Cake Envy

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ 4 Comments

My sister made the cakes pictured above. She also made a cowboy hat cake for a grandchild’s birthday but I could not find the picture. She has a house full of people who can help her eat these cakes. I want to make cakes, fancy cakes, but I don’t want to eat the whole cake! And I would!

Someone at work brought in a Rachael Ray cooking magazine and I naturally looked through it. And there was a picture and recipe for a German Chocolate Cake. I love German Chocolate Cake. I have it for my birthday each year. But it is a fussy cake to make so I usually have someone pick one up at a bakery for my day. But here was this cake and I was having a day off on Wednesday and I have one of those ½ year birthdays coming up this week so I made a cake.

A lot of people think this cake has its origins in Germany. It does not. It is made with a blend of chocolate with sugar already added developed by Samuel German in 1852. Recipes using this chocolate abound. It is all American and has the classic caramel pecan coconut frosting between its layers. Apparently the original recipe was published in a newspaper or magazine in the 1920s and it has been a classic American cake ever since.

In looking up the history of this cake I find that the recipe gets tweaked as in the number of eggs, whipping the egg whites separately or not, using cake flour, and even messing around with the type of chocolate used. The recipe from the magazine that I am using doesn’t call for German Sweet Chocolate but for semi-sweet and cocoa powder. But all the same, it is chocolate cake.

Mise en place (I think I even pronounce this properly now).Preheat oven to 350 F.

1 ¾ Cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ Cup cocoa powder. Whisk dry ingredients together. Melt 4 ounces semisweet chocolate with ½ cup water. Separate 4 eggs.

Cream 2 sticks (1 Cup) butter in the mixer until pale. Add 2 cups sugar and beat until fluffy and light. This takes 3-4 minutes. Add egg yolks one at a time. (This is a fussy part.) Now beat in the melted chocolate and 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla. Then add the flour mixture alternately with 1 Cup buttermilk. (This is how my Mom always mixed her Best Ever Chocolate Cake recipe, so this is not really fussy.) Mix that up all together until nicely blended. Good job.

Fussy part coming up here. In clean dry bowl whip the egg whites for about 4 minutes until firm peaks form. Fold this into the chocolate batter.

Now we are set to bake. During all these minutes of whipping I have prepared the pans. These are 9 inch pans sprayed with cooking spray, lined with parchment, and sprayed again with cooking spray.

Now wash the dishes.

Make the frosting: 4 large egg yolks, 12 ounce can of evaporated milk, 2 teaspoon vanilla, 1 ¼ Cups sugar, 1 ½ sticks butter, 14 ounce pkg of flaked coconut, 1 ½ cups chopped pecans. Whisk egg yolks and milk. Add the rest and cook over medium heat stirring constantly until golden and thickened. This will take about 12-14 minutes. Add nuts and coconut, remove to a bowl, let cool stirring occasionally for about 30 minutes. Frost cake.

I don’t know why I think of seven minute frosting as too fussy; here I’ve stood over the stove for twice that long stirring and stirring and stirring! While doing all this stirring, I think that I could have used the cold coffee from this morning to melt with the chocolate instead of water. I also wonder if I should have used my 8 inch pans. The recipe said the cakes may flatten some and they absolutely did. I’m also wondering what to do with leftover frosting because this sure looks like a lot, turns out I use it all after all.

The next cake I bake will be a rainbow sprinkles with white frosting. I am making this from scratch this year instead of from the box. This will be one of the desserts for our Thanksgiving Eve Steak and Cake Family Feast. It is the favorite of my son-in-law and we celebrate his birthday then.

Let us eat cake! Then it will be back to cookies!

Building a Home

November 9, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ Leave a comment

I wore myself out this weekend so leftovers go into the crock pot for Monday’s dinner. It will be chicken soup. I have put in here a frozen bit of cooked chicken, frozen stew vegetables from a previous meal, chicken or turkey broth (not sure which this is) and a can of white beans. This will blend nicely all day and I can make quick rolls, popovers, or might I even try for biscuits?!

If you ever have the opportunity to work on a Habitat for Humanity house building project, please do. This is what I did this past Saturday. The weather held, not too warm, not too cold, and not rainy even though the clouds and wind moved in a bit. I signed up with my church to do this. I have always believed in this cause and admire former President Jimmy Carter immensely for his involvement.

