Food

Plum BBQ Sauce

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I had a bunch of plums to use up and I didn’t really want to just make jam with them. My solution? BBQ Sauce! I made this recipe up as I went along and it needs a bit of tweaking – but here is the rough draft to start with.

In order to get the 12 cups of plum “juice” that I ended up using – I simply washed and de-stemmed the plums, piled them in a big pot with a couple of cups of water and then cooked and mashed them until I could strain the seeds, skins and the majority of the pulp out with a pasta strainer. I’m sure there is an easier, more sophisticated way to do this but it worked for me!

12 c. plum juice (very pulpy)
1 c. Worcestershire sauce
1 c. Apple Cider vinegar
3 c. white sugar
3 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. plus 1/8 c. salt (even though it tasted fine when I pulled it off the stove, it got saltier as it sat so I would cut this amount back)
1 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tbsp ground dry mustard
2 Tbsp granulated garlic
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp celery seed
3 fresh garlic cloves – finely chopped

Put everything in a big pot and cook on a medium heat, stirring occasionally to reduce. Reduce to about 2/3 amount – or desired consistency. Taste as it is reducing and adjust flavoring accordingly. Bottle and refrigerate until needed.

Enjoy with chicken or pork or anything else you can come up with!

(The best) Piquant Prawn Salad

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I love this salad! It’s full of protein, fresh veggies and delicious Asian flavors. This is another recipe from the previously mentioned Thai cook book. I normally leave a few ingredients out but I’ve italicized the adjustments I made so you can see all of the options! (Update: If you are following the Trim Healthy Mama plan, Shirataki noodles would be the perfect replacement for the rice noodles!)

Piquant Prawn Salad

  • Servings: 4-6
  • Difficulty: intermediate
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Ingredients

  • 7 oz rice vermicelli noddles or Shirataki noodles (follow the first 5 instructions in this recipe if using Shirataki noodles)
  • 8 baby corn cobs – halved
  • 5 oz snow peas
  • 1 T coconut oil (or vegetable oil)
  • 2 garlic cloves – minced
  • 1 inch piece of fresh ginger – peeled and finely chopped
  • 1 fresh red or green chili – seeded and finely chopped
  • 1 lb raw peeled jumbo shrimp
  • 4 green onions – thinly sliced
  • 1 T toasted sesame seeds
  • 1 lemon grass stalk – thinly shredded

For the dressing

  • 1 T fresh chives – chopped
  • 1 T Thai fish sauce
  • 1 tsp soy sauce or Braggs Aminos
  • 3 T peanut oil (or if you love sesame oil as much as I do, use it instead of peanut oil!)
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 2 T rice vinegar

Instructions

  1. Put the rice noodles in a heat proof bowl, cover with boiling water and let sit for 10 minutes.
  2. Drain rice noodles, refresh with cold water, drain again and set aside.
  3. The dressing can be made ahead of time by combining ingredients and either shaking or whisking all of the dressing ingredients together and then setting aside.
  4. Saute, or steam, the snow peas and baby corn and set aside.
  5. Heat the coconut oil in a frying pan (or wok). Add the garlic, ginger and chili and cook for one minute.
  6. Add the shrimp and cook until just pink.
  7. Stir in the green onions, snow peas, baby corn and sesame seeds. Toss lightly to mix.
  8. Add the contents of the pan to the rice noodles.
  9. Pour the dressing on top and toss well.
  10. Sprinkle with lemon grass and chill for one hour before serving.

Enjoy this light flavorful salad!

 

Super Easy Hot-and-Sour Soup

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In the mood for a delicious way to warm up this winter? Try this spicy warming Hot-and-Sour Soup that can easily be made with just a few special ingredients!

The original recipe for this soup calls for prawns – I made it with chicken… I’m sure either would taste wonderful.

I believe this recipe is a fuel pull if you are following the Trim Healthy Mama plan and use lean chicken or shrimp and a reduced fat stock.

Original recipe from “Thai – the essence of Asian cooking” from Hermes House

Easy Hot-and-Sour Soup

  • Servings: 4-6
  • Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

  • 1 lb raw chicken (or jumbo prawns)
  • 4 c chicken or fish stock
  • 3 stalks lemon grass
  • 10 kaffir lime leaves – torn in half
  • 8 oz can straw mushrooms – drained
  • 3 T fish sauce
  • 4 T lime juice
  • 2 T green onions – thinly sliced
  • 1 T fresh cilantro leaves
  • 4 fresh red chilies – seeded and thinly sliced
  • salt – to taste
  • ground black pepper – to taste

Instructions

  1. Cut the chicken into bite size pieces (or if using prawns – peel and save the shells, then devein and set the prawns aside).
  2. In a large soup pot bring the stock to a boil (if using prawns, rinse the shells and add to the stock).
  3. Slightly crush the lemon grass stalks and add them to the stock along with half of the lime leaves.
  4. Simmer gently for 5-6 minutes, until the stock is fragrant.
  5. Strain the stock, return it to the clean pot and reheat.
  6. Add the drained mushrooms and the chicken (or prawns), then cook until the chicken is cooked through (or the prawns turn pink).
  7. Add the fish sauce, lime juice, green onion, cilantro, chilies, and remaining lime leaves into the soup. Stir to combine.
  8. Add salt and pepper to taste. The soup should be sour, savory, spicy and hot.

