Gratins

We think of gratins as something special, and usually only potato gratins are in the repertoire.  But, the reality is they are pretty easy and can be created with a variety of vegetables, as the one I made on Sunday, determined to only use what I had, demonstrates.

As I was thinking about Sunday dinner, I knew dear husband was going to be exhausted when he got home and a warm comforting dinner would be nice.  I had some leftover meatloaf in the fridge that I'd already decided to make a fresh gravy for and heat up.  I, of course, thought of mashed potatoes but had no potatoes and didn't want to go to the store.  In my vegetable drawer, I had carrots, onion, mushrooms, and one sweet potato. 

Using the simple recipe for Potato Gratin in Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food as a guide, I created the following general recipe, but you could vary this in a multitude of ways.

• I think any root vegetable could be sliced into a gratin.
• If you had them, sauteed greens such as kale or spinach could be layered in.
• You don't need to add cheese, but let's face it, everything is better with cheese.  You could use Parmesan, Gruyere or others.
• Vary the cheeses and herbs based on the flavors with which you are working.

Sweet Potato and Carrot Gratin (for 2-3 people)

1. Slice and lightly saute a handful of mushrooms and 2 chopped slices of onion. 
2. Season.  I seasoned with salt, pepper, sage, and a little grated nutmeg.
3. Thinly slice the Sweet Potato and 1-2 carrots.  Whether you use a mandolin or a knife, always know where the tips of your fingers are at all times!
4. Layer.  I layered sweet potato, carrots, mushroom saute, and a bit of swiss cheese.  I had 3 layers.
5. Pour 1 cup of milk over the potatoes.
6. Dot the top with some butter, I used about 1 Tablespoon.
7. Bake at 350 for about 1 hour or until soft and golden.
8. It may help to keep the vegetables moist if half way through you press the layers flat into the milk.

What do you have in your vegetable drawer to use in a gratin dish?

National Peanut Butter Day

Now this is a day to celebrate, January 24, 2012 is National Peanut Butter Day.  WooHoo!  I am licking the peanut butter off my fingers from lunch as I type.

Peanut butter is the closest thing I come to addiction.  Ask my dear husband!  I do go through periods where I have to abstain because I've been eating it with a spoon out of the jar too much.  It's true!

Here, the Huffington Post talks about National Peanut Butter Day and the virtues of peanut butter, but even they say we should not over do it, something about calories....

Now I am picky about my peanut butter.  I can't eat any of the peanut butters with sugar.  Blah.  Bring on the jars that I have to stir, just straight peanuts please.  And you know how some people are creamy, while others are chunky?  Not me, I alternate between the two!  Who needs those kind of hard decisions!

Peanut Butter Tip #1.  When you buy natural peanut butter, let it sit upside down on it's lid for a couple days, that way the oil moves to the bottom and it's easier to stir it in without making a mess.

Peanut Butter Tip #2. Going on a trip where you may need help getting a healthy breakfast or snack?  Justin's Nut Butter is your answer.  You can order these online or find them in various stores like Whole Foods.  Individual packages of peanut and almond butter?  Who ever thought that up is awesome!  I take these backpacking and will eat it straight out of the packaging to keep me going.

My favorite ways to eat Peanut Butter?

Well for lunch, to celebrate the special day.  I had a piece of toasted bread with local honey and peanut butter and an apple with a little peanut butter on each slice.  Mmmm.

But, I also like the following for snacks and breakfasts:

• Peanut butter and banana sandwiches or just a banana sliced up with a little peanut butter on each slice.
• A dollop of peanut butter mixed in a few tablespoons of plain greek yogurt, if it's breakfast I add a chopped apple.
• Ok, ok, I do eat it with a spoon just straight out of the jar.  But only when no one is looking.  I try not to do this!
• On pears.
• On Celery
• Oh, I also love to mix in ground flaxseed or sprinkle it on top of any of the above.

What are your favorite ways to eat this nutritious food?

A Quick Dinner

As we were on a 9 hour drive home the other day, I was thinking, what's in my fridge?  How can I make a relatively easy and fast dinner tonight?  So my mind started thinking, I have, frozen pesto, a premade pizza crust, there's bacon and cheese, some green onions, pine nuts, and peppers.  Yep, I have a pizza!

So after we unloaded the car, got the mail, and put away the cold groceries, I got started....

Step 1, start your meat cooking.
I pulled out the bacon, put it all on a sturdy cookie sheet and popped it in the oven at 375 degrees.  If you haven't made bacon this way try it.  The bacon cooks evenly without me having to pay any attention to it and without making a mess on your stove top.  It'll take about 20 minutes give or take depending on the thickness of your bacon.

