Figuring out what to cook for dinner during summer in the South can be difficult at times. I definitely don't want to be slaving over a hot stove but I don't want to turn my oven on and make the kitchen even hotter than it is, either. This summer I decided to try some recipes that are an alternative to the stove/cooktop. This month I'm relying on my slow-cooker, air fryer, and breadmaker.
These were good; however, the peppers were a bit "soggy". I don't know what you could do to keep them from getting that way. Would I make them again? Yep; I wouldn't change anything unless I could figure out a way to have the peppers keep some crispness. Leave your ideas in the comments!
Air Fryer Roasted Vegetables. I used mushrooms, onions, a red bell pepper, and squash. I sprinkled the veggies with Greek Seasoning. I sprinkled some feta cheese on top and cooked for about 5 more minutes. These got a 👍 from MS so I'll definitely make them again.
Ziti in the slow cooker? Absolutely! The pictures are from the second time I made it. Definitely make sure you add the tomato sauce! The first time I made it I didn't have any in my pantry so I thought, What difference is 15 oz. of tomato sauce going make? Answer: a TON of difference. It was much better the second time! And it makes quite a bit so I froze half of it and we had it for supper the next week.
Last slow cooker meal: Spicy Mongolian Beef and Pineapple. CH & I aren't real fond of warm pineapple, but there was just enough to not cause us to turn our noses. This is another recipe that I made the month before as a kind of trial run; this one was better...a little spicier. I'm not a fan of real spicy foods but this was just the right amount of spice.
Now for the breadmaker trials! I didn't make suppers in them but it was great for making breads I usually use the oven for.
I'm trying to perfect Irish Brown Soda Bread. I think I've almost got it. I used a traditional recipe my SIL sent me that she received from a B&B in Northern Ireland so I can't post that recipe. MS said it tasted too "grainy" so I'm going to try 1:3 ratio of Irish flour to all-purpose flour and see if that makes a difference. It definitely needs the wholemeal flour in it. This recipe is very close to the one I received from my SIL. I didn't use the breadmaker to mix the ingredients but I did use it to bake the bread.
I tried making banana bread in the breadmaker before (see From My Kitchen: January 2022 ) but this recipe was better. I made sure to scrape the sides of the pan while the batter was mixing to decrease the amount of flour that didn't get completely mixed in. Putting the settings on the right loaf size helped as well. This recipe was interesting because it used a bit of buttermilk in it. I think I've found a keeper with this recipe from Tasty Oven.
Okay, this is one thing that I never make in the oven! I don't like to chance that the dough isn't going to rise so I use the no-fail breadmaker recipe. I thought the loaf turned out beautifully using King Arthur Flour's Bread Machine Bread- Easy As Can Be.
How do you beat the heat when it's too hot to turn on the oven? This past month was pretty successful; I'll try all of these recipes again.
December means Christmas, so of course, this post is going to include be about a sweet recipe. I seriously scaled down my baking and candy-making this year. I only made 1 batch of Texas Millionaires and that was for my next-door neighbor who supplies pecans for the purpose of being gifted a batch. I made a couple of batches of Eggnog Bread, with gluten this year and an Apple Cake for Christmas Eve Dessert. A couple of days before Christmas, I had a craving for bakery cookies. The problem is, there is no bakery in the Small Town. There used to be one that had amazing cookies (but the King Cake was a huge disappointment) but every time I've driven by it appears to be closed.
I have a huge problem with cut-out sugar cookies. I can never roll the dough out evenly and I can't tell how thick it's supposed to be. I found a recipe a few years ago that I used to make cookies for the goody bags for my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary, but they aren't "bakery cookies". They are really good, but not what I was looking for.
A search for "bakery sugar cookies recipe" gave me exactly what I wanted. The Best Sugar Cookies really are! I used the trick that I outlined in the post about my in-laws' cookies, but I'll share it again:
2 craft sticks that are 1/4 inch are perfect. Just lay 2 down and put the dough in between, cover with parchment paper, and put the rolling pin on the sticks.
