The cooking at home (cah) experiment/challenge is going well. My first big cooking even was the vegetable stock I made yesterday; it was done after simmering in the slow cooker for nearly 5 hours (the recipe only called for four but it was five hours before I was ready to use it).

The veggies all looked pretty sad and I knew they had given their all to the water...now a beautiful stock:

I used about half of the stock to make a vegetable-tortellini soup that caught my eye over at williams-sonoma (recipe here). It really couldn't have been easier--sautee some vegetables, add the stock, cook the pasta, add the parsley and tomatoes and youre done. Dinner in about 10 minutes.

It was a really pretty soup--full of awesome veggies and plump cheese tortellini and was really quite good. The fresh vegetable stock did make a remarkable difference. I've usually stayed away from vegetable stock-based soups because I find them a little boring and bland but this was was delicious--and super chunky as well.

There were a few things I would change. The recipe calls for celery sauteed for just a few minutes (five or so) but it really had a pretty raw taste in the soup. Next time, I will either add the celery first and cook it a little longer or find another vegetable to replace that little crunch in the soup's texture. I'd also cut back on the parsley--it was a little much. I'm also thinking about adding garlic....because I like to add garlic to everything, don't you know. Lastly, it needed more salt; I'm so accustomed to working with canned stocks with so much added salt that I didn't compensate nearly enough for my low salt fresh stock.

That seems like a lot of negative stuff but there were some awesome positives: the tomatoes added to the soup at the last minute remained really fresh. It was a nice balance to the cooked vegetables and soft pasta. I also loved the parmesan cheese shaved on top but, really, who wouldn't?

All in all, a really nice summery soup.

Today for lunch, I was left with a few odds and ends from the soup and stock making day and, wouldn't you know it, they were just what I needed to throw together a quick tomato bruschetta for lunch.

This is one of those things for which I don't really have a steadfast recipe. Today's recipe was a little something like this:

2 tomatoes (about medium size), chopped into smallish pieces--almost a dice (I also squeeze the pulp out before but only because I dont really like it--if you do, leave it in!)
1 clove of garlic, minced Mine was absolutely humongous. If they were smaller, I probably would have added 2 or 3.
1/4 cup diced onion. I prefer red onion or scallions but didn't have any, so this is plain old yellow onion.
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
really good parmesan cheese

garlic bread for eating (toast some baguette slices and rub with a clove of garlic while they are warm)

I pretty much just mix everything together and add a splash of olive oil and a touch of vinegar. Oh--and salt and pepper too. Then I shave a bunch of cheese on top with a vegetable peeler (I like big chunks of the cheese--yum!). Spoon on top of the toasted bread and scarf down.

Posted by fruitychick at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the first trimester of this pregnancy, I ate whatever I could keep down or that sounded good. The meals were hardly satisfying in any way other than a food, food, give me food way. I'm glad my morning sickness has finally (hopefully) passed and I'm into my second trimester, I'm really happy to be cooking again.

I think it all started with the pickles I made a couple of weeks ago. I let them marinate in the fridge for a while and finally tried them and they were tremendous. I'm usually not a fan of sweet pickles but there is something about home-made pickles that warrants an exception. The recipe is from this months' Everyday Food. (yes, its a Martha magazine but its the best cooking magazine out there. seriously). The recipe doesn't seem to be available online so I won't reprint it here but the issue as a whole is a good one and worth picking up. Making the pickles was about 10 minutes of my day and it made four jars.

My happy return to cooking has left me feeling like I'm up for a challenge and I've been thinking about what to do for a few days and I think I've got it.

For the month of July, I will not order takeout. My family and I will eat all of our food cooked here at home.

There are a few rules here that I think are necessary. On hectic days, I will take advantage of a few convenience foods but I'm going to, at a minimum, prepare some kind of decent side dish to go along with them even if its just steaming some frozen veggies. I'll also make an exception here for the "failed meal" since I'm sure it will happen at least once; if I make something that is terrible, I'm not going to make my family starve to death while I prepare something else from scratch. In that case, I reserve full rights to order something out.

