Nettles II

Cooking with nettles is fun. I've made a great Nettle lasagna with them. It's just a spinach lasagna with nettles substituting for the spinach. The nettles are thicker and tastier than the spinach so they go well in the lasagna.

Stinging Nettle Lasagna

Stinging Nettle Lasagna is just my regular lasagna with stinging nettles instead of spinach. I turned out very good. The nettles have more texture and taste than spinach.



Get a 9 x 12 baking tin. Ready three layers of lasagna noodles. That's probably nine regular noodles.



You will also need a good thick meet sauce and a nettles and cheese layer.

Amazon Fresh II

A bit more on Amazon Fresh.

They tend to run out of products a bit more often than I'd like. So far I've missed thick cut bacon, the large Jiffy brand crunchy peanut butter and lemon grass. In all cases I could sign up for a notice. The item was re-stocked within a week.

The produce and meats have been high quality.

Delivery has been punctual.





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Amazon Fresh

I like using home grocery delivery. There is no convenient grocery store around me so grocery delivery saves me a couple hours a week. The scheduled delivery and the minimum purchases force me to plan ahead which kills impulse buys and means I eat out less often.

In the past I've used Safeway.com. Unfortunatly their fees are slowly increasing. Last year I could get free delivery for orders over $75.00. This year it costs $10.00 for orders over $150.00.

Since I'm buying for two, $150.00 in groceries is too much. The vegitables go bad or I run out of perishables before my grocery list is up to $150.00.

Safeway's delivery schedule isn't that convenient. If I order today, my groceries are delivered tomorrow night. Yes, technically they could be delivered between 10am and noon tomorrow, but I have a day job.

Along comes Amazon Fresh.They have free delivery on orders over $75.00. Amazon also has unattended predawn delivery. If I order by midnight, my groceries will be on my door stop by 6am the next morning.

Refrigerated and frozen goods are left in returnable freezer totes.This is so good. I can reasonably spend $75.00 a week on food and the perishables

Safeway.com has a larger selection than Amazon Fresh. For similar items, Amazon appears to be less expensive than Safeway.I'll be using Amazon Fresh for some time to come

Stinging Nettles are in Season

Weate stinging nettles yesterday. They pop up all over the back yard. Mark heard that you could use them as food so we gave them a try.

Stinging nettle tea is nice. It tastes like green tea with a little bit of a sweet after taste.

When you cook a nettle, it gets rid of the sting. When cooked it tastes much like spinach but a little thicker, a little more firm and with little more texture.

Raclette III

Raclette is great for sea food. The slower grilling time makes it hard to over cook shirmp or scallops. The food hits your mouth hot and tender.

Raclette II

The food stretching abilities of raclette continue. Last night we fed four people with one chicken breast, one steak and a mix of vegies. And we were all stuffed at the end!

In Praise of Raclette

I love my raclette. What is raclette? It's a table top grill and broiler. You can cook little packages of food exactly the way you want. And, it's propertly hot when you eat it.

The slower cooking process of the raclette has another benifit. It encourages us to eat more slowly. You can't cook more than four or five forkfulls at a time before you need to prepare another little tray of food, so the meal is slowed way down.

Which is perfect for me because I tend to scarf my food down.

When you eat more slowly, you eat less. I swear I eat a third less food with the raclet than with a normal meal.

Raclette is also very convienient and easy to keep clean. All I have to do is chop up some veggies and meat and the meal is ready.

Pizza Dough III

Slowly my pizza dough is improving. It is now tender and crisp. I still have problems getting the pizza off the palette and onto the stone, but that's a matter of practice.

The more I make pizza, the more I realize that a great crust is as much about technique as it is about ingredients. I have to take my time. This isn't a recipie that produces pizza in under an hour. And I have to go slow to make sure the crust is thin. I use a rolling pin and I dust with flour every time the pizza dough becomes sticky.

This should be enough dough for 4 8'' pizzas.

Ingredients...
2 tablespoons sugar.
2 teaspoons Kosher salt.
1 tablespoon pure olive oil.
3/4 cup warm water.
1/2 cup whole wheat flour.
1 and 1/2 cups bread flour.
1 teaspoon instant yeast

Mix together and kneed. I kneed it in my stand mixer for 15 minutes. If the dough sticks too much, then scrape it into a ball, sprinkle the ball with flour and keed some more.

