BBQ Sauce

My husband was grilling for the first time this year and felt inspired to make homemade barbecue sauce. He kindly let me whip it together so I could claim it for this blog. Hurray! Another sauce toward this year's goal (3rd of 24)!

From the Joy of Cooking:

Barbecue Sauce

• 1 1/2 cups ketchup
• 1 cup cider vinegar or red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 Tbls dry mustard
• 4 Tbls chili powder, or to taste
• 1 Tbls grated, peeled fresh ginger, or 1 tsp ground
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tbls vegetable oil
• 3 sliced lemon

Combine ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring often, until the sauce comes to a simmer.  

Simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the lemon slices if desired.  

This sauce will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 2 weeks.

Makes about 2 cups.

Our verdict:  It was much thinner than what you expect from a commercially-bottled sauce, but it was tasty. I don't know if I'd rush to make this exact recipe again;  I would probably try out a few different BBQ sauce versions from my other cookbooks, to compare to this one. But certainly it was fine. Had a zest to it. Easy to make. All-in-all to be considered a successful receipe.

Yogurt Sauce

Faced with a rapidly expiring (already past date, but still good) container of plain yogurt, I turned to Laurel's Kitchen for inspiration.

from The New Laurel's Kitchen:

Yogurt Sauce

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 Tbls oil [I used EVOO]
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds [I only had about 1/8 cup. Just fine.]
• 1 Tbls lemon juice
• 1/8 tsp salt [I used a bit more. I like my salt!]
• pepper to taste [I also like my pepper!]
• 1/2 - 1 cup plain yogurt [I used a heaping cup]

Saute the onion in the oil. In a separate pan, toast the sesame seeds [takes just a few mins, constantly sturring the seeds]. Put all ingredients into the blender [food processor] and puree. Thin if desired with additional yogurt or buttermilk [I didn't need to thin].

The recipe intro had suggested this sauce as a nice accompanyment to boiled potatoes, for a potato salad. And, whatdoyaknow but I had rapidly expiring (but still hangin' in there!) red potatoes in the cupboard. Boiled them in their jackets and sliced them up. Combined the taters and the sauce. Perfect.

An excellent way to cook with plain yogurt. And another sauce for my Twenty-Four-New-Sauces-in-2012 self-challenge!

Pie for Dinner!

Do you love complements and enjoy savory pie? I've got the perfect recipe! This is one of those dishes I can remember my mother making. I think I enjoyed it back then (I hope I told her so?), and I know my family and I enjoy it now!

from Recipes for a Small Planet by Ellen Buchman Ewald:

Complementary Pie

• 3/4 cup raw brown rice (or barley), cooked
• 1/2 cup dry beans, cooked (use large colorful beans like kidneys or black)
• 1 Tbs butter
• 2 cups sliced onions
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp crushed dried tarragon
• 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

While the beans are rice are cooking, saute the sliced onions in the butter until they are very soft and just begin to turn golden. Set them aside. 

Beat the milk into the eggs; stir in the grated cheese, salt, tarragon, and worcestershire sauce. 

Then fold in the sauteed onions, cooked beans, and cooked rice.

Turn the mixture into an oiled 10-inch pie plate. 

Bake at 325 F for 25 to 30 mins, until the custard has set and the edges are browned. Let stand for 10 mins before serving, then slice into wedges.

Variation--Complementary Pie with Crust: Prepare any whole wheat pie crust for a more elegant pie. Use a larger pie pan, press the crust in, pour in the custard, and bake as above.

Of course, much of the Small Planet premise (that ingredients must be combined in carefully-considered amounts so that the dishes contain "complete proteins") has since been largely debunked; it's not nearly so difficult to eat well as a vegetarian. But that in no way means that Ewald's recipes shouldn't be made and enjoyed. Reading through the cookbook is a pleasure (for me); it's interesting, even if its concern for amino acids is unnecessary, and the recipes themselves are well-described, delicious-sounding, and hearty. Plus, I appreciate her suggestions for sides, breads, and salads. Makes planning an entire meal simple. This cookbook is staying on my shelf, and this dish will continue to be a favorite for years to come.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

We made these a while ago but I'd troubles uploading the picture. (I know, I know. In the absolute oppositeness of usual food blogging, I usually don't worry about such nonsense as having a picture to go with my posts. But in this case, I knew it was there;  it felt wrong to continue on without it.)

