Funny Picture of the Day #2

Our good friend in Louisiana sent me this picture. Yummy.

Funny Picture of the Day

More Cooking Advice

I give you this information based on real-life experiences:

1. Don't store a Tupperware plate full of pancakes in an oven*
2. Don't store a Tupperware Cake Carrier in an oven*
3. Don't store a leftover pizza box in an oven*
*Don't assume that hubby or yourself will check inside the oven before turning it on
4. Don't microwave an Arby's foil-wrapped sandwich (Why did I do that?)
5. Don't multiply a recipe for "Fruit Cocktail Cake" by 15 times in order to use up a number 10 can of Fruit Cocktail, unless you're feeding 15-20 people, number 10 cans belong to institutions and food banks.
6. Don't ever buy the "Chopped Seafood Mix" from Smith's meat case bargain bin, no matter how cheap it is
7. Don't ever try and butcher a chicken yourself. Not worth it in so many ways.
8. Don't order Urchin from a sushi restaurant. As Lorin put it, "It tastes like the ocean smells--polluted."
9. Blue cheese starts to turn purple and pink when you find it in the back of your fridge after about a year.
10. Don't try to make lamb jerky out of a leg of mutton that was donated to you and you were too lazy to cook it so you tried to salvage it and make jerky. Doesn't work.
11. Don't try and add flour to "thicken" mashed potatoes that you added WAY too much milk to.
12. "Corn Smuts" are disgusting, although they are considered a delicacy in Mexico. Wait, so are cow stomachs and tongues. Wikipedia "Corn Smut" sometime when you are bored. That's what happened to most of our corn one year. After finding out that they are in fact a delicacy in Mexico, I cooked me up a whole pan of corn smuts in an attempt to be non-wasteful and exotic. It tasted like the inside of a shoe. Hmmmm, must be an acquired taste...

So I leave you with a photo of Corn Smut, also known as "Huitlacoche" in Mexico. The open can is what they sell, apparently. You're supposed to put it on tacos. I'll stick with shredded cheese, thanks.

Rustic Italian Tomato Quiche

I got the idea for this recipe off of Whole Foods Market web site. But their recipe used a whole-wheat pie crust (blech), fat-free ricotta (blech), and sliced tomatoes with the seeds and juice in them (stupid.) I have found that de-seeding the tomatoes makes a much better quiche, because if you keep the seeds and juice in, all the water rises to the top and makes it runny and weird. So even though it seems dumb to de-seed the tomatoe slices, it makes a way better quiche in the end. This recipe is a little more labor intesive than most of my other recipes, but it is soooooo good! It makes the PERFECT "company's coming over" brunch dish. Oh, by the way, this is the one I made for Sarah's baby shower. Yummy!

Rustic Italian Tomato Quiche

• 2 pre-made deep dish pie crusts
• 3 large tomatoes, or 5 roma tomates
  
• 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
• 3 eggs
• 1 sm. plastic herb container of fresh Basil, or 1 small bunch, leaves pulled from stem and washed
  
• 2 cups shredded parmesan, mozzarella, or provolone cheese, or all 3 (I like to use an Italian 3 cheese shredded blend)

Bake pie crusts according to package directions. Remove from oven the turn oven to 375 to pre-heat for quiches. Set aside until ready to fill. Slice tomatoes about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Carefully push seeds and juice out using a knife, or just your fingers. It's okay if you don't get all the stuff out, just as much as you can. Lay tomatoes out on a large cutting board or cookie sheet and sprinkle lightly with salt. This will help draw out excess moisture as well. While tomatoes are de-juicing, prepare filling. In a blender or food processor, combine ricotta cheese, basil leaves, and eggs. Puree until basil is finely minced. Mixture will be somewhat green, depending on how fresh the basil is. Set mixture aside. Pat tomatoes dry with paper towels. Line each pie crust bottom with one layer of tomatoes. Spread about 1/3 cup ricotta filling on top of tomatoes, spread to edge using a small spoon. Sprinkle with a small handful of cheese. Repeat layers until ingredients are used up. I like to place a few more tomatoes on the very top and then sprinkle with a tiny bit of shredded parmesan, it looks so pretty that way. Place both quiches on a baking sheet, and bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Quiche will be slighly golden and puffy. You will know if quiche is done if you insert a knife, and it will come out mostly clean, but it's still probably done if the knife comes out with some ricotta bits and some moisture. Remove from oven and let sit about 20 minutes before serving. You can also make the quiche the night before and serve it cold for brunch. It's good either hot or cold. It will also keep in the refrigerator for several days.

