how i roll

Oh yes I did.  Radio silence for two months, then back with an atrocious pun.  Pow!

I may never buy store-bought hamburger rolls again.  I won't if The Awesome Husband has anything say about it, anyway.

These were somewhat time consuming in a plan-ahead sort of way, but not overly difficult.  My perspective may also be different now because the process of cleaning up after cooking finally involves putting bowls and spoons in our dishwasher rather than into the sink where they'll mock us until we wash them by hand.  So now everything feels easy-peasy.

Anyway, yeah, homemade hamburger rolls.   We had these with black bean burgers, sweet potato fries, and a salad.  Yum!

orange + chocolate = delicious

One of my eccentricities is a very, very strong aversion to wastefulness.  I should probably put another "very"  in there, just to be accurate.  What this meant when I made candied orange peels was that I couldn't bring myself to throw away the orange-infused syrup left behind at the end of the steeping process.  Most of it went into the freezer to await further inspiration.

An idea hit me before the pot hit the sink, in fact.  I added milk to what I couldn't scrape out and stirred it over low heat, then added cocoa powder and whisked it until it was incorporated.  

Orange hot chocolate.  My new favorite toasty beverage for winter.  Yum.

settling in means being festive

Let's take an intermission of sorts from the posts about our old house.  I suppose you could also call it an intermission from not-blogging.  That wouldn't be inaccurate.

We're about 90% settled in at the new house.  There are some boxes left to unpack, which drives The Awesome Husband nuts but doesn't phase me much.  There's some art left to hang on the walls, but I'd rather wait until we're sure of where we want things to go before we go hammering nails every which way. 

Thankfully the kitchen's pretty well put together at this point.  Pots and pans and mixers and appliances are all where they need to be, which made it much easier to make some festive treats last weekend.  There was this wonderfully adaptable recipe, which I made as cranberry lime bread.  And then, because I wanted to make something for someone allergic to eggs, peanuts, and dairy -- the horror! -- I also made a small batch of candied orange peels.  

I think they turned out pretty well.  And hey, in the background and stuff, that's our new kitchen!  

   

(to be fair, it disappeared long before it would've dried out)

When I mentioned yesterday that I suspected I may have found a new go-to cake recipe, I was 100% correct.

I made this recipe for German Chocolate cake, and it was excellent. It's not health food, but it also won't break the nutritional bank. Ordinarily, I'd type out a modified repice for you here, but since I didn't change anything (I KNOW, who am I?!), I'll just give you the link. America's Test Kitchen deserves all the credit here, for sure.

Oh wait, I did leave out the coconut it calls for on top of the cake. And I used walnuts instead of pecans because that's what we had in the house. Eh, those aren't substantial alterations (but I do feel better now and more like myself).

The other thing I might change, if when I bake this again, would be to make more frosting than it calls for. There was just barely enough, and the recipe called for 8 ounces of evaporated milk from a 12 ounce can. Next time I'll likely just use the full 12 ounces and increase everything else accordingly.

As an added bonus, I got to use our cake stand. It keeps the cake from drying out and makes it extra stylin'.

Boring Beer, Just the Way We Like It.

We just sampled our latest batch of homebrewed beer, a caramel apple dortmunder.  The dortmunder is from a kit; The Awesome Husband added apples and, um, special kinds of malts? I think? to achieve a caramel-ish effect.

It's pretty good.  There's a noticeable but not overpowering apple flavor, and  perhaps not as much caramel flavor as I'd like (but then I do love me some caramel so I might not be the best person to judge).

The best part by far is the fact that opening the bottles has been uneventful and catastrophe-free.  We thoroughly enjoyed seeing geysers in Iceland but we don't need them in our kitchen.

Best Ever Broccoli

No, we didn't grow this. Broccoli takes up a lot of space, and so far things in that category (see also, zucchini) haven't proven their worth of real estate in the garden.

It ended up being one of the best side dishes we've made in quite a while, though, so clearly grocery store produce can be pretty good.

