Happy Easter!

Thursday - prequel - Christ is arrested. Throughout the night is passed around to be judged and beaten.
Friday - Day 1 - He is sentenced to death, beaten some more, carried His cross. Is hung from it and died in the most heinous fashion. He dies - He descends into hell - which in true definition is a place without God. "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
Saturday - Day 2 - Is the Sabbath Day. All is silent.
Sunday - Day 3 - Christ is RISEN! Our salvation has been obtained through the fulfillment of scripture.

Easter is celebrated around the world. Some places it is done openly with great gatherings and to do. In other places, it is done secretly at great personal risk. Somewhere along the line at least in the U.S., it has become a traditional meal with ham. I don't know why. If you have the answer, please feel free to share. I have made many hams over the years, looked at many recipes. My mom was a guilty as I am with my children and we weren't in the kitchen when she cooked it. All I knew was pineapple and brown sugar. Not very imaginative and it was always a crapshoot. There have been good hams, some okay hams, and where did I go wrong hams. So, in honor of this blog project I went to search out a better way. I checked all of my usual recipe haunts, thought maybe I have enough info to fudge my own together, but then I came across this one recipe and then I knew. I must say, it was the BEST ham I have ever made! So, thank you Samantha at Five Heart Home. It really was quite simple, I only made half a ham, 'cause really... there was just the four of us. There are several types of ham out there. Who knew? Keep this in mind when searching for your perfect recipe. The size and the type will make a difference in your cooking method. We always end up with the precooked picnic ham. So, here is the recipe (halved from the original):

Ingredients

• Half of fully cooked ham, approximately 3.5 to 4 pounds 
• 1 cup pineapple juice (I just drained the juice from a can of pineapples - it was just shy.)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard (I used Spicy Brown mustard)
• 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 can sliced pineapple (not part of the original recipe, but my husband loves his candied pineapple)

So, here's what you do. Pour the pineapple juice in the bottom of your slow cooker. Mix your brown sugar, mustard, balsamic vinegar, and honey into a paste. Rub the paste on the outside of the ham. Use toothpicks to place the pineapple slices to the ham. Place into the slow cooker on low for three to four hours. The internal temperature needs to be at 140 degrees. Contrary to my early years of cooking ideas, you can burn things in your slow cooker. Once it is complete, pour the juices into a small sauce pan and add your cornstarch, mixed with water. Using a whisk, cook down to a glaze. This can be used as a dipping sauce or poured onto the ham directly. Next time, I will get it together sooner so I can do the tip of placing it under the broiler for about five minutes to crystalize the sugars. The ham itself was juicy and tender. I don't think I'll ever put in the oven again. 

My side dishes for my dinner included the mashed potatoes that I made last week. I have signed off on the canned parmesan, I have decide to shred my own after seeing a report on additives added to your canned parmesan. I also made sweet potatoes, carrot souffle, and dinner rolls. 

My sweet potatoes, I started from scratch pealing my potatoes about three large ones and boiling just as I would my regular russets. Boil them until they are about al-dente. Otherwise known as not soft, but not so hard that you can't bite into it. Place your sweet potatoes into two to three quart casserole, add about a 1/4 cup butter cut into small pieces, a quarter cup brown sugar and then cover with marshmallows. I personally do not believe you need that many, but my husband insists that if he can see the potatoes under the marshmallows there is not enough. Place them in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. By this time the sweet potatoes should be soft and marshmallows golden brown. 

My carrot souffle, I found the recipe a couple of years ago for another holiday. 

Ingredients

• 2 lbs carrots - chop, cook, and mash (make sure you have a lot of time - it seems to take forever. My sister-in-law says a teaspoon of baking soda in the water will do the trick, but I haven't tried it)
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 T flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 3 eggs beaten

Mix mashed carrots with rest of the ingredients and place in a 2 quart casserole dish. Bake for 40 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven.

I added dinner rolls, using my usual recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. The recipe is the same in each edition that I own. 

Ingredients

• 4 1/2-5 cups flour
• 1 pkg dry yeast (2 3/4 tsp)
• 1 cup warm milk
• 1/3 sugar
• 1/3 softened butter
• 1 t salt (I skip this making all true cooks and chefs cringe)
• 2 eggs

I placed all of the ingredients into my bread maker on the dough setting. As much as I try, I can't seem to get consistency right, I always end up on the heavy side. This time in the bread maker it was perfect. After it completed its cycle, I rolled them into rosettes and let them rise for another 30 minutes until doubled. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes until golden. Since the recipe calls for 1/3 cup butter, I took the remainder of the stick (2 1/3 T) melted it added a half teaspoon of garlic powder and shredded about an ounce of parmesan cheese to it and brushed it on to the warm buns. I must say, (forgive me mother) they were better than my moms. The topping made all of the difference.

