Mom’s Musings

1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
3 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons flour
1 cup diced potatoes
1 cup diced carrots
2 cups chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 17-oz. can cream corn
1 12-oz. can evaporated milk
(Optional: canned salmon or canned chicken)

• Cook the potatoes and carrots in the chicken broth, salt, pepper, and thyme for about 20 minutes.
• Add the peas and cook 5 minutes longer.
• In a skillet, melt the butter and saute the garlic, onion, celery and green pepper. When the veggies are tender, scoop them into the soup. To the remaining butter, stir in the flour, and gradually add the canned milk to make a white sauce.
• Turn off the heat under the soup. Add the white sauce, the cream corn, and the canned meat (if used).

Serves 4 to 6.

(This recipe is from volume 4 of My Favorite Recipe Cookbook, put out by the Lynden Tribune.)

2 pounds lean ground beef, browned

2 red bell peppers, diced, and sautéed with the ground beef

2 7-ounce cans of diced mild green chilies

2 1-ounce envelopes of onion soup mix

2 14.5 ounce cans stewed Italian Recipe tomatoes (Cut tomatoes smaller, if you desire.)

1 15 ounce can tomato sauce

2 40-ounce cans unseasoned pinto beans (Drain off bean liquid.)

2 Tablespoons dried chopped onion

2 Tablespoons mild chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ to 1 teaspoon granulated garlic

Combine all the ingredients in a large (7 quart) crock pot. Cook on Low or High for the desired amount of time.

We serve our chili with shredded cheddar cheese, saltine crackers, sour cream, and pickled jalapeno peppers.

Today, after our morning worship service, we enjoyed a fellowship meal together. Most of us ladies bring something in a crockpot to serve, since oven space is so limited. This chili was my main dish contribution today. I concocted this particular recipe this morning, because I wanted to make just the right amount to fill my crockpot, and wanted it to be of moderate spiciness, since I knew a number of folks would enjoy that. Everyone’s contributions were delicious, and the time of visiting with one another was a treat as well.

THURSDAY THIRTEEN

Biryani

If you count all of the ¼ teaspoon spices as one ingredient, and don’t count the topping of cashews, raisins and hard-cooked eggs, this recipe has 13 ingredients. I hope that’s O.K.

This is a wonderful dish, often requested as a birthday meal in our home.

(This recipe is from Everybody Cooks Rice by Norah Dooley and Peter Thornton, a children’s picture book published in 1991 by Carolrhoda Books, ISBN: 0876144121)

2 medium onions, peeled and chopped

2 Tablespoons butter

Spices:

2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon ground coriander

¼ teaspoon each crushed black pepper, cayenne pepper, ground cloves, ground cinnamon, and ground cardamom

1 teaspoon cumin

Vegetables:

½ cup carrots, peeled and thinly sliced

2 fresh tomatoes, peeled, quartered, and diced

1 cup cauliflower florets

1 cup green beans

1 cup green peas

3 cups half-cooked rice (rice that has cooked for 7 to 10 minutes)

2 Tablespoons water

½ cup cashews

½ cup raisins

2 hard-cooked eggs, peeled

1. In a large frying pan over medium heat, sauté onions in 1 Tablespoon butter until golden.
   
2. Add all spices.
   
3. Add all the vegetables and sauté for 2 or 3 minutes.
   
4. Butter a large casserole dish and add all the ingredients, mixing or layering rice and vegetables.
   
5. Bake at 300 degrees F for 30 to 35 minutes.
   
6. Sauté cashews and raisins in 1 Tablespoon butter.
   
7. Crumble hard-cooked eggs.
   
8. When biryani is baked, sprinkle with cashews, raisins, and crumbled hard-cooked eggs.
   

About a week ago I posted a recipe for one of our favorite desserts, Plantation Cake. I didn’t think to post a picture at the time, but, since Seth requested it for his special birthday dessert tonight, I have a picture for you now. It is truly delicious; you won’t be disappointed if you try it.

(This recipe is from The Betty Crocker Cook Book.)

1 1/3 cups shortening
1 cup brown sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups water
1 1/3 cups light molasses
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Beat shortening and brown sugar on high speed of mixer, scraping bowl occasionally, 5 minutes. Mix in flour and salt. Press half of the sugar mixture in greased 9″x13″ pan. Mix water, molasses and baking soda; pour half over sugar mixture in pan. Sprinkle with half of the remaining sugar mixture. Pour remaining molasses mixture over top; sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture. Bake 45 minutes (maybe longer). Serve warm. Good with whipped cream.

Today after morning worship at our church we had a fellowship meal, with each family contributing favorite foods to the meal. The dessert we brought was Plantation Cake, which has been one of the children’s favorite desserts for many a year. We really enjoy the flavor of molasses, and that’s what you get with this dish.

We had a very nice time at the Valentine’s themed party we attended Saturday evening. We got to know some couples from the community we hadn’t met before and had a good time of conversation, playing foosball, a gift exchange, and eating appetizers.

For my contribution to the refreshments, I finally settled on bringing a layered dip. I got the basic idea for the dip from the kraftfoods.com site, modifying their recipe for 10-Minute Appetizer. I used half as much mayonnaise as called for in the cream cheese layer, topped that with prepared pesto, and then topped that with Ratatouille, sprinkled with shredded cheese.

The Ratatouille recipe is from my old Sunset Cook Book of Favorite Recipes. Here it is:

RATATOUILLE

“Even beyond its rich flavor yet relatively low calorie content, Ratatouille has other qualities which account for its popularity: It tastes better made ahead (even a day or more old) and is just as good cold as reheated.”

