It's A New Dawn and We've Got Peas

One of my soul mates, Jamie, is a psychic and she has her own online radio show.  She is a natural for radio, with her confident voice and happy laugh.  Every week she brings new insight, and sometimes guests, to her broadcast.  This week, I was one of her guests.  My NutriMirror BFFs Lynn and Kel were guests, too.  We talked about NutriMirror and had a wonderful time getting the message out.  Being on the radio was a fun experience.  It was not only fun; after the show, the three of us were all buzzy from the incredible energy of doing something new and wanting to do it some more!  Based on Jamie's reading for me this week, and previous readings, we three are going to become even more familiar with online radio when we launch our own show.  Right now we are in the mulling it over stage.  If you'd like to hear us on It's A New Dawn, click here:  12Radio It's A New Dawn   Our show was on May 24 but I encourage you to listen to all of Jamie's shows - they are worth it!

The garden took a hit this week when hurricane-force winds blew through on Tuesday evening.  There has been very little rain around here this spring; the weather maps show rain all around us but we have only had a couple of cloudbursts.  On Tuesday we had the high winds and a splattering of rain, not enough to really benefit the garden.  The winds knocked over our big tomato plant and the peas that were taller than me.  We got them all stood back up, and Greg rigged up a network of twine that's keeping things upright.  We have peas now!  Not enough to pick for a dinner of peas, ham and shrimp, but we will be there soon.




Peas!  May 27, 2011

 The peahouse is progressing.  Next year we will reconfigure and plant the peas inside instead of outside, so they will naturally cling to the chicken wire as they grow right up to it.  This year we've been training the peas onto the chicken wire, hooking the little tendrils on and in some cases tying the plants on.  These are about thigh-high now, and have peas on them too!




2011 peahouse, the first of many

 The thing is, we planted two kinds of peas:  English peas, and sugar snap peas.  We didn't bother keeping track of what was planted where, so at this point I'm not sure if we are supposed to eat the pods or shell them.  Greg says we will know when the time comes.  I hope he's right.  (He usually is, as I've learned over our 23 years together.)

Our gardenias are starting to bloom now, too.  I would love to chop these bushes down to about a foot tall after they finish blooming.  I am a big believer in pruning.  Many people consider pruning to be bad, because they like the look of overgrown ungainly plants.  I prefer the way things get all lush after they've been pruned.  Right now we will just enjoy the heavenly fragrance of the gardenias.  Between the gardenias and the roses, when the breeze is just right it smells like heaven in my front yard.



The blossoms only last a couple of days but the bushes are loaded with buds

 Every year we like to grow a vegetable or two that we've never grown before.  This year we have beets, broccoli and onions.  The beets are leafed out and looking good, but not near ready to harvest.  We assume we will know when the broccoli is ready; not yet, but the plants are big and healthy.

Always wondering what the next unraveled leaf will reveal!

The onions were weeded this morning after I saw this picture!

 I've already picked one onion, to use in a delicious tomato and cucumber salad.  The recipe was posted on NutriMirror by Christinediane and it was so good I'm going to link to it.  I hope she doesn't mind!

Tomato, cucumber and feta salad

The recipe didn't call for onion, but since I knew my onions were big enough to eat I decided to add one.

This year we have a lot of volunteer plants coming up from ones we planted last year that seeded for this year.  Nasturtium, cosmos, and zinnias are everywhere.  I noticed something growing by our rosebushes that was not there last year, and that I did not plant.  I don't know what these sweet little purple flowers are!  If anyone does, please let me know!



Mystery Plant

 When we had to move our fence last month, I dug out the cucumbers and moved them to the front yard.  They are really happy there and we have a few tiny cucumbers already.



See it?  Right under the yellow flower.

 We have zucchini and a cantaloupe about the same size.  So cute!

Sadie stays in the yard with me while I'm puttering around.  She wanders around smelling everything and randomly barking.  My sweet Sadie is 13 now.  I hope she'll be around for a few more years; in the meantime, I am cherishing every minute with her and taking lots of pictures.  She fills a very large spot in my heart.  One of these days I'll get around to writing her story.  It's very interesting, involving the front page of the Bristol, Virginia newspaper and a journey from golden retriever rescue in North Little Rock, Arkansas to Leesburg, Virginia, at the tender puppy age of six months. 



