A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Happy (Early) St. Pat's: Corned Beef, Colcannon, & Green Bread

Happy St. Pat's Day  a little early! I'm working most of the weekend including Monday but I wanted to share this meal with you.  Yum! St. Pat's food is one of my favorite go to for celebratory meals. Don't know why I don't prepare it more often.  Actually, the Reuben is my all time favorite sandwich and corned beef hash and eggs is my favorite breakfast. Can't go wrong with corned beef and cabbage in any form!

By the way, the green bread is a joke. It's simply my standard white bread everyday recipe that I added green food paste coloring to for some St. Pat's silliness.

As for the holiday itself, St. Patrick is credited with both driving the snakes and the pagans out of Ireland. As Ireland's patron saint, Patrick is attributed with using the abundant shamrock as a teaching tool to explain the three-in-one nature of the Trinity.

This is my entry for this weeks'  Weekend Herb Blogging, originally created by the lovely Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen.  This week, WHB is hosted by Kel of the fabulously photographed Green Olive Tree.  Check out all the other entries after Sunday evening.

Cardamom is a spice, not technically an herb, but Kalyn's focus is on all herbs, spices, or plants.  Cardamom, my favorite spice, is used quite a bit in northern European and Middle Eastern cuisines.

Healthier Fish & Chips

Gene and I don't eat much fried food but every once in a while you have indulge yourself, right? There's nothing better than good fried fish and home-made fries.  But then getting it from most fast food or chain restaurants is mostly a nightmare of wanting in taste and healthiness.

I think I found a way to make a very decent meal at home while still not breaking the artery bank. 

Happy Hanukkah--Mmmm...Potato Latkes

After all the confessions I've made on this blog I'm sure at this point you don't even blink an eye when I admit to some peculiarity of personality so what the hell. Here's another one for the books:  I love religion. Everyone's religion. I'm sort of a mutt when it comes to religion.  I was raised by good people who claimed no religion who let me seek philosophy unrestrained on my own and so because of that freedom my youth was filled with wandering through most of the protestant religions available to me in my small town, everything in the range from Southern Baptist to Latter Day Saints.  Along the way, I came to realize a couple of things.  The greatest of these is that you can be spiritual without being rigid.  If religion is supposed to make us better people then I'm a big believer in gaining insight wherever I find it. While I celebrate the traditional Protestant holidays I was raised with, I always pause to appreciate all my friends' holy celebrations along the way.

I was inspired the other day by Governor Mitt Romney's recent speech about his religion and his candidacy. He expressed my own feelings so much more eloquently than I have when he said:

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings."

In honor of Hanukkah, Festival of Lights, we had a rememberance and potato latkes for dinner. The potatoes aren't the celebration, it's the oil by the way, and G-d knows I can get behind any religion that celebrates fried foods even if it's only for eight days once a year.  Seriously, the celebration is in honor of the Maccabean revolt in 165 BCE where the temple was regained from the Greeks and rededicated.  The miracle Hanukkah celebrates is that upon entering the temple, only one cruse of oil was found that hadn't been defiled by the Greeks.  That translates to one day's worth of oil to fuel the menorah but, miraculously, it lasted for eight days, enough time to rededicate and purify oil.  Hence, the oil, aka fried foods, connection to remind us of the miracle of a faith.

On the lighter side, here's Adam Sandler and The Hanukkah Song:

I have to say I was challenged a bit on this one. Asking a friend if she had any recipes I should specifically make, she replied in her email:

"If you can make Latkes without them tasing like motor oil...you will win the admiration of all Jews. Personally i like greasy food now and then..but these mothers soak up enough oil to make the Arab nations drool."

Now that's funny stuff and how could I not try to rise to the challenge on that one?

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Turkey Pasta Soup

Ruth over at Once Upon a Feast hosts a great weekly food event called Presto Pasta Nights.  She posts a round up every Friday of the previous week's great pasta dishes. 

