Pumpkin seeds.

YUM!  After carving our pumpkins we seasoned the seeds.  I used the same recipe for the sunflowers.

Loving fall right about now.

Seasoning Sunflower Seeds

The saga with the sunflower seeds has come to an end.

I'm sure you may recall here the battle with the various critters eating them.  But now, it's time...

"OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"

The sunflowers I mean, I took their heads off, took those de-lish seeds out, seasoned, and baked them.

Here's how it was done.

• Dried Sunflower heads
• Olive Oil
• Water
• Jane's Krazy Salt
• Peper
• Paprika
• Garlic Powder

1. Crinkle, yes crinkle, the dried sunflower head (that has been dried for weeks until it's crispy) over a large bowl to catch the seeds.
2. Add water to your bowl washing the seeds and random dried pieces of sunflower.
3. Strain and put in oven on 200 on a baking sheet until they are dried out.
4. Gathering sunflower seeds and misc. in hand lightly blow on the seeds shuffling them from one hand to another.  This action will blow the misc on to your counter, leaving you with only seeds.
5. Put the clean seeds in a new baking sheet and repeat until all seeds are accounted for.
6. Drizzle a little bit of olive oil and a little bit of water on the seeds.
7. Add seasonings to taste, adding more seasonings as you bake, if needed.
8. Bake at no more than 250 stirring occasionally until completely dry and crunchy.
9. Let them cool and keep in an airtight (jar) container.

Enjoy with friends.

Hello October.

need these*

We got some really generous gifts for our engagement party, thank you!

We got some really sweet serving ware, that I haven't posted pictures of yet because, trust me readers, you'll be seeing them quite a bit. 

It's decided we need to host a monthly dinner.  I don't know about you, but we never get invited to dinner parties, do people even have them anymore?  What ever happened to that?  We need to start that one up.

What better time than October to start?  Always the planner, I am already looking forward to having a Halloween party complete with spiked apple cider and our fire pit (that I need to rebuid this weekend) with some good hearty food, stew, yum.

Have you ever made spiked cider, it's simple and oh so delicious?  Here's my simple recipe.  I think I need to get a gallon of cider and a bottle of jack, it's supposed to be chilly this weekend.  YES!

Per Serving.
1 cup of cider (per person)
2 shots of jack daniels
1 Cinnamon stick

Heat cider (most likely you'll make a few cups) until hot.
Add your Jack Daniels and a Cinnamon stick in your favorite mug.
Stir, serve, drink, repeat.  This drink will get you and keep you quite toasty.

*DO NOT, i repeat DO NOT!!! add your jack while you are heating your cider, it will lower your alcohol content... and that my lovlies, would be a terrible thing to do.

happy fall!

chocolate covered pretzels

This was fun task... just not for me.  Going off of directions found online (that my mom was iffy about from the get go) I messed up the first batch of chocolate.  Stressed out with a trillion other things to do, I relinquished the job to my mom.

According to the other blog (which I won't name) all you had to do was put the chocolate in a Pyrex dish and heat it every 30 seconds until it melted it, stirring it between heating.  DON'T and I mean DON'T do this.  It will burn your chocolate, it will suck, it will not liquify, do not pass go, do one collect $200.00.

My mom decided to add a drop of milk and a tad of butter... little by little, heating the chocolate in water in the Pyrex measuring cup.  As it gradually heated she stirred and added a drop of milk and a bit of butter until it was a liquid, but not too runny.  I'm sorry about the quantities of butter, milk, and chocolate... with most moms they just use their mom-given instincts that makes it impossible to get an exact measurement. 

"L: How much butter and milk did you add?
M: Ummm, I dunno, just until it was liquid-y.
L: Okay? Cool, as long as we get this done, but how am I going to blog about it?
M: Just tell them a little bit at a time.  Don't take any pictures, I look like shit.
L: I have to Mom, I need pics for the blog, we all look like shit right now, tough.
M: Ooo, take a picture of my boobs."

