Sweetness

Apparently they don't shut down your blog for lack of activity...holy smokes it has been awhile.  I appreciate all the gentle nudges (and threats of violence) from those of you who were apparently missing the occasional EZ Peas-Z post over the past year (yikes).  Seriously though, you are motivating for me and I appreciate it more than you know.

The 5 recipe a week thing I had originally set out to do turns out to be a little ambitious for this lady - so get ready for spontaneity and randomness (and a slightly new recipe format).  I am aiming to keep you on your toes so that you have to check in more regularly (or sign up as a follower for those handy emails notifications...) in order to check out the latest hotness coming out of the Flickinger kitchen.  Keep calm, they will still be easy and delicious since that is what we do here.  Again, thanks for keeping after me and it feels good to be back!

I'm drooling...trust me, it was good.

Peach Pie - enough said?  If I could only eat one type of dessert for the rest of my life, it would be pie.  If I had to pick one pie...I would be in trouble.  But peach would be up there!  Peach Pie is relatively new to me.  It is a little more time consuming than any other fruit pie which does not involve a pit (cherry pie straight up frightens me), but I assure you, it is well worth the effort.  I am really into making mason jar pies these days so I'll include both the traditional as well as the mason jar instructions.  I know it is early but I made my first peach pies of the season this past weekend and they were pretty tasty if I do say so myself.  Don't be afraid of making a crust (it's not so bad...just keep it cold!) and enjoy the sweet reward at the end:

Peach Pie
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Crust:
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
5 - 8 tablespoons ice cold water

Filling:
About 3 1/2 lbs peaches (so you end up with 6 cups sliced)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
sprinkle of nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons tapioca

To make the crust:
Combine flour and salt in a medium bowl.  Cut in shortening using a pastry knife or 2 butter knives.

Sprinkle water into flour mixture one tablespoon at a time, tossing lightly with a fork.  When it starts to come together, pick it up and form it into a ball.  Divide the ball in half and flatten each half into a disc.  Wrap each half in plastic wrap and refrigerate (it is SO much easier to work with cold dough if you are rolling it).

To make the filling:
Peel the peaches - if they are kind of hard, a vegetable peeler works just fine.  If they are pretty soft, the peels may come off pretty easily.  If it is giving you trouble, boil a big pot of water (and get an ice bath ready), make an "x" on the bottom of each peach and throw them in the water.  Poach them for 2 minutes, take them out, and put them in the ice bath.  Once they cool down a bit, try peeling them again and hopefully this helps!

Half and pit your peeled peaches and cut them into 1/3 inch slices.  If you are doing the "mini" pies, chop them up roughly.  Toss the peaches in a large bowl with the lemon juice.

In a small bowl, combine the sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and tapioca.  Toss this in with the peaches and stir to combine.

Put it all together:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

For mason-jar pies - grab your 4oz mason jars and press pie dough into each jar, covering the bottoms and up the sides.  You will want to use about half the dough.  I probably start out making 7 jars just so I don't over-do it since you can always whip up a few more if you have too much filling.
Spoon filling into the jars up to the top.  You can go a little over if you are going to bake them right away and don't need to worry about screwing  the cap on.  Go a little lighter on the filling if you are going to freeze them.
Once all the jars have filling in them, roll out the rest of the pie dough on a heavily floured surface with a heavily floured rolling pin.  Use the lid of one of the jars to cut out circles in the dough and press it on top of the pie filling in the jar (push it down in there a bit so it is "in" the jar - it can get a little messy).  Put a few slits in the top.
Place all the jars you are cooking on a foil lined baking sheet and bake for about 1/2 hour or until the pies are bubbling and brown on top.

For a traditional pie - take out your chilled dough discs and roll one of them out with a heavily floured rolling pin on a heavily floured surface.
Place the rolled out dough into a 9 inch pie plate.  Lightly press it into place so there are no gaps between the crust and the pie plate.  Pour the peach filling inside.
Ditto the rolling process with the second disc of dough (or make a lattice top if you are feeling fancy...).  Gently place the second crust on top of the peach filling.  Press the edges of the top and bottom crust together.  Make some slits in the top of the pie and rub the crust with a little bit of milk (this makes it brown up reaaaal niiiice).
Bake pie for 20 min, reduce oven to 375 degrees and bake for another 30 to 40 min or until bubbly and brown (if browning too much, cover the pie loosely with foil).  Cool pie completely if you don't want it to run (I dare you to try and cool this completely before devouring it).