Sadie on Patrol

 It's Memorial Day weekend, the start of beach season here and the end of my trips to the oceanfront until September.  I can't take the crowds, the parking meters, and the drunken revelers everywhere.  The beach is so awesome in the off-months, when it is possible to be the only person on the beach for miles around.  Happy weekend everyone and thank you to all of our service men and women.  It is great to be free and I am grateful to everyone who keeps that possible.

Strawberry Pickin' Day

When the strawberry farms tell us it is time to pick our own, Greg and I are usually the first people out there, the minute they open on a Saturday morning.  We drive out to a part of Virginia Beach that is still country, good old Pungo.  Pungo has an annual Strawberry Festival.  We attended the festival one time and vowed never to return.  Too crowded, too hard to park and unpark, just too much.  We have yet to go to the Peanut Festival in nearby Suffolk and we have lived here for 11 years.  I have a love/hate relationship with Mr. Peanut and should probably go to the Peanut Festival at least once.  I'll put that on my bucket list, right after "learn to speak Spanish."

So today is Strawberry Pickin' Day.  I had a hair appointment this morning, and Greg was helping a friend decide if his bathtub is cracked, so we didn't get out to Pungo at our  normal early hour.  We didn't get out to Pungo at all.  We drove down the street about 2 miles to a little farm stand and bought 5 things of strawberries.  I don't know how big the things are - a pint or a quart or something.  You can see them in the picture.  We also bought some fresh-picked asparagus, which I will roast to go with dinner tonight.  Yum.



Locally grown strawberries and asparagus

 Then we went to the grocery store to buy ice cream and whipping cream and some kind of cake-like item to put the strawberries over.  We usually buy the little spongecake cups; last year they came in chocolate too.  We discussed the possibility that there would be no little cakes at the grocery store, much less chocolate ones.  Greg said his mom always served strawberry shortcake over big Bisquik biscuits.  I said yes, and I could never stand that.  I told him I realized he grew up eating strawberry shortcake that way, and I grew up having it over pound cake, or the little spongecake cups, so I understood how you get attached to a childhood favorite.  I offered to make a sponge cake, even a chocolate one, but in the end we just went to the store.  We bought a pack of the little spongecake cups, and a pack of little angelfood cakes for me. 

Greg has been working like a lumberjack all morning.  When we got home with the strawberry haul, he wandered off to take a nap.  I got started getting all these strawberries organized.  First, I made some chocolate-covered ones.  I just picked some big berries, and melted some Ghirardelli chips in the microwave, and went to work.  Look!



Guess how many are left?

After making the chocolate covered strawberries, it was time to make strawberry shortcake sauce.  I filled a big bowl with water and put the strawberries in it, to rinse off any bugs.  One bee and two inchworms came off, and I hope that was all of them.  Sadly, they died, and I feel guilty about that.

Years ago, one fine evening when I served strawberry shortcake to my father-in-law, he went off on a rant about how there's never enough sauce.  Not just  my sauce, nobody made sauce right.  There's just never enough juice and the berry-to-juice ratio is always wrong Wrong WRONG.  My usual method was to clean the strawberries, slice them into a big bowl, and sprinkle sugar all over them, stirring them occasionally until a sauce formed.  To my knowledge, that was the accepted way.  After his dad's rant, Greg and I decided we were going to make the sauciest strawberry shortcake sauce the world has ever known.  Our first attempt was a winner.  We sliced half of the strawberries, and put the other half in a blender, pureed them, and poured them over the sliced berries.  Over time I've perfected this method and now when I puree the strawberries, I add a cup of simple syrup.  Luscious, plenty of sauce, never any complaints.

Oh, anyway, after washing all the strawberries I laid them out on clean towels on the counter, dried them pretty well, and got to work cleaning them.  Really dark ones went into the blender.  Pureeing them makes kind of a light pink colored sauce so I try to use the darkest ones to get a darker sauce, because I think it's prettier.



