7-Up Salad

“When I told her I would bring a fruit salad of sorts, I didn’t tell her that it would look like head-cheese.”

No proper mold - so I used a bowl.
On its way out of the bowl onto the plate,
it hit my tummy, and bounced onto the plate.
No harm was done!

I’m not sure how I happened across this website - *Mid*Century*Menu* and it’s recipe for Ginger Ale Salad – but you can imagine my surprise when I saw this rather pale jellied number. It was less than a week from when I was to go to a friend’s for breakfast. The timing couldn’t have been better. The breakfast couldn’t have been better. And the salad was a nice bit of weird fun to bring along.

I substituted a few items, but for the most part, it’s the same recipe – less the ginger. (I just didn’t have any on hand.)

7-Up Salad

2 envelopes of unflavoured gelatin

8 tbsp cold water

½ cup boiling fruit juice (the juice from the canned pineapple can be used)

Enjoying a slice of leftover salad. 

½ cup sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 cups 7-up

Juice of one small lemon

1 ½ cups globe grapes, sliced in quarters (I’d get a seedless variety if I were doing this again. I *thought* globe grapes were seedless.)

1 orange, peeled and roughly chopped

1 pink grapefruit, peeled and roughly chopped

Soak gelatin in cold water until it blooms. (I had no idea what “blooms” meant – and was surprised to see that it looked more like half-melted butter when I went back to look, 10 minutes later.)

Add sugar to the boiling fruit juice and stir until mostly dissolved, then add the bloomed gelatin to this mixture – stir again until the gelatin is dissolved.

Add salt, 7-Up, and lemon juice. Stir lightly to avoid losing the carbonation in the 7-Up. Chill until partially set. (About 20-40 minutes.)

Add fruit to partially set gelatin. Pour into a 5-cup gelatin mold. Refrigerate until firm.

Enjoy!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

Another potluck, another recipe! This week’s theme was Cinco De Mayo. A Mexican independence-like holiday.

I don’t bake a lot, but I couldn't resist trying a recipe that had similarities to ginger snaps, and was a chocolate cookie rolled in chili powder. Weird. :-)

I followed the internet recipe fairly closely, except for forgetting to use coarse salt instead of regular every day salt. Anyhoo. If you would like to see the original, please visit here: http://www.marthastewart.com/336516/mexican-hot-chocolate-cookies

Other thoughts? Don’t skimp on the parchment paper for this recipe. I did. The cookies *really* stuck to the pan. Don’t use the leftover rolling sugar in your fancy iced coffee.  Blech.

Here is the recipe:

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar + additional 1/4 cup for sugar topping

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon chili powder (I would be open to trying this with cayenne next time.)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down side of bowl. Add eggs and beat to combine.

With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture and beat until combined.

In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar, cinnamon, and chili powder. Using heaping tablespoons, form balls of dough and roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place, about 3 inches apart, on two parchment-lined baking sheets.

Bake until cookies are set in centre and begin to crack, about 10 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let cookies cool on sheets on wire racks 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to racks to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Zucchini Chicken Poppers

Don’t we all want some new ideas? And that “Tasty” youtube channel has some seriously tasty looking dishes. With a lot of them deep fried. Heh.

Well, I saw one that looked very tasty and kinda healthy. I bookmarked it to try at a later date – which ended up today. Of course, I made a few changes – notably removing onions and cilantro. 

Here’s how they turned out. (Before you get too far, I made them with 1 tsp of salt, and I’m pretty sure that could at least be halved.)

Zucchini Chicken Poppers

1 lb chicken

1 clove garlic, minced

1 ½ cups grated zucchini

½ cup grated fennel

½ tsp grated ginger

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

4 tsps olive oil

Grate zucchini, fennel, and ginger into a medium sized bowl. Add salt and pepper, mix. Add in ground chicken, mix.

Pan-fry by tablespoons. (I made 4x batches of 5, refreshing oil in pan with each batch. If you could do more at a time, you could use less oil.)

Makes about 20 pieces. (20 1 tbsp size plus one giant one, to be exact.)

