You Know You're Southern When...

I once told a co-worker I had eaten black-eyed peas for dinner.  She asked what I had them with - the answer was nothing.  I like sweet potatoes, and have eaten a sweet potato for dinner.  I love black-eyed peas...from a can...fresh...in "cakes"...in pretty much any form.  So for dinner, when I needed something quick, I went to my quick favorites.

I started a sweet potato cooking in the microwave, then put a pan on the stove to heat up.  When it was hot, I swirled in some oil, chopped a small link of andouille sausage, and sauteed until it seared and sizzled.  Then I dumped in a half-drained can of black-eyed peas.

As the peas heated, the potato finished, so I cut it open and made a few strategic cuts to make it easier to eat. 

I swirled the pan of sausage and peas, and when it was hot, dumped it on the plate with the sweet potato.  It was such a warm, satisfying dinner - yes, it smacks of southern tradition - that took me less than 15 minutes to pull together.  This is true comfort food!

Family Brunch

Every once in a while we have a confluence of family in the area. A few weeks ago this happened, and we decided to host everyone for Sunday Brunch. With nine adults for brunch, I knew we'd need a spread. Being my usual self, I decided to have fun with this!

Menu:

+ Fruit Salad

+ Monkey Bread

+ Biscuits with Homemade Peach Preserves, Homemade Plum Preserves and Honey Maple Butter

+ Sausage, Egg and Cheese Casserole

+ Smoked Salmon Pinwheels

+ Shrimp Cocktail

+ Mimosas (of course!)

Obviously some of these items were store-bought and required little effort on my part, but it was fun to put together the whole spread, and boy was it yummy! I bought the shrimp and the salmon pinwheels, and in the interest of time baked biscuits from a can. One fun feature was that my homemade jams were made with fruits from my CSA last summer, and I had the last few frozen peaches to put in the fruit salad!

It was such a yummy and relaxing way to end the weekend, and I loved everything!

Fruit Salad with Mint and Honey

Peach Preserves, Plum Preserves, Butter and the Little Lady (hiding my Honey Maple Butter!)

Shrimp Cocktail and Salmon Pinwheels

Monkey Bread and Egg Casserole

The Sausage, Egg and Cheese Casserole was easy - I put it together the day before and just popped it into the oven on Sunday morning. Here's how I did it - it's based on a Cooking Light recipe for a Sausage and Cheese Breakfast Casserole, but I made a few adjustment of my own!

12 ounces sweet Italian turkey sausage

2 cups skim milk

2 cups egg substitute (like Egg Beaters)

1 tablespoon dry mustard powder (like Colman's)

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon ground pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 eggs

16 slices of bread, crusts removed

1 cup shredded low-fat cheddar cheese

1/2 teaspoon paprika

Brown the sausage, stirring to crumble it. Remove from heat and drain any excess fat. Allow to cool.

Stir together the milk, egg substitute, mustard powder, salt, peppers and eggs in a large bowl, whisking gently.

Cube bread slices. Add bread, cheese and cooled sausage to egg mixture.

Spray a baking dish (I used a lasagna dish, which is a little deeper, and is about 8x12) with cooking spray, and pour in the mixture. Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours, up to one day.

When ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove casserole from fridge and let stand at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.

Sprinkle top of casserole with paprika. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until top is lightly browned and eggs are set. Let stand for at least 10 minutes, and serve. It's also great at room temperature!

Warming Trends

When it starts to warm up for the season, I love having salads for dinner. My husband enjoys them too, but then sometimes complains about being hungry soon after. Solutions: more protein and more fiber in the salads!

This week we FINALLY had two consecutive days of warm weather (now I'm holding out for warm AND sunny!), so I decided to make a lovely salad for us for dinner! I usually start with store-bought salad greens, for speed. I added a can of black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed, for more fiber, protein and general staying power. I added some toasted almond slices, and chopped up an avocado as well.

The other major addition was quinoa - a plant-based, complete protein. It's quick to cook and is a great grain side for many meals, and it was a wonderful addition to the salad. I put the saucepan on the oven, and while it cooked I put together the rest of the salad and the dressing.

For the dressing, I went for a light, citrusy vinaigrette.

juice from 1 tangerine

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon honey mustard

1/3 cup oil (I usually use a combination of olive and canola)

salt and pepper to taste

Whisk together the juice, vinegar and mustard. Add the oil in a slow, steady stream, whisking constantly. Dip a piece of salad green into the dressing and taste for flavor. Add salt and pepper to taste. I like dressings on the tangy side, but if this is too tangy for you, just add a little more oil.

