post #101

I did not notice that my last post was number 100. I suppose that is some sort of a milestone. Hooray!

Here is another dish I made before my camera went ca puts. It is pastitsio and is delicious. Basically, this is a pasta dish of a tomato meat sauce, layer with tube pasta and covered with a blanket of rich delicious bechamel sauce. All my reading on the internet suggests that this dish is Greek but I think it is really an American creation... maybe made by Greek in America, you know? Like spaghetti and meatballs is not Italian because the Italians never eat meatballs with pasta, BUT Italian families in America eat spaghetti and meatballs. Regardless, the Chinese invented pasta, really so all this "pasta is Italian food" is crazy talk!

Anyway, I did a lot of reading about this dish on the internet and came up with a recipe that I thought my husband and I would enjoy and settled on this one from Falling Cloudberries, a cookbook that I want to add to my collection. I rarely purchase cookbooks for various reasons but this one looks interesting and worth the money.

before my camera died...

I made this savory sausage, cheese, tomato and pesto pie. I have to give a lot of credit to Andrew over at the Scottish Cow for this creation. I was thinking about a savory pie with summer vegetables and he posted a lovely recipe with fabulous pictures for one over on his blog the same week I was planning to make mine. I followed his advice on roasting the tomatoes and keeping them away from the bottom of the pie to minimize sogginess. This was really very good and different. I have been in the mood for different lately. I only want to make/eat food that I have never made/eaten before.

Here's how I did it - I made a basic double pie dough recipe (I used a basic pie dough over other choices because I did not want this to taste like pizza at all) and lined a 9 inch tart pan with half of it. I did not blind bake the dough, since I wanted to make a pie with a top crust and wanted to fold over the dough. I roasted the tomatoes before putting them in the pie, which not only eliminated a lot of the liquid, but gave the tomatoes a nice, concentrated flavor. Yummy! So, basically it was layers of cooked Italian sausage, pesto, the roasted tomatoes, pesto again, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes again, pesto again, Parmesan cheese and then the top pie dough, crimp around to look nice and rustic and then baked at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes until golden brown. I was very pleased with how this turned out. The oil in the pesto did seep a bit into the top crust giving a portion of it a slight green tint but that is ok, I guess.


I served it with this creamy artichoke soup from Giada de Laurentis. The recipe can be found here. I will make this soup again and probably often, it was so good. I made some minor changes since I had canned artichokes on hand, I used those and I did not garnish the soup with more marscapone cheese as it just seemed like a lump of cheese. I did thinly slice chives for this dish but I am not certain why I took the picture before putting them on. Oh yeah, I am a lousy photographer!

Concerning the camera, my husband is encouraging me to hold out for the right camera. So, that means a shopping date one day instead of just ordering something on the web. Maybe my sister will want to go camera shopping with me while she is visiting at the end of this month!

I did manage to get all of the pictures that were stored on the memory card off of the dead camera, so I have about a weeks worth of blog posts and after that I will have to think of something else.

a requiem is needed for my camera

Oh, it is so sad! My beloved (tongue in cheek there) digital camera has gone to that big electronics waiting room in the sky. It won't even turn on. It hates me.

Oh well, I have been looking for an excuse to buy a new camera and now I have it! Yes... a new camera. I have gotten more than one suggestion to but a Canon Powershot A80 and I think I would be happy with that but I want to really do a little research and make sure I get the best camera for my needs. I live in the middle of nowhere and this means I have to plan a special trip over the Chesapeake Bay to really look at cameras. Alas! I do not know when this will happen. I guess I will have to blog just words for a couple of weeks. My pictures were usually so craptastic that I doubt anyone will really miss them. It makes me sad to think that I maybe wouldn't blog while the camera thing is going on. I really don't care if anyone reads this (besides my mom), it is just a good exercise to keep the blog consistently.

Hmmm... I do have a backlog of food pictures that I haven't posted, so maybe I will post those for a while but they are really bad. Not bad food, just bad pictures, really. Food that doesn't photograph well... like Swedish meatballs. They look like mini alien pods. I have never seen a mini alien pod but I have a pretty good imagination and I think they would look like this.

Mini alien pods in sour cream sauce with dill, anyone?

Anyway, we had this pasta with smashed peas, ricotta and sausage for dinner last night and if I recall correctly, we will be having it tonight, too since this recipe like makes a ton. Like 8 servings at least. I don't know how Giada stays so slim if she considered this to be 4 - 6 servings. Regardless, it was pretty good. I think I will make it again and use a better quality ricotta cheese than this time. Also, I think the peas need to be cooked more than she states. That's just my opinion.

