Recipes

TIP FOR THE DAY

I've discovered that when you want a small amount of grated cheese in a hurry, you can use a lemon zester. No need to bring out the large cheese grater. This is the perfect tool and the cheese comes out in thin strips for easy distribution and melting.

I used the zester in my previous post "On the Go Breakfast" and you can see the picture of what the cheese looks like after being "zested." 

Autumn Stew!

2 pork tenderloins, silver skin removed (you can have a butcher do this for you) and cut into 2-inch cubes
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup - Extra Virgin Olive Oil, divided
1 large Spanish onion, cut into 2-inch dice
3 carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch dice
4 celery stalks, cut into 2-inch dice
1 bay leaf
4 sprigs thyme
2 McIntosh apples, peeled or unpeeled and cut into 2-inch dice
2 Granny Smith Apples peeled or unpeeled and cut into 2-inch dice
2 pinches allspice
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries
1 1/2 cups cloudy apple cider
3 to 4 cups chicken stock (depending on how thick you like your stew)

Preheat a large, heavy-bottomed pot over high heat with two tablespoons of oil, about two turns of the pan.

Place the pieces of tenderloin onto a sheet tray and season them with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Toss with flour until well-coated.

Once ripples appear in the oil and it starts to very lightly smoke, add the pork to the pot and sear it until well-browned on all sides, 7-8 minutes (lots of brown bits will remain on the bottom of the pot). Remove the meat to a platter and reserve.

Add the remaining two tablespoons of oil to the pot along with the onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf and thyme, and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook the vegetables until they begin to tenderize, about 6-8 minutes then add in the apples, allspice and cranberries, and cook until the vegetables are tender, 3-5 minutes  

Deglaze the pan with the cider, scraping up the brown bits that are stuck to the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon. Add in the chicken stock and toss the pork back into the pot. Bring the mixture to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes or until slightly thickened. Pull out the bay leaf and thyme sprigs from the pot and discard them
I served this with homemade biscuits!


CHICKEN SOUP

I'm not much of a soup person but decided to make this one cold rainy day. I boiled a chicken in water and added salt, pepper and onion. When the chicken was done, I strained the broth to get rid of the foam and bits of chicken. Once cooled, I shredded the chicken lightly and cut up some carrots, celery and onion. I added these to the stock in a large pot along with some frozen corn. I seasoned the stock with salt, pepper, garlic salt and onion powder. I added the chicken back into the pot and when it was just about done, I washed and added fresh spinach just because I like spinach. I served this with warm bread and butter. Delish!

THAI SALAD

This is one of my family's favorites and a great dish to take to potlucks. It's served cold and I promise it will be gone fast!

1 PKG. Linguini

2TBS. Canola or Vegetable Oil

2 TBS Sesame Oil

1 Tsp. Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (optional)

3 TBS Honey

3 TBS Soy Sauce

Pinch of Salt

3/4 cup Green Onion

1/2 cup Cilantro

Crushed Peanuts

Toasted Sesame Seeds

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the dry linguini. Cook as directed on pkg about 7-10 minutes.

In a metal saucepan, heat vegetable oil, sesame oil and pepper flakes over medium heat for about 1 minute. You really need to watch so the flakes don't burn. Add the honey and wisk really good to incorporate into the oil. Carefully add the soy sauce and continue mixing until oil is fully incorporated. (sometimes I use an imersion blender for this. Just turn off the heat first)

Once linguini is cooked, drain well, and mix well with sauce. Let sit in the refrigerator.

Chop green onion and cilantro and add to salad.

Add toasted sesame seeds and crushed peanuts just before serving

I like my salad a little on the sweet side so I usually add a little more honey. You can adjust to your taste.

Broccoli Ham Ring

I made a spiral ham on Monday night for dinner and we had ham leftovers last night. Tonight, I wanted to so something a little different with the ham so I decided to made this Broccoli Ham Ring. I took the recipe from one of my Pampered Chef cookbooks. So easy and very delish! Kids especially love to help. My son actually did this one with my help.

