Piergoies-channeling my inner Pole

Last weekend I happened to catch a few minutes of Diners, Driveins, and Dives on Food Network. I don't watch much Food Network anymore, since it turned into Food Competition Network, but I was surfing and Triple D was on at the time. I like the show a bit, it features a spiky-haired guy traveling around and eating food from some of the country's best down- to- earth eateries. They all feature homemade everything. None of them rely on frozen, pre-packaged, anything, in other words, the kind of restaurant at which you'd actually want to eat.

Can you guess I don't like chain restaurants much? I don't really see why I should pay money to have someone heat up frozen, pre-packaged food for me. If I want that, I can do it myself. If I go out to eat, I want something I wouldn't make at home, or something that someone makes better than I do. (Is there such a thing?)



On this particular episode, the spiky blond guy was visiting an Eastern European place in Minnesota. I am not a huge fan of Eastern European food, it seems pretty bland to me, and not terribly interesting. But they showed the restaurant's homemade vareneky, or pierogies. They looked amazing. Nothing like the crap that comes out of a box. Since Rochester seems to lack a Ukranian/Polish restaurant, and since my Russian sister-in-law's pierogy is more like a cabbage filled bread than a savory dumpling, I decided to make my own. I couldn't find any recipes for the one's they make at the place in Minnesota, so I settled for finding a few different recipes and turning it into something approximating what I saw on the show. I don't know how it compared for taste, but mine were excellent. And not really terribly hard to make. One batch was enough for four of us for dinner, with no leftovers, and only a little fighting over the last two.

June's Pierogies

For the filling, I used leftover mashed potatoes and mixed in some sauteed onions and grated cheddar cheese. That's it. Pretty darned simple, huh?

Dough
3 C Flour
1/2 C Sour Cream
1/2 C softened butter
1 Egg

Mix all ingredients with a dough hook in a stand mixer, or kill yourself and mix by hand, I don't really care. I know which one I'll be doing. Roll out until 1/8 inch thick. Cut into 3 in circles, fill with 1 T filling (you want them pretty full, you should just barely be able to close them.) Seal by pinching together. Boil a few at a time in salted water until they float.

After you have cooked them all, put some butter in a saute pan and add at least one sliced onion. If you really like onion, add two. Saute it gently until browned and caramelized. Remove the onion and add more butter. add the pierogies a few at a time and lightly brown on both sides. Serve immediately with the onions and a side of sour cream mixed with horseradish.

30 day Menu

A turkey-cooking challenged friend of mine(who overcame her difficulties with about 30 minutes of phone coaching by yours truly) recently begged all of her friends to send her their 30 day menu plans. I was horrified. Not because I am against being hyper-organized, but because I have read some of those thirty day menus. They tend to rely heavily on the crock pot and prepared or convenience foods, e.g. dump some packaged baby carrots over a piece of chuck roast, top with a package of onion soup mix and cook on low for 10 hours. Can you say "yuck"?

These menus also deprive you of taking advantage of that lovely piece of produce that you run across at the farmer's market or even at the grocery.

I think a better strategy to getting dinner on the table is to keep a well-stocked pantry and some key ingredients which you can use to get some dinner on the table without too much fuss.

Like tonight, I made an awesome Chinese meal without going to the store for one thing. In my freezer I had ground pork and dumpling wrappers. In my fridge, I had eggplant, ginger, green onion, leeks, chili garlic sauce. In my pantry, I had rice noodles, Korean beef stock, dried shiitakes, sesame oil, soy sauce, rice vinegar and garlic.

I made:
pan fried pork and scallion dumplings
Leek and shiitake soup with rice noodles
stir fried eggplant with chili garlic sauce.

I didn't have a plan before this morning. While drinking my coffee I think about what I have, what I want, and how much time I have that day. Does dinner ever get away from me? Yes. Do I find myself at 5:00pm wondering what I am going to make? Yes. But, I can usually get something on the table by 7 without too much fuss.

I'm sorry I don't have time to post the recipes tonight. I will try to get back to it and add them later. Kisses.

