Char’s Blog

I recently made a German Chocolate cake from scratch for a certain Somebody’s birthday.

It took a bit of effort but I thought it turned out pretty well.

(See the all important Chinese Chili Sauce in the background? It has permanent residency on the table but not on the cake.)

The important person liked the cake. And The Boy thought it was great. The Girls, on the other hand, didn’t like the “frosting”. Coconut and pecans swimming in sweetness doesn’t appeal to them. As with most of the dinners I fix, I have found that you can’t please everybody so I don’t even try anymore. In this case, there wasn’t much sadness about it- in fact there was some joy as it meant more for the ones of us who liked it.

It’s the time of year when the garden is full of tomatoes and peppers.

That is, if one had a garden that wasn’t growing weeds.

But, we shan’t let that deter us, that’s what Farmer’s Markets and Farm Stands are for.

OK, where was I? Oh, yes, lots of tomatoes and peppers.

Actually, what I am going to tell you about doesn’t use a lot of tomatoes. So forget that part.

Do you have peppers,cilantro, onions and garlic in abundance?

Then I have the recipe for you!

Sofrito. I learned about Sofrito during one of my less energetic periods when I was watching afternoon cooking shows on PBS. We live in the dark ages with no cable or satellite- just an antennae up in the air catching random, but free, signals so I don’t have the “24 Hour Cooking Channel”. More the pity. What was I talking about again? I keep distracting myself. Oh yes, so I watched a show called “Daisy Cooks” (I will not link to that site because Google has a warning that the site could damage my computer- how odd.) and learned all about Sofrito. Daisy Martinez says it does “everything but make the bed”. I wish is did make beds but it does make adding fresh tasting zing to dishes easy.

So what is it exactly? “Exactly” might be hard to come by. But it is a chopped up mixture of mainly onions, garlic, peppers and cilantro that can be frozen and added to dishes like Spanish rice and beans.

Here is the link to Daisy Martinez’s recipe (this site is ok to go to). Now you will notice she uses things like “culantro” and “ajices dulces”. Yeah, I don’t know what those things are either and will not likely find them in the local stores. Do I let a lack of ingredients listed in a recipe stop me? Ha! Yeah, right. I just plow on ahead. Actually, I did look up some other recipes online and never found a consensus of what should be in there. So I make up my own mixture.

Can I tell you what is in my mixture? Umm, no because I forget from time to time. Actually, I follow Daisy’s basic instructions about onion, garlic and cilantro then I improvise. I use quite a bit of green pepper or red, if I have it. Then, I add what ever kicks my bucket- jalapeño (sans ribs and seeds), banana chili or fresh green chilies. I put it all in my little “food processor”- it fits onto my blender motor and is not very large. I have to do it in batches and then mix it up by hand. This last time I didn’t even have enough cilantro but the other things were trying to turn bad on me so I had to take the matter in hand and made up a batch anyway. I then put 1/2 cup portions into freezer bags, label it (important step!) and throw it in the freezer.

Do you notice how quickly cilantro will turn slimy on you? This is a good way to use up the extra you had to buy when you were making a recipe that called for three sprigs.

Then when I want to make Mexican rice, I grab out a bag- throw it in the skillet and as it thaws, it cooks. This way I can make great tasting Latino dishes without having to keep all sorts of fresh ingredients on hand plus saves money because I can buy the ingredients in season.

Now that you know all about Sofrito (or maybe not- I’m not being too clear here) go forth and make some. It’s great stuff.

But it doesn’t make the bed.

Let’s all sing here-”One of these things doesn’t belong here, one of these things just doesn’t belong.” One of these children is not dressed appropriately; she made her own choices on what to wear.

Hint: it was 80 degrees.

This winter when there was snow on the ground Little Miss Pixie decided to wear skirts… everyday. When she went outside she would bundle up in her jacket, scarf, hat and gloves and then fight me tooth and nail to put on thin leggings or tights.

Now, when it’s warm, she is wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts. She has other choices in her closet. I bought some cute skort (skirt with shorts sewn in) outfits when she was along with me. She helped me pick them out- now they are not pink but she said she’d wear them. There was not any tan to be seen. One set has not adorned her body and the other was worn once. We picked out some cute sandals for her, she tried them on, she said they were fine and now it’s a fight to get her to wear them. She would rather wear too small, dirty old ones. The sandals are even white and PINK for goodness sakes!

