Recipe Tuesday :: Pasta e Fagioli

It has been cold here in the Pacific Northwest as of late.  Highs not quite reaching freezing and bitter cold lows with nary a flake of snow in sight.  That means that my power bill will make me faint when it next arrives and that we spend a lot of time bundled up, feeding fires and making warm things to eat.

If you've been following my posts you'll know that I have found true love...in pot form.  We have made quite a few soups and stews in my new Le Creuset and I believe it is that pot that makes it all taste so good.  So for it's next trick it made delicious Pasta e Fagioli using the excellent recipe from Damn Delicious.  This was a Pinterest recipe find and it's a win!  I felt that the only thing that would make this recipe better for me (and my waistline) is to sub lean hamburger for half of the italian sausage.  But that's just my opinion.  So, first we rounded up the ingredients...

Then browned the italian sausage...

Diced the vegetables...

And added them to the pot...

Added the broth and tomatoes...

And let it all simmer for a while.  Lastly the beans and the precooked pasta went in and were cooked until heated through.  Here's an action shot of our autumn table!  (Please ignore the plate that is destroying this picture.  Next time I will be a better food photographer and make sure the plates are all facing the right direction.)

And of course a hearty soup needs some bread!  Our favorite is the No-Knead Bread recipe from King Arthur flour.  It doesn't take any more time than you need to make the soup and is perfection itself.  Actually it looks like we've modified the recipe a bit once I read through it.  We skip steps 3 through 5 and only let it rise on some parchment for 30 minutes at step 8.  We've also cut this recipe down by 1/3, because we don't need that much bread (funny enough I actually tried to type "knead that much bread"...aha...aha.)

And because we should always end with a cute animal shot, here is one of my sweet puppies asking if she gets any.  (Sorry but no, it has onions in it.)

Three Things Thursdays :: Fire Within, Cinnamon Lattes and Spotify

Another idea I had in my blog organization was to have a recurring post that shares what I'm into at the time.  In my perusal of my other favorite blogs (especially Cider with Rosie) I've enjoyed when they share what they are listening to, what it trending in fashion or even what espresso they can't get enough of.  So in a tip of my hat to those posts I'm starting my own.  Here the first one...

1.  Listening to Birdy's Fire Within album on repeat in my car.  The first song I heard from Birdy was Skinny Love and it just came up on an iTunes radio station I was listening to.  After getting that song I listened to the others that were on the album and decided that it was good enough to buy the whole thing!  I hardly ever do that anymore!

2.  Cinnamon dolce lattes from Starbucks.  I'm trying to cut back on calories again and lattes are comparatively low calorie in Starbucks-ville.  (Nothing except water, unsweetened tea or plain brewed coffee is truly LOW.)  It's definitely better than the Peppermint Mochas I've chosen in the past.  The cinnamon flavor also gives me that holiday vibe without overdoing it.

3.  Recently the radio station I played most often at work changed from "80s, 90s and Today" music to rock.  Now I'm not saying that rock is bad music but we already have a rock station in town why did they have to take away the only easy listening station so they could have two rock stations?  So now I can choose between country (something I only listen to occasionally), popular (aka - the same 5 songs all day) or the aforementioned rock.  What I ended up doing instead was to use my semi-competent hacking skills to stream Spotify on my computer and play it through our stereo.  This is a bigger accomplishment than you might think because where I work the internet is regulated and most entertainment sites are blocked.  So now we get to enjoy better music than we had before!  And I'm loving the playlists that Spotify brings up for me to try.  I've found some new music that I probably never would have come across!  And then there's days like today where you just want some ambient background noise without words.  Much better than that ole scratchy radio!

Recipe Tuesday :: Apple Fritters

I have made a big blog decision recently.  I'm going to make an effort to try and keep a more tidy blog structure and instead of bombarding you with recipes and pictures of food on most every post, I'm going to keep them to "Recipe Tuesdays."  Some of these will be things I cooked a while ago, but I think it's fun to look forward to a single day of food posts, rather than looking at my blog and thinking, "Is that the only thing she does?"  So with that introduction here we go!

On Halloween it has become tradition for Mom and I to make doughnuts.  You've already seen the Apple Cider Doughnuts we made about a week later, but on Halloween I made apple fritters.  We've got such a surplus of apples this year that I have been trying out plenty of apple recipes from my Pinterest boards.  This Glazed Apple Fritter recipe by The Kitchn turned out to be an all day affair.

