Haiku Tuesday!

Apple and plum pie
Baked in my oven Sunday
and made a big mess.

But the result sure was pretty even if I do have to clean the oven now where the pie bubbled over. Note to self: invest in a non stick liner that can be easily cleaned.

Haiku Tuesday and a flood

After the flood stops
many loads of laundry lead
to odd drying spots.

I've finally gotten around to washing everything that was in my closet when I discovered there had been a leak two apartments above mine that my management company (Vantage Management for those of you keeping track or looking for a landlord to avoid) had neglected to properly deal with by finding out how far the damage had gone. There were gallons of water in my closet that sat there for a couple of days. Sadly a great deal of stuff was damaged including a bunch of fabric and some dresses that had the colors run because they sat in the water. I'm still fighting to get the management company to at least pay for part of the damages. Of course it is now 3 weeks later and they haven't returned my calls or responded to the certified letter I sent. So stay tuned....

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

I got a new toy the other day: an immersion blender. Amazon was having a sale. That coupled with the weather in New York finally hitting actual fall temperatures meant that it was time for soup. Plus as an extra bonus I got a leek in this week's CSA bounty. (CSA pictures will be up soon from what I have, I promise.) So I made up a Cream of Cauliflower recipe.

1 big leek
3 medium sized potatoes (or in my case about 12 tiny Nicola potatoes from the CSA two weeks ago)
1 Tbs herbes de provence
2 Tbs fresh chopped parsley
2 Tbs butter
8 cups chicken stock
1/2 a cup of cream
Salt

Clean and chop leek and saute in the butter in a large pot until just beginning to brown. Add chicken stock, chopped potatoes and chopped cauliflower. Stir in salt, chopped parsley and herbes de provence. Allow to simmer for approximately an hour. Then using your brand new nifty immersion blender, blend away! Mine took under 30 seconds. Stir in cream. Serve. I enjoyed mine with some buttermilk biscuits.

You can even see the steam coming off the soup in this picture.

Stone Fruit Pie

A slightly belated Shana Tova to all.

I made this pie while up in New Haven a few weeks ago using leftover peaches approaching their last legs of ripeness that had been picked by a friend as well as some nectarines and apricots that were hanging out in her fridge. I'll probably be dreaming of it when I am fasting on Saturday.

Haiku Tuesday

Major leak leads to
leads to much laundry and dry cleaning.
and the loss of stuff.


There was a major leak two apartments above me this weekend. Anger at the landlord abounds for not taking care of the full problem when it happened. Apparently they knew about it and fixed the leak 24 hours before I opened the closet to discover the damage, much of which would have been negated had the clothes not been sitting wet and pressed up against each other. Apparently though, Vantage Management seems to think that either water or their building are uneffected by the laws of gravity. I've been doing all kinds of hand washing and trying to treat dirty water stains. The closet is still wet inside and there's mold and it is all just very unpleasant.

CSA Week 13

This week's bounty included

4 lbs of mixed beefsteak and plum tomatoes

Swiss chard

2 red and 2 yellow bell peppers

Parsley

Mixed salad greens

shallots

cherry tomatoes - of which there are never enough because I always finish my portion in the first hour they are in the house. Though they did make a lovely salad with the greens and some leftover cucumber.

Haiku Tuesday!

I had never seen

The roots of a cabbage

Before Saturday.

Seriously, I hadn't. But I thought this one looked really neat and I had to take a picture. It's from a farmer's market in New Haven.

CSA week something or other

I think it's week #12 but I've sort of lost track while I was away.

TOMATOES- Seven giant big red beefsteak tomatoes.
Fennel
Green Bell peppers
Red Bell pepper
Cherry tomatoes - sadly only a tiny handful of them
Red Batavia lettuce
Nicola potatoes

Haiku Tuesday!

Why yes, it is true
I am the cutest Mickey
baking dish ever.



I picked this up while on vacation. Luckily for everyone's sanity I could only carry the small size. I want to make macaroni and cheese in it.

New Pie Dish!

Shortly before I went away on vacation I got a belated birthday present of a fabulous new pie dish. I believe it came from Anthropologie. I think this brings up my grand total of pie dishes I own to six or possibly seven. Either way plenty to make an all pie Thanksgiving meal again if I decide to do that. Of course it may also be the start of an obsession with novelty pie dishes.


