10.31.08
Multi-Use Kitchen Tools!
It slices, it dices, it chops, mops and minces! Get one today!
I don’t have any gizmos like that, except maybe a knife, which doesn’t do any mopping. Kitchen stores are a vast wasteland of gizmos YOU DON’T NEED. Note the emphasis. Stay out of kitchen stores! They are centers of lust for hoighty-toighty cooks. Yes, I’m trying to shame you. Or myself.
We bought a gadget lately for sharpening knives, since I didn’t keep the high-tech electric knife sharpener and we can’t find the knife steel. It was fine until my husband used it on an axe, and the strongest-man-I-know broke it. We need to find the knife steel. I don’t think he can break that.
Kitchen drawers end up tangled, forlorn places full of gizmos, gadgets and bits. (You know, the twist ties, bag clips, honey dippers, plastic doodads still unidentified as to use.) I have tried to move away from such accumulation and have found multiple uses for ordinary kitchen things.
You may have read already of my turkey lifting system (two wooden spoons jammed in undignified places in said turkey). But other items work in other interesting ways! Chopsticks will support an improvised coffee filter cone made of a big funnel, paper filter, and a teapot. The kitchen tongs get called into use in the chapel occasionally to hold the charcoal while lighting it for the thurible (incense burner). And the demitasse spoons no longer used for espresso are perfect for incense dipping. (Espresso is a distant memory of my single life at seminary. We now need coffee in really big cups.)
Once when the power was out and I hadn’t made supper for the kids, I used two bricks set on end, a cork-backed tile under three votive candles, a cookie-cooling rack, and an aluminum pie plate to cook cut-up hot dogs in tomato sauce. They had it on bread. It was good, too. (If you have a fondue pot with fuel, then you have an emergency stove. I know people in areas of poor electric service who keep them just for that. But who makes fondue anymore?)
My big cast iron skillet goes on top of the stove and into the oven as a baking dish. I don’t have a cookie sheet right now since I never bake cookies, anyway. I make pizza in it, too. I roasted a nice piece of beef in it at Thanksgiving this year. (We will eat meat if someone gives it to us.) It was great for that – holding the heat evenly, and the roast potatoes put in with it were perfect. It took a bit of cleaning afterward, but I didn’t ruin the seasoning. Sometimes it doubles as a stove-top oven, when I make skillet bread. This is not cornbread, but yeast-raised wheat bread rolled into small cakes and cooked on both sides. They turn out a bit like crumpets, and were an innovation when we didn’t have a working oven.
I use old-fashioned double-handled cookpots, which are all metal and enamelled. The medium size one with the cover makes a good bean pot. The traditional stoneware beanpot is now a collector’s item, I think, and while great in the woodburning stove, hardly necessary in a modern thermostat regulated oven. The underlying steel is thicker in old pots, by my observation.
The canning kettle is used also for apple butter (when I can get the apples and cider), pot luck sized soups, and as an emergency dishwashing sink. It has also been a bread box and a mouse-proof container for dry beans and grains.
My large cutting board used to double as extra counter space, covering half of the double sink.
Do you have any mother-of-invention ideas using standard kitchen items? Perhaps you would like to share them.
10.29.08
More aprons
I finally got around to making the “new” aprons yesterday. One was harder than I expected, the two others went really fast, so I got all three finished in the afternoon. As I have said before, an apron to me is something that covers a lot. I’m a messy cook and a powerful housekeeper and gardener; little lady-like tea aprons don’t protect my clothes. Not only does the apron need to cover from shoulder to mid-calf, it has to be of a heavy fabric to withstand wash water, tomato and spice stains, garden soil and newborn lambs. (Well, not the last right now. But I have hopes of another flock in the near future, God willing we move to a rural situation.) It doesn’t have to hold up to chlorine bleach, which I rarely use, just a lot of yellow soap and the scrub board!