Oven Roasted Broccoli
Broccoli, cut into spears
Olive oil
Rice vinegar
Garlic powder
Cumin

There are no quantities because it really, for sure, I promise, doesn't matter. This will taste good. I washed and drained the broccoli, then drizzled olive oil over it and tossed to coat. Then I drizzled some rice vinegar over it and tossed again. After that, I spread the broccoli out on a couple of cookie sheets and shook the garlic powder and cumin over it all. It went into a 375 degree oven (because that was the temperature for the chicken The Awesome Husband was making), and I flipped all the pieces when they had browned on the bottom.

Cook until it's done. For me, that means there's still a bit of crunch in the stems. For you, that might mean until it's solidly cooked through.

Enjoy!

recipe card: easiest, tastiest pork

We don't give a recipe card to just any old list of ingredients, no sir.  It has to be something we're rather impressed by and want to be able to recreate.  I could certainly make this again without referring back to my notes, but the other purpose served by the recipe cards is to remind us to repeat dinners in the first place.  If we're stumped for ideas, sometimes we'll flip through the cards and get re-inspired by something we'd completely forgotten about. 

We can't forget about this one.  It would be a travesty. So easy. So delicious.

Easiest, Tastiest Pork Chops
- fresh basil (I used 15 large leaves), chopped
- garlic (I used 4 cloves), minced
- juice of one lime (lemon would work also)
- pork chops (I used 5 or 6 of the really thinly cut type because they were on sale)

Put everything in a bowl and toss to coat the pork.  Let it sit for at least 20 minutes.  Heat a skillet over medium-high heat.  Place the pork in the skillet - if there's no sizzling sound, the skillet isn't hot enough.  Cook until it starts to brown, then flip and reduce heat to just under medium.  Depending on how thick the pork chops are, it could be another 2 to 10 (I'm guessing) minutes.  When the chops feel less wiggly when you stab 'em with a fork, you can remove one to a plate and cut to the center to see if the pink is gone.

And that's it! Enjoy!

¡Olé!

I had the great pleasure of co-hosting a shower today to honor one of my dearest friends who'll be getting married soon. She and her soon-to-be husband will be honeymooning on a cruise to Mexico, so we went with a fiesta theme. She also happens to really like margaritas, so it worked out well.

Hey, speaking of: if you want to make really excellent margaritas without using a mix, here's whatcha do, as I learned this weekend:
- Juice a bunch of limes. Like, 8 limes to get a cup of lime juice. For this event, I needed 3 cups. Yeah. A lotta limes.
- Make a little bit of simple syrup. .25c water + .25c sugar + low heat, until dissolved.
- Mix those two together with 3c of tequila and 2c of triple sec.
- Pour into glasses that have been rimmed with salt (use a lime wedge to make the rims wet, then dip in a plate of salt).


I also made a cake with the happy couple's wedding "logo" on it -- their initials, morphed into an infinity symbol (awwww!). It got a little smushed in transit, but it was still tasty.

We didn't play shower games, but we did make a hat/bouquet out of wrapping paper and ribbons. This might be the only instance where one object can double as both a hat and a bouquet, both of which are a bit of a stretch.

A lovely afternoon was had by all. Us bridesmaids were so happy to shower the bride with love.

And see, I told you it was fiesta themed!

fermentation, minus the hops

Ok, so I figure about half of you just thought to yourselves "no hops? what's the point?" But hear me out.

We made pickles last weekend, with nary a drop of vinegar in sight. Just cucumber slices, garlic, dill, enough brine (3 tablespoons of pickling salt per quart of water) to cover it all, a plate to weigh down the solids and keep them below the surface, and time (about three days).

Lemme tell ya, they're good. The cucumbers are from the garden, and we'll definitely be making this again to use up the ones that are jumping off the vines right now (this morning's count: 10). I'm looking forward to next year, when we'll have garlic and dill from the garden to use, too.

pleasantly surprised: spiced banana ice cream

I'm not a huge fan of banana flavored confections. I do love me a peanut butter banana smoothie, but otherwise, given an alternative, I'll usually choose the other thing. Unless the other thing involves black licorice. Then it would be banana all the way.

