...And I'm back.

I will skip the formalities, explanations, and whatnots, and just say: Hey! Im back!

In the last half year or so since I last posted I've started a new job, moved into a new house, hosted a rockstar Thanksgiving dinner, cooked countless dinners, and made enough baked goods to spike the morbid obesity rate of at least a half dozen small countries through the roof. I'd love to put up a year in review, but I dropped my  phone will all of my pictures on it in the toilet a couple of months ago and lost most of them forever. You'll just have to believe that I did groundbreaking things. 

The last month my days off have been spent alternating between prepping for my upcoming garden (my living room is quickly filling up with tiny seedlings,) trying to outdo myself in the elborate dinner department, and going on insanity fueled baking sprees. Tonight is one of those baking spree nights... and it isn't even my day off. Double insanity. It's good to be back, stay tuned for the thrilling details!

I would like a nap.

I swear I'm not being lazy, I'm just busy. Very very busy. Apparently cramming a three year degree into a single year takes a tiny bit more work than I expected (sometimes that tiny shred of optimism in me comes out, but always at the most inappropriate of times.) I promise, at some point this week I will return with a post full of pictures and deliciousness... for now, you get nothing. NOTHING. Admit it, you probably deserve nothing anyway.

It's not quite Borscht...

It's Schmorscht!

That only thing we have more of in the kitchen than fresh corn, is fresh beets. I usually just eat them boiled with some butter and salt and pepper, they are a complex flavor that don't require much help. However, I've been dreaming about this Ukrainian place called Veselka in Manhattan that I go to at least once every time I'm there. I always mean to order their Borscht, but somehow always get intrigued by something else (cold cantaloupe soup or the roasted beet and goat cheese salad,) and forget all about it.

This isn't traditional borscht. Such traditional ingredients as cabbage and meat were either not in my kitchen or fell into my "needs to be thawed, forget that!" category. The vegetables are also roughly chopped instead of shredded or pureed. I know it all sounds lazy, but I was already making soup when it was a hundred degrees outside, I didn't want to create more work than I had to. So in honor of Jonah Hill in Knocked Up, we're calling this one Schmorscht (yeah, you know the part.)

On the topic of creating more work than you have to, I've been reading about peoples beet peeling phobias and techniques, and they're just plain silly. I understand boiling them in the skin if you're just going to eat them boiled, the skin rubs off magically with a paper towel. Boiling them for the sole purpose of peeling them? You must be shrooming, it takes a million hours.

This is the point in the show where I share some closely guarded secrets that will just blow your mind. My magical way of peeling beets? It's called, a vegetable peeler! GASP! But my delicate hands! They will become soiled and possibly temporarily stained by that horrible beet juice! Calm down friends, check this out...

Gloves! You can buy a box of ten thousand for a two dollars and an elf ear or something, and they'll protect your precious flowery little hands from stains. I peeled and chopped the beets for this in 10 minutes, that's a whole lot better than waiting for the suckers to boil, and plus, you're cooking the beets in the stock later, you don't need to precook them.

Schmorscht

3 quarts water
3 tbsp. vegetable base (I used Better than Bullion, I hear its better than bullion)
4 medium beets, peeled and diced
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3/4 C. water
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
1 (8 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp. white vinegar
2-3 tsp. white sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Sour Cream, for garnish
Croutons or Bread, for garnish

Combine 3 quarts of water and vegetable base in large pot and bring to a boil. Yup, that's what the base looks like, try not to think too hard on it.

Add beets. Now, there was some question as to how long one should cook the beets for. My sister said, "cook the crap out of them." Sounded like a pretty solid plan to me. I think the last scrap of crap left them after 15 minutes or so, I'm going to leave the final decision up to you though.

When the crap has been sufficiently cooked out of the beets, add your carrots and potatoes (not the onions though, we'll get to them in a minute, they're just in this picture for show.) Continue to cook until the vegetables are tender, another 15 minutes or so. Add can of diced tomatoes.

While your potatoes and carrots are cooking, add oil to pan over medium heat. Add onions and cook until soft. Add tomato paste, garlic, and 3/4 C. of water and stir until combined. Add mixture to soup. Remove soup from heat, add vinegar and sugar, and season with salt and pepper. The amounts of vinegar and listed are a rough estimate, I'm really not entirely sure how much I put in. Again, this is a work in progress here, feel free to experiment with different amounts. Schmorscht is a true symbol of freedom... like the eagle and um... putting bacon on donuts.

