Junque Food - staving off the boredom of salads

I always say that I love me a salad that I don't have to make. That rule gets relaxed in the spring when I pick my first greens from the garden. But it's short lived. I really do get bored eating salads quickly.

And I'm not talking potato salads, cole slaw, or pasta salads. Those are temporarily off the menu while I try this Paleo Diet thing. And if you haven't read me gushing about my personal experience with Paleo diet, click here: Do you eat what you grow?

Ok, back? Good.

So back to salads. I needed to wrap my brain around the fact that salad doesn't necessarily have to mean leafy greens. Particularly for lunches at work, where the leafy greens tend to not stay fresh and crisp by lunchtime.

Since my body craves "crunchy" I've been making salads that have whatever fresh veggies that I have around. Here are some of the things I've been using, in various combos:

sliced or julienne carrots
celery
banana peppers
brocolli florets
slived green onions
crushed garlic
cucumbers

And I usually toss it with a red-wine vinaigrette and a splash of garlic-red chili sauce. Occasionally I'll sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top for a little extra Oomph. Even though that's not Paleo, but it sure is tasty!!

I also made a pretty good better-for-you cole slaw this week. I had a bag of pre-shredded cabbage that I mixed with onion, garlic and a little more carrot than the teeny amount that comes in the bag. I dressed it again with the red wine vinaigrette in stead of sour cream and mayo. It was pretty darn good!

And the red wine vinaigrette turned the cole slaw a pretty shade of pink, too.

heh.

Share with some of your favorite non-traditional salads, please!

Junque Food: V-day present to DaMan - Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies

 I first tried this recipe last year or the year before. It was a rousing success. I mean how can you go wrong with Brownies, cheesecake, and raspberries?

I haven’t made them awhile, so I thought I’d whip up a batch for my husband for Valentine’s Day. He’s such a great guy, he’ll let me have a piece. He’d better anyway…if he knows what's good for him...

I originally got this recipe from: http://bakingbites.com/2009/02/raspberry-cheesecake-brownies/

Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
2-oz dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt

 8-oz cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup raspberry preserves/jam

Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8×8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil and lightly grease. In a small, heatproof bowl, melt butter and chocolate together. Stir with a fork until very smooth. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs and vanilla extract. Whisking steadily, pour chocolate mixture into sugar mixture. Stir until smooth. Sift flour, cocoa powder and salt into the bowl and stir until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and prepare cheesecake mixture.

In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla extract until smooth. Drop in dollops onto prepared brownie batter. Drop dollops of raspberry preserves into the cheesecake batter. Gently swirl batters with a butter knife, giving the brownies a swirly look.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until brownies and cheesecake are set. A knife inserted into the cheesecake mixture should come out clean and the edges will be lightly browned.

Cool in the pan completely before slicing and serving, either at room temperature or chilled.

Brownies can be refrigerated, covered, for several days.

**************************************
Now, when I've made this in the past, I've used a good quality raspberry jam. However, I don't have any. I do have some home made jam from a relative, but it's over-jelled, and takes a chisel and a hammer to get it out of the jar. It was a minor dilemma, but I could always go to the store and purchase some jam, right?  Then I remembered....

EUREKA! I have a large baggie in my freezer of raspberries picked from our own bushes last summer. A moment was taken to Google, "Quick raspberry jam recipes," and I found this recipe which I tried, despite my trepidation of making jam in a microwave (it worked guys!) and ended up with almost 2 pint of jam. Score!

I will have to do this again with some blueberries I also have in the freezer, and do it as a blog post...it was simple, and waaaaay less messy than when canning jars and jars.

I should say, this was quick jam. it's not canned, and needs to be refrigerated or frozen. I'm letting the jars come to room temp, then putting in the fridge. I doubt they will last long enough for me to freeze.


Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

Junque Food

"Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?" I have to say, DaMan and I are contenders in the home made pizza arena. We've got it down to a science, but it's kind of fun, too.

I make the pizza dough in batches of four, and freeze them. I make the sauce ahead of time and freeze it too. The toppings are always what we have on hand. Now that summer's coming, the variety will change, as veggies will be plucked from our garden and thrown on a whim.

This pizza was topped with pepperoni, cheese, pickled banana peppers, and fresh spinach from the garden. And it was heavenly. Now, I'm not saying that I will never order for pizza delivery again, but I tell you, when you can make it so easily, it's hard to justify dialing up Domino's.

