Saturday, January 31, 2009

HRH's Favourite Macaroni & Cheese

HRH's Favourite Macaroni & Cheese
From: Dottygumdrop

1½ cups dried macaroni
1 tablespoon cornflour/corn starch
1 cup milk
100ml thickened cream
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
1 cup grated/shredded processed cheese (eg. Velveeta)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cook macaroni according to taste (I prefer al dente, since it will cook a little more in the sauce) and drain (DO NOT RINSE).
2. Mix the cornflour with a couple of tablespoons of the milk.
3. In a jug, mix the rest of the milk with the cream and the mustard.
4. Pour the milk/cream mix into a saucepan and warm over medium heat until almost boiling, then add the honey.
5. Add the cheese and stir until the cheese has completely melted into the sauce.
6. Remove the saucepan from the heat and add in the cornflour mix, stirring as the sauce thickens.
7. Finally, add the drained macaroni into the sauce and stir until thoroughly coated.
8. Serve with whatever takes your fancy (or just eat it on its own, by the bowlful!).

HRH scoffed down a bowlful of it for lunch, with some flaked tuna mixed in!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Butternut Squash and Hazelnut Lasagne (Link)

Butternut Squash and Hazelnut Lasagne
Shared by: criminey.jicket
From: Gourmet Magazine via epicurious.com

Notes on modifications.

Chocolate Cherry Bundt Cake

Chocolate Cherry Bundt Cake
From: SpazCat

From Betty Freezor's Carolina Recipes.

8 oz maraschino cherries, cut in half
1 box white cake mix
4 egg whites
1/2 cup butter (melted)
4-5 drops red food coloring
3/4 cup chocolate syrup
water (add to cherry juice to make 3/4 cup)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 12 cup bundt pan. Mix cake mix, water, egg whites and butter according to package directions. Mix in cherries and color. Pour 2/3 batter in greased bundt pan; add chocolate syrup to other 1/3 and pour over batter in pan. Marble slightly with a knife.

Bake 50 to 60 minutes. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pan. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or frosting.

SOUTHWEST CHICKEN AND CORN CHOWDER

SOUTHWEST CHICKEN AND CORN CHOWDER
From: criminey.jicket

Dinner yesterday was Southwest Chicken and Corn Chowder in my effort to use up the package of 3 chicken breasts. This recipe also uses many of the same ingredients as the Madras Chicken Curry. It's not really a thick chowder; it's a thin, lightly creamy soup.

1 chicken breast, cut into cubes
3/4 red bell pepper, finely diced
1/2 carton chicken stock (carton is 1 liter)
1 cup water
1/8 to 1/4 cup half-and-half cream, as you prefer
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small can niblet corn, drained but liquid reserved
1/2 cup uncooked long grain and wild rice
fresh cilantro
1/2 lime
canola oil

Add enough oil to cover bottom of hot skillet or pot (med. high temp). Toss in cubed chicken and salt. Stir a little. When the chicken starts to brown a little, add the drained corn, the bell pepper and the chili powder, oregano, cumin, and garlic--you may need to add a tiny splash of oil. Stir a couple minutes until the garlic and spices become fragrant, then add the chicken stock, the water, juice from the 1/2 lime, the reserved corn liquid and the uncooked rice. Reduce heat, cover and simmer gently for 1/2 hour or until wild rice is cooked through. Remove from heat, add cream and chopped cilantro, stir to combine and serve. (FYI: I use the liquid from the corn to get the balance of hot, sour, salty and sweet. Add a pinch of sugar if you use frozen (and thawed) corn.)

Saturday, January 24, 2009

BUTTERMILK PIE

BUTTERMILK PIE
From: swampbear

2 cups sugar (yep it is a bunch of sugar but this is dessert people!)

1 stick butter, room temperature (and I mean butter! none of that margarine stuff! don't even consider margarine! I mean it! put that margarine back in the fridge and get out the butter!)

4 tablespoons flour

3 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup buttermilk (oh quit gettin' all icked out! buttemilk is ok for cookin'.)

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell (if you are of a mind to make a pie crust knock yerself out. me, I thank Pillsbury etal daily for ready made pie crusts.)

In large bowl cream together sugar, butter and flour. (use your mixer or your hands. just wash those hands before and after ok? well, if you want drippy pie batter hands aftewards fine by me as long as those hands were washed before.)

Add eggs, buttermilk and vanilla.

Stir it all up real good. (again, use the mixer, use your hands. i won't judge.)

Pour into unbaked pie shell. (duh!)

Bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. (actually I use a toothpick, but if a knife is handy, go for it!)

Of course you should preheat your oven before mixin' everything up, but then again y'all already know to do that, right?

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Madras Coconut Chicken Curry

Madras Coconut Chicken Curry
From: criminey.jicket

1 chicken breast, sliced thin
½ onion, chopped or sliced
2 celery sticks, sliced thin on an angle
12 pea pods, or ½ cup frozen peas (I nuke frozen peas first till warm-ish)
½ red bell pepper, sliced, chopped or finely diced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
6-8 scrubs of frozen ginger across a microplane—about 1 T minced
1-2 T Patak’s Madras curry paste
fresh cilantro and/or green onions
squeeze of fresh lime
vegetable oil for stir frying
1/2 can coconut milk (the kind with the least ingredients)

NOTE: If you have the premium coconut milk, just can just use the thick stuff on top, or shake the whole can before you open it for a thick cream.

Add a good splash of canola oil into hot wok. Stir fry the chicken. Add onion, garlic, ginger, curry paste. Toss briefly. Add celery and pea pods/thawed peas. If you chopped your bell pepper into chicnks, add them now too. Toss a minute or two. Add enough coconut cream to make sufficient sauce. Squeeze lime to taste. Continue cooking just until it starts to boil, then remove it from heat. Toss in cilantro and/or green onions and stir to wilt a bit. Serve over rice.

VARIATION: You can use less coconut cream and add chicken stock for an awesome soup.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

World's Greatest Sandwich

World's Greatest Sandwich
From: SpazCat

Take a flour tortilla (aka The World's Greatest Bread). Spread with a thinnish layer of refried beans. Add some finely chopped avocado. Top with sprouts. Top with shredded lettuce. Top with shredded cheese. Garnish with salsa. Top with second flour tortilla. Put in microwave and nuke for fifteen seconds to slightly melt the cheese. Fold up sandwich and enjoy.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Leek Potato Soup (Link)

Leek Potato Soup

Shared by: taxi78cab
From: Alton Brown/Food Network

Scallop Fried Rice

Scallop Fried Rice
From: sturmhauke

2 tsp. sesame oil
1/2 lb. small scallops
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. onion powder
1 egg
1 quart container of 2 day old leftover Chinese takeout white rice*
1/2 tbsp. soy sauce

Heat 1 tsp. of sesame oil in your wok over medium-high heat. (What, you don't have a wok? You can use a large pot instead, but it may be difficult to cook this properly.) Add scallops, garlic, pepper, and onion powder and stir-fry for about 2 minutes. Move the scallops to the side, crack the egg into the wok, and scramble it, stirring as it cooks so as to make little scrambled egg bits. Stir everything back together. Add the rice, the rest of the sesame oil, and the soy sauce. Stir rice until heated through, adding more sesame oil or soy sauce to taste. The rice should be a light tan color. Sesame oil and soy sauce are both fairly strong flavors, so don't add so much that it overpowers the scallops. Serve yourself a bowl and eat next to your pregnant wife who is still raving about the other scallop recipe you just made (or, you know, eat them both yourself).

*Note on rice: Freshly cooked rice has too much water in it, so if you try to make fried rice it will get mushy and not be as good. But when it's been sitting in your fridge it gets nicely dried out and the individual grains can cook properly. On the other hand, rice can solidify into a brick while it's drying. You can knock it apart in the wok and turn the heat down while you do it (which is what I did), but I thought of some other possible solutions:

break it up in a large bowl first
curse strenuously at it
beat it with a bar of soap wrapped in a sock
put it in a strongbox and throw it off your roof

OK, so maybe the first alternative suggestion is really the only practical one.

Sauteed Scallops

Sautéed Scallops
From: sturmhauke

a pat of butter
1/2 lb. small scallops*
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the scallops, salt and pepper. Cook until most of the liquid boils off and the scallops begin to turn more opaque, stirring gently but frequently, about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and allow pan to cool for 2 minutes. Serve on a rectangular plate with chopsticks and present them to your pregnant wife with a flourish (or eat them out of the pan, whatever).

*Note: I used small scallops partly because that's what they had at the store, and partly because I used the other 1/2 lb. for the following recipe, which requires the small ones. But for this one you can use large ones, just cook them a little longer and only flip them once.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Pesto Lasagna Rolls

Pesto Lasagna Rolls
From: gardentraveler

12 lasagna noodles
1 jar (26 ounces) pasta sauce or 3 cups homemade
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 container (15 ounces) ricotta cheese
1 package (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed, sqeezed dry
1 jar (3 1/2 ounces) prepared pesto
1 egg
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13" x 9" pan.

Cook and drain noodles according to directions on box.

Spread 2 cups of the pasta sauce on the bottom of the pan. In a bowl, combine garlic, ricotta, spinach, pesto, egg, Parmesan, salt and pepper to taste. (I used less pesto than called for here and used Asiago instead of Parmesan.)

The original recipe says to place noodles on a kitchen towel to roll. I let them cool on a cookie sheet and that seemed to work fine. Spread 1/4 cup of the ricotta mixture on the noodle. Roll and place seam-side down in pan. Repeat with remaining noodles and filling. Pour remaining sauce over noodles. Sprinkle with mozzarella.

Cover pan with foil. Bake 20 minutes. Uncover and cook until cheese is browned, 10 to 15 minutes.

I also made these with just sauce in the middle for my picky nephew. He liked them a lot.

Monday, January 12, 2009

FCM's Chocolate Cake

FCM's Chocolate Cake
From: FairyChatMom

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour pan(s). This works as a sheet cake, layers, or bundt.

1 devils food cake mix
1 package instant chocolate pudding
1 c milk
1/2 c oil
4 eggs
1 t vanilla

Mix all ingredients together at medium speed for 5 minutes (by the clock)
Dump in pan(s) Bake 30-35 minutes (45-50 for bundt cake) till toothpick comes out clean.

Cool
Frost
YUM!

You can also use yellow cake mix with vanilla or lemon pudding.
French vanilla pudding is good in chocolate cake also.

Entirely Too Much Cheese Casserole (Mexican Edition)

ETMC Casserole (Mexican Edition)
From: SmartAleq

2.5 C short grain white rice
3 C chicken stock or bouillon
Chipotle powder (available from Penzey's) to taste--I use about a tablespoon or so.

1 large frozen chicken breast
1 T or so of olive or vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, sliced thin
Chopped fresh garlic
Four Brothers Habanero garlic pepper sauce (available here) also to taste
1 C fresh salsa
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
8 oz or so chipotle cheddar or pepper jack cheese
Paprika

Combine rice, bouillon and chipotle powder, bring to boil and simmer until done. In a heavy skillet over medium heat saute the chicken breast in oil with onion, bell pepper and garlic scattered around the frozen meat. Sprinkle habanero sauce on the chicken, cover and cook five or ten minutes until the meat is partially thawed. Turn chicken and resprinkle with chili sauce. When you can, slice the chicken into small bite sized pieces, stirring until chicken is almost cooked through. Add salsa and beans, cook over medium high heat until the liquids are reduced to a manageable level. Combine rice mixture and meat mixture, stir well and turn out into a lightly oiled 9x13 baking dish. Top with cheese, sprinkle with paprika and bake at 350 degrees F for twenty minutes or so--until the cheese is melty and bubbly.

I figured this one out as running about 450 calories for 1/8th of the pan--it's a pretty good serving.

Chinese Chicken Casserole

Chinese Chicken Casserole
From: swampbear

INGREDIENTS:
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts - cooked and cubed
1 cup chicken broth (*add a little more if adding extra noodles)
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom (*or chicken or celery) soup
1 (5 ounce) can evaporated milk (*or half and half, adding a little more to compensate for the extra noodles)
1 cup sliced almonds (* or more)
1 (4.5 ounce) can sliced mushrooms, drained
1 (8 ounce) can water chestnuts, drained and minced
1 (5 ounce) can crispy chow mein noodles (*I use about 9 - 10 oz and put about 2/3 in the casserole and 1/3 on top)
2/3 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (*I use a cup)
1 cup diced celery (optional) (*I always use celery)
*(Add 1 c. french fried onions, 1/2 in the casserole, 1/2 on top)
*(Add 1/2 finely diced sweet onion)
*(Add a couple dashes of of soy sauce)
*(Add some chopped garlic)
*(Add some cracked pepper)


DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish, combine the chicken, broth, soup, milk, almonds, mushroom pieces, water chestnuts, noodles, cheese and celery (if using). Mix well and make sure mixture is spread evenly in the dish.
Bake in preheated oven for 45 - 50 minutes (*Add toppings about the last 5 minutes of cooking)

By the way, you can make this ahead of time and refrigerate it. Just reminder to cover it for about the first30 min. if it has come out of the 'fridge. And don't forget add the rest of the "crunchy stuff" that goes on top until you bake it (again, during the last 5 minutes of cooking)

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Monday, January 5, 2009

Oriental Slaw Recipe II (Includes Link)

Oriental Slaw Recipe
From: gardentraveler

One of my friends brought this to a work potluck. I had a similar salad on New Year's Day, but it wasn't quite as crunchy. I'm afraid it's the margarine/butter, which makes the noodles and almonds crunchier. The salad is awesome.

2 16 oz packages shredded cabbage
10 green onions, sliced
2 pkg Ramen noodles (do not use seasoning packets)
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 pkg sliced almonds (2/3 cups)
1 stick margarine or butter

Mix cabbage and onions. Chill

Crunch noodles in package. Melt margarine in skillet. Add the noodles, sesame seeds and almonds. Brown. Drain on paper towels.

Dressing:

Beat together:
¾ cup oil
¾ cup sugar
½ c vinegar
2 Tbsp soy sauce

Toss with cabbage mixture about 20 minutes before serving. Add noodles mixture just before serving.

Links:
Shared by: gardentraveler
From bigoven.com

Top Ramen Cabbage Salad
Here's another write-up of the same recipe.

I saw another version that was made with broccoli slaw.

One of the recipes I found on the net says that the salad keeps in the fridge for 2-3 weeks. I would keep the nuts, seeds and noodles separate in this case and add them as you're eating the salad. Part of the charm is the crispy noodles and nuts.

Secret Recipe Slaw Salad

Secret Recipe Slaw Salad
From: Tupug Anachi

Puggy's Christmas dinner included a "secret recipe slaw salad that has come down through generations of family on my Dad's side. Okay, if you must know, it's angel hair cabbage with onions and lots of salt and pepper. The salt and pepper causes the cabbage to wilt somewhat which you want it to do. The dressing is apple cider vinegar and bacon drippings heated to boiling and poured over the cabbage and onions and then tossed. Yes it sounds like a heart attack but it goes fantastic with a heavy roast meat like beef, lamb, or pork."

Blue-Cheese-Crusted Steaks with Red Wine Sauce (Link)

Blue-Cheese-Crusted Steaks with Red Wine Sauce

Shared by: taxi78cab
From Bon Appetit, via epicurious.com

Golden Carrot-Zucchini Latkes (Link)

Golden Carrot-Zucchini Latkes
Shared by: Mahna Mahna

From: Southern Living via myrecipes.com

Saturday, January 3, 2009