Saurkraut Salad???

Saurkraut salad.  

YUM!

Once upon a time, very long ago, I dated a really great man. His Mom invited me over for dinner on Sundays or Saturdays, depending upon when we had a date. He always apologized for his Mom's cooking not being up to par.Well, let me tell you...she was a fantastic cook! I learned so much from her. Including this scary sounding salad.

Now, saurkraut salad doesn't sound that great, does it? If you like saurkraut, even a little bit, you'll love this salad. It doesn't taste like saurkraut. It does have crunch and flavor.

Here's how you make this simple recipe.

Saurkraut Salad

Saurkraut, canned, in a jar or in a plastic bag

Crunchy veggies like celery, carrots, onions, radishes, cukes, green peppers, etc.

Equal parts white wine vinegar, cooking oil (not olive), sugar

Place equal parts white wine vinegar, cooking oil and sugar in a saucepan over low heat just until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat to cool.

Place saurkraut in a colandar, rinse and drain well.

Peel and chop or grate your veggies.

Place saurkraut, veggies and cooled vinegar mix into a bowl. Stir well.

Salt and pepper to taste, if you like. It gives more color and flavor.

You may eat this at room temperature, but I like it best when it has been refrigerated until cold.

Crunchy, sweet and yummy!

Now, Mr. K, you were blessed with a great cooking Mom all of your years. You didn't even know it!

Easter Bread

 got a little bug in me to bake some bread for Easter. Actually, I try to make this for every Easter because it's Easter bread!

 I love this stuff! Because Lent is a time of abstinence from meats and dairy, this is loaded with dairy! Lotsa eggs. Lotsa butter. Lotsa sugar. Lotsa yumminess!

It is Greek-style Easter bread. This bread is flavored with anise. Yes. There are different styles of Easter bread depending upon different cultures and how Easter is celebrated with each.

No. I am not Greek. I am Hungarian-Croatian-German-American Indian. What a mix! Anyhow, the Croatian side, my Mother, always baked the nut roll (shown below) for Easter and holidays. She and my Aunt always made this, poppyseed roll and apricot roll. Apricot is my favorite. Then, nut. NOT poppyseed. I don't like it that much. Mom and Auntie LOVED the poppyseed.

We used to have great after Easter service lunches at my Aunt's house. She'd bring out the good china...the good tablecloth...all her pretty things for the table. It was a HUGE table! Then, we'd have a tureen of little noodle soup, that's what we called it. It is actually a beef broth flavored with veggies. The broth was strained off and served with very fine egg noodles. Then the veggies and a huge beef roast, from the soup, were served in another bowl.

THEN...drumroll, please...the nut rolls!

It was tradition. I loved that tradition!

Yummy!

We've been picking strawberries from our garden for about a month, now.

Here's how we get rid of them...Yummy!

I hull the strawberries, slice them and add sugar to them. I use about 1-2 tablespoons of sugar. I cover and let them sit for a while in the fridge. This give the sugar time to melt and some of the strawberry juices to come out.

I make a 'Lazy Daisy Sponge Cake' recipe from an old Pillsbury Family Cookbook from 1963.

Lazy Daisy Sponge Cake

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup milk, scalded
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Grease a 9-inch layer pan. I used an 8" x 8" square glass dish so I can split the cake, if I want.
After milk is scalded, remove from heat and add the butter to it until the butter melts.
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in one bowl.
Put eggs, sugar and vanilla in another bowl and beat until lemon colored.
At low speed, add dry ingredients.
Then mix in the milk and butter mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees F until a silver knife comes out clean. This will be about 30 minutes. Cool a bit and make your strawberry shortcake!

It takes me about 15 minutes to put together the cake and 20-30 minutes to bake it. The taste and texture is so much better than the rubbery little dessert cups you get at the store.

We ate 2 of these cakes one right after the other. I cut them into 9-pieces each. We had 18 shortcakes!

This is one of my favorite desserts ever! I also use blackberries on this cake and peaches, too! Use your imagination and enjoy this simple cake. You won't be sorry!

Sorry...

I've been under the weather a bit, so I haven't posted for a long while. All is well, though.

Here's one of my favorite things to do with leftover spaghetti. Yes! A spaghetti pie! Yes, we couldn't wait.

This is one easy thing to make. I don't remember where I got the recipe. I think it was word-of-mouth from an Italian friend.

Put in enough spaghetti in a bowl to fill an 8" or 9" pie plate. I fill the pie plate beforehand to make sure I have enough. Then I put it into a bowl. Then, lightly spray or grease the pie plate.

