Real Life Cooking

Marinated Tuna Salad * how to prepare cucumber

Link to J.B. Rockwell’s excellent SF book, Serengeti!

Marinated Tuna Salad

* 1 medium-sized cucumber, peeled and diced

* 2 celery stalks, sliced

* 1/3 onion, diced (optional)

* 1/2 tomato, diced (optional)

* 1 c balsamic vinaigrette

* 1 can tuna in water (drained)

* mayonnaise

* feta cheese (optional)

Place the diced vegetables into a medium-sized mixing bowl and pour the balsamic vinaigrette over them. Cover and place in fridge for at least one hour.

Drain the tuna and mix with a little mayo—just enough to combine. Scoop the veggies from the vinaigrette with a slotted spoon or fork and add to the tuna mixture. Stir and serve as a wrap or pita with feta cheese sprinkled on top.

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make marinated tuna salad. This recipe is from my friend Jennifer, a science fiction writer who you may know by the name J.B. Rockwell. If you’re looking for something new to read, I recommend her Serengeti trilogy, which is about an AI spaceship. I’ll put a link to the first book in the show notes. It’s also available as a really good audiobook.

Anyway, Jen sent me this recipe a few weeks ago and I’ve made it several times already. It’s easy to make, and marinating the vegetables gives them a delicious tang. You will need to start the marinade about an hour before you plan to eat, though.

For this recipe you’ll need a medium-sized mixing bowl and a small mixing bowl. You’ll also need a cucumber and a few celery stalks. You can add any other vegetables you like, but the cucumber and celery are the heart of this recipe.

If you’ve never made a recipe that calls for cucumbers before, you may not know how to prepare them. Choose small to medium-sized cucumbers that are dark green in color and firm to the touch. Also make sure you’re buying a cucumber and not a small zucchini, which I almost did without thinking, because they look a lot alike at first glance. The larger a cucumber is, the more seedy it is, and you want to minimize the seediness. Peel the cucumber just like you would a potato, then slice the ends off. Then just cut it into thin slices. For this recipe you’ll want to cut the slices into quarters too, because you want the pieces bite-sized.

Put all your diced vegetables into the medium-sized mixing bowl and pour about a cup of balsamic vinaigrette over them. This should cover the veggies; if it doesn’t, add a little more. On the other hand, if you didn’t use that many veggies you may not need a full cup of the vinaigrette.

You buy balsamic vinaigrette in the salad dressing section of the store. Jen says you can make your own with 2/3 c balsamic vinegar mixed with 1/3 c olive oil and Italian seasonings, but if you do end up making your own you’ll probably want to make it a few days ahead of time if possible so the seasonings can flavor the other ingredients properly.

Cover the bowl with foil or plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for at least an hour. You probably don’t want to leave this marinating overnight, but a few hours is fine.

After an hour is up, or when you’re ready to eat, get out your small mixing bowl, or a small serving bowl or a big cereal bowl. Drain a can of tuna well and put the tuna into the bowl. My cats would like to remind you that you can drain the tuna onto a saucer and give them the tuna water. Then mix the tuna with a little mayonnaise—just enough to stick the tuna together, basically. You don’t need a lot.

Then take out the bowl of marinating vegetables. You want to add the veggies to the tuna, not the other way round, because you don’t want all that vinaigrette in your salad or it’l...

Cream scones * how to bake with whipping cream

Cream Scones

* 3 ¼ c all-purpose flour

* ½ c sugar

* 1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp baking powder

* ¼ tsp salt

* 1 c. nuts (or chocolate chips)

* 1 c. dried fruit

* 2 c. cold whipping cream

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add one cup of dried fruit (not fresh) and one cup of nuts or chocolate chips.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the cream until froth forms. Fold into the dry ingredients until just combined. Form into one or two balls and pat out on a lightly floured surface until the dough is about an inch thick. Cut into wedges.

Place wedges on greased baking sheets and bake for 17-19 minutes. Makes about two dozen scones.

Whipping cream after whisking until frothy (right):

Finished scones:

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make cream scones! This is another recipe I got from my cousin Molly, and I think she got it from a friend or maybe online. Either way, she calls these “the best scones” and they certainly are.

