Category: Recipes

Little Rags

About a month ago I was browsing through different food blogs and came across what seemed to me to be a perfect dish.  Not Chinese Egg Drop Soup, which is thickened with cornstarch and, to me, rather unappealing.  Not Greek Lemon Egg Soup, which I love, but didn’t have the taste for at lunch – though I do love lemon, and have lemons on the counter top.  What I wanted was something simple and quick and made with ingredients on hand.

Enter Stracciatelle – “little rags” in Italian.  A simple soup that takes about 5 minutes if you have stock, some greens or parsley, an egg, and some Romano or Parmesan cheese.

Besides being easy to make, it is damned fun to say!  The Italian language just lends itself to enTHUsiasm!

Stracciatelle

I made this for myself at lunch – just multiply the amounts for each person if it going to be main meal, or maybe a little less for an appetizer.

1 – 1.5 c. chicken broth
handful of spinach, or some parsley, or some basil
1 egg
2-3 T. grated Romano cheese

Beat together the egg and cheese. Set aside. Put broth in sauce pan, bring to a simmer, dump in the green vegetables. Stir. As you stir, pour in the egg-cheese mixture. Cook until the egg is done and looks like its namesake – little rags.

Serve with fresh pepper and perhaps, if you want, a bit extra cheese.

 

 

 

Honey Bourbon Peach BBQ Sauce

Monday is the beer brewer’s birthday, so we are doing a small gathering of the clan for a barbecue.  With any BBQ, you need a smoker, BBQ sauce, and pork ribs.  (At least we think so!)  So, Mr. put together a rub and I am simmering the BBQ sauce as we speak.  As with all my recipes, this is a bit of this and that, and while I sort of followed a recipe, I sort of did my own thing.  I like my sauce sweet and sour and hot all at once, and lately I have been in a real mood for peaches and bourbon for a sauce, so here is my attempt!

Honey Bourbon Peach BBQ Sauce

2 sweet onions, finely chopped
4-6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
8 peaches, peeled, pitted, chopped
2 c. tomato sauce
3/4 c. honey
1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
1/4 – 1/2 c. bourbon
1/4 c. Worcestershire sauce
2 small hot chili peppers, seeded and chopped (I used Black Cobra)
1-2 T. hot chili flakes
2 T. chipotle chili powder or a few chipotles from a can
1 t. pepper
1-2 T. ground ginger
1/2 t. salt

Method

Saute together onions, garlic and chopped tomatoes (if used) until soft and translucent. Place chopped peaches and onion-garlic-tomato mixture in with peaches. Blend until smooth and creamy. You may need to blend in small batches; as each batch is done, put into large pan. Once all the blending is done, leave about 1/4 of the blender filled and add remainder of ingredients. Blend until smooth. Pour into pan with rest of sauce. Simmer on stove top for about 30 minutes. Taste it as it begins to cook – you may need to adjust the flavors to your own liking.

Cool.

Yield: about 6 c. (from what I am guestimating)

Honey-Sweetened Cheesecake Recipe

Once more, dietary changes are forcing cooking and baking changes.  Some results are rather dreadful.  Others have proven to be quite good!  So it was with this cheesecake.  No sugar, no gluten.  The biggest problem was finding the dry curd cottage cheese. also known as hoop cheese or farmer’s cheese.  I found the cheese at the local Whole Foods, and neither my husband nor I had ever tasted it – but we did, and liked it.  It is a rather dry cheese, not sweet or salty, with a bit of a curd, but very fine, like ricotta.  The original recipe is from this blog, but I changed it so that I made one 8″ cheesecake, instead of 4 individual ones.  The only thing beside pan size that I changed was the baking time.

Honey Cheesecake

Preheat oven to 300 F, and by the time you have your crust ready, you can pop the crust in to bake.

Crust
1 1/2 c. almond flour
1 t cinnamon
3 T melted butter
1 t honey

Mix flour and cinnamon together. Melt butter, mix in honey. Stir together to form a soft dough. I used a fork to really work the ingredients together. Place the crust mixture into an 8″ spring form pan, lined on the bottom with parchment paper, and sides buttered. Working from the center out, press the dough onto the pan. Build a shallow edge along the rim of the pan. Bake for 15 minutes at 300 F. Remove and let cool completely.

When you are ready to make the filling, preheat oven to 350 F.

Filling
1 lb. farmer’s cheese
1/2 c. SCD homemade yogurt
3 eggs
1/3 c. honey
2 t vanilla extract
1 t lemon zest

In a blender or with a hand mixer, combine cheese and yogurt. Cream for about 5 minutes – texture will change and become more creamy as you work. Add the rest of the ingredients, and beat until very smooth. Batter will be very thin. Pour carefully into cooled crust. Bake at 350 F for 45-50 minutes. Check to see that the center of the cheese cake is set. When set (the cake no longer jiggles when shaken lightly), turn off oven and open door. Let cheese cake cool about an hour, and then move to refrigerator. Serve with fresh berries.

Comments
I had no idea what to expect from this recipe, but those who tasted it (served at a dinner party) really liked the flavor and lightness of the cheesecake. It wasn’t very sweet, which can happen with many honey-based recipes. The lemon zest complemented the fresh fruit – we used blueberries and raspberries. Without the fruit, the cheesecake might be a bit unremarkable if you are used to big, thick slices of New York cheesecake.

This, for us, is a definite winner!

