.  Leftovers are, most importantly, cheap.

R. left for a week for a conference that he's been working on for the past few months, and I found myself terribly bored, and lonely without him (and it's only the first day).  I also found that the routine we have established of having dinner together, planning meals and grocery shopping, completely blown out of the water by his absence. However, I knew we had leftovers from last week - a little bit of chicken chili, some bacon, lettuce, etc., in his kitchen.  I stole took the leftovers from his house (they needed to be used) and began to plot... I mean, plan, my leftovers adventure.

Occasionally I go on healthy eating kicks, powered by habits from having spent two years on Weight Watchers a while back.  I like the feeling of eating healthy, and it is admittedly easier when I am only cooking for myself.  A week without the loving bottomless pit of my boyfriend seems like the perfect opportunity to have one of those healthy kicks, and use up some leftovers while I was at it. (We'll see how it's going on Friday, shall we?)

That healthy kick starts tomorrow.  Because today, I remembered that there was bacon.  I love bacon in my tummy as much as my arteries hate it.  I have learned how to cook it healthily (thanks, WW!) without having to substitute silly things like Turkey-Bacon or some faux-bacon for the good kind.  Here's my favorite way:

• Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil for easy clean up.  Fold another piece of foil in an accordion shape, and stretch out enough that there are ridges. This creates valleys for the grease of the bacon to accumulate so that it's not frying in it in the oven (kind of defeats the purpose of the whole baking thing, then.)
• Place bacon on the accordion foil.  Put the baking sheet into a cold oven (I don't know why it works better this way, it just does.) and then turn the oven up to about 375-400 degrees.  Depending on crispness, you want to take the bacon out at about 20-30 minutes.  Watching it in the last few minutes is advisable, as it can go from slightly tender to charcoal very quickly (Trust me, I know).

I also have a great whole-wheat, multi-grain, lots-of-seeds-and-tasty-things loaf of bread from my local organic market that I splurged on.  I toasted two slices, put some leftover shredded cheese on deli meat Turkey and nuked it until the cheese was melted, topped with the cooked bacon and a nice crunchy leaf of iceberg lettuce and munched away.  A wonderful leftover Turkey-cheese-bacon-and-lettuce sandwich.  If I had only had a good beefsteak tomato and some super-spicy mustard, it would have been perfect.  But alas, leftover eaters can't be choosers.

Leftovers were common in my childhood.  At my grandma's house, you could bet good money that if it wasn't eaten one night, it would show up again and again until it was all eaten, in various forms.  My mom loves casseroles, and they make amazing leftovers as well.  My dad has the knack for turning anything into a day-after sandwich, even my mom's casseroles (broccoli casserole and turkey sandwich? Win!), which I seem to have inherited.  I don't think I ever met a well-thought-out sandwich that I didn't like (wait, no. One involved sauerkraut.  That one I didn't like).

Now I have a mug of cinnamon tea with honey and a Netflix queue and some delightfully trashy novels to catch up with.

Leftovers are a way of prolonging a meal we didn't want to end. Or torturing us with ones we wished we never had.
-A

Small budget = simple meals.

If there is one trend that follows me through food, it's my love of simplicity.  The simplest meals (prior examples: grilled cheese and soup, homemade pizza) are my favorite, and they make up my arsenal of comfort foods.  On bad days I turn to good simple foods, such as a big bowl of sticky white rice mixed with cream of mushroom soup, or beef stew with a big doughy dumpling on top.  I love food, and food loves me back (most times).

The best thing about simple meals is that they tend to be found on the cheap.  Rice is cheap, cans of soup and beans are cheap, you know?  Since I'm a recent college graduate and my work life has yet to really take off, my budget is still beyond tight.  So there are days when I look around my pantry and kitchen and see what I can combine and have together.  One of my favorite standbys are cans of Publix brand Spicy Chili beans, and mixing it with any kind of starch I can find.

I had a few small red potatoes left over (potatoes are cheap, too.  Get a three pound bag for around $3? Done.) so I cut them into small pieces, coated them in a drizzle of olive oil, garlic powder and a sprinkle of chili powder, and baked them until cooked and slightly crispy.  Pouring a can of spicy chili beans, back in the oven until warmed through and seasoned.  Then I ate them.  All.  Tasty is tasty, you know?

