Back in the Kitchen Again

Yep, I had a brief absence from the kitchen again. We have been incredibly busy lately and I've been relying on Steve to do most of the cooking.  This isn't fair to him.  Steve is a fantastic cook.  He works just as hard as I do and deserves to have a break from the cooking too.  As many of you know, I make a weekly menu.  In addition to planning out our meals, I've started assigning who will be cooking each meal.  This keeps me accountable and puts me back in the kitchen.  My return to the kitchen was on Valentine's Day.  That was my gift to Steve.  He had been cooking practically every meal for a month.  He deserved a home-cooked meal that he didn't have to make.  For Valentine's Day I made Buffalo Baked Chicken from my Rachael Ray cookbook.  We also had corn, green beans, peaches and a lettuce salad.  For dessert, I made white chip brownies.  The chicken is good but needs a little tweaking.  The brownies were terrific.  It felt good to be back in the kitchen.  I had convinced myself that I was too exhausted and stressed out to cook in the evenings.  While it's true that I was a little tired on Valentine's Day, cooking seemed to energize me even before we sat down to eat.  Tonight was my turn to cook again.  I made spaghetti with green beans, apple sauce (Grandma's homemade!) and a lettuce salad.  It felt great to be back in the kitchen again even though I merely browned hamburger and cooked pasta.  Everything else I opened from a can or a jar.  And you know what?  That was ok with me.  I was still back in the kitchen preparing a meal for us.  While clearing the table, I had a genius idea to pack my lunch for tomorrow.  Usually I throw it together in the morning... if I have time.  I'm also making granola to go with my breakfast tomorrow.  No more plain yogurt for me.  I'm going back to adding in granola and fruit.  I'm hoping that by having a healthy breakfast and being back in the kitchen, I will feel a little bit more in control of my life.  It has been rather hectic around here and I haven't enjoyed that at all.  

And we're in business!

Tasty Treasures has their first official customer!  Steve's employee Zach asked Steve "If I pay your wife 10 bucks, will she make that cranberry apple thing?"  He's referring to my Cranberry-Apple Chutney that I made for them at Thanksgiving and yes, if he pays me $10, I will make it for him.  I bought the ingredients on my way home from work Friday evening.  I bought enough to make a double batch since I only got a small taste the first time I made it.  Even buying double the ingredients was well under $10.  Steve took Zach's portion to work on Saturday and returned with my money.  I am very excited for this.  I've been wanting to get a side job to supplement my full-time job for awhile.  (Not that we need the money, I just want to have a little extra.)  And this is perfect.  It's something that I love to do and doesn't require a lot of work.   I told Steve that I could probably do a lot of business around Christmas-time making cookie/goody trays for people.  He agreed.  A lot of people where Steve work don't cook or bake.  They think I'm some goddess because I can.  I find it a little funny.  Cooking and baking have always been a big part of my life (thanks Mom!) and it seems odd that someone wouldn't know how.  But back to my business, I did make a tentative price sheet:

Chutney: $10
1 Dozen Cookies: $10
1 Dozen Cupcakes: $10

I know it's not very imaginative to price everything at $10 but it's a start.  I also felt asking more than $10 for a dozen cupcakes or a dozen cookies was a little pricey.  I checked a local bakery's website and priced myself a little below them.  I haven't added cakes or goody trays on there yet.  I'll price those when the time comes.

Food for Thought

    Today Steve and I thought about and talked about food a lot.  We talked about the location of my pantry and chest freezer in the basement.  There's an extra set of shelves that currently don't have a purpose that would make a perfect pantry.  However, the shelves are further into the basement than I prefer.  The shelves are pretty far away from the stairs and I don't want to have to walk all the way across my basement just to get a can of peaches, applesauce or whatever I may need at the time.  Steve said he could move them closer to the base of the stairs for me.  (He actually suggested the shelves as a pantry to start with.)  I also started cleaning my chest freezer.  The chest freezer was my grandpa's and my dad gave it to me.  It had been sitting in Dad's machine shed for awhile so it's pretty dirty.  A little cleaner and some rags, ok a lot of cleaner, and we'll be good to go.  I am excited to have an actual pantry with a freezer.  I can finally shop Fareway meat department's sales and stock up and my mom can give me some chickens from her next round and I'll actually have space.  And I can finally can my own fruit and vegetables!

