Week 1, Day 1: Asian Black Bean Soup and Mini Lemon Cheesecakes

Shopping went okay, despite bringing a "helper" . . . I found everything relatively easily, with the exception of edamame. Anyone know where in the grocery store to find it? I want to serve it with Friday's dinner.

Tonight's dinner recipe was given to me by my old roommate, Becky McCollaum. She earned the nickname "Becky Crocker" as she made some amazing things in our little kitchen at SUU. I think I can say she is the heart of our little group of roommates--she's the one who keeps us all in touch. She's incredibly intelligent and very talented in a huge range of areas (nursing, shooting, belly dancing, skiing, car maintenance, etc--oh, yeah, cooking!) and is a loyal and loving friend. In the last 10 years (holy cow! has it been that long since we met?!) she has become a world traveler, and I will be making several of her recipes from around the world. She inspired this challenge in more ways than one, so I thought it fitting to start with one of her recipes.

Asian Black Bean Soup

2 tsp vegetable or olive oil
1 cup chopped onions
2 tsp chopped garlic
1 cup chicken broth
3 cups canned black beans, rinsed and drained
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper
1/8 tsp ground coriander
2 tbsp orange juice
4 tbsp sour cream
2 tbsp chopped scallions

1. Heat the oil in a 4-5 quart pot over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the broth, beans, soy sauce, red pepper, coriander3/4 cup water. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, uncovered, 20 minutes.
2. Puree about 3/4 of the soup in a blender or food processor until smooth. Return the pureed soup to the pot and stir in the orange juice. Simmer the soup 5 minutes.
3. Divide the soup among 4 bowls and serve topped with the sour cream and scallions, or serve the soup over 1/2 cup cooked rice.

The Verdict: 5 thumbs up! Everyone in the family ate it and liked it, and we got rave reviews from our toughest food critic, Isaiah.

Things I would change next time: I served it over rice tonight because as it was cooking, I realized it wasn't going to be enough on its own to feed the whole family. If I were making it as a soup on it's own, I would fully double the amount of chicken broth since the texture was pretty thick. Or cook it less maybe. Adam suggested adding chicken.

Anyway, the flavor was awesome, and the sour cream and green onions were really good with it, too.

Our dessert recipe comes from another long-time friend, Melissa Yoder. We know each other from the college married ward Adam and I attended when we were first married (you know, back in the days when I really couldn't cook). She is one of the most beautiful, creative women I know. And so funny. Just read her blog, you'll know what I mean. I will also be featuring several of Melissa's recipes, which I believe were on the menu for the blessing of her littlest one, Luke. (By the way, she has adorable children!) I don't know how she made so many delicious dishes and entertained so many people just weeks after a traumatic birth, but what can I say, she's amazing!

Miniature Lemon Cheesecake Tarts

1 pkg Betty Crocker Sunkist lemon bar mix
1 8oz pkg cream cheese, softened
3 eggs
1/3 cup water
powdered sugar, if desired
lemon or raspberry pie filling, if desired

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place miniature paper baking cup in each of 36 to 48 miniature muffin cups. Divide Ready-Mixed Crust (dry) evenly among muffin cups (1 to 2 tsp each); press in bottoms of cups, using back of measuring spoon. Bake 6 to 8 minutes or until very light brown. 2. For smoothest filling, beat cream cheese and 2 eggs thoroughly in medium bowl, using electric beaters; stir in Filling Mix, water and remaining egg until smooth (a few tiny lumps may remain). Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full (about 1 tbsp each) with cream cheese mixture.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until firm. Cool 10 minutes before removing from pan. For best flavor, refrigerate 2 hours before serving. Just before serving, sprinkle with powdered sugar. Top each with 1/2 tsp pie filling. Store tightly covered in refrigerator up to 48 hours, or freeze tarts tightly wrapped in airtight container up to 4 months.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft.): For best results, use 48 miniature muffin cups. Bake 22 to 26 minutes.

What was that? Hmmmm? I can't hear you. Did you just say that lemon cheesecake isn't Asian? What do you mean? Of course it is! They have all kinds of desserts at the Mandarin Buffet, why not cheesecake? Okay, okay. I just wanted to have dessert. And it's family night, so I knew I'd be making one anyway. So, I killed two birds with one stone and made Melissa's recipe.

I learned a couple of lessons while making these cheesecakes. One is: Pay Attention and Follow the Recipe. The other is: It's Okay to Experiment and Not Follow the Recipe. Ha ha. Yeah, I messed it up. But it still tasted amazing. So there.