Cheap N' Easy Sweet N' Sour

I have come up with the world's best and cheapest Sweet N' Sour Meat (Chicken, Pork, or pre-made Costco Meatballs). I found a recipe years ago for "Apricot Chicken" which was similar to this, but my rendition is tastier and easier. Couple notes about this recipe:

• I buy the Kroger brand Russian Dressing from Smith's, sometimes it goes on sale for $1 a bottle
• I have used marmalade in place of the apricot jam, both are equally tasty, only slightly different
  
• You can totally skip the roasted red peppers if you don't have any, it just adds a little more flavor to the dish
• Meatballs are fabulous in this recipe. I buy the giant bag of frozen meatballs from either Costco or Sam's, heat desired amount in the microwave, and then add to sauce when you are almost ready to serve.
• This recipe makes a lot, probably feeds 6-8 people. When I make it for just us, I cut it in half.

Al's Cheap N' Easy Sweet N' Sour Meat

• 6 pork chops, or 6 chicken breasts, or a couple large handfuls of Costco Meatballs
• 1 Tbsp. canola or vegetable oil
  
• 1 (16 oz) bottle Russian Dressing
• 1 cup apricot jam or marmalade
• 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
  
• 1 small jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
• 1 (20 oz) can pineapple chunks or tidbits
• Cooked Rice

Cut pork chops or chicken breasts into bite-sized chunks. In a large saucepan over medium high heat, cook meat in hot oil until done. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together dressing, jam, and soy sauce. Pour over meat in pan. Add peppers and pineapple. Stir until heated through. Remove from heat, serve over cooked rice. If using meatballs, mix together dressing, jam, soy sauce, peppers, and pineapple in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir until heated through. Add cooked meatballs, serve over warm rice.

Cool Websites for Funky Kitchen Stuff...

I've compiled a list of my favorite websites for cool kitchen stuff, either for yourself or for unique gifts for people:


1. www.ikea.com/us/en/

2. http://www.crateandbarrel.com/

3. http://www.krupsusa.com/ --the coolest coffee gadgets ever!

4. http://www.worldmarket.com/

5. http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/ --they mostly sell clothes, but go to the "apartment" section for some cool kitchen accessories

My Babies!

Well, after 3 weeks of incubating, my baby chicks are finally here! They are the cutest little things ever. They are adapting well to their new home in a rubbermaid container. We crossed our Buff Orpingtons (a peach colored chicken) with Barred Rocks (black and white speckled chicken) and this is what we ended up with...

Valentine's Dinner

We had originally wanted to go out for sushi on Valentine's Day, but I decided it would be more fun to go down to Salt Lake and buy the ingredients to make our own. My good friend, Maya, had come over a while ago and taught me how to make "family-style sushi." It's where you just build your own sushi on a piece of seaweed instead of rolling it. Lorin called them Japanese Tacos. We had so much fun! We also spent way less money, and it turned out fabulous. All we did is arrange cut-up cucumber, avocado, cream cheese, tobiko (raw fish eggs), smoked salmon, raw Atlantic salmon, raw tuna, and some wasabi on serving plates and built our sushi on squares of seaweed.

