As much as I hate work, I love to roast things. Plop them in a pan, toss ‘em in the oven, and a little while later . . . scrumptiousness. I am all about the roasting. I found this to be a good first step in my (often stumbling) journey towards from-scratch-ness (and a good way to break my addiction to those little roast chickens the local supermarket sells). I was going to share a recipe for my favourite roast chicken but decided hey, why not do The Full Meal Deal and share a complete roast meal? Three recipes all with a similar theme of roasting, olive oil, sea salt and garlic (no obligation to make them all at once, of course). Bon appetit?

Roast Lemon Garlic Chicken

Roasted Chicken Recipe Credit to Jaime Oliver
One roasting chicken, defrosted
one lemon
olive oil
one whole bulb of garlic, broken into cloves
sea salt
black pepper
one handful of fresh thyme
one handful fresh rosemary sprigs, leaves picked (save these for the potatoes)

Preheat oven to 375.
Put a small pot of water on to boil, add lemon (yes, just put it in whole) and garlic cloves and boil for ten minutes. Slather chicken with olive oil and season with sea salt, black pepper, and thyme (fresh if possible). Put the lemon and garlic in cavity of chicken. Stab lemon about 10 times with a knife so hot lemon juice is released into chicken (yum!). Toss it into the oven (you know, in a pan of some sort), and roast for 90 minutes.

Roasted Broccoli with Garlic

Roasted Broccoli
Broccoli florets
olive oil
garlic
sea salt

Preheat oven to 450. Toss broccoli lightly in olive oil and garlic (minced, crushed, whole – according to your preference). Sprinkle lightly with salt and roast for 20 minutes.

Roast Potatoes with Rosemary

Roast Potatoes
New potatoes (russet work okay but new potatoes are best)
olive oil
rosemary
sea salt
black pepper
garlic (optional)

Preheat oven to 450. Chop potatoes in half or into thirds according to size. Toss lightly in olive oil and season with rosemary, sea salt, black pepper, and garlic. Roast for 30 minutes, till potatoes are brown and crispy on the outside.

When you’re cooking on a budget, beans are a staple.  They’re inexpensive, versatile, and tasty.  We use them in chili, soups, bean burgers, vegetarian tacos, and more.  Our favorite bean recipe by far, however, is homemade refried beans.  They’re really easy to make, and they are so yummy, I have to stop myself from eating them straight out of the pan before dinner.

All you need to make your own homemade refries is as follows:

1lb bag of pinto or black beans (believe it or not, black beans are more commonly used to make refried beans in Mexico, but we prefer pinto)

3 cloves garlic

1/2 medium onion, chopped (or a generous amount of onion powder)

butter or oil

Salt to taste

Start by rinsing and sorting your beans to be sure you’re not cooking up  some rocks along with your beans.  Place them in a large pot and cover them with a lot of water.  Bring to a boil, and boil for two minutes.  Remove the pot from the heat, cover, and let it stand for an hour.

Once the hour is up, drain the beans and cover with 6-8 cups of fresh water.  Chop two of your garlic cloves, or push them through a garlic press.  Chop your onion. Add the garlic and onion to the beans.  Bring to a boil, cover with a tilted lid, and cook for about two hours, or until the beans are soft.

Heat a few tablespoons of butter or canola oil in a large frying pan.  Chop or press your remaining garlic clove, and cook until soft and fragrant.  Add a few spoonfuls of the beans, and mash them with a potato masher, or the back of your spoon.  Add a bit of the liquid from the beans (or water, if the liquid cooked down).  Keep adding spoonfuls of beans, mashing them, and adding a bit of liquid, until you’ve incorporated all of your beans.

Add more liquid than you think you need because they will thicken a lot.  once you’ve incorporated all of your beans, add some salt.  Taste the beans, add more salt if needed.  Just keep adding salt and tasting until they are just right.

Serve them warm with some fresh homemade tortillas and rice you’ve got a really yummy meal!

