Appetizer to Go

Tonight we’re invited to a party at the home of some of our friends and were asked to bring an appetizer for 20. I decided to bring Shrimp-Stuffed Eggs, another Paula Deen recipe.

Here’s a link to the recipe:

Shrimp Stuffed Eggs

I doubled the recipe and chopped up some small frozen shrimp that I defrosted in a few minutes by placing them in a colander and running cold water over them. I was just about out of Dijon mustard so I used the lemon juice for the recipe and shook it up in the plastic mustard bottle then squeezed it into the mashed egg yolks. To fill the whites easily I used a Ziplock freezer bag and put it in a highball glass. I cuffed the top of the bag over the rim of the glass then used a spatula to scoop the prepared filling into the bag. I sealed it then laid it on the counter and snipped about a quarter inch off of one corner. The opening needed to be large enough to allow the largest chopped shrimp pieces to extrude. The baggie makes an excellent no-mess disposable piping bag. I did not have any fresh dill so I used a little dried dill to sprinkle on the eggs for color and garnished each egg with a whole shrimp. For easy transportation I put the eggs on a large egg plate and used Glad Press ‘n Seal wrap to snuggle them onto the plate without smashing them. This stuff is great for no-leak wrapping and since I started using it, I will probably never use Saran or plastic wrap again.

They are ready to ride!

Christmas Eve Dinner, Christmas Morning Breakfast

I got home a little later than expected, but got caught up pretty quickly. Ingredients went into the Bread machine right away for a 45-minute quick dough cycle. I had a fast salad for lunch then went to work on a baked creamed spinach. Since it turned out heavy and thick, that’s a recipe I’m not going to share. I won’t repeat it myself. Next I put together a Spinach Egg Breakfast casserole following a recipe from the most recent Food Network Magazine. The recipe is also available online:

Spinach Mushroom Breakfast Casserole

I made this up to the point of spooning the spinach and mushroom mixture onto the toasted potato bread and refrigerated it.

Next I peeled about 4 lbs. of potatoes and put them on to boil. By this time the bread dough was ready and I made assorted knots, spirals and cloverleaf shapes and placed them in buttered muffin tins. I preheat my oven to the lowest temperature, 170 degrees, then turn it off. Dough rises well in this draft-free environment. The main course was beef tenderloin. This was prepared very simply. I salted and peppered all sides of the tenderloin, cut it in half, then browned it quickly in a non-stick pan then put it on a rack in a foil-lined roasting pan and roasted it for about 30 minutes to get it to 150 degrees, about medium rare. It is important to let the meat rest about 10 minutes before slicing it to prevent loss of the juices. I got some assistance from my Mother-in-law, who sautéed baby sliced Portabella and Oyster mushrooms for a mushroom sauce to be served with the tenderloin. We had a dinner salad of Romaine lettuce, Mandarin oranges, pecans and pomegranate seeds dressed with a simple home made raspberry vinaigrette dressing. My daughter made green beans bundles wrapped with bacon and baked in a brown-sugar-soy-sauce glaze.

Everything came together and we sat down to dinner at 6:00 p.m. We all enjoyed the menu seated at a festive holiday table and later attended the late-night service at church.

This morning I got up and finished adding the raw eggs, milk, and cheese and we were ready to eat in about half an hour with some Swiss Meats bacon ends on the side.

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Dessert’s Done

The cheesecake cooled in the oven for over an hour. I just took it out and removed the springform ring. I used a long-blade offset spatula to loosen the crust from the bottom of the pan then gently slid it off onto a vintage footed cake plate. I’ll let it cool about 30 more minutes then cover it with cling wrap and put it to bed in the refrigerator for the night. I has a couple of cracks in the top but that can be hidden a bit with a garnish of additional chopped fun-size Butterfingers.

Tomorrow I’m working about a half day then I’ll come home and start with home made dinner rolls, a creamed spinach casserole, beef tenderloin with a mushroom sauce and Yukon Gold mashed potatoes For Christmas morning I’m also going to put together a Egg and Spinach casserole that can be refrigerated tomorrow night and baked the next morning.

‘Twas the Day Before the Day Before Christmas…..

Today I’m making cookies to take to Christmas at my Mom and Dad’s house and dessert for our Christmas Eve Dinner at home. I made Cherry Winks and Snickerdoodles. I’ve blogged about the Snickerdoodles before but haven’t made the Cherry Winks yet this season. They are a favorite of my husband’s that his Grandma used to make.

