Today we feature my birthday dinner, which I cooked myself, not that I minded one little bit. We had:
POTLUCK EGGS BENEDICT
1 16-oz. can green beans
3/4 cup margarine
3/4 c. flour
4 c. milk
1 can (14 1/2 oz.) chicken broth
1 lb. cubed cooked ham
1 c. (4 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese
8 hard-cooked eggs, sliced
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
10-12 biscuits, warmed
Melt butter in saucepan; stir in flour until smooth. Add milk & broth; bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Add ham & cheese, stir until cheese melt (do not boil after the cheese is in; nasty things will happen). Add eggs, salt, cayenne & green beans; heat through. Serve over biscuits. YIELD: 10-12 servings @ 295 cals each, if you divide it twelve ways. And not counting the biscuits.
Any of you who have eaten real Eggs Benedict may wonder why this is so far from the real thing. Well, the real thing has asparagus, doesn't it? I've checked myself over, trying to detect a desire to eat asparagus, and the desire is just not there. Therefore, the green beans.
The birthday cake was:
THIRTY-MINUTE COCOA CAKE
1 cups (2 sticks) butter or margarine
1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 cup buttermilk or sour milk*
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Quick Cocoa Frosting**
In medium saucepan, combine margarine, cocoa and water; bring to boil over medium heat, cooking until butter is melted; set aside. In large mixing bowl, stir togetehr sugar, flour, soda, and cinnamon. Add cocoa mixture; blend. (Save cocoa pan, unwashed, for making Quick Cocoa Frosting.) Beat together buttermilk and eggs; stir into batter. Add vanilla. Pour into ungreased 15x11 jelly roll pan. Bake at 400' for 20 minutes. Five minutes before cake is done, begin to make Quick Cocoa Frosting. Frost cake as soon as it comes from oven.
*Note: To make sour milk, measure 1/2 TB vinegar into measuring cup; add enough milk to make 1/2 cup. Allow to stand for 5 minutes.
**Quick Cocoa Frosting: In medium saucepan combine 1/2 cup (1 stick) margarine, 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, and 1/3 cup milk. Bring to boil; simmer 3 minutes; remove from heat. Stir in 3 1/2 cups (1 pound) powdered sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla; beat until smooth. Pour over cake. Whole cake is 6650 calories. My recipe source (Winifred Jardine's Managing Your Meals) suggested adding raisins to the frosting, or even topping the cake with nuts. But why ruin a good cake?
As for the Finished Book Pile, we knocked off two works of non-fiction and one work of rather dated silliness. But here goes:
Naomi Schaefer Riley visited twenty religious colleges in America, including BYU and SVU and wrote God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America. For one thing, it was refreshing to read about people who actually want to be good. All these colleges have a few things in common: rules about dating and drinking, a tendency against political protest and certainly an interest in how to blend sacred and secular knowledge. Baylor University, in Texas, loosened its ties to its Southern Baptist Convention out of a fear that their more fundamentalist wing might exercise tighter control over the school. Baylor wants to be religiously observant, but it wants to be a first-rate university, too. Indeed, that is something all the colleges on Schaefer Riley's tour sought after: academic respect. There are probably dozens more religious colleges out there that really don't measure up.
As for blending secular and religious learning, she says, "Cultural discernment, that is, teaching students the best of what secular culture has to offer and providing them with the tools for examining it themselves, requires constant vigilance and a lot of forethought from religious college leaders, but the rewards for success are tremendous. Striking the right balance means producing graduates who are unafraid of the world, can participate in some aspects of it, change other parts of it, and all the while maintain their religious grounding."
Schaefer Riley is Jewish. Her tour of colleges included Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish and even Buddhist schools.
Next up: Never a City So Real by Alex Kotlowitz. This book is part of a series of "A Walk Through . . ." Kotlowitz writes about Chicago. The other Walk-Through books feature places like Rome, Nantucket, even Portland, OR.
Kotlowitz takes the reader into parts of Chicago I'm sure I would never have gone on my own. The whole book is little close-up portraits of city personalities. He portrays artists whose work is ignored in their hometown, but loved in Paris; a woman who owns a diner; a pugnacious man who fights mob-controlled cronyism in the suburb of Cicero.
Kotlowitz's politics become obvious to the reader right away. He hails from people who enjoy a good sit-in or a nice brick-throwing union riot.
