Lemon Glazed Carrots

  I love carrots.  I have since I was a little tyke; so much so, Mom had to take me to the hospital as a baby.  She panicked when she woke up to an orange kid.  Turns out, when you eat a lot of your favorite carrot and squash baby food, you end up with carotenosis.

  I've branched out since then, but I still love carrots.  Recently, I found a recipe for glazed carrots that has one of my other favorite flavors - lemon.  Just in time for lighter spring meals!

Lemon Glazed Carrots

Serves 6

9 medium carrots
4 tablespoons butter, cubed
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar

  Start by peeling the carrots, and slicing them in half lengthwise.  Boil the carrot slices in salted water, just until tender, and drain well.

  In a heavy skillet, melt the butter.  Add the lemon juice and brown sugar.  Stir the mixture until it thickens.  Add in the carrots and cook until they are well glazed and heated through.

Captain Russell's Jambalaya

  Laissez les bons temps rouler, mes amis!  Down in N'awlins, the parades are rolling down the streets, and folks are living it up before Lent.  Tonight, we dug into this recipe - Captain Russell's Jambalaya, in the March 2011 issue of Taste of Home magazine.  Definitely a keeper.

Captain Russell's Jambalaya

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 can (10.5 oz) condensed French onion soup, undiluted
1 1/4 cups reduced-sodium beef broth
1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cubed
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon Creole seasoning
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 pound andouille sausage, fully cooked, sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
2 cups uncooked long grain rice

  Preheat your oven to 375°F.  Spray a 13 by 9 inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.

  In a large saucepan, add in the French onion soup, beef broth, tomato sauce, butter, bell pepper, onion, Creole seasoning, and hot sauce.  Stir and bring it to a boil.  Take it off the heat and add in the shrimp, sausage, and rice.  Stir it up and pour it into the baking dish and cover with foil.  Bake it in the oven for 30 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake it for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until the rice is cooked all the way through.  

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

  It's Super Bowl Sunday!  And you better believe I'm flingin' a Terrible Towel today.  (I'd rather be pulling for the Saints, but alas, it wasn't meant to be this year.  Next year, boys, next year.)  But this Sunday is all about the pigskin, commercials, and the munchies.  So I'm sharing a great pizza I found awhile back on recipezaar.com (now food.com) by Mini R. - and it is simple and scratches that itch when you can't decide between wings and pizza.

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Ingredients

1 portion of pizza dough *
1/2 pound (8 oz) boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenders, grilled
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup hot sauce
1/3 cup ranch salad dressing
2 cups shredded mozzarella (8 oz by weight)


  Start off by preheating your oven to 400°F. Cut up the grilled chicken into bite-sized chunks.  In a bowl, stir together the melted butter and hot sauce.  Toss in the chicken chunks and make sure all the pieces are coated.

  Press your pizza dough into the pizza pan.  Spread the ranch dressing onto the pizza dough.  Layer the chicken over the dressing, and sprinkle evenly with the mozzarella.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the crust is done, and the cheese is melted and lightly browned.

Notes - Let's discuss the pizza dough for a minute.  The original recipe called for dough to cover a 12 inch pizza pan.  You can, of course, make your own dough - or - buy it at the store.  Some stores sell dough balls in the refrigerated section.  If you're like me and not lucky enough for that, check over with the canned biscuits.  There are some pretty decent canned pizza doughs out there that you just unroll and press into your pan.  If you find the middle of your dough isn't getting baked all the way through, but the crust is done, you may want to try doing a partial bake.  (If we were making a pie, we'd call this a blind bake.)  Put your dough in your pan and bake for about 5-8 minutes before adding any toppings- depending on the size of your pizza.  Pull it out and add toppings, and pop it back in until the pizza is done.

Garlic Cheese Rolls (ABM)

  I hope everyone has enjoyed their holidays.  I've been lucky to get some lovely gifts in the culinary vein, so you know, I've been busy in the kitchen.  Right now, in my neck of the south, life's in slow motion, due to snow, ice, and more ice.  So it's time to update my dear blog - as we all know, I'm overdue. 

  I received a bread machine as an early Christmas gift.  I swear enabling a carboholic should be illegal.  Oh wait, my sweet hubby gave it to me, and he's a carboholic, too.  Never mind.  I have this love-hate relationship with bread - I love to eat bread, bread hates for me to make it.  Whenever I've tried to make kneaded breads in the past, my kitchen, my clothes, my cat all seem to be covered in flour.  Yeast pizza crust in the stand mixer...yeah, uh, I won't be doing that again.  My kitchen smelled like fermenting yeast for two days.  Quick breads have been my one saving grace, until now.  Ladies and gentlemen, I have made homemade rolls, with minimal flour clean up.

 See!  Look!  Soft, tasty, edible rolls that I made.