Beautiful clean strawberries

 While I was prepping the strawberries I made a simple syrup of 1 cup sugar in 1 cup water, over a low heat until the sugar dissolved.  That needs to cool down before I can make the sauce.

When I had cleaned most of the berries, and had a blender full and a big bowl full, I put the remaining berries on a sheet pan and they are in the freezer.  They will go into a plastic bag and be used in a future recipe.  I love that there is no waste with this purchase.  The strawberries will be eaten, the tops will go into the compost, the little blue pints or quarts or whatever are biodegradable so I can use them in the garden. 



Nothing is wasted

There is a skylight right over the counter where I usually take pictures.  The sunlight on the sliced strawberries makes them look like orange peppers.  Just as a little reminder, this is not a photography blog.  We have two digital cameras; one of them, the battery is always dead soon after I recharge it; the other one, I somehow turned off the flash and don't know how to make it come back.  The manual is around here someplace (note to bucket list: learn how to turn the flash on and off).



Puree the strawberries and simple syrup

Now comes the fun part. Put about 1/4 a cup of the simple syrup over the sliced strawberries and stir; put the rest of the simple syrup into the blender. Puree the strawberries, and pour over the sliced strawberries. (Helpful Hint:  Make damn sure the bottom is screwed onto the blender correctly.  I wasted a bunch of time cleaning up the blender and the countertop after I blended the strawberries.)

Stir, taste, swoon. These will sit in the fridge until time for dessert tonight, and the berries will soak up a little of the sauce while they sit there.

Saucy enough?



Sundried Tomato and Feta Scones

It's 7:30am, and we've been to the grocery store, I've made Scottish Oatmeal Cakes, homemade Frosty Paws for Sadie, and Sundried Tomato and Feta Scones.  My house smells like a pizza parlor.  My kitchen is trashed. 

A dear friend of mine is turning 45 this month.  I was on etsy.com, one of her favorite websites, browsing around to see if anything caught my eye that was worthy of a 45th birthday present.  As usual, I got sidetracked when I saw a picture of scones.  I had no idea that etsy also published recipes!  Next thing you know every website out there will have recipes on it.  Yay!

I printed the recipe for the scones, entered it into NutriMirror to see what the nutritional stats were going to be like, and just about fell over.  The sodium alone was enough for an entire day.  So I got to work revising the recipe.  This involved an email, text, and phone call to the Country Tart for advice.  Is Greek yogurt a good substitute for heavy cream?  Is wheat flour ok to use when it says to use all-purpose flour?  Can I use sundried tomatoes instead of roasted tomatoes?  Is she talking to me naked in the shower?  After confirmation that I was fine with all the substitutions, I carried on with my day. 

First I went into the post office and mailed off one of my media copies of Balanced Days, Balanced Lives to the local NPR lady who does a lunchtime show that many times involves health and nutrition issues.  Then off to the health food store, where I dropped off another media copy, and purchased some no-sodium baking powder, scallions, and feta cheese. 

This morning I made the scones.  Look!

Since I changed the recipe so much I am hereby dismissing the etsy recipe and claiming this as my own. 

Here's the recipe, with my adjustments:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sundried Tomato Feta Scones
Makes 8 scones

Ingredients:

1/2 cup wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sodium-free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
4 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
3/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 egg slightly beaten
4 oz feta cheese
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes in olive oil
2 green onions, finely sliced
Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place the flour, baking powder, garlic salt and butter in a food processor. Pulsate everything in 3-second intervals until the mixture resembles coarse meal. If doing this by hand, use 2 knives, a pastry blender or your fingers.

Transfer everything to a large bowl. Stir in heavy cream and egg, mixing the dough by hand until it comes together.

Add feta cheese, roasted tomatoes, and green onions. Gently mix the ingredients by hand until the savory ingredients are evenly distributed.

On a floured surface, form a big dough ball. Flatten the dough into a 1 inch disk and cut it in 8 equal pieces.

Bake for 15 minutes on a baking stone or a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Remove scones from baking sheet and cool on a wire rack.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I did not bother with pictures of every step.  My hands were all yucky from mixing the dough by the time I realized that a blog works better when you put pictures on it.   

