Trader Joes Recipe Series 1 – Stuffed Artichokes

I have waited a long time for Trader Joes to come to Houston.  It is basically a whole foods type market at Wal-Mart prices.  Well Houston is getting three, and the first one opened up over in the Woodlands and I have been twice.

I came home with TONS of veggies and no meal plan. I pretty much bought stuff that looked great and then came home and was like, uhhh. what now?

So what follows are a series of new recipes using my lovely Trader Joes stash. (Are groceries really a “stash”, maybe not, anyways..)

Stuffed Artichokes:

Prep the artichokes, cut off the tops, the bottoms and the pointy things. Don’t be put out, it took me like 5 minutes to do four. It’s no biggie.

Heat 2 inches of water in a pan and insert a steam tray. Place the artichokes in, stem side up and add lemon slices. In my picture they are stem side down, it was prettier! But in real life it’s easier to check doneness if the stem side is up. So I flipped them.

Put the lid on the pan and steam 20 minutes. Meanwhile stir together 1 C Panko bread crumbs, 1/3 C parmesan and some salt, pepper and Italian seasoning, and parsley - mix them up.  And preheat the oven to 375.

Once they are cool enough to handle, open up the leaves and pull out the chokes (the hairy ball part) and then stuff the crumbs down between the leaves. Drizzle mightily with olive oil.

Bake until toasty about 15 minutes. 

OK, this isn’t the best picture, but these were heavenly.

I served these as dinner along with the bagged spinach salad kit from Trader Joes that has spinach (duh), cranberries, blue cheese, candied pecans and raspberry vinaigrette.  I added some crumbled bacon to the salads and served warmed naan bread on the side. 

Caveats: My kids did not eat this and even with the simple bagged salad, these were beyond what would be reasonable for me to do on a weeknight, but for a weekend summer supper it was perfect.

Upside: The meal was cheap..we ate 1/4 of the salad in the bag, so about $1.50 and then $3 for artichokes, so… yeah. super cheap and healthy and fancy – my kind of meal.

Seedlings Update

My seedlings are all doing wonderfully.  There has been some trial and error over the past few weeks. I had set the seedlings in their little pots out in the back yard. We got a lot of rain and then a few days of strong sun and all but the basil died. The cilantro never even sprouted.  I was so sad.

So… I re-planted everything that was dead and started over but this time I have kept them on the back porch where I can have more control over the elements.  The babies all seem very happy out there and Anabel and I enjoy watering them and checking on them each day.  And yes, I do talk to my baby plants!

Dill – About 3 weeks old.

Toad Flax

Cilantro

Basil – About 5 weeks old

 

Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well Ecclesiastes 11:6

My Break Up With Pioneer Woman

I was on Pioneer Woman trying to figure what I could make for dinner. I saw a recipe for Pasta Primavera but I didn’t have the ingredients. Like this special olive oil and sea salt butter, in fact it was a paid post that she put up to sell this special butter (nothing wrong with that, just saying)

Hah. I thought. I don’t need any special butter to cook this. I don’t need cream and half and half, I know how to make a great light creamy sauce that uses evaporated milk and olive oil. HAH.

I thought what if I take apart the recipe and think about the actual ideas and techniques?

It occurred to me how often I will just follow the steps in a recipe and yes, that produces good food but it doesn’t produce real learning.  It doesn’t turn me into the kind of cook that can just open the refrigerator and cook, on my own, without paying homage to the latest online who-ever. I’m ready for independence, baby.

Lesson One: Get everything out and chop everything ahead of time.

I used what veggies I had: carrots, mushrooms, bell peppers, squash, zucchini.

Lesson Two: Create variations in texture and adjust accordingly.

I noticed she put the carrots in first to cook on their own, then pulled them out and sautéed the rest of the veggies. So the carrots were crunchy and the others were softened but not mush.  This made the end dish nice because you had differences in texture.

Lesson Three: Season as you go.

