23. November 2011 · Comments Off on Sweet Potatoes — Veggie or Not Veggie? Take My Poll! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

I recently fell in love with sweet potatoes.  I wrote about it in 2009.

Incidentally, Dave had a similar epiphany in 1997 with onions.  He went from hating them to loving them.  I tolerate them, but certainly don’t love them.  He doesn’t love sweet potatoes, so I guess we’re even.

Anyway, since there’s no point in my making sweet potatoes for holiday meals at home, I often take advantage of pot lucks to make it!  No pictures of my own recipes this time around (I’m actually making it tomorrow morning), but I wanted to share the classic recipe I plan to be using for Dave’s squadron Thanksgiving pot luck tomorrow.  Except no cornflake/pecan topping, just lots and lots of marshmallow.  Because I like it that way.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Stay tuned as I start sharing this year’s suite of holiday cookies that we’ll be making starting this weekend.  I can’t wait!

So please complete the poll in the upper right corner of the main blog page.

22. November 2011 · Comments Off on Getting in the Holiday Spirit… · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

It’s been hard this year.  The media has been inundating us with holiday-related retail commercials and the radio stations are already playing Christmas music.  I guess it started the same week as Halloween, which seemed pretty crazy to me.  Has it always been this early?

Don’t get me wrong…my family and I LOVE Christmas, we have a wonderful time discussing the story of Jesus’ birth, and celebrating the many holiday traditions we have.

However, we Vollmers have a strict policy: no holiday decorations until Thanksgiving Day.  No big holiday shopping till after Thanksgiving.  Really, all we do on Thanksgiving Day itself is drag the dozen-or-so plastic Rubbermaid bins from the shed, and we use the rest of the weekend to break out everything and get it displayed: tree(s), lights, etc.

Later this week I will start planning my cookie baking, gift shopping and Christmas card designs.

But today we couldn’t help ourselves.  I picked up two Wilton Pre-Baked Gingerbread House Kits from A.C. Moore after the holidays last year (2 for $5? I think) and we broke out one of them this afternoon.  Timmy chose the design on the box to copy and we went to work.  I remained in charge of the icing (could you imagine Timmy with the icing????) and Timmy placed the candies.

Jacob was our photographer today.  Enjoy!

14. November 2011 · Comments Off on I Love Men Who Can Cook! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,
There are so many skills to be learned when cooking: math, nutrition, chemistry, physics!

Dave Update:  We had a rough couple of days.  Incidentally, we had read another Axia-LIF patient’s online blog/diary/series of forum posts that read rather similarly.  At about the one-week point, the patient was feeling better, he thought he could move around a bit more.  But that was probably not the best idea.  So then at day 9, this patient was struck with the worst pain of his entire life.  Things calmed down for him by the two week point though.

Dave had a similar experience.  So we ended up at the ER on Thursday night from the muscular spasm pain — described by Dave as “10 out of 10” on the pain scale, and on Saturday night Dave experienced the same pain.  He said it made the pre-surgery back problems nothing at all.  These spasms were happening at about the same time of the evening (around 10:30-11:00pm).  Instead of going straight to the ER again on Saturday night, this time I called Dave’s doctor and we discussed why these muscle spasms were happening.  He’s speculating that the muscles have been so traumatized by the 8 1/2 years of back problems, they’ll need their own healing process.

In the meantime, we elected NOT to go the ER Saturday night, Dave took some ibuprofen and that actually seemed to help things quite a bit.  Up till Saturday night, he had NOT been taking any anti-inflammatories and taking some might have made all the difference.

Today was much better for him, hopefully we’re over the hump and he can continue healing.  It was certainly a challenge keeping positive Thursday – Saturday and it’s nice to be thinking happy thoughts again.

I Love Men Who Can Cook:  Dave had this week’s Bear Cub Scout den meeting at our house, the boys had a cooking/nutrition requirement and their normal meeting location didn’t have a kitchen readily available.  So the boys took over my kitchen.  I set out the ingredients and helped get the cookies in/out of the oven, but that’s all I did.  While the cookies were baking, the boys made some trail mix — each scout brought over a package of one ingredient: M&Ms, peanuts, raisins, dried cranberries, and cereal.  It was really good!

