Where You'll Find Me

This blog has been rather quiet of late. I'm still cooking, but I've been posting new recipes at a new website:  Cook and Count. The new site features the same family-friendly recipes you're used to finding here, with the addition of carbohydrate information per serving.

That's because my youngest child was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes this past November. Fortunately I haven't had to learn a new way to cook, but I have had to pay attention to how many carbs are in the food my son eats.

The recipes at Cook and Count are for anyone--not just diabetics. And yes, there will still be cookies. Little Brother can still have cookies, as long as he knows how many carbs are in them so he can use insulin accordingly. He is learning to enjoy two cookies instead of scarfing down five or six. (And that's a good thing.)

This site isn't going anyplace, but new posts will be happening at the new site.

I've Given Up Ice Cream

I like ice cream.

A lot.

That's the problem. Ice cream is yummy, but it's also very easy to eat way too much of it.

Since I also like fitting into my clothing, I tried cutting down on the size of my ice-cream bowl. That didn't work too well.

What did work was substituting gelato for ice cream.

Talenti Gelato is rich and delicious, and a little goes a long way. A small dish of Talenti Gelato is just as satisfying as a big dish of ice cream, and a lot easier on the waistline.

Because I enjoy frozen desserts almost as much in winter as I do in summer, I tried some of Talenti's seasonal flavors this winter. My favorite seasonal flavor was Peppermint Bark, which takes plain old chocolate-chip-mint to a fabulous new level. I hope they'll bring this flavor back next winter--I'll buy it by the case if they do.

If you like your desserts a little nutty, try the Sicilian Pistachio, which is loaded with chunks of pistachio as well as plenty of flavorful pistachio butter.

Want something smoother? You can't miss with Sea Salt Caramel. You'll find caramel truffles in there--a winning combination.

Take a look at all their current flavors! On my list to try:

Argentine Caramel

Coffee Chocolate Chip

Black Raspberry Chocolate Chip

Southern Butter Pecan

Here's how to find Talenti Gelato at a store near you.

FYI:  Talenti's one-pint plastic containers are great for storage once dessert is done. Fill them up with rice, pasta, cookies, whatever.

Sunshine Citrus Salsa with Fish

In the middle of winter, you need all the sunshine you can get, and with citrus fruit at its peak of flavor (and lowest price), it's a great time to add the taste of sunshine to any meal.

You'll find this recipe at my new website, Cook and Count!

Maple-Walnut Cupcakes

Excuse the slightly-lumpy icing--I should have poured
the sugar more carefully.

I'm not much of a cake baker, and most of the cakes I've baked have been from the boxed-mix variety. But these cupcakes are just about as easy to make as opening a box--and way more delicious. Plus there's nothing artificial here.

MAPLE-WALNUT CUPCAKES

Makes 18 cupcakes

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
3 tbl butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk

1/4 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Combine flour and baking soda. Set aside.
Cream together butter and sugars in mixing bowl. Add eggs, beating in one at a time. 

Measure milk and syrup into a measuring cup.

Alternate adding milk mixture and flour mixture to batter with mixer on low speed. When batter is beaten well, stir in the chopped walnuts.
Pour batter into prepared cupcake pan.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until cupcakes pass the "toothpick test."

MAPLE-BROWN SUGAR ICING

2 tbl butter

¼ cup brown sugar

1 tbl milk

1 TBL maple syrup

½ cup + 1/3 cup powdered sugar

Melt butter in small saucepan.  Add brown sugar and stir until bubbly.  Remove from heat.  Add milk and syrup and stir until smooth.  Add powdered sugar and beat until frosting is ready to spread.  Use IMMEDIATELY.

Mom's Penicillin

It's a Sick Day for my daughter today, so I've got a pot of homemade chicken-noodle soup simmering on the stove. Chicken soup really does make you feel better--and this is the good stuff right here; nothing artificial added! Chicken soup is also a frugal dish; you can use leftovers to make the stock (it's really easy) and this is a great way to use up those odds and ends of baby carrots and that last bit of the box of pasta.

