Why haven’t I posted in over a month? Well, because the thought of food, much less the smell of anything cooking, made me very sick. I couldn’t even look at my RSS feed without feeling a little green. I finally went to the doctor at the beginning of November and – surprise! I am happy to announce that we are expecting our first child in mid-June 2012! I am now to the point where I can at least stand to smell a working kitchen again, and carefully eat small meals – both of which meant Thanksgiving wasn’t a bust, a major concern – but I won’t be doing much cooking for a while. And that is because…

After living in Kentucky for a little over a year, we have had issues finding full-time employment and benefits. The economy here just isn’t what we expected when we moved up, and it’s not improving. No benefits = no insurance, and that isn’t something we can accept now that we have a baby on the way. So on the 15th of December, we will be putting all our kept belongings into a Uhaul trailer and various vehicles for the not-so-terribly-long drive back to Athens, Georgia. We can get the husband back behind the wheel of a police cruiser, where he belongs, and… well, we’ll figure something out to do with me.

In any case, the next two weeks will be full to the brim with obstetrics appointments, packing what we want and tossing or donating what we don’t, cleaning house, split shifts at work and preparing the dogs for a long-haul trip, I won’t have much time to myself before the move. After the fact, I don’t expect to be able to do much until after the holidays, what with settling in and the general holiday madness. So, barring the odd picture or comment, don’t expect to see much of me until after the first of the year. Have a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, until we meet again!

Better yet, you can save on dishwashing if you do like I did, and drink it from a mug.

Cream of Broccoli Soup
yields 4 servings

ingredients:

1 ½ lb broccoli florets, frozen
1 medium onion, diced
3 cups chicken stock
1 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter, separated
pinch of nutmeg

directions:

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat in a 3-quart saucepan and sauté onions until golden and softened. Add 1 cup of stock, deglaze if necessary, and broccoli. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until broccoli is tender. Remove from heat. If using a standard blender or food processor, allow to cool for a few minutes and puree in batches to desired consistency. Return the puree to the pan and add the remaining 2 cups of stock, as well as the nutmeg, remaining tablespoon of butter, and cream. Stir gently over medium heat until soup is heated through. Serve plain, or with shredded cheese, sour cream and chives, or whatever your heart desires.

*Note: I’ve found that a couple of tablespoons (roughly) of white wine added to the soup after pureeing gives it a nice bit of extra body. (I keep leftover wine in the freezer in Ziploc bags for adding to soups and stews; it usually ends up as less of an ice-pack and more of a wine slushy.) However, if you’re not interested in the alcohol, leaving it out won’t hurt a bit.

Shame on me.

This sauce smells excellent when cooking. It would probably make a wonderful surprise as a sweet-savory tart filling of some type, if you or your guests are into that kind of thing. But I’ll take it without complaint as this velvety sauce – on grilled chicken, roasted pork loin or beef roast. Just as a sop sauce, not a barbeque sauce. I don’t know if it was the cultivar or flesh consistency or water content of my peaches, or the fact that I combined the vinegar and bourbon before adding it to the onions and peaches – whatever it was, the sauce did not function as I would have liked as a marinade on chicken breasts, leaving a burned crust on the grill rather than holding to the chicken. (Could have something to do with my grill, too. That aside, sop sauce, thanks.) I doubt it was the absence of the dry mustard, which you’ll notice isn’t in my adaptation. I don’t keep it around, so I didn’t use it. If I’m mistaken and dry mustard has thickening properties I was previously unaware of, please tell me and I will go buy some dry mustard. It would be worth it, since I aim on making this sauce again as soon as I can get more peaches off the tree in the yard. These peaches were store-bought, please don’t stone me (ha ha – terrible pun).

Peach Bourbon Sop Sauce
adapted from Gastronome Tart

yields ~2.5 cups

ingredients:
1 lb fresh peaches
1 medium sweet onion, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup bourbon of choice (I used Woodford Reserve)
2 1/2 tablespoons honey (no sourwood)
2 tablespoons Dijon or stone-ground mustard
1/2 + 1/4 teaspoon light brown sugar
kosher salt and chili powder to taste

directions:
Peel peaches by cutting an ‘x’ in the seat, blanching in boiling water for 10-12 seconds and cooling in an ice bath, then slipping the skins off by hand or with a knife. Warm oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions, 1/2 teaspoon sugar and salt  and sauté, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft, about 7-8 minutes. While onions are cooking, remove pits from peaches and chop roughly. Note: skinned, blanched peaches are extremely slippery, and therefore, kinda tricky to handle. Please be sure your knife is sharp or you run the risk of slipping the blade off your peaches and into your hand. Not pleasant.

