Peeling Hard-Boiled Eggs

It's like magic!  Alton Brown said to peel the hard-boiled eggs before they cool.  And it works!

With fresh eggs from happy chickens, I found it nearly impossible to deal with hard-boiling eggs.  I tried letting them get old before boiling.  I would add vinegar to the water they're boiling in.  Or add baking soda.  But it was hit-or-miss as to whether the eggs would peel.  And when they would peel, it was a painstaking and time-consuming job.

Obviously, this peel-when-warm plan is useless for Easter eggs.

But for egg salad, deviled eggs, tuna salad, etc, hard-boil the eggs, and then put them in cold water for a few minutes.  Peel them while still slightly warm.  Put the peeled eggs in a closed container and pop 'em in the fridge until you need them. 

Worst Cooks in America

The "Survivor" version of cooking lessons.  Gary and I have been enjoying watching Worst Cooks in America.  This is much better than Chopped and even more enjoyable than Iron Chef.  The contestants begin as clueless cooks.  Along they way they are taught and challenged and helped and flummoxed and just keep cookin'.

I thought I was a pretty good cook, but I've learned a few things as I watch.

~ An easier way to cut an onion.  If you halve the onion vertically, peel it, and then begin dicing without going through the root end, the root will help hold the pieces of onion hold together.

~ Frugal Gourmet always said, "Hot pan.  Cold oil.  Food won't stick."  The teacher-chefs on WCiA tell the recruits to make sure the oil is just beginning to smoke before adding the food.  Then you know the oil is good and hot.

~ Chicken and fish go skin-side-down in the skillet or baking dish. Don't try to fudge and fuss with it and loosen the meat to prevent sticking; just wait until it's cooked.  Then move it.

~ Never ever press a spatula on top of a burger.  (That habit is going to be hard to break.)

Recent Events

Elizabeth's arrival is the best of the recent events.  But, oh!, I do wish I had the strength and endurance to go help more, visit more, snuggle more. 

Gary's hungry.  He's having some health problems that require [deep serious voice--] Dietary Changes.  Right now it seems like there's nothing he can eat but veggie salads.  Nothing with sticking-power.  Yeah, but how much of that is real, and how much is scientists and chemists trying to figure out the art of medicine?  Once he gets the pain under control, I suppose then we can begin experimenting.  I'm wondering: if we fix guts, might the rest of the body straighten out too?

Sister, brother, and I divided up most of the belongings of my mom's house.  I've heard stories from other families about what happens when a parent dies.  Oh my goodness -- I am so thankful that we can get along and be nice to each other!

Maggie and I have an appointment coming up at Easter Seals to see if they have any programs that might benefit her. 

Between Gary, Maggie, Rachel, and me, it seems like we're seeing doctors or making appointments or receiving test results practically every day.  My head is swimming. 

Pretty soon I will be leaving my job.  Working and homeschooling and healing-from-stroke was at the utter limits of what I could do.  There was no margin.  Mom' death and helping with settling things just didn't/won't fit in.  So something has to go.  Since Maggie's not expendable, and since I have no magic wand to [poof] achieve full healing from my brain injury, the job is the only thing that I can take a break from.  I will miss it.  I will miss some of the customers.  I will miss the paycheck.  But mostly I will miss the nice feeling of having finished a task completely and correctly.  I keep reassuring myself that I can always reapply for the job when some of these family matters are wrapped up.

Google tells me that the European Union has instituted new rules for cookies on websites.  That means bloggers must inform readers about cookies and obtain consent.  I don't know how to do that!  And I don't have the time or brain power to bother with figuring it out right now.  So my counter (which is, I think, the only cookie I have) had to go bye-bye.  If you leave an anonymous comment, please sign something on the bottom so I know who you are, so I can allow the comment to go through.  (You could use initials, or first name plus last initial, or "Friend in Janesville," etc.)  It's getting tempting to just shut-down the blog or make it private (readers by invitation only).  But I'd need to save a lot of information first, including printing out recipes.  And that too is too much work right now. 

Katie, Maggie, and I watched "Pride and Prejudice" at APT last weekend.  Sarah Day does such a great job with fussy, busybody women-characters!  And Marcus Truschinski is the best Mr Darcy I ever saw.  

I'm working on lacto-fermenting veggies.   The corn relish was made with fresh-picked corn from the farm.  I made it a few years ago, and it was my favorite pickled recipe.  It's great to make another batch.  I should get my hands on some more corn while it's still available.  The pickle-batch I set aside today was sauerkraut.  Fresh, unheated sauerkraut is so much yummier than the cooked/canned soft kind.  I think broccoli slaw may be my next attempt.  There are so many possibilities that sound good.  And non-vinegar pickles are so much tastier ... as well as being super-healthy.

