My New Dining Room

A few years ago, someone in the neighborhood was having an open house for a flip.  I went for design ideas, since all the houses in this area are about the same age and number of rooms.  Some of the ideas did not work for my layout, but one sort-of did.

Princess the cat pretty much destroyed the living room in her 19 years.  I don't know what my mom was thinking when she decorated with white carpet and a white sofa.  "Empty Nest" comes to mind.  At least the old, gold carpet was the same color as cat pee.  From the doorway to the room, it wasn't that bad.  Once you were on the sofa, the smell and stains were obvious.  I was embarrassed to host events in there.  I even found Linus fur under the sofa cushions.  The place really needed serious rehab.

It took me almost a year to get around to redoing the room after Princess died.  Partly, I was trying to figure out what to do with such a huge space.  "Ballroom" came to mind.  Then I remembered the flipped house, and how they had turned one of the two living rooms that all the houses in this neighborhood have into a dining room.  I decided to do that, since all my gatherings are focused around food, and use the old dining room as a more intimate sitting room.  I wouldn't have to buy a new, huge sofa to fill the space, just get rid of the shredded and stained one and swap the rest of the furniture in the two rooms.

The first day was to install some decent lighting, so I wouldn't need several floor lamps anymore.  Avoiding a permit for asbestos remediation meant track lighting.  That also gives me flexibility to rearrange the lights as necessary.

Day Two, out went the furniture, carpet, and drapes.  In an hour, most of the cat smell was gone.  It took me a week to wash the smell out of the parts of the curtain assembly I wanted to salvage.  The sheers were merely dirty, but the swags had never been washed that I knew of.  Not all the pee stains came out of the side swags, but they weren't going to go well with the new wall color anyway.  I made some swags out of gold embroidered fabric I got from a garage sale.  I may pull a Sound of Music with the old swags, since it's a high-quality fabric, and make myself an outfit.

After that came the paint.  The ceiling and fireplace were refreshed a brilliant white.  The Swiss Coffee walls went a medium grey.  I'm always terrified to paint in anything other than off-white, and always thrilled with the results.  Then the carpet padding came up and the acoustics changed to an echo chamber.  So that's why the room had always been carpeted!  Here was my "ballroom".

Getting rid of the sofa was emotional for me.  All of this was, even though I knew it was necessary.  In the middle of this project was what would have been my parents' 50th wedding anniversary.  I did find a tag on one of the sectional pieces that said it was from 1989.  30 years is a pretty decent life for a white sofa in a house full of cats.  I considered reupholstering it, but the cat smell and stains were so profound that it would have had to be stripped down to the wood frame, with fresh seat cushions.  It would have cost more than a new sofa.  My area has a bulky item pickup that you can call for any week.  The first week, they took the carpet and padding.  Two more pickups, the sectional was gone.

Finally, we got to the floor.  There's beautiful oak hardwood under most of the rooms in the house, even though the builders knew that families in the 50s wanted carpet.  We just had to sand it down past the cat pee, stain, and coat.  The friend who was doing all the skilled work knows how to install three-prong outlets, so he changed all of them.  The house is slowly coming up to date.

After that came dusting off everything from the sanding, a final coat on the walls, and the baseboards.  Some grout patches to the fireplace and entry gave a cleaner look.  The structural work was done, but we had to wait a week for the floor to finish curing before moving everything in.  By this point, I really wanted the piano out of the hallway to the kitchen.  The construction part of this project took six weeks, between my schedule and Handyman Smurf's.  I should have taken off work; it would have been only two weeks.

Then came the most stressful day for me, moving all the furniture.  The china cabinet was the biggest problem, because it took me three months to realize it's taller than the door.  I wasn't living here when my parents bought it, and had no idea how it got in the room.  After a bunch of geometry, it became obvious it could not be tilted onto a furniture dolly.  I called a bunch of movers, who really didn't want to take a job moving a couple of pieces 40 feet.  I had almost committed to one, when I suddenly had an epiphany.  We would have to clear everything out of the room, lay the cabinet on its back, then tilt it on its side.  Then reverse the process once it was in the new room.  Fortunately, there was no carpet anymore between points A and B.

