Quarantine Cooking Week #6

Oven "Fries"

Way back when I started using this recipe, oven roasted vegetables were not the first vegetable cooking method that came to mind. Now, people roast everything. But this was a magic recipe 20+ years ago. A teaspoon of oil? Yep. That's really all it takes. I love this oven baking grid that I bought at Walmart for $5 about 20 years ago. The potatoes brown on the top and bottom—without turning them over half way through. I have no idea if anything like this still exists, but if you see one, grab it.

Pre-quarantine we would go out sometimes on Sunday nights to a local diner for hamburgers. And we rarely made burgers at home. But now we are at home on Sundays, just like we are every other night of the week. Since I've been doing my grocery shopping online I've been at the mercy of what was available. The first time or two, there was no ground beef to be had. So I ordered frozen hamburger patties. And what a surprise! These have been good. And easy since they go on the grill straight from the freezer. They are ready in about 10 minutes.

I typically keep a pretty well stocked freezer. Stocked with foods I have prepared. Soups and stews. Casseroles. Baked goods. Meats ready to thaw, warm and serve. Hot dog chili. Even cooked dried beans. I have done this for years. But in anticipation of a long stay-at-home, I bought a few convenience freezer foods. (But never did I think the stay-home would be this long, with no clear end in sight.) On the nights when I think I cannot look at my stove again, frozen chicken strips have been better than no supper, and I didn't have to cook. Frozen meatballs are still waiting a desperate night of their own. (And I just read that I am not alone. Evidently the sales of frozen pizza have gone way up.) 

Most prepared frozen foods are in the "just okay" category for us, but I'll be keeping these burger patties in the freezer from now on. FYI, I bought the 80/20 lean-fat version. That could be why we thought these were good. Usually I buy extra-lean ground beef and while that will continue to be my first choice for most things, hamburgers are better with a little more fat. The extra fat drips down in the grill, right? Sure thing.

So I'm wondering, have you had any quarantine food discoveries? Freezer finds. Recipes. Ingredients. Things you might not have tried otherwise. Things you'll keep in your pantry all the time going forward. I'd love to know. 

To make our at-home diner meal complete, I cut up these potatoes for the oven. It's almost as easy as frozen fries. Don't have potatoes? Go ahead and use frozen fries. Don't have a bag of fries in the freezer? Then let's hope you have the potatoes. Or sweet potatoes even. This day and time, it's nice to have a choice.

I cut these fries thinner than the "eight wedges" the directions call for. They cook quicker a good bit quicker. Just keep an eye on them and look for the browning. Friend Kathie told me that sometimes she adds a little garlic powder and chili powder to the oil. Next time....

OVEN "FRIES"

4 baking potatoes

1 teaspoon cooking oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Spray baking sheet with PAM. Scrub potatoes, pat dry and slice each potato lengthwise into 8 wedges.

Put potatoes in mixing bowl and drizzle with 1 teaspoon of oil. Toss to coat.

Bake on sheet for 15 minutes. Turn and bake 15 minutes more, or until they begin to brown.

A Last Minute Supper Change

Oven Baked Chicken Fajitas

Still at home. Still cooking. But I'll admit I'm looking forward to eating a meal that I didn't cook myself. Having said that, this supper was a treat. I've missed going to our local Mexican restaurant. And while this dish doesn't taste at all like anything on their menu, it is delicious in it's own right. And it does have a Mexican influence. It is  more like "slightly Mexican."

At 5:30 pm, I pulled out the chicken tenders, onion, and the peppers with plans to do a quick skillet something or other. But I wasn't excited either the "something" or the "other." Then I looked at those three things on the kitchen counter. And aha! I had a lightbulb moment. I remembered this recipe from a few years back. I had some small tortillas in the freezer. There is always a can or two of Rotel on the shelf. Plus I had lettuce that needed to be used sooner rather than later. And cheese and sour cream are staples in my refrigerator. That's all I needed.

Forty-five minutes later—from staring at the chicken on the counter to sitting down to eat—supper was on the table. Pay attention...thirty of my 45 minutes was letting the chicken cook in the oven. It's a mostly hands off recipe.

OVEN BAKED CHICKEN FAJITA 

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken cutlets, cut into thin strips (cut against "the grain")  

    (this time I used chicken tenders and cut them into thin strips)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 teaspoons chili powder

1-1/2 teaspoons cumin

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt

1 (10-oz) can diced tomatoes with green chilies (I used Rotel Mild)

1 medium onion, cut into thin strips

1/2 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

1/2 green bell pepper, cut into thin strips (I used an orange pepper)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place chicken strips in a greased 9x13-inch baking dish.

