A Moving Experience

I recently moved from one house to another. From a three level house to a one level, from a great big kitchen to an itty-bitty kitchen, from 2 big bed rooms to three medium sized bed rooms, from 2 and half baths to 2.

We have driven CARLOADS of stuff to the Salvation Army, I have taken huge rubbermaid totes of toys and construction paper to the local preschool. We had a gigantic garage sale on Saturday and Sunday. People took so much stuff away. They bought things I was planning on throwing away! I sold an empty box that used to hold stationery for a dollar.

Last night hubby and I cleaned out the last of the debris and detritus of a mostly empty house. We found another load of stuff for the Salvation army, a few boxes for the Domestic abuse shelter, and another box for the school. We threw out several cardboard boxes last night, 2 huge contractor's bags of garbage, and three 40 gallon trash cans FULL of trash. It actually was breaking my heart.

I try so hard to recycle and give leftovers to charity and honestly I don't buy a lot of stuff. I feel like I am undermined by a wonderful, but frankly, more materialistic husband, loving but over-gifting grandparents and a culture that cannot conceive of a simple children's party without freaking gift-bags. I am not a paragon of virtue when it comes to "Ooh, shiny!" but I need to do better and inspire my family to do better.

Because as much as I need to organize, the best way to have a clutter-free life is to not have clutter in the first place!

What are your tips, tricks, ideas for living more simply?

What we had for dinner, 2/16/10 (Fat Tuesday!)

Well, we ate, drank and were comparatively merry last night. My in-laws had given us some gorgeous, (but huge) rib-eye steaks so I marinated them in 50% - 50% mix of soy sauce and Worcestershire and then 20 minutes before cooking I removed them from the marinade and salt and peppered them generously. I let them sit on a cookie sheet while I prepared the rest of my dinner.

Last night's experiment was in the mashed potatoes. I have made mashed potatoes dozens of times. Sometimes I use cream, sometimes milk, sometimes chicken broth or sometimes a combination of these. My real issue with mashed potatoes is getting the perfect blend of fluffy/creamy in the texture and properly seasoning the spuds. Last night I used my handy-dandy Vidalia chopping wizard, a contraption I have taken photos of elsewhere on the blog. I changed the blades to the large setting and then chopped the potatoes into uniform cubes. I added the cubes to my stock pot with generously salted water and started them out on medium heat. I wanted the potatoes to eventually come to a boil, but not boil too hard or too long as it makes the potatoes just fall to mush. To these perfectly cubed tubers I added three scraped and chopped parsnips. A parsnip is a root vegetable that sort of looks like a white carrot. I really like them simply roasted with olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt, but no one else in my family has come around to my way of thinking (yet). I had my oldest daughter scrape and chop the parsnips, so she knew she was eating them later. She even tried an experimental bite of raw parsnip. These were boiled together till fork tender and then mashed with a hand masher. Last night I added a tablespoon of butter and some whole milk to the vegetables as I mashed them. I always add a little a time until they come together as I don't like them to be too soupy.

I have tried mashing with an electric hand mixer and it is simply too easy for me to over-mash them. The resulting potatoes are thick as wall paper paste and are unpleasant to eat. I also once tried a potato ricer, but while they were wonderfully creamy, the resultant texture was insufficiently fluffy. So the hand masher is the way to go for me.

The steaks were cooked on the stove top, two in a cast iron skillet and two in a stainless steel pan with a copper core. The sear and color I got in the iron skillet were wonderful. I had heated both pans over very high heat to seal in the juices on the steaks. The stainless steel pan nearly burned the outsides, while the iron skillet simply browned the meat beautifully. After the meat was seared all over I reduced the temperature down to medium on each burner until the steaks were done. I use a probe thermometer to tell me when the steaks are at the appropriate temperature. I make the children's steaks almost well done while hubby and I like ours medium. Meat continues to cook as you let it rest, so I usually take the meat off the heat after it has come to with 5 degrees of my desired doneness. Due to varying steak thicknesses and fat/meat ratios I don't have an exact time for how long it takes to cook steaks. Grilling or broiling the steaks also take different times; overall a good probe thermometer is the way to go.

I reheated some leftover lima beans for our green vegetable and after the steaks were done and resting on a plate I quickly sauteed some mushrooms and onion slices in the pan juices. Deeee-lish!

Our family ate till we were full on two steaks, the other two steaks will be turned into fajitas later this week with more sliced onions, mushrooms, zucchini and slivered carrot. Or you could also turn leftover steak into a a nice stir fry with cabbage, sliced water chestnut, snow pea pods and carrots.

