When inspiration hits

It had been a while since I was inspired by the items in my CSA delivery. So it's seems odd that it took an onion to kick my inspiration back in gear. Specifically this onion:

Yes that's my CSA delivery from right before Hurricane Irene and, yes, that is a honking big onion, pulled right out of Suffolk's rich soil and brought to me by my favorite food fairy, Jan of Clayhill Farms. And it got me wanting to create something using only CSA items, or at least something that didn't require me to leave the house. And looking at my delivery, I suddenly lit upon the idea of mixing roasted eggplant and caramelized onion. I had never done either, but I figured it couldn't be that difficult. And then, after discovering leftover pasta sauce and two kinds of cheese, I knew I'd be making pizza.

Specifically roasted eggplant and caramelized onion pizza with feta and mozzarella. And it was so good, I figured I'd (finally) share the recipe with you.

Roasted eggplant and caramelized onion pizza

Makes enough topping for two pizzas
1 medium eggplant, skinned and cubed

2 tbsp. olive oil

sea salt

pepper

2 sprigs fresh rosemary, chopped

1 large onion, thinly sliced

1 tbsp butter

1 tsp. honey

Pizza sauce (fresh or store bought)

Fresh pizza dough (you can make this or buy fresh dough at most grocery stores)

For the eggplant:

• Skin and cut into cubes. Salt and leave covered on the counter or in the fridge for at least a half hour. This will draw out the juices, which can leave the eggplant bitter when cooked. (You can skip this step but if you have a more mature eggplant, you'll regret it.) Drain, rinse and pat dry.
• Toss cubes with olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh rosemary, chopped. Scatter on a baking pan and roast in a 400 degree oven until browned. 

For the caramelized onions:

• Cut onion(s) in half and then slice into thin strips. You can go thicker, but I just wanted the onions to almost melt away so cut them as thinly (read safely) as a could. 
• Coat the bottom of a wide, deep saucepan with 1 tbsp. of butter per onion or a mixture of olive oil and butter (I only used one onion, so I just did at tablespoon of butter).
• Add onions and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and 1 tsp. of honey (optional). Cover and cook on low for 30 minutes to an hour, or until the onions have reached your desired color, tenderness and taste. I only did 30 minutes. 
• Try to avoid stirring constantly. You need to butter/oil to brown but you don't want the onions to burn. 

For the pizza:

• Your oven should already be at 400 degrees, but if not, preheat it. Put your pizza stone in there to heat up while you assemble your pizza.
• Roll out your dough using cornmeal to keep it from sticking to your paddle. Press out from the middle and fold over the outer rim to create a crust. You want this dough thinner so it crisps up enough to handle the toppings but also thick enough to handle the toppings. It's pretty much trial and error here folks.
• Add sauce, mozzerella, eggplant, onions and feta. 
• Bake until the cheese is brown and to crust is crispy. Eat as is or drizzle with balsamic vinegar to cut through the rich earthiness of the roasted eggplant and carmelized onions.

Notes:

• When I make pizza, I use a pizza stone preheated in the oven. I slide the pizza onto the stone with a pizza paddle. Don't have these items? Get them, STAT! Or add them to your Christmas list, as we did. Why? Because pizza stones make the best pizza. However, you can also just cook this on pan, round or square. You just have to shape the dough to fit the pan and be aware that it won't be as awesome as my pizza, though it will still be delicious.
• Yes, these are a lot of steps and yes it took a lot of work for two pizzas. But they are amazing pizzas. Consider making one pizza and then using the leftover ingredients for a layered pasta dish on another day. The toppings will keep for a week or so in the fridge and can be used in many ways.
• As I always say in pizza posts, customize away. 

Summery fresh: Corn chowder

Alright, I can understand why you might think that corn chowder isn't really a summery dish. I mean, with the temperature being in the triple digits right now, I'm not sure myself if I want to dig into anything warmer than a nice cool salad. But then, I get to work, where they keep the thermostat at an almost unbearable 60 degrees, and all I can think about is hot soup and tea. Besides, corn is about as quintessentially summer as you can get and my CSA sure delivers a lot of it. The best thing about this chowder (which I came up with all by myself) is that it only takes 30 minutes and yet still manages to be delicious and flavorful. The key? Farm fresh ingredients, herbs from my own patio garden and  a bit of chicken stock.

