Baking Friday - Pie # 1

SUCCESS!

After last week's fail, I was starting to lose a little confidence in this whole idea, but I forged ahead regardless.  And this week's entry was a success!  Comments like "fantastic!" and "very good" and "keeper" and "is there raspberry liqueur in this?" could be heard in the cubicles of work on Thursday.  (Which if you have Chambord on hand, that would be a great addition to the raspberry puree!)  One friend even remarked about the tasty way that the white chocolate shavings played with the whipped cream, but I'm getting ahead of myself!

Step back, Deb. Take a deep breath and start back at the beginning.

This is my Valentine's Pie for the 2014 Friday Baking project.  And when I think Valentine's, two things come to mind when it comes to food - chocolate and red.  Red from raspberries and strawberries.  I don't think Red Velvet because I still haven't figured out what "red" is supposed to taste like, but that's a story for another day.  But since I've now seen Red Velvet M&M's on sale for Valentine's, well, I may have to tackle Red Velvet before Valentine's is over.

Valentine's is also all about our sweethearts.  And my sweetheart likes French Silk.  And really?  Who doesn't?  What is not to like about butter and sugar and chocolate beaten to silky oblivion?

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing!

But French Silk is just a bit too easy, and only covers the chocolate half of the food equation.  I needed something red.  And thought of raspberries.  So this is a French Silk Pie laced with a raspberry puree.  Only I didn't want a full pie, because Valentine's is also all about special and pretty and small, so I decided to go the tart route.  And finally I wanted a sweeter cookie type crust, but not a crushed cookie crust.  I still wanted a pastry crust but more like a cookie.  So I settled on the Murbteig pastry from Helen Fletcher's New Pastry Cook book.  This is a very tasty Viennese shortbread cookie that we've baked from Helen's book for years.  We have cut them in fluted rounds and hearts, and these are the cookies S&K's cookie girl handed out at their wedding instead of flowers.  We LOVE this dough!  I've never used it as a crust before, but I hoped this would work, and other than the shrinking, I think it worked well!

Ready?  Here we go!  But to keep you motivated, here is a picture of G's slice of the Valentine one.  (I actually made two tarts - one for my sweetheart and one for work.  And just so you know, G said that this was pretty awesome!)

Cuts up kinda pretty, don't ya think?!

Tuesday night - the crust, the raspberry puree and the chocolate hearts.

Let's start with the Murbteig crust.  Here is the recipe that I used, but since the crust shrank a bit more than I liked, I would add another 1/2 of flour to give it more strength and stability the next time.  The normal dough includes the peel from one lemon, but I didn't want the lemon flavor with the chocolate, so I left it out.  Here is what I used (slightly different than Helen's original).

1/2 cup sugar
2 - 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (10 ounces)
1/2 t. salt
1/2 pound butter, refrigerated (I used salted, but obviously unsalted would be great)
2 egg yolks
1 whole egg
Splash of vanilla

I measured the flour - and yes!  The flexible cutting board idea from a few posts ago worked great on the scale!  I was able to measure all 10 ounces together rather than splitting into two measurements like I had to on the waxed paper.  Keeper idea!

Combine the sugar and flour and salt in the food processor and mix about 5 seconds.  Cut the butter into a number of pieces and circle over the flour-sugar mixture.  Process about 20 seconds until the butter is fully incorporated.  Add the yolks and whole egg and vanilla and mix until a ball forms (about 30 seconds) and then another 10 seconds after that.

Shape into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate.

Next came the raspberry puree.  This was a 10oz. package of frozen sweetened raspberries that I pureed in the food processor first and then pushed through a strainer (since I don't have a food mill!) to remove all of the seeds.  This probably took the longest dedicated time of anything I did Tuesday night.

Here we are at the beginning of the process...

...and here we are at the end....about 15 minutes later.

I added 4 T. of sugar, 1-1/2 T. of cornstarch, 1 t. of lemon juice and then cooked over medium-high heat until thick and bubbly.

