Humor me and just go with it

August 31, 2011 3 Comments

Day 4 without power. Ali’s first day of school was yesterday… Ryan’s today. Nothing like headed into high school all funky (although ice cold showers have their place,removing 4 day funkiness is not one of them)

(and thanks to friends who have offered to help. But you know teenagers.. Or will soon!!!)

I had a fun post planned for today bit my fat fingers on my tiny phone make it difficult. We wont even begin to talk about my failing eyes and this

( insert picture of broken glasses here)

So humor me by pretending that this is the first time that you’ve read this …

the funny thing about tradition

Please cut and paste if you can’t click on it. It’s one of my favorites….

And for the record… Ali did have cookies yesterday

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No bake cookies 😉

( thanks mama pea. You are the original Rock star!!). I bow unto you..

Off to drive the senior *sniffle*. To school….

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ricotta.

August 27, 2011 8 Comments

I can’t seem to get Dexy’s midnight runners’ out of my head today. Anyone else??

 

I know that the song is about  EILEEN  but in my head I’ve been singing IRENE. I know, I can be twisted.

Kay.. enough of that. who likes Cheesecake?

Lasagna?

Cheese ravioli?

yeah. me too. and three.

Ok.. guilty, when it comes to cheese I eat one and a half my portion of a serving. Sometimes more.

I must have som kind of mis guided genetic mutation. Yeah, that sounds good. It couldn’t POSSIBLY be my lack of self control??

nah.. didn’t think so.

 

I like super-dee-duperly love cheese

 

It is the sole reason that I could never become vegan.

Cheese. I love ricotta cheese. I used to be able to buy an imported one that I just LOVED. Then the store stopped carrying it. That one cheese ruined me for any other ricotta. Ruined. I swear I could always taste the careseaguem gum ( or whatever it was called) in most grocery store brands.

I’ve seen fresh ricotta in the gourmet cheese section, but just could not stomach the price.

Imagine my surprise when I came across a recipe for freshly made home made ricotta. made at home! (hmm. probably why it is called home made?)

If you are ready to walk away right now, thinking ” no way. she might be able to do it, but I never will.” then STOP. right in your tracks. You CAN do this, you  SHOULD do this & you will not believe the results! ( and never ever need to recycle a plastic ricotta container that the ricotta had started sucking the plastic container taste into.)

adapted from epicurious

you will need.

1 quart ( 32 ounces) of milk ( I used 1 %)

1 Cup heavy cream

1/2 tsp Kosher salt

juice of 2 lemons.

cheesecloth-lind strainer over a bowl

In a large pot over high heat, bring milk, cream & salt to a rolling boil, stirring often so that it doesn’t scorch.

Then add the lemon juice, again stirring often until it curdles. ( don’t be grossed out, we WANT it to curdle) Cook, stirring for 2 minutes.

Slowly pur mixture ( be careful. it’s hot *sizzle*) into cheese cloth lined strainer

*FULL disclosure*

Ryan came up while I was making this today just as I was pouring it into the strainer. I SWEAR to you.. It hit me at that moment why it is called cheesecloth!  HE said, “mom, you are kidding me!!” sadly. no.

 

and let it drain. Once curd is separated from the whey, place in the refrigerator to chill (keep a bowl underneath because it will continue to drain) .

Now when I made it yesterday, I through out the whey. But I have been reading about ways to use it AND got to thinking about how much we pay for whey protein in the store.  HMMM???

 

so today I drained it into a mason jar. I will find a use for it.

Muhawww!

so here is the final product

what? you want a closer look?

cool. buckets. I’m yer girl 🙂

this was amazing on our pizza last night.. and will somehow be a part on tonights’ dinner. Please try to make this. I can only compare it to….

jarred store- bought sauce vs. home made marinara

 

chocolate flavored candy disks vs. Godvia Chocolate.

giant jug of wine to Vintage cabernet.

Easter peeps to.. well, really?… anything……

ok.. one last bit of news .. My half-sister gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl today!

welcome to the world, Kalli Grace… I will embroider your quilt & send it on you way!

I made it for you with much love 🙂

~aunty shel 🙂

 

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oh. yum.

August 24, 2011 6 Comments

Ok.. who here shops at wholesale cubs? I do sometimes but usually only for certain things. Not everything in bulk is a better deal.

