Salad in a Jar — Or… how to eat dessert without dieting

Divide and Conquer– A Skinny Secret for the Holidays

November 26, 2011

I’m taking a break from my regularly-scheduled programming to bring you this special message that may or may not be helpful during this time of seasonal surplus.

I know it's hard to tell in this picture, but these are half-size versions of standard-size baking pans.

Is it just me or do you also have trouble resisting leftover desserts from holiday celebrations? With Thanksgiving behind me, but hopefully not still ON my behind, I am contemplating my plan of defense against the traditional weight gain of the Christmas season. For me, the leftover pie, cake or cookies beckon most loudly when everybody has gone home. Of course, I try to pawn off any extra food, but I’ve observed that more and more, people decline. And who can blame them? Few of us need extra padding. Click here to read the details…

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Thanksgiving and My Version of Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie

November 23, 2011

May your Thanksgiving celebration be filled with gratefulness and joy.

Thank-you to everyone who stopped by this little website during the past year. A special thanks to…

Those of you who leave comments of encouragement, tidbits of useful information, thoughtful questions, or funny observations
People who stumble, tweet, re-tweet, pin, re-pin and otherwise spread the word about a favorite post.
Readers who come back to report their experience with a particular recipe, good or bad, in person or in writing
Facebook followers and fellow food bloggers– you’re the best
Readers who left supportive and comforting words during my father’s illness and subsequent passing– they were read and re-read
Friends, family and co-workers who eat my rejects and overruns
My friend who proofreads my posts. (If you find a mistake, it’s probably because I changed something after she read it.)

Love y’all. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

his love endures forever.

Psalm 107:1

p.s. In case you haven’t chosen a recipe for pumpkin pie yet, here’s the one I like . . . . this year. It’s a richer and creamier adaptation of Libby’s classic pumpkin pie. Thanks to Better Homes and Gardens (November 2011) for the idea to cut letters out of pie dough scraps. I bought a set of small alphabet cookie cutters that I’m pretty sure you’ll be seeing again in other projects.

Click here to see the recipe for the pie

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White Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls + A Video Tutorial About Shaping Rolls

November 16, 2011

An ideal dinner roll for a fancy meal

Wanna know a secret about food blogs?

You can often find the best recipes deep in the archives, published when the blog was first started. The pictures may be a little blurry, the writing dull, and the comments few, but I’ve noticed most of us put up our long-time, favorite recipes in the beginning.

Am I not right, food bloggers? (If you have an example of this on your blog, tell me about it.)

Arguably, my best bread recipe is the first one I published entitled Favorite Dinner Rolls. I’ve made them at least 8,958 times. Let your bread machine (or your Kitchen Aid) do the mixing and kneading, but make the rolls out by hand. The round-as-a-baby’s-butt shapes are easy to make if you follow my video instruction. No rolling pin required! A little practice and you’ll be making beautiful rolls faster than (I Love) Lucy could stuff candy in her mouth.

Modifications to the original recipe:

Instead of all-white flour, I made these rolls with white whole wheat flour. If you were raised on white bread, like I was, but desperately want to like whole wheat, try the white whole wheat flour. The taste and texture is milder than regular whole wheat but still nutritious.
Since I first printed this roll recipe, I have started using butter instead of shortening with no visible difference in appearance or taste.

Click here to see the recipe.

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No-Fuss Brown Butter Icing (Microwave Method)

November 9, 2011

Brown Butter Icing takes these Flaky Cinnamon Biscuits to the sweet side.

Remember these Flaky Cinnamon Biscuits I posted a few weeks ago? They are especially memorable drenched with Brown Butter Icing. Until now, I made this icing the old-fashioned way. Perhaps it’s the way you so it too. Heat butter very slowly in a skillet or small pan. Watch and wait until the butter finally turns brown (and sometimes burns). Z-z-z-z-z-z.

Use a container large enough to contain bubbling butter and COVER while cooking.

Then I tried making it in my microwave oven. I put 4 tablespoons butter in a 4-cup Pyrex glass measuring dish and covered it with a cheap paper plate so it would be easy to scrape off butter splatters. Exactly 3 minutes and 50 seconds later, the butter was browned to perfection. No stirring or babysitting necessary.

Please forgive my preaching. . . . but I don't care what anybody says, cooking with a microwave oven, INTELLIGENTLY, can save precious time with no compromise in flavor or texture.

Some people might turn up their nose at the idea of using a microwave, but I don’t care. In my kitchen, where I usually cook in small quantities, the microwave is a superhero.

A couple of notes about the process:

Like everything you make in the microwave, the time for your oven may vary from the times called for in my oven. Although similar, all ovens are not equal. The temperature and amount of food being cooked will also influence the time required. Keep this in mind if you decide to double the recipe.
Don’t forget to COVER THE BOWL CONTAINING THE BUTTER BECAUSE IT WILL POP AND SPLATTER VIOLENTLY AS IT BEGINS TO BROWN. But that’s OK; it will turn out fine unless you cook it too long.

Click here for picture tutorial and recipe.

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How To Make Greek Yogurt Using Raw Milk

November 2, 2011

To my readers not interested in making yogurt, don’t miss the Cookies and Cream Brownies I posted on Facebook last weekend. They’re kinda evil.

Whole milk Greek yogurt made with raw milk

These instructions are for making regular yogurt and Greek yogurt. Disregard the final step of straining for regular yogurt.

I feel like I’m entering rather treacherous territory, but I’ve had several inquiries about making Greek yogurt with raw milk (unpasteurized milk) on my Homemade Greek Yogurt post, so I decided to try it just so I can say I did.

I don’t have a cow in the backyard or the back forty. Raw milk is not available commercially in my town, but my son and daughter-in-law are in love with it, so they encouraged me to try it. By the way, thanks to Amanda for helping me photograph this post.

Please note: As a home economist, I’m not advocating adding raw milk to your diet. It’s a controversial practice not advised by the USDA. I encourage you to do your own research.

Back to the process. I have read that some people don’t heat their raw milk to 175 degrees in the beginning either because they want to save time or because they don’t want to kill certain bacteria. After doing side by side experiments, I have concluded that whether raw or pasteurized, milk which has not been heated to 175 degrees results in a rather thin yogurt. (Please see this recent interview with my daughter-in-law for her experience making yogurt without first heating the milk.) High heat helps to unravel the proteins which seems to aid the yogurt-making bacteria. Since I don’t like to drink my yogurt, and I’m not comfortable letting unheated raw milk sit at 100 degrees for 12 hours, I stick with the method that calls for high heat, then a cool-down before adding yogurt starter.

As it turns out, making Greek yogurt with raw milk is exactly the same process as pasteurized milk. What follows is a condensed tutorial. If you still have questions, check out my original post on making yogurt for more details.

Click here to see picture tutorial.

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