First I went into the pantry for my wheat flour.  I had forgotten that I used most of it recently on another scone recipe, and only had 1/2 cup left.  So much for lowering the sodium substantially.  Next time I will make sure I have wheat flour on hand. Wish I'd checked before we went to the store.
The sodium-free baking powder did help considerably, though.  Did you know that one measley teaspoon of regular baking powder contains 488 mg of sodium?  Also 23% calcium, so it does have that to say for itself.  Since they lowered the sodium limits for people 51 and over, to 1500 mg/day, 488 mgs of sodium in one tiny ingredient in one recipe, even when you divide it by 8 servings, just isn't very appealing.  Even without the sodium-laden baking powder, this is kind of high per serving. 


Anyway, these smelled incredible as they baked, and they look like they are going to rock me jailhouse rock.  We will have them later with some Beach Baked Beans I made yesterday.

Between the Frosty Paws, Scottish Oatmeal Cake, and Scones, my kitchen looks like a tornado blew through.  So I'm off to clean up now.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

ps:  for the Frosty Paws, I use a big container of vanilla yogurt, 2 bananas, and about 1/2 a cup of water.  Blend in the blender, then put in little tupperwares until frozen.  Like most other things, it is a whole lot cheaper to make your own than to buy the fancy ones from the store.  Also, no added chemicals.  Sadie adores them.

pps:  so much for waiting until later to try them.  I couldn't stand it anymore so I ate one.  Please make this recipe - you will not be sorry, I promise you.  They are awesome.  AWESOME!!!

Beach Baked Beans

I am craving baked beans.  Probably because I've been low in fiber recently and my body is not in the mood for that.  Tastespotting had lots of recipes that I looked at, and settled on one for Boston Baked Beans.  I'm not even going to refer you to the blog because I ended up changing the recipe so much the blogger would never recognize it!  So I have changed the name to Beach Baked Beans (copyright Serenity Swamp).

I used the following ingredients:

• 232 grams Jacob's Cattle beans (I logged these as Great Northern beans, because I can't find the nutritional information for Rancho Gordo beans, even though it might be on their website)
• 4 slices of thick bacon, cut into about 1/2 inch pieces
• 114 grams sweet onion, chopped
• 12 grams fresh garlic, chopped
• 2 T honey
• 1 T brown sugar
• 1 t of fantastic chili peppers in a tube that I buy at Harris Teeter in the produce department
• 1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
• 2 t hot/sweet mustard (from a Hickory Farms gift set Greg got for Christmas)
• 1 t yellow mustard
• 1/8 t Kosher salt, dash of black pepper

Soak the beans, drain and rinse them

Bring the soaked beans to a boil in a large pot filled with 8 cups of water.  Reduce to a simmer and cook, uncovered, until the beans are softened but fully intact, 45-60 minutes

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees

In a dutch oven, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp

Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until translucent

Add 3 cups of the hot bean liquid, honey, brown sugar, chili peppers, molasses, mustard, salt and pepper

Bring to a boil

Drain the beans and add to the bacon/onion mixture

Cover and put in the oven for 4-5 hours until the beans are completely soft and the liquid is thickened

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alrighty then.  One thing I changed from the blog recipe I copied was I decided to mention that you have to put the beans in with the bacon/onion mixture before you put everything in the oven, unlike the blogger, who said nothing about it (see Lynn?  It's not just you).

While the beans cooked, I made the rest of the recipe.  First, cook the bacon until crisp.

cooking the bacon

This, my friends, is my Aunt Betty's famous cast iron baked bean pot.  Aunt Betty was one of my grandfather's 11 siblings, and she was the last of them when she died just a few years ago.  Aunt Betty made the best baked beans anyone has ever eaten.  Every year at the family picnic at her house, we could count on them being there.  Not to mention her incredible macaroni and cheese.....    After she died, the family was asked if they would like anything of hers, as they were cleaning out the house in order to put it on the market.  My brilliant sister Robin asked for Aunt Betty's bean pot for me (wait a second while I cry - that just got me all choked up.  Thank you Robin - I love you).  Robin also gave me a copy of Aunt Betty's baked bean recipe.

