A New Place to Make Amazing

Sorry for the long time between posts, I have good reason, I really do.  And this reason comes with an announcement:

Making Making Do Amazing is moving to a new location!  In the lag time between moving out of our apartment and moving in to a new place, my husband and I will be making some amazing out of his parents' house.  I'm certain this will afford many blog opportunities about maximizing small living quarters and enjoying time with family.  These next few weeks are going to be priceless, especially since we lived with them while waiting for this apartment to be ready and now we've come back to the beginning before making a fresh start in a new city with (hopefully) the new job for my husband. 

So, on the agenda today, moving the outdoor plants.  I am not confident that my irises and gladiolas will fare well in buckets, so I'm planting them and enriching the poor soil options to hopefully create something to add to Momma's home, and not just take up space. 

Christmas in August

I love Christmas, I really do.  It's the only real bright spot making the cold weather worth surviving.  I know, I'm a wuss, I live in Georgia, where we only usually have 4 weeks of hard freezing and mid 50s the rest of the winter, but that's cold to me.  And last year's 8 weeks of hard freezing were...how to describe it...insufferable? Miserable? Horrifying?  Anyway, back to the topic at hand. 

Christmas.  Warm colors, family, friends, gifts, abounding creativity.  It has been on my mind in an unusual way, and early on this year.  "Christmas in August" has been an offering for years now, but I never really understood the mid-summer yearning for ice and cold wind and Christmas, until I'm feeling it now.  Minus the ice and cold wind bit. 

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense.  Since last Christmas, January has New Year's, February Valentine's Day, March/April have Easter, May my birthday, July Independence day, then we have a long dry spell in August, September, October, and the first half of November, until Thanksgiving and Christmas herald new beginnings for next year.  This is the longest festivity dry spell in the entire year.  There's no gardening to be done, only a weekly filling of my hummingbird feeder. 

Of course, if I truly realized the urgency of how soon my mission trip to Honduras was coming up, I wouldn't be indulging these thoughts of Christmas lists and pinecone bird feeders....but what the hey.

What do you guys think?  What are some good Christmas to-do items that I can start early?

Apple Pancakes

I love looking at fresh-juiced apple juice.  

The LaFayette, Georgia Goodwill is my newest Achilles heel.  I might as well budget $25 toward every time I walk into that store.  And who can blame me, when there sits a brand new Oster juicer on the shelf for $10.00?  I had been saving up Swagbucks rewards and in another year and a half I'd have enough Amazon gift cards to buy a juicer.  So of course I had to try it out.  After I juiced almost every fruit and vegetable in my refrigerator, I realized the true expense of this critter was in the grocery bill it would produce.  I also saw how addictive it could be, especially watching the pulp and foam layering out in a cup of apple juice.  All of a sudden, the watery junk sold at the grocery store lost all appeal when faced with this complex beverage. 

A fun experiment followed.  I had made shredded apple pancakes before at Christmas, and served them with a spiced apple syrup, but I wondered if this juicer would make apple pancakes a hearty, healthy, non-special-occasion breakfast. 

So, I chose a recipe from Cooks.com:

1 1/2 cups apple juice
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup flour
1/2 cup quick oats
2 tablespoons wheat germ
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoons grated orange peel
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Beat together apple juice and eggs in a medium bowl. Add the flour, oats, wheat germ, baking powder, orange peel and cinnamon. Stir until well mixed.Lightly grease a nonstick skillet. Make as you would pancakes pouring approximately 2 tablespoons batter mixture onto hot skillet for each pancake. Flip (only once) when bubbles begin to form around edges.

Simple, right?  And notice something else: the absolute absence of anything that involves milk or oil/fats or sugar (except in the juice itself).  I had neither the orange peel nor the wheat germ, but I did use whole wheat flour.  I would probably use the orange peel next time, the pancakes had a wonderful texture but were a little bland.  They didn't taste much like apples, either, which may have been the fault of my apples.  I usually prefer a stark organic Fuji or McIntosh. 

Here's the batter.  It made about 8 pancakes and fed 4 people.

I used a cast iron quesadilla skillet as a griddle. 

This is rehydrated pulp from the juicer.  It reminded me of applesauce.

The "applesauce" garnishing the pancakes.  Definitely a winner.

Pros and Cons:
Pros: Simple recipe, very healthy ingredients, filling and hearty
Cons: Juicer makes hard cleanup, a little bland (fixable), recipe should be doubled for large families.

Super Simple Sushi Salad

Close-up of texture. 

The finished product, serves 2

You can see from the first picture that this salad has a lot of color, a lot of texture, and a lot of appeal--and it's all very inexpensive and very quick to cook. 

