Put Some Stuffing In It

**Sneaky post...I've back dated it!**

While organizing some more of the recipes (I've decided to transcribe some of the newspaper clippings onto postcards for a more uniform look) I came across a stuff eggplant recipe.  I've never been an eggplant person, until I had some on a pizza while in Florence.  For whatever reason, it was the magic timing, and I've been enjoying eggplant.  Plus, that eggplant dish from Ket-Mo-Reh in Davis just makes me drool every time!

So, I purchased an eggplant from the store, hoping that I picked good ones.  By the way, how do you know if it's a good eggplant?  Once I got home, I started organizing my ingredients and getting things in order.

The dish took awhile to prepare, and had a lot of steps.  However, I found it really fun to make.  The entire time I was thinking it would have been nice to have someone other than Winston to chat with, but I made do with the dog and a glass of wine.  At least I had some good tunes going while this was in progress!

 

I really can't enough of Mr. Cast Iron!

 This part of the sauteing had garlic, mushrooms, olive oil, bread crumbs, basil and a host of other equally delicious food.  I could have just kept at this part forever.

This smelled amazing!

I'm thinking next time I could have carved a bit more out of the eggplant for some thinner sides.  It worked out well enough, but I found them to be a little thick when it came time to eat.

Before the cheesy goodness.

 Talk about an awesome, almost healthy dinner!  The ranch dressing is handmade, the bacon bits were from bacon leftover from the weekend and, of course, there's fresh stuffed eggplant!  I ended up only being able to eat half of a half.  Good meal idea for guests (if they like eggplant).  By the end of the week, I was pretty tired of the dish!

I even made a salad!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Who doesn't love shouting that phrase?  I certainly enjoy shouting it out on random occasions.  So, after a hard day of yard work on Saturday (see the before and after shots of the rosebush), I needed to make dinner.  Knowing that I was going to be in Texas this entire week, I was hesitant to bake anything.  However, I made a commitment, so cooking I must do.

I decided Sunday was the night to branch off from the all the sweet baking I'd been doing.  "Time to get serious," I said to myself.  As I headed off to the store, I called Mr. K (my brother) and asked him over for dinner with the promise of a chicken enchilada casserole.  Now mind you, this is my first ever casserole.  Who knows how this would turn out.

After the brief visit to the local Raley's (PS - they do NOT have wheat germ which is an ingredient I need for some dog biscuits - yes unrelated recipe), I started my prep at the time my brother showed up.  Score one for Remi - I remembered to pat dry my chicken prior to cooking!  And have I mentioned how in love I am with my little skillet?!

I love my cast iron skillet!

 So, while the chicken cooked, I cut the tortillas and grated the cheese (Baker's note:  Buy a better cheese grater!) and chopped the onion.  I did cut the onion in half, as it called for one whole onion.  After cutting the first half, I decided that a whole onion was just waaaay too much.

So, in goes the first layer of soups (cream of chicken and cream of mushroom) followed by the onions, green chilis, chicken, tortilla and cheese.  After a moment of self-doubt, I forged ahead and put in the second layer of ingredients (see above).

Voila!  I have the start of a chicken enchilada casserole:

Yes, I did have to smoosh it down to fit.

And into the oven for some baking (half covered, then uncover for the remainder of cooking time).  And out comes cheesy casserole goodness!

Lost some of the cheese to the foil :(

And in case you were wondering, "Is that thing edible?"  Mr. K gives his opinion:

That's his SECOND helping!

So, I now know how to make a basic casserole.  Future iterations of these dish will be spicier (good as is for those with a sensitive stomach).  So, my first entree from Grandma's recipes = success!

And, in case you were wondering about that rose bush mentioned earlier:

Rose bush pre-trim...

Rose bush post trim!

Yes, it's supposed to be trimmed back that far!  Hopefully this will help it get rid of the aphids and the majority of the disease.  This poor bush hasn't been pruned in years, let alone received any other care.

Battle of the Honey Cookies Part 2

The long awaited finale to the Honey Cookie Battle is upon us!

I wasn't sure how this recipe would turn out.  I mean, the first honey cookie was pretty sweet, and I wasn't a fan of the batter.  If 1 cup of honey was too sweet for me, wouldn't I just go into a diabetic shock with an entire PINT of honey, and a freakin' POUND of powdered sugar?!  Seriously, I used this entire jar:

Thank you bees!

And this entire box of powdered sugar:

Yes, that's an entire pound
of sugary sweetness.