My online friend, Cherry, gave me her recipe for pizza dough.  She said she found it online long enough ago that she doesn't remember where, but has tweaked the recipe enough that it probably doesn't matter.


Pizza Crust

1 package yeast (or 2 1/4 tablespoons if you buy your yeast in bulk)
1 tsp sugar
1 c very warm water
2 1/2 c bread flour
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp italian seasoning ( I just used powdered garlic and crushed basil)

Combine the water, yeast and sugar. Let it rest til the yeast starts to bubble (about 10 minutes). Add half the flour, the oil, salt, and Italian seasoning, Gradually add as much flour as needed to make a soft dough, Dump onto floured surface and knead for 5 to 6 minutes. Let rest for 20 to 30 minutes. Divide into 2 equal portions. Roll out to desired thickness/size. I usually prebake the crust for 6 to 7 minutes at 400, top, and bake another 6 to 7 minutes. Of course, the baking times will vary with how thick or thin you roll your crust.

I also poke the crust with a fork several times just before putting it in the oven for the blind bake so that it doesn't puff up any more. We like our crust thin here at the micro mini-ranch.

As I said, I double this recipe, and make 4 crusts at a time. I ball the unbaked crust into ziplock baggies and freeze what I won't use in a week. Cherry has said that she rolls out her crusts and does the first bake, then freezes them. If I had more space in my freezer, I would probably do the same thing, as it would be quicker to throw the end product together at night after I get home from work, but I don't.  The frozen dough takes about 2 hours to thaw, or is thawed if I take it out in the morning and put it in the fridge before work.  It's a little wet and sticky, but that is handled by tossing on a bit of flour and doing a quick knead prior to rolling out.  The dough also stays fresh in the fridge for about a week.

I challenge you all to make a fresh pizza from the ground up. Tell me what fresh veggies you use, odd combos that work for you and your family. Making something from scratch is so satisfying, isn't it?

Junque-olgy - It's Curtains for you!

I'm in desperate need to get rid of my mini-blinds. They are disgusting and broken, and UGH!

I'm starting easy, because it's many, many moons since I hauled out the sewing machine (remember "Hammer Time?" - remember "Hammer Pants?" - yeah, I made those).  I want to make cafe curtains for one window in the kitchen that sits over the sink.  The walls are pale yellow.  The counter top is a mottled pottery color (not orange, not brown, but just like a clay pot), the appliances are all white.

So, I'm looking for fun and funky prints to buy for curtains this morning, and most of the things I like are labeled "Juvenile." I'm trying not to be insulted, and mostly I'm just giggling at the thought of truly WILD prints, and the look on DaMan's face when I finally get them up.

say...something like this: 



But he probably wouldn't have a problem with this:



I love this, but it's a jersey knit, and not at all right for curtains:



... and people wonder why I never get anything done.



So help me out...wild prints, that aren't too dark (my house is light challenged), in the yellow/red/green family preferably. Please?

I promise to write up the whole process of what is sure to be a comedy of errors - Me vs. Sewing Machine vs. Tension Rods, etc.

And!!!  Bonus points to those that might point in me in a trying Junque-like fashion of re-using something else to make my curtains.

Junque-ology - Cleaning Copper-bottomed pots

Cleaning Copper-Bottomed Pots

My mother-in-law knew that I coveted her ancient Revere-Ware copper bottomed pots. They were awesome for even heating and not scorching. She gave them to me when she bought herself some new cookware, and I happily took them.

At some point in time (in Happy Accident Land), tomato sauce overflowed one of these pots, and we'd noticed that the copper which was dull and dark, became clean and spiffy looking. Thinking we were geniuses, we would occasionally throw the pots in a shallow dish filled with some sort of tomato sauce. Spicy V8 was the usual fare, as we always had some around, but it never got used enough to feel bad "wasting" it to clean a pot, if you get my drift.

Anywhooooo, last week I noticed that my most beloved pot was getting reeeeeeally grimy on the bottom, and I knew that I'd have to get around to cleaning them. Since I started this blog, I thought it might might be neat to conduct a wee little experiment and see if tomato juice was truly the bestest, fastest, easiest way to clean a copper-bottom pot.