PS I always give up chocolate for Lent, so last night before bed I had a couple of handfuls of M&Ms! Decadent, I know. But today I read where a friend's Mom had always written a letter a day to a different person who would not be expecting a letter. 40 letters in 40 days! I am also incorporating that into my Lenten observance this year.

What we had for dinner, 2/11/10

Homemade Pizza and Green Salad

I get my pizza dough recipe from the AMAZING "A Year in Bread Blog". http://ayearinbread.earthandhearth.com/2007/03/kevin-pizza-dough.html
Three fabulous bakers decided to post a new bread recipe every day for a year. They all three submitted pizza dough recipes but I like Kevin's best. Here it is with notes on prep by me. If you click on this posts title "What we had for dinner" it will take you directly to their wonderful blog. Go for the bread, stay for the awesome writing.

Pizza Dough
Adapted from a recipe by Mitch Mandell of Fabulous Foods.

bread flour 3 1/2 c | 0.8 l | 18 oz | 500 g
warm water (between 95 and 115 F/35 and 46C) 1 c | 240 ml | 8.5 oz | 240 g
instant yeast 2 1/4 tsp (1 US pkg) | 11 ml | 1/4 oz | 8 g
honey 2 tbsp | 30 ml | 1 1/4 oz | 36 g
olive oil 1/4 c | 60 ml | 1 1/2 oz | 48 g
salt 1/2 tsp | 8 ml | 1/8 oz | 4 g

Combine the honey, warm water, and oil, stirring to mix. The water should be about 95 to 115° F. It should feel very warm, but not uncomfortably hot. (I use hot tap water. Also measure the oil in the 1/4 C measure, then measure the honey up to the middle or 1/8 C measure in the same cup. The oil keeps the honey from sticking to the measuring cup.)

Put the 3 cups of flour and yeast in the bowl and, using the paddle attachment, mix on low for about 20 seconds. Add the salt and mix on low for another 20 seconds. Note: salt is poisonous to yeast, so you want the yeast well-distributed before adding the salt. (I do all of this stuff by hand, I mix the flour and yeast with a whisk. And then I whisk in the salt.)

With the motor running on low, pour in the liquids. Continue mixing until a shaggy dough begins to form. Clean off paddle and switch to dough hook. Continue mixing on low until the dough comes together. (I stir with a wooden spoon.)

Increase speed to medium and knead for eight minutes. The dough should completely clear the sides and bottom within 2 minutes if it is too sticky, add additional flour 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing in thoroughly before determining if more flour is needed. If the dough seems too dry, spritz with water from a spray bottle a couple of times, mixing in thoroughly before determining if more water is needed. continue kneading for 6 minutes. You'll find the dough wraps itself around the hook, so every 2 minutes, stop the machine, scrape the dough off the hook, and then continue kneading. (I stir until it the dough comes away from the bowl, then I add a little flour on top of the dough and to my hands and I knead it.)

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead it a few more times by hand to be sure it's tight and elastic. Form the dough into a tight ball.

Wash and dry your mixing bowl then mist it with oil. Place the dough, seam-side down, in the bowl and lightly mist top of dough with baking spray. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise (ferment) in a warm, draft-free spot until doubled in size — 45 minutes to an hour. (I do not wash and dry the mixing bowl, I just put some oil in it and roll the dough around in the oil.)



Punch the dough down and transfer to a lightly floured board. Knead for about half a minute, then reshape into a ball. Respray bowl lightly, return dough to bowl, spray, recover, and allow to rise again until doubled in bulk — an hour to an hour and a half.

Heat the oven to 450F (230C).

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into two equal portions. Set 1 aside and cover with plastic wrap to keep it from drying out. Shape the other portion into a round by hand.

Place the rolling pin in the center of the round and push outward. Rotate the dough 1/4 turn and repeat. Continue until dough is about 12 inches across. Alternatively, you can stretch the dough by hand, which I do. The dough is quite elastic and will want to shrink, so don't rush it. Pause every now and then while shaping (whether by hand or with a rolling pen) to allow the dough to relax. (Yeah, my dough doesn't get to rest much. I'm brutal.)

Coat with sauce, cheese, and toppings. Then, ideally, let the pizzas stand, covered with plastic wrap, for about 30 minutes before baking. This delay highlights the bready character of the dough. Before baking, use a knife to poke holes in any noticable bubbles. (I have never let it rest that long, the crust is delicious nevertheless)

I bake one pizza and wrap the other dough very tightly with plastic wrap and then in a plastic bag, and then freeze it for later. When defrosting, simply lay on a counter for an hour or so till dough is room temperature and ready to be rolled out.

