Outdoor Cooking

After having the wettest May in 40 years and a June to match it, the weather has finally turned and everyone is complaining about how hot it is!  With the forecast in the high nineties at the end of the week, I thought I should focus on what we can do to keep our houses cool and still prepare scrumptious food.  This way, we don’t have to live off of salads and sandwiches all summer!  (Although those can be scrumptious as well).  When most people think about outdoor cooking in the Northwest, hamburgers and hot dogs seem to be common fare.

A few tips about Hamburgers on the Grill:

• Blend your hamburger meat with an egg before shaping into patties and they will stay together better (about 1 egg to 1 lb of meat)
• Toast buns on the top rack when patties are nearly finished and put condiments on both sides of the bun to ensure that burgers are neither dry nor soggy
• Slice pickles at a diagonal instead of lengthwise or in a coin shape
• Slice mushrooms +/or onions and wrap in 2-3 layers of aluminum foil with butter or margarine and a small amount of garlic or garlic salt for a more sophisticated burger

Other Outdoor Cooking Ideas (in case you’ve had it up to here with burgers and hot dogs)

• Teriyaki Chicken (as a shish kabob)
• Other Shish Kabobs
• Ribs
• Foil Dinners
• Sticky Buns

 

Only the Pure in Heart Can Make a Good Soup

“Only the pure in heart can make a good soup.”~Ludwig van Beethoven

Well, I’m not making any claims, but…

Soup is a very broad term that means meat and/or vegetables boiled in a liquid.  The difference between soup and stew is that the resulting liquid in soup is called broth and the liquid is stew is called gravy.  Really, the main difference is semantics.  There are clear soups (think about chicken noodle soup–what most people would call broth) and thick soups.  Of thick soups there are purees (vegetable soup thickened with starch), bisques (pureed shellfish or vegetables thickened with cream), and cream soups (think cream of mushroom).  People have been eating soup for over 8000 years!  Apparently, they would have tried it earlier if only someone had invented the watertight dish.  My recipes aren’t that old, but hopefully they’ll do:

• Taco Soup
• Cheddar and Broccoli Soup
• Clam Chowder
• Beef Stew
• Chili

Check back for more soup recipes all week!

 

Egg-citing, Egg-cellant, Egg Eggs-travaganza

There is so much more you can do with eggs that fry them or hide them in baked goods.  This week, in addition to some egg-stra special egg recipes, I have a few facts for you.  It all started with my husband (don’t these things always? j/k).  He doesn’t like mayonnaise and I found that many people who don’t like commercial mayo enjoy homemade mayo (my perfected homemade mayonnaise recipe soon to follow).  Several hours later, you find me surfing the net looking up the official name of the whites (albumen).  Here is some other interesting information about eggs (Bakers will be especially interested in the last three):

1. You absorb about 91% of the protein from a cooked egg that you consume, while you only absorb 51% if it was raw. (Wikipedia)
2. You can test an egg’s freshness by putting it in slightly salted water–fresh eggs will sink and spoiled eggs will float. (Wikipedia)
3. No matter the size of an egg (medium, large, extra large, or jumbo), the yolk size stays the same. (Joy of Baking)
4. 87 % of an egg white is water (so a jumbo egg has little increased nutritional value, just more water).  (Joy of Baking)
5. In the current Food Pyramid, one egg is equal to 1 ounce of meat.
6. When a recipe calls for just egg yolks, you can freeze the whites!  Several people suggested freezing them in ice cube trays to easily identify the number of whites.  Good for up to 4 months! (National Center for Home Food Preservation)
7. When a recipe calls for just whites, you can freeze the yolks but they get a lumpy weird texture unless you blend them with 1/4 t sugar or a dash of salt (depending on what you intend to use them for).  Be sure to label them and adjust your recipe accordingly when you go to cook, otherwise you will end up with salty pudding! (National Center for Home Food Preservation)
8. 1 yolk=1 Tb (Joy of Baking)

Egg Recipes:

• Potato Salad
• Egg Salad
• Mayonnaise
• Deviled Eggs
• Frying with Breading and Batter
• Scrambled Eggs
• Omlettes
• Fried Eggs
• Hard Boiled
• French Toast

 

Around the World with Diced Tomatos

Great sale on diced tomatoes at Winco?  Need to get rid of all your homecanned diced tomatoes before the next crop?  Just looking for something new and different?  Have I got a post for you!  Diced tomatoes appear in recipes all around the world.   Here are links to the various recipes along with their country of origin (I’ll link them in as I finish posting them):

ITALY (duh):

• Spaghetti
• Lasagna
• Pizza
• Chicken Parmageane

MEXICO:

• Chile

INDIA

• Raj’s Chicken

NIGERIA

• Dodos and Nigerian Stew

UNITED STATES

• Taco Soup
• Scallops w/ Pasta and Herbs (my own concoction)

PS: How is it that I have no Russian recipes?  This must be remedied!  Keep looking for updates on this post!

 

There is magic in the pot

“You will never get out of pot or pan anything fundamentally better than what went into it. Cooking is not alchemy; there is no magic in the pot.”~Martha McCulloch-Williams (1913)

Alchemists are best known for their attempts to turn common metals into gold.  Cooks are best known for their attempts to turn common ingredients into cuisine.  Cooking IS alchemy–an imperfect science.  Hopefully, the ‘formule’ I provide will bring you the rich meal you have been searching for.