Ming Tsai's Pork Potstickers

Sometimes you just need to break out of the box, and this was a perfect weekend try something new. I'd been craving potstickers and thought I'd give them a try. It takes a little time to put them together, but it's fun to do if you have helpers. This recipe supposedly makes 30 potstickers, so I doubled the filling to match my package of 60 gyoza wrappers. Even then, I had a lot of leftover filling, which Ed suggested that I make some sort of wacky Asian meatloaf. (Maybe another time!)

I'm embarrassed to admit that we scarfed down over 60 potstickers over two days, but man were they good. So next time, skip the take out and make these - thanks, Ming Tsai!

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/PORK-POT-STICKERS-236605

I Can't Believe I Bought This Much Butter

Or, alternatively, "Costco and the Moral Complexity of Buying in Bulk". Yes folks, thats 5 pounds of prime hydrogenated vegetable oil, with Tinkerbell thrown in for scale. I had a similar feeling when I bought a box of goldfish crackers larger than my ottoman. Sure, I saved a few bucks but I'm not running a Hometown Buffet here, not to mention the unspoken pressure of trying to eat 5 lbs of spread before the expiration date.
We are advised to buy in bulk, plan out meals weeks in advance, freeze meals, etc., as if cooking were to be avoided like a scheduled toilet scrubbing. What happened to imaginative, spontaneous cooking? While some planning is good, who knows what we are going to crave in two weeks, not to mention what's going to be fresh and even better, on sale? In the mean time, I'm striking a balance between Costco and the farmer's market and hoping not to to go bankrupt in the process.
Oh, and I canned some pears, perhaps tipping the scales toward wholesomeness and economy in the great moral balance of the universe.
I've gotta go - Fabio's here to take me on horseback ride through the Pyrenees.

Corn Chowder with Chiles

It's soup season! Okay, so it rained for half a day, but here in Utah that's a big deal. I've never made corn chowder before, but I had most of the ingredients so there you go.
This recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart's Summer Corn Chowder from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook. I increased the amounts by half, used milk instead of half-and-half, and increased the heat by adding extra chiles. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Even Ed liked it, and he doesn't even like corn. (I think the British are raised to think corn is animal feed, but that's a whole other post.)

Corn Chowder with Chiles
6 oz. bacon, diced
1 lg. onion, diced
3 celery stalks, diced
8 sprigs fresh thyme
salt and pepper
4 cups chicken stock or broth
3 ears of corn, shaved from the cob
8 oz. fingerling potatoes, cut into 1/2" slices (or use white/yellow potato, diced)
1-2 poblano peppers, cut into 1/2" dice (seeds and ribs removed) You can use whatever peppers you have on hand, depending on how hot you want your soup. I used 1 anaheim and 1 jalapeno. You could even used canned green chiles.
2 c. milk (or half and half)
roux for thickening, optional

Place bacon is small stockpot over medium-high heat. Cook until deep golden brown and all fat has been rendered. Remove bacon and drain on paper towel. Discard all but 2 T. bacon fat.
Add onion, celery, thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Cook over medium low until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add stock, cover, bring to boil, and reduce heat to medium. Simmer with lid ajar for 15 minutes.
Add corn, potatoes, and chile pepper Cook uncovered until potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove and discard thyme. Add milk and thicken with roux if desired. If using roux, heat 3 T. butter in small saucepan; stir in 1/4 - 1/3 c. flour. Stir for a minute or so, then add in 1-2 c. of the hot soup. Stir until thickened and then return mixture to soup pot and whisk to incorporate.) Check and adjust seasoning. Garnish with bacon and whatever else looks good.

Raspberry Nectarine Jam

Remember that summer hailstorm that damaged many of the fruit trees around the valley? Well, my dad now has some really ugly, pockmarked, nectarines that have really delicious fruit inside (there's a gospel message in there somewhere). Anyway, I went over to pick more raspberries and he gave me a bag of the nectarines, so I put the two together and made a deliciously tangy raspberry nectarine jam.

Pesto 3 Ways

My sister-in-law Jerrea has an enormous basil plant so I stole a few bunches so I could make pesto and not have to spend a ton of money. Pesto enjoyed a big resurgence a few years back, and I still like making a couple of batches every summer. Spread it on toast, use in panini, pasta, on potatoes, on pizza, with chicken - whatever.

