Lightened Up Italian Wedding Soup

Please pay no attention to the fact that my work table is apparently crooked! This Italian Wedding Soup was so easy and so fast! It's a little bit on the "light and brothy" side for Harry, but I made up a batch of calzones to go with it and the meal was hearty and satisfying.

I love Italian Wedding Soup, but I've only ever had it in restaurants. So, I had to turn to the web looking for inspiration. The first recipe I found via Pinterest turned me off - it suggested adding beaten eggs to the finished soup, similar to Hot & Sour or Egg Drop Soup. That definitely didn't ring any bells for me so I kept searching. I actually found this one at Cooksdotcom and it gave me a good starting point.

I had our homemade chicken stock in the fridge but decided to go with canned vegetable broth instead to cut down the fat content. I've made my own vegetable stock but I'm usually money ahead to use the canned stuff (very rare!). I used our own meatball mix that I froze in bulk for this purpose, but you could easily use turkey meatballs to cut down on the fat some more or frozen meatballs of your pleasure. The seasonings in the meatballs were just right to flavor the broth and I only added a pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper.

I'm starting with raw meatballs and borrowing a tip from my friend Pam - she never browns her meatballs before adding them to sauce or soup. After the broth came to a simmer, I gently added the meatballs and remembered to stir gently so I did break them up. They cooked beautifully and I think it helped them release their flavors.

I'm always trying to sneak vegetables into our meals and this soup is no exception. I knew we probably wouldn't eat a whole bunch (head?) of spinach before it went bad and didn't want to go to heavy with it in here. We were in a Kroger that had a salad bar so I just bought enough to tightly fill a one-cup measure. Hey, it only cost 23 cents!

And the rest of the veggies I snuck in - every little bit helps!

Lightened-Up Italian Wedding Soup Recipe

1 stalk celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1/2 medium sweet onion, diced
drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
3 cans (15-ish ounces) vegetable broth
1 cup water
1 pound small meatballs
1/2 cup dry orzo (or broken spaghetti)
Kosher salt and fresh-ground black pepper, to taste
1 cup fresh leaf spinach

In a medium saucepan, saute the celery, carrot and onion in olive oil just until softened. Add the vegetable broth and water, then bring it to a simmer.

Gently add the meatballs, then allow to simmer for 15 minutes. Increase the heat to medium.

Add the orzo, stirring gently and cook until orzo is al dente, about 10 minutes. Taste the broth and adjust the seasoning.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the spinach just before serving.If you're feeling really indulgent, feel free to top the Italian Wedding Soup with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Harry's Mom's Meatloaf

For some people, meatloaf is boring but for many households, it's a fairly easy go-to dinner when time is tight. We we make meatloaf, it's always two loaves - Harry loves sandwiches and sometimes, we don't even eat it for dinner but make it specifically for meatloaf sammies.

I love my mom's meatloaf - when she makes it. Mine never turned out the same for some reason. I failed HUGE with a meatloaf recipe in 1984 that caused my then-husband to turn green at the slightest mention of meatloaf for dinner. OK, ok, the sausage wasn't quite as thawed as it should have been and that was long before I learned the joys of a digital thermometer. When Harry and I started The Wright Taste, my ex-mother-in-law - more than 20 years after the fact - chirped "You can't even make a meatloaf and you expect people to buy food from you?"

Harry wasn't, in general, a fan of his mother's cooking. We both have memories of the same general meals and these days, I'm not a fan of the way my mom cooked a lot of things when I was a kid. I still loved them - the only place I'll eat Ragu on my spaghetti is when Mom makes it - it's kind of hard to explain. And I STILL can't get my Boiled Dinner (corned beef and cabbage) to come out the same way Mom does, even if we buy the same brand of corned beef at the same time!

But Harry did like his mom's meatloaf and the first time he showed me the recipe, I thought "ICK!" But, this is the best meatloaf recipe I've ever tried. It's never dry and it's the perfect sandwich meatloaf - it doesn't get crumbly when you slice it and it also freezes beautifully.

This is the "normal" recipe - plenty for dinner for six plus leftover for sandwiches. Save yourself a little time and double the recipe. Freeze one loaf whole to heat for another dinner or freeze it in slices for sandwiches later. I don't know where Mrs. W got the recipe but since Harry was eating this as a kid in the late 50's, early 60s, I don't stand a chance of tracking down the original source.

Harry's Mom's Meatloaf

2 pounds ground chuck
1 cup plain bread crumbs
1 can evaporated milk
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoons dried minced onion
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon Frank's Red Hot
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine the evaporated milk, ketchup, dried minced onion, eggs, granulated garlic, Frank's and salt. Mix it well and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the ground chuck with the bread crumbs - take your time to work all the crumbs into the meat.

