Carrot, pear applesauce

I've been playing around with applesauce combinations lately. I made a raspberry applesauce which Baby D loved, but my blueberry applesauce turned out way too thick. Almost gelatinous.
I wanted to make a vegetable applesauce, but I needed a different way to feed it to little miss I'm-too-big-to-be-spoon-fed. I used one pound of baby carrots, one pear and one cup of applesauce. I steamed the carrots for 20 minutes and the pears for 10, then strained them with some plain applesauce and the leftover steaming liquid. I took it one step further and blended the mixture to a fine puree. Now she happily sips it down with a straw. Now we're both happy! I'm sneaking vegetables into her diet and she's a big girl by drinking out of a cup.
Bliss.

Pepparkakor

Another old fashioned cookie recipe. These are noted as being "Swedish gingersnaps with a "bite"."
These can certainly hold their own in the cookie world. They have a dash of black pepper, which gives them their "bite." It's a unique flavor and a holiday favorite.
Hopefully I'll be able to post the recipe after my little one has gone to bed.

Avgolemono

Yummy. Nothing better to warm you up on a chilly evening when you're on the cusp of a seasonal cold. This egg and lemon soup is a traditional Greek recipe I first tried on a trip to Greece back in 2004. I've been working on replicating it ever since and I think tonight I made my best batch. I added chicken because I had a little leftover from a store bought rotisserie chicken.

Avgolemono with Chicken
Serves one as a main course or 2 as an appetizer:

1/3 Cup Orzo
1/3 Cup chopped cooked chicken (optional)
2Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cups chicken broth
2 eggs
pinch salt

In a medium pot, set the broth to boiling.
Add orzo and chopped cooked chicken. Cook over medium heat for 9 minutes.
In a medium bowl, thoroughly whisk the eggs.
Slowly add in the lemon juice.
Gradually add a couple of ounces of the heated broth to the egg-lemon mixture to warm it, then slowly add the mixture to the broth.
Stir gently over a low flame.
Salt to taste.
Serve right away

Green eggs and ham

I do not like them, Sam-I-am.
I do not like green eggs and ham.

We're big Dr. Seuss fans around here ever since Baby D changed our reading preferences from "The Wall Street Journal" to "Hop on Pop". I think we now own half the books by Dr. Seuss. I try to grab them at yard sales and library sales whenever I see them. "The Lorax" is an impossible find.
I can recite "My many colored days" in my sleep, but "I had trouble in getting to Solla Sollew" is by far my favorite. If you're ever having a bad day or things just aren't going your way, you should read this book. It will change your perspective for the better. Dr. Seuss is great like that.
But getting back to Green Eggs and Ham. This was something I made up just to use up some leftover ham. It's quick, easy and tastes delicious. The only thing I might change in the future is to add more spinach and chop it finer to give the whole dish more of a green hue.
Green Eggs and Ham:
(serves one)
1/2 Cup chopped leftover ham
1 medium onion
1 Tbsp Butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 eggs beaten
1/4 Cup finely chopped fresh baby spinach

In a skillet heat the oil and butter over medium heat. Finely shop the onion and add to skillet. Sautee until onions are softened. Add ham and stir with onions until ham is heated through. Beat eggs in a bowl and add 1tsp water. Add chopped spinach to eggs. Add egg and spinach mixture to ham and onions and stir until eggs are cooked and spinach is softened.
There's no need to add salt because the ham lends a salty flavor.

I do so like green eggs and ham!
Thank you!
Thank you, Sam-I-am!

Pizza Burgers

Ever try the Pizza Burgers from the Schwan's truck? I used to love these things as a kid. It took a little creativity to figure out how to season the meat, but it's actually quite simple. I don't have exact measures for the ingredients I used because I was basically winging it, but they're close. These turned out really good.

Pizza Burgers:
1lb Lean Ground Beef
4oz Tomato paste
1 tsp oregano
1tsp basil
1/2tsp garlic salt
swiss style processed cheese

Combine the beef, tomato paste, oregano, basil and garlic salt thoroughly. Press into thin rounds. Add a round slice of cheese and another round of beef mixture. Pinch sides closed.
I used a biscuit cutter to cut my slice of cheese and then used the excess as the filling of the next burger. (waste not!) You'll want to keep the beef slices rather thin because you don't want them to take forever to cook. If they take too long the cheese all melts out. The finished burger in the photo was almost too thick.
Cook burgers over medium high heat on a grill pan.
Enjoy!

Home made Play-Doh

I made my first batch of Play-Doh this week. I have to admit, I think I've been playing with it more than Baby D has. It has proven to be an invaluable addition to our kitchen though. I was able to make dinner the other day while she played with the Play-Doh at the kitchen table. This stuff is worth its weight in gold for the twenty minutes of free time it gave me.
I cut this recipe in half. A full batch is pretty big.
No Cook Playdough
3 Cups Flour
3 Tbs Alum
1/2 Cup salt
2 Tbs. cooking oil
2 cups boiling water
Add 10 drops of food coloring to liquid or 2-3 Tbs dry tempra to flour. Adjust color intensity as desired.
Mix ingredients in order given. Knead well. Keeps up to 6 months in plastic zip bag.

