Blueberries! Blueberries! Blueberries!

I have a disease. I can not walk through the produce section of the grocery store without buying anything that's buy one get one free. At my local grocery store, this only seems to happen with broccoli, which I can prepare a zillion and one ways, and berries. I always buy the berries and have no idea what to do with them except serve them with whipped cream or ice cream. I don't know why the hell I don't just eat them as they are. Berries are delicious and great for you. But I never do eat them alone and usually they start to go bad before I've come up with a use for them.

The other day I brought home two pints of blueberries. As I put them in the fridge, I sighed to myself because I had no idea what I was actually going to do with so many blueberries. Saturday morning for breakfast, we had blueberry pancakes. They were delicious. But I'm not about to eat blueberry pancakes every day for a week.

Then I stumbled upon a recipe for cookies. And the recipe had the a-word, so I had to give it a try.

Almond-Blueberry Cookies
2 c all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter, softened
1 c sugar
1 egg
1/4 c milk
1 tsp almond extract
2 tsp lemon zest, about 1 lemon
1/2 c almonds, chopped, toasted
1 c blueberries (thawed and drained if using frozen)

In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

In small bowl, combine butter, sugar, egg, milk, almond extract, and lemon zest. Mix until well blended.

Add the contents of the small bowl to the medium bowl and mix.

Fold in almonds and blueberries.

Refridgerate dough for 30 min.

Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake in 375 degree oven until browned around the edges, about 15 minutes.

Cool on wire rack.

I didn't use the lemon zest in mine, mainly because I didn't have a lemon and hell if I was going to the store for a non-essential ingredient. Also, I generally don't like the lemon flavor in many of the baked goods I have made, but I think that these cookies would have been that much better if I had added the zest.

Go make these cookies. They're delicious.

The Best Damn Lasagna I Have Ever Eaten

Last night I made lasagna. And it seems that every time that I make lasagna, I make it a different way and I'm never totally satisfied with my end product. I suppose that's not the lasagna's fault though, as I have never been a huge fan of pasta.

But this time! This time it was excellent! By far, the best lasagna I have ever eaten. Of course the only lasagna I have ever eaten was either the product of my kitchen or a close relatives kitchen. I would never order lasagna at an Italian restaurant with all the other wonderful choices that are on the menu.

This recipe does not contain ricotta cheese. I had no idea you could make lasagna without ricotta - as dumb as that sounds. I like ricotta alright, but sometimes it's just a bit too much.

Also, lasagna isn't really something that you can make in a snap. Especially not this recipe. But it is easy and totally scrumptious.

Lasagna with Two Sauces
6 lasagna strips, cooked al dente
Bechamel Sauce
4 c milk
1 med onion, sliced
2 bay leaves
8 whole cloves
6 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 c flour
salt & pepper
Meat Sauce
1/4 c olive oil
2 med onion, chopped
1 lb ground beef
1/2 lb ground pork
2 cans stewed tomatoes
2 cans tomato paste
3/4 beef broth
1 heaping tsp oregano
1 heaping tsp basil
3 garlic cloves, minced
salt & pepper
1 lb mozzarella cheese, shredded
3/4 c Parmesan cheese, grated

To make the Bechamel Sauce:

Pour milk into medium saucepan. Add onion, bay leaves, and cloves. Scald milk over medium heat, remove from heat, cover, and allow to infuse for 10 minutes. Strain milk.

In medium saucepan, melt 4 tbsp butter over medium-low heat. Stir in the flour and cook until smooth and bubbly, 1-2 minutes. Gradually stir in the milk. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cover and simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 15 minutes.

Remover from heat and whisk in remaining 2 tbsp of butter.

To make the Meat Sauce:

Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook until softened. Add meats and cook until browned.

Add tomatoes, paste, stock, oregano, basil, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to low, and continue to simmer for about an hour.

Preheat over to 350 degrees.

Layer the lasagna in a 9 x 13 pan, in the order listed, starting from the bottom up:

1/3 meat sauce
1/3 Bechamel sauce
1/2 mozzarella and Parmesan
1/2 lasagna
1/3 meat sauce
1/3 Bechamel sauce
1/2 lasagna
1/3 meat sauce
1/3 Bechamel sauce
1/2 mozzarella and Parmesan

Bake until the top is golden brown, about 45 minutes.

Despite the fact that this one was so good, the next lasagna I attempt will be a veggie lasagna.

Köttbullar

I'm not a huge fan of ground beef. If it's in my fridge, it's more than likely going into homemade spaghetti sauce. Occasionally I'll make tacos with it, but I really prefer chicken for tacos. I've made meatloaf once, my grandmother's meatballs in a kind of barbecue sauce a handful of times, pan-fried burgers *gasp* before I refused to make any more grill-foods not on a grill, and several boxes of hamburger helper, which I have stopped buying because I like my foods to be more, shall I say, natural.

The other day I needed sausage and I conveniently had a coupon (on me even!) for $1.00 off when I also purchased ground beef. And so I did. I was thinking about making a meatloaf with it because the baby would probably devour some meatloaf and I could even sneak some veggies in it, totally in disguise. However, meatloaf requires mashed potatoes and with all the potato eating we've been doing the past couple of weeks, I really really didn't want mashed potatoes.

And so, for the first time in my life, I made Swedish meatballs. My mom used to make these when I was younger and I never ate them. I think it was because of the word 'Swedish'. I do believe that until last night I had actually only once had Swedish meatballs and they were of the Stouffers variety. Classy.

