Food and Friends

I've written before about food memories and how specific meals can trigger thoughts, evoke powerful feelings and kind of transport you to a different time and place.  One of our dinners, or rather, the preparation for that dinner was one of those experiences for me.  Let me start with the food: baked ziti, something I have prepared countless times for my family and my personal favorite for delivering to friends with new babies and little time for cooking.  This dish is so simple and so versatile that is one of my go-to, can-buy-the-ingredients-with-my-eyes-closed recipes.  It is literally a box of pasta (ziti preferably, but you can sub in anything you like), a jar of spaghetti sauce (my favorite is Newman's Own Marinara), a 15 ounce container of cottage cheese (or ricotta if you like - I prefer the texture of cottage cheese, myself), 8 ounces of shredded mozzarella cheese, divided (about half in the sauce and half sprinkled on top).  Cook the pasta, mix with the sauce and cheese, pour into a baking dish, top with the remaining cheese and pop in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes until the cheese is browned and bubbly.  Good stuff.  It is my younger daughter's favorite meal so we have it fairly frequently.  You can also add pretty much anything you want to it - spinach, kale, chard, chicken, mushrooms, etc.  We usually do the streamlined version - vegetarian, satisfying and totally delicious comfort food.

So, I said that prepping this meal brought up memories for me - stuff I really hadn't thought about in a while.  I originally got this recipe from a friend, many years ago now, who, for a long time, was my closest friend in the world.  She and I were originally work colleagues (man, that sounds really British for this Texas girl, but that's how I want to say it, ok?) and we had children at about the same time.  We both chose to stay at home with our kids and we spent a lot of time together for playdates or on the phone discussing the daily challenges of raising children/being a wife and mother/maintaining our sanity.  We decided that it would be fun to have a meal swap at one point - she would cook a meal for my family and I would cook a meal for hers, just to try different things, not to mention having a meal already cooked at least one day a week.  We shared a number of different recipes from this little exchange, but the baked ziti recipe has been the one that has really stuck with me all this time.  As I put together the ziti that night (which I generally do without conscious thought), I remembered where the recipe came from, how important my friend was to me and especially how her friendship helped me get through those *many* trying times of new motherhood with my daughters.

I don't know why I suddenly remembered the origin of the baked ziti recipe or what part of the preparation (probably my ever present toddler, pulling on my leg) triggered the memories, but, whatever the reason, I am glad that it did.  I find, ever more frequently, that food is a unique force that embeds itself in our consciousness - the smell of a particular combination of ingredients, the sound of something perking away on the stove, even just the act of making a recipe, seemingly by rote memory, can bring us back to a particular time and place.  For me, this particular blast from the past was a much needed jolt of positive energy and a reminder of a friendship that left me with a lasting legacy of laughter, fun and great food. 

Little Change Here....

You know, for so long I was committed to making this a food blog exclusively, but I have come to the realization that this is not and never has been a "traditional" food blog.  My sister calls it my "wall[s] of words", which is an apt description, I think. My original-original intent was to provide an avenue in which for me to write on a regular basis.  I then altered course just slightly and enjoyed the possibility of making this blog "successful" in the sense of gaining a larger following while potentially making some sort of income driven by my *shameless self promotion* brilliant writing.  What I have found is this: if you like to read, my blogging style is probably for you.  If you like to look at lots of pictures - well....not so much.  (I sometimes manage a couple of photos, but never consistently.)  

I am actually going to embrace my wall-of-words-writing-style and make an executive decision about the content of my blog.  Since it is, after all, MY blog, I am just going to write about....whatever I feel like writing about.  I am pretty sure I can stay within the overall theme of my blog, especially in relation to the name I chose: "Making Everyday Gourmet".  Some days, I may write about food and in particular what I am cooking for my family of five, but other days, I may speak more to the act of metaphysically making every day "gourmet".  What the hell does that mean?  I don't know - just about making life a little bit better, a little bit fancier, a little bit happier.

As I said in my previous post, I have added to my repertoire of skills by becoming a fitness instructor in addition to my business of making cakes in addition to my full time job of co-parenting three lovely children.  Sometimes fitness topics are on my mind more than food.  Sometimes parenting challenges are on my mind more than fitness.  Sometimes struggles through life are on my mind more than parenting.  (Sometimes I can be beyond random.  Just go with it.)

I don't really know who, if anyone, reads this blog, but in this increasingly virtual culture and world that we live in, for some reason, writing this blog is a form of catharsis for me.  (Like someone, somewhere might read it and identify with whatever issue I'm addressing.)  I've decided that I need the "wall of words" release more than I need to stick to any one particular theme.  Don't worry - for those of you who have told me personally that you read my blog and enjoy my culinary trials and tribulations, I expect there will still be plenty of those.  Food is after all central to *most* of our lives and food is perpetually one of my true passions in life.  I've just got some other stuff on my mind right now and this seems as good a place as any to explore it.  We will see what I come up with, but I thought I would just give everyone a virtual heads up. 

