The December Octoberfest

So much for my big plan to blog about food. So we have had so much crazy stuff that trying to blog just has been set aside. So it goes.

Back in the late 60’s a bunch of Dale’s friends started having an annual party called the “annual”. Dale went to one or two of these parties then went on to L.A. and got involved with me and our life together.

In the 70’s we moved to the farm and since we loved to entertain started hosting what became the “Siemens Annual”. Then, and I’ll try to write more on this later, we turned the party into a wine tasting with a fundraiser.

Last Saturday we finally had our Siemens Annual for the year, usually we host the party earlier in the year. We decided to combine the party with our annual Oktoberfest that we celebrate normally with only close friends. So it was a beer tasting, wine tasting Oktoberfest.

This year our oven doesn’t work well so I didn’t want to use it for the dishes for the party. Instead I made dishes that were for the cooktop and one I’d revised years ago for my crockpot.

At 3p.m. on Saturday I started cooking; Hot German Potato Salad, Warm Cabbage Salad, Potatoes, Goulash, Choucroute Garnie, and Chicken Paprika. I’d made all of the dishes before except for the Chicken Paprika; omg that was my favorite dish.

Here is the recipe for the Chicken Paprika Gluten Free Style:

1 Roasting Chicken cut up or chicken pieces  

Lemon Juice

4 bacon slices diced

1 C. chicken stock

1 lg red bell pepper, chopped

1 lg green bell pepper, chopped

Salt

2 Tbsp. Paprika

1 small can tomato paste

While wine

½ C sour cream

Heat a little oil in the skillet; add the bacon slices and sauté. Put chicken pieces in skillet and sprinkle all pieces with lemon juice. Quickly turn the pieces over and sprinkle that side with lemon juice.  Sauté the chicken pieces lightly. In a bowl add the stock, salt and paprika and tomato paste mix with a wisk then add the peppers. Add the whole thing to the skillet and cook about 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked thru. Add wine and sour cream, heat and serve.                         

This is a beautiful dish and tasty.

Farmer's Market Fresh

It is my habit that I try to use most food available from our local farmer's market, so as today is Saturday I had to go to this mornings market. One vendor from the coast sells her lettuce and other winter and fall veges another from our area sells Asian veges.

I like to buy baby bok choy, chinese broccoli and carrots from the Asian stand. Another stand sells all the peppers you can fit into a little basket so I always pick up my bell peppers, anaheim, and others. From a stand run by two older women I buy my eggs and today picked up some yams.

A hint for rice; I like to buy the frozen brown rice from Trader Joe's. It cooks in 3 minutes in the microwave.

Sauteed greens Over Rice

½ bunch of Kale

5 small Dark Green Baby Bok Choy

1 bunch of Chinese Broccoli

1 light green chili pepper chopped up

½ C of Tofu or to taste cut into bite size pieces

Chop the greens. You can add them to the skillet as you chop them. Add just enough olive oil to coat the pan, then start heating it before you add the greens. Add the greens, then make a little hole in the center and add your chili. Cover the pan and mix every once in awhile. This cooks in about 15 to 20 min. Add your tofu and let it warm up.

Heat your rice and then serve the veges over the rice.

I sometimes add some raw shrimp that I've cut up into thirds and cook with the greens until cooked thru.

Crock-Pot: Coq-au-Vin

Thank goodness for crock-pots; my oldest boy and his wife had indicated that they would come in time for dinner last night. I was also going to be taking care of their nearly 2-year old granddaughter for the day while they worked. I ran to the store and picked up a whole chicken so that dinner would at least be tasty and easy.

I looked up chicken in the little crock-pot's cookbook and found a couple of recipes that looked good so decided to combine them making a sort of Coq-au-Vin. I was so glad that I'd chosen to do a crock-pot dish, the chicken fell off the bone and was so moist, plus I was able to spend the afternoon chasing after my granddaughter.

