Happy SITS Day to me!

Posted on September 20, 2013 by poulosc

Today is my 100th post! It’s also my SITS day!

What a lovely coincidence.

If you’re not familiar with SITS, you should be! Check them out here.

It’s a fantastic community of women who offer blogging tips and advice and who support their fellow female bloggers. I’ve found some incredibly inspiring stories, some killer recipes and lots of giggles on the pages of the blogs of these ladies.

I was never one of those girls with lots of girl friends.

I was always really close with my dad (I still am), and with all my boy cousins, I grew up very much a tom boy.

I’m incredibly lucky to have a dad who will watch movies or a football game with me and then come help me pick out my wedding dress. I’m thankful to him for teaching me how to throw a perfect spiral – I never ever threw like a girl. And having such a solid relationship with my dad has definitely helped me have such an incredible relationship with my fiance. Your dad’s the first guy who loves you.

The relationship with my dad is probably why I always hung with boys. All through high school and college, I was always the one girl with the guys. I didn’t understand girls. They seemed catty and sometimes downright mean. My guy friends were fun. And things were just easy with them. It was about laughs not about makeup.

I mean, check out my guys below. Don’t they just look awesome?

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see the value in those female friendships. When you find a few good women in your life, you really *get* what girlfriends are all about.

My first friends were my parents. I think as an only child you just get a different relationship with your parents than you would if you had siblings.

My mom is the person I tell everything. As I’m about to get married, I know my fiance will become more and more my number one confidante, but sometimes, you just want your mom. She gets that when I’m crying, it’s because I’m angry, not upset, and she knows when to push and when to keep her mouth shut (most of the time). I was always baffled when some of the girls I grew up with said they didn’t really talk to their moms. I can’t imagine not talking to her or not sharing everything with her.

I’ve told you I’m an only child, but I never really felt like one. I have a ton of cousins, so I wasn’t like totally isolated from kids. I also grew up with a very close friend, who is as close to a sister without being blood as you can get. I’ve known her since first grade. She’s Jill and I’m Jack. We were definitely meant to be a twosome! She is a beautiful person inside and out.

And we’ve grown up together and changed and gotten married and gotten engaged and moved around, but we’re still Jack and Jill.

And every girl needs a partner in crime. I met mine in high school and she is the nonfat milk in my coffee. We’ve been separated by distance and higher learning (only she knows what that means) but it hasn’t stopped Romy and Michelle. Getting into concerts without tickets is a fine art that we have mastered.

I’m also really excited to have some new wonderful ladies in my life.

My fiance’s brother has a lovely girlfriend, Sam, who is incredibly talented, smart and fun. I’m so so so lucky to have a great relationship with her and with my future-brother-in-law.

And having heard so many mother-in-law horror stories, I’m even more lucky to be friends with my future mother-in-law. She is an incredibly fun and funny woman who should start her own blog. Patty P. has been loving and caring since the day I have met her and has always made me feel like family.

I guess every woman reaches a stage in her life where she realizes that she needs some strong females she can call on as backup, as comfort and as friends.

I’m not just saying Happy SITS to me, but to the women who have helped make me who I am.

Chili Cheese Dip

Posted on August 15, 2013 by jacky grace

This little creation comes to you from my Aunt Tina.

For the longest time I couldn’t make this anywhere but the beach because that’s where we always had it. But now that my fiance has had it too it’s in the normal rotation in our itty bitty city kitchen.

This is a fantastic dip for watching a football game. Or a hockey game. Fall’s in the air so it has me thinking of lazy Sundays cooking and eating while watching the game.

But this is also a fantastic summer side dish. All wet and sandy from the beach and starving after a day of swimming and playing bag-o but dinner still so far away.

This takes two ingredients and two minutes And will satisfy hunger pangs until dinner is on the table.

You will need pepper jack cheese and a can of hormel chili with no beans.

Cut up half the block of cheese into cubes. You’ll only need half for each dip, so if you have a lot of people, buy two cans of chili and one block of cheese for two bowls of it.

Place the cubes of cheese in a microwave safe bowl. Pour out the chili into another, larger, microwave safe bowl.

Microwave the chili for about a minute. I suggest covering the bowl with a paper towel so you don’t have a mess.

Take the chili out and microwave the cheese for about 30 seconds to a minute, until the cheese is melted. I’d start on the low end of the time because you don’t want to burn the cheese and all microwaves are different.

