The Mrs

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Brrrrr!

Well I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but it has been C-O-L-D in Charlotte.  The snow started falling in the wee hours of Monday morning and did not stop all day.  That is, of course, until the sleet and freezing rain started just in time for rush hour.

Luckily, this is the South…so there was no “rush hour” during the icy/snowy days. You Yankees readers will probably laugh, but at the slightest mention of a snow flurry, Southerners raid the grocery stores, stock up on bread, milk, and eggs like their life depends on it, and will cancel anything and everything for a mere inch of accumulation.  (Weirdly, when we lived in San Diego, I noticed that Southern Californians seemed to do the same thing with predictions of rain .) Oh, and BANANAS!  Bananas are apparently a necessity if you are going to be frozen into your house for 3 days.  I went to three grocery stores and I’m telling you – there’s not a banana in sight.

Today was the first day this week that the high’s here in the Queen City have risen above the 20’s.  As such, all that sleet and freezing rain left us with 1/4″ of ice on top of the snow.  If there is anything Southerners fear more than snow in the winter, it’s ICE!  So basically, I had all day Monday and half the day Tuesday off work.  And what’s a girl to do when she’s cooped up inside because because it looks like this outside…

Make SOUP! What else?

I recently came across the blog 101 Cookbooks.  I’m a REALLY late comer to Heidi’s blog, but I’m loving it so far. I loved it so much that I put her cookbook on my Christmas list this year…and got it!  I’m reading through it right now and hope to show off some recipes soon.  On New Year’s Day, though, Heidi posted this recipe for New Year’s Noodle Soup and I knew I had to try it…slightly modified to my taste, of course.  Being snowed in on Monday was the perfect opportunity.

Thankfully, I planned ahead and soaked my dried lentils and beans overnight so they were ready go when I was.    While heating olive oil in my big new Martha Stewart 7-quart Cast Iron casserole pot, I chopped a big yellow onion

and minced a serrano pepper in my mini Cuisinart food processor then added them both to the pot.

Next you throw in some tumeric, cumin, and freshly ground black pepper and mix it until the onions turn this gorgeous golden yellow color.

Then it’s time for the vegetable stock, lentils, chick peas, and beans.  Heidi’s recipe calls for borlotti beans, but I couldn’t find any to save my life – dried or canned.  So I substituted navy beans, and I think it turned out pretty well.

Let all that cook together for about 25-30 min, then add thin egg noodles.

**Side NoteThe recipe called for 120 g of noodles, which was about 1/2 of the bag I purchased.  With a little slip of the hand I accidentally emptied the entire bag of noodles into my pot.  All those extra noodles basically absorbed most of my soup liquid.  So, my “soup” actually turned out to be more like the consistency of Spaghetti-O’s…even after I added an extra quart of stock.  But it still tasted great and hit the spot during these last few icy cold days.

Just before serving, you add about 3 1/2 oz of spinach leaves.  I decided to chiffonade my spinach leaves because, frankly, the idea of encountering a huge wilty spinach leaf in a spoonful of my soup kinda freaked me out.

It’s not that I dislike spinach.  I’ll gladly eat it in a salad.  But I just can not bring myself to eat it cooked.  That pile of wilty spinach on my plate just grosses me out.  It grossed me out when Popeye squirted it out of the can, and it grosses me out now.

So I made sure than any wilty spinach I encountered in my soup would be as small and delicate a piece as possible, blending nicely the with noodles, legumes, and onions.  See…D-E-L-I-C-A-T-E…

You hardly notice it once you stir it in.  But doesn’t the green spinach look beautiful against lovely golden color of the soup!

Finally, the recipe calls for the addition of 1/2 cup of fresh cilantro and 2 tbsp of fresh dill.  These are both flavors that send a shiver up my spine and, for me at least, can ruin a meal.  I didn’t want to leave them out completely and leave the soup devoid of all flavor.  So I added them, but used dried in stead of fresh and cut WAY back on the amounts.  I think I may have added 3 tsp of each to the 7-qt pot o’ soup.  As such, I could discern a hint of each of those flavors in the finished product, but was not overwhelmed by them in the least.  For me, that was perfect.  If you enjoy these flavors, by all means, follow the original recipe and pile them in.

