Category Archives: kitchen stories

>Easiest Oatmeal Cookies Ever

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>1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups uncooked quick oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine sugar and butter; mix well. Add flour and baking soda. Stir in oats. Roll into 1 inch balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheets and press slightly. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on cooling rack. Makes 2-3 dozen, depending on size.

I made mine bigger, so my yield was 2 dozen.
And I was almost out of butter sticks, so I combined it with the low-fat vegetable spread in the big tub — the store brand equivalent of country crock.
And I added 1/2 cup raisins.

So my Easy Oatmeal Cookies didn’t turn out exactly as pictured in the Cookie Book. They tasted delicious, but they spread out really, really thin, and they kind of folded/squashed themselves into odd shapes when I took them off the pan. I blame the “butter.”

The original recipe, not my improvised edition, is from the WE Energies 80th Anniversary Cookie Book. If you follow their directions, you’ll have better luck. Either way, they’re great with coffee or hot apple cider.

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>Midwinter Chili for the CrockPot

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>In the bleak midwinter, Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Ingredients:
1 can chili beans, spiced
1 can black beans
1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
1/4 cup diced green pepper
1/4 cup diced red pepper
1/2 small white or yellow onion, diced
1 tablespoon chili powder
optional: 1/4 cup spinach
1 quart tomato soup from the freezer!
(okay, you can substitute canned tomato sauce and/or tomato paste along with a can of tomatoes)

Add ingredients to crockpot in that order. Let simmer 4-6 hours on high or 6-8 on low. One hour before serving, add 1 cup noodles, stir, and turn heat to high.

Serve with your favorite sides for a hearty midwinter meal!
I like grated cheese on the top. Husband likes crackers. Kids both add ketchup, and I don’t object.
My favorite sides are fresh bread, cheese, or a side salad. Mmm.

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>Mush!

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>It’s not what you think. It’s really the story of a kitchen near-disaster that spawned not a doorstop, but a colorful end product.
I bought fresh peppers from the farmers’ market in september and planned to dice and freeze them for fresh pepper flavor and color in the middle of winter. I thought, “Oh, I’ll use my new food processor! It’ll go so quickly.”
Famous last words.
I chose a blade that was much too fine, and the yellow pepper quickly became pureed instead of diced. Oops. I switched to a blade that allowed a larger cut for the red pepper, and my lovely kitchen gadget still blended it to a smooth consistency. I was left with colorful but slushy red and yellow pepper mush.
I froze them both anyway. I knew the flavor would still be good, and I was certain there would be a way to use this accidental concoction.
Last week I spread the yellow pepper mush on tilapia under the broiler along with the usual butter and lemon. It was delicious and looked lovely.
The red pepper mush ended up in several places. Tacos, superburgers, meatloaf, and eventually quesadillas.
I won’t make the same mistake a second, er, third time. But if this happens by accident, well, I know there are lots of ways to use pepper mush!

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>Turkey Noodle Soup Daisy’s Way

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>There are so many different turkey soup recipes out in the blogosphere that it didn’t occur to me to post another one. However, a plurk friend (also butcher and chef) suggested that would be a good post for Thanksgiving week, so I decided to try it.
The hardest thing about posting a soup recipe is that I rarely make a soup the same way twice. Soups usually start with a good stock or broth, add veggies, add meat (maybe), simmer all day, and later add noodles or rice or dumplings. But here goes: the Post-Thanksgiving Turkey Noodle Soup at Daisy’s house.

4-6 cups turkey stock (you did make some with the turkey carcass, didn’t you?!)
1/4 cup peas
1/4 corn
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1/4 cup diced onion
1/4 cup diced green or red pepper
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 tablespoon fresh herbs: thyme, rosemary, and basil if available
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
1/4 cup spinach (optional: I have some in my freezer from the summer garden)
–any other available leftover vegetables
Oh, and turkey! I almost forgot. 2 cups diced turkey, or more if you like a really meaty soup.

