DIY 3-Ingredient Grease Cleaner

Do you have a spot in your kitchen where all the grease seems to go? For us, it's the microwave mounted above the stove. It's a good 2 feet above the cooking surface, so don't ask me how the grease gets up there, but it does. And it's a sticky, gooey, hard-to-remove grease, perfectly situated above the line of sight so that the only time you remember it's there is when you reach up to open the cabinet immediately above it. Eww!

I've tried all-purpose spray cleaner, but even with a lot of wiping, it stays greasy, especially if I haven't cleaned up there in a while. Today, I decided to try something completely different.

I've read that plain old baking soda works as a gentle abrasive cleaner, but I had no idea about its total domination over grease. Inspired by a library book on green cleaning, I made a slurry of just 3 ingredients:

1 part baking soda
1 part water
a few drops of essential oil (I used orange)

Stir it up and it'll be a creamy, white goo:

Here's what happened with literally five seconds of circular wiping when applied with a dish towel on my greasy-as-hell microwave:

(Sorry, I warned you it was disgusting)

While I was at it, I cleaned up our bathroom scale that carried the evidence of something spilled and left to dry: 

Before:

After: 

Seriously, it really works. I took the little bit that was left on the towel and wiped down the fronts of our stainless appliances, trash can and even shined up the sink. Just rinse with water after cleaning.

Genius.

Butternut Squash Muffins

[Sorry, no photos. Can't find the damn camera cable. #oldtechnology]

I had some butternut squash puree left over from earlier in the week when I'd roasted one for a pasta dish, and remembered that you can add pretty much any "wet" ingredient in place of the milk in a standard muffin recipe. I checked out the Flavor Bible for thoughts on what spices would pair well with squash and also suit a sweet, rather than savory preparation. Starting with Mark Bittman's basic muffin recipe in How to Cook Everything, I added the squash i had (in my case, 3/4 cup, but you could substitute more for all the milk if you have it) and brought it to a full cup with milk -- it turned out to be a bit too dry, so I added another 1/4 cup milk to get it to a thick but pourable muffin batter consistency.

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cloves, ground
1/4 tsp nutmeg, ground
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tbsp oil or melted butter
3/4 cup butternut squash puree
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4-1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400. Prepare muffin pan with spray oil.

Combine dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, brown sugar and spices) in a large bowl.

Mix egg, oil, squash, maple syrup and 1/4 cup milk in another bowl, pour into dry ingredients and stir to combine. Depending on how watery your squash is, you may need to add additional milk to make it the right consistency. It should still be thick but should pour.

Pour or scoop into muffin cups to about 3/4 full. I made 6 regular muffins and 12 mini muffins. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean, but check often -- mine were done rather quickly.

These muffins puffed up right away and were slightly dense and moist, nice with butter or without. The mini muffins are perfect for my little ones, since it's just big enough to take two bites, leaving less chance for crumbs to wind up everywhere as happens with 3 year olds and full-size muffins.

This recipe could be easily adapted to use other fruit or vegetable purees. Next I plan to make sweet potato muffins with lots of cinnamon, inspired by the Jeni's ice cream flavor.

Cheating on seasonal: roasted-tomato fennel pasta

In the dark days of winter, when pretty much nothing but apples and greenhouse tomatoes show up at the market, I think we can all be forgiven if we have to cheat a little bit.

Tonight, we were confronted with no fresh meat and only some leftover grape tomatoes and fennel in the crisper drawer that we'd intended to use over the weekend. I also remembered there were some homemade pork sausage links in the freezer. Believe it or not, this was basically all I needed to put together a really tasty dinner.

Roasted Tomato and Fennel Pasta with Homemade Sausage - serves 2

about 1/4 box of dry pasta (rotini in this case)

half pint of grape tomatoes

half a fennel bulb

one pork sausage link

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1 clove garlic

olive oil

salt + pepper

Trim the outer portions and the stemmy part of the fennel, and slice into half-moon shapes. Toss with tomatoes, some olive oil, salt and pepper in a roasting pan and cook for 20 minutes until everything starts to brown.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in generously salted water, according to package directions, reserving 1 cup of cooking liquid.

While pasta is boiling and veggies are roasting, take the sausage out of the casing and cook, crumbing in oil until browned. Drain on paper towels and add minced garlic to pan and cook 30 seconds or until fragrant (longer and it will burn). Add roasted vegetables to pan, followed by 1/2 cup of reserved pasta water. Simmer for a couple of minutes, scraping any browned bits up from the pan. When pasta is ready, drain and add to pan. Add another 1/2 cup of cooking liquid if the earlier addition has cooked down significantly. Add parmesan, stir and serve immediately. The cheese will thicken the cooking liquid, which, seasoned with the vegetables, coats the pasta with a nice, creamy sauce.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

One thing they don't tell you about hosting Thanksgiving is that you're going to have a house full of leftovers. So this weekend, it is our mission to use them up without recreating the same old dinner for every meal.

