Archive for the 'recipes' Category

Spam Upside Down Pie Recipe

Published on September 1, 2010 in Eating, Life and recipes. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

David is away on a fishing trip, Chloe is sick, neither of us got much sleep last night and I had Spam and eggs for breakfast. Yep, I said Spam. I know a lot of people have a problem with it, including my husband, which is why I rarely eat it. Sure, it is far from healthy and organic, but it brings back some good childhood memories. I actually like its meaty saltiness, in small, rare doses. I’m not even sure why we have a can in the cupboard, except I must have bought it on a whim, for a camping trip maybe? I can’t remember. You’d think that would make it pretty old, but the expiration date isn’t until 2013, which in itself is kind of suspicious. The last time I clearly remember eating Spam was in Hawaii during our Honeymoon in 2004.

Anyway, I was curious to read what wikipedia had to say about it and was tickled by the above Spam advertisement printed on the back cover of Time magazine on May 14, 1945. Is it weird that I’d love to try making a Spam Upside Down Pie? Except no one would eat it with me, which is too bad.

It’s kind of hard to read on the advertisement, but here’s the recipe:

The Original Spam Upside Down Pie

Line and 8-inch mold with Spam slices and fill with baking powder biscuit dough (prepared or home mixed) well laced with tiny cubes of Spam. Bake 40-45 min. at 425F. Turn it out on a platter, fill center with a tart cheese sauce (or one made with tomato or horseradish) and watch the family turn out and fill the table in a hurry!

Tart Cheese Sauce Recipe (from Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1946)

Blend 1/3 c. flour in 1/3 c. melted butter. Slowly stir in 2 1/4 c. milk. Heat and stir until thickened. Add 1/2 lb. grated American cheese, 1 tsp. prepared mustard, 1/8 tsp. Worcestershire, 1/4 tsp. lemon juice, 1/2 tsp salt. Cook in double boiler, stirring to make the mixture smooth, until cheese melts. Serve hot over a Spam Upside Down Pie.

Gooseberries!

Published on July 18, 2010 in Eating, Reading and recipes. 3 Comments Tags: , , , .

Look what I came home with! Have you seen these before? I hadn’t, and actually, since they weren’t signed, I didn’t even know what they were until I paid for them. Gooseberries! After reading Hungry Monkey (hilarious!) and now The Spice Necklace, I guess I’m feeling a little food adventurous.

So what, exactly is a gooseberry? Well, to me, it looks like a prehistoric grape, with a thicker, veined, and spiney skin (sort of like nettles). It also has a lot more seeds, and a somewhat sour flavor. They can be eaten raw, but most often I think they are cooked into desserts. In the end, I made a simple gooseberry syrup and used it to make a Gooseberry Fool (substituting sour cream for creme fraiche) and enjoyed the rest in a Gooseberry San Pellegrino soda.

Processing gooseberries takes some time. To make the syrup, you trim the top and bottom of each berry, and then slice it in half. Thankfully, they cook and mash down quickly, maybe 5-10 minutes. After straining out the seeds and skin, my pint of gooseberries yielded about one cup of syrup. Here are several gooseberry recipes that also look good:


Gingered Gooseberry Fool


Gooseberry Jam


Gooseberry Meringue Pie


Gooseberry Ginger Ale


Baked Gooseberry and Ginger Nut Cheesecake

Gooseberry streusel cake with elderflower syrup

Cashew Crusted Halibut

Published on April 5, 2010 in Eating and recipes. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Having the grandparents around to help with the baby frees up a lot more time for cooking. Thanks to a generous trip to Costco, we enjoyed a delicious Easter dinner of cashew-encrusted halibut, organic broccoli sauteed in toasted sesame oil and mashed potatoes. We slightly adapted this recipe and David cooked the fillets to a crunchy golden perfection.

Cashew Crusted Halibut
4-8 oz. Alaskan halibut Fillets (skinless)
2 eggs
1/4 C. water

Breading
1 3/4 C. Japanese “Panko” breadcrumbs
1 C. roasted cashews
1 tbsp. sesame seeds
Salt and pepper to taste
1 C. all-purpose flour

Crush the cashews in a food processor. Combine all breading ingredients in a bowl. Make egg wash with 2 eggs and 1/4 cup of water. Season Halibut with salt and pepper then dust with flour, dip in egg wash, and then in the breading. Sauté in canola oil over medium heat until golden on each side, then drain briefly on paper towels. Finish in a pre-heated 350-degree oven until internal temperature reaches 145 degrees.