I was terrified the china cabinet would fall over and shatter as we were moving it.  Just because it hadn't during any earthquake in the past 25 years didn't mean we wouldn't manage to break it.  I felt a little more confident after everything was out of it and I found that even tiny me could budge the piece a little.  Once the doors were off, it didn't even seem to be that heavy.  Of course, it is, just not by comparison.  My second biggest fear in this part of the project was scratching up the freshly resurfaced floor.  Handyman Smurf had leftover polyurethane to touch up any scratches.  I bought a lot of felt furniture pads, and coasters for the piano wheels.

The piano is staying in its old spot by the fireplace, because it's totally awesome to have a piano in the dining room.  The Christmas tree will be in there seasonally, too, since there really isn't any room for it in the sitting room.  I made sure one of the track lighting lamps could be trained on it.

The rest of the remodel is going to be an ongoing process of decorative touches that I can do without paying my friend to help.  I found part of a phone book from before three-digit prefixes in the hearth planter when I emptied it out so earthquake damage (Northridge, I presume) could be fixed.  Those plastic plants have been there a while.  I should wad up a few pages of newspaper when I put in the new styrofoam base, as a time capsule.  I replaced a lovely, but dated, glass side table with a rolling cart to bring food in from the kitchen and where I can place a heating plate during dinners if necessary.  Putting it together was one of my projects while Handyman Smurf was doing all the real work.  The area rugs at Home Depot were way nicer than I was expecting.  I got one for each room and somehow we got them back in my itty bitty Yaris.  Only $300 for both, and they were just as nice as any of the other ones I was considering.

The sitting room will see considerably less work done to it.  Coffee table, rocking chair, and side table from the old living room.  Tea cart is staying where it was.  New area rug that needs to be cat-proofed with a bit of Scotchguard.  New small sofa of some sort, table lamp, and some low shelves for knickknacks will be added once my next paycheck comes in.  All that is left is to swap around existing wall hangings to wherever they now look best and have the poshest garage sale ever.

So why chronicle all of this in a blog devoted to recipes and cooking techniques?  Because now it's time to send out the tea invitations!

Barbecue Turkey-Pineapple Cheeseburgers

Sneaked this one in just in time for Labor Day barbecues.

I'm not the biggest fan of turkey burgers, so you're getting quite a bit of seasoning in these guys.  That's also where the pineapple and bbq sauce came in.  If I'd gone teriyaki, I would have skipped the cheese.  Carl's Jr's version of a teriyaki burger uses mayo and sliced cheese.  Yuk, but I digress.  I'm going more for the flavor profile of a BBQ Chicken Pizza, but ground turkey was on sale.

If you want to be totally decadent, add some bacon strips to the assembly line.  I've been eating too much bacon lately and skipped it.  You'll also notice the side salad instead of chips or something.  I'm trying.

*1 lb ground turkey
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp dried garlic granules
1/4 tsp celery salt
1/4 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp pepper
*1/4 C chopped fresh cilantro or 2 tsp dried
1/4 C finely diced onion
*1 rib celery, finely diced
4 hamburger buns
4 slices cheese of choice or shreds
lettuce, if desired
4 rings canned pineapple
about 1/4 C bbq sauce

1.  Knead together turkey, seasonings, onion, and diced celery.  Chill at least 1/2 hour, for flavors to meld.  Note that there's no salt other than the celery salt.  Poultry generally has a saline solution in it, plus you'll be getting some in the sauce.

2.  Shape turkey mix into patties, keeping in mind they shrink up into a ball as they cook.  Make them flatter and wider than you want them.  Either grill or broil until core reaches 165º.  There is no such thing as a medium-rare turkey burger.  It must be fully cooked.

