merry christmas everyone

This year for Christmas I felt like getting out the tub of decorations I hung on to when we moved.  Sister Suzy mentioned this is the first time in a while I have shown any interest in Christmas or that she has had any desire either.  We discussed the toll stress has on one's enthusiasm for life.

I rummaged around in the back of a closet and found my monster tree (all two feet of it).  Sister Suzy mentioned the tree would look a whole lot better if it had lights on it.  I agreed.  So, I did a little research on how long a string I would need.  The experts on the tube say 50 lights per foot of tree!  I do not want to catch the tree on fire! Nor do I want to be blinded by the light!  Well, Michael’s and Hobby Lobby were both advertising short strings for craft projects.  We went for a look-see and I found a 35-light string that was nine-n-half feet long.  That ought to be plenty.  And, it was.  Sure makes the tree look a lot nicer!

I dug out my Greek-cookbook I picked up way back in the dark ages to do some Christmas baking.  Once a year the Greek Orthodox Churches in Wichita have a fundraiser where they make Greek pastries and such.  Dad worked with a gentleman out at the Air Patch who was Greek Orthodox.  He mentioned the bake sale to Dad, Dad mentioned it to Mom, so off we went to the bake sale.  We were hooked.  One year they had cookbooks for sale.  This cookbook is one of those collections where a plea is sent out to the parents and congregation for recipes.  The Book is called Hellenic Cuisine.  It was copyrighted in 1957 and my book is the 36th printing in 1986.  The cookbook even has a recipe for Communion bread called Prosphoron in it.  The symbols that should be stamped on it, the meanings of the symbols and how it is to be portioned.

One of my favorite recipes out of the book is Almond Roll.  I had forgot how wonderful these were!  These taste better the second day, if they last that long!  I never make a full recipe.  I can get four rolls and 28 to 32 servings with this half recipe.


Almond Rolls


1/2 pound of filo/phyllo pastry

1 pound of almonds

3/4 pound of UN-salted butter, melted

3 eggs, separated

1 cup sugar

2 oz whiskey/rum



Syrup

1 cup honey

Juice of half a lemon


The recipe calls for blanched almonds.  I do not bother.  Grind your almond fairly fine, a few chunks are okay in your food processor.

Beat egg whites stiff.  In a separate bowl beat egg yolks and sugar until light and creamy and the sugar is dissolved.  Alternating, fold in, the almonds and the egg whites until blended.  Then add the liquor.  I prefer rum to whiskey and I think if you had some Amaretto that would be good too.

Lay a filo/phyllo pastry sheet down and use a pastry brush to butter the sheet.  Repeat the buttering of each sheet until you have about a quarter of the stack of pastry sheets buttered and stacked on top of each other.  Should be four to five sheets.  Pour a quarter of the batter at one end of the stack and spread it towards the middle.  The batter will cover about 1/4 to a 1/3 of the stack.  Roll up jell-roll style; turn under the ends and place in a buttered jellyroll pan, seam-side down.

Repeat with the rest of the sheets and mixture.  While working with one roll be sure and cover the rest of the pastry sheets with a damp cloth or paper towels to keep the pastry sheets from drying out.  Otherwise, you will have a disappointing mess on your hands.

The directions say pour the leftover butter from brushing your pastry sheets over the rolls.  I do not, because I am pretty liberal as I am brushing the pastry sheets.  The butter will bake out and then be reabsorbed towards the end of the baking.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  I usually bake until golden brown and in my oven that is an extra 10 minutes.

While the almond rolls are baking put your honey and lemon juice in a saucepan and heat to boiling, stirring to keep from scorching.  Once it comes to a boil, turn off the heat and set aside.  Drizzle about half of the honey syrup over the hot pastry rolls.  The instruction say to cut immediately but I have better luck waiting until the pastry rolls cool and then cut.  I turn the slices on their sides and drizzle the rest of the honey syrup over the cut slices to soak in.  I get 7 to 8 slices per roll.  I store them in the refrigerator.

For the other half pound of filo/phyllo pastry, I make Baklava.  I use a combination of walnuts and almonds with cinnamon and cloves and the same honey syrup.  But, that will be for another day!

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas!

