Massive cooking for last Shabbat

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to take pictures of anything because of Shabbat.  Here was our Friday night dinner:

Brisket - always delicious (cooked with onion soup mix).  Cooked for 5 hours, but even after cooking a while, I still had problems cutting it.  It came out more shredded like for BBQ brisket (which sounds good for leftovers!)

Winter Chicken Stew (not sure of exact name) - recipe came from one of the Betty Crocker cookbooks.  It has chicken breasts, prunes, dried apricots, carrots, onions, garlic, and apple juice.  The chicken was kind of dry, even though it was in all that liquid.  This was because (following the recipe), I browned the chicken on the outside in a frying pan w/ olive oil.  Also, the dried prunes and apricots reconstituted themselves into their original sizes in all that liquid, so it was like eating massive pieces of fruit with somewhat dry chicken.  Sigh...

Chicken Wings - made a massive bag of wings, using a recipe I found somewhere on line.  Basically, it's flour and lots of spices in a gallon baggie, and you do a shake 'n bake thing.  These came out really good!  Aaron and I ate all the leftover wings (probably 20!) Saturday night.

Matzah Ball Soup - added kosher Lipton Noodle Soup and fresh carrots - soup came out great.  For some reason, one of the guests took all of the broth, so I am left with 6 or 7 matzah balls in a container w/o broth.  I'll have to make more soup to go with the matzah balls. No biggie - just want guests to be happy :)

Potato Kugel - also found the recipe online.  I had to grate the potatoes by hand, but after the second potato, I was a pro!  This came out really good, but I think I forgot to use Pam spray.  This one got gobbled up well - just a small container of leftovers.

Fresh green beans - of course, the most simple item to cook, and I sliced deep into my thumb while cutting the ends off the green beans.  Still healing 4 days later.  Finally able to take off the band-aid.  Needed it on to keep my finger together.  

Other foods - challah from Blumkin Home (yum!), pareve brownies from Bagel Bin (much better than they look), and a large variety of candies and snacks.

Everyone had a great time, and everyone ate quite a bit (though we have a ton of leftovers - need to freeze some tonight). 

Larnygitis!

Yep, I've got laryngitis and now getting a cough to go with it.  I won't be making anything out of the ordinary for the next couple of days (though I'm going to Costco to get salmon today - it's a staple in our house!).  Hope to be back cooking and baking soon!

Pancakes

In my quest to make an even larger dent in my flour, I made the kids pancakes for lunch - yep, from scratch.  They do taste better than the box mix (any variation), but not so much so that I would abandon box mix forever (like I have vowed to do with those pizza dough disks/Frisbees). I put some canned blueberries on some of them because Joshua loves that, and Aaron likes it too.  Per usual, one of my kids won't eat it - in this case, Isaac.

To be honest, I also tried to make a cocoa version of these by taking some of the batter and adding Hershey's cocoa powder and some additional sugar.  It basically created a whole wheat-tasting pancake but without the nutritional value add.  I put a chocolate gelt on to show it was chocolate, which Aaron said looked stupid.  He's right.  It does...

No cooking today...

I had some of the lentil soup for lunch, and I had fish tacos (out) for dinner.  Not even the effort to make toast today...

Vegetarian Lentil Soup

So here it is: my own recipe (and healthy!) that I make 2 or 3 times a year. 

• 1 pound carrots - peeled and diced
• 1 medium to large onion - peeled and diced
• 1 head of garlic - peeled and diced

• 1/2 cup light olive oil
• 2 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes (or one 29-ounce can) - undrained
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 pound dry lentils - cleaned in a strainer
• 8 cups hot water
• 2 medium bay leaves

Directions:

Heat oil in a large pot (I used a 4-quart pot).  When the oil is just hot, add the carrots.  Sauté (occasionally stirring) for 3 or 4 minutes.  Add the onions and stir together.  Add the garlic, but do not stir right away (because garlic will burn quicker that the other ingredients).  Cover and let cook over medium-high heat for 3 or 4 minutes.  Take the cover off, mix all ingredients, and cover again.  

After another 3 or 4 minutes (the onions should look translucent but not brown), add the tomatoes (juice and all), salt, lentils, water, and bay leaves.  Stir all ingredients together. Simmer for an hour and 15 minutes.  

You can eat it after that, but it really is one of those things that tastes better the next day (and the day after that!).  The ingredients need time to really interlock their flavors together.  I also add a bit more salt to my own bowl because the nature of lentils is that they need it.  So here it is - a healthy recipe - and my very own (which really doesn't align with my mission of using cookbook recipes, but I needed to make something hot and healthy!).

 

• Prep time: 45 minutes (yes, it takes that long to peel and dice the vegetables and then clean the lentils)
• Cook time: 90 minutes (this includes the hour and 15 minutes that the pot is simmering)

Basic Waffles

OK, I know I said I would make something healthy today, and I did, but it is still simmering, so here are the waffles I also made today (because my super picky younger kids won't eat my (yes, MY recipe) lentil soup).