Oh I wish I had our real camera so I could better capture that egg falling into the bowl.  This was with my phone camera.

Okay, not the most attractive oatmeal cookies, but they sure were yummy!  I think the boys were scared of them!

Homemade trail mix – yum!

09. November 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Dave Update:  Yesterday Dave got the 5 little staples out of his back.  That helped him to lie on his back more easily.  On the way home from the doctor’s appointment, he made a brief visit to the squadron to say hello.  I promise, he didn’t do any work!  He only logged on to his computer long enough to free up space on his e-mail server so he wouldn’t get those “Your mailbox is over its size limit.” messages.

However, he’s also trying to back off of his muscle relaxers some so that he can think straight.  After about a 1/2 day not on muscle relaxers, Dave was able to do some much-missed model railroading.

But this morning he awakened in a pretty uncomfortable state.  So he’s back to the 1/4-doses of muscle relaxers for now.  It makes him groggy and less-focused.

He was alone for much of Tuesday while I went to a doctor’s appointment at the Pensacola Naval Hospital (why there and not Eglin AFB, I don’t know) and took the Prius for some maintenance.  Somewhere in there I need to fit a grocery store run!

And now, on to the cooking!  In the meantime, I’m going to share with you a much-loved dinner option in our house, especially in the cold weather months: homemade Cincinnati chili!

For those unfamiliar, Cincinnati chili is quite unique.  The chili itself is little more than meat, tomato sauce and a spice blend.  There’s cinnamon in the spices, which gives it a unique flavor.  In southwest Ohio, where Dave and I lived 2000-2002, you’d see Skyline Chili and Goldstar Chili restaurants all over the place, nearly as common as McDonald’s.  You can get the chili in cans at Ohio grocery stores, and on the Internet now.  It’s so yummy, but very fattening and high in sodium.

My parents shared a recipe with me several years ago that they used with ground turkey instead of ground chuck to keep things a bit healthier.  We’ve done it this way for years and have never looked back!  With all the spices, does it really matter what kind of meat it is?  Some might say yes, but none of us here care!

This is not quite the same recipe as what my parents use, but this is the one I use.  It’s called “Cincinnati Empress Chili“, based on the chili recipe from Empress Chili Parlor in downtown Cincinnati.  I invite you to click for the link, since it’s not my recipe exactly.

Click here for the recipe.

I always make a 1/2 recipe for the family, so I will share how things are done at the house.  I tend to make this on Sundays, when I can start it up around 2-3pm and let it simmer during the late afternoon football games.

Start by dicing two big onions.  The sweeter, the better!  I dice them down nice and fine.  I’ve gotten pretty good at this over the years.  Toss them into a Dutch oven that has 1-2 Tbsp. of hot olive oil.  “Sweat” them for a couple minutes.

Add 3 minced garlic cloves.  I used a Pampered Chef Garlic Press, it was much easier that way.

Next, add 2 lbs. of ground turkey.  We have Butterball-brand here.

I know…ew, right?  Like my Pampered Chef Mix ‘n Chop?  It’s magic for making browned meat super-fine!  Perfect for this chili!

In Sunday’s case, I had a 1/2 recipe worth of spices already mixed up from earlier this year.  I had accidentally set up to make a full recipe, and then only had 1/2 of the meat available.  So I kept 1/2 of the spices for another time.  Here it is:

Chili powder, cinnamon, cumin, paprika, ground coriander, ground allspice, ground cloves, mace and a little oregano.

Stir it into the meat/onion/garlic mixture and inhale deeply.  The smell is divine!
Now we sauce things up:
8 oz. of plain tomato sauce.

1 Tbsp. molasses.  Pardon the mess.

1 Tbsp. of wine vinegar.

Mix that all up with 1 1/2 cups of water, place a splatter screen on top, and let it simmer for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, you’ll want to chop some more onion, shred some cheese, break out a can of red beans and get some oyster crackers ready.  Boil up some spaghetti while you’re at it.

