Oven Lovin' Girl

No home grown tomatoes? I don’t think so!

Day 1

So my parents decide to go on this long road trip and we say, “Great! Sounds fun! Can’t wait to hear all about it!” And then my dad says, “So I won’t be planting a garden this year. No tomatoes.” *insert crickets here* Is he joking? His tomatoes are what keeps me going all summer and fall. This cannot be true. With the calmest voice I can muster I ask, “Really? What about the tomatoes?” and he says, “Not this year, honey.” I have to admit, I did panic for a bit. Then I decided I would get a few pots and plant my own. Yeah, that’ll show ‘em! I can do it. No problem.

Well, there is one problem — I have a brown thumb. The only thing I can successfully keep alive are cactus. It’s true. And this from a girl whose grandfather was the head gardener for the whole school district! Sad, right? The green gene did not transfer down. I still decided to give it a go. Why the heck not?

Then the hubby says he found these cool raised beds that don’t require any tools in Sunset magazine. Know what I did next? I called the guy who makes them (Conor), asked him a bunch of questions and then bought one. Easy peasy. Minifarmbox is truly the way to go if you don’t have the space for a big ‘ol garden. It came to the house in a few days and was super easy to set up. In fact, we put it together in about 20 minutes, then ran out to buy soil and plants and had a complete garden later that afternoon. It took a buttload of soil, but it was a very easy way to plant a garden. Daily watering is all I’m doing so far and as you can see below, it’s working.

Day 27

We planted several types of tomatoes, squash and peppers, plus basil, thyme and cilantro in separate pots. Here’s our garden not even a month after planting. I got cages for the tomatoes, as they don’t have enough room to wander out. Shout out to Marcus and OJ at Home Depot for helping me separate out 12 cages that were all stuck together. I’d still be there trying to get them apart if it weren’t for them. I’m going to take them some tomatoes once they come in! I’ll keep you posted on how things turn out. But just in case, cross your fingers for me?

Write now

I took a food writing class a few months ago. It was only 6 weeks, but I wish it were 6 months. I knew we’d only scratch the surface of the food writing world, so I soaked it up like a big ‘ol sponge. I was infatuated with the subject, teacher and fellow students. Everyone was there for a different reason yet we all had this one common denominator — food!

We started each class with a free write exercise, where our teacher gave us a topic or sentence and we had to just go for it. There was a time limit, but we didn’t usually know how long we’d be writing. I loved the free write. I enjoyed putting pen to paper and seeing where my thoughts took me. I have many inhibitions in daily life, but not with writing. I say what I feel. The idea that I don’t always need to share it with anyone is probably what makes me so free with the words. Plus, there was always time to rewrite later. The point is to write everyday. We wrote about a newly discovered food item, a proper recipe, blog piece, restaurant review and a memoir piece during the 6 weeks. It was good to learn writing for various parts of the food world and figure out what I enjoyed.

My favorite writing topic was food as memoir. I was just finishing up Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table that week, so the timing couldn’t have been better. This writing style speaks to me. My brain is made up of one memory after another, many of them revolving around food and family. They’re fighting for space in my brain like an overstuffed closet. I just recently read Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton and she inspired me to continue down this path. I just enrolled in a memoir writing course that beings next month and am truly excited to explore this personal avenue. Wish me luck!

Nutella is a beautiful thing

I’m not going to use her name, but I have a friend who eats Nutella by the spoonful. Or four. She tells me that she had 4 spoonfuls for lunch that day and I think, “No way! Isn’t it too sweet or too goopy?” I’m not a huge peanut butter fan and Nutella reminds me of the peanutty goo. I bought a jar earlier this year to make a dessert with it, but the occasion fell through and I never even opened the jar. Then I saw a recipe for Nutella cookies on Pinterest and pinned it for future use. Yesterday I opened the jar. My mind has been changed.

The recipe called for 1 cup of Nutella. Do you think a heaping cup will hurt the recipe? I did not and decided to go for it. (Note: It didn’t hurt a darn thing.) And yes, I did lick the spatula when I was done scooping this into the mixing bowl.

