Tag Archives: cooking

household tip: death to fruit flies

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Fruit flies are annoying and they seemingly appear overnight no matter how clean your kitchen is – especially if you compost and collect appropriate scraps in a kitchen container to add to your outside bin.

Anyway, I was taking out the kitchen compost scrap container today and noticed a couple of fruit flies, so it was time to bring out the easy-peasy fruit fly trap.

Ready?

Take a small container, I use an orphaned coffee cup that holds about 6 ounces. I go into my cupboard and pull out my apple cider vinegar and fill the coffee cup a little over 3/4 full with apple cider vinegar, to which I add a few drops of dish soap. Then I leave it on my kitchen windowsill.

Do this and your fruit fly drama will disappear almost overnight. If you have a large infestation it may take a couple of days.

Basically I leave this cup filled with vinegar on my window sill into the fall off and on. All you have to do when you see enough drowned fruit flies is wash them down the drain and fill the cup and start again. It couldn’t be easier and is an organic solution.

Apple cider vinegar also seems to keep food smells at bay, so it has another use.

much ado about chicken

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The humble roast chicken. A backbone of American cuisine. I am one of those people that loves roasted chicken. But I need to spice it up a little and not just roast it in the style of Julia Child all of the time.

So I have been experimenting with marinades that use plain Greek yogurt as a base. My favorite plain Greek yogurt is the Fage brand.

As I am especially pleased with today’s marinade so I thought I would share the approximate ingredients:

1 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
2 teaspoons dried rosemary
1 tablespoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon hot Hungarian paprika
Salt to taste (kosher is best in my opinion)
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
Dash or two of hot sauce/Tabasco

Combine marinade a greedy ingredients in a small bowl whisk well, taste for salt and set aside.

Take a 4 1/2 to 5 pound roasting chicken and butterfly it – basically you are cutting it in half and spreading it open so it lies flat.

Take butterflied chicken, put it in a large Ziploc freezer bag and dump the marinade on top. Squeeze all the air out of the bag and seal the bag and smoosh the marinade around. I then put this bag in a bowl and put it in the refrigerator for anywhere from five hours to overnight. I periodically smoosh the marinade around in the bag and turn the bag over so it coats evenly.

When ready to cook bring your chicken out of the refrigerator and remove from marinade and lay out flat in a roasting pan lined with onion slices. Discard the rest of the marinade. It has had raw poultry and it so you can’t use marinade for anything else.

The chicken goes into a preheated 350° oven skin side up and flat out for approximately 15 minutes per pound at 350° . I actually use a meat thermometer to check for proper doneness with poultry.

The chicken is delicious when you use a yogurt marinade. I will serve this with something like roasted carrots and a salad, or a wild rice mixture and a salad, or oven roasted potatoes and a salad.

Enjoy!

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t2

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Do you ever “T2” during Thanksgiving weekend? I do.

T2 is basically a second Thanksgiving dinner. I do this when friends and family have been scattered to the four winds for the actual Thanksgiving holiday. If I have a free turkey to use, and I’m not cooking the actual holiday dinner, I like to do another dinner at some point in the weekend basically so I can have Thanksgiving leftovers.

I am pretty much a traditionalist when it comes to a Thanksgiving -type meal. I make my own cranberry sauce, it takes so little time. I also make my own herbed stuffing cubes. I know it sounds anal, but I don’t like all the sodium and additives in the seasoned stuffing mix that you can buy in the grocery store.

Basically you preheat the oven to 400°. You take a loaf of inexpensive potato bread, whole wheat bread, or plain old white bread and chop it up into about 1 inch cubes. It’s not an exact science you know what you like when you do it. I like potato bread for stuffing the best unless I make a baker’s sheet pan of cornbread for stuffing.

I put a piece of parchment paper on the bottom of a baker’s sheet pan. This pan is one of those ones that looks like basically a cookie sheet with a lip, and it is aluminum and heavy. I put the cubes on top of the parchment paper and give them a quick spritz with canola oil cooking spray. I do not soak them. Then I sprinkle whatever herbs and garlic powder I am going to use for my stuffing. Generally speaking I use savory herbs: rosemary, sage, thyme and so on. I might even throw a couple dashes of sweet paprika in.

