Easy dinners

This weekend groceries are low and I threw my back out hand-washing pizza pans at work. 

Last night my husband fried some hot dogs and tossed out some chips, made more palatable by special condiments like wasabi mustard and my own homemade pickles from dill that I grew in my own garden.

Tonight I made a sauce of garlic, sesame oil, honey and low sodium soy sauce for some frozen sugar snap peas. We served these with boxed mac and cheese made with coconut milk and adding bits of bacon leftover from a bacon-and-egg dinner Thursday night.

Chicken française pasta

My husband came up with the suggestion of "chicken française pasta" when I first got some boneless, skinless chicken on clearance at Target.

Today we pulled it out of the freezer and gave it a shot.

Ingredients:

- chicken, boneless, skinless and cut into smaller pieces

- lemon juice, about half a cup (two fresh lemons?) 

- one stick butter

- peas

- broccoli

- pasta of choice

- 1/2 cup fresh dill from the garden

- 1/2 cup fresh parsley from the garden

- about six chives fresh from the garden

- 1 teaspoon garlic powder 

- about 1/2 teaspoon garlic pepper (plus another 1/2 teaspoon)

- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning 

- your favorite olive oil 

Heat about one tablespoon butter over low heat in cast iron skillet. Add equal parts lemon juice. Add the garlic powder and the Italian seasoning.

Stir until nicely combined. Add chicken. Increase heat to medium. 

Cook pasta to desired doneness. Drain and set aside. 

When chicken is done, push the meat to one side of skillet. Sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon garlic pepper. Arrange skillet so empty side is over the heating element.

Add about 1/2 stick butter to empty side of skillet, add fresh herbs and cook while trying to push the sauce around the empty side of the skillet to minimize how much sauce the chicken absorbs. 

Add vegetables to empty side of skillet. Combine both sides of skillet until everything is evenly mixed and evenly heated.

Pour olive oil (cold pressed extra virgin imported from the Middle East is my fav) over the pasta and mix so they are just a tiny bit wet and kind of glistening.

Put pasta in bottom of serving bowl. Top with desired amount of chicken-vegetable mix.

This was incredible!

More garden pickling

Three more fairly large pickling cucumbers so we made three more jars of pickles and let our neighbor friend help.

We made one dill jar, one basil dill and one chive dill. (Using herbs from my garden.)

We used the Ball Blue Book as our guide.

Parties, cakes & cukes

More work in the garden today, planting another batch of peas and the sole watermelon seedling that survived.

Yesterday was child's birthday so we ate lots of cake, saw lots of friends and got presents-- which included seeds for a butterfly garden. We planted that today too.

We had one locally grown cucumber left so we are making sun pickles. Child cut the cuke, we nabbed dill from the garden and we shoved them into a pint mason jar. I splashed in less than 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar and filled the rest of the jar with water. We gave it a good shake and child set it in the sun.

Dilly Beans

Haven't tried this one yet, I made my own version.

The first one is from the Ball Blue Book, 1974

DILLY BEANS

2 pounds green beans, trimmed
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 cloves garlic
4 heads dill
2.5 cups water
2.5 cups vinegar
1/4 c salt

Pack beans into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. To each pint add 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper, 1 clove garlic and 1 head dill. (Mom put this on the bottom!) Combine remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Pour, boiling hot over beans, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Adjust caps. Process pints and quarts 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

Yields 4 pints

Note: let beans stand for two weeks before tasting to allow the flavor to develop.


Gayle is sure that this is the recipe her mom used (the page is awful stained in the book). Her sister disagrees and thinks it's this one from the Better Homes and Garden Home Canning Cookbook. (1973) The ingredients are similar. Again, a stained page.

2 pounds green beans, trimmed
1 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons pickling salt
2 teaspoons dillweed
1/4 teaspon cayenne
2 cloves garlic, crushed.

Yields 4 pints. Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Pickled Green Beans

During the weekend, I picked the ripe green beans in the garden. I never got around to cooking them. I was going to toss them in the compost when Gayle suggested using the 100 degree heat to pickle them. Why not?

So into the pint jar went salt, pepper and lots of garlic. Two handfuls of dill from the garden. Child shoved in green beans. I filled jar with equal parts white vinegar, balsamic vinegar and water.

In the sun it goes.

More pickling

The first jar of solar pickles lasted less than 2 days. Child and I decided to repeat the experiment, using up our leftover farm fresh cucumbers and carrots.

We used one pint sized ball jar for each.

