Elsa Macbebekin's Profile

Display Name: Elsa Macbebekin
Personal URL: http://macbebekin.wordpress.com/
Member Since: 6/21/08

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p.s. - In that black bran soup recipe, you can ignore the specific instructions like "garlic, sliced thin" and "onion, diced." Pre-diced garlic from a jar and diced frozen onion would be fine. Or if you have an immersion blender, you can just whack up the onion into a few pieces and throw them along with whole (peeled) garlic cloves into the pot. They'll need to cook longer to soften, then just whizzzzzz everything with the immersion blender.


Help! What Are Some Meals I Can Cook One-Handed? Good Questions
5/15/13 12:23 PM

Here's the blog entry I wrote detailing the food I served for an all-day open-house just days after sticking a paring knife right through my index finger. It's mostly party food, but I also linked to this very simple black bean soup and my brother's not-even-a-recipe for pulled pork, which is a lazy cheater's version and also is so good that I would never bother with more complicated methods.

I couldn't cut vegetables either, so I bought a lot of veggies either frozen and precut (like broccoli) or at the salad bar (like onions and carrots). See if your grocery carries packaged cut-up vegetables in the produce section; they cost a bit more but are well worth it when you're cooking one-handed.

I also had the luxury of a live-in partner who would chop double the onions whenever he cooked our dinner, then stash the extras in the fridge for me in case I wanted to cook while he was working nights. Perhaps a friend would be able to do that for you?

More than anything, I wished I had an under-cabinet jar opener. If you can get a friend to install one for you (a simple matter for someone with both hands free), you'll be able to open jars one-handed.


Help! What Are Some Meals I Can Cook One-Handed? Good Questions
5/15/13 12:13 PM

A 1960s recipe for pot de creme au chocolate adapted* from Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cook Book. It uses four ingredients and takes ten minutes to put together, then chills in the fridge.

*In line with early-60s food safety habits, the original recipe doesn't call for cooking the custard once the egg's beaten in; I do cook the mixture to be perfectly safe. It adds a few minutes, but it's still a remarkably fast dessert.


Enter to Win a Copy of Bakeless Sweets by Faith Durand! Cookbook Giveaway on The Kitchn
5/9/13 11:51 PM

Our local options for CSA boxes either don't fit my schedule or my geography (require pick-up on a busy day or in an inconvenient location), so I haven't tried one yet.

For folks who don't like the sometimes-inflexible aspect of the CSA box: check with your local farmers to see if they have other community-supported agriculture options. One of my local farms offers a pre-season buy-in that gets you credit to spend as you like; instead of a box full of pre-selected produce once a week, you go to their farmer's market stand or to the store at the farm (open most of the week) and buy what you want at a small discount.

If your local farmers offer that option, it's a great alternative to the produce box while still investing in local growers early in the season when they need it.


Are You Joining a Farm CSA This Year?
5/2/13 6:34 PM

For those of us who don't have freezer space to fit dishes with pre-scooped ice cream, individual scoops on a parchment-lined or plastic-lined cookie sheet might be a better fit. I couldn't possibly fit several bowls or cups (even tiny ones!) of ice cream in my freezer, but I often manage to flash-freeze baked goods or fruits by balancing a cookie sheet on top of all the stuff crammed into my little freezer compartment. The same pan could easily hold 2-3 dozen scoops of ice cream.


Party Tip: Scoop Ice Cream Ahead of Time
4/22/13 4:01 PM

What's cooking? for once, nothing much. I'm having one of those days: out of ideas and not much interested in cooking. We had a late-night supper of fried rice last night, and I made two loaves of bread, but that's all I had the ambition for.

I came here hoping for ideas and --- yay! --- got one. Reading about robinette's Greek meatballs (which sound delicious!), I remembered that we have (store-bought) vegan "meat" balls in the freezer, so I think I'll throw them together with some spinach in tomato sauce over pasta with that homebaked bread on the side, and call it good.


