Tastes Like Cabbage Rolls...

Much like the 'cheater' casserole I worked up for the taste of Greek Dolmades without all of the work, I've now made two attempts at a casserole version of Cabbage Rolls.  Adrian tells me that these two dishes top the list of his favourite weeknight dinners.

On this day, I was making Cabbage Roll casseroles as well as a batch of pasta sauce for the freezer - onions, carrots, celery, garlic, dehydrated zucchini and tomatoes from the garden (rehydrated overnight in tomato sauce), herbs and spices, ground pork and beef bought on special, and diced canned tomatoes also bought on special. Everything was cleaned chopped, sauced, browned and cooked up en masse, and what didn't get used in the casseroles went into the pot with some extra diced tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, sage, and dried garlic powder, then was frozen in blocks to quickly feed guests with minimal prep work.

 

 

The meat and vegetables for the casseroles, with rice added.  Adrian said he would be fine with less meat and more rice and vegetables.  This time, it worked out to a little under 1/4 pound of meat per serving, but I will adjust to make the meal less expensive and less dependant on grocery store meat. I'd like to try this with ground rabbit as well.

 

I browned the cabbage to encourage some deeper, sweet flavor, and for ease of layering in the dishes.

 

Cabbage, sauce, cabbage, and there you have 24 servings for the freezer, with no questionable ingredients.

Molasses Spice Crinkles

I made some cookies last night, so that Adrian could take some to work on what promised to be a cold winter day, and we could have something 'seasonal' for guests this evening.  There's something about cloves, ginger, and cinnamon that just makes me feel a little happier on a snowy day.

Molasses Spice Crinkles

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cloves
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon (most people like cinnamon, so I'm a bit more generous)

Sugar for dusting (about 3/4 cup - I throw the remainder in my tea the next morning.)

Preheat the oven to 375.  I'm lucky enough to have a stand mixer, so I throw the butter and sugar together and let them get acquainted while I gather the other ingredients.  I have made these by simply creaming the butter and sugar in a large bowl as well.  Either way, do not double this recipe - it will be too difficult to manage the dough. Just make two batches - the dishes are already dirty, and you're going to be monitoring the oven for a while.

Once the butter and sugar are fluffy, add the eggs and molasses.  Beat until smooth,

In a separate bowl, measure the dry ingredients and give them a stir.  This, I drop into the mixer by the rounded spoonful, but you can add it in several portions to the wet ingredients until the flour is blended in.

This is where the fun starts.  I have a 'tablespoon' cookie scoop to make measuring out the dough easier for me.  The original recipe suggests that this recipe will make 10 dozen, baked 5-7 minutes. My scoop gives me 3 1/2 dozen fairly chewy, moist cookies - baked for 9-10 minutes, and allowed to cool.  I scoop the dough, roll it in a bowl of dusting sugar (you can get fancy and play with food coloring and demerara sugar if you want things to be more colourful), and bake them 8 to a tray. If you intend to freeze some for baking later, skip the sugar dusting, and later thaw fully to ensure the sugar will stick to your dough before baking.

If you made 10 dozen, these cookies would be smaller and more brittle like a gingersnap.  I've tried to duplicate the giant cookies that some coffee shops sell - the danger is always that you will burn the bottom of the cookies without sufficiently cooking the middle.  You could try playing with the oven temperature. ** Remember** the crinkles don't show up in the oven - that occurs as the cookie cools on the tray out on the counter. 

Play with the size and level of chewiness that you like.  Finish the dough and do a test run - or 2 or 3, to determine what size of cookie you like, and what the ideal baking time is. 

Dutch Apple Bread (or Muffins)

The last of our crop of apples was languishing on the table, and I had a tea party to attend, so I diced them up and used one of my go-to recipes for apple bread.  It's called Dutch Apple Bread, after a recipe I found online years ago, on a now defunct website.  I'm not sure why a recipe that calls for orange juice would be 'Dutch,' but I've retained the name out of habit.  (I have substituted milk or buttermilk on occasion when I have no OJ in the house.)

 

Why yes, those are store-bought eggs on the counter, why do you ask?  The girls are coming up on three months without laying now - we've had a talk.

I doubled the recipe twice, since I had the apples, all the ingredients out, and the bowls were already dirty (quadrupling the ingredients would have overwhelmed my mixing arm).  This time, I made three loaves of bread, and a dozen nicely-sized muffins which I find easier to grab out of the freezer for breakfast.  The recipe below will make one loaf or one dozen muffins.

