Category Archives: Food

2023, Food, home, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Decisions Decisions….

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You wouldn’t think that making a batch of cupcakes would be a full-morning event, would you?

First, I had to decide what cupcakes to make.  I have a couple of cookbooks that embellish box cake mixes so I started there.  First there was a good looking lemon filled cupcake but this would require going to the store for lemon curd.  (In addition to the contractor being here, I’ve been trying to make inroads into what I think is just too much foodstuff in the house.)  Then I moved on to a cupcake made with juice concentrate – oops, no concentrate except apple.  Coming off the autumn, I’m a little appled-out.  Maybe a cinnamon toast cupcake – shoot, no pudding mix.  By this time I was thinking I should just use the box mix and be done with it.

Then I saw the white chocolate cupcake.  I knew I probably had the 1 cup of white chocolate chips (or the equivalent) and I knew I could approximate whole milk with the skim milk and the heavy cream I had in the fridge.  Of course, when I was pulling out the chocolate chips, I found an unopened jar of lemon curd.  Oh well, next time.

So I finally had cupcakes in the oven by 10:30 (a full hour and a half after starting this project).  Luckily I did have cream cheese for the frosting so at least I didn’t have to spend time looking for alternatives.  The cupcakes turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself!

When was the last time it took you too long to make a decision?

2023, Food, home, pets, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

The Nose Knows

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Yesterday was a snow day for me as my agency was closed. Husband had a morning Zoom meeting for his Bismarck agency, which he did on his computer at the kitchen table. It didn’t last long, and we made a somewhat treacherous trip to the grocery store before the snow got any deeper. The city plows hadn’t been out and it was very slippery.

I made banana bread when we got back from the store, which filled the house with a wonderful aroma. Smells can be so evocative. The smell of Charteuse brings me back 45 years to memories of warm summer evenings in Moorhead having a drink after dinner with friends. I wouldn’t touch the stuff now with a ten foot pole, but the memories are good ones.

Kyrill has a very powerful sense of smell, and he can tell whenever we have been to the pet store and picked up treats for him without even taking them out of the bag. He mobs us when we walk in the door and tries to get to the bags. He can smell wrapped hard candy in my pants pockets, and tries to put his nose down my pocket to extract them. He may not see the bunnies as he walks past them, but he can smell where their holes are and tries to dig them out. I think it would be very distracting to have such a keen sense of smell.

What smells and tastes are evocative for you? What are your favorite smells to have wafting through your home?

2023, education, Family, Food, Uncategorized

Treats

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Husband has been the secretary on the board of directors for our local food pantry for the past three years. He has to type the minutes for the monthly meetings, a thankless task. His term is up this month. He typed his last minutes on Saturday.

Husband said he got the motivation for finishing the minutes by promising himself that he could bake some rye bread when he was done. He loves baking rye bread so much he considers it a treat. The bread was really good.

I had a dear friend who was a philosophy professor who would reward himself with a small glass of cognac and a good cigar after grading every twenty essays and papers. I always wondered if his grading of the first papers was somewhat different from the grading of the last papers. Freshman philosophy essays must have been pretty tedious to read year after year.

What motivates you to finish a tedious job? Ever had to write up meeting minutes? Did you ever take a philosophy class?

2023, Food, Uncategorized

Jono’s Marinade

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I like to stay connected to people from my home town through the local newspaper and social media. I had to giggle the other day after seeing a Facebook post about a guy I went to high-school with. Jono was a couple of years older than I, but we were in band together and he lived just down the street from me. He was always a lively and fun loving person in high school. I was sad to learn he had died, but had left a lasting memorial to himself with a very interesting headstone on his grave.

I gather Jono was very proud of that recipe. Jono was from a pretty devout Roman Catholic family and is buried in the Catholic cemetery in Luverne. I can’t imagine what the local priest thinks about that headstone. I have yet to try the marinade, but the ingredients look good. Most of my favorite recipes would be too long to carve into a headstone. Maybe I could have the titles of my favorite books of all time carved there instead. That would mean, though, that I would have to do some funeral planning, something I have yet to do.

What would you want people to remember most about you? Have you done any funeral preplanning? What is your favorite kind of whiskey?

2023, Family, Food, home, Seasons

Throw In Whatever You’ve Got Soup

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½ large white onion (or one medium), chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
2 macho nacho peppers (a smidge hot), chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 can sliced carrots (including liquid)
1 can yellow corn (including liquid)
¾ c. frozen peas
3 veggie bouillon cubes
3 brandywine tomatoes, chopped
Salt & pepper
1 tsp. Penzey’s Justice spice
½ tsp. chili pepper flakes
Chopped fresh basil
2 c. cooked rice
2 c. water (to make it soup)
2 veggie hot dogs (completely optional), sliced

I’ve told the story of the kitchen sink stew that I took to a church potluck – just threw in what I had and it was a big hit.  Well, I did it again!

