The English Geek

Discouraged Dinnerland

Every once in awhile I get discouraged about dinner. This happens because I have picky kids who aren't afraid to voice their opinions, a husband who won't eat soup because "it's not manly" (thus eliminating an entire food genre), and my own quirks (I don't like fish or seafood...thus eliminating another genre). All the drama makes me blue; the result of said discouragement is that I quit trying for awhile. We exist on bagels and Eggos and cold cereal, bean burritos and scrambled eggs and maybe, if we're lucky, hash browns. Then I eventually realize that my fridge has only condiments, cheese, milk, and some wilted carrots. I take a deep breath and put my big girl pants back on and wade back into the fray.

The past ten days or so haven't been happy food times at our house. Someone who shall remain unnamed said something like "not that again" and, coupled with all the other complaints rambling around in my head, it was just enough to push me into Discouraged Dinnerland.

We ate a lot of tacquitos.

But then Monday came around, and I noticed a recipe on my friend Sophia's blog, and I decided to return to the Land of Cooking. Jake was at work (where he can also eat, as he works at a pizza restaurant), and Haley had already eaten with her boyfriend, but the four of us liked this. The opinions went like this:

Kaleb: ate it with only mild complaining and somehow didn't notice the green onions. (Any actual green food is usually entirely unacceptable.) (His plate was, of course, bereft of lettuce.)
Kendell: decided that he liked it well enough, but isn't sure he wants it once a week or anything. (His opinion tempered by the fact that there's no cheese involved.)
Nathan: One bowl with meat, one bowl without, another with. ("I ate so much my stomach hurts.")
Me: "Must. Stop. Eating. No, just another bite. Wait, one more bite. Holy cow this is delicious." (I ate so much my stomach hurt, in other words.)

So I'm adding this to the rotation!

Asian Beef "Wraps"
(modified from Sophia's recipe)
(also, modify amounts to fit your family. I tripled-ish the recipe; we had left overs.)

3 lbs extra-lean ground beef
1 red onion, diced fine
4 garlic cloves
a bunch of grated fresh ginger
salt and pepper

In a large skillet, cook ground beef with onion, garlic, ginger, and salt & pepper. Drain grease thoroughly. Add:

2 T sesame oil
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup almond butter (use peanut butter if you don't have allergies at your house)
3 T honey
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 tsp garlic chili sauce (this is in the Asian foods section) (also, it's HOT!!!)

Stir until everything is mixed. Add:

5 diced green onions (dice them small enough & no one will notice!)
1 can water chestnuts, drained and diced
1/2 cup diced cashews (or less if you're the only one who doesn't bitc complain about how nuts shouldn't be in any food except caramel, fudge, and ice cream)

diced romaine lettuce
steamed rice

The quotation marks in the title are there because this is supposed to be served as a wrap: keep the lettuce leaves whole and use them like a tortilla. But as I was eating by myself and wanted to read while I ate (without dripping stuff out of the bottom of a wrap onto a library book) (I am STILL dragging myself through Sweet Tooth and I'm only finishing it because it might sully my Serious Reader credential if I didn't), I tore the lettuce into pieces, put them on my plate, and then layered rice, meat, and a sprinkle of cashews on top.

Seriously: delicious.

The original recipe called for ground chicken. As ground poultry gives me the shudders and I had no defrosted chicken but some hamburger, I switched the meat. I think this would be equally as delicious (and much healthier) with diced chicken.

Kendell was doubtful when I bought the big package of romaine lettuce at Costco. (Since I had, alas, tossed out some deteriorating broccoli and asparagus that same day.) Just to prove him wrong, I made Asian chicken salad with the rest of the romaine for dinner tonight. (Well, by "made" I mean "opened up the Asian Salad Kit and stirred everything together.")

Which means that for two nights in a row, no gratuitous carbs have been consumed at my house.

Perhaps we have finally traveled out of Discouraged Dinnerland.

(Just as long as no one complains tomorrow!)

Bacon Epiphany

A few days ago, someone forwarded me a text with an image that read "Twenty years ago, we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope, and Steve Jobs. Now we have no cash, no hope, and no jobs. PLEASE don't let Kevin Bacon die."

