Salvaging berries that are on their last legs

Beautiful, plump, sweet colorful berries are so lovely to have around and eat. But, their lives are so short.

I got some gorgeous and delicious organic strawberries from Trader Joe's, and managed to mow through about 1/2 of them- I had about a 3 cups left, and they were starting to get mushy around the edges and dull looking. I didn't want to throw them out. Light bulb moment- refrigerator jam.

No need to can anything, or do anything too extensive, plus I only had enough for about a jar after cooking.

I washed and hulled my berries, threw them in a pan with about 2-3 tablespoons of sugar (these were rather sweet berries in the first place), and about half a lemon's worth of juice. I love the compliment that lemon juice gives berries. I've yet to find a berry that isn't complimented by lemon. I turned it on medium, and cooked it down until thick and the berries were broken down. If desired, mash them a bit with a potato masher or a fork. Take a taste half way through the cooking process to make sure it's sweet enough for your tastes.

Put in a clean jar, let cool, put the lid on and in the fridge it goes. Should be good for a few weeks. It won't be as firm as regular jam because there is not any added pectin. Blueberries may get a little more congealed, as they do contain compounds that make them solidify more when cooked or blended.

Excellent on toast, french toast, pancakes, waffles, scones, biscuits, vanilla ice cream, you name it.

Bread Pudding with Grand Marnier and Chocolate

So, I've been on this Frenchie kick lately, and have acquired some odds and ends of baguettes. They were hard and basically inedible at this point, but I couldn't bring myself to chuck them just because they were stale. I got to thinking... what could I do? I could whiz them in the food processor for crumbs, throw them out for the raccoons... or make dessert out of them.

Being that dessert has always been my favorite course, that was the direction I decided to go in. I also am basically a glutton, so I didn't want to make it TOO sweet, because I wanted to justify to myself that eating it for breakfast was ok. So, I left out the optional sugar... but, I love orange, I love Grand Marnier and I love those two with chocolate. Without the optional sugar, it was rich and buttery. I would suggest that you make it the first time with the optional sugar.

Here we go. You will need:
1 baguette, torn into chunks (or if you're feeling fancy, cut it up)
1 stick of butter, melted
1 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream (if you don't have it, just add another 1/2 cup of milk)
4 eggs
1/2 cup orange marmalade
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier (skip if you don't have, or you can use brandy or rum...)
Optional- 1/2 cup sugar (if making this for the first time, add this)
Chocolate chips- I had half a bag left, but feel free to use more if you are so compelled.


Take an 9" x 9" pan (or a little larger), brush with some of the melted butter. Throw the bread chunks into the pan. Drizzle the remaining melted butter over the bread. (Oh, just do it!)
Mix the milk, cream, eggs, marmalade, vanilla, booze and sugar together in a bowl. Pour over the bread. Now here comes the fun part. Mash the bread down a bit. Then, place tin foil over this mess, place a heavy weight on top of it (I used two large cans), leave to soak for an hour... like while you're eating dinner. This will help get the custard into the bread. Or, you can refrigerate it over night (covered) to let it soak in. Whatever is easiest for you. Confession time: after 30 minutes, I was growing impatient, so I mashed the bread down again into the custard... my hands. It was fun. It was gooshy, and made funny noises. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove the tinfoil, sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Simple, quasi-French inspired Chicken Dinner

I don't know what was going on with Blogger. I couldn't log in for quite some while. I kept getting some bizarre error code.

Ok, with that said, let's go ahead with dinner. It's simple, contains a lot of butter and is pretty tasty. It's also very rich, so I'd suggest adding a salad with some vinaigrette as a side dish, and serving with some bread or rice to help sop up the sauce.

You will need:
6 pieces of chicken (I used skin-on thighs, as this is what I had. Boneless, skinless breasts would be fine too)
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 cups white wine (I used pinot gris)
1 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (Yes, I have butter listed twice. They're used in different stages of the process).