Cherry Winks

5 cups Corn Flakes, crushed
2 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 up margarine (or butter), softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup finely chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped Maraschino cherries
15 Maraschino cherries, cut in quarters

Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and set aside. In a stand mixer cream sugar and eggs. Add vanilla and mix until blended. Add chopped pecans, chopped dates and the 1/2 cup of chopped Maraschino cherries. Mix just until blended together. Add the sifted flour mixture and blend just until ingredients are combined. At this point you can chill the dough if desired, but they can be made at room temperature, too. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. . Place crushed corn flakes in a shallow dish or pie plate. Take tablespoon of dough and form into a ball then roll in crushed corn flakes. Top with a quartered Maraschino cherry, slightly flattening the cookie. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Makes about 5 dozen. Cook on wire racks and store in an airtight container.

Christmas Eve Dessert

My husband has asked for a cheesecake for Christmas Eve dessert. He was thumbing through Paula Deen’s Christmas magazine and found the recipe, which is also available online:

Peanut Butter Candy Cheesecake

I found an unusual way to soften my cream cheese as I am pressed for time this evening. My dishwasher had just finished running a load, so I put the still-sealed foil packages in the top rack of my dishwasher and shut the door. I took them out in about 5 minutes and they were perfectly softened. This recipe also calls for chopped candy bars, but to save time, I used a smooth-plate meat tenderizer to crush the candies in their wrappers and then just opened them directly into the batter. This worked great! I would recommend that you don’t get too aggressive though, and just lightly whack them. Otherwise you’ll end up with a smeared mess. The cake is in the oven now on a cookie sheet (to protect against any springform pan leaks (you may recall that I just cleaned the oven). It bakes for an hour and 15 minutes then will cool in the oven for an additional hour. I’ll post more pictures when it’s unmolded.

That’s not Pork Loin!

Yesterday I started preparing an apple onion stuffing to use in rolled pork loin roast that I had thawed in the refrigerator from my freezer. Here’s the link:

Apple Stuffed Pork Loin Roast

Much to my surprise, after I’d finished sauteeing the onions, sage and apples and set them aside to cool, I discovered that my pork loin roast was actually a rolled beef flank steak. I’d even labeled it as such, but just went by the appearance when I grabbed it out of the freezer. Well, since it was a nice day yesterday, I fired up the gas grill on the patio. Using the last of the tank, I grilled the flank steak which I marinated for about an hour in a modified chimichurri sauce, loosely based on Sunny Anderson’s Food Network Recipe. The exception is that I did not use cilantro, because I just don’t care for the taste of it. I simply doubled up on the parsley and put only about 1 tablespoon of dried cilantro in the marinade, which is much milder than the fresh cilantro. It was very tasty in a soft tortilla with pan-fried red and yellow peppers, red onion slices, and some cherry tomatoes.

Grilled Flank Steak

After lunch, Kevin went to the grocery to acquire a pork loin, since the stuffing was already made I didn’t want to waste it. I butterflied the pork loin with a very sharp carving knife, stuffed it with the already-made stuffing, rolled it up and wrapped it in cling wrap. Tonight when I got home it was ready to roast. I served it with pan-fried leftover parsley potatoes for me and some leftover stuffing for Kevin, jarred braised cabbage (found in a discontinued basket at Schnuck’s – you never know what you’ll find that just doesn’t sell quickly enough) and was fried Arkansas Black apples that we bought at Tom Ringhausen’s Orchard this Fall.

Tom Ringhausen Orchard

Cookie Dough to Go

We’ve been cleaning up a lot of leftovers this week and I haven’t done a lot of cooking. Yesterday we went to visit my mother-in-law at the retirement apartments to do some chores for her around the house so I decided to bring along some cookie dough to bake cookies while we were there. I have this recipe that was in a cookbook that came with my Mom’s new Wearever cookware in the 1950’s. It has been a family favorite not just during the holidays, but year round. It’s an easy recipe and can be doubled to make a family-size batch.

Peanut Crinkles

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup butter or margarine (1/2 stick)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, well beaten
1 cup sifted cake flour (can use all-purpose flour, we always did)
1 tsp. baking soda

Cream butter and peanut butter together; add sugar gradually, beat until light and fluffy. Add egg, beat well. Sift dry ingredients together and add to creamed mixture. Beat thoroughly. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet (or use parchment paper sheets on pans) and crisscross with fork. Bake in 325 degree oven for 10-12 minutes.

