Bikram Cooking

Trying to up my "crunchiness" factor, I quickly joined in when my friend suggested we split a whole share with an organic local farm co-op this year. Every Wednesday, we (she) pick(s) up a bunch of fresh organic veggies/berries/herbs that we split. Side note: Looking forward to something in the fall? Hate the heat? Want to, for any reason, make the summer fly by? Join a farmshare. Wednesdays come fast! Anywho, so Wednesdays, yes. They come every 7 days or so and I feel this need to beat the clock to use up everything we got with the last bunch (those beets still hanging in my crisper? Don't you worry about those.). This is also super fresh, locally grown produce and it seems like a disservice to let it go past its prime before we eat it. Sometimes though, its impossible. We get busy/Bubbles craves non-organic-locally-grown-fake-cheese-smothered-pasta/I just can't eat 1 1/2 heads of lettuce myself in 1 week (ahem, hubby, a little help here please?)/or in this case, I bought a bunch of asparagus at the store (for conventionally-grown food non-snobs) forgetting that Wednesday was once again visiting us soon. So I said to myself last Tuesday, "Self, what should we do with this almost-beyond-its-prime-asparagus tonight, the hotest day of the year so far? Oh! We'll roast it in a 425 degree oven, of course!"

So we did pecisely that, on our way to Penne with Roasted Asparagus and Balsamic Butter. I've made this before, apparently for hubby, although I don't remember making it for him. I've learned that a whole stick of butter is unneccesary (truth hurts, Paula), but other than that and subbing a skinny noodle for a fat noodle, made the recipe as written. I've even become a little more brave/patient in my reduction skills and think this was my best balsamic reduction yet!

must. take. better. photos. oh, and clean stove.

You know it's done when it coats the spoon like that. It certainly doesn't look like enough for a pound of penne (or in my cupboard's case, rigatoni) but I promise, it is!

While that was reducing, I was "waking up" the asparagus in the oven. That is old. At 425F. And not sealed well.


roasted, with a touch of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Because a hot oven and 1 sauce pan wasn't enough, I boiled a gallon and a 1/2 of water to make the pasta. If I wasn't sweating bullets, this would have been a simple, delicious, quick meal. It was only 2 of those. Although it was easy in and of itself, it's not easy when you have to dump a pasta pot into the colander with one hand because the other hand is attached to the Gatorade bottle you're chugging from to stave off dehydration.

But once all the pieces are done, simply combine with 1/2 a stick-ish of butter and some fresh grated parmesan, wipe the sweat from your brow (and cheeks, and arms, and ok, getting gross here) and dig in.

And if you're lucky, you'll get a bite of rigatoni with a piece of asparagus stuck in the middle! Those silly kids!

LoveLove CowCow

It's been a while since I've visited the Dog portion of DinnerandDogs. Unfortunately, due to never ending home projects, our time with the homeless pups has been quite limited. This weekend though, I broke out! I escaped the spackling and headed over to NJ to hang with some awesome dogs. (shhh! Don't tell Hubby. I told him I was "cleaning out the basement.")

Even better? The amazingly talented Lauri from Lalee Photography stopped by Cutters Mill to take some pictures of our sweet pups. She's responsible for Hubby's and my postcardmuseum-worthy engagement and wedding photos, and hopefully, she'll be responsible for catching the eyes of future furever families for our pups! Check out all of her WJVA photos here.

I got to reconnect with a few dogs that have been hanging around for a while, as well as meet some new ones. Specifically, I really got to know (and love) Pete and CowCow. The ride TO Cutters Mill was a little hairy*, with Pete trying to get into the front seat while restrained in the back seat, and CowCow pulling a "Ribby" and pawing for pets from the seat next to me.

Petey. Poor Petey. He has no idea what a dog's life entails. He's super sweet, there's no hiding that! I was told to expect a very shy and scared dog when I picked him up. He is definitely NOT a fan of the car, but once (lifted) in the (front seat of the) car, settles right down and goes along for the ride. He certainly wasn't shy on Saturday though! He wanted to investigate everything. Grass, cardboard, plants, Mountain Dew bottles, everything. He didn't seem afraid of anything he checked out, but did show a bit of fear when a loud truck or motorcycle passed by.

Pete seems to be fine with other dogs, I didn't hear him growl once. We don't know how he is with cats, but my gut** tells me he would pay them no mind. (**my gut offers no guarantee, all dogs will be cat tested before going to a home with cats) He really doesn't know how to walk on a leash, but doesn't do the puppy "I'm done now, you go ahead and I'll just sit here til you come back" thing. He nudges for head-scratches, but doesn't seem like he's had many before he was rescued by WJVA. He will need time and guidance to get aquainted with a dog's life and I believe will quickly bond to the family that adopts him. Pete is not for the absentee owner, he needs a patient owner who will teach him to be a dog, and one that will give him the confidence he needs to continue exploring his new world.

