Don't sneeze

On top of spaghetti

all covered with cheese

I lost my poor meatball

when somebody sneezed

It rolled off the table

and onto the floor

and then my poor meatball

rolled out of the door

This is the meatball song. When we were little, it was a funny song that my sister and I loved to sing -- especially at the dinner table whenever my mom made meatballs and rice.

My mom's meatballs and rice is my favorite dinner of all time. I could eat it all day and everyday, for forever and ever. It's just that good. 

I never have been able to replicate the recipe to make it taste just like the way mom makes it. I once tried to make it, and put in too much lemon juice and it became a sour and gross mess. The second time I tried to tackle the recipe I got all the ingredients right, but somehow the sauce came out really runny and it wasn't the same consistency as it is when my mom cooks it. So for this blog post I called upon the help of my mother, since every time I try this recipe it flops, and together we made a successful batch of meatballs and rice.

This is really the most delicious thing ever. It's meatballs covered in a sweet and slightly sour sauce over rice, and the sauce tastes great on the rice too. Knowing that it's my favorite food, my mother makes this recipe every year for my birthday and each time I eat it I remember past birthdays and the fun times we had. I also remember singing the spaghetti song when I was little. My sister and I would burst out laughing because we thought it was hilarious that someone could sneeze a meatball out the door. I'll also remember cooking with my mother, and maybe someday I will finally be able to cook like my mother.

Mom's Meatballs and Rice

Ingredients:

The Meatballs:                                                                            The Sauce:

• 1 egg                                                                        2 cans condensed tomato soup
• 1 cup uncooked quick oats                                       1 cup brown sugar
• 1 lb ground beef                                                       6 tablespoons lemon juice
• salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, combine ingredients for the meatballs, and mix it all together with your hands. Don't be afraid of raw meat. As long as you wash your hands after touching the meatballs everything will be fine.





2. When the ingredients for the meatballs are all mixed together, roll out one inch meatballs and place them in the baking dish. Roll the meatballs in your hands so that they make little meat balls. It's just like when you used to roll out playdoh into balls when you were little, except this time you're rolling meat into little balls. Wash your hands after this step.




3. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce together in a bowl. 

4. When the sauce is completely mixed, pour it over the meatballs
 until all the meatballs are completely covered. You want the meatballs to be completely covered so that they don't dry out while cooking. When the sauce is over all the meatballs, cook them in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour. Serve warm over rice. 

They call me peanut

These peanut butter cookies are both simple and scrumptious.

I am obsessed with peanut butter.

I am very thankful that I never developed an allergy to peanuts because I love peanut butter. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a treat, and I eat peanut butter whenever I have the chance. Sometimes I would snack on peanut butter when I got home from school by just taking a spoon and eating a spoonful or two out of the jar.  My mother got so annoyed with this habit that she even bought me my own jar of peanut butter.

Also, ever since subbie year, many people have nicknamed me "peanut" at school. This started subbie year when Murf, my basketball coach, randomly called me "peanut" one day at practice. The name stuck, and some still call me peanut even today (although now many have moved on to call me "Kapow"). Sometimes when I eat peanut butter, it reminds me of the nickname and of all the fun times I had on my subbie basketball team. 

Peanut butter holds many memories for me from home too. When I was home schooled, my mother and my sister and I would use peanut butter all the time for creating fun snacks. One snack, my mother called it a "Funky Monkey," was a banana covered in peanut butter and rolled in crushed cereal. The result is a crunchy and sweet treat that my sister and I loved. 

My favorite recipe that uses peanut butter, however, is one for peanut butter cookies. This recipe was one that my mother had cut off the back of a bag of sugar a long time ago, and it has become my go-to recipe for cookies. It is very simple, and the prep time isn't long at all. This makes it an ideal recipe for social gatherings because it tastes amazing, and the cookies can be finished and packed up ready to go in about a half an hour. 

