Vegetables in Dessert

I read Jessica Seinfield's book and I really tried to like the concept of vegetables in my dessert but I just couldn't do it. This recipe, however, is something I'll make an exception for. So, if you have any leftover summer squash / zucchini, it just might come in handy!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Cherry Crisp

This is a quick and easy dessert (other than pitting the cherries) that is a big hit.

6 cups pitted cherries
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup regular oats
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 1/2 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 375°.
Combine first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl; spoon into an 11 x 7-inch baking dish. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup, and level with a knife. Combine 2/3 cup flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, oats, and cinnamon, and cut in the butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives until the mixture resembles coarse meal. (Or do it in the food processor.) Sprinkle over the blueberry mixture. Bake at 375° for 30 minutes or until bubbly.

Home Made Mayonaise

My friend Ranee posted how to make home made mayonaise on her blog. Check out her blog for the photo edition.

I was interested because so far the only mayonaise Ben can eat is Trader Joe's. All the rest are made with soybean oil.

Below are her written instructions:

It is quick and easy, and you'll never want to go back to store mayo again. Yours won't have gums, cheap oils, extra sugars, or any of that junk in it, and it will taste far better. Even with store eggs. Use fresh, if you can get them, though. It does require a stick blender, so if you don't have that, you'll have to invest $15-25 in one of those (unless you can find one at a garage sale or thrift store or have a family member or friend who doesn't want hers). Things that matter: Use a glass jar. I've always been successful with a glass jar, I've had failures with plastic ones. The egg needs to be room temperature. We use a recently gathered egg. You can put your egg on the counter in the morning and make this in the afternoon, or put the egg in a hot cup of water while you get everything else ready. Then switch the water out with fresh hot water and wait a little more. It needs to be room temperature. The lemon juice (or lime juice) must be fresh. Use a light oil, preferably cold pressed, so the flavor isn't too strong. You may like olive oil mayo, but if you don't, a light oil will provide a more "American" flavor.

In a glass jar (I use a peanut butter jar) that is wide enough for the blender to fit through put, in this order:

1 egg, room temperature
1 1/2 tsp. Fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. dry mustard powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup light oil

Put stick blender down to the bottom of the jar without turning it on. Then start it and, rocking side to side, slowly pull it up to the top. This will take you about 7-10 seconds. Literally. You will not want to go back to store mayonaisse again. Your family will no longer be tied to supermarket prices for mayo, you won't get all sorts of additives and cheap ingredients and now you can teach your children something about emulsion, also.

Apple Bread

The zucchini bread recipe below is excellent, and rather quick to put together. A variation that my family loves is Apple Bread. Follow the recipe, but substitute:

- the same amount of apple for the zucchini
- 1 1/2 tsp of clove instead of the cinnamon

(In the interests of full disclosure, I haven't turned this specific recipe into apple bread. I use the one in my BH&G cookbook. They're similar, although this one makes more batter.)

The best part is the crunchy sugary crust on top. Mmm. Off to check if we have any apples now...

-- SJ

Zucchini Bread

A friend recently brought me two zucchinis the size of police nightsticks. We've used some for dinner in our favorite saute recipe. But I still had a lot leftover so I decided to take some of them and make some zucchini bread. I used a recipe I found on another blog (here). It turned out wonderful! It actually reminds me of pumpkin bread, yum... It was especially good with an iced chai.

Mom's Zucchini recipe
From Kelly Sauer

Combine:
3 eggs
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil

Add:1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 cups flour
2 cups grated zucchini

Bake in two greased and floured loaf pans or in one bundt pan for 50 minutes at 350°.

Chicken with Blueberry-Ginger Chutney

Yesterday a friend gave us 4 pints of fresh blueberries. We had blueberry pancakes for breakfast and then I went looking for a blueberry recipe. I found this one in Cooking Light. My family loved it! I tasted the chutney and it was yummy. There are multiple ways to print this off the web if you go directly to the site.

