Jamming with strawberries!

I live half a mile from a strawberry grower, Ouki Strawberries. I look forward to their opening day each year in late March, and mourn their closing after Labor Day weekend. But in between opening and closing, I get to enjoy the biggest, sweetest, and prettiest strawberries around. 

Of course, I make jam! This year I picked up a full flat and immediately set about washing and hulling those delicious red berries, flash freezing half for making smoothies, and cooking the other half with sugar and lemon and cinnamon for a delicious jam to enjoy throughout the year, and to share with friends! 

I have improvised over the years, but by now I have a real canner stock pot with a canning rack, plus a wide funnel, and jar lifter, magnetic lid lifter, and tool for knocking downthe bubbles and measuring headspace, and the very best tool... a strawberry huller! I also found some Pioneer Woman brand jar labels that stick well, yet are easy to remove later. 

I also use the strawberries and a variety of other ways, like making strawberry pie. I have also tried dehydrating them in my food dehydrator. Dried strawberries are really dangerous because you can actually eat about a pints worth of strawberries without even thinking about it. I also freeze whole strawberries on a cookie sheet, then put them in a ziplock bag and enjoy them all year long in my smoothies. 

Perfect PB&J

There's nothing better than a perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Creamy peanut butter, lots of sweet, lumpy jam, smeared with a butter base, and the perfect bread. 

My favorite bread is Von's Signature Select Nuts and Grains. It's soft and chewy with crunchy nuts holds up well to the peanut butter and jelly filling. My husband prefers a white bread, either potato bread or buttermilk bread. 

Our preferred peanut butter is Skippy brand and our preferred jam is anything homemade! Since we live a couple blocks from a wonderful strawberry farm, I get fresh strawberries there every year and make a few cases of jam. I love a good fruity, strawberry jam, and I have been experimenting by flavoring my homemade jam with cinnamon or lemon, and most recently, jalapeno. But we recently became taste testers for a friend's homemade jammin' business, so right now we have about 12 different flavors of her wonderful jams in the fridge. I felt obligated to have jam and toast or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich almost everyday. 

Building the sandwich takes a special technique. You have to start with softened butter that you spread on the jam side of the bread. 

Then you put a couple of generous tablespoons of jam on top of the butter. You spread the creamy peanut butter on the other slice of bread, not too thick. Then you put the slices together with all that yummy filling trapped inside the bread. If you're a kid, I'll usually cut it into quarters for you. If you're my husband, I'll cut it in half, but I like mine whole. I like to start at the corners and work my way into the middle of the goodness. You have to chew each bite slowly and savor the perfect combination of flavors. 

Yup, nuthin' better!

Beefy Shepherds Pie

Shepherd's pie is one of my favorite comfort foods... Flavorful ground beef in a rich gravy, vegetables, sauteed onions and garlic, baked in a casserole dish topped with yummy mashed potatoes. Even though it's the end of May, it rained here today! So I thought, why not make a nice comforting shepherd's pie for dinner? And why not use some of that Twisselman Ranch grass fed ground beef that I just bought to stock my freezer with? 

https://www.twisselmanranch.com/mercantile

So I reached into the freezer and got the meat out to defrost and I saw some frozen peas and corn that I figured I'd I can take out to make more room for more good beef! I mean right now my freezer is stuffed! Usually, I chop up all the fresh vegetables to put in my casseroles, but today the frozen ones will do. Of course, I augmented with a nice white onion that I sauteed in the skillet before adding the beef. Then I looked through the fridge and saw some fresh snap peas, so I figured why not dice up those to add a little bit of crunch? Also, there was a few green onions in a little container that I was saving for just something like this. I mean, if you can't clean out the fridge while you're making a casserole, you're doing something wrong. One thing this casserole didn't have added was diced celery. Why? Because my husband hates celery. Weird, I know...

I diced the onion and smashed the garlic to sautee in some avocado oil in the skillet. Then I crumbled in the ground beef and seasoned it with our Big Daddy's BBQ beef seasoning. I noticed as this beef cooked, there was very little liquid coming out -- very lean ground beef! So after the meat was browned, I sprinkled on some flour and stirred in a little beef broth to make a sauce. 

