Slow Cooker Pot Roast

Ingredients
2 cans Cream of Mushroom Soup (10.5 oz each)
1 package French Onion Soup mix
2 1/2 cups water
1 tbsp. garlic salt
2 tsp black pepper
3 1/2 - 5 lb roast 
6 medium potatoes, large dice
4 carrots, large slices
4 stalks celery, large slices
1 onion, large dice

Directions
Mix canned soup, soup mix, water, garlic salt and black pepper in your slow cooker. Add roast and cover with veggies. Cover and cook on low heat for 8 hours.

Recipe Ideas Needed

It looks like we may have planted too many yellow squash plants this year. We are already drowning in them and they just started coming off. What do you do with yours other than frying, stewing, grilling or adding to spaghetti? Any casserole or bread ideas?

We also have a lot of banana peppers. I am planning to pickle them but have misplaced my Ball book. I'm hoping to put up a batch of pickled peppers (perhaps a peck of pickled peppers) this weekend but I was wondering what else you would use these for.

Sausage Gravy

Yummy!

Adapted from a recipe we found on Homesteading Today

Sausage Gravy

Ingredients
1 pound sausage
1/3 cup flour
4 cups milk
Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions
Fry sausage. Remove sausage and leave drippings in skillet. Add flour to the drippings in the pan and let flour brown. Add milk and spices. Stir constantly until thick. Return sausage to pan and heat through. Serve over biscuits (I use this recipe without adding the cheese).

Comments
We use Jimmy Dean Sage sausage and I add a couple dashes of crushed red pepper because Matthew likes the extra sage and I like my sausage hot. The sausage we use doesn't really make enough drippings to coat the flour so I added a couple tablespoons of butter to the pan after I removed the sausage and before I put in the flour.

Margarita Cake

This is a take on my Taste of Summertime Cake.

Margarita Cake

Margarita cake with strawberries

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest of 2 limes
5 large eggs
3 cups granulated sugar
1 ½ cups butter

1 cup Jarritos lime soda
2 teaspoons triple sec
2 teaspoons tequila

Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 12-cup tube pan. Combine flour, salt and zest in a bowl. With a mixer, cream butter and sugar at high speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Reduce speed to low; add dry ingredients and soda, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add the liquors and mix until just combined. Spoon evenly into prepared pan and bake 1 1/2 hours or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Invert onto wire rack, remove pan and cool completely.

Margarita Glaze

Ingredients
2 cups confectioners' sugar

Juice of 2 limes

1 tablespoon triple sec

1 tablespoon tequila

½ teaspoon salt

Instructions

Combine ingredients and beat until smooth. Add lime zest. Drizzle over cooled cake.

Krystal's Italian Tomato Soup

Ingredients
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, minced
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
3 15-oz. cans crushed tomatoes
1 tbsp. Paula Deen's House Seasoning (recipe towards the bottom of the page)
1 tbsp. Italian Seasoning (I buy mine already blended)

Directions
Mince garlic and onion. Saute in a dutch oven with crushed red pepper until the onion is translucent. Add crushed tomatoes, water, house seasoning and Italian seasoning and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 30-45 minutes or until thickened the way you want it. Yields about 10 cups.

Pumpkin Pie Bread

I have been craving both pumpkin and gingerbread for the last two weeks so, today, I combined them and created pumpkin pie bread.

Ingredients
2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
3/4 cup water
1 cup pureed pumpkin
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Dash ground cloves

Instructions
Grease and flour a 9-inch pan. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until combined (should be the consistency of muffin batter). Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Chick update

We had another 5 chicks hatch on Monday, bringing the total to 11. Unfortunately, we had one not make it, which is sad but also something you have to expect.

As for bedding in the brooder, I had a lot of conflicting information. One book said newspaper for the first few days. Another book said to never use newspaper because it is too slippery and causes splayed legs. That book suggested wire. Another book said never use wire and offered a number of suggesting, saying they used fine pine shavings (Never cedar shavings since they can be poisonous). Of course one of the other books said to never use shavings because the chicks can eat it and get stopped up. All very confusing.