Scramble one egg and add to bowl. Stir egg into spaghetti really well. You can salt and pepper if you like. I usually don't because the toppings are flavorful enough.

Put eggy spaghetti into the pie plate.

Top with leftover, meats and veggies, then cheese. You may use the sauce, if you like. I left off the sauce on this one. I used a liberal amount of pepperoni in this one. It turned out really good.

Put into the oven at 350 degrees F until a knife comes out of the center clean. I use a glass dish because I can look underneath to see that all is cooked.

Serve with more sauce and cheese.

Easy!

Royal Breakfast fit for a King and Queen

Have you ever wondered what the royalty eats for breakfast? Well, the King and Queen of our household have this.

On the left, fruit bowl. On the silver (plated) platter, bacon, sausage, toasted Easter bread and homemade crumpets. On the right, homemade strawberry jelly and butter.

Of course, the Princesses have their treats, too! (In the blue bowl.)

Best wishes for a very happy life together, Prince William and Princess Catherine!!!

Cooking for Freezing

It's been a while since I've posted here. The reason is that I've had a short stay in the hospital and I couldn't get up and about very well until lately. What I'd like to tell you about is a real life saver for the family. Since I knew I would be out of commission for a few days, I prepared freezable meals that could be heated up by anyone in the family. Actually, it's just me and my wonderful hubby. He benefited from the preparation because he had to prepare the meals until I could stand on my own.

First, I prepared two rice dishes - peppered rice and Spanish rice. I divvied them out into quart bags and that gave me one serving for the day I made it and two servings to go into the freezer. This was for both of them which ended being 4 quart bags of sides. Rice freezes really well as a prepared dish or plain cooked rice.

I made a large amount of macaroni and cheese. We had one dish for dinner and I divvied the rest into glass loaf pans and put them into the freezer. This gave us three loaves of mac and cheese to reheat.

Then I made chili. One quart and one pint went into the freezer.

Next was chicken and dumplings. I made the first night's dinner with dumplings and the frozen portions were frozen without dumplings. I had one quart left to put into the freezer after the dinner. I taught my hubby to make cheater dumplings using store-bought biscuits in a tube, when it came time to eat.

I also made small meat loaves that cooked in about an hour. Hubby likes meatloaf for dinner and cold on sandwiches. This made it easy for him to prepare his lunch for work, too.

I made pizza shells with a quick dough recipe. I keep all of the fixin's on hand so hubby can make a pizza all by himself.

I made dozens of cookies that we could set out if company came to visit. Oh well, we didn't have too much company. The cookies were good!

In the freezer, I also had a steak, some hot dogs and hamburgers, kielbasa and a few other things that could be fried on the stove quickly.

This was enough food for us for about 3 weeks of eating. My WONDERFUL hubby was able to come home from work and throw something in the oven or the microwave for us for dinner.

Preparing food ahead is a really good idea even when you're not expecting to be laid up for a while. Frozen food comes in handy when you've had a busy day and don't feel like cooking. Throw a few things in the oven or microwave and you'll have really good meals without buying expensive TV dinners.

I hope you enjoyed this post.

Aw, Nuts!

Yep! Nut Rolls!!!
Yep! Takes a while to make them.
Yep! Worth every bite!

Sorry I only have pics of them in the raw stage. I'll post the finished pic and recipe when I make the next batch.

This is one of the family favorites for holidays in our house. I am of Croatian descent and my Mom always baked these for holidays. If she was in a really REALLY good humor, then we'd get them some time during the year. Actually, the 'good humor' was if she wanted some. So, we all benefited from her wants. My Aunt, of Blessed Memory, made the poppy seed rolls and some nut rolls. Sometimes, whoever made the best ones, swapped out with the other. It was interesting to see how different each person made theirs.

Here's a pic of the rolling process. Dough is rolled thin. Nut mixture is applied to 2/3 of the dough. For extra flavor, small wads of butter are placed here and there over the filling. Then, the roll begins. Ends are tucked in and under so nothing leaks.

This is my favorite dough recipe. I'll post this later, too. It is really weird to do, but it turns out great.

I hope all of you had a great holiday season. I wish you many blessings during the new year.

Take care.

Comforts of Home!

Mmmmmm! I know this isn't the most gorgeous picture, but it is a very comforting picture. Just think...these are warm out of the oven! Homemade! I sat down with a cup of steaming hot joe, these biscuits and a jar of lemon curd. How much more comforting can you get?! Here's my recipe.




Scratch Biscuits
2 cups all purpose flour
6 tablespoons of shortening, butter or margarine
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt

Cut all of the shortening into the dry ingredients until nice and crumbly.

