Small and stiff spatula wins the coveted Tool of 2012 Award !

We interrupt the normal nothingness here to bring you exciting news!

Behold!

My favorite new tool of 2012!

Man I love this spat. I use every single day.

It's especially useful when coupled with a cast iron pan.

Armed as such I am invincible!

As for cast iron pans: I found a stack of these rusted suckers in a junk pile at the river. I'm methodically reviving each one... This is Number 2. Number three is in the dirt of our side yard, awaiting its Phoenix-like transformation.

Until 2013!

Maddie's Kitty Cat Cake

Cake: Chocolate from How to Bake An American Layer Cake (Best Recipe folks)
9" round pans for two layers
Icing: Butterscotch buttercream
Black features: store-bought icing (tube)
Irises: candied orange peel
Nose & Ears: store bought pink frosting (tube)
Whiskers: Grape Red Vines Licorice, cut into thin strips

The chocolate and butterscotch combo made this cake a winner. This was literally the best cake I've ever eaten. Nice flavors and colors for fall. Start with a simple round and bake with your kids or grandkids to cut away and create and shape. Candy easily can substitute for fancy icing details.

If you have a pastry bag and tips, go crazy. I think we could have had fun making fur with the icing, but for Maddie's first attempt, we tried to keep it simple.

Cheap eats

We switched jobs around here since the last time we posted stuff. We're bringing in way less money now -- which isn't a bad thing, since we're happily doing new work -- but, it has impacted our high-flying, high-roller lifestyle when it comes to the food budget. This new scheme really suits our true natures. We're both into deals.

So, while we are looking to save a bunch of money every month on our food budget, it's not at the expense of quality. Really: it just means that we're not going out much. I used to go out for just about every meal, every day: definitely breakfast and lunch, and often dinner. Now we make everything. Just doing that, even while buying fancy organic free range grass fed well adjusted meat, makes all the difference.

So, expect to see some cheap, but good stuff here.

First one is a John version of my mom's Braciole. Mom's recipe calls for all sorts of high-zoot stuffing (pecorino, soprasata, ground veal, etc). I swapped out ground pork sausage and swiss. Next time, I'll leave the swiss cheese out and add a layer of hearty greens and some chicken liver. And I'll probably get non-seasoned ground pork and put some dried porchinis, Cognac, and my own spices in there.

We had sage, but no parsley. And instead of the stock-based braising sauce, I just used some fresh marinara -- that hadn't been cooked down/thickened yet.

Good stuff. My mom would approve. As she would say, "make it your own!"

This is good as a main dish, but it's friggin' crazy awesome as a sandwich filling the next day with some spinach, mayo, and jalapenos.

I used beef round, which is generally a pretty useless cut of beef. But it was on sale at Super 1 for $2.48/lb! Word. I got one dinner out of this and 4 lunches. I figure I was in it around about $13. Not bad.

Anyway, for the round: cut it thin and pound it out. Let it rest. Then pound a bit more. Use string to tie these guys up.

Poor man's charcuterie.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies (flourless)

I posted on FB about a recipe I found for a flourless "cookie." Then famous Spokane biker, Charlie Greenwood pointed me to these flourless cookies, which blew my recipe out of the water. I've made a batch weekly for 2 weeks and am about to make a 3rd batch for a baby shower this weekend. 

I've used chopped almonds but would like to try peanuts and walnuts. I also reduced the sugar 1/2 C of sugar, maybe a T less than the 1/2 C. You might even be able to do less for a more savory cookie. Try these cookie, whether you are gluten-free or not. They are chewy, moist and remain that way for a few days, delicious and pretty nutritious. Also very easy to make--one bowl, no need to get the mixer out to cream the butter and sugar.

Here's where you'll find the recipe for Almond Butter Cookies. Feel free to use peanut butter like I did or other nut butter.

If that link dies, here's the recipe:

Ingredients

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies

1 cup almond butter (or peanut butter)

1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a baking sheet with butter and set aside.

In a large bowl, stir almond butter and sugars together until well combined.

