More thoughts about camping

It's a really good idea to bring meal ingredients that are flexible.

For example, on our recent trip the weather forecast changed while we were out to include 50+ MPH wind gusts and blowing dust for 2 days.  Not fun outdoor cooking weather.  Happily, I was prepared.  I had grilled a bunch of chicken at home before we left and packed it in the cooler. One night we stayed in the van and ate sliced cold grilled chicken with hummus and avocado in pita for dinner.  Banana bread and fruit went alongside.  The other night we had 'appetizers for dinner' - always a fave - and had guacamole (formerly frozen package) and artichoke jalapeno dip (Costco) on crackers, chips, and pita. Everyone was full, and we minimized the consumption of dust.

What else did I use the grilled chicken for, you ask?  Pad thai.  One our favorite camping meals.  It's easy if you are willing to use a pre-made sauce, and I am.  (We historically used the Thai Kitchen brand, but I'm in the market for a new one because I noted that the most recent package reported that it was made in China. Nothing against the Chinese people, but the food safety record isn't great, and I would prefer even my processed foods to have fewer frequent flyer miles than I do.)  The rice noodles mostly just soak for a while, then get tossed with a couple of quickly-scrambled eggs, sliced chicken (or other protein), and the sauce.  Really impress them by having some slices of lime, ground peanuts, cilantro, and hot sauce on the side.  All are easily prepped at home or brought in the cooler. 

Fresh/Dried Pesto

I still have a lot of dried until crispy grape tomatoes from last year's garden. Juicy new ones will appear soon.

In an effort to use what I preserved last year, I created a pesto to spread on bread. It included a couple of handfuls of fresh basil, about a cup of dried tomatoes, some olive oil, generous amounts of garlic, a little salt, and red pepper flakes all whirred up in the food processor.

Much to my surprise the kids ate it too.

Fortuitous Foraging

Yesterday afternoon I happened to open the fridge in the breakroom at work while I filled my water bottle. Not because I had the right to anything in there, not having deposited anything recently, but because I just can't help it. See fridge, open it. See if there is anything interesting and potentially available.

On this day, there was! One of our staff had planted too much romaine lettuce which is all ready to be eaten now, and there were several bags marked 'FREE! Take me!' So I grabbed some and knew what we would have for dinner.

Grown-ups had tuna salad atop lettuce. Kids ate the tuna salad straight or on crackers. A partial bag of frozen sweet potato fries was cooked and devoured with ketchup (kids) or honey and rosemary (adults).

(2 cans of tuna + 4 hard boiled eggs + pickles and mayo for a family of 4)

Returning from a Weekend Away. What to Eat?

I'll admit it. Last weekend after we got home from the desert we ate frozen pizza (bought on special with a coupon!) and relatively limp salad greens after washing the dust from our bodies.

It strikes me that I should be able to do better. The meals away are planned, after all, why not one more that can even have the luxury of waiting for us in a fridge?

This weekend I will try an experiment. I will make up a batch of Sullivan Street Pizza Dough on Friday morning and let it ferment in the fridge for the weekend to be baked on Sunday evening. It will actually be tougher than if we were away since we will be home and giving up that much fridge space.

Adding to my 'to do' list is to come up with some reasonable make ahead or practically no-prep dinners for the re-integration phase of weekend travel.

It starts here:
1) Rico's frozen tamales + guacamole
2) Grilled cheese and soup (although we often have quesadillas on the road)
3) Sullivan Street Pizza
4) Frozen ravioli - either boiled or prepared as ravioli lasagna
5) Tuna salad + crackers (I'm ok with hard boiled eggs resting in the fridge for a few days)

and continues in the comment box!

New (to me) back wrap

Q is getting heavy for one-shouldered carries, so I have been experimenting.

Click here to view these pictures larger

I learned from a youtube video!

Wacky Cake

I didn't make up the name, I promise. This Depression-era cake takes advantage of ingredients that were readily available at the time. I suspect it is enjoying a new era of fame because it is also vegan. That means it is ok for people with dairy and egg sensitivities, too. That's why I bring it to potluck affairs.

After one recent affair, I was asked for the recipe. Nothing special about it, except that it is easy to make, always a hit, friendly to all but the gluten-intolerant, and tasty to boot.