This leads to the next item that Steve and I talked about today: gardening.  Our backyard already has a garden plot so the hard work is done for us.  I'm excited to have something to do outside.  After living in an apartment, I really do miss being outside.  I'm also excited that this is something Steve and I can learn together.  Hopefully it will go well.  My thumb isn't very green when it comes to house plants.

The garden also leads to another fun food thing: canning!  My mom and grandma have been canning applesauce, tomatoes, jams and pie apples for a long time.  I do have a base knowledge of canning but am excited to try it on my own.  Mom has some duplicates of the necessary canning supplies that I can borrow until I'm set up with my own system.  I told Steve we could work out a trade with Grandma and Mom for our canned goods.  I would like to can salsa, veggies and fruit.  We went shopping today and stopped by Barnes and Noble.  I picked up 2 books about canning: The Fresh Girl's Guide to Easy Canning and Preserving and Canning & Preserving All You Need to Know to Make Jams, Jellies, Pickles, Chutneys & More.  I am excited to read both of these books.  The first book does have a section on growing a canning garden which I think will be helpful.  Both gardening and canning are new to us so we're trying to research before jumping in.

In all, I hope the pantry, the freezer, the garden and canning help with our food budget.  It's not that we have a difficult budget, I'm always trying to save money while feeding us good, healthy food.  I also hope that some of our canned goods will make nice Christmas gifts.

And in more food related news, Bobby Dean has his own cooking show: Not My Mama's Meals.  In this show, he takes some of his mom's recipes and gives them a healthy make-over.  I was excited to watch this show because while I love Paula Dean, her recipes are pretty hefty.  Today he made a healthy version of her Krispy Kreme bread pudding and called it Bobby's Lighter Fresh Fruit Bread Pudding.  The recipe seems pretty straight-forward.  However I'm not sure where we could buy plain whole wheat donuts in Sioux City.  We do have a few bakeries in town and Bobby did say you could substitute bran muffins.  But I think I can make whole wheat donuts.  We have whole wheat flour, a bread machine and a fryer so it shouldn't be too difficult.  I did a quick search for whole wheat donuts  on allrecipes.com and didn't find any.  I did however find a donut recipe that was compared to Krispy Kreme donuts.  I think I can convert it to whole wheat and some of the comments said a bread machine could be used.  Yay!  I also found a whole wheat donut recipe on heavenlyhomemakers.com.  That recipe looks pretty good too.  While we were out shopping today, we stopped by the kitchen store and bought a donut cutter.  (I also picked up a purple scraper with measuring conversions because I couldn't resist.  But that's neither here nor there for this blog post.)  I am excited to try this recipe next weekend.  And for those of you who looked at the recipe and thought "But Theresa, you don't like bananas.  Why are you excited to make a recipe with bananas?"  I'm swapping the bananas for some other fruit to be determined next weekend.  Bobby did say you could do that.

Purple Palace and Conversing Food Style

This past Christmas I acquired a few purple items for my kitchen and had 3 food related conversations in 2 days.  (Is anyone surprised by this?)  I stopped by my second mommy's house on the way to Grandma's for Christmas. While there I got to see Randy and Nancy, Jen, Shane, Cole and Karson and Ryan and Jared.  I rarely get to see all of the Janssens together and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Growing up I was usually at the Janssens' house a couple times a week.  I love them to bits.  Nancy gave me (drum roll please!) a plum Fiesta Ware spoon rest and a plum Fiesta Ware salt and pepper shaker set.  My first pieces of Fiesta Ware! Yesterday we went to Sioux Falls to have a small family Christmas while my in-laws where driving through on their way to St. Cloud to visit Steve's grandma.  We exchanged Christmas presents at Nathan's after supper.  My mother-in-law gave me a purple apron and dark purple plastic plates and forks.  With the plastic-ware was a note that read: "Psst--It's not Fiesta Ware.  If you don't say anything maybe nobody will notice the difference."  I told Linda that I could use them for a fiesta.  I appreciated that Linda was contributing to my purple kitchen and her sense of humor about doing so.  I told Steve that we can save them and if the Vikings get into the Super Bowl, we can use them then.  His response: "It's not looking good this year."  So maybe we'll just use them when I don't want to do dishes someday.

