December 23rd, 2010

Today is the B-day, as in Braciole day.  My dad comes over for the afternoon and we get to cooking. 

It starts with making the sauce the day before.  I then make the breadcrumbs in the food processor.  It kills me I had to buy the parsley, basil, and thyme when I had more than I knew what to do with just last month in the garden.  But the rosemary I picked before the big snow and stored in the frig, so at least I can say that’s homegrown.  In the blender I put herbs, parmesan cheese, garlic, salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs. 

So it is flank steak, pounded out, topped with the herb breadcrumbs, prosciutto, provolone, more breadcrumbs, and hard boiled egg.  Now what?

   

Roll up the steak and secure with twine. 

Sear on all sides in a big sauce pan.  My dad has a great old school copper ring one that I love and he brings it over for the task.  This year I made a crazy mess of his pan, thank goodness for SOS brillo pads!

There they are all seared and ready to go in the oven.  I top each flank steak with a couple ladles of Bolognese sauce and a cup or so of beef broth.  Put in a 375 degree oven covered for a good hour, transfer to frig.   On Christmas we take it out of the frig, slice up, and then cook it in the combined sauce/broth for another hour. 

This is what it looks like ready to serve on Christmas. 

After my dad and I finished all our cooking and cleaned the kitchen, I was in no mood to look at or cook any more meat.  So Trent came home with the house smelling like a steak restaurant and was then served this for dinner.

Wheat bread, ricotta cheese, spinach and edamame salad, topped with an egg.  It hit the spot.  It was a far cry from what was on the table hours ago.

8 bracioles waiting to be topped with Bolognese and put in the oven.  We make extra and my dad and I keep them in the freezer for meals throughout the year.  But we learned the hard way do not put eggs in any of them you plan to freeze.  Frozen, then reheated egg does not look good, nor taste good.  Trust me.  Happy B-Day!

December 22nd, 2010

I needed to make a big batch of Bolognese sauce for the baked pasta and braciole for our Christmas meal.  I don’t think I’ve ever made a pasta sauce the same.  I don’t measure or use the same amounts of ingredients and it especially varies in the summer if I have lots of herbs and tomatoes to use up.  I only bought a pound of lean beef for a big batch, so I decided to add more carrots and mushrooms to even it out.  I also started it with a little pancetta I had in the freezer.

Added two diced onions and 5 cloves of garlic.  Then pureed mushrooms, carrots, and celery.

Add to sauce, sauté, add meat, brown, then add a couple glugs of red wine until it evaporates.  To that I added 3 big cans of crushed tomatoes, good amount of salt and pepper.  My rule of thumb is however many pounds of pasta I plan on cooking, I add one big can of crushed tomatoes and it works out every time.

And there’s the sauce.

In the big boy pot.  Apparently I finished cooking it at precisely 3:50 pm and the oven was at 167 degrees.  Good to know!

I had the oven on to bake some buns with some leftover dough I had in the frig.  Trent was still in KC and wouldn’t be back until around 8 pm.

So the girls had the buns with peanut butter and honey, some apple, and craisins.  Peanut butter and honey is pretty huge in our house. 

I had leftover spinach and artichoke pizza.  It’s pretty rare for me to cook dinner if Trent’s not home.  I don’t know why that it, but normally it’s just a night where I open the frig and pick random things to go on a plate.  It can get pretty interesting.  Back in the day when I lived by myself, my go to for dinner if there wasn’t anything worthy in the frig was a banana…with peanut butter and honey of course.

December 21st, 2010

Kirk is getting heart surgery this morning and Trent is in Kansas City with his family for a couple days.  The girls and I planned to go to Riverview in the morning to visit my Aunt Maryann and hand out cookies to the residents there.  The girls wanted to dress up for the event in one of their Christmas outfits too.  Cathy called the day before and her, Debbie, and Grandpa Coco were going to go to and hand out some gifts to the staff, so it was going to be a nice family morning.  The girls went to every floor handing out cookies and then we gave Maryann some Christmas gifts.  It was a nice morning.  I never leave Riverview feeling happy, mostly I’m frustrated, sad, and confused, but for the first time I left feeling not awful, I’ll take that.  I have a little Christmas list left with a couple errands on it and decided to tackle some since I wasn’t on any schedule.  We went to Trader Joe’s, the girls LOVE their little grocery carts and push one around feeling very adultish.  We got good news from KC that Kirk’s surgery went well, which was a relief.  I decided to stop by Macy’s at the Galleria and it was 12:30, so the girls and I had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen.

Oddly enough, none of us ordered pizza.  The girls wanted pasta and I had a salad.  The manager came by our table to ask if everything was okay and saw the girls were dressed up and asked if we were going to see Santa.  Thanks manager lady, that wasn’t on my list, but once the girls got wind the big guy was there, it was all that was on their minds.  Even worse, they wanted to edit what they asked for….3 days before Christmas.  But I was in a mellow mood and decided to skip Syndey’s nap and to spend a nice afternoon at the mall.  We had a great time and it was the first time I was in a mall for hours and didn’t have a stroller or go back to the car to get it.  Huge.

 

    

Sydney was actually frightened at first, which was surprising because she happily sat on Santa’s lap at the Sappington Nursery when we picked up our Christmas tree.  Lauren hopped up and Sydney wanted me to pick her up.  I didn’t want to push the issue, why force her to sit on a stranger’s lap, kinda the exact opposite thing I want her to think is okay.  But the minute Lauren got off Santa’s lap and had a solo picture, Sydney changed her tune and wanted to chat with Santa about adding a Buzz Lightyear to her list and not wanting the Toy Story 3 Barbie.  She knew Lauren already had this exact chat and wanted in on that action.  (damage is officially done, but after some KC store checking by Trent and Sally and Jenny internet surfing this morning…and a fun shipping charge, situation is corrected).  Again, so loving that manager at CPK.  The rest of the afternoon we wandered the mall, scoped the sales, and watched all the shoppers.  We didn’t get home until almost 5 pm and left the house at 9:15 am, I think that’s a personal record. 