Put the dough in a lightly oiled dish. Cover and let rest in the fridge for 24 hours. I've read several "Worlds Best Dough!" recipies and all of them have this rest stage. It is important for the dough to develop and soften up.

When the dough has rested, take a quarter of it and make it into a ball.

I raise the dough in a microwave.

I put a cup of water in the microwave and nuked it on high till the water was boiling and the interior of the microwave was steamy.

I set the dough ball on a plate, covered it with a wet cloth and microwaved it for 20 minutes at 10% power. I checked plate after 10 minutes to ensure it wasn't too warm or dry.

Next, I rolled out the dough. I went slow. I started the dough with a rolling pin. And I dusted the dough with flower every time it got sticky.

It is important for me to to start with a rolling pin. While it is romantic and authentic to roll out pizza dough with only your hands, a rolling pin is fast, easy, more consistant and no one will taste the difference.

I rolled out the dough till it was as thin as the rolling pin could make it. Then I let the dough rest for five minutes and rolled it some more. I went slow.

Then, I dusted the dough with flower and finished stretching the dough out by hand. In the end the pizza was thin, so thin I could almost see through it.

Again, I dusted the pizza palette with four and corn meal. Put the pizza dough on the pallet, lightly cover with tomato sauce and the ingredients. The operative word is lightly. Too much water from the sauce or ingredients and the pizza will be soggy.

Baked at 450F for 10 minutes. Next time I'll try 500F.

Gazpacho

I've been making Gazpacho's lately. You don't need to follow an exact recipie.

Take a slice of bread. Get it wet. Throw it in the blender.

Add one quarter cup of olive oil to the blender.

Add one and a half cups of diced tomatoes to the blender.

Add one cup of seeded and peeled cucumbers to the blender.

At a tbsp vinegar (balsamic or sherry) to the blender.

Add one small hot pepper to the blender

Add one quarter of an onion and two cloves of garlic to the blender.

At this point, I keep adding vegies to the blender till the blender fills up. Try a bell pepper, or carrots, or celery, or zuchini.

Blend for two minutes until everything is a liquid-- a soup.

I strain my gazpacho, but that is not necessary.

Roasted Dinners

I heard about roasted dinners from the Splendid Table. I've been making them fairly often-- they are very easy and work well for week nights.

The basic idea is that you take a bunch of food that will cook at about the same rate, or tastes good when over roasted, prep, oil and spice the food, put it on cooking tin and roast at 450F for 45 minutes.

More details..

When I get home I preheat the oven to 450F.

Now, I decide what I want to cook. All hard veggies work well. Try carrots, squash, potatoes, snow peas, brocholi, zuchini, onion.

I take a variety of veggies, tonight it's potatoes, carrots and brocholi, and cut them so they will cook at about the same time. The potatoes are more thick than the carrots since they cook faster.

Next, I toss with some oil and herbs.

Place the veggies on a baking tray next to a few thawned chicken pieces.

Place everything in the oven and roast for 45 minutes.

If your chicken comes out over done, then the next time, try putting it on the baking tray directly from the fridge, instead of letting it warm up to room temp.

Chili

I am neither Southern, nor Spanish, nor Mexican. That means I can make Chili with beans and without peppers and not feel bad about it.

Mark insists this makes the best chili he has ever tasted.

The recipe happened by accident. I made beans with diced tomatoes one night, then dressed it up with meat the second.

In a pressure cooker, brown one diced onion and four cloves of garlic.

Add one pound of dried beans (I used the Costco bean mix), 32oz of canned diced tomatoes and 16oz of chicken stock.

Pressure cook for 1 hour.

Get your meat ready. Stew meat would be good. I used a mystery roast in the freezer. Cube the chucks of meat.

Brown the meat on two sides. Season a little. Add 32 oz diced tomato and juice. Pressure cook for 15 minutes.

Mix the beans with the meat. Season appropriately.

This dish is even better if you let it sit over night in the fridge.

One of the reasons this recipe is good is the two separate pressure cooking's. The second, shorter cooking of the tomatoes and meat allows the tomato and meat to each have distinct flavor and texture. As opposed to the "It all tastes and feels the same" food that happens with long cook times.

Popovers

I've been making Popovers instead of serving buns or bread with the meal. Very tasty. I don't have Popover cups, so I use a pie plate instead. The result is kind of like a Welsh Pudding.

This recipie comes from Good Eats...

Put 1 tbsp of butter into a pie plate. Put the pie late into the oven and heat to 400F.

