Thanks Debi!

While working the other day, one of my co-workers, Debi, mentioned that she likes to cook... so I instantly got excited to swap recipes!  She sent me her mom's sweet and hot mustard recipe which I will now call "Debi's Sweet & Hot Mustard" ;) 

I made it yesterday and it was so easy and yummy!  I hope she doesn't mind me posting the recipe here... I halved the recipe mostly because I had exactly enough ingredients on hand to make half.  This is the halved recipe.
 
2oz Coleman's dry mustard (one box)
1/2 c vinegar

I should pass along that she told me you HAVE to use Coleman's dry mustard....no other brand will do.
Mix mustard and vinegar together and let sit for 2 hours.  Debi told me that the longer you let it sit the hotter it gets.... I went and ran errands which ended up being 3 hours.

Whisk in 3 eggs, one at a time.  Add 1/2 c sugar.  Set over double boiler (I improvised!) and cook on medium high until thickened. 
Let cool and jar.

Mine is really spicy!  I think next time I might stick with the 2 hours.... but it is very good!  I dipped chips in it all afternoon. 

Hope everyone gives this a try for 4th of July barbecues! 

pickle crazed....

Sorry I haven't been online in a while--things have been so hectic!  Last week Dano and I celebrated our six year anniversary and the week before that his cousins came to visit.  But I have a lot to update on so stay tuned!

Last week I came home to find that we got our first cucumber of the season from the CSA so I got right to pickling!  Since it was only one I decided to also pickle our salad turnips even though I had never tried that or heard of it before.... but I figured anything crispy would make a good pickle ;) 

The general recipe I follow is this... although sometimes I halve it/just eyeball it/etc
You want to start out with two 1-quart sterilized jars which you can do either running them through the dishwasher or boiling in water.

1 small onion, sliced
2 lbs cucumbers, sliced
1 T mustard seeds
2 t whole peppercorns
1 T dill seed
2 peeled cloves of garlic, halved
1 1/2 c vinegar
1 c water
3 T kosher salt
1 t sugar

Boil the vinegar and water with salt and sugar until dissolved, about 5 minutes.  Add in spices.  Divide slices of onion, cucumber, and garlic into jars.  Pour spice-vinegar mixture into jars over vegetables.  Let sit open until room temperature.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.  Enjoy!

You should really try to eat the pickles within a couple weeks and do NOT use old cucumbers--pickling cucumbers need to be totally firm and crisp.  And feel free to experiment with the recipe.... I have added and removed sugar, added red pepper flakes, added green pepper, etc.  Make it your own!

Also here is a quick photo update on our patio garden...

 I ended up buying starts for a lot of the plants... I think I attempted growing from seeds too early and there just wasn't enough sun.  I replanted some lettuce seeds again later in the spring and look how gorgeous they are now!  Now we have: lettuce, parsley, lavender, container tomatoes, oregano, and rosemary.  It's great!

Blog number 20!

I came home for my "weekend," which is now Tuesdays and Wednesdays to find that Dan had picked up our first CSA!  We had a ton of carrots and I instantly thought of making carrot cake!

I discovered a website called SparkRecipes that lets you analyze the nutritional information of your recipe so I decided to see how some substitutions on the carrot cake recipe I usually use would affect the nutritional value.  So instead of all that oil, I used 3/4 c applesauce and 1/2 c oil.  I also omitted one egg yolk and reduced the sugar to 3/4 c. white sugar and 3/4 c brown sugar.  I also left out the pecans because we didn't have any.  Then instead of tons of frosting I made a cream cheese icing.  I used 3 oz of cream cheese, a couple tablespoons of softened butter, and then just added powdered sugar and milk until it was a good consistency.  Overall I think I saved myself about 228 calories and 15 grams of fat per serving!  I made one loaf and about 9 cupcakes that Dan took to work and he came home with rave reviews.... I don't think anyone missed the extra oil!

Then for dinner I wanted to try to use a decent amount of spinach and we had some portobello mushrooms that were getting old so I decided on..... whole wheat pasta with spinach pesto and chickpeas, topped with roasted portobello mushrooms.

The spinach pesto is pretty easy and I used chickpeas since we didn't have tomatoes.   

Then for the mushrooms I just sprayed a pan with cooking spray and topped the mushrooms with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and cooked for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  I topped the pasta with the mushrooms and sprinkled some cheese on top!  Yum!

 

home again, home again

Well, I survived my first week in the cabin!
It's been good, but I am very happy to be home for the weekend!  I ate a lot of quinoa and steamed vegetables all week so I was anxious to get back to my "real" kitchen.... including a fridge full of butter ;)

I was most excited to make something with my homemade vanilla I made a couple blogs back!  It has been about 7 weeks that it has been aging.  I got really obsessed with making something that would really highlight the vanilla flavor.... and I finally settled on just plain pound cake.  I didn't want other flavors to overpower the vanilla.  And all I have to say is.... yum!  We got strawberries at the farmers market yesterday too, so I'm excited to put those together!

Last night I also made biscuits to go with dinner and thought I would share that recipe too.  Homemade biscuits are such a simple addition to dinner and infinitely more tasty than the ones in a can!  (And we got to have biscuits and gravy for breakfast today with the leftovers!)  Give them a try... you won't be disappointed.