I do not tell you all this for my own aggrandizement. I have plenty of selfish reasons to be involved and this is only my second time. First of all I do not want to think of myself as old and unable. Second, if a man can do these tasks, so can I. I admit that is a personal untruth. I do not have the upper body strength that some construction work requires but I love power tools! And that can make a big difference in strength. Thirdly, it is “refreshing” to do physical work after spending all my working days using my brain instead of brawn. And it builds a home for a family that will never know my part in this. Anonymous giving. Except now I have told all of you. Oops!

Now it is off to work to use my brain! Have a fabulous Monday!

This is childhood!

November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ 1 Comment

Greetings! I have been thinking about cookies. When I started thinking about cookies there were 10 weekends before Christmas. I think “one batch of cookies per weekend”. That would be plenty of cookies and a nice variety, actually a large variety, but not quite a dozen different types. I begin a list of cookie recipes: “daddy holiday oatmeal”, cappuccino flats, gingerbread?, spritz?, hmmmmm?

I go through my handy dandy KAF 200th Anniversary Cookbook and see what might be in there. I do this because I have too many cookbooks and this concentrates my mind in one place. The problem is I don’t find a great deal in there that interests me. In fact there were maybe three.

So I made a half recipe of the molasses cookies. These did not turn out how I expected them to. I was thinking along the lines of a sugar covered crinkle cookie but these were cake-like. Would be good to make a filling and make a sandwich cookie. So I eat a few and freeze the rest. The dough was soft and batter-like which surprised me. I had bought a Christmas cookie pan/sheet, not quite sure. I thought this pan might be useful for this cookie batter. So here they are. Interesting little muffin type cookie cakes. These actually tasted better the next day. So we ate a few and froze the rest.

Now I have this one set of cookies in two shapes in the freezer. And I found some more cookie dough rolled in a log. I think this may be “daddy oatmeal holiday cookie” but I am not sure. I have a lot of potential for cookies now. For dessert I had also just made a pumpkin custard which looks more like a pumpkin mousse. (That will be another story.)

You may be wondering at this point how is the title of this blog essay relevant. Hold your horses; I’m getting there!

At work I make a brash statement that I will bake something for the group. Chocolate is the preference. Thinking that hubby will be working late this gives me opportunity to bake something instead of fixing supper. All day I am trying to think of something besides chocolate cake to make. And I do have recipe for a very nice double chocolate cookie but I used the last of my molasses the other day. No-Bake Cookies come to mind. They are chocolate. I have the ingredients. Now I have to find the proper recipe. This cookie is known by several names. Some people call them haystacks, boiled cookies, and such. There are different recipes that change the amounts of the ingredients.

My sister recalls the combination of ingredients that Mom used. She published it in one of those recipe collection booklets that organizations assemble for fund raisers. I also have Mom’s original typed version.

While looking for these I flip through the large index file box that holds a lot of Mom’s recipe clippings. It occurs to me that I could just bake through the cookie section of this. It’s an idea. Would I do it? A lot of these call for shortenings like Spry and Crisco. I would have to substitute butter. Hmmmmm?

I gather the ingredients for the No-Bake Cookies. Basically it is 1/2 cup of everything except the vanilla, sugar, and oatmeal.

Mix 2 Cups sugar, 1/2 Cup butter, 1/2 Cup Cocoa, and 1/2 Cup milk in a large saucepan. Bring to boil, boil one minute, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat. Stir in remaining ingredients: 1/2 Cup peanut butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 3 Cups oats. Drop on waxed or parchment paper. And like my Mom’s typewritten instructions “cool and eat”.

While I am stirring in the remaining ingredients the aroma is chocolatey and peanutey and smells just like my childhood. I did not expect such a vivid olfactory memory. But there it was, and I savored it. Thank you Mom!

PS: I just noticed how my Mom’s calls for 2 teas peanut butter and my sister writes it for 1/2 Cup. What’s this about? Very interesting.

Miscellaneous Food Stuffs

October 30, 2015October 30, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ Leave a comment

The frost is coming so I must harvest the mint leaves. What am I going to do with all of these? I made a pot of mint tea but now what? What about putting some in vodka and making mint extract? I read somewhere about making one’s own vanilla extract by putting a vanilla bean into vodka…

What to do with broken eggs? Went to the grocery store for a few items mostly for baking and when bringing the bags back to the car one dropped. The egg carton popped open and a few eggs rolled onto the parking lot. Oh no! Not the eggs! Well, one was lost completely as it had spilled its guts all over the ground. Three others had cracked their shells but the membrane was intact. Still I felt these needed to be used this same day. Scrambled eggs for supper maybe?

