I'm homeless! (pics included)

Well, folks, we are homeless. Seriously. We had the worst ice storm ever and evacuated yesterday morning.

It began in the afternoon on Thursday. We all went home from school. Then, around 8:00 pm the power went out. We took out our heaviest down blanket and burrowed in for the night. But sleep was not easy. Every few minutes we heard a tree snap and break and fall to the ground. The ice made it especially noisy, and it sounded like a war was going on around us. Joe was worried about a tree coming in through the roof. I'm happy to say that didn't happen.

We had a transistor radio which came in real handy in the morning for me. I wake up at 5 and it's pitch-black out. So I found a local station and listened till I could find out my school was closed.

When daylight came, we could see just how bad it was, so we decided to try to leave. Trees were down everywhere and we saw a neighbor from the other side of the neighborhood seeming to be looking for an exit in his truck. Not a good sign.

Joe ventured out and found an escape route out of the immediate area. Good enough to decide to risk it and try to leave. En route out of the neighborhood, we saw a neighbor who is a part time police officer in town. He said he heard it may be weeks before we get the power back in our area.

This was the road we took to get out of our neighborhood. The other one was impassable.


These pics are the main road that gets you near the highway. We were in a little caravan of large vehicles. Luckily, Joe has a 4-wheel drive truck. Between the truck and a whole lot of desperation we made it through 15 miles of this to a safer place.






Once we got to the highway we were free and made it to the first open gas station, filled up, and continued south.

So we are staying with some very generous friends about one and 3/4 hours from our home. They have an efficiency apartment above their garage. I am so grateful and feel so fortunate to have this to escape to.

I'm spending time wondering how long it will be before my school has power and I'll either also have power at home, or I'll have to drive 2 hours to work. Only time will tell!

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Spinach with Golden Raisins and Pine Nuts

I've had a bag of spinach in my refrigerator for longer than I care to admit. It surprises me that it still looked in tip-top shape this morning and I decided it was time to do something with it.

I had a plan all along. There was a recipe in last month's issue of Food and Wine Magazine. All I needed was the spinach! That's great because sometimes I see a recipe and I hardly have any of the ingredients.

So today was the day.

The toasted pine nuts and plump golden raisins were so wonderful. Sweet and nutty are great with spinach. And I added a little kick with some red pepper flakes.

Food and Wine recommends serving this dish with roast beef and potatoes. I kept it simple and made it the fun part of an egg white omelet, to which I added some goat cheese. It was a great breakfast and I felt like I had something good for me.



Spinach with Raisins and Pine Nuts
Adapted from Food and Wine Magazine

1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped white onion
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
20 ounces fresh spinach (2 bags)

Place the golden raisins in a container with very hot water. Cover and let stand.

Place a pan on medium-high heat. Once it his good and hot, add the olive oil. Only wait a few seconds (just to warm it up) before adding the onion to the pan. Add half of the salt and pepper and saute the onion until it is caramelized and browned.

Add the spinace in batches, along with the remaining salt and pepper. After you add each batch, toss it around in the pan for maybe 2 minutes while it wilts and makes room for more spinach.

Serves 6

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Best Pound Cake Ever!

I have to thank another blogger for this one. Thank you, Kim Morgan Moss at A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen for this most scrumptious, moist, and impressive recipe.


I came upon her blog while browsing through all the fabulous food porn at Food Gawker. This is one of my favorite sites on the Internet and I can spend oodles of time there, drooling at the photos posted by my fellow bloggers.


Should you visit either of these two sites, you'll see her photos. I'll be the first to admit that I was unable to make mine look as elegant as hers. But the recipe was the best!

As for my experience, I chose the bundt pan option. But I'll admit that were I to do it again, I think I'd go for a parchment-lined springform pan. I had some problems when it came to getting the cake out of my pan.

But, then again, the cake was so moist, I just patched it back together! A little icing covered it up quite nicely.

My family, for better or worse, doesn't care so much about how a cake looks, so my flawed presentation was just fine! And nothing could destroy the deliciousness of a good recipe.

I recommend this one with a big cake-eating grin.

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Buckwheat with Mushrooms & Carrots ♥ Recipe

Today's recipe: A whole-grain side dish or vegan main dish made with buckwheat groats, fresh mushrooms and chopped carrots. High-protein. Low carb. Weight Watchers 2 points.