Garnish with sour cream and bread of choice. Remember that focaccia bread? Its stale remains became the croutons.

5 minutes later (seriously, I think I set a record) the bowl looked like this.

And I looked like this. Schmorscht coma. If you plan on eating this, use caution when operating heavy machinery.

Man that was good. Man it made a lot. It's going in my freezer if I remember to call home and ask them to put it in the freezer. I'm off for the weekend, but perhaps if you're lucky, I'll report back with tales and pictures of delicious food from the Minnesota State Fair (Aug 26th - Sept 6th) pre-game show, the Dakota County Fair (hey, don't look at me like that, the weekends don't count remember?)

And um, here's another picture of beets, just because It simultaneously makes me smile and creeps me out...

Beets on parade!

Best. Corn. Ever.

In a tiny little town in western Wisconsin, along an out of the way county road is a farm with a tiny little vegetable stand. I hear you can go berry picking there, but I’m not really interested in that because every summer they have the best sweet corn that I (and anyone else that has tried it) have ever had. Believe me, I’ve had plenty of sweet corn from plenty of tiny little road side stands along out of the way county roads, and there is nothing else like this. Even if my parents didn’t happen to live in this tiny little town in western Wisconsin, I would probably still drive the sixty miles to buy it.

That’s about the only info about it you’re going to get out of me because quite frankly, it really is tiny, and I don’t want to share it with more people than I already have to.

I happened to have a surplus of that corn in my fridge, so I made this…

Black Bean and Corn Salsa
Juice of 1 large lemon
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
½ tsp. cumin
½ tsp. chili powder
¼ tsp. cayenne pepper
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
½ medium onion, finely chopped
3 ears of corn, cooked and kernels removed from cob
1 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
3 tbsp. fresh chopped cilantro

Whisk first seven ingredients in a medium sized serving bowl until well combined. Gently fold in remaining ingredients. Refrigerate for several hours before serving.

Serve atop grilled meats, eat with chips, or do what I did and eat it with a fork.
In hindsight, I think I should have added a diced jalapeno to this. Also, I didn’t actually put cilantro in it, as I didn’t have any, but I’m convinced that it should be in there (and in most other foods.)

I was going to take pictures of this, but it didn’t last that long. However, if you look closely (not that closely, really) at the final picture of the Two Day Grilled Cheese, I think you might spot it. I’m having photo issues lately.

The Two Day Grilled Cheese, Part 2

I laid awake a good part of the other night cringing about that tomato marmalade. I spent most of the next afternoon thinking about that tomato marmalade. I finally decided to remake that tomato marmalade. Lucky for me, the tomatoes I picked yesterday reappeared and brought friends. My suspicions about it were correct, although still good after being burned horribly, it's awesome when it's made correctly.

And thus, a grilled cheese was born... I'll try to make this short....er than the last post.

The focaccia bread... the half that was left by the time I got around to making the sandwich anyway (leave me alone, fiasco makes me hungry.)

Tomato marmalade made properly (I think) Isn't she purty?

Tomato marmalade, onion, and shredded cheap mozzarella. Simple. As much as I love fresh mozzarella, I think the saltiness of the cheaper stuff probably works a bit better here. The flavor of the marmalade is pretty intense, and would likely overpower the subtle flavor of the fresh cheese. Also, the cheap stuff is what I had on hand... No grocery shopping, remember? The onions aren't totally necessary, but went well with the balsamic in the tomatoes.

 

The long awaited finished product. It looks terrible, but I must admit, it was pretty tasty. I think I added a bit too much tomato goop though, a little of that goes a long way. I took the picture on my computer desk/dinner table, fancy eh? Nothing but high living around here.

So there you have it, the great Two Day Grilled Cheese. Was it worth it? Meh, not really. It was delicious, yes, but probably not worth the pain and suffering that it caused. That's not to say, however, that you shouldn't make it, just learn from my mistakes and plan ahead a bit (a lot) more than I did, and I guarantee that it won't take you two days to make. It will then be well worth the effort.

Even if you don't make the sandwich, make some focaccia bread. It's crazy versatile, you can top it with just about anything, and serve it with just about anything. The particular recipe I used tops it with rosemary and sea salt, but I put garlic, sea salt, and parmesan on mine. Tomato parm and basil, mushrooms and cheddar, caramelized onions, bacon cheesecake and bacon... all good ideas. Did I mention that you don't need to knead this puppy? A stand mixer does all of the dirty work for you.