The Awesome Husband is a huge fan of both actually: banana-flavored everything and black licorice. I've not yet seen a recipe for black licorice ice cream (and no, you don't need to send me a link if you know of one, thanks!) but I did find this banana-centric ice cream recipe, and we took it out for a spin today. And modified it. Of course.

Spiced Banana Ice Cream
Adapted from this recipe.

2 c whole milk
1 c 2% milk
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c cinnamon-infused simple syrup (which we had an excess of because we keep it on hand for iced coffee, yummmm)
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
Several shakes of ground nutmeg
10 cardamom seed pods
5 whole cloves
1 medium banana, pureed
6 large egg yolks
generous splash of vanilla extract

Combine everything from the milk through the banana in a saucepan and bring to just barely a boil. Remove from heat and let stand, uncovered, for 30 minutes, to allow the cloves and cardamom to steep.

Bring back to a low boil. In a separate heat-proof bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Pour the milk mixture slowly into the eggs, whisking constantly. When it's all combined, return it all to the saucepan and continue cooking on low heat (no really, it's important) until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat entirely and stir in the vanilla, then chill it. Once it's cooled completely, put it in your ice cream machine and away you go!


This was much better than I expected it to be. The banana flavor is actually quite subtle and the spices are prominent. The batch may or may not be polished off within 24 hours. Or 12. Let's go with 24; it's good to have goals, right?

How's this for another goal: before the end of the week, I'll blog about something other than ice cream, peas, or Cecil. Promise.

The recipe cards are piling up...

There was another successful homemade ice cream project over the weekend, so we have a new recipe card filed away.  (In light of all the ice cream we've been making, I suppose it's a good thing that there was a 5k over the weekend too, but I digress.)

My dad requested "something with blueberries" for a Father's Day dessert.  We had blueberries in the freezer, and we've been keeping general ice cream ingredients in the house for weeks, so the what-to-make decision was simple.  We alllso had a bottle of this blueberry vodka in the freezer, which helped with the flavor as well as the consistency (the alcohol content keeps the ice cream from freezing too solidly).

Now, I'm not a huge fan of fruit ice cream.  Given the opportunity, I'll choose chocolate (or caramel... or peanut butter... or coffee... or or or) any day.  But lemme tell ya, this was GOOD. 

Blueberry Ice Cream
(adapted from this recipe)

2.5 c 2% milk
.5 c sugar
pinch of salt
2 t vanilla extract
3 T cornstarch
.5 oz blueberry vodka
.5 c blueberries, fresh or frozen

Mix 2 cups of the milk with the salt and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until steaming.  In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining milk with the cornstarch, then add it gradually to the saucepan, stirring constantly.  Keep stirring over medium-high heat, just until boiling, when the mixture starts to thicken.  Reduce heat to low and keep stirring another 5 minutes.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, then chill.  Once it's cooled completely, stir in the vodka and put it all in an ice cream maker, adding the blueberries at the end.

I'll be trying this out in different variations, for sure.  Up next is either cinnamon or coconut...

Easy Peasy Kabobs and Time Consuming Ice Cream

Like I mentioned yesterday, one of the highlights of my weekend was an excellent meal: grilled shish kabobs and homemade mint chip ice cream. The ice cream was a bit labor-intensive -- it was worth it, for sure, but it involved more effort and time and steps and containers than I'm used to.

The kabobs, on the other hand, were right up my alley:

Easy Peasy Shish Kabobs
red wine vinegar (I think I used about a cup, but it depends on how much stuff you're marinating)
extra virgin olive oil (a few tablespoons, again, depending on how much vinegar you used)
worcestershire sauce (um... there was maybe two tablespoons left in the bottle, so that's what I used)
garlic powder (several vigorous shakes)
beef, cubed, though I bet this would work with chicken as well
zucchini, cut in generous slices (maybe an inch)
green peppers, cut in inch-ish squares
vidalia or other sweet onion, cut in similarly sized pieces

Mix the first four ingredients in a bowl that's big enough to fit everything else as well. Add in the beef and veggies, then toss to coat. Toss a few more times over the course of (at least) an hour, to distribute the marinade and let it soak in, then skewerize it all. Grill over charcoal until the beef is done; we used the briquettes from Trader Joe's that apparently are made with fewer chemicals, and we were really pleased.