My kids (even the 19 month old) like torn romaine lettuce topped with Ranch dressing. They will pretty much eat anything topped with Ranch dressing. They might even eat rocks as long as it had Ranch dressing on it. I also peeled two apples for them to eat.

Pretty simple diner, the kids played outside with DH as I topped the pizza dough. I called them inside when the pizza was ready. The whole house smelled amazing!

Meatless Monday Menu

I am taking up the Meatless Monday gauntlet thrown down by Michael Pollan. We eat vegetarian pretty frequently here so that is not the challenging part, but planning a specific day to eat a specific way, eh I'm not so good at that.

Monday's Menu was Black beans and yellow rice and a simple salad, but tricked out with some yummy additions.

The black beans were made in my handy dandy new pressure cooker, a terrific appliance for the forgetful mama. I sorted and rinsed the beans and added them to the pot with a small onion, a single shallot and 2 smashed cloves of garlic. I also added a handful of dried oregano. Follow your pressure cooker's instructions on how much water to add and how long to cook. In my cooker it took 30 minutes after the cooker came to pressure.

Meanwhile I melted some butter in a large skillet. When melted and foamy I added the package of yellow rice and let it brown and toast as I quickly chopped a half of an onion and one large carrot in my handy dandy chopper. I drained a can of chopped tomatoes into a measuring cup and added enough water to accommodate the rice recipe. I threw in the drained tomatoes and stirred and then added the tomato juice and water (after heating it to boiling in the microwave). Then I threw on the lid and turned off the heat entirely. I have a copper core sauce pans that retain heat very well, so not sure if that would work for everyone. Another nice addition to the rice is a cup or so of frozen green peas in the last 5 minutes or so of cooking.

When the beans were done cooking I added salt to taste. I never add salt to the beans during cooking because it can inhibit them from softening. The rice was also ready at the same time. I served the beans and rice with a sprinkling of cheese on top, sometimes I also serve it with a dollop of plain greek style yogurt as well. The kids also got half a banana with their green salads.

All in all, even my meat loving hubby thought the food was great. By adding sufficient spices and vegetables to these plain foods you can create great flavor and texture as well as nutrition.

What are your favorite beans and rice combinations? Red beans and rice? Cuban con gris? West african style beans and rice? Please leave a good recipe in the comments!

Culinary Solidarity

A few years ago my parish sent home a Lenten calendar of recipes for the various countries that received aid from Catholic Relief Services. They were our Lenten charity that year. Most of the recipes were vegetarian (or very nearly so) and great to try on a Friday night. I like preparing different ethnic and regional cuisine, so this was right up my alley. Thinking of Haiti this week I decided to look up and prepare some traditional Haitian meals. I used my brand new handy-dandy pressure cooker to make some Red Beans and Rice or Riz et Pois. It didn't come out as well as I would have wanted, the lovely melding of flavors of good red bean and rice came to taste overwhelmingly of pepper.

Here instead is the traditional method of preparation.

Sort, rinse and soak beans. Drain beans and cook them by bringing to a boil and then reducing heat, keeping beans at a bare simmer for 1-2 hours (depending on amount you are cooking.) I like to add some chopped onion, bay leaf, chopped carrot and garlic to my beans. I add salt at the end of cooking to avoid tough beans. If your beans haven't achieved the state of soft mushy fall apart goodness, feel free to mash a few with a potato masher or fork. Do NOT blend or puree! Drain beans and reserve the cooking water (don't pour down the drain.) Melt some butter or oil in a cast iron skillet, add rice to pan and allow to cook to a golden brown. Add the amount of reserved cooking water you need to your rice (for instance making 1 C. of rice use 2 C. of water.) If you have it on hand add a bit of chopped green bell pepper to the rice. When rice is done, mix with beans and serve. For spicier beans and rice add cayenne pepper or tabasco to taste.

A few nice side dishes would be fried plaintains and maybe cornbread and salad.

What Would Ma Ingalls Do?

Besides have an irrational hatred of Native Americans and wear a hoop skirt anyway?

I have undertaken a lot of things in the last year, started teaching Sunday School, baking my own bread, cooking nearly everything from scratch (including sour mix, more on that later) and recently homeschooling. Needless to say my own lax standards of house keeping are compromised by my schedule and the daunting destructive capabilities of my toddler daughter. My seven year old doesn't help much either, but at least she stays out of my way more often than not.

