Double Chocolate Cookies

by Melanie

This evening a friend will join us for dinner. We debated about menu, considering salmon and asparagus, or homemade pizzas. (We finally figured out how to make a pretty good crust. When paired with basil pesto as the sauce, the result is out of this world!) We finally decided to make chicken soup (I excel at soup) with Jim’s Irish soda bread and salad. That will suit our forecast for temps in the low 40s, with our ever-ready Iowa wind.

No matter what the main course would be, we agreed on cookies and ice cream for dessert.

This recipe makes 4 dozen terrific cookies. Each time I’ve made them the texture has been fabulous, and they freeze well, too.

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne (optional) OR 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, as needed
1 cup dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In large bowl, mix butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. If adding cayenne or cinnamon, add to dry ingredients. Stir into the butter mixture until well blended. If the dough is too stiff, stir in up to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8-10 minutes, or until just set. Cool a few minutes before removing to wire rack.

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Rhubarb | First Shoots Are Up

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the garden for the first signs of life. We have a winner! Rhubarb is sending up shoots of tightly curled leaves. Those other leaves are some sort of weed. They are suffering the effect of temperatures in the mid-20s last night. The rhubarb was not harmed.

I also defrosted the extra freezer downstairs this week. There were three containers of frozen rhubarb pieces from the crop last year. Looks like I need to make another pie. Last weekend I made a pie from some of last year’s frozen rhubarb. I added blueberries, red raspberries, and blackberries.

Angie at Fiesta Friday found out and wondered why I didn’t share it with the others at her blog. “Too busy”, I told her. Lucky for me, I took a picture of it. My cousin said it looked very patriotic with the red, white, and blue colors. Those stripes were from the leftover dough trimmed off the rim of the baking dish. It wouldn’t win any prizes at the state fair for looks. But, it tasted marvelous. It only took Melanie and I three days to eat it.

If you are curious about my techniques for harvesting, cutting, freezing, and ultimately, what recipe I use, go to this previous post. All the details are there. Here is the printable recipe form.

Gramma Brown's Rhubarb Pie

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: Less than 1 hr
• Difficulty: Easy
• Print

Ingredients

• 3 C of cleaned and sliced rhubarb. Add some berries if you wish.
• 1.5  C of sugar
• 2 eggs
• 4 T of flour
• 1 pie dough pre-made from store or make your own

Directions

Preheat oven to 425˚ and line a pie pan with dough.

Cover the rhubarb and berries with 1/2 C of sugar and set the bowl aside.

In another bowl, combine the remaining sugar, flour, and eggs. Stir to mix.

Combine the two bowls of ingredients and stir to mix.

Pour into the prepared pie pan.

Bake for 30 minutes on center rack.

Let cool completely before serving to let it firm up.

Double Chocolate Cookies

 

We have a snow storm on the way, with 10-14″ of snow coming. Until it’s over, we’ll be inside, and the weather seems to call for cookies and … oh, something to drink! Milk, tea, hot chocolate, whiskey, your preference. This recipe makes 4 dozen terrific cookies. Each time we’ve made them the texture has been fabulous, and they freeze well, too. We make them with cayenne. Once we tried adding cinnamon, as well, but it didn’t make things better.

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cayenne (optional) OR 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, as needed
1 cup dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In large bowl, mix butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. If adding cayenne or cinnamon, add to dry ingredients. Stir into the butter mixture until well blended. If the dough is too stiff, stir in up to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8-10 minutes, or until just set. Cool a few minutes before removing to wire rack.

Possum

We have a small opossum that hangs around under our feeders. It shows up most days in the mid-afternoon, to graze on seeds and bits left by the birds and squirrels. Cute with its fur sticking out wildly all over, it’s not very big. Based on the one-pound grey squirrel on the left of the photo, I guesstimate it’s only three or four pounds. A “typical” opossum is about the size of a large house cat, and weighs in at 10 to 13 pounds.

The title calls it a “possum,” but that is actually a different animal native to Australia and New Guinea. In North America, the animal is an “opossum.” Both are marsupials. With its prehensile tail and opposable thumbs, the opossum is an excellent climber.

Besides the seeds my opossum enjoys, they are foragers and will eat carrion, rodents, insects, frogs, and plants including fruits and grains. As they are nocturnal, usually they are out at night. However, in the winter sometimes they change their patterns to take advantage of warmer temperatures during the day.

If you’re hungry, you could try this recipe for roast opossum. “The opossum is a very fat animal with a peculiarly flavored meat.” The linked recipe also includes stuffing.

