80 Plates: The Day the General Ate Cabbage

So this 80 Plates thing has captured the imagination of my friends and family. One of the most excited is my friend Jacalyn, who not only has started a similar operation with her family, but has also asked several of her friends from other countries if they have recipes they'd like to contribute. One of her friends from church, Nitz, is from the Philippines and offered up her recipe for lumpia. Lumpia are fried egg roll type pastries and are exceedingly popular in the Philippines and Indonesia.

Nitz graciously gave me the green light to post her recipe here on the blog for those of you who might want to take a crack at making them yourselves, so I will post it at the end of this entry for you to enjoy.

Lumpia are wrapped in a wrapper, just like egg rolls, but there are such things as lumpia wrappers. Speaking with Jacalyn, she said there are actual lumpia wrappers, not just egg roll wrappers. I knew there was an international market near 5 Mile Fork in Fredericksburg, so I decided to go in there. I had mistakenly thought it was more of an African market, but in fact, it's Asian to my good fortune. I had a great time wandering the aisles, looking at all the foodstuffs there and in the freezer they had lumpia wrappers! As you can see from the picture, they are quite thin and round.

So, wrappers in hand, I gathered up the other ingredients I needed and decided to do the prep work for them the night before they were to be eaten. This was in large part because I knew we'd have a houseful on Saturday (Jacalyn, her husband and 2 boys were coming during the day to help us work over the closet in the baby's room and Elizabeth and her husband were coming for dinner) and you know the old saying about too many cooks, but also because I have a craptastic kitchen and there's not a whole lot of room to do anything, so I need to keep it clean and organized as I go so that I have room to actually cook.

So the first task is to actually make the filling. I have a new cutting board courtesy of the Pampered Chef, so prepping veggies and giving them a place to call home is much easier now--the board is big enough to hold everything. Everything had to be pretty finely minced, slided, or chopped, so the one modification I made to this plan was that I grated the carrots. Despite my best efforts, I must confess, I absolutely hate cutting up carrots. The idea of mincing them did not appeal to me at all. Grating took all of 30 seconds and it was done. The rest of the veggies I did quickly the recommended way.

Don't they look lovely? Green onions, cabbage, onions, carrots, garlic

That done, it was time to turn to the stove. First thing was first, cooking the pork. This is done in a little bit of vegetable oil, after which it is removed from the pan. Leaving a little bit of grease in the frying pan, you then add the garlic and onions in the pan and let them cook down a tad. This smells absolutely wonderful! After a couple of minutes, you throw the pork back in and add in the rest of your vegetables and let it all cook together in a big happy family of flavor.

Once that is done, you add in soy sauce, salt, pepper, and garlic powder and let it all cook together. You are going to have to excuse this next series of photos, but I was darned sure going to put them in! You have no idea how hard it is to try and add ingredients and take pictures at the same time, and yet I did it, so I'm putting the pictures in at the same time! :-) Being a righty, I have to cook with my right hand, which means taking pictures with my left hand. Unfortunately, the camera button is on the right hand side of the camera, so I had to hold the camera upside down and then rotate the pictures afterwards. What I wouldn't have given to be ambidextrious!






This done, I decided to call it a night for the lumpia and put them in a container in the fridge and turned my attention to other prep work for the other meal Saturday, which I will get to in another post.

Saturday dawned rainy and disgusting, so it was a good day to be stuck in the house cooking. Jacalyn and her clan arrived just before noon and she and I set to work rolling lumpias. I thought it would be rather difficult to do, but actually it wasn't. The first ones we made were quite large. Jacalyn said that they were much bigger than the ones she'd seen Nitz bring to church. We decided to cut down on the amount of filling that we put into each lumpia, but even so, I think we only ended up with 15 or so of them, which is half what the recipe said we'd get.


Me and my first lumpia!

It was pretty easy and fun to roll them. The hardest part was getting the wrappers unstuck from the paper! After that it was all gravy and in no time flat, we had a plate full of them, ready to fry. Because the filling is already cooked, you don't need to waste a lot of time on frying them up. I left them in a little longer than perhaps was necessary because the filling had been refrigerated and I wanted them to be good and hot. As it turned out, they were quite hot! Most of us took a bite and then set them down to cool or broke them open and then let them cool a bit more.