Lastly, Heidi suggests topping your bowl off with caramelized onions, creme fraiche, sour cream, or toasted and chopped walnuts.  I went for the walnuts and LOVED them.  I tasted the soup both with and without them.  While it was delicious either way, the walnuts added a completely new dimension of flavor.  And, because I’m a good Southern girl, I served it with a side of warm, buttery cornbread!  PERFECTION!

It was scrumptious and JUST wanted I wanted in this cold, cold weather…even if it was more like a pasta dish than an actual soup.  I will definitely be making this again.  Next time, though, I’ll go a little lighter on the noodles and I think I may add some shiitake mushrooms.

Cheers, y’all!

Wine Girl

Permanent link to this article: https://kitchendoesnttravel.com/archives/633

I’m Sporty…I Mean REALLY Sporty

This little blog is supposed to be about the BG and I cataloguing our adventures, both in and out of the kitchen.  Well, if I didn’t have a mini-adventure on Saturday, I don’t know what it was.

Earlier this week, I told you the BG got me a bike for Christmas.  Since we live in NC and spent the holidays in Mississippi/Alabama he couldn’t actually give me my bike on Christmas morning.  We had to go pick it up from Bike Source when we got back in town last weekend, really only giving me Sunday afternoon to play with it.  So we’ve been plotting all week to make time for a ride today.  While it wasn’t actually cold in the Queen City last weekend, there was enough of a chill in the air to give the wind a bite when I picked up any kind of speed.  So, my stipulation for any further winter riding was that I would get what I deemed a “wind shirt.”  (In my mind this is some sort of wind minimizing shirt to help cut back on stinging headwinds, not just a fleece.)

It’s Saturday, so of course BG and I slept in a little later than we really intended.  Once up and running, we headed out to R.E.I. to see what kind of wind-minimizing cycling gear they might have in stock.  I found the PERFECT shirt/jacket!  (I was going to share the link, but I can’t find my jacket on the website.) It’s called the Novara Headwind Bike Jacket.  It blocks wind up to 35 mph, has a detachable hood that can cover my ears but won’t block my peripheral vision, has 4 pockets – two of which are zippered for holding my phone, etc. while cycling, and is extra long in the back so it won’t ride up and leave my lower back exposed to the elements while I’m leaning over towards the handlebars.  Oh, and the BEST part is it’s grey and purple – so it matches my bike. 🙂

What?  Sporty girls need to coordinate too.

Now, I mentioned that it wasn’t cold during our brief ride last weekend, just chilly when we caught wind as we picked up speed.  That same statement was NOT true of Charlotte today.  The high today was forecasted to be 37*!

We got home from shopping around 11:30a.  Excited to play with my new bike and put my new jacket to good use, I ran upstairs and immediately changed into my biking gear.  I was ready to go within minutes.  I can not say the same thing for my man.  I’m not sure what he was doing, but I had time to do all the dishes in the sink before he was ready.  About 45 min later we were BOTH finally geared up and ready to go.  So we ran downstairs, grabbed our bikes, open the garage door, and what do we see…

SNOWFLAKES!  Big, fat, chunky snowflakes falling from the sky.

I looked at him.  He looked at me.  “Are we really gonna do this?” he asked.  “Well, I do have new shirt,” I replied.  So off we went.

I’m pleased to report that my new Novara Headwind Jacket worked brilliantly!  I am especially pleased with the hood that kept my ears so warm.  If the jacket had not had that option I would not have been able to stand it.  My ears always hurt really badly in cold wind.  But not today!  The one little chink in my cold weather cycling armor – fingerless riding gloves.  Within the first half mile, my fingers were SO COLD that they hurt.  Not just pain.  That weird freezing, burning kind of pain.

