Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Twice Baked Potatoes - Yum!

This week-end was a friend's birthday, and since he'd mentioned his love for twice baked potatoes, we decided to figure out how to make them for his birthday dinner.

It wasn't difficult, but it was a full meal. So combined with steak and salad and corn on the cob (4 of the 7 ears my garden yielded this year!) it was a huge meal! I saved half of my potato for lunch today.

Here's the simple twice baked potato recipe I used:

4 large baking potatoes
1/4 cup butter
1 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3/4 cup crumbled bacon
3/4 cup minced green onions
salt and pepper

I'm not sure how I ended up with the cooking detail on this dinner, but with the exception of the steaks, I did.

I baked the potatoes ahead of time, let them cool, then cut an oval out of the top of each of them and scooped out the flesh - leaving enough to hold the "shell" together.

While I was doing that, I had the bacon frying until the little pieces were crisp.

Reserving about 1/4 cup each of the cheese, bacon, and onions, I first added the butter and beat it until it was smooth, then added the rest.

Then I stuffed the mixture back into the shells - which became mounded up on top due to the extra ingredients.

I put that back in the oven to reheat, then about 10 minutes before dinner was to be served, I sprinkled the reserved cheese, bacon, and onions on top, put it back into the oven, and let them melt together.

The result: "Melt in your mouth" potatoes.

One thing I might do differently - probably cut the potatoes in 2 and serve a half potato to each person, because it really was too much. Along with the rest of the meal, everyone was stuffed.

Yours for good eating,
Marte

Monday, September 22, 2008

Our favorite green bean recipe

The deer in my garden left us just enough green beans for a good meal - the little thieves! They even ate 2 rows of onions and have started on the tomato plants now, which really surprised us. I had no idea they'd eat those, and I wonder what's wrong with their heads, since the grass all around the garden has been watered all year and is lush and green.

Oh well. Next year a tall fence.

Meanwhile, we thoroughly enjoyed what few green beans they left for us.

Here's our favorite green bean recipe:

Start with fresh green beans - add them to enough water to allow them to boil without drying up. While they're cooking, cut up some bacon into small pieces and chop some onion. These go into a frying pan.

I usually start the bacon first because I like to get the pieces almost crispy, and that would mean burned onions. So cook the bacon for a few minutes, then add the onions.

When they're ready, add them to the green beans that are already cooking. Keep an eye on the pan and let the water boil away so by the time the beans are cooked there's not much water left. (It generally takes about a half hour for the beans to be good and tender.) Then add a can of tomato soup and cook it long enough to get it hot clear through.

If the rest of dinner isn't quite ready, you can keep this in the oven on low for a while.

You may not have a garden, or the deer might have eaten every bean if you do - so remember you can also use this recipe with canned green beans. Just add the bacon and onions to the beans and their fluid, let it cook down until there's not too much fluid left, then add the soup.

Yours for good eating!
Marte

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Cooking in your child's kitchen... a different experience!

Today was my baby boy's birthday - and since he gets home from work rather late, we decided to take his cake and birthday dinner to him instead of inviting him here.

Luckily, I have a big roasting oven that we could stick in the back of the pickup with a cooked turkey breast and pre-mashed potatoes. The rest I took along to cook at his house.

And now I know some things that will go in his stocking this Christmas. Things like soup spoons, serving spoons, stirring spoons and more sizes of sauce pans than just "large". Well, guess the pans won't fit in the stocking, but you know what I mean.

I can't believe he's been eating his soup with a teaspoon all this time.

He's been getting along fine with his George Foreman grill, his large sauce pans, and a couple of frying pans. But that's because he only cooks "bachelor food." One of these days he may want to cook a whole meal.

If you have grown kids who are bachelors or bachelorettes, you might want to try cooking in their kitchens. It could give you ideas for Christmas, too.

Here's to all our kids...

Marte

Sunday, September 14, 2008

The trick to flaky pie crust - and a huckleberry pie story

Have you ever forgotten something that you knew so well you didn't even have to think about it?

That happened to me a few years ago. I don't bake pie very often any more - that's the excuse I gave myself for forgetting. And that's why my pie crusts started turning out "heavy."

I couldn't figure it out - I was using the same recipe that I'd used forever, and yet getting results I didn't like at all. Then one day a friend served me a piece of pie and her crust was wonderful - light and flaky. So I mentioned my recent failures at pie crust.

