Asian style Green Beans

These are the green beans I make with most any Chinese food (Orange chicken etc...) They are really good and really simple.

Green Beans
 Now this is a by sight recipe. You buy a bunch of fresh green beans (enough for the number of people you are serving.) Cut the ends off the green beans and cut them in half. Place in boiling salt water till crisp tender 5-7 minutes usually. Drain. Right before serving heat a pan up with a tiny bit of oil and add some minced ginger and minced garlic (for my family of 6 which was probably a huge handful of green beans each. I used 1 tsp. ginger, and 1 tsp. garlic.) Stir the ginger and garlic in the hot oil for just a second and then add the green beans. Stir fry till they are tender (just a minute or two) then add a few good shakes of soy sauce and then drizzle a little sesame oil and stir fry again for a minute or two. This recipe is really a personal taste thing. What you like is what you use. How much is how much of each thing you like. Start with little and add more. I always add a little more soy sauce to my beans once they are on my plate. My husband likes them just as they come out of the pan and doesn't add anything else to them. I wish I could give you exact measurements. I didn't think to measure anything. So I will give the recipe as is and next time I will measure everything and come back and edit this recipe with exact measurements. You at least get the general idea and they are delicious.

We didn't have any stir fried rice (Lucy Cry here) as we are on a low carb diet and the sugar and bread crumbs were pushing it. We didn't miss it much as the chicken and beans were YUMMY!

Please God, why is this the end of our story?

I dedicate this blog entry to my wonderful motorcycle man.

This isn't a happy post. All my wit (what little I can muster) isn't part of these words. This blog is Tried and True recipes and Tried and True Life. This is about the Tried and True Life part. When I started finding food blogs a little over a month ago. I stumbled across a dedication to a food blogger named Jennie. Jennie is young and has two young girls. Her husband of 16 years had suddenly died (heart attack I think.) He was very young. A total shock. 
I went to her blog and started reading her entries. I cried. I cried some more. Then I cried even harder. Like watching an accident that you can't take your eyes off of I kept reading. Why? It hurts so bad to read her words. Why? Every time I read her blog I leave with this terrible painful ache in my chest. My eyes are swollen and my nose is all stuffed up. 
"But for the grace of God go I", I have decided I don't like that saying. It wasn't/isn't that I have more grace than poor Jennie. It isn't that grace is involved in anyway. It is the free life God gave us, and the fact that terrible things happen. 
I can't quit reading her eloquent pain filled words. It touches me at the deepest core of my heart and places a cold fear deep inside. Fear of losing my husband. The one that drives me crazy. The one that makes me cry. The one I want to throw in a trash can and buy a new one. Ok, maybe not a new one. But sometimes I think about throwing him in the trash can, and then I will take him out again after he has learned his lesson. 
What Jennies blog has brought to me is a renewed appreciation of my husband. It has also brought on a terrible paranoia. I walk around with this huge lump of fear that something is going to happen to him. If it happened to them (and they are younger and in better health) it can certainly happen to us. I'm not as cross with my dear sweet motorcycle man these days. As I know I would give anything for him to be here driving me crazy if he weren't. 
Life is so cruel sometimes. The way it ends is so painful. Our bodies betray us. Our minds get foggy. And we lose the other half of our souls at some point in time. As I read Jennies blog I knew that one of these days it will be me or my husband waking without the other. Why God? Why does our story have to end like this? 
So I would say love a little harder today and from now on. Appreciate what you are so blessed to have. Cause you never know when your soul will be split in two and half (the better half) will be out of your reach. 
Here is a link to her blog if your of a mind to shed a few tears and maybe learn a few heart lessons. Her love for him is inspiring and tragic and painful. It is also beautiful, and sweet, and tender.

For those of you who are believers. I don't think Jennie is or is right now. I think she is mad at God. I would be too for a while I'm sure. I think its natural to be angry at everything. I'm hoping you take away the gift. Not a judgment of her belief system. The gift is to remember to appreciate that special someone. 
It starts with:
Our last dance (video)  
 http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2011/08/one-last-dance.html
For Mikey
http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2011/08/for-mikey.html

5:52
http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2011/08/552-pm.html

Looking for you (I was)
http://www.injennieskitchen.com/2011/08/looking-for-you-i-was.html


You can find the rest of her posts on the right under "Most Recent" if you want to read the rest of her journey to date. The next entry is the one on bottom titled "Total eclipse of the heart." They are raw and painful and beautiful at the same time. 
My only disclaimer is beware they are painful. Have a box of tissues handy. 

To my wonderful husband. "I love you John with my whole heart and soul, and I promise to never throw you in the trashcan."

Another Amazing Ranch Dressing Recipe.