Now is when it will get really messy: Have Harry pour the liquid mixture into the ground beef mixture. As you squeeze the liquid into the meat, it will originally appear to be very soupy. Mix it with your hands until the liquid and meat are well-combined, then allow to rest for five minutes. The resting time will give the bread crumbs time to absorb the moisture, so it's possible to form it into loaves.

Add the cooled melted butter and mix well. Now it's time to shape your meat loaf. Only shape it into two loaves if you have doubled the recipe.

This is where I deviate from Harry's mom's recipe: I love ketchup baked onto my meatloaf. Harry's mom always covered it with American cheese slices - the choice is yours.

Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for about an hour. I check the temp and try to keep it between 170 and 180 degrees inside.

Remove from oven and let rest for five minutes. Then, remove to a serving platter (to get it out of the grease), cover with foil and allow to stand for another 10 minutes - this will help the meatloaf "stiffen up" so that it's easier to cut without crumbling.

Garlic Smashed Cauliflower

Looks like smashed potatoes beside the meatloaf, doesn't it? I've been trying to find ways to incorporate more veggies into our meals and find ways to cook them so they don't taste green. After this meal, Harry said the garlic smashed cauliflower was tasty. He'll never say anything like "Oh - I just love smashed cauliflower! Can we have it for dinner tonight?" But, I know that if I throw this into the mix every couple of weeks, he won't turn up his nose.

I think it was ingenious to introduce the garlic smashed cauliflower with a main dish that he associates with smashed potatoes. We never have smooth potatoes - I just use a potato masher and leave some texture in them. So, it made sense to me to leave some texture in the cauliflower.

I found a recipe from nomnompaleo for "Garlic Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes" via Pinterest

While she pureed the steamed cauliflower and garlic, it was good inspiration for me and the recipe is fast and easy. I also cheated a bit - I got the bag of cauliflower florets at Kroger. I was worried that a whole head would make too much and we wouldn't like it. Twelve-ounce bag? No leftovers!

I've written before about how much we love garlic - I never would have thought of steaming it with the cauliflower even though I make garlic smashed potatoes often. The garlic was actually balanced with the strong cauliflower taste - neither was overwhelming. Feel free to adjust the volume of the cauliflower and/or garlic at will.

Garlic Smashed Cauliflower

12 ounce bag cauliflower florets
5 cloves garlic, peeled
kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper
2 tablespoons butter

Clean the cauliflower and slice like you would mushrooms - stems and all. Coarsely chop the garlic.

In a large saucepan to fit your steamer, bring 2 inches of water to a boil. While the water is heating, place half of the cauliflower and garlic into the bottom of your steamer basket. Sprinkle with kosher salt. Add the rest of the vegetables to the basket and sprinkle once again with kosher salt.

Reduce the heat to medium and place the steamer basket into the pot and cover. You don't want to cook the cauliflower to mush, so it should be fork-tender in about 10 minutes.

Drain the cauliflower and garlic and place in a serving bowl. Using a potato masher or immersion blender, smash the cauliflower to desired texture. Add butter and pepper to taste, mixing well.

Merry New Year!!!!

As long as I live, I will never forget the scene on the train in "Trading Places."

Good stuff!

Another year - another year of goals! I did reach some of my goals last year. My weight was not one of them! Oh, we would have good intentions but the food is just so good! I have an awesome incentive this year: I'm going to be a Gramma in June! Yes, we all want to be more healthy and live longer lives but there's something about the impending arrival that sort of kicks you in the ass and says "no, seriously - I want to dance at my grandchild's wedding."

Before that, though, I have a wedding reception to prepare for! Trey and Nicole want it casual - here at the cabin and a rather casual theme for the food: Cinco de Mayo! This is going to take a bit of planning to make it special but stay within our budget. They also want a margarita toast rather than champagne - that's something I can't wait to play with! My first thought goes to strawberry-something-something but the Ohio strawberries won't arrive until June at least.

Speaking of June, I'm going to my first writer's conference: BlogHer Food in Seattle! I'm hoping that Harry will be able to go with me but it truly depends on his work schedule. If he does get some comp time by then, he would much rather spend it catching Walleye on the French River - well, so would I - but I need to take this opportunity to learn.

I've long been a fan of Ree Drummond over at The Pioneer Woman but a few months ago I totally became a fangirl of Irvin Lin at Eat the Love - follow that link and see why. Food porn. Glorious food porn and a more scientific approach to baking than I've ever been patient enough to try. He's also running a giveaway for a few more days. Someday, when I'm a big kid, I'll collect swag that I can give away!

While 2011 was a year of economic recovery for us, I just wasn't quite comfortable enough to say to Harry "Hey - let's go on a taco truck tour!" He's totally psyched about something like that and we will hit up Columbus Food Adventures in 2012. To start the year, we'll be hitting up the Winter Beer Fest in just a couple of weeks!

