Angela's posterous

julia

I haven't written in a long time, but this requires my sudden aversion to writing to come to an abrupt halt. The other day I found a package at my front door delivered from amazon. Upon opening it I find the 2 volumes of the original version anniversary addition of Julia Child's cookbooks. OMG it was 2 large books, hard cover bound and so awesome.  And of course it came from my cooking partner and food lover wonderful best son in the world! For the past week I have off and on been reading. Now let me tell you, her cookbooks must be read first and then tried.  You have to keep remembering it is a french cookbook, made for stupid americans who cant cook. It isn't the kind of book you look up a recipe in it is a book you read, see one recipe after another and just start cooking. If you didn't know about stews, or braising, or pound cake or granache' before you read it, you certainly will after. Last night I made her roast pork loin with mustard cream sauce. The mustard sauce would be wonderful on fish but I think too light for pork loin.  I will keep trying as many wonderful recipes as my time will allow.  You do need time for them, they are complicated as I have discussed before.  But this isn't about the cooking this is about my son and his wonderful present.  Thank you so very much Mikey and I love you this>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> much :)

Not About Food?

Ok so I normally blog about food, but today I get to show anyone who is looking or cares some amazing costumes my daughter made. I am so very proud of her so I must share.

Eating Extravaganza HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Extravaganza isn't even the word.  I have been eating for a week straight, and this is the first blog post I have made in weeks.  I just cant seem to post lately and I am not even sure why. But in any event here I am again. As you know holiday time is also eating time, and that is what I have been doing. I can tell you that out of all this eating I have only cooked once myself.  I left the cooking to everyone else and ate out several times, but I am going to share with you a recipe for the most amazing short ribs I have ever made.  At least I thought so anyway. The recipe isn't mine, but I did mix it up a bit as usual and I will share that with you also. I cooked for 7 people, and didn't want to make a lot of food, so I made the main course and a salad and side dish.  I did make 2 deserts.  Couldn't resist that LOL As it turned out what I thought would be easy , wasn't.  2 straight days of cooking for a simple meal.  Figures. The menu was a cold bean salad with lime vinaigrette dressing, macaroni and cheese creamy style, and short ribs.  Desert was a Tiramisu and my sisters so called favorite lemon chiffon pie. The bean salad was great.  I used 4 different kinds of beans (black beans, garbanzo beans, white beans and red beans, and added cherry tomatoes and papaya and cilantro. I mixed all with a lime vinaigrette dressing.  The mac and cheese was only fare at best, but I have yet to find a mac and cheese recipe that was any good. It had all the right stuff, 2 bricks of real shredded cheddar chesses (insanely expensive if you ask me and still not sharp enough) milk and cream, butter  and well more fat than anyone should ever have. The ribs was the winner.  I used a real lean short rib, and its made with hoisin sauce and braised in a good ale. MMMMMMM good. The lemon chiffon pie was blah if you ask me but then I don't like lemon chiffon anyway.  It calls for raw egg whites that aren't cooked so I purchased pasteurized eggs and they just aren't the same.  Its really to bad that we worry about food illnesses that we never had to worry about before.  I used to be able to use raw eggs in recipes and not worry.  Now you can get salmonella and of course like everything else, it eliminates some good stuff from our meals.  Like REAL cesar dressing for example. Oh well. The tiramisu was great but next time I use stronger coffee and more rum. It looked nice though, but to expensive for a desert.  Mascarpone cheese like all cheeses has gotten ridiculous in price.. I hope ya all had a good eating holiday and a great New Year. I got to spend it with my family and son.  Unfortunately my daughter was absent.  God I hate that. I hate having them so far away. But having my boy home was wonderful. Well here is the recipe and my changes. Enjoy
 
