Pint Jar Gifts

At Andrew's mom's side's Christmas (did you follow all those possessives?), we all put something in Christmas stockings for one another.

There are 29 of us.

This has always been difficult for me. What can you get for 29 people that a) won't make you take out a second mortgage and b) won't get thrown away the moment one gets home?

Seriously, if you have ideas, I want to hear them.

The past few years, I've tried to make things. Last year (or the year before?) I knit washcloths and made hard candy for the adults and stalked the dollar section at Michael's and Target for the kids. This year, I decided the "jar gifts" that have the ingredients for a recipe inside the glass jar and instructions for how to bake attached would be a great idea.

Most of those recipes are for quart jars, fyi. I wanted to do pint jars, and because I love you I am going to include the three recipes I used in this post. If you ever want to make pint jar gifts, I am here for you.

'Cause the Internet really is not. The Internet thinks you should make quart jar gifts. The Internet cares not for your holiday budget and large families. Stupid Internet.

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Cookies

• Mix 3/4 c. flour, 3/4 t. baking powder, 1/4 t. salt, and 1/2 t. cinnamon together and put in bottom of clean pint jar. Add the following layers:
• 1/2 c. rolled oats
• 1/2 c. peanut butter chips
• 1/4 light brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 granulated sugar

Tightly lid jar and attach instruction card with a ribbon to the jar. 

"Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour the contents of the jar into a large mixing bowl and mix with 1/3 c. melted butter, 1 egg, and 1/2 t. vanilla extract. Roll cookie dough into 1” balls, place on a baking sheet, and bake for 12-15 minutes."

 

Chocolate-Chip Cookies

• a smidgen over 3/4 c. flour (The recipe was for a quart and called for 1 2/3 c. Don't freak out about it. Just estimate. It's flour, not liquid nitrogen.)
• 1/2 t. baking soda
• 1/4 c. granulated sugar
• 1 c. chocolate chips
• 1/4 brown sugar, packed

Tightly lid jar and attach instruction card with a ribbon to the jar. 

 

"Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Empty contents in a large bowl. In separate bowl, combine 1/3 c. butter, 1 egg, and 1/2 t. vanilla extract. Beat until creamy. Add to dry mixture. Drop by tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and bake for 8-10 minutes."
 

Peppermint Hot Chocolate

• 1/2 c. powdered milk
• 1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 c. granulated sugar
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1/4 c. miniature chocolate chips
• 2 candy canes, broken into pieces

 

Tightly lid jar and attach instruction card with a ribbon to the jar. 

"Mix contents in a large bowl. For each serving, place 1/3 c. cocoa mix in a mug and stir in 1 c. boiling water. Store remaining mix in airtight container."

 

There are a couple diabetics in the crowd, and I made them the peppermint hot chocolate mix with Splenda instead of sugar. They're still getting sugar from the chocolate and candy canes, but at least they're getting less sugar. Andrew also has a cousin with Celiac, and the Spanger brand candy canes and Trader Joe's chocolate chips are gluten-free, as are the other hot chocolate ingredients.

 

I really anticipated these being nice, inexpensive gifts. They are nice. I feel that some real thought and effort went into them, and I hope people enjoy them. Inexpensive? Not so much. I bought the pint jars off eBay, which is where I found the best price, and all the ingredients were basic grocery staples. Still, they were not cheap. I think making anything for more than twenty people is going to be expensive, so I'm going to claim this as a victory.

 

Predictability

Yesterday I needed to be able to do something and know it would turn out the way I expected it to. Knitting is obviously not the answer to this, as it can be a devious bitch.

When I was little, Mom taught me to make bread. I have no idea why she did this. I believe I'm the only one (out of three of us) who baked bread. The upshot of this is that bread is one of the few things I can bake with confidence. Yesterday after work, I baked whole wheat bread.

It's the same recipe Mom used with the exception of substituting about half the flour for whole wheat. It makes two loaves, and I think I will give the second to my in-laws. They're good peeps.

I have no idea where the recipe came from, so I can't give proper credit. I can tell you what I do though.

Ingredients
2 packages dry yeast
2 cups water (pretty hot)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 T. salt
6-8 c. flour, half bread flour and half whole wheat flour

Instructions
Dissolve yeast in water. Add sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and salt. Mix well. Add 3 cups bread flour. Mix well. Add remaining flour gradually while mixing with a dough hook on your mixer.

If you don't have a dough hook, add cups 4-6 of flour gradually, mixing well. Turn out on to a floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes, adding flour as needed when the dough gets too sticky.

The dough should stay together and be elastic when it's finished. I've found with the dough hook I actually use more flour than when I hand knead. This makes no sense to me, but there it is.

