Mother's Day 2014

This year for Mother's Day my dad, brother, and I made my mom a very delicious meal to celebrate her. A sausage and onion frittata accompanied by fresh fruit, croissants, and sautéed broccolini. This was a very special meal for a very special person.

I want to wish all of the moms a very special Mother's Day!!!

Back to Blogging

     Spring is here which indicates that school will be ending soon and the time to cook, garden, and blog will greatly expand. This school year has been very busy. I apologize to all of my followers that have been wondering why I haven't been posting at all. I really want to start blogging again. It is so fun.
     This spring I hope to post a lot about gardening and how to grow healthy plants that you can enjoy. Gardening is a skill that you cannot learn over night. I want to give you my knowledge on how to start seedlings or how to properly take a sprouted plant and put it in the ground.
       I also want to post more food recipes that are perfect for spring picnics or family meals. I want the majority of these recipes to be ones that you can use garden vegetables in so you don't have to run to the food store and buy an over priced container of herbs when you can harvest your own herbs. I think that not enough people have small vegetable gardens. People don't realize how much healthier and cleaner it is to grow most of the food you eat. It can be very challenging to grow vegetables in Minnesota. We don't have a very long growing season. I hope to give you strategies and ideas that will help you improve your vegetable garden or to motivate you to start growing one.

Korean Ribs and Daikon

        Here in Minnesota we have had a week of temperatures that were well below 0 . In some parts of Minnesota it is has been -61 including the windchill. On one day the temperature in Minneapolis was colder than in Antarctica. My brother and I had both Monday and Tuesday off from school. Monday school was cancelled statewide. This was our 17th day of Winter Break.
       On the coldest day of the year my mom and I went straight to the cookbooks to find a hearty dish to make. I recently got a cookbook that had some incredible recipes. That cookbook was the I Love My Slow Cooker by Beverly LeBlanc. With the temperatures WELL below zero this cookbook had to have something inside that would warm our bones. We found the perfect dish -  the Korean Ribs and Daikon served over Coconut Rice and sprinkled with Pickled Bean Sprouts.
      This meal was so easy to make and prepare. All my mom and I had to do was put the ingredients in the pot and push the high cook button and set the timer to 5 hours. After only 2 hours the house was starting to fill with heavenly aroma's.
I think this is the beginning of many dinners made using the slow cooker.

Kohlrabi Slaw from my Birthday

         Kohlrabi Slaw

• 2 cups chopped cabbage
• 4 kohlrabi bulbs, peeled and grated
• 2 stalks celery, sliced thin
• 2 carrots, sliced thin
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh onion
• 1/3 cup white sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon celery seed
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 4 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Directions
  
  
  1. Toss the cabbage, kohlrabi, celery, carrot, and onion together in a large bowl.
  2. Whisk the sugar, salt, pepper, celery seed, mayonnaise, and vinegar together in a separate bowl until smooth; pour over the cabbage mixture and stir to coat evenly. Chill in refrigerator 1 hour before serving.

Cornbread from my Birthday

                   Cornbread


1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter or 1/4 cup margarine, melted
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups yellow cornmeal or 1 1/4 cups white cornmeal or 1 1/4 cups blue cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions:

1
Heat oven to 400³F.
2
Grease bottom and side or round pan, 9x1 1/2 inches, or square pan, 8x8x2 inches, with shortening.
3
Beat milk, butter and egg in large bowl with hand beater or wire whisk.
4
Stir in remaining ingredients all at once just until flour is moistened (batter will be lumpy).
5
Pour into pan.
6
Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
7
Serve warm if desired.

