Day in the Life of a Teacher

I had a conversation last week with our county curriculum specialist for secondary social studies about how we understand what we do in our job as a teacher, but we teachers don't always know what he does and one way to reach out would be to explain more of what he does to us.  Then there was a great video about Lily Garcia (NEA President) who was asked by a fellow plane passenger "what is the one thing you need to fix public education," and she pointed out that he's not the enemy, we need to educate him about what we do.  She then goes on to list 25 common things that educators do, some of which applied more to elementary school, but I do occasionally hand out some band-aids.  So I thought that I'd occasionally (when I have time) try to go back through my days and explain what I do.

Out the door by 7am (actually on time today!  How is it that I can be out the door faster on a Friday than a Thursday?) after breakfast and brushing teeth.
Arrived at school around 7:25, checked mailbox in main office, put lunch away in workroom fridge, filled water bottle, discussed APUSH-English coordination with the English teacher in the workroom, used bathroom, head to classroom, realize I didn't have my keys, stop by mentee's classroom to use keys, check in with her for day's plans, open my door, find my keys in my closet lock, return keys to mentee.  Start up both computers, pull out WHII notebooks, reply to two emails, read daily school staff email, realized I missed an email with schedules for midterms, print those out.  Realize that pencil sharpener isn't working, learn an eraser was shoved in it.  Email department to ask who has a small screwdriver.  Open up daily powerpoint for WHII and turn on projector by 8am, students trickle in, greet students, run to printer down the hall, back and suggest to one student to finish notes for HW quiz.

1st period - (8:10-9:40) Bell rings at 8:10, announcement of new principal to students, clarify that for them, pledge of allegiance, moment of silence, explain bellwork to them, take attendance, set aside papers for absent students.  While they're working on bellwork I move videos from old computer to new computer, open notes powerpoints, then review bellwork with students.  Pass out homework quiz, grade notes (mark in gradebook who has notes), finish moving videos and setting computer up for class.  Watch for cheating, notice one student trying to pass English class notes off for history notes.  Nice try.  End quiz, switch papers, go over answers with students, explain commonly wrong answers.  Collect HW quizzes and have one group left to present a project.  Review handout from a previous class when I was out - randomly ask students to answer the questions, add more questions to spark discussion, try to remember wait time to get better answers.  Really impressed with answers about whether the US is a nation state and what allows absolute monarchs to take power.  Give students 10 minutes to work on geography practice related to absolute monarchs, pass out graded papers from previous classes.  Review map as a class.  9:30, ten minutes left in class, start notes on the English Civil War.  Remind students of what to study for quiz next class as they're leaving.  Discussing upcoming absences with students who ask.

Warhawk Time - (9:45-10:20) Homeroom period with ability to move classrooms with a pass for remediation.  Remind my assigned students to sign in, input 1st period homework quizzes into gradebook.  Get a small screwdriver from dept chair, youtube how to fix jammed pencil sharpener, take whole thing apart, pencil shavings explode all over my desk, finally get eraser out, put whole thing back together.  No one told me during Ed School that I'd have to learn to be a MacGuyver and repair woman, but I have now learned to unjam copiers (I'm learning to copier whisper), fix jammed pencil sharpeners, and fix some broken computers.  I might have to add those skills to my resume.  Had a good discussion with junior girls in my WT about college when one of them asks.  Write passive aggressive note on pencil sharpener.  Walk down hall to return screwdriver, and wash lead off hands (they were pretty grey) and use restroom.  Remember to take official attendance.  Go over some test questions with APUSH students who came in to review.  Return an email to a parent.  Pack up to head to library for APUSH classes.

3rd period - (10:25-11:15) Stand in doorway to remind students where to sit in library for APUSH, get whiteboard easel and write up agenda, bell rings, hand out worksheet, explain one side for their personal review on own, explain how to complete the timeline for a unit review.  They write the presidents down the middle in the boxes on the paper and then need to put foreign events on one side, domestic on the other, and then think about connections between events.  We did this because the unit felt so choppy and out of order and I wanted to make sure they had it in order in their minds.  I gave them half the class to work on it and then they could move to the computers if they wanted to work on their Jackson trial prep.  I walked around, answering questions, asking questions of students, suggesting ideas, checked in with the lawyers.  Feet were pretty sore by the end of class.