Let all ingredients simmer in crockpot on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 4-5 hours. About an hour before serving, add a generous handful of egg noodles (or other type, but wide egg noodles are my family’s favorite). Turn crockpot to high.

Serve warm with fresh bread and cranberry jello on the side to recreate a bit of the peaceful feeling of Thanksgiving Day.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone.

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>Easiest Cranberry Sauce Ever

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>1-2-3 Cranberry Sauce

1 cup water
2 cups sugar
3 cups cranberries

Bring to a boil, then simmer 20 minutes or until all the berries have burst. Add cinnamon to taste. Serve warm.

Now, the backstory. I brought this recipe home from kindergarten on a sheet of construction paper. We made it at home since it was so easy. It became a standard at Thanksgiving dinner, the tradition lasting long after the original paper faded.
A generation later, my kids started helping me make it every year. If we have leftover cranberry sauce, I use it in jello or add it to muffins. This little piece of my “saucy” childhood continues, along with Thanksgiving memories that will never fade.

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>Crock Pot Potato Soup with or without Ham

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>Today’s recipe is simple because my life has been chaotic recently. When I have meetings after school and little time to cook, my crock pot is my friend. This was an experiment, since I’ve never been able to make a potato soup that satisfied me. Can I replicate it the next time I want to? As with most of my kitchen experiments, only time will tell.

4-6 medium russet potatoes, washed and sliced thin (peeling optional)
3-4 cups water or chicken stock
(From my garden, a few leaves of spinach, this summer’s add-in)
a sprig of fresh thyme
green onion, chives
lemon pepper to taste
1-2 cups diced ham
potato buds (for thickening)

Place potatoes and spinach and thyme in chicken stock or water.
Let cook on low for 6-8 hours.
Mash potatoes, but leave enough small chunks to be satisfying.
(Alternative: Use an immersion blender.)
Add 1/2 cup potato buds.
Add ham.
Turn crock pot to high for one half to one hour.

Serve with grated cheese and a delicious homemade bread on the side.

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>Oops Soup

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>In college, they’d serve us a soup they called minestrone. We called it “Oops Soup.” It would have a tomato-like broth, and in it would be leftovers from all the week’s meals. Mixed (very mixed) veggies, several kinds of noodles, we even found a whole hamburger in it one week.
My Oops Soup is better. At least I dice the leftovers into pieces.

This week it started with a tomato soup that didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. It wasn’t tomato-y enough, a wee bit bland, and just not up to the standard of the usual fresh tomato soup in our home. So…the leftovers didn’t go in the freezer; they went back into the crockpot.

Added to the leftover tomato soup (I could call it Oops Soup Stock):
1 can dark red kidney beans
1 can black beans
1/4 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup rice
a dash of fresh thyme (from the deck, of course)
leftover noodles (from the chix noodle soup Amigo was eating: he was on clear liquids, so he couldn’t have the noodles)

Served as a side with stuffed pork chops.

Why not more vegetables? That is a valid question. The original tomato soup had many, many vegetables grated and blended into it. I could have added more, but why? A can of tomatoes might have looked good, but the taste and the nutrients were already in it.

Oh, yes. Cooking time! In the crockpot on high for 3-4 hours. This soup just had to heat through, not cook thoroughly, so it didn’t take as long as most crockpot dishes.

Oops soup it is. See, Mom, I did learn something in college!

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>When all else fails, bake.

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>I’ve been coughing so much my ribs hurt. I slept past noon Sunday, and I never sleep late. Never.
Amigo still has a sore throat from his endoscopic tests. We may have more clues to solve the mystery of the stomach pain, but for now, he’s still coping one day at a time.
A major virus hit our main desktop computer overnight. We are rebuilding from scratch, from what husband and his engineer pals call “First Birthday.” Nothing, but nothing, survived.
I spent 45 minutes cleaning up and responding to my school email — on a Sunday night!!
My world is spinning out of control.
I cope by accomplishing something simple: I bake. This time, I baked cookies. The dough was pre-made, a tub in the refrigerator from a choir fundraiser. Turn on the oven, scoop the dough onto the cookie sheets, and fifteen minutes later, voila! White chocolate macadamia nut cookies.
Bringing things down to a more elemental level helps me feel better in control. It takes the spinning world of emails and illnesses and work-family balance and lets me accomplish something worthwhile in a short period of time. Baking allows me to simplify, to slow down in a speeding world.
No recipe this time, folks. The recipe here isn’t for cookies: it’s for simplifying a complex life, taking down the stress level by focusing on a small success.
I think I’ll go have a cookie now.
Happy Love Thursday, everyone.

