Dinner Menu

Had another 'yen' for Moroccan Chicken with olives and preserved lemon- I have so much preserved lemon it was a good idea to make this dish. I also made some cauliflower and cheddar pancakes- yum!
Preseved lemons are quite easy to make. The key is to use Meyer lemons- really juicy
And here is a picture of the cauliflower pancakes I made~



It was a yellow dinner!

Olympic Comfort Food and.....

Yesterday i had a yen for making German Apple Pancake in my Griswold. What a treat! Today while surfing Twitter I found a link to a blogger: My Sister's Kitchen. Posted was a story about the Amish Friendship Bread. My sil always brings a loaf when she comes to visit and that I love! But on this site I also found variations that can be added and i thought I'd post the recipe here along with the variations~

Amish Cinnamon Friendship Bread
Important Tips:
Do not use a metal bowl or spoon for mixing (see my note about this below)
Do not refrigerate.
It is normal for batter to thicken, bubble, or ferment

Day 1: You receive the fermented batter in a 1 gallon ziploc bag. Do Nothing. Just place the bag on the kitchen counter.
Day 2: Squeeze the bag several times.
Day 3: Squeeze the bag several times.
Day 4: Add 1 c. of flour, 1 c. of sugar, 1 c. of milk. Squeeze bag.
Day 5: Squeeze the bag several times.
Day 6: Add 1 c. each flour, sugar, and milk. Squeeze bag.




y 7: Squeeze bag several times.
Day 8: Squeeze bag several times.
Day 9: Squeeze bag several times.
Day 10: In a large, non-metal bowl, combine batter with 1 c. each flour, sugar, and milk. Mix with a wooden spoon. Pour four 1-cup starters into individual gallon ziploc bags. Give away starters to friends with this set of directions. It is important to follow this sequence exactly.
To the remaining batter add:
1 c. canola oil
1 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
3 eggs
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
2 c. flour
1/2 c. milk
1/2 t. baking soda
1 large box of instant vanilla pudding
2 t. cinnamon
In separate bowl, mix 1 t. cinnamon and 3 T. sugar. Sprinkle into well-greased loaf pans and coat the sides with sugar mixture. Do not use Pam or other non-stick spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until done.
Variations:
Banana Bread:
1 box instant banana pudding
1 mashed banana
2 handfuls of nuts
Chocolate Bread:
1 box of instant choc. pudding
1 T. cocoa
2 handfuls of chocolate chips
Notes from the blogger, Barb~

First, the bit about not using a metal bowl or spoon? Horsefeathers. I think this falls into the “mystique” division. I always mix this up in my Kitchenaid METAL mixing bowl. The only metal things that I really avoid are old aluminum utensils. Aluminum is reactive metal. I haven’t personally seen this recipe react with aluminum, but I avoid it nonetheless. I suspect that the worst that might happen is the batter would take on a grayish cast.
Second, it is NOT necessary to follow these steps precisely. If you forget to do anything with your starter for a week, don’t toss it out. If you WANT to delay making the bread up, stick the starter in the fridge. It will last MONTHS in a good, cold fridge. If it turns pink, it’s spoiled and THEN you should throw it out.
Third, Pam spray works just fine for greasing the loaf pans. Maybe forbidding Pam spray is supposed to make this sound more Amish, but I MUCH prefer the texture that the Pam and the sugar makes on the crust.
Although my paper doesn’t say this explicitly, I have read many different places that only the Amish know how to make the starter and it’s a deep dark secret. But that is also myth. I have no idea if this recipe started in the Amish community, but there is nothing magical about the starter.
In fact, if you DO end up throwing out your pink spoiled starter, but have developed a taste for this friendship bread, you can start your own batch. Simply put 1 c. flour, 1 c. sugar, 1 c. milk, and 1 T. yeast in a ziploc bag and let it sit on the counter. Call that Day 1, and you’re good to go.
Let me know how it goes!
p.s. I used to make Hermann but it died when I had to go to the hospital to deliver our first son. Hermann is similar. Somewhere I have that recipe, but I think it's about the same, if not exactly the same.

