Edible Antics - Having Fun With Food

Wisconsin Cheese Apple Pie - Recipe From Apples Everything!

Has this happened to you? It's a warm, blue-sky beautiful, autumn Saturday and in a momentary delirium you resolve to seize the day in that good, old-fashioned way. You decide you're going to take the kids apple-picking! Your young children look at you quizzically, but they're game for it.

You spend the car ride to the orchard adamantly denying to your children that you are lost. You declare you're taking the scenic route and they should look out the window, at which they immediately direct their complete attention to their game boys and DS's. Good. Now you can look at the map undistracted.

An hour later you arrive at the apple orchard down the road. Your children catapult from the car, and you all go to the "starting station". While you stuff handfuls of those deceptively-tiny plastic bags into your pockets, your children argue over who gets to pull the cute, little, red wagon. A few moments later, your skillfully, negotiated settlement is moot because they have run off into the trees, abandoning the wagon and leaving you to pull it uphill into the orchard.

Just as your delirious vision showed, your children are delighted with picking apples. They pick as quickly as they can, only pausing to take a large bite out of the most exceptional apples, which, when you arrive with the wagon, they hand to you because they're "through with them". Fearing the orchard proprietors who strictly forbid tasting and wasting, you eat the apple evidence. Row after row, the scenario repeats itself with the only difference being that your once empty stomach and wagon are filling up with apples.

Those tiny plastic bags have ballooned and now hold thirty pounds of apples each. Your once-bouncy wagon refuses to steer out of muddy ruts and over grassy hillocks. You're wrestling a cantankerous mule rather than the idyllic symbol of fall, family fun. You declare that it's time to check out. By the time you get down the hill, a few more bags have been loaded on. You drive home with the delicious scent of fresh apples over-powering that of the dog. What fun.

Now the work begins. What will you do with 120 pounds of apples? Fast-forward to present day. It's mid-November and you've made apple pie, apple cake, apple muffins, apple bread, baked apples, and apple crisp. The children now refuse apples in their lunch. You've got thirty more pounds of apples to go and they are looking as weary as you. You are tempted to let them rot in the basement like you did last year. But with one last effort you make apple sauce. Now you've got jars and plastic containers filled with applesauce.

Now what do you do with the applesauce? Here's a suggestion offered by Jean Hill and Jody Littler, authors of Apples Everything, who no doubt have been in your situation so many times that they wrote a cookbook about all the different possible ways to cook apples. Apples Everything has over 500 recipes and is where I found this recipe for Wisconsin Cheese Apple Pie. It uses up 4 1/2 cups of apple sauce, -not much, but a good start.

Click on 'Continue reading...' for the recipe:

Wild Rice and Barley Pilaf - Will This Colorful Autumn Sidedish Make It To The Thanksgiving Table?

Some people select side-dishes to serve at Thanksgiving based on taste and tradition. I have more stringent criteria. I'll caste tradition aside if a vegetable side-dish meets the following standards:

1. delicious flavor 

2. relatively simple to make

3. won't deteriorate in appearance or taste if it must wait for the rest of the food and family to be ready to eat

Additional criteria which improve a side-dish's chances of being chosen, but won't disqualify it if not met are:

1. Uses colorful ingredients reminiscent of an autumn landscape
2. Can be prepared ahead of time

With these criteria in mind, I prepared Wild Rice and Barley Pilaf in a test run for the Thanksgiving table. I found the recipe in the cookbook: Recipes for Sweetened Dried Cranberries.

I was looking for a rice dish because I wanted an alternative to Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I know the kids love them, but I can't help associating them with ready-mix concrete. I shovel them into my mouth. They plop down my throat. They land in my stomach and proceed to harden into a single, heavy-weighted mass. A belly full of mashed potatoes is like wearing concrete shoes on the inside. Don't get me wrong - their flavor is terrific, but there must be something just as tasty but lighter in effect. That's why I was looking to rice.

I knew that the mix of russet cranberries, brown raisins, charcoal-gray wild rice and cream-colored barley would give this side-dish an interesting and autumn-colored appearance. The pilaf would provide appealing contrast to white turkey.

Preparing the pilaf was extremely simple, - my kind of cooking. No, I didn't simply open cans and combine their contents as I've written about in past posts. For this recipe, I opened packages. Here are the ingredients:

• 3/4 cup uncooked wild rice
• 3 cups chicken broth (I got Swanson's chicken broth in the box)
• 1/2 cup pearl barley (I used medium grain)
• 1/4 cup sweetened dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted  

Then I followed the instructions:

Thanksgiving - Thanks for the Recipes, Thanks for the Fun! Here Are Some Great Wisconsin Cookbooks In Return

Thanks for one year of food fun! Yes, Edible Antics is a year old. Who knew I'd be cooking in public? Some people shouldn't; I'm one of them. But I get paid to do it, and as you know, anyone can have blog.

