Recipes
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Recipe – Broccoli Risotto
Risotto is one of those fancy pants kinds of dishes that come on the side at the expensive restaurants that want something hoity-toity’er than potatoes. Maybe you were afraid to know what a riz-oh-toe was and asked if you could get some fries instead. :rotfl: Since I love my rice dishes (stir-fry is a weekly go-to around here) of course there isn’t much for me to hate about a good risotto. It’s creamy, rich, and involves rice and cheese. Luckily, it’s also way easier to make than you would think. No really! It’s more about babysitting the pan for quite some time to work it into its final form than…
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Wonton Snack Bites
I originally found the idea for these on Pinterest – but the “recipe” was a picture on Flickr with rollover notes (you can’t copy them) and it wasn’t really a recipe at that. It was basically just filling wonton skins and baking them. So I cooked up a batch of taco meat and gave this a few trial runs in various ways, based on comments of crispiness (or lack thereof) on the original post, and wanted to give a proper instructional (with text you can save!). Filling recipe (as pictured):
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Dark Chocolate Cake
I recently had a MAJOR craving for chocolate cake. (pretend that has chocolate icing) We’re talking chocolate frosting on chocolate cake with chocolate chips and chocolate shavings – I needed chocolate. Despite several bribery attempts (and the knowledge that my husband will never turn down cake) it wasn’t happening at 1 am on a Wednesday. So when Thursday passed and I still had that chocolate desire bouncing around the back of my brain I started scouting for simple recipes. I found lots actually, but one stood out for several reasons.
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Garlic Bread
What’s an Italian meal without garlic bread? Now – I must confess/warn you now, I am a garlic ADDICT. I try to adjust down for the recipes I post, but some folks have said it seems a bit heavy still. Considering I go through a HEAD of garlic a DAY, I have trouble figuring out normal. If any recipe seems like there’s a lot, then adjust to your tastes. I won’t be offended.
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Spaghetti Sauce
I was trying to decide what to make for dinner, and realized I had all the stuff for a homemade spaghetti sauce. Normally I chintz out and just do a jar (although I admit I can’t leave anything straight out of the box and am always adding something), which is a fine quick meal. So when I announced to my husband I was making sauce from scratch I got the usual “people DO that?” face. So I pulled out this recipe that I had long ago saved and set about making it mine. Below is the final result (which has since been made several times over). Also of note –…
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Buttermilk Oven Fried Chicken
I had bought a quart of buttermilk my last shopping trip (I’m lucky enough to have a local dairy that still does glass bottles) with a few ideas for its use bumping around my head. Sometimes I just see an ingredient and will grab it and let inspiration hit later. This grocery trip – they were out of my normal boneless skinless chicken breasts but had whole cut up chicken at a great price and I thought – well… that can’t be too hard to find a recipe for. Then I remembered the buttermilk – and that settled it. Fried chicken!
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Lemon Cake
For Chris’ birthday he wanted a lemon cake. :birthday: Since I’ve never undertaken a full from scratch cake before I decided I would skip the typical box mix and give it a shot. I also had buttermilk left over from some amazing oven fried chicken and wanted to use more up and sought out a buttermilk lemon cake recipe. This one comes from Ina Garten – though I changed the lemon glaze recipe a bit (I’m not a big frosting / glaze person and find that usually the recipes make far too much.) As expected, I think the resulting drizzle was just the right amount.
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Spanakopita Quiche
I LOVE spanakopita (aka that lovely greek dish, spinach pie). I find few places that do it deliciously though, and never found a good one pre-made in my grocery store. So, I figured why not make my own? And I did – and it was lovely but soo time consuming. All those layers of fiddly phyllo and it just sogs up so badly after being refrigerated. Then I had my ah-ha, why not make it into a quiche? I adore quiche but sometimes they’re just a bit too egg-y and I want something more substantial. This seemed like an excellent pairing.
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Wolfgang Puck’s – Macadamia Nut Chicken
This stuff was SOOOO addicting while at Disney and I was amazed at how ridiculously simple the cream sauce is when I found the recipe. RECIPE: (serves 2) Papaya Marmalade (optional) 1 Papaya, Hawaiian ( peeled, seeded & chopped ) 1 cup Pineapple, fresh ( peeled & chopped ) 3 TBSP Sugar, granulated 6 TBSP Water Place all prepared ingredients in a 2 quart saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook one more minute and remove from heat. Using an electric immersion blender, puree ingredients to an applesauce consistency. Completely chill before using. Sho Yu Cream Sauce 6 oz Heavy Cream 2 TBSP Soy Sauce Sho Yu…
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Fluffy and Fast Biscuits
This is a great all purpose biscuit recipe – great with soups and stews, as a base for sausage gravy, with cinnamon and sugar or honey as a sweet side/dessert. Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon white sugar 1/3 cup shortening 1 cup milk Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). 2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse meal (I have just used my whisk to cut in the shortening and it comes out fine). Gradually stir in milk until dough pulls…