See, I'm really tired. Max hasn't been sleeping well. And when I started cooking this afternoon, I had a massive headache. And four noisy children (mine plus a neighbor) and an annoying dog running through the kitchen every few minutes. I started out with not enough muffin cup liners. No problem, I'll just make some without liners. Except that I got about 10 cups full of crust before I realized I hadn't greased the cups. So I dumped out the crusts, washed the pan, and started again. And then, there I was merrily going along, mixing and measuring and pouring and dang it! I realized I'd put the filling into the crusts--and I hadn't baked the crusts. At that point it wasn't just my head aching, and I just popped them in the oven. But I was immensely surprised and pleased to find that they turned out delicious anyway! Probably not the way they were supposed to be, but who cares. (I'll admit, I ate at least a dozen, they were that good. And Melissa, I stupidly inhaled while taking a bite. Even though I'd read your warning! Sheesh.)

The Verdict: 4 thumbs up, 1 thumb medium (I think Max would have given two thumbs up if he could have. He is a big fan.)

So there you go, Day 1 down, only 19 to go!

P.S. At the end of the week, I'm going to link you to the recipes in Google docs so you can print them out in convenient 4x6 cards! But if you just can't wait until then, it works to copy them off here, too.

February Dinner Challenge Schedule

Okay, dinner challenge starts tomorrow! It took a while to get it all organized (about a day and a half, plus an hour here and there, actually), but it's all together--mostly. Click here to see the whole month's calendar.

I decided to group the recipes by ethnicity, loosely, which has some benefits. One is that I think it will be fun to get out the map and talk with the kids about the cultures that the food we are eating comes from. Another is that I will have less waste with ingredients because many will be repeated throughout the week, so I won't have to buy a whole bunch of something to only use half of it and then buy it again two weeks later because what I bought before has gone bad. However, we may be sick of rice this week, and tired of beans the next, and tired of tomatoes the next. Hopefully it will just be fun.

Here's the lineup for this week.

Week 1 - Asian Week
Monday: Asian Black Bean Soup
*Miniature Lemon Cheesecake Tarts for dessert
Tuesday: Applebee's Orange Chicken Skillet
Wednesday: Crock Pot Thai Curry
Thursday: Peanut Noodles
Friday: Korean Short Ribs

Here's the shopping list:

May Have On Hand:
vegetable oil
olive oil
soy sauce
cider vinegar
rice wine vinegar
crushed red pepper
minced garlic
salt and pepper
cornstarch
cayenne pepper
sugar
brown sugar
powdered sugar
peanut butter
flour
spaghetti
4 eggs

May Need To Buy:
sour cream
8oz cream cheese
Betty Crocker Sunkist lemon bar mix
lemon or raspberry pie filling
1 cup chicken broth
3 cans black beans
ground coriander
hoisin sauce
sesame oil
13.5 oz can coconut milk
Thai red or green chili paste
short-grain, sweet, or "sushi" rice
almond rice pilaf
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4-5 boneless chicken thighs
8-10 flanken-style short ribs, thawed (thin cut, 1/4-1/2 inch thick), or boneless ribs
orange juice
2 onions
1 bunch green onions
1 garlic clove
ginger root
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1/2 large eggplant
1 large sweet potato
1 orange (or orange zest)
edamame
mushrooms
broccoli
sugar snap peas

I go grocery shopping tomorrow morning. Oddly, this is often the most stressful part for me because it can be hard to find so many unfamiliar ingredients. Usually when I shop, it's pretty brainlessly. I have a beaten path through WalMart, and I know exactly where on each aisle to find what I usually buy.

But even though it is stressful, the shopping is also one of the things I missed the most after my November challenge was over. I don't do my challenge shopping at WalMart. I patronize local grocery stores because I know they have what I am looking for, and there are people who know what they are talking about working there. It became such an adventure to learn about new vegetables and cuts of meat, and I have a real love for the produce section at Lin's and the meat counter at Albertson's now.

So, wish me luck, and watch for the barrage of blog posts!

Porter

My newest nephew (and the first on my side of the family):

Porter Steele Curry

Born January 5, 2010

2:08 pm

6 lb 8 oz

21 inches long

Here are my favorites of the pictures I took when I visited a few days after his birth. Enjoy!

Friday Favorites - Kitchen Tools

In only three days we will embark on a month-long cooking adventure. It seems only fitting that today I share my favorite cooking tools that will help me complete my mission. They are nothing really special, but they make me happy.

First, how I organize and use my recipes. This recipe box was a wedding gift, and I love it. The dividers are homemade from index cards and labels (I was poor and it was cheap and customizable). I predict that it will fill to capacity sometime in 2010, which means it took 9 years to fill it. It holds 4x6 recipe cards, and I only add a recipe when we've already proven it--it has to make the cut before it's in the box. Many recipes have been thrown out, too, when we've replaced them with something we love more. I'd say about 75% of the recipes in this box are printed off Allrecipes, and I've been using the site so long my recipes are in about 4 different formats as they've changed over the years. I continue to really love their site, especially the ratings and reviews of each recipe.

