K&K Won Ton Soup

Earlier this week my friend Karen introduced me to her easy and delicious faux won ton soup. She opened up a couple of those instant noodle bowls, added some fresh veggies, some flavoring agents, frozen pot stickers and voilá! Tastiness ensued. With the weather so blustery this week I had a hankering for more of this soup, but being me I couldn't just leave it alone, and I couldn't start with noodle bowls. It's just not my style.

1 quart chicken stock

1 quart water

1 cup carrot, diced

1 cup celery leaves, diced

1 cup scallions, diced

2 baby bok choy, leave the leaves whole

12 pre-filled frozen won tons (I used Annie Chunn's Pork and Ginger)

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

2 teaspoons garlic chili paste

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1/4 teaspoon schezwan hot oil

black pepper to taste

garnish with toasted sesame seeds and scallions

Bring the liquid to a boil, then knock the temp back to a simmer. Add everything except the bok choy and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Taste the broth and adjust to your liking. Once your flavor adjustments are finished test the doneness of the carrots. I don't care for them soft so once they're barely soft at the edges I add the bok choy. Let it simmer for another 3 to 5 minutes, just enough to soften the bok choy, and serve. Garnish your bowl with fresh scallions and sesame seeds and enjoy!

Small Berry Cobbler

Last week was my birthday (hooray aging!) and Mom made me a boysenberry cobbler to celebrate. I went out to Sauvie Island and picked a lot of berries, so we found a nice big recipe online for the cobbler topping and went to work. Unfortunately I don't remember where we found it, but it was a decent recipe, thick and fluffy like biscuits. At least I'm pretty sure that's how it would have turned out if the baking hadn't been interrupted by a major boil-over of berry juice that caused Mom to declare it finished. It was close, but the bottom of the topping was still gooey and underdone. Yes, I ate it anyway.

The next day, as I was packing up to go home, Mom packed the cobbler up too and put it in my car, deciding that it was probably cooked enough that popping it back into the oven wouldn't be such a big deal. In all likelihood she was right, about the re-baking anyway. What was a big deal was the drive over a curvy mountain pass to get home. I pulled the pan out of its (thankfully) sealed cold bag and got down to the business of cleaning spilled berry juice off of the outside while the oven heated up. I was a little worried about the amount of juice on top of the cobbler topping, but it's not like I could do anything about it.

Twenty minutes later and my fears were realized. The top of the cobbler was blackened and crisp, while the under-side remained doughy and definitely not done. Crap spackle. It looks like my boysenberry efforts were all for naught because this cobbler has now stunk up two kitchens and still refuses to cook all the way through. My taste buds feel betrayed. Twice they were promised delicious cobbler, and twice they've been thwarted, and unless there's some sort of secret supernatural diet force at work (wouldn't that be cool!) they shall not be denied.

Friday morning finds me at the grocery store, picking up berries and dairy to make my own cobbler, but after the two-day-disaster of the soft and fluffy dough I'm more in the mood for something heartier than a biscuit, something scone-ish, and when it comes right down to it I'm only one person and I really should not be baking a 9" pie plate full of sugary goodness. So I took my berries home, dug out my 1.75 quart casserole, and began to put together a small, scone-inspired, cobbler. It was pretty tasty, and perfect for four dessert-sized servings.

Filling:
3 cups fresh berries (I used 2 cups of raspberries and 1 cup of blueberries, but pretty much any berry will work)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Topping:
1 cup flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 cup cold butter
1/4-1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar to sprinkle on top

Preheat the oven to 400°. Mix the filling together and pour it into an 8.5" x 6.5" casserole dish. Mix the dry ingredients for the topping in a small mixing bowl, then add the lemon zest and stir. Cut the butter into small pieces and then cut it into the dry ingredients. Add 1/4 cup of the milk and then check your dough. It will probably be a bit dry, so add a touch more milk. You want the dough to just come together, so don't go crazy and dump all the milk in.

