We used this recipe last night up until the dumplings (bisquicked them instead) and it was absolutely amazing!

Admittedly, I’m posting this one for selfish reasons. I am in charge of the sweet potatoes when we join our friends in Jersey for Thanksgiving. If I post the recipe I need online, I’m less likely to lose it.

Ingredients:

• 6 pounds large yams (red-skinned sweet potatoes)
• 3/4 cup marshmallow creme
• 9 tablespoons butter, room temperature
• 6 tablespoons maple syrup
• 3 large eggs
• 9 large oranges
• Additional marshmallow creme
• 36 pecan halves

Preparation:

Pierce each yam all over with fork. Working in 2 batches, cook yams in microwave 15 minutes. Turn yams over; cook until tender, about 12 minutes longer. Cut yams in half; scoop pulp into bowl. Add 3/4 cup marshmallow creme, butter, and syrup; mash until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Whisk in eggs. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; chill.)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut thin slice from top and bottom of each orange to make flat surfaces. Cut oranges in half. Scoop out pulp; reserve for another use. Place orange cups on 2 baking sheets. Divide yam mixture equally among cups. Top each with dollop of marshmallow creme and 2 pecan halves. Bake until beginning to brown, about 30 minutes.

Recipe courtesy of Bon Appétit via Epicurious.com

We had pizza on Saturday night and I wanted to share the recipe for the BBQ Chicken Pizza because I found it especially tasty for homemade pizza (mine always seems rather bland/unbalanced for some reason). I used one of the pizza crust recipes from Hot Providence to create a thin crust, and then I adapted this recipe to fit our needs/tastes. Here’s the recipe that we ended up with:

to make 2 crusts:

Mix 1 cup warm water and a scant tablespoon of dry yeast in a small bowl and set aside. In your Kitchen Aid mix together 2 3/4 cups of flour and one teaspoon of salt. Add the yeast mixture to the flour mixture along with 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil.

Mix for one minute, then switch to the dough hook and knead for 3 to 5 minutes, adding flour until it all sticks together on its own. Shape into two balls and let rise in a greased bowl under plastic wrap for about an hour at room temperature.

to make the pizza:

Preheat your oven to 475 and put your pizza stone in to get it all nice and toasty. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add a cup or two of cubed chicken and saute until golden brown. Remove from the heat and dice up into little bits. In a bowl, mix the chicken with 2-4 tablespoons of barbecue sauce (we used the Sweet Baby Ray’s or whatever it is – I got it at Wal-Mart). Set that aside.

On a floured surface, roll out one of the dough balls till it’s nice and thin. Pull your pizza stone out of the oven and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Carefully transfer the rolled out pizza dough to the pizza stone and do whatever reshaping necessary to get it to fit well. Put the pizza dough in the oven for a few minutes to get it started cooking. Pull the dough out of the oven and spread it with about a quarter of a cup of barbecue sauce and a quarter of a cup of tomato paste. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and spread a cup or two of shredded mozzarella and a half cup of shredded Italian cheese mix on top (enough to make a nice layer). Spread some very thinly sliced red onions on top of the cheese and then sprinkle the chicken all over the pizza. Bake until the cheese is bubbly and turning brown and the onions are starting to shrivel a bit. Remove from the oven and serve!

You can use the other ball of pizza dough to make something a little more traditional like pepperoni pizza just in case your family isn’t a fan of “chicken pizza”.

Slice and halve a baguette, spread maple, honey or agave syrup lightly over the top. Place chunks of brie on top of each slice and toast in oven for a couple minutes until the brie has slightly softened. Top with pieces of fried bacon and serve.

Also shown, farm fresh eggs from the Steven’s farm,  scrambled with havarti dill and salsa, seasoned with salt. Topped with flat leaf parsley.

In our house, lunch is frequently prepared by frying a flour tortilla in some butter, layering  leftovers and cheese and topping it with another tortilla. Frying it until lightly browned, and flipping it over to brown the other tortilla.  Sound gross? It’s really very good. We’ve done all sorts of cheeses;  swiss, sharp cheddar  or  gruyere.  Leftovers have ranged from prepared tuna, or leftover roast beef, or chicken in spaghetti sauce. If there are no suitable leftovers, we simply dip our cheese quesadillas in ranch dressing. You’d be surprised how much the kids love having a hot lunch and you’ll love a one pan meal that puts those pesky leftovers to good use.

• You want to you buy organic mushrooms. Why? Because to wash a mushroom is to ruin it. Mushrooms are sponges, they will taste like whatever you cook them with. So if you run them under water to wash them, they will absorb some water and be rather rubbery and tasteless. If you must wash them, take a dry paper towel and dust off the dirt.
• When browning mushrooms,  do not use salted butter or add any salt until after they have browned.  For more tips click here.

