Archive for July, 2007

Wednesday is the “Give A Little Love” drawing.

OOOO and I have to tell you what I ordered for Husband for our 30th anniversary…very cheesy, sappy, great, unique gift. Thank goodness he doesn’t read my blog!  I ordered him a framed photo of the night sky, over the town we were married in, on the night we married.  And the caption says “And they lived happily ever after.” ~From: Your Lobster. FYI: lobsters mate for life.  I know, I know.  But I think it is perfect.  We really had intended, sort of, to consider meeting in Paris on his way home but my mom’s condition just wont let me plan that.  I really dont know if we will go anywhere.  He is wanting to go away for a weekend, but a lot can change in a month and we just can’t plan at this moment. 

Also, will be posting a quick giveaway for August 14.  MY BIRTHDAY!!! #48!! I will get that info up after the LOVE drawing.  Just think of something that reminds you of birthdays…more later…gotta get rolling! 

Today Husband leaves for work again.  We will take him to the airport around 2, I think.  I cannot believe it is time for him to go back.

I have a few more recipes in the process…needing to proof read.  So I will do my best to get them up in the next few days.  Here’s the thing…Husband never has an actual piece of paper or book.  He sees something he thinks sounds/looks good but he adjusts it to the point that I cannot use the recipe he first looked at to let you in on a great dish.  It might resemble the original but not enough!  He cooked a wonderful dinner yesterday.                                
A whole fried turkey breast, smoked tomato and chirizo risotto, green beans/mushrooms – delish as usual.  More recipes for me to type up!  I will get some more typed tonight when I return from delivering him to the airport and am up and waiting by the phone to hear ” I’m in Paris.”…”I’m at the hotel in Tunisia.”   Have a great Monday!

This should count as three recipes!! So three down and a dozen or so to go!!

My Best Pie Crust Recipe

I have used numerous basic pie crust recipes but this one is perfect. No-fail. Works every time. As far as a basic unsweetened crust good for general pie making…you won’t do better than this one! It can be prebaked for cream pies or used unbaked for filled pies. I even use it for chicken pot pie.

This recipe makes enough dough for 4 9” pie shell bottoms for cream or meringue pies or two pies with top and bottom crusts such as an apple pie.

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

1 cup shortening (you can substitute lard, butter or combination of the three solid fats)

1/3 to 1/2 cup cold water

1 TBSP vinegar

1 egg, beaten

There are 4 necessary ingredients in a standard piecrust: flour, fat, liquid, and salt. Flour is necessary to form the structure and bulk of the crust; fat to add moisture and to help keep the crust flaky; liquid to keep the dough somewhat pliable; and salt to enhance the flavor and brown the crust.

When making pie crust, chill the shortening and water before beginning. Chilling will prevent the fat pieces from dissolving into the flour. Stir the flour and salt together in a large bowl. Cut the chilled shortening into the dry mixture using a pastry cutter or by pinching the fat into the mixture with your hands. The resulting mixture should have fat lumps no smaller than peas.

Add the vinegar to the chilled water. Slightly beat the egg and mix with the water/vinegar.  Pour the chilled water mixture, a small amount at a time, into the dry mixture; mixing gently with a fork until the dough is wet enough to be packed into a ball. The dough should be handled as little as possible to prevent the blending of all of the fat lumps, as a crust with no fat lumps will be dense and hard.

Split the dough into 4 equal amounts, roll them into balls and wrap them in plastic before placing them in the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes. Chilling will prevent the fat from absorbed by the flour and give a lighter texture to the crust when it is baked.

Generously dust a clean, dry surface with flour and remove one of the packages of dough from the refrigerator. Flatten the dough slightly and dust the dough’s top before rolling the dough out with a rolling pin. Start rolling at the center of the dough and work outwards. Some people prefer do this between sheets of waxed paper or plastic wrap because it makes clean up and rolling easier. Quickly roll the dough into a circle 1/4 or 1/8 inch thick. The size of the circle should be about four inches wider in diameter than the pie pan.