And finally, I read Mr. Dooley's Opinions by Finley Peter Dunne. I don't remember where I got Dunne's name, but he is one of those writers that you might have known about had you been around to vote for Teddy Roosevelt. Dunne has since slipped into obscurity--deep obscurity. Opinions was a volume of sketches between Dooley and his friend Hennessy. Think of the old hecklers in The Muppet Show. Give them an Irish brogue and there you have it.
Actually, I couldn't take all the Dooley stories at once. I had to break them up with some other short stories, so I dipped into some John Updike, some Raymond Carver and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." I really liked O'Brien's story about Vietnam soldiers. Look it up.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Poor little recipes need a note pinned to their shirts
Today we feature some of the family favorites, the dishes that the kids ask for again and again, mostly when they want to make something to take to the potluck dinner. The trouble is, every time they want to cook these favorite dishes, they can't find the copy of the recipe Mom sent to them.
So let's put them up here on the blog and be done with it.
Pizza in a Bowl
MONSTER COOKIES
6 eggs
2 1/4 c. light brown sugar
2 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 tsp. light corn syrup
4 tsp. baking soda
1 c. butter (not margarine)
3 c. peanut butter
9 c. uncooked oatmeal
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c. M&Ms
In a large bowl mix all ingredients in order listed. Drop dough from well rounded tablespoon (or small ice cream scoop) on ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten cookies (six cookies to a sheet). Bake at 350' for 12 minutes. Don't overbake. Allow to cool 1 minute. These freeze well. 1/36 of this batch--and that's a mighty big cookie but why else do they call it "monster"?--equals 390 calories. Try not to overdo yourself.
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we feature Poor White by Sherwood Anderson. If you like a story that talks about a town and everybody in it--the strange guy out at the telegraph office, the huckster that schemes for wealth as he piggybacks onto somebody else's idea, the oldsters who can't stand change and the young folks who swirl with the ambitions of their age, you would probably like Poor White. Set in fictional Bidwell, Ohio, just as the machine age ushers in, it portrays a vigorous, hopeful time that I'm kind of sorry I missed.
The author, though, regretted the coming of the machines. His "most sensual" passages (according to reviewers) lament the passing of a bucolic age. Yes, I might like to have seen farm towns when they were full of people. These days, they're shells of their former selves.
So let's put them up here on the blog and be done with it.
Pizza in a Bowl
MONSTER COOKIES
6 eggs
2 1/4 c. light brown sugar
2 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 tsp. light corn syrup
4 tsp. baking soda
1 c. butter (not margarine)
3 c. peanut butter
9 c. uncooked oatmeal
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c. M&Ms
In a large bowl mix all ingredients in order listed. Drop dough from well rounded tablespoon (or small ice cream scoop) on ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten cookies (six cookies to a sheet). Bake at 350' for 12 minutes. Don't overbake. Allow to cool 1 minute. These freeze well. 1/36 of this batch--and that's a mighty big cookie but why else do they call it "monster"?--equals 390 calories. Try not to overdo yourself.
Over on the Finished Book Pile, we feature Poor White by Sherwood Anderson. If you like a story that talks about a town and everybody in it--the strange guy out at the telegraph office, the huckster that schemes for wealth as he piggybacks onto somebody else's idea, the oldsters who can't stand change and the young folks who swirl with the ambitions of their age, you would probably like Poor White. Set in fictional Bidwell, Ohio, just as the machine age ushers in, it portrays a vigorous, hopeful time that I'm kind of sorry I missed.
The author, though, regretted the coming of the machines. His "most sensual" passages (according to reviewers) lament the passing of a bucolic age. Yes, I might like to have seen farm towns when they were full of people. These days, they're shells of their former selves.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The student snuck in some fun reading.
Along with all the Chekhov and O-Connor I read for class last fall, I snuck in some just-for-fun reading. There was Infidel, a memoir by a Somalian woman, Ayann Hirsi Ali. Her childhood was divided between Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Her father was often away, leading the resistance against a Somalian dictator. Finally, her mother, parked in Kenya, told him to never come back. So he didn’t. He went off and married another wife.
And there was Which Brings Me To You by Steve Almond and Julianna Baggott. Two lovers start with a one-night stand at a wedding, then back off and write each other confessional letters. I got a nice New York/Philly/Hoboken fix from it, but had to skip many cow patties.