I've actually used this recipe so much that I have it memorized, and we always have the ingredients on hand because they are common food items. I use it for everything. I bake these cookies when I need a break from finals studying, or when I have to cook for a bake sale, or when I just need an easy dessert option to satisfy my sweet tooth.

And, as if it could get any better, almost anyone can eat it (as long as they don't have a peanut allergy). The recipe is gluten free, and it's kosher, but it still tastes like a cookie. 

If you're looking for an easy, tasty recipe for some quick sweets -- this is the recipe for you!


Unbelievable Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. 

2. Spoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

3. Flatten with a glass dipped in sugar. To give it more of an artsy look, flatten the cookies with a fork dipped in sugar.

4. Bake the cookies for 14-16 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

5. Let cookies cool for about a minute on the cookie sheet, then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and enjoy!

I also found this amazing recipe for banana peanut butter ice cream.
It's easy to make, and it tastes great too!
Peanut butter is just that amazing. 

3.14 + Darth Vader = Nerd

Poor Vader can't eat pie because of his helmet. (Art by Tim Kreider)

Usually I hate math. I hate it with a burning passion because math could only have been created as a torture device. There really is no other explanation for Calculus or the existence of imaginary numbers. 

Yet, one of my favorite teachers at Uni has been my math teacher, Mr. Buck. He's taught me more about math than anyone else. Even though math doesn't always make sense, Mr. Buck is nice enough to be patient in his explanations. It sure takes a lot of patience to try and teach me any kind of math concept.

Mr. Buck isn't just a great math teacher, but he's a pretty cool person too. I remember subbie year vividly. It was March 14, pi day. Pi day in Mr. Buck's class was quite memorable because Mr. Buck brought in an actual pie. Each student in the class savored a sliver of his famous French Silk Pie as we learned about the number pi. Pi is probably the best number because it gives you an excuse to eat pie during math class. 

Freshman year a group of friends and I started a Star Wars Club, and Mr. Buck was our sponsor. Our goal as a club? To get through all of the Star Wars films by the end of the year. Even though we only got through three films, we had a blast. We competed in Star Wars Quizbowls, planned glorious lightsaber fights, and argued over the acting in the films. Our club also celebrated May the 4th, national Star Wars day. (Get it? May the fourth be with you? It's a pun.) To celebrate we held a club potluck where everyone brought something sweet to eat. The highlight of the party was the fact that Mr. Buck brought his French Silk Pie.

(On a slightly related tangent, I heard they're making more Star Wars films?)

Whenever I eat this pie, I'll remember the fun times we had in math class as we debated the legitimacy of certain math puns, ate French Silk Pie, and practiced saying "Euler" correctly -- it's pronounced "Oiler." I'll remember our beloved Star Wars Club, and I'll remember my favorite math teacher -- Mr. Buck.

So in conclusion, I'll say what any good Star Wars nerd would: 

May the force be with you. And may you always enjoy your pi. 



Mr. Buck's French Silk Pie
(Recipe courtesy of Mr. Buck)

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 sticks butter or margarine
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• A baked pie crust

Notes: 

• Before you make this pie make sure that all of the ingredients are room temperature. If the ingredients are not at room temperature then there is more chance that the eggs will curdle, and that would not look or taste good in a pie. Set out the butter and the eggs at least two hours in advance, and do not melt the butter. 
• If you want to make more than one pie, make the batches of filling one at a time. This reduces the amount of eggs mixed in and also reduces the chance of the eggs curdling. 

1. Mix the dry ingredients. Then mix in the butter.
 

2. After the butter is mixed in add the eggs one at a time. Every time an egg is added, beat the filling for at least two minutes. Finally, mix in the vanilla.

3. Pour the filling into the crust and freeze the pie for at least three hours. I froze my pie overnight. 








4. Thaw the pie at room temperature before serving. Be careful not to leave it out too long, though, since the filling might melt and become pudding. 

