Wookie Gingerbread Cookies

Not my recipe, but I've got to try this. Putting the link here so I can remember it Christmas Eve. 

http://www.sugarednerd.com/recipes-and-how-tos/2015/12/2/recipe-gingerbread-wookiee-cookies

Meatball Sandwiches

I had a hankering for meatball sandwiches. I had not cooked meatballs by boiling them in tomato sauce before. So I figured this would be a good opportunity to give it a try. 

Tomato sauce was on sale at the grocery store. While I have made tomato sauce in the past, it is quite an undertaking. So I settled on store bought sauce. At any rate, whenever I get store bought sauce, I soup it up. 

So, I put two jars of store bought sauce in a large pot. I added a can of diced tomatoes. I then added one half of an onion, diced, one half of a green pepper, diced, and one clove of garlic, sliced thinly. I also added Italian herbs (this was a blend I bought at Aldi's), pepper and salt. I heated it at low to bring to a boil. 

I didn't measure out the meatballs. I used about a pound and a half of ground beef. I added half a cup of bread crumbs. Then Italian spices, paprika, cumin, salt and pepper. I mixed it all together along with an egg. The egg is used as a binding agent. 

When the sauce was at a boil, I added the meatballs, and cooked for about 25 minutes. 

I took a roll, sliced down the top length-wise. Then I removed some of the inner bread. Once the meatballs were down, I carefully spooned the meatballs into the bread. 

My one son does not like cheese. For him, this was the end. 

For everyone else, I preheated the toaster oven to 350, and turned it to broil. I placed 2 slices of provolone cheese on top, and sprinkled Italian spices on top. 

I heated in the toaster oven until the cheese was melted, and voila. We had meatball sandwiches. 

Macaroni and Cheese and Salsa

I had the guys over for an evening. I was going to make chicken wings, and thought about what I could serve with them. At first I thought mac & cheese, then I thought why not spice it up a bit. 

Ingredients:

1 pound pasta

1 stick of butter

1/2 cup flour

1/2 onion

1 clove garlic

1 jalapeño pepper

Juice of 1 lime

1 cup salsa

2 cups milk

1 cup parmesan cheese

2 cups shredded cheese, Mexican blend

Salt

Pepper

Italian seasoning

Chili pepper spice

Dice the onion. Slice the garlic into tiny pieces. Dice the jalapeño. 

Preheat oven to 350. 

Boil the pasta. Drain. 

In a large pot, make a roux. Melt the butter. Mix with the flour. Add salt, pepper, onion and garlic. Save the jalapeño for a little later. Add the milk slowly. Add the cheese slowly. Add the salsa. Add the lime juice. At the end, add the Italian spices and jalapeño.  Add chili pepper spice to taste. 

Add the pasta. Mix. Put in a large pan. Sprinkle more graded cheese on top. 

Heat in the oven for about half an hour. 

It's an alternative to the regular mac & cheese with heat!

Baked Potatoes Stuffed with Meat, Mexican Style

I was looking for something a little different; namely a Mexican inspired dish. I found a recipe for fried potatoes stuffed with meat. I didn't want to fry anything. Then I thought, what if I combined it with a baked potato. 

Ingredients:

8 White Potatoes

1 Lb Ground Beef

12 oz Tomato Paste

1/2 Onion

1/2 Green Pepper

1 Clove Garlic

Olive Oil

Sea Salt

Pepper

Cumin

Shredded Cheese

Siracha

Buffalo Sauce

Preheat the oven to 450. Wash the potatoes. Drizzle with olive oil and seas salt. Baked for 25 minutes. 

Chop the onion, green pepper and garlic. 

In a skillet, heat olive oil.  Add the onion, green pepper and garlic. Cook at medium. Cook until the onion is translucent. 

Season the ground beef with cumin, salt and pepper. Add the skillet. Mix with onions, peppers and garlic. Cook until brown.

Turn heat to low medium. Add tomato paste. Splash in sirach and Buffalo sauce for heat. 

Remove potatoes from oven. Let cool a bit. Cut in half. Scoop out middle. Add the meat mix. 

The next thing I did was to use a toaster oven. I preheated it to 400. Turned it to broil. I broiled the potatoes filled with the meat mixture for ten minutes. Sprinkled shredded cheese on top. Then broiled another three minutes. 