Then there was dessert. Yeah, it was a busy day and I got tired. So, I had my daughter make something. I did a lot of searching, trying to find a new recipe. Supposedly, coconut cake has become a standard for Easter. At risk of offending all of you that love coconut, why ruin something good by adding coconut. 

Sam made blondes with pastel colored m&ms. I made sundaes by adding vanilla ice cream and caramel topping. 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups M&M candies

Blend the butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla until creamy. Add flour, baking powder, and flour beating in until smooth. Mix in m&m's. Bake in a greased 9"x13" pan for 23-25 minutes at 350 degrees. If I had read the directions myself, I would have realized that it supposed to look a little doughy when you pull it out. Needless to say, mine was over cooked and quite hard once it cooled. 

For movies to watch for your family theme, we watched The Passion of the Christ. A little heavy and not really for all audiences. More family friendly chooses would be Narnia and Hop.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Yeah, I know it was Thursday, but our theme night is Saturday.

A little background, I went to the Catholic Church to find out more about Ireland's patron saint, St. Patrick. I've heard something about him casting snakes out of Ireland. Hey, anyone that gets rid of snakes is a saint to me. Unfortunately, there was not any mention of it on the web page. What I did find was that he was never actually officially canonized, but early christians declared him a saint. I would encourage you to read about his life, it sounds like a great novel. He's associated with the shamrock due to referencing it in his explanation of the trinity.

Let's talk food. I must say I was greatly disappointed in my search for Irish foods. For one, apparently in the US, if it has Irish Cream Whiskey, Stout Beer, or green, it must be Irish. If this is so, if it has Jim Beam or Jack Daniels then it is American? Then, my search also pulled up Welsh, Scottish, English, and Yorkshire. In full disclosure, the furthest I've been out of the US is Canada and you can correct me if I'm wrong. This is the same as calling Chicago style pizza, Southern Cooking. Thank you for listening to me vent.

For dinner, I cooked Shepherds Pie and Irish Soda Bread. For dessert, I found a traditional Irish Lemon Pudding. I've made this Shepherds Pie recipe so often I don't even open the cookbook, Better Homes and Gardens, 1985 edition and it is listed as Hamburger Pie. I admit, this is not a traditional recipe. It uses soup and frozen vegetables. I do make it a little different than the recipe calls for. For example the original recipe calls for instant potatoes. Sorry, can NOT do it.

1 lb ground beef (I use a 96/4 ground beef)
1 onion (diced, if using a sweet onion only half - or about 1/2 to 1 cup)
1 clove garlic crushed
16 ounce package of frozen mixed vegetables
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp ground thyme
1 can tomato or cheese soup
ground pepper to taste

mashed potatoes (4-5 medium sized potatoes, 1/2 cup milk & 1/2 Parmesan cheese)

1 cup of shredded cheese

I usually start cooking my potatoes first. They will usually be done cooking at about the time you will need to mash them and place them on top of the meat. Cook your diced onions in a little oil or butter until slightly caramelized, add, and brown ground beef. Once the meat is fully cooked add the pepper, thyme, and mixed vegetables. Mix the vegetables into the meat, this prevents clumping of the vegetables when you through about a 1/4 cup of water on top. Cover and simmer for about 10-15 minutes to cook the vegetable. Once the vegetables are soft, add the can of soup. I've made it with both the cheese and tomato soup, both are good. The cheese soup is going to be higher in fat and calories. Transfer the meat and vegetable mixture into a 3-4 quart casserole dish, place mashed potatoes and shredded cheese on top. Place into a 375 F degree oven, bake for 25 minutes. If preparing ahead of time, it should be in the oven for 45 minutes.

The Irish Soda Bread (The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, copyright 1973, The Harvest Corporation, pg 426)

4 cups all-purpose flour
3 T sugar
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
3/4 t baking soda
6 T butter or margarine
1 1/2 cup raisin
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degree. Grease 2 quart round casserole dish. Mix dry ingredients with a fork and cut in butter with pastry cutter until it resembles coarse crumbs. I skipped the salt and used salted butter.
Slightly beat eggs and reserve about a tablespoon prior to adding to the buttermilk (I actually substituted the buttermilk with sour milk). Mix the wet ingredients with the dry until flour is moistened. It will be sticky. Turn onto a floured surface, knead about 10 strokes to mix thoroughly. Shape the dough into a ball, place into casserole, cut a 4 inch cross about 1/4 deep into dough, and brush dough with reserved egg yolk.

Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool in dish on wire rack for 10 minutes: remove from dish and cool completely on rack. I ended up cooking it for almost an hour before it was done. My husband still said that it tasted slightly doughy, but at the end of the night there was only one piece left. He later said it was really just a large scone.

For dessert, I made the Traditional Irish Lemon Pudding. That is after I went to two McDonald's for Shamrock Shakes for my husband. Yeah, I know the only thing that makes it Irish is the name and that it's green. It's recipes like this that I really do appreciate specifics. The recipe below is for a double recipe.

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar (see notes below)
4 eggs separated (if you are unsure of yourself when separating eggs - use one dish/cup to drop your whites in, then upon successful separation add to the rest of your egg whites to prevent contamination with a failed separation. Also, if you get a shell in it, use a moistened finger for retrieval.)
1 cup flour
4 Lemons zested and juiced (see notes below)
2 1/2 cups milk

Cream butter and sugar, add egg yolks one at a time. Mix in flour, lemon zest, lemon juice, milk.
In a separate dish, whip egg whites into stiff peaks. Carefully fold egg whites into your lemon mix. Pour into a 9 inch springform pan with a pan under it to catch any seepage. I always use a wide rimmed pizza pan under my springform pan. You can also use a nine inch round cake pan. Bake in a preheated oven for 40 minutes.

Garnish with whip cream (definitely needed to break some of the bite) and powdered sugar.

Without specific amounts, it did make it a little challenging. Four Lemons - the amount of zest and juice can truly vary depending on the size. I did double the recipe and ended up after researching about how that much it is, I used 1/4 cup of zest and 3/4 cups of juice. In the end, I think it was too much zest and not enough of sugar. It does have a sour bite. I would decrease the zest to about 1/8 cup (2T) zest and increase the sugar to a full cup for a double recipe.

I would also add, do not be alarmed at it being thinner than a batter consistency.

When it's baked, it has a very light (lighter than angel food cake) cake on top of the more pudding below. This is where using the spring form pan a little of a challenge.

Mine baked for 45 minutes before it appeared set or mostly firm on top.

For your movie, there are several Irish films. The one that comes to mind is Michael Collins with Liem Neeson.

Next week Easter! So, yeah ham, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, rolls, veggies, and I haven't decided on dessert yet. Really, with all of the candy, do you need a dessert? Thoughts?

Alfred Hitchcock Day

This weekend there was not an obvious call out. What happened this weekend? Well, I thought about a Coca Cola theme, it was on March 12, 1894 that bottled Coke was first sold. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was first published, and National Alfred Hitchcock Day.

I've always found Alfred Hitchcock kind of fascinating. It's commonly known that the blood in the original Psycho movie, was really chocolate syrup. What I didn't realize was that food was often a prop for Hitchcock's films. I found several pages that talk about the relationship between food and the storyline in his films. It was used draw your attention to and from subtle context. No one knows how March 12 was determined to honor the great director. He was born in August and died in April. But anyway, I went with the movie Psycho. We have chicken sandwiches, American fries, and ice cream with homemade chocolate syrup for dessert.

Yeah, I cheated a little bit, with bought pumpernickel bread and ice cream, but hey, I didn't want to spend the day in the kitchen. I also, could have made a fancy mayonnaise and didn't. Yup, lazy.

Let's talk sandwich, in the movie Psycho, Marian Cane sits down to eat with Norman Bates for dinner and has a sandwich, where Norman accuses her of eating like a bird. I'm not sure what kind of sandwich it was or what was on it. So, I set out to make a very tasty chicken sandwich. I dunked my chicken breast (should have marinated it, but I was running late and the crew was hungry) in a half cup of balsamic vinegar mixed with some rosemary. I then cooked in my iron skillet on medium heat for about 7-10 minutes on each side. Slicked my chicken up, placed it on my pumpernickel bread, with 2% milk cheddar cheese slices, with bacon, lettuce, and mayonnaise. I regret that I forget to pick up a tomato from the store. My husband and daughter had onion and Swiss cheese on theirs. The chicken breast in the balsamic vinegar was a new one for me. I've using it more and more as of late, it does add a bit of sweet tang flavor. Both my husband and daughter said the rosemary was a little much on theirs. I think it is just one of those herbs that they are not used to because I've on just started using it in the last little bit.

The American fries are thinly sliced potatoes that I used a slicer for and just deep fried. I'm still wondering about my deep fryer, they came out very greasy and not crisp for some reason. I didn't season them, trying to decrease our sodium intake.