Space in E Town

I forgot to post a picture of what we dined on at Space. It is such a cozy, hip place to hang out before going to see the show or before going to a basketbal game. Anyhow here is a picture:
Roasted Beets so yum! And a bowl of marinated olives and I was brave and tried the brussel sprouts. Good time to try something new- when you know if you don't like it, your friend will enjoy that much more! And then the Butternut soup- HOT! HUGE! So delicious on a chilly night! I have to thank my friend Val ( Valslist) who turned me on to this venue. I just don't get out enough!

Ginger Oil/open the fridge and what do you see? Check out:Greg Laswell?

GINGER OIL?So, I like using up what I have in the fridge and last night I thought, I love ginger. I don't go through it as much as I'd like. I actually added it to an egg salad I made yesterday- not a good idea. So, I thought, I'd make some ginger oil! While it was heating up in the pot with the canola oil, I searched the net for recipes using ginger oil. I don't think such a thing as ginger oil works. I did find a recipe for ginger oil- but everything related to ginger oil on the net has to do with aromatherapy. Well, I made my own ginger oil and it's ready. Today is Ash Wednesday. Maybe a dab on some fish might be good?
UPDATE
almost old avocado, red, yellow, orange peppers, sour cream, shredded mozzarella and in the cupboard I see Taco seasoning, chili powder and a can of diced tomatoes. Doing the ATkins thing, this was fairly close to what I should be eating. For my husband, I found a few potatoes and boiled them then added roasted garlic and voila! But I really wish someone else would cook for me and not a restaurant. I think I'm beginning to appreciate many creature comforts and for some reason, I can't let go of 'stuff'. My best advice to myself is: don't let go of anything just yet. Timing is not right. Do you read your horriscope? That helps. But, I'm not in a mood to read that anymore.
I don't have the guts to try the ginger oil....

Last night one of my BF's Cheryl and I went to 'SPACE' in Evanston. Saw this guy perform. Are you familiar with his name? Greg Laswell. He had many onscreen and off screen credentials. I would like one of his CDs. Nice.

I don't think I shall watch Tiger Woods tomorrow- let the networks make their 'in depth' analysis for me. Given parameters of 'his speech', it sounds boring. Or, I've been living too long thru too many of 'these speeches' and I know what will be said.

What's in the fridge? and Julia Julia dinner party!

I am often amazed with what I am able to create out of nothing. I am not that creative with food. And a baker? Yikes. I was afraid of the caramel chocolate tarts that actually turned out. The caramel wasn't quite the color I wanted but I had to use a thermometer so it got to the stage I wanted. I was afraid the amber color would have been way past the right stage for making caramel. But I have made some wonderful pasta dishes with just bacon, pasta and cheese, cream and any kind of tomato product in my pantry. I have so much ricotta in my fridge, I made a simpler version of baked ziti. But I have to admit, the encouragement came from friend Carrie. She's a great cook. I remember there was a time during one of my pregnancies where I couldn't eat chicken. In recent years, I can't get enough of it. Lemons and capers and chicken broth is an extreme favorite for me. And so are eggs- I love poached eggs: over asparagus, over broccoli. The best way to make it is in a skillet of boiling water to which a tsp. of vinegar has been added.








Susan Vance and her husband Mark Spencer had a fun Julia, Julia dinner party over the weekend. Susan served a Beef Bourgioune. Friend Lynn made a delicious salad ( many of us had seconds!) and dinner guest Surgit Rajpal made a panna cotte with marinated fruit. Susan appetizer was a presentation hit: wrapped asparagus nestled in a bouquet of kale~

Friend Lynn made a salad that beckoned most to have seconds~
Dinner guest Surjit made a delicious panne cotte with marinated fruit~



Susan's table was very pretty complete with tulips in the kitchen! The evening was cozy, warm, happy and just plain fun- fun to be with friends and delicious, from scratch, food!