So instead of telling you the latest story of what I've burned  or what questionably-edible concoction I've forced on my family, I want to thank the food bloggers and cookbook writers who've definitely improved my cooking over this past year.

First, the food bloggers. Google shows 52,600,000 food blogs in the blogosphere. Can't say I've been to all of them. And most of the ones I've visited I don't leave comments on. It's not that I'm not thankful for the delicious recipes and professional-styled food pics I see, it's just that I have nothing especially interesting to say that other commenters haven't already written. But just so I don't appear a rude voyeur, to all of you 52,599,000 other food bloggers out there: "WOW! YOUR FOOD LOOKS YUMMY! THANKS FOR THE RECIPE!"

But a special thanks goes to the food bloggers who go to the extra trouble to hold recipe round-ups. I enjoy participating in them. They get me thinking about food as art rather than quick, family fuel. Sharing a cooking theme with others is a lot more fun than cooking alone. So thank you. Listed in alphabetical order are the bloggers whose round-ups I've enjoyed:

Adventures in Gluttony

Art You Eat

Coffee and Vanilla

Food Blogga

Lucullian Delights - An Italian Experience

Ruth's Kitchen Experiment

Sweet and Simple Bakes Recipes

Wild Yeast

Winos and Foodies And a special thanks to Barbara who has used her Winos and Foodies blog to bring encouragement and financial support to people suffering from cancer. Barbara is again fighting her own cancer battle.She's losing the strength to cook and write. Her appetite is fading. But the joy of life bubbling in her blog posts and pictures is always alive in the perennial blogosphere. Barbara's enthusiasm for the good life has drawn reader after reader to her site. And now they write back, offering support. At my last look, 72 people have commented on her most recent post, wishing her well.

And that's the incredible thing about blogs. We write them alone; we read them alone. But we do it because we are not alone. We help each other cook; we help each other laugh; we help each other hang in there.

It's sort of a speeded-up version of what traditional cookbooks have always done. The cookbooks I've enjoyed most are those in which the author tells stories about cooking food. The stories bring alive the special people who created the recipes, and the loved ones with whom they shared it at family celebrations.

Here are some of my favorites in no particular order:

Fire In The Oven! - How to make Sushi, Kimbob, Kimbap So You Won't Notice

We ate so much sushi that the bread caught fire in the oven. It was an impressive blaze; the whole inside of the oven was leaping orange. I'd never had a fire in the oven before, on the stove top of course, but never in the oven. How did this happen?

At the time, my family and dinner guests were enjoying sushi, baked chicken, and salad in the dining room. The oven began emitting strange beeps, louder than its usual timer beeps, and slightly more urgent sounding. I had to refill the children's milk glasses anyway, so I got up to investigate. I opened the oven door and shouted, "FIRE!" I'd never done that before. I've certainly been around many fires before, but I've never shouted at one.

My neighbor, Bonnie, led the charge into the kitchen, followed by her husband, Jim, and my children. I marveled at how fast adults can run when they hear "Fire!". Bonnie and Jim out-paced the kids. I stood with the oven door open and said, "What do I do?"

"Close the door!," shouted Bonnie. "Get baking soda! Do you have a fire extinguisher?!" Of course, I had a fire extinguisher. It was in the garage. It came with the house when we moved in four years ago. The mice had pretty much left it alone, and so had I.

I got the baking soda. Bonnie threw two handfuls into the oven, slammed the door, and the excitement ended. (Yesterday another friend informed me that baking soda emits carbon dioxide when burned, thus in addition to covering the fire, it denies the fire the oxygen needed to burn.)

"Feew," I thought. "I am so glad I cleaned the oven two days ago." I mean, what's the chance of dinner guests actually looking inside your oven? Pretty slim. But earlier in the week, cheese had dripped off the baking pizza, burned, and filled the house with smoke. I'd tried to cook in the oven again, but because the charred cheese remained and the oven kept spewing smoke, I decided to clean it instead. As I set the oven controls to 'CLEAN', my mother's reproach sounded in my head, "Cristie, a dirty, self-cleaning oven is the height of laziness!" And boy, am I glad I got off my duff and pressed those buttons because now we all stood in the kitchen staring inside my oven. Beneath that blanket of baking soda was one clean oven! I was proud.

