Cooking is always more enjoyable with others...



Pretty table setting

When I was down in California for work JoAnne had a little luncheon with her close friends that took a recent trip with her and Ray. She wanted to cook an assortment of recipes of things they had as a closing to the trip.

It's always more enjoyable cooking with others than by yourself although I do like cooking for parties or holidays for people (other than my kids) because seeing people enjoy my cooking gives me pleaseure. My kids either pass or fail my cooking on if Auntie Kelly or Grandpa John makes it better than me... "It's good but Auntie Kelly's is better."... whatever :-)

We made Sea Bass (totally nummy, sorry no photo was too busy cooking), a potato gratin dish in individual ramekin dishes (again no photo), green beans with toasted pine nuts (no photo.. yeah I suck)... BUT I did get photos of the tomato & watermelon salad & a roasted beet with tzatziki sauce appetizer...

The Summer Salad with Tomato & Watermelon was delicious! It was surprising to find the combination of watermelon and tomato but it was light and refreshing.

Roasted beets, topped with tzatziki sauce, sprinkled with toasted walnuts and drizzled with fine olive oil. Can you say nummy?

Anyway, try the salad... I think you'll like it as much as we did and it's safer than eating mayo based potato or macaroni salad that's sat out on some picnic table in the sun for too long.

Powerbait?... Ummm, I think not...

We had a really fun day today. Went fishing with my 3 kids and two more rental kids. We bagged 22 fish total. The funniest part is the fish would swallow the Powerbait and then spit it back out... it would float to the top of the water where we'd swoop it up and put it back on our hooks... Needless to say we did much better with the worms we had.

Skye, sitting & waiting...

Dakota trying to be patient...

Hunter going for the long cast...

Savannah bringing one in...

Maddie (sitting in style), Me, and Savannah

I won with 6 total caught (Maddie lost one trying to put it on the chain but technically it counts.)

Hunter was a close 2nd with 5 caught BUT his greatest catch of the day was using his survival knife as a fishing rod.

The Survival Knife fishing Rod, with catch attached.

Dakota, was finally patient enough to get one hooked and brought onto the dock.

Skye was the last one to bring her first one in but she finally got one then in the last hour proceeded to pull in 3 more...

Maddie, did a great job. She was also helping other people on the dock get the hooks out of their fish...

Savannah, was having the best luck at the beginning of the day... reeling one in after another... she got 4 and then let Skye use her pole because Skye's broke.

We had a picnic on the dock, Skye & Savannah made the sandwiches.

Hunter & Skye took on cleaning & scaling the fish when we got home.

And viola... dinner in the pan ala Papa John style! (Sorry, my camera had a yellow "effect" set and I didn't notice.)

Now, for the rest of the weekend here's just some random shots...

Skye got her learner's permit so I let her drive some to practice.

Isn't Kasey Kahne just the cutiest damn kitty ever? He loves his mommy's bed...

The last shots are some great ones of the sky & clouds just because I've really just been liking the clouds & sky lately...

The last photo here is of the brush pile I burned in my driveway... it's small because we were just adding from the bigger pile as it burned down. I kept thinking that if we were still in Seattle there would be no way I could do something like burn brush in the driveway without having a bunch of firetrucks show up when the neighbors called it in.

Does the Woman Have a Single Bad Recipe?

I have a friend, JoAnne, who I've gotten quite a few recipes from. Every single one so far has been in the "Totally Evil" or "Beyond Great" categories. I promise you poor souls who had my under-cooked "JoAnne's Evil Potatoes" for Thanksgiving that one day I'll make them again the way they should be and you will see.

My mom cooks really good too but when I eat one of JoAnne's recipes it makes me wish I was one of her kids growing up.

Here's the newest one she passed on last week and I made it on Saturday during my "girls weekend" trip to Lake Coeur d'Alene with my daughter Madeleine & my friends daughter, Megan.

I'm calling it:

"JoAnne's To Die for Macaroni N' Cheese"

1. Start by cooking 1 pound of elbow macaroni until "el dente", drain & set aside.

2. Cut the crust off of white bread and line a very large baking dish (I ended up needing one large 9x13 pan and another 8x8 pan to fit it all)

 

3. Melt 8 Tablespoons of butter in Microwave then brush all over the bread. (YES this is one entire cube of butter.)  

4. Take the crusts & spread on a cookie sheet & put into a 200 degree oven until nice & dry. I deviated from JoAnne's recipe here and sprinked the crusts with a bit of Garlic Powder (Because incase you guys don't know it yet I happen to think there is no such thing as too much garlic in anything.) 