The reason I don’t make these scones more often is that the recipe calls for heavy whipping cream, and the only time I have whipping cream is when I buy it for a specific recipe. But occasionally I buy it just for making these scones.

Before you start thinking, “Hmm, I bet half and half would work and I’ve got some in the fridge”: no. Nothing works except heavy whipping cream. I know because I have tried everything from half and half to whole milk to evaporated milk, and the result is always a dense, flat mess. If you look at the ingredients, you’ll see that the recipe doesn’t call for butter or any other fat. It needs the fat in the cream to become scones instead of doorstops, and because cream is so light compared to other fats, the scones are light too.

In addition to the heavy whipping cream you’ll need a cup of dried fruit and a cup of nuts. If you can’t eat nuts or don’t like them, you can substitute chocolate chips. Don’t use fresh fruit, though. I like using chopped pecans and dried cranberries, which is the combination you’ll see in photos in the show notes, but chopped walnuts and dried cherries are great too, or whatever you like. I like the texture of the nuts so much that I’ve never tried the recipe with chocolate chips.

You’ll also need two large mixing bowls, or one large and one medium mixing bowl, and some baking sheets. This recipe makes a lot of scones so unless your baking sheets are larger than usual, you’ll probably need two.

First, preheat the oven to 375. Then put the smaller mixing bowl in the fridge to chill. Just trust me on this. Then grease the baking sheets and set them aside. Then make sure your working surface is clean, because these are scones you have to pat out and cut.

In the large mixing bowl, the one that’s not in the fridge, mix the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. The recipe calls for a lot of baking powder but don’t worry, you won’t be able to taste it. Once you have the dry ingredients mixed up nicely with a fork or whisk, add the fruit and nuts and mix them in too. I actually ran out of all-purpose flour when I made these today, and the new bag of flour in the cupboard that I thought was all-purpose turned out to be bread flour. So I used almost a cup of bread flour to make up the difference. Bread flour is a little heavier than all-purpose so I was worried, but it worked just fine.

Next, it’s time to get the mixing bowl out of the fridge. It should be cool by now, which will help keep the whipping cream cool. Pour the whipping cream into the chilled bowl. If you bought a pint of whipping cream, that’s two cups so you don’t have to measure. Then use a whisk or a fork and beat the whipping cream briskly for about a mi...

Baked citrus spice fish * what “white fish” is

Dave M’s Citrus Spice Baked Fish

* 2 white fish fillets

* oil for pan

* salt and pepper

* about 1 Tbsp mayonnaise

* 1-2 tsp citrus spice mixture (I use Badia Mojo Rub “citrus blend”)

* 1 tsp garlic powder (if spice mixture isn’t garlicky)

* bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400 Fahrenheit. Oil a baking sheet lightly. Salt and pepper the fish fillets on both sides. Mix the mayonnaise and spice mixture in a small bowl and spread on the fish (both sides). Mix the bread crumbs with garlic powder (if using) and more salt and pepper if desired, and sprinkle mixture over the mayonnaise. Bake for 15 minutes. Serve immediately.

Fish, before and after cooking. Could also double as modern art once you remove the fish:

Email me, Badia Mojo Rub people, we’ll cut a deal:

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to cook fish! I don’t eat a lot of fish because I’ve never cared for ocean fish, and until my friend Dave gave me this recipe, I never knew how to reliably cook fresh water fish so that it had consistently good flavor.

Dave lives in Scotland so he uses something called Sumac, which he describes as a citrusy spice. I only know sumac as a poisonous shrub that grows wild on hillsides, and while I’m sure I could order the spice called sumac online, my local Walmart definitely doesn’t carry it. I bought a spice blend called “Badia Mojo Rub Citrus Blend” to use instead and was happy with it. If they want to give me money for advertising their spice blend I will accept it with dignity.

This recipe is really easy. I’ve made it a couple of times now and it turns out great every time. The fish is tender and flavorful and prep time only takes a few minutes.

You’ll need a baking sheet and a small bowl. First, turn on your oven to preheat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Then rub a little vegetable oil on the baking sheet so the fish won’t stick.