The original served this with a guacamole type dip – but I didn’t have avocado in the house. That would have been a fresh addition. (And a nice way to cut the salt.)

Enjoy.

If you are interested, here is the link to the original recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Z-Z6hx0s0 

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Happy Louis Riel Day! I'm celebrating with a leisurely Monday morning. I woke up without an alarm, shuffled around a bit, tidied a little, and decided to give these Cottage Cheese Pancakes a try. I’d enjoy them while watching into the sunny back-yard. I can hardly wait to enjoy my first summer in that yard.

I don’t eat a lot of pancakes – they slow me down. I don’t know why, I just know they do.

Along came a recipe that looked like a try. I liked them! I think I might make a few extra and freeze them for quick breakfasts.

Here is the recipe (from here: http://hurrythefoodup.com/cottage-cheese-pancakes/):

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

½ cup cottage cheese

½ cup rolled oats (I used quick-oats)

3 Eggs

Whisk eggs together and add cottage cheese and rolled oats.

Fry in pan with oil on medium heat.

I used a 1/3 cup measure of batter for each pancake. This made 5. I think I will switch to a ¼ cup measure in the future. 2 was just a little too much for breakfast. (And it will probably make 6 this way, too.)

Enjoy!

Update: 3/6/2016: I made these again this weekend. The 1/4 cup measure worked like gangbusters. Plus, I used the immersion blender to make a more smooth batter, and that also improved them. They are wonderful with unsweetened applesauce. Also, I've collected the nutritional info for them:

Nutritional Info With Applesauce

Nutritional Info Without Applesauce

Hot Four Bean Salad

This number first came to the Christensen household as a shared recipe from a family reunion in North Dakota. Presumably it was Bernice’s Four Bean Salad before it was Helen’s Four Bean Salad which was to become Terri’s Four Bean Salad, where it eventually ended up Jim’s Hot Four Bean Salad.

I'm not sure that any of us follow the recipe very exactly any more. I think Jim makes it frequently. I pull it out for a pot-luck every 5 or so years. (That’s a lot of beans for one girl!) Jim’s version is more of a “once-around-the-kitchen-and-a-whole-bunch-of-beans-salad”.

Here’s how I made it last time:

Work pot-luck! Lots of tasty food that day.

Hot Four Bean Salad

1 can kidney beans

1 can black beans

1 can pork’n’beans

1 can lima beans

½ lb bacon, chopped

¼ cup chopped onion

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped

½ tsp seasoned salt

½ cup chili sauce

¾ cup brown sugar

Brown bacon with onion. Add seasoned salt, along with dry mustard, ketchup and brown sugar. Simmer for 10-20 minutes.

Drain beans (except pork'n'beans!) and add to bacon mixture. Bake for 1 hour at 350ºf.

In the end I added ketchup. Maybe 1/4 cup? Just to add a bit more zip.

This would be nice in a slow cooker, too.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Muffins

I have a confession. I stopped making ‘proper’ coffee at home. I have about 6ish sips from a cup of instant while getting ready at home. And then I do everything I can to drive past Tim Hortons on my way to work. 

This is one of the seasons that are hard to resist. Why? Pumpkin Spice Muffins. The muffin part – well, I keep hoping that they’ll taste like my mom’s. And they don’t. And I keep coveting that tower of cream cheese icing they pipe down the centre.

So – this is the weekend to unearth the recipe, and give it a try again.

The spice mixture was enhanced. Had there been nutmeg, it would have been added. And no raisins could be found, craisins were added. And the flour was topped up with about 1/8 or more cup of chick pea flour. Weird. Weird that it was on hand, that is. 

No wait. There was another minor alteration. Mashed carrots were used in place of the pumpkin. :)

Trust me, you won’t know the difference.

With that said, here goes:

Pumpkin Muffins

4 eggs

2 c sugar

1 ½ c oil

1 ¾ cup pumpkin puree

3 c unsifted flour

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp (scant) allspice

1 tsp (scant) ginger

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 c raisins

Beat eggs slightly. Add sugar, oil and pumpkin and beat thoroughly. Sift dry ingredients over creamed mixture. Blend until smooth, then stir in raisins.