When the chili is nice and cooked down to a slightly thicker consistency (still ladle-able), serve it up:

  • on a bed of spaghetti (two-way)
  • on a bed of spaghetti topped with cheese (three-way)
  • on a bed of spaghetti topped with cheese and onion (four-way)
  • on a bed of spaghetti topped with cheese, onion and kidney beans (five-way)

Offer up some hot sauce and oyster crackers, and you’re set!  Here’s Jacob’s “four-way” Cincinnati chili from Sunday night.  He’s been waiting since last May for this meal and he devoured all of what you see here…and asked for more!

12. October 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , , ,

This past weekend our family headed to the Spanish Trail Scout Reservation near Defuniak Springs and had a weekend campout.

The scout council here calls it “Cub Scout Family Camp” and it’s a great weekend.  Three weekends in October were made available expressly for Cub Scout-friendly activities.  Any Cub Scout families could register for any of the weekends they wanted, but our pack in Navarre elected to go as a group to the Columbus Day weekend event.

Last spring I had to leave the camping one evening early so I could run that half marathon, but this time I got to enjoy the Saturday night bonfire and skit show.  What fun!!!

I made a cherry-dark chocolate dump cake (similar to this recipe that I did back in June, but with “dark chocolate” cake mix) on Friday night and was a hit with the families in Jacob’s den.

Jacob took a fall from the stack of palettes sitting behind our campsite (you’ll see them pictured below).  A group of boys was playing and too many boys ended up on the palettes and Jacob fell into our camp chairs.  There are suspicions that he was pushed, but no one saw for sure so there’s little we can do about that.  He got bruised up, but we had the doctor check him out earlier this week just for good measure.  All is well.

The members of our pack who came on the Saturday morning group hike.  Jacob’s on the far left, Timmy’s in orange.

There’s a “monkey bridge” across a creek.  Miss Chris (one of the den leaders) is in the water playing spotter.

I’m so glad neither boy fell into the water…although Timmy dunked his shoes into the water later on after crossing the bridge.  He had some closed-toe Keen sandals that he wore the rest of the weekend.

At the BB Gun range.

Dave helping Timmy.

Timmy was able to earn his BB Gun belt loop this past weekend (and Archery too!)

Timmy with some other Tiger Scouts (and a soon-to-be Tiger).

Dave making dinner.  We’re glad we brought the shelter, it did sprinkle on us some Saturday night. Note the palettes stacked behind us (they’re for Boy Scout summer camp).  Note the kid standing on them on the left right.  Note the Dad with the laptop — listening to the Virginia Tech game (it was a SQUEAKER!)

Getting ready for the evening skit.

Nice photobomb, Timmy!

Fried potatoes and onions — can’t go wrong there!

I made tacos for Saturday evening dinner.  I never thought to do it on a campout before, but it’s amazingly easy — all you have to cook is the ground beef!

This is the evening bonfire, the kids are dancing around it.

My only glimpse of Timmy — and my phone’s battery died after that.  Not bad…it stayed alive for about 40 hours.
10. September 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
The box on the right was purchased in mid-July.  I thought I needed two boxes of cake mix for something, but I only needed one.  The box on the left was purchased this morning.  Darned straight I took the box tops!  But note the size difference….did someone think we wouldn’t notice???

I’m baking Jacob’s birthday cake right now.  The final product is a surprise — even for me, since I don’t quite know what I’m doing yet — but I needed two boxes of cake mix for this.

I had a box of mix in the pantry from a couple months ago (the one on the right), and I prepared it as on the back of the box.  1 1/4 c. water, 1/3 c. oil, 3 eggs.

Just before I took the first cake out of the oven, I prepared the batter for the second part of the cake.  I was just about to add the same ingredient amounts as above, but I caught a glimpse of the instructions on the box on the left: 1 c. water, 1/2 c. oil, 3 eggs.

I fished the first box out of the recycling bin and placed them side-by-side: you see that photographed above.  Somewhere between July and now Betty Crocker decided to knock 3 oz (1/6th!) from their cake mix.  And I didn’t see a difference in a price.

Isn’t this the same thing that been happening with ice cream and salad dressing?

RRRR!

