The other day I wanted to make a salad for mom but a lot of the ingredients I wanted to use weren’t available.  We had spinach so I thought I would make her a traditional spinach salad (with hard boiled egg, tomato, bacon, red onion, maybe a little avocado.) But we didn’t have bacon, onions or avocado and I didn’t have time to boil eggs.  So I came up with a new salad: fried egg spinach salad with cheddar cheese, tomatoes and pumpkin seeds (with a simple sherry viniagrette).  Mom loved it!

This weekend we celebrated Father’s Day by making one of dad’s favorite meals: STEAK.  Luckily it’s one of ours as well.  We also made corn on the cob, a big salad and home made strawberry ice cream–from strawberries Alex and Mom picked Saturday morning.  They picked 20 pounds! We also experimented with some other things, including making fresh mint tea (from our own mint) and of course we made some strawberry daquiris (no rum) as well. Here are some of the photo highlights:

We also made dad breakfast on Father’s Day: scrambled eggs with chives from our garden, fresh berry salad and bagels (we didn’t make those)

And here’s the mint tea: first we steeped fresh mint in boiling water, then strained it and added a little sweetener.  Finally we cooled it and served it over ice! Super refreshing on a hot day.

Tonight we were tired–long busy weekend and I (Max) am leaving for a school trip tomorrow so I really wanted to make one of my favorite meals: Pasta all’ Amatriciana (my “signature” dish); we also wanted to use some fresh peas we had bought at the farmer’s market, and Alex had a mystery ingredient that mom gave her (poor Alex…wait till you see what she had to cook).  But it was a fun and quick dinner.

Here’s my final plate:

For the pasta all’Amatriciana, first I chopped one onion; then I sauteed pancette in a little olive oil till it was brown.  (I started water boiling for the pasta at same time).  I removed the pancetta from the pan and added the chopped onion.  You need to cook the onion cook until tender then I added a can of chopped tomatoes.  You can use fresh or grated or chopped tomatoes–but it was a week night and the canned ones are fine. Salt, pepper and let simmer for a while.  When the pasta is al dente, you add it to the tomato sauce.  And then you plate it by adding freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and a large handful of the pancetta.  The pancetta flavors the onions and then you taste the crispy bits in the pasta. (If you mix it into the sauce, you lose the crispiness).

For the peas, they were so fresh all we did was shell them and eat them raw.  We also made a simple arugula salad — with just tomatoes and shaved parmigiano reggiano.

I (Alex) also cooked a mystery ingredient that Mom gave me: SQUID. Ewwwwh!  At least it was already cleaned so I didn’t have to clean it but I did have to cut it up.  It was kind of cool that you could easily cut it into rings.  I also chopped some garlic and cooked that in olive oil with paprika and red pepper flakes, then I added the cut up squid.  I wasn’t sure how long to cook it but I sauteed it until it was at least brown.  Then I squeezed a lemon on top of it.  I wanted to add fresh herbs but all we had was basil and oregano but hat didn’t seem quite right flavor-wise.  Mom said it was pretty good.  (I just couldn’t try it, those tentacles looked too weird:).  Max is so lucky he got to cook the pasta!:(

Tonight we wanted to make two classic dishes that we had heard of but never made: Beef Wellington and Tiramisu. But we also wanted to add a summer twist–a nice summer salad, so we made a spinach, feta, orzo and pine nut salad.(We made a olive oil -balsamic vinaigrette as well).

Here’s the final products:

The Salad: after we put all the ingredients together we threw it in the fridge for an hour. According to the recipe, it helps the flavors blend.  The only thing we changed about the recipe was to toast the pine nuts and add them at the very end so they didn’t get soggy.

Ingredients for the salad                           Chopping onions (with goggles!)               Mixing the salad

The Tiramisu: for the Tiramisu, we actually started in the morning because it has to sit for 4-6 hours in the fridge.  Again it must be for the flavors to blend.  One thing we realized was that you shouldn’t actually “soak” the lady fingers in coffee and coffee liquor.  If you “soak” them, they will fall apart.  So you really just brush the lady fingers with the coffee mix (you can just use coffee if you don’t want any alcohol involved, or decaf coffee I guess if you don’t want to stay up late:)

The Tiramisu ingredients……                              Six egg yolks!                                                    Egg yolks w/ mascarpone              Coffee-soaked lady fingers             Final product

The Beef Wellingtons: for the individual beef wellingtons, the actual recipe is pretty easy. But there are a lot of steps.  First you have to make the mushroom sauce (or “mushroom duxelles as Emeril Lagasse calls it).  Then you have to sear the beef filet mignons.  Then you have to let them cool completely.  Then you have to roll out your puff pastry and make your egg wash glue. Then you have to put it all together.  (Puff pastry, then filet mignon, then mushrooms then proscuitto then puff pastry wrapped up like a package and sealed with the egg wash (the “glue”).  Then you brush them with more egg wash and put in the oven until the pastry is golden brown and you HOPE that the meat is medium rare. :).  One filet was cut too thin by the butcher so Max had the brilliant idea of making a double decker beef wellington.  He cut it in half and put a layer of mushrooms between the two halves. Delicious!

