Baking is A Form of Art!

Peach Shortcake

2010-09-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

Peach shortcake is identical to strawberry shortcake but when fresh peaches are 'in season' ....... yummmmmmm! I love to substitute them for the berries!

This recipe will make four large shortcakes.   Make them the size you want!

First the ingredients;

Shortcakes:
2 1/3 cup Bisquick
3 Tbsp Sugar
3 Tbsp butter -- melted
1/2 cup Milk
Sugar to sprinkle on top of shortcakes

Whipped Cream:
500 ml container (2 cups) Whipping (heavy) cream
Sugar to sweeten the whipped cream

4 large ripe peaches

Peel, slice and cut up peaches. (You can leave them as full slices if you like.) Place in a good sized bowl and sprinkle with 2/3 c. sugar.  Lightly mix to coat the fruit with sugar. Let stand 1 hr. Letting them stand with sugar like this will create a nice juice. If you're in a hurry, you can always get away with letting them stand for 1/2 hour but you won't have as much juice.

Preheat oven to 425 F.

I love the shortcakes made with Bisquick! I use the regular type all the time. (Sometimes I use this same shortcake recipe, add a few raisins and presto! Wonderful scones! My boys love them!) Bisquick is something I always have on hand.
For the shortcakes, mix Bisquick, 3 tb. sugar, butter and milk until soft dough forms.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls into 4 mounds on ungreased cookie sheet. (Or however many you get by making them the size you wish.)

Sprinkle with sugar. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. If you've made them larger, it'll take a bit longer. If you've made them smaller, it'll take less. Just keep an eye of them.

We love this dessert while the shortcakes are still warm from the oven. So, while they're cooking, I usually make the whipped cream.

Beat whipping cream in chilled bowl until stiff. Add sugar to sweeten to your taste.

Split shortcakes carefully with a sharp knife. They tend to be a bit crumbly so work slowly and keep a flat spatula around to lift them and transfer to plates. Any bits that break off can be placed on the shortcake before you add whipped cream.  Transfer each shortcake bottom to it's serving plate.

Roughly divide the peaches / juice and half and spoon 1/4 mixture of the first half over each of the bottoms. Add a good dollop of whipped cream.   Carefully place the shortcake tops on top. Put another good dollop of whipped cream on top. Divide the peaches / juice between the four and spoon on top.

The photo above shows the finished creation.

Delicious!

Butterscotch Pudding Cake

2010-02-18T21:50:00.000-08:00

This is a delicious dessert that's fast and easy to make. It's a cake baked in it's own butterscotch sauce. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

The original recipe was from war-times when rationing was in effect. My Mom received the recipe from her sister-in-law, Lucille. There were no eggs in the recipe and only a total of 2 tbsp of butter. The cake part was a bit flat tasting though and my Mom changed the sauce recipe to a more butterscotch-y sauce that is awesome. I changed the cake part to a more tastier cake that has butter and eggs in it. It's actually from a pineapple upside down cake recipe that I have. So, here's a totally different recipe from the original "Auntie Lucille's Recipe" that we always knew it as while growing up.

First the ingredients;
Sauce:
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup corn syrup
Cake:
2/3 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup milk

In a 9" x 13" pan, mix the sauce ingredients. We mix them right in the baking pan. (Do not use an 8" x 8" pan - it's too small and it'll overflow, creating a truly horrible mess on the bottom of your oven. Don't ask me how I know this.)

For the cake part, cream butter and sugar. Add well-beaten eggs. Sift flour and baking powder and add, alternately, with milk to creamed mixture.

Spoon batter into the sauce. I'd say pour but it's too thick to pour, so just spoon it in, evenly dropping the batter in. Once it's in the liquid, do NOT mix or try to spread evenly with a spoon.

Bake at 375 for about 1/2 hour or until the cake is a beautiful golden brown. It helps to stick a knife into the middle of the cake section and make sure the knife comes out clean, with no batter residue on it.

Serve while warm.

PS - the sauce ingredients could also be mixed together and cooked on the stove, stirring constantly, for a wonderful butterscotch ice cream sauce. My Mom often made that for my Dad to spoon over ice cream, while the sauce was still warm.

Homemade Croutons for your next salad ....

2010-02-17T04:41:00.000-08:00

Imagine this ...... a salad filled with your favourite crisp, cold veggies mixed in with the freshest lettuces available. Your favourite salad dressing is drizzled over top. There might even be some chunks of cold chicken sprinkled throughout. You bite into the first mouthful and your tastebuds literally smile when they pick up the taste of warm, freshly made croutons. Crispy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside, delivering lots of your favourite zippy spices in that bite. Delicious!

And sooooooo easy to make!

First, the ingredients;
2 slices of bread
2 to 3 tbsp of butter
1/2 to 3/4 tsp minced garlic, depending on how strong you like your garlic
1/4 tsp butcher's pepper
a few sprinkles of onion powder
a few sprinkles of Lawry's seasoning salt
a few pinches of summer savoury

Those ingredients are not written in stone. I used white bread but these would be awesome made with a healthy multi-grained bread, especially an artisan type of bread!

I use the shortcut garlic - the jar of minced garlic you buy at the grocery store. If you use garlic salt, it will make your croutons very salty. (I like "very salty" but since being diagnosed with high blood pressure, I had to really cut back on all salt consumption. Sadly.)

Use your favourite spices and herbs. The summer savoury I used was an herb I grew in an old garden and still have some. I like it very much, but the list of possibilities is endless.

Cut the bread into cubes with a bread knife.

Melt the butter in a non-stick frying pan. Lightly saute the garlic. Add the other spices / herbs and swirl the butter / spices / herbs 'round the pan.

Toss in all the bread, all at once. Then quickly grab your two spatulas and toss the bread as it soaks up the butter. Do this fast to get all the pieces coated.

Constantly toss and move around the croutons. You have to do this constantly because they're going to burn easily. Let them get nice and toasted. See all those crumbs in the pan? They're great on top of the salad, too! Don't throw them out - they're full of flavour!

If you already have your salad ready and on your plate, you can just spoon these over top, fresh and hot from the pan. Delicious!

Cookie Kick - Now the Chocolate Chocolate-Chip

2010-02-15T20:52:00.000-08:00

The proper name for these cookies is actually Hershey's Premium Doubly Chocolate Chip Cookies. These were my Dad's FAVOURITES! We always called them Dad's Favourite Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Cookies. That's what I'll always think of them as.

