Saturday, September 22, 2007

Tomatoes and Apples

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Whether you are a southerner or not, fried green tomatoes is a treat you need to taste. This recipe is from Elise of Simply Recipes.
3 medium, firm green tomatoes

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup milk
2 beaten eggs
2/3 cup fine dry bread crumbs or cornmeal
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper
Simple ingredients and simply delicious. Serve with all meats.
If you are baking this weekend, here is a suggestion for getting a pie crust to come out just right. Ximena Maier of Lobster Squad put this out as follows:
1- Blind baking. You know, all that thing about the pie weights, and the beans, or the chain, or the marbles? The thing to do here is to take some loosely scrunched tin foil, and lay it inside, making sure it presses against the sides. It´s more than enough to keep the pie walls from caving.
2- Soggy crust. No more. As soon as you have done the step two, taking the foil out, letting the shell become golden, you inmediately give it a quick brush with egg white. The heat from the pastry will insure that the shell cooks inmediately, sealing it and effectively making it waterproof.
Never thought of the egg wash and it worked for me. Made a delicious apple pie(they are in season now) with a beautiful shell.
Get yourself some beautiful apples and tomatoes and you got the start of a fine meal for the weekend.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

SLOW COOKER AKA CROCK POT

I finally had a chance to use my new Slow Cooker and love it. I know it won't be used daily but I do hope often as it is so easy to put a meal in it and forget about it for the day.
Anyway I have found some great sites for recipes. So I may forgo buying any more slow cooker cookbooks. Here are the sites:
Southern Living at Home Slow Cooker Cookbook
Southern Food crockpot recipe index
Ivillage.com
AllRecipes4Me.com
Better Homes and Gardens Slideshow
Surely there will be some recipes that will strike your fancy. I have started a slow cooker recipe folder to find my recipes alot easier. If you have a site for us to visit, please enter in comments so we can all enjoy.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Fall vegetables and desserts



Here is a nice dessert or even make for breakfast. I notice they use pears but I prefer the apple.


Autumn Dessert
1 large ripe pear or tart apple, peeled and thinly sliced
1/2 cup water, divided
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon raisins, optional
1 teaspoon butter or margarine
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash ground nutmeg 1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 slices cinnamon bread, toasted
In a saucepan, combine pear, 1/4 cup water, sugar, raisins if desired, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg.
Cook over medium heat for 8-10 minutes or until fruit is tender. Combine cornstarch and remaining water until smooth; add to fruit mixture.
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook and stir for 1-2 minutes or until thickened.
Serve warm over cinnamon toast. Top with ice cream or whipped cream if desired. Yield: 2 servings.
NOTE: I made this with a tart apple and made my own cinnamon toast. This recipe came from Taste of Home.
You can find many recipes at Taste of Home site using many of the fall vegetables that are already showing up in the stores. One such recipe is a BUTTERNUT APPLE CRISP and recipes for pumpkin.
I found a great list of desserts at Food and Wine. Browse thru the list and maybe you will find something. I also have been getting emails from Pillsbury.com with lots of recipes for fall. So I suppose all the baking sites will be showing more and more for fall and even the holidays. But it is still quite warm here on the Gulf Coast and I am not into heating up the oven.




Thursday, September 6, 2007

Chef John's Red Clam Sauce

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I just had to post this today as it was quite inviting. Here is the recipe from Chef John @ Food Wishes that he calls a favorite "go-to" dish. As he says it takes only 15 minutes to whip up and is good for anytime or group of people. He does have a video of how to make this but here is the recipe as well. Go to his Food Wishes site and read more of what he has to say about his "Go TO" dish.
1 pound pasta
2 cans (6.5 oz) chopped clams in juice
3 cups tomato sauce (plus 1/4 cup water to rinse jar)
1 cup good white wine
1 tbl anchovy paste or 2 fillets
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp red pepper flakes 2 tbl capers
2 tbl olive oil
Parmesan to taste
salt and pepper to tastefresh
herb to taste, basil or Italian parsley

I know it is rather hot in some parts of the U.S. and maybe you only make banana bread at Christmas but go check out this recipe at Food and Wine. I made it and it is delicious. No walnuts for me tho, so I tried some pecans. In fact Food and Wine has interesting articles on restaurants and wines as well. Give it a try for something different. May you have a good banana bread recipe you might like to share. Send it along in "comments"