On my to-do list Saturday was “cook something”.   YA and I are staring down the barrel of a large home-improvement project and have discussed some economizing so I decided to just use what I had on hand, from the pantry and the garden.   Cooked the onion, pepper and garlic in olive oil, then threw in everything else… finishing up at the last minute with a couple of veggie hot dogs.

Not to toot my own horn, but it is FABULOUS.  I mean, stand-in-front-of-the-fridge-with-a-spoon-eating-it-out-of-the-pan good.  Even better warmed up with a piece of cornbread.  Unfortunately YA agrees so it’s not lasting long.  Hopefully I’ll be able to re-produce it again some day.

What was the highlight of YOUR weekend?

2023, Business, Food, Mysteries

Betcha Can’t Eat Just One

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YA and I had some Subway last week and we each got a bag of chips to accompany our feast.  We’ve had  chips plenty of times but last week was the first time I noticed that there is are lines of colored dots along the bottom of the bags.  I checked other bags in my house and about half had dots similar to these, although they weren’t exactly the same colors.

Didn’t take me to long to research this.  These dots (apparently sometimes squares) are called “Printer’s Color Blocks” and they are used as quality control markers for the ink used to print on the bag.  If there is too little or too much of a particular color, it affects the colors on the dots and the printer (human or machine) and adjust as needed.

The reason that I didn’t see these color blocks on all my chips bags is that it’s completely voluntary.  Some manufacturers don’t use them and some manufacturers trim off the numbers after printing.

According to online articles, the most common colors are the four major colors used in printing: black, magenta, yellow and cyan, although depending on the manufacturer (like my bag above) can use more if they want/need.

This was a much more pedestrian explanation than I was hoping for and has absolutely nothing to do with the food inside the bag.  I was really looking forward to some secret code that I could learn and apply when shopping.  Oh well; if it had, I’d be spending way too much time standing in the chip aisle at my local Cub!

What’s your favorite salty treat?

2023, Family, Food, Nature, Seasons

Summer Kitchen

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Today’s post comes to us from Barbara.

Some of you have expressed curiosity about my summer kitchen. When the weather gets too warm, I do everything I can here to stave off using the A/C.  This summer, though, it’s been used more than usual.

There is a small stand on the patio, just outside the back door, and next to it a former potting table/cart (on wheels) that a neighbor left out on the boulevard when they moved.

You can see from the photos some of the appliances and their homes. The toaster oven, when I bring it out for baking, stays on the stand to the left. There’s a large ceramic tile on top of the potting cart surface.

I do most of my prep work in the kitchen, and then bring the food out to cook outside. The flaw in this system is that in “high summer”, the back patio is not in shade except in early morning, and late afternoon. In the sun on a hot day it’s just too hot to be out there at all – I need to rig up an awning of some kind. So this works best in early and late summer, like later this week when temps will be low 80s.

We tried several chilled soups this summer, one of them being this one:

Chilled Cantaloupe Mint Soup
1/2 Medium cantaloupe, cut into chunks and pureed in blender with several mint leaves

Add and mix well:

1-1/2 Tbsp honey    (less if you used sweetened yogurt)
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 – 8 oz container plain yogurt  (or sweetened yogurt and reduce the honey)
1/4 cup buttermilk , or 1/4 cup fruity white wine

Cover and chill 1 -2 hours before serving.
Garnish with fresh mint leaves, and float some blueberries if you have them.
Serves 2

What experiences have you had with outdoor cooking?
Have any good non-heated recipes to share?

2023, Family, Food, gardening, Mysteries, Nature

Overheard in the Raspberry Patch

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Man:  This is a good year – lots of good berries.
Woman:  That doesn’t mean we need more than usual.
Man.  I think it means exactly that!

Girl.  Yada, yada, yada, yada…..
Grandpa:  Just stop.
Girl.  Stop what?
Grandpa.  Talking.

Woman #1:  We ended up having to rent a u-haul to get everything to college.
Woman #2:  Makes you wish they would just go to college locally, doesn’t it?
Woman #1:  Absolutely not.  Two u-hauls would be OK with me!

Girl:  He’s throwing berries at me.
Boy:  I am not.
Girl:  Are too.
Boy:  Am not.
Field Worker:  Wouldn’t you rather just be eating them instead of throwing them?
Boy:  I’m only throwing the white ones.

And then awhile later…..

YA:  What are all those scratches on your arm?
Me:  From the raspberry brambles.
YA:  Why don’t you wear long sleeves when you pick?
Me:  Well, it’s hot and the scratches are kinda like badges of honor.
YA:  SIGH (and biggest eye roll this side of the Mississippi)

What shall we do with all the fresh raspberries this year?