Ingredients
(in the order we put them in the jar)

In the cuke jar
- a big handful of dill from the garden
- between 1/2 and 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground salt
- 3/4 teaspoon minced garlic
- 3/4 of a large farm fresh cucumber, sliced, and artfully stuffed into jar
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- fill half the jar with apple cider vinegar
- add 2 teaspoons It's a Dilly (I'm hoping the lemon flavor will add some pizzazz to my pickles)
- fill the rest of the jar with water
SHAKE

For the carrots:
- large amounts of dill from the garden
- 1 heaping teaspoon minced garlic
- 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground salt
- 3/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
- carrots, in sticks, to fill jar
- fill half of jar with apple cider vinegar
- fill the rest of the jar with water

Using the sun

Although I don't have the right ingredients, and we all know I never do, I decided to harness the power of the sun and make new pickles. Gayle did some research and sent her mom's recipe, which I posted here.

We don't have pickle cukes, but since we have some from the farmers market and they are super fresh and crisp. I plan on eating these later today or tomorrow so I'm not worried about them getting soggy.

While looking in the basement for my spare butter dishes, I found one of those really big jars which I washed out and started a batch of sun tea in.

I went out to the garage and retrieved my Ball jars, the pint sized ones. Washed one and put some garlic, probably too much, and a big handful of dill from the garden in the bottom. Added salt. Had the child fill it with cucumber slices and tossed in some carrot sticks.

Poured in some apple cider vinegar, filled the rest of the jar with water, layered the lids on, shook it well, and put it in the sun beside the tea.

Now, we wait.

Pesto ravioli primavera

I started a cream sauce while browning beef kielbasa (which I divided into four segments and froze three of them) but I never got the cream sauce done... So, I made this:

- about 1.5 cups diced beef kielbasa
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
- 2 teaspoons flour
- about 2 tablespoons garden fresh dill
- 1 large leave sorrel
- about 7 basil leaves
- 2 cups peas
- 2 cups cauliflower, carrots and broccoli
- 2 packages trader Joe's ravioli

I put the butter in my Le Creuset skillet and browned the meat. I carefully pushed the meat to the side, added the oil, and incorporated the flour as if I were going to start a cream sauce. I added all the herbs.

Meanwhile, I cooked the ravioli and added the vegetables so it could all cook at the same
time.

The sauce smelled so fragrant I opted not to make the cream sauce after all. The family ate it all.

Summer fruit and fresh herb chicken salad

This is to accompany that bread I have on the rise. A perfect cold meal for a hot day.

-12.5 ounces chicken
- one cup fruit (I used local strawberries, local raspberries, a handful of red grapes and a three by two inch chunk of watermelon)

Dressing:
- 1/8 cup vegan mayo
- 1/8 cup Chobani mango yogurt
- two teaspoons Newman's Own Raspberry Walnut Dressing
- one teaspoon country herb blend
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Stir then add from the garden:
- 3 large leaves French sorrel, chopped
- about four tablespoons parsley
- one tablespoon dill

Mother's Day Crab Pasta

On Mother's Day, we visited my dad and stepmom and had dinner at the diner. The meal was the standard inoffensive, unexciting fare but to me it was very thrilling to eat. I started with cream of turkey soup, moved on to mashed potatoes and broiled crab cake with a side of applesauce. I ate the potatoes first, then about 1/2 of one of the crab cakes, then a few spoonfuls of applesauce. For dessert, cheesecake. It was heaven. Until my jaw protested with intense pain. But it was worth it.

I am unmedicated this morning. I lost the rest of my scabs and I swear my mouth did some serious healing last night as it looks different and the pain is minor.

This is good considering what happened last night...

Never cook alone when you're starving and wounded.

I started a pot of water to make angel hair pasta. While that came to a boil, I started the based for a non-dairy cream sauce in the Le Creuset skillet.Dairy is definitely making daughter congested.

- 2 tablespoons Earth Balance
- 1 teaspoon cold pressed extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 1 tablespoon fresh dill
- salt
- pepper
Heat over low, stirring constantly, slowly adding 2 tablespoons flour, stirring until bubbly. Remove from heat and add one cup soymilk. The recipe says remove from heat, but I have better luck turning the heat way down low. 

Now, I broke the remaining crab into tiny pieces. I shaved a head of broccoli into miniscule pieces and cooked them in the sauce.

I added the crab to warm it and went to add the pasta to the boiling water. Some bugs had made a nice little home in the spaghetti can and I dumped them into the pot.

