Corn Dog Bites
This is so easy and so yummy!! You can take your favorite corn muffin recipe and just add hot dogs. I used my mom’s “Very Corny Corn Muffin” recipe – makes 36 mini corn dog bites.
Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 egg whites
- 1 1/4 cups 1% milk
- 2 tbs canola oil
- 1 cup canned cream corn
- 2 diced hot dogs
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Mix all ingredients together. (Batter may appear thin, don’t worry it will be perfect)
3. Grease mini muffin pan
4. Fill pan with batter
5. Bake 10-12 minutes
Creamy Tomato Soup
I made a soup tonight that was good enough for my three year old to eat a bowl!
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
1/2 onion finely chopped
3 garlic cloves minced
1/2 C. dry white wine
30 oz crushed tomatoes (canned or fresh)
4 C. chicken stock
3 sprigs fresh oregano
1/2 C. milk or half and half
In a soup pan melt butter and saute onion and garlic about 6 minutes. Add wine and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, stock and oregano and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 45 minutes. Remove oregano and process in blender as much or as little as you want. I blended all but about a cup of the soup so there were still some small chunks of tomato. Add milk or half and half. You can add more that 1/2 C. if you want it to be creamier. Season with salt and pepper and serve with cheese topped croutons. (recipe below)
Baked Cheese Croutons
1 loaf of focaccia bread cut into 1/2 inch wide slices
3/4 C. grated Gruyere cheese
3 Tbs. grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place sliced bread on a cookie sheet and bake about 10-15 min until slightly golden and dry. Sprinkle bread with cheese mixture and bake 8 more minutes. The bread should be very crunchy. Serve immediately.
This recipe is an alteration of a recipe found in Martha Stewart Living.
Fondue Party
Remember that Fondue pot that you got for your wedding? It’s in the back corner of the cupboard. Pull it out and plan a fondue party! Don’t have a fondue set? No problem. Just pull out some small sauce pans and mix up some fun!
Cheese Fondue
1 garlic clove
1 C. dry white wine
1 Tbs. lemon juice
8 oz. shredded Gruyere cheese
8 oz. shredded imported Swiss
2 Tbs. cornstarch
1 Tbs. Kirsch or Sherry
Freshly ground pepper
Fresh grated nutmeg (optional)
Rub the inside of a fondue pot with the peeled garlic. Add white wine and lemon juice until gently bubbling. In a bowl toss the Gruyere, Swiss and cornstarch. Slowly add cheese mixture into the pot and stir continually until smooth. Stir in Kirsch or Sherry, pepper and nutmeg.
This can be served with bread squares, sausage rounds, blanched broccoli or asparagus. Pour cheese into the fondue pot and put it on the table. If you don’t have a fondue pot, you can put your saucepan directly on the table, but consider putting a low burning candle under the pot to keep it warm and keep the cheese from hardening.
For dessert, whip up a pan of chocolate!
Chocolate fondue (Rachael Ray)
1/2 C. Heavy whipping cream + 1/4 C. reserved
15 oz. Milk chocolate (or bittersweet or white)
2 Tbs. Amaretto (optional)
Heat cream in a saucepan until it comes to a low boil. Remove the cream from heat and add chocolate. Let the mixture sit for 5-7 min until it softens. Whisk the chocolate and cream together. Stir in liquor if desired. If the mixture gets too thick, add more cream.
Serve the chocolate with pound cake squares, salted pretzels, bananas, strawberries or fresh pineapple.
Enchiladas
I know there are hundreds of great enchiladas out there… Rodney’s and Cory’s to name a few. What drew me to this recipe though was the homemade sauce. It turned out really good. You can put whatever you like in the enchiladas. I made mine vegetarian, but I think chicken or carne asada would be great. I also think the sauce would be good with a little heat. My kids have a hard time with that so I didn’t try it, but some of Christie’s dried peppers would do the trick!
For Sauce, in a medium pan heat
2 Tbs. oil
Add
1 tsp. cumin
¼ C. flour
¼ C. tomato paste
Cook, whisking 1 minute. Whisk in
14 oz. vegetable (or chicken) broth
¾ C. water
Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened, 5 to 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and set aside. For filling in a large bowl combine
8 oz. Jack cheese
15 oz. black beans, rinsed
10 sautéed mushrooms
4 scallions thinly sliced
1 tsp. cumin
Place filling in
7 flour tortillas
Roll tortillas and place in a greased 9×9 baking dish. Top with
1 C. Jack cheese
Pour sauce over enchiladas and bake 15-20 minutes at 350o. Garnish with
2 thinly sliced scallions
Tomato, Mozzarella & Pesto Panini
I may have had one of the best sandwiches ever. It is worthy to post. Spread
2 slices of Shepherd’s bread with
2 Tbs. pesto
Slice and add to the sandwich
3 slices of fresh mozzarella (Trader Joes has a good fresh mozzarella. Fresh makes all the difference)
3 slices crisp bacon (optional but oh so good)
4 slices of large tomato (preferably from someone’s garden)
Grill the sandwich in a skillet, on a pancake griddle or in a Panini grill. This sandwich will get soggy very quickly due to the pesto, so you have to eat it immediately. Enjoy!! Courtesy of Martha Stewart magazine
Evening Baby Shower Menu
When planning a party or shower for friends, the host wants to spend time with people instead of spending all evening in the kitchen! So here is a menu that can be prepped almost entirely before hand!