Chris's Version of Coq-au-Vin

1 whole Chicken

2 chopped up carrots

several chopped ribs of celery

3 or 4 cloves of garlic chopped

5 small potatoes cut into bite size pieces

1 C of sliced mushrooms, I used crimi and white.

¼ to ½ C red wine, I used Indian Creek “Pinot Noir”

You are suppose to put in chopped onion but I forgot. I put the chicken in the pot then put the veges all around the chicken. If your pot is small then put the veges in 1^st and then add the chicken. Grind some pepper on the whole thing and you can add salt, I rarely add salt and didn't here. Then pour in some wine Cook on high for 4 hours.

Gluten Free Eating

For several months now I've been unmotivated to write about cooking. The almond cookies need new packaging, I've stepped away from the almond business and my son has now taken over it entirely, plus my oven quit working so there have been no baking experiments.

Today I was reading a blog about someone who has celiac and it gave me the idea to write more about what I do for my family. I also have celiac which means I cannot use gluten from wheat or oats. Now some people may not have an intolerance to oats but I do. Celiac destroys the small intestine over time and is linked to cancer so it is much easier to just do without the gluten.

In addition to leaving out gluten I also try to prepare low fat and mostly vegetarian meals. My dad suffered a major hear attack at the age of 53 so I'm always conscious of eating to save my family members lives.

Now my love for cooking has not diminished while living without an oven, just the preparations have been modified. So I will start writing about the meals I cook and include the recopies.

Yesterday I was so hungry for Beef Bourguignon but had already put a pot of beans on the stove. I did need to buy a couple of things so went to Von's where I prefer the Ranchers Reserve Beef when I can't get grass fed. I always look at the clearance items as they are marked way down and there was the Rancher's Reserve stew beef that needed to be sold by that day so was marked down 30%, this was on top of being on sale. I picked up 3 packages, put 2 in the freezer and one for tonight's dinner.

Since I don't have an oven I dug out my 35 year old crock pot, found the recipe book for it and looked up the recipe in Julia Child's “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. I compared the recipes and have modified the recipe to be gluten free and lower fat as follows:

Chris's Beef Bourguignon

Olive Oil

1 # lean, and good quality stew beef,

2 carrots sliced

1 onion sliced
1 large hand-full of white mushrooms and 1 large hand-full of Crimi mushrooms

3 cloves of garlic chopped

1 sm can of tomato paste

1 tsp thyme

red wine, I used Kenwood Red Table Wine as it was open already

a little water

Saute your stew beef in a little olive oil, just to brown then add it to your crock pot. Add a little more olive oil if necessary and saute your carrots and onion and after a bit throw in the mushrooms then add to the crock pot. Deglaze your skillet with some red wine, about ¼ C or a little less. Mix your paste, thyme and garlic together in a bowl and then add to your skillet mixing with the wine. You may add water, about ½ of the can of paste in order to make a thick sauce. I added about ½ C or so of wine to the crock pot then added the paste mixture. Cook on high for 4 hours and serve over some potatoes or rice.

Our New Farmer's Market in Bakersfield

We have started a newly opened farmer’s market here in Bakersfield. Last week was our first time at the market but the market’s 2nd week to be opened. The market had a big grand opening with someone giving a speech. They passed out bags with bottles of water and t-shirts and put balloons on our posts.


The market is quite small with about 10 other vendors, some we have at out other markets; like the juice guy who is in the space next to us at Santa Clarita and others.

We had lots of interest in our almonds, sold out of our chocolate almond butter, blistered almonds, salt and pepper smoked almonds and nearly all of our cookies. But no one bought any regular or raw almond butter, very few raw almonds or roasted almonds.

Tomorrow is the next market so we will see how it goes; weather should be warmer than last week when we froze so I hope that helps with sales.

Getting the Orders Right

This poor order was nothing but problematic, first as in my last post, everything burned, then Nate baked for me but didn’t have time to label and package the cookies for Aqus, but they did deliver the cookies to Java Jones.