Bake at 350º for 30 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Makes 2 ½ dozen.

Enjoy.

If you are interested, here is the original ingredients list:

4 eggs

2 c sugar

1 ½ c oil

1 14oz can pumpkin

3 c unsifted flour

1 tbsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 c raisins

Banana Cucumber Salad

Another slice of childhood, this Banana Cucumber Salad is one of my favorites on a hot summer day. The crunch of the cucumber, the sweet of the banana, the tang and spice of the dressing all conspire to make a lovely refreshing side-dish. (It works great as a side for a brunch – it is the perfect foil for a cheese omelette, or a BLT.)

Even the picture makes my mouth water.

In a conversation with my mother, she’s not at all sure where the recipe came from.  She is sure, however, that one of earliest ‘chores’ was to make the dressing. (This is a catch-all dressing. Not just for this salad.) As such, none of the measurements are accurate, and everything is by eye. So – mom’s is a way more balanced version of this. Mine always has too much of something. Usually mustard – that stuff is tough to measure!

Lastly, this recipe lends itself nicely to healthing it up. Replace vinegar with cider vinegar. Sugar with honey. (Just a bit tougher mix to start.)

Please enjoy this unusual salad:

Banana Cucumber Salad

Dressing:

In a small cup, combine:
-          2 tbsp sugar
-          ¼ tsp dry mustard
-          Salt
-          Pepper
-          2 tbsp vinegar

Add slightly more canned evaporated milk. (Don’t use evaporated skim milk or even 2%, as it won’t thicken as much, if at all.)

You should end up with a dressing that is about the same consistency of ketchup.

In salad bowl, add cucumbers and bananas sliced into bite size pieces. (Again – open to interpretation. My salad has bigger chunks. Mom’s is more refined with smaller pieces.) I use 1 of each. A more for more people, or less .... well... if it’s just me, I still use 1 of each. :-)

Add dressing and combine.

Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Gingerbread Cake

We’re back to the mid 70’s with this recipe. It is another from the 4-H “New Food Adventures 2” workbook. This is a “sometimes” recipe for me.  Maybe once every 2-3 years. It’s tasty. And strong flavoured. Although there is an Orange Sauce recipe with it in the book, I prefer a nice not-too-sweet whipped cream with it. It softens the taste.

 

Gingerbread Cake

½ cup butter or other shortening

½ cup sugar

1 egg

2 ½ cups sifted flour

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cloves

½ tsp salt

1 cup molasses

1 cup hot water

Cream together butter and sugar; beat in egg.

Sift together dry ingredients. Combine molasses and water.

To first mixture, add dry ingredients alternately with liquid.

Beat after each addition until smooth. Bake in 8” square cake pan at 350ºf for 45 minutes.

Top with whipped cream. (To make whipped cream, add 2 tbsp to 1c whipping cream. Whip.)

If you would like to try the orange sauce, blend 1 cup sugar with the juice of 2 oranges. There is nothing about heating this sauce... but I would probably heat and reduce the sauce. I’ll leave you to your own devices with that.  

Enjoy!

Butternut Squash and Chevré Soup

For no known reason, I want to like butternut squash soup. A lot. For the past 5ish years, Scooby and I have had a partnership where I would try a recipe once (or so) a year, and Scooby would eat it. He’s a good pal, eating all that food I don’t like. J I also try ordering butternut squash soups that sound interesting in restaurants. The most recent one I tried had potential. It was at the Terrace in the Park. It had goat’s cheese and espresso of all things! I still didn’t like it. But I could see that I might like it if it weren’t so darn sweet.

Well, I’ve had the desire to try this again for a full season. I looked up recipes differently. I stayed away from recipes with apples. Or without any other strong flavours. I came across one with a behemoth name – Moroccan Butternut Squash and Goad Cheese Soup With Coconut Ginger Cream and Pistachios.  Entirely too many words for a recipe title. Accurate, to be sure. But unwieldy. (This woman made a beautiful soup. If you want to see her version, click right here.