 

   You may have noticed the acronym in the post title - if you aren't familiar with it, ABM stands for Automatic Bread Machine.  Today's bread machines have many options and cycles on board.  My machine has a dough cycle which is perfect for people like me, people who can't knead a loaf of bread correctly to save their hides, or busy people, take your pick.  This particular recipe takes advantage of the dough cycle.  It comes from Bread Machine Magic, Revised Edition by Linda Rehberg and Lois Conway.  I have an old copy of the first edition of this book I picked up for 50 cents at McKay.  For 50 cents, I figured it was good research to see if I really wanted a bread machine.  The great thing about this book is it gives you options to make 1 lb, 1.5 lb, or 2 lb sized loaves.  (The first edition featured only 1 and 1.5 lb sizes and focused on several brands of bread machines that aren't prevalent on the market any longer.)  I chose to make the 1.5 lb size, which yields 24 rolls.  You will also need 2 pie plates or baking dishes for this recipe.  As you can see, I only own 1 pie plate and a baking dish works pretty well for these rolls.

Garlic Cheese Rolls

Yields 24 rolls

Ingredients

Dough

1 cup water (about 80°F)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons butter or margarine
3 tablespoons sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons nonfat dry milk powder
1 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Topping

1/4 cup melted butter
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

  Every machine has its own order for adding ingredients to the bread pan.  The order for my model goes liquids, dry, flour, and yeast.  Pick the dough setting and start.

  Grease your pie plates or baking dishes and set aside.

  Once the dough cycle is complete, turn the dough out onto a lightly-floured work surface - a  clean counter works well. Roll out the dough into a 24 inch rope.  With a sharp knife or dough scraper, cut the dough into 24 pieces.  Roll each piece into a ball in your hands and place into the greased pans.  Leave a little room between each ball because they will go through a rise session before baking.

  In a small bowl, combine the melted butter and crushed garlic.  Pour or spoon the butter over the rolls, and sprinkle with the Parmesan cheese. Cover the rolls and prepare for the dough to rise.

  Rising: This is a neat trick I've picked up and also given in the book - if you don't have a warm spot, use a slightly warm oven to rise.  Flip the oven to Warm (or low temperature if your oven doesn't have a Warm setting) for 1 minute.  Cut it off, and put the dough in to rise 30 to 45 minutes, or until doubled in size. 

  Remove the dough from the oven and then preheat the oven to 375°F.  Uncover the rolls and return them to the oven for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Notes - Here are some tips for using a bread machine.  The water temperature is important - too hot and it will kill the yeast before it gets a chance to work.  75-85°F is a common temperature range in ABM recipes.  It will feel cool to your skin, since our body temperatures are much warmer than this temp range.  Bread machine yeast is sold in jars near the envelopes of yeast.  Once opened, store the jar in the refrigerator.

Baked Meatballs

  With the cold weather of this time of year, hearty appetites are brought to the table.  One of the favorite recipes around our house is meatballs.  But honey, before you get the idea these are run of the mill balls o' meat, let me fill you in on a couple of things.  This is a slight tweaking of Alton Brown's recipe, and I got to say, these are a step up from the norm.  First thing that's different - they are baked.  To elevate them a bit more, they are baked in a mini muffin pan.  Why?  It keeps the meatballs from sitting in grease as they cook.  And then to ratchet it up a bit more, they are rolled in bread crumbs before they are baked.  When all these factors come together, you get a nice meatball with a slightly crisp exterior that is just wonderful to sink your teeth into.

Baked Meatballs

Approximately 20 meatballs; 5 servings

Ingredients

1 pound ground round (80/20 ground beef)
1/2 pound ground pork or pork sausage
10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
1 1/2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup bread crumbs, divided (may need more)

  Here's a quick starter note - you can prep the meatball mixture up to 24 hours before you plan on baking them.  When you get ready to make these, preheat the oven to 400°F.

  In a large mixing bowl, add in the ground round, pork, spinach, Parmesan, egg, basil, parsley, garlic, salt, red pepper and 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs.  With clean hands, combine everything thoroughly.  (If you are making the meatballs later, cover with plastic wrap and stash in the refrigerator at this point.)   

  At this point, we are ready to form the meatballs.  Pour the remaining 1/4 cup of bread crumbs in a shallow bowl, and set aside.  Keep the bread crumbs out, because you may need a little more.

  I'm going to give you two ways of divvying up the meat to get even-sized meatballs.  Method 1 - Pat and Cut: On a clean surface, pat out the meat mixture into a rectangle that's about 1 inch thick.  Cut lengthwise across the middle, making 2 equal halves.  Repeat this cut on each half so that you have 4 even rows.  Then make 4 cuts width-wise, creating 5 equal columns.  You should now have 20 squares ready to be rolled into meatballs.  Method 2 - Scoop and Weigh:  With a spoon, scoop out some meat and weigh it on a kitchen scale.  You are shooting to make the meatballs 1 1/2 (1.5) ounces.  I wrap the removable top of my scale with plastic wrap before weighing out the meat to keep it from sticking, and well, to keep raw meat off the scale.

