Posted on 12/18/2010 5:40:18 AM PST by libertarian27
Merry 'Week Before' Christmas.
For the 2nd installment of the cooking thread I thought it would be great to have a hodgepodge of recipes for the upcoming 'Crunch Time' and Christmas week.
Have a delicious recipe for a quick meal during this hectic week? How about your most requested 'Party Food' that everyone says you must bring to the party? Have a favorite cookie, etc. recipe that you are cranking our batch after batch for family and friends? And everything else in between!
Here's the place to share your creations and get some food inspiration.
Weekly Cooking Thread Ping List
***Calling all Cooks and Bakers***
If you would like to be added/removed from the list please contact me by FreepMail or a post on this thread.
Recap list of all the recipes on last week’s installment of the Cooking Thread can be found on comment# 190 at link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2641550/posts?page=190#190
Prepped this duck Cantonese style early this morning, but not the spice. Pick the skin, scald it in boiling water, salt it...then the tie string around the neck fat and hand it in the fridge for 10 hours. I remove everything from the bottom door shelf and hang it by the string to the shelves above.
Then roast 250 for 2hr, then remove drain and save the fat, then about 1 hr at 400
... and roast potatoes with half stick butter, 1/2 cup duck fat.
Blue Cheese Dip (Dressing)
8 ounces Mayonnaise (1 cup)
9 ounces Sour Cream (1 cup+)
8 ounces Blue Cheese(crumbled)(1 cup -/+)
1/2 ounce Dillweed (or to taste -/+)
3/4 ounce Parsley
1 ounce Lemon Juice
(2T=1 ounce)
Combine all ingredients and refrigerate until use (make a day ahead so everything melds together)
Dillweed makes this dip pop~and the Blue Cheese of course:)
Bring on the Carrots & Celery
Spread ricotta cheese, basil and grated sharp white cheddar and Romano cheese.
Spread chopped (cooked) bacon, baby spinach, red onion with a bit of feta.
Toss in some cooked egplant or whatever comes to mind (hots) or sliced ham.
Fold, pinch and do the calzone thing. Slice the top, cover with small amount of sharp cheddar. 500 degrees F for @ 8 minutes.
works every time. Thinly sliced sweet sausage and roasted red pepper also hit the spot.
bookmark
Thanks for the Great Cooking Thread. I like your idea of the recap list. I wish I had done this on the Gardening thread when it started out. I tried going back after about a year and a half into the thread to do something similar but it turned out to be way way to much work after all that time.
I’m activating yeast for cinnamon swirl breakfast bread. The toast is Divine and makes a great gift!
Peanut Butter Balls
1 STICK of butter
1 cup any type peanut butter
1 lb powdered sugar
1-12oz package of semi sweet “REAL” chocolate pieces
2-4 tlbs milk (as needed to make the “dough” the consistency of cookie dough
1/2 cake of parafin ..canning wax
In large bowl melt margarine, then stir in peanut butter. Mix in powdered sugar. Add the milk 1 table spoons at a time if necessary (it usually is). Roll them into bite size balls, place on wax paper. Stick a toothpick in the center. Then Freeze them for a few hours. (this makes dipping them easier)
When PBB’s are frozen, melt the wax in a small 1 qt sauce pan then stir in chocolate pieces. When smooth dip the frozen PBB’s in the chocolate. Replace on the wax paper. Remove toothpick and fill the tiny hole with chocolate.
Moroccan Salad
4 cups carrots (about 4 large carrots) mandolin cut bayonet size
(1/4 inch by 1 1/2 inch “spears”)
2 bunches green onions, cut on bias
1 bunch of celery, tough strings peeled and fine sliced
12 apples, peaches or pears (no need to peel); if using apples or pears mix with orange juice below to prevent discoloration, core, do not peel, cut into moon shape slices
1 bunch grapes (if large, cut in halves)
2 pints blueberries
1 box (pound) raisins or dry cranberries (apricots work also, julienned)
3 cups (whole or half) walnuts or pecans
2 jars mango chutney
1 cup orange juice
Combine with mango chutney and orange juice; mixture will make its own juice, which you may wish to drain as it develops.
This salad is just as good the day after preparation.
3 large avocados, ripe
1/2 Roma tomato, chopped fine
2 slices Bermuda onion, chopped fine (use yellow onion for more bite
1/4 cup chopped leaf cilantro (or parsley does nicely)
6-8 rashers bacon, trimmed of excess fat and chopped into Risk-sized pieces
1/2 tsp fresh ground cumin
salt, fresh ground pepper to taste (perhaps 1/8 tsp each)
juice of 1/2 Persian lime
8 slices Velveeta or equivalent
Cook bacon in skillet until done. Some like to overcook the bacon to make it crispy. Whatever works for you.