About ½ cup olive oil

2 large onions, sliced

2 large cloves garlic, minced or mashed

1 medium-sized eggplant, peeled and cut in ½-inch cubes

6 medium-sized zucchini, thickly sliced (I forgot the zucchini, but it was still good)

1 green and 1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut in chunks

About 2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon dried basil

4 large tomatoes, cut in chunks (I omitted these also)

Heat ¼ cup of the oil in a large frying pan over high heat. Add onions and garlic and cook, stirring, until onions are soft but not browned. Stir in the eggplant, zucchini, peppers, 2 teaspoons salt, and basil; add a little of the oil as needed to keep the vegetables from sticking.

Cover pan and cook over moderate heat for about 30 minutes; stir occasionally, using a large spatula and turning the vegetables to help preserve their shape. If mixture becomes quite soupy, remove cover.

Add the tomatoes to the vegetables and stir to blend. Also add more oil if vegetables are sticking. Cover and cook over moderate heat for 15 minutes; stir occasionally. Again, if mixture becomes soupy, remove cover. Ratatouille should have a little free liquid, but still be of a good spoon-and-serve consistency. Add more salt if required. Serve hot, chilled, at room temperature, or reheated. Garnish with parsley and tomato. Serves 8 to 10.

It’s an unusually quite morning here.

• Rebecca is gone for the weekend on a ski retreat with one of her girlfriends.
  
• Lydia is spending the day with a group of girlfriends, celebrating one of the girl’s birthdays.
  
• Rick left a while ago with Seth, who is playing one of the last 6^th grade basketball games of the season.
  
• Our grown boys are here visiting for the weekend, but stayed up playing the XBOX until the wee hours, so now are catching a few winks.
  

As usual, I’ve enjoyed a quiet time of reading my Bible online, cup of coffee in hand, and then checking out some of the blogs that I enjoy following. I want to get a lot done today, so I’m really trying not to just keep on reading and reading and READING. That does happen sometimes.

This evening, the parents of one of Rebecca’s school friends have invited Rick and me over for a Valentine-themed appetizer party. I’m still debating whether to bring Rosemary Breadstick Twists or a layered dip, Italian-style. I’ll leave the big boys to go buy pizza tonight, so I won’t have to also prepare a dinner for the few who will be home.

Today I need to bake bread for the week, and while the dough is rising I usually pop some Simple Granola in the oven to bake, too.

It’s a drizzly sort of day here today, but – NO EXCUSES – I’m also going to take the doggie for a good, long walk. I really DO love going for a walk, but sometimes it doesn’t happen. It’s so much easier to stay sitting in front of the computer than to get up and get going sometimes.

So . . . on that note, I think I’d better get going. I hope you have a great Saturday, too. Is this usually an über-busy day for you, too?

Here you see Sarah and me in the kitchen, where I spent a good deal of my time this past Saturday. Rebecca made a delicious pancake breakfast for her birthday sleepover girlfriends, but I did all the cleanup so that they would have more time to visit and play games.

Kayla is doing some art projects with the theme “Windows”, so she was going all around the house taking pictures out our windows on Saturday. This view out my kitchen window shows you the light snowfall we enjoyed Saturday. In about a week we’re supposed to receive about two weeks straight of snow. Let’s just hope! That will make this a winter the children will always remember. We don’t mind making up snow days in the summer, so LET IT SNOW!

My first baking project on Saturday was this large batch of Simple Granola. The family loves it as much now as they did 25 years ago.

My personal favorite is this Honey Whole Wheat Bread that is our daily necessity. Rick and I developed the recipe for this bread ourselves.

Norwegian Meatballs

(This recipe is from the 1978 edition of the Sunset Cook Book of Favorite Recipes, but modified a bit by me)

2 pounds ground beef

1 pound ground pork (seasoned as for breakfast sausage)

2 eggs

Salt and pepper to taste

¼ to ½ teaspoon each mace and ground ginger

2 slices bread

Butter

1 medium-sized onion, sliced

¼ cup flour

Hot water (I use about 3 cups)

1 Tablespoon beef concentrate or bouillon concentrate

Combine beef, pork, egg, salt, pepper, mace, and ginger. Remove and discard crusts from bread, if desired (I leave the crusts on); moisten slices with water, tear in pieces, and add to meat.

Knead the mixture thoroughly with your hands, about 5 minutes. Wash hands and wet them with cold water; roll meat mixture in walnut-sized balls.

Melt a small amount of butter in a large frying pan over medium-high heat; add meatballs and brown them on all sides. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in a casserole. Cook onions in the drippings, adding more butter if necessary and stirring frequently, until they are golden brown; remove with slotted spoon and distribute over meatballs in the casserole.

Make a brown gravy by adding flour to the butter remaining in the pan. Add a bit more butter if needed, to equal about ¼ cup; cook, stirring, over low heat until the flour has turned golden brown. Pour in hot water gradually and stir until gravy is thick and smooth (scrape all browned particles from pan into gravy). Add the beef concentrate, and season with salt (about 1 teaspoon) and pepper.

Pour gravy over meatballs, cover, and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes.

You can also leave the meatballs and gravy in the skillet, and continue cooking them at a simmer until tender and done.

Another option would be to put everything in the slow cooker at this point and cook on low for 4 or 5 hours. Serves 8 to 10.

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

3 cups crushed graham crackers (about 48 squares)

½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Confectioners’ sugar

In a microwave bowl, combine milk and chocolate chips. Microwave, uncovered, on high for 1 to 2 minutes, or until chips are melted; stir until smooth. Stir in vanilla, graham crackers and walnuts. Shape into a 17-inch log; roll in sugar. Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm. Unwrap and cut into ¼-inch slices. Makes about 5 ½ dozen.

These cookies taste like a lighter version of fudge. They melt in your mouth. Yum!