Judy

leftover pulp from almond milk

As you know I'm allergic to the casein protein in milk.  So to get some creamy goodness for my tea, coffee, hot chocolate and ice cream I make and use nut-milks.  Some nut-milks can be drank without straining like cashew milk after blitzing in the blender for three minutes (some people do strain cashew milk).  Almond milk however tastes best strained; it has a gritty mouth feel, to me, if you don't.

So what do you do with the leftover pulp?  Some folks actually throw it out, but I can't.  Seems a waste to me, so I went out on the web looking for recipes that use almond milk pulp and ended up at Elana Pantry.  She has some great recipes that use almond milk pulp and a boat load of them use almond flour (very finely ground almonds).

What I usually do with the pulp is save it up in the freezer and then dehydrate the pulp-patties until dry.  Then, one at a time, I break them up and pulverize them in the blender.  I sift the contents of the blender just in case I don't get everything ground up.  Regrind anything that needs it with the next broke-up patty.

One of the things I do with the resulting almond flour is to save it to make chocolate chip cookies for Sister Suzy to take to set as her theater director has Celiac disease.  Today I tried a new recipe for almond flour, Chocolate Coconut Macaroons from Elana's Gluten-free Almond Flour cookbook.  Oh, My, Good!

(A copyright free image)

I did modify her recipe a little, as usual.  LOL  I only used 3/4 cup of honey instead of 1 cup of agave nectar and the recipe on the proceeding page was for Almond Macaroons.  Yeah, why not, Almond Chocolate Coconut Macaroons!  So I added 1 teaspoon of almond extract to the blend.  This is what I ended up with:

3 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of almond extract

3/4 cup honey

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

1 1/2 cups of my almond flour

1 1/2 cups of shredded coconut, should have been 2 but that was all I had.

Preheat oven to 350.  I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper so nothing would stick.  I whisked the egg whites until they were frothy.  Then, added the next three ingredients and whisked very well.  I sifted the cocoa powder in and blended well.  Finally I folded the last two ingredients in.  I scooped heaping teaspoons full of dough on the cookie sheet, patting into smooth mounds and baked for 15 minutes.  Cooled the cookies for 30 minutes on the cookie sheet.  I got 20 cookies in total.  These cookies don't spread so they all fit on one big cookie sheet. 

If you like a more Almond-y flavor add more extract, Elana used a whole tablespoon. That seemed too much to me as I wanted to taste the chocolate, also.

I hope everyone is having a good day!

Judy

mug cakes

I was hungry for a piece of cake, but didn't want to make a whole cake; not even a single layer cake because I will eat the whole thing in a short time frame.  You know a piece with dinner, a piece for a bedtime snack, a piece for breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, just because it is there until it is gone.  So I thought how about a mug cake.  They equal a large slice of cake, get my fix and it won't be in the fridge calling my name.  JuuDddYyy  JuuDddYyy  Aye Taaaste Gggoooddd!

So I wondered around the net looking at recipes.  One of my problems with mug cake recipes is no one tells you the volume of the mug they are using.  My mugs range from one-cup to two-n-a-quarter cups.  So would the recipe overflow in the microwave if I used the one-cup mug or am I going to need a magnifying glass to find it in my big mug?  Nobody answers that question.  I tend to error on the side of too large.  I don't want to waste any cake batter! ; >)

I found a recipe over at thehungryhedgehog called apple cinnamon mug cake.  Jess says it makes a small cake and comes with an icing recipe.  The cake looks about the size of a cupcake so I doubled it and sprinkled powdered sugar on top.  It was okay, if you really like cinnamon.  I went back to the web checking apple cake recipes for the cinnamon to flour ratio, which confirmed my feelings there was way, too much cinnamon and not nearly enough apple.

The first thing I did was make up a batch of Apple Pie Spice I found at southernfood.about.com
I just realized I use twice as much cinnamon as they call for.
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp cardamom

Next up I re-hydrated some apple fruit leathers I had made a while back .8 ounces or 22 grams of dried apple to a half-cup of boiling water let set ten-fifteen minutes to re-hydrated; then blend well.

My rendition of Applesauce Mug Cake

I used my two cup mug but a cup-n-a-half would probable be big enough.  Spray the mug with non-stick spray or grease.  Use a cereal bowl to mix it in. 

