Quinoa Risotto Taco Salad

I feel like quinoa has shot up over the past few years. Growing up I never heard it muttered, and now everywhere you look quinoa is taking center stage. It’s awesome actually because not only is it yummy to the thousandth degree, but the healthy benefits are crazy good for you. That’s a win-win-win in my book.

The Chef inspired me to not only make quinoa, but to cook it as you would a risotto. I for one have never made risotto, but I’ve seen him make it multiple times. I was inspired! I grabbed my economy sized bag of quinoa and ran! If this was going to taste anything like ground beef, I was for it. Any excuse I have to use a ground beef substitute, I’m for it. I have not taken the role of a vegetarian, but meat is definitely not my favorite food. (Except burgers…. I looove me some burgers!!)

Dice a medium sized onion and place it in a large skillet drizzled slightly with oil. Cook over medium high heat until onion start to caramelize. Add in 1 cup of uncooked quinoa. Toast slightly. This creates another flavor profile, ever so slightly to the quinoa.

Add in a cup or two of vegetable stock. (You can use any stock you prefer, but if you’re doing quinoa, you might as well keep it legit vegetarian right?) The stock is going to cook into the quinoa, as well as evaporate out, so we will be using about 6-7 cups of stock. (As a cheat, you can use a couple cups of water if need be. But you should use mostly stock. We threw in some plain ‘ol water and it didn’t diminish the flavor.) Once the quinoa soaks up the majority of the stock, add in more until fully cooked. To test, get a spoon a try it out. It should be al dente. Not too crunchy, but still a touch of firmness. This will take close to 35 minutes or longer.

Once the quinoa if cooked, add in your spices. For taco seasoning use:

2 Tbsp cumin
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp chili powder
A couple shakes of paprika
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

* This is all to taste. You can add more or less if you’d like to fit your taste buds.

The hard part is over! You have quinoa risotto taco “meat”. Sprinkle on some drained and rinsed black beans, avocado, tomatoes, cheese (if you prefer or you can go vegan and omit it completely), and whatever other taco toppings you like! It’s that easy folks.

Next we are going to try this in some tortilla shells! I. Can’t. Wait.

Sounds like something you’d try? Test it out and let us know what you think!

-The Wife-

 

DIY Grape Jelly

I will simply state that I will never be too old for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. These are God’s gift to man. In my older years, I have expanded my horizons of jelly’s on my sandwiches. Apple, strawberry, blackberry, etc. but I keep coming back to grape. The guy who created this sandwich got it on the nose. The combo just… works. And those stores that have the free sampling of all the scrumptious jams and jelly’s? I mean, hello! You’ll find me in there pacing back and forth in front of them trying to make it look like I’m making up my mind of which one to buy. No. I’m just hungry and it’s free.

To continue, I have recently become obsessed with making me own jams and jelly’s. If I see fruit that I know we’re not going to eat right away I plop it in a pot and simmer away. It’s so much easier than I originally thought. And boy are they deeeelish!

This one time The Chef had a catering event with fruit trays and I saw how much left over grapes (they were green grapes) he had, I just knew that we wouldn’t be able to go through them all. I’m one of those people that if the grape is just a tad wrinkly, in even the slightest way, it gets discarded. It’s incredibly wasteful, I know, and this habit drives me up the wall. So before that happened, I wanted to get the most use out of them. I quickly looked up references to see if I was on the right track and away I went.

About 4 cups of green grapes, 1/2 water, and 1 cup of sugar. Bring to a boil and start mashing to extract the juices. Cook and mash for about 10-15 min.

I had about 4 cups (or a little more) of grapes to start out with. I picked them off the stem and through them in a large pot. I added about a 1/4-1/2 water and 1 cup of organic cane sugar (reg granulated works fine too). I turned the heat onto medium high (more on the high) and let it come to a boil. I got out a masher and I started mashing the heck out of them. They have to cook a couple minutes before they really start to mash. I continued cooking and mashing for a good 10-15 minutes. I let the mixture cool a bit. Taking an old, clean, shirt that I had cut up to make a makeshift fine cheesecloth, I poured the cooked, mushed grapes into the shirt that was position over another mesh strainer and a medium size pot. I squeezed, and pushed, and wrung, and used every bit of elbow grease I had in me to get as much juice out of those grapes.

Don’t have a fine cheese cloth? Use an old CLEAN shirt and use as a makeshift one! Put over a strainer and medium size pot to strain out the grape skins and pulp.

With the juice, now free of grape skins and pulp, I put the pot over high heat and attached my candy thermometer. I waited and waited until finally it reached 219˚. This is what they consider to be optimal jelly making temperature. I personally don’t know what would happen if you achieved a higher temp. Maybe even more coagulation? To me, 219˚ worked relatively well, but it was a tad runny. But the taste was amazing!! I poured it into 2 6-oz sealed containers, so it gave me about 12 -oz total, give or take a few. So at 4 cups of grapes (I’m going to guess that’s a good size bag from the store..) you get 12-oz of homemade vegan grape jelly. No gelatin= 100% vegan!