I'm getting back into the groove of  pasta night with my turkey leftovers in a pasta soup last night.  It's all about the broth, comforting in its turkey goodness with an attention-getting mix of pasta shapes to devour.

One of the interesting little secrets about this soup was that I followed Gene's initiative and spooned it over some leftover dressing from Thanksgiving.  It may sound odd but it's really yummy, giving the soup just an extra weight and oomph, turning it from "just soup" into a full meal for Gene.

Home-made Noodles post Halloween

Mmmmm...fat, succulent home-made noodles just like Mom taught me.  Nothing better for these chilly fall evenings.  Now if those bums that call myself my family had saved me any on Halloween I wouldn't have had to cook a second batch! Kidding.  I did make a huge pot of chicken and home-made noodles for Halloween night but I'm nothing but flattered that they were all gone that evening.  Funny, and one of my brothers had even brought his own plastic to-go containers to scam leftovers with. Sorry, Kenneth!

So last night, Gene had home-made noodles AGAIN but this time I chose to make beef and noodles to give him a little different taste sensation.

What can I say? They hit the spot! 

I love this recipe because even though my mother and I had a rocky relationship most of my life, we were a good team in the kitchen. As I've said before, my mother was a wonderful cook and an outstanding baker. She had a cake decorating business out of our home and I was drafted at an early age, as the oldest daughter of five kids, to be her sous chef and dishwasher. As I aged I graduated in my duties in Mom's kitchen to being her baker, assistant decorator, and the fill-in chef for family dinners. That's where the noodles come in. They're not hard at all but writing down the recipe is. You know how it is with recipes you've made for years, so long and so naturally that you no longer measure anything or think about what you're doing.  It's the same with this but Halloween afternoon when I made them, I did try to pay attention and write down the details: 

Weekend Herb Blogging Celebrates Two Years: Rice and Beans with Zucchini and Annatto

Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen is celebrating the two year anniversary of everybody's favorite food event: Weekend Herb Blogging.  Congratulations, Kalyn! Check with Kalyn's site from Monday on to see the round-up of all the wonderful herby and veggie dishes from around the world.

Her celebration coincided with my personal celebration of 1) having friends in from St. Louis and Woonsocket, RI that I haven't seen in --forever!--and 2) my one day shopping spree.  I've really been working on my spending habits this year, as in, trying to reign my spending habits in and I've been pretty successful so far.  It feels good to feel more in control of the whole instant gratification thing, if you know what I mean. But I did allow myself one day at one store with my friends to go a little nuts. That one store was The Amish Country Store in Branson where they have my all time favorite aisles of spices. The Amish Country Store is a family owned business that stocks furniture and food products produced by local Missouri Amish families, along with a variety of about 150 fresh spices brought in weekly in bulk and repackaged into smaller containers. Usually I stock up on fresh home-bottled (canned in glass jars) goods and Mrs. Miller's noodles but on this trip I concentrated on refilling my spice cabinet.  Here's my haul:

From top left to right: ground annatto, dried celery flakes, dried red and green bell pepper (I like having those on hand for when I need seasoning but the crisper is bare), red popcorn and coconut oil (I was weak), dried lavender, dried chamomile flowers, star anise, Hungarian paprika, cardamom, lentil and pasta soup mix, and  Tupelo honey.  You'll be seeing a lot of these things in the coming weeks.

My featured spice for today is: Annatto

Quick Baked Potato Post

A couple of people have asked for more details on how to make microwave potatoes that taste like real baked potatoes:

Super easy.  Just scrub the potato and put it in a baggie, freezer bags work the best in my opinion, along with about a quarter cup of water:

Hard to see the water but, trust me, it's in there.

Place in the microwave without sealing the top. Just sort of wrap the top over it so the water doesn't spill out or place the potato flat in the bottom with the bag sitting almost upright but you need to leave a steam vent or it will get ugly.  Again, really. TRUST me on that one. :-)

Microwave on high for about 8 minutes (on mine) and test for squishability.  Microwave longer if needed.