In a small bowl (I used a custard cup) combine the oil, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, oregano and salt. Drizzle the spice mixture over the chicken and stir to coat. Add the undrained tomatoes, peppers and onions to the dish. Stir to combine. 

Bake, uncovered, for 25-30 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are tender. Stir a time or two through the cooking time.

We spooned the chicken, along with sour cream, shredded cheese and lettuce, into flour tortillas. I finally figured out that it's easier to spread the sour cream on the tortilla first, then add the rest. Roll it up and enjoy! 

The next night when there was only one tortilla left, I opted to eat fajita unwrapped. Just piled the chicken/pepper mix on the plate and topped it with lettuce, cheese and sour cream and put a few big blue tortilla chips on the side. I might have liked it better this way.

~~~~~~~~~

Notice that I used italics for the word "stir" every times it appears in the recipe. I used the italics because I forgot to stir it at all. Until I took it out of the oven. Why is my brain in slow gear??? Thankfully it was still good. I like a recipe that is difficult to mess up!

Staying Home

How are you starting your days now? In this shelter-in-place world, I get up, maybe do a few chores, get dressed...and put on an apron. It's like my uniform now. When I put on an apron, I feel like I'm ready to tackle the day. It might be cooking something for the freezer, cleaning out drawers, or checking dates on grocery staples to make sure we use them in the proper order. And then there's the endless laundry to be washed, dried and folded. Not even going to talk about unloading the dishwasher. With all meals eaten at home now, the dishwasher is full every day. I like unloading it first thing in the morning. At least as much as I like that chore at all.

Because every day is almost like every other day, I don't have lots to talk about here. So I'll share some photos of our world right now.

Back when we were out and about—after the virus started but before the lockdown—our local businesses put up encouraging posters in storefronts around the town square. These are a couple of my favorites.

This was the movie that was playing when everything stopped. 

Kind of nice to see these encouraging words on my way home from a grocery pick up.

Y'all know we live out in the country. 

Way out in the country where we see signs like this one.

We have mostly stayed home for the last several weeks. Daddy-O has planted a garden. He will have to replant a few things that didn't survive an unexpected cold night.

But this tomato plant in a pot (it was the leftover plant after planting the garden) promises that we will have tomatoes  eventually.

And our iris are beginning to bloom. The purple ones were planted here by my mother-in-law so long ago. These hardy flowers just tend to themselves year after year. The beautiful coral ones came from friend Missy who sent me a box of bulbs—properly called rhizomes—after I admired the Instagram photos of her flowers. When she divided them, she shared with me. Who doesn't love a friend who mails you a box of iris rhizomes?

A large portion of my time is spent in the kitchen.  I've started putting things like carrot and celery sticks in glass containers when I clean them. They last longer that way. The celery here is in a glass dish with a snap-on lid. Don't want anything going bad. Good habits to continue going forward.

How happy I was to find this recipe yesterday on the counter (that is now all neat and clean.) Carol has made this delicious taco soup more than once for our book club gatherings and she always talks about how easy it is. "You just open all the cans and mix them together in the Crockpot." What good timing to find a recipe that does not call for perishable ingredients. It's delicious AND it's easy. What more could you want? 

I've had fun watching my celery root sprout. As a child I grew sweet potato vines but I didn't know about sprouting celery. Funny what new things you learn during a pandemic...and what now brings us pleasure.

We look forward to late afternoons when we enjoy the beautiful view from our backyard. Take a few minutes and sit down with us.

Sometimes we forget that we don't need to travel to find beautiful places. 

It's been right here all along. 

A Carrot By Any Other Name (aka Copper Pennies)

Marinated Carrots (aka Copper Pennies)

In our current world, cooking often means making things with what you have on hand or what shows up in your online grocery order. When I went to the beach with my girl friends last month (seems like a year ago now), we all brought foods to share, to make meals easy. Teresa brought marinated carrots. Carol brought a marinated bean salad. I made chicken salad. The carrot dish is a recipe that I had not thought about in years. It was very popular a few decades ago, gracing the table at many family and church dinners. I had forgotten how good this is. And I wanted to share the recipe here as soon as I got home.

