Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

My daughter loves mashed potatoes. She even loves helping me prepare them. She likes to peel them (and half of the peel ends up on the floor instead of in the kitchen trash can). And she likes to help mash them, too.

Lately, she has been very busy with Nutcracker rehearsals. The big weekend is two weekends from now. Poor thing has been so tired lately with all the extra rehearsals (which are also very time-consuming--6 hours/day) on the weekends. This is in addition to the regular dance classes she takes during the week.

She has been asking me for mashed potatoes for dinner after she gets home from dance classes. But I've been having to say, it's 7pm already, I don't have time to make you mashed potatoes, how about something else.

Today, however, she asked me again for mashed potatoes before she left for rehearsals. Since it's a Sunday and having enough advance notice, I will be making her comfort food as part of our dinner tonight.

In addition, I will be making a vegetarian gravy. I'll be making this again for Thanksgiving dinner as well (turkey gravy will be on the Thanksgiving dinner table also).

Easy Savory Gravy, From Cooking Light Magazine (November 2002)

3 tablespoons olive oil
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 (14 1/2 ounce) cans vegetable broth
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce (this is important or the gravy may be too salty. Watch the sodium content of the vegetable broth as well)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper (or to taste)

1. Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour, cook 5 minutes or until lightly browned and fragrant, stirring constantly with a whisk. If flour browns too quickly, remove pan from heat, stir constantly until it cools.

2. Gradually add broth to pan, stirring constantly with a whisk. Stir in soy sauce and pepper, cook until thick (about 15 minutes), stirring frequently.

Yield: 12 servings (serving size: about 1/4 cup)

CrockPot Recipes--Check This Out!

Somehow I stumbled across this blog recently. A Year of CrockPotting attempts to try a new CrockPot recipe every day in 2008. If the recipe is a dud, she says so! However, it doesn't seem like there are too many of them; I have not yet caught up on all of "CrockPot Lady"'s posted recipes.

Thanksgiving is coming up, as you all know of course, and I am planning on trying the CrockPot Homemade Cranberry Sauce Recipe.

Looking forward to this Thanksgiving since my sister and her family will be coming up to stay for the weekend. We plan on having lots of fun in the kitchen! I'm going to try to get started ahead of time on as many of the dishes as I can, however, because Phil is going to have arthroscopic knee surgery the day before Thanksgiving.

If it's Fall, it's Time for Soup Season!

Like many people out there, the cool weather of fall puts me in the mood for making soups.

Last week, I was grocery shopping and saw red bell peppers on sale, one dollar each. So, I bought a few and knew right away what I would make with them. A bell pepper soup.

What I made was Southwest Roasted Red Pepper Bisque With Cilantro Cream from Cooking Light magazine. It was originally in the October 1997 issue of Cooking Light and I've made it a few times over the years. I have been a long-time subscriber of Cooking Light and have every one of their Annual Recipes cookbooks dating back from 1992. However, every time I decide to make this recipe, I never seem to remember which year to look up and I invariably have to do a search on CookingLight.com to find it. Of course, whenever I make it, I modify it somewhat by using vegetable stock rather than the chicken broth in the recipe. I especially love the cilantro cream that is dolloped on top of the soup when it is being served!

Since this recipe has such a long title, I also never seem to remember the exact name of it so when I search for it on the site, usually get several possible recipes that I have to sift through. This time around, I happened across another recipe on the website, a cream of cilantro soup. Remembering that my sister had raved about a cream of cilantro soup on her honeymoon years ago, I forwarded it to her. She tried the recipe out last weekend and you can read about it here.

So, now you have two soup recipes you may want to try. And whenever I want to make it again, I can just go back to this blog post to find the recipe :-).

Is Amish Friendship Bread Worth the Trouble?

A couple weeks ago, while waiting for my daughter at her dance studio, one of the moms walked in with zip-loc baggies of Amish friendship bread starter. She asked me if I wanted one and I said "sure".

I remember while I was a teenager, for a while my family maintained a similar starter for "Sweet Herman Bread" (perhaps it's the same except for the name).

Basically, with Amish Friendship bread (which actually tastes more like a pound cake), you receive the starter on day one. Stir it daily and then every five days feed it by adding flour, sugar, and milk.

On Day 10, make bread from the starter.