Lock & Lock

When my aunt gave me some "Lock & Lock" I thought it was just another plastic storage container.  What was she so hyped about anyway?

I used them and found out.

The cracker container really works to keep crackers as fresh as when you opened them -- even for months.

If you store wet things (chili or soup) they will not spill, even if stored on their side or upside down.

Raisins and prunes will stay soft and fresh-as-new in the small containers.

These things are fantastic!  For most of my leftover containers, I don't need something this high-quality.  But when I do, these are perfect.  I'm hoping that some of those other brands (with the same kind of seal) work just as well.


[The only warning my aunt gave me was to make sure I never put anything in the microwave with the lid on.  She said it will seal the lid to the container.  If I need the lid while nuking, I turn the lid upside down to avoid any possibility of sealing.  I even take care not to close a container if the food in it is still slightly warm.]  

The Frugal Benefit of NOT Planning Menus Ahead

Menu-planning.  Everybody tells us that is the way to save money on the grocery budget. 

Okay, there's some truth to it.  You plan the menus, go to the grocery store once that week (or two weeks), buy what you need, and stick to the plan.  That's definitely more frugal than running to the store repeatedly or going out to eat. 

But I developed an even cheaper way.  I was shocked recently to see my scheme promoted on a website for eating local and organic.

Plan your menu AFTER shopping, not before. This allows you to stay on budget because you aren’t shopping for special ingredients to make pre-planned meals. You can take advantage of the best deals and plan your meals around those.  This can also help by keeping those unplanned budget purchases from going to waste in your crisper drawer while you carry on with your planned menu.

I like to jot down meal-plan ideas as I'm going through the store.   Lettuce is cheap?  Grab a few heads, write "taco salad" in the margin of your grocery list, and then make sure you grab a tomato and a pepper to be part of the salad.

Find some pork roast marked down to a frugal price because tomorrow is its expiration date?  Toss the roast in the cart, make a note of it in the margin, and remind yourself that it should be cooked tonight or tomorrow.

Find the el-cheapo deals at the store and then figure out what you'll turn it into. It doesn't always work: sometimes you can't find the fabulous deals.  Other weeks, time constraints at dinner will trump the plans you could've developed from the week's good deals at the store.  But other weeks, everything falls into place easily ... and for half the price of pre-planned menus.

Soft Foods

ice cream and sherbet
pudding and yogurt
mashed potatoes
fruit smoothies
scrambled or over-easy eggs

tomato soup
chicken-noodle soup
beef-noodle soup

pancakes
Dutch oven-pancakes
macaroni and cheese
tilapia in coconut-milk sauce

winter squash
pumpkin pie
applesauce
canned peaches
creamed spinach
banana
baked sweet potato
scalloped creamed-corn

soft bread (no millet or bulghar)
quiche
lentil soup
baked beans
chicken and dumplings
egg roll guts
burrito
fajita
cole slaw
tuna salad
bubble-n-squeak
muffins

spaghetti
stroganoff
meatloaf
pizza lentils
lasagna
chili
gumbo
crab with rotini
chicken pot pie
shepherd's pie
zucchini skillet
pulled beef in a barbecue sauce
hamburger-corn-noodle casserole
African peanut soup
teriyaki chicken and rice
red beans and rice
Mom's fried chicken

Spaetzle

My husband is not a fan of soup.

Oral surgery and missing teeth?  You get soup.

The soups I made recently really hit the spot for him.  I pureed the little bit of carrot, onion, and celery into the meaty broth.  The noodles were these awesome German spaetzle that I picked up at Aldi.  On the one hand, $2 for a one-pound bag of noodles seemed pricey.  But they are SO good.

Now, more oral surgery.  We need more soup that is pleasing to a non-soup fellow.  And Aldi discontinued the spaetzle.  Oh NO!  The price of that tasty noodly goodness is double (or more) at other stores.  I bought it anyhow.  Gary needs to eat.

When those noodles come back to Aldi as a "special purchase" again, I am buying BOXES and BOXES of them. 

Favorite Insta-Supper

Gary's favorite insta-suppers are
~ Aldi bake-at-home pizza (almost as good as Tony's)
~ spaghetti with a side of green beans.