I love my recipe cards, but they do get pretty beat-up, stained, and smudged. Someday I intend to print fresh copies of all of them and laminate them. Because that may never happen, I especially love this magnetic recipe board my mother-in-law made for me this Christmas, that provides a place to put my cards to keep them visible and clean(er). I had a different one that I made, but I just love how sturdy and pretty this one is.

I do occasionally use a cookbook, too, though, and was having all kinds of trouble keeping them open while cooking, until I found that the easel the magnetic board sits in is a perfect solution for this:

Okay, now for the actual tools. There is no way I could bake without my KitchenAid. Also a wedding gift, it has withstood the test of time. You can probably see the black knobs are broken off, but it still works amazing for me. I use it mostly for baking: bread, cookies, batters, etc. For our homemade pizza, it's practically essential.

This is our humble rice cooker. We actually received two of these for our wedding, and kept the smaller one for our family of two. Our family has since grown and it still meets our needs easily. We eat a lot of rice. Adam is a big fan of Chinese food, and he has converted the whole family. We took a Chinese cooking class when Isaiah was a baby, and we did learn how to cook rice on the stove. But we also learned there was no reason to when the rice cooker did it just as well and faster, with less fuss! It also has a steamer, which I use occasionally, especially when we have fresh vegetables from the garden.

Cutting tools. One thing we learned in our Chinese cooking class was that a chef is only as good as his knife. I have pretty good knives, not anything pro quality, but waaaaay better than the $4 knife set I bought in the clearance bin at WalMart when we were first married. The knife at the top is my favorite of the set Adam bought me (for Mother's Day?) in the last year. I keep the blade straight with the steel at the right. The scissors are just handy for lots of things, trimming meat for one. I hate working with meat. Anything that makes that easier makes me happy.

The other cutting tools are more for everyday use as a mom, but they seriously are some of my favorite things, so I couldn't leave them out. A cheese slicer and apple corer/slicer are essentials for snacks with kids. I avoid cutting apples like the plague, so I love making that chore easier. It honestly really helps motivate me to feed my kids healthier snacks. And, as any mom knows, a pizza cutter is the fastest, most efficient way to make any meal toddler-bite-sized. Ours is rarely clean, actually, because it's used so much.

And finally . . .

Yeah, doesn't look like a kitchen tool, eh? It so is. If you've ever been around Max for more than 10 minutes, you know there is no way I could make dinner without him being strapped in (okay, there is: Adam. He really makes it possible). He has a highchair, too, but this keeps him close and involved in what I'm doing, while keeping him from practicing his two favorite pasttimes: loudly emptying everything in the lower drawers and cupboards (tripping Mom repeatedly in the process), and sneaking behind and around Mom to touch the pans on the stove. It's also awesome for snacks because there is less surface to "wash," I can just wipe and go.

So, you saw mine . . . what are your favorite kitchen tools?

A Pinkalicious Day

It was a rainy day, too wet to go outside.
Mommy said, "Let's make
cupcakes! What color do you want?"
"Pink!" I said. "Pink, pink, pink!"

If you have a 4- or 5-year-old girl, you know this comes from Pinkalicious, by Victoria Kann and Elizabeth Kann--it's one of our favorite books. (One of my favorite quotes from this book, which I use on my kids constantly: "You get what you get, and you don't get upset.")

We were having one of those days. Gray, blah, boring. How many days of rain can one have before they go crazy with kids bouncing off the walls? So, I picked myself up off the floor, where I was imitating a blob, still in my pajamas at 11:00 in the morning, and said to Katie, "I'm going to take a shower and then we're going to do a project, art or game or puzzle or cooking, your pick."

It should not have surprised me that she would want to cook. After all, she is my daughter. "Can we make cupcakes?" she asked. I said yes, knowing full well there were no cake mixes in either my pantry or my food storage room. There were about a bajillion cookie mixes we've picked up for a few cents with coupons when they were on sale. But no cake mixes. Oh, well. We weren't going anywhere, right?

So, I pulled out the one from-scratch cake recipe that I have in my recipe box. And we added pink. Lots of pink.

Happy Birthday Cake (aka Pinkalicious Cupcakes)

(This is the full recipe, which makes a 9x13 cake or a triple-layer round. We made half the recipe and got just over a dozen cupcakes, about 14 or 15, I think.)

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla

4 eggs

3 tsp baking powder

3 cups flour

1 cup milk

1 pinch salt

(20-30 drops neon pink food coloring, if desired)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour pan(s), or line muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla extract.

3. Separate the eggs and set the egg whites aside. Add the egg yolks one at a time to the creamed mixture, beating after each one.