Menu:
Stuffed Chicken breasts
Dinner Rolls
Green Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette
Prep in advance: Cut a pocket in the chicken breast with a sharp knife. Make sure that the knife does not go all the way through the breast. Stuff the chicken breast with whatever ingredients appeal to you. We did three different stuffings and upon tasting them, evaluating and changing the recipes, here are three that I would recommend.
1. Pesto and sun-dried tomato mix. 1 C. Pesto, 1 C. cream cheese, 1 C. sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil. This will stuff about four chicken breasts.
2. Caprice mix. 4 Roma tomatoes chopped, 1 C. fresh mozzarella, 1/2 C. basil chopped. This will stuff about four chicken breasts.
3. Cordon bleu mix. 7 thicker slices of black forest ham chopped, 7 slices of swiss cheese chopped. This will stuff about 4 chicken breasts.
For the event we stuffed the chicken and then covered and refrigerated it until the day of the shower. On the day, one hour before cook chicken in oven to 350. I used convection since we had three trays of chicken. Bake about 45 minutes until a thermometer registers 160 degrees. After baking, slice the breasts into small slices so that guests can try several different kinds. This also eliminates waste for people who don’t want to eat a whole breast.
For the salad we served three large organic salad mixes (the big plastic boxes) with six baskets of strawberries sliced into it, about 4 cups of feta cheese, 3 cups of dried cranberries and 4 cups of candied walnuts. All the slicing and candying walnuts were done in advance. The strawberries were sliced the morning of the shower.
Two bags of dinner rolls were bought at costco.
All of this plus 27 chicken breasts fed about 42 people.
If you would like to serve appetizers at your event as we did, here are some easy ones to make:
Blue cheese and walnut spread
2 C. cream cheese
1 C. chopped walnuts
2 C. blue cheese
Mix the cream cheese and walnuts until smooth. Gently fold in blue cheese. This can be served on crackers or bread, but is really phenomenal on granny smith apples. You can cut the apples the afternoon before the shower and put them in a bag with several tablespoons of lemon juice. Shake the apples well to coat. This will keep them from browning. The spread can be made up to four days in advance and stored in the refrigerator
Apricot stack
Simply stack a dried apricot, a small slice of Asiago cheese and a pecan. This is so simple, and so, so good. No toothpick necessary. Just pick up the stack and pop it in your mouth!
Baked Brie
Buy one whole brie round. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 min or until soft and runny. Meanwhile, saute
14 slices prosciutto
2/3 C. sundried tomatoes packed in oil
1/3 C. capers
After the brie is baked, put sautéed mixture over the top of brie wheel. Serve with crackers
Roasted Mushroom Sauce
This sauce is to be served with the Pork Willingtons.
1/2 lb sliced mushrooms (4 cups)
1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. minced shallots
1 Tbs. tomato paste
2 Tbs. all purpose flour
2 Tbs. butter
1 c. dry white wine
2 c. chicken broth
1 spring fresh thyme
1 sprig fresh parsley
1 Tbs. butter
1/2 tsp. truffle oil
black pepper to taste
Saute mushrooms with salt in oil over medium heat in the same skillet used to sear pork about 2 min. Add shallots to skillet; saute 1 min., then stir in tomato paste. Cook until tomato paste starts to brown, about 1 min. Add flour and 2 Tbs. butter; cook 1 min. Deglaze skillet with wine. Increase heat to high. Boil until liquid reduces and thickens, 2 min. Stir in broth, thyme, and parsley. Bring sauce to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; simmer until sauce coats a spoon, 12-15 min. Remove skillet from heat. whisk in 1 Tbs. butter, truffle oil and pepper. Discard herb springs.
Note: I doubled this recipe for the 10 Wellingtons. I would recommend doing this especially if you serve it with something like mashed potatoes. People will want to use more sauce. I also did not use the truffle oil which is expensive and the sauce was great just the same.
Pork Wellington
This is a FANTASTIC recipe. It comes courtesey of my friend Trish. It is an easy recipe that looks really fancy.
