Tag: cooking

I found myself without my usual dry pancake mix this morning and my kids have been going through this pancake fixation for the past 2 weeks. So I got up this morning and made them from scratch, which is best anyway.

Fluffy Apple cinnamon pancakes sounded like a plan, however, I have never made them before, so it was a test for me, but very good.

First I peeled and diced one medium Pink Lady Apple.

In a small cast-iron pan, I added 1 tablespoon of butter and melted.

Add apples to pan and let them cook. Stir so they don’t burn, but you do want them to brown.

While the apples are browning and softening, In a bowl, add: 1 and 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of baking powder, 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of salt. Mix together briefly.

Add two eggs and mix either with a spoon or an electric mixer.

Check you apples.
Once they begin to brown add 2 tablespoons of sugar and mix.

Now that the sugar has been added, the apples will brown faster so keep a close eye on it.
Once the apples have brown a little more and are soft, add a few shakes of Allspice. Mix and take off heat.

Back to the batter. Add 1 and 1/4 cups of milk (I used Lactose-free milk) and mix.

Add apples from the pan and stir in with a spoon.

Now it is time to make them. Which every method you use to make your pancakes is entirely up to you. I used a pan, but griddles are also an option. Make them as big or as small as you want, but remember to smooth the batter out a bit after you put it in your pan or griddle because they will be fluffy.

Serve them hot with maple syrup and we had bacon and eggs (My husband had the scrambled eggs in the pic, but I had a fried egg white. A bit healthier).

So who really needs store bought pancake mix when making any flavored pancakes at home is so easy. Just replace the apple mixture and the cinnamon and replace with your favorite flavors. It is after all, healthier than the box. You know what your adding. 🙂

Enjoy.

So yesterday I celebrated my 30th Birthday. Had a great day hanging out with my family and a great dinner to follow. I was going to go to Red Lobster, but I figured I could do Red Lobster at home for cheaper and so we did.

So, got snow crab from the store. Rinse them and put them in a baking pan and cover with foil and let them steam in the oven at about 365 F.

While those are steaming, slice 6 baby bella mushrooms and chop 2 vine tomatoes and bring a pot of salt water to boil. Also rough chop some fresh cilantro and have about 14 raw shrimp shelled and cleaned.

In a frying pan, add 4 or 5 tablespoons of olive oil, then add tomatoes and about 2 teaspoon of mince garlic. Let them cook down.

Add Mushrooms salt and pepper

Once the mushrooms have cooked a bit, add about 1/4 cup or so of cooking sherry.

Once the alcohol has cooked off add shrimp

Cook your angel hair pasta. This should only take about 2 minutes. Drain pasta and once shrimp have turned pink, add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

Add pasta to the shrimp and sauce.

Turn off heat and mix pasta into sauce. Add Cilantro and salt and pepper to taste then mix again.

By this time, the crab should be heated through. Remove them from oven. Melt some butter and put melted butter in a small bowl. Plate up and enjoy. Because it was my 30th Birthday, I had a shot of Tequila with this… 😉 That’s is what is in the small glass to the right of the plate.

really wanted to do something different for dinner, so instead of chicken, I decided to make Quail (never had it before, but I realy enjoyed it). Season with kosher salt and black pepper and put to the side.

For one of the sides I made fried corn, but instead of using fresh yellow corn, I used fresh white corn. Very sweet, very good. Shuck it and rinse in cold water.

Set to the side. In a large pan (I used a Cast Iron Pan) slowly fry up a few pieces of salt pork or fatback.

While the meat is cooking, take a bowl or plate and a good sharp knife and cut the corn off the cob. Try to slice thinly and cut over one side twice.

Once the corn is off the cob, move the knife on an angle and run it down the cob to get the juice (I call it milk) out. Gotta have the flavor, don’t want to waste it. So when it is done right, this is what everything should look like, mind you it does take pratice.

The meat should be done, remove it and let it drain on a paper towel.

In the frying pan that the meat came out of, leave the grease and add 2 tablespoons of butter.

Add the corn, and make sure your heat is on med-hi

Keep mixing the corn so it doesn’t stick. Cook until corn is tender

Add about 1/4 cup of milk (I use lactose free milk, but any kind will do)

The milk will make the corn creamy

Add salt and pepper to taste then remove corn from pan and put in a bowl and cover with aluminum foil and put to the side.

Now back to the quail. In a frying pan, add 3 tablespoons of olive oil and let it get hot then add the Quail. Cook the quail until brown on front and back and completely done.