I looked for all-over aprons on the internet since they are impossible to find in stores. The sort I like are at least US$40, and with the Canadian dollar dropping at this time, I would have to add about fifteen percent. Even the patterns available were a little more than I can afford. But I’m one of those artistic people who can look at something and figure out how it’s constructed, so I started in to make my own. I didn’t want to spend anything on material (another pricey situation right now) but I had three garments I didn’t want to wear anymore. One was a button front denim jumper that had seen better days, the second a denim highwaisted jumper that would fit someone with a less womanly figure, and the third was a khaki canvas button front skirt that didn’t sit well on my waist.
The buttoned jumper was easy. I turned it back to front, trimmed off the buttoning areas (two long strips either side of the front opening), cut the back a little lower to be the front, finished the edges, used the long strips to make a buttoned closure at the upper back, and to make the ties at the waist. It looks really neat and covers a lot, all the way around.
The empire waist jumper had a slit up the back, which was one of the reasons I didn’t like it much. I don’t wear slits unless I can put a full underskirt below. That one I slit up the back, removed the corded drawstring from the waist, finished the raw edges, and using the piece I cut from the hem (it was ankle-length) I made ties for the back and added the same button closure as the first one. It reaches round to the back a bit, but not as much, since it had fit me pretty closely.
The khaki skirt got disassembled, and the back of the skirt became a bib. I cut the buttons off the front and overlapped the button side over the button hole side and stitched it shut. I thought it had too many raw edges inside, so I lined the bib and the top half of the skirt with scraps of an old white sheet. I made ties for the neck and the waist out of the leftover scraps, and put some pleats at the top edge of the bib so that it lies against the collarbone a little better. This took a certain amount of fitting and turning and fidgeting the lining into place, but it has the look of a bib overall kind of jumper, although open in the back. I think it will make a great washday and gardening apron, since it has great big jeans pockets.
Total expenditure: about two dollars for thread. I used recycled buttons on the two denim aprons.
Old clothes are a good source of recycling. If you are into something a little more colourful, faded blouses and children’s dresses can be patchworked into some neat designs for potholders, placemats, aprons, bags and even floppy sunhats. Men’s shirts when they’ve become too worn at cuff or collar or husband has “outgrown” them, have enough fabric for caps and bonnets or kerchiefs.
Now I have three really useful aprons for kitchen and yard, meaning my dresses will “go” a little further before the wash!
10.27.08
Magdalena’s Italian Wedding Soup
I’m not Italian, but this is sort of like a famous chain coffee shop’s version, only homemade. And you can eat as much as you like, not just the dinky little portion they serve. It’s one way of using up leftover spaghetti sauce, preferably home-made, but you can use a commercial vegetarian kind.
Equipment: soup pot, pot of boiling pasta.
Ingredients: 1 cup leftover spaghetti sauce, 2 small onions, 1 large carrot, about 6 napa cabbage leaves, 1 sweet pepper, 1 small hot pepper, 1 garlic clove, peeled, 1 cup mixed soup beans, or leftover cooked beans, 1/2 cup green beans,8 cups water (Add more if the beans take up a lot), about 1 cup cheese tortellini or pasta (uncooked), fresh or dried herbs: rosemary, oregano, parsley, thyme, summer savory.
Peel and chop the onions and carrots, not too small; you want pieces, not tiny dice. Stack the napa cabbage leaves, fold in half and slice crosswise into narrow strips. Seed and slice the peppers. Put the spaghetti sauce, water and uncooked beans into the soup kettle and bring to a boil. If using leftover cooked beans or canned beans, rinse and drain. Add the vegetables except the green beans. Add the herbs and garlic, leaving the garlic clove whole (you’ll remove it later.) Cook the soup until the beans are tender, or if using cooked beans, until the vegetables are just tender. Remove the garlic clove, add the green beans, cut into pieces, or use frozen. Simmer while you cook the pasta or tortellini (tortellini is best, but sometimes expensive.) Put pasta in bowl, pour soup over. Serve with garlic bread, fresh Italian bread and grated Parmesan, if you like.
10.23.08
Garlic Wine — for Colds, Flu
This is not what you think it is! It is not wine fermented from garlic. (Perish the thought! Who could live with that smell?)