30-minute Corn Chowder
3 slices of bacon, diced
4 ears worth of corn
5-6 red potatoes, skin-on and diced
3-4 cloves of garlic
About 1 tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary
About 1 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano
About 1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsely
1 1/2 cups chicken stock (1 bouillon cube dissolved in 1 1/2 cups hot water)
1 cup soy milk
2 tsp. cayenne pepper
Salt and pepper to taste
Shredded cheddar cheese

• Dice up bacon and put in a preheated pan. Remove the cooked bacon and some of the grease (I do this to decrease some of the overall fat in the soup).
• Add the corn, potatoes and garlic to the pan. Add salt and pepper to taste. Once the potatoes are lightly browned, add the stock. Bring it to a boil. 
• Turn the heat down. Add the fresh herbs, cayenne pepper and soy milk. Simmer until it's reached your desired consistency. Stir often so the soy milk doesn't scald. 

This dish is not only super easy to make, it uses very few ingredients, and most of them tend to be sitting around your house anyway. On a sidenote, if you don't have fresh herbs I suggest growing an herb garden! Just kidding, that's not necessary. But just remember that when subbing dried herbs for fresh ones, decrease the amount by half. In this case I'd do a teaspoon each of oregano and parsley and two teaspoons of rosemary. Why? Parsley and oregano tend to be superstrong when dried. Rosemary is slightly weaker and you'll need extra so it's not overshadowed. Also, make sure you get crushed rosemary. It is very difficult to chop dried rosemary and the herbs won't be in the dish long enough to soften. And no one likes getting a huge chunk of chewy rosemary in their chowder!

Healthy dessert: Chocolate zucchini cake

OK, it may not actually be healthy, but chocolate zucchini cake is a great way to not only use up the tons of zucchini I've been getting from my CSA but also to sneak some veggies into an otherwise totally unhealthy cake. And did I mention it's delicious? Plus it was an excellent opportunity to break out my racy red Kitchen Aid:

Isn't she the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

First up, I should mention that this cake is closer to a brownie in texture than a cake. It's quite dense, and so moist that it never really made it to the light crumbly texture most cakes have. And that's alright with me, and all of my taste-testers (these certified testers include my husband and coworkers). The taste-testers, by the way, ate up all my cake before I could get a picture of just a slice by itself. It looked fairly close to this image, from Chocolate & Zucchini blog, which is where I got my recipe from:

Chocolate Zucchini Cake, Photo by Clotilde Dusoulier of Chocolate & Zucchini blog

I frosted mine with a thin layer of whipped cream cheese frosting, mostly because I was out of powdered sugar. Here's the star of this post, the recipe:

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 cup loose dark brown sugar (as opposed to packed)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons strong cooled coffee
• 3 large eggs
• 2 cups unpeeled grated zucchini
• 1 cup chopped chocolate (I used milk chocolate, but I would recommend getting a semisweet bar instead, since the milk chocolate chunks lost almost all flavor in the cooking)
• Confectioner's sugar or frosting (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease a 10-inch round springform pan or 8 1/2-inch square pan.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In the bowl of a mixer (or by hand in a large mixing bowl), beat the sugar and butter until fluffy. Add the vanilla, coffee, and eggs, mixing well between each addition.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the zucchini, chocolate chips, and about a third of the flour mixture, making sure the zucchini strands are well coated and not clumping too much.
4. Add the rest of the flour mixture into the egg batter, half a cup at a time. Mix until just combined; the batter will be thick.
5. Fold the zucchini mixture into the batter, and blend with a spatula without overmixing. Pour (or scoop, mine was super thick) into the prepared cake pan, and level the surface.
6. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer onto a rack to cool for 10 minutes, run a knife around the pan to loosen, and unclasp the sides of the pan. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar, frosting or a chocolate glaze, if desired.

Being a new recipe, I have several things I would do differently. I would likely add about 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg and a 1/2 teaspoon cloves, just to spice things up a bit. I was even thinking some ginger, cayenne pepper or cardamom would all be good ways to kick this recipe up a notch. Finally, I think I'd want to either leave it unfrosted or go with the powdered sugar, maybe even the coconut pecan frosting that normally goes on German chocolate cake. Now for the photos:

That's my cup of coffee. And yes, there's caffeine in this cake, but not very much. And you can't really taste it. It merely adds depth to the chocolate.