But we came home a half step ahead of the virus. I headed to the grocery store very early morning after we got back thinking I needed to do a big shopping because we were not supposed to go out for two weeks. (Yes, they said two weeks at the beginning. That was 5 weeks ago.) I planned to make these carrots and had tomato soup on my list. Already the shelf was bare where tomato soup should have been. But I did buy carrots. As two weeks turned into three, I finally managed to add a couple of cans of tomato soup to my online order. But by there were no carrots to buy. And we had eaten ours. 

After five weeks and two more online grocery orders, I finally had carrots and tomato soup in my possession at the same time. So yesterday I got to make the marinated carrots (which is often called copper pennies) to have in our refrigerator for the next several days.  

The recipe calls for green pepper as it's pictured at the top. I only had a red pepper here yesterday. It tastes the same. And my onion will soften a little as this dish sits in the refrigerator. I looked the recipe up in our old church cookbook and found three versions. All so much alike. One called for mustard. Another called for Worcestershire sauce. The third used both. They all used sugar and vinegar with slight differences in the amounts. One had onions sliced in rings. One said to dice the onion. It's a flexible recipe.

But before I made it I texted Teresa to ask about the mustard/Worcestershire sauce quandary. She promptly texted back and sent me the recipe she used. That's the one I wanted...the one we ate at the beach.

MARINATED CARROTS (aka Copper Pennies)

2 lb carrots, peeled & sliced
1 can tomato soup
1/2 cup cooking oil
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 medium onion, sliced thin (or diced)

Cook carrots in salted water until fork tender. Drain. Add green pepper and onion and set aside too cool.

Combine soup, oil, sugar, vinegar, dry mustard and Worcestershire sauce in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.

Pour dressing over carrots and stir gently. Marinate 6 hours or overnight. Store covered in refrigerator. Serve cold. Will keep up 2 to 3 weeks in refrigerator.

Some of the old recipes call for 2 cans of sliced carrots, drained, instead of slicing and cooking fresh ones. I've eaten it made that way. Not bad. But it's better made with fresh carrots. In this day and time, you can use what you have.


Daddy-O had these for supper last night. He said, "These are really good." Then today at lunch he pulled the dish out of the refrigerator and spooned out a big helping beside his sandwich. This time he said, "These are good. These are really, REALLY good!" And that's all you need to know.

An Easter Like None Before

I'm sitting here, still in my pajamas this morning, savoring the sunrise service we "attended" this morning. In this new world we are experiencing now, all of the Easter services we could have attended were cancelled. In their place there were a myriad of online options. We chose the sunrise service at Pretty Place, a camp chapel that sits on the side of a mountain facing east. How beautifully timed the simple service was, making sure that we saw the sun come up just as the sermon and music ended.

This camp holds good memories for our family. I chaperoned school group trips there for both daughters when they were in middle school. We spent several nights at the camp with nature activities filling the days. It is also where J-Daddy proposed to Mommy. It was good to "be there" again this morning.

Like everyone else we know, we are home alone on this Easter. No family here to sit around the table for an Easter dinner. No family photo beside the flower cross in front of our church. No little girls shrieking with delight as they race around finding Easter eggs after church. But none of these things we are missing stopped Easter from coming.

Jessica's table set with her great-grandmother's china.

Friend Joanne was going early this morning to adorn the cross at church with fresh flowers. In normal times church members add flowers to the cross as they arrive for the service. Today it will be decorated by one. For those in town, they can still ride by and see the beautiful cross transformed from its somber black drape into a vision of spring's glory, a sign of God's grace.

Instead of family around the table, we are delivering Easter dinner to my sister and brother-in-law. I promised we would drop it off at their door, providing "contactless delivery" just like Pizza Hut advertises. And I'm sure that later we will swap photos of Easter dinners and Easter activities with both daughters. I imagine the Easter Bunny still came. 

Like so many other grandparents we are missing the grandchildren. We will be thankful when all of the restrictions are lifted and we can smother them with hugs and kisses. But until then we will give thanks for the current technologies (that we may or may not have complained about in other times) like FaceTime and Zoom and text messages that let us stay in touch, and even see what's happening in their houses.

My menu is a streamed down version of what I would have done if I were feeding all 9 of us. (New baby makes 10, but isn't old enough to eat yet.) But we will still have the basics. The ham is in the oven now, making the house smell delicious. I planned ahead and made potato salad and deviled a few eggs yesterday. There are no recipes for either of these dishes. I just make them like my mother did. 