I about half the dressing on the salad and mixed it, then gave the rest to my dressing-happy dining partner! This salad was delicious, and it kept us both satisfied! I can't wait for the warm days to come...

Happy Spring!

Now that it's finally warming up again, I'll get back in the saddle and post more food (and fun!) here! I'm excited about some new things I've been trying, some new cookbooks that I've been reading and the impending return (two months isn't long!) of my beloved CSA! Keep your sets tuned in here for coming adventures and an occasional recap of some lovely meals over the winter... Enjoy every last bite!

Mmm...a warm and hearty dinner for a cold winter's night!

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Happy New Year!

Brioche cinnamon bun and morning bourbon at craftbar!

The dusty road sundae at The Parlour at Fortnum & Mason in London. Mmmm!

Bacon week at Restaurant 3!

A Love Letter for My CSA

This Wednesday evening was both happy and sad in my kitchen...it was the end of the season for my CSA with Bull Run Mountain Vegetable Farm.  It's been one heck of a run, as you can see by perusing the posts over the summer.

I am incredibly glad I tried it.  I am even more glad that I did all the research on local CSAs available to me.  The Washington Post Food Section publishes a list of local CSAs every winter, usually in February.  When the 2010 list came out, I narrowed it down to those that deliver in Virginia, then began by looking at all the websites.  I will confess that one didn't get considered because it didn't have a website, even though the description sounded great.  I narrowed it further to those that offer fruit shares, because I wanted to get fruit as well.  I researched and read and explored online and then took a plunge - I emailed Bull Run to inquire about shares.  I got a pleasant email response from a person, Leigh, within a day and a half - and decided that response was enough to make me commit.  A real person was on the end of the line there, and that means something.  I may not go to the bricks-and-mortar bank often, but when I do, I still bank with the same inconvenient credit union because of the people.  I figured this CSA would work for my first run.

On my CSA's website, the farm has a link to an opinion piece about CSAs not being for everyone.  I read all of those details, that you can't always know what you'll get because of the weather and animals eating the greens and onions that refuse to grow, and I thought "I'll try it - I think this is for me."  I know folks who have gone the CSA route and had a wonderful season, but hated the bureaucracy associated with that particular CSA.  I know folks who have had a poor experience with a CSA.  It truly runs the gamut, and you can never know what to expect.  Feeling a little unsure about what to expect from Bull Run, I was relieved that the CSA folks acknowledge that not everyone enjoys the CSA experience.  Thus I entered the experience thinking it would be okay if it was terrible, too - I would just know it's "not for me."

The first day, I showed up, gave my name, got a bag, and walked down the row of bins picking up my vegetables.  Leigh was the guy there checking names, the farmer, the delivery guy - the one-man wonder who served as the face of Bull Run to me.  He was pleasant and full of information about the vegetables and ideas on how to use them, but only offered advice when asked.  He was honest, telling us a few weeks into the season, that the onions weren't growing, and he was going to pull them and give us baby onions.  When I missed my first of two weeks of plums, he gave me extra plums the second week to make up for it because I told him I LOVE plums.  He told us not to saute the sorrel, as it would turn into a gray blob.  Other than that first week, I don't think I told him my name again, but Leigh became a part of my weekly routine.

Now at the end of the summer, I realize I won't be stopping in Alexandria every Wednesday to pick up vegetables, apples and eggs, and I will miss it.  I still have two dozen eggs in the fridge, a bowl full of apples, and - an end of season treat! - honey from Bull Run's bees.  I ate one of the sweet potatoes and an apple from this week's haul already, and as it dwindles down, I'll look back at my pictures of the summer's bounty and smile.  For now I get to eagerly await next spring, when I return to that parking lot, to the fresh eggs, to the wonderful vegetables, and to summer's fruit...when I return to my Bull Run Mountain Vegetable Farm CSA - I can't imagine a better CSA for me.

Curry-ing Favor

So I recently cooked for two, after a long spell of cooking for one.  My proportions seemed a bit off (I had way too much rice!), but the dinner was fun - and it's so much easier to cook for two!

I had some lovely sweet potatoes, some peppers, a load of garlic, some frozen shrimp, canned coconut milk, canned pineapple tidbits, a lime and some jarred Thai red curry.  All the ingredients necessary to concoct a lovely curry...except Jasmine rice.  I did have some sushi rice, and while the short grain is not ideal in my mind, it certain serves the grain's purpose in a curry dish, soaking up some flavors and serving as a conduit of the mixture.

