C is for Cooking Challenge Continues...

The next recipe that I was supposed to try in C is for Cooking was Elmo's Yellow Birthday Cake, but I wasn't about to turn Big Brother's Superbowl birthday dessert into a science experiment, so I stuck with Pilsbury cake mix. It came out fabulous. Like most American moms, I'm an expert processed food cook. Big Brother was thrilled with his fake cake from a box, until I almost lit it on fire while lighting the candles. That accident turned it into a fancy French dessert, I think.

C is for Cooking Blog Challenge: Recipe #1

A few weeks ago I challenged myself in the area of baking. It turns out that I do not have the stamina for cooking of the great Julia Child, or even Julie Powell for that matter. In fact, I may be more impatient and destructive than the late seventies version of Cookie Monster. That's right. Baking isn't my "thing," but I find messing up recipes and watching the family's reaction very amusing.

The challenge I gave myself was seven baking recipes in seven weeks. So far I'm a bit behind. The first recipe in C is for Cooking that I tried with the kids was called Rosita's Honey Pears. I wrote all about the "joy" of cooking Rosita's Honey Pears with the help of preschoolers in my column for Mamazina, which is coming out online this spring. So I'll be brief here.

It was a disaster. Not like a national disaster or anything, but the kind that almost sets the kitchen afire, and leaves flour and honey on your wood floors. In short, it was cooking minus the joy.

Only one out of three kids ate the dessert.

The other two rated it "be-scusting mama, try again."

Here are the pictures:

The Loren/Elmo Project

Seven recipes in seven weeks, (come on now, I'm busy), can I ever do it? After seeing the Julie & Julia movie and attempting, but failing to get through reading the book, Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell, I have decided to do a little parody on Dude, Where Am I?. I'll call it,

The Loren & Elmo Project: My Seven Weeks of Screwing Up Preschool Desserts

This idea came to me last night while I was attempting to be a mother extraordinaire who bakes homemade cookies from her William Sonoma Baking cookbook.

While I was standing over the oven watching the world's flattest chocolate chip cookies cool, I had an epiphany. What if I screwed up my way through the "Sweets" section of the Sesame Street cookbook C is for Cooking, by Susan McQuillan just for your entertainment? Would it be a publicity stunt for this blog? Of course. Do I risk the possibility of ticking off Cookie Monster and Elmo? Most definitely. Oh, this is going to be good, I thought. I hope Julie Powell doesn't find out and cleave me.

So I'll start in a few days with Rosita Monster's Honey Pear Crisp. Stay tuned for that. I promise these recipe posts will not become fodder for a movie, unless I get to star as myself opposite Harrison Ford as my controversial, twice-my-age husband. Sorry Milk Man. ;)

Here's how to ruin homemade cookies:

1. Make the oven too hot
2. Make the cookies too thin
3. Don't rotate the pan while baking
4. Remove the cookies too soon ("Cookies not done yet!" warns chef Cookie Monster.)
5. Leave them in the pan too long.

OR

Soften the butter in the microwave because you are impatient. Then you get my infamous Flat Stanley cookies shown below. (Close your eyes, Grandma.):

A Holiday Gift For You

Grandma LaCapria's Biscotti

Smelling grandma's cookies is like having her stand beside me. They remind me of how loved I felt around her. Making one of her recipes is like giving myself, and whoever I bake for, the gift of her presence. I made her biscotti this Thanksgiving, (pictured here).

These contain almonds, but you can put whatever you want in them. This recipe has basically the same ingredients as Grandma L's butter cookies, except the baking directions are different. Grandma usually started out with a mountain of flour. Then she would stuff the mountain with eggs and suddenly there was dough. I'm not that talented, so I use a bowl and my electric mixer. These taste so great with tea and coffee, or a big glass of milk. I hope you share this recipe with someone this holiday season.

