No spaghetti for you!

There are literally thousands of so called spaghetti recipes out there. Everyone thinks that they 'know the secret' or that their mom's is the best. And that is why I am not going to give you a recipe.

On a side note, spaghetti is a type of noodle, just like macaroni. What people commonly call "spaghetti" is a bolognese sauce. I was at a restaurant once and got a so-called 'marinara' sauce, it had meat in it. The big difference is that bolognese sauce has meat in it, and marinara does not. One is not better than the other, just simply a different beast. There was another time I was at an event and they had "vegetarian bolognese" and this brings me to my current gripe. You cannot call it bolognese sauce if there is no meat in it. You can't call it a chicken nugget, if there is no chicken in it, and it is not bacon if it is not made from pork. There are other things to call these foods and they should be labeled as what they are: vegetarian spaghetti sauce, soy-nugget, processed-liquid-turkey-meat-pressed-into-a-cube-and-sliced. Delightful! Americans are so wrapped up in a plastic, sheltered and clean little world that they don't even know what they are eating because it's much easier to label our food with words of comfort than actual descriptions! Honestly soy-nugget doesn't sound good and chick-nugget does, but chick nuggets should come from baby chickens, or chicks right? That sounds really gross. Perhaps there is a method to our madness, but let's at least get our pasta sauces sorted out.

Anyhow I made up a spaghetti sauce the other day and it's not smooth like marinara or made from meat like bolognese so I call it... spaghetti sauce. Let's talk about vegetarian links for a bit. There are many out there. Some are good, some are meh, and some are downright awful. Actually there are several that are quite tasty. I like the Soyrizo brand of soy flavored with traditional Chorizo flavorings. Even though I know it's good, if I think about what Chorizo is made from when I eat it I do get a slightly ooky feeling in my tum tum. When making spaghetti sauce I recommend Tofurky or Field Roast. These particular brands have enough fat in them to hold up well during cooking, and taste good.

So here is my spaghetti sauce ingredient list, it's not your mom's and it's not traditional. It is tasty though. Oh, you get to guess on proportions, as I said earlier, this is not a recipe.

Ingredients:
Pomi strained tomatoes
diced tomatoes
diced New Mexico green chili
red chili flakes
onion
garlic
celery leaves
oregano - fresh
basil - fresh
red wine - one you would have a glass of
soy links chopped and browned
salt and pepper
Romano cheese to serve

I got the beets!

I went out to my garden today and VOILA! Beets, carrots and my spirally special broccoli is turning into broccoli!

I had to thin the beets a bit and I picked most of the carrots that were ready, it's super exciting and I get so joyous. I made a Thai salad out of the garden, and I only used veggies from the garden. I also pulled up my Bordeaux spinach as it's getting leggy and trying to bolt, anyhow, I'm not super impressed with it, though it is fun to eat purple spinach. I think the New Zealand spinach is less likely to bolt, but not as big. Hmm.


Let's talk about this recipe before I give it to you. I have a confession to make. I rarely measure anything. Even when I can (I mean put things in jars), because you don't have to have 'the right amount of' sugar, just a hostile bacteria environment (created by three things: sugar, salt and acid -- ooh and alcohol!). I bake without measuring a lot, I use cups as a way to transfer 'enough' flour. I have to say that I don't know how much oil, vinegar, mustard or seasoning I ever use to make mayonnaise, except for like eggs (easy to count). So the sad, sad truth is that I don't know how much of anything I put into my marinades or salads. Like this one. Here is what I say to you, you need to put in what you think is a good amount, and I'll tell you about how much, but you should be using your taste buds as you go along here. I make guesses and try to come close for you, but you need to use discretion. You don't like garlic? Don't put so much in! And BTW if you don't like garlic there is something wrong with you; seek professional help. So in this recipe I'm going to use my normal measurements. Good luck!


