Greek Stewed Cauliflower

Greek flavors involve savory and more traditionally sweet cinnamon and orange zest.  And a dose of salty in the olives!

So I did almost no cooking this weekend-  yesterday I was busy doing a little 4 hour class at the tech school in Phillips and then I got outside and snowshoed twice.  This morning I went for a long walk, then hit the gym and then went snow shoeing.....  yikes.  So, I discovered a decided lack of food that I can use for lunch this week and had to rectify that.

I had seen a recipe on my Pinterest board, or rather I saw that someone had repinned this recipe and it gave me an aha moment.  And I had some quinoa left in the frig, so I had everything allllll ready for dinner.  Woo hoo!!

Oh yeah, I lied, btw.  I made blueberry muffins before lunch.   Sort of forgot about that.  That recipe is right here--  I made a slight adjustment, didn't have enough oatmeal, so I used oat bran to make up the rest of it.  AND for some insane reason there was no cinnamon in the recipe.  CRAZY TALK.  There was cinnamon in mine.  I had one today, and have another planned for tomorrow and have half in the freezer.   The MA on the other hand, has had more than one, which is why half of them are hidden in the freezer.  

Blueberry muffins!

Ok, so this went together super fast, just chop up what needs to be first then it is as simple as 1, 2, 3!

 Chop the cauliflower, onion, prepare the garlic for pressing and plan to slice the olives later.

Literally dump everything into a pan (after you quickly saute the onion and garlic)  except the olives and cook down for about 15 minutes.  Then simply add the olives, add salt and pepper to taste and serve over rice or quinoa or whatever you want!

Greek Stewed Cauliflower

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 onion (chopped)

1 head cauliflower (chopped)

Zest ½ Orange

1 cinnamon stick

1  can crushed tomatoes or diced tomatoes

1 – 15 oz can tomato sauce

1 teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon celery seed

⅛ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 cup kalamata olives (chopped)

Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Heat oil in large pan and saute the onion until soft.  Add the garlic and saute for about 30 seconds.  Add  cauliflower, zest of orange, cinnamon stick, tomatoes and tomato sauce, oregano, celery seed and red pepper flakes.  Cook down until cauliflower is tender.  Remove cinnamon stick and add olives and salt/pepper.  Serve hot over rice or other grain.  YUMMY!! 

Now that was a great way to end a busy day!  And pretty joyful, too!

And the arctic votex descends upon the Northwoods and the MadArt teacher cooks up a storm

OH my goodness, it is a tad chilly out there. I was fortunate enough to not have to venture out until late in the day, by virtue of the fact that I bribed the hubs with a hot breakfast, which resulted in him feeding the horse and me not having to go outside until the nighttime feeding!  I did tiptoe out a couple times, but those adventures did not last.

When I did go out, it was incredible how cold it was.  Even I, who ventures out with very little provocation, found an excuse to stay in.  The cold pierced right through my coat!  My hand that had held the feed bucket got so cold on the way to the mailbox I had to pull my fingers inside my glove.  Yikes. 

Oh well.  I didn't sleep very well last night, the house kept crackling and then I would wake up again, and I kept thinking that the furnace was going to quit or something.  Idk. I finally did get to sleep, but I slept in a bit today. My morning was unfocused- didn't know what to do with myself today. It took me a little while to get moving in a forward direction.  Shutterfly, the place where I get my calendars made, had a 101 free pix deal, so I took the time today to upload 101 pix mostly of family things.  I am thinking that I should get a few nice  big prints made of some of my pix, too.  Really Big ones.  The ones I had printed right after I got my camera are tragically over exposed.  Burn out.  I didn't know at the time what that was, but I do now and it bugs me.  So it's something I am thinking about.

We have another day off tomorrow, and I am looking forward to that as well. I will be getting to the gym though- no staying home all day.  

What I DID do today among other things is a lot of cooking!  It is relaxing and fun and now I have several things to have for lunch and/or dinner in the frig and freezer.  AND it also heats up the house very nicely to have the stove/oven/crockpot running all day.  