You will also need fish, of course. White fish just means any inexpensive, mild fish. It doesn’t have to be a particular kind. I buy tilapia because it’s a readily available, inexpensive river fish (and I didn’t know it was a river fish until I started fishing them up from rivers in Animal Crossing), but if I can find locally caught trout or catfish I’ll definitely try them too. The recipe also specifies fillets, so don’t get whole fish unless you know how to fillet them. I do not know how to fillet fish. When I was 16 I made a pest of myself asking my uncle Sean to teach me how while my family was at the beach, but he never got around to it. He did teach me how to clean shrimp, though.

Anyway, get out the fish fillets and salt and pepper them on both sides. Then, in your small bowl, mix about a Tablespoonful of mayonnaise with whatever citrus spice or spice blend you have. The citrus is the real trick, because it goes so well with fish and enhances the mild flavor of the meat. The mayo helps the spice stick to the fish and keeps the fish from drying out in the oven.

Spread the mayonnaise mixture on both sides of the fish. I usually just work on the baking sheet, but if you want to put the fish on a plate and then move it to the baking sheet when you’re ready to put it in the oven, that works too. I use the back of a spoon to spread the mixture on the fish.

Next, you will need bread crumbs. I use Panko crumbs because they stay crispy. If the spice mix you used isn’t garlicky, or if you just love lots of garlic, mix about a third of a cup of bread crumbs with about a teaspoonful of garlic powder, and you can also add more salt and pepper if you like. As it happens, the citrus blend I use is nicely garlicky so I don’t mix anything with the Panko. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture generously over the fish, then flip the pieces over and sprinkle the other side. Then,

Coconut chocolate chip cookies * how to measure coconut flakes

Coconut chocolate chip cookies

* 1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

* 1/2 tsp baking soda

* 1/4 tsp salt

* 1/2 tsp cinnamon

* 1/2 c. butter, softened

* 1/2 c. light brown sugar

* 1/4 c. white sugar

* 1 egg

* 1 tsp vanilla extract

* 1 1/2 c. sweetened coconut flakes

* 1 c. chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and lightly grease baking sheets.

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, cream together egg and sugars until fluffy, then add egg and vanilla and mix well. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with coconut flakes. Mix in chocolate chips. Scoop onto baking sheets and bake 11-13 minutes. Makes about two dozen.

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make coconut chocolate chip cookies! It’s been a while since we had a cookie recipe and this one’s really good.

If you’ve listened to our very first episode, you should know the basics of how to make cookies. This recipe is almost the same as that one but with the addition of coconut flakes. Some people hate coconut, but those of us who love it know that it helps retain moisture in a cookie and makes it chewy too.

I have no idea where I got this recipe, but originally I wrote “optional” after the chocolate chips. Then, later, I scratched “optional” out. These cookies are so fantastic with the chocolate chips I can’t imagine leaving them out.

It’s a pretty straightforward recipe. You’ll need a large mixing bowl and a medium mixing bowl, and a couple of cookie sheets. Grease the baking sheets lightly with butter or shortening, then set them aside. Turn the oven on to preheat. In the medium bowl, mix the flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon with a whisk or a fork.

Then, in the large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and both kinds of sugar. Remember that when you measure the brown sugar, you pack it down hard into the measuring cup.

Once the butter and sugars are thoroughly combined and the mixture is creamy, add part of the flour mixture to it and mix it in well. The recipe says to alternate adding the flour mixture and the coconut, but honestly, you can combine the flour mixture with the butter mixture and then add the coconut.

But wait, how do you measure the coconut? Is it like brown sugar where you pack it down, or is it like flour where you scoop it into the cup lightly and level off the top?

You measure flaked coconut like you do flour. Scoop it into the measuring cup, press it down very lightly and add more if you need to, then level it off. Then just dump it into the batter and mix it in well.

I’ve made this recipe using sweetened coconut and I’ve made this recipe using unsweetened coconut, and I’ve made this recipe using a mixture of the two. I usually use a mixture, but all three work just fine and the cookies are plenty sweet. Just use whatever you have. Make sure to seal the rest of package of coconut well or put it in an airtight container so it doesn’t dry out before you use it again.

Once you’ve mixed in the coconut and flour mixture and combined it all thoroughly, add the chocolate chips and mix well again. Then you’re all set to bake your cookies. I try to make these fairly small, but if you like big cookies that’s fine too. Scoop batter up with a spoon and drop on the cookie sheet, leaving an inch or two between cookies since they’ll spread a bit as they cook. Then pop the pan into the oven and set the timer for eleven minutes.

In my oven, with fairly small cookies, eleven minutes does the trick. If you make your cookies bigger or if your oven tends to run a bit cool, you might need another minute or two. When they’re done, the cookies will have started to brown and you’ll be able to see that they’re browning much more on the bottoms...

Fajitas

* yellow onion, sliced

* green pepper, sliced

* boneless, skinless chicken breast, sliced into strips

* fajita seasoning (about 2-3 Tbsp per pound of meat)

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with foil and coat with nonstick spray.

Arrange onion slices in a single layer on one side of the pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss chicken slices with fajita seasoning and arrange in a single layer on the other side of the pan.

Bake 15 minutes, remove, add bell pepper, and give it all a stir before spreading back out into a single layer, as much as possible. Bake another ten minutes.

Serve on flour tortillas with shredded cheese, sour cream, and guacamole.

Fajita seasoning recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/232967/fajita-seasoning/

As you can see, I used less than a pound of meat:

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make fajitas! This is my cousin Molly’s recipe, which only requires a single sheet pan.

This recipe is so easy that it doesn’t seem possible the results are so good. Molly says she got sick of having to clean out the skillet every time she wanted fajitas, and worked out this method. Since she gave me the recipe I’ve made it multiple times, and I’m sure you could adapt it to use other types of meat.

You’ll need some fajita seasoning. I’ve linked to a recipe to mix your own seasoning in the show notes, but you can buy it prepared too. If you make your own, just put it in a clean screwtop bottle and it’ll last you quite a while. I used an empty spice bottle that I washed out and dried well. It’s so easy to put together that I decided to just link to the recipe. I mean, literally all you have to do is mix everything together with a fork and pour it into a bottle. The hardest part is pouring it without spilling it everywhere, which is why getting a little food-safe funnel is such a good idea.

Anyway, for this recipe you’ll only need a baking sheet. That’s it. Line the sheet with aluminum foil and coat it with nonstick spray. This is one time when I prefer the spray to greasing by hand, but if you don’t have any of the spray you can coat it with vegetable oil instead. Make sure to grease it all the way to the edges.

Turn the oven on to 375 if you haven’t already, then get your cutting board out. Slice up a yellow onion and a green pepper, and of course you can use other kinds of chili pepper too if you like. Slicing the vegetables into thin strips is traditional, but if you prefer to dice them you can do that too.

Then you need to slice the chicken into strips. This is easiest to do with a pair of kitchen shears if you don’t have a really sharp knife. If you’re using the pieces of breast meat often sold as tenders, you can just cut them into two or three strips. I haven’t tried this with thigh meat but it should work just fine too. Don’t slice your pieces too thin, though. I did that the first time and while they were still great, the meat was a little overcooked. Remember that the meat will lose moisture as it cooks and will shrink.

You can go ahead and arrange the onion slices on the pan, but only put them on half the pan. You need to keep the other half empty so you can add the chicken in a little bit. Arrange the onion in a single layer and shake a generous amount of salt and pepper over it. That’s black pepper, not hot pepper.

Next, you need to toss the chicken in the fajita seasoning to coat it. The easiest way to do this is in a small paper bag, like the kind they sell for sack lunches. You can use a plastic bag if you have to, but the chicken sticks to the sides. If you don’t have anything else you can put the chicken and the spice mix in a bowl with a lid and shake the bowl, but a paper sack is best because you can shake ...