Pour the molten cheese into the chili and stir. You can zap it in the microwave again if you feel it isn’t hot enough .

There you have it. Two ingredients. And a fantastic dip. Dig in with some tortilla chips.

Or, if you’re feeling especially indulgent, top hot dogs with the dip for a chili cheese dog night. Perfect meal for catching a Yankees game.

Grape Leaves – Part 2

Posted on August 1, 2013 by jacky grace

Now that we’ve made the stuffing, it’s time to get to stuffing!

Or, more accurately, rolling.

You are going to need a large pot and a lot of grape leaves. We’re using the ones from meme’s back yard. To prepare the grape leaves, you will need to boil them first, just slightly, and remove the stems. Meme did this before we got there, so I can’t tell you how it’s really done.

Hey, a woman’s entitled to keep some secrets!

Get a comfy chair, some music and some friends. You will be here for a while.

Here’s the first secret from meme when rolling grape leaves. Feel the leaf. Look for the side with veins that are more raised. That will be the inside of the grape leaf, so it should be facing up.

Drop a little bit of the meat mixture onto the leaf down near where the stem was. Be careful not to put too much. Remember the rice isn’t cooked yet and it will expand.

Take the two sides next to the meat and fold them in so they are covering the meat mix.

And then roll the leaf up like a little burrito. Don’t put too much meat in and make sure you roll it right. Or meme will be mad.

But if you roll it right, you will have a happy meme!

I should give credit here where credit is due. The master roller is really pepe. Here’s pepe telling Christopher how to do it the right way.

Pepe is way fast at rolling grape leaves.

Chris and I are taking our time, making sure we get it right.

This is the time when you start telling family stories. A lot of good stories can come out while you’re sitting around the table, rolling grape leaves.

See, that’s me listening to a story. I can’t share them with you though, because what happens at the kitchen table rolling grape leaves, stays at the kitchen table rolling grape leaves.

This is serious business. Pepe has his glasses on. See. Serious. By the way, see all that meat? Yup, that all needs to get rolled up.

We’re still rolling…

and rolling

As you get piles and piles of grape leaves, start placing them in the pot, packed closely, like this.

Jeff took that job.

Add a sprig of thyme to the pot when all of the grape leaves are complete.

We still had a lot of meat mixture left, so we stuffed some vegetables too. Remember when we made the mix and we used the scooped out insides of the tomatoes? Well, there’s the tomatoes. The perfect little container for some stuffing.

We also did some peppers and some eggplants. And some cabbage leaves. And yes, we needed two pots.

Basically, keep hollowing out vegetables and stuffing them until all the meat is gone.

Meme does this by herself most of the time. Think about that. Her and pepe. rolling all those leaves. And stuffing all those vegetables. I think she was happy to have four extra sets of hands!

Okay, now it’s time to cook the dolma and go have a glass of wine to relax.

Fill the pot about three quarters of the way with chicken broth. Add two tablespoons of butter on top.

Place a heavy ceramic plate on top of the vegetables.

Then put a rock on top of the plate. A clean rock.

The rock and the plate will keep everything nice and compact, so the rice doesn’t expand and undo all that hardwork of rolling.

Cover with a lid. Let cook over low heat for about one hour. I think we ended up letting the pots go for about one hour and fifteen minutes because there was too much liquid still in the pot. So she took off the lid for about fifteen minutes or so and let the extra moisture escape.

And then, after the chopping and the mixing and the rolling and the rolling and the rolling and the stuffing and the hour of the simmering and the smell wafting through the house…

You sit down with a heaping plate

and a drink

And you eat dolma!

Look, everyone is happy when they eat dolma!

Open up and say yum!

Grape Leaves – Part 1

Posted on July 31, 2013 by jacky grace

Remember a few weeks ago when I showed you meme and pepe’s grapevine? And remember how I teased you with the promise of how to make grape leaves?

Well, I’m making good on that promise.

You know that show on Cooking Channel, My Grandmother’s Ravioli? Well this is sort of like that.

Except she’s not my grandmother- she’s my fiance’s. And she’s not a grandmother- she’s meme.

And it’s not ravioli – it’s dolma.

So Meme’s Dolma!

Dolma is the term for vegetables or cabbage or grape leaves stuffed with a seasoned meat mixture. We came over to meme’s to learn to make grape leaves, but what she does is make a big bowl of the seasoned meat mixture and then stuff grape leaves, cabbage leaves and vegetable like tomatoes and eggplants and peppers.