Made a frittata instead. Shredded four small potatoes in my Cuisinart food processor. I only remembered this summer that it has a shredder attachment. Finely diced one onion. Sautéed the onion for five minutes in oil then added the potatoes. I should have squeezed the potatoes drier and coated them with a little oil prior to putting them in the frying pan. I have to stir them and scrape them off the bottom of the pan frequently. I also dice up ½ green bell pepper a small chunk of ham and about 2 ounces of cheese. Crack four eggs into a bowl, pour in ¼ cup milk and whisk. Add a little salt, if you use salt, and some black pepper. When you think the potatoes look brown enough pour all the ingredients together in the fry pan and mix well. I use a cast iron skillet so I can put this directly into the oven, 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Turns out to be tasty and filling.

I did not look at a recipe for the above but was trying to put together something from memory from cookbooks. I think I had the notion that the potatoes would be crispier like a hash brown. Perhaps if I had lined the cast iron skillet with the potato mixture, baked until crisp, and then added the egg and ham mixture? Sort of like a quiche with a potato crust? I think I saw something like that on a Facebook post from a food/cooking site using muffin tins. So not an original idea of mine.

Speaking of Facebook I find it is a fabulous place to get recipes that one wants to try. Then one can monkey around with the idea and personalize it. I bet women have been doing that in their kitchens since the dawn of time.

Dinners for the rest of the week have not been “recipe” dinners.

Burgers: add your own toppings. Hubby added Roquefort or Camembert or other smelly cheese; I added avocado, tomato, and salsa. One night we cut up a kielbasa, smashed potatoes and cooked frozen peas. And tonight is baked fish fillets sprinkled with lemon juice and dill weed, leftover smashed potatoes, and frozen veg.

Here’s dessert! This is from http://www.dessertfortwo.com/2015/10/caramel-banana-pudding-2/

Nooks and Crannies

October 27, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ Leave a comment

I decide to make sour dough “something”. This will be for breakfast so I ask if it should be pancakes, waffles, or English muffins. It is the latter than would be preferred by the other human resident of my house, the hubby. The cats don’t get a vote!

I open the KAF 200^th Anniversary Cookbook and read the recipe and instructions (Page 538). With raised doughs it is necessary to read through the recipe to know the timing of the rises to determine the amount of time needed for the end product. English muffins will be fun as well since they are cooked on top of the stove and not baked in the oven.

The starter-sponge is prepared in the evening. This recipe does not use additional yeast. The current recipe at the King Arthur Flour website does. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/sourdough-english-muffins-recipe

The sponge is made by mixing together the starter, milk, and about 3 cups of the flour. Mix well and cover with plastic wrap for 2-24 hours. I tell myself I must remember to get up at a reasonable hour on this weekend morning to prepare the dough. Made the sponge at 9:30 PM and will plan to get up 7 AM.

1 Cup sourdough starter; 1 ½ C milk; 5 ½ C Flour; 1 Tab sugar; 1 Tab salt; 1 teas baking soda; cornmeal to sprinkle on baking sheet.

Mix the rest of the dry ingredients minus the cornmeal in a bowl and then mix this into the sponge. It takes some work to get all incorporated together. Then let rest for about an hour.

Now for the “fun” part: rolling the dough out thin. This is easier said than done but finally I get it to where it seems good enough to cut. I try a number of items but settle on a round drinking glass that is 3 ½ inches in diameter. My biscuit cutter seemed too small as the recipe said they shrink as they cook.

These were a great success. I am glad I had a griddle so I could cook more than a few in a skillet at the time. After resting the cut outs on the cornmeal covered baking pans for 15-20 minutes and heating the griddle and spraying it with cooking spray, they cook ten minutes on each side.

This recipe made 24 so I now have two sets of six fork-split muffins in freezer bags in the freezer for future enjoyment.

Now we can make our own “egg mcmuffins” with the baked eggs from the “Planning Breakfast” post. I had previously been putting the egg in the middle of a muffin (wheat-germ whole wheat, also from the KAF cookbook). I mentioned this to a colleague at a McDonalds the other day when I ordered just a coffee and she was ordering lunch. The cashier was in good spirits and showed good humor. He was a pleasure to order from. I rarely go to McDonalds and only for the coffee when there is the “medium for $1” special. I was disappointed with the pumpkin spice coffee as they use syrup for the flavoring. I suppose I will just have to go across the street and pay more for the DD coffee in the future. Live and learn.

A mind at rest. Hah!

