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.