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.