First, the ingredients;

1 cup butter or margarine, softened to room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2/3 cup cocoa

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks (10 oz pkg)

1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts (optional)

Heat oven to 350. In large mixer bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. Add to butter mixture. Stir in chocolate chunks and nuts, if desired. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or just until set. Cool slightly. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. Makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

Sorry, I didn't take any shots during the making of these. Just the delicious little things after they were baked.

Cookie Kicks - First the Shortbread!

2010-02-15T20:43:00.000-08:00

I'm on a cookie kick! So, I thought I'd post a few recipes for some cookie favourites. The first is for Shortbread Cookies.

I used to be a die-hard traditionalist when it came to shortbread cookies. Only the old fashioned roll out cookies, which could also be pressed into a mold, were good enough. Then two Christmas' ago, I made these drop shortbread cookies when I ran out of time. They are good! Not as good as the old fashioned recipe I have that came over to Canada from England with my aunts and grandmother. But still very good when you need a shortbread fix and don't have the time to do the others. Very, very, very good. I'm eating one now....

First the ingredients;
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp icing sugar (also referred to as confectioner's sugar)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup corn starch
1 tsp vanilla

Set the oven to 350 degrees with the oven rack in the middle space.

The secret to this recipe is beating. Nothing beats a recipe into submission like a Kitchen Aid mixer! Put the butter into the bowl and beat for about five minutes. (The Kitchen Aid is a lot more powerful than regular mixers so I only beat mine for about 3 minutes.) It's going to be a beautiful creamy pale yellow. In the last minute, add the vanilla.

Note: I once substituted margarine for butter and it did not work out. The margarine breaks down differently and the mixture was too wet. Some people substitute it and it works fine. For this recipe, I would say it's a safe bet to NOT substitute margarine. Use butter. And really - would it still be shortbread? I think not.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl often in this recipe!

Add the icing sugar and beat another three to five minutes. Ditto for the corn starch.

Add the flour in three additions, beating three to five minutes after each addition. It should look like this.

Spoon onto cookie sheets with about two inches between cookies. A two-inch space is the safest bet for cookies.

My rule of thumb for all cookies is one dozen cookies to one cookie sheet.

Put them into oven, ONE cookie sheet at a time and set the timer for 11 minutes. That's what the recipe calls for. (I usually cook them for about 13 minutes.) You want to remove the cookie sheet as soon as the edges are a very LIGHT brown!

One cookie sheet was left in a few minutes longer last night (that's what happens when you get caught up watching the Beatles on tv! tsk. tsk. tsk.) and they are a medium brown all over. They're still very good and edible but not as good as the paler ones.

Some people like them with jam on top. Personally, I think it's a slight bit of dessicration but ..... what can you do?

This recipe made three dozen cookies. They're awesome fresh from the oven with a glass of milk. They're also even a bit more awesome in the coming days after being stored in an airtight plastic container. If you can keep them around that long.

Steak Subs

2010-02-07T06:23:00.000-08:00

Our favourite steak subs are made with minute steak, sliced thin. I used to use that really thin frozen steak. Paper thin, made for subs. I think it was called Steak Um. I can't find it here in town at all anymore. Sooooo, minute steak has already been tenderized and is just the right thickness. Now, I wouldn't go back to the other. For the amount of minute steak needed in this recipe, I use a piece per person - the size of which you would usually serve each person if you were cooking this as one piece of meat.

The buns in the photo are not regular hot dog buns. They're mini sub buns. In a pinch, I've often used hot dog buns, though. This is one of those recipes where there aren't really any set amounts. I've estimated below, but if you like a lot of mushrooms, use lots. If you like a lot of onions, use lots. If you like your subs hot and spicy, use hot peppers.

First the ingredients;
minute steak, sliced thin
1 large onion (or 2 or 3 small), sliced
1/3 green pepper, sliced
1/3 sweet red pepper, sliced
1/3 sweet orange pepper,sliced
8 oz tray of sliced mushrooms
butter or oil
butcher's pepper
1 tbsp. worcestershire sauce, approx. - to your liking
Lawry's Seasoned salt, amount to your liking
Zesty Italian salad dressing
buns
shredded mozzarella cheese, or mozzarella cheese slices

For this step, I have one of my sons do it. (Don't worry - they're 16 and 23 years old so it's not child labour like they'd try to tell you.) By the time they're ready, I'm ready with the filling. If you're doing it alone, you could do this later.

Lay the buns, open, on a baking tray. I line the tray with aluminum foil so that I'm not scrubbing and scrubbing melted cheese off the tray later. When you work about 45 hours a week, you learn shortcuts to avoid unnecessary scrubbing and cleaning. Lining baking sheets with aluminum foil is one of those good shortcuts! Brush the buns with a good layer of the Zesty Italien dressing. Brush it right to the edges or your edges will go brown very quickly.

(This stuff is awesome on buns like this! The funny thing is - I hate it on salads.) Place under the broiler until they're lightly toasted. If they're not toasted enough, they'll look a bit soggy.

I use a non-stick Paderno wok pan but you could use any type of frying pan you have, non-stick or not. Put about 2 or 3 tbsp of butter or oil in the pan as well as the sliced onions, mushrooms and peppers. (The artist in me just loves the photo above! Click on it for a larger view!)

Sprinkle with butcher's pepper and saute. I cook mine over high heat but I'm constantly stirring and tossing with two bamboo spatulas. I find the best way to coat them and cook them is to move them around with TWO of these at the same time. When the onions and mushrooms are cooked to your liking, remove them from the pan - into a bowl and set aside.

Don't clean the pan - just add another small amount of oil or butter. Toss all the meat into the pan and cook. Sprinkle with a bit more pepper, worcestershire sauce and Lawry's salt. Again, I toss with the two bamboo spatulas constantly over medium-high heat.

As they're cooking, they're going to produce some liquid and I like to keep cooking until most of this is gone. (Note: this photo shows way too much liquid, let it cook much, much more than this.)

Then add the cooked veggies and toss to mix.

If you're doing this with no kitchen help, now is the time you could turn the heat to very low and let the pan sit there, keeping warm, while you coat and toast those buns!

Place a good amount of meat / veggies onto the bun, evenly portioning out the veggies. (So your kids won't start on with "he has more mushrooms than me". Even though he's 23 years old. Years, not months. But they're such sweeties!)

