Tag: recipes

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.