Fried Squash

* Squash

* 1/2 c. milk or buttermilk

* 1 egg

* 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

* 1/2 c. cornmeal

* 1/2 tsp salt

* 1/2 tsp pepper

* 1/8 tsp garlic powder

* 1/8 tsp onion powder

* 1/8 tsp paprika

* Oil for skillet

In a small bowl, combine the milk and egg with a whisk or fork. Scrub the vegetables clean and cut off the stems and bottoms. Slice very thin and put slices in the milk and egg mixture to soak. In another bowl, combine the other ingredients. Put enough oil in the bottom of a skillet to cover it well and heat to medium high.

Retrieve the squash pieces from the milk mixture, then dredge in the flour mixture to coat. Shake off excess flour mixture. Fry the slices, flipping once, until they are golden brown on both sides. You may need to add more oil to the skillet depending on how many you have to fry. As you remove pieces to drain on a paper towel, sprinkle with salt. Serve hot.

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re finally going to learn how to make fried squash.

It’s made by slicing the squash thin, battering the pieces, and frying them until they’re slightly crispy on the outside and tender inside. They make a great side dish or main course. It’s the same batter and method you use to fry green tomatoes and okra, but we’ll just focus on the squash.

You can use any squash for this recipe, including zucchini, but I like yellow squash because it’s so easy to grow that people give it away in piles as summer progresses and the squash plants get bigger and more aggressive. A few small squashes will make a lot of fried squash, too.

Once you have your vegetables, you’ll need two small bowls, a skillet, and a plate lined with paper towels.

In the first bowl, mix the egg and milk well, until the yolk is incorporated into the milk and the mixture is pale yellow and a little foamy. It’s easiest to use a whisk to do this, but I usually just use a fork. You can use buttermilk for this recipe if you have it, but you can also use regular milk.

Then give your vegetables a scrub if they’re dirty, or at least rinse them off. Then slice off and discard the stems and the bottom stub where the flower was. Then slice the rest of the vegetable up very thin. You don’t need to be able to read a newspaper through them or anything, but they should be thin. If they’re too thick they won’t cook all the way through.

After you slice the pieces, dump them in the bowl with the milk mixture. They probably won’t all fit, depending on how much you’re making, but this is a good way to keep them out of the way without them drying out.

In the second bowl, mix the flour, cornmeal, and spices. The amounts I listed in the recipe are just suggestions—I never measure the salt, pepper, and so forth, and just make sure I use the same amount of flour as I do cornmeal. You want generous amounts of the spices, though. If you’re only frying up one or two small squash, you can halve the dry ingredients because you’ll have plenty even so.

Next, pour a generous amount of oil into the skillet and turn the heat to about medium. You want more oil than you would use if you were frying meat or sauteeing onions. Cover the bottom with oil to about the depth of one of the vegetable slices you just cut, or a little less. I use olive oil but it doesn’t matter what kind you use. If you want to deep-fry your vegetables, you can add more, but oil is so expensive that I hate to waste it when shallow frying is just as good.

While the skillet is heating, set a plate next to the stove and line it with a few thicknesses of paper towel. You might also want to set out the serving dish you intend to use so you can move the cooked and drained pieces to it as you work. You’ll be frying these in batches.

Before you do anything else, what are you wearing? Quick,

Vanilla crepes * buttercream crepe filling * strawberry buttercream icing * stewing fruit

Vanilla Crepes

* 1 1/2 c. milk

* 2 eggs

* 1 Tbsp vanilla

* 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

* 3 Tbsp powdered sugar

* 1/2 tsp salt

* 3 or 4 Tbsp butter, melted

Combine ingredients in a large bowl and mix well, until batter is smooth. Cover and chill for about an hour. Lightly butter a crepe pan or skillet and heat to medium low. Pour about 1/4 cup batter into the skillet, swirl to coat, then cook over low to medium low heat for a few minutes per side. Fill and top with fruit, powdered sugar, buttercream, whipped cream, etc.

Buttercream crepe filling:

* 4 oz cream cheese

* 3 Tbsp butter

* 1/2 c. powdered sugar

* 1 tsp vanilla

Cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add vanilla and powdered sugar and blend well.