She had the magic butter, I didn’t.  So with each step I added a little butter, a little olive oil and a little salt. And I tasted it to be sure it wasn’t getting too salty (because there is broth later) but on pasta you need the non-pasta part to have some saltiness or it gets bland when put it all together.  I noticed she didn’t add pepper until the end after the cream was in, I don’t know why but I followed suit.

Lesson Three: Building a sauce: Aromatics, Liquids, Reduce…Cream.

If you go through and pay attention the Pioneer Woman site does teach how to put together a lot of different sauces but they pretty much follow this basic pattern.

Add aromatics to the fats. I used onion and garlic.

Add liquids and deglaze the pan. I used broth and wine.

Reduce to half.

Lesson Four: Balancing the flavor profile

In putting together a dish, even one that is simple like this there needs to be sweet, salty, and acid, there  needs to be variations in texture.  Notice how she covers each element : veggies & wine = sweet, meat and broth = salty, wine & basil = acidic.

If the overall profile elements are all met, the dish will probably turn out great, even without the exact ingredients.

I didn’t have basil. (My basil seedlings are still tiny) I thought about what to use, I wanted it to be green, lemony and something that could be chiffoned. I had Brussels sprouts, light, crunchy, lemony – perfect substitute.

I didn’t have ham, but I knew the point wasn’t “ham”, it was Salty Meat. I subbed pepperonis cut into small pieces, bacon would have been good too.

Lesson 5: Learning From Mistakes

My only misstep (Wail! and it was all going so well!!!)  is that in the last 1 minute of making it, my sauce “broke”.   Ugg. I like to cried.  I’m going to out and research *why* my sauce broke.  I think you need the heavy fats from cream or half and half because they will hold up to the heat.   I also think that I am still learning how to use my cast iron skillet, which gets hotter and hotter as you go.  Maybe it was too hot when I added the milky cheesy elements.  I have used evaporated milk before with no problems so I suspect it was the 2% milk which got too hot.  It tasted incredible though and once it was dumped over pasta you couldn’t tell at all.

This was overall one of the most satisfying half hours I have spent in the kitchen and the pasta dish was so good, I will definitely make this one again.  This doesn’t mean I won’t still be cruising Pioneer Woman or Machismo, for ideas, but I do feel like I’m sort of ready to break free from following each recipe like it’s the law.

Take lies and what is false far from me. Do not let me be poor or rich. Feed me with the food that I need. Proverbs 30:8

Four and seven-eighths...

“Empathy takes time, and efficiency is for things, not people” – Steven Covey.

Anabel is four, soon to be five. To be perfectly honest, the normal behavior at this age in child development pushes my buttons. Children this age are very unpredictable. A unique and ever changing blend of curiosity, “I can do it”, “Let me help” and sweetness punctuated with intense fury, drama, and a calculated inability to follow simple instructions “my legs will not work”, “I can’t reach my toothbrush”, “YOU do it!”, “Carry me!”

As an organizer and a planner, I’m a little type A (okay more than a little) and not knowing if it’s going to take ten minutes or thirty to get her up and dressed is a little nerve wracking. Will she happily don her Tom’s this morning or shriek in horror that she ABSOLUTELY hates those shoes and WHY did I buy them and then dissolve into tears? (nevermind that she picked them out, nevermind that she liked them yesterday and the day before that, past preferences are not predictors of future behaviors at this age!)

She likes to see how much power she can yield among the grown-ups – one way she does this is with her cereal. Sometimes she wants milk, sometimes she doesn’t. Sometimes she wants to say she doesn’t want milk, get halfway through and then asks for milk. Sometimes Cheerios are the most delightful food known to pre-schooldom, other times they are the devil’s scourge. It’s an exploration of her influence on the world around her. If you couldn’t even reach light switches; things like cereal and shoes matter. The logical part of my brain “gets” this – the impatient I have four thousand other things to get done this morning part of my brain is standing there with my hands clenched slowly breathing and counting to ten. Jacob asked me one day “When you get real quiet and breath like that, you’re praying right Mom?” Right.


