Bananas, Now in Carbohydrate Form

(counts as a fruit, right?)

Yes, I know bananas, as a fruit, technically already contain carbs. But they're not as carby as banana MUFFINS, which I like to think of as a superior form of both the banana and the muffin. I like banana bread just fine, but it doesn't lend itself to snacking quite as well as muffins do, and I actually like the fluffier texture of these muffins to the denseness of loaf banana bread. I suppose you could add nuts, or chocolate chips. I wouldn't; I love these muffins just the way they are. They've been my go-to dessert/sweet for a couple weeks; I've considered being REALLY crazy and making a cream cheese frosting or something to put on top of them and call them cupcakes (see this post), but like I said, I love them just the way they are.

Banana Muffins
adapted from somewhere on the internet - I wrote it on a post-it and I forgot where it's from
(makes 8 muffins or 6 large muffins; total time ~30 mins)

3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
2 soft, ripe bananas
1 egg
1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

0) Preheat oven to 350 and grease muffin pan.
1) Beat together first 4 ingredients until smooth.
2) Sift together last 4 ingredients.
3) Combine 2 mixtures gently just until entire mixture is wet. Don't worry about lumps.
4) Drop batter into muffin pan cups and bake for ~25 minutes.

Notes: This recipe uses the universal method for making quick breads - combine wet ingredients, combine dry ingredients, mix until both are just combined. If you know this method, you don't have to write anything down for muffin/pancake/etc. recipes except the ingredients and the oven temp/time. Sometimes not even that, as 350 seems to be the universal oven temperature a lot of the time, and you could really just bake things until they're browned and a toothpick comes out clean.

I've been experimenting with the flour and sugar types in this recipe: the incarnation in the photo has 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 all-purpose flour, and 1/2 Splenda and 1/2 brown sugar. I like the brown sugar with bananas better than white; next time I may try all whole wheat flour. The 1/2 didn't seem to affect the flavor or texture appreciably.

Gah.

Well I had a blog-worthy dinner planned for last night - poached eggs over baked polenta with romaine and parmesan cheese and a side salad. The polenta came together nicely, I smoothed it onto a greased pan to cool, and when it was nearly cool, brought some water to a boil, assembled the salad, and turned on the broiler to prepare for the pan of polenta.

Sometime soon after, my luck turned. I had read several articles about poaching eggs in plastic wrap, which seemed like a great idea, because it's much less mess and I don't own a slotted spoon. So I lined a mug with plastic wrap, cracked an egg into it, and tied it into a little parcel. Rinse and repeat 3 more times. The parcels go into the barely boiling water for 3 minutes. MORE THAN ONE of the places I had read about poaching eggs in plastic wrap had listed the cook times as: 2 minutes for runny yolks, 3 minutes for medium set yolk, 4 minutes for firmly set yolk. In reality (I know, I know) I like my yolks pretty runny, but S (and I know my mother would approve) eyes with suspicion anything undercooked, especially eggs (but even cookie dough!), so I settled on 3 minutes, medium-set yolks.

Meanwhile, I brushed the top of the set polenta with some olive oil and set it under the broiler.
After 3 minutes I removed the eggy packets like giant teabags from the boiling water and placed them on the plates with the salads. All I could see through the plastic wrap was the opaque egg whites. Out of the oven comes the pan of polenta, and I cut it into pieces. The plan was to spatula the pieces of polenta onto the plates, open the plastic-wrap teabags, and dump the eggs onto their polenta beds.

Well. I could tell when I spatulaed the polenta onto the plates that things weren't going as planned. Set polenta is supposed to be firm and relatively dense. (I don't know if you've ever left grits out too long, but that's pretty much it) Set, baked polenta is NOT supposed to be floppy and rubbery and fluffy, much like a light omelet or egg casserole. Not one to be deterred by unexpected flopubberfliness, I slapped those bad boys on the plates and moved on to the eggs. I opened the mouths of the plastic-wrap packets upside-down over the tops of the polenta slices, hoping the poached eggs would deposit themselves nicely onto their cornmealy resting places and we could begin eating. What actually happened was this: all of the cooked white of the first egg remained adhered to the plastic wrap, and its completely unset yolk, along with some clear, snotty, unset white, plopped onto the polenta, broke open, and oozed all over the plate, salad included.