Next turn off the oven. Yes, you heard me correctly, turn it off. Throw the cubed bread and with the herbs on top in the heated oven and literally ignore it for a few hours. Once everything has dried out and gone cold in a closed oven, I throw it into a Ziploc bag. I do this a day ahead of time.

T2 also gets a pie. This year it’s my pumpkin pie, with a praline surprise in the bottom. All it is is a piecrust unbaked in a deep dish pie dish. I like the vintage Pyrex ones that I can get at church sales, tag sales, thrift shops.

The pie filling is basically the recipe on the small can of Libby unsweetened pumpkin, but I add one more egg. They call for two I use three.

The “praline” aspect is simple: the day before I make my pie I take a couple tablespoons of butter and throw it in an 8 inch sauté pan. To that I throw a small handful of pecans and walnuts. They can be halves or they can be chopped. Your choice but I like the halves. To that I had a small handful of raisins. I used green raisins I got from the Indian grocery store this time. They’re great in curries and even better in pies. I add cinnamon, fresh ginger, cardamom, and a few tablespoons of turbinado sugar. I cook everything up until the point the sugar and butter caramelized together. Then I turn off the heat. Once everything has cooled off a bit, I spoon the stuff into a storage container and allow it to cool completely before putting the container lid on. Incidentally this is another thing I do the day before. The pie filling however, I do the morning I bake.

This morning, I whipped up the pie filling, did my piecrust and lined my pie plate with the crust. Before I poured the pie pumpkin mixture into the pie shell.

The bottom of the pie shell I then lined with my nutty praline mixture I made yesterday. I baked my pie at 425° the first 15 minutes, then reduced it to 350° for almost an hour today. When you add things like nuts or extra things to the pumpkin mixture, it takes more time. But you keep an ion it because you don’t want to burn your pie or overcook it.

The picture that opens this post, is my actual pie that I will be serving for dinner this evening.

The stuffing for the turkey will have baby Portabella mushrooms, onions, celery and other good things. Even a few crumpled strips of cooked bacon.

I will serve a hardy green salad that has a mixture of Romain, arugula, spinach, baby kale, and other greens. I will also do whipped sweet potatoes made with carrots and maple syrup. To the sweet potatoes I will add a dash of pepper flakes to give it a little heat. I will also serve on the side a small dish of the pickled beets I put up earlier this fall.

Early on the morning I am cooking the turkey, after my pie in the oven, I chop up the onion and celery and whatever needs to going to my stuffing cover the bowl with saran wrap and toss it in the refrigerator. It saves if you do a little prep time ahead of time.

When my guests arrive late this afternoon , I will serve them and assorted cheese platter of cheeses from Yellow Springs Farm. Because Catherine Renzi’s cheeses are goat milk-based, a lot of people will put out something like a fig preserve to have with the cheese. It’s that whole sweet and savory thing. I however, have decided to be different, and I will be serving my cheese with a tiny ramekin of apple butter on the side to use instead of sick preserves. It’s the apple butter I made a few weeks ago.

I set my table with real linens. All the linens I have, I have scored from church sales, flea markets, thrift shops, and eBay. You can get that Rich holiday feel without breaking the bank. And it is so worth it to use a good tablecloth. And quite frankly the vintage ones have more depth and substance to the fabric that a lot of the modern ones.

Except for the china plates my Great Aunt Josie left for me, everything that is on my table has been sourced from places like thrift shops, the Smithfield Barn, church sales, estate sales, and flea markets.

The actual turkey platter, is one of those metal ones created by several companies including Lenox that I scored for $30 last year at Frazer antiques.

All you have to do is look in magazines and online and on HGTV to get ideas on how to set a holiday table. Truly, it is not rocket science, and even with kids you can do this. And even with kids, you can set the table with nice glasses and plates. My mother did it with my sister and I, and I think she was spot on with giving kids a special feel for holiday meals and not sticking them with plastic utensils and plates and cups.

Okay, I have a bunch of things to do in the kitchen for T2 so you all enjoy your Sundays. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. Remember, the Smithfield barn is open this afternoon for a few more hours if you were looking for some holiday bargains.

now that’s italian

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So I got my weekly email from the East Goshen Farmers Market and they said they had this chef/author coming. So I checked her out at the market, and maybe it is just an Italian thing, but so fun!!!