And I discovered that while the eggs were no match for the hand mixer (still my favorite mixer attachment) and honey...

The flour mixture with cloves, cinnamon, allspice and other dry ingredients almost caused the poor trooper to burn its motor out!

Mmm, cinnamon!

Cookie dough anyone?

There was a slight internal panic that my bowl wouldn't be large enough for all of the batter, but I just barely made it.

I must admit, this was much better batter than the first honey cookie recipe; the cooking judge was almost swayed to vote for the contender on this fact alone.

I admit, I'm a messing baker!

(Baker's lesson:  Don't attempt to take the beaters out while the mixer is still plugged in.  Pushing in the "on" button sometimes makes it actually turn on!)

And, then, the first batch came out!  Yummy!  These were much more "cookie" like than the first recipe.  Just maybe I could learn to love honey cookies.

Don't forget the nuts!

That's AFTER 48 cookies!

And then, I had to keep on baking...

Four dozen (that's 48 for you numerical people) cookies later, and I was still putting more dough on the cookie sheet.  To help speed the process along, I employed the use of my toaster over (yes, it toasts and it bakes!).

The ringer...

So hopefully, the cookies go over well.  And since I have so many cookies out of this one recipe, I get to share the wealth with my friends, and not just co-workers!

The Battle of the Honey Cookies

Grab your napkins!  Grab your milk!  Now sit down and get ready to be...COOKIED!!!  Okay, so the deep stadium announcer voice doesn't quite translate into cookies.  Maybe if it was read with an Iron Chef announcer voice?

Either way, I'm holding a battle of the Honey Cookies.  A quick dash to the store to get said honey (side note: there are 8 fluid ounces in a cup, in case you ever need to know) I started round one of the Honey Cookie Battle (HCB).  And now for Cookie Number 1:

1. Use a lot of honey.

That's 8 fluid ounces (1 cup)
of pure, raw honey.

2.  Mix in butter and eggs...

Fail:  Mixing by hand 

3.  Become smarter about mixing...

For the Win:  Hand mixer!

(Baker's note:  Not the best batter in the world.  Or maybe it is if you like honey.

I started to have serious doubts about honey cookies at this point.)

4.  Figuring out when to add that "7 cups of flour more or less"

Rolling out the dough...

Fail.

Adding more flour....

Success!

It just feels odd using a dog bone cookie cutter for human cookies.  So I went with the trusty circle (a la wine glass).

(Baker's note:  Still not a fan of the batter, even with the additional flour.

Still having some doubts about the viability of the cookies).

And with a quick 15 minutes later..

The first batch!

For the office...

(Baker's note:  I discovered at the office that these go really well with my morning coffee!

Cookies have redeemed themselves.)

Stay tuned next week for the Honey Cookie Challenger!

Going Bananas

So, I deviated from Grandma's recipes this evening.  A couple of years ago, I discovered I really enjoy making banana bread.  Unfortunately, I really don't like eating banana bread.  The recipe I tried was simple and quick.  I got to the point where I made it a bit of my own creation...take the recipe and 1. minus the nuts, 2. add chocolate chips, and 3. add blueberries.  It was rather delicious (as attested to the quickness in which the coworkers gobbled it down!).

TRADEGY HAS STRUCK!


I've lost the recipe.  I had notes written in the margins.  I've made it numerous times, but not enough to have memorized it yet.  This was my recipe.  This had been fine tuned to my demanding expectations.  It had received rave reviews.  And now, it was gone.  GONE!!

After picking myself up from a little puddle of despair in the corner, I thought about going to Grandma's recipes. I probably should have, but after a week of copying recipes, I needed a break.  Back in 2000, my aunt Susan Lohse (not to be confused with Auntie Sue Basler) gave me a wonderful mixing bowl, spatula, hand-stitched cloth and a Mennonite cookbook.  In the ensuring years, I've lost the cloth and spatula, but have held onto the bowl and cookbook.

I broke a cardinal rule of mine, and baked the recipe as is...including the nuts.  Duhn duh duhn!  After a minor mistake (oops, the sugar and butter get creamed together, whereas I sifted the sugar and flour together) and restarting, my apartment now smells like delicious banana bread (with walnuts, and a slight addition of a cup of chocolate chips).

So here's to those that are bananas, with a bit of nuttiness to make them complete!

Would you like some coffee with that cake?

So, going with the week's criteria of simple with minimal prep time, I went with the coffee cake.  I had grand dreams of my cinnamon flavored coffee cake.  You know, something along the lines of this:

After ensuring I had the ingredients (almost went down in flames when I misread 1 tablespoon of cinnamon as 1 cup of cinnamon), I started mixing up the coffee cake.