Teeeeeee. Obviously, my family's penchant for bacon is well known to my texting friends!

I'm actually sort of neutral on bacon. I like it, but not enough to make it very often. My affection for bacon is outweighed by my dislike of cleaning up bacon grease. My kids, however, LOVE BACON. Especially Jake. And Nathan, Haley, and Kaleb, but especially Jake. And probably they have no problem making bacon because I still have to clean up the grease.

And while I do put bacon in my potato salad, I've never fully realized the impact that it can have on a dish until I made this cheddar corn chowder last night. Oh, my. The bacon added just the right richness and flavor and slip. To fully explain how delicious a soup recipe this is, I shall say this: it is worth the mess of bacon grease!

Cheddar Corn Chowder
(adapted fromThe Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten)

5 slices bacon, chopped
1 swirl EVOO
1 sweet onion, chopped fine
1 T butter
1/3 cup flour
salt
freshly ground pepper
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
3 14-ounce cans chicken broth
1 cup water (ish)
1 tsp chicken base
4 cups diced potatoes (about 2)
3 cups frozen corn
shredded chicken
1 cup milk
1 cup half & half
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Pour the milk and half & half into a measuring cup and let come to room temperature while you cook. In a large stockpot, heat the olive oil. Cut up the bacon (for speed, use scissors!) and drop into the oil. While it crisps (stir occasionally), dice the onion. Remove bacon. Add butter to the olive oil/bacon grease mixture, toss in the onions, and cook on medium low for about ten minutes, or until onions are soft. While they saute, peel and dice the potatoes. Stir in the flour, salt, petter, and turmeric. (The seasonings are to taste. I added about 1/2 tsp of salt—add more if you like things REALLY salty—and as much black pepper as you like. We like a lot.) Stir and cook for 3 minutes. Add the chicken stock, water, and chicken base and stir, then toss in the diced potatoes. Simmer for about 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft-ish. Add extra water if necessary. Toss in the frozen corn (or, if you're fancy like Ina, cut it from the cob, parboil for 3 minutes, drain, and then toss in the corn) and the shredded chicken (I had two breasts' worth, minus what Kaleb snatched while helping me shred). Bring back to a simmer, then pour in the room-temperature milk/half & half mixture and re-simmer again. Stir in cheese to melt. Serve topped with the diced bacon and a little bit of extra cheese on top.

And have your own bacon epiphany!

Looking for Peace in the Midst of Bitterness

(Please note: this is a political post with my political opinions, which are not meant to offend you. I'm just sharing what I think, not judging you for what you think. Politics aside, there is a recipe at the bottom of the post!)

Last night I fell asleep at 9:15. Partly this was the time change catching up to me, but mostly it was because I couldn't bear listening to the election results. But I still woke up with an anxious heart and a troubled mind. Today felt to me, in fact, like doomsday. Or at least, the beginning of the end of something.

I wasn't blind to Mitt Romney's faults. I think he should have chosen a different vice president, preferably a woman. (It's best not to get me started on the Republican perspective on women.) I think he comes from the filthy rich perspective and his environmental ideas are reprehensible. But I also think he is motivated by a moral compass. I don't say that because we happen to share the same religion, but because I felt like he earnestly and truly wanted to make America better.

I don't feel that way about Obama.

I think his environmental policies are better than Romney's (but still need vast improvements urgently). I think the Democratic perspective on women is one that goes along with the 21st century. I think his foreign policy is laughable and will have a world-wide impact for decades to come. Every time he promised to make more jobs I felt like screaming from my frustration—how does government create jobs? His handling of the economy couldn't be worse, and Obamacare? Obamacare will, in my opinion, become the cancer of the middle class.

Sure, the cost will sting a bit for the wealthy, but hello: they are wealthy. They will feel it less than the middle class. I don't believe health insurance should be managed or provided by the government. I think it should be provided by employers and be managed by insurance companies; I think government's role in health insurance should be to oversee (to insist upon) reform. (I do know that there are plenty of people who legitimately need assistance with health care. I have needed it before myself. But I think it should be a temporary thing, not a lifestyle choice.)