4 oz. ham, chopped (1 cup)
1/4 pound broccoli, chopped (1 cup) I used frozen chopped broccoli. I just made sure I drained it well.
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley,snipped
1-1/2 cups (6 oz.) shredded Swiss or Cheddar Cheese
2 TBS Dijon mustard
1 tsp. lemon juice
2 pkgs., (8 oz. each) refrigerated crescent rolls

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Chop ham, broccoli and onion and place in a bowl. Add parsley, shredded cheese, lemon juice and mustard to ham mixture. Mix well. To assemble ring, unroll crescent dough, separate into 16 triangles. Arrange triangles in a circle on a pizza stone with wide ends of triangles overlapping in the center of the ring and points toward the outside. (There should be a 5-inch diameter opening in the center of the stone.) Scoop ham mixture evenly onto widest part of each triangle. Bring points of triangles up over filling and tuck under wide ends of dough at center of ring. (Filling will not be completely covered.) Bake for 25-30 minutes or until deep golden brown. Cut into 8 servings.

ALBONDIGA SOUP

This is such a delicious soup and perfect on a cold day!

I don't really measure but I'll do my best.

Slice carrot (I used 4) into rounds
2 potatoes (with skins) chopped into bite size pieces
3 Mexican Zuchinni or Squash cut into quarter pieces
1/2 medium onion - 1/2 chopped and 1/2 sliced into thin strips
1 bunch of cilantro chopped fine
Salt
Pepper
2 lbs. ground beef
1/2 cup uncooked rice
2 cans Vegetable or chicken stock
1 small can tomato paste

First I put about 1 TBS. oil in a large stockpot and cook the chopped onion until it's soft and translucent about 5 minutes. Take out of oil and mix with ground beef, 1/2 chopped cilantro, uncooked rice, salt and pepper (again, I don't measure so I'd guess about 1 tsp. salt and maybe 1/2 tsp. pepper.) Mix it all together and form meatballs.

Then I like to drain the excess oil from the pot and add the carrots, potato, sliced onion, tomato paste and stock plus 4 cans water into the pot. Bring to a boil then add the zuchinni and uncooked meatballs into the pot and cook for about 30-45 minutes until the balls are cooked. There should be enough liquid to cover the meatballs. When done serve into bowls and garnish with remaining cilantro.

Make sure you buy the less fat ground beef so there's not alot of grease cooked into the soup. The recipe above made about 10-12 servings. Really easy and it only took about an hour start to finish.

CINNAMON ROLLS

Nothing beats homemade cinnamon rolls. This recipe is so easy and with the bread maker there's virtually no mess. Just put your ingredients into the machine and let it do the work. This recipe is from my Toastmaster Bread Machine Recipe book.

Cinnamon Rolls

1 egg (room temperature) + enough water to equal 1 cup

1/4 cup oil

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

3-1/2 cups Bread Flour

1-1/2 tsp. Active Dry Yeast

Filling

1/3 cup softened butter or margerine

1/3 cup sugar

2 TBL Cinnamon

Glaze

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1-2 TBL water or milk

1/4 tsp. vanilla

Place egg + water to equal 1 cup, oil, sugar, salt and bread flour in the machine and set to dough setting.

When done, take dough and place on lightly floured surface, roll dough in a 12x18 inch rectangle. Spread with softened butter and sprinkle with combined sugar and cinnamon mixture. Roll up tightly, jellyroll style, starting with the longest side and cut into one inch slices.

Place in a lightly greased pan and let stand in a warm place for 1 hour. Bake at 350º for 25-30 minutes or until done.

Mix glaze ingredients until smooth and drizzle over top. ( I like my glaze on the thicker side so I add more powdered sugar until I get the consistensy I like)

FRIED RICE



This was so easy to make and what a delicious side dish. I wish the picture would have come out better but trust me, it looked beautiful and colorful and tasted great! You need leftover white, steamed rice for this.

I made plain white, steamed rice by boiling 4 cups of water with a teaspoon of soysauce. When the water was boiling, I added a pinch of salt and 2 cups long grain rice, stirring in the beginning and letting the water come back to a boil. Once boiling, I covered the sauce pan and lowered the flame to low till water was absorbed about 5-10 minutes.

