I love Alton Brown.  While I really enjoy other chefs' shows, his is the one I'd DVR if I had anything other than rabbit ears.  What I like about him is that his entertaining show highlights the scientific side of food, helping you to better understand what you're doing in the kitchen, and why different ingredients work the way they do.  His recipes, I've found, are great and have very little room for error.

That's why I chose to do his granola bar recipe before anyone else's.  I scoured allrecipes.com, smittenkitchen.com, and foodnetwork.com before settling on his.  I will probably try out others' recipes, as well, but here's how my first crack at granola bars went: the taste was good, bordering on addictive, and the bars were soft, which is how I like them.  My only complaint is that they may be too soft- they were falling apart! 

Either way, I would recommend these over the purchased granola bars, because it's more economical, and more importantly, you're controlling what goes in there.  My goal was to make a nutritious and healthy bar with as little sugar as possible.  That meant, that while tasty, the chocolate chips and corn syrup recipes were out. 

The process of making these bars was fairly easy, so I am not sure why the finished result fell apart.  I wonder if maybe I did something wrong?  If you notice it, please post in the comments! 

Alton Brown's Granola Bars
courtesy of foodnetwork.com


8 ounces old-fashioned rolled oats, approximately 2 cups
1 1/2 ounces raw sunflower seeds, approximately 1/2 cup
3 ounces sliced almonds, approximately 1 cup
1 1/2 ounces wheat germ, approximately 1/2 cup
6 ounces honey, approximately 1/2 cup
1 3/4 ounces dark brown sugar, approximately 1/4 cup packed
1-ounce unsalted butter, plus extra for pan
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
6 1/2 ounces chopped dried fruit, any combination of apricots, cherries or blueberries

Butter a 9 by 9-inch glass baking dish and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread the oats, sunflower seeds, almonds, and wheat germ onto a half-sheet pan. Place in the oven and toast for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In the meantime, combine the honey, brown sugar, butter, extract and salt in a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook until the brown sugar has completely dissolved.

Once the oat mixture is done, remove it from the oven and reduce the heat to 300 degrees F. Immediately add the oat mixture to the liquid mixture, add the dried fruit, and stir to combine. Turn mixture out into the prepared baking dish and press down, evenly distributing the mixture in the dish and place in the oven to bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Cut into squares and store in an airtight container for up to a week.


Notes

• I measured most everything out by weight
• I had whole almonds that I chopped.  The result is not having pretty, uniform slices, but the taste is the same.
• I love pumpkin seeds more than sunflower, so I used 1/4 c. of each.
• Here's possibly where I went wrong- I used an 8" square dish.  It's all I had.  It could also be my oven.
• I didn't have dark brown sugar.  I am not even sure that my grocery store has dark brown sugar.  I used light brown in its place. 

The mixture at the beginning- much like my granola.








Cooking the sugar, honey, and butter.  Another possibility of where I maybe messed up- I tried cooking it like the directions, but maybe it's like making candy on a humid day or making no-bake cookies and it's just left up to chance-?






The pre-baked mix.  It also looked a lot like that coming out, so maybe I didn't bake it long enough.  I was worried about overbaking and ending up with a tough mess.







Either way, happy cooking!

I haven't been so good about posting our garden pictures because I haven't been so good about taking garden pictures.  Last night and a few weeks ago, Drew made some hot pickled peppers out of the banana and jalapeño peppers that we've been growing in our raised bed.  They've taken off like weeds in the last month!  Having started canning almost anything we can in the last year, we decided to give these a whirl. 

Now, a few words on canning- before starting to can last year, it seemed almost mystical to me.  Most of my family knows how to can, and when you ask about it they reply that it's easy.  That made me feel like I had to be missing something- it's like when you ask someone how they know they're in love and they say they just know.  It's like canning was like that- until you just know, it seems like a complicated, black magic sort of kitchen exercise.  Fortunately, canning is pretty easy, given that you speak with people who know how to can, obtain the right ingredients, and read up on the subject.  We've canned jellies, beets, tomatoes, and now peppers, and all have turned out fine.  I plan to post a canning how-to on here at a later date, but for now google it.  Unless, of course, you already know how, and then you can smile and congratulate yourself that you're in the canning know-how club. 

