Food Friday - Dinner and Dessert courtesy of the King! (King Arthur Flour that is!)

from Kris B.

Tracey and I are enjoying trying recipes from the King Arthur Flour archives.  After last week’s scones, I decided that I needed to make a savory dish.  I ate way too many of those scones!  Lol!  I had some fresh spinach that needed to be eaten before we went out of town this weekend, so I started my search on the King Arthur website looking for a recipe that called for spinach.  I found recipes for various pizzas and calzones and spinach dip and soups and wraps and many things in between.  I settled on this recipe for Miraculous Spinach Quiche.

As I read the recipe, I was carried back about ten or so years to when my girls were both still at home and Impossible Pie, a Bisquick recipe, was a weekly meal at our house.  Since at that time I had one child that was a vegetarian and one who was a carnivore, the Bisquick recipe was easy to accommodate both.  I could mix the “batter” and pour it over veggies for Offspring No. 1 and over meat for Offspring No. 2.  Basically, it was made to order Impossible Pie at our house.

The King Arthur recipe uses ricotta cheese, as well as a generous amount of a shredded cheese of your choice,  in its batter, making its consistency a bit more dense than the Impossible Pie, but very good!  Despite the fact that I was not making this recipe for my girls and their disparate food preferences, I still found myself faced with the vegetarian and the carnivore dilemma.  The recipe calls for only spinach in the filling..  Weber wanted some meat.  Since I also had some bacon that needed to be eaten, he got his wish.  Because I used the bacon, I sautéed the onions and wilted the spinach in bacon drippings rather than the oil that the recipe calls for.   

This recipe is super easy to prepare.  Basically a little sautéing of veggies and then everything is mixed together in a large bowl and then spread in a pie plate to bake.  The crust forms “miraculously” during the baking.

With our first bites, Weber and I found ourselves trying to describe the texture of the Miraculous Spinach (and bacon) Quiche.  It was familiar, but we couldn’t quite place it.  Then it hit us.  The texture was much like that of tamales.  This is not a criticism, just an observation.  Tamales are a favorite of mine so I am perfectly OK with this masa like consistency.  We enjoyed this meal for dinner and a few lunches thereafter.  Its definitely a keeper for us!

I do have to share a humorous story that  the night I made this recipe for dinner.  My beloved husband posted this on Facebook:

“Kris Elliott Baker just told me that before we could eat dinner, she had to shoot it…This is life with a photographer.”

Um, yeah.  This is the way it is at our house.  Doesn't everyone shoot their dinner before they eat it?


From Tracey G.

Since Kris was doing a pie of sorts, I decided I wanted to do something "pie-like" as well. I knew I had some apples to use up quickly, so, I searched the King Arthur Flour website - for apple recipes. I ran across these Rustic Fruit Tarts, and this is one thing I have always wanted to make. They've always intrigued me in their simplicity and ease of fashioning, but for some reason I've never attempted them. I find that rather crazy on my part!

The dough was simple to prepare - a couple eggs, flour, butter, milk, sugar and salt. I mixed it up in my stand mixer, then divided it into 6 pieces. After I did that, I prepared the filling. After getting the filling on each dough disk, I decided to toss a couple blueberries each on/in each one just for some color, lol, and they worked really well! The filling was simple also - diced apples, sour cream (I used a light version), sugar, lemon zest, flour and cinnamon. It also lists cardamom, but that's optional. I didn't have any, so I didn't use it.

Putting together was fun and easy! You roll out each dough disk to about 8-inches. Now, the recipe calls for rolling out the dough and placing on the baking sheet to fill and fold. Well, I wouldn't be able to get all the disks on the sheet, so I rolled them out on my counter (covered with freezer paper, the waxy side up and dusted with flour), one at a time. Then I filled it, and folded it and used a metal spatula to transfer the tarts to the baking sheet that I had lined with parchment paper. Worked like a charm!!! 

I did brush half with some milk and sprinkled with sugar just to see how they'd turn out and look, and they were pretty!!! I want to try it with the coarse sugar as they've used in their photo - mine should be here this week as I ordered a bunch of goodies from the King Arthur Flour website! This recipe has inspired me to want to experiment with other fruit fillings. Fun stuff! Hooray for baking season!!! I'm looking forward to it this year! 

Here's another link to the recipe - do try them and enjoy! Between Kris and I this week, we've provided an easy meal and an easy dessert to go with! ;-) 

Rustic Fruit Tarts from King Arthur Flour

FOOD FRIDAY - Simple Pasta Salads

from Kris B.