And the ice cream, which was adapted from this recipe:

Mint Chip Ice Cream
.5 c (it's what we had left) 2% milk
2.5 c (or whatever will get you to 3 cups total dairy liquids) whole milk
.75 cup granulated sugar
7 egg yolks
Fresh mint leaves -- I used several sprigs, or maybe .25 c packed
.25 c chocolate chips, chopped

Stir together everything except the egg yolks and .25 c of the sugar in a large-ish saucepan, over medium heat. Once it simmers, remove it from the heat and let the mint steep (the recipe says half an hour, but 15 minutes was just fine), then simmer again.

Add the remaining .25 c of sugar to the egg yolks and whisk in a large heat-proof bowl. Add the newly-re-simmered milk to the bowl gradually, whisking continuously. Once it's all incorporated, pour it back into the saucepan and continue heating and whisking until it thickens enough that it coats the back of a spoon: if you draw your finger across said spoon, the milk should stay where it is and not fill in the line you traced.

Take the ice-cream-to-be off the heat and chill it. The recipe suggested using a larger bowl of ice, but I had a rare moment of patience, I suppose, so I just used the fridge and waited. Once it's cold, put it in your ice cream maker of choice and let it do its thing.

At this point, I contemplated making Mint Fudge Swirl ice cream, because I don't always like having crunchy things added to my ice cream. Mint Chip won out, however, because it's much easier to chop up a handful of chocolate chips than it is to dirty yet another saucepan to make chocolate sauce. Even though I make the best chocolate sauce ever. The chopped up chocolate chips got stirred in at the end.

Sorry, no photos of the finished product. Just these:

The KitchenAid has landed!

Back in September, The Awesome Husband and I (when the husband part went into effect) were given a KitchenAid stand mixer and an ice cream maker attachment for it.  Both have been sitting in their respective packaging in our basement since then.  For the long Memorial Day weekend, we set as our only goals finding a proper home for the mixer in the kitchen and taking the ice cream maker attachment for a spin.

The inaugural batch was, to be honest, a little disappointing, though I suspect it's my own fault.  Apparently some flavors allow for lower fat dairy components and others do not. Pumpkin ice cream made with 2% milk, for instance, was underwhelming, and really more like a pumpkin sorbet. Not horrible, but not really what I, at least, was expecting.

Undaunted (well, that, and we were staring at a bunch of 2% milk to use up), we forged ahead.  I suspected that a flavor incorporating fat via other ingredients would be more forgiving of us not using cream or half and half, and I was right.  Chocolate peanut butter worked like a dream.

We used this recipe, but with 2% milk (obviously).  I'd almost hesitate to ever use a richer dairy base for this one, because it's plenty rich as it is.

Somehow, The Awesome Husband and I managed to only eat half of this batch yesterday and save the remainder for today... which is fortuitous because looking forward to it is getting. me. through. my. afternoon.

Improvised Dinner

Faced with a sparse refrigerator and minimal motivation, "what's for dinner?" threatened to be a challenging question this evening.  Thankfully, a bag of corn meal on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet reminded me that I've been meaning to try my hand at cooking polenta.  The Awesome Husband has deemed the result worthy of a card in our recipe box, so I'm calling it a success.

Polenta with Garlicky Tomato Reduction

Prepare polenta according to corn meal package directions.  I aimed for the consistency of whipped potatoes, then I added about half a cup of shredded parmesan and stirred until it was melty and thoroughly incorporated.