Regarding the cheese - I sent Zach, the 23 year old, to the store to get mozzarella cheese for the subs. He thought it'd be best to use slices. Personally, we won't be buying these slices again for this purpose. It's shredded from now on. The melted mozza cheese slices stick to your teeth wickedly! Good, but really sticky. Maybe it was just the brand we bought - but we'll go for the shredded mozza next time.

Cover with cheese and broil until the cheese is melted and just a slight bit bubbly.

Serve! These taste good just like this, or also with a bit of ranch dressing applied now, just after the cheese has melted. If you like Italian dressing, you could add more here. Whatever's your thing! Make it personal.

When I add the ranch dressing, it makes me think of Quiznos. I love Quiznos' prime rib sub but they don't have a branch here in town. I only get to go, rarely, in Ottawa. In the meantime, these are awesome!

Cranberry Roasted Chicken Dinner

2010-02-05T06:04:00.000-08:00

This is one of those recipes you just toss together (literally) because you want to cook some chicken but you don't want to just have it plain. Turned out awesome! The cranberry sauce gives it such a nice, sweet flavour. I use homemade cranberry sauce, which is really easy to make. The whole berries in it give a really good texture to the gravy made afterwards. I've put the cranberry sauce recipe at the bottom of this post. (You could also use the canned variety.) This recipe is for two whole chickens - we like a lot of leftovers for work lunches and sandwiches. If you cook one chicken, don't cut down the ingredients. Click on the photo, it'll give you a huge mouth-watering version.

First, the ingredients;
2 whole chickens
1/2 cup cranberry sauce
1 apple, sliced
1 onion, quartered
1 stalk of celery, cut into large pieces
2 Tbsp butter, melted
butcher's pepper
1 tsp sage leaves, crushed
1 tsp summer savoury, crushed
1 1/2 cups water
carrots, peeled and cut into pieces
potatoes, washed and sliced in half lengthwise

Place the chickens side by side in a large roasting pan. Add cranberry sauce to the bottom of the pan. I don't put it on the chicken (it'd burn), just kind of plop it by spoonfuls into the bottom of the pan. Add onion, celery chunks and apple slices. Add water. Don't stir - just pour it in.

Brush the two chickens with the melted butter. Sprinkle on pepper, sage and summer savoury. (I grow these herbs in the summer in little pots around the back porch, dry them and use them all winter. They create beautiful herby aromas on the back porch in the summer, beautiful herby drying aromas in the fall and beautiful herby cooking aromas in the winter.)

Bake for an hour, then add slices or chunks of peeled carrots and halves of washed (but not peeled) potatoes. By not peeling the potatoes, it creates a nice 'shell' that will hold your potatoes together after baking. Cook until the chicken is done and the potatoes / carrots are cooked.

I use a meat thermometer to tell me when the chicken is done. I can't give you an accurate time because I cook mine from frozen but the entire dinner took about 3 hours to cook. (And the smells wafting through the house are heavenly!)

I cook mine from frozen because it's Murphy's Law around here - if you take something out of the freezer to thaw, it ends up not being cooked and thrown out a few days later. Bad and smelly. One of those crazy little things you just learn to live with and work around and cook from frozen. After ten years of this, I'm getting pretty good at making adjustments for flavour and cooking times. One learns out of necessity.

Incredible Gravy;
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 pkg of oxo beef or chicken flavour boullion
3/4 cup cold water

For the gravy, I take the leftover cooking juices along with the chunks of onions and celery and apple slices (which are pretty mushy by this time) and put into a pot on the stove. Bring to a boil.

While waiting for it to boil, add flour, corn starch and the package of oxo to the jarr. Pour in the water, put the lid on the jar and shake like mad. This always makes me think of Shake-A-Puddings. (A word of caution, make sure the lid is on tight.) Doing it in a jar like this is fast and once the chicken is cooked and the meal is being served, I'm always in a rush to get the gravy made.

Once the juices are boiling, slowly add the flour/cornstarch/oxo mix, just until you get the right consistency. Stir constantly. You won't be using the entire mix of this, just enough to thicken. Actually, the less you use of this, the less you're watering down your gravy.

I like very textured gravy (which drives my kids crazy - they don't want chunks) so I keep the onion pieces and celery pieces intact. The apple mixes in as well as the berry chunks. Chunky gravy is the best! Textured, I keep saying to my kids as I spoon them out just the liquid. "I don't like chunks in my gravy," each keeps replying. I pretend I don't hear and keep making it 'textured'.

Cranberry Sauce;
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 pkg fresh or frozen cranberries (340 g.)

This is the recipe from the back of an Ocean Spray package of cranberries.

Mix the water, sugar and cranberries in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Or at least very ocassionally. Reduce heat. Boil gently for about ten minutes. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate. Makes about 2 1/4 cups.

Fantastic Onion Rings!

2010-01-31T08:17:00.000-08:00

I originally saw this recipe at Cassie's blog (which is a fantastic blog for recipes!) and they looked soooo good (and Cassie gave them such a great review) that I had to put the recipe in my "Recipes to Try" cookbook. During the week, I bought two large sweet onions, showed everyone here and promised to make onion rings for a snack on Saturday night. I didn't really feel like it last night but was "reminded" that I'd promised. So, I made them.

They are awesome! So crispy and light! The corn flakes give them a wonderful almost-nutty flavour. At first, Zach (my oldest son who loves to cook) and I were a bit skeptical about corn flakes but we're sold now! Look at the texture in these closeups. If you click on any photos on my blog, you'll get a larger view of the photo.

I didn't oven bake mine - I used the deep fryer. I had cleaned my oven a short while back and it's still so shiny-clean looking inside, I just hated the thought of spattering oil inside sooooooo, I deep fried them and they turned out great.If you'd like the oven baked recipe, just visit Cassie's blog for her instructions. I'm going to tell you how I did our's......

First the ingredients;
1 1/2 cups Corn Flakes
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs (see note 1 below)
1 egg
1/2 cup buttermilk (see note 2 below)
1/4 cup flour
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp butcher's pepper
1 large sweet onion
Lawry's Seasoning Salt

Note 1: The original recipe called for dried bread crumbs. I whizzed a bun in the food processor and used the crumbs straight from there.