To begin my big challenge, I whipped out my favorite-ever kitchen device this afternoon--my All-Clad 7 quart slow cooker--and chopped up some veggies to make some veggie stock for some soup I'm planning tonight.

If you've never made vegetable stock before you should really give it a try, especially if you own a large slow cooker.

You'll need:
about 10 carrots,
3 onions,
4ish stalks of celery,
a big bunch of parsley,
some whole peppercorns and
some dried thyme.

Rough chop all the big stuff and throw it in the slow cooker with 12 cups of water. Cook on high for four hours or low for 8 hours. If you have other veggies, you can add those as well. (I also add red pepper flakes to mine but thats just me). Strain it when its done (and cooled off a bit) and you'll have enough stock for at least two big batches of soup.

I made mine today while chopping veggies for my lunchtime salad. It added *maybe* 10 minutes time to the process. Super duper, I say. The stock has only been cooking about 30 minutes by now but its already smelling dreamy. I'll let you know how the soup turns out--its this recipe for Tortellini Vegetable Soup from Williams Sonoma. yum!

Posted by fruitychick at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love getting mail--especially when its fiber related! I got two packages this week: my Hello Yarn Fiber club and my Spunky Eclectic Fiber/Sock Yarn Club.

Spunky Eclectic:

I really love being a member of both the sock club and the Fiber club. I find it absolutely amazing how differently the same colorway looks in a sock yarn and a fiber. This fiber, by the way, is named Aspen after the colors of the region. Its and incredibly soft merino/tencel blend. Lovely!

Hello Yarn:

I couldn't capture all the lovely colors in a single shot, so heres two shots of the fiber. Its a Merino wool and its incredibly soft with rich colors. I can't wait to spin it! I'm almost a little sorry I started new spinning last night!

Speaking of--I'm playing catch up with most of these clubs since I'm only now getting a bit of regular spinning time. Right now, I'm working on the July shipment of the Spunky Club--named Celebration. When I first opened the box, I was, honestly, a little unimpressed. The colors just didnt seem to go and the large amounts of black and white in the roving just didnt appeal to me. But then I saw lots of other people's spun up and just fell in love. A real lesson in how an ugly roving can be a pretty yarn and a pretty roving can make an ugly yarn.

This is a little overspun but I'm ok with it. I'm either going to chain-ply it to keep the colors in tact or just run it through the wheel backwards and keep it as a laceweight yarn with very long color repeats. I wanted to mainted long color repeats either way, so I didnt split the roving at all down the middle. Its my first time doing it successfully and I'm really enjoying seeing the gradual color changes.

After finishing Munch's Hallowig, I realized I only had one real project on the needles--time to cast on for something new!

This is my second try with this yarn. The first attempt was just a poor pattern choice: it had eyelets and a little laceyness to it and the yarn was completely overwhelming. I really love the garter rib (from sensational knitted socks). I think it breaks up the colors just enough to have a nice mottled sock.

I also cooked up a little something last night--an old standby: Pasta Pizza.

And a little something special for dessert: Strawberries with White Chocolate Sauce (try #2):

Yum! Recipes are in the description over at flickr!

Posted by fruitychick at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Two (actually, three since I did one of them twice) things I've done in the last few days have been pretty much absolute failures.

First, the seemingly hilarious project I was working on. Cute? yes. Funny? yes. Do I love it? yes.

Then why, you ask, is it a failure?

I give you Exhibit A:

Hate wouldnt exactly be a strong enough word to describe munch's feelings toward her hallowig. I saw alison over at the blue blog knit one up for her little girl and it was so incredibly adorable and fun I had to knit one up myself. After all--her baby girl loved hers! I used her alterations at first but it came out much too small, so I added 4 stitches to each section. It came out perfectly but it might as well be made out of steel wool as far as Munch is concerned.