After rolling the dough into balls, you mash the dough down with the bottom of a glass. I went with the stylish 1970s TAB glass because it had the right size bottom.

So, yeah, these are really good. The edges of my cookies are a bit crumbly looking, but it doesn’t hurt the taste one bit. Plus, the recipe only has 4 ingredients, so it’s super easy. The cookie edges are crunchy and the centers are chewy, which is a really nice mix of textures. One of the comments on the original recipe said to wait until the cookies were cool, but I say p’shaw. I ate one warm and one cooled and both were delicious!

toffee blondies

are you tired of chocolate? i know, i know. right now you’re probably saying, “WTF?” i make brownies all the time and they’re damn good. they have double chocolate and are chewy and good, but sometimes i want to make something else. something a little different, but still yummy. i’ve been making these toffee blondies i found in martha stewart everyday food magazine off and on for years and they’re a nice change from chocolate. i made them today for a picnic and they were a hit!

the blondies are easy to make. you take melted butter and mix it with brown sugar. we’re off to a good start, right? in my eyes this is already caramely goodness!

then you add vanilla, eggs, salt and flour to the butter/sugar mixture and end up with a sticky batter. hang on, it gets better…

then you add toffee chips. oh yeah! if i can find the skor chips, i like to use them. this time i used the heath toffee chips that had milk chocolate in them. i wasn’t sure how that would go over, but i can report that the little bit of chocolate worked.

the pan needs to be lined with foil because they’ll stick. the toffee melts a bit and makes them too sticky to bake in the pan alone. it’s amazing cos the foil just peels away when they’re cool.

ta da, toffee blondie innard goodness! i cut them small so everyone would be able to have a few and that they did. nothing makes me happier than seeing a big smile on a friend’s face when they eat something i’ve made!

fast fondant flowers (say it fast 3x!)

my mother-in-law is retiring and she asked me to make a cake for her work party. she asked for a 1/2 sheet, white cake, white frosting with fruit in the middle. easy enough, right? i was cool with that and even got some lovely strawberries to add as the filling. but then there’s the decorating. i’m ok with trying almost anything, but i’m not really great at the whole buttercream roses and flowers thing. i have made them before, but they always turn out lopsided or weird looking. i surfed for flower ideas and found these on the Wilton website.

they used the candy clay, which i think is softer than fondant, but i had fondant in my baking cupboard, so i went for it. the first ones i made were too thick cos i didn’t roll the fondant thin enough, but i got the hang of it after a while. and i have these cute little flower cutters in various sizes, which i thought would look fun on the cake.

i wanted some of them to have a little body, so i let them dry on the edge of a paper plate. this gave them a little bend. i added a tiny sprinkle to the smaller ones and a larger candy ball to the larger ones. i kept a few of the large flowers flat to layer upon.

i was happy with the finished product. i frosted the cake with a non-dairy frosting that you whip yourself called pastry pride. i get it from a cake shop in my neighborhood and it’s usually frozen. you just let it thaw in the fridge overnight and then whip until it looks like whipped cream. you can add sugar or flavoring to it, but i like it as is. it’s super easy to work with, too, which is good. like i said, i’m happy with the finished cake. i like how the layered flowers turned out and am hoping my mom-in-law will too!

the ginger burned, so it became roasted carrot soup

the recipe in The Soup Book by Sophie Grigson said “maple roasted ginger and carrot soup”. maple syrup might make it too sweet, right? i think roasted carrots are pretty sweet on their own, so i didn’t add the syrup to the veggies and just roasted them with olive oil. glad i did!

i love fresh ginger and carrots together. my other favorite flavor combo is chocolate and bananas, but this one is slightly healthier.

carrots, ginger, onion all get roasted with olive oil. i also added salt and pepper. the ginger pieces were really small, so of course they got burned. duh. i should have added them later in the roasting process or cut larger chunks.

i added the roasted veggies to the blender with my homemade chicken stock and blammo — soup!