October 23, 2015October 23, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ 1 Comment

So I caught hubby’s cold and after one night of no sleep due to scratchy throat; the second night I slept very well and woke up rested. Still have a cold but not bad enough to stay home from work. I actually have some energy that morning. I get out chicken, cut up potatoes, carrots, onion and celery and throw this in the crockpot along with a sprinkling of Herbs de Provence (just because it was on the counter) and some apple cider (because I had been thinking about cooking chicken with cider). I will add green beans when I come home from work and that’s dinner.

About the middle of the afternoon my cold hits me full force. I sound like I have a cold. You can hear me breathe. I am sniffling into my tissues, drinking hot tea, and thinking I will take a nap when I get home. I’ll curl up on the sofa and read my library book. It is due back at the library next week. Dinner is already made in the crock pot.

So I get home from work and change into comfy clothes. I prepare my book and my box o’ tissues. And here’s what I going through my mind:

The bed sheets need changing. I wonder if I should do a load of laundry? Cat box needs cleaning. Did the cats eat their food this morning? Where is Squeaky? Foodimentary says its National Boston Cream Pie day: do I have anything to make cream filling with? Should I? A friend posted that she doesn’t like Boston Cream Pie. What should I make of that? I need to embroider something over the stain on the front of this favorite sweatshirt. The hairs on my chin need to be tweezed (you older women will relate; you young women will go “hunh?”). I should look at my pattern book to make clothes for granddaughter. How come there’s no mail today? And then I have a sneezing fit! Wash the hands yet one more time.

So here’s what the body does: Cleans the cat box. Wash hands. Pulls the sheets off the bed. Sorts laundry into two baskets and puts one load in the washer. Wash hands. When I got out the chicken this morning I found cookie dough in the freezer. I take the cookie dough and wonder why I made this. It appears to be a plain sugar cookie. I put green beans in the crock pot. Wash hands. I remove two of the chicken leg quarters from the crock pot and remove meat from bone and put it in a freezer bag so I can make chicken soup sometime in the future. Wash hands. I read some blogs while preheating the oven to bake cookies. I wash the few containers from my lunch so hubby doesn’t find dishes in the sink when he comes home. I slice the cookie dough. I find some chocolate chips and think about making a glaze for the cookies to fancy them up. And then I do.

I did not make a glaze. What I did was put a few chocolate chips on the hot cookies as they came out of the oven, I covered the pan briefly with another cookie sheet, and then I spread the melted chocolate chips on the cookie, and voila!

I really should eat that messy one there in front. Hmmmm?

Meanwhile hubby calls saying he is on his way home from work and not to worry about dinner. Little does he know it‘s all taken care of.

Leftovers/a novel bread baking experience/pictures of food

October 20, 2015October 20, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

As the title suggests this will be a stream of consciousness blog about food …

Leftovers from dinner

First: I miss having the kids around to eat all this food. Sometimes I like to set a table with a well-rounded meal: meat, veggie, bread, dessert, etc. My step-daughters are good eaters. They always seemed to rave about my cooking and baking. I miss having them around the dinner table. My son became a foodie and likes good tasting food of good quality. There came a time when he stopped eating packaged bread so I had to make bread or have bakery bread on hand, along with plain yogurt, fruit, carrots and the like. Hummus was very popular with him. My daughter eats well of the basic foods minus cheese and milk products. Now these family dinner tables are reserved for an occasional weekend visit or holiday meals. The wee ones are growing up and going out on their own, establishing families and lives of their own, as it should be. But I miss them.

Leftovers are not always a problem. Sometimes leftover bread becomes a problem. Especially should I get the notion to make a new loaf or muffins when the first batch has not been completely consumed. Like this evening. I was reading the KAF 200th Anniversary Cookbook again and looking at batter breads. I have half a loaf of pumpkin bread and a few pieces of Artisan bread left here!

Second: I decided to make a yeast pumpkin bread off the KAF website. It was a cool fall day and we were hanging around the living room parallel playing on our computers in between the hubby sleeping off and on due to having come down with a cold. You must understand that there are members of my family that think I am a fabulous baker. I am mediocre at best but I do bake which makes me unlike other people who do not bake or obsessively think about baking. Actually I must correct this thought. I am not mediocre; I am pretty darn good, just not always creative, or that knowledgeable about the science of baking. Mind you I have several books in my repertoire/collection that could teach me about the science but I have not memorized the information. I can tell you bits and pieces only.

