This week’s cooking project from my collection of recipes is my recipe for chicken soup. Originally, I put together the recipe to make soup on one of the occasions I did so for the coffee and social hour at my church (a different kind of soup from the vegetable soup I initially, and usually, make on such occasions), hence a volume of eight quarts; normally at home, I make four quarts of this soup. However, today I decided I would make the full eight quart recipe and test out how well it freezes, never having tried to freeze this soup before. (Update 20210407: I have since made another eight quarts of the soup, it having been gobbled up rather quickly, and for both batches, it froze and defrosted quite nicely.)
First, I emptied six 900ml boxes of store-bought chicken broth …
Six – 900mL boxes of chicken broth
… into my 16 quart stock pot:
Chicken broth transferred to a pot
Then, four pounds of chicken pieces …
Four pounds of chicken
… were placed into the chicken broth …
Chicken pieces placed in the chicken broth
… and brought to a boil:
Broth and chicken brought to a boil
While the broth and chicken were heating up and boiling for about 30 minutes, carrots were taken out (yes, these were a bit on the old side):
Carrots taken out
The carrots were cleaned and trimmed:
Cleaned and trimmed carrots
Then, they were quartered, length-wise:
Quartered carrots
… and then the carrots were chopped coarsely:
Chopped carrots
The chopped carrots were placed in a bowl, and put aside for later:
Chopped carrots in a bowl and put aside
Then, celery (a bit more than called for in my recipe) was taken out and cleaned:
Cleaned celery sticks
The celery stalks were trimmed:
Trimmed celery stalks
Then the celery stalks were were sliced lengthwise:
Celery stalks sliced lengthwise
… and then the celery stalks were chopped coarsely:
Chopping the celery
The chopped celery was placed in a bowl, and put aside for later:
Chopped celery in a bowl and put aside
About two pounds of onions were then taken out …
About two pounds of onions
… trimmed …
Trimmed onions
… quartered …
Quartered onions
… and chopped coarsely:
Chopped onions
The chopped onions were placed in a bowl, and put aside for later:
Chopped onions in a bowl and put aside
At this point, the chicken and broth had been boiling for about 30 minutes:
Cooked chicken after boiling for 30 minutes
… and the chicken pieces were taken out of the broth, and placed on a cutting board:
Cooked chicken taken out of the broth and placed on a cutting board
The heat under the broth was turned off for the time being, and the chicken put aside for a few moments to allow some cooling.
In the meantime, the chicken fat was skimmed off the top of the broth and placed in a fat separator:
Skimmed chicken fat in a fat separator
The soup fraction at the bottom was transferred back to the soup pot, and the fat was transferred to a bowl to solidify:
Liquid chicken fat transferred to a bowl
Should one not have a fat separator, the skimmed fat can be placed in a large bowl or pot, and ice can be added to more quickly solidify the fat, allowing for its easy removal so that the (now diluted) soup fraction underneath can be returned to the soup pot:
Ice added to the chicken fat to solidify it and recover the liquid soup underneath
Returning to the soup ingredients, I separated the somewhat cooled chicken meat …
Chicken meat separated from bones, skin, and cartilage
… from the bones, skin, and cartilage:
Bones, skin, and cartilage separated from the chicken meat
The bones, skin, and cartilage were wrapped up in paper along with the solidified chicken fat, and the trimmings from the carrots, celery, and onions, to be placed in my curbside brown box for pickup for municipal composting.
The chicken meat was placed back on the cleaned cutting board:
Chicken meat placed back on the cutting board
… and the chicken meat was chopped coarsely:
Coarsely chopped chicken
The chopped chicken was placed in a bowl, and put aside for later:
Chopped chicken
At this point, I started “assembling” the soup, by adding the chopped celery to the still-hot broth:
Adding chopped celery to the chicken broth
… then the chopped carrots:
Adding chopped carrots to the chicken broth
… then the chopped onions:
Adding chopped onions to the chicken broth
… and finally the chopped chicken meat:
Adding chopped chicken to the chicken broth
Given that the commercial broth purchased for today’s cooking had sufficient salt content for my liking, barely a shake of extra salt was added to the pot.
The soup was brought to a boil again, and boiled for another thirty minutes:
Soup boiling again
Here’s the soup after boiling all the ingredients together for thirty minutes:
Cooked chicken soup. Yummy!
The cooked chicken soup was transferred to ten used yoghurt containers for freezing, and two more slightly larger containers (on the right) to put in the fridge for supper later on in the day:
Ten containers of soup for freezing, and two more slightly larger containers for supper
The soup for supper was great, and the individual containers are already in the freezer for future eating.