The chutney can be served warm, chilled, or at room temperature. Make it first, and chill while the chicken marinates, or prepare the chutney when the chicken is almost done marinating. Compared to fresh, frozen blueberries take about five minutes longer to cook and thicken because they release additional water.

Ingredients
Chutney:
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup golden raisins
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Dash of ground cloves
1 garlic clove, minced

Chicken:
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 teaspoon dried basil
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
6 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
3 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper


Preparation
To prepare chutney, combine first 11 ingredients in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 25 minutes or until thickened, stirring occasionally.
To prepare chicken, combine oil, basil, oregano, chicken, and 3 minced garlic cloves in a large heavy-duty zip-top bag; seal. Marinate in refrigerator for 2 hours, turning occasionally. Remove chicken from bag. Sprinkle 3/4 teaspoon salt and black pepper evenly over chicken.

Heat a large grill pan over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken 5 minutes on each side or until done. Serve with chutney.

Yield
6 servings (serving size: 1 chicken breast half and about 1/4 cup chutney)

Homemade Sweet Ice Tea

This recipe comes courtesy of my mother-in-law, Jane M. For some time I've been trying to find the perfect ratio of tea to water to sugar, this is exactly what I was looking for.

Sweet Ice Tea

4 Tea bags (The key is to buy a box of your store brand generic tea. Lipton I find too bitter. The tea I bought was America's Choice brand and just a generic black tea.)

1/2 gallon of hot water

Steep the tea bags in the hot water, the longer the stronger.

1/4 cup of sugar (add more if you like it sweeter)

1/2 gallon of cold water

Refrigerate until chilled to taste - or for quicker refreshment serve over ice cubes.

It's simple, it's sweet, it's delicious!

Kids Cooking

• Thanks so much for keeping this site alive (if barely). I love y'all's ideas!
  
  First off, let me say that I think the whole idea of making warm memories by letting your kids cook with you is highly overrated. I'm a fairly low-key person, but Addie and Stuart can have me chewing on my Pampered Chef rubber spatula within five minutes.
  
  BUT, they enjoy it. As long as I view it as Good Training instead of a Good Time, we do fine.
  
  Here are two things they enjoy making:
  
  Parfaits
  
  
  
  This is an old kid-friendly standby: fruit and yogurt. I have a safety knife that they can use to cut up the fruit, which makes it even more fun for them. But the real deal with these parfaits is that we add chocolate graham crackers or, on occasion, crumbled cookies. Forget the granola. Put in a little bit of junk, and they'll love the whole thing!
  
  We layer:
  
  * Vanilla yogurt
  
  * Strawberries, blueberries, or bananas
  
  * Chocolate graham crackers or some other yummy crunchy sweet
  
  

It makes a good breakfast or a side dish at supper. If Stuart will eat it, you know it's kid-friendly.


Chicken Smorgasbord

Take two chicken breasts and cut them into four pieces. Make a "bowl" of aluminum foil for each piece. Season each one differently: barbecue sauce, Italian dressing, basil and oregano, cinnamon and ginger, dill, etc. Drizzle with a little olive oil to keep it moist. Put the "bowls" into a casserole dish and bake at 350 or 375 for, oh, half an hour (until the chicken is at 180). When it's done, you have four different flavors of chicken to choose from, plus really yummy broth.

Addie and Stuart love choosing their seasonings. My job is mostly to say things like, "Um, that's enough dill!" or "No, no, don't put basil with cinnamon. Probably won't taste good." This dish is especially good with couscous.

-- SJ

Easy Enchilada Sauce

Ben is allergic to soy and I've discovered that most premaid enchilada sauces have soybean oil. Recently I found this recipe in Cooking Lightmade some adjustments and discovered an easy recipe. It is yummy!

1 t olive oil
1/2 C diced red onion
1 t minced garlic
1/2 C vegetable broth
1 T chili powder
1 T honey
1 t ground cumin
1/2 t salt
28 oz can crushed tomatoes

Heat in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; saute 5 minutes or until onion is tender. Stir in everything else. Reduce heat; simmer 30 minutes. Yields 3 cups. (We used it to feed 6 people.)

