Pickle Madness!

I've been a little obsessed with homemade pickles recently. The funny thing is, generally, I like pickles in just a normal kind of way where I might buy a jar a couple times a year and then forget about them entirely for months on end. But for some reason, I just feel inordinately COOL to be making them on my own. Hence the temporary homemade pickle obsession...

My beast of a cucumber plant is producing about 15-20 cucumbers per week. I can make a 1-quart jar of pickle spears with 4 cucumbers. You do the math... I just gave a way a huge bag of them to my friend's mom because I was being totally overtaken!

Anyway, all that to say, after lots of experimenting and forcing co-workers and boyfriend and boyfriend's children in to formal taste-tests where I grill them with questions, I have narrowed down my favorite two recipes and I am ready to share!

Basic Pickle Brine:

(Follow these quantities to make 1 jar of refrigerator pickles. Increase proportionally if you want more!)

1 cup water
1 cup vinegar
1 T salt
approx 4 pickling cucumbers, sliced into spears or cross-wise for sandwich slices
1 sterilized 1-quart canning jar

- Bring water, vinegar and salt to just a boil and then remove from heat. Make sure the salt has dissolved. Cool to room temp.

Now, for your flavorings... You can get totally wild and creative with these and just start throwing in whatever sounds good! I made one jar with garlic, fresh basil, pepercorns and Jamaican All-Spice berries. They turned out pretty good. But the two basic recipes below were my favorite and got the best "review" from my trusty taste-testers.

Simple Garden Dill Pickles

3 large garlic cloves, slightly crushed
1/4 white onion, sliced into rings
1 tsp freeze-dried dill
1 jalapeno, cut into rings (*If you remove the seeds, you will get a little jalapeno flavor but no heat. I am going to try leaving the seeds in next time for a little extra "kick")

-Place ingredients in the bottom of the jar. Pack in cucumber spears or slices. Pour brine over all until the jar is filled and put on the lid. Refrigerate at least 7 days.

Zippy Spicy "Give Your Taste Buds A Shock" Pickles

(Sorry for that title... I've been sitting here for 10 minutes trying to figure out what to call these ones and that is all that came to me.)

3 large garlic cloves, slightly crushed
1 tsp freeze-dried dill
3/4 T Penzey's pickling spices (This spice blend is amazing! It has bay leaves, mustard seed, cassia, ginger, allspice, cloves, dill seed, star anise, coriander, cardamom, coriander and crushed red pepper flakes)

-Place ingredients in the bottom of the jar. Pack in cucumber spears or slices. Pour brine over all until the jar is filled and put on the lid. Refrigerate at least 7 days.



And there you have it. These are way too easy and if you can't get your hands on pickling cucumbers, just use regular store ones. None of my jars have lasted more than a week, but from what I've read, these should last about a month in the fridge.

Have a lovely Saturday!

Sweet and Sour Chicken

I've never turned my hand at Sweet and Sour anything before. For someone who really loves to cook, its amazing how many of the "staples" I've never actually made. But tonight, I tackled and conquered some Sweet and Sour Chicken and it was downright tasty. Also pretty fast, with simple ingredients. The only thing I had to pick up at the store was the chicken breasts and some Apricot Preserves.

I won't elaborate much on this one. Its pretty straightforward :)

Sweet and Sour Chicken

(From Cooking Light, January/February 2011, "Chicken Breasts, 25 Ways")

4 chicken breasts
Salt & Pepper
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
3 T Apricot preserves
1 1/2 T low sodium soy sauce (I use a gluten-free one...)
2 T fresh lime juice
1 tsp Thai chile paste (or Sriracha Sauce, YUM!)
cilantro, chopped

- Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt and pepper and cook in a pan with a little olive oil. Set aside.
- In the same pan, while hot, add chicken broth, preserves and soy sauce. Scrape the bottom to get all the lovely little brown bits and bring the sauce just to a boil.
- Remove from heat, add lime juice and chile paste.
- Pour over chicken breast and top with fresh cilantro.

Voila! If you did some rice in a rice-cooker while this was going and added in a salad, you'd have a tasty dinner in about 20 minutes.