Put the dough in a bowl with a bit of vegetable oil in the bottom. Put in a warm place to rise for an hour. Mom taught me to put a casserole pan (9" x 13") of hot water on the bottom rack of the oven and then put the bread in the cold oven on the rack above the pan. The hot water and enclosed space means the bread has a warm, humid place to do its thing. If your oven is in use, stick the bread bowl on a wire rack above a casserole dish filled with hot water and cover the bowl with a tea towel.

Once it's doubled in size (about an hour), give the bread a KAPOW! punch. I have no idea why you do this, but you do. Perhaps it's to get air bubbles out, but I find it just as likely that it's a stress reliever. Use a table knife to cut the dough in two roughly equal pieces. Knead them on a slightly oiled counter a few times, then squish it into a rough rectangle. Roll it from the small end. Press the ends tight to seal them and fold them under. Press the bottom seam of the roll into the loaf. (Just make something roughly the size of a bread pan, and squish it until you're happy with it.)

Put each half into a loaf pan that's been oiled. (Vegetable oil is a theme here.) Put back in oven for another hour to rise. I typically replace the water in the casserole dish with new, hot water.

Once the bread has doubled in size, take it out and preheat the oven to 375. Bake both loaves together for 30-35 minutes. Rub tops with butter, run a table knife around the edges to encourage it to leave the pans quietly and with a minimum of fuss, and turn out onto a rack. Attempt to wait patiently for them to cool a bit, then slice and eat with butter. Or jam. Or both. My in-laws swear by making grilled cheese with this bread, but I like it warm and with plain old butter. (Well, not butter, but some light version that only slightly resembles butter. Use whatever floats your boat.)

I know baking bread isn't going to appeal to everyone. It only appeals to me because I have nice memories of doing it growing up and I feel confident that it's going to behave as expected. If the idea of bread doesn't appeal to you, I encourage you to find something--a recipe, a walk, a movie, a book--that is predictable.

Then when the world goes sideways, you can know that there is something that can be trusted.

Note: In rereading this post, I realize I sound overly dramatic, as if there's some great chaos reigning in my life. There isn't. I'm happy. Andrew's happy. Everything's good. But there is no sun and my anxiety level is higher than I'd like it to be. So, I bake bread. It's better than a crack habit.

Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers

Last night I decided to try a recipe I'd been looking at for weeks, Quinoa-Stuffed Peppers from Vegetarian Times.  Quinoa is something I only started eating after I became a vegetarian, and it's a good way to get some protein.

I followed the recipe relatively closely--no onion or celery, cheddar instead of pepperjack, less tomatoes--and I was pleased with it.  It's supposed to freeze well, but Andrew and I tend to put things in the freezer and never, ever take them back out.  I think I'll just keep eating leftovers.

I sliced a sweet potato very thinly, roasted it, and used that and some grapes to round out the meal.  I was really pleased with how lovely my plate was.

Here's the thing though:  I worked, stopped and bought gas, walked the dog, cooked, walked on the treadmill, ate, and cleaned up.  When I was finished and flopped down on the couch, it was 8:50.  I know that most recipes don't take this long to make, and I know that all the stuff I did was good for me and blah blah blah, but it isn't the way I want to spend most evenings.

And I have no idea how people manage to do this kind of stuff and have kids.  My hat goes off to them.

Mixed Bag of Greens, Part Deux

Yesterday Kyle and I went to a knife skills class.  It was held at the same place where I took the vegetarian cooking class last year and was led by the same instructor.  The veg. class was a mixed experience.  This class was much better.

There was a lot more instruction in this class, and I really liked that.  The instructor would show us how he wanted us to cut two or three types of produce, then we would go to our stations and do it, then the instructor would show us more, etc.  He floated around to each station to help us.  We cut onions, leeks, garlic (my hands still smell), basil, parsley, oranges, turnips, and carrots.  I feel like I know the proper way to hold a knife now, and I understand why I could never chop fresh basil.  Turns out that trying to do what the guy on TV does isn't a foolproof plan.

The instructor took the produce we cut and made us dinner with it.  We had salad with fancy carrots and orange slices, tomato-basil soup, and turnip and onion gratin.  It was really good and I enjoyed it, although the instructor used a lot more butter and cream than I would use at home.

At the beginning of the class, the instructor asked if anyone was a vegetarian.  I raised my hand, and he said, "Tonight is for you!"  I was relieved we wouldn't be cutting up meat.  I'd already decided that I would just abstain from that part of the class, but it was nice to not have to do so.

Image nicked from here.  You should click that link.  I'll wait.

Then, after we'd had our salad and soup and were eating the turnip dish, I heard the chef explaining to the other table how he had made the soup.  "Then I used three parts chicken stock to one part cream to one part milk."