Here is round 1 of cooking:

Ruths's Refrigerator rolls

My aunt Ruth gave my mom the recipe for these things back in the day and they are fabulous and the cool thing- not that it directly affects me- is that they are milk free and so my sister Rose can make and enjoy these!  #ftw

2 cups of water

2 pkg yeast

Mix in large bowl  and add:

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp salt 

3 cups flour (will be more flour to come)

I mix this with my Kitchenaid

Add :

1/3 cup shortening

1 egg

Mix well.  Add a little at a time-

3 - 3/12 cups flour 

 until dough forms a ball and it has mixed for a minute or two.  Or else dump it onto a floured counter and knead it for a 5 minutes to get the rest of the flour incorporated.

Cover  and refrigerate.  2 hours before needed, form rolls into balls and place on greased baking sheet.  Let rise and then bake 15 - 20 minutes in 375 degree oven.  Until they are nice and brown and sound hollow when thumped.  Remove from oven and brush tops with butter or margarine.

You can keep the extra dough for a few days, covered, in the refrigerator.

These are amazing and the extra dough will last a couple days in the frig so you can have fresh ones again!

Next up- Mushroom and Chickpea Ragout

This was so good I could hardly believe it.  It actually has some of the flavor components of a stroganoff with the worcestershire sauce and tomato paste.  It began life on Pinterest as Rosemary flavored, but I a. didn't have any and 2. don't care that much for rosemary.  So therefore my favorite herb- thyme- was pressed into service.

I got the original recipe here and it looked really great, but things were changed.....

1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, fine dice
1/2 tsp dry thyme leaves
10 ounces/heaped half pound mixed mushrooms, sliced (I used all baby portabellas)
splash of red wine vinegar
1 tsp tomato paste
1-2 tsp vegetarian worcestershire sauce
1 can of chickpeas
1 cup vegetable stock
big splash of unsweetened non-dairy milk, I used coconut milk that I had left over in the frig
1 tsp cornstarch
salt + pepper
2 thick slices of good bread

Heat olive oil and saute onion in pan- on low heat, watch for scorching.  Sprinkle on thyme leaves until you can smell them, and then dump in the mushrooms.  Let them cook a few minutes until they begin to soften.  Add in your tablespoon or so of vinegar, tomato paste and worcestershire sauce.  stir around for a few minutes and add your chick peas.  Again let it mix together for a few minutes (stir to keep from burning), then add in vegetable stock.  Cook down until about 1/3 of the liquid is gone.  Add the coconut milk or what ever you want to use.

When it is starting to look thicker, mix a couple tablespoons of water with the cornstarch.  Stir into the chickpeas and let cook until thickened. Taste it and add salt and pepper. Mean while, toast the bestest bread you have and put it on a plate.  This is not the prettiest but the flavors are sublime and rich.  I think a touch of sour cream would be good, too.  But not necessary!  AND there are left overs.

So this is vegetarian/vegan and yummy!!  I used Ezekial bread for toast.

 And so I was thinking that a nice dessert was in order, so I made a variation on homemade Lara bars- sort of a several recipe mashup!

Chocolate Protein Balls

1package of dates
about 1/2 cup of raw almonds
1/2 cup hulled hemp seed (if no hemp seed, add more almonds)
3 heaping Tablespoons raw cacao (can use cocoa too)
water if necessary
mini chocolate chips

In food processor- process dates until a paste. Add water if you need to. Remove to a different bowl.  Add almonds to bowl and pulverize to a good powder and then add in hemp and cacao and process until well blended.  Add to dates and mix, sprinkle in water if you need to make it stick better.  Mix in mini chips.  Roll into balls and then I rolled it into more cacao powder.  YUMMY!!

The hemp seeds add an extra boost of protein, and they are just tasty!

HA but I'm not done yet!!  On to the next post!!  

Isn't that a joy?  Two food posts in one night??

Cherry and White chocolate scones

So it was a tough night for sleeping last night.  It is always a mystery why in the world this happens, but it does.  So attempt sleep in several locations, get in a solid 4 hours,  then go ahead and get up and make scones makes total sense, right??   When I woke up I didn't even know where I was, so I am not sure why I thought baking was a good idea.  I'm glad I didn't fall down the stairs in my stupor.  Sheesh.

The scone, taken with the iPhone camera with cheesy cute coffee mug full of Snowplow blend coffee.  

Well, one really should not attempt to bake when one is bleary.  Actually the results were really good, but there was one weird thing after another that I either did or discovered in the recipe, or thought I discovered in the recipe but in reality I just needed the caffeine to kick in.