  Once the meat is portioned to the right size, roll the mixture into balls.  Then roll the meatball in the bread crumbs. Place the meatball in a cup of a miniature muffin tin.  Repeat until all the meatballs have been rolled and coated in bread crumbs.  Place the pan in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until they are cooked through.  Serve with your favorite marinara and spaghetti noodles or slap them on your favorite hoagie buns and make meatball subs.

Helpful Hint - If you have a potato ricer laying around, it makes quick work of draining the thawed spinach.  Just load up the ricer and squeeze; you'll end up with nice, dry spinach that won't water down what you are making.

Pizza Dip

Here's an easy tried and true recipe I need to pull back out for Game Night at our house soon.  Make sure you serve this with some hearty crackers or breadsticks!

Pizza Dip

Serves 10

Ingredients

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (8 ounces), divided
1/2 cup pizza sauce

  Start by preheating your oven to 350°F.  Using an electric mixer, combine the cream cheese, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder.  Beat until well-blended.  Spread the cream cheese mix on the bottom of a 9 inch pie plate.  Top with 1 cup of mozzarella, spread on the pizza sauce, and sprinkle on the remaining cheese.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and everything is heated through.

Tip - Feel free to add in your favorite pizza toppings to customize this dip to your tastes.  I'd put them on top of the pizza sauce before the final layer of cheese.

Stuffed Mushrooms (like Olive Garden's)

  When I was in high school, we took a family vacation to Disney World.  On the drive home, we stopped in Lakeland, Florida to eat dinner at the Olive Garden.  Mom ordered one of those appetizer samplers where you could pick three things.  I remember the platter being placed on the table, and looking at Mom sitting across the table, telling us what she ordered.  My brother, who was in elementary school at the time, looked at me and we started to add things to our plates of things to try - there was fried zucchini (oh, how I love thee...), fried mozzarella (I still contend cheese is a most perfect food), and stuffed mushrooms.   I had no idea those little suckers could taste so good.  But they did.  It was one of those tastes that haunts a mushroom lover; randomly in the years after that trip my mom, my brother, or I would just be hit with a craving for those mushrooms.  Being a good hour and half away from the nearest Olive Garden, it wasn't something easily rectified.

  While hunting for a different stuffed mushroom recipe for Mom, I ran across this one.  This recipe is floating around on many cooking websites online, and with excellent reason.  This copycat recipe produces the best stuffed mushroom that has ever passed my lips.  Actually, if you ask me, I find them to be better than those from Olive Garden - high praise coming from someone that loves the OG as much as I do. 

Stuffed Mushrooms (like Olive Garden's)

12 or more fresh white button mushrooms (depends on the size of the mushrooms)
6 oz. can clams, drained and finely minced
1/4 cup clam juice (can be reserved from the canned clams or purchased separately - I used the bottled juice)
1 green onion, finely chopped
1/8 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon  minced garlic
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon oregano leaves
1/2 cup Italian style bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon finely grated Romano cheese
2 tablespoon finely grated mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated mozzarella, for topping
1/4 cup melted butter, for topping
Optional - finely chopped parsley for garnish

  Begin by preheating your oven to 350°F.  Clean the mushrooms and remove the stems.  Save the stems for another use. (Sauteed in a little butter, served over rice is fantastic, if you ask me.)  Lightly grease a baking dish, and set aside.

  In a medium mixing bowl, mix together the clams, green onion, garlic salt, garlic, 1 tablespoon of melted butter, and oregano. Once that is well blended, add in bread crumbs, beaten egg, and clam juice.  Stir until it is well mixed, and stir in the Parmesan, Romano, and 2 tablespoons of mozzarella.  Stuff the mushrooms, slightly mounding the stuffing mixture.

  Place the stuffed mushrooms to the baking dish.  Pour the 1/4 cup of melted butter over the mushrooms, and cover the baking dish with aluminum foil.  Place the dish into the preheated oven to bake for 35-40 minutes.  Remove, sprinkle the 1/4 cup of mozzarella and return to the oven until the cheese melts.  Sprinkle with parsley before serving, if desired.

Notes- This dish is great for the holidays.  You can prepare the mushrooms and place in the baking dish (don't pour the butter over yet), cover with foil, in the morning.  Stash in the refrigerator until you are ready to bake them that evening.  Preheat the oven, then pour over the melted butter at this point and continue the recipe from there.  And pssst - I don't think too many folks would notice if you just use Parmesan for both the Parmesan and Romano.