Ingredients:

5 cups flour

2 cups sugar

5 eggs

2 sticks of butter

1 tbsp. baking powder

optional ingredients: almonds/ dried fruit/ other nuts

Directions:

1. mix sugar, baking powder, flour in a bowl
2. dump mixture onto a large cookie sheet
3. make a hole in the middle and fill hole with eggs, butter
4. squish everything until it looks like dough
5. make two loaves of dough
6. place loaves on greased pans and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until lightly brown
7. remove from oven
8. cut loaves crosswise into 1/2 inch slices
9. lay slices cut side down on same pan making sure the pieces do not touch
10. return to oven and bake five minutes
11. store cookies in tightly covered container

A Week's Worth of Rushed Dinners that Actually Taste Good

If you are anything like me, then one of the most stressful times of the day is the afternoon, when you have to prepare dinner. The older children are running around the house like loony birds, Hell Hound is barking at me for some dinner, the phone is ringing. Meanwhile Baby Bigfoot keeps peeling his clothes off. Here is a week of dinners that are tasty and fast. I did not make up these recipes, but I did change them here and there.

Monday

Lemon Chicken With Broccoli Over Rice

You Need:

steamed broccoli florets

cooked minute rice

chopped chicken breast

1 bottle of Lemon Pepper 30 Minute Marinade Sauce

Directions:

Steam the frozen chopped broccoli and set aside

Cook the rice according to the directions on the box, but mix in half of the lemon pepper marinade

Fry the chicken in the other half of the marinade

Arrange chicken and broccoli on a bed of rice and serve.



Tuesday

Loren’s Mad Good Chili



You Need:

 Your favorite bakery rolls

1 can kidney beans

1 jar salsa

1 can diced tomatoes

Chili pepper

onion, chopped

1 lb ground beef or ground turkey


Directions:

Fry the onion in a tsp. of olive oil, and then add ground beef.

Add other ingredients and simmer for a half hour.

Serve with rolls and a salad.



Wednesday

Chicken with Tomatoes and Spaghetti


You need:

1 lb spaghetti

5-6 plum tomatoes

2 lbs chopped boneless chicken breast

Parmesan cheese

1/3 cup olive oil

Fresh basil

Chopped garlic- I don’t know, I like a lot.

Directions:


Boil the spaghetti, strain and set aside.

Fry the garlic, tomatoes and basil in oil

Add spaghetti and parmesan cheese to pan.

Mix to coat and serve with a side salad.



Thursday

Shrimp and Rice Stir Fry


You Need:

Cooked brown rice- 4 cups

1 bag frozen, cooked and cleaned medium shrimp

¼ cup orange juice

2 tbsp. soy sauce

1 tbsp. corn starch

½ tsp. sugar

Minced garlic

1 bag frozen stir fried veggies

¾ cup chicken broth

Vegetable oil or peanut oil

Directions:


Mix together soy sauce, OJ, corn starch, sugar, and broth. Set aside.

Fry shrimp in oil and add garlic.

Add the veggies to the pan and heat through.

Mix together shrimp veggies and sauce.

Serve over hot rice.



Friday

Apple Filled Ebelskiver and Fruit Salad

You need:


Ebelskiver pan

Buttery spray

Pancake mix- instant or regular

Maple syrup or caramel sauce

Confectioner’s sugar

Finely chopped apples

Fruit salad side dish

Directions-


Prepare the pancake mix according to the box and set aside. Spray pan with butter and drop chopped apple pieces into each “cup” then coat with pancake mix. To see how this is done, watch a video at the William Sonoma website.

Picture from William Sonoma.

Tradition is a Comfort

--Big Brother and the Princess waiting for the pizzas to be cooked, and the snow to stop. New Year's Eve, 2008

When I was a little girl I watched my maternal grandfather make pizzas for the family every New Year's Eve. He was a product of The Greatest Generation, as Tom Brokaw describes. Grandpa continued this tradition because it reminded him of his mother, who started it many years earlier. He said that when he rolled out the dough, he could feel her nearby.