6 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp sugar (can use brown)
1/4 tsp apple pie spice
1/4 tsp baking powder
4 Tbsp applesauce
1 Tbsp vegetable oil or melted butter
1 Tbsp milk or 1 tsp of powdered milk and 1 Tbsp of water
1/4 tsp vanilla extract.
1 Tbsp chopped nuts (optional)
1 Tbsp chopped raisins or dates (optional)

Mix the dry ingredients.  I added the nuts and raisins to the dry ingredients.  Then the wet and mixed until the dry ingredients were wet and no lumps.  Scrap the batter into the prepared mug and microwave 60 to 90 seconds depending on your microwave.  I would stop it at 60 seconds and use a toothpick to see if it is done before adding the last second 30 seconds. 

Because I doubled the recipe, I think it would work in two one-cup mugs.  I would shorten up the time to 45 seconds before checking so see if it was done.

I found a Butter Sauce Recipe for an apple cake that I liked the looks of and now that I want to give credit to the blog I found it on, I can't find the blog again. Crap!

EDIT: think I found it:  http://www.food.com/recipe/chunky-apple-spice-cake-with-vanilla-butter-sauce-15682

1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp heavy cream or 1 tsp of creamer and 1 Tbsp water
2 Tbsp brown sugar or 2 Tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp molasses
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix first three ingredients in a 1-cup ramekin.  Cook in 10 to 15 second bursts stirring between each burst until it has thickened about 90 seconds total. Carefully pull out of the microwave and add the vanilla extract.  Pour over the cake hot.  I loosened up the sides of the cake so the butter sauce would run down the sides of the cake and bottom too.  There is more than enough here to cover the two smaller mug cakes if that was the way you made it.

I hope everyone is having a good day!

Judy

a recipe that didn't work

We were at the local WinCo and I spied buckwheat flour in the bulk bins.  I really like buckwheat pancakes, so off to the Internet to find a recipe.  I came across several that were very similar to this one I got from allrecipes.

1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
3 TBSP melted butter
6 TBSP all-purpose flour
6 TBSP buckwheat flour
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
3 TBSP butter for frying

First thing I did was cut the baking soda in half.  A teaspoon really?  I cut the salt in half too.  A half-teaspoon for 3/4 cup dry ingredients?  I thought the liquid to dry ratio was a bit skewed also, but what the heck let's give it a try.

What I got was something crepe like.  According to the crepe recipe by Alton Brown from the Food Network:

2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons melted butter
Butter, for coating the pan

That’s what I got.  Not a pancake as I know them.

Here's my pancake recipe from my 1963 Pillsbury Cookbook:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 TBSP sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup veggie oil or melted fats

I replaced half of the flour with buckwheat flour.  Whisk all your dry ingredients together.  Throw in all the wet ingredients at once; whisk until smooth.  Using a 1/3-cup-measuring cup to scoop the batter into your pan for about 12 pancakes.  Delicious!!!

So my quandary is do people not know the difference between a crepe and a pancake?  Or am I confused about the difference?

Okay, I did some research.  There are 2 differences; one, crepes has no leavening agent and two, crepes are very thin.  So technically, the first recipe is a pancake but who wants one with a crepe consistency?  Not me!

As far as I'm concerned the top recipe is a fail, eatable, after the adjustments I made. (Can you imagine what they would have tasted like with all the salt and baking soda called for in that recipe?  I shudder thinking about it.) But not something I would want to repeat.

Well back to the salt mines.  I have a sewing project I'm working on.  Pictures when I get it finished.

Everybody have a good day!

Judy

not a whole lot going on

As you can tell from the lack of posts not a whole lot going on.  I have a quilt setting in the sewing machine not being quilted.  Mentally I have moved on to the next quilt, which will be a T-shirt quilt for Sister Suzy.  My new sweater is setting in my knitting bag waiting for me to pick it up and finish the collar so I can get the sleeves knitted on.

Hubby brought a cold home from work.  I am at the beginning stages so I'm going to have to stay on it.  With my asthma I can't ignore it and just ride it out.  I have to be proactive or I could end up with pneumonia.  I don't even want to go there again.  So hubby is suppose to bring home some Vitamin C and some Guaifenesin (an expectorant) tonight.