That is what I did on day 10, as you can see from the picture above. However, baking these two loaves this doesn't use up all the starter but actually multiplies it. So, you are left with some options:

1) Divide the starter and give it away to friends. This feels like a chain letter type of thing! If I had a friend over who saw my bowl of starter and expressed an interest in it, I'd be glad to give some away. However, I don't feel comfortable stalking people to get rid of it (not that I felt the other dance mom was a stalker).

2. Make a very large batch of bread. This feels like Mickey Mouse and the brooms in Fantasia.

3. Throw the starter away.

4. Put the starter in the freezer where it can lay dormant until you want to perpetuate the cycle again.

I think in my case, I will do number 4. While this bread is very tasty, I'm not sure I would say it's worth the trouble.

I would be more interested in having sourdough starter and taking care of it than constantly making sweet bread.

More information on Amish Friendship Bread can be found at wikipedia's entry here.

Also, if you google Amish Friendship Bread, you can find several recipe variations, such as cinnamon rolls, that you can use with the starter.

Sorting Through Cookbooks

I have added nearly all of my books to my Library Thing library, so what's left to add is my extensive collection of cookbooks. In the process of looking at each cookbook one by one, I am weeding out a few. I'll be taking them out of the house soon. First, what I will do is go to Cash For Books and see if they are willing to buy any from me (shipping on my end is free). What's left after that, I will take to a local used bookstore that has a generous in-store credit program. Finally, what's still left will be donated to the ARC store (Association of Retarded Citizens).

Some of these cookbooks have only about one or two recipes that appeal to me, so I photocopied them. Some were just redundant of other cookbooks I already have (like, how many cookie cookbooks do I really need?). And now I'm trying to decide how much of my annual Cooking Light cookbooks (dating back to 1992 I think) I want to keep; because I figure I can find just about any of their recipes on Cooking Light's website.

In fact, the easy accessibility of finding recipes on the internet really has changed how I use cookbooks. I find I am using them less and less often because if I want to find a recipe that uses red bell peppers, say, I can just do a search online.

Also, given increased food costs and having three children with very different tastes, I find myself less inclined to experiment.

All this is also why I decided to just get rid of most of my back issues of food magazines and also I think I will probably let most of my food-related subscriptions run out. Again, much of their contents can be found on their websites.

Does this mean I enjoy food and eating less than before? Definitely not! I just am seeing less of a need to accumulate cookbooks and food publications, that's all.

After I sort through all these cookbooks, I hope to do a blog post of the favorites that I will probably never part with.

Delicious Pear Bread!

I received this recipe via my cousin and his wife. They and many of their family members and friends participate in an annual fundraising walk-a-thon for Parkinsons (my cousin has it). They have their own walking team, "Watts Walkers". A friend of theirs brought this quick bread to this year's after-walk party. It was so delicious that my cousin and his wife sent this recipe to several of us family members, even though my family and I were unable to physically participate.

I made it last night. Very good! Now you go make it for yourself. Before you do, however, please visit the website http://www.parkinsonsresources.org/.

Beth's Pear Bread
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 large egg
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 1/2 cup grated ripe pears with juice
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Mix the dry ingredients together and set aside. Beat the egg and add oil, lemon juice, zest, and vanilla. Mix together. Stir in the pears, and then add flour a little at a time until mixed. Gently fold in the nuts. Do not over beat.

Grease a 9x5 loaf pan and add mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 min. until toothpick comes out clean.

Grocery Shopping Today

I was just at our local grocery store picking up a few things. There is a hearing-impaired employee in the produce section, so when I'm going through and if he's there working, we chat for a few minutes in sign language.

Today he told me something interesting--that one of his duties is to arrange the fruits and vegetables in an attractive manner. That is; to be sure not to group too many green-colored vegetables together. Makes sense. He said there is also a practical reason, for example they don't put red plums and black plums next to each other because the colors are too similiar and also people going through them tend to mix them up. So, you will have oranges (for example) between the two varieties of plums.

Being a quilter, I couldn't help but think that this is like arranging patches for a quilt--I would not want too many purples in one area, and/or too many similiar patterns in one corner.

Then the talk turned to apples and he mentioned honey crisp apples are in. I love honey crisp apples! He went in the back room to see if there were fresher ones, then he pointed out that the organic honey crisps were on sale ($1.99/lb) and cheaper per pound than the non-organic variety.

It helps to have someone you know in the produce section, that is for sure!