I let it cook about a minute longer.  Then I added a pat of butter and a splash of almond extract before covering it with plastic wrap and refrigerating overnight.

The last thing I did on Tuesday night was make the chocolate hearts for the Valentine tart.  I simply melted milk and white chocolate and spread them out on parchment paper.  This is one time when I needed to use perfectly clean parchment, and I should have spread it a bit thinner.  Then I chilled it in the fridge for about 10 - 15 minutes until it's just about set, but not totally.

And then I started cutting hearts with a small cookie cutter.  They didn't all come out perfect, but I got a few good ones in both the milk and white - and anything that didn't cut right or the scraps just got collected to use again later.

I tucked these in the freezer and went to bed!

Wednesday evening - Bake crusts, French Silk Filling, Assembly

At Helen's direction, I rolled the crusts between sheets of waxed paper, and if the dough got too soft, I would place it in the freezer for 5 - 10 minutes and go at it again.

Beginning...

...middle...

...and end - lined with foil and rice before going into a 325 degree oven for about 20 total minutes.  Next time I wouldn't weigh them down, and I would bake at 350.  You can see a bit of the shrinking I mentioned in the picture below.

But they released from the rim ok, so I moved forward!

Now I was ready for the French Silk filling!  I used a normal filling - the same one you can find many places on the internet.  I did a normal recipe for splitting between the two tarts, but since there was some shrink of the crusts, I had about a ramekin worth left over.  Tragedy!  Oh the problems we cook's face!

We're almost to the finish line, folks!

Next I added the raspberry puree, but I warmed it just slightly in the microwave to loosen it.

Then I took a spatula and began to gently swirl.

And that is where I ended Wednesday night.  I slid both tarts in the fridge and let them set up. And went to bed!

Thursday morning - Garnishing!  Fun!

I garnished both tarts using a little bit of magic with whipped cream, fresh raspberries, chocolate hearts and chocolate shavings!  FUN!

First the Valentine's look for my sweetheart. This was easy, folks - a few mounds of whipped cream, a quick shell heart of whipped cream in the middle, raspberries on each whipped cream mound, and then a few of the chocolate hearts here and there.  And suddenly, it's Valentine's Day!

But for taking to work or any everyday sort of way to dress it up (and since the price of raspberries is WAY high right now!) I garnished with mainly chocolate shavings.

Ya know those hearts that didn't turn out quite right?  Oh yea, baby!

Imperfect heart?  Meet Mr. Knife.

Broken heart?  Meet Ms. Grater.

And there you have it, folks!  SUCCESS!

I am now 1 for 2.  I'm batting .500 folks!  I am ready for major league baseball!

Or not.  But I can at least throw a ball NOT like a girl, thanks to my friend, S, who took the time years ago to teach me.  Yadi isn't worried, or anything, but I can at least throw better than the dad from the car commercial...

I hope you've enjoyed this journey, and that I might have sparked an idea or two of how you might want to make a Valentine's treat for your sweetheart!

And I hope you come back next week for Baking Friday - Bread # 1!  Seeya then!

What's for Dinner, Julia? Pommes de Terre Au Estragon

Yep, this is my first venture into What's for Dinner, Julia?

And we had Pommes de Terre Au Estragon - which is not the same as estrogen.  Men can eat these, too!

This is Estragon - or the French word for tarragon.  And I can't say for sure that I have stated the name of this recipe correctly since the official recipe is titled "Pommes de Terre Au Basilic" or Slice Potatoes Simmered in Cream and Basil - BUT the tarragon option is the sub recipe under the main one, so...

...we had Sliced Potatoes Simmered in Cream and Tarragon.  Ready?