As for today, it's time to get my kitchen back into shape for playing with food AND dieting! I need to move some of the pantry ingredients that are filling my counters back into storage. The Kitchen-Aid will be removed from its permanent home on my work table to keep room for the fruit basket. Oh - it won't go far, I still have to bake bread. Our traditional New Year's Day dinner of dead pig and sauerkraut is on tap along with garlic smashed taters and a salad.

We're not planning a huge deal for the Ohio State/Florida Gator Bowl on Monday because Harry starts back to the gawd-awful 3:00 AM start time on Tuesday - UGH! Good thing the game is in the afternoon - some simple munchies of guac and salsa along with Devils on a Horse. Harry's more excited about having Tortellini Soup because I haven't made it in a bazillion years! Found a great deal on frozen tortellini at Kroger yesterday and grabbed two bags. Maybe he'll get it twice this year!

Merry New Year to all! What are your goals for 2012? Oh - and I really could use some food ideas for that Cinco de Mayo wedding reception!

And the beginning of the challenge: Avocado!

Guacamole! Ole! Avocado!

I don't eat this yumtabulous treat very often. My hips don't need it and Harry doesn't really care for it - he says it tastes green.

I didn't take enough pictures the last time I made it. I was just so excited to make it I forgot the step by step pictures. I tend to plan this one a few days in advance so I can buy a rather firm avocado and let it ripen on my kitchen counter.

When I used to go to Scottsdale for the annual Sewing Circle parties, salsa and guacamole were always my contributions. I could pick up the ingredients at Fry's and throw it together. It was also a lot cheaper than trying to pack my KitchenAid in the suitcase. Do you know how heavy that thing is?

In the winter, the only fresh tomatoes I'll buy are cherry or grape tomatoes. Those rock-hard things they call tomatoes in central Ohio in January taste like paper and I won't subject my sensitive tongue to them.

Years ago, when I worked at Barley's Smokehouse and Brewpub, Thursday's lunch special was enchiladas. The kitchen guys who grew up south of the border made the guac and an amazing verde sauce. The verde was for staff consumption only and the guacamole was to die for.

I can't count the number of times I asked Adolfo for the recipe. All he would do is tell me what was in it. I had to kind of learn to wing it from there. But, at the rate it always disappeared in Scottsdale, I think this Midwestern gal got the hang of it.

I like my guacamole to be chunky, so I just kind of mash the avocado a bit with a fork and use a very gentle hand when mixing everything together. There's tomato, sweet onion, fresh garlic, fresh lime juice, minced jalepeno, cilantro and just a pinch of Kosher salt.

How much of everything? Remember what Adolfo said to me? Nah...follow the link to my recipe for Fast & Easy Guacamole

Spaghetti Sauce by the Gallon!

I love to cook but sometimes we're a little short on time. I love stocking the freezer with the good stuff so we don't fall back on mass-produced crap or think we have to pick up fast food. Double-duty cooking means you take a few extra minutes when preparing one meal to make enough for a second or more.

Hopefully, we'll have luck with growing our tomatoes and maybe score a deal like we did last year. Harry got an amazing price on about 120 pounds of tomatoes from a vendor at the Pataskala Farmers Market in August - $25. I turned most of it into Bloody Mary Mix but also made a couple of quarts of tomato sauce and froze some tomatoes after I peeled and seeded them. They were so good this winter but I'm completely out.

I'm already planning to make this sauce when the tomatoes come in and popping it in the freezer. If you aren't adventurous enough to start from fresh tomatoes, this version of spaghetti sauce uses the canned variety. Quit paying Ragu and Prego and whatever other companies are out there. Homemade spaghetti sauce is a breeze to make. My version makes one gallon for about $5 - how many meals will that make for your family?

Yeah, there's steam coming off of the onions, shallots and garlic. I forgot to take a picture when I used the red wine vinegar to deglaze the pan. Deglazing gets the yummy bits off of the bottom. Be careful to not scorch the garlic.

Here's the spices - seems like such a small amount for so much sauce. Do you know how hard it was for me to actually measure something while I wasn't baking?

After you add the tomatoes and the tomato sauce, throw in the spices. Stir it up, bring to a simmer and leave it on low heat until it's yummy.

I added our homemade meatballs to the mix. You can add browned ground beef or Italian sausage. My friend Trish uses meatballs, Italian sausage links cut into chunks and browned boneless country style pork ribs. Harry was in heaven when I described it to him!

Spaghetti and meatballs with a fresh-tasting sauce - even from canned tomatoes.

Get all the specifics for Double-Duty Cooking: All Purpose Italian Red Sauce by following that link.

Meatballs, meatballs, meatballs - subs & spaghetti!

A good meatball sub is hard to find. Harry loves them but doesn't like how the spheres roll out when you try to bite into it! These little beauties are perfect for spaghetti or subs.

