Summer Salads

On Sunday for our Bookclub luncheon I made four summer salads.  Two were new recipes to me, one I had tried before (but Dan made it) and one that I had made several times before.

Quinoa, Edamame and Apple salad
http://www.food.com/recipe/quinoa-salad-with-apple-and-edamame-299847
Notes: This is one of the new recipes. I made the Quinoa in my rice cooker the day before and then refridgerated it. I didn't make any changes to the recipe but I thoght it was a little bland.

Chicken salad
http://www.food.com/recipe/chicken-grape-and-curry-salad-323653
Notes: I've made this recipe several times and it makes a lot of chicken salad. I'd recommend preparing it for a crowd or cutting the recipe in half.  This time I ommitted the soy sauce (because one of our Bookclub members is gluten-free) and the coconut (personal preference).

Antipasto Pasta Salad
http://www.food.com/recipe/antipasto-pasta-salad-155605
Notes: This is one of the new recipes. I used pepperoni instead of salami and served it on the side (one of our members is vegetarian).

Caprese salad
1/4 c. olive oil
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp dried basil or several leaves of fresh basil, sliced
5 Roma tomatoes, sliced
1 lb. fresh mozzarella, sliced into bite size pieces

Combine oil, vinegar, basil and garlic.  Pour over tomatoes and mozzarella. Refridgerate at least 3 hours before serving.

Yummy summer salad - this one is a keeper

Rice, Black Bean, and Corn Salad
Ingredients
1 cup cold cooked brown rice
1/2 cup cooked corn kernels
1/2 bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1/3 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced

Dressing
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 1/2 Tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/4 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, combine rice, corn, bell pepper, celery, beans, onion, cilantro, and jalapeno.

In a small bowl, whisk the vinegar, lime juice, oil and salt. Pour over the rice mixture and toss to coat. Refrigerate, covered, until the flavors are blended, at least 1 hour. Makes 4 servings.

PER SERVING: (scant 1 cup): 119 Cal, 4g fat, 1g Sat Fat, 0g Trans Fat, 0mg Chol, 197mg Sod., 19g Carb, 3g Fib, 3g Prot, 21mg Calc.

Lemon Pancakes with Raspberry Sauce

We bought lemons at Sam's Club recently. Nuff said.

Editor's note - this recipe leaves you with a zested lemon full of juice. I used the lemon juice to make a marinade for grilled chicken.

Pancake Ingredients
1 large egg
1 tablespoon lemon zest, grated
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
In a medium bowl, whisk together egg, lemon zest, buttermilk, brown sugar, and butter. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Stir until just combined. Cook the pancakes as you normally would. This recipe made about 8 medium pancakes - just barely enough for 4 adults. I would suggest doubling it.

Raspberry Sauce Ingredients
Frozen Raspberries (small package 16 oz?)
1/4 - 1/2 c sugar (to taste)
cornstarch
Put the frozen raspberries in a sauce pan with a little water, the sugar and cornstarch. Simmer until raspberries are broken down. Bring to a boil and reduce heat.

Do you own a crockpot?

We own two - medium and large. Dan and I both love using them - especially in the fall and winter when a hot homemade meal is that much better. Well, my friends, have I got a blog for you to check out. Stephanie is the author of (and chief cook for) "A Year of CrockPotting" I haven't tried any of her recipes yet but they look and sound delicious. And she does a great job of tagging her recipes so you can search by crockpot size and by recipe type/ingredient - see the index on the left side of her page. Today she featured John McCain's Crockpot rib recipe - tomorrow she will post Barack Obama's chili recipe.

Moth Balls, Dryer Sheets and Knee High Nylons

OK, the title of this post might seem little bizarre and certainly these things must be unrelated but all three were utilized at our house this summer to defeat a common backyard pest. Did you know we have a pear tree in our backyard? Did you know pears are Dan's favorite fruit? Last summer, the squirrels STOLE all the pears from our tree!! This year we decided to take matters into our own hands, starting with the above referenced tools. I read online that squirrels don't like the smell of moth balls and the website suggested suspending a healthy supply from several branches in knee high nylons. So, we tried that, it worked fairly well. Then we heard that dryer sheets have the same effect and they smell a lot better than moth balls. So, we tried that. Eventually we bought a BB gun. That at least allowed Dan to harvest enough pears to make some jelly. Hence the photo above. The pear jelly is in the center. The peach jelly (No, we don't have a peach tree in our backyard) is on the right and the peach/rum jelly is on the left.

Once Domestic Super Hero Dan got started on the pear jelly, he decided to make peach too. So he bought a lug of peaches from Craigslist and got started. Do you know how much a lug of peaches weighs? That's a lot of blanching and peeling. Yikes!

My mom canned vegetables and made jelly when I was younger and my sister, Adriene, does it now. It does call for some special tools - none of which we owned. But DSH Dan was undeterred. He adapted and made one of the tools himself. See his cool tool below.



He adapted a funnel we already had to make a W-I-D-E mouth funnel…would you have thought of that? The peach and pear jelly recipes came from my sister. The peach/rum jelly came from Receipezaar (my favorite recipe website) and you can find it here. Or, you can figure out a way to become DSH Dan's new best friend.

