Carrots and Zucchinis, plus a whole lotta breadcrumbs

Although I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I had zucchini from the team at Appalachia that needed to be used up. I was given a vegan cookbook by a friend when I left Philadelphia and have never used it till now. There certainly don't need to be 2 full cups of breadcrumbs but aside from that it's quite a delicious recipe. I would recommend it for its taste and for its use of lots of vegetables - 3 cups of zucchini and 5 cups of carrots! 

So many breadcrumbs!

5 servings in one pan are hard to cut out. Look at the size of those servings! 

The texture was a little mushy. My "food processor" turned the zucchini and carrots into puree instead of grated vegetables. But the taste is so good that it doesn't matter. 

Thanks go to Ashley Flowers for giving me the book that provided this recipe! 

Happy (mush)ing! 

Better late than never - Broom Handle Biscuits

Once again, I can't keep myself disciplined enough to do a blog post a week. Life is just too much fun and too hectic sometimes to sit down and write a blog post each week. But at least I take photos so that I can write the posts out later. Perhaps that's a secret I shouldn't reveal - but oh well. 

I already miss the mountains, but whenever I leave a place, I take pieces of it with me. This time I've got a couple recipes up my sleeve. This one is not so much a recipe but a trick. It's a way to make a fantastic pastry using the hot coals leftover from a S'mores fire. (I blogged before about how going camping is really just an excuse to eat marshmallows at every meal. Now it's an excuse to eat marshmallows and to buy canned biscuits.) 

Up till this point I had never bought (or popped open!) a can of ready-made biscuits. If I eat biscuits, they're either in fast food (like the Popeye's I had for the first time, or at KFC) or they're homemade (Evelyn's angel biscuits, mmm). So broom handle biscuits were totally new to me. 

You take ready-made biscuits and pop them out of the can, then separate them. 

This is another guest-chef blog post with my friend Wilson demonstrating how to stretch out the biscuits so you can wrap them around a broom handle.

Stretch them out real good and then mold one end over a greased broom handle, like below. 

Start to wrap the biscuit around the broom handle in a spiral. The pastry should be between 4 and 5 inches when you're done.

Hold the biscuit over hot coals until it starts getting puffy.

 When it's brown, it's baked.

Let it cool for a few seconds and then slide it off the broom handle. If it slides off, you know you used enough grease (Crockpot butter, in this instance).

Then fill and eat. Butter and jam are the typical fillings, but you can also use chocolate sauce, peanut butter, Nutella... pretty much anything you'd put on bread.

They're delicious! (Obviously.) 

Nutritious? Of course not. 

Now it's definitely lunch time... 

Happy munching! 

"Oh go back to your double-wide and fry something!"

Any other "Sweet Home Alabama" fans? That has to be one of my favorite rom-com's and it's lucky that they play it on TV like every other day so if you're flipping channels looking for something to watch, chances are good that you'll stumble upon it. How could you go wrong? Reese Witherspoon, McDreamy, Josh Lucas (who doesn't have a Mc-hot something nickname but is no less deserving) and Candice Bergen (who is one of my favorite actresses whose name I do not know) make a great cast with lots of awesome soundbites: 

- the title of this blog

- "Why'd you wanna marry a guy like me?" 

"So I can kiss you whenever I want." 

The center has it on VHS so I might just be watching it later... 

Anyways, I named this blog after that quote because for the first time I really fried something. I've done stir-fries but this was the first time I poured a half-inch of oil into a pan and set things to bubbling in it. It was lots of fun. 

I had to do it because a friend, Kay, the woman who taught me the quilt stitch, gave me four squash from her garden last Wednesday. She gave me two summer squash and two yellow crookneck squash (which I had to Google under "bubbly yellow squash") and said, "You have to fry 'em, like this..." and told me how to do it but I forgot. Thank goodness for the internet. I used someone else's Grandmother's recipe and made some adaptations.  

I don't peel my squash. The skin tastes just like the rest of the vegetable and I figure it's more healthful to keep it on. Instead of using six pounds of squash like the recipe says I just used two squash (don't know how many pounds but nowhere near to six). I wasn't sure how much Ryan would eat because he said he wasn't that big a squash fan - we still have leftovers.

I scooped out the seeds of the crookneck squash by inserting a knife into the squash in a circle, then scooping with a spoon. I composted the seeds and cut the squash into rings. (A good way to eat "onion rings" if you don't like onions!) 