Because more than anything else I think she is watching me for cues on how to act when you don’t get your way. And a lot of times, with her especially, I’m NOT getting my way. And she’s watching, and so it’s a circle, a game of emotional chicken, only I’m the grown up and don’t get to be the one that breaks down. Mostly.

I’m an introvert; that means that although I function and am happy around people, I also need a certain amount of private down time; I crave a little bit of time each day when I’m not on and can relax and get quiet. By around 9 PM, I’m desperate “like a deer panteth for running water” sprinting toward the sanctity of the garden tub and a good book. About this same time, Anabel is tired, she’s clingy, she’s been brave and exploratory and away from home all day and she wants and needs … ME. There is always a push/pull between us at bedtime; she has a seemingly never ending gauntlet of snack, potty, drink, back rub, two books, and three songs. We finally get to lights out and then it starts… “I’m scared of the dark!” “I don’t want to sleep by myself!” “Please stay with me!” and I usually do, but I’m also usually sort of mentally checked out, I’m next to her, patting her wiggly back, or stroking her strawberry smelling hair but inside I’m thinking about the bathtub, the candles, a book, maybe a bowl of ice cream… for any Mom that has ever sat in the dark and silently willed your child to sleep, I know you know what I mean.

Last night, I tried something different. I wrenched myself back mentally and emotionally and gave her what she always asks for, I stayed with her – only I gave her all of me. I snuggled in and when she said “I’m scared of the dark”. I said “Why? Tell me what you are afraid of.” And she did. She lay there and poured her heart out to me... it turned out to be some pretty heavy stuff - Alligators, zombies, werewolves, and hurricanes. I didn’t interrupt, I didn’t dismiss her, I didn’t rush her, I just listened and asked questions. When she ran out of steam we talked about the windows and doors, the alarm system, the dog, her Daddy and God. We talked about feeling safe and what to do when you don’t. Then she snuggled down and I left the room without the usual pleading and crying. It was too late for a long bath, but I felt pretty good anyway.

This morning was a thirty minute getting dressed day. She hated Tom’s, again. And Cheerios. And for an added twist, whole wheat toast. When I went to snuggle her and tell her goodbye she was still upset about the cereal and she turned her head and said “Just go Mom” so I settled for a kiss on the top of her head. It still smells like strawberries.

Rosemary Bread

• 1 C water
• 3 T olive oil (plus more for shaping the dough)
• 1 1/2 t sugar
• 1 1/2 t salt
• 1 1/2 t Italian seasoning
• 1/4 t black pepper
• 1 T chopped fresh rosemary (or 1 t dried)
• 2 1/2 C bread flour
• 1 1/2 t active dry yeast

Bread Maker/mixer/food processor: Put into machine in the order shown above, mix on dough setting.  I don’t bake it in the bread maker though because I prefer it in a round loaf.

Non-bread maker: mix yeast and slightly warm water and sugar, let sit about ten minutes, it sort of gets foamy, then add other ingredients & knead for ten minutes.

This dough is easiest to shape if my hands are rubbed in olive oil. So I pour oil into the bottom of a bowl, then use my hands to oil the sides, then with oily hands I shape the dough into a nice smooth ball and put it in the bowl, cover with a tea towel and rise 1 hour.

Punch. Knead, re-shape turning in the bowl to recoat with oil (upper surface should be slightly oily). place on flat baking tray, cover and let rise 1 hour. Pre-heat oven this entire hour so that it’s really stable and hot. I usually set the tray on top of the stove while the oven is warming.

Sprinkle with parmesan and sea salt and black pepper. Bake 20 minutes at 375 and then 10 minutes at 425 – it will sound hollow when you knock it. Cool on wire rack before slicing (if you can wait that long…)

Notes: Keep the salt away from the yeast, including re-using the measuring spoon. I recommend King Arthur Brand Bread flour, it makes a noticeable difference for pizza, buns and breads like this versus all purpose flour. If it’s a really humid day then add a T of flour at a time until it firms up a bit.  This recipe doesn’t “double” right, it’s better to just make it twice in a row if you want two loaves while you have everything out.