What's Cooking This Weekend? Weekend of April 13-14, 2013
4/13/13 5:34 PM

Saturday night dinner will be sandwiches: garlic mushrooms, spinach, sautéed onions, and fontina, all toasted on yesterday's fresh-baked baguette, served with green beans tossed with toasted almonds. (Oddly enough, my green-bean-loathing husband suggested those, so he could try them again.)

Sunday night, maybe crepes? I seem to be making crepes at least once a month lately, especially when I'm looking for a way to dress up a disparate collection of ingredients. And they are delicious.


What's Cooking This Weekend? Weekend of April 6-7, 2013
4/6/13 6:54 PM

I also bought an extra set of measuring cups to keep in baking canisters: I have a half-cup measure in the sugar bin, a cup measure in the flour bin, a 1/3-cup measure in the oatmeal jar.

That makes it even easier and faster to scoop out main ingredients for a great many things. For simple baking recipes, those are often the only cups I need, and they go straight back into their dedicated places.


Quick Tip: Separate Your Measuring Cups
3/25/13 1:32 PM

Friday, I baked bread and rolls, so Friday night's dinner was sandwiches: eggplant subs with red pepper & tomato sauce and parmesan. I also made spinach soufflé and roasted some carrots and potatoes. Saturday, I served penne in a sauce made from leftover red pepper-tomato sauce and bechamel, bound together with an egg yolk and a handful of parmesan, topped with the leftover fried eggplant slices and served with garlic bread.

I also assembled and froze an apple galette with brandy and butter, and a batch of almond cream puffs, both of which will go in Mom's freezer for her next dinner parties. On Sunday I'm going out to Mom's house. In between doing some computer support and some other chores, I'll make dinner from whatever's in the fridge. It works out nicely: she gets a nice surprise and a fancy dinner, and I get a ton of compliments. We call this routine "kitchen roulette."


What's Cooking This Weekend? Weekend of March 23-24, 2013
3/24/13 12:25 PM

Tonight, I made a winter vegetable cobbler (mushrooms, potato, carrot, and caramelized onion in mushroom-sherry gravy topped with whole-wheat biscuit dough), sautéed spinach, and avocado-cucumber salad with orange-sesame dressing.

Tomorrow, maybe balsamic-roasted tofu (because while I was rattling around trying to figure out what to make tonight, I opened and drained a block of tofu), roasted potatoes and carrots, and probably broccoli --- or that avocado-cuc salad again. Dang, it was good.

Aaaand because I was craving something sweet, I just threw together two little blueberry cobblers with the leftover biscuit dough, topped with sugar to sweeten it up. Mmm.


What's Cooking This Weekend? Weekend of March 16-17, 2013
3/15/13 11:13 PM

Once again, I'm trying to use up all the little scrids and scrads of leftovers and nearly-empty packets in the freezer.

Vegetarian fried rice deliciously used up all the leftovers from The Fella's mid-week taco dinner, plus the tail-ends of bagged frozen peas and broccoli. While I rummaged around in the freezer, I found a little bit of pastry dough, so tonight we're having mini-quiches (which will also nicely use up some spinach and mushrooms) and sweet potato home fries.

I also tossed together a simple almond-blueberry cake: essentially this recipe without the upside-down fruit base. Instead, I added blueberries to the batter and topped it with slivered almonds and spoonful of sugar for crunch.


What's Cooking This Weekend? Weekend of March 9-10, 2013
3/9/13 2:30 PM

Mmmm, waffle wedding! What a fun, festive way to make a wedding a little more personal and idiosyncratic.

One of my favorite ideas for our wedding buffet was a make-your-own waffle bar with lots of syrups and macerated fruit and flavored butters and whipped cream and bacon bits and and and. The Fella had to talk me down pretty gently from that: it's a fun idea for a medium-sized group but in practice, it would have been pretty messy and impractical for a big family-and-friends gathering like our wedding. (HCI, when Ben settled on J.J.'s waffles as the wedding feast, The Fella and I high-fived.)