 

5. Put 5 1/2 cups of WHOLE milk into your pot and don't try to make it with skim milk. You just got done brushing all the bread with one cube of butter. Don't you think skim milk is pointless by now? (Also, make the pot a large one)

 

6. On a lower heat setting warm the milk a bit then slowly add 1/2 cup flour as you whisk to prevent lumping (you can also use another thickening agent like corn starch etc). 

7. Add 1/4 tsp White Pepper (you can use regular black pepper if you don't have white), 1/4 tsp Cayanne Pepper & 1/4 tsp Nutmeg

 

8. To the milk, flour, spice mixture you add 4 1/2 cups of White Cheddar (I used Tilamook Vintage White). Now I didn't want to shred it all so here was my conversion... 8 oz to a cup... so basically I just cubed up an entire two pound block of it and put it into the pot. I could be totally off but it turned out great anyway.

9. Add 1 cup Swiss & 1 Cup Romano

10. Keep stirring over low to medium heat until the cheese is melted & everything is mixed creamy together.

 

(Still lumpy.. keep stirring so it won't scorch)

11. When it's all mixed and creamy mix in your elbow macaroni.

12. Pour the mixture into the white bread lined baking dish (or dishes).

 

13. Crumble up your dried out bread crusts to make coarse bread crumbs.

 

14. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the macaroni mixture

 

15. Put pans into a 350 degree oven for 30 to 45 minutes until bubbly & browned on top.

 

Sorry, I forgot to snap a picture right when it came out of the oven but here's part of one dish after we ate some for dinner.

 

If anyone makes this dish please post a comment on how it went for you and if you liked it. I'd love to hear from you!

~Jamie

Roxanne was right - No-Knead Bread = Evil

Ok Roxanne was totally right. I made the recipe that she suggested for No-Knead Bread and I tell you it's so easy and it tastes GREAT!

Here's the recipe link for anyone that missed it.

My gosh the stuff is just evil I tell you....

For you non bakers out there here's how it's done... Just try it, I swear you will LOVE it, and it is super easy to make.

1. Start by taking  3 Cups of All-Purpose flour and put it into a mixing bowl. (I haven't perfected my whole wheat version yet so I"ll let you know when I get the perfect loaf on that.)
2. Add 1/4 tsp rapid rise yeast to the flour. (You can use regular yeast - just use more like 1/2 tsp to 3/4 tsp)
3. Add 1 1/4 tsp salt to the flour.
4. Mix together until blended then make a well in the center and add just a little bit shy of 2 cups water. Mix it all up. You may need to add more water.... What you want to end up with is something that resembles a really thick pancake batter (see photo below).

I did the above steps on Christmas afternoon.

5. Now what you do is cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for 12 to 18 hours. It is ready to move to the next step when the top is all bubbly (see next two photos since I did two batches).

6. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice.

 

7. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

(Now I'm going to honestly tell you that I have omitted the turning it over on itself and cover with plastic wrap step and just moved on to the next one below. It turned out fine and because the dough is so sticky and tacky it's a lot less messier.)

This next step is a deviation from the original recipe. Roxanne found the suggestion online and it's much easier and works great.

8. Line a bowl with parchment paper.

 9. Pick up the dough off the counter and put into lined bowl (or if you are skipping the counter part just dump the dough into the lined bowl)

10. Cover loosely with a cotton towel.

11. Let rise until double in size - About 2 hours.

11. About 30 minutes before baking time put your dutch oven or any other pot (with a lid) that can go up to 500 degrees into your oven and turn it on to 450 degrees f.

12. Once the dough has risen and your pot, lid & oven are 450 degrees F, pick up the parchment paper with the dough inside gently and put it into the hot pot.

13. Put the lid on and bake for 30 minutes.

14. Then remove the lid and bake for another 15 to 30 minutes until the loaf is beautifully browned.

15. Remove from hot pot and cool on wire rack as long as you can stand to not just cut off a piece and eat it.

I don't know about you but I love the smell when making bread...

If you try this please post your comments... tell me how it turns out for you and if you like it as much as we do.

~Jamie