Now, my truly new experiment, homemade chocolate syrup. I found several recipes for it using my newest go to site, Yummly.com. I like Yummly, because it searches the web and pulls recipes from several sites. This includes sites from other countries and my former favorite, Allrecipes.com. Anyway, I egress. The general gist of all the the recipes for chocolate syrup were the same, cocoa powder, water, sugar, and vanilla. I went with one cup of cocoa, 1 1/2 cup sugar, 1 1/2 cup water, and a teaspoon of vanilla. Bought it to boil and boiled it for 2-5 minutes until thickened. It made about two cups. According to the research it did on our dear friend Alfred, he often finished a meal with ice cream. I just took up to an ice cream sundae to make it extra yummy. I used vanilla and strawberry ice creams with strawberries, chocolate syrup and whipped topping.

Nothing really over the top, but some days I just do not want to spend the whole day cooking. It is great opportunity to interest your kids to the classics. There are so many great Hitchcock films to choose from. He was more about suspense than gore.

Thank you for reading and accepting my excuses. Next week, it is Saint Patrick's day. My husband is asking for some Shepherd's Pie and shakes.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Yes, it is March. With the month of March comes many things. For those of you with school age children you know that it is Reading Month and the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to us as Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss was born on March 2nd. It would be easy to do the Green Eggs and Ham, which I have done in the past. I've also done the Lorax pancakes. Since I just did a breakfast meal a couple of weeks ago, I thought I would go a different direction. So, upon much research of books and others themes I have decided to cook a roast beast (How the Grinch Stole Christmas), I added some Lorax trees, broccoli, orange colored mash potatoes, Dr. Seuss inspired three layer cake, and pink ink drink (as given to us in One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish). I almost forgot, my Hortan ear buns.



For our roast beast, aka Beef Pot Roast, I decided not to pull out my same old same old recipe. Because, isn't this whole endeavor about trying new things? I used about three pounds of bottom round in my slow cooker. I placed in the cooker for about seven hours on low. I added the ingredients for Cherry Balsamic Vinegar reduction sauce. The recipe came from a local olive oil shop. It includes, one cup of frozen dark sweet cherries, 1/3 cup dry red wine, 1/3 cup cherry balsamic vinegar, three shallots (which I forgot to pick up in the store, I just used a cup of sweet onion) pepper to taste, and a large clove of garlic minced. Can I just say, it was really good. My husband was ready to pull out the ketchup as he usually does, and decided that he didn't need it. It had a very slight fruit flavor. I added some carrots to it, not sure how it would go over. My daughter, wasn't a fan of the carrot. I thought they were alright, but the flavor doesn't lend itself well to the vegetables. This is okay, because as I have said before sometime when it comes to the slow cooker, everything tastes kind of the same.

As for the mashed potatoes, I took five white potatoes, pealed and boiled them. What I have learned about cooking potatoes over the last 20 plus years is this, dice them up small for them to cook faster. Not too small, if they cook too fast they end up soaking up too much water and taste that way. I added one cup of 2% cheddar cheese and milk. I'm hesitant to say how much milk, because I just poured some in. I should have had more milk. They ended up being a little dry. You can add orange food coloring if you want to make them orange.

For the Hortan ears, I used my favorite dinner roll recipe from Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. The recipe has been the same in all three versions that I have. I tried deep frying one, but even though it was brown on the outside and floating, it was raw in the inside. A fail. Fortunately, I baked the rest. To make the ear shape, I made them in a rosette. I rolled pieces of the dough like I used to have kids do to make snakes with clay. I tied them in knots, then wrapped the ends around to make the round shape. When they came out of the oven, I brushed them with three tablespoons of melted butter, mixed with garlic, oregano, basil, and onion flakes.

To drink, we had pink ink drink, aka Nestle Quik strawberry milk. My husband and daughter loved it so much they almost through the whole container in two days.

For dessert, we had a three layer cake. Two white cake mixes, with milk instead of water to make a more moist and flavorful cake and food coloring to make it great Dr. Seuss colors. I got lazy and didn't spend the five minutes to cut wax paper circles to lay at the bottom of the cake pans to ensure the cakes do not stick to the bottom of the pan. There was left over batter that I used for cupcakes. The frosting consisted of a container of store bought (my husband prefers it to anything that I make. :(), then sweetened condensed milk, a half cup of butter and a bag of white chocolate chips. Melt the condensed milk, butter, chips and stir until smooth. At first it seemed really thin and I was concerned, but after I let it cool and then whipped it some more, miraculously something happened, I walked away from mixer trying to think of something to thicken it and I came back and it was still stuck the beater and didn't drip down.

