For the Love of Food

I was inspired by one of my previous posts  Chicken Picata to make something similar with scallops. It came out delicious. I really like lemony pasta, but if you like less tang, then only use 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.

Ingredients:
8 Scallops
4 Tablespoon Butter
1/4 Cup dry White Wine
3 cloves of Garlic, minced
Cup Chicken Broth
2-4 Tablespoon fresh Lemon Juice
1 Tablespoon Capers, drained
2 Tablespoon Flour
6 Lemon slices
chopped fresh Parsley
Salt and Pepper to taste
Spaghetti

Directions:
Marinade scallops in salt, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and 2 crushed cloves of garlic. Cook enough spaghetti for people according to package directions.
Melt butter in a saute pan over medium-high heat.
Saute scallops 2-3 minutes on one side. Flip them over and saute the other side 1-2 minutes. Transfer scallops to a bowl and cover with a plate: pour off butter from the pan. Pour wine in the pan and add minced garlic and lemon juice from marinade. Cook until garlic is slightly brown and liquid is nearly gone, about 2 minutes. Add broth, some salt and pepper, 2 more tablespoons of lemon juice if desired, and capers. Add butter and flour to pan and mix until flour has un-clumped. Add lemon slices to pan and cook for 3 minutes. Add scallops to pan as well as cooked spaghetti and combine. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley and serve.
Serves 4

I would like to present to you the newest member of our family: Benjamin Alexander. Born February 13, 2007, 22:52 MET. He weighed in at 3,5kg (7Lbs. 11oz.) and measured 53cm (20.8 inches) long.

Well, last night we celebrated Super Bowl Thursday. Yes, I know the Super Bowl was on Sunday, but living overseas, we get things a bit late. We were able to keep ourselves tuned-out of the media outlets since we don’t have a TV, but not reading the news online for 4 consecutive days was rather difficult.

Our “party” was pretty small, just my husband and I. But, it was nice to have a reason to make an extra special dinner filled with dishes we would rarely make because the ingredients are not always easy to come by or are very expensive. We went all out.

Dinner consisted of:
Tortilla Chips and Homemade Salsa
Potato Skins
Buffalo-style Chicken Wings with homemade Blue Cheese Dip
a platter of Fresh Veggies
Strawberries
and, of course, Beer

My husband had asked me to make cinnamon buns as well, but I never got around to finishing the recipe last night. Thank goodness! We were stuffed after getting half way through everything. I purposely made too much so that we would have leftovers for lunch today. I have to say that all the recipes came out great – I had never tried any of them until last night. Although, the blue cheese that we put in the dip could have been stronger.

Homemade Pace Copycat Salsa (based off of a recipe from Sue L on Recipezaar)
Ingredients:
800 grams can crushed Tomatoes
16 ounces of Water
1 medium Yellow Onion, diced
2 fresh Jalapeño peppers (or other spicy chili pepper), with seeds, diced
1/4 Cup juice from jarred Jalapeños
1.5 teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon Onion powder
1/2 teaspoon Garlic powder

Directions:
Bring all ingredients to a boil in saucepan over med-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 1.5-2 hours or until thick. Remove from heat and cool. Refrigerate.

Baked Potato Skins (based off of a recipe from CrAzYcOoKeR222 on Recipezaar)
Ingredients:
4 large baking Potatoes
3 Tablespoons Bacon drippings (or Vegetable oil)
1 Tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon Paprika
1/8 teaspoon Pepper
8 slices Bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 cups shredded Gouda cheese
1/2 cup Sour Cream
1 Green Onion, green part only, sliced

Directions:
Prick potatoes with a fork and place in cold oven. Turn the temperature to 200°C (392°F) and bake for 50 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Cut potatoes in half length-wise and scoop out the potato pulp, leaving about 4 millimeters attached the the skin. Save the potato pulp for another recipe.

Preheat the oven to 246°C (475°F). Place a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. In a small bowl, combine bacon drippings, Parmesan cheese, salt, garlic powder, paprika, and pepper and brush all over potato skins. Bake potato pulp side up for 8 minutes, then turn so the skin is facing up and bake another 8 minutes. Turn the potatoes over again and fill with shredded cheese and bacon and bake for another 2-4 minutes or until the cheese has melted. Remove from oven and top with sour cream and green onions.

Buffalo-style Chicken Wings (based off of a recipe from Todd Wilbur on Recipezaar)
Ingredients:
1/3 Cup Louisiana’s Pure Crystal Hot Sauce
1 dash Pepper
1 dash Garlic powder
1/2 Cup Flour
1/4 teaspoon Paprika
1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
1/4 teaspoon Salt
16 Chicken Wings, cut in half (32 pieces total), tips removed
5 Cups of Vegetable shortening for frying

Directions:
In a bowl, combine flour, paprika, cayenne pepper, and salt. Roll each individual piece of chicken in this mixture and place on a plate in your refrigerator for at least half an hour or until you are ready to fry the wings.