I was excited to use the dish for the first time the moment I go it. The only trouble was that I didn't actually have anything to make pie out of at the time since I was about to go out of town. Not that this would ever stop me. Instead of traditional pie in the new dish, I give you brownie pie.I love brownie mix and always have some in the house for just such occasions. Now I know it even makes great pie.

Haiku Tuesday!

Back from vacation,
Cleaning ad laundry and now
An Epic Roach War


Seriously, the little buggers have overstayed their welcome this summer.

In other bug related news apparently bed bugs prefer Democrats to Republicans. Perhaps that explains my fall horror.

On Vacation!

Happy Vacation!
I am eating with Mickey,
so no CSA.

Haiku Tuesday

CSA is great!
I get to order fresh eggs
straight from the chicken.






I also ordered meat, dog bones and rye bread. My share partner got raw honey. The eggs made some of the best tasting scrambled eggs ever.

Pesto

I made pesto for the first time and it was easier than I expected and also very good. Much better than the jarred kind.

I exchanged some zucchini for extra basil so I'd have enough to make pesto and managed to make the pesto just before the batch of basil went bad. I added garlic, pine nuts and Parmesan to olive oil and the basil leaves for less than thirty seconds in the food processor, and then added it to sauteed mushrooms over pasta.

CSA Week #8

CSA Week #8

Beets
Zucchini
Savoy cabbage
Red onions
Basil
Romaine lettuce
Cucumber
Red Norland Potatoes

I did my volunteer hours handing out shares on Thursday and as a special bonus I got some leftover peaches and blueberries that came with the fruit share. I promptly made pie:

Blueberry Peach Pie

1/2 pint of blueberries
6 large peaches
and I probably dumped almost a full cup of flour and at least 3 tablespoons of tapioca to try to make it less watery. And it worked! Finally a peach pie that isn't a liquidy mass.

CSA Leftover Lasagna

When I got back from Israel the greens from two weeks of CSA plus the week I had just picked up were a bit out of hand and so I made lasagna. This used up several kinds of onions as well as Swiss Chard and kale.

For the record the CSA weeks I didn't get photos of included:

Week #5 - Romaine lettuce, carrots, cippolini onions, beets, kohlrabi, Toscano kale, dill, broccoli

Week #6 - Zucchini, carrots, cabbage, radicchio, Romaine lettuce, green kale, cippolini onions, broccoli

Week #7 -Zucchini, Romaine lettuce, Toscano Kale, Broccoli, Scallions, Swiss Chard, Cucumber, Basil, Corn.
The corn was an unexpected surprise and though the ears were small it was pretty good corn.
I was also pleased to miss most of the zucchini run as it falls on the list of vegetables I just really don't care for.

I spent the first two weeks of July in Israel. When I am not in Israel I dream of the many amazing milk products that you can get there that you just can’t get here. The dairy section of a regular supermarket is easily three times the size of any of the supermarkets I shop at in New York. There are all sorts of cheeses, yogurts, pudding type things and fantastic tasting milk and my personal favorite cottage cheese. It took me a long time to learn to like some of the white cheeses because I spent the rest of the year eating the filled with fat American cream cheese, but now I wish I had access to them all the time (especially when baked inside puff pastry).

That said, part of what I love about eating in Israel is that for the most part everything is most meals are accompanied with fresh cut up raw vegetables or salads and all these kinds of cheese. I did not expect to end up cooking while in Israel but my brothers begged for me to make baked macaroni and cheese. Normally I make my macaroni and cheese with predominantly cheddar cheese. I might mix some Gruyere or goat cheese to add some extra flavor, but part of the whole point of macaroni and cheese is that it is comfort food and to that equals cheddar. Except that you can’t really find cheddar in Israel. I imagine if you go to a specialty store that carries imported cheeses you might find something that as one family member said might have stood next to a block of cheddar in its life. I remember reading an American cookbook about Israeli food that discussed different cheeses and how Israeli chefs used to smuggle in various hard cheeses from Italy and France since they were not made in Israel.