We used the Ball Blue Book guide to canning and their recipe for hot pickled peppers.  Since we didn't have enough peppers for a full batch, we adjusted down the brine and followed the rest of the recipe. 

First, gather your peppers.  Wash and leave them whole or cut them into slices.  We chose to slice.  If you ever cut a lot of peppers, wear gloves or you'll be burning for days.

Next, make sure your canning station and supplies are ready- wash some pint jars (or a combination of pint and half pint jars) and the accompanying lids and rings.  Begin to sterilize them in your boiling water canner for 15 minutes. 



Meanwhile, make your brine by combining vinegar, garlic, and water.  We used white vinegar, but the recipe doesn't actually specify.  Bring them to a boil and simmer 5 minutes. 

                                                  

Now, once the jars are sterilized, pack the peppers into the hot jars.  Really pack them in there tight.  Leave at least 1/4 inch room between the top of the peppers and the top of the jar.  Now, pour the hot brine over the peppers into the jar and use the handle of a spatula or a popsicle stick or anything that is kind of flat and has a little width to it to slide down into the jars and press against the peppers to let any air bubbles out.

Next put the lids on the jars and twist on the rings so that they're secure but not tight.  The canning people call this "finger tight."  Place the jars back into the boiling water canner, making sure that each jar is covered with water, and boil or process for 10 minutes.  After that, remove from the canner and place on a surface, such as a wooden cutting board or a counter covered with a towel.  Wait for the lids to make that exciting popping noise.  To be around us, you'd think that's the whole reason we can. 







Here's what you end up with!  Both times we did about half batches.  The recipe below is for a full batch and is taken from the Ball Blue Book Guide to Canning and Preserving.

Hot Pickled Peppers
adapted from the Ball Blue Book

2 3/4 lbs. assorted serrano, jalapeño, and hot banana peppers
6 cups vinegar
3 cloves garlic, smashed
1 cup water

Makes about 4-5 pints

Prepare peppers and canning equipment.  Combine the vinegar, garlic, and water in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.  Bring to a boil; reduce heat to simmer brine 5 minutes. 

Pack peppers into hot jars, pour over brine, and process in a boiling water canner 10 minutes. 


What to do with all those peppers?  Well, use them in Mexican cooking, eat them straight out of the jar, or top salads with them.  You are only limited by your own imagination and tastes!


Do you can?  Does this make you want to start?  It's fun, and kind of exciting to tell people you made it yourself!

What did you do for labor day?  We cooked out with family, and when you make a burger just right, there's nothing better.  Here are some tips and a recipe for making the best burger.

1.  Start with beef that has about 15-20% fat content.  If you really want to be hardcore, grind your own using a grinder or even in the food processor (pulse about 10 times).

2.  Mix in 1/2 tsp. kosher salt for each pound of beef. 

3.  Patty the burgers out into 4-5 oz. patties.  You can be really crazy and weigh them on a scale or just sort of eyeball it.  For each pound of meat, 4 oz. will yield 4 burgers.








4.  Place a thumbprint type indentation in the middle of your burgers.  I can't really explain it, but it helps them to cook evenly. 

5.  Grill them to your liking, which for me is about 6 minutes on each side for medium-well burgers.  It is IMPERATIVE that you not cut into the burger when it's being grilled because that causes the juices to run all out.  Also, don't mash down the burgers with a spatula- that also squeezes the juices out. 

Now put them on a bun and top with your favorite toppings.  This time we used cheddar cheese, mustard, ketchup, onion, and tomato, but here's where your preferences and imagination can take over.



Enjoy!

