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Thanksgiving Recipe #2

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Cranberry sauce. It’s another favorite of mine. The recipe we’ve had the last few years is from Dave Lieberman. I maybe had a little crush on him when I discovered this recipe. Then I met Jonathan and stopped trying to figure out how to meet Dave and get him to fall in love with me so we could have a television program together.

Dave Lieberman’s Fennel Orange Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients:
8oz fresh or frozen whole cranberries
1/2 navel orange, zested
1 whole navel orange, juiced
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C water
1/2 tsp fennel seeds

Directions:
Put everything into a saucepan. Cook over medium heat to a simmer, then reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring frequently until berries burst and water evaporates, 8-10 minutes. Cool before serving.

Confession: this always takes longer than 8 to 10 minutes to cook. And the berries? Maybe they burst because I squish them in impatience. Hey, Thanksgiving isn’t about lying.

Thanks for marrying me Jonathan. You’re hotter than Dave Lieberman!

Posted in Cooking, holiday, recipes | 2 Responses »

Thanksgiving Recipe #1

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Next week is Thanksgiving. I’m oh SO VERY excited. It’s my favorite holiday. MY FAVORITE! Here’s why: no unattainable expectations. Just food, hanging out, yelling at the television while we watch football in the afternoon, eating delicious things like turkey and cranberries and pie and sweet potatoes (or yams) covered in marshmallows and remembering that we have so many reasons to be thankful. I also enjoy watching “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” to cap off the night and ring in the Christmas season. Oh Thanksgiving.

I’d like to share a few of my favorite Thanksgiving recipes with you over the next few days.

Toasted Pecan Dressing (or Stuffing, if you prefer)
~from the Seattle Times at some point

Ingredients:
2 Cups chopped pecans
2 T olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, finely diced
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
2 pears, cored and diced
1 Granny Smith apple, cored, peeled and diced
1 T lemon juice
2 t ground sage
1 T fresh thyme
1 12oz box cornbread stuffing crumbs (I have never been successful in locating this in the Seattle area so I either use a preseasoned box and omit the above seasonings or just plain bread cubes)
1/2 t salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped Italian parsley
2 eggs
1 cup apple cider or juice concentrate
1 cup chicken broth

1. Toast the pecans in 325 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes.
2. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and saute for 5 minutes. Add celery and garlic, saute for 5 more minutes. Add pears and apple, lemon juice, sage, thyme, cook for 5 more minutes. Transfer to a large bowl.
3. Add the pecans, bread crumbs, salt, peper and parsley to the sauteed vegetables. Whisk together the eggs, apple juice and broth. Pour over stuffing, mixing until all moistened.
4. Spray casserole dish with cooking spray. Transfer stuffing to dish and cover with foil. Cook in 325 degree oven for 30 minutes. Uncover and cook for an additional 15 minutes.
**Can be prepared in advance and refrigerated until ready to cook. Should be mixed the same day as it is cooked. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking.
Serves 10.

Sometimes I put this into two smaller dishes because then there are more crunchy/crispy bits. We’ve also made this without the egg and with vegetable broth to accomodate vegetarians in our family and it works just as well.

Posted in Cooking, holiday, recipes | 3 Responses »

Another delicious recipe!

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

In the summer, I don’t usually crave meat, but veggies and other lighterish stuff (and chips and queso, naturally). I saw this recipe on Martha Stewart’s website and I knew I wanted to try it!

Okay, Brazilian Black Beans, adapted from Martha Stewart Everyday Food

Ingredients:
3 medium beets, scrubbed and trimmed, beet greens chopped
3 cans black beans
Coarse salt and ground pepper
2 garlic cloves, peeled
2 T vegetable oil
1 scallion, thinly sliced, plus more for serving
1/2 C. chopped fresh cilantro
Cooked rice, for serving
lime wedges and shredded cheddar for serving

The night before, roast the beets (I did this in our toaster oven) for 45 minutes to one hour until they are soft. Pop them in the fridge.
Peel and dice the beets into smallish pieces, whatever you like.
Chop the garlic or put it through a garlic press so it’s nice and squishy and small.
Heat the oil in a skillet and add the garlic, scallion and cilantro. Cook for 2 to 4 minutes, until the scallion has softened.
Add the beans and beets to the mixture. Cook for about twenty minutes to allow the flavors to develop.

In another pan, quickly wilt the beet greens. Add them to the beans (or don’t. I served them separately the first time, but I mixed everything together on my plate anyway so I just added the greens to the mix the subsequent time). Also, we didn’t have cheese or lime the last time we ate this and it was still great!

If you’d like to see the original recipe. Here is the link. I made this to the letter originally, with the beet greens on the side because I hate to waste food. EDF has you cook the beets and dried black beans together, which did make for a nice flavor, but took a really long time (like four hours). I do believe that although it doesn’t mention it in the recipe as written, you should soak the beans overnight if you’re going to start out with dry beans. Let me know if you try this one and what you think!

