What's for dinner?

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

The beans and cornbread last night were great.  This morning DD#1 gets up and wanted leftovers for breakfast.  Although it was a big pot of beans, there weren't any leftovers to give her.  What five-year-old asks for beans for breakfast?  I think tonight I'm going to do oven round steaks with mushroom gravy and a salad, and maybe some taters... the potatoes are starting to sprout. 

[Sassy]

I just picked a bunch of broccoli from the garden - think I will make broccoli soup  That sounded good, HG, when you said you showed your daughters how to make it...

Picked a bunch more cherry tomatoes, have lots of Cherokee purple & some Brandywine tomatoes, but they're still green - guess we'll have a lot more fried green tomatoes...  also picked a few peppers.  Right now the weather is 72 degrees - beautiful outside...  I weeded & watered everything - still got a bit more work to do, but need to finish my new cabinets DH made...  I've put 3 coats of verathane on them, need to lightly sand & put one more coat on the counter area...  need to let it dry good enough so I can clear all my counters off (all the junk I had in the other smaller shelves are on my counters & I don't have any room to cook...

Lots of celery, beets, parsnips, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, squash, carrots, onions, swiss chard, fennel, roses & calendulas growing!

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

wish I'd had better luck growing broccoli...I'd tried it in WI only to have  the earwigs destroy it when it got about 6-8" high.  A friend of ours from the town we lived in in OK before started hers in February and ended up with nearly a deep freeze full one year.  She worked PT at the post office and would bring in a basket for folks to help themselves. 

I just picked a bunch of broccoli from the garden - think I will make broccoli soup  That sounded good, HG, when you said you showed your daughters how to make it...

They did everything except dice the onions; I just watched them and told them roughly how to do it.  It turned out great.  At 4 and 5, my big girls are better cooks than a lot of grownups I know.  My oldest can taste something and tell you pretty much what is in it; one time we were eating at a Korean restaurant, and she starts in, "Hmmm... I taste ginger, soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, red chilies, and a little hint of ginseng."  It cracked me up because she nailed it.  I can remember when I was a kid, my mom and grandma always treated me like I was in the way in the kitchen, and then by the time I was seven, mom expected me to have supper ready when she got home from work.  How is a kid supposed to learn to cook if they never get to help??  I plan to have a couple of nights a week where they prepare dinner by the time they are 9-10 years old!!  One of the best things you can teach kids, in my opinion, is independence and basic living skills.  My oldest is excited because after her birthday next month, she gets to learn how to do laundry!

[Sassy]

That's great HG!  I taught my boys to cook when they were young & now they are great cooks... 

The brocolli soup turned out good - I put onions, yogurt & lots of cheese in(and salt & pepper). 

I was cooking dinner for my family when I was 10-11 - I liked to cook - was baking when I was 8 or 9 - usually cookies or cakes...  my older brother loved chocolate chip cookie dough - he'd eat half of it if I wasn't watching him close enough    used to like to iron - must have started ironing pillow cases & handkerchiefs when I was 6...  hate to iron now 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

That sounds good.... I'm assuming you were using plain yogurt?  I never thought of doing that. 

[Whitlock]

How about some well aged steak for your plate




http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2725/prehistoric-its-whats-for-dinner

[glenn kangiser]

Yum - think we have a bit of that in one of our freezers.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Hey, Mother Earth News had a recipe from a book called something like _Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day_.  You mix up one batch of dough (about five or ten minutes worth of work) and then stick it in the fridge and take it out as you need it for up to two weeks or more.  Ours has only lasted about a week(not because it's gone bad, but because we keep eating it and baking more), but by now it has a really good sourdough taste.  The outside is nice and crusty, and the inside is that good, chewy bread that goes great with stew or chili.  I don't have a baking stone, so I lowered the temperature of the oven from 450 to 425 degrees and used my cast iron skillets or griddle and it works just fine and doesn't burn.  I am thinking about seeing if I can find the book on ebay or amazon cheaper (TMEN was asking nearly $30 for it.)  Anyway, we have been having bread with just about everything lately.  It's even easier than the peasant bread I posted before on here.  This week, I'm planning to try the whole wheat sandwich bread recipe from the same book and see how it goes.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

For supper tonight, Chang-chorim (kind of a Korean pot roast, only saltier.)  Lunch was really good though.  The girls and I had fried apples 'n' onions and homemade bread.  It was really tasty.

