Tag: cooking

Kitchen mishaps

We have all had them, right? The burned toast or worse, empty pan on the hot burner. If you own a microwave, you learn that bags must be pierced with a hole to release steam, lids must be loosened. But sometimes our mind wanders or is on other “more important” issues and we have a kitchen mishaps. I started my day with one, triggering this post.

A decade or so ago, I was still working and had to be at work by 7 a.m., yes, I know that is early and I never wanted to eat that early, so I began a routine of taking something that could be warmed in the microwave for my breakfast. Usually that was a pair of boiled eggs and a chunk of cheese. The eggs were chopped and warmed slightly as I don’t care for them cold from the fridge. Last night I wanted a hard cooked egg with our cold Mediterranean supper and salad. Since I raise chickens for eggs, the eggs are fresh and don’t peel well when boiled, but do beautifully when steamed, but it takes much longer to cook them that way and since I set up the steamer, I decided to cook a couple extra for breakfast. This morning, without thinking, I popped the bowl with two peeled hard cooked eggs in the microwave for less than a minute. I forgot to cut them in half first and was busy cutting cheese when POW, one egg all over the inside of the microwave. Quickly I turned it off, removed the bowl and began the cleanup so it wouldn’t harden, leaving the second egg in the bowl on the counter. Once the microwave was cleaned, I turned to chop the what should be the now cooled second egg and as soon as I cut into it, it too exploded, not quite as bad, leaving most of it still in the bowl. The kitchen is cleaned up and I will remember next time to cut the eggs in half or prechop and only warm for 30 seconds.

This brought back memories of other kitchen mishaps. The time I was making a hot salsa that I had learned about by watching the housekeeper/cook when visiting Mexico a decade ago. It requires that the hot ingredients be placed in a blender and blended, adding a few other ingredients later. I forgot to put the lid on the blender and had hot salsa on the walls, floor and ceiling of the kitchen.

Or the time I went to pour boiling water from the tea kettle over my tea in a mug not realizing the water had been boiling longer than I thought and it perked and spewed out all over my Color Nook, ruining it.
What is you most disastrous kitchen mishap?

April 28, 2014
“Uncle” already

Will it never end? Winter that is. The predicted winter storm has already started, several hours before anticipated and it did not start as rain as predicted, but rather a slushy mix of precipitation.

When I went over to check egg production progess for the day, I don’t want them to freeze as the temperature falls, this is where I found all of the hens. Huddled under the coop wondering when this cold white stuff is ever going to end. At least with the lengthening days, their production is up a bit, getting an average of 6 per day instead of the 4 from mid winter.

The newbies are now a week and a day old and are starting to show signs of tail and wing feathers. The more feathers they grow, the less I worry about the loss of power killing their heat lamp.

I didn’t get around to my laundry and dishwasher detergent making session a couple of weeks ago, just made my lotion bars, but this morning, I realized that I was seriously low on laundry soap and out of dishwasher detergent, so I pulled out the recipes and went to work. I was surprised and pleased after finishing it and calculating the cost, to find that it will cost me less than $.06 per load for laundry and about $.07 per load for the dishwasher. Since I make my own soap, I know what goes into it and added to it only washing soda, baking soda, and borax for the laundry powder, I have an economical product that lacks any of the sketchy ingredients and it is safe for the front loading HE washer. The dishwashing powder costs slightly more per load as the citric acid is a tad pricey, but that mix is only borax, washing soda, citric acid and salt, again an economical product without the sketchy ingredients and safe for the dishwasher and the septic tank. Yes, the process takes about 10 minutes because I have to hand grate the bar soap, but I have a huge jar stored on the mudroom shelf, plus a small container on the washer and one to take to my son next month and I only made half of the recipe.

As the temperature is falling, the stew is simmering, I’m going to light the woodstove and fireplace and sit back and see if I can finish the second sleeve of my Estelle sweater that I am knitting of Quince and Co. Lark yarn.

I can’t spin as I packed up my wheel and shipped her off to her new home in Michigan and my new one won’t be in until late in the week.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

March 16, 2014
The Sitter

Several times each academic year, she travels 4 hours northeast to have quality time with the eldest grandson. He is an active 8 year old, she has two score and 18 on him, but young at heart. Her primary purpose is to provide daycare on his non school days when his parents both have school and/or work. She supervises his homework and guitar practice on those days and gets to enjoy one on one time as well.

Often, an outting or two is planned, weather permitting, the winter being the most difficult to find things to do. His house is less than a mile from the Metro train into Washington, but the temperature is too cold to endure the walk and finding parking there is nearly impossible as it is a terminal commuter station. She seeks alternative activities.

Today he went roller skating with his School Age Child Care Program, thus giving her half a day of solo time. Time spent helping out the family with some household chores, buying a few groceries to have the rest of the ingredients for chicken enchiladas for dinner, utilizing some of the meat that her son helped put in the freezer last spring or fall.

