Lemon Bars

We headed up to OSLO's and Brad's for an extended family supper tonight. Grilled pork steaks and chops, with cheesy potatoes, Texas baked beans and other sides. It was all very, very good. I volunteered to bring a spinach salad, chocolate pie and ..... lemon bars. Yep. The church lady lemon bars.
Brad said he didn't think he'd ever had them -- clearly he's never been to a funeral in Minnesota or Wisconsin. Here's how I made them. There's a Betty Crocker mix!
The crust comes in a separate package, that gets pressed into the baking dish just the way it comes from the package, and baked for ten minutes. There is also a package of lemon filling mix that requires three eggs and one third cup water, then gets poured over the hot crust and returned to the oven for 25 minutes. Next time I think I'll make some green jello. (Yes, that is my biking gear in the background. I had assembled it all in preparation for a ride, and was too lazy to move it when I took this photo. Sorry.)

My version

There hasn't been very much bicycling here lately as the big storm blew through. It rained, it rained really hard, it rained really really hard. And I don't even live in a place where it rained hard.

So, here's the way I did it tonight. This is all going to happen in a single pan and a single narrative.

Here are the main ingredients with an antique toaster for scale. The background story on the toaster involves Christmas at GE. I am not the only one who knows it.I haven't used that brand of tomatoes before but when I saw it in the store I was instantly smitten. Who doesn't want to use tomatoes canned by God's brothers?

A single pan, the chicken breast goes in first to start browning. The meat takes the longest to cook but truthfully everything is going to get plenty of time.Big chunks of onions, big chunks of pepper. There is also some chopped garlic in there.

I thought about it while I was doing it and big chunks seemed like a better choice. The sauce is going to have lots of ingredients. Big chunks make identification of the ingredients easier. Further, big chunks give you an opportunity to fully experience the taste.In the next step we have fresh mushrooms in there as well and God's brothers tomatoes are poised.Here is everything together in the single pan.The pasta cooks separately so I guess maybe a two pan description would be a trifle more accurate. A word on pasta, complex carbohydrates are the preferred form. This is whole wheat pasta, a more complex carb than ordinary white flour noodles. But even with complex carbs, the secret of pasta is portion control. You want enough to enjoy the experience but you have to not go over the line. This photo includes our Pfaltzgraff pattern plates for scale.I am going to rely on TOPWLH to make a comment on whether it was good or not. I cooked it, I shouldn't say.

Veggies Are My Friend -- Chicken Santini

This is the chicken version of 'veggies are my friend.' It's similar to chicken cacciatore, sort of an Italian chicken stew. It takes about an hour from start to table, maybe a little more, depending on the size of your chicken pieces.
Here's the cast of characters. Onion, green pepper, 2 garlic cloves, a can of diced tomatoes (with basil, garlic and oregano, in this case), mushrooms and your favorite spices. Seasoned pepper, oregano, parsley and Italian seasonings work for me. A few pieces of chicken and enough flour to dredge the chicken in, are also necessary. Cut up the onion, green pepper and garlic first. Then put some olive oil in a pan that has a cover and turn the burner to medium high.
Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour and put them in the heated oil. Season them up with the spices listed above. I read somewhere that the key to this dish is to adequately brown the chicken, so I watch it fairly carefully. About 5 or 6 minutes on each side, then remove the chicken to a plate. Reduce the heat to medium.
Put the chopped veggies into the frying pan for about 3 or 4 minutes. Season them up with the seasonings shown above. Put the garlic in near the end, so it doesn't burn and get bitter. (A tip from Rachel Ray.) When it looks like this, add the mushrooms (I used baby portabellas) and stir for a minute, then put the chicken back in the pan on top of the veggies, and pour the can of diced tomatoes over the top. Feel free to season it up again. Put the cover on it, reduce the heat to low, and simmer for about 20 minutes until the chicken is done. To thicken it up and deepen the tomato flavor, I add a heaping teaspoonful of tomato paste to the veggie mixture before I serve it.
Serve on your new plates, with a spinach salad or something. Those of you with healthy pancreases (pancreii?) can serve it with pasta or rice. Maybe some little red potatoes. Though I gotta say, it doesn't need it. It's pretty hearty, and about all you need is a hard roll to sop up the juices. JB says it is delicious. I thought so, myself. And we have leftovers!