Ingredients for two:
salad type things
2 good sized wads of roast chicken - no bones, chopped
a spoon of peanut butter
a splash of soy sauce
a couple small spoons of sugar
some brown rice vinegar
a lidfull of ginger juice
a small spoon of minced garlic - I pre-mince and keep in a jar.
a small tip out of the jar of red chili flakes
a pinch of (GASP) MSG

Method:
Set up your salad things - I used two heads of a small type of butter lettuce, some Persian carrots, yellow and Egyptian Flat beets steamed together for a bit, beet greens, red beard green onions and the shells from some sweet peas that I had shelled- Mix everything else in a bowl but the chicken. Taste it. Is it good? does it need adjustment? Remember that there's gonna be onion on the salad. There isn't? you better fix that. Mix in chicken and place a ball of chicken on top of your salad things. Now everyone will think that you're amazing, cooking without measuring and all.

Why You Should Grow Plants

Everyone out there should be growing plants. Even if you live in a studio apartment. You have space for some plants, or you can get off your butt and get a p-patch. In many farming areas you can rent p-patch space for around $1 a square foot. $20 would get you a good sized, manageable area. If you don't want to do that, get a pot and grow your own herbs, edible flowers or even some lettuce. Just look for things that are a little shade tolerant and acquire a plant light.



The reason you need to grow your own vegetables is because as soon as you cut them their quality begins to degrade. We recently went to a fantastic little restaurant that only serves local-in season food. It's a great place, and their food is local and they tell you where it comes from, and it's completely fresh. When we were there we got this little goat cheese salad with baby greens, and I could tell that they were old! I don't mean like two weeks old, but after eating all this lettuce from my garden within an hour of cutting it, I could tell that the lettuce at the restaurant was cut the day before. It's kind of depressing to loose out on such a good thing because you don't own a patch of dirt, that's why I suggest the pots, I grow lettuce around things in pots all the time. Just get a good sized pot.

I love my garden. I love being able to go out and pick my dinner. It's amazing to put some seeds in the ground, surround them with electric wires to keep out the cats and squirrels, and pour water on them and in a few weeks... KABLAMEE, produce!




I also love plants, I think they're so neat, and wonderful. A little fertilizer (organic of course) and water and you can grow bib or butter lettuce, the most expensive and fragile of lettuces for a few pennies! No more tough old spinach leaves for me, only young tender baby spinach leaves. More tender than the so-called baby spinach leaves you can buy in the store.

I made this great salad. First I went out and picked it. I cooked up a Boca Burger and cut it up and took my fresh greens and some black beans and then I made an all-fresh-all-the-time mayonnaise dressing, and I will give you the recipe for that. Starred items are ones that I am growing (not ready yet) or have ready in my garden.

Spicy Green Dressing

Ingredients:

1 farm fresh egg
1/2 C. organic sour cream
*1 big handful cilantro
*1 jalapeno or other spicy pepper
*1 garlic clove
salt and pepper
grape seed oil - about 2/3 cups.

Method:

In your blender put the egg, sour cream, cilantro and part of the chili pepper and garlic. Add some salt and pepper and a few tablespoons of oil. Turn the blender on and let it blend a bit, slowly pour in the remaining oil. You might not need all of it, you might need more. You want to pour in the oil until you have a thick looking salad dressing. You might stop the blender to see how it's coming if you haven't done this before. Pour into a small clean jar and keep in the fridge.

A note on pouring your oil: a small stream is better. If you add the oil to fast it won't turn into mayonnaise.

Also remember the USDA says raw eggs will kill you.

Bridal Shower Aftermath

Yesterday, three other women and I held a bridal shower in my back yard, being that it is a lovely place to be. I have hydrangeas in bloom, my African daisy from the dead plant rack is in bloom, strawberries abound and my raspberry bushes give the whole yard a lush feel.

I did make a giant quantity of food, but most of it got eaten, and the sad thing is: I didn't take any pictures. Leah and I worked for hours on these great fruit arrangements, we cut fruit into flower shapes and then put them on sticks and in a vase with some rocks, it looked so fantastic! I was a bit in doubt, but I think the fruit choice had a lot to do with it. I chose strawberries, pineapple, honeydew and blueberries.