NOTE: For the mason jar pies, if you want to freeze some for later, screw the lids on the pies before you bake them and stick 'em in the freezer.  When you feel like having pie, take them out, remove the lids (important!), and place them on a foil lined baking sheet.  Put the baking sheet with the pies in the oven and turn the oven on to 425 degrees and bake for about 45 minutes.  The pies will defrost nicely in the preheating oven.  Just keep an eye on them and take them out when they are bubbly and browning.  MMMM...pie.

Summer Lovin

We have been working a few new recipes these days so I think it is time to put up another blog post so that I can have them as part of my online collection!  The photographers of the beautiful food have been given their kudos in the corresponding captions.  I'll kick it off with the Lemon-Garlic Shrimp Skewers we made for dinner tonight.  These were delicious and a great way to broaden your shrimp horizons...that is, if you are like me and have never grilled them before!

Michael Weschler

Next we have Cheddar Turkey Burgers with Mashed Avocado.  MAN these were delicious.  Flick and I are not generally huge fans of turkey burgers since they have such a narrow "perfect" window when they are not too dry.  These are kept moist with some grated red onion and cheddar cheese.  These will completely change your point of view on non-beef burgers, give them a chance.

Marcus Nilsson

Catfish always seems to end up with a cornmeal coating in our family - and the catfish meal we had a week or so ago is no exception.  What makes it really awesome is the Quinoa Saute that we served on the side.  This is a perfect summer side and loads you up with good-for-you quinoa and a decent serving of veggies.

The next two recipes are nods to some of the great food we have acquired from friends who have done some hunting/fishing over the fall and winter months.  Our friends up in Steamboat provided us with some amazing ground elk and elk tenderloins.  We incorporated the ground elk into our Shepard's Pie awhile back, but had been saving the tenderloins.  We finally got to cooking them and did a really simple crock pot recipe that you could easily use for a beef tenderloin if game isn't your thing.  They came out very flavorful and not tough at all - and elk is a very lean cut of meat!

The last recipe is a glaze for salmon that we have been using just about every other week on the Alaskan-caught salmon filets we were fortunate enough to receive from one of Flick's colleagues.  Neither of us are huge salmon eaters, so when we came across this recipe we decided it was the best way to prepare this amazing fish so that we could thoroughly enjoy eating it.  Happy summertime cooking everyone!

Back in the saddle again

Let's see if I still remember how to do this...

I feel a little sheepish that I just went off the radar without so much as a 'catch you all in a few months, I'm taking a break'.  Part of the reason for that was because I didn't know I was taking a break, it just kind of happened!  As much as I have enjoyed all this food blogging, since my 'real' job requires me to park myself in front of a computer for most hours of the day, it can be a bit of a struggle to continue that practice once I get home at night.  So I took a hiatus and have been enjoying the fruits of my labor.  I love having all my recipes on here! It makes meal planning SO much easier for me and we all benefit from me being happy, right? :).

That being said, we have had some new meals that I am anxious to share.  I am veering away from the 5 meals a week format and will just push out a few new recipes here and there as we try something and decide to make it part of our regular rotation.  Sound good? Great, let's roll:

I am really trying to up the vegetable count in our house.  Ellie is a bit more picky now that she realizes she has choices in life, so we are doing a bit more with vegetables to try and entice her to eat them.  Sometimes it is as simple as letting her eat them off of one of our plates (since that is so much cooler) but occasionally we need to sass them up a bit to tempt her discerning palate.  That was the plan with Sweet Potato and Brie Flatbread, but it didn't really work out. I figured we were going to knock it out of the park: cheese, bread, and sweet potatoes...yum! Well, Flick and I thought so but Ellie wasn't so into it. Regardless, this is a great pseudo pizza and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Christopher Baker

Spring is in the air here in Boulder (until Tuesday that is) so we figured we would throw some steaks on the grill as a nod to the warm weather and longer days. We usually just rub them down with oil and some salt and pepper, but this time around we made Spice-Rubbed New York Strip with Avocado Lime Salsa.  I thought this was a great way to gussy up a nice steak - the rub added some flavor without overpowering the steak and avocado-on-anything is good for me so I called this recipe a winner.

Photo: Marcus Nilsson; Styling: Tiziana Agnello

There, I think that was a relatively successful jump back into things!  I don't have any of my own pictures to go along with these recipes since I just last night decided to post them (thanks Christa!) - so the pictures above are professional and all the credit goes to the photographer.  Oops, I mean, haven't my camera skills improved over the last few months?  Bravo professionals.  It's good to be back - I hope you all have a good week!