Since we were headed towards East Blvd, BG suggested that we swing in the Alpine Ski Center and see what sort of gloves they might have that would be appropriate for cycling. Thankfully they had a suitable pair and, like my new jacket, I think they’ll come in handy when we head to Park City, UT next month.

By this time, it’s after 1pm and my breakfast has long since worn off.  I suggested to BG that we take a small break for lunch and defrosting.  We agreed to pop into our favorite burger joint, Big Daddy’s Burger Bar, for just that since we knew we could sit on an enclosed and heated patio, keeping our bikes near by.

(Please excuse the helmet hair and poorly lit pic taken with my iPhone camera.)

This place has a great beer selection and even better burgers.  The downside to that is it is ALWAYS hopping!  We’ve never been there when we didn’t have some kind of a wait.  (That being said, it is a MUST if you are in Charlotte and craving a good burger. ) The wind may have been blowing while we were riding, but at least we were generating body heat.  I thought I would turn into a grape popsicle before we were seated.

We split a Western Burger since we didn’t want to ride home with overly full tummies.  He had some Tater Tots and I had about half a serving of sweet potato fries.  Not very healthy but so, so yummy!

Lunch down, we now had to brave the 35* temps, sans snowflakes, for the ride back home.  The temp had dropped a couple of degrees since we left our house.

All in all, we were only out in the frigid temps for about 2 hours.  If that’s not sporty, I don’t know what is!  There was a time in my life when I wouldn’t have even considered going biking on a sunny, but freezing day like today.  Get me, I’m growing as a person.  In fact, BG told me that with the “mini-camping” I did for my Susan G. Komen 3-day Walk, my new found love of cycling, and my plans to go skiing for the first time next month, he thinks I’m in the midst of a “sporty revolution.”

You know what?  I think he may be on to something!

Cheers, y’all!

Wine Girl

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The Loot

I must have been a very good girl this year because Santa was very good to me.

He brought me lots of stuff for The Kitchen

(for serving)

(for cooking)

(for storage)

(for entertaining)

And THIS…

is for The Travel!

I was bitten by the biking bug while we were in Hilton Head this summer.  Apparently, since then, the BG has been plotting to get me one of my own!  Isn’t she pretty!  She’s black, white, and lavender…and my helmet and gloves match!  Oh, and there’s a bunch of good bike stuff about her that I haven’t quite memorized yet.

There’s mud on her tires because I had just taken her on her maiden voyage prior to taking this shot.  Is it weird that I’m stoked she’s named (i.e. read “model name”) after my favorite Disney Princess?

You’ll have to forgive me.  After 10 straight days of 3 and 4 yo nieces, I’m on Disney Princess overload!

Hope you all had as merry a Christmas and happy a New Year as we did!

Cheers y’all!

Wine Girl

Permanent link to this article: https://kitchendoesnttravel.com/archives/619

Could Anything Be More Fun

than making Christmas cookies with your 3 yo niece?

I certainly can’t think of anything…

except maybe eating sprinkles off the cookies until your teeth turn green!

Merry Christmas, y’all!

Wine Girl

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Dinner with Friends

Last night we had a dinner party! Is it a party if it was just us and one other couple? I certainly think so! We hosted these guys for dinner.

I’ve got to get in a better rhythm with this blogging in real time thing. I got so caught up in the cooking and the conversation that I forgot to take pics of all of us hanging out. So, a pic of Jon and LP from this summer will have to suffice.

LP and I enjoyed a Christmas cocktail first.

(Truth be told, I started sipping on mine while cooking before our distinguished guests arrived.)

Meanwhile, the boys sipped on a little something from Santa’s Private Reserve.

I set a pretty table for the evening.

To go with the pretty table I also planned a pretty menu. Once again I turned to the Barefoot Contessa for inspiration.

The Menu
Salad
Barefoot Contessa’s Lemon Chicken Breasts
Barefoot Contessa’s Couscous with Toasted Pine Nuts
Barefoot Contessa’s Haricort Verts e Shallot

Here’s what it all looked like.