I believe the words I uttered then were, "Are you #$*)@ing me?"  I don't think I said it loudly enough for anyone but Kyle to hear, thankfully.  I then contemplated whether to say anything to the chef.  I didn't, deciding it would just make him feel badly with no benefits.  There was nothing to be done about it now.  We had already finished the soup.  I'm still contemplating whether I should e-mail the company to share my experience and ask them to be a little more aware in the future.

The kick is twofold:

1.  I would have checked with the chef concerning the ingredients if he had not made a point of noting I was a vegetarian at the beginning of the class.

2.  I really, really don't want to ingest meat.  It makes me sad that I have chicken stock in my body.  I silently apologized to the chicken, but I'm guessing that's little consolation for her.

Sigh.  Nothing's perfect, and I will try to focus on the things I learned instead of the one flaw of the evening.

Maybe my experience can be a cautionary tale for someone who reads this.  People have all sorts of ideas about food that you may find weird and meaningless.  Being hospitable means that you pay attention anyway.

Christmas Baking

Our office closed at noon.  It was unexpected but very, very much appreciated.

Before we left, Emily brought me some of the delicious things she's been baking.... including peppermint bark.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had a recipe.  On the way home, the car drove me to the grocery.

By 4:00, I had sweet potatoes in the fridge to be baked tomorrow, a cheeseball and a peppermint pie chilling, a coffeecake baked, and a container full of peppermint bark.

It wasn't my fault.

Merry Christmas!

Does Anyone Else Hear That?

I have a problem:  The produce in my kitchen talks to me, and it's not nice.

Tell me again why you have a garden when I, a beautiful squash, sit on the counter for weeks, ignored and unused?

Oh, yeah, squash?!  (Now they've begun to talk to one another.  You know how it is.  This voice comes from the crisper drawer where things aren't all that crisp.)  You were a freak of nature.  She wrote blog posts about your weirdness.  I, on the other hand, am beautiful apples that came in her fancy-schmancy produce bin.  The real tragedy here is that I am unused.

Now the spinach speaks up.  She never even wanted me.  I'm from that time she forgot to customize her bin.  It was so much better when she just deleted me from her bin and chose more &*)$_ pears.  Now I have to sit here and go brown and liquidy with you lot of whiners.

The less intelligent fruits and vegetables simply chant, "Why aren't you using me?  I'm beginning to go bad!  Lookatme lookatme lookatme."

Tonight it got to me.  I threw away the spinach and a head of cauliflower.  I mashed the three brown bananas and made banana bread. 

For dinner, I whacked up two big spaghetti squash and three bell peppers.  Naturally, in my haste to try to rid myself of as much produce as possible, I cut way too much and had to cook it in shifts.  I added kosher salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and cumin and then sprinkled the top with a bit of sharp cheddar cheese.

It was... fine.

And now the leftovers are talking from the fridge.

Mom's Apple Pie (Literally)

My Dad was a diabetic, and that not only played a big role in the way I ate as a kid--I never had normal Kool-Aid, for example-- but also has affected the way I eat as an adult.  I've got bad genes; it's as simple as that.  

For as long as I remember, Mom made apple pie.*  It was diabetic-friendly, and I love it.  I may have mentioned that this is a difficult time of year at work, and perhaps as a result of that I have been craving this pie, the ultimate comfort food from my childhood, for a few weeks.  I refused to ask Mom to make me one since she was getting ready to go back to school to teach the houligans, so I decided I needed to bite the bullet and learn to make it myself.

People who eat normal pie might not like this--there's no added sugar, there's no sugary crumble on top.  But for me, this is what pie is supposed to taste like.  

We ate half the pie yesterday.  I could have eaten the rest.  According to Weight Watchers, a piece of pie is 7 points.  That's not great, but it's not horrible either.  I'd like to find a way to make a crust that was lower in points, but I admit that I'm not willing to put a lot of effort into it.  We bought fat free vanilla frozen yogurt that we ate with this, and it's actually pretty good.  I wouldn't mind another round right now, actually.

Ingredients:

4 - 6 c. peeled, sliced apples (I used closer to 6 cups--it just needs to be mounded up in the bottom pie crust while still able to fit the second crust on top)

2 t. cinnamon (I used lots more--I love me some cinnamon)

12 oz. unsweeted frozen apple juice concentrate

4 T. cornstarch

2 pie crusts

Directions:

Toss apple slices with cinnamon. 

Place apple juice in saucepan and begin to heat.  When the apple juice is just melted but still cold, add the cornstarch.  Squish out lumps and cook, stirring often, until mixture is slightly clear and thickened.

Place apple slices into a pie crust.  

