Month: October 2015

Chocolate · Cookies

*Rodelle Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

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Have just purchased my first can of Rodelle Gourmet Baking Cocoa and these little gems will be my first recipe using this marvelous cocoa!

Cookies

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup plus 1 tbsp Rodelle Gourmet Baking Cocoa
  • 2 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 1/3 cups sugar
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 2 tbsp heavy cream
  • 2 tsp Rodelle Gourmet Vanilla Extract
  • Chocolate and Vanilla Bean Ganache
  • 1 cup granulated sugar, set aside in a small bowl

Ganache

  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1/3 cup heavy cream
  • 1 Rodelle Vanilla Bean, split and scraped, pod reserved
  • 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened

Directions

Cookies

  • Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
  • Sift flour, cocoa, and salt into a small bowl.
  • Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy.
  • Reduce speed to medium and add the egg yolks, cream, and vanilla extract. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Add the flour mixture and beat until just combined.
  • Roll ball using 2 tsp dough for each. Roll the balls into the sugar in the bowl.
  • Place 1 inch apart. With a wine bottle cork (or the handle of a wooden spoon), press gently in the center of each ball to create an indentation.
  • Bake, rotating sheets half way through, until cookies are set, about 10 minutes.
  • Let cool slightly on baking sheets, then transfer to wire rack to cool.

Ganache

  • Combine honey, cream, and vanilla seeds and pod in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer. Cook until the honey dissolves. Remove from heat and let cool for 20 minutes.
  • Place chocolate in a food processor. Return cream mixture to a simmer, and then strain through a fine sieve. Discard solids.
  • Pour cream mixture over the chocolate and let stand for 1 minute. Process until smooth.
  • Add butter and continue to process, scraping down sides occasionally, until butter is incorporated. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Assembly

  • Using a spoon, or pastry bag, place a dollop of the ganache into the indent of the cookies.
Daily Thoughts

Shopping With Frosty

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It’s here, that time of year when Randy and I change our names to Frosty and Noel. We change our phone voice mails to “hi you have reached Frosty (or Noel, depending on whose phone they call). It makes our kids call us so they can let their friends listen to how weird their parents are. But at this time in life, we are just glad thy call, for whatever reason. It just takes some ingenuity!

A few days ago, I told Frosty that we had to get the house decorated for Christmas since we would be gone for most of November and I wanted to be able to walk In the house after we returned the end of November and have everything done So off we go to get new lights for the trees and end up buying a few groceries while we were in Wall Mart. Now, I’m not saying that I could do any better than our little check out lady who could not have been a day under 80 but I just had to share this story.

We walk up to check out and there is a beautiful young mom almost finishing checking out in front of us. She has a few items left on the conveyer belt so I put the bar between her items and mine and begin to unload our basket. Frosty is so proud of himself for remembering to bring our reusable bags that he pushes me out of the way so he could be sure Granny Checkout would see that we have our own bags. I told him he was not as concerned about the bags as he was about getting to stand beside Ms Young Tennis Player with short tennis skirt on. Ms Tennis Player pays for her groceries and notices that Granny had put Frosty’s bologna on her bill and has placed it in her bag. So she backs up and shows Granny Checker that she needs to take the bologna off her ticket and put it on ours. After 5 minutes, we have this cleared up and Granny looks in Tennis player’s basket and ask “did I charge you for that water?” Tennis Player responds with, “well I have no idea if you did or not, so after looking at her receipt, she finds out that she had not paid for the water, so back she comes so Granny can scan the case of water. Granny proceeds to put “our” bologna in a bag and tries to hand her our bologna AGAIN! TP tells her, “that is not my bologna and I don’t want to pay for it.” I told her that with her figure, she would wear it much better than we would, but she just glared at me and said a few lovely Southern Belle words as she turns and struts out. All this time Frosty has been placing our reusable bags up over where the plastic bags hang and we tell Granny that we want our groceries in our bags. So what does she  do but begin to put our groceries in the Wall Mart plastic bags and then put those inside our bags. We had to tell that that is not how it works. So I began to bag our groceries in our bags which totally confused her.

We finally paid for our lights and bologna only to get home to hear that the WHO just declared meats like bologna as dangerous as cigarettes. After all we had gone through getting our bologna today, we weren’t about to take it back. We will just take our chances with our HMO meat and hopefully by the time we have to go back to Wall Mart, Granny Checker will have retired herself. At least Frosty feels really good about his possibilities of being hired should we just replace our bologna with cigarettes and need extra money to pay for them.

