Teens Cook: How to Cook What You Want to Eat [A Cookbook]

Copyright © 2004 by Megan, Jill, and Judi Carle

Photography © 2004 by Jessica Boone

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

www.tenspeed.com

Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with publisher

eISBN: 978-1-60774-123-7

Cover and book design by Toni Tajima

Food photography and prop styling by Jessica Boone, Los Angeles

Food styling by Susan Draudt, Los Angeles

v3.1

This book is for the one person who matters the most: Mumsernoonernutter, the Mumsinator, the Mumster, the big Mum, or, as everyone else knows her, Judi Carle, our mom. Although she probably thinks that we don’t realize how much she does for us (and believe us, it’s a lot) we really do appreciate all her work. Besides washing the dishes and cleaning up after we destroy the kitchen, she is really the brain behind this whole operation (we just stand there and look pretty). Whether it’s going to debate practices or cutting up thirty-five pounds of cheese for a choir dinner, she supports us in everything we do. We know that sometimes we’re a little tough to put up with, so merely living with us is a feat in itself. Mumsernut, you’re our hero and we’ll always love you.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

BREAKFAST

Banana Bread

Sausage and Egg Bake

Hash Brown Casserole

Cinnamon Rolls

Chocolate Chip Scones

Buttermilk Pancakes with Blueberry Syrup

Roman Apple Coffee Cake

Fried Apple Rings

Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

Crepes with Fresh Strawberries and Cream

German Apple Puff Pancake

Baked French Toast

Breakfast Burritos

SNACKS

Potato Skins

Caramelized Onion, Mushroom, and Roasted Red Pepper Focaccia

Chili Cheese Dip

Pot Stickers

Vegetable Maki Rolls

Nachos with Salsa and Guacamole

Chicken Empanadas

BLT Dip

Buffalo Wings

Cinnamon Sticks

Strawberries with Marshmallow Dip

Goat Cheese and Tomato Crostini

Deviled Eggs

Crab Rangoons

SOUP/SALAD

Split Pea Soup

Corn Chowder

Baked Potato Soup

Broccoli Cheese Soup

French Onion Soup

Wonton Soup

Taco Salad

Tuna and Macaroni Salad

Steak Cobb Salad

Chicken Caesar Salad

Spinach Salad with Honey-Mustard Dressing

DINNER FOR ONE

Spinach and Cheese Ravioli

Tuna Melt

Vegetable Stir-Fry with Tofu

Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo

Chicken Quesadillas

Steak Fajitas

Fried Rice

Egg Salad Tortilla Wrap

Grilled Portobello Sandwich

Grilled Cheese with Bacon and Tomato

Vegetable Lomein

Turkey-Bacon Puff Pastry Pockets

FAMILY MEALS

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Chicken Piccata with Rice Pilaf

Sloppy Joes

Ratatouille with Chickpeas and Couscous

Cheese and Chile Enchiladas

Chicken and Dumplings

Vegetable Lasagna

Mexican Lasagna

Eggplant Parmesan

Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken Schnitzel with Fried Potatoes

Potato Chip–Crusted Whitefish with Potato Wedges

Meatloaf with Scalloped Potatoes

Red Beans and Rice with Cornbread

Salmon and Vegetables en Papillote

DESSERTS

Banana Cream Pie

Cheesecake

Peanut Butter Cookies

Toffee Bars

Peach Turnovers

Seven-Layer Bars

Apple Crisp

Crème Brûlée

Snickerdoodles

Frozen Bananas with Chocolate and Toffee

Chocolate Spice Cake

Cream Cheese Brownies

Index

Acknowledgments

Many people deserve our very sincere thanks for their help with this book:

Lorena Jones, for believing that two teenagers could actually put together a book worth publishing.

Toni Tajima, for listening to all of our scattered thoughts about design and turning them into so much more than we had imagined.

Photographer Jessica Boone and stylist Susan Draudt, for making our food look great, making the photo shoot really fun, and never complaining about the loud music or our singing.

Yvonne Govea, for the countless hours she spent chopping, cooking, and cleaning up after us. (We are particularly grateful for the cleaning up.)

Kristin Rill, Kelly and Kevin Jackson, Paul and Jimmy Casperson, and Tommy Franks, whose input as our teenage recipe testers was invaluable.