Pour hot juice/cornstarch mixture over the apples.  

Top with second pie crust.  Crimp edges to seal.  Cut a few slices in the top for steam to escape.

Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, then 350 for 35 minutes.

Attempt to wait until pie is completely cooled before cutting.  Fail miserably, and scoop warm pie into bowl and top with vanilla frozen yogurt.  Thank God for mom and apple pie.  

Repeat.

*I know it's cliche.  It's also tasty.  There is a reason that certain cliches exist.

Recipe #29: Fried Rice

I read Cathy Erway's blog, and her entry on fried rice made me want to try it.

I perhaps went a little too far with the "throw whatever you have into the skillet" theme.

I used leftover squacorn, which also had some spicy diced tomatoes mixed in, three peppers and a scallion from the produce bin, some chopped-up kale, some portobellos, and leftover brown jasmine rice that had some black beans mixed in.  I followed her suggestion to scramble four eggs first and then add that back into the vegetables later.

I especially liked it after I put sweet Thai chili sauce on it.  I love that stuff.  Andrew thinks the texture is a bit weird, which it is, but I'm willing to overlook it since it's so delicious (and the gelatinous-ness isn't from gelatin--I checked).  We ate this for dinner a few nights ago, and I ate the leftovers for dinner last night.

This deserves more testing, I think.  It was fine, but I think it could be fantastic.  Carry on.

Recipe #28: In Which I Learn That Wonton Wrappers Are Awesome

Sunday afternoon I played with wonton wrappers for the first time, and now I want everything to be in a wonton wrapper.  I'm currently thinking about portobello mushrooms, but it's possible I'll end up putting breakfast cereal in there.  I'm that smitten.

I started with this recipe and changed it a bunch.

Mix these together:

1 diced avocado

1 diced Roma tomato

1 diced mystery pepper from the produce bin (flavored and colored like a bell pepper but shaped more like a poblano)

1/2 package reduced-fat cream cheese

handful of diced garlic chives

juice from one lime

1 t. or so sweet Thai chili sauce

Place a small spoonful of the above mixture on a wonton wrapper.  Add some alfalfa sprouts.  Add another wonton wrapper on top.  Moisten finger and run around edge of bottom wrapper; squish/fold together.  Hope for the best.

Spray skillet with Pam.  Cook on medium-high for just a couple of minutes on each side.

Serve with more sweet Thai chili sauce for dipping. 

They were really, really good.

I feel I must put a disclaimer on here.  I don't cook.  It feels disingenuous to post a recipe.  I started trying to document my attempts at cooking in order to hold myself accountable.  I am trying to be a healthy vegetarian, and I feel I need more recipes that I can cook in order to do that.  Cooking doesn't come naturally to me at all, and I'm not particularly comfortable doing it.  

The irony, of course, is that by posting my attempts my blog has started to look like a cooking blog.  I find this troubling.  

That is all.

Recipe #27: Stuffed Zucchini

A friend at work gave me a gigantic zucchini.  Another friend from work gave sent me a recipe for stuffed summer squash.  Summer squash, zucchini, no huge difference, right?  Right.

I put fake sausage with the zucchini innards, and that provided most of the flavor.  I really loved this.  We ate it with tomatoes from my mom's garden (god knows I don't have any #$&*%_ tomatoes in mine) marinated in fat-free Italian dressing and sourdough bread that I stuck under the broiler.  For dessert, we had chocolate pudding with instant coffee and cinnamon thrown in with the pudding mix and fresh strawberries.  

I hesitate to even say this for fear of jinxing it, but I have three zucchinis that have begun to grow in the garden.  Perhaps someday I will not have to beg zucchini off others.  I know that zucchini is supposed to be one of those vegetables that produces so prolifically that the gardener is forced to leave zucchinis on the doorsteps of their neighbors in the dead of night, but right now that sounds like a wonderful problem to have.

Did I mention that I'm taking a Master Gardening course this fall?  I shall overcome.

Recipe #26*: Banana-Oatmeal Bread

I had two bananas that were destined for one of two places: the compost bin or banana bread.  I decided feeding myself was a much more desirable option than feeding the microbes.

I started with this Weight Watcher recipe and substituted 1/4 cup. Splenda brown sugar for the 1/2 cup regular brown sugar called for, 3 T. applesauce for the canola oil, 2 eggs for the 1 large egg + 2 egg whites, and two bananas instead of three.  You may choose to believe these changes were based on sound culinary reasons.  If you are successful, you either have a very optimistic nature or you're just new around here.

Tampering notwithstanding, the bread is good. 

I was worried that the oats would be too chewy in the final product, but now I realize that, of course, oatmeal cooks and therefore won't be chewy after it's spent 50 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  I'm slow, but I do eventually catch on.

