Because You Need These Pickles

Happy 4th of July!  I hope you are all enjoying a wonderful day spent with family, friends, and tasty BBQ.

In honor of the holiday, I'm going to post a recipe that you need.  Yes, need.  If you're a pickle-lover, make these pickles right away.  You'll never buy lamesauce storebought pickles again!  It's so easy - I knock out six jars in under 15 minutes, and they keep in the fridge until you've eaten them all.  Cheaper than storebought, too.

Mmm delicious...

OK, let's get to pickling...

PANTOMIME PICKLES

*Pickling is not one of those things where there are exact measurements - you're going to have to access your loosey goosey free-and-easy side.  It's not baking - you won't ruin anything!  Also, this is not a tutorial in canning.  I just stick mine in the fridge.  They last a long time, but I also eat a lot of pickles. :)

Ingredients:

• Fresh dill pickles (labelled as such at your grocery store in the produce section - I buy mine from my neighborhood mom-n-pop produce stand.)
• Multiple glass jars (I like quart-size Masons)
• 3 cups distilled white vinegar
• 3 cups water
• 2T + 2tsp sea salt
• 2T sugar
• Fresh dill (just buy a package, enough to drop @3 sticks/spears/sprigs into each jar)
• Pickling spice (enough to drop about a tsp into each jar)
• Mustard seed (enough to drop about a tsp into each jar)
• Fresh garlic, sliced (enough to drop about 1-3 sliced cloves into each jar)

Instructions:

1. Make sure your glass jars are squeaky clean.
2. Cut your dill pickles into either spears or slices and distribute them into your jars.
3. In each jar, place 3 sticks of dill, a tsp of pickling spices, a tsp of mustard seed, and then 1-3 sliced garlic cloves.  Use your discretion as to how much you want in there - my numbers are just a guideline.
4. Make your brine!  In a large pot, stir together your vinegar, water, sea salt, and sugar.  Bring to a boil and make sure the sugar and salt is dissolved into the mixture.  Let it boil for about 2 minutes, then remove from heat.
5. While still hot, fill your jars with the brine!  Be careful not to overflow, but make sure the pickles are covered completely with the brine.
6. Allow the jars to cool until it's ok to cap 'em, then stick them in the fridge!  

The pickles will start to taste pickly 24 hours later, but I like to give mine 72 hours for them to reach full flavor.

Enjoy!

Eat This: Sweet 'Taters

Sweet potatoes.  I LOVE sweet potatoes.  My favorite vegetables, in ascending order, are...

5) Kale

4) Broccoli

3) Snow peas

2) Asparagus

1) Sweet potatoes.  Sweet po-tay-toes

If the meal involves sweet potatoes, I love it already.  Even when I was a child and too ridiculous to realize that vegetables were delicious, I loved them.

A couple weeks ago, Bossyboots made me dinner.  That dinner involved steamed broccoli, pork tenderloin rolled in herbs, and sweet potatoes.  I loved it so much that yesterday I made the sweet potatoes and broccoli again all by themselves - just because I loved them so much:

Now, you will see a sheen on the potatoes.  That's because I was too heavyhanded with the olive oil.  So you guys tone that down so you don't get a heart attack.

Here's how you make them:

1. Slice peeled sweet potatoes into 3/4 inch discs.
2. In a microwave-safe dish, toss the sweet potatoes with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper.  Then heat the sweet potatoes in the microwave for 5-7 minutes.  Now, I know what you're thinking: "MICROWAVE?!?!?"  Just do it.
3. THEN, take the sweet potatoes out of the microwave and fry them up in a pan already heated up with about a teaspoon of olive oil, NOT a tablespoon, like you see above.  You'll know they're done when they look a titch crispy/brown on each side (make sure you flip them.)

 Is this the healthiest way to eat sweet potatoes?  No.  But they are dead tasty, and you can just balance them out with a fistful of broccoli, as I did.  :D

My New Favorite Lunch

I don't know exactly when this happened, but somewhere in my life I fell in love with noodles.  I also fell in love with veggies and garlic.  I do not love chicken, but paired with steamed veggies, garlic, and noodles? Success!  I eat my made-up noodle dish about once every two weeks.  Sometimes even once per week.

I am also uber particular about the way I eat my noodles.  I must use chopsticks.  A fork annoys me.  CHOPSTICKS.  Recently, I decided that I had to eat them in special noodle bowls, because clearly that's the only way to satisfy my chompers.

Enter my new Crate and Barrel noodle bowls... minus the noodles:

$14 well-spent.  And I plan to give them a place of honor in my dishware cabinet, unencumbered by lesser ceramics.

Now, I know I have readers who are noodle experts.  I am not one of those experts, and you are about to be horrified by my noodle methods.  I use Ramen noodles.  Not REAL Ramen, that fake 10-cent stuff.  Hey, it was here, I was here, we made out.  At least I know that I'm slumming it.  And anyway, it actually ends up tasting pretty good for a homemade quickie recipe.

Penny's Last Minute Noodles

*Last minute because I usually make these with little to no forethought. :D

1) First of all, gather whatever yummy produce you have on hand.  For the picture you see above, that was snow peas, broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms.  Chop them up into big chunks.  if you have a "hearty" veggie in the mix, separate it out since they might have to steam a touch longer than the others.