That said, the bread dough is stiff and I set it out to rise. The recipe said this would take 45 minutes. So after an hour and a half I “call up” the KAF baker for a live chat about this issue. I have never called a baking or recipe hotline! I was not sure what to expect. It turns out that trying to rise bread dough in a 65 degree kitchen is going to take quite some time especially since I used the scoop and sweep method of measuring the flour instead of the proper method: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipe/measuring-flour.html

So the KAF on-line baker told me to boil water in the microwave, remove the boiling water, and put the dough in there to rise. This creates a warm moist environment that the yeast will like. It worked!

So after the second rise I baked the bread in the oven and voila!

This was fabulous.

Tastes good too!

Third: Since blogging about food I have been taking pictures of dinners and what I have made. I have not always written about a specific dinner but have enjoyed looking at the photos. Here are some in no particular order:

spaghetti meal

Irish soda bread

Cole slaw made in my food processor when I just realized that it had a shredder attachment. Served with ribs.

Planning breakfast

October 18, 2015October 18, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ Leave a comment

I wake up on Sunday morning. Hubby is coming down with a cold so he sleeps in. We miss church. I am sure we can be forgiven. This is so unlike what I used to be like but that’s a whole other story. I still have faith; I find I am not as compulsive about church attendance.

So I am spending time blogging instead of writing my memoirs. I am spending too much time cooking/baking instead of sewing. And I am spending too much time watching TV instead of reading. And the housework is barely getting done! We did winterize the trailer yesterday after looking at new ones. So now I am dreaming of a new trailer with a few more amenities. But this is not a priority for our finances.

It is cold now. Well there is frost outside on the cars and the outside thermometer says it is 30 degrees. My weather App says it was 27 degrees. Brrrr!

Here’s Squeaky staring intently out of the dining room window. There must be a bird in the tree out there.

We spent too much money on groceries the day before since we did not go to the discount grocery store. We went to Stew Leonard’s. We went because we wanted to make fully loaded nachos for a meal and they have the best tortilla chips. Well, they have wonderful cheeses and a wonderful bakery and really good New England clam chowder and good meat even though it runs a bit higher in price than we are accustomed. So we bought too much. Now there is too much food in my fridge and pantry. What to cook first?

I put the coffee on to drip. I was going to write “to perk” but it is an automatic drip coffee maker. I have bought minimally processed breakfast sausages and thought this would be a nice Sunday morning breakfast treat. Then I remember the other day making baked eggs in a muffin tin and think I could make some more of these for weekday breakfasts. Lots of protein which supposedly is good for mornings and good for weight loss.

Cook up the sausages in the cast iron skillet. Four of these are for our breakfast this morning. I slice up the other four to put in the baked eggs.

Break an egg into each muffin cup. First spray with cooking spray.

Grate the cheese and assemble. I used about two ounces of sharp cheddar for 10 eggs. Oh, and be sure to poke each egg yolk. I am not sure why I think that is a necessary step. I know it would be essential if cooking the eggs in the microwave.

Bake these for 20-25 minutes. Let cool only slightly before removing from the pan and placing on a plate to cool.

Here they are cooling in my fridge. (I forgot to take a picture of them right out of the oven.)

They don’t really look appetizing but toast a piece of bread, “nuke” an egg in the micro for 20 seconds, wrap it in the toast, and you’ve got breakfast in a jiff.

And breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Dream job: test kitchen cook!

October 16, 2015October 16, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ 1 Comment

Here’s a picture of the cats.

Just a random picture I decided to throw in.

I have gained 3-4 pounds since I have been back to baking and not deliberately thinking about calories, portion control, healthy foods, and not eating what is enjoyable. I will just have to start giving away the baked goods.

I finally found something enjoyable. I have been baking but have not been completely satisfied with the outcomes. I made that coffee cake and although it was nice right out of the oven with coffee on the lazy morning, it sat on the counter the rest of the week. Well, part of it did. I took half of it to work and my coworkers ate that half. But the rest just sat there. I admit I nibbled at the Crumble (topping) and sent pieces to work with the hubby but that was more like obligation. I baked bread which is fabulous right out of the oven spread with butter, eaten with dinner, but any leftover sits there in the breadbox. I was not happy with the sourdough bread that I made the other weekend, other than freshly baked. The loaf or boule did not rise well. I baked “Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day” and this was fabulous right out of the oven too. But hubby and I did not gorge ourselves on it and now there is a small piece of this boule sitting along side the sourdough in the bread box. They are not light enough to use in a bread pudding type dish. I may just throw them in the freezer for breadcrumbs or croutons at some future date as long as I don’t clean out the freezer and dispose of them.