The book is called Gravy Wars and it is by Lorraine Ranalli. Part cookbook, part memoir, and all fun! If you know anyone who is Italian, especially Philadelphia Italian, they will love it! Even if you are not Italian….you will love it!

If you belong to a book or cooking club, I would ask her to come- she is that fun! And besides, a few recipes better than mama makes ? Nothing wrong with that either!

http://www.gravywars.com

Ciao!

don’t go bananas now…

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6…But it has been ages since I gave you a recipe.  So today, dear readers: banana bread.

It is another recipe born out of leftovers/things to use up.

Seriously, it is the only time I make it. Today, it was either use the super ripe bananas hanging on their hook or toss them. So Banana bread it is.  This is not super sweet.  I did not include nuts because I think that is so banana bread cliché but if you like nuts, use 1 cup chopped pecans or black walnuts.

Banana Bread

3 Mashed bananas (super ripe)

1 1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup Smart Balance oil4

3/4 cup 2 % milk

3 Tablespoons buttermilk powder

2 1/4 cups flour (white all-purpose not whole wheat – whole wheat makes it chewy as in overly glutenous)

1/4 cup milled br3an

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup raisins2

1/2 cup dried cranberries

grated peel of medium orange

***************

Pre-heat oven 375 degrees.

Oil and flour loaf pan.

Mix milk, brown sugar,oil, eggs.  Add buttermilk powder. Add mashed bananas, mix until smooth. Add spices.  Add rest of dry ingredients. Mix until blended and smooth. Fold in raisins and dried cranberries (and this would be where you added nuts if you want them). Add grated orange peel.

Pour into pan.  Bake at 375 for 50 minutes (50 minutes is with my oven, yours might be more or less – keep an eye on it)

When bamboo skewer (looks like a giant toothpick if you do not know what I am talking about ) comes out clean, your done.1

Take out of oven and cool 15 minutes.  Then take out of pan and cool on a baking rack until completely cooled.  Enjoy!

This is not super sweet, but using brown sugar gives it a richer flavor I think. And yes, I love Nordic Ware pans.

as american as apple pie

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So the other day when I posted a photo of a pie I baked on my Facebook page, I had NO idea I would get so many requests via e-mail for the recipe.   I baked an apple pie with raisins soaked in Calvados and a sweet cinnamon crust and an oatmeal crumble topping. Yes my own recipe and no, not written down – in my head – so here is I hope good enough to work with….

This recipe was inspired by a pie I had almost 20 years ago at the Brinley Victorian Inn in Newport, Rhode Island. The man who used to bake these crazy good double crust apple pies worked at the B&B (maybe he was a manager, I can’t remember).  And he soaked his raisins in booze (don’t remember what, whiskey I think).

I prefer a crumbly topping on my fruit pies, so anyway, here it is, hope it is proportionate enough that a bunch of home chefs don’t complain something was off  ( it is hard to write down something your hands can pretty much make for themselves on auto pilot)

Soak 3/4 cup of dark raisins in 1/4 cup of Calvados (French apple brandy – if you don’t have that a good bourbon will do as well.)

 Pie Crust

1 1/2 cups  flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

8 teaspoons sugar

8 tablespoons or 1 stick unsalted butter, very-cold, cut into little dots

4 tablespoons ice water

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger

Using pastry cutter, cut butter into flour, sugar, salt, spices.  Add ice water.  Form dough gently, do not overwork.  Wrap tightly in saran wrap and toss in refrigerator at least a couple of hours.

When sufficiently chilled roll out your dough and line a deep dish pie plate. My pie plate is like 9 inches in diameter (I *think* – it is vintage pyrex – so I do not recall exactly)

Gently rub bottom of crust in plate with soft butter.  (I saw it on a cooking show once)

Filling:

I use 8 to 10 apples of medium size. (I do not like red delicious apples so I will not use those) I peel them and slice them very thinly.  I toss into a mixing bowl with 1 cup of sugar (2/3 cup white 1/3 cup dark brown), 1/4 cup of flour, 3 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon ground mace, and 1/2 teaspoon ground green cardamom.  I juice one medium to small lemon over mixture and toss. Fold in raisins that have soaked up their booze.