Peach Topping:

* 2-4 fresh peaches, peeled and sliced

* 1-2 Tbsp sugar

* 1/2 to 1 tsp cinnamon

In a small pot, combine peach slices with sugar and cinnamon. If peaches are not very sweet, add a little more sugar. Simmer on medium low, stirring frequently, for about half an hour. Use as topping for crepes or other desserts.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Icing:

* 1 c. fresh strawberries, hulled and cut up

* 1 Tbsp sugar

* 1/2 c. unsalted butter

* 8 oz cream cheese

* 1 tsp vanilla

* about 2 1/2 c. powdered sugar

In a small pot, mix strawberries, sugar, and a few spoonfuls of water. Simmer on medium low, stirring frequently, for about half an hour. Add more water if it appears dry. Set aside to cool.

Cream the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add strawberry mixture and vanilla and blend well. Add powdered sugar slowly while beating until mixture is smooth and of the desired consistency.

Makes enough to ice a two-layer cake.

The batter cooking–note that you can see the paler part in the middle where it’s not fully cooked yet (left); on right, after flipping:

 

The peach slices stewing (left) and the finished crepes about to be eaten (right):

 

Strawberry buttercream icing on a tiny cake!

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make several delicious things, including vanilla crepes and strawberry buttercream icing. It all fits together, you’ll see.

2020 may be a horrible year in many ways, but the peaches available where I live have been amazing! I’ve made all my peach recipes to take advantage of this happy event, and have also eaten a lot of peaches while standing over the sink, juice dripping down my arm. So earlier this week I decided to use my last two peaches to make a topping for vanilla crepes.

Also earlier this week there was the whole cake meme going around online. If you’re listening to this after July 2020 you probably don’t even remember it, but for the better part of a week everyone online has been doing the whole “cut into an object, reveal it’s a cake inside” thing. Naturally enough, it made me crave cake, so I made one. The cake itself turned out to be kind of disappointing, but the strawberry buttercream icing I made for it is fantastic, plus it’s made almost the same way I make the filling and topping for the crepes. So it makes sense to put all these recipes together in one big episode.

We’ll start with the crepes. I’ve eaten amazing crepes in Paris and I’ve eaten terrible crepes at IHOP, and I think my crepes are closer to the Paris ones than the IHOP ones. They’re also really easy to make.

You’ll need a medium mixing bowl and a skillet. If you happen to have an actual crepe pan, lucky you, but most of us are ordinary people who don’t have room in their kitchen cabinets for specialized pans, so an ordinary skillet will do.

Summer Fruit Cobbler

Filling:

* ¼ c water

* 3 Tbsp cornstarch

* 2 Tbsp lemon juice

* ¼ to ½ c sugar

* 4 c fresh blackberries and/or other berries, and/or soft fruit such as peaches (peeled and sliced)

Topping:

* 1 ½ c all-purpose flour

* 1/3 c sugar

* 1 tsp baking powder

* ½ tsp salt

* ½ tsp cinnamon

* 6 Tbsp butter

* 1/3 c milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Cut in butter.

In a large saucepan, mix cornstarch and water until smooth, then add lemon juice, sugar to taste, and fresh fruit. Heat to a boil, stirring, then pour into a 9×9 or larger dish.

Add milk to the topping mixture and blend until just combined. Roll out like biscuit dough and cut into rounds. Place rounds on top of the fruit mixture. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until topping is done through. Allow to cool somewhat before eating.

The berries cooking:

Cobbler before baking and after:

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make a cobbler! Technically it’s a blackberry cobbler but you can use pretty much any kind of summer fruit. I’ve never tried it with apples or pears, but my guess is you would need to cook them longer on the stove over medium heat until they soften before putting them into the baking dish. The baking is basically just to cook the topping, so it isn’t in the oven long enough to fully cook harder fruit like apples.

I don’t make this recipe often because if I have the berries, I’d rather make a berry pie, which was an episode I released last summer. But a lot of people love cobbler. A cobbler has a layer of fruit filling topped with pieces of sweet dough. This recipe has a relatively thin layer of fruit, but be careful if you use more fruit than the recipe calls for because your pan may overflow in the oven while it bakes.

