Modern Wife – Page 10

Shrimp & Bumblebees

My husband came up with this meal’s name when we first got married over 16 years ago. No bumblebees were harmed in the making of this meal. I can’t say the same for the shrimp, however.

This is an easy peasy meal I whip up when I am short on time and long on hunger. I use canned beans, but those of you who prefer buying dried beans and soaking them overnight, go ahead and do that. I’m about ready to start doing the same since I came across this article from Mercola that enumerates reasons for not buying canned beans (and other packaged foods). Soaking beans overnight is easy. It just takes a little planning in advance.

Shrimp and Bumblebees

Ingredients:
raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tablespoon organic canola oil
black beans, organic, 1 can (or equivalent if you are soaking dried beans overnight)
1 cup frozen organic corn
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
a handful of chopped organic basil or cilantro

Here’s how to make the Bumblebees: Combine black beans and corn in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Sprinkle cumin. Stir occasionally to make sure it doesn’t stick on the pan.

And now the shrimp: While the beans and corn is cooking, heat canola oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Toss shrimp with Old Bay Seasoning and cook until pink.

To serve, make a bed of bumblebees. Top with shrimp, then garnish with basil or cilantro.

November 18, 2012
Garlic Lemonade

It’s inevitable. Every year my daughter gets the sniffles after Halloween, the effect of a combination of moldy leaves on the ground, sudden cold wet weather, and too much candy.

Garlic Lemonade is my go-to remedy for coughs, cold and the flu. I found the recipe in Dr. Aviva Jill Romm’s book, “Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parent’s Guide: How to Make Safe, Sensible Decisions about the Risks, Benefits, and Alternatives.” All three ingredients: lemon, garlic and raw honey are great for boosting the immune system. It’s also delicious. My daughter loves it.

Garlic Lemonade

3 medium-sized garlic cloves, chopped
(blogger’s note: instead of chopping, I pounded the garlic in a mortar and pestle)
Juice of 1 lemon
Raw honey to taste.

Place the garlic in a 1-quart jar and fill the jar with boiling water. Let the garlic steep for 20 minutes and then strain it out. Add the lemon juice and sweeten with raw honey.

Give 1/2 to 2 cups daily, the lower dose to prevent illness and for younger children and the greater quantity for older kids who feel like they are coming down with a cold.

Don’t give the lemonade every day; just use it as needed.

Previously posted on Lemon Garlic Tea.

November 11, 2012
Homemade Pumpkin Puree

Roasting is my favorite way of making pumpkin puree. Not only is it the easiest way to do it, but oven heat also preserves the pumpkin’s sweet flavor.

A pound is equal to a cup of pumpkin puree. I needed 2 cups of pumpkin puree for my pumpkin cupcake recipe so I picked a 2 pound sugar pumpkin.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a baking sheet with butter. (Money-saving tip: I like saving the wax covers of butter sticks in the freezer. Whenever I need to grease a baking sheet, I get a wax cover out of the freezer and rub it on the baking sheet.)

Cut the pumpkin in half crosswise. Scoop out the seeds and strings. Save the seeds for roasted pumpkin seeds.

Put the pumpkin cut side down on the baking sheet.

Bake for 45 minutes. Check if skin can be pierced with a fork, then take it out of the oven and cool. Once the pumpkin is completely cooled, you can pull the skin off easily.

Tadaa! Homemade pumpkin puree!

Now you’re ready to make pumpkin cupcake, or pumpkin cookies, or pumpkin pie or pumpkin ice cream.

Instructions from the book, Halloween Treats: Recipes and Crafts for the Whole Family (Holiday Celebrations) by Donata Maggipinto

November 5, 2012
Halloween Party Food Menu

Every year we throw a Halloween party to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. We have a big family with many young cousins, so that alone makes the parties pretty big. In addition, my daughter likes to invite her whole class to the parties as well. Not everyone comes, of course (whew!) but we usually get at least 20 children at these parties.