Posted in Cooking, photo, recipes | 4 Responses »

Sometimes you just have to consult the church cookbook.

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

I don’t know if everyone has a church cookbook, but I strongly recommend them. Along with recipes for coffee to serve 250 people, there are some gems that cannot be found in your standard Betty Crocker or Joy of Cooking.

A couple of months ago, Jonathan and I had a delightful potluck supper at the Sammamish Grange, which included, among many other things, a freshly baked rhubarb pie. I never really enjoyed rhubarb as a child, but this was amazing! I kept thinking about the delicious tartness of the rhubarb and the sweetness of the crust and thought we needed some rhubarb at our house too. Yes, rhubarb is sold in the store, but I’m cheap and I know that people around here also grow it in their yard. One quick phone call to my Momma and I had a grocery sack of rhubarb in my refrigerator. Last week, I was missing my friend April dearly. April makes the best bars in the whole wide world. I was looking through the 125th Anniversary of First Lutheran Church of Ogema, WI cookbook (which my mom snagged from my Aunt Dottie) and found a recipe for Rhubarb Dream Dessert Bars. Perfect!

Here is the recipe:

2 c. flour
8-10 T confectioner’s sugar
1 c. margarine (I use butter because margarine freaks me out, but this is really up to you)
1.5 c. sugar
1/2 c. flour
1/2 t salt
4 eggs, beaten
4 c. diced rhubarb

Mix the flour, confectioner’s sugar and margarine together like a pie crust. Save about one cup for the topping. Pat the rest into a 9×13″ pan and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Mix together the sugar, flour, salt and eggs. Stir in the rhubarb and spread over the crust. Sprinkle on the topping and bake for an additional 35 minutes.
(Big thanks to Victoria Nelson and Rhonda Cummings for submitting this to the church cookbook!)

Here’s the final result:

I liked them so much I just took another batch out of the oven. If you happen to work with Jonathan, there’s a good chance this could be your breakfast in the morning.

Three cheers for the church cookbook. It may not be as hip or fashionable out here where we’re all connected to each other through the internet, but sometimes what you need is a recipe from Victoria Nelson and Rhonda Cummings.

Posted in photo, recipes | 6 Responses »

Fake Pho

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

Above is a photo of real Pho I found on the internets.

I have never made real Pho. We go to Pho restaurants for this and it is DELICIOUS! However, at home, I make a reasonable facsimile with cooked beef, based on a recipe from the Racheal Ray Everyday magazine. It’s from way back in 2006, and I’m pretty sure it’s part of how Jonathan fell so deeply in love with me (and my cooking).

Here you go:
5oz of rice noodles (I have NO IDEA how much this is because we don’t own a scale, so in my house this equals two handfuls of noodles.)
2 cups of bean sprouts or 3/4lb-um, they’re sold in one pound packages at the store here so we go with the whole pound. If you hate the crunchy goodness of bean sprouts, you can probably find them in bulk somewhere and purchase fewer of them.
1 pound deli roast beef, cut into strips and then cut the strips in half crosswise (I buy the nitrite free stuff from Trader Joe’s for two reasons: nitrites can be scary and it is cheaper than the deli meat at TOP foods).
1 Tbsp veggie oil
1 jalepeno pepper, cut the white part and the seeds out of the middle and then sliced them into little half moons. DO NOT touch your eye at any point during this process.
3 scallions, thinly sliced
One 14oz can beef broth (we are not picky with our broth around here, when I made this last week I used chicken broth because that’s what we had open)
1/3 Cup cilantro leaves (um, it’s more like one full cup of cilantro around here because it’s Jonathan’s favorite)
Lime wedges

Alright, start with a pot of water and add the rice noodles. Get them boiling together and boil for three minutes until they’re cooked. Don’t be too picky about this because you’re adding hot broth to them later. Drain and rinse the noodles with cold water twice. Divide the noodles into four bowls and heap the bean sprouts and roast beef on top of the noodle piles.
Using the same pan you used for the noodles, heat some oil over medium heat.
Toss in the jalepeno and the green onion. Cook until soft, usually about two minutes.
Add the broth and two cups of water and bring to a boil. Cook for ten minutes (uncovered-this is key, it allows the broth to get nice and spicy).
Season the broth with salt if you desire.
Pour the broth over the noodle/sprout/meat nests in the bowls.
Serve with more bean sprouts, cilantro and lime wedges.
Devour.

Posted in Cooking, Uncategorized, recipes | 2 Responses »

Another new recipe=delicious

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

In addition to fun anniversary celebration like things, we did some non-anniversary things Monday and took advantage of the fact that we weren’t at work. One of those things was shopping at PCC. Yep. We grocery shopped on our anniversary! It was great fun! (We also went to the bookstore where we acquired “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” if we start looking fat larger soon, take away the book and erase the very easy recipe from my memory).