That a person would have sex with so many other people is getting tiresome.
Anyway, here's a dinner that we ate and Jim and Mercy's house, right about the time that little Kimball finally started to catch on to what is day and what is night. His sleepy but marvelously patient parents sat down to: French Country Casserole and Toffee Ice Cream Dessert.
And there was Which Brings Me To You by Steve Almond and Julianna Baggott. Two lovers start with a one-night stand at a wedding, then back off and write each other confessional letters. I got a nice New York/Philly/Hoboken fix from it, but had to skip many cow patties.
That a person would have sex with so many other people is getting tiresome.
Anyway, here's a dinner that we ate and Jim and Mercy's house, right about the time that little Kimball finally started to catch on to what is day and what is night. His sleepy but marvelously patient parents sat down to: French Country Casserole and Toffee Ice Cream Dessert.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Suspense and pathos
The spy book has me gripped.
It bogged down in the middle.
Then the author got involved in Watergate. Since he was a novelist as well as a spy, his story skillfully unfolded as he met G. Gordon Liddy, embarking on White House-assigned projects that may have been legally questionable, but felt perfectly normal to a CIA man who once organized the Bay of Pigs operation.
Then, as Watergate commences and builds in increments, he portrays small moments when he can feel that he's in a little bit of trouble, nothing big, he can clear it up soon. Then the trouble feels a little bigger, but he still doesn't get the whole picture. Then a reporter from the Washington Post calls and he's like, "Wait a minute. Why is this so interesting to you?" The sense of "Uh-oh" just grows.
For your recipe, here's what we enjoyed with soup and biscuits yesterday: Bacon-Cheddar Deviled Eggs
Skooby wasn't sure he liked his little taste of deviled egg, but the rest of us chowed down.
It bogged down in the middle.
Then the author got involved in Watergate. Since he was a novelist as well as a spy, his story skillfully unfolded as he met G. Gordon Liddy, embarking on White House-assigned projects that may have been legally questionable, but felt perfectly normal to a CIA man who once organized the Bay of Pigs operation.
Then, as Watergate commences and builds in increments, he portrays small moments when he can feel that he's in a little bit of trouble, nothing big, he can clear it up soon. Then the trouble feels a little bigger, but he still doesn't get the whole picture. Then a reporter from the Washington Post calls and he's like, "Wait a minute. Why is this so interesting to you?" The sense of "Uh-oh" just grows.
For your recipe, here's what we enjoyed with soup and biscuits yesterday: Bacon-Cheddar Deviled Eggs
Skooby wasn't sure he liked his little taste of deviled egg, but the rest of us chowed down.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Labor-pain reading
Been plowing through the books so fast lately (there are a lot of days I don't even leave the house. Go away snow!) that I think I've probably forgotten about some of them.
I read Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner, on recommendation of my professor from last semester. Faulkner's sentences go round and round and on down the page and I feel so bad that I'm not enjoying this terribly famous writer but, honestly, if you drove the way Faulkner writes, all the side trips and circles around the block and 7-point U-turns would get you to your appointment a week late.
The professor also recommended Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, a collection of short stories that's actually called a novel. It portrays a couple Chippewa families in North Dakota that are poised halfway between life on the Rez and life in the city. Liked it much better than Faulkner, especially the title story.
Through the long night of Mercy's labor, I advanced through Therapy by Jonathan Kellerman. 'Twas a murder mystery, a very serviceable one, though the plot threads got a bit unwieldy towards the end. How do these authors keep all the suspects straight, especially if they have too many? Walls covered with Post-It Notes?
Currently reading American Spy, the memoirs of Howard Hunt, who served in the CIA. Did you know most CIA people are Ivy League graduates? Yep, they do a little para-trooping, a little propagandizing, then become a general or a cabinet secretary or something other important person. You just don't have the connections to get in if you got educated at Wayneville State U or someplace like that. But I'm not bitter. I don't want to be in the CIA. I couldn't take the tension of flying over the Himalayas into strange lands (as the plane coughs and lurches from lack of oxygen), wondering if my contact might murder me and figuring out how to turn Latin Americans against their current dictator.
Besides, I don't think spies get to spend a lot of time playing in the kitchen, which you must know is important to me. To that end, I share with you: French Onion Pan Rolls
Eat them with soup. Then, when the onion-and-cheese stuff falls off--and it will--the soup catches it and tastes even better. Two rolls = 375 cals.