P.S. I adore Sriracha sauce (spicy, a little garlicy, almost sweet, MMMM) and it was perfect in this recipe. That said, I doubled the sauce portion of this (because who doesn't love extra sauce, right?), but the 2 tsp of Sriracha was a bit much. Running eyes and nose during dinner is totally inconvenient! But I'm a bit of a light-weight when it comes to heat. So just go slowly with your Sriracha. Don't get carried away, like I did. And you'll be fine.

Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes

I've never been a huge fan of the marshmallow, brown sugar, sweet SWEET sweet potatoes people do at Thanksgiving time. (With the exception, Sami, of the ones you made for our roomie Thanksgiving a few years ago. Those were amazing! But I think they had like a 1/2 cup of butter in them right? Butter makes everything amazing...)

I digress... In general, no "sweet" sweet potatoes.

But savory sweet potatoes are another story. I was introduced to those at Trinity Brewing Co about a year and a half ago via their Sweet Potatoes Fries with Rosemary and Curry Ketchup. I've been making my own version for a year or two now and that has been the extent of my sweet potato consumption.

Until a few nights ago...

I was making dinner for Jeff and I had the chicken and some salad (from my garden... makes me SO happy). If I were just feeding myself, this would be plenty. But men eat a lot. And dinner is a bigger deal to them than it is to many of us ladies. I'm being educated on this currently: No popcorn for dinner. No "how about some lunch meat and goat cheese and a few carrots with hummus". No apple and peanut butter. No cheese and crackers and a glass of wine. Well, I'm told the wine is okay but it needs a real meal to go with it. So, all of that to say, when I'm "on" for dinner, I have to make real food. And I don't actually mind this. It gives me a great chance to play around with new recipes.

I digress again... (Sorry, feeling "wordy" this morning)

I had chicken and salad and also a couple sweet potatoes on hand. I did a search on savory mashed sweet potatoes and came up with this super easy recipe. Jeff loved it and so did I! If anything, the leftovers were even better the next day. And with no added cream or milk and only a tiny bit of butter, this is quite healthy. Hope you enjoy!

Chipotle Mashed Sweet Potatoes
(makes about 4-5 servings)

3 regular-sized sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 T butter (I use ghee because it tastes like butter but is actually lactose free!)
1-3 whole canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (start with one and increase according to your tolerance for spice - I used 2)
2 tsp of the canned adobo sauce (again, just adjust to taste)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt

- Steam cubed sweet potatoes until soft.
- Mash together with remaining ingredients, adjusting to taste.

These are great because you get the "sweet" naturally from the potato and that blends really nice with the smoky/spicy from the chipotles and adobo sauce. Yum!!! I still have some leftover and am thinking about using it to make some sweet potato pancakes for breakfast with a little caramelized onion and goat cheese on top...

Happy Saturday :)

P.S. (Mom's Homemade Nut Bars)

I'm making another batch of these as we speak and I forgot to include a couple ingredients on my last post. (I've gone back in and updated it.)

In addition to the other ingredients, I also like to add about 2 tsp cinnamon and about a 1/4 cup each of flax seed and chia seeds for added fiber and good omega oils.

Thats all!

Happy Monday :)

Mom's Homemade Nut Bars

Over the last 6 months, "nuts" and I have moved from casual acquaintances to intimate friends. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say we've moved from casual acquaintances to THEY ARE NOW A TOTAL AND COMPLETE LIFESAVER!

Try figuring out what to eat for breakfast without using wheat, dairy, eggs, grains, soy or peanuts?

See? Its hard. In the face of that dilemma, nuts came galloping in to my rescue and I in their debt.

My mom makes the following protein nut bars on a regular basis. I have started making them weekly as well. I crumble them up in a bowl, top them with a little coconut milk and fruit and then have myself a tasty and filling breakfast. These also work beautifully for camping food or a hiking snack. And when I am desperate for a dessert, I can almost pretend that they are a cookie!

Below is my mom's recipe. I had to change a few things and I put those in parenthesis. This is an awesome recipe for improvisation. So have fun!