Here's to simple meals that fill your stomach when you need it, without emptying your wallet.
-A

An adventure/experiment in pizza making

I feel the need to preface this post by saying one mushy thing: my boyfriend is pretty amazing.  We have a habit of watching Food Network in the evenings when we're vegging out in front of the T.V. (mostly because its the channel that I miss during my lack of cable due to College poverty), and R. gets to listen to my rambling commentary on food inspiration that the shows provoke.  Every time we go to Publix to grocery shop, I have a moment where I stand in front of the section in the bakery where they stock pizza dough and the makings of pizza and say something along the lines of "You know, we should really make our own pizza one night." To which R. realistically replies "But it takes forever, and there's no guarantee it will taste good."

The other night we were watching Iron Chef: America, Battle Tomato and I made a comment about how much I loved a good BLT and hadn't had one in a while.  The next day, R. shows up at my house to pick me up to make dinner at his place as per our tradition since graduation, and he says we have two options: make BLTs, or homemade pizza. He had gotten the ingredients to do both from the store.  Like I said, my boyfriend is pretty amazing.

So here follows our pizza adventure, which is ongoing as I'm writing this while the pizza bakes.

Ingredients used:
1 lb Pre-prepared pizza dough from Publix
1 package Boboli pizza sauce
1 tsp olive oil, mixed with dried basil and oregano to put on the crust
Canadian bacon slices
Bacon slices (I like regular bacon. My poor arteries)
Pineapple
Cheese (we hodge-podged the cheese, from mozerella, cheddar, and a mexican mix of shredded cheeses that we had available)
Black olives (only for R.'s part of the pizza. Ew.)

Procedure with commentary:

• First we let the dough rest outside of the refrigerator for the required time of an hour, then I had an interesting experience getting it to stretch out to a decent size.  I hope it worked, since it seemed like the bottom was extremely thin in places, while the crust looks overly thick.
• Then we piled the toppings on - a layer of cheese, then the Canadian bacon, the regular bacon, more cheese, then the pineapple and olives (only on R.'s half. Let me reiterate how much I dislike black olives.)
• We put the pizza in to bake for 20-30 minutes, and prayed.

Currently, we just checked the pizza at the 20 minute mark, and it looks like it's baking up well.  I figured I'd give it 5 more minutes because of the doughiness of the crust, which is puffing up nicely and the house smells like delicious pizza baking.  My stomach is currently reminding me that lunch was heading on 6 hours ago.  I'm looking forward to this pizza more and more.  We're going to pair it with a wedge salad (also hodge podged and I just realized that I didn't save any bacon for the salad.  Boo. My bad. Sorry again, R.) since we had the ingredients on hand.

Post consumption judgement: Pretty darn good.  The pizza turned out just doughy enough in the crust, and my worries about the bottom being thin were for naught.  We weren't so crazy about the cheddar cheese taste, but we were improvising with the cheese.  That didn't stop us both from devouring it, and declaring it good.

R. says that I should be sure to state that he did a knock-up job with the eggs for the salad (the salads were iceberg lettuce, apple dices, hard-boiled eggs, olives for R., Canadian bacon, and ranch dressing).

In the end, it was a wonderful dinner that we put together, and I love R. for listening and for getting the ingredients to surprise me with.  Now, I'm going to curl up on the couch with him and watch the terrible movie that is Jurassic Park III (the original was on during the cooking process).

Here is a blurry picture of the final product, with R.'s loot on the right, mine on the left:

Here's to the memories you can make while making food with those you love,
-A

Soup memories

This weekend brought several thunderstorms through the area, as is the usual for this time of year in Florida.  With the storms came the memories of summers past, and my rainy-day food habits.

My summers as a child were not all that exciting, mainly centering around my grandma’s house.  I created adventures there with my cousins, from the wilds of her back yard to the castles and fortresses we built and stormed in her living room. 

The classic rainy day food for me is classic tomato soup and a million drowned Goldfish crackers, with a side of toast with cream cheese.  I didn’t have the ingredients for such comfort this weekend, but I hope to have at least parts of it soon.