Thank you for letting me vent…time to get part 2 of the birthday cake out of the oven…yes, at 10pm!

26. August 2011 · Comments Off on Overnight Crock Pot Steel-Cut Oats · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

I’m doing this for a contest at the Crock Pot Recipe Exchange blog.  It’s simple, but it’s sorta difficult to remember to set up breakfast the evening before.

“Real” oatmeal is heaven if you prepare it correctly.  If you’re unfamiliar with the different “cuts” of oatmeal, here’s a nice primer for you.  My kids are partial to the Quaker instant packets, but to make a real bowl of oats, with real maple syrup and brown sugar…well, it’s so good for you!  Being the impatient, hungry family we are, it’s tough having the hubby and kids wait 30-40 minutes for a pot of steel cut oats to cook on a Sunday morning.  Especially now that we go to a church that’s 30 minutes away, and starts at 9:15am!

If you can remember to do it ahead of time, I recommend using your Crock Pot to cook your steel-cut oats to perfection.  Individual Crock Pots, locations, elevations and brands of oats (I use Bob’s Red Mill) will result in variations on the cooking times, but this has worked well enough for me.  When I made it exactly as in the recipe linked below, it dried out…I think it cooked for too long.  You could rehydrate it and salvage most of it, but it wasn’t the same as fresh-out-of-the-crock perfection.

Overnight Crock Pot Steel Cut Oatmeal, adapted from Alton Brown’s Recipe

1 1/2 c. steel cut oats
5 c. water
1-2 c. dried fruit, such as raisins or cranberries, as desired

Cook in your Crock Pot on low for 6 hours.  You can set this right when you go to bed, and it should still be warm by morning.  My own Crock Pot has a “Keep Warm” function that it defaults to after the active cooking time is complete.  At least, that’s the case in my house where we get 7-8 hours of sleep.

Enjoy some REAL oatmeal this weekend!

24. August 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

I had some ground pork in the freezer.  I had picked it up to make some meat loaf, but then I found The Country Cook’s recipe which ended up not needing the pork after all (Tangent: want to make a small meatloaf with just 1 pound of ground meat?  Brandie’s recipe is very very nice!)

Anyhoo, here I was with a pound of ground pork.  What to do…what to do…

After having dinner at a local Chinese restaurant last week, I had an idea.  I’d attempt homemade won ton soup!

So here we go!  I didn’t document this as well as I would have liked — this is a messy (but FUN) recipe and when Jacob got into helping me, it got more messy!

I used a combination of two recipes here, since one had ingredients I had on hand, and the other provided some better cooking information.

Start this recipe either the night prior or first thing in the morning before serving.  You want 6-48 hours of time for the ground meat mixture’s flavors to combine.

Chop up a green onion…or two.  No one’s counting.

The recipe called for a cup of finely shredded Napa cabbage.  Sadly, our local Publix was all out, so I got all lazy and picked up this bag of cole slaw mix.

Ran my knife across it a couple times…

Toss everything into a large bowl.

For my finely shredded carrot, I used my Microplane and 3 baby carrots.  Use the Microplane for the ginger too.

Add some sesame oil and soy sauce….

Mix it all together…use your hands, it’ll work better that way!
Cover the mixture with some plastic wrap (tuck the wrap right down on top of the mixture) and chill for 6 hours or overnight.  The first recipe I liked says 30 minutes, but I vote for 6+ hours, per the 2nd recipe.

After chilling the mixture to let the flavors combine, it’s time to prepare an assembly line for the wontons.  If you’re going to cook the dumplings immediately, get a pot with 6-8 c. of chicken broth heating to a simmer (homemade is best!).  You’ll turn it up to a gentle boil just before popping the dumplings in, but I took a while assembling the noodles, and to have the broth boiling all that time would have evaporated everything away, tee hee.

Here’s my bouillon-cube chicken broth simmering.  I didn’t have any of the good stuff on hand, although I need to cook up a batch soon!

You should be able to pick up refrigerated won ton wrappers at any grocery store.  I got these from my local military commissary.