Once that had cook down a little bit, I stirred in the vegetables and let it cook a little while till the snap peas began to soften. This would also be a good time to add in some herb seasoning like parsley, oregano, or marjoram. It didn't look colorful enough for my taste, so I opened up a can of corn and put in half. 

Now Shepherd's Pie can go right in the casserole, but I kind of like it to have a little crust on the bottom to hold it all together. I didn't have any frozen pie crust and I wasn't up to making a pie crust, so I just use some flour tortillas to line the bottom. I poured the meat mixture over the top and then dolloped on the mashed red potatoes. Dinner is ready to put in the oven!

I will bake this casserole for about 45 minutes at 350° until the mashed potatoes start to slightly brown on top and the meat mixture is bubbling. 

California Chicken Bacon Ranch quiche

My husband said he wants more eggs for breakfast. I've been pretty lazy during the last few months not wanting to get up a few minutes early to cook a hot breakfast. Most often will have a smoothie or just some coast of peanut butter or avocado. But a few months eggs then I think this crustless quiche bacon cast iron skillet on Sunday is just the ticket. I'll have a nice hot breakfast today and more slices to reheat during the week for a quick and hearty breakfast.

I came up with this California chicken bacon ranch quiche named after my favorite pizza because I had leftover chicken in the frig and a bag of bacon bits. So I started by caramelizing some white onions in a cast iron skillet with a dab of olive oil. I left the onions get nice and brown with little crispy bits. Then I added some chopped red pepper, a can of diced green chiles, some chopped up leftover chicken, and sliced green onions. Next, I seasoned it with ranch dressing mix and a little of my all purpose Chicken Fixin's seasoning.

I scrambled the six eggs with 2 cups of milk and a couple of tablespoons of flour, added some salt and pepper, and poured that all over the chicken bacon mixture. I topped it with about a cup of shredded cheddar cheese and put it in a preheated 350-degree oven. I set the timer for 45 minutes and let it bake. When the timer went off, I checked it and the eggs looked set, so I pulled it out and let it cool for about 10 minutes before slicing into it. It came out nice and firm and yummy! I topped it with some sour cream and salsa and we had a feast for breakfast!

Dry Canning

My husband and I have been talking for years about being prepared for an emergency. But when this Covid-19 pandemic hit, we found we were pretty low on many staple items for long term supply. In the beginning, I only had a six-pack of paper towels and a 24-pack of toilet paper in the hall closet. I mean, the items we had in the pantry would probably last us two or three months if we had to stretch it. But what we would really feel more comfortable with is having a year's supply of basic food items such as beans, rice, flour, sugar, salt, and water. Also toilet paper, paper towels, and disinfectants.

Anyway, we were soon able to catch up on our supply of toilet paper and paper towels once the grocery stores replenish their inventory. and I will probably never do my weekly grocery shopping again without buying an extra pack toilet paper! But it was time to get serious about food storage. 

I already keep most of my pantry staples in glass mason jars. I have some half gallon jars in which I keep different types of flour, cornmeal, quinoa, oats, white sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, etc. I have several types of pasta in the boxes that they come in, but when I open it up, I pour it into a glass storage jar because I don't normally cook a whole box at a time. 

I also have I also have anywhere from 3-6 cans of a variety of soups, beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, tuna, and jars of salad dressing, vinegar, oil, lemon juice, and condiments on hand in my kitchen. So that being said, everything I have stored now could probably keep us going for a couple months. 

So my plan was to buy case lots of items that we use frequently like cans of pinto beans, black beans, refried beans, chili beans, corn, peas, green beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, pineapple, tuna, chicken broth, soup, chili peppers and maybe some other can fruits. Those are the products we use most frequently, and having them available in a 15 ounce can size works for daily meal preparation. 

One of my most recent trip to the store I found a 25 lb bag of white rice $13.49, which happened to be grown and produced in the USA. We are trying to be more aware of where food comes from and have been reading labels more carefully, so I thought this was a good find! 

