Leaping Lemurs



Noah's 8th birthday cake!

 Just wanted to share a picutre of the birthday cake (and the Lemur was edible!)  We had a wonderful party in the park last weekend.

A new day/year!

Black Bean Salmon Tostadas. Sounds a bit strange. Trust me, these are delicious! Easy and a great meal for fast weeknight fare. We have made this recipe many times since discovering it in the January 2010 EatingWell. Blonde girl's husband enjoys these with a dash of Sriracha chili sauce and maybe some mango slices with a dash of chili powder and squeeze of lime.

It seems that during the dark nights of winter our family of bloggers retreated into their respective caves for a proper hibernation. Now that the days are longer and the weather is warmer, I hope to hear of new and delicious adventures from everyone.  I'm sure everyone was just storing up cooking and eating experiences to blossom come spring!

Oven Project

This summer in addition to having a great garden which will provide food for lots of winter dishes, we built a clay, wood fired oven. The project took most of the summer. In addition to preparing the site to make the oven frost proof, Subduck built a shelter to protect the clay (and the cooks) from inclement weather. The preparations were done by mid August. A group of interested friends and neighbors then stopped by to help shape the actual oven. We made a pile of dampened sand into the shape and size of the oven interior. This sand was then covered with a 4" layer of a clay/sand mix. In a couple of days, Subduck could scoop out the sand and build a drying fire in the oven. Once the first layer was dry, we added a second 4" of clay and sand, this time with wood shavings added for insulation. Another drying fire was used for this layer.

A week or so later, we fired the oven in earnest to cook Pizza. It takes about three hours of a constant hot burn to get to cooking temp. (in this case 7-800 degrees) We cooked the crust a bit before adding the toppings. The crust took about 45 sec to brown, the pizza another minute to minuet and a half. The Pizzas were great. We have since done bread and focaccia with similar success. To do bread, the oven is cooled to temps in the 4-500 degree range.

The oven really holds the heat once you get the mass warmed up. We baked in it at 450 for a party at 6 PM. At 9:30 PM it was still 400 degrees. At 8AM next morning it was 150 degrees.

This project was a lot of fun and we look forward to sharing what we do with it in future posts. And,yes, we will be cooking out there through the winter!

Plumble

This year, the plum tree in our backyard has hundreds of plums.  When my sister came to visit, we decided we had to use some plums in our dinner.  We found a recipe for pork loin with poached plums (from Walla Walla!).  Somehow this recipe calls for 6 plums (for a total weight of 2 pounds.)  If any of you have seen such large plums, I'd like to know what they look like.  We had to use at least 20 plums to make 2 pounds - and that was a lot (see exhibit A.)  We served the pork with brown rice and green beans - as shown in Exhibit B. 

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

This recipe resulted in lots of yummy leftovers, which we enjoyed for several days.  This would be a great meal to make for 8 people.

For dessert, we made a plum crumble (we called it plumble) that also called for 2 pounds of plums.  It was tart and delicious with vanilla ice cream.

Hot Summer Supper

With the heat wave all over the east this week we,too are doing what we can to keep the house cool. One easy solution is to cook outside. The grill can handle all aspects of a meal so no heat is added to the kitchen. If you then eat outside a well you, hopefully, enjoy a breeze as you watch the sun set. for this meal a couple of days ago we grilled local lamb chunks with red peppers, zuccini and onions. We also grilled a couple of red potatoes coated in olive oil and chipotle chili powder. We made a salad from our garden greens, radishes and snow peas.For dessert, sub duck made raspberry ice cream to use up berries we froze last year. Tomorrow we'll meet here again for chicken salad with green grapes and toasted almonds. Summer enjoyment with cooks to spare.

Comfort Food

Besides the pizza and sushi kick we have been on lately the one dish that is always a huge hit in our house is macaroni and cheese.  I think this was one of the first dishes that I learned to cook as a child (using the Betty Crocker recipe.)  What is it about mac and cheese that all children love?

We have found a healthier version in the Eating Well recipe for Baked Mac and Cheese and we make this at least twice a month.  Recently I started added some sauteed onions to the milk sauce and it adds a little bit more complexity to the flavor.  We generally use sauteed fresh spinach rather than frozen.  On this occasion - we used whole wheat shells and they work well.

 

Morels

Many of the Cooks to Spare were in the state of Washington -- Walla Walla and Yakima -- in June. The weather was cool and rainy which meant the local strawberries were late, but the asparagus was excellent. Blonde Girls father found morels at Klicker's Berry Farm. Big morels!!! Well the cooks went to work and created a wonderful dinner. They took the morels and made a morel risotto with asparagus. What a treat!!

These are five members of the Cooks to Spare team. The sixth cook took the picture.

Then my husband and I went to Yakima to visit family and friends. My brother and his wife invited my husband to go morel hunting in the Cascades where they had a successful hunt -- 1 1/2 pounds of morels. My sister-in-law sauteed them with shallots and added a little cream at the end --that with salmon and asparagus made for a perfect meal.

Back in Baltimore, there were no morels, but there were peaches and apricots at the Farmers' Market.