Faux Stained Glass Panels

Our present house has a lot of windows. The lot has an abundance of hardwoods and in the summer is completely camouflaged from the road by the greenery. In the winter we still have a great amount of privacy because of how the house sits relative to the neighbors so window coverings are not so much a matter of necessity as choice except in the master bath.

The windows above the tub overlook the neighbor’s house. We have used blinds for years in addition to a panel to diffuse the light so even when the blinds are open we still have privacy in that area. Lately I have been inclined to add some color to the room but still don’t want to go the drapery route.

I decided to use some faux stained glass panels on the windows. The first one is completed and I photo shopped the second one to get an idea of what the overall effect will be. There are also two more windows at the end of tub that are not visible in this view. The pattern is a modification of one I found online. It had to be elongated. I may still tone down the colors. The photos are before and after.

The Perfect Storm - here today..gone tomorrow

Usually Atlanta gets some kind of frozen precip each winter. However, most years it is a combination of sleet and frozen rain. It generally is a mess. The leftovers from this particular storm, at least in our area, have been appealing. I took some photos around the house while walking my daughter's piebald doxie. They are posted on Flickr at the following site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47512799@N07/

No mad knife skills here

I don’t have great slice and dice style. My daughter seems to think a better, sharper knife would help but I am thinking it is more an operator than tool quality problem. I gather more accidents happen with a dull knife so I do keep it sharpened. Lack of speed is more the issue.

Since I know I am not swift, and my skills are a bit dicey, I try to at least wash and prep veggies right away when I get them home. The local grocery lacks a few things that I use and a trip to the more well stocked market is an hour each way. So I have come up with a few things that are practical for me.

I have a vacuum sealer that gives me an extra few days of produce quality between getting to the market. There are a couple of advantages for me. I find it saves me a bit of time putting meals together, I don’t tend to use too much of something because I don’t want to put it back in the “not really a” crisper drawer to languish for a few days and then get thrown out. It hurts to get rid of those pricey fresh herbs and my recipes rarely use the entire amount that comes in the prepackaged bags from the local grocery so its a win if I can extend the time they remain fresh.

I use the wide mouth glass canning jars for several reasons, they are easy to clean and you can see when they are clean. You can quickly tell how the container occupant is holding up, they are reusable and so far have not been associated with health risk, and can be sealed repeatedly. I truly hate plastic storage containers that never seem to have the lid, flip over and dump water when I open the dishwasher, refuse to stay stacked in the cabinet, stain and retain smells.

So here are a few of this week’s veggies, washed and ready to go.

I do enjoy a good soup, well before it makes its way to my bowl. The line up of colorful ingredients waiting their turn for prep is appealing to me, the pleasant sound of onion and garlic sauteing in the pan, and the feeling you get when coming in from the cold and the aroma from the soup and the warmth of the house meet you at the door.

Pictured are two different soups that I hoped would be compatible in the bowl. One is a butternut squash with sweet potato, the other is a pea soup. They are a bit denser than usual to give them enough body to stay on their respective sides of the bowl. Neither was subjected to a lengthy boil down process in hopes of retaining the color and flavor of the vegetables. I sauteed the onion and garlic but steamed the other vegetables then pureed them before a brief simmer in their respective pots. An overnight cool down and chill seems to have finished the melding of the flavors.

Both seem a bit on the sweet side..wonder if the usual boiling process ordinarily takes that out..My daughter is coming up tomorrow and I will leave it to her more knowledgeable vegetarian taste to come up with a seasoning suggestion for both.

I am thinking thyme or sage in the squash soup but after years of using smoked ham in pea soup not sure if there is anything I will like quite as well.

Generally my cravings for sweets of late have been directed at butterscotch hard candies you can buy in the economy size bag at the grocery. However, this last week thoughts of chocolate and mint have been playing havoc in my hypothalamus and pushed me to action. I tried an appeasement strategy .i.e. Andes chocolate mint on Milano mint cookie in the microwave for a few seconds quick fix but that did not put the issue to rest.

The fall back position was a reliable crème de menthe cake / brownie recipe that I had not visited in at least a decade. So here it is with a few added layers and a bit of added chocolate chip mint ice cream.

When I made this I "fudged" the recipe a bit in order to stack it. The top layer / glaze is only molten and pourable right after you melt the semi sweet chips and butter together. Once it cools it is no longer liquid at all. So for the hot fudge effect with ice cream layers I had to assemble the layers before hand and then pour the warm glaze over it right before serving. Also, to get a thinner layer for stacking you can use a jelly roll pan instead of a 13 x 9 pan. Just reduce the cooking time to 20 minutes instead of 25.

