We've made hummus several times before. It was only recently that I learned to peel the garbanzos first. A bit time consuming, but worth a smoother finished product.
From two cans of chick peas, the hulls filled up almost one entire can.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
FryingThings
In my attempt to bring this little family blog up to speed, we are nearing the Fourth of July
(and it's only August!)
When we were preparing to celebrate America's Independence from the Queen Mother, we asked ourselves "What is American?"
And though we came up with some pretty humorous answers, one that we all agreed on was fried foods. So, a box of puff pastry was purchased, the fry pot filled with oil, and we began to look for creative things to wrap- though we also planned on some hand pies; Cherry & Apple.
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| Gotta let it thaw |
Some of those nuggets are filled with Dark Chocolate JIF- better than a Reece Cup (we tried that too)
Clay's favorite was the ham & cheddar- next time I will try a portion with ham & cream cheese too.
That's it... no real rhyme or reason for this post... just working through a photo archive and thought to share out healthy American eats.
Frittering Time & Apples
For the most part, (words you don't normally associate with following a recipe)
we followed the recipe found on Ree Drummond's site. She has much better photos- if you plan to make this, I highly advise checking her coverage out.
What follows is really just a documentation of our attempt to re-create tasty apple fritters- not a "how-to".
We had to scrap our deep fryer as the inside coating was beginning to flake. I knew you could fill a pot with oil as a makeshift fryer but I had never been brave enough to try it until I saw Ree's photo coverage. It was less daunting to see that not only had someone else successfully made fritters in a pot of boiling oil, but that they had done so without burning down their kitchen.
Heat the oil on Medium... a test drop of batter will let you know if the oil is too hot or not hot enough baed on shade and speed of browning.
We halved the batter but not the fruit. So 3 apples went into half the batter. To the other half we added bananas.
I used a small ice cream scoop- because the oil was not deep enough for the fritters to float and roll, I flipped them with a spatula.
I removed the fritters when they were an appetizing golden brown.
The fritters were then drained on paper towels before dunking in glaze.
We opted for glaze over powdered sugar.
All fritters made & glazed- waiting to be served for breakfast.
Test Bite
The banana fritters reminded all of us of a crispier banana pancake.
Cut-A-Way of our deep fried healthy breakfast fritters (they DID have fruit in them!)
REE's RECIPE
FRITTERS
- 2 cups All-purpose Flour
- 1/2 cup Sugar
- 3 Tablespoons Sugar
- 2-1/4 teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1-1/4 teaspoon Salt
- 2 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
- 2 whole Large Eggs
- 3/4 cups Whole Milk
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 2 Tablespoons Melted Butter
- 2 whole Granny Smith Apples, Peeled And Diced
- Powdered Sugar (optional, For Dusting)
GLAZE (optional)
- 1-1/2 cup Powdered Sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt
- 1/4 teaspoon Vanilla
- 1/4 cup Milk
Preparation Instructions
In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with a fork, then add milk, melted butter, and vanilla.
Gently fold dry and wet ingredients together until just combined (do not overmix.) Fold in apples. Add enough apples to make a very chunky batter. You want the apples to shine though!
Heat a couple of inches of canola oil over medium to medium-low heat. When it gets hot, drop a little drop of batter into the oil. If it sizzles immediately and rises to the top, the oil is ready; if it burns quickly, turn down the heat.
Drop teaspoons of batter into the hot oil, six or eight at a time. Sometimes they'll flip over by themselves; sometimes you have to flip them. Just watch them and make sure they don't get too brown, but cook them long enough to make sure the batter's cooked through, about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes total.
Remove and drain on a paper towel. Dust very generously with powdered sugar, or dip fritters in a light doughnut glaze (mix all glaze ingredients together, then dunk warm fritters).
Serve warm!
**May be heated up the next day in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes.
Palatable Pita Pockets
Another entry in the "Not Pretty But Palatable" files:
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| Pita dough discs waiting to be flung into the oven. Two factors made my pita less than desirable: My hastiness to finish the project and my fear of very high temperatures. |
Had I rolled the discs more uniformly and had I not flung the discs haphazardly onto the HOT baking sheet in the oven, leaving them to cook more or less in the shape that they landed, they'd have no doubt been easier to use for sandwiches.
I chose to roll some discs smaller with the kids in mind, but they were too small in the end.
I think if I had given them more time for a second rising after rolling into discs, an even better puff may have occurred in the oven- this goes back to the hastiness problem I carry with me through life.
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| 475 is HOT. Use a water bottle to spray in steam. |
Pockets too small for sandwiches were pulled into pieces and enjoyed warm from the oven by all... in a sort of very informal 'communion' held spontaneously in the kitchen...and without wine.
Though they exited their trials by fire misshapen and rather flat, they did have pocket potential. We have used them for ham and cheese, breakfast egg sandwiches and cheese pockets thus far.
Riley helped me with rolling out the pita discs.
Riley helped me with rolling out the pita discs.
Leftovers Pizza
I had some 'leftover' ingredients. We turned them into lunch.
Sauce: Half a tomato, cut & mushed up
Mixed with a little wine, tomato paste, balsamic and seasonings
Crust: Last remains of Greek yogurt & self rising flour
Pressed into an oiled pan with using a layer of plastic wrap (big help on the sticky dough finger problem) Then, buttered & seasoned with crushed garlic & pantry stocked italian flavors.
