Afternoon Tea

My mother didn't cook when I was growing up and I usually ate my dinner early so I don't remember my afterschool hours having food rituals. But my daughter often pulls up a stool to our dishwasher, which serves as a kitchen island when not in use, and does her homework while I cook.

Today I made her a cup of celestial seasonings Sugar Plum Spice tea with a big spoonful of local raw honey and a hearty piece of the banana walnut cake (dairy free) I made yesterday.

And she was cute. I hope she remembers our kitchen with fondness.

Tuna and tator tots

The daughter came down with pink eye at 3 a.m.

Sigh.

My mom brought sticky buns this morning as part of a bribe to encourage me to do her taxes. It worked. It also made me sick to my stomach. All that sweetness.

For lunch we had tuna on homemade cinnamon raisin bread, with tator tots (which for me involved half ketchup and half Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce.)

Hoping to get to Aldi this afternoon. Also aiming for Wegmans. High hopes I know.

Cornichons

So my mom brought me these cornichons today... yes, because they were French. Stay tuned as I incorporate them into our lives.

Pork with black beans, egg noodles and broccoli

I had a craving for something different... A long time ago, my mother (Mimi) mentioned something about how good for you black beans are and she made a pork, black beans and egg noodle dish in beef broth that was pretty good.

I thought I'd make my own spin on it.

I started with two small crowns of broccoli, chopped into bite-size pieces.

In my Le Creuset skillet, I placed the following:

• Several tablespoons lemon juice
• one tablespoon butter
• Several tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 of one large clove garlic, sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon four color pepper

I cooked this for a few seconds and then placed the raw broccoli in the skillet and cooked it in the sauce. I sprinkled it heartily with It's a Dilly Seasoning (probably about two teaspoons, it came out fast) Don't cook too long. Want to leave it crispy.

I removed the broccoli from the pan. Then, I began a new sauce, the same, but more:

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons lemon juice
• less than 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• the other 1/2 of the large clove garlic, sliced

My husband sliced two thick boneless pork chops into stir-fry like pieces. I sprinkled them directly with the four-color pepper and added them to the pan. Cook about five minutes on each side, on low side of medium.

Meanwhile, cook one pound egg noodles. Open one can black beans. Rinse well.

Add broccoli and beans to finished pork, in skillet. Drain egg noodles. Add to skillet.

Finish with about 16 ounces vegetable stock. I use Wegmans. Let simmer in skillet until hot.

I thought this was fabulous.

Trail mix, augmented

As I have reported in the past, I make a pretty awesome homemade granola, but with the intense heat and how busy we've been I haven't had a chance to make any.

My mother (Mimi) had brought some huge containers of Swiss Trail Mix that had so much butterscotch chips and chocolate candies that it didn't really qualify as a snack in my mind. It did have some peanuts and some dried pineapple and raisins but nutritional it was more or less dessert.

Normally I mix this 50/50 with my own granola. Today I took a container of it that was 2/3 empty and added a container of White Mountain trail mix from Aldi. This is very similar stuff, just more peanuts and more cranberries, and white chocolate instead of butterscotch and chocolate candies.

Then I added what cashews we had left.

Then I added a sample box of Honey Bunches of Oats I was given.

Now the container is full again, with "stuff" closer to the way I like it.

Modified Ugly Bean Dip

We needed a quick vegetable-rich dinner, so we made ugly bean dip. We modified the recipe based on what we had on hand:

Sauce
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup sugar
(I did not use it all)
Boil and cool.

Dip ingredients, mix in bowl:
red onion to taste, finely diced (about 3/4 cup for me)
3 small tomatoes from the garden, diced
about 1 cup finely diced cucumber
about 1 cup yellow corn
one can black beans, drained

Pour sauce on ingredients and stir.

We didn't have the fancy scoop Fritos so we ended up dumping the fritos on top of our dip on the plate and spooning it into our mouths instead of dipping.

Foccaccia

To use the ripe tomatoes my mother brought us from her garden, I opted to make a homemade herb foccaccia. As usual, there's the 'real' recipe and my modified version.

We're serving this for dinner with farm-fresh corn-on-the-cob and hopefully the last of the greenbeans from my garden.

I've had the original recipe for more than a decade. My notes say it originated with the VegList, a veg*n email recipe exchange list I belonged to when I first decided to learn to cook. I seem to remember a similar recipe from Vegetarian Times, but I guess I'll have to trust my memory.