Some families watch sports when they get together for the holidays; some play sports; some sleep; some fight.  Mine talks about food and politics.  Since politics aren't really my cup of tea (no lectures please!  I'm just not that into them.), I usually focus on the food conversations.  Now we all know that my Achilles heel this year for Thanksgiving was the dressing.  I had separate conversations with my aunt Colleen and my grandma about dressing.  Both said they add more liquid than the recipe states.  Grandma also omits something but for the life of me, I can't remember what it is.  This year she added small apple chunks to it.  Grandma also pops her dressing in the microwave on high for 5 minutes to get it started.  Colleen does all of her prep work for the dressing the night before so Thanksgiving (or Christmas Day) is less hectic.  Great tips that I will surely keep in mind for next year.  I will have successful dressing if it's the death of me!

My third food conversation was with my uncle Mark and my mom.  Every year Uncle Mark makes divinity.  It is a very rich Irish dessert made mainly with sugar and corn syrup.  (There is more to it but I don't have the recipe right in front of me at the moment.)  Mom had tried to make divinity once years ago and flubbed it.  Divinity is a very picky thing to make.  Uncle Mark learned how to make it from his mom and has modified his recipe a little to suit him.  The recipe can be made primarily using a standing mixer.  However the batter will start to rise out of the mixer and you must continue to mix it by hand for 15 minutes.  This is usually when Uncle Mark's mom turned it over to him.  I would like to learn how to make this.  It's one of Mom's favorite desserts and a tradition in our family.  (As are Uncle Mark's bourbon balls... but that is a recipe and post for another time.)  Perhaps next year I will ask Uncle Mark if I can come to Omaha to witness the making of the divinity.  I enjoy learning other people's family traditions and making them a part of my own.  Plus it would be good bonding time with an uncle I hold dear.  

Also during that conversation we talked about traditional Norwegian and Swedish food.  Our family is neither but the area my mom grew up in has a lot of Norwegians and Swedes and Scandinavians.  It was a fun conversation.  We talked about lefsa, lutefisk and a whole bunch of other desserts and foods that I can't spell.    Steve is Scandinavian and German so I'm going to try to learn how to make some traditional foods.  However not lutefisk.  If you're interested in learning more about lutefisk, check out this wikipedia entry.  Here's what I know about lutefisk: it is a process of aging fish and it reeks to high-heaven.  Steve has never tried it and I'm certainly not going to.

Purple Kitchen Becoming Reality

       As many of you know Steve and I have been house-hunting.  We have found the perfect house for us.  Built in 1900 with 4 bedrooms and technically 3 bathrooms (the third is in the basement).  An updated eat-in kitchen and a formal dining room.  It has the fancy woodwork from years past that newer houses lack.  Doesn't this house have me written all over it?  We closed on the house yesterday.  Steve's birthday was Thursday so I like to joke that it's his birthday present.  But in reality, it's a present for both of us.  We've been wanting a house for a long time and are excited to get in.  My parents are coming to help us move and paint.  Nathan is already here to help.  The paint has been purchased along with my stove.  I get a brand new stove!  Although it has been stressful to pick out the appliances, it has been fun too.  I'm excited to see my dream kitchen come together and will be posting pictures as soon as it's done.  It will be nice to finally be able to cook and bake in a big space.  In our apartment, we were always moving things on the counter to make room for something.  It was a hassle and we are so glad to be rid of it.

Lesson Learned: Holiday Edition

I learned a few lessons this Thanksgiving weekend.

