A little food Inspiration

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Cindy

I’ve gotten a little food inspiration recently on Pinterest and have decided to share a few with you.

One thing that I make now – several times a week – is No Knead Bread. Most of you know that I although I love to cook, I’m not that great of a baker. Doughs that I have to knead or roll out into pie crusts are not my cup of tea. And, my lack of having the knack for it shows in my final results, ergo, I’ve quit trying. So, when I saw a Pin of a pretty loaf of bread with a caption underneath that read, “No Knead Bread” I figured it was worth taking a look. The instructions seemed easy enough – as a matter of fact – the author demonstrated with photos of her four-year old making a loaf, just how incredibly easy it is. How hard could this be, I wondered?

After a trip to the grocery store to buy yeast (I had a package in my cupboard that was at least 50 gazillion years old, so thought better of using it) I tried my hand at it. My first loaf, although very tasty, didn’t rise as much as the one in the photo I had seen, and I guessed it was because I used rapid-rise yeast and not instant as the recipe had called for. No store in my little town had the instant in stock, and since I don’t know that much about baking with yeasts, I guessed there wasn’t such a thing, anyway. Turns out, there is a product called instant yeast, and the trick for using rapid-rise instead is to use more in your recipe. I doubled the amount in the next loaf, and voila, it turned out perfect!

Another recipe I tried was for crack-tastic crackers. Saltine crackers, canola oil, red pepper flakes and a packet of dry ranch dressing. Simple! I use Keebler Town House crackers since I don’t normally keep saltines in the house. These are yum to eat as snack, but I also envision making them to use for canapes for guests, too.

Another wonderfully good find is the chicken and dumplings recipe, I found recently. I already have several recipes for this dish in my recipe book. One calls for using one of those tubular cans of biscuits for the dumplings and another calls for making a quick dough out of Bisquick and dropping by spoonfuls on top near the end of the cooking process. My recipes are okay, but not great. My new recipe for chicken and dumplings is FANTASTIC! This recipe calls for making dumpling noodles, requiring rolling out dough and cutting into strips. Easy! I thought I took a picture of this completed dish, but cannot find one. Trust me when I tell you mine looked just like the picture here.

And, this broccoli dish brags that it is the best broccoli ever. I agree! I can’t find my photo of this dish, so I borrowed this one from the author.

I’ve also been inspired to made pumpkin cupcakes, Thai ribs, roasted green beans, and stuffed pasta shells. I’ve “pinned” lots of other recipes to try, too – for soups, salads, appetizers, entrees, side dishes, desserts.

It’s so much fun to try new dishes!

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The Wheeling Gourmet

Posted on April 21, 2010 by Cindy

Nic Steenhout, aka, The Wheeling Gourmet

I’ve recently discovered a new website that was created by a great chef and a cool guy, my friend, Nicolas Steenhout. The site, The Wheeling Gourmet, is, of course, a cooking site. Since I love to cook, I find perusing cooking sites a fun pastime. Some of the sites I stumble upon are okay and some, not so much. But, this site is different, somehow. Every time I visit Nic’s site, I get this feeling that there is something more, a true passion for cooking and sharing, and I absolutely love that!

Honestly, I do not know a lot about Nic. I know he is a Canadian living in New Zealand by way of Chicago and Savannah. I know he was once a professional chef and he co-authored a cookbook on wild meat and game. I know he is an advocate for people with disabilities. His other site, Accessibility NZ, deals with web accessibility issues. I know he plays wheelchair rugby.

The first recipe I made was the Chicken Chorizo Clay Pot. Oh, I didn’t have a clay pot, so I used a Dutch oven. I didn’t have mirin sauce (mirin is a sweet Japanese wine) so I used sherry. I didn’t even have any chorizo (Spanish sausage) and had to use kielbasa. (If I lived even remotely close to a decent grocery store, I would have made a quick trip to purchase those ingredients. Using the right ingredients is important!) But, even with all those changes, I loved this recipe! The flavors were incredible. I have made this again, since that first time, with the correct ingredients (well, except for the clay pot) with fantastic results.

The second recipe I tried was the Pork Medallions with Orange and Ginger Reduction. Oh, I fudged this one up, too! I thought I had defrosted a small pork tenderloin to use, but instead had a small package of ribs. Sheesh! The orange and ginger reduction and balsamic vinegar reduction were fabulous, though, and it still turned out to be a great dinner!

Several other recipes that are high on my list to try soon are the Braised Beef Shin with Orange and Black Olive – Osso Bucco Style, the Mousse au Chocolat, Chicken Brochettes Marinated in Olive Oil and Lemon Juice, and Spaghetti Carbonara. Nic provides U.S. Standard measurements alongside the metric equivalents to make it easy for us Americans, too! And, he always remembers to list the U.S. term for ingredients like red capcium (red pepper) and kumara (a Maori word for sweet potato).