Rosemary Foccaccia
from VegList
For the dough

• 1/4 ounce active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups water, lukewarm
• 3 1/2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/2 to 4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup fresh rosemary leaves, minced

Topping

• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 pounds onions, sliced thin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• fresh rosemary sprigs
  

Garden Foccaccia
Angel's version

For the dough:

• 1 teaspoon yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (maybe a little less)
• 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 cup rye flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 teaspoons fresh ground pasta and pizza seasoning

For the topping:
combine in food processor:

• close to 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup fresh basil
• 2 tablespoons fresh oregano
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley
• 2 teaspoons fresh chives

1 to 2 tomatoes, sliced
parmesan cheese

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Combine water and yeast in bowl. Stir with non-metal spoon and set aside for 15 minutes.

2. If you're making Angel's version, prepare the pesto topping and refrigerate to give flavors time to meld.

3. Once the yeast is activated, add the salt and 2 teaspoons olive oil to the yeast and stir with the non-metal spoon. Add 2 cups of flour (if using wheat or rye, use one cup of wheat/rye and one cup white) and the herbs-- fresh rosemary for the rosemary foccaccia and the pasta seasoning for the garden foccaccia. Stir with a heavy wooden spoon.

4. Add another cup flour and stir as dough begins to form a ball. Turn onto floured surface and knead until soft and elastic. Add more flour as dough becomes sticky and difficult to work with. Knead for about ten minutes.

5. Oil a large bowl (with olive oil, cooking spray or butter). Place dough in bowl and flip to coat. Cover bowl with clean, damp cloth and place somewhere warm and free of drafts to allow to rise. It needs to double in volume. Should take about 90 minutes.

6. When it's done, punch down. Oil a 12 x 18 baking pan, including the edges. Place dough in center of pan and spread across the surface evenly. Cover with damp cloth again and let rise for 45 minutes.

7. While dough is rising, if making the rosemary version, heat two tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet and sauté the onions in the oil, turning to coat as they begin cooking. Cook about 15 minutes until soft but not burned. The oil should be absorbed. (I hate onions so I have never done this.)

8. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. When dough is done rising, make indentations with your fingers in the surface of the dough. Lightly brush olive oil (for the rosemary version) or pesto (for Angel's version) across the bread. Sprinkle with salt if desired. (I don't)

9. If using the onions, spread them evenly across the dough now. I use fresh tomato instead, sliced thin. Raw. I brush the remaining oil/sauce over them as I place them. I also sprinkle parmesan cheese.

10. Bake for 30 minutes until dough is lightly browned. If using fresh rosemary as part of the topping, add in the last five minutes of cooking.

Cucumber sandwiches

Because of our trip to the farm this morning, and the offerings from my mother's garden... We opted for cucumber sandwiches for lunch. This works out especially well because my mother-in-law gave us a variety of crackers leftover (and unopened) from my grandmother-in-law's 90th birthday last weekend.

Mimi, my mother, brought us a cucumber from her garden yesterday and there's only two ways I like cucumbers: in a salad or on these sandwiches.

We served with fresh blueberries my father-in-law picked last week and blueberry yogurt smoothie from Klein farm.

Angel's Cucumber Sandwiches (perfect for a tea party or summer lunch)
Ingredients

• 1 cucumber sliced

• Some variety of spreadable cheese, vegan cream cheese, or cream cheese. (Today we used lemon pepper cheese spread from Klein farm)
• Crackers (wheat thins, triscuits, Ritz, whatever)
• It's a Dilly Seasoning (A McCormick product with onion, garlic, dill, lemon and jalapeno pepper. Salt free)

Take one cracker, spread with cheese, top with cucumber, sprinkle it's a dilly on top. I prefer mine open faced. My daughter and husband both prefer lids.

Update/Ugly Bean Dip Nachos

We've been surviving on eggs, pizza and leftovers with the conference this weekend, and honestly the choices for dinner tonight aren't that exciting. I'm thinking leftover Spinach-White Bean-Ham soup, leftover ugly bean dip and popcorn cauliflower, but that sounds like a lot of gas. So we may just have spaghetti. My cooking and baking goes in cycles and this is definitely "down."

My husband and I discovered last weekend that making nachos with cheddar cheese and adding ugly bean dip and black olives is incredible. That's what we had for dinner tonight. Well, without the black olives because we ate those last week.

My first chicken salad!!!

After surveying my friends and my cookbooks, I have decided to try my hand at chicken salad.

My friends all recommended curry. And various fruits. And since my favorite chicken salad on earth is that of my high school English teacher and involves grapes... and my second favorite is the Apple Walnut Chicken Salad at Java's Brewin at New and Broad Street in Bethlehem...