My recipe for stuffed potato skins is a bit of a no-brainer, whose formal existence as a recipe lies more in the documenting the amounts of ingredients required so as to minimize waste and leftovers, or scrambling about to prepare extra ingredients to use up other already-prepared ingredients. Originally, making the stuffed potato skins was both an effort to add to my collection of recipes that could be used to fill the freezer, as well as a response to a desire to make stuffed potato skins, critically, using items I normally have on hand (potatoes, cheese, and in this case, frozen cooked breakfast sausages); however, yummy as they are, there was no pretense to attempt to replicate some mythically great potato skins eaten at some hypothetical pub.
First, five potatoes were taken out …
Five potatoes
… and then washed — in this picture, save one, to show the comparison between cleaned and not (although the bag of potatoes does say “washed potatoes”).
Washed potatoes
Potatoes were halved along their length:
Potato cut along its length
The potatoes were then somewhat hollowed out (before cooking, instead of after, as mentioned in my recipe, so that I could boil the removed pulp later to make mashed potatoes), while leaving a generous amount of the potato pulp in the skins:
Hollowed out potato skin and removed pulp
The pulps from the potatoes were placed in water, to boil later …
Pieces of potato pulp hollowed out from the skins, to be boiled later
… and with which to ultimately make a bit of mashed potatoes to be used in a lunch in the next couple of days:
The mashed potatoes made from the pulp parts of the five potatoes used today, to be eaten at an upcoming meal
Back to the potato skins: The hollowed out potatoes were placed on a microwave-safe plate:
Hollowed out potatoes on a plate
The plate of hollowed out potatoes were placed in the microwave oven (1200 watts) for 10 minutes:
Hollowed out potatoes in the microwave oven
Once cooked (a few skins needed another couple of minutes to finish cooking), the hollowed out potatoes were placed on a flat surface (a cutting board), ready for stuffing with sausage cubes:
The spears were sliced cross-wise in order to make little cubes …
The spears were sliced to make little cubes
… which were then transferred to a bowl …
Sausage cubes placed in a bowl and put aside
… and which was put aside to be used at the point at which the cooked potato skins were to be stuffed:
Potato skins filled with sausage cut into little cubes
A block of cheese (cheddar in this case) was taken out, along with a cheese slicer:
Block of cheddar cheese and a cheese slicer
About 100g of slices of cheese were cut off of the block …
Cheese slices
… and placed on top of the potato skins filled with sausage cubes:
Cheese slices placed on top of the potato skins filled with sausage cubes
The potato skins were placed in a countertop convection oven preheated to 350F for 15 minutes:
Stuffed potato skins cooked in a countertop convection oven
The first batch of cooked potato skins were taken out of the oven, smelling yummy!
Cooked stuffed potato skins
Once all the stuffed potato skins were cooked and cooled, a couple of them were put aside for supper, while the other eight stuffed potato skins were placed in a container for freezing:
Cooked stuffed potato skins in a container for freezer as well as a plate for supper
Today’s cooking project from my recipe collection was bacon-wrapped chicken pieces, something I originally started making a couple of years ago for their value as an easy enough to make last minute hors d’oeuvres contribution for a party; now I principally make them for the value of having them pre-made in the freezer, including to possibly use at a later time as hors d’oeuvres at a party.
To begin, parchment paper was placed in a baking pan:
Placing parchment paper in a baking pan
Wooden toothpicks were also taken out:
Wooden toothpicks prepared
I cut a package and a half’s worth (375g each package, for a total of about 560g) of bacon into half-lengths, which worked out to 40 half-slices, the amount of pieces I target in my recipe.
40 half-slices of bacon, from a pack and a half of bacon (each pack 375g)
The rest of the bacon was placed in a bag and frozen, for later use.
Two chicken breasts were placed on a cutting board:
Two chicken breasts placed on a cutting board, beside a kitchen knife
The chicken breasts were sliced along their length …
A chicken breast cut along its length
… and then each chicken breast was cut into approximately 20 cubes:
Chicken breast cut into cubes
In this case, the pile on the left are the cubes to be used directly, while the pile on the right are smaller pieces which were bundled together two or three pieces at a time in half-slices of bacon as though they were full pieces of chicken.
