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Monday, March 17, 2014

Corned Beef, Cabbage and Leek Soup


Have you ever had smoked corned beef? I hadn't until this weekend. Our friends had a St. Patrick's day party and they served this amazing smoked corned beef. All I can say is..."Wow! and double Wow!" I told my husband after eating my second plate of this delicious meat, that we have to invest in a smoker and make pounds and pounds of smoked corned beef. It was hands down the best tasting corned beef ever! My new mission in life is to get a smoker and once I do, look out for future blogs on smoked meats. I can't wait. :) Smoked corned beef aside, if you want a delicious and different way to serve the traditional corned beef and cabbage, try your hand at this full flavored soup. It has all the St. Patrick's Day ingredients: corned beef, cabbage, carrots and potatoes in a delicious broth flavored with leeks, yellow peppers and garlic. I love this soup because it's rustic with the traditional ingredients but remains elegant because of the simple but complex tasting broth. It's simply amazing! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

  
Corned Beef, Cabbage and Leek Soup (adapted recipe from Skinnytaste)


1 lb corned beef brisket, cooked, cooled and chopped into small cubes
2 cups reserved braising liquid from corned beef

2 t olive oil
2 cups carrots,sliced*
4 cups leeks, sliced
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 small head of cabbage, chopped
3 cloves garlic
6 cups chicken broth
3 bay leaves
1 red potato, chopped 
1/2 T Italian Herb Seasoning
1/4 cup parsley
salt and pepper(to taste)

Cook corned beef and reserve 2 cups of the braising liquid. Cool and chop corned beef into small bite-sized cubes.
In a large dutch oven, saute carrots, leeks, yellow pepper, cabbage and garlic in olive oil until tender soft approximately 10 minutes. Add chicken broth and the two cups of reserved braising liquid, bay leaves, corned beef and heat to a boil for 20 minutes. Add potato, Italian Herb seasoning, parsley and pepper and cook for an additional 15 minutes or until potatoes are cooked. Top with additional fresh parsley and serve. 
*Note: I had a bag of frozen Parisian carrots from Trader Joe's that I used instead of peeling and slicing carrots and they were great in this. Velvety texture and a great shape that added interest to the look of the soup. Plus they were a great time saver. 

For another recipe with Corned Beef, try Corned Beef Rolls
 

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Simple Sesame Noodles with Edamame & Asparagus

Last night, my girlfriends and I were discussing passion and being passionate about the things in our lives. Each of us around the table, share a passion about our kid's education and upbringing which, in a way, is one of the reasons we all became friends. But my friendship grows with these women because they are fun, strong, authentic women, who I simply like very much. They enrich my life and make me happy. :)
So our conversation touched on the fact that passion is a great thing to have because it motivates us to achieve and do the things that interest us. But on the other hand, as we sat there recapping some of the things that didn't go exactly as planned this week, it was easy to get swept up in the negative because we're all passionate about and invested in what we were talking about. I realized that talking about the set backs felt emotionally the same as when we talk about the victories. It comes with the territory, Ying and Yang and all that. That lead us to talk about balance. Oh that ever alluding catch-phrase...BALANCE. How to get it? How to maintain it in life? That's the question of a lifetime. 
If you can't strike a balance with passion, passion is often replaced with equally powerful negative emotions like anger and frustration that leads ultimately to unhappiness. That got me thinking this morning, that with passion comes an increased responsibility to self. Being in a heightened state of emotion like passion, I must be willing to prioritize and work to recognize when the passion I feel isn't passion but thinly guised unhappiness, clouded by a purpose that I've rationalized as passion.  

When I'm unhappy, it is easy to stay there. A torturous stasis that will continue if I don't spend deliberate energy to change it. It takes little or no work to stay unhappy. When I feel unhappy, I give the negative thoughts priority in my head and sometimes that leaves me feeling helpless in being able to change those feelings. Last night, I was reminded that I must spend the time and work to make conscious decisions about happiness. Sometimes it's merely making the decision to find something that makes me happy that frees me from the negative thoughts. Refocus and prioritize, seek balance. Get reacquainted with the things I like to do and make the time to do them.  Passion is great but I believe it must be spread out over many things in my life. Balance. I need to have multiple passions so that I can shift my priorities when they consume themselves or demand too much of my attention which leaves me out of balance. I need to recognize when passion changes and be okay with stepping way and saying no to the things that don't bring happiness even if I'm invested in them. 
One of my favorite phrases, "Sometimes you need to take a step back before you are able to move forward." 



Simple Sesame Noodles with Edamame & Asparagus
(adapted recipe from The Cutting Edge of Ordinary/Pioneer Woman)

10 oz. Chow Mein Noodles, cooked and drained
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 T brown sugar 
1 T honey
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 T rice wine vinegar
3 T toasted sesame oil
1 t garlic chili sauce (to taste or omit)
4 T canola oil
2 T hot water

1 lb asparagus spears, chopped and blanched
1 cup edamame, shelled
4 whole green onions, chopped
generous sprinkle of sesame seeds

Whisk together soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, vinegar, sesame oil, garlic chili sauce, canola oil and water and set sauce aside.  

