recipe – Sheila365

Flying by.

Wow, that was fast. January and February flew by – only 8 months til Halloween. 🎃

After the brief ice age a few weeks ago, our temps are in the 80s here. Seems strange when the latest arctic front is hitting another part of the country. But I’ll enjoy it because we’ll be back in the 100s in no time.

Speaking of ice storms, our wall of broken tree limbs were thankfully hauled away this week. I can see the street again!

I’ve been craving fish tacos for a week. Last night the universe aligned and I finally made a batch. They’re so delicious. Here’s a link to the recipe I start with. Or you can just google ‘best fish tacos’ and it’s the top result. They’re that good. The sauce is amazing. And the cotija cheese makes them muy auténtico. I like to use mixed corn/flour tortillas, which Doray turned me on to years ago. They’re sold by H‑E‑B here in Texas as Mixla tortillas. They tend to hold together better than plain corn tortillas.

What the dukkah?!

Colleen turned me on to a new taste treat, an Egyptian-heritage nut and spice blend. Apparently Trader Joe’s sells some. Instead of running out to the store, I asked Google for help finding a recipe and picked this one because I had all the ingredients for it. I just made some and I like it. You can serve it in another dipping dish alongside bread and olive oil, pita and hummus, or veggies and hummus, or whatever else floats your boat.

Click through here to see the recipe as I found it. I used almonds instead of hazelnuts.

Biscotti on my mind.

I will do a bit more baking before the temps start hitting the triple digits again in Austin, at which point I am loathe to turn on the oven. I still have a couple of months.

I made almond biscotti yesterday (that recipe was posted in an old Sheila365 post here). Today I made a batch of chocolate biscotti. I love to dip one of these in my coffee in the morning.

Chocolate Biscotti Recipe (Preheat oven to350 degree F, makes about 2 dozen)

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2 tsp water
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 large egg white

Combine first 8 (dry) ingredients in large bowl.

Mix next 4 (wet) ingredients in small bowl with a fork.

Add wet to dry ingredients and stir until all is crumbly but moist. Then use your sparkling clean hands to massage and knead the mixture in the large bowl until it holds together in one moist loaf.

Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray and place the dough on the baking sheet. Shape with your hands into a flat loaf, about 3/4″ high and 4-5″ wide. I like to square the ends so each piece is approximately the same size.

Place in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 30 mins. Then remove loaf and place on cooling rack for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temp to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. After cooling, slice the loaf into individual biscotti pieces about 1/2″ wide. Place each biscotti on its side on the baking sheet.

Bake in 325 oven for 10 minutes, then turn each biscotti piece and repeat for another 10 minutes.

Cool on rack, and enjoy!

If you care to count your calories, you may like to use a recipe calculator to estimate the calories per serving for your favoite recipes. I use the one at VeryWellFit.com. I plugged in the details for this recipe (assumes 24 pieces) and it says one biscotti is about 100 calories.

Enjoy!

Full enough.

I grilled pork tenderloin for dinner tonight. Over charcoal. Marinated in Allegro. Indirect. 21 mins, ~7 mins per side. Measure with meat thermometer to 145 degrees F. AMAZING.

As I waited for the meat to grill, I snapped this photo of the not-quite-full moon over our winter foliage.

Christmas sunset.

I grilled a delicious cedar plank salmon for Christmas dinner, recipe below. Julie joined us and stirred up a tasty risotto dinner. Nom nom. Sunset was fleeting, but lovely.

Grilled cedar-plank salmon:

soak a cedar plank in water for several hours ahead of grilling
slather a boneless salmon fillet with olive oil, then sprinkle generously with kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, and a dash of garlic powder
place fillet, skin side down on the pre-soaked cedar plank
place cedar plank & salmon over direct coals for 20-30 minutes

Enjoy!

3-way, baby!

I was introduced to Cincinnati Chili late in life, at a Skyline Chili restaurant while visiting southeastern Indiana and Ohio. Better late than ever, though! I was hooked.

I’ve been trying to make the quarantine-induced endless stream of home-cooked meals interesting, so I dusted off a recipe from our Joy of Cooking and made it for dinner yesterday. It was delicious! I might make it every week. 🙂

If you’ve never been treated to the savory goodness of the blended spices in its sauce, you are missing out. Check your spice cabinet inventory and get cooking!

