Ackery

Saving My Bacon: Whole Grain Edition

Longer post coming, but may I rave about the recipe that has saved my bacon, nutritionally speaking? I have long bemoaned my ability to cook rice in a manner befitting human consumption, and thanks to Miss Eliza, I found this little gem. It is idiot-proof, specifically made for brown rice, and so delicious that even Isabelle, who has long hated anything rice-based, was stealing spoonfuls out of the dish. I cut down on the salt, and substitute olive oil for butter, most of the time, but other than that it is perfection.

I don't know much about Alton Brown -- I seem to remember he has strange hair and a manner befitting Bill Nye -- but between this and the lemon curd, I feeling rather warmly about him as of late.

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

We came out of a meeting with a group of people who seem determined to (1) screw over my children and (2) avoid any substantive discussion on the matter, into the pouring rain. And the umbrella was in the van. Now, I like rain more than your average bear, but clearly, we needed something to brighten our spirits, since nothing else today was going to do the trick.

Happily, we had just the thing at home.

Homemade Meyer Lemon Curd, straight from the jar.

We had bought the lemons last week, but the recipe I wanted to make required either a mandoline or "the knife skills of a sushi chef," neither of which I possess. What I DID possess were a dozen eggs that needed to be used up. Hence, frittata for dinner, and after the girls were in bed, a remarkably simple recipe for something the girls would eat in vast quantities, if they could get away with it. We'll use the whites from the eggs to make meringues later this week.

Step one: zest and juice the bejeezus out of some lemons.
 

Step 2: Mix up egg yolks, sugar, and lemony stuff in a double boiler. Whan it's thick, add an alarming amount of butter, one chunk at a time.

Step 3: Self-medicate. Repeat as necessary.

Comfy-Cozy

Cooler weather means that I no longer have to feel guilty about staying inside and puttering rather than frolicking outside in the global-warming induced temperatures with the giant spiders. Instead...

...we can read. These are two particular favorites lately.

...we can embroider. (Ellie is sticking with straight stitch for now.)

...we can knit. Some of us can, anyway. Others just incessantly demand that items be knit to their exacting specifications.

...we can bake, and drink tea, and try to get some work done. (Jane's rock bun recipe, with dried cherries in lieu of glace ones.)

Quite a nice life, really.

Speaking of cozy -- are any of you watching Pushing Daisies? Did you laugh as hard as I did when they showed Emerson knitting handgun cozies and sweater vests? I am not yet sure I love the show, but I am utterly smitten with Emerson Cod.

Summer of the Cheap Cotton Yarn

Summer school started this week, and while Isabelle is lamenting the fact that she can no longer sleep in until 9:30, the fact that she gets to climb rock walls and make deviled eggs and run obstacle courses for three hours seems like a worthwhile trade. (However, if you ask Isabelle, her second class, Word Family Fun is, "not so much fun. The name sounds fun, but the class is...not so much fun. Just coloring and vowels and you can't get a drink." Also, she has this to say about making rice pudding: "I would be very grateful if there was not so much rice in the rice pudding. Everyone cooks rice, but I do not particularly want to eat it.")

Ellie, however, would eat rice. Ellie would eat just about anything that is not nailed down, especially if it is covered in goat cheese. Tonight's dinner, for example, was a salmon, black bean, and goat cheese quesadilla with carrots and root vegetable chips dipped in soy nut butter on the side) Even when she is not asking for disgusting combinations, she is pretty much constantly hungry, and I am hoping that this is tied to some sort of growth spurt, because I cannot keep purchasing this much fresh fruit and fancy cheese on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, I found the dishcloth cotton, cunningly hiding in plain sight next to the TV. And now I've lost my one sock-in-progress, with my only sock-sized DPNs attached, which means that I am going to be knitting dishcloths and string bags until I can do some serious cleaning around here. For various reasons, all of my other knitting and crafty projects are in a holding pattern, so...Sugar and Cream it is!

Sow's Ear

What on earth possessed me to make twice-baked potatoes for dinner? I don't LIKE twice-baked potatoes. I don't like baked potatoes to begin with, and giving them another go-round in the oven does nothing to change my mind. Even when filled with ham and cheese and mushrooms and sour cream, they're still essentially gussied-up baked potatoes.

Sigh.

Now with magical healing powers!

Chicken Chili
Originally uploaded by Ackery.

(If you have me on some sort of feed, bear with me. I have discovered Flickr, but it is going to take some finagling to make things go as they should.)

Isabelle spent most of the morning throwing up, subsisting only on saltines and Sprite. Once she saw that this was for dinner, she perked right up, and ate two bowls, plus green beans and two thick slices of bread.

Chicken Chili with Hominy (and commentary)

This recipe has been lifted from Everyday Food. I’d provide a link, but they don’t have this one online.
I almost always double this recipe and freeze half, which leaves me feeling clever and well-stocked and a bit self-congratulatory. Supposedly, it serves four, and perhaps it would feed only four Visigoths after a long day of looting and sacking, but I in my experience, with good bread and a side veggie, you can feed six and still have enough for a nice lunch the next day. It is quite good the first day, and outstanding the next.