With one dinner down the drain, I turned my attentions to carefully prying open the other 3 egg packets and planning the devastating secret moves I would use against S in our battle over the single remaining plate of food. All 3 had the same problem as the first: cooked white firmly glued to plastic covering, and centers so undercooked even I wouldn't eat them. In defeat, I seized another dish, covered it with what was supposed to be the leftover salad and polenta, and sprinkled both dishes with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (peanut butter and jelly may also have been involved).

I didn't take pictures. They would have been awful anyway. I guess the moral of the story is either don't poach eggs without a slotted spoon, or grease your plastic wrap and boil the HELL out of them. The polenta's still a mystery to me. Who knows what was up with that.

Long Awaited Return + The Musical Fruit

(voted most attractive as well as most likely to be devoured)

Hello my beloved reader(s), and welcome to the triumphant return of Full/Empty! At first, term papers and vacation kept me from writing new posts, but honestly, recently it's been pure laziness. You can thank S for inspiring me to write up a new recipe - it was his lovely plating of the next recipe that caused me to take a photo of it and write it up.

This is a recipe I learned from an online forum; originally it was a black bean salad with quinoa. While I'm sure it's great as is, and quinoa sounds lovely, the fact was I had 1 pound each of 3 types of brown rice in my cupboards, and 0 pounds of 0 types of quinoa, so I took the plunge and replaced the quinoa with brown rice. Turned out great; in fact you could probably add even more rice to the recipe to stretch it a little farther and it would still be great. This is a 'salad', as I said, and I ate it for dinner by itself, but as S demonstrates in the photos, it also makes a great burrito/taco/pita filling. It seemed to taste best at room temperature; we had it the next day for lunch and it just wasn't AS good cold from the fridge. Not that we didn't eat all of the leftovers (and possibly lick the tupperware it was stored in).

Black Bean and Rice Salad
(serves 4)

2 cups cooked rice, cooled
2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 avocado, diced
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup frozen corn, microwaved and cooled

6 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
chili powder to taste
S&P to taste

1) Whisk together dressing ingredients. Place all other ingredients in a bowl, cover with dressing, stir.


(A pitacopia of deliciousness)

This is a great option for dinner or lunch on hot days - it requires very little cooking, it's cool and not too heavy, and has a GREAT flavor/texture combination of creamy, tangy, spicy, crunchy, and rice. I'd imagine it would also be a great side for cookouts or dish to take to picnics; nothing is really in danger of spoiling, and the acidity of the vinegar keeps the avocados from browning. You don't have to keep it ice cold, it's filling, and the vegetarians at your next cookout will love you for it.

The Chinese Feast

(you say gyoza, I say jiaozi, you say dumplings, I say YUM)

My sister, K, came to visit me over spring break, and she loves to cook and eat almost as much as I do! This year, spring break is the week between St. Patrick's Day and Easter (St. Patrick's and Easter in the same week?! I blame global warming), so to properly honor both holidays, I naturally decided to make a huge dinner of Chinese food with K and S. So maybe it's not a feast by true Chinese standards, but a dinner with more than one course and a side dish is a big deal in Spyhopworld. Not only that, but I hadn't made either dish before (well, not by myself), and K and S had even less experience than I. Still, we girded our loins, and soldiered on into the realm of: Egg Drop Soup, Steam-Fried Dumplings, and Rice!

In reality, this whole fiasco began because I had 3/4 lb. of ground pork hanging around my freezer that I wanted to use for something. By itself, 3/4 lb. of meat isn't really enough to feed 3 people, so I was trying to think of what I could do to stretch it, and then I remembered how much I love jiaozi (a.k.a. gyoza). I hadn't had jiaozi in ages - I hadn't even had Chinese food in ages, and I knew jiaozi were a possible make-at-home food because years ago one of my Chinese professors invited my class to her home to make them for Chinese New Year. We made 400. That sounds like a lot until you hear how many jiaozi K, S, and I made (and ate!) in one night: 50. K and I mixed up the filling, and then the three of us sat down and folded up 50 dumplings at the dining table; K steam-fried them in the frying pan (more on that later), and then I whipped up some egg-drop soup (it's easy). The rice pretty much cooked itself, as per usual. If you added some quick stir-fried bok choi and maybe a dessert, this would make a pretty impressive dinner party. So without further ado, on to the recipes!