Wow, I didn't make it out of August before I made my first soup of the upcoming cold weather season.  Stick with this blog long enough and you'll learn that soup is probably my favorite thing to make during winter.  They just seem like the most appropriate thing to eat- filling, warm, and there's so much variety.  If you were raised in a house like mine, you probably also think of chicken soup and sickness together.  Not that chicken soup makes me sick, but it's one of those foods I want when I don't feel well.  It just makes you feel better, and there is some research that suggests that it's not a placebo effect.  The warmth of the broth, combined with some of the gelatin and other goodies in chicken stock, really do help you feel better.

Yesterday firefighter husband Drew was sick.  He was so sick that he called in to work.  This has happened maybe one other time in his career so far.  It's not like when people with 9-5 office jobs call in.  You better really be sick to call in sick as a firefighter because so many people depend on you.  So what I'm trying to say is that it's a pretty big deal that he called in.  I knew this called for soup. 



Now if you're sick and really want the healing powers of chicken soup, you will make a slow cooked stock that simmers on the stove for 12 hours.  It's hardcore.  The bones of the chicken are soft and pliable like Gumby when you're done.  That's another post for another time.  If, however, you've worked all day and have no homemade stock on hand, you go for what you can- storebought.

I have made the chicken soup off the back of the Swanson brother box, and I have made a soup from a Southern Living that added lemon.  Now, the Swanson recipe is a good, solid chicken soup recipe.  It's one that you can call yours because it takes more work than opening a can and pouring its contents into a pot.  The Southern Living recipe was good as well, and I liked the lemon twist, especially when your throat is sore. 

Upon scouring the internet for a good recipe combining lemon and chicken in soup, I came across a lot of avgolemono recipes that I want to try, but felt that it was too risky to try a new recipe on a sick patient.  Then I found Giada de Laurentis' Lemon Chicken Soup with Spaghetti and decided to give it a whirl.  This is the recipe, right here.  I have a feeling that from here on out it will be our sick day soup.



Lemon Chicken Soup with Spaghetti
from Giada de Laurentis, courtesy of foodnetwork.com

6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
1 dried bay leaf
1 (2-inch) piece Parmesan cheese rind, optional
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch pieces
1 cup (about 2 1/2 ounces) spaghetti, broken into 2-inch pieces
2 cups diced cooked rotisserie chicken, preferably breast meat
1 cup grated Romano cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Kosher salt
 
In a large stockpot, bring the chicken broth, lemon juice, bay leaf, and Parmesan rind, if using, to a boil over medium-high heat.

Add the carrots and simmer until tender, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Add the broken pasta and cook until the pasta is tender, for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the chicken and heat through, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and the Parmesan rind and discard. Stir in 1/2 of the cheese and the parsley. Season with salt, to taste. Ladle the soup into serving bowls and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Notes

• I purchased two boxes of broth (most chefs/cooks seem to prefer the box to the can) and used around 7-7 1/2 cups of broth. You may want more than the 6 cups this recipe recommends.
• I used a 7 qt stock pot and had a TON of room left. I recommend a pot that holds maybe 3-4 qt.
• I used spaghetti, but next time I think I'll try ditalini or orzo pasta. Just a personal preference
• I did use a cheese rind- even though parmesan or parmigiano reggiano cheese on a block seems expensive, it will last a long time and is worth the cost. When you have gotten all you can off the cheese, you can freeze or save the rind for soups, which gives the soup a salty nuttiness. It's the gift that keeps on giving.
• I didn't measure the lemon juice; I just used the juice of two lemons.  It probably equated to 1/3 to 1/2 cup.  The lemon flavor is pretty pronounced.  Feel free to use less or dilute that flavor with more broth.

This is how I juice a lemon, which can be pretty subjective in the kitchen.  Juicing it through a strainer, though, cuts down on a unitasker filling up your drawer and it allows you to have filtered juice to pour straight into your pot.





I hope you all enjoy this- if you make it let me know what you think!

For those of us in rural America, cannellini beans are new or unheard of.  Also known as white kidney beans, cannellini beans are widely used in Italian cooking and are slowly starting to creep onto the shelves of our grocery stores.  I can't really remember my first encounter with them, but, as with so many other legumes, I love them.  What's not to love about a bean?  It has protein and fiber and is low in fat.  Beans are among some of the cheapest healthier foods out there, making them budget friendly as well.  Cannellinis are creamy and a great complement to other common Italian/Mediterranean ingredients, such as olive oil, tomatoes, red onion, etc.