I bought a six-pack of half gallon size Ball canning jars. The plan was to dry can the rice into the jars and store them in our garage storage cabinets. We figure this amount of rice will probably last us for a year. 

I started by running the new jars through the dishwasher cycle to clean and sterilize them. I let them dry overnight and then fill the jars with the rice from the 25 lb bag. We measured out that one jar would hold 7-1/2 cups of rice. The 25 lb bag actually filled seven half-gallon jars, so I have one jar in my kitchen pantry in 6 to store in the long-term storage. 

Then we put the filled jars into the oven and set it for 225 degrees and let them heat for almost 2 hours. This process is to kill any insects that might be in the rice. 

Then we took out the jars, put the lids on and proceeded to vacuum seal them. You can see in the picture how the divots sucked down and the lids are on tight.

I added some labels with what kind of rice and the date that we sealed them. Now they're ready for the pantry! Next up: black beans, pinto beans, flour, sugar, salt.

Easter dinner for two

During this time of social distancing and no external family gatherings, my husband and I were left at home alone to celebrate Easter. It just felt right to have ham for dinner, but having cooked a spiral ham a few weeks ago, I really didn't feel like going through all that again and having the pots and pans to clean up, et cetera, for us. So I opted to heat up a ham steak, you know, the kind of slab ham that you buy at the grocery store that’s about a quarter of an inch thick. One of those slabs was perfect for dinner for two, especially since we wouldn't be adding any starchy carbohydrates like potatoes or rice to the meal. No hot cross buns, either 😕

Instead, I sliced up some carrots and boiled them until just tender, then drained off the water, then added some butter and a dab of honey. Once the honey was melted into the butter and coated the carrots, I sprinkled on some parsley and salt. I remembered I had some persimmon chutney in the pantry that I had canned last fall. I figured I could reheat some of that to serve with the ham. Then I had the inspiration to open up a can of pineapple to mix in with the chutney, which was reheated in the microwave. 

I ended up with a pretty simple, yet traditional, Easter dinner for two. The best part is, in this house, whoever cooks doesn't have to wash the dishes. My husband is the best! Happy Easter. 🐣🐇🦋🐞🌷🐰🐝🐛

Persimmon chutney recipe from Saveur

https://pin.it/3g5Gu17

Easter brunch needs a casserole

Easter brunch at home

Sheltering at home has really put a damper on Easter get togethers with family. Our family has not got together since March 1st, so just a little over 5 weeks! However, we are blessed to know that everyone is healthy and doing well in spite of this coronavirus pandemic we are weathering. We found a way to see our grandkids yesterday by making a caravan trek out to see the wildflowers and had a well-spaced picnic in the meadow. No hugs, but plenty of smiles. Plus, I got to deliver their Easter baskets to them. 

This morning my husband and I enjoyed a delicious cheesy ham and asparagus quiche baked in a cast iron skillet in the oven. I didn’t use a crust because I'm trying to cut out as much carbs as possible these days. The heat from the cast iron skillet made a kind of “magic” crust around the edge of the quiche as it baked! I used the standard quiche-type recipe using 6 eggs and a cup of milk and two tablespoons of flour. I season the eggs with my chicken fixins seasoning blend, which is kind of all-purpose spice that includes herbs and added some cumin and paprika for a warm kick of flavor. I sauteed a mixture of onion, garlic, and asparagus in the skillet until the asparagus was softened, and topped it with some chopped deli ham and sliced green onions, then added a layer of shredded cheddar cheese and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. I poured the egg mixture over the meat, cheese and vegetables, and sprinkled on three chopped up slices of bacon and some chopped roasted red pepper for color. 

My daughters are sending me pictures of the kids opening their Easter baskets and playing with the little toys they found inside. Then we're going to have a zoom video chat at 11: 00. 

Afterward, I think I'll coerce my husband into going for a nice walk in the sunshine before we come home and make a ham dinner. My plan is to have a ham steak topped with a pineapple chutney paired with a spring salad topped with balsamic-infused strawberries and feta cheese with a honey-sweetened lemon viniagrete.

