kingrat

I successfully made cookies for the first time last week. Every other attempt failed miserably, to the point where I’d given up. Cookies are supposed to be easy, but apparently not for me. I’d been invited to an event where cookies were expected, so I gave it a go.

I found this recipe in an old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook called Cookies for Kids. It has photos of kids aged 5 to 10 years old making cookies in it. I figured this would be hard for me to screw up.

I doubled the recipe from the book though. I think it worked out better because there was more stuff for the mixer to work with and so it all got mixed better. Directions below are how I did it, not a copy from the book.

Equipment

Stuff I need to make sure I have cleaned and available.

• large mixing bowl
• medium mixing bowl
• small saucepan
• hand mixer
• 2 cookie sheets
• parchment paper
• storage bins for finished cookies
• bowl for drained cherries
• cup to hold cherry juice

Ingredients

• butter, 2 sticks, room temperature
• sugar, 2 cups
• eggs, 2
• vanilla extract, 3 teaspoons
• all purpose flour, 3 cups
• unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 cup
• baking soda, ½ teaspoon
• baking powder, ½ teaspoon
• salt, ½ teaspoon
• maraschino cherries, 2 jars (this was overkill, but I used more than 1 jar worth)
• semisweet chocolate chips, 12 ounce package
• sweetened condensed milk, 1 cup

Instructions

1. Add butter and sugar to a mixing bowl
2. Beat with a hand mixer until fluffy and thoroughly mixed
3. Add eggs and vanilla
4. Beat well
5. In another mixing bowl, stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt
6. Add part of flour mixture to butter mixture
7. Beat until well mixed
8. Repeat last two steps until all of the flour is combined with the butter
9. Shape the dough into 1 inch balls, placing each on parchment paper on a cookie sheet about 2 inches apart (made enough to fill about 2½ sheets)
10. Press thumb into the middle of each cookie, squashing them down
11. Drain cherries, reserving the juice in a cup
12. Put a cherry in the indentation in each cookie
13. Combine chocolate chips and condensed milk in a saucepan
14. Melt over low heat, stirring occasionally
15. Stir in enough cherry juice to make the chocolate spoonable
16. Spoon a dollop of chocolate over each cookie, enough to cover the cherry
17. Bake at 350° til edges of the cookies are firm (was about 13 minutes for me, book said 10)
18. Transfer cookies to a cool surface to cool

Gallery of photos at most steps taken below. Forgot to take photos of the finished cookies, which were tasty, by the way.

Originally published at King Rat. You can comment here or there.

This is the recipe for the Shepherd’s Pie I made for Pie Night. I love me a good shepherd’s pie, but I don’t think I’ve actually ever made it before. I liked this so much I made it again today. It is from Rachel Ray.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes
• Olive oil
• 1½ lbs. ground lamb
• Allspice
• 1 carrot
• 1 parsnip
• 1 onion
• all purpose flour
• ½ cup beef broth
• ½ cup dark beer
• Worcestershire sauce
• sour cream
• 1 egg
• ½ cup cream
• paprika

Prep

1. Peel and cube potatoes
2. Peel and chop onion
3. Peel and chop parsnip
4. Separate yolk from egg white (discard egg white)

Instructions

1. Add potatoes to a large pot, cover with water
2. Bring to a boil over high heat
3. Cook until tender
4. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat
5. Brown ground lamb
6. Season with salt, pepper and allspice
7. Add carrot, parsnip and onion
8. Cook about 5 minutes
9. Dust with flour
10. Cook about a minute
11. Add broth, beer, and Worcestershire sauce
12. Cook until thickened
13. Transfer to casserole dish
14. Remove potatoes from heat and drain
15. Return them to the pan and allow to cool bit
16. Add a few dollops of sour cream, egg yolk, and cream
17. Mash until smooth
18. Spoon over meat
19. Season with paprika
20. Broil until the potatoes are evenly browned

crossposted from King Rat.

I promised to write more. What can I put here? I know! My efforts to find low-salt foods in Seattle.

Huh. And coincidentally today starts World Salt Awareness Week. I had no idea that was the case. I found that out because I wanted to include the official American Heart Association recommended daily limit on salt, so I was Googling®. Anyway, the U.S.D.A. recommends less than 2300 mg of sodium per day if you are healthy and less than 1500 mg of sodium if you have a heart condition. The A.H.A. says that’s too high, and recommends less than 1500 mg per day for everyone.