I had asked Jacalyn if there was supposed to be a dipping sauce or anything, and she had suggested that we could use duck sauce if we wanted to, although she didn't usually have anything with hers if they had them at church. I like duck sauce just fine, so I decided to pick some up. I selected Mee Tu, because I liked the name and it made me think of how the StanClan had jumped on board the international cooking train! "Yum! Me too!"

It was time to put it to the test. The General test. He had said the day before that he had eaten lumpia at work--his former supervisor in DC was Filippino and had brought lumpia in, and he didn't like them. I told him that if he didn't like these, I would make him something else to eat. But he did say he would try them first, for which I was grateful. And guess what? He liked them a lot! I don't think he would go out of his way to eat them again, but he ate three of them and said, "Pretty good" which is about the equivalent of "OK" or better in General-speak. I really, really liked them. I love spring rolls, and these were somewhat similar to spring rolls. The wrappers fried up crispy and delicious. The StanClan were already devoted lumpia eaters, but I think they enjoyed them too!



I only ate 2, but really that was a pretty decent lunch. I won't lie, I was HUNGRY by the time dinner rolled around, but they made a pretty decent little meal!

Many thanks to Nitz and Jacalyn for bringing this recipe to my attention! I hope I've done you proud, Nitz! I loved your recipe and thank you for sharing it. :-)

NITZ'S LUMPIA RECIPE
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 pound ground pork
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup minced carrots
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup thinly sliced green cabbage
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon soy sauce
30 lumpia wrappers
2 cups vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

1. Place a wok or large skillet over high heat, and pour in 1 tablespoon vegetable oil. Cook pork, stirring frequently, until no pink is showing. Remove pork from pan and set aside. Drain grease from pan, leaving a thin coating. Cook garlic and onion in the same pan for 2 minutes. Stir in the cooked pork, carrots, green onions, and cabbage. Season with pepper, salt, garlic powder, and soy sauce. Remove from heat, and set aside until cool enough to handle.

2. Place three heaping tablespoons of the filling diagonally near one corner of each wrapper, leaving a 1 1/2 inch space at both ends. Fold the side along the length of the filling over the filling, tuck in both ends, and roll neatly. Keep the roll tight as you assemble. Moisten the other side of hte wrapper with water to seal the edge. Cover the rolls with plastic wrap to retain moisture.

3. Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat, add oil to 1/2 inch depth, and heat for 5 minutes. Slide 3 or 4 lumpia into the oil. Fry the rolls for 1 to 2 minutes, until all sides are golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Serve immediately.

Makes about 30 pieces

Incidentally, this was TomTom's favorite 80 plates! He got to have some treats too!

80 Plates: One Day, Two Countries, Five Dishes, Eight Friends

Keep your eyes peeled here for one heck of an 80 plates day, one of my favorites yet! I learned to roll lumpias, cook eggs without scrambling them, the rabbit is fat and happy, impressed an Italian, made a kid sick on fried dough, and made 4 dishes from one country, a new record.

Details to follow--I have A LOT of pictures to sort through.

80 Plates: Swedish Waffles!?

So one of the fun random things that happens in the pursuit of making dishes from all over the world is that people make random comments and they wind up leading us to try a new country or recipe that we would not ordinarily have tried. This is exactly what happened today, when I randomly was going through some older feeds on my Facebook account. An acquaintance--someone I hadn't spoken to in a number of years and who randomly friended me recently--made a comment yesterday that it was Waffle Day in Sweden on Wednesday and he didn't know it! Well, guess what? I didn't know it either!

I've been 'waffling' about Sweden a little bit. In 1995, my family hosted an exchange student from Sweden and it didn't work out. She did leave us with her Swedish meatball recipe, written in Swedish, which I have made in the past, so I knew I couldn't count that (plus the General doesn't really love them anyway), and I didn't know what else Sweden was famous for, despite being a convert to Ikea (there, Mike Williams, I said it, I like Ikea--you can verbally abuse me for it now, I deserve it).

So CJ's comment about Vaffelsdagen intrigued me. My dad is the world's best wafflemaker, he makes 'em from scratch, but is it possible the Swedes have a waffle recipe? So it is. But first a little background.

Vaffelsdagen is celebrated on March 25th each year in Sweden as the day in which the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Blessed Virgin to let her know Jesus was coming. The holiday has progressed to include celebrating the first day of spring, and according to MrBreakfast.com, "...on March 25th the women of Sweden would set aside their winter tasks like chopping wood and knitting, and began their spring tasks... the most notable of which was preparing waffles." Incidentally, Waffle Day is celebrated in the US on August 24th, the day the waffle iron received its patent. (One day after my birthday--darn it, I miss the good stuff!)

