Following a Recipe: Nana's Mashed Turnip by DARIA K

The organic farm share that we bought into this year gives us boxes of veggies, but they don't have any kind of invoice or information about what veggies they are.

I suppose that they think that if you spend good money on a few months of vegetables, then you are someone that knows what they look like and what to do with them.

Well, I fooled them. :)

I don't know the difference between a turnip and a rutabaga. After searching the internet, I think that the box that they gave me recently contained a few turnips and a rutabaga. I thought they were all turnips, so I used the big "turnip" and followed Nana's Mashed Turnip Recipe by DARIA K. It turned out WONDERFUL! So, this is actually a rutabaga recipe too.

I'd show you a picture of what these mashed yummy things looked like, but we all ate it up before I could snap a picture.

Nana's Mashed Turnip Recipe (turned into a mashed Rutabaga Recipe and slightly changed)

• 1 large rutabaga
• 3 white potatoes
• 1/4 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2.  Peel the rutabaga and the potatoes.
3. Cut up the rutabaga and potatoes into cubes or cube like objects. (It doesn't matter, you are going to mash them anyway.)
4. Put them all in a pot, and add enough water to just cover them.
5. Boil the water, and then cook them for 25-30 minutes.
6. Pour them out into a strainer, and then put them back in the pot.
7. Add milk, 2 tablespoons butter, salt, pepper, and sugar.
8. Mash them up.
9. Put the mixture in a baking dish, put some butter on top, and then put on a loose cover. (I used foil that wasn't tight.)
10. Bake for 15 minutes, and then take the cover off. 
11. Bake for 8 minutes with the cover off, or until things are slightly golden brown.

Verdict: 

These were super easy to make, and folks devoured them. I was surprised to find out that I loved them. It is like eating mashed potatoes, but with a bit of spicy special zing in the mix. Super yummy! I liked these so much that I want to grow rutabagas now.

~ Patty :)

Following a Recipe: Roasted Beets and Sauteed Beet Greens by " BN61079"

(Okay, this is actually a post that is current! I did this tonight!)

I don't remember ever eating beets in my life, and I certainly haven't wanted to do it.

This summer we bought a share in an organic community farm, and they sent three beets to us in the last box of groceries. The beets were the whole plants, with slightly wilted looking greens attached. I looked at them perplexed, and pretty much resigned myself to the idea that they would be rotting in the compost heap soon.

I mean, beets? Wilty beet greens? BLECH!

I asked my ex-husband if he ever liked beets or had a way to cook them, and he said no.

I asked my husband if he knew how to cook them, and he said that they were really yummy pickled (and that you could also roast them and saute the greens).

Well, that didn't sound appealing at all.

That said, my husband is pretty busy these days and I wasn't sure he'd get around to cooking the beets.

My curiosity started to take root.

I found Roasted Beets and Sauteed Beet Greens by "BN61079"  on allrecipes.com, and I figured that I'd give it a go. I didn't even attempt to make everything at the same time, as my brain would have broken. I adapted things just slightly.

Mildly Tweaked Beets and Greens

3 beets (with greens attached)
4 Tablespoons olive oil
2 1/2 cloves garlic
2 Tablespoons chopped red onion
butter
salt
pepper

The roasted beet. It smells like dirt.

The Beet Part

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Cut the greens away from the beets, and put them to the side.
• Then wash the beets, and cut off the tough tops and weird little rooty bottom bits.
• Put all of the beets in a baking dish (like a ceramic corningware dish with a glass top).  Honestly, I didn't even remember I had one of those.
• Add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil, and kind of roll the beets around in it. You might want to use some kind of implement for that, or you'll get olive oil hands (like I did). 
• Cover and cook for 70 minutes. (The recipe called for 45-60 minutes, but that didn't seem to be enough time in my oven or with my cookware.)
• Check to see if the beets are done by sliding a knife into the biggest beet you have in the dish. It should slide in super easy and cut down without resistance. 
• Remove outer skin from beets, and chop them up into bits. 
• Add butter, salt, and pepper to taste.

Cooked and chopped up!

It looks like a massacre on a plate.

