Recently in Recipes Category

The Suburban Banshee comes to the defense of corned beef-and-cabbage against the Authenticity Police -- and shares the secret history of Irish cowboys! Who knew?

Of course corned beef and cabbage is primarily an American Irish dish. What do you think the Irish were eating in Ireland back in the 1840’s, before they had to immigrate?

1. Nothing, once the Great Famine started. The potatoes were all blighted, a lot of other crops got too much rain to thrive, and the price of all other foodstuffs went up drastically.

2. Potatoes and cabbage, before the Great Famine started.

As for me, I skip the CB&C, not because it's Insufficiently Irish but because I just can't stand the stuff. I made the Guinness Beef Stew this year. Yum yum!

Deal Seeking Mom brings news of a free download of a cookbook by Rachel Allen ("one of the hottest TV chefs in Ireland", per Harper Collins) (and it's really an abridged version with recipes "selected by Kerrygold", but it's still free.)

The coupon code is KGLD-0319-2010-RACB and is good for the first 10,000 downloads. (Well, only 9,999 at most; I've already downloaded my copy.)

From the prosaic (baking mix, baking powder, mayonnaise) to the esoteric (mascarpone cheese, marshmallows, Kahlua): ingredients you can make at home

The recipe says that chicken planks are "Kinda like Chicken Fingers, ONLY BETTER." Not being a connoisseur of chicken fingers, I couldn't say if these are better, but they are positively GOOD. My husband loved them.

The recipe's here. I tweaked it by marinating the chicken in salted buttermilk and adding a dollop of reserved bacon grease to the frying oil.

YUM. YUM. I might make them for myself for lunch tomorrow.

Feminine Genius Allison posts a terrific recipe for Beef and Guinness Stew. I predict big points from my husband when I make this.

1. Got to talk to Pansy today. She's holding up.

2. Note to self:

3. Baking adventure this week: a Weight Watchers recipe for biscotti. Not a success.

4. Highlight of the day (besides going to Adoration and talking to Pansy): getting a new trash can for the kitchen.

5. Rosie O'Donnell is pretty controversial, what with her keen insight into metallurgy and all. If she wanted to buy into an NFL team, would she be allowed?

6. Dan Snyder reminds me of a kid who plants a bean and then digs it up every day to see if it's growing, plants it again in a different place, fertilizes it, and gives it a gallon of water.

7. Started a novena today for Pansy that I found at Adoro Te Devote: a novena to Our Lady, the Undoer of Knots.

It's a cake!
With six layers!
It looks like a rainbow!

Notice how Ian marvels!

Today is Ian's 14 birthday! Happy Birthday, Ian! I am so proud of you!

The cake is "white" cake with a lemon buttercream frosting. Ian said it reminded him of Froot Loops.

Recipe stolen from this very fun blog!

I may actually go a whole day without being reminded that I am a mean mommy:
Buckeye Peanut Butter Cake

MIchael Pollan on Julie, Julia, and the Food Network:

How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves? For the rise of Julia Child as a figure of cultural consequence — along with Alice Waters and Mario Batali and Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse and whoever is crowned the next Food Network star — has, paradoxically, coincided with the rise of fast food, home-meal replacements and the decline and fall of everyday home cooking.

That decline has several causes: women working outside the home; food companies persuading Americans to let them do the cooking; and advances in technology that made it easier for them to do so. Cooking is no longer obligatory, and for many people, women especially, that has been a blessing. But perhaps a mixed blessing, to judge by the culture’s continuing, if not deepening, fascination with the subject. It has been easier for us to give up cooking than it has been to give up talking about it — and watching it.

So I came across this article by Harold McGee that described a way of making yogurt at home -- without a yogurt maker. My husband and I have been on a bit of a yogurt jag, so I decided to give it a try. I followed the method carefully -- twice -- and got nothing but milk.

Lemons:lemonade::failed yogurt:homemade sherbet, so that came out all right. Now I'm trying a crockpot method, so we'll see how that goes.

Do you make yogurt at home? Do you do it freestyle or with one of those cunning little yogurt makers? Any suggestions?

Fudgies. MMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Yesterday on the Everyday Italian, Giada had a show on freezer meals:

Giada's sister has a new baby. Giada shows her sister how to prepare meals you can freeze ahead, from appetizers to desserts, good for busy schedules or when you are just on the go.

Since I am an avid freezer-person, this show caught my attention. I am usually not a big Food Network fan because 1. I hate watching delicious food cooked without the ability to eat it and 2. I find very little on the channel that is practical-i.e., healthy, economical, can feed 8+, you know the criteria that has to fit in meals 7 nights a week. Although I have to say I find most Italian recipes perfect for freezing (sorry Giada) such as Baked Ziti, Manicotti, Baked Rigatoni, soup, and meatballs. Then I make marinara and can it.

Pansy's in a rut. Smock could also use some ideas as well.

Can you help? We're looking for recipes that...

-- are fairly simple to prepare
-- don't have a lot of "goo" (cream of mushroom soup, Velveeta, dried onion soup mix, etc)
-- have a chance of tempting picky children
-- and that feed at least eight people.

What are the crowd-pleasers at your house? Maybe we should have a contest or something!

UPDATE: Thanks, Danielle, for the link, and a big welcome and thanks to Danielle's readers!

I'll leave the robots to Pansy and just blog all-Ratatouille all the time. I'd love to write a long, leisurely review but Happy Catholic Julie wrote a good one, so I'll just link to it and say, "what she said":

When "Fin" came up on the screen, I suppressed an impulse to applaud. No need. The audience around me, without my reservations, burst into applause anyway.

There was applause when I saw it, too.

Two themes I want to tie together at some point. Julie quotes Juila Child:

Noncooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.

I want to pull out Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture

and consider that idea in the light of Pieper's comments on sacrifice.