CowCow, oh sweet CowCow. Even though she's a 35lb-ish brown brindle and white dog, she reminded me so much of my Ribbinator. Those eyes. They get me every time.

I'd only heard good things about CowCow before finally meeting her on Saturday. I found those good things to be understatements. What a fantastic family dog just waiting for her family! CowCow is good with most dogs, but if getting a fur-sibling, would probably do best with brothers. She's a tomboy at heart; loved to play tackle with the boys!

But kids? Oh man does CowCow love kids! She's great on a leash and seems to know a lot about what a dog's life is. She doesn't have striking features, but I think that her future family is going to be saying the same thing Hubby and I say so often about our boys: "How could someone give this dog up?! We hit the jackpot!"

If you are interested in fostering or adopting these or any of our wonderful dogs, please contact me, or WJVA directly at wjvolunteers@yahoo.com. Visit our website at http://www.wjva.org/ for links to all our animals and upcoming fundraisers.

*The ride FROM Cutters Mill was a lot less hairy. We swapped seats, CowCow sat so well in the back seat and Petey curled up and caught a cat dog-nap in the front. I came this close to turning left instead of right on Rt 130 and heading home with these 2 sweeties.

Unordinarily ordinary

Now that spring has skipped us finally arrived, I'm getting antsy with dinners. I'm tired of comfort food regulars and eager to try all the fresh veggies sprouting up*. So naturally this week, I did none of that.

We had pizza.

With pepperoni.

What I did do, however, was bring a little summer into my ordinary pizza. Seriously, the simplest change in the recipe and it was so tasty I can’t believe I’ve never done it before.

Grilled pizza, anyone?

Hubby was out mowing the lawn, and I was starving and wanted dinner done quickly. I decided to give it a shot, and at $0.99 for a ball of dough at Trader Joe’s, what’s the worst that could happen? Tony’s Pizza is right around the corner if the worst did happen.

I spread the dough out on a plastic platter, not knowing how this would pan out, the last way I wanted to ruin it was by dropping a heavy pizza stone in transport to the grill. Although my pizza started out with a semi-round shape, it certainly didn’t retain it.

I spritzed the dough with some olive oil and sprayed the grill grate with some Pam for Grilling, so nothing would stick. In less than 5 minutes over medium heat, I was able to flip the dough, as it had gotten stiff enough that flipping was a breeze with regular tongs. After I flipped the dough, I spooned some jarred sauce** (also Trader Joe’s) and spread it around. I topped it with sliced fresh mozzarella cheese and slices of pepperoni. Close the lid til the cheese melts and wa-la! 5 minutes later, pizza is done, house is cool, and lawn is mowed!

Ok, I can’t guarantee the lawn mowing part, but that’s how my Tuesday evening went.

*Although everything I love is finally coming into season, I'm having trouble getting motivated to cook new and original dishes. See, we've discovered that we're expecting an itty-bitty new family member in December, and what is planned for dinner often seems to go by the wayside when baby makes his or her desires for mac & cheese known. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for me?

**I've had a request to perfect homemade pizza sauce. I obviously haven't started my attempt yet. I have a feeling I'm going to be inundated with homegrown tomatoes this summer, so I will get on that as soon as the harvest begins.

Not just any ol' Tuesday.

I know what you're thinking. She said she was moving and things were chaotic, but really, she was just blowing us off. Or, she moved from the city to the boonies suburbs, and has no internet capability in those parts. I apologize for the absence, but am excited that a) things are calming down and b) we wised up and looked on the bottom of the modem/wireless router for the password so we could actually use the wireless connection we've been paying for for 4 weeks already. (seems silly to have to sit within a 5 foot radius of the router and still pay the same as those lucky ducks who get to sit anywhere in their house--or even porch, perhaps?? and use their fancy interweb connection, right?) So here I am, in Smalltown, PA, getting used to birds chirping (loudly. in a mammoth bush. right outside our bedroom window.), commuter train horns, and a slightly larger but much uglier kitchen in place of the pedestrians' converstions, police sirens, ice cream man's song, and a slightly smaller but much easier on the eyes kitchen that we left behind in Fairmount. So far, I've learned:

• my oven runs hot (tragic Easter weekend apple cake disappointment);
• I can fill 6 kitchen drawers in a flash, even when I made do with 2 mini-drawers for 2 years;
• stopping on the way home from work for ingredients here isn't nearly as convenient as there;
• we don't know all the weeknight specials at the good bars/restaurants yet.

