Rye Bread

Rye Bread + Homemade Strawberry Jam = reason to wake up in the morning.

See?  Happy girl. 

I don't even need to preface this recipe, it's that good, and we all know it.  This recipe comes from Grandma Manning.  Here's a picture of her baking it in her sweet little kitchen.

The Recipe

• 1 pkg. yeast, softened in 1/4c water.
• 4 c. warm water
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp oil
• 2 c. (or more) rye flour
• white flour

1. Mix yeast, water, salt, sugar, and oil.
2. Add 2 c. rye flour (add more if you prefer it darker)
3. Add enough white flour to make a very stiff dough.  (For me it was a little under 8 cups)
4. Let rise in a warm area until almost doubled in size.
5. Shape into round loaves (usually 2 large loaves or 3 smaller).  Let rest 20 minutes.
6. Grease and flour your pans. (this is the cutest part of the recipe.  A sauce pan will give you the classic grandma's rye bread shape.)  Flouring the pans makes a unique blotched look on the lower crust like this: 

 Bake for 1 hour at 375.  If it gets too dark, lower temperature to 350.  Experiment!

Chinese Mother's Day

I have to say, I think my mom is pretty lucky when it comes to Mother's Day.  A few years ago Dad made a new tradition- every first day of the month is Mother's Day.  We don't have to get a gift every month but we try to make sure we at least say thank you and I love you and be a little extra nice on that day.  So when the real Mother's Day rolls around we have to outdo all the previous mini Mothers Days.  This year Dad did Chinese.  He went to Taiwan on his mission (working on putting a picture of that up) so I guess if we were to say he has a specialty, Chinese food would be it.  Another thing to add.  When Dad puts his mind to doing something, he doesn't just do the bare minimum.  Ever.  This meal was no exception. 

The menu:

Entrees:
-Pork noodles
-Sweet & Sour Chicken
-Beef & Broccoli
-White Rice

Dim Sum:

What's dim sum you ask?  It's Mandarin for the "everything else on the table."  I think it's just the greatest word for it!

-Steamed BBQ Pork Buns

-Pot Stickers

-Steamed Dumplings

-Shrimp Dumpligs

-Lychees

Pretty decent meal huh?  I made the (totally Americanized) Sweet & Sour Chicken so I thought I'd post that recipe up here.  

Sweet & Sour Chicken

• 4 chicken breasts
• 2 T vegetable oil
• celery
• red bell pepper
• pineapple chunks
• Kikoman's Sweet & Sour Sauce (so tasty- and even one of the cheaper brands!)

1. Thaw chicken breasts, cube, and using a large frying pan or wok, saute in the oil until thoroughly cooked. Drain liquid off.
2. Chop celery and red pepper, and add to chicken in pan. 
3. Pour enough sauce in to coat everything.
4. Add pineapple chunks.

See?  Not a lot of effort, still an awesome meal.

Freezer Jam

Can't post about rye bread unless we post about the jam too, am I right?

There's really no secret to this recipe.  All you have to do is follow the directions on the back of the Sure-Jell packet.  But I will mention a few tips:

• My mom blends the fruit so there are no lumps because that's just how we like it.  Traditionally jam is supposed to be lumpy so if that's what you want then go right ahead.
• Don't try to be healthy and lower the amount of sugar you add.  You have to have a ton of sugar or it won't form the gel.  (Little tip from my food science class)
• If you decide to make this, while you're at it make some rye bread (here) or some bran muffins (here).  You won't be sorry.

Funeral Potatoes & Spring Salad

Happy Easter!  

Isn't that just the most disgusting thing?  My sisters pick up worms and play with them.  I think it's safe to say I NEVER would have done that as a child and NEVER plan to do it as an adult.  Oh it just grosses me out.

Anyway, hope the Easter Bunny made it to your house and you ate your share of peeps.  (As a side note, I like my Peeps nice and stale.  So for the past few decades my Easter Bunny has planned ahead and slit my package open so they'd be perfect to eat on Easter morning.  Just a little luxury you never think about being thankful for until you're older....) 

So I thought I'd post a few Easter recipes.  Classic Easter funeral potatoes, which Mom made, and a salad and a few dressings that I made.  