I read Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner, on recommendation of my professor from last semester. Faulkner's sentences go round and round and on down the page and I feel so bad that I'm not enjoying this terribly famous writer but, honestly, if you drove the way Faulkner writes, all the side trips and circles around the block and 7-point U-turns would get you to your appointment a week late.
The professor also recommended Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, a collection of short stories that's actually called a novel. It portrays a couple Chippewa families in North Dakota that are poised halfway between life on the Rez and life in the city. Liked it much better than Faulkner, especially the title story.
Through the long night of Mercy's labor, I advanced through Therapy by Jonathan Kellerman. 'Twas a murder mystery, a very serviceable one, though the plot threads got a bit unwieldy towards the end. How do these authors keep all the suspects straight, especially if they have too many? Walls covered with Post-It Notes?
Currently reading American Spy, the memoirs of Howard Hunt, who served in the CIA. Did you know most CIA people are Ivy League graduates? Yep, they do a little para-trooping, a little propagandizing, then become a general or a cabinet secretary or something other important person. You just don't have the connections to get in if you got educated at Wayneville State U or someplace like that. But I'm not bitter. I don't want to be in the CIA. I couldn't take the tension of flying over the Himalayas into strange lands (as the plane coughs and lurches from lack of oxygen), wondering if my contact might murder me and figuring out how to turn Latin Americans against their current dictator.
Besides, I don't think spies get to spend a lot of time playing in the kitchen, which you must know is important to me. To that end, I share with you: French Onion Pan Rolls
Eat them with soup. Then, when the onion-and-cheese stuff falls off--and it will--the soup catches it and tastes even better. Two rolls = 375 cals.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Rich boys
I had the happy accident this week of watching a movie that illuminated a book I had just read. I planned a nice mid-winter goof-off day in which I ate cookies and cashews, drank hot chocolate and watched a Tivo-ed "Sabrina," with Julia Ormond, Harrison Ford, and Greg Kinnear. As Ford and Kinnear, the rich brothers, traded barbs about who worked too much and who worked not at all, Dynasties by David Landes, came to life.
Landes wrote about famous-name family businesses (think Rothschilds, Fords, Guggenheims) and how they fared from generation to generation. Truthfully, much of the book was out of my depth as he talked about joint stock capitalization and Vichy France. But I got glimpses of personality here and there:
If Grandpa starts a bank, or invents a car, or strikes oil, who among his sons and grandsons will possess the talent AND the interest to keep the enterprise going? Just like in the movie, plenty of descendants would rather use all that wealth just for playing.
Would be a lovely temptation, no?
Now, when it comes to this installment's recipe, I debated whether to give you something workaday and practical, or something so yummy that you will blame the failure of your New Year's resolution on me. So I decided on both. You've probably already broken your resolutions anyway.
First the practical: SPICY BEEF AND VEGETABLE SOUP
1 lb. ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
1 jar (30 oz.) meatless spaghetti sauce
3 1/2 c. water
1 pkg (16 oz.) frozen mixed vegetables
1 can (10 oz.) diced tomatoes & green chilies
1 c. sliced celery
1 tsp. beef bouillon granules
1 tsp. pepper
In skillet over medium heat, cook beef & onion until meat is no longer pink; drain. Transfer to slow cooler. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or until vegetables are tender. YIELD: 12 servings, 160 cals. each.
This was really great to come home to after feeling the nasty, icy wind that blew across the Wal-Mart parking lot this afternoon. We ate the soup with garlic bread from the bread machine.
Now, just so you don't overdose on nutritious stuff, I offer you BYU MINT BROWNIES.
1 c. margarine
1/2 c. cocoa
2 TB honey
4 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 3/4 c. flour
1/2 TB baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Mint Icing (See step #2)
12 oz. chocolate icing (canned)
1. Melt margarine and mix in cocoa. Allow to cool. Add honey, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well. Pour batter into a greased 9x13-in. baking pan. Bake at 350' for 25 minutes. Cool.
2. Prepare Mint Icing: Soften 5 TB margarine. Add dash of salt, 1 TB light corn syrup, & 2 1/3 c. powdered sugar. Beat until smooth and fluffy. Add 1/2 tsp. mint extract & 1-2 drops green food coloring. Mix. Add 3 TB milk gradually until the consistency is a little thinner than cake frosting.
