Happy graduation, birthday, anniversary, independence, vacation day...and orzo salad with lemon, feta and pine nuts.

Well, you know I have a lot of catching up to do.  So, after friendly nudges, sweet "we miss you" e-mails, comments from my mom and husband, and straightforward "when are you going to start blogging again?," I am finally going to give up my blogging hiatus and get things back in gear.  I have no excuse, but that I work better on a schedule, and have been largely schedule-less since May. 

Here's a quick re-cap, in pictures.  

Summer Starts with a Graduation Celebration!

We celebrate our 6th Anniversary in Chattanooga, TN with a stay at Chanticleer Inn, great food, hiking, and city-exploring.  

Visits with family include a trip to Arrington Vineyards near Nashville, the Naval Museum in Pensacola, pre-Independence day celebrations, family meals, and time with friends.

 Independence day celebration in Philadelphia include a picnic near the Philadelphia Museum and a fireworks show over the Schuylkill River.  

Since returning from our Southern tour, my days have been relatively unhurried.  Window units notwithstanding, the heat still seems to slow things down to a molasses speed.  The job search, household chores, cooking (and apparently blogging) have all responded in kind, following snaillike paces of their own.

While I've occasionally turned on my oven for an occasion (pulled pork for Independence day, cookies for Bible study, brownies for my husband's guy-weekend retreat), it has been largely avoided on account of it's kitchen-stifling tendencies.  So, we've enjoyed our fill of grilled fare, sandwiches, and dishes which require minimal heat, like this delicious orzo salad.  

This has to be one of my favorite summer sides, one that I make often in warmer weather, and always elicits recipe requests.  The flavors just work so well together, it can be served cold or at room temperature, and goes well with almost anything you could throw on a grill.  

Orzo Salad with Lemon, Feta and Pine Nuts

Barely adapted from Bride & Groom First and Forever Cookbook

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 cup orzo
1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
1/4 cup golden raisins
3 tablespoons chopped kalamata olives 
1/4 finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup basil, julienned 
2 ounces good quality feta cheese, crumbled

In a medium pot, cook the orzo to al dente in salted water.  Drain pasta.

In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper and sugar.  Pour over the warm pasta, and let the pasta cool to room temperature.  

Add the pine nuts, raisins, olives, onion, basil and feta to the pasta, stir well.  Store Orzo salad in the refrigerator.  

This salad can be made up to two days in advance.  Salad is best at room temperature, but can be served cold.  

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Reasons to Celebrate and Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo

We’re finally back in our Yankee home after a two-and-a-half week trip to the South. It was such a joy to spend time with our family and friends. For the most part, we did just that; we sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed our time! I hardly cooked a thing while we were on the road. Most of the time, I would regret that fact, especially since I didn’t spend any time making holiday treats during exams, but it was time for everyone else’s culinary skills to shine and for us to relish our cherished time at home.

Of course, the holidays are really a time for us to celebrate! We did so from our arrival until our departure.

We arrived in Knoxville after a long journey, and spent the next few days, celebrating both Christmas and family reunions, but also the baptism of our youngest cousin.

A few days later, after a family Christmas trip to Nashville, we took the short trip to Montgomery for another family celebration, and celebrated the birth of Christ with a feast.

Everywhere we went, the halls were decked.

Everywhere we went, there was wonderful food to be had (including the “roast beast”).

The days after Christmas were cause to celebrate in and of themselves; on those days we did whatever we wished. Finished a puzzle, read a book (or kindle), visited, gathered in the kitchen for leftovers, watched a few movies. It was delightful.

And then we celebrated some more; we ate a delicious meal during the last few moments of 2010, and cheered in 2011 with some of our dearest friends. We gathered after supper to make resolutions and predictions for the New Year.  We spent the next day with many of these friends watching football and babies.

After most of the delicious Christmas goodies had been eaten, it was finally time for me to spend some time in the kitchen. I wanted to make something comforting, but not too rich; something that would move us away from the sweets and towards a healthier New Year.  Gumbo seemed just the thing. This gumbo is full of vegetables, is just a bit spicy, and even my brother, who eschews okra and the like, seemed to enjoy it.

We’re back up north, and I have one more reason to celebrate. War Eagle!

Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo

Adapted from Southern Living's Homestyle Cooking

2 pounds frozen okra
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 small onions, diced
2 celery ribs, diced
1 green bell pepper, finely diced
1 cup chopped green onions
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 6-oz can tomato paste
3 large bay leaves
¼ teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 ¾ teaspoon Cajun seasoning (Pilleteri’s, Cachere’s, or equivalent)
¼ teaspoon hot sauce
½ teaspoon ground red pepper
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
dash white pepper
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes (undrained)
7 cups water
1 pound spicy link sausage, cut into ½ inch lengths (Conecuh, Andouille, or equivalent)
2 ½ pounds medium fresh wild shrimp, peeled
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
4 cups hot cooked rice

Heat ¼ cup oil in a large Dutch oven. Add okra and cook over high heat for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 35 minutes, stirring often. Remove okra from the pot and set aside.

In the same pot (there will still be some bits of okra in there), combine 2 tablespoons of oil and flour in the pot and cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes, stirring constantly with a roux whisk, until the mixture is fragrant and has darkened in color. Add onion and celery; cook 5 minutes. Add bell pepper, green onions, and garlic; cook 3 minutes. Add the tomato paste and the next eleven ingredients (through water), and the reserved okra; stir well. Bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for 25 minutes. Add the sausage and cook for 5 minutes. Add the shrimp and heat until the shrimp are cooked through, 5 to 10 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Remove and discard the bay leaves, and stir in the parsley. Serve over hot rice.

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Thankful Days...(Leftover) Turkey Soup

I hope that this day is full of blessing and thankfulness for you and your family.  One thing that has been on my mind recently is that a spirit of thankfulness kills a spirit of selfishness.  In selfishness, I seek what I can get from others and want the world to revolve around me.  In thankfulness, I realize the blessings that I have been given, and I want to bless others in return.  I pray that attitude of thankfulness will be predominant in my life, and in yours.  I also hope that you are enjoying sweet time with family today, large or small, in person or via Skype, immediate family or a "family" of friends.  I just hope it's sweet. 

Today, we're spending the day watching the Macy's day parade in similar fashion to last year, but are so happy to have family along for the ride this time.  Even though we did it all last year, I still get super excited about the parade and floats, and especially the grand entrance of Santa, bringing with him the official start of the Christmas hustle and bustle. 

After our busy day in the Big Apple, I don't think we'll be jumping up at the wee hours tomorrow to participate in that hustle and bustle with much of America.  But, like many, we will have a refrigerator full of leftover turkey to contend with.  If you find yourself in the same boat, and can't imagine eating that many turkey sandwiches, do I have a soup for you!  This recipe, from my grandmother, is a perfect foil for whatever ails on the day after Thanksgiving: too much rich food, too much of a blustery day, too much chaotic shopping, too much turkey in your refrigerator.  It's nice to sit down with a bowl of this soup, and remember to be thankful. 

Turkey Soup

Bones from 1 whole cooked turkey
3 quarts of water
Leftover turkey, pulled (as much or as little as you have left)
1 cup onion, diced
1 cup bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup celery, diced
1 pound sliced mushrooms
1 lemon, sliced and seeds removed
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons sherry
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoon parsley flakes
1 cup of Basmati rice

In a large pot, simmer the turkey bones with 2 quarts of water for about 30 minutes.  Use a slotted spoon to remove the bones from the pot.  Pull any remaining meat off of the bones and return the meat to the pot; discard the bones. 

Add the remaining pulled turkey, plus the next ten ingredients (through parsley flakes).  Simmer for 30 minutes.  Add the rice and simmer for 15 minutes more, or until the rice is done. 

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Food for Comfort: Orange Rolls

Do you ever have one of those days or weeks when life just hits hard?  This weekend was like that for me.  I knew it would be busy.  I had everything planned, including what homework I would finish and when, who would be coming over for meals, what I would cook, household tasks, and more.  Let's just say I was ambitious.  And before my weekend barely began, my plans were knocked out from under me.  I know that times like this happen for a purpose; still, days and weeks like this are hard, frustrating, overly emotional. 

I am thankful for my husband, my family, and my friends who encourage me and remind me to find true and lasting comfort in God, especially in the midst of suffering.  What a great and awesome truth! 

While I look to God as I embark on this next week (with the ever growing to-do list, a bit of exhaustion, and added emotion), there is always something comforting about good food, even if only momentarily.  While the spinach quiche, fresh fruit, and sausage that we enjoyed for brunch today were good, I could eat the whole pan of these orange rolls.  I'm quite certain that eating the entirety would give me great momentary comfort; however, one or two will suffice. 

