SharonAndAdam.com

Licking the Spoon

The best part of baking is licking the spoon. Is it not? At least for these guys it is.

Forever inspired by one of my best friends, I started making jam…because she said it was super easy. And it is. I even found something useful for Adam’s brew pot besides brewing beer! Heehee. So I have 15 cups of blueberry jam sitting in the pantry ready to make tasty those PB&J sandwiches, toast, homemade yogurt, pancakes, french toast, and to give at Lauren’s upcoming bridal kitchen shower.

Quinoa recipes

Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) makes a great side dish or a main dish. It’s exceptionally nutritious as it is the only grain to provide a complete protein–i.e. it contains all nine essential amino acids. (BTW, rice has half the amino acids and beans the complementary half, making rice and beans a complete protein.)

I found quinoa at Costco a couple of months ago and decided to give it a try. I love it and now we have it once a week or so. And my husband who never missed a beat found a beer recipe for it too AND consequently bought me quinoa seeds for the summer garden to plant with the okra!

Anyway, here’s a delicious recipe that has quickly become one of my favorite sides and worth the little extra time to make.

Quinoa with Toasted Almonds and Cranberries:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds
• 1 cube broth stock
• 1-1/2 cups boiling water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Directions:

Soak quinoa for 1/2 hour (or even overnight if you’re a grain soaker) in cold water. Rinse thoroughly (until water runs clear). On medium heat stir and toast the slivered almonds until golden. Stir and roast the quinoa until dry and turning color. Transfer toasted quinoa and toasted almonds and cranberries to a 2 qt saucepan. Add boiling water, broth stock cube, salt, bay leaf and cinnamon stick. Bring back to boil, cover and turn heat to simmer for 20 minutes. Removed from heat and allow to sit for 5 minutes. Fluff gently with a fork and serve.

Here’s another recipe I found recently. I tried it once and it was pretty tasty.

Breakfast Quinoa (from Martha Stewart Living Magazine)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups milk (plus more for serving)
• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed (until water runs clear)
• 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup (1/2 pint) fresh blueberries

Directions:

Bring milk to a boil in a small saucepan. Add quinoa and return to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered until three-quarters of the milk has been absorbed, about 15 minutes. Stir in sugar and cinnamon. Cook covered, until almost all the milk has been absorbed, about 8 minutes. Stir in blueberries, and cook for 30 seconds. Serve with additional milk, sugar, cinnamon, and blueberries.

What’s Cooking?

What’s cooking in your kitchen this Lent?

I have our Italian Vegetable Soup in a crock pot and our homemade pretzels for tonight’s Covenant of Love meeting.

What are some of your favorite Lenten meatless meals? I was making a list last night of our Wednesday and Friday meatless meals. Since we go meatless throughout the year on Fridays, and since I’m the cook, I added an extra day with Friday reserved for very humble simple meals (soups and bread/grilled cheese sandwiches).

My list of possibilities includes:

• Lentil Soup (which we had on Wednesday)
• Italian Vegetable Soup (tonight)
• Tomato Basil Soup
• Potato Soup
• Black Bean Casserole
• Bean Burritos (for dinner next Wednesday)
• Manicotti/stuffed shells/cheese lasagna
• Chalupas
• Fish Tacos
• Grilled/Baked Fish
• Hummus with Tabouli(made with quinoa) and pita bread
• Vegetarian Chili
• Cheese Pizza (although I added to the list, I wouldn’t make it since we usually reserve another night for pizza night)
• Pasta with Basil and Sundried tomatoes
• Pasta (cheese tortillini or ravioli) with Pesto

What are your ideas?

Pretzel Time

Fulton, Muffin and I just finished making our first Lenten batch of pretzels.

I got this recipe from my favorite holy-day cook book called The Continual Feast by Evelyn Birge Vitz.

The pretzel is a very ancient bakery item, which traditionally was eaten only during Lent. It appreared each year on Ash Wednesday and disappreared on Good Friday. It goes back at least to the fifth century: there is a Roman manuscript in the Vatican Library dating from that period which shows a Lenten pretzel. As to the shape: it is made in the form of two arms crossed in prayer. The word bracellae, “little arms,” became in German Bretzel, then Pretzel. These early Christians ate no dairy products in Lent, so the pretzel was made only of flour, salt, and water: it was as simple as it could be.

Ingredients:

• 1 T. honey or sugar
• 1-1/2 cups lukewarm water (100-110 degrees F)
• 1 envelope active dry yeast or 2-1/2 tsp
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups flour
• Coarse or kosher salt
• 1 egg, beaten

Add the honey to the water; sprinkle in the yeast and stir until dissolved. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Blend in the flour and knead the dough until smooth.

Cut the dough into pieces. Roll them into ropes and twist into pretzel shapes. You can make small pretzels with thin ropes, or large ones with fat ropes, but remember that to cook at the same rate, your pretzels need to be all the same size.

Place the pretzels on lightly greased cookie sheets. Brush them with beaten egg. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake 425 degrees F for 12-15 mintutes, until pretzels are golden brown.

Chicken Fried Steak Dinner

Last weekend we bought another quarter calf from D&D Farms. If you like grass fed beef, this is a nice local farm to buy from. And the meat is excellent! We bought our last quarter back at the beginning of November. (A quarter lasted our family about 6 months.)

This time around they gave us a greater variety of cuts of beef. And quite honestly, I’m not beef savvy enough nor do I have the cooking channels to know what to do with most of the meat. BUT my dad does. I consider him an expert in beef cuts and preparing them to perfection. So I gave him a call last night to find out what else I could possibly feed the fam with all this nice beef.

On the topic of tenderized beef cutlets he gave me a few ideas including chicken fried steak and carne gisada (a Mexican beef dish I love but never knew how to make). The pregnancy cravings immediately kicked in for that chicken fried steak! I found this great recipe that used things I already had, turned on some country music for ambiance and made these yummy Texas-style chicken fried steaks with cream gravy. I got a couple of raised eyebrows of delight from my husband upon his first bite and a “This is excellent.” (Typically any food that elicits a response from my husband is either really great or a total dud. He’s quite conservative on his food critiquing with good reason.)

I did make one change to the recipe. When you’re making the cream gravy, replace the 3/4 water with either  3/4 cup chicken broth or 3/4 water with a chicken bouillon cube. It comes out tastier and less bland.