Slow cooker, to the rescue!

I knew when I woke up this morning that it would be a busy evening. Joe and I each had a couple of errands to run after work, Joe has a volleyball game, and I needed to whip something up for a book club meeting tomorrow. Little time would be available to make dinner. So...

SLOW COOKER, TO THE RESCUE!

Chicken with mixed dried fruit

1 package boneless, skinless chicken breasts, frozen solid (just kidding, this isn't a requirement, but mine were a brick!)
a couple of leeks, sliced (could chop a medium onion, if you wanted)
a couple of handfuls of dried fruit (I used raisins and dried apricots, which I roughly chopped)
a couple of shakes of ground ginger (or fresh, if you want)
a couple of shakes of cinnamon
a couple of shakes of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
a spoonful of honey
about 2 c. water

Throw it all in.  Turn on the slow cooker to low. Cook for 9 hours.

When you get home, throw some rice on the stove, then eat in 15 minutes with minimal effort!

How's that, MBA students?

Cheesy Beer Bread

As promised, Cheesy Beer Bread!

Cheesy Beer Bread

3 c. all-purpose flour
3 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
about 4 oz. shredded cheese (I used gruyere because that's what I had)
1 12 oz. bottle lager-style beer (I used a New Glarus Spotted Cow that was languishing in the fridge)
2 tbsp butter, divided, melted

Preheat the oven to 375 F
Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center, add the cheese and the beer. Stir just until combined.

Place the batter in a 9x5 in. loaf pan and drizzle 1 tbsp. melted butter over the top.  Bake at 375 F for 35 minutes. Remove from the oven, drizzle the remaining 1 tbsp butter over the loaf, and return to the oven for another 25 min. Remove from the pan and allow to cool on a cooling rack for a few minutes. Enjoy with your tomato soup!

Sunday Soup: Creamy Tomato Soup with Cheesy beer bread

Hi friends!  At my husband's request, today's soup is a tomato-y one.  I still haven't jumped on the "slow cooker" soup recipe wagon, but this is a really easy one.  Like, 15 minutes of total time in the kitchen, easy. And once I realized that I was all out of homemade bread (the original plan involved grilled cheese sandwiches), I decided to throw together a loaf of cheesy beer quick bread. You get two for the price of one today!

Creamy Tomato Soup

3 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 medium leeks, sliced
4 garlic cloves (or in my case, a palmful of garlic powder. Who runs out of garlic??)
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 28 oz. can whole tomatoes
Salt and Pepper
2 tsp. sugar
1 tbsp tomato paste (I found some in a tube, yeah!)
2-3 cups hot vegetable stock (I made my own while the soup cooked, just throw a carrot, a celery rib, and the ends of your onions and leeks in a saucepan and simmer for awhile. Saved like $3!)
2/3 c. half and  half

Heat the oil in a large pot, like a cast iron dutch oven or something. Add the onions and leeks and cook for about 10 minutes on low heat. Stir in the garlic and tomatoes; season with salt and pepper. Add the sugar and tomato paste, stir, then simmer for about 30 min.

Add the stock, bring the whole thing to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 min. Use a blender, food processor, or immersion blender to puree the mixture. As usual, I like to leave some chunkiness in there, so I don't puree all of it.  Taste and season again.

At this point, you could freeze a couple of portions of this (I'm talking to you, MBA students!).  If you decide to go this direction, be sure to let the soup cool completely before you put it in the freezer.

Stir in the half and half, and serve!  Enjoy with the Cheesy Beer bread, to be posted next.

Quick, healthy, easy dinner - by popular demand

At the party following the big finance midterm last night, I heard from a few business students that the blog needs quick, easy, nutritious recipes.  I got a couple of requests for slow cooker soups and other meals.  I'll keep my eyes peeled for those, and be sure to share them.

Tonight's dinner did not include the use of a slow cooker, but it fit the other criteria. Easy, peasy.

Shrimp, scallion, and edamame fried rice

- A drizzle of canola oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 inch or so piece of fresh ginger, peeled and minced
- 2 scallions, white parts and most of the green parts (omit the very ends), sliced
- A couple of handfuls of frozen, shelled edamame
- Trader Joe's frozen organic brown rice (comes in a box with 3 bags, each with about 2 c. cooked rice), warmed on the stove or in the microwave
-  a couple big handfuls of frozen shrimp (the fully cooked, peeled kind)
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- soy sauce

In a Wok or skillet, warm the canola oil.  Add the garlic, ginger, and scallions and cook until aromatic and softened, 2-3 minutes.  Stir in the rice, edamame, and shrimp. Cook, stirring frequently, until the shrimp are heated through (this shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes). Make a 3" well in the rice, drizzle a little more oil into the well, and add the egg.  Leave it alone until the egg is almost fully cooked (scrambled).  Stir the whole dish to combine and add a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce.  Enjoy!