1.Making homemade dressing the very first time is a pain in the butt.
        -So I'm sure half of this is my fault but homemade dressing is a huge pain.  I hadn't fully read the recipe until Thanksgiving day.  Then the stupid onion wouldn't peel.  Tiny pieces came off at a time.  At this point, I was very frustrated and told Steve to peel it because I wasn't wasting anymore time on it.  I started chopping the celery.  We didn't put our last batch of onions in the fridge and I could tell.  My eyes stung chopping the onion.  I sat down to cut up the bread for the dressing and it turns out I made 2 loaves too many.  Go me.  I had decided to cut the stuffing recipe in half since there were only 4 of us.  In case you ever need to know, the 2-lb loaf my bread machine makes equals 9 cups of bread.  I put everything in the crock pot but didn't reduce the cooking time.  The dressing was slightly dryer than Grandma's.  I'm not sure I'm making this next year.  If I do make it for next year, I think I will cook it a day or two before Thanksgiving and warm it in the crock-pot the day of Thanksgiving.

2. OXO peelers are lethal.
         -Steve cut his finger last year peeling the potatoes.  I've cut my finger in the past peeling carrots.  This year I decided to peel the potatoes so Steve wouldn't hurt himself again.  I peeled the carrots and half of a potato before cutting my finger.  It hurt like hell.  It also causes your finger to gush blood.  I ran my finger under cold water and put pressure on it before Steve grabbed a band-aid for me.  I called my aunt to commiserate about the progress of my Thanksgiving and proceeded to nick my thumb.  The peeler is in a box for Goodwill.

3. Dancing when flouring your turkey bag makes the day a little better.
    -Yes, I dance at strange times.  I blame my mom.  Music was always blaring at home and she was usually dancing to it.  Not only was she dancing to it but she'd usually convince us to dance with her.  It's in our blood.  I also had a mixed CD blaring that contained a lot of 70's rock and 90's alternative music.  Dancing is bound to happen with that combination.

4. Small kitchens are not ideal for making a holiday meal.
      -My kitchen is tiny and I can't wait to be out of it.  Our dirty dishes took up the counter with the sink leaving the very tiny counters next to the stove for Thanksgiving meal prep.  I don't think I have to elaborate on why that's a pain.

5. Gravy turns out better when your mother-in-law helps you make it.
     -My white wine gravy turned out pretty good.  Or so people say, I haven't actually tasted it yet.  Linda whisked the drippings and the wine together as I poured.  I'm fairly certain this is why it turned out this year.

6. The 24-hours for every 4 pounds to thaw a turkey rule is a lie.  It takes longer than that.
     -Our turkey was just under 12 pounds.  I took it out of the freezer the Sunday before Thanksgiving and put it in the fridge.  This allowed 3 complete days in the fridge (not counting Sunday or Thanksgiving day).  Part of the turkey was still frozen on Thanksgiving day.  The directions to quickly thaw a turkey were to place it in cold water in the sink.  We placed it in the sink with cold running water and our turkey thawed.  It created unnecessary stress on Thanksgiving day.

7. Recipes given by family members are the best.
     -My cousin Angie gave me her pumpkin bar recipe after my previous blog post.  She doesn't give it out to very many people but offered it to me.  I'm proud to be among the select few that gets the recipe.  The bars are delicious and simple.  I made them for Steve's employees and they gave me the title of The Angel of Baking Everything.  Thanks Angie!

8. Delegate more food responsibilities next year.
    -After this year, I'm definitely going pot-luck for my next holiday.  Making all of the dishes is a lot of work and Linda had offered to bring food or help.  I'm filing that away in my memory for next year.  I think next year I'll have a list of the dishes I would like to have for Thanksgiving and ask family members to sign up for the dishes they want to make.

9. If your china is packed away, the white Corelle will work just fine and double as serving dishes.
     -Because we're moving in a few weeks, my guest bedroom is full of boxes.  I keep my china in the storage closet in the guest bedroom.  You can see where this is going, can't you?  The boxes are in the way of getting things out of the storage closet.

10. If your gravy boat is packed away, a Pyrex 2-cup measuring cup works just fine too.
    -We don't have a gravy boat or gravy ladle for every day use.  Pyrex is as good as it was going to get.  I found it slightly humorous.

11. Don't be depressed if you didn't have a fancy Thanksgiving table if the food tasted ok.
    -I'm disappointed my Thanksgiving table wasn't as fancy as I would have liked but that's the perfectionist in me coming out.  The food tasted good so that's all that matters... right?