CHICKEN-NOODLE SOUP

For the soup:
6 cups chicken stock
2 cups carrots, chopped
1 rib celery, finely chopped
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
parsley (fresh, if you have it--a generous handful)
freshly-ground black pepper
1/4 tsp rosemary

Add-ins:
1 1/2 cups chopped or shredded cooked chicken
1 1/2 cups fettuccine, broken into fourths (less than 1/4 pound)*

Start the soup at least 1 1/2 hours before serving. Simmer, covered. About 1/2 hour before serving, add chicken and pasta and cook uncovered until pasta is done.

*If you prefer to use a smaller noodle such as dilatini, pastina or orzo, 1 cup will be plenty.

Breakfast Delight: Maple Oatmeal Bread

A friend of ours gave us a bottle of "the good stuff":  real maple syrup from Coombs Family Farms.

I had to act quickly if I was going to get a chance to bake anything with this, as the pancake eaters in the house were making short work of this delicious syrup.

(Coombs, you've completely spoiled my family regarding maple syrup. They've enjoyed the real thing. There's no going back.)

I managed to reserve enough of this maple syrup to add to an oatmeal bread that's great for toasting and has a hint of sweetness--but doesn't go overboard.




For the recipe and nutrition information, please see my new blog, Cook and Count.

The fine print:  recipe and opinions are all mine. I was given no compensation by Coombs Family Farms or any other entity for this post.

Spicy Corn Chowder in the Slow Cooker

This soup got started as the Corn Chowder recipe from 365 Slow Cooker Suppers. That chowder needed something, so I decided it spice it up with some Ro-Tel (and omitted the potatoes). You can make this chowder as chunky or smooth as you would like, as there's a blender step in the instructions. The more soup you reserve before blending, the chunkier the chowder will be. This freezes well.

For this recipe, including nutrition information, please see my new website at Cook and Count!

Stuffed and Unstuffed Chocolate-Chip Cookies

Whether your tastes lean toward the super-sweet, the sweet-and-salty, or the traditional, these chocolate-chip cookies are for you! I started out with a basic recipe from Amanda's Cookin' but made a few changes in the prep so the cookies could be stuffed. You can stuff a cookie with all kinds of things, like caramels, pretzels, and mini Oreos. I like to use small items to stuff cookies, so that the cookies themselves don't get TOO big.

My younger son's friend requested a batch of my Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate-Chip Cookies for his birthday, but he wanted a softer cookie. I think this recipe did the trick. After I'd baked 3 pans of cookies stuffed with mini Oreos, I decided to try adding peanut-butter-filled pretzels to a different batch. These new filled pretzels from Utz were just the right size--and they kept their crunchy, salty texture even after baking. Finally, I baked a pan of just plain cookies.

Get the whole recipe with photos and nutrition facts at Cook and Count!

Review: 365 Slow Cooker Suppers

When it comes to cooking, I'm generally fairly adventurous--except when it comes to using the slow cooker. For as much countertop real estate that my slow cooker takes up, it's definitely underutilized. Mainly, I use it for pot roasts, pulled-meat sandwich fillings, and chili.

Stephanie O'Dea is a lot less cautious than I am when it comes to slow cooking. Besides her website, where I learned to make a mean pork carnitas, she's published several cookbooks that help hesitant cooks like myself get over the idea that there are only a few types of foods that can be prepared in a slow cooker.

Her new cookbook, 365 Slow Cooker Suppers, shows that the possibilities for slow-cooker use are much less limited than most of us think. I marked many recipes I'd like to try, and even made one of them immediately: corn chowder. That's something I really enjoy and something I'd never considered cooking in a slow cooker.

If you read through many of the recipes, you'll discover that there are several variations on a base recipe--just with a different set of seasonings or group of vegetables. Once I noticed that, I felt more confident about fiddling with a recipe on my own to adjust it to my family's tastes--again, something I'll do with a stove-top recipe without thinking twice about it.

One thing I like about O'Dea's cookbooks is the "Verdict" at the bottom of each recipe. In that short paragraph, she explains how the recipe can be varied to suit picky discriminating taste buds as well as what her family liked about each dish.