The oats are clearly visible in the finished product (those are oats you see, not bits of flour as I first feared), but I don't taste them at all.  I don't mind oats, but I do like that this banana bread has the added fiber of oats without tasting like anything other than banana bread.** 

I shall not lie. Immediately after taking that picture, I slapped some butter (albeit fake, light, only-sort-of resembles butter) on that slice and inhaled it.

I may very well do the same thing again before I go to bed... and maybe again tomorrow morning.  In fact, Andrew's on the phone with someone, so maybe I should just go ahead and eat the slice I cut for him--you know, so it doesn't get... hard.  Yeah, hard.

*I don't know what to make of the fact that I made a new recipe so quickly after finishing my New Year's resolution.  I think I'll choose to ignore it.  Probably a blip.  I really expected this to turn into a full-fledged knitting blog with the occasional theological rant--you know, 'cause that would captivate a significant percentage of the human race.

**I also like typing the word "banana."  Banana. Banana.  Bananananana. 

Recipe #25: Chocolate-Blueberry Cake and Resolution Wrap Up

My mom is staying with us this week while she attends a workshop in the Big City, and I've been pretending like I cook even though she knows that I really don't.

Monday we had Zucchini Grinders and edamame, Tuesday we went to a new Mexican restaurant that was horribly salty, and yesterday we had Deep Dish Pizza and a new dessert--my recipe #25.

This is Fat Free Vegan's Chocolate-Blueberry Cake.  We had a tiny bit of blueberry-pomegranate ice cream left in the freezer, so we had that alongside it.  The cake is not very sweet and has a dense texture due to the whole wheat flour and flax seed.  It's also under 3 points in the Weight Watchers world, which is awesome.  I believe I've decided that I like it, and I'll like it even better when it's served with more vanilla frozen yogurt or low-fat ice cream.

I also like that it now looks like Pac-Man.

That's it.  I've met my New Year's Resolution of making 25 new recipes in 2010.  Thanks for hanging out with me while I did it.

Recipe #1: Baked Apples - Not very good, but I have another baked apple recipe I like, so it's not devastating either.

Recipe #2: Butternut Squash Soup - Delicious and worth repeating, especially since I get to use the immersion blender.

Recipe #3: Vegetable Stock - I'm not convinced that vegetable stock needs to be this complicated.  I may try another version from the same cookbook that doesn't have roasted vegetables.  If I do use this one again, I want to better use the veggies leftover from the stock. 

Recipe #4: Black Bean Soup - Very good, although Andrew isn't a huge fan of any form of bean soup and it's a lot of work for soup for one.

Recipe #5: Sweet Potato Salad with Apple and Avocado - A lot of work for the final product.  I also remember getting very tired of these leftovers.

Recipe #6: Mexican Flavored Edamame - Delicious.  I've made it again a few times, including on Monday night.

Recipe #7: Twice Baked Apples with Cinammon-Yogurt Vanilla Sauce - Also delicious, and I spent most of last winter microwaving apples to eat with yogurt and cinnamon.  Super easy and fast.

Recipe #8: Quinoa and Parsnip Rosti - Impressive looking, and kind of fun.  I would like to try it again with the modifications I noted.*

Recipe #9: Oven Roasted Potatoes - A waste of time, at least in this form.  Oven roasted potatoes sound delicious, but I'm obviously missing something(s) when I make them.

Recipe #10: Rice and Peas - Yummy and easy.  I need to do more with rice in my life.  I fear it a bit because it's high in Weight Watcher points, but I think that is an unreasonable fear.  I have a stir fry recipe I recently printed that I'd like to try.  Also learned in this recipe: Butter, even fake butter, is delicious.

Recipe #11: Grilled Pears with Honey - In which I learn that All Fruit Can Be Grilled.

Recipe #12: Santa Fe Salad with Chili Lime Dressing - Very good and worth repeating.  I would like to find a way to keep this salad from getting soggy though.

Recipe #13: Steamed Artichoke - Something I'd wanted to try for a long time, but was very disappointing in its result.  Again, I feel there are vital pieces of information I'm missing... unless artichokes just aren't very tasty.

Recipe #14: "Sausage," Peppers and Onions - Huh, I'm glad I'm doing this wrap up.  I'd completely forgotten this dish.  It was good.  I should start saving my money now so someday I can afford to go back to Whole Foods and buy this fake sausage again.

Recipe #15: Curried Tempeh Salad - A recipe I would eat again, although I'll have to find more friends to eat it with me since Andrew hates mayo.

Recipe #16: Acorn Squash and Black Bean Casserole - This was very good, but made way too much.  I wonder if it freezes.... More importantly, I wonder if I'd actually take it out of the freezer and eat it if I froze the leftovers.  I don't have a particularly good track record with that.