I have baked my mother's oatmeal-raisin cookies for Hubby's lunch bucket.  Here's the recipe:

MOTHER’S OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES
With my changes

1 cup butter, softened or shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp. molasses
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups oatmeal
1 cup raisins
1 cup coconut, flaked
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 deg.  Yield is 4 dozen 2 1/2 to 3 inch cookies.

Grind raisins in meat grinder or food processor.  Beat together butter, sugar, molasses, and raisins until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat well.  Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Mix well. Stir in oats, coconut and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Flatten with wet glass bottom.  Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet then remove to wire rack.

Notes:  If you choose to not grind your raisins you will need to add another ½ cup sugar to have the same level of sweetness.  Also, if you want to use brown sugar replace half of the granulated sugar and molasses with half brown sugar.

I didn't have any flaked coconut so I left it out and the other change was I used chopped dates in place of the raisins out of curiosity.  The dates gave the cookies a very mellow taste not the sharper raisin taste.  I would do that again.  Oh!  The dough is just as good raw as I remember it as a kid.  :>)

Everybody have a good day!

Judy

jalapeno cream cheese topping

Last week we went to Hubby's favorite Mexican restaurant.  His family has been going to Popo's at 6542 W. Indian School Rd. since they move to the west side of Phoenix back in the early 70's.  They measure every Mexican restaurant they eat at against Popo's.   When one of them comes back to visit friends and family still in Phoenix the first question they ask is, "Did you get to go to Popo's?"  

While we were there Hubby had a combo plate that had a red enchilada with it and he had the choice of two toppings.  One of the toppings was jalapeño cream cheese.  Hubby liked it so well that he had me take a taste of it to see what I thought of it.  I like it well enough that we sat there taking tiny nibbles of it to figure out what was in it and how it was made. We came home and I did a search for recipes, taking notes and combining ideas, then heading to the kitchen for the experiment.   Here's what I came up with:

Jalapeño Cream Cheese Topping

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 to 2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
3 TBSP of cilantro, finely minced (And for the cilantro challenged, use parsley.)
1/4 cup finely minced onion
1 to 2 finely minced pickled jalapeño peppers or to taste (You could use fresh here, seeded or unseeded based on the heat level you wanted.)
2 TBSP of jalapeño pickle juice to thin (Milk could be used here, also.)
1/8 to 1/4 tsp. of salt, to taste
1/4 tsp. of mesquite smoke, if you want a smoky flavor

Use a fork to blend.

Some of the recipes suggested heating it in the microwave until warm if you wanted a hot dip.

This turned out very tasty.  It was more of a spread consistency than a dip or topping.  We spread it on tortilla chips and I topped a few with some refried beans I was making for supper.  WOW!  Extra Yummy!  I do wonder if you added some sour cream or crema if you could get more of a dip consistency without losing the tangy flavor.  By the way, this gets hotter the longer it sets!

Have a good day!

Judy

ice cream

While out pursuing the elusive 2 foot by 4 foot folding table with adjustable legs at Target, Hubby and I found an ice cream maker on the clearance rack that is battery operated.  The ice cream maker holds between 6 and 12 ounces.  It is put out by Hamilton Beach and doesn't have very good reviews but what the heck it's kind of fun to play with until it goes kaput.

The first recipe I tried was from Leslie's blog, La Cocina De Leslie. I tried Paletas de Jamaica y Limon recipe with some variations, of course!  I used:

4 cups water
1 cup dried jamaica flowers (hibiscus flowers)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. stevia extract powder
1 tsp. dried quarter-cut ginger root
1 TBSP of lemon juice.

I brought the water to a boil.  Removed the water from the heat and stirred the jamaica flowers and ginger root, covered and let it steep for an hour or so.  Strained and then added the rest of the ingredients.  Stirred until the sugar was dissolved.  I chilled the syrup in the refrigerator until I was ready to make the sorbet.  The sorbet didn't freeze up very well and the paddle rode up in the freezer bowl.  After I broke up the ice that was building up on the bowl it froze a little better but we ended up sticking the freezer bowl back into the freezer and I whipped it a couple of times before we got the consistency we wanted.  Delicious!

