Lake Lady Makes Applesauce!

This recipe is from my sister, who just happens to post under the Title: Lake Erie: Daily Visits to the Greatest Great Lake. http://lakeeriedaily.blogspot.com/ Go Visit! It's fascinating how the water changes every minute! Baked Applesauce   This has a lovely deep rich flavour that only baking can give.   Ingredients:      - 4 – 6 medium sized apples – I used my favourite Cortland apple. It’s an apple that is great for eating out of hand – especially when it’s just picked but is a wonderful cooking apple with its tart-sweet true apple flavour. - ¼ cup brown sugar - for me the darker the better but use what you have. White sugar will work too. ¼ cup seedless raisins ¼ cup dried cranberries (optional or use dried cherries or chopped dried apricots instead)  ½ tsp cinnamon ¼ tsp cloves 1 tsp butter 1/8 cup water   Method:   1.    –core and chop the apples. You can peel them if you must but I never do. They cook long and slow enough for the peels to be quite soft and why throw out all that fibre and nutrients?      2.    –put ½ the chopped apples in an oven-proof bowl. I grease it with a bit of butter because it adds flavour and it’s so much easier to clean.   3.    –add all the dried fruit and ½ the brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves      4.    –add the rest of the chopped apple and top with the rest of the brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves and the butter.      5.    –add water – just a splash, an 1/8 cup or so. It just keeps things juicier.   6.    Bake in 350 degree oven for about an hour – maybe more. Stir to mix thoroughly after about ½ hour. This keeps the top from burning. Cooking time will depend on how fresh the apples are. It’s done when the apples are quite soft.   7.    Stir it around to break it up a bit if you want it to be more applesaucy.      8.    Serve hot along side most meats. Great with Mac and cheese. It’s good cold and it re-heats very well. I’ve even had it warm on vanilla ice cream.

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I Make Valentines Treats!

I love those cookies where the cookie has a marshmallow and is covered with chocolate, but I wanted to make something to give to all the kids at work and it's so expensive to buy good quality candy these days.
So! I thought... heck! I'll just make my own marshmallow cookie thingys!
Well, I don't know if I saved any money, but these sure are delicious!

Here's my ingredients:

I suppose you could buy just a vanilla cookie, but I wanted the richness of the shortbreads and...
They were on sale: Two boxes for $4.00. 

  I wanted real Kraft marshmallows, but they only had these no name ones. 
The chocolate on the other hand was a really good quality and these packages were about $4.00 each! Yikes!


I broke up the chocolate in a pyrex bowl and perched it over water in a saucepan on ultra low heat. Covered it and got all my other stuff ready.

I laid all the cookies out onto a tray covered with waxed paper first.

Put a drizzle of caramel on each cookie and put the tray in the frig so it would harden a bit.

Cut each marshmallow in half lengthwise.

 
Laid a marshmallow out on top.

Dunked half in chocolate. Back in the frig.

(That's so you don't get quite as much on your fingers!)
Did the other half and num, num!

Got out my sprinkles and decorated.

Wrapped each one and bagged it. 

It just proves once again that anything dipped in chocolate is scrumptious!

 

 

All of these photos were again shot with my Nikon P90 but I cropped the last four.

I Make Mashed Cauliflower!

Because we watch our carbs, (better for blood pressure and our waist lines,) I normally use cauliflower instead of potatoes. Most of my family actually prefers it now. 


Euck! You say? 


Well, try it some night. You'll love it and your man will adore you for his meat and potatoes dinner that won't set his heart to racing and fill those arteries full of plaque! Anyone who is a diabetic will love this one too!


Take any old head of cauliflower and wash it really well. 

Just lay it on your cutting board and start slicing it.

In about half to three quarter inch slices will be fine.

Break the slices up in your deep frying pan. Pour in about a half cup of water, a quarter teaspoon of garlic, salt and pepper and cover with a lid. (The garlic takes away the cabbage taste.)  Let simmer on med low heat until the veggie is fork tender and the water is all gone. You can take the lid off for the last bit to boil off the water, Watch it though, it will burn easily! 