Boston's Oyster Beer

Brewer goes down to the sea for latest blend
( Boston Globe)

One hundred and eighty bivalves, reared from tiny seeds in Duxbury Bay, were harvested on Jan. 21 and driven to the Harpoon Brewery in Boston’s Seaport district.
Upon arrival, oyster farmer Skip Bennett and a salty crew from his company, Island Creek Oysters, helped the yeasty brewers shuck the mollusks. Then, at just the right moment in the brewing process, Harpoon brewer Katie Tame added the oysters to a vat of what she hoped would become a memorable batch of the company’s first limited-edition oyster stout.
By all accounts, Tame succeeded with Harpoon’s 100 Barrel Series Island Creek Oyster Stout, bottled on Feb. 5.
Using oysters to make stout is not unheard of, but it is rare. The idea for an Island Creek Oyster-Harpoon offering wafted into the stratosphere out of the relationship between Bennett, a couple other Island Creek farmers, and a group of brewers from Harpoon.
“As a style of beer, oyster stout can have oysters put in during the brewing process or it might just be brewed to pair nicely with oysters,’’ said Tame, who spent several months in the late summer and fall making 10-gallon test batches to develop her recipe.
“It’s a unique beer; there’s definitely nothing like it out there on the market right now,’’ she said.
The local, artisanal nature of Bennett’s oyster farming and Harpoon’s small brewery make this joint venture, limited-edition oyster stout an especially sweet Boston-area offering.
Bennett starts his oysters every May from teeny oysters (500,000 to a pound), called seeds, that are placed on fine screens in tanks attached to a dock. After about six weeks, when nearly half an inch, they are moved into mesh bags that are held on wire shelves in wire boxes placed on the bay floor.
When the tide is low, the boxes are exposed to the air, and the farmers can scrub the bags of oysters to keep the growing bivalves clean. Six to eight weeks later, by the end of August, when they’ve grown to an inch or more, they are put directly on the bottom of the bay where they grow for at least another year.
“We call them free-range oysters at that point,’’ Bennett joked. Today, Island Creek Oysters has about 30 farmers with leases in the bay for a total cultivated area of 50 acres out of the bay’s 10,000.
Although the same species of oyster is used from Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, each area’s oysters are unique. Just as wines take their characteristics from such environmental factors as soil, sunlight, and humidity, oysters take theirs from salinity, minerality, water temperature, and depth.
Beer depends on a similar (though human-made) alchemy of particular malts, hops, and other ingredients added during the brewing process. In the first stage of the process, crushed malts are steeped in water to produce sugars.
“I tried to choose malts that would complement a briny, salty character and not overpower it,’’ said Tame, whose recipe included chocolate rye malt, black malt, and roasted barley.
After the malts have done their thing, the solids are removed and the liquid is transferred to a kettle for the next stage of the process, known as the boil. Hops are added during the boil - at precise moments in the procedure - to produce desired aromas and flavors. The oyster bodies were added half way through the boil.
“The oyster protein dispersed in the beer, and that protein enriches mouthfeel and body, and helps promote head retention’’ as well as overall flavor, said Tame.
And just what is the flavor and aroma of this winter’s Harpoon 100 Barrel Island Creek Oyster Stout?
“It has roasted notes, with chocolate, caramel . . . a biscuity flavor. It has a smooth mouthfeel, and I’d say it’s lighter than I expected,’’ said Tame. “It’s extremely tasty.’’
The Harpoon 100 Barrel Series Island Creek Oyster Stout is widely available at package stores that carry specialty craft beer products. Each 22-ounce bottle sells for $6 to $9. Typically, Harpoon’s 100 Barrel series beers last about three months on the market before they run out.

Chocolate Caramel Tarts

I had a little friend come over today, Ava, and she helped me finish off the tarts. I used my heart shaped tart pans for a change- duh- good reason and time to use them! I didn't have the creme fraiche the recipe calls for so I made my own which was a combo of whipping cream and sour cream. I haven't tried them but am making more to take to my friend's house tonite- we're watching the opening ceremonies. And I think I shall add the fleur de salt instead of sprinkles- gives it a more sophisticated taste.