Pickles, Lemonade, and Duck Eggs: My current preggo cravings!

I drank almost a gallon of Newman's own all natural lemonade in a week.  And I am addicted to the never heated Claussen pickles.  I went through a whole jar in week. And I usually don't really have any opinion on pickles.  I don't dislike them, but I have never gone out of my way to eat them plain.  And now I am ordering them on the side at restaurants!  But hey, I want what I want right now!  The lady who does my eyebrows says I am having a girl because of my cravings.  Who knows, I already have a boy name picked out, so now I am starting to think of girl names.

Now to the point of this blog post.  Duck eggs!  Now I didn't intend to start loving duck eggs but they quite strangely popped up in my life.  My husband works as a commercial glazier.  That means he installs glass in commercial buildings (think buildings like airports, all glass entry ways, new high rise construction, etc.)  Anyway, in the course of his work he meets lots of different people from architects to electricians and sheet metal workers.  Last week he comes home with a carton of duck eggs!  I was like, what the.....  But then I fried one up and it was delicious.  Duck eggs are fluffier, fattier, and bigger than chicken eggs.  And they have more nutrients and Omega-3 fatty acids than chicken eggs!  They are supposed to be great for baking, so I will have the try that very soon.  And my husband got them from a sheet metal guy who raises organic farm fresh eggs so they are way better than the caged eggs you can buy at the grocery store.  I am hooked on them.  I have been about 5 eggs a week.  My favorite way to eat duck eggs is in a delicious duck egg sandwich.

Delicious Duck Egg Sandwich
2 pieces thick cut whole wheat bread
1 over hard duck egg
1/2 a roma tomato sliced
1 half classen pickle thinly sliced
1 think slice sharp cheddar cheese
miracle whip

Basically I just make sure the egg is thoroughly cooked through, melt the cheese onto of the egg and construct a sandwich.  And the funny thing is I usually don't even like miracle whip!

Anyway if you get the chance to try some duck eggs please do!

P.S. Pregnant or fat?

Keep Tasting,

What to eat when you are expecting (A hungry pregnant girl's rant)

Hello,

 

So I have taken a long hiatus from food blogging because I am pregnant!  I am a little over 14 weeks pregnant today!  I am excited and terrified.  And I have found the pregnancy and food are strange bedfellows. Sometimes they agree, and sometimes they have angry fights in my head and in my stomach.
 In my head I fight a new fear of food that I have never had before.  I have never ever worried about food borne illnesses, and now I have to worry about them for the sake of the lemon sized fetus inside me!  And I have had my episodes of food fear lately.  Did you know that listeria can possibly be on every vegetable and in soft-serve frozen yogurt, soft cheeses, and humus?  And apparently listeria is bad whilst pregnant.  So everything needs to be washed or avoided.  I can pretty much say that in the last few months I have pretty much unknowingly eaten every food you are not supposed to eat.  Yesterday I accidentally ate some sausage that looked a teeny tiny bit pink.  It was blackened on the grill and my husband has patiently been telling me that I am fine, but I still worry.  The grill literally caught fire so I think I might be okay, but this nagging fear sticks in my head.  And then I go on the internet and Dr. Google convinces me that no matter what I do I am wrong and I have caused irreparable harm to myself and my baby.  My husband and my family have all threatened to cancel my internet and take away my smart phone! But my husband has been so great and supportive listening to my crazy worries about everything involving this pregnancy!  I am secretly praying that I have the immunity to toxoplasmosis.  Toxoplasmosis is really bad to get when you are pregnant unless you already got it from eating undercooked or raw meat.  Let's hope all my years of eating raw meat has paid off with this disease. You can also get it from cats, but I hate cats, so at least I don't really have to worry about those things.  The list of worries goes on and on, so it is hard not to be a little afraid every time I sit down to eat.
But since I am pregnant I am always hungry.  Thankfully I had very minimal nausea, instead my healthy appetite just got better and bigger.  And I have a new fondness for lemonade and olives.  Lots and lots of lemonade.  Coincidentally I have the worse heartburn ever!  And I am so tired all of the time.  The absolute last thing that I want to do is stand in a kitchen and cook.  All I want to do is eat and sleep.  What am I supposed to do?  I have to keep eating, especially since I am eating for two!  So I will be blogging my steps and missteps of eating (and not drinking) while pregnant.  Pray for me that at the end of all this I wont be too fat, my marriage will be intact, and we will have a healthy baby!
I was going to write about my homemade tacos, but let's be real, I haven't made those since March.  Before I knew about the growing bundle inside me.  Lately I have been eating lots of chips, salsa, ritz crackers with nutella, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, candy, ice cream, fried eggs, salmon, and salads.  My husband is good at making salads and cooking salmon!  I make sure everything is thoroughly washed in the salads though! 
Today though I had just enough energy to make a semi-homemade meal.  I browned some chicken legs in my beloved dutch oven.  I added some chopped onions, mushrooms, and brussel sprouts to the pot and let them cook down for a few  and then poured some organic red lentil curry soup (I will have to write another blog about my new fondness for organic box soups).   I let the meat and soup cook together or another 15 minutes.  I removed the bone and skin from the chicken legs and made an enhanced boxed soup!  I cooked some orzo to add a little more texture and carbs to the meal.  I added a dollop of sour cream and it was actually really good.