Next up, I tried a recipe from the booklet that came with the ice cream maker with some changes, what else! Observation: why, if the capacity of the machine is 12 ounces, would you write the recipes in the booklet for twice that much?

1 cup half-n-half
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

I stirred everything up until the sugar was dissolved.  But this time I stuck the mixture in the freezer for about 30 minutes before I tried to make the ice cream.  Because I remembered reading that La Gringa from  La Gringa's Blogicito pre-froze her ice cream mix to get it to freeze in her climate.  I still scrape down the sides of the freezer bowl for the ice cream maker a couple of times to make sure all the frozen cream mix was being incorporated into the rest of the mixture.  I let it harden about 30 minutes in the freezer after churning. Very tasty!

The last go round I wanted to try making a non-dairy ice cream so I used Elana's recipe from Elana's Pantry as a starting point.

1 cup raw cashews
2 cups water
3/8 tsp. stevia extract powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 pinch salt

Soak the raw cashews in warm water for a couple of hours, drain and rinse.   Put everything in a blender and blend until creamy smooth.  This yields about 3 cups of cashew cream.  I measured out 12 ounces of the cream and put that back in the blender. Then added:

1 tablet of Abuelita's Mexican Chocolate, softened in the microwave

to the cream in the blender and gave it another whiz.  I pre-froze this batch also.  The mixture was very thick but not icy coming out of the freezer and I only had to scrap the sides of the freezer bowl once while making this batch and didn't have to harden it at all.  Excellent!

So, we will keep playing with our little gizmo until the motor craps out or the freezer bowl cracks and leaks all the blue-ice stuff out.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Judy

* The photo is courtesy of the Hamilton Beach web site.

exploring scones

I'm fascinated with the concept of scones.  Maybe it's my ancestry from the British Isles.  Mom’s mother was mostly Scotch-Irish, my mother's dad was of Welsh origin.  My dad is of English origin. 

I have watched a boatload of you-tube videos and read at least a cookbook's worth of recipes.  I have read that making good scones can be difficult.  Hubby says his ex-bride made ones that would break teeth and the ones he has had elsewhere weren't much better.  As I was watching the you-tube videos, scone making looks to me to be about the same process as biscuit making.  And we all know that with biscuits if you aren't careful you can end up with hardtack!

I watched a you-tube video of a unique process that really intrigued me put out by the American Test Kitchen.  Then I searched for the recipe and direction; finding it here about half-way down on the page.  Here's what I did to their recipe.

ATK Blueberry Scones

8 TBSP unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda (Ha! I used too much! Didn't affect the taste though.)
I forgot the salt! It calls for a 1/2 tsp.
1/2 tsp. of lemon extract. (The recipe calls for lemon zest, I didn't have any lemons.)
2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of whole milk (I used 2% cause that's what I have.)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups of frozen blueberries

I set the oven to preheat at 425 degrees.  I thought I would be slick, pull a stick of butter out of the fridge and use my food processor to grate the butter.  LOL, what a mess!  Freeze the butter!

Time to punt!  I decided to cream the butter and sugar together in the food processor.

Okay, that doesn't look too bad!  Then, I added the baking powder, baking soda and lemon extract giving it a whiz.  Scraped everything down; added the flour and gave it another whiz until I had bread crumb consistency.

Hey, I may be able to salvage this!  Next, I added the milk and sour cream and whizzed it until it just barely came together.  I then scarped a very sticky dough onto a heavily floured piece of parchment paper.

At this point, I should have stuck the whole sticky mess into the freezer and firmed up the dough but I didn't.  I tried to work the dough like she did in the video.  I finally put the dough in the freezer.  I went to switch the laundry over and came back.

I retrieved the dough from the freezer and proceeded to press the dough out to a 12-inch square. I sprinkled the frozen blueberries on, while lightly pressing the blueberries into the dough.  Then I scraped and folded the dough in thirds.  I patted the dough out to about 4 maybe 5 inches wide.  I cut the dough into quarters and then again into triangles to make 8 servings.  I moved the wedges to my parchment lined baking pan and baked them for 18 minutes in the 425-degree oven.

A few things I didn't do!  I didn't brush the tops with melted butter and sprinkle sugar across the tops.  They would have looked nicer if I had at least brushed the excess flour off the tops.  Next time I will add the salt to see if it is really needed.  I thought they tasted pretty darn good without it.