Hunked up Mozzerella ball and Basil from our patio "garden"
Baked at 375 til bubbly
Remaining garlic tossed in olive oil & salt, roasted alongside pizza in tin foil packet
Whatever roasted garlic was not eaten whole (love that stuff!) we mushed and mixed with sour cream for our dressing of a bag of orphaned Florida Red potatoes that lay abandoned in the bottom of the pantry. ( Italian Bakers~ Mozzerella & Italian seasonings)
It weren't fancy, but it was tasty.
Frozen Banana Whip
Since that time, I finally replaced my old food processor. So we gave the recipe another go.
Ingredients:
Bananas~ sliced into 'medallions'
>>For ease of use, we lined plates with the banana slices and covered them with wax paper. This allowed for stacking the plates due to limited space in the freezer. <<
Once bananas are frozen, pulse in a food processor until creamy. We neglected to make this recipe the day we intended, so the bananas were frozen pretty solid. It took a little extra scraping down the sides of the processor for everything to mesh together.
Serve immediately. Delaying too long will not lead to melting as with ice cream, but it will lead to more of a mashed banana treat than a frozen one.
Personally, I am a fan of banana ice cream. When I used to work at an ice cream scooping place, my favorite thing was to crush Reese Cups into a scoop of banana. As children, we used to get frozen, chocolate covered bananas a lot. So, we topped our 'sundae' with a mix of those flavors- peanut butter and chocolate.
Riley insisted on sprinkles of course.
If you are a banana split fan, this whip may be equally as tasty with strawberry or pineapple topping- or both!
Peanut Butter, Banana, *Bacon & Mayo Bagel
Chewy, Tangy, Sweet & Savory... you should try it.
* I used turkey bacon, but any type will do nicely
Make-Shift Griddle (Featuring MacGyver Clips)
One challenge I often face is serving everyone's meal at the same time; without having the first half served cold. Especially meals cooked in batches, like burgers or pancakes. Often times, eating a 'batch style meal' works a lot like singing in rounds... as the first group reaches the mid-point of their meal, the second group begins to eat, as the first group reaches takes their last bite, the third group is beginning and the second group has reached mid-point... everyone finishes on whatever course they find themselves whenever I run out of ingredients... technically, all together.
By "group" I mean, quite simply, individual.
I have a griddle that makes cooking for many a little easier. Thanks to our most recent move (into a furnished place), it was banished to storage almost a year ago... for (what feels like) forever.
When life puts your stuff in storage- Make Lemonade!
Yeah, I mixed my metaphors. So, what?
Yeah, I mixed my metaphors. So, what?
Ice that lemonade and sip it as you improvise.
Then pat your MacGyver self on the back.
The point of this post is to tell you that I used a cookie sheet as a make shift griddle for our pancakes one recent morning. I also learned that it is a popular improvisation in other countries.
And now you know, too!
And now you know, too!
We did not eat- or sing- in rounds. But we all enjoyed warm pancakes around the table together.
I did hum the MacGyver theme a little... over lemonade and maple syrup.
(that's a lie, we were out of maple syrup, so we "MacGyvered"that too- using frozen strawberries & sugar )
For my particular oven, the Baking-Sheet-As-Griddle method worked best with the burners turned to High. You may need to experiment with a smaller portion of batter until you get the heat right for your own preferences/cooking speed.
* Bonus MacGyver Clip~ in which Mac goes to the supermarket, cooks up some tear gas in aisle 6 and teams up with Granny to defeat the 'bad guys'
Chicken One Pot
The Pioneer Woman recently talked about using what she has on hand. I don't really make a habit of watching her show, it just happened to be on in the background.
This is what that tactic looked like for us the other day...I used everything on hand to make dinner, right down to the half dozen abandoned baby carrots in the veggie drawer...
Chicken & Yellow Rice (w/ Sweet Potato Bread)
No pictures of the chicken cooking- but it's in there.
Trust me.
Browned Butter Brownie Bullet Bites (B5 Shots)
As I was looking for a quick, easy recipe for Sweet Potato Bread using baby food sweet potatoes, I came across this recipe. Now, between trying several recipes on this one blog and the usual course of meals in the past week, I am down to one last half stick of butter (down from 10), but it has definitely been worth it.
The recipe I used:
BROWNED BUTTER TOFFEE BROWNIE BULLET BITES
Makes 36 bites
- 1 2/3 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 large eggs
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/3 cups flour
- 3/4 cups cocoa powder
- 1 cup toffee bits
Again, I substituted half the sugar with brown.
Photos of the steps:
(Yes, I could have taken more photos, but I was too busy minding the butter- it is pure heaven when browned, not so much when burnt...in fact, burnt butter is quite sad...)
That one missing brownie is the "hot-out-of-the-oven-quality-control" bite.
Jiffy Chips
We had salsa, and I thought we had chips, so I had begun to anticipate the part they would play in our mid-day snack. When I got to the pantry, I discovered what we really had was a bag of crumbs. Ever resourceful, my crew will hold on to a package until they have licked it clean...
The salsa sat forlornly in a bowl beside sour cream and our improvised "Hummus-ish"
What to do? What to do?
Thankfully, I had purchased the family size pack of tortillas for our menu's "Taco Night" (which is where the remaining salsa and sour cream originated)
If you ever run out of chips, but have tortillas... it couldn't be easier.
(and if you don't have tortillas, but you do have flour... there's hope yet.)
JIFFY CHIPS
- Using a pizza cutter, slice tortillas into strips/triangles/abstract art shapes.
- Spritz with oil... I keep olive oil in a mister, so I used that.
- Sprinkle with salt & seasoning. (I used dill)
- Bake appx 10 minutes @ 350 Degrees.
- Polish off that salsa or whip up some Hummus-ish or somethin'
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