Caught my eye recently

These recipes:
Mixed Vegetable Curry - this one looks like it might be good for when I have an abundance of cauliflower
Dorie Greenspan's Anniversary Cake - from the blog of a fellow can jammer...what she calls a buttercream is really a Swiss meringue frosting, a favorite of mine.     Nothing exotic....everything is pantry/fridge staples for me
Yolanda's Famous Chicken - another recipe for chicken breasts that don't require exotic ingredients.  Great for when I have thawed out chicken breasts and don't have a clue with what to do with them
Hardboiled Eggs Masala - I tasted this when Tammy made it for breakfast at Selma, which is an Ann Arbor breakfast salon that supports local farms

These books:
Urban Pantry by Amy Pennington - there are a treasure trove of books out right now aimed at "radical homemaking"...the thrifty, sustainable, DIY culture that is a bon afide trend. Sadly, when things become trendy, boatloads of crappy books get written.   This one is the exception...it's practical and loaded with some wonderful recipes and very practical ideas about living more simply.

Interesting recipes

Middle Eastern style lentil soup - when we subscribed to the analog version of annarbor.com, I often clipped out recipes featured by Marge Biancke in her "Kitchen Mailbox" column.  I'd paste them in a recipe book, and I also bought the Ann Arbor News  cookbook that featured her recipes.   I'm glad she is still at it at the dot com.

Homemade bread that doesn't require a bread machine or a cast iron dutch oven to cook - this recipe was in Martha Stewart Living and it actually worked!  I made the multigrain one.  Cross #20 off my list of 46 things I want to do in my 46th year.

Easy Homemade French Fries - I found this recipe on the NYT Bitten Blog....can't wait to try it!

Zingerman's Coleslaw - another recipe from Marge Biancke...thanks, Marge!

New ideas for chicken breasts or ground beef

Chicken tchoupitoulas

Chinese Hamburger

Soba Noodles with Asian Meatballs

Joe's Special

46 things to do in my 46th year

I just celebrated a birthday, and I am making plans for celebrating my 46th year.  Suggestions came in from far and wide - mountain climbing, running a marathon, etc.   None of these are going to happen - I just had an ankle reconstruction a couple years ago and so mountain climbing and marathoning are out for now.   But I did get some suggestions I could use.  My friend Ann suggested I attempt some retro recipes.   One of my New Year's resolutions was to get more music in my life.   I would love to spend more time outdoors, and more time attempting some crafty things, even though I suck at crafts.   So, here's my list for my 46th year. 

1. Celebrate the food of the 1960s!  Make a gelatin based dish that's not fruity....aspic or vegetable based.  (check out this Knox recipe booklet I picked up from a rummage sale)
2. Learn how to play "The Entertainer" on the piano.   I have taken piano lessons on and off my whole life, but I have never played "The Entertainer".
3. Hike the Potowatomi trail with friends, and have a picnic en route.
4. Pickle brussel sprouts
5. Swim in Lake Huron when we camp this summer at Harrisville State Park
6. Learn how to play "The Shanty Song" by Jonathan Edwards on guitar by heart.  Memorize the lyrics.
7. Inspired by that song, I guess I will buy a harmonica and learn how to play it.  Not sure that I can play it will playing the guitar, though.  Singing and playing guitar is hard enough.  
8. Play guitar when I cantor at church for one Mass.
9. Sew something.
10. Find out more about the garrison that was in Dearborn.
11. Make a pilgrimage to the Fr. Solanus Casey Center. 
12. Attend a service at a monastery, such as the Dormition Monastery in Jackson.
13. Visit Hidden Lake Gardens in Tipton.
14. Kayak the Huron River at night when there is a full moon with my friend Martha.
15. Visit the Peach Mountain observatory
16. Use my pressure canner to can soup
17. Plant another rose bush
18. Make a mosaic
19. Make a hypertufa garden planter
20. Try to bake bread again without using a dutch oven a la Mark Bittman - I just want to make it like old ladies do.
21. Make a chronicling project a la Darcy Miller Nussbaum.  "Chronicling" sounds way more cool than scrapbooking.  Of course, if I hung out with Kate Spade and Martha Stewart, I'd be more cool, too.
22. Make one recipe out of the Moosewood cookbook to celebrate the 1980s
23. Another gem from the 1960s....make a hamburger recipe from 365 Hamburger Recipes
24. Try caviar
25. Visit Parker Mill Park
26. Visit the Waterloo Farm Museum
27. Visit Savannah, Georgia.  This is something I've wanted to do since I was a Brownie Girl Scout as a kid, and read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as an adult.
28. Play one song on my cigar box ukulele.  I forgot how to tune it, let alone play it.
29. Complete Tigress's Can Jam by canning one item a month for 12 months straight.
30. Continue being a canning exhibitionist by demonstrating canning at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market.
31. Attend the Local Food Summit and speak out on the importance of making sure local food is available for all, not just the rich.  
32. Make at least one recipe from Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping.
33. Crochet a rag rug out of old jeans.
34. Finish reading the Seven Storey Mountain
35. Swim 200 yards freestyle.  In HS, my event was the 500 free, but I don't think I could make it that far
36. Visit my friend Sheri from high school.
37. Make crumb cake.  Need to find a recipe first.
38. Master making gelato at home
39. Visit the Howell Farmer's Market
40. Visit the Ypsi Farmer's Market
41. Visit the Tecumseh Farmer's Market.
42. Wintersow some herbs
43. Have a sunset picnic with our neighbors
44. Have a bonfire party in the back yard
45. Make my hammock garden in the woods
46. Go on one 10 mile hike somewhere this year.