Steam-Fried Jiaozi (Chinese Dumplings)
(makes 50, total time: ~1 hour with 3 people)

1/2 pound green or napa cabbage, shredded
3/4 pound ground pork
2 green onions, minced
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon vinegar (traditionally rice wine vinegar, but I used balsamic)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 package of 50 wrappers (mine said 'gyoza wrappers' on them)
~1 tablespoon oil for each frying pan batch
2 tablespoon water for each frying pan batch
small bowl of water

Dipping Sauce
soy sauce
vinegar
sugar or honey
chili oil

1. Combine all ingredients except wrappers and sauce in a large mixing bowl. Mix (hands are best) until just combined. Don't overhandle.




2. Place one wrapper flat in the palm of your non-dominant hand and put about a teaspoon of filling in the middle of it.



3. Wet a finger of your free hand and use it to wet half the edge of the wrapper (a semi-circle). Fold the wrapper in half, pinching the center of the two edge-halves (wet and dry) together. Pleat the dry edge on either side of this center point and pinch the pleated edge to the non-pleated edge, sealing the edges all the way around the semi-circle. I know this sounds complicated, looking at the photos should help.


4. Heat the oil for one batch in a large frying pan to the temperature you usually brown meat/cook pancakes at. Somewhere between medium and high. Place as many jiaozi as possible on the bottom of the pan - they can touch each other, but each should be on the pan bottom. Cover and let brown ~3 minutes, then uncover, add the 2 tablespoons of water, recover, and let steam ~5 minutes. This is what's called steam-frying. Repeat until all the jiaozi are cooked.


5. Mix dipping sauce ingredients to your taste, and consume!



Egg Drop Soup
(4 small or 2 large servings, total time: ~10 minutes)

4 cups chicken broth
2 eggs and 1 yolk
ground ginger, salt, and white pepper to taste
optional: ~1 tablespoon cornstarch to thicken

1. Bring broth to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer.

2. Beat eggs and yolk together until consistency is even. Drizzle the beaten eggs into the broth while stirring the soup in a circle.

3. Add remaining ingredients. Told you it was easy.


P.S. Thanks to K for some of these photos!

Confession + Recipe = Confessipe?

(the impostors)



(deeeleeshus)

I have a confession: these are muffins. That's right, I made muffins, perfectly good muffins, and then decided I actually wanted cupcakes, so I iced them. Shocking, I know. But hear me out: what really IS the difference between muffins and cupcakes? I mean I know in general muffins can have things baked in them, like nuts or fruit, and are generally larger than cupcakes, but really, you COULD bake cupcakes with nuts in them and make them really big. In this case, I think the plain muffins were a little less crumbly-cakey than a cupcake would be, but I think the real difference between cupcakes and muffins is frosting. I'm pretty sure if you fed a naive test subject one of my frosted muffins, and told them it was a cupcake, what they would say would be "Mmmmm!" and not "This is no cupcake, this is a MUFFIN IMPOSTOR!"

And now, for side-by-side comparison: the muffin recipe I used and a basic cupcake recipe, both found online at either, recipezaar, allrecipes, epicurious, or cooks.com, I don't remember (oops). P.S. - I multiplied my muffin recipe by 3, because it makes 6 muffins, and the cupcake recipe makes 18.

Muffins...................................Cupcakes
3 cups flour.......................................3 cups flour
3/4 teaspoons salt...........................1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder............2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/8 cup of oil.....................................2/3 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar...................................1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups milk................................1 1/4 cups milk
1 1/2 eggs.........................................2 eggs
...........................................................1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Not identical twins, but maybe sisters, right? Clearly the muffins aren't as sweet as the cupcakes, but once you slap that frosting on top, they're really not lacking in sweetness. In case you were wondering about the recipe instructions, both follow the usual quickbread formula: you combine the dry ingredients (flour, salt, and baking powder) in one bowl, the wet ingredients (fat, sugar, milk, eggs, and vanilla) in another, beat the wet ones well, then slowly add the dry. The muffins bake at 400, and the cupcakes at 350, both for ~20 minutes.