Children are the most difficult people to keep still long enough to eat. We’ve thrown parties in the past when the kids refused to eat anything and insisted only on playing the whole time they were over. So I’ve decided to serve mostly finger foods, snacks they can swipe as they go past the buffet table on their way to some fun game they are playing. Here is my menu:

Mini Pumpkin Pies. I got the idea from Bakerella’s Pumpkin Pie Bites, but I used my own recipe for Pumpkin Pie. It yielded 48 little pumpkin pies.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds. We took the pumpkin seeds from carving out the Jack O’ Lantern and roasted them until brown and crunchy.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. This Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe is a family favorite that has been passed down from generation to generation, tweaked slightly to make it healthier while keeping it just as delicious as ever.

Apples, Apple Cider, Chips with Salsa and Guacamole. We were serving so many sweets so I decided on just having apples, and not caramel candy apples. Chips with Salsa and Guacamole as the savory complement to all the sweet treats. Apple cider for drinks.

Halloween Sugar Cookies. Halloween cookie cutter shapes + this Butter Cookies recipe + cookie icing = Fun colorful Halloween cookies!

Jello AB Normal Brain. Green jello set in brain mold the night before the party, set up next to cut carrots for a fun color contrast.

Bone Pretzels. I love my breadmaker, and this Breadmaker Pretzel recipe is one of the reasons why.

October 30, 2012
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe was passed on to me from my husband’s grandmother, who sent us care packages of her special Pumpkin Cookies every Halloween. Mammie used Crisco Oil and it made her cookies very moist and last for weeks. I used organic canola oil as a healthier alternative, and this makes the pumpkin cookies moist, light and fluffy. If you like your cookies crispy on the surface, use organic butter instead.

This was previously posted at Pumpkin Cookies, but the way I had written it was confusing. I’ve revised the recipe to make it easier to follow. These Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies have become such a family favorite that I have a feeling I’ll be making several batches of it throughout the holiday season.

Mammie’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups organic sugar
1 cup organic canola oil (or softened organic butter – 2 sticks)
2 organic eggs
2 teaspoons organic vanilla
2 tablespoons raw organic milk
1 can organic pumpkin
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder, aluminum-free
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 cups organic all-purpose flour
1 large bag semi-sweet organic chocolate chips

Preheat oven 375 degrees F. Whisk sugar, canola oil, eggs, vanilla, milk and pumpkin together until well incorporated.

Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon and stir slowly with a spatula or a wooden spoon until smooth. Add chocolate chips and mix.

Spoon rounds onto buttered cookie sheet (use wax paper covers to grease the baking sheet) and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Take the cookies out as soon as they are showing a bit of brown around the outer edges.

October 23, 2012
Halloween Invitations

I wanted to make Halloween party invitations that looked ghostly, so I went for the ancient and distressed look. I got the idea from the Better Homes and Gardens how-to guide.

We have stacks of manila paper sitting around at home, so I started with that. From the craft store, I bought walnut ink for staining, a spooky stamp, distress stamp pad ink and black ribbon.

I also downloaded the free Halloween font “Nemo Nightmares” from this free font site. There are so many to choose from. Pick the one that works best with your theme. Type out your invitation on a word processing program. (I used Microsoft Word, then saved it as a PDF.)

First I prepared for spraying with walnut ink by laying newspaper and scratch paper on my work table. Walnut ink is extremely staining. You wouldn’t want to mess up your table. Test it out on scrap paper first, so you know how far away you ought to be from your paper when spraying. I sprayed one side of my manila paper, let it dry, then sprayed the other side. A little goes a long way.

Once the stained manila paper is dry on both sides, I ran it through the printer, using the PDF file of my invitation. My PDF file contained 4 invitations on 1 page, so I also used a paper cutter to neatly slice my paper into quarters.

I used my cat stamp and distress stamp pad ink to put a little design accent on the invitation.

Once everything was dry, I snipped short lengths of ribbon, rolled up my parchment and tied ribbon around it. Now they look ready for the owl mail.

October 9, 2012
Column of Leaves Scarf

I finished the Column of Leaves Scarf I had been working on over the past month. Just in time for my Grandmother’s 86th birthday celebration. There she is, trying it on, with a beautiful smile on her face.