[Jochen]

I don't have a baking stone, so I lowered the temperature of the oven from 450 to 425 degrees....

I know, I know English is not my native language.    But what is a baking stone? I never heard that before. And that recipe sounds interesting. Can I find it online or is it only in their book?

Jochen

[ScottA]

I'm making chili.

[SkagitDrifter]

Duck tonight.
It's what I do when I'm not working on my cabin project.
Bon Apetite!
Tom

[muldoon]

I'm making chili.

+1
Me too, I used my same chili recipe I posted a few months back
http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=5080.0

I just finished the simmer and have started the first hour cook.  About another hour and a half to go. 

sure smells good. 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I don't have a baking stone, so I lowered the temperature of the oven from 450 to 425 degrees....

I know, I know English is not my native language.    But what is a baking stone? I never heard that before. And that recipe sounds interesting. Can I find it online or is it only in their book?

Jochen

Jochen, here is a link to a baking stone... I think a picture is worth 1000 words when someone is trying to describe something to me.
http://www.target.com/gp/search/178-3073094-6016120?field-keywords=baking%20stone&afid=google&CPNG=Kitchen&LNM=baking_stone&LID=4026713&ref=tgt_adv_XSGT0752
I had one that was given to me as a wedding present, and used it quite a bit before accidentally dropping it and busting it to pieces.   It works nicely for making homemade pizzas, etc.  However, the recipe worked very well with a cast iron griddle in the oven as well. 

I was going to post a link to the article if I could find it online, but could only find a link to the book.  If you bake it at 450 as the recipe calls for (at least in my oven) the outside of the loaf has the texture and crispiness of a saltine cracker, but almost requires a cross-cut saw to slice.  If you lower the temp 10-25 degrees, it comes out crusty, but not as something that will break a tooth.  It has a good sourdough flavor by the end of the first week, and even better the second.  I've made a small loaf of the white bread almost every day since finding the recipe.  Tried the whole wheat sandwich loaf today and wasn't as impressed, but that could be because I didn't grind my flour fine enough.  Perhaps if I'd bought whole wheat flour, it would've turned out better.  Anyway, I can post the recipe for the white bread, and you can experiment:


Boule (makes 4 1-pound loaves)

3 c. warm water
1.5 T. yeast
1.5 T. coarse Kosher or sea salt
6.5 c. flour, unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose
a little cornmeal

Mix yeast, salt and water in a very large bowl or lidded container. Don't worry about getting it all to dissolve.  Add flour and stir until well mixed (you won't have to knead the dough... it just takes a few minutes).  Cover loosely.  Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse or flatten on top (approx. 2 hours).  You can use the dough any time after this point, but  it is easier to work with if it has been refrigerated for  a few hours.  Refrigerate the dough, covered (but not airtight) until needed.

On baking day, sprinkle cornmeal on a wood cutting board and sprinkle the surface of the dough with cornmeal or flour.  Use a serrated knife to cut off a grapefruit-sized chunk of the dough and gently stretch the sides of it down underneath (don't knead it, just shape it into a ball) and let it rest, uncovered, on the cutting board for about 40 minutes.  Twenty minutes before baking, preheat oven to 450 degrees with a baking stone (or cast iron pan, skillet, whatever) on middle rack and an empty boiler tray for holding water on another shelf.  Dust the top of the loaf with flour (I use cornmeal for this too).  Use a serrated knife to slash a pattern 1/4 inch deep into the top of the loaf to help it have room to expand during baking.  Slide loaf carefully onto the hot pan in the oven and quickly pour a cup of hot water into the empty boiler try to steam and shut the oven door to trap the steam.  Bake for 20-30 minutes until the crust is beginning to brown and is crisp and you can no longer wait for the bread to come out of the oven.    It will slice easier after it cools.