This post is going to cover the meat mixture. The next one will walk you through rolling grape leaves.

I am going to try my best to write this out properly, but meme is not easy to follow.

Like most grandmas, she cooks by taste and by feel. She knows what it should look like. She knows what it should taste like. She’s made this a million times, so it comes easy to her.

But here it is, the stuffing for dolma.

I suggest having everything out or having another person on hand to pass you things.

Meme is directing. Pepe is cleaning.

I’m taking pictures, while Sam and Chris write it all down.

Jeff’s capturing it all on video.

Okay. Here we go. In a large bowl, pour in two cups of medium rice which you’ve rinsed thoroughly. Meme said medium rice. Not long. Medium.

Next add in one large white onion, diced and the scooped out insides from a few tomatoes. To get the scooped out insides, cut the top off of a tomato and dig out the insides with a spoon. (Don’t cut through the tomato all the way. You want to turn the tomato into a container to hold the meat stuffs later) I asked meme how many tomatoes but she kind of shrugged. I’m guessing 3 or 4.

To the bowl add flat leaf parsley chopped up. Again, no precise measurements but I’m going to guesstimate a cup and a half to two cups.

Right? That looks like two cups?

Next add in 1 teaspoon of coriander, 1 teaspoon of the armenian red pepper that I still don’t know how to spell (Chris’s writing looks something like halibebebae – when they say it, it kind of sounds like holla baby bear) and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Next we add 1 cup of really good Greek olive oil. Meme said one cup, but then she handed Sam that coffee cup. She says she measured it out in a measuring cup, but we’re skeptical.

Now comes the meat. Meme used about a pound of ground sirloin and then another pound total of a veal, pork and beef mix. The right way to do it is to use lamb. I used to not like lamb, so meme switched it up for me. (I do like lamb now though so next time we will do it the right way).

You really need a big, big bowl for this.

To the meat, add in two thirds of a cup of tomato sauce (I think it’s just tomato puree) and a little less than a third of a cup of fresh lemon juice.

Here is the most important part. I’m quoting meme directly now. “No garlic, no dolma.” You need two “blobs” of minced garlic. From what I gather, a blob is less than a heaping tablespoon but more than a regular tablespoon.

When you have everything in the bowl, it’s time to wash your hands…

… and dig in.

And get to mixing!

Pause for a family picture!

And then get back to mixing. Changing of the guard here as meme tells Chris how to mix it right.

And then as I tell him how to mix it right.

And then he finally mixes it right.

And then his arms started hurting.

But thankfully the mixing was done.

So there you have it. The stuffing for dolma. Next, a lesson in grape leaf rolling.

Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus

Posted on July 26, 2013 by jacky grace

I’m so thankful I’m Italian.

For many reasons really.

But mostly for the food

And for the ease of preparation of the food

And for how easy entertaining is if you just whip up a bunch of Italian appetizers and antipasto.

One of my favorites for the summer?

Prosciutto wrapped asparagus.

Spring and summer is when you can find the really thin, really tender pencil asparagus. That’s my favorite.

All you need is asparagus, prosciutto and some olive oil.

We had about ten people over for drinks and I made an assortment of small plates.

I used a pound of asparagus and a half pound of prosciutto.

Preheat the oven to 400.

Line a cookie sheet with foil. Nobody likes cleanup when you’re having a cocktail party.

Wash the asparagus and cut off the bottom fibrous part. I peeled some of the thicker pieces too.

No snap each asparagus spear in half and place the two half together.

Take a piece of prosciutto and wrap it around each asparagus bundle.

Set up an assembly line and keep going until all the asparagus is wrapped.

Drizzle with olive oil and black pepper. The prosciutto I got was really salty so I didn’t add salty. Taste test a piece and see if you think yours needs salt though as all prosciutto varies.

Bake for about twenty minutes, plate ’em up and watch ’em go!

Fruit and Nut Couscous Salad

Posted on July 25, 2013 by jacky grace

Usually, I’m good with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some fruit for lunch at work. When it’s really hot, yogurt with some fruit and homemade nutella granola are my go to.

But sometimes I need something different.

Salad are great and so are leftovers.

But I didn’t really want something savory for lunch. I didn’t want something too sweet either (vanilla yogurt and nutella granola straddles the line between lunch and dessert, I’ll admit).

So on days like this, I reach for couscous.

Quick cook couscous is one of the greatest inventions ever. Pour it in a bowl, add some boiling water, cover for a few minutes and boom! couscous. You can let it sit and steam while you make your breakfast.