So, I had to start over. New pot of water and standard spaghetti. 

By the time it finished, my broccoli and crab had absorbed all my sauce.

And I went to dump the spaghetti into the colander and I missed. Poured boiling water down my right side. I screamed, my almost seven year old kid screamed and I couldn't get my clothes off fast enough.

I have two burns on my hip. One healed decently over night. The larger of the two is still rather yucky but it looks clean and it doesn't hurt.

The meal-- husband finished preparing it. It was good.

Pork soup (part one)

My mother-in-law brought us some smoked pork chops, which my husband cooked and cubed while I was at work last night. Instead of serving them as a heat and eat kind of meal, I opted to make a crock pot soup. 

I started with some jarred minced garlic (which I normally avoid because it just tastes funky to me). It came out too fast and I ended up with too much. Then I added a swirl of extra virgin olive oil and maybe 2 cups of diced smoked pork chops. 

While they simmered, I added some sliced potatoes from a can of whole potatoes that I took the time to cut myself. Then I added "fresh dill" from my freezer-- about 2 teaspoons. Next came some organic vegetable broth (which by the end of my base will be 32 ounces worth). I put about a half teaspoon cumin and a half teaspoon fresh ground four color pepper.

To empty the fridge, I dumped about 2 cups leftover cooked vegetables into the pot with the rest of the broth. This was primary some sort of soybean (mukiname?) and green beans with a few slivered carrots.

So, the ingredients in the pot now: 
- diced smoked pork chops
- extra virgin olive oil
- minced garlic
- cumin
- dill
- four color pepper
- potatoes
- green beans
- mukiname? (not endamame, other soybeans)

Hoping to get some white beans and creamed corn and maybe other broth... We'll see...

Farm Fresh Cream Sauce

I didn't go to the grocery store yet, in part because the tire on the car exploded and in other part because we have so many random items in this house that I like the challenge of using what we've got.

This morning I was thinking vegetables rolled in cold cuts. But then I decided on pasta for dinner. We have some tri-color rotini, and some lunchmeat ham my mother-in-law brought last week. I thought I could combine those. We also have some raw milk that's a week old and we always have plenty of butter.

Ingredients:
- Tri-color rotini
- Leftover cold cut ham
- About 4 tablespoons butter
- About 1 teaspoon organic four color pepper
- 1 cup raw milk
- 2 tablespoons unbleached white flour
- dash nutmeg
- 3/4 teaspoon fresh dill
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- 2 cups peas

So I made the rotini.

In my Le Creuset skillet, I started with with a pat of butter and some four color peppercorn. I tossed all the ham into the skillet, heated over medium and fried both sides. I removed the ham from the skillet and put it on a cutting board. I added two tablespoons of butter to the skillet, reducing heat to low. Stirring constantly, I added the butter.

The base of this recipe came from the Betty Crocker 25th Anniversary Cookbook.

This is probably the first time my flour-butter base for the cream sauce actually came out as liquid and not as a lump. I think it's because of the even heating in the cast iron skillet. After stirring it until bubbly, I removed the skillet from the heat and added the milk. Stirred until everything melted and mixed together.

I returned the skillet to the heat, added the rest of the herbs (dill, garlic salt, remaining pepper, nutmeg) and stirred constantly as it thickened. When it got almost bubbly and a nice consistency, I added the peas and the ham and stirred until everything was warm.

Then I added the rotini, and stirred together.

My stirring technique for this involved a wide plastic turner where I scraped back and forth across the skillet.

It was my best cream sauce ever.

Dill Peorogies

I had my big work event yesterday, and didn't get any food at the party, so my husband got me a couple of pizzas from Papa Johns. We had buy one get one free coupons.

We had pizza for breakfast, too.

For dinner tonight my daughter is having her leftover Mexican and a side of spinach feta peorogies from Wegmans. I'm going to fry them in oil with butter and fresh dill.

Crazy Vegan Burgers

I started with a teaspoon canola oil, a teaspoon of sesame oil, 1 teaspoon of fresh dill and 1 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce. I'm frying some vegan boca burgers. We're not eating them with a bun and if I don't mind corrupting my vegan meal, I may add some smoked gouda.

But then, my daughter wanted cottage cheese and apple butter with hers. And a side of blueberries, so that's a lot of cheese.

My husband raved about these. He said they were so good he had to read the blog to find out what I did to them!

Kitchen Alchemy: Beef Stew

I am making something that resembles beouf bourgogne... I chopped the stew meet and dusted with flour, four color organic peppercorns, and sea salt. I'm browning them with a touch of olive oil, a touch of the petit sirah (on sale for $5 at the liquor store) and a touch of French brandy.