True story.

Next Jeremy, my mom's bf was on dunking patrol.  Two hours, two bags of chocolate, one package of sprinkles, and three bags of pretzels later, we had favors for 80 people.  The chocolate hardened better with the sprinkle topping opposed to just chocolate.  NOTE if it's hot/humid cure the finished pretzels in the fridge or freezer, but not for too long or they won't be as crunchy.

After forming an assembly line of my MOH Lucy, BM (haha) Claire, Mom, and Jeremy (I was cutting paper), we had the completed favors that of course I don't have a snapped pic of.  I will upload one later as more pics come in.

These favors were time consuming, but well worth it. 

Favors (80 people with 4 per bag is 320 minis)
Pretzels      $3.00 

Ribbon        $1.00

Chocolate   $6.00

Sprinkles     $2.00

________________

Total  12.00  (that's a sweet deal at $0.15 per person!)

Pesto Cubes

i

love

pesto

The stuff in the jar doesn't do it for me, I love FRESH!

Enter: Basil from the garden.

I use it in salads and sauce, but nothing beats a fresh pesto pasta.

For enjoyment year round (or as long as they last) make pesto cubes for a quick and easy meal.

How To Make Pesto

• 4 cups fresh basil
• one clove garlic (okay, if you really love garlic, add more!)
• the juice from half of a lemon (this helps to prevent the darkening that will occur if you put it into the freezer)
• 2/3 cup walnuts, pine nut, or even pistachios *pine nuts are the traditional way, I'll be using pistachios however- keep in mind if your nuts are salted, to not add salt, the cheese will have enough in it combined with the already salted nuts.
• one cup of grated Pecorina Romano Cheese
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 1/3 cup water
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the walnuts into a dry skillet and put onto medium heat. Turn them with a spatula every few minutes until they're fragrant and toasted. This only takes a few minutes.
2. Into a food processor, pour in your walnuts and garlic. Pulse for about 20 seconds, then put in your basil.
3. Pulse several times, then use your spatula to push the leaves down toward the blades.
4. Add in the water, then squeeze in the half of a lemon (sans seeds) then the olive oil, then process until  blended.
5. Add in the cheese, salt and pepper then process.
6. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, if necessary. Don't forget that cheese is salty too, so season to taste.
7. Dump all the pesto into a large gallon bag and cut a corner off, squeeze into ice cube trays.
8. After frozen pop them out and store in a freezer safe gallon bag.

Let's get cooking

4 cubes per 1 ILB of pasta... or more according to your taste. 
Heat them on a skillet on a low heat with a little bit of butter to thaw. 
Add to cooked pasta....sprinkle of cheese, mangia!

Side note: I made two batches one with regular basil and one with lemon basil.  Lemon basil I plan to use with chicken and seafood.  While the regular basil will be used as is.

Fresh Ricotta

Courtesy of the magazine: Bon appétit...

 

This recipe for this quick, fresh cheese only takes 4 ingredients and 30 minutes.

 

Fresh Ricotta

1. 4 cups whole milk*
2. 1 cup cream
3. 2 Tbsp. lemon juice**
4. 1.5 tsp kosher salt
5. cheese cloth, strainer, bowl, spoon.

1. Combine 4 cups of whole milk, 1 cup cream, 1.5 tsp kosher salt, 2 Tbsp. lemon juice in a sauce pan and bring just to a boil, without stirring.  Immediately remove pan from heat.
2. 2. Let mixture stand for 15 minutes at room temp.  As time passes the curds will begin to separate from the whey.  If only a few curds form your lemon may not be acidic enough.  Add another 1 Tbsp. gently stir as to not break of the curds.  Let stand an additional 5 minutes.
3. Using a large spoon (not slotted) or measuring cup, spoon curds into cheesecloth lined strainer, set over a large bowl.  The longer you drain the ricotta, the denser and more flavorful the cheese will be.  I would recommend putting a paper towel over the open bowl so nothing can land in your cheese (dust, cat hair, etc...) it will take a while to sift through the curds.  After curds are separated keep your ricotta in a air tight container for no more than 3 days.