Note*- You can add as little or as much sugar as you’d like. I read a recipe that used 3 cups of sugar, and to me that seemed a little too sweet. That might also help with the thickness of the jelly as well. But for my first time making actual jelly, I can’t complain, and I will definitely be doing it again!

Sorry Smuckers. This girl is making her own jelly from now on.

Go try it out! Tell us what you think!

-The Wife-

Homemade Pop Tarts – What Pop Tarts Wishes They Were…

Homemade pop tart=perfection.

Do you ever remember a favorite food from your childhood that you have in your adult years, and you are just beyond disappointed in the product? Pop tarts now, have gravely fallen from the once high status they had held, at least in my books. Maybe it’s because I married The Chef and he has opened up my eyes to homemade vs. store bought, or pop tarts have changed their recipe and put more artificial flavors, preservatives and what not into their little pockets of …”stuff”.

But these…. Theeeese little babies make pop tarts cry in their aluminum sleeping bags because they have found an eternal darkness in this household.

Try them out and plop them in front of your precious cherubs and see what they say.

You just might get a “mommy of the year award”. I mean, I’d vote for you.

Let’s start with the crust shall we? The buttery, slightly sweet, perfectly crumbly crust. It’s a cinch to whip up.

Would I do it if it wasn’t??

2 1/2 cups of AP flour
3 Tbsp + 2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1/2-1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup (or a little less) cold water

Butter. Isn’t this a beautiful sight?

Mix the flour, sugar, and salt in a mixer. Add in the butter and vanilla until it’s completely incorporated and the dough is little pea size crumbles. Slowly add in water. You might need to mix/ knead by hand. It’s a pretty stiff dough for some mixers.

Butter into the flour mixture

Butter incorporated into flour. “Pea Size balls.”

Water mixed into the dough. Finally product before chill.

Wrap as a ball in Saran Wrap and chill for a few minutes, just so it can firm up just a tad.

Dough wrapped and ready to chill

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Dough chilled. Ready to be rolled

On a floured surface, (or a pastry cloth) roll dough out to 1/4″ thick. With a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut to desired size. Mine was about 2″x 3″ or so. I had some bigger, smaller, square shaped etc. It doesn’t make a huge difference beside baking. If you have some huge ones and some super small ones, baking time might vary, so you’d want to bake the same sizes together.

Rolled 1/4″ thick

Rolled 1/4″ thick, ready to be cut

Future yummy pockets of deliciousness

That makes sense right?

Carefully lay the pieces on a sil-pat or parchment paper lined cookie sheet, laying the less floured side up. Spoon/ spread desired filling on (our strawberry filling recipe is below), being cautious as not to overfill. Place corresponding size on top of filling with the more floured side up this time (non-floury sides sandwiching the filling. That way no flour clouds up our seal). Take a small bowl of water and using your fingers, line the edges with a little water. This will help with the seal and hopefully preventing a spill out. Using either a fork or a ravioli cutter, press the two sides together. Once all the way around, use the tip of a sharp knife and make a design to let out steam while the pastries bake.

Strawberry filling

Strawberry filling

Ready to be baked!

Pop them in the oven and bake for about 16 min or until slightly golden brown.

Perfect!

For the filling:
2 1/2 – 3 cups fresh cut strawberries.
1/4 cup sugar
2 oz. water

Cook on medium heat, stirring occasionally. Cook down until mixtures becomes thick. This will take a bit. Give yourself about an hour. In blender, mash up the bigger chunks with the sauce. This make the mixture thicker.

I love the taste of the fresh strawberries. It’s sugary, yes, but not completely sickeningly sweet like pop tarts. It actually tastes like strawberries!

It’s not pictured, but I did try some with icing and it was sooooo delish. Use powdered sugar (1/2 cup) with about 2 Tbsp heavy cream (or milk) and a dash of vanilla. Add more cream or powdered sugar depending on how thick or thin you want it.

I’m not lying guys. I was dreaming about these for days.

And I may or may not be making a double bath of ’em right now.

Muahahah!!

You could try any jam that’s in your fridge too!

Could we just package these up and give this to our kids instead, because I completely missed out on these for too many years of my life.

But maybe my high-school sized me would’ve thanked me that I didn’t have these in my life.

Amiright…?

This one had a little spill over, but it didn’t matter. It still rocked.

Go bake!!

