Mashed potatoes & cauliflower

My friend Lois gave me this tip. Mash potatoes then cook cauliflower and mash them into the potatoes too. It tastes so good.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Cheese Souffle for One

I always thought a souffle was really hard to make..........well finally I tried it. I cut the recipe down only because Tom isn't here to help me eat it. I also had leftover whip cream, so I threw in a couple of spoonfuls. Very smooth.

To start to make the souffle, you make a cream sauce base. Melt the butter, add the flour, and stir......get rid of the lumps! Next I added the milk...I put a bit of mustard in with the milk. A dash of salt and pepper is nice.

The cheese goes in the sauce last, let it melt and stir until very smooth. Let the sauce cool, because when you add the sauce to the eggs you don't want them to cook before your eyes.

Next you get out your beaters, and beat the egg whites stiff....smooth and standing up. Don't totally go nuts, there is a point of no return.
Then in a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks, then pour into the creamy cheese mixture, mix up till smooth. Now the tricky part, fold in the egg whites...gently just a quick fold....it may look unmixed ....leave alone...you want all the air bubbles in the eggs to make the souffle rise.

Now for the dish....I don't have a proper one, I only used a corning dish. Truthfully, if you live on a boat you only have a couple of dishes anyway. If you grease the dish it will wash better, but if you don't the souffle will rise better. The choice is yours! I did the later, so now I pay the price. The pan is soaking in the sink.

Cheese Souffle for one

1T butter
1T flour
1/4 c milk
1/4 t mustard
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c cheese grated
2 eggs separated


Cheese Souffle for 4

3T butter
3T flour
1c milk
1/2 t mustard
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup cheese grated
4 eggs separated

Cheese Balls

I remember when I was little my Mom use to make this recipe. Unfortunately, she passed away and I didn't get her recipe. Thanks to the internet I found this.

One of my pictures are the balls before you cook them, then you will see the finished ones. Maybe I needed to put more flour in them, they seem to melt. I did put them into the refrigerator before cooking them, to harden them up a bit. One thing is for sure...............they tasted really good.


1 1/2 cup of graded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup of flour
1/2 t Worcester sauce

Soften butter, add Worcester sauce, add flour & cheese. Mix well. Roll into one inch balls, put on baking sheet.


Bake at 400F for 10 minutes.

French Apple Tart

French Apple Tart

This is really fast and easy.

½ cup softened butter for crust
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup Flour
1t vanilla
Preheat oven 400°.
Cream butter and sugar, add vanilla and mix. Add in the flour to the mixture. Press in to pan.
Bake at 400° for 15 min.

Filling
8oz cream cheese, I used 500g….I didn’t know if that is exactly right but it worked. I used the stuff in the tub instead of the block, it tastes better and easier to mix.
1/4 cup sugar for filling and ¼ cup sugar for the apples on top
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 t cinnamon
Almonds or walnuts for the top of the pie
Preheat oven 400°.

When you remove the shell from the oven, leave the oven on because once the mixture is made it goes right back in.
Beat one egg, then add cream cheese, vanilla extract, then the sugar. Beat until smooth and pour into pie pan. Slice apples for the topping. In a bowl sprinkle the apples with cinnamon and ¼ cup sugar, arrange in a round circle on the top of the pie. Sprinkle the almonds on the top.
Bake 400° for 30-40 minutes

I got this recipe from the food network, here is the link you can watch the video.
http://www.foodnetwork.ca/guides/Thanksgiving/video.html?releasePID=riTfn3O7XgnDh6K32VXOhOcK5b0Zmy5Q

Pizza

Finally a pizza that really tastes like pizza. The crust turned out pretty good. I used the bread in the bucket to make it. As you can see I could have stretched out the crust a bit more.

For the tomato sauce get out the frying pan. Brown one onion, garlic, chop up two tomatoes and throw them in. Juice a lemon ........or limes guess what throw it in. Now you need some honey or sugar to sweeten it up a little. Make sure you taste it. Add your favourite spices. I used rosemary, basil, parsley, salt and pepper, just sprinkle them. Let the sauce reduce.........simply cook until the juice evaporates ......but leave a little bit in the bottom.

