Cornbread

The other day I made chili and as usual made cornbread as a side dish.  My favorite cornbread recipe I’ve ever found is from a gal that is on a homeschooling forum that I’m a part of.  Her recipe also happens to be on allrecipes.com and is one of their top 20 recipes!  The link to it is here.  Here’s my modifications below.

• 1/2 cup oil
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 T white vinegar, plus milk to make one cup.  Let stand for 5 minutes to replace buttermilk.
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease an 8 inch square pan.
2. Mix oil and sugar.  Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended. Add milk and baking soda.  Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Bread Machine Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

I love having a bread maker…it helps save time when there are so many other things that need to be prepared by scratch.  This is a recipe for dinner rolls that have always turned out really well for me, whether I was living at sea level, or where I live now (at 7500ft!).  I’m not sure where I got this recipe as it was at least two years ago, so sorry I can’t give credit where it is due.

1 cup water

2 T butter or margarine, softened (or oil)

1 egg

2 cups flour

1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 t. salt

3 teaspoons yeast

Measure carefully, and place ingredients in the bread machine in the order suggested by your manufacturer.  Select the dough cycle.  After the cycle is complete, remove the dough and rest for 10 minutes.  Divide dough into 15 pieces, roll into balls, and place in greased 9×13 pan.  Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise about 30 minutes.  Bake at 375 for about 12-15 minutes, until lightly browned.  I brushed mine with butter after removing from the oven.

Chicken Braid

Our family doesn’t like sandwiches much, mostly because I don’t think any of us really like “cold” lunches.  All of these years living overseas has made us prefer cooked meals all the time.  So, when I saw this idea last week I thought it would work well for us.  Everyone loved it.  It also made good leftovers because I good just wrap up slices and then reheat them in the microwave.

First, I had to figure out what kind of bread to use.  I did an internet search and saw that there were quite a few options.  It looks like this originally developed using refrigerated crescent roll tubes, which I can’t get.  So I decided to use a recipe I have for bread machine crescent rolls.

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Instead of following the full directions below, I just made the dough in the bread machine, then rolled it into a rectangle.  Then using a pizza cutter I cut strips down the two long sides (kind of like a fringe), leaving a good section in the middle to put the chicken mixture.  It was a little awkward the first time; I’m sure it will look better next time!

3/4 cup plus 2 Tbs warm milk
1/4 cup warm water
1 egg
6 Tbs butter, softened, DIVIDED
3 cups flour
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast

put ingredients (use 4 Tbs of the butter) in bread machine in order listed. Use the dough cycle. When cycle is done, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll into a 12 inch cirle, brush with remaining 2 Tbs butter, and cut into 12 wedges. Roll up wedges from the wide end to the point and place pointed side down 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Cover and let rise for 20 minutes. Bake at 375 for 17-20 minutes.

Then, I made the chicken mixture.

2 cups of diced cooked chicken

some sauteed chopped onions and sweet red peppers

some chopped steamed broccoli

about one cup of shredded gouda cheese

about a fourth cup of mayo, just to get everything to kind of hold together.

Put the chicken mixture in a strip down the center of the dough rectangle.  I think you can pile it pretty high, though I had leftover filling (which later I used to make a quesadilla).  Wrap the strips of dough cut on each side of the rectangle up over the filling, twisting a little to make it look a little prettier.  By doing this I had a little dough at the end that was kind of leftover, so I actually cut that off and used it to patch up the beginning end of the braid.

Then I baked it at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes, until it was nicely browned.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

One of my daughter’s favorite meal is beef stew. It’s a great winter meal that we usually serve over rice. It makes for a nice all-in-one meal too since it’s got meat and veggies together.

1-2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into cubes
1/3 cup or so all purpose flour
salt (I usually use seasoned salt)
pepper
one onion, diced
a couple tablespoons of oil
3 cups of beef broth (could also use part red wine)
one clove of garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon paprika
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
3 potatoes, cubed
4 carrots, cubed
1-2 stalks celery, sliced
1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced

Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a large plate and dredge the beef cubes. Heat oil in a large frying pan and brown the beef cubes with the onion. You are not trying to fully cook them, just to cook the outside a bit.

Put the beef cubes in the slow cooker. Add the beef broth to the frying pan, along with worcestershire sauce and red wine (if using) and cook for a minute or two to get all the browned bits off the pan. Pour into slow cooker.

Add remaining spices and vegetables to the slow cooker. If I have it I also add a packet of beef stew seasoning, just because I think that helps give a better flavor. Cook on low for 10 hours or so, or on high for 4-6 hours.

During the last half hour to hour, if you would like to thicken it, add some flour mixed with cold water.

Pumpkin and how to use fresh rather than canned

Where I live there is NO canned pumpkin (or much canned anything)!  So, I buy a pumpkin like squash and use that instead of canned.  I’ve used it for pie and bread mostly and it’s always turned out great.  Here’s a few different ways that you can process the pumpkin to get puree.  I think I found this on allrecipes a long time ago.

You can refrigerate your fresh pumpkin puree for up to three days, or store it in the freezer up to six months

Baking Method

• Cut the pumpkin in half and discard the stem section and stringy pulp.
  
• In a shallow baking dish, place the two halves face down and cover with foil.
• Bake in a preheated 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) oven for about 1½ hours or until tender.
• Once the baked pumpkin has cooled, scoop out the flesh and puree or mash it. I usually just mash it.
  

Boiling Method

• Cut the pumpkin in half, discarding the stringy insides.
• Peel the pumpkin and cut it into chunks.
• Place in a saucepan and cover with water.
• Bring to a boil and cook until the pumpkin chunks are tender.
• Let the chunks cool, and then puree or mash it.