Since I am a pessimist, I didn't think the eggs would hatch. It seemed to me she wasn't moving them around very much. I also didn't want to believe anything would be as simple as grabbing eggs, shoving them under a broody hen, and waiting 21 days. I was therefore unprepared when Krystal went out and checked on the hen on Sunday and yelled across the yard, "We have chicks!" I first filled the brooder box with wheat straw since that is what I had on hand. It was not a good choice, but I didn't have many other alternatives. The only wood shavings we had were dumped into the big brooder box once I moved the sick chicken into it (more on the sick chicken tomorrow), so it wouldn't really be a good idea to scrape 'em back out of there to use for the chicks. The Sunday bunch seemed to move about fine in the straw, but there were two from Monday that were too weak to stand up very well. One actually kept flipping over on its back and having trouble getting back upright. So the straw had to go.

We had some newspapers that we got from Krystal's grandmother to cover the table while I was lettering the egg sign.

We still had a bit left over, so I layered the bottom of the box a couple sheets thick of newspaper and covered that with two layers of paper towel. The newspaper is to absorb the mess, the paper towel is to give them traction. I just add paper towels once the ones in the brooder get too messy.

I plan to switch to shavings in a couple days, or maybe I will just chop the straw up and save myself a trip out. I am going to switch because they seem pretty bored on the paper towel. The can't scratch in it, and they ones that could handle it seemed to have more fun climbing over and in the straw. Also with the paper towels the droppings show up so I have a problem with the chicks pecking at them. I assume one of the chickens that had trouble walking is the one that passed away. The other, the one that kept flipping over, is getting around much better now that it has the stable surface of the papertowels as support. Once that chick is up and running around I will switch out the newspaper and papertowels for something more interesting.

Now to change the subject, and to show that Krystal isn't the only one that knows how to cook from scratch, here is what I had for lunch today:

Pepperoni and Mushroom pizza on homemade dough

We also finished off the batch of pita she made on Sunday so I made another batch so we could have our last bit of greek leftovers tonight.


Making pita is definitely a PiTA, but hummus and pita chips are such an awesome solution to the 3pm blahs that I put myself through it. I will most likely have to make another batch tomorrow since we ate half of today's batch for dinner.

-Matthew

Homemade Vanilla Wafers

We have some ripe bananas to use up and I don't want banana bread. We decided that we'd make banana pudding but didn't have any Nilla Wafers. So, we decided to make our own.

I used this recipe.

Instead of dropping the dough onto cookie sheets, I rolled the dough into one-inch balls. I got 4 1/3 dozen cookies out of the dough by doing it this way.

The cookies flattened out during the baking process and they look to be about the size of store-bought Nilla Wafers. I wanted mine to be a bit crunchier than the recipe poster had suggested so I cooked them for about 18 minutes until they were golden brown all over.



-Krystal

My Favorite Cake

A buttery yellow cake with rich chocolate icing has always been a favorite choice for my birthday. I recently found out that it was also my boss' favorite cake. When we were planning her at-work party, I volunteered to make the cake since I love to bake.

For the cake, I used Paula Deen's 1-2-3-4 cake recipe. The layers came out really even and beautiful.


To frost the cake, I used my grandmother's cooked frosting recipe.


Richmond Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp corn starch
1/2 cup cocoa
dash of salt
1 cup hot water
3 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla

Instructions
Mix all ingredients except butter and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook the frosting until it is thick, stirring constantly. Once it is thick, remove from heat and add butter and vanilla. This yields enough to frost a double 9-inch layer cake.

--Krystal

Citrus Soda Pound Cake

This is a take on my Taste of Summertime Pound Cake.



Citrus Soda Pound Cake

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups granulated sugar
5 large eggs
1 cup Mountain Dew, Mello Yello or Sun Drop (I used Diet Sun Drop for my cake)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 12-cup tube pan. Combine flour and salt in a bowl. With a mixer, cream butter and sugar at high speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Reduce speed to low; add dry ingredients and soda, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add the vanilla and lemon extracts and mix until just combined. Spoon evenly into prepared pan and bake 1 1/2 hours or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Invert onto wire rack, remove pan and cool completely.

I glazed my cake with a lemon glaze but you can leave it plain.