Krystal lives in Colorado with her husband, a self-proclaimed broken hipster, and their son, whom they lovingly refer to as, The Bug.  The list of things she loves includes (among other things) sewing, decorating, the Pacific Ocean, classic films, classic literature, cooking and baking, chocolate, shoes, and nail polish.  She spends her days chasing after The Bug, picking up her husband’s wet towels and dirty socks, blogging, sewing, cooking, and trying to make her home as comfortable as she can.

See? The Damsel told you she was nice. Now then. The Clever Mommy.

There are few memories of my mother and myself in the kitchen that I remember with more fondness than the days that she would let me help her make tortillas.  Of course helping was more like watching, but I didn’t know that then.

We would spend a few hours in the afternoon, while my brothers were outside playing, making a huge batch of soft delicious tortillas.  They would be used in various meals during the week, and heated in a pan, topped with a little melted butter for snacks.  She would tell me about how she learned to make them from the mother of one of her friends in school, who had come to the United States from Mexico.  Inevitably the story would turn to the time that she was spending the night at that friend’s home and was asked to stir the soup that was cooking on the stove.  I would cringe and giggle at the same time when she told me about the goat eye ball floating in the soup when she lifted the lid to stir.  Apparently they didn’t waste any parts of the animal when they cooked.

These stories still float through my head as I make tortillas in my own home, without Mom.  And the tortillas are still super soft and super delicious.  So delicious, in fact, that I forsake my gluten-free diet every once in a while simply to make and eat these tortillas.

Authentic tortillas are made with lard.  If you want a truly authentic flavor, you should use lard, too.  I am a vegetarian, however, and the shortening that I use works just fine.  I’ve even used butter in a pinch.
To make 18 tortillas, you’ll need the following ingredients:

3 C. flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 C. shortening (or lard)

3/4 C. HOT water (as hot as you can handle it)

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, and then cut the shortening in with a pastry cutter or your hands.  The mixture should look crumbly.  If it’s not crumbly, and more resembles flour, you need to add a bit more shortening.

Add the hot water and mix with your hands or a fork (I’ve heard a stand mixer is great for using nearly boiling water without having to touch it).  Press against the sides of the bowl to pick up all of the dough.  If it’s sticking to the sides, you need to add a bit more flour.  You should have a nice moist dough that can be formed into a ball.

Form the dough into 18 balls, and then let them rest, covered with a damp kitchen towel, for an hour.

Lightly flour your working surface, coat your rolling pin with flour, and roll out a dough ball until paper thin.  It will not be perfectly round (unless you have some magical tortilla rolling powers that I lack).

Heat a frying pan (I prefer stainless steel) over medium heat, and place the tortilla in the pan.  Let it cook until it starts to bubble up, about a minute, then flip it over.

Let it cook another minute or so, and place it in between two kitchen towels.

All of my kitchen towels were dirty, so I had to use paper towels. Don’t judge.

Continue the process with the remaining balls of dough, and stack them all in between the two towels.  Store them in a large ziplock bag in the fridge to keep them soft.  If they do get a bit hard, all it takes is a few seconds in the microwave or in a hot pan on the stove to make them soft and pliable again.

Enjoy!

But even a store-bought jar can be hard to open.

1. Is there a man/and/or/teenager with big, strong hands around? If so, ask him to open the jar. This will make him feel good about himself.

2. Get traction. Wrap rubber bands, (the kind that come on broccoli work well) around the lid to give it some grabbyness. A piece of rubbery shelf liner works too.

The Damsel has even heard of a person using a mouse pad. He got the lid open and also felt happy that his mouse pad actually did something useful.

3. Run hot water over the lid area. This not only loosens any dried stuff, but expands the metal a bit so it will let go of the glass a little easier. The Damsel saves this one for last because once the jar is wet, everything is slippery.

4. There are other ways, like prying around the lid with a spoon or can opener to lessen the vacuum. Some folks hit the jar with things; others hit the jar against things. People even stab the lid with a knife, thus relieving the vacuum. This gives the Damsel an uncomfortable feeling inside.

Let’s not open that can of worms.

But sometimes!

It makes nothing but a runny, disgusting, oily mess. Sometimes it can be attributed to user error (most commonly, being impatient about letting the egg come to room temperature) but sometimes it seems to be a reason unfathomable, like the phase of the moon or which side of your head you parted your hair.

