Under a blue moon

Sunday rituals

 

Isn't the Fall time change the most delicious thing?  I love having that extra hour in the morning, especially on a Sunday when the mornings can be kind of hectic.

I usually spend it doing laundry and getting ready to head down to my Dad's.  If I want to miss the Tahoe traffic (weekend travelers heading back home) then I need to hit the road by Noon. 

Lately we have added a calmer, more relaxed ritual to our Sunday mornings;  Sunday breakfast.  Initially we were thinking we would find a neighborhood restaurant, something casual, clean, friendly and that served great, inexpensive breakfasts.  That's not too much to ask, is it?

Well we tried a few places and it just didn't quite measure up to the fantasy so we decided we would just make breakfast ourselves on Sundays.  Put in a little more effort than our standard toast or bowl of cereal.

That waffle iron has been in Rick's life for more than 40 years - maybe close to 50.  He grew up with it and when we moved in together his mother gave it to him.   I can't tell you how many waffles he has made over the years. 

Isn't it sad that most appliances are disposible these days?  Forty years ago if your toaster or your waffle iron broke you would take it in to get repaired.  Now you just toss it and buy a new one.

This morning's breaksfast was waffles with peach syrup and assorted breakfast meats. 

I have to point out we didn't eat all that breakfast meat up there.  I'm not sure what I was thinking when I started cooking it up.  

This little ritual has turned out to be a nice way to end the weekend and start the new week.

Soup weather

It has finally cooled down around here.  We kept getting teased with beautiful Fall weather then the next day it would in the 80's again.  Wrecks havoc on one's wardrobe choices.

I made cream of zucchini soup last night.  I do this thing where I'll make something down at my Dad's and like it so much that as soon as I get back up here I make it again.  So this is the second time this week  I've made this soup.  It is so easy.

My mother used to make huge batches of zucchini soup and freeze them before she added the cream.  Then she could thaw a batch, heat it up and add the cream to it just before serving.  We're lucky enough to get lovely zucchinis well into Fall but if you don't you can make the base of the soup in the Summer when zucchinis are plentiful and then serve the soup when colder weather finally gets here.

This makes four servings.

Cream of Zucchini Soup

1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 1/2 lbs. zucchini, sliced (get small, dark, shiny ones)
2 shallots, diced
1 clove of garlic, finely diced (more if you like lots of garlic)
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Herbed goat cheese

Saute shallots in olive oil until soft, about five mintues.   Add garlic and saute another minute.  Do not let garlic brown.  Add the zucchini and chicken broth and bring to a boil, turn down to low and simmer covered for 30 minutes. 

Blend with an immersion blender (or in small batches in your regular blender and return to the pot) and simmer for about five more minutes (At this point you can cool it down and freeze until ready to serve).  Slowly add cream, whisking briskly while adding it.  Heat through.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Add a dollop of herbed goat cheese when serving.  It gets all melty and adds a nice brightness to the soup.

I served it with smoked turkey and havarti panninis.

Jam

I would have to say Sara and my first attempt at canning was a success.  Strawberry jam is a good beginner project. 

We just followed the basic Ball Jar recipe and guidelines for making the strawberry jam.  If  you google Strawberry Jam you'll find all kinds of tutorials out there. 

I think we got started a bit late in the season.  Lucky for us we live in California and can get Strawberries late in the season.  We are about 50 miles up the road from Watsonville, the Strawberry capital of the world. 

I am kicking myself for not being on the ball during apricot season though.  Mmm...apricot jam.... Here's a little useless tidbit about me - when I was pregnant with my youngest son I craved apricot pie and my boss used to go get it for me.  She would just stop what she was doing and go to Marie Callendar's and get me a slice.

Here is another little known fact:  Sara is a ghost.  Her energy must have been kind of low last night because she is especially see-thru.

By the way, drinking a glass of wine during jam making is essential to the success of said jam making. 

Except maybe when you are trying to pull boiling hot jars out of boiling hot water.

Or stirring molten hot strawberry goo. 

The very best part is after you have put the jam in the jars, sealed them, boiled the heck out of them and then removed them and placed them on the counter is when you hear the lids pop! pop! pop!  We made six jars of jam and one right after the other they popped to let us know they had sealed properly.

Next on the agenda is pear butter.  Doesn't that sound like a good Fall project?

  

 

Weekend of the tarts

 

We had guests this weekend.  Nicki, Dennis and Ozzie came up to visit on Friday and just left an hour or so ago.