I've somehow never worked with tarragon before, so I wasn't sure what it was like.  As I was slicing it up for the dish, I was picking up licorice overtones, and sure enough when I Google tarragon, the writer says that fennel and anise would be approximate substitutes, but both of those strike me as a stronger licorice intensity than tarragon.  My friend, S, here at work says that he has used tarragon in turkey burgers to give them more of a beefier taste, and I can see how tarragon would do that.

We begin by boiling potato slices in salted water for 3 minutes.  Julia's recipe makes about 7 cups of potatoes or enough for 4 - 6 people.  Since I didn't want to make that much, I used 4 potatoes.

I peeled and sliced them about 1/4" thick and it gave me a little less than 4 cups.  So I cut the rest of the ingredients in half.  I plunged them in boiling water, let the water return to a boil and then cooked for 3 minutes before draining.  This is essentially a parboil to remove some of the starch (I believe any way) before going to the next step.

(Steamy picture, cause there is steam comin' off those taters!)

In a separate pan, we are making a white sauce with 2 T. butter, 1 T. flour, 3/4 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of cream, 1 T. of chopped tarragon, 1 - 2 cloves of mashed garlic, 1/2 t. salt and a large pinch of white pepper.  Once that is somewhat thick, we add the potatoes...

...cover and cook for 10 - 15 minutes.  I don't have a lid for this non-stick pan (non-stick is recommended), so I used foil.

While those were cooking, I poached some fish...

...and sauteed some green beans with almonds.  (They are still a bit frozen in this picture.)

The last step from Julia is to swirl in some butter at the end (cause, why not, right?)  I reduced the poaching liquid for the fish and added a touch of cream at the end, and voila!  We have dinner!

Not a bad looking plate for a Tuesday night at home, right?

G started out giving the potatoes a 6.5, but after he had eaten the whole dinner, he bumped it up to a 7.8.  I would give these an 8.2, but partly because of the cooking method that I learned.  Think of an herby scalloped potato with licorice undertones, and that is just about how these taste.  If I was more of a licorice fan, I would have probably given them a 9.1, but I would do these again.  Definitely.

And I am sure I would enjoy them with the basil.  A few other herbs come to mind such as parsley or thyme or rosemary or even an herbes de provence combination would be tasty.  The same cooking method would be used; it would just be a matter of swapping out the herbs and perhaps the garlic intensity and/or other seasoning.  But I really like how the parboiling helped the potatoes to cook in the sauce without sticking or getting too starchy.  Yep, that tidbit of learning is a keeper!

Thanks for last night's dinner, Julia!

Love,
Deb

On a scale of 1 to 10...

...I'd give this storm a -8!

Get it?  -8...like the temperature today in St. Louis. 

Ha-ha!  I'm so funny!

But seriously folks, have you had enough of this storm yet?  I know that the weather reporting folks are in hog heaven right now, and I'm happy for them, but I'm already getting spring fever.  Anyone with me here?

G has dug us out, and I am very thankful he is capable and strong to do this for us.  I am also very thankful that I was able to work from home - that we have power and food on hand.  And we got to watch Downton Abbey last night.  (However I still need to see Seasons 1 and 2 plus most of Season 3.  I am SO late to the DA party!) 

Speaking of scales though (back to the post title), I used my new scale from Santa to measure the flour in the bread I made yesterday.

Wait, back up a minute.  What bread did I make?  I made this Harvest Grains Bread from King Arthur Flour...

...except mine looks like this for a couple of reasons...

This is because I don't have any of the Whole-Grain Bread Improver (I used 1 T. of cornstarch instead) nor do I have any of the Harvest Grains Blend (I used 2-5/8 oz. of all-purpose flour instead).

Did you catch that?  I used 2-5/8 oz. of flour.  Not a measured 1/2 cup but 2-5/8 oz. of flour. 

Which would really be 2.625oz. of flour, however Santa's scale doesn't go out to 3 significant digits, so I had to simply stop at 2.6 oz. 

It was pretty fun to measure the dry ingredients.  This particular piece of wax paper weighed about 0.1oz., so I had to "tare" that out before measuring the flour.  (I felt very scientific, I promise you!)