Basil Pesto
3 garlic cloves (more or less, depending on taste)
1/2 c. toasted pine nuts
1 t. kosher salt
2 c. basil leaves, packed
1/2 c. or so grated parmesan cheese
1/2 c. (about) extra virgin olive oil

I mix everything in a food processor and drizzle in the oil at the end. Check and adjust seasoning. Store in a lidded glass container with a little oil on top of the pesto to keep it from turning brown.

Pesto with Roast Chicken: put a tablespoon or so pesto underneath the chicken skin, season chicken, and bake at 375 until done. Serve with more pesto on the top if you want. Ina Garten has a recipe that also includes goat cheese with the pesto.


Pesto with hash browns: use pesto as a condiment. I use potatoes that have been par-boiled or baked, and then give them a rough chop, season, add onions or whatever you want, and cook in a well-oiled cast iron pan. I sometimes weigh down the potatoes with another pan to get a "pancake" effect. These potatoes have cheese and green onion. You can also boil small red potatoes, and then roughly smash up the potatoes with olive oil and pesto.

Pesto with pasta: this is just pasta with pesto, fresh chopped tomatoes, and some mozzerella cheese.

Jammin'

Today I got serious, put on an apron, and canned some jam. Yes, it's a pain, but who can deny the happiness you feel placing the gleaming jars of ruby jam on a tea towel to cool on your countertop. This jam is peach/raspberry. The peaches I stole from my neighbor's tree (That's what you get when let branches grow recklessly over the fence. Thanks, neighbor!), and the raspberries are from my mom and dad's garden.
I know I'm waxing a bit silly, but whenever I do some canning, or make a pie from scratch, I feel a connection to women of yesteryear. I may never cook over an open fire, do laundry in a river, or butcher a cow, but by dang I can make jam from stuff growing in the yard. I hope my ancestors looking down on my little accomplishment and will cut me a little slack and ignore the fact that I drive a living room with wheels and buy chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs.

Luke's Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Our nephew Luke was visiting from England in August, and mowed through these chocolate chip cookies. Here's the recipe, Luke!

Luke's Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 c. unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 c. vegetable shortening

1 1/3 c. dark brown sugar

1 1/3 c. white sugar

4 T. corn syrup (or golden syrup)

2 T. cider or white vinegar

4 lg. eggs, room temperature

2 T. vanilla extract

1 t. salt

1 t. baking powder

1 t. baking soda

5 cups flour

2 bags (about 4 cups) chocolate chips

Cream butter and shortening until well mixed and fluffy. Gradually add sugars, corn syrup, and vinegar and beat until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Stir in flour and chocolate chips. If the dough still looks extremely soft, add a little more flour.

Chill the dough at least 1 hour, or if possible, overnight (I find if I bake these right away, they spread to much.) For large cookies, bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes. I use parchment-lined baking sheets. Adjust baking time and temp as necessary. Let cool on trays for a few minutes before transferring to a rack.

This makes a ton of cookies, so half the recipe if you want, but I like to make a full recipe and freeze logs of the chilled dough for future use.

Weekend Garden Extravaganza

Our neighbors the Stringhams have been very generous with their garden produce. Friday night we enjoyed their freshly-dug red potatoes with clean-out-the-fridge toppings: sour cream, cheese, mushrooms, bacon (from the BLTs), and peas.

Saturday was less exciting (mac and cheese), but I did make up a great batch of lime & garlic salsa with all of the extra tomatoes and peppers lying around. Here's an approximation of the recipe.

Lime & Garlic Salsa
4-5 reg. tomatoes + 5-6 romas (or whatever you have)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 bunch green onions (can use a white onion instead)
assorted hot peppers (I used 1 jalapeno, 1 small hot chili pepper, and 2 larger mild peppers)
juice from 1/2 lime
generous handful of cilantro
1/2 t. or so sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Finely chop everything or put in food processor. Don't process to long or you'll get too much air in the salsa and it will be pink. Don't be afraid to season it well, as it may need 1/2-1 t. salt. This salsa can be pretty "loose". If you prefer a thicker texture you can add some tomato paste.

