Tag Archives: cooking

Snowballs from My Oven

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Another recipe from my annual baking extravaganza.

Every year, I bake cookies for my favorite clients. They always include my famous helicopter sugar cookies and my favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. And sometimes they include so-called “magic cookie bars” or brownies.

Snowballs from my OvenThis year, they include “Snowballs.” This is a small spherical cookie made primarily of butter, flour, and finely chopped nuts, dusted with powdered sugar. Tasty without being too sweet.

Here’s the recipe for four dozen. I doubled it and got just under 8 dozen.

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter or margarine, softened. I used half butter and half margarine.
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar.
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla.
  • 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour. I use unbleached.
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt.
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped nuts. I used walnuts which I chopped almost to a coarse powder in my food processor.
  • More powdered sugar.

Instructions:

  1. Heat oven to 400°F.
  2. Beat butter, measured powdered sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed.
  3. Stir in flour and salt. I did this in the mixer on lowest speed.
  4. Stir in nuts. Again, I did it in the mixer. The dough ends up being rather dry and does not cling to the side of the mixer bowl.
  5. Shape dough into one-inch balls.
  6. Snowballs before BakingPlace balls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Because these don’t flatten out, you can get quite a few on a standard sized baking sheet or jelly roll pan. Although my first sheet had only a dozen (see photo), I was able to get two dozen on subsequent baking sheets.
  7. Baked SnowballsBake for 8 to 10 minutes or until set but not brown. I judged that they were done when the tops began to crack ever so slightly.
  8. Snowballs Dusted with SugarImmediately remove from cookie sheet and roll in powdered sugar. Now although I tried this, I soon discovered that this was a very messy way to go about coating them with sugar. So instead, I put them on a wire rack with some newspaper (okay, it was Trade-a-Plane) under it and used a tea strainer to sift powdered sugar over them.
  9. Cool completely on wire rack.
  10. Roll in powdered sugar again. Now although this is part of the recipe, I didn’t do it. Too messy!

If you have two baking sheets, I recommend using them both. It took me about 8-10 minutes just to roll up the next batch of cookies, so I was able to have a sheet in the oven at all times. This really saves energy when you’re running an oven at 400°F.

If you try this recipe, please let me know what you think. I love them.

Maria’s Almost-Famous Clean-Out-the-Cabinet Stuffing

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It was a good year.

Every year, when I make Thanksgiving dinner, I also make one of my favorite so-not-on-my-low-carb-diet dishes: stuffing (AKA, dressing). I like this dish so much that if you took away the turkey and all the other fixings and just gave me a dish of this, I’d be very happy. What’s more is that the way I make it, it includes food from all the food groups except dairy, so I can argue that it’s a meal in itself.

Because the recipe varies from year to year — depending, of course, on what ingredients are handy to toss into it — I never know how it’s going to turn out. Last year was probably one of my worst concoctions. But this year was one of my best.

If you’d like to try your hand at this, here’s my basic recipe, along with a list of what I tossed in this year.

Base Ingredients:

  • 1 pound sausage meat. I use breakfast sausage and I prefer Jimmy Dean sage sausage. I don’t buy the low-fat kind; it usually doesn’t generate enough fat to need draining.
  • 1 medium or large onion, chopped. I usually use a large one.
  • 2 stalks celery, trimmed and chopped. I generally don’t like celery, but it’s one of the “aromatic vegetables” I include.
  • 2 large carrots, chopped. Or chopped up baby carrots, which is what I use.
  • 1 apple, chopped. Any kind of apple will do.
  • Turkey or chicken broth. Use the amount you’d need to prepare the rice (if included, see below) plus the amount of stuffing included (see below).
  • Prepared stuffing mix bread cubes or crumbs. This year I used Pepperidge Farm that I bought last year and didn’t use. I don’t use Stove Top brand. If I use a stuffing mix that has a separate seasoning packet, I throw that packet away. Sometimes I use a small package of cornbread stuffing with a small package of “herb seasoned” stuffing. Never the same two years in a row.