Two idiots and a kitchen

Allie and I, in our sixth grade selves, with one of our first kitchen accomplishments -- buttermilk pancakes made from scratch. I only wish the picture wasn't so blurry.

My best friend Allie and I love to cook together. Over the years, we've baked all kinds of pastries and decorated thousands of cupcakes while enjoying each other's company. Whenever we are bored, we pull out a cookbook and find a recipe that combines the mismatch of ingredients from both our kitchens. Usually, the result is an hour well spent together and a tasty snack to munch on.

This has not always been the case. 

On a past winter day, we decided to create a chocolate cake. It was supposedly delicious and simple, so why not? We got out all the ingredients, and dove into the process. Maybe we were a bit too hasty, but whatever the case, we didn't read the instructions completely -- or in order. The result was a cake that was horrible. Inside it were little unmixed balls of flour, the cake itself was dry and disgusting, and it stubbornly stuck to the pan. Suffice to say, it was a complete mess.

Then we saw the name of the recipe, and we burst out laughing. We still laugh over our apparent stupidity, and our failure led to a hilarious memory and inside joke that lasts to this day. The cake that we had attempted was called idiot-proof chocolate cake. So what does that make us? Geniuses?

To complete this blog post, I again called upon Allie's help to tackle this cake. The result was delicious, but it was not pretty. We followed all of the instructions to the letter, and it turned out quite nicely. The cake came out of the oven and looked perfect. It smelled amazing too. Then we had to take the cake out of the pans. That was a disaster. The cake fell apart as soon as the pans were turned upside down, and we were left quite perplexed because we had greased the pans thoroughly. Maybe the cake just has a tendency to stick no matter how you bake it. The memory of this cake continues -- Allie and I have still have not mastered this one recipe. This idiot-proof recipe.

The cake was scrumptious, even if we had to eat it in bowls. 

I know how to cook, but I'm still learning.

Idiot-proof Chocolate Cake
(by Shelia Raab, from her book Clueless in the Kitchen)

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 cup boiling water

Note: FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and grease two 9-inch round cake pans. 

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, and baking soda. 





3. Add in the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla and beat with an electric mixer for two minutes. Pour in the boiling water and mix.







4. Pour the batter into the pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

5. Remove the cakes from the pan and allow to cool. Be EXTRA CAREFUL. Without proper patience this final step could prove disastrous, as evidenced by my own failure. If all else fails, a good smothering in chocolate icing is what any cake, or cake crumble, needs.

Proud daughter of a meat scientist

My dad and I with the first plate of ribs that he and I made this summer.

Being a meat scientist's daughter has its perks.

It means that I will never have to eat any meat that is less than satisfactory. My dad is a master at grilling steaks. My dad enjoys grilling and working with meat. He volunteers to do much of the cooking related to meat, and he never uses the same recipe twice, but all of it still tastes amazing. When we don't have an ingredient in the house, he'll substitute another one in, or he'll just experiment around until he thinks it will taste good. Savor each dish that my dad cooks, because it will only taste that way once.

My mother has told me that for 23 years, whenever people have come for dinner, the one thing that everyone remembers most is my dad's cooking.

I could never be a vegetarian. Not in this house anyway. I would be forever judged by my dad's meat scientist colleges, and I don't think I could live a week without meat -- especially if my dad is cooking.

Being a meat scientist's daughter also means that you have heard all of the arguments about pink slime, organic food, or any other controversies that pop up in the agriculture industry.

This usually leaves me stuck in the middle of two conflicting arguments. At Uni, many people think that organic food is the best and that our food system is horrible. My dad comes from the other side of the perspective, and he knows all the arguments that are against completely organic food, and also argues that pink slime and other controversies are not as scary as what the media makes them out to be. Even though I've sat through many annoying rants about the agriculture industry, I am glad that my dad is a meat scientist. I get to eat some delicious barbecue, and sometimes my dad will teach me the best ways to grill meat.

