Spaetzle

Tried the goulash. Kids don't like goulash. I think it's the complex flavors. Little kids don't really care for a lot of flavors. That's why they like Kraft Macaroni over really good homemade Macaroni and Cheese made with three different cheeses and nutmeg and eggs and evaporated milk. Baby did like the spaetzle plain and dry. Tae just liked the carrots. Jax didn't much care for any of it; although he did eat some spaetzle. I may try to modify goulash so it is simple so the boys might like it.

The spaetzle- I love making spaetzle. I whisked together 4 extra large eggs and 1 1/2 cups milk. Then I added 4 cups of flour and 2 tsp of salt and mixed it all together with a wooden spoon. I spread several scoops of the thick "batter" on a cutting board. Then I used this to scrape small sections of batter into boiling water (you'll dip the edge of the scraper in the boiling water, and the noodle will fall right off). After all the spaetzle floated to the top, I used a mesh scoop to fish out all the spaetzle and put it in ice water. There was enough batter to make five batches. My guess is that just as crepes are best really, really thin, spaetzle pros probably pride themselves on really thin spaetzle. That Graham Kerr Bash n Chop made it easy.

So thumbs up on the spaetzle- thumbs down on the goulash.

The picture above is my rendition of goulash next to a glass of "the Little Penguin" shiraz which is a pretty darn good cheap Australian red wine. I liked it better than the Llano Estacado cabernet we got. I think the next time I try making goulash I won't use balsamic vinegar and I'll tone down the spices. BTW "the Little Penguin" wines would make good Christmas gifts. The cork has little penguin "footprints" on it. Too cute!

Ghoulash

I was readling my bloglines and got inspired by this post to make goulash. When researching goulash, I found it is a very different dish for different people. When Puddleglum makes his mother's goulash, it is really a baked pasta dish with shells, tomato paste, ground beef, and cheese, and it is flavored with Lowrey's. My guess is that it was Puddleglum's mom's fall back dish when there wasn't much to make, and she just called it "goulash". When I think of goulash, this picture to the left is what I imagine.

Elise from Simply Recipes had fluffy dumplings with her goulash, but I decided to make Spaetzle instead. Click this link to see one way to make spaetzle, and click this next link to see a video of two German guys making spaetzle. The show in the video below also shows how to braise veal and lamb as well as how to make spaetzle, and I am going to use some of the techniques on the video to make my goulash. It's a 28 minute video, but you can move the arrow to fast forward to get to the good parts. I hope the goulash turns out, and I hope the boys like it.

This video is kind of funny because at certain parts there is some tension between the two hosts, and it's easy to think in SNL mode and come up with some funny things the younger guy is thinking. If this video were an SNL skit, then they would wind up in an insult match toward the end that results in a brawl.

Snow Day!

I left early to get to work on time, and the roads were a mess. It was dangerous in spots. The schools were running 2 hours late. I called Puddleglum and told him to keep the boys home. We have to drive across town for both boys' school, and it would have taken over an hour to deliver both boys. Then when I got to work, it was so slow, I got to come home early. I stopped by the store and picked up some things. When I got home Puddleglum had made a nice fire, and we played and roasted hot dogs and made smores.

Before dinner we all had another round of playing in the snow while our chicken and dumplins cooked. Then we came inside and took off all the wet snow gear and had hot chicken and dumplins. After hot baths, all three boys are now in bed!
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Mama's Homemade Chicken and Dumplings

(Takes as little as an hour and a half or you could start it earlier when Baby is napping and cook on low. If you take the chicken out in the morning and put in the black stock pot with hot water, it will thaw by just after lunchtime).

Rinse one of Alan's organic whole chickens and put in red soup pot breast up. Fill with RO water until just about 2 inches of the tip of the chicken is sticking out (you don't want the pot too full so it won't boil over). Add sea salt, parsley, white pepper, and three bay leaves and bring to a boil.

Put about 2 TBSP butter in the big copper saute pan. Add about 1/2 an onion chopped and 1 or 2 chopped celery stalks (cut stock in thirds lengthwise and then chop) and 1 or 2 carrots chopped. (You could also add chopped turnip and even some garlic cloves). Sweat the veggies, then add to soup pot.

After everything comes to a good boil, lower heat to low and put cover on. You can cook on low for a few hours or keep the temp about med low at a low boil and cook for about an hour.

Remove chicken from pot and put in the copper saute pan to cool. Use a soup ladle to ladle out as much of the yellow chicken fat at the top of the soup pot while not wasting good broth. Find the bay leaves and remove. Take the mesh strainer and scoop out as much of the onion as you can (little kids don't like too much onion in their soup and you already got all the good flavor of the onion out). You could strain out some of the celery, but never remove and carrot because the boys will eat that.

When the chicken has cooled enough to handle, remove the skin and start getting your chicken meat. Tear into small pieces and add to the soup pot. After you've removed all the good meat (paying attention to get as much of the good dark meat), give Sasha the skin and any yucky or tough pieces of meat and pour the skimmed chicken fat over all of it for her.