Then, add...
1 cup of milk or buttermilk (I add 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup of either sour cream or plain yogurt)

Stir this all together until the ingredients are nice and wet.
Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead about 6 times. This will make a few flaky layers.
Pat into about a 1/2 inch slab.
Cut with a biscuit cutter or a floured drinking glass.
Place on an ungreased baking pan.
If you have dough left over, gather it, fold it once or twice and pat into another 1/2 inch slab.
Cut more biscuits.
When you don't have enough left over to cut, make a hand-styled biscuit (see top left biscuit).
Bake at 400 degrees until nicely browned.

Japanese Meatloaf

I tried a WONDERFUL meatloaf recipe from the blog I follow called Japanese Cooking Lovers. It is listed on the right of this blog. You MUST try this! This is a pic of my Hubby's lunch today. I made smaller meatloaves so they'd fit nicely into a container with other stuff. Green beans to the top left; meatloaf to the top right; baked potato on the bottom.

I can't tell you how yummy this was. It cooked up in a matter of minutes. It was SO juicy and had SO much flavor that I didn't even use the sauce given in the recipe. The best part is it cooks in a frying pan so you don't have to wait for hours to eat it.

There was a tip on the site to make the meatloaf very tender. It was a little hard to figure, but I asked Yuri about it. When you put all of the meat ingredients together, whip the meat until your arms get tired. Then whip it some more. And then whip it some more. This breaks down the fibers in the meat and incorporates all of the ingredients well. The meat should be creamy and loose when you are done.

Please check out the Japanese Cooking Lovers blog! You will not be sorry!

Happy cooking!

Thanksgiving's Just Desserts

I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving! This is my holiday to cook for family and friends. I really enjoy having the company and spending quality time with family and friends. We had several friends at our table this year. The more the merrier.

Here is a pic of just my desserts for this year. I went a little crazy.

The yellow bundt cake was made into a banana cream cake. Middle left pic is a cherry and blackberry pie, middle right is pumpkin. Top left pie is apple and top right is peach. I also made a banana cream pie, which was in the fridge. They all turned out well and I didn't have too much left over as most people took extras home. I gave away the apple pie to our yard boy and his family. He came over to help me out with a little chore the day before Thanksgiving, so I gave him the pie and a few bucks for his efforts. I hope they liked it.


Here's a really simple recipe I'd like to share with you. It's for the crumb topping on the pies.


Crumb Topping


Take equal parts of:

Butter, softened
Brown Sugar
Flour
Oatmeal


Mix them together until crumbly. Crumble on top of the pie and bake your pie as usual.


Tip: for each pie, I use half cup increments. This is the topping I use for Apple Betty. It works well on sweet potatoes, too.

Stylin' with Bunnies

Here is today's attempt at obento. After these first few, I'll only take pics of the ones using leftovers or ones of special interest. It can get boring seeing the same veggies and such.

This is my lunch (clockwise): apple bunny, orange slices, grapes, apple bunny, cucumber slices, half of a BLT that hubby took for breakfast, carrots, grapes, apple bunny and tomato.

Hubby took his away before I got a picture of them. He kept saying 'Don't make them so cute. I'm only going to eat them.' That's part of the idea of the style, from what I see. Make them cute and fun!

I'm trying to revamp our diets. After eating all of yesterday's lunch (see previous post), I felt a lot better in my stomach and a lot less sleepy and craving in the afternoon. There definitely is something to be said about obento!

I'm enjoying the creativity part of it, too!

Happy eating!

Style Tips Received!

I asked my Japanese friend to look at yesterday's Bento. She was tickled I tried. She said 'Bento! Bonzai!' Of course, my first try had no method. I just threw things in. This is yesterday's breakfast for my hubby. Not bad, but no style.

Style tip (not quite stated this way): color + food = yum!

She said the more color you pack in with the food, the more 'wow factor' you'll have when you open the box. All of the pretty colors will make you want to eat your food.

Here is today's try at Bento for hubby. Breakfast is on the bottom. Lunch is on the top.

Breakfast (clockwise) = egg, grapes, orange slices, grapes, toast, ham, tomato

Lunch (clockwise) = crackers, tuna salad, celery sticks, orange slices, mustard, tomato, crackers and cheese, carrots

This looks a little bit better. At least, he'll have more choices and snacks to choose from.

Here's my lunch. This is much better for me. You can see I have pretty much everything he has between his two meals.

After work, yesterday, I went shopping for Bento stuff and foods with color. I bought the cupcake papers, the divided trays, the metal cups and the green silicone cups to hold rolly things like the egg. I bought apples, carrots, grapes, celery, tomatoes and oranges. I was running low on staple foods that hubby will eat.

