Category: Food

Chicken Pot Pie
A friend once told me that one night each winter his whole family gets together for Pie Night. Everyone brings a pie. Some bring dessert pies, others bring meat pies. Pies are so wonderful in the winter. Pies stay warm for a long time and warms the heart all night.

Pie Crust

This is the same pie crust recipe I have for Pumkin Pie. It’s flaky just the way I like it.

Ingredients:
3 cups pastry flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
pinch of salt
1/2 cup iced water

Mix flour, butter and salt, until mixture is in crumbs. Toss with iced water. Do not overmix. Divide pie crust dough into two. Roll out one part of the dough and lay in a pie pan. Roll out the second part of the dough and cut out holes to let the steam out.

Chicken Filling

Ingredients:
1/3 cup organic butter
1/3 cup chopped organic onion
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast tenders, organic and free-range
1 cup sliced organic carrots, steamed
1 cup frozen organic green peas, steamed
1/2 cup sliced organic celery, steamed
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cook onions in butter over medium low heat until the onion is glassy. Add chicken and cook until browned.
3. Stir flour into chicken broth and pour into the chicken mixture. Simmer until thick.
4. Add carrots, celery and peas. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fold together until nice and creamy.
5. Pour chicken mixture into pie crust. Cover with top crust.
6. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until pie crust is golden brown. Cool slightly before serving.
December 27, 2012
Cranberry Apple Crisp

It’s Christmas Eve, the wee one is asleep and we’re finishing up the last of the presents. Time for a little midnight snack. This Cranberry Apple Crisp makes kissing by the Christmas tree taste so good!

Ingredients:
3 organic granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 1/2 inch strips
6 oz fresh cranberries
1/4 cup organic sugar
3/4 cups organic brown sugar
1/2 cup organic all-purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup organic butter, softened

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rub a pie pan with butter wax paper covers (I save them in the freezer for greasing baking sheets and pie pans and such). Add apples and cranberries to the pie pan. Sprinkle with sugar and toss until coated.

Combine brown sugar, flour, rolled oats, nutmeg, cinnamon and butter in a medium bowl until well incorporated. Sprinkle on top of the fruit.

Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

You can serve it hot with ice cream. I like it warm by itself on a cold winter night.

December 25, 2012
Gingerbread Cookies

It’s the afternoon before Christmas Eve, and my 8-year-old daughter is itching for something to do. Presents are wrapped. Too early for a movie. We turn into Cookie Monsters and bake up a batch of Gingerbread Cookies!

Ingredients:
3/4 cup (or 1 1/2 sticks) organic butter
3/4 cups organic brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg, organic and from free range chicken
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups organic all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Beat butter and sugar together in a medium bowl until smooth. Add molasses, egg and vanilla. Whisk very well. It will take quite a bit of elbow grease to make it smooth, but carry on. It will be worth it.

Add flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. Beat with spatula until well incorporated.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough a little bit at a time to 1/4 inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut shapes. Lay an inch apart on baking sheet. (Since I don’t use non-stick cookware, I save the wax paper covers of butter in the freezer and rub my baking sheet with it when I’m baking.)

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until cookies begin to brown. Cool on wire racks, then decorate.

Here are some fun ideas for decorating your Gingerbread Creatures.

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2012
Crunchy Pizza

Shakey’s Pizza in the Philippines has this super awesome pizza on their menu: Pepperoni Crunch. It’s a thin-crust pepperoni pizza with potato strings on top to make it crunchy! We’d order that with a tall tower of rootbeer and some mojos. Delish!

Now that we’re back stateside, we miss it. So I got out my breadmaker pizza crust recipe and set to work making my version from scratch. It’s easy. I’ll show you how.

Breadmaker Pizza Crust

Ingredients:
3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon organic canola oil
1 tablespoon organic sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups organic unbleached bread flour
1 teaspoon yeast

Put all wet ingredients in the breadmaker pan first, followed by the dry ingredients. Press the dough setting. My breadmaker takes about an hour to do this. After it’s done, I get my dough out and throw it around, the way I see those pizza chefs do it on TV, then I lay it on a buttered baking sheet and flatten it out with a rolling pin.

Next, preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit while putting on the toppings.

You can get creative with your own, of course. I use organic pasta sauce, shredded cheese, pepperoni (only on half the pizza for my husband, because my daughter and I prefer just cheese).

Now here’s the ingredient that makes it crunchy. Shoestring Potatoes. The potatoes are cut thicker than how Shakey’s does it, but it does the job. Sprinkle that on top of the pizza.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Mangia bene, vivi felice!

December 2, 2012
Granola Recipe

Warm freshly baked granola is a breakfast treat. Cold not so freshly baked granola is fun snack. You could put it in a mason jar and give it away for Christmas too. Here’s how to make it.

Ingredients:
4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup raw wheat germ
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup organic canola oil
1/3 cup raw honey
1/3 cup water

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Combine oats, wheat germ, walnuts, sunflower seeds, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour in the canola oil, honey and water. Mix together until well incorporated. Spread evenly on a baking pan.

Bake the granola for 40 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring every 15 minutes to keep the granola evenly browned and prevent it from sticking to the pan. Let it cool completely after removing from the oven.

November 25, 2012
Shrimp & Bumblebees

My husband came up with this meal’s name when we first got married over 16 years ago. No bumblebees were harmed in the making of this meal. I can’t say the same for the shrimp, however.

This is an easy peasy meal I whip up when I am short on time and long on hunger. I use canned beans, but those of you who prefer buying dried beans and soaking them overnight, go ahead and do that. I’m about ready to start doing the same since I came across this article from Mercola that enumerates reasons for not buying canned beans (and other packaged foods). Soaking beans overnight is easy. It just takes a little planning in advance.