It’s sad to throw out the ingredients and start over. A sad, sad waste. It’s enough to make a person completely lose control, throw up her hands and buy a bottle of mayonnaise.

Gasp!

Before you do something so drastic, the Damsel has recently come upon a fix. When a mayonnaise emulsion doesn’t work, they call it “broken,” and so it is. But if you’ll invest just one more little egg yolk, all will be well again.

Put a room temperature egg yolk into a container. Add the “broken” mayo to it drip by drip while whisking madly. (you can use your stick blender if you wish) You can increase the drip rate to a small drizzle after half of the liquid has been incorporated.

Magic has returned to the earth!

For extra credit, please visit her beautiful blog, Towards Sustainability.

One of the first things I did when we began to live more simply was to look for homemade substitutes for commercial products.  I *heart* my slow cooker (aka crock pot) and at the time I used a lot of canned condensed soups in various slow cooker casseroles, so when I found an easy-to-make substitute on Tammy’s Recipes website, I was excited!

As the comments on her original post imply, this recipe is so tasty,  quick and easy I would never go back the bought stuff again.

Homemade Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

Ingredients:

1½ cups of chicken stock (broth)*
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp dried parsley
1/8 tsp ground pepper
dash paprika
1½ cups milk
¾ cups plain flour

* I like to use homemade chicken stock, made from leftover roasted chicken carcasses, which I freeze for storage.  Homemade stock will be really flavorful, however you can, of course, use bouillon cubes or powder.

Method:

Add ½ cup of the milk to the chicken broth in a medium saucepan:

And then add the herbs and spices.  Luckily for me, my trusty measuring spoons include one for “dash” so I can get the paprika just right

You’ll need to heat the mix until boiling, and continue to boil for 1 or 2 minutes whilst whisking the mixture.

In the meantime, add the plain flour to the remaining 1 cup of milk:

And whisk together until you have a nice smooth batter:

Then pour this into the mixture in the saucepan:

And continue to heat whilst whisking, until the mixture is nicely thickened, about 1-2 minutes:

And there you have it! Easy peasy.

This recipe makes the equivalent of two cans of condensed soup; I divide mine into two and freeze in labeled portions until needed, when I thaw it in the refrigerator overnight. The recipe can also be easily doubled, tripled etc.

Now that’s one more product you don’t have to buy

No more eggs that have to be peeled chip by tiny chip. This is the Damsel’s wish for you. Obey her instructions, and everything will be as it should be.

1. Choose eggs that aren’t super fresh. If you didn’t take your eggs from under a chicken, you’re probably good, considering shipping and whatnot for the modern supermarket.

2. Set eggs carefully in a pot and cover with COLD water.

3. Heat until water boils.

4. Cover pot and remove from heat.

5. Let the eggs stand in the hot water, covered, for 18 minutes. Let us be clear that the pot is no longer on a hot burner.

6. Run cool water over the eggs. You can ice them if you like. DONE! Time to start coloring!

Yes, this scenario is drawn from real life. Soon the Damsel will be feeding 100 people at a family-dinner-before-the-wedding-dealio. Just refer to her from now on as Headless Chicken.

One recipe that fell under her scrutinizing eye called for candied ginger. Usually such a recipe would be scoffed at and immediately passed over. But the bride begged so prettily that the Damsel deigned to give it a try. A trip to the market revealed that one small bottle of candied ginger cost over $9. The same amount of raw ginger cost $0.51. Hilarity ensued. As if!

The Damsel found several complicated ways to make your own candied ginger, and one easy way. GUESS WHICH is featured in this post?

Hints:

1. The Damsel has a wedding to take care of very, very soon.

2. The Damsel has many, many other children which have loads of things going on.

3. The Damsel has a lazy streak a mile long.

4. The Damsel categorically shies from recipes that use words like “hard ball” or “soft crack” or any fear-inducing words. The easy recipe had no such thing.

Acquire a large-ish piece of fresh ginger and peel it. The Damsel heard that scraping it with the side of a spoon works well, and indeed it does.