For the reduction (which actually makes sense to start before the polenta, based on their respective stirring and attention needs):
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 generous cup crushed tomatoes (left over from homemade pizza earlier this week -- I would have used any tomato base)
Splash of red wine
1 teaspoon anchovy paste

Sautee the garlic in enough oil to coat a medium sized pan.  Add everything else, stir, and simmer uncovered, allowing much of the liquid to cook out.

Spoon a little of the reduction over each serving of polenta, top with shredded parmesan, and enjoy.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to write a grocery list.  This kind of yummy-dinner-idea-lurking-in-the-cabinets lightning isn't likely to strike twice...

You're welcome.

You need to make this breakfast pizza.  The one I linked to in my last post.  The one over here at Smitten Kitchen.

I made a few modifications.  Instead of shallots, I used caramelized onions.  I didn't have chives, so they were left out and replaced with more of the parsley and scallions.  I also used turkey bacon instead of the real stuff.

One other note:  I used store-bought pizza dough instead of that which is indicated in the recipe.  Turns out, the recipe doesn't translate well to not using a stand mixer.  (Yes, we own a stand mixer.  No, we haven't figured out yet where in the kitchen it can live.  Yes, it's still in its original packaging in the basement.)

I might request this for my birthday instead of cake.  It's that good.

Simpleton Taste Buds and a Recipe(ish)

I like elaborately prepared food as much as the next gal, but it struck me this morning how some of my hands-down favorites are simple combinations of a handful of ingredients. Green olives and avocados in mustard vinaigrette salad dressing? Best part of my work-lunch salads (and I would totally make a batch of just that if it weren't for needing to eat vegetables too). Romaine lettuce, light mayo, and melted American cheese on whole wheat toast? Possibly better than a BLT (possibly). And then there's the homemade muesli I've started making, inspired by the breakfasts we ate on our honeymoon. We don't set out platters of meats and cheeses and vegetables each morning like they did for us in Reykjavik, but the muesli is here to stay.


Easy Peasy Muesli
Oats. A bunch of oats. Maybe 3 or 4 cups.
Chopped walnuts. About a cup, give or take.
Craisins, to taste. I use a quarter cup, if I had to guess.

Mix the oats and the walnuts together in a baking dish. Place in the oven on the bottom rack. I always do this while I'm pre-heating the oven to make something else, so I don't think an exact temperature is important. When the oats start to turn golden brown, either shake them and turn the pan around (if a lot of the oats are still pale) or take them out of the oven (if the browning seems pretty uniform). Once they've cooled, pour the oats and walnuts into an airtight container, add the craisins, and shake to distribute.

This stuff is highly, highly recommended sprinkled over yogurt. I mix plain and vanilla to balance taste and the "wow, that's a lot of sugar on that nutrition label" factor, but I bet any flavor would work well.

That said, it's already been decided that we're totally having this for breakfast tomorrow morning. The drooling has already begun.

Homebrewing: now with uniforms!

Last weekend, Mr. Terrific and I brewed our third batch of beer, a black lager. It's been fermenting in the basement (at a lager-appropriate 48 degrees -- thanks, February) since then, and we'll put it in bottles tomorrow.

The best part of this most recent brewing project was the attire. One of Mr. Terrific's brothers surprised us with shirts he'd had printed up for us as Christmas gifts, and this was our first opportunity to wear them whilst actually brewing.



Yes, I have a matching shirt. Yes, I wore mine as well, because yes, we're complete dorks. No, none of the pictures of me came out well.

(Also of note in that second photo is the hideous wall paneling in our kitchen. It's eerily similar to the hideous wall paneling that was (past tense!) in the bathroom. This is what we've been up against.)

The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Part Five

I'd actually been planning to tell you guys about Squirrel over at The Nuthouse in a Copycat Project post with photos from a fun outdoorsy adventure. It'll be a while before Mr. Stupendous and I go kayaking, that's for sure, and even for hiking, I prefer to wait until the trails are ice-free before venturing out (I swear, I must have some sort of inner ear issue that explains my clumsiness). It's snowshoeing season, but who am I kidding, there won't be time for that until we wrap up the bathroom renovation in 2015. (Sigh.)

