A Full-time Life

COLD DAYS IN THE TINY KITCHEN

Puttering around in the tiny kitchen is a lot more fun when the weather is chilly and damp.  So this is definitely my year for kitchen puttering. 

We're cooking stews and casseroles -- the sorts of things that taste much better when it's gray out.   We haven't experienced this kind of weather (or this kind of food) much in recent years. 

And whether because  of the weather or because we're closer to family, I did more Christmas give-away cooking than I have for years.  It was fun looking up recipes for old favorites that we'd almost forgotten about.

But I had the most fun making a new (to me) recipe for English Toffee.  The recipe is on the Internet and I was directed to it through a visitor to this blog.  This lady:   HOOTIN' ANNI.    She visited here and sweetly left a comment inviting me over for a bite of candy.   Her blog was great to visit and virtual sharing was fun and certainly lower in calories, but I couldn't wait to try the real thing.  And didn't somebody say that calories at Christmas don't count?

This recipe was so easy to make and turned out great.  I haven't made candy in years and don't even own a candy thermometer any more -- it wasn't really at all necessary.

Here's the so easy recipe for what I am now calling:

BLOG TOFFEE

INGREDIENTS:

Equal amounts real butter and white sugar (I used one cup each). But I've made it twice now!

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup finely chopped almonds

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cover a large baking sheet with aluminum foil.  I don't own a large baking sheet (because this is a tiny kitchen with a small oven).  So I lined two glass pie pans.

2. Combine butter, sugar and salt in large heavy-bottomed pan.  (I used my trusty cast-iron skillet!)  (Do NOT melt butter first). Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until butter is melted.  Allow to come to a boil and cook until the entire  mixture becomes a dark amber color.  (If you own a candy thermometer the temperature is 285 degrees.)  But you don't need it because we all know what color toffee is supposed to be!  

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3. As soon as toffee reaches proper color (or temperature), pour it out onto the prepared baking sheet.  Sprinkle chocolate chips over the top and let set for a couple of minutes to soften.  Then spread into a thin even layer.  Sprinkle almonds over and press in slightly.  (Put a plastic bag over your hand.)

4. Place in refrigerator and chill until set.  Break into irregular pieces; store in airtight container.  Or put on plates, wrap with plastic wrap and give some of it away quick before you eat it all.  If you are better organized than I am, your plates will have a holiday theme and the almonds will be more finely chopped.

Yummy stuff.  Thanks Anni!

 

 

OREGON CRANBERRIES

We bought fresh cranberries when we were in Bandon last month.  We were a little early for the main harvest, but these ones were dry-picked (hand-picked), so were supposed to be more special than the ones they harvest the usual way, by machine after flooding the fields.

Most of those cranberries go to Ocean Spray for cranberry juice anyway.  At Thanksgiving time in Oregon, we always bought the same ones everybody else does which are  grown (I think) mostly in Massachusetts.  So it was kind of weird knowing that we had an almost-local crop that we couldn't find in our supermarkets -- less than 100 miles from where they grow. 

Even so, I've made fresh cranberry sauce for years.  It is really easy and really beats the canned stuff.  We ate ours early this year because we thought we'd be on the road for the holiday.  But we left a package of fresh berries for both of the Oregon families, so maybe we'll get some more now.  (The fresh berries freeze beautifully, whether from Oregon or Massachusetts.)

FRESH CRANBERRY SAUCE

• 3/4 cups water
• 3/4 cups orange juice (fresh if you can)
• 2 1/4 cups sugar (two and a quarter cups)
• pinch of salt
• One and a half pounds fresh cranberries
• Grated rind of one large orange

Combine all ingredients in large pan.  Bring to rapid boil and boil hard for three minutes.  Berries will pop open.  Remove from heat.  Add grated orange rind and stir briefly.  Cool.  Serve at room temperature or chill for later use.  (It will keep a long time in the refrigerator if you don't use it up in turkey sandwiches the next day.)

To be honest, we didn't see any difference in taste between this sauce and what we've made for years from the supermarket packaged fresh berries.  But there's a real feel-good factor when you know you're eating local. 

