Category / recipes

by princesshotflash

I’m late

I hope your holidays were festive and fun. I did start off trying to post this before Christmas. But I got stuck and decided to stop. I started a new post about what I made and thought I could combine this post and my made post. Well, it didn’t happen. I’m back at it again. I wanted to share what I made.

I had a late start with my Christmas baking and spent a few days catching up. I initially thought I was going down the cookie route, but I turned to a few old favorites to share this year.

A Savory Bake

I used my favorite quiche recipe, Caramelized Onions and Zucchini Quiche. It was always a hit at my office parties. I had all the ingredients (well, almost) and had enough to make two. I used this quiche recipe from One Perfect Bite as my base. I tend to make it cheesier than the recipe calls for, and I ran out of milk, so I added heavy cream (how could that hurt it, haha).

Three Pears

I was going through old posts and realized I’ve been making this tart every year since we received a gift of Harry and David pears for the holidays. These were the last of the pears of this year’s gift. I kept them till they were very ripe and juicy. I found this recipe on the Chowhound forum years ago, but the link doesn’t take you to the recipe. I decided to add the recipe below the pictures. The tart is a combination of tart/cake. The juiciness of the pears creates a custard-like quality with the batter. Perfectly sweet.

Laurie’s Pear Tart

The recipe was originally found on the Chowhound forum from Gallery Girl

Ingredients:
4 or so ripe, juicy pears, peeled, cored, and cut into sixths or eighths
1 stick butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Spray an 8-inch (important) spring form pan with Pam.

In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer. Add the eggs one at a time. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Incorporate it into the wet mixture.

Spread the batter into the pan. Now, in a pinwheel pattern, press the slices of pear, peeled side up, into the batter. Cram in as many as you can; since the batter rises and covers the pears, there are no points for style here. The more pears, the moister the cake will be.

Bake until a skewer comes out clean, about an hour. If you have any doubts, UNDERBAKE. This is a whole different animal if it dries out. Then it’s just a cake. Correctly done, you’ll love it. It’s just one of those recipes that is greater than the sum of its parts. really.

Sweet Potato Manju

Moving back home and becoming a caregiver for my parents made me want to make food that they loved, and I’m slowly learning to love, too. A lot of these foods are what I had as a kid. Probably, my taste palette wasn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate their deliciousness. Or what tell everyone, I didn’t like them before, I thought they were old lady food. But now that I’m an old lady, I love them. haha.

One of these foods that I now love is manju. Manju is a Japanese confection. It’s like a filled mochi or biscuit. Unlike mochi, the dough is made with wheat flour instead of rice. The filling is a sweetened paste made out of beans or sweet potato. I found this recipe for sweet potato manju from Keeping It Relle. And have kept it on the side waiting for the right moment to make it.

In my utter craze of holiday baking, I forgot to document one of the bakes (Sweet Potato Haupia pie) that led me to finally make this Manju recipe. I made too much potato and needed to do something with it. Ta Dah! I wish I could say what it tastes like, but my two roommates ate the last three pieces. But everyone I received it said it was good. The key to this recipe is to measure the filling and dough before you start. Both the dough and filling are very sticky. And it helps keep the manju clean and tidy.

by princesshotflash

Fav Pics: Grilled Tomato Salsa

Veggies on the grill.

I haven’t posted one of these in a while. I’m still cleaning out my images. Lots of memories make it hard to eliminate. I decided to post this grouping as I just made this recipe and remembered how easy and delicious it was. This salsa is versatile. I made it for the chips that I bought, but it is also excellent on eggs, salads, fish . . . etc.

I can’t find the recipe initially used, but it is so easy and versatile to your taste. Here’s the list of ingredients and what I did for my recent batch.

  • Tomatoes, sliced in half–for the last batch I made I use about six medium size tomatoes, locally grown
  • Bell peppers, sliced in half, deseed–I use the mini peppers, about six, what I had in my refrigerator
  • Round onions, sliced in half–two large
  • Garlic–four cloves
  • Serrano peppers-two, could use more if like hot or use spicer peppers
  • Green onions-didn’t use because I didn’t have any in my fridge
  • Cilantro to taste
  • Lime–I use local lemon to taste
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

I placed all the ingredients, except cilantro and lime, on a baking sheet, cut side up. Placing them cut side up captures the juices they produce during the cooking process. I set the oven at 400º and cooked for about 30 minutes. Veggies should be charred but not burnt to a crisp. (my veggies were a bit more burnt than I wanted)

*Note: after grilling, remove the root from the scallions, seeds from the bell peppers, and stems and seeds from serranos (if you like it hot, leave the seed in)

Placed the grilled veggies in the food processor or blender and process till pureed. Depending on your food processor or blender, you may have to do it in two batches. Add coarsely chopped cilantro, lime (or lemon) juice, salt, and pepper to taste. The recent batch made about a quart and a half of salsa.