Add egg, baking soda, maple syrup, vanilla and salt and mix well. Stir in the almonds and chocolate chips.

Using a teaspoon, scoop out small, walnut-sized amounts of dough and roll them in your hands to form a ball. Place on cookie sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool for 5 minutes.

Apple Charlotte recipes online

Email from Sister Bets...

From: Betsy Speare
Sent: Saturday, December 24, 2011 9:18 PM
Subject: Merry Christmas - Apple Charlotte Recipes on line!

Hello friends and family…

We are hoping this email finds you safe and warm and hugging  your closest family and friends.   The holiday season has been both sweet and sad this year as we have all been missing Mom (Char) and her delicious approach to making the holidays great.  So to celebrate her contribution,  Johnny (son of Char), Andy Camp (my fiancée) and Alex Wetmore (awesome friend) began working on a web site where we could look at Mom’s recipes.

Johnny found the recipes and gave them to Alex.  Andy saw the list and decided to build a website – he’s been a total saint taking my input which usually starts with “…Mom would hate that...”  Sort of hard to argue with.  Anyway – he’s got a big pile of ideas including the ability for us to add our own recipes (while still keeping mom’s pristine) as well as being able to add comments & pictures to the recipes as well as the website.

So here we are.  For me, the biggest gift will be seeing your comments and thoughts – which recipes you are using, why, how they turned out and what your favorites are.  I have a feeling this will be the part Mom is watching as well!   Just use the “share your thoughts” button on the right side…

In the 4 weeks or so since we’ve been working on it I’m finding myself using it 2-3 times a week and it’s been great!  The ingredient search is awesome and gives you good ideas.  Andy has added a “10 Random Recipe” button that gives you 10 of the over 1200 recipes we have online.    One disclaimer… we haven’t edited these recipes AT ALL – you’ll be a bit of a test kitchen – please send us any issues/problems you find and we’ll update the recipe.   Seriously – we used to giggle with Mom at some of the errors in her homemade cook books – she would just wave her hand and say – “oh you guys – you’ll be fine…” and she’s right – we will be…    Last, I considered recommending that Marty be the recipient of some of your cooking, but he’d kill me, so let’s just stick to the apple pies for him, unless it’s super low fat/low carb. J

For Christmas Dinner this year, we couldn’t bear to try to re-create Mom’s dinner, so Johnny and I agreed that Mom’s BBQ meatloaf would be the best idea for us…  let us know what you start using when you visit Apple Charlotte Cooking (click here!).

Consider this Mom’s Christmas Present to all of us…  we send you all our love and warm wishes…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
xoxo

p.s.  please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might enjoy it, I’m sure I’ve missed some people.

Back me up here

I have three Spokane food-related memories that I think most people don't believe. I'm looking for someone to back me up on these.

In order of believability.

#1 -- Peppers and onions used to be free toppings at Pizza Rita
This is the easiest one. I think that if you ask for it free, they'll still do this. I could be wrong, but they hooked me up on this deal recently... seems like less than 5 years ago. But back in the 90's when you ordered a pizza, "do you want free peppers and onions on that?" was a standard question they'd ask.

#2 -- Chicken liver bolognese at The Spaghetti Factory
The title says it all. I remember when we moved to Cheney in about 1977(?) or so and going to the Spaghetti Factory and Chicken liver bolognese was a standard menu item. I was psyched. I've had a thing for chicken livers since I was a wee lad. And I would be super psyched if that menu item came back as 40 year old.

#3 -- The old number 33 at The Onion: The Sundae Burger
Yep. Picture a bun with a hamburger patty, with a big scoop of ice cream covered in hot fudge, whipped cream, slivered almonds, and a cherry. Served open-faced. No one believes this one. My immediate family remembers it, because I was so excited to have such a perfect food: hot/cold, sweet/savory... And the waiters were always amazed that I actually ordered it, since it was basically a gag item stashed away on the menu. We're going back to the late 70's, early 80's on this one too.

Anyone remember any of these? My wife and daughter think I'm full of it. Especially on the #33.

Chilies