Bobotie

The more ways you have to cook ground beef the better, right? Here's one you might not have tried: bobotie. It is of African origin and is pronounced "bah-buh-tee," not "bo-bo-tie." The recipe we use is from A Carriacou Cookbook, which we picked up when were in Grenada a few years ago.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
1 large onion, chopped or thinly sliced
1/2 cup almonds or raw, skinned peanuts
1/2 cup raisins
1 thick slice of bread (or two thin slices)
1 cup milk
2 eggs
2 tbsp. oil
2 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 tbsp. lime juice
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. each salt and chili pepper

If almonds still have skins on, put them into a bowl and pour over enough boiling water to cover them. Leave for 10 minutes, then slip off skins. Split, or roughly chop and set aside. (Better yet, use skinless, chopped almonds!) Peanuts can be used whole or roughly chopped.

Put bread to soak in a little of the milk. Put ground beef on to fry and when it is starting to brown add onion and continue frying until beef is completely brown and onions are just soft. While you are waiting for the onion and beef to cook, squeeze excess milk from bread, saving the milk, and mash the bread. Drain excess grease from the beef mixture if desired. Add spices, sugar, salt and chili. Stir fry another minute, remove from heat, and add almonds, reserving about 1 tbsp. for the top. Add raisins, lime juice and squeezed/mashed bread.

Put entire mixture into an oven-proof 9x13 baking dish that has been prepared with oil, butter or nonstick spray. Beat eggs with all remaining milk and pour over the beef mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Scatter reserved almonds on top and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Serve with rice, vegetables, salad and mango or banana chutney (those recipes can also be found in the Carriacou cookbook).

Here's a photo of the bobotie I made a few days ago (to give credit where credit is due, my husband made it the first time). YUM!

A New Dining Room

Oh dear, how long it's been since I posted here. Well, here goes nothing.

We have spent the past month giving our dining room a much needed facelift. Here's a before photo (don't be distracted by the very pretty girl at far left):

As you can see the furniture is, um, a little rustic. The table is actually a pretty solid piece (and with both leaves in place is huge), but all but one of the chairs long ago met their demise (thus those trendy, collegiate folding things). The piece in front of the window was a $20 garage sale find--again, a solid piece, but not one that matches anything else in the room. There is a hutch that goes with this table--both are originally from an Illinois funiture store called Cohen's--we paid $500 second hand for the entire set (table, six chairs, and hutch) about 12 years ago. But as mentioned, the chairs did not hold up to 12 years of steady use, and it was time to do something else.

The hutch, still in good condition, ended up in our kitchen (which we are also working on refreshing--that's a new red paint job):

The other pieces you see in the dining room photo were also moved out and a new set (formerly belonging to my husband's parents, both of whom passed away in the last few years) brought in. We decided new furniture was deserving of a new paint job, so we got busy. I chose a color that I thought would complement our china pattern (Noritake Virtue):


We painted the walls "Glacier Ice" (Valspar) and the baseboards and window trim white (they were previously painted a light tan). We also reupholstered the dining room chairs. Here's a before picture of one of the chairs. The old upholstery was a very faded pale blue.


I got the fabric for the upholstery job from Hobby Lobby. We unscrewed the chair bottoms, took off the old fabric, put in some new padding and stapled on the new fabric, then screwed the bottoms back in place:

Here's where things stand now! My parents-in-law's set includes a table, six chairs, a server, buffet, and china cabinet.

The small table in front of the window is our former dining room table (see first picture, above) with leaves removed and ends folded down. It will serve as a homeschooling work space and when we need it, an extra place to put food (Thanksgiving is coming!)

This gives you a pretty good idea of the paint color. The mirror was a garage sale find by my sister-in-law (who also did the work of covering those aforementioned chairs for us). The silver tea service also came from my parents-in-law.

Still to come: a new tablecloth and window scarf (I'm thinking white), a new chandelier, and ceiling painting. I don't know if we will get that all done before Thanksgiving. Either way, it's going to be an especially festive meal this year with a new look for our dining room and my college freshman returning after three months away from home!

Trader Joe's Throw-Together

I love Trader Joe's. I know I'm lucky to live near one. I was shopping there yesterday and they were handing out samples of a chicken chili recipe made with all Trader Joe's products. I had a taste and was immediately sold. We had it for supper tonight.


