My mom did the majority -- the vast majority -- of the cooking in our house growing up.  She worked and mothered and put healthy dinners on the table, with place mats! But my dad is a good cook too and made great meals on the weekend. He sent out his 3 most requested recipes in an email and said I could share here.  Thanks Dad! Now we want a follow up with Weekend Pancakes and The Good Stuff.

Granny Koop’s Banana Bread

This recipe is from my dad's side of the family, but was always made by Mom.  For Karen and Daniel's wedding guests, we baked 21 loaves!

3 bananas (mashed)                    2 eggs

½ c margarine (soft)                   ½ c white sugar

4 T buttermilk                             1 t baking soda

½ t baking power                        1 ¾ c flour

Mix all ingredients together.  Let stand for 20 minutes. 

Pour batter into pan (so pretty in a bundt pan!) and bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

Granny's Chili

This is a very forgiving recipe.  Less meat? No problem.  More veggies? Sure!  Diced tomatoes and  tomato paste rather than the soup/ketchup?  Go for it. But be warned: if you leave out the celery it is NO LONGER Granny's Chili.  About that I feel strongly.

2 lb Ground Beef

2 cans Red Kidney Beans

1 Onion

½ Bell Pepper

2-4 stalks Celery

1 can Tomato Soup
1 cup Ketchup

Brown beef, seasoning with 1tsp cumin powder, 1 tsp chili powder, 2 cloves minced garlic.  Add diced vegetables and saute.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 min.  (Alternatively, brown beef and then add everything to a crock pot, cooking on low for 6-8 hrs.) Serve with rice, shredded cheddar, sour cream, or my favorite: a slice of buttered sandwich bread and with a leaf of lettuce.

Bob's Salsa
Dad makes this nearly every time we visit San Antonio.  Why is it that heat outdoors is made better by spicy heat in your food?

3 cups Roma Tomatoes

5 cloves Fresh Garlic

2 cups Sweet Onion

2 ½ cups Cilantro Leaves

½ Jalepeno (seeds removed)

2 tbsp Lime Juice

½ tsp Salt

Chop garlic cloves first in food processor. Add up to 2 tsp of water as needed to process. Add other ingredients to food processor. Drain any excess liquid from salsa and refrigerate.

Granola

5 reasons to make this right now:

1) It's more affordable than store-bought granola.
2) It stays fresh for at least 2 weeks in a sealed container on a shelf (but it probably won't make it that long before you devour it).
3) If you have a Scott, you can mix it with a little plain yogurt and he will eat it up all by himself, without any adult assistance, for breakfast or a snack.
4) It smells wonderful while baking.
5) That will probably make your housemates think YOU are wonderful.

And you are!

3 c old-fashioned oats (not instant! and Dad Koop & I think Quaker's are the best!)
1/4 c cooking oil (Canola or veg, not olive, or subs melted butter)
1/4 c honey (go short)
1/4 c brown sugar (go short)
1 c shredded sweetened coconut (if unsweet, may want full measure honey/sugar)
chopped nuts, raisins, dried berries as desired
wheat germ or a little flax seed if you have it around

Preheat oven to 250F.

Pour oats in a large baking pan. Add brown sugar, oil, honey and mix well to coat oats. (Measure out in that order so that the oil helps the honey slide off cup.)
Add coconut and extras. Mix.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, turning every 10-15, until lightly golden. Oats will crisp as they cool.

The only downside to this is that the granola doesn't really clump together. I've heard you can add a little water to your hands prior to baking and try to form clumps, but I didn't have success with that. No clumps, no big deal.

Polenta

I love eating polenta. I first made it 2 years ago from a cookbook my mother-in-law gave me. It's something like grits and something like oatmeal and I think it would be great for breakfast with a fried egg, lunch with cheese and a little tomato sauce, or dinner with some veggies or sausage. It's filling, cheap, way low-cal, and sufficiently impressive for a dinner party. Why didn't I know about this in college?

Do this for 4 servings:

Bring 4.5 c of water to a boil.
Add 0.75 T salt
Add 1 c of yellow cornmeal, whisking as you do until all appears very smooth
Turn heat down to a 1 or 2 on a 10 level stove. If the polenta is bubbling, stir it until it chills out.
Cover. Walk away. Come back in an hour and eat.

If you have leftovers, spread them about 1" deep in a lightly greased dish, cover, and leave in the fridge. You can later slice this and bake/grill little cakes to be drizzled with olive oil.

Blooming Pregnancy Thoughts

I've been thinking a lot about blooming and bearing fruit, because that's what I'm doing. Both babies were planted in the short days of winter, I've grown big through spring and summer, and had/will have sons ready for harvest just days before the beginning of fall.

