Time to Stock the Freezer

During the summer, I am extremely loosey goosey with my meals. I eat when I'm hungry without much thought to meal planning. This summer, I was trying to save money, so I was loosey-goosey on a budget. That means trying to scrounge up every morsel of food in my house and make it into something edible. (Example: We ordered way too many pizzas for our summer workshop, so I was happy to take home five of the ten extras. I ate pizza for every meal for four days.)

With the start of the school year, I am forced into a much more structured life, which is a great thing. No more loosey goosey. So this past weekend, when I didn't yet have any papers to grade or parents to call, I did some freezer-stocking.

Even when freezer stocking, I try to use what I have. What I had was some leftover ham from canning camp. (Aunt Jane never fails to fill me up nicely!) After some recipe investigating, I settled on homemade hot pockets. I love a Hot Pocket as much as anyone, but I don't love the additives or the price tag. This is what I did to make my own:

I started by making my beloved King Arthur sourdough pizza dough recipe. After it rose, I divvied it up into 16 segments and rolled one out. I piled it with ham and provolone. 

Next, I simply folded the edges over and sealed them with water. 

I placed each one on a baking sheet and topped them with a mixture of parmesan cheese and garlic powder. I froze them unbaked, so when I'm jonesing for a hot pocket, I'll need to bake one in the oven for about 15 minutes. 

I tested one out and delicious hot pocketry abounded! 

After the hot pockets, I made two recipes of my enchiladas, one black bean, one chicken and and an eggplant lasagna, a recipe for which is coming soon. And my freezer went from drab to fab! 

Canning Camp 2014

We canned, we camped, we conquered. 

Numbers for 2014:

294 jars of tomato juice, slurry, catsup, pizza sauce, salsa, and spaghetti sauce. (Roughly 34 gallons of product!) You can see recipes and past year's numbers by clicking on the "canning" label at the bottom of this post.

We had a five woman crew this year, and 2014 was no different - we worked HARD. But as I dig into my eggplant parmesan tonight, it's all worth it. And it'll all be worth it this winter when I make vegetable soup. And it'll all be worth it when I need a quick appetizer (catsup and cream cheese is always a hit!). And it's all worth it when I look back to time I got to spend with my family, bonding over bubbling pots, a steaming canner, and a Mt. Everest-sized mound of dirty dishes.

Woodworking 101

For those who don't know, I started teaching at a different school this year. I loved SHS for eight years, but it was time for a change. I got the opportunity to start a German program at one of the best schools in the state, so I had to take it. With a new school, come new challenges for the Pattiwagon. I always had a podium in my room in Southaven. It was a much older school with many more vestiges of retired teachers, so podiums were easy to come by. Lewisburg (my new school) is an expansion school and has only been around a few years, ergo no podiums. I priced them and quickly discovered that podiums are expensive. 

As much as I'd like to be known as Rabbi Clayton, that price just doesn't fly on the Pattiwagon, so I set out to make one. (Important note here: This is the extent of my woodworking experience.) I scoured Pinterest for instructions and came upon this site with great instructions. A friend loaned me a jigsaw and sander in exchange for some canned goodness. Armed with my tools and instructions, I headed to Lowe's, where I happened to see my new BFF Ephren. (The previous week, he had helped me cut wall paneling to make mini dry erase boards for my students.) He recognized me and offered his services once again. I am so grateful for his help, as he cut everything perfectly, made sure to leave the nice edges for the front, and gave me the confidence to build. 

This is what I did: 

I started the day off right with a Boy Scout hotdog from Lowe's. I realized they must make a killing out there. I've never turned down a dog right off the grill. 

Fueled by the dog, I got to woodworking. While Ephren made all the straight cuts, I had to make the diagonal cuts on the sides, so that the top of the podium would slant. I also cut four triangular braces. Let's hope they keep the podium from keeling over in the middle of class.

After the cuts, I sanded and sanded and sanded. Probably, I could have sanded some more, but man, it got old after a while. How do you like my sawhorse? (Pattiwagon Life Lesson: If you don't have it, improvise.)

