Category Archives: Cooking

Jan 14 1 comments
Cooking

Getting Down To The Roots

So, rutabaga. Yeah. I’ve never eaten one. Turns out I wasn’t entirely sure what it looked like either. I was at the store and they grouped the rutabaga, parsnips and beets all together with no direct labeling. I thought it might be the large ogre looking root but I wasn’t sure.

So, I hailed a woman standing near by and said, “Do you know which one of these is a rutabaga” She seemed amused and asked me what I was making. I told her, “creamy carrot and rutabaga soup.” She said it sounded good and helped me choose the correct root vegetable. I felt a little silly but I would have felt much sillier if I had chosen the beets.

Yeah, the rutabaga, it’s kind of big and solid. I had to use all my strength to get my knife through it. That’s a heck of a root. It had a nice orange texture, not unlike melon. The soup, it was pretty good. It came out surprisingly creamy (the title of the recipe should have clued me off, but who knew plain yogurt could cream that well). It was a little like eating baby food, but the flavor was nice. Of course, I modified it a bit with 4 garlic cloves and ginger powder. Chris says it needs more garlic and more ginger—perhaps a whole ginger root? Hmmm. I might make it again; however, I feel that it needs a good meat paring. Perhaps turkey? Regardless, it was nice getting to know a new vegetable.

Here are some of the photos I got during the cooking process. Very pretty, no?

In The Process: Creamy Carrot and Rutabaga Soup

Heat oil and butter, add 1 medium onion cook until translucent. Next add rutabaga, carrots, celery, garlic and salt and stir to combine. Cook over low heat until the roots soften. Then add 3 cups of chicken broth (my modification) and bring to boil. Cover and simmer until totally soft 45-60 minutes.

Puree: Creamy Carot and Rutabaga Soup

Purée the soup until smooth and blend in plain yogurt. Note: something I learnded the first time I puréed hot soup, let it cool down and do it in batches because the stuff will grow in the blender.

Let's Eat! Creamy Carrot and Rutabaga Soup

Garnish with more yogurt if you like, and eat it up.

Jan 13 0 comments
Cooking

Mean Green Dinner Machine

Triumph of the week: I made dinner last night. Really, I like to cook and I’m always happier when I eat my own food. But lately I just haven’t felt like doing the work (deciding what to cook ahead of time, going shopping for the right items and then prepping the meal). But I was inspired last night. I want to eat more veggies and the frozen boxes of mixed veggies and boring salads are jut not cutting it. They leave me wanting to grab a box of cookies.

Yesterday, I went to the store and spent some time in the produce section. Hello carrots, aren’t you lovely. Onion, my old friend, I have plans for you. Beets, I like the look of you I just don’t know what to do with you. Avocado, come here lover—you’ll do nicely on a salad. Rutabaga, your are like a foreign language. Greens, okay, I can work with you. I know just the thing!

Sausage with Caramelized Onion, Spinach & Kale

Sausage with Caramelized Onion, Spinach & Kale

I didn’t get a photo before it was scarfed down, but I did manage to get the scraps of the last bowl.

Ingredients

  • 2 medium yellow onions
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • ½ cup broth (I used chicken, you can use water or beef or veggie)
  • Olive oil & butter
  • Bunch of fresh spinach
  • Bunch of fresh kale
  • Italian spicy sausage

How It Was Cooked

  1. First, I caramelized the onions, which I am not going to describe. If you don’t know how, go look it up on Simple Recipes (I love that site). It takes about 30 minutes but it’s a crucial step for getting a great flavor.
  2. Then I added the sausage, I didn’t slice it. I just let it cook in its casing for about 6 minutes in about ¼ cup of broth with the onion, medium-high heat covered. Oh yes, I added 2 cloves of garlic because we are garlic lovers in this house.
  3. I cooked the sausage as directed on the packaging. So, that is what I suggest you also do. However, for the last segment where it said “simmer sausage in juices” I turned down the heat to medium-low and added the kale and spinach a bit at a time until it wilted.
  4. I also added a bit more broth, ginger, garlic powder and pepper. Cook for approximately 8 minutes. Note, not all the kale fit, so just use your own judgment for your pan size.
  5. Then I removed the sausage and sliced it while I let the green continue to simmer. Finally I added the sausage back, turned the heat to low, and stirred for a few minutes to get all the juices mixed together.
  6. Then we ate it. Mmmm.

If you try it let me know. Tonight, I think I’ll try learning a new language with some creamy carrot and rutabaga soup.

Mar 25 1 comments
Cooking

Leaping Into a New Season

BouquetLast weekend, Easter weekend, I spent some time doing several springy activities. I’ve decide I love spring. In the past I was a big fan of autumn, and while I won’t yet relinquish favorite status, I will concede that spring has a special place in my heart.