AND STILL MORE STEPS!…

Egg-washed Wellingtons                                    Golden-brown Wellingtons                               Double-decker Beef Wellingtons                     Note layer of mushrooms between filets

This weekend we didn’t spend a lot of time cooking a whole meal: it was really hot and we got invited to barbecues both Saturday and Sunday night.  (Thank you Patrick, Virginia & Wyeth: we are definitely trying to recreate your potatoes; and thank you Russ & Erica: we are definitely trying to recreate your grilled lamb).  We did make dessert for both barbecues, and lunch for the family on Sunday.  But most of the time we weren’t in the pool, or playing soccer, we had to plant our garden.  Wow.  Who knew that planting a garden would be such a reptile adventure.  We started off well enough, but then: Yikes. Baby Snake under the weed cloth:

We managed to gently shoo it out of the garden and planted zinnias, peas, carrots and potatoes (that was Saturday).  Then we took a break to go swimming and make brownies for Patrick & Virginia.

The next morning we went out bright and early to the garden and there was this large black mound at the garden fence.  We investigated and discovered an enormous snapping turtle (like a foot long!).  Not only that but it was laying eggs (in front of OUR garden).  We helped it a little by misting it with water and untangling its leg from the weed cloth.  After it buried its eggs, it went back to our lake.  We are excited about watching the eggs hatch, although a little nervous about having a garden full of snapping turtles.

Finally (after the turtle left), we got to plant: we planted zucchini, more peas, kale, pumpkins, sunflowers, lettuce and more kale. Whew it was hot, hard work (Mom did a lot of it…)

Here is the final result (doesn’t look like much yet…but things don’t grow overnight. 🙂

To thank mom for her help in the garden, we made chilaquiles for her.

She loved then and Dad went back for thirds!!!

Tonight we wanted to make a special dinner for mom so we asked her what she wanted: she said she wanted us to make her ribs, a green vegetable and a fruit-centered dessert.  So we decided to make her Cantonese-style ribs, bok choy, and strawberry pie.  We also made corn-on-the cob in case the bok choy didn’t work out AND because we wanted to try out the new cuisinart we gave her, we made hummus as an appetizer.

The full meal

We actually made the strawberry pie first (in the morning) because it needs to set for a few hours.  It’s a combination of fresh strawberries and cooked strawberries (you mash them up and cook them with a little sugar and corn starch to make a lumpy sauce)

We also had to start early for the ribs because they need to marinate for at least two hours.  We have made these once before and mom loved it so I guess that’s why she chose them again. The marinade is pretty simple: chopped garlic, chopped ginger, hoisin sauce and soy sauce.  You let the ribs marinate for 2 hours to overnight and then you cook them in a pan with water in it.  After an hour of cooking, you brush them with honey and cook for 10 more minutes…DELICIOUS!

For the bok choy we just made a fairly simple preparation. We had chopped extra garlic and ginger when we made the marinade so we added that to olive oil and then cooked the bok choy (it really cooked down so we added spinach).  We also added some soy sauce.

For the hummus, we first minced the garlic then we put the garlic, sea salt, ground cumin, lemon and olive oil in the cuisinart.  While it mixed those ingredients up, we peeled the chick peas (they have this thin skin which you don’t have to take off, but if you do, it makes the hummus creamier.) Once the chick peas were peeled, we put them in the mixer and ground until smooth. Then we scooped it into a dish and added olive oil and paprika.  We served it with pita chips.

Here’s the plate we made for mom (and the dessert)

Tonight we didn’t have time to cook a full meal — too much soccer, prep for our piano recital and homework but we wanted to help out and make something tasty and quick for dessert.  So we experimented with making a stove top blueberry crisp.  We love blueberry crisp and apple crisp and pretty much any kind of crisp but it takes a lot of prep and cooking time.  But earlier this week we had made a stove top granola that was very simple so we wondered if we could use that granola as the “crisp” topping.

The granola recipe is very simple. Melt 1 tablespoon butter with 2 tablespoons honey and 2 tablespoons brown sugar about 2 minutes until bubbling…then stir in 2 cups oats. (You can also add chopped walnuts if you like.)  Stir until oats are coated. Let cool slightly.  (If you were making granola, you could add raisins)

For the filling we also decided to cook the fruit (this time blueberries, canned apple sauce and pears) on the stove top with a little butter and brown sugar.  The results were pretty good but next time we want to use all fresh fruit. The fruit filling was a little runny so we stirred in about 1/2 cup of the oat mix.

