Thousand Island - Homemade Dressings

Recently I realized that we had gone slightly overboard in the salad dressing department. We had an entire shelf on the door of our fridge filled with half finished dressings, some way out of date. It got me to thinking, I really like variety and choice in my dressings, but with only two of us in the house it is hard to finish them up quickly. Enter into this picture, Thousand Island dressing. I really like Thousand Island dressing, once in a while. It can be great on a seafood salad and is a necessary component in Reuben sandwiches. When Dan wanted to have Reubens this week, I realized that we had no dressing for them. The last time we bought Thousand Island, we used less than a quarter of the bottle, and it sat and sat in the fridge until it went bad and had to be thrown out. I decided this time that I did not want to waste money and food by buying a bottle that would never get finished. I decided to embark on my new food adventure of making my own dressings.

Thousand Island is a really interesting dressing when you make it yourself. You never really think about what is in dressing that you get from the bottle, but this one got me to thinking about it. I looked over several recipes from The Joy of Cooking to my trusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I have made the occasional vinaigrette or specialty dressing for a specific salad, but this was new territory. I have to say that this dressing is very interesting as it seems to throw in every condiment including the kitchen sink. It starts with a mayo or salad dressing (read as the trade marked Miracle Whip) and then adds to it chili sauce. From there you heap in Worcestershire sauce and horseradish and add in olives and finely chopped onions and green and red pepper. Then, for good measure, add in a hard cooked egg and you have Thousand Island. I cut the recipe in half, and it still seemed like too much for us to have. I think for this particular dressing I need to only make a fourth of the full amount. This first dressing was mostly a success. I have to say that it turned out a little too sweet when using the salad dressing rather than mayonnaise. While I am not making my own mayonnaise yet, I do have to say I think this is the end of the store bought salad dressing era. I am going to buy some glass bottles to store it in and make small batches so none goes to waste. It is an exciting new area to expand into for homemade, and I am looking forward to it. Some will have to stay as store bought as we really like them a lot, but others I am ready to experiment with and learn to make. Here's to new avenues of homemade!

Jogging Again and .... Loving it?!

Last year around this time I started trying to become a runner. I loathed running in all forms, and that may come as a shock to some as I was a soccer player for 12 years. In those 12 years, though, I played goalkeeper.... little running involved there. Also, when I would go to the doctor and have my blood pressure taken, I was always asked if I ran marathons due to my low resting heart rate and blood pressure. I usually felt kind of embarrassed and joked that I only run when chased, but as the weight started to build as my life become more and more sedentary by leaving behind my careers, I realized it was time to change all that. So, last year I started trying to jog. It was a really hard thing to start, and there were several missteps along the way to actually committing last year. I kept with the couch to 5K plan for the most part. I never got to doing the full 5K, but I was up to running two miles a day for three days a week. Running was still a chore for me though.

Then I read this psychological study about people who did not like eating chocolate. I really love chocolate, so this seems like a really odd thing to me, but I guess they found a bunch of people who hated chocolate. These people were to eat the chocolate and tell themselves they loved chocolate and were a chocolate lover in fact. At the end of the study, the people responded to questionnaires that they actually loved chocolate. Some even indicated that they could not go a day with out eating chocolate. I decided to apply this to my running. I called myself a runner. When people asked if I ran, I said of course and that I really love it. Over time, I think this has worked to me as well to some extent.... I love chocolate... I mean running!

So things were going well, and then the move and the holidays hit as well as the rain coming for the winter here. This made the running stop. Oddly, during the time when I could not run, I actually missed it. I wanted to get back to running. I am not sure if it is because I was becoming successful at jogging or if the psychology of "I am a runner" worked, but something was working. Finally I went for a walk or two last week to try to find a good jogging route, but there was a problem, my old jogging shoes had worn out and were giving me huge blisters when walking. This weekend, I went out and got new jogging shoes. No excuses this morning, I got out my new shoes and headed off. I was able to complete the two miles with way less walking than I thought. I was really proud, especially when I thought back to my start last year and how hard it was for me to even complete a half mile of jogging with lots of walking, it was nice to jog a half mile no sweat even after a five month break. I am already feeling sore though, but through the soreness I am also feeling way more awake and ready to do things today. I hope the energy boosts keep up as I start back into jogging. Day one this year down, day two on Wednesday... I am ready for you!

English Muffin Experiments

The quest to find an English muffin recipe that I like as well as the store bought variety continues. I have tried several recipes, and this one ended up with the same results: not enough nooks and crannies for my liking. Through these experiments, I have come to find that there seem to be two schools of English muffins. The first is the Thomas' or Bay's school of thought, more like a crumpet and less like a roll. The dough on the outside is definitely all roll with some good chew and a little crust; the inside reveals a velvety softness that is held aloft by huge air pockets. Fork split is the only option as knife cutting mars the pockets left by the leavening. The other type is decidedly more bread like and no where near a crumpet. This has its merits too, but it is not what I am look to replicate. I would love to replace the expensive store bought ones for a cheaper but just as tasty and craggy delicate product.