Steven Meyers, xray-art.com.
I love this because I've had a thing for poppies since visiting Hungary
and seeing them everywhere. And I've got a thing for x-rays, too.

Also, it's much nicer to imagine myself as a fruiting flower than a manatee, which is how I've been feeling lately.

Some pregnancy poems for you:

Metaphors, Sylvia Plath

I'm a riddle in nine syllables
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a mean, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.


When My Body is Mine, Lorraine 1998

In six months' time,
When my body is mine
And I can eat what I please

I'll eat pate and tripe
Drink wine and Red Stripe
And mountains of unpasteurized cheese.

Finally, Luke's birthday cupcakes (peaches, cream cheese, and brown sugar): yum. Best on Day 1, but they're holding up to the fridge pretty well too. The recipe makes about 2 dozen muffins and enough icing for twice that many.

Lime Tart, YUM

I JUST MADE THE MOST DELICIOUS THING! It is a lime tart from Not So Humble's food blog, and it is the best food to ever come out of my kitchen. It is sort of like a key lime pie, but slightly less tart. It is intimidating, as it takes several pans and planning ahead to give first the curd and later the entire tart time to cool, but IT IS WORTH IT! I'm dreaming of other things to put in that browned butter crust ...

Are you in close vicinity to my sister-in-law, Bridget, who has just completed her first year of medical school? Yes? Perhaps you will make her one for her birthday! It is TODAY!

Rice Pudding

Ladies (and gents), you are going to need to make yourself some rice pudding this week. We had an Indian version yesterday at a chaat house (what does chaat mean??) and I made some tonight here at home. Rice pudding reminds me of our honeymoon in NYC where we ate a lot from Rice to Riches.

Rice pudding is quick, cheap, easy, and makes your tummy so happy that you will not mind that it's chilly and overcast outside. It's the best thing you can make from leftover rice. Put it in a pot, add milk (almost enough to cover the rice), add sugar (I prefer white, not too much, start adding slowly and aim for somewhere around 1.5 tsp per serving), and vanilla extract. You can add an egg, but I like it more liquidy, without egg. Exact measurements can be found here, but they're not really necessary. Other additives: raisins, fresh fruit (after it's done cooking), chocolate chips ...

Now start sprinkling in little bits of cinnamon, nutmeg, perhaps a little cardamom or cloves, and hum it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas as the kitchen fills with wonderful scents. Simmer uncovered (steaming, not boiling) for maybe 15 to 20 minutes until mushy and perfect.

Yummmmm.

Quinces

It seems like everyone out here is talking about quince ("kwins") paste, or membrillo. Quinces are one of the fruits I had never heard of until I moved to California, along with jujubes and persimmons. Last week I found quince for $0.99 a pound at the best produce stand in California (and maybe the world). Sold.

Qunices look like ugly pears: lumpy and not quite symmetrical, unlike the pretty, smooth fruit we usually see. Homely fruit, in a loveable way. I hear you should pick yellow ones that have no or very little green. I'd recommend large ones because it's less to peel. And I got a bunch of them (5 or 6 lbs, or 8 large quinces) and make a large batch of paste because it's time consuming and keeps just fine.

After peeling, coring, and roughly cutting the fruit, simmer it for about 45 minutes until the fruit is tender. I put the cores and peels in that cheesecloth bag and boiled them because I hear the peels contain a lot of pectin, which helps the paste set later.


Remove the bag of peels and cores and blend the simmered fruit in blender, food processor, or mash very very well. Mix with a lot of sugar: approximately the same volume of sugar as fruit mash. I went short -- about 2/3 the volume -- and was happy with the results. Now simmer again. For a long time, about 1.5 hours, while stirring to keep from crystallizing. Whew. (Maybe, like me, you have a husband who is a good conversationalist and you can have him stir while you assemble a lasagna?) When done, the paste will turn a deep orange and be fairly firm and able to mound without running much.

Not close to ready yet

Put the paste into a container lined with oiled parchment paper. It's very sticky, but using oiled parchment paper solves that problem completely. Spread it flat. I put mine in the oven at 150F overnight to help it set. If it's still not firm enough to remain together, you may need to flip it over and repeat as the top side sets more easily.


It's a lot of work, but the taste is so interesting and unusual that it's worth it. The fruit has a lovely, lightly sweet scent that will perfume your whole house for those hours of simmering. It's not often enough as an adult that you get to try a totally new taste, and this one is really enjoyable!

Yum.

