Scrambled Eggs with Peppers and Onions

This is one of my favorite breakfasts. I have been making this for years, and I just love it. Scrambled eggs without veggies are good, but they are just not nearly as good as ones with random veggies.

So, this one has both red and green peppers and onions, and you just throw in the eggs once the veggies are soft, and scramble the eggs for a couple more minutes.

Here's what you'll need:
about 1/4 c. chopped onion
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
1 tbsp. butter
6 eggs
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

• Heat butter in skillet
• Add onion and pepper and cook about 5 minutes until vegetables are soft
• Add beaten eggs, salt & pepper, and cook until eggs are set

Basic Marinara/Spaghetti Sauce

This was basic sauce with red and green peppers as additions.

 I've made several different versions of spaghetti sauce from two different editions of Fannie Farmer cookbooks, and I don't like any of them. She was apparently not familiar with Italian food, or else I'm spoiled by my Italian mother's sauce so nothing else compares. While I don't remember my mother ever using a recipe, and my Italian grandfather's recipe apparently takes 4 hours to make, I know exactly how it is 'supposed' to taste. I have been making spaghetti sauce since I started cooking (don't we all start with spaghetti?) and even my very first pan of it tasted better than the ones in this century-old cookbook. So I can safely say, I'm thoroughly disappointed in Fannie's options where sauce is concerned.

So, I'm posting a version of my own recipe. This is a pretty basic one, though you can add in some optional veggies to make it more chunky.

My basic recipe:
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 med/large onion
2-4 cloves garlic

About 6 cups chopped, crushed or diced tomatoes (fresh or canned)
1/2 tsp. salt (you can add more later, but you can't take it out once it's in there, so err on the side of less)
1 tbsp. basil
1 tbsp. oregano
1 tbsp. thyme
(or substitute about 3 tbsp. Italian Seasoning if you don't have all three of those herbs)
small pinch of fennel seeds

Just the basic sauce, this time with a lot of onions.

Optional add-ins for variety: sliced or chopped mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant, carrots (I never use these but I see them fairly often in canned sauce), celery, red or green bell peppers, parmesan cheese (I always add this on top, but some people like it cooked in), 1-2 tbsp sugar if your tomatoes aren't very sweet, 1 can tomato paste if you really need a thicker sauce

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium/low heat
2. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently
3. Add garlic and fennel seed and cook 1 more minute
4. Meanwhile, chop tomatoes. Taste for sweetness, and add sugar if your tomatoes are sour or you just like sweeter sauce. If using canned, drain some of the juices and reserve in case you need it for step 6.
5. Add tomatoes and herbs and salt
6. Increase heat to medium and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are completely cooked and some of the liquid boils away. If using fresh tomatoes, this sauce will be much thinner than canned sauce, so if you want, you can cook it down further to thicken. If using canned tomatoes, watch the sauce and add back in some of the reserved liquid if it gets dry or begins to stick.

This sauce is simple and no-frills, but it's always delicious and never fails for any type of Italian food requiring a red sauce.

Skillet-Fried Pork Chops

 

This is the second time I've made pork chops, and unlike last time, I paid attention to their thickness and didn't overcook them. They turned out really well.

For this you will need:
3-6 pork chops, 1/2 inch thick.
1-2 tbsp. flour
salt & pepper

Dust each chop with flour, then sprinkle with salt & pepper. Cook each 1/2 inch thick chop for 5 minutes on each side, a 3/4 inch one for 8 minutes per side.

I served these with sauteed summer squash and apple zucchini bread. It was a much greater success than last time I tried to make pork chops. It's all about the thickness. Live and learn!

Hamburgers

I know what you're probably thinking--there's no way you made that delicious hamburger in the picture. And you're right. But I DID make hamburgers for dinner last night, and I did forget to take pictures of them, so I'm just posting a mouth-watering picture of a burger I got at this little diner across from the local gas station. They are as delicious as Fannie's for sure.

Fannie Farmer doesn't have much of a recipe for burgers. She doesn't have those fancy stuffed burgers that are all the rage lately. She doesn't even fancy them up like I do with bread crumbs and eggs and onions and all that fun stuff.

Fannie's recipe goes like this:
1 lb ground beef
butter for frying
salt & pepper

Just barely mix the salt and pepper. Do not handle the meat more than necessary or it gets tough and dry.