But this is reminding me that a waffle-bar brunch party would be swell!


Look! A Waffle Wedding Cake
3/7/13 3:48 PM

One of my great kitchen moments occurred when I realized that the business end of my immersion blender is just narrow enough to fit easily into the neck of the glass jars that our household's preferred brands of peanut butter (Teddie peanut butter) come in, and also into the wide-mouthed jars that salsa is often packed in.

Because I always have a half-dozen of those jars on the shelf, it's easy to make sauces or dressings or purees right in the jar, then cap it. Baby food is probably just as easy to make in the jar.


The Immersion Blender: My Secret to Easy Homemade Baby Food
2/27/13 5:34 PM

In many cases, it's not the heat-susceptible bacteria (the ones that would be killed off by heating the food as recommended above) that you need to worry about, but rather the heat-stable toxins that they excrete/produce.

Which is to say, heating that pulled pork may kill off the original bacteria, but whatever harmful products they spewed out are still in your food, unaffected by the heat and ready to make you sick.


Help! I Accidentally Left Food Out All Night! Is It Still Good? Good Questions
2/20/13 3:24 PM

I too use these wire racks (all of which I bought for a buck each at Goodwill) to corral my baking pans and sheets, but I put them the cupboards in upright as originally intended, which works just fine.


Smart Idea: Use a Wire Organizer, Turned On Its Side, To Stack Your Pans
2/20/13 1:11 PM

It takes even less time and effort to peel the safety seal back halfway and crease it in two, which leaves a straight and sturdy edge --- even better than cutting it, in many cases. So simple.


Helpful Tip: Use Masking Tape As a Scoop Scraper
2/15/13 10:56 AM

The Fella and I have a longstanding Valentine tradition: homemade pizza and horror movies in the dark. We both prefer dinner at home to the bustle of a restaurant on Valentine's Day.

But as it turns out, The Fella has to work tonight, so we're postponing Valentine's Day until his day off next week so we can reeeeeally relax and enjoy it.


Home Cooking for Valentine's Day
2/14/13 1:03 PM

Sometimes the failure is mysterious, which is unsettling. Just this weekend, I made a very pretty, balanced dinner with several favorite dishes: black bean soup, a roasted butternut squash galette with caramelized onions (pulled from the freezer), and a big pile of lemony broccoli. I served The Fella, then puttered around a bit before I sat down with my own plate.

So he'd been eating for a while before I took my first bite of galette, which I promptly spat out. "UGH! The galette is TERRIBLE!" Not wanting to agree too enthusiastically, he said, "It's not too good." It was inedible. I don't know if the squash was spoiled or the onions were too old or if it went off in the freezer, and I'll never know.

Once in a while, things go wrong, and if you can't unravel the mystery to prevent it a second time, learning to shrug it off is a valuable lesson. And that's what frozen pizza is for!


My Time of Endless Failures Weekend Meditation
2/10/13 1:22 PM

Today: 2 loaves of anadama bread, chilled dough rising overnight for 2 loaves of wheat-white sandwich bread, black bean soup (to be topped with avocado, cheddar, and sour cream), a roasted butternut squash galette w/ caramelized onion & garlic (pulled from the freezer), a side of lemony broccoli, and an almond cake.

Tomorrow: the frozen pizza that The Fella brought home tonight because he didn't know if we had any food in the house! It is kinda amazing what one can make from the pantry.


What's Cooking This Weekend? Weekend of February 9-10, 2013
2/8/13 8:42 PM

So, the "something" that I wasn't sure about? It ended up being an accidently (and deliciously) overcheesy penne & cheese, a big pot of homemade tomato soup, and an orange cake drizzled with orange syrup and ganache. Some days, only the jars of sauces and staples in the freezer keep us from ordering take-out.


What's Cooking This Weekend? Weekend of February 2-3, 2013
2/3/13 12:31 PM