Category: Food

Cupcake-pocalypse

Some kids read books the first week of summer. Some kids go to camp.

Gabriel decided he wanted to make chocolate cupcakes with strawberry butter cream frosting. From scratch.

I was ten when I made my first cake. It didn’t go well and the trend has continued my whole life. However, Shea is awesome at cakes. He made this for Kate’s shark party last year.

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So really, Gabe had a 50-50 chance to nail this thing.

I was home for the cupcake part and it went awesome. He managed my Kitchenaid like a boss and cranked out perfectly cooked dark chocolate cupcakes.

Then I left to pick Kate up from Girls Scouts camp and take her to a doctor’s appointment. He was home alone for an hour.

When I got home, the hand mixer and the mini-prep food processor were in the sink. In a bowl of water. The appliance parts. The kitchen was a mess, but Gabriel swore he’d been cleaning for 30 minutes.

Huh.

I kicked off my flip-flops and headed to the sink, where things became curiouser. The floor was slippery.

In fact, everything was slippery. I took a closer look and noticed chunks of butter, well…everywhere.

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When I pointed out the butter on the watermelon, he finally caved.

“Mom, the butter was everywhere. It was on the lights over the sink.”

What happened???

“I don’t know. The hand mixer is broken or something.”

Or.

You turned it on high? You took it out of the bowl before you turned it off?

“Mom, I thought I was going to have to take a shower!”

Where’s your shirt?

“In the laundry. But mom–”

Oh no.

“It’s ruined. It got stuck in the beaters.”

Stuck. In. The. Beaters.

“I leaned over the bowl to see what was happening and then my shirt got in there and stuck.”

I found a little pile of buttery goodness on the floor in the laundry room. It was a 3 dish towel clean up. That’s impressive.

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HOWEVER.

This is the finished product.

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So the good news is, he can bake himself some cake.

The bad news is that I’ll be cleaning butter out of nooks and crannies for the next six months.

 

 

Urban Foraging*

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It turns out that the decorative purple leaf plum trees in our front yard yield a fruit called a cherry plum.

Gabriel, in his infinite chef wisdom, burst into my room the other day and said “Mom. We need to jam these plums.” Then he rallied Ross from next door and they picked 5 lbs.

After I said Yes, we should jam them! I right quick looked them up to make sure they weren’t poisonous.

And a whole new world opened up on my laptop.

First, the tree is called a prunus cerasifura:

Purple-leaf plum trees are a precursor to the domestic plum and cherry tree—an ancestry told by its scientific name. The genus name Prunuscomes from the Latin for “plum.” The species name cerasifera is derived from cerasum, meaning “cherry,” and ferens, “bearing.” It was named for its fruits before modern edibles were cultivated—now, with domestic plums and cherries, Prunus cerasifera classified as an ornamental tree, not an edible one. But purple-leaf plum tree enthusiasts the world over will tell you the fruit’s virtues are overlooked , and they will share recipes for cherry plum cordial (good with seltzer or gin), compotes (add a sugar syrup), and jams (use brown cane sugar and try a dash of chili). (www.gardendesign.com)

Next, when I looked for said recipes I found these two sites:

www.eatweeds.co.uk and www.fallingfruit.org

Eat Weeds is a site devoted to the 25,000 edible plants that grow in the world, trying to raise our awareness past the meager staples in the grocery store.

Falling Fruit is a non-profit dedicated to mapping the bounty of urban streets for foragers. As the website says By quantifying this resource on an interactive map, we hope to facilitate intimate connections between people, food, and the natural organisms growing in our neighborhoods. Not just a free lunch! Foraging in the 21st century is an opportunity for urban exploration, to fight the scourge of stained sidewalks, and to reconnect with the botanical origins of food.

Look. I don’t know about intimate relations between people, food and natural organisms. But I did think about the many orange, lemon and apricot trees planted on urban Southern California streets that flower, fruit and rot to waste.

Same thing in Oregon, where blackberries grow in riotous abandon.

No one knows who’s fruit that is, at the park, on the parkway, on the median. Can I pick it? Or not?

Because of this confusion, the food goes to waste.

Think about that.

There is a person—I won’t name names, but she gave birth to me—who’s been known to cruise the alleys in her neighborhood and snatch low fruit hanging over people’s fences in the alley. A few weeks ago I was in the car when she directed my dad into an alley, leapt from the car, snatched the tangerines hanging over the fence and jumped back in. On the way home from church, no less.

All right, she had permission. And a point when she said “What? One family can’t eat all that fruit by themselves!”

Such an easy thing, to allow others to pick the fruit from your trees.

Well, consider my awareness raised. And my cherry plums jammed. This post where I got the recipe has all the same pics I took, so I’ll just leave it at that. They kind of taste like cranberries, but I think we should have let them ripen in the sun a few more weeks. Next, I’m going to try cherry plum cordial (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) and brandied cherry plums.