Do you sense a bit of frustration in my typing? Ah well, I’ve told her I am not buying anything more for her because she tells me she will wear it and then doesn’t. That will last until this winter when she’ll need jeans that aren’t expecting a flood.

And to think- she’s only 5. What will the teenage years be like?

Lord help us.

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…. wait a minute. Maybe not the galaxy part but the rest is right, I wrote a post about The Col.’s love of something called “Tapatio”. It’s a hot sauce that he put on everything. Well, not pancakes or desert or something like that but on about everything else. He likes his food spicy. As I mentioned in that old post he knows to taste his food before he puts on the sauce because it upsets the Cook if he doesn’t. It’s not good to upset the Cook- you never know what she might put in your food next time around. (evil laugh!)

Anyway, a while back we went out for Chinese food. I love it- The Col. tolerates it and the kids eat grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries. Since The Col. was barely able to choke down that bland stuff, he asked the waitress if they had any Tabasco sauce. They didn’t but would he like to try some Garlic Chili Sauce? It was spicy!? So he decided to give it a try. And, hey Mikey!, he liked it!

I found it at the local “Out” house - which for once, was not out of it. Actually, what I found was without the garlic but he manages somehow. I have seen it since in other stores and will have to get that when this bottle is gone. Which won’t be too long the way it’s disappearing. At first he would put a few drops on but now he pours it all over the place- with a big grin!

So now the poor Tapatio bottle is sitting there neglected as the Chinese Hot Chili Sauce gets center stage. Don’t you feel sorry for it? If you come visit you’ll have to give it a special hug.

Chocolate cake to be exact.

I didn’t get a good shot of just the cake. Since the focus was on a certain young lady’s birthday, I guess that isn’t a bad thing.

It looks like a regular chocolate cake, right? Little would you know that the frosting had one pound (16 ounces) of semi sweet chocolate in it. And butter. And 1 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream. Do I hear your arteries clogging? Are you drooling on your key board? Eeeewww!

It was yummy. The cake itself, made from scratch with my own two hands (and the electric mixer) was also very good. It had butter in it too, of course, and two kinds of chocolate. It’s an America’s Test Kitchen recipe and, oh is it good. You have to have a bit of patience making it though, as with most of their recipes. I made it without a standing mixer and thought it turned out fine; just be patient and make sure things get mixed well.

I had one part that didn’t go totally smoothly. The recipe for the frosting says to melt the chocolate and (separately) heat the butter and sugar, etc. then combine these two with the cream. It’s too warm for it to whip up at this point and so to cool it down you place the bowl into a larger bowl filled with cold water and ice. The tricky part is to get it to the desired temperature of 70 degrees. If it’s too cold, it will seize up, if too hot then it will not whip up all light and fluffy. I cooled it in the water bath for a bit then did the scientific thing of testing it with my finger. It was clean! (and then I got to lick it too!) I don’t have a thermometer that reads that low. I thought it felt pretty cool, and not wanting it to get too cool went ahead and started to whip it with my hand mixer. It wasn’t getting lighter in color nor was it whipping up all “fluffy” like. I mixed, and mixed, and mixed. I finally decided, after referring to the recipe again (and again, and again) that the mixture was too warm still. So I plopped it back into the water bath and continued to beat it. And then the miracle happened. It got lighter in color and fluffy in texture. It looked lovely and was great to work with when putting it on the cake.

It was worth the effort.

A friend (yes, I have one…. maybe two) and I talked the other day about canned vegetables. (Note to self: Clue right there about lack of friends - could it be your stimulating conversational skills? I mean really! Can’t you think of something else to talk about besides canned vegetables?) We discussed that they are higher in carbohydrates than fresh or frozen because there is added sugar in them. I am not sure why they add sugar to canned vegetables but apparently they do. (Quick- run to the pantry and read some labels- I’ll wait.) Personally, I buy fresh or frozen pretty much exclusively because I prefer the taste.

Fast forward to the next day when I was making a Three Bean Salad to take to pot luck. I tried a new recipe and I liked it but will have to fiddle with it because it had a lot of sugar in it. There I go again- fiddling with a recipe! Anyway, because I have such an interesting life, I stopped to read the label on the dark red kidney beans (Great Value- because I am cheap thrifty.) First ingredient: prepared kidney beans. No surprise there.

