Trixie's Travels...

Good Eats....

On the Menu:

Breakfast for the kids.....

Dessert for all of us....

 

The above is poached pear - compliments of Chef Hot Rocks

Poached Pear, French Vanilla Ice Cream and a Berry-Red Wine Sauce - again compliments of Chef Hot Rocks

Yum!!!

A Favorite Kind of Day

A couple of weeks ago, a few homeschool Moms and I decided to have a casserole/soup exchange.  Each of us would make 5 entrees and swap at a designated spot on a designated day.  The day will arrive tomorrow so that meant I needed to get cookin' today.

I actually couldn't wait.  I love to cook for other people.  As usual, I picked a recipe that I hadn't made before... but one I had been eyeing for quite some time. 

The recipe was from "From Our House to Yours" Comfort Food to Give and Share.  The cookbook was created to benefit Meals on Wheels in San Francisco.  I have found some delicious recipes in it and I believe that this one is just as tasty as the others. 

I needed to adapt the recipe to ingredients that I could easily find in this area - all but one was found so that one was left out. 

There isn't anything like making sauce from scratch...it is one of my all time joys in cooking. 

The smell filled the house.  This one contained red wine in it and it would "intoxicate" your senses as you walked through the kitchen.  I ended up making 3 pots of sauce.  It had pork sausage and lean hamburger in it along with various veggies and herbs. 

I didn't realize how much it made.....

nor how big the lasagna would be by the time I had finished BUILDING it. 

I grated 6 1/2 pounds of mozzarella cheese

and by the time I was done....

I had 32 pounds of lasagna casserole on my hands.  That was just between 4 of them!  That wasn't including the one I got to keep (and ate for dinner tonight).

It was a wonderful day filled with anticipation of sharing a little bit of what I love to do with others. 

Yeehaw! to sharing with others!

Intense

When Hot Rocks cooks he is always intense.  You can really screw up his concoctions if you interrupt him when he cooks.  I have never seem him relaxed while cooking....seriously.  It is an art form to him - he is like his Dad in that respect. 

Last night was no different.  He made up his own jam flavors; used whatever fruit was in the fridge and stepped into his own private world.

We cook completely different ,he and I, but that isn't unusual, we are COMPLETELY different.  I saw this plaque one time, "We are a match made in heaven, just like thunder and lightning." and we live this out daily.  He throws things together and not only is flavor important but presentation is just as important.  I don't hunt out in our garden for the perfect herb toppings...he does. 

I mean look at the face on this guy....

doesn't that scream intensity?

Or what about this.... getting down to jam level and making sure that it is perfectly put in the jar.

Yes lovelies, this to me screams a man of perfection.  Let me tell you everyone in the family LOVES when he cooks and especially me, because it is one less thing that I have to think about. I love this guy...he makes my world so much sweeter!

Jam count by the end of the evening:  60 jars

That should hold us over for the winter. LOL!

Just Jammin'

We went up to Toti's last week and picked her plum tree clean, knowing that they would just fall to the ground if we didn't.  The tree was still chuck full of plums.  We could only reach so high, even with the ladders.  We ended up with about 4 flats that looked like this.

When you pick the plums they have this grey-ish gritty covering on them.  We soaked them and rubbed them clean before cooking them.  I really enjoy jamming when I am not trying to "squeeze" it into the schedule.  I didn't squeeze it this year so getting hot and sweaty over the stove didn't irritate me. 

This is what I start with.

 

In the pot there is about 6 cups of cut of plums and in the blue bowl is 8 glorious cups of sugar!  I have tried other pectin but Sure-Jell is my favorite and I don't really use anything else.  I am not a "Super-Canner".  I actually don't know how to can ANYTHING!  I had a friend that showed me how to make jam....I am the type of learner that needs to "SEE" what the heck I am doing...so she took me step by step over a couple of summers.  She was this gorgeous blond gal that you wouldn't even suspect was a "jammer".  Ok, stay focused....

You stand over the heat for at least a good 1/2 hour by the time you are done.  You bring the cut up plums to a boil.  Yes, it really happens because there is about 1/2 c of water in the pot with the plums.  Next, you cover them and let them simmer for about 5 minutes.  This makes them nice and soft.

I like to add a dollop of butter - the pectin recipe thing says a 1/2 teaspoon but mine is a good ole' fashion dollop!  Along with the butter, I stir in the pectin and keep stirrin' that messy mixture until it comes to a rolling boil.  All you super cookers, know what that is but each year I need to re-read my recipe to remind myself that that is a boil that doesn't stop when I stir it.

Once my mess is boiling, I add that beautiful bowl of sugar.  I love the color that it brings out.  Talk about sugar-coated sweetness - yeah baby, that is what I'm talkin' about!  This is the part that you really become a "Hot Mess" , you need to stir until the mixture comes to a rolling boil again and then an additional minute.

Once that is done, you get to pour that beautiful sweetness into jars.  I added a couple of things to my canning equipment.  I got those cool little green-handled grabbers at a barn sale.  Boy, does that save my hands from burnin' up and Hot Rocks picked up that brown canning funnel.  Talk about SQUEAKY CLEAN rims - Love it!

So you fill the jars up.

Put the warmed up lids on them.  I wipe them dry on top before I put the twisty thing on them.

Put the twisty thing on them.  Twist them on.

Then flip them - this seals them.

You need to make sure they are sealed well or this happens....

This was a first for me and all I could think of was "grab the camera and document this!"

After three flats of plums and I don't know how many hours....this is what you can have too!

We will have more though, Hot Rocks is making his special Cranberry Plum jam.  I don't do well without recipes, but he on the other hand is "WOW!"  He has called all over the East County looking for cranberries, fresh or frozen, and he finally found them at Whole Paycheck..oops, I mean Whole Foods. He was happy, I was happy because that makes for an excellent jam that only goes to the "super special" people.  LOL!

It's time to help for another batch of jam so until next time!

Happy Jammin'

Food Fight!

Looked at what we picked from our home garden today!  Yum, yum!  We are having a veggie night tonight with a little rice.  I LOVE grilled eggplant and fresh broccoli - to die for then throw in a side of artichokes and you have a yummy little dinner!

That funny looking round thing in the back is an Eight-Ball zucchini and this is what we do with it....

you cook a little Italian sausage with ground turkey, some red & yellow bell peppers, fresh garlic, fresh onions, put a some Parmesan cheese on top and toss in the oven.  Viola!  Yummy to our tummies!

Then when your son shows you the "Scar-face" tomato,

which actually looks like my Dad's arm right now, but we won't go into that, then you do something like this!

Food fight!  Farm Fresh is attacking the high-techie world.  LOL  Pook decided that everything needed a face on it, so we spent about an hour this morning staging this little fight scene, acquiring the proper artillery, and using washable markers on the food (so we didn't contaminate it).  It doesn't look like much but we sure had fun playing with our food. 

Happy Trails!

Favorite things...

this is one of them....

It is my Nana's recipe for Baked Custard.  Did you notice how much of it was gone?  Yep, that is how much I, alone, have eaten since last night when I made it.  I can't keep my hands off of it.  The weather turned cooler and my thoughts went to this dessert; so I pulled out my recipe that was on the back of a card that Nana had sent me.  When I pulled it out of my recipe box, I started to well up with tears as I thought about her....I miss her very much. 

I had to postpone my celebration of Karrie's birthday because my daughter, Makayla, needed to take a little priority.  (Karrie won't even notice because my Dad and step-mom are at her house right now - spending quality Karrie time).

Do you remember this stamp from SU!?  It is dated 1995 - it's an antique!

Well, Button Bear was stamped and stamped and stamped this many times...

only to have me do this to him...

Why do you ask?  Well, I will tell you why...Makayla wants to have her birthday at Build-A-Bear so why not cut the little guy up so that you have to "build" him back again?

It has taken me 3 days with these invites - I had to cut the holes in the middle of the card because my punch didn't give me enough room to have it evenly spaced in the middle and I don't have the really cool cutter that Karrie and Dana have from Creative Memories (yes, I remember using that baby last stamp fest!!!) But that is OK, because M is soooo worth it!  She would come in daily to check on the progress of the cards and today her comment was "Mom, those turned out really good.  You did a great job."  I love the kudos from my kids when I get them!

On a side note, I picked up these cute stamps at Michael's for $1 each - aren't they cute?  I saw pumpkins and I NEEDED them.

That is it for tonight, now that I can mail these babies, I hope to get back to Karrie but I know that I can wait a few more days until my Dad leaves and then she'll need some more attention...LOL

Until then, happy trails!

It's Friday and that means...

it's time for PIZZA!  Yep, we have had a homemade pizza night every Friday for the last month.  The dough is really easy to make and only takes an hour to rise.  This week was Makayla's pick for the 2nd pizza - a Canadian bacon and Pineapple mix and the ole' stand-by for the others...Pepperoni.   I am a Chicken Veggie Pesto person myself - that was last week though....

Thanks for stoppin' in for a peek - have a great night/day!

Nothin' like....

warm homemade biscuits, hot coffee, a little scrambled eggs and my family on a cool morning! The goodness of God (sigh)!

Then the fun really begins......or are we just continuing it?  I would say that it is a continuation of good times already started.....I'll be back to show you!

Chicken Soup is good for the soul and a little cake doesn't hurt either...

The sickness continues only with another child, two down one to go....  So it was time for reinforcements - a little homemade chicken soup.  It is one of our family's favorite recipes.  The recipe comes from The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins. It is called Marno's Chicken Noodle Soup - it has dill in it (which reminds me of my grandmother canning pickles) chicken, peas and homemade egg noodles.  Really simple - all the flavor comes from cooking the chicken beforehand - that's where you add the parsnips, carrot, celery, garlic and spices.

Here is the cooking photo - looks good huh!

Then the prep of the egg noodles - super simple ingredients (1 egg, flour and salt)

Then viola! a hearty bowl of soup.

But dinner is not complete without cake so while visiting a favorite blog site, Cream Puffs in Venice,
she had shown a picture of a Dark Chocolate and White Chocolate Chip Marble Cake - I had to make it!  I followed the instructions to the letter until I got to step #9 where it tells you how the marble effect is accomplished - I didn't do it that way so it didn't marble very well but the cake is sooo moist .  This one is a keeper in the recipe repertoire.

One last thing, this is the notebook, I did the other day, wrapped.  I love the "natural feeling" of brown paper and hemp twine give.

May the rain allow a little comfort to come into your life today.