          Chocolate Chip Cookies from Joy of Cooking

Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 F. Grease cookie sheets. Mix together thoroughly:

1 cup plus 2 Tbls all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda

Beat on medium speed until very fluffy and well blended:
8 Tbls (1 stick) butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

Add and beat until well combined:
1 large egg
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until well blended and smooth. Stir in:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Drop the dough by heaping measuring teaspoonfuls onto hte sheets, spacing about 2" aprt. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until the cookies are just slightly colored on tiop and rimmed with brown at the edges, 8 to 10 mins. Rotate the sheet halfway through baking for even browning. Remove the sheet to a rack and let stand until the cookies firm slightly, about 2 mins. Transfer the cookies to racks to cool.

Our review:  As much as it pains me to say it, we ate these cookies because they were cookies--Hello, cookies!--not because they were good. We made two batches (separate days, different head bakers) just to be certain the first wasn't a fluke of disappointingness. But no. They're just okay cookies. I mean, yes, we totally ate all of them. But we didn't relish the experience. We just stuffed our faces with mediocre cookies and then felt guilty for not holding out for better. But, after all, a cookie in the hand...

Happy Chinese New Year!

Eggs:  promise of life in the new year!
(except when they're hardboiled)

In honor of this Year of the [Water] Dragon (I was born in the Year of the [Fire] Dragon myself), I wanted to cook something Chinese this January. The first day of this new lunar year was Monday the 23rd, but I'm still posting because, after all, there are fourteen additional days of festivities that follow the new year's day itself.

Turns out I don't have a Chinese cookbook (madness!) but I was able to find sections in some of my books dedicated to Chinese cookery. I chose a simple appetizer, because lately I've been feeling like a mother of two small children (as, of course, I am).


From Mary Ann Zimmerman's
The Tupperware Book of Picnics, Parties & Snacks Around the World

Eggs Cooked With Tea Leaves

• 10 eggs
• 2 Tbls black tea
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 10 aniseeds
• 1/3 cup soy sauce

Place eggs in pan, cover with water and bring to a boil, simmer 10 minutes. Soak in cold water and crack all over with a spoon, but keep shell on egg. Add remaining ingredients to water and cook eggs again, this time for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and shell. The resulting pattern is lovely. Store in a 4-cup Wonderlier.

Three things:

1. I'm not convinced this is a genuine Chinese recipe (though it may be? Anyone know?).
2. This recipe produces attractive hardboiled (though overcooked, if you must know) eggs that taste exactly (eggsactly! egg-sack-tly? eww....) like normal overly-hardboiled eggs. Yes, the light pattern of the whites is lovely. No, it's not really worth all the time it took to create it. In my opinion.
3. This cookbook's main premise is to show you how to cook fabulous picnic, party, and snack foods that coincidentally then may be stored perfectly in a Tupperware container. Kind of makes me laugh. We'll see about future dishes I may cook from this book, but I suspect they're all honed to be of a certain shape or volume vs. to be extraordinarily tasty. Perhaps this is the year we'll find out.

Brown Rice & Resolutions

As part of my new year's resolutions I decided to make at least 24 new sauces (or dips or dressings) in 2012. Sometimes it's too much to make an entirely new main dish, but a new salad dressing seems doable. And I'm happy to inform you that January isn't even half over and I've already succeeded in making a new sauce! (Please, hold your applause until the end. Thank you very much, though, thank you.)

from The New Laurel's Kitchen:

     Stroganoff Sauce

1 cup buttermilk
1 Tbls cornstarch

1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic (optional)
1 Tbls butter
1/3 - 1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced

1/4 tsp salt or 1 Tbls shoyu
black pepper

Combine buttermilk and cornstarch and set aside. Saute onion and garlic in butter until soft. Crush the garlic with a fork. Stir in mushrooms and cook just until tender. Remove mushrooms and juices from the pan and pour in the buttermilk mixture. Stir and cook until thickened, then return the mushrooms and their juices to the pan. Season with salt (or shoyu) and pepper.