I wrote this recipe and left out the veal for anyone who freaks out about eating baby cows. My preferred blend of meat is 2 parts ground beef, 1 part Italian sausage and 1 part ground veal. But, in the interest of all, no baby moo-moos were harmed in the making of this blog post. The photos you see are beef & sausage.

I prefer making a bunch at once and freezing them. Double-duty cooking is huge around here. Why just cook for one meal when I can put something in the freezer for a night that we might not have 2 or 3 hours to spend in the kitchen.

There it is in a big ol' bowl. Ground beef, sausage, our own homemade bread crumbs, some egg and spices and just a bit of Frank's Hot Sauce. I use granulated garlic for these so I don't have to worry about scorching garlic bits while I'm sauteing the meatballs.

All squished up and ready to be rolled. I wish I could find that picture of the mountain of meatballs in my food porn file. This recipe makes about 40 meatballs.

FOUND IT! YAY! It only took about 10 minutes to roll all these by hand.

 I love my collection of cast iron. The "youngest" I have was one that Mom gave me when I first got married in 1983. I needed it to make corn bread and it honestly took about 5 years before I could say it was truly "seasoned" properly. All of the rest of my collection is at least 70 years old.

Sorry - back to the meatballs. My friend Trish showed me how to make them years ago and how to keep them semi-round. Don't overcrowd the skillet - you need some room so cook them in batches. Roll each meatball into the skillet and shake the pan to keep them moving. You're not trying to cook them all the way through. I have another friend who has gotten the method down to not even brown the meatballs before adding them to her sauce. Must mind-meld with Pam Gaulin.

Isn't that pretty? No, I'm a dork and each time we've had meatballs subs, I keep forgetting to take a picture.

For all the ingredients follow the bouncing ball to Double Duty Cooking: Italian Meatballs

Yes, really. Frank's Original Red Hot DOES come in one gallon jugs! I try to catch it on sale at GFS Marketplace for around $10. If you don't have a GFS around you and you put that sh#t on everything, you can order it here.

Homemade Pizza and YES! It's almost round!

There's a few places I love to get pizza from. Rotolo's in Grandview is worth the trip. They don't have inside seating, so we eat in the parking lot while it's still piping hot! Those perfect little crispy-edged pepperoni, curled up and filled with grease - heaven! Fracasso's in Center Village has a patio and a dining room - oh, and BEER! I'm fond of Pizza Burg in Centerburg even though they use a conveyor oven.

I prefer the old school places that still have a real pizza oven - stone baked at about 500 degrees so the crust pops and crisps quickly. We lined our ovens with unglazed quarry tiles two years ago and never looked back. I leave them in the oven full-time. It doesn't affect the pan baking in any way.

We love pizza night. No, I mean the nights that we make our own. The tiles in our ovens at 500 degrees make a crust we love and the pizzas are done in about 7-8 minutes.

After I originally wrote the recipe for the sauce, I changed my method a little bit. Rather than adding the balsamic vinegar with the tomato sauce, I use it to deglaze the pan after sauteing the onions and garlic. Well, this time I used shallots - because I can.

Isn't this gorgeous sausage? We bought the house grind at Carfagna's. I had to let Harry go a little crazy with the seasonings to give it more of an Italian flavor.

 This is the closest I've ever gotten to making pizzas that were actually round. I've tried everything - and trust me, you don't want to ever see me trying to throw a crust in the air. We used a pressing method this time - Harry squeezed the dough between two round cake pans and that gave me a good start.

Mmmmm....pizza sauce! As I worked, putting on the ingredients, the crust continued to relax a bit and I was able to smooth out the parchment paper.

 We love lots of cheese and put on a thin layer just above the sauce to help everything stick together.

Remember the carnivore? Yes, we must have lots of pepperoni.

I like onion on my pizza. I try not to force Harry to eat too many vegetables with his pizza, so it's a rare occasion that I might throw on some green olives or fresh tomato slices.

And Harry's special-seasoned sausage. There's one pizza joint that we like but we can't order sausage for our pie there. They always put it on top, the cheese is on the bottom and you always lose the sausage.

So - to save our sausage, we always put the cheese on top. Lots of cheese. No, I didn't shred this myself because I was being slightly lazy. 

Now - how good does that look? No we didn't eat three pizzas in one night. The leftovers were breakfast and midnight snacks for Harry for a few days!

This crust recipe really is a breeze. It's important to let it rest for at least an hour to make it easier to work with. When Allison came home for the holidays, I made the crust and sauce and browned the sausage before we headed to the airport and kept it all in the fridge. Works like a dream.

Follow the link for Easy Homemade Pizza Crust and Sauce

For the price, this is a decent stone. Oh, and don't buy one of those fancy-schmancy wooden pizza peels. I have a restaurant-size stainless steel pizza peel that I picked up at Wasserstrom's for about $12.