Salt and pepper for taste!

The innards of the potatoes, I mixed with the leftover of the meat mixture to make a hash. 

Fried Tomatoes

While cooking sausage for the kids this morning, I got inspired. You see, sometimes I put ketchup on my sausage. I looked over on the table and saw the bounty of tomatoes from the garden, and thought this could be something. Ketchup, after all, is just tomatoes, sugar, vinegar and spices. 

So, I sliced up some Roma tomatoes. In a small bowl, I put some brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, basil, thyme, oregano, cumin, paprika, garlic powder, pepper and salt.

After cooking the sausages, I put the tomatoes in the same pan, utilizing the sausage drippings. I drizzled the mixture over the tomatoes and cooked over low heat until the tomatoes were warm. Not even a minute. 

Not bad, and maybe a good addition whenever you eat sausages. 

Watermelon Lemonade Slushies

One thing I love about summer is the availability of fresh fruit. Plus, having grown up in Philly, I grew up on summer water ice. Combine the two and you get fresh fruit slushies. 

I've tried a lot of different combinations in the past two years. What I've found is that you need some splash of citrus to make a good slushie. 

My son requested watermelon lemonade. The ingredients are easy:  watermelon, freshly squeezed lemon juice, sugar, ice. Put in a blender. Blend until all the ice is smooth. Mmmm. Refreshing. 

Sticky Rice and Sausage

My kids' mom is Laotian. One of the things she introduced me to is sticky rice. It's not the rice we Americans are used to. It's meant to stick together. 

Even within Asian cultures, stick rice is used differently. The Laotians and Vietnamese use it as part of the meal. If you eat pho, for example, you can ball up sticky rice and dip it in the broth. You can dip balls of sticky rice in soy sauce. You can use it to wrap around meat and veggies. 

The Chinese and Japanese tend to use sticky rice for desserts. 

Stick rice goes by a few different names: glutinous rice and sweet rice. Here's one example:

My kids love to wrap sticky rice around sausages. So, here's how to make it. 

The rice needs to be washed first. Run water through it until the water is clear. Then you need to soak the rice in water.  Best to soak it several hours. But I've been able to cook it right after an hour of soaking. 

Now, my kids' mom uses this contraption to cook the rice:

It consists of a pot of water and a bamboo basket. The idea is to boil water and let the rice soak up the steam. It's not like white rice where you put the rice in the boiling water. For sticky rice you want the rice above the boiling water.  She taught me to cap the bamboo basket with a plate to keep the steam in. You can get a contraption like this, as well as the sticky rice itself, at an Asian supermarket. 

The rice should cook for at least half an hour. Sometimes it takes longer. After half an hour, you monitor the rice until you see that it sticks together. 

Now, the easy part is the sasauge. Our favorites are the Johnsonville breakfast sausages. We usually get either the maple syrup or brown sugar sausage. Brown the sausage. 

We have bamboo containers to put the rice in. You can get them also at an Asian supermarket. 

Serve the rice and sausage together. Wrap the sausage in the rice. If you like, dip in soy sauce. Then enjoy. 

Deep Fried Oreos

Personally, I would have never thought of this. We brought the deep fryer with us to my aunt's house specifically to fry chicken. But my niece asked if we could use it to fry Oreos. Well, not being one to turn down a chance to experiment, I said sure. 

First, you need to hear the oil to 375 degrees. Then, time for the batter. 

The website we used said to use:

1 cup milk

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

1 egg

1 cup pancake batter

Whisk the milk, oil and egg together. Mix in the pancake batter. Mix until there are no lumps. 

Dip the Oreos in the batter. Put in the fryer. Fry for 2 minutes. 

I think the batter was a little thin. Is want to adjust the amount of liquid in it next time. But I was surprised at the result. I hear carnivals then sprinkle with confectioner sugar. 

Pulled Pork for Dinner

Staying with my aunt this week, and I warned her I was taking over the kitchen. Tonight, we had pulled pork, sticky rice, corn and a salad with a balsamic vinaigrette. 

I make pulled pork in a crockpot. I bought a pork shoulder and rubbed a mixture of sea salt, pepper, cumin, oregano and thyme. 