The recipe claims to taste "like a sour cream sauce," and I suppose it does. And I even cheated a bit when I made it by substituting vinegar in milk rather than using the buttermilk that was called for (tell me I'm not the only one who doesn't ever have buttermilk on hand?) I also used dried mushrooms instead of fresh (soaked in boiling water for 10 mins to reconstitute), and they worked great.

Overall, I'm happy with the sauce, but I admit that when I first tasted it I thought it was just okay. What took it from okay to happy? Putting it on the bestest, most delicous rice ever.

I made this rice almost as an afterthought (had to put my sauce on something) and am still amazed by how wonderful brown rice is when done right. I'm not kidding. I'm a convert. No more brown rice in the rice cooker,  not ever again. This is the way it should be:

from Nourishing Traditions:


     Basic Brown Rice I
     (unsoaked rice)
    

2 cups long-grain brown rice
2 Tbls butter
2 Tbls extra virgin olive oil
3 cardamom pods
4 cups stock or combination of water and stock
1/2 tsp sea salt

In a heavy, flameproof casserole, melt butter and olive oil. Open cardamom pods and add seeds to the casserole. Saute rice in butter and oil, stirring constantly, until rice begins to turn milky. Pour in liquid, add salt and bring to a rolling boil. Boil, uncovered, for about 10 minutes until water has reduced to the level of the rice. Reduce flame to lowest heat, cover tightly and cook for at least 1 1/2 hours or as long as 3 hours. Do not remove lid during cooking. Serves 6-8.

My rice took exactly the 1 1/2 hours on the stovetop. And. It. Was. Wonderful. It sounds ridiculous, to say rice tasted wonderful. But I'm serious, cross my heart and everything. Wonderful.

Sauce + Rice = superb side for dinner and delectible leftovers for lunch (which I'm eating right now). Very, very pleased with this receipe attempt! (This is what I'd hoped for, starting Wellcookbooked!)

You may now applaud.

Pondering Mulled Cider

My post seemed well-timed for the end to this Christmas season (which ended, as far as I know, on Saturday, with the Orthodox Christmas Day). After all, a hot beverage is perfect in winter, it's easy to prepare in large quantities to share at holiday gatherings, and what with the pondering Mary supposedly did (seriously, does not every other verse about Mary say she "pondered...in her heart"?), a mug of mulled cider seems very apropos. Now, of course, I didn't hit the "Publish Post" button until after the holidays are over, so perhaps you'll call me on that one. But I was writing it during the holidays. ;-)

I used to make mulled apple cider by adding three ingrediant together:  apple cider (which, for all intents and purposes, in today's grocery is identical to apple juice. I think a distiction used to be there because cider wasn't pasturized, but that's no longer true, at least in non-speciality stores); cinnamon sticks; cloves. And the only direction I used was this:  heat until hot.

I have since learned that mulled cider can (and should) be much more.  Mollie Katzen has the best home-mulled cider recipe I've found (and just because it's the only mulled cider recipe I've found is irrelivant).


     Mulled Cider from Sunlight Cafe



Note: I couldn't find my copy of Sunlight Cafe, which is why this post is late, but here's the basic gist and I'll update with exact specifications once I lay my hands on my cookbook!

• container of apple cider (or, if you're feeling fancy, your own home-pressed cider!)
• peppercorns, whole (aprox 10)
• cloves, whole (aprox 10)
• cinnamon sticks, whole (aprox 2)
• cardomom pods (aprox 5)
• ginger, fresh

Pour the apple cider into the pot or crockpot. Break up the cinammon sticks into 4 or 6 pieces. Peel and slice up some ginger (I found 1" pieces were good). Add the cinnamon, ginger, and other spices to the cider (either loose or contained within a mulin bag or cheesecloth). Steep and warm on med-low heat for at least an hour or two (though can be drunk [dranken? drinken?] as soon as the temperature appeals to you).

Aromatic. Tasty. Simple. But not boring. This is world-class apple cider. Mmmm....