Pa-rump-a-pum-pum

Did you miss me?  I took a little break last week - I really couldn't bear the thought of spending another second in front of a computer when I got home from work on Friday.  I am sure there are others like me who can understand.  Sitting at a desk all day makes me a little crazy.  I try hard to get out at lunch for a run, bike ride, or some yoga - but some days it just doesn't happen.  Don't be surprised if you come around the corner and see me unrolling my yoga mat at work on one of those busy days.  A girl gets to feeling pent up with no decompression time.

Side crow in a suit...on a desk.  I barely can do that on my mat.

We are gearing up for the Christmas holiday over here which means we have even less spare time than usual.  That puts us right around 12 spare minutes a day.  Bearing that in mind, we are being very crafty with our meals this week.  When time gets tight we rely heavily on leftovers.

It was only a few short weeks ago that I was hateful towards my slow cooker...and I think I have used it every week since then.  This past Sunday we were headed down to Denver for the day so I put together a Vegetable Stew (it is technically a chili but is not chili-like at all in my book - more like a tomato based stew) in the crock pot.  It simmered away all day and made so much delicious stew that we are on our second night of eating it with plenty left to go (it freezes really well).

Another meal that is hearty and delicious (and really good leftover), is Shepard's Pie.  This Shepard's Pie is a little more robust than what we grew up with.  We are fortunate enough to have some ground Elk from our good friends up in Steamboat who have readily adopted the mountain lifestyle and went out and caught themselves an elk this year - pretty impressive.  This was an awesome meal, and Ellie really liked it too which gives it bonus points in our book.  There is a fair amount of prep time involved so when I found myself with some down(ish)-time (read: Ellie was napping) I went through all the steps and got the dish assembled, then stuck it in the fridge until we were about an hour or so from dinner.  I didn't hear any complaints at our table.

Apparently we have all the right friends because we also have a mess of fresh caught Alaskan salmon in our freezer.  Yes, we count our blessings.  Neither one of us are huge salmon eaters but we are really excited to have this in our house.  I haven't cooked salmon since college so I am a little rusty and it definitely showed in this recipe, Pineapple Teriyaki Salmon.  I way overcooked the salmon...and the couscous (did you know that was possible?).  The flavors were all wonderful but it was all terribly dry...as a foodie who appreciates a great cut of fish, I felt awful about it.  But I am confident that the next set of filets will come out much better.

We had one of our cars in the shop this week which meant I was supposed to be riding my bike to and from work...except that we woke up to a rogue snow storm which pretty much annihilated that plan.  This meant a lot of running around for all of us and only about 3 minutes to make dinner.  Let me introduce you to the frozen ravioli.  Once the water gets boiling, these little gems take about 3-4 minutes to cook.  Pair that with a nice salad and you have yourself a meal.  We don't shy away from these quick fixes as long as they don't become the norm.  The fact is, there isn't always time to even whip together a quick meal from scratch - there are good choices out there and it just takes a little creativity to pull together a well rounded meal in a super short amount of time.

Last but not least is our chicken dish for the week.  Chicken Thighs with Roasted Apples and Garlic.  This wasn't anything wild and crazy but was a good, solid meal.  We paired it with some white rice (brown rice doesn't go over so well with the hubby) and mixed veggies and we were off and running. 

So there you have it, a mish-mash of recipes that will keep you well fed through all the shopping, baking, and celebrating that happens this time of year.  I am going to try and get rolling on my Christmas cookies this weekend...the posts for the remainder of the year will probably be a little more varied since I get really excited about baking and hosting so don't be caught off guard.  Take a minute to slow down and enjoy the season...remember how when you were younger, it took FOREVER for Christmas to come?  We all need to work on getting back to that place so we can enjoy and appreciate the moments a whole lot more.  Happy Holidays!   

Now what?

The week after Thanksgiving is a tough one when it comes to cooking, especially when you are hosting...and all of your guests are staying with you.  When guests are around just for the meal, it is easy to send them off with Tupperware containers full of tasty leftovers.  When your guests are staying with you, well, you end the night with a pretty full refrigerator!  Fortunately, no one was shy about whipping up turkey sandwiches, having mini-Thanksgiving dinners for lunch, and slowly working through 4 pies.  That meant that there was no taking a break from cooking the week after Thanksgiving this year.  Fortunately, my Mom was here to help.  She took care of the first half of the week and then it was up to me to cover Flick, Ellie, and myself after my family headed back east.

This refrigerator is just the right age for our kitchen...

Here are some recipes that yield such great results that you won't mind spending a little time in the kitchen for them.  We'll start with Grilled Chicken Florentine Pasta.  As is standard with spinach dishes, I added more than the recipe called for since it cooks down so much, and I like spinach.  Ellie also enjoyed this meal, and actually had it for leftovers tonight!

