Zesty Cheese Doodles

Here is the South, a tasty appetizer that is often served during the holidays is Cheese Straws. Well, I think that is true because 1) I've never actually tasted a cheese straw and 2) it's debatable if Texas is really part of the South. Anyway, I was looking at some recipe's in a holiday magazine and came across a cheese straw recipe. It's really quite simple; but, I decided to make it better. The original recipe included a bit of cayenne pepper. I decided to include some garlic powder. I also decided I would put a bit of blue cheese in the middle and roll them in sesame seeds

Warning: These are addictively good

Ingredients

• 8 oz sharp cheddar cheese shredded
• 1 cup flour
• 1 stick butter, softened
  
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 cup sesame seeds
• blue cheese crumbles

Equipment

• cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

Directions

1. Mix all of the ingredients except for the sesame seeds and blue cheese. It would probably be easiest in a food processor; however, my son borrowed ours, so I just kneaded it by hand. It makes a pretty stiff dough and will give your hands a work out.
2. Roll into 1-balls with a bit of blue cheese in the middle (maybe a 1/4 tsp or so, eyeball it).
3. Roll balls in sesame seeds and place on cookie sheet
4. Bake at 400 degrees until lightly browned on top - about 15 minutes (checking every minute or two after 10 minutes). Note that they will flatten and spread out, so be sure to leave room between them.
5. Let set on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes after removing from the oven and then slide parchment paper onto a cooling rack
   

Other variations to try (I haven't actually tried any of these yet)

• Substitute 1/2 tsp curry powder for the cayenne pepper and garlic powder
• Roll in crush pecans instead of sesame seeds
• Roll it around a slice of pickled jalapeño pepper instead of blue cheese
• Roll it around a couples of slices of black olive instead of blue cheese
• Roll it in panko bread crumbs instead of sesame seeds
  

Notes:

• I was impatient and didn't feel like waiting for the butter to soften; so, I just grated it with the cheese grater and mixed it in with the flour and cheese
• You could freeze the balls before baking and then have them to bake whenever company comes over or you just feel like a tasty snack. Either let them thaw before baking or increase baking time
  

Butternut Squash Soup

One fall I had butternut squash soup at corner bakery that was absolutely delicious. So, I set out on a internet search quest to recreate this wonderful culinary delight. With a few of my own twists, I think I've done it.

Ingredients

• 3 pounds fresh butternut squash
• 4 Tbl unsalted butter
• 1 large shallot
• 1/2 red bell pepper
• 6 cups water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• freshly ground nutmeg

Equipment

• Stock pot with steamer insert
• Hand blender

Directions

1. Remove any labels and wash squash under cold running water.
2. Cut squash into quarters lengthwise. Scrape out seeds and stringy stuff and reserve. Place squash quarters into steamer insert skin side up.
3. Dice shallot and red bell pepper into small pieces
4. Melt butter on medium in bottom of stockpot and add diced shallot and red bell pepper, saute until shallot is translucent (about 2-3 minutes)
5. Add reserved seeds and stringy stuff from squash. The idea is you want to lightly toast the seeds in the butter; but, first the liquid needs to be boiled out. This will take about 10-15 minutes stirring frequently.
6. When squash seeds begin to take on a light brown color then add the 6 cups of water and bring to a boil
7. Place steamer basket with squash into stock pot and cover. Steam the squash for about 30 minutes on medium high.
8. When the squash is tender, turn off heat and lift steamer basket out of pot and let drain. Leave squash draining into liquid until both are cool enough to handle
9. Strain steaming liquid and reserve, discard solids
10. Scrape squash pulp into a clean pan and discard skin
11. Using the hand blender, blend the squash pulp adding just enough of the reserved steaming liquid until smooth textured and of the desired consistency (you may or may not end up using all of the liquid)
12. Stir in cream, brown sugar, and nutmeg and adjust seasoning
13. Gently heat, being careful to stir often as it will scorch easily.
14. Enjoy with some nice chewy french bread