We love having people come up and see us.  We are sort of far away from everyone so we really enjoy having visitors that we can wine and dine. 

This weekend it was all about the food.  Tarts in particular.  On Friday night I made wasabi/panko encrusted salmon, a vegetable tart and a caesar salad.  The vegetable tart was so easy and so pretty and was the highlight of the meal.  Here is a before picture:

 

It couldn't have been simpler to make.  I used a frozen deep dish pie crust that I pressed into my own tart pan.  I pre-baked the shell and when it was cool I sprinkled on crumbled goat cheese.  Then I layered thinly sliced red onion, red bell pepper, yellow Summer squash and zucchini.  I drizzled on some olive oil and then seasoned with salt and pepper.   I baked it at 375 for about a half an hour. 

If you go to tastespotting.com and search on ratatouille tart you'll find the original recipe, including the pastry.   Okay I was really feeling lazy when I first posted - here is the link to the orginal recipe of the Ratatouille Tart.  I feel better now.

 

On Saturday Rick picked apples from our very own tree and I decided to make an apple tart.  I looked on-line for a recipe and ended up kind of cobbling together several recipes to come up with this one.

Again, using the frozen pie crust (Marie Callander's) I pressed it into my tart pan and pre-baked it.  While it was baking I made a simple applesauce using the apples, some sugar, a dash of maple syrup and cinnamon.   I spread it on the tart shell and then layered thinly sliced apples in a pleasing pattern on top. 

After I baked it (40 minutes at 400F) I brushed on a glaze of marion-berry preserves, golden syrup and a splash of rum.  I would have used apricot jam if I had it but we were out so I used the marion-berry preserves instead.  It gave the tart a bit of a rosy glow.

I think if I was to make this again I would go to the trouble of making the pastry myself and would do a sweeter pastry.

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.  It's a three-day one for us in the states.  I'm about to start sewing yards and yards and yards of hand-crocheted lace to a bed skirt.

That ought to keep me busy and out of trouble for a while.

 

P.S.  Two weeks of being Diet Coke free!  It isn't getting any easier yet. But I'm sticking with it. 

Palmiers et Thé

Since I can't come up with my own creative ideas I've decided to try out some of the suggestions on other peoples blogs. 

Like these Palmier cookies from French Garden House.  

I can remember what a treat these were when I would go to the bakery with my Mom and she would buy one for me.  Crispy, buttery and sugary - what could be better? 

The really huge ones we called Elephant Ears.  These little ones are perfect with a cup of tea. 

I have re-quit drinking Diet Coke.  I quit last year and didn't drink a single one for about three months.  Then I had one.  And the next day I had another.  Then pretty soon I was drinking two a day.  Last Saturday I had six.  I knew it was time to do something about it.  So I quit cold turkey on Monday.  Tuesday and Wednesday I had a splitting headache but by Thursday I was fine.

I'm drinking iced tea and water for now and when it cools off I'll start drinking pots of hot tea.

For the record these cookies go great with either hot or cold tea.

And I'll be eating them here:

 

iStockphoto

With six you get eggroll

 

One of my very first postings on this blog (going on three years of me blathering) was on making Spring Rolls or Lumpia so this is a bit of a repeat.  I think my photography has gotten a little bit better since then and I wanted this post to be a little more educational than that first one.

I'm not entirely sure what the difference between egg rolls and Spring rolls is.  I do believe it can depend on the nationality of your roll.  A Vietnamese Spring roll might be very different than a Thai or Chinese Spring roll.  Some people even go so far as to say that if it has any sort of meat in it then it is not a Spring Roll but rather an egg roll. 

These are Andrea Spring Rolls.  I like my rolls to have a combination of veggies, chicken and shrimp in them. 

First I precooked a boneless chicken breast in a saute pan with a little bit of olive oil.  I also boiled about a 1/3 lb. of shrimp in water, a splash of rice vinegar and some Old Bay seasoning.  When it had cooled I finely diced the lot of it.

Then I chopped up some savoy cabbage, green onion, crimini mushrooms and some carrot and sauteed it all together in a hot pan.

 

When the cabbage was just starting to soften I threw the veggie mixture into a bowl with the diced chicken and shrimp and some finely chopped fresh cilantro.

I drizzled on a little bit of sesame oil and a splash or two soy sauce and mixed it all up.  That's it for the filling.

 

Look - here's my "thank you for coming" pile.  Anyone know what that is from?

