Cooking With Emily

I've been a little neglectful of late.  Blame the holidays, blame my own battle with ennui, I can offer no real excuse.  My head & my heart are here, my ambition fled.  But I'm back, and hopefully 2015 will prove to be a better, more consistent year.  I'll even provide a double header today just because. OK, I confess I intended to write up the "bonus" recipe last week, but the post-Christmas blahs knocked the legs out from under me.  It's been a busy and emotional couple of weeks.

Monday morning Emily pulled out her cookbooks and found a couple of recipes she wanted to try; Silver Dollar Sausage Patties and Ginger-spiced Carrot Soup.  I had no desire to go to the store (we we low on carrots) so I rummaged through the deep freeze and found a package of ground chicken.  The recipe actually called for ground turkey, but hey, poultry is poultry.  Unfortunately by the time we got home Monday evening it was late and I decreed it to be a "whatever's in the fridge" night.  Spending an extra hour having coffee with my friend is more important than a proper meal sometimes.  Scratch that.  MOST times...if not all the time.  Cup of Soup & grilled cheese sandwiches saved the day, and Emily's cooking night was quietly shifted to Tuesday as school holidays mean her Tuesday night activities are also on hiatus.

It was just as well she was on kitchen duty.  I spent most of the day on the couch, feeling like a horse had kicked me in the chest and had no appetite or desire to cook.  It would have been another grilled cheese night.  Anyway....

Emily was somewhat disappointed that I had thawed out chicken instead of getting her the soup ingredients, but dove in with enthusiasm when I assured her we could do the soup next week.
She unwrapped the ground chicken and put it in a mixing bowl while I peeled 3 cloves of garlic for her.  She had a little trouble with the garlic press, her hands aren't quite strong enough yet, so I helped with that and found the cumin for her.
Stirring the mixture together was something of a challenge until I suggested she don a pair of latex gloves. (I would have just dove in bare hands, but....) I have a box of the gloves that I bought so save my hands when I made jalapeño poppers last year.  They do have their uses to be sure.
Once the meat was well mixed with its seasonings. Thankfully I caught her before she stirred in 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, having mis-read 1/2 a teaspoon & not realizing that was a LOT of salt.
 She laughed at the instruction "Cover and refrigerate for one hour to let the flavours mingle.  Or you can cook it immediately, if you're very hungry".  The things that amuse us!
We got the rice going, and after several forays into the cupboard she finally found my biggest skillet.  She has a couple smaller ones, but she would have had to cook her patties in stages.

She decided to try the gloves for making the 2" patties, but they are too big for her hands, so I suggested it might go easier if she just washed her hands well and got to it.
Despite my still queasy stomach dinner was good.  As I was cleaning up after supper I noticed the recipe was from the "Morning Food" section of the cookbook, but the little burgers were just as good with a side of rice & steamed peas as they would be with eggs & toast.  I topped mine with a dollop of spicy Thai chili sauce, Emily used barbeque sauce.

The recipe is from a book she got for Christmas last year; "Kids Cook 1-2-3"  The recipes are designed for beginner chefs & all only have 3 ingredients, barring things like salt, pepper & other basics.

Silver Dollar Sausage Patties

12 ounces ground turkey (we used chicken, because that's what we had)
3 small garlic cloves
2 teaspoons cumin.

Combine ground turkey, garlic, pressed through a garlic press, and cumin, along with  a 1/2 teaspoon salt & a 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Cover & chill for an hour, (or not, if you are hungry!)
Shape the meat into 12 small patties, about 2" across.  Cook in a non-stick skillet until browned on both sides, about 2 minutes a side.


And now for your "bonus" recipe.