To tell the truth, I've made these waffles several times before, so I knew what the result would be and that my kids would like them.  The recipe specifies unsalted butter, and that's what I use.  I also says 1/2 cup to 2 sticks of butter, and I have always used 1 stick of butter in the batter itself (although I drizzle a bit of regular, salted butter on top after they are cooked).  The recipe says that it will make 12 6-inch waffles, but my waffle iron isn't 6" x 6" (which is what I think they mean), and I only get 8 waffles out of it.  Many times that I have made this recipe, I have doubled the recipe and the froze the waffles in baggies of 2.  They heat really well in the oven at about 200 to 250 degrees F. for about 5 minutes.  Totally don't recommend microwaving.  I've never done it, but I imagine "yuck."

  
The kids, as usual, love these waffles.  Aaron and Joshua wanted blueberry syrup, but Isaac goes for the regular "alleged" maple syrup :)

• Prep time: 20 minutes
• Cook time: 8 minutes (about) per batch, depending on your waffle iron
• The All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking 1997, 1996, pg. 801

Leftovers...

Been using up the cookies, macaroons, rice, and other misc. foods in my fridge and freezer.  Promise to move on to a new recipe tomorrow!  I am really (really!) going to make something healthy this time!

Hershey's Perfect White Chip Chocolate Cookies

I wanted to use up the Hershey's white (what we generally call "white chocolate" - love them!) chips that I had opened a week ago to decorate the Philadelphia Indulgence Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake, so tonight I am making Hershey's Perfect White Chip Chocolate Cookies.  The recipe is on the back of the bag, so pretty convenient. 

Clearly, I am not using cookbooks as much as I had planned, but this is how I roll in the couple of months before Passover - use up what I can when I can.

I had a whole bag minus the 1/2 cup or so I had previously used, so I added a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips too.  The cookies came out fantastic!!  I used real butter, and I think that made a big difference in flavor quality.  I'm not a huge chocolate cookie fan, but these are really good - not working towards my effort of losing the NY weight I gained, so I had cooked cabbage with some margarine and salt for dinner (yum!). 

Macaroons...one day later

Further comment on the macaroons...my 17-year-old son (who is not a "foodie") is addicted to the macaroons!  He says they are "amazing."  I think he likes the ones with the chocolate on the bottoms best, but he loves them all!

For anyone considering making them, they definitely taste even better the next day!  The coconut and almond extract flavors really have time to meld together :)

Baker's One Bowl Coconut Macaroons

I looked in my baking supply cabinet tonight to see what I might be able to use up in some recipe (realizing that I am definitely doing more baking than cooking for this blog...whatever...).  I was really looking for a bag of chocolate or butterscotch chips, but I saw a nice, fresh bag of coconut that I bought only 2 months ago, so that's the winner!  Anyway, it's a nice change from cheesecake (though there are plenty more of those to come, I'm sure).  

The Baker's One Bowl Coconut Macaroons recipe was right on the back of the bag, and they are baking right now - love the smell of almond extract!  

Here's how they came out - very delicious, actually!  The browner parts have that yummy toasted coconut flavor, and the centers are nice and chewy.

I dipped half of them in melted chocolate chips, but they now have to stay in the fridge to keep the chocolate from getting too melty to the touch.  Both kinds are good, but I think I prefer the plain ones best - sometimes simpler is best!

• Prep time: 15 minutes (maybe a bit less)
• Cook time: 25 minutes (the recipe says 20 minutes, but given the size of the macaroons, it really needs the extra 5 minutes)

Benihana Japanese Fried Rice

I was making vegetarian soft tacos (with MorningStar Farms Meal Starters Grillers Recipe Crumbles, which is like a tofu version of ground beef), and I wanted a nice side dish.  Tonight, I went with Benihana Japanese Fried Rice from the Top Secret Restaurant Recipes cookbook.

I made several changes to the recipe, including:

• Using basmati rice instead of regular white rice (because that's what I had!)
• Using 3 eggs instead of 2 (these get scrambled and added in, and 3 is better than 2)
• Not using any grated carrot (because I'm out, and it's more for color than flavor, considering you're only using 2 tablespoons)
• Sautéing the diced onion (because it seemed insane not to - raw onion in fried rice??)
• Not adding any additional salt & pepper

Bottom line - the rice was really delicious.  The recipe says it makes 4 side dishes of this rice, but I would say that 6 servings is more accurate.

• Prep/cook time (because you're really doing both simultaneously): 60 minutes (this is because you have to make the rice, scramble the eggs, heat up the peas, sauté the onion, and then stir fry it all together)

• Top Secret Restaurant Recipes, 1997, pg. 43

Philly 3 - Step Rainbow Candy Cheesecake

Pesach (Passover) is two months away, so that means I have to use up as much of my non-Pesach food as possible before then, so I am realizing that this will entail much more baking than cooking - at least as far as new recipes go.  I still need to use over 10 pounds of flour and about a dozen packages of cream cheese.

