three hundred and two

One of the things that I am looking forward to most about moving back to DC metro area is the awesomeness that is known as the Lancaster County Dutch Market.  It's your standard issue Lancaster County, PA market with a slight twist: it's in Montgomery County, MD.  In the middle of the week, a group of Mennonite families pack into vans and ship a little taste of Lancaster County to the suburban yuppies willing to pay extreme markup for the privilege.  And, of course, among the highfalutin yuppies were Mr N and I.

Whenever we could afford it, we would walk down the street and gorge ourselves on the best fried chicken in the world, free cheese samples, spit roasted rabbit, and the best pretzels in the whole wide world.  In fact, the pretzels are something I miss (nearly) as much as our friends!  Since they're apparently like friends to me, I reasoned, why not invite them for a visit?  I set out to make a replica of the pretzels and quickly ran into an obstacle: Cooper cheese.

Wait, what?  Cheese?  I wasn't making just any pretzel (you should know by now that I'm more picky than that).  I was making my favorite pretzel, one that that just so happens to be Lancaster County's answer to the Hot Pocket: a pretzel stuffed with roast beef and Cooper cheese.  There are other fillings, but none are able to top the seasoned, juicy (fresh!) roast beef and ever so slightly tangy, melty-enough-to-put-Kraft-out-of-business cheese.  I refused to try any other kind of cheese because, well, I'm stubborn.

The above is why I may have actually cheered when I found Cooper cheese, presliced in the deli no less, at Wegmans the other week.  The above may also be why I immediately set to making (and eating) a copycat Lancaster County Dutch Market stuffed pretzel.  (And some plain ones, too, but those are boring when you have roast beef and Cooper cheese to eat.)  Now I'm going to do what Amish and Mennonite women have done for years: share the love.

two hundred and eighty-one

"If you had to summarize summer in three words, which words would you choose?  Swimming, picnics, and ice cream?  Vacations, thunderstorms, and fireflies?  Bikinis, bonfires, and s’mores?  How about red, white, and blue?..."

Read the rest of the post "Red, White, and Blue Potato Salad" on Home Ec 101.

P.S.  Stuff about life after the jump.

two hundred and fifty

When I stepped out the door to walk my husband to the train station this morning, I was practically punched in the face by my least favorite season.  When I left the climate controlled lobby of my apartment building, the rush of heat and humidity was enough to cause me to stagger backwards as my asthmatic lungs struggled to convert themselves into gills to process the aqueous air.  Okay, I'm being a little bit facetious, but the high on this lovely May day was 93 degrees.  Blech.

I know that June is just around the corner, but I had honestly expected another few weeks before I was facing temperatures in the nineties!  If you've read my posts from last summer, you know that I simply don't like the season.  The heat, the sunburns that I get despite wearing sunscreen, the fact that I have to run the air conditioner.  Those are a few of the things that I dislike about this time of year, but the number one culprit is the stove.  The heat of my gas stove combined with the outside temperatures leave me with zero interest in cooking, let alone eating, hot food.

The obvious solution to my problem would be to spend all summer doing that hip raw food thing, but I'm far too unhip to be able to survive on cold food alone.  The slow cooker is a help, but there are only so many slow cooked roasts that one can eat without getting bored.  So, what does that leave us for meal options?  Simple: one pot meals--and we're not talking Hamburger Helper here.

two hundred and forty-five

Though I've been menu planning for the last five years or so, I still have my share of those what's for dinner tonight? moments.  They don't happen regularly or even often, but sometimes I realize that what I had planned simply wasn't going to work for whatever reason.  As someone who loves to plan and be organized, those moments drive me absolutely bonkers and often lead to a cheap but only kind of satisfying meal at a restaurant downtown that has epically good pickles. 

Since I decided to modify my grocery budget a couple of weeks ago, however, buying a BLT as an excuse to eat pickles is no longer an option (if I want my husband to eat every day of any given week, that is).  I figured I could avoid those what's for dinner? moments by more carefully planning my menus, but chronic pain and awkwardly timed Fresh Direct deliveries can get in the way of even my best laid plans--which is why I found myself wandering the Shop Rite in search of some sort of quick, budget-friendly meal last Friday.

