CreativeSpace

where have you been?

Did you miss me? Well, I missed you if that's any consolation. I know it was only four days, but it felt like forever. Especially since I was looking at the insides of various boxes and desperately searching for places to put things. Normally the on-going unpacking saga wouldn't have kept me from blogland, but these were special circumstances. We're HAVING COMPANY.

Three days ago The Husband began a conversation with, "please don't be too angry." We had just sat down to supper, and I had the fork halfway to my mouth when he began this little talk. Now really, doesn't it just irk you the tiniest bit to hear that before you have any idea about what's going on? The Husband proceeded to explain that despite a previous discussion when I asked him specifically not to invite over any co-workers until the house was in some semblance of order, he had done that very thing. Never mind that we had this discussion squeezed around our very small dining room table surrounded by towers of boxes. Or that the kitchen was an obstacle course of random chairs and giant dish packs (still unpacked) waiting for our new shelves to arrive. There was nothing about our current living situation that said "let's entertain!" The man was on my list for two whole days after that.

Despite unpacking every danged moment of the day, I took a break to bake my Great-Grandmother Nicky's easter egg cookies. This has been an Easter food tradition in my family ever since...well, Great-Grandmother Nicky's day. Her cookies and hot cross buns were synonymous with Easter and the beginning of spring, even though the weather rarely cooperated with my expectations of sun and warm breezes. (Does anyone else have childhood memories of wearing their new spring finery only to have Easter Sunday dawn cold and chilly?)

The cookies weren't very sweet, so I felt justified in using lots of icing to decorate.

 

Easter Egg Cookies
Makes 20   

1 Cup butter
½ Cup packed brown sugar

  Beat butter and sugar together until creamy.

1 tsp almond or vanilla extract
1 egg

  Add to butter/sugar mixture and mix well. 

½ tsp salt
3 Cups flour

  Whisk together and gradually add to butter/sugar mixture.

  Lastly, stir in 1 Cup quick oats.

Take a scoop of dough and roll into a ball. Using a tablespoon as your guide, pat it into an egg shape.

Place on un-greased cookie sheet at bake at 325° for 20-25 minutes. Let cool completely and ice as desired.

 

Happy Easter or Passover or Spring (or whatever you choose to honor)!

 

Retro Revisited - a guest blog

Our convesation about Tuna Casserole began with this post.

 

Eons ago, when I was a 9th-grader taking a semester of cooking in Home Economics, I learned how to make what became a staple in my young cook’s repertoire, Tuna Casserole. In those days, Home Ec was considered a necessary foundation for a stable, functioning life, and all girls took it.  (No, silly, boys did not take it! Everyone knew that in order to have a stable, productive life, they would need a wife.)

One half of my class took sewing for one semester and cooking the next.  This was real garment construction from start to finish, and basic cooking with real ingredients…no mixes or prepared foods. (What an outlandish and scandalous idea that now seems! Although this was before prepared food had made much of an appearance on grocery shelves. If you wanted to snag your man and avoid the slovenly life, you’d better learn to cook.)

Mrs. Garrison was our cooking teacher, and I admired her. She was fairly young, very pretty and well dressed. She had graduated from Kansas State and I considered her the authority on cooking, fashion and proper etiquette. She pointed out that it is not lady-like to chew gum in public. My mother had put it in more graphic terms:  “Do you want to look like a cow chewing your cud?”

So the day came when our assignment was to prepare Tuna Casserole. My partner and I divided the tasks and completed the recipe, and then sat down to eat.  I thought it was delicious, but the most memorable thing about the class was what Mrs. Garrison had to say about it the next day.

She was most upset and disappointed in us!  She had only heard negative and critical comments about Tuna Casserole the entire day from all her classes.  She had had such a bad day that she went home and told her husband that he had to take her out to dinner because she was too upset to cook.

This was startling information for me!  Who knew that if a woman had a bad day that her husband should be expected to take her out to dinner and console her?  I always thought that if you had a bad day, you should just suck it up!  There was no end to what one could learn in Home Ec class!

I’m quite certain that as a 9thgrade girl I did not have the courage to stand against the popular opinion of the herd and say so, but I did like Tuna Casserole and immediately took it home to my family. They liked it as well. My older sister and I, who did a lot of cooking for the family over the years, made it frequently. Maybe you will too.

Although the original written recipe has been lost to the ethers, at my daughter’s request, I recently made it from memory. Since she does not believe in flying by the seat of her pants when cooking, I took pains to note the amounts as I added them.  This is as official as I can get. It is a good “clean out the pantry” dish, and except for the potato chip topping, I had everything on hand.