Come to find out, it was canned beans that Aunt Betty doctored up quite a bit, and the instructions were very unclear as to how long you were supposed to cook them.  It could have been days; there was no way to tell.  I haven't made Aunt Betty's baked beans, but I have had her bean pot on the shelf in my new kitchen on top of the cabinets.  It looks so nice up there, along with some other cast iron items like my fried chicken dutch oven and an Asian style lantern. 




Shelf decor

Today since I was already using my regular bean dutch oven to simmer the beans, I asked Greg to get Aunt Betty's bean pot down from the shelf so I could start the other ingredients cooking in it.  I had to pry the lid off of it with a butter knife and was kind of afraid to open it, but when I did, there was nothing bad in there.  This pot is so nicely seasoned!

OK - back to Beach Baked Beans. Where was I.....  right.  When the bacon is crisp, add the onions and garlic and cook until the onions are translucent.  Then put in 3 cups of the hot bean cooking liquid.  The recipe I found said to add 3 cups of water, but I had a whole lot of bean liquid so decided to use that instead of water.  Then put in all the other stuff.

Drain the beans

I drained the beans over a bowl so I could reserve the liquid in case I needed it.  It's a good thing I didn't need it, because right after I mixed the beans into the bacon and onions, I squeezed out my dish cloth right over the bean liquid bowl.  Oops.

Mix the beans into the bacon and onion mixture:

I think I have way too much liquid in here but time will tell.  I didn't use a whole pound of beans like the blog recipe did; I used the end of a bag of Jacob's Cattles I had opened a while back.  Oh well.  If it doesn't all soak up and get thick, I will remove the lid at the end and leave the beans in the oven for about 20 minutes that way.  Plus, we have honey wheat bread to go with dinner, so who really cares if they are too juicy.

Now put them in the oven for 4-5 hours.  After about 3 hours, start feeling happy because these smell so good!

They have been in the oven for almost 5 hours now, and the beans aren't quite done - very close.  I ate a bean and a tiny piece of bacon - these beans are going to be delicious!! 

There is still too much liquid in the pot so as soon as the timer goes off, I will take the lid off and put them back in the oven.  Greg will start the charcoal for the grill, and by the time the steaks are done the beans will be perfect.  That is my plan, anyway.

It's been 5 hours and I declare it time to take the lid off.  I'm getting hungry!  This is what they looked like when I took off the lid.



I wish you could smell them



Yes, this will help my fiber immensely!

Well, the verdict is in.  After cooking the beans for another 1/2 an hour without the lid on, they were delicious.  A couple of things I would do differently next time: 

• take the bacon out after it's cooked and only add it in when I add the beans
• remove some of the bacon fat before I cook the onions
• use an appropriate amount of liquid (or more beans in the first place - Greg said I should have doubled the recipe, they were that good!)
• cook the beans a little longer before adding them to the recipe

Other than that these were freakin' awesome.  Slightly sweet, slightly spicy (slightly too firm beans).  I did not take a picture of the final product - it looked just a little darker and thicker than the picture above.



Black Bean and Corn Salad

Yeah, it doesn't get much better than this.  A big spoonful of this salad over some spinach, or some brown rice or a nice grain, and you've got a whole meal!  I'm planning to eat it over nothing at first, then gradually add it into every meal until it's all gone.  It's that delicious.

I did not take pictures as I made this recipe but now I wish I had!  I pulled it together from various recipes I found online, including the vinaigrette.

Here's how I made it.

Ingredients:

Black beans    230 grams (I used Rancho Gordo, and weighed the beans after I soaked them)
Corn   268 grams (I used Del Monte no sodium added canned corn, and weighed the corn after I drained all the liquid off)
Avocado   200 grams (one whole avocado)
Red onion  125 grams (1/2 a medium red onion)
Red pepper   203 grams (one whole red pepper plus a hunk I had leftover in the fridge)
Jalapeno  18 grams (one jalapeno, ribs and seeds removed, chopped really fine)

For the vinaigrette:

Lime juice   40 grams (2 fresh limes)
Olive oil      51 grams (it looked right)
Kosher salt   1/2 t
Fresh garlic  4 grams (one clove, finely chopped)
cumin  1/2 t
honey 10 grams (one dip in my honey jar with the honey-dipping stick)
black pepper - a couple of grinds from the pepper mill


First I made the vinaigrette.  Then I chopped the avocado, and put it into the vinaigrette and stirred it around.  Next I chopped the onion and added it to the avocado in the vinaigrette.