Tomorrow, they will either brave the cold, though somewhat warmer and visit one of the Smithsonian museums on the mall or brave the traffic and visit the Space Museum near Dulles.

Family time will be enjoyed Saturday and she will return to her hubby and the farm life on Sunday.

January 30, 2014
What Do You Do When It Is Subfreezing Temperatures?

We are warm and cozy indoors, the thermostat is set at 68f, but that is not what it is like outdoors. This is what it is:

It is still gusty wind, so the wind chill makes it too uncomfortable to go play in the snow. Let me qualify that and state that I have played in the snow, on skis at that temperature, wearing lots of windproof and waterproof layers, but I don’t want to put on ski clothes to take a walk, so until the sun warms things up to the upper teens and the wind dies down, I’ll stay inside and …

Start http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/zuzus-petals, a cowl out of Mountain Colors Bearfoot yarn in Lupine color for me.

Make chili, enough for lunch and 2 quarts for the freezer. Actually, I spent yesterday while it was snowing making this, starting with dry beans, my small crockpot, lots of onions, jalapenos, garlic, and tomatoes from last summer’s garden and a pound of grass finished ground beef from the farmer’s market.

Collect and admire the hen gems, admiring the variation of color and size that the hens produce. I need to enjoy this now, because come spring, I will be replacing many of the hens with more Buff Orpingtons and the variation will cease, but the flock will be self sustaining. The collecting process involves layering scarf, hat, gloves, barn jacket and barn boots several times a day as eggs freeze and crack at these temperatures more quickly than you would believe.

The pretty tan birds are the Buffs and again they are in their coop, refusing to step out into the snow and the cold. The Oliver Egger, my Houdini finally peeked out and I learned how she has been escaping, chased her back in and sealed up her escape hole. If she gets caught outside the fence with no way back in, she will likely end up with frostbite or dead.

The dogs and I enjoyed some of their gifts for breakfast.

And read of course. The current book is The Bloodletter’s Daughter (A Novel of Old Bohemia) by Linda Lafferty. An interesting historical fiction, set toward the end of the Ottoman Empire, utilizing authentic locations and some characters but playing more on their insanity that history truly reveals.

So how do you spend shut in days?

January 22, 2014
Another Comfort Day

When we went to bed last night it was snowing and the ground was lightly covered. It was around freezing outside and we had hope of rising this morning to our first real snowfall of the winter. Instead, we woke to bright sun, 17f (-8c) temperatures and 35 mph wind. The snow from last night was piled in neat dunes along the edges of each pass of the brush hog from the last mowing. It is now mid afternoon and the temperature has only edged up to 22f (-5.5c) and not expected to rise further today and the wind is still howling.

When I was a child, on especially cold winter days (I’m from Virginia Beach, so it was rarely this cold), my Mom would make Vegetable Soup. Her veggie soup had a soup bone in it and was made with canned veggies, but it was comfort food. I cook much differently than my mother did, using fresh or fresh frozen veggies and only grass finished, pasture raised meat. Hubby would rather have stew than soup, I prefer the soup. On this cold winter day, I decided that we could have the best of both with a pound of stew meat in the freezer, plenty of our homegrown peas, green beans and tomatoes in the freezer, potatoes, carrots,celery, onions and garlic in the root cellar or refrigerator and dried herbs in the spice drawer in the kitchen. The base for the soup as I make it and the stew are the same and from there I will diverge.

Vegetable Beef Soup

1 lb stew beef (or venison) lightly browned in a heavy stock pot with olive oil

1 large onion coarsely chopped

4 large cloves of garlic coarsely chopped

3 stalks celery with leaves, sliced about 1/4″ thick

1 Tbs dried basil

2 bay leaves

1 quart broth or water plus 2 cups water

1 c peas

2 c green beans cut in 1″ pieces

3 medium potatoes scrubbed and diced

2 carrots sliced

2 c crushed tomatoes

Saute the beef in olive oil til no outer surfaces are pink. Add onion and continue to saute until onion is translucent, add garlic and saute for about 2 minutes, add celery, basil and bay leaves and stir to coat. Add broth and water, bring to a boil and reduce heat to a low simmer for at least 2 hours. Add tomatoes, potatoes and carrots and cook until potatoes and carrots are nearly tender, add peas and beans until thawed and hot through. Serve with bread for a complete comfort dinner.

Before I met my husband (a long, long time ago), I was a non meat eater and owned several nutrition and cook books that have long since passed from my library. One of those cook books, The Vegetarian Epicure, I think, had a recipe for Herb and Onion Bread which became a favorite with my family. It is a quick bread that can be made easily in an afternoon. It doesn’t require kneading, though, I often stiffen it a bit and knead it anyway. It makes a lovely accompaniment to a soup or stew.