Once you have the couscous cooked you can pretty much add anything you want to it.

Today, I went with some chopped dried apricots and plums, some chopped roasted pecans and a lot of cinnamon. I had these things on hand, so go with whatever is in your pantry.

The grains are filling. The dried fruit is chewy with enough sweetness. The nuts add some crunch and some protein. And cinnamon is just the best spice in the world.

Whip some up.

Make your coworkers jealous.

You know you’re family is very European when…

Posted on July 5, 2013 by jacky grace

They have a grapevine in the backyard.

This is the beautiful vine growing in his meme and pepe’s yard, up the arbor on their deck.

And this is pepe checking the leaves. You have to pick them when they’re soft, when they’re just right, otherwise they get too tough.

And then do you know what you have?

Tough stuffed grape leaves or dolma.

And nobody like a tough stuffed grape leaf.

There were only a few leaves that were good, so pepe picked them and put them away for later.

At the end of the month, there should be a big enough pile to make dolma.

That’s right. Meme is going to teach me the secret!

Check back at the end of July beginning of August.

Until then, enjoy the beautiful weather, listen to the waves crash or enjoy the shade of your grape vine.

Happy Fourth of July! – A Red, White and Blue Breakfast

Posted on July 4, 2013 by jacky grace

Happy Fourth of J-J-J-July.

As a child, this is how I said it.

I didn’t have a stutter, or any kind of speech problems. But when the 4th day of the 7th month rolled around, that’s how I said it.

I could say July. But it was always 4th of J-J-J-July.

I have no explanation for this.

But 20-odd years later, my parents still say it like that to each other.

Shrug.

I was an odd child.

I blame it on not having siblings.

But back to breakfast.

Let’s kick off the day with a patriotic, red, white and blue burst of yogurt and summer berries.

A bowl of Chobani vanilla yogurt, striped with bright red raspberries and crisp and tart blackberries.

What’s more American and more summery than a bowl of berries?

Happy 4th to you all.

Enjoy a day of barbecues, beach, and most importantly, family.

Iced Green Tea

Posted on July 3, 2013 by jacky grace

Right up there in expensive habit land with cigarettes and booze is Starbucks.

I love a 3 O’clock coffee pick me up as much as the next person.

And come summer, I’m completely obsessed with their iced green tea.

But one iced green tea a day for every working day in July comes to about $70.

That’s a new shirt at JCrew!

If you carry that habit over to August, two months of tea = 1 month’s cable bill.

Take it across the whole year… well, you see where I’m going with this.

So today, my world was changed when I learned this: you can cold brew iced tea!

What?

I was buying iced tea at Starbucks because of the convenience factor. I didn’t have time at the office to brew a pot of tea, then ice it, then sweeten it.

But I can cold brew it?

For seriously?

I don’t know why I didn’t think it was possible. I had just assumed that making iced tea required boiling the tea bags, letting them steep and then chilling.

But really you can fill a glass with ice, add two tea bags, fill with water, and let it cold brew at your desk.

Add sweetener to your taste, and BAM! Starbucks habit kicked.

Sorry Starbucks.

There’s a shirt I really want at JCrew.

Sunflowers

Posted on June 30, 2013 by jacky grace

Sunflowers are my favorite flower.

You can’t not be happy when you look at a sunflower.

Sunflowers just scream summer.

And sunflower seeds are such a beachy snack.

I recently read an article in Bon Appetit about the health benefits of seeds. (Check it out here) and it reminded how much I love sunflower seeds. So of course I went out and bought a bag. They’re good for you!

Also good for you? Sunflower oil.

I like experimenting with different oils and vinegars. My boyfriend’s meme gave us a bottle of sunflower oil to try because her nutritionist told her it was a good, light, oil to use with good, healthy fats. It’s loaded with Vitamin E and antioxidants.

We tend to make our own salad dressing, either with prosciutto or with mustard. I’m also a huge fan of salads simply dressed with olive oil and vinegar, but with the article fresh in my mind, I turned to the sunflower oil to dress my greens.

Here’s a super simple salad dressing that is so fresh and bursting with light and citrusy flavors it tastes like you poured summer into your salad bowl.

Combine the juice of 1 lemon, 2 tablespoons of sunflower oil, garlic salt and black pepper.

I mixed mine in a mason jar. Drizzle over your favorite mix of greens.

Top with some sunflower seeds.

Healthy and delicious.

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