Cooking with Kathleen

Ok, so I just took a blog vacation…that means I took some time off from writing to myself or to my blog or to you…whatever.  I have been under the weather and had a small surgical procedure done - feeling alot better and finally getting back to cooking meals for the family.  My husband and kids (teens) have been taking up the feeding frenzy job and are more than happy to pass it back to me.  They are great cooks and actually enjoyed cooking … but the cleanup was not quite what they expected.  They now realize exactly what I do in that kitchen when they hear me banging around while they are playing music, study, play Xbox, or surfing the net.  I will be back real soon - think I might make a batch of soup tomorrow!  Until then, have your family cook dinner for you tonight…and clean up too

I have been feeling a little down and out this past week so a good friend came by and dropped off a beautiful bouquet of tulips; magenta with pure white centers and lovely spring green leaves.  They really lifted my spirits.  The weather here in Michigan is a bit fickle this time of year (60 degrees and sunny one day and 18 degrees and snowing the next…no joke!) so having the flowers in a vase that I can move around the house with me helps brighten my day.  I move it from my office to the kitchen to the laundry room, back to the kitchen and then back to the office.  Laugh if you want but this is all true and it works!

Here is a tip that I learned years ago when studied perennial gardening - cut tulips will stand straight up if you keep no more than 1″ of water in the bottom of the vase - making sure all stems are reaching the water.  Also, check the water level daily to insure the stems are always submerged.  Maybe you can go out this afternoon and pick-up a small bouquet of fresh tulips to brighten your day…or maybe someone elses!

sweet and saltie…kathleen

I taught a cooking class this past weekend in Grand Rapids.  It was done at the library and it was for teens.  I had a blast and I think the teens had a good time too.  We were having so much fun, a few of the librarians snuck in to see what all the excitement was and decided to stay!  Cooking with teens helps me learn more about their life on a day by day basis and it  helps them understand the ideas of cooking in a fun casual way without the pressures of impressing anyone at home (mom, dad, grandma or other siblings).  One of the recipes we made was my Peanut Dip.  A great substitute for that carmel apple dip one would find in the produce department so popular in the fall.  This dip has real ingredients with real flavor - no preservatives and no secrets.  My teen students loved the flavor and were dipping all kinds of things in it - from rigatoni dippers, apples, bananas, orange slices, to seasoned pita chips, etc…  I have also thinned this recipe with low-sodium chicken broth and a bit of crushed garlic - toss in a pound of elbow pasta and some cooked chicken chunks and walla - a great meal!

PEANUT DIP

1 cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter

5 tablespoons light maple syrup

2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

Combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl; whisk to blend.  Serve or store in the refrigerator up to 2 weeks.

Have you ever gone into the grocery store and buy a few bottle of wine and the cashier packs the bottles in one of those re-useable bags specifically designed to carry glass bottles?  Well, my local grocery store does this and I had accumulated a fair number of these bags (over a long period of time of course…) so I decided to bring them back and let others have the opportunity to use them.  Well, the cashier and the manager of the wine department refused to take them back stating that once the consumer uses them, it is against the law to re-use them for a new consumer.  Kind of like re-gifting being agains the law.

So I decided to be “Martha Stewart on a budget” (a nickname my sister gave me) and take the scissors to my bags.  I cut out all the sections within the bag except for one.  Now I have a stash of bags in my trunk that I use to run into the store and carry home a bottle of wine, a chunk of cheese, and a loaf of bread.  Oh yah, a bottle of cheap wine if Martha was wondering.

I just recieved an itouch via my generous son, a few months ago.  My daughter and her boyfriend are having alot of fun with it, posting pictures and downloading applications.  The problem is that I have no idea how to use it!  I have an ipod and can navigate through my itunes account with just a bit of assistance from my kids, but this itouch is confusing.  It plays music (like my ipod), I have a shotgun app. (not my idea), bible app. (this helps when I am praying for my ineptness), I even have a calculator, but why do I feel so “i”-illiterate”?  …I can read, but I can’t seem do much else.  I must schedule a time with my son and get some lessons.  Do you think I would need to pay him for his time…I mean, this might be like a tutoring session!  More later! Kathleen

My bananas are about to walk off the counter.  I love yellow bananas with lots of freckles.  They are sweet, soft and the perfect comfort food for me, but my husband and 2 two kids won’t touch them like that.  They prefer their bananas practically all green - yuck!  So I buy a  bunch of bananas (green) and put them on the counter.  They eat them, but occasionally some are left over and within 2-3 days the bananas are ripe for me, but way over ripe for them.  I leave them on the counter hoping some one will be hungry enough to eat them in any state…that’s when they take a quick turn for the worse…brown, then black..oh dear!  So today I had a sweet tooth, but just couldn’t bring myself to eat something totally unhealthy, so I decided to make a Banana Chocolate Chip Snack Cake with these lovely, rich colored bananas left on my counter; cake sweet enough to satisfy my sweet tooth, but still healthy enough to feel good about eating a piece, or two, or three…  Sorry, no photos.  The cake was so good, it was consumed before I was able to pull the camera out!  Make sure you cool cake completely before slicing into so the chocolate doesn’t ooze out everywhere, also the flavor will be much better.