And it all tasted even better than it looked! Check out the recipes for the chicken, cousous, and string beans here, here, and here.  Jon & LP supplied the salad and the vino!

After dinner we sipped on a little mulled apple cider

and had our funny bones tickled by a Christmas classic.

What a way to kick off the weekend!

Cheers, y’all!

Wine Girl

Permanent link to this article: https://kitchendoesnttravel.com/archives/575

Cocktail Hour – Candy Cane Swirl

Where has all the wine gone?  I better get back on it or I’ll never live up to my pseudonym.  I promise…Uncorked! will return next week.  This week, however, something a little more apropros for the holiday season – a holiday cocktail!

We will be hosting friends for dinner tomorrow night and I want to have a a festive beverage available for them.  I searched the internet for days…well, maybe not DAYS per se, but it was while.  I finally found something that sounded yummy, festive, not too sweet, and didn’t require multiple varieties of alcohol to prepare.  Of course, before I serve it to friends, I have to give it a test run and see if I like it.

It’s called a Candy Cane Swirl.  The Ingredients:

The Equipment:

The recipe didn’t call for it, but I like to put a little ice in the martini shaker to make sure that it’s nice and cold.

Then you add the cranberry juice

Next up – Grenadine

And the kicker…please note the Raspberry Infusion version…not plain.

Then…Shake-shake-shake…Shake-shake-shake…Shake your cocktail, shake your cocktail (if you haven’t guessed by now, that should be sung to the tune of Shake Your Booty).

Now this IS the holiday season.  Every thing is more glitzy and sparkly during the holiday season, and your cocktail glass should be no exception. Before your martini glass can be filled with this red concoction, it must first be festooned… um, rimmed.

I tried to make my own peppermint rimmer by smashing candy canes, but just ended up making a huge mess and never could get the pieces small enough that they would stick to the glass effectively.  If anyone has any tips on DIY candy cane rimmers (or any other variety of rimmer for that matter), I’d love to hear them.  But for now, Crate & Barrel to the rescue!

To get the rimming sugar to stick you must first moisten the edge of the glass.  I use a bowl or large food storage dish, fill it with about 1/8 inch of water and dip the top of the glass in like so.

For me at least, this is the neatest way to get this done and keep the water localized to the edge of the glass.  Then you dip your glass in the rimming sugar and twist it around.

(My martini glasses are too wide to fit inside the rimmer container, so I have to pour it out into a larger dish.)  Look how pretty!

First we festoon…Then we pour

Add a splash of lemon-lime selzter

and the piece de resistance

Voila!  A Candy Cane Swirl!

Here’s the mix:

 Candy Cane Swirl

• 3oz cranberry juice
• 1 oz SKYY Raspberry Infusion Vodka
• 1 oz Grenadine
• Splash of lemon-lime seltzer
• Rimming sugar (optional)
• Candy cane for garnish

Combine cranberry juice, vodka, and Grenadine in a martini shaker and shake.  Pour into rimmed cocktail glass.  Add a splash of lemon-lime seltzer.  Garnish with a small candy cane.

I sipped on mine while I wrapped all of these.

Wrapping is much more fun with a cocktail!  I highly recommend it.

Cheers, yall!

Wine Girl

Permanent link to this article: https://kitchendoesnttravel.com/archives/574

Grandaddy of All Ham & Cheese

So last week, after working at the hospital from 7a-3:30p all day Saturday, running around to do a little Christmas shopping, then spending 3 hours decorating the Christmas tree, I collapsed into a heap on the couch.  Firmly ensconced in my warm blanket with mulled apple cider in hand, I began to mindlessly flip through the channels and came across It’s Complicated on HBO.  Great movie.  I love Nancy Meyers movies.  If you haven’t seen it, you should.  But I digress…

First, it must be said that Meryl Streep’s kitchen in that movie is A-MA-ZING!

