Olive Oil: Quick Tip

So many of us shop at the big box stores like Costco or Sam's Club. We buy all sorts of things at Costco, from paper towels to bananas and many things in between. One item we purchase regularly is olive oil. The Kirkland brand of olive oil ranks up there with the best of them. My only complaint is that it comes in two, large, unwieldy, un-kitchen friendly containers. Pouring just a smidgen of olive oil out of these large jugs is not likely to end well.

Here is a solution: buy a small, plastic bottle from the grocery store-- the kind you'd find ketchup served in at a diner or restaurant-- and fill it with olive oil, refilling from your large container whenever you run low.  This smaller bottle allows you much better control of the amount of olive oil you use at one time. I am sure I picked up this tip from the hours of watching the Food Network, you can learn so much more than just recipes on those cooking shows!


I linked up to http://www.itsoverflowing.com/
and to http://www.skiptomylou.org/2012/04/02/made-by-monday/
and to

Carrot Muffins

This recipe comes to us from the magazine, Parenting.

I wouldn’t call these muffins healthy, but they do have a good amount of carrots and raisins so you can feel good about serving them to your kids-- or just eating them yourself as I did!

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter (½ cup), melted
2 eggs
¾ cup sugar
½ cup milk
1 ½ cups grated carrots (I used 6 small carrots)
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg (optional)
¼ tsp salt
½ cup raisins

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Combine the sugar and eggs with an electric mixer. Add the liquid ingredients of milk and melted butter.

3. Measure the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt into a sifter. Sift the ingredients into the liquid ingredients. Fold in the carrots and the raisins.

4. Use muffin liners or spray muffin tins. Fill each half full with the batter. Bake for 20 minutes.

Baked Brie with Fig Conserve

Here is one of the many ways I am enjoying the fig conserve that I recently made, thanks to a recipe straight from the French countryside. If you don’t have the time or inclination to make the fig spread from scratch, you can buy it in most grocery stores. I’ve seen it by the cheese counter at Whole Foods and in our local King Soopers as well. I hope you can find it where you live. Fig isn’t a flavor with which I was terribly familiar. Guess what-- fig newtons are no comparison to this!! Here I used the versatile combination of brie wrapped in puff pastry and added the fig spread as well. Serve with crackers and apples for a delicious appetizer.

Ingredients:
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed
1 wedge of brie
½ cup of fig conserve
1 egg
Dash of water

1. Roll the puff pastry on a floured surface to smooth out the pastry.

2. Spread the fig jam on the pastry.

3. Place the cheese on top of the jam then gently fold the pastry around the cheese. I cut the pastry so that I did not have too much overlap. You can use the extra pastry to make decorations for the top.

4. Seal the pastry by squeezing the edges together. Turn the wrapped cheese over such that the seams are on the bottom. If you’d like to add shapes to the top, go ahead and cut the excess pastry with cookie cutters. I tried to make a flower on mine.

5. You can refrigerate the cheese at this stage if you are not ready yet to bake it. Later, let the pastry and cheese come to room temperature for about 20 minutes before cooking.

6. Before putting the cheese and pastry in the oven, mix the egg and water to make an egg wash. Apply it with a pastry brush or sprinkle on sparingly with a spoon and spread it out with your fingers if you don’t have a brush.

7. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

8. It helps to let the pastry and cheese rest for 15 minutes before serving so that the cheese doesn’t rush out all over your plate when the pastry is cut.

Fig & Plum Conserve

A conserve is often a jam made with a mixture of fruits; it is generally chunky, similar to a chutney. By my estimation this could be called a conserve or a chutney. It has the dried fruits common in a conserve and the acidity of vinegar familiar to chutneys. This delicious mixture consists of figs and plums with a few other ingredients added to highlight the fruits’ flavors.

My in-laws celebrated their 40^th wedding anniversary a few years ago and invited the family (5 children with their spouses and children) to join them for a week in the countryside of France. Doesn’t that sound delightful? The majority of the family live in England so we met there and then took a ferry across to France. Some of our meals were cooked by the family who owned the farmhouse where we stayed. This recipe was shared by the family and was worth the trip in itself. You’ll find yourself making up reasons to slather this chutney on most anything!

