Weekend Cooking – Gotta Love It

Posted on February 26, 2013 by heyitsjethere

Hey It’s Jet Here.

While Little Miss Color Restricted and I cannot fully grasp the color green due to evolutionary constraints , Mom makes up for both of us! This week, her weekend cooking sessions highlighted green all over the place. Having had quite enough of orange vegetables since leaving the hospital, she segued to another band of the rainbow with Dr. V’s permission. You may have learned in science class that when one sense has limits, another sense shines. In K9 world, we rock smell, hearing and enjoy taste quite a lot! With that in mind, Little Miss Kitchen K9 and I secured our kitchen locations for Mom’s cooking endeavors.

Remember Mom’s fascination with fennel a while back? Well, when she asked Dr. V about greens, Dr. V recommended soft greens. Mom piled the red kale, zucchini, Italian parsley, basil and baby arugula into her cart. Did I mention ARUGULA? Yeah, the stuff has like 3 names: arugula, rocket, roquette. Mom has a new fascination… yes, she’s enjoyed the veggie before, used it in her Kitchen Counselor classes, etc… however this weekend, she put the stuff in EVERYTHING!

Little Miss Show Off/Whoops What Did I DO ate a whole leaf and then casually dropped it on the tile – not enough crunch. Mom tried again removing the small stems; we liked that idea better. Oh, I forgot to mention that Ruby participated in one of the cooking sessions! Little Miss Puppy Dog Face and I LOVE when Ruby hangs out in the kitchen; more tidbits than usual seem to find our chompers! Ruby wanted to see if we liked parsley!

Arugula-Caraway Pesto Pasta

1 cup arugula leaves
1 cup fresh parsley leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds (Mom used whole almonds she already had.)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon McCormick® Caraway Seed, finely crushed
8 ounces periatelli pasta or thick spaghetti (Mom didn’t prepare this part of the recipe.)
2 cups thinly sliced red Swiss chard (cut crosswise into thin strips) (Mom didn’t prepare this part of the recipe.)

1. Place arugula, parsley, oil, almonds, Parmesan cheese, garlic and caraway seed in bowl of food processor; cover. Process until smooth. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, cook pasta as directed on package. Drain pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Return pasta to saucepot.
3. Stir Swiss chard into pasta on low heat until greens are wilted. Add pesto; toss to coat well, adding small amounts of reserved cooking water until desired consistency. Serve with additional Parmesan cheese, if desired.

Mom’s taking the Pesto to the biscuit earning place today with a grilled chicken breast. Check out her FB album to see the step-by-step process.

Another great day in the kitchen with Mom and Ruby.

Thanks to Sugar and Kol for initiating Tasty Tuesdays, today is our forty-second participating post!

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Mischief Monday – Baking Class

Posted on September 17, 2012 by heyitsjethere

Hey It’s Jet Here.

Before we begin, to those that celebrate the New Year today, Shana Tovah; wishing you a Sweet New Year.

Continuing our week of Koko memories… before I joined the family, during Fall 2007, Mom prepared to teach one of her UMiami interactive cooking classes – Cupcake Chic and Other Baked Treats. As usual, she prepared her groceries to load into the car. She left the non-perishable groceries from Publix (flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda) by the kitchen/garage door and ran out to Whole Foods (then Wild Oats) for the few remaining items needed. The Wild Oats roundtrip took less than 15 minutes.

As always, Koko, Mom’s original Kitchen K9, greeted Mom upon her return. The Mischief? Koko looked like she had participated in a bobbing for apples contest, except instead of water and apples, the bowl was filled with goopy white stuff! Wagging ferociously, Koko’s face, up to her eyes, was caked in white stuff. Her whiskers looked like white Christmas tree limbs with white teardrop shaped ornaments hanging on the end of each branch/whisker. The tile floor had a pasty white coating.

It took Mom a few minutes to digest the scene. She finally connected the evidence and deduced (vocab builder project VBP):

not Koko; guess she’s not the only retriever to try this!

Koko face planted into the 5 lb. flour bag, ever the curious K9.
She tried licking off the flour and it got too sticky in her mouth.
She drank water to help, which combined with the flour to make paste.
Still curious, she may have repeated procedure.
The flour bag tipped over and the grocery bag went horizontal, spreading flour onto the floor.
Water from the bowl or Koko dripped onto the floor making more paste.

Mom really wanted to give the NAUGHTY speech, but could not help or stop laughing. She ended up giving Koko an unscheduled quick spa day. She had to use a bench scraper to help remove the paste from the tiles, replaced the flour and made it to class on time!

The only regret? No pictures! This was pre-digital camera or smart phone.

Another great and rare Koko Mischief day!

Afternoon Action

Posted on January 31, 2012 by heyitsjethere

Hey, It’s Jet Here.

Wow, my house hopped yesterday afternoon. I loved it! Usually, JJ and I patiently wait for Mom and my human sister, Rachel, to return to the house in the afternoon. We enthusiastically greet each other, visit a bit and then the house returns to a routine hum. Not yesterday.

Rachel’s rehearsal got cancelled allowing her to return home earlier than anticipated. We learned that Mom stopped by the grocery store on her way home from one job to purchase the few items remaining for her University of Miami Authentic Northern Italian cooking class. Oh did those grocery bags smell divine, nice and fishy! Jet, may I share something? Sure Mom. We prepared tilapia with an orange sage sauce topped with toasted almonds. Thanks for filling in the details for our readers, Mom. Welcome Jetty.

Next, the bell rang and Rachel unlocked the front door for one of my favorite humans, my neighbor, Ruby. She’s 6 ¾ and gives JJ and I hugs, belly rubs, gets in my day bed with me, pretends to dress us and other stuff!

Rachel rocks with young children; she played with Ruby and then they baked sugar cookies. Over the weekend, they baked dozens of cheesy rolls and homemade yeasted crescent rolls from Rachel’s new cookbook below.

As Mom prepared to leave for class, Ruby chatted with her a lot. Mom somehow answered her questions and loaded her car simultaneously. All of a sudden, Mom saw another golden feathery tail in the garage; Simba pulled his human sister so hard, she let go. Of course, he wanted to join the festivities, so Mom invited another super wagger into the house with his human sister.

Oh, while this next item gets a little personal, I’ll share to convey the essence of the activity level in the kitchen. Turns out, while everyone told Mom JJ was this thing called spayed, whoops, they made a mistake. Angela and Rachel fashioned a hind-quarter cover-up with this pad thing inserted out of an old t-shirt to keep the surfaces below JJ stain free. (Mom said you can read between the lines!)