Seriously, this is my DREAM kitchen.  But the kitchen is not the point of this post…it’s what is being eaten in this fabulous kitchen!  There is a scene where Meryl Streep and Steve Martin are eating a meal of what looked to be a large piece of cheesy bread, salad and some Chardonnay.  Now, the first time I saw this movie WHAT was being eaten didn’t catch my attention.  But this time, I went – “Huh, wonder what THAT is?”  Through the miracle that is the DVR, I was able to rewind and memorize the French name Meryl Streep called it…

Croque Monsieur!

When curious about making a French dish, there is but one “go to gal” – The Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten.  A little search around the Food Network website informed me that this dish is basically a French Ham & Cheese sandwich.  Hmmm….and I just happen to have fresh homemade bread on my counter. What’s a girl to do?  Why whip some up, of course!

Check out the Barefoot Contessa’s full Croque Monsieur recipe here.  First you have to grate a lot of cheese – I mean a lot.  We’re talking 12 oz/5 cups of Gruyere

and a 1/2 cup of Parmesan.

(Now, my Pampered Chef gadget definitely made this grating easier.) Then you melt some butter and stir in some flour until it looks like this.

Did I just make a roux?  To finish off the sauce, stir in 2 cups of hot milk

followed by the Parmesan, a 1/2 cup of the Gruyere, salt, pepper, and nutmeg and stir it until it is a big ol’ saucepan of creamy, cheesy goodness.  And now, NOW is when we get to put that Beer Bread to good use…

First you slice it up, then toast it up, and cover it in Dijon mustard, sliced ham, and grated Gruyere

top if off with another slice of bread,

and cover it with the cheese sauce.

GET. A. LOAD. OF. THAT!!!!  Any recipe that allows me to ladle cheese sauce on to, well, quite frankly anything, is a winner in my book!

Believe it or not, you then sprinkle MORE Gruyere on top then bake and broil it until it looks like this

Now, BG was not about to let any of the cheesy goodness go to waste.

I mentioned that the fastest way to his heart was to combine his two favorite things – beer and bread.  Well, you add cheese to that and he is on Cloud Nine!

In all honesty I sliced the bread too thickly.  So, the next night I made it in an open faced version and much preferred that.  It’s much prettier that way, don’t you think?

BG declared that this was the “best damn ham and cheese ever” and I have to admit, I whole-heartedly agree with him!

Cheers, y’all!

Wine Girl

Permanent link to this article: https://kitchendoesnttravel.com/archives/545

The Way to a Man’s Heart

They say they way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, right?  But what about a man that loves beer…and bread?  Well, the way to his heart is still through his stomach, but you get there a lot faster if you combine his two favorite things.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Beer Bread!

I like how the light in that shot sort of makes the bread look like it was sent from heaven…because I kinda think it was.

Before I go any further, I would like to point out that before tonight, I have never made bread before.  As in EVER.  Never made bread before tonight.  I’ve told you before that I like to cook, not bake.  And frankly, the idea of bread making intimidated me – what with all the yeast, and rising, and kneading, etc, etc, etc…But, as Gabi from Honest Fare points out, the use of beer in the recipe neatly avoids all that jazz because – what is one of the key ingredients in beer…

YEAST!

The recipe was super easy.  In under an hour, I went from someone who never made bread to having fresh homemade bread on my table! The ingredients list was super simple.

First you mix and sift the dry ingredients, then add the “secret ingredient”…

I have no idea what kind of beer that is.  Gabi seemed to feel that “cheap” beer was best.  So I sent BG out for a single can of “cheap plain beer” and this is what he brought back.  It’s probably the kind of thing a beer snob like him wouldn’t ever be caught dead drinking.

Once the secret ingredient has been added, mix until a “stiff batter” is formed.  Gabi recommends that you use your hands once it starts to stiffen so that you don’t over mix it.  Here goes nothing!

Yuck!

After you wash the sticky, yeasty goo off your hands, scrape the batter into a loaf pan, brush on melted butter and bake away!