On my birthday, my best friend and I discovered a tiny restaurant in town and immediately wished that we had discovered it four years ago when we were freshmen, rather than two days before graduation.  With a menu that changes from day to day as to what is fresh, a small staff that prepares the food in a kitchen you can see right into, generous portions and the ABSOLUTE BEST TOMATO SOUP I HAVE EVER HAD.   A tiny restaurant, but a gargantuan amount of flavor held within.   

My best friend is coming out this week to clean out her half of the apartment (this is my very, very sad face.  But I will be doing the same thing soon enough.) and the plan is to revisit this restaurant, which makes my stomach rumble in anticipation.

My planned order?  Tomato soup with grilled cheese – but not just any grilled cheese. The grilled cheese will be made with gouda cheese, apple slices, and bacon on Cuban bread.  Perfect for dipping into the so-thick-it-coats-the-back-of-the-spoon tomato soup.

I need to stop before I drool on the keyboard.
-A

There's nowhere like home.

Julia Child held the policy that she would never apologize for the quality of any of the food she made, even if it was terrible.  My grandmother held much the same ideal.  Never did I ever heard her apologize for quality, only possible lack of quantity.

My grandma’s kitchen table has been a grounding center for my life as long as I can remember.  I have eaten innumerable meals, snacks, drunk hundreds if not thousands of cups of tea, at her table.  While the table itself has changed a few times over the years, it has always been the most prominent feature in her home, a gathering place for family and friends.  Her table acts as an anchor we all could hold onto in the storms of life.

No one uses the actual front door at my grandma’s house.  Everyone uses the kitchen door, a sliding glass door (or the screen door in favorable weather) that allows my grandparents a panoramic view of their potted-plant garden and bird feeders.  The door opens directly into the open kitchen, where my grandparents constantly sit at their wooden table.  From the table, my grandpa can watch the TV that he can’t hear without his headphones, and still keep an eye on the goings-on of the neighborhood through the windows.

My grandma sits in the same chair, and has as long as I can ever remember.  I have whole troves of memories of sitting across from her, learning lessons of life from her experience while her deft fingers worked a needle in her intricate cross stitches.  It’s rare to find her stitching anymore, as she has trouble she won’t admit to with her arthritis and eyesight.

But she is always sitting there, as if she knew I was coming, even if I was trying to surprise her.

From years of homework, to huge cookie decorating fests at Christmas, making batches of Grandma Jelly in the summer, to crying over heartbreaks and disappoints, my life always comes back to her itchen table.  On my worst days, when I feel completely sorry for myself,  I want nothing more than to be sitting across from my grandma at her table, nursing a mug of tea, as she tells me to get over it – “This too shall pass.  It’s not that bad, it could be worse.  You could be dying.”  Tough love, served with jelly and butter sandwiches, a mug of hot tea laced with enough sugar that it’s basically syrup, and a comforting pat on the hand to soften her words.

But she was always right.  The bad things passed, and life went on, eventually improving.  I dread the first time I have to miss a holiday dinner at her house, because I honestly don’t know how to celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas without sitting at her table.  Here’s hoping that day is a long way off.

Sometimes where you eat the food of your life is more important than what you eat.
-A

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

There are many things in this world that people say they absolutely need to survive, and the largest of those is usually food.  Following close behind water, food is one thing that all organisms on this planet simply cannot live without.  Food is our fuel that keeps our physical bodies going from day to day.  Take away food, and you are left with a very unhappy, hungry person, who will soon wilt and die. An angry, hungry death (at least, if I died of starvation, I would be angry.).

When you take away the fact that everyone needs food to live, you find that there are some people who truly, deeply, love food.  I, myself, am one of those people.  I love food, creating food, eating food, and most importantly, sharing food with others.  I love the act of making a meal, from the planning, to the shopping, the creation, to the serving of it to others.  I have been known to go through the whole intricate process just to serve myself a very prettily plated presentation and eat alone.