Baklava

I had a hankering for baklava the other day; so, I bought some phyllo pastry sheets, did an internet search to get ideas, and came up with the following

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 pounds of nuts (I used 8 oz blanched almond slivers, 6 oz raw pistachios, 4 oz pecans, and 6 oz walnuts)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 2-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
• 1 pound phyllo pastry sheets (18 sheets, 13" x 17")

Syrup

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup orange blossom honey
• Peeling from 2 clementine oranges with white pulp scraped off and discarded (i.e. orange zest slices)
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 cinnamon stick, 2" long
• 3 whole cloves

Equipment

• 9 x 13 pan
• Food processor
• Candy thermometer

Directions

1. If phyllo pastry is frozen, thaw in refrigerator for 24 hours. Remove from refrigerator at least 1 hour ahead of time to let it come to room temperature
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
3. Cut phyllo pastry sheets in half cross wise so that you have a pile of 36 sheets 13" x 8.5"
4. Finely chop nuts in food processor, mix in brown sugar ground cinnamon and cloves, set aside
5. Brush bottom and sides of 13"x9" baking pan with melted butter
6. Place a sheet of phylly pastry into pan and brush with butter. Repeat until there are 14 sheets.
7. Spread 1/2 of the nut mixture on top of the pastry sheets
8. Repeat placing phyllo pastry sheets brushed with butter for another 8 sheets
9. Spread remaining 1/2 of nut mixture on top of pastry sheets
10. Repeat placing phyllo pastry sheets brushed with butter for the remaining 14 sheets
11. Using a sharp knife, carefully through the sheets into diamond shapes, about 5 or 7 diagonal cuts each direction
12. Place in middle of oven and bake for 40 minutes, after about 20 minutes check and lightly cover with foil if it is starting to brown on top so as to not overcook the top. Remove from oven when done baking
13. While the phyllo/nut assembly is baking, mixed all incredients for syrup, bring to a boil and cook until the temperature reaches 230 degrees (just under the soft ball stage)
14. Remove orange peel, cinnamon stick, and whole cloves from syrup and gently pour syrup over the phyllo/nut assembly. Let stand several hours (or overnight) to let the syrup soak in and cool
15. Using a sharp knife, gently re-cut the baklava and enjoy

Turkey Enchiladas

On Friday, November 20th, we left on a 1,500 mile trek to Southern California to spend Thanksgiving with our daughter and her family. However, we still wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving with our local family and friends; so, on Sunday, November 15th, we had a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. We had our two children and their families who live locally as well as a couple of friends over for a potluck style dinner. Oh my goodness! We had so much food. We had two turkeys: One cooked in an oil-less turkey fryer and the other was a pre-cooked smoked turkey (bought on sale) that we heated in the oven. We made cornbread-sausage-apple stuffing. There was also 4 different salads, green bean casserole (using fresh green beans), homemade rolls, and 6 different kinds of pie. This isn't including all of the appetizer stuff we filled up on before dinner.

Anyway, my son took home the two turkey carcasses to make soup with and we divided up the left over turkey with each of the families. We ended up with about a little over a pound of turkey meat. After eating turkey sandwiches Monday and Tuesday on the leftover dinner rolls, I decided to make Turkey Enchiladas with what was left of the turkey meat (just under a pound).

I wanted something that had a lot of other flavors to it - because, frankly, I don't like leftover turkey. I can't explain why, I just don't like the flavor. I like cooked turkey fresh out of the oven. I'm OK with turkey sandwiches. But, beyond that, I don't like turkey (don't even get me started on turkey soup - can't stand the stuff).

