Retro Kitchen

Eating Local / Frugal February / Retro Kitchen — No Comments
13
Mar 11

Meatless Mondays

I feel the need to start diversifying my diet by trying new food items on Mondays… Specifically meatless new menu items. While tomorrow is kind of off the cuff, here’s what I have on the menu.

Breakfast – Oatmeal with Cinnamon and half & half with a couple of scrambled eggs with Veggies.
Lunch – Egg Salad
Dinner – Lentils of some sort with a salad.

I made up the egg salad tonight after getting home from working in the garden. It looks and tastes delish:
DSC_6355

Oh and that rich yellow color you see, the result of the wonderously yellow yolks from Mrs. B’s Chickens (they are fed all kinds of goodies – veggie scraps, weeds from the garden). Here’s the recipe.

3 Hard boiled eggs finely diced
1/4 of a large onion finely diced
1 tbsp dill relish
1/4 cup Mayo (or Miracle whip if you prefer).
ground pepper (to taste)

Put all in a bowl and mix together. Chill until nice and cold. Serve on crackers or bread of choice.

Retro Kitchen — No Comments
15
Feb 11

Welcome to the From Scratch Club Folks

Hey Everyone,

If you’ve wandered over here from the From Scratch Club Site, welcome.  I’m excited and blessed that I won the Vegetable Soups Cookbook. I’m looking forward to receiving it in the mail in a couple days and maybe it’ll give me some options for the cabbage that’s currently in my garden.

Since From Scratch Club is about making connections to the food we eat locally and with our families, I thought I’d repost one of my favorite recipes – my Grandma Pauline’s Gingersnaps.

Grama Pauline’s Ginger Cookies DSC_7067

2 eggs beaten
2 cups sugar
1.5 cups Butter Flavored Crisco
8 Tbsp molasses
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger
4 tsp soda
4 cups flour

Cream together eggs, sugar, Crisco and molasses.

Sift together cinnamon, ginger, soda, and flour.

Mix sifted ingredients into creamed mixture. Chill 1 hour. Roll quarter-sized balls. Dip 1 side in sugar. (Do not press; they will crack by themselves). Place in 325 degree oven. Bake 10-12 minutes and let cook on a rack.

Frugal February / Retro Kitchen — 1 Comment
1
Feb 11

Frugal February – Day 1

The first day of February has kicked off with a raging blizzard over most of the upper midwest and brisk, crisp winds that have dropped the temperatures here in Houston. Since these chilly temperatures are going to stick around for the next few days, I think a nice big pot of chicken soup is in order.

[Note: When I make things like Tandoori Chicken, I'll take the remains of the carcass (back, skin and neck) and chunk them into a freezer bag. When I make chicken soup like this, I'll add the extra carcass bits to the pot and I get a wonderfuly rich, thick and flavorful broth.]

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
3 stalks of celery
2 medium onions, cut into rough dice
3 cloves of garlic, minced (add more if you really like garlic)
6 carrots, sliced
3 bay leaves
3 handfuls of fresh mixed herbs (rosemary, parsley and thyme)
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Thoroughly wash the chicken and clean off any pin feathers you may find on the chicken. You can chop the chicken up if you want, or leave it whole. Put in a very large pot (along with any previously collected chicken parts that you may have stashed in the freezer). Toss in about half the veggies along with the bayleaves and two handfuls of the herbs (you’ll use the rest later). Fill the pot with water until almost full. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down. Let the chicken simmer for 1-3 hours skimming the top of the broth as necessary. When you’re satisfied with the broth, pull all the chicken out of the pot and put on plate to cool.

Add the rest of the veggies and herbs to the pot and bring back to a boil and cook for about 20 minutes. While the additional veggies are cooking, pull the meat off the bones and discard the remains. Add meat back to the pot.

Other ideas for this soup:
Add peas, bok choy or other veggies.
Add Egg Noodles (either frozen or homemade)
Add dumplings.