I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, spy around your neighborhood and see what you can forage.

*JFK Amy already thinks I am the most crunchy Pioneer Woman-y mom she knows. Urban foraging just might push her over the edge.

 

Comfort Food – Lasagna

Every once in a while, I do something quite genius.  And this summer,  I had a genius moment.  I decided to cook lasagna, the same recipe I’ve used for years from Emeril Lagasse, which calls for ⅓ lb. ground beef, ⅓ lb. ground pork, and ⅓ lb. ground veal.  The store I shopped at only sold ground veal in 1 lb. packages.  So, in my moment of genius, I decided to buy a pound of each and make, here it is, 3 batches of sauce:  one to use then, two to freeze for later.  Right?!

This Friday, when I had occasion to make a lovely, homemade meal for a special someone, I decided that since I already had the sauce made, I’d just throw together the cheese filling and boom baby, a home-cooked meal in half the time.   And guess what… it worked!

This lasagna is time consuming, but truly delicious.  Heavy on the garlic, heavy on the cheese, heavy on the meat, heavy on the comfort.

I’d like to recommend that you throw 3 pots on the stove one afternoon and make 3 recipes of the sauce, then you can feel genius later, too.  When you cook up your sauce (or thaw out the one you made before), the kitchen will smell divine.

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Then you can begin to prepare your cheese mixture.  I recommend using a food processor for all the grating.  It’s a huge time saver.  And note:  this time I used extra sharp provolone and it was ah-maze-ing.

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Next comes the assembly.  Another note:  when you live in a 1920s house with no counter space, your assembly station looks like this.  Tiny but darling, right?

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All assembled and ready for the oven…

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In 45 minutes to an hour, you get this.  And as a bonus, we used our Christmas dishes!

finished lasagna

Emeril’s Lasagna

Ingredients

  • 2 cups fresh ricotta cheese
  • 8 oz. grated Provolone cheese
  • 8 oz. grated Mozzarella cheese
  • 8 oz. grated Romano cheese
  • ¼ cup milk
  • 1 Tbsp. chiffonade of fresh basil
  • 1 Tbsp. chopped garlic
  • Salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 recipe tomato sauce – recipe to follow
  • ½ lb. grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
  • 1 package dried lasagna noodles
  • 1 egg

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a mixing bowl, combine the ricotta, Provolone, Mozzarella, Romano, egg, milk, basil, and garlic.  Mix well. Season with salt and pepper.  To assemble, spread 2 ½ cups of the meat sauce on the bottom of a deep dish lasagna pan.  Sprinkle ¼ of the grated cheese over the sauce.  Cover the cheese with ¼ of the dried noodles.  Spread ¼ of the cheese filling evenly over the noodles.  Repeat the above process with the remaining ingredients, toping the lasagna with the remaining sauce.  Place in oven and bake until bubbly and golden, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.  Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes before serving.  Slice and serve.

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

  • 2 Tbsp. olive oil
  • ⅓ lb. ground beef
  • ⅓ lb. ground veal
  • ⅓ lb. ground pork
  • Salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 cups finely chopped onions
  • ½ cup finely chopped celery
  • ½ cup finely chopped carrot
  • 2 Tbsp. chopped garlic
  • 2 (28 oz) cans of chopped tomatoes
  • 1 small can tomato paste
  • 4 cups beef stock
  • 2 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 2  bay leaves
  • 2 tsp. dried oregano
  • 2 tsp. dried basil
  • Pinch of crushed red pepper
  • 2 oz. Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Instructions

In a large saucepan, over medium heat, add the oil.  In a mixing bowl, combine the meat.  Season with salt and pepper and mix well.  When the oil is hot, add the meat and brown for 4 to 6 minutes.  Add onions, celery, and carrots.

Season with salt and pepper.  Cook for 4 to 5 minutes or until vegetables are soft.  Add the garlic and tomatoes.  Season with salt and pepper.

Continue to cook for 2 to 3 minutes.  Whisk the tomato paste with the stock and add to the tomatoes.  Add the thyme, bay leaves, oregano, basil, and red pepper flakes.  Mix well.  Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat to medium and simmer for about 2 hours.  Stir occasionally and add more liquid if needed.  During the last 30 minutes of cooking, season again with salt and pepper, and stir in the cheese.  Remove from heat and let sit for 15 minutes before serving.

Yield:  about 1 ½ to 2 quarts

 

 

 

 

Holiday Stuff and Such

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It’s the advent of Advent.

And since I am always—ALWAYS—standing at Michael’s on the first Sunday of Advent afternoon, begging for someone, anyone to show me a pink taper candle in November, I thought I would share my newest and greatest discovery:

THERE ARE PACKS OF ADVENT CANDLES FOR SALE ON AMAZON!!!

With Prime shipping even. Which means you could have your Advent candles whole DAYS before Advent begins.