Cook noodles according to package directions. 
In a large skillet, saute edamame and asparagus in 1 tablespoon of the sesame sauce for approximately 5 minutes until the asparagus is tender-crisp. Remove from heat and add to warm noodles. Add the remaining sesame sauce and toss to coat. This dish can be served warm, room temperature or cold. Top with green onions and sesame seeds. Enjoy!


Sunday, March 9, 2014

I Love Pumpkins


Last spring, we removed an old, cracked, cinder-block wall from our backyard and replaced it with some new vinyl fencing. (demo before and after photos below)
 
Once removed, a fairly large flowerbed was revealed and it quickly became my kitchen garden. The planting area was about 24'x6', a total of 146 square ft of garden space. I happily planted tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, spinach, peas, corn, cucumbers, sunflowers, lemon basil, cilantro, radishes, bell peppers and last but not least...pumpkins. 

I imagined having pounds and pounds of tomatoes to can, to turn fresh tomatoes into savory sauces, awesome salads and spicy salsas. I imagined a huge bounty of cucumbers, carrots, radishes and cabbage that I could add fresh to every salad and pickle what couldn't be eaten. Sunflowers seeds to roast for my kids and enough seeds to grow sunflower sprouts all winter long for my Sunflower Sprout Salad

However, the results of this growing season varied considerably from my imagination. For instance, I didn't get a single tomato. A nocturnal critter stripped the bush of every last green tomato one night.
A. Total. Bummer. 
I think I actually cried that morning as I assessed the damage. Needless to say, I learned a lot from this first attempt at gardening. I learned that not everything you plant will actually grow. Those that grow, don't always produce fruit. Those that produce, may end up being destroyed by invasive insects, nocturnal animals or fungus. I also learned that organic pesticides are not that effective. :(But, I still use them.

Anyway, as some of you might already know if you've read any of my fall blogs, I LOVE PUMPKINS! So you can imagine how super excited I was to actually try my thumb at growing them. So much so, that I'm writing this blog about the experience. I know it's super geeky of me to document this summer event but it was so much fun for me to watch my pumpkin grow. I also learned a ton. Did you know that pumpkins are formed from sexual reproduction? Just like a lot of other plants and trees, pumpkins have male and female flowers that must come together to produce fruit. I know your thoughts are probably in the gutter right now and shame on you!

Kidding aside, my inner science major was alive and well and so fascinated to see the physical differences in these two flowers and watch the progression of this amazing plant. :) If you followed me on Facebook this last summer, you would have remembered my weekly updates on "Punky's" progress. Yes, we named her. I know... again really geeky huh? Anyway, it was super fun for me so here's my gardener's log for PUMPKINS-2013.

Day 1: June 15- Planted pumpkin seeds.
Day 6: June 21- First Day of summer-First Sprouts.

With 100 days until harvest, I estimate that we will be able to pick our pumpkins on the first day of fall. September 23. :)
 
Day 14-17- Secondary leaves appear.


Day 30- Many leaves and vines form.


Day 42- more vines trail outward from mound.

Day 45- first male flower buds appear.

 

Day 47- first male flower blooms. Isn't he handsome? Wink! 
(No girls have joined the party however! Too bad for this good looking guy.)





Day 50- First female flower bud appears at the terminus of growing vines. (Yay!) The females are distinguished by the bulbous ovary at the base of the flower bud. The male flowers lack the ovary and appear at each leaf juncture and cluster in groups of two or three. With the female flower bloom period short, having so many male flowers in various states of bloom ensures that the female will be pollinated. That is, as long as there are pollinators (bees, insects) around. Luckily, my lemon basil plant had gone to flower right next to the pumpkins so the bees were always swarming. 


Day 57- The female poised for bloom. ("...my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard..." Hehe!. She's definitely out-numbered at this point) Note how the ovary has grown and the flower bud has elongated and yellowed at the tip.




Day 58- Female blooms. (Cue romantic music)  
...Rather than wait for the bees to do their work, I was impatient and cross-pollinated with a male flower to ensure fruit. The most amazing thing happened shortly after pollination. The female flower closed up. A clear biological response that she no longer needed to invite pollination. Amazing!

Minutes after pollination


Day 65-(1 week after fertilization)
She has already grown round and a light green in a very short amount of time. She's about the size of a softball here. Just one week after fertilization...Amazing!


Day 72- (2 weeks after fertilization)
Look how huge she's getting!  She's a little larger and rounder than a football here. Her rind has turned a dark green and mostly everyone thinks she's a watermelon. Because of course, I show off my little girl to all my friends who come over. Even at my son's birthday party, Punky was a star attraction. "You growing watermelon?" :) 
However, it looks like she'll be the only pumpkin coming from this season's pumpkin patch. I've had numerous other females buds but all have died before reaching bloom. I believe this was because of a powdery mold that had spread to most of the leaves. I removed most of the infected leaves in an attempt to prevent the spread of the mold to our growing girl. Luckily, I still had enough healthy leaves to keep her ripening to maturity. 


Day 79: (3 weeks after fertilization) Just three weeks after pollination and she's starting to show her true colors. (No more mistaken identity.)


Day 86: (4 weeks after fertilization) ...just a few more weeks and she'll be ready. Once the leaves start turning brown, she'll be ready to harvest.

It's harvest day...Day 100.



Day 100: Here's Punky after harvest. I put her in the sun for about a week to toughen up her rind and dry out her stem. She's all set for Fall. 

Some Pumpkin recipes to try!