Once everything is cooked, check to see if additional salt and pepper is needed. Then serve yourself and your family a nice warm meal!

(PS I’m planning to make some of this tomorrow night and I’ll take some pictures then).

Paula's Picks / Retro Kitchen / Reverb10 / Weighty Matters / Zeitgeist — 2 Comments
26
Dec 10

Soul Food

Today’s Reverb10 Prompt

December 26 – Soul Food -What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul? (Author: Elise Marie Collins)

I try not to think of food as anything other something that sustains me. I believe that the ideas of “soul food” or “comfort food” are misplaced. Food is not something that feeds my soul. My soul is fed through exploring the world, reading the Bible, writing letters to God in my prayer journal and relationships with people whom I love and respect, and sharing my thoughts with others. Food does not provide me with comfort. Comfort is something I receive from being held by R in a tight hug, being held while I cry, or talking with my Grandma Pauline when I’m blue.

So with that being said, I’ll share my favorite recipe with you for Tandoori Chicken. It’s quick. It’s easy. And it’s full of flavor whether you grill it or bake bit in the oven. And it’s one of my go-to recipes that I make on a regular basis.

Chicken Tandoori
4 Chicken quarters skinned
3/4 cup Plain Yogurt
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ginger pulp
1 tsp garlic pulp
1.5 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp tumeric
1 tsp ground corriander
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp oil
(you can add a few drops of red food coloring if you want to have the red color you get in Indian Restuarants).

Rinse and pat dry chicken quarters. Make two deep slits in the flesh of each piece. Place in dish and set aside.

Mix together the yogurt, garam masala, ginger, garlic, chili powder, tumeric, corriander, lemon juice, salt and oil. Beat until well combined.

Pour the yogurt spice mixture over the chicken and marinate for at least 3 hours (I did mine over night and had no problems)

Preheat the oven to 475 and bake until chicken is cooked through and evenly browned on top.

Garnish with salad leaves and lime wedges.

NOTE: I did mine on the grill and it was nummy. I did about 15 minutes on one side and then 10 minutes on the other.

Chicken Tandoori

Eating Local / Project 43 / Retro Kitchen — 3 Comments
18
Aug 10

Fig Preserves

Last weekend’s new recipe project: Fig Preserves from Bayou Woman
Fig Preserves-1

11 half pints are in the cupboards.

Eating Local / Retro Kitchen — No Comments
8
Aug 10

Two New Keepers in my Cooking Repertoire

One of my goals this year is to try new things in the kitchen. The first thing I tried happened yesterday after I got my milk allotment at the local farmers market. While I’ve had yogurt before, I’ve never made my own yogurt. My goal with this experiment was to see if it was worth my time and effort to do this on the a regular basis – it is.

Homemade Yogurt and Spiced Peaches

Homemade Yogurt and Spiced Peaches

The longest part of the yogurt experiment, other than the fermenting after adding the culture, was getting the milk up to temperature and keeping it there long enough for the milk proteins to reorganize themselves. I deem this mission a success and homemade yogurt is now something I will be doing regularly. The great thing is that I can use my current batch of yogurt to reculture new batches.

The second addition is a seasonal recipe that will allow me to have peaches when they are out of season and super expensive in the store – Spiced Peaches. My Aunt Mary sent me my grandmother’s recipe a few weeks back and I found a couple more recipes on-line. I combined them all and came up with these:

Spiced Peaches

Spiced Peaches

You wouldn’t think that vinegar and peaches go together, but you don’t taste the vinegar at all. Instead you taste sweet syrup with cinnamon and cloves in it.  I’ll post the recipe in the next few days.

Oh yeah, not only do spiced peaches go well with yogurt. It’s fantastic when it’s slightly warmed and spooned over vanilla ice cream.