I also don't understand why insurance should be free. Didn't we learn in kindergarten that nothing is free? Someone will have to pay for Obamacare, and it will be middle-class people like you and me. People at Kendell's job are already talking about how, when we re-enroll in our health insurance next spring, the price increase will be unbearable. Couple that with the increase in taxes and the lack of pay raises and I am already starting to worry that I'll have to find a different, full-time job. All of which might sound like I don't want to help other people who are less fortunate than me, which isn't true; I do. I just don't think that Obamacare is the direction the help needs to take.

But what bothers me more than Obama's policies is his moral center. To me, it feels like he wants to be president because he likes the power and the fame, not because he wants to shape a strong, contemporary America. To me, the American he's shaping isn't even America anymore. It's more socialist than democratic and much more vulnerable. Couple that vulnerability with Obama's failures abroad (the Benghazi thing, the Israel thing) and it starts to feel nefarious.

I don't trust him and I don't think he has made my life better.

So today was a hard day for me. The ruthless gloating, the news pundits going on and on about Romney and how weak his campaign was. "But he won 49% of the popular vote!" I kept arguing back to the radio, "which means almost exactly half of the population wanted him to win." But mostly, it was the relentless anxiety and the knowledge that I am powerless to change any of these things.

So I searched for something to appease my anxiety. I scrapbooked. I went running. I ate the rest of the cake I made yesterday for work. I wandered around Target and bought some clearance Halloween stuff and some peppermint extra-dark-chocolate Lindt truffles (I am eating one right now as I write this in fact). I put away all of my Halloween decorations and got out all my Thanksgiving ones and repotted three of my plants and reorganized my linen closet and put together a big box of stuff to take to the thrift store and vacuumed the cobwebs off of my front-room ceiling. I listened to Kaleb talk while I cooked dinner.

I cooked dinner.

And, despite the other anxiety today brought (Kaleb's echo for his upcoming appointment with the cardiologist and all the accompanying terror that brings even though he's likely to be just fine), my little efforts at finding peace in my heart helped—a little bit. I don't feel any more optimistic about our future. But I do feel grateful that, for now, I have control of my home and my influence over my family at least.

Here's what I made for dinner. It's become a recent favorite at our house:

Buffalo Chicken Taquitos (adapted from Real Women of Philadelphia)

4 cups chicken, cooked and shredded (about 3 breasts)
12 soft-taco sized flour tortillas
2 cups monterey jack cheese, grated
4 ounces cream cheese
1/3 cup Frank’s hot sauce
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup bleu cheese crumbles
2 T butter
1 tsp Lawry's seasoning
1 tsp garlic powder
2 T vegetable oil

(I doubled this recipe and have some leftover taquitos.)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spread a thin layer of oil over a cookie sheet. Over medium low heat, melt butter. Add Lawry's and garlic powder. Stir to combine and cook for 1 minute. Add cream cheese and stir until melted and completely combined with butter and spices. Whisk in hot sauce, bleu cheese, and milk then simmer for about five minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Combine chicken and sauce. Lay out a tortilla; fill with 1/3 cup chicken and a sprinkling of cheese. Tightly roll up taquito and place, seam down, on the oiled baking sheet; repeat until chicken is gone. Brush taquitos with vegetable oil on the top. Bake for about 10-12 minutes, then flip the taquitos over and let bake until golden brown. Serve with bleu cheese dressing (or sour cream & salsa if you're Kendell).

A Forgotten Summer Meal

When I was a kid, my mother was a domestic goddess.

(me & mom on my 12th birthday)

Summer afternoons quite often found us working in the kitchen to bottle the produce she'd grown in our garden. We bottled tomatoes, green beans, apples, peaches, and salsa. She also grew plenty of zucchini and summer squash.

During the week or so of bottling tomatoes, we'd have the same thing for lunch. Mom would cut up chunks of yellow summer squash and cook it, just till it was tender, in the diced, juicy tomatoes. Then she'd sprinkle cheddar cheese on top. Eating that meal—I don't know what we called it—is one of my favorite summer memories.