Lemon Glaze

1 cup confectioner's sugar

2 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients until smooth

Krystal

Lentil Soup

We've had some lentils and green split peas sitting in our cupboards for a couple months so, tonight, we had lentil soup, homemade corn bread and a salad (mostly from our garden) for dinner.



Lentil Soup

Ingredients
1/4 cup olive oil
4 carrots, diced
4 stalks celery, chopped
2 onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 tsp. Italian seasoning
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
1 1b. dry lentils
1 lb. dry green split peas
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
4 cubes beef bouillon
2 14.5 oz. cans diced tomatoes
16 cups water
2 cups fresh chard (you can substitute spinach)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
Heat olive oil in a pan. Add carrots, onion and celery and saute until tender. Add garlic, bay leaves, Italian seasoning and mustard seeds and cook for two minutes. Add lentils, peas, beef bouillon, vinegar, tomatoes and water. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook until peas and lentils are cooked through. Add the fresh chard and cook until greens are wilted and tender.

Krystal

Family Dinner May 2009: Taste of Summertime Pound Cake

Taste of Summertime Pound Cake



Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest of 1 orange
5 large eggs
3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup Jarritos pineapple soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon orange extract

Instructions
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 12-cup tube pan. Combine flour, salt and orange zest in a bowl. With a mixer, cream butter and sugar at high speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Reduce speed to low; add dry ingredients and soda, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add the vanilla and orange extracts and mix until just combined. Spoon evenly into prepared pan and bake 1 1/2 hours or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Invert onto wire rack, remove pan and cool completely.

5-Minute Chocolate Mug Cake, Thoughts

I tried the five-minute chocolate mug cake for the first time today. It was really yummy and made a large mug full of cake. I followed the recipe verbatim except I was concerned with the lack of leavening. I added about 1/2 tsp. of baking powder with the dry ingredients.

Krystal

Family Dinner April 2009: Quiche Lorraine

Since we are getting a lot of eggs from our chickens, now, we thought we'd make something to take to this month's family pot luck dinner that would use a lot of eggs.

So, here is my take on...


Quiche Lorraine

makes 2 9-inch pies

Ingredients
2 9-inch deep dish pie crusts
8 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
4 green onions, chopped
12 eggs
3 cups milk
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 cups emmental cheese, shredded (you could also use gruyere or swiss)

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Divide the bacon crumbles and the green onion pieces between the two pie crusts. In a bowl, beat the eggs, milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg together. Spoon this mixture over the bacon and onions in your two pie crusts. Top with the shredded cheese. Bake 45-50 minutes or until the egg mixture is set in the middle.

Krystal

5-Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

My sister-in-law shared this on Facebook. I'm saving it here for my own personal reasons...

4 tablespoons cake flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla
1 coffee mug

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well. Add the egg and mix well. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla and mix again.

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

Krystal

Family Dinner February 2009: Sweet Potato Cobbler

Every month, my family has a pot luck dinner. February's dinner was held this past Friday and I tried a new recipe on my family: Sweet Potato Cobbler. No one in my family had heard of it before but we enjoyed it.


I used canned sweet potatoes for this because that is what I had on hand. I chopped them up and used the liquid from the can to replace the water and sugar in the recipe above (I still put sugar in the cobbler batter). My great aunt suggested that next time I mash the potatoes instead of leaving them sliced and I think I agree with her.

Krystal

Valentine's Day Menu 2009

Apéritif: Kir



Starter: Spicy Cheese Rounds with cream cheese



Soup: Shrimp Bisque



Citrus Sorbet



Entree: Chicken Gruyere with Sauteed Mushrooms and Steamed Green Beans



Salad: Cucumber Dill Salad



Cheese & Fruit: Watermelon, Red Grapes, Emmental and Provolone



Dessert: Chocolate Mousse garnished with sliced almonds

Krystal

St. Patrick's Day Menu!