This time I tried the recipe from Reinheart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. This recipe was one that is completed in one day, but it made a bread style dough. From the outset I was afraid that this one would end up like the old Fleshman's recipe I had tried. These muffins that are more dough based are more like a lightened up dinner roll style dough. There is kneading and shaping involved. I kept thinking that perhaps somehow these could end up with the airy middles, but that was not to be. They cooked up really tall and the browning I achieved on this set is probably the best I have ever reached. These also take some time in the oven after the initial skillet cooking. They had great flavor and were very soft and pleasant, but not what I was looking for in terms of school one of English muffins. I did make sure to fork split them just in case I was wrong, but alas, no really big nooks or crannies to be found. The crumb was nice and the muffin was rather light, but it was not the recipe I was looking to keep.

If you do fall into the more substantial English muffin school of thought, these were very easy to make with little hands on time. Their flavor was good, and we enjoyed using them with eggs Benedict as well as with some homemade jam and marmalade. I am looking at a new recipe that I think may finally be the winner. This one is more of a batter like dough that needs to be spooned into crumpet rings on the griddle and the muffins do not go into the oven at all. The pictures look promising, and other home bakers who have blogged about their use of the recipe have pictures that look exactly like what I am questing to achieve. As soon as we get more bread flour and finish off the last of these muffins, I will dive in and let you know my results.

Is There Anybody Out There?

So I am sure a few of you have been wondering where I went, and I am sure for many of you, since I fell off your blog roll, have forgotten about things here entirely. It has been a very busy and tumultuous four months. I know that I usually disappear for the month of December and return in January with my holiday in review postings of the gifts I had made that year. I had hoped to do that again this year, but well life kind of got in the way. It has a way of doing that as we all know too well. However, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, and end to the rush, a pot of gold under the rainbow? Nah, but it was a beautiful one out of the window of our apartment.

I am pretty sure I mentioned somewhere in the blog that we had to move. Our apartment in Oakland that we rented was bought by a new owner, and they wanted to live there. Sine we had no long term lease with the builder, we had to move. It was hectic trying to find a new apartment during the fall holidays. I was spending all my time working on gifts and apartment hunting. I am not sure if any of you have had to find a new place around the holidays, but if you have you know that it is not a pleasant experience. Most people move in the spring, so there were minimal places available to view. The ones that were available were not ones that would fit us very well. Then, a seemingly good thing happened. One building across the street from ours had an opening for February 1st. It was a great loft space, and we jumped at the chance to stay in our neighborhood. We contacted the new landowners and they graciously offered us an extension on our 60 terminate notice. All seemed to be heading in the right direction.

Then things got substantially more interesting. The TSA changed their security procedures, and Dan and I began to feel uncomfortable about flying. We decided to opt out of our plane tickets back to the Midwest and drive home instead of flying. It was an interesting time as the storms along I 80 were rather bad and very snowy. A three day drive turned quickly into a long four day trek. We had fun along the way and listened to a lot of holiday music as the blue Subaru and the two of us glided along the two lane interstates that had become one slow line of trucks and cars driving down the middle of the roadway. I had grand plans of getting the sewing done on my projects in the car as well as filling out our holiday cards. All lofty goals, none of which were completed. Some people had to receive store gifts this year and no cards were sent. It was a bit too nerve racking to sew when the roads were so slick.

The holidays went by quickly, and it was so great to see all my family all together in one place. It was especially nice to see the kids open their handmade gifts. They are finally at a fun age where presents are extremely exciting. After an all too short time at home, we packed up and headed out for the trek home, this time through the southern I 40 route in an attempt to avoid the snow. This winter it seemed impossible to beat it as we were held up for a four day drive again when the snow closed the roads through New Mexico and Arizona. We were never unlucky enough to have to sleep in the car, managing to literally wish on a falling star and get a hotel room late one night when the roads were closed. We wanted to spend some time in Las Vegas, and we did.... Las Vegas New Mexico. No casinos or floor shows, but a pretty nice hotel with a great staff that cut us a deal on the room due to the snow storm stranding us.

Overall, the road trip and holiday was a true Dan and Amy style adventure. The only setback, we had lost our apartment that we were going to rent. The person we were renting from was going to be transferred to work in Australia, but that fell through, and so did our apartment for the next year. We scrambled quickly to get our second choice place, and boy am I glad it worked out this way. We had to move from the old neighborhood, but the new one is much better for us in a lot of ways. There are grocery stores and fabric stores in walking distance from the house. There is a shuttle system to take us from our door to the BART, so I can do things on my own later into the evening without needing a ride from the station to our house anymore. There are lots of restaurants also with in walking distance and several community gardens that I am now on a waiting list for entry.