So while I was en route to pick up my Chobani (love this stuff) I was star-struck when I saw this

I do love all things Italian and I ❤ my garden and veggies so I stopped to look at it & guess what?  It is another book that the recipes are grouped by seasons! What a wonderful way to use the foods that are local & fresh 🙂

I went back and forth on whether I could justify buying it, after all , I just bought THIS earlier this week , but in the end, I just couldn’t leave it behind.

After buying the book ( no self-control here) I sat int he parking lot & flipped through it & one recipe stood out as absolutleyhastobemadetonight. But… I needed cream.

But who goes into a wholesale club & just comes out with cream? (ignoring the fact that I just came out with yogurt, lemons & a cookbook) So I did what anyone else would do, I bought a keg of EVOO as well, because it’s also time to make some pesto.

Quite typical of me I barely ever follow directions, so this was my take on the recipe

Tomato Gratin

4 round tomatoes, halved , scooped and seeded ( I sliced a bit off the bottom so that the stood flat in the baking dish)~ scooped centers chopped

3/4 cup heavy cream ( maybe just a bit more for soaking the bread)

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

3 plum tomatoes, finely diced

olive oil

a few slices on day old bread ( I used a rustic Rosemary bread that I bought at the Farmers’ market last week)

Chives, chopped, sea salt & pepper.

Preheat oven to 350

After halving the tomatoes, drain them on a paper towel while preparing filling.

Pour cream, chopped tomatoes &  chopped garlic to a small pan & heat over medium heat for about 10 minutes.  Sauce should turn pink & tomatoes should begin to break down. Season with salt & pepper and allow sauce to cool.

While tomatoes are cooking/cooling, tear bread into small pieces, add remaining garlic & cover with cream, pressing down so that all the bread is covered.

Let soak for about 5 minutes.

In a bowl, mix cream mixture, bread crumbs,and chopped tomato centers. Test for salt & pepper.

Place tomatoes in olive oil lined baking dish and divide filling between tomatoes.

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or so, until the the filling form a light crust.

sprinkle with chopped chives & serve.

over. the. top.  so darn yummy!!!!!!

You need to make these. so they have heavy cream..

so what.

Just do it… all the cool kids are 🙂

 

do it!

do it!

do it! 

(then invite me over, because I would like to eat this again)

on another note.. the barefoot garden survived the Earthquake yesterday

ok.. maybe one little causuality….

ciao bellas!

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: make-ahead, side dishes Tagged With: , , , , , ,

oh no she didn’t!

August 22, 2011 3 Comments

Oh YES she did!

 

So here’s a shocker.. I don’t really like potatoes. I mean I don’t dislike them or anything, but they can be kind of boring.. not  at all exciting as say.. maybe

Cheese?

If I’m going to eat calories, I want them to be for something that I love, not just like.

SO when I was catching up on some blog reading & I saw a picture of Angela making home made potato chips.. I sais to myself, “self.. you should try that” so I did.

I started by washing the potatoes, then slicing them about 1/4 inch thick. I tossed them with some Evoo, salt & pepper & placed them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet

(makes for real easy clean-up 😉

 

I roasted them at 375 for about 20 minutes, carefully turning them 1/2 way through.

I served them alongside a garlic mayo that I made by just stirring some crushed garlic into a small bowl of mayo.. 

friends, this was an easy recipe and inexpensive and so darn good.  Even for this potato non-lover.

Here’s where I got a little crazy.  I made way too many chips, so we had leftovers. I put them in a small paper lunch bag ( the paper helped absorb the excess oil).

 

So Sunday afternoon, I was trying to decide what to do with them (I hate to throw food away) and it hit me..

Potato Chip NACHOS!!   seriously..it just made so much sense

so I placed the chips on the cookie sheet & placed them in a 375 oven for about 5 minutes to warm them, then topped with cheddar cheese, onions,& jalepeno

 

I placed them under the broiler for a few minutes..

served with  FF Greek yogurt & cilantro.

 

OMG!

I finally think I have a potato recipe that I love 😉

smooches!

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granola dreams.

August 19, 2011 2 Comments

Last night I had dreams.

many of them.

They started put fairly painless but then some of them turned into nightmares. You know those night mares where you open your mouth to scream and you try with all of your pretty little heart & no sound comes out?

Yup. Those.

I kept having one occuring dream that everyone was trying to face time me ( video chat for those of you who have never heard of this like I hadn’t until last week) on my phone while I was sleeping. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t keep my eyes closed.. I was trying to figure out who was trying to watch me at 2:23 am.

Here is the weird part… Fenway had nightmares too! She was wimpering & crying & running away from something… strange coincidence?

or Something else?