There was the large amount of apples I had to peel and dice, the multiple rising steps and of course, the frying.  I also found out that while making the dough the instructions got pretty confusing.  I added the dry yeast to the dry ingredients like it said, but the dough was never going to come together without some water.  I'm not sure if the instructions were wrong and I was supposed to activate the yeast first in some warm water or if they forgot to tell you to add some water later.  In any case, my advice is to add warm water by tablespoon full until the dough comes together properly.

I do have to give this recipe props for it's amazing glaze which I modified for the apple cider doughnuts later.

And since I was slaving in the kitchen all day on these guys I called to have some pizza delivered.  It was my favorite older gentleman delivery guy and he asked if I was making pumpkin pie in there.  I said, no it was apple fritters, and his eyes lit up.  This made me think of myself as a cartoon version of Wiley Coyote trying to lure unsuspecting elders of advanced age with a sign that says "Free Apple Fritters." Trust me, they'd all go for it.

The biggest challenge I came up against with this one was that when I was ready to fry them up I didn't have enough oil.  We had a Costco sized jug of it, but there wasn't enough to get me up to the immersion point of my thermometer.  Luckily (or unluckily for her) Mom was working the noon to 8:30 shift at work that day (after we'd driven back from Seattle after I'd had my septum surgery) so I called her and she dropped by the grocery store to pick up some more.  We were frying doughnuts until after midnight.  Does that make them All Saints' Day doughnuts instead of All Hallows' Eve doughnuts? (Just a little Catholic humor for you...)  And usually we dress up the dogs in costumes but that didn't happen either so here are our two beautiful black cats who are always ready for Halloween.

Autumn Foods - Soups and Doughnuts

Soups and donuts...what a delicious combination!  Not sure what had made me so soup crazy this fall, but I really want to cook it.  All. The. Time.  The problem is that often the soups I make from recipes found online don't always live up to the delicious soup I have in my memory taste buds.  I go for recipes that have spices and chicken broth and lots of vegetables, but it doesn't necessarily work.  The first soup I made was the Spicy Tarragon Potato soup from Happyolks.  I left out the spicy because I'm not to into that, but it was still pretty good.  I halved the recipe for Mom and I, but it still left a lot of soup.  I, of course, imagined cooking it on a dark, cold, rainy day and we found the perfect one!  Here's the photo version of cooking soup in my beautiful new pot.

I have to say that the soup was....only okay in my book.  I probably would have liked mashed potatoes better.  But, only one person's opinion folks.


Next it was our idea for Halloween to make donuts and watch Hocus Pocus, but neither happened.  Mom worked very late and I was recovering from my surgery and it just never happened.  But work was having a potluck on the Tuesday we went back, and Mom had bought the buttermilk, so I made apple cider donuts.  Now these were DELISH!  We got the recipe out of a newspaper article, so I'm including it below.  I thought I'd taken pictures, but apparently I was too tired to remember that...

Glazed Apple Cider Doughnuts

(From the Yakima Herald Republic via smittenkitchen.com)

For dough:

1 cup apple cider

3 1/2 cups flour, plus additional for work surface

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I used 1 teaspoon...always use twice as much cinnamon as they say)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

Vegetable oil or shortening for frying

For glaze:

1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

4 Tablespoons apple cider

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cook apple cider in small saucepan over medium-low heat until reduced to 1/2 cup.  In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg.  Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Mix in reduced apple cider and buttermilk until combined.  Add flour mixture and mix until incorporated.

On a floured parchment lined baking sheet, pat out dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick.  Place in freezer for 15 to 20 minutes until well chilled.  Using a 1/2 inch biscuit cutter, cut out circles of dough.  Place them on another parchment lined baking sheet or a plate and place in fridge until ready to fry.  Take scraps and roll with your hands for doughnut holes and place those on a plate in fridge.

While uncooked doughnuts chill, heat oil and prepare glaze.  In a bowl mix together confectioners sugar, cider and vanilla.  Mix until all of the sugar has incorporated.  You might need to make a second batch of glaze for all the doughnuts, or you can roll the rest in a cinnamon sugar mix.  