Orange Rolls

For the rolls:

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (.25 oz package)
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
3 3/4 cups bread flour
 
For the filling:
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened
zest of two oranges
 
For the glaze:
3 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
juice of 1/2 orange
1/8 teaspoon salt
 
In a small saucepan, heat the milk and water until the mixture reaches 120 degrees.  Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the sugar and yeast, stir once, and let sit until the mixture bubbles (around 10 minutes). 
 
With the mixer on medium low speed, add the egg, butter, salt and flour.  Increase the speed to medium for 8 minutes.  The dough will be slightly sticky. 
 
Grease a medium metal bowl.  Add the dough, and turn to coat the top.  Cover with a towel and let the dough rise in a warm place for one hour.  After the first rise, deflate the dough, and cover again with the towel while you mix together the filling ingredients. 
 
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a 25 x 6 inch rectangle (you may want to split this into two 13 x 6 inch rectangles). Spread with the filling mixture.  Roll up the dough and pinch together.  Slice into 24 one inch slices and place on a baking sheet.  Cover with saran wrap and refrigerate overnight.  Alternately, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

Let the refrigerated rolls sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 350°.  Bake in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until the tops of the rolls begin to brown.  While the rolls bake, whisk together the icing ingredients until smooth.  Remove the rolls from the oven and top with the icing.

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Enjoying Breakfast and Family: Baked French Toast

If you have ever looked at the Recipe Index on my blog, you might have noticed that, until recently, there were no breakfast recipes.  That's because morning is generally a hurried time of day for us.  We're going in different directions, but like clockwork so that our times in the bathroom are varied, we pass each other in the kitchen as he makes his coffee and I make my tea, and we are out of each other's way during the last-minute rush of dressing and brushing our teeth.  One thing that we never do is sit down at the same table for breakfast.  He has already toasted his slice of quick bread or muffin and moved into the living room for his quiet time while I'm heating my oatmeal and checking my e-mail. 

This weekend gave us a wonderful few days to sleep past eight and then enjoy a leisurely breakfast together.  In addition to the Eggs Benedict cooking class for my husband, we enjoyed Ina Garten's Tri-Berry muffins one morning, and Smitten Kitchen's Baked French Toast recipe another.  We enjoyed our breakfast together, eating our Alabama sausage, some market fresh fruit, a mug of cafe au lait, and each other. 

Orange-Almond Baked French Toast

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 loaf challah bread, thickly sliced
1/4 cup sliced almonds
3 eggs
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons orange cognac
1 tablespoon almond extract
1/4 cup orange juice
2 3/4 cups milk
sugar, for sprinkling

Butter a 9 x 13 glass or ceramic baking dish.  Place two layers of bread in the dish, tearing the bread to fill in any holes.  Sprinkle the sliced almonds over the bread, and cover with a third layer of bread. 

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs.  Whisk in the next six ingredients.  Pour the custard over the bread.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, wrap tightly, and refrigerate overnight. 

In the morning, preheat the oven to 425.  Uncover the french toast and bake for 30-40 minutes, until the layers puff up in the middle and the top is golden. 

Cut into squares and dust with powdered sugar or drizzle with maple syrup. 

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Not the World's Second Greatest Lasagna

We had about fifteen more inches of snow here yesterday!  Unfortunately, we had finished all of our wonderful curry, and even the second batch of curry chicken which I made this weekend (recipe coming soon).  So I spent most of our "snowed in" day in the kitchen, preparing a delicious meal which we ate by candlelight (as our power went out just after I served our plates).  It was really pretty romantic. 

I know that we are coming up on Valentine's day here, but I want to reminisce a little over our Christmas break.  Although I don't have any new family pictures to share, I want to tell you about our Christmas feast.  We actually had several feasts, including a traditional Christmas meal, so on Christmas day my sister-in-law, our hostess, decided to do something a little less traditional. 

Our planned meal was lasagna, salad, and garlic bread.  Now, my sister-in-law loves to cook just about as much as I do.  She knows her stuff.  However, when she brought out her chosen recipe, entitled "The World's Greatest Lasagna," for some reason I felt entitled (obligated?) to tell her that the recipe she had chosen was not the world's greatest lasagna.  To my credit, I had previously made that recipe (from now on, referred to the World's Second Greatest Lasagna), and my humming taste-tester told me that it was not as good as my recipe.  My sister-in-law insisted that we not be guilty of serving the World's Second Greatest Lasagna for Christmas dinner.  So, we set out to make not the World's Second Greatest Lasagna, but to make the best: my recipe (evidently I have a pretty inflated kitchen ego). 