Note 2: I don't buy buttermilk. I always use the substitute of regular milk/vinegar or lemon juice, so for this recipe, I used 1/2 cup plus 1/2 tbsp of vinegar or lemon juice. For the first batch, I used vinegar. For the second batch, I used lemon juice. We liked the first batch with the vinegar much better. This is going to give you an extra 1/2 tbsp of "buttermilk" so keep that in mind and remove that much so you don't have too much liquid in the batter.

Heat the oil in the deep fryer to 180 degrees C.

Peel and slice onion into thick slices. Mine were approximately 3/8" wide, I think. Give or take. Separate them into rings. (I save the centre rings for use in recipes calling for chopped onions.) Set aside.

Put the bread crumbs and Corn Flakes into the food processor and pulse until the Corn Flakes are fine. (Mine were still a tiny bit chunky.) Transfer these to a bowl preferrably with a wide flat bottom and set aside.

In a separate bowl, stir together the milk and vinegar to make the buttermilk substitute. When it's slightly thickened, add the egg, flour, cayenne and butcher's pepper.

Dip the onion rings into the egg mixture and then into the crumb mixture. Carefully put it into the hot oil. Repeat until you have as many as you can put in your fryer. If you put more than one layer of rings in there, they may stick. It's a slow process cooking enough for several people, but once they've tasted the first, they're willing to wait.

Put a few sheets of paper towel onto a cookie sheet to absorb some of the oil once the rings are cooked. Have this ready for your rings as they come out of the fryer.

Flip them over once in the oil and when they're a nice crispy medium brown colour, let them drain a few seconds in the basket and place them on paper towels. Immediately sprinkle with Lawry's Seasoning Salt.

A note about Lawry's Seasoning Salt - I totally love this stuff! My grocery store has run out of it at times and I've used other brands but none compare to Lawry's!!

When the rings are cool enough to eat, dig in and enjoy! After eating these wonderfully tasty goodies, you'll never want to eat the fast-food restaurants' rings again!

I found that one onion was good for two people. I also found that if you are going to double the recipe, it's okay to double the egg/batter mixture. But don't double the crumb mixture in the same bowl. It's going to get full of wet clumps of batter. Next time, I'll put each batch of the crumbs into a separate bowl, keeping it cleaner for a long period of time. These are a bit messy to make but soooooo well worth it!

A word of caution!!! This recipe will make a mess of the oil in your fryer. I have a T-Fal fryer that automatically cleans and drains the oil to a holding container below. I'm attaching a pic of the frying tank section AFTER the oil drained out. You can see the mess. This alone is a fantastic selling point. I really love this fryer for this feature. After it's drained, I can put most of the pieces right into the dishwasher after a quick rinse in the sink and presto! Sparkling clean half an hour later.

Another Cold Weather Recipe - French Onion Soup

2010-01-30T07:57:00.000-08:00

Right now, in Eastern Ontario, we've got a bit of "frigid Arctic cold" all around with temps of -20 and the frosty wind giving us a wind chill of -29. That's during the day! In weather like this, exposed skin will freeze in ten minutes. So right now, I'm into really warming-up recipes.

This soup is awesome! We love it here! It'll warm you up really fast. It looks really good - practically elegant - and is so easy to make.

I only use the Lipton Onion Recipe Soup Mix. I find the no-name soup mixes don't give as good a flavour as the Lipton's does for this recipe. This recipe will make four bowls of soup.

Here's the list of ingredients;
1 large onion, sliced
1 tbsp butter
2 pkg of Liption Onion Recipe Soup Mix
6 cups cold water
4 slices of bread, toasted
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Caramelize the onions in butter. I like to sprinkle about a teaspoon of sugar over top after they've softened - to help them caralemize better. Portion them out equally and place into the empty soup bowls.

In a large saucepan, add the contents of soup packets with cold water. Bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Reduce heat, partially cover and simmer for 5 minutes, whisking occasionally.

In the meantime, while the soup is simmering, toast the bread and cut it into diamond shapes. Or cubes if you like. I slice mine on an angle and they look like diamond shapes. I do the slicing one piece at at time and when done, put those pieces into a bowl. (I have two boys - 22 and 16 - who, I swear, will compare to see who got the most pieces so I portion them like this to keep it even) Set these aside as they're only added after the soup has been put into the bowls. (A note: you could also use slice French bread or other homemade type bread which would taste better. At the time of making this batch, I didn't feel like going out to the store so I used what I had.)

Pour the cooked soup into the bowls. Top each with the toasted bread.

Add shredded cheese. (I use mozzarella, but you could also use gruyere.) Place the bowls onto a cookie sheet and put under a preheated broiler until the cheese melts and starts to brown slightly.

Serve and enjoy. (Watch out - it's hot!)

Coney Fry Sauce

2010-01-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

Sheesh, it's been almost a year! In that time, I had to get a new recipe program - Mastercook would not work with Vista. I'd had Mastercook for years so I was very sad to have to change. I did a few searches and found that Living Cookbook was highly recommended. I tried out the free two week trial, LOVED it and bought it right away. Then I transfered all my recipes into it and slowly, one by one, went through all 600 of them and 'fixed' them up. I always take pics of anything I make so I also put a lot of pics into the files. Living Cookbook allows your own photographs to be put in soooooo easily! It looks awesome now.

Anyways, I'm baaaaaaaaack......

Here's something we had the other day - a knockoff of the A & W Coney Fry sauce over home made French Fries. Yummmmm!

List of ingredients;
1 Tbsp butter
1 lb of lean ground beef
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 small can tomato paste
1 can condensed tomato soup
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cider vinegar (I used regular vinegar)
1 Tbsp chili powder
3/4 tsp pepper
3/4 tsp celery seed
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup water

Into a large pot put the butter and onions. Cook until the onions are 'softened' and add the ground beef.

To cut back on the simmering time, I make sure the ground beef is cooked at this point and not just 'browned'. Since this recipe sticks easily, I don't want to simmer it for ages, thereby tying me to the oven for ages to keep stirring.

Add all the remaining ingredients and simmer it for about 1/2 hour. More if you like but I like the taste at this stage. Because there is sugar in here, it's going to stick easily so stir frequently!

This tastes great over fresh French Fries or even on hot dogs. My boys love it so much, they'll put it in a bowl and dip buns in it even. It freezes well but doesn't usually last long enough to freeze here.

The photo below shows the pot just after all the ingredients were added to the cooked ground beef and onions - it thickens up quite a bit from this stage.

Chicken Wraps with a Greek Twist ....