*insert Twilight Zone theme song here*

For the record.. mr. barefoot just snored through the whole crazy whirlwind of dreams going on around him.

This sure wasn’t any horror movie because when then morning came, we were all alive and in our beds..

and if our heads spun around in the middle of the night, well, we wouldn’t have known because they were facing the right way when we made our way to the kitchen for some

Granola 🙂

everything is better with granola.

I said so.

I recently came across a book Clean Food by Terry Walters. I looked at mr. barefoot with my big green eyes while we were poking around Borders going out of business sale (BIG time BOO to that) and next thing I new, the book was coming home with me.

I did what every cool person does on a Sunny Sunday afternoon. I planted my dupa on the couch & read it cover to cover. Good Stuff. It clarifies in detail all that is clean food,(hence, the title) meaning minimally processed AND she breaks it up with recipes season by season for the freshest ingredients year-round

BRILLIANT!

I  came across her recipe for Maple Nut Granola and since I’m such a NUT myself I put on my pants & ran right out & bought puffed rice (the only ingredient that I didn’t have in my pantry) and got right to work on it

btw~ puffed rice.. $1.59 for a big honking box!

Maple Nut Granola

4 cups rolled oats

2 cups crispy brown rice cereal

1 1⁄2 cups toasted sunflower seeds

1 1⁄2 cups shredded dried coconut

1 cup sliced almonds, pecans or cashews ( I used walnuts )

1 cup raisins

2+ tablespoons cinnamon

3⁄4 cup canola oil ( I used 1/2  canola oil & 1/4 cup coconut oil)

3⁄4 cup maple syrup

1 teaspoon almond extract ( I used vanilla…. because that’s what I had…)

Preheat oven to 250°F.

Mix together all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, syrup and almond extract. Pour wet mixture over dry and combine.

Transfer granola to 9 x 12-inch glass casserole and spread evenly. Place on top rack of oven and bake 30 minutes. Mix to ensure even baking and prevent raisins from burning and bake another 30 minutes or until golden.

(I used a foil lined cookie sheet. I ended up dumping the whole mix on the sheet & finished mixing it right on the sheet..)

(I stirred it with a big wooden spoon about every 15 minutes )

Remove from oven and cool completely to set. Store in airtight container.

Makes 10 cups

so yeah… some home made granola, with berries & greek yogurt

much better than trying to escape my stalkers at 2am.

seriously… stop watching me sleep… it’s a little bit weird. just a little  *giggle*

plus, you need to get  to the groc for some puffed rice!

smooches!

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mercury is in retrograde

August 16, 2011 6 Comments

I’ve been saying this for years and yet, I have no idea what it means. I actually have no idea where I even ever heard this term

And yet I use it often. What does it mean you ask? This is what I refer to when everything seems to be going well (or at least ok) and the BAM! out of the blue.. everything goes wrong at once. EVERYTHING.

I know you know what I mean.

Like when a certain cutie pie pup decides to eat the butter that you are about to bake cookies with…or when you spend an insane amount on material to make Halloween costumes for your daughter and her friends then spend 4 days crying as you work with it because the material is so dang slippery?

Clearly that was a long visit of Ms. Mercury to her beloved Retrograde..

(which reminds me.. Halloween is in like less that 2 months… eeik!!!)

must. get. thinking.

Truth be told, I don’t even know where I had even heard this term… perhaps from one of those many awesome *outdated-to-everyone-but-me* 80’s or 90’s sitcom?

Perhaps. Either way. It happens.

Yesterday, it rained. Like ALOT.

I really like rain. LIke more than sun (go ahead, gasp.. everybody does)

When it rains you can do this with your favorite girl in the world.

When it rains, I can spend the day in the kitchen (or curled up with a book or my fav blankie ) yes, at my tender young age I still drag my blankie from room to room with me.

don’t judge.

So it is more than obvious to me that as I entered the kitchen to play yesterday afternoon at that EXACT moment..

Mercury went into Retrograde.

It started by hearing a peeing sound coming from the living room.

nope. she was innocent.

it was my fireplace. I did the girly thing first & called mr. barefoot.

no answer. Darn ( I said something much more colorful than this.)

I put a bucket in the fireplace listened to it drip

and drip and drip.

I went upstairs to grab old towels to wipe up what had already puddled on the floor to realize that the windows were open in one of the bedrooms and the carpets were soaked.

duh? it never did occur to me to check windows as this beautiful N’oreaster ripped through my yard. nope.

