But here’s one that we work pretty hard at here at Chez Siberia that might work for you: Gonna Eat Better. And by that, I mean, eat in a more planned out way, which actually saves time, money and gives you better meals. And sometimes that means planning WAY in advance, and not just the ‘on the way out the door, yelling at someone still standing in the kitchen, “Hey, take something out for dinner, ok?”

Like, THAT really works, right?

So, finding ourselves with an abundance of eggs (when you have chickens…), the DH and I decided to make up some ‘quick/fast/last minute/no one remembered and this would have been the choice if they had” sorts of dinners: quiche. Now, this is an operation that does that some planning and prep; it also works a LOT better if you have a cooking partner to help you with the last minute ‘pour into the pie shells and get them into the oven” operation. If you don’t have a live-in person, this is also something that you can partner up with someone else with, cook everything up, divide things up and your friend goes home with quiches for the freezer also.

Part of this is going with what you do well and ‘outsourcing’ the rest. Aunt Toby, sad to say, can’t make pie crust for anything. I admit it. So, I went to the store and got 6 pre-made/in aluminum pie pans pie crusts. While I was getting the rest of all the ingredients chopped, cooked, mixed, etc., I put them all into a 450 degree oven for 12 minutes and baked them and then took them out to cool.

Here’s what I used to make 6 quiches:
3 dozen large eggs (give or take; we ended up throwing an extra egg into each quiche – anything to get rid of extra eggs and it all worked out), 6 eggs for each quiche.

½ cup of half and half for each quiche (you can substitute evaporated milk, heavy cream or whole milk)

1 cup of shredded cheese for each quiche (I used Swiss for the Lorraines; sharp cheddar for the broccoli and..)

2 cups of cooked veggies for each quiche (for the Lorraines, I had a combination of cooked onions/peppers and mushrooms; for the broccoli, I had a combination of the leftover onions/peppers, broccoli and a rather sad bunch of chard that I found in the vegetable bin that I chopped up fine and sautéed with garlic.

For the quiche Lorraine, I had some of what our pork raiser refers to as ‘cottage bacon’; it’s more like ham or Canadian bacon, really. We chopped it up, broiled all the fat out of it and put bits of that in the bottom of the pie crusts before we poured everything else in.

Team Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F
Person 1: Put whatever is going into the pie pans in the bottoms (a little bit of the extra cheese, the ham, whatever. Put the veggies and cheese into a bowl, while…
Person 2: Mix up 6-7 eggs with ½ cup of the half and half (or whatever dairy product you are using) and bring that over to Person 1.
Person 1: Pour the egg/dairy combo into the cheese and veggies, give it a quick whisk around and pour into the pie crust.

The quiches will stand for the couple of minutes while each person is getting their parts done. No one can stand around, however. Person 2 will always be mixing up eggs and dairy so that basically as soon as Person 1 has poured a quiche, the next bit of egg liquid is there.

Pop all the quiches into the oven – as you can see, I did all six at once, which made them take longer to cook but got them all done at the same time. About 30 minutes into the cooking (if you have two rows like this), pull out the ones on the top and switch them around with the ones on the bottom. Cook for another 30 minutes or until a fork comes out clean – the custard has all set. The top will be a bit brown, which is ok.

Take out, put on racks or pads and cool. Wrap them however you want to wrap them. We put them into labeled ziplock™ bags, closed them up almost all the way and sucked out the air from that little hole and then sealed that opening. Then, we put them into the freezer.

Six dinners in the freezer. Each one will serve four (or the DH, me with one-quarter each and the rest for The Boy) with a salad.

Bon Appetit!

I was not the only winner. The lovely Jennifer (I’m not sure of her permission on names, so for the moment, she’s just Jenn) of New York City also won and to be truthful, this class was really for someone like her (kitchen filled with equipment she didn’t know how to use; fridge filled with take out containers) rather than me (though one of these days I will get a class on soups and pie crusts, two things that Aunt Toby avoids like the Plague because I am truly not very good with either one), but I’ll take any day trip down to New York that involves good food.

Jennifer and I converged on Jyl’s new digs (she just moved from her large loft apartment to a much smaller place). The kitchen area was pretty typical ‘New York City Apartment’ sized, which means that it was, in total, about 8 feet wide by about 4 feet deep, just enough room for an L of kitchen counter with cabinets, a fridge, sink and a four-burner stove. More than once during the afternoon, we had to do the ‘kitchen cha-cha’ with Jenn and I rhumba-ing between the stove and the sink, with Jyl giving running instructions and commentary from just outside in the open livingroom/dining area. But all in all, we left with our heads full of ideas, new-found confidence on Jennifer’s part in terms of working with knives, ground meat, and entertaining (both of us – for all Aunt Toby loves to cook – I am also the person who immediately embraced taking my kids and their friends to bowling for birthday parties. Having people in my house gives me ‘entertainment performance anxiety’).

I will get into more details in future posts, but here is what we learned and came away with:
Flavored Simple Syrups – which we used in what I’d call ‘personal soft drinks’ – we used already made coffee and a raspberry tea concentrate as the ‘water’ in the simple syrup. But, you can also use the flavored syrups as part of personal cocktails with vodka as well. I have to tell you that the coffee one, even with just seltzer, was absolutely fabulous – sophisticated, refreshing.

Hummus – which we have discussed before here. Jyl reminded us (and it’s a fabulous idea to remember), that hummus can be made out of any processed dried bean, so if you want to use black, navy, pinto, kidney, etc. instead of chick peas, then go for it!)

Pesto – which we substituted hulled sunflower seeds for the pine nuts since Jyl’s neighborhood store did not have them that day.

Bruschetta – Given what time of the year this is, I think this is something – because it is so easy – that anyone can whip up as a ‘before dinner appetizer’.

In the oven toasts – using day old Italian or French bread, sprinkles of extra virgin olive oil and freshly grated Romano cheese. These can be eaten by themselves, or used for the pesto or the Brusschetta or the hummus. Certainly a better tasting and healthier choice than a ‘bag-o-chips’.