I trust that I am not alone in having those nights where you wander through the kitchen looking in the fridge, rummaging through the pantry, and checking the spice cabinet hoping that there are some ingredients that will work together and magically become dinner.  If I am alone in this, please keep that fact to yourself!  Often these meals that I have scrounged together in desperation become some of my favorites.  This Tortellini Salad is one such creation.

As I recall, I had the three cheese tortellini and that sounded good for dinner, but didn't have the necessary ingredients to make a traditional pasta sauce.  I had broccoli that needed to be eaten.  Actually, I always have broccoli that needs to be eaten because it is my favorite green vegetable.  I am happy to eat it in, on, or with just about anything.  Because I was trying to come up with a meal rather than just a side of pasta, I wanted some meat to add to the tortellini and broccoli.  I had a few pieces of bacon that also were on the "need to eat soon" list.  I always have some kind of cheese on hand.  This particular night, Parmesan was the cheese of choice.  Throw a little red onion and some grape tomatoes into the mix and the dinner potential was becoming real.  Still, however, I had no sauce.

The easy solution would have been to pour some bottled salad dressing over the whole shebang and call it done.  All I had was Asian Sesame.  As much as I like that on certain salads, it didn't sound good with this.  I decided that I would start with a more or less traditional macaroni salad dressing and go from there.  

When all was said and done, this turned out to be really good.  This is probably because this salad contains most of my favorite food things.  It's filling but not too heavy, flexible, and better for you than some things!

INGREDIENTS
1 19 oz bag frozen three cheese tortellini
1/2 lb bacon
1 head of fresh broccoli, chopped into bite sized pieces
1/2 medium red onion, diced
1 cup grape tomatoes
1/4 cup finely grated fresh Parmesan cheese

For the Dressing
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 mayonnaise
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Chop the broccoli and dice the onion.  Grate the Parmesan cheese.

Cut the bacon into pieces and cook it.  Remove the cooked back to a paper towel to drain and cool.  While the bacon cooks, cook the pasta according to the package directions.  In its last minute of cooking, drop the chopped broccoli into the pasta water.  This will cook it just slightly.  Drain the pasta and broccoli and let cool in a large bowl.

While the pasta cools, in a medium bowl whisk together all of the ingredients for the dressing.  I prefer the dressing to lightly coat rather than drench the other ingredients.  If you prefer a "wet" salad, you may want to double the dressing proportions. 

Once the pasta has cooled, add the bacon, onion, and Parmesan cheese to the pasta and broccoli.  Add the dressing and toss the salad until all of the ingredients are evenly coated.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.  As is the case with almost anything that has a dressing or sauce, allowing the ingredients to mingle for several hours makes for better flavor.

This recipe is simple and quite forgiving.  Don't have broccoli and tomatoes?  Add another vegetable.  Squash is nice.  Prefer different spices?  By all means, go for it.  Don't like cheese tortellini?  Substitute your favorite pasta.  Have some leftover ham fro Easter?  Use that instead of bacon.  Make it your own.  Create Your Favorites Tortellini Salad!

Some days my cooking and my photography are guided by the same principles - both need to be quick and easy.  I quickly made this salad for our lunches today and needed to get the photo done quickly as I was leaving the house at noon and wouldn't be home again until almost 10 pm.  During my time away from the house, and more importantly my computer, I did have a little down time.  I decided that I would take today's photo with my phone and do any necessary editing on my iPad.

I shot the photo of the pasta on our outdoor kitchen cement counter with the resident camera on my iPhone.  The concrete added just a little bit of texture to the frame.  I then added the text and a frame using the Rhonna Designs app and I was done.  

Sometimes I feel like relying solely on my phone and its editing apps are cheating somehow.  Then there are the days where I know that it is the responsible way to use what little time I have.  When I got to the end of the day, I had a decent meal and an acceptable photo so I consider my day a success. Lol!


from Tracey G

I love using Food Fridays as a reason to experiment and try new recipes. Probably not the best thing, because if it doesn't turn out I'm stuck with it and can only report that it was awful, lol. But I've, for the most part, yet to have that happen. I've ran into some difficulties in the execution of the recipe, but it's always something I know that another run-through would iron out. This one was rather humorous as I was trying to get it together. I mean, come on, how hard can a macaroni salad be - really!? Well, it helps if on the day you're making it you have all the ingredients in the proper amounts that you need. I miscalculated my mayo supply, thinking I had much more than I actually did, and ended up having to make a half a batch of it. Then, trying to get the pickle juice into the bowl, I tipped the jar a bit too far and spilled some all over my recipe and island, lol. I was not having a good day! But I must say, all the trials and tribulations were totally worth it, I absolutely loved this recipe! And it's another one of those you can customize to your tastes, very easily I might add too.