Here's a pic of the cups I bought.

The green one on the left is called a 'pinch cup'. Supposedly for a pinch of this and a pinch of that. I like the little pedestal on the bottom of this. I like this so nothing will roll and you can actually put a lot of stuff into it. This comes two to a pack for under $2. See the Bento pics for size reference. The egg is a medium-sized egg.

The metal one on the right is a sauce cup. It holds 2.5 oz. This comes four to a pack for under a dollar. We can probably spread the tuna on 3 of the 4 plain crackers I put in our lunches.

Both of these cups fit nicely into the divided trays. They were cheap, too...all the better.

I can hardly wait to start using leftovers for more surprising lunches.

Now, I'll have to see what my friend says about this try at Bento.

Thanks, Yuri!

Happy Bento-ing!

Bento...kinda...

My Japanese friend and I were talking about Bento yesterday. In case you don't know what Bento is, I'll tell you in as simple of terms as possible.

Bento is a little of this, that and the other thing when it comes to making a breakfast or lunch. It is the style of putting together food items into an appealing arrangement while using either leftovers or first runs.

Let me show you my inspiration for this morning's breakfast for my hubby.

We have cubed cheddar, cottage cheese, raisin scone and pork sausage patty. He's diabetic, so I best watch what I give him. I should've put a bit of canned fruit in there, too. I had the room, but time is limited in the morning.

The box you put it in is a Bento box. Anything will do as long as it has a lid, but there are special boxes for Japanese meals. I need some style tips from my Japanese friend. Her blog is in my faves list to the right...Japanese Cooking Lovers. Check it out. There are some great recipes there and lots of tips for Japanese cooking.

Because of the economy, this style of meal is becoming popular. Of course, big cities like New York and DC already have this in fashion. But us little guys in the 'burbs of SC can do it as well.

Creativity is the key. Leftovers help, too!

Have a good day!

Okonomiyaki!

Anyone know what this delicious thing is?

OKONOMIYAKI!!! That's what.

If you never EVER try any other kind of Japanese cuisine, you MUST try this. This has to be my all-time favorite Japanese food. It is very filling and it is very tasty. The best part of it is, it is a rather healthy food.

What it is...a cabbage and veggie pancake smothered with Tonkatsu Sauce (brown stuff) and mayo (white stuff).

It is very easy to make.

Okonomiyaki Recipe

Mix 3/4 cup COLD water with about a teaspoon of Hon-Dashi fish boullion. If you don't have Hon-Dashi, leave it out. It doesn't make much of a difference in taste. It is important to use COLD water or you'll make a noodle dough, which you don't want.

Then add 1 cup of regular flour and 1 egg. Beat this together to make a very loose batter. Set aside.

Slice about 4 cups raw cabbage very fine. You want either hair-like strings or you can chop it in half so it is manageable. Add to the flour mixture and stir together.

Chop some onions, carrots, green peppers and meat or fish into very fine dice. Mix them together and set this aside. You can use almost any vegetable or any meat, except for celery. Celery is not a Japanese flavor.

This is a trick to keep the veggies and meat together. Beat one egg in a cup and set aside.

Heat up a skillet - non-stick works best. I use an electric skillet set to 225 degrees F.

Add a little oil to the skillet. If you use a small skillet, put about 1/4 of the veggie/meat mixture into the oil. If you use an electric skillet, use about half the veggie meat mixture and divide into two. Some on one side of the skillet and some on the other.

Put a little bit of the beaten egg in a cup over each pile of veggies and meat. Just enough so it all kind of looks like a very sparse omelet.

On top of this, put about 1/4 of the cabbage mixture, after you've stirred it to coat the cabbage. Make sure it covers all of the veggie/meat mixture and goes a little over the edge of it. Flatten a bit so it is one thickness the whole way across.

Cook it slowly. When the bottom gets a bit browned and holds together, flip it over. You may want to cover and cook it the rest of the way at this time. This will help the middle get done.

Put the finished pancake on a plate. Lightly schmeer with mayonnaise...the real stuff. Drizzle the bulldog sauce over top. Eat and enjoy!

This takes a little time to make, but, in my opinion, it is totally worth it!

Happy eating!

Pie Done Right

It's been a while since I've posted. It's not that I didn't cook during this time, it's just I've been trying to get the house cleaned and my poison ivy rid of. YUK!

Here's a little peek at what I LOVE to do. I LOVE pies! Fruit pies, especially.