A good resource for other ways to cook halibut can be found here.

Chocolate Chip Cookies :: Aussie-Style

Published on March 15, 2010 in Eating and recipes. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Every once in a while I get a hankering for a spoonful of sweetened-condensed milk straight from the can. My husband thinks its gross, and maybe it is, but I love the creamy sweetness of it. Afterward, I have almost a whole can left, so what to do? Sometimes, it goes in the fridge to be added to coffee, Vietnamese-style, or sometimes I’ll make a dessert with it, like 7-layer bars. But this last time I wondered about adding sweetened condensed milk to chocolate chip cookies. Turns out the Australians beat me to it, and they are delicious (both the Australians and the cookies). :-)

In this recipe, the sweetened condensed milk acts as a substitute for eggs, and turns out a cookie with a finer crumb, more crispy than crunchy, with good flavor. The original recipe can be found here on Nestle’s site, but I’ve adapted it below the way I made it, with American-style measurements. I used my favorite Trader Joe’s organic sweetened condensed milk.

Australian Chocolate Chip Cookies
(about 36 cookies)

15 Tbs butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1 1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (basically 4 big handfuls)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line oven trays with parchment paper.

2. Cream butter and sugar together and then then beat in the sweetened condensed milk.

3. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in a separate bowl and then mix it into the above mixture until combined.

4. Add in the chocolate chips.

4. Spoon rounded tablespoons of mixture onto prepared trays, allowing room to spread.

5. Bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned around the bottom edges and golden on top.

Valentine Idea: Day 12 – Wow Factor Desserts

Published on February 12, 2010 in holiday and recipes. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Wow Factor Desserts – Wouldn’t one of these gorgeous desserts make a perfect ending to a well-thought- out Valentine menu? I know I would be impressed!


Frozen Strawberry Souffles


Big Love Butterscotch Cookie


Berry Sweet Bouquet

Valentine Idea: Day 6 – Sweetheart Treats

Published on February 6, 2010 in holiday and recipes. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Sweatheart Treats – These recipes look super yummy and make a lovely presentation. I wish I could just reach into the computer and take a bite…


Raspberry Meringue Hearts


Creamy Fudge Hearts


Cookie Cutter Leche Flan

The Most Amazing Buttermilk Chocolate Cake *Update*

Published on November 19, 2009 in Eating and recipes. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I made this buttermilk chocolate cake again this past week. A perfectly wet and dreary week called for a little bit of baking to cheer the place up. Although, not wanting too much of a good thing, I decided to halve the recipe this time and used a 9×13 glass pan at 330 degrees instead. Then I sliced it in half and squared the edges for a double-layer cake. The ganache frosting got poured directly over the top with just a little smoothing at the end. Nothing too fussy, just simple, chocolatey goodness.

Garden Fresh Tomato Basil Soup

Published on September 2, 2009 in Eating, Garden and recipes. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Compared to last year, we’re having much better luck with tomatoes in the garden this year. We’ve got one each of Roma, Marzano, and Early Girl, plus a few volunteer cherries, which I believe are Sun Gold. Mostly we eat the tomatoes sliced (except the cherries, which we just pop in our mouths), sometimes with salad dressing, topped with a bit of feta and herbs, or simply a dash of salt and pepper.

David spent a portion of the afternoon working in our barely accessible crawl space putting up insulation, and when he came out he said he couldn’t wait to see what delicious meal I was going to cook up for dinner (hint, hint). So, considering the fact we haven’t gone grocery shopping in a while, there wasn’t much to work with except the garden.

In a big pot, I sauteed a yellow onion in olive oil until somewhat clear, then threw in maybe 4-6 cups of chopped tomatoes, 2 cups of chicken stock and a loose handful of chopped basil. It simmered about 30 minutes or so, before I added salt and pepper and pureed it in a blender.  Then I strained it through a fine mesh sieve to remove any lingering tomato skins. Before serving I added a dollop of heavy cream and a drizzle of balsamic glaze. Paired with just-baked cornbread (packaged Trader Joe’s is my easy favorite), it was good to the last drop.

