Short Attention Span Girl

One of my very favorite things for breakfast is granola and fruit with plain yogurt.  I’ve pretty well mastered making my own yogurt.  The fruit part is easy.  The granola has taken longer.

After a little tinkering this recipe is now my top granola.  It’s not as sweet as most.  It has that bit of saltiness that I really like.  There is no dried fruit to get in the way of the crunch.  And there is a lot of crunch in that bowl.

Oats, of course, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flakes of coconut and chunky pecans are all mixed together. This time I had the big flakes of coconut which I love.  I’ve also made it with the regular sized coconut shreds and that is yummy too.  Usually granola recipes seem to call for some sort of oil.  I switched out the vegetable oil for coconut oil, which I melted so that it would mix in easily, upping the coconut flavor.  It’s sweetened with a mix of brown sugar and maple syrup and some flaky salt is added.  Feel free to add a little more salt if you really like the savory side of things.

I look forward to breakfast when this is on the counter.  I knew it was a winner when I found myself eating it straight from the container all day long.

Crunchy Granola

makes about 7 cups

3 C oats
1 C pumpkin seeds, hulled
1 C sunflower seeds, hulled
1 C unsweetened coconut flakes
1 1/4 C pecans, roughly chopped
1/2 C light brown sugar
1 t kosher salt
3/4 C maple syrup
1/2 C coconut oil, melted

Heat oven to 300 degrees.

Place everything into a large mixing bowl and stir until well combined.

Pour the mixture onto a rimmed baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes.  The granola is done when it is golden brown.  It will crisp up as it cools.

Store in an airtight container for up to a month.

Print the granola recipe

- – marcella

This is one of my favorite dinners to make in the slow cooker.  Easy, tasty and it’s quick enough to make two batches at the same time and freeze one for another night.  Love it when that happens!

I started making two batches at once when I realized that since the recipe called for 1/2 pound of the sausage and that came in a 1 pound package, and for half a bell pepper it would be easy to double and then I wouldn’t have odds and ends of leftover ingredients hanging around.

Now the sausage package I buy has shrunk to 12 ounces, but I still just divide it in half.  No one has commented that they notice the dish is short 2 ounces of sausage – although I’m sure I’ll hear about it now! – so don’t worry if what you buy is short of a pound either.  It’s a pretty flexible recipe.

I usually make it with the sausage and chicken thighs. However, it’s also great with other meats in place of the chicken like leftover pork ribs or roast or, if added at the very end, shrimp.

First get slicing and dicing.  I like to do the vegetables first so that the same cutting board can be used for the meats and vegetables.  I know they’re all getting cooked together but I hate to chop veggies up on a meat slimy board.  Hey, we all have our weirdnesses!  I had those mini bell peppers so they are red and yellow.   Any color of pepper is fine.

Next cut up the meats.  Add them to the mix and then in go the spices.  You might want to adjust how much cayenne used depending on how spicy you like it and how spicy the sausage is.

Since I was doing the double batch thing I have half of the ingredients in the slow cooker and half ready for the freezer.

Then add the broth and tomatoes and cook on low for 4 hours. Now, just walk away.  Don’t you love that?  No fussing, no stirring, not much more to do.  Just go and do something fun or useful or interesting and soon your house will start smelling really good.

When time is up, pour in the rice and give everything a stir.  Put the lid back on and let it cook for one more hour.  I’m a brown rice fan, but use what you like best.

We like to have this with a big salad and some cornbread on the side.  Leftovers re-heat well for lunch another day.

Slow Cooker Chicken Jambalaya
serves 6

1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken thighs cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 lb andouille sausage
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 t dried oregano
1 t cajun seasoning
1/4 – 1/2 t cayenne pepper
1 – 12 ounce can diced tomatoes
1/2 C chicken stock
3/4 C rice

Place all ingredients, except the rice, into the slow cooker, turn on to low and cook for 4 hours.

Pour in the rice and give everything a stir and continue to cook for another hour.

Print the recipe

- – marcella 

It might seem like there hasn’t been much cooking around here, but really we have been.  I’ve just fallen down on the sharing the recipes job.

Not long ago we were in need of a good snack that was different than the usual.  Hot pretzels came to mind.  These ones were made bite sized, but if you are craving the full sized twisty variety, the dough could certainly be shaped that way.

Just like the pretzel shop in the mall or the movie theater, we dipped our pretzels into a melty cheese sauce.  Well, I did have some mustard too since I love it.  Dip them in what you love; there aren’t any pretzel eating police.

Pretzel Bites

1 1/2 C warm water

2 T light brown sugar

1 package (2 1/2 t) yeast

3 T butter, melted

2 1/2 t kosher salt

4 1/2 – 5 C all purpose flour

3/4 C baking soda

1 egg

coarse salt

Combine the water, sugar, yeast and butter in a mixing bowl and let sit for 5 minutes.

Add the salt and  4 1/2 C flour and mix on low speed until combined.  Increase the mixer speed and continue mixing until the dough is smooth and clears the side of the bowl.  If the dough sticks to the sides of the bowl add additional flour 1 T at a time.

Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

In a large saucepan, heat 3 quarts of water over high heat.

Divide the pretzel dough into 8 portions.  Roll each section into a long rope about two feet long.  Cut the dough into 1 inch pieces.

When the water is boiling add the baking soda.  Cook the pretzel bites in batches in the boiling water for 30 seconds. Remove pretzels with a slotted spoon and place on a baking sheet.  Arrange pretzels so that they are not touching each other.

Beat together with a fork the egg and 1 T water.  Brush the pretzel bites with the egg wash and sprinkle with the coarse salt.  Bake for 15 – 18 minutes until golden brown.

Cheddar Cheese Sauce

2 T butter

2 T all purpose flour

1/2 t salt

1/4 t dry mustard

dash cayenne

1 C milk

1/4 lb cheddar cheese, shredded

In a saucepan over medium heat melt the butter.  Stir in the flour and seasonings and cook, stirring for one minute.

Gradually stir in milk.  Cook, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and is smooth.  Stir in the cheese until just melted.  Serve sauce hot with pretzel bites.

I’m straying from the assigned recipe this week for French Fridays with Dorie.  The recipe this week is for a gorgonzola apple quiche.  Now, I like apples and blue cheese and quiche but not all three together.  Eggs and apples?  No.  I know there are omelets out there with jam and fruit but they are not yummy to me. So, rather than skip another week I decided to just turn a few pages instead.

What I found was a recipe that not only sounded great but would use up some ingredients still hanging around our fridge from our last produce delivery: mushrooms and shallots. Perfect.

This time I remembered that the recipes use a tart pan and not a pie pan so my quiche actually came out the right size for the filling.  See?  Better all the time.

After the tart pan is lined with the crust the filling is made.  It was simply mushrooms, shallots and thyme cooked in butter and simply seasoned with salt and pepper.

The bottom of the crust was sprinkled with fresh thyme.  The cooled mushroom mixture was spread on top.  Then a custard of eggs, cream with more salt and pepper is poured over the top.  Finally the top of the quiche is sprinkled with sliced scallions and a few tablespoons of grated gruyere cheese.

Into the oven it goes for about 35 minutes and it really did come out puffed and golden and quite professional looking.  I think this quiche received more compliments for looks than any I have ever made.  Better than its looks was its taste.  Definitely a quiche we’ll make again.

If you’re curious about those gorgonzola apple quiches check out the other links at the French Fridays blog.

- – marcella

Can you believe it?  I actually made the French Fridays with Dorie recipe two weeks in a row!  This week the chosen recipe from the Around My French Table book is M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken.

I happen to love roasted chicken.  It seems we are always trying new variations when we find them in various cookbooks.  This is a super simple recipe so if you think roasting a chicken is too tricky, this recipe is a good place to start.

First some vegetables are cut up and tossed in a dutch oven or other large pot with some olive oil and given a stir. Fresh herbs are added and the chicken is placed on top.  A little armagnac is poured over top.  This is where I departed from the recipe.  Not being a drinker, I can really taste the alcohol in recipes so I always cut the amount used down. Not finding armagnac in my husbands cabinet we used brandy instead.  So,  we replaced 1/2 C armagnac with 1/4 C brandy and 1/4 C chicken broth and we were on our way.

On goes the lid and into the oven for an hour.  How easy is that?  No basting, to flipping, no fretting.

The recipe than says to take the chicken out of the oven, remove the lid and admire the beautiful golden chicken.  We and the recipe parted ways again.  You see, huge though our dutch oven may be apparently the chicken was just too much for it.  We lifted the lid only to have the lovely, crunchy golden chicken skin stick to the underside of the lid.  We did not have a lovely golden chicken to admire.  We had a pale, naked chicken.

At least we didn’t have to feel that it was just too pretty to eat.  Ugly it may have been, but it smelled heavenly!

Carved up it was juicy and perfectly cooked.

To make the sauce the pan juices are skimmed of fat and additional water is added and then simmered until thickened.  We had so much liquid in the pan that it seemed silly to add another cup of water so I just added a little bit and simmered away.  The sauce was very tasty served over the chicken and vegetables.

See how the other cooks faired with their versions of this dish over at French Fridays with Dorie.

- – marcella

Usually on Mondays I try to report what has been going on in the sewing room.  There hasn’t been much happening in there.  I got a little bit of time to work on the mystery quilt and sewed a piles of triangles together.

I’m hoping now that nearly all of the holiday things are put away I can find some sewing time this coming week.

A lot of time this week was also spent in the kitchen.  We’re still swimming in lemons around here.

Two more batches of marmalade were made – the original lemon-vanilla and also an experiment of lemon-raspberry which looks beautiful.

Then there were the little individual lemon tarts -

Good but not stellar.  There was a lot of butter whipped into the lemon curd and it really blunted the lemon flavor.  Not a recipe I’d likely ever make again.  They were sure pretty though.