Setting up for a food photograph.

What else is cool about Nic is that he has a passion for photography and takes all of his own food photos! Typically food photographers add a lot of crap that make dishes inedible just to make a picture look appealing, but Nic cooks his food, plates it up, snaps his photos and then he eats it! Nic’s food photos are fantastic! Both photos in this article (yes, even the self photo above) were taken by Nic.

The site, The Wheeling Gourmet, is a work in progress. So, please visit it often! And, don’t be afraid to ask Nic questions, he loves to answer! And, if you are inclined to take a photo of your cooking masterpiece, he would like to see it!

Oh, and a clay pot, like the one featured on his site, is now on my wish list, in case you were wondering!

Happy eating!

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Chewing the fat with a country girl

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Cindy

Right now, it is early Saturday morning, dark and raining. Daylight is very slow in coming and it is, indeed, a good day to write. So, with coffee in hand, I compose this post.

November was a very interesting month for me and, lucky for you, I feel like telling you all about it!

First, about NaNoWriMo. I did not write the required number of 50,000 words and did not win the coveted prize – the NaNo tee shirt. Believe it or not, I’m okay with that. Without having more than a vague notion on Day 1 of what I wanted to write, I really didn’t expect to accomplish such a lofty goal. As the days progressed and my ideas stagnated, I began to write pure garbage to try to maintain a decent word count. Then, it occurred to me that I was wasting valuable time for nothing. Don’t get me wrong. Out of the 23,706 words I have written, I might could use four or five thousand as a beginning draft to my story. And, that is good! It is a beginning. It is more than I had on October 31. Next, I begin the task of writing each of my possible three plots to see which one works.

Second, I recently received a renewal notice from my web host regarding cindyscountrycorner.com. Wow. That means I’ve been doing this blogging thing for a year now. The notice made me think about my site and how it first got started. In the beginning, I had no idea where it was headed. I thought I’d write more entries than I actually did. I thought I’d write more about aging, and books, and recipes. I thought I’d write more about the lowcountry and events going on in my neck of the woods. Turns out, this blog is not any of those things. It is really just my journal of life. It means that this blog will never get famous or that strangers from the world over will hang on every word I write or that advertisers will clamor for a spot on my site. And, I’m okay with that, too. That one renenwal notice solidified for me what this blog is about.

But, that revelation made me realize that I want to start another website. My OTHER website. The one where I actually DO write about the people and events in the lowcountry. It will be an on-line magazine. And, it will be the definitive site to visit if you are a local or a visitor to my neck of the woods! And, of course, it will attract both local and web advertisers. Well, that’s my dream, anyway! I have a domain name picked out, but cannot reveal it yet. I wouldn’t want someone else to buy it first!

A third thing that happened to me in November is meeting a writer, Amy Oscar, who is in the process of writing a book about angels. She is looking for angel stories to include in her project and I directed her to two of my stories – “Millie’s Angel” and “Thinking in Threes.” The exciting news is that she likes one of these stories (“Thinking in Threes”) and is including it in her work! Oh, I don’t get paid for the story or anything like that. Heck, I’m not even sure I will be given credit. She might only use bits and pieces of the story for all I know. But, the thing that is important is that I wrote something that someone else can use. Writing doesn’t get any better than that, me thinks! (I’ve added her personal website, Story, Spirit, Seed to my Sites I Like list located on the left sidebar of this page)

A fourth thing that happened last month is that one of my blog pictures was used on another website and it links to my website! The picture is one I took this past summer during sister vacation. It is a shot of the front of Phipp’s Conservatory in Pittsburgh, PA. Go here to see it! http://www.nextstop.com/guide/Y4WaPVDKSI4/go-pittsburgh/

A fifth thing is that I joined Facebook. If any of you would like to friend me there, you can find me by clicking anywhere on my Facebook Profile Badge which is located on the left sidebar of this page (near the very bottom of the page).

Oh, and one other thing that I should have mentioned earlier is that I am going to start writing my cookbook. I had forgotten about my desire to do that until a few days before Thanksgiving. My friend at work, Pat, had found a macaroni and cheese recipe on All Recipes she wanted to use for her big family Thanksgiving reunion. I remembered one that I make that is super easy and super good. It is from “Mrs. Whaley’s Charleston Kitchen.” This is a wonderful little cookbook that is also filled with pearls of wit and wisdom from a very charming and witty Charleston grand dame. I hadn’t had this book out in a while and immediately fell in love with Emily Whaley all over again. Since I am full of advice and opinions and love to cook, I thought that I, too, could become a cookbook author! Maybe I’ll call my cookbook “Chewing the Fat with a Country Girl.” Haha!

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