Voila!  Fresh, homemade bread in under an hour!

Get me!  I made bread! It was so yummy with a biscuity texture.  Delicious!  So very, very delicious.  Some of the commenters on Gabi’s blog discussed their successes with different flavors of beer and adding various herbs.  That’s the beauty of recipe as simple as this.  The potential variations are endless.

Bread this yummy would have been perfectly lovely eaten with just butter or dipped in olive oil.  But with fresh bread in the house, we had to get fancier than that.  Tune in tomorrow to see what we did with it!

Cheers, y’all!

Wine Girl

Permanent link to this article: https://kitchendoesnttravel.com/archives/544

What the Heck Is Pone?

Every family has their holiday food traditions, right? How much to you want to bet you’ve never heard of anything like mine?

Any thoughts…

No? Ok, then. I’ll clue you in. But first, I must ask – Has anybody out there (outside of my immediate family) ever heard of anything called Sweet Potato Pone?

I didn’t think so. I’ve never said those words to any non-immediate family member who didn’t utter “Huh? A sweet potato what?” in response. But that’s it. That’s our It’s-Just-Not-Thanksgiving-or-Christmas-Dinner-If-We-Don’t-Have-This-Dish dish. Sweet Potato Pone. What is it exactly? You mean, aside from the most awesome way to eat sweet potatoes? Well, it’s sort of a cross between a sweet potato casserole and a sweet potato bread.

The idea of trying to explain this dish to the internet at large prompted me to do a quick Google search for “pone.” Pone is apparently some sort of bread my by Native Americans with cornmeal, basically the ancestor of what we now call cornbread.

Ok. So that makes sense to me as, again, this Sweet Potato Pone is a hybrid of a casserole and a bread. Generally, it’s pretty easy to make…that is once you get past the very first step. I’m not going to lie to you, folks, the first step is a pain in the A**!!

What is this wretched step, you ask? It’s grating 3 cups of sweet potatoes. You’ve basically got to turn this

into this

Since my family scarfs this stuff, we usually double the recipe…meaning we need 6 cups of grated sweet potatoes, which amounts to grating up about 6 sweet potatoes.  My baby sister and I had to take it in shifts, so that we didn’t wind up with shriveled claws for hands!

In the past I’ve always used your standard issue cheese grater. This year I decided to try my Pampered Chef Rotary Grater. I don’t know that I would say that this device made the grating easier, but it certainly did reduce the likelihood that I would shave off slivers of my finger or knuckles into the sweet potatoes as I grated…and grated…and grated…

After that, it’s a piece o’ cake…just mixing your standard baking ingredients and popping it in the oven.

I can not stress enough the importance of the inclusion of flour in the recipe…particularly self-rising flour.  This is a minor detail my grandmother failed to include when I attempted to make this for BG’s family the first Thanksgiving we were married.  As a result, I basically served them sweet potato soup.  I kept trying to explain to them that this was wrong…so very, very wrong.  They ate it anyway with weird grimacing smiles, but I haven’t been asked to bring it back to any of the subsequent holidays we’ve shared over the last 11 yrs.

Trust me, though, when you include all the appropriate ingredients – BAM! So very, very yummy!

Here’s the official recipe:

  • 3 cups grated raw sweet potatoes
  • 1 1/2 c sugar
  • 1/2 c melted butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 3 tbsp self-rising flour
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp allspice
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Mix in the order listed above. Bake at 350-375 degrees for ~45-60 min until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.


Enjoy!  What about you?  In this holiday season, what are your family food traditions…or mishaps?  I’d love to hear them!

Cheers, y’all!

Wine Girl

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Notice Anything?

Just wondering if anyone noticed the banners in the sidebar to the right…We’ve been sporting them for about a week now.

As of last Tuesday, we are officially a Featured Publisher for FoodBuzz!  That means that we are now members of a food blog community of 4000 bloggers and 10 million foodies!

We are very excited to be a part of this prestigious foodie community!

Cheers, yall!

Wine Girl

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