Another thing Mom would make with the zucchini—the big ones that languished in the back of the garden until they were sized like small baseball bats—was grilled zucchini. Not grilled in the sense of cooked on a barbecue, but grilled like a grilled cheese sandwich.

On Sunday, I was facing some fairly severe cooking dejection as what I had planned to make for dinner—coconut chicken curry—had been shot down by not just one but two of my family members. ("Oh. My. Gosh. <insert gagging noises> that sounds disgusting." Just the thing to fuel my excitement.)

Then I saw the enormous zucchini my neighbor had left on my porch the day before. Usually with a big zucchini I'd make some zucchini bread, followed by a zucchini cake later in the week, but as I'm not eating sugar for the next six weeks, that idea was out. What can I make with that zucchini? I pondered, and there, behind the yearning for baked goods, was the memory of grilled zucchini.

I was certain it would meet with the same reaction as the coconut chicken curry had. But I also thought, Hey! I'm the mom here. And then I made it:

And with the very first buttery, vegetable-sweet, crispy bite, I was back there on those summer afternoons, eating lunch on the shady patio of my childhood. My whole life ahead of me.

The great surprise of the whole thing? Everyone loved the grilled zucchini. Well, everyone except Kaleb who refuses to allow anything resembling vegetables to enter his body. Even Kendell, who at first complained I wasn't doing it like his mom used to (wah!) liked it. Jake had his sprinkled with cayenne pepper, which probably tasted delicious. But I wanted to keep it simple and pure, like it used to be.

Grilled Zucchini

1 large zucchini
2 eggs
2 T milk
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
butter for the griddle

Slice the zucchini into very thin rounds. Beat the eggs till frothy, then stir in the milk. Combine the flour, salt, and pepper.  While butter is melting on the griddle, dip a zucchini slice into the egg, then the flour. Cook on the buttered griddle, flipping once or twice and adding more butter as needed.

Don't be surprised if you make some new memories!

the Dangers of Cooking and Reading

(yes of course at the same time)

It was one of those mornings. A good one. All the kids in the kitchen eating their pancakes in shifts because how else can you eat pancakes? Haley was talking about how when you eat something really sweet then you need to eat something salty and I said "yeah, like when you eat caramel and then you have to eat some potato chips," and then she ate a cheese stick to balance out the sweetness of the buttermilk syrup. Jake and Kaleb were talking about Big Miracle and I was asking if the whales died and then they pointed out it was a kids' movie and of course the big miracle wasn't finding a place to bury all those big, dead whales. I took a plate of pancakes to Kendell who groused a little bit about not getting the first plate, you know, the first plate I'd given to Nathan who had to scarf and then go to a church meeting, and I rolled my eyes and came back to an empty, silent kitchen.

So I buttered the grill and I poured the last of the batter and then I started reheating the syrup because I sort of really like to eat my food hot and by then it was only lukewarm. I stirred the syrup and picked up my book (Eat and Run) and read and stirred and thought and the recent pleasant cacophony of kitchen happiness was replaced by my own noisy head. Somewhere between stirring and reading about running and veganism were my thoughts about the morning, like why did I wake up crying last night twice? and all those recent blog posts about the evo conference and while I didn't start my blog to be successful like that, wouldn't it still be cool to be successful like that, to have a niche that others knew about and respected you for? and some more thoughts about arguments and laughing and recognizing the irony of reading about tofu and soy protein while stirring butter and sugar together to pour over pancakes.

Pancakes!

Gah.

I guess it wasn't only the reading that made me forget to flip them. It was the thinking, too. But I missed that golden moment, when the doughy side puffs up and a little bit of steam wafts to your nose and it's a message: flip me right now. I totally missed that moment and remember: it was the last of the batter. I flipped them anyway and ate them with my buttermilk syrup (which was nice and hot) and even though they weren't perfect they were still delicious because pancakes?

Well, pancakes always seem to make despair and discouragement feel just a little bit better.

Even the imperfect ones.

