Category: cooking

Updates and Cooking

Marie Haigh6 Comments

OK, I need your honest opinion. Does this Mohair Stole look splotchy to you?

I’m still following my cheater rule: swap skeins every 16 rows, rather than the traditional rule: swap skeins every 2 rows. I get bits of red here and there, but huge blobs of grey right smack dab in the middle of the stole. I think the yarn is doing it just to irritate me. It’s working!

Since I’m slightly frustrated with my tree skirt right now (it’s the tie point that is giving me trouble), I decided to go hog wild in the kitchen. Yesterday began my quest to find the perfect soup to serve with a Christmas Eve dinner. First up was Cream of Mushroom Soup. It tasted great (I’ll post a recipe of it later), but the texture was a bit off (a bit chewy/rubbery when biting into the mushroom chunks). And my reward from all that cooking, an hour of cleaning.

After Cleaning

Thanks to everybody who left me a comment on my Pumpkin adventure. I am reenergized and plan to tackle the other pumpkin this weekend. Although, this time around, I will be using Jane‘s advice and baking the pumpkin rather than steaming it. I’ve baked squash before and I must admit my “neck pumpkin” seemed more like a squash than a pumpkin. Although, it smelled like a pumpkin. And this time around I’ll be making the pumpkin up into a pie and a soup. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Homemade Pumpkin

Marie Haigh5 Comments
After spending at least an hour in traffic on Saturday driving to and fro the Exton Mall to purchase Christmas presents, I stopped on the way back at a Farmer’s Market. Now maybe it was the pent up frustration or the heat or the sheer joy from crossing two more people off my Christmas list, but it occurred to me that I could make my own pumpkin (for pies and muffins and such). After chatting with the farmer’s daughter about which pumpkins were best for this sort of thing, I walked away with 2 neck pumpkins.

Still excited over my purchase, I decided I would tackle one of the pumpkins straight away. After cutting up the entire pumpkin into bite-size chunks, I started to realize what an insane idea this was. There was no way all of this pumpkin was going to fit into my little 3-quart steamer.

I was right. It didn’t. It took 3 separate batches to steam all the pumpkin chunks. Once they were all steamed, into the fridge they went to cool off so I could touch them without burning myself.

Then, the fun process of cutting the rinds off all the chunks began. The rinds were donated to my compost pile and the pumpkin got thrown into my food processor. And out came a wet, mushy mess. Although none of my old-time cookbooks mentioned straining the pumpkin afterward, I did it anyway. I’m pleased with the results.

Total amount of pumpkin extracted from 1 neck pumpkin: 3 cups. I must admit I was slightly disappointed. After all the work I put into it, I expected to get a wee bit more: something close to a lifetime supply.

I have another neck pumpkin. Will I do it again? I don’t know. The pumpkin muffins did taste delicious this morning, but even dirt would taste pretty good after you added sugar, spices, and sour cream to it.

Happy Birthday to Me

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I made butter pecan cupcakes for my brithday today. They are supposed to taste like my favorite ice cream. Jake thought they smelled delicious, but gladly settled for a Greenie.

Hope your weekend is filled with fun and good food too!

A Birthday Party & Beginnings of a new Quilt

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Saturday we had friends over to celebrate M’s 43rd birthday. (The whole reason … well, excuse, really … to make the potato salad).

Aren’t these candles the cutest?!

Then, on Sunday, I finally got in some quality quilting time. I’ve been so busy knitting that I haven’t had a moment to dedicate to the 3 quilts I want to finish by year-end. If I don’t start soon, they’ll never get done in time. I’ll be up Christmas Eve night until all hours, which I suppose I’ll be doing anyway, but that’s not the point. My point is that I am so glad I had a chance to start the Chilli Pepper quilt I am making for my sister. (Here’s hoping she doesn’t read my blog).

As Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Fons would say, I worked on onesies last night. I ran out of steam when I came face to face with the mountain of squares that now need to be ironed.

You don’t see any chilli pepper fabric in my onesies, you say. Here’s the fabric waiting to be cut up into large squares and triangles.

When finished, the quilt will be small enough to hang in my sister’s kitchen. It will be laid out in a barn raising fashion. This is the first time I am working with triangles. Of course, I should also mention that this is only my 2nd quilt. Thankfully, it’s just going to my sister. Goodness knows she is not going to take a magnifying glass to my work. Or at least she better not!

Knitted Gems’ Potato Salad

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OK. I realize this is a bit off topic, but I love to share my recipes. A brief explanation beforehand: I have always hated potato salad. I don’t like celery (unless it’s dipped in that lovely sour cream and onion dip) or raw onions or raw peppers or pickles (unless, they are sweet pickles). So, when my friend asked me to make a potato salad for our upcoming get-together, I explained to her why I was never going to make it. She was shocked and appalled that I would even Think of adding such horrid things like celery and raw onions. Nope, a potato salad only needs potatoes and dressing (she said). “Are you sure?” asked I. It seemed awfully boring. I asked about adding bacon for goodness knows bacon makes everything taste better. She said “No – just potatoes and dressing”.

Certain it would be too boring of a potato salad. I came up with this compromise.

Ingredients:
1 small onion, chopped
1 small green pepper, chopped
Lard (there has to be some sort of bacon in it, right?)
2 lbs red potatoes, quartered
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp potato water
1/4 tsp salt
Few dashes of hot sauce
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
1 tsp dry parsley
4 hard boiled eggs, cooled and diced

Note: If you agree with my friend about no bacon, then substitute mild olive oil for the lard.