Recipe #17: Whole Wheat Pasta with Portobellos and Peppers - This one gets a shrug and an "eh."

Recipe #18: Veggie Lasagna - Very good, and I made it again on Sunday.  I roasted the veggies this time, and that worked well.  It still takes a long time to put this together, but it's good and pretty healthy.

Recipe #19: Grilled Fruit with Rich Chocolate Sauce - Delicious.  I believe all chocolate pudding should have instant coffee thrown in.  I bought stuff to make that again this week, actually, but my bananas are too ripe and may need to become banana bread.

Recipe #20: No Knead Bread - This must be the week of repeat cooking, because I also made this again this week.  It's not good.  There.  I said it.  Hear that, online cooking community?!  IT'S NOT GOOD.

Wow, I feel better.

Recipe #21: Chimichangas - Disappointing

Recipe #22: Deep Dish Pizza - Have eaten it at least twice since this I first made this just over a month ago.  Want to eat it twice a day, every day, for the rest of my life.

Recipe #23: Kale Chips - Puzzling.  I have more kale in the fridge, so I may remake this.  It's. so. strange.

Recipe #24: Mexicali Chop Salad - The only reason I wouldn't be eating pizza is because I would want to eat this salad dressing.  Delicious.

Recipe #25: See above.

I was a biology minor, so I know my way around an experiment.  My highly technical evaluation of this project is as follows:

*I see the appeal of the blog for personal record keeping.  

Recipe #24: Mexicali Chop Salad

This weekend we went to our friends' house for Mexican food, margaritas, and games. We stopped at The Tamale Place and bought a gajillion tamales with chips, salsa, guacamole, and cheese. I also made this salad to go with lunch:

This is the Mexicali Chop Salad from the July/August issue of Vegetarian Times. I can't link you to the recipe since it's the current issue, but I'm sure it will be on their website soon.

The tortilla strips were easier to make than I expected, and they added a nice crunch. The salad was pretty predictable, but the dressing was fantastic. It has lime juice, garlic, coriander, olive oil, cumin, sugar, salt, cilantro, and chives. Anything that has lime juice and cilantro is worth trying in my book, and this dressing was really lovely.

The next recipe will be Recipe #25, and that will be the official end to my 2010 resolution. I am considering what the last recipe should be and where I want to go from here.*

*Does anyone else start singing Evita when they read that? "Where do we go from here? How can I be any use to you now? Give me a chance, and I'll let you see how nothing has changed." Nobody? Okay, just me then.

Recipe #23 and a Failed Recipe #24

Good news first. I made kale chips.

Easy, easy, easy to do. Cut main center stem out of kale leaves and rip them into medium to large-size pieces. Wash and pat dry. Put on parchment-paper lined cookie sheet, sprinkle with kosher salt and mist with extra virgin olive oil. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

I have no experience with kale, so I didn't know what to expect. When I put one of these chips into my mouth, my thoughts were (in this order):

Bloody hell, what have I put in my mouth?

Fragile--like dried leaves.

Salty.

Bitter.

I need another.

There was a disaster with the main dish I was making, and Andrew and I ate the entire batch of kale chips while we were trying to figure out how to salvage something edible for dinner.*

Dinner was supposed to be a pizza with a polenta crust. I was using the crust recipe from a Polenta-Goat Cheese Skillet Pizza recipe from Vegetarian Times.

Things did not go well, as is evident in this picture:

The polenta never got as thick as I thought it should, and I finally gave up and put it in the oven anyway. This is after another half an hour of baking, and it was still liquid-y in the middle. I had to scoop it into the trash.

The next day, I researched what I might have done wrong. Turns out, instant polenta is different from the only polenta I've ever seen. The polenta I've purchased comes in a tube and is in the refrigerated section near the tofu. Instant polenta is a dry, ground product. It's like cornmeal. Hell, it may be cornmeal. I'm still a little unclear.

So, this went into the trash, and we filled wheat minisub buns with a mixture of cooked zucchini, portabellas, kale, garlic, and pasta sauce. We added some reduced-fat cheese, wrapped them in aluminum foil and baked them for 15 minutes. They were delicious, but it was a dish I've made before, so it can't count as recipe #24.

I think I'm going to try to find another recipe to use the second half of that tube of polenta. I'm not ready to admit defeat yet.

*By "Andrew and I," I really mean that I ate nearly all the kale chips and Andrew had perhaps three.

Recipe #22: Deep Dish Pizza

This is another recipe unearthed during the recipe reorganization project. It's deep dish pizza, and it. is. brilliant.