My mom made a few polenta dishes for us growing up, and this was a great one.  Flick is not wild about polenta but he didn't seem to have any problems having more than one helping of this meal.  Polenta Pepper Torte is flavorful and satisfying - a good comfort food dish without absurd amounts of cheese or cream.  Not that there is anything wrong with cheese...

Remember when I said that I had a love-hate relationship with our slow cooker?  Well, here is a recipe that I love in my slow cooker.  Slow-Cooked Pulled Pork.  The beauty of this recipe, it is simple to put together.  You won't have to wake up extra early in the morning to get it going, and it cooks for 8-10 hours so it will be happily simmering along while you go about your day.  This was one of the recipes my mom made so she did all the prep while I did some shredding...and plenty of eating.  She added some BBQ sauce to the final product to give it a little more flavor, but it was juicy and delicious and made for a great lunch at work this week.

Another recipe from my mom was Halibut with Mango Salsa.  This isn't your typical Mango Salsa; it plays to some different senses with a full teaspoon of cinnamon.  Delicious!  We really liked this recipe, and actually, Ellie did too!  She didn't eat much salsa but the fish was right up her alley.

Finally, this Minestrone recipe is a good meal for a cold wintery day.  It makes a pretty good amount of food and again, is baby friendly (once we drained out the broth and made sure it was not too hot).  With any luck, next week we'll have some Minestrone weather, enjoy the meals!

Thank goodness for Thanksgiving

We are going to cut to the chase pretty quickly here since we have a lot of material to cover.  Thanksgiving is officially over, the turkey has been consumed, pies have been polished off, and plenty of wine has been imbibed.  All in all I would say it was a pretty successful holiday.

We started our Thanksgiving with a self-governed Turkey Trot.  A nice 3.4 mile jog on the trails out near our home.  It was a beautiful morning to have everyone out and about and there were tons of other people working up their appetites along with us.  We came home and had some french toast and started pulling everything together.

The dinner assembly started on Tuesday night.  The key to these multiple dish dinner events is to get as much prep work done ahead of time as possible.  We laid out the menu and figured out what could be made ahead of time, and what would be best served up fresh from the oven.  Here is our menu:  



Turkey
Mashed Potatoes
Rosemary Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Shallots
Green Beans
Pecan Rolls
Cranberry Apple Relish
Pear and Candied Walnut Salad
Memere's Stuffing
Applejack Spiked Hot Cider
Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Mud Pie



There were 6 of us (plus Ellie) for dinner.  This may seem like an aggressive line-up, however, who wants a Thanksgiving dinner with no leftovers? Not this girl.  The make-way-ahead dishes were the Cranberry Sauce and the Mud Pie.

This was a new Cranberry Sauce for us but has definitely earned its place in the regular rotation.  It was so simple and had such great flavor.  We made it 2 days before Thanksgiving and it was all ready to go come dinnertime on Thursday night.

Mud Pie is officially part of our Thanksgiving pie tradition because it is Flick's favorite.  What is not to like about an Oreo crust filled with coffee ice cream and a fudge topping?  You can sub in other types of ice cream (mint chocolate chip and caramel jump out as good options) - but the coffee is the big winner in our household.  Since we had 3 pies in queue, we ended up making this in a non-stick cake pan and it worked out great.

The day before Thanksgiving we started in on the rest of the pies and half of the stuffing.  The stuffing literally cooks all day long, and is SO worth it.  This is the best stuffing ever, we just love it.  This is my Memere's stuffing recipe so it has been in the family for awhile and continues to go strong on the Thanksgiving table.  For the apple pie - we used the food processor with the "slicing" adapter to significantly cut down on the prep time. 





The pumpkin pie was pretty straightforward.  Even though it only requires a single, bottom crust, we made a double crust so that we were sure to have plenty of crust for our slightly large (9 1/2 inch) pie plate.  Mind you, this was determined after we tried with just a single crust and it didn't fit :)  This is why starting early is key!

Allie was in charge of making the Applejack Spiked Hot Cider on Thanksgiving day and it was a big hit.  This is something that you can assemble on the stovetop and leave simmering in the crockpot all day to fill your house with the aroma of hot cider, cinnamon, and cloves.

The turkey is done!