I discovered it in my newest Taste Of Home magazine as I was flipping through. I've been on the hunt for a new macaroni salad. I love the version with tuna and peas etc, but I was getting really bored with it, and just wanted something different. This is the first one that caught my eye, maybe because it reminded me of deviled egg ingredients to a certain extent or something. Not sure, but I am glad I gave it a try, it's wonderful in my opinion, and as I told Kris, I likely could have eaten the whole batch myself, lol.

Now, I have to be honest here, the original name is NOT "Grandma's Macaroni Salad", it's "Judy's Macaroni Salad". But, I don't know a Judy or even the Judy. And to be even more honest, I never knew any of my grandparents, my maternal grandmother passed away when I was 6 months and my other grandparents passed away well before I was born. So, I can't even say I knew WHAT my grandma's macaroni salad was like - but this is what I IMAGINE a grandma's macaroni salad would taste like. It seems like a nice vintage mac salad recipe that a grandma WOULD make, so that's my reasoning and I hope everyone and Judy will forgive me! I will include the link to the original recipe of course!  

It involves simple ingredients that I think are a great combination: Elbow macaroni, hardboiled eggs, cheddar cheese, sweet pickles, mayonnaise, sweet pickle juice, salt and pepper - extremely uncomplicated. That's probably why it works as well as it does.

So, here's the recipe:

Grandma's Macaroni Salad

courtesy of Taste Of Home as Judy's Macaroni Salad
Serves 12, 3/4 cup each

2 1/2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni

1 1/2 cups mayonnaise

1/4 cup sweet pickle juice

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 cup (4 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese

6 hard-cooked large eggs, chopped

6 sweet pickles, chopped

1) Cook macaroni according to package directions. Drain macaroni; rinse with cold water and drain well.

2) In a small** bowl, combine the mayonnaise, sweet pickle juice, salt and pepper. Stir in the cheese, eggs and pickles. Add macaroni; toss gently to coat. Refrigerate, covered, at least 2 hours or until chilled.

** The original recipe as I've put here, calls for  a "small" bowl - but I used a medium sized bowl as due to the fact after you mix the ingredients in it, you then toss in the macaroni and I don't see how a small bowl would work very well for that and mixing the ingredients all together! :-) 

Food Friday - Eggstravaganza

from Kris B.

When me girls were little and we had all of those dyed hard-boiled Easter eggs, I remember being so happy when I had eaten the final deviled egg and egg salad sandwich!  Those were the only things that I knew to do with the eggs once they had been hunted and were no longer  of interest to the kids and I didn’t want them to go to waste.  I wish that I had discovered Scotch eggs back then!  They would have provided me with another alternative and my non-vegetarian child would have enjoyed them.

What I’m sharing with you is more of a process than a specific recipe.  The process involves cooking eggs somewhere between soft and hard boiled, covering them in sausage seasoned somehow, then coating them in some crispy carbohydrate, and then cooking them somehow.  I’ll tell you how I did them, but know that there are variations that you may want to try.

INGREDIENTS

5 eggs

1 pound bulk sausage

1/2 finely diced yellow onion

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup fine bread, cracker, or corn flake crumbs

1/2 panko

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Hard boil four of the eggs.

Finely dice the onion and in a medium combine with the sausage.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Divide into 4 equal parts and flatten into patties.

Carefully peel the cooked eggs.  Pat them dry with a paper towel.  Dredge the eggs in the flour, then place each one on a sausage patty.  Wrap the sausage around the eggs, completely closing the seams.  

Whisk the fifth egg.   Dip each sausage covered egg in the beaten egg and then dredge them in the bread crumbs covering completely.  Then again dip them in the egg and this time coat them in the panko.

Place the eggs on a baking sheet and bake for 35-40 minutes, until the sausage is cooked through and contains no pink.  Turn the eggs over two or three times during the cooking process to achieve crisping on all sides.  Traditional Scotch eggs are deep fried.  I’m not a fan of deep fat frying anything so I baked mine.  This is one of the reasons that I double dipped the coating.  I wanted them to be as crispy as if they had been fried.