One interesting (to me, at least) discovery is that when measuring larger quantities, such as the 10.5 oz. of the bread flour called for, I have to do it in a couple of measurements, because the surface area of the scale isn't large enough to accommodate 10.5 oz.

So I did 6...

 

...and then 4.5.

 

Isn't math wonderful??!!!

 





Of course, now that I think about it, if I "tared" a container with sides, then I could measure all 10.5oz at one time.  Hmmm...I can be so blond sometimes, can't I?  But hey, I have a couple of those flexible cutting boards, so that just might do the trick...allowing me to measure larger amounts while also then allowing me to "funnel" the board to pour the ingredient into the mixing bowl.  Yes, I have to try that next time!

Otherwise this was an easy, regular loaf of bread.  Dump all of the ingredients in your mixing bowl - no, I didn't bother to soften my yeast first - and start mixing.  If you have a powerful mixer like a Kitchen Aid, then let it do the kneading for you. 

Here is what it looked like when it first came together...a ball of dough, but still not smooth..

But let your mixer keep kneading while you empty the dishwasher, and after another 4 - 5 minutes, you have this beautiful, smooth batch of dough ready to rise.

And here's my dirty little secret.  I don't move it to a greased bowl for rising.  I just toss a towel over the top and walk away.  Once the first rising is done, I turn the machine on for a quick "pulse" and let the machine deflate it for me, and it's ready to shape.  I do this all the time with rolls and breads, and I have never had any trouble with the dough sticking to the bowl or not rising or baking up well.  I may toss a bit of oil in the bowl if the dough seems a bit on the drier side at the end of kneading, but most of the time, I just cover the bowl with a towel and let the yeast have a party.

I did one other thing with this dough that I'd never done before.  Santa also brought me an instant-read thermometer.  Since the recipe said to bake it to 190 degrees F and since Santa was good to me this year, I thought "Why not?"  Sure enough at the end of 35 minutes, it only registered 167.7, so I put it back in for about 10 minutes.  At the end of that 10 minutes, it registered about 191.1, so I took it out.  And it baked up just about perfectly!  I would consider this recipe a repeater - a keeper.  We had some with our minestrone soup last night, for toast this morning, grilled sandwiches for lunch and we'll have more with our beef stew for supper tonight.

And ya just can't beat the smell of fresh bread in the oven.  Period.  I feel calmer just remembering how it smelled yesterday.

Don't you?  Maybe I'll raise my score of this storm to a +8 since it gave us some good bread.  Yes, I will. 

No, make that an 8.3.  It seems only right since this post has been all about decimal accuracies for scales and thermometers. 

Stay warm!

Sunday Snow Day Thoughts

Good morning,

We live in the Midwest, and today is Sunday, January 5, 2014.  We are having a snow day.  I made a point of mentioning the date, because weather forecasters are telling us that this will be one of those snowstorms that people will talk about for years to come - blizzard conditions, thunder snow and lots of bitterly cold temperatures - like the storm of '82.

I remember the storm of '82.  Now keep in mind that this was 1982, a whole other century ago.  It makes me old, because I remember the storm of '82, but none of my kids do.  They weren't born yet.  I wasn't even pregnant with my oldest, S, when the storm of '82 hit.  Back then, they didn't use the phrase "thunder snow" - at least not that I recall - but I recall hearing the thunder with that snow and thinking, "Was that thunder?  I don't remember ever hearing thunder when it snowed."  But I went back to sleep.  And we woke up to 18" of snow that next morning.  We were living in our first apartment; the complex was called "Mansion Hill Apartments" at the time, right across Florissant Road from UMSL.  (Keep in mind that this was my first husband, my children's father, not G.)  I remember walking around outside on that Sunday, treading through the knee-deep snow, and how cold it felt, since the snow was now done, and the clear, bright, sunny skies had followed.  I also remember how long it took for things to get back to normal.  The snow fell on a Saturday, church was cancelled on Sunday (much like today) and we didn't go back to work until Wednesday or even later for many workers.  I was working for the old St. Louis Union Trust Company at the time (now merged into a few different banks in the years since), but that was how many lifetimes ago?  Enough that I'm not sure my kids knew these tidbits of info until now (assuming they read this, that is...)