Here's one version for Wacky Cake from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 cup white sugar
* 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
* 6 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 1 cup water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, sugar, salt, soda, and cocoa together into an 8x8 inch ungreased cake pan. Make three depressions. Pour oil into one well, vinegar into second, and vanilla into third well. Pour water over all, and stir well with fork.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Frost with your favorite icing.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Wacky-Cake-VIII/Detail.aspx

The differences in my execution are as follows: I only use 2/3 cup of sugar; I use white vinegar instead of cider vinegar; I used 5T of oil instead of 6. Also, I don't bother to sift anything. I mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl with a whisk. Then put your 1c of water (I used 1 cup of cold brewed coffee with an additional scoop of instant coffee powder last time - I couldn't taste the coffee, so if I did that again I would use more instant coffee powder or use espresso powder which has a stronger taste) into a measuring cup and add the other liquid ingredients to the water (vinegar, vanilla, oil). Dump the liquid into the dry and mix it up. If you do it the way the recipe says it is hard to get the corners properly mixed. I appreciate that mixing in the baking pan results in fewer pans to wash, but washing a mixing bowl is not such a big deal that I am willing to accept unmixed dry ingredients in the corners! I do not think that this needs frosting. I have dusted with powdered sugar for a special effect.

My other tip for maximum efficiency and reduced chance of cross-contamination -- measure the soda, then salt, and last the cocoa of the dry ingredients (so that you don't contaminate your salt or soda with cocoa powder). Then measure wet ingredients with the measuring spoons - oil then vanilla then vinegar.

Fish tacos at home

I'm not one for purchasing a lot of prepared food, but I make exception for food that requires frying, particularly deep frying. Why? I don't have a vent hood in the kitchen. I even cook bacon in the oven. I mention this because it is relevant for fish sticks.

Fish sticks make the base for quite good fish tacos. Spend the extra buck or two for a good brand and not the kind that is made of minced fish. Bake them up and serve in corn tortillas with condiments such as cilantro, grated cheese, guacamole, and/or sliced avocado, salsa, pickled jalapenos, sour cream, lime wedges, and our favorite - cabbage slaw. Cabbage slaw is easy, too. Shredded cabbage mixed up with cilantro, some red onion, lime juice and salt to taste.

Everybody's happy.

No Accounting for Taste

This morning Z asked if she could have 'doubled eggs' for breakfast. Last night we had sliced hard-boiled eggs on the salad, and there were two extras that she helped me peel and knew were in the fridge. She sliced them, popped the yolks into a bowl, watched me add the condiments, then attacked them with a fork. Then she announced that she was going to fill the white parts and lick the moosh out of them because she doesn't like the white and only wants the moosh. I suggested she eat the moosh with a spoon instead and let me take the whites for lunch. Happiness for all except J who had to leave the table. It was too early for him to watch and smell Z eating 'doubled' egg moosh for breakfast.

Where bacon comes from and how we cook it

According to my three year old: "Mom, bacon comes from the inside of a pig. It got cut out when it was dead."

If you have visited my home you may recall that our lovely open kitchen lacks one nice feature, a vent hood. (If you haven't been to my home, why not? We love guests.) Due to the lack of hood, I don't tend to fry on the stove. It stinks and greases up the kitchen and has on occasion set off the smoke alarm (which is of course a particle detector, non-specific to particles generated by combustion.

But we like bacon. Alton Brown once again provided the solution, bake it in the oven. This contains the mess to the oven, and I know it is time to clean said oven when I am baking something else and smell yummy bacon.

That said, I find AB's directions ineffective. He says to lay the bacon on a rack on a sheet pan in a cold oven, then turn it to 400 and bake 12-15 minutes. No way is it anywhere near crisp in that time in my experience.

I use a broiler pan, and start it cold then turned to 400, and it takes about 30 minutes. I turn once and rotate the pans (because you might as well cook as much as you can fit and have the cooked bacon on hand). Then remove to paper towels to drain.

Last night the bacon went onto our favorite BBT sandwiches, bacon, blue cheese,and tomato. I used Cherokee Purple tomatoes. Next time, probably tomorrow, will be Pineapple.

Sharing meal prep among friends

A couple of days ago a friend emailed me to ask if we wanted some extra felafel. They had purchased a pack at Costco and feared spoilage before they ate it all. I happily accepted and planned a meal.