Next was the call from Scott that he would be on the later train. again. C’la vie.

I cleaned up the multiple messes, cried to my friends on Facebook, poured myself a glass of wine and planted my patootiee on the couch with trashy TV.

Today is a new day and so for breakfast this morning I am making what should have been for dessert last night. I’ve been hearing about this combination for awhile, but it took me finding avocados at a wicked cool sale (I’m from Mass, I can say wicked) At the Whole Paycheck Store for me to be brave enough to try it.

adapted from Whole Living Magazine

Chocolate-mint pudding

3 avocadoes

6 Tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 cup raw honey

3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/8 tsp mint extract

fresh mint leaves

sea salt

1) place avocado, cocoa, honey, vanilla, mint and a dash of salt in a food processor and puree until smooth.

Sprinkle with sea salt and garnish with fresh mint leaves. (those aren’t sprinkles, I used a new Himalayan pink sea salt.)

seriously.. I made pudding from avocado! The only thing that I will say is that because all the ingredients are room temp, the pudding was too warm. I fear that refrigerating the avocado or the honey prior to blending would change the texture in a not so good way, so this is a definite make-ahead recipe. Mine’s chilling as I type 🙂

The pudding itself has a wonderfully smooth texture. It is very chocolatey. I think next time I will add just a bit more cocoa powder. And perhaps stir in some dark chocolate chips? Or toasted almonds? or shredded coconut?

hmmm……

happy Tuesday!

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tofu newbie

August 15, 2011 1 Comment

Yup. that’s me!  A dear friend of mine encouraged me to try tofu a few months back.  I’ll be honest…  I was scared.

Really, it doesn’t look all that appetizing.  Then again, many foods dont prior to preparing right?

right.

A few of you may know that I participated in a 21(plus) -day cleanse earlier this summer.  Without getting into too many details (other than it was the single best thing that I’d ever done for myself) the idea was that over a 3 week period of time, I eliminated foods from my diet until I was down to eating only raw foods, then I chose to also do the optional 7 day liquid/ juice part. After the 7 days I slowly added foods back in, giving my body 3 full days to adjust to each food.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because meat was the last thing that I added back in (only in extreme moderation and I’m seriously considering eliminating it permanently)

So I’ve been exploring other protein options. And Tofu just keeps popping up in so many recipes!

I’ve done quite a bit of reading about the different kinds and how to prepare it and I’ve found 2 excellent tutorials.. (forgive me for those friends of mine who follow these ladies’ blogs & have already seen these)

Emily\’s crispy tofu and  Mama Pea\’s broiled tofu

psst…….  Mama Pea just released a wonderful  COOKBOOK! last week.. I highly recommend it 😉

I just cooked up the crispy tofu to top my salad for lunch and it was a winner!

Once I sauteed it & put it on my salad I just drizzled it with a bit of balsamic vinegar & evoo.

Spot. On.

I see this appearing on  plate with many different flavor combinations in the future!

as for Mama’s broiled tofu recipe…..  that’s tomorrow night’s dinner already marinating 🙂

Onto other business.  This blog began when Scott & I decided to join a local organic CSA last year. Our farmers Dave and Sasha from Plato\’s Harvest Organic Farm were not able to run a CSA this summer.

No worries! we still visit them each Thursday at the Plymouth Farmer\’s Market. The veggies are just as delicious as they were last summer & I still look forward to getting my goodies and coming home to play with new ways to prepare and enjoy them!

My point is that I’m considering re-naming the blog.  I’m re-considering a lot these days….

anyone else realize how I ramble ?

If you haven’t tried tofu and want to…the crispy tofu is a great way to start…. I’m off to prepare dinner!

ciao!

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today.

August 10, 2011 Leave a Comment

I made a home-made face mask with a recipe that I found on the internet

1 Tablespoon old fashioned oats, ground

1 Tablespoon Yogurt ( plain non-fat Greek yogurt)

a squirt of honey

I mixed it all up & slathered it on my face & let dry for a little over 10 minutes.

Best.

Mask.

Ever.

my skin feels AH MAZE ING!

 

so there ya go.. I not only can keep myself out of my kitchen, but now I’m concocting potions for my skin like I’m some kind of back woods woman.

 

I wish.

 

oh, and I strongly resisted the urge to lick the mask. I have the willpower of a snake. Clearly.

 

 

dinner tonight is Vegetarian Paella.

 

 

 

miss me??

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