Pizza puddle – Africa turns into an ocean of cheese
So you might remember this pizza from when I asked you to name the pepperoni countries.
What you didn’t see was the cooked version. Elina from Healthy and Sane is holding a giveaway for the Now Eat This! cookbook (you should go enter!), and with it, she showed pictures of her attempt at cheese sticks. I say “attempt” because ultimately they were more like puddles of battered cheese. Ooey, gooey, yummy puddles of cheese.
Well see my pizza up there? He was actually part of 3 small pizzas on that stone:
(Sorry for the blurriness)
When baked, I had quite the pizza cheese puddle.
I expected some possible flooding, but not quite like that. Notice how the bottom one doesn’t even look like it melted at all, but boy did the top two, oy! That didn’t stop us from eating them, though, yum.
National Peanut Butter Day!
It looks like the original of these images is on Culinary Schools as one single image like this:
I like it better like that, but of course, it’s hard to read here on this site, so click on over to see full facts with pictures. Here’s the text, with my side-notes being in parentheses/italics.
- “If you can’t control your peanut butter, you can’t expect to control your life.” -Bill Watterson, author of Calvin & Hobbes (Well geez, no wonder my life is so out of whack, pfft)
- January 24 is National Peanut Butter Day in the U.S. (That’s today!)
- An 18 oz jar is made from around 850 peanuts. (So I probably shouldn’t eat a whole jar in one sitting, huh?)
- Peanuts aren’t nuts; they are legumes because they grow underground (Well, sorta…bad wording on that….growing underground isn’t what ‘makes’ them legumes, but it is a distinguishable trait from “nuts” that grow on trees)
- Americans consume 700 million pounds every year; that’s over two pounds [per] person (I wonder how much of that is in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?)
How peanut butter is made:
- 1. Peanuts are shelled at a plant and the excess debris is separated.
- 2. The peanuts are placed in a hot air roaster where the tempersature is raised to 240 degrees Celsius turning them from white to light brown.
- 3. The peanuts are quickly cooled to room temperature by suction fans that suck out of the hot air.
- 4. The peanuts are then placed in the blancher which removes the skin and the bitter “heart.”
- 5. The shelled, roasted and blaned peanuts are then dropped into a grinder and reduced to a thick paste.
- 6. The paste is heated to 60 degrees Celsius to be mixed and then cooled down to 38 degrees before it is jarred.
The Early Years
- Native to South America, peanuts were discovered as early as 950 B.C. It is believed that the Aztec and Mayan Civiliations mashed peanuts to create a thick paste. (So did they eat it? Or use it as glue?)
- In 1884, Marcellus Edson of Canada issued U.S. patent #306727, representing the finished product created from milling roasted peanuts until they reached fluid state. He used his product strictly to create peanut-based candy
- In 1897, Dr. John Kelogg created the first process for making peanute butter, issued in U.S. patent #580787.
- George Washington Carver is known as the father of peanuts, but is often incorrectly believed to have invented peanut butter. He did, however, discover over 300 practical uses for the peanut. (Inaccurate or not, he’s the guy who gets all the credit)
Offbeat Peanut Butter Sandwich Combos
- Bacon
- Mayonnaise
- Dill Pickle
- Bologna
- Tomato
- (And people say *I’m* weird? whatever :P)
Nutrition Benefits
- Monounsaturated fat in peanut butter reduces the risk of heat disease.
- Vitamin B3 helps the body convert food into fuel and metabolizes fats and protein.
- Vitamin B9 helps to synthesize and repair DNA and prevents anemia. (I first read that as amnesia…ha)
- Dietary fiber helps the body rid waste and helps prevent colorectal cancer.
- Reduces risk of weight gain. (Unless you eat the whole jar)
Non-Culinary Uses: Peanut butter can also aid you in executing every day needs around the house
- Can be used to remove chewing gum from clothes and hair
- Can be used as a lubricant for things like a lawnmower blade
- Works well as mousetrap bait
- Works well as a leather cleaner
- Works as a shaving gel (Oh yeah, I bet that’s great….)
Freezer beef stew in a bag
I love beef stew, but don’t always feel like making it from scratch. Actually, more often than not, beef stew ends up being the result of me making a roast with potatoes, and the following day, if there are any leftovers (there usually aren’t), then I’ll toss them in a pan, add some gravy and broth, and maybe toss in some frozen veggies.
For Christmas, though, I had a friend of the family on my gift list who always buys whatever he wants and would be upset if we bought him anything anyway. He’s not in the best of health, though, and one of the main reasons is that he doesn’t cook any more and has no one to cook for him, so he eats out. A lot.
When my mom saw him starting to make some efforts in the right direction, though, she had a brilliant idea and asked me to execute it. She wanted a freezer basket full of several homemade, slightly healthier versions of foods he already enjoys, that he could just heat up at home whenever.
“Beef stew in a bag” or “freezer beef stew” is something that I’d wanted to do for myself anyway and hadn’t gotten around to, so it was one of the first things I was sure to add to my list.
That’s the original picture I saw associated with the recipe on Once A Month Mom. It’s Real Mom Kithen’s post on her site that has the instructions and quantities, so after a bit of searching, I finally found it (yay for moving sites and redirecting….boo for all the links being broken, though).
Check out this link for the original. I didn’t follow it exactly, so here’s the best I can guess is my modified version below. I mostly just eyed it and tossed in more or less veggies, depending on what I had chopped and in front of me. This is definitely best done by chopping everything at once and then splitting amongst bags.
Freezer Beef Stew in a Bag2 small chopped onions
2 cups sliced carrots
2 cups chopped potatoes
1.5 cups chopped green beans (I used frozen in two bags and fresh in another)
1.5 cups diced celery
Whatever other veggies you might like in your stew
2 lbs preferred beef, chopped into large chunks (I had a 7ish lb roast that I split between 3 bags)
3.5 cups beef stock
3 tsp. worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. pepper
¼. tsp. thyme
1 tsp. salt
4 T. flour
1 tsp. garlic
3 tsp. tomato pasteLayer all the meat and veggies into a gallon-size ziploc freezer bag. The prettier, the better, hehe. Squeeze out as much air as possible. Mix spices, broth, and paste into a bowl and taste test before dumping into the bag as well…adjust according to your tastes. Be sure to label your bags with the date and cooking instructions.
To serve, thaw in the fridge overnight and cook in a crockpot on low for 6-8 hours. You can also do it on the stove on low for about 35-40 minutes, according to Real Mom Kitchen. Just cook until the stew is thick and the veggies are cooked thoroughly. If you like your stew thicker, mix a bit of cornstarch and cold water together, then add to the pot and keep simmering.
I considered browning and seasoning the meat first or even including it in a small ziploc bag by itself, included within the large one, so that he (or I, when I pull out mine) could brown it in hot oil before it being tossed in with the rest of the stew. Ultimately, though, it was for convenience’s sake, so it all went into the bag and is ready to all be tossed in a crockpot all day as well. Easy peasy. Except without peas.
Recent Comments