 Good food, to me, is food that feeds the soul as well as the body.  This food isn’t just created by the edible items on your plate, but by the company you consume it with.  Good food comes with laughter, smiles, stories, clinking glasses and silverware, or simply messy fingers sticky with sauce.  I see my life as a succession of these meals filled with good food, centered around the tables I have eaten them on.  I use the term “table” loosely, as I have eaten many of these meals simply on the living room floor, in camp chairs, or standing up, with no physical table to place the food on.  The table is the metaphor for the place I have shared these meals in.  There are a few notable physical tables that I will share the tales with you of through the course of our blogging journey together, but they prove to be the exception, not the rule.

Now, here’s an obvious question: Who am I?

I am a twenty-two year old Floridian, a recent university graduate who is finding herself flummoxed at the possibility of the future.  My plans to continue straight into graduate school to pursue my studies at a higher level fell through due to circumstances, so I find myself entering the work force without a plan, a degree that doesn’t help me much, and a slew of boxes from my college apartment.  Who knew that you could accumulate so much stuff in four years?

You know how in the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, Tula says that her family is a family of eaters, who really like to eat?  That’s not just her family.  My family is the same way, and we have great fun eating.  My mom likes to tell the story of her first Thanksgiving with the family, where everyone showed her how to navigate the buffet line of dishes, helped her get her servings, etc.  Then came the caveat: “We helped you the first time.  The rule is, you get it the first time, because it likely won’t be there the second.” After that, she was on her own.  She learned very quickly to get it on the first round, because they weren’t kidding.

I grew up in a relatively small town, with a large family.  So really, I had no chance of ever getting away with anything while I still had my last name.  Even now, when I return, people who haven’t seen me, or know my family recognize me by the features I share in common with the dozens of other kin I have. I can’t escape. But at the same time, this tradition gave me the first set of tables that I spent my life at.  Church picnics, family dinners, celebratory cookouts, barbeques, these are my first memories of food that was good food, back when I wasn’t smart enough to realize that the food I had every day could be good food too.

But that’s enough about me for the moment.  I’ve been working my way (with the help of R., my lovingly bottomless and patient significant other) through a pot of my chicken chili.  A recipe I began tweaking from my grandmother’s simple chili of meat and beans, I’ve added a few things, and the beauty of the recipe is that you can add and take away whatever suits you, and the recipe will be just as good, if not better. I’m currently eating it over chili-dusted oven roasted potatoes (a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and chili powder. Toss, oven at 450 for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Glass dishes work better than metal to keep them from sticking.) and the necessary sour cream and shredded cheese.  It’s just as comforting and delicious with any other starch, or on its own.

Never Fail Chicken Chili

Ingredients:

2 lbs lean chicken (breasts, tenderloins, stir fry… whatever is cheapest is what I usually get.) diced/cubed/generally cut smaller
1 mild chili (or spicy, if you don’t have R. grumbling about spicy foods..) spice pouch, I usually get Publix, because of availability
1 Large Can of Tomato Puree
1 Small can diced tomatoes, with onion and garlic
1 Small can plain diced tomatoes
1 Small can Great Northern White Beans
2 Small cans red kidney beans
1 Medium red bell pepper
1 Medium green bell pepper
1 Onion, small/medium/large according to your own taste

Procedure:

• Cut peppers and onion into chunks, big or small depending on how chunky you like your chili.  Place a little bit of oil or cooking spray in the bottom of the big (and I do mean big) pot for your chili, and cook peppers and onion until the onion is slightly clear.

• Add chicken, and cook until the chicken is about halfway done.

• Add all the cans of tomatoes, beans, and the spice packet.  Stir, and keep over medium to low (you’ll want to reduce the heat once this gets cooking) and simmer until chicken is cooked through, or however long you want.  The longer it simmers, the more tender the beans get, and the thicker the chili.

It’s a great recipe for throwing everything in a pot, and leaving it to simmer for the afternoon to be ready for dinner.  It works well in a slow cooker as well.  Just be sure to stir the chili every so often, and not to let the heat get to high as it can scorch the bottom of the pot.   It’s great for cold winter nights and hot summer cookouts. You can easily substitute other meats, just account for the extra grease.

More recipes and stories to come!
-A.