This morning I made tatziki sauce (so many possible spellings!) - from 1 c plain yogurt, 1 peeled seeded and chopped cucumber, 1 t red wine vinegar, 1 T olive oil, and about 2 cloves of chopped garlic. It got to rest in the fridge all day. When I got home I put the pre-made felafel into a 350F oven for about 25 minutes to crisp and washed some romaine lettuce. I then assembled entree salads with the romaine, kalamata olives, pepperoncini, felafel, and some roasted beets (discovered in our garden on Saturday - they had grown late in the season and overwintered!) that I tossed into a 1:1 mixture of vinegar and water last night in an effort to recreate the yummy Armenian pickles that they serve at Mazza. We used the tatziki as dressing. I had mixed up a loaf of bread yesterday that J baked, and we rounded out the meal with fresh bread spread with the leftover baba ghanouj that I made on Sunday.

Nice!

Another Sunday of efficiency

I got some eggplants yesterday at the store. They were destined for baba ghanouj and required roasting. The plan was to have black bean and sweet potato tacos for dinner. Usually I steam the sweet potatoes after cutting them in relatively small chunks. But, since I was operating the oven for the eggplants anyway, I baked the sweet potatoes, roasted some garlic, and roasted some beets at the same time. Not all in the same pan! The potatoes weren't done when everything else was, so I turned down the oven and made cookies.

In summary, here's what I cooked yesterday afternoon: cabbage and cilantro slaw with lime juice dressing (for the tacos); baked sweet potatoes (there was enough for me to set aside 1 cup of baked sweet potato for a later batch of sweet potato biscuits); black bean and sweet potato taco filling (Previously blogged. The beans were from the freezer, I had cooked them from dry in the slow cooker a few weeks ago and froze them in approximately 2 cup batches. We grew them in the garden last year), mocha chocolate chip cookies, roasted eggplant which became baba ghanouj, roasted garlic, roasted beets, and I mixed up a batch of no knead crusty bread that J is in charge of baking this morning. That way we can have fresh bread, super sharp Irish cheddar (thanks, for making it affordable, Costco!), Z's favorite brown olives (kalamata - thanks, for making them affordable, Costco!), Cameo apples, and baba ghanouj for dinner on Monday.

I have cut down my trips to the grocery lately because we are getting milk delivery from Winder Farms. (Anybody out there in the greater SLC area (between Ogden and Vegas) interested in a referral, let me know - both parties can get a $30 credit.) Yesterday I only bought vegetables and fruit at Smith's. I am trying to free up some space in the freezer for some pre-made meals for the peri-partum period and for next summer's garden bounty!

We worked in the garden on Saturday wearing t-shirts and pants. It is presently snowing. Definitely spring!

Cook once, eat twice

Platitude, platitude, platitude.

I know that you have all heard the suggestion about cooking once and eating twice to improve your kitchen efficiency. It sounds great, but here's the thing - we don't like leftovers in our house. That's why I try to transform leftovers into something else. It's a whole new challenge.

Yesterday, however, I had a small helper for scrubbing potatoes, so I decided to boil 9 potatoes instead of the 3-4 that we actually needed. We'd eat some for dinner and keep the rest for inclusion in a fritatta or something later in the week. But then I thought, wait a minute, one needs boiled potatoes for potato salad, too, and we always like that, and it is better if it sits for a day.

So that's what I did - served a smaller amount of the boiled potatoes tossed with butter, parsley and thyme for dinner, and used the rest to make a dilly potato salad for tonight.

Hence I also boiled some eggs. I have a small helper who likes to help peel them, too. We had some deviled for dinner last night, and some went into today's potato salad. The gut munchkin in me really likes deviled eggs, and we are eating them frequently this winter.

Just in time for a holiday breakfast

There is a story in my family about Everlasting Rolls. My grandma learned to make them in home ec class, possibly in high school, and as her kids grew up she told them about how great the Everlasting Rolls were, but she never made them. It grew into a joke - the rolls that were too good to be made. I don't know how the name came to be, they certainly don't last very long after you make them!

Well I got the recipe a couple of years ago and have made them several times, usually in the cinnamon roll variation. Last weekend, I modified the technique a bit, following inspiration from the article Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread that was in the latest issue of Mother Earth News. This is the same magazine that brought me the No Knead Crusty Bread that you make in a dutch oven last winter. I really enjoy it, and a yearly subscription is only $10, or you can always search the online archive of every magazine for free.