2023, Family, Food, TV

Cherry Bakewells

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Several months ago I watched several episodes of a show made in Britain called “Inside the Factory”.  It’s pretty interesting mostly because the host, Gregg Wallace has an infectious excitement.  The format has him following the manufacturing process of whatever item is showcased that week.  There are a couple of other actors who did other bit parts but Gregg is the main draw.

One of the episodes featured the Cherry Bakewell, which is a popular treat in the UK and Australia.  It is a pastry base, filled with a layer of raspberry jam, then a layer of frangipane (almond-flavored custard), then a layer of almond-flavored fondant icing and topped with half of a glace cherry (yes, that’s the only cherry involved).  They come six to a package and are the kind of thing you might put in your kid’s lunchbox or serve as an after-school treat.

Of course, after seeing the show I searched a bit to see if I could find Cherry Bakewells in the US.  It wasn’t a productive search and I gave up pretty quickly.  I’ve found the recipe online but it’s a little putzy so I haven’t attempted it yet.

Then I found out that YA would be going to Dublin for two weeks for work.  I still have contact with someone in Dublin who works for the DMC (destination management company) that BIW uses and I suggested to YA that I would ask my friend for a favor in finding Cherry Bakewells in Dublin for me.  YA wasn’t crazy about this but then I found out the client has brought in a different DMC for their program, so I let the project slide and then forgot about it.

Imagine my surprise when a few days after YA returned from Dublin, I found two boxes of Cherry Bakewells in the fridge.  Apparently the little pastries are not commonly found in Ireland but a more thorough internet search had turned them up here.  A late birthday gift.

I’ve been spreading out my enjoyment of the little tarts, so I actually have a couple left.  And while I am enjoying them, it’s not earth-shattering delight and I doubt I’ll ever order them again (the shipping probably cost more than the bakewells).  Maybe someday I’ll try whipping up a batch to see how they compare freshly made.  Maybe not.  But it’s been fun to try them and fun that YA remembered.

What kinds of things were in YOUR lunchbox as a kid?

2023, Family, Food, State Fair

Fair Food – A Review

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This is not only not a comprehensive look at the 2023 State Fair Food Offerings, it is also not objective or even fair.  Just reflections from YA and me.

Don’t Bother

Cheese Curd Dill Pickle Taco.  Sounds good on paper but dill pickle ends up taking away from the cheese curd taste.  It also made the fried taco shell really soggy really fast.

Sweet Corn Ba-Sant.  Marketed as a cross between a bagel and a croissant with a creamy corn custard, this didn’t live up to its hype.  Not a lot of custard and if there was corn in there, I couldn’t tell.  A little dry.

At Least Once Every Year

Sweet Martha Cookies.  Get these early (so you don’t have to wait in a long line) but only get what you think you (and any companions) can eat before the day is up.  Wonderful when warm but “meh” if you still have some around the next day.

Pickle Pizza.  So much better than you expect.  White sauce, garlic, dill and then the sliced pickles.  Not an every day taste, but fun at least once.

Hot Honey Cheese Sticks.  Strips of fried Haloumi cheese slathered with a hot honey sauce (and for some silliness, a sprinkle of honeycomb cereal).  Hot sauce on cheese might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it didn’t keep YA and I from having it for breakfast more than once.

Yes Yes Yes

Roasted Corn.  Fabulous as always.  Perfectly roasted, dipped in melted butter, salt and pepper.  What more is there to say?

Cheesy Siracha Bites.  Little ball of dough, deep fried and then covered with cheese, green onions and chives.  Served with a siracha sauce that is the perfect hot/not too hot blend.

Hawaiian Shave Ice.  Still the best way to cool down on a hot summer day.  Biggest shave ice on the fairgrounds.  I always do cherry and orange.

Sota Sammie.  Grilled sandwich with peanut butter, almond butter and fresh blueberry jam.  Sounds good and tastes even better.

Deep Fried Blueberry Pie.  Really, how can you go wrong with this.  Freshly fried blueberry hand pie with a scoop of cold vanilla ice cream.  This vendor added a cookie dough version of the pie this year but both YA and I say “why mess with perfection”?

Wedge-Hammer.  Refreshing combo of orange juice, lemonade, ginger and a splash of lime.  Not too sweet so just right for sipping in the sun.

Birthday Cake Mini Donuts.  The big surprise of the year, this new concoction turned out to be great!  The donuts themselves were a little fluffier than the usual mini donuts, doused with a cinnamon sugar mix and then drizzled with icing and sprinkles.  It was the consistency of the donuts that really made this a winner.

There were plenty of other foods and beverages over the visits we made, but we decided these were the highlights.

Can you stomach carnival/fair food?  Any favorites? Any really NOT favorites?