So, how did the fire start? I blame it on the sushi. Well, I'm not sure it was sushi. My family calls it 'kimbob' because that's what our South Korean friend, Kyong a, who taught me how to make it calls it. But if you look it up in a cook book, it's called 'kimbap'. And if you tell your guests what they're having for dinner, it's easier to say, 'sushi' because that's what they've heard of.

Sushi/kimbob/kimbap is a fabulously delicious snack/appetizer/meal that my five-year-old, Dave, and I love. My Lauren (9) will eat the rice only. Jim and Bonnie enjoy Asian food, and Jim cooks it often. So sushi/kimbob/kimbap was the right accompaniment to the baked, soy sauce chicken.

Earlier, I'd bought the pickled, daikon radish, the pickled burdock root, and the cucumber. Kyong a had sent me the seaweed, and the rice was ready in the rice cooker. The only glitch was I'd forgotten to make the sushi/kimbob/kimbap before Jim and Bonnie arrived.

No matter, we all stood around the kitchen talking and drinking Jim's super-delicious homemade wine while I rolled the sushi/kimbob/kimbap. It's production was our entertainment, -before the fire that is. If you want low-cost, party entertainment click on 'Continue reading...' for the instructions on how to make sushi/kimbob/kimbap. 

Pilgrim Speed Squash - Healthy Sidedish So Easy It Can Cook On A Campfire and Feed A Thanksgiving Party

Brilliance Flashes! Mother Necessity Invents Pilgrim Speed Squash! A vegetable sidedish:

• so easy I put it together in 2 minutes!
• so healthy because it has no fat!
• so nutritious because it combines pumpkin, corn, and apples
• so yummy that kids (even my kids) like it!
• so colorful it looks pretty on a Thanksgiving party table
• so loved by harried cooks because it will cook almost anywhere at any heat for any length of time

Plus, Pilgrim Speed Squash has historical significance! -The Pilgrims surely had all of the ingredients at their first Thanksgiving. If I'd been on that Plymouth Rock, you can be sure I would have been cooking up Pilgrim speed squash on a campfire.

Here's the history of Pilgrim Speed Squash. Last Tuesday afternoon was sunny and warm. Meteorologists throughout Wisconsin were sounding warnings of winter doom to come Friday. I had one last chance to cook on a campfire. All summer I'd intended to cook a meal in our backyard fire pit. And all summer I'd done other things instead.

So when the kids got home from school I announced that dinner would be roasted hot dogs over a campfire. Lauren (9) and Dave (5) were excited to help me get the fire going. Since the yard had so many leaves and sticks I didn't need the charcoal and newspaper. (I'm not very good at building campfires - I cheat often.) The dry leaves got burning fast, and soon we had a blaze. I was so impressed by my success, I started telling the kids that this was just like the Pilgrims would have done it. (I left out the part about the Pilgrims not having a half pack of matches.) Yes, I told the kids, we were going to cook a meal like the Pilgrims would have cooked.

"They had hot dogs, Mommy?" questioned Dave.

"Venison strips," I replied. "Same thing."

Once the fire burned down a bit I put a large potato wrapped in foil into a pocket of embers.

"They didn't have foil either, Mom," said Lauren. "And their potato wasn't from Korea." Lauren is at that endearing age which relishes facts rather than romance.

Of course, a regular sweet potato could cook in the fire, but I had just bought a Korean sweet potato from Lee's Oriental shop. My good friend from South Korea, Kyong A, turned me on to Korean sweet potatoes. They have thin, reddish skins and yellow flesh. They are so tasty that they are best enjoyed without butter, or salt, or pepper, - (condiments I always put on regular potatoes). Plus the kids like them better than all other potatoes too!

After the potato had cooked awhile, it was time to get the hot dogs. The kids had been having such a great time poking the fire and throwing sticks on it that I didn't dare leave them alone with it. I insisted they come inside with me to get the hot dogs. They did, but I wasn't fast enough. Minutes later the kids ran outside. I called after them not to go near the fire. They went to the swing set on the other side of the yard. I had some time, but not much. The lure of the fire was too strong for prolonged resistance.

I'd already gotten the hot dogs on to a tray but realized that our meal lacked a healthy vegetable. What did I have that could be cooked on a campfire, and I could put together fast?!!! I checked outside, they were still on the swing set. What?!!! Plus, I'd foolishly been turning this meal into a history lesson. What did I have that the Pilgrims would have eaten?!!!