Melt the first two tablespoons of butter together with the olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.
Mix the flour, salt, and pepper together. Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture, be sure to shake of excess. When the butter is foaming, add the chicken. Cook on each side only golden brown. At this point, the chicken is not cooked through unless you have very thin chicken. Check it. If yours is done, remove it, cover with tin foil to keep warm. If it's still pink in the middle, leave it in the pan. Add the 2 cups of wine, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Check the chicken again, it should be done. Remove the chicken, cover with tin foil to keep warm. Reduce the wine down to about 1/4 cup of liquid. Add the chicken broth. Reduce that mixture down to about 1/2 cup of liquid. Shut off the heat. Throw in the last two tablespoons of butter, stirring to melt and incorporate. Serve over the chicken.

Enjoy!

When life throws you a curve ball, make cookies.

Stress makes me want to bake. I find it relaxing, almost meditative to measure and stir. So, tonight with Monday staring me in the face once again, and other types of stress knocking on my door, I decided to make some cookies.

I decided on a riff of my holiday oatmeal cookies because I didn't have any oats and I had a lot of dried fruit staring at me. So, these cookies have the following in them: dried cranberries and blueberries, pistachios and white chocolate chips. The base is good with anything you want to throw in it- left over trail mix? go for it... got large stuff like dried apricots or prunes? Chop 'em up and toss them in there. Or, alternatively, pick up one bag of chocolate chips and throw them in there and forget everything else.

Here we go!
In a large saucepan, melt two sticks of butter (unsalted, but if you have only salted, just omit the salt in the next steps). Once it's melted, take it off the heat and stir in the following:
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional, but suggested)

Once that is all well incorporated (and cooling a bit), stir in two eggs. Mix well. Next, in a separate bowl, mix together 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder. Stir well. Dump into the sauce pan, mix into the batter- don't over stir. Just mix till incorporated. Now comes the fun part.

I had some pistachios in the freezer (always taste one first to make sure they are still good), and a bunch of fruit on the counter, so I added the following:
1 cup pistachios (shelled and unsalted)
1 cup dried blueberries
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup white chocolate chips
Stir into the batter until well incorporated, then chill in the fridge for 20 minutes till you get the oven heated to 350.

Try not to eat all the dough. Seriously. Don't even taste it. (And NO, I've never gotten sick eating cookie dough...) Seriously. It's dangerous.

When the oven is ready, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil (easier clean up), scoop the batter into golf ball sized balls. Return the dough to the fridge. Bake for 12-14 minutes (depending on how well done you like your cookies). Let cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes, then use spatula to move the cookies to a plate. Repeat until you make all the cookies... or alternatively, you can dump the batter in a Ziploc bag, and freeze it for later use. Should be good for a few months in the freezer, until you next cookie attack.

Ideas: apricots, cherries and milk chocolate chips might be a nice alternative- especially with some slivered or slice almonds. Yum!

Enjoy!

From BBQ weather to meatloaf weather in one day. Gotta love Spring!!

Ok, so we went from lovely 70's-ish weather to really rather cool and rainy over night. I love warming up the house via heat from the oven, and it's definitely a bit chilly in here, so meatloaf it is! I like to serve mine with mashed potatoes (that's a gimme, right?), steamed broccoli and maybe some salad to cut through all that heaviness. I love that meatloaf is kind of a convenient comfort food- regardless of what you have in the house, if you have ground meat, you can fashion some kind of loaf out of it... and you don't need buns or pasta like you would if you were going to make burgers or meatballs.

On to the loaf- I make a mixed meat loaf, using turkey meat and beef because it lightens the loaf, provides a better protein to fat ratio, and makes everyone in the house happy. You can easily just use all beef, or change the ratio. Also, so you know this is a rather Italian inspired loaf. I included green onions for color and some bright onion-y flavor.