From Scratch Meatballs and Spaghetti with Sauce. This is heaven on a plate and Jyl showed us a very nifty trick in terms of serving it so that you do not get that icky ‘ooo, look, the sauce is getting all watery and separating’ thing on the plate.

Strawberry ‘shortcakes’ with sweetened whipped cream. This is a definite ‘fast and easy/support your local bakery’ sort of dessert where all you do is wash and slice up the strawberries and ‘marinate’ them a little bit in lemon juice and a little sugar, whip up some heavy cream with a little bit of vanilla and sugar and serve over slices of the best pound cake you can find.

In addition, and this was definitely great for the anxious (ahem, ME) entertainer, we also did a very fast run through on table settings (yes, I WILL treat myself to some ‘charger plates’ – they really did seem to upgrade everything terrifically), more colorful napkins (or perhaps I’ll get some fabric and make my own – this has to be the easiest sewing project..but sewing up hems on 8, 10 or 12 squares might get into the ‘mindless’ at some point. Probably better to have this as a ‘want to sew but don’t want to do anything hard’ project). And we did some ‘deconstruction/recycling/re-imagining’ of a flower arrangement that had, as we say here at Chez Siberia, gotten a little ‘tired’.

Lessons learned:
Planning is everything. It really is worth taking the time a couple of days ahead if you are entertaining, to think through what you want to make, the order you need to have things (the simple syrups actually needed to be made first since it starts with boiling liquid and sugar and needs to be thoroughly chilled when you want to make the drinks just before dinner). Even planning down to the what plates or utensils you will need and digging them out (always one of my anxiety points since I tend to keep things that we don’t use often in boxes in the basement).

Simpler is better. I haven’t thought of serving spaghetti and meatballs as an entertainment option ever. But Jyl is right – it’s one of those dishes that a) everyone likes, no matter what their age and b) even if you can get it in a restaurant, everything has been made way in advance and has to be reheated. It usually never even hits the tick on ‘good’ range. Making the sauce and meatballs from scratch and getting fresh pasta raises this combo to the almost ambrosia stage. Better a dish people already come to the table liking and present them a version that they will close their eyes while chewing than a fancy dish you’ve never made before that they will poke around on the plate.

Put your time and best efforts with stuff you can and like to do. If you are not a baker, find a bakery that does a really really good job.

We made everything that day with the following tools. No other gadgets or little fiddly stuff necessary:
Cutting board and good sharp knives
One stock pot for the sauce
One large frying pan to brown the meatballs
Smaller pot for the simple syrup
Small electric hand mixer for the whipped cream
Food processor
Cookie sheet to make the toast
Bowls

That is it – all you need.

Take it away, Jyl Ferris!!

Aunt Toby has written about eggs before, especially with regard to our little flock of Light Brahma chickens (and they are doing very nicely these days, thank you very much).Egg0sactly What We Were Looking For But, let’s review:

One large egg contains:
Calories: 68
Protein: 5.54 gr.
Carbohydrate: .49 gr.
Fat: 4.67 gr; 1.44 gr of which is saturated
Cholesterol: 186.56 gr.

Also contains:
Vitamin A
Vitamin B1, B2, B3, B6, B12
Biotin
Vitamin D
Vitamin E
Folate
Pantothenic Acid

Minerals, including 16% of the TDA of Iodine and 20% of the RDA of Selenium

So, one whole egg plus an egg white and you are covered in terms of protein on a per person basis. So, if you are making something such as scrambled eggs for a group of people, you can do everyone a favor and use whites for half of the servings and add a few extra whites to make up the difference in the volume lost by the lack of yolks.

I think everyone knows what quick and easy meals eggs can produce. Anyone arriving home from work, not having taken anything out in the morning (which has, cough, been known to happen on more than one occasion at Chez Siberia, I assure you), is still assured of a good, hearty, thrifty meal as long as there are eggs in the fridge.

Absolutely first rule in terms of serving eggs: Don’t turn the stove on high and just throw them in the pan. The protein in eggs responds better to low to medium heat. Second rule: Serve them on heated plates. I know that people think this is rather hoity-toity UK behavior but believe me – hot food stays hot longer if it is put on a hot plate. If you have to put a hot pad on the table so that you can put a heated plate on it, so be it (and treat yourself to some cork mats – Ikea has nice cheap ones). There is nothing worse than cold eggs. Not worth eating.

Easy Dinner 1: Think breakfast, only much nicer
Scrambled eggs with cheese
Whole Grain toast or some other form of bread product
Fruit Salad
Easy Dinner 2: Feel French without the flipping
Julia Child had her moment in the kitchen with an omelet; at Chez Siberia, we don’t take chances.
Count up how many people you have (for each person figure one whole egg and one egg white) and crack that many eggs and egg whites into a bowl and beat them well. Save the yolks and cook them up for your pets (they will love them)
Dice finely a small onion and half a pepper, sauté in a little bit of olive oil in a large frying pan that has a lid.
Shred up one half cup of cheddar cheese.
When the veggies are soft, pour the beaten eggs over the veggies and sprinkle the cheese on top. Stir lightly, cover and lower the heat until set.
Serve with whatever accompaniments you would like – ON A HOT PLATE.

This is a great way to use up already cooked and left over veggies such as broccoli, green beans and so on.

Easy Dinner 3: More French Stuff – Quiche Me Quick
What we’re doing here is frankly taking scrambled eggs and combining them with milk and flour as a binder and then baking it (along with some additions) in a crust. If you don’t ‘do’ crusts (and Aunt Toby is not a dab hand at crust making herself – I think this is genetic and is due to my having hot hands), there is nothing wrong with having crusts from the store in the freezer.

Put the crust in its pie plate in a 350 degree oven for ten minutes to start cooking. While it’s doing its thing, combine:

4 ounces of grated hard cheese (cheddar, Swiss, etc.)
2 tablespoons of butter melted
4 whole eggs plus 2 egg whites, beaten
One small onion, chopped
½ cup of all purpose flour
1.5 cups of milk

After 10 minutes in the oven, pull out the crust and pour in the combined ingredients and put back into the oven for 35 minutes until set. Slice and serve – ON A HOT PLATE.

