Pickles!

August 2, 2007 By Carole

We had a bumper share of cucumbers from the CSA this week so when I got home from work yesterday I decided to try making refrigerator pickles.

I took my inspiration from a recipe at Coconut & Lime but then I sort of made it my own. I used the jar that I usually make pickled eggs in and quartered up all the cucumbers and threw them into it.

Then I added 8 cloves of sliced garlic, a few handfuls of pickling spice, some salt and lots of fresh dill. I filled the jar halfway with water and then filled it the rest of the way with white vinegar.

Don’t they look pretty in the sunlight?

Now they are tucked away in the fridge. These were super easy to make. The hard part is going to be waiting a week until they are ready to eat!

Eating Local. Sort Of.

July 19, 2007 By Carole

As I mentioned last week, I signed up for One Local Summer. I figured with the CSA this would be a snap. But you know what? Eating local isn’t as easy as it sounds. I’m motivated and I’m trying but it’s the middle of July and I haven’t put a completely local meal on the table yet. Sigh.

This is the closest I’ve gotten. Swiss Chard Quiche, tossed salad and steamed kohlrabi. Everything is local except for the pie crust ingredients (although I did make the pie crust myself) and the cheddar cheese in the quiche. And it was delicious. The quiche was made with local organic eggs and milk and the dressing for the salad was made with herbs from my sister-in-law and the kohlrabi was a new vegetable for my family. We enjoyed it all.

The share we picked up yesterday including a huge amount of zucchini, both green and yellow, and cucumbers. Anyone got a good pickle recipe?

Comfort Food

March 8, 2007 By Carole

As I may have mentioned a time or two, I take great comfort in serving delicious food to my family and friends. While this may account for my current XL size, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t benefit from my extensive research in this area. So, allow me to show you what we had for dinner on Monday night.

Chicken Tomato Stroganoff

2 lbs boneless chicken breast cut into bite-sized pieces
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
2 cans Cream of Mushroom Soup
2 cans stewed tomatoes
salt, pepper, basil to taste
1 lb cooked pasta
8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

Brown chicken and mushrooms in olive oil. Stir in soup, stewed tomatoes, salt, pepper and basil. Bring to a boil and then mix with the cooked pasta. Pour into a casserole dish and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes.

Simple and certainly not fancy but very, very good. Maryse, you really missed out.

Oscar Food

February 27, 2007 By Carole

It wasn’t all about the shrimp at the Carole Knits Oscar party on Sunday night. We also had something that I know my fellow Rhinebeck attendees will be interested in. We had Arthichoke French.

Shortly after returning from Rhinebeck I searched out a recipe for this delicious way of eating artichokes. I cobbled together a few different things from the internets and came up with this.

3 cans artichokes
flour
3 eggs, beaten
Garlic
3/4 stick Butter
White Wine
Parmesan Cheese
Lemon Juice

Drain the artichokes and cut them in half. Dredge them in flour and then dip in the beaten eggs. Heat up some olive oil and a couple of cloves of garlic in a fry pan (I use cast iron, of course) and then fry the artichokes until browned. Place artichokes in a baking dish.
In a small sauce pan melt the butter. When the butter is melted pour in some white wine and then add some lemon juice. Let this boil for a bit until it’s reduced by about half and then pour it over the artichokes. Grate some Parmesan cheese over the whole thing and put it in the oven at 350 for about 30 minutes. Serve with French bread.

This is almost as good as the stuff we had at Rhinebeck and it makes a great appetizer or side dish. Enjoy!

Happy Cream Puff Day

February 15, 2007 By Carole

In Dale’s family, Valentine’s Day is affectionately called “Cream Puff Day.” I still remember our first Valentine’s Day together, back in 1997. Dale and I used to meet at his house for lunch every day back then and he greeted me at the back door with a plate of cream puffs and the exclamation, “Happy Cream Puff Day, baby.” I asked him why we had cream puffs on Valentine’s Day and he said he didn’t know why but his mother always made them and it was a tradition.

Me being a librarian, I had to know the whole story so I walked next door and asked Dale’s mother, Ruthie, to explain the cream puff tradition. She told me that it dated back to Valentine’s Day, 1948. She and Dale’s father, Jack, who was in the Air Force, were stationed in Roswell, New Mexico (yes, that Roswell – but that’s another story) and she was pregnant with her first baby. They had no money to buy Valentines for anyone and she really wanted to do something special for the guys in Jack’s unit. So she turned to her cookbooks and looked for something she could bake to give as gifts to these men. She found a recipe for cream puffs and realized that she had all the ingredients on hand and they sounded pretty simple to make. And a tradition was born.

By the time I came along, Ruthie was making dozens of cream puffs every Valentine’s Day. She complained about how much work it was and how much time it took to make so many but I’m pretty sure she secretly loved the task. She made them for her and Jack plus their kids and grandkids. I was horrified when I realized that none of Dale’s kids even liked the cream puffs but Dale never told his mother because then she wouldn’t have given him as many. Then I tasted one and realized that sometimes a little deception is a wonderful thing.

During the last few years of Ruthie’s life, she was unable to make the cream puffs anymore. Jack, wanting to carry on the tradition, purchased them from a bakery instead but they just weren’t as good as Ruthie’s. So last year, on the first Valentine’s Day without dear Ruth, I made the cream puffs. I was a little hesitant to do this. After all, I’m not Ruthie’s daughter, I’m just her daughter-in-law and it seemed like I was maybe overstepping my bounds by taking on a family tradition as deep as this one. But Dale encouraged me to go for it and Jack said it would be okay – so I did it. I’ll never forget the look on Jack’s face when he tried one and said they were as good as Ruthie’s. And Dale’s sister Lisa’s eyes filled with tears when she took a bite of hers, so I guess I did okay by Ruthie’s cream puffs.

And now, somehow, this has become my tradition, too.