Month: October 2012

Hello My Pretty

- Groovy Mom Leave a comment

Happy Halloween. I have no costume. But I have candy to hand out in my bowl, which I carry around the neighborhood with me.
Actually, wait a minute. The twins are 13. My days of walking the kids around the neighborhood might just be over. See, I am accustomed to following the boys around the neighborhood. Since I’m not at home to hand out candies to the kiddos, I’d carry my bowl of candy with me, partaking in a mobile trick-or-treat.

But, the days of that might be over.

The twins are planning on going with friends. Carlito, too.

Hmm. Lightbulb moment for me.

Ah well. So maybe I’ll stay home for a while and hand out candy. Or maybe I’ll pop over to my girlfriend’s house and hand out candy there. I’ve done that nearly every year now. That’s fun, too. Then we head over to a friends and have chili or pizza, the kids watch TV and go through their loot. It’s great fun. A tradition I don’t want to see end anytime soon.

Yesterday I made these MummyDogs:

Sorry, now that I’m married to my iPod Touch, many of my pictures are snapped with the not-so-great camera. Better than nothing. Those were incredibly easy to make. All you need is a tube of the Pillsbury breadsticks and 12 hot dogs. Open the breadsticks and cut each stick into thirds (length-wise). Wrap the hot dog from “head” to “toe” with each piece of dough, leaving a bit of room for the eyes. Place on a parchment lined sheet (or sprayed pan) and bake at 375 for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool for a few minutes and apply the mustard eyes. Go here for step-by-step directions. I blotted off my hotdogs to help the dough adhere better. If you let the dough rest about 10 minutes before handling, it will be more pliable.

The kids ate them. I don’t know that they were appreciated as much as they would have been 5 years ago, but whatever.

I also made some cookies that did NOT turn out as intended (for pictures of how they are supposed to look, visit the website linked in the recipe).

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
2 sticks softened butter
3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar
1 Cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 Tablespoon pure vanilla
3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
10 oz bag chocolate chips
1 bag Oreo Cookies, I used the double stuff

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined. Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.
In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined. Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie. Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie. Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. Serve with a tall glass of milk, enjoy!
Makes about 2 dozen VERY LARGE Cookies – {picky-palate.com}

The above I hand formed. Painstakingly. It was not a pretty process. The dough was like wet sand mixed with glue. They turned out the size of a small saucepan (see above), or pancake.

I decided to make the rest in cupcake form, using dough-cookie-dough and popping them in the oven.

They leaked butter. Have you seen a baked good leak butter? I knew I had seen this recipe all over the place and the cookies, though seemingly under baked, did not leak butter. I salvaged the tops, baking and re-baking my cookies. But I had to admit: I had done something wrong.

Re-examining the recipe, I can see what I did. I used 3 eggs and only used 3 cups of flour. If you do the same, yours will leak butter, too! Well, if you put them in the muffin tins. If you put them on a pan, they will be extremely hard to work with and will spread like gossip in a girl’s bathroom. I still plan on eating one later. I don’t care. The ones that flattened turned out fine. The cupcake ones that are extremely… chewy Frank will like.

Have a great Halloween!

Today I Made Kale Chips

- Groovy Mom 2 Comments

Today:

I made kale chips. I used 1/2 a bag of kale, .5  oz of olive oil, cumin, cayenne, garlic, and salt. I roasted them for about 12 minutes in a 350 oven. I have no pictures. Evidenced only by the remains on the table, some slightly oily fingers and a pleasing heat sensation in my mouth.

I went to the dentist. Every time I think of a million and one ways to cancel my appointment. But I bite the bullet. They cleaned my mouthguard (I grind my teeth), scraped my teeth (they tell me they are excellent), and  got them polished with the whirly circular brush from my nightmares. “Polishing” is THE absolute worst part of the entire process for me. Polishing makes my hands go numb, intertwined in a tense deathgrip across my abdomen. Polishing makes tears come to my eyes, and sometimes spill over. Polishing makes my face dance in ways that bring the hygienist to recall, “Oh my gosh. I’m SO sorry. You hate this part.” Repeated apologies, and movements that are 5x faster than before, getting the job done within seconds.

I need sealants on two of my teeth. Hooray, yay. Oh, that’s an added cost. Naturally. An appointment yet to be scheduled.

I made some cinnamon peanut butter granola to send to Dante.

I did downward facing dog and my silly dog walks over and starts licking my forehead.

I ate blueberries. I sipped tea. I lay still on the ground for 8 minutes, clearing my mind, replenishing my soul.

I reminded myself of what I need to pack for our trip to the cabin — 4-day weekend, hooray.

I promised myself I’d get off the computer at 1pm.

I am fulfilling that promise.

 

Therapeutic Baking: Apple Spice Scones

- Groovy Mom 2 Comments

The temperatures are falling. The leaves are falling. It is impossible for me not to be in the kitchen baking with apples, pumpkins, spices. Simmering soups, pasta sauces.

It’s  therapeutic for me.

I’m pretty well stocked in the freezers, both upstairs and down. Stocking the freezer, then using it up can be therapeutic for me, too.
I see dollar bills when I’m able to tuck something in the freezer for later.

Monday I received another vegetable offering from Gramma Marge (yes, there was more eggplant); I baked part of it (the eggplant – more on that in another post), then chopped and froze the green peppers, adding to my freezer abundance. I still need small staples here and there, like milk or eggs, but I feel like I should be able to “shop the freezer” a bit over the next few days.
I refuse to go shopping this week.