I went to my trusted old book, "Talking Dirty with the Queen of Clean," by Linda Cobb. In the book, the author said to use lemon juice and salt to shine up copper. And I got to figuring, tomato juice and lemon juice...both are acids, so why not try vinegar, too? This works out well, because I have three copper pots to clean.  :)

As you can see, they are pretty dingy. Definitely time for a clean. I got out my trusty Pyrex casserole dishes, and loaded one up with each acid: V8 Juice, vinegar, and lemon juice. I dunked one pot in each for a minute, then poured salt on the bottoms, put them back into their respective acids, and swished each for a minute or so.

Here are the results, and let me say, I'm pretty surprised:

 I'm calling it a tie between the lemon juice and the vinegar.  The pot that the vinegar was in wasn't as dingy, because it doesn't get used as much as the two larger pots. However, the vinegar pot needed to be buffed as it got a a grey-ish film on it when it dried.

The lemon juice pot still has a few burn spots in the middle, that has since resisted being cleaned off no matter what. But these pots are ancient, so I'm willing to live with a few spots.

The V8 Juice just did not live up to snuff in this experiment.  I finished it off in the lemon juice, and was able to 85-90% of the black off the bottom of the pot.

There you have it! And now I have cleaned pots that I could hang on the wall, if I ever got my shaker shelf up....  :)

Junque-ology - Re-Stuffing my Comforter

Yes, I wish this was my bed. Alas,it is not.  The comforter shown in this picture, however, is mine. I love the reversible fabric. I love the plaid on one side, the lighter striped pattern on the other. I bought this from Overstock.com probably about 2 years ago for just under $50.00.  I figured it would give me a few years, then give out. Well, I was right.  The batting inside has torn and bunched badly The poor thing is pretty much unusable. However, it being the only comforter I have, I've had to use it - even in it's horrendous shape. 

I really didn't want buy another cheap comforter. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want another goose down duvet. Our last duvet met its nasty end when one of our cats decided it was a much better place to pee on than in the litter box. But she was old and sick, and I forgave her.

I had thoughts of turning the fabric from the comforter into a duvet cover. It wouldn't take much, but getting a new duvet is something I cannot afford right now. Have you priced them lately??? O.M.G. it almost makes you want to raise the geese yourself just for feathers.

Anywhoo...I needed to do something quick. The comforter desperately needed to be washed, but the batting inside wasn't going to be able to handle another washing & drying. It hasn't been warm enough to line dry, either, which I was doing in nicer weather to save some wear and tear. What to do? What to do?

If you remember from my blog-post about the necklace board I made...I tend to dither. I want to do something, but I can't because something else needs to be done first. And that can't be done, because of cost or SOMETHING that always manages to bog down the process. So I dither. I let ideas swirl in my head, and nothing ever gets done. Starting this blog is helping me to stop and say, "Do What You Can Now." Just do it, and do it better later, if you need to.  So I am.

I went to the craft store, and bought out their section of poly fiber-fill. I remembered from my pillow making days, that you generally 2x what you think you do when it comes to fiber-fill. So I got lots.

I dug out my old sewing kit, and hunted up my seam ripper.  The seam ripper and I used to be good friends, back in the old sewing days. Yes, together we've ripped a seam or two...hundred.  I sat down with my comforter, my seam-ripper, a large garbage bag, and whatever was playing on the History Channel (something about the Pope, but I really wasn't paying attention).

I carefully "ripped" about 2 1/2 inches of seam from the side of the comforter. I pulled out all the gnarly stuffing from inside. And I do mean GNARLY. If you have a dog, and you let that dog sleep with you on the bed, then you know GNARLY.  I carefully took out the laughable quilting stitches in the middle of the thing (seriously, there were maybe 6 one inch long quilt stitches for a king sized comforter), which is why the batting tore and bunched up in the first place.

I'm washing and drying the shell of the comforter, then I will stuff it with the new poly-fill, then I'll whip-stitch the side seam back up.  And Viola! One fixed comforter.

You might ask, why didn't buy new batting, and re-quilt the thing?  Because I *do* want to go back at a later date and make this a duvet cover - when I finally get my new goose-filled duvet. Re-stuffing the comforter now will tide it over until I get that new duvet (and oh yes, I will get it). Then I can open the foot of the comforter, take out the poly fill, throw in the duvet, and either put on buttons, snaps or Velcro, as a new closure.