I started by sautéing the peppers and garlic in a little bit of sesame oil.  While these heated and began to soften, I popped the sweet potatoes in the microwave.  While this is a little cheat, it cuts out so much time, making it very appealing for hastening dinner to the table.  They cooked in the microwave, then I peeled and chopped the hot potatoes, and added them and the canned pineapple to the pan with the peppers and garlic.  I also added approximately two teaspoons of the red curry paste.  Stirring and heating, this was making the kitchen smell so yummy!

After most of the water had evaporated from the addition of the pineapple, I added in the frozen shrimp, stirred and let heat for a few minutes.  Then I added in half a can of coconut milk, stirred, and let it cook and mingle the flavors.

I salted the rice, put it in bowls, and topped the rice with the curry.  What a lovely way to use the sweet potatoes, as they took on some of the heat, but maintained their rich flavor and consistency.  A wonderful, and fairly quick, weeknight dinner!

Plums Galore!

This summer I missed a week of my CSA while I was away.  That week there were PLUMS in the fruit share.  I simply adore plums.  The following week, I expressed my excitement about the availability of plums that week, too, as I had missed the first week.  My wonderful CSA farmer exclaimed, "Oh you missed them last week?  Let me give you more!"  And thus I went home with 30 plums.

I am not kidding when I say I love plums, but a person can only eat so many plums in a week, before they start to go bad and get a little soft.  However, finding myself newly interested in making jams, I decided that plum jam could be a lovely adventure!

I pulled peels from the plums, and measured out how much fruit I had, then used a little over one part sugar to two parts fruit (it was about 60% sugar to 100% fruit).  I added some lemon juice and let it cook down.  Those plums broke down quickly into a soupy, sweet, fruity compote, but still required some intensive cooking time to take on that jammy consistency.

Sweet and richly purple, this jam was not very chunky with fruit, but was still very thick and amply fruity.  I quickly used the funnel to pour jam into the sterilized jars.  I sealed them, processed them and let them cool until they made that lovely little POP that told me they had sealed.  One jar went away as a gift, but the other is awaiting opening for some lovely hot biscuits, or perhaps with some pork tenderloin.  I can't wait!

Veggie Chowdah...

So the bounty of late summer left me with a drawer full of veggies in my fridge, and I was thinking about creative ways to use all of them, perhaps even in a manner that I could enjoy later this year!  My mind turned to soups, and I smiled.  I love chowders (or chowdahs, as New Englanders in my life like to say!), so decided I would make a non-traditional veggie chowder.

I started by cutting up all my veggies.  I used potatoes, corn, mushrooms (not from my CSA, but I love mushrooms!), bell peppers, a couple hot peppers, some onions and some garlic.  I started by boiling the potatoes until they were relatively soft.  I then drained them, added some fresh water to the pot, and pureed some of them with my immersion blender.

Separately, I sauteed the mushrooms, then added those.  I then sauteed the onions and garlic together, then when they began to caramelize I added the bell and hot peppers.  I added all of this to my potato mixture, pureed a bit more, and added my corn.  At this point, I added a bit more water and let it cook down a while as the vegetable flavors melded.  To this point, the only seasoning was the hot peppers adding a nice bite to the soup. 

After another quick puree, I added a bit of salt, stirred and cooked.  Then I tasted again, added a bit of cream to make it a touch richer, and stirred.  It was spicy, fresh and rich, with only a touch of cream to make it less healthy. 

I poured most of the soup into freezer containers, and have it in the freezer for later in the fall, and even winter!  Some of it, though, I had to have for dinner then.  It had a nice, slow heat to it, and tasted like a garden of fresh vegetables.  I am excited about enjoying it in the cold weather, too!

Belated Birthday Baking Bounty

In our home we celebrated a birthday (or two!) a little late this year, but with great fanfare.  Having recently made an AMAZING chocolate cake, I knew where to begin - with the Deep, Dark Chocolate Cake in BakeWise.  This cake is truly great.  Having now used it twice, with folks who really know and love chocolate, it is a decided hit, and will be my go-to chocolate cake now.

I decided to top the cake with The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook's Vanilla Buttercream frosting.  While the proportions are estimates, certainly, their instruction to whip the frosting for much longer than you think you need to is well taken.  The frosting is utterly light, yet so rich!