Technically, first I cooked the beans, but I did that yesterday.  Just beans and water, nothing else.  I wanted them to be plain and soak up some of the vinaigrette.  After the beans were drained and cooled yesterday, they went into the fridge to wait until today.

I put the beans in a great big bowl, then drained the corn and added that.  I chopped the red pepper and jalapeno and threw that in, then dumped in the vinaigrette with avocado and onion, and stirred it all together.  Then I took a picture, and put the salad in the fridge.  After I finish writing this I'm going to eat a big ol' bowl of this for lunch!  I think it's going to taste even better tomorrow.

Check out the awesome stats!!  Even with 1/2 teaspoon of salt, the sodium is really low in this dish.  Cooking your own beans is worth the time it takes.

Naan, Delicious Bread from the East

Recently on Nutrimirror, Lynn Matava's  SERVING up a SMILE Tuesday column included a picture of spinach pizza on naan bread.  I have seen this picture on her blog, too, and  every time I see the picture I wish I was eating that spinach pizza.  Recently Greg and I were talking about naan bread and how good it is.  We said we should make our own; it's been ages since we've made bread.  And by we, of course, I mean me. 

When we got sober 19 1/2 years ago, I was at a loss for what to do with all this spare time I had, now that I wasn't at the Moose Lodge hammering down the Coors Lights all the time.  One Saturday I was reading the paper and came across a recipe for Cuban bread.  Why not? I thought.  So I made the recipe, and it was good as far as I know because at that point I had never had real Cuban bread.  I had so much fun making Cuban bread that I started making other breads.  My favorite thing to make was cloverleaf rolls.  After a couple of months, the bread frenzy died out.  A few years ago we were given a bread machine, so any time I've made bread it's been in the machine.  And I haven't even done that in years.

Anyway, so Tuesday I see that damn spinach naan pizza picture again, just a few days after talking about making naan, and that did it.  I went online and found a recipe for naan and today, I am making it as we speak!

Here is the recipe I used:  Naan Recipe.  And here it is in person for your convenience:
***********************************************************************
Naan
User Rating 4.5 Star Rating
By Saad Fayed, About.com Guide

Naan is a flatbread found in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and other surrounding countries. Naan is served for dipping or stuffed with a variety of meats and vegetables. Topping can also be placed on top of the bread.   Naan is like pita, yet softer and most of the time larger. It can be frozen in freezer bags for up to 30 days.

10-12 servings.

Ingredients:
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3/4 cup warm water
• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup ghee (see recipe below) or vegetable shortening
• 3 tablespoons plain yogurt
• melted butter for brushing

Preparation:

Measure 3/4 cups warm water in a measuring cup. Add sugar and yeast. Allow yeast to soften and stir until yeast is dissolved. Cover measuring cup with towel and allow yeast and water to froth for 5-10 minutes.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour and salt. Add yeast water, yogurt, and ghee (or vegetable shortening)and begin to knead for 5-10 minutes until a dough forms.

Place dough in bowl coated with oil and turn dough around to evenly coat. Cover bowl with towel and allow to rise in a warm area for about 1 hour or until the dough has doubled.

Preheat oven to 400. Divide dough into 10-12 pieces and roll out on floured surface into circles. Place rolled out dough on greased cookie sheet or baking stone and brush with melted butter.

Cook in oven for 8 minutes or until lightly browned and puffed up.

Serve naan immediately or store in pantry or freezer.


*********************************************************************
I got all the ingredients together, having decided to use Crisco instead of driving all over town looking for ghee (and I'm happy to say I did not get sidetracked into trying to make my own ghee).

I mixed together the warm water, sugar and yeast, then stirred until the yeast was dissolved.  Then it had to sit for 10 minutes with a towel over it, bubbling and brewing away.



Then it went into the mixer with the flour, salt, yogurt and Crisco.  The directions say to mix it until a dough forms, about 5-10 minutes. 