The recipe is another Vegetarian Times recipe... sort of. The crust is from that recipe, but I redid the toppings to make it tastier and less healthy. I used pizza sauce, fake sausage, fresh basil, portobellos, and topped it all with shredded cheese and pizza spice.

So very good. The crust was a mixture of whole wheat and all-purpose flour with a bit of flax seed. It rose beautifully and didn't stick to the pan. We slid it out onto a pizza stone after it cooled a bit because I was nervous about scratching this skillet.

I loved this and would consider eating it every day if I had time to make the crust.

Recipe #21: Chimichangas

Recipe #21 is vegetarian chimichangas from Vegetarian Times. I used bell pepper strips instead of onion and plain jalapeños instead of roasted, but the rest of the recipe is the same.

The filling is bell peppers, soy crumbles, chili powder, cumin, jalapeños, and diced tomatoes. While that cooks, the tortillas are wrapped in aluminum foil and baked in the oven to make them pliable. The tortillas are filled, rolled, and baked for half an hour.

This recipe was... fine. I have never had chimichangas in a cheeseless, non-fried form. I like cheese and friedness. Since I also like fitting into my pants, I'm trying to lower my standards.

I recognize that I'm too hard on my own cooking. It's a flaw. Andrew said this had nice flavor, and he's right. It was spicy, and the tortillas had a nice texture out of the oven.

But all I could think was, "It tastes like home cooking." This is not a compliment for me. Even when I ate meat, I never wanted to eat meatloaf, sloppy joes, green beans with bacon, mashed potatoes, or anything with gravy. I do enjoy biscuits and macaroni & cheese, so I'm not sure what the factor(s) is (are) that impacts whether I like something or not.

Sigh. This resolution is not working out as I had hoped, and I admit to being discouraged. I didn't sleep well last night, so perhaps that is impacting my outlook.

I'm going to go eat dark chocolate-covered espresso beans now.

Recipe #20: No Knead Bread

While working on recipe #20, I also made a new coffee drink:


I've decided it doesn't count as a new recipe since the point of this resolution is to make things I can eat for dinner. Although coffee is a necessary part of my life, it doesn't fit the spirit of the challenge.


It was pretty tasty, and I'm already thinking of ways to make it better. It involves a blender.


Recipe #20 was no knead bread. Apparently this took the cooking world by storm a few years ago, but since I'm not plugged into the cooking world I did not know. I read about it first in Cathy Erway's book The Art of Eating In.


I used this recipe. I have a standard bread recipe, and it uses a packet of active dry yeast for one loaf. This recipe calls for one-fourth of a teaspoon. A packet of yeast has about two and a half teaspoons. I was so stunned I looked up another recipe to make sure it wasn't a typo.


I mixed water, salt, flour (I used half bread flour and half whole wheat flour), and yeast, covered with plastic wrap and let it sit on my counter to ferment. Because of my schedule, I was forced to leave it on my counter for nearly two days, but from what I read in that book, I'm not the first to do this and nobody died.


Here's what it looked like after being mixed:


And here's what it looked like after sitting around for a couple of days:

It rests for 15 minutes, then I shaped it into a ball and stuck it between floured kitchen towels (non-fuzzy types) to rise. The rising didn't go as well as I expected. I waited around three hours, and the last half an hour I put it in a slightly warm oven to try to encourage it. I don't know how it's supposed to look, but I was expecting it to be taller.


The bread is baked in a very, very hot oven inside a cast iron dutch oven that has been preheated as well. The dutch oven ensures that it gets a good crust on the loaf. It cooks for a total of 45 minutes.

This is the texture of the interior:

It's... much more yeasty than I expected. It's not bad, but it's different than any other bread I've made. If anyone has any experience with this kind of recipe, I'd greatly appreciate advice. Did I do this right? Is this how it's supposed to look? How should it taste?

This was an interesting experiment. I'm a bit relieved I didn't fall in love with it. It would be dangerous to have freshly-baked bread around the house all the time!

It's Little, But It's All Mine...

Last week, I lamented that recipes I'd printed were a pocket of chaos in my life. Saturday was a quiet day at home, and while Andrew worked on his comic collection, I decided to tackle the recipes.

I started by putting in season one of Clatterford that I'd checked out of the library. Proper mood is important.

Then I gathered plastic sheet protectors and the pile of recipes and spread out on the floor. I put all the recipes I thought I might use in a sheet protector... and then I ran out of sheet protectors.