This recipe has been around a long time, a friend passed it along to me but I have seen very similar if not identical versions on the internet.

Recipe: Three Layer Crème de Menthe Squares

1st Layer- Cake layer
Combine and beat
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
4 eggs

Then add the following to the batter

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
1- 16 oz. can Hershey syrup

2nd Layer- crème de menthe filling
Cream together
½ cup unsalted butter
2 cups confectioners sugar
2 Tablespoons crème de menthe
Note: Cake should be cool before applying 2nd layer

3rd Layer - Glaze
6 oz chocolate chips semi sweet
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Melt and pour and cool

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Combine and crème together the butter sugar and eggs, gradually add the flour, vanilla, salt and hershey’s syrup. Mix well.

3. Spread batter in a lightly greased 9 x 13 pan and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely before adding crème de menthe layer.

4. While the first layer is cooling, cream together the butter, confectioners sugar and crème de menthe.

5. Spread it over the cake layer and refrigerate.

6. In a double boiler, melt the semi sweet chocolate chips and butter for the glaze. Allow it to cool slightly and pour/ spread over the thoroughly chilled mint layer. Refrigerate it again to chill and set the glaze topping.

Chilly?? Nope. Chili.

This recipe is quite different from the chili I remember as a child.Back then we used ground beef, canned tomatoes, canned tomato sauce and canned paste, onions, beans, not a lot of seasoning, and an all day simmer to reduce the amount of liquid. I always thought the bitterness and acidity were part and parcel of the dish.

A few years ago, my annual cold weather inspired hankering for chili coincided with a new recipe I ran across at the local market. A quick check of the ingredients lets you know it is not chili as usual.

First there is no ground beef.. it uses ground turkey breast and fat reduced breakfast sausage. When you are browning the meat, you become aware of the lack of fat because you have to work at breaking it up and keeping it moving in the pan to keep it from sticking.

The refried beans that smooth out the base are also unique to this recipe, and finally there are no canned tomatoes, sauce or paste. The fresh diced tomatoes added toward the end and simmered briefly add the expected color, texture and flavor without bitterness or acidity.

I boil the liquid drained from the kidney and navy beans and also the broth to reduce the volume by at least 50%, because I prefer a thicker consistency chili.

Once the meat and mirepoix are browned, stir in the refried beans, taco seasoning pkg, and the reduced liquids.

Finally add both types of beans and the fresh diced tomatoes and simmer for no more than an hour to retain the appearance of the beans and tomatoes. The garnish can include a very small amount of finely chopped habanero which adds a flavorful and spicy warmth to the bowl.

The flavors are improved by preparing a day ahead then chilling overnight in the fridge. It also freezes well.

1 - 12 oz pkg reduced fat sausage
½ pound turkey breast
1 - 10 oz bag froz mix – onions,bell peppers,& celery (mirepoix)or use fresh
1 – 16 oz can refried beans
1 - 15.8 oz can great northern beans drained with liquid reserved
1 - 15.8 oz can dark red kidney beans drained with liquid reserved
1 - 14 oz cn chicken broth – reduced sodium
Tomatoes – fresh – 2 large diced

Garnish with your choice of shredded cheese, a very fine small amount of fresh habanero, diced green onions, diced red bell, slice black olives, sliced jalapeno, or sour cream

Spinach lasagna roll ups - great do ahead dinner

Lasagna was never a favorite of mine. However, it is the ideal dish for feeding a large crowd in a casual setting. Tasty as it is, once the serving process begins it quickly looks like leftovers. That's not a big problem in a family setting but put it on a buffet and it loses appeal pretty quickly. So the idea of an individual portion that retains its appearance throughout the serving process struck a chord with me. I was also interested in something that could be frozen and thawed successfully. The sauce is meatless. The ingredients are standard except for a half a cup of finely chopped carrots sauteed with the onion and garlic and a small bit of added lemon zest. I also resist the southern impulse to simmer this all day and limit the cooking time to less than a hour and add the herbs the last 15 minutes of that time.

The cheese layer is slightly different, primarily to hold up through the cooking process and not disintegrate into the familiar oil and curd appearance associated with pan lasagna. It includes cream cheese in the blend of cheeses and egg whites are used instead of whole eggs to retain the white color. The cheese and egg layer is cooked in a double boiler since it is not baked. Sauce and cheese filling are thoroughly chilled before assembling into rolls and then individually wrapped in foil that has been lightly coated with olive oil to prevent the rolls from sticking to the foil.

The frozen packets are thawed in the fridge over night and gently steamed a few minutes, just long enough to heat through. The idea is to keep the noodles from toughening. Since everything has been cooked prior to freezing it doesn't need to be subjected to a prolonged baking process.