I made a pasty cream filling. The recipe came from the Joy of Cooking, 75th anniversary addition published 2006 copyright by Scribner a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. The recipe can be found on page 755. The thing I like about the recipes found in this cookbook are a joy to cook. It has complete explanations and directions for the recipe. The index has sections listing ethnic and holiday recipes. Because it is complete, it's a little long for this format and I'll give condensed instructions. For the novice cook, I would recommend going out and buying the cookbook. There are not any pictures, so, if you're like me and just enjoys looking at the pictures and dreaming of making it (knowing you probably won't, but it's fun to dream), you have to visualize what it's supposed to look like. The recipe is as follows:

1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp corn starch
4 egg yolks

Beat on high until thick and pale yellow.

Take 1 1/3 cup milk and bring to simmer in a medium sauce pan. Add about one third of the milk into the egg yolks mixture and whisk until blended (this will bring the eggs to temperature without cooking them). Add the egg mixture to rest of the milk and cook on low to medium heat, whisking constantly making sure to reach bottom and corners. I want to add here to make sure you have a slightly smaller whisk to get into the corners and get all of the bottom. Failure to do this will cause it scald and make brown spots and lumps in your filling. Continue until it is thick and starting to bubble, cook for an additional 45 to 60 seconds. Add a 3/4 teaspoon of vanilla. Place in a clean bowl and cool. You can place parchment, wax paper, or plastic wrap on the top to prevent the nasty skin on top. Once cool you can place the filling between layers and frost.

When assembling the cake, you may want to use some skewers to keep it together. Mine was slipping of by the end of the night after we cut into it. The cake itself was moist and very sweet. Plain glass of milk or ice cream is needed to break the sweet slightly. The pastry filling also helped break a little bit of the sweet.

There you have it, a Dr. Seuss meal. My husband said that he felt like it was Thanksgiving for how much he ate.

John Steinbeck's Birthday

This week we honored John Steinbeck's birthday on February 27th. If you're not aware, John Steinbeck was the author of works such as Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. I read Grapes of Wrath several years ago, what do I remember about it? It took place during the Great Depression and it was quite depressing. Sorry, about the pun. It is a great learning opportunity to teach about great literature and a very difficult time of our history.


I found some great web sites discussing the life of those during that time period from the Business Insider, Great Depression Cooking, the Survival Mom. So, what did I gain? Based on the Business Insider's article, my mom still cooks in the same way as her parents did during the Depression. We ate cheap meals during the week, breakfast meals, tuna fish with cream of mushroom soup and peas over toast? Then we had the big roast beef and potatoes meal on Sunday. I also decided that I wouldn't subject my family to ketchup sandwiches.


I struggled with the menu until Thursday, when my oldest said, hobo pies. OK, not very politically correct. But regardless, this was the time of Hoovervilles and great homelessness. For the main course, I made Hobo Sacks and baked apples for dessert. 

The Hobo Sacks were OK, I made some with red potatoes, some with sweet potato, and some with french fries. They were OK. I seasoned the hamburgs, but could have added more seasoning. As with many foods that are cooked together, it all seemed to have the same flavor. On the plus side, it was easy both cooking and cleanup.


The baked apples, have a lot of recipes out there. It can be more updated with the things that you put in it. It's basically a cored apple, stuffed with yummy stuff and baked in the oven. I put brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter; some had raisins in it. I used two types of apples, Fiji and Macintosh. I'm not sure these were the best choices. The Fiji apples were cooked a little less at the end on 20 minutes at 350 degrees. The Macintosh apples just fell apart. I'm not sure about the bottom of the core. If I completely cored it, it made it a hole through the apple. If you don't go all the way through, then there is still some core you need to deal with when you're eating it. I guess that is why when I fake them in the microwave, I just peel it and cut it up, add the toppings, nuke it, and call it a day. Modern toppings can be marshmallows, other dried fruit, caramel, oatmeal, granola, and nutmeg.

With that being said, movie choice any John Steinbeck film. The most popular, Grapes of Wrath.

Presidents Day

Finally getting to the end of the days and events backlog. So, I'm a few days late. Anyways, I found a great website that talks about foods that past presidents like to eat. There some that are pretty common knowledge or foods that we just relate to different presidents. These are cherries for Washington, peanuts for Carter, jelly beans for Regan, and definitely not broccoli for Bush Senior. But, we don't know much more beyond that so this website was pretty helpful.

The food I chose to make for this meal represent the first three presidents (George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson) and Abraham Lincoln. It was his birthday this month.  John Adams tastes were really quite simple and was known for serving veal, bacon, and neck of mutton. So, we have bacon and why wouldn't one serve bacon if he had a chance. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson liked to travel and try new things? In fact, while in Holland, he had waffles for the first time. He liked them so much he bought a waffle maker and brought waffles to the U.S. Thanks Tom! What goes great with bacon? Waffles. Then we add some cherry sauce on top and now the first three presidents are represented. For dessert, find that Lincoln had fond memories of gingerbread. Now, the story refers to gingerbread men, but I can not bring myself to make them in February. So, I made a spicy gingerbread to try something new.