3.  While the burgers are cooking, toast the buns.  I did it with the cheese curds on it, because they tend to roll off things if they're not melted.  If you use shredded cheese, I recommend that route.  Or, if you like your burger cheese melted.

4.  To assemble the burger, place a bit of lettuce on the bottom bun, followed by the patty.  Add pineapple ring, drizzle with sauce, and top with cheese and top bun.  Serve immediately.

Difficulty rating  π

Faultline Cake

Every time I think I'm done trying out cake decorating techniques, a new one becomes trendy.  Well, Bruin Smurf's birthday was coming up and she's moving closer to school in a few weeks, so I made her a cake.

Unlike the Geode Cake, you don't actually carve anything out of this one.  It just looks like you did.  And it takes a whole lot of frosting to achieve this look.  I'm not a huge frosting fan, which is why I kept putting this off and ended up buying two tubs so I'd only have to make one batch of frosting.  The optical illusion this extra layer of frosting produces is a lot of fun and open to a wide variety of interpretations, from simple sprinkles to elaborate piped designs.

There are two ways to do this cake structurally.  If you're doing a shallow filling like sprinkles, you're going to need at least three cake layers of the same diameter.  For a deeper filling like cookies, candy, or piped designs, the middle layer should be one pan size smaller.  Then you put a cake board on the top layer like a tiered cake and use supports like dowels or boba straws.  I bought sprinkles, so we're doing the first version.  Also, because the yellow cake recipe made three 6" layers of a good height.

I haven't seen any faultline cakes using fondant, but I think it would work.  Drape the whole cake, cut away the faultline, then sprinkle the crumb coat.

1.  Bake, cool, and trim a cake of 3 or 4 layers.  It's physically easier to do round, but there's no reason you can't make this square or any other shape.

2.  Secure the bottom layer to a cake circle with a dab of frosting.  Fill and crumb coat.  The bane of my cake decorating experience.  Keep the outside layer as thin as you can get it, like naked-cake thin.  Chill until very firm.  This is important.  Also, if you use marshmallow fluff as a filling, make sure it's covered.  Mine ended up leaking through.  Spoiler alert.

3.  Smear a thin layer of room temperature frosting where you want the faultline to be.  It's ok to make it a little large, because the top layer of frosting is going to cover it a bit.  Run a scraper around once to make it even.  While the frosting is soft, press on the sprinkles.  This was the first time I had tried to do a tilted sprinkle press.  It didn't go very well, and I'm going to be scraping sprinkles off the floor for a week.  Chill again to make your life easier, but if you're in a rush you can go right into the next step.

4.  Smear on a thicker layer of the final coat everywhere else.  About 1/4" thicker than the sprinkles should do it.  This is where I mixed a can of store-bought into a batch of homemade chocolate buttercream, then accidentally thinned it with a touch too much milk.  The frosting was thinner than it should have been and things got a little messy.  Run the scraper around the cake gently to achieve an even coat, but don't get all the way down to the depth of the sprinkles.  About this point, I decided to do the two-pan-size thing in the future.  During this step, some of the new frosting will splort into the faultline area.  It's ok, and makes the design look more organic.  Chill.

5.  Using edible gold or silver foil, or pearl dust mixed with a few drops of vodka, bling up the edges to make them pop.  You can paint with diluted gel color if you don't want metallic.

6.  Add any decorations you wish to the top or base.  And done!

Difficulty rating  :)

Yellow Cake

Ok, so a yellow cake isn't that different from a basic white cake.  You just use more egg.  It's like the difference between white bread and challah.  It's more moist and has a stronger structure.  It also has a higher risk of drying out, so you need to ice or freeze it as soon as it's cooled.

I'm using a recipe from House of Nash Eats, which promised it was very moist.  It also has a chocolate frosting recipe, but I got lazy and bought a couple of cans.  More on that in the next post.