I make no guarantees, but I will try to update more as my hunger and my stomach continue to grow in the next few months.  And after this baby is born in November, I have already asked my husband to have a plate of blue cheese, a rare steak, and a big old glass of red wine waiting for me in the hospital!

Keep Tasting,

Tears and well done meat

I have to admit, I have been a little scared of food lately.  Recently I found out that there are so many things I cannot eat.  Pretty much everything I love is now off limits. And now some of my favorite foods make me sick.  And cooking a steak well done actually brings me to tears.  Today I barbecued steak and I literally just stared at my husband's perfectly medium-rare steak and tried not to get tears on my well done meat.

 And on top of that, we got a new stove and apparently when you buy a new stove they put all of sorts of crazy chemicals that have to be cooked off.  And we bought a good brand, it's not like it was some cheap knockoff.  So I used the self-cleaning function, like the manual said, to burn off the smell and it stunk up my house!  And it worried me.  I am still worried actually.  I was out of the house the whole time, but I am worried that I somehow smelled too many harmful fumes.  Who knew I was such a hippie? Now I am scared to turn on the oven!

So right now I am in a weird place, I still have a desire to cook and eat, but I am suddenly very nervous about most things I am putting in my mouth.  Or smell. I have never in my life thought about whether something was cleaned properly (I actually have a soft spot for dive eateries), or cooked thoroughly (in fact my motto has always been the rarer the better).  Half the reason I bake so much is to eat the raw dough, or batter!  I have been known to literally drink cake batter.  Sooooooooo good.   

I will get back into blogging, cooking, and eating soon.  Hopefully I will start to worry less, a lot less, and find ways to survive these new dietary restrictions.

Keep tasting and have a glass of wine for me!

Salmon, Salad, and S'more Pie. An Anniversary Dinner

Today is my second wedding anniversary!  We sort of eloped a year after meeting each other.  A year and 10 days to be exact. Well I saw him at work and I tracked him down, but that's a whole other blog post.  We went to the courthouse with our families and I wore a red dress and it was fabulous!  We threw a big party a few months later and the whole thing was just amazing and relatively stress less. 

Eating carrot cake after our wedding

 So for our first anniversary we went to Peru as honeymoon/anniversary celebration.  How do you top that for your second year?  Well, we bought a house!  Peru had been my dream since I was in the 6th grade, and my husband has wanted to own a house forever so we are accomplishing both of our dreams.  Since we just closed on the house a week ago, we decided that a dinner at home would be great and cost-effective way to celebrate our anniversary.   We had to celebrate a day early because of my husband's job, but it was quite the celebration nonetheless. Whilst my husband finished clean out our old rental, I cooked a feast.  Clearly I got the better task!

Our new house!

My husband is on a salad and healthy fish craze (I thought I would never see that happen) so I centered the meal around that.  I made a big salad, pan seared wild salmon with a sweet and sour chutney and homemade yogurt tarter sauce.  I also made a broccoli, cheese, and potato casserole.  Because I cannot have a meal without cheese.  And I absolutely love S'mores so I have been craving them since I bought some graham crackers and a brownie mix on a whim last week.  So I decided to make an impossible easy S'more pie for dessert. 
Let's start with dessert because life is short, eat dessert first! 

