Category Archives: cooking

Adventures in Sandwiches

Posted on October 21, 2011 by mohawkvalleygirl

As you may or may not know, I work for a living. And I carry a lunch every day. Until recently, I’ve been spoiled by Steven, the best husband ever, making my lunch every day. Lately, however, I have had to take responsibility for my own nutrition. What else to do but write a blog post about it?

The line at the deli at Hannaford was way too busy the day I shopped, so nothing easy like salami or roast beef was available. Boiling eggs for egg and olive was too much trouble, but I thought I could manage a can opener.

So I put some mayonnaise and a little mustard in the bowl with the tuna. Then I added a bunch of dill and minced onion. The dill was Pampered Chef All Purpose Dill Mix. The onion was dehydrated onion I bought at Aldi’s for 99 cents. I just wanted to make it clear I did not go so far as to actually mince onion or chop dill myself. I put my concoction (Steven calls me The Concocter when it comes to cooking) in a whole wheat pita for lunch the next day. When I ate it I was moved to remark, “I’m a genius.” I was, of course, indulging in hyperbole. And taking credit for what was, I believe, mainly the efforts of the dill.

The next day I made the effort to boil eggs for egg and olive. I used mayonnaise and mustard, thinking of deviled eggs. The dill had worked so well before, I added some of that as well as some salt free all purpose seasoning. And a little paprika, in keeping with the deviled egg theme. Unfortunately, when I went to add the olives, I messed up. I had gotten salad olives, so I did not have to chop them up. In scooping them out of the jar, I failed to drain them properly, and my egg and olive turned out soupy. It tasted pretty good, but I was concerned it would turn the bread soggy. I was tired at that point (I poop out early and easily these days), so I put it in the refrigerator and made my sandwich of some leftover chicken nuggets (sometimes I eat like a little kid — chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese out of a box). Later on I’ll get up the ambition to cook another couple of eggs to un-soup it. Or maybe some potatoes and make it be egg and potato salad, which a little soupiness never hurt. I’ll decide.

I think regarding the egg and olive fiasco, my problem was I did not cook with wine. You know the tee shirt: “I cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.” I read a recipe in a blog called “Happiness Stan Lives Here” that had a great first instruction: “Pour glass of wine (note that no wine is in the actual recipe it simply provides inspiration to the process).” That blog is at: http://happinessstanlives.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/chinese-curry-sans-take-away/ I maybe should have made a comment on the blog or something asking was it OK if I quoted it. But I think it’s OK if I properly document the source. Like the quotes we used to put in term papers (must write that post on Crap We Wrote in School).

So those were my sandwich adventures for the week. Whenever I do a post like this, I feel I should connect it to the Mohawk Valley somehow. After all, I am, as I recently declared in a post, Mohawk Valley Girl. Nothing comes to mind. Oh well, I’m here and this is what I did. Stay tuned for future adventures.

Definitely Not a Cooking Post

Posted on October 7, 2011 by mohawkvalleygirl

Tuesday, for reasons with which I will not burden the reader, I found myself driving home from Utica around 6 p.m. I knew Steven had taken chicken out of the freezer and that he was due home shortly after 6:30. I also knew I did not have the stamina to wait the 45 or more minutes it would take the chicken to cook or even the oomph to get it in the oven. What to do?

Pick something up, obviously. What and from where? The possibilities were many. This had the added advantage of being a potential blog post. I pondered as I drove (within posted speed limits and carefully, of course).

I concluded that I did now feel like waiting long while my food was being prepared. Where did that leave me? Any place has to fix your food. Unless I did Hot-n-Ready from Little Caesars. They didn’t need a plug from Mohawk Valley Girl.

As I mentally reviewed the villages I would pass, it occurred to me: Melrose Market in Frankfort has ready made food. They had all kinds of choices! It was going to be great!

Luckily they were still open, and even more luckily, there was a parking space right in front. I am a terrible parker. I was not quite parallel to the curb, but I hoped it would be OK.

I found the refrigerator case with the goodies. I decided on Pasta Fagioli, Sausage and Peppers, and Pasta Salad. From a shelf closer to the register I grabbed a mixture with peanuts, raisins, peanut butter chips and generic M&Ms. For dessert and appetizer.

“I’m so glad I thought of you guys,” I gushed to the cashiers. “I’m going to write a blog post about this!”

They thanked me politely, but I don’t think they were impressed.

When I got home I phoned my mother while I preheated the oven (I don’t like heating things in the microwave). It’s important to check in with the folks, plus I wanted to ask Mom’s advice about covering the food while I heated it. I was able to put the food in casserole dishes with one hand, holding the phone with the other, but I asked Steven to cover with tinfoil (on Mom’s advice) the dish without a lid. I asked him to also put the dishes in the oven.

“I do all the work around here,” he grumbled. It’s quite true, but he only grumbles about it when it’s something silly like this.

Dinner was quite tasty and virtually stress free. Steven was even able to put the leftovers back in the same containers they came in.

I highly recommend Melrose Market, 208 E. Main St., Frankfort, 894-3272. For those occasions when you are just not up to culinary adventures.