3. Spread mint icing over brownies. Place brownies in the freezer for a short time to stiffen the icing. Remove from the freezer and carefully add a layer of chocolate icing.
If you cut the finished brownies into 24 pieces, each has 310 calories.
I know, I know, I gave you Peppermint Cream Brownies in the last post. But you really can't have too much of a good thing. Besides those were just gateway mint brownies. These are the hardcore stuff.
I made them for Mercy's baby shower. We needed two pans for the ladies. And of course, what would my husband think if I made these and didn't leave any for him? What would Jim think if I stayed at his house the night before, carrying these lovely treats, and none for him?
Well, Jim made it clear what he would think. So I made a third pan.
In the end, we had so many brownies that, even after I packaged up a nice personal stash of them, I was still giving them away to friends and begging John to take some to bishopric meeting.
The other food at the shower was a great big green and brown cake. (You can sense a color theme here, can't you?) It was a German chocolate cake, frosted with ganache, a smooth icing that hardens into a shell, and embellished with green fondant, rolled and cut out to look like ribbons on a present.
It was a sugar-lover's party, oh yes.
Landes wrote about famous-name family businesses (think Rothschilds, Fords, Guggenheims) and how they fared from generation to generation. Truthfully, much of the book was out of my depth as he talked about joint stock capitalization and Vichy France. But I got glimpses of personality here and there:
If Grandpa starts a bank, or invents a car, or strikes oil, who among his sons and grandsons will possess the talent AND the interest to keep the enterprise going? Just like in the movie, plenty of descendants would rather use all that wealth just for playing.
Would be a lovely temptation, no?
Now, when it comes to this installment's recipe, I debated whether to give you something workaday and practical, or something so yummy that you will blame the failure of your New Year's resolution on me. So I decided on both. You've probably already broken your resolutions anyway.
First the practical: SPICY BEEF AND VEGETABLE SOUP
1 lb. ground beef
1 cup chopped onion
1 jar (30 oz.) meatless spaghetti sauce
3 1/2 c. water
1 pkg (16 oz.) frozen mixed vegetables
1 can (10 oz.) diced tomatoes & green chilies
1 c. sliced celery
1 tsp. beef bouillon granules
1 tsp. pepper
In skillet over medium heat, cook beef & onion until meat is no longer pink; drain. Transfer to slow cooler. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or until vegetables are tender. YIELD: 12 servings, 160 cals. each.
This was really great to come home to after feeling the nasty, icy wind that blew across the Wal-Mart parking lot this afternoon. We ate the soup with garlic bread from the bread machine.
Now, just so you don't overdose on nutritious stuff, I offer you BYU MINT BROWNIES.
1 c. margarine
1/2 c. cocoa
2 TB honey
4 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 3/4 c. flour
1/2 TB baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Mint Icing (See step #2)
12 oz. chocolate icing (canned)
1. Melt margarine and mix in cocoa. Allow to cool. Add honey, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well. Pour batter into a greased 9x13-in. baking pan. Bake at 350' for 25 minutes. Cool.
2. Prepare Mint Icing: Soften 5 TB margarine. Add dash of salt, 1 TB light corn syrup, & 2 1/3 c. powdered sugar. Beat until smooth and fluffy. Add 1/2 tsp. mint extract & 1-2 drops green food coloring. Mix. Add 3 TB milk gradually until the consistency is a little thinner than cake frosting.
3. Spread mint icing over brownies. Place brownies in the freezer for a short time to stiffen the icing. Remove from the freezer and carefully add a layer of chocolate icing.
If you cut the finished brownies into 24 pieces, each has 310 calories.
I know, I know, I gave you Peppermint Cream Brownies in the last post. But you really can't have too much of a good thing. Besides those were just gateway mint brownies. These are the hardcore stuff.
I made them for Mercy's baby shower. We needed two pans for the ladies. And of course, what would my husband think if I made these and didn't leave any for him? What would Jim think if I stayed at his house the night before, carrying these lovely treats, and none for him?
Well, Jim made it clear what he would think. So I made a third pan.
In the end, we had so many brownies that, even after I packaged up a nice personal stash of them, I was still giving them away to friends and begging John to take some to bishopric meeting.
The other food at the shower was a great big green and brown cake. (You can sense a color theme here, can't you?) It was a German chocolate cake, frosted with ganache, a smooth icing that hardens into a shell, and embellished with green fondant, rolled and cut out to look like ribbons on a present.