Now for the cheese. I used mozzarella. I cut it in little squares (they say that if you cut the cheese in squares it's not so oily) or you can use shredded. You can use better cheese or a mixture of cheese but I wouldn't use cheddar.

First sprinkle corn flour on the greased pizza pan. Of course if you don't have corn meal........don't worry it still turns out. If you used the bread in the bucket for the crust, you have to remember to let the dough rest after you take it out of the fridge. Leave it for about 40 minutes it needs to warm up a little. You might need a bit of flour on it............it's really sticky. The flour will make it so that you can work with it.

Spread out the dough......Add the sauce, not too much you don't want a soggy pizza.
cut up your vegtables and add them, I used mushrooms, red peppers add whatever you like. Add the cheese........you can put it on first....no big deal.

Bake 400F.........about 20 minutes.

Bread in a Bucket

This is so easy.

Get a bucket with a lid.

1 1/2 T salt
1 1/2 T salt yeast (I used two packages)
6 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used 3 cups whole wheat, 3 1/2 all purpose)
3 cups warm water.........out of the tap

Nothing fancy about making this bread. First dump the salt and yeast into the bucket. Pour in the 3 cups of warm water. I put the lid on and let it sit a few minutes for the yeast to start growing. But you can go crazy and throw in the flour. Stir it up with a wooden spoon. You need to get all the flour mixed in. Put the lid on the bucket and lift the corner so that it's not completely air tight some of the gases need to escape. Let the whole mixture sit for two hours. It will grow, you will see the air bubbles. It looks like a big sticky mess.

Lift the lid, sprinkle you hands with flour, pull off some of the dough & shape into a ball. Should be the size of a grapefruit. Put enough flour on it so it doesn't stick in your hands. You don't have to knead the bread. Only shape into a ball. Put on a pan, I used a pie plate cover with towel. Let it rest for about 45 minutes. It will grow again because of the yeast.

After resting the dough slash the top. I had trouble with this, all the air came out of my loaf..........making it look like a blob......my slashes didn't look so good.
I used spray oil on my pan, and a sprinkle of corn meal. (you don't have to do that)
Before I put the dough in the pie plate I poured warm water on it. This warmed the plate up. Yeast grows better in warm areas.

Set the oven 375F. Put the bread on middle shelf of oven with a pan of hot water underneath. This makes a crunchy crust. Oh don't use a glass dish for the warm water underneath the dough........they break.

Bake for 25-35 minutes.

Put the rest of dough in fridge. You will get at least 3 more loaves. You should use it within two weeks. When you take dough out of the fridge let it rest with a towel over top for about 45 minutes before you bake it.

It took me longer to type this then make it.

If you can watch this video it explains it all better than I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFJZPm-_2-M&feature=related

Let me know how you do on this. It's really good and so easy.

Pasta

This is very simple and tastes delicious.

The Sauce

2T Olive oil
1 Onion
1 Garlic glove
1 Tomato
1 Green onion
1/2 a lemon also use the lemon zest. (Grate the lemon only the pretty yellow stuff when you get down to the white........too bitter)
1 T Parmesan cheese or more if you like
2 T honey or sugar
a pinch Rosemary
a pinch Basil
a pinch Parsley



To make the sauce heat the frying pan, add olive oil and fry onions and garlic until golden brown. Chop tomatoes and add to mixture. Salt. Keep frying, add green onions if you have them. Squeeze 1/2 a lemon and add to mixture. That gives you the sour taste, now balance the taste with sweet, add some honey or sugar if you don't have honey. Taste...always taste..........add spices salt, pepper, rosemary, basil, parsley. Remember if you have the real things.........they are 100 percent better than packages or stuff in bottles as far as flavour goes. Let the mixture cook down or reduce as they say, so you don't have a lot of water, but all flavour.

For the pasta..........salt the water so it tastes like the ocean. Add pasta and cook. Drain, and pour sauce over top. Top with Parmesan cheese.

Salad Dressing

You probably know this but if not try it. This is simple put it all in your food processor or blender or shake it up by hand.

