Homemade Jewelry Cleaner

My husband (ahem) got a bargain when he married me. Yes, yes, he already knows he married someone who keeps him well fed and he does show his appreciation. The bargain he got, with me, is that I'm not really obsessed wth needing a lot of bling jewelry. I love my wedding ring, and that's really all I wear on my hands. Around my neck, I have a cross necklace that I haven't removed in years.  (Every so often, I'll slip on my pearl necklace that my mother gave me a long time ago.) I wear earrings, but that's really about it-- and earrings are about the only jewelry that I'll buy.

That's why Craig raised his eyebrows, more in surprise, when I bought this sterling silver bracelet with semi-precious stones, at a local crafts fair.   I loved all the different colored stones, and how they would match a lot of my work outfits. Score!

A few months later, it became really tarnished and I didn't want to wear it like that. How in the world was I going to get it clean?

 
I was organizing my cookbooks, and a sheet of paper fell out of one. It was a recipe I had printed for homemade jewelry cleaner, and had forgotten about.  Perfect timing! All I needed was a bowl, foil, salt, baking soda and dish detergent. Why not? I decided to give it a try.

 It worked!

I inherited a few nice pieces of jewelry from my mother, and they are cherished treasures, like this coin necklace.

I have no idea where my mother got it, but it hangs on a very long silver chain. It looks great with turtle neck sweaters, but it began to turn very black with tarnish. Hmmmm, would this cleaner work on this, too?

Not bad!  Not perfect, but it looks a whole lot better than it did before.  I kind of like that there is still some tarnish-- kind of adds to the antique effect, yes?

I thought this was a cool idea, and I wanted to share it with all of you.  Do you have some jewelry that's looking a bit dull and tarnished?  Give it a try!

DISCLAIMER: I can't promise you that this is fool-proof.  I would hesitate to use this on gold or silver plate... one reviewer said it ruined the patina on her jewelry. I'll stick with using this on gold or silver only.  There were lots of reviewers who said they loved it, so it's worth trying.  Best of all, it's non-toxic and you can make it at home. There ya go!

A printable recipe card is at the end of this post, or you can view it on the original recipe site here.

 

Honey Roasted Ribs

My men are true Cave Men when it comes to ribs. My husband, has become quite the Grillmaster of making slow-cooked ribs on our Weber. Moi? I'm more of a Santa Maria Style Tri-Tip person. We are looking forward to having warmer weather, after Spring, when  the infamous Salinas Valley winds should be dying down. Trying to grill, during the spring months, can be frustrating because the wind tends to blow out the fire. 

 In order to reduce paper clutter, I'm going green with Digital Magazines and Cook Books. When I received the digital version of Cook's Country Feb/Mar 2013 magazine, I took one look at their beautiful photo of these Honey Roasted Ribs and I fell in-love.  I'm not a big fan of cooking ribs in water, before grilling them-- to me, they just taste boiled.  Cook's Country has a different approach.  The ribs are roasted on a rack, above a baking sheet that is filled with water.  Covering the ribs with foil would, essentially, steam them.  Okay, I'm game. It's that sticky honey glaze, though, that I honed in with total food lust.   I love honey!

The marinade uses one cup of honey, scallions, soy sauce, mustard and a few other aromatics. 

The pork is cut into three-rib sections, then marinated in a zip-lock bag for at least an hour. I marinated mine for the recommended 24 hours.  The next day...

...the ribs are placed on a foil-lined baking sheet, on a rack and the marinade is reserved in the refrigerator. About 2 cups of water is placed into the baking sheet and the ribs are covered with foil and roasted at 325F for a little over an hour, then uncovered and roasted for another hour.

In a large Dutch Oven, the marinade is then brought to a boil and reduced...

... until it becomes thick and syrupy. NOTE: The next time I make this, I'd like to try adding some fresh orange or pineapple juice, or even Sweet Chili Sauce could really add more zip to the sauce.

The ribs are then basted with some of the sauce, and roasted until bubbly and brown.

They're loosely tended with foil for a few minutes.

Then, stirred to coat with the glaze.

Some scallion greens add a colorful garnish.

I tossed a little toasted sesames seeds for some texture and crunch.