Sunday soup: Bean and Kale soup

Wow, it's been a busy weekend!  It was the first weekend we've spent in Madison in three weeks, so I had a lot to catch up on around the house.  As you may know from previous posts, Joe has a Finance midterm on Monday, and this happens to be the most notoriously challenging class he will take in his MBA program (we'll see!).  He's been studying away all weekend, and I'm doing my best to take care of things around the house and make him some good, hearty brain food.

Today's soup was a basic Bean soup, with the addition of some yummy and nutritious kale.

Sadly, I forgot to take a picture before we ate and cleaned up.  Let's just say, it looked pretty delicious!

A hearty meal in support of Finance

In preparation for the ominous Finance Midterm on Monday, it seems the entire business school is hard at work.  I'm supporting my meat-and-potatoes husband by making my first Pork roast. Keep in mind that all veggies (except the celery and garlic) were purchased at the Dane County Farmer's Market.

Pork Loin Roast with Root Veggies

1 boneless pork loin roast, about 2 lb (I got mine at Trader Joes for about $7, not bad considering this will probably feed us dinner tonight, lunch tomorrow, and probably a couple of lunches next week)

salt and pepper

2 tbsp canola oil

2 medium, or 3 small, yellow onions, sliced, not too thin

1-3 cloves garlic, chopped

3 carrots (yes, I put these in voluntarily. I'm trying, people!)

3 parsnips (I added more carrots instead - really!)

6 medium red potatoes, or 2 large potatoes of another variety, roughly chopped (you can peel if you want, but I think the skins are good, and they add nutrition)

2-3 turnips (or more potatoes), peeled and roughly chopped

a few stalks of celery, chopped to about 2" pieces

1 c. chicken or veggie broth, plus more as needed

Season the pork with salt and pepper on all sides.  In a large frying pan over medium heat, warm the canola oil. Sear the meat on all sides, until browned, about 10 minutes. During this step, I worked on the chopping and other prep. I just tossed the veggies into the slow cooker as I chopped them.  Remove the pork from the pan, place it in the slow cooker.

Pour off most of the fat in the pan.  Add the onion and saute until softened and lightly browned, about 5 minutes.  Add the garlic and saute for about 1 minute. Add these to the slow cooker.  

Add salt and pepper and the broth (watch your salt if your broth is not low-sodium).  Cover and cook on the low setting for 6-8 hours, until the pork is very tender and the veggies are fully cooked.  

To serve, carve the pork into slices.  Spoon the veggies and cooking juices over the port.  Enjoy while wearing your slippers, since it's probably a chilly day.

(Recipe adapted from the Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Slow Cooking)

Cure my long, bare hallway

This month, I am participating in the Apartment Therapy (apartmenttherapy.com) Apartment Cure.  This means that each day, I'm assigned a small (supposedly 20 minute) task toward "curing" my apartment's ails.  I've posted a couple of rooms, and a couple of others are coming down the pipelines, with a few tweaks to go.  The cure is happening in a very timely manner, as I need that last bit of motivation to complete all the little tasks to make this apartment a home.

Today's task: Search for inspirational photos to help with a design dilema.

My dilema: my loooong hallway. I painted it a nice, pale blue when we moved in, and I'm happy with that.  I'm also happy with the first part of the hallway, which I've treated as an extension of the living room.  I found zero pictures that I liked.

I'm finding myself really challenged in this little jog in the hallway.  It adds character, yes.  It keeps the whole apartment from feeling like a bowling alley, sure. But it takes up so many square feet!  I mean, it would be a whole additional room if it were smushed into a different shape!

 

I need help.

A couple things I'd like to accomplish here:

1. Find some way to tack down that cord that runs across the hall.  There is no grounded outlet in the 2nd bedroom/office, and that is where the desktop computer is kept.  Obviously, it needs to be plugged into an appropriate outlet, and it doesn't seem likely that the landlord is going to be fixing this issue any time soon. Hence, the extension cord across the hall.

2. While I do want to keep the paint, I need some sort of wall treatment that would make this space interesting.  I'm open to hanging art, however, it's a narrow hall so I would be pretty limited in the size of art (since you can't stand back and look at it).

3. I'm open to a floor treatment/rug, but I need to keep the jog in the hall and $$ in mind.  As in, no fancy expensive rugs, since we don't know whether we'll be needing anything like that in the next place.

4. I'd love to have a very narrow console table in the space where the hall jogs.  This would serve as a "landing strip" where we could put mail, keys, etc.

5. I'm thinking it would be really cool to paint both doors (front and back enterances, not the interior doors) a bold color.  The paint job is pretty crummy at the moment, so anything would be an improvement.  

Please send me your ideas!