Things started off well.

The greatest attachment for my hand mixer.

Presto!  Eggs beaten!

That's a lot of flour...

Coffee cake batter!

So, once I got the batter into the baking dish, I got to make the crumb toppings:

Oddly, there was no cinnamon laced throughout the batter, no beautiful ribbon of warm gooey deliciousness.  Just this a simple, heavy flour cake.  

After a bit of cooking, I brought this possibly delicious coffee cake into work:

Golden brown coffee cake fresh from the oven.

The coffee cake was alright.  It seemed a bit dense (4 cups of flour?!) and a bit bland.  It ate, so I can't complain.  However, I don't think I'll be including this one in the recipe book.  If I come across a different coffee cake recipe, I'll be sure to try.  Then again, I may just do some experimenting with this one.

So, here's to coffee cake.  And soon...soon I promise I'll do some dinner rolls!

Organizing the Recipes

Holy crap, do I have a lot of recipes!

Yeah, I know!  But here's  the thing..looks are deceiving.  Don't get me wrong, I still have a lot of recipes.  There's some pretty awesome, old school cooking things I get to learn from this project.  And, I discovered, recipe organization was NOT Grandma's strong suit.

I dove into that pile of loose recipes first.  I still haven't made it through, even after spending at least an hour each night this week.  The first thing I discovered was that there was no rhyme or reason to the pile.  So, I emptied out the green recipe box.  Thankfully, there wasn't any rhyme or reason to this box either.  

First, the tabs:

The tabs in the green box are simple alphabetically labelled tabs, unlike the other boxes which are organized by the type of recipe - Cakes & Pies, Breads, Eggs & Cheeses, etc.  So, now I have a choice to make.  Do I organize by the type of recipe - all types of pies go under "P"- or, do I organize by name, i.e. Pecan Pie goes under "P" and Apple Pie under "A".  Never one to tie myself down, I'm going with a hybrid - some frostings will go under "F" for frosting, unless it's clearly labeled by a flavor such as "B" for banana frosting.  We'll see how long I remember this system.

Second, the repeats:

I'm slowly discovering there are many repeated recipes.  I don't know (yet) if this is because my aunt combined her recipes with Grandma's (Susan did a lot of cooking at Grandma's through the years), or if Grandma just didn't realize she had repeats.  Granted, there are many recipes for baking a chocolate cake, so I definitely verify that the recipe isn't a repeat.  If it clearly is a repeat, then, I'm starting a separate pile to give to someone.  Plus, I'm also rewriting a number of recipes.  Call me anal, but I like things to be similar.  So, when I come across a piece of paper, I just have to copy it onto an index card.  I don't need everything to be on the same type of card (yeah, I'm not that anal-retentive), but 3.5x5 inch index card is a must.  Plus, some of the typed and handwritten recipes are bit hard for me to decipher.  I'm keeping all the originals in the back of the green box (I really can't throw away a perfectly good piece of history), but at least legible copies will be (semi) neatly organized.

Now that I've made a reasonable mess of my coffee table, I need to keep organizing, and cooking!  I was all geared up to cook dinner rolls this week.  In my first, cursory glances at the recipes, I remember seeing at least three recipes for rolls.  I'll be damned if I can't find them now!  I'm sure they're in one or the other of the boxes I haven't gotten to.  Then, in the midst of writing this blog, I found two of the recipes.  A glance through the ingredients glaringly pointed out a new lesson I need to take to heart: 

Check the ingredient list before beginning.

Ooops!  Who cooks with YEAST anymore?!?  So, I won't be doing dinner rolls tonight.  Instead, I started browsing for another recipe for this evening's adventure.  I had some set criteria in mind.  The recipe needed to meet the following requirements:

1. I possessed all the ingredients at home already;

2. Prep time was minimal;

3. Cook time was minimal.

I have a big meeting first thing Friday morning, so I don't want to be up until midnight cooking a three layer cake.  As I'm browsing the recipes, it's extremely hard to choose just one.  First, I think coffee bread cake will do, then I glimpse the next recipe for "Breath of Spring Cake".  But, can I really pass up something called "Lazy Daisy Cake" and frosting?  And don't even get me started on the fudge options!  (Side note:  Peak of Perfection Frosting has been refiled from "F" for frosting to "P" for Peak, as I just discovered the Peak of Perfection cake recipe!)  

I'll let you know how it goes this weekend!  ;)