Heat the vegetable shortening in a medium-small pot with tall sides to 190°C (375°F). Fry about 8-10 wings at a time for 5 minutes, turn and fry another 5 minutes. Remove wings to a plate lined with a paper towel to soak up the excess grease.

In the meanwhile, in a small saucepan, heat up the hot sauce, pepper, and garlic powder. The original recipe calls for ¼ cup of butter and ¼ cup of hot sauce, but I find that too mild, so I omitted the butter and increased the amount of hot sauce. If you use butter, heat the mixture up until the butter is completely melted. If you don’t use butter, then just heat up the sauce until the spices have blended in. Set aside.

When the wings are done, place them in a large Tupperware and pour all or most of the sauce over them. Place the lid on tightly and shake until the wings are completely coated. Serve immediately!

Blue Cheese Dip (based off of a recipe from Virginia Chandler on Recipezaar)
Ingredients:
4 ounces Blue Cheese (get one that crumbles – not a creamy one!)
3 ounces Cream Cheese, softened
8 ounces Sour Cream
1/4 teaspoon Onion powder
¼ teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Lemon juice
2 Tablespoons milk

Directions:
Mix sour cream and cream cheese until smooth. Stir in onion powder, salt, lemon juice, and milk. Add blue cheese and mix will. Refrigerate at least 2 hours.

This is dedicated to all those people out there who love to eat pure snow!

I’ve just never been able to help the fact that I love snow. I grew up in Miami, Florida, and the only time we had “snow” was when the snow machine would come to our school once a year and make a pile of snow in the parking lot for us to play in. Sure, it was great, but it never lasted for more than a day. I will never forget the first time I saw “real” snow. I was 6 and my family and I were up visiting relatives in Michigan for Christmas. Everyone figured it would rain, but I bet them all it would snow. If I won, I would be taken to McDonald’s…which was a real treat when I was a kid since we seldom went out to eat anywhere. And, well, it snowed and snowed and snowed. That evening also happened to be the first time I ever saw an icicle. On the way back from dinner, my uncle broke one off of a tree for me and I sucked on it the whole way home like it was the most delicious popsicle I’d ever had.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited about the snow, and I kept opening the patio door and grabbing some with my hand to eat it. My mom had the genius idea of putting a bowl outside to catch the snow for me so I would stop letting the cold air into the house. So, the bowl would go out, get filled up, and I’d shovel it into my mouth with a spoon, and repeat the process all over again. There was/is just nothing better than freshly fallen snow. It’s so light and fluffy and crunchy, but never hard on the teeth. And, what can I say, but it sure is thirst quenching!

I am not embarrassed to say that I still hold true to this tradition every winter even as an adult. Nothing makes a gloomy cold day happier than a bowl of fresh snow!

Add sugar?? No way!
I always got weird looks at the carnival when I wold ask them not to add the sugar syrup to my snow cone. “You mean you just want ice?” Is what would usually accompany that strange looks I got. Sometimes I would only be charged half price, and sometimes I’d be charged full price. Either way, I got it the way I wanted.

So, in tribute to my love of snow, I took some pictures the other day. I now live in Germany and it usually snows here most of the winter. But, this has been quite a disappointing fall/winter season. We only had snow 1 day in November and a few consecutive days in January. Now it’s just raining.

To snow, I lift my glass to you!

I was just taking some pictures of these lovely Italian artichokes before cooking them! I have my basic recipe here if you’re interested!

This is a great no-bake recipe that has been in my husband’s family for a while.

Ingredients:
2 Cups of Sugar
1/3 Cup of Cocoa
1 stick of Butter
½ Cup of Milk
1 teaspoon of Vanilla extract
3 Cups of Oatmeal
1 Cup of baker’s Coconut

Directions:
In a large pot, melt butter as much as possible without letting it burn. Add sugar, cocoa, and milk. Stir constantly for about 1 minute. Add vanilla extract.

Wait until boiling.

Add oats and coconut and mix well. Remove from heat and let cool for about 5 minutes, but don’t wait any longer or it will harden in the pot! Drop by spoonfuls onto aluminum foil. Let cool for about 30 minutes and then refrigerate. Once cookies have completely hardened, you can remove them from the aluminum foil and store them in a Tupperware container in the refrigerator. If you make a larger recipe, you can also store the leftovers in the freezer…the cookies will defrost in about 30 minutes when left out at room temperature.

I just threw some frozen berries together with some sugar and wrapped in is some extra pie dough that I had. Nothing really scientific about it, and I don’t exactly have a recipe, but it came out tasting really yummy!