I didn’t have everything it called for, and made the odd substitution – but it’s still pretty similar. With a shorter name. It packs quite a wallop, so if you don’t like spice, you may want to rethink trying this one.

Butternut Squash and Chevré Soup

2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons coconut oil
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 small butternut squash, peeled + cubed (about 4 cups)
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk, less ½ cup
2 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper, to taste
119 grams (4 oz) chevré (goat cheese) softened

Toppings: 

Toasted chopped walnuts

Coconut Ginger Cream:

Right after adding chevré
- before blending.

½ cup reserved coconut milk

1 tbsp grated ginger

Heat coconut oil in a large soup pot. Add red pepper and cook for 3-5 minutes or until soft. Add minced garlic, chopped squash, curry powder, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne and thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Cook for 3-5 minutes then pour in the coconut milk and chicken broth. Bring the soup to boil, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the butternut squash is fork tender.

While the soup is cooking, make the ginger cream. Add the cold coconut milk and 1 tbsp ginger to a small bowl. Taste and add more ginger if needed.

Once the butternut squash is tender, add goat cheese to the soup. Remove the pot from the stove and allow to cool slightly, then puree the soup with an immersion blender (or blender or whatever works for you). Return the soup back to the stove and heat through.

To serve, ladle the soup into bowl. Drizzle the coconut ginger cream over the soup and swirl with a spoon. Garnish with toasted walnuts and parsley. Enjoy!

No Bake Granola Bars

Ok. Seriously cool. Not only is this similar to the granola bars I’ve fallen in love with at the Reh-Fit Centre, they’re also a more reasonable size, and I found a nifty “Nutritional Information Calculator” do-dad on the internet!  (http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php) These took a couple of tries to get them to as tasty as desired, and might take a few more to establish how many the recipe should actually make. This time ‘round, they were sliced into 12.

The original recipe found on the internet can be found here: http://www.pbfingers.com/2014/02/04/no-bake-and-easily-customizable-granola-bars/  The author of this recipe makes suggestions to customizing the bars – and so I added and took away and such until I came up with this:

No Bake Granola Bars

Ingredients:
¾ cup peanut butter (chunky, all natural)
1/3 cup honey
1 ½ cups rolled oats
¼ cup shredded coconut
½ cup sunflower seeds, toasted, unsalted
1 tbsp millet
1 tbsp toasted buckwheat
1 tbsp chia seeds
2 tbsp sesame seeds
½ cup dried fruit
4 shakes of salt (no idea how to measure that)

Directions:

Mix together all ingredients except peanut butter and honey.
Microwave peanut butter and honey until warm. Stir together.
Add peanut butter mixture to oatmeal mixture.
Pres into a pan lined with saran wrap.
Freeze for 45 minutes.
Cut into bars; enjoy. (Nutritional information is provided below for both 9 bars or 12 bars. However many you decide to cut them into.)

(Store remaining bars in refrigerator. Wrap individually in saran for easy portability.)

Enjoy! 

(And I couldn't figure out how to get these to go side-by-side. Sorry pals.)

Nutritional information at 9 bars per recipe.

 

Nutritional information at 12 bars per recipe.

Estouffade Provençale

Over the Christmas break, I usually try to take on one bigger meal at the folks’. Something that is a bit out of the ordinary, but close enough to “home” that they can enjoy the leftovers for a while. This was the meal that I prepared this year. It was another dish from one of the themed potlucks – this one was for French Food. This one fit the bill in that it could cook while I was out of the house, and was fairly easy and had fairly easy ingredients. It is a bit heavy on the chopped items end of things, but I think it’s worth it. To find the original recipe, please search here: http://www.easy-french-food.com/crock-pot-beef-stew-recipe.html

To follow my adaptations, please follow here:

Estouffade Provençale

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
250 g bacon, sliced in 1 inch pieces
6 stalks celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 fennel bulb, sliced
2 pounds stew beef, trimmed
1/4 cup flour
156 ml can concentrated tomato paste
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
2 cups cooking wine
salt and pepper
1 cup black olives

Heat two tablespoons of the olive oil in a Dutch oven on medium heat. Add the bacon, celery, sliced fennel, and crushed garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft.