So, here is my recipe for Turkey Enchiladas that I threw together using mostly stuff we had on hand. The only thing I had to go to the store to buy was the tortilla's.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, finely minced (using garlic press)
• oil (a Tbl or so)
• 1 pound leftover turkey meat, chopped up
  
• 1 14oz can Mexican Style stewed tomatoes
• 1 4oz can of chopped green chilies
• 1 10oz can enchilada sauce
• 1 chipotle in adobo sauce, finely chopped (optional)
  
• 1/2 cup frozen corn
• corn tortilla's (14-16)
• cheese (cheddar, or whatever you have on hand), grated
  

Directions

1. Saute onions and garlic in oil until soft. Mix in stewed tomatoes, chopped green chilies, chipotle in adobo sauce and corn. Add turkey, mix and heat through
2. Pour enchilada sauce in a flat bowl and heat in microwave for 1 minute
3. Heat tortillas in microwave to soften
4. Pour a little of the enchilida sauce in the pan, enough to coat the bottom
   

To assemble

1. Dip a tortilla in the enchilada sauce, add meat mixture (1-2 Tbl) and some cheese, roll up and place in pan seam side down
2. Repeat until all of the meat mixture is used
3. Top with cheese

Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, until the cheese is melted and lightly toasted on top. Serve with sour cream and salsa.

Notes

• I used Del Monte brand Mexican style stewed tomatoes which had surprisingly large chunks of tomato which had to be broken up into smaller pieces while cooking.
  
• I used Old El Paso green enchilada sauce, simply because it was what we had on hand. Any good enchilada sauce should do fine.
  
• I made two 8" square pans of enchilada's - we cooked one for dinner and put the other in the freezer. I suppose it would also fill an 8" x 13" pan.

Peanut Flour

The October 2009 issue of "Southern Living" magazine has an ad by the National Peanut Board that included some peanut recipes. One that looked particularly intriguing is "Peanut Oven-Fried Chicken with Citrus-Ginger Sauce". We have pretty much all of the ingredients on hand, except for one: Peanut flour. Seriously, we even have the aromatic roasted peanut oil; so, I thought, I guess we're gonna have to get us some peanut flour.

First we first tried Sunflower Shoppe in Colleyville, a large health food store. They had almond flour, hazelnut flour, pecan flour, coconut flour - but no peanut flour. Next we tried Central Market in Southlake, an upscale gourmet grocery store. They had a similar selection of different flours - but no, alas, peanut flour.

So, I went to the web site for the National Peanut Board, found the recipe on their web site, and added a comment asking where I might be able to find peanut flour in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Lo and behold, I received an email within 24 hours from a Communications Specialist for the National Peanut Board with the following message:

Thanks for reading the National Peanut Board blog and for your interest in trying some of our recipes. Unfortunately, peanut flour isn’t yet available in retail stores, but we would be happy to send you some peanut flour to work with and would welcome any feedback you have about using it.

If you send your address, we’ll get that out to you early next week.

I replied, thanking her for responding, and gave her my mailing address. This week, a package arrived by UPS containing a 1 pound package of peanut flour. So, next week we'll be having "Peanut Oven-Fried Chicken with Citrus-Ginger Sauce" for dinner some evening. There are also other recipes on the National Peanut Board web site that look yummy, such as

Peanut-Parmesan Spiced Chicken
Vietnamese Pork Banh Mi with Spicy Peanut Aioli
Peanut Butter Pancakes

I may even try to come up with some recipe's of my own using peanut flour, stay tuned . . .

btw, the National Peanut Board has an extensive selection of peanut recipes - check them out if you're looking for new things to try.

Vegetable stock

Making a vegetable stock is a good use of excess vegetables in your fridge that may otherwise go to waste. I like to use fresh produce whenever possible. The problem is, so often we have to buy produce in a pre-measured package of some sort rather than just what we need. For example, the other day I was making a recipe that called for a leek (as in one leek). You can't buy just one leek - you have to buy 2 or 3 leeks. A week or so ago I needed a parsnip; but, you can't just buy one parsnip - they typically come in a cello package. Which I don't really understand because turnips, rutabagas, and even carrots (in upper end grocery stores) can be bought individually - but not parsnips, at least here in Texas.

Anyway, rather than letting the leftover vegetables go bad in the fridge (as typically happens), I decided to make a vegetable stock. I used a recipe for vegetable stock on the food network website - although not to the letter. I just used what I had.