Then roll away and you have dough that is the perfect thickness. And it's even! Well, as long as the rolling pin doesn't slip or you have too much dough for the length of the sticks. I halved the dough and then rolled, so it worked well.
If you try these cookies, make sure you follow the steps exactly. The main thing is to roll out the dough, then refrigerate. I think I only messed up 1 cookie after cutting it out, and it was because I wasn't sure which of my cookie cutters to use. After that, it was clear sailing. I put rum flavoring in this batch but I couldn't really taste it.
The finished product:
The icing part of the recipe says to omit the vanilla flavoring for "stark white" frosting, but I put it in and the cookies were still "stark white" in my opinion.
The cookies were such a hit that I made another batch for New Year's Eve. For this batch, I put in maple flavoring and they were delicious. I could definitely taste the difference between the ones I made the week before. While not many comments were made on the Christmas cookies, MS & YS and YS' GF all raved about how good these were.
The New Year's Cookies:
Only 1 cookie made it past midnight!
These cookies were so easy to make, they just took a little bit of time since the dough needs to stay in the fridge for a minimum of 1-2 hours. I kept mine in for 2 hours which was perfect. I used the "easy cookie frosting" because, well, it was definitely easier and I didn't want a "fail" on the cookies! The frosting dried in a couple of hours although the recipe says they take around 24.
Do you have a go-to cookie recipe? If so, is it easy and quick or time-consuming?
Our household has changed a lot over the past year. All of our sons have moved back home during the year (not at the same time), and then a couple moved out. MS, who lived in LA for the past few years, moved home and brought his palate with him. One of the recipes he brought to me is Chicken Pad Thai.
Granted, that isn't the best presentation, but I can tell you that it tastes amazing. I found the recipe on Cooking Classy. While Jaclyn admits this is not the "traditional" Pad Thai, it uses common ingredients found in all grocery stores. The hardest thing to find would be bean sprouts. If you've never bought them, they can be found in the refrigerated section of the produce department. We've made this dish twice and haven't put bean sprouts in them. The first time we forgot we had them and the second time I forgot to put them on my list. No matter; since I don't know what it tastes like with them, they weren't missed.
I need to note that in the above picture, I didn't use the right kind of rice noodles. I bought the angel hair noodles, but you need thicker noodles. MS also put in some "Slap ya mama" seasoning which added the slightest kick. MS couldn't taste it, but I detected a trace. Word of warning: if you try this seasoning and aren't a fan of spicy, use sparingly.
Chicken Pad Thai is a quick dinner. Chopping the vegetables was the most time-consuming part of the recipe. This is definitely going on our meal rotation.
The title of this post says April & May (because I didn't get April's post out), but I actually made this dish at the end of March. I've never made a lot of fish; hardly any except for the frozen kind! This recipe was given to me by a kind seafood employee at my local Publix. I had it on my phone for a couple of years but didn't try it. Hoisin Sauce? What in the world? I decided to pull it out and try it after YS introduced CH to hoisin and he really liked it.
This recipe was so easy to make. Not only that, but I had dinner on the table in no time. (Click on the recipe to print.)
The man said it goes great over a chef salad and suggested sprinkling some charcoal volcano salt over it. I didn't have time to search for the salt so I didn't use it. I wouldn't change a thing about this recipe! It was absolutely delicious!
I stuck to the shrimp recipe, and it turned out great; there isn't anything I would change. I'm not a spicy-lover and these were borderline too spicy for me, but YS & CH really enjoyed it.
In the recipe, Sylvia (from Feasting at Home) added Cuban Black Beans, but keeping with my diet of watching carbs, I opted not to make them. We have a Cuban restaurant in town that has amazing Cuban sandwiches and their black beans & rice are to die for. Needless to say, I haven't had them in about a year (when I started seriously watching my carbs).
I used the corn/flour tortillas she suggested; I had no idea there was such a thing, but they did hold up much better than regular corn or flour ones.
The Cabbage Mango Slaw was just amazing. I bought a package of shredded cabbage and a can of mangos ('cause it's so much easier than trying to cut up a mango!). I forgot to add the jalapeno (oops!), so I'm not sure if that would have added anything more to it or not. It definitely didn't need it.