This recipe, Harvest Pork & Apple Pie" is one I found several years ago in a magazine, I think.  It is one of my favourites, personally I enjoy the leftovers for breakfast as much as for lunch.  I made it this year as my contribution to Christmas Eve supper at my mother's house, which is just the precursor to the feast to follow on Christmas day.  We try to make dishes that won't create a lot of leftovers or that will get eaten later on that night as the boys (now young men, the first lot of grandchildren) decide they need a midnight snack.
I usually only make one at a time, but this year I made 3 - mostly since the recipe on the Tenderflake package was for 6 pie crusts (3 2 crust pies) We needed at least 2 for supper, so I figured I'd go for broke.  The recipe below though is for a single pie.

2 pie shells                                      1/2 teaspoon ground sage (I use several fresh leaves, chopped up)
1 pound ground pork                       1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 stalk celery, chopped                   2 medium, tart apples, peeled & sliced
1 medium onion, chopped               2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup fine, dry bread crumbs        1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 cup chicken broth 
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400F.  Brown pork, celery & onion.  (I have added a finely chopped carrot too, or instead, since celery disagrees with Peter).  Drain off the fat, stir in bread crumbs, chicken broth, salt, sage and cayenne.  
Pour this mixture into a prepared pie shell.
Combine apples (Granny Smiths are my favourite) sugar and allspice, spoon over meat.
Top with second crust, seal & vent.  Brush with a little milk (I usually forget this step)
Bake 35-40 minutes.  Let stand about 10 minutes before serving.

Cooking With Emily

Cooking with a ten year old is always an adventure.  Cooking with one who wants to learn, but thinks she knows what she is doing is a special kind of adventure.  Why do I do this to myself on Monday nights, when Mondays are filled with their own stresses?  I like to experiment on the weekends, and often my chef trainee is off visiting her dad.  I considered the week before I picked a day...Tuesdays are busy, Thursday is wine with the dayhome moms, so often supper is late (hey, a girl needs to unwind & vent a little every now & then!) and by Friday I just don't have the energy.
We were half way to organized this week, Emily chose a chicken dish out of one of her own cookbooks (Kids Cook 1-2-3) and I made sure we had chicken thawed.  Then we got home Monday evening & I re-read the recipe.  I knew it was supposed to bake for 90 minutes, but, I had neglected to note the 30 minute (to overnight) marinating process.  I guess my trainee isn't the only one who needs to read & re-read the recipe!
We quickly began skimming through cook books....solo I would have done a quick bread crumb coating and baked the bird, but there's not much learning there.  I flipped through the always reliable Company's Coming (Healthy Recipe Makeover) and found something that looked like it would be an adequate replacement recipe.  Thankfully Emily agreed.
I set her to measuring out the several ingredients for the milk & egg dip while I measured Rice Krispies and sesame seeds into the blender for the crumb coating.  I was short on sesame seeds (note to self- put them on the grocery list that you will leave on your desk) so I substituted with flax seeds.  The recipe called for an egg white, but I told Emily to use the whole egg (we'll deal with separating them another day, when it actually matters) and showed her an easy substitution for buttermilk by adding a splash of lemon juice to regular milk.  She thought that was gross.  She also made me measure in the Dijon mustard, because it smelled funny.  To save cooking time I quickly de-boned the chicken breasts I had thawed, putting the bones into a pot to simmer to make soup another day.

While Emily dipped and dredged and coated I asked her what she wanted for a side dish"Perogies" was her definite reply.  Surprisingly we had a few buried in the freezer and I glanced at the back of the package to see if there was a fast way to prepare them.  Baked in the oven? With the chicken?  Perfect.  Emily put her chicken into the oven & brushed the frozen perogies with olive oil.  I had beets in the fridge that needed to be cooked so I sauted them, putting together a bowl of carrot & celery sticks with raw broccoli for Emily, since she has yet to appreciate crisp, buttery, sweet beets....more for me that way.