Nate sent the package for Aqus over to me via someone coming this way, I was to label and ship the cookies. The cookies arrived here and I did a count; yikes, 4 cookies short. I counted and then recounted but came up short which meant I had to bake quickly.

Then I reviewed the order sheet to Java Jones and found that we’d shorted them 12 cookies. How could I have written 12 raisin cookies instead of 24 raisins. This was entirely my fault which meant I really had to bake fast.

I did get to baking and put the entire case to Aqus in the mail that afternoon. As for Java Jones I gave them an extra 12 cookies to give to customers of their choice for putting up with our growing pains. More about our ideas for extra cookies in tomorrow’s blog.

Srew-up's Are Never Ending

I sent the order for cookies to Aqus and to Java Jones, IV to Nate and he had his crew bake the cookies. They delivered the case to Java Jones and just gave me the case for Aqus to label and ship. I first realized that Nate’s crew shorted me 4 cookies and then looking at the order sheet realized that I’d written 12 raisins instead of 24 raisins to Java Jones. Good God!


I’m wondering how I can fill an order of hundreds when I can’t even get two cases right. What a day.

More Kitchen Screw-ups.

Just when one thinks that things are going fine, wham, we can screw up royal!!!


Week before last I had 2 re-orders for cases for cookies. I told each company that I’d get their cookies out the following Monday, that would be last Monday.

I called Nate who reported that he would not be able to bake for me; he would not be at the kitchen that week and would have a reduced crew and that I should plan to bake here in Bakersfield. I didn’t have enough almond butter but Nate said that he had enough and would get it to me. I would use the kitchen here near my house.

Because I had 2 huge estimates to write I couldn’t bake until Tuesday, so Tuesday morning I got up at 5a.m. and started mixing cookie dough. My friend Dolly came at 6a.m, we mixed dough, scooped out cookie dough and by 7a.m. we were on our way to the kitchen.

We baked our cookies and with 4 racks we had only 2 oven full to bake. UGH, the 1st 4 racks of cookies came out burned and over baked. I turned the oven down more but the next batch mostly came out over baked. The last came out ok, lots of brown but not burned. Many cookies didn’t spread well as the heat was too high. Less than 1 case baked well.

I couldn’t send the cookies out but also didn’t have enough almond butter to bake more. Nate didn’t think that there was enough almond butter to pick up more and since they do not have the kitchen except for Sunday night and Monday, they could not make more for me.

Now Java Jones is mad, they have lost customers because they had no cookies as I had promised. They have threatened to not order cookies if we cannot deliver as agreed. Aqus has customers asking for the cookies and they are over 1 week overdue.

This is a lesson; I must deliver no matter what happens. Now I must figure out how to make cookies when Nate can’t bake for me.

Experiments on Dairy Free Cookies

I wasn’t going to experiment with the cookies any more, especially once I had the perfect recipe. Now why did I determine something as silly as that, I never let experimenting go! So when a guy said that he would love to have the cookies without dairy, as he is lactose intolerant, my challenge was on.


Last Saturday I had a special order for someone at the Farmers market so I decided to also make a batch of cookies without butter. We tried them and although they were a little different, they were quite good. I packaged them up and took them along also to the market. I gave the cookies to various people to try and received orders on the spot.

Now we have a new line of cookies to work with.

Marketing the Cookies

While in Northern Cal Jen and I spent one morning just marketing our cookies. We left cookies off at several places and stores but then got hungry for lunch. We stepped into the Redwood Café in Cotati, a place where we have eaten over the years.


As we got out of the car I grabbed a cookie just in case. When we were ordering I mentioned that I had gluten free cookies and gave the cashier one. The owner came in soon after, they ate the cookie and he ordered a case on the spot. He has now ordered another case for his other café. Funny how it goes.

Longing for the Easy Life

Well I question my decision to start this cookie business. It would be much easier to just be the worker bee.