So despite the fact that we didn't have waffles on Vaffelsdagen, we decided to make up for it tonight, since we didn't have anything formally planned for supper. I found a recipe on CatholicCulture.org which is of Swedish origin, initially appearing in the Feast Day Cookbook by Helmut Ripperger and Katherine Burton. If you would like the recipe, kindly visit this site.

What I really liked about this vaffel recipe was that it required few ingredients and not much in the way of cooking action. It did, however, require a lengthy resting period in the fridge. So I knew I'd have to get it ready early, so it could sit until the General got home, and then we could eat dinner at a normal hour. I had to go to the grocery store, so on my way home from work, I stopped at the local Ukrops, which is Fredericksburg's answer to Whole Foods/Fresh Fields organic type markets. This was fortunate in that I found several items I needed for my Turkish ashure pudding, which will be in April, and I enjoyed wandering the aisles looking at the overpriced foodstuffs that aging hippies and suburb-dwelling yuppies are willing to pay for. I did buy my sour cream there, which was one of the scant five ingredientes needed for these waffles.

As soon as I got home, I got to work. The first task was to add 3 tablespoons of ice cold water to 2 cups of sour cream. I bought one large container of sour cream, thinking it'd be plenty, but in all honesty, it wasn't. I think I came in at about 1/8 to 1/4 of a cup short. I figured if the batter seemed stiff, I would just add a little milk. I added the water to it and it looked kind of unpleasant sitting in water, so I quickly stirred it all together. I'm not sure what purpose this served, other than slightly thinning out the sour cream, but honestly I couldn't tell a difference.

After that, I sifted 1 1/3 cups of flour and a half teaspoon of salt into a bowl. I don't have a sifter so I use a fine sieve and just force it through there. The main point of sifting is to make sure there are no clumps of flour and other powdery ingredients so that your batter doesn't come out lumpy. And sifters hurt my hand when I use them. So a sieve it is.



Then I added in the sour cream/water mixture and mixed it all up. It did seem a bit thick, but I decided to leave it alone for a bit and see what happened. I popped it in the fridge and played Sims 2: Castaway for a while.



Ok, so the General came home and it was time to get cooking. The directions say to melt down a half a cup (one stick) of butter and add it to the cold batter from the fridge. Easy enough! I did so, melting the butter in a small pan on the stove and then stirring it into my batter. I briefly thought about using a whisk, but the batter was a bit thick and I didn't want it getting stuck in there, so I went with a wooden spoon.



And then it was time to cook 'em up! This is the only part of the process that made me even remotely nervous. Why? It's my waffle iron. I have the world's crankiest waffle iron. It was a wedding gift from my sister-in-law, and I registered for it because it makes heart shaped waffles, which makes me just *squee!* with delight. I mean, how cute is that?! And for a wedding gift?! Yeah, I know. I read the directions, which said when I first got it, I should grease the living hell out of it, and I would never have to grease it again. It is to laugh. I can grease it, I can not grease it, it doesn't matter. This sucker likes to have the batter adhere to it. So I get real nervous about what it's going to do. What I love about it besides the hearts is that it has a beeper that goes off when your waffle is cooked so that you don't have to try and lift it up to see if your waffle is done. It also has two different settings, one for uniform baking, one for crisp on the outside, soft in the middle (my preferred waffle setting), and of course a darkness level, much like a toaster.

I haven't used it in a while, so I decided that once it was hot, I would butter the living daylights out of it again just to be on the safe side. Once that was done, I put in a scant third of a cup of batter, as recommended in the waffle iron manual. it sizzled merrily away and then beeped at the appropriate interval of time. With trepidation, I opened the lid. Guess what!? It released like a pro!

Viva the vaffel!

I was so happy, you have no idea. I was like, "YES! Total vindication!" I don't know if it was the thickness of the batter or what, but I did not have trouble with one single solitary waffle. They were in, they were out, the maker and I were one. Of course, the traditional syrup of choice in Sweden is lingonberry syrup, and I looked at Ukrops and at the international food market (where I was shopping for my Philippines recipe) but no lingonberry syrup was to be found. I was damned if I was going to drive 25 miles up to Ikea where I'm sure they had it, but I'd be stuck in afternoon traffic, so we decided to go with the other traditional toppings--cinnamon, sugar, and syrup. I had gotten some free Sweet Cinnamon Sprinkle from my Pampered Chef party, so we decided to use that, plus a little dusting of powdered sugar and some light 'syrup'.