I made some yummy black bean, corn, and zucchini enchiladas but the sauce would go well with chicken or onion/sour cream enchiladas.

Chicken Asparagus Stir Fry

Recipe coming soon. This is what happens when I have the picture and recipe in two different locations!

Here you go. My comments/adjustments are in parenthesis.

1 c. uncooked rice (optional, I ate the stir fry alone. Nathan had noodles with his.)

2 T. vegetable oil

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 1/2 inch wide strips

(I used boneless skinless chicken tenderloins since they were cheaper and saved me cutting time.)

2 medium red bell peppers, cut into thin strips (I used just one pepper.)

1/2 lb. fresh asparagus, cut diagonally into 1 inch pieces (I used one bundle.)

1/2 c. stir fry sauce

(I tried to pick out the most authentic looking bottle of sauce in the Asian foods section of the grocery store, rather than going with a common brand. I was skeptical about 1/2 c. of sauce being enough, but it goes a long way.)

1. Cook rice according to package directions. Keep hot.

2. Heat oil in wok or large skilled over medium-high heat until hot. Stir fry chicken 3 to 4 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in center.

3. Stir in bell peppers and asparagus; reduce heat to medium. Cover and cook 2 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender, stirring once or twice.

4. Stir in sauce. Serve immediately with rice.

Makes 4 servings, or enough for 2 people if hungry/eating without rice.

Prep and cook time, approx. 20 minutes.

Pear Clafouti

This is our new favorite dessert. It is quick, easy, relatively low-fat, with minimal sugar. And it is fabulous comfort food.

Pear Clafouti
originally from Cooking Light (but I've made some changes)

The keys to a successful clafouti (cla-foo-TEE) are minimal use of flour and a hot oven in which to cook it quickly. As one of the national desserts of France, it's quite versatile.

Ingredients
Cooking spray
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
2 cubed peeled pears
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cardamom (optional)
2 cups milk, divided (use 1% or 2% over non-fat)
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation
Preheat oven to 375°.
Coat a 9 to 10-inch deep-dish pie plate with cooking spray, and dust plate with 1 teaspoon flour. Arrange the pear cubes in the bottom of prepared dish, and set aside.
Combine 3/4 cup flour, salt, and nutmeg in a bowl. Gradually add 1 cup milk, stirring with a whisk until well-blended. Add 1 cup milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract, stirring until smooth. Pour batter over pear cubes. Bake mixture at 375° for 35 minutes or until set. I always have to bake it longer than 35 minutes; usually 45. You could also try baking hotter. My next attempt I'm going to try 390 or so.

6 servings (serving size: 1 wedge)

Best Salad

This is the best salad I've ever had--I ate it at a restaurant earlier this week. I was so excited to find it on the internet and can't wait to try it at home. I love chopped salads, in general. But this is the BEST.

Morton's Chopped Salad

Dijon Vinaigrette recipe (goes with it)

Meatless tacos

This one is very simple, very nutritious, and very cheap. We've served it in taco shells or tortilla rounds, and topped with cheese, salsa, and sour cream (which, okay, will bring the cost of the meal up a bit - but still less than if you were using ground beef to start with!)

Taco Style Lentils & Rice
3/4 cup dry lentils
3/4 cup brown rice
4 cups water
4 beef bouillon cubes*
2 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
*(I just used a few teaspoons of bouillon powder because it's always going on sale at Walgreens. In fact, I bet you could use the seasoning packet from a bag of ramen noodles, too.)

In a 2-quart saucepan bring the water to a boil. As the water is heating, add the lentils, rice, bouillon, chili powder, cumin, onion powder, and garlic powder. Bring the whole thing to a nice fat boil. Reduce the heat to low. Place a lid on the lentils and allow the mixture to simmer for about 45 to 50 minutes. The water should be mostly absorbed.

This recipe also came from Miss Maggie's Hillbilly Housewife.