This recipe is definitely a keeper. I used 1 pound of shrimp and was able to feed 4 people without anyone going away hungry.
Do you cook fish? If so, please share your favorite recipes!
This is more of an update than a new recipe. Last month I tried Flatbread Mexican Pizza. If you recall, I wasn't too crazy about the flatbread. I knew I could improve on it! The second time I made it, I still used Mama Mary's, but I used the thin crust pizza. It was much better, but when I used Boboli thin crust, it was even better.
Here's what I did differently:
Used 1 thin crust instead of flatbread
Used 2 packages of taco seasoning (This resulted in more of a taco taste than just 1 packet)
Added a layer of salsa over the refried beans
Used 1 pound of ground beef
Used Chipotle Ranch dressing instead of the salsa/sour cream mixture
I think I've found the right combination of everything. I probably don't need to use the entire pound of ground beef. The last time I made it (using the Boboli thin crust) it was piled pretty high and was more like a pie instead of a pizza! I didn't have any complaints from CH or YS, though!
I'm also not sure how much the refried beans actually add, except to add more carbs & calories. I'm going to try to leave that off next time and see if it gets noticed. I have a sneaky suspicion it won't.
Do you have a recipe that you have modified that is a family favorite? If so, please share!
I get tired of making the same thing for supper week after week. I was actually diagnosed with Diabetes a few years ago but was in denial until last June when my A1C was high and my then-doctor prescribed another medication. I took 2 doses and after my sugar bottomed out, I stopped taking it and promptly changed doctors. As a result, I've dropped 40 pounds but more importantly, my A1C dropped 1.6 and is now considered within normal limits (with continued medication). Finding good healthy recipes that we actually like is a bit of a challenge.
I tried a couple of new recipes this month. I found both of them through Six Sisters Stuff; they rarely steer me wrong.
CH really likes Taco Pizza but the only place we have found that has a good one is Pizza Inn. When we were on our way to Canada, the place we stopped for the night had a Pizza Inn close by so we had that for supper. It wasn't exactly the way we remembered it, but it was good. When I saw this recipe for Easy Flatbread Mexican Pizza, I had to try it.
Overall, CH & YS liked it. I used Mama Mary's flatbread crust, and I wasn't crazy about the taste. It was quick and easy. I'll definitely keep this one. Keeping my exchanges in mind, I only ate half of one. Since the flatbread is thin and was the only carb, I just watched how much I ate. Half was more than enough!
What I'll change:
2 taco seasoning packets instead of 1. It didn't have a lot of taco taste.
Use a thin crust or make my own. Six Sisters suggest this flatbread recipe, but if you want to make 4, the recipe would have to be doubled.
Use a chipotle ranch dressing instead of the salsa/sour cream combination. Or, if using the combination, only use half of the sour cream indicated.
I used Aidell's Chicken Apple Sausage and we were pleased with the taste. I only used half of the carrots the recipe called for because they aren't my favorite. But...they still had a little bit of crunch to them after being baked so they were okay.
What I'll do differently next time:
Mix everything together in a bowl and then transfer it to a pan. It was really hard to mix everything on the sheet, and I ended up tearing the foil.
Double the sausage...it was that good!
Possibly add fresh mushrooms
What recipes have you tried this month that are "keepers"?
I can't let the holidays close out without talking about holiday food! At my house, we have traditional food that has to be made every year. What is a Christmas Eve Dinner without caramelized potatoes? Here's a run-down of the Cooper Holiday Food. (Get ready for a LOT of links!)
If you've been around here before, you'll know that I used to make quite a bit of cookies & candy around the holidays. (See picture above.) I've really toned down the volume. I only made 1 kind of cookie: the boys call them "air cookies" but they're really "crinkle cookies". They are super easy and only have 4 ingredients: spice cake mix, 2 eggs, 8 oz. cool whip, and powdered sugar. Just mix the first 3 ingredients and put them in the freezer for about an hour. Get a cookie scoop full of dough, roll it in powdered sugar, and place it on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. I use my Pampered Chef pizza stone because cookies are amazing when baked on them! Bake in a 350-degree oven for 8 to 12 minutes, depending on how big your cookies are. You can tell when they are done because they won't look "wet". Make sure you take them off of the pan as soon as they are out of the oven and transfer them to a cooling rack.