Anyway, I present a slightly more healthful and easy version of Everlasting Rolls

* Do this the night before you want to eat cinnamon rolls for breakfast/brunch. If you are doing it for dinner rolls, do it in the morning so that the un-kneaded dough can rest in the fridge for at least 8 hours, but 10 is probably better. Or do it the night before and let it have a lot of resting time, it will be ok.

1 package dry yeast (that's 2 1/4 teaspoons for those of us who use yeast in jars)
1/3 cup lukewarm water (just make sure it isn't too hot to kill the yeast)
1/2 t sugar

Mix the above three ingredients and let stand while mixing rest.

1 egg, slightly beaten
1/3 cup sugar (faithful readers will know that I generally reduce the sugar in baking, this time I probably used 2/3rds of a 1/3 cup scoop, approximately 2/9ths or so)
1/4 cup melted fat or oil (I used butter - make sure it is melted and then cooled enough that it won't cook the egg)
4 cups flour (I used 2 cups of AP and 2 cups of whole wheat this time. Next time I will probably go with 1 cup AP and 3 of whole wheat -- keep in mind that you generally need to add more liquid when you use WW flour. Those of us in the high desert may need more than the recipe suggests even if you use all AP flour b/c it just doesn't hold the moisture here that it would have in Mt. Healthy, Ohio).
1 t salt
1 cup lukewarm water

Beat egg slightly, add sugar, and mix. Add melted (and cooled) fat and mix thoroughly. Add yeast mixture. Add flour, salt, and water alternately. Mix thoroughly. In my version you want the dough to be relatively wet and sticky-looking.

At this point the original recipe instructs that you should knead and then let rise until double. In my version - you put the dough in the fridge and let it rest overnight. Cover it with a plate or plastic wrap over the bowl so that it doesn't dry out.

At least an hour before you want to bake the rolls, remove the dough from the fridge and shape into your desired shape. Here's where you would roll it out to 1/4 inch, sprinkle with 2t cinnamon + 3/4 cup brown sugar + 3T butter (cut into the sugar-cinnamon mix with a pastry blender or melt and pour or brush) + pecans (in my house), then roll it and slice into approximately 1 inch slices and place in a greased pie pan or muffin tin. Don't crowd them too much in the pie pan or the tops will be crunchy while the guts are still doughy.

Let them rest at least an hour and then bake at 400F. The original recipe says 8-10 minutes for rolls (this is accurate if you do it in a muffin tin, but if you do it in a pie pan it will be longer). You can also do this in a loaf pan, and the original recipe suggests 25 minutes for the loaf. If you wanted to make cinnamon bread, you could do this in a loaf. I haven't tried this and can't comment on the timing.

You can of course eliminate the cinnamon-sugar parts and just make this as dinner rolls, too!

Next time I will probably make some without the pecans. J and I like them and the added bit of fat and protein that they bring, but Z picked them out and said "Mom! There's something wrong with these peanuts. I don't like them!"

Another use for buttermilk

Goat Cheese Spread

1 # plain goat cheese (I get it at Costco)
1 or more heads (yes heads, not cloves) of ROASTED garlic
pinch of cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes
salt if you need it
a few coarse grinds of black pepper

Put all ingredients into the food processor and process to a smooth paste. Drizzle the buttermilk in until the spread is as thin as you would like. Serve with bread, crackers, veggies, whatever you like. If you make it not too thin, you can kind of 'crumble' onto salad or pizza.

BTW, roasted garlic is another great thing to prepare when you are grilling something else. Cut the top off of the head (so that you can access each clove), drizzle or rub with some olive oil and wrap the whole thing in foil. Put it on the grill when you light it and let it stay there through the pre-heating and cooking process - why waste the heat? Don't forget to retrieve it from the grill before you go to bed. This will keep for a while in the fridge in a tightly sealed jar. I prefer glass to plastic so that a plastic dish doesn't acquire an odor that, while yummy, might not agree with other things that I would want to use the plastic for later.

Similarly, on the idea of not wasting heat - after you finish grilling your main dish and the grill is still hot (especially if you have charcoal), it is a great time to grill some sliced fruit for dessert. Peaches and pineapple are really great, but you could do anything you like.