The unsatisfying tarts left me craving a really lemon-y dessert so I made a batch of Ina Garten’s lemon bars.

I like her recipe the best.  It has a greater filling to crust ratio than most lemon bars.  I put half the zest in the crust and the other half in the filling.  Other than that, I actually follow the recipe.

Then we spent a morning zesting and squeezing lemons and packaged up a lot of zest and juice for the freezer.

I think we’re down to just a dozen or so lemons in the fridge for cooking and such.

Visit Patchwork Times and see the real quilting that’s been going on.  Hopefully there will be more quilting here next week.

- – marcella

It’s been months since I’ve participated in French Friday’s with Dorie, but I suppose it’s no surprise that the recipe that lured me back was for bread.

I’ve only made brioche once before and all I remember was it was a ton of work and the dough became scary and slimy while adding all the butter into the dough.  This time it didn’t seem so challenging, and while there is still a ton of butter added into the dough it behaved itself.

Even with my fairly cool kitchen the dough went from new to risen in a pretty short time.

Then it went into the fridge overnight for a rest.

The next day the rolls were shaped into what I’ve always heard called cloverleaf rolls but the author calls bubble top.  They are simply three small balls of dough put into a muffin pan together.  Once risen they are brushed with an egg wash and baked fairly high at 400 degrees.  I cut back on the baking time but the rolls were still pretty toasty.

They were great with our homemade soup for dinner.  They were also rich enough to feel like dinner and dessert all at once.

See how all the other cooks did over at French Friday’s with Dorie.

- – marcella

My sister has a prolific meyer lemon tree.  The other day we were in her neighborhood and she said we should stop by and get some lemons.  Who am I to turn down free lemons?  After just 10 minutes of picking we had a big bag of lemons and honestly it didn’t even look like any lemons had been taken off the tree.

This would be what 24 pounds of meyer lemons looks like.

I was thinking a couple of batches of marmalade.  I’ve had to expand that just a bit!

First up were some lemon poppy seed scones from my new copy of Alice’s Tea Cup cookbook.

Later that day I made the first batch of marmalade.

I used the recipe I’d made before with great results.  However, I cannot resist a little bit of tinkering.  This time I skipped the vanilla bean and instead added 1/2 cup of fresh grated ginger.  The ginger really brings out the lemon flavor.  I might be tempted to add a bit more ginger to really get that spicy flavor to shine.

On the stove is the next batch of sliced lemons waiting their turn.  I’m thinking of raspberry lemon marmalade. I’m telling myself that I’m going to stop at three batches of marmalade and hope that one is fair worthy.

There are a lot of lemons left though.  Lemon bars, lemon chicken…wonder if my husband would like a lemon pie for his birthday “cake”?

- – marcella

This summer the canning addiction has hit in full force.

It started with that dinner in the orchard.  There was a silent auction and we won a preserving class for four.  In August, three friends and I drove over to Brentwood and had a great day learning all about canning and preserving.

We started with peaches.  None of us knew that you could make really delicious peach jam without peeling the peaches first!  Seriously, that alone was worth the price of admission.  No more pots of boiling water and scalding fruit to peel off the skins.

We also sliced up plums and set them aside with some lavender to make another batch of jam.

Finally we learned to make preserved figs by first cooking them in syrup.

After a long morning of work we were ready for a break and a chance to enjoy what we had made.  We had a delicious lunch outside with scones and bread and cheese to go with our preserves and jam.

We finished off our day with a tour of the orchard and the packing plant.

Then we loaded up the car with cases of fruit.  What can I say?  We’d been inspired.

My cases of fruit were cooked up into more of that delicious peach jam and will be given out for Christmas gifts.

But I couldn’t stop there.

I ordered a case of pears and bottled them in a light syrup.

I ordered a case of tomatoes and we made tomato puree to last us through the winter.

Then another case of tomatoes became tomato soup for the freezer and chipotle ketchup from this book.

Can you see the problem here?  I kept telling myself this would be the last canning project but I just couldn’t stop.

We got a huge box of hot peppers and tried our hand at making chile-garlic sauce and sriracha sauce too.

Two cases of apples were turned into dehydrated apple slices, and just as quickly eaten.

Then came the pickles.  A friend brought over an excess of cucumbers and my husband found this great refrigerator pickle recipe.

Those delicious pickles inspired us to try some pickled onions.  So delicious with a sandwich, on a burger, in potato salad, off a fork!

Really, I’m going to stop soon.  Honest!  But not until after today.

A friend is coming over to make more varieties of ketchup.  She planted something crazy like 75 tomato plants this year and needs to do something with the excess.  I suspect it will be a long, sticky but delicious day.

Then, for sure, I’m stopping for this year.

Oh, except I have those beets in the fridge.  Wouldn’t pickled beets be good?  After that, really, I’ll stop.

- – m

Lately we’ve been able to visit some local companies and see how they make their delicious products.  We took a very long drive and after having google maps send us around the block unnecessarily we finally made it here.