I don't make lasagna too often, but when I do, I make this recipe.  It is not a "weeknight meal" so to speak because it does require a bit of a time investment and several cooking pots.  But nevertheless, it is so, so good, and is perfect for a special occasion (or when you are snowed in).  It is pretty traditional, but in addition to the meaty ragout, it has a creamy béchamel sauce, which I think, makes this dish the best.  My husband thinks that it is the italian sausage that puts it over the top.  But I would love to know your thoughts...Is this the World's Greatest?

The World's Greatest Lasagna (Subjectively Speaking)

1-8 oz package of pre-cooked lasagna (about nine lasagna noodles)

Ragout Sauce:

1 pound ground beef

1 pound hot Italian sausage, casings removed and crumbled

1 tablespoon oil

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon parsley flakes

1 tablespoon oregano

1 tablespoon basil

1 teaspoon salt

1 large can of tomatoes

1-6 oz tomato paste

Béchamel sauce:

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

2 cups warm milk

1 pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Cheese:

24 oz cottage cheese (or ricotta, to be more authentic)

2 beaten eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons parsley flakes

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1 pound sliced mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

For the ragout: brown the meat.  Drain off any grease and return the meat to the pan.  Add the next eight ingredients. Simmer, uncovered, until thick, about 1 hour.

For the béchamel: while the ragout is simmeringl, combine the butter and flour in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Whisk to make a medium caramel colored roux. Remove from the heat, let rest one minute, and then whisk in the warm milk. Return to heat, simmer 10 minutes, stirring constantly, until thickened. Season the sauce with salt and nutmeg. Remove from the heat.

For the cheese: Combine the cottage cheese with the next five ingredients.

To assemble: Spread a third of the ragout sauce in the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish. Pour (or dollop) a third of the béchamel sauce over the ragout. Arrange 3 noodles lengthwise over the sauce (you may have to break the noodles to make them fit). Spread with a third of the cheese mixture. Top with a third of the mozzarella cheese slices. Repeat layers two more times, and top with remaining mozzarella. Sprinkle the parmesan over the top.

Bake at 375° for about 30 minutes. Let the lasagna rest for about 10 minutes before cutting.

You can assemble this in advance; refrigerate the lasagna until ready to cook. Place the lasagna in the oven, then turn the oven to 375°. Bake for 45-50 minutes.

A Long-Awaited Blog Post

Well!  It has been a busy few weeks!  If you're reading this, thank you for sticking with me, and patiently waiting for my return to the blogosphere. 

Our Thanksgiving trip was fabulous!  Three of us made the whirlwind trip to NYC.  We saw the parade, picnicked in Central Park, took pictures in front of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller, watched the Radio City Spectacular, walked through Times Square, and across the Brooklyn Bridge.  In the words of our co-adventurer, "This was the most memorable Thanksgiving.  Ever."  Of course, that does not diminish our wonderful family memories in the least.  We truly missed them, and spent much of the day on our cell phones, anxious to hear the voices of the ones we love and miss! 

We returned to a different kind of whirlwind; much more urgent and much less fun.  Why we all wait until the last minute to produce thirty-five plus pages of papers, digests and reports for school is beyond me, especially when those documents comprise roughly half of our grade.  But that is what we did.  After the rush of papers, we spent our days preparing for exams.  In addition to studying, those few crunch weeks were spent eating (or feasting) on Thanksgiving leftovers, cleaning out the refrigerator, and being creative with pantry staples.  After taking four exams in three days, we were homeward bound.

Christmas with family in Tennessee

We spent a week with family in Tennessee, where we celebrated Christmas Day, and then drove south to Alabama for another week of reunion with family and friends, where we enjoyed a big New Year's Eve meal.  Being on the road and being away from my own kitchen has taken its toll; although I've helped out with a dish or two, I really haven't spent much time in the kitchen for the past month.  I've not been as faithful in taking pictures nor have I spent much time on the computer until now.  I'll spend the next couple of weeks down south, away from my kitchen and my beloved husband, who will be up north working diligently on his winter classes.  I'm sure that once things calm down, I'll find some good time in mom's kitchen and share some wonderful recipes with you, but for now, I wish you a belated Merry Christmas and a happy new year.  I hope that 2010 is a blessed year for all. 

New Year's with family at the farm in Alabama

Our New Year's Meal:  Collard Greens, Black Eyed Peas with Rice, Roasted Vegetables and Smoked Pork Loin with Pear Chutney

*A special thank-you to my sister-in-law, brother-in-law, dad, husband, and friend who all took their precious time to proof-read my papers.