And finally, totally decadent and for when you have had a supremely awful day at work:
Put plates into the oven, on top of the toaster oven or however you get your plates hot.
Beat up one whole egg and one egg white per person
Reach into your fridge and take out that jar of preserves that you got for Christmas from the visiting relatives .
Melt some butter in a large frying pan (or light olive oil – the sort that says, “for sautéing” on it) and when hot, pour in the eggs.
Do NOT stir around. Coat the entire bottom of the pan and allow to set. When it is just set (not wet on the top at all), using a scraper (the silicone ones are especially good for this), carefully nudge this out onto (you knew this was coming, right?), a HOT PLATE.
Put a big honkin’ scoop of preserves on it, fold it up.
Eat very, very slowly……

We love black beans at Chez Siberia because…they taste great all by themselves but you can dress them up with all sorts of spices and then they taste..greater. Your dear Aunty was introduced to them by the DH because part of his family hales from Central America, where the black bean has a focal point in the cuisine. All dried beans can, with the addition of a whole grain, become ‘complete protein’ and with a little bit of clever nutritional legerdemain, black beans can be everything from soup to nuts. We always have at least a half dozen cans of black beans on the shelf because they can be turned into good, cheap stick to your ribs hearty meals – fast, fast, fast.

Basic Black Bean Stuff – can be used all by themselves as a side dish, fillings for tortillas, dips, etc.
One can of canned black beans, rinsed
Olive oil
2 big cloves of garlic, chopped fine.
1 onion small fist size, diced fine.
Chile powder – start with a teaspoon and work up from there if you like things spicy

In a big frying pan, put in a couple of table spoons of oil and put on a low light with the chopped onions and garlic. Cover and stir, cooking until soft.

Add rinsed black beans, stir around and put back on the lid.
If what you want is a side dish, stop here.

If you want a dip, at this point:
Take a potato masher, large fork and some muscle and start to mash them in the pan.
Add water (1/3 to ½ cup should do the trick for one can) and keep mashing until you get the consistency you want. If you want to up the protein (and yes, it also ups the fat too, but), add up to a ½ cup of grated sharp cheese and stir until it’s melted.

If you want filling for tortillas:
Mash up half the beans, add a little water and stir in the rest of the beans.
You might want to add more chili powder and perhaps some chilantro
Fill tortillas with the bean filling, grated cheese (we like cheddar), sautéed onions and peppers.

If you want to do enchiladas:
Do filling for tortillas, line up in a baking dish. Cover with:
Enchilada sauce (commercial or make your own here Easy Enchilada Sauce) or
1 large can of crushed tomatoes either by itself or combined with any or all of the a couple of teaspoons of the following: chili powder, cumin, chilantro, oregano.

Sprinkle more grated cheese on the top and back for 30 min. at 375 degrees.

And here’s the surprise:
Believe it or not, black beans can be used in desserts too. When I was thinking about this, I remembered having Japanese sweets made with what they called ‘red bean paste’ and wondered if black beans had been used for desserts. I have not tried this but the reviewer said it was awesome. Not that I am of the ‘add dried protein to all the sweets to rationalize eating them’ group (actually Aunt Toby’s mom, The Grandma, used to do this and was the queen of adding things like dried milk and soy flour to baked goods. The whole ‘Cornell Bread Book’ movement is based on the position that there are certain people on this earth who are going to eat nothing but baked goods no matter what you do, so you might as well make sure that there is some protein in it. The only problem with this position is this: there is a certain point where the ‘beany-ness’ takes over, so a light hand is advised), but making something that carries the additional benefits of higher fiber, high protein, vitamins, minerals, and anti-inflammatory chemicals is, as Martha Whatshername says, ‘a good thing’.

Amazing Black Bean Brownies (courtesy of Black Bean Brownies)

(this is Aunt Toby here – Before you get started with this, take a look at this recipe – there is NO flour of any sort in this. They are depending on three things to hold this stuff together: cooked black beans, a granulated coffee substitute or dried instant coffee and chopped up walnuts, bound together with eggs. If you don’t have or don’t want to use coffee or coffee substitute, you will need another dried substance to take up the slack here – it’s only ¼ cup so you could use anything from various flours, bran, etc. The other thing is that if you don’t have/want to use nectar or honey, you have a liquid issue. You can use a dry substance such as sugar to sweeten with, but you will need to put liquid back in. I’ll experiment and report back)

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups soft-cooked black beans, drained well (reviewers note: canned is fine – I’d rinse them well)
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ cup (granulated) natural coffee substitute (or dried instant coffee, for gluten sensitive)
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 large eggs
1½ cups light agave nectar – you can substitute honey 1 for 1 with this. If you choose honey, use something like clover which basically doesn’t have a strong flavor.
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line an 11- by 18-inch (rimmed) baking pan (hs note: or jellyroll pan) with parchment paper and lightly oil with canola oil spray.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a glass bowl in the microwave for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes on high. Stir with a spoon to melt the chocolate completely. Place the beans, 1/2 cup of the walnuts, the vanilla extract, and a couple of spoonfuls of the melted chocolate mixture into the bowl of a food processor. Blend about 2 minutes, or until smooth. The batter should be thick and the beans smooth. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the remaining 1/2 cup walnuts, remaining melted chocolate mixture, coffee substitute, and salt. Mix well and set aside.

In a separate bowl, with an electric mixer beat the eggs until light and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the agave nectar and beat well. Set aside.

Add the bean/chocolate mixture to the coffee/chocolate mixture. Stir until blended well.

Add the egg mixture, reserving about 1/2 cup. Mix well. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Using an electric mixer, beat the remaining 1/2 cup egg mixture until light and fluffy. Drizzle over the brownie batter. Use a wooden toothpick to pull the egg mixture through the batter, creating a marbled effect. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the brownies are set. Let cool in the pan completely before cutting into squares. (They will be soft until refrigerated.)
Makes 45 (2-inch) brownies.