In addition to sanding A LOT, I measured A LOT. Again, hoping for sturdiness here. 

Here it is taking shape. You can see the braces I added. 

Finished with construction! 

Finally, I stained it with Kona wood stain. The whole project took me about six hours, and that included two trips to Lowe's. I'm so please with how it turned out. Once I get it in my classroom, I'll take a few glamour shots and post them. 

Schland, O Schland!

As you probably know, I heart Deutschland, and my love for the Vaterland is never more apparent than in Weltmeisterschaft season. I proudly don my Podolski jersey, talk about the Fussballgott Müller to anyone who will listen, and of course partake in the food and beverage of choice. Here I am in '10 pressing my thumbs (the German version of crossing one's fingers).

German food is, in a word, soflippingdeliciousiwanttobeburiedinit. The staples of German cuisine are meat (most often pork, most often roasted), potatoes (most often fried), and beer. What's not to love? Unless you're vegetarian or on a low-carb diet, and in that case, you've got bigger problems.

To celebrate Germany's massive win over Portugal (4:0!!!), I decided to cook up a specialty of the Schwäbisch (southwestern) area of Germany: spätzle. (By the way, Thomas Müller, if you're reading this, I know you're married and all, but I am totally willing to be a sister wife, cook you spätzle, teach your children English, help you find proper socks, etc. SMS me.)

Back to the dish. Spätzle are raggedy egg noodles, boiled, fried, and often served with cheese and fried onions. Think German macaroni and cheese. I had never made them before, but after my success with homemade pasta, I was confident.

I followed this recipe, and it worked perfectly. The pancake-like batter came together perfectly. The hardest part about spätzle is getting the noodles into the boiling water. As much as you want homemade spaghetti noodles to be uniform and beautiful, you want spätzle to be un-uniform and un-beautiful. Both ends of the spectrum are surprisingly hard to do!

I first tried my metal steamer basket turned upside down. I pressed the batter through the holes, and it worked okay, but I found that the batter that stuck to the steamer was cooking faster than I could get it pressed through the holes, so I quickly went to Plan B.

My next attempt involved a plastic bag filled with the batter. I poked four large-ish holes in the bottom, held it above the boiling water, and then squeezed intermittently, so that the batter would come out. This was easy, involved little clean-up, and produced just scraggly enough looking spätzle.

I let them boil in batches for a few minutes. The recipe says 5-8. Mine needed more like 2-3. They'll rise to the top and expand when they are finished. I fished them out and transferred them to an ice bath.

To serve, I heated up some bacon grease (because bacon) and butter (because butter) in a pan and added the spätzle. I let the noodles heat back up and get just barely golden brown. At the end of cooking, I threw in a handful of cheese. (I had Colby jack on hand. Emmenthaler is more authentic.) Fried onions are also a traditional topper. 

Auf geht's, Jungs!! Wir wollen den Titel Nummer Vier!

When Life Hands You Two Flattened Bread Disks

I was making some sourdough bread a few weeks ago. It was my first batch in awhile, so I was feeling pretty psyched about having freshly baked bread to go along with all the freshly canned jam in my house. Everything went smoothly until the final rise. I set it out on the counter and headed to dinner, expecting to return a couple hours later to bake it. Dinner went long and turned into trivia, and frankly, when trivia calls, Pattiwagon answers. So when I arrived home four hours later, I was met with two flattened discs of dough. I immediately put them in the oven, hoping for some immaculate levitation. Did not happen, and they came out of the oven as such:

I tried one slice, and it was a lot more like biscotti and a lot less like bread. That's when the cogs started turning. One of my favorite things about cooking and crafting is problem solving. It is here where I feel my most creative (and my most profane). I knew I wanted to do a pressed picnic sandwich with one loaf. I made a sandwich like this for my tubing trip a couple years ago. I didn't take any photographs then, so while it was blog-worthy, it never made the cut. Now the perfect opportunity presented itself. So, on to the recipe!

I first sliced the loaf open and scooped out excess breadiness on both the top and the bottom (instant breadcrumbs!). 