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>Pantry Raid

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>That’s what Working Mother Magazine called it in their short feature on saving time. The writer suggested skipping the grocery stop and making do with the existing contents of the pantry.

It’s October. We do that all the time; I didn’t know it had a name.

Parent-teacher conferences for me, High School Homecoming for Amigo, NFL football games to work and Packer follow-up shows to produce for Husband, and this year, medical testing for Amigo, too. We don’t get to make our weekly grocery stops every weekend, so when we do, we make it count. And the afore-mentioned Pantry Raid? That happens more often than you’d think.

Leftover sloppy joe meat? Add red beans and tomatoes and make chili.
Got the grill fired up? Cook a little extra for the freezer.
One potato, a carrot, and some celery leftover? Feed the rabbit. Or maybe….skillet stew!! The results of my latest Pantry Raid:

Skillet Stew

Please note: in the spirit of a true Pantry Raid, this could include just about anything. The “recipe” is really just a guideline.

Ingredients (this time):

3 potatoes
1 stalk celery
1/4 small onion
a little garden spinach
1/4 cup frozen corn
1 can cream of mushroom soup
4 cups of water, as needed, with chicken bouillion added proportionally (Chicken stock would have been better, but it was a raid. No time to thaw.)
4-5 chicken thighs
lemon pepper and cumin to taste

Slice potatoes thin. Dice celery, onion, and spinach. Add to 2 cups water & chix flavoring in electric skillet on medium heat. Simmer until soft (about 20 minutes on low). Add cream of mushroom soup and refresh water/chix as the first evaporates. Place chicken thighs on top. turn heat to med-high. Cook covered for another 20 minutes. Add water/chix again, stir, and add corn and seasoning.
Optional: take chicken thighs out and brown them in a separate pan. Check with meat thermometer.

And if that’s not vague enough, turn the main skillet to low and keep stirring the mixture until it’s time to serve. Serve with a green salad (with garden tomatoes, of course) and zucchini bread.

After supper: make chicken stock for a delicious soup or stew later.

That’s one heck of an efficient Pantry Raid! Not only did it produce a decent supper, it yielded the starter for a future meal!

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>I don’t recite the script in the teachers’ manual, either.

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>Shortcuts. I take them all the time. In the classroom, on the road, on the computer (give me the keyboard commands and I’m faster than any mouse!), and in the kitchen.
Especially in the kitchen.

Tomato soup? I combined two recipes.

When a second batch of soup turned out a bit too bland for our tastes, we made the tomato into a base for minestrone (recipe to come, soon, I promise).

A muffin recipe with coconut, an ingredient no one but me will eat, turned into a new muffin that we all love.

I fill my crockpot more by formula and luck than by recipe.

We make planned overs as often as we leftovers; it gives us a shortcut later.

Even when I start out with a clear plan, it can change. Martha Stewart would never, ever live here.

Baking bread in the breadmaker is a shortcut. I almost feel guilty because it’s so easy. The crockpot — how would I teach and feed my family without it? One of my other favorite short cuts is starting baked potatoes in the microwave and finishing them on the grill. The cooking time is shorter, and they still get that fabulous charcoal grill taste.

This topic was suggested by Parent Bloggers Network and Ore-Ida Potatoes. Idaho may produce more potatoes than Wisconsin, but I know Ore-Ida works with my state farmers as well as those out west. My daughter loves all things potato, so if I registered early enough to get a free masher, I may have to share it with her. The coupon, though, that I’ll keep.

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