Her response? "Are you remembering to use ice water?"

Well, no. I had completely forgotten about ice water. Since then I'm back to making good pie crust.

Here's the simple recipe I use:
2 cups of flour
salt - I never measure it, sorry!
3/4 cup of shortening

Using a dough cutter (or a couple of knives if you don't have one) cut the flour, salt, and shortening together until you have pea-sized lumps.

Now add 1/4 cup of ice water and mix it just until it sticks together. Do NOT over mix.

Divide the dough in two - this is for a pie with a top crust.

Flour your rolling board well so the dough won't stick when you begin to roll it out. Sprinkle a little flour on top and spread it around so the rolling pin won't stick either. Don't roll it any more than you have to or your crust will be heavy in spite of the ice water.

A friend of mine who grew up with 4 older sisters (and thus didn't learn to cook) told me the story of her first huckleberry pie. She was a newlywed and her husband expressed a desire for huckleberry pie.

Having no idea how to make one, she asked an older friend. The friend told her to just mix some lard and flour and roll it out, then add huckleberries and sugar and bake it. (This happened in about 1934, when most people still used lard.)

Her friend didn't tell her about the water, or cornstarch to thicken the berries, and she didn't have a rolling pin. So she kept adding more lard and mixed and mixed trying to make the mess stick together. Finally she patted it all into place in the bottom of a pie tin. Then she put in huckleberries and sugar and put it in the oven.

And her poor husband ate it. When he told the story later he said "it tasted like huckleberries boiled in oil, but I was a new husband so I ate the damned stuff."

Later on she became known for her wonderful pies...

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Broccoli Salad Recipe

Remember when George Bush Senior said he didn't like broccoli, and since he was President, nobody could make him eat it? We thought he was kind of silly, because we do like broccoli.

Unfortunately, we'll have to trek to the store to get it, because we're not the only ones. It seems that whitetail deer also think it a delectable treat - just like my carrots, peas, and beet greens. I managed to bring in one dinner's worth of broccoli before the little brats stole it all. Unfortunately, between them and the underground critters, the only carrots we got were the really tiny ones I pulled when I thinned the row.

I try to be generous - it's been a hot dry summer and grass isn't exactly "juicy" right now, but darn - did they really have to take everything?

Oh well - next year a tall fence.

Meanwhile, if you've only tried broccoli cooked, try this salad recipe for a change of pace:

2 1/2 c. chopped broccoli
1/2 small onion, cut into thin slices and separated (purple if you have it\
1/2 c, dried cranberries (soaked in water for 10 minutes)
1 Tablespoon sunflower seeds
3/4 c. mayonaise
1 teaspoon of sugar - or 1/2 package of sugar substitute, if you prefer
1 Tablespoon of vinegar (balsamic if you have it)
1 teaspoon curry

Mix it all together and serve cold

Just as an update - we bought new yeast, and the latest batch of bread is mmm-good.

Yours for good eating,
Marte

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Dead yeast = chicken bread

Whew! That was some loaf of bread, or rather some two loaves of bread.

This week-end Carl set out to make bread, just as usual, but something went wrong. It just didn't rise like it was supposed to. He had some things to do outside, so he asked me to keep an eye on it and if it looked ready, to put it in the oven. I waited about an hour and decided it wasn't going to raise any higher, so started it baking.

I set the timer for 20 minutes, and when the time was up it still looked pasty white. So I set it for another ten minutes. Still white. Another 5 minutes... same thing, so I took it out of the oven.

Later I took the loaves up to my neighbor's chickens. Sure hope I didn't dent their beaks with it!

The trouble - our yeast was dead. We hadn't tested it because the package said it should still be good for another year, but it wasn't.

Before you waste flour and other ingredients, test your yeast. Start with the amount of warm water needed for your recipe. Add 1/2 to one teaspoon of sugar and mix it in. (Most recommend the water to be at 100 degrees.) Then add the yeast - if the mixture begins to bubble or foam within 10 minutes, the yeast is good and you can add the mixture to your recipe. If it doesn't, it's not. Get new yeast.

Bread baking can be a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of effort - and it's no fun to go to that effort only to be baking chicken food. (And really bad if you have no chickens nearby!)

Yours for good cooking,

Marte