I made 3 batches (or was it 4?) of eggnog bread and tried making gluten-free eggnog bread. Everyone declared it a success! These little breads are perfect to give away to neighbors or friends as gifts.
The GF loaves are on the bottom. I think they actually look better than the regular. They were denser and had a very good taste. All I did to make them GF was use King Arthur Gluten-Free Measure for Measure Flour and make sure all of the other ingredients were GF.
No Christmas is complete around the house without a couple of batches of Texas Millionaires. My next-door neighbor always brings a bag of pecans to make sure they get a batch.
I also made chocolate covered cherries. They aren't the easiest things to make, by any means. It's not that they're difficult, they'll just try your patience! It requires painting the chocolate over the mold so the "juice" doesn't seep through. Even though they're a bear to make, I can't eat a Queen Anne's chocolate-covered cherry anymore!
And peanut butter fudge...Oh My! My favorite way to eat them is out of the pot while it's still warm. I had been exceptionally good with not eating sugar until then. It was totally worth it! The only other thing I made was peanut butter cups. YS made most of those...he took the easy way out; they're a lot easier to make than chocolate-covered cherries.
Christmas Eve Dinner consisted of ham, broccoli casserole, rolls, cranberry sauce (it's more of a chutney...YS makes it and it is delish!), and caramelized potatoes. To keep with the Danish tradition with a Southern USA twist to it, I make pistachio pudding (because CH doesn't like rice pudding) and put a pecan in 1 of the dishes (instead of the traditional almond). Whoever gets the dish with the pecan wins a prize.
One thing I haven't done the past couple of years is baked a cake for dessert. The last time I did I came home from our camping trip to a complete cake that hadn't been touched. I wised up this year and made a Danish Apple Cake. I'm not sure if it's really Danish, but my MIL gave me the recipe a long time ago, and I believe her mother gave her the recipe. At least, the original was written in Danish so I'm calling it a Danish Apple Cake. Before I put the glaze on it, I cut it in half and put one half in the freezer. I used the same recipe for the glaze as I did for the eggnog bread, which means there is rum in it. BUT...instead of using spiced rum, I used Satsuma Rum from Bayou Rum. It blended perfectly!
Christmas Day Brunch is always sausage links with a maple syrup/cinnamon combination, eggs, and Holiday Eggnog French Toast. (This was a recipe from McCormick but it's no longer on their website.) This is the first year I baked the toast in a 9x13 pan instead of a large aluminum foil pan. It actually turned out much better.
For the eggs this year, I saw a YouTube video on making crustless quiche in the air fryer. I didn't have the ramekins, so I ordered some on Amazon and they made it to the house quickly. They were incredibly easy to make. The only thing is that each one took about 10 minutes to make and there were 5 people here. The air fryer is only big enough to make one at a time, so I made one, put it in the oven on "warm", and kept going until all 5 were made. They were delicious. Next year, I will make them in the oven instead. These would be really good to make for a brunch for 2. Ham, bacon, or sausage would also be excellent in there, as long as it didn't make them greasy.
If you're interested, the video is below. Just a heads up: I tried the grilled cheese & CH & I decided it was easier to just use the panini maker.
That's it for the Holiday Food wrap-up for 2020. What was on your plate this year?
I don't know how you feel about preparing your dinner menus ahead of time, but I find that it's a time & money saver. I started doing this when my boys were little. I've never been one that could walk into a grocery store, know what I needed for the week/month, and walk out with everything I need minus anything that catches my eye. I prepare a menu biweekly, make my grocery list, and hit the store every 2 weeks for "major groceries". There are times, however, when I get tired of fixing the same thing for dinner and decide to try new recipes.
Unfortunately, almost all of the recipes I've tried lately haven't worked out for me. Let me know if you tried any of these and if you modified them, what you did.