Oh, dear. I did it again.

Yeah.  I did.  I gave up on my blog for a little while.  Psh.  Little while?  It looks like it has been six months since I posted anything.  Yeah, well.  I've been busy (like no one else is, right?!).  Major changes have occurred in our lives over the past six months, not the least of which is that I have taken on *another* job.  In August of last year (2013 - I almost typed "this year".  Geez.), I got my certification to be a Les Mills BODYPUMP instructor.  (BODYPUMP is a weight lifting and strength training class with fantastic music and choreography that gets great results - I love it.  Obviously.)  Then, I got hired on at my local YMCA to sub BODYPUMP classes for other instructors, which I have been doing on a semi-regular basis since October.  That, plus my family, plus my cake-making business seemed to equal "no desire to blog".  I am going to try to get back into a fairly regular routine, but I think I should not make promises to any readers or to myself as I am also working on acquiring a standing class time for me to teach BODYPUMP on a regular basis. 

In any case, I am here right now and today's subject is: cakes.  Yes, cakes.  Even after that paragraph detailing my new identity as a fitness instructor, because, as I said, my "day job" is making cakes.  (You can check out my work on my website at www.threemonkeysbakery.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/three-monkeys-bakery.  *cough* shameless plug *cough* So, cakes.  Cakes, cakes, cakes.  They are on the brain because I just pulled my younger daughter's birthday cake out of the oven.  Homemade strawberry cake (plus the bonus of creating homemade strawberry syrup (?) with the leftover berry puree).  It smells heavenly and tastes pretty good, too (little "tasting bits" being the only up-side to the freaking cake sticking to the sides of the pan, despite greasing and flouring the thing).  It does not, however, "look" like strawberry cake - there is only a scant rosy hue about the interior of the cake.  No florescent pink fluffiness peeks out to identify it as quantifiably and "naturally" strawberry flavored.  Don't get me wrong here - I typically use a box mix to create all of my cakes, with exceptions to that rule when specialty cakes are requested (dark chocolate, in particular).  For my time, money and *most* of my clients' taste preferences, box cakes are hard to beat.  The other part of that equation that is hardest to beat - they work every, single time.  I have never had a box cake fall like scratch cakes are wont to do.  I have never had a box cake dry out like scratch cakes are wont to do.  I *usually* (unless I completely mess up loosening the cakes from the sides of the pan) do not have box cakes lose huge chunks of themselves when turning them out to cool...like scratch cakes are wont to do.  So, business-wise, box cakes work for me.

I don't know - obviously, I feel the need to keep experimenting with scratch recipes.  Currently, I have one amazing scratch chocolate cake recipe, one incredible scratch Italian cream cake recipe, one decent scratch white cake recipe and....maybe...one okay scratch strawberry cake recipe.  I experiment when I have time and especially when we have family birthdays.  Until I find recipes to replace all of my tried and true Betty Crockers, well, then...those are tasty, fail-safe, trust-worthy cake mixes.  For today, my fingers are crossed that my soon-to-be 8 year old likes her strawberry cake real and barely rosy. 

How is Summer Already Almost Over?!?

Yeah, so I took a week off from writing my blog for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how freaking busy we have been lately.  It feels like we go from appointment to appointment for the kids with very few "just for fun" activities in between.  I mean, we started this summer off weird - a kid in the hospital for two and a half days definitely qualifies as weird - then we have had all other kinds of stuff, which has led to me blinking and finding that we are smack dab in the middle of July!  Ah, well...c'est la vie (or however that is spelled in French).  "That's life", is all I am trying to say. 

Our life today includes numerous play dates during the day and then a tae kwon do class for my younger daughter, happening right at dinner time.  This happens on Tuesdays and on Thursdays and is not my favorite schedule, but it has forced me to break out the crock pot for multiple dinners this summer.  What I am finding with the crock pot, is that the dinners are either very, very good or very, very bad.  There are not many recipes which fall in between those two designations and I am hoping that my concoction today will fall squarely into the good category.  I made meatballs and sauce, which are currently (hopefully) simmering away, to be ready to serve when we all get home for dinner later this evening. 

For the meatballs, I used about a pound of ground sirloin and about a pound of pork loin chops (sliced thinly), which I ground (or chopped up) in my food processor.  I added about four heels of whole wheat bread (ground into bread crumbs), a few leftover vegetables, pureed, from one of my very, very bad slow cooker experiments last week (damn you again, Pinterest!), plus about a half of a cup of grated Parmesan cheese.  I started off by making the meatballs and browning them, but then I got lazy and dumped most of them into the sauce (a mixture of pre-made marinara and seasoned, crushed tomatoes) completely raw.  I cranked it to "high" and plan to let it cook for a little over 6 hours.  I sure hope it cooks through....