10 Good Cooking Tips

1. Use a q-tip to remove bits of egg yolk that accidentally get into egg whites that you want to whip.
2. Shallots are a relative of the onion and have a pungent onion-garlicky taste. Shallots can often be expensive in the store, though. If your recipe calls for shallots, just use half minced onion and half minced garlic in place of the shallots.
3. The absolute best way to cook a turkey is in a Reynolds oven bag. It's so easy, almost mess-free, and the turkey will come out juicy and tender every time. You can also cook roasts, chicken breasts, and other meats using oven bags. The meat always comes out so tender. Go to the Reynolds site and check out some of their recipes using oven bags: http://www.reynoldspkg.com/reynoldskitchens/en/recipes/product_recipe_search.asp?Step=ProductRecipes&info_page_id=744&prod_id=1790&cat_id=1337.
4. Burnt food can be removed from glass baking dishes by spraying the dish lightly with oven cleaner and setting it inside your cold oven, or set it outside (to keep fumes out of your kitchen.) After about 30 minutes, the residue will easily wipe off.
5. Microwave garlic gloves for 15 seconds, and the skins will slip right off.
6. To hasten the ripening of avocados, place them in a paper bag with an apple or a tomato. Fold down top of paper bag and place in a dark spot for a day. They will be much riper than before.
7. If your avocados are ripening too quickly, place them in the refrigerator. Refrigeration will slow down the ripening.
8. Next time you make rice krispie treats, stir in a blob or two of marshmallow creme to the melted marshmallows right before you stir in the dry rice krispies. Marshmallow creme improves the shelf life of the rice krispies treats, they won't dry out at all. They stay gooey and wonderful :)
9. Pour un-used or leftover wine in ice cube trays and freeze. Add one or two to soups, cassaroles, sauces, etc.
10. A splash of balsamic vinegar will greatly improve the flavor of sliced strawberries in desserts and salads.

Winter Wonderland

A couple of days ago, we woke up to a beautiful fresh blanket of snow. Lorin took this picture of a bird feeder in our yard with an odd little hat of snow on top. He was lucky enough to take the picture just as a bird was landing to feed. Pretty cute, huh? I mostly hate winter, but it's gorgeous mornings like this that make me appreciate it a little more.

5 Ways to Ruin Stir-Fry

One of the reasons that I wanted to start a blog was to share with people all my cooking advise and expertise, to sort of teach people how to cook. Well, the more I racked my brain for culinary knowledge, the more I thought of the ways that I screw up food. So instead of teaching people how to cook, I will instead share my knowledge of what NOT to do in the kitchen. So here's my first post on what not to do.

5 Ways to Ruin Stir-Fry:

1. Adding cheese. At a potluck dinner, I once was a witness to a man adding Velveeta cubes to a stir-fry made in a crock pot. I'm not kidding. I thought the stir-fry in a crock pot was bad enough until I saw the cheese.
2. Cooking stir-fry in 2 inches of oil. There's a reason they call it "stir-fry," not "stir-deep-fat-fry."
3. Adding spaghetti sauce as some sort of thickening agent. I tried this once, attempting to make "fusion-cuisine." It was more like "compost-cuisine."
4. Adding any kind of fruit besides pineapple. No matter how much you want to use up that rotting fruit on your counter, save it either for banana bread, chicken food, or the compost pile.
5. Cooking stir-fry in a crock pot. Actually, avoid cooking any Asian food in a crock pot. Save the crock pot for ribs, meatballs, and hearty German food. For Asian cuisine, cook rice in a rice cooker and leave it at that.

Peach Crisp

In the winter when fresh produce is often expense and not in season, I am always trying to come up with recipes to use up my home-canned fruit, or just any canned fruit. I found a recipe when you just sprinkle a yellow cake mix over the fruit in the pan, then top with pats of butter and bake. I tried it that way, but decided it needed something more. So I invented this recipe. So far, I've tried this with canned pears and peaches, but I'm sure it would work well on any fruit, fresh, canned or frozen.