I made up some breakfast sausages on the side and we were ready to eat!

YUM! was all we could say for a while. The waffles baked up crispy and fluffy, perfect waffley texture. The sour cream gave them a slight tang that I might not ordinarily like, but in context with the sweet syrup and sugar and the bite of the cinnamon, I thoroughly enjoyed it.



The General rated this recipe 2 thumbs up. We had a couple of waffles left over (our waffle iron is actually pretty small, and this made about 6 waffles) and he said he wanted them for breakfast tomorrow, so they are dressed and sitting in the fridge awaiting their fate! The only thing I would do next time is to add some fresh fruit on top. These made some EXCELLENT darned waffles. Not quite as good as my dad's, but honestly, the next best thing. If I have to make waffles again, this is my go-to recipe. YUM!

The General wants to try and squeeze in another country tomorrow and then we will do our big Italian feast on Saturday evening--dinner starts around 6pm for anyone who wants to come over!

Happy Belated Waffle Day!

An Evening With Franz Wisner

Some months ago, my book club read Franz Wisner's Honeymoon with My Brother. We met in a small studio apartment which belonged to one of the girls and it was roasting hot with a dozen of us crammed in there. Despite my having received assurances and a phone number from Franz that he would happily speak to the club, when we called him, there was no answer. It was so hot, we all pretty much wanted out, so we all packed up and headed for the hills. When Franz called back a scant few minutes later, we were gone and the hostess wasn't answering, for fear it was a telemarketer. Franz hastily sent me several emails, but because I was an hour's drive away from my computer, I didn't receive the messages until the next day.

Still, I am impressed by Franz's dedication. Through these past months, he's checked in with me to see about rescheduling. When that didn't work, he recently emailed me to personally invite the club to his book signing in Bethesda last night. While honestly none of us was very keen on Honeymoon, I was won over by Franz's dogged persistence in the matter and corralled several gals to attend the signing with me. Four of us attended in all.

Franz introduced himself right off the bat and shook hands with all of us. He was most engaging and quite outgoing and wrapped me in a big hug when I introduced myself. The talk about his new book, How the World Makes Love, was intriguing as well. So intriguing that I wound up breaking my rule about "No more of Franz's books!" and I wound up buying a copy. Franz autographed it "To Susan, a toast to the mighty book club! Franz Wisner" and Lauren grabbed a photo of us. Franz also autographed a bookmark for baby Dottie, who was attending her first signing ever.

[I started the last night and am really enjoying it so far.]

Franz wrapped me in another hug and got his travel companion and brother Kurt to come and stand for a picture with us as well.



I have been to many, many book signings, but this is one of the tops--I enjoyed it so much. His personality and humor convinced me to buy a book I might not otherwise have and I was impressed that not only did he know who I was and why I was there, but that he had kept in touch these long months. Go author!

It's Been a Week!

Since I posted here... YIKES! I'm still alive, but barely. I've been battling the flu since Thursday and I haven't enjoyed it one bit. Gosh, seems like we're so busy these days, getting ready for baby, visiting family and friends, enjoying ourselves in general. Big news is that we are going to see Unwigged and Unplugged at the Warner Theater on 5/13. I am so stinkin' excited I could puke. Because I called the theater and requested ADA seating, we're going to be sitting in the second row. Yes, on the end, but I really don't care. We'll still be damned close. The people in the box office were SO NICE. So tonight while we were exercising, we watched "A Mighty Wind" to celebrate. It was a lot more fun doing my steps in front of a movie than while I was staring at the wall. Made the time go by a lot faster.