A random little cookbook from my mother, Salads and Dressings Varied and Delicious by G&R Publishing, 1993, lists the following for chicken salad:

Chicken Salad

from Salads and Dressings Varied and Delicious

2 cups cooked chicken, diced coarse

1 cup celery diced

3/4 cup peeled cucumbers

1 TBS finely cut green onion

Dash salt

1 cup salad dressing

Angel's Chicken Salad with Fruit

1 3/4 cup chicken

1 cup chopped apple

1/2 cup golden raisins

1/2 cup chopped grapes

1/2 cup nut topping

1 tsp. it's a dilly

3/4 cup Nayonnaise/ soy mayonnaise

Budget blown and eating gone to pot

Yesterday, we had a healthy breakfast of blueberry muffins, peaches and homemade granola. Then the day just fell apart. My mom took us out to lunch after the art museum, where my daughter had turkey and spinach with rice.

When we came home, we discovered that the bathroom faucet had turned itself on full force, flooding the bathroom, dining room, stairs and basement in the three hours we were gone. We lost our newest computer, as I was doing homework on the dining room table when I left. My school books are soggy and my cell phone quasi-ruined.

So amid the mopping and talks with the insurance company, my daughter's dinner became a slice of leftover pizza my in-laws left in our fridge Friday and my husband and I had Brie, homemade bread and peanut butter after she went to bed.

My daughter woke up with a fever in the middle of the night. So, my husband suggested doughnuts and coffee today. The monthly food budget is already blown. I've spent $200 on groceries and $125 on dining, roughly. We need coffee and some other odds and ends from the store, but with the insurance adjuster coming we may just be living from the freezer for a couple days. But in the freezer we have: a ham hock, spinach-cheese filling for calzones or lasagne, homemade bread, vegetable beef soup, chili, lots of chicken with fruit, croissants, brownies and blueberry muffins...

Oh! And I have some beef for beef stew in there...

Poor Man's Calzone

I emerged from class this afternoon starving... and I also had an acute awareness that several dairy products in my fridge were approaching their expiration date. Among them was a $4 container of large curd cottage cheese. I don't have any riccotta, and we're low on cheese in general, so I thought maybe I could somehow make the cottage cheese more riccotta-like and make some homemade pizza dough and build funky calzones.

I mixed the

 cottage cheese, shredded mozzerrella, italian seasoning, fresh garlic, grated parmesan and drained c

an spinach (someone gave the spinach to me, 

I usually buy fresh and frozen). 

I also mixed in the last of the commercial spinach dip.

I can't help but think it won't be gross as Mimi used to always use cottage cheese for such things. I don't know if she didn't know about riccotta or what but...

I made my usual pizza dough and made five little calzones to serve with sauce. Hopefully they are edible because I have a freezer bag of stuffing for another batch.

The verdict is in. The family loved

 them. It made so much we have enough for lunch AND one to freeze. For dessert, we're having Lindor Truffles from Valentine's Day.

Amazing Turkey Sandwiches and Cauliflower

I nabbed this recipe from Parenting magazine and made my own adjustments, as you could expect. I love grilled cheese sandwiches. My mother was a horrible cook, but she had worked in a diner for many years so she can make two things well: omelettes and grilled cheese.

I learned some of her secrets and can also make a mean grilled cheese, but my mother's remains a comfort food to this day. All she has to say is, "Ange, you want a grilled cheese?" and I'm at the table, whether I'm hungry or not.

 I also love hot turkey sandwiches with apples and had a craving for one several weeks ago that I never got the chance to indulge. As you may have noticed, we rarely use deli meats in this house. I try to choose foods that are as nutritional dense as possible and lunch meats, in my opinion, are too processed.

So I decided to buy some turkey breast and adapt Parenting's Honey Ham and Cheese...

The original Honey Ham and Cheese

2 TBS grated cheese

2 slices bread 

1 thin slice deli ham

2 tsp unsalted butter

1 TBS honey

1. Sprinkle grated cheese on one slice of bread and top with ham. Top with second slice of bread.

2. In small skillet, melt half the butter over medium heat. Add the sandwich and cook about three minutes, pressing down with a spatula. Flip and add remaining butter to skillet. Cook another two minutes.

3. Drizzle with half the honey and let cook another minute. Flip once more, coat with the rest of the honey. Cut into quarters.

Now my version: 

Angel's Amazing Turkey Sandwiches 

For one sandwich: 

2 slices Flax and Fiber bread 

margarine 

about 1/4 cup grated extra sharp Wisconsin cheddar 

2 hearty slices turkey breast 

1 teaspoon olive oil

Several thin slices apple 

1 TBS honey

1. Slice each piece of bread in half. And apply thin layer of margarine to one side of each portion.

2. In skillet, warm very thin layer of oil. Place two of the halves in the pan. (Butter side down.) But not the 'lids.'

3. Sprinkle on some cheese, then apple, more cheese, then one slice of turkey folded, the remainder of the cheese and put lid on.