The very, very bad slow cooker (referenced above) was a chicken and vegetable recipe that I found on Pinterest and followed (to the letter!) and it was not cooked through when it was supposed to be.  In order to serve dinner before 10 pm that night, I had to pour everything into a skillet and saute the food that was supposed to be cooked by the damn crock pot.  Dishes....dishes...dishes, everywhere!  I twitch a little when I think about it - if there is one thing I hate, it is using dishes unnecessarily.  (I am going to have to blame that little quirk of my cooking personality on my cooking school days.)

Anyway, we will see how this one turns out...primarily because I will have no one to blame but myself if it is terrible.  ("Terrible" is likely to equal "still raw and harboring potential pathogens at the dinner time hour".)  Fingers crossed that all I (or my husband) have to do to get dinner on the table tonight after TKD is cook some pasta....or, I guess, in the Terrible case scenario, call for pizza. 

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day, everyone!  I hope you all have something fun planned and something delicious to eat, as I declare today to be independent of calories!  (Uh, not for real, but see what I did there?)  Anyway, we are celebrating our holiday with close family friends and a cookout, likely to be comprised of hamburgers, hot dogs and...chips and salsa.  Yes.  Chips and salsa - that quintessential American snack food.  What's that you say?  Salsa isn't technically from America?  True, but it is delicious and I have been making it from scratch since I was  a teenager.  Our Fourth of July table (hell, any holiday or festive table, really) just isn't the same without some homemade salsa. 

Now, I am not going to claim that my salsa is the best salsa anywhere, but it is tasty and, like my pancake recipe, it was originally inspired by someone else's version.  I have experimented and experimented with my recipe for years (probably something like 16 or 17 years....geez, am I THAT old?)  and I have my own recipe down to an *almost* science.  I can make this stuff in my sleep.  (That isn't an exaggeration - I could make this stuff in my sleep, but it would be dangerous for a number of reasons.  Obviously.)  I actually make two different versions - a red salsa that has evolved into a mix of true salsa roja and a pico de gallo (I will explain that in a minute) and a green salsa that varies from a traditional roasted salsa verde to a fresh tomatillo-avocado salsa (today's version). 

The original version of the salsa roja (red or tomato based salsa) dates back to a slumber party I went to as a teenager.  My friend's dad (I think) made a delicious salsa that began with roasted beefsteak tomatoes, white onions, fresh jalapenos and distilled white vinegar.  This was all pureed together to make a tangy, spicy, pungent sauce that I devoured, then politely demanded the recipe.  This was back in the days, waaaayyyy before culinary school, when I was best known for my infamous ability to burn everything, particularly beef that I was supposed to be browning, on the stove top.  (My poor mother, seriously.  The woman was working and trying to raise three teenagers on her own and I couldn't even be bothered to start dinner cooking so she could finish it when she got home.  Sorry, Mom.)  Anyway, I am not sure what my mom thought when I announced that I was going to "make" salsa ('cause in those days, our "salsa" came out of a yellow jar from a company that rhymes with "space" and it sure wasn't called salsa.  "Get a rope!")  To her credit, she let me "create" and, that folks, was just the beginning.  Salsa became my signature party food and, as the years went on, I tried more and more variations on that theme.  I am super persnickety about salsa (both mine and others')so much so that, if we try a new Mexican food restaurant and I don't like the *free* salsa, we just won't ever go back. 

At one point, my favorite restaurant was a local chain that was kind of upscale Tex-Mex which, when most joints plunked a tiny bowl of red salsa on the table as pre-appetizer, would serve both red AND green salsa with unlimited chips.  Awesome.  I took note and sought to re-create salsas that looked and tasted like theirs.  Their red sauce had diced, fresh tomatoes and sliced green onions mixed into the salsa, so I appropriated that idea for mine.  Their green sauce was the deep olive green of roasted tomatillos, with diced white onion and more sliced green onions, so I appropriated that idea as well (though the green version I made today was quite different).  My salsa became like most of my cooking - a hodge-podge of an original food inspiration and other ideas and techniques that I collected along the way. 

Today's red began with a chunky puree of cored and seeded roma tomatoes, stemmed and seeded jalapenos and serranos, the juice of a couple of limes and a bunch of cilantro.  I diced two cored and seeded tomatoes, sliced a bunch of green onions and added salt and pepper to taste, then mixed the puree with the "pico de gallo".  Recheck for seasoning and: viola!  Today's green began with fresh tomatillos, green onions, stemmed and seeded jalapenos and serranos, the juice of a couple of limes,  and a bunch of cilantro, pureed until mostly smooth.  I then added three avocados, seasoned with salt and pepper and pureed until it was as smooth as my blender could make it.  Recheck for seasoning and: viola!  Happy, happy 4th of July!  Be safe, eat well and try not to set a piece of our great nation ablaze!