Let's talk the recipes. Bacon is bacon. I did follow the advice on one web page for making the perfect bacon in the oven. I am picky about my bacon, crisp but not burnt. I baked it on a sheet at 375, turning at 15 minutes and leaving it for another 15 as instructed. It took longer for my liking. I do NOT like undercooked bacon.

For the waffles, I had some expired half and half in the fridge and decided to try a Classic Buttermilk Waffle. As a disclaimer, I must add that I do have issues with waffle makers. My first waffle in any batch always turns out as a scrambled waffle sticking to the iron. Not sure if it's not hot enough, greased enough, or just not cooked long enough. Suggestions? The recipe turned out tasting good. I did add additional flour, because it seemed thin. I really need to spend sometime analyzing the flavor and texture while I'm eating it to give a better review. Please forgive me. I'm new at this.

Tart Cherry Sauce

I tried two cherry sauce recipes, one using tart cherry and the other using sweet. I must say the Tart Cherry Sauce did taste better to me than the Sweet Cherry Sauce. In the end my family was in different to both saying that they were OK. It had either to do with the brandy that was added or that were just used to what came in a can. But hey, I'm stretching my skill base either way. The sauce using the tart cherries, I didn't have any orange liquor; I used some zest of orange and brandy. The sauce thickened up nicely and was fairly easy. The sauce using the sweet cherries didn't go as well. The directions were not clear as to when to add ingredients. It included salt, which I skipped, because I really didn't see the need. It said to toss cherries in salt and then cook down. It didn't tell me when to add anything else until a small amount of cornstarch which I increased when the mixture wasn't thickening, because the directions weren't complete, this is what I recommend:



Sweet Cherry Sauce

I left out the salt and added the sugar tossing the cherries in that. I would add a tablespoon of water and the brandy, then cook it down until cherries are soft and liquid. Mix a tablespoon of cornstarch and two tablespoons of water until the cornstarch is dissolved and add to the sauce for thickening purposes. Bring it to a boil and then simmer until thickened. You can add more brandy and the lemon juice if you feel it is needed.

As I said previously, I made Spicy Gingerbread for dessert. I have never made one before, so for my recipe I went into my archives of cookbooks. I don't know about you, but I love cookbooks. Not that I make every recipe in them, but I just love to look at them and imagine. I might even get this from my mom. My mom loves to go to this thrift shop called Bibles for Mexico. I think that is where she picked this one up that she gave to me. It's The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, published in 1962 by the Harvest Corporation. I like old cookbooks, because they don't try to be highbrow. No strange ingredients that you can't find at the local grocery store. The Spicy Gingerbread recipe can be found on page 535, if you have the book in your possession. The recipe follows:

Spicy Gingerbread

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour1 cup molasses
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1 cup boiling water


Early in the day (I love it, every recipe in this book starts this way.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour one 9-inch square cake pan. Into a large bowl, measure all ingredients; with mixer at low speed, beat until well mixed, constantly scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Beat at medium speed 3 minute, occasionally scraping bowl. Pour batter into pan and bake 55 to 60 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on wire rack. Makes 1 small cake.

The recipe goes on to recommends some frosting recipes, but I just sifted some powdered sugar on top and added whipped cream. This was different. It is NOT a sweet cake. It's not like any cake that I've made before. It has a very strong flavor, you can taste the molasses, ginger, and cloves. You definitely need the whipped topping on it. It was good and I may make it again. The thing is, if I made all of the desserts that I have in my dessert rotation, I would be making desserts more times a week than I care to count. Who's going to eat it all? I wouldn't be able to get out of the house due to the size of waste. I don't have time to workout to burn all the calories and make them.

Well, that's it for this week. I'm still thinking about next week. It's John Steinbeck's birthday and the foods from the Great Depression aren't all that inspiring. Mayonnaise sandwiches?

Oh hey, movie recommends: Lincoln, JFK, John Adams HBO miniseries, or All the Presidents Men. Less serious? Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer, Air Force 1, Murder At 1600, or The American President just to name a few.

Mardi Gras runs into Valentines Day

Another busy weekend last weekend. With Mardi Gras and Valentines Day. I could not choose. So, I did another two theme weekend. For Mardi Gras, I made one of my favorites, Blackened Chicken (Yum!) with Butter Steamed Potatoes. I added a side salad to it. For dessert, I made Chocolate-filled Beignets.