You may also notice some modern day sensibilities such as my use of brown rice, which I like. The original called for white rice. I also added fresh parsley. If you can find line-caught tuna you might bear the expense in order to avoid the mercury (which either didn’t exist in ocean fish back in the day, or we were mercifully ignorant).


Tuna Casserole                                                                        Serves 4-6

2 C cooked brown rice
12 oz can tuna
10 ¾ oz can cream of mushroom soup
2 stalks celery, chopped
½ medium onion, chopped
¼ C finely chopped fresh parsley
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 C crumbled potato chips*

Cook celery and onion in small amount of water until crisp tender. Combine all ingredients except for the chips, and mix well. Pour into a quart casserole and bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until heated through.

*While cooking, I thought that if you don’t have potato chips available to crumble for the topping, panko would be a very pleasant substitute. 

 

To read more from Janet, check out her blog Coach for Life Change.

moving madness

I have decided after extensive field research that moving makes you crazy. And that goes for everyone. No one can escape the pressure and stress or the pure physical exhaustion of it. Whisk it together with a dash of crying toddler, and you have a recipe for the fruit-loop-crazies, my friends. Even in the most benign situations, you will find yourself erupting into heated debates about how the iron should be packed, or precisely who is going to move a certain someone's extensive collection of wood clamps, or that it's not a sign of mental illness that a different someone is trying to start a new sewing project in the middle of the aforementioned chaos which requires that freaking carefully packed iron. (That last someone shall remain nameless.) While in the midst of these debates, I had the passing thought that our arguments would fit in perfectly at the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice and Wonderland. Not that this stopped me from passionately defending my side of the argument, a belief fueled by Thin Mints and white wine (moving companies don't want to ship open bottles--I was just doing my part). Moving means that you're absolutely, positively certain that the broken shovel handle should be packed, because it might be fixed some day.

Yes there was a lot of crazy flying around here, but luckily for us that didn't deter my family from pitching in to help. My father, bless his ever-lovin' heart, came down twice to pitch our crap into boxes. This last time he brought my step-mother, and thank heavens for that because she was an organizational pro. She made a plan and executed it with gusto, and it was usually better than anything I had previously thought. So while The Husband and I bickered about how many layers of paper should go around the andirons, she and my dad packed and loaded their pickup truck to drive the stuff south. Twice. I, for one, am ready to nominate them for sainthood.

There was one high point to my crazy weekend:  chocolate chip cookies by Nigella Lawson. I was already head over heels for the woman, but this post over at Farmgirl Fare got me salivating for Nigella's chocolate chip cookies. My mom gave me Nigella's cookbook, Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of Home, but I had yet to attempt anything since all my pans are boxed up for this week's move. I was eyeing her banana-cocoa muffins, but after gazing at Farmgirl's pictures and reading her review, I tackled Nigella's chocolate chip cookie recipe. I made it exactly as printed, and it turned out to be outstanding. The Husband said it was the best I've ever made; a mouth-watering combination of chewy AND crispy. Oh, so there is something we agree on. 

The recipe is quick to mix especially since it requires melted butter. The dough is stiff, so if you want a thinner cookie then I suggest gently flattening it before baking. It won't go flat as it bakes. Also, if you're a fan of the crispy cookie then these are best the day they are baked. A couple days in an airtight container will make them loose their crispy edge. The flavor, however, doesn't decrease in the slightest. In fact, I received no complaints but a lot of "mmmmm..."

Nigella’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes around 14

1 ¼ sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup superfine sugar (I used regular)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, refrigerator-cold
1 egg yolk, refrigerator-cold
2 cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 bag (11.5 oz) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325°. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Melt butter and allow to cool slightly. Put brown and white sugars in a bowl and pour melted butter over them. Beat together.

Beat in vanilla, the cold egg, the cold egg yolk until mixture is light and creamy.

Slowly mix in flower and baking soda until just blended, then fold in chocolate chips.

Scoop the cookie dough onto the parchment paper using a ¼ cup round ice-cream scoop or measuring cup about 3 inches apart. (gently press dough if you want a flatter cookie)

Bake for 15-17 minutes and let cool on sheet for five minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

a retro recipe

I realized the other day that never in my life had I made tuna casserole. Never. In fact, I didn't remember my mom making it either. As a lover of 50's fashion and vintage cooking, one would assume that a tuna casserole recipe would be a well-used staple in my family menu. Yet I had never ventured into tuna casserole land. The mere utterance of its name seemed to elicit an instant reaction. The Husband had unappetizing memories (accompanied by horrific retching noises) of tuna casserole as a child, but he only shared them AFTER the fact. After the fact of me cooking and serving up tuna casserole for dinner. Ah, the timing of it all!