A few other new tastes to try this week from the farmers' market: Pippin apples, Delicata squash, Parsnips, and the fractal-like Romanesco

Spaghetti Carbonara

Quick and easy and good. I heard the editor of Gourmet describe it as "bacon and eggs, Italian style" in an interview last week.

Spaghetti
1 or 2 eggs, depending on amount of pasta
1 or 2 strips of bacon per person (I use turkey bacon)
Parmesan cheese
If you have it:
parsley, red pepper flakes, garlic glove

Boil water and add pasta. While it's boiling, fry the bacon (not very crisp), with the garlic clove to add a little flavor. Cut it up in thin strips. Whisk eggs up. When the pasta's done, drain it and quickly add the eggs; they'll cook on the hot noodles. Add bacon, cheese, and spices.

Hi!

Hi, I'm Jenn. I used to blog here, but for the past umpteen days I have not. Instead, I've been:

• Baking multiple batches of soft pretzels and trying with little to moderate success not to eat all of them before Luke gets home
• Making layered jello, which is pretty but, like, insanely time consuming and really only worth it for a Rainbow Brite party or Pride parade
• Doing much planning and very little training for the 5 mile, 8 am Turkey Trot in Golden Gate Park that Karen, Scott, and I are running(/strollering) on Thanksgiving morning
• WASHING CLOTHES which is unusual for me. It's a chore I tend to avoid, even though I like it.
• Laughing at Scott as he continues to turn small objects into "cell phones"

And now, to fold clean laundry! Whipee!

Mama's little baby loves rhubarb pie

Strawberry rhubarb pie, that is, with a heart in the middle:


I was inspired by the song on Prairie Home Companion and a movie, Waitress, that we recently watched. It was GOOD. And I made my own crust because I got all crazy on Friday and decided it would be worth it. (It is good, but takes a long time and a lot of counter space. I'm glad I made 2 extras in the freezer for the next pies and think I'll return to store-boughts from now on.)

In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best day to bake because today was HOT. Yesterday's high was 101, and today it was 103. With no AC that is downright sweltering. We went swimming and walked around stores to cool off. Thankfully things should return to Northern California normal tonight, dipping into the 50s with a forecasted high of 83 tomorrow. Ahhhh.

Savory tart from Sunday

1 pie crust (I use the frozen rolls, but feel free to make your own if you're that amazing)
2 leeks, thinly sliced and cut in half moons
2 small or 1 large zucchini, thinly sliced and cut in half moons
2 medium red potatoes with skins, very thinly sliced & then quartered
0.5 cup crumbled feta cheese
~2 Tbsp olive oil
0.25 tsp fresh ground pepper
(chopped dill if you have it)

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In large pan, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil and sautee zucchini and leeks until tender, about 5 minutes. (You could substitute a mild onion for the leeks, but they are very nice if you can find them.)
3. Add potatoes, pepper, and feta. Remove from heat and mix lightly.
4. Place the pie crust on a large cookie sheet and roll thinner. They're usually about 9 in diameter. Try to get it to about 11 in, but really as thin as you can easily roll. This just makes the tart a little larger and the crust cook quicker. Spoon the vegetable mixture into the center of the pastry, leaving 1 to 2 inches edge. Fold over the edges.
5. Bake for about 40 minutes or until potatoes are tender and pastry is golden. Brush the crust with remaining olive oil about 10 minutes prior to end of baking. If the edges are done before the potatoes, you can cover them with foil. I just cut my potatoes as thin as possible and it all finished baking at about 35 to 40 minutes.

I served this with mixed green and hard-boiled egg salad and mustard vinegarette (1 Tbsp olive oil, 1 Tbsp white vinegar, 1 Tbsp brown mustard and a dash of pepper, well mixed, dresses 2 salads). If you added another side this could serve 4.

This delicious weekend

This weekend, we ate.

On Friday night we ate the Chicago pizza that arrived, frozen, at our door because the Wagners wanted to "try it out" on someone! What happy guinea pigs we are!


On Saturday, we went to the SF Street Food Festival. We took Caltrain and Scott napped on the way to the city. While we planned on taking a stroller, it was a good thing we forgot it because the festival was completely packed. Restaurants from around SF sold small dishes for $1 to $8 from booths. We had an Indian lentil bun, chicken wrap, and Mango lassi; cheddar corn nut brittle and peach sage tea; and Samuri snacks and barley tea. Next year I want to have a baby food booth and make carrot-raisin puree and zucchini-tomato pasta and squash apples.

