Random Wednesday: Kitchen Commotion

I'm still not feeling up for our usual Weird Recipe Wednesday, so you're just going to get some random bites of what I've been up to in the kitchen and such.  More likely than not, weird will be involved after all.


1.  Grapefruit: I've eaten more grapefruit over the past few months than in my entire life.  Somehow I just can't seem to get enough of the tart, juicy citrus flavor.  I usually just eat them plain, not even with sugar, but I wanted to try broiling one just this once.  The heat from the broiler was nice, but I'm not really into warm grapefruit.  Or waiting an extra 10 whole minutes for breakfast.  What's your favorite way to eat grapefruit?

2. I can now say I've grilled quail breast outside in the middle of winter.  Oh the things I learn at work.  Food-safe rubber gloves are not as warm as mittens.  A winter coat with long sleeves is not helpful when reaching into a tub of marinating quail breasts and trying to get them on the grill as quickly as possible before you freeze.

3. Last Saturday I made these  peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.  Yum.  Thanks to Madison for the suggestion and Amber for the recipe.

4. "Tastes like beef" is the new "tastes like chicken."  I made a version of this slow cooker Honey-Sesame Chicken and my family couldn't believe it was chicken.  Between the dark sauce and the fact that the chicken was shredded, they all thought it was beef roast.  Weird.  I used an extra dark, mushroom-flavored soy sauce, added ginger and sesame oil and sprinkled cashews over the top before serving. (plus a few other changes I can't remember off-hand)

5.  After spending 8 hours in the kitchen at work you would think the last thing I would want to do when I get home is play in the kitchen.  Wrong.  I start making Homemade Yellow Cake Mix within minutes of walking in the door.  I'm hoping to try a browned butter version next.

Food for Thought: "Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the use of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success." -Louisa May Alcott 

Winter Wednesday: Snowmen Snacks

It's weird that I don't feel like making anything weird.  Or maybe it's normal, which would be weird for me.  I don't know, it's probably the winter blues.  Let's just make it a Winter Wednesday for this week, okay?  It's been a little too chilly for real snowmen, so let's bring the fun inside where it's warm.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Veggie Noodles with Citrusy Dill Dressing

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

I've tried on more than one occasion to convince myself I like spaghetti squash. It's okay sometimes (despite this adventure), but I'm just not that into it.  It certainly doesn't taste like spaghetti, but then again, I've never been into spaghetti either.  I wouldn't eat anything tomato-based growing up, including spaghetti, lasagna or ketchup.  Thank goodness I grew out of that phase.  However, I'm still not a huge pasta eater.   Vegetables, on the other hand, I will gobble up like there's no tomorrow (you know, to balance all the cookies, peanut butter and chocolate).

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Mushroom Salsa with Wonton Chips

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

Mushrooms in salsa? I hadn't heard of it either until I saw it on this blog and traced it back to the Muy Bueno Cookbook.  I know it sounds weird, but this is a kind of weird that really works.  Somewhere between seeing this idea and actually making salsa, my mind jumped from jalapeno and lime to the flavors of Asian food.  I'm not even going to try and trace that one back, I must have been on a mushrooms tangent.  So, yes, mushroom salsa with Asian flavors.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Sauerkraut Chocolate Cake

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

Sauerkraut in bread is one thing, but sauerkraut in cake?  Once again my curiosity kicked in full force and put up a good fight.  I don't remember when or where I first saw a chocolate sauerkraut cake recipe, but the concept has been nagging me ever since.  I told you not to raise your eyebrows yesterday, but I give you full permission to do so today.

So, with eyebrows raised, let's begin.  The theory behind the cake is that the sauerkraut adds moisture, much like the respective vegetables in a carrot cake or zucchini cake.  The sauerkraut is rinsed before it's added to the batter so as to remove most of the sour, fermented flavor.  It's also chopped finely to avoid any stringy surprises.  Of all the recipes and reviews I read (and there were many), most tasters could not detect the sauerkraut.  If noticed at all they picked up on texture and thought it was shreds of coconut.   Of course I still had to try it out for myself, though in my defense I did forgo the cake recipe calling for sauerkraut, mayonnaise and cherry coke.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Onion Flowers

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

Instead of Weird Recipe Wednesday let's pretend it's Way Too Many Onions Wednesday.  I bought another bag of onions without double checking how many I had on hand.  And now I have, well, way too many.

In other words, it's the perfect time to try out the onion flowers I first saw here.  These flowers require almost zero effort, just a few slices with a knife.  Thanks to the inherent layers in an onion, the petals open up all on their own in the heat of the oven.

As the bulb blooms into a flower the natural sugars in the onion caramelize.  Strong and crunchy gives way to sweet and soft, talk about a transformation.  If you happen to have way too many onions, you can find the recipe and instructions as they appeared in LCBO's Food & Drink magazine here.