I HATE to throw away food!

Banana bars: This is another effort to bake through the KAF 200th Anniversary Cookbook. These are on page 356. Not willing to leave well enough alone, I use whole wheat pastry flour instead of regular whole wheat, and I add walnuts and leave out the poppy seeds.

I chose this recipe because I had three over ripe bananas providing their fragrance to my kitchen. I am not sure what it is about KAF but here is another banana recipe that adds cornmeal to the batter.

So I mix all this up and spread it in the pan to bake. Just for fun, I sprinkle some Hershey Special Dark Chocolate Chips on top.

Voila, banana brownies! And these are tasty. I send half of them to work with hubby to prevent me from eating them all and gaining even more pounds!

They are tasty with a glass of cold milk.

This is all well and good but as I mentioned earlier I do not leave well enough alone. I am thinking “pumpkin”. I have about three-quarters of a can of pumpkin in the fridge. This is leftover from a pumpkin smoothie trial earlier this week. I can substitute pumpkin for the banana. Why not? I would need to add spices too.

So here’s “my recipe”. (There may be some pumpkin bar recipe out there so I am not really claiming to invent this. It is my adaptation of the KAF recipe.)

Cream one stick butter with 2/3 cup packed brown sugar and one egg. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and the pumpkin. (an entire can or 3/4 of a can).Whisk dry ingredients together in separate bowl: 1 1/4 Cup all-purpose flour, 1 Cup whole wheat pastry flour, 1/4 Cup cornmeal, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, and 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves. Stir in dry ingredients and mix just til blended. Now stir in 1/2 Cup raisins and 1/2 Cup chopped walnuts. Spread in 10 x 14 jelly roll pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray.

This batter was dryer and more difficult to spread and smooth than the banana bars. But with patience I managed to get it spread. I sprinkled it with chocolate chips and baked it in a 350 oven for 22 minutes.

These have a slightly lumpier appearance and chewier texture. They turned out pretty good. Cool!

Chili a la Aldi: on how to assemble a meal

October 14, 2015October 14, 2015 ~ nancyruth ~ Leave a comment

Aldi is one of my discount grocery stores that I like to shop. Their prices are fantastic and I find their brands to be good. But like all groceries with prepared/processed foods one must look at labels to avoid ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and the like. I did find HFCS in their pickle relish! I do stock my pantry with the canned goods and have not been too disappointed by their produce. In fact that was where we bought the absolute best tasting honeydew melon this summer. And the cantaloupe was fabulous too. I don’t know where they get them. Could be USA, could be somewhere else. I admit I do not always pay attention.

It is autumn and the weather is cooling down. Chili is a good meal to prepare early in the week as its flavors get better with the leftovers. October is apparently National Chili Month. Who knew? Check out the following website for daily food holidays: http://foodimentary.com/

One can make chili any number of ways. I use ground turkey and beans. In my pantry I have chili flavored beans, regular pinto beans, canned tomatoes with chili, canned corn with red and green bell peppers, and chili powder.

You could just put the content of the cans in a pot to simmer and have a quick chili. This might come in handy for camping or road trips or if the power is out and you need to cook your dinner on the grill or camp stove.

First dice the onion. I do not cut onion in a professional manner. Julia Child would be appalled! But I get the job done. Then dice the green pepper. While this is sautéing in the bit of cooking oil, I just then remember to put in a garlic clove. I watched a TV show in which Jacques Pepin diced a garlic clove. For a while I could do that just like him but now I have forgotten how. So I just do my best and throw that in the pan too.

When hubby watches me cut up vegetables he yells at me to “curl your fingers”! I find this the most awkward way to hold the vegetable but I do try.

I read somewhere that fat enhances flavors so I put the chili powder in at this time. I then brown the turkey in this mixture before adding all the canned ingredients. I need a lot of practice to be a recipe blogger because I forget to take step by step pictures. But here are a few:

Not having any cheddar cheese we serve this in bowls with a slice of American Cheese on top. I toast up some ends of leftover sourdough bread on the griddle and serve these toastettes along side.

Dinner is served.

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mykitchenmythoughts

ordinary life and cooking

Cake Envy

Building a Home

This is childhood!

Miscellaneous Food Stuffs

Nooks and Crannies

A mind at rest. Hah!

Leftovers/a novel bread baking experience/pictures of food

Planning breakfast

Chili a la Aldi: on how to assemble a meal

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