Step 2, while the meat cooks, get your sauce ready.
I pulled out those handy ice cube sized portions of pesto I froze last summer, defrosted them a bit and mixed in some extra virgin olive oil.

Step 3, chop up your veggies. More veggies is always better!

I chopped up my green onions, peppers, and banana peppers. 

Step 4, layer your pizza.
This Rustic Crust, is my favorite ready made crust.  There are a few out there, but this is mostly whole grains and it's thin. I've gotten it at whole foods, but this time I got it from a wonderful store called "The Good Food store".

I started with my pesto, sprinkled the green onions, peppers, and banana peppers around, added the chopped up bacon.  Topped it with a mixture of mozzarella and white sharp cheddar and just because I had some sprinkled on some pine nuts.  I'm not a sparse pizza kind of gal...

Step 5, bake and enjoy.  I baked this at 425.  This one dripped all over my pizza stone, but it was yummy, and it never hurts to keep priming that pizza stone!

So, keep a few ready made pizza crusts around and be a little creative with the contents of your fridge next time your tired or running short on time.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

I had two things going on in my mind.  1) I would really like some ice cream.  2) But, I still have holiday candy to eat.

Yes, I had made a large batch of the haystacks, found in this blog post.  For Christmas, I made them more as my favorite cornflake candy, with Kashi flakes.  How could I in good faith make ice cream when I already had sweets in the house?  Ding Ding Ding I could make ice cream with the candy in it!  That uses up candy and gives me ice cream.  Yeah!  :)

I had cornflake candy with chocolate, coconut, and peanut butter.  I decided to make peanut butter ice cream.  Mmmm peanut butter.

Again I used The Ultimate Ice Cream Book by Bruce Weinstein.  The only changes I made to their basic Peanut Butter Ice Cream recipe is to use natural peanut butter and organic, unrefined sugar.  I find that natural peanut butter works just fine.

Here I'm breaking their recipe into steps for you.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

Step 1
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs

In a  medium mixing bowl, beat the sugar into the eggs until thickened and pale yellow (if you use the darker organic sugar the color will be darker).  Set aside.

Step 2
1 cup milk

Bring the milk to a simmer in a heavy saucepan. Slowly beat the hot milk into the eggs and sugar.  Pour entire mixture back into pan and place over low heat.  Stir constantly and cook slowly until mixture thickens slightly.  Be careful, if you are in a hurry here and turn the heat to high you are likely to scramble the eggs.

Step 3
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups heavy cream or 1/2 and 1/2
2 teaspoons vanilla

Remove from the heat and beat in the peanut butter.  Pour the hot custard through a strainer into a clean bowl.  After cooling slightly, stir in the cream and vanilla.

Cover and refrigerate until cold or overnight.

Freeze the chilled custard per your ice cream makers instructions.  If adding candy of any kind, chop it up and add it to the ice cream maker about 3/4 of the way through it's freezing process.

I use a thick and sturdy tupperware container to hold the ice cream in the freezer.  A key to homemade ice cream is to cover it with a piece of saran wrap tight to the ice cream and then put the top on the container.  This keeps ice crystals from forming on the top of your ice cream.

And a few hours later, you have ready to eat ice cream!

So in the future when you have leftover candy (Halloween?) make ice cream!  Inspired, right?!?  Now I have to go work out... 

Chicken Broth

Store bought chicken broth can bring on strange conversations.  There have been many postings in various blogs I watch about the best store bought chicken broth, a quick hint, they never agree.  And then there's the conversation about the amount of sodium in store bought broth! 

I much prefer to make my own broth.  I hear you thinking, "really?".  "Now we have to make our own broth"?  No, you don't have to, but it is one of the most lovely ways to spend a Sunday morning and it's not hard.  In addition, because of my search for more local and natural meats, I'm often spending a good amount on my chickens and I want to get the most out of them!

So if you are interested in trying it, here's my rather loose formula for Chicken Broth.

After enjoying a lovely roasted chicken,

1. Remove any meat that easy to get to so I can use it for another dinner.
2. Put the roast chicken carcass in a big pot. 
3. You can use only the roast chicken carcass, but this last time I cut off the wings before roasting, as they usually aren't eaten anyway and put them in the broth pot also.
4. Add
1. A couple celery stalks cut in 2 " pieces.
2. Two Carrot sticks cut into 2" pieces.
3. About 1/2 onion quartered.
4. Some Peppercorns, maybe 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon, depending on your pot size.
5. If you have them a bunch of fresh herbs will be great.  Thyme and Parsley are common, but this time I had Rosemary and Tarragon so that is what went into the pot.
6. Some salt
5. Cover it all with water.

Next,

1. Bring the pot to a light boil and lower to a good simmer. 
2. I partially cover mine and let it simmer for about 4 - 5 hours. 
1. Note the water will condense, so make sure you started with more than you hope to have at the end.