First off, in my glee to find a CRANBERRY white chocolate scone,  I didn't manage to read the part that said dried cranberries. I have some frozen cranberries that I wanted to use- guess I will make the cranberry chutney! Anyway, I didn't notice that until I had the recipe partially put together.  FFS.  Fortunately, I did have dried cherries, which worked really well.

The recipe itself called for coating the formed mega-scone, which was placed on a sheet of parchment, with egg-white and sprinkle with sugar.  I read it as coat the parchment with egg-white.  Yeah.  Fortunately I had decided there was no way I was going to separate an egg to put it on the parchment.  For pity's sakes.  Then I reread it later and noticed they said to put it on the scone- you know to hold on the sugar.  ugh.  Oh well, didn't matter because I sprinkled that beast with turbinado sugar and it stayed in place, as I had moistened the top with water anyway.

The other thing that is a bit misleading is the fact that they say (in the original recipe) that this is lower calorie, but when one cuts ANYTHING into 12 pieces it is going to be lower calorie.  We all know that we are eating 2 of them.  That is a decent sized breakfast.  Let's be serious here people.  And you really don't care about the calories if you are having a scone.

You'd think this would be a disaster, but you would be wrong!  :) I did all sorts of thing differently, so I'll just write out my recipe, but the original link is above.

Disorganization at 6 am

Notice that the coffee creamer is close by and my coffee cup must be within reach somewhere!

Ah there is my coffee- onto the dry ingredients

So it is a simple mix the wet and dry ingredients in bowls separately and then cut in the butter with 2 knives.  That always cracks me up.  Who does that??  I have a pastry blender that I can use like nobody's business- I have strange conversations with myself at 6:15. I'm sure I need more coffee.
It was right after this I discovered the whole dried cranberries thing.....  eye roll.

I see I only cut it into 10  HAHAHA!! oh well

So mix the whole thing together and pat it out and sprinkle with turbinado sugar or like they said, a mix of sugar and brown sugar. (Dirty little secret- these were meant to not be overly sweet- YOUKNOWWHO thought they needed frosting and so I melted a few white chocolate chips and made cheaters frosting that I artfully drizzled.  Yeah there are no pictures of that.)  So it was really good- either way.  I didn't need the drizzles, but that didn't stop me from having a piece and then promptly getting a tummy ache from it.  Oh well.

Cherry White Chocolate Scones
Oven- 375
Use parchment on a baking sheet for scones or grease baking sheet

3/4 cup buttermilk (HA I actually bought it for this, at least I had that one odd ingredient on hand!!)
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flout
1/4 cup oatmeal
1 TBSP baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

3 TBSP butter- softened
1/3 - 1/2 cup dried cranberries or cherries or even raisins
1/2 c. white chocolate chips

turbinado sugar OR 1/4 cup white chocolate chips melted for later

Mix wet ingredients together in a big bowl.  Mix the dry ingredients in a smaller bowl. Cut the butter into the flour and for heavens sakes use a pastry cutter.  Mix the fruit and chips into the dry ingredients. Dump the flour stuff into the wet stuff and mix just until together.  Place on parchment on baking sheet, form into a disk.  Moisten hand with water and pat the scone so it gets damp and sprinkle on sugar.  OR just wait until the thing is done and frost with a little melted white chocolate mixed with a tsp or two of milk.
Cut dough into 12 pieces and bake for 22 - 25 minutes.  Don't separate the wedges, just bake it precut.

**NOTE- scones really taste best the same day that you make them.  So eat them or else put the extra in the freezer.  I mean, you can eat them the next day, but they are seriously best eaten about 1/2 hour out of the oven.

So onto a day full of cleaning and reorganizing.!

And that will eventually give me some joy!

Peach blueberry galette and Sangria!

My dear friend Mark and I made plans waaaaay back in, say January, that on the first day it hits 80 degrees here, we were going to make and drink some Sangria!! There is some sort of story behind this that I don't really remember, but it seemed like a great excuse..... er, um, REASON at  the time.  So of course the first 80 degree day was at some inconvenient time when we were- God forbid- WORKING!!  And so it was the first 80 degree weekend, and then I was off on an adventure of my own..... so dog gone it, we made a date!