Overnight Bread

(a few slices of bread for sandwiches)

One of the recipes I'm definitely keeping from the Hillbilly Housewife experiment is her recipe for Overnight Bread. I'd never made bread before trying this recipe, but I found it easy and accessible. I've heard a lot of people talk about using bread makers, but for a bread this simple I almost think it would be more work to take the machine out and clean it and start it up. I make two loaves at a time, which works because I only have 2 pans, and besides that homemade bread doesn't keep like store-bought bread does because it doesn't have any preservatives in it. I also make my bread half-whole wheat, and I think the flavor and texture turn out pretty nicely. This is a light bread, and it tends to be a little crumblier than the store-bought stuff I'm used to, but I'm not sure how it compares to other similar recipes.

Oh, and there's a reason for the name. This bread is best made before bed, because of the very long first rise.

Overnight Bread
adapted from Hillbilly Housewife
(makes 2 loaves, total time: ~18 hours)

2 cups warm tap water
1/3 cup non-fat dry milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 packet yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 of 1/3 cup of vegetable oil
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups whole wheat flour

1. Mix water, dry milk, and sugar in a very large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast on top, and allow to sit for a few minutes.

2. Add salt, oil, and flour. Mix with a wooden spoon until the dough becomes too thick, then use your hands to bring it together the rest of the way.

3. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 full minutes. Coat the dough with oil, replace it into the bowl, cover, and let it rise for 12-18 hours, until it has doubled in size.

4. Punch the dough down, divide it into 2 loaves, and place them in oiled loaf pans. Cover both, and let rise again, 2 hours, or until they've doubled in size.

5. Bake the loaves at 350 for 40 minutes. Cool them for a few minutes in the pans, but then turn them out and cool on a rack until they reach room temperature. I wrap mine in paper towels and place them in large zip-loc bags.

Notes: You could of course use actual milk instead of water and dry milk powder, but first you'd have to bring it to the temperature of warm tap water.

Curry in a Hurry Without Worry

(Yes, this is a picture of the recipe book, and not the food. The book is prettier, trust me.)

Have you ever had one of those days? You know, when you get home from Kendo and you're dog tired and starving and it's almost 10pm? And all you have in the kitchen is half a bag of lentils and half a can of tomatoes? Ok, so maybe that's just me, but anyone can appreciate a dinner you can put together when time and ingredients are lacking. That is why I make Dal. I have this bright little paperback cookbook called Curries Without Worries. I normally cook Thai curry (I know, I know, I'll get around to posting that recipe someday), but this book is devoted to basic Indian recipes. I'll admit I haven't gotten around to some of the more effortful dishes from it - Roghanjosh: the ultimate Kashmiri lamb dish, for instance - but there are two pages of my copy that are well worn. One of them is the primer on how to cook long-grained rice (basmati, etc), and the other is the page labeled "Delicious Everyday DAL."

Dal is essentially lentil curry. All you need are lentils, some type of vegetable, water, and spices. It's so warm! So fragrant! So tasty and spiced and comfort food-y! You don't know how many times lentils have rescued me when I'm saying to myself "Oh my GOD there is nothing in the kitchen to eat. I am SO hungry . . . man I really don't want to go to the grocery store. I'm so tired! Wheat thins are not dinner!"

Delicious Everyday DAL
adapted from Curries Without Worries by Sudha Koul
(4 servings - ok, so I ate half -, total time: 40 minutes)

1 cup lentils
6 cups water
1/2 to 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon ground ginger
S&P to taste
chili powder to taste

1. Bring all ingredients to a boil over high heat.

2. Reduce heat to low, simmer for ~30 minutes, until lentils are tender.

3. Yes, that's really it.

A few notes: the original recipe calls for more authentic ingredients, like real tomatoes, fresh ginger, coriander, and ghee instead of butter. I'm sure it tastes great like that, but it tastes great like this too. You can serve this with rice or flatbread; most recently I served it with garlic toast, but that's just me.

Colors

Well, I'm getting mixed signals, so I'm going to keep playing around with the blog colors a little. Right now I have them set up in an ode to the blue cupcake photo. :)

What Do You Think?

I'm trying to decide whether I like the black background or white background better. What do you think?

