Know Your Ingredients....Sugars

So..we all like sugar. For many of us, naturally sweet foods such as fruits somehow are not sweet enough. It s possible that super sweetened processed foods have become the "norm" for our spoikled taste buds. Here may be a reason why. Be a food detective and scan the list of ingredients on packaged food.....anything from cold cereals to ketchup to bottled salad dressings. It may surprise you to see that besides sugar, brown sugar and corn syrup, many of the listed ingredients end in "ose". Anything ending with the suffix "ose" is a sugar. There is sucrose (table sugar), maltose, dextrose, lactose (milk sugar), glucose, fructose (fruit sugar) and galactose. There is also molasses, dried beet juice (a disingenuous attempt to disguise white sugar made sugar beets), dried cane juice (another disingenuous attempt to disguise cane sugar). It is possible that over 50% of the ingredients in many packaged foods are sugars. You may also find that 'modified corn starch' and high fructose corn syrup' is in just about everything...really. Modified corn starch is not exactly a sugar but is metabolized somewhat similarly. I want to know why I need so much sugar and corn syrup in my ketchup!!!!

Leg of Lamb, etc

 

Another "system cooking" adventure with Laura.  I started out with a leg of lamb on Sunday.  This worked out well since I cooked it for 5 1/2 hours in the oven and basted it every 1/2 hour for the last two hours.  I really didn't need to do that.  But it came out rather lovely, I think.

Anyway.  I combined a couple of recipes from some of my favorite cookbook authors:  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jennifer McLagan, and then added my own twists.  I can't seem to help it most of the time.  I first cut up a bunch of veggies: carrots, onions and potatoes and put them on the bottom of my dutch oven.  I also used turnips, but for some reason, they tasted awful.  I love turnips, but either the ones I had were not good, or they just don't go well with lamb.   So - skip the turnips.  Cut up as many veggies as will cover the bottom of the pan in a double layer, according to your preferences - I tend to use a lot of carrots if I have them - but we run out of them quickly around here.  Then I stuck my knife in the lamb several times, peeled and cut garlic into large slivers, roughly chopped some anchovies and stuck the garlic and anchovies into the lamb.

 

Then I put the lamb in on top of the vegetables, filled the pan with about an inch and a half of water, poured about half a bottle of white wine over everything (I would have used a whole bottle if I had one), and stuck it in the oven at 350 degrees F for two hours. I was going to use lamb stock instead of water, and I had some in my freezer, but it was in a Ziplock and when I opened the fridge door after letting it defrost in there overnight, out came the lamb stock.  Oops.  There was a hole in the bag and I foolishly didn't put the bag in a container.  Messy, messy!  Not very thrifty to waste it, and very time consuming too.  After cleaning my fridge thoroughly, and after the two hours had passed, I took off the cover, basted the leg, and turned the temp down to 300 degrees F.  I basted the leg every half hour for 2 1/2 hours - don't replace the cover.

The meat was really tender and wonderful.  The vegetables were fantastic and it is not a difficult recipe at all.  It is a little time-consuming, but just the cooking part, and it only takes a couple of minutes.  I suppose that if you had a very large crock pot this could work in there too. 

Next night - I made a kind of hash with the leftover potatoes and some of the meat and onions.  I didn't add any kind of oil or fat.  There was enough on the veggies and meat already to cook it nicely.  My husband loved it.  He put sour cream on it and devoured.  The kids weren't quite as sure - even with the sour cream.  I am not sure why - to many vegetables I suppose.  Grin.  I forgot to take a picture of the hash, but it looked like a normal hash, so you aren't missing much.

Last night - Naan and rice and lamb.  Another favorite dish around here.  I love this naan recipe.  I don't tinker much with this one.  I used 2 1/2 cups of whole wheat bread flour and 2 cups of white.  I think that I will increase the wheat flour next time.  I had never made it that way before, and wanted to make sure that it was still going to be as great as usual.  The other change I make is to roll out all the dough inside, and then bring it out to the grill and brush butter on before I put it on the grill rather than after.  I have cooked it inside on a very hot pan before too and it has worked out just fine.  Naan is a little time consuming, but very worth it.  We will have plenty of naan for the next couple of days.  One time saver would be to mix it up in the morning and leave it out all day if you ave a cool kitchen, or stick it in the fridge if you have a warm kitchen.  Or you could mix it the night before too.  Then take it out 1/2 an hour or so before you want to use it.  I would put it on the stove top next to where you are cooking your rice and lamb so it warms up more quickly.  

Rice:  I like parboiled rice myself.  I am trying to accustom myself to brown rice, but so far I just don't like it.  Oh well - win some, lose some.  I usually cook about two cups of rice with four cups of water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.  When you can see the little bubble holes in the rice and it looks like the water has been absorbed when you stir it, it is done.  This usually takes around 15-20 minutes.