Here's the recipe. It doesn't get much easier than this. In fact, I don't think I can even call this cooking.

1 jar Trader Joe's Fire-roasted Yellow & Red Peppers
1 jar Trader Joe's Salsa Verde
1 can Trader Joe's White Kidney Beans
1 can Trader Joe's Premium White Chunk Chicken



Put it all in a pot, stir, and warm thoroughly. That's it.

I was worried this would not be enough food for my crew. So I added another can of chicken and another can of beans. I didn't have any more white kidney beans so I used black beans. Then I tossed in a little extra chili powder.


We had a salad on the side and some saltine crackers. Yum! It was a great dish for a cold winter's night. It cost a little more to make than a pot of beef chili, which costs about $5. But it was a welcome change of pace and cheaper than making chicken breasts or the like for everyone. You could easily substitute the Trader Joe's ingredients with other brands.

Next time I think I'll try doing what we do with black bean soup and garnish with onions and/or sour cream. Time to go back to TJ's and stock up on more ingredients!

Quick and Easy Lunch

If you're like me, you don't want to spend much time on lunch, whether to think about it, prepare it, or eat it. As a result, the midday repast can quickly become tiresome in its predictability. So it's nice to find a dish that is not only tasty but cheap, easy and fast. That's what I found last week when I was visiting my friend Elephant's Child. For lunch she served us a simple rice and bean dish that was a welcome change from cold sandwiches. Wow, imagine that! Hot food for lunch! It hit the spot on a cold day, so much so that I have made it several more times this past week. Here's how I did it (which is probably not exactly how Elephant's Child made hers):

Cook one bag of Success rice according to package directions.
Mix in one can of black beans and one can of Rotel-style tomatoes and green chilies. Warm through.
Serve alone or on soft tortillas, garnished with your choice of cheese, sour cream, onions, and/or lettuce.

That's it. You can throw it together in about 15 minutes. The rice and beans cost less than $2 to make: the rice was 50 cents (one bag out of a box of four for $2), and the beans and tomatoes were each about 60 cents. Add the cost of tortillas and garnish, and you're talking $3 (at the most) for a 3 or 4-person meal.

We sometimes make bean and cheese quesadillas for lunch, but in my opinion this is so much better and more substantial. Thanks, Elephant's Child!

Sheath Cake

I can't remember where I got this recipe. I have had it in my recipe box for years, written on an index card by my own hand. I haven't made it in ages and decided to pull it out yesterday for my daughter's 15th birthday. It was a hit! So I thought I would kick off this new home and hearth blog by posting it here.

I don't know why it's called a "Sheath" cake. I remember wondering about it years ago and thinking that maybe it had to do with the definition of "sheath" as a covering. The icing on this cake is more like a poured on blanket than a frosting. But I did a little research and discovered that the phrase "sheath cake" may be simply a mispronunciation of "sheet cake" as in "Texas Sheet Cake." Okay, that works. I'm from Texas so it makes sense that I would have a traditional Texas recipe in my possession. I still wish I could remember where I got it.

Anyway, without further ado, here's my recipe for "Sheath Cake."

Cake

2 c. flour
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. soda
1 stick butter
3-4 tbsp. cocoa
1 c. water
1/2 c. shortening
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix sugar and flour and set aside. Do the same with buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. Heat butter, cocoa, water & shortening to a boil. Pour over dry mixture. Add buttermilk mixture and soda and stir well. Bake 20-25 minutes in a greased & floured 13x9x2 pan. Let cool.

Icing

1 stick butter
3-4 tbsp. cocoa
6 tbsp. milk
1 box (1 pound) powdered sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla
1/2 c. nuts
1/4 c. coconut

Heat butter, cocoa, and milk to a boil. Add sugar, vanilla, nuts & coconut. Mix well and spread on top of cake.

Some of the people in my house like their chocolate smooth and unadulterated. So I covered half of the cake with plain icing and the other half with chunky icing (I like the latter). I love coconut, so I used 1/2 cup and I also used the full amount of nuts even though I was only covering half a cake. I would follow your own preference on this one.

Here's the finished product!