Fast food cupcakes by Bakerella

Published on June 17, 2009 in Eating, recipes and tutorials. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

….

Aren’t these hamburger shaped cupcakes fantastic? And check out those sugar cookie french fries! Bakerella has an awesome tutorial complete with download and print packaging templates. If I thought they’d get eaten around here I would definitely give it a try for Father’s Day. Which makes me wonder… does anyone know of a tutorial for fly fishing themed cupcakes?
Via Twig & Thistle

Green Tomato Recipes

Published on November 5, 2008 in Garden and recipes. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Green Tomato Soup from epicurious.com and Fried Green Tomatoes from allrecipes.com

We are definitely in the midst of fall. The cloudy, rainy days have come, bringing along the chill wind and damp cold. The grass has greened back up, but many of the other plants and flowers are struggling to take their final breath. Most everything in our vegetable garden is done, except for a few evergreen herbs, some straggler carrots, one last zucchini and our poor tomato plants, heavy with unripened fruit.

In the hopes of using up some of our green tomatoes before the first frost, I’ve been looking for some good recipes. Last night we tried Green Tomato Soup, which was actually delicious despite my initial skepticism. I used bacon instead of ham, and also added a small zucchini. I’ll probably make another batch of it today. (Edit: Actually, instead I made the Green Tomato Spice Cake which turned out also surprisingly good. Moist and tasty. I omitted the raisins, and reduced the sugar by a 1/2 cup because someone in the recipes’ comment section said it was very sweet. For fun, I also made the cream cheese frosting from the other cake recipe. Very good!)

Here are some other green tomato recipes I’ve bookmarked to try:

Fried Green Tomato, Mozzarella and Basil BLTs
Green Tomato Spice Cake
Green Tomato Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Baked Green Tomato Casserole
Broiled Green Tomatoes with Goat Cheese (or Feta)
Best Fried Green Tomatoes
Green Tomato Soup

Does anyone else have any good green tomato recipes to share?

Almost a month later…

Published on October 5, 2008 in Baby, Eating, Life, pregnancy and recipes. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The delicious appetizers table. Love the diaper cake center piece (a link on how to make a
similar one can be found under the Baby Craft Tutorial Roundup tab at the top).

Asparagus Gruyere Tart recipe from Martha Stewart

One of two yummy cakes, a chocolate and a carrot cake.

It has been almost a month since my last post. Sometimes it is so hard to get back into the swing of things. Lots has happened this past month. The biggest was having an unforgettable baby shower. My friends and family are just so sweet and generous. David’s mom flew in from Colorado to help us start to pull our nursery together. That week was full of painting, sorting through baby clothes, choosing some decorating fabric (Alexander Henry’s Kleo Sage), and trip to Ikea for a much needed bookshelf, dresser, and storage bins. Sandy even made us an awesome crib skirt while she was here, so we could hide boxes in the extra space beneath the crib.  Honestly, with only 8 weeks before baby, I think we are mostly prepared. At least with baby stuff. The emotionally and physically part, I’m still working on.

Recipes I'm loving… too much

Published on September 7, 2008 in Eating, pregnancy and recipes. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Easy Apple Crisp (see below for recipe)

Okay, truly, this week I vow to try and start eating healthier and to stop gaining so much weight. Although I’m not technically “overweight” (yet often feel that way), I have definitely gained on the higher end of the recommended amount. And I certainly do not want to birth a ginormous baby. You know what I’m saying? I just want to plateau on all this weight from here on out. (Special thanks to everyone who left a comment on this post. I’ve heard that breastfeeding helps to melt off those post-partum pounds, but at this point, I’m nervous about relying on something I’ve never done before :-) )

That said, I’ve realized a big part of my problem is an abundance of ripe, luscious summer fruit, particularly berries, apples, and peaches. So of course I was making all kinds of delectable goodies. Just for fun, here are three recipes that we’ve really been loving:

Blueberry Lemon Sour Cream Cake. This was by far the best tasting cake I’ve made all year. I used the Sour Cream Lemon Cake recipe, but added slightly less white sugar and a cup of blueberries. Then I followed the directions for the lemon butter glaze. Every bite was divine, and we were seriously sad when it was all gone.