And, last, but certainly not least, our Dad, whose years of eating undercooked cakes, gloppy sauces, and blue mashed potatoes without complaint typifies his unwaivering support for everything we do.

Introduction

We began helping in the kitchen when we each turned three years old. We’re sure that, at that age, we were more of a hindrance than help, but because our mom thought cooking was a good learning tool, she tolerated all of the mess that we made. Of course, we didn’t care about any of that learning stuff, we just thought it was fun, and we still do.

We learned to cook through trial and many, many errors. We can’t tell you how many times we have dropped eggs on the floor, coated the kitchen in flour, or boiled things over on the stove. Once Megan even got her head too close to the electric mixer and it yanked out a quarter-size chunk of hair. (She was the only kid in preschool with a comb-over.) The point is, if there is a mistake that could be made, we have made it. But, as our mom always says, mistakes are the best teachers. Through those mistakes we have learned what works and definitely what doesn’t.

Our goal in cooking has always been to prepare what we like to eat in the easiest possible way. We take shortcuts that would probably give a chef hives. We get bored just thinking about making stock from scratch. Why do all that work when someone else has already done it? Also, we don’t do bones. We only buy boneless chicken and meats. We tell people this is because we are reinforcing the economy by keeping butchers employed, but no one believes us. The truth is, cutting raw meat off the bones gives us the creeps.

We included a variety of our favorite recipes in this book. These recipes have been adapted to our tastes, but feel free to adjust them to yours. We won’t be offended. It’s what we did. The beauty of cooking is that you can make things exactly the way you like them. Sometimes it’s as simple as switching out foods you don’t like. We have found that vegetables are pretty much interchangeable, vegetable stock can always be substituted for chicken stock, and one herb will work as well as another. Once you get the hang of it, you won’t have to think twice about it. This is particularly useful for vegetarians, like Megan, who almost always require substitutions.

If you are just learning to cook, you may want to follow a recipe at least once, and when you are comfortable with it you can start to change things to your tastes. Even if it doesn’t turn out exactly the way you planned, it will probably still taste good. Don’t let mistakes stop you from trying again; we make them all the time. Just recently Megan made some pumpkin bread to take to work. Her coworkers loved it and several asked for the recipe. Only later did she realize that instead of using ginger she had inadvertently grabbed the hot mustard powder. The only problem then was whether to give them the recipe with the ginger or the hot mustard.

Many of these recipes started as a mission to re-create something we had in a restaurant. This can be a little more challenging than just adapting a recipe, but the reward comes when you get it right. When we are trying to re-create a dish, we start with recipes for similar dishes. We look at them and decide what the similarities and differences are between the recipes and the dish we are trying to create, and then from there, decide which direction we want to go in first. Seldom do we get it right on the first try, but the process is still fun. Sometimes they are easy, like the Potato Skins. They only took three tries before we got them right. We tried deep-frying them (tasted funny and very messy), baking them after the insides were scooped out (took way too long to get crisp), and finally, we brushed them with oil and broiled them, and they were perfect. Other times it takes much longer to get a recipe just right. The German Apple Puff Pancake took several months of eating pancakes every weekend to perfect. We tried three different recipes for the pancake part before we got it right and then went through at least a dozen versions of when to add the apples, how many to use, and whether we should use white or brown sugar before we were happy with the result. It was like a puzzle that drove us crazy until we figured it out.

At best, this book will teach you some of the basics of cooking and inspire you to explore even further to develop your own personal style. At worst, you’ll learn that, without all the cooking lingo, it’s not hard to make some great dishes, and that’s not bad either.

Although we say mayonnaise in the recipes, we use Miracle Whip. Either one will work fine. Just use whatever you usually buy.

We use salted butter. We know that most cookbooks use unsalted butter, but salted is what our mom buys, so it’s what we use.

We always buy lowfat sour cream, cream cheese, and mayonnaise. The regular types work fine, but we figure why not save a little fat where we can’t taste the difference. The only exception to this rule is in baking. Do not use lowfat cream cheese or sour cream when making the cheesecake or it will come out looking shriveled with big crevasses all over.

When we say bread, we mean plain ol’ white bread. If we like another type better for a recipe we say that