Get Your Game Face On

The countdown to Thanksgiving has begun and so have the preparations.  I'm hosting Thanksgiving again this year.  We're having a very small group.  David and Linda are the only guests that I know are coming.  Other family members are welcome since the smallest turkey available was 12 pounds.  We're going to be eating turkey forever... it's a good thing I like it.  My Thanksgiving menu is:

-turkey
-homemade stuffing (Hey my side of the family, did you hear that? You can stop icking about Stove Top because this year, I'm trying to make the real stuff...enjoy Grandma's at her house.)
-cranberry sauce
-mashed potatoes and gravy
-corn
-squash
-green bean casserole
-veggie tray
       --olives
       --celery
       --carrots
       --pickles
-rolls
-cheese and crackers
-lettuce salad
-pumpkin pie

I had a great idea to do prep all week long... Great idea, right?  The cranberry sauce was made Sunday.  I've made 2 loaves of bread for the stuffing.  I think I need 4.  The recipe says 18 cups of soft bread.  Hey, my side of the family, if I have left-over stuffing you're invited to come eat it anytime you want.  The bread machine made a loaf on Sunday and another yesterday.  Today I forgot to get it ready before we left to get groceries.  Bread takes over 3 hours... that was so not happening tonight after 7pm.  Linda did email and ask what she could bring or help with.  I told her to bring the rolls, cheese and crackers.  I've also delegated the mashed potatoes to her again this  year.  If she only did that, it would be enough.  I know how to make mashed potatoes but the smell makes me want to gag.  I haven't mastered making mashed potatoes and the angle my neck needs to be so the potato steam doesn't hit me in the face.  I hope I never get that mastered.  It just doesn't need to happen.

Tomorrow, I'm making the pumpkin pie (and the pie crusts), the squash and assembling the green bean casserole.  Oh and I work  7-4pm tomorrow.  I'm going to be tired.  I have Mike's Cranberry in the fridge as my reward.  Speaking of alcohol, I found a gravy recipe with white wine in it.  It sounds delicious.  And since my gravy was way too thick last year, I figured up the ante and make it more difficult to make, right?  I am aware that I'm crazy but it's the good crazy.  The good crazy always leads to a fun story.  The scary crazy leads to an interesting but potentially bad story... that's not me.

I'm going to have Steve help me make the squash.  I don't know how to make it.  He made it last year.  Squash usually doesn't make an appearance at my family's Thanksgiving.  Steve really likes it so it's becoming a traditional part of our Thanksgiving dinner.

I was watching the Food Network this past Sunday (shocking, right?) and Guy Fieri was making cranberry sauce.  His cranberry sauce had serrano peppers, orange juice and a chipotle pepper in adobo sauce among other things in it.  As he grabbed the chipotle pepper, he said "that's right.  it gets weirder as you go."  I so want to try this.  But I'm already being adventurous with my gravy and the homemade stuffing and didn't want to stretch myself too far.  Next year, maybe I'll give this a whirl and if it's good, I'll make an extra batch for Darcy.  Cranberry sauce is her favorite part of Thanksgiving.

My crock-pot will be housing the stuffing.  I'm so glad I got the big 6-quart crock-pot.  (Thanks again Nancy and Jen!)  I think I can make that day of but should probably chop the veggies for it and the turkey tomorrow.

As a surprise for Linda and because he likes them, Steve made refrigerator pickles for the veggie tray.  I hope they last until Thursday.  Last time he made a batch, they were gone within a day or two.  Again, I don't know how to make these.  Steve got the recipe from his mom.  The original recipe is David's mom's.  Linda found a very similar recipe in the Winthrop cookbook.  According to Steve, they taste exactly the same.  Isn't it fun when food is a part of your family history?  (Ok, it is to me... I'm weird.)  

And to add to my insanity, I'm making a few treats for Steve's employees since they have to work on Thanksgiving.  (A coworker offered to work for Steve so he has the day off.  Thanks Anthony!)  Steve's employees will get their treats on Friday.  I want to make pumpkin bars and a cranberry chutney.  The cranberry chutney is served over cream cheese and is eaten with crackers.  I really want to try it.  I might have to sneak a bite before I give it to them.  I don't have a recipe for the pumpkin bars yet... is that bad?

I've got my game face on.  Get ready Thanksgiving, I'm cooking and I'm going to kick your butt!