Soup Stock Day!

It's Soup Stock Day!

Every month or two or three, I save scraps of carrots, onion, celery, and bones from Roast or Chicken so I can make a big pot of soup stock.  It's a great way to make your food budget go just a bit further - plus it is tasty.


Unless your four - in which case, my toddler will tell you that soup = yuck. Every time.


It's actually been a while since I've done this so I had quite a few prime rib bones saved up! 

I added mayyybe a tablespoon of salt to the whole batch, brought it to a boil then simmered for around 16 hours.

I first used my big strainer to catch the big bits of bones, and then ran it through my fine mesh strainer twice to catch and little bits.

My mom's trick is to then get the stock cold enough that you can scrape off the fat that sits on the top, keep this in a separate container and freeze both.

When you're ready to actually make soup - use the stock-fat for frying up all your vegetables. You wind up with less fat overall in the soup, don't have fat separating in your soup and add more flavour back in then if you used oil or butter when you are making your soup.

Eating In

We've been working hard at meal planning - in part to help just manage the after-work-daycare rush and in part to go out to eat less often.

Don't get me wrong, we really enjoy eating out, however; we want to be more intentional about it.  We want to go out when we're planning to do it - as a social thing not as an 'oh crap, did you take something out for dinner, no I didn't, we need to feed the kids' event.

Last week we planned to have a pizza night.  Recently we've been doing this with store-bought pizza shells.  This time, however; I found a great recipe online - quick and easy and made the dough myself.

It was amazing!  So good!  We did one pepperoni and one cheese.

Mmmm Homemade Bread

 Guys!  I love bread, I love not spending money, making my own bread is pretty great as it serves both.  The trick is, it takes patience to do it well.  My mom ran through everything with me, and adjusted the recipe to fit my KitchenAid when we made buns for Christmas.  Now that we've run out, I was inspired to keep going with this baking business.  Her method, requires we let the bread rise three times!  So start to finish, this takes 3-4 hours or so.

I love bunching down the dough!

Too much fun.

I couldn't find my third bread pan, I think Little Man might have put it in another cupboard somewhere.  So, we wound up with two loaves and six beautiful buns!

They aren't quite as smooth as my moms, but I'm super happy with how it turned out.

It's simple really - water, sugar and yeast to start.  A little butter or margarine, skim milk powder, then some brown flower and some white flower - more of the latter than the former.

Soup Stock

 

There is nothing like a cold winter day to have me wanting for soup!  I haven't done it on my own before, but I've had my mom's home made soup a lot and watched her make it too.  So today (well, I started yesterday), I'm making my own!

Starting with the stock, I pulled out a bag and a half of veggie scraps that I have kept in the freezer (just adding to it when we have carrots, or bits of onion, even a few potato peels), next I tossed in a few steak bones that were also in the freezer.  I had room in the pot, so tossed in a bit more celery and a limp carrot from my fridge that hadn't quite made it to the freezer yet.

I didn't have enough bones, so my mom gave me a few that she had picked up at the farmers market.  They were raw, chopped up small, from a local beef breeder/butcher.  Those bones I roasted for an hour, and then tossed in the pot too.

I topped it up with water ~ about 12 cups fit in my pot, and turned it on to low.  I added salt and pepper to taste, and a bit of garlic.  I tasted throughout the day and added a bit more salt a few times because I was pretty conservative with that.

It bubbled away for about 8 hours yesterday, and then we just stuck it in the attached garage overnight and I popped it back on the stove for a few more hours this morning.  Later today, I'll strain off the veggies and make the soup!

My mom lets the stock chill so she can scrape off the fat on the top, then, using the big pot, melt the fat, and add onions/celery until they are fragrant.  Then she adds the stock, any other veggies she wants, plus a tender cut of beef like Sirloin.

Yum, yum!

Each Peach Pear Plum

Guys, you need to try the Food Network, Paula Dean Peach Cobbler recipe.

I'm not going to write it all back out, but just take my word for it, click the link, and get baking!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/peach-cobbler-recipe.html

Coffee Cake

Guys!  You need to try this cake.

For my birthday this year, I was craving coffee cake.  No, no, no.  Not the cake that you have with coffee, cake that tasted like.

Not sure where or why I got this idea, but it stuck.  I googled, and googled, and googled and eventually found what I was craving.  A real coffee cake, on The Pioneer Women's website.

I'm not going to copy/paste the recipe for you, but if you're interested, just click the link above.

I will tell you that instead of using  instant coffee, we used real coffee and added instant to that.

So.  Good.

Fish Tacos

My best friend and I have decided to get together once a week and cook dinner together. The only rule is that it is supposed to be something new and interesting and we'll try to rotate houses and who picks what we're making.