Serve immediately.  Or, let the eggs cool to room temperature and then freeze them in a plastic freezer bag.  To reheat, place on a baking sheet in a 375 degree oven or toaster oven for 25 minutes.  I would not advise reheating in the microwave.  

Scotch eggs are delicious served with your favorite mustard or mustard mixed with a bit of mayonnaise.

You may wish to season your sausage with a little thyme or rosemary.  You can also use this same recipe and deep fry your Scotch eggs if you wish.

from Tracey G

I love breakfast/brunch casseroles. I love the idea of preparing something the night before, throwing it into the fridge to sit overnight and it comes out ready to be baked the next morning. Talk about making a morning easy with just a small amount of effort the night before! So, these things are always popular with me for holidays. Especially the big ones, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those are the mornings when there is so much going on, it's a nice convenience to be able to just throw breakfast (or brunch) in the oven and let it cook while you attend to other things, be it hunting Easter Eggs, prepping turkeys for the oven or opening Christmas presents. These kinds of things help take one more thing off your to-do list!

I have run across a lot of recipes through the years, and I'm always willing to try a new one, generally the combination of ingredients are ones you know you can't go wrong with. I found the original recipe for this at Taste Of Home, which can be found here: Farmer's Strata, and used it as a basic guide for my own twists.

Some of my tweaks were for convenience - as in I had a certain ingredient I wanted to use up AND it was already prepped, then some were for my tastes and preferences - for example I don't like soggy bacon, so instead of adding to cook in the strata, I decided to use it as a topping. It worked wonderfully, and kept it's integrity! But I was really pleased with what I ended up with by the time I got to eat it! There was only one thing I'd do differently, add more potatoes, I used 2 cups, but they could easily have been increased to 3 or 4!

Breakfast Strata

1 lb sliced bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 c chopped fully cooked ham (I used Smithfield brand fully cooked ham cubes for convenience)

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, finely minced

10 slices white bread, cubed

2 c cubed frozen hashbrown potatoes, thawed

3 c (12 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

8 large eggs

3 c milk

1 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 1/2 tsp ground mustard

dash of salt and pepper

1) In a large skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Remove from pan and set aside. Add onions, ham and garlic, and cook until onions are tender. Remove from pan and set aside. Add hashbrown potatoes and cook until tender, set aside.

2) In a greased 13x9-inch baking dish, layer half of the bread cubes, potatoes and cheese. Top with all of the ham/onion/garlic mixture. Repeat layers of bread, potatoes and cheese.

3) In a large bowl, beat the eggs; add milk, Worcestershire sauce, ground mustard, salt and pepper. Pour over all. Cover the pan and chill it and the cooked bacon overnight.

4) Remove from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before baking. Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake uncovered for about 65-70 minutes or until a knife inserted near center comes out clean. About the last 10 minutes of cooking, top with the reserved cooked bacon to reheat and re-crisp.

Food Friday - Simply Salads

from Kris B.

I grew up with a stay-at-home mom who cooked dinner nearly every night, a dinner that most often was meat, potatoes, and vegetables.  Our family meals were like those that restaurants now try to lure you in with by touting their fare as "home cooking."  Of late, both meat and potatoes have gotten a bad rap from various diet gurus.  I have to admit that though we do not eat meat and potato dinners every night, I do like both.  In my cooking now, I live by the motto, "Everything in moderation."  I am always trying new ways to enjoy both of these things while still being conscious of healthy eating habits.

This Grilled Red Potato Salad is a healthier way to enjoy a potato side than is, let's say, a loaded baked potato, french fries, or even those home style mashed potatoes that my mom made.  Potatoes really are not "the enemy."  It is the way we cook and dress them that often pushes their calorie count over the top.  Served atop a fresh green salad with a honey mustard dressing, these grilled potatoes are "just enough" to satisfy that meat and potato kid that still lurks inside me.  This salad is a perfect light, but also filling, side to serve with any kind of grilled meat.  If you are firing up the grill to cook the potatoes, it makes sense to throw some chicken, steak, a pork roast, or even burgers on the grill at the same time.  And then you have a complete meal and you didn't have to heat up your kitchen!

INGREDIENTS

4 large red potatoes 
Non-stick cooking spray
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp honey mustard
Juice from 1 lemon
2 TBS olive oil
2 tsp vinegar
4 Cups any kind of salad greens
1 Cup shredded carrots
1 diced red bell pepper
1 diced red onion

Dice the red pepper, onion, and shred the carrots.  