More Fun with Peppers

Posted on October 6, 2011 by mohawkvalleygirl

Subtitle: Cooking Up Trouble Part II.

When we last left our hero (um, that’s me), she was in the midst of unsuccessfully roasting farmers market peppers. OK, enough with the third person. While the peppers steamed themselves in the tin foil. I turned my attention to dinner.

First, I chopped part of an onion (not from the farmers market, because they didn’t have any that day) and put that in some red wine. It was sweet red wine my sister Cheryl had brought over and not finished. I don’t care for sweet wine, and Cheryl has not been back so I thought I’d use it this way.

While the onion cooked I squeezed a couple of cloves of garlic (in fact, I bought that at the Ilion Farmers Market a couple of weeks ago) through the garlic press and set the timer for 15 minutes. I read somewhere that you should let crushed or chopped garlic breathe for 15 minutes. I’m not sure if it brings out the flavor or the anti-oxidant qualities, but I figure, it doesn’t hurt anything.

I chopped two of the unroasted peppers. Easier to de-seed when you cut them in more than half, but still what a lot of seeds! Somebody commented on my last post and said to leave in the seeds, they don’t hurt anything. I must try that next time. I put the peppers in with the onions, added the garlic after 15 minutes. Then I put in some ground beef Steven had thawed earlier, added a can of tomato paste, one of mushrooms, worcestershire sauce, basil, oregano and cumin. I must confess, I used dried basil and oregano, not fresh from my container garden. I’d really had enough chopping things by this time.

When Steven got home I cooked elbow macaronis to go with it. I put parmesan cheese on mine. So some of the skinny green peppers from the farmers market came to a good end. And I have some left in the freezer for further culinary adventures.

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Cooking Up Trouble

Posted on October 5, 2011 by mohawkvalleygirl

I signed off yesterday with the bold statement that I was off to do something exciting to blog about today. (You know, blog is a really silly verb. Why don’t I just say “write”?) (I believe it is because blogging is a specific type of writing. In other words, I’ll say “write” when I mean “write” and “blog” when I mean “blog.” Quit bugging me about my word choices!) (But I digress.)

It will probably come as a shock to no one that all I did was read a trashy novel and go to bed. But before I made my blog post, I did indulge in some activity that was not without points of interest and Mohawk Valley connection. I cooked with some green peppers purchased at the Ilion Farmer’s Market. Of course, this is not a cooking blog. Then again, it isn’t a running blog, a gardening blog or a wine blog. That doesn’t stop me.

I had purchased the peppers a week or so ago with no real plan of how or when to use them. I admit I mostly bought them because the guy selling them was nice, and because he caught me as I was walking out and said, “Sure you don’t want those peppers?” I am rather a pushover. They are the long thin green peppers. They’re hot, but not too hot, the guy said. If I fix anything too hot, it makes Steven’s bald spot sweat (that is his description; I repeat it because I think it’s funny).

I decided to try roasting the peppers. My sister Diane told me how to roast peppers. You cut the peppers in half, take out the seeds and place them open side down on a tin foil lined pan. After about 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven, you take them out and wrap them in the tin foil. After leaving them in the tin foil for a while (I’ve been known to put it in the refrigerator and forget about them for a day or two), you peel them — that part is sometimes easy but is more often a huge pain — and they are ready for use.

I’ve done this with bell peppers. The first eight or ten times I did it, I would have to call Diane and ask was it 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven or 40 minutes in a 200 degree oven? I would write this down on a piece of paper on the telephone table and put it in a good place where I would be sure not to lose it. Monday I trusted my memory. I can hear some of you saying, “Big mistake!”

I also trusted that the skinny long peppers would behave the same way as bell peppers. As it turns out, that was a bigger mistake. In the first place, the peppers are a little too twisty to just cut in half. Then once you get them kind of sort of in half, what a pain in the butt to get all of those seeds out! It was not long before I decided I was not going to roast all the peppers I had bought. To save even more time I decided to roast a few of them whole and see how that worked out.

I would like to mention here that I did consult an authority in the matter. I looked up roasted peppers in Joy of Cooking, an excellent book with a wealth of knowledge about all things culinary. There were pages and pages about peppers: kinds of peppers, how to cook them, recipes. Really, a plethora of information. Do you suppose there was a recipe on how to roast peppers in the oven? I’m afraid not. They did include the stove top method: you put the peppers directly on the gas burner. What kind of bullshit cooking advice is that? Why don’t I just set my house on fire and cook the entire contents of my refrigerator and pantry? Perhaps I just do not understand cooking books. I’m sure there are many excellent chefs out there who utilize the stove top method exactly as outlined in Joy of Cooking and achieve excellent results. I personally did not try it.

What I did try, and I have christened it the Diane Bell Pepper Method, did not work. I did manage to separate a few measly pieces of pepper from their skins, but for the most part: too thin, too small. I need to find another method.

Or, I could just not roast them. I see this post is getting rather long, so I will stop here, but to end on an upbeat note: I used some of the unroasted peppers in what turned out to be a rather tasty supper dish. If I finish that trashy novel tonight, maybe I’ll blog about that tomorrow.

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