I'm not going to go into the specifics of how to make your own fruit arrangement, but just remember that it looks good and I'm sure you can cut fruit if you try.

Here's the great thing I will tell you about, what to do with all that fruit! I have a ton of left over fruit, I don't have any melon, no melon left over. Today I'm going to take all that fruit, throw it through the food processor and then turn it into jam. Luau jam here we come. I don't know what this will look like, but I think it'll be orange.

I do have one little recipe for you, because you probably think that it's out of reach to make Chinese BBQ Pork. You know what, it's not. I made the best pork from a GIANT PORK LOIN.

When you read that think of a deep and booming voice with echo effects. I'm going to tell you how I made eight pounds of pork loin, cuz really it's the same price to buy one loin and get a ton of meat, or you can buy two tiny tenderloins for the same price. What I think you should do is put the loins in to marinade, then when they're done freeze them so you can throw them on the grill whenever you want. Or you could cook them first but I don't think that would work as well.

I did look a few recipes, and none of them knew what they were doing. I also have some thoughts in my head that would make this special and I'll add those so you know that they are optional. Really that always irritates me when I read a recipe. Of course it's optional, who's standing over my shoulder making me follow that recipe to a T? No one, that's who. I do what I want. Well I'll just mark those things so you know that I didn't do them and you can if you want, or not, it's your kitchen. I didn't do them one: because the mother of the bride is allergic to pineapple, two: it was raining.

Chinese BBQ Pork

Ingredients:

8 Lbs. pork loin
2 C. soy sauce
1/2 C. brown rice vinegar
4 C. chicken stock
(2 C. pineapple juice)
3 Tbs. minced garlic
2 Tbs. minced ginger
1 bunch chopped green onion
1/2 C. honey
3 Tbs. molasses
1/3 C. sugar
red food coloring

Method:

First you need to cut up the loin. Trim the fat off. Slice it into six inch chunks and then cut those chunks into fourths, and those fourths into eighths. Think one or two bite sized when sliced.
When your pork is sliced put it all into bags, mix all the other things together and divide the marinade between your bags. I would think you could use a dish to marinade this in but wouldn't unless it was glass, as it will stain your dish.
Put this into the fridge overnight. Not a few hours, overnight. If you don't want to cook all this at once, now is a good time to remove from marinade, individually wrap (I prefer my food saver) and freeze for all those BBQ's you have.

Fire up the grill! I didn't do this, as it was raining, but clearly this is the way to go. Or you can fire up the oven (lame) to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place your pork on a rack of cooking and cook it for 11 minutes, turn and cook 11 minutes. Check it now to see if it's done. I think 150 should be sufficient, but that's not recommended by the USDA or anything, so use your best judgment. Of course you're welcome to use my normal method of checking meat, poking! Poke it, does it feel done? It probably is. Let the meat rest when it's done for a minimum of 15 minutes. You can also cool it and serve it cold, and this is the most common way to serve it. It is good warm though, so slice and serve with ketchup, spicy mustard and sesame seeds.

Breakfast for Dinner

A thing out of my childhood, having breakfast for dinner. I love breakfast for dinner, it's easy to prepare and my husband isn't a big breakfast eater anyhow so I often don't get those lovely breakfast foods I love.

Let's talk basics, Krusteze is a wonderful thing. I know many snobs out there say that you should be making your pancakes/waffles from scratch and blah, blah, blah, but really I'm not busting out the twenty waffle recipe with forty eggs and a gallon of milk. I'm going to make two waffles. The secret is to put something in it, I like pumpkin a lot but right now I have a lot of bananas. You should freeze your brown bananas, they're good for lots of things! The way to do it is to peel them and put them in a bag in the freezer. It's really hard, but if you practice, you'll get good at it too.

You can use them for all sorts of things like that, smoothies, milkshakes, protein shakes, fake ice cream, banana bread, trifles, pancakes and waffles!