After a quick goggle search, I'm realizing that what I made was not at all Swedish meatballs, as I did not have any ground pork on hand and that kinda seems like a requirement. The spices added and sauces made seem to vary quite a bit, but pork is a staple. Oh well.

Almost Swedish Meatballs
1 c bread, torn into chunks (white bread, wheat bread, the stale butt end of a French loaf you have laying around - whatever will do fine)
1/4 c milk
3 tbsp butter, divided
1/2 c onion, finely chopped
1 lb ground beef (or half beef, half pork)
2 egg yolks
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 c flour
3 c beef broth
1/4 c cream (heavy or light)

In small bowl, mix bread and milk. Set aside.

In frying pan, melt 1 tbsp butter over med-low heat and cook onion until soft.

In large bowl, combine beef, onion, yolks, spices, and bread mixture. Use your hands - they'll end up getting messy anyway. Form into meatballs about the size of ping-pong balls.

Melt remaining 2 tbsp butter over medium heat. Add meatballs to pan and cook until done throughout, approximately 8-12 minutes. Remove meatballs from pan.

Reduce heat to low. Add flour and whisk until browned. Slowly stir in beef broth and cook until gravy is thickened. Stir in cream.

Place meatballs back into the pan and cover until ready to serve.

Swedish meatballs go best with egg noodles. And apparently egg noodles go best with butter, but a certain fiance of mine decided to bring that up after the food was already on his plate. Fortunately for me, I had to feed the baby first (he loved this recipe, by the way), so I was able to enjoy my noodles with butter and gravy. Yummy!

Also, I honestly think these meatballs were better today for lunch than they were last night. But maybe that's because making lunch today was much easier and quicker than making dinner last night. Also, I was able to eat lunch in (relative) peace.

Did you know that Swedish meatballs are served in most of the cafeterias of IKEA's around the world? It says so right here.

Broccoli Please!

I always said that my child would eat his veggies. I was dead set on not having to deal with 'But I don't like peeeeeeeeeeeas' and 'That's yucky' whenever my family sat down to the table for dinner. So when my son was old enough to start eating something other than breastmilk, the first thing I introduced him to after his requisite rice cereal was green beans - steamed and pureed. I wouldn't say he loved them by any means, but at 5 months old, he was eating his veggies and I was proud of myself for not offering fruit first. He grew to eat nearly any vegetable that I pureed and put in front of his mouth. Then we started on fruit, meat, yogurt and cheese - things that make him moan in pleasure while he's munching down on them. And now, he will not touch his damn veggies. At 11 months, I have become a failure. He's much too young for the 'If you don't eat your veggies, you'll go to bed hungry', so I had to come up with something.

Broccoli was on sale at the grocery store the other day, so I decided to buy a couple of bundles. Somewhere along aisle 3 the brilliant idea came to me - broccoli soup! Surely if I mix his veggies with cream then he'd be so absorbed with moaning over the cream and cheese that he wouldn't even notice the broccoli! And I was totally right. He loves the stuff - but I still can't get him to eat a veggie alone.

Broccoli Soup
(adapted from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook)
2 stalks broccoli (approximately 1 1/2 pounds), chopped (I don't use the huge stalk part)
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 c water
2 tbsp butter or margarine
2 tbsp flour
3 c chicken broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
dash of ground nutmeg
1/2 cup cream (heavy or light will do)
8 oz cheddar cheese

Boil water in 3 quart saucepan. Add broccoli, celery, and onion. Cover and cook until broccoli is tender, approximately 10 min.

Transfer broccoli mixture (with any remaining water) to food processor and puree until smooth.

Melt butter in 3 quart saucepan (use the same one to reduce the amount of clean-up you have to do). Add flour and stir until smooth and bubbly.

Slowly add broth to flour mixture. Stirring constantly, heat to boiling. Boil for 1 minute.

Stir in broccoli mixture, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Reduce heat.

Add cream and cheese. Stir until cheese is dissolved.

I really enjoy making soups. They make a great meal by themselves, or you can serve them as a starter to dinner or with a sandwich for lunch. There will be many more soup recipes featured in the future.

Agh! Another cooking blog!

I've tried my hand at this blogging thing quite a few times. I'm never quite motivated enough to stick with it for longer than about three days at a time. I often catch myself dreaming about doing a cooking blog instead of writing about the mundaneness of my everyday stay-at-home-mom life. But I live in a tiny apartment with a kitchen that is just barely big enough to turn around in, dishes that I absolutely hate, and a dining room table that's getting ready to make it's way into storage because we never eat at it anyway and I'd much rather use that space for the beloved pack-n-play. For months now, I've been dreaming of the day when we're living in a house with a moderately sized kitchen, brand new dining room table and dishes that I adore. I've actually told Rojo that I want to do a cooking blog once we're in a house. 'I'll do a little story, throw up a recipe, include some pics . . . it'll be great!' Well, why the hell don't I just start it now then? Well, up until today, my reason was because I lack the space and equipment needed for such a task.

But I started thinking to myself that it may actually amaze some people at what I'm able to accomplish in my damn kitchen. How is my kitchen different from your kitchen? Well, for starters, I don't have a microwave. *gasp* I know, I know. I've not had a microwave for over a year now. The reason - there's no counter space. And I've given thought to an under the cabinet microwave, but I really don't think there's space for that either. There will be pictures to come later and you will see. And hopefully you can suggest ideas for utilizing the space more efficiently as well.

I'm going to go make my damn kitchen presentable to the internet, then try to figure out how to take pictures of such a compact space so that you can get the full idea of what it's like.