See? It *can* be fixed for now...and made better for later.  :)

And the dog can't lay on it until she gets a bath...and I mean that sincerely.

Junque Jewelry or Junque-ology...you decide.

Necklace Organizer...round one.

I make and have a lot of necklaces. I have a jewelry box that I don't love. It doesn't organize well, and the spot to hang necklaces is down the back, so you can't see them unless you stand over the box, peering in. It's just not convenient.

I've been toying with the idea for a way to hang my necklaces so that they are all visible, and yet compact. Here's what I did.

I had an old framed cork-board & some tiny J hooks (or coffee cup hooks). Viola!

Yes, it's another crappy cell phone pic, but I'll take a better one at a later date. I promise!

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, but I need to jazz it up a bit. I want to paint the frame and paper the cork-board with some pretty paper.  I'm waiting until after I re-paint my bedroom, though, so I can match it to the new wall color.  Then I will post an update here!

Why would I post an unfinished project here, you might ask? Well, I think I have a good reason. One, I put making this necklace board for months, even though I really needed it. My brain was swirling with the "I can't-s"  as in, "I can't do that because I haven't picked out the pretty paper," and "I can't pick out the paper until I paint the walls in the room,"  and so on. I'm a master of procrastination for this very reason.  So I stopped, did the what I needed to get the quick fix, and the pretty comes when it comes.

That's my new Junque-ology rule to live by.  I hope you like it.

Junque Food

In an effort to try to live a little more economically, to eat somewhat more wholesomely, Da Hubster and I have been making our bread for a good year now. This is not a very original idea, seeing as people have made their own bread since the invention of fire. Hey, if I could make little loaves on hot stones in the back yard, I would be all over that! Imagine what a conversation starter that would be when you have people over for dinner! But I digress…

We used to make by hand, with all the kneading and letting it rise, etc. the various recipes we tried called for, but there are times when time is just not on our side. So we set out to find a cheap yet durable bread machine. We checked out local garage sales, the second-hand stores were a bust, and retail outlets in our area only sold brands or models that did not get great online reviews. We thought about buying a more expensive model online, but paying for shipping chaffed our budget. And then a co-worker mentioned that she had one and wanted to get rid of it. SCORE! I actually ended up trading her a discontinued crafting die-cutter kit that I never used for the bread machine. DOUBLE SCORE! Cleaned out some clutter AND got something in return that pulls it's weight around here. *glares at lazy cats*

So, it still takes 4 hours to make a loaf of bread, but I don’t have to knead it. We usually set it to run overnight, and let me tell you, the smell of fresh baked bread when you wake up in the morning is PHENOM (A NOM NOM).

Here is the simplest and most often used recipe in our house. Please make sure to read the manufacturer's instructions for your particular bread machine. Dump these ingredients into the machine in the order they are listed:

• 1 cup hot water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 1/4 teaspoons of yeast (this is equal to one packet)

Close the lid and wait 10 minutes. After 10 minutes or so, peek in and make sure there is bubbling. If so, you are good to go! Proceed by adding:

• ¼ cup veggie oil
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt

Close lid and press button for the first cycle or "Basic" (however it reads on your machine). Go about your business. 3 ½ hours later, your home is going to smell so freaking wonderful, you will have to sit on your hands to keep from ripping the undercooked loaf of bread out of your machine and gnawing on it. Try to restrain yourself.  :)

Now, if someone could only teach me how to slice bread evenly, I'd be IN!


Here’s an extra tip. Because there are no preservatives in your newly made bread, it doesn’t last as long as a store bought loaf. We’ve eaten the bread up to a week after making it, having sealed it in a plastic baggie, but it does tend to lose some of its awesome flavor after a few days. It’s not bad, so if you can finish the loaf, great, but what I’ve been doing is taking the leftover heels and stuff, and freezing them. When I’m making a salad, I’ll take a heel of bread – cube it, toss with a little olive oil, garlic, and seasonings, and toast them on a cookie sheet in the oven at around 400f. ***CROUTONS! And soooo much better than store bought. Any left over croutons do best in a ziplock baggy with a small square of paper towel to soak up any extra oil, or any moisture that might not have baked out of bread. But there probably won’t be any leftovers. They are that good.

(picture from www.mydish.co.uk )