Oct. 16, 2008 - Chicken Fried Steak

Chicken Fried Steak

Combine the following:
1 sleeve saltine crackers, crushed
1 cup flour
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
½ tsp red pepper
½ tsp baking powder

Whisk together:
¾ cup milk
2 eggs

Cut 4 cube steaks in half.  Dredge each of the eight pieces in cracker mixture, firmly pushing the crumbs into the steak; dip in milk mixture, and dredge again in cracker mixture.

Pour canola oil in big skillet and heat on medium.  Fry steaks 3-4 minutes.  Turn and fry 2-3 minutes more or until golden brown. 

Remove steaks and put in oven safe dish and keep in warm oven set around 170 degrees.

Carefully drain hot oil, reserving cooked bits and 1 Tbsp. drippings in skillet.

Whisk together:
4 cups milk
¼ flour
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper

Add milk mixture carefully to reserved drippings in skillet; cook, whisking constantly, over medium-high heat 10 to 12 minutes or until thickened.  Serve gravy with steaks and mashed potatoes.

I found this recipe in a Southern Living cookbook and reduced the salt in the recipe.  This is one of our favorite meals.  The crackers crumbs pushed into the crevices help keep them from shrinking.  This easily makes 8 servings, you don't need a whole cube steak when you are serving mashed potatoes and gravy with it.   I also think that wheat saltines make this taste the best.

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Mar. 12, 2008 - Corn Muffins

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Feb. 8, 2008 - Pizza tutorial

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about our Friday night tradition of serving homemade pizza, several of you have asked for the recipe. So, I decided to post the recipe along with a picture tutorial.  

Pizza Dough

5 cups hot water (130-140 degreees)

14-15 cups fresh milled hard Montana Spring white wheat flour or all-purpose flour

3 T. SAF instant yeast

2 T. honey

1/4 cup canola oil

2 vitamin C's (crushed)

3-4 tsp. salt

Place water, 5 cups of the flour, yeast, honey, oil, vitamin C's in bowl of heavy-duty mixer. ( I use a Bosch mixer)  Mix slightly and let sit for 30 minutes.  This is called "letting it sponge".  Add salt and enough remaining flour until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.   Knead for 5-7 minutes.  If doing this by hand you should knead it for 12-15 minutes.  Take dough out of bowl and place a slightly greased countertop.  Take a dough cutter or big knife and cut the dough into five equal sections.  I lift these up and "guesstimate" if they weigh the same.  I put 4 of these in 4 different gallon-sized freezer bags and pop them into the freezer.  To use these for the next pizza night, just take one out in the morning and set it on the counter to thaw, by supper time it will be ready to use.

Spray a large pizza stone with non-stick spray and sprinkle a light dusting of garlic powder on this.  Take that 5th section of dough and roll it out directly onto the stone.  If you would like a stuffed crust roll it out a few inches past the stone.  Take a small amount of spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese and spread around the egde of the dough.  Fold dough edge over this stuffing and seal down.  Spread with spaghetti sauce, 2 cups mozzarella cheese and toppings of your choice.  Bake in a 500 degree oven for 10-11 minutes.  Let set for just a minute or two before cutting. 

Ingredients for pizza

Roll dough out past stone for stuffed crust.

Place stuffing on edge of stone over the crust.

Fold dough over the stuffing and seal.

Spread spaghetti sauce over dough.

Spread the remaining mozzarella cheese over sauce.

Place additional toppings over cheese.  Place in 500 degree oven and bake for 10-11 minutes.

Let sit for a minute or two before cutting with a pizza cutter. 

We also serve garlic butter with this for dipping.  Crush 2 or 3 garlic cloves into a microwave safe bowl and add 2/3 stick of butter and heat until butter is just melted.  Stir and enjoy. 

While I have changed parts of this recipe,  I found the original recipe for this pizza dough in Denise Fidler's Wildflour cookbook. 

You can go to Canadagirl's blog for more Show and Tell.

Thanks goes to Emily Rose for not only making this pizza but photographing it as well.

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Jan. 10, 2008 - Baked Potato Soup

I found this recipe last year from Smithfield.com but it isn't on their website any longer so I will post it here.   It isn't one of those recipes that you can just throw in the crockpot and walk away, you do have to do some prep work but it isn't that hard and the results are so worth it.  This is a wonderful comfort food.

Baked Potato Soup

8 slices bacon, (I use turkey bacon)

1 onion, diced

1/2 cup all purpose flour

3 (14.5 oz) cans chicken broth

6 potatoes, baked, peeled and diced

1 tsp dried parsley flakes

2 cups half & half

1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

1 cup sour cream

Salt & pepper to taste

In a Dutch oven cook bacon until crisp; remove and crumble, reserve drippings*.  Cook onion in drippings until tender; stir in flour and cook for one minute, stirring constantly.  Gradually add chicken broth; cook, stirring constantly until a little thicker and bubbly.  Put in diced potatoes, parsley, bacon and half & half; cook for 10 minutes.  Stir in cheese and sour cream. 