I immediately saw yellow rice for 49 cents a packet, so I threw a couple of those in my basket.  I grabbed some black beans because, duh, black beans go with yellow rice.  Since my husband likes meat in meals, I decided I'd blacken some chicken, and since I like to not die of malnutrition, I decided some peppers and onions would round out the mix.  The only problem was how to serve it.  Feeling lazy, I decided on throwing it in a bowl and calling it a day.  Honestly, I wasn't looking forward to it, but the bowl'o'Mexican-ish stuff ended up being easy and delicious. 

Best of all, I got a blog post out of it!  Woohoo!

two hundred and thirteen

My husband grew up in an Italian-American family, therefore, like all other Italian-Americans, he loves meatballs.  It's genetic, I think.  He doesn’t care if they’re served alone, with pasta, or on a salad, so long as they’re served, period.  I know I’ve said that I love it when he makes requests for meals, but meatballs are just one of those things that can be a huge pain to make in bulk.   First you have to mix the meat with a ton of filler to make sure the balls don’t crumble, then you have to brown every last one of them in a skillet before transferring them to a giant vat of simmering sauce (or “gravy” as folks ‘round these parts call it.)  In the grand scheme of things, they’re really not all that difficult, but they never fail to take up a large chunk of one’s day given that, ideally, meatballs will spend several hours simmering on the stove top.  And don’t even get me started on the mess that the sauce creates all over my stove, counters, walls, hair, you name it!

The sauce’s super staining powers are almost enough to make me give up making meatballs for good, but I would feel kind of evil if I denied my husband one of his favorite foods just because it’s messy.  So, the other week, I decided to experiment with meatballs in the slow cooker, and you know what?   Even though the slow cooked meatballs go straight into the slow cooker without being browned, they taste even better than the stovetop version.  Cleanup is done in a blink of an eye, especially if your slow cooker’s lid and insert are dishwasher safe!  And, best of all, you can start them in the morning, go about your day, and forget about them until dinnertime.  That’s right, meatballs: you’ve officially joined the ranks of weekday foods.

one hundred and ninety-nine

Growing up in a single parent household, I ate a lot of leftovers--and not the tasty kind of leftovers like taco meat turned Mexican pizza.  Instead, we would have the previous night's pasta dish microwaved for a minute and a half (sometimes with rotisserie chicken thrown in for what I can only assume was "the lulz.")  I've always been weird about textures, so leftover nights were a thing I quickly came to dread.  My mother, ignoring my pleas for a sandwich, would hand me a plate of food and say, "When you grow up, you can throw away all of the food you want!"

And so I do.  Unfortunately, I'm a painfully cheap adult, which means I can't just throw away the leftovers without considering the waste.  To make myself feel better, I store each component of a meal separately and give them to Mr N for him to recombine, reheat, and eat for lunch.*  Leftovers that don't a man-sized lunch make (muffins, rolls, etc.) end up getting frozen for future use, while the non-freezable starches plus a sliced tomato oftentimes become my lunch.  All of the leftovers seem like they're being put to use, right?  Almost, save for one problematic chunk'o'carbohydrates.

I love to bake full sized loaves of bread.  Since Mr N and I are only two people, the bread usually goes stale before we have time to eat it--despite having bread with dinner, breakfast, and snacks--and though it's inexpensive to make, I never fail to feel guilty when I hear the solid thud of the stale bread hitting the bottom of the trash can.  The sound waste is enough to make our Bubbies spin in their collective (and possibly figurative) graves!  But what is a home cook to do with day old Italian bread?  Why, the Italians have already figured it out for us: you make garlic bread.

*He claims he likes it, but I still feel like a bum.

one hundred and ninety-three

Being that I'm very much a creature of habit, my most commonly prepared foods are simply variations on a theme.  That's not to say I don't like to experiment with new recipes or try unique restaurants, of course, but there are times that I enjoy not having to worry about constantly tasting and adjusting a new dish. Fortunately for you, these go to recipes are inherently well tested, which means that they're the ones that end up posted on this blog--but unfortunately (for me), these are the meals that can sometimes feel like they've been served one time too many.