Oh! I ran into a Rookie Mom of the book and website! She commented on this site back in January and I pretty much freaked out for an hour. Or more. Anyway, she was super-cute and tiny and very sweet, despite the fact that I interrupted her while she was trying to take care of her two boys. Her husband was cool, too -- he saw Luke's Mozilla shirt and turns out he is a contributer. So that's my first celebrity sighting. :)



Right, back to the food. Luke had beer and I had chai (REALLY, REALLY good chai, like Sarmadi's or Karen's with fresh spices) at Cafe La Boheme in the Mission district. Then we had cookies and rum cake at Dianda's Italian-American bakery.


Then we RAN and caught the bus back to the Caltrain, which arrived exactly as we stepped onto the platform, which is a big deal because they only come once every hour. Scott slept on the way home and thus ended a lovely Saturday.

On Sunday, I made this potato-feta-leek tart from Real Simple magazine. It's so good, I'm thinking of growing leeks! Also, all three of us enjoyed bananas foster (the sauce came in the Wagners' care package). YUM!


Today: running.

New favorite cookies

2.75 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp baking powder
1 c butter, thoroughly softened
1.5 c sugar
1 egg
0.75 tsp vanilla extract
0.25 tsp almond extract

1. Preheat to 375F.
2. Mix flour, soda, and powder.
3. In a separate bowl, cream together thoroughly softened butter and sugar. (They're much much better if butter is soft but NOT melted!) Add egg and extracts; blend well. (This recipe is double the "normal" amount of vanilla because I love it. If you're not as crazy about it, or if you're using a very strong extract like Mexican vanilla, knock it down by half.)
4. Combine all ingredients and mix just until blended.
5. Make small teaspoon sized cookies. Cook 8 minutes for soft, 10 minutes for crunchy cookies.

Makes 4 doz.

*********************************************

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and it had 1,592 highly positive reviews. A large number of those I read were posted by people with really crazy handles, like "2CUTE4UJAN". Really? It's just so unladylike! You need to read Miss Manners for the web, Jan.

Baked Oatmeal

Very good breakfast recipe. I've made it every weekend since I found it!

1-1/2 cups milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla or 0.5 vanilla & 0.5 almond extract
2-1/2 cups oats(quick or old fashioned), uncooked*
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

-Heat oven to 350 degrees.
-In medium bowl, combine milk, eggs, oil and vanilla; mix well. Set aside.
-In 8x8 square casserole pan, combine oats, sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon. Add to liquid ingredients in bowl; blend well. Let stand about 15 minutes.
-Grease casserole pan and pour in mixture. Bake, uncovered, 35 to 45 minutes or until center is almost dry and firm to the touch. Cool slightly before serving.

Recipe from frugalfamilyrecipes.blogspot.com

* Oatmeal is, in my opinion, one of the few things that is worth buying name-brand. I always buy Quaker old-fashioned oats, just like my parents. I am never so hurried that I'd rather eat bad 1-minute oats than good 5-minute oats. When I'm that rushed I eat cereal.

Bistro salad

adapted from Martha Stewart Living's Great Food Fast cookbook

EVERYTHING in this cookbook is great and impressive looking, but not necessarily low fat or inexpensive. This is my all-time favorite salad -- and it's super healthy and cheap if you leave off the goat cheese.

Salad for 4:
3 to 4 large red potatoes
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1 Tbsp "good" mustard (grainy or Dijon)
Spring mix salad (~ 8 oz bag)
salt & pepper to taste (~1/4 tsp pepper & less salt)
1/4 c olive oil

1 Chop red potatoes into bite size pieces and boil for ~10 min (until fork tender)
2 While boiling, whisk vinegar, mustard, s&p, and oil in large bowl
3 Drain potatoes & drop them in bowl, coating with dressing
4 Add salad. It will wilt a bit & is best served warm

Goat cheese crisps (makes ~8 servings, depending on how much you like goat cheese):
1 roll fresh goat cheese (<-- the expensive and impressive ingredient)
1 egg
1.5 c plain breadcrumbs
a little olive oil

1 Turn oven to broil & prepare a cookie sheet -- either line w/ parchment paper* or oil VERY VERY WELL
2 Slice cheese into disks about finger width thick (helps if cheese & knife are cold from freezer)
3 Whisk egg. Dip slices in egg and then in breadcrumbs, coating well. Lay on cookie sheet.
4 Drizzle with olive oil (brush oil if you have a brush, if not, just drizzle lightly)
5 Broil for about 5 min until crisp and golden

You can make the crisps in advance -- they stay nice for a couple days if kept well wrapped in fridge. Heat them up in microwave before topping salad. Enjoy!

*Parchment paper is something that Karen taught me about -- I'm still using a roll I inherited from her college house 2 years ago -- and I love it for cookies and all baking things.