Cranberry Coffee Cake and Hot Coffee - Signals to Relax in Holiday Foods

Sunday I baked this cream cheese, cranberry coffee cake and took it to Judy's house. We joked that Judy was practicing for the holidays because she served her guests a giant, noon-day feast, royally finished-off with apple pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate petifours, vanilla ice cream, and my cream cheese, cranberry coffee cake. With satisfied bellies, we sat around the oak dining table, enjoying steaming cups of coffee. Yes, we were relaxing on a Sunday afternoon.

We kept saying we should do this more often. We felt so calm, just hanging out eating and talking. I guess we all were practicing for the holidays. I mean, folks say the purpose of the holidays is to relax with people we care about. Holiday foods are our signal that the day is special. Time to forget chores. Time to relax.

But Judy's feast was a gigantic signal. No wonder we don't relax more often if our signal takes that much time and effort to make. We need a smaller signal.

Recipe fo Ham, Broccoli and Wisconsin Cheddar Quiche - Nutritious, Entertaining Way to Multi-Task

Preparing this recipe for ham, broccoli and Wisconsin cheddar quiche is one way to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously. If you're a whiz at driving kids to school, holding a conference call, applying cosmetics, and eating breakfast simultaneously, all while you're planning the night's dinner, you'll appreciate how this recipe lets you do several tasks at once. Here's what making ham, broccoli and cheddar quiche let me do:

1. Prepare nutritious family dinner, -one that they'll actually eat. Major challenge.
2. Use up left-over ham and 1/2 an onion.
3. Prepare for upcoming holiday entertaining by digging out recipes that people over 20 enjoy, are attractive, and which can be made ahead of time.
4. Join blogosphere buzz about having fun cooking and eating great food.
5. Cheer on Wisconsin cheddar cheeses!!!!!

Cheering on Wisconsin cheddar cheese is the easiest of the 5. Wisconsin cheese makers won first place in 5 out of 7 categories for cheddar cheese at the World Championship Cheese Competition held in Madison, Wisconsin this year. Wisconsin is the Dairyland State. People come here for cheese like they visit France for pastries and Italy for wine. Our lush grass, happy cows, and dedicated cheese masters are appreciated the world over. The new, artisanal cheeses produced on small Wisconsin farms have gourmet lips smacking for more. Check out the Cheese Underground for news on the latest finds.

So when I read that Adventures in Gluttony is celebrating cheddar cheese this month, my Wisconsin cheese loyalty insisted I participate. This recipe for ham, broccoli, and Wisconsin cheddar quiche is my entry. Here's the link for the blog's cheese of the month challenge.

I chose this particular recipe to participate because it's a way to get my kids to eat the left-over ham and half an onion occupying the refrigerator.  As 9-year-old Lauren said when she saw the quiche appear from the oven, "I can't wait to eat it!" Yes, my kids like this quiche! Lauren explained to 5-year-old Dave, "It's good for you. It's got vegetables, cheese, meat, and grains in it." Dave was unimpressed, but I felt happy that Lauren had been listening to at least some of my frequent talks on nutrition.

I like to make this quiche when entertaining company for brunch. I also make it when I have house guests, and I want to feed them something besides cold cereal for breakfast and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. These are our daily fare, but I don't like to push them on company. I typically make two quiches at a time because I want left-overs. This left-over quiche tastes good after it's re-heated in the microwave.

Click on 'Continue reading" for the recipe:

Change Everyday Meat and Potatoes Meal Into Fun Election Party Dinner!

Next Tuesday is election day! Who will move to the White House?

We've borne nearly two years of presidential campaigning. But after next week, campaign TV ads, speeches, phone calls, and yard signs will evaporate. Yesterday, one political reviewer wondered aloud to her radio audience how she will fill her time. Time? Time to celebrate!

And somewhat more than half of all Americans will be pleased with the election outcome. Which Americans will throw celebratory parties and which will throw commiserating parties is still in suspense. But regardless of outcome, election night in the U.S. is party time!

However, for must of us it's also a work-night, school-night, and in-every-other-way-ordinary Tuesday night. Got to feed the kids and get them to bed. So how will we - the folks on Main Street -celebrate?

A patriotic cake with red, white, and blue frosting always works. But do you have time to make one? We have to make nutritious dinners regardless of current events. So here's an idea for suping up the mainstay of Main Street, that classic of American, middle class tables - the United States of America meat loaf! You all know how to make one, so I won't bother giving a recipe. (In case you want to try a new recipe however, here's a link to a wonderful meatloaf recipe.) So here's how to change meatloaf into an election-party centerpiece.