Rosemary Focaccia Sheet (from The Bread Bible)

2 3/4 C. unbleached all-purpose flour

3/8 tsp. INSTANT yeast (remember, if you don't use instant yeast, you need to proof it in warm water and adjust the amount of liquid in the dough accordingly)

2 liquid C minus 2 tbsp room temperature water

3/4 tsp. sugar

3/4 tsp. salt (I added a bit more than that, but its up to you)

2 tbsp. plus 2 tsp. (divided) extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp. fresh rosemary or 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary

fleur de sel (can you afford it? Because I can't) or sea salt (more my speed)

Disclaimer: Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipes are extremely detailed, and therefore tend to yield incredible results. If you want the detailed version, I suggest you buy the book, you won't regret it. Here, you're getting a SLIGHTLY shorter version. Also, I believe she has a slightly different version of this recipe as well as corrections for the one in the book on her page Real Baking With Rose Levy Beranbaum. Also, I took pictures of this whole process but I lost them somewhere, oh well.

1) Combine flour and yeast in mixing bowl (we're using a stand mixer here, bless you Kitchen Aid) with paddle attachment on low speed. Gradually add water and mix until dough just comes together (3 min or so.) Yes, it is supposed to be that soupy. Increase speed to medium and beat until dough forms into a smooth ball (says 20 in the book, took mine a bit longer.)

2) Transfer dough into an oiled (I used Pam, worked just fine, she's a handy lady) 1 1/2 quart bowl. Lightly spray or oil top of dough, and wrap with plastic wrap. Allow dough to rise until it has doubled in size. She says about 4 hours, for some reason mine only took about 2.

3) Coat a sheet pan with a tablespoon of your olive oil and pour dough onto it. Coat hands with a bit of oil and spread the dough as thin as possible without tearing it. Bubbles are the name of the game here, they are your friends and you want them around, try to preserve as many of them as you can. Let dough relax for 10 minutes and then spread the dough until it covers the rest of the sheet pan. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and let rise until one and a half times its original size. It says an hour, I got impatient and let it rise for about 40 minutes.

4) While the dough is rising, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. After this step there is some talk of sheet pans and baking stones in the oven and what not... It was 10:30PM and I didn't feel like doing any of it. I'm not actually sure I even have the equipment to do any of it. She talks a lot in the introduction to her book about how to get professional bakery results in a home oven, I've used some of the techniques and they work great, but come on, I was trying to make a grilled cheese here. Oh, put an oven shelf on the lowest level of the oven.

5) Uncover dough and drizzle remaining olive oil evenly over it. Sprinkle with rosemary and salt (or whatever delicious topping you've chosen to put on it.) Bake for 12 to 13 minutes or until top is golden. Remove from oven, drizzle on a little extra olive oil, if desired. Serve immediately (or make a grilled cheese out of it.)

Didn't I say this was going to be a shorter post? I think I maybe lied. Go make some focaccia bread! 

The Two Day Grilled Cheese, Part 1

I swear I started today with a simple idea and the best of intentions. Murphy's Law quickly swept in and knocked me flat on my butt. I cannot even begin to count the number of really basic cardinal rules of cooking that I broke today, but I'll certainly go through the highlights for you as we come to them... This is going to be a long one.

The true first disaster is the pictures I took. My camera is broken and I had to use the utterly pathetic camera on my phone. This situation should remedy itself soon, but for now be warned and I apologize.

It's August, and in my family (and about a million others) that generally means an abundance of tomatoes. I relied on that fact when I decided to make a tomato marmalade that I've been dreaming about lately, and thus we have my first mistake. 1) Make sure you have the ingredients (or a reasonable substitute) before starting a recipe. This one turned out to not be as bas as I thought, and I managed to barely scrape together enough ripe and half ripe tomatoes from the garden to make a batch. The recipe is a modified version of the dressing for this.

Tomato Marmalade (modified from Macheesmo)

2 C. tomatoes (I used a mix of Sweet 100, Amish Paste, Black Prince, Mr. Stripey, and Mexican Hybrids.)
1 sprig fresh thyme
1/3 C. sugar
Pinch of Salt
2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

The original recipe called for cherry tomatoes, but my cherry tomato plant refuses to yield more than 3 fruits at a time, so I just cut larger tomatoes into cherry tomato sized chunks and scooped out the insides of the particularly juicy ones.

Put all of the ingredients in a sauce pan over medium heat and stir until the sugar dissolves.