New school year - 5 easy school lunches

Things are starting to slow down a bit, fresh produce frenzy-wise. Not that we aren't still inundated, but we are beginning to be sated, a bit. The sweet pickles turned out great, even without a pickle crock. The main thing is to use a non-reactive container, i.e. glass or ceramic. Since I lacked a large enough crock, I used my largest glass bowl. the shape is not ideal for submerging all the cukes in the brine, so I placed a pie plate on top and weighted it down with a gallon jug of olive oil. Three days later I had sweet pickles. Some will make their way into school lunches....

Today was our first day back. Back to our routines, back to shuttling kids, back to more structured cooking.

Structured cooking? What is that?

Well, instead of throwing something on the grill shortly before dinner, I have to actually think and plan. the kids must get to bed and so dinner at 8:30 is no longer an option. I need to have a plan no later than noon. Earlier in the day is better even than that.

And school lunches. I have been making them now for twenty one years. Sigh. We all know packing school lunches is the bane of our existences.

So I probably don't have any suggestions for you that you haven't read a million times already, but I do have some thoughts

Here are my top five tips:

• Use different kinds of bread. There is nothing more tiresome than opening a lunch box to the same thing. Every. Day. You would get tired of it, wouldn't you? That ham and cheese you packed yesterday can be completely transformed by turning it into a wrap. Same fillings, whole new lunch.
• Don't get stuck in a sandwich rut. Anything that can be eaten cold is good: think picnic food.
• Stock up on small containers, small size blue ice packs, and multiple sizes of ziploc bags.
• Try to cut veggies into packable sizes once a week. Then store in ziploc bags with a damp paper towel. Figure out what vegetable your kids like enough to eat cold: my boy likes broccoli and carrots and not much else.
• And my new obsession: bento. What is a bento? Well, it means "lunch" in Japanese. A bento typically consists of a rice ball, some type of protein, and veggies. A very healthful lunch, indeed. The components are packed tightly into a small container and artfully arranged. I have started to stock up on bento boxes and accessories, but these are not necessary. A small square sandwich container from the grocery store works just fine. The first bentos I made had homemade sushi (it's not as hard as you think, I'll talk about it some other time), diced peaches, Japanese pickles, and mini carrot pineapple muffins. I didn't take any pictures, sorry. The kids (and hubby) went nuts over them. Other varieties have been less popular, but some others have also been big hits. Leftovers are great for bentos; tuck some leftover chicken on top of some rice and surround by some veggies. Include a packet of soy sauce from your last takeout Chinese food. I keep threatening to pack them some crazy bentos in their lunch boxes.They insist other kids will make fun of them. I ask them why they would care what other people think. Haven't I set a good enough example when it comes to this? Nonetheless, it is fun to torture them. I will take pictures of some of my bentos and post them as I do them. 

Here are my "recipes" for out of the ordinary lunchbox entrees.  Hey, if they'll eat it, I'll make it.

Peanut butter wrap

Spread a flour tortilla with peanut butter. Sprinkle lightly with Honey Bunches of Oats cereal and drizzle very lightly with honey. Roll up.

Baba Ghanoush with pita
Roast an eggplant in the oven for about an hour, until tender. Let cool. Peel, and toss the flesh into the processor, along with 1/2 c tahini, 1/4 c lemon juice, salt, 3 cloves of garlic, and a dash of cayenne. Serve with pita.

Veggie Wrap
Spread a pita, tortilla, or softened lavash cracker with mayo. Lay two pieces of a quartered pickle, four tomato quarters, three or four broccoli florets, and lettuce or sprouts down the center. Roll up. (My husband can't stand these. He calls them "broccoli sandwiches" I love them, but then I'm a girl. Girls like vegetables.

Cobb Salad
Line a small container with chopped lettuce. Arrange on top: diced tomatoes, crumbled bacon, diced hard cooked egg, avocado, and diced cooked chicken. Pack a separate container with blue cheese dressing

Guacamole
Pack celery and carrot stick and tortilla chips with a container of guacamole. Sprinkle the top with a little lemon juice to keep it from browning.

There, now that was pretty easy, wasn't it? See, even you could do it.