Seed the avocadoes and spoon the flesh into a bowl. Add tomato, onion, cilantro (chop this VERY finely, btw), cumin, salt and black pepper. Mix well with a fork (and ONLY a fork) until desired texture is reached (some like it chunkier than others do).
Melt Velveeta in a saucepan. Assemble the dish as follows:
In another bowl, put down one layer of the guac, sprinkle lightly with lime juice, then add a layer of the velveeta. Repeat until nothing left to add (typically 2-3 layers of guac/Velveeta).
Put oven on warm (no hotter!). Place bowl into oven until ready to serve. Serve warm with chips or 'party' rye bread.
If you like more tomato and onion, add it -- what the heck. I'm a cumin freak, and I use quite a bit more cumin than specified. This is a VERY adjustable recipe.
Merry Christmas and happy football to all!
Sorry. Omitted the bacon. Add the bacon when you add the tomato and onion. (slaps forehead...)
It’s your standard sweet dough recipe but I modified it a bit with a little extra salt (don’t like bland bread) and use evaporated milk instead of powdered milk and add chopped walnuts to the cinnamon swirl. A rather long recipe, but if you bake even rarely your common sense will get you through it. Don’t add too much flour or it will be too dense. The dough should be slightly wet and pulls well when you roll it up after the first rise. Makes 2 loaves. I like this one because the raisins are in the bread but the cinnamon isn’t so it won’t interfere with the yeast rise and it slices beautifully.
Merry Christmas!
Here goes:
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/cinnamon-raisin-bread
PREP Center saranned condensed milk can in greased round cake pan.
FUDGE Heat/melt on low 12 oz choc/chips, cup p/butter chips, tea vanilla, 14 oz sweet/cond/milk. Add 1 1/2 cups unsalted peanuts, 1/2 cups raisins; stir well (sticks if not stirred consistently). Pour around can making sure can is centered. Top should be bumpy.
GARNISH Use candied halves/whole red/green cherries, MnM's to make holly garnish on top (use pill splitter to halve green M&M's for leaves. Fridge to cool/harden.
GIFT Take out of pan; wrap in cellophane and bow to give as a gift.
INGREDIENTS
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
cup peanut butter chips
14 oz can sweetened condensed milk (save the can & wrap in saran)
teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1 1/2 cups unsalted peanuts
1/2 cups seedless raisins
GARNISH candied red and green cherries or green and red M&M's
That sounds d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s-—just saw the pkgs of raw dough in the market. Now I have a great recipe for them.
Please add me to the list!
Raised Potato Doughnuts
2 pkgs. Dry Yeast
½ Cup Warm Water (for proofing the yeast)
½ Cup Scalded Milk (let it cool down to room temperature)**
2/3 Cup Crisco
2/3 Cup Sugar
1 tsp. Salt
1 Cup Warm Mashed Potatoes
3 or 4 Eggs (4 eggs makes a better dough for doughnuts etc. 3 eggs are fine for dinner rolls.
6 ½ Cups All Purpose Flour (approx)
** Scalding the milk is necessary because of the whey proteins in milk need to be inactivated. They can weaken the gluten of dough and produce a dense loaf unless the milk is scalded. If you use milk in Bread Dough recipes scald it first. Cool to room temperature before adding into yeast dough recipes if added hot it can kill the yeast.
Directions:
Mix yeast in warm water, set aside and proof. Cream sugar and Crisco. Add unbeaten eggs, warm potatoes, and yeast w/water. Add 1/2 of the flour, all of the milk and salt and use hands to mix thoroughly then add rest of flour and mix it in. Turn out on a board and continue to knead for about 5 min.
Lightly Grease or spray Pam a large bowl, place dough in bowl and let rise ½ way. Punch down the dough and cover the top of bowl, use plastic or similar so it will be airtight. Store in the refrigerator over-night or at least 8 hours. You must open and punch the dough down several times, before it finally cools down. Warning: this dough will take over the fridge like the Blob if you don’t punch it down several times.
Four thirty doughnuts take about ½ of dough. Keep rest stored as before, can be kept this way for a week. Warm dough to room temperature. Knead, till bubbles appear, use flour sparingly while kneading. Roll out to about ¼ inch thick. Cut with doughnut cutter. Place cut doughnuts on wax paper and let rise, about double in size.
Fry in deep fryer 2-4 min. at 375 degrees. Turn them over about half way thru. Use Crisco in the deep fryer it makes a difference in your doughnuts.
Glaze:
2 Cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
About ¼ cup boiling water.
Add hot water to sugar and vanilla while stirring – add the water a little at a time (the glaze must be thick as the hot doughnuts will thin it out).
As you remove the doughnuts from the fryer lay them in the glaze and turn over in glaze and then drain on a grate over a pan so you can scrape the dripped glaze back into the bowl.
This is a Basic Dough for any type of snail, butterhorn rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc. Also dinner rolls. The use of 4 eggs makes for nicer dough, 3 eggs are ok for dinner rolls or snails .
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