I first found this recipe thanks to a daily recipe e-mail I get from allrecipes.com, and decided to try it out.

Remember the last post I did, the slightly disappointing chicken and pasta salad?  Well, this one is not a disappointment.  I love it AND it tastes like what I expect a bean salad to taste like.  I love it when things work together like that!  It is Italian-y (anyone who is Italian and disagrees let me know!) and has the great quality of being able to sit out for a while, making it a great picnic or potluck item.

Like so many recipes, I didn't follow this one to the letter- imagine that!  I have written the recipe as I did it.  To see the original, click the link. 

Cannellini Bean Salad
adapted from allrecipes.com, submitted by Alden Thornton

1 large red bell pepper or equivalent of one roasted red bell pepper
2- 14 oz. cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 medium onion, diced
1/4 minced fresh basil
3 Tb. red wine vinegar
2 Tb extra virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp. each salt and pepper

1.  Roast the pepper over a flame or under the broiler, rotating the pepper as the skin blackens and blisters, until the skin is totally black and blistered, about 15-20 mintues.  Place the pepper in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  This will loosen the skin.  Let cool for about 10 minutes, and then peel off skin and dice pepper.  OR if you are pressed for time, use a jarred roasted red bell pepper. 

2.  In a jar with a tight fitting lid, combine the vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper.  Shake well to combine.

2.  In a med-lg. bowl, combine beans, pepper, onion, and basil.  Pour dressing over the bean mixture and toss everything to coat.  It is best if the salad sits overnight in the fridge. 

This is the beginning of the pepper roasting process- I just turned on my broiler and let it go until it looks like a campfire marshmallow torch.







Here's what it looks like when it's done roasting.  Notice how the skin is loosening from the steam that is created when the plastic wrap covers the bowl?






A great way to cut an onion (I still haven't figured out how to cut one without crying, so if you know how, please tell me in the comments section!) is to leave the bulb part on and make slices with your  knife, like I did.  Then, cut across all those slices and you have a dice- the bulb part serves to keep the onion from slipping while you cut.

Hi and welcome!  I am sure you're probably looking at the title for today and wondering if I've lost it a little bit for taking time to write about a recipe that I found a bit disappointing.  Well, the reason is that, while I wasn't head over heels for this recipe, you may love it, so here goes.  I also will post something I did like the next time.  Not all new recipes are the holy grail of whatever dish it is.

I was first attracted to the Roasted Chicken Pasta Salad recipe during a search I made to find pasta salads that I could bring to work for lunch.  When you work far enough away from your home that it makes it difficult or impossible to go home for lunch, your options are usually one of two things; go out to eat in a restaurant near your place of work or bring your lunch.  If you know me or have read this blog, so many of the recipes I make are budget friendly.  I am on a budget, and eating out every day is NOT budget friendly.  It's also really fattening.  I'd gain 10 pounds a month if I had to eat out every day!  It is, however, difficult to make your lunch every morning- figure out what leftovers or sandwich toppings should go into lunch.  Is that just me?  It's difficult for me.  I am always getting places late- it's a trait I hate about myself- so thinking about lunch in the morning is something I like to simplify and streamline.

So, beginning to think about what I could have that is pre-made, healthy, and GOOD, I thought- ooh!  Pasta Salads!  I love pasta salads!  So, I began searching on Cooking Light's website (cookinglight.com) and Southern Living's website (southernliving.com), and found the Roasted Chicken and Bow Tie Pasta Salad.  It seemed perfect- rotisserie chicken for protein and convenience, walnuts, grapes, onion, celery.  Here's a warning for people who don't like unconventional flavors, though- the dressing includes lemon and orange juice. 

Now, The Fresh Market has a lemon pasta salad that I LOVE and thought that this one might be like that one, only with chicken and grapes. 

