Tormented Kitchen

Hello, dear readers. Welcome back! My garden is growing at an amazing pace.  We started late, thanks to worries about frost. We finally planted things in early June.  I figured the garden might be a little bit small from having plants die in the heat, but we've actually had very little die-off. We have a single zucchini plant and it is producing at a good rate.  I already have enough that I used a few in the lasagna for dinner, a batch of this zucchini bread, and I still have a few that I haven't touched. Plus, there are more on the plant! Quite a while ago, I picked up this recipe off of a message board for scrapbookers. There are so many lovely people out there making beautiful creations, not just scrapbook things, but food, crafts, and things for the home. I've been too busy to keep up on the message board, but I did friend a many of those crafty people on Facebook so I can keep up with them. Now, on the recipe details. I've made a change to ho...

Hello again my friends. This year is really flying by. I woke up and realized that we are one month away from Christmas! Goodness! I have to start getting seasonal decorations up! Speaking of seasonal things, it's getting to be citrus fruit season in the stores. Have you also noticed the bags of clementines and mandarin oranges everywhere? I usually see them under the brands of Cuties and Halos. They're so tiny and tasty. I had a flash of brilliance and bought a bag. They are great to send for the kiddos lunches, or drop a few in my purse to snack on at work. I've used clementines in cooking as well.  They are so easy to add since they're seedless and add a lovely and gentle sweet orange flavor. For fun, I made crepes and a sweet whipped cream- ricotta filling, enhanced with the juice and zest from clementines. They were divine! I knew I had to share the recipe with you, because they were too good to keep to myself. By the way, if you don't have access to...

Today I'm sharing my authentic French P â te Bris é e recipe.  It's wonderfully light and flaky with that unmistakable flavor that only comes from real buttery goodness. This recipe makes enough for two single-crust (bottom only) pies or one double-crust (top and bottom) pie. Since it's not sweet, it is suitable for sweet or savory pies, especially pot pies for dinner. I used this butter-based crust for my Cabernet Steak Pot Pie recipe and it was fabulous. Ingredients 3 cups unbleached AP flour 1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup cold water (you may not need all of this) additional flour for rolling Method 1. Chop or shred the cold butter. I used a microplane grater to grate the cold butter into a large mixing bowl.  Put it back in the fridge a few minutes to keep it cold. I had commercially salted butter on hand so that is what I used. 2. Add the flour and salt and blend with a pastry blender until evenly crumbly. (If you have unsa...

This weekend my dear hubby had a special request for breakfast. He claimed since his birthday happens mid-week, that I should fix him a special birthday quiche on the weekend.  So I was a nice wifey, and fixed a special bacon-loaded quiche. It was fabulous! I served it with cantaloupe and a salad of mixed greens with cranberries and almonds and a red wine vinaigrette dressing. Ingredients 1 9-inch blind baked pie shell 1 onion, sliced into strips 3 Tablespoons butter 1 teaspoon minced garlic 4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled 3 eggs 1 cup milk 1 cup shaved Swiss cheese, or similar cheese like Gruyere or Emmentaler Black pepper and sea salt to taste Method 1. In a medium frying pan, saute onion and butter. Cook over medium heat until onion begins to brown. Reduce heat to low and continue cooking until softened and brown. Season with salt and pepper. Add minced garlic at the very end and saute until just browned, about 1 minute.    2. Spre...

Doesn't everyone love banana bread?  I will occasionally make it without nuts because sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don't. Ba dum dum! (cymbal crash!) Ok, that was cheesy of me. Sorry. Anyhoo. I like banana bread, pumpkin bread, zucchini bread, all sorts of quick breads.  This is one of my favorites. This batch, I made using chopped Brazil nuts and it was fantastic. Rose usually makes hers with walnuts, but my dear hubby (her grandson) is allergic to them. I typically choose pecans as my general go-to nut for baking. Ingredients 1/2 cup shortening 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups AP flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 cup sour milk (add about 1 teaspoon lemon juice to regular milk, let set until it's curdled) 3 large ripe bananas, mashed about 1 1/2 cups 1/2 cup chopped Brazil nuts, walnuts, or pecans Method 1. Cream the shortening and sugar until mixed well.  Add the eggs and vanilla. 2. Sift to...

Pancakes are a breakfast staple at our house. If we don't have pancakes, then we eat their cousin the waffle at least once a week. Sometimes, we even make breakfast for dinner. The kids love it when I do that. I toss some bacon in the oven (yes, I cook bacon in the oven), then whip up some pancakes. Yumm-o! Pancakes are easy. If you're used to pancake mix in a box, you really have to try these.  They are not any more difficult to make from scratch, but the flavor is so much better. You can control the quality of your ingredients and use all organic (or not). Justin remembers eating pancakes at Grandpa Tony's house as a little kid. Tony would start putting things in a bowl and they would just turn out, without measuring. Sometimes you can do that, You just know since you've made them so many times. Just so you know, we always, always call these pancakes. They are also known as hotcakes or flapjacks, but I just don't like saying "flapjacks" or ...

You know who loves breakfast? I do. You know who else loves breakfast? My kids. Sometimes I have to take advantage of the kids and their love of pancakes and waffles. I use it as an opportunity to get them to branch out. I find that often my kids will devour breakfast and then pick and snack the rest of the day, so it's a good time to get something nutritious in them. Ages ago, when I was a teenager learning the basics of cooking, I happened across a British recipe for oat waffles. They were good, but a bit more work than I was willing put out as a 14 year-old. About Thanksgiving, I ran into that recipe again. I hadn't seen it in years. I made it a few times with some changes. I tried using quick oats instead of slow-cooking oats and swapped out the buttermilk for regular milk. They were better. On a lark, I threw in some ground flax and wheat germ. It was so good. These waffles are filling. The texture is really light with a crisp edge and they are a little chewy from the...

French toast is one of my favorite things for breakfast. Of course, I love most breakfast foods covered in maple syrup. I learned the basics of French toast from my mom ages and ages ago. Oh wait, that makes me sound old. I'm not old. I'm experienced .  (Ha ha! Just kidding!) Anyhow, as a kid, my mom normally made French toast using white bread, like for sandwiches. Once I moved out on my own, I started using different breads and experimenting with quick-dip or long soak in the egg mixture. I have heard people absolutely rave about "overnight French toast." Ahem. Excuse me. That is not French toast. What you have in that case is actually bread pudding. Yeah. Bread soaked in egg mixture and baked in a pan is bread pudding. Sheesh people. I have held onto the concept that True French Toast must be made from French bread and dipped in eggs. (My husband likes me to use sourdough occasionally. It's good too.) Of course, I have strayed from what is in the eggs, ...

First, I have to apologize to you all for this beautiful photo of Eggs Benedict.  I truly love runny poached eggs as part of Eggs Benedict. The yolk getting  mixed with the Hollandaise sauce and the salty Canadian bacon, fluffy egg white, crunchy toast...delish! I chose this photo because who wants to see plain old poached eggs on a plain plate? Not exciting, if you asked me. Oozing sauce, the variation of textures, nice! Sorry I didn't show the yolk oozing into the sauce. I was too busy snarfing to take another photo. Ingredients 2 eggs per person, really fresh 2 Qts. water 2 Tablespoons white vinegar Method 1.Combine water and vinegar in a saucepan. Bring up to a simmer. You want it to be gentle, just bubbling a tiny bit. A hard boil will ruin your eggs. 2. Break eggs into separate bowls. 3. Give the water a little stir and carefully slide your first egg into the middle. You want to be as close to the water's surface as possible so the egg doe...

Some days, you just can't beat the tasty simplicity of eggs. I like Eggs Benedict quite a lot, but I rarely take the time to make hollandaise sauce. I also rarely remember to buy English muffins.  Now, regular sliced bread is a staple so dropping a few slices in the toaster is a no-brainer. It only takes a couple minutes to fry two eggs and viola, you got something to eat. My hubby actually loves fried eggs over medium.  My instructions below will yield eggs over medium.  If you want runnier eggs, cook them about 10 seconds less.  If you like them firm (think Egg McMuffin firm) it takes about 45 seconds. Eggs cook pretty fast, so there is a very small window between just right and cooked too much. One more thing, you can really use any frying pan you are comfortanble with, however, I always use a non-stick pan.  I know uncoated pans work, but I have never had success with one. Probably because it takes a huge puddle of fat to keeps the eggs from sticki...