I made macaroni and cheese anyway using the only vaguely yellow cheese I could find that came cubed and marked “Holland Cheese” mixed with some leftover Brinza (which I know as Bulgarian cheese and is vaguely Feta like) and some other leftover soft white cheese mixed with scallions. The breadcrumbs that were available at the grocery store were some of the finest breadcrumbs I’ve ever seen so I mixed them in with a generic Israeli brand of cornflakes. The end result baked up to look quite pretty in my grandmother’s casserole dish and tasted good if a bit bland.

We always used to leave Israel smuggling borekas and rogalech and various bags of Bisli and Bamba in the suitcase, perhaps next time I go I’ll be smuggling cheddar in.

Haiku Tuesday

Shiraz is busy
Finding ways to use veggies
Before Disney World.

Haiku Tuesday! I am back!

I apologize
for the lack of new content
Travel interfered.


I was away for a couple of weeks visiting family in Israel so wasn't able to post. I came back to a refrigerator filled with onions, kohlrabi and zucchini. I'm back now until my real vacation to go visit the mouse in August, so expect more CSA experiments.

Haiku Tuesday - Scallions!

Never in my life

Have I seen such Enormous

Fresh, Bulbous Scallions

Do you have a haiku about your produce for the week? Or a tribute to scallions? Post in the comments!

CSA Week #4

In the box for this week:

Fennel - I'd never actually seen fennel not already chopped up before

Scallions - The biggest ones ever!

Carrots - I had forgotten how good fresh from the ground early season carrots are.

Swiss Chard - In a rainbow of different colors

Dill - It was this or cilantro and the box I ended up getting had dill which at first I confused with the fennel

Collard Greens - I have never eaten or cooked Collard Greens. I'm slightly frightened of them.

Chana Saag

Or how to use up your spinach and your kale before it goes bad.

Can it still be called Saag if it has kale in it too?

This was actually a pretty quick dish to put together, although it did involve using the food processor, which really means having to wash the food processor. The recipe makes approximately 4-6 servings and works well over rice.

2 tbs olive oil

2 tbs butter

2 medium onions, chopped

1 tbs garam masala

1 tbs tumeric

4 tsp minced garlic (probably 4-5 cloves fresh)

2 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp minced ginger root

approximately 1lb of green leafy combination of spinach and kale, lightly torn

1 15 oz can of chick peas

1/2 cup of water

1 cup of non fat yogurt

salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onions in the butter for appoximately five minutes. Add all spices and continue to cook for a few more minutes. Add the greens and cook until fully wilted. Put greens and onion mixture in the food processor along with oil, pulse until shredded well. (I think this took less than 10 seconds in mine which made having to wash it after that much worse, but it is the quickest way to get the right texture). Return to pan, add chick peas, water if necessary, and cook for about ten minutes. Stir in the yogurt just before serving.

Next week I hear I'm getting Collard Greens and more Swiss Chard. We'll see what I come up with for that.

Haiku Tuesday

I'm beginning a new regular installment - Haiku Tuesday

When I was in college we used to leave notes that often took the form of haiku regarding cleaning one's dishes and other chores. I miss writing domestically minded haikus, so I thought I'd start a regular haiku section. If you would like to submit a haiku dealing with cooking, crafts, or general domesticity please email!



How many syllables
Does Kohlrabi have, and please,
How do you cook it?

More Pie Failures

or Why You Should Never Bring Pie to a Picnic.
My birthday was last week and to celebrate I had a picnic with a bunch of friends in the Sheep's Meadow in Central Park this past weekend. It was a beautiful day for a picnic, plenty of people were out enjoying the gorgeous weather, but not too many to make it overcrowded. There were several children celebrating birthday's in the same area, including three legged races and water balloon fight. All in all an ideal picnic day and I asked everyone to bring something while I brought pie.

You'd think I would have learned my lesson from the last attempt to bring pie somewhere. Despite having a plastic pie saver so that I don't repeat the mess I had last year when taking a pie on the subway to a Newsies sing along on the Upper West Side where I ended up with pie juice dripping out of the pie dish all over me, my scarf, and the subway car, it's still inevitably a disaster whenever I try to take pie out of the safety of my apartment.
For the picnic I made two pies - Strawberry, Peaches and Cream pie and Three Berry Star Pie (Strawberry, Blackberry and Blueberry). I made both pies the night before thinking they'd have plenty of time to cool and be less liquidy the next morning. I tried making the crust dough in my food processor for the first time and as was my fear, when I wet to roll it out, the texture was off. I added eggs and milk and put the dough back in the fridge and was able to salvage the dough however so I thought things were looking up.

