Ceramic Egg Crate

Yesterday at Goodwill  I found this Williams Sonoma ceramic egg crate. I was so excited! I couldn't wait to get home and fill it with our farm fresh eggs. So cute!

Poutine

For lunch today I am enjoying Poutine, which is French Fries with Gravy & Cheese Curds. It is something that I like to eat every once and a while or when I can get my hands on some fresh cheese curds. I first tried this dish near the Maine-Canadian border when I was in my early 20s and fell in love with the combination of ingredients. What is strange to me is that I was raised in a French-Canadian family but do not recall us ever eating this dish. I do remember how much I loved it when my parent's would bring home Cheese curds after a trip to Canada though.

In my dish above I used a beef based gravy, baked fries and a fresh cheese curds. It is so good!

Cold Snap

We are in for a cold snap for the next four days. Tonight we are supposed to be in the negatives and tomorrow the high will be 10 degrees (if we are lucky)! So I decided to make some Pea Soup to enjoy over the next few days. Whenever I make Pea Soup I think of my Pepere who used to make this soup when I was a child. Unfortunately I never got his recipe before he died, so I usually make the recipe off a local bean company's bag. Tonight I couldn't find the recipe I usually use, so I combined a couple recipes to make this delicious soup!

Green Split Pea Soup with Ham

1 lb dry Green split peas
1 Chicken Bouillon Cube
6 cups water
Ham Bone or 1/4 lb smoked ham, diced
1 cup chopped celery
1 medium carrot, diced
1 small onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Sort and rinse peas. In a 6 to 8 quart pot, add peas, bouillon cube and water. Bring to boiling; simmer 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover and let stand 1 hour. Add ham bone, celery, carrot, onion, garlic, bay leaf and thyme; heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until peas are soft. Remove bone; cut off meat and dice. If desired, remove bay leaf then put vegetable mixture through food mill, blender** or sieve. Return meat to soup; season to taste with salt and pepper.

Note: I usually use a hand held immersion blender.

French Toast

On Friday it snowed yet again. Since school was cancelled I decided to make a special breakfast, Raisin French Toast with sausages and orange juice. It was so good!

Raisin French Toast
6 slices Pepperidge Swirl Raisin Cinnamon Bread
1 oz milk
1 egg
Pinch of Cinnamon

Tiny bit of Vanilla Extract

Preheat griddle or pan (lightly butter or oil first). In a shallow dish scramble together the milk, egg, cinnamon and vanilla. Dip both sides of the the bread slices into the mixture and then cook both sides on the griddle.

Aiden ate half of his French Toast and then decided that he wanted to eat Pancakes. Since I had a hot griddle and a Pancake mix handy I humored him.

They both left the table happy with full tummies. "Snow day, yummy snow day!"

Snow Blowing & Hot Cocoa

It has been snowing for most of the day today and our driveway really needed to be plowed by the time Ehric got home from school. So after Ehric got off the bus and made snow angels he and Daddy got to work plowing the driveway. Daddy taught Ehric how to use our Case tractor and for a six year old he did awesome!! Maybe in a few years he will be plowing the driveway by himself.

Since it was snowing and it was cold out I figured everyone would want some hot cocoa. I decided that instead of using the Swiss Miss I would make some from scratch. So I dug out my Hershey's cookbook and made some Hot Cocoa. It was so good with the gingerbread we have leftover from our gingerbread house from Christmas. Everyone had a mug and warmed up!

Hot Cocoa

(from Hershey's 1934 Cookbook (C) 1992)

3 tblsp sugar
2 tblsp Hershey's Cocoa (or any baking cocoa)
Dash salt
1/4 cup hot water
1 1/2 cups milk
Marshmallows or marshmallow creme

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cocoa and salt; stir in water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils. Boil and stir 2 minutes. Add milk. Heat to serving temperature, stirring occasionally. Do not boil. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Beat with rotary beater or wire whisk until foamy. Serve hot, topped with marshmallows.

Optional: before whisking add in a little bit of cinnamon.

Oatmeal Jammy Bars

Looking through the Family Meals cookbook today I decided to make the Oatmeal Jammy Bars for an afternoon snack. I really had a craving for strawberry jam bars but only had about a tablespoon, so I am experimenting with apple jelly. They were delicious!! I will definitely make these again!

Oatmeal Jammy Bars
(from Family Meals: Creating Traditions in the Kitchen by Maria Helm Sinskey)

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
¾ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 ¼ cups old-fashioned rolled oats

¼ cup ground pecans or almonds (optional)

½ cup berry jam

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9” square baking pan or dish.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, using your
hands to combine thoroughly. Scatter the butter pieces over the flour mixture and cut in the
butter with a pastry cutter or two kitchen knives until the mixture is moist and crumbly. Add
the oats and nuts, if using, and toss to mix evenly.