I am sitting in our bedroom typing this out and looking out the windows at the snow and wind.  The windows in our bedroom are about 4' off the floor, so my view is really only of the trees and the roof of the house next door.  When I first woke up a couple of hours ago, I could see just a light snow and it wasn't blowing much.  But about an hour ago the flakes got much bigger, and the wind has picked up considerably.  We braved the crowds at the store yesterday - long before the shelves were bare - so we have no known needs to leave the house today, and I am hopeful that does not change.

Speaking of leaving the house, we took down our Christmas tree last night - always a bittersweet sort of experience, right?  You hate to see the beauty and decorations come down, but there's another part of you that is ready to see the house get back to normal, too.  Well we got a late start on the tree, and since we knew that the snow was coming, we decided that we wanted to go ahead and take the tree to the recycling drop off site for our area so we wouldn't have to think about it later.  So yes, that was us pulling up to the Forestwood Park last night about 11pm.  You thought that was odd?  What were you doing there at that time then, may I ask? 

And may I ask?  Is there invariably some decoration somewhere that you forget to "see" when you are taking everything down and then you see it the next day?  Or even the next week?  I do.  Mine was the stockings.  If you see where we hang the stockings each year, you would think, "Really Deb?  You missed the stockings?"  And you'd be right.  But yes, I did.  And of course not all of the totes have been taken downstairs yet, but THAT tote has been already.  Sigh.

But I digress.  Snow days...aren't they really the best?  They are the quiet between the craziness.  We have endured the craziness of the stores - no carts, crowded aisles, bare shelves, long lines - and there will be craziness after it's all over - shoveling, clearing cars, driving, power outages - but for the day you are getting the snow?  Quiet.  Watching.  Reading.  Tea.  Or coffee.  Or both.

And bread!  There is something about a snow day that means homemade bread to me!  I am still choosing my loaf, and I want one that uses bread flour and the white whole wheat, but assuming we don't lose power, there will be homemade bread in our future today!

And pondering.  I read this yesterday, originally appearing in The Washington Times but reposted by The Foundry, so I think it is safe to say that this is one of those pieces that can be endorsed by all.  It struck me as having that ring of truth that bears repeating and is one of my resolutions or goals for this year - pursuing civility.  Snarkiness?  That's easy.  We don't have to think to be snarky.  Bumper sticker theology or politics?  Again, easy.  But to truly think and articulate our thoughts or why we hold the position we hold or even more importantly think through what a compromise might be that becomes a win-win for everyone?  That takes time and restraint and intelligence and openness and yes, civility.  So if you see or hear me slipping back into snarkiness or bumper sticker thinking or I return to name calling instead of keeping to the point and debating the idea rather than the person, I want you to call me on it.  Remind me of this resolution.

So that is three resolutions I've shared here in recent days...
...the cooking sisterhood actually COOKING this year together!
...Baking Fridays!  I am really enjoying planning these out, even if I do post more failures...
...pursuing civility of thought and speech.

I have one more resolution that I want to pass along.  Remember the "What's for dinner Wednesdays" idea I mentioned a few days ago?  Well I wasn't thrilled with that idea, but I couldn't quite figure out why.  But it morphed into this idea...

 

What's for Dinner Julia?

 

Now before you roll your eyes and say, "It been done already, Deb!  Remember the movie 'Julie and Julia'?  Duh!", give me a moment to explain. 

 

A - I am NOT going to cook every recipe in this book in a year like Julie Powell did.

B - This is NOT that same book.  That was Volume One, and this is Volume Two.