This is important with any cake, but especially with one you know might get dry: don't overbake it.  Start testing for doneness at the earliest time, and go back every 5 minutes.  Remember that a cake will continue to bake for several minutes in the pan once you take it out of the oven.  It's called carryover baking, and applies to pretty much any baked good made in the oven.  You always need to pull it out just a smidge less done than you want it.

I used baking strips, and these still cracked.  The doming and cracks are not that deep, just enough for snacks or cake pop trimmings.  Just a heads up.

2-1/4 C AP flour
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 C butter, room temperature
1-1/2 C sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
1 C milk

1.  Grease and line 2 8" or 3 6" cake pans.  Preheat oven to 350º.  Start soaking baking strips, if using.

2.  In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

3.  In mixer, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, allowing each to become fully incorporated before scraping down the sides and adding the next.  Beat in vanilla.  You're going to get something that already resembles a thick cake batter.

4.  Add flour mixture and milk in stages, mixing each in on low until just incorporated.  You're using regular flour, which has a higher gluten content than cake flour and can produce big holes in the cake if you overmix it.  Once everything is in, scrape down sides and beat on medium for just about 15-20 seconds, until the batter looks uniform.

5.  Portion batter into pans.  It's thick, so I recommend using a scale.  Smooth tops to distribute batter more evenly.  Bake for 30-35 minutes for 8", 25-30 for 6", 18+ for cupcakes... or until a toothpick comes out clean and not a moment longer.  Cool in pan until you can touch it bare-handed, then turn out and remove paper lining.  Cool on wire rack entirely before frosting or freezing for later.

Difficulty rating  π

Roast Beef on Polenta

I'm getting lazy with my meal preparation.  This was going to be an amazing thing with roast lamb and an elaborate sauce.  But I've been working a lot of hours and it's a wonder I'm not at a drive-thru every evening.  This was mostly passive and used sliced beef from the deli counter.

So here's the thing about polenta.  It's just corn meal mush.  Don't pay a lot for "prepared polenta" or anything like that.  I did make my own veggie stock for this, but how hard is it to raid the broth bag and simmer for an hour?  Cooking the corn meal only takes five minutes, then it sets up in the fridge for an hour or so.  Slice and done.

1 qt vegetable or chicken stock
*1-1/4 C corn meal
salt and pepper
1/2 C shredded white cheese of choice
1/2 lb thinly sliced roast beef
prepared cream horseradish or
*1 tsp horseradish and *2 Tb plain yogurt

1.  Bring 2 C stock to a low boil.  Separately, combine other 2 C stock and the cornmeal into a slurry. Add slurry to the pot and simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Stir in cheese to melt, then pour into a buttered 8x8 pan.  I forgot to stir in the cheese curds I bought and sprinkled them on top.  Chill until firm, about 1 hour.

2.  If making your own horseradish sauce, stir together horseradish and yogurt.  Thin with milk to desired consistency (mainly if you used Greek yogurt).

3.  Slice firmed cornmeal into sticks and plate.  If desired, they can be sautéed in butter to crisp first.  Top with torn slices of beef and a dollop of sauce.  Serve chilled to room temperature.

Serves 8-12 as an appetizer

Difficulty rating  π

Chocolate Ricotta Sandwiches

The only thing I've made out of the Chocolate cookbook my friend gave me is the honeycomb.  I went through and tabbed recipes.  Not as many made the cut as I would have expected from a book devoted to chocolate.  The biggest hindrance to making most of them was that I didn't feel like buying the ingredients.  There are a lot of specialty one-offs in most of the recipes.  Then there was the reason that I already have a version of whatever recipe on this blog and did not feel the need to make it.