The cubes were individually wrapped in a half-slice of bacon, and skewered with a wooden toothpick:
Cube of chicken wrapped in bacon, and skewered with a wooden toothpick, to keep them together
Smaller pieces of chicken were bundled together, two or three pieces at a time, and wrapped in bacon, then skewered with a wooden toothpick:
Smaller pieces of chicken bundled together
As each piece of bacon was wrapped in bacon and skewered, they were placed on the parchment paper in a baking pan:
Bacon-wrapped chicken pieces placed in a baking pan
Once all the pieces of chicken were wrapped, they were equally divided between two baking pans that fit (one tray at a time) in my countertop convection oven:
40 pieces of bacon-wrapped chicken divided between two baking pans
The first tray was placed in my countertop convection oven (and yes, the glass door was dirty, and was cleaned afterwards):
Tray of bacon-wrapped chicken pieces in the oven
Partway through the cooking (after about 25 minutes), the pieces were turned over (in this case, the three columns on the left):
Turning over the pieces of bacon-wrapped chicken
When the pieces were fully cooked after about 50 minutes, they were taken out of the oven:
Cooked pieces of bacon-wrapped chicken directly out of the oven
Cooked pieces were transferred to a clean tray to be placed in the freezer:
Cooked pieces were transferred to a clean tray
The first tray of cooked bacon-wrapped chicken was placed in the freezer to cool and freeze.
Meanwhile, the grease and drippings in the baking pan …
Grease and drippings in the baking pan
… were drained into a bowl, cooled and solidified, and then wrapped in paper, to be placed in the municipal brown box for composting.
Grease and drippings transferred to a bowl
The second tray’s worth of raw bacon-wrapped chicken pieces was transferred to the first baking pan, because of its deep sides and all the grease and drippings produced:
Second tray’s worth of bacon-wrapped chicken transferred to the first baking pan with its deep sides
The pieces of bacon-wrapped chicken were cooked the same way as the first tray, and once taken out of the drippings, looked like the first tray of cooked pieces:
Cooked bacon-wrapped chicken pieces on a tray, ready to place in the freezer before transferring to a plastic container
After the second tray of bacon-wrapped chicken had cooked, the frozen pieces from the first tray were transferred to a plastic container:
Frozen pieces of bacon-wrapped chicken placed in a plastic container to be placed in the freezer
Those from the second tray, once cooked, were also transferred to a separate tray, frozen, and then transferred to a plastic container.
All the bacon-wrapped chicken pieces are now in the freezer again, waiting to be eaten — some of them tomorrow!
Of course, the pieces were tasty (I tasted one to make sure they were good!)
Here is the next entry in my series of photo posts of me making the various recipes in my recipe collection.
This week, I took photos while I made more bran muffins for my mom, using a recipe I’d found on allrecipes.com and which so far I have not yetwhich I have now (20210214) converted into my own format. As a side note, I should I have now converted it to my usual recipe format, because when I make them, I use regular milk instead of buttermilk, and I normally make a major change: Instead of placing the batter into twelve muffin papers in a twelve-welled baking tin, I bake the batter in a six-welled baking tin (with slightly larger wells), lined with coffee filter papers, and the baking time was adjusted to 22 minutes.
This batch of muffins had a further deviation from the recipes above, which was the intentional omission of raisins for reasons beyond the scope of this post.
First, I measured out a cup and a half of wheat bran into a mixing bowl:
A cup and a half of wheat bran
A cup of milk was added to the bran:
A cup of milk added to the bran
The bran and milk were mixed with a fork, and put aside:
Mixing the bran and milk
A third of a cup of vegetable oil was measured out and placed in a separate bowl (the white dots are milk leftover in the measuring cup):
1/3 cup vegetable oil measured out
A large egg was added to the vegetable oil:
A large egg added to the vegetable oil
Two thirds of a cup of packed brown sugar were added to the oil and egg:
2/3 cup (packed) brown sugar added to the vegetable oil and egg
A teaspoon of vanilla extract was added to the vegetable oil, egg, and brown sugar:
A teaspoon of vanilla extract added to oil, egg, and brown sugar
The vegetable oil, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla extract were blended with a fork:
Blending of vegetable oil, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla extract
The vegetable oil, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla extract were added to the bran and milk mix:
Vegetable oil, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla extract added to the bran and milk mix
All the ingredients were blended together with a fork:
The ingredients were blended together
A teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda were added to a cup of flour — unfortunately, I forgot to add the quarter teaspoon of salt, to no apparent ill effect.
A teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda added to a cup of flour; salt was forgotten
The flour, baking powder, and baking soda were mixed together in the cup, and added to the rest of the ingredients:
Flour, baking powder, and baking soda mix were added to the rest of the ingredients, and then blended together
Again, all the ingredients were blended together with a fork. At this point, I would normally have added three quarters of a cup of raisins, which I didn’t do this time.