4. Measure the baking powder into the flour. Sift a little of the flour mixture into the creamed mixture. Continue adding the flour and the milk alternately, while continually beating the mixture. (Add food coloring if desired.) Beat the cake batter until a few air bubbles show.

5. Beat the 4 egg whites with a dash of salt until stiff. Gently fold egg whites into the batter. Pour batter into prepared pan(s).

6. Bake at 350 degrees until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, 25-35 minutes for cakes, approx. 15 minutes for cupcakes.

We frosted them with a canister of Betty Crocker white frosting with confetti, with 10 drops of neon pink food coloring stirred in, of course.

Every time I make cupcakes I am reminded how messy they are (pouring into the cups, frosting, eating) and how much I dislike cake in general. It's just not my favorite thing. Oh, well. Katie loved it. She even wrote a book about it afterward, entitled "Katie's Pinkalicious Book." In it, she ended up pink. Of course.

Be Not Weary

Mothers of young children are tired. All the time. I was thinking about this after talking with my sister, who is the new mom of a beautiful 3 week old boy (post to come, I promise), today. I am luckier than most because sometime before Katie was born, Adam took over nighttime duty when, in my sleep, I picked Isaiah up out of the bed by his feet and shook him, yelling, "Stop kicking me!" Yeah, I'm not nice at night.

But even still, I nursed babies all through the night. And I have woken up to clean up blowout diapers and puke on the carpet. I know tired. It's not even just the nighttime stuff. It's all the millions of little things all day that you do for everyone but yourself: wiping noses, pouring cereal, fixing "owies," etc, etc. The brain cells that are sucked from you as you play Ponies or Legos for hours, sing songs and talk incessantly to build language skills in your baby, or painstakingly decipher what your toddler is so emphatically trying to tell you. It's knowing how important the job you are doing is even as it is the most tedious, frustrating, exhausting thing you've ever done.

I've been thinking about it a lot (as I mentioned in this post). Apparently I'm not the only one. I stumbled across this post at Diapers and Divinity while reading this post at Chocolate on My Cranium, and they both resonated with the scripture that's been bouncing around in my head since that night that I wrote about my New Year's Resolutions: Doctrine and Covenants 64:33 "Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great."

How to be not weary? I'm don't know exactly, but I'm pretty sure it requires more prayer and faith than I've been having lately. In any case, I am "laying the foundation of a great work." At the very least (which may be my best for now) I can keep plugging along, hanging in there. After all, "out of small things proceedeth that which is great." I can bless my family even if I am imperfect. And, as my grandpa used to say, "I can sleep when I'm dead." Or maybe he said, "I was born tired." Hmmmm . . . either way, it's past my bedtime.

What we've been eating this weekend

I'm not sure why I've been so food obsessed lately, but all I've been wanting to do is cook. I'm sure I'll be done and ready for a break, though, by the end of February. Anyway, since we've been eating so well, I thought I'd share. Here's what we've been eating this weekend.

Buttermilk Pancakes with Raspberries and Whipped Cream

Buttermilk Pancakes

1 1/2 cups flour
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp white sugar
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 egg
3 tbsp butter, melted
2-4 tbsp milk

1. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. In a separate bowl combine the buttermilk, egg, and melted butter. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk mixture, mix until smooth. Add milk until desired consistency.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying ban over medium high heat. Ladle the batter onto the griddle, brown on both sides and serve hot.

Whipped Cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat ingredients with a hand mixer until soft peaks form. Dollop on top of pancakes piled with raspberries.

Rice Krispie Treats

Just the basic recipe. I thought about talking Katie and her friend, Gabe, into making something a bit more complex (scotcheroos), but I thought for a kid project, simple is good. Plus, it's what they wanted.

Carolyn's Orange Rolls

This was dang yummy. I made giant rolls, so I got half the amount listed. And, a word of caution if you try to make this recipe, you have to use a whole lot more than 6 cups of flour. More like 10 cups. But they are so great with cream cheese frosting:

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8oz pkg cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tbsp orange juice

Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 8oz cans tomato sauce
1 10oz can enchilada sauce
1 med onion, chopped
2 tbsp chopped green chili peppers
2 cloves garlic, minced
approx. 20 oz chicken broth (I just poured it from a big box until it felt right)
1 can black beans, drained
10oz frozen corn
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp chopped cilantro (I didn't have any, I just think it would be good)

Put all ingredients in crockpot, stir. Cook 8 hours on low. One hour before serving, shred chicken an return to crockpot. Serve with tortilla chips, sour cream and cheese.

We had this last night for Sunday dinner. I love crockpot dinners on Sunday! It's so nice to come home to your house smelling yummy! Adam said he preferred my Taco Soup, but I still thought it was good and an alternative to the same old thing.