Homemade chocolate cake mix

This makes one of the moistest, most delicious chocolate cakes I've tasted, doesn't use ingredients too expensive or fancy, and is pretty simple to whip up. Best of all, the dry ingredients can be mixed up apart from the wet and stored (I suppose indefinitely), thus enabling you to stockpile your own convenience cake mix. The recipe makes about 4 cups of dry ingredients, so what I've done is store it in a quart jar in the cupboard. You could also store in ziploc bags or tupperware. You can make up the whole recipe at once (in a 9x13 pan or two layer cakes) or use half the mix (about 2 cups), half the wet ingredients, and bake a small cake in an 8x8 or 9x9.

Dark, Rich Chocolate Cake Mix
1-2/3 cup flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup dry buttermilk powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon instant coffee crystals

To Prepare
1 package of Dark Rich Chocolate Cake Mix
2 cups water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 medium eggs
Empty the cake mix into a big bowl. Add the water, oil and eggs. Beat with a whisk or electric beaters for about 2 minutes, or until the mixture is smooth and any lumps are gone. Turn the batter into a well oiled 9" x 13" rectangular pan. Bake at 350° for about 35 to 40 minutes. The sides should be pulled away from the sides of the pan, and a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean. Be careful not to overbake. Cool and frost as desired. Makes about 24 pieces.

This recipe I found on Miss Maggie's wonderful site The Hillbilly Housewife. There are SO many recipes and resources there - if you haven't discovered it yet, you must pay it a visit!

The Two-Supper Disaster

It was evening. Darren walked through the door, said hello, and was informed that after the kids finished their supper and we dropped them off at AWANA, he and I (and Daphne) were going out to eat. He didn't argue: I'd earned it.

That morning, I'd got a frozen meal started in the crockpot. It was "teriyaki porkchops," one of ten freezer-bag meals I'd put together at a Homemade Gourmet party back in the summer. These meals were handy, but overall I wasn't very impressed, especially considering what Homemade Gourmet seasonings and spices cost. It was about 5:00 when I checked the meat to see how it was coming along. It was cooked through, and the sauce was, as usual, adequate. Something about the taste bothered me, however, and for the next half-hour I kept going back to taste the chops again. I finally admitted that the meat tasted a little off, and I couldn't serve it.

Saving my family from the dire affects of bad pork may have given me a glow of virtue, but a family can't live on virtue alone. I still had to scrounge up something for supper. I called Darren and explained the problem, and asked if he would mind having leftover salmon steak instead. To some people, salmon steak is a perfectly reasonable leftover. But Darren and I don't like fish very much, and the fact that I'd cooked salmon at all was an adventure. We liked it, but I didn't want to press our luck by serving it too much. However, he said it sounded fine to him.

I took out the salmon and began heating it in a pan. Somewhere it lurked in my mind that you shouldn't serve leftovers in the same form as their debut, so I pondered how to spruce it up a bit. Inspiration came in the form of cream of chicken soup: I flaked up the fish and added the soup, then heated it through.

It is now a new rule in my kitchen: Thou shalt not mix the fish with the chicken soup, for it is an abomination.

We took Addie and Stuart to AWANA, then enjoyed a restaurant-cooked meal of gyro and stromboli. Darren agreed that I had enough credit to my account to afford two supper disasters. "But it's a shame they both cashed in on the same day."

-- SJ

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Looking for a new dessert for the Thanksgiving buffet? I made this for my MIL's birthday and it got rave reviews! Plus, it's easy!

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1/2 cup whipped topping, thawed

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Blend in eggs one at a time. Remove 1 cup of batter and spread into bottom of crust; set aside. Add pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to the remaining batter and stir gently until well blended. Carefully spread over the batter in the crust. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until center is almost set. Allow to cool, then refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. Cover with whipped topping before serving.

Freezer Cooking

Review: Freezer Cooking, Taste of Home Style

Earlier this summer, my friend, Jen, and I started freezer cooking. (Yes, that is how tardy I am in writing this post.) Since then, we’ve done it several times using different methods. I’ll try to post a little review of each, plus some pictures.

Since we are new to this freezer cooking thing, we started small. We still have yet to do more than two weeks of meals at a time. If you are scared of freezer cooking or think you have too small of a freezer, be brave and give it a try! You can do it! The afternoon of work is well worth the time and money saved later.