So! In the meantime, go read about Squirrel's travels. And hoo boy, do you want to check this out: she lived in Alaska, now lives in Australia (I know, right?), and makes a point of getting out and enjoying all the cool stuff there is to do in her area.

Another fun thing Squirrel blogs about -- and I'm looping back to the point of my post, so stick with me here -- is home brewing. She and her husband started brewing beer in part to avoid having to buy it in Australia (apparently it's pretty spendy) and have found that they quite enjoy it. A few days ago she talked about some of the beers they've concocted recently, and that reminded me that I never blogged about our sophomore brewing effort. Ta-dah:




It looks pretty much the same as our first beer, the Dark Horse Porter, but you'll have to take my word for it: that there is Christmas Cookie Ale. And it was good. (Yes, it's gone. Single tear.) We took a kit for a nut brown ale and added a hint of cinnamon and vanilla.* The flavors were more subtle than I expected, but I think that was for the best, and it might be one of my favorite beers ever. We've decided to make a double batch next year and make it our annual holiday brew.

Have I mentioned I'm disappointed it's gone?




* When I say "we," of course, I mean that Mr. Stupendous did all the actual brewing. I came up with the idea to add the cinnamon and vanilla, and the name. That counts as helping, right?

Hopping on the Home Brew Bandwagon

We're many things, Best Ever Husband and I, but cutting-edge isn't one of them. It seems like everyone and their brother's been brewing beer lately -- or perhaps we just surround ourselves with especially awesome peeps
? -- and we jumped into the fray only recently.

The pints you see above are our inaugural brew, a porter. We brought a few bottles to a gathering at a friend's house, where it was given the name Dark Horse Porter (much better than its default moniker: From-a-Kit Porter). Dark Horse suits it nicely, actually; it's quite good, and I had set my expectations, shall we say, not decidedly high.

Our sophomore effort is brewing as we speak, and this time around we've got the name ready in advance: Christmas Cookie Ale. Take a kit for nut brown ale, add some vanilla and cinnamon, and (hopefully) you've got a tasty beverage that'll be ready just in time for the holidays.

Uber-Homemade

I'm oddly motivated to make foodstuffs from scratch today. Maybe it's the recent successes egging me on (apple-bran-whole-wheat muffins, pumpkin risotto, heavily modified pesto), or maybe it's the fresh ingredients needing to be used up (apples -- so many apples -- from an orchard adventure a few weeks ago, leeks in the garden, minimal amounts of spinach and lettuce in the garden).

I think the underlying culprit, though, is a continuing desire to eat affordable, wholesome foods. We aim to steer clear of processed foods in our household, mainly for health and mindful nutrition reasons (pricing differences usually don't hurt, either). Even in trying to make smart grocery choices, though, it's easy to fall into the "wow, that's a lot of unnecessary ingredients" trap. There are lots of high-fiber options in the bread aisle, which is great, but it can be tough to find one that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup, or any number of other substances I just don't need in my system, and doesn't cost four dollars. Our bread machine and about three minutes of measuring time does the trick splendidly (though I'd also like to try one of the many versions of no-knead bread out there). Pasta sauce? For years, I steadfastly stuck with the one brand I'd found that offered an option without added sugar, until I realized that the sodium content was through the roof. Canned tomatoes + herbs and spices + red wine + immersion blender = problem solved! And don't get me started on salad dressing (if you add mustard to oil and vinegar, it acts as an emulsifier and is darn tasty to boot, yo).

So, getting back to today: I've got a batch of yogurt -- which I've never attempted before, so cross your fingers for me -- going in the crockpot. Next up, I'll set up that bread machine I was talking about, once I decide whether to make regular whole wheat or cinnamon-raisin whole wheat. I'm also hoping to attempt (another first go!) a batch of homemade mayo this afternoon.

I do not, as yet, have any desire to venture into the homemade-protein arena by raising livestock. Awesome Fiance, if you're reading this, you can rest easy there!