Friday, February 27, 2009

A salad? How?

Today I was looking through my old church's cookbook to get my mom's recipe for carrot bread. (If anyone is interested, I can post it.)

I was flipping through the pages and getting a good chuckle from some of the recipes. Here's my favorite. How this qualifies for a salad I truly do not know.

5 apples, chopped
6 Snickers bars, chopped
8 oz. cream cheese
8 oz. Cool Whip
1 jar marshmallow cream
-Combine and serve-

Monday, February 23, 2009

Ada's gone dairy-free.

In attempt to thwart her persistent asthma we're trying a dairy-free diet. I think it will be fairly manageable, but if anyone has any recipe ideas for me, I'd love the input. (And you can pray for Ada, too, that she won't miss cheese.)

Easy Homemade Turkey Sausage

I discovered this on Goop-- Gwyneth Paltrow's blog-thing that I doubted the authenticity of for a while and now have decided it is legit.

Anyway, we've been making this a LOT. One, it is easy. Two, it is cheap. Three, is is healthier than regular sausage. Four, it is GOOD. Five, my husband is loopy-crazy for breakfast meat. (This is our slightly adapted version)



SERVES: 4
TIME: 15 minutes

* 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
* pinch of hot chili flakes
* pinch of cayenne pepper
* pinch of dried rosemary
* 1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
* 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 1 teaspoon dried rubbed sage
* 1/2 pound ground turkey
* 2 teaspoons real Vermont maple syrup
* 2 tablespoons olive oil

Using a mortar and pestle or mini food processor, bash the fennel seeds, chili, cayenne, salts and black pepper together. Combine this spice mixture with the sage, turkey and maple syrup in a bowl until thoroughly combined.

Form the mixture into 12 small, thin patties. Heat the olive oil in a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Cook the sausages for about a minute and a half on each side, pressing down with your spatula to really brown them and keep them thin. Serve warm.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Moroccan Chicken Pot Pie

A friend of ours made this for us this weekend. It was SO good. We ate it for dinner one night and breakfast the next morning. I think the original recipe was from epicurious.com


Moroccan Chicken Pot Pie

1 1/2 pounds skinless boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 lemon
3 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup green olives, pitted, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup raisins
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 cup low-salt chicken broth
1 refrigerated or homemade pie crust (my friend used spelt flour-- yum!)

Preheat oven to 425°F. Mix chicken cubes with paprika, cumin, and cinnamon in large bowl to coat. Sprinkle chicken generously with salt and pepper. Cut lemon in half; remove seeds. Using small spoon, scoop out enough pulp and juice from between membranes to measure 2 tablespoons. Add to chicken mixture; stir to blend.

Melt butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, olives, and raisins. Sauté until onion is almost tender, about 4 minutes. Add chicken mixture and stir 1 minute. Sprinkle flour over; stir 1 minute. Add broth and bring to boil, stirring occasionally. Transfer filling to 9-inch-diameter deep-dish glass pie dish.

Place pie crust over dish and seal dough edges to rim of dish. Using small paring knife, cut several slits in pie crust. Bake pot pie until crust is golden brown and juices are bubbling thickly, about 25 minutes.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Tortillas de Harina




This is one of my favorite recipes. I grew up eating these a lot!

4 c. flour (bread-making flour works best)
1 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
Cut in 1/3 c. shortening
Add 1 3/4 c. of hot water, add up to 2 cups as needed.
Knead. Place in plastic bag for at least ten minutes

Roll on a floured surface until very thin.
Fry in a dry pan on med-high heat.
Store in plastic bag in fridge.

Notes: The pan should be hot enough that they puff up when cooking. I put them in a tea towel and they keep fairly warm.

Serving Suggestions: Burritos with homemade refried beans, enchiladas (red/white/green), burritos with eggs, salsa and freshly diced tomato

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

My pizza dough

Darby and I were chatting yesterday about what we've been making for dinner. (Now that I think about it, I answered her question, but failed to reciprocate the question...) Anyway, I told her we make pizza once a week because we can turn it into whatever we want it to be and then make a simple cheese pizza for the kids. Everyone is pleased.

Tonight Kyle and I are having anchovies, pesto, red onions and peppers. Kids will have cheese as usual.

Here's the dough:

Throw into large food processor with dough blade attached:
- 1/2 c. wheat flour
- 2.5 cups white flour
- 1 (heaping) teaspoon instant yeast
- 2 T. kosher salt

process until mixed

Sloooowly add 1 to 1 1/4 cups room temp water interspersed with adding 2 T. olive oil. The entire addition should take a minute and a half so it "kneads" the dough for you. When it has pulled away from the side and forms something like a ball, I take it off the base, throw a towel over it and plop it in front of my heat vent for about 2 hours. (You can let it rise all day in the fridge if you like...)

At dinner time I punch it down and if I have time let it rest for 10 minutes before I spread it out onto a greased cookie sheet. Add toppings and bake at 500 until done!