She got into a crazy car accident last June during my cousin’s wedding. My grandmother had just gotten off a flight from the Philippines the night before, and she was feeling tired after lunch. She flipped her car into a ditch and was caught in her seatbelt upside down, unable to get out of her car. She honked her horn for help. It was 107 degrees Fahrenheit that day. Someone came up and broke her car window open. She crawled out of the wreck by herself, unscathed, unbroken, and with not even a speck of dirt on her dress. The cops couldn’t believe an 85 year old lady could crawl out of a total wreck without a scratch. They dubbed it “The Miracle on 8 Mile Road.” Words cannot express how so very happy we are that she is alive and well.

This Column of Leaves pattern by Brooke Nelson is such a good one, and a joy to knit. I still have two skeins each in orange and cranberry of Debbie Bliss Cathay, which is 50% cotton, 35% viscose and 15% silk.

September 16, 2012
Banana Crumb Muffins

I love bananas, but sometimes a bunch of them start turning brown in the fruit basket and they have to be rescued, stat! If I have only two bananas left, I make Banana Bread or this basic Banana Muffins recipe. If I have at least three bananas, this is what I do:

Ingredients for Muffins:
1/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup organic sugar
3 bananas
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Ingredients for Crumb Topping:
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter the muffin pan or put muffin paper liners into muffin cups.

Cream softened butter and organic sugar together. Beat in the egg until smooth. Add mashed bananas and mix well together.

Add the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix all together until smooth. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles crumbs. Sprinkle crumb topping over muffins.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Look at how beautiful the center of the muffins looks. I love the brown slivers of banana in there.

September 6, 2012
Strawberry Tart

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour, unbleached
1/2 cup finely ground almonds
1/3 cup organic sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) organic butter, cut into pieces
1 egg, free-range and organic
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup seedless strawberry jam
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 pints organic strawberries, hulled and sliced

Stir together flour, almonds, sugar, lemon rind and salt in a medium bowl. Cut butter into flour until mixture is the consistency of course crumbs. Whisk together egg and vanilla. Stir into the flour mixture to form a dough. Shape into a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Rub wax paper butter covers on baking sheet to grease. Place dough on baking sheet and pat into a 10-inch circle with an elevated edge. Pierce bottom of dough all over with a fork. Bake about 25 minutes until slightly browned. Cool completely.

Melt jam with lemon juice in a small saucepan over low heat. Spread 1/2 cup of jam mixture over the bottom of the tart shell. Arrange berries on top, cut sides down. Brush with remaining jam mixture.

September 3, 2012
Chocolate S’mores Ice Cream

One of my family’s fondest summer memories is of roasting marshmallows on an open fire. My husband had built a fire pit behind our cabin in Maine, just a few steps away from the lake shore. There was a pile of kindling next to the fire pit, most of it for building the fire; some, the long skinny twigs, for poking a marshmallow at the end of it and roasting. The Chocolate S’mores Ice Cream is an homage to this warm summer memory. Here’s my version of the recipe, based on The Ciao Bella Book of Gelato and Sorbetto: Bold, Fresh Flavors to Make at Home:

Ingredients:
2 cups raw organic whole milk
1 cup raw organic heavy cream
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup organic sugar
1/2 cup ground graham crackers
1/2 cup mini marshmallows

Combine milk and cream in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally so a skin doesn’t form until tiny bubbles form around the edge and the mixture reaches 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Turn off the heat and whisk in the cocoa powder and chocolate chips until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth.

In the meantime, whisk egg yolks in a ceramic bowl until smooth. Slowly whisk in 1/2 cup sugar until well incorporated into a thick pale yellow paste. Slowly pour in the hot chocolate milk mixture while whisking continuously. This is important: The chocolate milk should not be poured into the egg mixture too quickly or you will get scrambled eggs.

Return the egg and chocolate milk custard to the saucepan and cook over low heat. Stir frequently with a wooden spoon until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. Temperature of the custard should reach 185 degrees Fahrenheit. Do not allow the custard to boil.

Pour the custard through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl and let it cool to room temperature. Stir the custard every five minutes until cooled completely. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Also refrigerate mini marshmallows and ground graham crackers.

Prepare ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Churn until thickened into a soft serve consistency. Add the graham crackers and mini marshmallows just before churning ends. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until firm.

August 8, 2012