Last weekend, we spent a few bucks of our tax return on a freezer. We'd been wanting one for a while as we figured buying in bulk would be a good way to stock up on things and save some cash. It was delivered last week and this past weekend, we took a trip to BJ's to have some fun and stock up. We got beef stew meat, ground beef, chicken breasts (regular and thin sliced), meatballs, Texas toast, ice cream, french fries, chicken fingers, burgers, and more! We bought fun things too that we might never buy again, but for our first trip to BJ's in forever, it was a good time and we got things we can use in the coming months. I've made some plans with my mom that she and I will do a lot of cooking when she comes to visit in a few weeks, and hopefully we'll be able to add spaghetti sauce, pizza dough, chicken enchiladas, and other things to our stash. I might not have to do any serious cooking again till the fall!! WOO HOO! :-)

The freezer arrived with a small dent in it--so small that you can't see it unless it's pointed out to you. However, this garnered us a 10% rebate on the cost of it, so that was awesome. The very night it was installed, the washing machine broke, which was a total odyssey--I couldn't find the receipt and when I called Lowe's about a repair, they told me if I didn't have the receipt, they wouldn't honor the warranty--despite the fact that we purchased the extended freakin' warranty. When I asked the woman on the phone about that, she said, "No receipt, no warranty" and hung up on me! We drove over to Lowe's to see if they could help us locally, but they could not, so we came home and Michael called Bosch directly and played helpless little blind guy and Bosch had someone here two days later who fixed it and left, no problem. We still need to resolve the warranty issue with Lowe's, but at least our washer works!

From my Pampered Chef fundraising show, I ordered the deep covered baker. At my show, the consultant demo'd how to make shredded BBQ chicken in the MICROWAVE with this sucker, and I was totally dying to try it, because I had loved it. I made it tonight and it didn't disappoint. Eleven and a half minutes and I had perfect cooked chicken breasts, which I then "shredded" with scissors and then smothered in BBQ sauce. Very low in points and delicious and the easiness of it was so great. When you're not feeling good, ease is essential.

So due to my illness, I haven't been able to do any cooking of any importance. This weekend we WILL do Italy. Also, my friend Jacalyn sent me a recipe from her friend at church who is from the Philippines, so I will try that. And Syl, my new follower and friend to the north, sent me some Indian recipes, so we will have to try those as well. Turkey will come up next week for my book club, and I'd like to hit Greece as well. But I'm learning not to plan ahead, because when I have lately, all I've gotten is sick.

This was a bad cold. In desperation, I finally slathered a solid half-inch of Vicks VapoRub all over my chest and while I couldn't smell it, at least I could breathe again. I'm still not smelling things very well--tonight I asked Mike if the house smelled OK because he is sensitive to smell and I don't want the rabbit to be smelling, but I just can't tell, honestly. Fortunately, he gave me a good report. So I spent the day magic erasering the walls instead. Nesting just a bit, I've plans to bleach the bathrooms this weekend if we don't have any progress in the next couple of days. Our neighbor is coming in to help us out with some projects and bringing over his contractor friend too, so we can hopefully get some estimates on some projects that desperately need doing around here--fixing the broken shutters, putting up the porch railing, etc.

I guess that's about all for now. Several members of my book club are going to meet Franz Wisner tomorrow night--he wrote "Honeymoon with My Brother" which we read last year, and we were supposed to speak with him by telephone, but the signals all got crossed and he's been actively emailing me ever since in an effort to get the club to talk with him. haha! So he's in Bethesda tomorrow and some of us are going to meet him and have drinks afterwards. That should be fun!

Wednesday I'm in Baltimore with B. again, who is vowing to make me help her walk until this baby drops and who has concocted a theory about castor oil/water that she swears will work and she is drinking it Wednesday. Consequently, I packed up baby's gear today, just in case she is successful in this little venture. She had an ultrasound last week and they claim not to be able to tell if it's a boy now, so I'm deeply suspicious that we might get a girl, owing to the fact that it seems to me it should be pretty darned obvious at this late stage if it was a boy. But we'll see.

G'night! I'll see you all in my next post, which hopefully won't take a week to find you :-)

80 Plates: Luck of the Irish

So today is (duh!) St. Patrick's Day, which seemed a perfect day to party like we're Irish, which my husband actually is 1/4 of the way. As I think I mentioned, neither one of us likes corned beef and cabbage, we're not like to drink green beer, and so it came to me like a bolt from the blue: Irish soda bread!

I thought I'd give you a quick background of Irish soda bread. According to Wikipedia:

Soda bread dates back to approximately 1840, when bicarbonate of soda was introduced to Ireland. Because the climate of Ireland hinders the growth of hard wheat (which creates a flour that rises easily with the assistance of yeast), bicarbonate of soda replaced yeast as the leavening agent.

There are several theories as to the significance of the cross in soda bread. Some believe that the cross was placed in the bread to ward off evil. It is also possible that the cross is used to help with the cooking of the bread or to serve as a guideline for even slices.