Anyway, one of the items we purchased at PCC was farmer cheese. We’d never heard of it before! It’s delicious! It was for the recipe: Pasta with Winter Greens and Walnuts from Every Day with Rachael Ray February 2009 edition. We were also introduced to escarole. (It’s much easier for me to type this because I’m still pretty fuzzy on the pronunciation)

Here’s a photo of our new friend the escarole:

Don’t be fooled by the other leafy greens sitting pretty next to him. If you’re at PCC, they actually have a little catalogue of produce. It’s very handy. More handy than the produce guy, if I do say so myself. He can’t help it; the produce guy we met is still in high school and doesn’t know much about the veggies yet.

And now the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 (7.5 ounce) package farmer cheese
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Grated peel of 1/2 lemon
3/4lb of fusilli (corkscrew) pasta
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 large head escarole, coarsely chopped
Salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted

1. Have Jonathan, world’s best husband, combine the cheese, 3 tablespoons olive oil and the lemon peel in a small bowl.
2. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the pasta until al dente. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water; return the pasta to the pot.
3. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and crushed red pepper and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the escarole and cook, stirring frequently, until wilted but still crisp; season with salt. Stir the escarole and the reserved pasta cooking water into the pasta. Transfer to a platter (or put it in a bowl like us); dollop with the cheese mixture and sprinkle with the walnuts. Toss lightly just before serving.

And because it’s fun, here are the photos of our sweet times in the kitchen for this one:

Jonathan expertly crumbles the farmer cheese.

The freshly washed and cut escarole

The finished product, delicious!

A big thank you to the cheese monger at PCC! She knew what we were looking for and gave us free cheese that had a sell by date of the day prior! YAY!

Posted in Uncategorized, recipes | 1 Response »

New recipe and a bit of an experiment

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

The February 2009 issue of Every Day with Rachael Rayincluded a recipe that you cook in a colander! Oh my! I had to try it. That, and it included baby bok choy and couscous, which we enjoy.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients
1/2 cup soy sauce
6 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons sesame oil
One 1 1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and grated
1 bunch scallions, 1/2 of them thinly sliced, the other half cut into two inch pieces
3 star anise
6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and halved
Salt
One 10oz box of couscous
1 1/4 lbs baby bok choy, halved lengthwise and rinsed

Directions
1. In a shallow baking dish, whisk together the soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil and ginger; stir in the 2-inch scallion pieces and the star anise, if using. Season the chicken with salt and add to the marinade, turning to coat. Let marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.
2. Line a footed metal colander with 2 layers of damp cheesecloth, allowing 2 inches of overhang. Place in a pot and add enough water to just reach the colander bottom. Bring to a simmer; have a small pot of boiling water on the side.
3. Pour the couscous into the colander. Place the chicken thighs on top in a single layer, pressing up the sides of the colander, if necessary; reserve the marinade. Cover and steam, adding more hot water as needed, until the chicken is cooked through, 25 to 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, simmer the reserved marinade until thickened, about 4 minutes; strain.
5. When the chicken is almost done, scatter the bok choy on top, season with salt and steam for 3 minutes. Transfer the bok choy and chicken to a platter, drizzle with the marinade and top with half of the sliced scallions. Stir the remaining scallions into the couscous, season with salt and serve with the chicken.

The result: First, I didn’t use all the sugar or all the soy sauce because it would have been too sweet for us. Also, I’m sometimes sensitive to too much salt/sodium in things and we didn’t have the reduced sodium soy sauce. I was concerned about the flavor, but Jonathan didn’t notice, so that’s a good sign. I used more ginger than was called for in the recipe. I made the marinade early and the chicken sat in the frige soaking up the deliciousness all day.

Second, this is a two person recipe. I don’t think I could have lifted the colander and filled the bottom pot without spilling anything if I was on my own. Metal colanders get hot and therefore require the use of hot pads or ovenmits!

Third, I was very concerned about whether or not the chicken would cook. It DID! And it was great, but the couscous didn’t have enough liquid so I had to add some and pop it in the microwave for a few minutes after everything else was finished.

Here’s what it looked like in our kitchen:

Marinating the chicken:
010 by you.

Lining the colander with cheesecloth:

009 by you.

Watching it cook:

011 by you.

Adding the bok choy:

012 by you.

Ready to eat!
016 by you.

All in all, I enjoyed this recipe, but I don’t think I’ll cook in the colander again. I’m all for using the kitchen tools for as many things as possible, but this is kind of ridiculous and takes more effort than I’m willing to put forth every week.