[Sassy]

   That sounds good, Homegrown!  I need to find my big bag of yeast I put in the freezer a couple years ago - it should be ok, don't you think?

[Sassy]

Last night I made broccoli cheese soup (fresh broccoli out of the garden) & cut up some Cherokee Purple tomatoes (also from the garden) & avocado (our avocado tree in the valley didn't produce any avocados this past year); broiled some buttered whole wheat French bread (from Costco) - it all tasted pretty good!

[MountainDon]

What's for dinner? I'm not sure as I'm not cooking it. Club party & dance tonight. Free food, that's all that matters.   

[glenn kangiser]

Last night I made broccoli cheese soup (fresh broccoli out of the garden) & cut up some Cherokee Purple tomatoes (also from the garden) & avocado (our avocado tree in the valley didn't produce any avocados this past year); broiled some buttered whole wheat French bread (from Costco) - it all tasted pretty good!

...and there is nothing like that fresh broccoli soup --- it is great.... and then afterward a nice walk outside in the fresh air is nice too.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

   Too much info, Glenn! 

I think we're having homemade chicken stew tonight.  It is frigid!!!  I went out this morning to thaw the dogs' water and within half an hour it was frozen solid again.  Right now, I have a couple of bricks in the oven and plan to wrap them in old towels and put out there in the dog house for them to snuggle up to.  The actual temp is not going to reach 32 today, but the windchill is around 0 degrees after it being 71 degrees yesterday afternoon.  Kind of a shock to your system!  We'll have some of the homemade bread to go with it. 

I felt so sorry for the dogs this morning that after I thawed their water, I came back in and fixed them a skillet of gravy to put over their food and warm it up for them.  Ornery is going in the dog house when he is not out barking at the neighbor's dog, but Grover is acting as a draft stopper and sleeping against the crack under the back door!

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Decided on campfire chicken stew tonight as it just sounded really good.  I usually fix it in a dutch oven on a campfire, but in this case a stock pot on the stove will have to do.  Am roasting the chicken now and will pick the meat off the bones when it is done cooking and then start the stew to be finished when i get back from taking mom to the doc today.  Besides the usual carrots, potatoes and celery, we also usually put corn, jalapenos, tomatoes, bell peppers or whatever else we can scrounge up to throw in.  Also usually add a lot of cumin and red chilies and then add some chopped cilantro just before we finish it off. 

[MountainDon]

Greek!  A Greek buffet! It's an annual Christmas thing we get invited to by some real Greeks.

Mousaka (layers of ground minced lamb meat, eggplant and tomato baked in oven), Gyros, Souvlaki (lamb and chicken, marinated then grilled on a skewer - served on Pita bread), Dolmades (grapevine leaves stuffed with rice and lamb), plus some others I don't remember the names of. The ones I named are my favorites so I can't forget their names.    Baklava, and some other pastries and cookies.

[Jens]

Not sure where your peasant bread recipe is Homegrown, and forgive me for not wanting to read 60 pages of thread right now, but I'm wondering if it is what I call Bible bread.  I make a quick flat bread, takes 10-15 minutes from scratch to plate.  Flour, salt, oil, and water.  Basil is nice too.  I would tell you the measurements, but there aren't any!  Take flour, add salt, oil and water until only slightly sticky.  Cut into chunks and roll, press, or squeeze to thin round shape with your fingers and thumb.  Then you take it and toss it on the cast iron on stove top.  Easy and quick.  I'm glad to hear that the MEN recipe is good, I have been wanting to try it for weeks now.  My wife just started working, so we have lost our bread maker, as she is now getting paid to bake. 


We had spaghetti tonight.  I made soup for the first time the other night...minestrone.  Wasn't too bad, if I do say so myself.

[Redoverfarm]

Jens maybe this will help

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=3439.msg52967#msg52967

[Jens]

Thanks Red.  I forgot to say that honey may be used in the flatbread as well.  Makes it nice and sweet.  The next time I make some, I will try to remember to record a recipe.  Gonna try the MEN artisian today

[Redoverfarm]

Jens how to you find time to cook.  I barely have time to eat.