 

 

Country Bulk's Dutch Apple Bread

 

2 cups all purpose flour (or 1/2 and 1/2 all purpose / whole wheat - white whole wheat works nicely)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup chopped apples (I leave the peel on and call it 'rustic')

2 eggs

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup orange juice

1/3 cup chopped nuts (pecans here, but walnuts work nicely as well)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Cream together the butter and sugar (I had my butter out on the counter overnight, and the house stayed so cold that I popped it into the microwave for 30 seconds to help soften it for ease of use.)  Add the eggs and the vanilla to the creamed ingredients, and beat well.  Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl, and add alternately with the juice.  The mix may seem a bit dry, but the apples will make a difference.  Fold in the apples and the nuts. 

 

Bake in a greased 9x5 loaf pan (oiled) for 50-65 minutes, until the loaf tests done.  The moisture content of the apples you choose can alter the baking time, so be prepared to wait the full 65 minutes. 

 

For the muffins, I tested and was able to remove them from the same 350 degree oven at 28 minutes, though that timing will vary as well.

 

And it was delicious! 

 

Putting Food By

In keeping with my belief that, if you're going to make a mess, it might as well be a worthwhile one, I started several cooking projects this week which ultimately resulted in, or *will* result in good food, largely from inexpensive, in-season, local ingredients.  The fact that the results included considerable savings was a pleasant bonus for planning ahead.

Half of a $7.00, 25-pound bag of onions went into our slow cookers for 10 hours one day, and we wound up with lovely caramelized onions for use in pizzas, soups, stews and casseroles this winter, frozen in small batches for ease of use.

Most of a 20 pound box of zucchini was quickly shredded in our food processor, measured, divided up into freezer bags, and will make more than 40 dozen Zucchini muffins (or a combination of muffins and Chocolate Zucchini cake!).  My zucchini plants didn't produce for me this year, but I do still have some of last year's bounty in dehydrated and pickled form, so I was thrilled to support my local Farmer's Market and grab this box of squash from their own gardens for $16.00. It's about the timing!

I had thrown a loaf of bread in the dehydrator overnight, to make breadcrumbs, and boiled ten pounds of potatoes.  The spuds made a big batch of mashed potatoes using butter and some of the onion broth sweated by the crock pot cooking process, and I left that to cool overnight in the fridge. 

The next day, onions, garlic, ground, lean pork and beef (purchased on sale), zuchinni, carrots, and spices were sautéed, and allowed to cool.  I made a big batch of basmati rice, and grabbed herbs and greens from the garden....

 

A big pile of grape leaves, sorrel, mint, oregano, and parsley - the windfall apples are being dehydrated for rabbit treats. 

 

I chopped the herbs, blanched, de-veined and chopped the grape leaves, and processed the bread into crumbs, adding dehydrated lemon slices, salt, pepper, garlic and parmesan cheese to the mix, to stretch the meat, bind the filling, and give the casserole a bit of added flavour.

 

Once cool to the touch, I combined the rice, crumbs, greens and meat, portioned it into bread pans, and topped my mini casseroles with a mashed potato crust.  At about $1.00 a portion, this made 35 servings of dolmades, in casserole form - I'm not enough of a masochist to make the equivalent bulk of actual grape leaf rolls!

These were popped into the freezer, and will be removed from the pans and vacuum-sealed for future, minimal fuss meals - and the 'trial' casserole we had last night was delicious.

Zucchini Everything Breakfast Muffins

I thought I would have breakfast outside with the chickens this morning - everything was popping with colour after the rain last night. The girls were a bit too interested in what I was eating though - certainly it must be better than the scratch feed I was offering them!

 

These breakfast muffins have become a staple in our household, and the big zucchini I harvested from the garden on Tuesday was the perfect size for a double batch.

 

Zucchini Everything Muffins

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil (or applesauce, or combination - when I double, I do a cup of each)

2 cups sugar

2 cups grated zucchini

2 tsp vanilla

 

3 cups flour (unbleached, whole wheat, or a combination)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 generous tbsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup oats

 

1 cup chopped nuts, grains, etc.

1/2 - 1 cup chopped dried fruits

 

Cooking spray for muffin tins

 

**Note, you can use fresh zucchini, or you can also grate, measure, label and freeze your excess garden or farmer's market zucchini for use in these muffins when the snow flies.  I plan ahead! Drain off any excess liquid after thawing.  I freeze slightly more than stated, to make up for some loss.