Ok, I am off to buy a grave plot for the camera. Oh, and I need a new black dress for the funeral...

$8 potatoes and new vintage fabric

I have made these potatoes before. They are really, really fabulous. Cheesy, creamy, and they have a crispy topping that is made from torn pieces of bread and shredded cheese. I affectionately dubbed them "$8 potatoes" last night since the 8 ounces of Gruyere cheese used to make them cost $8.34. So, really they are like $14 potatoes considering the cost of the Parmesan, cream, stock, thyme, butter, garlic, and potatoes. Ok, so maybe they are $20 potatoes. Yikes! But they are really, really good. I cannot stress how much better they are than something like this. I remember eating those when I was a kid. I remember the clicking sound the dehydrated potato slices made when they were poured into my mom's Pyrex glass bowl. Potatoes should click unless it is because they are lovingly fried to a crisp. Just my opinion. Honestly, I loved those things as a child.

Ok, here is a dark, shadowy picture of some great, old fabric I bought last night on my way home. I pass a large antique store on the way home. Their prices on furniture are crazy but on fabric and small items, the prices are awesome. The top piece is actually a duvet and I love the red and white ticking stripe. The bottom is soft yellow and both pieces are 100% cotton and so smooth and soft already. I took them home and washed the musty, used fabric smell out (I hate that smell). I plan to make a coverlet out of these by sandwiching batting between them, tufting and tying it at intervals and then binding the edges - kind of a cheater quilt. I think I am going to use turquoise floss for the ties. It should be cute and be ready for my sister to use when she gets here at the end of the month for a much anticipated visit. The fabric was $6 and I already have the notions needed. Quilt batting is on sale at Joann's right now for 40% off. Hmmm... all told, this project will cost less than the potatoes au gratin! Nice.

whose big fat chocolate chip cookies?

These are MY big fat chocolate chip cookies made from Tyler Florence's recipe called "my big fat chocolate chip cookies" which by the way is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have ever tried. It makes big... well, big fat cookies but the cookies are cakey and chewy and delicious. I guess "my big, fat, chewy, cakey, delicious, chocolate chip cookies" was too long of a name. As a child I did not really know that a home cook could make round cookies since my mom always made square chocolate chip cookies. She made more of a chocolate chip blondie than a cookie, now that I think of it. Anyway, I thought that round cookies were from the store and square cookies were from home! I recall a few years ago a friend of mine told me that his son had not yet figured out that he could have a Christmas tree in his house. He really thought department stores and other people's houses had Christmas trees! How funny and how sad, huh? I cannot imagine being a kid and not having a Christmas tree in my house. My mom hand painted all of the ornaments on our tree and I remember knowing that made them special, even as a child. I cannot remember when I was more careful or delicate with something than when I was helping to decorate the tree and then put the ornaments away.

I have been thinking about Christmas a lot lately. Wondering about decorations and what my hubby and I will have for dinner. The Anglophile that I am, I would love to make a traditional English Christmas dinner. I thought about doing that last year but when I got to the store and the rib roast was $9 a pound and the turkey was $.30 a pound, I decided to make turkey! The turkey was pretty good.

still life with tomatillos

I think I have mentioned before that I believe I live in one of the most beautiful places imaginable. I just want to say that again. I don't mean my house specifically, but rather living in the country in Maryland. It's really a lovely place.

On Monday morning we slept in late. Well, late for us. I got up around 7:00 and the Lenny was up by 8. We had a late, leisurely breakfast. Since I am normally up and out so early, I rarely get to fully appreciate the way the sun comes into my kitchen around 9:00. I get great sun in my living room in the afternoons and great sun in my kitchen in the mornings. Here is a fruit stack that my mother painted years ago, some tomatillos, and poblanos. I thought they just looked lovely in the sunlight. I like that you can see the shadow created by the window panes.

Anyway, the tomatillios and poblanos were purchased to make enchiladas verdes. I have been on a kick lately of wanting to make food that I have never made before. I have made many enchiladas in my life but never the green kind. I like to call them green meanies, but then again, I am a strange person most days.