From there it has been the usual packing and moving... oh and unpacking that is still going on, yes since February. Having a completely different style of place from the last two has made this move more trying in the packing and unpacking department. We are now in a tri-level condo instead of a single floor and mostly open floor plan. This means lots of going up and down stairs, and unpacking is rather tiring. There were also setbacks with the movers being unable to bring our bed upstairs and some other minor issues with the washer and tub that our simply wonderful landlord worked out immediately. I have to say I really like him! Some of the hardest things of moving were leaving behind old routines to make new ones, downsizing my sewing space into a more cozy one, and losing the balcony for gardening. We kept the Meyer lemon tree, and I am working on killing the scale it has gotten infected with now that I am indoors with it all day. I did not give up gardening entirely. I have the Aerogarden started again, this time giving the thyme a month or now almost two head start before I plant anything else. The African violet seems happy enough since it is blooming again, and the chives are as nuts as usual. The rosemary is a bit harder to win over. I fed it today in the hopes of winning it over to the new place.

I have also planted some new containers indoors. Peas will now be on the old trellis system that held the jasmine. I have a special set of container cucumbers that I am trying out as well as some container strawberries that I am trying to grow from seed. Crazy? You bet! I also threw out the herbs I have had since we got here and am starting that all new as well. I added borage and tarragon to my usual sage, oregano, and marjoram. As soon as I get some more dirt and catch pans, I will also plant the parsley and cilantro pots. I am trying to grow some new container hybrids of bibb lettuce as well. We will see how that goes partnered with a container of spinach. I am not expecting much as the lighting conditions are not the best, but hey it is about the fun on experimentation right now. Figuring out how far I can push things so that when I have perfect conditions I feel extremely accomplished.

Bread baking experiments are still going on as well as several other cooking obsessions. I will share more on those items soon. For now there is a very late birthday present that needs to be made. Prepping for a dance show made that happen again, and I am sure there is a little girl that would really like her gift. More on that soon as well. It feels good to get back to writing, and I hope it feels just as good for you to catch up with me through your reading. Thanks for coming back, and I am glad to have you as readers. More homemaking hi-jinks and more frequent writing for consistent editions of the blog. I promise...

Scary Busy!

I am not dead, just scary busy right now. It seems like for the first time ever, I was ahead of the holiday game. I had all my plans for my holiday crafting picked out, and most of the people on my list had presents already assigned. I even was starting to cut out all the pieces and getting ahead at sewing on some of the projects. Then the plans had to fly out the window. Our current place that we live in was under a month to month lease as the owner did not want to enter into another year long lease term. This resulted in us now having to move as they have sold the place. It is really sad for me as I really enjoy living here. I love the unit we are in and have made some good acquaintances here as well. It seems like I was finally in the groove of exercise, and a daily routine as well as feeling fully comfortable in the neighborhood. Since this time of year is not the best to move, one option may have to be leaving the neighborhood. We hope to not have to, but we may. I will let you know as soon as I do when we have a new home for Fabulous Pants. Till then, most of my time is spent working on finding new digs for us as well as making moving plans. I hope to keep on schedule with the holiday crafting!

Until then, I have become rather obsessed with this new type of bread from the Artisan Breads Every Day by Peter Reinhart. The bread here is the second day, baking day, for the many seed bread in this book. I have been steadily loosing the weight I have been striving to shed, and I recently read some studies that people eating more whole grains and seeds are better able to lose and maintain a healthy weight. I decided to try to put aside the most wonderful white bread from this book and move onto this bread. I was worried at first that it would be too many seeds as it is many seed bread. The seeds were just the right amount and super tasty.

The seeds give the bread great texture. The best addition to this was the awesome nuttiness of the added pumpkin seeds. I love how these tasted in the bread, but the seeds are really expensive! I should really look for them in a Mexican grocery store to see if they are any cheaper. This year I saved my seeds from the pumpkin carving, and I hope to shell them once things calm down to use in the bread.

One of the best and yet worst things I found out about this bread is the awesomeness of it toasted with a smear of Nutella! It is so great! I have tried to resist the urge as Nutella has quite a few more calories than I would like to spend in the morning. It is also exceptional with blood orange marmalade. I have actually decided to stop making standard orange marmalade in favor of the blood orange variety. Thanks so much to my friend for introducing me to that tasty treat.

Well there is so much I need to get done in preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday. There is jogging to be done, vegetable stock to be made, chestnuts to be roasted, house to be cleaned, velvet wreaths to be finished (finally!), and a birthday present for my niece to be made in time for sending out. Look for more updates soon. I promise to not take a month off again if I can help it. Things just were so crazy and there was so little time. I promise to carve out more to show off what I am up to. Tune in soon for some more canning notes and a killer desert recipe in the next few days.