You need the sour (lemon) the sweet (honey) and the spices. Only make enough for what you want to use now. Otherwise, it doesn't taste as good. And only pour it on your salad when you are serving or the salad will wilt and get soggy.


Lemon.......a real one juiced. The lemon in the bottle isn't as good. You could use lime if you want or even try an orange.

A bit Olive oil
1/4 onion chopped
1 T Honey mustard
1 T Honey
1 t Basil
1 t Oregano
1 t Parsley
Salt and Pepper

You don't really have to measure just sprinkle all the ingredients together. Mix it all up. Don't forget to taste it before you use it. If you like other spices try them too. I like use tarragon also.

Put on your salad.

oh so good.

Red Pepper Jelly

1 cup Green Peppers chopped
1 ½ cups Red Peppers Chopped
1 cup Hot Peppers chopped (skinny red ones) - I leave out the hot peppers
2/3 cups white vinegar
2/3 cups lemon juice
5 cups white sugar
1 bottle or 2 pkgs. Certo

Use your food processor to chop.
Mix first 6 ingredients. Bring to a boil. Leave set for 15 minutes. Add Certo and bring to a rapid boil for 2 minutes. Let stand for 15 minutes than bottle. I have been told the liquid Certo is more successful.
Honestly, this needs to be cooked longer to thicken it up.
Chill in fridge before serving.
Serve on crackers with cream cheese and a dab of the jelly on top.
If you are on a diet pass on this stuff!

Bruschetta

Ingredients

French bread sliced
1/2 Medium Size Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
4 Small Tomatoes
1/4 Green Pepper
1 t Salt
1 t Basil
1/2 t Pepper
2 T Lemon Juice
2 T Olive Oil

Mozzarella cheese ground up or sliced.
Chop onions & garlic in food processor; add salt, pepper, basil, lemon juice, olive oil. Blend.
Add Tomatoes last, and pulse until chopped. You don’t want them all mashed up, keep them chunky. Taste
Put mixture into refrigerator until you are ready to use.
Slice French bread and drizzle olive oil on each piece. Add mixture, and spoon mozzarella cheese on top. Broil in oven at 400F for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown. Serve immediately.

Baked Coconut Shrimp & Apricot Sauce

Ingredients

24 fresh or frozen jumbo shrimp
1 cup of mayonnaise or salad dressing
3 T apricot preserves, I use jam
1 t curry powder (I leave it out)
2 T cooking oil
1 1/2 c shredded unsweetened coconut toasted
1/4 c cornstarch
1 T sugar
1/2 t salt
2 beaten eggs

Thaw shrimp.
Spray dish with cooking spray, or use oil in the bottom of a dish.
Toast coconut, mix with cornstarch, salt, & sugar. I used sweetened coconut, so I left out the sugar.
Beat egg in dish.
Dip shrimp in egg mixture and roll in coconut mixture, press coconut on shrimp. Once the mixture is damp it is much harder to get it to stick to the shrimp. The best way to coat the shrimp is to put the mixture on a plate, and roll the shrimp into it. I tried putting it into a baggy and shaking the mixture didn't stick.
Put on baking dish, bake at 400F for 10-15 minutes.

The dipping sauce is the mayonnaise combined with the apricot jam. I blend it in the food processor, and put into refrigerator until the shrimps are ready to serve.

Refrigerator Sweet Dough

Ingredients

5 to 6 cups of all-purpose flour (I used bread flour and all purpose flour)
2 pkgs. active dry yeast
1/2 cup of sugar
1 1/2 t salt
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup butter or margarine softened
2 eggs

1. Stir 1 3/4 cups of flour, yeast, sugar, and salt together in a large mixer bowl.
2. Heat milk, water, and butter to very warm (120 - 130F degrees)
3. Add liquid to dry mixture and beat until smooth, 2 minutes with electric mixer.
4. Add eggs and 1/2 cup flour and continue beating another minutes.
5. Gradually stir in enough addition flour to make a soft dough.
6. Turn onto floured board, continue to work in flour until dough can be kneaded.
Knead until smooth and elastic.
7. Cover with a towel
8. Let rise 20 minutes.
9. Split dough in two.
10. Roll out flat.