This recipe utilizes the classic cake-making steps: Mix dry ingredients in one bowl...

Cream butter and sugar in another bowl...

Add the rest of the wet ingredients to the creamed mixture. Traditionally the flour is added to the creamed mixture in a few parts and then you're done.

But I was adding chocolate chunks (hand-chopped from a Symphony chocolate bar) and zucchini.

So this means that I had to worry the additions would clump together and not distribute properly.

But that's not really a worry if you remember a simple step: Mix your additions with a third of the flour mixture. The floury coating will help the additions evenly distribute in the batter. I'm not an expert on the science, but I know it works.

My Kitchen Aid came with an attachment that helps me funnel the dry ingredients into the bowl without flour going everywhere, which is a big problem with stand mixers. I essentially added the flour in 1/2 cup increments until it was all incorporated.

The recipe calls for a springform pan, but you don't need to use it. I did because I got a set of three for the wedding that I still hadn't used. They are also much deeper than any of my round cake pans, which meant that my batter would definitely not overflow.

The walls of the springform pan are separated from the base. The black clip essentially tightens the ring around the base, creating a seal that keeps batters from leaking out.

When the batter is cooked, you release the clip and lift of the ring and...

Viola! You have lovely cake with perfect sides that didn't require a lot of effort and finger-crossing to remove from the pan.

CSA Week 4: A little late but a lot of delicious

Sorry to post this so late, but I felt like I needed a break from life. Now that I've recovered, I figured it's time to share the down-low on last week's delivery. I'm saddened to say that it's not just the posts that I've had trouble keeping up with: I've been having some trouble eating the deliveries as well.

Last week I received a pound of fresh peas, two bell peppers, four yellow squash, three zucchini, two heads of bok choy, eight round zucchini and four peaches. The peaches, by the way, were absolutely delicious, and I was able to use up all the round zucchini on Monday, when I had a cookout. I grilled up all the zucchini over the fire with some olive oil and Italian seasoning.

Price breakdown

• 1 lb. fresh peas: $3.49
• 2 green bell peppers: $3.98
• 4 yellow squash: $6.73
• 3 zucchini +  8 round zucchini: $14.40
• 2 heads of bok choy: $2.54
• 4 peaches: $3.13
• Total: $34.46
• Total saved: $13.46

The bok choy, by the way, is delicious brushed with a butter seasoning mixture and grilled over the open flame for a few minutes.

CSA week 1: A week of experimenting with food

Remember when I posted about my first week of my CSA? You may also recall I promised to post what meals that delivery produced, so here goes:

• Thai chicken curry with red peppers and zucchini (Saturday night dinner)

• 10-minute pasta sauce with green peppers and zucchini (I had this three or four times during the week because I needed something quick.)

• Italian sausage and veggies with green peppers and zucchini (Thursday's dinner)

• Teriyaki veggies with whole wheat noodles with green peppers and zucchini (Friday's dinner - it's in my fridge at work, waiting for me to eat it)

• Turkey bacon, cucumber and tomato sandwich (Monday and Tuesday lunches)

• Greek yogurt, blueberries and honey (several breakfasts)

• Southern-style Cucumber, onion and tomatoes in vinegar salad (several lunches, plus my coworker had a few bowls)

• Zucchini and bell pepper omelets with havarti cheese (several breakfasts)

• Smoothie with strawberries, greek yogurt, frozen mangoes and a touch of honey (the husband made it for me Wednesday night to help me cope with work stress)

And I won't even mention all the random snack moments I had without bothering to do more than wash this or that item. Nothing beats plain old fresh strawberries and blueberries. And, have I mentioned how delicious raw zucchini is? Trust me, it's better than cucumber.
I have to say the food I receive from the CSA is so inspiring. It makes me want to spend all my time in the kitchen and experiment with recipes. And let's not even get started on the taste. Amazing!