I make double sized muffins for my mom, so I use coffee filter papers, for which I use a glass to help form within the baking tin:
Forming the coffee filter paper in the baking tin wells
The batter was spooned into each of the wells:
Muffin batter spooned into each of six baking tin wells
The muffin tin was placed in a counter-top convection oven preheated to 350F, and baked for 22 minutes (rotated 180 degrees part way through):
Muffins baking in a counter-top convection oven.
The muffins were taken out of the oven after 22 minutes and placed on a cooling rack:
Baked muffins placed on a cooling rack
After a few minutes, the still cooling muffins were taken out of the baking tin, and returned to the cooling rack to continue cooling:
Baked muffins placed on a cooling rack
Once cooled, I placed the muffins in a sealed container.
Mom was so impressed, she said that the following morning, she would have one from this batch, before eating the last muffin from the last batch!
Although I have already done someposts on my pickled eggs, as per my recent wont of photo posts of me making my various recipes, I took a lot of photos yesterday when I made pickled eggs. Sigh, the stores know how to get me every time when they advertise eggs on sale!
Before I went to buy the eggs, I prepared some extra ice, which would be needed later on once the eggs were boiled:
Ice made before leaving to buy the eggs; photo taken later when the ice was frozen
Then I went out to do some shopping and I purchased three flats of 30 eggs each, for a total of 90 eggs, at the advertised price of $4.44 CDN per flat (14.8 cents per egg).
A flat of 30 eggs; I purchased three such flats of eggs.
I took out ten jars with mason openings; although the jars shown aren’t strictly speaking mason jars, they have mason jar threading, and I’ve never had trouble with them.
Ten clean jars with mason jar threading
Of course, I also prepared ten rings and lids (in this case, clean reused lids, since I expect that I will be eating the eggs from most of the jars):
Ten rings and lids for mason jars
Cold water was put in a pot and heated, for later use when boiling the jars.
Cold water put in a pot and boiled, for later use to boil the jars
I boiled and shelled the eggs over two sessions of 45 eggs each, one after the other.
First, eggs were placed in a pot:
45 eggs in a stock pot
Cold water was added to the pot with the eggs, covering the eggs.
Adding cold water to the pot with the eggs
Pot of eggs with water, covering the eggs and about an inch more of water
The stove was turned on, and I brought the eggs to a boil, and then boiled them for eight minutes.
During the time it took to heat up and boil the eggs, the first thing I did was pour myself a nice beer:
Don de Dieu, a 9% bottle refermented abbey-style triple wheat beer
Yes, that is a double sized, 750mL bottle of beer containing 9% alc/vol; it’s called “Don de Dieu”, and it’s a bottle refermented abbey-style triple wheat beer, from Unibroue, in Chambly, Québec.
Yummy!
Back to work, still while the eggs were heating up and boiling, I prepared some pickling solution:
My pickling solution uses 7% pickling vinegar, sugar, salt, and a commercial blend of pickling spices
Vinegar was measured out into a pot (in this case, 7-1/2 cups; according to my recipe, I knew I would need another 3-3/4 cups, as well as the commensurate amounts of sugar, salt, and spices) :
Pickling vinegar measured out into a pot
Sugar (in this case, 1 cup) was added:
Sugar was added to the vinegar
Salt (in this case, 3-1/2 teaspoons) was added to the pickling solution:
Salt was added to the pickling solution
A commercial pickling spice blend (in this case, 3-1/2 tablespoons) was added to the pickling solution:
Pickling spices were added to the pickling solution.
The pickling solution was covered and put aside, to be boiled later.
Soon, the eggs had reached the boiling point, and the eggs were boiled for eight minutes:
Eggs boiling for eight minutes
After eight minutes of boiling, the boiling water was immediately drained from the pot of eggs, and cold water was added to the pot of eggs, as well as ice:
The pot of eggs was drained of its boiling water, and cold water and ice were added.
The ice water and eggs were gently mixed by hand, in order to quickly and thoroughly cool the eggs, which takes a few minutes. This is necessary so as to avoid the development of a greenish-blackish ring around the egg yolks (which is harmless, but aesthetically undesirable), as well as to aid in the peeling; the sharp temperature change helps dislodge the membrane just inside the shell, which will then make it easier to remove the shells and minimize tearing.