When the rice was done, I let it cool and I stuck it in the refrigerator. When I was ready to make the fried rice, I put some sesame oil and canola oil in a skillet - enough to coat the bottom of the pan. I let it get really hot then added the cold white rice, breaking up any clumps with my fingers. I tossed it around in the oil (be careful as rice will start to pop and jump out of the pan) until it was warm and well coated, then I made a well in the center of the rice and cracked an egg into the pan and stirred that until it was scrambled then mixed it into the rice. I added frozen peas and carrots along with chopped green onion, and chopped ham ( I used the sandwich type and you could also use, pork or chicken) and about 2 teaspoons of soy sauce. I cooked it until everything was mixed and hot.

BREAKFAST ON THE GO!

When we want breakfast quick but we don't have time to really get things out and cook, I like to make this easy, fast, microwavable egg and cheese burrito.

There are only 4 ingredients and no pans or no mess to clean up. Just grab a small microwavable container with lid, spray with cooking spray really well, break open an egg or two and scramble with a fork. Place the lid on top, (if lid doesn't have a vent built in, lay the lid on top of container without sealing so egg doesn't explode) and start microwaving at 30 second intervals, checking to see doneness of egg. When egg is almost done, remove from microwave and break up the egg and add some shredded cheese. Place back into microwave (without lid) and put the flour tortilla on top of the container and microwave for 20 seconds or until tortilla is hot and softened.

If bacon is desired, you can cook the bacon in the microwave before the egg is cooked. Just put a couple slices onto a microwave safe plate covered with paper towels to absorb the grease. Microwave 1 minute per slice. When done, remove from microwave and cook the egg.

That's it. Remove from microwave, fill tortilla and roll into burrito and you have breakfast in just a few minutes. So easy and with no clean-up!

OVEN-BAKED FRENCH TOAST

What a great breakfast this morning! Another fast and easy recipe and very economical. This receipe is taken from the Pampered Chef Stoneware Sensations Cookbook. I will post the receipe, based on what I used, without the refrences to the Pampered Chef products needed. This breakfast cost me less than $10 and fed my family of 6.

Recipe for Oven-Baked French Toast

1 loaf French Bread ---$1.49
6 eggs --- ($1.00 - they were 1.99 per dozen and I used half)
1-1/2 cups milk
3 TBS. granulated sugar (for egg mixture)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
Powdered sugar
Strawberries about 12 ---($1.00 - I paid $2.99 for 2 lbs. and I used about 1/3 of pkg.)
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
1 tsp. lemon juice
3-4 TBS. granulated sugar (for strawberry topping)

Spray 9 x 13" casserole baker with vegetable oil. Using a serrated knife, cut the ends off the bread and cut loaf into 1-inch-thick slices (10-16 slices depending on the size of the loaf) and arrange closely in a single layer in prepared pan. In a bowl, beat the eggs and add in milk, 3 TBS. granulated sugar, vanilla, salt and cinnamon; mix together and pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight.

The slices in greased pan

Pour egg mixture over and at this point, cover and refrigerate

(At this point, I left it overnight in the refrigerator and set my oven for delay start for the morning)

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Bake uncovered, 30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven. Top with strawberry topping and powdered sugar, or you can sprinkle with powdered sugar and top with fresh strawberries.

While the french toast was baking, I cooked the bacon and strawberry topping. For topping, wash and slice strawberries. I placed them in a small saucepan with 3-4 TBS. granulated sugar and 1/4 cup orange juice. I let the strawberries break up and release their juices. I cooked until they looked syrupy and poured that over the hot french toast and sprinked powdered sugar over that.

Slice strawberries small for easy cooking

Sliced strawberries, sugar and orange juice

French toast out of the oven and ready for topping

Ready to serve

Ready to eat

Serve with bacon. I used a pound of bacon that I paid $2.99 for. Add this to the cost of the ingredients for the french toast and it cost about $8-9 to make.