I also tried something new, a suggestion from BakeWise (this Shirley O. Corriher knows what she's doing around a cake!).  A variation on the chocolate cake recipe calls for a "Cake Soaking Solution."  While I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I did use it to create a light syrup, which is poured over the cake layer when the syrup is hot, melting a bit of the chocolate and adding extra moisture to the cake before it is frosted.

 When I had frosted the first layer and placed the second layer, this looked like a giant whoopie pie, which made me giggle and consider (if only for a moment) simply leaving it in this state.

However, I decided to continue with the rest of the assembly.  I added another drizzle of the hot soaking solution to the top layer of the cake.  It lends the cake something of a glazed effect, and makes the cake remain moist and luscious much longer!  Then I added in the remaining frosting, swirling the top into a slight, snowy peak.

As a final touch, I added some dark chocolate shavings to the top of the cake - a mature finish for a decidedly indulgent cake.

When it came time to serve the cake, I cut small pieces, as this is RICH.  However, everyone devoured it, and my 10-year-old niece enjoyed a second piece, in honor of her belated birthday too.



Even three days after the cake was baked, and two and half days after assembly, it had not dried out at all.  The remaining piece was gobbled up, and just as enjoyable, on day four!  Mmm...

Preserving Summer

This summer I enjoyed some of the best peaches EVER.  However, toward the end of the summer, I started to get a little sad about the fact that they would soon be no more.  I pondered how to save them in such a manner that I could enjoy them later in the year - especially when it's cold and dark and there is no fresh, local fruit available!

Some peaches simply got peeled, cut into chunks and frozen.  These will be yummy either in smoothies or just thawed and eaten as-is.  However, I still had a lot of peaches.  Having never experimented with making jams, I figured I might as well!

The experiment began with some exploration of recipes and methods.  I found the University of Georgia's National Center for Home Food Preservation to be very helpful; it had instructions on how to do the actual canning, complete with times for sterilizing jars, processing the jars and how long it should take to cook the jams, even.  For recipes, I trolled the internet and looked through a few cookbooks, too.

Ready to begin, I started by peeling and cutting up my fruit.  I dumped it, along with the sugar and lemon juice, into a dutch oven over medium heat, and stirred as it slowly degraded the fruit.  I used about two parts fruit to one part sugar, with the juice from half of a large lemon (it was a juicy lemon).  This cooked down and cooked down, filling the house with the smell of fresh peaches.

In the meantime, I had the jars boiling to sterilize them.  When the jam seemed ready, based on my using a spoon and seeing how gelatinous the mixture was, I pulled the jars out of the boiling water.  I then used a funnel to dump the jam into the jars, capped them, and quickly put them back in the boiling water to process.

After processing, I removed them and let them sit on the kitchen counter.  A bit later, I was rewarded with a reassuring POP as they sealed.  They are now in the cabinet, awaiting slightly cooler days that call for warm corn muffins, maple butter and fresh peach jam...I can't wait!

The Adventures of the Most Awesome Birthday Cake Ever, Part 3: The Big Reveal

The final part in a multi-part series on bang-up birthday cakes gone ballistic!


I know what you're thinking...this cake is insane.  But you know that can't be it...there's MORE!

The cake you saw in the last post lived overnight in the refrigerator (which was taped shut by the lady of the house to prevent the birthday boy from peeking at his surprise of a culinary creation).  The next morning, a quick heat to a saucepan of cream poured over some dark chocolate, set, and then stirred, yielded a gorgeous chocolate ganache to top the cake.  Poured over the chilled cake, it quickly settled into thick, luscious ribbons of chocolate across the top of the cake.

This concoction was almost perfect, but it still lacked pizazz.  Still having those chocolate chip cookie chunks (remember these?), they were crumbled more and sprinkled across the top of the cake.

At last, the cake was prepared!  It looked gorgeous as is, but as it is THE MOST AWESOME BIRTHDAY CAKE EVER, we HAD to have candles!

The birthday boy was overwhelmed with joy at the glorious cake that was his, on the occasion of his birthday.  For more on the celebration, and a cross-section of the cake, see this blog.

Everyone enjoyed the cake, though it was VERY rich.  About two thirds of it gotten eaten during the party, more at a Dither rehearsal the next day, and still more in an office the following day.  This left one final piece for the birthday boy to enjoy ON his birthday!  I think it's safe to say that this cake took the cake!


Thus concludes the adventures of the Most Awesome Birthday Cake Ever!