The vegetable stock has been reduced by half, and lots of herbs added. In the absence of a true bouquet garni, I have added a variety of fresh herbs from the freezer and dried herbs. Dill, sage, rosemary, oregano, garlic pepper.

My husband has chopped a mound of potatoes and carrots, which one the beef had browned, I put in the beef juice in the skillet and moved the beef into the vegetable stock. I added some olive oil, some wine. I poured the rest of the wine bottle in with the beef, and then filled it half way with water and poured that over the vegetables in the skillet.

I let them cook for five or ten minutes in this mix before I incorporate them into the stew. Then I mix everything up, put it on medium and wait. My husband has chopped some fresh broccoli and cauliflower, which makes it more beef vegetable stew than beef burgundy, but it need to be used...

These vegetables will be added much later, closer to eating time.

Previous versions:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/07/beef-burgundy.html

http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/01/boeuf-bourgogne.html

Updated Crab rolls

I took this basic crab roll recipe I made:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2010/01/crab-rolls.html
and decided to pump it up, nutritionally. I couldn't find asian slaw and I didn't feel like grating my own cabbage so when I saw that Wegmans had "rainbow salad" which was Asian slaw with grated broccoli... I thought what they heck, and substituted for the additional nutrition of broccoli. I used zesty clover and radish sprouts this time, added more dill, and sprinkled in some five spice.

Hot Dill Slop

Today's house special is far from gourmet. But it's snowing and we didn't have the stuff for the soup I originally planned.

This is a variation of Eileen Bresslin's vegan herbed potatoes recipe, beefed up as a skillet meal for a snowy winter day. (We had tea and Fred the Amish Friendship bread for breakfast. I've got him in the freezer.)

Ingredients:

• About three tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• Equal amounts low sodium soy sauce
• About two tablespoons fresh dill
• About 2/3 cup frozen French cut green beans
• 1 vegan original Boca burger, broken into crumbles
• 1 can sliced potatoes
• 1 can whole kernel corn, no salt added

In a skillet (I used my Le Creuset), put the oil, the soy sauce, and the dill. Heat over medium. When the skillet is hot, add other ingredients and cook until hot.

This turned out fabulous!

By the way, if you notice strange specks on my stove in this photo, it's dill that didn't make it into the skillet.

Multigrain Dill Bread

I'm experimenting again. I've been debating whether or not to make bread and what pushed me over the edge was the realization that the fancy French butter I bought for the holidays isn't getting any younger.

When I went to Wegmans the other day, they had this huge bunch of fresh dill for $1.99. I bought it, used some for my crab egg rolls, and now used some for this bread. The rest I put in the freezer. Dill is one of my favorite herbs.

Okay, so the bread... Thus far mixed in one bowl:
(For a real recipe, click on bread and you'll see my previous efforts.)

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup rye flour
• 1/2 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 cup flax seed
• 2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 teaspoon iodized sea salt
• 1 heaping tablespoon fresh dill
  

In the other bowl:

• 2 cups warm water
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 tablespoon yeast

Mix about 3 cups of the flour mix into the yeast, stir with a wooden spoon and place in a warm draft free spot for about 3 hours until doubled in size...

More later...

It came out lovely, though I should have used more dill. Served with Italian Wedding Soup and French butter.

Crab rolls

Here's another one of my wing-and-a-prayer efforts:













In a bowl I mixed:

• 1 bag Asian slaw from wegmans (about 5 cups of Napa Cabbage, carrots and celery)
• About one cup bean sprouts
• one small can fancy lump crab meat
• two teaspoons fresh dill

I used this as filling for some egg roll wrappers and since I didn't have any eggs, sealed them with corn starch in water. The egg roll wrappers were pre-made, I believe they were Melissa's.

I fried mine in my Le Creuset skillet. I layered the skillet with less than 1/4 inch of canola oil, and rolled them after a few minutes so I could get each side.

Now the vegetable egg rolls I love at Wegmans are $6 for 5. I paid about $10 for all the ingredients for these and the yield is 15, with some filling left over for the tortoise.

Served with thai plum dipping sauce and low sodium soy sauce. My only complaint is I should have filled them more.

A few days after this post, a fancier recipe site posted a more gourmet Vietnamese spring roll recipe. I'll include the link:

http://laurasbestrecipes.com/2009/04/vietnamese-spring-rolls-with-peanut-sauce.html