This is a lot simpler, and has a specific purpose. It is for colds, influenza, and minor throat or ear infections. It is an old, proven recipe known for centuries, but your doctor (MD, that is) will probably roll her eyes and say, “Stop reading junk like that!” Despite your doctor, it will work, usually within two days.
Equipment: Glass or ceramic 1 or 2 cup container, lid for same.
Ingredients: 1 or 2 cloves garlic, bottle of cheap red wine.
Peel the garlic cloves, slice or mash lightly to make more surface area. Put in the container, pour on the red wine to fill the container, cover and let sit at room temperature for at least an hour. Take by two tablespoon doses about once an hour or so. Finish within about four to six hours, or it will get nauseatingly strong. Make a fresh batch the next day if there is no change in symptoms. Usually there is. Have another batch anyway, but I don’t recommend a third day, or your family will start sitting across the room from you since you’ll reek of garlic.
Caution: This not meant to diagnose or prescribe. It is just a suggestion you might want to try. If your symptoms don’t improve or if they get worse, you really must seek medical help. Sometimes a “simple” cold or flu turns out to be something else. Ear infections, especially in children, can turn deadly if left too long. Yes, most infections resolve themselves without any intervention, but be alert.
White Vinegar
I use cider vinegar for canning and cooking, since I know what it’s made from. Apples. I’m not sure about white vinegar. One hears rumours that it is made from petroleum distillates. Augh! But I’m not one to pass stories until I’ve verified them, so I looked for information on white vinegar, and no one will say what it’s made from.
So I went to the Heinz Company, since they market a lot of vinegar, and use a lot of vinegar. They have a consumer enquiries form on their website, and they gave me an answer within 48 hours.
Their white vinegar is made from ethanol distilled from the sugars of beech trees. This, at least, is a vegetable product. I’m not sure why they use beech trees specifically – they must have a vinegar plant near a mill that uses beechwood. And I’m not entirely interested in the whole beech tree in the forest to plastic jug of acetic acid process, anyway. But beech is a better answer than petrochemicals.
10.21.08
Beef Supper Dish
I’m not very creative in naming recipes; best a description so you’re not wondering just what “Luau Moonlight Delight” is. We were given a beef roast, and this is what I’m doing with the leftovers. You could use any kind of leftover beef, or use ground beef. If you use ground beef (or turkey, or chicken, or soy) make the gravy with a canned broth or vegetable boullion.
Equipment: Small soup pot for making broth, cutting board and knife, pot for boiling potatoes, potato masher, casserole dish.
Ingredients: Left over beef (if not much, add chunks of potato, onion, or turnip, which has been parboiled for ten minutes), 4 cups water, 2-3 tablespoons flour, 2 medium potatoes, peeled and boiled until soft, 1/2 cup milk, 2 tablespoons butter, four carrots, scraped and sliced, or 2 carrots and 2 parsnips.
Make beef gravy by simmering some of the leftover beef in a pot with four cups of water. Thicken with flour beaten into a 1/2 cup cold water, stir until smooth. (Season with salt and pepper or Gravy flavouring from a bottle.) Slice the beef or cut into chunks. Put in a lightly greased casserole, cover with the gravy and the carrot and/or parsnip slices. Make the mashed potatoes by draining then mashing the potatoes in the pot, adding the milk and butter. Spoon the mashed potatoes on top of the carrots/parsnips. Bake the whole thing until the carrots are cooked, about 30-45 minutes, in a 350 degree (F) oven.
To make it a little more special, grate some cheddar cheese on top in the last ten minutes of baking.
10.20.08
Mediterranean Lentil Soup
There are times you need a really good, cheap, filling soup that will get you through a couple of days. Maybe the kids are sick or you have a thesis to finish, and there should be something in the refrigerator that can be quickly heated with a little liquid added, and is both nourishing and comforting.
When I am under stress I do not want heavy meats or cheeses or anything overseasoned. I want a mild, vegetarian soup. This one does the trick, and it keeps well for several days. After reheating it may be a bit mushy, but that doesn’t affect the flavour or goodness.
