Trip to Seattle

We took off for a few days to attend the Seattle Gift Show. This is a show where many manufacturer's bring their products so that buyers can see and order those products. We usually attend gourmet food shows as opposed to gift shows because we do not carry a lot of gifts. We found a few things that we liked and made a few orders. We will see how the products work out.
We made the most of our few days away. We got a screaming deal at the Grand Hyatt, one too good to pass up. Parking was expensive, at $33.00 a day, but, we did get free breakfast daily at the Ruth Chris Steak House, the restaurant that was part of the hotel. The 1st picture above shows the view from our window. The room even had a push button black out curtain which was great since we had a HUGE neon hotel sign right outside our window. The beds were quite comfortable and for the most part I slept well (although I never sleep all night anymore, sigh). I loved the bathroom (see the 4th picture). BIG bathroom. Marble and granite. Hugh glass shower with great water pressure. There was a deep soaking tub, which I used both nights. We hooked up with a good friend of the Big Cheese's, Gerard, who took us sightseeing and to dinner. It was too bad that his wife could not join us. We went to the Ballard locks and looked at the fish ladder to see salmon. If you look closely, you can see the salmon in the second picture. The salmon were 2-3 feet in length. We ate at Ray's Boathouse Cafe in Ballard and had an incredible meal. Everything was delicious. I had the pecan crusted fried green tomato sandwich - simply amazing. We sat outside on the patio for dinner and as it got chilly the restaurant handed out blankets to wrap up in. It was such an enjoyable evening! The second night, we stayed close to the hotel but walked through several of the city neighborhoods. The last morning we spent some time at the famous Pike Place Market, bought some Macaroni and Cheese from Beechers Handmade Cheese, and did a lot of walking. After two days of shows and running around, we were ready to head back home. We stopped at one of our beer distributors to pick up some cases of specialty beers for the store and drove home. It was great to get away and I look forward to our next adventure.

Busy Day Dinner - Crockpot Lasagna

We knew that yesterday was going to be a busy day. We were hoping to meet with a travel writer who was coming through town as well as working on some travel plans for ourselves. What do you make for dinner when you aren't sure when you will get home? Pull out the old crockpot and make crockpot lasagna. It takes a little prep work either the night before or in the morning but, then you are done. Add a bag salad and some crusty bread and voila, dinner. (It's delicious to boot and not a lot of resulting dishes).

Crockpot Lasagna - serves 8
1 pound ground Italian sausage (or mixture of ground beef and ground Italian sausage)
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 jars (27 ounces each) of your favorite pasta sauce
2 Tablespoons fresh basil, chopped (or 2 teaspoons dried)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (12 ounces), divided
1 container (16 ounces) ricotta cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
12 uncooked lasagna noodles

Cook sausage and onion in a skillet until sausage is no longer pink, drain well. Stir in pasta sauce, basil, oregano and salt. Set aside or put in a container and refrigerate overnight.
In a bowl, combine 2 cups of the mozzarella, ricotta cheese and the Parmesan.
Put 1/4 of the sauce mixture into a 5 quart crockpot, break up 4 lasagna noodles and evenly cover sauce, top with 1/2 of the cheese mixture.
Put another 1/4 of the sauce mixture, then, 4 more broken noodles, another 1/4 of the sauce mixture, then top with rest of the cheese mixture.
Top with the last 4 broken noodles, and last 1/4 of the sauce mixture (the sauce is what cooks the noodles).
Cover and cook on low heat for approximately 7 hours (or until noodles are tender).
Top with remaining cup of shredded Mozzarella. Cover and let cook for 10 more minutes until cheese is melted.

The Big Cheese was able to meet with the travel writer, who thoroughly enjoyed our shop. Gotta love that!

Mizithra Cheese

I thought it was probably time to start incorporating more cheese into my blog, since cheese provides my livlihood.
One cheese that we sell quite a bit of is Mizithra. We usually carry an aged version which is not a snacking cheese by any means. When people ask to taste it, I tell them that the taste and texture is that of salty dry wall but, when it is grated over pasta it becomes quite flavorful, salty and nutty and melting somewhat.
The Mizithra we sell is made from the leftover whey of sheep's milk and comes from Greece. Younger Mizithra can be used both in savory dishes as well as desserts and is similar to Ricotta Salata.
Due to the terrain of Greece, sheep milk cheeses are the most common. Another very popular Greek cheese is Feta. Feta is usually made from sheep's milk but I have found goat and cow feta also.
Our favorite dinner to make with Mizithra is Angel Hair Pasta with Brown Butter and Mizithra. It has been made very popular at the chain restaurant, Old Spaghetti Factory. What is brown butter? It is butter that is cooked until the solids get amber in color, in fact, almost burnt. The flavor of the butter becomes very different and is amazing, almost caramelly. You should make this recipe. You won't be sorry.