 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE RUBY TUESDAY  pictures 

WHAT'S ON YOUR KITCHEN COUNTER?

 

On  our kitchen counter after a trip to the produce market:  A honeydew melon, three kinds of winter squash, a couple of sweet potatoes, some miniature pumpkins, an assortment of apples, a basket of tomatoes, a couple of bananas (not local) AND

(not shown) ABOUT 900 FRUIT FLIES.

Where the heck do these things come from every Fall?  I know -- there's a whole encyclopedia or ten right here at my fingertips -- but I don't think I really want to know the answer to this one.  Happy Fall.  I'm going away now to put my produce in the refrigerator!

 

 

 

 

 

EATING WELL AT SUMMER'S END

We've already had a couple of rainy Oregon days and some cool and damp mornings.  Even though it is warm and sunny today, there is that Fall feeling in the air.  

The other day, Cyndi and Jeff gathered up some of their garden in anticipation of coming rains and we feasted on a mostly home-grown meal of roasted vegetables.  There were baby beets, green beans, yellow peppers, potatoes, onions, squash, carrots, cabbage.  Everything roasted in the oven with a little olive oil.  Delicious. 

I was most fascinated by the beets, because I hadn't known that they could be roasted just like a potato.  We hadn't even eaten beets for a long time since I just knew that if I boiled them we'd dye our whole RV purple in the process.  Roasting would work for us though.  Cyndi scrubbed small beets, roasted them whole and the peel was edible, like baked potato skins.   So no muss. (I'd say no muss-no fuss, except it felt to me like we were fussed over, even if she said the meal was easy!)

It was a bountiful harvest meal. 

 

 

SWEET SOLUTION TO THE ATTACK OF THE GIANT ZUCCHINI

RECIPE FOR AN OREGON SUMMER TRADITION:*

     

1.  Take a giant Zucchini.  Please!

(Jeff and Cyndi and everyone they know have been eating as much of their garden crop as possible.  But sometimes they just get away from you.)

 

 

 

                                                            2.  Grate it up with our salad shooter.

(We got it as a Christmas present a long time ago. And thought was pretty silly at the time.  But it's wonderful for something like this.) 

 

3.  Stir in a few other healthy fun and delicious ingredients that you already have in the cupboard.

4.  Pop the pans into your now-working and much-loved convection-microwave oven.

AND TA-DA:

 

 

 

 

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I really don't bake very often any more.  So when I do, it seems like a small miracle that you can stir a few things together and get this result.

 

 LIVING THE FULL(SUMMER)TIME-LIFE IN OREGON

 

*(And you can get the full Zucchini bread recipe pretty much anywhere on the Internet if you don't already have it in your cookbook collection.)

MATLACHA

 

Matlacha is a colorful artist and fishing village near Pine Island about 20 miles from Upriver.   (The best way I can remember how to pronounce it is like it was a guy's name -  'Matt Leshay'.) There are a whole series of islands in this area.  Every time you cross a bridge you are on a different one.

Pretty much everything in the village is on water, either on Matlacha Pass or a canal.  The houses and shops on main street are mostly wood-frame old-Florida style.  (Although there are some mansions as well.)

Andy's Island Seafood at Matlacha sells fresh and cooked local seafood.   It is a really cool place that buys and sells only sustainable local fish. Click on the link -- it's worth it.

We had a grouper sandwich there that was baked instead of fried and it was absolutely delicious.  Another time, we brought home filleted fish of a kind we'd never eaten before--Pompano. 

The owner of the market gave us a great recipe for cooking it.   He said to melt a lump of butter slowly so that it wouldn't burn.  Then put in a handful of sliced almonds and cook them a little bit.  Then let that pan just sit on a cold burner for a while until the butter congeals.  (At least long enough to have a glass of wine.)  Preheat the oven to 375.  Put each fish fillet on its own piece of foil, skin side down.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Spread the butter paste on top.  Wrap the foil around the fish fillet in a sealed package and place both of them on a baking sheet.  Cook 10 to 15 minutes.  He said to serve the fish right on the foil, but I took it out and carefully poured the yummy butter/almond sauce on top of the fish and rice that I made to go with it. 