I included some links for a basic quiche and the strawberry salad. 

https://pin.it/2C60LmH

https://pin.it/3yjHbMg

Happy Easter, everyone!

Low Carb Meals

So the one thing both my husband and I need to do is drop some weight. It's been an issue for us for the past 15 years. We have lost weight on occasion, but we always have gained it back. The reason is because we make some adjustments in our eating, lose some weight, but then we revert back to our old eating habits. 

So we both went to the doctor this week and the main messages was: Lose 5% of your body weight in the next month. Basically, he wants us to lose 2 pounds a week until we reach our goal weight. The main way we have to do that is to drastically cut the carbs. 

Cutting carbs is hard to do when you're eating out of your pantry, I know. The foods we have to avoid are the staple items such as pasta, rice, beans and grains. Over the past few days, we watched a bunch of videos with Mark Sisson, who wrote the Primal Diet. I get the premise: Just eat a lot of protein and fresh vegetables, avoiding legumes and potatoes, processed foods, etc. Organic grass-fed proteins are key. Sugar is out. However, Mark still allows or recommends a glass of red wine a day and some dark chocolate for a sweet treat. He also adheres to the 80/20 rule, meaning you strive to adhere to the guidelines of his diet 80% of the time. He also said if you put a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee in the morning, that's not going to kill you, as long as you cut out sugar in the rest of the foods throughout the day, meaning no processed stuff no breads, cakes, muffins, energy bars, sugary sauces, etc.

So last night we had a healthy big ass salad (that's what Mark calls it!) with a bunch of vegetables and some chicken for the protein, using a homemade lemon juice and oil vinaigrette with a dash of mustard and honey thrown in. I had roasted the beets and marinated the eggs in the beet juice drippings and vinegar for a pickling effect. I think it all looks pretty Eastery on the plate, don't you?

My very skeleton-bones outline of our daily diet will look like this:

Breakfast: eggs with sauteed vegetables or a protein powder drink or Greek yogurt with berries.

Lunch: big ass salad with viniagrete and a protein.

Dinner: protein (chicken, beef, fish, lamb, bison, etc) with grilled/steamed/boiled/roasted vegetables.

Snack: handful of nuts (macadamia, almond, walnuts), dark chocolate, berries.

We can throw in some cheese here and there, but that really falls into the 20% category. 

I'm still going to keep my pasta, rice and beans for the 20% side of our cooking, meaning maybe we'll only have it once a week. My husband and I will start tracking or meals again on MyFitnessPal, which is a really good tool that shows not only your calories, but also your macros and the nutrient content of the food. I found I can pair it with my digital scale and my Garmin wrist watch, as well as Map My Walk, so it captures all my steps and exercise as well as my weight. I was pleasantly surprised to notice when I looked at the MFP app this morning that under the recipe section, they have categories for Immune Support and Pantry Meals. It looks like MyFitnessPal is keeping up with the times!

Make your own Spice Seasoning Mixes

So it's Taco Night and you go to brown your ground beef and find you don't have that packet of taco seasoning? Now what???

I started making my own taco seasoning! After all, I already had chili powder, plus some other seasonings like salt, garlic powder, onion flakes, paprika, cumin, and pepper. I most often buy these spices in those little packets at the grocery store that cost around $0.99 a piece. If you read the ingredients on your name-brand taco seasoning packet, you'll likely find those ones listed, along with some other preservatives and maybe even sugar. If I if I buy a store-bought seasoning blend that I like, I'll look at the ingredients list and try to make my own, leaving out the stuff I can't pronounce. So why not experiment by mixing up your own blend and storing it in a little spice jar for future use?

Since I already have a variety of herbs on hand, I blend them together for my own Italian seasoning mix. The main herb is parsley, but also includes basil, rosemary, oregano, red pepper flakes. If you want a Greek seasoning it's similar but go heavy on the basil, add some dill, mint, and some minced garlic.

My Ranch Dressing mix not only makes good homemade dressing using either sour cream, buttermilk or Greek yogurt with some kind of milk to thin it out (cow, almond, coconut, or oat--whatever is in the frig that day!). Ranch mix is also good for sprinkling into pasta salads, casseroles, etc. 