Biscuits
2 c flour, plus extra for kneading
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
1 T sugar
1/2 c cold butter cut into small cubes
1 c milk

I like to blend the first 4 ingredients in a food processor and then slowly add a couple chunks of butter at a time (you can also work the butter in with your fingers).  At the end it should be pea-size or smaller crumbs.  Then I pour that into a bowl and add the milk.  It will be very wet! 

I take small balls of dough (with very floured fingers!) and roll them in a small bowl of flour.  I knead the ball in my hands for a minute or so and then place them into a non-stick sprayed pan.  Then bake at 425 for about 13-15 minutes or until they are golden brown.

big move today!

Well, for those who don't know I got a job for the summer working as an interpreter in the Redwood National & State parks.  Since the parks are over an hour away (and gas is fast approaching $5/gallon), I agreed to move into seasonal housing... aka, "the cabin."  I went to see it a couple weeks ago and it's.... small.  The bathroom is outside.  And there is no phone/cell phone service, internet, tv-- so the blog might slow down a bit the next couple months!  I start training on Monday so I am heading up this weekend. 

But in preparation for no doubt having a lot less time to bake and leaving Dano to his own kitchen devices (scary!).  I filled up our freezer with goodies!  As I've said before, this is my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe (although I always add an extra 1/4 cup of flour and chill the dough before baking).  I made a double batch of the recipe, scooped it into balls, and froze them!

 After a night in the freezer, I moved them to containers.   

Now when I am gone if Dano misses my chocolate chip cookies, he can just preheat the oven,  pop a couple of these on a pan, and then... ta-da!  Cookies!

Also, this might be a shock to many women out there but... I'm not a huge fan of cheesecake.  I make a cheesecake and then have a piece or two and that fills my quota for a month or two.  So, the last couple times I've made cheesecake after a day or two of having it for dessert, I slice it into individual portions, and put that in the freezer as well.  Its perfect for when you randomly crave sweets and then you have a frosty piece of cheesecake ready!

Let me think.... I also made cinnamon rolls which freeze very nicely with the frosting in a separate container (Dano and I heated some up yesterday and he swears they are my best yet!  I'll post a blog on those soon!).  A homemade pizza crust is also plastic wrapped in the freezer and.... I think that is it!  Just thought I would post some ways to preserve your baked goodies.  Freezing things for later really helps us save time when we are busy and from having way too many sweets sitting around!   Having cheesecake in the freezer is for some reason not quite as tempting as one sitting on the counter that I have to look at everyday ;)

Opposite ends of the nutrition spectrum...

For Christmas this year Dano's parents got me an awesome new cookbook, The Great Scandinavian Baking Book.  So far I have only tried a couple recipes, but I have not been disappointed!  Last week I decided to make the Norwegian Cream Tarts and I'll just say that after my first bite I said aloud alone in my kitchen "I can't believe I made this!".  And proceeded to eat another one!  The recipe calls for 18 heart shaped tart pans (which I obviously do not own) so I decided to attempt to make them in a muffin pan.  I've learned that if you want to be a frugal baker you have to be creative from time to time!  Also to measure out the shapes I tried a couple of our glasses and eventually found two that worked perfectly. 

The pint glass made a great bottom piece and the smaller glass I used to make tops for all the tarts.  At first I thought I had done something wrong because my filling was a liquid.... but it cooked into a delicious pastry cream in the oven!

It was like a sweet, buttery pie crust with pastry cream inside.... heaven! 

But I figured since I haven't posted a very healthy recipe in a while that I would pass along this really great one!  Its for kale chips but you can pretty much use any hearty leafy green.  I used rainbow chard since we had a ton of it. 

All you have to do is chop it a little bit, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt.  Then bake them and watch very carefully!  They don't quite cook evenly so I watch for ones crisping up and take those off and put the pan back in. 

They aren't pretty..... but they are very good for you!  Feel free to experiment with toppings too--this time I used Vulcan Fire Salt that I picked up last time I was in Chicago (it is so good on eggs!) and I loved it. 

Enjoy!

the BEST pancakes

I generally have a difficult time making simple recipes-rice, french toast, grilled cheese...  I think I assume it should be easy and don't take my time with it or walk away from the stove to do something else.  These recipes tend to result in the smoke alarms notifying me of my failure.  Pancakes are another one of these challenging foods for me.... they usually end up burned on the outside and gooey on the inside.  However, this morning I decided to give a new recipe a try and it was a success!  They were light and fluffy with a crisp outside.... delicious!

I don't normally sift ingredients, but I did sift the flour this morning and also used 3/4c vanilla soymilk (that we still had from our Easter brunch) and a 1/2c regular milk.  Sometimes it can be tricky to add melted butter, milk, and eggs together because usually the butter is warm and the milk and eggs are cold.  Try to get them around the same temperature so that your butter doesn't just clump up.  And when you combine the wet and dry ingredients mix only very gently--too much and your pancakes will be tough.  If you are a pancake lover like me you must try this!

P.S. I just noticed the recipe says serves 8, there is no way this recipe is for 8 people!  I would say 2 ;)