Well, we weren’t exactly going out to eat on a regular basis due to lack of discretionary income. And the Little Siberians (who were actually quite little at the time) dearly loved going out to eat, so to compensate, we used to encourage them to play a game called “Restaurant” (yes, I realize that the name is not exactly creative, but kids are pretty literal at that age), with all that this implies.

Together, they used to come up with a theme (‘we’re going to a French restaurant”; “we’re going to a French restaurant in Mexico” that sort of thing) and comb through the zillions of cookbooks that the DH and I had collected and would come up with a menu and a shopping list. They would decorate the table in their best “French restaurant in Mexico” sort of way; we would cook things up and then one of them would drape a wash towel over an arm, put on a crazy “Pepe Le Pew Meets Continflas” sort of accent and we would play coming to the door and being seated and so on. It was all very sweet and funny (though a little sad..sigh..but that’s a topic for another time).

One of the easiest and cheapest ‘restaurant’ themes that they came up with was “Beach Restaurant in January.” Now, on the surface, this makes no sense since no beach-front restaurant that I know is ever open in January unless you are someplace south of Myrtle Beach. But the idea was that we’d go on a picnic at a time of the year when it is beastly cold; we’re stuck inside, it’s hellishly gloomy and we’ve been eating far too much stew, chili and other hot stuff.

Now, there are many things that do not translate to ‘picnic’ at this time of the year because you just can’t get them – like locally grown tomatoes if you don’t live in warm areas. But, in our part of the world, there are things that are available, cheap, good – and we had not been eating them for several months so they seemed fun and unique and fresh.

So, if you are completely sodden with turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin everything, turkey left-overs in every permutation, combination and setting, here is something cheap and fun. The décor is up to you; truckload of sand, beach balls, and blanket optional.

Menu:

• Chicken Spiedies with rolls (or Italian bread – that is traditional)
• Potato Salad with hard boiled eggs and onions
• Cole slaw with carrots
• Apples and Oranges

How to’s:

Chicken spiedies are to our local area what Hot Wings are the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. You will need: boneless chicken breasts, and something to marinate the chunked up chicken in. If you are lucky and your local groceria carries it, go for a spiedie marinade. If not, an easy one is vinegar, oil, and every sort of Italian spice you can lay your hands on. At this time of the year, one essential ingredient won’t be found in the garden and that is mint. Here’s a good recipe.

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Sandwiches/Spiedie.htm

Ordinarily, spiedies are cooked on skewers on a grill but only the truly hardy would be out doing this in the winter, so you can grill them on your stove (5 min. on a side and flip). If you are stuck with an oven with a grill that does not work, spiedies can be cooked in a frying pan; just keep stirring them around until they cook. It takes so short a time that it’s really best to get everything else done and in the fridge earlier in the day and do the spiedies at the end. To make a sandwich, take a roll in one hand and the skewered meat in the other. Put the skewer inside the roll, grip tightly and pull off meat into the roll. Voila.

Potato Salad with hard boiled eggs.

This is the classic summer picnic staple. Yes, I know there are all sorts of potato salads from all over, complete with wonderful dressings and bacon and goodness knows what else. In our house, the only fancification allowed is perhaps the addition of a couple of stalks of chopped celery, but since this is a ‘reach into the fridge and pull out whatcha got’, no celery is to be found (except for the rather limp stuff that always gets forgotten in the bottom of the drawer and ends up on the compost heap or being fed to the chickens). You will have potato salad left over; that is the essence of potato salad. But the basic recipe is:

• 1 fist sized potato (not Idaho russets – go for red potatoes or some other boiling potato) per person.
• Eggs: count up the number of people to be served and subtract 2. That’s your number of eggs. Hard boil them – that is 10 min. on the boil.
• Onions: ½ of an onion that is slightly smaller than your fist. I like red ones as they are slightly less pungent than the white or yellow ones, but whatever you have will do. Chop fine.
• Dressing. We like a pretty spicy dressing at our house, but plain ol’ mayo will do. Put in enough (and it’s always more than you would think) so that the potatoes have a nice coating but not so much that you have soup in the bottom of the bowl. Our dressing for what ends up being 6 big potatoes goes like this:
• Mayo – about a cup
• Grated horseradish (comes in a bottle – red or white doesn’t matter): 1 big honkin’ tablespoon
• Something sweet. 1/8 cup of …left over cranberry sauce, apple sauce, etc. If you have nothing else, a teaspoon of honey or sugar will do.

Mix everything together and mix into the potatoes, onions and celery (if you’ve put that in).

Refrigerate and then serve.

Cole Slaw (see photo at the top).

Again, this is the classic stuff. No nuts, no raisins, no marshmallow peeps, just shredded carrots and coleslaw. The fam does not particularly like this when I’ve made it with the food processor – the individual pieces are too small and it gets mushy. Cabbage is shredded with a knife. Carrots shredded with a hand grater.

Basic recipe:

• Carrots: One big carrot per person. Don’t get them too big – once the leaf end gets above an inch across, they get sort of woody. Shred with a hand grater and keep your fingers away from the business end. This is not potato latkes – odd bits of skin and blood are not considered beneficial additions.
• Cabbage: If you are using both red and green cabbage, use about 1/3 of a head for each. If just one or the other, use a half a big head of the cabbage. Cut out the center core. Shred with a big knife so that you end up with long strings of cabbage.
• Put the cabbage and the carrots into a big bowl and mix up.
• Dressing: There are plenty of bottled cole slaw dressings – we find them rather sickeningly sweet. Our dressing is:
• May: one cup
• Ground black pepper
• 2 table spoons of something sour – vinegar will do, lemon juice is better, orange juice in a pinch.
• 1 teaspoon of something sweet – honey or sugar will do.

Mix up the dressing and pour over the cabbage and carrots. Mix together and refridgerate.