This is what I call 'done right'. A little slice...well, maybe not so little at times. A little whipped topping. A little ice cream. A little cup of coffee. Oh, a taste of heaven! My pie crust recipe is as follows. This includes a family secret. Don't tell anyone! LOL!!!

PIE CRUST

(for two crust pie, plus a little extra for decorating, if you wish)

3 cups of flour 

3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons of hard shortening

3/4 teaspoon of salt

Cut the shortening into the flour and salt.

Add enough milk to hold the flour mixture together. This should be dry and crumbly, but it should still hold together if you squeeze a little in your hand.

Roll out between waxed paper and put into pie plate. 

Prick the bottom of the crust, if you're filling with fruit. If you fill with liquid (like pumpkin), don't prick or the pie will stick to the pan.

Crimp the edges of the top and bottom crust together.

Prick, slit, or cut designs into the top crust to let out steam. This is very important!

Wet the top of the crust with either a little milk (preferred) or water. Sprinkle with sugar to make the crust sparkly.

Bake at 350 degrees until the crust is done. I like glass pie plates so I can see if the bottom of the pie is cooking when I check on it.

Note: This will make a two crust pie. If you want less crust, cut the recipe into thirds and work from there. 

Two family secrets: using milk to hold the dough together will make a flaky and tender crust. Rolling between waxed paper allows you to pick up the crust without breaking it when you put it into the pie plate.

Happy eating!

 

Creamed Chicken and Pasta Soup

I found a really cool website called CopyKat.com. It has loads of recipes on it that are remakes of restaurant foods.

I just made this last night. It is the Olive Garden Chicken and Gnocci soup.

OK. So I took license and changed a few things around. I used pasta instead of gnocci. I used cream and milk instead of half and half. I chopped a chicken breast and cooked it along with the veggies to add extra flavor. I used 2 cups of water and 2 chicken boullion cubes for the broth.

It is a KILLER soup! It was sooooo good that I had two bowls of it (larger than this bowl) and wanted to eat the rest. I was too full to do so.

If you decide to check out the CopyKat site, take a look at the recipe for the soup. It is very easy and you don't have to slave all day to make it. That's the good part!

Take care. Happy cooking!

Tiramisu!

Bless you!

Oh. It's not a sneeze! It's a lovely dessert!

We had a going away luncheon for a gentleman at work. The company is returning him to his home country in Japan. However, he LOVES Italian food. We ordered the food from a local restaurant, which was really yummy. But the dessert was $40 for this size of a pan of Tiramisu. Since it's one of my favorites to make, I offered to make it. The only thing is, I don't use raw egg whites in this version. Raw egg whites gave me a stomach ache. I have made substitutions so I can eat it. Here is the recipe.

TIRAMISU

1 plain cake, cut into slices - I used angel food. You can use pound cake or bake a plain box cake.
(Ladyfingers are traditional for this recipe, if you can find them.)
1/4 cup strong black coffee
1 tablespoon orange flavoring or orange Curacao
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 package mascarpone cheese - you can use plain or the 'tiramisu' flavored one
(If you're in a pinch, substitute Neufchatel cream cheese. I don't recommend it, but I have.)
1 package whipped dessert topping from the freezer section
chocolate syrup
grated chocolate or cocoa powder for dusting the top of the finished dessert

Method:

Put coffee and flavorings into a shallow bowl.
Dip one side of the cake slices into the coffee mixture and lay coffee-side up in an 8" x 8" baking dish.
You will use all of the cake. You will not use all of the liquid. Throw the rest of the liquid away.
After all of the cake is lain out in the pan, drizzle with chocolate syrup.
Mix the mascarpone with about 1 cup of the dessert topping until it is loose enough to spread.
Spread over the cake.
Spread the rest of the dessert topping over the mascarpone mixture.
Sprinkle with cocoa powder or grated chocolate.
Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight.
That's it!

Grab yourself a cup of espresso and have a seat with a chunk of the tiramisu drizzled with more chocolate syrup. YUM!

'Hello' Post

Hello!

As you can see from my About Me section, I love to cook. My husband, family and friends are the recipients of my practicing. Lucky them?!

All of my 'family secret' recipes and tips will be lost with my passing. So, I want to share with all of you what I know about cooking, how I do it, etc. Long after I'm gone from this world, maybe my tips, tricks and recipes will still be used by those of you who love to cook.

I have some food allergies to additives and soy, so I'll be cooking from scratch. I do use some pre-packaged foods, but they are not a lot. So, if you're like me, this may be the blog for you.

I hope to entice all of you into trying to cook along with me. It's not hard. It's fun!

See you later!