These cookies are mostly made with stuff I already had.  I even had just 1/4 C almond flour left.  I'm going to post the ricotta filling, but as you can see from the photo I used marshmallow fluff out of the jar.  The ricotta filling is a standard cannoli filling, and probably tastes great, but I was making these to freeze the cookie part and pull out as needed.  The filling cannot be frozen, and lasts maybe a week in the fridge, but fluff in a jar can hang out in the pantry almost indefinitely.  If I make these to take to a Christmas party or something, I'll definitely do the filling.

I was expecting these to spread out and be crisp because of the high ratio of butter and sugar to flour, but this got a bit excessive.  The first sheet ran together into almost a solid mass.  I was very glad I had decided to bake that sheet while the rest of the dough firmed back up.  The recipe didn't need that much help to look like the photo in the book, so I'm adding half a cup of flour (because I like a fluffy cookie; use 1-1/4 C for thin), a wee bit more baking powder, and the recommendation to re-chill them once shaped.

Cookies
1-1/2 C flour
*1/4 C almond flour
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1-1/2 C sugar
3/4 C unsalted butter (or margarine and omit the salt above)
1 egg

Filling
1/2 C ricotta cheese
4 oz (1/2 brick) cream cheese
1 Tb sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla


1.  Place flour, almond flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt (if using) and sugar in food processor.  Pulse to combine.  Add butter in chunks and the egg.  Process until mixture comes together as a soft dough.

2.  Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes (or freeze up to 1 month).

3.  When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375º.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment or Silpat.

4.  Roll level tablespoons of dough into balls and place on prepared sheets about 2" apart.  Yes, they're small, but they spread out and you get two per sandwich.  Flatten sightly.  Chill tray for 10 minutes.  Bake 8-10 minutes, until not quite firm in the middle.  You can't go by color with a chocolate cookie.  Rotate baking sheets halfway through for even baking.

5.  Let the cookies cool for 2-3 minutes, until firm enough to move.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

6.  While they're cooling, make the filling.  Beat together both cheeses, sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla with a spoon until smooth.

7.  Place a dollop of filling between two cookies and lightly press together.  Serve immediately.  Naked cookies can be stored in a sealed container for several days or freezer for a month.  Filling can be refrigerated up to a week; you'll need to beat it again into a spreadable consistency.  Once filled, cookies last no more than 4 hours at room temperature and should not be refrigerated.  (If you go the marshmallow fluff route, you can keep them out a full day.)

Makes about  18-20 filled cookies

Difficulty rating  π

Exotic on a Dime

Now that I'm experimenting with new cuisines and ingredients, my grocery bills have gone up.  There can be entire recipes that I don't have a single ingredient on hand and have to start from scratch.  At some point, it will even out.  Until then, I'm getting creative and trying to be a smart shopper.

Some ingredients are universal, or close enough.  Flour, rice, most vegetables, chicken...stuff like that.  There will sometimes be a type of fish or cut of meat that's a little harder to find, but even supermarkets now carry international fruits and veggies.  You do have to be willing to pay a little extra for the imported stuff.  I make it up in something simple, like eggs or beans.  What really makes an international dish unique is the combination of herbs and spices in that area's cuisine.

When it comes to spices, I have three economical sources.  The brand It's Delish! is California local and less expensive per ounce.  They also sell in larger quantities, so I generally only buy something that I know I'll use a lot, like cinnamon or paprika.  The best part about this brand is that they do KLP spices at that time of year.  I'm not super strict about my spices being KLP, but if it's something that lasts me roughly a year, I might as well buy it then.

The second source is the spice rack at Sprouts, where I can experiment with small quantities of something new or that I may never use again.  If the checkout scale can't weigh it because I bought so little, the cashier often gives it to me for free.  (I always suggest they weigh all my spices together and use the most expensive one as a basis, but no one has taken me up on that yet.)  It's also where I get my loose leaf tea.  They carry the hard-to-find Darjeeling and even a masala chai-flavored blend.