Dessert:

No one eats too much fresh fruit at this time of the year and at this point in our house, everyone is sick of things with baked fruit in them. Washed crunchy apples or big peeling oranges are just the ticket.

Enjoy.

We’ve already seen ricotta take its place in deserts and baked goods.Ricotta Cookies and Crepes Three Ways
Today in honor of ‘Not Thanksgiving” ( in that there is absolutely nothing about this recipe that has turkey, stuffing, squash, sweet potatoes, etc. in it), here is a lovely white pizza with broccoli. Light, non-greasy, filling. Yum.

White Pizza with Broccoli – you will need three kinds of cheese: Romano or Parmesan, Mozarella (a small block about 2x2x1 each) and Ricotta (2 cups)

Pizza Dough:
1 package of dry yeast, dissolved in 1.5 cups of hot water with 1 teaspoon of sugar. Put into a warm oven (turn off the pilot) for 10-15 min. until the mixture is bubbly and smells like..yeast.

Put into a big bowl with a couple of cups of flour (if you are including whole wheat, put in 1.5 cups of regular flour first and mix well, and use the whole wheat at the end to absorb the extra moisture.

Put a handful of flour on the counter (clean the counter first) and empty the bowl onto of it. Turn to coat the dough with the flour and knead until the dough is smooth, elastic and starts to have little blisters on the surface.

Place in a greased bowl, turn over, cover with a towel and put into the oven to raise for 45 min. to one hour.

While you are waiting for the dough to raise, cut up and sauté any of the following, singly or in combination:
Green or red peppers
Onions
Garlic

Also, cut broccoli (you will need a small head for a whole pie) into small florets, boil up briefly and drain.
Shred up enough of the following to make 2-3 cups:
Parmesan or Romano cheese
Mozzarella

Once the dough has risen. Take it out, punch it down and knead it a bit again. Set the oven for 400 degrees. Grease either a cookie sheet or a pizza pan and press the dough out into it to cover. Cover the dough with the ricotta. Grind black pepper on it and sprinkle oregano and basil on it. Put on the broccoli and other veggies and sprinkle the Mozzarella and parmesan or Romano cover.

Put the pan into the oven and bake until the cheese is all melted and bubbly and the dough is crispy – this should take 15-20 minutes. Serve with a green salad.

Enjoy!

Sort of the cooking version of “I didn’t have sex with that woman.” Sorry. My bad.

But, typical for me. I discovered using crepes when I wanted to make baked manicotti and didn’t have any manicotti. Remind me to tell you about the time I wanted to make Szechuan Duck and only had turkey legs.

Substitution, people!!!

Crepes are not really pancakes in the way that we know pancakes in the United States. Our pancake have a leavening agent in it to make the pancakes rise and get all puffy and thick. The big stack. Crepes are really simple and have much more in common with pasta than with pancakes because there is no leavening agent in it and it is simply flour, eggs, and a little water, milk or a combination of the two. Pasta is simply flour and eggs with perhaps a little water. Think of crepe batter as liquefied pasta.

There are sweetened crepe batters for dessert use (if you feel the need; I use the same batter for everything); regular unsweetened ones for main dish and vegetable use. All we are talking here is batter poured into a hot greased pan, twirled around so that it goes up the sides and cooks all thin, flipped out and onto a plate. Fill with something, pour some sort of sauce on top and serve. Crepes are a great way to use up leftovers in the fridge – you can put anything into crepes: seafood in a white or cheese sauce, chicken, meat, vegetables, vegetarian stuff – you name it. Just remember that crepes really don’t have a whole lot of flavor of their own – so make sure the fillings and sauces are complex and flavorful so that the dish doesn’t end up bland.

How to Make Crepes: You know, if making crepes were as difficult as people think it is, then performing cold fusion on your kitchen table would be possible. Seriously. Here is a great demo on making crepes. My only area of differing is that I use a cast iron enameled omelet pan; this chef uses a pan with Teflon™ on it. A major difference is that if I dropped that pan onto the chef’s foot – he’d feel it for a month. That pan weighs a ton and when I use it, I try to switch hands for every crepe because it makes for better muscle development in both arms that way. Here’s the demo – watch the swirl part – that’s the business end of crepe making (besides getting the pan HOT). Chef Todd Mohr Makes Crepes

Here is my crepe recipe:
1 cup of cold water
1 cup of milk (any type will do)
4 large eggs
¼ cup of olive oil (the type labeled “for sautéing and baking”)
2 cups of all purpose flour (I used 1 cup of bread flour and 1 cup of cake flour)

Combine water and milk
Put the eggs and the olive oil into the mixing bowl and beat.
Alternate flour and the water milk mixture until you have a thinnish sort of batter – like the quality of thin cake batter. NOT LIKE PANCAKE BATTER.
Let sit to allow the flour particles to soften up.

Watch the video and do what the chef does. If you use a regular omelet pan, you will need to heat it up and then at the last minute, put in a pat of butter. Don’t heat up the butter in the pan – it will take too long and burn.

Make all your crepes and put them on a plate. Do NOT put the plate into the oven, ok?

