Janel Gradowski's Blog, page 12

Kraken Is Yummy: A Review of Sorts

No, I don’t mean the sea monster. Although I would imagine the seafaring Kraken would taste rather like squid and I do adore good fried calamari. I’m talking about The Kraken spiced black rum. A darker, more sinister looking cousin to Captain Morgan’s spiced rum. Considering ye olde Captain is a pirate . . . maybe The Kraken ate him.

I’m not much of a cocktail connoisseur. My home bar setup consists of several types of craft beers, hard ciders and, more often than not, a bottle of rum. In short, I only keep what I love on hand. A rum and Coke, or more specifically a Morgan’s and Mexican Coke with a squeeze of lime, is perfect when I’m in the mood for a cocktail instead of a beer. I’ve eyed the sea monster adorned bottles of  The Kraken at the party store for quite awhile, but have been loathe to spend $20+ on a spirit I have never tried, especially after a disappointing incident with “authentic” Junior Johnson’s Cherry Moonshine last year. The plump garnet cherries bobbing in the scarlet moonshine looked so beautiful. Unfortunately, it tasted like the worst cherry cough syrup dredged up from childhood memories mixed with paint remover. A nasty tasting waste of money. But when I saw this smaller, less than the price of two Starbucks lattes priced bottle of  The Kraken, I decided to give it a try.

It came home with me, along with a bottle of Vernor’s ginger ale. Vernor’s is a more gingery version of Seagram’s, so I’d say my drink was somewhere between The Kraken Cocktail and The Perfect Storm listed on The Kraken website. It was delicious and spicy with a kick from the ginger and rum. I tried a sip of the rum alone. It was strong. I also realized I can no longer pull off my college years party trick of being able to drink shots with a completely, not even an eye twitch, blank face. Nope. That “life skill” reached it’s expiration date a long time ago.

Part of the appeal of this liquor, to me, is the packaging. The sea monster snaking around the label is a detailed piece of art. A rather unique creature staring back at you as you peruse the liquor store aisles. The company takes full advantage of its connection with the mythical sea creature offering everything from a custom Moleskine notebook for sale to an online book with information on the monster and the liquor. As an artistically inclined person, I appreciate a good, well thought out marketing effort. I’m happy, though, that the rum turned out to be good tasting as well as good looking.

This post is part of Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads

 

Ions and Vortexes, Oh My!

I had hoped that at this point in the month I would be posting a well thought-out post written in peace and quiet. Unfortunately Winter Storm Ion and the Polar Vortex has decided to extend my kids’ Christmas Vacation another two days. That is after the vacation began one day early thanks to an ice storm.

The kids are bored. I’m distracted. There’s a -28 degree F wind chill . . . yeah. Here are some pictures.

My boys playing in the snow before it got dangerously cold.

I’ve got it!

Snowsplosion!

Snow storms make me tired. Wake me up when it’s over.

Stay safe and warm, everybody!

Happy Holidays!

Writer’s Lunch: Ramen Noodles with Egg Threads & Pork

I am literally in the middle of writing my mystery novel right now. Every day is spent squeezing in as many hours writing as I can. A quick lunch is good. When only a few more minutes spent prepping makes the meal really good . . . I’m a happy woman. My brain definitely needs some mid-morning fuel, along with more coffee, to keep writing for the following two hours or so before my kids get home from school.

So I’ve decided to share some of the particularly tasty lunch creations I occasionally invent. I try to keep inexpensive, squiggly blocks of ramen noodles on hand. If I’m really in a hurry I just cook the noodles and make a sauce with light miso (another pantry staple) dissolved in a bit of boiling water. It’s a warm, umami loaded meal for the bitterly cold winter days that have now arrived in Michigan. Yesterday I raided my refrigerator and came up with a slightly more sophisticated version of ramen with a bit of protein from the meat and egg along with a salty, sweet and slightly hot sauce. Of course, you can start with the noodles, egg and sauce then customize to your heart’s content. Add in some cooked chicken, cubed tofu or even leave it out. Adjust the sauce with more sriracha or maybe even a splash of rice wine vinegar or citrus juice. Some vegetables would be lovely, like a handful of frozen peas or bean sprouts added at the end along with the egg. A bit of sesame seeds and some green onion would’ve been delicious sprinkled on at the end. As you can see, it’s a rather homely dish made of brown on tan, but I thought it was very good.