2009-02-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

I really didn't mean to keep in the summer theme, but tonight we had a fast dinner. Chicken Wraps. Easy and Fast. I decided to make mine similar to a Greek sub I used to order from an awesome sub shop that has since closed. (I think they called their sub Greek Lightning.) I also made a more traditional Chicken Wrap with mozzarella and mayo instead of the Tzatziki and feta.

I started with some breaded chicken breasts from M & M's. They were popped into the oven for approximately twenty minutes. While cooking, the needed ingredients can be prepared. Wash the cucumber and green pepper with a bit of dishwashing liquid soap and lots of water. (I have always strongly felt that fruits and veggies need soap and water because those chemicals that are sprayed on them are made to last through rainshowers so why just rinse them under water???) After washing, slice both.

Other ingredients needed are Tzatziki Sauce, crumbled Feta Cheese, shredded lettuce and shredded Mozzarella Cheese. After the chicken breasts are cooked, place on a cutting board and slice into strips.

Working quickly, (the chicken will cool quickly) spread Tzatziki sauce on the wrap as shown below, then lay down some cucumber slices.

Add some green pepper strips and shredded lettuce:

Crumble feta cheese (or sprinkly shredded mozzarella cheese if you prefer) over top:

Lay the chicken strips over top of the layered ingredients:

Next, bring the bottom half of the wrap up, then fold over the left side of the wrap and finally, fold over the right side and tuck in around the back if possible, creating the Chicken Wrap.

A Taste of Summer

2009-02-08T16:26:00.001-08:00

It started off when I was photographing some watermelon pieces for an upcoming painting - as I stood eating a piece, longingly looking out at the snow-filled pool in the backyard. About a month and a half, and I'd be out there getting the pool ready for summer, I thought! (Maybe even sooner because we like to open the pool early.)

Then, with all that missing-living-out-in-the-backyard-all-summer-long, I thought it'd be great to have a taste of summer for supper tonight. Pulling out some steaks, I sprinkled Montreal Steak Spice on them and let them sit a bit. I cheated with the macaroni salad - I bought it ready-made, but to assuage the guilt, I'll include a fantastic recipe here that I make several times during the summer.

We had to shovel a path to the bbq but it fired up perfectly. Just as if it was missing the summer too. I thought of clearing the snow off the patio table and chairs but figured I 'd be eating out there alone, so warm kitchen it was!

I cooked (in the microwave) some baked potatoes and served sour cream with them, along with green beans and a macaroni salad. And incredibly delicious grilled steaks!

For dessert, there were pieces of freshly cut watermelon and chocolate pudding.

The freshly bbq'd steaks along with macaroni salad, baked potatoes and watermelon made it just like summer!

Here's the recipe for Chocolate Pudding that I created a few years ago;

1 cup sugar

6 tbsp. cocoa

1/2 cup corn starch

3 cups milk

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp. butter

1 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar, cocoa and corn starch. Add milk. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook until thickened.

In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks. Add a bit (1/4 cup) of thickened mixture to egg yolks and stir to mix. Repeat this about three times. (This will heat up the egg yolks so that when you add them to the pot, they will not immediately cook into white stringy chunks.) Pour the egg yolk mixture into the pot. Cook for two minutes, stirring constantly. Add butter and vanilla. Remove from heat. Pour into dishes.

To make this one a bit special, I put a few chocolate chips in each dish before pouring the pudding in. After it cooled, just before serving, I added a dollop of whipped cream and sprinkled some chocolate shavings over top. Then a few toffee bit pieces and voila!

And, here's the macaroni salad recipe I promised;

2 cups elbow macaroni, uncooked

3/4 cup chopped celery

2 tbsp. sweet pickle relish

2 tbsp. grated onion or chopped green onion

2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

3/4 cup Miracle Whip salad dressing

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

Cook macaroni according to package directions. Drain very well. Rinse and drain again. Cool. Add celery, relish, onion and chopped eggs. In a small bowl, add salad dressing, salt and pepper. Pour over salad. Stir. Chill.

and now, the tea that followed the stir fry.....

2009-01-28T22:15:00.001-08:00

I love Chinese and Japanese tea, especially the flowering teaballs! I thought I'd show a few pics of a pot of this beautiful and delicate tea I made last weekend. Last night's pot of tea that I had after the cleanup of dinner was similar but I couldn't have photographed in front of the sunlit window.

It starts out as a tiny little ball of dried tea leaves like this:

A few minutes after adding boiling water to the pot, it slowly opens to this:

There are many different kinds of flowers and tea you can buy like this. I was told in a tea shop that they are hand stitched together.

One day soon, I'd like to paint a pot, which is why I have so many photographs of it. (Okay, I give up! Why is it that google / blogger messes your formatting up so badly after you hit the publish button??? I've reformatted this four times now to correct it so this is it. If the formatting is messy, please blame it on google / blogger!)

Stir Fry and Tea

2009-01-28T21:40:00.001-08:00

Today's recipe is for a stir fry that is my own creation. I throw it together for a fast dinner and serve it over white rice. Tonight's had a couple of egg rolls. (The frozen kind you throw in the oven while cooking the stir fry. Fast and easy after a long day at work. And much healthier than takeout!)

Here's a finished pic:
(as always, if you click on the pics, you'll see a larger shot on your screen)

Ingredients:

... and I hope I don't forget any here because I just look in the cupboard, pantry and fridge and use whatever takes my fancy! Our grocery store sells beef cut into strips for stirfries - a great time saver. The chopped onion and chopped peppers were leftovers in the fridge from the Mexican rice recipe I made the other day, chopped and ready for use. It always pays to buy too many of these, cut them up and have them ready in the fridge for the next recipe. If you don't have them, just omit, but it really does need the onion. Chopped celery is great to use, too, but I didn't have any and wasn't going to run out to the grocery store.)

approx. 1 lb stir fry beef strips, uncooked
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
1/2 cup sweet red pepper, chopped
1/2 cup sweet yellow pepper, chopped
1 tbsp. cooking oil - I use canola
6 to 8 cups frozen mixed vegetables
3/4 cup water

Sauce ingredients:

2 tbsp. rice vinegar
1 tbsp. fish sauce
1 1/2 tbsp. hoisin sauce
1/2 cup soya sauce
1/2 cup water
4 or 5 drops sesame oil
1 pkg OXO, or beef bouillion
2 tbsp. brown sugar or honey
small pinch of ginger (or more if you like ginger)
2 tbsp. corn starch

Saute onions and peppers in the oil. Just as they are 'softening', add the beef strips and stir fry until the beef strips are cooked. I like to use two wooden spoons to constantly move it around in the pan, which is a non stick wok pan. Add veggies and water, stir to mix and let cook for about 5 to 10 minutes, until the veggies are cooked to your liking. Watch the water level to make sure it doesn't dry out. Add just a bit if it does. The water steams the veggies and keeps everything from burning while you're getting other things ready. (After a long day at work, I like to keep use shortcuts and time savers for supper. Except on weekends, when I love to just all-out cook!

