Chick pea Salad

I love chick peas. Its one of my favorite foods. I however don’t like canned ones. You can use them in the recipe if you like, but it’s so easy to make them from dry… why would you do it any other way?

Chick pea salad
19oz chick peas
1 large ball mozzarella, cut into ½ in chunks
small can black olives – halved
small red onion, finely chopped
1 medium tomatoe, chopped
2 tablespoons basil (fresh)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard
5 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste.

Combine first 6 ingredients, then whisk the last items together, and stir until well combined

Easy to make.

Chief commentator says: “it’s like a salad bar in a pizza place sans lettuce” I think it tastes more like macaroni salad but without the macaroni and mayo..

Overall comments: it was OK.

I wonder if it will taste better day 2.

Curry Chicken with Cucumber Yogurt Sauce

Curry Chicken with Cucumber Yogurt Sauce
Curry powder
Coriander
Cumin

Chicken thighs / breasts / what ever your favorite body parts are.

Cucumber-Yogurt Sauce
Half cucumber, peeled
½ cup plain yogurt
10 large leaves of fresh mint chopped fine.
Put curry, coriander, cumin into a shallow dish. Dip each chicken piece in the powder, turning to coat both sides. Heat a medium size skillet over med-high heat, spray with cooking spray. Add chicken and cook 5 mins. Turn and cook 4 mins more. Continue to turn, and cook until done.

Slice cucumber in half, use a spoon (I like a grapefruit spoon with the little ridges) to scoop out the seeds and liquid. Then I chunk it up, and add the yogurt and mint. And stuffed it all in the food processor.

To serve, scoop a little sauce over each piece of chicken.

Chief commentator says: Refreshing and lively, crisp minty flavor. Good happy summer dish. Great! I’m not usually a curry fan, but this doesn’t have the typical dirty curry taste.

We served it with a 2007 Simi Viognier.

It was really friggin easy to make.. and Chief Commentator says it’s a new favorite.

Wild Rice Baron

The chief commentator had a co-worker seriously injured in a car accident 12 days ago, today he returned home from the hospital, after having countless surgeries, and is on a long road to healing.

Being from the Midwest, I come from a group of people that when things happen, you cook and you cook and you cook. You send over hot dishes for the family, so they don’t have to concern themselves with making food. Today, when chief came home, I informed him that he would be delivering a Wild Rice Baron hotdish, along with a carrot pineapple cake tomorrow morning.

Note: the recipe and comments about making it are here now, we are cooking our own wild rice baron (I made 2) tomorrow night for dinner, so tasting notes will follow.

Wild Rice Baron
2 cups raw wild rice
4 cups water
2 teaspoons salt (optional)
2lbs ground beef
1lb mushrooms
½ cup celery chopped
½ cup btter
¼ cup soy sauce
2 cups sour cream
2 teaspoons salt (also optional)
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ cup slivered almonds

Gently cook wild rice, water and salt for 45 minutes. Drain if necessary. Brown ground beef and set aside. Rinse mushrooms trip tips of stems and slice. Saute Mushrooms, celery, and onion in butter for 5-10 minutes. Combine soy sauce, sour cream, salt and pepper. Add cooked wild rice, browned hamburger, mushrooms onions, celery mixture. Toss lightly. Place rice mix into a slightly buttered 3qt casserole dish, sprinkle with almonds.

This can be made in advance (like I did) and then refrigerated, and baked later.
When time to bake. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 1 hour uncovered.

Comments about prep: It was harder then I thought to make, mostly because there are so many steps, and you have to do each of them in different pans, which makes for a lot of dishes. If you want a short cut in the time, I would suggest getting precut mushrooms, that was the most time consuming part of the entire recipe.

So far, it looks and smells great, and packed beautifully into the casserole dish.

Not our favorite thing ever. It was a little bland. I don't like the almonds on top. It's a good hardy dish though, and if you like wild rice, it's a good dish. I would add more spice to it next time, and get rid of the almonds.

Carrot Pineapple Cake

My Grandma Mary had a thing for carrot cake. Carrots really. Carrot bars, cake, cupcakes, cookies. If you can shred carrots and bake them into a batter, I think I have a recipe for it. Thankfully, most of them have a cream cheese frosting involved somewhere, which happens to be the chief commentators favorite thing, making him willing to try all of these recipes.