Styling and profiling my berry cobbler

This is my berry cobbler, featured in a photoshoot for Suffolk Living Magazine:

 Photo by R.E. Spears III, Suffolk News-Herald

Isn't it the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

Fruit Cobbler
Adapted from Sally Smith, Suffolk gardener

For the batter:
1 cup self rising flour (I used White Lily)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 stick margarine or butter, melted

For the filling:
4 cups of berries (I used blueberries and blackberries)

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease 8 X 8 inch pan and set aside.
• To make prepared fruit:  Mix 3/4 cup sugar with 3 tablespoons cornstarch.  Place 4 cups berries in a pan and add sugar/cornstarch mixture.  Add cinnamon and nutmeg to the mix.  Cook together, stirring constantly, until it starts to thicken.  Set aside to cool slightly.  Add vanilla before placing over flour mixture.
  In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar and milk, stir until all the lumps are gone.  Pour batter into greased baking dish.
• Spoon fruit or berry mixture over flour/sugar/milk and then drizzle with melted margarine.
• Place casserole dish on a baking sheet with aluminum foil to collect any spills.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.

One of the best things about this whole thing was flexing my food-styling skills. How do you think I did?

Homemade Hamburger Buns

Here's the thing. I love grocery shopping. Which is quite a contradiction considering how much I dislike shopping in general. But grocery stores? Yes, please. My problem is that there is so much I want to buy. It's just bad. So when I'm missing one last component to make a meal (in this case, buns for the hamburgers I decided to grill tonight), I try every solution except go to the store. Why? Because I'd go for a pack of buns and leave with $100 in my cart. Not a good move on my part.

So as I was considering abandoning the burger idea (it'd be the first of many burgers of the season, I hope), I realized I could just make those buns. After all, I had every ingredient, including one last packet of yeast that I had been saving for who knows what. And I have a bread machine which, sadly, doesn't get as much use as it should.

After a quick Google search, I discovered an easy recipe with a really high rating on food.com and that was it. I would be making my first hamburger buns.

Honey Wheat Hamburger Buns
Adapted from Food.com recipe

• 1 1/4 cups milk, slightly warmed
• 1 beaten egg
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup honey (or white sugar)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour (If you don't want whole wheat, just go with 3 3/4 cups APF)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1. Put all ingredients in your breadmaker according to your machine's directions. 
2. When the maker is done, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. 
3. Cut the dough in half and roll out each half to 1-inch thick rounds. Cut out rounds with cutters and place on an oiled pan. Cover and let rise for another 30 minutes.
4. Brush melted butter on top and bake in a 350-degree oven for 10 minutes. Flip over and bake on the other side for 5 minutes. (I used a baking stone which cooks more evenly and slightly slower. Adjust your baking time down to compensate for the speed at which pans can burn bread).
5. Cut in half, brush oil on the insides and grill next to your burgers.

These would also make great dinner rolls if you roll out dough in balls. Bake for sightly more time to compensate for thicker dough. I made plain old beef burgers, seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and cumin. We also sauteed onions and mushrooms on the grill.

For a side, I roasted yellow potatoes and asparagus tossed with olive oil, garlic, Parmesan cheese and oregano.

Quick-fix Sunday: Asparagus for breakfast

Asparagus Omelet

6 spears of asparagus, chopped into 1 inch pieces

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp oregano

2 eggs

(Soy)milk

3 slices baby swiss

• Heat oil in a pan. Saute asparagus with oregano until softened. Remove to a plate.
• Whip eggs with milk. Add to pan. Cover and cook until egg has almost solidified and the bottom is golden. Flip the eggs.
• Place a slice of swiss on egg. Add asparagus back on one side. Place another slice of cheese on top.
• Fold egg over and hold to encourage the cheese to stick.
• Cover omelet with one more slice of cheese. Let melt.

Corned beef redux

One of my favorite things about corned beef is that it stretches really far. So, you have your night of corned beef and cabbage, but you also have a chance to make a LOT of other dishes from the original meal. And since I KNOW all of you went out and bought a beautiful slab of corned beef (most likely at a discount since St. Paddy's Day is over), I thought I would share my ways of enjoying corned beef in different ways.

Frozen corned beef broth

Corned beef broth

When you're putting leftovers away, don't throw out the broth! That took hours to make and you now have several quarts of it! Pour it into a few ice cube trays and freeze. Next time you need beef broth, all you have to do is grab a few cubes from the freezer and melt them. Instant homemade broth. If you have the capability, you might want to strain corned beef broth because of the spice packet's abundance of mustard seed and other odds and ends.