#2- water

#3- cane syrup- what? why?

#4- salt- I knew there is lots of salt in canned beans.

#5- high fructose corn syrup!! Why?

There were more things added that help promote color retention- I probably really don’t want to know about them.

But why the sugary stuff added? I mean, kidney beans? Sweet?

I rinse them before adding them to things in hopes of reducing the salt content and so I hope it helps with the sugar too but how much have they absorbed sitting in the can?

Sigh. So, I’ll have to read more labels in the store and suck it up and buy more expensive brands.

Or go all homestead like and boil up my own.

There has been a group of mothers meeting on Friday afternoons and I have been invited to attend. It’s nice because they are all homeschool families and one of the families has older daughters who take the kids downstairs to play while the mothers talk upstairs. To give you a hint as to how many kids are there- I will just say we have the smallest family. I am so excited that I am included- old fuddy duddy me who was starting to wonder about her friend shortage. It’s easy to take that kind of thing personally. So, as you can imagine I’ve been enjoying these times.

Last week, we had company coming for dinner but I really wanted to go to the Mom’s meeting. It’s in the afternoons and we don’t get home until 4:30 or so. It was great incentive to get the house all clean on Thursday and make up the Enchilada casserole and bean salad (and clean up) on Friday morning. I made Spanish Rice and a lettuce salad after I got home. It turned out well and I was pretty puffed up.

I had also invited Master Bill and his lovely wife over for a meal after Church on Sunday. Just feeling that hospitality spirit, I guess. I was having troubles figuring out what to fix. It needed to be fast, as we all would be hungry. Also, since we hadn’t made it to the store in ages, it had to be made from stuff on hand. Hmmm. Well, there was lots of Enchilada casserole and Spanish Rice left over… it would be quick to heat up. So it was settled, I fed my Pastor and his wife leftovers. It does not in any way reflect how much esteem I have for them. Except for the copious snowfall it worked out pretty well. As he ate our leftovers Master Bill kept saying how good it was. I didn’t take it to heart because I knew that I could feed that man slop with a side of swill and he would compliment me on it.

This Friday we didn’t have company coming but I did plan ahead and loaded up one of The Col.’s favorite meals into the Crockpot. When we got home we had tender pork chops and potatoes ready for us.

I have been so pleased with myself that my shoulder hurts from patting myself on the back.

I took Crack to our Church Pot Luck today. It’s really good.

I read recipes and go to many recipe sites on the Internet. I often get a chuckle from the reviews that are left about the recipes. They say something like this:

“I absolutely LOVED this recipe! I fixed it last night and OMG everyone GUSHED about it! I followed the recipe exactly except I didn’t have ingredient A so I substituted B, threw in some C because I had it on hand and I didn’t have any D so left it out. I also cooked it in the oven instead of on the stove. It turned out great! Would make it again!”

Is this still the same recipe? Can you make that many changes and still get the same thing?

I did the same thing last night- no, not leaving a review but in how I changed a recipe. Oh, I mean, I followed it exactly. I was vastly amused at myself. But I am easily entertained.

The background: we are watching our weight- and it’s not a pretty sight. The Col. had been eating plenty due to several circumstances where he had to eat out. So when I asked him what kind of soup he wanted for dinner, it being Wednesday the soup night, he answered Cabbage Soup. Probably as a joke but also thinking he wouldn’t like it and therefore wouldn’t eat too much. He don’t know me very well, do he? I took the challenge and ran with it.

I took a recipe that I had found here for Kohlsuppe-Cabbage Soup. The basic recipe is this:

1. Put the chopped cabbage and the broth in the crockpot, on high; simmer for 1 1/2 hours.
2. In a sauté pan, cook the bacon slices until crisp; remove, chop roughly, and set aside.
3. Sauté the onion in the bacon drippings until soft.
4. Add the chopped bacon, onion, potato, and salt and pepper to the crockpot.
5. Cook on high for an additional 1 to 1 1/2 hours hours, until the cabbage reaches the texture you prefer.
6. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.
7. Notes: would also be good with some dill weed or caraway added, or even kielbasa slices, if you like; I also added a 1 once cube of concentrated frozen duck stock, but as most folks don’t have it in their freezer I didn’t include it in the ingredient list; you could simmer this in a heavy pot on the stove for an hour instead of the crockpot, too.