I'm still holding out hope that she will come around by the time the weather changes....

Crappiness the second was a quickie desert I tried to whip up one night after a failed dinner attempt (I didnt even get far enough to take a picture...lets just say, it is awfully hard to make baked ziti without pasta sauce and no matter how many times you look in the pantry, it wont magically appear if you didnt actually buy any.) We ended up ordering out and I thought I'd save face by making Frozen Berries with Hot White Chocolate from one of Ina Garten's Cookbooks.

They looked tasty:

I just did everything wrong on this one. Super-cook that I am I thought I didnt have to go actually *look* at the recipe again. After all--the name of the recipe said it all! Berries. check. chocolate. check. heck--it even went so far as to be specific on the white part of the chocolate.

So now, looking back at the recipe, I didnt add the cream to the chocolate and I used strawberries which stayed far, far too frozen to actually be able to eat despite the thawing power of a mound of hot white chocolate. The chocolate topping wasnt bad--but it solidified the second it hit the frozen berries... Mr. Fruitychick tried to humor me by eating a few berries but eventually gave up before he cracked a tooth.

ugh. next time--only slightly frozen smaller berries and make an actual chocolate-cream sauce instead of just melted chocolate. And maybe I'll dig out the cookbook and actually read the recipe....

Posted by fruitychick at 05:30 AM | Permalink

This is so easy, its ridiculous. While I do like to cook, I keep "emergency meals" on hand for us if I am just not feeling up to cooking. Usually its just a frozen pizza with some frozen veggies but I decided to try one of those bertoli frozen pasta meals (though I did balk at the sodium count in those things--holy cow!). Once I tasted it, I knew I could do better, so this dish was born! Its become a really nice pantry standby for us since I almost always have all the ingredients around.

You'll have lots of leftovers but its great the second day. We usually get about three meals for each of us out of it.

1 box of penne pasta
1 package of beef smoked sausage, cut into thin circles
2 cans of artichoke hearts, quartered
1 lb broccoli florets
1 can chopped tomatos
1 tblsp tomato paste
dried rosemary

You'll need two pots going at once: one to cook the pasta and one to cook everything else. You'll add the pasta to the everything else pot, so make sure that one is big enough to handle everything. Youll also need to steam the brocoli in the microwave while everything is going on. I know it sounds like a lot, but it all comes together in the end.

Start the pasta cooking in one pot and while thats happening...

In a large pot (this is the perfect job for my favorite le creuset cast iron pot), brown the sausage well. In a small microwavable bowl, steam the broccoli with a few tblsp of water.

To the large pot, add the can of chopped tomatos, rosemary and tomato paste, stir to combine. Add the artichoke hearts, steamed broccoli. Salt and pepper well. Add the cooked, drained pasta and combine.

Add some dried chile flakes for spice and some parmesan cheese for yumminess.

Enjoy!

Posted by fruitychick at 09:00 AM | Permalink

This was super tasty! I'm always looking for a new chicken recipe and this one was a nice surprise. You only have to chop a couple of ingredients and then stick it in the oven. I got the inspiration from a recipe in the Everyday Food cookbook (which I love, by the way). It called for fewer ingredients but I think my additions were good ones.

I'm going to use the leftovers today to top a salad.

4 chicken breast halves, skin on
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
2/3 cup chopped fresh curley parsley
1/3 cup pine nuts, chopped
zest of one lemon
juice of the lemon
Dried oregano

Preheat your oven to 450.

Combine the breadcrumbs, cheese, parsley, pine nuts and zest. Season well with salt and pepper. I added some dried oregano at this point--probably 1 tblsp.

Carefully separate the skin from the chicken breasts, creating a pocket. Season the chicken with salt and pepper on each side.

Stuff 1/4 of the stuffing into each chicken breast. Place in a large baking dish so there is a little room around each breast. Squeeze the lemons over the chicken. Bake until 165 in the middle and the skin is crisp (about 30 minutes).