Enter bullet point #4, a week and a 1/2 ago (Yes. I've had this material for 11 days. Don't judge. It gets worse when you see the sad attempt at photography.). It was an ordinary Tuesday. But an "ordinary Tuesday" in Fairmount is capped off with the most delicious tacos at Lucky 7 Tavern. Taco Tuesday, of course! So my brief elation that Tuesday had come around for another visit was quickly crushed when I remembered that Lucky 7 isn't exactly "right down the street anymore." Then I remembered we still had some croaker in our freezer (yes, we moved frozen foods), and I could bring Taco Tuesday to us! I wanted to make a good effort though, as to not settle for the next best thing. So I searched for a good batter recipe (although the one I've used from Joy of Cooking isn't half bad), as well as a good topping to put on the fish. So I found Sunny Anderson's Cerveza-Battered Fish Tacos and Emeril Legasse's Jicama Buttermilk Coleslaw. The amazing (to me, at least) thing was that the only ingredients I needed to pick up on my way home were the cabbages and carrots! Seriously, who has buttermilk and jicama just sitting around? Me, apparently. So I followed Sunny's batter recipe as written, except that I didn't realize I was supposed to divide the flour. So I separated it after I mixed the spices in, only to have a flavored-flour dredge for the fish. No harm there! Emerils was changed just slightly, to add that kick that my non-mustard-fan Hubby loves so much. Instead of the mustard, I chopped a chipotle in adobo finely and added that to the slaw mix. By George, I've done it. I managed to combine the ultimate topping (first tasted on routinely burnt battered fish filets cooked by a certain, unnamed, Hell's Kitchen contestant) and the perfectly cooked (well, most of the pieces) battered croaker filets.

I do apologize for the poor photography effort. In the mess of moving boxes and renovation materials, we couldn't find the camera, so this was taken on my phone. No worries, the camera has now been found...hanging on a dining room chair. Oops.

But in all seriousness, I do miss the city, and although I'm getting there, I just don't feel "at home" in our new town yet. Its still a recent change, I'm not disappointed or sad, I'm just surprised that I didn't slip back into suburban life as quickly or easily as I thought I would. I am thrilled though, that I was able to successfully bring another piece of our old home into our new home. That's what matters, right? Not the house itself, but what makes the house a home.

I do hope to be back on a more regular basis now...we'll see how that goes.

A layer of drywall, a ladle of spackle, and a dash of dust.

Ok, ok, I know. It's been for-ev-er since my last post. I tried oh so hard to post an entry on Feb 28th when I realized that I only had one post for the entire month of February. But obviously, that didn't work out. In my defense, February is only 28 days long, so it's not like I had a normal month to get all my blogging in. (It makes sense in my head...) February, 2011 was a big month! Let's recap:

I hit the big 3-0. I had an amazing sushi dinner with 15 of my bestest, organized by Hubby, including a nice little roast. Hmph. We won't discuss the visuals... I also had an awesome dinner party hosted by Ma, complete with my fave! I can't complain about 29, but 30 is going to be a good year too! I know it!

Sheba and Shaggy have BOTH found furever homes!! I couldn't be happier for these furkids! I get goosebumps when I think about it. They both waited so so long for the right family to come along and it looks like they've each hit a jackpot. It saddens me to think about how much time they spent living in a kennel, but I know they'll make up for lost time. Best of luck to these 2 special pooches!

We bought a house! While it isn't our dream house, it is our right now house, and while it wasn't the smoothest, most painless process, it was totally worth it. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself now while the entire house, and my contacts, are covered in dust. It wasn't pretty when we first walked in, but we have visions, and as someone once described her home to me, it wrapped it's arms around me the second I crossed the threshold. We're in the throes of an almost complete cosmetic renovation that must be done by the end of March. The kitchen will be the last interior project, as right now it is about 1/3 the size it could be, and there are 3 different types of cabinets in there. But it's ours, and I can't wait to get back to cooking!

In the true spirit of Dinner & Dogs, I'll leave you with a few visuals...
Dinner as of late:

Dogs as of late:

They claim they need rest to prepare for having a yard. I claim they're the cutest, laziest dogs I've ever loved.

Have a great day! I promise I'll be back soon! [After a trip to Florida (for work, promise!) and a move]

Fish and oranges and eggs, oh my!

I win. Don’t fight it. I made the strangest meal, and it actually tasted good. I-don’t-like-1-ingredient-in-your-19-ingredient-meal Hubby even liked it. Well, except for 1 ingredient, of course. But seriously. Who actually looks at a recipe with crooked eye brows, says out loud, “weird!,” and still prints it out to use that night? I’ll tell you who. People who have nothing but frozen fish, and other very random items on hand and don’t want to walk in the cold for other more traditionally-used-with-fish ingredients. I did have to stop for the oranges, but they were on the way, so it’s ok.