Blueberry Cobbler

This is a new recipe for me. It comes straight from Pioneer Woman Cooks, with no changes, except that I baked it for 50 minutes instead of 1 hour. Oh, and I used blueberries instead of blackberries. My pan may be shallower than the one she used, but it smelled done, so I took it out of the oven. It is also a new baking pan, a birthday gift from OSLO. Isn't it pretty? I am taking it to a neighborhood gathering of about 12 people tonight -- the couple who live next door to Lynne have sold their house and are moving. I am also taking wild rice, with bacon,mushrooms, onions and celery. I have no photos of that.
I am also taking a can of spray whipped cream, about a dozen plastic forks, and small paper plates, just in case she runs out of plates. The menu includes grilled salmon, shrimp, flank steak, potato salad and fruit, and I am sure some other goodies. I think someone mentioned a green salad, too.
I think my oven needs to be leveled. And cleaned. Though I did run it through the self clean cycle a while back, but I didn't wipe out all of the ash afterwards. Lazy. Anyway, the cobbler looks and smells quite good, and I think it would even be good with Elliots, as it has a cup of sugar in it. If it passes tonight's taste test, I'll make some more the next time I get company.

Blueberry, Oatmeal, Banana 'Quick' Bread

The finished product. Hot out of the oven. (55-60 minutes at 350 degrees.) I'm sorry, Emily, if this comes too late to help you out with your extra Traverse City blueberries. It is good bread, though. Worth buying more blueberries for if you're in a mood to bake something.
I have some very ripe, soft blueberries on hand. Blueberries do have a pretty long shelf life if refrigerated, but the softness of these bothers me a bit. So today I used a cup of them to make some blueberry, oatmeal, banana bread. The bread freezes well, and also keeps well in the refrigerator for quite a while.
This (medium) bowl has 1 5/8 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of regular cooking oatmeal, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1 cup of blueberries in it.
This (small) bowl has about 3 mashed bananas in it -- less the part of a banana that I ate. About 1 cup.
This (large) bowl has 1 stick of margarine, 1 cup of white sugar and 2 eggs, beaten together. Add the bananas to this and beat, then fold in the dry ingredients. You could add a half cup of chopped nuts, too, if you like nuts in your bread. Put the batter in a greased bread pan, and bake it until it is done.
Cool the bread in the pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, or however long it takes to put up a blog post about it, then remove the bread from the pan and let it cool completely before storing it in the refrigerator or freezer. Or eating it.

Strawberry Pie

1. Prepare pie crust. Cool.
2. Mix 1 cup sliced strawberries and 2/3 cup water. Simmer 3 minutes.
3. Blend 1 scant cup sugar, 3 tablespoons cornstarch and 1/3 cup water. Add to cooked strawberries. Boil until thick, about 1 minute. Cool.
   

There are about 3 cups of sliced strawberries in the pie shell. Be sure they are dry, or the crust will get soggy. Pour the cooked strawberry mixture over the fresh strawberries. Chill at least a couple of hours. It makes a nice 4th of July dessert. Or in this case, 3rd of July. (This same recipe works really well with blueberries.) Late edit: I have the best luck when I mix the cooked strawberry mixture and the fresh strawberries together before I put it all into the pie shell. It sets up better.

Nikki's Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe came from a class Nikki took last year -- the modern equivalent of Home Economics. It makes a little over two dozen cookies. She made them this afternoon, and the house smells wonderful. The cookies also taste great! As long as the ingredients were out, I made a batch of Peanut Blossom cookies, on the cookie sheet on the left in the photo. They are a basic peanut butter cookie -- the original recipe calls for a Hershey's Kiss in the center of each cookie. I did not have any of those, so I used half of a Hershey's Double Chocolate Nugget in each one.
The recipe for Nikki's Cookies is as follows:

• Wet Ingredients: Mix all wet ingredients together first.
• 1/3 cup margarine (room temperature) and 1/3 cup shortening. (Or 2/3 cup margarine.)
• 1/2 cup white sugar, plus 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla

Dry Ingredients: Stir dry ingredients together. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mix well.

• 1 1/2 cup white flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Add 1 cup chocolate chips, mix well. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on a cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.

Grandchildren that can bake their own cookies are a Grandmother's dream.

Wild Rice

Up here in wild rice and maple syrup nation, I have been experimenting and have come up with some delicious recipes using wild rice or maple syrup (or both!) in them. Here are three of the meals I have come up with:

1. Wild Fried Rice (about one serving)

Ingredients:
wild rice: 2/3-1 cup cooked
broccoli: 4 or 5 stalks
carrot: 1 medium sized or small
onion: 1/4 of medium sized yellow onion
egg: 1
turkey, tofu or other meat or meat substitute (optional)
maple syrup
soy sauce
black pepper
Sriacha or other chili sauce
garlic
peanut oil or other cooking oil
sesame oil (optional): teaspoon

I have been accused in the past of not measuring my ingredients. I like to go with the flow, add as much as I think I want, and do taste tests. Anyway, the above is subject to your own interpretation--feel free to add or subtract at will!