This is a great soup to make ahead of time and keep hot in a crock pot or on the back of the stove until time to serve.

Enjoy!

Perfect summer dessert!

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Ayla and I were graciously invited to the Tyler’s home for lunch yesterday! Linda Tyler made a wonderful tasty meal and a fabulous dessert. I pressed her for as many details as she could give me so that I can attempt to duplicate it 🙂 Her instructions are as follows:

Make and bake and cool a buttery Graham Cracker Crust. For the filling take part of a block of cream cheese (for a 9×13 she used not quite a full thing), mix together with some whipped cream until well incorporated. Add whatever flavoring you want (she used a little almond, but says she has done lemon, orange, chocolate, etc. in the past) and add some powdered sugar to lightly sweeten. Fill crust with filling. Top with fresh blueberries and slightly press them into the filling to help them stay there. Maybe sprinkle some almond flakes. Cook and cool some more blueberries and poor over everything to kind of hold it in pace. Sprinkle a few more almond flakes. Serve and enjoy!

I realize these instructions are not specific at all – but I’m sure you can figure it out! The filling was a very light fluffy cheese cake type filling (although even Ayla liked it ’cause you couldn’t taste the cream cheese). This desert was perfect for summer because it was cool, slightly rich, and the blueberries were allowed to shine!

Thank you Linda for your hospitality and wonderful dessert!

Moving Frustrations…and cookies!

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I was going to write a post about how frustrated I am with the way our new land lords have been handling this whole moving situation… or about the fact that our move in date keeps getting pushed back because they are still painting… and then I decided that it isn’t great to dwell on the negative…

Instead I am going to expound upon the virtues of these – Flour-less Peanut Butter Cookies – created by the Gluten-Free Girl.

After having my mom and roommate continually forget that I wasn’t eating wheat or dairy during the last two weeks – it was a joy to discover one of my favorite cookies in a wheat and dairy free form! Plus – anything from Gluten-Free Girl is bound to be wonderful, including her writing and photography. I highly recommend her blog and book to anyone who enjoys food – whether or not you are trying to go gluten-free. They are both a joy and an inspiration to read! Check out her blog here.

The search continues…

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I received another call today from Great Harvest – informing me that they decided to go with someone else. Not totally sure why I haven’t been able to get a job so far – but I guess I’ll just have to keep looking! Maybe the perfect job will jump out at me once I’m living in Lynden and am a bit more familiar with the town. I would love to find a job that I can walk or ride a bike to!
Oh – my move into the new place has been postponed a day (they need to paint and stuff) so I will be able to get in on Monday!

I added wheat back into my diet yesterday! Had a French Dip sandwich from Billy McHales. Also at a bunch of garlic bread today 🙂 So far haven’t noticed any adverse reactions. The garlic bread had some melted cheese on it so dairy was re-introduced today. No reactions from that either – although I wouldn’t really expect any from that little amount. I’m pretty sure I just need to reduce the amount of wheat and dairy in my diet because I will probably have an easier time with the whole staying in shape thing! Very happy to be eating bread again!

Bread and Bakeries

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I’ve had two interviews at the Great Harvest Bread Company! The first was your basic interview – with lots of questions and four people sitting there staring at you. The second was this morning – starting at 7:15 and it consisted of me just hanging out in the bakery… pretending like I was competent and knew how to knead bread dough 🙂 Apparently they can’t decide between me and this other gal so they’re trying us both out… how do I “beat” someone I know nothing about?! It was fun though…fun people, fun to get my hands back in some dough and flour 🙂

Interesting experience too because the only real bakery experience was with the Moscow Food Co-Op – and even though there are plenty of similarities, there are also a few large differences. Mostly with the way the dough is shaped or kneaded. At the Coop we SHAPED our loaves… they really ended up looking like little bread loaves before they were even in the pan. We also folded most batches of dough part way through letting it rise… and we let the loaves proof or rise for a longer amount of time before actually going in the oven. The Coop was also trying to make “crusty artisan” type bread.
At Great Harvest the dough is pretty much kneaded into a smooth ball and then rolled into a log a little longer than the pan so that when it’s put in the pan the middle is kind of “perky”. As far as I can tell none of the doughs are folded. The rise and baking I’m not sure about yet – although they are much more careful about temperatures then the Coop… and they are making pretty much all soft loaves.