Lunch (11:15-11:45) Ate in the work room with many of the department, enjoyable conversations, lots of laughs today, big discussion on the new principal and what to expect (no one knows for sure!)

5th period- (11:50-1:20) Back in the library for APUSH, same as 3rd period but 30 minutes for the review timeline, and then choice to work on trial.  Most headed to trial prep for last 60 minutes.  Due to more time, I got to get some projects graded for WHII, moving around the room to check in between every 2 projects graded.  Entered grades into the online gradebook.  Then worked on prepping a jigsaw activity on slavery for next unit, finding primary and secondary resources for students to read and writing questions for them to analyze.  Ran to the restroom when I could sneak away for a minute as the library was watching students.  Circulated around one last time before the bell for final questions.

7th period (1:25-2:55) same as 5th period.  Had a great conversation with the sub for the librarian who was a former teacher in the room next to me, and worked as my sub the week before.  Continued to balance checking in with kids and getting a little bit of planning done.  Decided to re-do the timeline worksheet for next unit and this unit next year to help students organize the information thematically as well (political, social, economic) after checking in with students and how it was working for them.  Sat down to work with the defense attorneys who never wanted to be attorneys, helped with questioning skills and how to cross-examine.  Right before the end of the period outside the library the choir serenaded our leaving assistant principal (becoming principal at another school) on his last day with the alma mater, a beautiful and touching moment.  Final reminders to students before the bell rang about the calendar changes for the following week and what to finish to prep for the test and then trial.

After school (2:55-4:15) - Packed up classroom for the weekend.  Read an article about colonial religion that would be useful for next year and PDF'ed it to save.  Worked on a key for timeline while watching students make up a test for another teacher for about 40 minutes, then helped my mentee with when and how to do a grade change from quarter 1 (20 minutes).  Packed up personal belongings and headed out for the weekend, remembering my keys.

*That's a fairly normal day, however slightly less on the email front.  I have a good day/bad day schedule where on even days I have 2 periods off for planning, and on odd days I teach straight through all periods.  On non-Fridays, I would usually head home, attempt to get some yoga in and then grade or plan for 2-3 hours in the evening.

What to do with a forgotten pound of carrots...

I was cleaning out the fridge when I discovered to my chagrin that I had a forgotten pound of carrots in the back for over a month that needed to be eaten quickly as they were on their last legs. My first thought was these carrot cake power bites that I found on the kitchn yesterday. They look delicious and would be great to take to work to snack on during long meetings of "welcome back teachers time!" but I decided they looked too sweet for what I wanted, and I didn't feel like getting out the food processor from the top of the closet. Also having an abundance of oats, I looked for recipes for carrot oatmeal muffins and found one from Kitchen Confidante that was not huge on the sugar and had the most carrot.

Carrot Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups coarsely grated carrots (that's about 5-6 large carrots)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (didn't have, oops, so I found out that you can use more baking powder in a 1:4 baking soda to baking powder ratio)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 c. raisins

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.  Use muffin tin liners or a light coating of cooking spray.

Grate your carrots!  It's a good arm work out...can you do it with both hands?  Then in a medium bowl add sugars, oil and egg to the carrots and mix well.  In a large bowl mix flour, oats, baking powder (and soda if you have it), the rest of the ingredients and I added about 1/4 cup of raisins.  Mix well, then add the carrot mixture to the flour mixture and combine well.

(*I've discovered that recipes that split the wet and dry ingredients don't ever tell you the bowl sizes so I always end up with the wet stuff in the big bowl and then have to either wash bowls half way through, or dirty a third bowl.  Lesson learned...wet in a medium bowl, dry in my favorite big bowl.)

Divide the batter evenly in the muffin pan until about 2/3 full.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Enjoy!

I had some extra batter, so why not make a loaf!