*I used whole milk and light cream, I've heard that 2% milk works too.  I also

**I didn't use fresh lemon juice, I used the concentrate and ended up using 3 TBS to get the curds to form.

 

bon appétit!

 

I'm making baked ziti with it, which will be the next post.

por favor!



Courtesy of Pizzazzerie



Engagement party is inching closer and my excitement is amping up along with the never ending ideas...

Right now let's just talk favors!

I have a few different ideas that need to meet certain needs.

1. Cost effective
2. Eco-friendly
3. Yummy

It shouldn't be too hard right, except I've been researching this for months now, and have too many ideas.  I usually say...

"One can never have too many great options."

In this case one can, and does.

Here they are folks, ideas for the favors.  In no particular order.

1. Seasoned (by yours truly) pumpkin and/or sunflower seeds.

2. Made with love 4oz mason jar pies.

3. From the garden Rosemary and basil infused olive oil.

4. Festive Fruit infused vodka.

Or I could make my life easier with:

5. Cookie assortment A and B.
6. Candy assortment.

Please visit the links to the various how-to blogs I found for these items.  I will post the winner and my own personal how-to  (with a few modifications I'm sure) once it's decided...

save a dish, bbq a fish

* Forgive me on the lack of pictures as of late.  My camera broke on my birthday and I just replaced (and seriously  upgraded) this week.  More posts and pictures are coming soon.

Moving on: as noted here we went fishing while in Corolla, NC.  There were several fishing boat outings that week and just between our family outing alone, we caught 24 perch and 18 blue crabs.  Another boat load of relatives caught mackerel and shark.  Needless to say we ate like queens and kings.
I don't know about you, but I love to BBQ.  Added bonus :the dish it saves me (or Steve) to wash.

Here's a fun way to make fish, especially previously frozen fish and keep it juicy! 

Sans Dish, BBQ Fish
ingredients

• 4-6 small fillets Wild Caught Fish/ Thawed 1 TBS Salted Butter
• Fresh minced garlic
• Oregano
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika
• Bay leaves (dry is fine)
• White wine (but not so much where your fillets start to swim again *i couldn't help myself.)
• Half a lemon
• Cut peppers and onions
• BBQ
• 2 long sheets of Aluminum Foil

1. While you prep preheat your BBQ.  It doesn't need to be on high, fish cook very fast.
2. I am not even going to try to explain how to scale and fillet a wild fish, Steve and I (Steve did 20 fish, I managed to do 4) tried our best but I think we need some lessons from a seasoned fisherman. 
3. Put some cut peppers and onions
4. Lay the fish on a long sheet of foil, you want enough to be able to crimp and make a pocket with the additional top layer.
5. Pat the minced garlic of the fillets.
6. Chop your butter into multiple thin slices and lay over the fillets.
7. Pour your white wine so reaches each fillet, but not submerged.
8. Add your seasonings to taste.
9. Place bay leaf on each fish.
10. Make a pocket and seal it completely.
11. Place on a part of the BBQ that gets even heat and cook for approx 10-15 minutes or until your fish flakes off with a fork and separates from skin easily.  I usually open the pocket to check.  You will open it to find steamy yummy goodness.
12. Finish with lemon and serve.

enjoy!





Before

 



After



banana bread for your homestead

Obviously by the title of this blog - I love banana bread.  I don't know about you, but we are guilty of over buying produce (example : bananas) and then not making it until it comes to "Shit! We have to use this stuff."

That's why I love this recipe.

You need the bananas to be mushy, black (sans mold) and over ripe.

When I wasn't working as much I used to make it all the time, but I haven't in a while...until I noticed  our fruit bowl was full of over ripe bananas.