Finding low-salt foods is hard. Take today for instance. I want to make a hoppin’ john recipe tomorrow. The recipe calls for beef broth. I do most of my food shopping at regular grocery stores because they are cheaper. Today, Fred Meyer in Ballard was convenient. Five feet of one aisle devoted to chicken and beef broth, and not one low-salt alternative. Swanson beef broth has 800 mg of sodium per cup! There’s a less sodium version of it that has 400 mg per cup. But even at that level, I’d go over 1500 mg in well less than a day. Swanson has an unsalted beef stock that has only 130 mg of sodium, but you won’t find it at Fred Meyer, despite the jingle.

So I headed by Whole Foods on my way home, because I know they carry low-sodium broths. Huge difference! There are all sorts of options there. They didn’t have a low-sodium house brand (365 Everyday Value) for beef broth, though they do for chicken. But I could pick from at least three different brands (that I can remember now that I am home) of low-salt beef broths: Kitchen Basics, Imagine Foods, and Pacific Foods. There might have been others as well. The Imagine and Pacific brands of beef broth have 140 mg per cup. That’s 1/3 of anything that Fred Meyer offers, and it’s a bigger store. Kitchen Basics is a bit more at 180 mg.

From this I have to assume that Fred Meyer wants to kill people with heart conditions! Or at least the Ballard location does. I know it seems like a poor selling strategy, but so far all the evidence points that way.

crossposted from King Rat.

Here’s the recipe for the Shrimp Pie I made for Pie Night last night. It comes from Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2006 . They took a reader submitted recipe and lightened it up. I kinda added some of the fat back. (As always, the recipe below is how I made it, not how it appears in the cookbook.)

Crust

• 1¼ cups all-purpose flou
• ¼ cup semolina flour
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening
• ¼ cup ice water
• ½ teaspoon cider vinegar
• cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 375°
2. Chill butter, then cut into small pieces
3. Combine all-purpose flour, semolina flour, sugar, and salt in food processor
4. Add butter and vegetable shortening
5. Process until the mixture is a course meal
6. Combine ice water and vinegar
7. Add vinegar-water mixture to flour
8. Mix with a fork until well combined
9. Coat a deep dish pie plate with cooking spray
10. Press mixture into pie plate and up the sides
11. Bake for about 5 minutes
12. Cool on a wire rack

Filling and Pie

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 12 ounces uncooked, deveined shrimp
• ¼ cup cream cheese
• ½ cup egg substitute
• 2 teaspoons all purpose flour
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 2 ounces Havarti cheese
• fresh dill
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Chop shrimp into bite sized pieces
2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat
3. Add shrimp and cook until you’re sure it’s cooked
4. Combine cream cheese and ¼ cup of egg substitute in a mixing bowl
5. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended
6. Add flour and beat one minute minute
7. Add remaining egg substitute and milk and beat until mixed
8. Stir in shrimp, Havarti cheese, dill and salt
9. Pour mixture into crust
10. Bake at 375° for 40 minutes (or until set)

crossposted from King Rat.

The French Leek Pie I made for Pie Night was gone in 11 minutes. It was super easy to make. I used the French Leek Pie recipe at allrecipes.com, with some minor adaptations.

• 1 pie crust
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 3 leeks
• 1 pinch salt (to taste)
• 1 pinch pepper (to taste)
• 1 cup cream
• 1 1/4 cup shredded Gruyere cheese (more or less)

1. preheat oven to 375°
2. grate the Gruyere
3. chop the leeks
4. melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat
5. add leeks
6. cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, or until soft
7. reduce heat to low
8. add salt and pepper
9. stir in cream and shredded Gruyere cheese
10. heat on low until mixture is warmed through
11. pour mixture into the pie shell
12. bake for 30 minutes, or until the custard is set and golden on top

crossposted from King Rat.

Back to cooking some new things for me. This one is based off a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Casseroles (page 105 if you care). Other than the soup, little else is pre-made.

The recipe calls for frozen or fresh medium shrimp, but I prefer smaller shrimp in dishes. So I got canned since I didn’t see any of the small shrimp in the freezer. The downside is there’s a lot of salt in canned shrimp. I figure boiling the shrimp removes some of the salt though. I also avoided the condensed soup in the recipe because the only condensed version of cream of celery at Whole Foods was super high in salt. If I remember correctly, it was about 33% U.S. R.D.A. per serving. So I got an uncondensed kind and used a little bit more. It was pretty thick stuff, so I only increased the amount used by a couple of ounces over the book’s recipe. I bought bread made in store, which unfortunately doesn’t list the sodium content. It is the third ingredient on the list though. I’m thinking the sodium I don’t know about in the bread is balanced somewhat by the amount of sodium taken out by boiling the shrimp.