S'more pie

S'more Pie
One package Graham crackers
1 stick of butter
Favorite brownie mix or homemade brownies
2 cups mini marshmallows
1/2 cup butterscotch chips

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Graham crackers come in a box with about four plastic packages containing whole graham crackers inside.   Just open one of those and dump all of them into a large Ziploc bag. Take a rolling pin and take out some of your aggression and smash those Graham crackers until they are in small crumbs.  Melt one stick of butter on the stove.  Take out a 9" inch pie pan.  Glass is my favorite, but metal will do.  Pour the Graham cracker crumbs and the melted butter in the pie pan and mix together.  Then press the Graham cracker/butter mix into the pie pan and up the sides to make the crust.  I like a crispy crust so I like to pop the pie pan in the oven for a few minutes, but it isn't necessary. 

Now I hate boxed cakes, and cookies, but I have soft spot for good brownie mixes.  And they were on sale for 98 cents the other day so I bought a box.  Or two.  I use Pillsbury or Ghiradelli mixes.  I prepared the brownie mixture as instructed and threw in about 1/4 cup butterscotch chips.  Bake for about 30 minutes, and then I pressed the mini marshmallows on top of the brownie mix and let the pie bake for an additional 5-7 minutes.  In a small sauce pan melt the butterscotch chips with a little bit of butter and drizzle over the pie.  Enjoy!

Our anniversary meal

Pan-seared Salmon

1 pound wild salmon, filleted

Lemon juice

Lemon pepper

Dill Weed

Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper

Salmon is actually really easy to make.  Salmon tastes amazing on its own, and you can pretty much season it anyway your want to, so I like to keep it relatively simple.  My aunt, uncle, and two cousins are all in the salmon fishing industry in Alaska and this spice recipe comes from them and has never let me down.  Simply marinate your salmon fillets in a little bit of lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper for about 15 minutes. 

Never marinate anything with lemon juice or citric acid for too long because the acid will start to break down the meat and cook it.  Ever heard of ceviche?  Ceviche is made from raw fish that is marinated, i.e. cooked in citric acid.  So 15 minutes is about perfect to get the flavor without cooking your salmon in lemon juice.

Heat a large saute pan to medium high and pour a generous amount of olive oil and a little butter in the pan.  When everything is sizzling place salmon fillets skin side down.  Turn pan down to medium and generously sprinkle lemon pepper and dill weed all over your salmon.  I like to add a little more salt as well.  Add a little bit of water and a tiny bit more lemon juice to the pan and cover.  Let cook for 5-8 minutes until the salmon has turned a lighter pink. 

Yogurt Tarter Sauce

Plain Greek yogurt

salt

pepper

onion powder

garlic powder

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons chopped pickles

So easy, so good, and so much better for you than store bought tarter sauce.  Just mix everything together and chill until you are ready to serve

Sweet and Sour Chutney

1/4 onion

2 teaspoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon coriander

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamon

1/8 teaspoon paprika

1/8 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon water

I got this recipe for The New Best Recipe: America's Test Kitchen.  I wanted to do something a little different because it was our anniversary after all.  Combine all the spices into a small dish and set aside.  Finely chop onion and saute in the olive oil  in a small saucepan at medium heat.  Cook onions until translucent, about 3 or 4 minutes.  Increase heat to medium-high and toss in spice mix.  Cook for an additional 1 to 1 1/2 minutes until the spices start to smell strongly.  Add in red wine vinegar, sugar, and water.  Let the mixture simmer until it reduces.  Serve as a topping for the salmon.  Be cautious though, a little goes a long way with this spicy concoction!

Broccoli, Cheese, and Potato Casserole

One head of broccoli

2 red potatoes

1/4 chopped onion

1 clove garlic

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup grated cheddar

Dash of nutmeg

Breadcrumbs

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Chop all the vegetables into bite sized pieces.  Place in a small casserole dish.  Now make a rue!  I've never made one successfully, but it wasn't that hard this time.  In a small sauce pan melt butter and then add flour and whisk thoroughly until mixture darkens.  Slowly add milk, nutmeg and grated cheddar.  Mix until blended and pour over the veggies.  Top with breadcrumbs, over and bake for about 30-35 minutes, until the potato is soft.  Take off the cover and cook for an additional 5 minutes until the breadcrumbs create a nice crust. 

Serve, hot, bubbly and delicious.

Lastly make a large salad, I throw every vegetable I can in a salad.  I love to add nuts, cheeses, and dried cranberries on top.

It was quite the dinner and great way to celebrate our marriage and our new home!

Keep tasting,

Best Pizza Place ever!

Now I usually think that I can make most things rather well, but there is a pizza place in Yelm, WA that makes the best pizza I have ever had.  And I know when I've been beat, and their pizza is just better than anything I can ever make. 