Here’s how to make you some!

Cincinnati Chili (adapted from Joy of Cooking)

Makes 3 servings

Bring 2 cups water to a boil in a large pot

Add:
1 lb ground beef sirloin

Stir until separated, and reduce heat to a simmer.

Add:

1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 T Worcestershire sauce

Stir in:

5 whole black peppercorns, ground
4 whole allspice berries, ground
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 large bay leaf
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground red pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1⁄4 ounce unsweetened chocolate, grated

Bring again to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook covered for 2 1⁄2 hours. Refrigerate overnight and reheat, or eat it right away! Don’t forget to discard that bay leaf.

For a 2-Way, serve over cooked thin spaghetti (2 oz of dry pasta per serving).
For a 3-Way, which is my favorite, add a pile of finely shredded cheddar cheese.
For a 4-Way, add chopped onions on top of the cheese.
For a 5-Way, add cooked red kidney beans.

Sláinte!

I made Monte a chocolate Guinness cake for his birthday (recipe here). I put a little chocolate powder in the icing (link for that is also in the recipe for the cake) so it would be tan colored instead of white. You know, so I could put a little beer foam on top along with the signature shamrock 🙂

Happy Birthday!

Dinner and a movie.

Yesterday we helped Julie move into her new apartment. Then she joined us for dinner. I shouldn’t have, but I made a very decadent pasta dish, and we pigged out while watching The Princess Bride (for probably the tenth time). If you are craving a high-calorie, savory, down-home, soul-food kind of pasta dish. This is the one for you.

Sausage & Basil Baked Pasta

1 small sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz dry penne or ziti pasta (makes about 3 cups cooked)
1 lb fresh mild italian ground sausage
24 oz jar of tomato & basil sauce
2 eggs
15 oz carton of ricotta cheese
2 c shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 c shredded parmesan cheese
1/4 c fresh basil, chopped

Boil pasta per package directions, drain and set aside.

In medium saucepan, cook & crumble italian sausage. Drain off fat. Return skillet to heat and add onion & garlic to sausage. Saute until onion is soft. Add tomato sauce, heat through and set aside.

In large bowl, combine ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, eggs, and half of the mozzarella. Fold in the cooked pasta to combine well with cheese mixture.

Into a 13×19 pan, add half of the pasta & cheese mixture, spread evenly. Add half the sausage & tomato sauce mixture. Layer again with remaining cheese and sauce.

Cover and bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes, until bubbly.

Remove cover, add remaining mozzarella cheese and place back in oven for 5-10 minutes, until cheese is melted.

Sprinkle with chopped basil and serve. Makes enough to feed an army.

The birds and the bees.

The hummingbird feeders are getting quite a lot of traffic these days. Between the bees, the hummers and the finches, they’ll empty one of these in a day. I had just refilled this feeder and by the time I got back into the house, these two had already stopped for a drink.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Hummingbird Nectar
1 part sugar : 4 parts H2O
Bring to a boil for several minutes.
Let cool completely. You can refrigerate any extra for a week or so.
Probably shouldn’t leave in the feeder for more than a day or two.

Cookies, baked & decorated.

I had a marathon baking session yesterday. 🙂

I used a recipe from Southern Living‘s “Christmas at Home” 2009 special issue that I’ve had for years.

Sparkling Sugar Cookies (made 4-5 dozen medium sized cookies when I made them)

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

Coarse sparkling sugar sprinkles of your choice

Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add granulated sugar, beating well. Add egg and vanilla, beating well.

Combine flour and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Divide dough in half. Cover; chill 1 hour.

Roll each portion of dough to 1⁄8-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut with desired cookie cutters. Place on parchment paper lined baking sheets.

Bake at 350° for 12-14 minutes ( 14 worked perfect in my oven) or until edges of cookies are lightly browned. Cool 1 minute on baking sheets, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Add glaze (recipe below) and sprinkles (while glaze is still wet). Leave flat until completely dry (this took quite a while for me).

Enjoy!

Simple Glaze (makes about 1 cup)

1 (16-oz.) package powdered sugar

4-6 tablespoons hot water

Liquid food coloring (optional)

Stir together powdered sugar and hot water until smooth. If desired, divide mixture, and tint with food coloring. Spread on cookies with spatula or dip, whatever works best for you.