C - What if I chose one entrée or vegetable or soup or dessert to make each week and posted about it?

 

The recipes are LENGTHY - like they put Deb Dissertations to shame, so I won't necessarily be giving you the full recipes and instructions, but I can take pictures and share my results and thoughts of each one.  I may not be able to do this every week, but I can shoot for every week and see where we land.  Fair enough?

 

So that's four public resolutions, and that, my friends, is plenty to attempt in addition to the private ones I've made.  Yes, I do believe in resolutions from that "an unexamined life isn't worth living" sort of way espoused by Socrates.  I prefer to think of them as goals - they feel more achievable to me that way with a bit more flexibility and grace thrown in than the word resolution, but goals are good for all.  Without them we tend to drift.  With them we tend to go places. Either way we are either dead or 65 someday (no other choices there if ya think about it).  And if I'm not dead, I prefer to be 65 and be able to look back and see some goals achieved than look back and wonder, "What did I do with my dreams all that time?" 

 

And this blog is part of that larger, lifetime goal.  Thank you for stopping by to witness my attempts to pursue those dreams.  You are welcome any time, and I appreciate your encouragement and hopes and prayers for me...for us...

 

Enjoy your snow day and all those that come after!  May your power stay on and may you not have to go anywhere too soon.  And may your homemade bread be the best you've ever tasted!

 

Bye for now!

D





Baking Friday - Cake # 1 - Fail!

This is our first cake in the 2014 Baking Fridays segment, and I can't, in all honesty, recommend it.  I'm sorry, but I can't - at least not like I did it this time. 

I would go so far as to call this a FAIL.  It's not a fail in that it can't be eaten.  It was edible, but...

And perhaps I should stay up late tonight and make a new cake so that I only share the successes with you.  But since I've always learned WAY more from failures than I ever learned from successes, I will go ahead and share this fail so we can all learn together.

Since there are more than 4 Fridays between now and Valentine's Day, I chose my favorite everyday cake combination for this first one - the classic yellow cake with chocolate icing. 

Are you snoozing yet? 

Exactly.  Why would you want to read about yellow cake with chocolate icing?  I debated carving a football from the cake ready for Super Bowl along with a Denver Broncos logo on one end and the Seattle Seahawks logo on the other end (G's two picks for this year's Super Bowl) as a way to jazz up yellow cake with chocolate icing, but then I thought, "nah, I've pretty much done that before."

So I thought I would try a recipe for yellow cake that I hadn't done before as well as a recipe for the chocolate icing that I hadn't ever tried.  Maybe that could jazz up this relatively boring choice.

But why not take it one step further and fail on both?  Yea, that could make this a more interesting read.

Ready?  Here goes.  And yes, this totally classifies as a true Deb Dessertation.  Coffee is suggested.

I chose this Pioneer Woman yellow cake recipe, based on a Better Homes and Gardens recipe as she states.  However I tried one change.  (Cause I hate to throw ingredients away.  I blame my mother.)  I had some eggnog left - a brand that we tried this year because we couldn't find the brand that we really like, and we really don't like the brand we bought - so I tried substituting eggnog for the milk. 

Doesn't work.  At least not in a 1-for-1 eggnog to milk way.  I would try this again, but instead of the 1-1/4 cups of milk that the recipe calls for, I would do 3/4 cup of eggnog and 1/2 cup of water.  Also I would reduce the sugar by 1/4 cup, plus I would bake the cake at 350 instead of 375. 

But what I would really do is buy the right eggnog, drink it all gone, enjoy every last drop, and then we wouldn't have this problem at all now, would we?

The batter tasted ok when I was spreading it in the pans...

..speaking of which, Santa brought me a scale, so I weighed each pan before baking.  Fun test of how well I can split batter!

Here were my first attempts...

And ya know what is crazy?  I had already moved a small amount from the lower-reading pan to the higher-reading pan, so after weighing I moved just about that same amount BACK to the original pan.  Sigh...