Ingredients
--1 Tbsp oil (I use canola, but suit yourself.)
--1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs
--1 onion, diced
--2 garlic cloves, minced (Chopped garlic from a jar works just as well, really. I’ve never had anyone accuse me of skimping on the garlic.)
--1 med poblano chile, diced (If you have children who live in fear of anything even remotely spicy, or you are lazy, or both, just throw in a can of mild diced green chiles.)
--2 cans (14.5 oz. each) chicken broth (I like the low-sodium low-fat kind.)
--2 cans (15 oz) Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed. (The recipe actually calls for white navy beans, but my grocery store doesn’t carry them. I don’t know why. So I’ve always used Great Northern beans, which are larger and firmer and don’t seem to be packed with quite so much gelatinous crap. I made it tonight with navy beans and was unimpressed, but I suppose any pale bean would work. Also? Don’t skimp on the rinsing. I hate to get all Nigella on you, but you really need to get your hand into the colander o’beans and swish the beans around, because the packing liquid results in nasty scum on the top of your chili.)
--1 can of hominy, drained
--salt and pepper
--cilantro (optional)
--green Tabasco or other jalapeño pepper sauce (optional, but oh-so-good.)


1.) In a large pot, heat and brown chicken, 3-4 min. per side. Transfer to a plate, set aside.

2.) Reduce heat to medium. Add onion, garlic and chile. Cook, stirring often, until onion is soft.

3.) Cut browned chicken into chunks. I like them smallish, because of the girls. Really, it’s whatever size you want to scoop into your mouth.

4.) Add chicken, broth, and beans to pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to an active simmer and cook until chicken is very tender and chili has thickened. I find it doesn’t thicken up tremendously on day one, so I just let it simmer until I’m no longer nervous about salmonella, usually 30-40 minutes.

5.) Reserve ½ cup of hominy to use as garnish, if that’s your thing, and stir the rest of the hominy into the chili. I am not much of a garnisher, and the girls are less apt to question the hominy if it’s mixed in with everything else, so I just chuck the whole (drained) can into the pot. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Garnish each serving with hominy and cilantro, should the mood strike you. I really do recommend the jalapeño sauce, especially if you’ve made a milder version for the small fry.

The picture above really doesn't do this dish justice. Witness poor sickly Isabelle's take on it, though, and perhaps you'll believe. I make this dish at least once a month from September-April, and have for several years. It has never, ever, disappointed.

Delicata Update

For dinner tonight we had baked pasta with prosciutto and spinach, which was nice if a little underspiced ("Mama! Are you putting spicy spicy pepper in the pasta?" "Um.......nope!"), and the delicata squash. Ellie ate practically nothing, neither pasta nor squash, which probably had something to do with the five plates of stir fry she had for yesterday's dinner. Isabelle, however, ate a modest amount of pasta and an entire squash.

They're smallish squashes, but then, she's a smallish girl.

I halved and seeded them, tossed them on a baking tray, and cooked them for 45 minutes, adding just a little butter halfway through. (I put pepper on mine and D's, but not the girls'.

The verdict? They are utterly lovely. They don't have too strong a taste (hence, I suspect, the name), but the flavor is very clean and sweet. The texture is creamy -- nearly buttery. Isabelle felt they would make a very nice pie filling in lieu of "pumpkin guts." She was quite insistent that D didn't really need any squash, and that she should help finish it, until I promised that we could bake the remaining one for dinner tomorrow night.

So if you need me, I'll be at Dominicks, buying up the rest of the lot.

Veggie Tales

If you've spent any amount of time with me at all, you know that I am beyond infatuated with my local Jewel. The people are nice, the produce is outstanding, and I know every aisle by heart. It's probably not the cheapest market in town (Kidding, honey! It's totally the cheapest!), but I can get in and out quickly, and I never get flustered trying to find things. Also, they have a Starbucks, a rather impressive selection of fancy cheeses and olives, and free antibacterial wipes right by the carts (which have a cupholder for the Starbucks). When the girls are acting up or the weather is bad, the checkers insist on sending someone to help me load up the van. It may well be the only thing I like about this town.

So I tend to avoid other grocery stores, but today it just didn't make sense to drive through an extra three construction zones to get there. I hit Dominicks instead, and while it took me twice as long to find everything, wandering through the produce section mumbling, "Lemons? Fennel? Broccoli?" like a tottery old woman, it was well worth it in the end, because I found treasures untold in the squashes.

The late Laurie Colwin had this to say about the Delicata squash:

I have never seen it in any market except my local green market...This sweet, lip-smacking squash makes even the tastiest butternut seem tasteless and weak...If all our vegetables were so full of flavor, drastic measures would not have to be resorted to in order to get people to eat them.

Actually, we don't often go to drastic measures around here, but with an endorsement like that, I just couldn't pass them up. I bought three, well nigh giddy with vegetable love, and I'll let you know how they turn out.