Some interesting canning facts

This month's Can Jam challenge is carrots.  Hosted by Doris and Jilly this month, these two sisters write a fine food blog that has lots of wonderful canning information. Check it out! I love that this month's canning challenge is carrots, because I would never in a million years ever desire to can carrots.  Why?   Carrots are a low acid food, so they'd have to be pressure canned.   At our house, we very rarely eat cooked carrots, unless they are an ingredient in chicken soup or pot roast.   In fact, you can always tell which bowl of soup was my son's, because everything will be eaten out of if except the carrots, which will be politely left in a pile at the bottom of the bowl.   This kid has never met a vegetable he didn't like, except cooked carrotsa.   In fact, he ate beet greens happily yesterday and even told his friend who was having dinner with us about how much he likes greens, but he won't touch a cooked carrot.  He eats raw carrots by the pound, but no cooked carrots. 

Why bother canning carrots when they store for a really long time anyway?  If you've got lots of carrots, they'd put up well in a root cellar (at my house, my "root cellar" is the shelf on the inside wall of my garage).  So carrots are a great challenge this month.  The rules of the Can Jam are only boiling water bath canning, so for carrots, that means pickles/jams/jellies/chutneys.    For me, it's going to be pickles, My family doesn't go for any kind of exotic jams or jellies - so making lots of carrot jam really isn't practical for me.  If it's not strawberry, it "ain't gettin' et" around here.    Note to self:  12 pints of strawberry jam was not enough to get us through the winter this year.

So, I've been formulating my pickled carrot plan - I'll probably do it next weekend when the cherubs are taking the ACT test on Saturday.    I spent some time looking around on the internets for ideas for pickled carrots, and found lots of canning information I thought was interesting, but not all really related to pickled carrots.   Here's a summary:

• When brining pickles, hard water can interfere with the formation of acid and prevent pickles from curing properly.  We have hard water at our house, so I have been buying distilled water to make pickles or beer.   But, I learned that I don't need to do that from the Clemson Extension Service.  Instead, I can soften my own hard water by simply boiling it 15 minutes and let set for 24 hours, covered. Remove any scum that appears. Slowly pour water from the containers so the sediment will not be disturbed. Discard the sediment. Great cost save!
• Also from Clemson, I found some good tips for making sure my cucumber pickles stay crisp. 
  Soaking cucumbers in ice water for four to five hours prior to pickling is a one suggested method for making crisp pickles.  I picked up a container of Mrs. Wages pickling lime at Sparrow Meat Market a couple weekends ago. It was on the bottom shelf and covered with some dust - evidently the demand for pickling lime is not high in Ann Arbor, and I was surprised to find it because I'd been unable to find it anywhere around here.   So I bought it for next summer.    Clemson says that the calcium in lime does improve pickle firmness, and to purchase food-grade pickling lime from your grocer's shelves. Do not use agricultural or burnt lime. Food-grade lime may be used as a lime-water solution for soaking fresh cucumbers 12 to 24 hours before pickling them. However, EXCESS LIME ABSORBED BY THE CUCUMBERS MUST BE REMOVED TO MAKE SAFE PICKLES. To remove excess lime, drain the lime-water solution, rinse and then re-soak the cucumbers in fresh water for one hour. REPEAT THE RlNSING AND SOAKING STEPS TWICE MORE.  I'm definitely going to give it a try next summer and see how it goes.
• From the University of North Dakota Extension, I found this excellent way to test the pectin content of the fruit I am making into jam or jelly.   I found this interesting because strawberries can have wildly fluctuating amounts of pectin year to year around here.  I can test to see if my fruit has enough pectin using this test: pour one tablespoon of the cool fruit juice and one tablespoon denatured alcohol into a cup. Examples of brands are E2, Dalox, Solex--are available at paint and hardware stores. Stir slightly and let stand for 2 minutes. If a solid mass of jelly forms, the fruit has a high pectin content. In this case, use one cup sugar for each cup of juice when you make jelly.  If several small jelly-like pieces form, however, the pectin content of the fruit is only moderate. Use only a 3/4 cup of sugar for each cup of juice. If the mixture forms small particles, the fruit has too little pectin to make jelly unless you add commercial pectin. In any case, do not taste the mixture as it is not for human consumption. Just throw it down the drain and wash equipment well.
• A good way to test whether jelly made without added pectin is done is to use a use a jelly, candy or deep-fat thermometer(or, in my case, I'd use by electronic meat probe that we use for smoking meat).   I like the idea of using this test instead of the wrinkle test (drop some jam on a cold plate and run your finger through it to see if it wrinkles) because it saves time.   Before starting to cook your jelly/jam, take the temperature of boiling water. (this should be 212 F because we are at low altitude here in Ann Arbor, butboiling point varies with different altitude and the accuracy of most household thermometers are not very accurate. After boiling the mixture for a while, lower the bulb into the mix and read the results. When the jelly mixture temperature is 8 degrees above the boiling water temperature, the jam/jelly is done. 

I found some more interesting canning stuff on my internet travels I'll post about later.  I am enjoying the Can Jam and thinking of summer canning projects.   Summer seems so far off now - I guess this is the canning equivalent of gardeners looking over seed catalogs in the bowels of winter!

Note to self: Interesting canning recipes I want to try

Ginger beer concentrate:  This recipe looks good, I'm thinking I can process it for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Orange and Pinot Jelly:  The recipe is from Ferber's Mes Confitures which is a book I looked at in the past and decided not to buy, but it's growing on me.  I might just pick it up.  Christine Ferber's great with using natural pectin (not boxed) and I am a fan of the same technique.  In this recipe, she uses Granny Smith apples for her pectin.  

Note to self

What I want to do some time before the end of 2009
Need to resubscribe to Cook's Illustrated
Get The Martha Rules out of the library
Find Alison's recipe for rouladen and try it out
Shop for supplies to make LED christmas tee sculptures

Note to self

Stuff I want to do:

• Join the Waterloo Area Historical Society
• Look up all my items on my blog labeled  "Note To Self" and tag them that way so I can find them easier
• By year end, write about my status on items labeled "Note to Self"
• Get the Durham's Tracklements cookbook, Better than Storebought cookbook, and Fancy Pantry and other cookbooks by Helen Witty out of the library to see if I want to own them
• Use my Powells credits to buy Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie book
• Finally learn how to properly pronounce "charcuterie" and figure out a way to remember it 
• Make the Saveur recipe for Hoppin' John soup on New Years Day
• Record Tony Gallucci's documentary about Tom Gumbleton for viewing

Note to self: bulbs planted in the garden

Every year, Downtown Home and Garden prices their remaining spring flowering bulbs half off during mid November.  This year, I bought hyacinths for forcing and then some unique bulbs for planting in the garden.   I'm documenting it here because I will forget what it was and where I planted it come spring.  Along the steps, I planted oxalis adenophyla (Shamrocks) and ornithalgum nutans (Drooping star of Bethlehem) by the stairs and muscari golden fragrance hyacinthoides otisponica pink (can't find a picture of this pink bluebell) and muscari saffier down by the Pink Promise hybrid tea rose bush my daughter planted.  I'll try to rmember to post later about how these all turn out!  I hope the rose bush makes it - I've never had much luck with roses.