Soda bread eventually became a staple of the Irish diet. It was, and still is, used as an accompaniment to a meal.

However, there seems to be some controversary swirling around about Irish soda bread. Some claim that it's more an American creation, or at least an American bastardization of the real thing. You can read the fascinating story from an Irish chef here. My first brush with soda bread was in college. I ate it once on St. Patty's day, didn't care for it and haven't had it again. But it beats corned beef and cabbage! So it is what we elected to do. Incidentally, soda bread is one of the national dishes of Ireland. So how about that!?

Now, either I am a total trendsetting genius or I'm a lemming like everyone else, because I swear, everyone is making Irish soda bread today. Seriously. So much so that I could not get buttermilk at my local grocery store. For some reason, though, I've been reading a lot about, "If you don't have buttermilk, curdle some milk with lemon juice and it'll work just fine". So due to the fact that I didn't want to have to go to 3 different stores like my friend Lauren did, I decided to just go ahead and curdle it here at home. Plus, I can use milk and I probably couldn't have used whatever might have been left of the buttermilk.

If you want to use the recipe I used, please visit the website at Associated Content, where someone has posted their aunt's recipe, said aunt living on Ireland's Dingle Peninsula (does that sound like a made up place, or is it just me?).

If you look in the ingredients, you will see a bottle of lemon juice. Lemon juice in Irish soda bread, you ask? Well, that's how you curdle milk. I wanted to do this first, since my friend Jacalyn suggested that it had to sit on the counter for a while and curdle properly. This was supported by anecdotal evidence on the internet. Jacalyn also suggested that since I needed 2 cups of buttermilk, I might want to do it in two separate batches, so I did. I put in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice per 1 cup of milk.

Curdle away, boys!

Ok, so while that was curdling merrily away, I preheated the oven and got to work with the dry ingredients. I measured out 4 cups of flour and put it in the bowl of my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer :-) I decided to use the dough hook today since we are making bread, and figured it would give a nice little kneading (bread sure is kneady! *insert groans here*). I'm not sure if you'll be able to see it, but of the various shades of white stuff in here, you will see sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

Once I combined that, it was time to cut in the butter. I used a regular unsalted butter since I had already added a little salt to the dough. I have to say, the dough hook didn't do much for it to cut the butter in, so I switched to the paddle for that step. While it did mean I dirtied another attachment, it worked much better. Then it was time to add some dried fruit. I selected golden raisins, although the General is probably not going to like them, but I love golden ones better than the black raisins and I have them lying around from a previous recipe, so I figured I would go ahead and use them. I still have some (hooray!) for something else, but I'm not yet sure what.



Ok, so by this time, the 'buttermilk' was in pretty good shape. I read the directions carefully this time-as opposed to with the spaetzle where I dumped everything in--and discovered I had to whisk the egg and buttermilk together before adding them to the flour mixture.



Then I put the dough hook back on the Kitchen Aid and started slowly adding in the egg mixture. The directions said to do this by hand, but I was like, "What?! How do you pick up a liquid with your hand!?" so I let the machine did it.

Almost immediately upon the completion of incorporating the two parts of the ingredients, I was aware there was a problem. See anything strange?



Yeah, it's like a freakin' liquid! It was so sticky and gooey. Ugh. I figured the hook missed some flour on the bottom of the bowl, which it had and which I incorporated, but that was before I took the above picture! The problem became even more apparently when I turned it out on my "lightly floured" surface.


Attack of the killer blob

So I knew from reading the little article that the dude wrote to accompany his aunt's recipe that it was kind of ballparky at best--his aunt didn't use recipes, just did everything by feel. Still, it took me nearly another 1 1/2 cups of flour to get it to resemble anything close to bread dough and man did it make a mess! I got a little nervous that maybe I needed to add some extra leavening, but I wasn't really sure, so I left it alone. I transferred the bread to a parchment lined cookie sheet and cut the traditional cross into the top of it.



The directions said it should bake 50-60 minutes, but I found that when I took it out after 55, it was still a little gooey on the inside, so I let it go about 65 minutes. And voila! I made Irish soda bread!



Well, you know how it is, one of the best things ever is fresh baked bread, it just smells awesome! And how about the taste of it when it's slathered in butter, which then melts and gets all yummy? So I couldn't just sit there and look at it, I had to cut myself a little piece and try it.