As you may know, I'm more than a little prone to food cravings.  My husband, on the other hand, never seems to have any sort of opinion about food* until it's cooked and sitting in front of him.  Our completely opposite (yet disturbingly complementary) food preferences put together mean that we eat whatever I feel like on any given day--and these days, I have been craving fresher, springier meals (in no small part thanks to the blahness of the SNAP Challenge.)  So, easy, right?  Why not just make springy stuff and be done with it?

I've been feeling terrible for the last month or so due to medication changes,** so I haven't really had the pain tolerance or level of concentration to stand in the kitchen and think about/experiment with a nice salad or tasty spring lamb.  What's a disabled homemaker to do?  Why, fall back on one of those easy-peasy go to meals--and put a twist on it, of course!

*except that bacon > beef > everything else
**sometimes, generic =/= name brand side effect-wise, it seems.

one hundred and eighty-three

Is it really Monday again already?  In fear of losing power, was spent playing video games, listening to music, cooking, finishing up some Samurai Sudokus (copied from the Washington Post by a lovely friend), and looking out the windows.  Of course, since we were fully prepared, the lights didn't even flicker.

Despite the power's awesome cooperation throughout the storm, however, I still had a terrible time sorting out food this weekend.  Between things not working out well (I'm looking at you, disgusting baked oatmeal that ended up being fed to the trash) and my whim-influenced food cravings (ahem, hollandaise sauce and garlicky chicken), the SNAP Challenge menu plan I posted last week got turned on its head.  Fortunately, we're still on track to finish the challenge, but with the following modifications to the remaining days of the plan:

Monday
Breakfast - ham, egg and cheese biscuit sandwiches oatmeal brown sugar muffins
Lunch - leftover stuffed baked potatoes or grilled cheese chili

Dinner - leftover beef and bean chili with fresh cornbread stuffed baked potatoes

Tuesday
Breakfast - leftover oatmeal brown sugar muffins
Lunch - leftover chili and cornbread baked potatoes

Dinner - white chicken enchiladas (using thigh meat)

Wednesday
Breakfast - egg and cheese biscuit sandwiches
Lunch - leftover enchiladas or grilled cheese

Dinner - beef and rice lettuce wraps leftover chili and fresh cornbread

Thursday
Breakfast - leftover muffins biscuits
Lunch - leftover lettuce wraps or enchiladas

Now, on to day four's foodstuffs and a recipe for a luxurious but SNAP friendly breakfast: eggs Benedict-ish.

SNAP Challenge - Day Four

 

Breakfast - eggs Benedict-ish (recipe below!)

Lunch - grilled cheese and tomato soup

Dinner - rosemary garlic chicken Francese with mashed potatoes and green beans

 

one hundred and sixty-four

One of the things I'm often reluctant to 'fess up to is my love of Americanized Chinese food.  It's greasy, it's overpriced, and worst of all, you're hungry an hour after you put down your fork chopsticks.  If I were a less stubborn person, I would probably just decide that I don't care for Chinese food.  Since that's not exactly an option, I took the "mess around in the kitchen until you make something that tastes kind of like Chinese food" route.

The first few attempts were a disaster due to my fear of the food ending up too salty.  I quickly learned that, as with most restaurant recipe rip offs, there is almost no such thing as "too salty".  So, I doubled the soy sauce and ended up with... soy saucey chicken.  Not quite what I was aiming for, but it was getting there; I just had to figure out what I could use to balance out the salt.  While rummaging through the cabinets in a fit of frustration, the answer literally fell on my head--a gift from above in the form of a bottle of ginger.

That was when I realized that I had been going about it all wrong.  I needed to focus on improving Americanized Chinese food rather than emulating it.  So, I tossed out all of my work and started from scratch.  The end result remains one of my all time favorites, not only due to the deliciousness, but also because it can be prepared in the time it takes for the rice to cook.  Who needs takeaway, anyway?  Recipe is after the jump and menu plan.

Menu Plan : January 11 - 17, 2012

Due to my lack of smell (and thus taste) over the last couple of weeks, I have been less than inspired in the menu plan department.  Just in case the sick doesn't hit the road for a while, I've made sure to include lots of easy meals with plenty of leftovers for Mr. N to bring for lunch.  The salad is something I often don't look forward to, but one of the bajillion small batch balsamic vinegars in our cupboard turns it from an "ew, healthy" meal to something almost cravable. 