So I started thinking about all the various chemicals, appliances, and modern conveniences I have and I wonder how come I can never seem to get on top of my housework? What would Ma Ingalls do? She had no running water, had to grow her own food, sew her own clothes, linens and even toys for the children and her house was always clean. Of course how much dusting could there be when she only had the one what-not and the single china shepherdess? However, my point remains the same; why does house work always take all day? Did cave women grunt, "Me need to clean cave, but exhausted from big mammoth hunt?"

Needless to say the last thing Ma Ingalls would have done was write a long blog post about it. So if you'll excuse me I am off to polish my what-not and bake some cornbread.

Winter Meals

I know, I know I live in South Florida and I don't know about cold. Yeah, can we take the Yankee smearing of my fortitude and lack of grit as read? But the truth is there are only a few weeks all year where it is cold enough here to make truly hearty winter foods and last night was one of them!

Menu: Pulled Pork, collard greens, black eyed peas, cornbread, coleslaw.

The pulled pork recipe was adapted from Paula Deen's pulled pork recipe, basically you take a a pork shoulder and rub it all over with spices and brown sugar. I use my husband's TOP SECRET no TELLIN, *ever* dry rub and some brown sugar to coat the meat. Alton Brown and Paula Deen both have excellent dry rubs that you can use, there are also commercially available dry rubs. The real "secret" is to let the rub sit on the meat for at least 2 hours if not all night. Then you add a mixture of 2 tsp. garlic powder, salt, 2 TB worcestershire, 1/2 TB of liquid smoke, 1 C of cider vinegar and 2 C of apple juice to the dutch oven or roasting pan. Add the meat to the pan. Cover the pan with heavy foil and then put the lid on that. Slow roast this in the oven for 4 hours at 325 until you are able to shred the pork with a fork. You can eat the pulled pork as is or top with barbecue sauce.

Collard greens are so simple it is embarrassing. Fry bacon in a stock pot, add some finely chopped onion if you like. Toss rinsed, chopped, de-ribbed (only the really large tough ribs) collards in the pot, stir until wilted. Top with water or stock and heat through. They sell pre-chopped collards in a bag these days which makes it even easier.

Black-eyed peas were the big experiment of the night. I had forgotten to start them earlier in the day and I was stumped till I remembered I had received a pressure cooker for Christmas. I have never used a pressure cooker before so I was a little leery. I followed the directions and assembled the cooker, added the sorted, rinsed beans, a half an onion, a chopped carrot and 4 C of water. You lock on the lid, hit high pressure, and time and let it go. The beans came out delicious, soft and flavored well in only 24 minutes!!!. I did not add salt as the beans were cooking as this can inhibit the beans from going soft, but adding salt at the end seasoned them well. A piece of ham hock or bacon would have been good, but I had used my bacon for the collards.

I took the easy way out with the coleslaw and bought a pre-shredded bag of cabbage and carrots. Let the mix stand in a colander over the sink sprinkled liberally with salt for 20 minutes. After it has released its moisture toss the mix with 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp of sugar, and a sprinkle of your dry rub. Then mix together 1/4 C of mayo with 1/4 C of Ranch dressing, pour over the mix and toss till coated. I can't stand soggy coleslaw so this may be too dry for you, adjust amounts as needed.

And now the final piece of the meal, fresh hot cornbread. I realized I was out of Jiffy corn muffin mix which is my go-to for cornbread, but I did have some cornmeal on hand. I used the recipe (more or less) on the back of the bag.

Golden Yellow Corn Bread
1 C corn meal
1 C sifted flour (I used bread flour and did not sift)
1/4 C sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 C soft shortening (I used some smart balance and some cold solidified bacon grease I had in the fridge. Yes, I did.)
1 C milk
1 egg beaten
3 tsp baking powder

Mix dry ingredients. Cut in shortening (or whatever you use.) Mix egg and milk together and add to dry ingredients with a few quick strokes. (Seriously, do not over beat corn bread batter!) Bake in a greased 9x9x2 inch pan at 425 for 20-25 minutes. (I only had an 8x8 pan and I baked it in a 350 degree oven due to the meat cooking and it came out fine.) When cornbread is brown around the edges and pulling away and a a toothpick inserted comes out clean it is done. I don't see why you couldn't have the dry ingredients for this pre-mixed and ready to go in your pantry at all times. It was lightly, lightly sweet and delicious.