* I baked my potatoes early in the afternoon and let them cool, I also baked my bacon at the same time and used a little canola oil to cook the onions in. 

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Dec. 17, 2007 - Christmas Punch

1 12 oz. frozen lemonade, slightly thawed

2 12 oz. frozen orange juice, slightly thawed

1 46 oz. canned pineapple juice

2 cups sugar

6 cups water

5-6 smashed bananas

1 2L. Sprite

Mix first six ingredients in large freezable container, like an ice cream tub.  Freeze overnight.

Put frozen punch in punch bowl 1 1/2 hours or so before serving.  Pour Sprite over punch and let set for about 15 minutes.  Take a large spatula and start breaking it down into a nice slushy punch.

This recipe makes such a wonderful punch. My friend, Kathy, gave me the recipe and the idea to serve it on Christmas Day.   

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Dec. 14, 2007 - Beluga Babies Recipe

Beluga Babies

1 lb. Oreo cookies, crushed

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 lb. white almond bark

In a large mixing bowl, combine the crushed cookies and cream cheese to form a stiff dough.  Roll in 1" balls.  Place the cookie balls on a waxed paper covered cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for 15 min.  When the 15 min. is about up, melt the almond bark in the micowave in a deep microwave-safe dish according to directons on the package.  Take cold cookie balls and dip them in the melted coating.  (We use old forks that we have bent the tines up to hold the cookie ball while dipping).  Place on wax paper.  Let harden.

When coating is set, put the truffles in a freezer bag or rigid container.  You can keep in freezer or refrigerator.

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Dec. 14, 2007 - Christmas Biscotti Recipe

Christmas Cinnamon Biscotti

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 egg yolk

1/2 tsp vanilla

small amount of cinnamon sugar mixture to sprinkle

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray large baking sheet with non-stick spray. 

Whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together in medium bowl; set aside.

Whisk sugar and eggs in large bowl; stir in vanilla.  Sprinkle dry ingredients over egg mixture, then fold in until dough is just combined.

Havle dough and put both portions on baking sheet.  Using floured hands, quickly stretch out dough into 2 loaves roughly 13 x 2-inches long.  Place about 3 inches apart.  Bake for about 35 minutes until top is just beginning to crack.  Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes.  

Lower oven temp to 325 degrees.  Transfer loaves to a cutting board and cut diagonally into 1/2 inch slices.  Place slices back onto baking sheet, cut-side up, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture and then bake for 15 minutes, turning cookie over halfway through baking time.  Cool biscotti on wire rack.  Biscotti can be stored in airtight container for up to 1 month. 

These are great dipped in hot beverages.

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Oct. 13, 2007 - Apple Harvest Time

Oh, I so enjoy the smell of apples cooking!  Apple pies, apple bars, applesauce, apple cobbler...if it has apples in it, you know it is going to smell good.  I can't say it will always taste good.  I made a recipe a few weeks ago with apples, pork chops and lentils and well, let's just say it was a waste of some good apples.  So, when the apple orchard is packed full of apples ready to be hauled home, happy times are here!  I usually put up a lot of apple pie filling in our freezer.  This is such a blessing throughout the year.  We can make all of our favorite apple recipes from it and it is so nice to have all the peeling and slicing already done and it saves so much in cost.   Here is my recipe for apple pie filling.

Apple Pie filling

8 cups peeled and sliced baking apples

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

a pinch of cloves (optional)

Put this all in a large freezer bag, get all the air out and seal.  Label and make sure you put the date on it. 

I like to mix the apples up and use 2 or 3 different types of baking apples to give it a little more interesting taste.  I use Cortland, Golden Delicious and Ida Reds most of the time.

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Sep. 13, 2007 - Orange Julius

I found this recipe at Tammy's Recipes.  It was a great thing to serve to the girls mid-morning while they were deep in their school work.   Next time I serve it, I will try adding strawberries.  We try to have a light snack mid-morning to help keep us alert and happy.

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Jul. 18, 2007 - Snazzy Pretzels

Here is a fun and easy recipe.  

1 cup canola oil

1 envelop ranch dressing mix

1 teaspoon garlic salt

1 teaspoon chili powder

20-22 oz bag of pretzels

In a small bowl combine the first four ingredients.  Divide pretzels between two ungreased 15 x 10 baking pans.  Pour oil mixture over pretzels; stir to coat.

Bake at 200° for 1¼ to 1½ hours, stirring occasionally.   Cool completely.  Store in an airtight container.

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Jul. 5, 2007 - Smoothies

One of our favorite summer time treats is smoothies.  Icy cold ones.  We like to use frozen fruit to make them slushy and cold.

1 cup milk

1 cup vanilla yogurt

2 cups frozen fruit

Blend and enjoy.  This makes around 4 servings.

Variations of frozen fruit that we have used are: peaches, 1 cup peaches and 1 cup strawberries, 1 cup strawberries with a non-frozen banana, 1 cup blueberries with a non-frozen banana.

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