• 12 oz. canned shrimp (1980 mg sodium)
• 1 celery stalk
• ½ large onion
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• about 12 ounces creamy celery soup (720 mg sodium)
• ¼ cup milk (32 mg sodium)
• ½ teaspoon sage
• ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
• dash of pepper
• 2 eggs
• 10 oz. crusty bread loaf

1. Cut bread into cubes/small chunks
2. Bake bread at 350° for 15 to 25 minutes to dry it out/firm it up
3. Boil shrimp for about 3 minutes (if fresh/frozen, until they are opaque)
4. Chop the celery
5. Chop the onion
6. Cook celery and onion in butter until tender (can use the same as the shrimp)
7. Add soup, milk, sage, thyme (crush first), and pepper
8. Beat eggs
9. Add eggs to the concoction
10. Mix well
11. Fold in bread chunks
12. Fold in shrimp
13. Transfer to 1.5 quart casserole dish
14. Bake covered for 30 minutes at 350°
15. Bake uncovered for 15 minutes.
16. Let it cool.

Pretty tasty is the result. About 4 servings. About 690 mg sodium per serving, done my way.

Also, now I know basically how to make stuffing. Can’t say it tastes a whole lot better than boxed though, which is cheaper. This has less salt. Without the shrimp the price might be comparable and the salt in this really a lot less.

And yeah, I know I’ve been harping on the salt a lot lately. It’s been one year today since my grandfather died, and I’m basically of the opinion that a high salt diet was the proximate cause of his heart attacks in the last year. The doctors told him on a couple of E.R. visits that salt intake was what caused his shortness of breath that prompted the 911 call. Can’t know what would have been; without the salt it might have been just as bad. Still, I owe it to myself to make these changes now rather than when I have heart problems at 83.

crossposted from King Rat.

I promised to write about what I cook in an effort to cook more. But I didn’t promise this would be stuff you’d want to eat.

The recipe comes from the Better Homes & Gardens Biggest Book of Casseroles. It turned out pretty tasty, though a little saltier than I was expecting. I should find out if any of the local butchers do a low salt bulk sausage. Doctor told me I was to watch my salt. I don’t like to be rigid about it, but seeing Gramps ingest salt licks when he was supposed to watch his salt too, and end up in the hospital for it, has been illuminating.

Recipe is how I made it, not exactly how it is in the cookbook.

• 1 lb. bulk sausage
• ½ small onion
• 3 cups crisp rice cereal
• ¼ cup rice
• 4 ounces cheddar cheese
• 1 can cream of celery soup
• 3 eggs
• ¼ cup soy milk
• 1½ teaspoons butter

1. Cook rice.
2. Chop the onion.
3. Shred the cheese.
4. Grease a 2 quart casserole dish.
5. Pre-heat the oven to 325°.
6. Cook sausage and onion over medium heat.
7. Combine 2½ cups of the cereal with the rice.
8. Spread the rice mix on the bottom of the casserole dish.
9. Spread sausage and onion over the rice.
10. Spread the cheese over the sausage.
11. Mix the soup, eggs, and soy milk.
12. Pour eggs etc. over everything else.
13. Melt the butter.
14. Mix butter with last ½ cup of cereal.
15. Sprinkle cereal over the top of the casserole.
16. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes.

Cheesy sausage and rice bake

Edited to add: Daniel suggests in the comments on LJ that most of the salt comes from the soup. Not exactly true, though that is biggest single contributor of sodium. I’m pretty good about checking sodium content of the foods I buy and got the cream of celery soup that had the lowest sodium content of any of that kind of soup at Fred Meyer.

Here’s the sodium contributions to this dish, taken from the nutrition labels:

crossposted from King Rat.

I made this soup last week when I was staying over at my grandparents’ place. Gramps is supposed to be on a cardiac diet, so most boxed meals and canned soups are out. But soup made from scratch can be prepared without salt frequently, so I brought over The Ultimate Soup Bible to pick through. Nothing too fancy, cause my grandparents aren’t fancy eaters. And with a small kitchen and old equipment, I wouldn’t be able to complete a lot of fancy steps.

Recipe is what I made, not what’s in the book.