 

Now we are ready to assemble the rolls.  I used smaller wrappers, about six inches square.  I would have preferred larger ones but the backwater, gastronomically challenged grocery store near where I live didn't have them.  

Lay one wrapper flat in front of you (is that overstating the obvious?  It's not likely anyone is going to make the mistake of laying in on their head or behind them) and place about two heaping tablespoons of filling in the middle.

 

Fold up the point closest to you over the filling and then fold the sides in.  Please ignore my spotty hands.  That one spot near my right thumb is a corn fritter related injury.

 

Roll the, umm, roll away from you, moistening the top corner before the final roll.  Look at this action shot folks.  My fingers were FLYING!

 

There you have it.  A nice little roll. 

Now do it eleventy hundred more times

 

Now here's where I mix it up a bit.  Instead of frying them I baked these.  After last week's corn fritter fry up I didn't think Rick couldn't handle me splattering the kitchen and myself with flaming hot oil quite so soon.

So I liberally brushed these with some oil and baked in a 425 F oven for about 15 - 20 minutes.  Flipping half-way through.  I don't think our waist lines were spared but the kitchen was. 

I made a simple soy chili dipping sauce for these.  I really just winged it.  I'll post the Spring roll recipe below but honestly for the dipping sauce I just threw things in until it tasted good to me. 

What I combined was light soy sauce, sesame oil, chili paste, chili flakes, minced garlic, about 1/2 tsp. of sugar and about a tsp. of honey.  Let it sit for 45 minutes for the flavors to meld.

We ate every last one of them.

 

Andrea's Spring Rolls

1 boneless chicken breast, cooked and minced (I sauteed mine, you could poach if you like)
1/3 lb. cooked shrimp, minced
1/3 Savoy cabbage, finely sliced
1 carrot, jullienned into small matchsticks
4 Crimini mushrooms, thinly sliced into matchsticks
3 green onions finely minced (use about 1/2 the green part)
2 Tbsp. fresh cilantro, finely minced
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. soy sauce

Springroll wrappers

Vegetable oil

In a large saute pan heat about 2 tbsp. vegetable oil over medium high heat.  Add cabbage, carrot, onion and mushroom.  Cook, stirring constantly for about four minutes; until the cabbage starts to soften. 

Add vegetable mixture to the cooked chicken, shrimp and cilantro.  Drizzle with the sesame oil and soy sauce and toss well.

Lay out Spring roll wrappers and start assembling rolls.  Place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with olive oil cooking spray.   Cover until ready to cook.

Now you can either fry these or bake these. 

For frying:

Heat approximately three inches of vegetable oil to 350 degrees.  Cook in small batches until golden brown, about 3-4 minutes.

For baking:

Brush Spring rolls liberally with vegetable oil on both sides.  Place cookie sheet into a pre-heated 425 F degree oven.  Cook approximately 20 minutes, turning the Spring rolls over about half way through.

Serve with your favorite dipping sauce.

On the Clafoutis bandwagon

 

I keep seeing blog posting for clafoutis.  Must be the proliferation of stone fruit that is in season (I think of clafoutis as being a stone fruit dish) right now.

I love a rustic dessert.  Something that doesn't require much fussing.  I used this recipe  but I substitued sweet, dark cherries for the plums.  Because our grocery store, in the agricultural mecca that is California, did not have plums.  Can you even imagine?  Isn't this prime plum season? 

Guests arrived last night, we had a nice dinner and plenty of wine (no sewing as we have a no drinking and cutting rule) and went to bed fairly early so we could get cracking on the sewing first thing this morning.

I've been taking pictures as we go along so I'll post those in the next day or so.  

 

Fruit Pizza

 

Sorry for the slightly blurry photo - it was taken with my iPhone.  We had a grand 4th of July/Birthday celebration (for my oldest) yesterday.  He requested Fruit Pizza for his birthday cake.  Even though we had it three weeks ago at his Aunt's birthday celebration.

I told him I didn't think people would mind having it again so soon.

I'm sure this recipe has been around for ages and there are slight variations to it but it basically is sugar cookie crust, a sweetened cream cheese topping and then assorted fruits in a pleasing pattern on top.  I add an apricot glaze to the top. 

Here's the exact recipe that I use - makes two pizzas:

2 packages of refrigerator sugar cookie dough
2 8-oz. packages of cream cheese (allow it soften to room temp.)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
Assorted fruits
1/2 cup Apricot preserves (or orange marmalade if you prefer)
2 Tbsp. water

Preheat oven to 350 degree F.  Press cookie dough into two tart pans (you can just roll it into a circle and bake on a cookie sheet but I like the fluted edges that the tart pans give it).  Bake until golden brown - about 18-20 minutes.