So good old Marksie had the wine, the fruit, the brandy, and the yummy homemade salsa and so I needed to provide something besides the glasses and the deck to sit on. Mark suggested/challenged me to dessert.  Maybe a Spanish dessert to go with the salsa and sangria. SPANISH???  Are you MAD????  Oh wait, that's me...  um, so we had a conversation of what that could possibly entail, and a fruit and cinnamon tart was decided upon, so the rest was up to me.

I consulted first of all my favorite cooking blog- The Smitten Kitchen- as Deb bakes some really wonderful things.  I have made a number of dishes/desserts from this website and I highly recommend checking it out.  She has many tarts, fruit desserts and the like on there, but none were exactly what I wanted.  I had blueberries in the refrigerator and I had made a scrumptious peach/blueberry cobbler last summer from Cooking Light Magazine.  I knew I wanted to use those flavors in a pie crusty sort of application.

So I made up my own!

I began by using this recipe for the tart crust- a very buttery, simple crust that would merely enhance the flavors of the fruit.  I used a combination of very ripe and slightly under-ripe peaches, some for flavor and some for texture, plus the blueberries.  I added a minimal amount of sugar and a nice healthy dose of cinnamon.  Wrapped it all up in the rolled dough and sprinkled it with Turbinado sugar. (You should hear how the MA mangles THAT word!)

After reading several of Deb's fruit tart recipes, I decided to use the technique of heating up my pizza stone in the oven for an hour to get it nice and hot.  That added a really great crispness to the crust that did not get soggy, even during yesterday's humidity.

It was REALLY a good recipe in the end, and can be used with any sort of fruit filling.  Actually, you could make something savory with it also, as there is very little sweetness in the crust....  hmmmmm....

Mix dry ingredients, cut up butter

Cut in butter until size of peas

Add ice water and stir until dough just holds together

Slip skins from peaches 

Roll out dough thinly

Peaches, all cut up

Blueberries with peaches 

Roll and pinch dough to make rustic bowl

YAY!

Peach Blueberry Galette

Tart crust:

This is the ingredient list for one galette- I doubled the recipe to make two.  Obviously.

1 cup of flour
1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
6 tablespoon cold butter
icewater

Combine flour, sugar, salt in a bowl.  Cut in butter with a pastry cutter, until butter is in pea sized pieces.  Add small amounts of ice water at a time into the flour mixture until it just rolls up into a ball.  Handle the dough as little as possible to keep it from getting tough.  Cover and place in the refrigerator at LEAST an hour before rolling.

Filling:

per galette-

3 - 4 peaches
1/2 pint blueberries
1/4 - 1/3 cup sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon

Slip skins from peaches after plunging into boiling water.  Slice peaches into a bowl, and add blueberries.  Add sugar and cinnamon to taste.

Procedure:

About 1/2 hour to 45 minutes before rolling dough, put pizza stone in  425 oven, if you plan to use it.  Other wise heat oven to 425.  Roll out ball of dough very thinly. Spoon fruit into the center of the dough.  Pull and pinch the dough up and around the fruit-  Making a bowl from the dough to keep the juices from running out.  It will be very rustic and informal looking.  Moisten dough with a tiny bit of water and sprinkle with turbinado or white sugar if desired.  Work quickly so the dough can be transferred to the pizza stone without collapse. (yes, I had that problem!  with one of them)  I rolled my dough on the counter, assembled it on a cookie sheet and then slid it onto the pizza stone.  You can figure your own way, too!  Bake about 20 minutes, check for browning, and continue baking until the crust is light brown and the filling bubbling.  Transfer galette from the stone or pan to a cooling rack so the crust stays crisp and doesn't get soggy.

Now try NOT to eat it until your guest arrives with his Sangria!  THAT was hard!

In case you are interested.........

SANGRIA

Fill a beautiful glass pitcher with fresh, frozen fruit- orange and lemon slices, fresh pineapple, strawberries, nectarines.....

Add a yummy, fruity Cabernet Sauv, VERY COLD - we used Columbia-Crest Two Vines!  Add a 1/2 cup of brandy and a can of white soda......  It is infinitely more fun to do this in layers- fruit, wine, brandy, soda, repeat!  Then try to take pictures until you are silly with laughter and you haven't EVEN had more than a sip!!

Sangria pitcher and salsa

Did you know that pineapple soaked in wine is tingly??

There is NOTHING like a little Sangria joy! And it goes well with fruit tart!