I Dare You To Eat It

Still on my quest to prepare anything I can ahead of time, I’ve spent the afternoon cooking 70 cups of copycat Cafe Rio cilantro lime rice. I’m mostly following Erica’s recipe (http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/2007/11/jared-and-i-love-cafe-rio.html) after she’s cracked the code from this local favorite restaurant.

It takes a village.

Fresh Ingredients

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

1 tablespoon butter, diced

1 lime, zest and juice

Storage Ingredients

3 cups rice

6 cups boiling water

3 chicken bouillon cubes, crushed if possible

2 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon dry sliced garlic pieces 

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Boil water. Spray or oil a 9 x 13 inch cake pan and pour in the 3 cups of dry rice. Sprinkle on the cilantro, butter, chicken bouillon, sugar, and dried garlic pieces. Add boiling water and cover tightly with foil. Bake at 350 for approximately 70 minutes. Fluff with a fork and stir in the lime zest and juice. This stuff is GOOD.

Trying to conserve both time and energy, I baked two pans at a time and increased the temperature to 375 degrees and then let them cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Each of the three batches turned out perfect, which is totally unusual for me. 

I still don’t know what happened that one time, about two years ago, when I was in charge of cooking the oven rice for a major dinner prior to Stake Conference . It seems like we were hosting not one, but TWO, visiting General Authorities, not to mention our wonderful Stake President, who just happened to be Gordon B. Hinckley’s son. Something went terribly wrong (surprise!) and my rice was not even close to being ready when it was time to serve this terrific group of leaders, and their lovely wives, an amazing salmon dinner. I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. There was either an evil hex on my kitchen that night OR I didn’t increase the oven temperature and add extra cooking time. Thankfully, the kind sisters I was serving with were gracious about my mess-up and insisted that the guests would just assume we were trying to go very “low carb”…or something.

Anyway, the rice for Rosie’s family dinner is D*O*N*E way way ahead of time.

My plan is to keep all the bags of rice frozen until the night before her farewell dinner and then microwave each as we’re ready to serve. Provident Living.

Repentance.

Meds.

Sounds crazy, but it works!

Dear Ann gets all the credit for this idea. She wrote a comment on my recipe for carrot cake made from dehydrated carrots and wheat flour and told how she substituted an equal amount of mashed white beans for the oil and then used powdered eggs, and still achieved GREAT results.

The idea of using beans instead of oil or butter in baked goods seemed intriguing so I gave it a try. The recipe, Best Blueberry Buckle, was found on recipezaar.com and is an adaptation from Cook’s Illustrated. It’s supposedly almost identical to Einstein Bagel’s blueberry crumb cake and has 4 whole cups of blueberries suspended in the batter. (Are we good?)

So. First I cooked a pile of white beans until they were completely soft. 

Then I mashed them in my food-chopper-thing and measured out the amount to equal the butter that was originally called for in the recipe. This is what one and a quarter sticks of butter looks like, in beans.

Cream as usual and go.

I used real butter for the streusel topping and my daughter said this was the BEST blueberry muffin cake, EVER! She ate it for breakfast, took a piece to school in her lunch, enjoyed it as an after school snack, and chose it for a treat during dancing lessons. (She may not get enough baked goods.) (You know what that’s about.)

I didn’t tell anyone about the beans. It’s our little secret.

And there’s more where that came from!

I’m going to measure the leftover bean-goo and freeze it in half cup lumps so that it’s easy to add to other recipes. This trick saves money and helps our arteries stay happy. Thank you so much, Ann! As you can see, I tried it and your suggestion was a total hit!

Today was the day I decided to make TWENTY times Erica’s copycat recipe for Cafe Rio style black beans. Starting early, even a whole month ahead of time, is the only way I’ll be able to pull off feeding the 50 friends and family invited to Rosie’s Thursday night farewell party. I’ve tried a few versions of these wildly popular recipes and http//favfamilyrecipes.blogspot.com is my favorite. So if you need to make a boat load of beans, you might give this a try.

First, I have to introduce you to my new BFF. I believe it absolutley was Divine Intervention when about a month ago a total stranger GAVE ME this perfectly new pressure cooker. Time to confront my fears and phobias about blowing up the house and killing everyone on the block in some freak cooking accident. I carved out some time, sat myself down, and read the instruction booklet cover to cover. Here’s what I learned. A. This sucker gets really hot. B. Don’t open it when it’s really hot.

My plan was to cook 4 batches of 4 cups of dried beans at a time. This made 40 cups of freshly cooked black beans before I added all the special sauce ingredients.

I measured out the first four cups and carefully rinsed them. Then I sorted them for any duds or debris. I doubt the restaurant is this careful, but…

Then I added the washed beans, 2 quarts of water, and 1/4 cup of oil to the pressure cooker. You could also add 1 tablespoon of salt to cook with your beans. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. Everyone has a different opinion on this detail. I think I prefer cooking the beans with salt in the water but that’s jus me. It’s not a big deal either way.

Lock on the lid and let it rip. (Er, set on high heat at 15 PSI.) When the pot came up to pressure, I turned the heat down to medium and let them cook for 15 minutes. As soon as the timer went off, I turned off the heat and let the pot cool for 30 minutes.

Now, I’ve always understood that dried beans will triple in quantity when cooked but after careful measuring, my original 4 cups of dry only made just barely 10 cups of cooked. Just sayin’. Then I drained all the cooking liquid and set the beans aside while I repeated this process three more times.

Here’s what I used to this point:

Storage Ingredients

16 cups dried black beans, cooked 4 cups at a time, in a 8 quart pressure cooker

1 cup oil, added 1/4 cup in each batch to limit the amount of foaming while the beans cook.

4 tablespoons salt, added 1 tablespoon per batch, totally optional

The secret sauce was made, as I said before, mostly following Erica’s recipe, but twenty times her amounts. I did cut way back on the amount of tomato juice because because I don’t need my black beans to be so soupy. If they need to be thinned before serving, I can always add the additional 6 cups of juice later.

Sauce Fresh Ingredients

50 cloves of garlic, minced

2 1/2 cups cilantro, chopped

Sauce Storage Ingredients

3 or 4 large cans of tomato juice (46 oz. each)

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup ground cumin

1/2 cup salt

Heat tomato juice in a GIANT pot. Remember, I only used three cans instead of four. Any variety will do.

Peel and mince garlic cloves. I like to throw on a pair of rubber gloves when I’m dealing with this much garlic.

The fifty cloves measured about 2/3 to 3/4 a cup before being minced,

and about a half a cup after I ground them up in my little handy chopper.

I don’t know why this seemed so important to document and explain. I’ll move on now. Heat the oil and carefully saute garlic for only 10 to 20 seconds.

Two wimpy bunches of fresh cilantro chopped and measured out to be the 2 1/2 cups I needed. That meant I didn’t have to break into my stash of frozen!

Combine all four batches of cooked and drained beans with the sauce ingredients. Heat and serve OR chill and freeze for later use.

Mine are cooling in two huge glass bowls in the fridge and tomorrow I’ll divide them up to freeze until the night before the big party. I’ve probably made this look more difficult than it was. Black beans for 50 did take about 3 and a half hours to prepare, but that’s 3 and a half hours that I don’t have to spend come the end of June. It’s a great feeling.

And no one will ever miss the 3 cups we stole for lunch!

Some days, lots of days actually, I wonder what to post. I wonder what would possibly be helpful to someone else. Today is not one of those days.

If you want to print the pattern please click on each of the images below to view them full size, and then print the page.

Big thanks to my awesome SIL, Michael, and his wonderful computer brain, you no longer need to write in your requests for the chemo caps pattern. I’ve already sent it out all over the United States, and Canada, and this post will make it even that much more accessible. Detailed sewing pictures can be found on the original post here and shots of the finished products can be found here.

Dearest Cozette gave me this amazing white bread recipe from the New York Times, November 8th 2006 and adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery author of My Bread. Crazy crusty on the outside and light as a feather on the inside, this bread is a total kick to make.

Storage Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting

1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 1/3 cups cool water (55 to 65 degrees)

Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 1/3 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal.

Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours.

When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lide and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned.

Cool on a rack.

I can’t wait to show this trick to my daughters! Who knew you could make restaurant quality bread without any oil? The only, and I mean the ONLY hard part, was remembering to start the bread almost a day ahead of time. The schedule that worked for me was to mix together the flour, yeast, salt, and water at 7:00 p.m. The next day, (18 hours later) at 1:00 p.m. I added a bit of flour, rolled it into a ball, and let it rise for another 2 hours. At 3:00 I put into into the hot pan and preheated oven. One hour later we had a beautiful freshly baked hubcap ready to serve with some homemade ham and bean soup.

I can’t even remember the last time I had something baked (other than my trusty Seven Minute Whole Wheat Bread) actually turn out. The directions scared me at first but honestly this recipe was silly-simple to prepare and took maybe a total of 10 minutes of actual work. I just LOVE big results with little effort. Bad that way.

She’s been called to serve an 18 month mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Mesa Arizona! We couldn’t be happier! In only a few months we’ll have two of our daughters out serving missions. NEVER SAY NEVER.

And in that spirit, NSN, I’m going to share today’s letter from her sister serving in Kansas. (Nobody tell Hailey I did this.)

It’s an honest testimony of the beauty and blessings of missionary service.

I could go on…but you get the point. You’re called where you’re needed…and if you were to go anywhere else, you wouldn’t be happy, cause you wouldn’t be needed! (sort of)…but you get the point. (”When we want to be something other than the thing God wants us to be, we must be wanting what, in fact, will not make us happy”- C.S. Lewis)

We’re launching our big stake service project for the local cancer hospitals. The goal is to sew at least 200 chemo caps and 200 skinny scarves. Just let me know if you’re at all interested. I would be happy to mail you a copy of the hat pattern my sister scammed, I mean designed, and some simple instructions. All it takes is about 18 inches of very stretchy light weight knit fabric. Place the pattern piece on the fold.

Cut out and set your sewing machine to a slight zig zag stitch for added stretch and durability.

1. Sew a narrow (1/4″) seam along the cut side being sure to leave a 1 1/2″ opening near one end, for turning the cap right side out.

2. Sew the outside edges (only) together on each of the four points.

3. Turn the cap so that the fold and side seam run down the middle of the front and back. Sew one continuous arched seam across the top and another across the bottom end of the cap.

4. Turn cap right side out by pulling it through the opening left in the original side seam made back in step 1.

Machine stitch the opening closed very close to the edge.

Fold bottom half of fabric up inside the cap so that it becomes a self-lining. Tack both layers together at the top with a few hand stitches.

All done! In basically four steps and almost no time at all, you can make a stylish alternative to the typical turban. The soft and cozy t-shirt weight fabric makes this beanie perfect for the summer months or as an extra layer in the winter.

The skinny scarves are 5″ or 6″ cuts from any light weight cloth.

Then it’s pinned together lengthwise, right sides together, and sewn with about a 1/4″ seam from one selvage end to the other.

Then I add a safety pin to one end and chase it through the tunnel of fabric to turn it right side out.

Next, turn the seam so that it runs down the middle of the scarf and iron.

The skinny scarf is finished except for any decorations that you may want to add.

I love the big bow. It reminds me of the flapper look.

My friend Laurie made this little rose from leftover scraps of knit fabric. I haven’t tried it but she swears it’s just five circles folded in quarters and stitched at the bottom with a couple of leaves added to the sides.

Super cute, don’t you think?

If you want to use the pattern, please visit the pattern post.

Cancer is a crime. I have three people in my extended family who are currently being robbed.

Yesterday, I met with Blanca Raphael, Coordinator Volunteer Services, at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital. She gave me a brief but inspiring hands-on tour of the beautiful and useful items which have so generously been donated to the Hunstman Cancer Institute.  You’ve never seen so many lovely LOVELY crocheted hats!

My goal in meeting with her was to explain a plan to invite women in our stake/neighborhood, ages 8-180, to sew cotton knit beanies for women who have lost their hair due to chemotherapy treatments. Blanca especially liked our idea of adding funky, rough-cut, boutique style, decorative headbands to the beanies so that the women can sport a fun, current, scrap-art look, while they battle the beast.

Knowing that I may need to be teaching this simple sewing skill during the next few weeks, I decided to give it a go.

The things I liked best about this project were 1.) no instructions 2.) no expense (using up leftover fabric ends)

and 3.) no limit to the good clean creative fun. The headbands, or demi-scarves, are a make-it-up-as-you-go-along adventure.
The looks evolve as random bits and pieces are added. This is fabric art for the masses.

I’ve enlisted the truly expert help of my sister, Virginia, to figure out how to copy a knit beanie from the Gap. She’s probably unpicking right now. Our hope is to buy $1 t-shirts and reconstruct them into soft, breathable, comfy, caps. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

My favorite part of last month’s visiting teaching message was from Elder Robert D. hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “It is important to understand that self-reliance is a means to an end. Our ulitimate goal is to become like the Savior, and that goal is enhanced by our unselfish service to others. Our ability to serve is increased or diminished by the level of our self-reliance.”  That guidance helps me to understand self-reliance as preparations made in order to have more to give!

D&C 82:18-19  And all this for the benefit of the church of the living God, that every man may improve upon his talent, that every man may gain other talents, yea, even an hundred fold, to be cast into the Lord’s storehouse, to become the common property of the whole church–Every man seeking the interest of his neighbor, and doing all things with an eye single to the glory of God.

My daughter’s wedding was only a week away but I was STILL at a loss for what to wear to her reception. In desperation I bought this sweet little top from Anthropology. I could justify the $118.00.

My plan was to wear it with a vintage beaded cardigan, which I already own, forever thanks to my husband’s grandmother,

and a skirt I found new with tags on, at a second hand clothing store for $9.00.

But the longer I thought about it I began to be annoyed at the dry clean only $118.00. It seemed like throwing good money after bad. Even if I probably can “afford it”, I don’t enjoy burning cash like that.  If it’s not a deal, it’s just not that fun.

So last Saturday, with the wedding clock ticking, I found some plain cream colored t-shirts, in a really nice silky knit, at TJMaxx for only $5.99 each.

Tempted, I remembered learning about reconstructed clothing while attending a Relief Society meeting in Oregon. Heidi at www.franticallysimple.com shared one of her many great SKILLS when she taught the women in her ward how to make play dresses and baby leggings from recycled t-shirts. What I needed was an inexpensive washable copy of the Anthropology shirt, and these Ts felt like the answer.

Now, I sew about as well as I cook, but determined to give it go. Purchasing enough shirts for the reconstruction yardage, I could of sworn I heard dear friends and comrades quietly crying in the distance, “Stop Liesa! Don’t do this! There isn’t time! You’ve never done this before! For the love of that last cranberry cake that ended up in the trash, THIS ISN’T GOING TO WORK!”  

Cha-ching. 

First step was to tighten up the neck of the t-shirt. I grabbed some leftover elastic from the total chaos of my sewing Rubbermaid, and zig-zagged that puppy in place. “Great, now I have a really comfortable pajama top.” But I didn’t give up.

(I warned you about this.)

Slashing a second t-shirt into strips,

I added a slightly less pleated ruffle, sewed the soggy bow-ties together for the front, and finished the neckline with a $3.00 piece of lace.

Don’t get me wrong, it took some time but the finished product wasn’t half bad.

I’ve happily returned the remaining t-shirt and shipped the $118.00 dream top back home where it belongs.

Mother of the bride, for under $25.00. Thanks Heidi!