Herb and Onion Bread

1/2 c scalded milk cooled to warm

1 1/2 Tbs raw sugar

1 tsp salt

1 Tbs soft butter

1/2 c warm water

1 Tbs dry yeast

2 1/4 c flour

1/2 small onion minced

1 tsp crushed rosemary

1/2 tsp dill weed dry

Dissolve sugar, salt and butter in cooled milk. Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add milk mixture, flour, onion and herbs and stir vigorously with a heavy spoon until smooth. Cover bowl and allow to rise to triple bulk, about 45 minutes. Stir down and beat vigorously. Turn into a greased loaf pan and let stand 10 minutes in a warm draft free location. Bake @ 350f until done. (the recipe said 1 hour, however, I have never with any oven in any location I have lived been able to bake it more than about 45 minutes without it getting too brown and dry, just check it after about 45 minutes and decide).

Tonight we will both enjoy our own version of comfort food, as I will remove the meat and portion of the broth and add about half of the potatoes and carrots to it to cook then thicken for stew and add the other half of the potatoes and carrots along with the other vegetables to make my soup and we will both enjoy the bread. What better way to spend a cold windy afternoon than filling the house with the aromas of homemade soup and bread.

Life is indeed good on our mountain farm.

January 18, 2014
Another food day

Today was a rainy day. It started with frozen rain and a slick walk to the chicken coop to let them out, but then the rain set in. Rainy days are comfort food days and as I had put away tomatoes in the freezer last summer and fall, after blanching, peeling and crushing them, I decided it would be a good day for a big pot of pasta sauce. There are onions in the house, carrots in the fridge, celery that I had chopped and frozen, lots of garlic from last summer’s garden and the herb and spice supply well stocked. I don’t use jarred sauce, well not commercial jarred sauce. Instead, when I make sauce, I make plenty, jar up the extra in wide mouth pint jars and then either can or freeze it for a quick meal on another day. My sauce takes many hours of simmering, but is so worth the effort.

Our use of the post holiday discount that we got from the local grocery had resupplied the dry pasta supply as well, so homemade sauce and angel hair was the meal of the evening.

Pasta Sauce

2 medium onions chopped

1 head of garlic peeled and minced

4 stalks of celery chopped

2 carrots, diced

12 cups of crushed tomatoes

1-2 Tbs dried oregano

1-2 Tbs dried basil

1 Tbs fennel seed

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

2 tsp salt (if tomatoes are unsalted)

EVOO to coat the bottom of a heavy pot

Saute the onions, celery and carrots until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic and stir for a minute or two until the garlic is fragrant. Add the tomatoes, herbs, fennel and salt, bring to a low boil and reduce to a low simmer for several hours, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking. As the sauce thickens, break up the tomatoes and adjust seasoning to taste.

At this point, precooked Italian sausage links or crumbled sausage can be added if desired. Hubby likes it with meat, I am just as happy with it as it.

Serve over the pasta of your choice and top with shredded Parmesan or Romano cheese and more crushed red pepper if you want more spice.

This comfort meal provided a great meal for 2 plus 5 pint jars of sauce for the freezer for an easy meal on another night.

January 10, 2014
Mexican Night

Today is the day that our eldest son and family arrive to spend Christmas with us. Today is Saturday and Saturday at their house is Mexican night. The family is trying to learn Spanish, so on Saturday night, when son hasn’t had to work all day at the University, he prepares a Mexican dinner and they watch a movie in Spanish.

If you have been following my blog for at least a few weeks, you know that we spent the first week of December in Mexico, Zihuatanejo, on the southern Pacific side of Mexico, a quaint fishing village with lots of seafood as their traditional food, but it is in the state of Guerrero which is also noted for its Pozole Verde. It is traditionally served in restaurants on Thursdays and we had a Pozole Verde lunch on our second day there. I have had white and red Pozole before, but this was so much better.

When we arrived home, I searched the web for a recipe and found this http://www.patismexicantable.com/2011/09/you_know_you_want_it_green_pozole/. It looks like the soup we had in Mexico and I decided to give it a try to help them carry on their tradition. As we raise some meat chickens, I had a nice plump bird in the freezer for the meat base. Being a locavore, the other ingredients don’t really fit my life style, limes, avocados, and tomatillos (this time of year) and as dry hominy is not available here, I bought Mexican style canned. The recipe says it is better reheated, so Thursday afternoon and evening, I stewed the chicken in the crockpot, deboned and shredded it and added it back to the broth. It was put aside in the soup pot in the refrigerator until Friday, when I added the Mexican hominy and made the verde sauce and added it. It went back in the refrigerator until just before dinner today, it will be cooked for the last 30-45 minutes and the garnishes will be cut and put in service bowls and we will see how authentic it tastes.

”’

Now if I could just find recipes for the tiny hot pepper stuffed empanadas and the tiny cheese stuffed fried cones of masa to accompany it, I could at least dream that we were back in Mexico on a Thursday.

December 21, 2013