The third spice source is the Tampico brand.  They carry spices common in Mexican cuisine and farther south.  I finally found the star anise for my masala chai at 1/10 the price of the standard brand.  Perhaps the quality is a touch less, but probably not.  The last bag of dried parsley I opened smelled perfectly fresh.

Then, of course, there's my fennel seed farm out back.  That stuff needs to be so much cheaper in the market than it is.  I let one single plant go to seed, and I'm going to end up with at least a pound.  I have a few heads drying in a bag now, and a few more to cut this week.  Even the 99¢ that Tampico charges for 3 ounces sounds like a ripoff.  I guess you're paying for the 6-8 months that it takes for the plant to go through the maturation process.  The plant also attracts tons of bees, so it's good for pollinating everything in your garden as a bonus.  I'm also going to end up with a full year's worth of coriander seed, but only because I had the best year yet of cilantro.  Can't wait for my pickling cucumbers to mature!

For unusual produce and cuts of meat, you just have to shop the sales and know your markets.  Ethnic grocery stores are often havens for items you would not necessarily consider part of that cuisine.  You never know until you visit one.  I feel like 99 Ranch carries every type of cabbage that exists.  They also tend to have game meats that you don't think of as Asian, like venison and rabbit.

Don't be afraid to try a recipe because you don't recognize an ingredient.  That's what the internet is for.  The "near me" addendum to a search can be very useful.  It may send you to Whole Foods, but at least they have it.  Or, you may discover a new market nearby, down a street you never use, that opens a whole new world of cooking opportunities at a reasonable price.  You never know.

Fennel and Tomato Tart

My Roma tomatoes this year are my largest yet, though not quite as big as the ones in the market.  Close, and there's a lot of them.  I expect too many to ripen at once, so I can do a batch of oven-dried tomatoes.

The first few tomatoes combined with the last fennel bulb as the main ingredients of this very summery tart.

The tomatoes can go onto this raw if they're thinly sliced, but you have to cook the fennel first.  Caramelized with the shallot, this whole tart turns into the sweetest vegetable pie you've ever had, no sugar added.

There's also a decent amount of cheese involved.  I put the powdered parmesan stuff in the crust with chopped fennel frond, then sprinkled shredded mozzarella on the pie itself.  This isn't a pizza, and I didn't add the eggs needed for a quiche, but you get something richer than a bruschetta.

Room temperature or slightly warm, this can be a light lunch by itself.  Pair it with a bit of fish, chicken, or a salad, and you have dinner.

Crust
1 tsp sugar
2 Tb water
*1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 C flour, chilled
*1/4 C grated parmesan
*2 Tb fennel fronds
2 Tb shortening, chilled and in cubes
1/4 C butter, chilled and in cubes
1/2 tsp salt
a few turns of cracked pepper
more chilled water as necessary

1.  Stir together sugar, water, and vinegar until sugar dissolves.  Chill.

2.  In bowl of food processor, pulse together flour, parmesan, salt, pepper, and fennel.  I subbed 1/4 C whole wheat flour, which darkens my crust slightly.

3.  Pulse in shortening until mixture is sandy.  Pulse in butter until about halfway broken down.  Add water mixture and pulse until it comes together.  If still too crumbly to form into a ball, pulse in cold water a couple of teaspoons at a time.  Crust can go from dry to soggy very quickly.

4.  Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.  This rests the dough and allows all the flour to hydrate evenly.

5.  Roll out dough and place in a tart pan with removable bottom.  Mine happens to be a 10" round.  You can use whatever shape you have.  Chill until ready to use.  I made mine a day ahead and put it in the freezer.  As for the scraps, roll them out thinly, cut into squares, and bake as crackers.  They make excellent parmesan crisps!

