I'm trying this out this Christmas

Brining the turkey before cooking tomorrow. We'll see how it goes!

Daily Ada: 4th of July 2014

Ada's nursery celebrated the 4th of July by making red, white and blue fruit (and marshmallow) "kebabs." The blueberries were already gone by the time I got the phone out to take a picture.

Happy Independence Day!

Daily Ada, daily bread

Pancakes!

It was Shrove Tuesday today, which in the UK means pancakes for dinner! It's a holiday we can all get behind.

Ada and guacamole.

I finally discovered how to make guacamole so Ada likes it (for now). A lot of lime juice, some chopped green onion, nothing else but avocado. Which isn't really guacamole, but if she eats it, I'm happy.

Daily Ada: 31 October 13

Baking pumpkin bread. The eggs in the foreground Ada cracked open (mostly) herself. The rolling pin had nothing to do with it except Ada enjoys it, so I brought it out. She always says "roll, roll, roll" when using it.

Look what I've found!

And I think I may also be on to a source of "true" corn tortillas. We're getting there!

New fish recipe number one: Salmon with Pepita-Lime Butter

We want to eat more fish than we have been lately so I went on a hunt for easy fish recipes I think we'll actually eat more than once.

Here's the first recipe we tried, which we had Saturday night. We liked it. I could only get regular pumpkin seeds, not "pepitas" but it was still good. I bought two salmon fillets, rather than getting a big one and cutting it up and taking the bottom skin off. Otherwise, I did everything as instructed.

It was super fast to make. We ate it with steamed broccoli and sugar snap peas and wild rice, as recommended, and it worked well. We'll definitely do this one again.

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/salmon_with_pepita_lime_butter.html

Salmon with Pepita-Lime Butter

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tablespoons unsalted pepitas (see Tip)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 pound salmon fillet, skinned (see Tip) and cut into 4 portions
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

PREPARATION

1. Toast pepitas (see Tip). Place in a small bowl with butter, lime zest, lime juice and chili powder.
2. Generously coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and place over medium heat. Sprinkle salmon with salt and pepper, add to the pan and cook until browned and just cooked through in the center, 2 to 4 minutes per side. Remove the pan from the heat. Transfer the salmon to a plate. Add the butter-lime mixture to the hot pan; stir until the butter is melted. Serve the salmon topped with the sauce.

TIPS & NOTES

• Pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds) can be found in the bulk-foods section of natural-foods stores or Mexican groceries.

Place pepitas in a small dry skillet and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until fragrant and lightly browned, 2 to 4 minutes.

• Place a salmon fillet on a clean cutting board, skin side down. Starting at the tail end, slip the blade of a long, sharp knife between the fish flesh and the skin, holding the skin down firmly with your other hand. Gently push the blade along at a 30° angle, separating the fillet from the skin without cutting through either.
• 
  

Daily Ada: 26 November 12

We discovered a bean dip Ada really likes. She basically just licks it off anything it is put on.

Daily Ada: 18 October 12

Ada likes blueberries. She and Christopher will have a lot to talk about at Christmas.

Daily Jessica: 30 July 12

This needs to hold me over until Christmas.

Daily Ada: 11 June 12: Banana!

First BBQ of the season.

The weather has turned warm here, at least for the past couple of days, so we got out the two grills and cleaned them up.

Yesterday we had cheeseburgers. Today we had pulled pork, smoked with pecan wood chips.

Hooray for warm weather!

Food processor!

The day has come. After many months of coveting and pining and then considering and researching, I am now the proud owner of a food processor.

The first recipe I made with it was "Yeasted Coffee Cake" from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. It was kind of a bread/cake hybrid, which required cutting butter into flour - something that I hate doing by hand.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished article. It turned out looking nice, with a streusel topping, but I actually didn't like the end result that much. I think I wanted it to be more cakey than bready, especially with that kind of topping - but I think that's just how the recipe is.

I do have a picture of the quiche - which you've all already seen. I made the crust for that using the food processor. And that turned out really nicely. I've also made pesto, an apple pie, pizza dough and bagels all using the processor.

Next up will be some kind of recipe that requires a lot of slicing - I haven't used the discs yet. But I do love it - it's great!

My first quiche.

Bacon, onion and mushroom.

Pancakes!