Eating Local / Project 43 / Retro Kitchen — 1 Comment
2
Aug 10

Looking at Dairy Options

Tonight I am in Dairy heaven. For in my fridge, I have two half gallons of Jersey Milk from a local farmer. They look something like this:

Fresh Cow's Milk

This, my friends, is what real milk looks like. Not that smooth, white milk you find in most grocery stores. That milk has had most of the good stuff pasturized out of it so it can sit on a shelf longer. Instead, I have a luscious pale yellow cream layer that sits on top of silky white skim milk. From it, I can make cheese, butter, yogurt, sour cream, whipping cream and half and half. Plus I can have milk to drink as well.

So after I am done here, I’m going to go peruse Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll and decide what I need to order from cheesemaking.com so I can play with my wealth of milk, and create truly local versions of some of my favorite things.

Retro Kitchen / That's Life — No Comments
4
Jul 10

Saved – Day 4


R. sent me this video this evening from Youtube. It features the Swedish Chef making Popcorn. And it brought back memories. Memories of gathering around the TV and watching The Muppet Show. Memories of laughing with my family. Memories of big pans of popcorn laced with butter and salt (and if we were lucky, may be some spice drops or candy corn were hidden in our bowls). So I made some popcorn tonight – the old fashioned way without a microwave.

What you need to make old fashioned popcorn

3 Tbsp oil
1/2 cup of loose popcorn (you can find this in the snack section of the grocery store it usually comes in a bag or a jar)
1/2 tsp of fine salt
1/2 stick of butter
Deep pan with lid.
smaller pan to melt the butter with.
More salt (to taste)

Place pan on medium high heat and add oil. When the oil shimmers in the bottom of the pan, add the popcorn and sprinkle the half teaspoon of salt over it. Put lid on the pan and shake to mix the oil, the corn and the salt. Continue to shake the pan every thirty seconds or so. The corn will begin to pop as soon as it gets hot enough.

When the popcorn begins to pop, start melting the butter. Keep your eye on the butter so it doesn’t melt. I always give the pan a swirl or two.

Keep moving the popcorn pan until the intervals between pops reaches two to three seconds. The pan should be almost full when you are done.

Pour half the popcorn into a bowl or pan. Add half of the melted butter, a little more salt if you like and then stir the popcorn to distribute the butter. Add the rest of the popcorn to the bowl and repeat the butter and salt process.

Sit back with a loved one and enjoy!

Eating Local / Retro Kitchen / Take a Picture / Zone 9 Gardening — No Comments
5
Jan 10

Garden 365 Day 5 – When Food and Art Come Together

When Food and Art Come Together

Retro Kitchen / Weighty Matters — No Comments
29
Dec 09

Something that made me go HMMMMM???

I’ve seen a number of things that made me go “Hmmmm?” lately. But this is one of the wierder ones that made me laugh.

I was doing a computer based training module at work. This particular module was on the Food Pyramid – specifically meat and dairy. Because beans are a good source of protein, they are included by the USDA as part of the Meat group as well as the vegetable group. One of the things that made me shake my head is the inclusion of falafel in the beans group. While falafel are made from garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chickpeas) or fava beans, personally I would not include them in the “bean” group when the rest because they are not in their “whole” state and garbanzo beans are listed.  If you are going to include falafel then why not hummus too? Oh wait hummus probably has too fat to be “healthy” because it contains olive oil and Tahini (sesame seed paste). Well falafel are fried people and that isn’t exactly “healthy” either.  

Also on the list is tofu, various vegetarian bean burgers, and tempeh (a fermented, cooked soybean cake) and texturized vegetable protein. Call me a bit of a food snob, but why are processed items being included list under “Dried beans and peas”? Also why aren’t these things included on the list under vegetables since you have them listed here?  The USDA doesn’t collectively lump processed foods under the grains, they are instead called “refined grains”.  Processed dairy is also split out into “Dairy based desserts”, “cheeses”, and “yogurt”. So why the change on Meat and Protein?

There’s a lot of things I don’t like about the food pyramid, but inconsistencies drives me nuts.

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