The Wife

Artisan Bread – Because Everyone Wants to Impress Without the Mess

All my life, I have loved bread. I could literally survive off of bread, and bread alone. (And pasta… Let’s not forget heavenly pasta.) I remember some of the best bread I had was my grandfathers homemade “whatever” bread. He basically got out the bread machine, put in ingredients until it looked right and hit start. (Normally I don’t promote this with baking, since baking is so particular with measurements, but in this case it worked.) Whatever he did, it worked. My sister and I would devour that bread before it could properly cool. One of my favorite sights is a bakery with fresh artisan bread so perfectly thrown in a basket. Their “devil-may-care” order makes it look so delicious. I want to take a whole loaf and with my bare hands rip it apart, hearing the mouth-watering crackle of the flawlessly browned crust. Um, ok. Moving on before this gets out of hand…

Even with all my pleading, I know my bank statement would be yelling at me if I gave into every whim to buying every perfect loaf of bread. I knew I needed to find an alternative. I’ve used a bread machine for probably half my life, and don’t get me wrong, I love it. But it’s not as satisfying as the hard, chewy crust that the artisan breads express. I did some research and found that the solution is in most of our cupboards. A dutch oven!

Cast iron is one of the best tools for baking breads, pizza doughs etc. They retain heat so well that it’s a perfect tool to get a crispy outside with a soft center. Having a lidded dutch oven, basically turns your oven into a mini brick stove. (Any thick lidded casserole dish will work, but I feel cast iron is one of the best-Le Creuset or something similar, Lodge, etc.)

So you are dying to know how to create this beautiful beast right? Hold on to your hats folks. Because it’s so simple… This recipe was taken from, and slightly modified from the blog, Frugallivingnw.com (Link here). I believe they got the recipe from My Bread by Jim Lahey. It’s seriously a keeper.

~Artisan Bread Ingredients~

6 C. Bread Flour (you can use a.p flour but you will not have the same results. Bread flour gives your bread more structure and stability. It’s not a doughy like regular a.p flour. That being said, I prefer bread flour but don’t feel the absolute need to run out and buy some…), plus more for covering space to work with dough.

1/2 tsp active dry yeast (this seems like a small amount but you are letting it rise for much longer than usual)

1 Tbsp salt (I modified this from the original recipe. I wanted a tad more flavor and I figured it was only 1/2 tsp more to make it one easy measurement)

2 2/3 C warm water (the original recipe calls for cold water but I activate my yeast in the warm water)

In a large glass bowl, combine warm water and yeast. Allow yeast to activate (a good couple minutes and a few stirs- it’ll look like cloudy water).

Put flour on top of water, once it’s ready. Put salt on top of the flour. *Side note: It’s important to allow the yeast to activate with the water before allowing the salt to touch it. Salt can actually kill the yeast, which won’t let the dough rise properly, if at all.*

Mix together until a sticky ball forms. (Not wet, but well incorporated.) Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for 12- 18 hours. It’ll be pushing at the top of the wrap, bubbly and slightly darkened in color.

Once risen, lay out parchment paper (or a big cutting board like we did in the pictures) and cover heavily with flour. Remove the plastic wrap and with a bowl scrapper, spatula, or floured hands scrap out the dough from the bowl onto the parchment paper. Taking the edge of the dough, fold it on top of itself and knead it towards the center. Quarter turn and repeat.

Once it’s a tighter ball, pick up the dough and grab the top part (where you were just folding into) twisting together, pulling the dough even tighter. Carefully turn the dough over and onto the parchment paper once again,making sure there’s enough flour down so it doesn’t stick- seam side down. Cover with a non-terry cloth towel. Let rest/rise for another 1 1/2- 2 hours. (This depends on how warm your kitchen is. If it’s cooler, place the dough on top of your oven when you turn it on to preheat. This should give it a good spring up.)

During the last half hour of second rising, turn the oven on to 425˚F. Put in the dutch oven–lid as well. When the oven and dutch oven are pre-heated/dough has risen, take out the dutch oven, and remove the lid. Put your hand fully underneath the parchment paper (with the dough in the center), and carefully flip dough into the dutch oven–seam side up (this gives it a gorgeous natural design). Before attempting this, know that flour will be thrown about, so get off as much excess flour from the paper as you can. 

Cover with the lid and pop it in the oven for 35-40 min. Remove lid and bake for another 5-10 min. Pull the dutch oven out of the oven and lift the dough (with oven mitts because it’s HOT!) onto a cooling rack.

Be amazed.

Listen to the crackle.

Let it cool.

Eat and enjoy.

You seriously can’t beat that.

*Side note: Even though warm bread from the oven is positively delicious, cutting into it too soon will give it a gummy texture. So use a little will-power and hold out until it’s almost completely cooled*

And I have to put it in here because I love how frugallivingnw.com added up the cost of making this (including energy/gas) and it totals to about $.70. SERIOUSLY? $.70?!? Come’on…

You’re welcome.

The Wife