The eggshells were then peeled:
Cracking the shell on an egg against the edge of my sink
Egg shells collected into a bowl, and eventually sent to the brown box for curbside collection and municipal composting
Shelled eggs were rinsed in cool water and placed in a couple of bowls:
Of the 90 eggs, the shells of 65 peeled nicely
Sometimes, there are tears when shelling eggs. In yesterday’s case, there were 25 eggs with tears; however, tears don’t affect the eggs’ ability to be pickled, they just make the eggs not always look as nice. As such, these eggs were merely placed in a separate bowl so that they could be bottled together for personal consumption, and to distinguish them from the nicely peeled eggs, should I decide to give away a jar of the “nice” eggs (see below).
.Bowl of 25 eggs with some tears
At this point, a few hand tools were needed: Some tongs, a ladle, a jar holder, and a slotted spoon. Not shown: mason jar filler.
Some tongs, a ladle, a jar holder, and a slotted spoon
At this point, the water which was heated earlier for the bottles was brought up to boiling again, and jars were put in the water once it was boiling:
Mason jars placed in boiling water
At the same time, the pickling solution was brought to a boil:
Pickling solution brought to a boil
In a third pot — the same one in which the eggs were originally boiled — fresh water was brought to a boil, and eggs (in this case, nine eggs at a time, the number of eggs which fit in the size of jars used) were added, once all three pots were boiling:
Shelled eggs reboiled for a few moments in a boiling water bath
Eggs are only kept in the boiling water long enough to take out a jar from the boiling water bath (just as the jars need only be in the boiling water bath for the time it takes to put the eggs in the boiling water bath.)
A jar is taken out of the boiling water bath, and the eggs in the boiling water bath are transferred to the hot jar:
Reboiled eggs transferred to the hot jar
The pot of hot pickling solution — which is kept simmering to boiling on the stove in between filling jars — is brought over, and hot pickling solution is added to the hot jar with the hot eggs:
Pickling solution added to the hot jar filled with hot eggs
The lids and rings were individually placed in the mason jar hot water bath and immediately placed on the filled jars.
Seven jars were each filled with nine eggs without tears, and three jars were each filled with nine eggs with tears.
Once all the jars were filled, they were placed in a refrigerator overnight to cool the contents relatively quickly, in order to avoid the development of greenish-blackish rings around the egg yolks (which is harmless, but aesthetically undesirable.)
Jars of pickled eggs placed in the fridge, with a divider to help quickly distinguish between jars of eggs with and without tears.
This morning, I took the jars out of the fridge, and wiped down the jars, since when filling the jars and putting on the lids, sometimes the pickling solution spilled a bit.
Wiping down the outside of the jars
This included taking off the rings to wipe down the necks of the jars, which wasn’t a problem since all the lids on the jars formed a good vacuum seal.
Wiping down the necks of the jars
I have a computer file of labels I use for my pickled eggs, which I printed out. I do both English and French parts because I live in a primarily French speaking area, and therefore it’s good to have both languages for when I give away and sell jars. I cut out the individual labels, folded them over lengthwise, wrote the date on the backsides, punched a hole in each, and looped an elastic band in the hole of each label.
Labels for the jars of eggs
I placed the labels around the necks of the jars. In this photo, the three jars of eggs with tears are in the front row and on the right.
The ten jars of pickled eggs I made yesterday.
Since I already had some pickled eggs in stock (a total of 91 over seven jars), which I made about a month ago, I moved them around to make space in the storage room:
Four of seven jars of pickled eggs I already had in my store room
Things were moved around, and yesterday’s jars of pickled eggs are now all put away, on the bottom shelf below the existing jars:
My collection of 181 pickled eggs over 16 jars
As you’ll notice, there are also three extra jars of six pickled eggs in the stock I’d already had, that were not in the above photo; these will likely be given as gifts before I give away any of yesterday’s production since new lids were used when they were made.
And if I don’t give out any jars as gifts? Then I’ll have enough pickled eggs for myself until at least early summer of this year!
ps: And the beer? Of course it was good! It’s a beer I’ve had several times before, it’s from my favourite brewery (Unibroue — no, not the multinational brewery with a slightly different spelling), barring the fact that my favourite beer is from another brewery, and I have a particular taste for Belgian abbey beers and wheat beers.
Unfortunately, the two batches I made today did not fully solidify into a fluffy cake consistency during the baking process, and fell a bit, creating a consistency like brownies.