I’m going to start with the finished product photo first. It’s actually really pretty. In the middle of winter when everything in warming/comfort/cooked to death in a crock pot or Dutch oven, it was a welcome splash of color.

Yucatecan-Style Fish (Adapted from The Pampered Chef)

2 oranges

1 medium white onion

1 red bell pepper

2 tablespoons snipped cilantro

2 tablespoons citrus and basil rub (I suppose you could try a homemade mix of lemon and lime zests and dried basil)

6 tilapia filets (4oz each) or croaker, if that’s what your hubby and his buddies caught on his bachelor-party-fishing-trip and they sent the groom home with all the fish

2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil

1 hard cooked egg, peeled

¼ cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Cut a thin slice off the top and bottom of one of the oranges so that it will stand upright as you cut the peel off. Now cut the peel off, taking as little of the flesh, but as much of the pith with it as possible. With the peeled orange in your hand, use a paring knife to separate the segments. I started to do it all fancy-like by getting under the segment membrane. Don’t bother. You won’t know the difference. Just don’t separate the segments by pulling them apart. You need them to leak some juice. Set the deconstructed orange aside.

Next, slice the onion into thin half moons and the pepper into strips. Chop the cilantro or snip with kitchen shears.

Sprinkle the rub over both sides of each filet of fish and place in a large skillet with the oil heated over medium-high heat. Cook 4-5 minutes, turning once about 3 minutes in. Pile the onion and bell pepper on top and cover the skillet. Cook another 5-7 minutes or until fish is thoroughly cooked and vegetables are softened (I actually took the fish out and continued to cook the vegetables for another 5 minutes or so).

Place the fish on your serving platter. Pile the onion and peppers back on top, then the sliced egg, orange segments and cilantro. Juice the remaining orange over the fish and sprinkle with the pumpkin seeds.

Now stare at the dish as you stared at the recipe, and then give it a go. You won’t be disappointed. I’m not sure how it all works but it does. The pumpkin seeds weren’t the most welcome visitor on our plates, but they added some aesthetics. I wouldn’t say leave them out completely, but maybe use them sparingly.

Tomato/Tomahto? Amy/Julia? Mushroom/Boeuf?

This isn't my first mushroom-based meal. If you don't like mushrooms, we probably won't get along. Or we'll meet, fall in love, and get married. You know, one of the 2. 

I found this recipe on my favorite food blog (besides my own of course) and knew my dutch oven was calling out to it. This recipe though, due to the lack of leftovers in the fridge, required me to make something for Hubby too, since he won't touch mushrooms with a ten foot pole. Wait. I take that back. He stirred the pot today and didn't sneeze/cough/fake anaphylactic shock. It's a step, but he certainly wasn't going to eat my mushroom bourguignon, so I made him a pot of Spicy Roasted Vegetable Soup.

I didn't take pictures of the soup, but it was easy to do and perfect for using those veggies you have that you don't want to go bad. It's all the normal stuff; we just amped it up. Veggie broth, 1 potato, 1 can of tomatoes, cilantro, 1 pepper, 1 onion, some garlic, a zucchini, a yellow squash, and a chipotle in adobo. See? Everything you have sitting around just waiting to get a little too ripe (and a good way to use up leftover chipotles). Hubby approved, and even slurped up the broth with some bread. But anyway...back to my 'shrooms.

Have you ever seen Julie & Julia? She gets all worked up over boeuf bourguignon that may or may not be served to important people. Well, I was just as excited to make this recipe, but I figured it would be just me eating it. Once again, I started with a big bowl of mushrooms.

And without the regular egg noodles or pearl onions I was supposed to have. But hey. There's a foot of snow on the ground, Trader Joe's didn't have them 2 days ago when I was there, and I'm certainly not heading out now to look. Broken papardelle and chopped regular onion will have to do.

Broken papardelle and regular onion certainly did do! There weren't many ingredients, nor were there many steps; most of the prep for this recipe was allowing each layer to simmer.

When it came time to add the next-to-the-last layer, I used half of an onion in large chunks instead of the pearl onions traditionally used. I've never had boeuf bourguignon, so it made no difference to me.