While the Quail is cooking, time to make the glaze. 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of butter in a small sauce pan. Once the butter is melt, add 3 tablespoons of white sugar and 1 and 1/2 cups of orange juice. Mix

Let the mixture boil down to about half the volume it started out as and it starts to look thicker

Add 2 tablespoons of honey, three quick sprinkles of allspice and 1/4 cup of white cooking wine. (Now I used white cooking wine that is bought in the vinegar aisle of the store because I am not a big white wine drinker…don’t like it unless it’s sweet)

Cook it down until the alcohol cooks off. Add a little salt and a little pepper. Taste it and see if you feel it need something. Remove from heat. The glaze will thicken as it cools.

When the meat is brown and done through, add a little white wine to deglaze the pan. Let alcohol cook off and remove from heat.

Now time for the final item of the dish, Orzo with garlic and spinach.

So first, cook the orzo as directed on the box. Drain and rinse orzo in hot water and sit aside.

Now time for the spinach; In a pot, add 2 tablespoons of butter (or you can use olive oil) and 1 tablespoon of minced garlic. Let cook for about 30 seconds and then put 3 or 4 handful of fresh baby spinach in. Once it cooks down add salt and pepper.

Replace the Orzo back in the pot it was cooked in, then place spinach and the juice in the orzo.

Mix orzo and spinach, add about 1/4 cup of shaved parmesan cheese and mix. The orzo should still be hot so the cheese will melt as it is mixed in.

Add salt and pepper to taste and some lemon zest.

Now it is time to plate and eat. I placed the corn on the side with a piece of salt pork accenting it, but you can break the meat up and place it on top of your corn. Orzo on the bottom as a bed, Quail on the top and glaze on top of the Quail (I love to mix my corn with the orzo…taste so good, but that is just me). Enjoy, because I and my family sure did.

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I am a Trenton bred Jersey Girl, and I absolutely love east coast fast food. I live in Oregon and I so miss the hoagies and steak sandwiches that one can pick up at the corner store/deli. Thus, since I can’t get that type of food here in the Portland metro area (at least like they make it on the East), then I have to make one at home. 🙂

So first, I use American style Kobe beef sliced almost paper thin. I went to a Asian grocery store here in Oregon and found this style, precut meat.

The cheese I used is Kraft’s triple cheddar (This is made into a cheese sauce).

So in a frying pan add two tablespoons of olive oil and add one sliced shallot. Cook for about 1 minute and then add meat. Season with Salt and pepper.

While the meat is cooking, in a small sauce pan, add about 1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream

Heat until the cream begins to simmer, then add 1/2 cup of cheese, whip.

Make sure the heat is on low so the cheese melts evenly and continue to whip.

Once the cheese is melted remove from heat.

The cheese is done, the meat should be done as well.

Now time to assemble. In the bakery department of most grocery stores they have freshed baked rolls (sub rolls). One roll sliced open.

Add meat and shallots to the roll and then pour cheese and add Ketsup if desired.

Now, mushrooms or other toppings can be added to your steak sandwich, but this is how I use to get it back home in New Jersey (except onions were in place of shallots). It is simple and it takes less than 15 minutes to make.

Since I can’t get home, I bring home to me!!!<

Okay, so almost a week later and I am just about recovered from Christmas.
So Quickly, for Christmas Dinner, I didn’t do every tradition food that my family usually consumes, but a variation.

I made 2 appertizers to snack on. One was BBQ Pigs in a Blanket. Simple to make, yummy to eat. I got the little beef sausages and dipped in BBQ sauce, then wrapped them in crescent roll dough and bake.

The Second Appertizer was shrimp and cheese pillows. I placed uncooked clean shrimp and a cube of cheese or two (I used sharp chedder cheese and pepper jack) in a square of Puff Pastry. Place another square on top and seal, then bake until golden brown at 350 degrees, then brush melted butter on the top and place back in the oven for about another 5 or 10 minutes.

Now for dinner, I usually would have made mac and cheese and stuffing, but I didn’t feel like that this year. I did however do both turkey and ham.

The turkey I washed and seasoned with butter, seasoning salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. I Added water to the pan and cooked it back side up first and then once it was brown flip it so breast side was up.