Homemade Cadbury Creme Eggs

No, I can't take credit for this recipe for Cadbury Creme Eggs. My favorite Canadian Savannah dweller, Angie Mohr, came up with this one. She and I have a lot in common - we both want safe, local food sources to outweigh mass-produced crap. She beats me in some ways because she has actually *made* her own sea salt. Of course, living close to the ocean makes that a little easier.

Think about it - those addiction-inducing Cadbury eggs that are gone as soon as Easter is over are possible to make at home. Oh, and when you look at the recipe, you'll see that there aren't any chemicals. No, light corn syrup is not the same thing as high fructose corn syrup that is used to cheaply sweeten so many products.

So here you go - follow the link to Angie's recipe and indulge yourself year round.

Homemade Cadbury Creme Eggs

Thanks Easter Bunny! BAWK BAWK and thanks to donzeladef over at sxc.hu for the cute pic!

And - if you can't quite get the hang of shaping the homemade eggs by hand, Amazon has a mold for you!

A magic drawer filled with spices

Last week, I added a picture of our magic drawer to Harry's post about chili - here's a reminder:

Harry calls it our magic drawer for a reason!

Two important things about spices:

First, "normal" people don't buy their spices in containers this large. Harry & I never claimed to be normal! Every single one of these containers (except the Old Bay) is less than a year old. A large part of our product line with The Wright Taste was mixes and seasonings - we had 3 types of dip mix, our buffalo dust, cajun kick, chili powder, mulling spices and more. We developed everything in our kitchen and had to buy large-size packages of the spices. I also used the dried herbs in our artisan-style breads.

Second, yes a very discerning palate can taste the difference between grating your own cinnamon and nutmeg or buying it pre-ground, but in general spices are relatively the same. I will admit to being a vanilla snob to some extent. It must be pure vanilla extract - none of that imitation stuff in this kitchen.

Now that we are retiring from the farmers market business - at least for the time being! - we won't continue to buy spices in bulk.

It doesn't have to cost a fortune to stock your pantry with a variety of spices to make it easier to make your favorite cuisine from scratch. Add a few items to your grocery list at a time. Check the dollar store or Aldi's for sea salt, garlic powder and peppercorns. Take time to build up your collection - always buying small containers that you will use up! - and expand your kitchen collection.

I will admit to getting VERY excited to find small tins of ground chipotle and ancho chili peppers! More excitement came when the price was $1.99 at Kroger! For four summers, I had a couple of customers requesting that I create some sort of chipotle dip mix. I was all about it until I found the container at GFS - 18 ounces for around $28. My concerns were two-fold: what if we couldn't sell enough (a little chipotle goes a long way!) fast enough to make back the expense? and not selling enough fast enough could lead to the expensive ingredient losing its potency and not being acceptable to sell. So, we bypassed it. Now, I can play on our own stage!

I put together an article including some of the basic spices for various cuisines - Italian, Mexican and Asian plus a few other ideas.

Variety of Herbs and Spices Makes it Easy to Cook from Scratch

If you don't have a drawer to spare in your kitchen, I thought this was a pretty nifty spice rack. It mounts on the back of a cupboard door and you just clip the spice bottles into it.

New Year...new start

I hate to be such a cliche, but it's a common thing for people to resolve to lose weight at the beginning of the year. I have no choice. I can not continue on the path I am going or I will weigh more than Harry by the end of the year.

Harry and I cook - I mean "really" cook. Everything is from scratch except a couple of nasty concoctions that are more like guilty pleasures during football season. You won't find fake anything in the kitchen. Well, I do buy low-fat mayo because I got used to it years ago. Neither of us like the taste of whole milk, so we drink 2%. I do occasionally cook with heavy cream or half & half.

I hope to some of my kitchen time this year experimenting with our favorite recipes to see if I can find ways to cut the fat & calories and beef up the veggie content without freaking Harry out.

The first place to start is with the raw stuff - salads and veggies to munch on! Harry loves raw veggies, he's just not a fan of anything cooked - especially if it's "hillbilly" cooked meaning cooked to mush. I did get him to admit that he'd probably like mashed rutabaga. Of course for me that involves adding butter, sugar, salt and pepper!

When we had loads of fresh local veggies last summer and lots of salads, I did play around and develop a few fat-free salad dressings. For creamy dressings, I start with fat-free plain yogurt. I usually strain it for awhile to make it thicker.

Here's the link to those fat-free salad dressings:

Homemade Fat-Free Salad Dressings

I think every kitchen needs a digital scale but it's an even better tool for dieters!

Soups and Chilis and Stews...oh my!

The weather is turning cooler, the nights are frosty and the days have the chill of approaching winter months. For many that signals the end of grill season; the barbecue is stored, patio furniture covered and neatly stacked and the last vestiges of summer going into hibernation. It’s about time!

Four pounds of meat!