When onions are softened, add the peaches and let them caramelize lightly for 2-3 minutes before adding the remaining ingredients and stirring to coat. Bring to a gentle simmer and let everything cook down, uncovered, until peaches are soft, about 30 minutes. Puree to your desired consistency.

If you want to can this and put it away for the colder, less cheery months, one batch will make roughly one and a half pints, or three jelly jars. Can using the water bath method for 10-15 minutes.

I recommend serving this over meat (sopped post-cooking, of course) and with Caramelized Red Wine Brussel Sprouts (post forthcoming). You’ll love me later.

(Meatless) Monday:

Breakfast – French Toast Casserole

Lunch – Turkey Wrap, Apple & Popcorn

Supper – Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli with Marinara; 4-Ingredient Magical Chocolate Cake

Tuesday:

Breakfast – French Toast Casserole

Lunch – Leftover Ravioli

Supper – Oven-Fried Buttermilk Chicken Tenders, Steamed Vegetables, Dinner Rolls

Wednesday:

Breakfast – Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

Lunch – Oven-Fried Buttermilk Chicken Tenders, Steamed Vegetables, Dinner Roll

Supper – Garlic-Herb Pork Chops, Broccoli Salad; One-Bowl Chocolate Chip Cookies

Thursday:

Breakfast – Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

Lunch – Garlic-Herb Pork Chops, Broccoli Salad

Supper – Beer-Battered Fish Tacos with Tangy Red Cabbage Slaw, Mexican Rice

Friday:

Breakfast – Breakfast Pizza OR Breakfast Burritos

Lunch – Beer-Battered Fish Tacos with Tangy Red Cabbage Slaw, Mexican Rice

Supper – Friday Night Date Night

Saturday:

Breakfast – Biscuits & Sausage Gravy OR Yeasted Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread

Lunch – Refrigerator Scramble

Supper – Family Supper – Aunt Jane’s

Sunday:

Breakfast – Pancakes, Eggs and Hashbrowns

Lunch – Family Lunch – Uncle Joe’s

Supper – Do-It-Yourself Pizza; Browned Butter White Chocolate Blondies (recipe forthcoming)

Being, of course, requires more organization and discipline and I have considered that as well. And I want to address other areas of my life besides just food, too – other areas that are related to food – or rather, food is related to those areas, like the garden I hope to grow in the backyard, the farmer’s market in town and the eggs I buy from a county local; or the quiet decision to live more sustainably and what that really means for me and mine. The real meaning of words and using them to their best. And of course, bettering my photography skills to something besides “i takez pix.” (Maybe I’ll even build that DIY lightbox that’s floated through almost all blogs, one day.) The point of this creation is not only to share myself with the rest of the world, but to better myself in the process – as it was, I was just writing and posting to post, following an arbitrary internal desire to follow a schedule that never really manifested.

My first desire is to set up a more dependable schedule – one day, food; one day, gardening and green, maybe two; and hopefully Menu Plan Monday. It depends on how much I can find to say. Hopefully my schedule is finally nailed down enough that I can schedule posts on Saturday for the following week. I’ll be working on a buffer in the next two weeks so I can actually get this in effect. In the meantime, I intend to clean up the blog overall: visual design, tags, language – all but the content and the photos. (The really poor posts I can use later for slow-thought days – remake and retry.)

In honor of this revival, here is the first recipe I’ve been inspired to put up in quite some time. It’s not new to many, and it’s not fancy; what it “is,” is filling, cheap and lovely in its own homely way. Many people have made it and loved it; I am now one of those fortunate folks. Torta Española or torta de patatas (or tortilla de papas, or a combination of these as your preference or region dictates) is nothing more than a layer of oh-so-thin potato and onion slices lightly browned, then covered with egg and cooked as an omelet. Simple to make and as versatile as you like it, my only recommendation is that you make it in batches that are manageable enough to flip, or beware that yours may end up as ugly as mine.

Oh, and add cheese.

Torta Española

serves 2-4

ingredients:
1 medium waxy potato, thinly sliced
1/2 white onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
salt and pepper
5 eggs
2 tbsp water
2-3 oz cheese

directions:
Slice the potatoes and onions as thin as possible, using a mandoline if available. Heat the olive oil and butter in a medium nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; when the foam subsides, add the potatoes and onions and season generously with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Stir to coat, then let brown as a single layer for 2-4 minutes on each “side.”