Homemade Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream. I’ve tried before to make a creamy egg-based vanilla, but it was time consuming, frustrating and didn’t turn out well. Now I mostly just stick to making simple fruit sorbets. This recipe, however, didn’t call for any eggs or cooking, just creams, peppermint extract, chopped or mini-chocolate chips, and a can of sweetened condensed milk (I LOVE this stuff. I can eat it straight out of the can with a spoon). This recipe made more than my cuisinart ice cream maker could handle, so I’ll be halving it next time. And I’m sure there will be a next time.

Easy Fruit Crisp (see below). This is my tried and true recipe for any fruit we happen to have. It is quick, easy, and uncomplicated (no fancy crust to worry about). I’ve had success using both fresh and frozen mixed berries, fresh apples, blueberries, and peaches. With really juicy/wet fruit like peaches, it is a good idea to stir in 2 to 4 tablespoons of flour, so you don’t end up with soup. It also doesn’t matter how much fruit you use, except that the ratio of topping to filling changes. David and I love extra topping, so I usually double that part of the recipe.

Filling:
Up to 5 cups of fresh or frozen fruit
2 to 4 tablespoons sugar

Topping:

1/2 cup regular rolled oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

1) Thaw fruit, if frozen, and then place in a baking dish. Stir in 2 to 4 tablespoons of sugar to taste (optional).

2) For crisp topping, combine oats, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in nuts (optional). Sprinkle topping over filling.

3) Bake in a 375 degree oven for 30-35 minutes or until fruit is tender and
topping is golden. Serve warm with ice cream or light cream. Serves 6.

Fresh fruit and cream meringue pavlova

Published on June 21, 2008 in Eating and recipes. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This is the dessert I made yesterday – a layered meringue with a freshly whipped lemon cream filling topped with vanilla whipped cream and garnished with fresh organic fruit. I made the meringue layers using this recipe, but instead made two 8″ circles. Then, using a pint of heavy whipping cream, I made a batch of freshly whipped cream, which I divided into two bowls. The first bowl was for the filling. I added about a half a jar of lemon curd and about a 1/3 cup of sour cream and mixed it all together. The second bowl was for the topping, to which I added only some Swedish vanilla sugar (from Ikea) and some regular powdered sugar, until it was slightly sweet, enough to balance the tartness of the lemon cream. Then I decorated the top with freshly sliced strawberries and blueberries.

This dessert got rave reviews (and requests for second helpings), but I made a tactical error in assembling it too early. In order to keep the meringue crisp, this dessert should be assembled just before eating. Otherwise the meringues become soft, just like the whipped cream layers. It didn’t alter the taste, but the texture was all creamy, no crunch. I think if I decide to make this dessert again and want to do it ahead of time, I’ll scoop the creams and fruit into individual cups, and then top with a piece of crisp meringue, right before serving.

Garden Fresh Rhubarb & Meringue

Published on May 20, 2008 in Eating, Garden and recipes. 7 Comments Tags: .

This is our first year harvesting stalks from our three rhubarb plants. We planted them from root stock early last year, and were advised to let them just grow on their own, untouched for the first year. Unknowingly, the rhubarb variety I chose is called Victoria, which produces “medium-sized stalks, excellent in quality and flavor.” What disappointed me at first, though, was that this rhubarb turned out to be green and not red, like I had come to expect from grocery stores and farmer’s markets.

So far I’ve only made strawberry rhubarb crisps with our plants, but yesterday I was feeling a little more creative and decided to make meringues. I’ve always admired these (the crispy kind, not to gooey soft kind) as cookies and in cakes, but have never made them myself. I was surprised at how few ingredients were needed, and how a mere two egg whites could whip up to be more than triple its original size.

My original idea was to pour a strawberry rhubarb dessert mixture into the bottom of individual ramekins and then top them with “lids” of meringue. However, even though I traced the ramekins containers faithfully onto my parchment as a template, the meringue disks ended up spreading out larger than the mouths of the ramekins. Instead we just placed a meringue on a small dessert plate and ladled some of the strawberry rhubarb sauce on top. Sweet, sour, rich, light, crispy and delicious!

I used the meringue section of this recipe and saved myself the work by using our Kitchen Aid mixer with the whip attachment. Although, the process still takes some patience, because it takes over 2 hours from start to finish.

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