Make a 43things Cookbook

It seems (in my very unscientific and casual survey) that we have a lot of soups, stews and marinades.

Just an observation!

jkd

Please go back and tag your recipes, okay? It will help figure out what the holes are, what we have a lot of, etc.

Thanks!

jkd

I’ll post it here what I end up doing with them. I’m not making any promises about nuthin’ as I have no idea what kind of time or resources I’m willing to put into this. But this thread has gone on quite a bit, more than 50 posts, so we’ll see what I come up with!

jkd

The lemon-rosemary chicken recipe up tonight. Ug.

If you are doing 1/2 breasts, cut the rosemary down to the 2T I suggested if you only have the bottled expensive type.

Also, ours were not frozen and required 15 minutes, not 10, to cook in the microwave before putting under the broiler.

Finally, if at all possible, do not have most of the rosemary on top of the chicken. It can CHAR in the broiler, and this does not add a pleasant note to the meal.

Believe it or not, this was still edible, but certainly NOT the joy it has always been before!

jkd

I made this again a week or so before I left and it was yummy. I haven’t ever made it with fresh rosemary. This starts with a package of frozen thighs and uses both a microwave and a broiler.

1 pkg frozen chicken thighs (4-6)
approx 1/4C 1/8C rosemary

(I buy it in quantity. Use what you consider a lot. If you only have those little spice bottles that cost more than gold, use 2T to start with and see what you think!)

1C flour
skim milk
juice of 1 lemon
1/2C white wine
2T lemon pepper (optional, I’ve made this without it and it’s still good)
1-2T olive oil

Remove thighs from package. Put into square pyrex pan. Pour oil over chicken, turn to coat. Add wine, juice and rosemary also turning the chicken to coat. Defrost 10 mins. in microwave (30% power).

Bake 10 mins. in microwave (70% power).

Put under broiler until browned andspitting hot.

Make pan gravy from the drippings using the flour and skim milk. Done!

Like almost all my recipes, this takes very little fussing or time, and again, I don’t cook with salt and pepper as DH and I like vastly different quantities of each.

jkd

I thought I’d done this, but it isn’t here…so here goes!

I have been making cornstarch pudding, chocolate, mexican chocolate, mocha-rum, or mocha pudding now for months as a quick dessert. I’ve made this so many times that it’s pretty automatic. We had left over cocoa from this afternoon, so I made chocolate pudding this evening. I’ll do the recipe for plain chocolate pudding, and then the variations.

The first few times you make this, I recommend you use a double boiler. So start your water boiling first. (I have a gas stove and just do in on the burner, but I started doing that about the 5th time I made pudding! It’s real easy to burn if you’re not careful, do it a few times with the double boiler before trying it straight on the stove.)

Then in a small bowl mix:
1/2C milk
2T cornstarch (cornflour in Great Britain)
4T sugar

Stir until one consistency and the cornstarch is dissolved.

Melt 4 squares semisweet chocolate (2 1 minute sessions in the microwave) or you can use 2T cocoa (don’t need to melt it).

Heat until just steaming in the double boiler:

1 1/2C milk
(If you use cocoa, add it before the cornstarch.)

Add chocolate and then the cornstarch mixture. Stir.

Add 1t vanilla.

Stir, and keep stirring. (This will take 5-10 minutes or so.)

This is where you have to watch what’s going on as you stir. The mixture goes from chocolate milk to thick chocolate milk almost slowly. The step from thick chocolate milk to pudding is FAST. (Or it sure seems that way to me.) The chocolate will be in speckles in the milk mixture until right before the end.

Cook and stir until the pudding is thick and a uniform color.

For mocha pudding: use 1/2C old coffee to dissolve the cornstarch at the beginning.
For Mocha rum pudding: add 1-2T rum instead of the vanilla.
For Mexican chocolate pudding, add 1t (or more to taste) ground cinnamon.

jkd

Edited 12/26/07, I changed the information about the cocoa…it doesn’t need to be melted first, it can melt in the heating milk.

1 stick sweet (unsalted) butter, at room temp.
shredded rind from one washed orange (1T or so)
2C flour
2t baking powder
1C persimmon pulp (about 2)
1t nutmeg
1 pinch salt
1 egg
3/4C raw (demera or very light brown) sugar

Cream egg, butter, peel and sugar. Add pulp, nutmeg, and salt. Remix. Add flour and baking powder, mix until all one consistency and color. (Mine was light pumpkin color.) Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake 350F until med. brown. (Because of the color of the dough, this can be deceptive, check!) Put on plate to cool. Dust with powdered sugar.