I left the seeds in the yellow squash because they didn't seem as easy to cut out. So I just made slices. (Interestingly, these ones were much more flavorful. Perhaps that was the seeds? Perhaps they were more moist because they weren't in rings?) 

Once the squashes were sliced I prepared the frying ingredients. The recipe called for a milk and egg mixture instead of buttermilk, which I didn't have. Then I was reminded that buttermilk is really just curdled milk, so if you have white vinegar and milk and a little time, you have buttermilk.

The dry mixture included cornmeal, flour, salt, and garlic and herb spice.

I tried to use as little oil as possible and was happy with the results. I also used olive oil, though I think vegetable oil is what most people use for frying. 

The summer squash made up the second batch and I used even less oil than the first batch. I didn't change the oil in between batches, though I considered it. The cornmeal added an extra crunch, as did the half white, half wheat flour that I use. 

Ryan's contribution stole the show, really. He said, "Shouldn't we dip these in something?" He mixed together mayonnaise, olive oil and Frank's Redhot Sauce. It was out of this world delicious.

These are the leftovers. Unfortunately fried things like this never taste as good as they did right out of the frying pan, so I recommend making these for more than two people. I think at least four would be ideal. Also, be careful to prepare less dry ingredients if you're using less squash. I only used about half the wet mixture and still have about half the dry mixture. Hopefully I can use the dry mixture to fry some chicken tonight but I don't know if it'll still be good. I hate when things go to waste. 

(Unfortunately I didn't have any Oreos... I could have tried frying marshmallows but I feel like that would just make a mess. I wonder what would happen if you froze them and then fried them? HMMM... that just might be my next blog post! Oh look - 'fried marshmallows' is a thing. Thanks Google!)

Do you like to fry? What do you fry? 

Camping: An Excuse to Eat Marshmallows at Every Meal

This weekend I simply had to get out of town for at least one night - I got 24 blissful hours. I drove out to the John Flannagan Dam and went to a campground I had looked up online. I'm so glad I went. I had an amazing time, sleeping rather comfortably in my car, swimming in the reservoir, and eating the non-perishable foods I had carefully thought out: lots of fruit, peanut butter and crackers, cereal and tuna fish. 

Because I knew I wouldn't have refrigeration, I brought instant nonfat dry milk. I've made it before but always chilled it; without refrigeration, I figured that it would still be okay. It tasted like something-that-resembled-milk and it wasn't water in my cereal, so it was good enough for me. 

The triumph of my trip, however, was the Peanut Butter Filled Toasted Marshmallow. I made sure to buy a bag of marshmallows on the way so that I'd be able to roast them. (I roasted marshmallows at dinner, breakfast, and lunch, hence the title of this blog.) I also had peanut butter with me and for some reason I imagined putting peanut butter inside a marshmallow and then roasting it. Perhaps I thought about how marshmallow sauce and peanut butter sauce on sundaes can be so yummy together.

So I tried it out.
 

I twisted a hole in the marshmallow with a knife, then squished peanut butter inside.

I like setting my marshmallows on fire and then blowing them out. The peanut butter gets all melty and delicious inside of the marshmallow. 

It really is an amazing thing - fluffy, sugary, air with peanut butter inside.

The low point of my camp culinary exploits was the can of tuna that I brought. I took with me a combination wine opener and what looked like a can opener. After all of this

I realized it is not a can opener. I also tried to open the can using the method that these guys say will be useful in a zombie apocalypse but it didn't work. So I kept trying with the wannabee can opener until I was able to spoon out the tuna and eat it on crackers. This is what the can looked like when I was done:

But to end things on a good note:

Just look at that! 

What do you like to eat while camping? 

The Brilliance of Knowing What You've Got

Today was one of those days where you just don't want to get out of bed. I woke up around 10:30 but instead of getting up and doing things, I read a magazine in my nightgown under the covers. My body ached from I don't know what and I just wanted to veg. Sometimes I don't need to eat right after waking up and am able to just chill out. 

Lots of the women in the magazine I was reading were talking about eating pancakes so I thought about making them. But I'd made them last week so I couldn't again. (I made carob pancakes with walnuts - so delicious!) Then I remembered the sourdough bread slices in my freezer and got reallllly excited. 