This recipe is an adaptation of The Barefoot Contessa's ranch recipe. It is heavy on the basil flavor and is yummo. This is my families favorite Ranch dressing. When you first make it it will seem salty. Give it time in the fridge and that goes away. Also, I think that it seems a little too tart. So I always add a little honey to it till I get it tasting like I like. I would let it sit in the fridge for an hour and then make the adjustments to the flavor.
One of my sons who is a Ranchaholic (I think he needs a twelve step program) loves loves this. Can't keep him out of it.

Ranch Dressing heavy on the basil

3 green onions, white and green parts chopped

1/2 cup fresh basil leaves

1/4 cup flat leaf parsley

1 Tbl. fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 1/2 Tbl. dijon mustard

1 Tbl. olive oil

2 garlic cloves (chopped)

1 1/2 tsp. salt ( her recipe called for 2 1/2 tsp. salt. I thought this is too salty. So you can add more if you would prefer.)

1 tsp. black pepper

1 Cup mayo

1/2 Cup greek style yogurt.( Plain)

1/2 Cup buttermilk

2 Tbl. parm. cheese
honey (optional)

Place green onions, basil, parlsey, lemon juice, mustard, evoo, garlic, parm cheese, salt and pepper in bowl of food processor. Puree for 15-20 seconds till it is a smooth mixture. Add the mayo, yogurt and buttermilk. Blend till smooth. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour to let flavors blend. If it is too tart then add a few tsp.'s of honey to take the tart edge off.

Chocolate and Biscuits. What did you say? Yes, I said Chocolate and Biscuits. Its whats for breakfast.

When I was a little girl. Every Saturday morning we would congregate at my Grandmother's house for breakfast. She would make Chocolate and Biscuits with loads of fried bacon. Now the history of this dish in my family was that is was a poor mans way of using cold biscuits from dinner the night before. They would reheat the biscuits and make a chocolate (gravy) for the top. We of course just thought we were eating the best kid food in the world. Little did we know that it actually had a beginning as poor folks food. I haven't met a lot of people who are familiar with it. I have on occasion found people who have had it. Mostly I think it is a southern dish. I don't think I have ever met anyone who has had it that was from anywhere outside of the south. It is an important family food. It has warm childhood memories wrapped around it. Us kids sitting and watching Saturday morning cartoons while the adults sat at the table in the kitchen. The smell of bacon in the air and warm biscuits, and coffee. Then the yummy chocolate smell floating through the air. That's when we kids came running. It has become a family tradition that anyone marrying into our family had to try Chocolate and Biscuits and they had to like it. If they didn't like it they couldn't be part of our family. In our family if you didn't like chocolate and biscuits you would find a crowd of people looking at you like you had two heads. Your either in or your out, and it all weighed on chocolate and biscuits.

I'm listing the recipe along with a simple biscuit recipe in case you need one. Homemade biscuits are very easy to make. It would be a shame not to put this yummy stuff on a nice warm, fluffy home made biscuit.

The proportions for the chocolate are for 6 cups. This is a lot. It is what I make for my huge family. You can scale it down. This is also on the sweet side. I have made this by sight most my adult life. So there were times that the sugar was heavier and there were times that it wasn't. Of course that would also cause the bitterness of the chocolate flavor to vary. This is sweet and yummy. If it is too sweet then just use a little less sugar. Measuring by sight meant there have been times when it never came out the same twice. It has  always been yummy for us chocoholics. But now I have it down to measurements just for you.
After I put the biscuits in the oven is when I start cooking the chocolate. It only takes a few minutes for this to heat  up and thicken. I usually measure out the chocolate mix and water so that its ready to put over heat. Then I set it aside and make the biscuits. When the biscuits are put in the oven I start cooking the chocolate. This way everything times out pretty closely. I also have my bacon already cooked and just pop it in the microwave to heat it up after I get everything ready.
Chocolate:
11/4 Cups all purpose flour
3/4  Cup cocoa
2 Cups sugar
6 Cups water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbl. butter
In a saucepan put in the flour, cocoa, sugar. Mix it together. It should taste sweet with maybe just an ever so light bitter chocolate taste at the end. Add the water and with a whisk mix it together. Place on med heat and stir constantly (with the whisk, this helps it not lump up after it starts to get thick) till it is a thick gravy consistency. Turn off the heat and add the vanilla and the butter. Mix well.
Now take a hot biscuit and split it open. Put butter on each piece and then top with the chocolate. Serve with loads of bacon. YUMMY!