Review of what was supposed to be my new pickle crock

It is really my own fault. I didn't read the description carefully enough, or I would have realized that the ceramic Emile Henry crock with the wooden lid I was ordering was too small. I really just looked at the picture and placed my order. After all, for almost $50 one could reasonably expect a pretty big crock, right? Wrong. For nearly $50 I received a 1.5 quart ceramic crock with a wooden lid. Don't get me wrong, it is a really nice crock; the lid has a rubber seal and fits really tightly and I love the shape and color. I just thought I would be getting more of it!

I need a pickle crock because I plan on making sweet pickles. And Priscilla has one and I don't, therefore, I must have one. I guess I'll have to go borrow hers. I think I'll use mine for making brandied peaches or maybe super small batch of refrigerator bread and butter pickles. Now those are fantastic. And really easy, too.

48 Hour Bread and Butter Pickles

3Cups vinegar
3 cups sugar
1/2 Cup uniodized salt
1 large onion, sliced
1 T mustard seed
1 tsp tumeric
pickling cukes

Layer onion and cukes in a 1 gallon glass jar (or several smaller ones), mix rest of ingredients and pour over. Ready to eat in 48 hours Keeps in refrigerator for 1 year.

I serve these as a side with sandwiches all the time. Guests have been amazed by them. They are unexpectedly good and no one makes bread and butter pickles anymore. Plus the ones from the grocery store are disgusting, which is why most people say they don't like bread and butter pickles. If you just go ahead and take my advice and make them, you'll be so surprised by how good they are you'll want to come to my house to thank me personally. Feel free to.

For my sweet pickles I use the recipe in the Ball Blue Book of Canning. Go buy it, it's like six bucks on Amazon. It has lots of good info for anyone new to canning. The sweet pickles will be ready in five days. Leave a comment for a chance to win a jar. If you live outside of Rochester, I'll mail them to you. I'll count the comments and enter them number into random.org and let it pick. Comment by next Friday.

Tomatillos-not tomatoes at all

Today's great find at the farmstand was tomatillos.

Tomatillos (pronounced toe-ma-tee-yos) are not green tomatoes. They are related to the Cape Gooseberry (whatever the hell that is) and are a staple of Mexican cooking. Ever eat green salsa? Yup,  tomatillos.

I like to use them for a really nice Chili Verde. (Green Chili for all of you Spanish illiterates) I do not make it like Grandma Foodie. Hers is good, really good, and not that mine is better, but (okay it's better).

Chili Verde

2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 onion, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
I Poblano, Anaheim, or Hatch chili, roasted, seeded, and chopped
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1/2 C Water
6-9 tomatillos, husks removed, roughly chopped

Saute the garlic and onion in 1 T olive oil until translucent. Add chilies and tomatillos and cooks until tomatillos soften, about 8 minutes. Transfer to food processor. Add water and puree until smooth, but a little on the chunky side, add cilantro and pulse a few times. Season to taste.

Now, you have two choices: you can add this sauce on top of a pork butt or shoulder and a couple of potatoes in the crock pot and cook it together for about 8 hours. Or:

You can cook a pork butt or shoulder on top of the stove (cover with water and simmer until tender, about 2-3 hours. Add a couple of potatoes the last thirty minutes. Drain, shred the pork, add the tomatillo sauce and heat through. Serve with flour tortillas.

Normally, I don't approve of cooking much of anything in the crock pot. But the one thing I will cook in there is tough pieces of meat that need to cook for a long time.  That's it, though. don't let me catch you making some horrid casserole or chicken, or God knows what in it. Crock-pots are for losers

Salsa-On the Grill!

My head is spinning with all the veggies available at the Farmer's markets and farm stands right now. I am doing my best to incorporate it all into my daily dinner plans, as well as putting some of it away for winter.

Hannah and Alex have been asking me to make burritos for dinner. Nothing special, just some average beans, rice, guacamole, lettuce, etc. Last night I got tired of the begging finally got around to it. I had some leftover baby back ribs in the fridge and while this is far from traditional, I took the meat off the bones and used the meat in the burritos. We let everyone make their own, so I set out dishes of the aforementioned guac, lettuce, rice, cheese,  beans (Oh, BTW, Grandma Foodie has the best way to make quick beans for Mexican dinner: Take 1 can of pinto beans, undrained and one can of refried beans. Mix together and add a ton of chopped garlic and an insane amount of black pepper. Heat on top of the stove, or put into a casserole dish, top with cheddar cheese and heat in the oven until hot and the cheese is melted.)