The scones had a light lemon under-tone with a great blueberry taste.  The scones also rose/raised??? very well and were very light.  They were not crumbly at all.  And best of all, Hubby and Sister Suzy liked them!  We even discussed what different fruits we thought would taste good in this recipe.  I'm thinking frozen cherries next! 

I think next time when I get to the bread crumb stage I will turn the flour mixture into a bowl and incorporate the liquids in the bowl to cut down on the mess in the food processor.  It would make chilling the dough easier before working it into its final shape.  The other thing I think I'm going to do is add an extra 1/4 cup of flour instead of trying to handle such a sticky mess on a floured surface.  Something else I would do is divide the dough into 10 maybe 12 servings instead of the 8 as I thought they were almost to big; if you can believe that!

Stay tuned!  I want to try a French Apple Walnut Scone recipe and look at some recipes that have the traditional oats in them.

Have a good day!

Judy

more on life's happenings

So what have I been up to since the last post? 

Knitted some more on my sweater.  I've got most of the body knitted and as usual with stockinette it is all curled up and not very photogenic.

Cooked up and dehydrated some ground beef we found on sale to make backpacker's gravel for camping and such.

Starting to finish our remodel of our travel trailer.  We have one bed frame installed but can't seem to get to the other because life is interfering.

Hubby's mother entered hospice and has passed away.  The dear lady is now without pain for which we are all very thankful.

We decided to trade our diesel pick-up truck in that we tow the trailer with for a gasoline powered one.  That will lower our one-n-only payment.  The good news is the loan isn't for any longer than what was left on the diesel.  A little monetary breathing room would be nice.

We've been kicking around the earth boxes idea.  The cost is way more than we can afford so I've been looking at DIY clones of earth boxes.  I think we will use that guy's idea with the wicking system that I saw in this video.  We are hoping to get some kind of garden this year because it is still very dry here.  So unless we get a lot more rain this spring, things don't look good for crops or forage for animals.  The watershed ponds are still dry.

That's about it except our anniversary rolled around this month.  We went to Emporia, KS and picked up Sister Suzy.  Then, the three of us played in the hot-tub and heated swimming pool for two day at the hotel.

I hope everyone has a good day!

Judy

startitis

My terminal case of startitis has been flaring-up.  I have started three shawls and a sweater.  The shawls need to be frogged and put back in the yarn stash.  The sweater looks like a keeper even though I have restarted it twice.  I have bought the yarn for a matching set of mitts and balaclava for Sister Suzy.  I have the patterns printed and everything in a bag together.  As much snow as we have had in the last week I should have got them done two weeks ago. : >)

I have two quilts I've started and lost the inspiration to finish.  Got two more planned but haven't looked in the fabric stash yet.

I need to knuckle down again and get something finished.  Otherwise, the projects start piling up and my monkey-mind gets to driving me crazier than I already am.

Been cooking and canning up a storm.  The grocery store had all the ingredients for salsa on sale so I went nuts and bought enough to do 24 pints.  Only this time I dehydrated the salsa after I made it and the salsa fits in a 1/2-gallon ice cream container.  The stuff tastes great after re-hydrating which was a concern when I came up with the idea.  Made Hubby two kinds of pickled jalapeños with the leftover peppers.  The recipes say to let the jars set for a couple of weeks before trying so I'm not going to publish the recipes until we have tasted them.  Cabbage was on sale, also, so we picked up two heads.  I want to dehydrate them to make up a soup blend of vegetables to have handy for when I want to make a quick soup.  If it turns out well I may get more cabbage.

My desire to wear clean clothes says I need to start the laundry so back to the salt mines!

Everybody have a good day!

Judy

Thanksgiving

I hope every one has an enjoyable one.  We are heading to Hubby's brother's place.  Things are a little tight at their house so I dug around in the freezer, refrigerator and pantry and came up with lasagna, salad, pumpkin cheesecake, apple pie and no-knead bread.   The lasagna is from my 1963 Pillsbury Cookbook that I've made a bunch of times and is a real crowd pleaser.  The apple pie comes from the same place.  The cheesecake however is a new recipe so I'll let you know how it turns out. 