You don't want too much water left in the pan or it'll water down your sauce. But, on the other hand, you want a bit left (like maybe 1/2 cup or so) to mix with the sauce ingredients for flavour.
While the veggies are cooking, mix the sauce ingredients in a small bowl with a small whisk. (Just before adding to the pan, whisk again to make sure the corn starch is mixed.) When the vegetables are cooked, pour the sauce mixture right into the pan. Using a wood or plastic spatula, mix it with the remaining water in pan. It's going to thicken up fast so keep stirring until you have a nice rich, thick sauce.

Spoon cooked rice onto plate and ladle the stir fry over the rice. That's it! Fast and easy!

If there are leftovers, I put some white rice into a plastic freezer container with the stir fry mixture over top and freeze for my eldest son to take back to his college residence. To heat, I tell him to put about a tbsp of water in the bottom of a glass container and place the frozen 'brick' of rice/stir fry mix over and cover. Nuke until hot. The small amount of water will steam into the rice and keep it from being really dry. (I'm always preaching at him to never nuke food in plastic containers and this will just pop out of the container easily in one big chunk to put into a glass dish.)

Here's a shot of the veggies cooking - complete with steam:

And another shot of the just-thickened stir fry. (Sitting on the cookie sheet that held the egg rolls in the oven.) I think I'll show the tea in a separate post so it doesn't mess up the layout of this one......

Let me know if you try this!

Stuffed Pasta Shells

2009-01-27T16:55:00.000-08:00

This recipe originally called for manicotti but the other day, I used jumbo shells instead.

Ingredients:

approx. 30 jumbo pasta shells
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2 slices of bread, cubed small
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 tbsp. chopped parsley
1/4 tsp. pepper
5 cups of your favourite spaghetti sauce
2 cups water

Cook pasta shells according to package directions. (I cook mine in a large pot of water with two tablespoons of olive oil.) Drain and rinse with cool water for a minute to remove any sticky starch.

In skillet, brown beef with onions. Remove from heat, drain off fat.

Combine bread and milk and let stand for 2 minutes. Add bread and milk mixture to beef. In a separate bowl, mix egg, 1.5 cups of the mozzarella cheese, cottage cheese, parsley and pepper. Add to the cooked beef mixture and set aside.

Combine sauce and water. Spread 1 1/2 cups sauce mixture in a large lasagna pan. (You can always use 2 13" x 9" baking pans if you like.

Fill shells with beef mixture and place in a single layer on the sauce in the lasagna pan. An easy way to fill the shells is to put the beef mixture in a large ziplock bag. seal it and then cut one little triangle from one bottom corner. Squeeze the filling out this corner, like you would squeeze icing from a icing bag.

After all the shells are filled and sitting neatly in the lasagna pan, cover with spaghetti sauce / water combo. Mix together the remaining 2.5 cups of mozzarella cheese and the parmesan cheese. Spread this evenly on top of the spaghetti sauce covering the shells.

Bake, covered, at 350° for 50 minutes. During the last 15 minutes, uncover.

(I don't have a cover for my lasagna pan so I just carefully lay a cookie sheet over top.)

Leftovers can be frozen or stored in fridge and reheated.

Southwestern Rice Salad

2009-01-24T18:29:00.000-08:00

Tonight for supper, we had tacos. With it, I made a Southwestern Rice Salad and served it in tortilla bowls.

Each of these 'bowls' holds about 1 cup of the salad.

5 cups Uncle Ben's long grain converted rice

1 can corn, drained

1 cup chopped green pepper

3/4 cup chopped Sweet Red Pepper

3/4 cup chopped Sweet Yellow Pepper

1 can kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 can black beans, rinsed and drained

2 cups salsa

3/4 cup Caesar Vinegrette salad dressing

Cook rice. (I cook mine in a rice cooker.) Dump into a large bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Serve right away as a warm salad or refrigerate to serve later as a cold salad.

I like to garnish with a bit of shredded cheddar cheese.

I should note that this recipes makes about 14 cups of salad so you might want to cut it down.

To make the tortilla bowls, grease a large muffin tin. (The one I have makes six very large muffins.) Warm up a six inch tortilla in the microwave for a few seconds to make it more flexible. Fit into the muffin tin, folding excess into pleats. Fill with pie weights. Put into a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until just about to turn a pale brown. Remove the pie weights right away or they'll stick to the insides.

Old Fashioned Doughnuts

2009-01-18T16:24:00.000-08:00

Yummmmm! My grandmother used to make these and we loved them. That was way before the days of Tim Horton's! We called the little centres "doughnut holes" instead of the standard 'timbits' you hear today. These old-fashioned doughnuts are a heavy cake-y type. After cooking them, you can coat them with a cinnamon/sugar mixture or icing sugar. (Or, if you have lots of time, you could ice the tops. I didn't have a lot of time. lol.)

Here's the ingredients:

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp shortening

1 cup milk

1 tsp lemon juice

3 tsps baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3 1/2 cups flour

Beat eggs, then add the sugar and shortening. Slowly add milk and lemon juice and stir to mix. In a separate bowl, loosely mix the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Add to the egg mixture and mix well.

If you'd rather not roll out the doughnut shape, you can add carefully drop in dough using two tablespoons. Use an amount of dough equal to a bit smaller than a golfball. They'll cook up great and taste just as good!

The dough is not a stiff dough, but rather a very soft one. Sprinkle flour onto the counter top and drop out some of the dough. (I just put my hand into that bowl and pull out a good handful then let it drop into the flour.) Because it's a soft dough, you can just spread it with your hands and flatten it to about 3/8 of an inch thick. Make sure you sprinkle more flour on the top of the blob of dough before spreading it or it'll stick to your hands!