 

Cauliflower Rice Risotto

I am not a big fan of cauliflower, but I adore a good risotto.  As we (the DH et moi) are changing our diet a bit, rice is off the menu (for now).  Truthfully, most “substitutes” for other foods made in a traditional manner really are not good, as far as we are concerned, but we were both pretty pleased with this recipe, made by yours truly.

One of the most off-putting about cauliflower rice risottos is that they are too wet.  Almost soggy.  And never are they any good as leftovers.  So, this recipe is good for 2 people as a side.  Let me know what you think!

Cauliflower Rice Risotto

1/2 stick of butter
8 oz. riced cauliflower (I used a half of a Trader Joe’s packet)
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1/4 medium onion, chopped fine
Romano or Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 c. plain, whole milk yogurt
2-4 T. chicken stock

Ahead of time, fry up the mushrooms and onions in a very hot frying pan with the butter. Heat the pan first, put in the butter, and let it melt. When it begins to sizzle, add the mushrooms and chopped onion. Stir and flip the mushrooms and onions until the onions are rather browned. Continue to cook the mixture and let some of the liquor evaporate. Set aside in a small bowl until ready to use.

Add a small amount of butter back into the frying pan. Dump in the riced cauliflower and stir fry it, letting liquid evaporate. I used a rather high heat as I wanted to brown the cauliflower a bit. Stir constantly. When it is to your liking, return the mushroom-onion mixture to the pan.

Add a small amount of chicken broth to the pan, stirring everything together. Do not let the mixture become too wet, so it is better to slowly add the chicken broth. When you think it is ready, add the yogurt, and stir in thoroughly. (Yogurt? Yeah – it gives a slightly tart taste to the mixture, like white wine does to traditional risotto.) Again, let liquids evaporate. Add the Romano cheese (or Parmesan), and stir. Serve immediately; have extra grated cheese at the table for your dinner mates to add.   Add pepper to taste but be careful if you add salt – the cheese is salty enough for us.

 

Cranberries & Yogurt

This is, admittedly, a rather odd title for a post, but in few minutes, you’ll see why.

Sugar is in everything, and so I decided I would try to make some cranberry sauce that has a good flavor, but is not filled with a cup of granulated white sugar.  I came across a number of recipes.  Some used stevia, the flavor of which I don’t like.  Others recommend aspartame or other synthetic sweeteners – all of these are horrid.  Sucralose is also suggested.  The fact is, I really don’t like the flavors of artificial or substitute sweeteners.  So, what is left?  A bit of research found some recipes using sweet cherries and cranberries, or adding apple sauce.  Orange flavoring via orange juice and zest.  Pineapple juice.  And honey, which is an easily digestible sweetener, and if not too strong, is okay with me!

So . . . I made up my own recipe for non-sugared cranberry sauce!

Cranberry Sauce Without Granulated Sugar

12 oz. cranberries
1 bosc pair, peeled and chopped
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. unsweetened apple sauce
zest and juice of 1 orange (I used a large navel orange)
2-4 T. honey

Simmer all the above together, and after cranberries have slowed their popping, pour in the juice of one orange, and its zest. Cook another 10 minutes on a low temperature. Sauce will be tart with a strong orange flavor. You may want to use less zest, or none, and just the juice. This is not a very cranberry sauce, but you do not want a sauce so sour your lips pucker!  Add some honey if you want (I added about 3 T – still tart, but not puckery – and I do like sour!).

Okay, now the yogurt part. Years ago I used to make my own yogurt. What? Yes, you can, and you can make it without an expensive yogurt maker. If you have a gas oven with a pilot light, there you go – home for your yogurt until done. My current stove is gas on top, electric inside, so I use an ice chest filled with a few bottles of boiling water to keep the yogurt warm, and I check on it periodically to make sure it is still warm. I let my yogurt set for 24 hours. Once done, you do need to cool it down so it won’t continue to ferment – too much is not a good thing.

There are two types of cultures for yogurt. Some are thermophilic, needing heat, and others are mesophilic, meaning room temperature is the best environment. I like Bulgarian yogurt, made with lactobacillus bulgaricus, and lactobacillus acidophilus. These days, with the increased knowledge about probiotics and prebiotics for gut health, it turns out that the acidophilus bifidus is not considered to be a “good” one for adults. Apparently breast fed babies gut flora is primarily acidophilus bifidus, but if it continues to flourish in the gut biome past weaning, it could set the individual up for digestive issues, such as celiac and other similar diseases. Here is a link to some interesting information about acidophilus bifidus.

So, I have some yogurt in my fridge.  It has bifidus in it.  A search for bifidus-free yogurt in the store to use as a starter yielded only one yogurt that does not have bifidus in it!  It is Siggi’s Sheep Yogurt, expensive, but bifidus free.  I bought some to use as a starter (it also tastes good!).  I also purchased a starter from Amazon for $8.00 which states it “contains live active bacteria like ”Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. Bulgaricus” and ”Streptococcus thermophilus” – there ya go!

My Yogurt Recipe

1 qt. whole milk
1/4 c. Siggi’s

Bring milk to simmer – hot to the touch. Watch on stove to be sure it does not burn, so stir it! Reduce to about 75 F. Take 1/2 c. cooled milk and whisk into the starter. Pour into 1 qt. container (or smaller containers, such as 2 pint jars, etc.). Place in ice chest filled with a few bottles of boiling water. Set aside to ferment for 24 hours.

Now you understand “Cranberries & Yogurt”!