I served this with simple steamed broccoli but next time I might roast some asparagus or green beans with some garlic...yum!

Posted by fruitychick at 08:37 AM | Permalink

I admit, the Backyardigans are cute. Heck, I even occassionally find myself humming the catchy little showtunes. However, the 576th time through each episode it gets a little old; last night the music from Cops and Robots was the theme music to my dreams.

The problem is that backyardigans episodes are like lays potato chips. Munch can't have just one. Shes fine if she doesnt see it but once you play one episode you must continue to play them until (a) a meal or (b) going out of the house. Needless to say, there are many many snacks and trips to the store around here.

We are starting to feel a little more settled here in Plano. We chose to do a short term lease in an apartment before buying a house here for a variety of reasons and, despite the tiny apartment kitchen, I've actually managed to turn out a couple of tasty meals over the last few days. The other night we had Chicken Breasts stuffed with Hatch Chiles and Pepper Jack Cheese.

My own recipe inspired by the intoxicating smelling fresh roasted chiles available at our local Whole Foods:

Hatch Stuffed Chicken

Serves 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour

4 Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts
4 Large Roasted Hatch Chiles (see note at bottom)
4 oz Pepper Jack Cheese, cut into small cubes (¼ inch)

1.Preheat oven to 350.
2.Butterfly the chicken breasts. Pound out flat with a meat pounder.
3.Remove the seeds and stem from the Hatch Chiles and place one on each of the flattened chicken breasts. Place 1 oz of cheese on the chiles and fold the breasts in half, enclosing the pepper and cheese. Place in a baking dish and salt and pepper the chicken.
4.Bake for 40 minutes or until juices run clear or a meat thermometer reads 165.

notes:
1.Hatch Chiles are available here in Texas in August and September. If hatch chiles aren't available to you, try using another large mild pepper like a banana pepper.
2.My local market roasts hatch chiles daily. If your local market doesnt, you can easily roast chiles on your grill or a gas burner. Roast up a batch and place them in a small container covered with oil. They'll keep up to a week and are great additions to sandwiches.

I also made Roasted Vegetable Gratin, a recipe inspired by one in Cooking Light (June). I made some additions and changes:

It was incredibly tasty and couldnt be easier to make:

Roasted Vegetable Gratin

Serves 4
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

1 red bell pepper
1 green pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 yellow squash
1 zucchini
1 large yellow onion
1 medium red onion
1 large tblsp fresh thyme

1 tblsp paprika
2 tblsp olive oil
½ cup panko bread crumbs
½ cup breadcrumbs
¼ cup parmesan cheese (grated)

1.Preheat oven to 400.
2.Chop all the vegetables into ¼ inch slices. Combine in a bowl with the olive oil and paprika. Salt and Pepper well.
3.Combine breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. Set aside
4.Spread into a large sheet pan as close to a single layer as possible.
5.Roast for 45 minutes, stirring often.
6.Sprinkle with breadcrumb mixture and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until breadcrumbs are toasted.

Mr. Fruitychick took the leftovers to work and reported them equally tasty the next day. This recipe is a total keeper.

Photos taken by my snazzy new Palm Treo 750. I'm still learning the art of the mobile photo so these are less than fantastic. Did you know you can send photos from your phone directly to flickr? Probably. I am so behind the curve on this stuff...this is my first camera phone.

I also updated a few things in the sidebar--my 52 pair plunge total for one. I finished the flourescent socks for Elizabeth (I have a photo somewhere in my email...), the no bake cookie socks and the georgetown socks. Our stuff is split between the apartment and storage right now and I think my socks are, sadly, in the storage category. I'm nearly done on another pair:

Monkey Socks
STR Fire on the Mountain (lightweight? I dont remember)

I bet I'll be done with these in the next few days. They are a quick knit and I'm trying (hard) to be a monogomous knitter so I can start getting a few more things done. I'm predicting I'll fail and cast on for something new but I'm trying, people.

Posted by fruitychick at 10:09 AM | Permalink