Here's the fun part!

Take it off the heat and mash. I just use my big wood paddle, but if I'm trying to impress someone, or they've never eaten this, I'll whip out my hand blender and puree.

This batch has butter and sour cream because I have it left over. I've used grated cheese many times too! Or traditional butter and milk. (But be careful with the milk. They'll get runny!)

Use just like you would mashed potatoes and trust me, you and your sugar will love this dish! 

(Not to mention your honey and his sugar!)

The meatloaf was a previous post. 

Maybe we eat some weird stuff, but at least it tastes good!

I Make Baked Beans!

New Years day was when we were finally able to nail down our son and his family for a Christmas and so I asked what he'd like to have me cook.


One of those requests was baked beans.


Now, each and every one of us cooks have dishes that we kind of hold and call our own and one of mine is beans. Dark and fruity, fresh from the oven with both flavors of savory and sweet and comforting? Wow!  In my mind a true farm meal would always include baked beans and I am sharing my thoughts and one of my productions.


Of course in my kitchen, nothing stays the same and my dishes all have to do with what's in my cupboards and what I actually remember to buy, so this is once again a guideline recipe.


Here's most of my ingredients

3/4 cup spanish onion

2tblsp of butter.

Chop up the onion and carmelize it in the butter. (I just think it adds so much more flavor!)

In a large ovenproof dish ad:

-A  48 oz can of baked beans. (Just use the one in tomato sauce. I just can't abide the whole soaking and simmering process to use dry beans.)

- 2 tblsp of finely chopped pepper. (I had red in the frig. You could use a hot one too.)
-1/4 cup soy sauce.
-1/8 cup of cider vinegar.
-2 tblsp balsamic vinegar.
-1/2 tsp garlic salt
-1/2 tsp paprika
-1/4 tsp dry mustard. (You can use wet instead.)
-1/2 cup ketchup, (When substituting here, remember that your canned beans already have tomato in it. Also cloves, nutmeg, etc. in the ketchup)
-3/4 cup brown sugar. (To balance the vinegar.)
-The Onions that you've just fried up.
Some pepper. I don't add salt because of the salty Soy Sauce.


Today, I had made an apple pie and had some apple slices that wouldn't fit in.

So I chopped them finely and added those too.

We still need some fat. I suppose if you're a veggie person, you could leave out the fatty meat, but I like bacon in my beans. I however forgot to buy bacon yesterday and so this batch of beans doesn't have any in it. So! I put another 3 or 4 tablespoons of butter in the pot.

Stir it all up and...

Put the pot uncovered in your 250 degree oven for up to six hours.

This batch seemed runny after 3 so I jacked the temperature up to 350 for an hour and then it was suppertime. Oh well! They could have used another hour or two!

The family still almost cleaned them totally up though! (Mommas cookin' is always the best, isn't it?)

 

Let someone experience an old fashioned home and hearth the next time you make beans and always remember that the old recipes were just always whatever a person had on hand! 

I Make Beef Oven Stew

I put a little olive oil in my big Dutch Oven. When it's hot, dropped in my beef and browned it on all sides. Now, Julia Child would tell you to dry each piece of beef off so it will brown properly, but I don't usually have that kind of patience! 

I like to buy a beef roast and cut it into cubes. Watch the prices. Quite often, I can buy a blade roast cheaper than stewing beef. Did you know cheap stewing beef can be cut from the neck and lower legs and the other 'not so desirable' areas? I like to sort of have an idea of where the stuff comes from. A good butcher will chunk up the brisket,  which is great too! I remembered to salt and pepper the meat while it was browning.

I like to use about twice as much raw veggies as I have meat. Sliced and cubed all my veggies to add while the beef is browning.

 Here we have turnip, sweet potato and mushrooms. I also like to put Zucchini in (the long green squash,) but didn't have any on hand this day. I like zucchini, because it just takes on the flavor of whatever it's with and the boys don't mind it's there!

Once the beef got to a brown stage, threw in a cup or so of chopped Spanish onion and let them brown up just a bit to increase the flavor.