Cutting the dough: I used a glass for the outside cut and the end of my baster for the circle inside. A cookie cutter in the shape of a doughnut helps but this is the way my grandmother used to do it so I like to stick to tradition. ;-)

Carefully slide them into the hot oil, using a metal lifter. Let the doughnuts cook until a good golden brown, then flip over to cook the other side. I don't like to flip mine too often so I keep to just doing it once. (Saves getting splashed in oil.)

That shiny new deep fryer was a Christmas gift and is awesome! The entire thing, except the temperature control and heating element goes right into the dishwasher to clean up! You don't even touch the oil. When it's cool enough, it filters down into a storage container that slides out.

The Creamiest Rice Pudding You'll Ever Eat ...

2009-01-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

The recipe for this rice pudding actually came from a cook at a truck stop. It's a big recipe so you might want to halve it. (I did last night when I cooked this.) It is the creamiest rice pudding! None of that custardy texture and you don't have to cook it in the oven.

If you cook it too long though, you'll get an almost gelatinous texture so watch for that. (I have to confess that when I made it last night, I kind of fell asleep towards the end so it's a bit too thick. Oops.) Just cook until it's thickened and most of the liquid has been absorbed by the rice.

You really should use the Uncle Ben's Long Grain Converted rice! I've known people who have made this and used cheaper rice and it gets very mushy. Uncle Ben's rice rocks!

2 cups Uncle Ben's Long Grain Converted Rice
water
2 litres Half and Half Cream
2 Eggs, beaten
2 tsp. Vanilla
3 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup raisins

Put the rice into a large pot. Cover with water and boil briefly - just to remove the starch. Drain and discard the liquid. (I use a large sieve to drain it.)

Put rice back into the pot and add the cream, eggs, vanilla and sugar. Add enough milk to make the pot 3/4 full, or about 1 inch from the top of the pot.

Cover and cook over low heat.

Simmer until rice is cooked and mixture has boiled down and thickened, approximately three hours. Stir frequently.

Remove from heat. Add raisins and cool.

This is best served cold from the fridge. Some people love to drizzle a bit of maple syrup over top. Just a bit!

Juliette Leger's Infamous Christmas Fruitcake

2009-01-07T19:25:00.000-08:00

Years and years ago, I decided to make a cookbook. I spoke to close relatives and asked for their favourite family recipes. I received lots of great recipes and assembled them into a cookbook, giving each contributor a copy of the cookbook. Now, if you advance years ahead, one of the contributors, my mother in law, is suffering from Alzheimer's and can no longer cook, let alone remember any of these recipes. If I hadn't made that cookbook, a great many of the recipes would now be lost.