 My mom was introduced to this recipe twenty-something years ago by her mother-in-law, Katie Cook.  Scalloped Potatoes (soon to be known as funeral potatoes) were just catching on back then, and obviously have been popular enough to stick around!  At one of my mom's bridal showers they collected recipes, and this is the one Grandma Cook chose.  Here is the recipe in her handwriting:

Funeral Potatoes

• 6 med. potatoes, boiled & grated (you can also use frozen hash browns if you're in a hurry)
• 1 1/2 c. grated cheese
• 1/3 c. chopped green onion
• 1 c. sour cream
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1/4 c. butter + 2 T. butter
• corn flakes, crushed

1. Melt 1/4 c. butter in soup.
2. Add cheese, onions, and sour cream.
3. Add grated potatoes.
4. Pour into 9x13 glass casserole pan.
5. Mix crushed corn flakes with 2 T melted butter and sprinkle on top.
6. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

PS. This is a great freezer meal!

Spring Salad

• Spinach or Spring Mix
• Strawberries (slivered)
• Mango
• Slivered almonds
• Anything else you want- maybe Craisins, some feta, whatever

I had two kinds of dressings because we've got enough picky tastebuds that I knew just one wouldn't please everyone.  The honey dijon is more mellow, but honestly I think it goes better with a spinach salad, maybe with red onion slices, bacon, hard-boiled egg, mushroom, tomato kind of salad..  The lemon poppyseed vinaigrette just goes perfectly with the sweet fruit so I would recommend it if you used this salad.

Honey Dijon Dressing

• 1/4 c. honey
• 2 T Dijon mustard
• 1/2 c. vegetable oil
• 1 T fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp ground white pepper
• pinch salt

1. Combine all ingredients.  I used a whisk to get the honey mixed in thoroughly.

Lemon Poppyseed Vinaigrette (From Our Best Bites)

• 2-3 large lemons (1/3 c. juice and 1 tsp. zest)
• 1/4 c. rice wine vinegar
• 1/4 c. canola oil
• 3/4 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper
• 1/4 c. white sugar
• 2 tsp. poppyseeds
• 1 tsp. grated onion
• 1 clove finely pressed garlic

1. Using a fine grater, grate 1 tsp. of lemon and 1 tsp. onion.
2. Place in a small container with a lid.
3. Add remaining ingredients and shake vigorously.
4. Refrigerate at least an hour before serving.
5. Shake well before serving.

Easter Treats and Peeps

I am well known among my peeps to be a junk lover.  I'm not denying that.  I have memories of fighting my mom because I didn't want her to throw away the toilet paper rolls.  I thought I could make something out of them (and most of the time I did, thank you very much).  So I think this may be one of the roots of that habit of mine. 

I remember making these with my grandma around Easter time.  How?  Use an old egg carton (see!  good for something), cut the bottom in half, and decorate it like a caterpillar.  Use pipe cleaners, glitter, feathers, markers, whatever!  Doesn't matter!  The point is that your kids are creating something and their wheels are turning. Collette and her friend Kristen made these ones.  Nice huh?

I also remember (like the rest of the world) making these rice krispies nest.  It's pretty self-explanatory from the picture but I'll give you the recipe for rice krispy treats in case you don't have it.

Rice Krispy Treats

• 3 Tablespoons butter
• 4 c. mini marshmallows (or about 40 big ones)
• 6 c. rice krispies

1. Melt butter in saucepan over the stove.  Add marshmallows and melt completely.  
2. Add rice krispies and thoroughly coat.
3. Press into a (greased?) pan....if you don't eat it all out of the saucepan.......

To make the nests though, just spray your hands with cooking spray, and mold it into little nests.  Sprinkle coconut flakes (colored green with food coloring) inside for grass. Use jelly beans or other egg-like candy, and then put yourself a birdy in that nest!  

Spice Cake and I love my KitchenAid

My mom and dad had spice cake at their wedding.  Isn't there an ancient proverb that says something about if you serve good food at your wedding you receive good karma?  Well, apparently that's true because Mom and Dad are going on 25 years strong (see this post).  

Look at them, all happy and in love......

And here's Mom with her dad, Grandpa Anderson

I've always loved spice cake, but it's one of those that's about 100 times better with the frosting.  Not just any frosting; it has to be THIS frosting.  That being said, the real recipe for this post is the frosting, but I'll also give you my secret recipe for the cake part too.  It looks like this:

Yup.  Straight from the box.  I haven't ever manipulated the box recipe to make it tastier because lets be honest, I'm only here for the frosting anyway!  So, step 1 is to make the cake according to the directions on the box and let it cool completely.

Peneuche Frosting Recipe

(p.s. peneuche?  What the?)