My aunt has been making shortbread cookies for a long time, and used to even send batches of her shortbread cookies through the mail across the country to my grandmother. At one point, I asked my aunt to teach me how make her shortbread cookies so that I could make them somewhat more often and then bring them directly and personally to my grandmother. Alas, my grandmother passed away a few years ago, but I have continued making the shortbread cookies because they are tasty, and my mom has said “why should I bother making my shortbread cookies when you make them (an albeit different recipe) so well?” 🙂
I recently made them for the third time in the past month or so, this time to make as a Christmas gift for my brother who also really likes them; I reminded him that our aunt is the mistress, and I merely the student. 🙂
I started off by bringing a pound of butter to room temperature:
A pound of butter brought to room temperature
Then I creamed the butter with an electric beater (dating from the early 1960’s — it’s older than I am!)
Creaming the butter with an electric beater
A cup (packed) of brown sugar was added …
A cup (packed) of brown sugar added.
… and then blended with the creamed butter.
1 (packed) cup of brown sugar blended into the creamed butter
Four cups of regular flour were added, one cup at a time.
The first of four cups of flour added to the butter and brown sugar mix
Here is the dough after all four cups of flour have been mixed in:
Dough after all the flour has been added and mixed together
Next, flour was spread on the cutting board to avoid sticking:
Flour on the cutting board
The dough was placed on the cutting board, floured a bit on top to avoid sticking, and flattened with my hands:
Dough on the cutting board, floured and flattened out by hand
The dough was then further flattened out with a rolling pin.
Using a rolling pin to further flatten out the dough
The dough was then cut into strips about an inch wide, and ends were cut off.
Dough cut into roughly 1″ wide strips
I started to cut the strips into roughly two inch lengths.
2″ lengths of dough were cut
Cuttings from the edges and cookie pieces that broke were put back in the mixing bowl to be formed together again to cut more cookies.
Dough cuttings put back in the mixing bowl
The rectangular cookies were placed on cookie sheets.
And here are all of my cookies, at the end of the pricking.
All of the cookies, pricked, ready to bake
Yet another closeup of the cookies, ready to bake
The cookies were placed in an oven preheated to 300F and baked for 22 minutes. This could vary somewhat based on your oven and the electrical load in your neighbourhood at the time you bake, but take them out when the bottoms just start to brown.
Shortbread cookies baking at 300F for 22 minutes
And here are the cookies, cooling on baking racks:
Baked cookies on cooling racks
Yes, there is a broken cookie in the upper right hand corner, it broke when I took it off the baking tray. Anyway, I had to do a quality control test, you must understand … it was yummy!
The cookies are now bagged up carefully and the bags placed in a box, which was placed in the freezer until Christmas Day when they will be given to my brother as one of his gifts.
A relatively long time ago, a neighbour brought over some stuffed pasta rolls au gratin, and they were rather tasty. I liked them so much that I decided to replicate them, and added the recipe to my repertoire of personal recipes.
I recently made a batch of my manicotti, and I took a lot of pictures.
First, I finely ground some carrots in a food processor:
Finely ground carrots
As a side note, I use carrots because I love carrots, and at the time it seemed perfectly natural to me add ground carrots to the filling mix.
I also add ground onions, which to me are also a natural pairing with the beef. The two ingredients extend the beef used in order to stuff more manicotti shells, or conversely, as tasty fillers, reduce the amount of ground beef required.
Then I ground some onions, effectively rendering them liquid:
Ground onions, at this point in near-liquid form
Ground beef was placed in an electric skillet:
Ground beef placed in an electric skillet
The ground carrots and ground onions were added to the beef in the electric skillet:
The mixture of beef, ground carrots, and ground onion placed in an electric skillet
The ground beef was broken up with a spatula, and mixed together with the ground carrots and ground onions.
Ground beef broken up and mixed together with the ground carrots and ground onions
The mixture was fried, while being constantly mixed:
The mixture of beef, ground carrots, and ground onion frying
At this point, I was getting a little thirsty, so I served myself some homebrew (an Irish Stout):
A serving of some of my homebrew, an Irish Stout
Next, some manicotti shells were taken out of their box:
Manicotti shells in the plastic trays from the box bought at a store.
The manicotti shells were then boiled, six at a time, in salted water with olive oil for five minutes:
Six manicotti shells in boiling water
The manicotti shells were then drained:
Manicotti shells in a strainer
At this point, I stuffed the manicotti shells, six at a time, with the cooked meat, carrot, and onion mixture, holding a cooling manicotti shell in one hand, while transferring the meat mixture using a small dessert spoon.
Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of me filling the shells — my hands were dirty and greasy, and I didn’t ask for a photographer’s helper. 🙁
At this point, I may have been getting a bit tipsy from my beer, so I drank some iced tea to help deal with the effects of the beer.
I drink lots and lots and lots of iced tea every day!