 

The Beet Greens Part

• Cut the leaves free from the thick stems.
• Wash all of the greens, and stack them in a bowl.
• Tear leaves up into small 1-2 inch sections, and tear free of center stem while you do it. If there are very tiny and tender leaves, just keep the center stem in.
• Cut up garlic cloves (after peeling them). My garlic had started growing, so I also removed the green plant from the center. The recipe said to "mince" garlic, so I just cut it into sort of small pieces. 
• Cut up red onion into small pieces. I failed to check the refrigerator to see that I already had one slightly cut up, so now I have two sliced onions. So, this is a reminder to check next time!
• Put onions and garlic on some kind of saucer.
• Put about 2 Tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet, and then heat it. My stove doesn't have "medium-low". It has Lo, 1-9, and High. I used 3 or 4, although I can't remember which. Either way, heat the olive oil and then add the onions and garlic. I waited until the stuff was "sizzling" pretty good, and then let them go on for a minute. 
• Add the greens, sort of evenly over the sizzling stuff. Then, take a safe object and stir things. (I used a silicone spoon dealie.) 
• Stir around pretty actively until it seems like things are darker and soft. I erred on the side of caution, and maybe didn't cook mine quite enough. 
• Add salt and pepper to taste!

These actually look pretty!

On the plate, with some salt and pepper.

Verdict:

I tried the greens first, as they were finished far before the beets. I wanted to wait and eat them both together, but I just couldn't contain myself. I ate every last bit myself. That's right. I didn't even wait to share it with someone else. They were surprisingly yummy, and we didn't have very many (since there were just the three beets). I think that if I had more beet greens, I would add more garlic and onions. (So, for every three beets that have greens I'd use what I did above). I would definitely want them again!

The beets took a long time to cook, and they smelled like dirt. I didn't like the way the kitchen smelled, and they were a pain to peel. I don't know if I had to do that...but I did. Any advice about that? They also leave messy purple/red stains all over. That said, served with some real butter, salt, and pepper...they charmed me. They are sort of sweet and interesting. I don't know how far I'd go out of my way to eat them, but they did turn out well (as far as I know).

Caution: I have never eaten beets before, and I may have destroyed these and simply liked the taste of utterly ruined beet.

~ Patty :)

Anadama bread

The second loaf that I've made...and super yummy!

This is another one of those posts that is mostly for me, and any other poor soul with an an ancient Regal Kitchen Pro Breadmaker model K6725. I'm preserving this recipe, as I'm likely to lose the booklet that came with it.

I figure that many of you talented folks may be able to adapt this as well, so here we go! (If you do adapt this, let me know! I hope to learn to make bread without a machine next.)

Anadama Bread

6 to 8 ounces water
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter (or margarine)
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup corn meal
2 3/4 cups bread flour
2/3 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

Remember to get all of the ingredients to room temperature first! It took a few tries, but I realized how important this little fact happened to be to the process, and now my bread is nicer.

With this breadmaker, you add liquids and salt first.
Then you add dry ingredients.
Then you make a little well on top and add yeast.

Select the Sweet setting, select medium crust, and press start.

When the timer blinks zeros, stop the machine and take the bread out right away.

For those that want to adapt this recipe and have talent, I'll tell you that this makes a 1 1/2 to 2lb loaf, and the Sweet setting makes the whole thing last about 2 hours and 50 minutes from start to finish.

Verdict:

This is a pretty nice tasting bread, and it smells great when it is cooking. Folks in the house tend to eat it up swiftly, and my daughter asks for it by name now.

I learned about cutting bread, and that made everything a lot better too.

Yeah, I really just said that.

I'd been trying to cut bread with a small and crappy serrated knife, and usually trying when it was too hot. Now? My dad bought me a bread knife, and so I have a large nice knife to cut through the bread when it has cooled. That makes a big difference!

It is the little things in life, ya know?

~ Patty :)

Pisa Bread

This one isn't going to be very useful to anyone but me, unless you happen to have a Regal Kitchen Pro Breadmaker model K6725.

See how I just made that google possible? If you have one of these ancient machines, welcome to the club.

I didn't create this recipe. It came with the used bread maker that was given to me for free. I'm sure I'll lose the darn booklet, so I'm going to write out the recipes that I like or try.