One year when I was a teenager, he wrote down the recipe on Grumman note paper. I still have the handwritten recipe, although Grumman's and grandpa are physically gone. When I look at his handwriting, I know he's still with me and it is very comforting. The day he wrote down the recipe I knew he was doing it for posterity. Grandpa had a way of leaving a paper trail of himself, dating and labeling everything, with some secret intent. So now, every year since about 2001, I make the pizzas.

This year I left my handwritten cookbook at my mother's house, but I don't need it. I can see grandpa's writing, all capitals, printed neatly and deliberately, in my mind's eye. I roll out the dough while listening to an audio version of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina on my new Ipod. I remember grandpa's flour-covered fingers and smile, a little teary. The kids are looking over my shoulder. I'm taking this family tradition into the next millennium.



Above: Making the pizzas, New Year's Eve 2008




---Making the Pizzas, New Year's Eve 2007








Here's the recipe.

Grandpa D'Anieri's New Year's Eve Pizzas

• Five Pounds of Pizza Dough


• 2 pounds mozzerella


• 1 pound parmesan


• Italian Seasoning


• 1-2 jars tomato sauce, or homemade


• Any chopped up cooked meat. I used ham this year.


• flour


• Peanut Oil (1 gallon)


• Deep Fyer

1. Let dough rise overnight in bowls covered with dish towels.


2. Turn on the deep fryer and fill to line with oil. Then cover the top with a wire mesh splatter protector thing.


3. Set up trays lined with paper towels for pizzas as they come out of fryer.


4. Roll dough into loaves. Cut loaves into seven or eight pieces. Then make each piece round and very flat with the rolling pin. Use lots of flour.


5. Fill each circular piece of dough with cheese, seasoning, meat and sauce, then fold over like a calzone and seal with a fork or a real pastry sealer tool if you have one.


6. Drop one or two pizzas into the deep fryer and cook until brown, turning once. Let cool on paper towels.

(Warning: If you eat this high cholesterol dish more than once a year, you may be dead before 2010.)

Happy New Year!

Loren's Scorched Artichokes

This is my latest gourmet disasterpiece: Scorched Artichokes. I plan on making them again for Christmas, so if you happen to be coming over, here is your warning.

They actually tasted pretty good, and I know what I did wrong. Next time I'll steam the plain artichokes first, so I'm not so concerned about cooking them thoroughly in the oven, and I have to add more lemon juice to the tops so they don't turn brown.

It's very funny to serve artichokes to people who have never tried them. My husband just stared at his for about five minutes, then said: "So, do I eat the leaves, or just the heart?" You know I told him to eat the leaves and the fuzzy center part that gets stuck in your throat, just for kicks. It was a very amusing dinner experience...for me.

Milk Man must really love me, (or he's having an affair and feels guilty). Not only did he eat the entire thing, he told me it was excellent when he was finished. He must still be under the spell of my captivating charm, because if he were cheating, he knows I would "accidentally" poison him.

Here's the Recipe:

Stuffed Artichokes

• Artichokes - whole


• Bread crumbs


• Parmesan cheese, and other Italian Cheeses- (your preference)


• minced onions and minced garlic
• crumbed, cooked bacon- optional


• Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1. Combine bread crumbs, onion, garlic, cheese in a bowl and set aside.


2. Wash, and then steam the artichokes until they are soft, and the leaves peel off easily.


3. Trim stems off of artichokes and trim tops evenly. Dip in lemon juice.


4. Arrange in a Pyrex dish, and douse generously with EVOO.


5. Press open the leaves a bit and stuff with bread crumb mixture.


6. Coat tops with lemon juice.


7. Bake artichokes at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes, until stuffing is brown, but leaves are NOT scorched and crispy, like mine.

Here's a little history of the artichoke for you:

Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), poet and dramatist, shunned the artichoke. In his book Travels Through Italy, Goethe says, "the peasants eat thistles," a practice he could never adopt.