Angel Hair Pasta with Brown Butter and Mizithra - serves 4
8-12 ounces angel hair pasta
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 cup grated Mizithra cheese*

Grate the Mizithra cheese and set aside. Place the butter into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring the butter to a slight simmer while stirring constantly. The butter will begin to foam and rise. Continue stirring to keep the butter from overflowing your pan. Once the butter stops foaming, continue cooking until the butter gets amber in color. (Be careful not to let it get too burnt). Remove from the heat and keep butter warm while your pasta cooks.
Boil angel hair pasta until Al Dente. Drain and divide pasta onto 4 plates. Pour 1/4 of the butter over each of the plates and top with the grated Mizithra.

*If you can't find Mizithra, you can use Romano cheese.

Add a tossed salad with your favorite Italian dressing and maybe some garlic bread (I don't know why but I always want garlic bread when I have pasta) for a quick and easy dinner. From start to finish, the pasta dish takes about 15 minutes to make.

Barb's Musings - Counting back change

How many people know how to count back change? In our small shop, we have one cash register. All employees have to learn how to count back change since we don't always have the time to use the register to tell us how much change to give back. It always surprises me at how few people know how to count change back. I guess it is a sign of the times. I even find myself using a calculator instead of adding on paper or in my head. Just a thought that popped into my head and made me think..."Hmmmm, maybe I should post this thought". It must be time to try a new recipe if this is what happens to my mind when I am not working on something in the kitchen.

Looking good - 1st Attempt

Okay, I have to admit, my 1st attempt at making anything like this from scratch, with yeast, came out okay. They look pretty darn good, wouldn't you say?


Taste - it's a 6-7 on a scale of 1 to 10. I do know what I did wrong. After the 1st rise in the bread machine, I turned the dough out onto a pastry board. I thought I had read somewhere to keep adding flour until the dough was no longer sticky. Bad move. I probably added an extra 1/2 to 3/4 cup flour which I could taste in the results. I combined 3 recipes into the one I made.

Barb's Pecan Sticky Buns
Dough
3/8 cup whipping cream
3/8 cup water (combined, the cream and water added up to 3/4 cup)
2 eggs
1/2 teas. salt
4 Tablespoons butter cut into tiny pieces
4 Tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons yeast
Filling
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
6 Tablespoons butter (softened, but not melted, in microwave)
Sticky Syrup
4 Tablespoons butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1/8 cup dark corn syrup (not sure if I really needed this)
Dough
Put dough ingredients into bread machine in order above (or as suggested by your bread machine instructions). Set for dough stage (or sweet bread dough stage). Press start (mine takes about 2 hours at this point). Remove dough. Roll out dough to 16x20 rectangle (or two 8x10 rectangles) - adding a small amount of flour to keep from sticking.
Filling
Mix the ingredients for the filling. Spread filling almost to edges of dough rectangles. Roll into long cylinders. Cut into 16 pieces.
Sticky Syrup
Combine butter, brown sugar, pecans and corn syrup in a sauce pan. Heat until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. Stir well. Pour into bottom of a 9x13 buttered pan - cool slightly. Place dough rolls, cut side facing up and down, on top of sticky syrup. Cover rolls loosely, set in a warm place, let rise for 45 minutes. (One recipe said until double - mine did rise a little but no where near double - maybe it's all the extra flour again).
Baking
Bake rolls in a preheated 350 degree F oven for approximately 20 to 25 minutes (until tops are nicely browned). Let sit for about 5 minutes and then invert onto a large plate or baking sheet with a lip (topping may run off). You need to get them out of the pan relatively quickly or the sticky syrup will harden in the pan. Let them cool before eating or you will burn your mouth.

Overall, these were very good. I will try to make them again (without so much flour while rolling).

Sticky Buns

I am going to attempt to make sticky buns from scratch (using a bread machine to make the dough).
I have been wanting a cigarette very badly and I figure I better do things to stay occupied. I even had a dream about smoking. I figure that after 6 months without one the craving must come from just not knowing how to handle stress well.
So, after the sticky bun dough is made, I will assemble the sticky buns and will write out the recipe and take pictures of the final product (if they come out okay). If they don't come out, you may never know.