So, all that to say that this pasta salad is easy to throw together, and it makes a lot of food, but it's not my favorite.  I probably won't make it again because its flavors are just too much a departure from what I'd expect pasta salad to taste like.  What I do like about it is that its flavors were better two days after I made it than the day after- meaning that today when I eat my lunch it may be even better.  We'll see.  I'm holding my breath in anticipation and turning blue. 

I also like that it tastes fresh and that the dressing has no mayo.  If you left out the chicken, you could leave this dish out of a fridge for hours and not worry about violent illness later.  I'm for that.  I am not crazy about all the flavors that the dressing has going on- I mean, you have the mustard and the orange, which to me don't complement the grapes. 

So, all that long explanation to tell you that I have not found a lunch food that will be my BFF lunch, but if you like trying different things, you might like it.  I would suggest that you make a half batch, though.  Enjoy the rest of the rotisserie chicken as itself or in chicken salad, pasta, quiche, etc. 

I am not going to actually post the recipe, but here is a link:  Roasted Chicken and Bow Tie Pasta Salad

Notes

• To increase the health quotient of the pasta salad, I substituted whole wheat rotini for the white bowites. 
• I didn't put in celery because I didn't feel like it.  I want to like celery, but we're still in that "I only like you when you're covered in peanut butter or pimento cheese" phase. 

The prep work- it helps to have a great knife!








Mixing of the dressing- no mayo here= no spoiling IF you leave out the chicken, too. 

For those that don't know me well, I took a cake decorating course a couple years ago and fell in love with it as a new creative outlet.  Since taking the course, I've had the privilege of decorating a wedding cake for a friend and doing other friends' baby shower, wedding shower, and birthday cakes. 

This weekend I was able to make a baby shower cake.  This post will focus on the cake itself and not the decoration. 

Underneath the ribbon, fondant, and icing are two layers of a delicious cake I recently discovered:  Perfect Party Cake by Dorie Greenspan.  Unsure of what to choose as the flavor for this cake as the person who ordered it and I forgot to discuss that part, I opted to go with a white cake.  I had just made Rose Levy Beranbaum's White Velvet Butter Cake as a wedding cake sample, and I liked it.  I just decided that I wanted to try something different.  I like trying different things, especially when they're baked so closely together. 

So, I looked through my cookbooks and on the internet, and everybody seemed to love the Perfect Party Cake.  All the reviews I read about it said that people rave about its taste, and that the lemon perfectly accents its lightness and helps to offset the sometimes eggy or floury taste white cakes have.  That caught my attention.  The recipe is in Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours.  If you don't have this book and you love to bake, I would highly recommend it.  There's even a blogging community called Tuesdays With Dorie devoted to baking the recipes of this book. 

The feedback I got from this cake was that it "was great, and everyone loved the way it tasted."  Success! 

Due to the zesting of the lemon, the infusion of the sugar, and separating the eggs, this recipe has a couple more steps than your average cake, but it's very worth it. 


My husband hates the egg separator because it's a unitasker, but it's so handy. 
I recommend a Microplane for zesting- they're found in kitchen stores, Bed Bath, and Beyond, etc.  They're amazing!  I also have a cheese grater. 



1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.


Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.

Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.

Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.

Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.

Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.

Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.

Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.

Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean

Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unmold them and peel off the paper liners.

Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

Notes

• The first time I made this cake (I ended up making it twice because one layer fell apart upon unmolding), I forgot the lemon extract, so I used lemon juice.  The second time I actually got the extract.  The difference is significant- go with the extract for a better flavor.
• As just mentioned, one of the cakes fell apart when I unmolded it (or took it out of the pan), so the second time I made it I left it in the pan to cool longer.  These cakes are delicate!
• My hot oven had the cakes done in 25 minutes.
• To get the batter in the pans to be as smooth on top as possible, I spread them with a spatula as directed, but then I gave the pans a couple quarter turn spins (put one hand on each side of the pan and turn clockwise and then counter clockwise, like turning a steering wheel).  It's much gentler than banging the pans on the counter as some people do.  That lets air bubbles out, making for a more dense cake, and that's not what you want.