If you are going to put in refrigerator, you brush dough with oil put in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 2-24 hours. When ready to bake remove from refrigerator, and let stand 10 minutes.

Melt 1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup nuts
2 T cinnamon

Pour butter on dough, mix above ingredients and sprinkle on dough. Roll dough, then slice. Bake 400F for 20 Minutes.

Coleslaw

Cabbage
2 carrots
1 cup of mayonnaise
1/4 cup of honey
1/4 cup of sugar
1 t of celery salt
1 T of lemon juice

Mix mayonnaise with honey, before you add the sugar taste. Depending on the type of honey you use, you may not even need any sugar. Add celery salt and lemon juice. Mix well.

Shred Cabbage and carrots in your food processor. Add dressing to cabbage mixture.

Yorkshire Pudding

To serve 6

3/4 c of flour
1/2 t salt
2 eggs
3/4 c milk
3-4 T Canola Oil

Preheat oven to 400F. In food processor mix flour and salt. Add eggs and blend. Add milk and blend for a minute. Put oil into the bottom of the muffin tin, put tin into oven to warm up. Put mixture into muffin tins, cook 25 minutes until golden brown.
Instead of putting oil in the pans, I put the mixture in the muffin tins and put about 1/2 t of butter on the top of each muffin.

To serve 8-10

My Mom's Recipe

1 c flour
1 t salt
3 eggs
1 1/2 c milk
4-5 T Canola oil

Preheat oven to 400F. In food processor mix flour and salt. Add eggs and blend. Add milk and blend for a minute. Put oil into the bottom of the muffin tin, put tin into oven to warm up. Put mixture into muffin tins, cook 25 minutes until golden brown.

The only problem with my Mom's recipe, the oil in the pans always spilled over into the oven, making a big mess.
One time my Mom wanted to clean up the mess before my Dad came in. She turned on the self cleaning oven. We were sitting down to dinner. My son, Brett about 7 years old at the time, said very innocently, "Grandma is there suppose to be a fire in the oven?" Oh the good old days!

Potato, Broccoli, Cheese Soup

6 Potatoes
1/2 Broccoli head
1/2 cup total Cheddar and Swiss Cheese
6 cups of Chicken Broth low in sodium
1 - Onion chopped
1 teaspoon of Salt
1 teaspoon of Pepper
1 teaspoon of Rosemary


I steamed the potatoes and broccoli last night when I cooked our dinner. Chop and fry the onion, then put it into the crock pot. Also chop the potatoes and broccoli in the food processor. Add enough broth to make a good liquid. Add the graded cheese. I used leftover cheese that we had in the fridge, normally I don't put Swiss Cheese in the soup.

Here is the funny part and I saw this on TV this morning, use low sodium chicken broth, but add a teaspoon of salt! While there you go, great for the heart. If you have heart problems, leave out the salt, you don't need it!

Veal Cutlet

In the picture you will see veal, potatoes, broccoli with lemon wedges.

You can pound the livin' daylights out of the veal, this is suppose to make it tender. I don't have a sludge hammer, so I don't! You know veal is the young, tender part of the cow, it should be tender. My Mom always got out the hammer, (for cooking) and you know the legs on the table would jump right off the floor when she pounded the meat. That always made me laugh.

To pick a good piece of veal, look at the marbling in the meat. That simply means the gain, and fat content of the meat. Veal will not have a lot of fat content because it is a young animal. It should be light pink in colour. Check the dates on the package of the meat. If you see gray in the meat it is getting old, don't buy it. I find that grocery stores are sneaky when selling meat. They stick big labels over the fatty pieces of meat, they don't put on the dates the meat was packaged, only a sell before date. If veal is not fresh, don't buy it! Also the packages they put meat in now, makes the meat rot. If you can put meat in freezer, or take out of packaging when you get home and put in other containers.