Ordinary Day

Today, we had a very normal day. Went to work for a few hours, came home, drove 40 miles to Wenatchee to go to Costco and Walmart. WooHoo. Big day in the city. We stopped at a new place to eat, one we have heard great things about, Larry's Chicken. It's somewhat of an old fashioned drive in. They come to the car to take your order, bring the tray out with your food on it and hook it on your window. They are known for their boneless fried chicken. We ordered the Chicken and Chips (you could also get Fish and Chips and a few other items). The girl told us that since it was our first time, we had to try the chicken dipped in their tarter sauce and their BBQ sauce. The tarter sauce was good. The BBQ sauce was so-so. I liked the place overall, the Big Cheese, not so much. On a scale of 1 to 10 for a fast food restaurant, I would give it a 7. It was quick and it was not overly expensive - 2 orders of Chicken and Chips, 2 sodas and 2 dipping sauces - $15. We left the house around 1:00pm and got back home around 6:30.

Long Drive

We are getting geared up for our busy season at the store. It usually means that we work at, or at least visit, the shop every day until mid-November. Yesterday, I was feeling antsy and wanted to do something different and knowing that we wouldn't get much time off for awhile, we decided to go for a drive. I thought it would be about 5-6 hours but it ended up being about 8.5 hours including stopping for dinner.

Most people think that Washington State is all rainy, all the time. Washington State has quite a diverse geography and climate. There is rainforest, mountains (with lots of snow), plains and high desert. We took a few pictures along the drive (desolate beauty) and this one shows the gorge near Coulee City:

We left Leavenworth, drove NorthEast to Coulee City, along Banks Lake, through Electric City and Grand Coulee (where the dam is) where we stopped for an hour. After leaving there, we drove West through Bridgeport, Brewster, and Pateros, stopping in Chelan for dinner. We ate at Campbell's Resort and had a really good dinner and then back home.

A little information about the dam:

The Grand Coulee Dam, located on the Columbia river in central Washington, is the largest concrete structure in the United States. It forms the centerpiece of the Columbia Basin Project, a multipurpose endeavor managed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. In addition to producing up to 6.5 million kilowatts of power, the dam irrigates over half a million acres of Columbia river basin farm land and provides abundant wildlife and recreation areas.

What a Feast!

We just finished a great dinner. We grilled pork chops with an Apple Cinnamon Barbecue Sauce from Ole Ray's. We cooked some fresh green beans, which we picked up at the farmer's market, with bacon, garlic, onion and some Sweet Heat Chipotle Sauce from Hot Squeeze, and then I made the Pineapple Stuffing, with some modifications, from www.cookingwithjoey.com. Everything was delicious.

The Pineapple Stuffing was so easy to make and here is the recipe for how I made it:

1 stick butter (1/2 cup) - next time I am going to use less butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

4 eggs

1 (20 ounce) can pineapple tidbits, drained

4 slices whole grain bread, cubed (I used a nine grain bread)

Soften butter. Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Fold in the pineapple tidbits and then the cubed bread. Pour into a greased 10x6 pan and bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

You must try this! We want to try it with canned peaches sometime. I had to leave the table to write this post, otherwise I could have consumed the whole pan.

What do you do when it's hot outside?

Don't ask me why. I wouldn't be able to answer. Why would I do this? Just strange, I guess. What did I do? The hottest day of the summer. It's over 100 degrees. I get this urge to bake. Why? I don't know. I just had to go to the store, shop, and bake. I was craving sweets. Well, I definately took care of both, the urge to bake and my sweet tooth. I found the recipe I wanted to make on http://www.cookingwithjoey.com/. My sister-in-law is good friends with Joey and knowing that I love to read recipes sent me his blog.

I clicked on caramel. The first thing I saw was what I had to make. Chocolate Chip Caramel Toffee Bars. Oh my, were they good and ohhhhhhh so sweet. I made a whole batch and took most to the shop for the rest of the staff to consume. These bars contain cake mix, butter, chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, toffee pieces, caramels and sweetened condensed milk. (Also a couple of eggs, and some oil, which aren't as exciting as the other ingredients). What's not to love? It was hard to find caramels this time of year in our small town but I finally did at the second (last chance) store. They are more popular around Halloween.

Tonight, I am making Joey's Pineapple Stuffing to go with pork chops and green beans. Again, the ingredients, butter, sugar, eggs, pineapple and bread. I am going to follow the tip for cutting the sugar in half. I'll let you know how it comes out.