A trick for getting the dough positioned in the pan correctly is to fold the dough in half and then into quarters. Gently pick it up and place it into the pan so that the center point is in the center of the pan. Unfold the dough into the pan and it should be perfectly centered. If the dough cracks a little during this process, press it back together with your fingers or patch the cracks with a bit of dough from the outer edges. Gently press the pie crust into the pie pan, careful not to press the dough to thin. Cut the pie crust just slightly larger than the pan, and crimp the edges—will try to get a picture tutorial up on this later.

At this point you can fill your crust according to your recipe or you might want to consider freezing the crusts for later use. I roll out my circles place them individually between sheets of waxed paper and gently fold in fourths. I then place them carefully in zipper plastic bags and lie flat to freeze. When a crust is needed, take it out leave it in the bag to come to room temperature and then proceed with recipe.

When baking my pie crust, I line it with parchment and add pie weights to keep the bottom from bubbling and buckling.

If something isn’t clear just ask!!

Pie Filling:

in a heavy saucepan

• 1 baked pie crust (bake the crust at 425 until beginning to brown)
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 TBSP cornstarch
• 1 small can flaked coconut
• 3 TBSP butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups milk, evaporated milk, half n half or any combination of these
• 3 egg yolks (the egg whites can be used for your meringue)

Mix sugar and cornstarch until completely blended. Add milk slowly and mix completely with a wire whisk. Cook, stirring continuously, over low heat until it begins to thicken. Take out a little warm filling and add to your egg yolks and mix WELL. Pour this back into your saucepan. When filling gets thick add butter and whip with your whisk until it is melted. When your filling is sufficently thick, add vanilla and coconut (reserving 1 TBSP coconut to sprinkle on meringue). Top hot filling with meringue (recipe below), sprinkle with remaining coconut. Bake at 425 until coconut is toasted and peaks of meringue are browning.

My Perfect Meringue

Use a clean, dry bowl. The bowl must be grease free, because any amount of fat will wreck a meringue. Glass, ceramic, stainless steel, and copper bowls are all suitable. Plastic bowls may appear clean, but may still have trace amounts of oil; do not use them. Cold eggs separate easily, but eggs whip to a higher volume when at room temperature. The solution is to separate the cold eggs, this is solved by separating the eggs for your pie filling and letting the whites come to room temperature. Separate each egg into two small bowls, one for the white and one for the yolk, and then add the white portion to the larger bowl. This allows you to reserve any with broken yolks for another purpose. Even a small amount of yolk can deflate the egg whites, so be careful.

Many people have great success using cream of tartar, white vinegar, or lemon juice to stabilize the meringue. I personally use cream of tartar. Add 1/8 teaspoon of one of these per egg white to the unbeaten eggs. If you are using a copper bowl to whip the egg whites in the addition is not necessary. Whip to medium soft peaks. Beat in 2 tablespoons white sugar per egg white. Continue to beat until egg whites are glossy and hold a firm peak. Spread meringue over piping hot filling, and spread to the edges to seal. Hot filling is necessary to insure that the inside of the meringue cooks, preventing weeping. The preferred baking method is one that combines high temperatures with a short baking time. This prevents overcooking the outside, and thus beading is avoided.

Bake at 425 degrees F for 4 to 5 minutes. Or until peaks are browning and coconut is toasted.

Some folks are really put off by using the raw egg whites…I personally don’t. But if you do, you may use meringue powder and follow the directions provided.

I’m back. It is a lovely, rainy Saturday here.

I will spare you the details of my surgery for fear of boring you. I would actually have to make up something in order for it to be an interesting story. I do have a couple of bits that might help you if you are considering this or any other surgery or procedure that will land you in a hospital for more than 24 hours. These are pertaining to hospital stays in general.

1. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. We all know this but it especially pertains to a situation where you can be ignored or forgotten if you are too compliant. As I “came to” in the recovery room, the first thought in my head was we are not going to repeat my stay when I had my hysterectomy. I WILL NOT stay in here 6 hours. THEY WILL MOVE ME TO A ROOM. So that was my goal. To see just how fast I could aggravate them into finding me a room. Now I realize it is not the nurses in recovery who call the shots and I realize it is their nerves I was getting on, but nonetheless, it was my tummy with four new puncture wounds and I wanted to be treated like I was the only one there. Selfish? Yes. Proud? No. Effective? Absolutely. So they kept practically screaming at this poor moaning man next to me to use his pump, meaning the morphine pump he was hooked up to. USE THE PUMP. USE THE PUMP. Which by the way was getting on my nerves. So I say “HEY! Where’s MY pump.” I am told I don’t NEED a pump. HUH??? How do they know? So everytime they yell at him to USE THE PUMP. I yell back “IF I HAD A PUMP I WOULD USE IT!”. So long story short, I stayed in recovery about 45 minutes. Granted I didnt get a real room straight away, but I was moved back to a day surgery room where I could be with my husband and son.
2. When the doctor tells you that you can have something to eat besides jello after having not eaten a morsel since the night before at 7, and the nurse tells you she will go order you some breakfast and it will be right up, follow up on that. Finally I crawl out of bed, husband asking me if I want him to go check on it, me saying NO, I will go…here I traverse down to the nurses station on my floor. I stand there for about 15 seconds when the woman finally looks up. I say “Hey, where is the kitchen?” She says “On the first floor, why?” I say “Because I am going down to make myself some eggs and toast.” All this time I am thinking to myself I am probably really close to getting a psych consult. “You cant do that!” she says with this look of panic on her face. I say “Fine, then you better find out where the ones you ordered AN HOUR AGO are. And they best not be cold.” I am not happy when I am that hungry. Oddly in about 5 minutes my breakfast arrived. Nice and hot. Just like I like it.
3. When the doctor comes around and tells you that you may go home and the nurse will be around in about 30 minutes with your prescriptions and papers to sign. WATCH THE CLOCK. After an hour has passed. Walk down to the nurses station AGAIN. Demand they take the heplock out of your hand. The same heplock you told them you didnt need because you would not be needing any intravenous drugs. If you stand there with a look of sheer anger on your face, they will immediately, at the nurses station, take it out. Then you very firmly tell them if they are not in your room with a wheel chair by the time you get your shoes on, you will walk yourself out, they will get their butts in gear. “But your prescriptions” they say. To which you reply “I will ask Dr. B to call them in when I call to tell him how long I had to wait to be released and how long I waited for food.” Just be sure to walk close to the wall because they might run you over with the wheelchair in order to beat you to the room.

Now, if you are a healthcare professional I mean no disrespect whatsoever. I could not do your job. I can tend to people I love all day long. But not strangers. NO WAY. For the most part everyone that entered my room was very sweet and kind, but they need some lessons in using their time more effectively. NO way it takes 1.5 hours to order an egg and piece of toast. NO way it takes over an hour to walk 50 feet with a prescription and one paper for me to sign. There was almost no one else on my wing. I looked as I walked down. All the room’s doors were swung open and the beds were empty. So NO excuses.

Hope these little hints help you.

I am happy to be home, though food is not settling very well with me. Dr. B told me to eat bland for 4-5 days…I dont know what I thought that meant but pork kebabs are not bland, in case you were wondering. So I spent most of the evening in the bathroom kinda ill. I suppose I will get out my dictionary and be sure I know what exactly bland means before I eat anything else. But, the kebabs were DELISH!

I am going to be working on all the recipes I owe you. May put them all in one post. Wonder about beginning a little file somewhere on here where you could click on a word file and print them out if you want…hmmmm have to work on that too.

Have a great weekend. Husband is making steaks for everyone (but me) today. I am having a baked potato ONLY. I figure bland may also pertain to the color of food, so I am not taking any chances.

happy to be. A bit sore around my tummy but pretty good otherwise. Thanks for all your well wishes – I will be back on soon!