When it holds together, pat the dough into 1/2" thick pieces and lay them on top of the berry mixture. Sprinkle the turbinado sugar on top and bake for 35 minutes, until golden brown on top.

Recipe by: Kelly Sink

"Baked" Beans

4 cups dry navy beans
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 pounds bacon, browned and cut into small pieces
2 onions, finely diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup ketchup
1/3 cup blackstrap molasses
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon baking cocoa
2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon Magic Dust

Soak beans in cool water for around two hours. Add the liquid smoke and a teaspoon of salt and simmer until the beans are firm, but not crunchy, approximately 1 hour. Drain and reserve the liquid. Brown the onion and garlic over medium heat. In a small saucepan combine ketchup, molasses, salt, pepper, mustard, baking cocoa, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar; bring to a slow boil.

Put everything, except the reserved bean water, into a crock pot, add the Magic Dust and stir. Add just enough of the reserved bean water to cover the beans. Put the lid on and set the crock pot to 350° (medium/high) and leave it alone for a couple hours. Check on it periodically and if they look dry add more of the reserved water.

Sharp and Spicy Mac and Cheese

Serves 12 (can easily be cut in half)

6 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup flour
5 1/2 cups milk
5 cups sharp white cheddar, grated
1/2 cup pepper jack, grated
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 pound elbow macaroni

Baked method:
a bit of butter for the pan
AND
1/2 cup Panko breading
OR
2 tablespoons butter, melted
6 slices of white bread, cubed (you may want to cut crusts off as well)
- melt the butter in a large bowl then stir in the cubed bread.

If you're going to bake it, then preheat your oven to 375° and butter a 3 quart casserole dish. Put a large pan of salted water on to boil for the pasta. Pour the milk into a large sauce pan and put it over medium/low heat, it should be slowly heating up while you're dealing with the roux. If you're new to heating milk you will probably be tempted to turn up the heat, but you should resist. Milk will burn fairly easily and then you're out a quart and a half of milk because there's no coming back from that. Once you burn the milk the flavor will take over everything else.

Melt the 6 tablespoons of butter in another large sauce pan over medium heat. Pay close attention when the butter starts to bubble and keep your whisk and the flour handy because the next step will seem to take forever to get started, but once it does your window of opportunity for flavor perfection closes fast! Again, resist the temptation to turn up the heat. Butter is super-fragile and if your pan is too hot it will skip right past the delicious nutty flavor of brown and go directly (and quickly) to the bitterness of black. The butter will go from melted to bubbling, then it will bubble for a bit (this is the part that takes forever) before it starts to foam. The foam will rise and fall fairly quickly, and you want to be extra vigilant about burning during this step. When the foam falls you should have a nice, rich, brown liquid and that's when you should remove it from the heat and whisk in your flour.

Once your flour is completely integrated with the butter return the pan to the burner and start whisking in the warm milk, a cup or so at a time. Add a bit of milk, whisk until smooth, repeat until all of the milk is added. Bring the sauce up to just under a boil, stirring constantly, then start adding cheese. Again, a cup or so at a time; add cheese, whisk until smooth, repeat until all the cheese is added then turn the heat to low.

Now is a good time to put the pasta into the boiling water. If you're going to bake your mac and cheese then you don't want to cook it all the way through, just until the outside is done but it's still crunchy in the middle.

While your pasta is cooking you can perfect the spicing in your cheese sauce. Begin by adding the nutmeg and the salt, then stir in the pepper and cayenne. Give it a taste and adjust as you see fit. When you have the flavor the way you like it turn the heat off and wait for your pasta to finish. Once your noodles are done to perfection drain them and add them to the cheese sauce. If you're not going to bake it then you're ready to serve, or you can put it in a crock pot and take it to a party.