After the meat browns, I poured water into the pot SLOWLY! Slowly means you won't warp your good pot by lowering the temperature too fast.  Just covered the meat for now. Now Into the pot I tossed all my veggies and some ketchup. About 1/2 cup to start and then covered all those with water.

Spices go in now. I chose more salt and pepper, garlic, paprika, bay leaf, some soy sauce and some Worchestershire and of course a little brown sugar.

 

Simmer, simmer, simmer for five or six hours.

 

I made what's called a 'Rue'. Equal parts of butter and flour all mashed in together.  You see, flour won't melt into water, but it will mix into grease, (the butter,) and then melt into the stew.

Now, I slowly add some hot stew stuff into the butter to get it melting and then stir away so it won't all cook into clods in the stew. I was mostly successful with just a few lumps that nobody would notice. This is for me and Dick after all, not company!

 

This is a good part! I had a roll of frig biscuits  that I was going to use for the coffee cake and thought? I'd like some biscuits please with my stew momma! So I just laid them all around the top of my pot. Put the whole thing in my pre heated 350 degree oven until they were baked!

 

Spooned out into a bowl. A little butter on my biscuit and WOW! A great dinner!

Huge, hearty hunks of meat and veggies!

Perfect for our winter dinner and lots left over for lunches!

I Make Meatballs!

This is an old favorite of our family's and I just made it last week. 

The folks that Dick works with all decided to have a potluck lunch last Wednesday.

I guessed this dish would be something no one had ever eaten... and I was right!

Here's an extra easy, exotic dish for your New Years Bash!

Here's my ingredients:

2 boxes of frozen Swedish style Meatballs. 

(My boxes had 48 in each.)

2 cans of whole cranberry relish.

1 big bottle of Russian salad dressing

1Pkg of dry onion soup mix.

1 can or baggie of Sauerkraut, drained.

Mix everything up in a nice big roasting pan.

Pop into the oven at 350 degrees and let bake uncovered until the sauce is clear and all caramelized. It took mine 2, 1/2 hours.

Then, I piled it all in my crockpot and put it in the frig.

The next morning, off Dick went, crock pot in hand with my dire instructions to plug it in and turn it on low when he got to work. Like a well trained guy, he did!

I kept a few out and had them myself that day, between wrapping and precooking our Christmas dinner.

OOOHHHH! They are good!

Dick came home and brought an empty crock pot, a nice compliment to me! This simple dish was a huge hit and no- one could guess the ingredients.

Everyone wants the recipe and so now they all have to Blog me! HA!

I Make Coffee Cake!

I wanted to make a nice coffee cake to take to my sister in law's home for Christmas morning.  

Wouldn't this be super for New Year's morning too?

Here's my ingredients.

1 Cup real butter

1 tsp real vanilla 

2 tsp Bourbon

2 tbsp cinnamon

1/2 cups pecan pieces

3/4 cup brown sugar

3 tubes of refrigerator biscuits

First of all, melt the butter

Toast the pecans... be careful not to let them burn!

  Add all the above ingredients except the nuts to the butter.

Give it a stir.

Start the bottom of the pan with some butter mixture and some nuts.

Open up a tube of biscuits and break each individual biscuit in half.

Roll in the butter/spice mixture and start layering in the pan.

Every so often add some nuts.

 

Keep going until you've filled your pan.

Drizzle the remaining butter/ spice mixture over top and let it settle in.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees.

Mine took about 30 minutes because I like it dark brown.

Cool for a second.

Now!

If you're going to eat it at your house, flip it onto a plate now, before the sugar hardens.

If you're traveling with it, let it cool in your pan and cover it.

Which is what I did!

(Schwing!)
To my sister in laws house, Christmas morning!

I popped the pan back into a 250 degree oven for about half an hour.

Flipped it onto one of her plates.

It filled her home with such an aroma as we unwrapped gifts!

Some slathered on more butter, some took their piece plain.

I must say, it was seriously good!

PS: If you sometimes wonder why I take my pictures with dirty dishes in the background and in a dirty oven? It's just so you know it came from a real kitchen in a real house!