You'd Think I Woulda Done This Sooner...

So, in preparation for becoming a little Hungarian housewife (not until August but I don't think I can start too early) I have been trying to home cook more meals. Not just assembling but actually cooking. I want to be able to provide for our little ex-pat family, and I want to actually eat real grown up food. Which, in college, we have definitely not been doing.
I was taking a nap today (still trying to fight this flu) and I starting having the worst craving for Tuna Helper. Yeah, I'm not sure what that's about either. We haven't had tuna helper in this house for years, so I thought hey! I'm going to look up a recipe for "homemade" tuna helper.
I rifled through the pantries and found an expired box of Kraft Mac n Cheese so I just threw away the "cheese" packet and kept the noodles. Here's my much modified recipe for "made from scratch TunaHelper":

Ingredients:

1 can of tuna, drained
1/2 large onion, chopped
2 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cup milk (at least)
1 Bay leaf
Salt, Pepper, and Poultry Seasoning to taste
Noodles (8 oz or so)

Boil water and cook the noodles until just done. Remove from heat, drain, put aside. In a skillet, saute the onions with the butter until soft. Sprinkle on the flour and stir to coat. Start adding the milk slowly, until you have the desired thickness. I lost count of how much milk I used, I just eyeballed it. Add lots of pepper and salt and throw in a bay leaf for good measure. Add in the poultry seasoning until it tastes delicious and keep stirring to cook the flavors together. Add more milk if it gets too thick. Remove the bay leaf and add the can of tuna, stirring well. Finally, add the drained noodles and stir until completely mixed into the sauce. Enjoy!

This was so so good. Much better than regular Tuna Helper and probably (maybe?) healthier too. I am definitely adding this dish to my repertoire. When far from home, being able to cook up a delicious hot meal for yourself and your other half is invaluable. Try it!

Cooking Adventures

My journey to becoming a self-sufficient-ish housemaker in preparation for Budapest trumps along, day by day. The other night was a surprising bit of culinary genius. I modified a "Simply Recipes" recipe to accommodate what ingredients we had and didn't have. And oh good god was it delicious.

Caramelized Onion Quiche (intrigued yet??)

2 Tbsp olive oil

2-3 Onions (I used white), French cut

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 1/4 cup low fat milk

3 eggs

Pinch nutmeg

1 1/2 cup low fat aged cheddar

No crust on this bad boy. We didn't have any unsalted butter, and well, I just didn't want to expend the energy of making a crust.

The onions take an hour to caramelize. This recipe takes time, but is worth it in the end.

Heat olive oil in large pan over medium heat. Add onions and a bit of salt. Stir occasionally until translucent. Turn heat to medium low and cook another 40 minutes. Once they are browned, add balsamic vinegar to caramelize further, about 10 minutes.

Sprinkle 1/3 of the cheese along the bottom of a tart pan (I used a round Pyrex one). Spread the onions over the cheese and add the remaining cheese on top of the onions. In a different bowl, whisk eggs and milk. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Pour over cheese. Bake for about 40 minutes, until set in center. Yum. Just Yum.

Blueberry...Actually Raspberry Muffins

This really has been the weekend of cooking. I've found that baking actually really relaxes me, and it pleases me when I see people enjoying the food that I have made. Food really does bring people together. So anyways, while I was searching for a new recipe in the low-iodine cookbook, I came across Blueberry Muffins (which lives on the same page as the Oat Bran Applesauce Muffins in the thyca.org low-iodine cookbook). We get an organic box of fruits and veggies every week through Los Poblanos organic farms here in Albuquerque. We pick it up every Monday and have delicious, ripe and in-season produce. Raspberries have been one of the things we've been getting a lot lately. I wanted to use them right away because raspberries are the first to mold in the fridge. So I substituted the blueberries for raspberries in this recipe. They're delicious!

Blueberry (or Raspberry) Muffins

2 egg whites

1 cup water

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt (Kosher)

1 cup fresh blueberries (or raspberries)

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Beat egg whites. Stir in water and oil. Mix in flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until moistened. Gently fold in berries. Pour batter in the paper-lined muffin pan. Makes 12 muffins.

Contributed by Cathy T.

See something missing in this recipe?? I sure do. How long do you cook them for? I kept an obsessively close eye on them until they started to smell good, puff up, crack and brown. They were cooked perfectly. I think it was around 15-20 minutes.

I cut up the raspberries into fours. They seemed a little large to keep whole in a muffin.

Folding in the chopped raspberries into the batter.

Batter in paper liners before baking.

And after. I peeked inside the wrapper to see if they were done, that's why the front one is a little indecent.

These muffins are delicious and perfect for a low-iodine diet. Make them. Now!

Homemade Tortillas

Being a native New Mexican, I know a thing or two about tortillas. Growing up, I thought every grocery store in the world carried tortillas. I realize now that I have taken their doughy flat goodness for granted. My life really wouldn't be complete without them. So in preparation for our move to Hungary, I made a batch of homemade tortillas yesterday. I'm going to have to make a batch or so every week in Hungary, so I better get in my practice now! Here's how I did it:

Flour Tortillas

3 cups white flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt (I used Kosher for my sister's low-iodine diet)

5 tbsp vegetable shortening

1 1/4 cup warm water

Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. Add shortening and knead in with hands. Next add the warm water a little at a time until the dough is soft, not sticky. Knead the dough for a few minutes. Pull off small pieces of the dough to form 12 small balls. Let dough rest for 10 minutes. Heat up nonstick pan over medium heat. Roll out the balls into tortillas on a floured surface. Heat in pan until bubbles form, then flip. They cook up very quickly, only a few seconds on each side.

Dough after kneading, ready for forming. I made a double batch.

After forming 24 small dough balls (Remember I made a double batch). The dough is resting now. Shh...

Rolling out the dough into tortillas. My mom had a tortilla-specific rolling pin that I used.

The aforementioned bubbles. I ended up cooking one in a pan and one straight on the electric burner because I had so many to make. See those finished ones on the plate? You want those little black burn marks. That's what tortillas are all about.

Et Voila. Finished Tortillas. mmm.. I could definately do this every week in Central Europe. Maybe I can bring them to my coworkers and start a tortilla-induced riot? Yeah, I bet I could...

Oat Bran Applesauce Muffins

Since my sister has to be on a low-iodine diet before her radiation, we have all been scrambling to find things that she can eat. She has never been much of a cook, so we have all been making her things. This muffin recipe is from a low-iodine cookbook that is available as a free PDF on thyca.org. I attempted these first sometime last week, and my sister loved them so much, I made another batch on Saturday!

Oat Bran Applesauce Muffins

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 cups oat bran cereal

1 1/2 cups white flour

1/2 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 Tablespoon baking soda

1/2 Teaspoon salt (Kosher is ok for low-iodine. sea salt and regular is NOT)

4 egg whites

1 cup applesauce, chilled

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. Blend together dry ingredients. Add egg whites, chilled applesauce and vegetable oil. Mix well until blended. Spoon batter into muffin cups. Let stand for 10 minutes. Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Yield: 12 muffins

Contributed by Elaine J.

These muffins are really easy to make and bake up beautifully. Here's what mine looked like:

Muffins before going into the oven.

Muffins after. They puffed up and browned perfectly!