It's all in the hands. Yes, it's gross, but effective. Mix up your favorite meatloaf recipe. Oil a baking sheet. Put the meat on the sheet then mold it into the shape of the political party that you want to win the election. I thought the molding would be difficult, but it was really easy. I made donkey and elephant-shaped loaves amazingly fast. Raw meat is a surprisingly easy medium to sculpt in. Really, you can shape these in no time.

To keep the appendages from over-cooking, I covered them with foil. I baked them without sauce on top because I didn't want the elephant and donkey to look bloody. After cooking and picture-taking, then I put on the kids' favorite meatloaf sauce, Cranberry Topping.

While the meatloaf baked, I made mashed potatoes and broccoli spears. These were for making the White House. Again, use your hands to form the mashed potatoes into the White House shape. (Mashed potatoes, being slightly sticky, are a bit more resistant to sculpting than meatloaf, but still workable and you're kids will think it's cool.) The bonus comes from the broccoli shrubbery. Kids are much more willing to eat broccoli if they think it's inedible trees and bushes.

Eyeball Cupcakes in Red Jello Cauldron Scare Halloween Party Children

Our Halloween party is the weekend before Halloween when friends come to carve jack-o-lantern pumpkins, dress-up in Halloween costumes, and eat fun, Halloween party food.  Our children think that Halloween party food should be SCARY! not beautiful. So this year we created eyeball cupcakes in a cauldron of red jello and gummy worms. 

It was easy to make, and a lot of fun to eat. I got the recipe for the cupcakes from the blog Sweet and Simple Bakes. And I'm entering these eyeball cupcakes in their Spooktacular Halloween Cupcake round-up. The recipe is for an easy-to-make white sponge cake that tastes delicious. I used half the cupcake batter to make 12 mini-muffins. 9-year-old Lauren used the rest to make a single-layer pumpkin cake.

I used Rombauer and Becker's Joy of Cooking (1976) recipe for Boiled White Icing. This icing looks shiny - just like eyeballs. I bought red, brown, and blue gel icing for the eyes. I should have used black gel icing too, but used black frosting for the eye pupils. Lauren wanted the black frosting to decorate her Halloween pumpkin cake.

While we were baking and icing the cakes, our red jello was setting in a cast-iron pot the 'fridge. Before it was completely firm, we took it out and stirred it to look like blood. We added gummy worms to make it look extra disgusting. I placed the iced cupcakes in the jello, then drew on the irises, pupils, and blood lines.

Crock Pot Cooking Wins Race To Feed Hungry Children; Beats Pretty Snack Foods

It's 6:00 p.m. The white van pulls into the garage. The motor stops. The RACE IS ON!

Mother and two children leap from car. Jockeying to lead, the three race to the door. Who will be first to get it unlocked? Who ever's first will have the future advantage.

Oh NO! 5-year-old Dave unlocked the door letting 9-year-old Lauren slip pass into the kitchen! One-handed, she swings open the cupboard door and begins searching for snack food.

Frantic mom overtakes her and races to crock pot! She cries," Look dinner's here! It's ready! It's ready NOW!"

Lauren is pulling out packaged granola bars. Dave's grabbing Ritz crackers.

Mom cries, "Put those back! Dinner will be on the table as soon as your hands are washed!"

Disbelieving children scrutinize their mother's sincerity. "Can she really serve dinner before I can open this flavorful, pre-packaged snack?" They consider their options. Ingest pre-packaged snacks and get full belly, happy tongue, and Mother's wrath. Or put down snack food and wash hands to prepare for unknown meal from crock pot. Heavy decisions for ones so young.

Spectators might wager that the pre-packaged, pretty snack foods have the advantage in this race to feed hungry children. Children already know how delicious the snacks are; they've eaten them before. These snacks are packed with chemical ingredients scientifically-shown to tantalize the tongue. And they are encased in pretty packaging designed by Ph. D. psychologists to induce selection. In a beauty contest, the snacks are hands-down winners. The children also know that anything could be in that crock pot.

But the crock pot has a secret weapon: flavorful aroma. Mother knows that smell triggers salivation faster than sight. As soon as that kitchen door bursts open, the aroma from the crock pot invades the nostrils like marines storming beaches.

But the next move is Mom's. Can she do it? Can she dish up dinner as fast as the children can wash their hands? They're washing speed is increasing as they age. Mom will have to go for the burn.

YES! SHE DOES IT! Crock-pot BBQ chicken is served before a snack is consumed. Healthy eating wins!!!!

This family's contest is similar to the World Series, but worse. It's not best out of 5; it's best out of 18 years.

Click on "Continue reading..." for an easy crock pot recipe for barbecue chicken that will help you win the race.