Braised Hoisin Beer Short Ribs
Ingredients
For the ribs:
3 pounds beef short ribs, about 10 ribs
Salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 to 12 garlic cloves smashed
1-inch piece ginger, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch slices
12 ounces good ale (recommended: Bass)
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 cup hoisin sauce
Directions
Season the ribs generously with salt and pepper. Heat the vegetable oil
in a large heavy pot with a lid (Dutch oven) over high heat. Brown the ribs
on all sides, in batches if necessary. Remove the ribs and pour off all
but a couple tablespoons of the rendered fat.
Return the pot to the stove, lower the heat to medium and saute the garlic
and ginger for about 3 minutes. Add the ribs back to the pot. Add the beer
and the vinegar. Stir and then cover and simmer for 2 1/2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
Pour the hoisin sauce over the ribs, move the pot to the oven, and cook,
 uncovered, for 30 minutes.
Remove ribs and ginger from sauce. Strain fat from the top of the pot so
that you're left with just the good stuff.
Recipe courtesy Dave Lieberman

 
My additions.  One whole diced sweet onion which I sauteed with the garlic and ginger and spread on the bottom before I added back the ribs for braising.  A bunch of baby whole carrots with green tops which I added to the braising. You could also add some cut potatoes to the roasting pan. I also added some beef broth to the ale I used. I would add more hoisin sauce than they recommend as it really wasn't sweet enough for me.  I also cooked it with the top on at a low heat in the oven only for at least 6 hours before I removed the top to coat with the hoisen.
 
One other thing.  I am including a picture of the matzo ball soup with meat kraplah that I made my son who came home with the flu. Cause I love him :))))) Jewish penicillin

soup

I woke up very early this morning, and don't ya know it, guess what I did?  cook of course.  I decided since I had a lot of leftover ham I would make some soup.  When you are only 2 people eating and you make a ham, they just don't come small enough to not have a lot leftover. I decided on some minnesota wild rice soup and some cajun 15 bean and ham soup. It really didn't take that long, and I didn't use a recipe for either.  I just made it up as I went along.  Both are very yummy. If someone insists and writes to me Ill give them the recipe.  But for now pictures from my new camera (courtesy of my son and daughter) will have to do. Soup is my favorite thing to make. It defiantly keeps me busy and I can freeze it and use it when i want, and I can give it away to people. Everyone likes soup, especially on a cold Minnesota winter day.  Oh wait, not everyone has this freezing weather! Well unfortunately and I mean unfortunately I do.
bye for now

small talk

So last night I made a elaborate meal for no reason at all, except I bought this sirloin tip roast (tough and boring usually) and wanted something fun to go with it. I found this recipe in the Sunday paper for sweet potatoes mashed with marshmallows on top. Thanksgiving coming you know so they print these recipes. With it I made some zucchini with garlic, sweet onions and tomatoes, covered with feta cheese. It was suppose to be made with green beans, but I'm not a big green bean fan so I used zucchini. Not bad and Ill attach some pictures.  BUT the roast FAILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.  Yuk Yuk Yuk.  So what do you do with a roast that no one eats?  GRIND!!! So I ground it with some parsley, salt pepper a little onion and some chicken fat (jewish thing) and made a traditional jewish wonton. We call them meat Kraplah.  You can add them to soup or fry them up in chicken fat or butter for the weak at heart or boil them and smother in butter or chicken fat for the yummiest treat.  Most people put them in soup. Simple noodle dough filled with meat. I wouldn't have gone through the trouble, but soon actually not soon enough my son will be in town for to short a time, and he likes them. Cant wait to see him as I miss him.  Only get to see him every six months.  SUCKS

red velvet cupcakes

I was sitting in the doctors office waiting room the other day, paging through a magazine, when I came across a recipe for red velvet cupcakes. I have several recipes for red velvet cake and have made several different recipes, and still haven't found one I really like, so I ripped it out of the magazine (ya I know not nice but so what) so that I could try it.  It looked like a good recipe. So this Sunday morning I wake up and get a bug up my butt to cook.  It is 8 am mind you , normally to early for me to think straight , but I started baking. I am debating on wether I want to share this recipe with any one else much less the blogosphere, but I am going to do a big no no in my book and share it with you. I thought the cupcakes were amazing, and so has everyone else who has tried them.  The frosting is the best part.  Really just a simple cream cheese frosting, but of course that is what makes red velvet cake so good anyway. Enjoy

Happy Halloween

Today is fright day, or that old pagan holiday Halloween. This means I have Butterfingers in the house.  YIKE! Not good for me but I love them.  Funny since I don't like peanut butter candy or peanut butter anything.  I do like peanut butter though and I do like butterfingers.  This makes no sense at all. How can you like peanut butter but not a Resses? I hate Resses but LOVE Butterfingers. But who cares about this anyway?
 
I spent 7 hours yesterday eve with nothing to do and nothing good on TV so I watched the food channel for 7 hours. This may seem hard to believe that anyone could watch anything let alone the food channel for a entire evening. But I did! I am sure that someday, I will own a restaurant.  It is all I ever really wanted to do.  I have been sidetracked throughout life in many other areas, but the one constant besides animals and plants that I always love is food. Who better than to own a restaurant than me? I'm getting older now, so the thought of it keeps getting more remote, but I do hope that someday this will happen. Of course it would happen tomorrow if I had $$$$$$$ but ........... looks like it will still be a dream for a while. Trick or Treat? Well I'm going to end on that note.

Cooking for calm

I haven't written on my blog for several weeks now, due to the fact that I have been in a terrible state of mind and feeling awful blue, and I was told never to write about bad things.  I was told by (someone who knows and understands this blogging shit) that no one wants to hear about bad things, and honestly I didn't think I could write anything without my feelings showing through. Then today I got a text message from a close friend and relative that he had read my blog! OMG what a surprise. Especially since I hear from him maybe every six months and that's generous. I think about him all the time, and don't get to see him often, but this was a giant surprise. Due to this text message I am writing again. Thank you rbr  :) In any case what I have to say is, that if you feel stressed, and or sad and or awful I have one sure fire cure for all.  COOK! When your cooking you can forget everything.  You can totally focus on the minute and it is an amazing escape.  It is calming and soothing and satisfying and of course fun. Especially when you are done and it tastes good and you have maybe pleased someone else with your delectable treats. I haven't done any out of the ordinary dishes lately, but cook I still do almost every day. Try it and let me know if it works for you.  I love getting comments so feel free. Tonight was hot dogs in this house.  I didn't make the hot dogs, some factory did and you don't want to ever go to one of those hot dog factories or you'll never eat one again. Trust me. I once found a 4 foot long piece of cellophane inside a hot dog that my now husband then boyfriend bit into next to a camp fire in a Florida Keys campground. It took me a long time after to ever eat one of those processed tubes again.  But I have to admit I still like them, nitrates and all. It was accompanied by my home made canned peaches and cottage cheese. Not a culinary delight , but dinner none the less. Well bye for now until tomorrow, as I will try and keep writing daily

this tells it all

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/10/04/funny-pictures-kilts-all-true/

mashed potatoes

I haven't written in so long, and I am sorry about that for anyone following.  I just haven't been in the mood to write, or talk to anyone, or even to cook.  But last night I broke the cycle after watching the food channel all day and decided to cook. The meal, insignificant, but the mashed potatoes?  to die for. I am going to share this recipe with you all, for what reason I dont  know, but it was so good you might want to try it.  Normally when I think of mashed potatoes , I just think about potatoes, cream and butter and a masher. Sometimes garlic?  but never to add veggies to them. But, this was awesome.
Bon appetite

  2 tablespoons salt
2 pounds potatoes (recommended: Yukon gold)
3 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 cup chopped red onions
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
3 tablespoons chopped garlic
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup white wine
3 ounces tomato sauce
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons salt
Salt and pepper
cayenne pepper to taste
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves
Directions
Fill a large pot with water, salt and potatoes and bring to boil. Cook until fork tender.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a medium sauce pot over medium heat. When oil is hot add onions and peppers and saute for 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until it begins to brown. Lower the heat and add tomato paste and stir for 3 to 5 minutes. Deglaze with white wine and reduce by half.
Add tomato sauce and bring to simmer for 5 minutes. Then stir in butter and cream and set aside, covered to keep warm.
When potatoes are fork tender, drain water and mash slowly adding the vegie mixture. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with cilantro.