My Pancakes
(everyone has their own way of making pancakes, right? I remember once I made pancakes at my sister's house and her daughter came down to eat and was like "ummmm, I hate pancakes like these, where are the white ones?" and then I forgave her because, well, everyone has the way they like them. I'm not a fan of bisquik-esque pancakes. I like mine a little bit earthier. These don't make an ultra-puffy pancake but they are the right fluff for us.) (Also, this is exactly how I cook them because I was thinking today...one day soon my kids will leave my house and go out on their own and I need to teach them how to make pancakes.) (And one more pre-script: This makes 8 cups of pancake batter, which might be way more than your family needs; remember: I'm feeding two teenage boys!)

4 eggs
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup oil
1 3/4 cup buttermilk
1 3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cinammon
1 tsp baking soda
1 T baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2-ish cups white flour

Crack the eggs into your mixer bowl and turn on the whisks and let it whisk away. Put the butter in a 2-cup glass measuring cup and then melt in the microwave. Try to not let it get bubbly, just melted. Pour oil into the butter until you have 2/3 cup combined. Stir with a fork, then slowly pour into the eggs. Add the milks, the baking soda & powder, the salt, the cinammon, and the vanilla. Let the whisks blend everything well. Then add the flours, about 1 cup at a time, whisking just a little bit between additions. I wrote "2-ish" for the white flour because sometimes it might need a little bit more.

Cook on a buttery griddle. Add chocolate chips (if you are Haley or Kaleb), a little extra butter (if you are Nathan), or nothing at all (if you are Jake, Kendell, or me). Serve with buttermilk syrup to everyone except Kaleb, who doesn't like it.

Buttermilk Syrup

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup buttermilk
2 T corn syrup
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Melt the butter in a large pan. (This foams up quite a bit so don't use a little one.) Add the sugar, buttermilk, and corn syrup. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. (You can read while you stir if you want. Just be careful not to splash on your pages.) Let boil for about one minute. Whisk in the baking soda---this is when it foams up! When it's all smooth again, turn off the heat, add the vanilla, and stir a little bit more. Let it sit while you make the first batch of pancakes. Try not to drink the left overs.

Desert Dessert

Yesterday before church I made a coconut cake. I haven’t made this cake for a long time—five or six years. But as my thoughts are full of summer (I am trying to plan some fun but close-to-home adventures for the warm months) I made it as a way of embracing summer.

Which is probably a strange thing to say about a cake. But this one? This one is July in a bundt pan. "What does it taste like?" Kaleb asked me while he watched me chopping the pecans. "It tastes like summer," I told him. He was already looking at me with doubt, as anything with nuts in it is highly questionable to him, but that answer sent him, shaking his head, right out of the kitchen.

But it does—taste like summer. For nearly all of my growing-up years, from the time I was six and deemed old enough to go until the summer I was 19 and dating Kendell, we went to Lake Powell with a group of my parents’ friends. Getting up early to water ski on the glass-smooth water, meandering through the serpentine canyons in our battered yellow boat, eating lunch in the overhanging bowl of a sandstone cliff. Cliff jumping, or exploring sandy hillsides, or making the trek to Rainbow Bridge (in the years when you could walk a trail right up to it or could swim underneath it): didn’t matter what we did, it was just being there, in that place, a wellspring in the desert.

It is one of my most favorite places on the earth.

Food played an enormous part of these trips. Everyone took a turn preparing dinner for the entire group, and as each of the mothers had a slightly-competitive streak, the meals tended to run towards the gourmet. Which means we had plenty of delicious meals eaten from paper plates with a sandy beach as a table.

But nothing tasted as good as the coconut cake. It’s a dense cake, richly textured, with flavor that rolls across your tongue in waves. But kept tightly covered and slightly warm in the desert heat, it grew more moist and tender as the days passed, the flavor more concentrated and intoxicating.

Until it was gone.

Now when I eat it I get a little bit lonesome. I wish the cake had just the slightest grit of sand (that fine red sandstone sand of the southwest). I take a bite and I am there, eating dessert in the desert with my toes in water that seems to barely hold on to even being water, it’s so close to evaporating. My summer friends around me, my sisters teasing, my dad striding around the sandstone in cowboy boots and his swimming trunks. There—but only almost. And I know I could go back. Jake, in fact, is going there this summer with his scout troop. But I can’t really go back. The boat was sold a decade ago. My friends are grown. My dad is gone. (Lake Powell wouldn’t be Lake Powell without him.) Only the cake would be the same. So I eat a slice, and I remember, and it doesn’t have any sandy grit but I do swallow its buttery richness around a salty lump in my throat.