The enchiladas turned out pretty darn good. I think I will make them as creamy, green enchiladas next time. You know, like a mix of the sour cream based enchilada sauce and this green meanie sauce. The sauce really isn't mean as in it is not very hot. It is a nice savory front of the tongue heat. This is a very labor intensive meal but I believe worth it in the end. I would not try to make this on a weekday after work, unless some of the steps were already done.

Enchiladas verdes

For the chicken:
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts (that's 2 to 3 breast halves)
1 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth

For the salsa verde:
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
12 tomatillos, husks and stems removed
2 poblanos, halved, stemmed, and seeded
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt
¼ dried cilantro
2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese
12 6-inch corn tortillas

Preheat broiler.

In a saucepan on the stovetop, sauté the onion in 2 teaspoons oil until golden brown, 6-8 minutes. Add 2 cloves garlic and cumin and sauté until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the broth. Add the chicken, and simmer, covered, until the chicken is cooked through about 15-20 minutes, flipping chicken halfway through cooking. Cool chicken. Reserve 1 cup cooking liquid.

Toss tomatillos and poblanos with 2 teaspoons oil, and arrange on a foil-lined baking sheet, poblanos facing skin-side up. Broil until blackened and soft, 5-8 minutes, checking often. Put poblanos in a plastic bag and let cool.

Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.
Remove the skin from the poblanos. Put the tomatillos, poblanos, 1 clove garlic, sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and reserved chicken cooking liquid in food processor, and process until chunky, about 8 1-second pulses. Smear bottom of 13 by 9-inch baking dish with 3/4 cup tomatillo sauce.

Shred cooled chicken by hand. Toss with cilantro, 1 1/2 cup cheese, and salt to taste.

Remove foil from baking pan and dry the pan. Brush both sides of tortillas lightly with oil and arrange on the pan. Bake until soft, 2-4 minutes.

Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees.

Place 1/3 cup chicken filling down center of each tortilla. Roll each tortilla snugly and place in the prepared baking dish. Eight enchiladas will fit down the middle of the baking dish, and the remaining four will fit two-deep perpendicularly next to that row. Pour remaining tomatillo sauce over top of enchiladas, coating the top of each tortilla. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup cheese and cover baking dish with foil.

Bake until heated through and cheese melted, 15-20 minutes. Let it sit for about 5 minutes and then serve garnished with sour cream and thinly sliced scallions.

beagles and breakfast

Since I posted a picture of Huck, I thought I should post one of Pebbles today. I took this in the early spring. She had just woken up and was coming down the stairs and put her head through the railing as she likes to do. Only this time, she was lower on the stairs, so she got to give the love of her life (who happens to be the love of my life) a gentle head butt. Much more like a cat than a twerpy but lovable spazoid beagle. Pebbles really prefers my husband. I cannot really blame her. I was not feeling well last night and was quite grumpy about not wanting to go to Baltimore in the first place and grumpy about not wanting to eat at various unfamiliar restaurants in Baltimore last night. I really just wanted to come back to the eastern shore of Maryland (the nicer shore of Maryland for certain) and eat somewhere familiar and comforting. Like at home! Anyway, I swear that man is a saint for putting up with me. Love you sweetie!

Ok, so here is my favorite breakfast. I know it is not glamorous or anything but it is my favorite. Well, this week anyway. Egg in toast or hole in one or whatever you want to call it. I call it "egg toast" which is like the most boring name in the world, right? I use a flower shaped cookie cutter to cut the center out of a piece of bread out, cook it in a tablespoon of butter and crack an egg into the hole, turn it over and yummy! Looks like I had a small bowl of grits with it... I love grits. Most people I know do not like grits but I hold that they have not had properly prepared grits and therefore do not know that in fact they like grits. I take it as a personal challenge to make people enjoy grits. I think the name is unfortunate... grits just does not sounds lovely. It sounds... well, gritty.

Alton Brown did a show about grits and polenta and hominy. I know, I must have some sort of fascination with Alton Brown because I talk about him a lot. I should say that even after 3 years of culinary school and 8 years as a professional chef, I still learn something every time I watch his show! He has a new show coming on called "Feasting on Waves" and I am excited about that since I really enjoyed "Feasting on Asphalt" I thought both Feasting on Asphalt documentaries (1 and 2!) were fabulous. Not just food but the story of food and the people who make it. I loved the old man who just kept repeating "chicken shake" when Alton tried to get him to tell him how he seasoned his fried chicken. All good southern cooks have their own chicken shake recipe, I think.

Enough of my blathering for today.