Stir Fry Night!

So.

This is Matt. I have never posted on this blog (or any blog, for that matter) before, so bear with me on this one.

My wife has, as you have seen, been posting fun recipes and such, and so when I made a good stir fry for dinner tonight, she said "You should post this on the blog." Of course, I immediately tried to convince her (with much flattery) that she was a MUCH better writer, and that she should put it on the blog. However, I was convinced by the point that if I don't ever post, it won't be our blog. Fair enough. The only problem was that I wasn't using a recipe, and it is pretty simple anyway.

So to preface the "recipe," I feel I should say that stir fries fall into a very specific cooking category in my mind. The category goes by many names, including "mess-of-stuff" (thanks to Luke Hansen) and "leftover velcro" (thanks to Alton Brown), and includes any recipe which you can throw whatever you have in the fridge (within reason) into it, and it will still be good. That being said, on with the recipe!

1/2 Green bell pepper, chopped
1 carrot, julienned
1/3 rack of pork ribs, boneless, cut into pieces
2 eggs, scrambled
a bit of canola oil (technical terms!)
a bit more soy sauce (more technical terms!)
even a bit more teriyaki sauce (tired of this yet?)
1 tsp dried onion flakes
1 tsp dried grated ginger

So it started with a nice hot wok with the canola oil in it. To that, I added the main ingredients in order from longest cooking time to shortest. That order was pork, carrots, pepper (with onion flakes and ginger), eggs. I vigilantly stirred the whole mixture as it cooked to make sure it didn't burn (much), and then added soy sauce and teriyaki toward the end. After letting the flavors come together a bit, it was finished and removed from the heat. We served it over white rice.

So there it is! Hope you enjoyed!

Explosive Apple Cinnamon Bread

Most mornings during the work week we don't really have time to sit down and eat breakfast, so we wind up eating a slice or two of bread as we run out the door.  We go through one loaf of a breakfast bread in a little over a week, so every weekend or so I throw together another loaf.  For the past several weeks we've been enjoying banana bread with peanut butter, but this week we were out of bananas, so we decided to come up with something more creative.

I've found that you can have a lot of flexibility with ingredients in quick breads and muffins as long as you keep a balance between the basic categories (fats, sweetener, additions, etc).  This is really helpful, because I'm kind of known for running out of key ingredients and making weird substitutions.  My experiments usually turn out okay, but they work a lot better when I have a flexible recipe in the first place!  Here is my basic quick bread/muffin recipe:


2 - 2.5 c flour (today I used all purpose flour with flax)
0.5 c sweetener (today I used brown sugar)
2 tsp baking powder
1 c milk
0.25 c fat (today I used oil)
1 egg
up to 1.5 c additions (today I used chopped apples)
spices, optional (today I used 2 T cinnamon)

For muffins, bake at 400 F for 15-20 minutes.  For bread, bake at 400 F for about an hour.  Makes one loaf or 12 muffins.

We're not entirely sure why it wound up like this; it appears that the top crust formed quickly in the baking process, and later on when steam built up inside, it couldn't force its way through the top and wound up erupting out the side of the loaf.  I may try baking it at 350 F or 375 F next time, to see if that helps.

Autumn Dinner Party

Cooking for a group can be a lot of fun, and with adequate planning, it doesn't have to be stressful. It seems like we often think that cooking for people outside of our immediate family has to involve something big and fancy, and dinner hostesses often stick to a 'turkey dinner' sort of menu. Not that I have anything against turkey; I enjoy both cooking and eating it. Just because I'm having dinner guests, though, doesn't mean I feel a compulsion to pull out the cranberry sauce.

This Saturday evening, Matt and I enjoyed a casual evening with friends from the Catholic Student Association at our home. Matt wound up having to go in to work, so I spent the bulk of the day on my own in the kitchen. It was surprisingly relaxing; I knew what I was making and how long each thing cooked, so I started with the time we planned to eat dinner and worked backward, assigning each dish or dishes an appropriate time slot in the oven. For example:

10:00 squash halves in
11:00 squash halves out
12:10 beans on
1:30 squash bake in
2:30 squash bake out
[3:00 pick Matt up from work]
3:40 bread rising
4:00 crumble crust in
4:20 crumble crust out
4:55 pie in
[5:00 straighten house]
5:30 apples on to stew
5:40 pie out, bread in
5:55 squash bake in to warm up
6:00 bread out, apple crumble in to brown topping
6:10 squash bake out, apple crumble out, beans done
6:15 dinner

It was so nice to be standing in the kitchen 15 minutes before I was expecting people to walk in the door, knowing that everything was going to be finished at the same time and I didn't have to worry about hurrying anything!