I like my mom's eggs, they have chickens roaming around their ten acres, and they produce really nice eggs. It took me a while to get used to them, as anything good does. Many people are put off by the thick rich color of the yolk, but when you eat them enough you come to abhor the anemic look of store bought eggs. If you want really good eggs you can look on Craig's List for a local seller of farm eggs. Or get some chickens, really they're not hard to keep. When you're eating your actually fresh eggs and enjoying the taste you can also enjoy knowing you didn't contribute to the horrible lives of chickens in cages, without beaks, who are reduced to egg producing units. You also won't be contributing to the false label of 'free range.' I'm not going into it but you should check it out for yourself, what does that really mean? How are you sure that those chickens led a normal life? Does your conscience sit well when you eat the egg of the oppressed?

Scrambled Eggs

Ingredients:

2 Farm Fresh Eggs
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 shake cayenne powder
sea salt
fresh ground pepper
2 tsp. butter

Method:

Heat your pan to medium high and place the butter in the pan. Whisk all other ingredients in a bowl with a fork until they are slightly frothy. When the butter stops foaming, twirl it around the pan and add your egg mixture. Whisk until your eggs start to clot and then plate it as it comes together.

Banana Waffles

Ingredients:

1 frozen banana
1 C. Krusteze pancake mix
water
Peach Syrup

Method:

Turn your waffle maker onto the darkest setting.

Mash up the banana and add the pancake mix, and some water to make a thick mixture. When your waffle maker is ready brush it with oil and add about half of the mixture to the iron. Let the waffle cook until the iron indicates doneness. Remove the waffle, add to the plate with eggs and dress with peach syrup, repeat until you have no more batter.

Enjoy!

Flank Steak on a Bed of Wilted Spinach

I love having my garden, it's pretty sweet to be able to go pick some dinner. I currently have peas, spinach and lettuce ready to be picked.

I had a lot of spinach out, but whenever you cook it it always looks like you have a handful when you get done.

I do have to admit that I spent a lot of time wandering around the grocery store wondering what to have for dinner, and being rather indecisive. Finally, I just bought a Portabella mushroom and called it good.

I do not normally like well done steak, but some cuts need to be cooked longer. Flank steak does best at medium, so marinade well, and cook it till it's done.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

8 oz flank steak
2/3 C. basil salad dressing or marinade.
1 Tbs. minced garlic
1 kiwi

3 C. washed raw baby spinach
1 C. sugar snap peas
1 sweet onion - sliced
1 portabella mushroom - sliced
2 tsp. minced garlic
4 Tbs. cilantro dressing - low fat (I got mine from Trader Joe's)
Salt and Pepper

Directions:

Cut the kiwi in half and squeeze it into a Ziplock bag. Add the steak, garlic and marinade, let this hang out for about 2-3 hours.

Thoroughly wash and dry your vegetables. Get two pans going on medium high heat, spray with cooking spray. In one pan cook the mushroom until it is brown on both sides. In the other pan add the onion and cook for a couple minutes, then add the garlic and peas. When the peas turn bright green add the spinach and toss until it is wilted, salt and pepper if needed, divide on plates. When the mushroom is done, place on top of spinach. In the pan that is done first turn up the heat a touch and add the steak. Let it cook for about 5 minutes, then turn it over. Keep checking and turning your steak, it should be of medium doneness.

Remove your steak from the heat and let it rest for about 7-10 minutes.

Slice the steak across the grain and set on spinach bed. Top each dish with 2 Tbs. of cilantro dressing.

Low Sugar Strawberry Jam

People often ask about my jams and if they can have the recipe, I don't usually follow one. What I do is I look at how much fruit I have and then some recipes and then I do pretty much what I want.

I am going to give you a brief disclaimer, I use the inversion method a lot for sealing jars, it is not recommended. I do not support you using this method, and suggest you follow the retail manufacturer's directions for sealing your jars.

Today I made strawberry jam, as my mom had given me some strawberries from her garden that she had frozen last year. I also caught my husband opening my cranberry jelly in an attempt to make a PBJ.