My vegetable stock has

• 2 parsnips
• 4 carrots
• 1/2 bunch of celery that was starting to wilt
• 1/2 onion from the fridge plus a whole onion from the pantry
• 1/2 head garlic separated into cloves and coarsely chopped
• 1/2 package of snow peas
  
• Some string beans I bought the other day to have with dinner and forgot to cook
• 3/4 bunch of arugula
  
• a small red bell pepper from my garden
• A dozen (or so) black pepper corns
• A good sized handful of fresh herbs from the garden
  
• bay leaves
• thyme (2 types)
• savory
• marjoram
• oregan0
• rosemary

I washed everything under cold running water; but, I did not peel the carrots or parsnips - I just scrubbed them and cut them into quarters. Even the onion was chopped into quarters, skin and all, after washing.

Just dump everything into a big pot, bring it to a boil, then simmer for several hours. Turn off the heat, let it cool, strain and package into freezer containers and freeze.

I'll be using 1 cup and 2 cup containers. But, I'll have to figure out some way to distinguish them from the chicken stock containers we made a month or so ago. Hmmm, this makes me want to find a butcher to see if I can get some beef bones to make a good hearty beef stock. It's hard to find a real butcher these days since most grocery stores have gone to pre-packaged meat.

You may notice that there is no salt. The original food network recipe didn't call for salt either. Commercial stocks and broths are often loaded with salt - which is a good reason for making your own. We don't use a lot of salt in our home. I often put in 1/2 the amount of salt (or less) a recipe calls for, except for certain recipes, like baked goods, where the salt is essential to the chemical reaction.

A vegetable stock can be substituted in many recipes that call for chicken stock. I wouldn't substitute vegetable stock in something like chicken and dumplings; but, a acorn squash/pumpkin soup I made the other day called for chicken stock - and a vegetable stock would have worked just as well, perhaps even better (it wasn't as delicious as I wanted it to be - which is why the recipe isn't posted here).

Shepherd's Pie (aka Daddy Jon's Pot Roast, part II)

Since it's just Linda and I, we usually always end up with leftovers after dinner as we just haven't gotten used to the idea of cooking for two. I usually end up eating the leftovers for lunch the next day or two. But, leftover pot roast was just too good to waste on lunch. So, I made shepherds pie.

The shepherd's pie we've made in the past had the leftover meat and vegetables on the bottom, leftover mashed potatoes on top, and baked until the stuff on the bottom was bubbly and the potatoes were lightly browned.

This recipe is different in that it puts the potatoes on the bottom (soaking up all of that good flavor from the gravy) and a biscuit crust on top.

Shepherd's Pie

• Leftover pot roast, cut into small chunks
• Leftover gravy, heated in microwave until liquefied
• Extra potatoes, peeled and boiled until tender
• Leftover vegetables from pot roast
• Extra vegetables if necessary to make 2 to 3 cups (see note below)
• Instant biscuit mix (I used a single-use package of Kroger brand buttermilk biscuits, so I don't know how much actual mix)
• 3 Tbl butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Potato layer: Place the potatoes in the bottom of a casserole dish and lightly mash, leaving it a bit chunky

Meat layer: spread the meat over the potatoes and then lightly drizzle the gravy evenly over the meat.

Vegetable layer: Spread the vegetable mixture over the meat.

Biscuit layer: Mix up the biscuit mix according to instructions, adding just a bit more liquid to make it thinner than normal and spread it over the vegetables. Drizzle melted butter over the biscuits.

Place in oven and bake for 35-45 minutes until the biscuits are lightly browned.

A note on vegetables: I only had a few carrots and parsnips leftover from the previous dinner. So, I chopped up some fresh carrots and precooked them in the microwave for one minute (covered). I also cut up some fresh green beans into 1 inch pieces and precooked them in the microwave for 1 minute (covered). I then added some frozen corn niblets. I could have used a bag of frozen mixed vegetables - but personally I think they taste nasty. Fresh carrots and green beans (in season) are pretty cheap, and they taste so much better than their frozen counterparts.