Road Food

Ed in school + out running errands = drive thru dinner. I try to support local (or in this case, regional) places, so we went to Arctic Circle. Besides, their fries are so much better than McDonald's or Wendy's (rancid oil, almost always). Plus, my relationship with Wendy's has soured ever since I had a bad chicken wrap that caused some significant gastro distress. While three kids meals for 10 bucks is not bad, Arctic Circle really needs to get a value menu.

Speaking of gastro distress, I visited Carrie just as she was cleaning up dinner, and I got to see this gem of a dish. After laughing for about 5 minutes, we decided to have a little contest. Whoever can name 4 ingredients that are a part of this dish gets a Very Special Prize.

Loaded BLTs

Sorry, Carrie, about all the tomatoes. It will go away in a couple of weeks.

Nothing special here. Just BLTs with avocado and blue chesse dressing. Add cheese if you're name is Ed. Toast the bread for texture, and make sure you season those tomatoes.

Roasted Tomato Soup & Breadsticks

A friend brough over a massive bag of cherry tomatoes, but one can only eat so many plates of tomatoes and cottage cheese before one starts to feel a little panicky about what to do with all of those tomatoes. I still had a big wad of leftover dough in the fridge from yesterday's pizza, so I decided to make breasticks and tomato soup.

Roasted Tomato Soup

2 lbs or so tomatoes

1 onion, thinly sliced

2 cloves of garlic

a few sprigs of thyme

4 T. olive oil

1 t. sugar

salt and pepper

Toss above ingredients in a roasting pan and roast, stirring once or twice, in a 425-degree oven for about 25-35 minutes.

Add roasted tomato mixture and 4 c. chicken stock to pot and simmer 5 minutes. Check seasoning and adjust as necessary. Here's where things get silly. If you want a smooth soup, puree in blender or use an immersion blender and strain through a sieve. Return soup to pot, and add additional seasonings or add-ins. You could add some hot sauce or red pepper flakes, fresh basil or other herbs, cooked rice, or even some cream for more of a 'cream of tomato' soup. I added a little hot sauce and about 1/3 c. heavy cream. It was pretty good, but I was not prepared for its bright orange, wheaties box color. Not the sexiest photo, but good eats nonetheless.

Summer Vegetable Pizza with Crispy Garlic

In an attempt to put the "diary" back into "Diary of an Iron Homemaker", I've challenged myself to blog, for better or worse, what we've had for dinner each day. English food writer Nigel Slater wrote an awesome cookbook The Kitchen Diaries in this same format. He is a big proponent of eating seasonally, growing your own food when possible, and cooking instinctively, often without a recipe. I tried to emulate some of these qualities in tonight's dinner, Summer Vegetable Pizza.

This pizza is a product of the generosity of friends and family who have shared their garden abundance with us.

The Crust

Resist the temptation to add more flour, as this dough can be wet, depending on how you measure your flour. After it rises it will be easier to handle. This recipe will make 2 smallish round pizzas or 1 jelly-roll pan size pizza.

3 cups flour

2 t. salt

1 1/4 c. warm water

2 1/2 t. instant yeast

1 T. olive oil

1 t. sugar

Chuck everything into your mixer and knead for about 5 minutes. You can add a little more water if you're concerned about a dry dough. Knead into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled. Deflate gently and press into oiled jelly roll pan (or shape into rounds).

Top and bake at 450 for at 10-25 minutes, depending on the thinness of your crust and amount of toppings.

The Sauce

Normally for the sauce I prefer to use crushed, raw tomatoes (skinned & seeded), stir in some chopped garlic that has been sauteed in olive oil, add some salt, pepper, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and a some fresh herbs (basil, oregano) and chopped up. But today I wanted to save the beautiful Romas from my mom's garden for the topping, so I settled for a thin smear of bottled pasta sauce.

The Toppings

My pizza got chopped onion, chopped Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced green zucchini and yellow squash, green pepper, mushrooms, mozzerella, and parmesan. I didn't have any, but olives and artichoke hearts would have been good, too.

While the pizza was baking, I sauteed some thinly sliced some garlic and a chopped red chile pepper in olive oil until the garlic was crispy. When the pizza was done, I drizzled the garlic/chile mixture (oil included) over all the pizza. This, I think, was the best part and gave the pizza a really spicy kick and a nice texture with the crispy garlic. Oh yeah, I totally need to brush my teeth.