Press two-thirds of the dough into the bottom of the prepared pan. Spread the jam evenly over
the top. Crumble the remaining dough evenly over the top, and press down lightly.

Bake until the top is golden brown, 35-40 minutes. Let cool completely on a rack, and then cut
into bars. Makes 10 bars

Buttermilk Biscuits

With the house to myself this morning I decided to make biscuits to go along with the Red Lentil Soup I made yesterday. The biscuits came out so fluffy and tasted amazing with my soup. I was good though I only ate two. My family has been snacking on them all afternoon. Warm biscuits are great on a cold Winter day!

Buttermilk Biscuits

(from The Best Marjorie Standish: Chowders, Soups & Stews- Down East Recipes)

2 cups sifted flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp soda

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 rounded tblsp shortening

1 cup buttermilk

Sift flour, measure and sift together with salt, soda, cream of tartar and baking powder.

Cut in the shortening, using a pastry blender or 2 knives. Add the buttermilk quickly, using a fork for stirring into dry ingredients. Knead lightly on a floured board.
Cut in size biscuits desired, place on a greased pan and bake at 475 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
Makes about 12 biscuits.

** I like to add 1 tbsp of sugar to the dry ingredients.
** If you do not have buttermilk you can use milk and lemon juice.

Winter Cooking

Earlier today I went to the wholesale club and restocked our fridge, freezer and pantry. Since we had a lot of bulk meats and other items I decided to do some cooking this afternoon. I prepared hamburger patties, Italian meatballs, BBQ meatloaf, cheesy scalloped potatoes, red lentil soup, and glazed carrots. We ate the meatloaf, the potatoes and the carrots for dinner. It was yummy!

Hamburger Patties
Ground Beef
Montreal Steak Seasoning
Lea & Perron's
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder

Mix together with your hands and shape into patties.

Italian Meatballs
2 lbs Ground Beef
2 Sweet Italian Sausages
1/4 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 Egg
1 cup 4-C Italian Breadcrumbs
A few dashes oregano and Basil

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Lay out two baking trays. Slice open the sausages, remove the meat, tear apart and put in a large bowl with the ground beef. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix with your hands. Roll into small balls and space out meatballs on the trays. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

If using immediately, put the meatballs in a tomato sauce and simmer until ready to eat. The longer the better.

For later use: Once the trays and the meatballs are cool, put the baking trays in the freezer. When the meatballs are frozen remove the meatballs and place in a plastic storage bag. By freezing the meatballs first they will not stick together and then you can remove however many you need at a time.

BBQ Meat Loaf
1 1/2-2 lbs ground beef
2 beaten eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup 4C Italian Seasoned breadcrumbs
Few dashes onion Powder
Few dashes Garlic Powder
Few Dashes Ground Mustard
Few dashes Pepper
1 tsp Salt
A few shakes of any BBQ rub or seasoning

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Layout a baking tray. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Shape into a loaf by hand on the baking tray. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes. Remove any grease, brush BBQ sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray's) onto the loaf and put bake in the oven for another 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and eat right away or eat the next day.

Glazed Carrots
Carrots-dice into small slices
Honey
Water
Orange juice (optional)

Put the diced carrots, a little bit of honey and a little bit of water in a baking dish and bake until cooked (when you can poke a fork through easily) or cook in a saucepan on a stove top adding the honey towards the end of the cooking.

Christmas Cake?

Last Monday while volunteering in Ehric's class his teacher made the following comment to the class..."All during Christmas break I kept wondering about Ehric's Christmas cake." I thought to myself, "Christmas cake?" A few minutes later I remembered that Ehric wrote a Christmas poem about Christmas being about Jesus' birthday and cake. I went over to his seat and asked him, "Is Christmas cake when we bake a cake for Jesus' birthday?" He said, "Yes!" Then it all made sense to me...for the past several years we have baked a simple cake on Christmas morning and have sung "Happy Birthday to Jesus" before eating the cake. In that moment I felt bad that I hadn't baked a cake this past Christmas. I told Ehric we would bake a Christmas Cake ASAP and sing "Happy Birthday to Jesus"!

Before Ehric got home from school I baked a spice cake. While it was starting to cool the cake split on the top. At first I was disappointed that the cake split, but when I looked closer I started to laugh when I saw that the split was in the shape of a 'J.' Apparently Jesus approves our our Christmas Cake!