Lamb:  All I did for this was tear off a bunch of leftover lamb from the leg bone with my fingers.  I kind of shredded it a bit too so that it was in bite-sized pieces.  Then I put it directly into a cast iron skillet (my absolute favorite pan), again there was enough fat on the lamb meat to allow it to crisp up nicely without any additional fat added.  I was going to add some kind of vegetable to this, but I didn't have any peppers and I thought that salsa would make it too fajita-like.  I didn't even have any salad around here, which is unusual.  So, we went vegetable-less for one night and my five year old told me that it was the best supper I had ever made.  Aaargh. 

      

I put teriyaki sauce on my rice, but my husband loves soy sauce.  Now - on to eating.  My favorite way it to tear off a piece of naan and use it to grab some rice and meat, then take a bite.  The ultimate finger food.  It was fantastic, but I have to say, it could have used some vegetables....

Now, three guesses as to what I am making tonight.  SOUP.  Of course!  I haven't made it yet, but I think that I will do a separate post later.  I am thinking about a lamb and white bean soup, but we will see, you never know what I will do - it is a mystery even to me!

Strawberry (or insert fruit of choice here) Syrup

I am always looking for fun alternatives for our weekly pancake/waffle fests around here.  Even though we live in Wisconsin and maple syrup is local, it still isn't exactly cheap.  Don't get me wrong, we love it and use it a lot, I just like something a little different and a little less expensive every once in a while.  I have been meaning to try making strawberry syrup for a while now, but the recipes I have seen always call for corn syrup or waaaaaay more sugar than I am comfortable with.  So, I decided to wing it.  I make a bunch of strawberry juice every summer with my steam juicer.  This is not a cheap kitchen toy, but I make gallons and gallons of juice every summer and we drink it all year.  It is super easy to use and my friends love it too.  In fact, if I had to buy one again - which I won't because it is extremely sturdy, I would split the cost with my friends and we would rotate it.  It already makes the rounds anyway!   The strawberry juice is too concentrated for us to drink straight, but it is wonderful mixed with lemonade.  We also add vodka sometimes for a drink we call a "Bloodshot", but that is a different story.  :o)  Anyway, here is the recipe that I came up with:

1 cup strawberry juice to 1 cup sugar.  Cook at a good simmer until thickened. I think that I cooked mine for 45 minutes or so.  Keep in mind that it will thicken up a good deal when it cools down.  You basically just want it to be noticeably thicker than it was when you first started cooking it.

Pretty difficult huh?  The family gave it a thumbs up - whoo-hoo!

You could use any juice for this - some may require more or less sugar.  I initially used a little more sugar in mine and then had to dilute it with more strawberry juice because it got too thick.  Let it cool in the bottle at room temperature before refrigerating in order to check its viscosity.

The juice is very local, the sugar...not so much.

PS- This is also a great way to spread your wine-making out over the year - if you are into that kind of thing.  I am.  Maybe I will do a post on that sometime.  :o)

Good luck!

Leftover Stuffing and Friends

Apple Pork Chops with Stuffing is a recipe that I have been meaning to try for a while.  I have lots of leftover stuffing from my Christmas turkey, and I looked at a lot of recipes for using up stuffing.  We like it just plain, but that gets old after a little while.

I love pork chops and I am always able to get a couple more meals out of them, so here we go!

First night - Apple Pork Chops with Stuffing.  These were fantastic!  I was a little skeptical about the apple pie filling - I used some that my mother in law had canned last fall- but it was really good.  Also, instead of the stuffing from a box (I avoid boxes if at all possible), I of course used leftover stuffing from the freezer.  If I can get my in-laws to agree, I will post the super-secret stuffing recipe sometime.  Please guys?  Anyway - it turned out wonderfully. 

Second night:  Pork Fried Rice.  This is my go-to recipe for leftover pork.  It is a family favorite.  I usually omit the scallions and use a chopped medium onion and a couple of chopped carrots instead.  I saute the carrots, onions and pork until the vegetables are soft (you probably don't need to add any oil for this - the pork fat just from the pork will be enough), then I remove them and cook the rice and eggs according to the directions.  Remember to heat the oil BEFORE adding your rice.  Otherwise the rice soaks up the oil and tastes greasy. 

The third night:  Soup.  What else?  It seems to be the inevitable end of most of my meals.  For this one I took all of the leftover bones from the pork chops, placed them in a stockpot and barely covered them with water.  I brought the whole thing to a boil and then reduced the heat to a simmer for a few hours.  This could be done in your crockpot too - just put them in the morning and let them simmer away all day.  I then strained the stock into a bowl, put it back into the stock pot and added all of the leftover stuffing and sauce from night #1.  I then picked all of the meat off of the bones and added it back to the stockpot too.  This was a pretty good soup, but it was a little sweet for me - probably because of the apple pie filling.  I think that next time I will add some extra celery and maybe some bread to damp the sweetness.  Or maybe I will just cook the pork chops over regular sliced apples.  Hmmm.  We'll see.  Sorry I forgot to take a picture!  Maybe next time.  :o)

Happy cooking!