Tart
*1 fennel bulb
1 shallot
1 Tb butter (the real stuff works better for this)
1/2 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
*1/2 C shredded mozzarella
*1/2 lb Roma tomatoes

1.  Thinly slice fennel and shallot in "rings".  Reserve a bit of chopped fennel frond for later.  The fennel will break into celery-like slices as you go.  Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat and add vegetables.  Sauté until they start to soften, stirring frequently.  Add sugar, salt, and pepper and cook until very soft and caramelized.  Set aside.

2.  Thinly slice tomatoes crosswise.  Preheat oven to 375º and get your crust out of the freezer.

3.  Layer on the shredded cheese first, to prevent it from burning and to provide a moisture shield for the crust.  Spread on cooked fennel mixture, then arrange tomato slices.  Sprinkle top with reserved fennel fronds.  Bake until crust is done, about 30 minutes.

4.  Allow to cool until crust is set, then remove tart from pan.  Slice and serve.

Serves about 6

Difficulty rating  :-0

Cashew Chicken

I used to make recipes out of the Sunset Oriental Cook Book quite a bit when I was in college.  Not so much lately, and I'm realizing it's because I tend to cook leaner nowadays.  Asian food is pretty good for you, especially if you're lactose or gluten intolerant, but there can be quite a bit of oil and fat in there.  I don't stir-fry nearly as much as when I was in my 20s and had no idea how to cook meat safely.

The time commitment in most Asian dishes is in the prep, and this recipe is no different.  It's designed to be cooked table-side in an electric wok.  You can do it just as easily in the kitchen in a skillet over any kind of stove.  The ingredients don't have to be plated as artfully when you do that.

If you can find "chicken breasts for stir fry", go for it.  The extra dollar per pound over standard boneless/skinless is worth it.  I bought the stage before that, thin-cut boneless/skinless breasts, because it was the closest to the weight I wanted.  Cutting that into strips and squares only took a couple of minutes.  Anything that low fat and pumped full of saline will get freezer burn easily, so I only bought what I wanted to use.

You'll note that the recipe calls for Chinese peas in the pod.  That's so you can pick them up with chopsticks.  There weren't any in the frozen section, the fresh ones cost almost as much as the chicken, and I had already sunk a lot of money into this recipe, so I made the executive decision to use regular frozen peas and a fork.

1 lb boneless/skinless chicken breasts
1/2 lb Chinese peas in the pod or 1 C regular frozen peas
1/2 lb mushrooms
4 green onions
1 can sliced bamboo shoots
1 C reduced sodium chicken stock
1/4 C soy sauce
2 Tb cornstarch
1/2 tsp sugar
salt to taste
1/4 C vegetable oil
4 oz whole cashew nuts

1.  Slice chicken 1/8" thick, then cut in 1" squares.  If using fresh peas, remove the ends and strings.  Wash and slice mushrooms (or buy sliced).  Slice white parts of onions 1/4" thick; cut greens 1" long.  Drain bamboo shoots.  Mix together soy sauce, cornstarch, and sugar into a slurry.

2.  Heat 1 Tb oil over medium in a large skillet with a lid (or a wok).  Add nuts and cook, shaking pan, until lightly toasted.  Remove from pan and set aside.

3.  Add remaining oil and the chicken.  Cook, stirring frequently, until opaque on all sides.  Add peas, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots.  Pour in the broth, cover, and simmer until the mushrooms are as done as you like them.  For me, that was about 10 minutes, but I don't like any hint of raw mushroom.

4.  Stir the soy sauce slurry again, then add to the liquid in the skillet.  Stir and cook until thickened.  The sauce will be a little gelatinous.  Taste and add salt if necessary.  Add the green onions and nuts.  Serve hot, maybe with rice or other Chinese side dishes.

Difficulty rating  :)

Blueberry-Cherry Jam

I have gotten into having English muffins for breakfast.  They're tearing through my jam supplies, and I'm still determined to have my tea party before the Autumnal Equinox.  So, when that magical week hit that the 18oz packs of blueberries were $1.88 and cherries were $1.49/lb, I snapped up a package of each. All that was left was to decide what flavors to combine with them.