Shape the meat into patties and fry in butter 3-4 minutes per side.

I like my burgers a bit rare (my husband was scared to eat them without further cooking), so I probably cooked them less than that. I'd never fried hamburgers in butter before, so that was new. And I've never made them so plain. But, with tomatoes I had picked literally 20 minutes ago, how could they go wrong?

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but some days, I'm lucky I managed to make anything at all. Days like this, when I work all day, take my son to Tae Kwon Do, drive an hour to get home, work in the garden, unload the clean dishes, wash the dirty dishes, and THEN start dinner, well, remembering my camera just isn't going to happen. Lucky for me, everyone in my house likes burgers, so they didn't mind that they weren't fancied up. So, this 'recipe' is for a busy week night dinner. Can't get much more simple than this.

Banana Nut Bread

This is a simple banana bread that I think I've made a few times before. It's pretty simple to make, too. If you're looking for classic banana bread that's not too sweet, this is it.

You will need:
3 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
optional: 2 tbsp. flax flour

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a loaf pan.

Mash the bananas and add the beaten eggs.

Stir in flour, sugar, baking soda, and flax. Add walnuts and pour into loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hr or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from rack, cool for at least 10 mins before slicing.

 Unfortunately, I forgot to add the walnuts until I had already poured the batter into the pan. I love walnuts, so I can't believe I forgot them! I really wanted nut bread, but I didn't think I could mix them in without getting batter all over the loaf pan. So I just sprinkled them over the top. They did get a little dark, but they added a nutty, toasted flavor that I actually really liked! Next time, I might sprinkle a few over the top just because I liked them so much. But I will definitely remember to add them to the batter as well. Nice to know there's an alternative, though. The bread still turned out great, like usual. A classic.

Traditional Waffles

Still haven't perfected the amount to add to each section of waffle iron.

I love breakfast. You know how they say it's the most important meal of the day? Well, it's also the most delicious. Breakfast is why I can't go gluten-free. Breakfast is why bacon was invented. And how can you argue with bacon?

Can't argue with waffles, either.

Luckily for me, my son also loves breakfast. I can hardly get him to take one bite of dinner, even if he's never even heard of the meal I've made. But breakfast, that's a different story.

Dark spots are flax seeds.

I let him pick this morning, and he wanted waffles.

Here's our recipe, loosely based on Fannie Farmer:
Mix in bowl:

2/3 c. whole wheat flour

1/3 c. white flour
2 tbsp. flax seeds (obviously not in Fannie's recipe)
1 tsp. baking soda

Using a large-mouth jar, mix together:
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. milk/buttermilk/sour milk/or yogurt (I use mostly milk, with a bit of yogurt to activate the baking soda)

Pour dry ingredients into jar and shake until just mixed, about 10 seconds. Lumps are okay and normal here.

Pure goodness.

Pour a bit into each section of waffle iron and cook until brown. 

You can't overdo it with butter.

Top with butter and syrup. We were out of maple syrup, which I didn't realize until I'd already made the waffles, so we had to use strawberry syrup, but they still tasted pretty good.

I usually add half whole wheat to my recipes, but this time, I used 2/3 and it was still incredibly light and fluffy. You would never know I'd used any whole wheat at all. I don't know what it is about this recipe, but it's always light as air. I credit the jar.

Fresh Salsa

I used this for a party and it was excellent. I love fresh salsa, and this was a great recipe. I would definitely make it again. This was from the newer Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and this is my adaptation, not the exact recipe.

I used:

Tomatoes from my garden.

4 medium tomatoes, about 4 c. when chopped
1 small onion, chopped fine
2 jalepenos, diced, seeds removed
Juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
half a bunch of cilantro, chopped (about 1/2 c. chopped)
pinch of oregano (I didn't have this, so I used a dash of Italian seasoning, and it wasn't noticeable).

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, and voila. Salsa. 

This recipe was really great. She calls for 2 cloves of garlic, too, which I would use next time but I was all out. She also uses a can of green chillies, which is just weird to me. So I left those out. It still turned out great, and everyone at the party liked it, especially with the tomatoes from my garden that were super sweet. Even my son ate it, onions and all, which must be some kind of miracle. The only thing I'd change is that it wasn't at all hot, so next time, I might leave the seeds in one of the jalepenos.