My husband pronounced it one of the most delicious cakes he had ever tasted. The cake itself is not terribly sweet, but the icing is quite rich, so together they amount to a perfect level of sweetness. Add some vanilla ice cream on the side or a tall glass of milk to round out your eating enjoyment. Whatever you decide to call it, it still tastes the same!

Little Things

A few years ago I read the book Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher. The book grew out of Dreher's wildly popular article "Birkenstocked Burkeans" written for National Review in 2002. My husband and I strongly identified with Dreher's description of himself and his wife: "In some respects, the life we live and the values we share have more in common with left-wing counterculturalists than with many garden-variety conservatives." Dreher is talking about what he calls a "healthy suspicion . . . of mass culture." "Crunchy Cons" place a lower priority than some of their fellow conservatives on the values of efficiency and utility and economy, embracing instead those things that add beauty and uniqueness and authenticity to life. So food is not just for eating, but for relishing. Homes are not just for shelter, but for enriching our days. Education is not just about turning out effective workers, but about feeding the mind and the soul. And the pursuit of something that goes beyond mere effectiveness takes time and care and attention to detail.

During his research for the book, a crunchy conservative friend of Dreher's told him, “Every single thing that comes into my house, down to the salt shakers, has to first pass a test of being persuasive, winsome, original, odd — ‘authentic.’" I love that philosophy, but I don't have the funds or the wherewithal to make everything in my home pass that sort of test. We live on a church worker income and Target is our friend. But one of the things that Dreher's book crystallized for me was the impact little things can have on adorning our days. I may not be able to afford to decorate my entire home according to the vision I have in my mind's eye, but I can make at least a few select corners of it something special.

Speaking of corners, here is one of my favorite in our house:

Pictured is a rolling wooden cabinet that was one of the first pieces of furniture my husband and I ever bought together. It wasn't expensive, but I think it fits the test of uniqueness.

Mounted on the right side is a bottle opener with the Coca-Cola logo. The metal plate on the top middle of the left side has the words, "Trademark White Clad Registered Simmons Hardware Co. St. Louis, MO U.S.A." Sitting on the cabinet is my small collection of houseplants, which are actually thriving right now! (I have a complicated relationship with growing things.)


The large lily on the floor is a refugee from my father-in-law's funeral. It came to us this spring, a year after the funeral, and has lived on our front porch until now. I just brought it inside and am hoping and praying the move doesn't have a deleterious effect on it.

Also pictured are the salt & pepper and cream & sugar pieces from our recently purchased new set of everyday dishes (Gibson "Royal Rooster"). I looked for many months for dishes that we could afford to replace our aging set, and one of the requirements was that it have matching peripheral pieces such as these. The Royal Rooster pattern is discontinued and I wasn't able to find the extra pieces in the store when I bought the dishes on clearance, but I did find them online at Replacements, Limited.

In the lower shelves of the cabinet we keep our Bibles, hymnals, and materials for home devotion. What this corner says to me is, "Come in. Have a seat. Soak in some sunshine and take in God's Word while enjoying a cup of your favorite drink." It's a message I need to hear repeatedly, because I have a hard time not letting the Tyranny of the Urgent govern my days. This corner, for me, is a concrete reminder of that message.

As a Christian I believe that my life is ultimately not of this world. A friend puts it this way: "It's all gonna burn." But at the same time, I am a physical creature living in a physical creation, one that was very good in God's eyes before it was sullied by human sin, and that still reflects much of that goodness and beauty. Bound as I am to this world, I take both pleasure and comfort from things of beauty. I like the way Dreher puts it:

"The Granola Conservatives I know tend not to be wealthy, but labor in the creative and intellectual vineyards as writers, professors, and artists. They also tend to be religious. It’s foolish to go too far in metaphysicalizing questions of taste, but a big part of it, at least for those of us who are part of older Christian traditions, comes from learning to see the world sacramentally. In the sacramental vision . . . the spirit world is mediated through the material world, which is another way of saying we experience God in creation. To someone imbued with a sacramental vision, qualities inherent in things — from the food we eat to the buildings we live in — matter in profoundly spiritual ways."

I hope to make this blog a catalogue of some of the little things that add beauty and enjoyment to my family's daily life. Hope to see you again!