Since I was starting to cook it at about 4:30 in the afternoon there was no way I could use the crockpot, so that was out. But the recipe does say that it could be cooked on the stove for an hour - so I didn’t stray too far that way. Then I looked at the methodology and decided that if I used a separate pan to saute the bacon and onion in then there would be another dirty pan to wash. Bad idea. Also the voices of the cooks at America’s Test Kitchen, one of my favorite TV shows, kept telling me to layer or build flavor. So I fried the bacon (already cut up) in my cast iron dutch oven, drained some of the fat and then cooked the onion (way more than 1/2 a cup) for awhile. Then I added the potatoes, letting them brown a little. Then the cabbage and let it brown and cook down. I put in two minced garlic cloves. After I could smell the garlic I added some chicken stock and stirred up the brown bits on the bottom. I didn’t have enough chicken stock so I added some water with a bit of chicken base (kind of like bullion). That still wasn’t enough so I added a pint of frozen turkey stock I had in the freezer. I was afraid too much chicken base would make it too salty. Then let it simmer awhile.

And guess what? It was good! The Col. took two helpings. But at about 170 calories a serving he could afford to do that. Ha! How’s that for following a recipe?

I sniveled after it died. Whined when I had none. But have been fairly quiet about the replacement. Yes, I am revisiting the microwave issue. The new one is a GE Sensor Microwave Oven and overall, good. It has taken a while to get used to The New Guy on the Block after having the same one for 16 years. It’s more powerful than the old one so it’s taking practice to figure out how long to leave things in there without reducing them to molten, rubber objects. One lid has been “re-shaped”, shall we say, but we have not melted any containers, which is a good thing. Probably what I don’t like about it the most is that a person has to press “Time Cook” when a time less or more than a straight number is wanted. Did that make sense? If I want to heat something for 25 seconds (which I often do because I am horrible about finishing that last swallow of coffee and I don’t want it cold or boiling, thank you) I have to press “Time Cook” before I press the 2. If I press the 2 first then it turns on automatically for a two minute run. Grrrr! Also if you wanted to heat something for 1 minute 15 seconds, the “Time Cook” would have to be pressed first. Rather inconvenient if you ask me. There is a “Add 30 seconds” button which is nice and I use it quite a bit. I find that with the high power, I don’t need to heat things for very long and that makes the auto option on the numbers not at all handy. The defrost works well- which is a good thing as well as I plan ahead for dinner. (Hmm, it’s 3 o’clock, what’s for dinner? Girl! It’s too early to think about- keep blogging!) The popcorn button runs too short so I stand there and listen to it popping merrily away with 15 seconds left and just KNOW that there will tons of un-popped kernels left if I let it stop so I push that handy “Add 30 seconds” button but don’t let it run till the end of that! Did that once, burned popcorn anyone?

We recently acquired a new bread machine- ahem, excuse me a new “bread bakery”. Fancy, huh? It’s a very nice model that will hopefully last longer than a year or two, like the old one. It’s a Zojirushi- try saying that fast! It has a traditional shaped bread loaf pan and two kneading paddles in it. It can make a two pound loaf. So far it’s worked well. I wasn’t happy with the whole wheat recipe provided by the company- the top was flat and bumpy- not smooth. I am in the process of trying other whole wheat recipes most of which are turning out smooth on top but not rounded like a ‘real’ loaf would be. A small complaint because the texture and taste are good. I’ll keep fiddling with it. I was without a bread machine for a few months and found I really missed it.I’m just too lazy to make it by hand. I like having whole wheat bread without preservatives in it to feed my family (doesn’t that sound high and mighty!). Also, being that I am cheap thrifty, I think it will cost less in the long run for bread. One Christmas I used the other bread machine to make Cinnamon Swirl bread for The Col.’s co-workers (small loaves). I think they enjoyed it- and if they didn’t I never heard about it so they just may get it again someday.

The last item is not an appliance but it is a useful tool that is new to us- The Van. Overall we are pleased with it. The sliding doors are wonderful! It’s easy to reach the Girls and buckle them in. It’s comfortable. Things work in it. The fuel economy on long drives isn’t too bad- in town it leaves a little to be desired. After having diesels for so many years it’s a surprise to see such a difference. The ride is noisy and it lacks a certain…flash …but we’ll keep it.