Jacob made most of the wontons, which was a great help.  I wish I had done this a little more neatly, but you need a bowl with water (or egg white, but water works for us), the wonton wrappers, the meat and a place to put the finished wontons.  I put the finished wontons on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper, and a damp towel on top.  (PSST: Like my new Penn State Scentsy warmer in the upper right?)
Here’s a wonton.

With a moistened finger, damped TWO adjacent edges.

Scoop out one teaspoon of the meat mixture.

Put that teaspoon on the center of the wonton, perhaps slightly off center.

Fold over the wonton and press the edges down.

You can have a little fun from here, folding them into assorted other shapes.  

I tried to keep them separated, but somehow that didn’t happen.

Time to turn up the heat on the broth to boiling.  Drop in 8-10 of the wontons at a time into the water and bring it back to a boil.  Gently boil for 7 minutes, and then remove to serving bowls…2-3 at a time with some broth.  Garnish with some chopped green onion.

Don’t crowd the pot, the wontons will stick to each other, and the bottom of the pot.

Unlike our local Chinese restaurant, I must have loaded the bowl with 5 wontons per person for dinner Saturday night.

I had a LOT of extra ground pork mixture, which I stir fried and added to the soup when I served it to the family.

This was somewhat labor-intensive, but not difficult.  Jacob had a good time helping me out, and all 4 of us agreed that this homemade soup was just as good as what we enjoy in restaurants.

14. August 2011 · 3 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

We took a long weekend and headed up to Atlanta. It’s about a 5.5 hour drive with no stops, plus we have a time zone change. We had nice seats at a Sunday afternoon Atlanta Braves game, and we booked a hotel room at a Comfort Inn right next to Turner Field, so we didn’t have to deal with (or pay for) parking.

Other than the Sunday afternoon baseball game, we had all of Atlanta to explore with our sons — but admittedly they were mostly interested in the baseball. We ended up taking advantage of a same-day ticket promotion the Braves Baseball club has for military members: 2-for-1 Upper Box tickets. So we will see two games this weekend.  More about that later.

Last night when we rolled into town, I dragged the family to one of Atlanta’s most famous restaurants, The Varsity. Those fans of Rick Sebak documentaries will recognize this restaurant from his 1999 A Hot Dog Program.

Tangent: That documentary fascinates me.  I’m not a huge fan of hot dogs, necessarily, but I will admit that I enjoy a hot dog on occasion, and more than the food itself is the culture and the people that go into all the unique hot dog stands/restaurants across the country.  Not that I’m necessarily keeping a list, but The Varsity is the 2nd of the restaurants featured on the program.  We visited Gray’s Papaya in Manhattan in November 2005.  Cheapest lunch in Manhattan!  And a trip to the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island is on my bucket list.  Really, it is!

But back to The Varsity: Dave and I will be the first to admit, the food isn’t earth-shatteringly good.  You aren’t going for gourmet cuisine…you’re going for the fast, cheap (dinner for 4 = ~$25!), consistent food.  And the atmosphere!  Folk who’ve been there before will all warn you: at the front counters where you order is a cacophony of “Whaddaya have?  Whaddaya have?” from the dozens of employees all wearing their trademark red paper hats (which are available to the customers).

The drive-in was put near Georgia Tech and on a GT football game weekend is one of the busiest spots in Atlanta — the brick building in the background is on Georgia Tech’s campus, in fact.

A good old fashioned drive-in — America’s largest, in fact!  The drive in part is a cash-only operation as you are paying and getting change from the bellhops directly.  The food is brought to you on one of those trays they clip to your car door.

I didn’t get a picture of the front entrance, but this is the just-as-retro side entrance.  Here’s a picture of the street-side entrance.

There isn’t much to the menu.  Hot dogs, burgers, and that chicken sandwich in the lower right corner.  There are a few other things, but really…not much.  They have this orange frosty drink that I wish I had tried, supposed to taste like orange sherbert!  You can also get a feel for how (relatively) cheap meals are — this is downtown Atlanta, where McDonald’s combo meals cost the same!

The paper hats are available to anyone.  The kids enjoyed wearing them with dinner.