We will be having my mom over for a St. Patrick's Day meal on Sunday. This is our menu:

Corned Beef
(cooked with a bit of water and the spices that come with it in the crock pot)

Braised Root Vegetables
2 tablespoons butter
1 pound packaged baby carrots
1 rutabaga, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
Salt and pepper
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Heat a skillet with a cover over medium to medium high heat. Add butter, carrots, rutabaga and onion. Cook veggies 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add broth or stock, bring to a simmer, and reduce heat and cover. Cook vegetables 15 minutes or until fork tender. Remove from heat and set aside.

Colcannon
4 medium to large all-purpose potatoes, such as Russet, peeled and cut into chunks
Coarse salt, for boiling water
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 head dark curly kale, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup whole milk, eyeball it
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, fresh or grated
1 teaspoon ground thyme
2 scallions, sliced
A handful of fresh parsley, chopped

Boil potatoes for 15 minutes in salted water. Drain potatoes and return them to the hot pot and mash.

Heat stock or broth to a simmer. Chop kale tops, discarding tough stems. Add kale to broth and cover. Simmer 10 to 12 minutes.

In a large skillet over moderate heat melt butter and add milk. Season with nutmeg and thyme and add scallions to the pan. Remove kale from cooking liquid to the milk and butter mixture using a slotted spoon. Stir in 1/2 cup of cooking liquid. Add mashed potatoes to milk and kale and stir until combined and creamy, 1 or 2 minutes. Stir in parsley and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Both the Braised Root Vegetable and Colcannon recipes are from Rachael Ray.

Irish Soda Bread
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and baking soda. Blend egg and buttermilk together, and add all at once to the flour mixture. Mix just until moistened. Stir in butter. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for 65 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the bread comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Wrap in foil for several hours, or overnight, for best flavor.

Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup Guinness stout
1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup low-fat buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in middle of oven. Grease and lightly flour 9-inch cake pan.

In a small saucepan, combine cocoa powder and stout and heat over low-moderate heat until smooth. Set aside to cool.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl with an electric mixer on low-medium speed, beat butter until creamy. Gradually add sugar and beat until pale yellow in color. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and vanilla.

Stir buttermilk into cooled cocoa and stout mixture.

With the mixer on low, slowly add one-third of buttermilk mixture into creamed butter until incorporated. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the remaining two parts of the buttermilk and ending with the flour. Batter will look grainy or appear to be breaking up.

Pour batter into cake pan and bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove to wire rack with parchment or waxed paper beneath it. Allow cake to cool in pan for 10 minutes, then slide knife around the edge of pan and invert to release cake, bottom side up, onto wire rack. When cool, use a fork to poke holes generously into bottom side of cake.

Makes one 9-inch cake.

Chocolate Guinness Sauce
1/4 cup Guinness draught stout
4 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix ingredients in small saucepan and heat over low heat until smooth. Allow to cool. Spoon 3/4 of the sauce over bottom of the cake, allowing sauce to seep into cake. Invert cake right side up onto serving platter. Poke holes in top of cake and spoon remainder of sauce on top of cake.
Chocolate Ganache Glaze
10 ounces (11/4 cups) heavy whipping cream
10 ounces semisweet dark chocolate, chips or bar broken into small pieces

Bring cream to a simmer in a small saucepot. Turn off heat and stir in chocolate pieces until sauce is smooth and creamy. Pour onto finished cake, smoothing ganache atop and along sides of cake. Ganache will pool at bottom of cake and can be removed with a knife.

If desired, spoon extra ganache into ziplock bag, snip corner and squeeze atop cake in zigzag lines or decorative pattern. If ganache is too runny allow to thicken in bag until stiff. Or, reserve extra ganache in refrigerator to spoon over ice cream or form into truffles.

Recipe from sous chef Carol Light, Kells Restaurant and Pub, Portland, Ore.

.

Cooking Thoughts

Our drive towards cooking with basic ingredients is more difficult than I first would have guessed.

Growing up, I had always had home cooked meals provided by my Mom; eating out was a rare treat. I also learned to cook at a pretty young age, around the 13-16 range, but it was always cooking for myself. Mom never really wanted anyone in her kitchen and, honestly, it never crossed my teenage mind that she would want me to cook something for her and the rest of the family.

Once I moved out, I continued cooking at home and dining out on occasion. When my bro and I, along with a friend from high school, moved to our own place in Greenville, we had communal groceries and each night one roomy was responsible for a home cooked dinner for the house, so the habit continued.

