FR Weekly Cooking Thread *Recipes* Oct 22, 2011

FreeRepublic Cooks | Oct 22, 2011 | libertarian27

[libertarian27]

Welcome to the 46th installment of the FR Weekly Cooking (Recipes) Thread.

Looking for something new to make or made something new that came out great? Please share a 'tried-and-true' recipe or six- for fellow FReepers to add to their 'go-to' Recipe Stack of Family Favorites!

Here's the place to share and explore your latest and greatest favorite recipe.

[W. W. SMITH]

When fixing rice as a cereal throw in a hand full of craisons or dried blue berries or black berries, chop an apple, banana chips, fresh blue berries, candied pineapple, the list is nearly endless, then add butter and brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon.

[W. W. SMITH]

I have the same problem with the wife, I no longer tell her about some things I put in what I’m cooking. She refuses to eat kale but has been eating it as salad and spinach for months and loves that new variety of lettuce and spinach I found. LOL

[W. W. SMITH]

One cup rice, two cups water Leave out the butter and brown sugar add a chicken bouillon cube, curry and cumin to taste, only half as much of the sweet ingredients from above. onion, garlic, what ever you like. Use as a foundation for chili, beef stew, stir fry, or a thick soup. I like dishes spicy hot so they end up doctored quit a bit.

[W. W. SMITH]

I have been avoiding these threads for a long time. Finally broke down, now I have to go cook!

[Flamenco Lady]

LOL! I may have to try that with my husband and stepson. My stepson claims he will eat raw spinach and arugula but not cooked spinach or arugula, my husband claims he won’t eat either, but when there is a little in a mixed salad he eats it just fine without any complaints. Both, however, wil eat any kind of lettuce.

I have been trying to incorporate more leafy dark green vegetables into our diet, but I have to be sneaky about it, by just adding a little bit of the “offensive” ingredient to the dishes I cook or in the salads I make. I have been able to get away with it quite well with spinach, so I will have to try kale next.

While I think of it. I have been remembering that my grandmother used to cook a lot of greens from her garden that were frequently the tops of root vegetables, that many people throw out. Can anyone tell me what ones they use and how they prepare them? I think my grandmother probably cooked turnip, radish, and beet tops, but I have no idea what else. I know she used to throw some of them in green salads as well, but not sure which ones work well in salads either.

I have been throwing in a small amount of chopped spinach in some of my pasta recipes and my meatloaf for well over a year now. They have assumed it is fresh basil, parsley, or oregano that I have been adding to them. I am certainly not about to tell them any different, since they love my pasta dishes and my meatloaf!

[Flamenco Lady]

I was traveling in the farming communities just south of Salem, Oregon this past week and ran across a wonderful farm stand with lots of fresh produce that was really well priced. I wish I lived closer as they were some of the most beautiful vegetables I have ever seen.

I bought a huge head of butter lettuce for only $1 (a small head in the regular grocery store is about $3 per head so we eat iceberg at $1 a head instead). I also bought a huge head of cabbage for 39 cents, a lot of apples for 75 cents per pound and gorgeous pears for 39 cents per pound.

They also had pints of any color of the most beautiful cherry tomatoes I have ever seen for $1.00 each. We picked up some orange ones for a nice salad accented with Fall colors. They also had peppers for 50 cents each. All of these were at least half of what the price usually is in my local discount markets, so I loaded up on fresh veggies.

They also had large pumpkins for $1.00 each. We picked one up and my daughters are going to draw the face on the pumpkin for Halloween with markers, this year instead of carving it, so after Halloween, I can cut it up and cook the pumpkin and of course roast the pumpkin seeds too!

[W. W. SMITH]

Turnip, beets, chard, mustard. Haven’t tried radish or rutabaga, cabbage leaves work as cabbage rolls. kohlrabi, ( a cabbage varient) I told her it was a spicy type of water chestnut LOL, it worked. I have most of them coming up nicely in my winter garden right now.

[Flamenco Lady]

Do turnip, beet, chard, and mustard greens all work well in salads as well as cooked? I’m a northerner and I only remember my grandmother cooking them as I was growing up. I don’t recall ever having them in salads at all during my youth. My father didn’t like cooked greens of any kind, so my mother always gave hers to her mother to cook because my grandparents loved them.

My grandmother usually cooked hers with a little bacon, and either some onion or shallot and seasoned them with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. I liked them best, however, when she would cream them for a special holiday dinner and sprinkle parmesan cheese on top! YUM!

[FrdmLvr]

That reminds me of the story my sister-in-law and her husband told my (then) 7 year old nephew: I had baked some of my famous and very delicious oatmeal cookies as part of a housewarming gift to them (I’ll try to find the recipe and post it.) They told him they were broccoli cookies so he wouldn’t eat them and they could have them all to themselves. He always thought I really made broccoli cookies. True story, and it didn’t surprise me all that they did that.

