Philotic Web

I just made a huge batch of chicken salad for lunches this week. So.. much... chicken! But so good...

Best. Oatmeal. Ever.

I put a little butter and more sugar than I intended in the water as it was heating. Then added dried cherries and a cut up fresh peach with the oats. So, so, so very good.

Tonight I made pasta sauce. I wanted to do something different from my usual. Kinda improvised as I went along, though I had an ultimate vision. The result Rei said was the best pasta sauce with meat he'd ever had.

Fried an onion in olive oil, then added a dollop of garlic paste and a big bunch of chopped up fresh rosemary. The a tin of tomatoes, a cup of veggie stock, and a cup of red wine. Then added the four small tomatoes we had in the fridge to use them up. A couple tablespoons of capers, probably a half cup of chopped green olives, and some good Polish sausage sliced and fried. Pepper and a bit of salt, a teaspoon or so of sugar, and a splash of cider vinegar. Then I let it simmer till it was a good thick sauce consistency. It was REALLY yummy. Half the reason I wrote it out here was so I can write it into my cookbook later without danger of forgetting!

So good.

So, due to our ongoing attempts to recreate the Great Depression, we made rowan berry jelly. Did you guys know those things were edible? I sure didn't. I mean, sure, you have to be alert to the smell of almonds due to the chance of minute traces of cyanide in the seeds, and we're not feeding it to Nom-nom just in case, even though all signs point to go on this batch, but hey. Really interesting, unique flavour. It was pretty easy, so I foresee some canning taking place in the near future.

The world is full of edible plants no one has bothered packaging and selling yet!

Today my parents came home from a family reunion in Iowa. One of the things my Mom brought me (well, she doesn't really know it was for me : P) is a cook book called "Two Chicks from the Sticks (Back Home Baking)" that contains a couple recipes from my Great Aunt Lela. I've heard my mom talk about this Great Aunt before, but she never went into much detail. There is just something I love so much about her having a couple of recipes in a real cook book.

I love that one of her recipes is for a pie crust with butter. This is something that my Mom and I fight over all the time. My pie crusts are all butter, and she likes to use shortening. I sort of feel like my Aunt is siding with me. I don't know much about my Mom's side of the family, but this makes me feel a little bit closer to them.

That's so cool, Fred!

(And all-butter pie crusts are clearly the only proper way to do things).

I'm planning on making a root veg pie today. Any suggestions for a pie crust recipe to save me from the roulette of google?

Brent, SK's is my favorite. Flaky and flavorful every. single. time.

http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/11/ ... pie-dough/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My recipe (even with handling, it usually turns out flaky) for pie crust - this is especially good for savoury pies:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 TB sugar
1 3/4 tsp salt
1 cup + 2 T COLD lard, veg. shortening or butter (I find lard works best)
8 TB ice cold water
1 1/2 TB apple cider vinegar (the key ingredient)

Mix the dry stuff,, cut in the lard with a pastry blender, two knives, or use a cheese grater to grate it in (that's what I do), mix until it is small-pea like. Mix the water and vinegar together and add. Shape into a loose ball (you may need a tiny bit of extra water, but don't worry if it's crumbly). Wrap it in plastic (or put it in a ziploc) and put it in the fridge for an hour (or more).

Roll it out on a very floury surface.

All this talk of pie is giving me the shakes!

Lard makes the best pie crust. Better than butter. Healthier too. (more mono-unsaturated fat and oleic acid in lard). Better melting point for cooking than butter or shortening, more mono-unsaturated fat than shortening, low poly-unsaturated fat than shortening (the really bad s*** to ingest, especially when oxidized). no trans fats, while shortening is basically all trans fat.

I went with the smitten kitchen one in the end as I started making it before seeing yours, Jan. That and we don't have lard but we do have butter. I adapted the sk one for a savoury pie, but I think I will try Jan's next time for it. And then I will have one for sweet pies and one for savoury. Right now I am just waiting for the pie to bake, which is a bit of a guessing game. But I put a green man and an oak leaf on it, so that can only be good, right?

Lard admittedly does make a great savory pie crust. It's just that I never seem to have any on hand.

Cinnamon! Making sweet potato fries! Well, sweet potato chunks, some of which are vaguely fry-shaped, really. Still! It smells good!

We made this pie last night: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/deep- ... _pie_48616" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; The crust was a fail, so we're going to try it again sometime with the one Jan recommended. The filling was delicious, though!

That sounds really good, but what does "homity" mean?

No clue.

Trying to make an oatmeal banana egg scramble finger food recipe for Atty.

Epic mess to begin in about five minutes.

Have been baking lately. Thinking of doing pumpkin bread later.

ETA: Yup. Epic beige and yellow mushy mess. But he had fun. And then a bath.

The pumpkin bread was awesome.

Today, I made breastmilk-oatmeal-banana pancakes. Atty approved. Very mushy. Messy. Squishy. Nummy!

Chicken

The corn in our lower garden is ripe and loooks glorious!But it tastes of butt! we planted 3 different types (all 3 we had good luck with before) I just don't get it, you can take a bite raw and it's fine ( not my fav way to enjoy fresh corn but it's the best way to know if it's ready). Anyhow it tastes flat and starchy and kinda gummy and not right at all. A while ago I fired up the grill and picked 1 of each pulled back the husks washed it put some real butter on em salt pepper too and grilled em with the husks on just till a bit tender and hot, that treatment should have made even 5 day old wallmart corn eatable and still not good! What could be wrong????

Spaghetti with butter, fresh herbs from the garden, and a shake of chilli flakes makes a very yummy lunch.

I'm cooking tonight!!

Fried Green Beans with Minced Pork and copy cat Panda Express Chow Mein Noodles. (Because baby craves Panda Express Noodles. And pizza. But we had that last night at Costco.)

Needing new ideas to help deal with all these tomatoes!

You know what? Lunch with Atticus is becoming, my favorite part of the day. I actually really like cooking for him, even though it's nothing elaborate. Fruits and/or veggies, eggs, pancakes (sweetened with banana), etc. Then we eat together companionably, him in the high chair, me on the birth ball and I say the word "num" a lot. It's nice.

Doritos count as dinner, right?

Ugh. I gained 9 lbs last month. I have to do better! But most of the time, only junk food sounds good.

It's about to rain any minute and I've just spent that last couple of hours making chili <3

We also discovered that the blackberry bush we thought was killed last summer survived, and is SO full and ready. I'll be making blackberry ice cream tomorrow!

Blackberry bushes are immortal. There ain't nothing that can kill brambles.

Meatloaf. A little warm for it, but whatever.

It was taco Tuesday, but I have a question. Is gnocchi as much of a PIA as it looks like to make?

I think so, but Ali would tell you otherwise.

I've only made gnocchi once in a high school cooking class, but I don't remember it being that hard to make.

Second question, does the dough freeze well? For instance, can I do the the hardwork once with a double batch and freeze the other part for later?

Gnocchi is relatively easy to make and freezes well.

Form them, freeze them in a single layer on a cookie sheet (not touching) and then when fully frozen, bag 'em. When ready to cook, do not defrost. Just plop into boiled water directly from freezer.

Added to next week's menu. Will blame all failures on Kelly. Any successes are due to my innate talent.