You’ll need a 9×9 baking dish, or a 9×13 baking dish if you’re using more than four cups of fruit, a large mixing bowl, and a pot big enough to hold all the fruit. What kind of berries you use is up to you, but blackberries are traditional. This time I used about a cup of blackberries, a cup of raspberries, and two cups of blueberries that I bought, since the blackberry and raspberry harvest isn’t very good this year in my usual spots and I didn’t get as many as I hoped when I went out picking. You can use soft fruit for this too, such as peaches or plums.

Start with the large mixing bowl. Mix the dry ingredients of the topping together: flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Cut the butter in until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Then set the bowl aside.

Next, take the pot and dissolve the cornstarch into the water and lemon juice. It should only take a few moments to mix it up, although you will have to fight with the cornstarch at first because it wants to make a solid hard lump in the water that takes some scraping with a fork or whisk to break up. Once you’ve done that, you need to add the fruit to the pot.

If you use soft fruit, peel and slice it into the pot. If you use berries, give them a rinse and pick them over to remove any leaves or bugs, then pour them into the pot. Stir them up with the cornstarch mixture, then add the sugar.

How much sugar you add will depend on what kind of fruit you use. I recommend going with less sugar than you think you might need, since the topping is sweetened and it’s easy to overdo it with this recipe. Too much sugar will overwhelm the flavor of the fruit. If you use all wild blackberries, you might want to up the sugar to half a cup, since wild blackberries are not usually very sweet. If you use blueberries or soft fruit like peaches, you definitely don’t want more than a quarter cup of sugar.

Beef stew * how to clean and use turnips and parsnips

Beef Stew

* 1 or 2 lbs beef, cut up

* about ½ c flour

* salt and pepper

* thyme

* 1 onion, diced

* carrots, sliced

* potatoes, peeled and cut up

* turnips, diced (optional)

* celery, sliced (optional)

* stock or water

In a small bowl, mix the flour with some salt and pepper and use it to dredge the meat. Put some oil in a large pot and brown the meat along with the diced onion. When the meat is browned and the onions mostly translucent, add 4-6 cups of stock, broth, or water. Add the chopped vegetables, bring to a boil, turn heat down to low, and simmer. Add more salt and dried thyme.

Simmer, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender. To thicken, mix about a teaspoon of corn starch or flour with a cup of the stew’s broth and return it to the pot. Stir it well, bring back to a boil, and turn heat off. Stew will thicken as it cools.

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make beef stew.

I don’t eat a lot of beef these days. It’s too expensive, for one thing, it’s not that good for you, and cattle ranches contribute to a lot of environmental issues like deforestation of the Amazon and other areas. But occasionally I just really want to make beef stew, because it’s one of my favorite recipes and one of the first ones I ever made.

When I was in high school, specifically tenth grade, a friend of my mom’s hired me to pet sit for a week in the summer. She had a cat and a tiny dog which was actually smaller than the cat, and they were good friends. I would go over and spend hours every day in the fenced yard, letting the animals play together while I read in the shade. And mostly what I read was my mom’s friend’s cookbooks. When I found a recipe I wanted to try, I would copy it carefully into a spiral notebook. The only recipe I specifically remember is this one. Except that it wasn’t beef stew, it was lamb stew, with beef suggested as an option if lamb wasn’t available. So if you can get your hands on a good cut of lamb, it should work great instead of beef. I love lamb and mutton but it’s really hard to find where I live.

Anyway, you’ll need a small bowl and a big pot for this recipe. How big a pot is up to you, but like all stews and soups this recipe is really flexible and you can make as much as your pot will hold. You also don’t have to have a lot of meat. I found a half-pound package of stew beef and used it in an enormous pot, and it’s still rich and tasty.

By the way, you don’t actually have to buy meat labeled as stew beef. Any cut of beef will do. I mean, don’t use ground hamburger, but you can certainly use a little piece of chuck roast or anything else. You cut it up yourself and it’s easy. I’ll go over that in a minute.

The vegetables you use in this recipe are flexible too. I always use lots of carrots and potatoes, but I really like to add a turnip or two if I can get them. Turnips and parsnips are criminally under-utilized in my part of the United States—that would be the southeast—so they’re expensive here and can be hard to find, just like lamb. But both are great in this recipe. Celery is good in it, of course you’ll need onions, and if you just want to use up some bits and pieces of leftover veggies, toss them in.