I can't usually remember any recipe unless I write it down.  I thought I would need a pencil, but he said I wouldn't need it and he was right!  This was so good.  I'm sure it would work with any mild-tasting white fish.  Our fillets were about an inch thick. 

Here is the "back yard" behind the fish market. 

FROM OUR LITTLE KITCHEN

There are millions of good recipes on the Internet.  But those aren't as much fun as the ones that are connected to a story -- when you remember where you got the recipe and maybe when you cooked it.  A must-have in our little kitchen is a version of the family cookbook our daughter put together for us as a Christmas present years ago.  She got tired of hearing me whine "someday I'm going to organize all those recipe clippings" and so she did it for me.   Her gift gave me the incentive to keep the book up-to-date and I've done that ever since, adding new favorites and food-sharing memories along the way.  Its fun to remember people and places while I cook.

When we started our RV life, I updated the book by removing supersized recipes that easily fed a family of teenagers.  Although I might never cook some of those early recipes again, the original version of the book is stored in Oregon with our photo albums and other priceless memories that we don't have room to carry with us in our home on wheels.  Here's our modified version with the original dedication page.  (It really WAS quite a few years ago!)  

The recipe below for refrigerator muffins is a "litened up" version of one we have in the original recipe book. 

Here's something wonderful that I learned last summer.  Muffins can be cooked in the microwave.   Wow!  Why didn't I know this trick back in 1976 when we had six people who needed to get out of the house by 7 a.m.?  It works just as well for two people with no particular schedule though (and is especially handy if we don't happen to be breakfasting at the same time). 

I use a 6-oz pyrex custard cup and fill it a little less than half.  It takes about a minute and a half in our nuker.   Last summer, I baked a dozen the old fashioned way because we were having company for breakfast.  And it was our breakfast guest, our friend Anne Dryman, who told me about microwaving them.  So I used the refrigerated half of the batter for microwaving individually. (The recipe says that the batter keeps up to two weeks -- I kept it a little longer and we're still alive and well.)   

The recipe calls for two cups of buttermilk.  I can only find it in quarts -- but you can freeze it for next time.  Just pour the unused half into a freezer bag, seal and pop it in the freezer.  Last week, I made the recipe again with the frozen buttermilk and it works fine.  I have too much in the refrigerator this time though, so next time I'm going to halve the recipe.

Enjoy breakfast! 

Lighter Version Refrigerator Bran Muffins

Ingredients

2 cups All-Bran cereal
2/3 cup wheat bran
1 1/3 cups boiling water
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon grated or ground nutmeg
Vegetable cooking spray
2 cups low-fat buttermilk
1/2 cup pasteurized egg substitute  (The second time I made these I used 2 whole eggs beaten lightly)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

(I added raisins to the batter at the end.)

 

Instructions

1. Mix cereal and wheat bran in a large bowl. Add boiling water, stir well and set aside 1 hour.
2. Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg in a medium bowl.
3. Preheat oven to 375F. Coat muffin cups with cooking spray.
4. Add 1 cup buttermilk to bran mixture; stir well with a whisk. Add remaining buttermilk, egg substitute, granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil and vanilla, stirring until smooth.
4. Add flour mixture; stir until a thick batter forms.
5. Fill each cup with 2⁄3 cup muffin batter. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until puffed and lightly browned. Makes 2 dozen muffins.

Recipe by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, Relish the Healthy Table, "Waves of Grain," Sept. 2008.

Nutritional Information (with the egg substitute)

Per muffin: 150 calories, 5g fat, 0mg chol., 3g prot., 26g carbs., 2g fiber, 250mg sodium.

 

EATING LOCAL

Here are a few fresh-from-the garden crops that we picked up today at the local (in the park) farmers market.    The strawberries are good too -- very sweet. 

Add a grouper sandwich to the mix and welcome to eating local, Florida style. 