I'm an "it is what it is" kind of girl. Yes, I get frustrated and annoyed, and will complain with the best of them (Hubby, the comment box isn't working. I don't know what's wrong with it. Its not worth it to try to leave a comment. Trust me.) but I also try to live by a quote I heard several years ago: "If there's no alternative, there's no problem." Makes sense, huh? If there's nothing you can do about it, no sense in worrying. Just adapt and move on. Now, if you go back to the picture of ingredients, you'll see I'm using a $3 bottle of "full-bodied red wine." It gets worse. I'm using a 4 year old $3 bottle of red wine. Based on wine aging and inflation, that baby's worth like what? $3.50 by now? I didn't always cook with such high-class ingredients. But my high-class tastes aren't the point of this story. You see, at my bridal shower, a special friend gave us a bottle of wine labeled Big House Red and attached a tag to it that said "to enjoy, after the purchase of your first home."

We've gone through all the other wine in our wine rack. I've taken that bottle to a friend's house and rudely took it home when we didn't drink it that night (surprising, since conversation at that dinner eventually led to the frustrations Hubby and I are dealing with while trying to buy our first home, an ugly shell of a house that we've already renovated 35 times in our heads). Not-so-descretely, I've mentioned to people that if we drink that bottle before settlement day, we're going to jinx it and settlement day won't happen. So as I assembled my ingredients for my mushroom bourguignon, I remembered I needed red wine. And there was a foot of snow on the ground. You can fake the pearl onions, but bourguignon isn't bourguignon without red wine. If there's no alternative, there's no problem. "Ok," I thought, "I'll just wait. I'll make it this weekend after I can get to a liquor store." But wait! There is an alternative! That bottle of 3-Buck-Chuck on the bookshelf that I've been decorating as a hula girl 10 months a year and Santa Claus the other 2 months for the last 4 years. Yes! Adapt, and move on. Alas, I had my mushroom bourguignon and allowed the home-buying-process to move along as smoothly as it can muster.

Baked Potato meets Immersion Blender; muwahahaha!

I wish it was the soup I was enjoying on this snow day instead of just the memory of it...and the knowledge that my leftovers are in the fridge. At work.

I wasn't a soup-lover until a few years ago. They say your tastes are constantly changing as you age, so I guess I hit the soup phase in my life around 25. (Hubby's still waiting for me to hit the bell pepper phase. I think I skipped that.) But I'm not a minestrone or chicken noodle girl. I like soups that will fill me up and warm my soul. Something that feels like a meal but isn't so complicated that I'm too tired to eat it after its made. Also, being the bargain shopper/frugal/plain ol' cheap person I am, saffron broth soups are out, potato/chicken broth/other staple soups are in. And if it suggests the use of an immersion blender, you know I'm trying it.

With my requirement that soups not be too complicated or fancy-ingredient-filled but still be not-so-run-of-the-mill, it's not always easy to find something new to try. When I came across this Baked Potato Soup recipe on smittenkitchen.com, I was more than ready to give it a try.

I just realized that you can't actually see the potatoes in that picture. They're there. I promise. I guess all but the sour cream and leeks are part of a "well-stocked pantry" but when your shoebox home doesn't have a pantry, you may need to buy the potatoes, vegetable broth and sour cream to create this soup. Bay leaves, butter, garlic, and salt also go in, but they don't take up much space. I'm pretty sure that's all I had on hand.
I think this is the first time I've cooked with leeks. I realized that the Food Network chefs weren't lying. There's a lot of dirt in between those layers!! So I sliced my leeks and let them sit in a colander sitting in a bowl of cold water to let the dirt rinse off. Just before starting to melt the butter, I gave the leeks a shimmy-shake (sorry. shameless Rach line) and let them drain til I was ready to saute' them.

I saute'd the leeks until they were soft (maybe 5 minutes?) and then added an entire clove of garlic with the top sliced off (and the loose papery skins peeled off), along with 5 cups of vegetable broth, 2 bay leaves, and a bit of salt. After that simmered away for 30 minutes, I added 2 and a half pounds of potatoes, diced. I left a bit of the skin on, but peeled them most of the way.


I circled the garlic bulb for ya

I brought that back up to a slow boil and let it go, partially covered (to allow for easy peeking!) for 15-20 minutes. Once the potatoes were easily pierced with a fork, I pulled out the garlic bulb and broke out the power tools. If you have room to store one, and it's not a pain to pull it out of its hiding spot, you could use a blender for this step, but an immersion blender is a)easier to store, b)easier to clean, and c)more fun to use.



I think I left about 1/2 of the potato pieces whole, the rest got blended.

 I added 1/3 cup of light sour cream and let it cook for another 2 minutes, or until I couldn't wait any longer. It doesn't look like much, but oooh boy! It's the perfect medium for anything you usually put on a baked potato. It's creamy, without being fatty or corn-starchy. It's hot, but not chicken-noodle-scalding hot. And best of all? Crumbled bacon, a dollop of sour cream, and a sprinkle of cheddar cheese stay right where you want them when your (my) goal is to get a bite of each in each spoonful.