I'm not sure how to tell if naan dough is formed, but the way I figure, the ancient Middle Eastern women who invented naan didn't have a Kitchen Aid mixer and had to mix it by hand.  That must have taken forever.  So I used the full 10 minutes, sending mental kudos to the ancient women who really must have been wondering if all that mixing was going to make a good bread dough, the first time they did it.  Or she, who knows if it was one ancient woman or a whole group of them who cooked together.  Probably a group.  They threw out random ideas like "throw in 1/4 cup of ghee!" and mixed it all together and just gave it a shot.  GOOD JOB ANCIENT WOMEN!  I salute you!  You have to wonder where they got yeast, or how they invented ghee. 

When I dumped it into the oil-rubbed bowl, it was a goopy blob, kind of sticking together.  It looked like it would look if I were an ancient woman and had been mixing this goo by hand with a stick for the past 4 hours and decided it was as ready as it was gonna get.

Trying to roll it around so it got coated with oil on all sides was a joke.  I just kind of patted it together and rubbed the oil on top.  Then covered with a towel, and now it sits on my stovetop presumably doubling in size for an hour.

You know what really stinks?  By the time this naan is cooked and ready to eat, it will be way too late for lunch.  We are having ham, sweet potatoes and cauliflower for dinner so we'll have some naan with that, but where is my spinach naan pizza?  Lunch tomorrow, hopefully. HA!  If there's any naan left, that is.  Maybe we should have spinach pizza and ham, and save the cauliflower and sweet potatoes.  Yeah. 

It's been an hour now, and the dough is bigger but I'm not sure it's doubled.  I turned on the oven to preheat to 400 degrees, and will leave the dough sitting on top of the stove while that happens.

OK - oven is heated, here we go.  I dumped the dough out onto the floured counter.  It's very gooey and smells nice and yeasty.  Then I cut the dough into 12 pieces.

The instructions say to roll out the pieces into rounds but as usual, I'm going to ignore that.  I like long naan, never heard of round naan.  I'm sure it's fine when it's round, just not my style.  I floured my hands and tried not to get too much flour into the dough as I patted it into longish pieces.  The dough is seriously gooey so this wasn't exactly easy, but not a huge hassle.  Brush with melted butter, into the oven for 8 minutes.



After 8 minutes I took them out.  The tops weren't really browned, but they looked cooked through.  A later taste test showed that they probably could have stayed in the oven a couple more minutes, so on the next batch I left them in for 10.  Also on the next batch, I added some garlic powder to the melted butter before brushing them.  After they cooked 10 minutes, I took them out of the oven, and flipped them over on the hot pan to sit for a few minutes, hoping that would brown the tops a little bit.

Nice and brown on the bottom!

I made 12 pieces and I think the next time I make this (because there will be a next time) I will only make 10, slightly bigger ones.  Delicious!!!



Mashed Potato Soup

We are going away next week, and a friend is staying at our house to take care of Sadie, Pedro and Ozzie.  Friend is having dental surgery and will be recuperating here, away from her children (they are staying with Friend's Parents).  Friend was here the other day, and we asked her what kind of food she would like us to have for her.  She said oh anything, I'm not picky.  I know that "not picky" and "just had dental surgery" can clash, so I decided to make some creamy soup for her.  I went on Tastespotting and found this:

http://www.natalieskillercuisine.com/2010/07/baked-potato-soup-and-garlic-ciabatta-bites.html

Natalie said she had a secret family ingredient in the soup, so I decided to make this recipe.  I won't be making the garlic ciabatta bites this time.  For convenience, here is the recipe; but check out Natalie's blog!  I am calling it mashed potato soup since there is nothing in it that is baked.  The secret family recipe turns out to be a thing of cream cheese with chives and onions.

Baked Potato Soup

yield: 6 large portions

1 large White Onion
3 Garlic Cloves
1 TBS Butter
6 cups Chicken Stock
10 medium Idaho Potatoes or 6 large Russet Potatoes, peeled and medium diced
1 (8oz) container Kraft Philadelphia Chive and Onion Cream Cheese (1/3 less fat or regular)
3 slices Bacon, cooked and diced
1/2 cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1/3 cup Green Onions, chopped
Salt & Pepper, to taste
1 – 2 cups Milk, thin to desired consistency

1. In a deep pot add butter and turn to medium heat. Once butter has melted add garlic and onions and saute a few minutes until aromatic. Turn heat to medium low and caramelize, around 10 minutes.