2 pork tenderloins trimmed and cut into 8 medallions
kosher salt and black pepper
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 Tbs. minced garlic
1/2 tsp. red peper flakes
6 oz. fresh baby spinach
1 box frozen puff pastry, thawed
16 slices prosciutto, very lean and very thinly sliced
2/3 C. goat cheese
2 eggs beaten with 2 Tbs. water for egg wash
Trim white membrane from tenderloins. Slice each tenderloin into four 5-6 oz pieces, making a total of 8 medallions. Season each with salt and pepper. Sear medallions in 1 Tbs. oil in a skillet over high heat on both sides, 10 min. total. Transfer pork to a plate. Chill until completely cool, at least 30 min. Use the meat drippings to start the Roasted Mushroom Sauce (see next entry). Saute garlic and pepper flakes in 1 Tbs. oil in a large skillet over medium heat until fragrant. Add spinach, toss to wilt and season with salt. Drain spinach in a sieve, pressing with a spoon until dry. Coarsely chop spinach; cool completely. Trim off a 1 inch wide strip from 1 side of a pastry sheet; reserve for decorating cut-outs. Roll out remaining pastry on a floured surface to a 12 inch square, then cut into four 4 inch square. Repeat rolling and cutting with second pastry sheet. Assemble Wellingtons by first placing a slice of prosciutto on each pastry square, then topping prosciutto with a pork medallion. Top pork with about 1 Tbs. each of goat cheese and spinach, and then another slice of prosciutto. Brush corners of pastry with egg wash fold 1 pastry corner up to the top. Fold the opposite corner to the center, press folded corners together to adhere to each other. Tuck in the sides of pastry as if wrapping a gift. Fold up remaining pastry corners, gently stretching pastry over open areas to enclose the fillings. Transfer the pork Willingtons to a greased baking sheet. Decorate with pastry cut outs. Cover with plastic, and chill them 30 min. Preheat oven to 425 with rack in lower third. Brush Wellingtons with egg wash; bake until golden about 30 min. Let Wellingtons rest 5 min. Serve with Roasted Mushroom Sauce. (Next post)
Note: When I made this I cut each pork loin into 5 pieces and I like the ratio better than cutting each into four. If you do this, though, you will need two more squared of puff pastry, a little more goat cheese and spinach. Also, you can assemble this the day before and bake it the next day.
Beef Barley Soup
One more beef recipe and then we will try something new!! Another idea for the leftovers from your beef roast. Soups are great for so many reasons. If there is something in the recipe that you don’t like, simply leave it out. If you want to add something, go ahead! If there is too much, freeze it for later. They are so versatile. This soup comes from my good friend and neighbor Christie.
In a large pot, saute 1 chopped onion in 2 Tbs. olive oil. Add and saute 8 oz. mushrooms for about 3-5 min. Add 4 stalks chopped celery, 15 oz. diced tomatoes canned or 3 fresh tomatoes chopped, 1 C. white wine, 1 tsp. oregano, 2 bay leaves and 1/2 C. chopped fresh Italian flat leaf parsley. Simmer until the smell of the wine is mostly gone, about 5 min. Then add 60 oz. beef broth (I make mine with water and the better than bouillon paste I talked about earlier), and 1-2 lbs. cooked beef cut into bite sized pieces. Bring all this to a boil and add 1 C. barley. Cook until the barley is done (about an hour) stirring occasionally.
Note: Italian parsley is in the produce section near the regular parsley and cilantro. It has a wavy flat leaf. Barley will be in the dried section near the rice and dried beans.
I hope you enjoy this. It is one of my favorite soups. A fun idea this holiday season is to make a big pot of soup and buy several disposable containers. Scoop some soup into each container and tie a bow around it. A fun gift for the neighbors – just because!
Beef Hash
So you have this big roast, and it’s wonderfully savory, but you have all these leftovers! If you are anything like me, I’m not a big leftover fan. So this is one option with the left over roast from the deep dark files of my childhood. Cut the leftover roast into bite sized pieces. This is easiest to do while the roast is warm so the fat slides off easier. I cut it up right after we finish dinner and then have it in my fridge already cut up.
In a large sauce pan put a little bit of butter or olive oil. Cube the leftover potatoes from the roast and chop up an onion. Saute these two items in the pan with the butter or oil until the potatoes are brown. (I like crisp potatoes so I fry them quite a while). Add the leftover beef as well as the leftover carrots sliced and about 1 cup or so (depending on amounts of other ingredients) of petite peas. (Yes, it does matter if they are petite. You guys who are saying “peas – eww gross” right now probably never had petite peas). Saute everything about 2 minutes until everything is warm. Add the leftover gravy to the pan and cook until bubbly and warm. You can add some water if the gravy is too thick, but not to much!! If you need more gravy, as is often the case, you can make more in a sauce pan using butter instead of the fat from the roast. Follow the directions from the roast recipe posted earlier.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. I have one more recipe for the leftovers to come. Stay tuned!