Three Berry Star Pie Before

Three Berry Star Pie After

This was the obvious problem of pie juice shifting during carrying. Not as big a mess as last time since the pie had cooled over night, but it still made for a tie dyed sort of pie look.

Sadly I don't have a before picture for the Peaches and Cream pie, but it was a lovely one crust pie with a brown sugar crumble topping. After pulling it out of the oven around midnight, I covered it with foil to protect it without thinking too much about it. It looked perfect. I was tired so I figured I would photograph it the next morning for the blog, but by morning the crumb topping had mostly melted into the rest of the pie. No matter, I thought, it would still taste good. Then when I unwrapped it at the picnic it had REALLY melted. I tasted it, but the texture was so funny that sadly this was one pie that just never got served.

On the plus side the salad I made with my CSA share partner for the picnic turned out fabulously including the roasted beets.

CSA Week #3

In the box for this week is:

Toscano Kale (which a preliminary internet search leads to very few suggestions for, but I imagine works like most kinds of Kale)

Garlic Scapes (given over to my share partner for the cause of pesto)

Baby Spinach (according to them anyway it's baby spinach, more like adolescent spinach)

Baby Arugula

Red Boston lettuce (leading to the conclusion that the first week's Red Boston lettuce was really in fact Romaine because this clearly looked like a red version of Boston lettuce)

Beets

Kohlrabi (which looks sort of like an alien egg baby that I really have no idea what to do with.)

Semi-Failure Pie

I was invited to a friend's to watch this year's Tony Awards (my thoughts on which I'll spare you on this blog as they have nothing to do with food, crafts or general domesticity) and I of course decided it was an opportunity to make pie. However clearly I had not made pie in some time, and I yet again forgot to pick up more tapioca because I've been out of it for weeks, so while still tasty (since really any homemade pie is tasty to some degree or other), the end result was an extremely runny Strawberry Blackberry Pie.
Better luck next time. And there will most assuredly be a next time as berries are super cheap at my fruit and veggie market.

Escarole and Swiss Chard Quiche

Due to the overwhelming amount of greens in last week's CSA and egged on by the goat cheese and eggs in my fridge that were about to go bad, I opted to make quiche. I added onions and mushrooms as well as escarole and Swiss chard from the week's farm bounty and mixed it with some cream, Parmesan, goat cheese and of course eggs. I'd never actually cooked with either escarole or Swiss chard before as I've always been a bit afraid of all those big leafy greens.


I have now eaten quiche every day for at least one meal all week long.

CSA Week #2

Or what do you do with this much escarole?

In the box this week:

A huge head of Escarole (the above picture is only half of the share)

A head of Romaine lettuce

a head of Boston lettuce

2 Baby Japanese Salad Turnips (sadly only two...I really liked these last week)

a big bunch of Swiss chard

baby bok choy

and garlic scapes



Garlic scapes seem to be the darling of the food blogging world and I've never tried them, so I'm somewhat excited, although they don't look like much amidst all the other produce.

I wonder what escarole pie would be like?

Return of the Pie!

More from the CSA bounty:

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie


I used this pie making opportunity to use a new mini cookie cutter set I have in the shape of Noah's ark and the animals. I've never made a strawberry rhubarb pie before and I fudged the measurements for the filling based on a number of different recipes (primarily that old standby the Betty Crocker Cookbook). I used almost two full cups of sugar for the filling which is more than I normally put into a fruit pie filling and made the whole thing a bit sweeter than I personally like, but still very good. Sadly rhubarb is not the easiest thing to come by in my neighborhood and so I'll have to wait until the next time the CSA box has some to experiment with it again.

CSA Week #1

It's been a while since I've posted anything because I've been very busy with the end of the school semester and a lot of paper writing, but now that it is over I am ready for a summer of cooking, baking, sewing, beading and being generally crafty.

Yesterday was the first pick up of the season for the CSA I joined and here is the bounty:


There is red and green Boston lettuce (I never knew it came in multiple varieties!), French breakfast radishes, Baby Japanese salad turnips, arugala, spinach, rhubarb and strawberries.