It’s just interesting to see the differences. One thing that will be huge (and hopefully not to hard to get used to, if I get this job) is the pace that Great Harvest keeps. Many more doughs a day – and I thought we were pretty steady for the little while I was there but apparently they normally go MUCH faster with less people. Well – we’ll see if a get a job offer… until then…

I am excited to try their Gluten-Free Bread sometime – job or no.

Speaking of bread… here is a wonderful Blue Cheese Spread that goes really fantastically with a lot of different breads!

Blue Cheese Spread

Ingredients

  • 3 lb Cream Cheese – room temp
  • 2 cups Walnut pieces – toasted
  • 1 cup Sour Cream
  • 1 Tbsp Black Pepper
  • 1 bunch Green Onions – chopped
  • 1.25 lb Blue Cheese Crumbles
  • 1 bunch Parsley – chopped

Combine the first four ingredients and mix well. Add the last three ingredients and mix until incorporated. (I think the reason for this is so that those last three don’t completely disintegrate).

After it’s all mixed – taste it and add a little more pepper or some salt if needed.

Serve with bread or crostini or roast beef or whatever your taste buds tell you would taste good! Enjoy!

I love this spread so much because the blue cheese is really flavorful without being overwhelming. So yummy…

Going wheat and dairy free…

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I’m experimenting… no wheat or dairy for two weeks. So far so good – Friday is when I can add some back into my diet.

What is the reason for this madness you might ask??? Why torture yourself and cut out some of the best things in life???

Well… I’m pretty sure I have allergies or intolerance’s to both wheat and dairy – so I thought cutting it out and then slowly adding some back in might give me an idea of how sever the allergy, etc. really is. I haven’t really noticed a difference in how I feel these last weeks – but it’ll be interesting to see if I have a strong reaction after Friday! Also – I just wanted to see if I could do it… how difficult it would be to cut these two out. You know me… very interested in alternative diets 🙂 It’s been hard – and I’ve really missed both wheat and dairy (mostly bread and cheese), but I think it’s mostly been made difficult by not having a kitchen I can really use. Being in limbo in Bellingham really puts a limit on the variety of food you can eat 🙂

I have had fun rediscovering a few things that I CAN eat – that I’d kind of forgotten about! Such as lovely ripe tomatoes with mayo, or just salt and pepper. REAL tacos (the corn tortilla, chopped chicken, onion, cilantro, lime type) thankfully there are a number of option for those around here! Lots of fresh fresh berries (blue berries and raspberries right now). Oh the summer options!

My sister Hannah was super sweet and made me no-bake cookies, with almond milk instead of regular. The perfect chocolate peanut butter taste 🙂

Oh – did I mention that I’m cheating just the tiniest bit and still eating things like butter and soy sauce? If you really HAD to totally cut dairy and wheat out – those two would be gone too.

So, long story short – it’s been an interesting experience… but it’s not quite over – I’ll keep you posted!

Christmas Dinner

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Phillip and I spent all of Christmas day cooking food, mixing drinks and watching movies. Then around 6:30 we headed over to the Saunders for Christmas dinner… we brought the appetizer and dessert and here is what we(I) made!

Tomato Bruschetta (recipe from The Old Post Office) (we cut this recipe by about 3/4ths)

-about 20 Tomatoes (4lbs) diced and drained
-1/3 cup minced garlic
-12 oz diced red onion (about 1 1/2 large onions) diced very small
-1 1/2 cups basil leaves, chopped
-1/2 cup chopped parsley
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp pepper
-1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
-1/4 cup red wine vinegar
-1/4 cup olive oil

combine ingredients and serve with a sliced baguette or serve on crostini and top with grated Parmesan cheese and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Yum Yum! This recipe is very light and refreshing – and not to filling!

For dessert I made a recipe that the Co-op is considering making. It was very fast and easy to make, and oh so tasty!

Chocolate Fruit Purses – Preheat oven to 400

-1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries (or any other berry/ fruit that goes well with chocolate)
-2 Tblsp sugar
-1Tblsp cornstarch
-1/2 cup semi-sweet choc. chips
-1 sheet puff pastry, defrosted

Combine fruit, sugar and cornstarch in saucepan. Cook on low heat, stirring often – until it thickens (5 min). Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips.

On a lightly floured surface, unfold the puff pastry. Stretch lightly (or roll with a rolling pin) to form a larger square. Cut into quarters to form four squares. Mound 1/4 of filling in the center of each square. Lift the four corners up and over filling and twist together to form a small topknot. Pinch each side seam to seal pastries.

(I actually turned this into a more personal pastry by cutting each sheet of puff pastry into nine smaller squares and putting a spoonful of the filling in each one. If you go with this method you can actually begin before the pastry is totally thawed out, although it is very helpful to roll the pastry out so you have more dough to work with.)

Place on a baking sheet and bake until puffed and golden – about 20 min.