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat the eggs with the water and a light sprinkling of salt and pepper. Shake the skillet to settle the potatoe-onion mixture into an even, flat layer. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and turn the pan to distribute the egg evenly. With one hand, stir the eggs in one direction while shaking the pan in the other. Do this until the eggs thicken a little, add cheese, then let cook until the eggs are browned on the bottom. Flip the omelet and let cook until the center is just set. Serve warm with ketchup.

Not that I’m complaining much – I like the snow. Georgia didn’t really have snow to speak of, only the ice that appears around January and hangs around until March. Kentucky doesn’t usually have too much snow on average, but every so often we get really big winters. This year was the year – we even got a White Christmas for the first time. Cullen has also gotten plenty of practice shoveling snow from various surfaces.

Even as much as I love seeing all the pretty, pristine white, sometimes it’s a little too much. I get snow-blindness, and then I get depressed. (Okay, so that’s not the exact order of things, but they do happen.) Stuck inside all the time, too cold to go out, too wet to go play? Bleh. On top of that, the dogs are going stir-crazy – we can’t allow them to romp and play inside as much as they’d like, and playing outside in the snow is fun until ice balls form between their footpads. This all makes for sad puppies. Owners, too.

While I can’t cheer up the dogs with dessert or citrus, I can do a little something edible for myself that brings the sunshine of summertime inside for a little while. Citrus seems to be everyone’s go-to for a wintertime pick-me-up, and I’m no different. I started making this earlier this winter as something to bring for dessert to a weekly supper at my aunt’s, and I’ve made it several times since. I adapted the lemon tart provided by the gracious Mrs. Humble – I don’t have an 11″ tart pan, so I used a pre-made 9″ pie crust. The recipes makes more than double a standard pie; I bet you could probably get at least two small tarts out of this in addition to the two standard pies. I have also made it in a deep dish, and it fills almost too full. The baking time is also different because of the depth of filling, but it still works out well. Just add 20-30 minutes to the baking time below, until the center is set but still a bit wiggly. Mrs. Humble dusts hers with confectioner’s sugar. I’m sure that’s plenty tasty, but I top mine with sweetened whipped cream. (I’m sure you could also use meringue, but since I don’t eat it, I don’t make it without sincere persuasion.)

Thankfully, the sun seems to be coming out more often now, and the snow seems to be leaving us alone for a while. Granted, we still have March to deal with, and after the winter we’ve had, it will be a formidable one. Thankfully, with lemon pie on my plate, I think we can deal with it a bit longer.

Lemon Custard Pie
(adapted from Not So Humble Pie)

serves 8-10

ingredients:

1 frozen unbaked pie crust
2 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
1 c granulated sugar
2 pinches of salt
6 large eggs
1 c fresh lemon juice
1/2 c heavy cream

1-1 1/2 c heavy cream
1/2 c confectioner’s sugar

directions:

Preheat your oven to 350°F and position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Press 1-1/2 tablespoons of lemon zest into the unbaked crust before baking according to package directions. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.
Process the one cup of sugar with the remaining lemon zest in your food processor or with a hand blender for about 2-3 minutes, until the zest is finely ground. Pour the sugar into a bowl and add the eggs, lemon juice and a pinch of salt; whisk until smooth.
In a separate bowl, beat the 1/2 cup of heavy cream to soft peaks and then whisk the cream into the sugar/egg mixture until just blended. Pour this mixture into your still warm crust and bake for 20-30 minutes, until the filling is just set in the center.

Allow the tart to cool completely. Refrigerate if desired. When ready to serve, beat the 1-1 1/2 cups of heavy cream with the 1/2 cup of confectioner’s sugar until a desirable consistency is reached. Serve delicate, rich slices topped with a generous dollop of whipped cream.

Yes, indeedy, you read that right: mull. Not unlike “church fluff” and “funeral potatoes” in its own right, chicken mull is something you’ll often see at a church potluck or family gathering, usually in the colder months (when they make an appearance). It is also one of those foods that just doesn’t venture too far from its origins – chicken mull, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t exist far out of North Georgia, quite possibly not even out of the general Athens area. I know it definitely didn’t exist in my houses when I was growing up. Chicken and dumplings, chicken and stars, chicken noodle – chicken mull was nowhere to be found. Don’t confuse it with chicken stew, which is a different animal altogether. Stew involves vegetables, is mostly broth and leaves out the cream.

Though the origins of chicken mull elude me, I can be fairly sure that it was created in a time of a short-listed pantry. It’s pretty simple to make – shredded chicken, stock or broth, milk, crackers and salt and pepper. If you buy a whole chicken, as seen here, instead of chicken in a can and stock in a box (or can), you add cooking time but save money – poaching the chicken gives you plenty of stock and more than enough meat, but requires shredding by hand and straining the stock (my preference) before adding the meat and remaining ingredients into your liquid. You also have the option in such case to control what goes into your mull – always a plus in my book. The frugality appeal is what has made it so popular as a church potluck – cheap and easy, in monstrously gigundous rather large quantities if needed.