Memphis-Style Ribs from my Birthday

                 Memphis-Style Ribs



Grilling Method
Indirect grilling

Advance preparation
4 to 8 hours for marinating the ribs

Special equipment
1 1/2 cups wood chips or chunks (preferably hickory), soaked for 1 hour in cold water to cover and drained

For the ribs and rub
3 racks baby back pork ribs (about 7 pounds), or 2 racks pork spareribs (6 to 8 pounds total)
1/4 cup sweet paprika
4 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
4 1/2 teaspoons dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons celery salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

For the mop sauce (optional)
2 cups cider vinegar
1/2 cup yellow (ballpark) mustard
2 teaspoons salt

1. Prepare the ribs and rub: Remove the thin, papery skin from the back of each rack of ribs by pulling it off in a sheet with your fingers, using the corner of a kitchen towel to gain a secure grip, or with pliers.

2. Combine the paprika, black pepper, brown sugar, salt, celery salt, cayenne, garlic powder, dry mustard, and cumin in a small bowl and whisk to mix. Rub two thirds of this mixture over the ribs on both sides, then transfer the ribs to a roasting pan. Cover and let cure, in the refrigerator, for 4 to 8 hours.

3. Prepare the mop sauce (if using): Mix together the cider vinegar, mustard, and salt in a bowl and set aside.

4. Set up the grill for indirect grilling and place a large drip pan in the center.

If using a gas grill, place all of the wood chips in the smoker box and preheat the grill to high; when smoke appears, reduce the heat to medium.

If using a charcoal grill, preheat it to medium.

5. When ready to cook, if using a charcoal grill, toss the wood chips on the coals. Brush and oil the grill grate. Arrange the ribs on the hot grate over the drip pan. Cover the grill and smoke cook the ribs for 1 hour.

6. When the ribs have cooked for an hour, uncover the grill and brush the ribs with the mop sauce (if using). Re-cover the grill and continue cooking the ribs until tender and almost done, 1/4 to 1/2 hour longer for baby back ribs, 1/2 to 1 hour longer for spareribs. The ribs are done when the meat is very tender and has shrunk back from the ends of the bones. If using a charcoal grill, you'll need to add 10 to 12 fresh coals to each side after 1 hour. Fifteen minutes before the ribs are done, season them with the remaining rub, sprinkling it on.

7. To serve, cut the racks in half or, for a plate-burying effect, just leave them whole.

13th Birthday Dinner

     When you turned 13, did you have a special meal?. If you didn't, I highly recommend that you designate one night when you can make your dream meal. That's what I got to do for my 13 birthday,(which was on a Saturday night thankfully). My dream meal is the following: BBQ Pork Spare Ribs, Corn Bread, Coleslaw, Mac N'Cheese, and an Oreo Ice Cream Pie to top it off. That is the exact menu I had for my 13th birthday. I wanted to design the menu to be as Southernly as possible. What  also made the birthday dinner spectacular was having family in town from New Jersey. Even my older cousin was able to join us. Having the family in town made it a really special celebration that I will remember for a very long time.
      When I decided to have BBQ Ribs for my birthday I wanted to make them the best. For me to accomplish that we absolutely had to get the ribs from Clancey's. Then we had to find a recipe that was simple but would make the ribs heavenly. We were looking for a recipe that had a rub and sauce recipe. We found a recipe that met those two requirements. The rub was so simple . In the long run we ended up using our favorite BBQ Sauce to baste the ribs. It was a great combination. When the ribs came out of the oven, we had a scrumptious gravy for dipping the Corn Bread. This added numerous flavors to the bite.
       The Oreo Ice Cream Pie at the end of the meal made every single stomach in the room feel glorious. My aunt said, "Before having this Ice Cream Cake I did not like Oreo Ice Cream. But now I love it". By the way, the cake was from the best Ice Cream Creamery in Minneapolis, Sebastian Joe's. This was a great way to end such a memorable night. 


Note:The link to Sebastian Joe's and Clancey's Meat and Fish will be included at the end of the post
               The recipe's for the Kohlrabi Salad, BBQ Ribs, and the Cornbread will each have it's separate post.



 http://sebastianjoesicecream.com
http://www.clanceysmeats.com

The Oreo Ice Cream Pie

The Mac N'Cheese

The BBQ Ribs