a homemade indian meal i’ll never forget

so this post is way late. i took these photos months ago when my friend sreya, aka my baking student, came over to teach me how to cook indian food. i put them in a folder all set to post about them and then i cleaned up my desktop. yeah, you know what i’m going to say now, right? into a folder they went and out of my brain they went! better late then never.

sreya brought over the ingredients and together we made this delicious indian veggie meal. the process was amazing. we made tikka masala from scratch. we added cilantro to everything at the last minute as a flavorful garnish. the only thing we didn’t make was the naan. we had much fun that day and then sat down to a gorgeous dinner. here’s the proof!

pakora — a yummy appetizer of cauliflower, potato and onion.

this is the pakora batter….

and here they are getting the bubbly treatment. you just grab little handfuls of the batter and fry. we ate them warm while we were cooking. such a treat!

chana masala. sreya boiled the chana at home so we wouldn’t have to, which made it a lot quicker to our bellies!

aloo gobi, my favorite, starting to cook. it’s a mix of potato, tomato and cauliflower. it’s delish!

believe it or not, this is the beginning of homemade tikka masala. we actually ground up red onions in a little spice grinder. you cook the ground onions with spices and it makes for a smooth, rich sauce.

while making the tikka masala, we had another pan going to brown the paneer cubes.

here’s the paneer all crispy and ready to go into the tikka masala. y-u-m!

the perfect marriage of the 2 together. paneer tikka masala is one of my all-time fave indian dishes and this one was wonderful. the rich sauce was full of spices and we added bell peppers for color/flavor. so good.

and to sop up all that yummy sauce? naan! we put them on a griddle so they got warm and toasty.

then we had galub jamun for dessert. you fry these little dough balls and then soak them in a sugar syrup until they’re saturated. we made these first so they’d be ready by the end of dinner.

the finished product. we spent all day cooking and it was worth every second. the food was delicious, the company was lovely and i learned some new dishes to add to my repertoire. i was even left with a little kit of the spices we used that day so i could try these dishes on my own. thank you, sreya!

superbowl snack goodness

check it out — mini corn dog muffins. i made these for a superbowl party last week and they were a hit. try ‘em!

this photo kind of sucks, but trust me, these babies are delish!

i didn’t even use the corn muffin base the recipe author used, i bought good ‘ol jiffy corn muffin mix and went to town. that stuff is damn good for .99 a box!

pop a tablespoon of corn muffin mix into each mini muffin cup, top with a small slice of hot dog and bake. that’s it!

the corn muffin bakes around the hot dog and stayed moist and yummy. when i put them on the table of the superbowl party i attended, a guy asked me what these were. i told him, he tried one and declared, “i don’t like corn dogs but i love corn bread and these are great!”. yay!

Recipe from Iowa Girl Eats

another meatless monday

i love mushrooms. i ate them more often when i didn’t have a husband who hates them. it’s not like he forbids me to eat them or anything, it’s just easier to cook one dinner a day, ya know? so the other day i’m pinning (yes, and i am slightly obsessed) when i came across a lovely photo of mushroom barley soup from mango & tomato. i pinned it with the intention of making it soon. i thought it would be perfect for a dinner and some lunches this week.

so guess what i made today? and meatless for monday, no less!

here are the veggies cooking before adding the broth and barley. can i just tell you how amazing my kitchen smelled at this moment? i actually took this photo to remind myself of that yummy smell. the recipe is very easy and the soup comes together quickly. i didn’t use as much stock as the recipe calls for, but i may end up adding some as the week goes on. the soup is full of wonderful earthy flavors with the mushrooms and thyme. i only had fresh thyme and i added some dry oregano, too — just for kicks.

this is good stuff! easy to make and very tasty. olga recommends adding leftover meat to the soup, which would make it even heartier. yum!

Recipe from Mango & Tomato

a new reason to have a bbq

i found this vintage metal tray in cambria right after the holidays and i can’t wait to use it! won’t it look fun filled with cocktails or big slabs of meat?