(Behold, my ugly CrockPot. Ahem.)

Mull is comfort food at the top of the list – creamy, thick and velvety on the tongue. Easy to make, and enough for leftovers to eat the next day or freeze for another time.  Fix it with a salad and have a full meal. The best way to eat it is hot out of the pot, with a generous helping of Texas Pete (no Tabasco, please), and maybe some extra crackers.

Chicken Mull
A Family Recipe

ingredients:
One whole roasting chicken (4-5 lbs)
2-3 cups chicken stock or broth
2 cans of evaporated milk or 3 1/2 cups milk or cream
2-3 sleeves of Ritz (or crackers of choice)
Salt and pepper to taste

directions:
Boil chicken in deep stockpot or crockpot, with enough water to cover, until meat is done and tender. Remove chicken from stock, let cool enough to handle, and shred meat from the bone. Strain stock back into cooking pot, add shredded meat, milk and additional broth. Let cook to a simmer, add crushed crackers and salt and pepper, and cook to desired thickness. Add more crackers if needed. Serve with hot sauce and extra crackers if desired.

It really is as simple as that. More crackers means a thicker mull; using milk or cream means a richer mull than using evaporated milk. It’s extremely forgiving, and very tasty. I promise you won’t regret making it the next cold night that comes around!

Woah, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? Meal Plan Monday, first of all. Other posts, forthcoming.

The ever-popular Meal Plan Monday started over at I’m an Organizing Junkie, thanks to Laura. I’ve been trying out MPM without posting it for the past couple of weeks, just so that we can cut back on the grocery bill. I’m coming to like it, even if planning for a whole week’s meals is a little hard to do. Especially when plans don’t work out like you planned at all. But hey, at least I had a plan, right? This week, especially, is difficult – the weather is doing this weird winter-at-night, summer-during-the-day temperature range. What I call “pneumonia weather.” It makes it really hard to plan for fall food when it’s supposed to be 70°F during the day and 40°F after the sun goes down. Nonetheless, we persevere!

(Meatless) Monday: Fettucine marinara with garbanzos, Brussel sprouts

Tuesday: Sunday Leftovers Redux – Pork hash sandwiches, homemade baked macaroni & cheese & broccoli; sugar-free banana pudding

Wednesday: Roast Chicken & Vegetables, Rolls; White Crème Brûlée

Thursday: Grilled garlic pork chops, carrots & young sweet peas

Friday: Date Night Out!

Saturday: Ribollita & Crusty Italian Bread

Sunday: DIY

The purpose of this post, on the other hand, has not very much to do with food and everything to do with 1) saying hello; 2) giving a short shout-out to a friend of mine in Lexington who just started her own food blog, Dancing in the Kitchen; and 3) giving another, longer shout-out to the October Maximize Your Mornings group at Inspired to Action (ItA). ItA is a Christian, mom-centric website run by Kat dedicated to giving moms tips and advice on raising children, keeping house, staying sane and giving back to Him (in addition to other things, of course). Maximize Your Mornings started out as Kat’s free ebook, which focuses on using the quiet early morning as “you-time” – time for coffee, exercise, Bible study and whatever you want to use it for. She has partnered up with Michelle at So I Married a Mennonite to do another MYM challenge for October – if you’re interested in joining up with the rest of us, check out the Week 1 start-up post linked above; #hellomornings, @inspiredtoaction and @michellebygrace on Twitter; and the ItA BlogFrog forum.

See you soon!

Maggy and Alice (Three Many Cooks and Savory Sweet Life creators, respectively) have created a site called Friends of Ivory Hut. Its purpose is to update those of us praying and hoping for the recovery of Erika and her family and, more importantly, as a portal for the PayPal donation fund they have set up. Their goal is to raise $10,000 by next week, at which point they will shut down the PayPal and put their energy toward new fundraisers. Please, even if you can only donate $5, every little bit counts. While insurance will replace the material losses, it won’t replace keepsakes and family heirlooms – and it won’t replace the income lost while Erika and her family are waiting to receive their insured replacements. Erika is a freelance photographer. Every bit of her equipment, from camera to lenses to brand-new MacBook, was burned beyond recognition in the fire.

Please help, however you can. Send your prayers, your love, and if you can, a little donation. It can be easy to forget that behind the website are people with outside lives and families – this is the time to remember.