My favorite?  When there's no time to cook, and you didn't thaw hamburger, and you need real food, this is what I love:
~ boneless center-cut pork chops
(skillet-fried with a rub of basil, brown sugar, chili powder)
~ buttered, parsleyed pasta
(maybe with pesto or parmesan too)
~ a side dish or two of frozen veggies

Seriously, it's about 20-25 minutes from the time I arrive home until we sit down to eat.  And it's real food.  And it's deLIcious.  Not the cheapest, so I don't plan it as part of the meal rotation.  But my tastebuds wish I would ....

Pat the Chicken

I keep running across these recipes that say, "Pat the chicken dry with paper towels," and then the instructions go on to tell about spices or frying or whatever.  I never quite saw the necessity of that.  I often soak my chicken parts in water for hours before cooking, so yes, then I will [usually] pat it dry.  But not always.

Last week, in a rush for lunch, I bought chicken tenderloins -- little strips of skinless, boneless breast meat.  Mushrooms were on sale at Aldi super-cheap, and I had my heart set on some delectable Chicken Marsala.  I dredged the chicken strips in seasoned flour.  When I set them into the thin layer of hot oil, ... uh ... the oil ... uh ... exploded.  Most of the burns are decently healing over, but my left wrist is still a mess of raw skin.

My guess is that the moisture in the chicken was the problem.  From now on, I'll pat the chicken dry! That's lesson #1.

Lesson #2?  I must remember that a burn should be patted dry before the aloe application.  I pulled my arm out from under the cold faucet and started rubbing on aloe.  But it was diluted by the water all over my arm, and thus not as effective as usual.


By the way, that Chicken Marsala was amaAAAzing.

"Drain the Fat"

Those recipes are always telling you to brown the meat and then to drain the fat.  For years I was a good girl; I followed the directions.

Then butter grew more expensive.
 
It bugged me: I would drain the fat off the hamburger, and then I would add olive oil or butter or whatever to the recipe.  Why?  I began to use the grease from the hamburger as the fat in the recipe.

I understand that, for many years, it was popular to decry saturated fats.  "Drain the fat from the sausage?  Oh yes, then use margarine in the recipe."  "Throw out the hamburger grease, and then put Crisco in the skillet to saute the veggies for your casserole."  Science is beginning to catch up to my mantra of: "The fat God made must be healthier than the fat the chemists invented, regardless of what current scientific studies conclude."

But how do we explain decades-old recipes that said to "drain the fat" -- recipes before Hate-Saturated-Fats became trendy?

In one of our food-history books, I came across information about rations and scrimping during WWII.  According to this book, "drain the fat" (and donate it for needs pertinent to the war effort) was a patriotic thing to do.  Keeping your bacon grease or your hamburger fat to use for your own family's needs?  Selfish! 



Ah ha!  That may be part of the answer to The Great Drain-the-Fat Mystery!

Deviled Eggs

James Beard advised in his book Hors D'Oeuvre & Canapes that no matter what else was served at a cocktail party, a tray of deviled eggs would always be popular and disappear the quickest.

from a kids' history book subtitled 

American Cooking from the 1920s through Today

by Loretta Ichord

Deviled eggs?  Oh YES please!

At a homeschool potluck once, three people brought deviled eggs.  About 7 dozen.  Some who proffered deviled eggs worried, "Oh, too many."  Nope.  They disappeared easily.

For symposium reception, I volunteered to bring deviled eggs one year.  Another woman told me that she was bringing three dozen deviled eggs, so I didn't have to.  Three dozen?  For 150+ people?  I brought several dozen.  So did someone else.  They disappeared easily.

My mantra is that there can never be too much fruit salad, and there can never be too many deviled eggs.  

And this history book backs me up!

Too Busy to Take Care of Yourself

Slowing down with meals, then, is symbolic of relaxing into our body, our career, our fears and desires, and anything life presents. It’s about granting ourselves the right to share in the simplicity of joyous moments on Earth. It’s about reclaiming our time, our dignity, and the sanctity of self-care.

My friend recently posted this quote

from Institute for the Psychology of Eating

Since we moved five years ago, our meals have changed drastically.  Part of it is getting home late from work, and part of it is having activities in the evening, and part of it is the lack of a dining room.  Whereas we used to sit down and eat meals together 10-18 times a week, moving cut that number in half.  When I started my job, it got worse.  And our commitment to mealtime continues to wane.  People grab food for themselves because we're not having mealtimes together.  When we are all together at a meal, too often we eat in the living room (with the tv on) because the kitchen table is too cluttered with mail and projects and other items.