3.  It is dressed much as one would dress a suckling pig, removing the entrails, and if desired, the head and tail.

4.  After it is dressed, wash thoroughly inside and out with hot water.

5.  Cover with cold water to which has been added 1 cup of salt.

6.  Allow to stand overnight. In morning, drain off the salted water and rinse well with clear water.

7.  Stuff opossum with opossum stuffing … ; sew opening or fasten with skewers.

8.  Place in roaster, add 2 tablespoons water and roast in moderate oven (350°F) until tender and richly browned, about one and one half hours.

9.  Baste every 15 minutes with drippings.

10.  Remove skewers or stitches, and place on heated platter.

11.  Skim fat from gravy remaining in pan.

Okay, and this was too funny and too weird to leave out. Listen to Cy Scarborough and the Bar D Wranglers at the Bar D Chuckwagon in Durango, CO.

Chicken Posole Stew

Loosely based on traditional posole recipes, my rich chicken stew takes advantage of summer ingredients. But because so many summer ingredients freeze well, you can enjoy this hearty soup any time of year.

When I cook soup, I have ONE rule: use approximately as much liquid as solid. That has a fudge factor, of course. Use less liquid when you want it thicker and more when you want it thinner. This simple rule has served me very well, and served my household many years of delicious soups.

The “recipe” below is very loose, filled with approximations and guesses. I did not measure anything here. Using the rule above, it has somewhat less liquid than solid.

Chicken Posole Stew
3/4 – 1 pound cooked chicken, diced into small bites
4 – 6 cups chicken stock
(I roasted my chicken on Tuesday and made my stock from the carcass.)
1 carrot diced
1 onion diced small
(My onion was a summer CSA onion, diced and frozen.)
1/2 zucchini diced
1/2 yellow squash diced
2 medium tomatoes peeled, seeded, and diced, with juice if possible
(My tomatoes were from our garden, processed and frozen. You could use a can of diced tomatoes instead, including the juice.)
1 cup corn and black bean salsa
(This was also from the summer — fresh from the field sweet corn and tomatoes. You could substitute jarred salsa, or frozen corn separately. Or leave it out.)
2 hot peppers seeded and diced tiny
(I used a jalapeno and a Hungarian pepper, both from our garden and frozen. You could use a bell pepper but you’d lose the zing.)
1 can white hominy, drained

In large pot heat fat (I used bacon grease and a little canola oil) to saute carrot. Add onion, zucchini and squash, tomatoes, corn salsa, and peppers. Add chicken stock and let it hang out, simmering until the vegetables soften. Add diced chicken and drained hominy. Heat until hot through.

Note — I didn’t add any other seasonings. I didn’t add salt. I didn’t add pepper. I didn’t add cumin or oregano or cilantro or anything. You could. But taste it first to see if you really want it. If you like it hot, you might want another jalapeno, or even two.

Serve with corn bread. Make sure you have lots of butter and honey available for the corn bread. You may want a beer with it, too!

Homemade Ketchup!

Last week we made ketchup. Why, when the basic bottle of Heinz tastes so familiar? Three reasons. First, we ran out and needed a replacement. Second, we had garden tomatoes from last year to finish, as this year’s are beginning to ripen. And third, we continue to choose less processed foods when reasonable to do.

This seemed reasonable.

We had three sandwich-sized freezer bags with tomatoes left over. When those were thawed, the excess liquid was drained off. Here is the basic recipe.

Chop fine one medium onion and saute in vegetable oil until soft. Add a clove of chopped garlic and continue on heat. Add the tomatoes. (Ours were processed for the freezer, skins and most of the seeds removed, and in big chunks. In addition we added about 10 frozen oven-roasted tomatoes to deepen the flavor. These had skin on, which was pulled out as they softened and began to cook down.)

Add about 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and a sprinkle each of cayenne, allspice, and clove. Remember a little can go a long way. Better to start with not much of each of these, especially the clove and cayenne. Add a bay leaf and salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Stir occasionally until thickened, about an hour. Remove the bay leaf.

Let cool and then process in the blender until smooth. We have a food processor, not a blender, and our ketchup is still textural. We like it that way.

Caution: this doesn’t have all the preservatives and chemicals that store-bought brands have. Though there is salt, sugar, and acid — all natural preservatives — don’t assume this will last like store-bought. The recipe on which this is based suggested a refrigerator life of about 3 weeks.

The flavor is more complex than Heinz. The clove and cayenne add layers you don’t get from the store. We’ve enjoyed it on fried potatoes and are looking forward to something meatier, like meatloaf or hamburgers.