I know, I know. #ThisJustIn

Also, Thanksgiving is three days away which means you have probably not yet done your menu planning and/or shopping.

Have no fear. Dana and I are here for you.

Here are our favorite holiday meal recipes from years past.

Pumpkin Pie, Cranberry Sauce, Cranberry mustard, Holiday Cobbler, Caesar Salad

Plus, I highly recommend this Brussel Sprouts and Quinoa recipe with a lemon vinaigrette. BUT. If you click that link you need to know it’s a Thug Kitchen recipe. So there will be curse words, mostly ones that start with F.

We’re going to try and post a daily Advent reflection starting Sunday November 29 on our Facebook page, so join us over there if you’re interested.

And lastly, just in case this is the year that you are ready to do the Advent thing with the little people in your house, here are our two previous posts with ideas and resources.

A Time of Sacred Leisure and 2nd Annual Advent Ideas.

Have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving.

May your turkey roast to perfection, may the marshmallows brown but not burn on your sweet potatoes and may your gravy hold and not break. And if you don’t know what any of that means, may you remember to the hug the people who do.

We’ll leave you with this prayer of grace, given to us by a great man many Thanksgivings ago:

Dear Lord, thank you for this food and especially for those who grew it, those who cooked it and those who brought it to the table. Thank you for the friends and family who gather round to share it. Help us to always remember and honor our blessings, come to us through your goodness and mercy.

In your name we pray,

Amen.

Welcome Autumn 2015!

While I am nervously watching the trees in our town, praying the leaves don’t change and fall before my parents arrive in three weeks, I know my family and friends in So Cal are still knee deep in the 90s.

Autumn—such as it is in So Cal—is coming, I promise. And I’m not being snarky. I’m bitter. We’re paying good money for a pool membership that extends to September 30—never mind that we haven’t been able to swim since the last day of August.

So revel in your September swim parties and beach days. Come March I’ll be pricing flights south and cursing my boots, and you’ll already be in flip-flops.

In the meantime, enjoy this recipe for Kitchen Witch’s Pumpkin Bread (originally posted in 2013)

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Well, it’s official.  Autumn is finally here!  And no, I don’t mean just the arrival of the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks (although that is quickly becoming one of my favorite things of autumn!).

I’ve always loved autumn, and when I moved to Austria, I fell in love with it even more.  The changing of the seasons is visible everywhere there. The local restaurants begin to change their menus to represent the seasonal fare.  My favorite restaurant in our town had something called Wild Woche or Wild Week in which they slow-roasted venison, wild boar, wild hare, all of which had been caught in our forest, and served them up in wonderful, hearty sauces, with earthy root vegetables, all meant to fatten the townspeople up, steeling us against the harsh winter that was sure to come.

But more than the beautiful colors, the comfort food, the inviting scents, there’s just something different in the air once autumn comes.  I’ve always felt it, that magic electricity.  It’s like in Mary Poppins when Burt sings “Winds in the East, mist comin’ in, like somethin’ is brewin’, about to begin!”

This past Sunday was the Autumnal Equinox, a time of equal light and equal darkness.  The balance has tipped and we descend into darkness.  This happens not only literally as the nights are now longer than the days, but for many people, it happens in a spiritual sense as well.

The bright warm days of summer, which beckon us outdoors to the beach, the mountains, or even just the backyard, are over.  As the temperatures cool, we turn our focus inside, many of us decorating for fall and burning pumpkin-scented candles.  Our tendency, when things get dark, it to turn on more light, to fill our already busy schedules with even more things.

But I invite you this autumn to take some time in the darkness, to sit quietly with your soul and take stock of what you have done this year.  How have you grown?  What seeds did you sow in the spring and tend in the summer that are now coming to harvest?  How can you prepare yourself for the craziness that the holiday season can bring on?

Pull out your favorite snuggly sweater or blanket.  Get some pumpkins to put on your front porch.  Put some gourds on your mantle.  Make some of your favorite comfort foods.  And if you want a new favorite fall recipe, I’m sharing my very best one with you, A Kitchen Witch’s Pumpkin Spice Bread.  And have a glorious autumn, everyone!

A Kitchen Witch’s Pumpkin Spice Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups pureed pumpkin (fresh roasted or canned)

3 cups sugar

1 cup water

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

3 1/3 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon nutmeg

¾ teaspoon ground cloves

Instructions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  In a large mixing bowl, combine pumpkin, sugar, water, vegetable oil, and eggs.  Beat until well mixed.  Measure flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, nutmeg, and ground cloves into a separate bowl, and stir until combined.  Slowly add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture, beating until smooth.

Grease two 9×5 inch loaf pans and dust with flour.  Evenly divide the batter between the two pans.  Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Cool 10-15 minutes then remove from pans by inverting them onto a rack and tapping the bottoms.  Slice and serve plain, buttered, or with cream cheese.