Corned beef hash
1 cup diced corned beef

1 cup diced potatoes (this is a great opportunity to use up the leftover potatoes)

1 cube corned beef broth

2 eggs

1. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add the beef, potatoes and broth and cook until heated through, stirring to keep the bits from burning.
3. Lower the heat to medium-low and crack open the eggs right on top of the hash.
4. Cover and cook until the eggs reach your preferred consistency.

And a quick rundown of the recipe in photos:

Chop the corned beef and potatoes

Fry in a pan until almost crispy. Add the cube of broth and cook until incorporated. This adds the amount of liquid needed to help make everything sort of stick together.

Crack two eggs right on top. Don't break the yolk unless you don't like creamy yolk running into the corned beef hash.

Let cook until the whites are solidified and the yolk are cooked to your desired doneness. I covered mine to help the process along.

Serve with a cheddar biscuit and French press coffee. YUM!

Corned beef melt
Inspired by the Summer Reuben at The Weekend Pub

2 slices bread
1 pats butter, melted
Corned beef, sliced
Swiss cheese
Spicy brown mustard
2 tbsp shredded cabbage

1. Preheat a large frying pan or griddle.
2. Butter one side of each slice of bread. Spread mustard on the other sides.
3. Put cheese on the bottom and beef on top of that and grill on both sides.
4. Add the cabbage last so it stays cold and refreshing. I actually cooked the sandwich, then when I pulled it out of the pan, I opened it and added the cabbage.

An Irish girl's dream

If my hair doesn't give it away, nothing will: I'm a lot Irish. Well, at the very least, I know for sure that my maternal grandfather is Irish-American, which in this country means you're Irish. And I love celebrating that part of my heritage, just as much as I enjoy a good German stout, which, by the way, stems from that fact that German blood makes up the bulk the rest of my family tree.

Nothing, to me, says "Irish" more than corned beef. Sadly the poor meat has been mistreated in this country. Either it's the pinkish gruel that tastes good (especially when a big plate of grease is the only guarantee you'll get over that hangover) but looks a little too much like cat food, or its a thin slab of grayish meat that's more gooey fat than anything else.

Unless, that is, you have a grandmother who can make the best corned beef in the world. And I've aspired to make her corned beef ever since I struck out on my own. After another failed attempt last year, I finally decided that was it, I was GOING to make the PERFECT corned beef.

And I did. It's not the same as grandma's, but my tweaks make it my own and that's the beauty of food: Great dishes remind you of your childhood but are still your own.

Guinness Corned Beef and Cabbage

Recipe created from my grandmother's advice and my own instincts
1 Corned Beef Brisket (size doesn't matter, but make sure it's small enough to fit in your pot and comes with a packet of spices*)

3 cloves of garlic, smashed

1/2 tbsp brown sugar

1 can Guinness Draught (don't get the stout, since it turns everything bitter instead of delicious)

Water

1 half a large green cabbage (or a whole small cabbage), quartered

6 medium carrots

5 medium Yukon gold potatoes

1. Clean and pat your brisket dry. Trim any extra fat, but it's OK to leave a little bit.
2. Place in the bottom of a stock pot, fat side up. Sprinkle the spice pack over top. Add the garlic and the brown sugar.
3. Pour the can of Guinness over the meat. Add the water until the meat is covered by a half inch.
4. Bring to a boil. Immediately turn the heat down to your lowest setting. Skim any foam that has been created off the top with a slotted spoon.
5. Allow to simmer on low for 3 hours.
6. Pull out the meat.
7. Add the carrots, potatoes and stir. Press the cabbage cut side down, leaving most of the cabbage above the broth.
8. Cover and bring to a boil. Cook the carrots and potatoes until al dente.
9. Add the meat back in, but bring the cabbage back to the top of the pile and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook until the everything is softened.
10. IMPORTANT: Pull the meat out and let it rest at least five minutes. You will see little indentations in the meat running parallel with each other. This is the "grain" and you need to cut across the grain! If you don't heed this warning, you can resign yourselves to chewing on shoe leather for the meal. This goes for most cuts of "cheap" meat by the way, flank steak and all brisket included.

And now for the photos!

The secret to perfect corned beef is in the marbling. A bit of fat offers flavor and juiciness, but a inch-thick slab of fat is kind of disgusting to eat. Look for marbling and less fat, but don't worry if there's a bit. You can always trim it off.