It was a sugar-lover's party, oh yes.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Illegal Food
I just finished Plenty by Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon. The authors, a couple from Vancouver, spent a year eating only foods that came from a 100-mile radius of where they lived.
That would make me illegal by their rules. Am I prepared to do without chocolate chips? Cool Ranch Doritos? Lean Cuisine? Even if the authors claim that your average meal travels 1500 miles to get to your table? Not until I really, really have to. I myself am not about to scour the countryside, finding the local growers of squashes and nuts and honey. I already know some of the tyrannies of agricultural life (and it sure was funny to see the authors discover this. "Hey, James, we've got 160 lbs. of sweet corn here! Um, James, that lady said we have to shuck it, blanch it, cut it off the cob and freeze it tonight or it won't be any good." They stay up until 2 to finish the job. And what does this do to their relationship? Read the book and find out!) and I kind of like the predictability of a life lived closer to sidewalks than pastures.
I agree, there's some screwy things about our food system. Maybe I'll visit my local farmers' market and buy my green peppers there.
The variety of foods produced in lush and moody British Columbia was amazing. About the only illegal item they had to use was salt. Eventually, they learned how to make it: fill a pot with sea water, boil until dry and there's your salt.
It helped that James (or J.B.) was able to whip up stunning meals by looking at whatever food lay within reach and blending it together into something memorable and delicious. The closest I can come to that is what I had to do last week when the snow piled up and I didn't want to dig out and go to the grocery store. I was supposed to feed the missionaries so I had to come up with something filling, using only what was already in the house. Here's what showed up on the table:
CREAMY DIJON PASTA WITH VEGETABLES
6 oz. tube pasta
6 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature (like when do I ever have that laying around? But I did last Friday.)
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 to 2 TB dijon mustard
1 cups diced cooked ham or chicken (I used chicken)
1 (16 oz.) package frozen broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower, thawed and drained
1 (4 1/2 oz.) jar sliced mushrooms, drained (oops, didn't have that. So what.)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook tube pasta until just tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain well.
2. Add cream cheese and milk to pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until cream cheese is melted and well blended with milk. Add pasta and toss to coat.
3. Reduce heat to medium-low. Stir in mustard, meat, vegetables, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are very hot and crisp-tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Serve topped with a sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese. Serves 4, 495 cals. each. From 365 Easy One-Dish Dinners.
To round out the meal, I made homemade bread. (I had the time, stuck at home and all that.) and Peppermint Cream Brownies: Mix 1 batch of cake-like brownies. Bake in two 9x13 pans that have been lined with wax paper, then greased and floured. Shorten the baking time because these layers are thinner. After the brownies cool, frost one layer with Peppermint Cream Frosting: Mix together 4 TB soft butter, 2 cups confectioner's sugar, 2 TB milk, couples dashes of red food color, 1/4 tsp. peppermint extract, 4 tsp. white corn syrup and a couples dashes of salt. {Place the unfrosted layer on top of the frosting, cut and then try no to eat too many of these. Should yield about 36 pieces at 140 cals ea. From the same disintegrating cookbook that gave us Chocolate Marshmallow Pudding, the founding recipe of this blog.
Next up: Redneck Nation by Michael Graham. The author grew up in South Carolina, hated the Bubba-ness of it all and fled to the North. But what did he find up there? A nation whose favorite sport is NASCAR, who watches reality shows on TV where people eat pig rectums, who is overly race-conscious. Hmmm, said he, sounds way too much like where ah cum frum.
Next up: She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Many cow patties, but I excuse most of them because I could see most of them clearly enough to step around them (except for the language) and because the author of this novel worked it all into the growth of the character. The story follows a girl from age 4 to 40, through her confusing childhood, her grossly obese teen and young adult years and her getting-it-together adulthood. I really enjoyed the journey.
Next up: One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash. This is Rash's first novel and it shows, a little. A murder takes place in up-country Appalachia. The book is firmly divided into sections: the sheriff's story, the husband's, the wife's, the son's etc. I had the sense of covering the same territory four or five times, but from different angles. A more skillful writer could have woven these threads closer together. Which is not to say I didn't like the book. I enjoyed the Appalachian lingo. I felt bad for the hard luck of the characters, whose were going to lose their land anyway when a new reservoir covered it all up.