Posted in Cooking, marriage, photo, recipes | 2 Responses »

Not always a winner

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Jonathan would have you to believe that I am a great cook. True, we do not go hungry, but sometimes I have really bad ideas. Since I had a particularly bad idea this week, I thought I’d share it with you. Let me preface by saying I work for an accounting firm that is amazing in many ways, not the least of which is the snack cabinet. On Tuesday afternoon I felt the need for a little pick me up and I thought, “Mmm, you know what sounds good? A mint mocha!” Having no compulsion to pay for such a thing when all the ingredients were at hand, I set to work. Here’s the recipe:

1/2 Tablespoon sketchy non-dairy could last forever creamer
1 packet Swiss Miss cocoa power
8 ounces brewed coffee
3 Junior mints

Mix them together! What do you get? Sludge and ruined coffee and wasted Junior Mints.

I happened to have my camera, so in case you needed a visual:

Please, save your Junior Mints and just eat them separately.

We have had success with a few new recipes lately and when we’re done eating, we’ll post the photo and info on those too!

Posted in Cooking, photo, recipes | 3 Responses »

Root Vegetable Tagine

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Okay, this is the last recipe for the day, but I’m not going to lie, it was a good one! I’ve been having a hard time looking for slow cooker recipes that do not take less than nine hours to finish or require meat on the bone (one of us doesn’t like meat on the bone)…..I finally found one!

I prepped the veggies last night and put them in the crock pot before we left for work and it looked like this:

Upon our return home, we found this:

I added some funky Trader Joe’s mix of couscous and some other stuff to it and here’s the final product:

The verdict: We have ourselves a winner! It is like a delightful autumn stewy thing. It’s both sweet and spiced and it was a really nice way to end the day.

Okay, here’s the recipe:

1 pound parsnips, peeled and diced
1 pound turnips, peeled and diced
2 medium onions, chopped
1 pound carrots, peeled and diced
6 dried apricots, chopped
4 pitted prunes, chopped
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon dried cilantro
1 (14 ounce) can vegetable broth

In a slow cooker, toss together the parsnips, turnips, onions, carrots, apricots, and prunes. Season with turmeric, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, parsley, and cilantro. Pour in the vegetable broth.

Cover, and cook 9 hours on Low.

McPhersonisms on this: I have no idea how much of each vegetable I put in here. I just bought a turnip, a couple of parsnips and had some carrots so in they went. I used three onions because I happened to have three and I didn’t use the same amount of spice…we use frozen cilantro from Trader Joe’s so we put eight cubes in rather than the measured amount of dried. I also use heaps or scoops of spices so it was maybe a little more zesty. Upon reading the comments on allrecipes, I also added an additional 1/2 can of broth. I set the crock pot to cook on low for only eight hours, knowing it would have an additional two hours to be on “warm” before we returned home. It worked out very well. If you’re so inclined, one could easily add some chicken.

And now a confession. I had no idea whether I was holding a turnip or a rutabaga at the store, so I bought both. Anybody know what to do with a rutabaga around 1.5 to 2lbs in size?

Posted in Cooking, home, marriage, recipes | 2 Responses »

Birthday Dinner

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

om nom nom nom by J. McPherson.

For Jonathan’s birthday, he asked me to cook up a new recipe for dinner (we had already gone out to eat the previous two evenings and we like to keep things balanced). I offered up a selection from the various cookbooks and magazines we’ve got around the house and this is what he selected. (From Real Simple, November 2008) I did not really change much on this, but I did use salmon with the skin because I wasn’t paying attention. Not such a big deal. It was delicious!

Salmon and Fennel with Roasted-Lemon Vinaigrette

2 bulbs fennel, thinly sliced
2 lemons, cut in half crosswise
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
3 tablespoons olive oil
Kosher salt and black pepper
4 6-ounce pieces skinless salmon fillet
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
12 ounces mixed greens (about 8 cups)

Heat oven to 400° F. In a large roasting pan, toss the fennel, lemons, garlic, 1 tablespoon of the oil, and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Roast until the fennel begins to soften, about 8 minutes.Yield: Makes 4 servings NUTRITION PER SERVING
CALORIES 372; FAT 17g (sat 2g); CHOLESTEROL 97mg; CARBOHYDRATE 17g; CALORIES FROM FAT 40%; SODIUM 696mg; PROTEIN 40g; FIBER 6g; SUGAR 4g

Season the salmon with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and nestle in the fennel. Roast until the salmon is opaque throughout, 12 to 15 minutes.

Squeeze the garlic out of the skins into a small bowl and mash to a paste. Squeeze the lemon pulp and juice into the bowl. Stir in the honey, rosemary, the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Place the salmon and fennel on the greens. Drizzle with the dressing.

Posted in Cooking, birthday, family, home, marriage, recipes | 3 Responses »

Oatmeal for Breakfast

Or: The New Adventures of J&K