I also came up with a great seasoning blend for tri-tip steaks with a blend of chili powders and coffee (Big Daddy's 805 seasoning)! It's great for ground meat or anything you can barbecue, too. 

My go-to seasoning blend, however, is one I call "Chicken Fixins", a kind and all-purpose mix that is not only good on chicken, but also eggs, fish, salads, vegetables and just about everything else. I make this up in big batches because my grown kids like it, too, and I will share a jar with them from time to time.

Here are three recipes to get you started, but feel free to improvise and improve!

https://pin.it/5Goexro

Teriyaki turkey and vegetables over rice

I didn't have much energy for cooking an elaborate meal tonight. I asked the Hubs what he wanted for dinner and he answered with the typical, “I don't know,” which left me open to suggest something that I knew would be quick and easy. “How about teriyaki chicken and vegetables,” I said. “That sounds good,” he answered.

First off, I got out my rice cooker, put in 1 cup of rice and 2 cups of water, closed the lid and plugged it in and turned it on. Note: plugging the rice cooker is key here because there have been many times that I thought I was cooking rice and later found it was not was not cooked!

I had already washed and trimmed some broccoli a few days prior and had it in a container. I retrieved it from the frig, and then all I had to do was peel and slice some carrots and the five or six mushrooms that were also left in the fridge. I smashed three cloves of garlic and chopped three green onions in preparation for my cooking process. I sifted through the frozen meat in the freezer and found a package of cooked turkey meat which was the remnants of our Thanksgiving turkey. It was a pretty good-sized portion, about 10 oz. I threw that bag into the microwave to defrost and proceeded to saute my vegetables.

I love the flavor of the sesame oil in Asian cooking, but it's pretty expensive, so I usually pour in some canola oil and add the sesame oil just for flavoring. I stir-fried the sliced carrots and chopped broccoli in the oil for about two minutes, then added the mushrooms. Once the vegetables were heated through and slightly softened, I put them into a bowl.

Then I added the meat to the pan, along with the minced garlic and a teaspoonful of minced ginger. I cooked the meat in the oil and then poured in about half a cup of teriyaki sauce. I let that simmer so the sauce could flavor the meat all the way through. Then I added the vegetables back to the saute pan and topped them with fresh bean sprouts. 

I made a quick slurry with a cup of water, a tablespoon of cornstarch, and about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. I stirred that into the vegetable and meat mixture and simmered it for about 5 minutes.

Once the vegetables were crisp tender and everything was heated through, I checked that the sauce had thickened up some and the rice was fully cooked. Then I called my husband to dinner and we dished it up and had a feast, all in less than 20 minutes!

Old School Curried Chicken Casserole

What's in your pantry or frig?

Tonight's dinner was a version of the curried chicken and rice casserole that my mother-in-law used to make using Campbell's cream of chicken soup. I know I used to have the recipe but I couldn't find it today, so I improvised.

I cooked one cup (dry) of rice in the rice cooker and I added some chicken bouillon and about a teaspoon of curry powder to it for infused flavor. (Sometimes I would make this with leftover rice, so I would stir the curry powder into the soup ingredients.) I had about 2 cups of leftover rotisserie chicken that I diced and added one cup of frozen mixed vegetables from the other night's meal.  I added four fresh green onions, sliced. I also had a small about a cup of chopped red and green bell peppers and onions that I sauteed in olive oil and added to the mix.  (Typically, when I cut up a bell pepper into slices or squares, I save bottom and the top and dice them up and save them for another time like when making an omelet.) I stirred in one can of cream of chicken soup, a half cup of mayonnaise, and some black pepper. (I figured the soup had enough sodium in it already so I didn't add any more salt.)  This mixture created a bowl full of chicken and rice mix.

I spooned the mix into four ramekins that I can bake in the oven or the microwave, and then I put the rest of it into two 2-cup Rubbermaid square containers to put in the freezer for another night. I heated the ramekins for 3 minutes in the microwave at dinner time.

So, this dish is good for using up leftover chicken or leftover rice. The curry powder really made the rice tasty and it was a pretty good dish.