Topping:

3/4 cup oatmeal (Quaker quick oats, not the instant or steel cut or flavored)

1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

5 tablespoons of butter

1 teaspoon each of ginger and cinnamon

Blend all together with pastry cutter in small bowl and set aside.

Toss your apple mixture into your pie crust.

Evenly spread crumbly sugary topping over top of pie

Place in an oven preheated to 425 degrees and bake at 425 for 15 minutes and reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for about 40 to 45 more minutes depending upon your oven.

Hopefully my proportions are o.k.  This is as close as I can get – again – have been making this pie out of my head for years.

just cooking along…chili and some other fun

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So today was a pretty cool day.  Today my frittata recipe which is being featured in The Epicurious Cookbook being released this October landed me on the front page of Epicurious.com, and while it doesn’t make me Julie Powell or Amanda Hesser or Ina Garten or Martie Duncan or Julia Child, my oh my it is still very cool to me :<}

Epicurious Cookbook Spotlight: Carla Joy Zambelli and  Marsha Klein

by Carolina  Santos-Neves
on 09/12/12 at 11:00 AM

Read More  

Sooooooo….in the kitchen sink of it all, I have another recipe to post.  Easy as pie.  Make ahead and freeze, or make and eat the same day.  And in case you are wondering why so many recipes end up as the kitchen sink of it all, it is simple: a lot of my recipes evolved out of what was fresh and in my kitchen needing to be used.

Kitchen Sink Chili 

2 ears of corn – take kernels off the cob

1 onion (nice large and preferably sweet or red) chopped

2 LARGE cloves of garlic, minced

2 ribs of celery, minced

2 diced or chopped red bell peppers or red sweet peppers (sometimes they are long and red, not bell)

2 teaspoons each rough chopped: fresh basil, oregano, cilantro

Salt and pepper to taste

Jayshree Chili Powder (start with 2 tablespoons)

1 packet of Sazón Goya

1 teaspoon mild or sweet paprika (Spanish)

1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon hot paprika (Spanish)

1/4 teaspoon Chipolte chili powder

1 package ground turkey (28 oz)

3/4 lb. of beef round boneless chipped beef for a stir fry – chopped up small

1 15.5 oz can Goya small red kidney beans

1 15.5 oz can Goya black beans

1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes in puree (I like Red Pack or Tuttorosso)

1 15 oz can of Kuner’s of Colorado Southwestern Chili Tomatoes (or tomatoes of the same size can that have Mexican or Italian spices)

1 6 oz can tomato paste

Cook onion, garlic, celery in a Dutch Oven with canola oil ( a few tablespoons – like 5)- to this add chipolte powder, Sazón Goya, paprikas, salt.

Cook over medium to low heat until translucent.

Add red peppers and corn.  Cook about 5 to 7 minutes then add beef.  Cook about 8 minutes more.  Add ground turkey and cook through – keep everything moving in the pan so it doesn’t stick – medium heat, incidentally.

When turkey cooks through add beans (which have been DRAINED of can liquids).  Blend in.

Add tomatoes.

Add tomato paste.

Add chili powder and herbs.  Allow to come up to almost a boil and then reduce to a low simmer.  Check and stir periodically to keep from sticking to bottom of pan.  Taste a couple of times as well to adjust for seasoning – in case you wish to add more chili powder or salt and pepper.

Serve with your favorite chili extras…..chips, sour cream, shredded jack/cheddar, and so on…..

Enjoy!

yes, it’s chili night

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Here I am supposed to be writing an article and what am I doing?  Cooking and writing about cooking.

Well it is chili night, so I thought I would share.  Not bragging, but mine is good.

Chop up a large onion and 3 cloves of garlic.  Cook down a bit in canola or Smart Balance oil is a large pan or a dutch oven. Salt a little bit to taste.  Maybe 3 tablespoons of oil.  Chop up 1 large or two small red sweet peppers and 1 jalapeno (both peppers should be seeded and the jalapeno should be diced.)