It snowed this morning, so we may finally have to give up pretending that it is still autumn; yesterday evening was definitely not yet winter, though, and we made a wonderfully autumnal meal to celebrate: one of the girls brought a green salad, and I made calico beans, butternut squash bake, and purple potato bread, with pecan pie and apple crumble for dessert, and hot apple cider to drink!

Calico beans is a dish I grew up on, and one Matt has come to enjoy since moving to Alaska. For me, it is a favorite not only because of how it tastes, but also how easy it is to make: throw everything in a slow cooker for 6 hours, and dinner is ready!

Calico Beans

2 lb ground beef
1 lb bacon
0.5 onion, diced
1 can great northern beans, drained
1 can chopped green beans, drained
1 can pork and beans, drained
2 cans kidney beans, drained
0.75 c brown sugar
1 c ketchup
3 Tbsp vinegar, white or cider
2 tsp salt

Cook bacon. Remove to paper towels, drain grease from pan. Chop into pieces roughly an inch long. In same pan, brown ground beef and onion. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours. Serves 10.

Purple Potatoes!

Last week, members of the Catholic Student Association spent several evenings digging potatoes, and wound up with many more than they had room to
store. About 20 pounds of potatoes made their way to our apartment, where they spent several days spread across the entire living room floor to dry -- I finally found time to sort through them and box them up a few nights ago. Quite a few had been speared in the harvesting process, and it seemed best to cook them up right away so they didn't have a chance to go bad. I began by washing what I had been told were reds.

From under their heavy coats of dirt emerged delicate, smooth skins of the deepest, richest, glossiest shade of purple I have ever seen. The first few millimeters of flesh beneath the skim were creamy white, beyond which the majority of the interior of the potato was a soft, marbled lavender.

I was so excited... Think of the exciting food possibilities presented by purple potatoes! Purple mashed potatoes, purple potato bread, purple potato cinnamon rolls, My Little Pony-colored shepherd's pie... I guess that might be a little weird; what would you put in it? Sweet corn, Lima beans, and beets? Anyway, I quickly chopped them up and threw them in a pot to boil. We worried that they might lose some of their color as they cooked, but there was no need for concern; not only did the potatoes remain purple, but the water in which they cooked turned a bright blue-green!

The idea of purple potato bread sounded fun, but it was getting pretty late, so I mashed up the potatoes and put then in the refrigerator to work with the following day. When I got home from work Friday afternoon, I was amazed at how the color had changed; the mashed potatoes had gone from a nice lavender to a vibrant indigo! This bread was going to be exciting...

It did turn out a lovely shade of purple, somewhere between the original color of the potatoes and the neon mashed potatoes; unfortunately, the whole loaf disappeared at dinner last night before I remembered to take a picture! My refrigerator bread recipe worked well with the mashed potatoes, though, and it is so convenient to be able to make dough before you go to bed one night and have it ready to throw in the oven the next evening for dinner, so I wanted to share it.

(Purple) Potato Refrigerator Bread

2.25 tsp active yeast
1.5 c warm water (use reserved water from boiling the potatoes for extra flavor!)
0.5 c sugar
3.5 Tbsp brown sugar
1.5 tsp salt
0.67 c shortening
2 eggs
1.5 c mashed potatoes
7 to 7.5 c flour

In large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir in rest of ingredients except flour. Mix in flour gradually until dough is easy to handle. Knead until smooth and elastic. Cover with wax paper, then a damp towel. Place in refrigerator at least overnight; dough will keep several days if necessary. About 2 hours before baking, shape dough into loaves, rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc. Cover and let rise until doubled, 1.5 to 2 hours. Bake at 375 for 30 to 35 minutes for loaves, 15 to 20 minutes for rolls. Makes two large loaves or two 13x9 pans of dinner rolls.

Lemon-basil salmon turnovers

For savory turnovers, I don't believe anything can beat a cream cheese pastry crust.  Rich, smooth, flaky but without any of the sweetness common to many pastry recipes, it pairs well with meats, fish and vegetables.  Adding herbs to the dough can provide a real complement to your filling as well!