The Hillbilly Experiment: What I Learned

(kneading 2 loaves of HbHw's 'overnight bread' /flex)

This was my normal food-day before the experiment: wake up 30 minutes before class, drink a glass of milk, go to class, possibly make a sandwich for lunch, or eat chips and hummus, make a 4-serving dinner, eat half, eat dessert (probably oreos). Not all pizza and ramen, to be sure, but not great either. This has been my typical food-day during the experiment: wake up 1 hour before class, make and eat breakfast with juice or milk, make a sandwich or something more substantial for lunch, make a 2-serving dinner and eat half, make fresh bread, muffins, or iced tea as needed. At first I didn't think I'd be able to eat all the food that was slated for each day, but boy was I wrong. Other things I've learned:

1) Dishes speak louder than words, especially if that word is "vegetarian." I'd discussed trying a mostly vegetarian diet with S before, but he wasn't big on the idea. I think a lot of people think of skimpy, unfilling food, or tons of salads when they think "vegetarian." If you want to cook vegetarian food and you're feeding other people, don't start out by saying "vegetarian;" believe me, you'll have them at "lentil and vegetable soup with dumplings."

2) On the note of vegetarian food: legumes, whole grains, dairy, and greens are your friend. I really already knew this, but I'd never put it in practice. If you're not going to be eating much meat, you can use the proteins found in legumes (beans, peanuts and lentils), whole grains, and dairy to create proteins that are just as complete as those found in meat. Especially if you're a woman, eat your greens to get the iron you won't be getting from meat (believe me, anemia is no fun).

3) Baking is not as complicated as I thought it was. This menu has pretty much been a baking boot camp for me; for some reason I always thought baking as more complex and tricky than cooking in general. Turns out, making everyday baked good like bread, muffins, and biscuits is not that tough. Making your own iced tea's not so bad, either.

4) Homemade bread products taste MUCH better than store-bought. The bread, muffin, dumpling, etc recipes on this menu are pretty much as basic as you can get, but they knocked the socks off anything I've ever bought in the taste department. Never before have I had the thought "hmm, maybe I'll just have some bread as a snack."

5) Lastly, caloric drinks should be consumed like foods, and not like water. In this case I'm just talking about juice and milk, but it really goes for soda and other things as well. Even though orange juice and skim milk are good for you, it's cheaper, and really better for you, to treat them like foods. You might eat bread and ice cream, but you wouldn't just spend all day eating them. Water is free, and great for you, and tea is pretty close to free, and just fine for you if you don't sweeten it with sugar.

Oh, and collard greens are actually really tasty. Who knew?

The Hillbilly Experiment: What I Liked

(The picture S took of the chocolate cupcakes I put together from spare pantry ingredients, recipe later)






(the picture I took of the cupcakes. Turns out I had the "night mode" on or something, but I'll tell you I was really surprised when I downloaded my photos)




Even though I made several changes to HbHw's menu, there are lots of things I like about it.

1) It's cheap. Really, really cheap. A lot of "save money on groceries" articles I read propose things like "save money by cutting out the caviar." Ok, maybe not that extreme, but telling me to skip the Starbuck's bottled lattes isn't really helping. If you really are in an emergency, or if you just want to learn how to pare your grocery bill some, this is a great resource.

2) Nearly everything is made from scratch. Even though I home-cook a lot of food, our normal shopping list usually includes processed snack foods, breads, and drinks. My mother always told me to "eat a variety of foods, in as close to their natural state as possible." I might not always have the time to make my own bread, but I think it's better for us than the processed version.

3) It's nutritious. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a diet menu (although the site does have one), but it does an excellent job of providing the necessary nutrients, especially if you use whole grains, like I did. On a small budget, it's even harder than normal to resist filling up on empty calories, but there are a lot of lean proteins here, as well as fiber, greens, and other good things.

Of course sometimes a woman's just gotta say "Screw nutritious; I have flour, butter, cocoa, sugar, milk, eggs, and baking powder, and I'm MAKING CUPCAKES." They weren't really part of the plan, but they were a delicious detour.

