Where does the time go? I’ve been a bit neglectful about blogging favorite recipes around here and as a result I have a growing pile of papers cluttering up our kitchen counter. For our holiday cookies this year I found a great recipe here at Foodo del Mundo.
Pfeffernusse.
We’ve had to make extra batches.
Ingredients
3 1/2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 c butter
1 c sugar
1/4 dark molasses
1 egg
sifted powdered sugar
Grease cookie sheets, set aside. Place flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, salt, cloves, cardamon and pepper in large bowl, stir to combine. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in molasses and egg. Gradually add flour mixture. Beat at low speed until dough forms. Cover dough and refrigerate until firm, 30 min or up to 3 days.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets. Bake 12-14 min or until golden brown. Remove cookies to wire racks, dust with sifted powdered sugar. Store tightly covered at room temp or freeze up to 3 months
The kids left the cookies out for Santa and he ate every single one!
Oh. My. Goodness! Don’t be intimidated if you’re not a cottage cheese fan. These pancakes are freakin’ good.
I found the recipe in this Feed Your Skin book and the kids gobbled them up. They don’t need better skin; they just like good pancakes. We didn’t have the blueberries for the fruit syrup (so much for skin-boosting antioxidants…) but using plain maple syrup still made them incredible. I would like to try them with the blueberries next time because I think the sweetness would just intensify the experience.
These take a little more work than using batter out of a box but are so very much worth it.
Ingredients
4 whole eggs
1 cup small-curd cottage cheese
1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup sifted whole wheat flour (we used white wheat)
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
canola oil or melted butter for greasing up the pan
Combine egg yolks, cottage cheese, butter, flour, lemon zest, and salt in a large bowl. Stir until batter is smooth and thick (the cottage cheese will make it look a little lumpy).
In another bowl, using an electric mixer or a whisk, beat the egg white into a thick foam until soft peaks appear.
Gently fold the egg whites into the batter.
Heat griddle or a large skillet over medium high heat. When a drop of water skips over the surface of the pan, it’s ready. Lightly brush the pan with oil or add a a little butter to the skillet. Drop the batter by large spoonfuls onto the skillet. The pancakes spread a little as they cook, so leave 2 to 3 inches between each one. (Making three at a time was no problem in our average-sized skillet.) Cook until the edges of the pancake are set, about 2 minutes. Flip over and cook another 2 minutes.
I found a recipe for making granola with olive oil instead of ordinary vegetable oil in the NY Times. I cut out the recipe and hung it on the fridge where it’s been staring me in the face for several months. This weekend, we decided to go ahead and make our own version.
Success is crunchy!
Ingredients
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1 cup raw sliced almonds
1 cup flax seeds
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and stir together.
Spread mixture on a rimmed baking sheet in an even layer and bake for 45 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes until golden brown and well toasted. (A brownie pan might make the stirring part even easier.)
When the granola is done you can serve it warm with yogurt and fruit, or store it in an airtight container. Kitchen Dad is looking forward to showing the kids how to mix it into pancakes.
One of the advantages of writing a food blog like this one is that people occasionally send you food. Or at least sauces.
One such person is Country Bob, who wants more people to try his sauce. They should; it’s rather good, and we’re not just saying that because he sent us a free bottle. You can see for yourself… because he’s giving away a free bottle! Just leave a comment saying you’d like to try some. We’ll pull names out of a hat on Sunday the 20th and let you know if you’re the winner. Please leave us your email so we can contact you.
It’s a sauce in much the same tradition as HP or A1, only it’s slightly sweeter and doesn’t have a name that sounds like a military designation. The label says it has tamarind in it, so you know Country Bob did his footwork.
So we had to try it. We made portobello mushroom burgers on the grill, and used Country Bob’s as a marinade. If it wasn’t a success, you wouldn’t be reading this now, but it was. The kids ate ‘em, loved flipping the mushrooms on the stovetop grill (with a little help) and asked for more.
Ingredients
Portobello mushroom caps. Big ones.
Decent hamburger buns.
Fixin’s (lettuce, onions, pickles, tomato)
Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce
We poured some of the sauce on the mushrooms while the grill (it’s a big plate of cast iron) was heating on the stove top. You might get better results if you wait until after the mushrooms begin to brown and draw water – it seemed like a lot of the sauce wound up on the grill at first. Brush on a little more. Let it get in those gills.
After turning a couple times, the mushroom should be moist, tender, spicy and delicious.
Serve on the bun with the fixin’s. Eat heartily.
Add more sauce as required. It’s really pretty good.
I love it when things just fall together naturally.