But I did look up recipes here on the blog for baked pineapple and the ham glaze. I have plenty of canned pineapple in the pantry. And glory be, the ham glaze calls for a tablespoons of pineapple juice. I had forgotten that. So those two recipes work hand in hand. 

EASY BROWN SUGAR-MUSTARD GLAZE

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

3 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon pineapple juice

In a small bowl, mix all ingredients until well blended.

Brush glaze over ham during last 45 minutes of baking. 

Can also use glaze on pork chops or pork roast.

I had bought a fully cooked, bone-in ham on my first online grocery order. We are following the directions on the label, baking it for 20 minutes per pound at 325 degrees. I scored the outside and covered it loosely with foil for most of the baking time. Daddy-O will add the glaze for the last 40-45 minutes and leave the foil off to finish the baking.

BAKED PINEAPPLE

1/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

1 (20-oz) can of pineapple chunks in juice, drained (reserve some of the juice)

3 tablespoons of the reserved pineapple juice

1/2 cup crushed Ritz cracker crumbs

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter a 1 quart baking dish. (Mine was 6 x 9-inches)

In a bowl, stir together sugar and flour, then stir in cheese. Add the drained pineapple chunks and stir until well mixed. Pour into baking dish.

In another bowl, combine cracker crumbs, melted butter and reserved pineapple juice. Stir gently until combined. Spread crumb mixture over pineapple mixture.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown.   This can be easily doubled.

While the ham is baking, I'm headed to get dressed and pull out the ingredients for the two recipes above. Both are quick and easy. Then after our meal delivery we will come back home and enjoy the rest of our Easter Sunday. Easter 2020–unlike any other Easter. 

So from here at Buckner Hill Farm, we send you the best wishes for Easter, the holiday that is a celebration of hope. We need all the hope we can get right now. Take a minute and enjoy our own personal Easter sunrise that happened right outside our back door.

Cooking From Memory

In my new normal I've started using online ordering for groceries. We have one source for this service in our county. My older daughter has been doing this for years and likes shopping that way. When Baby Girl was even smaller it was easy to pick up groceries without having to take a toddler into the store. I have not had a particular need to do so, but now it seems to be a prudent way to get my groceries. 

Using the grocery shopping app has been simple. Finding a delivery time has been harder. Looks like everyone else in our county is using this service, too. Overall I have been happy shopping this way. I haven't always gotten everything on my list. But that's okay. I did check the box to allow substitutions. And that's okay. This is not a time to be too picky. I've had different brands than my usual choice. I've used more store brands than normal. 

In this "happy to get anything" world I was delighted to see that the pork loin roast made it into my cart last week. The item description said it was 2.5 to 3 lbs. When I unpacked the groceries the pork loin looked tiny. It was less than two pounds. Again, glad to get anything. That was still plenty for the two of us.

We cook pork tenderloin all the time. A pork loin is a different cut. I looked quickly for a recipe for a glaze or a rub before I cooked it thinking it might need a flavor boost. Again, everything now is based on ingredients on hand. Earlier in the day I read one recipe that sounded like a good one. By late afternoon I couldn't remember where I found it, so I used the parts of the recipe that stuck in my brain. It was like one of those memory tests where they show you a group of items and then later ask you to write down all you remember.

The part I remembered is worth doing again. So I'm adding the "how I did it" here on the blog for the next time I cook a pork loin.

SWEET & SAVORY PORK LOIN

There are no precise measurements here because I didn't remember what they were. You really don't need them. Trust me. Trust yourself.

pork loin roast

olive oil (or other cooking oil)

salt

freshly ground black pepper 

paprika

about 2 tablespoons brown sugar

about 2 teaspoons minced garlic (I use the jarred kind)

Pat the pork loin dry. Put pork in a pan or bowl and pour a little oil oil over the roast. Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper and paprika. Spoon a couple of tablespoons brown sugar and a couple of teaspoons of minced garlic onto the roast. Then rub this all over the roast. Transfer to a baking dish and cook, uncovered, according to the directions on the package. Let rest about 5 minutes before slicing.

My package said to cook at 375º for 27 to 32 minutes per pound, until internal temp reaches 145º to 155º. 