Regal Kitchen Pro Breadmaker #K6725

The only change I made was using grated Romano cheese instead of Parmesan. Oh, and onion powder instead of onion flakes.

I call this stuff "Pisa Bread", because it seemed a bit structurally unsound. All of the cheese sort of lumped together funny in places too. I may not have grated it finely enough to be reasonable for this recipe.

Tastes wonderful, but didn't work out exactly right.

Pisa Bread

9-11 ounces water
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1/4 cup Romano Cheese (or Parmesan)
1 tablespoon dried parsley
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons dried onion powder (or flakes)
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

The important thing that I didn't do was use ingredients that were room temperature. That made the yeast act weird, so don't do that.

I also didn't wait for the bread to cool all the way, and I didn't have a proper bread knife. So, I was sort of doomed.

With this breadmaker, you add liquids and salt first.
Then you add dry ingredients.
Then you make a little well on top and add yeast.

Select the French setting, select medium crust, and press start.

When the timer blinks zeros, stop the machine and take the bread out right away.

For those that want to adapt this recipe and have talent, I'll tell you that this makes a 1 1/2 to 2lb loaf, and the French setting makes the whole thing last about 3 hours and 50 minutes from start to finish.

~ Patty :)

Out of Order

I decided to start this blog so that I could keep track of the things that I have been doing/learning. The only problem is that kickstarting it means adding things in a jumble.

So, shampoo and cookies have come first! hah

I have some bread, meat, and sewing stuff to add soon.

I sort of feel like I'm unpacking. Everything is a mess, and this isn't really home yet!

~ Patty :)

Modular Oatmeal Cookies Recipe

I tinker with stuff, as that is how I learn.

So, I started off looking at the Thick, Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Recipe by Deb at Smitten Kitchen. I liked her style, as she basically wanted to take the Quaker's Best Oatmeal Cookies by Quaker Oats recipe and make it her own.

I love oatmeal cookies, and I like them chewy. I do not like raisins in them though, and I like them sweeter.

I have come up with a modular recipe that I have adapted into several kinds of oatmeal cookies now.

Basic Modular Oatmeal Cookies

1/2 stick (1/4 cup) margarine
1/2 stick butter (softened in the microwave for about 15 seconds)
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups Quaker Oats (or similar)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In one bowl mix butter, margarine, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla.
(If you are making Module One, add syrup. If you are misguided and making the horrid Module Three, make adjustments to vanilla and add extract.)

Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in another bowl.
(If you are making Module Three, just stop and think about how much you have to live for and how good other things are to eat. If that hasn't convinced you to stop and re-evaluate your life, keep going and make adjustments to cinnamon.)

Combine these bowls and mix them. Add oats and mix. (If you are making Module One or the amazing Module Two, add the nuts or white chocolate chips now and fold them in.)

Bake at 350 on cookie sheets with parchment paper. Check at 9 minutes. Take out around 10.5 minutes. Let the cookies sit for 5 minutes on the warm sheet, and then remove to cooling rack.

Module One plus Module Four

Module One: White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Oatmeal Cookies (with additional Module Four Icing)

1/3 cup crushed raw macadamia nuts

A "splash" of Torani White Chocolate Syrup (or similar). I hear that the sauce is better than the syrup, but I had some around and that is what I used.

These are fairly yummy. I recommend the nuts. I am on the fence about using Torani syrup.

Add icing, or not.

These are the stuff! Make Module Two!

Module Two: White Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Up to 2 cups of White Chocolate Chips

These are my favorite cookies, hands down!

Module Three: Image Too Horrid to Share
(This is my sense of humor showing, so if it bothers you...jump ship now!)

Module Three: White Chocolate Rum Oatmeal Cookies

Go with the 1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract and 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon options.
Add about 1/4 teaspoon of rum extract.

I found these to be horrid. My ex husband described them like this, "These have some kind of strange taste in them."

 Module Four: You Can Totally Do Better Than This Icing (Cinnamon and Huckleberry Edition)

 

Powdered Sugar
Milk
Salt

You pick about how much powdered sugar you think you'll need, then add milk until it turns into something that will be a glaze. Add a touch of salt. Add Cinnamon or Torani Huckleberry Syrup.

Drizzle this over oatmeal cookies and wait for glaze to set up.