"The sanctity of self-care."  I've been thinking about that ever since I saw the quote above.  "Sharing in the simplicity of joyous moments."  As we have fallen away from mealtimes together, I've noticed that it's harder to tend to other aspects of self-care: getting exercise, making sure my heels don't crack and split, flossing, etc.  

And what's worse is that this makes me less attuned to caring for the needs of others.  After all, if there's not enough time for me to take care of my hair, then I'm not motivated to help Maggie fix her hair all pretty and nice either.  If there's not enough time for me to sit on the Homedic massager to knead the knots out of my back, neither am I bothering to knead the knots out of Gary's shoulders and neck.

When we place little importance on mealtime---when we eat in the car, when we snatch bites of lunch while trying to work on a project, when we eat alone without setting the table for ourselves---does that cause callousness to grow in us?  Or maybe it's just a symptom of what's wrong.  I think a lot of health and happiness could be gained by going back to the mealtime practices we had before moving.  

But I don't know how to do it.  
Too many other things would go by the wayside.
And yet, should they, maybe?

Dinner for 40

I was serving dinner for 40-45 people, some of whom had special dietary needs.  And I was doing it far from home where I had limited access to a kitchen.  The menu was a potato bar and a salad bar.  I seriously over-estimated how much food was necessary.  So that I have records for another time, these are the amounts we should have bought and prepared:

20# baked potatoes
2# butter
24 oz sour cream
3# onions, caramelized
4# mushrooms, sauteed
4 bags (12 oz each) steam-in-bag frozen broccoli
2 quarts thick chili
8# bacon, cooked and chopped
2# shredded cheddar

2 quarts cole slaw
1 quart corn-&-black-bean salad

1 bag fresh spinach
6 bags (5-8 oz each) mixed salad greens
1 cucumber
4 pints cherry tomatoes
3 large bell peppers
2 large carrots, grated
16 oz raw, sliced mushrooms
1 pint black olives
1 bunch green onions
6 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
8 oz cashews
6 oz sunflower nuts
4 bottles of various salad dressings

1 watermelon
1 large cantaloupe
3 pineapples

1 loaf of homemade bread
2 pans of bars/cookies (13x9" each)
2 gallons lemonade
2 gallons iced tea
12 cups coffee
water

Caramel without HFCS

I was recently making Glenda's Most Evil Dessert as a thank-you treat for some of my co-workers.  Of course, it never crossed my mind to buy a bag or two of caramels (which is one of the main ingredients).  So Maggie and I determined to mix up some caramels right-quick.  That's when we discovered we had no corn syrup either (a main ingredient in the caramels). 

So I substituted honey.  Y'know -- real honey.  Made by bees.  Instead of chemists.

Guess what?  Those were darn good caramels!

Round Loaves of Bread

You know those lovely, round, rustic-looking loaves of bread?  I could never pull them off.  I tried making a round ball of dough, let it rise, and bake it.  What did I get?  Something flatter than I wanted, with edges that were way too flat.

So I tried putting the dough-ball into a greased bowl.   After it rose and baked, I would turn it out onto the cooking rack, only to find a "loaf" that was so roly-poly that it seemed tippy and unstable.  And who wants unstable bread? 

This weekend I experimented with a springform pan, the kind you use for cheesecake.  Hot diggety dog!  That's the way to do it.  The sides of the springform pan set a limit to how far the bread can spread out flat-like.  The dough is forced to rise up instead of out.  But the sides of the pan are straight, so the loaf is more even; and the loaf will not have the rounded sides & bottom that develop from being baked in a roundish bowl. 

PS: I put one large loaf of bread (maybe 4 cups of flour?) into a well-greased 9" cheesecake pan.  That worked beautifully.

Rotten Potatoes

That distinctive odor.  I can smell it in the pantry as soon as it starts.  So you grab the bag of potatoes, dump them all out, and find the one that's starting to decay. 

So does anybody know how to avoid getting a bag with a rotten potato?  I look the bags over before I choose one to put in my grocery cart.  My nose theoretically could sniff it out, but when I'm in the produce section by the potatoes, I always smell rotten ones.  How do you know which bags are clean and which have an on-their-way-to-putrid specimen?

So Many Dishes to Wash!

I think I washed dishes eight times on Tuesday before I asked one of the kids to help.

Wednesday looked to be another day full of dishes.  I knew I was going to be washing and drying bowls and knives and beaters and pots immediately after they were used so that they could be pressed into service for yet another cooking project.  Dishes dishes dishes!

So what's the problem here, really?