NOTES: These take a while to prepare, only because of the 2 hours of roasting time.  I didn't find this recipe to be super fussy, but there is some prep worked involved with the marinade and waiting time. Grilled ribs still remain our #1 favorite recipe. However, these were good. The only thing I felt is that I'd like to tweak the recipe a bit more. I'm thinking that adding fresh orange juice to the marinade would have given the marinade a bigger flavor POP.  I wish I had also added some red chili pepper flakes to this, as well.  Overall, they were a hit with my men, and that's what really counts to this wife/mom. This recipe is perfect for those of you who don't have a grill, but love ribs. I hope that you try it.

BONUS: Cleanup wasn't too hard. Because the baking sheet was foil-lined, I waited for the water to cool, then poured it out and removed the foil. A little soap and water and cleanup was done.  The rack, however, takes a bit more work.  It needs a bit of a soak and a gentle brush and the dishwasher. Good as new!

A printable recipe card is at the end of this post. Those of you who are using an older version of Windows Explorer might have trouble viewing it. If you do, click here to see it. 

 

French-Style Pot-Roasted Pork Loin (Enchaud Perigordine)

Just in time for Super Bowl, we  finally upgraded our television to be a Flat-Screen HDTV.

Good times.  At the same time, I allowed our local cable company to talk me into their new DVR with all kinds of promised new features.  What they didn't tell me (and I didn't think about it) is that my old DVR box had precious saved recorded TV shows.

I realized this when the cable guy was long gone, and I couldn't find my recorded shows.  I'll skip past the melodramatics that ensued...the frantics calls to get my cable box back.  Not gonna happen.
That meant, I had to set up all of my shows, that I don't want to miss, all over again.  (Downton Abbey, come back soon, please.)

I found the America's Test Kitchen show in HD, and I set up to record the series.  I gotta tell you-- I can fully appreciate how much better food looks in High-Def.  This could be dangerous.  Had I seen this recipe in a cookbook, I might have flipped right past the pages.

Rather, as I watched how easy it was to butterfly a pork loin, then rub it with sugar and thinly sliced garlic that is cooked in butter-- I was not hitting the DVR fast forward. I was hooked.


I'm committed to emptying out my hoard of frozen food in our upright freezer.  (Am I waiting for the Apocalypse?)  Why do I store so much?  As luck would have it, I remembered that I had  pork loin roast waiting to thawed. Perfect!

It's been a while since I've made a Butterflied Pork loin, stuffed with Fig Jam, Spinach and Feta.  This time, I found that the instructions made butterflying very easy to do, myself! (Patting self on back.)  The golden brown, buttery, garlic slices are spread inside the pork loin. Yum.

Tying the roast was easy, and I loved the tip of looping the string twice, before pulling. It's much easier to do, this way (though photographing and holding string with one hand is a challenge). I must be easily amused, because I found this whole process to be fun-- butterfly, pound, fill, fold, tie. It didn't feel like "work".

To season the pork, you want to use Herbes de Provence.  These herbs can include savory, fennel, basil, thyme and lavender. You can make your own, but I can easily find this at grocery stores. I use this to season roasted potatoes, pork, chicken and vegetables. Delicious!

Hello, lovely pork roast!

To build flavor, the roast is seared on all three sidesk. Three? Why, yes. There is no reason to sear the bottom of the roast, because it's going to roast quite nicely in the oven. This is about 5 to 8 minutes total work.  The roast is removed, and it's time to build a delicious au jus.

Apples, onion and garlic. I'm in! To build more flavor, we add white wine (I used Sauvignon Blanc), bay leaves and fresh thyme. So very "French".

The roast is snuggled into the apples and onion...

... then covered with foil and covered with a tight fitting lid.  It's then slow-roasted at 225F for about 50-90 minutes, until the internal temperature reaches 140F.  (My roast took about 50 minutes, because it was just under 2 pounds.

The aroma of wine, onion, garlic and apples... mouth-watering.

Chicken stock is added to the pan sauce to equal 1-1/4 cups. I actually had plenty of sauce.

To finish up the sauce, the "secret" ingredient is unflavored gelatin that has been bloomed with a little chicken stock. Apparently this mimics the flavor that the French derive by adding a pig's foot. I think I like this better, no?  For silkiness unsalted butter is added and finished off with freshly chopped parsley.

The pork is super moist and juicy. The technique of roasting the pork in a very low-heat oven was successful.