The Hillbilly Experiment: Grocery List

(I emailed S this picture I took of some of the bread I made, to see if he could use Photoshop to tone down the glare. . . .and this is what happened)

In order to adjust the grocery list from Hillbilly Housewife, I began by literally cutting all of the amounts on the list in half. I didn't know off the top of my head what size containers of various items were available at the store, so I just wrote down half the amount on the website and planned to buy as close as possible to my written amount. Of course this also meant I would be halving all of the recipes, and doing it as efficiently as possible. This hasn't been a problem so far; one day I made a recipe that called for 3 eggs, so in order to halve it, I beat one of the eggs and put half of it into a ziploc baggie to use for French toast the next morning!

Next I scratched off the list everything I already had at home: sugar, baking powder, oatmeal, salt, pepper, syrup, bullion (well, Better than Bullion, actually), vinegar, cinnamon, garlic powder, and chili powder. I actually had 5 pounds of all-purpose flour, and a bag of Splenda at home also, more on that later.

Finally I replaced some ingredients with equivalents that I thought were healthier or better-tasting. I replaced all of the grains with their whole versions (brown rice, etc.), and bought a bag of whole-wheat flour to go with my all-purpose stuff. I replaced all of the canned vegetables, except the tomatoes, with frozen; frozen veggies taste better than canned, retain many more nutrients, and are still quite cheap. I replaced the margarine with butter (part of this experiment was about eating less processed food, remember). I replaced the powdered milk that would be used for drinking with a half gallon of skim milk because drinking powdered milk just isn't the same, and I replaced the celery with a bunch of leeks. Leeks cost more than celery, but S isn't fond of celery, and I'm not a huge fan of it cooked.

Besides HbHw's groceries, we also bought a box of pasta and some sauce, 2 frozen pizzas for lazy dinners and the ingredients to make Thai curry, because we loves us some curry. All in all, we bought enough food for 10 days of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, and 1 day of just dinner. The total came to about $80. If you count a snack as half of a meal, that comes to $1.11 per person per meal. $1.11! That won't even buy you a soda some places!

Next time: what I like about the Hillbilly Housewife menu.

The Hillbilly Experiment: Intro

I'd been thinking recently about trying to cut processed food out of our diet as much as possible; besides that, S likes to play "grocery bill limbo" (my term, not his), seeing how low he can get our grocery bill without resorting to buying things that don't taste good (or eating a diet entirely of pasta, for instance). To these ends, we decided to experiment with an interesting online resource: Hillbilly Housewife's $45 Emergency Menu . I'd like to share our experience with this in a few blog posts. My camera's batteries died and I don't have new ones yet, so no pictures for this first post, but they're coming soon, I promise.

Now, the title is misleading for a few reasons: first, the menu is for a family of 4 but the groceries were priced in 2006 and mainly came from Walmart and The Dollar Store. There are only 2 of us to feed, and we shop at Shnuck's, and it's 2008, so we knew the total wasn't going to be the same. Second, this wasn't an emergency, so I changed a few things according to my preferences.

In the next post I'll note what I changed about the menu and what our grocery bill came to - in future posts I'll discuss what I like about the menu/recipes, and what I've learned from the experiment, and highlight specific recipes.

A final note - this is not a wholesale recommendation of hillbillyhousewife.com. The author has a very different worldview from me, and I don't agree with some things she says, but I bow to her greater experience in the arena of home cooking.

Vegetable Pot Pie with Cheddar Biscuit Crust

(mise en place)



(after browning)



(the finished product)

I own a copy of The Joy of Cooking. It was given to my by my mother before I started college, and it was the first real cookbook I ever owned. It has traveled with me for many years over many, many miles. That being said, I don't exactly have a cozy relationship with Joy. It looms in my cookbook cabinet like some huge, snowy white tome of arcana that cooking wizards should pour over, and relative novices like myself should approach with caution. Joy is a great reference - I use it all the time to check for substitute ingredients, measurement calculations, and to get a handle on the base version of recipes I'm trying to alter. But I don't pop it open at 5pm on a Thursday night and say "Hmmm, let's pick something to make for dinner."

This recipe is why.

I have to admit, I loved the result. S wasn't very fond of the parsnips, and more than one person has suggested it could benefit from the addition of some meat. But really, I'm a sucker for winter vegetables, as well as biscuits and cheddar cheese, so I thought it was really tasty. On the other hand, I walked into the kitchen to start making this before 6pm and I didn't eat the first bite until 9:30. Really.