How do you dress up ramen noodles?

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Ramen Noodles with Egg Threads & Pork


Author: Janel Gradowski (http://www.janelgradowski.com)
Recipe type: Lunch



Serves: 1
 

A quick and inexpensive meal that is much tastier than using the seasoning packet that comes with the noodles

Ingredients

1 – 3 oz. package ramen noodle soup (any flavor)
1 egg, beaten
½ cup cooked pork, finely chopped
Sauce:
1 T soy sauce
1 t oyster sauce
1 t brown sugar
½ t sriracha hot sauce
½ t toasted sesame oil




Instructions

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add ½ of the seasoning packet that comes with the noodles and the block of noodles, broken up a bit to make them easier to eat. Boil noodles for about 2 minutes, or until soft. In the meantime, combine the sauce ingredients in a small bowl. With a fork, quickly stir the noodles and drizzle the beaten egg into the swirling broth/noodles. Add the pork. Heat for another minute or until the meat is warm. Drain in a mesh strainer. Put in bowl and stir in sauce.



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This post is part of Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads

Book Review: Pie It Forward

Can there be any better job for a foodie than one that involves reading cookbooks as research? I am currently writing the first book in The Baking Queen culinary mystery series, which will be published in 2014 by Gemma Halliday Publishing. That book centers around a pie baking contest, so of course, I’ll need to include pie recipes. While I love eating pie, I very rarely make them myself. One of my friends sells delicious pies at area farmer’s markets, so I happily buy the treats from her. When I do tackle the baking task myself, I confess, I’ve always used refrigerated pie crusts *gasp*. So, when I saw the ebook version of Pie It Forward by Gesine Bullock-Prado on sale I snapped it up. For research purposes, not because I have a cookbook obsession (that’s what I keep telling myself . . . shelves and shelves and shelves full of cookbooks is completely normal . . . yup, it is, right?). Since the purchase was made not long before Thanksgiving, what better way to test a recipe from the book than by making the pumpkin pie my family insists on for the holiday?

I have a tried and true recipe that I use for the filling, so I tackled my crust-making phobia. The biggest dilemma was which crust to choose. There is an entire chapter on crusts: All Butter Easy Pie Dough, Simple Tart Dough, Hand Pie Dough, Quick Puff Pastry, Traditional Puff Pastry, Sweet Tart Dough, Chocolate Cookie Tart Crust, Strudel Dough, Pizza Dough. There is a generous amount of tips and explanations, as well as many photographs, that accompany the recipes. I chose the All Butter Easy Pie Dough, made with part-shortening to make it more workable. It was made in the food processor and I was delighted at how easily it came together. It turned out buttery and flaky. The bottom of the pumpkin pie was still crisp the next day, even after a stay in the refrigerator. This is now my go to recipe for pie crust. If I ever feel the need to tackle strudel dough, I will refer to this cookbook.

The book goes on with master recipes for bakery staples like pastry cream and ganache. Then it’s on to the pie recipes. Sweet pies divided into categories like berry and stone fruit. Many of the recipes lean toward the gourmet bakery side of pie making, with sophisticated recipes for things like Cherry Lavender Clafoutis Tart, Pear and Rhubarb Cardamom Custard Pie, and Pear Frangipane Pithivier. There are also more traditional recipes for things like apple and cherry pies. By the way, I love her tip to saute apples a bit before filling a pie, to lessen shrinkage and the dreaded crust gap in a two-crust apple pie.

Then the book moves onto savory pies which includes several pizza recipes. The Fried (Slightly) Green Tomato Tart and Pork Pies sound delicious. There is even a recipe for Cornish Pasties, which is a regional delicacy where I live. I grew up eating them during summer vacations “up north” to the Mackinaw Bridge/Upper Peninsula area of Michigan. I’m more than a bit of a pasty connoisseur. Considering the recipe calls for the pie crust that I gushed about a few paragraphs ago, along with beef tenderloin, this is sure to be a very tasty, very gourmet version of the meal that became famous as lunch for copper miners.