I made a salad today using CSA produce and some leftovers in my fridge and discovered that Japanese salad turnips might just be my new favorite thing. It was a fantastic salad and with the heat and humidity that we've been having it was very filling and refreshing.

Stay tuned for my first strawberry-rhubarb pie!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Several weeks ago I made chocolate chip cookies to take into work. I used a new (to me) recipe that called for putting the dough in the fridge overnight and then slicing it like you do the cookie dough you can buy in the refrigerator section. That used to be the extend of my baking skills. While this recipe was slightly more time consuming, it left me with four rolls of cookie dough that each made a dozen cookies that were some of the best soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies I've had. I may have to start keeping some on hand. This really is for soft and chewy cookies and not crisp cookies. The best ones that I ended up with were the ones that were still slightly under done. The ones that were in the oven a bit longer were still good, but tasted more like store bough Chips Ahoy than soft homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Just writing about them makes me wish I hadn't used up all the dough and could go pop some in the oven.

Fiddleheads!

I went to Maine this past weekend and brought some fiddleheads back to the city. Fiddleheads are the unfurled fronds of young ferns. They grow wild in New England in early spring time. Although they are also available in canned form, I highly suggest avoiding those at all costs.

I prepared mine after cleaning and trimming them by boiling them for about two minutes and then I sauteed them with butter and garlic and two chopped white mushrooms until they were soft and tender.
This was the first time I'd had fiddleheads since I was in college and could get them at the farm stand next door. Sadly, I've never seen fresh ones in my local supermarkets in New York. If you've never had them I highly suggest trying some. Consider them vegetarian escargot.

So Many Vegetables!

Today I signed up for the Sunnyside CSA program and I am super duper excited. I'm looking forward to making all kinds of savory vegetable pies. I only got the vegetable share for this year which I'm splitting with a friend because I'm not entirely sure how much volume it will actually be. They also offer a fruit share which was intriguing for pie making purposes, but we'll see how the vegetables go for this season.

I haven't had a CSA share since my second year in college. Back then though I didn't really know how to cook more than a few dishes and neither did any of the people I was living with. I remember we would get piles and piles of leeks and no one knew what to do with them so we'd stick them in flower vases all around the mod. Now I would love to have leeks all the time, so hopefully that won't happen. The jury is out on what I am going to do with all the greens though.

Happy Passover!

Normally I try to avoid Passover recipes that try to replicate the things that I'm giving up eating for the week. The rolls, brownies, cookies, etc. just never taste as good as the real thing and it hardly seems worth the calories when there are plenty of good things that you can eat. Of course even with the determination each year to eat salads, simple meals, and embrace the hundreds of things you can eat, I invariably end up craving bread halfway through. It's more surprising because I don't eat bread on a regular basis.
This year, I invited company over and decided to see what I could do about making some sort of kosher for Passover pie.

Passover Turkey and Potato Pie
Crust:
4 Matzos
2 Eggs
1/2 cup of matzo meal
1 tsp Thyme
8 Tbs of parve (non dairy) margarine
salt to taste

Wet matzos, break into tiny pieces into a bowl. Melt margarine. Add eggs, margarine, spices and matzo meal to bowl. Mix together. Press into a 10" pie plate.

Filling:
1 lb ground turkey
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic1/2 cup of frozen peas
2 Tbs. mushroom soup stock base (I use the Israeli brand Osem, you could use any sort of stock)
1 cup of water
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp olive oilpotato starch (if needed)
salt and pepper

Brown onion in olive oil with the garlic, add turkey and additional spices and cook through. Add water and soup stock base (or plain stock if using that) and frozen peas. Cook until peas are tender. If the filling is too liquid, stir in potato starch until it thickens. Put in matzo pie crust.

Topping:
4 medium sized potatos, boiled
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp parsley
3 tbs water
2 tbs margarine

Boil potatoes and then mash with additional ingredients until smooth enough to spread on top of pie. Bake assembled pie in preheated oven for 30 minutes (or until potatoes start to brown on top) at 375 degrees.
The pie reheats really well which is an extra bonus! Luckily I have just enough left to make it through these last few days even if I will be dreaming of an Italian dinner all the while.