Autumn is a melancholy and wistful time of year, but I love the smells and the crisp fresh air. Frankly, growing up in Texas, fall was a savior after months of sweltering humidity. So, it’s no wonder that I’ve previously revered that time of year.

Spring, however, up here in the Pacific Northwest brings with it sunshine after months of blustery, raining days. It’s very uplifting to see blue skies after so much gray. And with all the rain we get, the vegetation is positively verdant.

Spring Cleaning
So, with the equinox upon us and my checklist in hand, I began spring cleaning. I did however, as my last post mentions, hit a mental block when I got started. But with a little elbow grease and sweat of my brow, I made significant headway in the kitchen. Admittedly, I’d hoped to get my whole home done, but it turns out that there is a lot to do. And while I spent quite a bit of time working on the kitchen, I just didn’t want to spend my whole weekend working. So, I’ll have to spread it out and get it done before May.

Blue EggDying Eggs
When I wasn’t cleaning, decluttering and reorganizing the kitchen, I got to do some fun stuff. I dyed eggs for Sunday using only natural dyes. It was the first time I’d tried it this way and it was a learning experience. For example, I’d never used alum powder before. Also, the instruction call for red onion skins olive green. Mine turned out brown, pretty but not olive green.

Spring Clothes
I also went shopping for a new spring outfit. I wanted something that will be good for hiking, as well as just kickin’ around town. I ended up getting a pair of pants from Lane Bryant that covert to capri and a sweater hoodie vest from Old Navy. I saw the sweater over at Sundry Buzz and it sounded perfect. I got it in orange, which isn’t on their website. It is super cute. With the pants and a white shirt I already own, this is now one of my favorite things to wear.

Easter Dish - Asparagus and Mushroom Bread Pudding -Easter Dinner
For dinner Sunday night I wanted to do something a bit different than the usual ham for Easter fare. And I am well into Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kinsolver who’s daughter provided an intriguing spring dish that feature the best of the season: Asparagus and Morel Bread Pudding. I couldn’t find morels, so I just used crimini mushrooms. I did buy the ingredients at the local co-op, and used goat milk instead of regular. It turned out much better than I expected. It had very good flavor, a bit high in calories (it includes bread, milk, butter, eggs and cheese), but filling and delicious.

Asparagus and Mushroom Bread Pudding

Mar 19 0 comments
Books, Cooking

Inspiration. Investigation. Motivation.

I’ve been super busy with work and hardly any time for personal computer time, but I wanted to take a moment and write about what I’m doing in my free time.

In the evenings, instead of blogging, flickring and twittering, I’ve been reading “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barabara Kinsolver. It is the story of one family’s efforts to eat only local, sustainable and self-grown foods for 1 year. I read one of the essays by her 19 year-old-daughter last night and felt weepy. What a wonderful experience for a young woman, to understand and learn where food comes from and its true value beyond how many calories it has in it.

I’ve also started morning pages again. I’m on day 3, and I’m finding it does help me find a place of calm to start my day. I’ve picked up the “Writing Diet” by Julia Cameron in which she uses the tools of creative enlightenment to help people with their nutritional woes. Overeating, she says is a block to creativity. It’s an interesting concept, and one I decided to try because I had done her “Artist’s Way” several years ago and recall that the morning pages had a miraculous effect. When I wrote every morning, three pages, no questions, no critics, I found I’d start with a question and end with an answer that seem to come from someone other than myself. I felt I was praying and conversing with God through my writing. But for one reason or another I quit. Now, I’m at a point in my life where I am considering approaching things a bit differently, and this tool seems to fit exactly into the gapping hole in my life.

Another one of her tools is walking. Take a walk, 20 minutes, every day, in any direction. This idea helps me step out of the “I must run or it’s worthless” mentality and allows me to reconnect with the joy of taking a walk. Not for calories, not for sweat, just to get out into the world and enjoy some fresh air. A commodity I find lacking working from home and never needing to leave the house. So, I’m taking walks. I live within walking distance of 4 parks. I’m not measuring my walks by distance or calories burned but by parks visited. The first day I did 3 parks. Yesterday I did 4 parks. Today? Well I’ll just let me feet decide.

The third goal I’d like to tackle is to begin a culinary journey myself. Not unlike Mrs. Kinsolver, in which I buy local food and prepare them in healthy nutritious ways. I’m going to use Alice Waters as my cooking teacher and work my way through her book “The Art of Simple Foods.” I haven’t started yet but I am reading through her book a little each day. When the farmer’s markets open I am going to begin. I’m looking forward to Spring, which begins tomorrow.