Basic cream cheese pastry:
8 oz cream cheese
1 c butter
1.5 c flour

Mix together cream cheese and butter until well blended.  Mix in flour until fully incorporated.  Pat into ball; refrigerate while making filling.

For the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary yesterday, I made a lemon-basil salmon filling for our turnovers.  I'm not sure what kind of salmon I used; it was shared by one of my parents' friends.  Anything made with salmon is of course better when you use Alaskan red (sockeye) salmon, but you can probably come pretty close to what we had last night by using whatever salmon is available near you.  :-)

2 T butter
1/2 medium onion, chopped
8 T lemon juice, divided
3 T dried basil
1 to 1.5 c cooked salmon, flaked
1/2 c ricotta

Saute onion in butter with 2 T lemon juice; when onions become translucent, add basil and remaining 6 T lemon juice.  Cook off most of the liquid.  On lowest heat, add salmon.  Simmer 3-5 minutes.

Remove from heat and fold in ricotta.  Roll out dough to approx. 1/4" thickness and cut into 3" rounds.  Place moderate amount of filling on one side of each round; fold over and pinch edges to seal.  Prick tops with fork to allow steam to escape.  Bake at 350 F for 15 min or until edges begin turning golden brown.

If you'd prefer, you can put the unbaked turnovers in the freezer to use later; if baking frozen pastries, expect them to take an additional 5-10 minutes in the oven.

Our Lady of the Rosary and the Battle of Lepanto

"And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the cross.

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun...

...The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,

And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,

And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dirty room,

And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath newer face of doom,

And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee, --

But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea..."

- G. K. Chesterton, Lepanto, 9-13, 80-85

These telling passages provide a glimpse into the state of much of Christendom in 1571, when Pope Pius V called for help against the encroaching Ottoman empire -- a Christendom whose people had largely lost touch with what it meant to be Christian, whose leaders all failed to answer the pope's call; all but Don John of Austria, the "last knight of Europe," as Chesterton calls him.  The illegitimate son of the Austrian empire was the only leader, out of all of Christian Europe, to come to the defense of the pope and of Christianity.

The Ottoman forces outnumbered the Christians, known as the Holy League, in ships, sailors, and soldiers.  The soldiers of the Holy League, as well as many Christians gathered in Rome, implored Our Lady's intercession by praying the rosary while the great naval battle took place off the coast of Lepanto, Greece.

Through Don John's willingness to answer the call when all other leaders turned a deaf ear to the pope, through the faith of many lay people and religious who piously prayed the rosary, and through the miraculous intercession of Our Lady, the Holy League won a decisive victory over the Ottomans, keeping the Mediterranean Sea open to Christian vessels, protecting Italy from invasion, preventing the Ottomans from advancing further into Europe, and freeing 10,000 Christian slaves.

Following the battle, Pope Pius V instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory in thanksgiving.  The name has since been changed to Our Lady of the Rosary, which is celebrated on October 7.

Chesterton's poem, Lepanto, is a wonderful five-minute read for today... I highly recommend it!

A feast for the feast day

In celebration of St. Faustina and Bl. Francis Xavier Seelos, we had a very Polish/German dinner yesterday:  Polska kielbasa with roasted potatoes, carrots and onions.  I also made a chocolate peanut butter pie for dessert:

Roasted vegetables are one of my favorite fall and winter meals because they are so filling and hearty, but also because they are so quick to make!  It took me less than an hour, including all of the preparation:

1 medium onion, chopped into 1-2" pieces
3 carrots, chopped into 1" pieces
2 potatoes, chopped into 1" pieces
1 lb polska kielbasa, cut into 1" pieces
4 T olive oil
Rosemary
Sage
Marjoram
Black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 F.*  Put chopped vegetables into a large zip-top plastic bag.  Add olive oil and seasonings; seal bag and shake well, until all pieces of the vegetables are coated.  Pour vegetables out onto foil-lined baking sheet and add kielbasa.  Mix well.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and stir well; put back in oven to bake for another 20-25 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked through.


*Some newer models of smoke detector are set up to go off if they detect a certain level of heat, even without smoke.  The one in our apartment was definitely worried that I was trying to burn the building down simply by having the oven at 425 F...  Does yours have the same problem?  How do you get around it?