Coconut Cake
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
2 1/2 tsp coconut flavoring
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 cups flour
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup coconut
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 batch sugar syrup

Chop the pecans. Heat oven to 325. Prepare a bundt pan by buttering it thoroughly and then coating it lightly with sugar. Beat eggs until thick and frothy, about 4 minutes; slowly add sugar and beat until it dissolves. Add oil and coconut flavoring. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt, and baking powder. Add to the mixture, alternating with the buttermilk, starting and ending with the flour. Stir in the pecans and the coconut. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

About 10 minutes before the cake is done, make the sugar syrup:

Dissolve 1 cup sugar in ½ cup water. Add 2 tablespoons of butter and bring to a boil; boil gently for five minutes. Remove from heat, then add 2 teaspoons of coconut flavoring. Pour slowly over the hot cake when it comes out of the oven, allowing it to seep into cracks and down the sides of the cake. Leave in pan for 3-4 hours to allow the syrup to be absorbed.

{What I Love} no6: our Superbowl Traditions

No one in our family is a football superfan. Kendell will watch the Superbowl and sometimes a random game he happens to catch, but in general, he doesn't have a team he loves enough to watch all the games. (Something I am eternally grateful for because here's how I feel about football: hate it almost as much as basketball. It's frustrating and, I confess, a little bit boring to me. Probably because I don't know the rules and I don't know the teams and I certainly don't care about the players, most of whom seem to act like spoiled babies with too much money.) But we all look forward to the Superbowl for two reasons: the commercials and the food.

I love the Superbowl Sunday traditions that have sprung up in my family over the past six or seven years. I love that my kids rely on the same food being there—that it's become a given, a thing about life without which life would not make sense. I love that they talked about it all week and that they helped me prepare it. I love that we have this thing together. And that no one really cares about the game.

The Superbowl taught me to love avocados, a story I might just tell this month. But today I'm sharing one of my Superbowl recipes with you. The other one is just a seven layer dip: refried beans, guacamole, salsa, olives, flavored sour cream (mix in some taco seasoning), and cheese. (Note that at our house, the seven layer dip is really only six layers, because no one, not even me, likes raw green onions.)

It just wouldn't be Superbowl Sunday without pizza sticks. I heard the general idea for this once on a cooking show; I thought it was Rachael Ray's but I haven't been able to confirm that. (But am disclosing so as not to plagiarize.) Here's how you make them, Amy style (the original method called for pizza dough in a can and that, dear friends, is so not my style.)

Pizza Sticks
3 cups warm water
2 T yeast
2 T sugar
2 tsp salt
2 T olive oil
handful of Parmesan cheese
8 cups (ish) flour

Proof the yeast and sugar in the warm water for 10 minutes. Blend in the remaining ingredients, adding flour in ½ cup increments until soft dough forms. Knead for about 4 minutes (you want the cheese to be really incorporated into the dough). Let rise for about 1 hour.

Assemble whatever pizza ingredients you like. I use:

mozzarella cheese, shredded
pepperoni
Canadian bacon
olives
mushrooms

Divide the dough into four pieces. Roll it out into a rectangular shape. Sprinkle cheese on half of the rectangle, then cover the cheese with any of the ingredients. (They work best with just one extra ingredient.) (I also make some that just have cheese.) Fold the non-cheesy side of the dough rectangle on top of the side with the pizza toppings. Press the seam down firmly, then give the dough a few extra swipes with your rolling pin for good measure.

Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into strips. Carefully pinch the edges together, then twist each strip into a spirally stick. Some of the ingredients might fall out; just carefully tuck them back in. Let rise under a towel for about twenty minutes. Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes, or until done. Serve with marinara, bleu cheese, and Caesar for dipping.

MMMMMMMMMMM.

Do you have any Superbowl traditions?