Starches

Brussels Sprouts & Cauliflower Gratin

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Why is it that when I post something other than desserts I feel like I am becoming a health nut? It’s not that I don’t ever cook veggies or salads, but it just isn’t as much fun to read about Brussels Sprouts or Cauliflower as it is chocolate, cream cheese, whipping cream or brownies, unless you are truly a Veggie Tales fan! But for all you folks out there that think that you have to get all of your veggie servings in every day, maybe this recipe will make you smile. I hope it does, after I post it, I am going to finish baking chocolate chip cookies for us to munch on tonight while we watch Black Lists…hum…should we snack on Cauliflower or cookies? Get my point?

4 cups fresh cauliflowers’

4 cups fresh Brussels sprouts, quartered

4 bacon strips, chopped

1 large sweet onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 cups milk

2/3 cup half & half cream

1 teas salt

1/4 teas pepper

1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

1/2 cup grated Parmesan & Romano cheese blend

Place cauliflower and sprouts in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil. Cove and cook for 2 to 3 minutes crisp-tender; drain.

In a large skillet cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp. Remove to paper towels to drain reserving the bacon drippings.

Sauté the onion and garlic in drippings until onion is tender. Stir in flour until blended and whisk in milk, cream, salt and pepper stirring so gravy does not form lumps. Bring to a low boil and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.

Stir in cauliflower and sprouts which have been drained. Then stir in bacon. Transfer to a greased baking dish. Cover and bake in preheated 375 oven or 15 minutes. Combine bread crumbs and cheese. Uncover veggies and sprinkle cheese-bread crumb mixture over top and bake uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Soups

Potato Bean Stew

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When a friend of mine called the other day to tell me how great this soup was, I almost didn’t even write the ingredients down, as it sounded like something that I probably would never make. How glad I did. She found the recipe from Trisha Yearwood’s website. She had made it and said it was delish!  When I told Randy the ingredients, he informed me that I could make it, but he would just pick out the lima beans. I did just make it and Randy didn’t pick out anything. In fact, he kept saying, “this is really good, I’m glad you made it.” So here it is. It makes a great cool weather meal with cornbread!

5 small red potatoes, peeled and chopped in small pieces

2 carrots, pealed and slices

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tables olive oil

1/2 small purple onion, diced

1 can Rotel Mild Tomatoes & Green Chilies

1/2 of a 16 oz bag of frozen lima beans

1 (32 oz) box chicken broth or vegetable broth

1 (14.75 oz) can cream style corn

In a Dutch oven, saute onion and garlic in olive oil until onion is tender. Add rest of ingredients and add salt and pepper to taste. Place in preheated 350 oven and bake for 2 hours or until potatoes and carrots are tender.

Chicken · Soups

King Ranch Chicken Soup

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Windows are open, more apple cakes are in the oven and looking through the newly delivered Southern Living magazine, this soup caught my eye. Our adult kids love King Ranch Casserole, but never thought about transforming it into a soup. Thank you Southern Living, that’s why we love you!

2 tables butter

1 cup chopped yellow onion

1 cup chopped green bell pepper

1 garlic clove, minced

2 (10 3/4 oz) cans diced tomatoes and green chiles

1 (10 3/4 oz) can cream of mushroom soup

1 (same size) can cream of chicken soup

5 cups chicken broth

1 (1 1/2 to 2 lb) whole deli-roasted chicken, skin removed and meat shredded

1 teas dried oregano

1 teas ground cumin

1 teas chile powder

8 ((6 inch) fajita size CORN tortillas, cut into 1/2 inch strips and then halved *(I like mine fried crisp in a little oil instead of leaving them soft, which if you do this, you can do this by frying the strips in hot oil and drain on paper towel while soup is cooking before adding at the end)

Garnish: salt, shredded cheese and cilantro

Melt butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onions and peppers and sauté 6-7 minutes or until tender.

Add garlic and sauté 1 minute. Stir in diced tomatoes, cream of mushroom soup and cream of chicken soup; combine thoroughly. Stir in broth and next 4 ingredients.

Still on medium-high heat, cook until soup is begging to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, about  minutes. Stir in tortilla strips and simmer  2 more minutes. Add salt to taste and garnish as desired.

makes about 4 quarts

Cakes · Chocolate

Moulton Chocolate Cakes

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These great little custard cup chocolate lava cakes are the easiest to prepare and every time I serve them, people are so excited to be eating something that tastes like they get when visiting a great steak house dessert. I didn’t remember to take a picture before serving them last night to friends, but the empty plates told me that they loved them!