I put the pork in the crockpot along with diced tomatoes, half an onion, a sliced green pepper and pieces of two cloves of garlic. 

I mixed brown sugar and apple cider vinegar in a separate bowl, and poured it over the pork. 

I put the crockpot on medium and let it sit. Of course, you need to be careful when you use a crockpot you're not used to. My crockpot at home, medium would have been enough. But my aunt's crockpot had to be on high. Fortunately, my aunt caught that, and turned it to high for enough time to cook thoroughly. It cooked for eight hours total, three hours on high. 

Orange Beef: It's What's for Dinner

A wonderful evening where my daughter and I cooked together. The result was a delicious dinner. This is orange beef with baked zucchini sticks. 

For the beef, my daughter used tenderizer, cut it and fried it. 

She even had a fan. 

I did the sauce. You start with a roux. Add salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and basil. Separately, I added the juice of two fresh oranges and the zest of half an orange. A little honey, apple cider vinegar, and soy sauce. 

We served it with jasmine rice and vegetables. I'll save the zucchini sticks for another post. 

What I would do differently is to use tangelos. However, they're not in season yet. 

Chocolate Water Ice

The recipe is easy. But this one took a little effort. I used a small, personal blender, which is how I make my fruit slushies. 

Ingredients:

Chocolate syrup (I used Hershey's)

Sugar

Vanilla extract

Ice

If your using a small blender, start with about as much chocolate syrup as you put in chocolate milks. Add a tablespoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of vanilla. 

Fill the container with ice, turn on the blender. I had to keep the lid off so I could use a spoon to circulate the ice cubes as they got crushed. Probably an easier way to do that part. 

In the end, I got chocolate water ice about as good as anywhere in Philadelphia!

Tomato Hamburger Casserole

What do you do with leftover BBQ Food?  Well, a casserole, of course!

This one is fashioned from leftover hamburger and tomatoes. 

I took a patty and a half of cooked hamburger, and cut it into small pieces. I took 3 Roma tomatoes, and diced them. 

In a pot, I made a roux out of 5 tablespoons of butter and a 1/4 cup of flour. Added salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, oregano, basil and onion powder. 

To the roux, I added about 1/2 cup of milk and about a cup of shredded cheese. 

I boil macaroni. Maybe 1/4 pound. 

I put the macaroni, tomatoes and hamburger all in the pot with the roux. Mixed it together. I put the mixture is a small casserole pan. On top I sprinkled more shredded cheese. 

Preheated the oven to 350. Baked for half an hour. 

Sangria

Ok, technically this is not cooking. Still, a good sangria is a culinary joy. It's easy to do. Plus, you can be flexible to make it suit your taste. 

This recipe:

1.5 liters of dry red win

1 cup rum (I used Captain Morgan Spiced Rum)

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup white sugar

1 orange

1 lemon

2 limes

5 strawberries

1 apple

Slice the fruit. For the citrus, I like making the round cross slices. Mix the orange juice, rum, sugar and wine. Add the fruit. Let sit overnight to let osmosis work with the fruit. Drink responsibly and enjoy. 

There are some variations. I've heard peaches go well with this. In the past, I added a dash of cinnamon. Some people like to add a little bit of a carbonated beverage, like ginger ale or club soda. 

Roast Carrots with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Inspired by Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, here's my attempt at roast carrots with a balsamic vinaigrette. To complete the orange motif, they are shown above with homemade Buffalo wings. 

I took baby carrots, and cut them length-wise in quarters. 

I drizzled the carrots with olive oil, and a pinch of brown sugar, salt and pepper. The oven was preheated to 475. I cooked the carrots for 15 minutes. 

In the meantime, I took balsamic vinegar, added basil, oregano, brown sugar, salt and olive oil for the vinaigrette. 

Once the carrots were done cooking, I put them on the plate, and drizzled with the balsamic vinaigrette. 

Pork Dumplings

I found this dish easy enough that a mere lao wai (foreigner) could do it. The only problem is that it took me longer than I expected. 

Ingredients:

About a pound of ground pork

1/4 head of cabbage

2 tablespoons scallions

1 glove of garlic

1 teaspoon fresh ginger

1 baby carrots

1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 teaspoon apple vinegar 

1 package wonton pasta squares

Salt and pepper

Dice the cabbage as finely as you can. It may be beat to put it in a food processor.  Sprinkle with salt. Set aside. 