Another method worth trying is to prepare two of a casserole every time you cook. Eat one and freeze the other for another day. After a while, you will have a decent stash of meals in your freezer.

For our first session we used recipes from Taste of Home’s online freezer recipes and created our own “plan”. You can find TOH freezer recipes here.

Our menu

Pizza Pasta Casserole (2-9x13 pans each)
Colorful Chicken Casserole (1-2 qt casserole each)
Mexican Casserole (1-2 qt casserole each)
Hamburger Stew (5- 2 generous serving containers each)

I'll post recipes if anyone is interested.

Time spent

5 hours, including a run to my house to get more pots and cleaning up the kitchen/dishes

Pros, Cons and Tips

*Taste of Home recipes typically have a very low chance of being duds. All of the above recipes we would make again and are husband approved. (You’ll see why I say this in my next review.)

*Using meals with a variety of meats as main ingredients takes more time than doing all of one kind of meat. This saves time because you can cook all of your meat at once. I think if we had to do this session over again we would have skipped the chicken casserole and done all hamburger dishes to save time.

*When creating your own menu, sit down and make a plan. Think about cook times. Does something need to boil or simmer for a while? Do that first. Cook main ingredients together and assemble like dishes together.

*We used a George Foreman grill to cook all of our boneless, skinless chicken breast.. Most once a month cooking methods recommend cooking and processing whole chickens the day before to get your chicken meat. While I’m sure this is probably cheaper, saving time was more important to us, and, in the end, we may have even ended up even cost wise since we bought in bulk.

*Don’t worry about having leftover ingredients. Just freeze them for later use or make a soup.

*Have lots of pots, bowls and measuring cups!

*Cooking with a friend helps you persevere, gets you out of cooking tasks you dislike, and saves prep time. I hate handling meat and Jen hates chopping veggies, so she did meat and I did veggies. We were both happy!

*Freezing your meals insures that you use all your food and that it won’t spoil waiting for you to eat it.

In Honor of Fall Weather

Crockpot Potato Soup

from my friend Jen, who's husband loves this recipe

8 c. coarsely chopped peeled potatoes
1 small onion, chopped (1/3 c.)
1/2 lb. bacon, crisped, drained and crumbled
1-8oz. pkg. cream cheese softened
3 cans reduced sodium chicken broth (14.5 oz. cans) (or subsitute any chicken broth)
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup (10.75 oz. can)
1/4 t. pepper

In a 4 qt. crockpot, stir together thee potatoes and onion. Stir in the bacon.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, chicken broth, cream of chicken soup, and pepper. Add the mixture to the crockpot.

Cover and cook the soup on low heat for 8-10 hours or on high heat for 4-5 hours. If you like, mash the potatoes for a slightly thicken consistency before serving.

Summer Salads

Here are some recent salads I've tried:

Citrus Fennel Salad

4 C thinly sliced fennel bulb (about 2 bulbs)
2 C orange sections (about 3 peeled oranges)
1 C lemon sections (about 2 peeled lemons)
1/2 C thinly sliced red onion
2 T chopped mint (fresh is best)
1 T chopped fresh parsley
1 T chopped fennel fronds
1 T virgin olive oil
1 T lemon juice
1/2 t salt
1/3 t fresh ground pepper (opt.)

Combine ingredients in a large bowl; toss gently to coat. Chill 1 hour. Makes 6-8 servings.

Strawberry, Cucumber, & Basil Salad

4 C hulled strawberries, quartered (about 2 pints)
2 T thinly sliced fresh basil
2 t balsamic vinegar
1 t sugar
2 medium cucumbers, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and thinly sliced
1 t lemon juice
1/4 t salt
1/4 fresh ground black pepper (opt.)

Combine first four ingredients in a large bowl and toss gently to coat. Cover and chill for 1 hour. Combine cucumbers and juice and toss to coat. Add this and salt and pepper to strawberry mixture and stir to combine. Serve immediately. Yield: 4-6 servings.