Last week we made Fish Tacos - they were amazing! Here's the receipe:

Recipe courtesy Bobby Flay
Prep Time:35 min

Inactive Prep Time:25 min
Cook Time:45 min

Level:Intermediate

Serves:4 servings

Ingredients

Tacos:
1 pound white flaky fish, such as mahi mahi or orata
1/4 cup canola oil
1 lime, juiced
1 tablespoons ancho chili powder
1 jalapeno, coarsely chopped (we used just a few rounds of jarred jalapeno peppers b/c I'm a chicken when it comes to heat but my BFF and Jordan added a few to their tacos after)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves (we used basil as a substitution and didn't use nearly as much)
8 flour tortillas (it actually made six good sized ones)


Garnish:
Shredded white cabbage
Hot sauce (didn't use this)
Crema or sour cream (we used sour cream)
Thinly sliced red onion (instead of onion we used apple and edible flowers from my BFF's garden)
Thinly sliced green onion
Chopped cilantro leaves
Pureed Tomato Salsa, recipe follows

Pureed Tomato Salsa:
2 tablespoon peanut oil (we used what we had handy in the cupboard)
1 small red onion, coarsely chopped (we used apple)
4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
4 large ripe tomatoes, chopped
1 serrano chile
1 jalapeno, sliced
1 tablespoon chipotle hot sauce (skipped)
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves (again we used basil)
Salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat grill to medium-high heat. Place fish in a medium size dish. Whisk together the oil, lime juice, ancho, jalapeno, and cilantro and pour over the fish. Let marinate for 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove the fish from the marinade place onto a hot grill, flesh side down. Grill the fish for 4 minutes on the first side and then flip for 30 seconds and remove. Let rest for 5 minutes then flake the fish with a fork.

Place the tortillas on the grill and grill for 20 seconds. Divide the fish among the tortillas and garnish with any or all of the garnishes.

Preheat grill or use side burners of the grill. Heat oil in medium saucepan, add onions and garlic and cook until soft. Add tomatoes, serrano and jalapeno and cook until tomatoes are soft, about 15 to 20 minutes. Puree the mixture with a hand-held immersion blender until smooth and cook for an additional 10 to 15 minutes. Add the hot sauce, oregano, cilantro and lime juice and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Five Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

This recipe was emailed to me from a colleague at work.
4 tablespoons flour 
4 tablespoons sugar 
2 tablespoons cocoa 
1 egg beaten
3 tablespoons milk 
3 tablespoons oil 
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional) 
A small splash of vanilla extract 
1 large coffee mug (Microwave Safe)

1. Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. 
2. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. 
3. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
4. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again. 
5. Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. 
6. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! 
7. Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
8. EAT!

Homemade Bread - I Did It!

Back in October I had mentioned I wanted to learn how to make my mom's bread.  Well, at Christmas - I got the KitchenAid I so desperately wanted, and just this weekend I finally made my first loaf of bread!

I'll share with you this experience, in pictures!

After mixing all the ingredients in my lovely Kitchen Aid - I got to the best part... kneading!

Then it has to rise, not once

  but twice

 into the oven....

 

mmm yum!

I had halved the recipe I used b/c I wasn't sure how much it would make - next time I'll use the whole recipe and put a bit more dough in each pan.

My Mom's Bread Recipe

Krystal and Frugal Dreamer were chatting about bread making on Twitter the other day and it got me thinking about my mom's amazing bread.  My brother's been making it for a while now, but now that he's moving out, I have an even larger reason to try to learn how to make it myself.  I think that I'm going to learn how to do it this winter... we could have a bread bake off, if that's even a thing?!

I actually have a cook book that my grandma wrote for her children, and then passed it along to her grandchildren.  Each recipe has a short story followed by the ingredients and directions.  Often, something is written in the directions that isn't in the ingredients and vice versa.  I think she secretly did this on purpose to get her family calling for the rest of the details ;)

So, here is mom's story/recipe - Mom, if I miss anything, please feel free to add it in the notes.  If anyone tries it, I would love to hear how it works out for you.  I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out when I try it.

Mom's Name Bread

I taught mom's name everything I knew about bread.  I think she learned something on her own because her bread is so much better then mine and now I use her recipe.

5 cups warm water
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons yeast

Combine and let the yeast rise.

1/4 to 1/2 cup of margarine
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup skim milk powder (optional)
1/2 cup wheat germ (optional)
10-12 cups flour, some white and some whole wheat

Combine with yeast mixture and kneed until your arms are tired.  Let rise until double in bulk. Punch down. Either let it rise again or make into buns or bread.  Let rise again. Bake at 375% until brown.