Two weeks ago we delivered a ½ case of cookies to a coffee shop. I was using a different oven other than our convection that I’m use to. As it turns out the cookies had to bake longer affecting the shelf life quality. The coffee shop owner complained as well he should.

On Friday he ordered another case, upset that we could not deliver any until Monday as students have started to complain. I assured him that the taste would be consistent with our prior cookies. From the Expo I worked over the phone with the women baking, walking them thru each step. The taste was now consistent but wouldn’t you know something had to go wrong: Now the cookies are smaller than they had been, hence overpriced.

As I’m on the road in Northern California it is impossible to know what went wrong. I suspect that the baker may have picked up a scoop I’d used to test for samples or took a deep swipe in the scoop as they took the excess dough off before placing it on the sheet.

Now I’ve had to take a cut in price for this batch in the effort to be fair. I was really upset about our production consistency but this has been a huge lesson for me. I thought that I’d spelled out everything but it is the details that can trip one up. I’m just privately thankful that the owner of this coffee shop is still willing to work with us thru this learning curve.

I’ll need to be very careful when reviewing the problem with the employees. They were so happy over the baking job they’d done and I don’t want for them to lose their vision for the product or feel unappreciated. So I’ll need to go to Santa Barbara next week and work out the baking details. The balance for keeping the employees feeling like they are important and making sure that they make the product my way is a careful line.

I long for the easy life at this moment!

Samples for the Grandkids

Food Expos are so much fun. We come for the ideas and stay for the food!


The vendors are there to sell their products so many of them give out samples of their wares. The variety at the Fancy Food was a step up from the Western Food Expo with an entire area of items from Italy, another from Korea and so forth. The samples give us tastes of products that are pure tasting pleasures as well as new items being taste tested or just being introduced into the market.

Some vendors also have packaged samples, like new flavors of taffee, chocolates from Belgium and even jelly beans. These we can take home and eat later when we are not so stuffed.

We decided to pick up samples for our two grandkids in Arcata as we are on our way to see them from the Expo. I laughingly texted my son that we have probably 5# of packaged samples for the kids. Our thought is to give the boys what they want tonight and then we will go to the motel and sleep. Isn’t that what grandparents do?

The Fancy Food Loot

I’m stuffed! We just had two days of an eating frenzy at the Fancy Foods Expo in San Francisco. We came here for ideas to give the cookies just a little pizzazz for marketing, but mostly we ate.
This expo was like the name indicates, Fancy Food. The finest chocolates in the world, finest cheeses, olives, bbq and on and on are all under one roof. Actually two roofs as there are 2 buildings full of booths.
On Sunday, the first day, we stuffed on chocolates, dolmas, all kinds of olives, but too late found some wonderful bbq., Stubbs I think is the name. We could not eat anymore food and they were cleaning up.
Today we made straight for the BBQ, like a bee. As we waited in a short line I spoke with one of the employees about where the best bbq in the U.S. is. I told him about my very favorite in Memphis but I was going to give his a try. There was no line to speak of so we got a rib and some brisket. The brisket was the most tender I’ve ever had and the rib was so good. We got back in line, this time they gave me one of their t-shirts while I waited. We then piled our plates with brisket, ribs and smoked pork. What a way to start the day.
By afternoon we were really full. Not even a chocolate could tempt me but nevertheless I did try to get a few more morsels down.
On the way out I had a burp, good but couldn’t tell what it was.

Cookie Mistakes

Over the past few weeks my son and I have had several different ideas for baking the cookies for markets. One idea was that I would bake at his kitchen, and then we thought that maybe I should find a kitchen here and I would just be over the cookies completely.  A couple of weeks ago I went to bake and Nate put out a new idea that he would act as a co-packer. His employees are becoming more efficient so he was thinking that he could rent the kitchen for an additional day and bake most of the cookies that we would need for nearly any situation. That sounded good to me as that would free me up to work more storm work as a claims adjuster, a much more lucrative proposition.