This summer my dad taught me how to make ribs. His ribs are one of my favorite meat dishes, and so I was excited to learn how to make amazing ribs just like dad. Now, whenever I eat these ribs I will think back on that summer day when he taught me the best ways to cut the meat, prepare the rub, and grill the ribs. Maybe one day my ribs will be as good as dad's.

Barbecue Ribs

(adapted from "Barbecued Ribs" in The Best Recipe by Cooks Illustrated)

Ingredients for the dry rub:

• 2 tablespoons sweet paprika 
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons ground black paper

Ingredients for ribs:

• 6 pounds of country style ribs
• 3/4 cup of the dry rub for barbecue
• 2 cups of hickory wood chips
• Aluminum foil
• Brown paper grocery bag

Notes: 

• When cooking and handling meat, always wash your hands after touching raw meat and thoroughly clean all the surfaces that have come in contact with the raw meat.
• For this recipe I am using a gas grill. If you want to find the instructions for using a charcoal grill you can find them in "The Best Recipe" cookbook by Cook's Illustrated.

1. Make the dry rub by mixing all of the ingredients together in a small bowl.

2. Take the meat, and put it on a cutting board. Butterfly cut the meat. This means cut the meat down the middle, but not completely through, then fold the sides out so that it looks almost like a butterfly (it doesn't look just like a butterfly, but enough so that they call it butterfly cutting.). 

Cutting the meat like this will allow more spices to cover the meat, and it will be more flavorful in the end.

3. Rub the spices into the meat. Cover the meat with these spices and rub them in enough so that they won't fall off the meat if you pick it up, but don't add too much rub or the rib will taste grainy and the texture will be weird. 

4. Cover the ribs with plastic wrap and let them sit for one hour.

5. While the ribs are sitting, soak the wood chips in a bowl of water for an hour.

6. After an hour, preheat the grill by turning all the burners on high. Put the wood chips in a special box for wood chips, and place the chips in a corner of the grill. Preheat the grill until the wood chips are smoking heavily Don't be scared. They aren't on fire -- they were soaked in water, remember? If you follow the instructions you should not suffer any fire bombs or explosions (unless something is seriously wrong with the grill itself, in which case I would advise you NOT to grill ribs or anything else.).

7.  Turn off the back burners and leave the front burners on medium heat so that the grill is between 275 and 300 degrees Fahrenheit while cooking. Place the meat as far away from the flames as possible, towards the back of the grill. Cook the meat for about 2 hours, turning the ribs once every 30 minutes. 

8. Take the ribs off the grill and wrap in aluminum foil. Put the wrapped ribs in a brown grocery bag and allow it to sit at room temperature for one hour. Wrapping the ribs in foil and then putting them in a grocery bag make ribs more tender and juicy since the moisture from the ribs is kept contained by the aluminum foil.

Remembering her in a pie

My grandmother's recipe for Japanese pie, written in her handwriting.
(All photos by Kathryn Powell)

One of my favorite things in the world is getting to cook with my grandfather. We cook all kinds of things, and every dish carries memories with it that have come from years of visits to his house for holidays. One of my first and fondest memories made in my grandfather's kitchen is one of learning how to make my grandmother's Japanese pie. The recipe itself is quite simple, but the taste is rich and very memorable.

The odd name of 'Japanese pie' actually has nothing to with Japan or Japanese culture, it is just what my grandmother named the pie and the name stuck so that is what we call it today. 

This pie is my grandmother's pie. It is her recipe, and every time I bake it I think of the grandmother I never met, the one who died before I was born. I wonder what she was like, and if I am similar to her in anyway.

When I make this pie I feel as if I am carrying on some tradition that was never officially begun, I feel as if I am remembering a grandmother I never knew. I feel happy inside whenever I am able to make this pie for my family, and when they say "It tastes just like mom used to make it!" It makes me happy to help bring back those good memories through this pie. I hope to create new memories for others with this pie. I want this to become my pie, and I want people to remember me for this pie just as they remembered my grandmother.