My camera phone does not do this place justice

So if you are ever in Yelm or Olympia then please do yourself a favor and stop by La Gitana Pizzeria.  http://pizzerialagitana.com/wordpress/.  I think part of the reason is their food is so amazing is because the owners are a family from Italy.  They grew up around the world's best pizza and by the sweet grace of God they have brought their expertise and the finest ingredients to me!  They import all their meats, olives, and oils from Italy.  And they make this perfectly crisp and thin crust that I cannot even dream of replicating.  And to top it off they put their pizzas in large, warm, woodfire oven which cooks all those pizzas to perfection. 

Did I mention they have great Italian wine as well!

So do yourself a favor an stop by their Yelm or Olympia restaurants.  And don't forget to save room for dessert.  They have a tiramisu to die for.

Keep Tasting,

Salt. Caramel. Chocolate. Brilliant cupcakes

So my friends' baby turned one today.  And they asked me to make cupcakes!  They don't feed their kid sugar or salt so I knew they weren't going to give their kid any of my cupcakes so I went for it and made what I wanted. And I have to say, sorry kid, you missed out.  Next time I'll sneak you a little bit of heavenly goodness I created tonight!

I present to for your viewing and hopefully tasting pleasure

Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes

Now I have made a lot of cupcakes in my life, I even made our wedding cake and cupcakes!  And those were great, but this was better.  There is a chocolate cake base, a caramel filling and a whipped cream dark chocolate frosting.  And a sprinkling of thick sea salt on top.  Salt, caramel and chocolate combined is unbelievable.  The salt is a surprise, but it adds such a depth of flavor.

Chocolate cake

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

7 tablespoons good dutch processed cocoa powder

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

3/4 cup buttermilk

3/4 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate chunks or squares

1 tablespoon butter

All my ingredients

The cake part is actually super easy.  The rest gets a little bit complicated though, so have extra ingredients on hand just in case you have to redo your caramel (guilty!) or your frosting (guilty!).  These cupcakes take time so I would give yourself at least two or three hours.  But they are worth every minute.  Every minute. 



Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Line 24 standard size cupcakes tins with your favorite cupcake liners.   

Melt chocolate squares with about a tablespoon or two a butter.  You can heat them on the stove or just pop them in the microwave.  Melt until chocolate and butter is smooth and shiny and then immediately remove from the heat.  There is nothing worse than burnt chocolate.  And once you burn chocolate you cannot get it back! 

Place all dry ingredients into a big bowl.  Oh, I have recently rediscovered my sifter.  And it makes a world of difference so if you have one, use it!  So I should revise my directions and say, sift all the dry ingredients together. 

In medium bowl whisk together all the wet ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix just until combined.  Place in cupcake tins and bake for 13-15 minutes.  Now at this point I originally placed one of those pre-made caramel squares in each cupcake and baked for an additional 2-5 minutes.  This turned out to be not a great move, so I would just bake the cupcakes for about 15-20 minutes.  As usual while baking cakes, bake until a toothpick placed into the cake comes our clean or with a few crumbs sticking to it.  Dry cake is the worst, so if you think it is almost done or you think it needs just a minute more, take it out! 

So back to the caramel squares.  While they were easy to place in, I hated the look of them and I was worried they would harden up and would be an unpleasant texture when people bit into them.  So I waited impatiently until the cupcakes were cool and sure enough the caramel was way too hard.  So I removed every single square.  But then I had a whole in my cupcakes so I had to fill them with something.  And so with great trepidation I decided to attempt caramel sauce.

Finished homemade caramel sauce

Caramel Sauce

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup whipping cream

Now those two ingredients look deceptively easy, but caramel is a challenge.  Place sugar in a pan over medium-high heat and cook until it starts to melt and turns a little bit brown. Once it is completely melted, but hopefully still light brown, add the whipping cream to the pan.  It will sputter, and the sugar might be hard and stuck together.  Mine looked like a light brown rock in the middle of the cream!  The first time this happened I thought I had killed my caramel.  But don't give up, keep stirring!  Stir until the sugar has again melted into the cream and it starts to look like caramel sauce.  Be careful it doesn't get too dark or it will taste burnt!  Once your get your caramel sauce to the desired color, remove from the heat and let it cool.  Once the caramel sauce is cool fill each cupcake hole with caramel sauce.  You will have leftover caramel sauce which you will need later for the frosting. 