Today, I am making this Rainbow Candy Cheesecake because I was looking through the Ultimate Philadelphia Cream Cheese Cheesecakes cookbook last night, and I found one that will use up several things I have and need to start using up: cream cheese, Cool Whip, and M&Ms. 

We have tons of M&Ms - at least half a pound left from Joshua's Bar Mitzvah (last May!) and of course at least another pound we just "had" to buy at the M&M store in NYC last month.  Also, with M&Ms on the cheesecake, there is a much better chance that Joshua will eat some of it, and he always could use the calories (as opposed to me!).  The recipe said to put the M&Ms on after the cheesecake cools, but I really don't see how they would stick, so I put them on while it was still a bit warm.

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Cook time: 40 minutes
• Post cook finishing: 10 minutes
• Ultimate Philadelphia Cream Cheese Cheesecakes, 1996, pg. 68

Black Forest Mini Cheesecakes

I thought I would have tons of time over this 3-day weekend to cook some real food, but I wound up working with my kids endlessly on their homework instead.  So this is the only thing I made from a cookbook, Hershey's Homemade.

The recipe says that I should get between 18 to 24 of these lovelies, but I followed the recipe accurately (and mine aren't even as high as in the picture), and I only got 16. Mine also didn't come out as perfectly circular as theirs, and my topping spread out a bit because I didn't cool them completely (my weakness for warm cheesecake being the culprit here).  Here's what they look like on average:

They are super delicious, even as imperfect as they look here.  The proof is that my oldest pushed his dinner aside to eat dessert first!  Also, my middle son (pickiest kid ever!) ate one and liked it too!  He thought the sour cream and sugar topping was frosting, so who was I to argue?!

• Prep time: 30 minutes
• Cook time: 25 minutes (each batch)
• Post cook finishing: 10 minutes
• Hershey's Homemade, 1991, pg. 49

Finishing the cheesecake...

We are down to about a slice of the cheesecake.  I gave one of the cheesecakes away to friends because I knew we'd never get through it all - plus, I want to make something else!  We've been eating a variety of our usual foods because the younger two are so picky (including wanting not much to do with the cheesecake). 

The last slice...

Philadelphia Indulgence Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake

OK, so I didn't make anything from a cookbook today, but I did use a new recipe.  The problem was that I had (still have) a huge amount of cream cheese I need to start using.  I bought quite a bit of it last month when it was less that a dollar each, thinking I would make all these great cheesecakes, but I really didn't have time.  

As a matter of fact, I even ripped the recipe for the Philadelphia Indulgence Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake out of People magazine last month as an incentive to get me backing, but it really never happened.  I'd always forget something critical to the recipe - white chocolate, Lorna Doones for the crust, etc.  I wound up using 2 Keebler ready made shortbread pie crusts, and those worked quite well.  So instead of having one large cheesecake using the springform pan (which I have, but 2 pre-made crusts turned out to be both cheaper and easier).  I also wound up using white chocolate chips on top for decoration because I already had them (and they are yummy!)

My only criticism about this recipe is that the cheesecake itself was not as sweet as I would like in a cream cheese cheesecake (as opposed to an Italian cheesecake made with ricotta).  The chocolate mousse on top (made with Philly Indulgence Chocolate and Cool Whip) was really good though.  I think my kids would like that as a dessert by itself, actually.  Giving one of these cheesecakes away tomorrow!

Betty Crocker's Cookbook - Pizza Dough

So after a full week of not being motivated to even make anything that required the following of actual directions (as opposed to just winging it like most home cooks do anyway), I finally broke down and made something from an actual cookbook. 

Tonight, I used the Betty Crocker Cookbook (1987) to make good ol' pizza dough.  My 11-year-old has been complaining for a very long time about the circular cardboard-like discs of hardened dough that come hermetically sealed in the package.  The cost of one pizza circle is about $2.25, and the ingredients to make the pizza dough probably cost me maybe 50 cents.  Big savings and much better flavor!  I didn't have any pizza sauce, and the sauce recipe in the book didn't sound like my kids would eat it, so I relied on a jar of pasta sauce (actually called cooking sauce on the jar), but this was actually better than the canned pizza sauce I've been using anyway.

The only issue I would have with this recipe is that it says this is enough dough for 2 pizzas, but they must be small pizzas because I used the entire recipe to make one large pizza...something to remember next time, that's for sure...and judging from the kids' reaction, I would say this will be a definite regular recipe in our house!

• Prep time: 15 minutes
• Cook time: 15 minutes
• Betty Crocker's Cookbook, 1987, pg. 167

My new blog

I haven't written on a blog in well over a year, but I think with the new year, I am having an urge to start a new one.  I have always wanted to do a blog about finding one really interesting recipe from a cookbook - and then moving on to another recipe from another cookbook.  I picked up some cookbooks from the library today that I have read bits and pieces of before, but have never made anything from them. 

Due to copyright constraints, I will not be publishing any of the recipes themselves, but I will annotate which cookbooks I found them in, what page, etc. in case anyone ever finds this blog and reads it :)  Wish me luck!