So I guess, in reality, this pie doesn't carry my memories of my grandmother, but others' memories of her. What I remember every time I eat this pie are the times in the kitchen with my grandfather, the times with family dinners with all of us together at the table in my grandfather's house, and the memories of my grandmother that have been shared with me over a spoonful of Japanese pie.

Grandma Powell's Japanese Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup coconut
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar 

1.  Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Melt the butter in the microwave, then let the melted butter cool. This step sounds kind of weird, why would you heat the butter only to cool it down? It's so that the hot butter doesn't cook the eggs when you mix them together. This is not a scrambled egg pie, so trust me, cool the butter.

2. Mix the butter together with all the other ingredients in a mixing bowl.

 

3. Place an unbaked pie crust in a pie pan, and crimp the edges if you wish. I used a pre-made pie crust, but if you would like you can make your own crust and it will work just fine. Here is one way to crimp the edges of the crust, place your thumb on the edge and then take two fingers and press the dough lightly around the thumb. Don't press too hard or the crust will get too thin and won't hold the shape of the crimp. If at first you don't succeed, flatten it out and try, try again.

4. Pour the mixture into the unbaked pie crust. Bake for 40 minutes. The pie should look golden on the top, and the crust should be golden on the edges. The pie is best served warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side.

One thing I like about this pie is that it is very rich, and is full of different flavors and textures. The coconut and the pecan add some crunch to it, and the raisins and sugar make the pie very sweet.

How the wizard of Oz made a cake

Photo credit: Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco 

When I was a child, my sister, my mother and I would read tons of books together. One of our favorite books to read was Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco.

My sister and I had always been scared of thunderstorms after seeing The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy had been flown to Oz by one. Thunder is so much scarier when you think it is going to blow your house away. To distract us, my mother would call us into the kitchen to bake a Thunder Cake. We would have a blast in the kitchen while outside it could be pouring rain and thundering like crazy, but my sister and I wouldn't notice.

We had more important things to be doing than being scared of thunder -- baking chocolate cake took much concentration.


Thunder Cake

(adapted from the recipe in Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco)

All photos by Kathryn Powell

Ingredients:

• 1 cup shortening
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1 cup cold water
• 1/3 cup pureed tomatoes
• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1/2 cup dry cocoa
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt

1. First, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, cream together the shortening and the sugar. I did this with a mixer, and it took about a minute. It should look something like this when it is completely creamed together.  It is ok if the mixture is a bit clumpy, as long as the sugar is completely combined with the shortening.

2. Mix in the vanilla and the egg yolks. 

3. Place the egg whites in a separate bowl and, using a mixer, whip the egg whites on the highest setting until they are stiff. This will take about three minutes. The egg whites should look like puffy white clouds, and the waves made by the mixer shouldn't flop after the mixer is turned off. If you are using the same mixer that you used for creaming the sugar and shortening, wash it thoroughly as the fat from the shortening will inhibit the egg whites becoming stiff. 


4. Fold the egg whites into the shortening and sugar mixture. Do not stir in the egg whites. You want to keep the light-fluffiness of the egg whites.








5. Gently stir in the cold water and the pureed tomatoes. Don't worry if the mixture seems a bit watery, it will be better after we add in the dry mixture.





6. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.




7. Mix the dry mixture into the creamy mixture. Pour this cake batter into two greased 8 inch pans. I used cooking spray to grease the pans. 

8. Bake for 35 - 40 minutes at 350 degrees. The cakes are finished when you can stick a toothpick through the middle and have it come out clean. Cool the cakes in the pan for up to ten minutes, then immediatly place them on a rack to cool completely. Cakes left sitting more than ten minutes stick horribly to the pan. After the cakes have completely cooled, feel free to frost and decorate the cake in any way you please! I decorated mine with chocolate icing and M&Ms.