I stuffed a total of 22 manicotti shells. The stuffed manicotti shells were then placed in oven-proof and microwave-safe containers:
22 stuffed manicotti shells
Tomato sauce — in this case, a commercial beef and pork tomato sauce — was spread on top of the stuffed manicotti shells.
Tomato sauce spread on top of the manicotti
Mozzarella cheese was sliced off the block and laid on top of the manicotti.
Sliced mozzarella cheese laid on top of the manicotti
Freezer bags were identified with the intended contents and the date.
Freezer bags identified with contents and date
The manicotti containers were then placed in the bags, and then frozen.
Beef manicotti in freezer bags, ready to place in the freezer
When cooking, I defrost the manicotti, sometimes add a bit more cheese on top, start to reheat the manicotti in a microwave oven while preheating a countertop oven to 350F, and bake the manicotti until the cheese on the top is a desired level of browned and the sauce is bubbling up on the sides.
I say “relatively easy” since a good number (though hardly all) of my recipes are geared toward making large batches in advance meant to be frozen, and the making of which I treat as all afternoon affairs, often with a large bottle of very premium beer. The above cooking jobs, however, are individually of the smaller amounts variety, each being able to be made easily and quickly.
Today, I put my cooking plans into a bit of overdrive, and, by mid afternoon, my main cooking plans for the day were complete, with a few extras beyond the list to boot. The whole list was somewhat more ambitious than the lemon squares which I’d made at the beginning of the week during a spare afternoon I’d had.
An 8″ x 8″ pan’s worth of lemon squares made earlier in the week. They were delicious!
I started all this process somewhere around 09:30 in the morning.
Breakfast was first, consisting of my breakfast sandwiches, which are essentially a grilled cheese sandwich with a fried egg and, in my sandwich, sliced breakfast sausages, while in my mom’s, bacon.
My breakfast sandwhich with sausage (this is an old picture taken several years ago, not this morning). The photos following this one were all taken today, of the foods I made today.
At the same time, I started by setting the bread machine to replenish my supply of bread slices in the freezer for sandwiches and the like. Three hours later, the bread came out of the machine, and was later sliced and frozen.
The bread sliced and on a tray between sheets of food grade plastic, for freezing
One of the things I now normally keep in the freezer is a cooked mixture of ground beef and chopped onions, cooked in advance and frozen in ice cube trays. The cubes are used for putting into the likes of tomato sauces for spaghetti and other recipes calling for cooked ground beef, or instead of chopped bacon in my pizza recipe. Cooked, two pounds of ground beef with onions will fill two ice cube trays:
Cooked ground beef and chopped onions in a couple of ice cube trays, for freezing
Frozen cubes of cooked ground beef and chopped onions in a freezer bag, ready for use in future meals
Next, I cooked a single 375g package of bacon (“mild sugar cured bacon”, each slice cut in half lengthwise), for the freezer, for my mom (I prefer cooked breakfast sausages for myself):
Some of the package of bacon cooking
My next cooking job was oatmeal raisin squares, which I learned from one of Jamie Oliver’s TV shows. They’re nice enough, but I make them for my mom.
While the oatmeal raisin squares were baking, I peeled a few pounds of potatoes for roast potatoes for tomorrow’s Sunday Lunch.
A few pounds of peeled potatoes for tomorrow’s Sunday Lunch
After that, I made blondies for myself. They’re supposed to be similar to brownies, but I add baking powder, giving them more of a cake consistency and height; they are of a tan or caramel colour, and with chocolate chips in it; I cut them into small bite-sized squares.
An 8″ x 8″ pan’s worth of blondies, before being cut into squares
Before beginning to makepickled eggs, I had never cared much for pickles of just about any sort all my life, although over time I have come to realize that I wasn’t as averse to pickled items as much as I thought, demonstrated by having begun making pickled eggs and continuing to love them for many years now.
My mom, on the other hand, has enjoyed several kinds of pickles as long as I remember. While I was growing up, every summer into the fall, she would be part of a group of ladies at our church who would be making various jams, jellies, and pickled vegetables to sell later each autumn at the church’s fund-raising bazaar. This in fact was an indirect inspiration for me, a couple of decades later, to make my pickled eggs to contribute to the same church bazaar table. To this day, every year my mom makes an English-style chutney containing rhubarb (which she grows in her garden), raisins, and onions, using the recipe the church group assigned to her to make in the early 1980’s.
Over the years, one of the things that I have been keeping my eyes out for at roadside farmers’ stands on my way up to the cottage are artisanal jars of pickles from the local farmers to keep my mom supplied with pickles, usually of the bread and butter pickles, and pickled beets, varieties. For several years, one stand in particular sold bread and butter pickles that my mom really liked; however, the stand has since closed. I won’t be trying to find out whether the lady who made them distributes them elsewhere; conversations over the years indicated that she found that making at least her bread and butter pickles was becoming too much trouble for the price she was able to charge.