Lentils are cheap and cook fast. There are several kinds, brown, yellow, green and red. The red ones are sometimes called “Esau’s pottage” because supposedly the savoury stew that Jacob used to entice the birthright from his older twin was made of red lentils.
Equipment: cutting board and knife, soup pot, spoon.
Ingredients: 2 cups lentils, 2 onions, diced, 1 carrot, scraped and diced, 3 whole cloves garlic, peeled, a handful of fresh herbs such as parsley and thyme or oregano (or use dried herbs if that’s all you have, just a spoonful or so), 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 cup tomato juice or a whole diced raw tomato, 10-12 cups water, a lemon.
Rinse the lentils under cold water in a colander.
Saute the onion and carrot in the olive oil in the soup pot. Add the water and the lentils. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and add the garlic, herbs and tomato. Simmer for about one and a half hours until the lentils are soft. Just before serving, squeeze the juice from a slice of fresh lemon onto each serving. If you feel creative, you can grate some fresh lemon zest (the yellow peel) into the soup in the last few few minutes of cooking. Remove the whole garlic cloves.
If you don’t have a fresh lemon, but you have some really nice cider, malt, fruit or balsamic vinegar, add that instead.
10.17.08
Fasting
Fasting wouldn’t seem to have much to do with food, would it? But I thought I’d explain a little about the two kinds of fasting, since Advent is just a few weeks away, and then, of course, there’s Lent…
I really only have experience with Christian fasting, so rather than wander off into other religious fields, I will concentrate on that.
Fasting can mean either total abstinence from food, including sometimes liquids, or it can mean a limited diet for a period of time. Total fasting is rarely required for more than a day (sundown to sundown); a few very pious people in some traditions abstain from water in that time. This is too hard for most of us, and I wouldn’t recommend it. Taking on a fast that is too hard on the body or psyche is just vanity, so know your limits. It’s not even recommended that a “beginner” to fasting try anything that strenuous, just a little extra discipline in the food department, or a sunrise to sundown fast.
Restricted fasting means that one will not consume certain types of food over a period of time, such as meat, fish, eggs, dairy, or fats and sugars. Alcohol is usually restricted or removed. The food consumed is much less than usual, perhaps two small meals a day. Beans, grains, vegetables and raw fruit are the standard fasting fare.
Which isn’t too bad, after all. The seasonal fasts usually start, in most traditions, with a 24 hour total fast (except for water) and then the restricted diet. Some traditions have longer initial fasts. But for most Christians, the one day total fast occasionally is not too hard, even if a bit uncomfortable as the body reminds one that something is missing.
I like the fasting foods, since I have often been a vegetarian for extended periods of time, which is rather like a long-term fast, anyway. Then how do vegetarians fast? They may give up wine and alcohol, or sweets, or olive oil; they may restrict how much they eat. We once came up to a Lenten fast and I said to my husband, “How do we fast? We eat only twice a day, don’t drink or eat sugar, have no animal proteins, and can’t afford butter or olive oil!” So we added a prayer discipline instead.
Now, that’s the point. Fasting is no good if it is done with the wrong motive, such as pietism (not just piety, but scrupulousness) or pride. (I can fast more than you can!) Discipline is the idea, a closer relationship with God is the goal. Fasting puts us in the place Jesus went in the wilderness, and brings us closer to Him, because it must be accompanied by prayer. If fasting is impossible because of health or work issues, then prayer becomes the sole discipline, and in some ways, that is harder than going without food!
10.16.08
What to do with Eggs
Right now we can get eggs at a good price at the grocery store. They aren’t the best of all eggs, but the good eggs are at the farmers’ market and it is beyond busline range. Eggs are not strictly vegetarian, but unfertilized eggs, as most are, do not ever become chicks. (You need a rooster in with the hens to get fertilized eggs that will hatch.)