Ok, so why I should be surprised that the cafeteria at my college had totally loused up the bread, I don't know since they basically loused up everything they tried to cook, or maybe my tastes have changed, or maybe it's just better hot, but whatever the case may be, this is/was one damned good piece of bread. Irish, American, Irish-American, I'll take it!

I can't wait to see what the General thinks!

Poem from My Boss

My boss, Tim, has a tradition of writing a poem for each member of his staff as they depart. Yesterday my office threw a surprise "Adios/Baby Shower" party for me and he read the poem to us as part of the festivities. Here it is--I totally love it!

Well all good things must come to an end
We find ourselves here, saying goodbye to our friend.
As her time with us begins to unwind,
And she ventures onward, leaving us behind.

We should remind ourselves, this is for the best.
No matter how hard, or how damned depressed,
We feel right now ‘cause we know we are losin,’
One of our family, our dearest Susan.

Although we applaud her for moving on with her life,
To be a new mother, a new stay at home wife.
We still find ourselves here, seeped in the void,
Of our friend who is leaving, whom we so enjoyed.

Never once have I heard her raise her voice,
Not sure if this was, by design or by choice,
But always steadfast, in midst of a storm,
She made us all feel calmer, all fuzzy and warm.

Remembering her first day, I tried to warn her
Not to choose the room in the corner.
And one of the things I’m confident we’ll miss,
Is how she protected us all from Kris.

So remember us Susan, and keep us in the loop.
About the loud cries, the diapers, the poop.
And we hope fond memories, you take as you go
Best wishes my dear, from Fairfax RO.

80 Plates: Sorry Charlie

No 80 Plates today. I've been feeling like crap and ran out of time. Tuesday!!! We'll always have Tuesdays...

Fun New Site

I was surfing around the net a week or so ago and came upon BookTour.com which is a site that allows you to put in your zip code and email address and it sends you a weekly update of upcoming book signings and author events in your area. I believe I used the Fairfax zip code and in my first email today, it gave me listings for all over DC, MD, and NoVa. Some of them I knew about, some of them I did not. It's comprehensive and easy to use, and takes a lot of the work out of it when I do go to see if there's someone coming. It included local venues like Politics and Prose, as well as chain bookstores, and the Library of Congress, the Writer's Center, even school book signings and restaurants!

Check it out and sign up today!

Upcoming 80 Plates Schedule

So in order to keep up with our very busy schedule to keep on track with cooking, we've decided on the following countries/menu items and tentative dates, where applicable!

3/17: Irish Soda Bread in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Neither one of us likes corned beef and cabbage, so we're going to try this on for size. Plus, I'm not much of a baker when it comes to bread from scratch, so I'm excited to give this a try!

TBA: Doro Wat (a chicken dish) from Ethiopia and Bobotie (kind of a meatloaf) and Klappertert (coconut pie) from South Africa. We need to get some Africa going here and I found a couple of authentic recipes for these dishes, so sometime this month, we will make these. (Possibly the weekend of 3/21? Saturday we're going to Charlottesville for the Virginia Festival of the Book, but possibly Sunday 3/22. Anyone interested? There's going to be LOTS of food.)

3/28: Italian night

This will put us squarely at 20 countries by the end of March, which is exactly where we need to be in order to keep on track.

In my research I also found a recipe from Iceland that involves no putrified animals and no lactic acid, so if we get really ambitious, we'll try that out as well. Of course, all this is subject to change if George Henry comes early, but for now, we're planning to do this in order to give our minds something to do while we wait!

Fredericksburg

March 13, 2009

Foundation!

I just thought I'd throw out a plug for the new Norrie Disease Association website, which you can find at http://www.norries.org/. All this grew out of the Yahoo mailing list that the General put together a long time ago and now they are an actual association with a conference planned, fundraising efforts, and more. The site is still under construction, but I'm proud of all they've accomplished--it's so hard to get information and support for such a rare condition.

80 Plates: Mid-week Surprise

So I've been lamenting that we're somewhat falling behind on our 80 Plates cooking, and that we need to step it up some. I've got 2 countries planned--Italy on March 28th (open to friends--please RSVP if you are coming! You won't be alone, Elizabeth is intrepidly being our Test Italian) and Turkey on April 6th (book club only, I'm afraid!), but beyond that we haven't found time or recipes that inspired us to get cooking! Mike and I have been playing "clean out the freezer" from many of our previous dishes, and also from things we put in there and forgot. It's saved us money on the grocery bills in addition to providing some challenges with "what the the heck am I going to do with a half pound of pork!?"