Friday : ginger chicken and greenbeans (recipe follows)

Saturday : pollo fundido

Sunday : balsamic beef chili with cornbread

Monday : tuna and butter bean salad with Italian bread

Tuesday : chicken soft tacos

Wednesday : spaghetti and meatballs

Thursday : leftover chili and cornbread

Dessert : sopapillas

one hundred and fifty-eight

Tell me, Americans, what comes to mind when you think of biscuits?  Is it the kind from the tube or the box, perhaps?  Or the sausage-egg-and-cheese filled ones from the drive through?  If you're lucky, maybe you're imagining your grandmother's or mother's baking powder biscuits--you know the ones that you can't seem to replicate in your own kitchen--but, as is often the case, most of us aren't so lucky.

For better or for worse, life today is fast paced.  Very few of us want to wake up early in the morning to cut butter into flour, roll out dough, and wait for it to bake (and those of us who do want to wake up early to make biscuits don't necessarily want to do it every single day).  Does that mean we should sacrifice convenience for quality and allow homemade biscuits to go the way of Jell-o molds?  (Hint: the answer is "no".)

By combining the luxury of a food processor or pastry blender and the convenience of ample freezer space, all you have to do is invest 30 minutes of your free time every couple of weeks in order to enjoy the awesomeness of fresh baked biscuits anytime.  The best part of this method?  You have the option of making the whole batch, or just one.  You know, for "quality control."

Honey and Buttermilk Biscuits

 

After vs. before baking.

4 cups all purpose flour

2 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) cold butter, cut into tablespoons

1 1/2 cups buttermilk, sour milk, or sour cream

1/4 cup good honey

If using a food processor: 

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in the work bowl.  Cover, then pulse three times to mix.  Remove lid, then add butter.  Replace lid and pulse until the butter is reduced to pea-sized clumps and is well incorporated into the flour mixture.  

Combine the buttermilk and honey in a 2 cup measuring cup and set aside.

Remove the little cup from the lid and replace the lid on the work bowl.  Turn on the food processor and pour the buttermilk and honey into the flour and butter mixture.  Allow to mix until the dough clings to the side of the work bowl.  

Turn out onto floured counter and knead until the dough is smooth, adding more flour as necessary to prevent sticking.

Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into an approximately 8 x 14 inch rectangle; sprinkle the dough with flour, then fold it into thirds.  Roll the dough into another 8 x 14 inch rectangle; sprinkle the dough with flour, then fold it into thirds.  Repeat a third time.

Roll the dough into a half inch thick rectangle, then cut into biscuits using a biscuit cutter, drinking glass, or cookie cutter.  Using the scraps, repeat the rolling and folding process described in the previous step, then cut into biscuits.  Throw away any remaining dough.

Place on a greased baking sheet and freeze for 2-4 hours, or until completely frozen.  Move biscuits to a gallon sized freezer bag for storage.

If using a pastry blender: 

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and give them a quick mix.  Cut in the butter until it forms pea-sized clumps and is well incorporated into the flour mixture.

Combine the buttermilk and honey in a 2 cup measuring cup.

Using a strong wooden spoon, stir the buttermilk and honey into the flour and butter mixture.  Mix until the flour is moistened and the dough is shaggy.

Turn out onto floured counter.

Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into an approximately 8 x 14 inch rectangle; sprinkle the dough with flour, then fold it into thirds.  Roll the dough into another 8 x 14 inch rectangle; sprinkle the dough with flour, then fold it into thirds.  Repeat a third time.

Roll the dough into a half inch thick rectangle, then cut into biscuits using a biscuit cutter, drinking glass, or cookie cutter.  Using the scraps, repeat the rolling and folding process described in the previous step, then cut into biscuits.  Throw away any remaining dough.

Place on a greased baking sheet and freeze for 2-4 hours, or until completely frozen.  Move biscuits to a gallon sized freezer bag for storage.

To bake:

Place the desired number of biscuits two inches apart on a greased or lined baking sheet.  Place the baking sheet in a cold oven (the biscuits will defrost as the oven preheats), then turn the oven on to 375*.  