Scalloped potatoes wih buttermilk

Everything tastes better with buttermilk. That's a universal constant. Pancakes, biscuits, even scalloped potatoes.
Today I tried something different. I've become a fast fan of precooking the potato slices in a milk/ heavy cream mixture in a skillet on the stove top. I didn't have any heavy cream so I substitited buttermilk instead. At first it was pretty scary. As soon as buttermilk hits the heat it turns into a cottage cheese consistency. I was afraid I had ruined the whole dish. In time and at a slightly lower flame, it smoothed out and started cooking nicely. I layered the potato slices and cream with some cheddar cheese and leftover ham. I baked it at 350F for about an hour. I kept checking it every twenty minutes to see if the potatoes were done. I should have precooked them on the stove longer I suppose. For such a tasty dish, this sure does take forever to bake.

Picking plentiful pretty peppers

Gorgeous. These were some of the most beautiful peppers i had ever seen.
This was not a planned trip to the fields. My MIL and I went to Waldoch's simply to grab a few things from the roadside stand, but we saw cars in the fields and people bearing bushels of peppers and tomatoes. I couldn't resist. Impulse harvest!

I got a few tomatoes and peppers and in the bag are some okra. I made the best jambalaya of my life from these ingredients and had plenty left for pickling the sweet peppers and canning tomatoes.

If there's a heaven, this is mine.

Booya

I went to my first Booya today. It's an event focused around a soup. They do it up right at this place. This is my MIL's family and they've been having this Booya for years.
A Booya is a soup consisting of chicken, beef, beans, corn, tomatoes and whatever else you see fit to throw in. It's very good and it must be made in massive quantities. I believe this one was made in a 30 gallon tank. Here you see it being ladled into the pan for the roasting dish for serving. I couldn't imagine taking on such a project. But it brought in a big crowd. I got to meet all kinds of relatives I had never met before, including one person I've been sending Christmas cards to for a few years now.

Zucchini Pickles

I really like our new neighborhood. We have some of the sweetest neighbors. I just can't bring myself to tell the old man who lives across the street that I really have enough zucchini and don't need any more.
I had to find some new recipes for zucchini. Luckily I stumbled across a very simple pickle recipe. I'll post the recipe as soon as my little girl stops pulling on my slacks.

Purple beans?

I bought these absolutely gorgeous purple string beans at the St. Paul farmer's market in Hugo, MN. It was the color. It screamed "impulse buy!". There was a yellow bean in the bunch as well. Extra cuteness to the batch.
I made these as a side dish for some stuffed peppers (also from the farmer's market). I steamed them like I usually do for green beans and what do I get?


Green beans!
They lost all their color and quirkyness.
The flavor was fine, I have no complaints about how they tasted, I just happened to want to dish up some purple beans onto my plate.
Lesson learned.

Moussaka means "I love you"

What else could cooking for over three hours mean?
Baby D and I went to the farmer's market today. Everything there looked so beautiful and appetizing. It was the first time we've gone this year and I loaded up. I even bought a pound of Organically raised ground beef. Baby D has started walking and exploring things with a new vigor, which frees up a little more time for me to cook.
I wasn't thrilled with how my Beschamel sauce turned out. Hubby is my saucier, and he's been otherwise occupied building our new house (and my kitchen!). So I made due. Plus, I enjoy throwing in some zucchini and summer squash, which thins out the meat sauce, so my dish never holds up as well as the ones in the pictures online. Oh well, it still tastes phenomenal.

Summertime means berries and pie

No, I didn't make a berry pie, but I did pick about 4 cups of blackberries out of my own front yard. I'm saving them for a batch of jam.

Tonight I made a sweet potato pie and a peach custard pie.

Like the little stars? That's my 4th of July decorations. I love the color of this pie. I've never made this recipe before. I hope everyone likes it. We're having a family BBQ at the property tomorrow.

I made peach custard pie because the last time I made this pie along with seven other varieties and it was the first to be consumed. I figured that was a pretty good testament to it's flavor. As usual, the recipes came from my tried and true Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook.

coconut cupcakes for father's day

If you squint, they look like little lawnmowers. I got the recipe and instructions Here.
My review: Awesome! The cake was light and sweet. I dare say, melt-in-your-mouth. The frosting was simple and sweet and the toppings were too adorable. I wasn't as neat and tidy with my presentation as the original contributor, but I don't think the original contributor had a ten month old who was teething and wanted to be held constantly. These honestly took me a day and a half to finish. They were well worth it. I highly recommend this recipe.

sausage and chicken ...jambalaya?

I'm not sure what to call this. There's no roux, so it might not be exactly a gumbo. It's relatively simple and Baby D can be distracted long enough for me to chop up the ingrediants and then it's a matter of throwing them in the pot.