Here are three different and totally non-French ways to use crepes (I realize that this puts me on the other side from the folks who insist on things like the fact that champagne can only come from France, but go along with me here – knowing how to make crepes and do stuff with them opens whole new vistas in terms of quick meals at home), in order of the meal:

Appetizer crepes:
Sliding little cooked vegetable and cheese filled crepes is a very nice appetizer – and just filling enough to hold people through cocktails so that they won’t hit the table like a bunch of starving Rombovians. Great combinations:
Winter squash with a little nutmeg
Steamed broccoli with cheese
Black beans, cooked with major garlic and onions, smooshed up, with or without a little cheddar cheese

Main Dish crepes:
There is nothing that you can’t put into a crepe. The fillings used in the appetizer crepes can be expanded and used in larger crepes for main dish crepes. Other great fillings include everything from chicken, fish, tuna, seafood, beef, left over anything. Here’s a tip: Any recipe that calls for tortillas or pasta – you can basically work it around to a filling for crepes. Here’s our version of Enchiladas Suizas:
Ingredients:
6-8 crepes
2 boneless chicken breasts, sliced thinly
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 medium onion, diced
2 tablespoons of taco seasoning OR:
1 clove of garlic, minced
¼ tsp each of ground cumin and coriander
1 small can of diced green chilis
1 cup of shredded cheese such as Monterey jack or Munster
Sautee the chicken in a little olive oil, sprinked with the spices or taco seasoning. Set aside.
In the same pan, sautee the onion (if you need more oil, add a little oil), add the can of tomatoes and diced green chilis.
Cover the bottom of a baking dish with the onions/tomatoes/chilis (I do this in an electric fry pan as a one dish meal, but you can bake it in the oven too)
Put 2-4 pieces of the chicken in a crepe, put a pinch of the cheese on top and roll up. Put into the pan. Finish up all the chicken and crepes.
Cover the crepes with the rest of the onions/tomatoes/chilis and sprinkle the cheese on the top.
Bake for 20-25 min. in a 375 degree oven until the cheese is all melted. If you use an electric fry pan, put the heat on 300 and once it’s bubbly, it’s ready to serve.

Aunt Toby’s Cannoli Crepes.
I LOVE cannolis. But the part I like the best is the filling..I hate the deep fried shells. So here is my version of a cannoli, made with crepes.

Make your crepes (this recipe will make 5 crepes with a LOT of filling in them).

Cannoli filling. You can actually buy cannoli filling in some groceries now. I prefer to make my own – it’s simple to do.
2 cups of ricotta (I use whole milk but part skim will work also). If it looks sort of loose, then put it in cheese cloth or a strainer and let it drip for a while.
1 cup of powdered sugar
1 tsp. Of orange or lemon zest
1 tsp. Of almond extract

Chocolate glaze and garnish:
½ cup of chocolate chips
2 tablespoons of butter, unsalted
2 tablespoons of water
Slivered almonds for garnish

Make the filling:
Whip up the ricotta with the powdered sugar, zest and extract and put into the fridge to chill.

Make the glaze:
Put the chocolate chips into a heatproof dish and microwave for 2 minutes, 1 minute at a time, keep checking. Once it starts to melt, add the butter and zap again for a minute. Take out and mix it up with a spoon. It will be thick – add the water until it gets more like a glaze. If you need a little bit more water, that is ok.

Assemble:
Put a good big spoonful of the filling in the middle of the crepe and roll up. Do this until you have finished all the crepes. If you have extra filling, put it in a sealed container and put into the fridge.
Once you have all your filled crepes lined up on a dish, pour the chocolate glaze over the top and garnish with almonds. Refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

Roasting is the deal. Whether wrapped in foil on the grill or in a pan (with or without a beast on top of it) in the oven, roasting is good for root veggies for primarily one reason: The heat transforms the starch (and all root veggies have carbs up the gazoo) into sugars, so the vegetables taste sweeter than they do either raw (and there is nothing wrong with eating raw root veggies, including potatoes and recent research points to eating raw root veggies in terms of preventing colon cancer. raw potatoes

But, we are not talking raw (raw, raw, raw..that’s the spirit) today. We’re talking roasted. I think everyone at some time has had potatoes that have been roasted, and in many families, roasting them by putting them under the meat in a roasting pan is traditional (and causes fights at the dinner table, I might add).

General guidelines for roasting root veggies (and if you do a search on ‘roasting root veggies’ be prepared to be inundated with responses; this is a cooking method that has just taken off over the past ten years):

All root veggies do NOT take the same amount of time. If you throw all the veggies into the pan in the oven, you will end up with ‘three bears veggies”: some overcooked; some undercooked; and some just right. Best to check how long each individual vegetable needs, prepare them in different pans (or foil wraps), set a timer and put them in as you need them.

The temperature to roast veggies (by themselves) is 400 degrees F. if you are roasting them in the bottom of the roasting pan with meat, they will be done when the meat is done.

Put a little water or other liquid in the wrap or pan with the veggies so that they do not burn. All veggies will have a certain amount of moisture in them which will carry them through the roasting process, but at the beginning, a little ‘juice’ in the bottom helps the vegetables to start releasing their own moisture and will prevent burning.

Roasted root vegetables can be served hot (as in the roast potatoes under the meat from the oven) or, they can be allowed to chill and be turned into all sorts of lovely dishes. Just do a search on ‘roasted root salad’ and see what you get.

And speaking of roasted root salad, here is my version of a Roasted beet and carrot salad with onions and oranges (there are quite a few versions of this out there – this is just mine and involves sticking my head in the fridge to see what is there that I can use). This makes enough for 4-6 people (depending on how many teenagers you have or how much people like beets and carrots).

Ingredients:
Beets: I had two fist-sized one and one Moby Dick beet out of the garden, I trimmed off the root end and left a little bit of the stems. Beets bleed and there is no way around it; the less you cut them, the less they bleed.

Carrots: I have a bunch of carrots I pulled up and trimmed both ends and cut the biggest ones vertically in half. I wash and scrub mine well – I don’t peel them because a lot of the nutritional good stuff is just under the skin.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Put the beets with a little water (like less than a ½ inch in the bottom of the pan) in a pan and cover. I put mine into a loaf pan and put aluminum foil on it and sealed it up. Put in the oven and leave for 1 hour (beets take 1.5 hours by themselves).

Put the carrots into another pan and cover. Put in the oven with the beets for the last half hour.

Take out of the oven and allow to cool. While they are cooling, do the following:

Red onion: Thinly slice about a cup of red onions.
Oranges: Prepare two oranges as if you are going to make fruit salad to get the outside membranes off them (see the photo).

Combine with:
2 tablespoons of light olive oil (the stuff for sautéing and baking)
2 tablespoons of a mild nut (I used almonds – others that can be used would be hazel nuts, filberts, or something like sunflower seeds). If you want to use this as a main dish instead of a side dish, you will need to add more protein: more nuts and seeds, or nuts and some form of cheese or perhaps cooked and cooled beans (black beans would go well here, I think).