Chocolate caramel filled cupcakes

Whipped Cream Dark Chocolate Buttercream

1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips or squares

4 tablespoons dutch processed cocoa powder

1 1/2 sticks of butter

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup whipped cream

Frosting cupcakes

Melt the chocolate and about two tablespoons of butter until smooth and creamy.  Set aside so that it is cool when needed.  Cream together butter and powdered sugar until soft and fluffy.  Slowly add the cocoa powder into the butter and sugar mixture.  Fold in the melted chocolate.  In a separate bowl beat whipped cream until it has soft peaks.  Slowly fold the whipped cream into the chocolate buttercream mixture.  Be very gentle so that you do not deflate your whipped cream.  Once all the whipped cream is incorporated chill the whipped cream dark chocolate buttercream for about 20 minutes in the refrigerator.  This will let your frosting firm up a little bit and make it easier to pipe onto the cupcakes.  Your hot hands will warm up the frosting quickly so starting with a cool frosting helps tremendously. 

Once frosted, drizzle the remaining caramel on each cupcake and then add a pinch of good sea salt to each cupcake.  Your whole view of cupcakes will change after you try this. 

Enjoy!  And keep tasting!

Blogging and Eating some Pie.

So I have religiously monitored (some people would say stalked, but that is such a harsh term) the blogs of my friends for years.  And I also closely check, ok, I check it everyday, a lovely blog of sweet and awe-inspiring women who lives in Rainier, WA.  Have I ever met her?  No.  Do I know everything that has she has written on her blog in the last four years.  Yes.  Does that make me slightly creepy?  I hope not.  Anyway the point of this long winded introduction is that I used to complain about people who did not update their blog regularly.  And now look at me, letting weeks go by without blogging. I humbly admit that blogging takes a lot of time and planning.  I take back all my snide comments and constant page refreshing that I directed towards my fellow bloggers.

I have been cooking a lot lately, and one day I will update y'all with my cooking adventures.  In the past week our favorite meal has been the meat pie.  My mother-in-law called to ask if we wanted some chicken pot pie and we politely declined.  But for the rest of the day I kept thinking about savory pies.  And our meat and veggie pie was born.

Meat and Veggie Pie

1 lb ground beef, veal, or lamb.

1 large red potato

1/2 bunch collard greens

1/3 red onion

1 clove garlic

1/2 carrot

2 large mushrooms

1/2 red bell pepper

6 drops Worcestershire sauce

8 ounces of crushed tomatoes

1/2 teaspoon:

   salt

   pepper

  coriander

   oregano
1 pie crust, top and bottom.  Prepared or homemade!
1 small tub, (4 ounces I think) boconccini.  Boconccini is just small balls of fresh mozzarella. 
1 egg

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.  Chop all veggies into bite sized chunks.  But make sure you mince the garlic!  Saute meat in a large skillet on medium heat until the meat has started to brown.  If I am using ground beef I always like to use the leaner cuts of meat.  In this case I used the 93/7 blend.  I just think that it seems to taste so much meatier.  Then add chopped potatoes to the pan.  Finish cooking the meat and then drain any excess fat or water from the pan.  Then add all the rest of veggies.  Don't worry, the collard greens will cook down!  Once the collard greens have started to wilt, add all your spices and thoroughly mix together.  Cook mixture for a few more minutes, just until veggies start to get tender.   

Place the bottom of the pie curst into a glass pie pan.  Glass just works better, so if you don't have a glass pie pan, then go buy one.  There really is no comparison.  Use a fork to puncture holes in the sides and bottom of the pie crust.  This is very important otherwise your pie crust will puff up and you wont have any room for your filling! Or you can use pie weights.  Which reminds me I need to put those on my birthday wish list.  Pre-cook bottom crust for 8-10 minutes, just until the crust stops looking quite so raw.  Turn the oven down to 350 degrees. 

 Slice each boconccini in half.  Put half of those slices into the meat and veggie mixture and stir until the cheese is evenly distributed.  Pour meat and veggies into pre-cooked bottom pie crust.  Be careful not to touch the pie pan now because that glass is hot.  Trust me on this one!  Once all the filling is in the pie pan spread the rest of the boconccini over the filling.  The more cheese the better is my thought!  Top with the second pie crust and brush with an egg wash.  Poke some holes in the top crust to so that the steam can escape. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.  The crust should be golden brown.  Let the pie stand for about ten minutes, cut and enjoy. 

Keep Tasting!