(I cheat and buy shredded carrots in a bag at the grocery store.)  Place them in a large bowl and toss with the salad greens.

Whisk together the garlic, honey mustard, lemon juice, olive oil and vinegar.to make the dressing.  

This can be done ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator.

Preheat the grill.  Slice the potatoes about 1/2 inch thick.  

Spray one side with non-stick cooking spray/  Place the sliced potatoes with the sprayed side directly on the grill.  cook for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are a deep golden color.  Spray the top side and flip the potatoes.  Cook for another 5-10 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked through.

When you are ready to serve, toss the salad and the dressing together in a large salad bowl.  Either layer the potatoes on top, or plate each serving, placing the potatoes on top of the tossed salad.

This recipe serves 4-6.

A few more thoughts:

• Because there are only two of us for most meals at my house, I don't toss the full amounts of salad and dressing at once.  I do it on an "ass needed basis."
• Make the salad your own by adding any other salad fixings that make you happy.  The carrots, red pepper, and red onion add color that makes this a pretty dish when served.
• If you want to make a hearty meal out of this salad, add some diced ham or bacon.
• The grilled potatoes alone are also a tasty side if you sprinkle them with a little garlic pepper after spraying them with the non-stick spray.

Happy eating!


from Tracey G

It's been a busy summer week for sure! The weather has been beautiful and we've been able to enjoy the beach quite a few days this week - nice! But that also means needing easy suppers that can be ready to go when we get home - Harry and I are usually there until at least 6 pm, so planning ahead is a good idea, lol. I try to have things ready to go for when we get home, because if I have to do prep work and cook, it's 7:30  by the time we're actually eating, if not later, because you have to get the car unpacked etc - and that's where this salad can come in handy! I remember the first time my mom made this - I was totally skeptical that this combination of ingredients was going to be weird and a flop, lol. Was I wrong! They go fabulous together, and I was happily surprised ;-)

This salad is pretty much a meal in itself - with the bacon, pasta and olives - you don't need anything else if you don't want to have anything else! But it goes great with anything really, burgers, chicken, pork chops etc. I like to use the high protein pasta - that gives it a little more "oomph" in my opinion. ;-) I think the one I used for this batch was high protein and higher fiber too.

There's really not a whole lot of steps to this one, it's pretty basic and a lot can be adjusted to your tastes, more bacon, less bacon and same thing for the olives - more or less, up to you! I guess that can even be said for the dressing too, lol - go with whatever your tastes dictate! :-)

The ingredients are simple: elbow macaroni (even that can be adjusted to whatever you like or whatever you have on hand), crisply cooked bacon (holds up better after it's mixed in the salad with the salad dressing), sliced salad olives and salad dressing. Mayo works too if that's what you prefer. I've always had it with salad dressing, so that's generally how I make it.

I happened to have some bacon leftover from a breakfast-for-dinner night I had with Harry, it was a 24 oz package of bacon and I normally use 16 oz of cooked bacon in the salad, so after our simple supper there was just enough bacon leftover to make my salad with, which made it even easier to prepare, lol. Usually to get my crispy pieces of bacon, I cut up the raw bacon then fry the bacon until crisp. This particular batch I'd cooked in the oven, my favorite way to prepare bacon these days, lol. Much easier and less mess - although, firing up the oven in the summer can be brutal, lol. But it's about 20 min on a cookie sheet at 

400 ° F, give or take. I start keeping a close eye on it at around the 15 minute mark - doesn't take long to over-do it! LOL My smoke alarms have been proven to work a few times, lol.

So, all you do is cook your pasta according to the package directions, then combine that with a pound of chopped crisply cooked bacon, sliced green salad olives and salad dressing. And that's that, lol.

There's really not a set recipe for this, as sometimes it takes more salad dressing than other days for some reason and so forth, but here's some basic amounts to get you started:

Bacon Green Olive Macaroni Salad

1 lb elbow macaroni, cooked according to package directions, drained well

1 lb bacon, chopped and crisply cooked

1 large jar of sliced salad olives - that's to taste, I get the largest jar I can generally find as I love green olives!

1 1/4 to 1 1/2 c salad dressing (or mayo if desired)

Combine all the ingredients, mix well. Refrigerate until ready to serve, allowing at least an hour for the flavors to blend.

Enjoy!