Simple Biscuits: Now I triple this recipe for my family.
2 Cups all purpose flour sifted
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/3 Cup Criso
3/4 Cup milk
preheat oven 425 degrees. In bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in the crisco until mixture resembles course meal. Add milk, stir until blended. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface. Knead 8-10 times. Roll dough out (I just use my hands to flatten the dough out till it is about 1 inch thick.) till its 1/2 inch thick. Cut with floured biscuit cutter. I use biscuits cutters now, but for years I just used a glass to cut the rounds out. Bake on ungreased baking sheet for 12-15 minutes. How many biscuits you get depends on how thick your dough is and how big the biscuit rounds are. Like anything practice makes perfect. Don't give up. Like anything you will get better with time if they aren't perfect the first few times.
This is a very simple go to biscuit recipe.

I will also tell you we have this for breakfast and dinner as well. My grown children's eyes still light up when they know I'm making Chocolate and Biscuits. My kids are the 4th generation in my family to enjoy this wonderful meal.

In my biggest Oprah Winfrey guest announcement voice "EDAMAME!!!!"

I'm having a love affair. Please don't tell my husband. Yes, it's true. I'm in love with Edamame! This wonderful little bean pod of pure scrumptiousness found it's way into my heart by accident. We had placed our regular once a week dinner order from our favorite little Sushi bar right around the corner. When we dug through the bag salivating with anticipation for our Miso soup and California rolls with extra ginger. I like a little sushi with my ginger. There was a little box with these green pods inside. I had never seen this stuff let alone ever heard the name. My husband told me he had had them and to suck on them (for the salt. oh my...) and then bite them open and eat the beans inside. You never eat the pods. Ok, here I go. Two minutes later there were no more Edamame and my husband had only managed to eat one or two without losing his fingers. I was spell bound by the salty flavor of these little packages of pure yumminess. Needless to say they were part of our weekly order from then on.
On our last trip to Costco (yay!! for Costco) I'm walking through the frozen food section and there before my eyes is a HUGE box of Edamame! How could I say "no"? So like a moth is drawn to a flame I made my way over and grabbed a box. Visions of a dark room and secluded Edamame eating going through my head. Wooh, I was getting light headed with the exhilaration of it all.
Fast forward to today. After dropping off all my big boys at college and husband has gotten on his beloved motorcycle and headed off to work. I'm putting a few groceries away and I open the freezer and there is that box of Edamame. OH MY GOSH! I had forgot about them. I grabbed the box and ripped it open and out fell one of the  little bags of Edamame. I turned the box over read the microwave directions, and off I went. Forgetting all about the protein smoothie I had intended to have.
So here I sit in my quiet house typing away to you about my love affair with Edamame. My bowl sitting close by as I suck the salt and eat those wonderful little beans inside this little pod. Life is really good right now. Gosh, If I smoked I would go have an after Edamame cigarette. But I don't smoke. So I will just have to make those "aaawwwww" sounds of pure culinary satisfaction. Who knew something so simple could be so pleasing.
Here is a little run down on Edamame from Wikipedia

Edamame (枝豆^?) (English pronunciation: /ˌɛdəˈmɑːmeɪ/) is a preparation of immature soybeans in the pod commonly found in Japan, China, and Hawaii. The pods are boiled in water together with condiments such as salt, and served whole.

Outside East Asia, the dish is most often found in Japanese restaurants and some Chinese restaurants, but it has also found popularity elsewhere as a healthy food item.

The Japanese name edamame (枝豆^?) is commonly used to refer to the dish. The Japanese name literally means "twig bean" (eda = "twig" + mame = "bean") and refers to young soybeans cropped with its twig. Edamame refers also to the salt-boiled dish because of its prevalence. Edamame is a popular side dish at Japanese izakaya restaurants with local varieties being in demand, depending on the season. The salt is also important for edamame. In Japan, arajio is the preferred salt, because it is a natural sea salt. This coarse salt is wet with brine, thus loaded with ocean and mineral flavors.

In Chinese, young soybeans are known as maodou (Chinese: 毛豆; pinyin: máodòu; literally "hairy bean"). Young soybeans in the pod are known as maodoujia (Chinese: 毛豆荚; pinyin: máodòujiá; literally "hairy bean pod"). Because boiling in the pod is the usual preparation for young soybeans, the dish is usually identified via a descriptive name, such as "boiled maodou", or "salt-boiled maodou", depending on the condiments added. Simply saying the name of the bean, maodou, in a Chinese restaurant will produce salt-flavored, boiled maodou.

Leaf Lard! What the What?