I felt that there was a lot of emphasis on gluten-free this or that. While I don't mean to slight anyone who must follow a gluten-free diet due to medical necessity, I think there are less-intrusive ways to indicate this in a cookbook. There were recipes that contained the parenthetical "(I use gluten-free insert name of ingredient)" several times. After a while, I started to feel that because I don't have gluten intolerance, I'm not the target market for this cookbook. I doubt that this is what the author intended. I'd suggest, instead, listing gluten-free substitutions at the bottom of a recipe or denoting gluten-free ingredients with a GF icon next to the name of the ingredient. Because most of these recipes don't include a long list of steps to be followed in preparation, there's plenty of room on the page to find another way to indicate when gluten-free ingredients can be used.

The fine print:  I was provided with an electronic copy of this cookbook for the purposes of this review. All opinions are mine alone, and I was given no other compensation for my review.

Posted with Blogsy

Arroz con Pollo

I like Spanish food, and since yesterday was a feast day with a particularly Spanish connection, this was our dinner last night:

With apologies to every Spanish cook, I took liberties with the Arroz con Pollo. Part of this was because I didn't have some ingredients in the house; part of it was due to personal preference. So it might not have been authentic, but it tasted really good! BONUS:  it's a one-pot meal, so the cleanup was easy.

ARROZ CON POLLO

Get the full recipe and nutrition facts at Cook and Count.

Tomato Pie (and Pizza, too)

It's a Philly thing. I've seen Tomato Pie listed on pizzeria menus (and sitting on bakery shelves) since we moved to the Philadelphia area 22 years ago. But until this summer, I'd never tasted it.

Erin at Mrs. Mackerelsnapper, OP made sure I had a chance to try Tomato Pie at the Catholic Writers Guild Conference this summer, where she served slices of it along with previews of her upcoming novel, Don't You Forget About Me, which is a murder mystery that actually made me cry. Erin likes Tomato Pie so much that she named her blog after it--and it's a key element in that novel as well.

In my household, the divide between Pizza and Tomato Pie follows gender lines. Because I'm essentially lazy, but I wanted to have my Tomato Pie while the guys ate their pizza, I figured out how to make both--with just one recipe--in the oven at the same time, with a little help from Slice. I took their recipe and ran with it, modifying the crust for the bread machine and changing up the sauce a bit. It might not be exactly authentic, but then again, I've had the Real Thing exactly once.

TOMATO PIE (and PIZZA, too)
This recipe makes one 9-inch square tomato pie PLUS one 16-inch round thin-crust pizza.

For the crust:
11 ounces water
2 ounces extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 TBL vital gluten
1 scant TBL active dry yeast

Place ingredients in the pan of your automatic bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Use the DOUGH cycle.

For the sauce:
2 TBL extra-virgin olive oil
2 TBL butter
4 garlic cloves, shredded on a microplane
1 TBL dried oregano
1 1/2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 can (28 ounces) tomato puree
1 small onion, peeled (leave the onion whole)
1 TBL sugar
1 tsp kosher salt

In a heavy saucepan (6-cup or larger), heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat until butter melts. Add garlic, oregano, basil and red pepper and cook 2 minutes until fragrant. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer uncovered, stirring frequently, for at least an hour until the sauce cooks down.

Note:  There will be leftover sauce. Freeze it for the next time, or use it to make french-bread pizza, English-muffin pizza or bagel pizza.

I started the sauce right after getting the bread machine set up. The longer the sauce cooks, the better it will taste.

When the bread machine is done, sprinkle your table with flour and dump the dough on the table. Knead a couple of times, then allow to rest 10 minutes.

Prepare a 16-inch round pizza pan and a 9-inch square cake pan by brushing with olive oil. Place one oven rack fairly close to the bottom and the other one about 2/3 of the way up to the top. Preheat the oven to 450.

Separate about 1/3 of the dough and set aside. This will be for the square pan.

Using a rolling pin, form the larger portion of dough into a circle. When it is almost as large as your pizza pan, roll it partially over the rolling pin, then transfer it to the pizza pan. Use your hands to press it closer to the edge and to form a higher crust at the edges.

Place the smaller portion of dough into the square pan and use your hands to get it all the way into the edges and corners. Form a higher crust at the edges of the pan.

Spread a thin layer of sauce on the round pizza and a thicker coating on the square one.

When the oven has preheated, place the square pan on the higher rack in the oven. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until edges are crispy and golden-brown.

Sprinkle any pizza toppings you like on the round pizza. Bake at least 15 minutes on the lower rack, watching carefully (don't let the cheese burn!)