Then we plated…we put the berry mix in the bottom of four ramekins and then we added the oat mix. We garnished with a single blueberry. Whipped cream would have been good but alas we had none.

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Sometimes you just have to have fun in the kitchen and try new things.  This week we did a lot of that.  Our experiments included 1) using chickpea water to make an awesome dessert; 2) trying to make tofu tasty and 3) playing around with vegetable scraps.

First, and maybe the coolest: we transformed the water in a can of chickpeas into glossy meringues.

Chickpea water meringues

The steps are shown below, but essentially you drain the water from a can of chickpeas, reserving the chickpeas for later.  You put the chickpea water in a mixer and whip for 10 -15 minutes: it goes from foamy to stiff peaks.  Add in 2 tablespoons of sugar and some vanilla extract and bake in a 250 degree oven for at least an hour and until firm and dry.  And yes, they really do taste like egg white meringues!

Second I (Max) tried cooking with tofu.  First I tasted it: sort of like feta cheese without any taste.  So I decided to add some flavors.  I sauteed red onions in olive oil and then added shredded kale.  After that had cooked a bit, I added the tofu and sauteed for a bit.  I tasted and it definitely still needed flavor.  So I added soy sauce.  Much better.  But it still was a little soft.  Mom suggested pumpkin seeds so I added those and it was delicious.  Mom ate it all!

Tofu with kale, red onion and pumpkin seeds

Third I (Alex) wanted to do something with some leftover vegetable scraps that mom had frozen.  There were cauliflower stems, broccoli stems, red pepper bits, mushroom stocks, onions, cilantro, carrots, lemongrass and probably some other stuff.  Mom suggested I make stock with them and that we save it for a night when were making curry or another Asian inspired dish.  So here’s what we did:

Vegetable Stock

We simmered the vegetables in 4 cups of water for about an hour. Then we let the mix cool slightly.

Asian Vegetable Broth

Then we strained it and this is the final product.  Can’t wait to use it (it has a faintly cilantro/lemongrassy flavor with hints of red pepper) so I am thinking of using it a Thai curry sauce.

Today we were very busy.  We started out by giving Mom breakfast in bed (first we let her go for a run, but then we made her get back in bed).  We made her a yogurt and berry parfait, a banana berry smoothie and included walnut-raspberry rugelach that we had bought at the Farmer’s Market yesterday.  She loved it.  We also got her lilacs, tulips, herb plants and a blue hydrangea plant so she was pretty happy.

Then we came up with our menu for dinner: kale/brussel sprout salad (Mom’s favorite) with filet mignon and mashed potatoes (our favorite) with berries and  home-made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  We made the cookies in the afternoon so we wouldn’t have to worry about dessert during dinner. And then, after Max’s soccer game and walking our dog, we started on dinner. The salad is pretty easy–just a lot of chopping.  And for the filet mignon, half we just put salt and pepper on and half we put a Texas Spice Rub (salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and paprika– you can also add ancho chile powder but we didn’t have any.  We grilled the steaks on the stove top and then finished them in the oven.

Here are the cookies:

We’ll add more stuff tomorrow but Mom says it’s time for bed now (and since it’s MOTHER’S DAY we are listening to her for a change:)

We are so excited because we are getting ready to plant our garden upstate.  We have two gardens upstate (protected by tall fences because there are a lot of deer up there).  One is our vegetable garden and the other is our flower/fruit tree garden (sometimes this is just the “weed” garden…we always manage to plant the vegetable garden but once in a while we just get too busy to plant the back garden…this year we are determined to plant both!)

The front garden is completely ready to plant (covered with weed cloth & bricks, and just waiting to make sure no more frost possible); the back garden still needs a little work but Mom said she’d help with that 🙂

We have ordered a lot of great vegetable seeds to plant here: kale, kalediscope carrots, peas, lettuce, pumpkins, zucchini and Yukon gold and fingerling potatoes.  We love growing potatoes because they are so much fun to dig up and we collect all the worms that we find when we dig the potatoes up and then go fishing in our pond with them.  We will also buy local tomato plants to plant when the weather gets warmer.  There is nothing like a fresh tomato from your garden!

Some of the vegetable seeds/plants we ordered today.

For the flower garden, traditionally we have just planted sunflowers.  One year we even made a sunflower maze (see below). But this year we are planting sunflowers (of course), zinnias, delphinium and holly hock. Mom chose most of these flowers this year because she said they reminded her of her family’s garden in Iowa. We also have two apple treas and a peach tree in this garden.

Some of the flowers we ordered today

Sunflower Garden from last year

In the middle of the Sunflower Maze (two years ago)