Redemption Bread (two recipes)

Yesterday I accomplished the following:

• confirmed with my neighbor that she would be the perfect tutor for Haley, whose pre-calc teacher is just not cutting it
• put in a massive Lands End order  (they had a great deal on their flannel sheets and it snowballed from there)
• drove the carpool to school
• returned extraneous Legos to Target
• worked at the library
• went to the gym
• got weighed for our "biggest looser" competition at work (gained 1 pound)
• went home, ate lunch, wrapped six Christmas presents
• ran to the grocery store
• went to the fabric store
• picked Haley up from school
• took her through the McDonald's drive through because she was starving
• corrected the grammar of the boy working at the McDonald's drive through (I'm so ashamed!) (but my inner snark (I.S.) took over when he said "frozen strawberry lemonade? We don't got that anymore?" "You mean you don't have that anymore?" slipped right out of my mouth while I.S. was in control.)
• ran to the mall to return some things
• bought two tree-scented candles at Bath & Bodyworks
• picked up the carpool
• balanced the checkbook
• went to Costco with Kendell
• fixed dinner
• went to Haley's choir concert

Note that nowhere in that list did I actually tell Haley that she needed to go to the tutor's house. Sometime while I was balancing the checkbook, she (my neighbor) ran over to my house---leaving her two little boys home by themselves for a second---to check on Haley. I feel awful that she was sitting at home, waiting for Haley to show up.

I hate it when I don't manage to keep aloft all the balls I'm juggling.

Tonight I made two loaves of banana bread, one for my neighbor and one for us. I'm thinking of it as redemption bread: an offering to show my regret at being a complete and utter loser of a friend. Making it, I remembered that I've never shared this recipe on my blog, and it is a good one. The addition of buttermilk to the standard banana bread recipe makes the loaf delicately delicious. And! for good measure, I'm sharing another recipe, this one for lemon bread which is what I originally set out to make. I couldn't, though, because that trip I took yesterday? to the grocery store? Well. I did write a shopping list, and on that list was "lemon extract."

I just left the list in the car.

 

Buttermilk Banana Bread
1/2 cup butter, softened 1 1/2 cups sugar 2 eggs, well beaten 1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 average sized bananas) 4 tablespoons buttermilk	1 3/4 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon vanilla dash baking soda 1/4 tsp nutmeg
Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to banana mixture. Mix until combined. Divide batter into greased and floured bread pans and bake at 350 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. This recipe makes about one large loaf of banana bread, but I always double it.

Lemon Bread
3 1/2 cups flour 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 3/4 tsp baking soda 3/4 tsp salt 3 sticks butter, softened	3 1/2 cups sugar 6 eggs 3 tsp grated lemon peel 3 tsp lemon extract 3 cups sour cream
Butter and sugar 2 bread pans. Zest two or three lemons. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping the sides down between each one. Beat in the lemon zest and extract. Add the dry ingredients, alternating with the sour cream. Bake at 350 for about 50 minutes, or until toothpick comes out with crumbs instead of batter. After cooling, you can glaze the bread by mixing 1 cup of powdered sugar with about 2 T of lemon juice until smooth. Spoon over the top of the bread so it drips down the sides a bit. From the book Sweet Gratitude: bake a thank you

 

Making Extraordinary Cakes: Secrets

Last night was Nathan's Grandma Dinner. This used to be called the Grandparents Dinner, and it has been a birthday tradition since Haley was two. Now that we don't have any grandpas with us, we have just the two grandmas come for dinner to celebrate a birthday. The birthday kid gets to pick out exactly what he (or she!) wants for the meal, including, of course, the cake.

For dinner, Nathan really wanted my homemade chicken nuggets. I happily obliged but I had forgotten how long they take. The meal ended up being served in chapters, as I forgot to make the gravy for the mashed potatoes and had to wait until one pan was free of nuggets before I could whip it up. I spaced turning the burner on under the carrots, so they were late, too. Everyone sat down to eat garlic breadsticks, naked mashed potatoes, jello, and the first round of nuggets while I frantically cooked the rest of the meal.

When it comes to big dinners, I really suck at the timing.