This Year’s Toss-Ins:

  • Brown or wild rice. Or a rice blend. I usually find a package in the cabinet with less than 1/2 cup left in it and toss that in.
  • Chestnuts, cooked and chopped. Trader Joe’s sells them prepared and that sure does make life easier.
  • Almonds, chopped. I used blanched slivered almonds this year. Sometimes I use pecans or walnuts — whatever is leftover from baking earlier in the year.
  • Raisins. Another clean out the cabinet item; this year I found some golden raisins that were turning brown.

In the past, I’ve also included bacon, ham, turkey giblets (the stuff in the bag stuffed into the raw bird’s chest cavity that most people throw away), garlic, yams, parsnips, turnips (I sure do love my root vegetables), other nuts, oatmeal (not sure what I was thinking there), dried cranberries, dried cherries, sesame seeds, flax seed, etc. I can’t remember them all. The key is to go through the refrigerator and pantry and decide what might “work” in the mix. You can’t really get it “wrong” if it’s something you like — the big exception being something silly, like chocolate. (There’s a time and a place for chocolate and T-day stuffing is not the place.)

Cooking Instructions:

  1. Brown the sausage meat together with the onion and celery. Be sure to break apart the meat and stir it good. Unless there’s a lot (more than 1/4 cup?) of fat in the bottom of the pan, don’t drain it off; it’ll mix in and add flavor.
  2. Add the carrot and any other hard vegetable likely to need a little extra cooking. Simmer everything on low heat until the flavors are melded.
  3. All all other ingredients except the broth and stuffing mix. Stir it up well while simmering.
  4. Add the broth and bring the mixture up to a boil.
  5. If the mixture contains rice, cook until rice is mostly done.
  6. Add the stuffing mix and stir well to make sure all bread is moistened. Cover until ready to use/eat.

I don’t make the turkey — that’s my husband’s job. I make the stuffing. We don’t put the stuffing into the bird. The main reason for this is that we always make turkey soup the next day — indeed, my husband is prepping that now — and when the bird has been stuffed, boiling the carcass to make soup yields a cloudy broth that simply isn’t appetizing. Besides, the argument that cooking the stuffing inside the bird makes the stuffing more flavorful just doesn’t apply here. The stuffing is flavorful because of all the flavors cooked into it.

Yesterday’s stuffing came out very good. I had some for lunch and then had some with my turkey dinner later in the day. My guests seemed to enjoy it. Of course, because I put so much stuff into it, I have a ton of it leftover — not the best situation when I’m trying to cut carbs — but it freezes tolerably well and can always be pulled out later in the year to enjoy with another meal.

Do you make your stuffing like this? If so, why not share a few of your add-ins?

And if you make your next stuffing with my recipe as a rule of thumb, please do share your thoughts about the results.

The Best Pound Cake You’ll Ever Make

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Make this once and you’ll never buy store-bought pound cake again.

I really thought I’d already shared this recipe — it’s one of my favorite things to eat — but I can’t find it in the blog, so here it is.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
  • 1-2/3 cup sugar
  • 5 eggs
  • 1-3/4 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

  1. Bring all ingredients to room temperature.
  2. Preheat oven to 325°F.
  3. Butter and lightly flour a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
  4. In a large mixer, cream the butter.
  5. Slowly add the sugar and beat until light.
  6. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well.
  7. On a slower mixer setting, stir in the flour, salt, and vanilla and combine well.
  8. Spoon batter into the prepared pan.
  9. Bake for 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Do not overbake!
  10. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto wire rack.

Pound CakeHere are a few additional notes:

  • As you’re mixing this, be sure to scrape the sides of the mixer bowl and blades frequently with a spatula. The mixture must be smooth and consistent throughout.
  • Do not substitute margarine or any other butter substitute product. I think it might cause your oven to explode. If dietary constraints prevent you from having real butter, you shouldn’t be eating pound cake.
  • The original recipe called for 2 cups cake flour. I have been making this recipe for more than 20 years and have always substituted 1-3/4 cups of regular flour. It has always turned out fine. I did try it once with cake flour (just to see if I was missing something) and, in my opinion, it wasn’t any better. Certainly not a good reason to keep cake flour around the kitchen if you don’t otherwise need it.
  • The best versions of this cake were made with eggs fresh from my own chickens. The extra large, rich yolks really made a difference.

Now you might think: Ho-hum, pound cake. How dull. Stop thinking that right now. Serve 1/2-inch slices of this cake at room temperature, topped with fresh berries (strawberries work best, cut into small pieces) and fresh whipped cream made with only a tiny bit of added sugar. People will love it. (Do not put Cool Whip or any other “whipped topping” on this; I think it might cause your hair to fall out.)