Dice it up, baby.

Combine 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice and heat until it just comes to a boil.

Add the chopped ginger to the pot. The Damsel’s hunk yielded about 1/3 cup. Cook for 20 minutes or so until the ginger is tender. Let it cool a bit.

Let it drain, but don’t stress. The Damsel’s cooking liquid got sort of thick, and nothing bad happened.

Pour a bunch of sugar over the drained pieces and stir to coat. “Candied” ginger means “ginger cooked in sugar and then drenched in more sugar.”

Keep stirring and tossing the little pieces until they are individually coated. The Damsel just left them in the same strainer, and as sugar fell through the mesh, she just repoured it over the top until everything was completely coated.

The ginger will keep in a covered container on the shelf for at least 3 months. You just saved $9!

Homemade Candied Ginger (cut and pastable version)

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup minced fresh ginger

Additional sugar

Heat sugar, water and lemon juice until it just comes to a boil. Add minced ginger and cook for 20 minutes or until ginger is tender. Drain. Toss with additional sugar until all the pieces are well coated. Store at room temperature, covered, up to 3 months.

There is also the Damsel’s Bacon Corollary, which reads: “The amount of bacon cooked will never exceed the amount eventually eaten.”

The Damsel has cooked a lot of bacon in her life, and has also eaten it in restaurants. She has looked with great longing at restaurant bacon and wished fervently to know how they get it so nicely flat and evenly cooked. She’s fooled around with bacon presses and extra-thick cuts and precooked packages, with mixed results.

Recently she heard about BAKING bacon instead of frying it on the stove. The Damsel was skeptical. It can’t really be that easy, can it? Or wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

She tried it. They were right. This is a seriously good way to make bacon.

Lay the bacon on a cookie sheet. You can line it with foil first if you like. (In this picture the Damsel is cooking the second batch of bacon on the same foil, hence the strange foil appearance)

Turn the oven on to 400F degrees and put the pan in the oven. Don’t preheat! Put them in the cold oven, even though it seems terribly, horribly wrong.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, depending on how crispy you like your bacon. The Damsel feels wiggily bacon should be banned from the kingdom. This is her wish.

Transfer to a paper-towel lined plate for immediate consumption and happiness. Look! It’s flat! It’s crispy! nom nom nom.

Don’t worry. All is not lost. It’s not necessary to pack up the kids and head for the nearest market for a fresh bag. (If the Damsel had to do that, she’d be hard pressed not to just buy cookies already made and save herself the trouble, as long as she was at the market.)

The Damsel recognizes that mood is important in cookie baking.

Grandma’s favorite trick was to put a piece of bread in the brown sugar container, make sure it was closed tightly, and come back the next day. “Tomorrow” is always a good day for making cookies.

Or, you could use slices of apple. Or a piece of lettuce. Or you could even soak a shard from a broken clay pot, and close that up with the boulder-o-brown-sugar. You can see a pattern begin to emerge–add moisture to the sugar in a controlled fashion. The Damsel testifies that this works, and the brown sugar is in “like-new” condition after a day or two.

But what if you need brown sugar NOW? The Damsel admits, there are times when your back is against the wall when it comes to cookies. Sometimes there’s just no waiting till tomorrow.

You can put the lump in the blender/food processor, if your machine is up to it. After a few ear-splitting minutes, you’ll have brown sugar powder, which can then be measured as usual.

Or, even easier, just nuke the thing. Put the sugar into an open container. Set a bowl of water beside it, and microwave for a minute. Check it…if it’s still not quite soft, you can go again, but just make sure you stop before it melts. That would be considerably worse than having it hard.

Or go old school, and heat it in a 250F degree oven. Check every few minutes until it’s soft enough to measure.

Here’s a brown sugar measuring shortcut: The Damsel does not do that thing where you pack the sugar into a measuring cup with a spoon. Just stick the measuring cup right inside the plastic brown sugar bag, and press the sugar into the measuring cup with your fingers–pressing from the outside of the plastic bag. Does that make sense?

Someone, please tell the Damsel she makes sense. Just once in her life.