Well, that's all for now. Talk to you again soon, unless a new grandbaby throws me off my schedule.
That would make me illegal by their rules. Am I prepared to do without chocolate chips? Cool Ranch Doritos? Lean Cuisine? Even if the authors claim that your average meal travels 1500 miles to get to your table? Not until I really, really have to. I myself am not about to scour the countryside, finding the local growers of squashes and nuts and honey. I already know some of the tyrannies of agricultural life (and it sure was funny to see the authors discover this. "Hey, James, we've got 160 lbs. of sweet corn here! Um, James, that lady said we have to shuck it, blanch it, cut it off the cob and freeze it tonight or it won't be any good." They stay up until 2 to finish the job. And what does this do to their relationship? Read the book and find out!) and I kind of like the predictability of a life lived closer to sidewalks than pastures.
I agree, there's some screwy things about our food system. Maybe I'll visit my local farmers' market and buy my green peppers there.
The variety of foods produced in lush and moody British Columbia was amazing. About the only illegal item they had to use was salt. Eventually, they learned how to make it: fill a pot with sea water, boil until dry and there's your salt.
It helped that James (or J.B.) was able to whip up stunning meals by looking at whatever food lay within reach and blending it together into something memorable and delicious. The closest I can come to that is what I had to do last week when the snow piled up and I didn't want to dig out and go to the grocery store. I was supposed to feed the missionaries so I had to come up with something filling, using only what was already in the house. Here's what showed up on the table:
CREAMY DIJON PASTA WITH VEGETABLES
6 oz. tube pasta
6 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature (like when do I ever have that laying around? But I did last Friday.)
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 to 2 TB dijon mustard
1 cups diced cooked ham or chicken (I used chicken)
1 (16 oz.) package frozen broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower, thawed and drained
1 (4 1/2 oz.) jar sliced mushrooms, drained (oops, didn't have that. So what.)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook tube pasta until just tender, 10 to 12 minutes. Drain well.
2. Add cream cheese and milk to pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until cream cheese is melted and well blended with milk. Add pasta and toss to coat.
3. Reduce heat to medium-low. Stir in mustard, meat, vegetables, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are very hot and crisp-tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Serve topped with a sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese. Serves 4, 495 cals. each. From 365 Easy One-Dish Dinners.
To round out the meal, I made homemade bread. (I had the time, stuck at home and all that.) and Peppermint Cream Brownies: Mix 1 batch of cake-like brownies. Bake in two 9x13 pans that have been lined with wax paper, then greased and floured. Shorten the baking time because these layers are thinner. After the brownies cool, frost one layer with Peppermint Cream Frosting: Mix together 4 TB soft butter, 2 cups confectioner's sugar, 2 TB milk, couples dashes of red food color, 1/4 tsp. peppermint extract, 4 tsp. white corn syrup and a couples dashes of salt. {Place the unfrosted layer on top of the frosting, cut and then try no to eat too many of these. Should yield about 36 pieces at 140 cals ea. From the same disintegrating cookbook that gave us Chocolate Marshmallow Pudding, the founding recipe of this blog.
Next up: Redneck Nation by Michael Graham. The author grew up in South Carolina, hated the Bubba-ness of it all and fled to the North. But what did he find up there? A nation whose favorite sport is NASCAR, who watches reality shows on TV where people eat pig rectums, who is overly race-conscious. Hmmm, said he, sounds way too much like where ah cum frum.
Next up: She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. Many cow patties, but I excuse most of them because I could see most of them clearly enough to step around them (except for the language) and because the author of this novel worked it all into the growth of the character. The story follows a girl from age 4 to 40, through her confusing childhood, her grossly obese teen and young adult years and her getting-it-together adulthood. I really enjoyed the journey.
Next up: One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash. This is Rash's first novel and it shows, a little. A murder takes place in up-country Appalachia. The book is firmly divided into sections: the sheriff's story, the husband's, the wife's, the son's etc. I had the sense of covering the same territory four or five times, but from different angles. A more skillful writer could have woven these threads closer together. Which is not to say I didn't like the book. I enjoyed the Appalachian lingo. I felt bad for the hard luck of the characters, whose were going to lose their land anyway when a new reservoir covered it all up.
Well, that's all for now. Talk to you again soon, unless a new grandbaby throws me off my schedule.
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