 

Much closer...

 



But the extra sugar in the eggnog along with the higher temp caused the cakes to bake up rather dark.

Fail.

For the icing, I chose Helen Fletcher's French Buttercream recipe, which uses eggs and a sugar syrup rather than powdered sugar like a standard American buttercream which I normally do.  The recipe worked as she described.  Perfectly, in fact. 

The texture is smooth as silk.  It melts on the tongue.  I added 3oz of unsweetened chocolate to the finished buttercream, and found the flavor to be right for my taste, but it was the texture that was the most fascinating to me. 

 

So what was the fail here?  Amount.  And taste.  Sorry, but it lacks much of a flavor punch.  It isn't overly sweet, but nor is it overly tasty or even buttery in flavor.  And given that there are 2 sticks of butter for this amount of icing, I would expect at least more of a buttery flavor, not just a buttery texture. 

 



I will do this technique again, even though it is more work, plus I would at least double it in order to have enough to cover a two-layer 8" cake.  And that would mean that I am committing 6 eggs plus a full pound of butter to a double recipe.  I haven't done the math, but that starts to add up pretty quickly.  I would also add more flavoring and my guess is that having more icing on the cake will help with the flavor miss that I'm feeling at the moment.  I LOVE Helen and her recipes, so this is why I definitely want to do this recipe again.  I still believe I could love a French Buttercream.

I might have had enough if I hadn't split the layers, but I doubt it even then.  I'm not a thick icing sort of gal, but this was way too thin.  That was G's main comment when we did our tasting on Wednesday night.  Take a look at these pics of the icing...

Minimal amount I would spread on a layer.

First layer spread...

 



Working on the sides.  How much do I have left?

Hmmm...that much?

Will I make it?

Yep!  Made it!

 

And even about 2 tablespoons left over!

Except not really.  Here is our slice that also shows how there isn't enough icing to cake ratio...sigh...

The cake lacked moisture.  The crumb was ok, but the flavor didn't taste like yellow cake.  And since the chocolate icing didn't taste "full" and didn't "hit" that chocolate spot, the net result was "This is cake?  In name only.  Not worth the calories."

I took the cake to work on Thursday as planned, and pitched about half of it.  The comments were in line with what I've said above. 

So our first venture was a fail, but I've learned some things, so it's not an entire fail. 

I hope you'll come back next Friday for our pie.  This will be a Valentine's pie, and I think I have a good plan that shouldn't be another fail. 

At least I hope so.  It could be a long year if we have 52 weeks of fails.  So far our score is 0 for 1...

Please don't give up on me yet...

What's for Dinner Wednesdays

Not sure if I will keep with this or not, and what I'm about to show you wasn't for dinner tonight, but I am starting here.

How was your New Year's Day?  Are you Rose Bowl parade watchers?  We are, and because I'm a bit weird like this, I spent much of it reviewing some of the highlights of the Tournament of Roses 125 year history.  For example, did you know that the football game didn't start as an annual event until 1916?  Did you know that the original games were things like chariot races and tug-o-war and a race between a camel and an elephant?  (The elephant won.)  Did you know that 1900 was the first year when the parade was filmed?  But it took days, weeks and even months before anyone saw that parade on film?  Did you know that 1893 was the first year since the Tournament of Roses began in 1890 that January 1 fell on a Sunday, which was a dilemma since that would interfere with church services, so they started the festival a day later, and the "Never on Sunday" tradition continues to this day?

And what struck me most about all of these facts was that a mere 100 years later, we are able to see it LIVE and even record it on a DVR/TiVo/name you rtechnology option so that we can watch it at our pace minus the commercials if we so choose?  How fascinating is that?  Soooo much has changed in our lives in the last 125 years since the Tournament of Roses began! 

G says that I am easily fascinatable, but I am fascinated by that amount of change.  No other time in history has brought about THAT much change to our everyday lives in such short a time as the last 100 years.