•  1/2 c. butter
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1/4 c. milk
• 3 c. powdered sugar

1. Melt butter in sauce pan.
2. Stir in brown sugar and cook until bubbly.
3. Remove from heat, add milk, and beat vigorously until smooth.
4. Beat in powdered sugar.
5. Spread on top of cooled cake.
6. Pour an enormous glass of milk because it will compliment your huge piece of cake in all the right ways :)

P.S. I love my KitchenAid

For some reason, I cherish the things I have that are old.  (Ok, not like the clothes I've been wearing since high school; I mean old old.  Cool old)  For example, I've been using my grandma's old old Bernina sewing machine which I now love as my child.  Also, my blankie.  Alright, not cool to anyone else, but still a love of my life.  And last but not least, my KitchenAid.  

I'm not really sure but I think at one point it was the awesome avocado color that made it's mark in many-a-70's-kitchen.  I think it was Grandma's, and then it was Mom's, but now that they've both "upgraded" to newer versions, it's mine now.  I LOVE IT.  It has so much character, it makes my life so much easier in the kitchen . And I'd never be able to afford the new shiny kind, so avocado KitchenAid and I have become great friends.  To use a phrase from Katelin's dictionary, it's the bomb dot com.  (is that how you write it out?  I can't be hip.)

Freezer Meals

Yes, I've been combing through my blog lists figuring out who has yet to post on the blog.  To my surprise, Courtney, who has lived under the same roof as me for the past year, is on that list.  It seems like she doesn't have to spend her life in the kitchen because she gets a head start with her freezer stock.    So when she asked for one of my recipes last week I held it ransom until she agreed to post about her freezer meals.  Obviously, she agreed.  

.....

I've been assigned to blog about my freezing techniques.  I am a huge fan of cooking more food less often.  A couple years ago, my mother-in-law bought a Reynolds Handi Vac for me and my sister-in-law.

We loved them!  One day we had a freezer meal day and made about 25 meals.  Just to get your ideas rolling we made chicken alfredo sauce, bacon & cream cheese wrapped chicken, funeral potatoes, and pizza rolls.  It was AWESOME to have all these meals on hand!  Ever since then I've been kind of a freezer nut.  Tyson jokes about eating the leftovers I scraped off his plate 6 months later.  I don't think I'm that bad:)  All I know is, it saves me money and time so I'm all for it!

They recently stopped making the Reynolds Handi Vac so we tried out the Ziploc pump.  I think I like this even more!  You pump out the air by hand rather than the battery operated sucker, but I actually think it's easier.

Yesterday I made Kelsey's navajo taco recipe (sorry, we're not sure where it's from). 

1 can kidney beans

1 can black beans

1 can pinto beans

1 can chili

1 package fajita mix

1 small can tomato sauce

1T brown sugar

2 lbs hamburger

Here's the thing...I rarely follow recipes.  I generally use whatever I have on hand and try to double or triple the recipe.  It *usually* works out.  So for this recipe, I used...

1 can white kidney beans

2 cans black beans

2 cans pinto beans

2 cans chili

1/2 package taco mix

2T brown sugar

1 huge can of whole tomatoes, blended

1 can tomato soup

2 lbs hamburger

some ketchup

Haha.  I know, it's a miracle things turn out.  But Tyson said these were some of the best navajo tacos he's ever had.  We ate this meal for two nights with Rhodes roll scones and I was able to freeze three more meals of it.  For this meal, I used the quart sized Ziploc vacuum bags.  You just fill them up and use the "mini bike pump" to suck out the air.  So easy.

I've also used these bags for things like cream cheese/chicken filling to go in chicken roll ups, and soups such as the white chicken chili Kelsey posted last week.

For casserole type meals, we use the aluminum square cake pans that fit into the gallon sized bags.  The ones you can find at the dollar store fit great and are definitely the best buy (I think they're 3/dollar).  I've used this for funeral potatoes, chicken enchilada casserole, poppyseed chicken, pizza rolls, chicken cordon bleu, etc...  My mother-in-law has done chili rellenos and even cake!

Ziploc containers work great too.  If I make a whole turkey I freeze the leftovers in these containers.  I also recently made a ton of this sauce from the World Wide Ward Cookbook.

Don's Authentic Creamy Italian Tomato Sauce

saute:

2T olive oil

1T butter

1 tsp basil

dash crushed chili pepper (if you have it)

3 medium onions (or shake in some minced)

1 clove garlic, crushed (or again, some minced)

dash of salt

add 3 - 29oz cans of tomato sauce and cook at least 20 minutes.  Stir in 7oz Gouda cheese until melted.  Add 1 pint heavy cream and remove from heat.

I serve this over mini penne pasta with grilled chicken strips and parmesan cheese on top.  I doubled the recipe and made 10 of these containers full.  Our family uses one container with left-overs.

Anyway, that's about it.  Cheap and easy.  That's what I'm all about.