When Team Vallentine decided to celebrate Pancake Day, we immediately had an issue about whose pancakes we would make. In the UK, traditional Shrove Tuesday pancakes are basically like crepes, and are only served with sugar and lemon. I, on the other hand was hoping to use this opportunity for a full breakfast for dinner.

We debated.

Then the true American spirit won out.

We'd have both.

Mark made his (a Delia Smith recipe - I guess you could call her the UK's Julia Child) and I made mine (Mark Bittman's recipe from How to Cook Everything), and I of course included bacon and scrambled eggs on the side. We were a true International House of Pancakes.

It was yummy! I don't know why we were so late to this party, but now we've arrived, I think we're going to stick around... I'm already looking forward to next year!

(Third to blog! Phew.)

(P.S. I posted this from my phone, since that's what I used to take most of the pictures - but for some reason I can't change the order, even from my laptop, so they're not in the best order. Need to work on how to do this better from the phone...)

Adventures in Preserving 4 and 5: Plum Jam and Gingered Courgette/Zucchini Jam

The next two jams I tried (a couple of weeks ago) I had full recipes for - from the preserving course.

The first is a plum jam recipe. I used three types of plums:


And then did the usual boiling and sugaring and boiling:



And it ended up as jam!



The other recipe I wanted to try was demonstrated at the preserving workshop day. It's called "Gingered Courgette Jam" which for some reason does sound better than "Gingered Zucchini Jam." For some reason, it feels like it would be normal to make a jam out of courgettes, but not out of zucchinis, even though they're exactly the same vegetable.

Anyway, we got to taste some on the workshop day, and it was pretty good - almost like candy, actually, because of the ginger. And I had a couple of courgettes that I had grown (yay!) that were getting a bit too big to eat normally, so I thought it was worth a try, especially since it was enough to make half a recipe - not a whole one, which I thought might be too much.

So you start out by peeling and grating the zucchini/courgettes and ginger - which is what turned out to be the most time-consuming part, since I don't have a food processor (poor me):



And then you do the normal boiling and sugaring and boiling:



And it also ends up as jam.

We haven't tried the courgette one yet, but I have been eating the plum jam, and it's pretty good. I tried the variation that uses orange juice and some nutmeg, which gives it a nice flavor.

Here they all are, plus two bottles of the previously mentioned shrub. I'm now up to four bottles total of shrub, having finished off my second batch this last weekend.


So not a bad output, considering I'm brand new to it, and not taking it too seriously. And it's not just about jam, as you'll soon see...

Adventures in Preserving 2 and 3: Raspberry and Blueberry Jam and Red Currant Shrub.

After my preserving course, I'm now trying my hand at jam and other preserve making. Here are the first two experiments of the last couple months:

After the failed marmalade attempt, I thought I need to try jam. I had some raspberries and blueberries available, so I thought I'd just try to put them together. I didn't have a recipe for that mix - so I just winged it.

I forgot to take a picture of the process, but here's the end result:


And here it is, in action:


It ended up being a bit too strong. I'm not sure what I did wrong - not enough sugar, or not the right flavors together, but it just wasn't all that great. I'm glad I only ended up with two jars of it! I guess I'm not quite experienced enough to go off recipe. But the consistency was really good, at least, so I got something right.

One thing that they let us taste, but didn't demonstrate, on the preserving course, was an old-fashioned drink called "Currant Shrub." It's like Sloe Gin or any other fruit flavored alcoholic drink. In this case, it's red currants and brandy. I liked the taste of it on the day, though I don't go in for those kinds of drinks normally. It tasted just like Christmas, and the longer it sits the better it is, so I thought I'd make some for this holiday season.

You start by getting the juice from the red currants:



Then you need to strain the juice out. I don't have a jelly bag stand, so I rigged one up using two potato mashers, and some other kitchen objects, including a jam jar filled with water, acting as a weight to press the red currant juice out:


Then you mix the juice with the alcohol, plus some lemon juice and nutmeg and let it sit.

Like this:


After a week or two (or three - as I accidentally did the second time I made it), you add sugar and raise its temperature to around 60 degrees Celsius. Then you strain it through a jelly bag and bottle it up. Then you let it sit for a few months. Hopefully it will be just about right by the time Christmas rolls around.