Now here's the really important part. Leave the potato sitting there for about five minutes to steam.  I've found that almost all of the water will be absorbed and leaves the skin nice and moist.

Voila.  Split and dress as usual.

Chicken and Rice with a Twist: That's the Ticket

I was cruising blogs the other day and saw a photo and recipe name that struck my fancy on Cynthia's blog, Tastes Like Home.  "Cook-up Rice". Hmmm... just sounded good to me, comforting and filling.  In the post she said that she didn't have the recipe written down on the blog but if anyone wanted it, to email her. So I did.  Nice lady. Everyone go see her blog. Then make her crazy by emailing her for the recipe because it's fabulous.  You need it.  (She's gonna hate me forever.)

Please note that my dish doesn't look like her dish but all most of the important ingredients are there.  Okay, I switched the beans, all right?  I'm a gimp. I didn't want to go to the grocery for black-eyed peas.  In my pantry, I had the choice of kidney, lima, garbanzo, lentils, or butter beans.  I chose the last and it was delicious. Gene loved it too.  Cynthia says this is a traditional Guyanese dish and they often serve it on Saturday nights with fried fish, fried plantains, and a fresh salad.  Well, that sounds wonderful but I'm a whiney bitch today so Gene's going to have to go to Cynthia's house in Barbados if he wants all the accompaniments.  He was lucky to get the chicken and rice, if you know what I mean, rather than being handed the phone and Pizza Hut's number. It was just one of those days.

I'm not going to give a recipe because you can email herself (I told you I was feeling hateful) and, more importantly, I didn't quite follow directions. Surely by now that's not really surprise, is it?  Cynthia says to make the whole thing in a dutch oven. I said "Screw that! I'm not standing over a pot!"  so I ended up throwing the whole thing in the oven and forgetting about it for an hour.  I'm glad I remembered it, though, or we would have missed that delicious meal.  I'm never making chicken and rice my old way ever again. I've already folded up the email and stuck it in my recipe box. Thanks, Cynthia!

I think the key to this dish is the fresh herbs and the coconut milk.  Thyme is my favorite herb, always has been. I think I could almost suck the leaves off the stems.  Almost.  So because of the four sprigs of fresh thyme that went into it, Cook-up Rice is my entry in this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, created by Kalyn at Kalyn's Kitchen, hosted this week by this week by Ulrike of Kuchenlatein.

UPDATE:  The recipe--MY VERSION--is now posted. 

Click Below.

Simple is Sometimes Best

Dinner was a very simple and easy roasted veggies and fish with a Harry & David Rosemary and Thyme grilling marinade.  Yum. Very nice. Glad I opened that bottle. I'll be swathing the roasties in that until it runs dry.  The veggies are simple. I put a kettle of water on to boil and parboil the veggies one type at a time just to get everything to come out in the even cooking time department and then throw the fish on the baking pan for the last 10 minutes. Couldn't be more simple.

My roasty veggies and fish with their rosemary/thyme marinade are my addition to this weeks Weekend Herb Blogging, created by Kalyn at Kalyn's Kitchen, and hosted this week by Rinku of Cooking in Westchester. Check out her blog later in the week to see this week's round up.

Noodle Soup: Just Right for Anytime

Ruth at Once Upon a Feast has me thinking about pasta a lot lately with her Presto Pasta Nights blogging event.  Pasta dishes can be as simple or as complicated as you need them to be. Last night I needed something simple for dinner, both in terms of my prep time and my somewhat unsettled stomach. Udon to the rescue.  I ended up, in ten minutes, making Gene and I an easy to prepare but extremely soul satisfying pasta supper of noodle soup. 

All I had to do was boil the noodles and add them to beef broth with a smidge of fish sauce for my own personal taste, and then top with strips of nori, spring onion, and toasted sesame seeds.  Perfect for what ails you.