Curiosity guides many of my recipe choices but so do health, budget and taste. It's karma when all four collide! This fall I set off to explore whole grains, knowing that I, along with too many of us, know far too little about such an important group of foods. To narrow the field, I decided to stick with the healthiest whole grains -- barley, brown rice, buckwheat, corn, millet, oats, quinoa, rye, spelt and whole wheat. I recognized all of these whole grains -- but since my vegetarian days two states and two decades ago, haven't cooked five of them, barley, buckwheat, millet, rye and spelt. Would karma prevail?

First up: buckwheat, which is actually a grass not a a grain like other cereal plants such as wheat and oats and rice. There are two good ways to experiment with buckwheat.

Buckwheat Flour Buckwheat flour is a nutty-tasting flour and because it's gluten-free, a favorite among those who live with celiac disease. It's the favored flour for blini, the tiny Russian pancakes and in buckwheat crepes in northern France. For anyone new to buckwheat, this is a good place to start. You won't likely find buckwheat flour alongside the all-purpose flour, however. At least in my groceries, it's in a special section with other less common flours, or in the bulk aisle, or in the 'natural foods' aisle. (Ever wonder what a grocery store is doing with all that 'unnatural food' they sell? Yeah, me too.)

Buckwheat Groats Here, the hulls are removed, leaving the 'groats'. Buckwheat groats can be purchased raw or roasted. Again, check the bulk aisle, or a special section with products from Bob's Red Mills.

Kasha (or Kashi) These are names that buckwheat groats have acquired in the U.S., a confusion, however, since outside the U.S., the term kasha or kashi refers to a hot porridge made from any grain, wheat, oats, millet and others. So really, the term 'buckwheat kasha' is more accurate than just 'kasha'.

TASTING BUCKWHEAT GROATS My research led me to believe that buckwheat has a 'strong and distinctive flavor' -- which I took as code for "it might be an acquired taste" which implies, of course, we should be prepared to not like it. It's described as 'bold' and 'toasty' and 'earthy'. But -- my goodness, sure buckwheat groats taste a little nutty and earthy, but those are good things. I certainly didn't find anything to object to, not anything even particularly strong or distinctive. This is good stuff!

BUCKWHEAT with MUSHROOMS & CARROTS

Hands-on time: 25 minutes
Time to table: 45 minutes
Makes 4 cups
Recipe adapted from Nami-Nami

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup (6 ounces) buckwheat groats, rinsed under running water
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, quartered lengthwise, then cut into small pieces crosswis
Salt & pepper to taste
2 cups boiling water

1 tablespoon olive oil
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, caps broken into pieces and stems roughly chopped

In a large pot or Dutch oven, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil til shimmery on MEDIUM HIGH. Add the buckwheat and stir to coat with fat, let cook for a minute or two. Add the onion and carrots as they are prepped, stir to coat with fat, let cook until onions begin to turn gold. Stir in salt and pepper. Stir in boiling water. Cover, reduce heat to MEDIUM and let simmer about 15 minutes until the buckwheat is soft and the liquid fully absorbed.

Meanwhile, in a skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil til shimmery. Add the mushrooms and stir to coat with fat. Let cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are cooked and the liquid they express has evaporated.

To serve, stir the cooked mushrooms into the cooked buckwheat. Serve warm or refrigerate and serve cold or at room temperature.

NUTRITION ESTIMATE
Per Half Cup: 127Cal; 4g Tot Fat; 1g Sat Fat; 0mg Cholesterol; 26mg Sodium; 21g Carb; 4g Fiber; 3g Sugar; 4g Protein; Weight Watchers 2 points

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MORE CARROT & MUSHROOM RECIPES
~ Carrot & Mushroom Ragout ~
~ Roasted Carrots & Mushrooms with Thyme ~

~ more vegetable & whole grain recipes ~
~ more vegetable with beans, lentils, other legumes ~
~ more vegetarian suppers ~

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Christmas is Like a Lite Brite

I recently was reminded of one of my favorite toys from my childhood. It was a Lite Brite. Light Brite was a creative toy where you put colored pegs into a board, perhaps following a pattern. The board was black and was lit from behind. So when you looked at it with the lights off, it was colorful and Christmas-tree-like.

My happy Lite Brite memories shot me out of the gate to decorating for the holidays.