Mexican Rice Bowl

After getting back from vacation and then moving the fiance into his new place for grad school I had a hankering for Mexican, even though we had made tacos for 30 people the previous week.  Maybe it was because I was returning with a large can of taco seasoning?  Who knows.   However, I hate buying tortillas because I never end up using them all up, then they go moldy in the back of the fridge after using 2 of the 8.  What a waste.  There was an article about rice bowls (or grain bowls) as a great lunchtime meal in an old edition of Bon Appetite, so I decided to take that approach.

I made 1 cup of rice, and then was able to divide that into 5 of my pyrex bowls as the base.  I cooked about a pound of ground beef (97% lean) and then used the left-over taco seasoning for that and layered it on top of the rice.  Then made a pot of black beans (2 cans of black beans, 1 corn on the cob cut off, 1 can diced tomatoes, taco seasoning, cilantro, lime juice) for the next layer, and then topped it with diced fresh tomatoes, avocado, salsa and cilantro.  Thus, in about 40 minutes I had 5 meals for the week.

(If you're not dairy free, you could easily add cheese and sour cream on top)

I think grain bowls are the way to go for weekly lunches as they're filling and you can put some protein on them (even cook an egg on them in the microwave at work), then add salad bits, a sauce (like salsa, salad dressing or any other sauce) and you've got a complete meal.

You could go bbq...wild rice + pulled pork + slaw veggies + bbq sauce
You could go asian...jasmine rice + teriyaki chicken + frozen asian veg (reheated) + dash of soy sauce
Breakfast?  Hash browns + sausage + salad greens + poached egg (yes, you can poach an egg in the microwave! )

Possibilities are endless!

Pie Testing & Competition

With the family beach week coming the first week in August, and our 10th annual (maybe 11th) pie competition, I decided to start testing some pie recipes to figure out how to make a diary-free pie that I could eat that would also win over the judges, expected to range from age 4 to 25.

To start, I asked my friend Meg to do some research as she has an awesome food/life blog (www.megbollenback.com) and knows of lots of places to look for these recipes.  She sent me a list of links (bored at the airport on the way to vacation I'm guessing) so I looked through and found some I liked and wanted to try.

Up first was testing fillings.  I tried the recipe from Oh She Glows first for the Chilled Dark Chocolate Pie following the recipe closely, in a regular graham crust for my co-workers at our summer curriculum project.  The chocolate filling was dense, but cut easily when left in the fridge for 2 hours before serving, then served with cut up cherries on top.  Delicious, but possibly too rich for the little kids to earn a vote.

Round 2 I decided to modify the first filling to get it less rich with using all of the coconut milk (white cream and water).  It made too much filling (which makes a great pudding in the fridge), but was only slightly less rich.  Also, because I forgot about a crust, I ended up finding this recipe online for a simple no-roll crust and just used some almond milk to keep it diary-free.

The crust was a bit salty for me, but with the chocolate it was ok, however it was way too crumbly.  And of course, I forgot to take pictures.

Ran out of time to try more recipes due to moving CP to PA for grad school, so I decided to wing it at the beach.

Here's what I did:

Pie 1: competition

Graham Crust - store bought

Filling below

Coconut whipped cream

Strawberries

Pie 2: non-competition

Pecan-date crust

Filling

Coconut Whipped Cream

Strawberries

Crust: (http://minimalistbaker.com/6-ingredient-vegan-chocolate-silk-pie/)

·       1.5 cups raw walnuts (I used pecans)

·       1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

·       1 heaping (packed) cup pitted dates, soaked for 10 minutes in warm water and drained

1.     Prepare the crust by pulsing walnuts and cocoa powder in a food processor until it reaches a fine meal. Remove and set aside.

2.     Place soaked dates in the food processor and process until small bits remain and it’s sticky. Add back in the walnut-cocoa meal and process until well combined.

3.     Transfer to a glass pie pan lightly oiled with coconut oil. Alternatively, place parchment in the bottom for easy removal. Place a piece of plastic wrap over the crumbs and press with your hands to form a uniform crust that goes up the sides. Pop in the freezer to set.