Directions: Cook the rice ahead of time. It takes about 40 min. to cook a cup of dry rice in 2 cups of water to make about 3 servings of rice. I like to cook a lot and then have some on hand to make other tasty meals with wild rice (seen below).

In a medium-sized pan use some kind of cooking oil: peanut or canola is good. Add the onions and carrots and cook until they are half-done looking to you (a bit softer and a little brown). While they are cooking chop the broccoli into bite-sized pieces, and get other ingredients ready. Add some soy sauce and other seasoning from above to taste--put in a little less maple syrup than soy sauce. I like it kind of sweet, more savory, with a little spice from the chili sauce. Add the broccoli and meat or substitute if it's tofu and doesn't need to be cooked. I had leftover turkey at the time I made it and that was really good, but it's good without meat too.

Add a little water and cover to steam the broccoli. Uncover when somewhat steamed, and add the rice. At this point I add in the rest of the seasonings, and add to my taste. Then add the egg, either stirred up before or into the rice and everything. Cover and cook for a few more minutes.

And it's done! I like to make a broccoli, avocado and dried fruit (and whatever other vege is around like mushrooms or cukes) salad with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder dressing to go with it.

2. Lumberjack Breakfast

I think that's the name. Anyway, this was not invented by me, just got tweaked a bit. Basically it's wild rice, maple syrup, and almond milk. Sometimes I add raisins too. Regular milk would probably be good too. It's nice to eat the next day if you have leftover rice after other wild rice meals!

3. 'Ato-rific Wild Rice

That's my lame title for this dish after the two main ingredients: potatoes and tomatoes. I'll leave it up to you to decide how much of each you use.

Ingredients:
red potatoes
tomatoes
onions
wild rice
tomato basil chicken sausage
salt
pepper
garlic (cloves are better but powder is fine)
rosemary
olive oil

Directions: slice the potatoes thinly, and cut up some onions. Add them at the same time or the potatoes a little before, over olive oil. Season. Add the sausage a little after. Once they are halfway done or so, add the tomatoes and wild rice. Cover and turn down the heat. Cook until the tomatoes look kind of like sundried tomatoes with the skins starting to peel off. Oh, and I guess it's optional to put the rice in--you can also put the mess on top of the rice, or next to it. Go nuts.

Oh, and one more note: please try to use only wild rice. Not that cultivated crap they harvest with the combine. It's also called "paddy rice" because it's really not wild anymore. Anyway, happy cooking!

Two Recipes for the Price of One: Turkey Meatloaf & Applesauce

I have been having a very productive series of cooking experiences here at Casa de Emily (at least, once I got to the grocery store post-Miami). I'll put both of the recipes on the bottom of this post.

First up was some super delicious Turkey Meatloaf. The cast of characters:

Step 1: Dice up the onion and the garlic and sautee it in a pan with some olive oil for about for about 5 minutes until nice and golden and fragrant:

Step 2: Mix all the ingredients in with the cooked onion/garlic combo. Make sure to combine in thoroughly, like so:
Step 3: Put the whole thing into a lightly greased loaf pan and bake for 35 or so minutes in a 350 degree oven. When it's done, it looks like this, and the middle is nice and firm:

I highly recommend serving it with some rosemary and garlic roasted potatoes.

The second recipe of yumminess was my very own improvised applesauce. To start with, you'll need all of this (and yes, I still have cranberries in my freezer):

Any kind of apples will do, but I had Fuji's, I think. Anyway, chop up the apples roughly and throw them in the pot with a cup or so of cranberries, the seasonings, and the juice of about half a lemon. It'll look like this:

Make sure to go easy on the sugar - you can always add more later if the apples aren't naturally sweet enough. Next, add a bit of water, enough to put about an inch of water in the pot. Like so:

Put the cover on it and boil for about 20 minutes. Then uncover and boil for another 20 minutes or until the apples are falling apart. At this point, your house will smell like heaven. Finally, take it off the heat and mash everything with a potato masher. Your end product will look like this:

Note the super cool cow bowl. I brought that, plus two mugs, all the way back from France. Moo.

Here are the recipes. Enjoy!

Meatloaf:
1/2 chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
(cook in 1 TB olive oil for about 5 minutes)
Mix with:
1 lb ground turkey
1 large egg
1/4 cup grated parmesan
2 TB milk
2 TB bread crumbs
1 TB tomato paste
1 tsp dried basil
salt
pepper
Bake in 350 degree oven for 35 minutes/until middle is firm. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

Applesauce:
6ish apples
1 cup of cranberries (or so) (optional)
cinnamon
sugar
nutmeg
lemon juice from 1/2 a lemon
water
Peel, core, and quarter the apples. Put in a medium-large pot with all the remaining ingredients.
Boil covered for 20 minutes, then uncovered for an additional 20. Mash with a potato masher and allow to cool before serving.