Mar 03 4 comments
Cooking

The Wisdom of Bread

My great-grandmother used to make these rolls, yeasty, soft, and delicious. They were so good. I don’t have the recipe anymore, but I tried to make them once when I was about 18 or 19 years old. I was pretty excited. She’d passed away when I was 15 and it had been a very long time since they’d been served. I wanted to honor her with her recipe. I worked hard, following the recipe to a T, however something just wasn’t right. My rolls were the right color and smell; however you could build a house with them–hard as bricks.

That was my first attempt with making bread. I wasn’t an experienced cook and I probably messed up either the rise time or the kneading or some miscalculation in measurements. Regardless, I just assumed bread was hard and left it at that and haven’t returned to it in many years.

Last week, after reading a post on the Amateur Gourmet, I decided to try my hand at homemade pizza (including the crust). I found a recipe for the dough at Simple Recipes and it seemed simple enough. While I was at the store picking up the supplied I needed, I realized that the selection of flours was huge and picked out organic whole wheat to make it a more “healthy” pizza.

I have a mixer and thought I had a dough hook, but when I pulled it all out I realized I didn’t. I would not be deterred, but doubt started to creep into my thoughts. I would just make it by hand. I made the dough according to direction, but it didn’t seem to rise very much. I shrugged it off, after all bread is hard. I froze half to dough and made two small pizzas with the other half.

The result, it tasted pretty good, but the crust was dense and a bit like cardboard. No complaint, all the pizza was consumed, cheese covers a multitude of culinary failures. Still, I knew it somehow wasn’t quite right.

Yesterday, I took the left over dough out of the freezer and left it covered on the counter over night. This morning, I peeked under the plastic wrap and it had risen!

It was pillowy, just as it should have been. Perhaps, with whole wheat the rise time is longer, I thought. I punched it down and let it rest another hour. Then I cranked up the oven to 325 and pulled four small balls off and put them in my mini-muffin tin. I placed small pieces of butter on top of the dough and baked it all for about 15 minutes. The result, delicious, little whole wheat rolls. They are still fairly dense, but not tough. They have a nutty sweet flavor and are actually what I would call…good.

And so, now I am strutting around the house eating my little rolls and exclaiming: “I can make bread from scratch. I am a bread maker.”

So, the lesson I learned, if at first you don’t rise to the occasion, perhaps it will take just a bit more time. I think somehow my great-grandmother would be proud.

Feb 08 1 comments
Cooking

Mealtime Inspiration: To Be Pasta

I’ve avoided pasta, potatoes and bread for many years. Somewhere in my journey of relating to food, these landed themselves on the banned list…bad foods. I’m rewriting my relationship with food and exercise, my previous relationship was a bit toxic. In that vein, I’m exploring ways to eat these foods that were, with sever food prejudice, gastronomically snubbed. Last week I shared potato, spinach and artichoke soup from Rachel Ray. This week, I’ve got a little concoction of my own creativity to share.

To Be Pasta

Ingredients:
8 oz. whole wheat penne
1 cup broccoli (chopped)
4-6 cloves garlic (crushed)
6 slices of bacon (chopped)
1 tbsp red pepper flakes

Directions:
1. Boil water for the pasta.
2. Chop broccoli and garlic and set aside.
3. Add pasta to salted boiling water and set timer as directed on the pasta packaging.
4. In a large skillet or wok, brown 6 slices of chopped bacon.
5. Add broccoli to boiling pasta when you have 5 minutes remaining on your timer.
6. Once the bacon is browned, add the garlic and cook until golden.
7. Drain pasta and broccoli and add to the skillet with bacon and garlic over low heat.
8. Add red pepper flakes and toss.
9. Serve with parmesan cheese.

This recipe was inspired by Shelterrific’s Pasta with Broccoli Rabe which I found through Not Martha.

Feb 04 4 comments
Cooking

Everyday

This weekend I tried a new soup recipe. I was grocery shopping Thursday evening when I saw Everyday with Rachel Ray February issue. I picked it up and thumbed through and was immediately drawn to a recipe for Sheppard’s pie. I’ve since looked through the whole magazine and there are several things I’d like to try in that issue. On Friday night, with a stock of potatoes and spinach in hand I decided to try her Potato, Spinach and Artichoke Soup. It turned out very flavorful and filling. I paired it with crusty French bread and parmesan cheese—as she suggested—steak and red wine. It was a wonderful meal for a cold and rainy evening.

This weekend also included lots of lounging and watching movies including: all 3 Resident Evil flicks, Rocket Science, Once (again) and The Namesake. I did not watch football.

Today I went to the gym and sweat on purpose for the first time in well over a month. It felt…well bad…but good. It isn’t much for me to go and use the elliptical machine for 30 minutes. I’m going to set a goal to do it every day for the rest of the month. No expectations, no rules, just 30 minutes everyday.