And I also put out a big bowl of just made salsa that I grilled. Yes, I grilled it.

Does that make no sense to you?

You just haven't lived yet, then., because the grill is the perfect place to prep the ingredients for your homemade salsa. Char everything, then whir it all together in the food processor. Eat it immediately, because it is actually best hot. Yes, hot. The flavors of the chilies and tomatoes really stand out just as it's made. Fry up some tortilla chips (yes, I said fry some tortilla chips; you really wouldn't want to use chips from a bag. They're just so, so, bleah! Not as good as ones made from stale corn tortillas.

I had just returned from the farmer's market, having bought way more tomatoes than I could really use, (if there is such a thing) and as I was putting them away, I had a revalation: make salsa to go with the burritos.
My salsa on the grill can be made quickly and easily and it is hands down the best homemade salsa I have ever eaten (not to toot my own horn; okay, I'll toot my own horn). You simply must try it. No arguments. I don't want to hear your whining. Just do it now. While the tomatoes and chilies are still ripe and before you need a parka to stand outside and use the grill. (BTW, you can make this salsa with supermarket roma tomatoes in the broiler during the winter. I'll let you.)


Salsa on the grill
2 jalapenos
4 cloves garlic
1 onion, halved
6-8 tomatoes, halved
1 bunch cilantro
juice of one lime
salt and pepper

Heat the grill to medium. I like to use one of those grill pans to do the tomatoes and garlic, but everything else can go straight on the grill grates. Grill until charred on one side and flip and do the other. Try not to let the onions get too burned. Here is what my grill looked like

I was also grilling poblanos and corn, obviously.

After everything is nicely charred, put ONE jalapeno and the garlic and onions into the food processor and chop briefly with on and off turns. You can add the other jalapeno later if you want it spicier, just try it first. Add the tomatoes and pulse again. Add the cilantro and pulse again. Put into a bowl, add the lime juice and salt and pepper. Eat a bunch before you tell everyone it is done because you won't get any after they know it's ready.

Chili Rellenos

Yesterday I stopped by the Lima Farmer's Market to pick up some fresh basil and tomatoes for dinner. I found a nice surprise there of some lovely, just picked poblano chilis from Werner's Farm in Rush on 15A just south of 251. The farmer was surprised by how excited I was and asked me what I would do with them; he told me that people have been askiing about them and he had never used them, didn't know what they were good for.

I like them in my Succotash Burritos, but there is really only one answer when asked what to make with poblanos: CHILI RELLENOS!

What is a chili relleno, you ask? (Well, if you ask, you're obviously not from California, plus it means you've never eaten one. So sad.) A chili relleno, is a stuffed chili. Stuffed with cheese. Gooey, melted cheese, encased in a slightly spicy pepper shell. Dipped in egg batter and fried until puffy and golden. In other words, Mexican comfort food. Chili Rellenos can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Or all three. In the same day.

Chili Rellenos
6 Poblano chilies
1/2 lb Monterrey jack cheese
3 eggs, separated
3 T flour
salt and pepper


Roast the poblanos over a gas flame or grill until the skins are blackened and blistered. Put into a paper sack for 10 minutes and then remove, cut off the top and  peel or scrape the skins and seeds off, trying not to break the chili open. Stuff with a piece of cheese, you want it pretty full. Set aside and do all of the chilies

Meanwhile, combine the egg yolks and flour and salt and pepper. Beat the whites until stiff. Gently fold the whites into the yolks. Slide the chilies into the batter, then slip into a frying pan with 1/2 inch of hot oil. When puffy on the bottom, gently flip over and cook until the other side is golden, puffy, and the cheese is melted. Serve with red chili sauce, if desired.

Cheater Chili Rellenos
A little Mexican lady at the Farmer's market gave this recipe to Grandma Foodie:

Roast the chilies, open them up, put a layer of cheese on top and pop in the microwave. Top with salsa. It's pretty damn good. My kids love them.

Also, here's a tip: roast a whole mess of the chilies at once and then put the extras in the freezer. They probably won't work for regular rellenos, but they will be fine for the cheater ones. Or to put in omelets or chili verde, or salsa, or succotash burritos, well, you get the idea.