Ingredients:
1 lb dried figs
1 lb plums (fresh)
4 oz raisins
1 red onion
18 fluid oz red wine vinegar
2 tsp paprika
14 oz dark brown sugar
Touch of salt

1. Prepare the figs by snipping off the stalks

2. Cut the plums in half, remove the stone, leaving the skin on

3. Add all of the ingredients except the sugar to a food processor. Combine until the ingredients are thoroughly chopped. If you prefer a strict chutney then leave the fruit in larger pieces. I am calling this a conserve because I processed the ingredients until they were combined in much smaller pieces.

4. Bring the fruit mixture to a boil. Stir occasionally and cook for 10-15 minutes until the fruit has softened.

5. Add the sugar and stir until it has dissolved. You’ll notice a change in the sound of the mixture as you stir when the sugar is dissolved. You’ll no longer hear the grainy texture of the sugar on the bottom on the pot.

6. Increase the heat to a healthy simmer and cook for 30-40 minutes until the mixture is thick. Stir every few minutes to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan.

7. At this stage you can put the conserve into jars. Refrigerate if you do not wish to process them. Otherwise process your jars to sterilize and preserve.

This fig and plum conserve can be added to sandwiches, eaten with cheese, used on pizza, served with meats, or added to desserts. I’ll post more ideas in the coming weeks to share how I enjoy this. Thanks to my in-laws for the reason to go to France and to the sweet French woman who introduced this fig spread to us!

Dyeing Easter Eggs Naturally

I first shared this post over at It's Overflowing on March 19th-- Aimee had a fantastic idea of an EGG HUNT and allowed bloggers to share ideas on her site. Many thanks to her for including me, it was a special treat! Please pop over to see all of the other egg related posts. I am sure you'll find more than one you will want to try at your house.

Dyeing Easter Eggs is a fun family tradition. I can remember standing on a chair trying to reach the counter top in my grandmother's kitchen where she had the eggs lined up and ready to dye & decorate. The tradition continues in my house, we generally use food coloring or the Paas coloring kits for our eggs. This time around I wanted to try something different. I was intrigued by something I read on the site Serious Eats (article here)-- the idea of dyeing eggs with items you'd find in your kitchen: turmeric, beets and red cabbage were their choices.

I let their idea grow as I thought about other foods that would have similar characteristics and the ability to impart color on eggs. Tea and wine came to mind-- if they can stain teeth and lips, why not eggs too? You might wonder why I didn't start with grape juice, rather than wine. Well I had wine that was more than a few days old and I didn't have any grape juice on hand, it's as simple as that.

This process is so simple that it barely needs to be mentioned; with very little effort you can explore a new color palette for your dyed eggs. The tea produces a deep bronze color and the red wine imparts a lovely shade of lavender.

Tea: Make a few cups of very strong tea (at least 4-5 tea bags in 2-3 cups of water). Add a splash of vinegar too. Let the eggs sit overnight.

Red wine: Fill a cup 1/2 way with wine. Gently lower one or two eggs in at a time. Let soak for an hour or even overnight until you like the shade you've created.

Egg Cup Carnations

In this Easter season of all things EGGS, I thought this precious little arrangement of carnations in an egg cup might be a pretty addition to a place setting at an Easter brunch. Or a baby shower, or a wedding shower, or just on a plain old Monday-- adding something cheerful in your day might be as easy as finding flowers in an unexpected place.

These carnation buds likely would have been thrown out otherwise; each had fallen off of its stem in the bunch of flowers I brought home from the grocery store. Instead I placed them in a white egg cup with a bit of parsley too, and ta-da, an instant pick-me-up!

I linked to http://southernlovely.blogspot.com/
and to www.houseofhepworths.com
and to http://www.itsoverflowing.com/

and to http://www.shabbynest.blogspot.com/
and to http://www.thegrantlife.com

Asparagus and Sun Dried Tomato Quiche

Ingredients:
5 eggs
1 cup half and half
1 cup of asparagus spears in one inch segments
8-10 sun dried tomatoes, sliced into small strips
½ onion
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
¼ cup cheddar cheese
Pie crust

I’m still working my way through the asparagus I bought this week. I may have rushed the season-- the asparagus I found was thin and not all that sturdy but I was ready to encourage that feeling of spring which comes along with fresh asparagus.

For this quiche, I used pie dough from Pillsbury. Settle the refrigerated pie dough into your pie dish. I pre-baked the dough at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes, likely the amount of time it takes to prepare the filling. This is a good time to cover a baking pan with foil and allow it to preheat as well. I live in Denver so our altitude is about a mile about sea level. I find that pre-baking helps the crust cook through, though when I’ve lived in lower elevations I’ve not found it necessary to pre-bake a crust for a quiche.