Not wanting to wait several weeks so that a freshly cut real tree wouldn't dry out, I bit the bullet and splurged on a beautiful faux tree at one of my favorite stores. I also got a few little goodies for my babies to express their good cheer as well.

As soon as I cleared off the dining room table, I ran downstairs to dig out the boxes of ornaments, lights, figurines and other items. Then I got right to work. Here's the tree:

Then, up when the lights. It's so warm and cozy in here and I'm full of peacefulness looking at my adult-style Lite Brite.

Getting back to the goodies for my boys, here's Petey to wish you all some happy holidays!

And Elvis likes the tree too! He's having happy puppy dreams.

May you all share in the warmth of the season!

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Butternut Squash Casserole

Last week I was sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office, flipping through the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. I will admit that I go straight for the last pages of the magazine because that's where the recipes are. And that's where I found the original recipe for this dish.

I love butternut squash. Its so awesome when it's roasted. It's sweet and savory and so colorful too. And the texture is so awesome.

So it was just me in the waiting room, and I knew I had to make this dish. My first instinct was to rip out the recipe from the magazine. But I decided to be big, and I resisted, and as soon as my appointment was over I went running home to look up the recipe online.

I'm sure that the recipe would have been wonderful without the changes I made, but I wanted to add some more protein and make it a meal in a bowl. So I added spicy apple chicken sausage.

For the pasta, I chose a noodle called campanelle. I'm guessing that campanelle means "bell" or "little bell" (campana in Spanish). And they do look like little bells!


They are really pretty when they're cooked.



The results were really nice. It was a hearty, warm-you-up-on-the-insides kind of meal; the perfect flavors for this time of year. I'll admit that I was expecting it to hold it's shape once it was cooked and it did not. But I didn't load it up with gooey cheese either.

I liked this dish a lot and I can see myself making it again. But since it didn't hold it's shape, I thought of an alternative approach for next time: add more liquids so it's sort of in a sauce. I'm thinking of milk with a flower thickener and going a little heavier on the Parmesan than I did this time.

So once you get through all that leftover turkey and the sides, here's a dish you may want to consider making!



Ingredients
1-1/2 lb. butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut in 1-inch cubes (3 cups)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
8 oz. dried noodles (I used campanelle)
4 tablespoons butter
6 shallots, minced
6 chicken sausages (I used apple flavored, but Italian would be good as well)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 8-oz. carton mascarpone cheese
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, chopped
1 cup panko (Japanese-style) bread crumbs or soft bread crumbs

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Toss the squash, oil, and salt and pepper in a bowl. Place the squash into an 15x10x1-inch baking pan. I line my pan with tin foil because it saves me from washing it, which can be tough if any of the vegetables stick to the bottom.

Roast, uncovered, for 40-45 minutes, until the squash is lightly browned and tender. Stir the mixture twice during the roasting period.

While the squash is roasting, cook the noodles according to package directions in a large pot. Drain them and set them aside.

Saute the shallots in butter. Remove them from the pan and set them aside.

Remove the casings from the sausage and cook it in the same pan you just used so that it crumbles. You might have to actually chop it some with your spatula.

When everything is ready, add the noodles back to the pot. Then stir in the lemon juice, mascarpone, 1/2 cup of the Parmesan, 1/4 cup parsley, and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and black pepper. Mix it up well and transfer it to a greased baking dish.

In small saucepan melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter; stir in bread crumbs, remaining Parmesan, and parsley. Sprinkle it onto the noodle mixture. Bake, uncovered, 10 minutes, until crumbs are golden.

Serves 8-10.

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Quick Green Chile Stew ♥ Recipe

Today's vegetable recipe: A quick-quick and flavorful stew made with canned beans and canned green chile sauce but surprisingly good. Weight Watchers 4 points (Old Points) & 5 points (PointsPlus). Vegan.

~recipe & photo updated 2011~
~more recently updated recipes~

So here it is, the Sunday before Thanksgiving. For the next few days, kitchens all across the U.S. will be busy-abustle. The fridge will be packed. The counter space will be at a premium. The cook will be up to her elbows in flour. Family and friends will be arriving. And oh my, there's so much to do. Trouble is, despite all that food, there's nothing to eat, not til Thanksgiving dinner anyway!

So consider this a public service announcement: the one recipe to throw onto the stove to fill people's bellies, quickly, healthfully, flavorfully, inexpensively. Make time for this -- you'll be glad.
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