My mother claimed to have an outstanding tuna casserole recipe, but she had yet to share it. Despite numerous pleading phone calls, my in-box remained bereft of this tuna fabulousness. So I had to be resourceful and turned to the internet to piece together some sort of recipe. Since I am not a cook by nature (aka someone who can improvise over the stove with ingenuity and skills for tastiness) I cobbled together a couple of high-rated recipes and went to work.

Probably everyone in the world knew that this was no mystery dish. The ingredients were simple, the seasoning minimal, the results magical. Well, they were supposed to be. My results were alright. Not awful. Not superb. Definitely middle of the road. The problem was the cheese. Instead of going with cheddar, I used the last of some low-fat (don't ask me how that got in the fridge) Monterrey Jack.

The high points were the potato chip and melted cheese crust. You can see a bit of it at the lower right-hand corner of the picture. That amazing crust was worth the entire thing. In fact, I think I'll make a casserole using only potato chips and cheese. Shazaam!

The best part of my foray into tuna casserole was Henry & Lisa's Solid White Albacore Tuna. Have you tasted it? They are to tuna what grass fed beef is to burgers. Once you taste this stuff, you'll never ever want the traditional canned tuna. They use sashimi grade tuna loins that have been caught on small family boats, on hook and line. The tuna loin is thick and meaty, and there's very little fishy smell. I've been leery of canned tuna because of the mercury, but because they catch small-sized tuna the mercury levels are lower. Plus, the tuna is cooked only once in the can so it retains more Omega-3 oils. USA Today ran an article about their growing business.

My one act of lunacy yesterday (and let's be grateful there was only one) was too open six packed boxes in search of something to hold the casserole. Rather than accept defeat and calmly accept that my life is mostly in boxes at the moment (and call for take-out), I tore open six of them. I was on a mission! No moving limbo/hell was going to defeat me! Utterly ridiculous in retrospect yet somehow satisfying. Ripping off the tape like a madwoman, all the while muttering under my breath about tuna and 'where would I be if I was a casserole dish.'

So here's the recipe. How does it compare to yours?

Tuna Casserole
1 12-oz package egg noodles
1 onion, chopped
2 cups shredded, cheddar cheese
1 ½ cups frozen peas
2 6-oz cans tuna, drained
2 ½ cans cream of mushroom soup
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 Tbs dill
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup crushed potato chips

Cook pasta in boiling water for around 7 minutes. Preheat oven to 400°. Sauté onions and mushrooms in a little bit of olive oil until soft.

In large bowl mix cooked noodles, cooked onions and mushrooms, peas, 1 cup of cheddar cheese, tuna, and soup.

Transfer to greased 2-quart casserole dish (I only had a 10x10 inch cake pan since all my casserole dishes are packed up at the moment). Top with crushed potato chips and remaining cheese.

Bake 20 minutes until bubbly. Watch carefully so that the topping doesn’t burn.

if you give a bear a pancake

First she will ask for a cup (or more) of frozen blueberries to eat as an appetizer. And in the process of enjoying those blueberries, she will quite enthusiastically smear blueberry juice all over her hands, face, and the shirt you (foolishly) put on her first thing in the morning.

After finishing the blueberries and wiping her hands on the dog's back, she'll want to help you stir the pancake batter. She'll fling some batter at the wall, completely by accident of course, and will then stir up an original concoction of her own consisting mostly of baking powder. She'll taste it (you knew this was coming) and will make dramatic gagging noises, sticking out her tongue so that you can wipe it. Repeatedly. For the next five minutes.

When the gagging theatrics are finished, she'll push her stool over to the griddle so she can watch the pancake cook. She'll smack it a few times with the pancake turner, just to see what happens, and will try to push the blueberries further down into the batter with her fingers. "Blue!" she'll cry. "Cook!" she'll add.

Eventually you'll manage to wrangle her into her chair so that she can eat her pancake smothered in butter and syrup. She'll ask you for extra syrup on the side for dipping and will try to say "pancake!" around a mouth full of food. You'll probably pray that everything stays in her mouth. That's the risk you run when you give a bear a pancake.

Little Bear’s Favorite Buttermilk Pancakes with Blueberries
1 egg
1 Tbs packed brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tbs vegetable oil
½ tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
Frozen blueberries

Whisk egg and sugar together until well combined. Add remaining ingredients (minus the blueberries) and beat well. The batter will be very thick.

Pour desired amount of batter on to hot griddle and sprinkle with blueberries. Cook pancakes over medium-low heat, allowing the pancake to cook thoroughly. Flip when one side turns a deep, golden brown.

Makes around 4 medium pancakes.

Many thanks to Sed for noting my recipe error. Yes, flour would be helpful in pancakes.