1pkg Cajun style sausage (I find them at Target)
1 or 2 Chicken breast
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Onion
2 carrots
1 Green Pepper
1 4oz can diced green chilis
1 14oz cans diced tomatoes
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup white rice
1/2 tsp Ground cumin
1 tsp Cajun seasoning
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp Old bay (optional)
1/2 tsp cayenne powder (optional)

Chop onion carrots and green pepper. Heat oil in pot, add vegetables. Stir over medium heat until softened. Add chilis. Stir for another minute. Add chopped sausage and chicken. stir until cooked through. Add spices. Simmer and stir for 2 or 3 minutes. Add tomatoes and water. Add rice. Bring to boil. Cover and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.

Home Made Pizza Crust

I've been toying with the notion of making pizza for a while now. I even thought about buying pre-made frozen pizza dough, but being the penny-pincher that I am, I finally opted for making my own. (Plus Baby D graced me with an afternoon nap in her crib, freeing up my hands for baking)
I used the pizza dough recipe from Fine Cooking magazine, issue Number 49, March 2002. They had a great article with step by step instructions and lots of photos.

4 Cups flour
1.5 tsp salt
1.5 Cups warm water
1 package yeast
2 Tbsp olive oil

Combine the yeast and water and allow the yeast to bloom for a few minutes.
In a food processor fitted with the steel blade, load the flour and salt in the bowl and pulse until blended.
Turn on the food processor and pour the water and yeast into the bowl in a steady stream.
Turn off the food processor and add the olive oil. Pulse until the oil is distributed.
Turn the sticky dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times.
Cut dough into four even sized portions.
(I chose to refrigerate my dough at this point but the article goes on to explain how you'd freeze, refrigerate or use the dough fresh)
Bring dough to room temperature and proof until doubled in size.
Flatten dough and use knuckles to pull the dough into an even 1/4" thickness. (This takes practice, my first pizza was hideously uneven)
I didn't have a peel or baking stone, so I put my finished dough on parchment paper and put that on an aluminum baking sheet.
Add toppings and bake at 500 degrees for 8 minutes.

My pizza (pictured above) was sundried tomato pesto and Chevre. Yum!

We eat well

D has certainly helped improve my diet. Whereas a soda or pop tart would have been sufficient breakfast for me before, now I slow down and prepare an awesome breakfast with loads of fresh fruit for baby and me.
Every morning I make oatmeal with fresh fruit for D and I. She has her Gerber organic oatmeal for babies and I have Quaker old fashioned oats. I slice up a banana and give her a slice cut into small pieces so she can self feed while I prep everything else. She also likes tiny pieces of strawberry slices. I then start cooking my oatmeal while I mash a few strawberry and banana slices and maybe a couple blueberries. Once they've become a paste, I push the mixture through a mesh sieve with a spatula and combine the resulting fruity goo with her bowl of oatmeal and by that time my oatmeal is done.

Puppy in Pampers

Anyone care to trade days with me?
Patch just had his stink glands removed and right now the stitches are itching him.
Notice the carpet cleaner? That's my morning project.
The only good thing is, eventually Baby D will get to use the leftover diapers.
Otherwise, Patch is recuperating very well and in a few days this will all be behind us.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I've always enjoyed the fact that my Birthday is on Earth day. It's not only because birthday and earth day sound alike, but it's also because everyone is in a cheery mood, celebrating the planet and sharing in goals that I've always been a fan of, ie. recycling, composting, general conservation.
I've been out for lunch twice now for my birthday. Hubby took me out to my favorite resaurant in town. This is a big deal because the last time we went out was Valetine's day. We got a complimentary "Death by Chocolate" dessert and it lived up to it's name. It was crazy dense and chocolately. Too much for me. I was already full of Walleye.

Yesterday my MIL and SIL took me out to Carol's resaurant in Blaine for lunch. I can only say great things about this place. The menu and food quality is amazing. The waitstaff gave me a raspberry sundae and clapped and sang a song. The awkwardness was easily forgotten by the richness of the raspberry sauce. It's their homemade jam. Bliss.

Baby D was very well behaved for both outings and enjoyed taking in the scenery. She travels well and delights in people watching.

We ran several errands today after lunch. We went to the bank and they gave us a little Blue Spruce sapling in a tube. I'll have to find the perfect spot for it at the property. We went to REI for some clothes for Daddy and then to Once Upon a Child in Roseville for books, toys and pajamas for Baby D. I can't believe she's outgrowing footed sleepers. How is she getting so big so fast?!
Right now Baby D and the dogs are all taking a nap. Maybe I should join them.

Turkey Pot Pie

I had some leftover turkey from Hubby's birthday dinner, so I decided to make turkey pot pie. The dish itself certainly isn't unique, but when the recipe called for putting rounds of pie dough on top of the pot pie filling, I thought, "I can do better than that." I had some animal shaped cookie cutters and just made the topping a little cuter.
I was going to link to the Better Homes and Gardens recipe I used from my Red and White checkered binder, the staple of all classic American kitchens, but the recipe on the web site is different than the classic. Sorry about that.

Happy Birthday Hubby!

This is my husband's birthday cake. It's a simple layer cake that I cut and shaped. I used a boxed cake mix (shame on me) and homemade buttercream icing. It's symbolic of his uphill struggle during the construction on our house.
It was cute, got some oohs and ahhs and the icing was super sweet. Nummy.