Mix 1 cups of milk, 2 eggs, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tbsp melted butter.

Now, mix in 1 cup of all purpose flour. I take a stick belder to it just until smooth-- about 30 seconds.

When the oven has finished heating, swirl the butter in the pie plate around. Pour the batter into the pie plate.

Let them bake for 40 minutes. Take out and stab holes into them to let the steam out.

The Joy of cooking has a few more suggestions....

Try using 1.5 cups of milk instead of 1 cup. Bake at 450F for 15 minutes and then 350F for 20 minutes.

If you want crispy Popovers, take the popovers out of the pie plate and put them on a wire rack. Turn the oven off and let the popovers sit in the oven for 10 minutes.

The Red House

410 Burnett Ave S, Renton.

So good and so affordable.

Wine is priced at retail plus a five dollar corking fee. You can have excellent wine for under $20.00!

Try the beets with sherry, garlic and Gorgonzola. I'm serious... try them. This dish elevates beets from Germanic side dish to great cuisine.

Tomato Soup.

Finely chop a carrot, a stock of celery and an onion. Sweat these in a sauce pan until soft.

Add 64 oz of diced & seeded tomatoes. Add 8oz of chicken stock.

Simmer for 30 minutes or pressure cook for 15.

Take a stick blender to soup to make it nice and smooth.

Season to taste.

Pressure Cooking

I received a new pressure cooker as a gift. Now, many slow cooked foods are practial week night dishes.

I made an excellent beef stock in under an hour. With thirty more minutes I turned the stock into a french onion soup which my partner claims is the best he has ever had.

Dried beens can cooked in under 35 minutes. If you presoak first, it takes less than 15 minutes.

Vegitarian.

Lately, I've been eating vegitarian every 2nd or 3rd night. This has two advantages. First, it's cheaper. Second, I enjoy my meat more. Cooked animal is even better if you didn't have cooked animal yesterday.

Pudding...

Coco powder, flour and corn starch often clump if you are not careful when mixing them into a liquid. You can avoid this problem by shaking them up in a large container, rather than mixing with a spoon or whisk...

Chocolate pudding...

In a sauce pan on medium heat, melt one tablespoon of butter.

In a large sealable container add...
half a cup coco powder.
half a cup sugar.
3 tablespoons corn starch.

seal the container and vigorously shake until combined.

Now pour two cups of milk into the container, quickly reseal it and vigorously shake some more

pour the mixture into the sauce pan. Stir often with a spatula. Don't walk away-- the mixture can quickly develope a thick layer on the bottom of the pan.

When the mixture starts to thicken and simmer, set the temperature to low and let simmer for one minute more.

Pour into four dishes

You can add some frozen fruit and serve hot, or put the dishes in the refrigerator and serve later cold.

Fritata

This turned out well. It takes about an hour to make, the it's worth it.

Put half a tbsp of butter and half a tbsp of oil into a pie plate.

Put the pie plate into an oven and heat to 400F. The idea is to heat the pie plate and oil up so that when the egg mixture hits it, a quick and thin crust will form to prevent sticking.

Break five eggs into a measuring cup. Add milk to bring the measure up to two cups. Wisk to combine.

Find a cup of filling-- I used left over vegitables-- and chop the filling into small pieces.

When the pie plate has heated up and the oil is popping, pull the plate out of the oven, swirl the oil and butter around to coat. Now, quickly pour the egg & milk into the pie plate. Don't mix or scrape the bottom.

Sprinkle the filling all over the eggs.

Cover with half a cup of grated cheese.

Bake at 400F for 40 minutes.

Rice Pudding.

Lately I've been taking left over rice and making rice pudding. Very taste. Very easy.

Take one cup of cooked rice.

Add three cups of milk and half a cup of sugar.

Heat on medium until a simmer is reached, then turn down to low.

Stir regularly to avoid burning.

When the milk is mostly absorbed, beat one egg with one third a cup of sugar.

Temper the egg & suger with one cup of the rice & milk-- that is, take a cup of rice & milk and slowly pour it into the egg & sugar, beating constantly. This will heat up the egg and prevent it from curdling.

Mix the egg & sugar back into the rice & milk.

Add half a teaspooon of vanilla extract.

Heat unti thickened.

Cool down.

For bonus points, make rice pudding brulee. Spoon the rice pudding into a bowl. Place a teaspoon of sugar ontop of the rice pudding. Take a blow torch to the sugar until it melts.