"Blackened" refers to seasoning and a cooking process. I first had it while working at the Radisson in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I believe it was on Prime Rib. To blacken the chicken, I first dipped the chicken breast in melted in butter, then dipped in Cajun Blackening Seasoning. I make it in my cast iron skillet. Make sure it is really hot. Keep in mind that it is going to create a lot of smoke. I told my husband this to prepare him for the smoke and I obviously I didn't stress this fact enough. Just be prepared for the smoke alarms to go off. You're going to sear the chicken. If the chicken is thin enough it should only have to cook a few minutes on each side to cook. If the smoke alarms are driving you nuts with the smoke, you can sear it on all sides and finish cooking it in the oven.

For my side, I made Butter Steamed Potatoes. I've never made these before. They tasted really good, but I had to cook them for an hour instead of the 30 minutes the recipe called for. I thought that I cut them small enough, but apparently not.

For dessert, I made another new recipe, Chocolate-filled Beignets. My daughter loved these and probably had about a half dozen of them. My husband just said, ehh. You do want to make sure you cook them thoroughly. A few came out slightly doughy. The directions recommends using a candy thermometer to maintain at temp of 360 to 370 degrees. I used an electric deep fryer and new oil, but had some unpleasant surprise when biting in.

Movie choice: The Frog Princess

For Valentines Day, I went with a French theme. Chicken Cordon Bleu, with wild rice, a side salad and White Chocolate Mousse for dessert. I tried a new recipe for the chicken. I used my meat tenderizer to make the chicken thinner, put a slice of thinly sliced swiss cheese and lunch meat in the middle. I had two large chicken breasts that I cut up and got eight servings out of it. The recipe states to cook it for 30 minutes, but due to the thinner pieces of chicken I only needed to cook it for about 15 minutes. In the end it was moist and tasted fantastic.

The White Chocolate Mousse recipe is one that I have tried before. It has a very light flavor. I used Ghiradelli white chocolate chips and didn't have to chop up the white chocolate. I topped mine with some Godiva Chocolate liqueur. The recipe says six servings, I filled my ramekins a little fuller and made it four servings.

The movie we watched, a Meg Ryan classic, French Kiss.

Super Bowl

Sweet Potato Skins

Potato Skins

Nachos

Cocktail Weiners

The Super Bowl theme is the second theme for this weekend. It's one of my family's favorite because of the cocktail weiners and it's basically a junk food meal. I made the for mentioned cocktail weiners, potato skins and sweet potato skins (because I only had two potatoes left in the house), nachos and Hershey's Easy Pizza Brownie for dessert.

For the potato skins, I pre-baked the potatoes at 400 for an hour, cut them in quarters, coated them with olive oil, put them back in the oven for another 15 minutes, covered them with bacon and cheese and put them back in the oven to melt the cheese. With the sweet potatoes, I used butter, brown sugar, marshmallows.

The Cocktail Weiners are the very generic jar of grape jelly and bbq sauce with two packages of little smokies. I placed it all in the pot under medium heat for about a half hour.

Now the Nachos, I decided to try seasoning the ground beef from scratch instead of buying package seasoning. The Mexican seasoning that I used, was a little spicier than my wimpy taste buds are used to. It seemed a little dry (possibly because I used 96% fat free ground beef), so I added a can of diced tomatoes to the meet. I would have added some kidney beans to add some extra protein without the extra fat, but the fam isn't a fan of beans. The cheese sauce I made was also uninspired Valveeta cheese and salsa.

My favorite part of the meal is always dessert. I pulled one of my favorites, I think I pulled it from Hershey's web page years ago. I haven't been able to find it anywhere since.

Hershey's Easy Pizza Brownie

3/4 cup Butter or Margarine melted
1 1/2 cup Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
3 eggs
1/2 cup Hershey's Cocoa
3/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt

Hershey's Pizza Brownie

1. Heat oven to 350 F. Grease 12" pizza pan or 13" x 9" baking pan. Make sure the pan has a lip or the dough ends up dripping all over the bottom of the oven (been there, done that).

2. Beat melted butter, sugar, vanilla, and eggs by hand. Add and mix in the dry ingredients. Spread into prepared pan.

3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top springs back at touch. You can serve plain or sprinkle the hot brownie with topping of your choice. Nuts, Carmel, mini marshmallow bits, chocolate chips, candy bar bits, and the options go on and on.

I used, marshmallow bits, chocolate chips, and chocolate frosting. Then I turned it into a Sundae with ice cream and chocolate topping. Yum!

So, if you're not watching the Super Bowl, but feel like you should do football movie at least here are some football movie options: Wildcats (with Goldie Hawn), Blindside, or Remember the Titans. I'm sure there are many more.