Then I mixed together mayonnaise and pesto and schmeared it (heavily), again on both the top and the bottom.

I layered on salami, capicola, provolone, marinated artichokes, and sun-dried tomatoes. Sounds like a good sandwich, right? If you're patient, it will get even better.

I put the top back on, wrapped the whole loaf in plastic wrap, and set it in my fridge with my iron skillet (and a brick) on top. I let it sit for 24 hours. Totally worth it.

This is a great picnic sandwich for several reasons. 1. It's delicious. 2. It gets better with age. 3. It's not going to suffer from getting squished at the bottom of your cooler. In fact, it will thrive here. You don't have to mess up sourdough bread to make it though. I recommend ciabatta or foccacia as excellent bread options. 

For the other loaf, I made a "calzone." I scooped out all the excess bread again, but this time, I filled the cavity with pizza toppings - tomato sauce, sausage, pepperoni, onions, green pepper, and a healthy amount of cheese. I put the lid on, wrapped it foil, and baked it at 350 for about 45 minutes. 

The crusts were a little bread-heavy. I would make them a little thinner or just pile pizza toppings up to the edge. 

It turned out quite nicely, but it was difficult to eat, so I don't recommend this one with as much gusto as the pressed sandwich. However, the cold leftovers the next day made a perfect pizza sandwich, which would be a great treat in your picnic basket this summer. 

I Hope You Like Jammin' Too

So many jam puns...only one post title....

About a month ago, I went to hear Marisa McClellan of www.foodinjars.com speak at a book signing in Memphis. She did a canning demo, and it was great fun for the small audience. Her latest book is all about small batch canning, which is very appealing for various obvious reasons, namely the lack of storage and lack of jam eaters in my house. But it would also enable me to experiment more freely. If something doesn't go right, I'm only throwing away a couple pints, as opposed to a couple quarts. I tucked away all of her tips and waited until strawberry season, which was very late this year. 

[Side note on strawberry season: It's the best I've seen in at least five years. Go now, Memphis, because it won't last much longer.]

I experimented several years ago with cooked jam with little luck. It requires a ton of sugar, and when you cook it, the strawberries lose a lot of their integrity. Also, I just prefer the flavor of freezer jam. So I've been a religious freezer every year since. (Here's a post on jam freezing from 2012.) With Marisa's tips in hand though, I was ready to try some small batches of cooked jam. 

I first cooked the honey sweetened recipe found here. And NO DICE! All four half pints were immediately dumped. I'm not sure what went wrong, but it was sickeningly sweet and never really came together like jam should. 

Next, I tried the strawberry rhubarb rosewater jam, and this one looks and feels a lot more like jam, but the rosewater tastes like soap to me. Maybe it was brand issue with the rosewater, or maybe I just don't like rosewater, but I will not be making that again. One positive did come of this experiment. It was my first foray into rhubarb, and I have to say, I'll be inviting him back to my house next season. Delightful!

Here are some pictures of the process: 

Final product, you are beautiful, but you taste like sh*t. 

So, what did I do with the rest of my berries? Freezer jam, of course!

#MeMadeMay

I originally saw this hashtag on Refashionista's blog and decided I wanted to participate. It's an Instagram project in which users wear an article of clothing they have made every day of the month of May. Simple enough, right? I started off well but faltered around the second weekend, lacking any homemade lounge clothes. Here are few of the items I've worn so far:

    

    

  

      

If you recognize some of these, congrats! You win a gold star for being an avid Pattiwagoneer! If you want to see the rest of the month, follow me on Instagram @pcc0383

The third weekend rolled around and I decided to refashion something new (oxymoron?). It's a simple enough project and only took me a couple hours. I made the bows out of black cotton fabric according to these directions.

Then I split open the back of an old shirt, pinned bias tape up the sides to hide the potentially fraying edges, and sewed the bows on. I wish I had cut off some extra fabric because the shirt is now a little too loose. Oh well, I'm lounging in it right now on this lazy Sunday. #learningexperience

I'm calling it my "ooh lala shirt."