Here is the recipe for this evening:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the following:
1 1/4 lbs. ground turkey (I use 93/7)
1 lb. ground beef (I use 80/20)
1/3 cup bread crumbs
1 egg
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. powdered garlic
1/4 tsp. dried, powdered oregano
1/4 tsp. dried, powdered sage
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped (I use the jarred kind in oil, with "Italian Herbs")
4 green onions, sliced
1/2 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons each finely grated parmesan and asiago
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/3 cup shredded mixed cheese (I had Sargento shredded "Mexican Cheese", so I used that. If you don't have any extra cheese, just skip this step.)

Mix it all together. Place half into a loaf pan, make a pile of cheese down the middle of the loaf forming kind of a log shape. Finish by topping with the rest of the meat, top with more ketchup (about 1/4 cup) spreading it to cover the top of the meat. Bake for about 90 minutes, checking after one hour to see how it's doing. It should be pulled away from the pan, juicy and reach an internal temp of about 180 when done. While that's cooking, start working on your side dishes. Let it rest for about ten minutes while you finish your side dishes. Enjoy!

P.S. It's excellent the next day cold on some good sturdy bread with mustard. YUM!!

BBQ Weather!

It's perfect BBQ weather during the evenings now- in the 70's, it's light later, a slight breeze... perfect!

So, to start off BBQ Season, I made one of my favorite recipes- Rosemary Garlic Chicken.

Savory, garlicky, rich and crispy; these chicken thighs cook up so perfectly crispy and delicious that they would go well with a nice fresh salad, maybe a French style potato salad, and glass of wine.

Get your BBQ out of the shed, light your coal, let's get our grill on because I'm hungry!


What you will need:

6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

½ cup olive oil

3-4 garlic cloves, peeled

2 large sprigs of rosemary, washed

½- 1 teaspoon salt (depending on how salty you like your food)

Remove the rosemary from the sprigs. Place this plus garlic, olive oil and salt in a blender or small food processor, whiz until chopped but not to the point of totally blending it together.

Place chicken in a large bowl or 8” x 8” ceramic or glass pan. Pour olive oil mixture over the chicken, turn it and mix it around until all the chicken is well coated.  You can either leave this overnight (covered) in the fridge to marinate or let it sit out on the counter while you get your coals going. If you let it marinate overnight, it can get really garlicky tasting, so that’s your call on how pungent you want to be that night. Once you place the chicken on the grill, you can throw out the marinade.

For the Grill: I like to pile my coals on one side of the BBQ, and light them there. Everyone has their own technique, but this is my version. This leaves me room to move things around if they start to get too toasty or aren’t cooking enough.

Let the coals get all completely white and still flaming. I like to pile my chicken in a U shape around the outside perimeter of the fire, not too close as it’s bloody hot. Be careful when putting the chicken near the flames- if the chicken is dripping olive oil, you might get a flare up. Don't burn yourself... like I do... on a regular basis... long story. Anyhow, I usually flip my chicken every 5 minutes or so until the juices run clear and the skin is golden and crispy.

Let rest for ten minutes while you get your sides served up, and enjoy.

This is the first of many BBQ posts for the season. There will be many styles and iterations of cooking utilizing the grill in the warming months to come- from good ol' Southern BBQ to Japanese yakitori.

Vive la BBQ!

When you need a diversion- Chocolate Pudding Cake

I have a killer recipe for a sinful Chocolate Pudding Cake. There are many reasons to make this cake. The first might be that it's a holiday (like today- Mother's Day), birthday, it's been a stressful week or to control the urge to go on a bender... Who really needs a REASON to eat chocolate? Just get mixing already!

For the cake:
1/2 cup 1/2 & 1/2 or cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier, Rum or other liquor (can be omitted)
1/3 cup salted butter, melted
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all of the above together, pour into an ungreased 8" x 8" pan- at least 2 inches deep.

Stir together:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed (I prefer dark)
1/4 cup cocoa powder

Sprinkle over the batter. Do not stir.

Heat 1 1/2 cups water to almost boiling (can use hot coffee instead, if you want a mocha effect). Pour over contents in the pan. DO NOT STIR.

Place in 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes. Let cool slightly, serve with ice cream- vanilla, caramel, coffee, or even Bailey's ice cream would be quite tasty.

Enjoy!