Shrimp and Bumblebees

Ingredients:
raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tablespoon organic canola oil
black beans, organic, 1 can (or equivalent if you are soaking dried beans overnight)
1 cup frozen organic corn
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
a handful of chopped organic basil or cilantro

Here’s how to make the Bumblebees: Combine black beans and corn in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Sprinkle cumin. Stir occasionally to make sure it doesn’t stick on the pan.

And now the shrimp: While the beans and corn is cooking, heat canola oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Toss shrimp with Old Bay Seasoning and cook until pink.

To serve, make a bed of bumblebees. Top with shrimp, then garnish with basil or cilantro.

November 18, 2012
Homemade Pumpkin Puree

Roasting is my favorite way of making pumpkin puree. Not only is it the easiest way to do it, but oven heat also preserves the pumpkin’s sweet flavor.

A pound is equal to a cup of pumpkin puree. I needed 2 cups of pumpkin puree for my pumpkin cupcake recipe so I picked a 2 pound sugar pumpkin.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a baking sheet with butter. (Money-saving tip: I like saving the wax covers of butter sticks in the freezer. Whenever I need to grease a baking sheet, I get a wax cover out of the freezer and rub it on the baking sheet.)

Cut the pumpkin in half crosswise. Scoop out the seeds and strings. Save the seeds for roasted pumpkin seeds.

Put the pumpkin cut side down on the baking sheet.

Bake for 45 minutes. Check if skin can be pierced with a fork, then take it out of the oven and cool. Once the pumpkin is completely cooled, you can pull the skin off easily.

Tadaa! Homemade pumpkin puree!

Now you’re ready to make pumpkin cupcake, or pumpkin cookies, or pumpkin pie or pumpkin ice cream.

Instructions from the book, Halloween Treats: Recipes and Crafts for the Whole Family (Holiday Celebrations) by Donata Maggipinto

November 5, 2012
Halloween Party Food Menu

Every year we throw a Halloween party to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. We have a big family with many young cousins, so that alone makes the parties pretty big. In addition, my daughter likes to invite her whole class to the parties as well. Not everyone comes, of course (whew!) but we usually get at least 20 children at these parties.

Children are the most difficult people to keep still long enough to eat. We’ve thrown parties in the past when the kids refused to eat anything and insisted only on playing the whole time they were over. So I’ve decided to serve mostly finger foods, snacks they can swipe as they go past the buffet table on their way to some fun game they are playing. Here is my menu:

Mini Pumpkin Pies. I got the idea from Bakerella’s Pumpkin Pie Bites, but I used my own recipe for Pumpkin Pie. It yielded 48 little pumpkin pies.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds. We took the pumpkin seeds from carving out the Jack O’ Lantern and roasted them until brown and crunchy.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. This Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe is a family favorite that has been passed down from generation to generation, tweaked slightly to make it healthier while keeping it just as delicious as ever.

Apples, Apple Cider, Chips with Salsa and Guacamole. We were serving so many sweets so I decided on just having apples, and not caramel candy apples. Chips with Salsa and Guacamole as the savory complement to all the sweet treats. Apple cider for drinks.

Halloween Sugar Cookies. Halloween cookie cutter shapes + this Butter Cookies recipe + cookie icing = Fun colorful Halloween cookies!

Jello AB Normal Brain. Green jello set in brain mold the night before the party, set up next to cut carrots for a fun color contrast.

Bone Pretzels. I love my breadmaker, and this Breadmaker Pretzel recipe is one of the reasons why.

October 30, 2012
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe was passed on to me from my husband’s grandmother, who sent us care packages of her special Pumpkin Cookies every Halloween. Mammie used Crisco Oil and it made her cookies very moist and last for weeks. I used organic canola oil as a healthier alternative, and this makes the pumpkin cookies moist, light and fluffy. If you like your cookies crispy on the surface, use organic butter instead.

This was previously posted at Pumpkin Cookies, but the way I had written it was confusing. I’ve revised the recipe to make it easier to follow. These Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies have become such a family favorite that I have a feeling I’ll be making several batches of it throughout the holiday season.

Mammie’s Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups organic sugar
1 cup organic canola oil (or softened organic butter – 2 sticks)
2 organic eggs
2 teaspoons organic vanilla
2 tablespoons raw organic milk
1 can organic pumpkin
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder, aluminum-free
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
4 cups organic all-purpose flour
1 large bag semi-sweet organic chocolate chips

Preheat oven 375 degrees F. Whisk sugar, canola oil, eggs, vanilla, milk and pumpkin together until well incorporated.

Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon and stir slowly with a spatula or a wooden spoon until smooth. Add chocolate chips and mix.

Spoon rounds onto buttered cookie sheet (use wax paper covers to grease the baking sheet) and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Take the cookies out as soon as they are showing a bit of brown around the outer edges.

October 23, 2012
Banana Crumb Muffins

I love bananas, but sometimes a bunch of them start turning brown in the fruit basket and they have to be rescued, stat! If I have only two bananas left, I make Banana Bread or this basic Banana Muffins recipe. If I have at least three bananas, this is what I do:

Ingredients for Muffins:
1/3 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup organic sugar
3 bananas
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Ingredients for Crumb Topping:
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter the muffin pan or put muffin paper liners into muffin cups.

Cream softened butter and organic sugar together. Beat in the egg until smooth. Add mashed bananas and mix well together.

Add the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix all together until smooth. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles crumbs. Sprinkle crumb topping over muffins.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Look at how beautiful the center of the muffins looks. I love the brown slivers of banana in there.

September 6, 2012