In the 1920s, Ciro Terranova "Whitey" (1889-1938), a member of the mafia and known as the "Artichoke King," began his monopoly of the artichoke market by purchasing all the produce shipped to New York from California at $6 a crate. He created a produce company and resold the artichokes at 30 to 40 percent profit. Not only did he terrorize distributors and produce merchants, he even launched an attack on the artichoke fields from Montara to Pescadero, hacking down the plants with machetes in the dead of night. These "artichoke wars" led the Mayor or New York, Fiorello La Guardia, to declare "the sale, display, and possession" of artichokes in New York illegal. Mayor La Guardia publicly admitted that he himself loved the vegetable and after only one week he lifted the ban.
- This info comes from http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/ArtichokeHistory.htm

What the ??@#! Do I Do With This Carcass? Recipe

(Don't read this, Mom.)

My mother sent me home on Thanksgiving Day with a turkey carcass because I wanted to attempt homemade soup. I lied and told her, "Of course I know what to do with it."

First I cut it out of the white garbage bag that she wrapped it in. Then I threw it on a cutting board and stared at it until Milk Man came into the kitchen and asked me what the heck I was doing. As soon as he saw the butcher knife in my hand, he left.

All those bones and skin really overwhelmed me, so I re-wrapped the carcass and put it in the fridge for a day, while I tried to figure out how to squeeze some soup out of the poor, already mutilated bird. I looked up turkey soup on the Internet, and opened all the cookbooks I own to similar recipes. Then I read everything and came up with my own method. After the soup was done I gave it to a panel of one judge who eats medieval-style, and he gave it a 10! See the picture? Anyway, here's the fantastic recipe. You should try it one day.


---Judge says: "Yike it... More?"


Loren's Surprisingly Good Carcass Soup Recipe


You need:

• a big carcass of a Turkey (also works with a Peacock, I bet)


• celery chopped


• onion chopped


• leftover veggies from your fridge


• cooked rice leftover


• 3-4 chicken bouillon packets


• salt


• Use your judgment for the amounts

1. Take a turkey carcass and try to chop the wings off. Then get the biggest pot you own and just dump the whole thing into it. Fill the pot with water and boil that bird until all the meat comes off his bones. Next skim the fat, skin and anything else that looks gross off the top of the soup. Then remove the bones.


2. Add all the leftover veggies in your fridge to the pot, carrots, green beans etc. Then add some chopped onion and celery. Next add three or four packets of sodium-free chicken bouillon and the leftover rice.


3. In about an hour the soup will be done and you can add salt if you like. Enjoy your carcass soup!

Thanksgiving Gift to My Readers

Dear Readers,

Thank you for encouraging me to keep writing this blog. Here is a little gift for you and your family from mine. The day after Thanksgiving, when you want to spice up those leftovers, here's a recipe for you. It comes from the makers of Campbell's soup. (I'm a Campbell's soup kind of girl.) Have a wonderful holiday!

Love, Loren

Turkey Pot Pie










Ingredients:

• 2 refrigerated pie crusts


• 2 cans of condensed cream of chicken Campbell's soup


• 2 cups of leftover veggies- (your choice, carrots, peas, string beans work well)


• 1/2 cup of potato or sweet potato (optional)
  1/4 cup of milk


• about 1 1/12 cup of chopped turkey breast


• 1/3 cup of flour - to thicken mixture (if necessary)
  
  

Directions:

• brown bottom pie crust in un-greased pie pan for 12 minutes at 450 degrees


• let crust cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, mix soup, milk, vegetables, turkey and flour in a large bowl.


• pour mixture into pie crust bottom.


• add pie crust top layer and make three slices in top. (for air release)


• Return pie to oven and cook for 30 minutes at 425 degrees, or until golden brown and bubbly.
  
  Let the pie cool for about 15 minutes.
  
  Serves about 4-5 people.