Verdict:

Make Module Two, or riff off of the Basic recipe and make something a heck of a lot better. The White Chocolate Oatmeal cookies are AMAZING.

~ Patty :)

Following a recipe: Chocolate Awesomes by Kate from Scratch

I am nearly 40 years old, and I've avoided cooking stuff most of my life. I realize that is a heck of a privilege, even if I mostly ate at fast food joints.

I'm at the point where I want to learn to cook things for myself though, and so I try to chose recipes that I can succeed at fairly easily.

I decided to try Chocolate Awesomes by Kate from Scratch. I made a few changes, but they shouldn't have been that big of a deal.

My cookies didn't turn out looking anything like her cookies.

Here are mine:

They sort of look just like Chocolate Chip Cookies, don't they?

Verdict: 

These taste pretty good, if you like chocolate chip cookies. They are very rich and have a super texture. My daughter has been asking for them, and they seem to be disappearing fast. My husband and my ex-husband both seem to enjoy them a lot. I'm not a huge fan of chocolate chip cookies, but I've eaten my fair share of these...although maybe just out of boredom. I think they are sort of chocolate chip cookies for those that like dark chocolate and really rich desserts. I think they would go well with ice cream.

Here is the recipe (slightly changed to reflect what I did). If you want the original, please follow the link to the super cook above!

“Chocolate Awesomes”

• 1 cup butter
• 1/2 cup large marshmallows cut up
• 2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 teaspoons Hershey's cocoa powder
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream, well chilled
• 2 cups dark chocolate morsels

1. Don't preheat the oven right away, you'll have to chill the dough for this recipe.
2. Melt butter in the microwave until it is boiling (put some kind of cover over things because the butter will pop and geyser with heating).  This made a MESS of my microwave.
3. Add marshmallow chunks and stir.  Set aside to cool. These never really melted into the butter for me, but remained floating on top of the butter and were just softened.
4. Whisk flour, baking soda  and cocoa powder together.
5. In a large mixing bowl combine brown sugar and egg. I used an electronic mixer. Add whisked dry ingredients in two additions, mixing after each addition.
6. Add chilled cream to slightly cooled melted butter-marshmallow mixture and stir. This will look weird and make cream "globules" in the mixture...don't worry about it. Pour into the other ingredients while mixing on low with an electric mixer until just combined.
7. Fold in dark chocolate morsels.
8. Chill cookie dough for at least an hour. I chilled for three.
9. Place oven rack in center of oven. (I have no idea if I did this or not.)
10. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
11. Grab two cookie sheets and line them with parchment. Anything else is a pain!
12. Using a round tablespoon measure, scoop batter into leveled tablespoons and drop onto prepared cookie sheets. The texture will be sort of strange, like a combo between clay and ice cream.
13. Bake two cookie sheets worth at a time. Cook for something like 12 minutes. Start checking on them after 8 minutes, and wait until the edges seem to be done or darkening. Let them sit on the cookie sheet 5 minutes before removing them. Try one. If it seems to need more time, put them back in the oven a few minutes at a time until things seem right.

I have no idea how many cookies this made, but it seemed something like 40-50.  It is supposed to make three dozen.

~ Patty :)

The Great Shampoo Experiment II

You'd be lost without this picture...I'm sure of it!

Shampoo experiment #2:

1/2 cup baking soda (Update: I now recommend 1/4 cup baking soda, due to this experience .)
 3 cups water

 I mixed this in an old Dr. Bronner's container by shaking it.

Rinsed with:

4 Tbsp white vinegar or apple cider vinegar (Update: I now recommend white vinegar over apple cider vinegar, due to this. )
3 cups water

Yup, I used another (separate) Dr. Bronner's container. I shake it up as well.

Verdict: 

It is very weird to shampoo with something so watery, and that has no lather. You have to shake it up every time you use it, and if it has been in the bottle for awhile it will get more gritty.

What the shampoo looks like if you let it sit for awhile

It will feel like you are dumping grit water on your head and then washing it off, which is pretty much what you are doing. That said, it seems to clean my hair pretty darn thoroughly.

I've been trying this one for a few weeks, and I really like it so far! This seems to work out a lot better in hard water, and I haven't noticed any build up on my hair or brush.