The last chapter calls on readers to turn pie into an art form. “Taking the skills you’ve learned, think outside the pie plate and stack your crusts and fillings into layers! Ring them with gorgeous edible sides! Make the ready-to-wear pies into (edible) haute couture.” The pictures and recipes in this chapter are awe-inspiring, appearing often more cake-like. Indeed, many have cake components like the Strawberry Love Pie wrapped in joconde sponge cake.

This really is a lovely book about the singular topic of pie with a wide range of recipes, from simple to challenging, sweet to savory, traditional to cutting edge. Really, the only complaint I have is that the ebook version does not have a Table of Contents to make it easy to go directly to a recipe. However, there is an index at the end with direct links to the recipes. Luckily I paged through the entire book and found it.

This post is part of Weekend Cooking and Foodies Read 2013.

Note: I purchased this book and was not paid or reimbursed for this review.

 

Site Spotlight: JukePop Serials

JukePop Serials is a site that offers curated serial fiction. What does that mean? I’ll start with the serial part first. Stories on the site are published one chapter at a time. Think episodes in a TV series. So you can find stories that are just beginning, with only a few chapters, or complete novel-length stories that can be read on your computer or through an app for other devices. Anybody can read the first chapter of any of the posted stories, but to read further you need to sign up for an account (which is free). Then you can add all of your favorite serials to your bookshelf and be informed when new chapters are posted.

The curated aspect of the site makes it stand out, to me. All stories have to be accepted by the JukePop editors before they are published. Curated=quality. As a reward for writing well, the site pays authors. Readers can +vote for their favorite authors/serials and there is also a monthly bonus for authors in the Top 30, a ranking system based on votes. A nice incentive for authors to keep the writing quality high and their stories up to date.

There is a huge variety of genres on the site. Zombie, women’s fiction, paranormal, hard-boiled detective, post-apocalyptic, steampunk . . . something for just about everyone. The site is set up nicely, I find it visually appealing, with tabs that you can customize once you have an account. On the front page you can see which serials have new chapters, completed stories, editor’s picks and your favorite genres at a glance.

I love the site as a reader, but as you can see by the logo at the top of this post, I am also a writer there. Ready Or Not is a part of my Bartonville series featuring Micah, a minor character from Must Love Sandwiches.

What do you think of serial fiction? Does reading a story one chapter at a time appeal to you?

 

Breakfast Quest

My preferred breakfast is coffee with brown sugar and a splash of 2% milk. Nothing else. I’m not sure why, but I just don’t crave a big meal in the morning. It’s not that I don’t like breakfast foods, it’s just that I usually serve things like waffles or biscuits and sausage sandwiches for dinner. Most of the time my liquid breakfast works fine and I just have my lunch a bit early.

Lately I have been working on a big writing project. I’ve been writing 2 – 3,000 words a day and hope to increase that average. To give you an idea of what kind of pace that is, to write 50,000 words in 30 days during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) a writer needs to average about 1700 words per day. I have a story that wants to be let out of my brain and it won’t let me take it easy until the first draft is done. By the way, if you would like to know what that project is (it involves food!), visit author Gemma Halliday’s Facebook page tomorrow, 11/24, for the Gemma Halliday Publishing Launch Party. You will find my recipe for a baked pancake with sausage and I’ll also be doing a giveaway.

My biggest problem that I’ve found so far is that I feel like I’m running on fumes by mid-morning. My writing pace slows until I finally grind to a stop to conduct a refrigerator raid. So I’m going to make some changes in the hope that my writing will no longer be affected by the dreaded low fuel brain implosion. I am going to eat breakfast. Since I like oatmeal, I’ll start with that. Either a pan of baked oatmeal that I can cook once then warm up portions for a few days afterward or refrigerator oats in individual serving sized jars. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, below is a link to my Pinterest board where I collect oatmeal recipes.

Oatmeal Recipes

Do you like oatmeal? What are some of your favorite ways to prepare it or do you have any favorite add-ins?