Here's what you need: 

Sushi rice, enough to feed however many people your dinner feeds.  I only have myself and my husband, so I generally make 1.5 cups of rice in 3 cups of water.  It only takes about 10 minutes to cook, and I fluff it with a little vinegar (whatever kind I have on hand) before spreading it on the plate. 

Canned chicken, drained.  You could also use salmon or tuna, I suppose, for a more fishy taste.  Sprinkle on top of the rice.

Green onion or shallots--snip with kitchen scissors and sprinkle on top.

Ginger--I use sliced sushi ginger, and just sprinkle some on top. 

Furikake/Furigake or seaweed--sprinkle it on top.  If you're using seaweed, use kitchen scissors to cut it into tiny pieces and sprinkle it on top. Furikake is available at Asian food stores and is a great tasty topping for any rice dish. 

Other things you might try:  Sliced cucumber, sliced avocado, sliced radishes, wasabi (only for the adventurous!), grated carrot, broiled fish, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds. 

Options

I have documented evidence of two recipes, and I'm letting the fan(s?) decide which will be the topic of my next post.  Do you want to read about:

How to make chicken sushi salad (no raw meat involved!)

Or

How to make a tasty homemade salsa? 

Poor neglected blog

I saw a blog post that made me smile--thought I'd repost and add my own story here:

http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2011/07/06/how-one-woman-became-one-of-them-guest-post/

I know how I became "one of them."  I wasn't born this way, it didn't come naturally to me, but I love every minute of it now.  I'm about to weird out half the members of my small group tonight at the cookout, but I'm looking forward to it. 

In college, I went shopping with my brand-spanking-new first boyfriend ever (I have since married him) and his roommate.  I about got mad.  They were, and still are, avid foodies.  I was a southern girl raised on biscuits and gravy and pork bacon.  Though my man had talked with me before about loving home-made and fresh foods, I didn't understand the extent that food influenced his life until we reached the fated moment when they decided to step up to...the hot dog section of Walmart. 

My idea of college males and their dining habits was that they'd pick whatever was free or cheap, then cook it up and eat it.  I had no idea that these two extremists would spend nearly 20 minutes reading the labels and making fun of the ingredients in these poor hot dogs.  In fact, I was starting to get embarrassed at the stares from other people as this outing turned into an event.  Finally, they settled for some sort of gourmet all-natural wieners, and we paid for the food and left. 

Then came the learning, the working with fresh broccoli for the first time, the discovery of how to make stir fry, reading about nutrition and how best to give your body what it needs.  I tasted new things I'd never tried, and learned how to eat healthy on a budget (which is tough to do). 

I remember conversations with my mom, who was concerned that this line of behavior would end in us making poor health choices for her potential grandchildren.  What if they got sick?  Would we refuse to vaccinate them and never take them to the doctor?  If you don't drink milk, you won't get enough calcium and your kids won't have strong bones.  There's no evidence that organic is any different than normal food. 

And here I am.  I made homemade hamburger and hot dog buns today for our cookout, featuring unbleached wheat flours (2 varieties, mixed), honey instead of sugar, sea salt, organic milk, and real unsalted butter. 

You know what?  Even if there is no more nutrition in my hot dog buns than in the store bought ones, at least I'm missing out on a few preservatives.  And even if I'm not missing out on preservatives MY HOT DOG BUNS TASTE BETTER. 

What southern girl could argue with that?  (oh, and if you're in my small group, we're getting turkey burgers and some more of those gourmet hot dogs for tonight)

Lemon Curd

You may have been wondering: I see the making do part of this blog, but most of this stuff has more to do with utilizing what you have than making something truly spectacular. 

Well, my friend, the wait is over.  And yes, I'm talking about Lemon Curd.  

If you think "that sounds like barf and looks like snot" you're wrong on both counts, it looks like egg yolks and sounds like the sweet music of summer tea parties with scones and chocolate covered strawberries on the lawn.  For those who have never tried it, it's the sophisticated distant cousin of that yellow gunk they put in donuts, and more closely related to Grandma's lemon meringue pie.  And it is indeed easy to make, and delicious on scones or biscuits.  Actually, I recommend making it with meringue, as you can use the two leftover egg whites that way. 

Lemon Curd
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 c sugar
Zest and juice of 2 lemons (I used organic)
1 stick of butter

Chunk it all in the top of a double boiler and cook over hot water, stirring pretty much constantly until it thickens to about the texture of mayonnaise (it took me about 10-15 minutes).  Chill and serve, or serve fresh.  Yield: 2.5 cups. 

Oh, and if you want to buy it, it's $5.95 for a 7.5 ounce jar from Stash Tea.  This recipe makes 20 ounces.  That's over $15.  Making do, or amazing?  You decide.