Thinking on one's feet is an important skill, in the kitchen and in life.  Sometimes things don't work out the way we planned, sometimes we don't have all the ingredients we need and have to make do with what we do have on hand.  Story of my life...."Let's just make this work".  Learning to be flexible and to rethink things is a skill I hope I am teaching.  Those of us who cannot bend and flex a little are bound to be broken by life's storms.  And tolerance and compassion should not be taken for blind acceptance....but there I go, off on a tangent.  The lesson learned in the kitchen today was a corollary of the old saw "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade (or make gin & tonic)", "when the clock starts ticking, re-assess your plan".
Dinner was very good.  The chicken was not as crispy as I would have liked, and like a true chef Emily was concerned it didn't taste good when I added a little drizzle of Siracha to my piece.  It was fine, but I thought it needed something.  Next go-round I'd add some zing to the crumb coating.  And the discovery that perogies could be baked was a revelation.  I prefer them boiled then fried, but that's 2 pans to wash and somewhat time consuming.

Oven Fried Chicken

4 cups crisp rice cereal *                   1/4 teaspoon paprika

2 tablespoons sesame seeds               1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg white, beaten                             1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/3 cup buttermilk                              6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard                3 tablespoons corn starch

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Process cereal & sesame seeds in a food processer until mixture resembles coarse crumbs (* we had lots of this mixture left over, I think you could get away with 3-3 1/2 cups of cereal.  Then again, we only used 4 breasts too, so...)

Whisk together egg, buttermilk, Dijon, garlic powder, paprika, salt & pepper. 

Dredge the chicken into the corn starch, shake off excess, dip into buttermilk mixture and then press into cereal mixture until well coated.  Place on a greased, foil lined baking sheet.  

Bake at 425F for about 30 minutes, until golden.

Breath Again

Behind closed eyes

flashing, glorious light

achingly beautiful,

beyond my poor words

a fleeting dreamscape just beyond my reach

Opened

only
thieving velvet dark

suffocating, deafening,

stunning

I strain once more to breath

in the encompassing

lightless,
             limitless,
                       breathless dark

and there,

just there

a spark

One tiny glimmer

one lonely candle flicker

shatters the dark

Silence lifts, song begins anew

and the whisper of your voice cuts through the black

my heart begins again

And I gasp,

       hope opens my lungs to breath again

I've been struggling lately.  There is much to do, and big dreams to chase, but I cannot rouse the ambition for most of it.  I wish I could say why.  At least then I could do battle against that and see some kind of forward momentum.  This is more of an insidious ennui.  I would not go so far as to say I am bored...more like I am tired.  Not sleep deprived, just weary.  Maybe it's the season.  Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas-every last strand of tinsel, but there is something in the forced gaiety, the temporary "goodwill toward men" that will soon be forgotten (largely, thankfully I know many people who hold the spirit of Christmas throughout the year) that underlines my solitude and my personal struggles.  But, honestly that's not quite it either.  I am an introvert, a check every box on the list, dyed in the wool, introvert.  I embrace my solitude most of the time.  I am likely to turn down most invitations...but having an invitation to turn down might be nice.


I'm grasping at straws to explain how I'm feeling, but there is no easy answer.  It is what it is.  Soon enough, in God's good timing the clouds will part and I will feel better, more hopeful.  

Cooking With Emily

Let's try this again, shall we?  I'm not entirely sure where all my ambition has gone, but gone it is.  A chinook has brought a lovely reprieve from winter and I still only want to curl up with blankets and books and let the world go on without me for a while.

Once again Monday came too soon, spoiling the languor of a weekend of no commitments, and opening a week overflowing with them, as Christmas fast approaches.  Thankfully my shopping is done, my tree is trimmed & I long ago gave up Christmas baking.  Still there are school concerts and food bank drives, and life as usual.

I neglected to ask Emily what her plans for dinner were in the Monday morning chaos, and just took out a package of pork chops to thaw.  Several hours into the morning I remembered it WAS her night to cook and I took a few minutes to run through a handful of recipes to try to find something she could tackle & enjoy making.  In a Back to School issue of a cooking magazine (Taste of Home) I found one that I knew would appeal since root beer was a key ingredient..
Of course when I picked her up she had concocted some idea in her head, and when I told her I had pork chops thawed she amended her idea to become "pork chop stew".  Not a terrible idea, but rather formless, which is not a good place for a beginner chef.  She warmed to my idea when I explained about the root beer, as I knew she would....especially since she could drink the unused portion of the bottle I had purchased.