Four quarts from NJ tomatoes

If you use a grill, this salsa takes on a smokey quality. This recipe is worth trying, and it makes a lot to share. Enjoy!

by princesshotflash

Our Happy Thanksgiving Menu

As a three seniors (60+) family, it is hard to find a small turkey that we wouldn’t be eating for the next month. Plus, I found out my mom doesn’t like turkey. What! Who doesn’t like turkey? Well, in my life, this makes two. Oat tolerated it for my love of turkey, and now it’s my mom. Huh!

Dad’s annual Thanksgiving drawing. Loves to draw on newspaper. #jo1drawings

With no help from the parental units, I came up with the menu of shrimp tempura, veggie tempura, and mom’s famous pumpkin shortbread.

Mom’s eyes are close but it’s the only shot of the table: shrimp tempura, eggplant, veggie tempura; Okinawan sweet potato, Hamakua mushroom, three types of tsukemono (Japanese pickles by me), black sesame tofu with ume salt, black soybean natto with shoyu koji

Everyone loves mom’s pumpkin pie even people who hate pumpkin pie. It’s the combination of the creamy custard and the slightly sweet shortbread cookie crust. I have fiddled with this recipe over the years, changing the pan shape and size, using sweet potato, and even trying it with a regular pie crust (not the best). My sweet potato pie is based of this recipe. Here’s my adjusted version.

The corners are the best with it’s caramel edges

Mom’s Famous Pumpkin Shortbread–adjusted

makes 9 x 13 pan, roughly 20 pieces
Pre-heat oven 425º

Crust*

  • 3 c flour
  • 1/2 c sugar
  • 1 c cold butter, cut into small pieces

Prep pan with a light coat of non-stick spray, be sure to get the sides. Mix flour and sugar, cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, till a sandy texture. Press flour mixture into the pan, slightly up the sides. Refrigerate crust while you mix up the filling.

Filling

  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 1 t salt
  • Large can of pumpkin about 3 1/2 cups**
  • 1 1/2 c sugar
  • 1 t cinnamon***
  • 1 t ground ginger***
  • 1/2 t grounded cloves***
  • 3 1/2 c evaporated milk
  • 1 t vanilla

Combine all the filling ingredients, making sure it is blended well. 

Pour the filling into the crust—Bake at 425º for 20 minutes. Turn down the oven to 350º and bake for 55 minutes or when the toothpick comes out clean. 

*If you want to use the springform pan instead of the 9×13 pan, half the crust amounts. The baking time will differ because it has a thicker filling. It has a longer bake time at 350, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Test with a toothpick. The center shouldn’t be jiggly. Cool to room temp. Then put in the refrigerator to set.

** I’ve used both can and roasted pumpkin for this pie. The differences would be you can control the caramelization, chunkiness, and you will have pumpkin seeds to roast up as a snack. My preferred pumpkin is Kabocha because of its smooth texture.

*** I use my spice mix. Here are the proportions: 1 t cinnamon and ground ginger, 1/2 t ground cloves, 1/4 t nutmeg. I mix up a large batch and keep it in a small jar in the spice cabinet. I used 3 t of the mix in the pie. You also can use it in apple pie, oatmeal, or whatever suits your fancy.

by princesshotflash

What do you have in your pantry?

Quick post on pandemic baking at my house. I had box of brownie and cream cheese in refrigerator. So I made cream cheese brownies.

This is what a designer does when she where down a recipe and instruction.

Finally product. Fast and easy. Next time I’ll leave it in a couple minutes longer to make bottom firmer. Maybe next time, I’ll bake something from scratch.

by princesshotflash

Cooking for the folks

I’m trying to be creative with meals that I cook for folks. Something that fit all of their food requirements-dad diabetic, mom on blood thinner. I think I got dad’s requirements but mom’s are harder. For not it’s it’s bit of trial and error. They are going to see the dr in October and we will find out how well I’m doing.

So the first meal was chili with black beans, sweet potatoes and corn. This week was a vegan spicy lentil soup. I didn’t make it because it was vegan I made it because it is so delicious.

I made this soup once before for my friends that came and help me packing and purging. It was so delicious. This time I didn’t have that great curry powder I used but I did buy garam masala so I use that instead. It was a success. They like the spices. Dad even ate a lot of it. I sauteed kale with garlic on the side so mom didn’t have to have it.

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added carrots and sweet potatoes

Update on the cats: they are getting used to their new environment. They have found their way up on the ledge in the kitchen. Ollie sleeps up there daily.

And here’s an extra picture of the boys, just because.

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