Pisces Moon Studio

Deb at A Stitch in Time writes about an email recipe exchange.  The email comes in with two names on it.  You send a recipe to the #1 name, move #2 up to #1, add your own name as #2, and send it on to 10 more people.

I’ve sent my recipe to Gerrie:

Cheesy Barley Bean Bake

2 cups cooked pearl barley, cooking directions below
1 can (15 ounces) pinto beans, undrained
1-1/2 cups grated sharp Cheddar cheese, divided
1/2 cup non-fat milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dill weed
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350° F. Coat 8-inch square baking pan with non-stick vegetable spray. Combine cooked barley with beans, 1 cup grated cheese and remaining ingredients. Spread in prepared baking pan. Top with remaining 1/2 cup grated cheese. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until cooked through. Let stand 5 to 10 minutes before serving. Makes 6 servings.

Per serving: 319 calories, 23g protein, 13g fat, 29g carbohydrate, 115mg cholesterol, 6g fiber, 646mg sodium.

To cook barley
Place 2-1/4 cups water and 1/2 teaspoon salt in medium saucepan. Bring to boil. Add 3/4 cup pearl barley. Return to boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook 45 minutes or until barley is tender and liquid is absorbed. Makes about 2-1/2 to 3 cups.

Barley is one of my newest favorite foods.  Very low glycemic index, tasty, and filling.  I use it anywhere I would normally use rice by cooking a pot of it ahead of time and keeping the cooked barley in the refrigerator.

Be sure to use pearl or hulled barley; the quick-cooking kind has been processed to death and doesn’t have nearly as many nutrients.

Now  – as to the next 10 – I’ve sent out a message to a couple of lists I am on, asking for volunteers.   I like recipes but don’t want to send  a chain mail letter to anyone who  isn’t interested.

Drop me a note in comments if you would like to play!

I have new work to show! Yes, me!

Here are some new small pieces I did this week in response to a frantic SOS from my gallery rep. Click on the thumbnails for a new, larger image (opens in separate popup window). Each one is about 5″ x 7″, mounted on 8″ x 10″ black mat board:

All That Jazz	Mirage
Longboat Key	Luna Moth

More news after the jump.
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Yesterday my dear husband requested sausage balls for lunch. He’d found some frozen ones at the grocery back around Christmas and was hungry for more.

Apparently they are only a holiday food — I guess people serve them at parties? — because there were none available and the clerk looked at him as though he were demented when he asked if they had some. So, being the good wife and cook, I picked up a pound of sausage and made some. They’re very easy (2 cups Bisquick, 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar, 1 pound sausage, mix together, form into balls, bake 10 minutes at 400°), and he loved them. #1 Son had some, too, and pronounced them pretty good.

I’m not that fond of sausage, but I tried one, then ate another and then yet a third. That was around 2 pm. By 4:30 my stomach was in an uproar. I cooked dinner for the guys but decided that discretion was the better part of valor and skipped it myself.

I finally had some saltines and peppermint tea around 10:30. I was up again by 4 am. It’s now almost 8:30 am and I’ve finally been able to eat some plain white steamed rice and I think the worst is behind me. Neither of the guys got sick, so there wasn’t anything wrong with the sausage… just my stupid stomach reacting to the unaccustomed fat and sodium load.

Today is likely to be Bland Food Day. Who knew unseasoned white rice could taste so good?

Just over two weeks ago, my younger sister had a full hip replacement. She’d fallen at work about a year ago and broken her hip, had surgery to pin the bones back together, and subsequently developed avascular necrosis in the broken area.

Basically, the blood flow was cut off and the bone itself began to die.

So anyway, even though she is very young for a joint replacement, she needed it and it solved a lot of problems she didn’t even know she had, such as pretty serious arthritis in the hip socket. She’s doing well and is in physical therapy and plans to go back to work in another couple of weeks.

I’ve been cooking for her since she isn’t able to stand unassisted for long enough to put together a meal. Her husband, while devoted and caring, considers a Big Mac and supersize fries the epitome of fine dining. He sets off the fire alarm while boiling water. (No, it’s true. I was there and will swear to it.) She’s been craving soup, so I’ve made several big batches, filled those little Ziploc box containers, and stuffed her refrigerator with meals she can just microwave and eat.

Last week she called to rave about the vegetable soup and place an order for more. It’s so simple that it would be great for throwing together after work, and you could do all kinds of doctoring it if you wanted something fancier.

Pantry Soup

� onion, diced
about 2 tablespoons olive oil
1� pounds lean ground beef
1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 can green beans (or 2 cups frozen or fresh green beans)
1 can corn, not creamed variety (or 2 cups frozen or fresh corn off the cob)
2 cups sliced new potatoes

In a Dutch oven or stockpot, saut� the onion in the olive oil until softened. Add the ground beef and cook until crumbled and brown. Drain off all excess fat.

Add the tomatoes, beans, corn, and potatoes. Add enough water to cover everything at least 1″ deep.

Simmer for 1 hour, adding more water if it cooks down too much.