My mom started up the second batch of stuffing just before lunch so it could cook for a full 6 hours on the double boiler.  We were shooting to eat dinner around 5pm so we got our 18 pound turkey in the oven around 1:15.  We cook our turkey in a bag like this one; it cuts down on the cooking time and keeps the bird from drying out too much.  We just used the recipe that came with the oven bag and the flavor and juiciness was perfect.  Our turkey took longer than anticipated (it was still pretty cold and slightly icy when I put it in the oven) so we didn't end up eating until about 6pm, but as everyone kept reminding me, it's not that big of a deal to wait a little while longer for a delicious meal.  Tough to swallow as the chef, but it was definitely worth the wait.

While the turkey was in the oven, we made the mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.  Our pecan rolls needed to bake for 15-20 minutes so we had to wait for the bird to come out of the oven before we could cook them.  The rolls suffered the most from the longer cooking time on the Turkey; they had risen to their full potential by the time the bird was supposed to be ready, and subsequently deflated while the Turkey was hanging in the oven.  They still tasted delicious and were a popular side on the table.

The salad and the green beans were really easy to whip together in the last few minutes before dinner.  I made the dressing and candied walnuts earlier in the morning and just had to slice the pears and toss the lettuce at crunch time.  We kept the green beans simple (just steamed them) so they were really easy to rinse, snap, and steam.

Candied walnuts for the salad

All in all it was an awesome meal with our family and it was fun and only slightly stressful to put it all together.  Remember that table that we ordered awhile back?  Well, it hasn't arrived yet so we made do with our current table and fit just fine.  All the food hung out on a foldable card table and people were free to get up and refill their plates as needed.  What a great holiday!  We have taken down the Halloween/Thanksgiving decorations, Flick went and bought some Christmas lights, and we are working our way into full on Ho Ho Holiday mode :)  I am a total dork this time of year and am so excited for upcoming Christmas's as Ellie gets more and more into the festivities.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I hope you all enjoyed a fabulous meal with your family and friends! 

Flakey - and I'm not talking about a crust

Well, I completely flaked on blogging last week.  That's right, I didn't give it a thought until Sunday night.  By that point, I figured with the 100+ recipes we have accumulated over the months, one week wouldn't be missed, right?  We have a lot of family staying with us through Christmas so it is easy to lose track of to-do's when you are hanging out together in the evenings.  Not a bad thing in my opinion, this is a hobby after all...unless someone wants to pay me for it :)

We are working up towards our big Thanksgiving Day feast next week.  I have the menu planned, turkey ordered, and we will do all the shopping this weekend.  I am pretty excited for it - Thanksgiving happens to be one of my favorite holidays.  I think it has something to do with the fact that the Christmas season "officially" starts once the leftovers from Thanksgiving are packed up.  I am definitely looking forward to reporting back on our Thanksgiving festivities - mashed potatoes, apple pie, and remembering how fortunate we are to have such an incredible life.  Does it get much better than that? 

In the poultry department, one of the recipes my mom brought out with her last time they came to visit was Baked Chicken Po Boy Sandwiches.  Mmmmmm...these were yummy.  Breaded chicken on bread - sign me up.  These were really good and are definitely kid friendly...a little much for Ellie but she only has 8 teeth so that could have something to do with it.

Another recipe my mom brought out was Wedding Soup.  We used to have this recipe when I was growing up; it is really great on cold, wintery days and makes enough that you can have some leftovers to freeze and take out next time the snow starts to fly.

A lot of people live by the slow cooker.  I have a lukewarm feeling towards ours.  I get why people love them; you come home to a warm dinner with no post-work prep time.  Where I get hung up on slow cooker meals is when they don't work out.  We have very few crock pot meals that I have worked into our regular rotation.  We tried Curried Lentil Tomato Soup, and even after 8 hours of simmering in the crockpot, I came home to undercooked veggies and firm lentils.  Bleh.  I was pretty disappointed to say the least.  My mom prepped a much more delectable Baby Back Rib recipe in the crockpot for us.  Pair it with some Mac n' Cheese and some peas and you have yourself a very American comfort food dinner.

One of the nights that Flick's mom was out we had Butternut Squash and Mushroom Tarts with Gruyere cheese.  Oh man.  This sounds like it would take hours upon hours to put together, but we were able to make it in the 40 minute window after work one Friday night.  I highly recommend giving this a try - there are a lot of little steps involved but read through it a few times, formulate a plan, and get to it.

Finally, for a taste of some southern cooking (there is okra in it!) we made Chicken and Sausage Gumbo.  This was a solid, tasty meal that will definitely be a part of our regular rotation.  We are not huge okra fans but in this one-dish meal it adds a nice flavor.

I hope everyone has a scrumptious Thanksgiving with family and friends, we'll run through the festivities next week!