So today we pulled out bratwurst that has been in there since who knows when. The thing is, I've made brats a thousand times, so I didn't really feel good about counting it for Germany. The aforementioned Elizabeth, also an expectant mommy, (click here to visit her blog) and I were talking and we both hit on a flash of brilliance at the same time: spaetzle!

I love spaetzle. The first time I remember having it was when my mom got us beans and spaetzle from Birds Eye when we were little and visiting my grandparents in Connecticut. Since then, I've had it prepared in several German restaurants, including one here in Stafford County, which I highly recommend. However, if you visit Zum Rheingarten, make damned sure you have reservations and don't wear blue jeans. Although the General and I broke both rules and they still seated us anyway and were darned nice about it, so what can I say?

Anyway, I had found a recipe on line for spaetzle that garnered rave reviews from German cooks and I'd been wanting to try it, so what better occasion than this? So out of the blue, another country down.

I'm including my preparations for bratwurst here too, just in case you want to see it. It is basically what they used to show during the Johnsville brats commercial, but it's so good and so yummy that it's how I've always elected to make ours! So it was a gorgeous day here in Fredericksburg, 72 degrees this afternoon. So nice in fact that I put on the ceiling fans and opened the windows. I decided I was going to go ahead and fire up the grill for the first time since last fall. Remember I said we call it Vesuvius? Well, here it is! You can see why. That sucker is massive. But I could also call it Old Reliable, because it fired up with no hesitation this evening when called for duty.

My recipe for brats is a simple one: Thick slice an onion, throw it in a pot, dump a can of beer over it, bring it to a boil, add the brats, boil them up a bit, and then throw them and the onions on the grill till done. See below!











Ok, time to make some spaetzle!! If you want the recipe I followed, please visit this site. Yes, yes, it is Tyler Florence again, but reading the feedback, it is an authentic recipe, so I felt justified in using it. Not to mention that every single spaetzle recipe I read had the same ingredients as this one, so I think you make one spaetzle, you've made them all. You can buy spaetzle mix at your local grocery stores, but it really isn't hard to make, so why bother? Also, in reading the comments left on this recipe, everyone said that the spaetzle came out really nutmeg-y, so if you are leary of nutmeg, you should add a bit less. I like nutmeg a lot, but I didn't want them to taste of it overpoweringly, so I only put in a quarter teaspoon instead of a half.

Ok, so the ingredient list is pretty easy: flour, eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, milk. You will also need butter to sautee them in and chives for the top if desired. I did put some chives on them to make them more colorful. So the prep is pretty easy--mix together the dry ingredients, combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, combine the two. Only, I guess I got excited because I dumped the milk on the flour mixture without first combining it with the eggs! Oops!



I mixed it all together using a silicone spatula because it allowed me to give everything a good beating and mush out any lumps in the dough. Then it had to be set to rise for a while before I could boil it up. I put it to the side while I put the brats out on the grill and then came back to make the spaetzle.

Spaetzle is fun to make!! Basically what you do is force the dough a little at a time through a slotted spoon into a pot of boiling water. Once it floats to the top, you skim it out and put it in a colander to drain, and rinse it under cool water.





Once this is completed, it's gravy. My hands did get a little bit messy and occasionally the dough overflowed the spoon and made giant dumplings instead of sweet little neat ones, but all in all, it went perfectly. They looked and felt like authentic spaetzle.

All that was left was to saute them up. I had the butter melted already, just having put the pan on the hot burner from when I had boiled up the brats. I just turned it back on and tossed the spaetzle in. I didn't think they'd really fry or brown up, and they did not. It just kind of sizzled in there and got buttery delicious. I tossed on the chives, and it was time to eat!!



I made a side of green beans for myself, and Mike just had his spaetzle and brats. He thought they were "good". He said that when he thinks of dumplings, he thinks of something bigger that has a filling, but over all he thought they were good. I was really freakin' impressed with myself for having made them!! I thought they were really good.

So another country knocked off! We need to get more heavily into Africa--we've only done one African country so far. It's hard finding recipes from there. Here is a map of the places we've been so far:


visited 15 countries(6.66%)
Create your own visited map of The World

I recommend this recipe for a fun and delicious dish to cook! :-)