We decided that I would come to the kitchen and go thru the baking process with Nate from start to finish. I went to the kitchen and walked Nate thru the Crunchy Cookies. He was really busy with other products but would come and look when he needed. Finally I finished mixing the ingredients and put the cookies on sheets close together and then popped them into the freezer as these would be a pre-formed cookie.

I then started the Chewy Cookies and was well underway when I asked my hubby to make sure the baking soda was out. OMG I realized that I had forgotten to put baking soda and salt in the Crunchy Cookies. We baked a few and found that they were not quite as good but would pass.

I told my hubby to put the salt and the soda in a little almond meal as we did not want to forget those ingredients again. He added the mixed meal into the mixing bowl and I started scoping the dough onto the baking sheets. Dale was putting the ingredients away when he looked at the two containers he had used. OPPS! He had actually gotten two containers of sea salt down and put some of each in, hence no soda but twice the salt. I did add some soda but we had one huge batch with no salt and one huge batch with twice the salt.

I told my son that I was showing him what not to do!

Mailing the Cookies Snafu's

Well getting the cookies off to Peet’s, Gelsons, Lassen’s and Oprah were not as easy as I had hoped it would be.

1^st Nate didn’t get the chewy cookies baked, only the crunchy ones. He’d baked a dozen chewy cookies only to burn them (probably was a little too busy for baking). Since Nate is 2-1/2 hours from me I then had to decide what I was going to do for cookies. Nate didn’t have access to his kitchen, I’ll write more of about that later, but anyway I was on my own for now.

I decided that I’d bake in the morning then ship in the afternoon. I called the local commercial kitchen and I was told that I could come in right away and use their oven. I mixed up some cookies and baked one batch of each type.

Unfortunately we had a bunch of other things to do; a dental appointment, then go purchase a Hobart from someone, so I couldn’t get back to the cookies until nearly 3 pm. My hubby and I raced back to the cookies. A friend had packaged all of the cookies so I thought great, we will just slap on labels, throw them in boxes and off to the FedEx. We could at least get the cookies off to Peet’s and Oprah. WRONG!

After printing these new labels that I’d put the nutrition info on we started putting them on the cookies but then I realized that I had not added the ingredient list on the label. I tried to do that quickly but couldn’t get it to add onto the label. By now we were running out of time. I finally printed the ingredient info on labels and we slapped those separately on the back of the cookies.

We did pack up the cookies, brochures and cards, and got to FedEx just in time to ship, 5:05pm. Then we were told “sorry, we don’t deliver to P.O. Boxes”, that was the address for the Oprah Show. That package would need to go via the Post Office.

Well while I was disappointed that I couldn’t send both packages I was glad to get the cookies off to Peet’s. But really the Peet’s deal is a lot more realistic than anything with Oprah.

Taking it to the Next Level

Alright, I’m back!

This cookie business has been consuming my life and I’m afraid that the blogs will probably be about launching this business for another few blogs. I’ll write some of the very crazy things we’ve experienced in the next blogs.

Today is SHOWTIME!! Well I hope it is.

As I’ve written before, cookies are in a couple of stores in Northern California and a coffee shop in Goleta. I’ve had some reorders but now that the holidays are over I’ll see about getting a regular delivery system going for them.

So why is today Showtime? Well in early December I was in Peet’s Coffee in Petaluma, a favorite haunt when I’m in that area. I was ordering my coffee and noticed that they had nothing that I could eat, nothing for the gluten intolerant. I mentioned to the cashier that they had nothing for me and they might be interested in my cookies. She immediately gave me the contact info for the corporate office. I did call the office but they asked that I wait until January to submit samples when they would have more time to take a look. Gelson’s also requested that samples be sent in January.

Well it is January so today is the day I’ll bake and ship, not only to Peet’s but Gelson’s and Lassen’s. My good friend Charlene (she is acting as a business manager) has also insisted that cookies will go to Oprah and the Today Show.  YIKES! A really scary and really exciting day for me!