Meanwhile, slice the stew beef into about 2 inch pieces, and trim off all visible fat. When the  
vegetables have softened, scoop them into a separate bowl. Return the Dutch oven to medium heat, and heat the last tablespoon of olive all. Add the beef to the skillet and brown on all sides. Sprinkle with salt and pepper (little or no salt may be needed as the bacon and olives add quite a bit.)

Stir in the flour and mix well to coat the meat. Return the vegetable / bacon mixture to the Dutch oven.

Thin the tomato concentrate paste with a little wine, then mix it all with the wine. Pour this on top of the meat, and stir everything together.

Add in all remaining seasonings.

Cover and cook in a 275º oven for 6 hours. Stir in the olives 30 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Dilly Dip

It is Christmas-time, and that means bring on the appetizers! My mom makes two dips – this is one of them. It’s crazy tasty, and so you know that pretty much can guarantee it comes from a spectacular cookbook – “What’s Cookin’ At Goodlands”. (Recently reprinted, btw. And sonofagun if I didn’t forget to make any orders.)

This year I was lucky enough to have it twice! Once at my parents on Christmas day. And once with the life-long pals from Brandon.

Anyhoo – without any ado, here’s this tasty bit of holidays:

Page 3 - Goodlands Cook Book

Dilly Dip

1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp onion flakes
2 tsp parsley flakes
2 tsp dill weed
1 tsp seasoned salt

Mix ingredients and chill. Serve with vegetables and chill.

Enjoy!

 

 

Sharesies Chilli

Chili and a movie on a snowy Winnipeg afternoon.
Does it get better than that?

So – this whole blog gig – it’s more of a curiosity for me. First off, I needed a place to keep my recipes. I was saving everything to my favorites. (Crazy. I had pretty much the entire collection of internet recipes in my favorites.) And secondly, I was curious to see if it would make it past my own eyes. And sure enough, I’m surprised, and happy, to say that people have been looking at it, and occasionally trying some of the recipes. (Actually a few people have been making a lot of the recipes! Cool!)

There are about 5 really neat things that have happened with the blog. One of which, was a kid who I used to baby-sit – and enough time has passed that we’re pretty much the same age now. J (Weird how that happens.) Well – he’s been honing his cookery skills, and using some of the recipes to practise. And even cooler, he’s shared a recipe for me to try.

Thus, here is the first sharesies recipe post!




Sharesies Chilli

I tried out dried beans for this recipe.
Neato!

In a small pot prepare:



1/2 cup quinoa

1 cup water

Bring to a boil, turn heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes.

 

In a large pot, sauté:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 small-medium onion (add at your own peril. I didn’t.)

3 cloves garlic

1 stalk celery, chopped fine

(I’ve started chopping up a stalk of celery wherever onions should go. I know I need to ditch the onions, but it doesn’t feel natural. So, the celery gives the same action, and probably time-frame, as the onion.)

Meanwhile, chop:

1 jalapeño pepper – pith and seeds removed

1 large peeled carrot

2 celery stalks

1 green pepper

1 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

1 medium zucchini

Add the chopped veggies to the sautéed garlic and celery.

Also add:

2 (19oz) 540 ml cans black beans

1 cup dried kidney beans, reconstituted (this worked out to probably 2 cans worth – way more than expected.)

2  796 ml cans diced tomatoes, processed with immersion blender

1 can tomato sauce

2-3 tablespoons chilli powder

1 tablespoon cumin

Let simmer for at least 1/2hr

Stir in Quinoa

Notes:

I forgot a can of corn. That’d have been tasty.

Add sour cream and cheese as desired. I’ve forgot to do this each time I’ve had it.

It takes a LOT of room in pots. I used 2 Dutch ovens to cook this.

I also put the quinoa in right at the very beginning. It didn’t seem to bother anything.

It didn’t actually need any salt.  Or broth. Huh!

You'll note this dish is both vegan and gluten free. Who knew you could eat so “free” and tasty at the same time?