Fruit Crisp with a Cake Mix

2 (29) oz. cans fruit or 1 quart home-canned fruit
1 box yellow or golden butter cake mix
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 cup oats
1 stick butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375. Drain one of the cans of fruit, but leave the juice in the other can. If using a quart, just pour off about 1/3 of the juice. Pour fruit in a 9 x 13 dish. or large casserole dish. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, spices and oats. Stir in butter, then using hands, mix until crumbly. Crumble topping evenly over fruit. Bake 30-40 minutes, or until top is nicely browned and edges are bubbly. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Best Brownies

I am constantly getting requests for a really good brownie recipe. So I decided to post my favorite, easiest one. This recipe is one that I modified from a recipe that I had in cooking school. I think you will find that it is the just about the yummiest brownie you can make, considering how fast they are to make and take relatively few ingredients. This is a great recipe for when you need to bring a dessert to a function, and don't have a ton of ingredients on hand. You can also add just about anything you want, like chocolate chips, M & M's, white chocolate chips, coconut, etc. Enjoy!

Al's Best Brownies

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

4 eggs

1 cup flour

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9 x 13 pan. In a large saucepan over medium-low heat, melt butter. Remove from heat and using a whisk, stir in sugar and vanilla extract. Whisk in eggs, one at a time, until completely blended. Add flour and cocoa powder, whisk until no lumps remain. Stir in nuts if desired. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until edges are firm and inserted toothpick or knife comes out clean. Cool completely and cut.

Crock Pot Chicken Taco Soup

This is my favorite crock pot soup recipe. I've adapted it from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Slow-Cooker-Chicken-Taco-Soup/Detail.aspx. When I make this for company, I like to set out an array of toppings for the soup, such as sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, chopped cilantro, lime wedges, salsa, etc.

Crock Pot Chicken Taco Soup

1 onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained
1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 (12 fluid ounce) bottle Corona beer, or other light beer
2 (14 ounce) cans diced tomatoes, undrained
1 cup salsa

2 Tbsp. lime juice
1 (1.25 ounce) package taco seasoning

2 tsp. cumin
3 whole skinless, boneless chicken breasts

DIRECTIONS:
Place the onion, minced garlic, kidney beans, black beans, corn, beer, diced tomatoes, salsa, and lime juice in a slow cooker. Add taco seasoning and cumin, stir to blend. Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients. Set crock pot on low heat, cover, and cook for 6-8 hours. Using two forks, shred chicken breasts and return to crock pot. Stir soup, and add salt and pepper, if needed. Serve soup warm with "mix-ins." Serves 6-8.

Mix in ideas:

• salsa
• sour crean
• shredded cheddar cheese
• chopped cilantro
• sliced olives
• tortilla or corn chips
• lime wedges
• avocado slices or gucamole

Seven Layer Brownie Bars (or, I call them Coma Inducing Brownies or PMS Bars)

Remember the old tried-and-true recipe "Magic Cookie Bars", the recipe on the back of the Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk can? Well, I happened to think that Magic Cookie Bars are pretty much the best dessert ever, so when I stumbled upon "Seven Layer Brownie Bars" (a recipe on the back of a brownie box), I found that they were almost identical, except that you use a brownie mix instead of a graham cracker crust. I made these bars a while ago and pretty much ate the entire pan in a matter of days. My teeth hurt afterwards from the sugar and chocolate overdose. I highly recommend making this simple pan of heaven.

Seven Layer Brownie Bars

• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 (12-16 oz.) box brownie mix
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1 cup butterscotch chips
• 1 cup chocolate chips (I prefer milk chocolate chips in this recipe)
• 1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
• 1 (14 oz.) can Sweetened Condensed Milk

Preheat oven to 350. Pour melted butter evenly on bottom of 9x13 pan. Sprinkle brownie mix over butter. Sprinkle coconut, butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, and pecans over top. Drizzle evenly with sweetened condensed milk. Bake 30-35 minutes or until edges are bubbly. Cool thoroughly before cutting into bars.
*I find that refrigerating these bars overnight makes them perfect to cut the next day. Good luck staying out of them!

Hello! This is my first attempt at blogging, so bear with me as I fumble my way through. I wanted to start a blog to share with people my simple, organic life here in Utah. I will be posting lots of pictures, recipes, tips, etc. So welcome to our little organic farm in Northern Utah!