Mix the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla and spread evenly over the two cooled cookies crusts. 

Arrange the fruit on top of each pizza

In a small sauce pan heat the apricot preserves and water together until it has a thin, glaze like consistency.  Allow to cool a bit then spoon over fruit pizzas.

Chill pizzas until ready to serve. 

The aftermath:

 

It's all about getting together and enjoying each other's company.  The food is just the cherry on the top.

Corn Fritters

 

Last night I attempted to recreate the corn fritters served at E & O Trading Company.  I was inspired by a post the Pioneer Woman had a few days ago, sharing her recipe for corn fritters.  The one's at E & O are more on the savory side and are served with a spicy dipping sauce so I used PW's recipe as a base and tweaked it to serve my purposes.

I have to say they turned out brilliantly. 

I am now the most popular person in the family.  This is hard when you realize what fabulous cooks my sister are.  But I am queen of all things culinary today.

 

This is how I made my fritters - this made enough fritters for 14 people.  With everyone hovering around while I was cooking them, in order to sample.  Quality control, they called it....

 

 

Corn Fritters

 

6 cups corn kernels (I blanched 10 ears of corn for 2 minutes and then cut the kernels off the cob)

1/2 red bell pepper finely diced

3 green onions, finely diced - white and green part

1 jalapeno finely diced

1 cup flour

3/4 cups milk

3 eggs

1 1/4 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

 

1 quart corn oil

 

Dipping sauce (see below)

 

Mix the veggies in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl mix flour, salt, and baking powder.  Add eggs and milk and mix.  Add wet mixture to corn mixture.

 

Heat corn oil to 350-375 degrees F.  Plop large spoonfuls of corn mixture.  Expect extravagant popping and spitting of oil and perhaps the loss of an eye.

 

Flip fitter when it begins to brown on one side.

 

Drain on paper towel. If making vast quantities for a crowd place them on a cooling rack that has been placed on a cookie sheet that has been placed in a 250 degree F oven.

 

Dipping Sauce 

 

1 cup lite soy sauce

2 Tbsp. rice vinegar

2 tsp. sugar

2 tsp. sriracha hot chili sauce (just look for it in the Asian section of the supermarket)

1 tsp. sesame oil

 

They were so good - and everyone raved about them.  It  really was the hit of the whole dinner.  Even though it scarred and blinded me to make them.

 

It was worth it. 

The VERY best sloppy joes you will ever eat

 

Sloppy Joes with an Asian flair.  I have, ahem, fallen off the diet bandwagon a bit these past few weeks.  Fallen off, landed in a ditch and gone down stream a mile or two. 

I know I need to get back on track before any of those angry pounds come looking for me and try to jump back on.  So this was a last meal, so to speak, before I start eating nothing but eggs again.

Last week I made a fabulous turkey burger, courtesy of Oprah and Donald Trump.  If you google it you'll find it.  Mar-a-Lago turkey burger.  Anyway I decided I wanted semi-home made buns to go with it so I bought frozen bread dough (Bridgeford), let it rise, then cut it into bun size pieces, let rise a bit more then baked them.  Very easy and very tasty.

So going with that same theme - I made home made buns again.  Not the prettiest looking buns in the world but the way they smell and taste is worth a little mis-shapeness.

 

For the innards of the Sloppy Joes - I wanted something reminiscent of PF Chang's lettuce wrap chicken.  This is the recipe I came up with:

1.25 lbs ground turkey

2 tbsp. olive oil

1/2 diced yellow onion

1 tsp./clove diced garlic

1/4 tsp. ground ginger

3 tbsp. soy sauce

1/3 cup hoisin sauce

2 tbsp. sesame oil

1 can water chestnuts diced

1/4 - 1/2 tsp. chili hot sauce (too taste)

 

Brown the turkey in the olive oil.  Remove from pan.  Add onion to the pan and when it begins to soften add the rest of the ingredients and cook for about five minutes.  Add cooked turkey and heat through.

 

Serve on heated sliced buns. 

 

If salt is an issue for you then you might want to skip this recipe.  I use lower sodium soy sauce but between the soy sauce and the hoisin sauce it's pretty salty.  I'm going to look like a Bassett hound when I get up tomorrow, I just know it.