On our recent summer trip we were able to sample many local food items. Along the way, peaches became the number one choice for Kitchen Daughter. In North Carolina she tried little peaches they called doughnut peaches. Oh my, how she loved those sweet juicy little gems but, alas, they do not travel well and will only be eaten on her next visit to the Tar Heel state. Still, any peach ranks right at the top of the list.
Second favorite item on her list came from Kentucky, a locally brewed soft drink named Ale 8 One, that’s very similar to ginger ale. So for our Labor Day weekend celebration it seemed appropriate to say good-bye to summer with our version of a Virgin Bellini.
Ingredients
3 peaches (whites ones if you have them), peeled and pureed in a blender
1 bottle of Ale 8 one, ginger ale or ginger beer
Prepare a long champagne glass. In other words, clean it and put it on a table.
Spoon some of the peach puree into that glass. Fill with soda. Enjoy the good life.
Drinking anything out of a fluted wine glass makes for a special occasion in itself!
While not usually a proponent of vegetable shortening over butter when baking, sometimes you just gotta go with what you have. Plus during these current financial times, I really feel like a 40’s frugal housewife.
This recipe is from the WWII-era when butter and sugar were rationed. I did modify it slightly by using a small amount of white whole wheat flour. (Gotta love the white wheat.)
There’s that old thing about the creative boost you get from limitations and scarcity, yeah? Well, the youngest kitchen helper went nuts for these. Oatmeal cookies, we’ve had before. But these?
Ingredients:
1/4 cup shortening or bacon drippings
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sifted flour (we used 1/2 all-purpose and 1/2 white whole wheat)
Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and the oats; add them to the creamed mixture. Roll small balls of dough (this part, the kids loved doing) between palms of hand until the surface is shiny. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 12-15 minutes.
While perusing the pantry looking for Sunday supper inspiration, I found a can of red kidney beans and a can of chickpeas. Not much to work with but it was something. Then I remembered the stewed tomatoes in the freezer from last tomato season… and the idea of chili took form.
I looked online for further inspiration and found this recipe on 101 Cookbooks. My recipe is modified from Heidi’s original but still produced a hearty, soul-satisfying vegetarian chili.
Ingredients
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3 cups of stewed tomatoes
5 cups vegetable broth
1 can chickpeas
1 can dark red kidney beans
1 teaspoon salt
In a large pot over medium heat, add the olive oil, onion, and shallots. When the onions soften up and get a bit translucent, add the garlic, salt, chili powder and cumin. Stir well and cook for a few minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and the vegetable broth. Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to simmer.
Simmer for at least 10 minutes and then add the chickpeas and kidney beans. Continue to simmer for another 25-30 minutes. If the chili is too thick, you can add water a little at a time until you have the consistency you like.
We served over white rice but you could also use brown rice or no rice at all. For toppings, use some chopped onion and, if your family’s like ours, some of them will really go for a few handfuls of shredded cheese.
Oh, and of course, this is even better when eaten taken to school or work the next day and eaten for lunch.
We have enjoyed a Sunday brunch – a fine brunch. An upstanding brunch. A brunch in which to take pride.
This began when we found this cookbook at the library that was inspired by the English food the kids eat in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden.
One of the very easiest things to make in the book is scones – but to serve them the traditional manner, one must have clotted cream and jam. One can find clotted cream at specialty stores or online. If one feels like a dairy adventure, there are also recipes online for creating a close approximation of proper clotted cream. We’re lucky to have a British Market nearby that sells it and now it seems like it’s going to become a regular item in our house. Its yumminess is addictive.
But yes, scones. One parent in our household rhymes them with “stones,” the other rhymes them with “cons.” This is not a dilemma for which we can reach a satisfactory resolution. The children have been affected, but then they eat one and the clouds pass from their brows.
Ingredients
Scones
2 cups flour, plus extra for dusting
2 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cold unsweetened butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup milk
Glaze
milk
2 tablespoons sugar
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Mix in the butter with your impeccably clean hands, just until the dough resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add the milk and again mix with your hands, until the dough is just moistened. Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Knead just until it comes together, about three or four times. Form into a ball. (The kids, by the way, loved mixing, kneading and playing with the dough – enough that they took some extra to play with while the rest was baking.)
Pat the dough ball out into a circle that is about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick.
Cut into 12 wedges or rounds.
With a spatula, place the pieces on an ungreased baking sheet. Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with sugar for the glaze.
Bake until lightly browned, 8-12 minutes. Serve immediately.
Guests split the scones open and enjoyed them with jam, marmalade and clotted cream.
We managed to save one or two to snack on while watching the film The Secret Garden, which had the children hypnotized.
As a variation for a doll’s tea party, cut the dough with a large thimble to make about 80 thimble scones. Bake for 5-7 minutes. Enjoy these with Very Small Friends.
, which had the children hypnotized.