Now is when the kitchen really heats up. As the temperature drops day by day and the white crystallized water starts to accumulate, comfort food is needed to help sustain your sanity. This is the time to open your cookbook and let the winter Big Dogs out to play. I am talking about Soups and Chili and Stews oh my.

Some of the goodies that go into Harry's award-winning chili!

There are countless recipes for each easily accessible on the internet, ranging from the simple “Thirty Minute” variety to the more rewarding and tasting “Evening Event.” Or if you feel lucky “Well, do you, cook?” create your own to suit your particular tastes. The is a wide array of protein, produce, and spices to create a dish that will simply make you happy and content, at least until you have to go out and shovel snow.

Debbie and I started the season with Beef Stew, our own design of course, and now this night my never to be famous (because I will not give out the recipe) Chili with a bit of a Cajun twist. Debbie might give you a hint or two about the recipe if you ask nicely. This is one of those evening events. It takes about three hours from prep to table if you work fast but the result is worth every minute. We always try to make enough for a second meal (it is even better the second day) but alas it seems no matter how much we make someone sneaks in and eats it during the night.

The magic drawer is an absolute requirement to cooking from scratch!

I hope you experiment with your own recipes for the Big Dogs of winter and let us know how it turns out, if you have a question I am sure Debbie will be happy to help.

Good Cooking

P.S. Remember to always cook with wine, and sometimes use it in the food.

Vietnamese Egg Rolls...Harry's Way!

Without too many details, let me just say that Harry knows Vietnamese food! Last winter, we finally decided to really test our kitchen chops several times with Asian cuisine and the results were great. As usual, when we get into our "experimental research" phase, we will spend hours making dinner.

The difference is visible on the nights when we are making Vietnamese food - I chop a few veggies and sit back with a glass of wine while Harry takes control! This recipe for Vietnamese Egg Rolls doesn't really take long, we take a long time. We always make a full batch so we can have some in the freezer - even with great effort, we can't come anywhere near eating 30 large Vietnamese Egg Rolls in one night.

Vietnamese Egg Rolls differ a bit from the more common Chinese Egg Roll is the meat - our version contains salad-size shrimp and pork with some veggies and noodles thrown in for depth.

Still didn't have my new kitchen light - in the back are our two dipping sauces. I made a sweet lemongrass sauce and Harry's Nuac Cham is the light-colored sauce.

I chopped all the veggies - some shallot, garlic, sweet pepper, Napa Cabbage and Bean Sprouts.

Ready for the freezer. We freeze them on a pan to keep the Vietnamese Egg Rolls from sticking together. Then, we can just pull out a few at a time to fry when we get a craving.

The expert! Harry puts about two tablespoon of the egg roll filling on the diagonal wrapper...

Then, fold the bottom up, close in the sides and finish rolling. He dips in fingers in the little bowl of water to seal the edges of the finished egg roll.

 You can find the complete recipe for our Vietnamese Egg Rolls right here!

Texas Straw Hat...Centerburg Schools Style!

My friend Arlene mentioned Texas Straw Hat that was sold at the Oldtime Farming Festival in Centerburg a few weeks ago. So many people immediately had flashbacks to our school days. Personally, I loved it until I walked into the cafeteria kitchen one morning to say "Hi" to Gramma and saw her grinding the kidney beans.

That might explain my to-this-day aversion to beans. I'm going to try to not gross anyone out with the image I still carry in my mind of those beans coming out of the grinder.

Oops. Sorry.

Texas Straw Hat is so simple - and I've seen it on restaurant menus as Frito Pie. Take a handful or so of Frito's, cover it with chili and shredded cheese. I would cheat a bit when my kids were teens and use Chili-O with Onions seasoning mix - it wasn't bad and if I did it right, we had enough left over for chili-dogs the next night.

Gramma loved sharing her recipes. The Centerburg United Methodist Church used to do what Gramma called her "circle cookbooks" and as I thumb through the pages of these books, Gramma always submitted a lot of recipes. How I cherish this collection. It's not only Gramma in those pages - Mrs. Debolt is there, Bertha Wright, Jacque Cordle and Justine Reynolds - although Justine never gave up her recipe for her amazing Butterscotch Pie that I've been able to find.

If you're really looking for a school-days Texas Straw Hat flashback, here's the recipe - according to Gramma, who cooked at the school when they really used to cook. It's cut down to a normal quantity, maybe 6 or 7 servings.

1 cup chopped onion
2/3 cup chopped celery
2/3 cup chopped green pepper
3 tablespoons fat (yes, the word is FAT - I have no idea what they used in the 70s!)
2 pounds ground beef
2-3 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 6-ounce cans tomato paste
2 cups water
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Dash of Tabasco sauce
1 large can kidney beans, drained and ground up (hmmm...large? probably not a #10 can!)
2 (6 ounce) package corn chips (maybe they weren't Fritos in the 70s?)
2 cups American or sharp cheese, ground up (I'm almost positive it would have been the surplus government American cheese back then)

In large skillet cook onion, celery and green pepper in hot fat until tender, but not brown. Add ground beef and brown lightly. Add remaining ingredients, except corn chips and cheese. Simmer, uncovered, for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Serve over corn chips and top with a generous serving of the cheese.