After you have taken your stress out on the veal. Get two bowls. In one put some bread crumbs, and in the other scramble the egg with salt and pepper. Dip veal in the egg, and then coat the veal with breadcrumbs. Put a little bit of olive oil, and butter into a frying pan. Place the coated veal into the frying pan. Fry until brown on both sides then serve with lemon wedges.

Soup for a cold day.

1 Sweet Potato
1 Turnip
4 Carrots
1 Onion
2 - 14oz. cans of Chicken Broth
pinch of Salt
pinch of Pepper
pinch of Tarragon
pinch of Basil


Chop the onion. Peel and cut up the vegetables.

I steamed the sweet potato, turnip, and carrots first in my steamer but you can put them into the slow cooker and slowly cook them all day. I used my new food processor to chop everything up. I added the spices, and the chicken broth, and even a bit of water. It's not rocket science! Put into slow cooker...........smells so good.

Christmas Turkey

Hey, who hasn't seen a turkey before. I am so pleased, this 10 pound turkey just fit into our little toaster-convection oven. The turkey was placed into double tin foil pans, for support. I had to bend the foil pan a bit to squeeze it into the oven.

First, I bleached the sink, then washed the turkey. Once the turkey was put into the foil pan, I bleached the sink again for germ control.

I basted the turkey with olive oil to make it a golden brown. I covered the turkey with tin foil. Cooked at 350F for 5 hours, about every hour I basted the turkey with it's own juice.

I couldn't find the giblets.............Tom did when he was cutting it, they were in the neck part. Yuk! If I had seen them earlier, I would have considered cooking them, then make gravy. My Mom use to cook them using the juice for gravy, then feed the giblets to the dogs. No dog here...........

Also we had cauliflower with cheese sauce, turnip, mashed potatoes, cranberries, and gravy. For dessert pumpkin pie and whip cream.

A lot of the food preparation can be done the day before. I made the cranberries, and the pumpkin pie. Also I cut up the cauliflower all day before. If I had a bigger fridge and stove, I could have done most of the cooking the day before, and only have to warm things up in the oven. Can't do that here my oven is tiny.

Everything had to be made one at a time, then wash all the dishes each time. There is no room for dirty dishes, in a small space you have to clean up everything as soon as you make the mess or there will be no room to make the next thing. I felt like I washed dishes all day.

Tom helped me get the turkey out of the pan, onto the platter. He mashed the potatoes, and the turnip, then cut the turkey. Also he helped me put everything into small containers and back into the fridge.

The best part..........no cooking for a few days!!!!

Chocolate-Cherry Bonbons

1 c icing sugar
1/2 c cocoa
1/2 c butter or margarine
1 c finely chopped toasted blanched almonds (I didn't toast them)
1/4 t almond extract
24 well drained maraschino cherries

Sift cocoa & icing sugar together.

In a saucepan melt butter, continue cooking until hot and bubbly. Remove from heat.

Blend cocoa mixture, nuts, and almond extract into hot mixture. Take a spoonful of mixture, flatten it in the palm of your hand, place cherry in the center, then roll mixture around the cherry. Roll in toasted almond pieces. Chill until set.
Makes 24

Quiche

Ingredients:

1 - 9" pie shell
4 beaten eggs
Approx. one cup of half & half or milk
one onion chopped
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 cup chicken, or meat, or bacon (optional)
1 cup of Swiss cheese



You can either make your pie crust or cheat like I did and buy a frozen one. Bake the empty pie shell, follow directions on the package. Don't forget to take a fork and prick the empty pie crust before you bake it. If you don't you will have air bubbles in the pie shell.

Cook the broccoli and onions first, add them to the baked pie shell. Next cut the cheese into little tiny bits, add to the pie crust. In my little chopper I mixed the eggs plus the half and half, add the spices. Watch you may not need as much half and half as the recipe calls for. I used 1/2 pint, but with the ingredients in the pie shell.......there just isn't room. Of course I always spill....on the way to the oven, to top it off I just washed the floor. See, I filled it too full, I even spilled it in the oven. Great, now I have to clean that too!

You know making a quiche, is kind of like cleaning out the fridge. You don't need a lot in volume, just a little bit of everything.

I baked the quiche at 350F for 50 minutes. Served with a salad.