Make Quick Dumplins
2 c. flour
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 c. milk (gently warmed in microwave)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter

Combine and cut in butter. Roll out on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut in 1 inch long strips. Then crosswise into about 2 inch strips.

Add one small container of organic chicken broth to the soup pot and bring to a boil. (If you are just doing soup without dumplings, add a can of corn, and make a pot of rice). If you have it, squeeze the juice of one lime into the soup pot (but no more than one- maybe even just half). Salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil. Add your chicken and reduce heat to low. Put cover on soup pot. After a few minutes, add your dumplings. Cover the pot again so the dumplings will steam and get fluffy, and cook on low heat until the dumplings are cooked through.

If you are doing Chicken Noodle Soup, add half of a 1 lb bag of egg noodles before you add your chicken. Boil for 10 minutes until the noodles are soft.

Tuna Fish

I was looking at some old photos, and I saw these. Tae and Jax were probably both four or so at the time. I was trying to document some family recipes for a homemade cookbook (that never got made), and I wanted to include my recipe for Tuna Salad. This is a recipe I have come up with myself. I think it makes tuna yummy. You chop a couple of dill pickles, a couple of carrots, a fourth of an onion or so. Mix in tuna, mayo, a shot of pickle juice, a couple of big dashes of dried parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. The tuna in this picture is Chicken of the Sea albacore, but albacore has a higher mercury content than smaller tuna. We have switched to Tongal tuna over Chicken of the Sea because Tongal tuna is wild caught while I believe Chicken of the Sea is farmed, and farmed tuna has much more mercury than wild caught. You must toast the bread for these sandwiches. Serve with good chips. My tuna salad is in the same class of food as my favorite childhood sandwich- sliced dill pickle rounds and bologna with mayo. Aren't the boys so cute in this shot?!

Beignets

Puddleglum has been wanting to make beignets for a while now. This morning he got everything together and started before I even got out of bed. He used this recipe from cooksrecipes.com, and the beignets turned out well. They were very light and not too sweet. One batch is the perfect amount for all five of us, but I imagine it won't be too long before we'll have to make two batches.

We're not going to Sunday School. We haven't been going to Sunday School in a while. I guess we're heathens that way. We're usually just glad to make it to church on time. I often wonder how other people seem to always have it together. Probably because they don't have a blog...

Puddleglum made a big pot of coffee, and the beignets were so good. We don't have chicory coffee, but what we have was fine. I guess I could have made cafe au lait, but I like my coffee black, and any saved calories is a good thing. I've gained two pounds in the last week. Tae is my little running/workout buddy, and he really enjoys our runs. I have been lazy the last couple of weeks, and I am off my game. I need to get back in there.

I have my makeup done, but I better go get ready for church. Jon has picked out a very interesting ensemble. He picked out a dark blue t-shirt with yellow trim. He has a matching clip on tie, and a red cardigan on top. Puddleglum has just informed me we have to leave in 15 minutes. Gotta run!!!

Rainy Sunday Morning

This morning as we were making the muffins, I kept admiring the view from our window. I know it doesn't look like much, but where we live this is as good as it gets. This picture doesn't make it look as pretty as it really is. This is the east horizon, so atleast we can watch the sunrise most mornings, even if our neighbor's brick wall is always in sight. From the street you can't see the horizon, but our house sits on a ridge so we can see above it. When the appraisal district tried to raise our appraisal value, we fought it so our taxes wouldn't go up. Puddleglum took a picture of the brick wall from the street level. The amount that they wanted to raise our home value to was ridiculous, but the photo of the wall along with a well-written letter got them to keep the value where it was before they raised it.

This week we're getting some warmer weather. I like the warm weather, but I am ready for more mornings like this. I like it when it is foggy out in our little "valley" or when it's covered in a blanket of snow. We never get blizzards, but we do get a couple of good snows every year. I am looking forward to making hot chocolate for the boys and snuggling up to a fire with Puddleglum.

Pumpkin Muffins

This morning we were trying to decide if we should make waffles or pancakes. Then I suggested we have pumpkin pancakes with the other half of the pumpkin that we used for the soup last night. Tae made a face at that. Puddleglum pulled out his favorite cookbook and asked, "how about muffins?" That sounded good.

We started with a basic muffin recipe;
1 3/4 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil

The recipe calls for 1/3 cup of sugar, but we substituted 3 Splenda packets and about 1/2 tablespoon sugar. To make pumpkin muffins the cookbook recommended 1/2 cup canned pumpkin and 1/4 cup chopped pecans. I decided that we should use 1 full cup pumpkin puree and 1/2 cup chopped pecans. We also added cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. This made 12 muffins.

The recipe says not to put the batter in paper muffin cups, but rather you should lightly grease your muffin pan and pour the butter directly into the pan. You bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. With our oven, 17 to 18 minutes would have been enough. They were really good, but I think they needed to be just a tad sweeter. They would have been really good with the recipe as we made them, but with a generous sprinkling of brown sugar on top. We'll do that next time. The boys liked them except that Tae picked out all the pecans and gave them to me. He choose his own clothes for church. I thought he did a good job.