Soften the onions slightly by sautéing them for about 5 minutes in a pan. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and half & half together, then add the remaining ingredients (including the onions).

Pour the filling into the pie crust. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees F. Bake with your pie dish on the foiled-lined pan for 30-35 minutes then let rest for 15 before eating. Can be served warm or at room temperature.

Easter Basket Cookies

Aren’t these sweet cookies? I think they are adorable, if I do say so myself. The best part is that they weren’t hard to decorate-- at all!! I am a beginner when it comes to icing and decorating cookies & cakes. A definite novice with an interest in learning more. I picked up a book on cake decorating at the library this week and came across the basket weaving technique. I pictured trying it out on a layered cake, with the sides covered in a basket weave pattern and picture-perfect chocolate eggs sitting on top…then I realized that icing a round cake with that pattern for the first time might be challenging. I do best if I start small, gain confidence, then move on to bigger ideas the next time. The cake will wait until another time. I need to practice first!

I gave the pattern a try on a piece of bread. It’s much easier to grab a piece of bread instead of baking up a batch of cupcakes for icing practice. It’s also better on my waistline! I got the basic hang of the basket weave and thought I could manage it on a cookie.

I came across this cookie cutter yesterday and immediately realized that my idea of an Easter basket cookie was NOT an original one-- it is pictured right there on the front! Oh well, it is eye-catching and perfect for the season so I went ahead as planned.

I used refrigerated store-bought cookie dough for ease this first time through. The cookies baked in 12 minutes, cooled and I was ready to try my hand at icing them. These are the two icing tips I used-- the basket weave tip and the grass (or hair) icing tip.

Start with one horizontal line of icing. Space out vertical lines across the width of your basket.

Continue to the next row by adding another solid horizontal line of icing at the base of your vertical lines. Fill in the gaps by placing vertical bars of icing that overlap your horizontal line.

Continue to the bottom of your basket.

Create a basket handle with a line of icing around the top.

Add some “grass” with green icing using the grass tip. Squeeze the icing such that a small bit builds under the tip then pull upwards to create the pieces of grass. Dab dots of icing on some jellybeans and add them as the eggs to your Easter basket.

Happy Easter!

Hop on over to It's Overflowing for some more Easter Egg ideas. Thanks again to Aimee for including me in the fun this week!

I linked up to http://www.shabbynest.blogspot.com/2012/03/frugal-friday_22.html
and to www.skiptomylou.org
and to http://www.somewhatsimple.com/blog-link-party-with-giveaway-from-appliances-online/
and to http://livelaughrowe.blogspot.com/2012/03/live-laugh-linky-thursday-3.html
and to http://www.abakershouse.com/2012/03/easter-basket-cookies.html
and to http://www.houseofhepworths.com/2012/03/28/hookin-up-with-hoh-93/
and to http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/
and to http://www.sugaranddots.com/
and to http://www.thecraftedsparrow.blogspot.com/2012/04/welcome-to-1st-ever-link-party-at.html

Egg Shell Pieces: Quick Tip

Jump on over to It's Overflowings EGG HUNT this week. Aimee is featuring all sorts of EGGY ideas and I am participating too-- HOW EXCITING!

In the spirit of all things EGGS, I thought I'd share this quick tip. To those of you whose grandmothers, mothers, or just plain old google have pointed this quick tip out to you years ago, well done. To the rest of us who need reminders of how to make little problems like egg shell pieces disappear, then here you go!

Cracking eggs into a bowl and having a piece of the shell drop in along with the egg yolk is no longer going to be an issue for you in the kitchen. Instead of fishing out that tiny shard of shell with a spoon or your fingers, here is the solution. The egg itself does all of the work for you!

Oh dear, a piece of egg shell dropped in...

Simply use the cracked egg shell to scoop up any lingering pieces of shells that might have dropped into your bowl. The egg shell piece really does want to cling to the egg shell scoop. I am sure this could be explained away with scientific words like viscosity and surface area and density of this and that...but all of those reasons fade to the background when you see how simple and reliable this quick tip is to use.

The solution is right there in your hand: use the cracked egg shell!

Scoop up the broken piece of shell-- it practically jumps into the egg scoop once you get it close enough.

Ta-da! Egg shell pieces are no longer a problem.

I linked to