Tag Archives: cooking

Comfort foods

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I woke up so happy the other morning. I was dreaming about making clam chowder with my mom.

My mom, who passed away from Covid on January first this year, believed strongly in two main foods to make anyone feel better. Clam chowder and wild blackberry pie. I could count on both each time I’d visit her in Olympia, Washington after moving to California.

I have collected a series of cookbooks (photo above) that my great-grandmother published in the 1890s and early 1900s. My great-grandfather was a newspaper man and owned a printing press. To earn extra money, great-grandmother Nellie published and sold her cookbooks across the country as a fundraiser for church auxiliary groups.

Just think, she had to typeset these beauties by hand!

I decided to check out my great grandmother’s cookbook to see if my mom followed the recipe for clam chowder. There are a few differences. For example, we use bacon today instead of pork. We don’t use fresh clams. And what the heck are common crackers?

I love this quote from the Soup cookbook:

“Soup preceding sumptuous meal,

Preparing well the way

For happiness and joyous weal,

To brighten every day.”

This is how I make clam chowder — the way Mom taught me:

Dice potatoes and boil in water. Chop onions and bacon into small pieces.

Brown onions and bacon, drain the grease.

Add flour to onions and bacon and brown. Add milk or heavy cream and allow to thicken. Add potatoes with boiled water. Add a can of clams with liquid.

Sometimes she would throw in a can of creamed corn.

I’ve written about comfort foods HERE and what my daughter finds as her comfort food. It surprised me.

What’s your favorite comfort food? Is it from a family recipe?

Great weekend fun

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Desert Trails
Sonoran McDowell Preserve

We had many beautiful walks this weekend. Mainly because it warmed up. I was able to walk without being bundled up in a ski parka and wool cap. I wore a sweatshirt instead.

My dishwasher quit a week ago Friday right before guests came over for appetizers. Saturday we had friends over for Oxtail soup complete with salad, vegetables and a rice dish. That meant a ton of dishes. Lucky me, we have dishwasher in our casita. I had to traipse back and forth with dishes on a tray for the past week.

Finally, this past Friday (a week after it broke down) the repairman came. He did diagnostics and said it would cost $1,000 to fix the dishwasher. I looked at the paperwork the prior owners left us. The dishwasher is around nine years old. Easy decision.

We went shopping Saturday for a new dishwasher. The one I wanted could be delivered in 25 weeks! I thought we were over supply chain issues. I’m not schlepping dishes to and from the casita for half a year. I looked at other brands and they had one dishwasher in stock! Imagine that! I feel like we lucked out.

Sunday I went with a girlfriend to a driving range to hit balls for the first time in years. I couldn’t believe how nervous and shaky I was. Eventually I settled down and hit a few good shots. We chipped and putted. It felt marvelous to be outside having fun on a bright sunny day. My new golf friend also hasn’t golfed for years and we seem to be a good match as far as our golfing skills go.

Sunday morning I got this video of Canadian geese:

I hear the geese before I see them.

What fun things did you do over the weekend?

Dining out or eating in

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For New Year’s Eve, my husband and I indulged with burgers and fries at Big Earl’s Greasy Eats.

What’s in a name? We’ve driven by Big Earl’s Greasy Eats for two years. Finally, we took the plunge and ordered the Big Earl Burgers and fries to take home.

They were just as delicious as a place named Greasy Eats promised. But then I felt sick for the rest of the day. Too much food (or grease) that I ate too fast. I couldn’t eat again for that day.

This was my burger and fries from Big Earl’s.

While we were celebrating Christmas with the family, we cooked and mostly ate in the VRBO. One of the special dishes I liked was roasted vegetables cooked by one of my son’s fiancee’s sisters. It was so delicious I made it at home.

Brussels sprouts, onions, garlic, sweet potatoes, bell peppers and carrots tossed in olive oil with fresh rosemary. Roasted in the oven at 400 degrees about 45 minutes.

The roasted veggies made me feel so much better than the burger and fries!

What are your favorite things to cook or what do you like most when you dine out?

It’s all about the crust

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Rhubarb Pie
Homemade rhubarb pie for dessert with guests Saturday night.

My mom was one heck of a pie baker. She’d send my brother and I out on our bikes to pick wild blackberries. She warned us not to eat too many or there wouldn’t be enough for pie.

She taught me how to make crust. The secret is to barely touch it. The more you handle it, the tougher it gets.

I remember visiting her with my infant daughter and toddler son. She had made clam chowder (my favorite) and baked a wild blackberry pie.

I raved about the pie and her perfect flaky crust.

She laughed and said she was doing something different now that she was over 60. She showed me the box of Pillsbury Pie Crusts! I was shocked. I literally couldn’t tell the difference between the boxed crust and her famous homemade crust.

I continued to make crust the old fashioned way. But I didn’t like the mess of flour all over the counter and sink. I didn’t like cleaning after making pies. So one day I folded and bought the crusts. My family didn’t notice the difference.

I noticed it was super easy to bake pies and it wasn’t an ordeal. Unroll the crust and fill it. Bake. Presto! You have pie.

I feel guilty when we have guests over and they rave about my pie. But then again, at least they’re not store bought!

