Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Hey Kate
Check out http://www2.ciachef.edu/pdf/recipe_cards.pdf
Call my cell to see what I did (I'll be @ grandmas) :)
Monday, April 14, 2008
Issues
Why the heck does the editor add random spaces? I hate when this happens in between links and especially between lines of ingredients. Sure it looks better when paragraphs are spaced out, but I wish there was a way to turn this off...
Also my user pic and all the list of tags (recipes, desserts, crepes, etc.) that usually appear on Bloggers arent showing up.
And the text size is ginormous in AOL but normal here on Internet Explorer (which I think I will use from now on as editing is much neater and more organized on here).
Well... I had better get to bed now. The time, also is off- its set for Pacific time I believe. Wish I really was out in CA right now... haha. But its 1:50 am here :P
Spring Means Rhubarb
I made this first one quite some time ago:

RHUBARB - STRAWBERRY PIE
1 1/4-1 1/2 c. sugar
3 tbsp. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
3 c. rhubarb, cut into 1/2" pieces
2 c. sliced fresh strawberries
1 tbsp. butter
Pastry for double crust pie
In large mixing bowl stir together sugar, cornstarch, salt and ground nutmeg. Add rhubarb pieces and sliced strawberries, toss gently to coat fruit. Let stand for 15 minutes.Meanwhile, prepare and roll out pastry. Line a 9 inch pie plate with half of the pastry. Trim pastry to edge of pie plate. Pour fruit mixture into pie plate. Dot with butter, place pastry on top of filling. Cut slits in top to allow steam to escape seal and flute edge. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
This next one is more recent, may have even been late fall/early winter 07-08 (using some my grandma and I froze ourselves). Too bad they don't sell frozen rhubarb, I really could make pies with it year round!

Rhubarb Custard Pie
From: Ashley’s Kitchen
Yield: one 9-inch pie
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
9" unbaked single pastry crust (regular or whole-wheat)
1 ½ c. sugar
¼ c. fat-free half-and-half
¾ c. Egg beaters (or 3 large eggs)
2 ½ Tbsp. instant tapioca
4 c. fresh rhubarb*, ½-inch slices
Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a 9-inch pie plate with pastry crust, trim and crimp or flue edge.
Combine final 5 ingredients (sugar through rhubarb), mix until all is coated evenly. Pour filling into prepared pie shell.
Bake for 10 minutes at 400°F. Then decrease oven temperature to 350°F and bake for an additional 40-50 minutes. Test with a knife near center (if it comes out clean, pie is done). Cool briefly on wire rack; serve warm or cold. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.
*You may use frozen, defrosted rhubarb. Make sure to dry off any moisture that comes off after defrosting. Measure frozen rhubarb after defrosting and drying; use as directed for fresh rhubarb.
And, here are my foolproof pie crust recipes. The custard pie needs only a single crust, so you could go with the healthier press-in-pan oil (or even whole wheat crust, like I used here) :) And to all you self-proclaimed bad-crustmakers out there, these recipes are so simple and easy! No need to have Pillsbury do the work for you if the real from-scratch crust tastes soooooooo much better!
Oil Pie Crust
From: the Post-Standard
Yield: one 8 or 9-inch pie crust
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Bake Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
1 ½ c. flour
1 tsp. sugar
½ tsp. salt
½ c. oil
2 tab. milk
Preheat oven to 425° F.
Sift flour with sugar and salt into a 8- or 9- inch pie pan. Whisk together oil and milk, pour all at once into center of dry ingredients. Mix dough with a fork until evenly moist, then press dough evenly into the pan with your fingers.
Use fork or fingers to make a design around edge. Using a fork, make air holes all around the bottom and sides of the crust. Bake for 12- 15 minutes if using as a prebaked pie crust.
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Crisco Pie Crust
From: Grandma Mersfelder
Yield: one 8 or 9-inch pie crust
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Bake Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients: Double Crust (top and bottom):
1 1/3 c. flour 2 2/3 c. flour
½ tsp. salt 1 tsp. salt
½ c. crisco 1 c. crisco
2 - 4 tab. ice-cold water
Preheat oven to 425° F.