Add a dash or two of dried oregano, chili powder (I use Jayshree Seasonings’ chili powder blend – their spices and blends are worth ordering), smoked paprika, regular paprika.

When onion starts to get that translucent look to it, toss in 1 1/2 of high quality ground beef (as in Black Angus, low-fat content – it makes a difference).

When the beef is starting to brown, taste what you have cooked so far and adjust the salt and add a couple more dashes of chili powder.

Add two 15 oz cans of beans (kidney, white, black, whatever – I use whatever I have EXCEPT not chick peas)

Add a can of tomatoes chopped or tomato puree (depending on the packaging approximately 26 oz or so)

Add a 6 oz can of tomato paste.

Stir it altogether, and once again adjust chili powder and salt as necessary (I like spicy chili).

Chop up some fresh basil, oregano, and cilantro. Stir it in.

Adjust flame to simmer and let chili burble away for about an hour, stirring occasionally so it doesn’t stick to pan.

Serve as you wish.  I like having crumbled queso fresco, additional chopped cilantro, and sour cream handy.

Freeze the leftovers.

Enjoy!

clucking right along with greek yogurt marinade

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Well, today we need something simple that can be cooked quickly and has little clean-up.  I have incredible looking tomatoes from Sugartown Strawberries, and I was feeling like grilling chicken.

But I am tired of all the regular types of marinade.  Someone was telling me about using plain yogurt to marinade chicken, so I thought why not use plain Greek yogurt?

Here’s the marinade:

2/3 cup plain greek yogurt

Lemon juice – maybe 4 tablespoons or juice of one good-sized lemon

Juice of one orange

4 Tablespoons oil – olive, vegetable, whatever

2 teaspoons garlic powder

2 teaspoons mild or sweet Paprika

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

salt to taste

1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala ( I get mine from a little Indian grocery store I visit once in a while)

1/2 teaspoon Tandoori Masala  (I get mine from Jayshree spices you can find them online)

1 teaspoon Ras el Hanout (I get mine from Zamouri Spices you can find them online)

I mix it all together with a whisk and some fresh herbs – sprig of rosemary, a few sprigs of fresh thyme and oregano and fresh mint (mine is curly mint which is technically a spearmint I believe).  You can either rough chop the herbs or just sort fo tear up the mint leaves and strip the rest from their stems.

Toss into a ziplock bag to marinade for a while and grill.

I will end with that is my favorite cooking tip of the summer: using ziplock plastic bags for marinades.  Easier clean up and so not a problem to mush your meat, poultry, or seafood around *gently* in a ziplock bag.

 

 

 

not your mama’s pasta salad

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When it is hot, even I don’t want to cook as much.  So today I was feeling like pasta salad, but I wanted something different from spiral pasta or say, tortellini.  I opened the freezer and grabbed a bag of mini ravioli.  Why not?  If you can make a tortellini salad, why not use mini ravioli?

So I created a vinaigrette and added a bit of fresh lemon juice, some mustard and a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise and whisked it together.  If you wanted to you could use a store-bought salad dressing.  I would suggest if that was the case, an  Italian or Caesar or Balsamic vinaigrette.

I cooked the mini ravioli to the minimum of cooking time as per the package.  I drained them and put them in a bowl to cool.

In another bowl I took a Vidalia onion, cucumber, a couple of tomatoes, fresh green beans blanched and chopped, half a jar of roasted peppers chopped up, fresh herbs (parsley, basil, and dill), a cup or so of chick peas (“ceci”), and a small jalapeno pepper (seeded, cored, and diced), tossed it in the dressing, and then gently folded in the cooled mini ravioli.

I adjusted for salt and pepper, et voila!  Not your mama’s pasta salad.

I may toss some fresh crumbled queso fresco on it when I serve it. Or I might just leave it as it.  I love queso fresco.

*Important to note is to NOT overmix this or the ravioli will literally rupture.  Do NOT over dress this or the ravioli will fall apart from that too.

I think it tastes pretty good!

Hmmm I just realized about a year ago, Conde Nast contacted me to use another one of my everything but the  kitchen sink recipes in a cookbook being published in the Fall of 2012.  I need to follow up about that – I do not even know what the cookbook is to be called…..