 

Beat the eggs until light and fluffy, add oil, sugar, vanilla, and mix in the zucchini. Measure out the dry ingredients, and add to the bowl - the batter for these muffins is very wet, so you will have no problem incorporating it together, and might actually be worried that the mix needs more flour.  That's why I've added oats to the recipe, and the muffins come out nice and moist. If you don't have oats, you might want to add more flour instead.

 

For the nuts, grains and fruit, I use whatever I have handy.  This week, I used figs, dates, cranberries, and home-dried cherries. I threw in some chopped almonds and pecans, some flax seed, millet and amaranth....then topped things up with chocolate chips for the heck of it - and because everything tastes better with chocolate. 

 

Spray your muffin tins, spoon in the batter, and bake for 18-20 minutes at 350.

 

Because I always double my recipes, when baking 4 dozen at once, I find I need to set my timer for 10 minutes, and carefully swap top and bottom rack muffin tins to ensure even baking - but that might just be my oven. I set for another 8, then eyeball, or use a skewer to determine if the muffins need the full 20.  What we don't need for the next few morning goes into the freezer. Pop out a few muffins for breakfast, and microwave to heat through (about 80 seconds for 4).

Rhubarb Blondies/Slacker Chickens Applesauce Rhubarb Blondies/Applesauce & Apple Cake

Adrian took some of the Rhubarb Blondies in to work today, and there has been a request for the recipe.  Knowing I will eventually lose my paper copy of this quick, easy, baked treat, I thought I should post it here:

*Disclaimer : this recipe was originally "Oregon Apple Cake" from somewhere on the Interwebs, but I have managed to lose the original source - and have altered the ingredients so much - needing to find a use for my lovely backyard rhubarb, and similarly available home made applesauce, that I consider it my own now.

Rhubarb Blondies
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs (or 1 egg and 1/2 cup of applesauce if your chickens are slackers)
2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour
2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp. cinnamon (or more, to taste - I generally eyeball it)

2 cups sliced fresh rhubarb (or chunks of apple. ***If you add more, the cake will be too wet)
*Optional - up to 1 cup of nuts

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla.  Beat. Add dry ingredients (the original required sifted flour, but I'm lazy and it's not necessary - just try and incorporate all of the flour). The mixture will seem dry and lumpy at this point, but will moisten a bit as you stir in the fruit (you may need to use clean hands to fold in the fruit if you've doubled the recipe and don't have a huge bowl), and will smooth out in the pan as you bake.

Makes 1 9x13 pan, at 350F for 45 minutes.  I always double and share - the oven's on and the bowls are dirty anyway.

And now, a picture of a bumblebee working hard to collect pollen in the garden...such a hard worker!

The Zucchini Dilemma

Two days ago, a neighbour rang my doorbell, and offered me three giant zucchini.  I didn't want to be rude, seeing as how I also have a garden and am bringing in zucchini of various stripes myself (some heirloom green '8-Ball' squash,  white and yellow patty pans, and those green and yellow 'standard' shapes that grocery-store-shopping-people normally picture when they hear the word), but I also didn't really want to cook up zucchini that was well past its ideal stage of growth.

Since I'm also pretty frugal, and can't bear to see produce go to waste (that's why I have two pans of Rhubarb Blondies in the oven right now - well, that, and I can justify eating them for breakfasts :)

Now, we regularly make zucchini breakfast muffins here, so the smaller two squash were shoved in the fridge to be dealt with on the weekend..... and the large one I cored (for the chickens), and used as the main ingredient in a Chocolate Zuchinni Cake - something I've had at the back of my mind for a couple of gardening seasons, but never got around to experimenting with. The result was quite dense and moist - impressive, though it should be since it includes oil, butter, *and* sour cream! It's also not so sweet that it tastes like every other chocolate cake out there. I didn't put icing on the top, but added extra chocolate chips sprinkled on as it was cooling - they aren't necessary, and I likely won't use them next time.  There *will* be a next time.

Chocolate Zuchinni Cake
     Adapted from King Arthur Flour,
     For 1 9x13 pan - I doubled and shared

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I would normally substitute homemade applesauce, but I was in a rush)
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
2 cups shredded zucchini
1/2 cup chocolate chips (or a smidge more)

Preheat oven to 325F, and spray pan with baking spray.  Cream together butter, oil, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in eggs. Add soda, powder and salt to measured flour, stir together. Alternately blend in the sour cream and flour mixture to the bowl, adding in the cocoa at the end, and then folding in the zucchini and chocolate chips. Spoon into your pan, and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a bamboo skewer comes out clean (I found this needed the extra five minutes in my oven).