4 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate (I had a bar of bittersweet chocolate and used that and they turned out awesome)

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

1 tables red wine (I used orange chello as I didn’t have red wine last night)

1 teas vanilla

1 cup powdered sugar

2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk

6 tables flour

1/4 teas cinnamon

Powdered sugar or ice cream for topping

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

Grease 4 custard cups

Microwave chocolate and butter for 1 minute and then stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in wine (or any liquor flavor you might like, even amaretto is good),vanilla and powdered sugar. Whisk in eggs and yolk. Stir in remaining ingredients. Spoon evenly into cups and place on a baking tray. Bake in preheated oven for about 14 minutes. Centers will still be a little soft and jiggly. Loosen edges and turn out onto plates and sprinkle with powdered sugar or top with ice cream.

*It is so easy to use a big cookie dough scoop to fill the custard cups

Salads

La Orange Grande Brussels Sprouts Salad

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While living in Pasadena, CA (and every time we go back to visit), I had to go to La Orange Grande and have this salad. The other day, I began to think that maybe it could be found on-line and so it was. This salad is just the best. For those of you who think you don’t like Brussels sprouts, think again, people eat this without knowing they are eating Brussels Sprouts. The flavor is so mild and the cheese, cranberries and almonds just take it over the top. At the restaurant, they always ask if you want crumbled bacon on top…do they really need to ask?

Mustard Vinaigrette:

2 tables honey

1 1/2 tables Champagne vinegar

1 tables fresh lemon juice with pulp

1 1/2 teas lemon zest

1 1/2 teas whole grain mustard, more as desired

1 1/2 teas minced garlic

3/4 cup light olive oil

Sea Salt & pepper

Salad
1 pound Brussels sprouts

1 tables dried cranberries

1 tables dried blueberries

2 tables toasted whole almonds, preferably California or Spanish Marcona (which I get at Costco)

3 tables mustard vinaigrette

1 ounce Manchego cheese, shaved using a peeler

Make the dressing:

In a large bowl, whisk together the honey, vinegar, lemon juice and zest, mustard and garlic. Continue whisking while slowly drizzling in the olive oil until the oil is thoroughly incorporated. Season to taste with the salt and pepper, and brighten the dressing as desired with a little extra mustard and vinegar. Chill well before using. This makes about 1 cup of dressing , which is more than needed for this salad recipe but stays great in fridge, covered for a week.

Salad

Peel the leaves from the Brussels sprouts, discarding the core. In a large pot of boiling water, blanch the Brussels sprouts leaves just until they are a vibrant green and barely tender. Drain immediately and place in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking of the leaves. Drain and dry well. You should have about 3 cups of leaves.

In a large bowl, toss the sprouts, cranberries, blueberries, almonds and just enough of the vinaigrette to lightly moisten

Mount the salad on a plate and top with the cheese shavings. Top with crumbled crisp fried bacon if desired.. I desire!

Serve immediately!

*Courtesy of the LA Times and La Grande Orange Cafe

Daily Thoughts

Whistle While You Work

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This is probably one of the saddest days of my life. After going to the Texas State Fair yesterday, which happened to be “Seniors Get in Free Day”, it just went downhill from there. As we walked in the gates of the Fair, some young whipper snapper handed both Randy and I a “get in free” ticket, without even asking if we were seniors! How dare he! How does he know that maybe I just wasn’t able to get in all my beauty rest, which would account for the bags under my eyes? Maybe, just maybe, I am prematurely gray and maybe, I might still be carrying some of the baby fat that accumulated while pregnant. Just because we walked in with a camera around our necks, wearing our matching Hawaiian shirts, does not mean that we should automatically be considered “seniors”. I could just not leave this alone. After walking around for 3 hours at the fair in 96 degree weather, both of us were totally worn out. But if we left now, our kids and friends would all think, “poor things, they are getting old, they just couldn’t hack the heat and all the walking, so they didn’t even stay long enough to justify the $15 parking” So I made Randy find us a seat in a shady area and told him that we were going to sit there for a couple of hours and not give our kids the satisfaction that they were right when they all told us that we needed to wait for it to cool down and then possibly think about renting one of those little scooters. They would never know that we sat the entire last 2 hours we were there. Besides, we hadn’t had a chance to people watch lately, and my, what our eyes beheld. More body piercings, tattoos and fat ladies wearing patterned leggings that one should have to see in a 5 hour period. But we did acknowledge on the way home that maybe, we have finally grown up a little and find other things a little more fun now, rather than walking around the State Fair, eating food that raises our cholesterol count to a number that is higher than our bank account savings; things like sitting in an air conditioned movie theatre eating popcorn. Or maybe sitting in our lazy boy recliners watching Blacklist. After all, our feet don’t hurt at all after those activities.

After returning home, I remembered that I had a doctor appointment this morning and it was in a building that is located right behind our house. This morning I told Randy that I will see if my feet still work after yesterdays excursion and will walk to the Doctor’s office. After he picked himself off the floor, he handed me the insurance cards and said, “go for it”. I did. Feeling pretty spiffy and good about myself walking instead of driving, I looked over to the building being constructed that I would have to walk by and thought to myself, “oh this is good, I know what happens when ladies walk by construction workers, and this will be so good for my ego.” So I put a spring in my step and get my cell phone out to help me look cool and start walking past when it happened.

Nothing! Not one whistle. So thinking that maybe they were just busy, I slowed down just to be sure they saw me, but nothing. Not one whistle. As I walk through the door of the dermatologist, I think  to myself that he will have a positive word telling me that my skin looks pretty good for 65, causing my head to swell, just a bit. But the only thing the little 15 year old Dr said, was, “you know at your age, you really should be checked every year”

I hand the kindergartner receptionist  my Medicare Care and walk out. OK, I bet the construction workers have had their coffee break by now and are really awake, so I walk by expecting some whistles. All I can say is they are the most dedicated brick layers I have ever seen. Not one head turned, I thought surely allowing my music on my cell phone would draw a little attention, but I guess guys aren’t into Barry Manilow. I would have settled for one of them whistling a song,

Note to self, stay away from State Fairs, Dermatologist and construction sites, they are not good for my self-confidence!

Think I will confine my activities to dark movie theatres, where it’s too dark to see the wrinkles and bags under the eyes and funerals, where if you are alive, you are looking good!

So

Meats · Soups

Green Chile Beef Vegetable Soup

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I cooked lunch for a meeting today. Thinking that maybe, just maybe it might be cooler weather, I planned on making a pot of soup. But as the day dawned, it became apparent that it was going to be in the 90’s. Was too late to change the menu, so soup it was. We were just going to have to turn down the air conditioning and pretend that we lived up north and because it was Oct, it should be cool. The soup ended up really so good and all of the ladies absolutely loved it. It is just a little different than most veggie soups because of the added green chile enchilada sauce that is added.

1 package of thinly sliced round steak, cut into tiny cubes

1 large can (about 20 oz) crushed tomatoes

1 small can of mild green chile enchilada sauce

1 small can mild green chiles

1 can Rotel Tomatoes with chiles, mild

1 onion, chopped

1 cup of chopped celery

2 green bell peppers

1 bag of cubed butternut squash

3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 cup of chopped carrots

1 can cut green beans, drained (not French style)

2 cups cabbage, chopped small

1 small zucchini, cubed

1 small yellow squash, cubed

1 regular size can of navy beans, drained

2 teas chopped garlic

1 regular size can of beef broth

1 to 2 cups water

In 2 table olive oil, brown chopped beef with onion until all meat is browned. Add the celery and bell pepper, salt and pepper to taste along with the garlic. Saute the mixture until the onions, celery and pepper is softened. Add all of the tomatoes, enchilada sauce, green chiles and broth. Add all the rest of the ingredients, except water.  You can add more water if needed if it cooks down more than you would want. I used about 1 cup of water. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook in crock pot on low all night or in a heavy pot in oven for about 3 hours at 325, or until all the veggies are tender and sauce is a little thick.

Served this with green chile cornbread and fresh apple cake. Was a great lunch!

for the cornbread, I used a package of Martha White yellow corn bread mix and just added a small can of mild green chiles,1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese and made them into muffins. The fresh apple cake is on the blog!

Daily Thoughts

Decorating With Shams

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Attended a ladies luncheon today which was just like being in a tea room! The hosts’ home was decorated to the hilt with candles which she had painted in Mod Podge and then rolled in cinnamon or ground coffee beans. She had found quilted pillow shams which she used as table runners. When the ladies were going around admiring all the Fall décor, we began to ask her about the table runners which held such beautiful Fall decorations. Her response was such a great idea to keep in mind. When she goes to Home Goods, Dillards or other stores which carry linens, she goes to the clearance aisle. When they have shams which don’t have a pair, they are always marked down really low and she buys them to use as table decorations. What a great idea. Below are pictures of how she used them and what a awesome way to display seasonal decorations.

The food was amazing and the sweet time of fellowship with the 9 ladies gave us all a wonderful memory to take with us before a most busy time of year begins. Thank you Ms Perfect Host and thanks for so many great decorating ideas!2015-10-13 12.58.182015-10-13 12.59.36