Once the oven has preheated (or after 10 minutes), bake the biscuits an additional 10-15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Makes 16 3-inch (AKA huge) biscuits.

one hundred and fifty

In case you haven't heard, December is halfway over.  That means I'm in the clear to ask one of my favorite questions: what is your favorite part of the holiday season?  I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and assume your answer was neither "I love listening to Aunt Gertrude's traditional rehashing of the time she passed those kidney stones!" nor "Golly, I've been counting down the days 'til Mom and Dad crack open the eggnog.  I'm still wound up from last year's humdinger of a nog flog!"

Sure, the holidays may include familial togetherness and love and peace and all of that jazz, but the truth of the matter is that those gaieties are merely distractions from the main attraction: the food.  These winter holidays are one of the few times a year we, as a society, have collectively agreed to let loose and eat whatever we can get our hands on, our skinny jeans be damned. We devour cookies and turkey legs, guzzle gallons of gravy, and eat dressing like it's going out of style, because you can only get those foods during the holidays, don'tcha know?

But why?  Why may I only eat cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving?  Why do birds only come stuffed in the last two months of the year?  Yeah, I don't know either.  My New Year's resolution this year is a simple one: to make holiday food into everyday food.  Since I'm the organized sort, I'm getting a head start on my resolution by sharing an awesomely easy, superbly delicious way to enjoy chicken (or turkey) and dressing anytime... sans family brawls.

one hundred

I'm still sick, but I can't really call this post "ninety-nine point eight"*, so hooray for my "one hundredth" post! Fortunately, I seem to be getting better, despite the disturbing level of pressure that seems to be trying to make my eyeball explode out of its socket and my teeth out of their little spots in my gums (Do those have names?  Tooth holes?).  I was able to run an errand today, do a couple of loads of laundry, and make some matzo ball soup as a compromise for my antibiotic conundrum.  I think I'll be good to go grocery shopping tomorrow and, after I finish this exhausting paragraph, I may have just enough energy to share my most favorite bread recipe in the world: ciabatta.

*Well, I could, but I'd feel really lazy.

ninety-four

I spent hours at the social security office this morning, but finally have my application all finished and whatnot.  I've been told I'll find out their decision in 3-6 months, but I'm expecting to hear that I'm super-mega-healthy and that I am capable of going out and getting a job at Wendy's.  Fortunately, it's not like we're financially dying over here, so wait I can.

To start the week off on a tasty note, I'm going to share the awesome sides that I prepared with dinner last night.  Because I'm a slacker (and because I was literally five minutes away from literally dying of hunger*), I neglected to take pictures, but I will make them again this upcoming weekend just to share the photos with you, my adoring readers.  Now that I think about it... sides aren't very photogenic, so I'm probably doing you a favor by sharing the recipes sans image.  Happy to help!

P.S. Updated the Simpsons post with yet more proof.

*srsly.  My last snack was two whole hours prior!

eighty-nine

The weekend has come and gone--again.  Why does that always happen!? 

Every now and then I come across a recipe that's okay, but not really brag-worthy.  When that happens, I'll usually just toss the recipe, but every now and then one of those "meh" recipes just calls out to me and I can't get it out of my head.  Inevitably, I find myself in the kitchen digging through the cabinets and the fridge, wondering what I can do to coax the meal to taste at least a little better than just "okay".

Real Simple's rosemary-garlic chicken is, unfortunately, a meh-cipe.  It has good (figurative) bones and it's easy and inexpensive, so I've found myself making it for several years now, despite the nagging feeling of mild dissatisfaction.  Sure, I've made a few adjustments to the amount of garlic, liquid, and butter, but nothing I did seemed to make this a crave worthy meal.

Long story short, Chicken Francese was on the menu at our wedding--despite the fact that neither Mr. N nor I had ever tried it.  With my first bite, my mouth was hit with the realization that the answer to my chicken problem had been in my cupboard all along and was just plain ol' white flour.  The first time I cooked rosemary-garlic chicken as a married woman, it was a surprising success and I knew that I had to share it with someone.  At the time, I wasn't even sure if my blog was going to last more than a month, so I put off noting the measurements and taking pictures until, uh, yesterday.  Just for you, Internetz, I made it a point to remember, so now I can finally share the changes I've made to the original recipe.  I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

P.S.  Big public congratulations to Mr. N for his recently published article!  You rock!  (Since we're married, I think that means I get 50% of the accolades; I'll be nice and let him have them all... this time. <3)