Kids and sugar hounds will probably NOT like this recipe as it is delicately sweet rather than IN YOUR FACE sweet. The recipes I modified used chopped walnuts (1/2-1C), cinnamon (1/2-1t). One of them had brown sugar, shortning, cloves, raisins, etc. I intended to use almonds, but we didn’t have any shelled, and as I’d already made ham, potato and carrot soup for dinner with hot corn bread, I really didn’t want to tackle cracking, peeling, and chopping almonds as well!

If I make them again, and I can afford it, I’ll probably put more pulp in them as the persimmon taste is very faint. But we looked yesterday, persimmons here, regular price are $3 each! (Ulp!)

jkd

I found this today and thought it might be helpful. See here:

http://recipes2.alastra.com/equivalents/us-non-us-items.html

jkd

This is a variation of a soup that was on Yahoo yesterday. I had a ham steak in the fridge, sage growing in the yard, etc. So here you go.

1 ham steak (precooked)
1 onion, chopped
2C chicken stock
4C water
2 sage leaves, chopped (or equivalent dried)
1 sugar pumpkin
1 carrot,shredded
1/2 apple, chunked
1t cinnamon
oil

Saute the onion in a little oil until nearly transparant in a 2 qt sauce pan. Add the carrot and the apple and the sage.

Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds and placenta. Cook each half in microwave on high, approx 5-6 minutes, until a fork enters the pumpkin meat easily. With a potholder (it’s HOT!) remove the pumpkin half and put it on a small bowl to cool enough to handle. Cook the 2nd piece of pumpkin. Score the pumpkin into chunks and scoop the chunks out of the shell and add them to the sauteed vegetables. Discard the shell. Repeat with the other half pumpkin. (Yeah, I cleaned the seeds and broiled them briefly and then melted some butter and salted them. YUM!)

Add the liquid to the vegetables, and bring to a simmer. Cook until the vegetables are warmed though but not quite completely cooked. Puree a little of the soup to make the broth slightly thicker. (I used a stick mixer.) Add the puree back to the pan. Then add the ham chunks. Continue to simmer until the ham is warmed through. Serve.

We had this for dinner with bread and butter. It’s a rather light soup. If you’re hungry, you’ll need to add a sandwich or something to make it a full meal. Very tasty. If I was feeding teenagers or a husband who did physical work, I probably would make ham salad sandwiches and just make the soup without the meat. The ham is nice in it, and I’m sure it adds to the flavor, but there’s not “Aha ham!” when you eat the meat in the soup, the flavors blend too well. So, you could probably omit it or use less. The original recipe called for (I think?) 2C of ham, I used 1 hamsteak because that’s what I had, it was about 1 1/4C.

Also, the original recipe called for 2 1/2C broth and 3 1/2C water. I have these 1C “juice boxes” of broth, and I didn’t want to try and keep 1/2 of one, so I changed the proportions as above. Oh yeah…the original called for canned pumkin, 2C I think!

jkd

So, I know I’ve written about this in other goals. But since I won’t be bale to find it, here goes. This is a basic sauce that is added to many dishes, and can be used to cook chicken, fish, poached eggs, black beans. So that the beans don’t dry out, cook the beans separately until done, then add the sofrito, and salt and pepper to taste.

9 medium sized roma tomatoes, minced (or canned)
1 medium sized yellow onion, or half a white onion (never use red—too mild), minced
6 cloves of garlic, crushed
half a medium green bell pepper, minced
1/4 cup of spanish olive oil (regular olive oil is o.k. but the taste is more authentic with spanish olive oil
1/4 cup of dry sherry

First, warm Spanish olive oil, until fragrant, then add onions, and sauté for 3 minutes or so, until they start to become translucent then add bell pepper and garlic, and sauté until garlic begins to brown (caramelize), then add tomatoes, and sherry. A variation is to also add a splash or two of balsamic vinegar. Let simmer for 15 minutes or so, until flavors blend, and alcohol evaporates. Salt and pepper to taste, a variation is to add cumin powder at the end, or seeds at the start (so they sauté in the oil first).