Banana Chip Snack Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour (can substitute 1 cup whole wheat flour with 1 cup white)

3/4 cup white sugar

3 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups mashed bananas

2 eggs

1cup unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup skim milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips

1.      Preheat oven to 350⁰F. Grease 9×13 inch pan.

2.      In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.

3.      In a separate bowl, combine bananas, egg, melted butter, milk and vanilla.

4.      Stir banana mixture into flour mixture until blended. Be careful not to over mix.

5.      Stir in chocolate chips.

6.      Pour half batter into 9×13 inch pan; sprinkle with chocolate chips; spread remaining batter over top. Bake 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean.  Cool completely before slicing.

Well, my daughter has been bugging me for over 2 weeks to make this sandwich that she loves.  It is so easy to put together and keeps in the refrigerator for up to 3 days once assembled.  I typically bring it to my booksignings since it is easily transportable and is very sturdy.  I love the flexibility of the sandwich too.  I can bake, microwave, grill, warm in a skillet or campfire, or eat it cold.  My daughter doesn’t seem to care how I prepare it…she just loves it.

Tonight is a perfect night for this sandwich.  I have been gone all day with meetings and errands and p iles of laundry will be started this evening.  Husband has an extended business meeting this evening, son is busy with his gadgets and gizmo’s in the basement and my daughter has an emergency Color Guard sectional at 7pm.  The sandwich will satisfy everyone’s busy schedule and my daughter will finally stop bugging me to make it.

So without much further ado - here is the Italian Country Sandwich…one of the most popular recipes in my cookbook - Good-to-Go!

Italian Country Sandwich

2 (8″-inch) pre-cooked pizzashells, such as Boboli, which come 2 per package

4 ounces seasoned cream cheese (vegetable cream cheese works well) (1/2 of an 8 ounce container)

3-4 thin slices tomato

3-4 thin slices green pepper

3-4 thin slices pastrami

3-4 thin slices salami

2 thin slices red onion

4 slices provolone cheese (smoked, if available)

Lay the pizza shells on a work surface.  Spread 1 pizza shell with cream cheese.  Top with even layers of tomato, green pepper, pastrami, salami, and red onion,  and end with provolone.  Top with the remaining pizza shell.  See chart below for cooking options.  Cut the hot sandwich into wedges and serve.

Cook Method             Time                                       Preparation

Microwave                  1 minute, 30 seconds              on paper plate covered with plastic wrap

Oven                           25 minutes at 350⁰F                wrapped in foil set on baking sheet

Grill                             20 minutes med/hot coals       wrapped in heavy-duty foil

Skillet                          8-10 minutes per side              wrapped in heavy-duty foil

Campfire                     8 minutes per side                   wrapped in heavy-duty foil

btw: this sandwich is great for football tailgates!

It was the first day of school yesterday for my daughter, but many returned today as well.  I am trying to find myself this week.  Yes, I lost myself this past year.  Working on a Big Trip with our High School Band for over 2 years (can’t say tirelessly because it was very tiring), saw the release of my second book - The Good-to-Go cookbook - that was fun, and getting our son through his senior year of high school.  Yes, I am trying to find myself.  What am I really like, what do I like to do in my free time - what free time - I have free time?  What kind of book do I want to write next?  etc…

This past weekend was spent mourning the death of a fellow friend and high school student of my kids, today we buried him - not a good time to find “me” so tomorrow I will start and tonight I am Good-to-Go for dinner since my husband is picking up pizza on the way home for dinner.

So some of us make New Years resolutions…I am make a New “school year” resolution.

Today is the first day back to school and our daughter is starting her senior year.  It has been quite a busy summer…actually summer did not really exist for us with our son graduating from High School, getting him ready for college, college visits for our daughter, band camp, color guard practices the entire summer, cross country training, 2 big house projects and let’s not forget the ’slightly’ cool summer weather we had here in Michigan.  So I am determined to start a new ‘year’ on my blog and it starts today and the first question is: what exactly am I making for dinner tonight?

Well, I found some left over corn-the-cob, steamed green beans in the fridge and some cherry tomatoes from the garden on the window sill.  I cut the corn off the cob, tossed it with green beans and the tomatoes and placed in a large bowl.  I cooked a pound of elbow pasta and added it to the bowl, made a quick vinegarette with 3 parts olive oil to 1 part red wine vinegar, a bit of salt, pepper, and herbs and whisked before tossing with vegies and pasta and left on the counter to “relax” for a few hours and let everyone in the bowl get to know each other.

Then I went to the grocery store and found some split chicken breast on sale.  When I came home I threw them in a 315 degree oven , with a generous sprinkling of sage, rosemary and thyme, a bit of salt and pepper and baked them covered for about 2 hours while I sat down to do some work.  Once done, I chilled the chicken and will leave a note on the table for the family to help themselves to salad and chicken for dinner.

So far, I am Good-to-Go with feeding my family.  Until tomorrow - Kathleen

I went to the movies with my daughter tonight and saw “Julie and Julia”.  Of course anyone reading this cooking blog should know what this movie is about.  It was fabulous.  Of course, I think I was the only one in the entire theatre that cried at the end!  My daughter and I were supposed to cook our way through the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking this summer…but, unfortunately we just never got around to it.  Driving home after the movie, we decided to give it another try, but instead of working through the book this summer (what is left of it) we are going to cook on Sunday’s.  I will keep you posted of our progress.  In the mean time try to get to the theatre and see this movie.  It give you warm and fuzzy happyiness…and it makes you hungry too!  Bon Appetit!