Pie on the Internet

Jezebel is having the kind of March Madness that I can totally get behind:

Pie vs. Cake

They are in round two at the moment, so there's plenty of time but I'm hoping for an eventual showdown between Blueberry Pie and German Chocolate Cake. I encourage you to go vote.

I spent most of the weekend cleaning my apartment for Passover. I finished off a bottle of Murphy's Oil on the floors and most of a smallish container of bleach in the kitchen. It's now as clean as it was in October, but without all of my belongings in plastic bags against the bed bugs. Sadly though it does mean that baking projects will be put on hold until after Passover is over. Though if I get ambitious enough we'll see what sort of Passover recipes I might come up with, unless I choose to just eat salad all week long. I've always hated most Passover recipes that just attempt to recreate what you aren't supposed to eat for the week. Yes, it sticks to the letter of the law, but why bother? There's plenty that you can still eat, especially if you eat rice and legumes, and all those passover rolls and brownies never taste as good as the real thing anyway.

Happy Pi Day!

3.14 pies - or as close to them as my baking dishes would allow.

Corn pie is the same as from Thanksgiving.

The sweet pie and the mini pie are both strawberry apple. The big pie has an almond crumb topping. The little one I tried to cut a pi into, but it didn't work out so well.

Pi #1 for Pi Day - Chicken Tikka Masala Pie

I've been meaning to experiment with making this pie for a really long time. It was one of the very first pie experimentation ideas that I had. Pi Day is tomorrow and it seemed like a great time to try it out. I tried really hard to make an aesthetically pleasing pie. I like being able to see the filling in the vents. This is pie #1 in honor of Pi Day 2010.

Chicken Tikka Masala Pie

Basic Butter Crust

2 cups of flour

2/3 cup of butter

Enough cold water to hold dough together

1. Chop cold butter into square and work into flour by hand until the texture resembles store bough bread crumbs.

2. Add enough cold water to form dough. Be careful not to over knead. (approximately ¼ cup of water)

3. Put in refrigerator for at least 1 hour before rolling out.

Pie Filling

1 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 red onion, chopped
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 cup fat free plain yogurt plus 1 teaspoon flour
2 teaspoons tomato paste

1 cup frozen peas

1. Into a large bowl, grate the garlic and add the lemon juice. Add the garlic, cilantro, 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, half the lemon's juice, and 2 tablespoons of yogurt, salt, and pepper. Stir, add chicken to bowl, and set aside to marinate.

2. While the meat is marinating, heat the remaining oil in a heavy, large skillet over low heat. Add chopped onion and cook gently for 10-15 minutes until falling apart and caramelized. Add the spices and stir well. Cook for an additional 2-3 minutes. Remove and set aside.

3. Add chicken to pan. Cook until brown and cooked through, but still tender. Return the onion mixture to the skillet, and add remaining yogurt and approximately a tablespoon of flour. Stir in the tomato paste and frozen peas and simmer for 5 minutes.

4. Let cool a bit then put in bottom pie crust. Add pie top, vent and cook for 35 minutes at 375 degrees.

Random things before Pi Day

Pi Day is Sunday and I'm going to have to submit a pie photo to Serious Eats pie bake off, but I'm not sure what to go with yet. If you've got suggestions, then let me know, otherwise stay tuned...

And a bit of pie humor for all you Mac aficionados. I love the idea, but I can guarantee I would never have the patience.

Pretty Pie for the Oscars

Strawberry Blackberry Pie

Why? Because strawberries and blackberries were cheap and had to be used that day.
The crust was a basic butter crust but came out particularly flakey. I also felt like being artistic with the top.

As to the Oscars...well let's just say I've never seen so many cut shots to so many bored and clueless actors. It was priceless.

Quick meal

I've been very busy with school lately, and most nights when I get home I don't have the energy or time to cook. This of course conflicts with my desire to stop eating out as much. I put this together the other night in less than the time it took to listen to a half hour of Jeopardy. I thought I'd share because it is such an easy meal.

Easiest Mushrooms and Snow Peas

1/2 lb of snow peas
8 oz of fresh button mushrooms
1 tbs. of butter
3 tbs. soy sauce
2 tbs. rice wine vinegar

1. Saute the mushrooms in butter until about half cooked. Add the snow peas
2. Cook for a couple of minutes than add the soy sauce and rice vinegar.