Food for Thought: "Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Sweet Potato Polenta with Cinnamon and Smoked Paprika

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

I'll risk sounding like a broken record here and remind you how much I like to combine little bits and pieces of random recipes.  Stick with me though, you just might learn something in the process, like how my mind wanders from grits to potatoes to soup to cookies and back...with a sprinkle of cinnamon and smoked paprika.

I've eaten grits once, maybe twice, but we're not too familiar with them this far north.  After spotting Jenna's recipe for Sweet Potato Grits I figured it was time to give grits another whirl.  I didn't do my homework and used the cornmeal in the cupboard as opposed to grits.  Grits are made from hominy, which is corn soaked in lye.  If hominy isn't involved you just have cornmeal, which makes polenta.  Now I know for next time.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Citrusy Carrot Marmalade

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

This recipe started as the uniquely creative kind of weird, but wound up a little differently than preferred after an impulsively irreversible decision on my part.  In other words, I unintentionally upped the weird factor.

You see, I was in a bit of a hurry and the marmalade just wouldn't thicken.  Adding pectin was my first choice, and I even had a spare box of pectin on hand, but the amount of soupy orange mixture boiling away on my stove wasn't enough to warrant an entire package of pectin.  What would I do with a partial package of pectin lurking in the pantry?  And so, just before I tore open the package, I stuffed it back in the box, stood tip-toe, and placed it back on the top cupboard shelf.  Soon I spotted a box of unflavored gelatin packets.  My fingers reached into the box, tore open a packet and sprinkled it over the simmering pot.  Blast, why did I do that?

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Peanut Butter Cookies-and-Creme Fudge

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

Due to the cake adventure I told you about yesterday, we've switched this week's Weird Recipe Wednesday with Tuesday's Twist.  If you're looking for weird, check out yesterday's post.  If you're looking for a slightly more normal recipe (but not really, who am I kidding), then you're in for a treat.  And by treat I mean peanut butter fudge studded with chocolate cookies.

Tuesday's Twist: Chocolate-Chipotle Puppy Chow

Tuesday's Twist:  A basic recipe with a fun twist.  In other words, just another excuse for me to play around with weird recipes I've been dying to try.

Due to some, shall we say.....adventures in the kitchen yesterday, Tuesday's Twist and Weird Recipe Wednesday are switching places this week.  Unless you would prefer to have cake batter erupting out of a loaf pan and oozing down the sides as it bakes?  Yeah, me neither.  That was fun.

And since time flies when you're having fun, today is already Weird Recipe Wednesday.  Are you ready for another sweet-savory combination?  Two of the last magazines I've read have featured recipes pairing chocolate with chipotle.  One recipe was for brownies and the other for chocolate crinkle cookies.  Both tasty I'm sure, but I'm trying (sort of??) to not post bars or cookies every single day in December.  I've been looking for a good excuse to make puppy chow.  Oh look, I found it, let's go.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Savory Pumpkin Pie and Chocolate Pecan Pie

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

Knowing how much I like to experiment, my brother gave me this super neat pie pan that's split down the middle, allowing me to test two recipes at once.

With a twinkle in his eye he encouraged me to practice my pie making skills while he's home on Thanksgiving break.  Knowing I had a willing taste tester, I set out to make two of the pies on my ever growing 'recipes to try' list.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Egg Coffee

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

Last month I randomly mentioned egg coffee.  You knew I'd give in and try it sooner or later, didn't you?  You should have placed bets for how long I'd hold out before I tried this weird technique.  Maybe you did, in which case I hope you won.

I found some old percolators at my grandma's house and mentioned them to her.  She told me about the egg coffee she used to make where whole egg, shell and all, is added in with the grounds. And we're not talking an electric drip coffee maker here either, just a stove top coffee pot.  She claims it's the best coffee she's ever had and they just don't make it like that anymore. (Gee, I wonder why?....no I don't.)  So after raising my eyebrows for awhile and plenty of skepticism on my part, I gave in.  Truth be told, I had several other weird recipes planned for today, but they crashed, flopped and withered a little too hard to make it all the way here.  Since this egg coffee concept seems weird to my generation, I decided it would work in a pinch.

It's actually a technique that's been used for years by countless coffee brewers and served to plenty of unsuspecting guests.  A Scandinavian tradition, this coffee is also known as 'Lutheran church basement coffee.'  I looked up quite a few recipe variations and had fun learning about this weird tradition.  It wasn't until afterwords that I found this food science post explaining the chemistry involved.  I'll spare you the details, but the egg and shell supposedly remove bitterness and acidity, producing and incredibly smooth cup of coffee.

Let me just show you what happened.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Apple Ring Pancakes

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

I've been chowing down an insane amount of apples this fall.  We've made 3 trips to the orchard and each time we come home with a 1/2 bushel of seconds plus a smaller bag of another variety. A bushel of apples weighs between 42 and 48 pounds so I'm guessing we've hit the 70-80 lb range in total.  Yikes, that looks like so much more when you add it all up.  Crisp and tart are my favorite, but my last trip to the orchard left me with a bag of soft and mildly sweet apples.  They're great for sauce or apple butter, but they're not my favorite for munching.  Since this is the 3rd 1/2 bushel bag of the season, I've had more than my fair share of pie and apple crisp.  I was up for a change of pace and thought I'd give these pancakes a whirl.

