Merry Christmas Part 2!

Sorry!  I forgot to add the bread stick recipe.  Here it is:

Cheesy Bread Sticks

2 pkg. (2 T.) dry yeast

3 cups very warm water

2 T. sugar

1 T. salt

¼ cup oil

8 cups flour

½ cup butter, melted

Garlic salt

Parmesan cheese

Dissolve yeast in warm water; add sugar.  Let stand 5 minutes.  In large mixing bowl, put yeast mixture, salt, and oil.  Add flour until dough is smooth and not sticky.  Cover and let rise about an hour until double in bulk.  Put dough out onto floured board or tea towel.  Cut into small pieces. Shape into bread sticks by rolling between your hands and making a snake.  Place on a buttered baking tray.  Brush sticks with butter.  Sprinkle lightly with garlic salt and heavily with Parmesan cheese.  Let rise about 30 to 45 minutes.  Bake at 350° for 15 to 20 minutes until light golden brown.  Makes about 5 dozen 5-inch breadsticks.

Alternative topping: brush with butter, sprinkle with garlic salt and sprinkle with a mix of: 1 T. dry parsley, 1 t. dill weed, ½ t. onion flakes, 2 T. Parmesan cheese

Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to share the recipes from the ward Christmas party on December 5th.  Bob Davis did the chicken and rice so I can't share those recipes but I am happy to share the rest.

Caramelized Green Beans

 

2 pounds fresh or frozen green beans (the frozen organic green beans from Costco are perfect)

Hormel real crumbled bacon (from Sam’s club or you can get a smaller bag at Dan’s)

1 pound crimini mushrooms, sliced (these are darker and richer in flavor than a regular

            mushroom but regular would work as well)

1/3 cup thinly sliced shallot (if you haven’t tried shallots, they are a small cousin to a red onion,

            more mild in flavor but yummy when they are caramelized)

Olive oil

2 T. soy sauce

2 T. sugar

½ t. kosher salt 

In boiling salted water, cook the green beans until they are crisp tender.  The time will depend on whether they are fresh or frozen.  When they are done, place them immediately into a bowl ice water to stop the cooking process.  Allow to cool completely and drain. 

Mix soy sauce, sugar and salt.   

In a large sauté pan, heat 2 T. olive oil.  Sauté shallots and mushrooms over medium heat until beginning to get brown and caramelized.  Add beans and bacon and cook until beans are warmed through. Add the soy sauce mixture and stir until the beans are coated.  Taste for seasoning and add a little more salt if needed. 

Tip: to prep fresh green beans, cut off the stem end and rinse thoroughly.

 

Orange Glazed Carrots 

5 lbs. carrots, peeled, sliced into rounds and lightly cooked or steamed until tender

1 cup orange juice

1 T. cornstarch

1 t. orange zest

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup butter 

Mix the cold orange juice and cornstarch in a cold pan until cornstarch is smooth.  Stir in the remaining ingredients.  Cook over medium heat, stirring, until glaze thickens.  Pour over steamed carrots and toss lightly.  Serve while hot.

 

Apple Spinach Salad 

1 bag baby spinach

2 heads romaine lettuce, cleaned and chopped

3 Granny Smith apples, cleaned, cored and thin sliced

1 (5 oz.) bag Craisins

Sliced almonds

Bacon bits (the Hormel real crumbled or cooked bacon crumbled) 

Toss spinach, romaine, and apples lightly with dressing.  (Not too much dressing)  Put in a serving bowl and sprinkle with Craisins, almonds and bacon.  Serve.

Dressing:

½ cup sugar

2/3 cup olive oil

6 T. red wine vinegar

¼ red onion

Pinch of kosher salt 

Put the dressing ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth.  Chill in a jar with a lid until ready to toss the salad.  Shake before pouring over the greens.

Apple Pudding Cake  

2 cup sugar

½ cup butter

2 eggs

4 cups peeled, shredded/grated apple

2 cup flour

2 t. soda

2 t. cinnamon

½ t. nutmeg

1 t. salt

1 cup chopped pecans 

Cream sugar and butter.  Add egg.  Stir in shredded apple.  Add remaining ingredients.  Put in greased 9x13-inch pan.  Bake at 350° for 45 minutes.

Sauce:

½ cup butter

½ cup light cream

1 cup sugar 

In saucepan, heat on low for 10 –15 minutes, until blended and lightly thickened.  Do NOT boil.  Add 1 t. vanilla and a dash of nutmeg.

To serve, cut the cake in 12 pieces, place a piece of cake on serving plate, spoon the sauce over and top with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream.

 

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  Family, friends, cozy against the chill outside and wonderful food.  The smells alone make the holiday wonderful.  Here are some links to great websites that will help you with roasting the perfect turkey, great side dishes to make and how to make perfect pie crust.

Ina Garten takes the mystery out of roasting a turkey and her short video shows just how to prepare the turkey for perfect flavor.  Her roast turkeys and whole chickens are moist and tender and really easy to do.  Here is her link:

Ina Garten's perfect roast turkey

Calli Taylor shares great side dish ideas on her Make It Do blog.  The cranberry sauce is full of apple and pear chunks and flavored with orange zest.  It is yummy.  You can also get recipes for rolls, beans, broccoli casserole and much more.  You can find this recipes at this link:

Make It Do - Thanksgiving recipes

I know.  I know.  Pie crust always seems to be a mystery.  Here is a tutorial for pie crust from Orson H. Gygi here in Salt Lake.  It it 53 seconds so you could watch it over and over until you felt comfortable with trying it yourself.  They use butter flavor Crisco, I use plain Crisco.  It is just a flavor preference so either one works in the recipe on this site.

Gygi's - How to make perfect pie crust

Hope you have a wonderful holiday!

Gratitude is a constant attitude of thankfulness and appreciation for life as it unfolds. Living in the moment, we are open to the abundance around us and within us.  We express appreciation freely.  We contemplate the richness of our life.  In life's trials, we seek to understand, to accept, to learn.  Gratitude is a continual celebration of life.        -Unknown

Favorite Salad Recipe

If you need the perfect salad recipe then this is it.  It always brings rave reviews and is my husband and children's most asked for recipe.  The ingredients can mostly be prepped the day before so that it only takes a few minutes to put it together to serve it.

Spinach Cheese Salad

1 (10 oz.) bag baby spinach, washed and trimmed

1 small head lettuce, washed and drained

¾ pound mozzarella, Swiss or Monterrey Jack cheese, grated

1 (16 oz.) carton small curd cottage cheese

½ pound bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 recipe Poppy Seed Dressing

Put spinach in a large bowl.  Tear the lettuce into pieces and add to the spinach.  Just before serving add cheese, cottage cheese, bacon and toss with the dressing dressing.  Serves 12.

Poppy Seed Dressing

1 T. poppy seeds

¾ cup vinegar

½ cup sugar

1 ½ T. grated onion

1 ½ t. salt

¾ t. dry mustard

1 ¼ cups vegetable oil

Mix everything in the blender.  Refrigerate unused dressing for future use.  Keeps up to 3 weeks in the refrigerator.

Hint: The salad only uses half to two thirds of the dressing.  To increase servings, add more spinach and use all of the dressing.

Do ahead: Prepare spinach and lettuce.  Shred cheese.  Cook and crumble bacon.  Make dressing.

Frosting - How Easy is That?

Frosting is pretty easy and cheap to make yourself.  It tastes yummy and you can make it whenever you like, color it how you want and use it on cookies, cakes, sweet rolls or whatever.  I will share some of my favorite recipes.

Plain Vanilla Frosting (I usually just make it without measuring but here are measurements that are pretty close)

2-3 T. butter or margarine
4 T. milk
4 cups powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla, if you like

Place butter, milk and 3 c. powdered sugar in a bowl and beat by hand or with a mixer.  Add the remaining powdered sugar until the right consistency.  Add a few drops of milk if it is a little stiff. For the creamiest frosting, substitute cream for the milk.  (You can add 1/4 cup cocoa for a quick chocolate frosting.)

Chocolate Frosting

1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup cocoa
3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla

In a saucepan, melt the butter, milk and cocoa over medium heat, stirring.  Remove from heat and stir in the powdered sugar and vanilla. This will frost one 12 x 17-inch baking tray of brownies.

The BEST Butter Cream Frosting

3 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 t. vanilla
1-2 T. cream

In a large bowl, with a mixer, cream together sugar and butter on low speed.  Mix until well blended.  Increase speed to medium and beat for 3 minutes.  Add vanilla and cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more cream if desired for spreading/piping consistency.  Scoop into a piping bag and pipe decoratively onto cupcakes, or spread on cupcakes as desired.   Chill cupcakes.  Take out of the fridge 30 minutes before serving.   It will do about 30 cupcakes if you spread it and 15 if you pipe it like in the photo. This recipe is from: recipegirl.com.  She also has a great recipe for chocolate butter cream.  Her White Wedding Cupcakes are the very best cupcakes you can make and this butter cream frosting is the perfect finishing touch.

Maple Glaze
Yummy on  sweet rolls.

3 cups powdered sugar
2 T. melted butter
1/2 t. maple flavor (mapleine)

Stir together and add hot water a little at a time until it is the consistency that you like.  Drizzle or spread over warm sweet rolls. Enough for 24 sweet rolls.  This is from Ann Romney's cookbook, The Romney Family Table.

Roll Dough - How to make it, how to shape it

There is nothing more divine than the smell of warm bread or rolls coming out of the oven and autumn is the perfect season of the year to bake rolls or bread.  At the Relief Society activity I shared the roll recipe from The Pioneer Woman blog; it's great because you don't need to have a Bosch or KitchenAid mixer to make it (a large bowl and wooden spoon will do), and the flour measurements are exact.

Sweet Roll Dough

4 cups whole milk
1 cup sugar (I use 1/2 to 3/4 cup)
1 cup oil
2 T. active dry yeast
8 cups flour

1 cup flour
1 T. salt
1 t. (scant) baking soda
1 t. (heaping) baking powder


For dough:

Heat milk over medium heat until hot but not boiling. Remove from heat, pour into large bowl and stir in sugar and oil with a wooden spoon. Allow to cool to about 110 degrees or just warm.  Add yeast and stir until softened.  Add 8 cups flour and mix until combined.  Mixture will be very sticky.  Leave the spoon in the dough and cover with a tea towel.  Allow to rise for 1 hour.

After dough is risen and puffy, add the 1 cup flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.  Stir into the dough until combined.  At this point you can cover and put the dough in the refrigerator until you need it or roll it out for baking.

Best tip:  I got this tip from Fran Peterson a few years ago: roll out bread, rolls or pastry on a tea towel sprinkled with flour. The clean up is a snap.  No more scraping dough off your counter.  Shake the flour off the tea towel and wash it.  I love it!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Roll out the dough into desired shapes and add fillings if using any. Put on baking pans that have been generously buttered or sprayed with baking spray.   Let rise another 30 minutes.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until light golden brown.



Blueberry Lemon Sweet Rolls:

Sweet roll dough (above)
1 stick butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
1 lemon, zested
2 cups blueberries

Roll half of the dough into a rectangle.  Brush with melted butter.  Mix sugar and lemon zest and sprinkle over butter.  Sprinkle the blueberries of the surface.  Roll up and cut into 3/4-inch slices and place on baking pans. Let rise for 30 minutes.   Bake as directed.  Frost with regular frosting or lemon frosting.  The step by step instructions, pictures and lemon glaze recipe are at the link below:

Blueberry Lemon Sweet Rolls



Cinnamon Rolls, here is the cinnamon filling from Ann Romney's cookbook The Romney Family Table:

1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 T. cinnamon

Roll out half of the dough into a rectangle.  Mix melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Spread the filling on the dough right to the edges.  Roll up and cut into 1 1/2 inch slices.  Place on baking pans and let rise for 30 minutes.  Bake as directed.  Frost with plain white frosting or use Ann's Maple Glaze recipe below:

Maple Glaze

3 cups powdered sugar
2 T. butter, melted
1/2 t. maple flavoring or mapleine
Hot water

Stir together powdered sugar, butter and flavoring.  Add hot water a little at a time until frosting is smooth and slightly runny.  Drizzle on cinnamon rolls.


Bread Sticks

My favorite bread stick recipe can be found on the blog: Freida Loves Bread.  She is a fabulous bread maker.  I usually put the yeast in the warm water to soften before adding it to the flour mixture.  I like to roll the dough into a large rectangle, brush it with butter and fold it in half the long way.   Then I cut it into 1-inch strips and twist then brush with butter and sprinkle with toppings.

For bread stick recipe, click the link below:

Quick and Easy Bread Stick Twists

For the Love of Food

A few weeks ago Bob took an insight questionnaire to help him better understand his management style.  He shared some of the questions with me.  One question was:

In your daydreams, what do you tend to dream about most?

The first thing that popped into my mind was: food!  Great recipes, tasty ingredients, beautiful food, sharing it with friends.  So, you can see that I love good food and I love cooking, as well as sharing recipes and ideas.  This blog is my way of sharing.

Painting by Mary Cowan Jensen

I am attempting in the coming weeks to write what was shared in the Relief Society cooking class, on October 14th, and to expand on that in this blog.  Instead of handing out copies of recipes, etc., the information will all go here. Posting takes time, and I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with too much information all at once; the posts will come every few days until I run out of things to say or time to say them!

Just wanted to thank Jen Tucker for being a wonderful sous chef Tuesday night and Billie Ann Divine and Thessaly Barnes for helping with the food, Anna Baker for helping me set up the email updates, and Thessaly for being a great editor.

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Here is the recipe for my favorite appetizer.  It takes just a few minutes to put together, and can be made the day before you want to serve it.  Everyone loves it!

Hot Artichoke Dip

1 (14 oz.) can artichoke hearts, diced

1 (4 oz.) can diced green chilies

1 heaping cup Monterey Jack cheese

¼ cup Parmesan cheese

1 cup mayonnaise

Mix all of the ingredients together.  Place in a baking dish.  Bake at 325° for 30 minutes, until bubbly and brown on the edges.  Serve with tortilla chips (my favorite) or your favorite crackers.  Serves about 12.  You can make this the day before and keep it in the refrigerator until you are ready to bake it.  Store leftovers in the refrigerator (if there are leftovers).

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Let me share a wonderful fall apple dip from the blog Event Trender that takes 5 minutes to make, is delectable and makes a great gift.  Click below for the link: 

Yummy apple dip and gift idea

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A very easy recipe for Cinnamon Cream Cheese Danish can be found on the blog Our Best Bites. The recipe is fairly simple and looks beautiful when it is finished.  I might try whipping the egg first and then adding only half of it to the cream cheese mixture.  The cream cheese seems a little runny to me. Great served as a dessert or breakfast pastry, warm or cold.  Click on the link below:

Cinnamon Apple Cream Cheese Danish

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Martha Stewart has a make ahead recipe for Baked Chicken Cutlets.  This is one of her simpler recipes.  You prepare them ahead and then put them in the freezer to bake later.  Take out one or 6 and bake for a snack or a meal.  They are great baked, sliced up and added to a green salad for a main course meal.  To skip a step, add the salt and pepper to the flour and mix.  I was able to bread 10 chicken cutlets (5 chicken breasts) with half of the panko crumb recipe.  Fifteen minutes is probably too long to toast the panko.  Start at eight minutes and see how they look.

Click below for the link:

Baked Chicken Cutlets


To learn how to cut your own cutlets, click on the link below:

Cutting chicken cutlets

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Kitchen shortcut - Cutting a green pepper or red, yellow or orange

Growing up, I learned to cut up a pepper by cutting out the stem at the top, pulling out the seeds and rinsing the inside.  Then slicing it in half, slices or dices.  There is a much easier way!

Rinse the pepper and put it on your cutting board. Slice down the edge of one side. Turn it a quarter turn and slice the next side. Do all four sides.  Throw out the core and you are done. It is so slick and you don't have to deal with the seeds.

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Cathy Gelwix asked Tuesday night about this quick minestrone soup recipe that we have both used for years.  It takes very little time and has a wonderful flavor.  I like a frozen mixed veg that has green beans, carrots and broccoli  or a mixed veg that has broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.  I think I will make it this week!

Quick Minestrone Soup

2 (10 oz.) cans chicken broth

1 (15 oz.) can kidney beans, rinsed and drained

2 cup frozen mixed vegetables

½ cup chopped onions

½ cup small pasta like small shell or macaroni

½ t. thyme

½ t. basil

1 (14 oz.) can Italian style diced tomatoes

          In a large pot put broth, beans, frozen vegetable, onion and herbs. Bring to a boil. When boiling add pasta. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. When pasta is thoroughly cooked, stir in tomatoes.  Heat through.

          Serve with grated or shredded Parmesan cheese.  Serves 4-6.

          One cup cooked, cubed chicken can also be added for a heartier main course meal.

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Next post:  Blueberry Lemon Sweet Rolls and other rolls to make with the same dough.

If you have questions or comments, you can email me at: cowanrl@gmail.com.