I've been kind of obsessed with cardamom since my first adventures into Indian cuisine.  It has that lovely tea-like aroma and an umami depth, even in pastries.  I decided that was just the right thing to add to this jam.  Feel free to change it up for ginger, cloves, cinnamon, or even a savory herb or orange peel.

I suggest wearing red or purple, or at least an apron, when you make this.  If you're stupid enough to wear a white skirt, OxyClean laundry spray does a remarkable job of getting out the stain.  I wasn't expecting it to.  I don't get anything from them for saying this; it just worked.

18 oz blueberries
8 oz cherries, weighed after pitting
2 C sugar
*1 Tb pectin
*3 Tb lemon juice
*1 tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp ground cardamom (optional)

1.  Wash the blueberries and mash them in a bowl with a fork or potato masher.  Chop the cherries into halves or smaller.

2.  In a wide-bottomed pot, combine the sugar and pectin.  Add the fruit and stir to mix.  Allow to sit and macerate until the sugar has dissolved, 5-10 minutes.

3.  If canning, prepare jars for a yield of just under two pints.  I did three half-pint jars and had two 4oz jars ready.  Only needed one.  Start a boiling water bath and warm lids in simmering water.

4.  Bring fruit mixture to a boil over medium heat.  Boil about 15 minutes, skimming foam as necessary, until candy-looking bubbles start to break about 1/4" across.  There are more scientific ways of determining set, like temperature or the frozen-plate test, but I've learned how to eyeball it based on the bubbles.  Add lemon juice, zest, and cardamom and return to a boil until jam is glossy, bubbles are about 1/2" diameter, and the mixture sheets off the spoon.

5.  Ladle mixture into hot jars.  Wipe rims clean, center warm lids, and screw on bands finger-tight.  Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes.  Remove from pot and allow to cool to room temperature.  Any jars with failed seals can be refrigerated or frozen.  When cool, remove rims, wipe jars clean, and store away from heat and sunlight for up to 1 year.

Makes about 3-1/2 cups

Difficulty rating  π for refrigeration/freezing, :) for canned

Steak Medici

I haven't made steak in a long time.  Being a part-time vegetarian, I didn't realize how much a nice cut of meat costs.  Most of the beef I buy is either ground or some kind of roast/stew meat.  Once I got over the sticker shock of $10.99/lb for boneless top sirloin, I had to face up to $16 for the port.  At least the latter will last for quite some time, or until I ever get around to this year's tea party.  That's on hold while I remodel a room.  The tea should be its grand reveal.

I was actually doing comparisons on a different recipe from a couple of the cookbooks, when I turned to a page in the Bible I had never used.  Going online for variations, this seems to be the prevailing one and possibly an invention of GH.  As far as I'm concerned, that counts for this blog topic.  I'll do the roast I was originally researching when I have a full day to commit to it.

4 Tb butter or margarine
4 beef top loin steaks, boneless, 3/4" thick (about 24 oz)
1/2 lb sliced mushrooms
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 C ruby port wine
chopped parsley for garnish (or, if you forgot to put parsley on your shopping list, whatever fresh herb you have around)

1.  In 12" skillet over medium-high heat, melt 2 Tb butter.  Brown steaks on both sides, about 3 minutes per side for rare.  I'm on the medium end of the spectrum and went for 5.  Remove steaks to a serving platter and keep warm.

2.  In same skillet, lower heat to medium and melt the remaining butter.  Add the mushrooms and salt.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the mushrooms are tender.  They will give off a lot of water.  If you want a thicker sauce, turn up the heat and let it reduce.

3.  Add the wine, scraping the bottom to loosen any browned bits.  That's called deglazing.  It also gives most of the alcohol a moment to burn off.

4.  Pour mushroom and wine mixture over steaks.  Garnish with chopped fresh parsley and serve hot.

Difficulty rating  π