The spice packet looks like this. It's mostly pickling spices (mustard seed, etc.) and cinnamon, sage, fennel and allspice. You can make it at home if you have a well stocked spice rack, but most corned beef briskets come with the packet.

When you add the Guinness you get this lovely head that the beer is so famous for. But you will end up skimming a bit of it off once it boils. Don't skip this step though, or your broth will be gross and your veggies will be just as disgusting.

Corned beef is best with large chunks of root vegetables. Try to keep them relatively the same size, but bigger is better.

I recommend Yukon Gold potatoes because they hold up well in boiling water, but they also have a buttery creaminess that is perfect with salty corned beef.

You'll see I left the "stem" of the cabbage on. This helps keep it together so it will soften but not disintegrate. It also makes a pretty platter if that's what floats your boat.

Once the root veggies are done, you put the meat back in to just warm it back up. The goal with all this take it out, put it back in nonsense is so you don't toughen the meat by boiling the broth a second time, which is pretty much the only way to get the carrots and potatoes tender. I also don't recommend putting the veggies in at the beginning because by the time the meat is cooked (minimum 3 hours total), all those pretty carrots and potatoes will have become mush.

See the little grooves running in the meat toward the top right corner of the photo? That is the grain. If we were cutting this meat within this photo, you'd put the tip of your knife in the top left corner of the photo and the handle in the bottom right, or "across the grain." Then cut the brisket into traditional, thin strips and you have tender, beautiful meat. Easy, right?

Top it all off with from-scratch cheddar biscuits and a tall glass of Guinness and you'll be thankful for the Irish.

Collard greens

I cannot recall actually eating a collard green. Oh, I know I have at some point. But it must have been so bad that I blocked the experience from my memory. So when my neighbor behind us (we have a common fence) offered up his huge collard greens that I had been intrigued by (see, I even snuck a pic of them a couple of weeks ago) since I noticed them in his garden plot (I want a garden plot!), I couldn't say no. It seemed it was time to face my fear of the repressed memory and see if collards are as good as everyone says they are. Now to find a great recipe. A quick google search reveals this:

• Classic saute
• Collards with bacon
• Citrus collards with raisins

I'll let you know which one we choose. With three large bunches, we'll likely be able to tackle at least two kinds (I'm thinking bacon and citrus). I'm actually already thinking of making the citrus collards and serving them with pork chops that were marinated in an orange juice based sauce (like this Asian-inspired one or even this spicy version).

Quick lunch

Since I don't go to work until 1 p.m. or so, I generally try to eat lunch at home. This allows me to get some more cooking time in (since I can't really cook dinner when I'm working) and also saves me money.
However, I find that I can't make elaborate recipes for lunch. It's just that I'm not really awake enough to keep track of a ton of ingredients and steps. I'm always looking for a quick fix that is easy and filling (since it needs to last me through the prime snacking hours, when I indulge far too often in the candy/cookies/treats that various coworkers bring in). Usually I just make something up from what I have.
Now that it's spring (almost), I've been more into throwing together large salads with homemade dressing, but recent cooler temperatures are bringing back my craving for soup. A quick scan of my cabinets led me to create this yumminess:

Here's what I did:
1) Sauteed chopped up onions, garlic and mushrooms for three or four minutes.
2) Added half a red pepper, chopped, and a few handfuls of canned corn.
3) Two minutes later I added a couple of cups of black bean soup and brought it to a simmer.
4) Finally, I poured the soup into a bowl and garnished it with more fresh peppers, hot sauce, cheese and cilantro.

The soup was both filling and yet light, thanks to the summery corn and red peppers. I used Trader Joes Cuban Black Bean soup as the base, in case you were wondering.

Culinary bucket list: The great pie experiment, part I

I began cooking when I was young. To be honest, though, I can't definitively tell you what the first thing I helped my mom make was or when I made my first complete meal. My memory is fuzzy from those times. I've read that divorce will do that to young people.

What I do know is that cooking has always been an escape for me. When I am stressed or troubled or tired, taking a few moments to cook something has always focused me and helped me solve my problems.