Poached Eggs

I made these on a busy morning when I realized we only had one egg. So I cooked it up quickly and ate it atop a sliced tomato from our garden.

For this recipe, you will need:

• eggs (however many  you want)
• vinegar (I used apple cider, since that's what I had--1/2 tsp. per egg)
• a bit of salt (about 1/8 tsp. per egg)
• Large sliced tomato (optional)

The egg stuck to the bottom a bit so I had to coax it away.

Directions:

1. Fill a skillet or saucepan with a few inches of water.
2. Add the vinegar to help the egg coagulate.
3. Heat the water until it simmers.
4. Break each egg into a saucer, slide one by one into the water.
5. Add salt.
6. Spoon water over eggs for 3 minutes until set OR turn off heat, cover, and let sit for 5 mins.
7. Remove one by one with a slotted spoon.
8. Set each egg on a large slice of tomato and top with salt or seasoning salt (I use Tony Chachery's)

Okay, so I completely overcooked this one because somehow I missed the OR part of the time for the recipe. So I heated the egg for 3 minutes, then covered and let it sit for 5 minutes more. The yolk was completely solid instead of nice and runny how poached eggs should be. However, I will definitely try these again, since I've always wanted to know how to poach an egg and it turns out it's incredibly simple.

Spaghetti Sauce (with Meat and Vegetables)

See the noodles? No? That's because they're hiding. The sauce is the main attraction.

I have a handful of 'recipes' in my head that I know by heart and can make consistently. My sister is always frustrated because when she asks me for my recipe, I never have one. I just know it in my head, and I usually don't know where I got the recipe, I just adapted other recipes or used what I thought sounded good.

Tomatoes from my garden.

I'm pretty sure my grandpa had a secret Italian recipe for spaghetti sauce, but I've never used a recipe for it in my life. I just throw in veggies and sauce and seasonings, and I've never gone wrong yet. This time, I tried to follow Fannie's recipe, but it was very bland and I ended up deviating from it a lot.

My pretty peppers!

Here's what I did:

Start with 1 small onion, sliced thin.
Saute in a cast iron skillet with olive oil.
When onion begins to turn translucent, add 1-2 cloves garlic, minced.
Add about 1 lb. ground beef and saute until browned.
Add about 4 c. chopped tomatoes.
Add about 1 tbsp. Italian seasoning or basil and oregano.
Simmer until all veggies are cooked (Fannie says about an hour).

I like more veggies, so I also added:
A handful of kale, chopped small.
2 small green bell peppers, chopped.
A medium zucchini, sliced thin.
I also added about 1/3 of a jar of Ragu sauce, since I had it and the fresh tomatoes were a bit juicy, so my sauce wasn't thick enough. Fannie says to use a can of tomato paste, so I would use that if I had it. But this worked out well and tasted great.
 

Onions, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and kale from my garden.

This was the first time I added kale to my spaghetti, and I wasn't sure it would turn out well. But I have a lot of kale from the garden, and it's been going to waste before I get to it, so I've been trying to use it more. So, here it was. It tasted surprisingly good in the sauce. I doused it in parmesan and loaded it on a bowl of cooked noodles. The sauce was excellent, if not exactly close to the Fannie Farmer original.

Best Brownies Ever

This is a recipe I have made many, many times. When I stayed home with my son after he was born, I made dessert almost every night, and this was one of the regulars in my rotation. I have made it both with baking chocolate and with cocoa powder. I've also had some other brownie recipes that are very good, and they are all basically the same as this one, with perhaps a tiny tweak or two. The key is not to overcook them, to leave the brownies slightly soft in the center (toothpick will come out clean before they feel completely solid) and to avoid using any leavening except eggs. Otherwise, they are too cakey.

Fannie Farmer's recipe:
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1/4 c. butter
1 c. sugar
2 eggs, unbeaten
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. walnut pieces (I didn't have these, so I skipped them)
1 tsp. vanilla

• Preheat oven to 325.
• Butter a 9x9 baking pan. 
• Mix chocolate and butter in a pan over low heat until melted (I used 1/4 c. cocoa powder and added 2 tbsp. extra butter to moisten it. If you use baking squares, stick with the 1/4 c. butter)
• Remove pan from heat, stir in the remaining ingredients.
• Spread in pan and bake until almost firm to touch (25-35 mins).