 

Filling

For the filling:

·       1 bag dark chocolate chips (about 340 grams)

·       1 (15-ounce) can full-fat coconut milk, chilled in fridge overnight

·       Liquid sweetener, to taste (optional – I used 2 tbsp maple syrup)

·       Pinch of salt

·       1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

4. For the filling: Chill can of coconut milk in the fridge overnight so the cream can solidify. When ready, open the can and carefully scoop out the solid white coconut cream into a pot, discarding the water. Add chocolate chips and stir until combined. Heat over low-medium heat until most of the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and stir in the optional sweetener, salt, and vanilla until smooth.

Read more: http://ohsheglows.com/2013/07/06/chilled-dark-chocolate-pie-with-toasted-almond-crust-and-strawberry-vanilla-compote/#ixzz3hlSNJ2UD

Coconut Whipped Cream

http://minimalistbaker.com/how-to-make-coconut-whipped-cream/

Ingredients

·       1 14-ounce can full fat coconut milk 

·       1/4 - 3/4 cup icing/powdered sugar 

·       1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1.     Chill your coconut cream or coconut milk in the refrigerator overnight, being sure not to shake or tip the can to encourage separation of the cream and liquid.

2.     The next day, chill a large mixing bowl 10 minutes before whipping.

3.     Remove the coconut cream or milk from the fridge without tipping or shaking and remove the lid. Scrape out the top, thickened cream and leave the liquid behind (reserve for use in smoothies).

4.     Note: if your coconut milk didn't harden, you probably just got a dud can without the right fat content. In that case, you can try to salvage it with a bit of tapioca flour - 1 to 4 Tbsp - during the whipping process. That has worked for me several times.

5.     Place hardened cream in your chilled mixing bowl. Beat for 30 seconds with a mixer until creamy. Then add vanilla (optional) and powdered sugar and mix until creamy and smooth - about 1 minute. Taste and adjust sweetness as needed.

6.     Use immediately & spread over the chilled chocolate filling, or refrigerate - it will harden and set in the fridge the longer it's chilled. Will keep for up to 1 - 2 weeks!

Cover the top with sliced strawberries.

With competitors and some judges

I thought they were delicious and many people were amazed they were dairy free (that whipped coconut cream is delicious!), however due to the usurping of the older generation of judges (ages 15 and up), my pie only got 3rd place.  The winner was a pie made for the judges (ahem, cheaters) with pudding, whipped cream, rainbow sprinkles and minion twinkies on top.

I'll have to try again next year with some other recipes!

Keeping track of recipes

In this modern age it's sometimes difficult to keep track of recipes.  It used to be that you had a box for the recipe cards (maybe handed down in the family), or a stack of cookbooks, or a binder where you have pages organized that you've torn out of magazines, and that was pretty easy organization and everything was nearby in the kitchen.  But today, with the advent of the digital world, it's harder to keep track because not everything is paper or at your fingertips, and you can forget where you have recipies much easier.  For example, I have my cookbooks and binder, but then also have a digital recipe box on epicurious and one on allrecipes.  But then what happens when you find a great recipe on some other site or blog and can't save it into one of those two digital recipe collections?

For me, if I don't print it, I end up saying that "this is great, I want to make this" and then forget about it and usually can't find it.  If I print it, chances are I will make it, eventually.  I sometimes wish that there was one digital cookbook that I could save all my digital recipes into.  Maybe Evernote would be an option, or PDF all of the recipes and save them to a Dropbox folder or Google Drive...

How do others organize their digital recipe collections?  I'd love to know!

Spinach, Pea and Canadian Bacon Quiche

After being away for the weekend I had a bunch of eggs left in the fridge that needed to be eaten sooner rather than later, so quiche they became!

I did a quick google search for times and temps and found 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes was the most common posted so I set the oven for 350.