Here are the chief commentators words: “I’ve never had one so chunky. I love love love the frosting! The cake is buttery, rich, chunky, nutty, like grandma’s carrot cake that you never had, because they got too old before you were born, and just bought the store bought crap and fed it to you. It’s the new coffee cake, great for breakfast, sooo damn good.”
Carrot Pineapple Cake
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons soda
1 ½ cups oil
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups shredded raw carrots – slightly packed
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
2 cups coconut
2 cups chopped nuts (I used pecans)

Combine dry ingredients, Mix oil and sugar , add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Add dry ingredients, then fold in carrots, pineapple, coconut and nuts. Pour into 2 9x9 baking pans, bake for 45-55 minutes at 350.

Cream Cheese Frosting
¼ cup butter
8oz cream cheese
1 tablespoon vanilla
1lb powder sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon


Difficulty: Moderate. This is the first recipe I’ve made in my new kitchen aid mixer, I found that it was hard to get all the batter into the mixer, and get it to mix well. It kinda pissed me off.. But that could just be the learning curve of me and the mixer.

Overall: New Favorite.

I'm Back! and I'm ready too cook!

I’m back! I’m back! And I’m cooking and writing like a crazy woman. I was unable to cook for the past couple of months, due to a sodium restriction in my diet. (and due to the fact that my recipes, as well as most of both grandma’s seem to LOVE salt and items high in sodium.) but with clearance from the Doc… I’m back to cooking !

In honor of my Grandma Mary (who passed from Breast Cancer, and since my whole health scare was lumps in my breast that they thought could possibly be cancer…) I start out with 2 recipes from her. Wild Rice Baron and Carrot Pineapple Cake.

Enjoy!

Merry Meringues

This one is out of my blue note book. The typeface is very YM or Teen Mag and it's a really easy recipe, so I am guessing it's prolly from those days.

Merry Meringues

4egg whites

pinch of salt

1 cup granulated sugar, divided

Red & green sprinkles

Preheat oven to 200 F. In a large bowl, beat together egg whites and salt with an electric mixer at medium-low speed until frothy. Increase speed to medium , then pour in 1/2 cup sugar in a slow stream and beat until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in remaining sugar with a spatula. Pipe meringue mixture into desired shapes using a pastry bag fitted with a No. 22 tip. Cover with Sprinkles. Bake for 2 hours or until dry. Makes 6 dozen.

I cheated and added a little bit of peppermint extract to them to make them taste more fun

Comments: The commentator hasn't tasted them yet, but they look beautiful and I can't wait to put them out tomorrow for Christmas. I will edit this with feed back comments after they have been sampled.

Technical stuff: makes about 6 dozen

Difficulty: really easy. super duper easy. but you have to be patient - long baking time.
Served with: Xmas Beverage of your choice, mine are going with peppermint schnapps spiked mochas.
Reheat Well?: They last for a long time.
Comments: The Chief commentator LOVED them, they are his new favorite thing to eat (this week!)

Rocky Road

I wish I would have taken a better photo of this before it was all wrapped. I made a huge batch and gave out a bunch of it for the chief commentator's kids teacher gifts. I also wrapped up a bunch and gave it out as gifts to my girlfriends.

Effortless item to make. It was from a Borden Eagle Brand Magazine Ad, that had a recipe for foolproof fudge or Rockey road. The page was cut out of Better Homes and Garden's Magazine April 1982.

Eagle Brand Rocky Road

12 oz semi-sweet chips
1 (14oz) can Sweetened Condensed Milk - NOT EVAPORATED MILK
Dash Salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used almonds)
2 tablespoons butter
10 1/2 oz marshmallow minis

in heavy saucepan, over low heat melt chocolate with milk, remove from heat and mix in: butter, salt and vanilla.

place marshmallows & nuts in greased 13x9 lined pan. pour chocolate mix over top and mix well. Press into pan. Chill 2 hours before cutting.

Technical stuff: makes a large pan or 1 3/4 pounds of candy.

Difficulty: easy, just make sure to pay attention to the chocolate and don't burn it.

Served with: what ever you choose. I like mine with some port or coffee

Reheat Well?: refridgerates well, and lasts.

Comments: The Chief commentator liked it a lot. He wishes I would have poured ribbons of carmel in it as well. maybe next time. Both of the teachers and all my recipients loved it too.