We have noticed that we eat out less often since we have been full-timers than we did the last few years we owned our stick home.  Besides having new and different scenery to look at while we eat, it is a lot of fun to experiment with new and different foods. 

Of course, that's fun to do at local restaurants too!  Life is good.

 

 

A CORNBREAD STORY

  Yesterday I baked a perfect pan of cornbread.  Now, normally this would certainly not be blog-worthy news.  But just this one time it really is.  Because earlier in the day, "we" installed our NEW CONVECTION OVEN!  (Click on the posts listed in Food and Drink category on the right to read the whole saga of our microwave troubles.)  This time we have changed brands completely and we have a Sharp.  It fits in the space where the old one was!  It works like it is supposed to!  Life is good!   

We like cornbread and there is a kind of family history to it that we enjoy thinking about while we eat:

Bill's dad was the oldest in a family of nine children, growing up during the Depression.  He told us that cornmeal was a family staple when money was scarce. He remembered that on several birthdays, the cake was a big pan of cornbread with a candle in the middle.  This actually might not be as sad as it sounds, because this grandmother, (who was still alive and healthy well after our children were born) was a wonderful cook -- she worked some in restaurants and scout camps -- probably not too different than cooking for her family had been.  So if anyone could make cornbread into a celebration, she was the one.    My father-in-law still liked to eat it all his life, so I guess it must have been good. 

We like it too -- but not for birthdays!

There's no recipe to accompany this Food post, because I just use the one that's always on the box of cornmeal.  I wish I had Bill's Grandmother's though; I'm sure it was better.

EATING LOCAL

Blackberries grow wild along every country road (and quite a few city streets) in Lane County.  In August and September, just about everybody picks at least a few handfuls.   These bushes are growing in a sunny spot on the lakeshore just a few yards from our front door.   So for the past couple of weeks we've been eating a bowl of these tasty little anti-oxidants almost every morning. 

One of these days, I'll get serious and pick enough to pop in the freezer for later on when we're somewhere down the road.  The taste always brings back great summer memories!

All kinds of berries do well in this climate.  Those long winter rains we used to get so tired of are good for them.  We've already eaten a few pounds of blueberries (from the "Alvadore gardens").  Strawberries are good here too but we missed their main season, which is in June. 

We've been having a heat-wave -- several days of high 90s weather --very rare for this area.  The heat is making the berries very sweet.  The best berries here were hanging over the water.  It felt good to go wading for them.

OUR TERRIBLE DOMETIC OVEN and OUR THIRD PASSENGER, THE GEORGE

Another post from the kitchen of our little condo-on-wheels.  We are still not at all happy with our Dometic convection-microwave oven-AND THIS IS THE THIRD ONE!  It takes over two hours to pre-heat to 350.  (And it won't preheat above that temperature at all.)  This will just not do.  I'm too old to wait that long.  It's still under warranty for another year, but we've done quite a bit of Internet research and think that we'll replace it with a Sharp -- the brand most of our RVing friends have.  Everybody seems happy with it.  (Do not even consider buying a Dometic microwave-convection oven.   We have seen the same complaint from quite a few other owners.) 

Now, in the meantime, we can't live without an oven, so George Foreman, our counter-top toaster/oven has become a big part of our life.  Because he does sit on the counter, George has to be put into a plastic bin and stored in the closet when we're on the road.  Sometimes, especially on overnight stops, we don't think about an oven for a while.  Then, after a few days, I feel a little bit guilty when we finally let him out of his box. 

The reason we realize George is missing from the kitchen is likely to be because we want a baked potato.  Even in the summer, that's a comfort food we can't live too long without.  Massage those Idaho spuds with good olive oil, prick all over with a fork and put into a preheated 425 degree oven.  (George will preheat to this temp, no problem.)  Bake them for 45 minutes to an hour.  They will be crispy outside and perfect in.  Good as a simple side dish or stuff them with whatever, broccoli, cheese, chili... Yum.  Bake a few extras and keep in the frig for a few days -- reheat in the microwave or make a salad or slice and saute for breakfast.

Here are a couple new favorites -- one of them is really good for you, full of anti-oxidants and all that.  (And the cauliflower recipe isn't bad either!)  Both of them need temperatures higher than the Dometic will reach.

This recipe comes from a memoir by Linda Ellerbee, the TV Journalist.  It's not really a cookbook at all, but she included some favorite recipes from her life.  The book, Take Big Bites, is a very enjoyable read.

Chocolate dessert, I forgot to write down what she called it, but it's easier than opening a cake mix:

2 squares unsweetened chocolate, 1 stick butter, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 2 eggs, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1/4 tsp. salt. 

Preheat oven to 400.  Put chocolate and butter into a 9-inch Pyrex pie pan.  Melt them in the microwave. 

Stir eggs, vanilla and salt together in a measuring cup.  Add them, along with the sugar and flour, to the pie pan and stir all of it together.

Bake 25 minutes.  Let cool as long as you can wait!

Golden Cauliflower

Heat oven to 450.  Cut or break one head of cauliflower into bite-size florets and stem pieces.  Put all of the pieces into a big bowl and rub about 2 Tablespoons of olive oil into them.  Spread the pieces out on a rimmed cookie sheet and salt to taste.  Roast in the middle of the oven for about half an hour.  Move the pieces around with a spatula a couple of times.  The pieces will be tender and golden-brown and are good enough to eat either alone as a finger-food snack or with dinner.   (We like very lightly steamed cauliflower too, but I bet even people who won't touch that would enjoy it roasted this way.  It's like a completely different vegetable.)   

Convection ovens are my life

Sometimes it seems that our life recently revolves around convection ovens.  This is our little kitchen, with the fourth microwave-convection oven we've had in a year (three in this RV.)

Our new  (October 2006) RV home came with a combination convection-microwave oven.  Our other trailer had a gas oven, so this was a first for us.  The microwave worked fine, but the convection part was a dud.  For a while, I assumed it was me -- just having an extra-difficult time with the learning curve.  We kept following the directions, but the oven just wouldn't get hot enough.  Finally, we tested it with an oven thermometer and decided it wasn't me after all!  So, we got it replaced (under warranty, thankfully).  The second one heated, after a fashion.  We bought an inexpensive toaster-oven, which worked lots better (but took up quite a bit of precious counter space).

Then, we went to England.  The flat we rented for our three-month stay also had a convection-microwave, but the mechanics of setting it were quite different.  You needed to set the time of day to turn on the oven.  The temperature setting was in Celsius and the timer in 24-hour time.  So it was three different sets of instructions just to turn on the oven -- a funny little balancing act!    But we just don't like to eat dinner out every night, so it was worth the struggle.   

Once back in our own little condo-on-wheels and with the cooler weather of fall, we needed to get back to trying out the oven again.  When we did, it still took an hour to heat up to 350.  Not satisfactory at all, so Bill spent a morning making the usual round of calls to the manufacturer (Dometic).  Once again, they were polite and apologetic.  To save a service call -- which isn't covered by the warranty -- we stopped by a recommended dealer when we were moving anyway.  So we are now on our third oven (in a one-year old RV).   

I don't bake much at all -- we really do usually use the oven to make dinner -- but yesterday I made these cookies (just to check out the newest replacement, of course).  A good recipe because, in case the oven didn't work, the batter is yummy enough to eat raw (hey, it's only one Eggland's Best).  But we didn't have to do that because the oven works, so far at least. But I'm keeping the George Foreman toaster oven handy just in case.

TESTING-THE-OVEN COOKIES (formerly known as Butterscotch Brownies).

• In microwave, melt 1/4 cup butter in glass measuring cup. Let cool slightly, then stir in one egg,1 cup brown sugar, and 1 tsp. vanilla.
• Preheat oven to 350.
• Stir the following dry ingredients together:  3/4 cup flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt.
• Stir butter-sugar mixture into dry ingredients.  Spray 8-inch pan and spread batter in it.  Bake 20 to 25 minutes, just until no thumbprint remains.  (Don't over bake.  These freeze well.)