Garbage-pail pasta before & after.

Garbage-pail pasta is a quick dinner dish that I throw together using whatever is in the fridge. Last night’s version featured:

leftover chicken breast meat from the day before – diced (8-10 ounces)
1 onion – diced
2 garlic cloves – minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp each of kosher salt & ground black pepper
2 cups of mushrooms – sliced
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
8 ounces of dry bowtie pasta, cooked before it is added to sauce
1 cup of half & half
2 cups of baby spinach – coarsely chopped
2 ounces of grated parmesan cheese

Pre-cook pasta in salted water. Save the pasta water to use it to thin the cream sauce later, if needed.

I use a 4-5 quart saute pan/pot to make the sauce, so that it is big enough to hold both the sauce and the cooked pasta when it is added later.

Saute onion, garlic and mushrooms in olive oil over medium heat, until soft. Add in the pre-cooked chicken, salt & pepper, and stir for another few minutes til chicken is warm. Add flour and stir, to coat meat and veggies (this will help thicken the cream sauce later).

Add half & half and stir until sauce begins to thicken. Add small amounts of pasta water if sauce gets too thick. Stir in parmesan and spinach, for a minute or two. Then turn off heat under sauce. Add drained, cooked pasta to the sauce and stir.

Before:

And after:

Not bad. This dish would easily serve 4. Next time, I’d add more mushrooms.

Lemony goodness.

During our visit to Seattle, my niece made ice cream sandwiches for dessert. They were delicious, so I had to try making them when we returned home.

If you like lemon, and you like ice cream, you must try these.

Lemon Ice Cream Sandwiches (makes 4)

4 or 5 scoops of vanilla ice cream – we used Bluebell Homemade Vanilla, of course
1 Tbsp Dickinson’s lemon curd – or more, to taste
8 belgian butter cookies

Put all ice cream scoops together in a single bowl. Add lemon curd and stir well. I used a stiff spatula to blend. Do this relatively quickly, before ice cream gets too soft. Place 4 cookies on flat baking sheet. Spread a scoop of the blended ice cream onto each cookie. Lightly place another cookie on top of each. Place in freezer for several hours.

And another.

I’m going to have to learn to tell these guys apart. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Hummingbird Nectar Recipe

Mix 4 parts water with 1 part granulated sugar in a saucepan and heat until sugar is dissolved and the mixture reaches a light boil for a minute or two. Let cool before filling feeders.

How’s it hanging?

I’ve crossed off another project from my growing wanna-do list in my head this weekend. As you may have come to know through this blog, we like to make homemade pasta. A lot. Spaghetti, fettucine, ravioli, waddevah. It’s the food of the gods. Over the holidays, I ran across a fresh pasta hanger on Amazon and it looked so simple and easy to make, that I refused to put it in my cart. We have a gynormous wood shop out back. So I did a little recon and found what I needed already in the shop and… voila! Ye olde pasta hanger. I made it without glue, so I can take it apart to store easily in the cabinet.

Tonight I tried it out. So, here’s how it went down:

2 1/4 cups flour

3 eggs

stir / mix with a fork, blending the egg & flour crater from the inside out. You may not need all the flour. When the dough stands on its own, knead by hand for 10 minutes. Till it looks a like more or less like this:

Wrap dough ball in saran wrap and let sit at room temp for 30 mins or so.
Afterwards, I cut the dough ball into 3 equal-ish sided pieces, ready to put through the pasta roller.

I used our Kitchen-Aid roller, starting on setting 1 – ending on setting 5. Rolling and dusting the dough with flour several times on each setting. After rolling each of the three balls into a sheet at setting number 5, I cut each in half. I found that each of my six pasta sheets ended up making about 2 ounces of pasta – a serving. So 3 eggs + 2 1/4 cups of pasta yields approximately 6 servings.

Next, I put the fettucine pasta cutter on the Kitchen-aid

I hung each section on my new, handy-dandy pasta hanger. (Awesome!)

Then I threw the pasta into a pot of boiling water. I sauteed the other bits in a skillet with some olive oil and I let the flavor develop.

Yummm!

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