• 6 tablespoons margarine (I would have used butter, but that’s what they have)
• 1 medium leek
• ¾ teaspoon fresh ginger
• ¾ cup unsweetened almond butter
• 1 medium carrot
• ½ cup frozen peas
• 1½ cup frozen cooked chicken
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 1 cup cream

1. Melt the margarine in a dutch oven kind of pan
2. Chop the leek
3. Chop the ginger
4. Sauté the leek and ginger until it turns soft
5. Lower heat
6. Chop the carrot
7. Add almond butter, carrot, peas, and chicken, and ½ cup of water
8. Cook until everything is cooked/not frozen
9. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes
10. Transfer mixture to blender
11. Add 1½ cups water
12. Process for about 90 seconds
13. Pour back into pan
14. Bring to boil while stirring
15. Lower heat
16. Stir in cream
17. Stir in chopped cilantro

This was super super tasty.

I took this recipe for a carmelized onion tart from The Pie and Pastry Bible and modified it a bit to make it a bit easier. I don’t own a tart shell, so I just used a shallow pie plate. I also didn’t use any of the fancier pie crust recipes the author suggested. Just a plain old whole wheat pastry flour, unsalted butter, and chilled water pie crust. As always, recipe below is what I did, not exactly what’s in the cookbook.

• Single shell pie crust
• 1 egg white
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 6 medium sweet onions
• ½ teaspoon sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon black pepper
• 3 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme
• ½ ounce Gruyère cheese
• pitted Manzanilla olives

1. Pre-bake the pie crust
2. Lightly beat egg white
3. While still warm, brush the crust with egg white
4. Peel and thinly slice onions
5. In skillet, heat the olive oil and butter over low heat
6. Add onions
7. Sprinkle onions with sugar, salt, and pepper
8. Cover and cook without stirring on lowest possible heat 45 minutes
9. Shred Gruyère cheese finely
10. Preheat oven to 400°
11. Raise heat on onions to medium
12. Stir and cook onions until all liquid has evaporated and they are golden
13. Turn heat to low
14. Add garlic and thyme
15. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes
16. Fill pie shell with onion mixture
17. Sprinkle with Gruyère cheese
18. Place olives on top
19. Bake for 20 minutes or so (until cheese is melted and top is brown)

The result was heavenly. Several folks told me it was the best of the 20 or so pies we had at the last Pie Night. It might become one of my staple pies. Easy to make and so very very tasty.

Originally published at King Rat. You can comment here or there.

A couple of months ago, I tried out a pastitsio recipe in the Better Homes & Gardens Biggest Book of Casseroles. Looking at the index, I realized the cookbook had a different recipe for pastitsio 60 pages earlier. That’s my one gripe about the cookbook; it doesn’t group similar recipes very well. There’s five or six mac and cheese recipes scattered throughout. Why not put them all together? Anyhow, the other pastitsio recipe had fewer pre-made ingredients, so I decided I would try it. It’s better.

The following is my attempt.

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 large onion
• 8 ounce can tomato sauce
• ¼ cup sherry
• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
• 8 ounces uncooked penne pasta
• 4 eggs
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¹/₈ teaspoon black pepper
• 1½ cups milk
• 1 cup shredded Romano cheese

1. Chop onion
2. Cook beef and onion until meat is browned and onion is tender
3. Drain
4. Add tomato sauce, sherry, and cinnamon to meat and onions
5. Heat until bubbling
6. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes
7. Cook penne pasta according to directions
8. Lightly beat 2 eggs
9. Toss cooked pasta with eggs and 2 tablespoons of butter
10. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat
11. Stir in flour, salt and pepper until smooth
12. Add milk (slowly)
13. Cook until mixture is thick
14. Lightly beat 2 eggs
15. Stir mixture into the eggs
16. (make sure meat, pasta, and sauce are all finished)
17. Preheat oven to 350°
18. Grease a 3 quart casserole dish
19. Spread half the pasta in dish
20. Spread half the meat sauce over the pasta
21. Spread ¹/₃ of the cheese over the pasta
22. Spread remaining pasta on top of cheese
23. Spread remaining meat sauce over the pasta
24. Spread ¹/₃ of the cheese over the pasta
25. Pour white sauce evenly over cheese
26. Spread remaining cheese on top
27. Cover and bake for 20 minutes
28. Remove cover and bake for additional 15 minutes
29. Let stand for 15 minutes to cool and set

Originally published at King Rat. You can comment here or there.