Heat 3 inches of oil in a deep pot over medium heat until a candy thermometer reads 370 degrees.  Carefully drop dough balls into oil (I did 3 at a time) and wait for them to rise back to the top of the oil.  Cook for 1 minute on each side.  Remove the doughnuts with a slotted spoon and place on a paper towel lined plate.  While still warm, roll in glaze or cinnamon sugar, and place on cooling racks over paper towels.  Try to maintain a 370 degree oil temperature.  You may need to let the oil heat up or cool down accordingly.

Since our first soup wasn't spectacular we went back to old reliable during the weekend.  On Saturday we spent 4 hours removing the debris and cleaning up the garden.  All that's left out there are the carrots and they can stay in the ground for a little while.  We really needed a rest day on Sunday and some clam chowder was in the cards.  Here is our own cobbled together recipe for clam chowder and we think it's pretty fabulous.

Carrie's Crazy Good Clam Chowder

3 Tablespoons butter

1 to 1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped celery

1 teaspoon (or 1-2 cloves) garlic

4 1/2 cups peeled and cubed yellow potatoes

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon marjoram

1/4 cup flour

3 bottles clam juice

4 cans minced clams

2 1/2 cups half and half

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

4 strips bacon

Melt butter in large pot.  Add onion, celery and garlic and sauté until tender.  Add potatoes and clam juice to the pot.  Open clams and add drained juice from the clams to the pot.  Simmer covered until potatoes until tender enough to break them apart against the side of the pot, about 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, cook bacon in the microwave between paper towels at 1 minute intervals until crisp and break into small pieces.  Make up a roux with the flour and some water until you have a nice thick sauce.  When potatoes are done add clams, bacon, salt, pepper, thyme and marjoram.  Stir in roux.  Soup will thicken up.  Add half and half and heavy cream and cook over medium heat until chowder boils and thickens slightly while stirring constantly.

Reality Interferes

I've been gone from the blog for a while, partially due to lack of inspiration and partially due to lack of time.  This is going to be a catching up of my long and arduous pregnancy journey, so if you don't want to hear all the juicy details of my problematic lady parts you might want to skip this post.

After we got back from London I contacted my reproductive doctor in Seattle and we set out a plan for the next embryo transfer.  I started on my birth control and then they said that because of the D and C I needed to have a saline-infused sonogram (SIS).  The appointment for the SIS was this last Tuesday annnnnnndddddd it wasn't good.  First, the procedure was quite painful and then the ultrasound showed there was "something" at the top of one of the horns of my uterus.  My doctor said that it might be leftover placental products or a polyp, but it would have to be removed before we could continue with the transfer.  I was kind of devastated.  The transfer was to happen on December 1st and that would mean the baby would be born around September 1st and I was getting excited about that.  And with one SIS, poof, that future is gone again.  So my doctor talked to the surgeons at the clinic and the one that had originally seen the MRI of my septated uterus, and had said that the septum was "muscular and highly vascularized", said that she could do the surgery.  So we had a long talk about what she could do while she was up there.  She said that they could snip at the septum and reduce it's size and that they could also do a laparoscopic procedure and see if there was endometriosis.  I was fine with the septum snipping, but the laparoscopy would have involved abdominal incisions and I wasn't into that.  I don't believe that I have the symptoms that would mean I have endometriosis and it just sounded like more money again (and recovery time).  So we set to arranging a date for the surgery and the only date available was...Thursday.  Like, last Thursday.  And I took it, because I didn't have many other options.  So we drove back over on October 30th.  I couldn't eat anything all day since the surgery was supposed to be at 2:30 but it didn't start until 4:00.  We got out of the medical center around 7 PM and Mom drove us to the hotel we were staying at for the night.  It turns out that once they put the camera up there both horns looked perfectly normal.  The surgeon ended up only doing the septum snipping and it turns out that it was more fibrous than she thought and she was able to remove quite a bit of it.  So if that's why I was supposed to have this surgery, so that my uterus would be more roomy, then I guess it's worth the delay.  The recovery was easy enough, not much different then what all us ladies go through each month.  The downside is that I have to wait for one to two months before I try a transfer again.  Sigh.  With winter coming on I'm not sure if I'll try in a couple of months or wait a bit longer until the pass is a little bit less snowy.

So there it is.  My story is a continuing up and down of it's-going-well and if-there-might-be-a-problem-there-probably-will-be.  Don't worry.  I'm not too bummed.  I'm gonna use it as ammo to exercise like crazy and lose a whole bunch more weight (or at least the 10 pounds I put on this summer).  Next up some autumn foods that don't help the waistline but taste delicious...