A growing nagging feeling that I should at least experiment making bread and butter pickles for my mom has been developing over the past couple of years.
This year, after having found a different road side stand distributing various pickled vegetables from a local cabane à sucre (maple sugar shack) (here’s my archive), I bought some jars of the bread and butter pickles for my mom. She tried them, and found them to be representative of the style but not as good as those from the closed farmer’s stand, and further, that the jars appeared not as fully packed as the other jars.
This proved to be one of two imps pushing me over the edge to experiment, the other imp being having found a three litre basket of pickling cucumbers at my local grocery store shortly thereafter, which I decided to purchase.
Already having a supply of onions, sugar, and vinegar, I proceeded to wash then slice the cucumbers in my food processor using the slicing tool. The recipe was based on cups of sliced cucumbers, so given the number of cups of sliced cucumbers I actually produced from what I’d purchased in the three litre basket (14 cups, as compared to the base recipe’s 20 cups), I adjusted the amounts of each of the rest of the ingredients accordingly.
I deviated from the original recipe in the following ways:
– The original recipe called for thinly slicing the onions, while I coarsely chopped the onions;
– In addition to the pickling spice blend in the bag, the original recipe called for mustard seeds, turmeric, and celery seeds, which I did not have, and which I simply omitted;
– The original recipe called for packing sterilized jars with the cucumber slices, onions, and pickling solution immediately once bringing the mix to a rolling boil, and then boiling the sealed mason jars in a water bath for 10 minutes, while I instead boiled the cucumbers and pickling solution for ten minutes, then packed them in sterilized mason jars, and finally proceeded directly to cooling the jars, over concerns that, not having used the water bath method before, I would suffer jar breakage.
Tasting a leftover pickle that didn’t get bottled, I could tell that it tasted roughly like what I knew bread and butter pickles should taste like.
The whole process, including cleaning up, took about two and a half hours, and produced five jars of about 450mL each. I was pleasantly surprised at how relatively easy it was.
My mom was thrilled to learn that I’d conducted my experiment, and anxiously awaited my next visit so that she could try the results.
In the meantime, I had a nagging guilt about not following the instructions and not treating the filled jars in a water bath. The following week, when I happened to be back at the grocery store, I happened upon another display with more pickling cucumbers, and yet another imp convinced me to buy a three-litre basket of cucumbers.
This time, I decided to follow the recipe a bit more closely, given that I already had what I considered to be an otherwise successful batch of pickles in sealed jars already in storage: While I decided to continue omitting the turmeric, mustard seeds, and celery seeds, I sliced the onions thinly and into coins; I brought the cucumber slices, sliced onions, and pickling solution to a boil; then I immediately packed the sterilized mason jars with the mix; and then boiled the sealed jars in a water bath for ten minutes. I did not have any jar breakage. The second basket I’d purchased seemed to have more cucumbers than the first basket (16 cups of sliced cucumbers), and I produced seven 500mL mason jars, as well as one 250mL mason jar.
In the meantime, my mom had made some pickles using some instructions she’d received from a friend, involving the use of pickling solution saved from a number of previously consumed jars of pickles, and some English cucumbers she’d purchased.
The following week, I visited my mom, bearing a jar from each batch, and we set up a taste-test. Fortunately, I am not outright averse to bread and butter pickles; they just aren’t something for which I’ve acquired a taste – yet. 🙂
We had four jars of pickles to compare, which we rated as follows by preference (1 – liked the most, 4 – liked the least):
1: My batch #2 – perfect, and crunchy (refrigerated)
2: My batch #1 – almost as good as “my batch #2”, but not crunchy, at least not enough, and otherwise very good (not refrigerated)
3: Current roadside stand pickles – okay, but not as good (refrigerated)
4: My mom’s recycled pickling solution experiment with English cucumber (refrigerated) – fourth place, and okay but decidedly unremarkable.
We came up with a suspicion afterwards: Since “my batch #1” wasn’t refrigerated while the others were, we wondered if that could have made a difference in the crunchiness.
I received a phone call a couple of days later about “my batch #1”: After refrigeration, they were declared a complete success, since they developed a certain crunch in the fridge.
So my experiments seem to have been successful, at least until and unless I find some spoilage in the jars of “my batch #1” after a few months, if they last that long, and of course which I am not expecting to occur anyway.