 

 

Basil Pesto | Food of the Gods

Sweet basil, fragrant, green, versatile. It’s used in Italian cooking as well as Asian. For those who keep a kitchen garden, it’s also easy to grow.

It’s spring. As the air turns sweet with the budding trees and greening grass, thoughts turn to gardening. We’ve lived in this house for 12 years now, and each year Jim plants a garden in a small area of terracing on the south side of the house. His crop always includes tomatoes, and now it has a permanent rhubarb plant. The other items vary. This year he’ll plant pole beans again, as well as hot peppers. For herbs, he’s tried dill, rosemary, peppermint, and basil. Basil, sweet basil. We come back to it, year after year. Reliable, delicious, and apparently not attractive to the deer, it grows easily and prolifically.

And most importantly, we use it. All of it.

A popular use of raw basil leaves is the Caprese salad, simply made from slices of juicy tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil leaves, good olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt and fresh-ground pepper. Some people like a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, as well.

Photo from the blog slowtrav.com

But our favorite use of basil is pesto, what I’ve come to believe is one of the foods of the gods. And because I love it so much, and because I love you so much, I will share the recipe with you.

Basil-Walnut Pesto

 

 

Basil Pesto Sauce

• Servings: 15-18 3-oz cups
• Time: 30 min
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

by Melanie and Jim in IA

Two batches of the recipe below uses the full product of about one basil plant, grown to full-size and likely beginning to flower already. We make it in an 11 cup food processor. If your food processor is smaller, you can do it in smaller batches keeping the proportions the same.

• 1 cup walnuts
• 2 to 4 cloves garlic, or 1 T minced garlic
• Process these on pulse a few times to get them started.

Fill the food processor with washed basil leaves, and add

• 1 cup olive oil
• 3/4 cup grated or slivered Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 T salt
• 1/2 T pepper

Process. Stop once and scrape down the sides, and process until smooth.

Once the pesto is done, spoon it into 3-ounce unwaxed paper cups and freeze it. You’ll have 15-18 paper cups when processing in two batches, each paper cup nearly full. After it’s frozen, we drop them into a 1 gallon zip-top bag and keep in the freezer to use, one scrumptious lump at a time. You may also spoon portions into ice cube trays to freeze.

 

Curses! The 3-ounce paper cups we’ve always used are Dixie cups, a brand owned by the evil Koch Brothers. Once these cups are gone, we will not buy more. Other people often recommend spooning it into ice cube trays, popping the lumps out of the tray once frozen. That would work, too, but the capacity for each would be less, so you will need to adjust the amount used in recipes.

You may have noticed the recipe uses walnuts rather than pine nuts, the more traditional ingredient. Pine nuts could be substituted, I suppose, but they cost approximately twice as much as walnuts per pound, and we like the walnuts anyway. Another thing you may notice is the consistency. Unlike many jarred pestos you can buy at the store, this is thick and far less oily. In fact, it uses about half the oil you would use if you made pesto from a traditional recipe for immediate use. I LIKE having half the oil, both for how we use it and from a portion-control standpoint.

What Should I Do with the Pesto Lumps?

Now that you have pesto, you’ll love using it! Here are some ways you can use it:

Green Pizza
Use one thawed pesto lump as your sauce, instead of red sauce. Top with your favorite toppings, bake and eat! I especially love mushrooms, chopped artichoke hearts, black or kalamata olives, mozzarella, and a little feta on mine.

Pesto Pasta
Boil your pasta (penne, rotini, farfalle, or your favorite) as directed. (Oops! Can’t use Barilla pasta anymore!) Heat one lump of pesto in another pan, loosened with a spoon of pasta water. Top the pasta with the pesto, grate Parmesan cheese on top, and eat!

Pesto Rubbed Roast Chicken
Thaw one lump of pesto, smear most of it under the skin of a whole chicken, and massage the rest onto the chicken. Roast as usual.

Pesto Rubbed Pork Loin Roast
Yep, same as the chicken except you’ll rub it all on top, not under a skin.

Pesto-Marinated Pork Chops or Chicken Breasts
Place meat in a zip-top bag. Thaw a lump of pesto and dump it into the bag. Add a quarter cup of balsamic vinegar. Marinate in refrigerator up to 2 or 3 hours. Cook the meat as usual.

If you need more ideas of how to use it, find 50 things to make with pesto at this foodnetwork site.

How do YOU like to use pesto? Do you have a favorite recipe?

Corn Pancakes with Pulled Pork

We couldn’t wait to eat! Photos came after a few … mmm … lovely bites.

Last summer we enjoyed a bucket-list trip to Glacier National Park in Montana and Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. (Posts with photos are here, here, here, and here.)