I'm not a big breakfast eater.  A bowl of cereal, an apple, just give me something that requires zero thought.  Every once in a while I'll put a little more effort into breakfast and make something like muffins or pancakes.  Don't get me wrong, I like breakfast food, I just don't eat it at breakfast time.  More often than not I'll eat the muffins as a snack or make pancakes, waffles or French toast for Sunday lunch.  So yeah, these pancakes hit the griddle around 3 in the afternoon but we can pretend I made them for breakfast.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Nutty Orange Harvest Soup

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

This orange soup has such a smattering of weird ingredients I wasn't sure if I wanted to post it.  I debated back and forth, snapped a few pictures just in case and finally decided to just go with it.  I've seen orange fall soups popping up everywhere on the blogosphere lately and decided this might not be way too wired after all.  And even if it is, that's exactly what Weird Recipe Wednesday is all about. Since it's Halloween, it seems like as good a time as any for a slightly strange bowl or orange liquid.  Annnnd now that I've hesitated and stalled a little longer I suppose we can get to the soup.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Pumpkin-Chai-Peanut Butter Bars

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

You already know about my crazy obsession with peanut butter.  I suppose it's about time to clue you in on pumpkin too.  Let's just throw pumpkin, squash and carrots together on this one. They're all orange and apparently I eat enough of them to tint my skin a weird orangey-yellow. I've cut back on carrots lately, but only because I've been eating so much squash and pumpkin. Like, ummm, eating so much of them I may have even had squash for breakfast. What can I say, the fact that they're in season is the perfect excuse to feed my obsession. I want to put pumpkin in everything, but I'll try not to overload you with pumpkin recipes. Maybe. Okay, probably not, but I won't give you enough to turn you orange.

After discovering how well peanut butter and nutmeg get along, I couldn't wait to try peanut butter and chai.  About two seconds later pumpkin-chai popped into my head.  Before I could even finish that thought I knew something with pumpkin, chai and peanut butter needed to happen.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Pumpkin Wild Rice Salad

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

This warm autumn salad is packed with fall flavors.  Loaded with healthy ingredients this cozy side boasts a delicate balance between sweet and savory.  Caramelized onions and roasted cauliflower blend with the nuttiness of wild rice.  Sweet, delicate pumpkin notes mingle with crisp apples, soft raisins and a subtle hint of warm cinnamon.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Peanut Butter-Jalapeno-Chocolate Chip Bars

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

Remember those candied jalapenos I made a few weeks back?  I finally got around to using them in a weird recipe.  But let me back up just a little.  I haven't lost it completely (that or I'm in denial).  If I lay out the tracks, you might be able to follow my train of thought on this one.

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Peanut Butter-Banana Soft Serve with Basil and Chocolate Chips

Weird Recipe Wednesday: Because some recipes are so weird I just HAVE to try them.  My curiosity always gets the better of me.

After their last get together, peanut butter, banana, chocolate chip and basil decided to give it another try.  Okay fine, I made them go, but sometimes you just need that extra push out the door.

Weird (Recipe-less) Wednesday: Random Pictures

Know what's weird?  My camera.  I found just enough time to re-photograph today's recipe before heading into work.  I thought my camera problems were solved, and all appeared to be going well.  The issues I had the first time didn't happen so I continued to snap away.  Yet once again, when I went to transfer the pictures they were blank.

I've been waiting the past few days for a new memory card to come in the mail.  It hadn't arrived yet so I used the card out of my old point and shoot.  Apparently it doesn't work that way.  The new card arrived in the mail  after I finished the second picture attempt, before I realized it didn't work, and moments before I left for work.  I haven't had time to open it yet, nor been home during daylight to try a third time.  By the time you read this I'll be back at work, but there's a chance I will get off while it's still light out and have time to use that new card.  No promises, but hopefully Friday you'll be able to see what I've been trying so hard to show you.

In the meantime, here are some random pictures that resurfaced from my point and shoot as I attempted to transfer those phantom photos.

 These first few are from a project I did in college.  I had to do the start-up planning and financial stuff as if I were going to start my own business.  Of course I picked something food related and went with a cookie business.  The pictures were for my display board, but I'll spare you the details of the business I am not planning to start.

 This little guy was IN my kale.  Wash your produce, snails do live in grocery store kale.

 Heirloom tomatoes from last summer.

 Sunrise or sunset (maybe both?) in Iowa.

I woke up extremely early one Saturday morning and couldn't sleep. I went out with my camera and found these.  Much better than sleeping in.

 That same summer there was a balloon festival in the town I lived in.  Hundreds of hot air balloons took off just a few miles from the apartment. I enjoyed watching them all week long.

 This is a really old one.  If you've never picked and eaten a strawberry straight from the field, you're missing out.

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Food for Thought: "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him" -Lamentations 3:24