BONUS: This week we are traveling to Corolla, NC.  If my snack can brave LaGuardia Airport and TSA without getting (too) smashed - we can all enjoy.

There are a million alterations to my original recipe.

Here are some yummies to add

Berries, a coffee cake crumble top (see bottom), nuts, dried chopped apricots, chocolate chips, raisins... or (if your feeling daring) all of the above.  For this particular batch I am going tame because I am not sure if any one has nut allergies, etc...

Banana Bread (for your homestead)

2 cups all-purpose flour (I use whole wheat!)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, beaten

2-3 Overripe smashed bananas

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
2. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.  Or use these- they make individual little loaves and cook faster than the hour cook time- if you have a toaster oven and use these they will only cook in 45 minutes- The previous two were tips from my Bubbie (yiddish for grandma) sometimes Bubbies know best when it comes to baking...but shhh don't tell them!
3. In a large bowl, combine EVERYTHING!  You will get an arm work out.  I personally like chunks in my b.bread but if you don't - beat the eggs, sugar and bananas in a separate dish until it's smooth, then combine everything.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.
5. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

For a nutty coffee cake crumble on top

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup sugar (i like mixing white and brown for this)

1/4 cup chopped almonds

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons cold butter

Teaspoon of Cinnamon

Add ingredients together and fold, you want a lumpy consistency, you have to use cold butter to obtain the lumps... Crumble over batter in pans and bake as directed above.

enjoy.

Update: Banana Bread was successfully transported and made a great addition to an early morning snack before fishing, it didn't last past day one.

Eggplant Farmer Johnny

I enjoy cooking and baking things I never have before.  But not nearly as much as I enjoy making family recipes.  From my Mom's famous biscuits and gravy, my Bubbie's Garlic Baked Salmon, my Great Grandmother's Kasha Varnishka, or my Aunt's Eggplant Parmesan (there are many, many, many more from these matriarchs that I cannot wait to share) it's nice to share memories though recipes while making new ones with all the important people in my life.  I haven't had my aunt's version in many years but it was so good that a second (and a half) portion was sometimes necessary.

This particular recipes is from my Aunt's Eggplant Parmesan-but we always called it Eggplant FarmerJohnny

1 Large Eggplant (1lb)

1 Jar Tomato, Garlic Basil Sauce (no Ragu, that stuff is gross) and a sauce pot

2 Eggs

Mozzarella Cheese

Plate of Bread crumbs (Italian Style)

Plate with paper towels to absorb oil from eggplant

Seasoning- Garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, salt, pepper, and a drop of sugar (to counteract the sometimes acidity of the tomato sauce)

Garnish with Garden Basil

Cooking oil (the sliced eggplant should be floating in the oil, but don't overdo it)

Large frying pan

Oven preheated to 350

Preheat oven to 350.

After washing your eggplant lay it on it's side and slice no more that 1/4 inch thick circles.  Leave the skin on.

Beat 2 eggs in a bowl large enough to accommodate quite a few eggplant slices.

Pour breadcrumbs into a plate, little by little that way you don't waste breadcrumbs.

At this time pour cooking oil (canola, vegetable, olive oil whichever your choice I use veg.) into pan and heat on high.

Also, put tomato sauce on low-med heat to warm while you're frying and add seasoning to taste.

Dunk the eggplant slices into the egg.

Bread the eggplant and set aside ( *DISH SAVER- I use the edge of my breadcrumb plate to save on dishes and stack it tall!)

Fry the slices until golden brown on each side.

Place them on plate with a paper towel in between each batch.

After frying follow this order of assembly.

Sauce-Eggplant-Sauce-Cheese-Eggplant-Sauce-Cheese continue with cheese ending.

Garnish with fresh basil from garden or grocery.

Heat in oven for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted.

This step is optional- for that browned cheese I switch to broil setting for 3-5min on 350.

Mangia!