Not to worry, we aren’t going vegan or anything. Ben and I have just been contemplating the amount of meat we consume. Questions along the lines of, yes, God gave us permission to eat steak, but still some cow has to die and shouldn’t we show respect by not eating beef every night of the week? That’s another tangent, but my point was, that we are cutting back on meat. We have been finding other places to gain protein through food (I’m not a big fan of vitamin supplements). Lots of legumes and cheeses. I’ve learned to soak the beans in salt water to add flavor and to slow cook lentils for 12 hours to make very filling and delicious soups. But sometimes life gets in the way of meal prep and I’m stranded at 6 o’clock with no dinner on the table and not an idea of what to do about it. Yesterday was one such night. I’ve been reading a lot of Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food, in which she provides a list of food to keep on hand for such emergencies. It is because of that inspiration that I did have potatoes, olive oil, thyme and frozen asparagus on hand. I prefer red or little golden potatoes, which have so much flavor and are easy to quarter into bite sized pieces, but you could just as easily use russets. I washed and quartered my reds and spread them into a glass cake pan. I laid full sprigs of thyme (stripping them takes so much time and I didn’t have it!) on top, and poured a generous amount of olive oil on top of the whole she-bang. Fresh ground sea salt and pepper topped it, of course. I baked it at 375′ turning the potatoes occasionally, which allows for the cooking thyme leafs to fall off and mix in. Once the potatoes were soft, I turned up the heat to 425′ and placed some frozen asparagus spears on top of the potatoes. I kept it in there about 10 minutes until the asparagus had heated through. Ben and I like to dip our roast potatoes in prepared horseradish for an extra kick.

Approximate cost for serving 3 (1/2)

• red potatoes  =  $1.75
• fresh thyme = $2.00
• 1/8 c. olive oil = $1.00
• s & p = $0.25
• frozen asparagus = $1.00
  ____________________
  Total meal cost: $6.00
  Cost per serving: $2.00

Optional prepared horseradish will make each serving about 15 to 20 cents more.

One of my favorite simple dinners is a nice big meaty Chicken Caesar Salad with lots of fresh grated parmesan. It’s easy to throw together and if you let people assemble their own, you can present it pretty nicely on the table. Add a loaf of tasty bread and you’re set!

We’re officially moved up to Spokane now and today is Andrew’s first day in school up here. I made the mistake earlier today of saying that today was his first day of school in 4 1/2 years, but then I remembered that 5 weeks ago he was in Seattle doing school. How could I forget that he was in Seattle? Probably the same way I could neglect to post anything here or on our family blog for the past month or so – we’ve been so busy! We moved 2 weeks ago and have been busy getting settled in and figuring out all the local places to go. B has been busy getting herself potty trained too, which has been fantastic. She’s late in getting it done, but it’s gone very quickly and very well and we’re pretty sure that the diapers can all be boxed up and put away for when Eva needs them now. Busy but exciting times in the Becker house!

Figuring out where to shop has been fun. There are many more shopping opportunities up here which calls for – and allows for – better management of our resources (especially when those resources are loaned to us by the government in the form of student loans…). I borrowed my mom’s copies of the Tightwad Gazette (books 1, 2, and 3) for some super money saving tips. One of Amy’s biggest tips for saving money on your groceries is to keep a price book that records the prices for all your staples at the different stores so that you can know when you’re getting a great deal. It’s especially useful when you go places like Costco and are wondering if that 10 lb bag of chocolate chips is a good deal or not.

But keeping a hand written price book organized can be a chore, and it’s just one extra thing to tote around. Andrew had to buy an iPod touch for school, so I got to thinking that there must be an application out there somewhere for the iPod that would work as a price book. After a few minutes of searching I found PriceBook, which is exactly what the name suggests. You put in the food item, the price, the quantity (lbs, oz, pints, each, etc), the store you found it at, and whether it was on sale or not. Then this handy dandy little app keeps track of what’s the best deal and where it is (and it turns out that the big bag of chocolate chips at Costco is cheaper than the bulk chocolate chips at WinCo, not to mention that they don’t turn the glaze on my chocolate pecan torte all grainy like the WinCo ones do). So if you love the thrill of hunting for the best deals around and happen to have an iPod or iPhone, I highly recommend spending the $1.99 on this schnazzy app. I’m betting it will pay for itself in your first shopping trip (probably even in the first 5 minutes!).

In prelude to Autumn I give you my favorite seasonal  smells:

• Fresh Bread: best if honey has been drizzled on top after 2nd rising and before baking.
• Burning Wood: accompanied by a warm glow.
• Chicken Soup: simmering on the stove in an excessive amount of thyme.
• Rotting Leaves:  an scent best enjoyed outdoors.
• Cloves: in cider, candles, chili & tobacco.