Microwave Method

• Cut the pumpkin in half, discarding the stringy insides.
• Microwave on high power for seven minutes per pound, turning pieces every few minutes to promote even cooking. Process as above.

Pumpkin Pie Bars

I love pumpkin recipes!  I’m not able to buy canned pumpkin here, and the pumpkin I do buy doesn’t look like what you normally find in America.  But it tastes the same!  I just buy a big chunk and bake it in the oven, then mash it up to replace canned pumpkin in recipes.

So, when I saw this recipe the other day I was very excited!  I heard of pumpkin pie bars before but they always used a boxed cake mix (which, again, is unavailable where I live).  The recipe below does that all from scratch.  Now, I haven’t tried it yet, but I just might tomorrow!

Editing to add…I made these a few days ago, and they were a hit!   One thing I did was use oil instead of butter in the recipe, as where I live butter is over $1/stick and oil is much cheaper.  I use canola oil.  The other comment is that you could reduce the sugar a LOT!  I thought the bars were really yummy, but way too sweet.  I would suggest not adding any more sugar to the topping, and I’d probably reduce the sugar in the mix for the base to about 1 cup rather than 1 1/2 cups.  But either way they were still yummy!

Pumpkin Pie Bars

Mix together the following ingredients and save out 1 cup to use for the topping:

• 2 ¼ cups flour
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 3 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Mix the following into the remaining flour mixture, then pat dough into a 9×13-inch baking dish:

• ½ cup butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

In another bowl, mix the following ingredients and pour over crust:

• 2 eggs
• 2 cups pumpkin
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• 2/3 cup whole milk
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Mix together the following ingredients for the topping and sprinkle over pumpkin mixture in pan:

• 1 cup flour mixture (previously set aside)
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ cup butter, melted

Optional: You can sprinkle chopped nuts on top too if you wish…I think I’ll try chopped walnuts.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Serve with ice-cream or whipped cream.

Korean Bulgogi

This is a recipe that I found a couple of weeks ago and tried out while we were studying Korea.  The whole family loved it and said it was definitely a keeper.  It works pretty well for a basic stir fry, and because it’s marinated the beef even ends up being chewable!

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 pound beef, thinly sliced (I tried to buy tenderloin…not sure what I actually ended up with)
• 1 carrot, julienned
• 1 green onion, chopped
• 1/2 yellow onion, chopped

Combine soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, garlic, sugar, salt, black pepper, and MSG. Place beef  in a container and stir to coat the beef with the sauce. Refrigerate for at least 2 1/2 hours. I ended up marinating it for almost two days because something came up for dinner the day that I originally planned for.

The original recipe said to marinate the carrots and onions as well, but I just added those when I stir fried it.  The original also said to grill it, but we just stir-fried it and it turned out great.

Slow Cooker Korean Beef Tacos

As I was going through my blog reader this morning I saw a recipe that sounds like one we might all like… it was here at Crockpot 360 (which I’ve found to be a great resource).  My househelper makes us homemade tortillas periodically, and we can get all the ingredients locally.  A few weeks ago we made Korean bulgogi to go along with our studies on Korea, and this looks very similar but a bit easier!  I’ll have to post the bulgogi recipe too sometime because everyone loved it.

So, here’s the recipe!

3-4 pounds beef roast

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup soy sauce

1 head garlic (peeled, but leave cloves intact–approx 10 cloves)

 1/2 onion, diced

1 inch fresh ginger root, peeled and grated

2 tablespoons seasoned rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon sesame oil

The Directions.

Put everything in the crock pot! Cover, and cook on low for 8-10 hours or until meat has fully shredded— you can help it out by cutting the meat into pieces an hour or so before serving time. Serve in soft corn or flour tortillas

Pizza!

I’ve tried lots of different pizza crust recipes and thought I’d post a couple.

For pizza sauce I sometimes just use tomato paste and add some italian seasoning. Other times I add some sauteed onions and garlic and cook it with the tomato paste for a couple minutes. Other times I just use leftover spaghetti sauce.

For toppings we often have sauteed mushrooms and onions, and then ground beef browned with italian seasoning spices.

Pizza Crust
1 1/8 cups water
1 egg
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
3 1/2 cups flour ( I always use half whole wheat)
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast

Here’s another recipe…
Basic Pizza Dough

1 c warm water
1 pkg yeast
2 t honey
2 T olive oil
1 t salt
3 c flour (I’ve done it with whole wheat and white…works fine either way)

Dissolve yeast in warm water and honey. Let stand 5 minutes. Add other ingredients and knead 5 minutes. Let dough rest another 5 minutes (I never time it…I just let it rest for however long it takes to clean up the mess on the counter and wash the bowl). Roll or pat out into pizza pan. Sprinkle with garlic powder and mozzarella and partially bake at 500 degrees for about 5 minutes (I’ve been known to skip this step, too, and just add to the regular baking time). Top with sauce and toppings, ending with cheese. Reduce heat to 425 and bake 12 minutes.

and still another…
3 1/2 cups flour
1 cup warm water
2 Tablespoons yeast
2 Tablespoons honey
1/4 cup olive oil (I have used regular oil – olive oil gives better flavor!)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Put all ingredients in your bread maker if you have one, on the dough cycle. If you are making it by hand, let the dough rise twice.

Homemade Italian Dressing

1 T. garlic salt or 1 1/2 t garlic powder
1 T onion powder
1 T sugar
2 T oregano
1 t black pepper
1/4 t thyme
1 t basil
1/4 t celery salt or 1/8 t celery seed, ground
2 T salt

Use 1 1/2 T mix with 1/4 c. vinegar, 1/2 cup oil, and 3 T water