The girls had the leftovers from lunch, yogurt, and fruit. 

We had Ryan and Kevin over the night before for dinner and then we all went and saw The Fighter (highly recommend, so good!).  Ryan emailed me this recipe for Tyler Florence’s Green Goddess Dressing awhile back and I decided to make that with a mixed green and shrimp salad with a ricotta, artichoke, and spinach pizza.  There are so many times when I entertain I have every intention on using it on the blog, but then once guests arrive, I completely forget.  This was one of those times.  The only picture I have is of the dressing, which I took in the afternoon.  So long story shortish, I had leftover dressing from that and made a salad for myself.

Great day, Kirk’s surgery is behind us, and the girls and I had fun out and about with the people.

December 18th, 2010

Biscotti Day! 

Chocolate Cherry Biscotti

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup chopped candied cherries
• 1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped white chocolate

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a large cookie sheet.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the almond extract. Combine the flour and baking powder; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in candied cherries and mini chocolate chips.
3. With lightly floured hands, shape dough into two 10 inch long loaves. Place rolls 5 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheet; flatten each to 3 inch width.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until set and light golden brown. Cool 10 minutes. Using a serrated knife, cut loaves diagonally into 1/2 inch slices. Arrange slices cut side down on ungreased cookie sheets.
5. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until bottoms begin to brown. Turn, and bake an additional 5 minutes, or until browned and crisp. Cool completely. Melt white chocolate in the microwave, stirring every 20 to 30 seconds until smooth. Drizzle cookies with melted white chocolate. Store in tightly covered container

I got the recipe years ago from allrecipes.com and tend not to alter it too much, but if I have regular chocolate chips, I go ahead and use those instead of the mini’s.  I serve them on Christmas day (but make a double batch because a few tend to fall off the truck…)

December 15th, 2010

Every year for the holidays I make cinnamon rolls, candied pecans, and biscotti.  Then I play around with other recipes, either ones I’ve tried before and am in the mood to revisit or a brand new one.  Trent is a huge fan of the combination of mint and chocolate and it’s just not my cup of tea.  So I found these two recipes and decided it would be a wise choice to my barely acceptable waistline to make things I wouldn’t be tempted to eat.

Peppermint Bark

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

I get easily frustrated with baking, especially new recipes.  Both were very simple and no choice words were said (quietly, of course, for the kids) and I didn’t kick the oven.  That’s pretty good for me for 2 new baking recipes in one afternoon.

December 13th, 2010

As I reach the end of this year, I feel a little bit more retrospective than normal.  This year I’m really trying to think of the things that made me happy this year because I feel it was a pretty good year.  I think alot of it comes from having the project of the vegetable garden.  It was something I loved doing from April through November, which is a big chunk of the year.  It was something the girls loved and we got to play outside together in the dirt.  Being a stay at home mom is rewarding and I feel lucky to have the gig, but I can’t help but watch my brain turn into oatmeal at times.  I’m not the type to pick up books on the formation of icebergs or delve into the life of Andrew Jackson just to exercise my brain.  Even as a child, I didn’t like the learning field trips to the Old Courthouse about historical trials or the process of removing waste at the Metropolitan Sewer District (was a for real field trip in 8th grade, I’d rather sit in science class trying to pass notes than watch poop getting processed).  But gardening interests me and I think saved a couple of brain cells from atrophy this year learning the ins and outs, successes and failures.  Coming up with my 2011 New Years resolutions, 2 at the top of my list are to order specialty seeds from catalogs, then learn how to grow transplants from seeds with lights in our basement and learn the art of canning.  Who knows how either will turn out or if I’ll drive myself crazy with it all, but it’s fun thinking about it because every time I go outside I am faced with this:

It’s just depressing.  My playground is officially closed. But mother nature did throw me a bone.

The rosemary and sage is still usable, despite the blanket of snow.

I know in no time I’ll be taking pictures like this and I’ll be stressing about how in the world I’m going to use or give away these tomatoes, but hopefully canning will come in handy and at times like this I can go downstairs and enjoy a September tomato in January. 

Completely different topic, Sydney had her Winter Party at her school.  I was in charge of snack.

Krispy Kreme snowmen donuts!! And speaking of learning, you get to watch the donuts being made at the store.  That’s some learning I can be happy about.

She made an ornament for our tree and food for Santa’s reindeer.  Good thing, we don’t want Donner to go hungry in our zip code, I hear he gets low blood sugar fairly easily. 

December 13th, 2010

My mom made cinnamon rolls quite a bit back in the day.  She would also make them on Christmas morning for all of us to eat while opening presents, they were so delicious right out of the oven with a generous pat of butter on top.  When I established our first home, I decided I wanted to tackle the art of cinnamon rolling.  I found this recipe and they have been “my” cinnamon rolls to this day. 

Cinnamon Rolls from Allrecipes.com

I don’t have a bread machine, so I just throw it all in the mixer, let rise, punch down, and then make the rolls. 

I sent them with Trent to work and plan on giving a batch to my Aunt Cathy as a little Christmas gift.  Having cinnamon rolls in the house is dangerous, but I love making them, so off they go!  I did keep 4 in a little separate container for our dessert that night.

Which we had after we finished our bean burritos with guacamole and salad.