More about food

So, food has been on my mind lately and while I haven’t been shopping for things that aren’t necessities recently (for obvious reasons) as I look through all of these recipes I do begin to want some appliances that I don’t have.

Can you believe this is simply made out of bananas? I can't...

For example, I ran across this “recipe” today. Basically, if you blend a frozen banana you get the consistency of ice cream. No need for milk, no need for sugar, no need for anything else.

Oh, yeah. Except a blender.

I’m really wishing I’d bought one last fall when I saw it at Aldi’s. I really shouldn’t buy one right now. Still, I went over to the Aldi’s website to check out what the specials were for this week and I found this: a $24 Panini Maker/Grill. Now, a couple months ago, this would be entirely superfluous as I was making panini sandwiches with my mini-George Foreman Grill, but like my rice steamer, my George Foreman Grill no longer works (of course, the rice steamer never worked, but that’s neither here, nor there).

So, this is me convincing myself not to buy this because, honestly, I don’t need it.

Sorry about the materialistic digression. Hope you enjoy the banana ice cream recipe! Next time I’m near any of you and a blender, we should totally make some

Yum! Freezer food :)

I have finally succumbed to the fact that there is no way that I am going to be able to cook for myself each and every night of my life. See, I like cooking, but I have a problem with required routines. In fact, there are some days that I would rather go without dinner than actually prepare and cook a meal. This is definitely a personal weakness, but I figure if I can find a way to accommodate for it, it doesn’t have to be a problem.

So, this entry is going to come about in two parts.

1) My obsession with the Mac recipe organizing program called Yum! (something that came about long before my compulsion to actually cook food) and 2) My new fascination with foods that can be cooked ahead of time, frozen and actually enjoyed once reheated.

Yum!

I love this program. You can copy an ingredient list from a webpage and simply press the “paste ingredients” button and it automatically fills in all the ingredients in the formatting that works for the program. If you put in how many servings the recipe makes, it even has a feature to convert your recipe to work for more or fewer people. Finally, you can choose recipes and have it create your shopping list for you!

Now, I found this program a while back and recently discovered a new version. Yum! is free and actually seems to work better in some ways (recipes can have multiple category labels for one thing–this may be a glitch in the newer version). You can download it here. However Yum (no exclamation mark–they seem to have lost some enthusiasm as they’ve gone corporate) costs $26 dollars after a 15 day free trial. This is the latest version of the program and, as it is a good program, it may be worth the money. The real incentive to buying Yum is that there is a syncable iPod Touch app. This allows you to bring your recipes with you and create a shopping list on the go–without printing anything out! If you would like to try Yum, you can find it here.

Freezer Food

I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. There was a time that I honestly ate mostly freezer meals, take out and pasta. This is not healthy, it’s not economical and often it’s not even all that good! I do enjoy cooking, but I’ve become accustomed to the convenience of simply microwaving a boxed meal and I detest cleaning dishes every single day! Also, whenever I am committed to pushing through and finishing the job of grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning up, there is always the inevitable happenstance of spoiled food that I just couldn’t eat or cook quite fast enough.

I am currently accumulating as many freezable recipes as I possibly can in the next 15 days. Eventually I’d like to buy the new version of Yum, but until then I need to use the free trial to fill my iPod with as many as I can possibly find.

So I leave you with some questions:

What are your favorite recipes that freeze well?

and

Is there a recipe that I should just have on hand?

(hint: Mom, I’d like your recipe for your special soup and tuna noodle casserole, Nessa, I’d like the savory muffins and Aunt Peggy or various Ward family members I’d like Uncle Trevin’s Pizza recipe )

If you don’t want to put the recipe in the comment, but would like me to have it feel free to email me (you should be able to find my email on my Facebook if you don’t already have it)!

-K

Cooking?

So, I’ve got a bit of extra time on my hands lately and I thought I’d try to use it in a semi-productive way. I’m going to start cooking from scratch.

I figure that this will be a healthier (and hopefully) more economical way to eat. Now, I have recently acquired (read “stole” from my parent’s kitchen cupboards) a fancy, electric pasta maker. So, what is my first recipe going to be? Chocolate Pasta!

Recipe from:

http://recipes.epicurean.com/recipe/3729/chocolate-pasta.html

Ingredients:
Pasta
1 3/4 c Flour
1/4 c Cocoa powder
2 Egg
4 T Water

Champagne Cream Sauce
6 Egg yolk
1 c Sugar
1 1/2 c Champagne
Directions:
Mix flour and cocoa well. Mound on your work surface or in a large bowl. Make a deep well in the center of the mound and break the eggs into it. Beat the eggs in there with a fork, adding about 2 Tbsp water. Using a circular motion, draw the flour and cocoa into the center. Toss in another Tbsp of Water. Stir with your fork until all the flour is moistened. Add a little more water as needed. You’re gonna have to finish mixing by hand. Pat the dough into a ball. Clean off your work surface, and flour it. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, or until the dough becomes silky and elastic. Cover the dough and let it rest for half an hour so the gluten can activate in the flour. Roll out 1/4 of the dough at a time, the same way you would any pasta. A machine makes this really easy. I prefer to let the pasta dry (at least a little!) before cooking. This will make 4 to 5 cups of cooked pasta—plenty for dessert.

Serve in wine glasses with a warm raspberry sauce and chilled whipped cream.

Champagne Cream Sauce:
Combine yolks and sugar over a double-boiler. Whisk constantly for about 10 minutes, until the mixture begins to thicken. Before it turns to a thick custard, pour in the room-temperature champagne all at once. As it foams up, whisk lightly, and continue to stir as it thickens. Remove from heat.

Serve warm over chilled berries, or over Cinnamon-nutmeg pasta & top with berries.
Variation: Use 2 cups flour, omit the cocoa. Instead, add 1 tsp each cinnamon and freshly-ground nutmeg. I served this one with a Champagne Cream sauce and fresh raspberries and blueberries.