When I was little I can remember seeing those cans of lard in the fridges of numerous houses. They always had a piece of foil on top rather than a lid. After I grew up I just thought is was a southerner trash thing. Now I wonder if it wasn't home rendered lard. I have to apologize to all those southern ladies that I thought terrible thoughts of after I was grown. I can only say I grew up in a culture where the blue can with the hydrogenated white stuff was what you used and all I knew. So I didn't understand such things. Through my numerous web searches I came across the topic of lard in baking pies. Of course my first instinct is to throw up just a little in my mouth when I think of lard. In the hydrogenated white stuff world I have grown up in lard took on a baaaaad name. So when I started reading about how great lard is I was a little intrigued. I will leave the research to you, but here is the Readers Digest version of what I found out. Leaf lard (I don't know about any other kind. This is what I looked at.) comes from the visceral  fat surrounding a pigs kidneys. I know, I know totally gross. It has no flavor and is better for you than butter as far as the fats go. It is suppose to make killer pastries. I am thinking some good biscuits and a great pie crust.


Here is a chart I found that gives the run down on the  fats and includes the numbers for lard. So decide for yourself.

Comparative properties of common cooking fats (per 100g)

	Total Fat	Saturated Fat	Monounsaturated Fat	Polyunsaturated Fat	Smoke Point
Sunflower oil	100g	11g	20g	69g	232°C (450°F)
Soybean oil	100g	16g	23g	58g	232°C (450°F)
Olive oil	100g	14g	73g	11g	216°C (420°F)
Corn oil	100g	15g	30g	55g	232°C (450°F)
Peanut oil	100g	17g	46g	32g	232°C (450°F)
Vegetable Shortening (hydrogenated)	71g	23g (34%)	8g (11%)	37g (52%)	182°C (360°F)
Lard	100g	39g	45g	11g	188°C (370°F)
Suet	94g	52g (55%)	32g (34%)	3g (3%)	200°C (400°F)
Butter	81g	51g (63%)	21g (26%)	3g (4%)	177°C (350°F)

I have placed my first order. A lady who lives near me and blogs said this is where she orders hers. I can tell you talking to them was an experience. I ordered 10 (1lb.) containers. So I will let you know what I think. We are doing away with anything hydroginated in my house so this is our first step. This is where I ordered from if your ever brave enough to give it a try.
http://www.dietrichsmeats.com/
I expect to be winning country fair contests with my amazing lard baked goodies. Ok, probably not. But it wont be the lards fault. 

Pioneer Woman's Beef with Snow Peas

Picture from Ree Drummond blog "Pioneer Woman"

As much as I would love to take credit for this divine creation, I can't. I am a follower and devotee to "The Pioneer Woman" and her blog. This recipe came off of her blog and we had it for dinner last night. All I can tell you is we were in heaven. My whole family loved it. I doubled the recipe for my family (5) and it fed everyone but not like we would have liked (which translates to eating like we are going to the chair. Thats a Danny Devito line about his family. We have always found that it suited our family as well.) The only other thing I can say is "YUM". I served it on Jasmine rice that I added some chopped green onions and a little lemon juice to when it was done.

Serves 8 (I don't even think so. Not in my family anyway.)


Instructions:
1 1/2 lbs. flank steak, trimmed and sliced very very thin against the grain. ( I put mine in the freezer for just a bit and it sliced up nicely.)
1/2 Cup low sodium soy sauce  (we always use Tamari when we cook.)
3 Tbl. sherry
2 Tbl. brown sugar (I doubled the brown sugar. Just a personal taste thing.)
2 Tbl. cornstarch
1 Tbl. minced fresh ginger
8 ounces fresh snow peas ends trimmed and the string thingy (I'm so verbal) removed
5 whole scallions cut diagonally  into 1/2 inch pieces
3 Tbl. evoo
crushed red pepper to taste (optional)
Jasmine rice (or whatever makes you happy) to serve the stir fry on

Place meat on platter and put in freezer to firmn up for cutting. While meat is in the freezer make the sauce. In a bowl large enough to hold the meat after cutting mix soy sauce, sherry, brown sugar, cornstarch, and ginger. Whisk together. Take meat out and slice it against the grain very thin. Place meat in the sauce you just put together in the bowl. Mix to coat and set aside to marinate for a few minutes. I left if for about 15 minutes.
Heat oil in a cast iron skillet (or wok. I used my huge cast iron skillet and it worked great.) When skillet is super hot add oil and the snow peas. Cook and stir till they are crisp tender (a couple minutes should do it.) Remove to a bowl. Allow pan to heat back up and (now I added a little oil each time I cooked the ingredients. So I broke the oil up into 1 Tbl. additions each time. Add half the meat leaving the marinade in the bowl and spread it out and let it sit and sear for a minute before you start stirring it around. I let it sear then did my first stir and then added half the scallions and a light sprinkling of the red pepper flakes which is optional. Stir around till meat is just done. Remove to a bowl. Add the last Tbl. of oil let it get hot and add the last of the meat and repeat the process. Once this batch is done add the already cooked meat and the snow peas along with the remaining marinade/sauce. Stir around to let everything heat up and the sauce to thicken. You can check for seasoning but we didn't find it needed anything. Enjoy!
Serve on rice.