I don't like to add crap to my jam. I like fruit jam without weird things in it. Sure you can get strawberry-almond or strawberry-with-ponies-in-it! jam, you can even make those flavors if you want. Honestly I have never had someone turn down plain strawberry jam. It's good, people like it, and they like the jam I make, and it's never really the same. I say if you want to spice it up why not hunt down some odd heritage berry? You could get yellow strawberries and make a yellow strawberry jam! That would be new and exciting!

Do not use store bought berries, they make inferior jam. Go to a farm and pick your own if you have to, this will make a jam that actually tastes like strawberries. Another item about your jam, if you go to the trouble to pick your own berries, or grow them, use organic sugar. You're going to all that trouble, why not make something really good tasting, good for your body and good for the environment?

Ingredients:

8 C. Washed and prepared berries, cut up or mashed.
2 tsp. Calcium water (comes with your pectin)
2 tsp. Pomona's Universal Pectin
3 C. Organic Unbleached Sugar
1 tsp. Citric Acid

Directions

Place eight or nine clean eight ounce jars in the oven. Turn the oven on to 225 degrees Fahrenheit.

Place eight or nine clean rings and lids in a small pot half full of water on the stove over medium heat.

In a large pot stir your berry mush with a large wooden spoon over high flame. Add the citric acid and calcium water to your pot. Stir this until it comes to a rolling boil.

In a small bowl stir the pectin into the sugar very well. When the fruit is boiling well add the sugar all at once and keep stirring. Stir the jam until it starts to run off the spoon in one drip from the center of the spoon. When you dip the spoon in hold it up sideways and look at the jam, it should come together from both sides of the spoon and drip down in one place, not in sheets.

Your jam is now done. Skim the foam off into a small cup. Taste with spoon - but remember that jam is molten hot right now!

Remember NEVER set a hot jar down on a cold hard surface- use a tea towel or clean pillow case.

Ladle into your hot jars, wipe the edges and hand tighten a ring over a lid. Quickly turn the jar upside down and right side up.

A New Blog

This is to be my first blog. I might blog more, but this is the first one. I hope to tell you about the food I make.

I love food, and like most women in their thirties, I struggle with my love. I try to make wonderful food that is practical, tasty and healthy, though often you'll find that my attitude is extreme. If you're going to eat cookies, eat good cookies. Made from butter and white flour, there is no such thing as a lower fat cheesecake or light mousse. These things are made from the things we love: salt, fat and sugar. On the other hand I do have the weight conscious mind, so sometimes I make something that's better for you.

I cook many things: simple one pot dinners, extravagant party items, whole five course dinners, full Korean meals, dog food (really), cat treats, things for kids, things to taste good without being bad for you, really bad for you treats, barbecue, slow cooker, comfort food, brunches, breakfast goodies, camping goods to keep you warm, whatever you want. I hope you will find my daily cooking adventures here.

I also have an idea in my head that what we eat should be good for us, in a global and local sense. I don't want factory meat or mass produced anything (alas: reality). I try to get my eggs from my parents, who raise them. Sometimes we raise our own meat (it's the only way to be SURE it's well treated). I am currently on an adventure to buy a lamb from this gentleman: http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/p/we-sell-pigs-pork.html I'm very excited about the prospect for having my own, whole lamb; only 11 days till I can go pick one out!

I guess what I mean is, when I can buy local I'll spend more, when I can buy good sustainable farming practice I'll buy that, and pay more. I think when you buy from the farmer you're doing your part to help them remain farmers, so I'll also buy in bulk if that's what it takes. I try to grow my own garden, eat from farmer's markets and shop at non-major chain stores. I also draw the line at outrageous costs. I know it costs more to responsibly raise animals, but I'm not paying $15 a pound for ground beef. If that's the cost I'd rather not eat it (I have found affordable beef, I'm just saying that I'm not paying $15 a pound for ground chuck burgers, come on!)

So If you'll follow me, I'll tell you about my food, and give you my secrets. Something many people have been after me for, for a long time now.