If at first you don't succeed...
The Pioneer Woman's recipes are usually very good, but this one missed the mark. CH wanted a chili recipe to take to a friend's for Halloween (they had a chili cook-off). A friend suggested this recipe and it sounded just like what CH was looking for. The recipe was easy enough, and we were able to fix it on the camp stove while we were camping at a state park near CH's friend's house.
It made a LOT. When we arrived at the friend's house, the MIL came in late (just as the judging was supposed to start) but then she insisted that the judging hold off for a while until she was ready. This recipe has masa in it (used to make tortillas), so when it sits, it thickens. It also has a lot of beans (the original recipe has a total of 8 cans of beans) so that didn't help things either. By the time the judges had any, it was pure mush and not appealing to the eye at all.
Looks good, doesn't it?
I wanted to give it another try with just a few modifications: I only put in 1 can of both kinds of beans but kept the meat as specified and added a can of Rotel instead of the tomatoes. I also cut down on the masa and prepared in the slow cooker. I browned the meat first, then put all of the ingredients in the slow cooker, except for the masa, which was added an hour before we ate. I was really disappointed in the taste. I'm not a picky eater, but I won't be making this again. I'm going to go back to my old "stand-by" for chili from now on.
It's a Southern Thang...
How many of you like "Breakfast for Dinner"? We don't have it very often, but it was a last minute decision right before I went to the grocery store, partly because I found a recipe that sounded promising in my Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House Cookbook: Garlic Cheese Grits Casserole. Even though I'm Southern born and have never lived out of the Southeast U.S., I don't recall ever buying grits. (CH said I did, but I'm not sure I believe him.)
I bought the grits and tried out the recipe. I actually thought it was really good and was pleased with how it turned out. In fact, I will probably make this again.
It was a bit much for the 2 of us & I wasn't sure if it was "freezable". Since the recipe came out of a cookbook and I couldn't find the recipe online by Miss Mary Bobo's, I am not going to share it. BUT...I found this recipe that was very similar; the only difference is that Miss Mary Bobo's uses 4 eggs instead of 1, 1 1/2 cups of processed cheese (I used sharp cheddar instead), and it is baked for 1 hour.
Well, it kinda worked!
The best part about Steak with Beer Sauce and Sweet Potatoes was the sweet potatoes. The steak was way too messy to cook as directed; oil splattered everywhere and there was quite a bit to clean up. Yeah, I probably didn't do something right, but I followed the recipe exactly as it read. I'll definitely keep the recipe for the sweet potatoes but cook the steak some other way. The beer sauce didn't add anything to the steak, but that's my opinion. Andouille and Chicken Jambalaya was another recipe that I'll save and fix again. I'm not a fan of spicy so I wasn't sure how I would like the andouille. It was just enough spice to give it an "oomph" but not so much that my mouth burned. Just right for me.
Worth another try...or another recipe
The last attempt to find new recipes was Copy Cat Panera Bread Broccoli Cheese Soup. We like to eat soup when it's cold, and I love McAlister's broccoli cheese soup. Maybe that's where I went wrong: I thought it would taste the same. This recipe had way too much cheese in it. If I tried it again I would half the cheese and run the soup through the blender/food processor before I served it. It was very thick and honestly, not that good with all of the cheese in it. Don't get me wrong: I love cheese, but it was just too much.
Along with the soup, I made some bread that is supposed to be perfect for grilled cheese. I tried it and had to add about 2 Tablespoons of milk to the dough because it didn't ball up like it should have. I'm not sure if it was because I used white wheat flour instead of bread flour, but I wouldn't have thought that would have made that much of a difference. The bread just crumbled and tasted like cornmeal. Maybe I'll try it again.
So tell me: have you tried any of these recipes? Did they work for you or did you modify them? What recipes have you tried lately that were successes?
Summer suppers in the South. It can be challenging because there's only so much grilling you can do to try to keep the heat out of the kitchen. A friend who lives in the Pacific Northwest (or maybe it was my friend in New England. Either way, she's not from around here!) asked what we fix during the summer. I don't know what everyone else does, but here's one of our favorite summer suppers.