2. Add the stock and potatoes to the pot and bring to a boil. Let boil for a few minutes before bringing the heat down to medium-low. Let simmer for 45 minutes until potatoes are soft and falling apart. Use a potato masher to mash the potatoes into small pieces.

3. Let soup cool for a few minutes. Use a slotted spoon to scoop out half of the potato mixture that should have settled on the bottom of the pot. Add to a blender and also add a few cups of liquid. Blend until completely pureed and smooth. Pour back into the soup and turn heat back to medium – low.

4. Add the cream cheese to the soup and slowly let it melt. This will take anywhere between 30 – 45 minutes. During this time add the bacon, cheese, salt and pepper. Stir occasionally to mix in the cream cheese.

5. After the cream cheese is completely melted, adjust the soup with milk to your desired consistency.

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Drat, I forgot to buy scallions.  I think a whole onion and the chive & onion cream cheese might be plenty oniony enough.  We'll see.

"10 medium Idaho Potatoes or 6 large Russet Potatoes" can be anything, depending on your personal interpretation of medium/large.  I have seen russet potatoes the size of a football.  I am using 11 smallish-medium potatoes.  Smallish-medium to me is where a potato fits in the palm of my hand with my fingers slightly bent.


Small? Medium? Large? You be the judge.

I have scrubbed the potatoes and I am about to peel them now.  Peeling potatoes is a pain in my butt, but I am going to give this another chance and try to get zen with it.  I love chopping vegetables, so why can't I love peeling potatoes?  At least I can try.

haha - I have put this off for 10 minutes while I cruised the journal room at Nutrimirror.  OK NOW I'm going to peel potatoes. 

Done. That only took 15 minutes, but it felt like at least 30.  I tried getting zen, but my mind kept wandering.  Anyway, on with the show.

Chop the onion and garlic, and saute in 1 T butter.  I use unsalted butter for everything these days instead of regular butter.    Carmelize the onion and garlic, then add the potatoes and 6 cups of chicken stock.  I used turkey stock I made and froze the day after Thanksgiving.  I have had plenty of occasions to use the turkey stock since Thanksgiving, but I kept forgetting it was in the freezer.  We are trying to clear out the freezer to make room for Friend's food and I have spotted the turkey stock in there every day this week, which is apparently what it takes for me to remember to use it.  I melted 4 cups of frozen-in-ice-cube-trays turkey stock, and added 2 cups of water.  Even diluted, this will taste better than store-bought stock!



Turkey stock cubes, melting

 Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer for 45 minutes.  I put the lid on it, slightly off center so steam can escape.




Bring potatoes, onions and garlic to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes

 I am not going to put hot soup into a blender.  I'm going to use an immersion blender.  It's just more fun, and less dangerous.

After blending the soup, it has the consistency of really wet mashed potatoes.  I put in the cream cheese and the cheddar (I used about a cup).  Now it has to cook while the cream cheese melts.

After this cooked for a while and the cream cheese melted in, it was still a very mashed-potato consistency.  The recipe calls for two cups of milk.  I put in one cup of milk and stopped.  The consistency is now like very thick soup, not very thin mashed potatoes.  It is a fine, fine line.

The recipe also calls for putting 3 strips of bacon into the soup.  It does need something with some texture, and I'll crumble some bacon over it when I serve it, but I didn't mix any into the soup itself.  And like I said, I forgot to buy scallions.  I wonder if we have any dried chives to sprinkle on top.  I will also sprinkle some grated cheddar cheese over it. 

Now I wish I was making the ciabatta bites.......

These are the stats for the soup the way I made it, not following the recipe exactly.




Sadie was very helpful while I cooked, snoozing away with her woobies.

Now that we've had a bowl of soup, I can honestly say that it was really pretty bland.  Adding bacon and cheese at the end helped with that, but I really wish I'd remembered to buy scallions, or that my chives were growing right now.  It was definitely creamy and tasted like potatoes!