Corn pudding: YUM

courtesy of the Wagner cookbook

1 can Mexicorn (don't drain)
1 can creamed corn
1 8 oz sour cream
1 box (8 oz) jiffy cornbread mix (in the pretty white & blue box)
1 stick melted butter/margarine

Mix it all together, bake at 400F for 35 to 40 min. Leftovers are great and stay good in fridge for a long time!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I've been thinking of making these ever since we ate with Karen at Cupcake in Charleston. Red velvet is just so pretty, and Southern, and maybe a little kitschy, and it makes me think of Steel Magnolias.

I allowed myself to be convinced by blogging foodies that making cake from scratch is "just as easy as using a box mix!" (not true) "and so much more delicious!" (totally true). It probably helped that I finally followed directions like letting ingredients (butter, eggs, cream cheese)come to room temperature before mixing & blending for a full 3 minutes to let air get to all the yummy fat molecules. The kitchen's just a delicious chem lab!

This recipe is adapted from a few I found online and resulted in the BEST cupcakes I've ever had:

Red Velvet Cupcakes (1.5 doz jumbo or 2.5 doz regular)

* 1 1/2 cups of sugar
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, room temperature
* 2 eggs, room temperature
* 2 1/3 cups of cake flour OR (2.3 c minus 4 Tbs) all purpose flour*
* 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder (Dark cocoa is delicious but does dampen the red color)
* 1 teaspoon of baking soda
* 1 teaspoon of baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon of salt
* 1 cup of buttermilk (or 1 c. milk + 1 Tbs white vinegar left to sit 10 min)
* 1 1/2 tablespoons of red food coloring
* 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
* 1 teaspoon of distilled white vinegar

*All purpose flour contains more protein (it's ground w/ some of the germ & bran attached), so it forms more gluten chains. That makes it great for bread -- where gluten is needed to hold the bread together as all those gasses expand and give a nice chewy texture -- but not so good for cakes & pastries. I just can't see buying a separate cake flour, so I use this substitution and it works fine.

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. Beat the butter and sugar in an electric mixer for 3 minutes on medium speed until light and fluffy.

2 Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is fully incorporated. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

3 In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl whisk together the buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla extract, and red food coloring.

4 Add a fourth of the dry ingredients and mix, then add a third of the wet. Continue adding in a dry, wet, dry pattern, ending with the dry ingredients.

5 Scoop into cupcake papers, about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until slightly separating from sides & toothpick comes out clean. Rotate the pan after the first 15 minutes of baking to ensure even baking (important for my very uneven oven!).

6 Allow to cool before icing.

Cream Cheese Frosting (makes PLENTY for above # cupcakes)

* 1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temperature
* 8 oz cream cheese (1 package), room temperature
* 2 cups of powdered sugar
* 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 Cream the butter and cream cheese together, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

2 Mix in vanilla extract.

3 Add the powdered sugar. Use spatula to spoon onto cooled cupcakes.

Really good lasagna

This spinach lasagna freezes well & tastes great. It uses less cheese than most lasagnas. I leave out the garlic and throw in a little extra spinach.

2 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
Garlic to taste (recommend fresh cloves chopped)
1/2 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
1 28-oz. can whole tomatoes crushed by hand, with juice (important -- & fun! -- to crush by hand!)
1 6-oz. can tomato paste
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 c. chicken stock or water
1 egg
1 10-oz. package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, as much moisture squeezed out as possible
1 c. ricotta cheese
1/2 c. grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 lb. lasagna noodles, cooked until firm, drained
1/2 lb. mozzarella cheese, grated

Heat 1 Tbs. of the oil in a sauté pan over medium heat, and sauté the onion and garlic until they begin to soften. Add the mushrooms and continue to sauté gently until they lose most of their moisture -- about 5 minutes more. Stir in the tomato sauce, canned tomatoes and liquid, tomato paste, salt, oregano, basil, and stock or water. Simmer 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat the egg and combine with the spinach, ricotta, Parmesan, and remaining Tbs. of oil.

If you plan to freeze the lasagna, line the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with heavy-duty aluminum foil, with enough foil hanging over each edge to cover the top.

Assemble: noodle layer in bottom of pan, 1/2 tomato mixture, noodles, spinach mixture, noodles, rest of tomato, mozzarella.

Wrap the foil around the entire top of lasagna and cool in the refrigerator. Freeze overnight and remove from the serving dish, then cover with an additional layer of plastic wrap. (This way you can use your pan for other things.) To reheat, thaw SLIGHTLY in fridge, remove all foil and wrap, and place in the original baking dish to thaw completely.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.