I then defrosted half a bag of frozen spinach and some frozen peas (maybe 1/2 a cup?).  Cracked and scrambled 6 eggs (I like a bit more egg in my quiche) and added estimates of spices as follows:

• 1/4 tsp of crushed red pepper
• 2 tsp of basil
• 1-2 tsp of parsley
• 1 tsp of paprika
• 1/2 tsp of marjoram

I really just eyeballed everything, but forgot the salt and pepper.  Oops!  Rolled out the pie crust, cut up the Canadian bacon and spread it around the bottom.  Added in the spinach and peas, added more Canadian bacon (one can never have too much bacon), sprinkled on some Daiya cheese and then poured the egg mixture over top of that, trying to cover everything.  Flattened everything with the back of a spoon and into the oven for 35 minutes it went.

At 35 minutes it was still a bit "wet" looking for me, I'm all in favor of dead eggs (meaning eggs on the drier side), so back in for another 5-6.

So 40 minutes is my new quiche time, at least in this oven.

Speaking of Daiya, we tried to make pizza the other day but I only had time for one trip to the grocery store (having food allergies usually means trips to different stores as there's no one store that has everything I need), so I went to Trader Joes as we really like their pizza dough.  (Confession, I went, paid, got to C's house, forgot the dough, so back I went.)  They have a vegan mozzarella cheese that we haven't tried so I got it and was fairly disappointed in it.  Maybe it was the fact that we had real cheese on one side with the vegan cheese on the other (with a DMZ down the middle) so we cooked it at our normal 400 temperature, but the vegan cheese was almost a liquid when it came out of the oven.  It did harden as it cooled, but also didn't taste great.  I'm sticking with Daiya, at least for the time being and for pizza.

Granola round 2

Didn't use a recipe this time for granola, except to check oven time and temperature.  I went through about 4-5 cups of granola in two weeks, the last 1-2 cups went to C so he could enjoy some too.

Oven: 300 for about 35 minutes, stirring every 10 or so
(amounts are approximate)
4.5 cups of oats
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. honey (combination of conventional and my souvenir Scottish honey)
1/2 c. sliced almonds
2 T cinnamon
dash of ground nutmeg
dash of ground cloves

Mix everything together and put onto rimmed baking sheet and spread out.  Bake.  Turns nice and golden!

Add raisins and crasins after baked.  Apparently it will store for about 2 weeks (but should be finished by then!).

Might try with coconut oil next time...

Granola

I ran out of granola for my morning soy-yogurt and berries the other day and decided that rather than pay so much money for sugar filled granola, I was going to try to make some.  My mom does it, so I should be able to as well.

(I've had many couple non-dairy yogurts over the years to help make up for the pro-biotics that I don't get from dairy, soy yogurt is definitely my favorite.  Coconut yogurt is disgustingly sweet in the morning and the almond yogurt has a weird texture for me.  Trader Joe's has good soy yogurt, Whole Foods has several brands: O'Soy and just noticed that the Stoneyfield's version is back, and then Safeway just started carrying the Silk brand.)

I used this recipe from Chow.com for the first batch, but made a few changes.  I added 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice instead of the cinnamon, 1/4 c. honey plus maple syrup to equal 1/3 c. as called for, slivered almonds (added after the first 15 in the oven) and then a mixture of raisins and dried cranberries.

Having the oven at 300 definitely makes it cook faster, but I would probably stir every 10 minutes rather than 15 as some stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Granted that could happen with it anyways as it has honey in it.

The second batch (I go through a lot of granola) I used a recipe from Epicurious called Everyday Granola (Bon Appetite, 2010).  I used the almonds instead of pecans as that's what I had on hand, omitted the coconut as that's not something I want in the morning, and then added more vegetable oil when it was looking too dry as I was mixing it up.

I stirred every 12 minutes for two rounds (300 degrees), then 10 for the last, cooking for about 34 minutes and that seemed to work well.  Can't wait to enjoy!

Indian Vegetable Curry

A friend of mine gave me a curry simmer sauce as a thank you gift for watching her cat while she was gone on a trip, and it was a surprise because I had assumed that all (or most) pre-made Indian food already had dairy in it.  This one did not!  I believe she found it at Trader Joe's...