It was not until I started going out with Chandler that most of my food didn't come out of my own kitchen. Not that I am blaming her, it was more along the lines that we were living off credit anyway, so why cut corners. By dining out, not only was I able to learn to like a great variety of foods but, I also was able to avoid washing dishes for weeks.

Once we were married and carpooling, it was always much easier to stop and grab a bite to eat while we let the worst of the rush hour traffic go by. This went on for years and I developed a pretty eclectic pallet. She made the mistake of taking me to my first Mexican restaurant, something I am sure she regrets considering the amount of times I suggested we go visit one. If it were completely up to me, and money nor any long-term well-being was a factor, I think I would never stray from the grand triumvirate of Chinese, Mexican, and Deli foods.

Cooking at home is much more difficult than just stopping in at whatever dining facility you happen to crave at the moment, but it is a lot cheaper and healthier.

Currently we plan our menu two weeks at a time revolving around Grocery Day which is the Wednesday following payday. (We hold out until Wednesday so that we can take advantage of whatever sales the grocery stores just started). Planning a two-week menu is no 'piece of cake' either. You have to try to balance a variety of dishes to tickle your taste buds around the ingredients you have on hand and the time you have available to prepare said ingredients.

As I said, we try to cook big meals on the weekend that will both provide us with lunch throughout the week, and provide dinner for at least Mon and Tues. Dinners towards the end of the week usually consist of crock-pot meals. After eating the same meal for 2-3 nights, not only do you want another dish, but I also like to rotate the kind of meat we have. I try to work in fish every now and again but considering the cost is a rarity. I am usually rotating through beef, pork, and chicken. As you can guess, trying to figure out what you will be interested in eating next Tuesday is hard enough, but given the other restrictions, menu planning can be difficult.

As with all things, I expect it will get easier with practice.

A Day of Cooking

For some reason I decided to be productive on Sunday, don't ask me why. I had a long laundry list of things that needed to be done and was having some problems deciding what I should do first. Chandler, as wives often do, made the decision for me. Sundays are often days she spends in the kitchen cooking up some vittles for the upcoming week. This Sunday morning she didn't quite feel well enough to tackle any big cooking jobs so I thought I would try it.

First was lunch for the upcoming workweek. I made two big dishes of Cheeseburger Macaroni based off this Betty Crocker recipe, which I tripled and added two pounds of beef (Next time, I think I'll double it and use a pound of macaroni and a pound of beef). Chandler usually makes this and starts with a béchamel sauce but, lacking her culinary talents, I wanted something a little more basic. This was my first time making Cheeseburger Macaroni from scratch. I had made it plenty of times previously using Hamburger Helper and a family size box of mac & cheese but that didn't fit in with our goals of avoiding convenience foods and building recipes on a more elemental level. It made 18 12oz servings and does quite well in a thermos.

Once I was done with Cheeseburger Mac, I moved on to take another stab at bread baking. I hadn't tried again since the first time, which was mostly a negative experience.

I had been reading on HT about whole wheat bread baking and a few people mentioned working the dough longer for whole wheat to get the gluten going. I tried that this last time and it was a good workout but the end product wasn't really any better. The bread still did not rise as much as it should and was very dense. Since I had worked the dough much longer this time, I may have mixed in too much flour, but I think the problem was the yeast. We are still experimenting with the recipe and I think we made a miscalculation on how much we should use or I should have just let it bloom longer.

Though the bread turned out heavy and is most likely destined for life as croutons, I did have one success. The recipe we use makes 4 1.75lb loaves with dough left over. I am more apt to blame the yeast than the flour for the disappointing texture of the bread simply because this is the first time that either of us ended up with 4 of the 1.75lb loaves and I still have over a pound of dough left. I took the recipe creator’s suggestion and made Schnecken, which is a nutty sweet roll. Those were absolutely awesome! Easy to make: just butter, chopped nuts, brown sugar, cinnamon, and your dough, but amazingly tasty. The brown sugar and butter gave the nuts a nice gooey caramel covering. I can't wait to make them again the next time we need to make the bread.