Mix together:
1 tablespoon of fresh coriander (if you can’t get fresh, 1 tsp. Of dried coriander)
½ cup of fruit juice: orange juice, grapefruit juice, combinations thereof (you could probably also use a couple of tablespoons of white balsamic vinegar).
Pour this over the onions and oranges.

When the carrots and beets are all cool, peel the beets (this is easy – cut the top with the stems off and the bottom off and put a knife under the peel at the top and pull – it will come right off and sometimes the whole thing will come off in one pull). Then slice the carrots and beets into bite-sized pieces. Combine with the onions, nuts, oranges and the dressing. Refrigerate and serve.

What Aunt Toby is here to tell you is that there are other ‘investments’ that sometimes do a whole lot better than fancy financial instruments, ‘regular’ and ‘preferred’ and Class A, B or C.

I’m talking about…potatoes (and yes, I realize that there has been a whole lot of coverage about this ‘early blight’ stuff that is basically turning tomatoes into the vegetable equivalent of cavier this summer – and is the same thing that killed a million Irish through starvation between 1845 and 1852 – and brought another million to our shores in the same time). And we have had a summer the likes of which I do not care to discuss (needless to say that if there are any leather shoes underneath Aunt Toby’s bed – they have already sprouted some rather exotic molds because it’s been one rainy summer Chez Siberia.

But remember these?

I’ve been watching that bed for a while because once potatoes flower, it’s time to keep a watch for the plants dying back. That means (drum roll, please) that it is time to dig them up.

I love digging up potatoes. It’s like Treasure Island and we are the pirate crew. The other part is that no matter how clever we think we are about getting every last one, we always miss a few. These turn into volunteers and usually, since they have had a head start from the fall before, we get even bigger ‘taters’ the next year. A nice surprise.

So, let’s review: In early March, I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show and I bought a little bag of seed potatoes – there were three little potatoes in that bag that weighed 8 ounces. A half a pound of potatoes that I cut into basically thirds (so that each one had a couple of eyes). The amount of ground that I used to plant them was a piece of a bed that was about 3 feet wide and 5 feet long. Frankly, those potatoes were not the only occupants – I had some basil plants hidden in there as well. Recently, the plants just seemed to give up the ghost.

And yesterday I dug them up. Frankly, I was expecting, between the rain and the whole ‘OMG – it’s the blight..the blight” thing, a slimy unedible mess that I’d have to dig the entire bed up and throw everything – potatoes, slime, dirt, rocks everything, away. Blight is a bacterial infection so I’d have to do that. But no – the bed (which the DH has worked assiduously for years, digging it out by hand, with a pick and shovel, de-rocking it, putting in manure and leaves and compost every year, was great – the dirt had drained well and the potatoes were just…lovely.

So, I dug them all out and I washed all the dirt off them and weighed them, just to see how much we’d gotten out of those three little potatoes..that 8 ounces had turned through the magic of being buried in the ground, given room, warmth, and rain, into…14 pounds.

FOURTEEN POUNDS.

You do the math:
14 pounds x 16 ounces to the pound = 224 ounces
224 ounces / 8 ounces is 28 — 28 times the investment

Let’s see now – if we invested a $1.00 today and 5 months later, we received $28.00 back, that would be SOME investment, huh? The difference between investing money and seed potatoes is that with a money investment, you can lose your whole investment. The chances of losing all of your potatoes are pretty small (small potatoes? Nah…).

So, now we have 14 pounds of potatoes. Actually, we have a good bit less because they are soooo good that we have already eaten some. And some are really too small to eat. So, I’m going to invest them again – I’ll put those back in the ground for next year.

Worth the risk.

From a growing standpoint, places which ordinarily have not been ‘friendly’ to grains such as wheat (find a latitude on any globe where in your own mind – versus anyone else’s – you say, “It’s cold there” and you will find oats growing well there: parts of the former Soviet Union, Norway, Scotland, Canada and the northern US and so on). Weather conditions that make for poor growing conditions for wheat and many other grains (wet conditions, cool conditions, humid conditions, etc.) don’t seem to bother oats.

From a nutritional position, oats can more than hold their own with other grains. They are a great source of minerals such as manganese and selenium (which is something that we actually find it hard to get enough of in today’s diets), phosphorus and magnesium. It’s a great source of fiber.oats

In a one-cup cooked serving (which starts out as ½ cup uncooked), it’s got over 6 grams of protein all by itself and provides Omega 3 as well as Omega 6 fatty acids and a whole bunch of other stuff that frankly are really good for us in terms of vitamins and minerals. They are also a great base in terms of combining them with other food stuffs that will take advantage of the protein and other goodies in oats.

And don’t forget the fiber (because Aunt Toby’s all about the fiber).

Another item about oats which is actually sort of controversial is the issue of gluten. Oats, by themselves, out in the field, don’t have any gluten, so on the face of it, oats would seem a terrific food for people with gluten sensitivities, celiac diseases, inflammation issues and so on….EXCEPT, that people don’t buy oats straight out of the field. They buy oat-something – oats that have been processed, and unless you live in a place where oats and NOTHING BUT OATS can be grown, the mill that has been hulling, cutting, chopping, or whatever-ing the oats into the form that you buy, has also been doing the same things to a whole lot of other grains as well – like barley and wheat and so on. So, when you buy processed oats, you are actually getting oats with gluten contamination from those other grains. Unless the company making the processed product basically creates a mill that handles nothing but oats, consumers will be getting some gluten in their product. However – research indicates that a small amount of oats might be tolerated by people with gluten problems – but that they need to be closely monitored. Can Celiacs Eat Oats?