Special thanks to MS for letting me use his plate for the picture!
I found this recipe on the Betty Crocker website, so of course, I tweaked it just a bit. It's called Layered Summer Pasta Salad. The ingredients: Romaine Lettuce, broccoli, carrots, plum tomatoes, ranch dressing, and Suddenly Salad. I just chop up some Perdue Shortcut Southwestern Chicken to make it a meal. The chicken is already cooked and in strips, so it makes it a real "shortcut"!
The Directions
First, fix the Suddenly Salad. The recipe calls for the ranch & bacon one, but personally, I prefer the Chipotle Ranch, It really doesn't matter which variety you use.
When the pasta is cooked, rinse with cold water to prevent it from cooking further.
In a bowl, mix 1 1/4 cups Ranch Dressing with the seasoning packet. Then add the pasta and the cut up chicken.
In a salad bowl, place the Romaine (or whatever greens you want), broccoli, and carrots. Add whatever veggies you want in there.
Since it's called a "layered salad", you're really supposed to layer the pasta mix on top of the green salad but we've found we like it better keeping them separate. That prevents someone from only getting the pasta...or the salad.
I slice the tomatoes and put them in a bowl.
Everyone serves themselves by layering the green salad, then pasta salad, then adding tomatoes (or bacon bits) on top.
I usually have some kind of crackers or pita crisps to go along with the salad.
There you have a quick, easy, Summer Southern Meal!
Last summer when I was in New Orleans for a conference, I had the most delectable treat (for adults). When I went to MS' graduation in Baton Rouge, I had to indulge because I haven't seen anything like it around here. It's perfect for a hot summer day, or after taking the dogs for a walk in the evenings. Do I have your attention?
Frosé. What a treat! I knew there had to be a recipe out there somewhere that wasn't too difficult, and I found it on Bon Appétit. What is Frosé? It's frozen rosé. (Duuuh!) The first time I made it I used Pinot Noir. It was good, but not quite what I had in Louisiana. For one thing (and I probably got the wrong kind...I'm definitely not a wine connoisseur!) it was dark. It was still really good and I would definitely make it again, but using a straight up rosé is where it's at!
It is time-consuming but really easy and very much worth it. I took some to a friend's house when a few friends got together & they all enjoyed it. I took the recipe on Bon Appétit & tweaked it just a tad.
First: Pour a bottle of rosé in a 9X13 pan and put it in the freezer for at least 6 hours.
Before you take it out of the freezer, boil 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar until clear. Make sure you stir it while it gets to the boiling point. It doesn't take long for the water to boil, so make sure you don't walk away!
After the water boils, take it off the heat and put in 8 ounces of cut up strawberries. Let that sit for 30 minutes on the counter. I've let it sit longer than that just to give it a little more oomph!
Strain the strawberries and put the strawberry infused syrup into a container. Put the container in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Don't throw the strawberries away...MS likes to put them over ice cream!
After the syrup has been in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, you're ready to assemble! Take the frozen rosé out of the freezer and chop it up just a little bit...enough for it to fit in a blender.
To the blender add: 1 cup of crushed ice, the simple syrup (the original recipe specified the amount but I think adding all of it makes it taste a little better), lemon or lime juice (I didn't have any lemon juice but had a bottle of Key Lime Juice...again, I didn't measure; I just put a couple of long squirts in), and the shards of rosé. Blend until well mixed.
This is my "antique" blender that we received when we got married...34 years ago! Since I took this picture, I had to throw it away (the base was cracked) and buy a new one.
Put the blender pitcher in the freezer for about 35 minutes. Take out and blend again. The site says that you can store the finished product in the freezer for 1 week. The batches I've made haven't lasted that long so I can't attest to that.
I would highly recommend this most delectable treat (for adults). If you're in the NOLA/Baton Rouge area you'll definitely want to try it. This homemade version is pretty close to what you'll get there! Cheers!
More Frosé recipes: Meet Frosé Frosé (This one is interesting...it uses grapefruit juice) Boozy Frosé (no crushed ice but includes vodka)