If you are going to bake it then pour everything into the casserole dish and top with either the Panko or the bread and butter mixture and slide it into the oven. Bake for about 30 minutes, until topping is brown and cheese is bubbly, then let it cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

Recipe by: Kelly Sink

Russian Tea Cakes

I have several versions of this recipe in my possession that were passed down from grandmothers on both sides of my family and they're all pretty much the same, except for the names. Great Grandma called them Russian Tea Cakes, Grandma Mil dubbed them Mexican Wedding Cakes and somewhere in Grandma Mil's notes, in handwriting I don't recognize, the recipe is tagged Shortbread Sugar Pops. Recently I made them for a Gay Pride bbq, colored the sugar to match the pride flag and called them Prop 8 Cakes. Whatever you call them, they're addictive and delicious.

dough:
1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped fine

coating:
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Mix dough ingredients together, cover tightly and refrigerate for at least one hour. If you're in a hurry you can skip the refrigeration, but it does make it oh so much easier to handle the dough once it's been chilled.

Preheat oven to 400°. Form dough into 1" balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. These cookies don't spread so you can feel free to place them close together. Bake 10-12 minutes, until firm and lightly browned. Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes before coating.

Put 1/2 cup of powdered sugar into a plastic bag and add warm (but not hot) cookies. Shake to coat.

To make colored sugar:

When I decided to do the rainbow colors I Googled "how to color powdered sugar" and came up with a couple different methods. They both sucked, but one significantly less than the other. The truly sucky method was the baggie method. The instructions I found were to put your sugar in a plastic bag and drip a couple drops of food coloring down the side then shake the bag to mix. This was completely ineffective. I wound up with a dime-sized ball of color in the corner of the bag and a dog who thought it was dance party time in the kitchen. No good at all.

So once I calmed the dog down I went with method number two; the food processor method. Again the instructions were very simple, just put the sugar and color in the food processor with the chopping blade and whir it up until the sugar is the color you want. Easy peasy, right? Wrong. Turns out it takes quite a bit more than the "drop or two" of color that I was instructed to use. Realistically, more like a full teaspoon to color 1/2 a cup of sugar. And it made a HUGE mess in the food processor. Only a bit of the sugar accepted the color, and then it gooped up on the edges of the bowl. I did find that if you leave the processor running for a bit then the caked on color begins to flake off the sides and reincorporates with the rest of the sugar, lending a bit of color to the whole batch. The real problem with this method is that between colors everything must be cleaned and absolutely dry before starting the next.

What I really learned from this experience is if I want colored cookies the better way is probably to make a glaze and dip them, rather than try to color the sugar itself. To do a glaze just put your sugar in a bowl with the color and just enough milk (just a teaspoon or two) to mix it into a liquid. Then either dip your cookies or put them on a rack and pour the glaze over them.

Salsa Fresca

One of the things I love most about summer is the veggies at their peak. Sure, if you live in the U.S. you have access to cherry tomatoes all year long, but they're only really good during the warm months. Speaking of cherry tomatoes, you might have noticed that I use them fairly regularly and you may be wondering why. (Even if you weren't wondering I'm going to tell you.) The reason I use them instead of regular tomatoes is simply because they have the most flavor. If you'd like you can pretty much swap out one tomato for another in most any recipe, but the smaller varieties are where the flavor's at.

2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced (if you like a bit more heat in your salsa then leave some seeds in)
juice of 1 lime
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt

Toss ingredients together in a bowl and let sit for at least 10 minutes. Serve with chips or tacos or breakfast burritos or...

Recipe by: Kelly Sink

Cucumber Salad

It's summertime! And nothing says summer like fresh, cool cucumber salad. When I was a kid Mom made this with just onion and cucumbers and it was delicious, but now that I love LOVE tomatoes so much I find that I put them in more and more things.

1 1/2 cups rice vinegar
2 cups water
2 cups sugar (you can cut this some, but no more than 1/4 cup)
2 cucumbers, peeled and sliced
1 purple onion, thinly sliced
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

Combine vinegar, water and sugar in a small sauce pan and slowly bring to a boil. When the sugar is dissolved boil for one minute then pour it over your sliced veggies. Chill it for at least an hour before serving, and four is better. This keeps fresh and delicious in the fridge for up to a week and makes a tasty handy snack on a hot afternoon.

Recipe by: Kelly Sink