Bye, bye gall bladder.  I think I won’t miss it!  As my friend in France told me, this should be a cake walk.  I expect it to be.  After four c-sections and an abdominal hysterectomy, this shouldn’t be any big deal. I will be back home tomorrow morning sometime. Hannah is holding down the fort while we are at the hospital.  By the way no particular reason for the picture above, it just made me happy this morning so I thought I would share it.

I think I shall ask the surgeon this morning if he might check for any other  superfluous organs while he is in there so we don’t have to do this again any time soon.

I will be back to posting this weekend I hope.  I am still doing the drawing on the first so if you haven’t done so, check it out.

Thanks for all your well wishes. Talk to you all very soon.

its off to the hospital I go…cancel the fajitas, schedule surgery.  I am having my gall bladder out on Wednesday.  So I will be out of pocket for the next couple of days.  I will let you know when I am home and all.  I appreciate all prayers, well wishes, candle lighting, whatever you wish to do.

Stay tuned….

Let me tell you frying chicken, getting it just right and not fainting from the heat is quite an accomplishment. Frying chicken is an art, and while my meal yesterday was nothing short of delicious, it was NOT my granny’s chicken. Not even close. But it was much enjoyed and we have leftovers for lunch today. My mom loved it, ate every bite she said. That is well worth the work. Now if you like you may buy whole fryers and cut them up, but Husband suggested just buying the pieces everyone likes so breast, legs and wings it was. Here is our menu:

Fried Chicken ~ Rice and Gravy ~ Corn on the Cob ~ Homemade Rolls ~ Coconut Cream Pie

I forgot to get photos of the Rice and Gravy (which again was very good – just not what I remember my granny making) and Corn on the Cob. I had intended to get a photo of the table set but was busy as a bee and forgot!

Okay so start out with your chicken pieces and wash and dry them. Salt and pepper to taste. Let me say, I have yet to get chicken too salty. It needs salt on the chicken and in the flour you dredge in.

Next dredge your chicken pieces in your seasoned flour (all purpose). Seasoned with your choice of spices, I used just salt and pepper. But you can use garlic powder, cayenne…whatever is your taste.

Then dip the floured chicken pieces into seasoned buttermilk. Again seasoned to your taste.

Then BACK into the flour for a second coating. This process is what keeps your crust on your chicken. The first dredging helps it all adhere to the meat.

In the meantime you should have your skillet filled 1/2 full with oil – DO NOT USE olive oil as it will burn before it gets hot enough to fry the chicken. I personally use canola oil. When your oil is hot enough (ideally kept at 375) start carefully dropping pieces of your chicken in the hot oil. Depending on the size of your skillet and your batch of chicken to be fried, you could be in this stage a while. Never put too many pieces in at a time. Your chicken pieces should not touch each other. They need room to cook on all sides. It is best to let the chicken cook on one side until golden brown and then turn once. This will give you even browning and help your chicken cook all the way to the bone. I suggest you cook the pieces that take longest first ~ thighs, legs and large breast pieces. I cant give you a time, because it will vary depending on size of pieces, how large your skillet is…lots of things. Just watch it closely.

As your pieces get done, place them on brown paper on a cookie sheet to drain. Paper towels will stick to your crust. After you have all your chicken fried and while you are preparing the rest of your meal, place your chicken on a clean piece of brown paper (a clean paper bag will do) on a clean cookie sheet, cover loosely with heavy duty foil and place in a 300 degree oven until 15 -20 minutes before ready to serve. Then turn the oven off and leave it to stay warm until the meal is ready. This baking is important to set your crust, assure the bigger pieces are done to the bone (nothing I hate worse than undercooked poultry!)and will stay warm for your meal. Refrigerate leftover chicken for chicken salad (sans the crust), or just to eat as a cold lunch. Leftover fried chicken is not great warmed in my opinion. May just be my quirkiness but I think it tastes of feathers. Not that I actually have ever eaten a feather intentionally, but that is what I think of.