TASTING NOTES:  This dish is perfect to serve to company. One adjustment I will make, next time, is to increase the amount of garlic that is rolled into the roast.  I would have liked more garlic flavor-- but that's my own preference.  The sauce was very flavorful and not too rich.  Once again, America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated has developed a recipe that looks fancy, but isn't too hard to make. The instructions were very clear.  If I had red cabbage on hand, I would have enjoyed this with Braised Red Cabbage. Yum!

As always, a printable recipe card is at the end of this post. (If you are using an older version of Window's Explorer, you might have trouble viewing it. Please email me at foodiewife@gmail.com if you can't view the recipe card.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie or Crisp-- Have It Your Way!

I need to come clean with you. I'm a hoarder. I won't be featured on the A&E channel as one of those folks whose home is filled with stuff. That's definitely not my problem. I hoard recipes.

 I'm not just talking about the recipes I hoard on Pinterest. I'm talking about my own recipes.

My camera pretty much lives on my kitchen counter.  It's become so natural for me to photograph just about anything that I cook or bake.  If I don't, my husband will ask me "aren't you going to photograph it"? 

I'm pretty  good at uploading the photographs right away, then clearing out the memory card. I even create a document file, and label the photographs.  I sound so organized, right?

Then things happen.  Chores. Watching a recorded show. Surfing the internet. Fatigue.

That's when I tell myself that I'll write up the recipe post tomorrow. Then it becomes a promise to work on it that weekend.  The next thing I know, I've made several more recipes, and then I forget about the one I made last week.

This recipe is from last summer. Sad, I know. I rediscovered it, because I finally sat down to review all the recipe photos I haven' t posted.   This week, I'm on Spring Break, and I've promised myself that I am going to edit and write as many recipes posts as I can.  My strategy is that I can write a few at a time-- then press "publish" every few days.

No guarantees.  But, goals are good.  At least, that's what I keep harping on reminding my son about.

Any day, now, our local Farm Stand is going to reopen.  I'm so hoping that today is the day. This farm stand grows the most delicious organic strawberries I've ever eaten.  I'm serious. They are red all the way through. They're sweet.  They're huge!  They also cost the same as the non-organic strawberries that you find at the super market.  I find those to be a bit on the tart side. They need lots of sugar to be palatable.  Those are the ones that I don't have a problem making margaritas with cooking.  I just can't cook my beloved organically grown, naturally sweet strawberries. That would be a crime.

As an added bonus, the friendly farm stand folk happily cut fresh rhubarb for me, right before my eyes! How could I not make a strawberry-rhubarb pie? 

This particular recipe caught my eye, because the pie was topped with a brown sugar and oatmeal. 

The pie crust intrigued me, since it had cinnamon and vanilla added to it. The crust is then brushed with egg yolk and then pre-baked with pie weights (or beans).

If you make this pie crust, I would definitely use a pie crust shield or shape strips of rolled foil around the crust. Mine turned out much darker than I would like.

We're really just baking the topping, since the strawberries and rhubarb have been cooked with sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.

 

 I use Instant ClearJel instead of cornstarch.  Instant ClearJel tends to make my pie fillings less cloudy and helps fruit pies to become more firm.

I like that!

I'm not a pie crust lover.  I'm all about the filling. So I turned leftover filling into a fruit "crisp". Easy Peasy.

 How can I resist a crunchy, chewy topping? Can you? Yum!

TASTING NOTES:  I can't imagine eating rhubarb all by itself.  Strawberries and rhubarb are a perfect pairing. Cinnamon and Nutmeg are the perfect blend of spices.  As for the pie crust:  I couldn't really taste the cinnamon or vanilla extract.  I think I'll stick with my Perfect Pie Crust recipe and method.  The topping is the rock star here.  When fruits are at their summer peak, I've been known to mix up a batch of this topping and storing it in the refrigerator in a container.  That way, I can make a quick batch of fruit crisps.  My favorite!

The funny thing is, I forgot that I've already posted a Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie from three years ago.  It's similar, except for the crumb topping. I like this version best. 

Thanks, Joanne, from "Eats Well With Others" for sharing this recipe.  You're a Rock Star! The next batch of "tart" strawberries that I buy will become a repeat performance of this recipe.

As always, a printable recipe card is at the end of this post.