As time has gone on, cooking has become a way to challenge myself. So in the back of my head I've begun to list the things I want to eventually accomplish as a cook, call it my a culinary bucket list. The list includes things like making biscuits from scratch (check, though I think I really need to keep practicing to be a success at these), beating egg whites to stiff peaks by hand (halfway there!) and making pie.

I've never made pie by myself, though I LOVE pie. That may be my problem, though. I may love pie too much. My standards involving pie are so high and my ability to tolerate my own failures is so low that, until recently, I thought I might implode if I couldn't create a delicious version of my own favorite food.

But in every cook's life there's a moment in which you suck it up and make the damn pie. And that is what I did last night - I made pie crust. And today, after letting the dough chill in the fridge overnight, I will make my very first honest to goodness apple pie with pie dough that I made all by myself and if I screw it up, I have husband who will eat it anyway and pretend to love it.

If you feel like it's time to suck it up and make your own pie, I have collected a vast knowledge of pie tips. Much of the advice contradicts itself since it is coming from a wide variety of sources who have spent many a night crying themselves to sleep after ruining their pie. Luckily for me they didn't implode, but instead got back up the next morning and made pie again, thereby perfecting their recipes for the rest of us to try out. So here's my current base of knowledge. Read them all. Because food bloggers have a knack for being hilarious. And Alton Brown is just awesome, even if I'm not planning to do a shortening and butter pie crust (BUTTER ALL THE WAY!):

• Alton Brown, "Apple Pie," Good Eats (video)
• Smitten Kitchen, "Pie Crust 101," "Pie Crust 102: All butter really flaky pie dough" and "Pie crust 103: Rolling and crimping" (blog posts)
• Pastry Chat, "A pie crust tutorial" (blog post)
• Joy the baker, "How to make pie crust...do it" (blog post)
• The Kitchen Sink, "Open-face fresh blueberry pie" (blog post - scroll all the way through, there are two pastry dough recipes with instructions)

When I have my own experience, I will definitely be sharing with you what I've learned and I hope you will do the same.

Hamburger Helper without the 'help'

When I was a kid we were often caught up in the Hamburger/Tuna Helper craze. At least once a week we had one of these easy and fairly cheap meals. And we loved them. Mom seriously had at least 10 cans of tuna in the pantry and as much frozen hamburger stocked in the freezer so that we could make this whenever she wanted without running out. It might have been the first real meal I made all by myself.
I haven't had Hamburger/Tuna Helper in a long time, but I recently got a craving for it. Not to knock the convenient invention, but I prefer to know exactly what is going into my meals. And then I got to thinking: How hard would it be to mimic Hamburger Helper with fresh, delicious ingredients? It turns out that it is so easy I'm disappointed I haven't been making this dish my whole life.
The challenge I had in creating this, was really the seasoning. I wanted to keep this from being just a meaty pasta sauce. I think I balanced it well enough, but, as always, feel free to tweak as you wish!

Homemade hamburger helper
2 lbs ground beef, browned
Olive oil
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 med. onion, chopped
2 red bell peppers, chopped
1 cup chopped mushrooms
Salt and pepper
1 cup red wine (I bought a $8 bottle of Pinot Noir, which turned out to be delicious.)
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 (28 oz.) can of diced tomatoes
1 (15 oz.) can of tomato sauce
1 tbsp. Oregano
1 tbsp. Thyme
2 tsp. Basil
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 box elbow macaroni

1) Brown the ground beef, drain (I do this for health reasons) and return to your pot.
2) Add the chopped garlic and onions. Season the mixture with salt and pepper. Cook until the onions are softened. When the onions are softened and just turned translucent, add the red bell peppers and mushrooms.
3) Once the peppers/mushrooms are cooked to your preference (I like them to keep their texture, so I cook them a little less so they will survive boiling), add the red wine. Scrape the bottom with a wooden spoon in case anything is stuck to the bottom (This is called deglazing the pan. If you have a nonstick pan, likely nothing actually stuck and you don't have to worry about it, but stir it all together anyway).
4) Add everything else except the pasta and stir to combine. Add half a cup of water and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium, cover and simmer for a half hour.
5) Add the macaroni, stir, cover and let simmer until the pasta is tender. Stir occasionally to keep the pasta from sticking to the bottom.

I picked this one because it was cheap and also because the company plants a tree for every bottle purchased. It turns out that it is a pretty good Pinot Noir and I would definitely buy it again.