2) Create a veggie sauna by heating water in a pot and then placing your colander over the steam, with the pot lid at the ready.  Place your hearty veggies in the colander so that they can get to steamin'.  After a few minutes, put the rest of your veggies in, along with some minced garlic, onion powder, and extra garlic powder for flavor.  I also threw in a handful of pre-cooked rotisserie chicken.

3) While the veggies are having their spa day in the colander, boil chicken broth.  I did use 10-cent Ramen noodles, but I did NOT use the seasoning packet, since all I can think about are the chemicals attacking my body.  Just use low-sodium chicken or veggie broth.  It's delicious.  Once the broth is a-boiling, put in the noodles for their requisite 3 minutes.

Once the noodles are cooked and your veggies/chicken are steamed, just throw it all together in your noodle bowls, along with a ladle or two of broth!  Then, I get crazy with a little siracha and low-sodium soy sauce.  THEN, I die of happiness.  And heartburn.  Because siracha does that to me - I love it too much to care though.

Sexy Desserts: Chocolate Bouchons

Really, "bouchons" is just a fancy word for what turns out to be tiny cakes... Tiny cakes full of DELICIOUS!

My sisters Tweets and Abs sent me a lovely birthday present:

So I decided to try my new kitchen tools out and make these:

Both the bouchon silicone mold and the pastry gun worked perfectly - I totally recommend them!

I just followed the recipe on the back of the Williams Sonoma bouchon box, but then used the pastry gun to add a little shot of whipped cream on the inside - see?  I think these would go really great with a bit of sipping brandy on the side.

So basically, I made ho-hos.  Really addictive ho-hos.  I made twelve, and I ate six of them myself. !!

Here's how I did it:

Chocolate Bouchons

*From Williams Sonoma

INGREDIENTS:

• 5T unsalted butter
• 3oz bittersweet chocolate, broken into pieces
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3T cocoa powder
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• 1/8tsp salt
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• Confectioners' sugar for serving
• Penny's Addition: Whipped cream for filling (homemade or store-bought if you're feeling lazy like I was)
• Penny's Addition: Raspberries for serving

*You'll also need something like a pastry gun to fill the bouchons with whatever filling you'd like (I used whipped cream because it's fluffy) and a bouchon mold on a baking sheet.  However, I'm sure you could use a mini cupcake pan just as easily.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees.  Set the bouchon mold on a baking sheet.

Melt the butter and chocolate.  You can microwave it, but I don't recommend this method - too easily burned.  Also, I am superstitious about mysterious microwave radiation.  :)  Stir occasionally, and then let the mixture cool for 10 minutes.

In a bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

 In another bowl, whisk together the sugar, egg and vanilla until combined.  Set aside.  NOTE: Yellow food in yellow bowls make for confusing photos.

Add the chocolate mixture to the eggy mixture until incorporated, then whisk in the flour mixture til it's all combined and fingerlicking-worthy.

 Scoop 2T of the batter into the mold.  DO NOT overfill the molds like I did.  In order for the chocolate to bake in a corky shape, you don't want the tops to overflow.  After you turn out the bouchons, you will be sifting sugar on the "bottom".  The tops of the mold becomes the bottom; the bottoms become the top.  Got it?  Good.

Once the wells are filled with NOT-TOO-MUCH batter (!!!) then put the bouchon mold - still on the baking sheet - into the oven and bake for 20-22 minutes.  Veer towards slightly underdone, rather than overdone.  You want the cakes to be moist, not dry like a brownie top.  You should be able to insert a toothpick and have it come out mostly clean with just a few crumbs.

After baking, let your cakes cool for at least 15 minutes.  I let mine cool for 30, because 15 wasn't long enough... they were still too warm to turn out in one piece.  Once the cakes are cooled and turned out, poke holes in their booties to fill them with whipped cream.  Then put the holey side plate-down and sift a little confectioners sugar on top to make them Sexy Cakes.  Add berries on the side and serve!

The 3.5 Hour Hot Pockets.

Also known as homemade ravioli.

I don't know what's with me this week, but I am cooking up a storm.  I seem to be spending most of my time either at the grocery store, or slaving away in the kitchen.  Bossyboots doesn't mind, as he has been reaping the benefits!

Last night, I decided to take on homemade ravioli.  Do I own a pasta roller?  No.  Do I have a ravioli tray or fancy Kitchenaid ravioli maker?  No.  Apparently, my soul is made of 100% masochism.

This is how I ended up with 3.5 hour Hot Pockets.  See?

Here's another look:

No wine this time, lest you think I subsist on booze and pasta!  I was supposed to do some house cleaning today, but cooking sounded like more fun, so... that's why I was ok spending a lot of time making these.

My hot pockets won't win any beauty pageants, but they were dang tasty.  Fresh ravioli filled with a carmelized onion, portobella mushrooms, and mozzarella filling - topped with a basil, parmesan, and almond pesto. 

I linked to the recipes above... but I do have just a couple tips for pasta newbies like me:

1. If you are making the dough by hand, make your "well" in the bottom of a bowl.  For the unpracticed (like me!), it helps keep Dough Mountain intact.
2. When you roll out the dough, make it so thin you can see through it so it's not too heavy.
3. The filling recipe calls for 5 onions.  That's way too many.  You're fine with only two to three.
4. The store was out of pine nuts for the pesto so I subbed almonds and granted the sauce an A+. In fact, I recommend it!

I had tons of mushroom/onion/mozzarella filling leftover, and I discovered that it makes a great cracker topping or dip.  Just an FYI.

Tonight... I'm just going to order a pizza.