After removing pizzas from oven, allow Tomato Pie to cool slightly, then add a dusting of Parmesano-Reggiano or Romano cheese. Serve at room temperature (it tastes great hot, too, if you can't wait...ask me how I know!)

Tomato Pie would be great for lunchboxes, as it doesn't require reheating.

Three-Way Taco Topping

Get the recipe with photo and nutrition information at Cook and Count!

Honey & Lime Fish Fillets

Fish fillets are an easy way to make a Meatless Friday meal. If you purchase individually quick-frozen fish fillets at the supermarket, you'll only need to defrost the fish to make this quick dinner. Fish fillets defrost quickly, so if a visitor shows up in the middle of the afternoon, it's not too late to add another piece of fish to the baking pan. 2-pound bags of IQF fish fillets go on sale regularly at my local supermarket, and for the most part, fish like flounder, tilapia, swai, and whiting can be used interchangeably in recipes like this one.

HONEY-LIME FISH FILLETS

Get this recipe and nutrition facts at Cook and Count!

Garden Marinara Sauce

This sauce is perfect in late summer when there are too many tomatoes around! It will freeze well, and it's great for people who believe there can never be too much garlic in the marinara. I made it with a mixture of red and yellow heirloom tomatoes, but any fresh, ripe tomatoes can be used.

Get the recipe, nutrition information and photos at Cook and Count!

Jersey Fresh Corn & Tomato Salad

Here's a warm salad that uses your garden-fresh corn, tomatoes and herbs. If you don't have any grilled corn, you can bake it in the oven--directions are at the bottom of the recipe.

CORN & TOMATO SALAD

Get the full recipe and nutrition information for this dish at Cook and Count!

Big Brother's Onion Chicken

I was away this week at a writing conference, and since Middle Sister has been doing a show, it fell to Big Brother to handle the cooking for two nights. He's a good cook, so I just made sure there was food in the house and he took it from there.

On Thursday, we had a long textversation about the oven-worthiness of my favorite skillet. Then, at dinner, I got a text informing me that dinner had been a success.

Obviously he inherited his minimalist style in recipe writing from his great-uncle.

(And I love how he included "eat" in his directions.)

Big Brother says I should try this recipe. I'm going to need a few more details first. And apparently the type of wine is important--Pinot Grigio, not Chardonnay.

I'll update this when I fill in the blanks.

Skillet Chicken Francese

Chicken Francese is one of my favorite chicken dishes, but the recipe I was using called for a saute-then-bake progression that just left me with extra pans to wash. I reworked the process a bit so that no baking was necessary; the results were just what I was looking for!

This is a bit messy as you get it into the pan, but it's definitely worth getting your hands dirty.

SKILLET CHICKEN FRANCESE
(4 servings)

Get the recipe and nutrition information for this dish at Cook and Count!

Gnocchi e Fagioli

Here's a meatless dish that comes together in about 20 minutes! It's easy to make and very heart-healthy. You won't even miss the meat in this simple meal. Add other quick-cooking fresh vegetables to change up the flavor.

GNOCCHI E FAGIOLI
(4 servings)

Visit Cook and Count to get the recipe and nutrition information for this dish!

Sweet and Spicy Asian Chicken

We seem to be on a chili-and-honey kick right now. Let's see how many ways we can use those ingredients on chicken! Tonight's dinner was a variation on a theme:  it's what happens when you realize you were supposed to marinate something just as you get ready to cook it. (Oops.) I think I liked this dish better than the original that inspired it:  Chili Honey Chicken. It cooks quickly; start the rice before you start the chicken!

Visit my new blog, Cook and Count, for this recipe and nutrition information!

Spicy Honey Chicken

Last night we tried a quick-cooking grilled chicken recipe. With the weather as hot as it was, no one wanted to stand outside near a hot grill for very long, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts cook fast.

The recipe came from Once a Month Mom, a freezer-cooking site. You can season this chicken, freeze it for another day, then thaw, grill and glaze.

I adjusted the quantities of some ingredients, as we ran out of the spice rub before we ran out of chicken, and there was more glaze than we needed. Below is the recipe as I made it.

SPICY HONEY CHICKEN

Get this recipe (with photos and nutrition info) at Cook and Count!