  

Bring mixture to a boil then reduce heat to low and simmer for about an hour until the mixture has thickened into a jam like consistency. Remove from heat, remove thyme, and add vinegar to taste.

Simple enough, right? Apparently not for me. Notice how the pictures end at the simmering? That's because after about a half hour when I checked on it and it was on its way to near perfection, there was a short circuit in my brain and I bumped the heat up just the tiniest bit and walked away... 15 minutes later I could smell my defeat.

I somehow managed to save most of it from turning into a complete sticky burned sugar mess, and it actually really doesn't taste half bad. I used part of it on top of some cream cheese on a toasted english muffin and decided I'd use the rest for a grilled cheese for dinner. Then another short circuit happened, and I decided that my grilled cheese needed homemade focaccia bread, because y'know thats what you do when it's August, and you're trying to save money by not running your air conditioner, and it's 95 degrees outside.

Enter broken rule #2: Read the recipe completely before you start making it. (I told you, we are breaking BASIC rules here. I'll walk you through them before the recipe so you dont make the same mistakes.)

I've made focaccia bread from several different recipes before and they've all had varying ingredients and rise times. I looked through several others before I decided that I should get some use out of my giant copy of The Bread Bible.  Every recipe I looked at had about an hour rise time, perfect. I didnt realize until the dough was made and ready to rise, that the one I'd chosen has about 5 hours of rise time involved... It was 6:30PM. Oops. I love The Bread Bible, but after a year of not using it, I'd apparently forgotten that everything in it takes a whole lot of time. I've made an obscene amount of bread in my life, this whole incident is just proof that you shouldn't bake (or apparently do anything involving food) when your mind is somewhere else.

Ladies and gentlemen, rule #3 and #4:

 3) Proof your yeast. Active dry yeast is not the same as instant active dry yeast (this one is a product of rule number two). Active dry yeast needs to be proofed first or there is a good chance your dough isn't going to rise properly, but instant active can be mixed directly in with your flour. Guess who mixed in the active dry yeast with the flour?

4) Proof your yeast round 2. No matter what kind of yeast it is, if you store it in the freezer (I do) it needs to be proofed with warm water anyway (again, I didn't.)

While we're on the subject of yeast abuse, I might as well tell you that what I used was probably from at least two years ago, and a year and a half after the "use by" date.

Now, the truly crazy part: I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but I'm guessing some sort of bread gods were watching over me... The dough not only rose to its desired volume, but it did it in under two hours. That does not mean, however, that you should, under any circumstances repeat the stupid mistakes I made. I got lucky, very very lucky.

It's now 11PM, the bread just came out of the oven, and I'm sick of looking at it. I think I'll save the bread recipe and the sandwich making for tomorrow. To be continued...

The Great Clean Out the Fridge Challenge (or, How I Saved Money on My Summer Vacation)

I love going out to eat. I love finding extravagant recipes and running out to the store to buy the ingredients when I have plenty of things lurking in the depths of my freezer waiting for the day when someone finally decides to cook them (I'm looking at you, giant turkey.) I love that I am completely broke and absolutely cannot afford to do either of those things for a while, because above all, I love a good challenge, especially when it comes to food.

The idea is simple: Make all meals for AT LEAST two weeks using only the ingredients that I already have on hand. No grocery shopping, no randomly picking up snacks at the store, no eating out... NO SPENDING MONEY ON FOOD. Out of milk? Rough. Out of chicken? Tough. Out of produce? Look in the garden.

No, I am not going on one last huge grocery spending spree to stock my kitchen. In fact, we haven't had one of those in this house in quite a while... which, combined with sheer lack of motivation, has lead to an abundance of eating out, picking up quick to prepare things, and impulse buying.

This is not going to be weeks of eating tomato sauce out of a can with a spoon. This is about creativity, utilizing what I have on hand in interesting ways... Though I'm not going to completely write off the occasional eating food out the can thing quite yet, we all have our moments of weakness and laziness.


Rules/Exceptions

1) No buying food. Simple.
2) Items donated by friends and family are fair game. It's the time of year when a lot of people in my family have an abundance of produce that they are itching to give away, and who am I, in my financial state, to turn them down?
3) Weekends don't count. Sorry, but I don't generally spend weekends at my house.

What do you get out of this? Maybe you'll get to watch me eat ramen and naked pasta for a few weeks, or maybe you'll get some ideas on what to do with that odd can of beans in the back of the cupboard or that corned beef at the bottom of your freezer. If I were you, I'd stay glued to my screen to find out what happens.