Last week one of the quilters had a birthday so we had a potluck luncheon. She brought two loaves of homemade sourdough bread and let Ryan and I have the leftovers. So I asked him if he'd be interested in french toast for his lunch and of course he said yes - breakfast is his favorite meal of the day. I used a classic recipe, though I pretty much knew how to make french toast. My mom's mom, my Grandma Bee, used to make french toast for me when I lived in her house on Main Street: scramble eggs with a little milk, dip the bread slices in the mixture, and fry. Sometimes you fry them in butter but today I didn't, hence the blackened toast. I added cinnamon to the egg mixture and served the french toast with cantaloupe (for me) and blueberries (for Ryan.) 

It was hog heaven. 

Thanks must go to Martine for giving me some of her cantaloupe. We had dinner at her apartment last night and she insisted on sending me home with a quarter of a cantaloupe, a bottle of juice, and three slices of the chocolate cake she made. 

Doesn't that just look like a painting? It's so luscious. 

What's in your frying pan? 

These Beans and Barley Oh... or Something...

Does anyone else remember a song that goes "something beans and barley oh?" Or am I the only one? Even Google has no idea what I'm talking about.

Anyways, I tried cooking pearled barley for the first time this week. An AllRecipes magazine I got from a friend had an article about those crazy new grains (like amaranth and a bunch of others) and how to cook them. I hadn't heard about eating straight barley before; I thought that was something that people ate a long, long time ago that had since fallen out of favor. 

But not all the new grains are popular everywhere you go. Last weekend when we went to the grocery store here in the mountains I wanted to get quinoa or something like it. I said "Do you have matzos and quinoa?" to one of the managers and he said, "Uh... the what?" I asked again but added, "It's like a grain, like rice." So he showed me the rice aisle where I found pre-cooked quinoa in single-serve bowls. Nearby I saw bags of organic barley and thought, "Hm..."

My housemate, Ryan, suggested that we make barley with vegetable soup for dinner one night this week. He'd bought a couple cans of Campbell's and is really good at keeping a mental list of what we've got in the pantry. Last night I started cooking the barley and realized that it would take almost an hour including the time it took to boil the water. So while it was cooking I made spaghetti and we ate that instead.

Today we added the cooked barley to the soup with a couple slices of sharp cheddar cheese. We served the soup with salty crackers, toast, and the rest of the cucumber and tomato salad I made two days ago.

The soup wasn't great. I'm not really a big fan of Campbell's, or of canned soup for that matter. It's so loaded with sodium even when it tastes pretty bland.  The barley was great though; very chewy and with a nice snap. It had a subtle nutty flavor. All in all it was a filling meal and I'm happy with it.

My dessert was the best part though. I'm not sure when I started doing it, but I once decided to have a peanut butter sandwich without the bread. I put peanut butter, whatever jelly I had in the fridge, and Nutella in a bowl and mixed it together. It's basically a combination of different types of sugar - how could it not be delicious? Sometimes I add banana slices or pieces of fruit; whatever I have in the fridge. It's like an ice cream sundae without the ice cream. Soooo good.

PB & J in a Bowl

Pretty self-explanatory, hm?

Happy munching!

Those Elusive Cherries

I actually had an opportunity to use my apron! Woo!

Here in Clintwood there is a pear tree, several apple trees (which already have baby apples on them!), a cherry tree, a baby fig tree, and blueberry bushes. Quite the orchard! In the fall, they make apple butter and apple cider which they sell at fairs. Their cherry tree no longer has its low branches because somebody decided to cut them off to harvest the cherries one year... resulting in a tree full of cherries that taunt me from above. They look so red and juicy and delicious and no matter what I do, I cannot reach them. Fortunately some of them fall to the ground and don't get bruised so I was able to pick almost two cups over the weekend. I cut them into quarters after pitting them. Then I had to decide what to do with them.

They were rather tart but very juicy. I thought they'd go nicely in a bread of some kind so I found a great recipe off Food.com. Thank goodness I stocked my pantry with butter, flour, baking powder, sugar and a little salt.

There wasn't a whole lot in there, so I don't know if I did something wrong with the batter? The pictured bread has slices at least 4 inches high... I don't know what they did. 

The edges burned just a tad. The oven I was working with cooked the bread in about 35 minutes instead of 45. Although the edges were singed, the bread was moist and very tasty. It also made the house smell DELICIOUS.

I only used about 5 tablespoons of the cherries, so I made a sauce out of the rest. I added 3 or 4 spoonfuls of sugar to the cherries and let them sit for awhile before serving the bread.

So yummy! 

Even though I've eaten like a queen today, this still makes my mouth water... mmm... 

Happy munching!