I love this recipe, esp. using Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder. It's chewy and delicious, with a slightly crisp skin on top. Never had better!

Chocolate Pudding (Blanc Mange)

My son could only eat soft food for two days after his surgery, so it was the perfect time to try out a pudding recipe or two. This recipe can be made chocolate or vanilla. I’m posting both recipes, since they are basically the same. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook says this is similar to a boxed pudding mix, and I have to say, it was pretty similar in taste. So if you like pudding mix but want to make your own, this is a perfect recipe.

Ingredients:

2 c. milk

3 tbsp. cornstarch

¼ c. sugar

1/8 tsp. salt

1 tsp. Vanilla

(Optional: 2 oz. Unsweetened chocolate)

Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt.

Add ¼ c. cold milk and stir until dissolved

Scald remaining milk (and chocolate if making chocolate pudding, stirring until smooth)

Add cold milk to scalded milk and stir constantly over double boiler or in saucepan on low heat for 15 minutes to completely dissolve cornstarch.

Let cool before adding vanilla.

I followed this recipe exactly (first time for everything!) and it turned out delicious. I used extra dark cocoa powder, and it was EXTREMELY chocolatey. My son said it was too dark, but I loved it. The recipe says to add cream or whipped cream on top. I like warm pudding, so I ate it warm and poured cold whole milk over it. The contrast was divine. This recipe is a 5-star one that I’d like to make over and over—if I wasn’t so busy trying to make new recipes!

Blueberry Muffins

I know what you're thinking...where are the muffins?

Sorry this post is late. Kind of hard to cook when you spend the day in the hospital with your kid. So…finally home just in time to whip up some food while he rests today.

Today’s recipe is for blueberry muffins. My sister made this recipe, and I didn’t like it very much—she used all white flour, and I’m so used to whole wheat that white flour muffins taste kind of gummy and, well, white. So I used the whole wheat adaptation listed in The Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

I didn’t have a muffin pan, so I just made a loaf. But I would recommend muffins, as I love them. They are just better somehow, right?

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

Mmm...blueberries.

2 c. white flour (or 1 c. white, ¾ c. whole wheat, which is what I used)

1 tbsp. baking powder (or 1 tsp. baking soda)

½ tsp. salt

2 tbsp. sugar (or ½ c. for blueberry muffins)

1 egg, beaten

1 c. milk

¼ c. melted butter

(1 c. blueberries for blueberry muffins)

Preheat oven to 375.

Butter a muffin tin.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add milk, egg, and butter, mixing enough to wet the flour. Mix should be lumpy.

If making blueberry muffins, add blueberries at this point.

Spoon into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I used the whole wheat recipe, and the blueberry recipe, from the cookbook. I also used baking soda because I don’t like to use baking powder. I left out salt, as always, and I added only ¼ c. sugar instead of ½. But next time, I might add the whole half, because it didn’t turn out very sweet at all. In fact, it was hardly sweet at all. But it was still pretty tasty, and I would make it again.

French Dressing (salad dressing)

Cool separating effect of oil, vinegar, and salt.

I've been so busy lately that it's hard to find a spare moment to cook. This evening I realized that after gardening, repainting the closets in our new house, and blanching 5 batches of cabbage, I hadn't cooked anything all day. So I threw together some salad dressing, which is called French Dressing according to The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, but is nothing like the red-orange French dressing you get on a salad bar. This is more like what I'd call Italian dressing, aka, vinaigrette.

The recipe (which I halved):
1/2 c. salad or olive oil
2 tbsp. vinegar
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1/2 clove garlic

Add all ingredients to jar and shake. Remove garlic before serving.

For this one, I followed the recipe closely. I didn't think it had enough vinegar, so I ended up doubling that. And I like garlic, so I added a whole clove, cut in four.

It was pretty tasty, but will probably be even better the next day, once the garlic has sat in the oil a while. I have a couple other dressing recipes I like, but this one is super fast and easy, so I'd definitely make it again if I was in a hurry.

Salt effervescing.

Apologies for the many, many pictures, but this was so cool to watch as it came together. I usually make dressing in a bottle so I don't get to see the cool mixing process. It was really sweet watching it through the wide mouth of the jar.