All you need is a little Hope.

First, I'd like to apologize for my slacker-status these past few weeks. Since I started my new job last week, I've had a bit of trouble adjusting to my new commute and daily routine. I promise to be back on track soon! I need to get back to cooking before my cookware gets dusty and I have to clean it off! So until then...lets introduce this cutie patootie...

We pulled Hope from a local shelter looking quite...well...scraggly. She had very very dry skin, dandruffy, and had some rough patches; all most likely from inadequate care. WJVA Volunteers took her out to the play area at the shelter and immediately discovered that Hope loves to play fetch. So into the care of WJVA Hope came.

Hope is a very people friendly dog. We have little will power as animal rescuers and will allow her to stand on her hind legs and give us hugs (don't tell Ribby and Buster!!). She is the best self esteem booster when she greets you--she's always so happy to meet you! Unfortunately though, Hope isn't as thrilled to meet other dogs. She will always be an only-dog kind of girl, but will give you more love than a whole pack of dogs could give!

Hope's coat is already looking 200% better than when we rescued her. She's wirey and still kind of shaggy, but now in a cute way. She looks like she got in the way of a spray paint can; she has small areas of white on her back and chest. She has a black tongue, so we believe she may be part Chow, but we're not sure what else may be in her creative make-up.

Even though Hope isn't good at making 4-legged friends, she'll be the BFF of any 2-legged friend who wants to give her a foster or furever home. She'd love to have a fenced in yard in which she could play ball, and would do great with a walk or 2 daily just to keep up on her leash walking and socialization skills. She already walks well on a leash and knows "sit." She pays attention well and will learn other commands quickly, I'm sure!

If you are interested in giving Hope the home she is Hope-ing for, please comment or email wjvolunteers@yaho.com directly.

Why oh why is Wiley still homeless?

Wiley came to us several months ago when we rescued him from a local shelter. His family had surrendered him, but not after teaching him manners and some commands. We aren't exactly sure why his original family surrendered him, but we are sure he'd make an awesome dog for one lucky family.

Wiley has the softest coat ever and loves to play outside. He's a big fan of snow! In his short 2 year long life, he has learned and retained, through his tough times, to sit, stay and lay down. He walks very well on a leash and is housebroken. He's a ready-made dog!

Wiley is probably a lab/huskey mix, and like I said, has the softest fur, you'll just want to cuddle up with him on a cold day. He's playful and loves to run around with toys. He'd do best in a home with a yard in which he can play fetch with his family. He had a yard with an invisible fence in his previous home, so we know he is trained for one, but would prefer that he have a physical fence around his yard in case he gets too excited about a cat to chase!

Wiley had some separation anxiety when he was younger but did not do well in a crate. He does better in a home where his family isn't gone full work days, but can be left alone in a home while his family is out.
He is very affectionate, and will quickly become attached to his new family. He could make a great brother to another fur-child, but must approve of his new sibling. Wiley is a bit of a boss and prefers submissive dogs over dominant ones. We think Wiley sees small children as competition for attention; he should go to a home with all adults or with children mature enough to be able to show they are leaders and that Wiley should not compete with them for attention. The only thing Wiley likes cats for is for lunch, so he cannot live with cats.

So many families are missing out right now! Wiley is currently living in a private kennel and would greatly benefit by being in a foster home until he finds his furever home. If you have a yard and a heart big enough to offer this happy guy either, please let me know.  

Easy Peasy, and a LOT of beans!

Severeal years ago, I found this recipe for Black Bean Soup. It is souper easy (I crack myself up!) and is the perfect combination of yum and comfort on a cold winter afternoon. The only problem is, I can't keep 4 cans of black beans in my house long enough to just happen to have everything on hand when that cold winter afternoon pops up. Either I didn't get the tomato paste/peanut butter/listerine hoarding gene (you know who you are), or I've successfully rationalized with myself that our little 850 square foot home isn't the ideal place for stocking up on groceries. I must credit Dave Lieberman for this recipe, and doing so makes it a little more bearable to make a run to the store to get the beans in the chilly weather because I feel that as a phellow Philadelphian, Dave must have had do to that too. At least once, right?!

A cold afternoon and a lack of interest in the NFL playoffs made for the perfect setting to create a pot of soup. It's one of Hubby's favorites, so I knew I wouldn't be eating it myself for days.