Mincemeat Minus the Meat

On Monday this week I went in for my first attempt at a mock mincemeat recipe. Mincemeat was something we got to have at Thanksgiving around our house. It was made out of the green tomatoes that were left over from the summer. It was a wonderful filling for a pie; green tomatoes that should not be wasted combined with dried fruits, lots of spices, sugar, and some suet. Since I could not find green tomatoes last year at our usual market, I made plans to make this pear version of mincemeat. After my canning plans were made, I ended up finding lots of green tomatoes at another market I have started to attend, but I thought I should stick to the pear plan.

One of the big advantages of doing this recipe is the lack of suet. Suet is a beef fat that would take the recipe into the realm of pressure canning, which, for now is not an option due to my lack of a pressure canner. Another added benefit was the use of pears. Some people love mincemeat until they find out it is made from tomatoes. I know there are tomato sensitive people out there, so this is much more crowd friendly. The dried fruits I used in this recipe were currents, golden raisins I dried in the dehydrator here, and some dried apricots that I finely chopped up. It made me feel all warm and excited for the family fruitcake this winter!

Next went in the spices. The recipe I used from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving called for cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground ginger. I debated exchanging the nutmeg for already ground mace, but I stuck with the nutmeg. I thought I should try the recipe as is for one year and then start tweaking. This recipe also called for brown sugar rather than a white sugar. This seemed to lend a nice warmth to the mincemeat. It smelled just like the holidays around the house.

Next came the peeled, cored, and cut pears. This took what seemed like forever. I wanted to make sure the pieces of pear were not too big as I will be making this into mini-pies for the two of us. Big fruit does not work that well in mini-pies. It works even less in the pocket pie mold I got from a kitchen store. After the pears were folded in, it was time to cook the mixture down. It made the house smell even better. This was one of the first recipes I have made for canning that I could not help but taste periodically during the cooking.

The taste was rich and layered. Everything a person looks for in holiday cooking was in that pot. I cooked it all down until it was a pretty solid mix with little liquid. From there I went to the canning process, and after 20 minutes in the water bath, I had four pint jars ready for pies, tarts, or pocket pies later this year. I am so excited by this recipe and cannot wait to crack a jar open. I decided to hide them in the pantry hoping that out of sight out of mind will work. I think that I will make up one of the mini-pies for a change of pace this year at Thanksgiving along with the usual pumpkin pie that I always make.

The clouds are rolling in fast for the storms we are expecting this weekend, so I should sign off and get my walk in before it gets too nasty. Then it is time for some Christmas gift making... yes you heard right. I am starting extra early this year in the hopes to get done in a sane and happy manner. Today is some experimentation with the computerized cutter in the hopes that a couple of projects will be easier with out having to cut all the parts by hand.... ah the wonders of technology. Well off to walk, craft, and cook.

Jars of Sunshine

Sorry for the radio silence on the blog as of late. I have been super busy with commitments and blogging has not fit into the schedule as I had hoped. The seasons have drastically changed here. We went from a super chilly summer into a couple of short lived heat waves after summer was officially over. Then, the temperatures around here dropped like a rock and the rains returned to the San Francisco Bay area. This weekend is supposed to be rainy just like last weekend. This rainy weather is not met with worry though as I have jars of sunshine to get me through the winter months.

A while back, one of my acquaintances blogged about buying a house and acquiring a new lemon tree. She was looking for things to do with all the lemons. She also was looking for some canning lessons. I traded her canning lessons for some lemons, and out of the trade came not only a great friendship, but also these awesome jars of strawberry lemonade concentrate. She had made some of this as well, so I had her notes to go off of for tweaking mine. I used the Ball book that I have for a recipe, and she got her's off of the internet somewhere. In her recipe, she said that the concentrate ended up being way too sweet even when watered down. This was good to know, so I cut my sugar levels by quite a bit. I like lemonade to be a bit sweet but not cloying by any means. I also strained my strawberry pulp, as Dan is not a big fan of the seeds in strawberries. This extra step took quite a while and also cut the yield I had on strawberry pulp by a bit.

I ended up with four pints, one from Dreah and three of my own, to take me through the winter. I had a little left over that I placed in the fridge and recently got out to test. It was quite good. The mix of the different types of Meyer lemon and regular lemons made for an interesting lemon flavor that was not too harsh. The strawberry flavor was a nice enhancer but was also not overwhelming. The sugar being cut down was also a good move as it was just the right amount of sweetness for me, and if someone else wants it more sweet, they can always add more to their glass. I think this could also be great as a daiquiri or margarita base if one wanted to use it that way or it could be cut with lemon lime soda or club soda as the Ball book suggests. Needless to say, I will be trying to get more lemons from my friend next year to make this one again! Now off to work on those perplexing socks I am trying.