I had no idea how to use it, as Indian food is not something that I'm familiar with having rarely eaten it due to it's frequent amount of spice (too much for my 100% northern European taste buds) and the fact that it's frequently full of dairy (and sometimes mango too).  I had also never cooked it before, however the jar had some suggestions on the side and instructions too!  Fool proof cooking!

I thought about what veggies I would want with the sauce and chicken for a balanced meal and settled on green beans, red pepper and cauliflower.  While at the grocery store and not pleased with the chicken selection (no antibiotics please!  I had too many of those as a kid and don't want to become resistant), I decided to do a meatless Monday meal and add chickpeas instead of chicken.

I realized that the veggies would saute at different times, so I tried to be smart about it, but all of the recipes that I found said "saute for 5 minutes or until tender."  There have to be variations, so I figured that the green beans would take longer than the red pepper, and should have thrown the cauliflower in earlier too.

Heated up some oil, cleaned and trimmed the beans and threw them in.  Should have done the cauliflower at the same time, or just after if cutting into smaller pieces than I did, but I did the red pepper next.  Hind-sight 20-20.  After adding in the cauliflower I poured in about 1/4 c. water and then put a lid for about 5 minutes to help the veggies steam, then added the sauce and two cans of garbanzo beans.  I thought that was too much when I first poured them in, but too late, and in the end it turned out well.  Simmer for about 10-15 minutes and then served over rice.

So yummy!  Will be making this again!

Irish Apple Cake

OMG you have to make this, it's probably even better as written with dairy.  But because I can't have any dairy, we made a dairy free version, and let me tell you, the four of us all had at least 2 slices.

I got the recipe for the Irish Apple Cake from my friend's blog, she featured it as one of her Friday Fancies, it looked intriguing so I clicked on the recipe and wanted to make it, but didn't have a when or for what.  Fast forward to Friday morning after brunch, C, his roommate M, his girlfriend E, and I had brunch at True Food (juice was good, food and service need some work) and discussed dinner.  M had a salmon in the freezer to cook, so we ended up offering to make dessert, and voila, we had an occasion to make the cake.

To make it dairy free we used soy milk instead of all the milk, and Earth Balance instead of butter.   The only thing I added was some cinnamon, about 1 tsp, and doubled the rest of the spices because C likes spices.  Have to be careful letting him add spices or it will triple!  Everything else was the same for the cake and into the oven it went to cook while we enjoyed the salmon.  We could smell it as it finished, so delicious!  To make the custard with soy milk I ended up adding 1 tsp of cornstarch at the end step to help thicken it as I think cows milk has a thickening component to it that soy milk doesn't.

We served large slices, covered with custard sauce and each one of us demolished our slice.  It had the right amount of sugar and spice, wasn't too sweet, and the apples were warm and soft and melted in your mouth.  Heaven on a plate (and that phrase is normally reserved for chocolate for me).

Hope you get a chance to make this for St. Patrick's Day, it's a great representation of true Irish food!

Sweet Potato & Lentil Curry (in two takes)

When Mom & Dad were in town a few weekends ago, C & I decided to make dinner on Friday night, using the recipe for Sweet Potato & Lentil Curry posted on my friend Meghan' blog.  I've loved every recipe Meghan has posted, you should check out her ever expanding menu of recipes!

This recipe evolved for us over two tries.  We had all the ingredients (I'm not going to write out the recipe, you have to go visit Meghan's blog!) and were ready to go, and then got to talking and the stove was too hot, and before we knew it, Dad mentioned that something smelled like it was burning, and low and behold we stirred and the bottom of the pot was black.  Everything tasted like a campfire.  Down the disposal it went and I scrounged around the kitchen to see what we had and whether we could make round 2, or had to go out to eat.

I found a butternut squash to use instead of the sweet potatoes, crushed tomatoes instead of diced, and luckily we had a second bag of red lentils!  Pot 2 was very successful.  So despite eating at 9pm and not being very hungry due to snacks while cooking, it was delicious!