There it is - when I make it, I always add diced raw onion on top of the chili and under the cheese.

Enjoy the memories!

The Weatherman Says It's Soup Season!

I love autumn - fall - whatever you want to call it! The colors, the cool nights and the beckoning of my soup pot.

Harry does most of the cooking in the summer and we don't put away the grill in the winter. When the weather turns cool, it's my time to take over again.

We eat some form of "bowl food" at least three nights a week from October through June! Some soups are more hearty - I love a great bowl of fish chowder and someday when I'm all grown up, I'll be able to make it as good as my cousin Freddie in New Brunswick. Of course, he does have the advantage of living much closer to the ocean and being able to buy better fish.

Through the winter, we make our own stock - vegetable, chicken, turkey and beef. When we find a great price on whole chickens or I can find some meaty beef bones, it's time to fill the freezer! Having our own stock in the freezer makes it easier to whip up a pot of soup for dinner.

Chowder, for me, almost always includes corn and potatoes and some sort of creaminess. Sometimes I thicken it with a little slurry.

For the beginning of soup season, I have two very simple recipes adapted with store-ingredients. Most of these items should be in your pantry; if not: stock up when the prices are good and you'll be able to quickly make a pot of soup no matter how busy you might be. Both are made with ground Italian hot sausage - one of our favorites - but you can use mild sausage.

Sausage & Corn Chowder and Tortellini Soup

It's not the prettiest picture but this sausage and corn chowder is REALLY yummy!

Another pumpkin shortage? Not really!

A lot of people might remember last year's shortage of canned pumpkin in the stores - the entire 2009 Libby's harvest was processed, delivered, stocked and sold by Thanksgiving. Heavy rains in Illinois prevented the tractors from getting in and out of the fields and the pumpkin disappeared from store shelves faster than you can bake a pumpkin pie.

We always process real pumpkin - you know, those big orange things you cut funny shapes into every Halloween and stick a candle inside? My frozen supply ran out early during this year's farmer's market season and I was a little worried. No fears - I've been buying #10 cans of pure pumpkin puree at GFS Marketplace since July. In fact, I've never seen the shelves empty until my friend and fellow vendor Denise mentioned the store we both buy supplies at was out last week.

Part of this is because of memories of last year's shortage. People are panicking and buying more than what they normally would "just in case". Libby's has assured everyone the pumpkin harvest is fine this year, but it takes a little time to process those orange beauties and get them into the stores. E-bay sellers are scoring should-be-illegal prices. I'll admit to feeling more than a little bit of glee at seeing the price on a listing I was watching for research drop by over $20 since Libby's made their announcement - especially because the seller stated "They are already predicting a pumpkin shortage" in the listing.

So...I did rant a little bit:

The Great Pumpkin Shortage of 2010?

On to how to...

It really doesn't take any special skill to process your own pumpkins at home to use to baking anything pumpkin - pumpkin bread, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin pies. Canned pumpkin IS one of the few products out there that really is nothing but - no fillers, preservatives, additives, just pure pumpkin. But, with some time you can save a lot of money by buying pumpkins at the farmers market and making your own frozen pumpkin puree.

How to Make & Freeze Homemade Pumpkin Puree

Plenty of pumpkin in 2010 - Photo courtesy www.sxc.hu/dbgeorge

The Weekend Veggie Haul!

Harry and I have different points of view about vegetables. There's a very rare vegetable that Harry will eat cooked, and I grew up eating religious veggies - turn the heat up and boil the hell out of 'em!

We're reaching a compromise. Fortunately, both of us will eat about anything raw. We cook the sweet corn just a few minutes to warm it up. He will tolerate sauteed green beans and permit me to indulge in my Southern-Fried favorites - green tomatoes and okra. We also use a lot of veggies, chopped fine, as filler for other things. Last night was "supposed" to be Vietnamese. Vietnamese egg rolls and a Garlic Beef Pan-Fried Noodle with a simple cucumber salad.

As always happens, the conversation and enjoyment of each other was a much higher priority than the actual food prep and cooking! So, we did finish the Vietnamese Egg Rolls, I made an awesome Spicy Lemongrass Dipping Sauce and Harry's Nuoc Cham has been perfected - recipes coming soon.