We used to have our own chickens. Some chickens are lots of fun. We had three at one time who were real pets and followed us around like dogs. They liked to come in the cellar door and watch Nicholas stoke the wood furnace. If we didn’t pay attention, they would try to get upstairs into the house and that just drove the dogs crazy. These chickens had names – Jet, Ginger and Penny. My chicken-raising friend rolled her eyes and said, “You don’t name the chickens!” I did, and they were great. Other chickens have been just chickens and sometimes a little nasty.
The big pay-off is that if the chickens are fed right they produce eggs. We got about five eggs a week from each chicken for about nine months out of the year. (They sometimes don’t lay when the days are short and when they are moulting – growing new feathers.)
But even grocery store eggs are a good source of protein (free-range eggs are lower in cholesterol.) So here are a few ways to cook eggs that aren’t expensive or time-consuming.
REALLY GOOD SCRAMBLED EGGS
This is too simple to believe. Forget milk, cream, or water. Forget herbs and seasonings. Melt a little butter/margarine in a nonstick or well-seasoned pan. (Use olive oil if you prefer.) Break four eggs into a bowl, gently scramble with a fork (not a whisk or some electric doodad.) I mean, really gently, so that you can still distinguish some white. Don’t beat until fluffy, keep it calm. Now pour the beaten eggs into the pan, and stir around lightly with a wooden spatula. The wooden implement means you aren’t overscrambling. Keep the heat medium-low until the eggs are mostly set, but still a little moist on top. You won’t believe how tender the eggs are cooked this way, treated with gentleness. Transfer to a warm serving dish. This is enough for two good eaters, or enough for one very good eater.
A SIMPLE OMELET WITHOUT FOLDING
Do you find omelets intimidating? Try this instead. Dice a small onion and a small green pepper finely, fry in a little oil or butter at medium-high. Reduce the heat to medium. Meanwhile, beat together four eggs until well-mixed. Use a fork, not a whisk. Pour the eggs into the vegetable mixture in the skillet. Have on hand some diced, grated or sliced cheese- real cheese, from a block, that is, like cheddar or gouda or whatever you like. Let the eggs start to set, then slide a spatula under the cooked rim and let the raw egg flow under. Do this all the way around until most of the raw egg has gone to the bottom and cooked. While the eggs are still moist on top, lay on the cheese evenly, then cover, reducing the heat to almost nothing. Peek in after a minute to see if the cheese is melted. Divide into portions and serve. Try other vegetables, cheese mixtures, or fresh herbs minced. Just sprinkle the herbs on top, don’t mix into the eggs. Again, keeping the heat low will keep the eggs from getting tough. (If you use a hot pepper and some cilantro, serve the omelet with salsa and tortillas.)
PICKLED EGGS
This takes some time and preparation, but is worth it. It is one way of dealing with surplus eggs. Get your equipment together: Pot for hardboiling eggs, kettle for heating vinegar, hotwater canner, canning jars (quart size is good), lids, jar lifter, extra towels, kitchen timer.
Ingredients: 2 dozen or more fresh, raw eggs; gallon of vinegar (I prefer cider); seasonings such as garlic cloves, bay leaf, pepper corns, mustard seed, one clove or leaf per jar, or a half dozen seeds/corns.
Hardboil the eggs and peel. I don’t have a fail-proof method for getting the shells off without the white splitting. The fresher the egg, the easier it peels. Meanwhile, heat the vinegar with an equal amount of water; you probably won’t need the whole gallon, but best to have extra to top up jars. Put the peeled eggs in the clean canning jars and add seasonings. (Note that raw garlic turns copperous green in vinegar! But isn’t harmful.) Pour in the hot vinegar mixture. I put a metal table knife or skewer in each jar as I fill it to avoid any cracking. Put the lids on properly, following the manufacturer’s directions for making the seal. Immediately lower into the boiling canner, cover the canner, and process for ten minutes. (Less than that will not give a good seal.) Lift out with the jar tongs (if you don’t have these, get some, since they will save you many burns.) Cool on the towels. Keep for about a week before serving. Open jars should go in the refrigerator.