As I can't have yogurt, being dairy-free, C found some plain soy yogurt at Whole Foods that worked well on the curry.  Everything else was dairy-free, making it pretty easy for me.

It was even better the next day after the flavors had time to combine.

Easy Peanut Chicken

I have a subscription to Cooking Light and I love it when I find a recipe that is dairy/shellfish/mango-free and doesn't need any adaptation!

Found this recipe for Chicken Stir-fry in Peanut Sauce in the November 2014 issue, but it's also online (should be the first one in the display, otherwise you can search for it by name).

Quick and easy to prepare, start the Coconut-Cilantro rice early as it needed more than 17 minutes for me.  I also halved the chili (siracha) and added another spoonful of peanut butter because that makes everything awesome.

Recipe Recap:
I sliced a chicken breast in strips, heated oil in pan, cooked the chicken pretty much all the way through, then removed.  Zapped the broccoli for a minute, then added the broccoli and red pepper to the pan, cooked for about 5 minutes then added the chicken and sauce.  Serve over the rice.

Delicious!

Charm City Weekend

Last weekend we headed up to Charm City to visit a friend and had a quick tour, so busy and fun that I didn't take photos.  Plus it was cold so that detracts from wanting to take my hands out of my pockets or gloves (or both!).  Quick recap:

Drove up for lunch on Saturday, she lives in the Mount Vernon neighborhood so we got a great tour.  Started with awesome falafel at Shapiro's Cafe, an unmarked door on the street (but there are signs on the window, just not on the door), where everything (including the heat) seems to go wrong but the food makes up for it!

Then drove over to Fells Point.  When we lived in Baltimore (late 1990s), Fells Point and Little Italy was not a place you go for a day, my parents report it was a place that you go to get the best Italian food, but leave by 9pm.  So much has changed!  Such a cute area along the waterfront!  Grabbed coffee at the Daily Grind, walked around before settling on a pint at the Admiral's Cup, who played awesome 80s Pop.  Chris was in heaven!  Around 5 we headed back to Mt. Vernon for dinner at City Cafe.  They were awesome with my allergies, the server went back to talk to the chef and they had several options they could modify for me.  Settled on the duck confit with a white bean and sausage - delicious!

We then headed to 13th Floor, which is on the 13th floor of the Belvedere Building, great views of the city and jazz trio playing.  Service was a bit slow and the Cucumber Collins was too strong and too sweet, especially for the price.  After a drink we headed downstairs to Owl Bar, a totally different, but really neat atmosphere that has great Moscow Mules.  Story has it they were a speakeasy during Prohibition and if the owl was blinking then all was ok and there were no feds around.  Their pizza looked delicious and we enjoyed a round (or two) before calling it a night.  (Mom and Dad remembered 13 fondly, less memory of Owl Bar as they only went once.)

Woke up to snow/sleet combo the next morning so we walked (carefully! like a penguin!) over to brunch at XS on Charles St.  They were also great with my allergies, but had run out of soy milk that morning for coffee.  Had the Southwestern Omelet, just for the avocado, which was great, but was over stuffed with chicken.  Really neat atmosphere and they were even willing to turn down the fans when it got a bit cold!

Drove back south in the snow/sleet/rain mess, timing it right so there were not many accidents on the road.  All in all a good trip to Baltimore (just hoping for warmer weather next time!)

Some food lessons learned

It always seems like recipes and food blogs are written for those with lots of cooking experience who can whip out a recipe in the blink of an eye and don't question or run into problems when the ingredients they find are not exactly as the recipe called for.  Case in point, the frozen salmon I bought.  I know that fresh is always better, but didn't have time to run to two stores that day, and my usual grocery store doesn't have a great fresh fish selection.

Directions on the bag of frozen salmon say cook from frozen, doesn't say anything about flipping the fish either.  We tried that...miserable failure.  The edges were over cooked, the inside still raw.  Lesson learned, defrost your fish before cooking.