The recipe calls for a pound of bacon, but seriously, that's a lot of bacon. I use maybe 4 strips. And I drain the fat off before adding the onions. Bacon makes everything better but sometimes I need to make myself feel better about how much I use it in cooking. So anyway, I sauted the bacon til crisp (Don't cheat yourself on time; make sure it actually gets crisp. The texture of the whole soup is so much better without soft bacon.), drain a little fat if you'd like, and then add the onion, and about 4 minutes later, add the garlic. Before the garlic burns (let it cook maybe 2 minutes), add a can of diced tomatoes, or whole tomatoes if you have a handy dandy tool with which to break them up. Then add 1 can's worth of chicken broth, 2 tablespoons of ketchup, 1 tablespoon of Worchestershire Sauce, (Worchester---- I can't even do it. I was going to pull an overused Rach line, but I'll spare you) and 2 teaspoons of chili powder. Stir that up, bring to a slow boil, and add 4 cans of drained, but not rinsed, black beans.

Return it to a simmer and allow to cook for about 10 minutes. Just before serving, stir in as much chopped cilantro as you can handle (or skip it if you refer to cilantro as "the devil herb"). You can garnish with sliced scallions, cheddar cheese, sour cream, or any combination of the 3. It's pretty hard to mess this up.

So I've decided that one of my New Years Resolutions will be to keep the canned goods needed for black bean soup on hand. If I don't make such a specific resolution, I'll never keep it. Not much of an accomplishment if I have a year to make it happen, but hey; it's the little things in life.

Ma's Chocolate Chippers

I feel the need to say some good things about my mom's cooking since I totally bashed her spinach and asparagus. She didn't guilt me into it, (she probably didn't even read it) but being the good daughter that I strive to be, I'm going to highlight one of her many specialties today.

I've never had a raging sweet tooth. That's probably a good thing, since quantities of chocolate larger than that in a small brownie give me a migraine. Regardless, I tend to be pretty picky about my sweets. Nothing that will get stuck in my teeth (I'm looking at you, Heath Bars), nothing too rich, and whenever possible, milk with cookies. If they aren't soft cookies and there's no milk in sight, I'll pass. I just don't like hard cookies.

I grew up on only homemade cookies. Anything else that went on sale or came with a coupon, Ma was on it. But not cookies. From Black Friday to Christmas week, she's baking. She starts stockpiling butter and margarine in early June. The hidden Milky Ways and caramels are discovered around Halloween. It's always been the way in my family. No store-bought cookies in our house. Just a supply of homemade delights that lasts from Black Friday until about June. (That time was much shorter when my Dad was here to "test" the cookies as they came out of the oven)

I feel as though I was the weird kid growing up that would turn down cookies at friends' houses and gatherings. Its not that I didn't want them, it's just that I preferred my Ma's. Still do. Although now if a craving strikes, I'm not as picky and will make do with what's available. So not unlike her non-heirloom spaghetti sauce, I've always strived to duplicate my Ma's chocolate chip cookies. By gosh, I think I did it.

If I go down the pudding aisle in the supermarket, you know chocolate chippers are not far behind.

I never seem to have a print out of the recipe, so I end up calling my Ma every time I get the hankering and have all the ingredients on hand. You'd think she'd have memorized it by now...but she obliges each time and patiently reads it to me. I have a new-found patience for baking these days and was hopeful that this past Sunday, it would pay off.

I even left the butter out long enough to get as soft as butter is supposed to get before becoming part of a cookie. Everything came together easily, thanks to my new mixer. (I tried a few recipes pre-bridal shower without a mixer, and with one that I borrowed for wayyyyy too long and almost got a roommate in trouble with another roommate. I suggest keeping your own electric hand mixer on well, hand.)

I also owe a big thanks to my small scoop. Had I had this little gadget a long time ago, I think I wold have started baking a long time ago. It prevents me from getting frustrated with using 2 spoons to dallop the dough on the stone and also prevents me from getting lazy and making the cookies larger and larger as I go, just to get rid of the dough and be done with the process.

11 minutes in the oven and wa-lah! Ma's Chocolate Chip Cookies. I'm very proud of myself, as I've never gotten such a good result. That's all I've got. No clever sign off line, just pride. My mom has made these cookies for my niece. I can't wait for her to make them with my children some day.

There's a fungus amongus. And it's deeelicious!

I've been on a tear in the kitchen lately but I had to take a 2 or 3 day hiatus. That's because our fridge is full of leftovers. Even if I did cook a new meal, I wouldn't have anywhere to put the leftovers because the containers are all being used already. Sigh.....time off from work, ingredients available, and no room in the stomach or refrigerator. Such a tease.

I couldn't help myself today. I was getting anxious. I couldn't contain my excitement about this recipe. And hubby was out of the house, so I just had to make my creamy mushroom bisque while I could do it without hearing complaining about fungus infiltrating the house all day.