The first thing you’ll want to do is dice your onion. Then pour a little oil into your pot and add the diced onion, but don’t turn the heat on just yet. Take the small bowl and mix flour, salt, and pepper to make seasoned flour. You’ll dredge your meat in this just like we talked about in the chicken and dumplings episode.

Now, get your beef out. If you bought stew beef that’s already cut up, you’re still going to want to cut it up smaller and trim off any gristle. If you bought a piece of beef that isn’t already cut up,

Chicken pecan quiche * pie crust * what “divided” means in a recipe

Chicken Pecan Quiche

* ½ to 1 c cooked chicken, chopped

* 1 ½ shredded Cheddar cheese

* ¼ c onion, diced

* 1 Tbsp flour

* ½ c chopped pecans, divided

* 3 eggs

* 1 c milk

* 1 tsp brown mustard

* salt and pepper

* about ¼ c vegetables, chopped small (broccoli florets, green pepper, etc.)

* Swiss cheese slices

Pie crust:

* ¾ c all-purpose flour

* ¾ c whole wheat flour

* ½ tsp salt

* ½ c fat

* 4-5 Tbsp ice water

Grease the bottom and sides of a deep-dish pie plate. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mix the flours and salt in a mixing bowl and cut the fat in until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add enough ice water to make a firm dough. Do not overmix. Roll the dough out thin, fold in quarters, and place in the pie dish. Trim edges and prick the bottom of the pie crust all over with the tines of a fork. Bake for about eight minutes, remove, and set aside.

Saute onions in a little oil while the pastry is baking. If you are using fresh broccoli or green pepper, saute with the onions until tender. Once the pie crust is out, place slices of Swiss cheese in the bottom of the pie to roughly cover the bottom. Turn the oven down to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl mix the chicken, shredded cheese, sauteed onions, flour, and half the pecans. Pour into the pie crust over the Swiss cheese. Then beat the eggs well with the milk, and add mustard, salt and pepper, and broccoli. Pour over the chicken layer and top with the remaining pecans.

Bake at 325 for 50 minutes.

The crust, before and after baking:

The pie before and after baking:

Welcome to the Real Life Cooking Podcast. I’m Kate Shaw and this week we’re going to learn how to make chicken pecan quiche.

I have no idea where I got this recipe. I’ve had it written down for a long time but only tried it recently, and it’s phenomenal! It’s a great way to use a small amount of leftover chicken, too. The recipe calls for a full cup of chicken, but I only had a scant half cup and it worked out just fine.

This is basically a quiche, which means it’s rich but doesn’t feel heavy. The crust is the best part and really makes the dish, so while it is a little bit of a hassle to roll out dough, it’s absolutely worth it. You can use a ready-made crust, but make sure it’s not sweetened and that it’s a deep-dish crust.

You will need a big mixing bowl, a skillet, and a deep-dish pie plate for this recipe. Before you do anything else, you need to do some prep. If you want to add vegetables to the dish to add color and flavor, get them out now and chop them up small. I’ve made this recipe twice and both times used frozen broccoli. The first time I thawed it, the second time I forgot but cut the frozen florets up tiny with a pair of kitchen shears, and both methods worked fine. Dice the onion and cut some thin slices of Swiss cheese, unless you’re using pre-sliced Swiss. If your chicken pieces aren’t already shredded or cut up small, do that now.

Measure out your pecans and break them into smaller pieces if you need to. Pecans are usually sold as “halves and pieces,” and you want the pieces for this recipe. It takes a few minutes to break the halves in two or three pieces, so do this ahead of time. Or just use pecan halves, I don’t care.

Next, grease the pie plate well and set it aside. Then measure out your dry ingredients for the pastry. This recipe calls for half all-purpose flour and half whole-wheat flour, which makes the pastry more robust and toothsome than if it’s made of only all-purpose flour, but if you don’t have whole wheat flour you can use all-purpose. Bread flour works well in this recipe too. Incidentally, this pastry recipe is a good one to keep on hand for any recipe that calls f...