4. Cook, pressing with spatula. Don't let it get too brown. When almost done, add a slight amount of honey on top of each and flip. As that side cooks, add honey to other side (not too much) and flip again. The honey will burn very quickly so be careful.

Now, to prepare the cauliflower,  I removed the sandwiches and kept them in the oven so they wouldn't get cold. I microwaved a small bag of cauliflower and drained. I wiped the skillet clean, but didn't wash it. I added some margarine and olive oil and put the heat on medium high. I tossed in the cauliflower, salted it slightly, added a few drops of honey, and cooked until it got a tad yellowy with some brown spots. Then I sprinkled with the remaining dregs of cheese. Probably two tablespoons for the whole bag.

Ugly Bean Dip

My mom made this bean dip yesterday and gave it to us with some Fritos scoops. It looked nasty, but as you can see we demolished it. I don't like most of the ingredients, but together... it was fantastic. As a matter-of-fact, we skipped dinner because we ate so much throughout the day.

My mom made the comment that she usually hates anything good for you, but she actually requested the recipe for this. She had it at a work party. The top photo is the dip once I put it on china and tried to pretty it up. The bottom is how in looked in the original storage container. Same food. Big difference.

Nancy's Bean Dip
1/2 cup sugar (my mom uses less);
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar;
1/2 cup grapeseed oil (can substitute vegetable);
Bring this mixture to a boil, stir and cool.
Chop one green pepper and one red onion very finely.
Drain one can of diced tomato, one can of pinto beans (I swear my mom used white beans), one can black beans and one can white corn (my mom used yellow). Mix together.

Mommy's famous hot spinach dip

When Mimi indulged my request for a crock pot two years ago, I never would have imagined that it's primary use would be for hot spinach dip. Mimi found the recipe in a crock pot cookbook she bought for me to accompany the new crock pot, but she fell in love with it and never gave it to me.

My daughter loves it. She will spoon it into her mouth by the tablespoon full. I like it because its spinach. If there's a list of miracle foods, spinach would be on it. With blueberries. Another favorite in this house. But we all love spinach dip: with crackers, homemade bread, even carrots. On the day after spinach dip, we spoon it onto bread and make sandwiches out of it to take to work. If enough remains, we reheat it and  add some milk to make it into pasta sauce. It's also a great party food. Which is why I'm making it today. Gayle is coming to force me to trim the tree (I hate Christmas). So, instead of dinner, we'll have an afternoon of spinach dip, homemade bread, raspberry jam, carrot sticks, and the remaining fresh pineapple.

 

Mommy's Hot Spinach Dip

(Seriously adapted from a crockpot cookbook)

In the bottom of the crockpot, combine:

A tablespoon butter and seasoning of your choice (not all of the following) such as up to two cups onion, a clove of minced garlic, salt, bacon bits, pepper, salt, sundried tomatoes, dill, basil, ranch dressing... 

add 1- 10 oz package chopped frozen spinach, thawed with liquid reserved.

Cook for about an hour and a half on high. Then, add about 10 oz cheese (cubed). The original recipe called for a Velveeta style cheese with jalapenos. I usually mix cheddar and other cheeses I have laying around. Today I'll probably use about five ounces of pepper jack, five ounces of cheddar, and maybe a few spoonfuls of blue cheese dressing. Cook about 30 minutes until the cheese melts. 

Sausage and Peppers

It's been a lazy food day. For breakfast, our daughter tested one of those new Horizon chocolate milk boxes and had a quarter of a blueberry deli bagel with melted cheddar cheese. My husband and I had coffee and half a bagel with cheese. I had suggested peanut butter instead of cheese (partially because we're probably having warm spinach-cheese dip and homemade bread for dinner). The first thing I did this morning was slice the fresh pineapple, which the family enjoyed, though the four-year-old ate it almost as fast as I could cut it.

My mother, Mimi, brought us some of her sausage and peppers she made yesterday. She brought three approximately six-inch links of sausage in sauce and peppers. I chopped the sausages smaller and tossed everything on to the stove to warm. I cooked up some spaghetti. Then I dished it out onto the plates and added some asiago. There was a small serving leftover which I packed into a container for my husband's lunch tomorrow.

 

I'm dreaming of the next time I can do a real shopping trip and make some nice meals... Dreaming of beef stew, soup, baked potatoes... Mmmmm....