Many of the recipes are only 1 side of a page, so I knew I could double up on a lot of the sheet protectors. That meant that I had to figure out how to organize them so I didn't have a spicy black bean salad in the same sheet protector as a fruit trifle recipe.*

I made a few piles, became overwhelmed, left the mess all over the floor and enjoyed Clatterford for awhile from the couch. This process repeated itself a few times. It's tricky to organize recipes, perhaps especially so when they're all vegetarian.** Is poached pears a side dish or a dessert? Is fake chicken salad a salad or a sandwich? I found that nearly everything was an entree in my mind. I don't cook that often, and I certainly don't make cohesive meals. If I make a new recipe, it gets the place of honor (perhaps beside something we pulled out of the freezer) regardless of what it is.

In the end, I decided that having them stuck in binders made them easily flippable, and two 1.5" binders were manageable even if the organization within them was imperfect. I have them roughly divided: salads, soups, sandwiches, desserts, entrees.

My hope is that I will flip through these to admire their tidiness and be inspired to make something that I thought looked good enough that I bothered to print it off in the first place.

If not, at least they're organized.

*Those of you who know me know that this is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

**I asked Andrew if he wanted to go through the recipes I was planning to throw away, and I would add any he thought he might make. He declined, and as I am slowly beginning to accept that he has even less interest in cooking than I do, I threw meat recipes away unless I was particularly interested in making them vegetarian. (There were two of those, I think.) I decided if it had meat in it, I would never make it and it didn't earn a sheet protector.

Recipes #18 and #19: Veggie Lasagna and Fruit Kabobs

Emily and Dan came over for dinner, and we ate recipes #18 and #19 with salad and grilled multigrain bread.

Recipe #18 is noodle-free vegetable lasagna. It has eggplant, zucchini, and portobello mushrooms layered with a spinach/egg/ricotta cheese mixture. In the middle is fake sausage crumbles, and there's tomato sauce on the bottom and top of the whole thing. Once assembled, it's covered with mozzarella cheese and baked.

I put it together the night before and then baked it for 30 minutes when I got home from work.


I'm not gonna lie; it was delicious. DELICIOUS. Plus, a serving is one-fourth of a 8" square pan, which I love. We've decided that next time I can roast all the vegetables at one time instead of messing with cooking small batches in a skillet.

Dessert was a Weight Watchers recipe, strawberries and bananas grilled for a few minutes and then drizzled with chocolate sauce.

Fruit kabobs (chocolate sauce not pictured)

The fruit was yummy. I can add these two as grillable fruit along with pineapple and pears. The chocolate sauce tasted very good, but it was runny. Perhaps next time I'll refrigerate it a bit before serving. I loved the taste of chocolate, coffee, and cinnamon.

Actually, I've just named four of my favorite things: strawberries, chocolate, coffee and cinnamon. Brilliant foods.

I added the remainder of the pudding powder and some additional milk and plan to eat it as pudding for leftovers. I have a sneaking suspicion that my chocolate pudding will always have instant coffee and cinnamon thrown in from now on.

I'm super pleased with both these recipes. It feels good to have a couple more wins.

Life Continues Apace

Here's a quick update:

1. The next recipe is in the fridge and will be baked tonight. I also have plans to make a new dessert tonight. Perhaps tomorrow there will be photos. Perhaps there will not and we will pretend I never said anything.

2. I'm working on a scarf that is long and knit on small needles with fingering weight yarn. I've made it through two skeins and have now switched to the matching fingerless gloves so I can be sure I'll have enough yarn for both. Progress is being made, but it's slow. That's the way knitting is.

3. We took Grandfather his upside-down tomato plant on Tuesday night. Now that the hook it was occupying is free, there's no excuse not to plant the impatiens. I planted the ball of impatiens last night. I watered it again this morning and have the watering can beside the front door in a (probably futile) attempt to remember to water it every day. I'm trying not to resent the fact that watering it requires me to get the stepladder out of the utility room. Transporting the stepladder is a small price to pay for flowers' lives, right? Right.

4. Changes are afoot in the garden. The squash seeds are beginning to pop up. The tomato seedlings still look terrible, and I fear I transplanted them before they were big enough to handle the scary move. I am trying not to be sad about this. I'm going to give them some more time, and if they die I will go to the garden center, buy some tomato plants, and vow to try the seeds again next year. The pepper seedlings look pretty strong, albeit tiny.

5. The modified VT challenge is going well. I have been able to do the exercise and meditation piece every day thus far, and the only lunch hiccup could be counted as screwing up the challenge or not, so I choose not. Today I walked before work, and even the leisurely 30-minute walk made me so hungry I wanted to eat my desk by 10:00. I was glad I had the challenge to keep me from going out to eat because Panera's mac & cheese sounded very tempting.

I believe this is just a period during which life continues apace. Knitting and cooking and gardening and rubbing my dog's tummy and watching baseball and working continue. I feel busy and lucky and grateful.

Just not particularly interesting. Sorry.