This isn't as pretty as the starting pot, but that is all flavor!

Ready to get your hands dirty again?  Now I strain the broth and poor the broth into my containers.  I use yogurt containers and freeze it.  But I'm not done.  You still have some useful chicken in what you strained out. 

Go through the vegetables and bones and pull the last of the chicken off the bones, I just put it in one of the containers that is low.  This way I'm not wasting the chicken meat on those wings.  Below you can see the chicken floating in the far right container.  Mmm, I'm not going to freeze that container, I'm keeping it in the fridge to use for Chicken Vegetable soup this week!

If you enjoy soup in winter, I hope you try making your own broth and find it to be even better than the store bought options.

Baked Pasta

Comfort food.  When you hear those words, what comes to mind for you? Mashed potatoes, meatloaf, macaroni and cheese, pizza, brownies? 

Well, for me a comfort food, which I'm careful to not allow often, is baked pasta usually in the form of macaroni and cheese.  The Jan/Feb 2012 issue of Cooking Light, fed right into this love.  So I settled on the Bacon and Butternut Pasta on page 90.

You can find this recipe at the link above.  The Recipe Finder site is bookmarked for me because it holds all the Cooking Light recipes.

You start this recipe by chopping up your butternut squash and putting it in the oven to roast.

Next, you make your bacon, start your sauce, and shred your cheese.  I forgot to get Gruyere, so used swiss.  I think it also helps to have happy bacon.  This fall I went in with some friends and shared a pig from a local farmer that was raised naturally in Star Valley, WY.  The meat is so good and the farmer kept saying it's because they are happy pigs.  :)

The ingredient that sold me on this pasta?  No, it wasn't the bacon, even though I do believe one can't go wrong with bacon.  Those of you that have been here for awhile guessed it - Kale!  I actually increased the amounts of squash and kale and decreased the pasta.  Ok, ok yes I have to admit, I also increased the amount of cheese - maybe not so light anymore!

It's hard to make baked pasta look great on a plate.  I paired this with a Walnut, Pear, arugula salad and a port vinaigrette. 

My dear husband very much enjoyed this meal.  I hope you have a chance to enjoy some of your own comfort foods this winter!

2011 Christmas Project

Hello;
Sorry about disappearing for almost a month there.  I kept thinking "maybe you should put up a note saying you are taking a break", but then I'd convince myself I'd get a post up soon.  Hmmm, what's your definition of soon?

Anyhow, here we are in 2012 and it really is time to begin again!  Let's start with a crafty post and then we'll move back into food. 

I took the plunge this fall and "committed" to more craftiness in the future by purchasing a Silhoutte Cameo machine.  This machine can cut vinyl, fabric and more.  I used a similar machine (a Cricut borrowed from a friend) to do the wall art in my office, found in this post. 

This year for my Christmas gift project, I decided to make coasters.  I got the idea from http://www.tipjunkie.com/.   I think you'll agree these are great gifts.  Who doesn't need a set of nice coasters either for year around or to brighten up their end tables during the winter season?

You need three items to get started:

1. Tiles - Home Depot, here I come!
2. Thin cork board for the bottom.  Go with the self-adhesive!
3. Vinyl.  You can order this online at a variety of places.  I ordered from, http://www.expressionsvinyl.com/.

Now, you will also need something to cut the vinyl.  Unless you are committing to future craftiness, I wouldn't suggest purchasing a Cricut or Silhoutte just for this job.  Maybe you also have an amazing crafty friend who'd be willing to let you use their machine?

My initial plan was white tile with red snowflakes.  These can be out all winter! You can see my snowflakes and tiles below.  Note, one is turned over to show the cork bottom.  My dear husband joined in and helped by cutting the cork and putting it on the tiles!

How cute are they tied up in ribbon for giving?

I quickly got distracted by the variety of colored tiles at Home Depot.  Below you can see some green tiles with red.   Hmmm, I really must find the best place in my house to take pictures!  Sorry about the glares.

I also quickly started thinking about the individual receivers of the coasters.  See the below tiles made for a dear friend and my yoga teacher.  The tiles are a pretty clay color with the bright purple Bohemian designs.

And these were the clay color tiles with chocolate brown vinyl.  They will work year around!

Brief vinyl cutting tips:  These machines are nothing short of miraculous.  Once you have cut your design (specific to your machine):

1. Peel off the vinyl around the design.
2. Lift the design off your vinyl backing by using simple clear contact paper.  Press it down over the design -- lift-- and then carefully set it down on your tile or wherever it's home will be. 
3. Press the design down onto it's desired base and lift the contact paper off.

What crafty projects did you take on this holiday season?