Heat the lard in a saute pan. When hot, cook the onion till tender and golden. Set aside to cool. Heat more lard. When hot, cook the green pepper till tender. Set aside to cool. Bring the potatoes and 1 tbsp salt to boil. Then, cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes or till potatoes are just tender. Drain potatoes, keeping 2 tbsp of the water they were cooked in. Mix the potato water, vinegar, hot sauce and 1/4 tsp salt. When potatoes are cool enough to handle, slip the skins off and cube them. Sprinkle the vinegar mixture over the potatoes. Transfer the potatoes to the fridge to cool them completely.

Onto the dressing: Mix the mayonnaise, sour cream, Old Bay, parsley, cooked onion, and cooked pepper together. Add in the cooled potatoes and diced eggs. Gently toss all ingredients with a spatula.

Let salad cool for 24 hours in the fridge before serving.

And the verdict … Everybody enjoyed it, even my picky friend.

Strawberry Jam

Marie Haigh3 Comments
I couldn’t believe I had let myself run so low on my supply of strawberry jam. Every spring, I make 8 jars of strawberry jam and then spend the rest of the year smothering it onto scones, muffins and bread. Of course, I give some away too. I can’t eat 8 jars all by myself!

This year, due to the California crisis, I had skipped making the jam. I figured I would wait until the strawberries came to harvest here in Pennsylvania.

It’s summer time now and I had seen the strawberry prices drop, but I still thought I had time. There were things to knit, you see. Well, I went to smother some jam on my scones Saturday and realized that I only had enough for maybe two more slices of bread.

So, I stopped everything, and made myself jam on Sunday. I feel much better now.

Recipe: Stuffed Mushrooms

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Inspired by this recipe from Cooking.com, I made two variations of Stuffed Mushrooms.

Version 1:
Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms done My Way

  • 6 oz Bob Evans sausage
  • 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
  • 8 oz mushrooms, whole with stems removed
  • Egg, slightly beaten
  • Bread crumbs, approx 1/3 cup
  • Oil for deep frying

Cook sausage. Toss cooked sausage into a food processor. Grind up. Throw sausage back into warm pan. Add Parmesan cheese and stir until cheese is melted. Stuff mushrooms with the sausage filling. Roll mushrooms in beaten egg. Then, roll mushrooms in bread crumbs. Fry mushrooms in oil for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown.

Version 2

  • 4 oz Gorgonzola cheese
  • 3 oz Goat cheese (salad style, cut up with red peppers and spices)
  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise, divided in half
  • 8 oz whole mushrooms, stems removed
  • Egg, slightly beaten
  • 1/3 cup bread crumbs
  • Oil for deep frying

Leave cheeses out for approximately 1 hour or until at room temperature. Mix the cheeses together. Add 1/4 cup of mayonnaise to cheese mixture, beating till smooth. Divide cheese mixture in half. Place half of the mixture aside (it tastes great spread on wheat bread!). With the remaining cheese mixture, add another 1/4 cup of mayonnaise. Beat till smooth. Stuff cheese mixture into mushrooms. Roll mushrooms in beaten egg. Then, roll mushrooms in bread crumbs. Fry mushrooms in oil for 2-3 minutes or until golden brown.

And the winner?

Version 2.

As my husband would say, the cheese filling lends an explosion of flavor in your mouth that you can’t get with the sausage.

Alas, I forgot to take pictures of the two versions. We were dashing out the door at the time. I barely had time to change clothes.

Happy (belated) Memorial Day!

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I baked a cherry pie for Memorial Day. It made up for the fact that I cheated on the rest of the meal. I tossed frozen meatballs and canned spaghetti sauce into the crock pot. Voila, meatball subs. Ah shucks, they were tasty. Despite rain being forecasted for Monday, it turned out to be a lovely day. We spent the day underneath the Old Lady (Pin Oak tree) playing board games with friends (Trivia Pursuit and Cranium) and watching Jake protect our yard from those horrible squirrels.

My thanks go out to past and present Armed Forces for protecting our nation and our freedom. I’m grateful.

Gauge Woes

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As you know, I am knitting an adult size version of the Barbie shawl. As knitting rules state, one must knit a gauge first. For me, it’s especially imperitive in order to write the accompanying pattern. However, after tinkering with the mesh pattern yesterday, I am still unhappy with the outcome. The whole pattern leans to the left. (I ripped it out to save the yarn .. and plum forgot to take a pic first. I was too frustrated to see beyond the end of my nose!)

I have once again tinkered with the pattern. Today, I will knit up two version of the pattern. Here’s hoping at least one provides me with the results I am looking for. (This time I’ll be sure to take pics so you can help me decide which is the best choice).

So, as you might guess, yesterday afternoon ended on a sour note.

But, to cheer my day, I recieved a package from Laurel. It was filled with the paper I had requeseted from her destashing efforts. Along with all the paper, she even included a book: Instant Gratification Cards by Sterbenzes. It made my day! Here’s a pic of it all.

I’ll post a picture of the first card I make from this stash later this week. I’ve already laid the materials out. It will be a Hippo card. Just what everybody needs. =)

After opening up this package, I decided to tackle my hedges by the lamp post. Some of the bushes had grown over the top of the post! Enough was enough.

I believe I won the battle!

Then, just to make sure today started off on the right foot, I baked up a Berry Coffee Cake.


I think it helped. Here’s the beginnings of my next block in the “Ode to Quilting” afghan. It is one square in what will be a 9-patch block.


It looks dreadfully boring right now, but just wait.