So I amassed my pile of mushrooms and the rest of the ingredients:

I was a little confused when I first read the recipe. It said the soup would take a total of 70 minutes, with 50 of those being active prep. The recipe didn't look like it required that much work (and I was even going to streamline the blending process and while testing out my immersion blender!). Well, I found those 50 minutes. See that big bowl of mushrooms? Yeah. They needed to be diced.

I bought all the portobellos that the store had and that wasn't enough for the recipe so I filled in the rest with criminis. That was actually a good thing before I even knew it. All those little criminis were diced using my egg slicer! I'm not sure how much time I actually saved, but I got into a rhythm of mushroom-in-chop-turn-mushroom-chop-dump-repeat quite easily.

This is what I was working toward:

I used my food chopper for the onions and a plain ol' knife for the portobellos. That was definitely the bulk of the prep time. It took a while but not much energy. In to the pot go 1/2 the oil and 1/2 the mushrooms. Saute', repeat, and huff and puff that this is what you're left with:

I will resist the urge to whine and just move on. I reserved 3/4 cup of the sauteed mushrooms to provide a bit of texture in the end. The rest went back into the pot with the onion and  4 cloves of pressed garlic. Once that started smelling good, I added 1/2 a cup of brandy and let that cook out a bit before adding 4 cups of chicken stock, 1/4 cup of uncooked rice, 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh thyme, and 1 cup of heavy cream. With a little salt and pepper, I let the mixture simmer for about 25 minutes.

I had to distract myself for those 25 minutes so I wouldn't blend the soup prematurely and get uncooked rice stuck in my immersion blender, but finally, the time had come! No need to dirty up a blender (that incidentally, I don't own). I used the immersion blender right in the pot and it worked like a charm (thanks Tina!!).

I added the reserved mushrooms back in the pot, let it simmer for another 5 minutes or so, and then it was the moment I'd been waiting for! The bisque tasted just as good as I imagined. Decadent, filling, but not too rich. If you even just like mushrooms, I highly recommend this soup. If you love mushrooms like me, I highly suggest you buy in to a farm in Kennett Square.

Louie Louie

Louie is a special guy. He came to stay with his foster mom after her friend met him in North Carolina. His foster mom and her friend must be his guardian angels, since they have gotten him out of a shelter and into a home, learning how to be a loving, trusting family dog. He's about 3 years old and is a coonhound mix.

Based on his peculiar reaction to things in a normal household, we think Louis was kept in a pen outside and was only let out when it was time to hunt. At first, he wasn't sure what to think about the TV, dishwasher, ceiling fans, but these are all understood now and he is at ease in the house. Outside noises tended to scare him at first too, like the neighbors kids playing in a pool, a tree being cut down, or a truck backfiring, but within a few short weeks, these things are less scary to him and instead of running in the house for cover, he usually comes to his foster mom now, showing good bonding skills on his part. Louis was picked up as a stray, so we assume he either strayed from the pack while hunting or was simply let go because hunting wasn't his thing. After living outside in a pen and then in a shelter for 2 years, we think he's doing great!
 
The breed is known to be good with other dogs and children and Louis proves this to be true. He is easy to handle and check over for his health needs. Louis loves his crate and his toys. He loves them so much that he can get impatient and get in trouble by chewing on things that aren't his if there aren't any toys or bones in sight. He loves his crate so much and goes there when he feels unsafe. In a new environment, he feels like he needs to guard his crate from other animals, but with reassurance and an adjustment period, he will settle in and feel comfortable with the other furkids.

While Louis is fine with kids who come into his house, he will need time to adjust to the environment with the family that adopts him. For this reason, his foster mom feels like he should go to people who don't yet have kids or who have older kids. Younger kids may make noises that could scare Louie and make it tough for him to adjust to his new home.

He is living with other dogs and gets along with them well. He (just like me!) doesn't like to be woken up though. He'll "scold" his fursiblings with a bark if they come up to his crate and wake him. Outside his crate, he has claimed a chair by the window to look outside. If its raining or thundering though, he heads back to his crate, as he doesn't like storms. Maybe they are a reminder of being stuck in the rain without a loving family to keep him safe.

Louie doesn't need a huge yard, as he's not a high energy dog, but can jump a 4 foot fence if he feels threatened. Ideally, he'll go to a furever home with a yard with a 5 foot fence and a family member to walk him daily so he can learn the sounds of the neighborhood while in the company of a strong friend. Louis does pull on leash when he first starts out and again when he's frightened by a new noise, but he gets better with each trip.

Louie is trying very hard to become a family dog. He just needs to continue learning that humans are here to keep him safe, healthy and happy, and that by accepting them, he will do the same for them. Are you interested in adopting Louie and letting his learning continue?