This morning, we started with pumpkin pancakes, using up some of the leftover puree from my pumpkin cheesecake bars. Sorry, everyone was too hungry to take any pictures. Dinner at 3pm the day before will do that to you.

And tonight, we put together our version of a Shepherd's Pie. Here's the approximate recipe we used:

Saute chopped carrots and celery in oil about 5 minutes until starting to soften. Add 1/2 chopped onion and cook over medium until everything is soft. Add 1-2 cups of chopped turkey and stir until warmed through. Toss in fresh minced parsley, thyme, salt and pepper. Add 2-3 tablespoons flour, stir to coat and add 1 cup turkey (or chicken) stock or other liquid. Cook, stirring until thickened. Pour into baking dish, top with a layer of reheated mashed potatoes and shredded gruyere. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until topping is browned.

yum!

Here are some ways to use leftover cranberry sauce:

• stirred into plain yogurt, oatmeal, or yogurt with oatmeal - this is so good, I might just make more cranberry sauce as an excuse
• breakfast muffins
• cranberry cocktails

Pretty sure that tomorrow we'll be having fried eggs on leftover turkey hash. Still need ways to use up these mashed potatoes!

Thanksgiving Menu

This marked our first year since moving to Ohio that we were responsible for hosting Thanksgiving. It was a low-pressure, low-key affair with only our household and three guests. We started prep on Tuesday night, making the cranberry sauce and pumpkin puree for cheesecake. Wednesday we made the bread and dip, brined and dried the turkey overnight, and picked up dinner rolls and pie from AJ at Sassafras Bakery. Everything else was done at a leisurely pace Thursday morning. Our 12-lb turkey actually took less than three hours to cook. Wherever possible, we used local ingredients, many from our Wayward Farms CSA.

Considering the alternative was hours of driving on I-71 in traffic and bad weather, hosting Thanksgiving dinner is a no-brainer. The hardest part on Thursday was resisting the urge to concoct more dishes to fill the time. I look forward to doing it again.

The Menu:

Mark Bittman's feta cheese dip from How to Cook Everything and no-knead bread

Roast Turkey and Gravy (using Mark Bittman's method from How to Cook Everything)

Cranberry-Orange Sauce

Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake Bars

Not Pictured:

• Mark Bittman's basic stuffing from How to Cook Everything, with pork sausage in place of some butter
• Mashed Root Vegatables (potatoes, turnips and daikon radish)
• Turnip Gratin
• Green Beans in Vinaigrette
• dinner rolls and dutch apple pie from Sassafras Bakery

Tomorrow I'll post about some of our experiments in using up leftovers.

Cranberry Orange Sauce

I always hated that jelly in a can that people serve for Thanksgiving and was pretty turned off to the taste of "cranberry sauce" until I learned how super easy it  is to make your own. Here goes - probably the shortest recipe I will ever write:

1 12-oz bag fresh cranberries, rinsed and any bad-looking ones removed
1 orange, zested and juiced
1 cup sugar
water as needed

In a medium saucepan, combine cranberries, orange zest and sugar. Measure the orange juice and add water to bring it to 3/4 cup. Heat on medium-high to boil, then reduce to medium-low, cooking approximately 10-12 minutes until all the cranberries pop open and the liquid starts to thicken a bit. Remove from heat and refrigerate for at least an hour. The natural pectin in the fruit will help to "set" it into a gel, but it will ultimately be more like a jam, not jell-o.

Serve with thanksgiving dinner and stir leftovers into yogurt or use in a cocktail. Yeah, that's right, there's a cocktail that uses cranberry sauce. People are so clever.

Pasta with Lentils and Arugula

Never used arugula in a hot dish? Find some and don't know what to do with it? Or just looking for an awesome new dinner idea? Read on - I promise, this is the best thing I've made (or eaten) in weeks.

Excited to see local arugula still at the markets (Honey Run at Pearl Alley, Tuesdays and Fridays), I bought a ton, sure I would use it all for a few quick salads with beets and goat cheese. Then beets became scarce and I didn't know what to do. Fortunately I remembered one of my cookbooks has a pasta recipe using arugula that I'd wanted to try for a while.

The recipe is Pasta with Lentils and Arugula from Everyday Food. Rather than violate copyright and reproduce it here, you can find the instructions at this link. Through some magic involving excess cooking water and Parmesan, this veggie-heavy pasta dish is creamy and incredibly well balanced, despite the potentially strong flavor of arugula. It uses up those last few tomatoes in the garden, and adds a healthy dose of lentils, because you know you feel guilty you have them in the pantry and never use them. I substituted gemelli for the orichette, but any non-tubular short pasta would work well.

Make this!