Sift flour with salt into a medium-size mixing bowl. Add crisco, mix with fork until shortening is in pea-size crumbs (do NOT get chunks too small).
Gradually add water, one tablespoon at a time, just until the dough holds together. Roll out to correct size for the pie pan. Gently place dough in pan, trimming edges with a knife. Using a fork, make air holes all around the bottom and sides of the crust. Extra scraps may be used to make jelly tarts or cinnamon-sugar strips.
Bake pie crust for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Tarts or strips take about 5-6 minutes (toaster works well).
_____________________
Whole-wheat pie crust
From: Ashley’s Kitchen
Yield: one 9-inch pie crust
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Bake Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients: Double Crust (top and bottom):
1 c. whole-wheat pastry flour 2 c. whole-wheat pastry flour
½ tsp. salt 1 tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. butter, chilled ¾ c. (12 Tbsp.) butter
2 – 4 Tbsp. ice water 4 – 8 Tbsp. ice water
Preheat oven to 425° F.
Sift flour with salt into a medium-size mixing bowl. Add butter, mix with fork until it is in pea-size crumbs (do NOT get chunks too small).
Gradually add water, one tablespoon at a time, just until the dough holds together. Roll out to correct size for the pie pan. Follow recipe directions for baking (unless recipe calls for pre-baked pie shell).
For a pre-baked crust: Gently place dough in pan, trimming edges with a knife. Using a fork, make air holes all around the bottom and sides of the crust. Extra scraps may be used to make jelly tarts or cinnamon-sugar strips.
Bake pie crust for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Tarts or strips take about 5-6 minutes (toaster works well).
Great meals
While perusing the overwhelming pictoral content of my thumb drive, I came across some delicious photos of meals I've made over the past few months...
Breakfast:
Buckwheat Crepes (far right and center) with strawberry syrup, Nutella, ricotta cheese, blueberry syrup, walnuts, and apple-cranberry fillings.
Custard French Toast with blueberry and strawberry syrups
Dinner:

Veracruz Chicken with parmesan-tomato-basil risotto and cheesy zucchini
And here's the entire New Year's Eve '08 snack spread:
And most recently, these I made just tonight:
Fried shrimp sandwiches with homemade tartar sauce and sweet n sour coleslaw
So, from here on out is mostly single recipes, though from time to time I may put up a whole meal with pictures :)
Recipes for all the delicious dishes above (main dishes in bold, sides in italics) coming up soon! You can also search for them on www.thistasteslikecardboard.com/tiana/ as some are recipes I've had for awhile, though the old site hasn't had a thorough update in over a year.
One more thing...
http://http://www.cooks.com/
http://http://www.elise.com/
http://http://www.yumyum.com/
http://www.recipezaar.com/
http://http://www.foodnetwork.com/
http://www.childrensrecipes.com/
http://www.recipegoldmine.com/
http://www.toomanycooks.com/
http://recipe.aol.com/recipe/browse
http://www.thaitable.com/Thai/recipes/Pad_Thai.htm
http://www.syracuse.com/forums/recipeswap/index.ssf
Some blogs I like:
http://www.yumsugar.com/
http://winosandfoodies.typepad.com/my_weblog/food/index.html- Generally amazing recipes
http://cookiemadness.austin360blogs.com/category.aspx?q=Opinion- scroll down: TONS of yummy cookie recipes
http://rosiebakesapeaceofcake.blogspot.com/
http://www.pieceofcakeblog.blogspot.com/
http://http://www.calorieking.com/
http://www.stronghealth.com/services/cardiology/rehabrecovery/index.cfm
http://http://www.calorie-count.com/ (You can analyze your own recipes here too!)