Makes 8-10 generous servings.
Gussying-up options:
- Add a clove or two of garlic when saut�ing the onion.
- Use Rotel canned tomatoes and chiles instead of plain diced tomatoes.
- Herbs: whatever suits your fancy. My sister likes it plain, so I left them all out.
- Add 1 cup of brown rice instead of, or in addition to, the potatoes.
- Sprinkle with chives or chopped parsley, or dust the top of each serving with finely grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.

One further note: You will notice that I did not include salt. There is a good bit of salt in the canned tomatoes and that’s all I think it needs. Just before serving, taste and correct seasonings for your own preference.

That’s it! Enjoy.

I took a nap this afternoon.

So in lieu of creative work with fabric, I offer my most recent artwork: Patchwork in Cheese:

It was an ephemeral work of art, but well-received by its intended audience.

I made Gerrie’s Sopa de Azteca for lunch today. These are the vegetables sautéing in the pan while the chicken is poaching. Aren’t they colorful and lovely?

The soup was fantastic. I had to omit the avocado topping, though, because the only avocados at the market were approximately three years past their sell-by date.

(Sidebar: Do you know how to choose a perfectly ripe avocado? Press it gently near the stem; it should give slightly and feel, according to my friend Nan, like “a cowboy’s butt in tight Levis.” )

Back later this evening with more experiments using the Shiva Paintstiks.

This burning question arose as a result of a discussion today on the QuiltArt list. As often happens, my mind took a left turn and I started to wonder about the two terms for the dish.

I’ve always called it dressing unless it’s Stove Top in a box; I’ve lived all my life in Alabama but my parents are from Ohio. My in-laws, from Tennessee, always called it stuffing, which still sounds weird to me after 32 years. One of the QA responses noted that it’s “stuffing when cooked in the bird and dressing when it’s cooked in a separate dish.” Although this makes a lot of sense, I’d never heard it — but then I don’t watch Bobby Flay or Alton Brown, who appear to be the authoritative sources for this information.

So I went to Google and found this interesting little article from a newspaper in Missouri:

Pecans? Rice?? Never heard of them used in dressing in this part of the South. Oysters and chestnuts, yes. And there are some really outré recipes out there calling for everything from oranges to pumpkin, although none of them would pass the horrified lips of any member of either of my families.

In the ultimate compromise between my family’s Midwestern white-bread recipes and my in-laws’ cornbread recipes, I always make mine with half white bread and half cornbread. Then both camps are moderately unhappy — except me. And I’m the chef.

Yesterday I found a recipe for a dressing baked in the crockpot instead of the oven. This sounded like a good idea, because there are so many other things that need to go into the oven today. So I cut and pasted it into WordPerfect to print out without all the flashing ads and pretty little logos and such. WP immediately insisted that “crockpot” was not a word.

Its suggested correction?

I guess they thought I was flying by the seat of my pants, or something. I’m easily amused.

Not yet eaten, but today is the day for preparing much of the gluttonous feast for tomorrow.

I enjoy the repetitive, meditative motions of chopping vegetables, of stirring together the cornmeal and other ingredients to make cornbread for the dressing. I like the warm, steamy fragrance of summer squash and onion simmering to form the basis for squash casserole. I even like cleaning up (although I wouldn’t like it nearly as much without my trusty dishwasher, I admit).

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So I am cooking again, instead.

Easiest Pantry Beef Stew Ever

1 lb stew beef, cut into cubes
� to 1 onion, diced
olive oil, about 3 tablespoons
1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (11 ounce) can corn (not creamed)
1 (15 ounce) can green beans
1 cup brown rice, uncooked (not instant variety)

NOTE: The first two steps can be done in advance. I usually cook about 3 pounds of stew meat at a time, then divide and freeze it with the stock for later meals.

1. In a heavy stock pot, heat the olive oil and sauté the onion for 5-10 minutes until soft but not browned. Add the beef and brown on all sides.

2. Add enough water to cover the beef about 1½” deep. Simmer over medium heat for at least one hour, until meat is falling-apart tender.

3. Add the tomatoes and one can of water. If the stock has cooked down so that it doesn’t cover the meat, add another can of water. Drain the liquid from the corn and beans and discard; add the vegetables to the stew. Stir in the cup of brown rice.

4. Cover the pot and simmer for about an hour, until the rice is done. Taste and adjust the seasonings if necessary.

Serves at least 4.

You can gussy this up with all sorts of things. Throw in a bunch of chopped garlic while you are sautéing the onions. Peel and chop some potatoes and use those in place of the rice (simmer for about 20 minutes instead of an hour). Use fresh or frozen vegetables instead of the canned ones.

This is a fantastic pantry meal that you can pull together with very little work, assuming you’ve pre-cooked the meat. You could even bypass that step and crumble some hamburger to cook in the stock pot while you are sautéing the onions; use all water instead of the beef stock and toss in some herbs to add to the flavor. A bay leaf maybe, or some thyme. Improvise! Think of this as jazz cooking. :)

With it I made Crescent Dragonwagon’s Decadent Southern Cornbread, from the Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook. As a bonus, I have enough cornbread left over to make the basis of tomorrow’s dinner, Feather Bed Eggs, from the same cookbook.

My tummy’s happy, and so is my husband. Life is good.

Now to find some inspiration to work on those art pieces for Bronwyn…