One day after a long morning of driving and hiking, we were ready for a big lunch in a spectacular setting. We stopped at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, settling in to eat and enjoy the view. I ordered a stack of corn pancakes layered with pulled pork and drizzled with maple syrup. And I haven’t stopped thinking about them since!

Usually we eat pulled pork on a bun, barbecue style. But recently I had some pulled pork and no buns. Hmm… Time to try the cornmeal pancakes! I found this Betty Crocker recipe, which uses Bisquick, right up my alley. I modified it a little for the recipe below:

Cornmeal Pancakes
3/4 cup Bisquick® Original baking mix
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/3 cup frozen corn kernels

Spray griddle with cooking spray or coat lightly with vegetable oil. Heat over medium heat. Beat baking mix, cornmeal, milk and egg in medium bowl with wire whisk until well blended. Stir in cheese and corn.

Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto hot skillet. Cook until puffed and dry around edges. Turn; cook until golden brown. Makes about 12 pancakes.

For our scrumptious meal, layer two cornmeal pancakes around pork, flavoring with a good barbecue sauce to taste. (We also used a touch of Jim’s homemade hot sauce, which added a nice spark.) Drizzle with maple syrup and enjoy!

And what about that pulled pork?

Start with a 3-3.5 pound boneless pork shoulder or butt. This is the same cut but may be referred to by either one. (My butcher distinguishes between them by bone-in or not, but this doesn’t seem to be universal.) This is NOT the same cut as a pork loin roast. The loin also makes a great meal but it isn’t going to cook into the lovely shreds that a butt will.

I cook it in a slow-cooker. This can be either a crock-pot style or the pan-on-burner style. I’ve used both and they both work fine. RESIST the temptation to lift the lid with either cooker. Let the pot retain the heat and moisture. Just leave it alone. That’s the beauty of using the slow-cooker anyway.

Now, there are as many recipes for pulled pork as there are cooks who make it, and if you cook like I do, you read through a bunch of recipes each time you try something new, and then consolidate their thinking into your own process. So while I’ll tell you this is MY recipe, I won’t be so silly as to suggest it is THE recipe.

Pulled Pork
3-3.5 pound boneless pork shoulder or butt roast (may come as two pieces of meat tied or netted together — untie them if they are)
onion chopped small, about 1/2 of a large onion or a whole small onion (more onion to taste!)
salt, pepper, and chili powder
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup or less ketchup
1/2 cup cider vinegar

Place the roast in the slow cooker with the fat side up. Pour the vinegar into the pan. Salt and pepper the top of the roast and add a dusting layer of chili powder. Spread the brown sugar over the top. Dump the onions on the roast. Don’t worry that half or more will fall off into the pan. Cover the top of the roast with ketchup.

Put the lid on the pan and cook on medium-high for at least 4 to 6 hours. (Know your slow cooker — I have two and they cook differently.) Don’t take the lid off until at least 4 hours have gone by. Then you might check for doneness. If you stick a fork in the meat and twist a little, shredding it, it is done. If you’re a stickler, check the internal temperature. It should read at least 145 degrees.

Once it’s cooked and the heat is turned off, remove the meat, leaving the juices in the pan. Shred the meat and return it to the pan.

Reheat for serving. If you’re making this for a party and not serving with the corn pancakes, consider buying junior buns, the term used around here for buns that are smaller than typical hamburger sized. Though the seasoning provides a barbecue essence, many people will want to top their sandwich with barbecue sauce, too.

Homemade Yogurt!

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Creamy, pure white, smooth and rich. Add fresh fruit and a little drizzle of honey, you get a small piece of heaven. Jim and I have been making our own yogurt for the last month or so.

Why not just buy it? Several reasons, actually. My main reason is that purchased yogurt comes in plastic tubs, and the way we’ve usually bought it for years is in individual servings. I cringe to think of all the plastic waste we’ve dumped into the world, just from our yogurt cups. (And yes, we recycle!) Making our own yogurt reduces our plastic footprint.

Another reason is because I’ve been trying to take better control of the food I eat.

Gramma Brown’s Rhubarb Pie

I like rhubarb pie. I like to add strawberries to my rhubarb pie. I like ice cream with a piece of still-warm pie. And, this is the time of year when the rhubarb and strawberries are fresh from the garden. It doesn’t get much better. I just finished making a pie using Melanie in IA’s recipe from her Gramma Brown. It turns out a superb and always reliably delicious custard pie. Earlier in the day I went to the raspberry bushes along the tree line at the back yard and picked a quart of black raspberries. Some of them are in the pie, too. Doesn’t it look good?