Fridge Pasta

Sounds super yummy, right?  I know it doesn't, but I entitled this post as such because I once saw an episode of Jacques Pepin's cooking show where he made something he called "Fridge Soup".  The soup was basically a vehicle to use up leftovers and odds and ends in the fridge - an "everything but the kitchen sink" kind of recipe, if you will.  Last night was my night to clean out the fridge (because today was grocery shopping day).  I had a package of bacon, about a pint of *about to start rotting* tiny Roma tomatoes that we bought at a farmer's market on Saturday, an onion and a 3/4 full package of organic spinach, plus a package of whole wheat spaghetti (that was supposed to be used in the spaghetti and meatballs that got bumped to another night). 

I rendered the entire package of bacon in my large dutch oven and, when the bacon was getting pretty crispy, I poured off all but about a tablespoon of the rendered fat and added the onion, which I thinly sliced.  I let all of that kind of confit together while the pasta cooked and, once that was done, I turned off the heat and added the tomatoes (which I quartered) and the spinach.  I seasoned with salt and pepper and added about a tablespoon of red wine vinegar (just to brighten up the flavors).  I tossed in the pasta, mixed it all together and viola!  Dinner was served....to a less than enthusiastic audience.  No one (under the age of 9) liked the spinach and even I had to admit that the bacon was a little overpowering...not to mention soggy.  Ew.  Now I know why you should always remove bacon once it has rendered and then add it back in later.  Duh.  It will stay crispy that way.  Oh well, this recipe did what I needed it to do - it used up all of my odds and ends in the fridge and it fed my family.  Done.  Not to be repeated in this exact manner, but done. 

Fast Salmon and Pasta

What happens when you have too much to do in a given day, but want to make something fresh, fast and easy for your family for dinner?  How about incorporating a little Omega-3 action into your diet with a serving of wild-caught Atlantic salmon?  Add some pasta and some veggies and this is almost a one pot meal!  This is one of my very favorite recipes because it has very few ingredients, can be thrown together in minutes and, now that my son can eat fish, is one of the only salmon recipes that everyone in the family will eat. 

For our family, I take about a pound of salmon with the pin bones removed (in our case it is wild-caught Atlantic salmon that I froze when I brought it home from the grocery store and is currently defrosting in the fridge; not ideal to freeze it, but what are you going to do?) and poach it in a skillet.  (Place the salmon, skin side down, in the skillet and add enough water to come about 1/2 way up the side of the fish.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and turn the heat on to medium or medium high.  Once bubbles start forming along the edges, turn the heat down so it stays at a very light simmer, cover and let the salmon cook until it is mostly opaque and flakes easily.)  While the salmon is cooking, bring a pot of  salted water to a full boil and cook a pound of farfalle (bow-tie) pasta.  (I am using a whole wheat pasta this evening.)  When the pasta just reaches al dente status, toss in a bag of frozen peas and let them come up to temp (you will know they are done when they turn a bright green and start floating to the top of the water).  Drain the pasta and peas, returning them to the same pot (only if you dislike washing extra dishes like me; if you like to scrub things in the sink, then by all means, put the pasta and peas into another serving dish).  Add about a tablespoon of olive oil, a teaspoon of grated lemon zest (you could add the juice of the lemon as well if you would like), and season with freshly ground black pepper.  Once the salmon is done, flake it into large chunks (leave the skin behind) and toss into the pasta and pea mixture, stirring carefully to combine (but not break the salmon up too much).  Finally, add the herb of your choice, thinly sliced into a chiffonade (fancy, Frenchy term for "ribbons").  I usually use mint because it complements the peas and the fish and provides a really bright counterpoint for the sour citrus of the lemon. 

The great thing about this recipe is that you can add anything you like to it.  Prefer asparagus to peas?  No problem - add it instead!  Don't like mint?  Add some basil or parsley!  You'd like some spice with your fish?  Well, slice up a jalepeno or toss in some crushed red pepper!  Maybe you like extra protein with an Asian flair?  Heck, add some shelled edamame and season with soy, teriyaki or hoisin sauce!  Don't like salmon?  Oh.   Hmmmm....well, that's just your loss, friend, but add another kind of fish instead - tilapia and trout are actually great alternatives. 

I love these kind of recipes: easy and easy to make your own.  That is what I love about cooking - getting to make your food suit your tastes.  Make it fun, people!  Cook something awesome tonight!