Leftover Ham = Ham Salad

Last week we had biscuit-size portions of ham cut from a spiral-sliced bone in-ham. The ham was an irregular cut so there were some good-sized uncut chunks left once the slices had been removed. I took the unsliced ham off the bone, trimmed the fat, cubed it into smaller pieces and put them in the bowl of my food processor. I pulsed it to grind the ham, emptied this into a mixing bowl, and added enough mayonnaise to moisten it. I didn’t use exact measurements because I didn’t measure it out, but it looked like about 5 to 6 cups. I added about 1/4 cup of sweet pickle relish then pulsed two hard-boiled eggs, 1/4 of a large red onion and two celery stalks cut into chunks in the food processor and added this to the mixture. This will be good as a snack on crackers or on a sandwich and it’s a great way to use up the remnants of a spiral-sliced ham.

If you would prefer a more structured recipe, here’s Paula Deen’s best ham salad recipe:
Paula Deen’s Ham Salad

Carrot Cake Catastrophe

I am so very grateful to whoever it was who invented the self-cleaning oven. MIne is set on a three-hour cycle right now. Last night I set out to bake a Carrot Cake for a coworker who is quitting and moving out West. I wanted to make enough cake for about 30 people, so a single 9 x 13″ pan would not do. I decided to double a recipe and use a larger roasting-type pan and increase the baking time. This plan sounded feasible at the time. I made two batches of batter, carefully poured them into the pan and into the oven it went. I went to the basement to send out a couple of emails and came up the steps to walk into a smell that embodies the very definition of acrid. I rushed to the oven and the air was already getting smoky. The cake had overflowed the pan and the drippings had become a small chain of lava rocks set aflame. Yes, you can produce charcoal in your own home under the right conditions. I took the cake out of the oven which still jiggled in a semi-liquid state, and took a long handled metal spoon to remove the charred briquets, some still on fire, and dump them in a mixing bowl of water. My son was standing by with the fire extinguisher, ready to spring into action. Thankfully, no further action was necessary. The cake was remarkably intact so I put it back into the oven where it finished the rest of the bake time uneventfully. Several windows were opened and the attic fan engaged to clear the air. I went ahead and made the cream cheese frosting and put it in the refrigerator. Here’s a link to Paula Deen’s Carrot Cake recipe. I doubled this and left out the nuts, which are optional.

Paula Deen’s Grandma’s Carrot Cake

I got up this morning and set the icing out to warm up while I got ready for work. I used a handy mechanical pastry bag from Williams and Sonoma that was a gift from my family a few years ago to decorate the cake and personalize the message. It turned out fine in the end, but even an experienced cook can make a miscalculation, so don’t give up if you have a disaster. Just learn from it for next time. Note to self: Make two cakes next time!

Using Up Leftovers

This coming week I’ll be working on ways to use up leftovers and surplus ingredients from last week’s cooking marathon. several of the recipes called for only 6 ounces of an 8-ounce package. This morning I used two 2-ounce “ends” of cream cheese, softened them in the microwave for about 15 seconds on high then mixed in two teaspoons of chopped chives (also leftover). I used it as a schmear on a toasted St. Louis Bread Company Everything Bagel topped with (leftover) pieces of smoked salmon. Delicious! At lunch we fixed some pan-fried smoked pork chops from Swiss Meats and simmered them in some apple cider until it reduced to a thick liquid. As sides we had baked sweet potatoes with butter and a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar and some (leftover) wilted spinach seasoned only with salt, pepper and a pat of butter. There are some leftover vegetables from the veggie tray, some cheese slices and some Smoked Sausage in Beer Kevin searched for a recipe for Beer Cheese soup and found this one on Food Network:
Otto’s Beer Cheese Soup
I followed the original recipe but found it too thick, almost like a fondue. Here is my modified version:

1/2 cup butter
1 chopped medium sized yellow onion
3/4 cup chopped carrot
3/4 cup chopped celery
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups chicken broth
1 (12-ounce) bottle Samuel Adams Old Fezziwig Ale
1 1/2 cups Mild Cheddar, shredded
1 1/2 cups Swiss cheese, shredded
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 pound smoked sausage, sliced then cut into 1/4 – 1/2″ pieces

Directions
Melt butter in a stockpot over medium heat. Add chopped onion, carrot, and celery. Saute until softened. Add flour. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Add chicken broth and beer. Heat until it comes to a boil. Slowly add cheese while stirring until just boiling and smooth. Add evaporated milk, heavy cream, salt, dry mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Reduce heat to low and cook until soup has thickened. Heat sausage in a no-stick skillet, just until warmed through and lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add sausage to the soup, transfer to a large serving bowl and serve hot.