This post is part of Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads

 

Slow Cooker White Bean & Ham Soup

It is comfort food season here in Michigan. The trees have lost their brilliant, autumn plumage and now stand as gray skeletons in yards and wood lots. Cold wind has been eating through light jackets and sweatshirts, prompting an outbreak of winter coats among people who have to venture outside. At times it has been difficult to fall asleep because the wind has continued into the night, bumping and banging on the house’s siding and shutters like a Halloween monster that has overstayed its welcome. This is the time of year when cold salads and iced tea lose their appeal. It’s time for warm, hearty food and steaming hot coffee or tea. Although, I have to admit I drink hot coffee all year long. My path through the morning is long and bumpy if I don’t get my dose of dark and steamy caffeine a few minutes after stumbling out of bed.

So, now I am craving things like thick stews and bubbling casseroles, but I don’t have the time to make anything time consuming or fussy. Not only is the holiday season barreling closer I have a big, exciting, slightly-terrifying-to-my-flash-fiction-writer-side writing project. I have to write down in my planner, every day, what time I need to pick up my kids from their after-school activities because I will forget. In fact, I was half an hour late picking up my daughter earlier this week because my brain didn’t adjust to her appointment being half an hour earlier than usual. This is a time when I take a break from my writing tasks and realize it’s the middle of the afternoon and I have no idea what I’m going to make for dinner, but I need to figure that out quickly because I need to leave in 15 minutes to pick up the kids from school and that is when I will also have to stop at the grocery store.

Thank goodness for Pinterest. About a month or so ago I pinned a recipe for beans and ham made in the crockpot. Now this recipe takes some planning, you need to cook it all day, but it doesn’t get much easier. I grew up eating my mom’s homemade bean soup and I have always loved it. My husband, on the other hand, isn’t a fan of beans unless they are in spicy chili. The recipe I pinned was just dried beans, ham hocks and water. Much to my surprise, my husband actually liked the resulting thick soup. Since I love to tinker with recipes, the next time I made it I added in some of the ingredients my mom used in her soup and the result is the recipe below. I also have ideas for quite a few variations on this that I will be trying over the winter.

A few notes, you don’t have to soak the beans overnight before beginning this recipe. I was skeptical about that, but was pleasantly surprised at the tender beans and thick broth. I highly suggest using smoked ham shanks if you can get them. I used a combo of shanks and hocks the first time and could barely get any meat at all off of the hocks, but there was more than enough on the shanks to make a nicely meaty soup. By the way, I topped my soup off with liberal drizzles of sriracha hot sauce and it was an excellent way to add a bit of spicy heat.

What are some of your favorite ingredients to add to bean soup?

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Slow Cooker White Bean & Ham Soup


Author: Janel Gradowski (http://www.janelgradowski.com)
Recipe type: Soup


Prep time:  10 mins
Cook time:  8 hours
Total time:  8 hours 10 mins


Serves: 6-8
 

A thick, hearty soup that takes very little effort to prepare.

Ingredients

1 lb. dried northern (white) beans
2 smoked ham shanks or meaty ham hocks – 1½ to 2 lbs. total
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium carrot, diced
2 dried bay leaves
6 cups water
Salt and pepper to taste




Instructions

Sort through the beans and pick out any debris. Place in a strainer and rinse with water to remove any dust or dirt. Add all of the ingredients to a slow cooker. Cook on low for about 8 hours, or until the beans are tender. Remove the meat from the shanks, shred and add back into the beans.



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This post is part of the Weekend Cooking meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Guest Post at Life’s A Stage Weblog

I am guest posting at the Life’s A Stage Weblog today. Stop by and get a two for one deal. You can read a review of The Queen of Bad Decisions as well as my guest post which includes a recipe for simple rice pudding. Warm, rice pudding is one of my ultimate comfort foods. Since the recipe is more like a porridge than custard, I figure it’s a perfectly acceptable breakfast as well as a snack or dessert. If you try the recipe, let me know what you think! Just click below to go to the post. By the way, make sure you take a look around Estrella’s blog. She is a wonderful, creative person. There are many beautiful pictures of the city she lives in, located in the Transylvania region of Romania, as well as regional specialty recipes.

Guest Post at Life’s A Stage Weblog

The Queen Has Arrived!

Click On The Cover To Purchase From Amazon

 

It’s the official release day for The Queen of Bad Decisions!

Want to see what others are saying about the book? Check out the reviews at:

Amazon

Goodreads

Peeking Between The Pages blog

My Guest Post and Giveaway at Peeking Between The Pages

Diary of an Eccentric blog