Chinese New Year, Year of the Monkey

Lettuce Wraps, Beef Broccoli Stir Fry, and Egg Rolls

It was one of those weekends were there are two obvious themes. Both of which my husband claims as his favorite. Chinese New Year and Super Bowl. I think it is because it is one of the few times I'll go into all of the work and make egg rolls.

This years menu included, the before mentioned egg rolls, lettuce wraps, and a Beef Broccoli Stir Fry with rice. For dessert, bought fortune cookies. Someday, I may try to make my own, but with egg rolls, I wasn't feeling it. I did make Banana Monkey Bread for dessert also. Yes, I know not very Chinese, but hey it's the Year of the Monkey. So, what the heck, I went with it.

The Egg Roll recipe comes from my Better Homes and Garden cookbook 1989 edition (held together with a rubber band) pages 18 and 19. I've replaced the pork and shrimp with chicken, (I'm allergic shrimp and had some left over chicken that needed to be used up).

8 egg roll skins
1 1/2 cup finely chopped chicken
1/2 cup finely chopped sprouts
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh mushrooms
1/4 cup finely chopped green onion
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp of ground ginger

Mix it together, place a 1/4 cup in each egg roll skin just below the center of the skin. fold the nearest corner over the filling and tuck corner under the filling. Fold in the side corners over the top just as you would making an envelope. Roll up toward the remaining corner. Add a little moister to the corner to seal.  Deep fry for 2 - 3 minutes until golden and drain on paper towels. You can keep them warm in a 300 degree oven. Enjoy warm dipping them in your favorite sauce.

Wrap Sauce

For the Lettuce Wraps, I purchased Lee Kum Kee Sauce for Lettuce Wraps, adding the 1 1b of ground chicken, 1/4 cup chopped peanuts, 1/2 cup chopped carrots, and 4 sliced scallions recommended on the back. I used regular iceberg lettuce leaves to wrap it in. I know it's cheating, but when I looked at the from scratch ingredients, it included items that I wasn't even sure where to find and probably wouldn't ever use otherwise. So, hey.

I tried new recipe for the Beef Broccoli Stir Fry. It was alright. I used Sherry instead of the water and marinated the beef for most of the day with the rest of the ingredients. I did this, because I have been having the hardest time with the beef in the stir fry being tough. I also, tenderized the beef before marinating it. It seemed to help.

Banana Monkey Bread

Now for the Banana Monkey Bread, this turned out really well. We pretty much finished it off between the three of us in three days. I chose banana for selfish reasons, I have too many of them in my freezer. I didn't do the Nutella, it's just not something I keep on hand. I used chocolate frosting on top instead and added chocolate chips in the layers of dough in the bunt pan. Also, added more butter and brown sugar to it also. I hate dry cinnamon rolls. I really didn't need to because in the end they were almost too moist. My daughter did ask me if I was going to make them again. It would have gone much easier, if I hadn't had to stop in the middle of doing the dough balls to clean up all of the sugar I dumped when the sugar contain slipped out of my fingers and went EVERYWHERE.

As for your family movie, these are easy, Mulan, or any of the Kung Fu Panda movies. 

January 30th, Feast of the Three Holy Fathers. Greece

Greek Salad, Greek Chicken, Baked Greek Fries, and Greek Saganaki

A Greek holiday, also called Feast of the Three Holy Fathers. The link below can give you more information.
 http://www.goarch.org/special/threehierarchs/index_html

Since, I was unable to find anything to show foods for this holiday, I just made a Greek menu of Greek Chicken, Baked Greek Fries, Greek Salad, Greek Saganaki, and Greek Lemon Cake.

The Greek Chicken was OK, but probably not the recipes fault. I only marinated it for seven hours instead of eight and I think I over cooked it. With all of the juices around it in the pan, one would not think it would be dry. The recipe stated to grill it, but winter in Michigan not prime grilling. Several reviews said to bake it which I did, but probably too long.

 Greek Salad,  you can't really mess up. It was fine, we didn't add the olives. Just not olive eaters.

The Baked Greek Fries, were good. Basically roasted potatoes, so again, how can I go wrong.

The truly new food for me in this endeavor was the Greek Sanganaki. This is basically like fried cheese using Feta. The recipe has you dipping it in egg and flour and then frying in olive oil. If I were to do it again, I would use some bread crumbs instead of the flour. The breading didn't stick to the cheese very well. 

Greek Lemon Cake

As for dessert, Greek Lemon Cake is a bunt cake. It had good flavor; but as many of the reviews stated it could have used more lemon flavor. It probably could have used some sort of lemon or sauce on it.

I would love to hear your thoughts and inputs. Your own Greek recipes.

Recommended movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," "My Life in Ruins," or "Hercules."