This was my dinner….the #1 Combo.  No points for presentation, that’s for sure.  But lots of points for the look and taste of a classic chili dog dinner!  You probably can’t see through the chili and mustard, but the buns are sliced down the center instead of split side-wise like buns you purchase at a grocery store.

Timmy got the #6 combo: Two “naked” dogs.  He loved that!  You can see better the unusually-split hot dog buns on his plate.  Timmy devoured his dogs and called them the best dogs he’d ever had — and he’s had a lot of hot dogs in his life!

Dave and Jacob had burgers…and Jacob had this chili-cheeseburger that was REALLY a heart-attack on a plate!  Jacob loved the hot-dog style chili so much he asked if he could get a bowl of it in addition to his dinner combo.  Sadly, they only come as side condiments, but being the ever-doting mother that I am, I bought him two little cups of the chili (for $0.80 total) and he ate those.

And then I bought a can of it to take home.  It’s clearly hot dog chili, not really meant to be eaten by the bowlful.  Jacob’s still not convinced of that…after we have that can, I found this Crock Pot recipe that I’ll be trying out for sure!

Jacob wants to go back before the end of the weekend, but Dave and I aren’t sure our GI systems will ensure two trips in one weekend.  We still are planning a trip to Dwarf House before we go home on Monday…

The verdict?  The Varsity is full of history, and their classic chili dogs are an Atlanta tradition that’s worth trying.  It’s cheap, family friendly and close to Atlanta’s biggest tourist attractions.  Worth a visit!

07. August 2011 · Comments Off on Dave’s Chicken and Shrimp Fried Rice · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Dave enjoys cooking.  It’s an occasional indulgence for him — he has a suite of yummy recipes that he likes to call his own.

Sadly, he doesn’t cook as much as he says he’d like to, since on on most weekdays he’s coming in from work while I’ve been working on dinner for some time.

Since today is Saturday, tonight he took the time to make the family the fried rice recipe he enjoys making while I’m on reserve duty.  It’s really easy, and you’ll find it isn’t really a recipe, per se.  It’s more of a set of ingredients tossed together in a wok or large skillet.  It’s a great way to use leftovers!

The first thing Dave does is chop, chop, and chop some more.  Onions, carrots, and cooked chicken.  We had a couple Huli Huli chicken thighs leftover from earlier this week and these were chopped up.  I also cooked a couple more chicken breasts in the microwave, see below for more on that!

This is our version of a “Slap Chop”-type of food chopper.  It made chopping the 1/2 large onion, 1 c. of carrots and 3 cooked chicken breasts very very easy.

Onions.

Carrots.

Cooked chicken breast.  I learned a new trick to make preparing cooked chicken for recipes super-dooper easy…see the next caption.

Do you have one of these?  It’s Pampered Chef’s “Deep Covered Baker”.  I know it’s expensive, but all you have to do is host a Pampered Chef party and get it for free, like I did several years ago!  3 chicken breasts, 14 minutes in the microwave in this baker — who woulda thunk it?

Along with the chopped vegetables and chicken, also beat 2-3 eggs together, peel some raw shrimp and have 3 cups of cooked rice ready to go.  Heat up a wok or large skillet on “high”.  Add oil of your choice, we use sesame oil.

I love my Zojirushi rice cooker!  A gift from my parents about 8 years ago.  Hinode medium grain Calrose rice is our family’s rice of choice, we eat about 10 lb. every 6 weeks.

Fresh shrimp, caught off Jacksonville on Friday night, ready to cook on Saturday night, did I mention how much we love Florida???

Start by scrambling the eggs.  Remove the eggs to a dish when they’re finished.  They’ll be added in at the end:

Next you’ll add the onions, carrots, rice, chicken and some soy sauce to the wok, stir frying it, adding oil as needed to keep it from sticking to the pan.  With luck you’ll develop a nice crisp to the rice, which is oh-so-good!

At the end we tossed the shrimp, and then put a lid on the wok for about 5 minutes to let the shrimp cook.  It doesn’t take much heat, or a very long time at all.

Serve it with a glass of milk for a complete dinner.

Yikes, we almost ate it all up before I remembered to take a picture of the finished product!  Hence the small pile on the greasy plate with the fork in the background!