This is what it looks like when it is new and well shaken.

The rinse is really key, and so far I've only used the white vinegar version. It makes it smell like Easter in the shower for a few minutes, but once I rinse off the smell is all gone. I am trying apple cider vinegar tomorrow, so we'll see how that works out.

My hair feels lighter since using these on my hair instead of shampoo, and my scalp psoriasis has been clearing up. I have no idea if that is related to this, or just one of those things that happens sometimes.

I'm going to keep using this for now, and hope that it doesn't dry out my hair and make it brittle. I'll tell you if it does.

As you can see, I use fancy masking tape on the bottles to remind myself which bottle is which (even though it is actually pretty obvious).

Oh, and two fun tips:

1. Add the baking soda first, and then add the water. If you get your funnel wet and try to pour into it, the whole thing becomes a pain.

2. Don't pour vinegar into bottles while having them on top of a tablecloth. You'll inevitably spill vinegar and have to do laundry. Okay, maybe YOU won't...but I will.

~ Patty :)

PS  If it isn't obvious, you wash your hair with the shampoo first. Then, you rinse with water. After that, you use the rinse. Then, you rinse with water again (or you'll smell like an Easter Egg).

The Great Shampoo Experiment!

My husband isn't a fan of fake scents, and most shampoos have a scent. I found a few "all natural" and "organic" shampoos, but they were usually scented too.

So, I started thinking about making my own. How hard could it be, right?

I googled around for a bit, and it seemed like Natural Homemade Shampoo Recipes – How to Make Organic Hair Shampoo by Heather Levin was the most succinct and easy to understand version without adding a bunch of smells to the mix.

There are a lot of very good articles about this, but I figured that I'd mention the one that I actually used.

Homemade shampoo recipe #1 (in trial size):

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup liquid Castile soap (Dr. Bronner’s Organic Castile Soap Unscented Baby-Mild)
1/2 teaspoon olive oil

I mixed this in an old Dr. Bronner's container by shaking it.

Verdict: 

I tried this a few weeks ago, and used it for about four days. It sucks if you have hard water, as it will form soap scum on your hair that will become apparent when you brush (and see the film left over on the bristles). I don't know how it does in soft water, but I imagine it could be quite nice.

It made a very thin shampoo, and it felt like I had to use a lot to get all of my hair clean (although it actually didn't take very much at all when I measured). I thought about putting it in an old foaming soap dispenser to make it feel more like lathering shampoo, but I never got around to that.

It definitely cleaned my hair, so much that it squeaked all over. That is how hair screams, so I didn't really love that. Still, my commercial shampoo does the same thing.

I didn't use conditioner, and my hair felt pretty soft and brushed out easily. It didn't have a scent, and that was odd to me...even though it was my goal. (I was super happy about this, as I'd wondered if I was going to smell like olive oil.)

I have psoriasis on my scalp, so I was curious about how it would respond. It didn't irritate my scalp during the short trial.

(Dr. Bronner's website talks about the soap scum issue a bit, and it offers a rinse for those that want to use their soap as a shampoo. The thing is, those are scented rinses that I can't make myself very easily. So, that is the opposite of where I want to go for now...)

~ Patty :)

Introductions

The internet is full of blogs by folks that really have it all together, and that create gorgeous food and marketable crafts projects. They seem to demonstrate a million ways to save money, save the planet, and do it all while being low calorie and gluten free!

I am not one of those people.

I'm someone that thinks it is a pain to fix box macaroni and cheese, and that has forgotten that she was boiling water (until the pan melted).

Yeah, I'm a mom and a wife. That didn't give me the kind of super powers that seem to often be found along with that description. I think folks like that are awesome, but I'm just not one of them.

That said, I do have some talents. I'm reasonably bright (if not wise in domestic skills), and absolutely full of curiosity. I'm willing to do a bit of work to have nicer things for myself, if it isn't too complicated and I don't have to get a bunch of new equipment.

So, this blog is a personal record of the stuff that I sort out. I'll be trying all kinds of things, and reporting about them as honestly as I can (so that I can remember what I've already tried). Feel free to follow along or make suggestions, as I'm sure you probably know more about this stuff than I do.

~ Patty :)