So that here we are, able to count on New Year's traditions like watching the Rose Bowl parade and spending the day watching college football bowl games and eating football food.  Is this a great country or what?

Speaking of food, do you make new food for New Year's football games? Or is your fridge so stuffed from various leftovers that you eat "musgo"?  That buffet of odd, eclectic food choices that simply Must Go?  We are a musgo family.  Tonight's dinner was little weinies in BBQ sauce, spinach and artichoke dip, au gratin potatoes plus leftover Mexican from last night's dinner.  Someday I want to host a regular New Year's open house of football, food and fun, and I promise I will make new food for that event, but for now we eat musgo.

Which is not the point of this post at all.  I really wanted to talk about what I cooked on Sunday - again to use up some leftovers - but the whole time I'm cooking these things I'm thinking about a new topic called "What's for Dinner Wednesdays".

My mind can be a scary place.

So what did I cook on Sunday?  We were both sick that day, but I had this big old spiral sliced ham leftover, so I needed to start using this up.  I also had a half an orange pepper, some bow-tie pasta and some frozen peas.  So I sautéed up some onion, garlic and celery, tossed in the chopped up pepper with some of the ham, a bit of chicken stock and peas.  I cooked that up a while and then on low heat I added some cream and grated cheeses, including Manchego, which is a hard cheese similar to Parm, and lo and behold, we had a pretty tasty pasta dish once we poured that over the cooked bow-ties.  I can't offer much of a recipe, because I just did it by feel, but I can show you this.

I made quite a bit, so I froze the leftovers.  But I did something I'd never done before.  I packed it into a roasting bag, so that I could take it from the freezer to the oven without it drying out quite the way it can when packed in just foil containers.  Have you ever done this?  Here is what I did...

I laid the roasting bag in a foil cake pan and filled it with the pasta dish, enough for the two of us.  I added a touch more cream, just for moisture while it freezes.

I closed the bag up with the tie provided by Reynolds and cut a couple of slits in the top to squeeze out all of the air, and then covered it and labeled it for the freezer.

Make sense?

But that didn't use up all of the ham!  So I used the rest to make some ham and bean soup.  And here is the recipe for that...

1 ham bone
2 cups (or more) cooked ham (if you don't have that much on the ham bone)
16oz dried navy beans (or beans of choice) along with whatever seasoning packet comes with pkg.
2 T. olive oil
1 onion chopped
3 cloves garlic chopped
4 stalks celery chopped
4 carrots chopped
1 - 2 jalapenos chopped
3 cups chicken stock
3 cups water
15oz can chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried parsley
2 T. brown sugar (or to taste)
2 T. maple syrup (or to taste)

Either soak the dried beans overnight or cover the beans with 2 inches of water and bring to a quick boil.  Remove from the heat and let soak for 1 hour.  (This is what I did since I didn't think about doing this the night before.)

Sauté the vegetables in the olive oil over medium heat for 5 minutes.  Add the beans along with the water, the ham bone, ham and chicken stock.  If the beans are not covered, add enough water to cover.  Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and cover.  Cook for about 2 hours, checking periodically to confirm there is enough water to cook the beans.  After about 2 hours, remove the ham bone and pull off any ham.  Chop the ham and return to the pot.  May return the bone to the pot, if you think you can get any more flavor out of it.  Also add the can of tomatoes, the dried herbs (including the seasoning packet, if any, that came with your beans), brown sugar and maple syrup.  Continue to cook until beans are tender.  Adjust seasoning to taste.

This made at least 10 - 12 servings, so plenty for us to freeze for another cold, winter's night.  Serve warm with jalapeno cornbread, a recipe I will pass along someday when I think I have it really right...

So that's what was for dinner on Sunday, only I'm telling you about it on What's for Dinner Wednesday because this is not a usual Wednesday. 

Makes perfect sense, right?

How are those resolutions coming anyway?  Bye for now!