[Flamenco Lady]

LOL! I will be watching for your oatmeal cookie recipe. I love oatmeal cookies!

I should tell my family I made broccoli cookies the next time I make chocolate chip cookies. Then I might actually get more than one! My chocolate chip cookies disappear in less than 24 hours unless I hide some of them. I always make a double batch and it makes over 70 cookies too! That is over 15 cookies each for the other four family members! Here is the recipe for the double batch of chocolate chip cookies. A friend gave the recipe to us a long time ago since I like soft and chewy cookies. Apparently everyone in the house likes soft and chewy cookies now too!

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

These amounts are for a double batch that makes a little over 70 cookies or so. Feel free to cut the recipe in half for a regular size batch of cookies but be prepared they disappear really fast!

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 (3.4 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Edges should be golden brown.

[libertarian27]

Instant pudding mix in cookies? Now THAT sound very interesting!

Thanks for adding the ounces of the pudding boxes
(what do you bet they shrink those too - and we won’t know until it’s too late - aargh)

[Flamenco Lady]

I think it is the pudding mix that keeps the cookies soft! All I can say is that we tried the recipe once and we were sold. Everyone asks us for the recipe now, whenever they taste them. Most of the time we leave the nuts out, since not everyone in the family likes nuts, and they are delicious either way.

For variation we have substituted chocolate pudding for the vanila pudding and have added chocolate mint chips, chocolate chips, or chocolate raspberry chips. All three of these versions were also delicious. I think they would be good at Christmas time using the chocolate pudding, chocolate chips and sprinkling some crushed candy canes on top as well, but we haven’t tried that yet.

Another thing we did try was using butterscotch pudding and adding butterscotch or caramel chips and adding some chopped pecans to the cookies. These too turned out great, but the adults liked them better than the kids, since the little ones like the chocolate chips.

I am sure white chocolate chips would be good in any of these versions of the cookies too. In fact I have been thinking about trying white chocolate chips with some chopped macademia nuts. We have even tried half chocolate chips and half caramel chips together and they were also great.

This is an easy cookie recipe to play around with different flavor chips and puddings. My daughters have loved being creative with it, but their favorite is still the original version.

[Flamenco Lady]

Here is another cookie recipe that was given to me that is one of my favorites. They are quick and easy to make and so good, so they are great cookies to make when you need to make up a batch of cookies quickly. I love to make these during the Holiday Season as quick bread mixes go on sale quite frequently between Halloween and the New Year.

Cranberry Pecan Sandies

Cookies:
1 package of Cranberry Orange quickbread mix (15.6 oz.)
½ cup of melted butter
2 tablespoons of orange juice
¾ cup of pecans
about 3 dozen pecan halves

Glaze:
1 cup of confectioner’s sugar
3-4 teaspoons of orange juice

Combine the first four ingredients and mix together, then fold in the ¾ cup of pecans. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place about 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten each cookie with a glass coated in cooking spray, and then press a pecan half onto the top of each cookie. Bake the cookies in a 350-degree oven (325 for dark colored cookie sheets) for 12-14 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool cookies for about a minute on the sheet, and then transfer to a wire rack with a cookie sheet underneath the wire rack to cool.

Mix up glaze and drizzle over cookies. The excess glaze will drip on to the cookie sheet underneath the wire rack instead of pooling on your counter.

This makes about 3 dozen small cookies.

[Tamar1973]

Kimchi is easy to make, but it takes a little practice to be great. :)

Making kimchi with local ingredients

[Netizen]

You don’t have any of the weeks for October on your page?

[Netizen]

I hope the formatting turns out right on this.

Banana-Nut Bundt Cake
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour             1/4 cup whole wheat flour 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon           3 eggs, beaten (egg beaters) 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/2 cup applesauce	1/4 cup apple butter 2 cups finely chopped ripe bananas (about 3 medium) 1 can (8 ounces) crushed pineapple, undrained 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/2 cup flaked coconut 1 cup chopped nuts 1 tsp flax meal (optional)
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and cinnamon. In another bowl, combine the eggs, oil, bananas, applesauce, apple butter, pineapple and vanilla; stir into dry ingredients just until combined. Fold in coconut and nuts. Pour into a greased 10-in. fluted tube pan.  Bake at 350° for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing cake from pan to a wire rack to cool completely. Yield: 12-16 servings.

[Netizen]

Sometimes that is the only way to do it. :)

[trillabodilla]

***place holder***

[libertarian27]

I’m HTML lazy :>)

I put three months in at once a couple of weeks ago - that was a pain - aargh....

[Netizen]

You mentioned having pumpkin to cook after Halloween. I came across some recipes while looking for carving templates.

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/184505_pumpkin-pickles-recipe

There is a pumpkin, orange jam and pickled pumpkin recipes at the link, along with a couple of others.