Dice the scallions into small piece. Cut the garlic into small pieces. Grate the ginger and carrots. Mix with the ground pork. Add the soy sauce, vinegar and olive oil. Add the cabbage. 

Bring a pot of water to a low boil. 

Take the wonton pasta squares. Put a small amount of the pork mixture in the center. Use egg wash to seal the edges. Fold over and make sure all of the air is out. Do over and over. 

Put about 6 dumplings in the simmering water at a time. Boil for 8 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon. Repeat until all dumplings are cooked. 

Serve with soy sauce to dip. 

Potatoes Au Gratin from Cream of Chicken Soup

What do you do when you have a bag of potatoes and a can of cream of chicken soup in the pantry?  Why, make potatoes au gratin of course!

Ingredients:

5 potatoes

1 small onion

1 stick of butter

1/2 cup of flour

1 large can of cream of chicken soup

1/2 can of water

2 cups of shredded cheese

Frozen vegetables

3 strips of bacon

Salt, pepper and rosemary to taste

Preheat the oven to 350. Alive the potatoes in thin, round slices. 

Start with a roux. Melt the butter in a large sauce pot, add the flour. Remember, the soup already has salt, so be gentle with adding more. When you have a nice, thick liquidy substance, add salt and pepper. Slowly mix in the can of soup. If you use Campbell's, the soup will be very thick. Add half a can of water. Then add the shredded cheese. 

Dice the onion, add to the roux mixture. Dice the bacon. Add some to the mixture, save some to spread over the potatoes. Add the rosemary to taste. 

Take a large pan, and spread the potatoes in a layer on the bottom. Do not use all the potatoes. Place the vegetables and bacon in a layer on top. Spread some of the cheese mixture over the potatoes, covering the potatoes, but not using all the mixture. Spread the rest of the potatoes in a layer on top. Spread the rest of the cheese mixture over the potatoes. Sprinkle shredded cheese over it as a garnish. 

Bake for 45 minutes. 

Creme Brûlée.

I like to call this my "award winning" creme brûlée. Back in 2013, when my daughter and I made this with candied peaches, we won second place in the Camden-Wyoming Peach Festival dessert contest. 

Ingredients:

1 quart of heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 yolks from large eggs

1/2 cup sugar

You'll need porcelain cups called ramekins. Plus a deep baking pan. 

Preheat the oven to 325. 

Start by putting the cream in a medium sauce pan. Add the vanilla. Slowly bring to a boil. Put aside, off the heat. 

Take the egg yolks, whisk and slowly add the sugar. The color of the mixture should be a pale yellow. 

Slowly mix the egg yolks with the cream, stirring continuously. Once fully combined, pour the mixture into 6 ramekins. Place the ramekins in the deep 

Baking pan. And hot water to the pan surrounding the ramekins. The water should come halfway up the ramekins. Do not let even a drop of water get into the creme mixture!  This will prevent it from thickening. 

Place in the oven for 45 minutes. It should be thick by now.  Let cool. Sprinkle sugar on top and use a small blow torch to carmelize the sugar. 

For the peach festival, we put slices of peaches on top before sprinkling the sugar, and carmelized the sugar over the peaches. 

It is a most decadent dessert. 

Croisandwiches

I put chicken out to defrost and was just going to cook it up for the evening. Before heading to the grocery store, I texted the kids to see if they had any requests. Billy requested croissants. As I picked them up, I went passed the meats, and saw thinly cut steak on sale.  That's when the idea hit me. 

The idea is super easy. Slice the croissants in half lengthwise. Slice the chicken in thin strips (though not with the same knife or on the same surface -- and wash your hands frequently after touching the raw chicken).  The steak was already sliced. I just cut the pieces in half so they'd fit on a croissant. 

Place on a frying pan, with melted butter over a medium flame. 

Then, using another frying pan, melt a little butter and toast the croissant halves. 

Wit until the meat is brown on one side. Then flip the meat. Add slices of provolone cheese to melt. 

They cook fast since the meat is sliced thin. Place meat on the croissants and there you go.