So, I always urge people to write down family recipes! Ask your relatives for them! Even those you've never tasted! Assemble them into some kind of cookbook. I guarantee you won't be sorry.

~~~~~

Fruitcake is something I don't usually eat. I just don't like it. But I love this one!

My mother in law used to make a type of fruitcake from a recipe that's been in their family for a long time - given to them by a relative called Juliette Leger. This fruitcake was revered and loved. My mother in law no longer cooks and it was hinted (very broadly) that maybe I could bake some fruitcake like Juliette's. Searching through my family cookbook, I found the recipe. I tried it, it's perfect they said! I even tried a piece myself and really enjoyed it.

This, to me, tastes more like a gingerbread cake with lots of fruit and nuts in it.

Here's the original recipe:

6 eggs
2 cups Mazola oil
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups 'fancy' molasses
2 tsp. baking soda IN 1/2 cup of hot water
1 lb. seedless raisins
1 lb. Corinth raisins
8 oz. red cherries -- candied
8 oz. green cherries -- candied
1 lb. candied peel
1 lb. nuts
1/2 cup fruit juice (apple juice)
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
5 cups flour

The original and very old recipe states only this: Mix in order given. Put in greased loaf pans. Bake at 250 degrees for 2 hours. Makes 3 loaves.

After some trial and error, I follow these directions:

For the cherries, I do not use green. I don't like the taste of green candied cherries so I buy 1 container of 454 gram sized red cherries which equals about 2 cups.) Put into a LARGE bowl.

For all the raisins, I use a combined total of 1 kg of assorted raisins: currants, thompson raisins and sultana raisins. That equals roughly 2 pounds.

I use 1 cup of the candied peel.

For the nuts, I use walnut chunks. (I've tried pecans in the past but we liked the walnuts best.)

Add raisins, nuts and candied peel. Mix loosely.

In a separate bowl, or the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the eggs for a few minutes, then add brown sugar and beat some more. Stir in oil, molasses, apple juice and baking soda / hot water mixture. Pour this mixture over the fruit mixture that's in the LARGE bowl. Stir a bit just to mix. Sprinkle flour over top, then sprinkle spices over top of flour. Mix well with a large spoon and a whisk. It'll be difficult with the whisk but it's the best way to keep the flour from lumping up.

Spoon into greased loaf pans, filling about 3/4 full. (One batch makes six small 6-inch loaves plus 1 or 2 regular sized loaves.)

Bake just until knife comes out fairly clean and there's a bit of a crust on top. If you wait until the knife comes out very dry, then the cake will be very dry.

Another note: don't add any extra flour. I thought one time that it was a bit wet so I added one extra cup of flour and the cakes turned out very, very dry. So, the mixture will look wet but that's okay!

These will freeze wonderfully well. For mine, I wrap them in plastic wrap, then put them into a freezer ziplock bag.

Another little note to this is that I grew up on very British recipes as my grandparents and their families came here from England. So, Plum pudding with a hot vanilla pudding over top was always served at Christmas - with coins wrapped in aluminum foil and slipped into each piece of cake. (That was a Christmas tradition!) I find that a slice of this fruitcake, served with some hot just-cooked vanilla pudding spooned over top tastes just like that Plum Pudding!

So there you go! A very old, French recipe for Christmas Fruitcake and some of the history that goes along with it!

Turkey Cooked in Beer

2009-01-02T17:11:00.000-08:00

Sounds a bit strange but it is delicious! I can't even begin to describe the smells that waft around the house during the cooking process!!!

First, I should mention that the only way I like the taste of beer is when either a roast, chicken or turkey is cooked in it. Otherwise, I just don't like the taste of it.

For my Christmas turkey, I prepared the entire turkey then added a bottle of beer to the pan. (As a staunch Canadian myself, the beer had to be likewise!)

Unfortunately, I didn't take a photograph of it. So I am going to substitute a shot of a turkey that I cooked a few years ago. (I've cooked many in between but this is the only one I've shot. Photographically speaking.)

First, I put the frozen utility bird into the pan. I'd left it in the sink for about three hours beforehand. I have this little problem in that if I defrost something beforehand, it's Murphy's Law that it will just not get cooked. Add to that the story of the baaaaaaaad Christmas turkey my Mom cooked a few years back with the horrible smell (which is a whole 'nother story) and you'll understand why I prefer to cook my birds frozen. I've learned to work around the frozen part and work WITH that cold fact. (A bit of a slower oven and a bit longer cooking time.)

So, the still-frozen utility bird was placed in a large enamel roasting pan. I find that these types of pans are the ONLY way to roast something! With a bit of tlc, a utility turkey will taste just as fantastic as that famous one with 'butter' in it's name.

Now, in most cases, my bird is so rock-hard that the little bag of innards and the neck can't be removed. So I leave it in there and tell myself that it will add to the taste. During the cooking and basting, as soon as I notice it's possible, I remove the offending little bag (and neck) and toss them into the garbage. See how I just work around these things? No big deal. A secret to good cooking is to not let the little things stress you out. (My Mom always used to boil these disgusting little things on the stove, make gravy from the cooking liquid and toss the 'pieces' to the cats. They loved it. But still, at the age of 50, I find that a bit too gross.)

Sooooooo, we have the bird sitting in the pan. Peel and slice (or chop into large pieces) one large onion or several small ones and place in the pan around the bird. Take one large or two small apples and slice it. Or them. With the peel and without the core, and put these around the bird also. (A note: on the extremely rare - extremely rare - occasion that I have used a turkey that was thawed and had the innards bag taken out, I put a whole peeled onion and a whole unpeeled apple right into the stuffing cavity as well as around. But since that happens about once in a donkey's age, they're usually placed around the turkey.) Pour a bottle of Canadian beer (okay, it doesn't HAVE to be Canadian but everything with a maple leaf on it is better, right?) over the turkey.

Now, here's another secret to juicy turkey: take about 1/3 cup of melted butter and using a basting brush, 'paint' the butter all over the turkey. Use up all that butter! (I say 'paint' to kind of tie this into my other blog. Get it?) Since the bird is so cold, the butter just hardens up as soon as you've painted it on. Once your bird is all buttered up, sprinkle on some butcher's pepper, or regular pepper if you've never succumbed to the pleasures of butcher's pepper. (I don't like regular pepper but I love butcher's pepper. Weird, eh?)

The week before I'm cooking a turkey, I make sure there is lots of fresh celery and Cheese Whiz in the house. My two boys love it and I save all the leafy end stems. These I add to the pot. (Not with any Cheese Whiz left on them, by the way! That wouldn't go well with the beer and butter and butcher's pepper.) I like using the leafy parts because of the asthetic appeal to one's artistic nature. And they look kinda pretty. You know those tiny little branches with the leaves on them that no one will eat? I use them at about two inches long. If there's not enough to really encirle the bird in the pan, I'll cut some chunks of plain ole celery and throw that in, too. Lots of celery.

Sprinkle over a little package of OXO. If you're from the US, you're probably wondering what the heck OXO is! In one way, it could mean hugs and kisses but in this instance, it's the brand name of some awesomely fantastic beef boullion, in powder form, in tiny little envelopes. Wonderful stuff! One package sprinkled over the celery / apple / onion in the beer is enough. You might want to stir it a bit to mix it into the beer. Or you might want to add it before the celery in all it's leafy glory!

Cover the pot and put into the oven set at 325 degrees. During the cooking process, about every hour or so, or earlier if you the time, baste the bird with the juices its cooking in. This is really important so don't forget to do it. This basting really makes for a juicy turkey! The more you baste, the juicier it will be. If you don't have a turkey baster, use a ladle and just let the juices pour over every inch of the bird. And then some. Once the stuffing cavity is empty, you can baste in there, too!

When there's about 3/4 of an hour left for the cooking, remove the cover for the remainder of cooking time. Keep basting. (I won't go into the length of cooking time for turkeys here.)

I don't stuff my turkeys to cook. I make Stovetop Stuffing or Uncle Ben's Stuffing and use the cooking juices instead of water. It's much easier and my kids like it better. So why sweat over making homemade stuffing when they prefer the other kind?

For the gravy, I put leftover juices including all the pieces of onions, apple/peel and celery into a pot and bring to a boil. I try to pour off the grease beforehand, by the way. In a small jar, I put about 1/2 cup of flour, another packet of OXO and blend quickly. Add about 3/4 cup of cold water, put the lid on the jar and shake the heck out of it. Mixes it really fast and excellently! Slowly pour this into the boiling juices until it's as thick as you want. This makes wonderful gravy. (With roast beef, I am a very ardent lover of Bisto for gravy. I mean, it isn't gravy if it's not made with Bisto, but for turkey, this is the way to go! Just add flour, OXO and water.) A certain person can argue all they want that Kitchen Bouquet is best but I know better.

I find it very enticing to have this rather 'chunky' gravy. My youngest son insists that gravy should not be 'chunky'. To which I always respond that this is not chunky gravy but rather .... 'wonderfully textured and rustic gravy'.

Accompanying the turkey is the vegetable of choice (often brussel sprouts with a cheese sauce), a salad, homemade buns, mashed pototoes made with cream instead of milk - a special treat for Christmas - and stuffing. Oh, and don't forget that homemade cranberry sauce which is incredibly easy to make, so why buy the tinned stuff?

Well, that's how I make Turkey Cooked in Beer! Don't just wait for Christmas to cook it!

Following is a pic of a turkey from a while ago but as you can see, I was out of celery for it. Shame on me. Ah well, when you're out of an ingredient, just improvise!

Macaroon Cookies!

2009-01-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

This past holiday, I wanted to make some new kinds of cookies so I tried Alton's Paradise Macaroons. There's a video of the technique on the Foodnetwork website here. (The recipe is also there so I won't print it here.) Alton Brown is my all time favourite celebrity chef, by the way!

These are fantastic macaroons! I didn't beat the egg whites quite long enough though so the cookies spread rather than stay in his tiny mountain kind of cookie. So, I improvised and dipped half the cookie into chocolate. Even though they spread a bit, they're still soft and delicious a day later.

For the chocolate, I used a good quality Belgian Chocolate that is used for fondues, found at Farm Boy store in Cornwall.

Here's a few shots of mine sitting on waxed paper after being dipped: