Brownies That Can't Be Beet...Or Can They?

Chocolate!

Do I have your attention?

Good.  I mean, it's hard (practically impossible!) to smell food over the web, but if you could, you'd be rushing to my kitchen right now for these brownies.  And I'd probably let you nosh down about 3 of them before I told you what was in them.

Breadveggies: Gingered Carrot Zucchini Bread

If you've ever planted a zucchini plant, you're probably familiar with how overwhelming they can be once they start producing.  There's even a "Leave a Zucchini on Your Neighbor's Porch" day.  I try to shred and freeze as much as I can to keep up with it, and that means that I have a frozen stash of zucchini on hand for most of the rest of the year until the next garden zucchini-fest comes around.

I'm always on the lookout for ways to use that zucchini, and this Gingered Carrot Zucchini bread recipe is one of my go-to's for several reasons.  One: it is delicious.  Two: it is easy.  Three: the recipe makes 2 loaves at once, so I can either give one away or freeze it for later.  Four: it's a nice way to show kids that vegetables aren't scary.  I mean, this bread has not one, but TWO vegetables in it, and it's fantastic!

Savory Simmered Beef Ribs

I buy cows.  Well, parts of cows.  Halves, quarters...  It's a good way to go to get high quality beef for an affordable (in the long run) price.  I've always meant to do a post about buying the cow, and I swear, I'm going to get there, but not today.  But it relates to today's post because when you buy a half or a quarter cow, you might get some cuts that you aren't as familiar with, and the best value is to use all the parts.  So, with that in mind, beef ribs.

My vegan friend posted something on Facebook the other day that said something like, "So, you say you are humane because you use the entire animal?  You know who else does that?  The animal."  I get it.  But if you're reading this post after seeing the title, you probably aren't vegan.  And if you are a meat-eater, it really is responsible to not let parts go to waste.  So, on with the recipe:

Paprika and Pierogi: Hungarian Chicken Stew

Baby, it's cold outside.  Really, really cold.  Which makes it stew weather.

Stews are great.  They are warm and filling, like a cozy blanket for your insides.  I love curling up with a bowl of savory goodness and watching the snow fall from the comfort of my warm kitchen.

This chicken stew is one of the favorites around my house, as far as stews go.  Probably because of the pierogi.  I mean, you can't go wrong with a good pierogi.  They're potatoes wrapped in pasta...I could practically live in them and die of carb happiness.  I'm not going to lie to you here, homemade pierogi are amazing.  I used to work as a teacher in an area in the city that had a large concentration of Polish immigrants, and I have tasted some fantastic pierogi.  Thank goodness for cultures that like to feed the people who teach their children!  However, also from personal experience, making homemade pierogi is not the easiest process.  And, as much as I like spending all day in the kitchen, I also like meals that you can get on the table in a decent amount of time on busy days.  Fortunately, there are a lot of good natural brands of pierogi in the freezers of grocery stores these days.  Not quite as good as homemade, but still pretty darn delicious.  Peter and Pat's pierogi are the ones I've been using lately, after discovering them at a Sam's Club exhibit thing.  For this recipe, I would go with either onion or cheddar pierogi.

Okay, I got a bit ahead of myself there.  Let's get to the stew.

Cinderella's Revenge - Crushing the Pumpkin

Pumpkin in cans.  I can't even talk about it without gagging.  But I love, love, LOVE almost anything pumpkin!  Pumpkin muffins?  Yep.  Pumpkin eggnog?  Oh yeah.  I even discovered yesterday that I like O'Fallon Pumpkin Beer, and I don't really even like beer!  But when I open a can of pumpkin, the look, the smell...it all churns my stomach.

Luckily, there's a much better way to get pumpkin.  Does it take a little more time and work than opening a can?  Honestly, yes, it does.  But you also get a much better pumpkin taste, you save money, and you don't have to worry about what ill effects the metal in the can might have on your long-term health.  By know, you've probably figured out what a control freak I can be about my food, and nothing makes me happier than being able to control where my food comes from and how it's handled and prepared.  So, why should pumpkin be any different?

Jewels in the Garden - Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

We are coming into major tomato time around these parts.

Last weekend we were away, and when we got back, I found a ton of ripe fruit on my cherry tomato plants.  Thing is, from now for at least a month, I'll probably get this much every other day.

Berries Are Red, Berries Are Blue...

Summer is just awesome, food-wise, here in the Midwest.

Once June hits, we know we're usually in for a stream of local fruits and veggies for the next 3 or four months.  From June's strawberry festivals to October's pumpkin patch adventures, it's all delicious.  And mid-July marks one of my favorites: blueberry season!

I've been going blueberry picking as long as I can remember, and started dragging my husband to the fields even before we were married.  (He should have known back then what he was getting into!)  Time went on, and one by one, we started taking the kids too.  Last year was a rough year for fruit crops, and the farm we usually go to was hit hard and had very little harvest, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because we discovered a patch with certified organic berries not too much more of a drive than then patch we usually went to.

The Best Things You Probably Aren't Eating Yet: Garlic Scapes

Behold the garlic scape.  Small yet mighty, beautiful but with a bite, simple in look but intense in flavor.  Garlic scapes and I were introduced through my CSA the first year we joined it, and I fell in love at first taste.

Drink Your Citrus!

Some of you may follow From Scratch on Twitter or Facebook, and you might remember that I was experimenting a couple of months ago with making my own limoncello and blood orangecello.  Which was one of those ideas that could either turn out awesome or a horrible failure, with very little in-between.

I'm happy to say that, at least as far as the blood orangecello goes, it was a huge success!

So, I'm proud to share my method with you, so that you too can get a delicious, orangy (or whatever flavor you decide to try) buzz from your own homemade liquor.

I started by googling "homemade limoncello".  I know, total creative genius.  But, as it turns out, there are at least 487,000 different recipes on the internet in English for "homemade limoncello".  Huh.  So, not as easy as I thought.  Some of these called for Everclear.  Which my well-stocked liquor cabinet does not have.  And I was feeling too thrifty (i.e. cheap and lazy) to go out and buy some.  We did, however, have an overabundance of vodka, as a couple of friends of ours always seem to come over with a new bottle, drink a couple of drinks, and then leave the rest at our house.  Some of the recipes mentioned that you could substitute vodka for the Everclear, so good to go there.

Blueberry Breakfast Cake

So, all of you had a little notebook of clipped and scribbled recipes when they were in high school, right?  I mean, I'm sure I can't be the only one.  There's got to be at least a couple other people out there...

Okay, I can face it.  I'm a cooking junkie, and have been for a while.  I would steam artichokes in my dorm room in college.  I would bake muffins to bring to high school for my friends and/or teachers.  And I would buy cooking magazines since before I could drive.  And some of the recipes that I have clipped or written out from back then are still in constant rotation at my house.  Which is a good thing.

Just fair warning, this week may be a little oatmeal-centric.  I have bananas getting too ripe, and that's perfect for a banana oatmeal snack cake.  Plus, there's a great blueberry oatmeal muffin recipe that we love here, and I might pull that one together to share.  But today, it's blueberry breakfast cake.  I'm not sure where the original recipe is from, but right now, it's in my old little recipe book with a note about it being from a Blueberry Festival in Indiana.

Frozen Assets

My freezer is legendary.  I've blogged about some of the treasures it contains, but even before this blog existed, that freezer had a following of its' own.  At one point, I was going to make it a Foursquare check-in and call it "Frostco".  My friend requested that I devote a post to my wonderful freezer.  It's out in the garage, a full standing freezer, and it is one of my most appreciated possessions.

I think a lot of people don't really use their freezers to their fullest potential.  I know I used to be scared of freezing stuff, and I thought that things that were frozen didn't taste as good.  Turns out, I was wrong.  You just have to know what you're doing.  My freezer and I don't have a perfect relationship.  Don't get me wrong.  It's horribly unorganized.  Nothing's really boxed, so it has to fit in where it can, and sometimes I end up with a 4-pound frozen chicken hitting me in the head while I'm getting frozen veggies out of the lower drawer.  And don't even get me started on the day last summer when the seal lost it's sealing power and I lost half of what was inside.  It felt like a small part of me died that day.  Maybe I get a little overly emotional about food.  But, for the most part, I love my freezer, and it's become pretty essential to my family's eating.  

Beet Haters Got to Hate

Confession time:  I hate beets.

You see, because I'm big on veggies, people assume that I love all of them.  And that's just not true.  I do like most of them, but some, especially the sweeter root veggies and squashes, take a lot of convincing for me.  I'm not big on earthy sweetness, I guess.  Beets have never been near the top of my list.  Honestly, they don't even make the list.

I always tell my kids not to say that they hate a vegetable.  I tell them that they may not like it in the way it was served, but they just have to find the way that they WILL like it.  And I use my arsenal of cooking techniques to convince them that it's true.  So far, it's worked pretty well for me.  None of them are big fans of steamed zucchini, but they love it shredded up and crisped in olive oil with a little salt and pepper, and they adore it in muffins.  So now, if you ask them, they will tell you that they like zucchini.  And if you give them something and tell them that it is zucchini, they will not have an adverse reaction to it.  As any parent of young children knows, that's the biggest part of the battle.

When Dinner Goes Wrong

I have kind of a reputation around my 'hood, and not the kind you worry about getting in high school, or the kind you fight to earn in college.  People who know me know that I'm a big fan of cooking at home, family meals, from scratch.  I'm the crunchy mom in the group, the (gasp) "healthy" one whose kids like eating crazy things like sushi and lentils and fruits and veggies.  Or at least, that's how some people think of me.  I get the impression that because of this facade, they think that I am always super on top of things, especially in the kitchen.  And there are days, weeks even, that that may be the case.  But usually not.  But sometimes, there are days where I have a grand plan, and I remember to plan ahead enough to thaw stuff from the freezer and shop for any ingredients I might be short, and I have a wonderful recipe in mind to cook, and the stars align and angels sing, and I just know that this, THIS, is the perfect day to cook a warm, rich, soul-soothing beef stew!

And then the universe laughs, once again, at my silly need to control things, and I unwrap my roast to cut it into lovely chunks for stew, and it looks...like this:

Beautiful beef, right?  Grass-fed, gorgeous color, great marbling...and frozen solid.  As a rock.  My beef guy, John, has many talents as a farmer, and apparently one of those talents is wrapping the butcher paper around the cuts of meat so well that that meat is able to hold its' temperature forever.  On the early fall afternoons when we're driving our half steer worth of beef home and don't want it to thaw in the coolers on the 4 hour drive, that's great.  But for my dreams of beef stew tonight?  Not so great.  Crushing, in fact.