Friday we have another Thanksgiving at my house for my family and that will be ribs, corn on the cob, sweet potato fries, and  maybe regular fries.  I'm thinking brownies and pumpkin pie for dessert.  I should have enough left-overs that I don't have to cook much for the next week or so.  LOL

By the way I've been sewing like a demon but haven't taken any pictures, so maybe this week-end with Sister Suzy's help I can get some.

Have a good day!

Judy

chocolate covered strawberries

We bought a flat of strawberries and before I froze all of them I wanted to try something new with the strawberries. I have always been curious as to what all the buzz was about with chocolate dipped fruit. So, I had my first chocolate covered strawberry this summer.  They were okay, just, okay.
 
I must have a truly unsophisticated palate, because, why would you cover up the wonderful taste of strawberry with chocolate?  So I turned the bowl of chocolate over to the resident chocoholic (Sister Suzy) and sprinkled a wee touch of sugar on my bowl of strawberries and was in heaven.

It just wasn’t the strawberries, I tried chocolate with pineapple and blueberries, and that didn't turn my crank either.  I know!  Pure sacrilege!  A female who doesn't like something covered in chocolate!  What can I say, except, I will save the my chocolate for cookies, cakes or brownies!

Have a good day!

Judy

The apricot post

This is the apricot post I promised so many moons ago.  I finally got my recipes together and at the computer all at the same time!  Amazing!

History; I like apricots, specifically dried apricots, a lot.  So I bought two sweet-pit apricot trees from Stark Brothers Nursery about 12 years ago not knowing that the Kansas State Extension Service considers apricot trees as ornamental because they bloom so early.  What happens is we will have a spell of warm weather in late February or early March then we will have a heavy frost or snow storm late March or early April most years.  The blooms freeze so no fruit.  We have only gotten two crops from the trees.

A couple of years ago was our first harvest of apricots.  I pitted, dipped them in a Fruit Fresh solution and individually froze them.  They turned dark about six months after freezing them.  I was disappointed, I thought just dipping them would have been enough.  They tasted okay, but weren't pretty any more, best used for cooking. I then dehydrated what was left for use in cooking.   If I ever try freezing apricots again I will freeze them in a simple syrup solution with Fruit Fresh in the solution to see if the color is preserved any better.  One of the issues with just dehydrating the apricots that are dipped in Fruit fresh or lemon juice is they will go ahead and turn dark.  You really need to treat them with sulfur to keep the apricots from darkening.  Too much sulfur consumption and I develop hives.  No Thank-You!

This year I decided to do something different with the apricots, so I decided to make leathers with them and apricot nectar because I found a couple of recipes that used apricot nectar in them.  I also wanted to use the nectar in fruit punches.

This first recipe I found several years ago.  It calls for fresh apricots but I have used dried (re-hydrated) in it with good results.  The recipe is called Djedjad (Chicken Roasted With Apricots).  It calls for rose water but if you don't have any, just leave it out.  The rose water does add a nice subtle fragrance and taste though, so if you have access to an Indian Market go for it. Or snag a cup of fresh rose petals; bring a 1/2 cup of water to a boil.  Then pour the water on the rose petals, cover and let steep for 15 minutes.  Strain and store in the fridge.  I freeze the rose water in little condiment cups in one-teaspoon portions; ice cube trays would work too.

I have fixed Djedhad several different ways.  As described baking a whole chicken.  Then as rotisserie chicken with the apricots stuffed in the body cavity and then all the pan juices and apricots pureed in the blender as gravy.  The last way was with the chicken cut up in a baking dish and baked.  The last way I though was the best.

The next way I have used apricots is in Apricot-Orange Marmalade, very good, and of course Apricot Jam. (use the second recipe)

This year I used Apricot Leather recipe from makeandtake.com.  These were great and we still have a few left that I have hidden away for this fall.  The other recipe is for Apricot Nectar from myfamilyprepared blog.  I found a recipe for Apricot Nectar Pound Cake from allrecipes.com we loved and an Apricot Nectar Cheesecake from bestrecipes.com we haven't tried yet but looks promising.  I modified the pound cake recipe somewhat (What else is new!) so here it is.

1 yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup apricot nectar

1/2 cup apricot nectar
1/3 cup sugar
4 TBSP butter

1 cup of whipping cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 TBSP sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour a 9 x 13-cake pan.  In a large bowl mix together the cake mix, eggs, 1/2-cup sugar and cup of apricot nectar on low speed until blended.  Then mix on high speed for 3 minutes.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean.  Cool the cake in the pan.

When the cake is cool poke holes all over the top of the cake.  In a small saucepan mix the 1/2-cup apricot nectar, 1/3-cup sugar and butter. Cook over a medium heat stirring until the butter is melted and the sugar has dissolved.  Pour over the cake; place the cake in the fridge while making the whipped cream topping.

Beat the cream until stiff.  Then add the vanilla extract and 2 TBSP of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Spread over the cake and keep chilled until ready to serve.

Okay this is long enough!
Have a good day!

Judy

Kewl!

I won Joy Wilson's Joy the Baker Cookbook in a drawing on Leslie Limon's cooking blog La Cocina de Leslie.  She was celebrating the third year of her cooking blog with a contest and giveaway.  If you are interested in delicious simple recipes highlighting Mexican cuisine, this is the place to get recipes and great tutorials on how to make good food.

UPS delivered the cookbook today.  I've been thumbing through it and have spotted several recipes that look interesting like Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies or Single Girl Melty Chocolate Cake or Avocado Fries.  I might have to do some talking to get Hubby to go for that last one!  LOL  But still, interesting!

I want to thank Leslie again!  This is so cool!

Have a good day!

Judy

EDIT:  I showed Hubby the Avocado Fries recipe and he wants to try them the next time we pick up avocados.  Wow, I underestimated him!  We tried the Single Girl Melty Chocolate Cake last night and it got a two-thumbs-up from everybody.

not my mother's brussel sprouts

Photo from: http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/brussels-sprout_2.html

I don't know about your mother's brussel sprouts but my mother's were boiled into a bitter army-green mush. You had to eat them hot and quick to get them down. When I got a pound of them in my most recent Bountiful Basket, Hubby was trying to find ways to feed them to the chickens so he didn't have to eat them. His mother's were evidently as bad as my mother's were. It seems the women from the southeastern corner of Kansas can only cook peas, corn, and green beans.

Well I indulged my favorite past time of web cruising and came up with a couple of recipes for fixing brussel sprouts that sounded interesting. The one I fixed the other night is called Chestnuts and Brussel Sprouts. The other one I found that really interested me was Brussel Sprouts in Sour Cream. If we ever get any more this will be the next recipe I will try.

So here is the recipe with my changes.

Chestnuts and Brussel Sprouts

1 pound brussel sprouts, trimmed and cleaned (This video shows how to clean them.)
6 ounces bacon, cut in small strips (I used 8 oz.)
1 cup canned chestnuts, cut in halves or quarters (I used 5 fresh because we also got water chestnuts in our Asian pack)
2 tablespoons butter (Didn't use because you are getting fat from the bacon)
Salt and pepper (only used a bit of pepper because you are getting salt from the bacon)

Cook the brussel sprouts using your favorite method. I just boiled them for about 12 minutes in salt water. Rinse and cut the sprouts in two. (Cut your sprouts before cooking according to a you-tube video I watched. It helps reduce the bitter taste if the centers are exposed to the boiling salt water. Only cook until the sprouts are just barely tender! You are going to cook them a bit more with the bacon.)

(Skip this part) Melt the butter in a skillet on medium heat. Add the bacon and cook, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes. (I cooked the bacon until most of the fat had been rendered out. Drained most of the fat off. Left maybe 2 TBSP.) Add the brussel sprouts and chestnuts and continue cooking until the bacon is cooked through and the sprouts are slightly browned. (I cooked until my water chestnuts were lightly cooked.)
Makes 4 servings.

Sister Suzy didn't like them at all. Hubby said if he had to eat a brussel sprout that was the way to eat them. I thought they were delicious. In fact, I thought they were good cold!

Side Note: Remember in the last post I said the Muse wasn't interested in doing anything fiber. Well last night She decided I should knit on my current afghan project. I feel like knitting today and the hell with scrubbing bathrooms. I believe my Muse is one fickle lady!

Have a good day!

Judy