The ham that I bought was a spiral ham, but it didn’t have a glaze, so I made my own. I used pineapple juice and brown sugar mixture.
I poured it over the ham
place pineapple rings all over the ham and pour ginger ale soda into the pan and bake until warmed through. Ocassionally, I took a spoon and based the ham.

For the sides, I had to make candied sweet potatoes. I also made fried corn again since my family enjoyed it so much at Thanksgiving, and I stir-fried fresh green beans with garlic, shallot and fresh gingered with a chardonnay sauce.

Dinner was great, and I still have left over ham and turkey, so I probably won’t have to cook to much for New Years.

Happy New Year to Everyone!!!!

So First off Happy Holidays to all!!! Christmas at my house was fun and super exhausting. It is the day after Christmas and I’ve spent most of my day in my room in bed.

So Christmas Eve, my girls and I made cookies. The traditional chocolate chip cookies, and sugar cookies. However, the sugars cookies we made had a bit of a twist. We used store bought sugar cookie dough and made sugar cookie cups.
This is easy to do, but be careful, because they burn easily. I should know, we burned our first batch 🙁

So along with the cookie dough, a mini muffin pan is needed. Brush the muffin pan with melted butter (I used cooking spray the first time and they burned, so use butter). Press the cookie dough down in the pan and bring up on the sides so it looks like a cup. Bake as directed and let cool. Be cafe you don’t burn them.

Now for the filling. I used a strawberry cream cheese filling. Easy to make: One pack of room temperature cream cheese. Added sugar (sugar amount varies on how sweet you like it) and juice from macerated strawberries (macerated strawberries: added sugar to fresh strawberries and put in the fridge for a few hours. This brings the juice out) and mix with a hand mixer until smooth.

Add filling into cups and place a strawberry on top. Let sit for a few moments and then enjoy. We really enjoyed these.

CHRISTMAS BREAKFAST

Yesterday morning, I decided to make my own waffles. So I went out and got a waffle maker and made waffle batter from scratch.

So the batter consist of: 2 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 cups of milk, and 2 or 3 tablespoons of 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 pinch of salt, 5 tablespoons of melted butter (3 tablespoons go in mixture, the other 2 is for the waffle iron) and cinnamon (but any flavoring can be subsituted, vanilla, chocolate). Mix everything together until all dry ingredients are mixed well. Follow direction on the waffle iron. I used sliced bananas to top off my waffles.

To go along with the waffles, I made scramble eggs, hashbrowns and bacon. Just a heads up, the waffles were so big, no one could finish them alone. So one waffle is enough for two people. 🙂

Since Christmas is like 2 days away, I didn’t want to make a big meal because we are gonna have a lot of leftovers. So today, I made a small corn beef brisket, half a head of cabbage and homemade cornbread. Only leftovers is the corn bread, which will be eaten over the holiday.

So Corn beef comes with a packet of seasoning. So the longest part of preparing this meat is boiling it in water with the packet of seasoning until it is fork tender. Then remove the meat from the water and place in a pan, fat side up and let bake until fat is golden brown. Then slice.

For the cabbage, there are many ways to make it. My mom always use to boil it in water with some smoked meat. I use to do it that way as well, but now I like to pan cook it. I first, render out some salt pork, or fat-back for the oil that come off of it and the salt content.
In the same pan with more than half the oil removed, I stir-fry the cabbage that I have sliced, until it is tender, but not soggy. I season with black pepper.

Cornbread is so good, and I will admit that I typically just make a box of jiffy mix cornbread. But today, I decided to make it from scratch. One cup of flour, One cup of yellow corn meal, two teaspoons of baking powder, 3/4 cup of sugar, 2 eggs, and about a cup to a cup and a half of milk. Mix together.

In a baking dish, or round bread pan or cassarole dish, melt some butter in the oven, about 3 tablespoons, or 3 thin slices. Make sure the bottom and sides of the dish or pan are greased, and pour remaining melted butter in the mixture, and stir. Then pour mixture in dish or pan and bake until brown and cooked through at 350 or 375 degrees. Take a steak knife and poke through center, if the knife comes back clean then the cornbread is done. If there is still mixture on the knife, turn down oven and let bake a few more minutes.

A little goes a long way with this meal. The bread alone is sweet and filling.

Love a ribeye steak any day of the week, so today I made sweet and sour ribeye steak with Jasmine rice and stir fried broccoli.

So first the steak, I marinated in white sugar and lemon juice right before I pan cooked it.

Pan cooked the steak in olive oil with sliced shallots and sliced baby bella mushrooms. For the sauce, I just added a bit of water to deglaze the pan and a little more sugar.