Try #2, I defrosted the salmon, patted it dry, and looked up "salmon bake rules" to figure out what temp and how long to cook it.  Every site says a different thing, but the one I found said 350 and 10 minutes per inch thick.  This fish was about 1.5 inches thick so, I flipped it from skin down to skin up at 10 mins, the smaller piece came out done at 15 minutes, the larger piece was done at 20.  That worked!  But then the fish, while cooked, was soggy.  Lesson #2: really dry that defrosted fish before baking.

Third lesson, eat any left over fish the next day, probably for lunch the next day.  Fish for lunch 2 days later, not so good.

My friend Meghan is blogging, mostly about food but also some life experiences, and she posted a great Ginger Tilapia recipe (has a Wok this Way feature as she's soon to be a Wang (pronounced Wong, Vera is wrong) and is learning to cook some Chinese/Taiwanese meals from her future-mother-in-law) that we made, and while I screwed up the portion size (no wonder we were still hungry) it was delicious and I learned some great lessons from her post:

1) really dry the fish then sprinkle with salt and pepper (why I didn't apply this to the salmon on round 2, I don't know)
2) put the biggest piece in the pan first, ending with the smallest as the biggest needs to cook longer
3) to check if it's done, poke the largest part with a chopstick.  If it comes out clean, it's done!  Did this with the salmon too, and it worked!

We also tried her crock pot Chicken Mole recipe and it was delicious as well, even at 11pm when we sat down for dinner.  (Let's just say that multi-tasking is difficult for people and remember to start crockpots earlier than expected...).  It's dairy free too!  We had it as tacos first, which were good, but I liked it better over rice to help scoop up the sauce.

(Pictures will have to be added later as the Photo Stream from my iphone to my PC doesn't sync, and my old mac laptop is struggling.)

It's been really neat following Meghan's blog and learning how much time it takes to create and curate a well-done blog, especially to gain followers.  This little blog of mine has no big aspirations and is really for me to look back on later to see what I cooked and did, but her's is beautiful with regular posts, great photography and I hope it goes places and takes her places with it!   I love that her blog has these tips that help me, a newbie at cooking fish and veggies (and almost everything, I'm learning more as I go about how much I don't know).

Following recipes. A resolution.

I need to learn how to follow recipes better to become a better cook before I decide to wing it.  I'm decent at technique, but by not following recipes, things don't always turn out like expected.  Case in point, our New Years Eve dinner.  I wanted to make a nice beef and stout stew, so it would be hearty enough to handle a night out with friends.  I tried to combine a couple different recipes, which of course now I know doesn't usually work out well.  I can't really cook on the fly...yet.

Here's what I did (and what not to do):

1 lb boneless chuck cubed

1 T butter (I used EarthBalance due to my dairy allergy)

3 large carrots, evenly chopped

10 small fingerling potatoes, cut in half

2 medium onions, quartered

3 large celery stalks, chopped

1 1/3 c. Beef broth

1 1/3 c stout (I grabbed a large bottle of Guinness)

2 pieces of old bread

2 T flour

Spices

Sprinkle beef with salt and pepper, melt butter at high heat and brown beef in a frying pan for 5 minutes. Move beef to the crock pot.  Melt more butter and caramelize onions and celery, dump into crock pot and turn on high for 6 hours.  Add potatoes and carrots to crock pot.  In the frying pan, melt a bit more butter, then add flour and cook into a roux of sorts, scrapping up all the bits left in the pan from the meat.  Then add some broth, about 1/2 c, bubble and then pour into the crock pot.  Pour the rest of the broth and stout in and add spices.  I used thyme, rosemary, parsley and salt and pepper, probably a teaspoon of the first three.  (Again, I need to work on measuring things.). As I had extra broth in the can, and extra stout, I just poured those in as well.  Cook for four hours, then rip up the bread in small pieces and add those, put the lid back on.  That was it.  

The biggest problem was that it was bitter.  I overlooked the part that most recipes called for a little bit of sugar, and once we added some to our bowls it was better, but there was something still not quite right.  However it did smell delicious!

With drop biscuits and some broccolini on the side, we survived!  Happy New Years and on to the next recipe that I will actually try to follow. :)