Mom's Homemade Nut Bars


1 ½ cups ground almonds (Or almond meal)
1 ½ cups ground walnuts
¼ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup pecans
½ cup hazelnut pieces (Or cashews or any other nut that strikes your fancy...)
¼ cup mini chocolate chips (I don't use chocolate chips. But some dried fruit would be lovely)
2 scoops Metagenics protein powder (Or any other favorite protein powder. You can also just omit this part)
1 cup Rice Krispies
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 cup chia seeds
2 tsp cinnamon
½ cup chunky peanut butter (I use Sunflower Seed Butter, but almond butter or cashew butter would also work well)
½ cup agave nectar

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. The mixture will be somewhat sticky. Press into 9x11 baking dish that has been sprayed with Pam. Bake for 30 minutes to one hour depending on how toasty you prefer it. Cool; cut into 24 bars. Store in refrigerator or freezer.


I will say the up front cost of these ingredients will seem like a lot. But my mom worked it out and it actually comes to about $0.59 per bar. I loaded up on all this stuff a bit ago and will probably get 4 batches of bars out of it.

Hope you enjoy!

A Quick Summer Drink

I don't have too much to say today. Just popping in for a little quickie post...

I've been struggling to get my water in the last few days. Not sure what my problem is... I just have a mental block. So I compromised and made myself some plain iced tea. But that wasn't cutting it either.

Flash of brilliance!

I have mint simple syrup and limes in my fridge (so that I can make mojitos at whim). I added 2 tsp of mint simple syrup to a tall glass of iced tea and gave it a squirt of lime.

Voila!

Might not quite be on par with the simple purity of good water, but at least I am getting my liquids in again.

Happy sipping!

A Sneak Peak...

Anyone feel like playing a guessing game?

What have I been more exited about than anything in my garden this year?

What did I spend over an hour researching today?

What prompted the happy purchase of a case of 1-quart canning jars?

What is going to keep me on the edge of my seat for the next 5-10 days?

Here are a few hints:







These babies have to hang out in my fridge for the next week or two before I'll know if they're any good.

Practicing my patience...

30 Years Old!

Amazing... I'm not sure how this happened, but I actually turned 30 years old yesterday! I promise I was 19 only a few months ago :). When did I become so officially "adult"? I feel like I am just barely starting to get a glimpse of what older people are talking about when they say no matter how old you get, you still feel about 18 years old inside. Do you think that is just our soul that is eternal and therefore, technically ageless? I think it might be...

Jeff threw me a party on Saturday night and we had friends over for a blow-out taco fest! (That man is awfully cute when he is in the taco zone!)

Then we spent Sunday with my parents. They got me a new cookbook called Booze Cakes! Just flipping through it makes me want to put on an apron, fix myself a cocktail and get busy with my mixer and cake tins!

And then last night Jeff and I dressed up and he took me to The Broadmoor for what was, hands down, the BEST meal I have ever had! I'm not being dramatic. It was exceptional. I had Prosciutto and Herb-Wrapped Fillet Mignon with Goat Cheese Potatoes, Bearnaise Sauce and Asparagus with Tomatoes that had been cooked down in Madeira Wine. Is your mouth watering?? There really are no words... And we sat right by the lake and there was candlelight and white table-clothes and an amuse-bouche and I wore a new dress and felt pretty. Sigh... Totally wonderful!

We didn't take tons of pictures over the weekend but here are a few:

FOOD!!!



Getting in a little sweet baby love...



My sweet taco-making man and me :)



The gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, egg-free dessert that I made for myself. I know... You are wondering what good ingredients are left after you take out gluten, dairy, soy and egg! This dessert is primarily almonds and coconut and it turned out pretty good. I'll share the recipe soon!



Me (at The Broadmoor feeling incredibly loved and happy and fancy)



The dinner to king all dinners. I think I might judge all further meals against the amazing-ness of this one!



For all of you who called or texted or made it a point to spend time with me, THANK YOU! A girl could not ask for more wonderful friends and family and I find myself entering this new decade humbled and full of gratitude for the gift of you all.

Let the thirties begin!!