Some more handy sites:
http://www.sweetnapa.com/volume-to-weight-ingredient-conversion
Its been awhile
Oh well- I never said I was going to be consistent with this. See, the problem with my attempting to document my cooking experiences is that I go on spurts- of trying new recipes, of clipping out recipes from the paper, of organizing said recipes... and last of all is finally typing up/editing in my computer whatever recipes I have recently made (and adding the lovely photos to go along with them :)
So, I think from now on I will just post things up here as I type them, not as I make them (this means the recipes up here will be a few weeks old until I catch up). And if I'm really on the ball with my camera, I can upload the pix a day or two after making something then post the recipe later ;)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Mom

Wednesday, March 26, 2008
My Grandmother....
taken :)New Blog
Now, you are probably wondering, who the heck is this girl and why does she think so highly of her cooking/baking ability?
Well, a little background info might help:
My name is Ashley, and I am seventeen years old (a junior in High school).
I began helping my grandmother with simple food prep tasks as soon as I could walk and talk, such as measuring flour or cutting out cookies. When I was in my "tween" years I developed a great and sudden interest in independant cooking and baking, and within a year or two was making entire dinners for my family, and baking from-scratch goodies for snacks and bake sales.
When I was 15 years old, my mother's friend nominated me for my local paper's Cook of the Week. A full-page article was published of me and a few of my signature creations (Thai Seafood Yum, Raspberry Cheesecake Bars, Hummus Dip & Pita Chips, and Chocolate Chunk Bread Puddings.)
At this time, in late June 2006, I was already well on my way to documenting my recipe successes in a large three-ring binder. The Binder has since become two- one for Baking, one for Cooking. Each has well over 200 recipes, probably pushing 300 by now (Baking is slightly larger, with sections for Desserts, Cookies, Breads, Snacks& Beverages. Cooking has sections for Side Dishes, Soups/Salads and Main Dishes.)
I met Tiana in August 2006, she contacted me via e-mail after she had read my article in the paper. We then began the first blog/website together. So, in addition to my ongoing project of written documentation of the recipes I had made (I would find a recipe, prepare the food, mark the recipe up with any changes/modifications I make, and type it up in a Word file on my computer) I now was taking pictures of my food and posting the nicely-typed recipes together on the website.
I know what you are thinking, a seventeen year old chef. Her signature dishes are probably Shake n Bake chicken and Cake-mix cake with Betty Crocker Frosting. Not so. My grandmother is a BIG advocate of from-scratch cooking, and although I do have my favorite "cheat ingredients: (ie Cool Whip, No Pudge Brownie mix and Jello Instant Pudding) I generally stand by that philosophy-- use "real", fresh ingredients, and your results will be better than if you used cheaper, shortcut or premade ingredients. I cook all kinds of cuisine, from Asian to Italian to German to Mexican. I can also whip up a flurry of sugary confections from homemade "Cadbury-style" cream eggs to decadent ganache-filled chocolate cake to the simple yet oft-overlooked from-scratch apple pie with HOMEMADE pastry crust. And my most recently developed skill is in breadbaking- yeast doughs from simple weeknight Italian bread to buttery holiday rolls, and of course quickbreads like banana bread and buttermilk biscuits.
Further cooking experience:
As I mentioned before, I have been cooking meals for my family since I was about 12 or 13 years old... I am now seventeen so that is nearly five years. I have taken kids' basic cooking classes, at summer camps, etc. and this past summer even went to the Culinary Institute of America for a four-day camp, similar to the chef training I would recieve if I went to school there (my new post-grad dream :) Of course thats aiming a little high, but hey, dreaming big is never a bad thing ;)
Whew. Thats a mouthful (or a handful, I guess- haha). So... I will begin entering any recipes I make from here-on out. If I have time tomorrow I will probably enter in the goodies I prepared over Easter break :)
All right. I need to shut my brain up now. As I mentioned before, I AM a high school student. And a three-season athlete (although in my mind its four- Cross country girls dont take summers off- they do SUMMER RUNNING!) So, I am very busy... cooking, which began in the background of my life, then branched into a hobby, and now is my form of relaxation/meditation... soon (hopefully) to become my future career in a few years :)
Although that is yet ANOTHER tangent that I am teetering on the edge of going off on... let me just say this. Fartlek workout tomorrow. Ugggggh--- Soooooo Anywho I need to rest up for yet another mentally and physically demanding day :) Goodnight all!