Now, I have never had Jasmine rice, but I wanted to try it. I followed the directions right on the container, and it tastes fairly close to regular long grain white rice.

Fresh broccoli is very healthy and can be cooked in so may ways. I like my broccoli stir-fried with a sweet brown sauce. The sauce is simple. It is just soy sauces and sugar and thicken with flour in water.

Quick meal very yummy.

Last night, I had a late dinner after the kids had gone to bed. Swai with Fingerling Potato Mash.

I am orginally from the east coast of the United States and we love to eat fish there. I grew up eating lots of fish, but my favorites are Black, White and Striped Bass, Red Snapper, and Blue Gills (we call them Sunnys). However, since I moved to the west coast of the United States, I can not find Blue Gills at all, and the Bass and Snapper are sometimes out of my price range. So I have been trying new fish like Tilipia, which I like and last night I tried Swai for the first time.

I got the fillet frozen in the frozen fish freezer section. It is a mild white fish, very good and easy to prepare. So I seasoned both sides with seasoning salt, garlic powder and black pepper and pan cooked it with butter and sliced onion.

For a side, I boiled 4 fingerling potatoes, 2 white and 2 purple. Once they were done, I sliced them and browned them slightly in a pan with a little butter and salt. I then put them back in a pot and mashed them with the skin on. I added salt and pepper to taste and milk to smooth them out some.

The quick meal took about 30 minutes from start to finish. Quick and Yummy.

Tonight I wanted to do something I haven’t done in a while and something I have never done before. So tonight, I made Egg rolls, one shrimp, one Chicken, which I haven’t made since last year. And I have never made Chicken Cordon Bleu, but today was the day, and of course, I had to do it with a Gloriousgal flair.

So first the egg rolls. The basic vegetables in the egg rolls are thinly sliced carrots and shredded cabbage. I also added shallots, garlic and fresh ginger.

I stir-fried the above items in a wok with olive oil with salt and pepper. Once they began to soften, I added about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 2 to 3 tablespoons of rice vinger. Remember to keep stirring.

In a seperate pan, cook chicken (breat meat, cut in chunks) seasoned with salt and pepper until completely done. Same with shrimp (Shrimp seasoned with salt, pepper and fresh ginger).

In two different bowls, I divided the veggies into equal amount and then added the shrimp to one bowl and the chicken to another. Mixed both and then placed them in the fridge until the cooled and I was ready to cook them. Once ready to actually cook the egg rolls, I beat one egg in a bowl to help seal the egg roll wraps closed. I removed the veggie mix from the ice box. Time to roll…

Lay the egg rolls out and brush the outer edge with egg, then added the stir-fry mixture to the center of the wrap diagonally.
Bring the bottom edge up to the center, fold in the sides to the center and then roll the remainer to the top, be sure the edges with the egg touch, to create a seal.

For frying these egg rolls I used canola oil, but put any cooking oil will work. I fried these in a wok until brown, but they can be deep fried or fried in a regular frying pan until brown and crispy. Set on paper towel to drain oil.
For dipping sauces, I had 3 store bought sauces, plum, hoisin, and sweet and sour, I really didn’t like the plum sauce. The last was a honey mustard, which was just yellow mustard mixed with honey, simple and was actually my favorite outside of the hoisin.

Now the Main Course:

5 chicken breast that I sliced open like a book and seasonded with seasoning salt and pepper and olive oil then set aside.

The sauce takes the longest to make so I don’t put my chicken together until the sauce is ready to go. So for the sauce I used Roma tomatoes, diced elephant garlic, sliced shallots, dried basil, oreagano and thyme. I also used salt pepper and white wine.
After adding the wine, let simmer and then added a little flour water to thicken the sauce and remove from heat. Now time to put the chicken together.

I used two cheese for this dish, fresh Mozzeralla and Tillamook swiss cheese, which is a real cheese, not processed (made in Tillamook Oregon). I sliced the Mozzeralla and I used five slice of swiss cheese and folded each one in half. For the ham, I used Oscar Mayers Honey ham (nothing special, just lunch meat). Now it’s time to layer. First the swiss, then the ham, and finally a slice of Mozzeralla, then fold the chicken flap down. Easy. Pour over sauce and place more fresh mozzeralla over each piece of sauce covered chicken, then bake in the oven until chicken is done.

For the sides, glazed carrots and rice-a-roni