Honey Mustard Chicken

1 can of low fat Cream of Chicken soup
3 tbs brown mustard
3 tbs honey

1. Brown the chicken in a pan, remove
2. Mix soup, honey and mustard in pan. Return chicken to pan, cook until chicken is fully cooked through
3. Serve over rice or mashed potatoes

Happy Purim!

I have never liked hamentaschen. I like the idea of hamentaschen and I've always loved making them. This year I decided to try to create a hamentaschen dough that I actually liked. Since my favorite filling was always canned cherry pie filling, I figured that a hamentaschen is really just like a mini pie. Therefore, I'd base the dough on a sweetened pie dough and the filling would be real fresh berry pie filling.

They went into the oven looking very well:


Unfortunately they didn't hold together as well as they should have:

They tasted good but there's work to be done next year when I try again to try to make slightly more eye pleasing cookies. I have an idea of what went wrong so hopefully next time will go better. For a first real made up dough baking experiment I'm not displeased with the taste anyway.

I also attempted a large hamentaschen pie which sadly was a true baking failure. The berry juice went everywhere on the baking sheet, and it didn't cook as evenly as I would have liked.

Next year I try again!

M&M Cookies

I used to have store bought versions of these all the time as a child. Last weekend my family came to visit and I made them these as a Valentine's Day treat. The recipe is straight off the M&M website, with the addition of chocolate chips. We added three or four M&Ms on the top of the cookie before they went into the oven to make them pretty. It was so much easier making these cookies now that I have 2 more cookies sheets. I will never have to try to make four dozen cookies using only one cookie sheet again.

My mother also gave me a cookbook featuring 400 soup recipes since that seems to be my new thing to do to make sure I have lunches through the week. You can expect to see more soups on the blog soon.

Cauliflower Mushroom Soup

In honor of the bit of snow that the television keeps calling the blizzard of 2010 I decided to make a pot of soup. At first I was just going to make a cream of cauliflower soup, but then I decided to use mushrooms as well.

Cauliflower Mushroom Soup

1 onion, chopped
1 package of fresh mushrooms, chopped
1 cauliflower, chopped
1 sprig of rosemary
2 bay leaves
1 tbs. dried thyme
2 tbs butter
4 cups of chicken/mushroom stock
1/2 cup of light sour cream
1/2 cup of heavy cream
salt
pepper

1. Saute the onions in the butter for about two minutes, then add the mushrooms.
2. When mushrooms are half cooked add the cauliflower, bay leaves, rosemary, salt and pepper cook until cauliflower begins to soften
3. Add broth and simmer until cauliflower is tender enough to be pureed.
4. Allow soup to cool and blend soup in blender or food processor.
5. Stir sour cream and heavy cream into blended soup.
Serve with sliced scallions and biscuits if you want to bake them!

Happy Tu B'Shvat

Tu B'Shvat is a minor Jewish holiday that is considered the birthday of the trees. By Jewish law this is important in terms of knowing when it is permissible to eat the fruit of the trees. Typically it's celebrated by eating dried fruits and nuts and is the start of spring, which was sort of funny when it was 20 degrees out yesterday. In particular I always think of almonds because of one of the more well known songs for the holiday about the flowering of the almond tree. I have always associated the holiday with eating the Shivat Haminim or Seven Species of Israel. These include wheat, barley, pomegranate, grape, dates, figs and olives. Next year I fully intend to try to make a pie or pies that incorporate all of these, but for this year I stuck with two pies: Pomegranate Berry with an almond crumble top, and Apple Grape.

Pomegranate Berry Pie Filling
3 Tbs Pomegranate Juice
6 cup mixture of raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and strawberries
4 Tbs Tapioca
1 cup of sugar

Almond Crumble Topping
1 cup of flour
4 Tbs butter
1/2 cup of slivered almonds
3 Tbs of brown sugar

Normally I would melt the butter to combine but this time I just worked it in with my hands like I would the pie dough itself.

Apple Grape Pie Filling
4 Golden Delicious Apples
2 cups of sliced green seedless apples
1 cup of sugar
3 tbs of corn starch
1 tbs of tapioca (because it was all I had left!)