I just woke up one day wanting a bit more than just apple pie…so I decided to add some raspberries to it to add a bit more tang. The raspberries produced more liquid than I would have originally hoped for, but in the end it worked out great since I was able to scoop it up and pour it all over the pie. The apple pie recipe is another recipe from my mom!
Ingredients:
2 Pie crusts (see recipe here, but don’t forget to double it!)
6 Cups of peeled and sliced Apples (I get 1 of each kind of apple)
1 Cup of frozen Raspberries
¾ Cup of Sugar
3 Tablespoons of Flour
½ teaspoon of Cinnamon
dash of Salt
1 teaspoon of Butter

Directions:
Preheat oven to 218°C (425°F). In a large bowl, combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt. Place apples and raspberries in the bowl and mix until well coated. Place 1 pie crust into a pie dish and fill with apple/raspberry filling. Cut butter into little pieces and sprinkle on top of the filling. Place the second pie crust over the filling and trim and flute the edges. Cut about 6 slits into the top of the pie to let it breath while baking.
Bake for 40-45 minutes or until juices begin to bubble through the slits. Let stand for 20 minutes before serving.

This is a delicious recipe that my mom gave me. She usually makes it for Easter brunch, but I find that it hits the spot any time of the year. I think she got the original recipe from Pillsbury.

Ingredients:
1 Pie Crust (see recipe here)
8 slices of Bacon
2 ½ Cups of shredded Swiss cheese (Emmentaler)
2 Tablespoons of Flour
4 Eggs
¾ Cup of Whipping Cream
¾ Cup of Half & Half (or half cream and half milk)
½ teaspoon of Salt
dash of Pepper
¼ Cup of chopped Onions
1 Cups of sliced Mushrooms

Directions:
Preheat oven to 177°C (350°F). Place pie crust in a 9” pie pan. Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove the bacon and place on paper towels to drain. Once the bacon has cooled, crumble it. Sauté the onions until soft in the bacon drippings remaining in the pan, and set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the cheese and flour; mix well. In a large bowl, beat the eggs slightly. Add cream and half & half to the eggs. Continue by adding the onions, salt, pepper, mushrooms, bacon, and cheese mixture. Mix well. Spoon into crust-lined pie dish. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

I came across this delicious little dish on the Cooking For Engineer’s Blog…it’s one of his Test Recipes, but in my eyes, it’s perfect! I love making my own pizza dough, and I’ve been using the same recipe for a while now, but it just never satisfied me. It wasn’t fluffy enough, or thick enough, or crispy enough, and the crust was a joke. All it did was allow me to make pizza so I wouldn’t just have to eat the pizza ingredients out of a bowl with a spoon! To top it off, my old recipe took much more planning since the dough needs to rise for 2 hours.

Cooking For Engineers, thank you, you’ve made my day!
So far, I’ve made this pizza twice and both times it came out perfect. I did do some tweaking since I don’t have a microwave and I wanted a quick tomato sauce…all the information is in the recipe bellow, but you can find the original here.

Pizza Dough
Ingredients:
2 2/3 Cups of Flour
7 grams of dry Yeast (1 packet)
½ teaspoon of Salt
8 ounces of Milk
2 + 1 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
2 teaspoons of Sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 95°C (200°F) and then turn off. In a mixer bowl (I used the one that attaches into my KitchenAid mixer…see my Culinary Store for more information), combine flour, yeast, and salt. In a small sauce pan, heat-up to about 43°C (110°F), but do not bring to a boil, the milk, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and sugar. Set your mixer bowl into your mixer with the dough hook in place, and turn it on to kneed. Slowly pour in the milk mixture, and then turn the speed up to 6 and let it kneed for 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl and shape it into a ball. Lightly grease a bowl with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Place the ball of dough in the greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough stand in the pre-warmed oven for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and divide the dough in half.

Pizza Sauce
Ingredients:
¼ Cup of Tomato Paste
2 Tablespoons of Water
dash of Salt, Pepper, Garlic powder, and Onion Powder

Directions:
Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix until combined. Add more tomato paste for a thicker consistency, or more water for a thinner consistency.

Pizza
Ingredients:
2 9″ Pie dishes
2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
Pizza Dough
Pizza Sauce
1 Cup of grated Gouda cheese (or Mozzarella)
8 slices of Pepperoni or Salami
4 fresh mushrooms
other ingredients that I’ve tried are green bell pepper and bacon (just top it with what you love!)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F). Place the pepperoni on 1 or 2 paper towels and place in the oven while it’s preheating. Let it heat up for about 5minutes. This should help remove any excess oil that would otherwise sit on top of your pizza. Remove from oven and continue with recipe.
Coat each pie dish with 1 Tablespoon of olive oil. On a floured surface, roll pizza dough out into a circle that is just slightly larger than the pie dish (the dough should slightly come up the edges of the pie dish, but not go over the edge when placed in). Lay the dough into the oiled pie dish. Coat the dough with pizza sauce, but don’t coat the edges so that you still have crust. Sprinkle the cheese over the sauce. Layer on your toppings, and then bake for 20 minutes.

Makes 2 pizzas: 1 serving per adult or 2 servings per child per pizza.