Here’s the recipe from my mom’s Betty Crocker cookbook for rhubarb pie:

Rhubarb pie recipe

Do you think it’s cheating to make a pie with store-bought crusts?

Did you grow up with a Betty Crocker cookbook?

What makes you happy 2.0

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Puerto Penasco sunset
Sunset in Mexico in the Gulf of California.

A year ago today I wrote a blog post “What Makes You Happy.” You can read it HERE. You’ll notice a link to one of our favorite bloggers, LA.

In last year’s post, I included a list of things that made me happy. I thought I’d take a look and see if I can add to it this year. This is what I wrote last year.

This morning I was writing my daily morning pages and I wrote a long list of things that make me happy. I woke up feeling a little down, so my brilliant idea was to focus on what brings me joy and incorporate the things on my list in my daily life — or at least weekly. I had quite a list.

A few of the items were:

A trip to the ocean

A good night’s sleep

Working on a project I’m proud of

Spending time with family and friends

Swimming in the nearby lake

Swimming laps at the city pool

Reading a good book

Catching up with friends via the phone

Hiking

What can I add to the list? Here’s What Makes Me Happy 2.0:

Visits from my kids

Inviting friends over for dinner

Cooking

The Desert Botanical Garden

Musical Instrument Museum

Going to Costco with my husband and stocking up

Watching baby quail

Morning walks

Sunsets and sunrises

Reading blogs from my blogging community

Watching Olive the cat play

What makes you happy?

Do you find time to incorporate these treats into your weekly lives?

Olive playing with her catnip mouse.

Onions and garlic

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onions and garlic heads in wooden box on table
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

This past week I heard two things about onions and garlic that I never knew before. Actually, I need more information because I don’t understand the reasons behind the suggestions I got about onions and garlic.

With my husband sick, I made him chicken soup with lots of garlic and onions. I divided the soup into a portion for me and one for him in tupperware that I left on the front steps for him to pick up. It was delicious and I cooked a second batch yesterday afternoon.

One friend told me that her mother-in-law would place sliced onions throughout all the rooms of the house when somebody was sick. She did that decades before COVID, but I’m wondering, what would it hurt? Then again, what would the purpose be?

I talked to another friend and she asked me for my recipe for chicken soup. I explained that it’s quite simple:

4 chicken thighs with skin and fat

5 cloves of garlic minced

1 large onion sliced

baby carrots and chopped celery

1 box of unsalted chicken broth, add equal parts water

Put in a pot and cook until done. Salt and pepper to taste.

My own throw it together chicken soup recipe

That’s it. My “throw it in a pot chicken soup recipe.” My friend suggested that I let the sliced onions and chopped garlic hang out together before cooking them.

“Why?” I asked.

She explained that it brings out healthful “properties” in the onion and garlic when they mingle.

However, I do not know what these properties are or how hanging out together changes anything. A quick google did not help. But I tried it anyway, I left the garlic and onions together on the cutting board to blend and rest together before throwing them in my new big red soup pot from Target.

I did find out that garlic and onions are in the same family and they are helpful anti cancer foods:

The Allium genus includes garlic, onions, shallots, leeks, and chives. These vegetables are popular in cuisines worldwide and are valued for their potential medicinal properties. Epidemiologic studies, while limited in their abilities to assess Allium consumption, indicate some associations of Allium vegetable consumption with decreased risk of cancer, particularly cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25586902/

What do you know about garlic and onions and their healing properties? Would you put slices of onions around the house when someone is sick? Do you think it kills a virus, or the virus is attracted to onions and is absorbed by them? I remember reading about placing sliced raw onions in a sick persons socks. Maybe there is something to this?

Rachel Ray red soup pot from Target.
My new soup pot in the Casita bubbling with homemade chicken soup.

A little home cooking

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sausager and peppers in a pan
Sausage and peppers

Sausage and peppers is one of my go to recipes. I’ll make it every few weeks in a big batch that we can heat up and enjoy for several days. I learned how to cook sausage and peppers from a friend who came from large Italian family in upstate New York. It wasn’t something my mom ever cooked when I was growing up.

I start with sweet Italian sausage and put it in a roasting pan with water at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Then I turn over the sausage and add more water if necessary and cook for an additional 20 minutes. The water begins deep enough to cover the sausages halfway.

Sausages in a roasting pan with water.
This is what the sausage looks like when it’s all done.

While I’m waiting for the sausages to cook, I prep my peppers and onions. I usually use three peppers and one onion. I heat the olive oil with garlic, cumin and oregano. I learned in a cooking class years ago that it’s best to heat the spices in the oil to get more robust flavors. Then I saute the onions until they’re transparent.

onions and peppers being sauteed.
The onions are done and I move on to saute the peppers.

The final step is slicing the sausages into bite sized pieces and throwing it all together in the pan to sear the sausage and meld all the delicious flavors. When I prep the veggies, I also start rice in my rice cooker

What are some of your go to meals? Did you learn your recipes from your mom, cookbooks or from friends? Another signature dish of mine is oxtail soup, which my mom taught me and I discovered in one of my Great Grandmother Nellie’s cookbooks

I’m bringing her cookbooks back to life. I need you to subscribe to my blog by email for updates of this project.