We collected quite a haul of veggies this weekend, between Dad's ninja raids of gardens, a generous donation of zucchini for The Wright Taste (Thanks Dr. Skip!) and some bartering at the farmers markets. We spent less than $15 on fresh veggies this week. I couldn't fit everything in one picture, but I got close:

 

A dozen ears of yellow corn from Richard and some long sweet peppers for roasting and a pint of jalapenos from my friend Brian in Mount Vernon (he also threw in a few tomatillos and some hot peppers). I have to go to Mount Vernon to pick up what was referred to as "scads" of Candy Onions from Brian - he can't sell them fast enough and they are absolutely delicious! I will start chopping and freezing them for winter.

The yellow watermelon (I shared half of it with Mom & Dad) is so sweet - the vendor shoved a piece in my mouth to taste and I was hooked! Also, the Yukon Gold potatoes and the two bowls of organic tomatoes, plus a couple of zucchini and the fresh garlic are from Delaware. I've never cooked with leeks before, so I bought one to try.

Dad raided his garden and my cousin's garden - zucchini, okra and tomatoes. The cucumbers are from our "garden". And, Harry got most of the red tomatoes in Pataskala on Friday night.

I'm a little excited about being able to take pictures again. Yes, I still suck as a photographer. Harry had a couple of studio lights and a tripod from his days of intense photography and video work. We've had them at the flea market and they hadn't sold and I realized HEY! We could use them to brighten up the kitchen to help with the pictures until I can afford a better camera (to replace the one that the thieving bastards stole in December!)


I've definitely got salsa on the brain with all the tomatoes and peppers.

That pile of okra will be tossed in a mixture of cornmeal, flour and seasoning and I'll "fry up a mess of okra" (Miss you, Gramma!) The little tiny yellow tomatoes - sweet like candy! - are about the size of Texas caviar. I'm thinking a cucumber, tomato and onion relish-ish type thing.

The long peppers are going to be stuffed with a Sweet-Italian Sausage/Rice/Tomato blend, then grill-roasted just until the peppers are perfect. We've had requests for Jalepeno/Cheese bread - I didn't quite get enough peppers in it last week, but now I've got plenty!

What are YOU finding in the garden or at the farmers market? We're in the midst of the best part of the Central Ohio growing season right now.

The Farmer's Market Book is a great guide to the history of local farmers markets. Robinson says it best when she describe farmers markets as "the other homeland security" - the sense of community that comes from shopping or participating in a farmers market can't be matched.

On Cooking from Scratch...

Everyone who knows me is well aware of my passion for cooking from scratch.

Yes, I still buy mayonnaise and butter - I've made them from scratch and I don't have to anymore! There are a few commercial products that I buy, such as cream of mushroom soup, because I haven't yet figured out a way to make it myself.

There are so many advantages to cooking from scratch: You know EXACTLY what is in your food, it's less expensive and it will always taste better.

Cooking from scratch does seem more expensive in the beginning. Stocking your pantry takes time but once the pantry and "magic drawer" are filled, you have a world of options at your fingertips.

Two of my earliest articles were all about cooking from scratch. I hope they give you some hope and help you realize it IS possible to save money AND time by cooking from scratch.

Stock Your Kitchen to Save Money

Save Money With Homemade Convenience Foods

I'm a fan of the cookbook in the Amazon link. All cooking and baking is based on ratios - so much liquid to so much flour to so much fat. Knowing these ratios can take the worry out of adapting a recipe to be more suitable to your tastes.

A Simple Supper, An Early Night

Saturdays wear us out!

For the first time since March, Harry had a Saturday night off work. YAY! No coming home exhausted from the market-short porch break-nap-choking down dinner-another nap-he goes to work kind of day. We had such grand plans for this rare event.

A relaxing, enjoy-being-in-the-kitchen-just-for-us EARLY dinner, watch the sun set behind the extremely tall corn, maybe a snack, some TV and then a good night's sleep.

Somehow, it didn't quite work out that way. Harry had a breast collar to repair and deliver. While he was gone, I chopped the veggies for the salad. Tomatoes, cukes, OUR green onions, someone else's candy onion, half of a medium-hot banana pepper, a green bell and a really awesome tasting chocolate pepper that the organic vendor just threw in with my other peppers.

Usually, I won't even dress this salad but I made the super-easy honey-lemon dressing with honey from the Delaware market that was harvested Thursday - so light and clear! I only buy honey from local producers but I keep my eyes open for special tasting honey for dressings and sauces.

I cleaned the corn, got the green beans ready to fry (yes, FRY) in bacon grease (yes, BACON GREASE) with onions and peppers so the man would eat them with me, par-boiled the country ribs we found on markdown and made a great barbecue sauce!

I sat on the porch while he grilled the ribs, running in to start the corn and beans right before the ribs were ready. We filled our plates, ate dinner...

and went right to bed. It might have been 7:30 or so.

I slept until 4:00 AM - like a rock, missing the storm that I think rolled through here last night. I've read dozens of articles, tweeted, FB and caught up on some of my blog reading.

I think I'll take a nap today.