Gazpacho - one of my summertime favorites

Gazpacho is a cold soup originating in the southern region of Spain called Andalusia . It descends from an ancient Andalusian concoction based on a combination of stale bread, garlic, olive oil, salt, and vinegar — a cold breadsoup.
Today, in the United States , most gazpacho recipes include tomato, cucumber, bell (sweet) pepper, onion, garlic, and celery. Some also include olive oil, bread, vinegar or lemon juice, fresh herbs, sugar, canned tomato juice, or hot sauce. Gazpacho is sometimes pureed until smooth, and sometimes served with small or large chunks of vegetables.

Try this one:
http://www.recipezaar.com/60897

Dijon Marinade for chicken or pork

A few weeks ago I concocted a new marinade recipe for grilled chicken. Dan, as always, had a good suggestion to make a few tweaks and here's the final result.

1/2 cup dijon mustard
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup soy sauce
garlic powder to taste (probably 1-2 tsp)
black pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together and marinate your meat of choice for at least an hour.

I made the chicken version for Girl's Night and we marinated a pork loin when Dan's dad was here.

Speaking of cupcakes

Lisa brought some delicious Raspberry Lemonade cupcakes to Girl's Night from a local bakery (Happy Cakes) and we all loved them. Thanks Lisa! I promptly requested 4 or 5 cupcake cookbooks from the library. For photos, my favorite cookbook was "Hello Cupcake" and for recipes, my favorite cookbook was "Crazy About Cupcakes."

Last night (good thing we have air conditioning) I decided to make and decorate some cupcakes. I used a yellow cake mix since I had it on hand and truthfully, I was more interested in the decorating than the baking. Of course, I enlisted Dan's help. He gets dragged into a lot of my little crafty projects...

The frosting recipe was a simple Vanilla Buttercream from "More from Magnolia Bakery" that we divided and colored these soothing pastel shades.

Yummy homemade Lemon Curd

Lemon curd is an English favorite and has many uses. It is a wonderfully tart, soft, thick, spread that originally was served with scones at teatime, but it now used on toast, to fill cakes between the layers or crepes, in tarts, as an ice cream or cheesecake topping. Mix it with whipped cream for a quick lemon mousse. I decided to try making it for the first time.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 cup fresh lemon juice (about 6 lemons)
3 lemons, zested
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

DIRECTIONS
In a microwave-safe bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until smooth. Stir in lemon juice, lemon zest and butter. Cook in the microwave for one minute intervals, stirring after each minute until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Remove from the microwave, and pour into small sterile jars. Mine took 5 1/2 minutes at 50% power. Store for up to three weeks in the refrigerator.

Coconut Sandwich Cookies

Carroll, at the library, brought these to work a few weeks ago. I tried one (not realizing they were Coconut) and they were delicious. I got the recipe from her and made them last weekend. They were a big hit!

Coconut Sandwich Cookies
From “Everyday Food”

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 package (7 ounces) sweetened shredded coconut (about 2 ¼ cups), divided
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Creamy Vanilla Filling (see below)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. Place ½ cup of coconut into a small bowl; set aside. Place remaining coconut in a food processor; pulse until coarsely ground. Set aside.

Using electric mixer, beat butter with sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture and ground coconut; mix until just combined.

Drop dough by level tablespoons onto two baking sheets, 1-2 inches apart. Bake until lightly golden around the edges, 10-12 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make filling while cookies are cooling.

Dividing evenly, spread filling on flat side of half the cookies; sandwich with remaining cookies. Roll edges in reserved coconut, and chill until ready to serve.

Creamy Vanilla Filling
½ cup (1stick) unsalted butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
½ tsp pure vanilla extract

Using an electric mixer, beat room temperature butter until light and fluffy. With mixer on medium, beat in confectioners sugar ½ cup at a time, scraping down bowl as necessary. Add ½ teaspoon vanilla; increase mixer speed to high and beat until filling is light and fluffy, 5 minutes.

Dan's Mushroom Soup

Yum yum! Several friends have asked for this recipe so here you go:

Mushroom Soup with Port
1 oz. dried wild mushrooms (such as shiitake or porcini)
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3/4 lb. cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced (we usually substitute portabello mushrooms)
3 Tb. all-purpose flour
salt and white pepper
2 tsp. soy sauce
5 Tb. tawny port
1 cup half and half
2 Tb. finely chopped fresh parsley for garnish

In a medium saucepan, combine dried mushrooms and broth. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes. In a medium soup pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add onion and saute, stirring occasionally for 3 minutes or until soft. Add cremini mushrooms and saute for another 3 minutes. Sprinkle with flour, salt and pepper. Stir for 1 minute to cook flour and coat mushrooms. Whisk in the broth and dried mushrooms. Add the soy sauce and simmer for 15 minutes, partially covered. With a hand held blender, blend soup until roughly pureed OR transfer the soup into a regular blender in batches and roughly puree. Return to soup pot and add the port and half and half. Bring to a simmer and let simmer for 2 minutes or until the alcohol has burned off. Taste for seasoning. Ladle into bowls and garnish with parsley.