But you know what I don't suck at? Cakes. Any dessert, really. They are sort of my specialty. They don't always look perfect, but they taste good. Mostly this is me standing on the shoulders of dessert giants (meaning: I read a lot of recipe books) but I have two secrets for extraordinary cakes.

1. Prepare your pans with sugar instead of flour. So: butter the pan, then add a little extra spritz of Pam just in case you missed any spots. Then, dust the buttery pan with sugar instead of the traditional flour. This way you avoid that icky, white crust on the edges. Instead, you end up with a slightly-crispy, sugary edge. (The cake will still slide right out of the pans.)

2.  One-and-one-half times your recipe. I do this almost every time I make a layer cake: increase the ingredients by one half. (So, for example, if the recipe calls for 4 eggs, use six. Just make sure to 1.5x ALL the ingredients!) This makes your layer cake taller and it feeds more, too. It does take more time to bake this way. Start by adding five minutes to the recipe's time, and start checking it. (The time increase seems to vary depending on the ingredients in the cake.)

Even though I was just cooking for my family, my mom, and my mother-in-law, my ineptitude at timing the meal right was embarrassing to me. But it's amazing how eptitude with cake overcomes all my other ineptitudes.

(Nathan with the carrot cake he always requests; the 2 candle looks weird because it tipped over into the "happy" blue frosting.)

The cake's the best part of the birthday party anyway, right?

Do you have any baking/cooking secrets?

Sunday Dinner: Teriyaki Beef

One of my goals for this school year is to make better dinners on Sunday night. Not that I don't usually cook on Sunday nights...but lately it's been thrilling stuff like quesadillas, or pancakes, or even (hanging head in shame) Cheerios. I'm do this to make our Monday nights easier (left overs!) and to give us more time together as a family, eating dinner. My job requires that I work one evening a week, and between that and everyone's various activities and school things, family dinners are growing rare around here. And I don't like that!

The strange way my mind works means that if I add "blog about" to a goal, I'm more likely to do it. So that means I will be sharing a few more recipes on my blog during the upcoming months. I'd say I want to make it a weekly feature but, well, you all know how well I do at weekly features. (See my "Use Your Stuff" challenge for proof. Note that there's exactly ONE challenge there.)

Here's what I cooked this Sunday.

Teriyaki Beef (based on this recipe from my friend Jamie's blog) (adjust amounts based on your family!)

6-ish pounds roast beef
2 cups pineapple juice
1 cup soy sauce
1 can ginger ale
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 bottle of plum sauce
1 tsp fresh ginger, grated
6 garlic cloves, pressed

Cut the roast into chunks. Pam your crock pot, then mix the juice, soy sauce, ginger ale, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic together right in the crock pot. Add the roast chunks. Cook on high for 1 hour, then low for about 5-6.

About 45 minutes before you want to eat, pull the chunks of meat out of the broth. Strain the broth through a cheese cloth. (This is to get out any offending little bits of gristle or fat. If that sort of thing doesn't bother your eaters, you can skip the straining.) Stir together:

2 T corn starch
2-3 T of broth

Return the broth to the crock pot. Whisk the corn starch/broth mixture into the bigger batch of broth. Set your crock pot back up to high.

Remove the fat, then shred the beef with two forks. Put the meat back into the broth in the crock pot. Cover and let simmer while you cook the rice.

Start the rice. I always cook sticky rice, and for this dish I substituted one can of coconut milk for an equal amount of water. (I used to do this more often, and with two cans instead of one, back when my favorite grocery store sold coconut milk for .50. Now that it's almost $3.00 a can...I don't do it as much.) The coconut milk adds a creamy, slightly-sweet twist to your rice. (Translation: it's so delicious this way it makes me weep.) You can also make it with your traditional rice preference.

When the rice is finished, serve the shredded beef over it. We had it with biscuits and grapes as sides, but any sort of fruit would be good.

I loved this recipe, and get this: every. single. child. loved it too! Even Kaleb, who is the pickiest eater. (He did not, of course, eat any grapes, which are "disgusting.") It was simple and fast, and I cleaned out the three different bottles of almost-gone soy sauce in my fridge. Sweetness!

What did YOU make for Sunday dinner this week?