The recipe called for a pound and a half of small red potatoes.  She was unsure how much that was, so I handed her 5 potatoes about the size of her fist. She had the peeler out, but this recipe left the skin on (a bonus to my mind! No tedious peeling!) We cut them in half (quartered the larger ones) and set them in a pot to boil.
Next came the fun part for a kid-pouring and mixing.  She stirred together 1 cup of root beer, 1 cup of ketchup, a tablespoon of brown sugar, 2 teaspoons of chili powder and 2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce.  The recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder but I prefer real garlic, so I minced a clove for her.  Ever the aesthetic critic Emily said the mixture looked weird, but I urged her to trust me.

Into a large ziploc bag she measured 2 tablespoons of flour, 1/2 a teaspoon of pepper & 1/4 teaspoon of salt.  In went the chops, one at a time, to be coated by shaking.
I had already begun to heat a couple tablespoons of oil in my favourite large skillet, and she placed the chops gently into the pan to brown.  Once the pork chops were browned (2-3 minutes a side) Emily poured her root beer/ketchup mixture into the pan.  Once it started to boil she reduced the heat, covered the pan & let the sauce simmer until the chops were done. (6-8 minutes, but ours were thick & still partly frozen, so we simmered closer to 10 minutes)
By now the potatoes were tender so I drained them for her, and coarsely mashed them with 2 tablespoons of butter, salt & pepper.  Again, the recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder, which I replaced by tossing a couple of cloves into the water with the potatoes.

While things were simmering away, against my advice, Emily spread her spelling homework across the kitchen floor.  Thankfully there was no evidence of cooking on the pages while we discussed antonyms for words associated with space travel.  Soon I heard complaints of hunger and then delight when the timer beeped.  She was disappointed there was still one more step...will I ever convince her to actually read a recipe all the way through first?
I lifted the chops from the sauce to a plate, covering it with my biggest stainless steel mixing bowl to keep them warm, and turned up the heat to reduce the sauce.  While I stirred Emily opened a can of corn (I would have gone with a green vegetable, like broccoli, but "we haven't had corn for a long time!") and put it in a dish to heat in the microwave..

Finally dinner was done.  It was a hit, enough so there was no arguing about finishing dinner, and when I went back to the kitchen to put away the leftovers I had a request for a plate to be made for her school lunch the next day.

I suppose the day is coming when I should vacate the kitchen entirely when Emily cooks.  And I can (and do) when she tackles chocolate chip cookies and French toast). It is hard not to take over.  But we spent time together, and she learned about substituting real garlic for powder and what "reducing" a sauce means.

Soda Pop Chops with Smashed Potatoes

1 1/2 lbs small red potatoes, halved
1 cup of root beer
1 cup of ketchup
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (or 1 small clove, minced)
2 tablespoons flour
salt & pepper
4 pork loin chops 
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder (or 1-2 cloves cooked with the potatoes)

Place the potatoes in a large sauce pan, cover with water.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover & cook until tender (15-20 minutes)
In a small bowl combine root beer, ketchup, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce & garlic.  Set aside.
In a large resealable bag combine flour with 1/2 teaspoon pepper & 1/4 teaspoon salt.  Add pork chops, one at a time, shake to coat.
In a large skillet heat oil & cook chops over medium heat, 2-3 minutes per side, until lightly browned, Drain excess fat.  Add root beer mixture, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover & simmer 6-8 minutes, until chops are done (145 F) Remove pork & keep warm.  Let stand about 5 minutes before serving.
Bring the sauce to a boil , cook until reduced by half.  Meanwhile drain potatoes, mash with butter, salt & pepper.  (Incidentally the sauce is pretty good on the potatoes too...)