That being said, oats have their uses for the rest of us. Combining oats with other things is something that we are all very familiar with, if only we’d think about it. First example: the breakfast bowl of oatmeal. Do you know anyone who just cooks up oatmeal and then throws it in a bowl and eats it without…adding something else? OK – so you know people who throw in raisins and/or brown sugar. If nothing else, they should also be putting milk on it, right? Or maybe they are New Wave and throw some vanilla yoghurt and nuts on top. Bingo – more protein, more good fats. As far as I know, the only creatures that eat oats all by themselves are horses.

We like oats a lot Chez Siberia. In the winter, they are a favorite breakfast with milk or yoghurt.

Basic Oatmeal (not ‘quick oats’ or anything like this – made with plain, old thick cut, steel cut, or rolled oats)
For each person, take ½ c. dried, uncooked oats and combine with 1 cup of water in a saucepan.
Slowly, bring to a boil.
Cover the pot, turn down the heat to as low as you can get it.
Check after 5 minutes and stir. If it’s thick enough, put out in the bowls; otherwise, cover again and check in another five min.
Serve with things like: milk, yoghurt, (soy milk if you use that), dried fruit (if you use this, you might not need sugar), and brown sugar or honey if you feel the need.

At other times of the year, they make their appearance in everything from meat loaf to cookies and bars, bread, and the DH’s famous granola and muesli. So, that is what you will get here:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (modified from The Fanny Farmer Cookbook, 1979 – makes 50-60 cookies)
1 stick of butter
½ cup veg shortening
1.5 cups of sugar (we prefer splitting it 50/50 between white and whatever brown sugar we’ve got)
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla
2.5 c. of general purpose flour (if you have specialty flours in your kitchen, a 50/50 split between bread and cake flour works really well)
2 tsp of baking soda
1 cup of oats (we use thick cut, but any rolled or cut oats will do; I have no experience with steel cut oats)
1 cup of semisweet chocolate chips.

Sift the flour and baking soda together. Cream the sugar(s), butter and shortening together. Add the eggs and vanilla followed by the flour and soda mixture. Check it for ‘looseness’ – it basically should be thick and heavy enough that you could really make cookies with it already; if it is too ‘loose’, then add, by tablespoons, more flour until it is. Once it’s really ‘cookie dough’, THEN add the oats and the chips. Put on greased cookie sheets by tablespoonfuls. Bake in a 375 degrees F oven for 11 min. Take off and cool on a rack. Baking Notes: Bake these between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. because otherwise, they disappear within moments – quite magically. Also, don’t try to make them either with all vegetable shortening or all butter. Does not produce a cookie that either holds its shape or resists breaking. These cookies are actually ship-able and will arrive 99% in one piece.

Granola (again, modified from The Fanny Farmer Cookbook, 1979)
Dutch Oven or other large heat-proof baking pot or dish
¾ cup light olive oil(find the stuff with the label, “For sautéing and baking”)
4 cups of oats (rolls, thick cut)
1/2 sesame seeds
½ c wheat germ (and keep your wheat germ in the freezer until you use it; the oils will go rancid if you do not)
1 cup dried coconut (not baking coconut, which has been coated with glycerin and corn starch, ok? – look for ‘dried coconut’ or ‘desiccated coconut’ in health food stores, natural foods, etc.)
1 cup honey (please do yourself a favor and do NOT use commercial stuff like clover honey – get something like wild flower that has some taste to it, ok?)
¾ cup hulled sunflower seeds
1 cup nuts (roasted unsalted peanuts, slivered almonds, cashews, whatever you can get)
1 cup small dried fruit (currants, raisins, craisins tm, chopped dates, etc.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bring 1 cup of water to a boil and mix with the oil. In a large heavy pot, combine the oats, sesame seeds, wheat germ and coconut. Combine the honey with the oil and water, stirring well and mix into the dry ingredients a little at t eimt. When all the particles are covered with the honey mixture, put the pot into the oven and bake for 15 min. Stir well, Reduce the heat to 275 degrees F and repeat the procedure, stirring every 10-15 min. for 1/5 -2 hours, until the granola is thoroughly toasted. Let the granola cool, then stin in the sunflower seeds nuts and dried fruit. Store in the freezer or refrigerator in tightly sealed containers. Baking notes: This is a rather “soft” granola – this will not have crunchy clumps in it. If you want to produce that, then split up the granola onto cookie sheets, go through basically the same procedure, but don’t stir it up so often; it will clump up and get a lot more crunchy. Also, make the decision right from the get-go about what sort of granola you are going to make and if the rest of the family doesn’t like it, well, then..too bad. Unfortunately, at Chez Siberia, the DH offered to make custom batches for people and now he’s basically tied to the wheel of making ‘granola with nothing in it,” “granola with only nuts” and so on, which is most annoying.

Oatmeal Bread (Maryetta’s Oatmeal Bread from Beard on Bread, 1974)
4 cups boiling water
3 cups rolled oats (we use thick cut but regular rolled will do)
7.5 – 8 cups all purpose flour, preferably unbleached (we use bread flour, but regular will do)
2 packages of active dry yeast (we use 2 Tblsp. Of dried yeast that we get from the natural foods store)
4 Tablespoons of vegetable oil (we use the olive oil meant for ‘sautéing and baking’)
½ cup of molasses (we us ½ cup of our wildflower honey – again, any darker honey will do; the darker the better – best would be buckwheat honey)

Pour the boiling water over the oatmeal in a large bowl and leave to cool.
Stir in 2 cups of flour and the yeast and place in a warm, draft free spot and allow to rise, uncovered until double in bulk.
Punch down and work in the oil, molasses(or honey) and enough of the remaining flour to make s stiff dough.
Turn out on a floured board and counter and knead, adding flour if necessary, to make a smooth, pliable, firm dough; which will take about 10 minutes of good, solid kneading.
Divide dough into three equal pieces and form into loaves to fit three greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pans.
Allow to rise again, uncovered, until doubled in bulk.
Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven 40-60 minutes, until the bread sounds hollw when rapped.
Cool on racks before slicing.
Freezes well.

(photos courtesy of Racheliscocnut&lime and Pam-I-Am)