The idea of a meal - dinner in a jar
Fall is just around the corner here and it’s not too hard to imagine that the day will soon come when we no longer have such fresh, locally-grown fruits and veg available. This is the time of year that I usually start storing what I can in the freezer. This year I’ve frozen a dozen bags of green beans and 3 quart jars of steamed and pureed carrots for a spicy carrot soup that we love. I also froze a whole cabbage head because I was sharing storage tips with a new friend and she said her mom would always freeze whole cabbage heads to make Golabke (stuffed cabbage rolls); it makes the cabbage tender and malleable so it doesn’t need to be parboiled before stuffing and rolling it up. Thanks for that tip Deb.
Today I added 4 dinner in a jar. Each one has a layer of green beans, a substantial layer of zucchini, a fresh roma-style tomato, and then it’s topped off with chard. I’ve never tried this technique before, although I have frozen each of these components separately with great success (without blanching), except for the chard. But honestly I don’t care too much about what kind of texture it has when it’s defrosted…I know the zucchini and beans will hold their flavor, texture, and color, and the tomato will have flavor, and all I really want from the chard is that almost dirt-like flavor… so I’m hopeful.
I’ll use these to make soup and curry, two of my favorite cold weather foods. If I get the chance I’ll make more of these because they’re easy, pretty, and fun. I think my favorite thing about them is that I can get the proportion of each vegetable absolutely right because I’m not caught up in the actual preparation of a finished meal…it’s simply the idea of a meal and I love ideas.
Do you have any food storing techniques that you’ll share with us?
Almond Cranberry Breakfast Cookie
You know me, always searching for a way to incorporate more sugar into my diet. Actually I wasn’t always like that but between my optimistic fatalism and my sweet genius husband’s penchant for all things laden with sugar…well you get the picture; this fabulous life is too short, pass the sugar.
We’ve been on a granola kick for most of this year. Fresh granola is so much tastier than anything that comes in a box and I really recommend you make a batch…once you do you may become addicted like have to make a huge batch every week just to support your granola habit. But today when I went to make granola I could only find two cups of oats…I thought I had a backup supply but apparently I’d already tapped into it.
I’d checked out a Martha Stewart cookie book from the library and I was thumbing through it looking for a blog-worthy cookie to make when I found a recipe for oatmeal date bars and it called for two cups of oats, yippee…just what I had on hand. I whipped up a batch with a few modifications from the original and they turned out nicely. They are very sweet, and incredibly dense and almost gooey, I think Dave is going to love them. The only drawback is that they don’t hold together well, they kind of fall apart and I’m not sure how to correct that, although it could be that I just cut them too quick. Anyways, the allspice and cinnamon is such an intoxicating combination and the almonds and cranberries make them a bit healthier. I’ll be making these again and of course if I stumble upon an improvement I’ll let you know.
Almond Cranberry Breakfast Cookie
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Oatmeal Bars with Dates and Walnuts
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2 cups old fashioned oats
¾ cup whole wheat white flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1 ½ sticks of unsalted butter
2 cups dark brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
2 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup almonds, chopped
Preheat oven to 350°. Line the bottom of a 13”x 9” pan with parchment and brush the sides with butter.
Put one cup of the oats into the food processor and grind them to a fine consistency. Dump them into a bowl and add the other cup of oats, the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices. Stir to combine.
In another bowl cream the butter and sugar until its fluffy. Add the eggs and mix for several minutes until its shiny. Add the vanilla.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well to combine. Load it into the prepared pan and bake it for 25 - 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a knife comes out clean.
Cool before cutting.
Hell-boy Pretzels
Today I had one of those drop-dead busy days where I’ve practically dragged myself from one appointment to the next because I was so busy trying to cram too much in between them all. I’m not complaining…I’m just saying, I’m busy and I hope I can get it all done. Whew! Even worse, I roasted a chicken and made a big dinner because it was just what my sweet genius husband was wanting and that made me want it too…but I forgot to take pictures, all because I was so fracking hungry. It was a fabulous meal … a classic roasted chicken, oven roasted potatoes, corn on the cob, and cucumber and tomato salad. So the moral of this story, dear readers, is to go with your heart and you’ll end up with exactly what you need, but you may forget to document it.
So instead I bring you a easy-peasy snack item that I feed to the hell-boys. Yes it’s true, I’ve decided to call my sons hell-boys…not for any specific reason other than it suits my fancy. The funny thing is the hell-boys can consume carb laden food forever and it doesn’t turn them into sluggish morons like it does everyone else…oh wait, that’s just me? OOooops…my bad.
These pretzels are incredibly easy, beautifully rustic in appearance, and the perfect after-school snack or bake-sale treat.
Hell-boys Pretzels
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2 cups milk, scalded and then cooled to room temp
3 teaspoons yeast
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons molasses
2 cups of whole wheat white flour
4 cups of white all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
3 quart of water
Put the milk, yeast, salt, molasses, and whole wheat white flour in the bowl of your stand mixer and with the paddle attachment mix on medium until well combined, about 2 minutes. Slowly start adding the white flour to the bowl in ½ cup increments. Make sure you’ve turned the speed down on the mixer otherwise you’ll have an incredible mess of flour all over your kitchen. Continue to add the white flour until the dough clears the sides of the bowls. Stop the mixer and scrape the dough off the paddle attachment and fit the mixer with the dough hook attachment. Test the dough to see if it is too sticky, if so add a bit more flour. Run the mixer on low and let it work the dough for 5 minutes or so. Once the dough is smooth remove it from the bowl and let it rest on the counter for 10 - 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
Divide the dough into 10 to 12 portions, depending on how large you want your pretzels to be. Roll each portion into a snake and then form the pretzel shape by holding each end in a hand and bringing them together at the middle, twisting them together and anchoring them the bottom dough (which is actually the middle of the snake).
Place a pot on the stove over a medium-high flame and fill it with 3 quarts of water. Once it’s boiling add the baking soda and then submerge each pretzel in the boiling bath for a count of 10. Remove and place the pretzel on a rack and then transfer it to a parchment lined baking sheet. Sprinkle it with kosher salt. Repeat until all the pretzels have had a bath.
Bake them for 10-15 minutes or until they reach an internal temperature of 210°F.
Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. Feeds two hungry hell-boys.
One of the first recipes I ever posted on this blog was for pretzels and I’m sure they were good (It was two years ago almost…I don’t really remember one way or another) but these are much better and if you have hungry hell-boys like mine they’ll make you their queen.
Enjoy your weekend lovies.