If you want to try this recipe out, make sure you plan ahead. Your toil will be rewarded with tender, non-mushy chunks of winter vegetables, just a little bit sweet, and fluffy, cheesy biscuit topping. One note - I'm recording the recipe as I made it, but I'd recommend adding less broth; I thought mine turned out a little watery, though the taste didn't suffer any.

Vegetable Pot Pie
adapted from The Joy of Cooking
(8 servings, total time: ~3.5 hrs)

2 medium red onions
3 medium carrots
3 parsnips
1 fennel bulb
1 butternut squash
1 acorn squash
8 ounces portobello mushrooms
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
3-4 tablespoons unsalted butter
S&P to taste
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
400 degree oven

1. Wash all the vegetables. With a large, sharp knife, peel the squashes, gut them, and cut them into 1-inch chunks. Peeling them will be easier if you cut them into quarters or so first. Put each chopped squash into its own bowl. Peel and chop the parsnips and carrots into 1-inch pieces, and put them in a bowl together. Cut the mushrooms into thick slices and halve crosswise; place them in their own bowl. Cut the onions into thick slices,and place them in their own bowl. Cut the fennel bulb into 1-inch chunks, and place them in their own bowl.

2. Heat about 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and 1/2 tablespoon butter in your biggest frying pan over medium-high. Cook the onion slices until browned, ~3 minutes on each side. Place them in a 9X13-inch baking dish and season with salt and pepper. Add about 1/2 tablespoon more each of the butter and oil, and repeat this process with the carrots and parsnips (5-7 minutes), fennel (5 minutes), and squashes (~6 minutes each). Lastly, add the last of the oil and butter, if needed, turn the heat to high, and cook the mushrooms 5-7 minutes, until brown.

3. Carefully mix all the browned vegetables up in the baking dish, and season as desired. Pour the broth over the vegetables, cover the dish with foil, and bake at 400 for 30-45 minutes, until vegetables are tender when pierced with a sharp knife.

4. While the vegetables are in the oven, make the cheddar biscuit crust recipe. After the vegetables have baked for half an hour or so, spoon the biscuit dough over the vegetables, return the dish to the oven, and bake at 400 for another 20 minutes or so, until the biscuits are browned. Remove from the oven and let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Cheddar Biscuit Crust
(total time: ~10 minutes)

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teasponn salt
5-6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup grated Cheddar cheese
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
2. Cut in the butter pieces with a knife or pasty cutter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Dump in the milk, pepper, and cheese, and mix the dough with a wooden spoon or spatula until it just comes together.
4. GENTLY knead it a time or two in the bowl to mix in all the loose pieces hanging out on the bottom.

Whew.

Confession

I don't use stock. I know that stock and broth aren't the same, and I KNOW the difference between them, but whenever I read/copy/make a recipe, I just replace the word 'stock' with 'broth'. Bad foodie, bad!

Winter Squash Macaroni & Cheese

(slightly improved pic, I think)

I adapted this recipe from Rachel Ray, and even for her it was fast! I put the whole thing together in 17 minutes. This is a fairly basic stove-top mac and cheese recipe made with a roux that gains a lot, nutritionally and taste-wise, from the addition of creamy, slightly sweet, winter squash puree. I mean, it's still essentially noodles with cheese, which is why it's SO delicious, but it's made with whole grain pasta, skim milk, and lower-fat cheese, not to mention the vitaminy squash. Believe me, it's better than Stouffer's in every way.

Oh, and the wind chill here today was -25 degrees (Fahrenheit!), so creamy, warm mac and cheese was just what I needed.

Winter Squash Macaroni & Cheese
(5 servings, total time: ~20 minutes)

1 pound macaroni, rotini, or what have you
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 onion
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken broth
1 (10oz) box frozen butternut or winter squash puree
1 scant cup milk
2 cups grated cheddar (this is one baggie of pre-shredded cheese)
S&P to taste

1. Put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta, pop the squash in the microwave to defrost it according to the package, and either grate the onion half, or chop it finely.
2. Cook pasta and drain.
3. While the pasta's cooking, heat the oil and butter in a large skillet or pot over medium heat, add the onion and cook 1-2 minutes, then add the flour and cook, stirring, another 1-2 minutes.
4. Stir in the broth and defrosted squash, heat through, then add the milk and bring to a bubble. (it will probably bubble if you keep it on medium)
5. Stir in the cheese, season, and add to pasta.