If you take this cake and cut it into 12 servings, here’s the nutritional information for each serving. It’s extremely rich, though, so you shouldn’t need more than one slice.

If you make this, let me know what you think.

Easy, To Die For Butternut Squash Soup

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I can’t get enough of this stuff.

One of my favorite things to eat is butternut squash soup. Trouble is, when I have a flavor in your mind and I find myself eating something that just isn’t quite as good, I get seriously disappointed. You know what they say: If you want something done right, yadda yadda yadda.

Here’s the recipe I like. It’s remarkably easy to make, but in case you have a serious case of lazy bones, I’ve included a few shortcuts to make it even easier.

Ingredients

  • 1 medium onion, chopped. I use sweet onions. Lazy? You can buy them pre-chopped in most supermarket produce departments or the freezer section.
  • 2 tablespoons margarine or butter.
  • 2 cups chicken broth. I use canned. Although one can is 15 ounces (I think), that’s close enough.
  • 1 pound butternut squash, pared, seeded and cut into 1-inch cubes. This is probably the most labor-intensive part of the process. Those squash are a real pain to pare. And where have you ever found one less than 2 pounds in size? I usually do it the hard way, but today I stopped off at Trader Joe’s and picked up a 2-pound bag of butternut squash already prepared. (So, of course, I made a double-batch of soup.) You might be able to use frozen squash if it is unseasoned; I’ll leave that up to the seriously lazy cooks to experiment with.
  • 2 pears, pared and sliced. I use fresh pears whenever possible, but I suspect that you could get away with canned pears, as long as you rinse off the sugary syrup they insist on canning them with.
  • 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves. Yeah, like I’ll find fresh thyme in Wickenburg. I use dried but only half as much.
  • 1/4 teaspoon of salt. I usually omit this, especially if the broth does not have reduced salt. You can always add salt later; you can never take it away.
  • 1/4 teaspoon white pepper. I use regular pepper, which I grind as I need it.
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander.
  • 1 cup whipping cream. This is killer stuff and makes the soup very rich. I suspect you could use half and half to make it a little less deadly.

Cooking Instructions

  1. Cook and stir onion in margarine in a medium pot until tender.
  2. Butternut Squash SoupStir in broth, squash, pears, thyme, salt, pepper, and coriander.
  3. Heat to boiling; reduce heat heat and cover.
  4. Simmer until squash is tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
  5. Puree soup in a food processor or blender. You may have to do this in batches. You might also want to wait until the soup has cooled a bit; I cracked my food processor bowl by processing hot soup. I now use my glass blender.
  6. Return pureed soup to pot.
  7. Stir in whipping cream and heat until hot.
  8. Garnish with pear slices and toasted pecans if desired.

Yields 6 1-cup servings.

This is a great soup for Thanksgiving. The squash and pears are in season right now so it’s the perfect time of year to make this. Treat yourself. You won’t be disappointed.

The Best Smoothie I Ever Made

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Here’s the recipe.

I hate dieting, but I love an excuse to make smoothies. If done properly, they’re very healthful and low in calories. They’re also very filling, making a good meal substitute.

I have a basic smoothie recipe I’ve been following, using whatever appropriate fruit is handy. But today’s was the best.

Ingredients
1/2 cup plain, fat-free yogurt
1/2 cup orange juice (I use Tropicana Premium because it’s not from concentrate)
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, halved
1/2 cup frozen mango (I buy frozen because I’m too lazy to peel and cut them)
1 whole banana, broken into pieces

Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Any combination of berries or stone fruit usually works, but today’s was the best I’ve tasted. There’s no added sugar, but it’s plenty sweet. The frozen mango chills down the mixture, making it almost frosty. I’ve used frozen berries in the past, but I really think it’s the fresh strawberries that made the smoothie so good today.

Total calorie count comes in just under 300; you can read the rest of the nutritional information here. If you give it a try — or make your own version — let me know what you think.

And if you like smoothies, don’t fall for those mixes you’ll find in the supermarket. They usually full of added sugar and other crap. You’ll get a healthier treat if you make it yourself using simple ingredients.