Monday was baked eggplant.
Tuesday, spaghetti leftover from the eggplant, while using up 3 chicken breasts from the freezer. Yesterday I baked.
Wednesday is still in contemplation mode.

Back to baking. I found this recipe for Delightful Apple Spiced Scones with Spiced Glaze. I had all of the ingredients on hand, save the second apple and the buttermilk. But I still had some homemade applesauce dying to get used up and a great desire to bake something that smelled like fall.

I replaced the buttermilk with soured milk (milk with lemon juice – or vinegar added to), and used only one apple (skin on). Somewhere along the line I did something wrong, though. I got to the step where you combine everything and “stir until just moist” – that’s where things looked weird. My kneading was more like playing with something the consistency of oatmeal. What really kept coming to mind was the diaper contents of a baby transitioning to solids. But anyway.

I plopped the mess on my prepared pan, unable to score the scones, but not declaring disaster… yet.

The oven worked its magic on my ploppy mess, filling the house with aromas of fall – just what I wanted the boys to come home from school to.

Looked salvageable. It was very moist. I cut it into 18 pieces, and dredged them through the delicious glaze.
It was very moist, not making for an easy task.
The twins dug in immediately.

Sal thought they were good, Franny said good – but less (or no) apple next time.
I set a piece out for myself, warmed some coffee, and sat down to savor a bite.

The flavor was good, the texture… well, I was hoping for something a bit drier and less cake-like.
Since my photos don’t quite match (in the kneading stage), I’m figuring something went wrong in my process.

Today is my day off. Wednesdays are nice that way.
I’ll be doing loads of laundry, dusting, and cleaning. Visiting the doctor (hatehatehate, but a day off is a good day to do it), making dinner – still have to figure that one out, and keeping myself busy so that I’m not tempted to shop. It isn’t that I’m a shopoholic or anything. We’re working on paying our bills down, and I want as much money as possible going to that. With a full freezer, I figure I can lean on that more and keep out of the grocery store.

We shall see.

Chili Lime Pepper Salad (One Bowl Prep)

- Groovy Mom 1 Comment

I have no pictures of this salad. I’ll just preface with that. Sometimes I take pictures. Others I keep as a photograph in my memory (key harp solo).

My father-in-law lives in a retirement community. On certain days different stores will bring day-old bread or donate vegetables and the residents get to “shop” the goods, or they get a parcel of goods – I’m not really sure. In any case, my father-in-law (and his mother, who both live there) will relieve the guilt of not using their share (?) by passing on to me the remainder of that parcel. Generally it is delicious and appreciated. Other times it is a parcel of guilt that ends up in my garbage due to my lack of ability to either use immediately or freeze it. Sounds simple enough for a person to do, but not always. My brain is flighty.

Last time it was eggplant. Frank’s grandma had made a wonderful caponatina with as much eggplant as she could use, then handed off the rest to me. I like eggplant. I sliced it, breaded it, and fried it. It was delicious and fully consumed. Well, a few of the eggplants were consumed. There were leftovers. They went to garbage after rotting in my kitchen for well past their prime. I was done frying and couldn’t stand the thought of doing any more. Seems to me no matter what you fry it always smells ends up smelling like fried fish, and it always hangs in the air like bad news for about three days.

Well this time, Joe came over with a bag (Frank’s family has a thing with bags – you can’t visit without leaving with an old plastic grocery bag of something – even if it is an article, one piece of paper – it’s in a plastic grocery bag). So we talk in the driveway for a bit, me leaning over his car, him sitting in the driver’s seat with the engine running. We talked for a bit, and then he handed me the bag like there were porcelain dolls in it. It was tied at the top. He looked in my eyes. “I think it is eggplants.” My stomach sunk a little at the thought of frying up more eggplants.

Lo and behold, I went inside the house, opened it up and found four jumbo peppers (and tomatoes, but they were immediately ignored for the peppers)! My peppers were green with hints of orangish red, so I knew they were going to turn into beautiful red peppers.

I love red peppers. I love them – have you seen how expensive they are lately? This, my friend, was a bag of delight. I put them in a basket and patiently waited for them to turn. The tomatoes… I made some spaghetti sauce.

Days later and finally my peppers were ready. Almost too ready. Remember my flighty-ness? I wanted to make a pepper salad so they could be the main character, shining in the spotlight. Usually I make an Italian-themed pepper salad, but this time I went for something different:

CHILI LIME PEPPER SALAD

(one-bowl prep)

Ingredients
2 large red peppers
1 cucumber
1/2 red onion
2 T. olive oil
1 T. sugar
1 lime
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
handful of fresh cilantro (or 1/2 T. dried)

Directions
1.) Cut peppers into bite-sized strips (about the size of a pinky, a teensy smaller); place in bowl. Peel cucumbers (I slice the ends off, cut it in half then peel), de-seed, and cut into similar sized strips; place in bowl. Cut onion into same-sized strips. Toss gently in the bowl.
2.) Over your pepper/onion/cuke mix, drizzle olive oil. Cut lime and half and squeeze the juice of both halves into bowl. Toss gently. Sprinkle sugar, cumin, chili powder over; add salt and pepper to taste. Throw in chopped cilantro (I only had dried). Toss gently again. If you can, refrigerate for an hour prior to serving. If not… dig in.

I ate the leftovers with a sprinkle of feta cheese over. Yum. I like a kick, so in the future I might add some cayenne to the mix.