Chicken Paprikash

(A bit blurry, but managed to take the photo before eating this time!)

This is a recipe I adapted from Susan Nicholson's "7-day Meal Planner." Paprikash is a Hungarian stew made with sour cream and paprika; this is a simplified version of it. Although this recipe takes a long time to cook, it sits on the stove most of that time, and there's really not much work to it. For some reason the sour cream in mine broke a little, so it didn't turn out as creamy as I expected, but it was still tasty, warm, and full of that sweet-peppery paprika flavor. I used light sour cream, so that may have had something to do with it, or maybe it was just that adding the cold sour cream to the hot stew was too much of a shock. If you have any ideas, let me know!

A warning: unlike most dinners I make, this recipe makes 8 servings; if you don't plan on eating it for more than one meal (we did), I'd cut it in half.

Chicken Paprikash
(8 servings; total time ~1 hour 20 minutes)

2.5-3 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into .5" strips
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups chopped onion
1 chopped large bell pepper (I use green, they're cheapest)
.75 cup carrots, shredded or cut into matchsticks
8 ounces sliced button mushrooms
2 cups chicken broth (it won't seem like enough, but it is)
3 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 cups reduced fat sour cream
S&P to taste

1. Toss the chicken with the flour in a large pot until well coated.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients except the sour cream. Bring to a gentle boil, reduce heat to low-medium-low, cover, and simmer for about an hour.
3. Remove from heat, stir in sour cream, and season to taste. Serve over rice or egg noodles.

Chili with Chocolate

(sorry for the shoddy photo)

Last night after I made up the weekly menu, S and I hit the grocery store, and by the time we returned home we were both more than ready for dinner. I may have even ripped open a box of cookies and eaten one before putting the rest of the food away, but let's not dwell on that, shall we? So I wanted to make one of the quicker recipes from the week's menu, and Chili with Chocolate is what I chose.

This recipe is an amalgamation of several red chili with chocolate recipes I found online, made super convenient by being built on the skeleton of a chili recipe I got from a chili spice-mix packet. The chocolate I chose was a baking bar of Hershey's special dark, which is labeled a "mildly sweet chocolate." Any dark bitter- or semi-sweet chocolate would work, and I'm sure you could also use unsweetened chocolate as well, though the result would be a little different.

A note on spices: except when baking, I don't measure salt and pepper into my recipes, and I rarely even add salt, as ingredients like broth usually salt things plenty for my taste. Your taste may differ, though, so all of my recipes are salt and pepper to taste. When I made this particular recipe, I somehow wound up with nearly all no-salt ingredients, and had to add a few teaspoons myself, but please taste yours first!

Chili with Chocolate
(4 servings, total time: ~20 minutes)

1 pound ground beef
1 small onion
1 jalepeno
1 packet red chili seasoning (not one with 'sodium' as the main ingredient)
1 (15oz) can dark red kidney beans
1 (14oz) can diced tomatoes
2 (8oz) cans tomato sauce (no spices)
~2 ounces bittersweet dark chocolate
S&P to taste

1. In a fairly large pot, brown beef over medium-high heat.
2. While the meat is browning, dice the onion and jalapeno. When the beef is almost fully browned, skim, pour, or spoon out the excess fat from the pan, and add the onion and jalapeno. Continue to cook until beef is done.
3. Add all of the remaining ingredients except chocolate. Thin with a little water, if necessary,
and add S&P to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10
minutes.
4. Chop the chocolate into pieces (unless you're using chocolate chips). After 10 minutes is up,
turn off the heat, and stir in chocolate until fully melted and combined.

The result should be a dark, rich, chili that is neither sweet nor too spicy, but definitely unusual. Enjoy!

P.S. I forgot to take any photos of the chili until I had already eaten some, hence the quickly-taken, and not very well set up shot. Oops.

Welcome!

Welcome everyone to the birth of Full/Empty. I created this blog to share my love of cooking and eating with my friends and family. I am a home cook, and a graduate student, so despite my love of the gourmet, I try to focus on recipes that are reasonable - reasonably healthy, cheap, and interesting. I invite your comments!