Chicken Gravy

Take out one cup of your oil from where you fried the chicken and put it in a clean skillet. Add 1/3-1/2 cup flour and make a roux from this. A roux is just oil and flour mixed and browned…not too brown, not too light. NEVER stop stiring…I use a metal whisk. Cook to the color of say…a new copper penny???…does that make sense? Just do not get it too brown and remember even if you take it off the heat, it will still be cooking in that hot skillet. So…you are to the brown perfection, add one can chicken broth. Slowly! Continue stirring. Add 1/3 cup diced onion, and a clove or two of minced garlic. Continue cooking and stirring until the onion is soft. Salt and pepper and set off the heat. You will have to reheat, probably adding more liquid (water is fine) just before serving.

Perfect Rice Everytime

First suggestion…use bottled water. For our family I use 2 1/2 cups uncooked rice. So here is the ratio: 5 cups water, 2 1/2 cups rice and salt. Put the water on to boil in a pot that has a tight fitting lid. Salt the water generously…say a teaspoon. Bring the salted water to a brisk boil over high flame, add your rice – DO NOT stir. Gently shake the pot to distribute the rice, bring it back to a boil , put the lid on, turn the flame to the lowest setting, or simmer, set your timer for 20 minutes exactly, and DO NOT OPEN it. When the time goes off, set it off the heat and leave it. Fluff with fork when ready to serve. Different water makes for different rice. My well water is soft, very soft…so it make sticky, mushy rice…YUCK! I like my rice done, yet individual grains, you know??

We had a small crowd for supper. The 5 of us, my niece who is spending the week with us (the aspiring chef you met before), Oldest son and then I sent Mom a plate over. All in all, start to finish I fried 24 pieces of chicken, 9 large legs, 5 very large breasts, and 10 wings and it took me from 3:30 till 6:00 to get it all on the table. But during all that I was making a pie, rice, gravy, corn…so that wasnt too bad. Just to think my grannies, aunts and many times my mom did this every day of the week…not fried chicken but HUGE meals with lots of prep time…whew. Makes me old thinking about it. Not only do we not need to eat like this everyday…I dont think I could stand up to it!

I do believe Husband and I decided on Mexican fare for tonight. Pico de galo, homemade tortilla chips, cheese quesadillas, and fajitas. I will probably pick up some round steak to make the fajitas.

So there you have it. Oh wait, I bet you want the roll and pie recipes! Okay…later today maybe. Gotta get breakfast. Yesterday morning I had eggs and mushy peas! A shout out to my British, Scottish, Irish friends and family! Actually I think depending on where you are from they might just be called eggs and beans. In any event, they were delish!

I know, I know…I owe you recipes, now even more recipes…gonna work on that today! If anything isnt clear about the chicken, ask and I will try to clear it up. I do appreciate each of you who takes the time to read and comment. Have a great Monday.

I woke up this morning wanting some of my granny’s fried chicken. That isn’t happening since she died in 1982. I have never eat fried chicken like my Momma Tom. I loved to go to her house. My Daddy Tom played endlessly with me outside. Then we would go in, Momma Tom would bathe me in a wash tub (they didnt have a bath tub) with Dove soap and then Daddy Tom and I would sit in the “sitting room” and look at National Geographic while she cooked us up some grub. If I got hungry before meal time she would put a piece of white bread on a saucer and pour some fig preserves over it. Delish! So…anywho. I am frying chicken today. I decided to buy pieces since no one eats the thighs and boney pieces. But I didnt want “chicken tenders” or “strips”. I want a real honest to goodness piece or two of fried chicken. Buttermilk battered, golden brown. With rice and gravy, some fresh corn on the cob and some homemade rolls. I know my owing recipes is getting tiresome, but I really am going to catch up. Think I might post a chicken fryin’ tutorial tomorrow. Rachel (if she gets through with Harry PotterÜ) will do the photos for me. For dessert I will whip up a “from scratch” coconut cream pie. But before all that cooking starts…I will get my dough for my rolls made and then Husband and I are finally going to watch Miss Potter together. I have seen it. But wanted to share it with him.

Have a great Sunday and eat something good!