Another Classic Sandwich

Remember liver sausage sandwiches? A childhood staple when we lived on the Saw place.
I'm not sure that I got all the ingredients right. Liver sausage, also known as Braunschweiger, of course. Mustard. Some processed cheese and dill pickles. I'm doubtful about the tomato, to be honest. But I was planning to eat this, so some liberties were taken.
Yeah, the bread is the wrong color. But both butter and mayonnaise (Miracle Whip, I'm sure) were almost certainly involved. Explains a lot, doesn't it? (Don't eat the plastic stuff.)

National Pie Day

What? National Pie Day? Today? No..... that's March 14th, right? (3.14) Apparently not, at least according to the American Pie Council. Information I received in an email yesterday from Emily, my beloved niece and fellow lover of all things pie. Quoting her here,"I feel like someone should put an appropriate recipe up on the food blog." Appropriate. Hmmmm. Florida... Key Lime Pie, anyone?

The recipe I am using today is the one sent to me by my Mother-In-Law Margery from Florida, a gazillion years ago. That specific recipe is at home, so I had to do a little Internet searching to find it. It's pretty simple -- two ingredients, three if you count the crust. But the correct proportions were not known. I found the recipe, and along the way learned a few things about Key Lime Pie.
This is it. One 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk, preferably Borden. 1/2 cup of lime juice -- if you're going to call it Key Lime Pie, it needs to be from real Key limes, the tiny little yellow ones. An acceptable alternative is Nellie and Joe's Famous Key West Lime Juice, which is available here in Florida at the Winn Dixie. (There is a $100 fine in Florida for calling a pie Key Lime Pie if it does not have real key lime juice in it.) Mix the sweetened condensed milk and the lime juice together, watch it thicken up, marvel at the science. Pour it into the graham cracker crust, refrigerate for about 3 hours. Serve with whipped cream. I've made this off and on for years, and it is my favorite version -- but it is pucker producing tart.
According to my Internet search, this is probably not the authentic Key Lime Pie recipe. The recipe on the bottle of Nellie and Joe's juice is probably the most authentic. Here is theirs: One 9" graham cracker crust, One 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk. 3 egg yolks (the whites are not used). 1/2 cup Nellie and Joe's Key West Lime juice. Combine milk, egg yolks and lime juice. Blend until smooth. Pour filling into pie shell and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Allow to stand 10 minutes before refrigerating. Just before serving, top with freshly whipped cream and garnish with lime slices. Stuff I learned? This pie was 'invented' in Florida, before refrigeration. Thus the use of canned milk. It originally was not baked, even though it had egg yolks in it. It is the state pie of Florida. Some thrifty folks put a meringue on top -- probably couldn't stand to waste the egg whites. And sweetened condensed milk is called 'the nectar of the south.' The $100 fine is my favorite piece of pie trivia. ('piece of pie' trivia -- some things are just naturally funny.) Enjoy Pie Day!

White Chili

With the daily high temperatures running between 25 and 30 degrees below normal for the last 8 days, a bowl of hot Chili sounded good today. White Chili is a mild chili that Lynne makes fairly often. I used the ingredients shown in the photo below, plus a few things that missed the photo op.
A pound or so of ground turkey, a small onion, half a green pepper, a stalk of celery, a couple of garlic cloves or the equivalent, a small can of diced green chilies, and a can of Great Northern beans, or your favorite white bean. Salt, pepper, a half teaspoon of paprika, a generous teaspoon of cumin and about a cup of chicken or vegetable broth. (The local Winn Dixie grocery store sells white chili spice mix -- I've never tried it.) Some cayenne pepper or chili powder would spice it up more. I like it mild. I chop the veggies, then saute them -- along with the drained green chilies -- in olive oil over medium to medium-low heat until transparent, adding salt and pepper as I go. I then add the turkey, cooking it until the turkey is completely done and the juices have mostly evaporated. Next I drain the can of beans, and add them to the turkey mixture. Finally, I toss in the cumin and paprika and lots of pepper. Maybe some seasoned salt. I added about a cup of broth at this point, reduced the heat to low, covered the pan and let it simmer for 10 minutes or so. Tasted it. And as they say, adjusted the seasonings.

While I was waiting for the spices to soak into the turkey and beans, I gathered up some garnishes. Sour cream, any shredded cheese, and the family recipe guacamole are good with this. Some corn chips are good too.
If the chili is too thick, I add some more chicken or veggie broth. Then I throw in a handful of the shredded cheese to thicken it back up a bit.
See, it really needs the garnishes. This amount made plenty for the two of us, with enough left over for lunch tomorrow.