1.  I have food enough to dirty all these dishes and pans and spoons and mixing bowls.

2.  I have indoor plumbing and a seemingly endless supply of hot water to clean these dishes.

3.  I have dear people to feast with me tomorrow.  I'm not cooking for only one or two people.   There will be a big enough crowd around my table that I have plenty of kitchen work to consume two days in preparation.

So, what's the downside?  Sounds like a fabulous position to be in!

So bring on the hand cream!

The Conundrum of Healthy Eating

When you most need the good food,
when you most need to avoid store-bought products with their additives,
when you most need vitamin-packed whole foods,

is when you're sick or weak
and cannot prepare the usual wellness-instilling fare.

Sunbeam Mixer

For years I had a KitchenAid mixer.  I loved it.  It beat my cookies, kneaded my bread, and whipped up birthday cakes. When my standard-sized mixer died after about 15 years, we bought a larger one that could handle enough bread dough to make two full-sized whole-wheat loaves.  When the motor began to shed metal shavings, we knew the bigger machine wouldn't have the longevity of the older, regular-sized machine.  But we let it keep grinding away. 

In April it died.  Good-n-dead.

Option A:  Buy a replacement for $500.
Option B:  Buy a Bosch, which has a reputation for being a multi-decade machine-of-durability.  But that's more expensive yet.
Option C:  Buy a standard KitchenAid, which is $200 if you can find one on Craigslist or wait until the pre-Christmas sales. 

Y'know, if I believed that a machine would actually last 10-15 years or more (!), I might find a way to afford a new one.  But at the rate things are going, I'm not sure I can count on more than 5-8 years, and possibly less.  As a stop-gap measure while I decided what to do (or maybe as I waited until the pre-Christmas sales) I decided to buy a hand-mixer.

At Fleet-Farm I found a Sunbeam Heritage mixer* for thirty bucks.  It has whips, beaters, and dough hooks, powered by a pretty decent motor. When I first bought it, Maggie was at a loss.  She'd never operated a hand mixer before.  It took a while to figure out the machine.  We needed to slightly tweak how we made bread, as the mixer didn't have enough power to knead 8 cups of ww flour.  Because the bowl doesn't spin itself, you have to bother to hang onto the mixer and move the beaters around the bowl [gasp].  And yes, it can even make cookies, not just breads.  As an added bonus, we can whip the mashed potatoes instead of just smashing them up with the potato masher -- yummy.  As I was running $30-50 per year for my KitchenAid's depreciation costs, it looks like I'll be ahead if my little Sunbeam mixer lasts me just one year.

I wish I could have confidence that the quality of merchandise would be better if I forked over more money for a reputable brand known for quality and longevity.  But I don't.  So for now, I will just ask God to give me decent tools, and see what He provides.  Over the past five months, this Sunbeam has gone far beyond my expectations.





* I'm suspecting it may have been discontinued, as it's no longer available on the Sunbeam site, is expensive on Amazon, and is down to $22 at Fleet-Farm.

Sprouts

During late summer's fresh-tomato season, Maggie and I made a lot of alfalfa sprouts and a few tries at other sprouts.  Years ago, when I first heard about making sprouts, people made it sound like rocket science, with pitfalls hiding here, there, and everywhere.  But I found that it's easy-breezy when you have a screen lid for a wide-mouth canning jar.

Place a tablespoon or two of seeds in a one-quart jar.  Add water and soak for 12-24 hours.  Drain.  Rinse well with water and drain immediately, 2-4 times a day for a few days.  Keep the jar covered with a thin cloth so that the little seeds think they're in the dark. 

Screen lids are available online if you can't find them available at a health food store nearby.  I haven't tried the plastic ones (available for purchase, or the ones you cut out of plastic embroidery canvas) but it just seems too closed for airflow to me.  I have not had luck with making my own screen lids out of window-screen from the hardware store (too floppy) or using cheesecloth (doesn't allow enough water to drain off cleanly).  There are, however, instructions online for making a lid out of a spatter-screen for a skillet.  As those are available at dollar-stores, it might work well. 

Although it takes only a few seconds at a time to tend to the sprouts, you do have to rinse them at least twice a day.  If you're going to be gone for a few days, don't start them yet; the poor little sprouts will just dry out and shrivel up.  The biggest trick is remembering to rinse: we put an index card by the kitchen sink (where we see it often!) with a note to "rinse sprouts."  Pretty soon we'll have more batches started and enjoy loading up our sandwiches with sprouts.  Avocado, onion, tomato, cheese, sprouts, maybe some thin-sliced meat....  Yummy!