We really liked the hint of sweetness from the brown sugar that complemented the garlic. The paprika gave the cooked roast a beautiful color. The loin cut isn't quite as tender at the tenderloin and it takes a little longer to cook. But it was so easy. And now we have plenty of leftovers. I'll vacuum pack some slices and freeze them for later. There is an easy Lo Mein recipe that I want try soon. I'll add a little pork to that "meat optional" dish.

Life Stay-At-Home Style

Cheese Tortellini Soup

Life in this stay-at-home world hasn't stopped everything, even though it feels like it sometimes. I've had Group FaceTime visits with my book club friends. And yesterday I did a Zoom session with my knitter friends from across the country. California, New York, Tennesee, Illinois, Maryland, South Carolina, and Texas were represented. It was interesting to hear how the stay home orders were playing out in different parts of the country. We actually knitted while we chatted and even had a show and tell. That was so much fun.

I must confess that both the Group FaceTime and the Zoom sessions had some hiccups as we tried to get connected. Older adults and multiple screens and new platforms can be a funny experience. We had one session where a couple of folks could be heard but not seen. And one friend, who did manage to connect, kept the camera turned so that we mostly saw her ceiling. There has been lots of laughter as we've fumbled through. It has involved phone calls and text messages at the SAME TIME as we were trying to do a video meet up. And on my first Group FaceTime some of us had as much trouble disconnecting as we did connecting! We are all learning. But we have managed to do things that weeks ago we would have said were impossible. 

Our family has had two birthdays in the last few days, too. Jessica is grown and understands why we were not together and they had a small celebration for two after the baby was put to bed. BUT when you're turning six, it's a different matter. I'm not sure whose idea it was, but we had a formal birthday party via FaceTime. Tuxedos and formal attire. It was a real party! We were just in different places. That was so much fun. It will certainly tide us over until we can have a party with all of us in the same place.

Yesterday one of the knitters asked what I was making for supper. And at 5:00 pm I had no clue. When we finished our visit I rambled through the pantry and then it hit me...I had watched Joanna Gaines make soup on an Instagram video the day before. She has a soup recipe in her new cookbook (coming out soon) but like many of us, she didn't have the exact ingredients on hand to make it. As she made it, she told what her substitutions were. Then I made it last night and substituted for her substitutions. It's that kind of recipe.

Daddy-O is famous for not loving soup. When I told him what I was making he said he'd just have a sandwich. But I dished up a bowl of soup for him to try before I made the sandwich. Now I'm not sure you will understand the import of his reaction. "This is really good. Oh, wow, the parmesan really makes it. How did you make this?" "That sounds easy enough for me to cook when you're not here sometime." He really wants to MAKE soup??? He even went back for more. That. Is. Amazing.

Here is how I made it last night. Feel free to change it up again, depending on what's in your pantry. 

CHEESE TORTELLINI SOUP

1 small onion, diced

1 teaspoon minced jarred garlic

1 tablespoon butter or oil

6 cups chicken broth (that was 1 box and 1 can)

1 (15-oz ) can petite diced tomatoes with juice

1 (16-oz) can great northern beans, drained & rinsed

1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1/2 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 (12-oz) bag cheese tortellini (I probably used a little over 1/2)

fresh spinach, about 3 or 4 big handfuls 

salt & pepper to taste

grated fresh parmesan 

Saute onion and garlic in butter for a few minutes until the onion just starts to get translucent. Add broth, tomatoes, beans, Italian seasoning and basil. Bring to a boil. Add tortellini and cook as per package directions. Two or three minutes before tortellini is done, stir in fresh spinach and let it wilt. Adjust seasonings. To serve, ladle it into bowls and grate fresh farm over the top. 

That's it. A quick, easy soup that's totally delicious. So could you make it with what's in your kitchen now? No broth? Maybe use chicken bouillon in hot water. No tortellini? Use another pasta. No great northern beans? Cannellini beans, butter beans, navy beans are possible subs. No diced tomatoes? If you have canned whole tomatoes, chop them up. I think stewed tomatoes would be okay, too. No spinach? Hmmm....do you have kale? I don't usually keep frozen spinach on hand but that might work.

I was lucky enough last night to have the very last of the fresh spinach that needed to be used up. Knowing that I needed to use it was what made me decide on this recipe. We are all being careful not to waste anything right now. I'm so glad I happened up on this recipe. I headed right now to pre-order Joanna's new cookbook.  It's due out in days.  

I love all the early mornings—the cloudy ones, the rainy days, the foggy ones, the cloudless ones. But this beautiful sky greeted me one morning this week. Thought you might enjoy it, too

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