Hot Fudge Sauce

Hot Fudge Sauce (Dani Carbajal)

1 bag chocolate chips

1 stick butter

1 can condensed milk

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt butter and chocolate over a low heat in a heavy saucepan. Slowly add canned milk and powdered sugar alternating a little at a time. Turn up heat and cook for 8 minutes stirring constantly. Take off heat and add vanilla. Refrigerate any unused sauce.

(…but make sure your kids don’t know you put it in there. ‘Cause they might get up early and eat it all for breakfast while you’re still sleeping- which is why I have no picture for you.)

Crustless Spinach Quiche

My wonderful friend Chelsea told me about this fabulous last minute recipe. Just keep a some frozen chopped spinach in the freezer and you'll be ready anytime you need a quick and easy dinner. Usually I garnish it with chopped tomatoes with salt and pepper and, since it's crustless, some french bread. This time though we had bruschetta (see post below) along with it- even better!

Crustless Spinach Quiche (allrecipes.com)

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
• 5 eggs, beaten
• 3 cups shredded Muenster cheese (I just use whatever I have- cheddar, monteray jack)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 
  
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9 inch pie pan.
• Cook onions in oil until soft. Stir in spinach and continue cooking until excess moisture has evaporated.
• In a large bowl, combine eggs, cheese, salt and pepper. Add spinach mixture and stir to blend. Scoop into prepared pie pan.
• Bake in preheated oven until eggs have set, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Tomato Basil Bruschetta

The other day I had a craving for bruschetta so I asked a friend if she had a recipe. She told me she just buys the stuff at Trader Joe's, so that's what I did. I know, kind of cheating, but it was SO yummy. I brushed the bread with some olive oil, broiled it for a minute and then pilled the bruschetta on top. Maybe next time I'll try making it from scratch. Like this recipe at allrecipes.com.

Pumpkin Cookies

These just say "autumn" to me. It seems they are the first of the holiday baking that I make each year. I always have to give away half cause it makes so many and I can't stop eating them. ;)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 c margarine/butter
3 c sugar
3 eggs
2 t vanilla
1 large can Pumpkin
5-6 c flour
3 t baking soda
1 1/2 t salt
2 t nutmeg
3 t cinnamon

1 t cloves

1 bag chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS: In large bowl cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, pumpkin. In separate bowl sift together dry ingredients. Combine with wet ingredients. Mix well and add chocolate chips. Spoon onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375º 10-15 min. (In my oven it's always 15.)

Chicken Curry with Cashews

I have two curry recipes I like to make. I think of this one as my fancy curry. Probably because my friend, Karen, made it for a fancy Enrichment dinner. She went all out and decorated everything and even had little recipe cards next to the plates- which I'm so glad she did.

Also, this one has some extra ingredients that I don't usually have on hand and that my other recipe doesn't include like fresh ginger, cilantro, and cashews so I have to plan ahead when I make it. It also calls for cumin which I think gives it a kind of sweet aroma. It really is delicious.

(Sometimes the pictures just don't do the dish credit.)

Chicken Curry with Cashews (KAREN GREGSON)

¼ c. butter
2 medium onions, finely chopped (2 cups) (I also added a chopped bell pepper this time)
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 TBSP finely chopped peeled fresh ginger (I forgot to buy this so I just substituted ginger powder)
3 TBSP curry powder
2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp cayenne pepper (Next time I might half this or add it at the end so the kids will eat it. I thought it was a bit spicy but my husband said it was perfect.)
3 ½ -4lb. chicken pieces (I just use 10 tenders or 3 or 4 breasts)
1 (14.5oz) can diced tomatoes
¼ c. fresh cilantro
¾ c. cashews (1/4 lb)
¾ c. plain yogurt
Cooked basmati or jasmine rice

Heat butter in a 5-6qt. wide heavy pot over low heat until foam subsides, then cook onions, garlic, and ginger, stirring until softened, about 5 minutes. Add curry, salt, cumin, and cayenne, cook, stirring for 2 minutes. Add chicken and cook, stirring to coat, 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, including juice, and cilantro and bring to a simmer, then cover and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until chicken is cooked through, about 40 minutes. Then just before serving, pulse cashews in a food processor until finely ground, then add to curry along with yogurt and simmer gently, uncovered stirring until sauce is thickened, about 5 minutes.

Chicken Tortilla Lime Soup

This is one of my favorite soups. I think the cilantro and fresh lime juice make it taste just like some I had in Mexico. Mmm The recipe has you make your tortilla strips, but I usually just use tortilla chips.

Chicken Tortilla Lime Soup (Raylene Hadley)
1-2 lbs chicken breasts or tenders seasoned with garlic powder, salt, pepper and 1/4 tsp cumin

(I usually just use 2 breasts)
olive oil cooking spray (I just use olive oil)
1 onion, chopped
1 red jalapeno, chopped (I can only find green, so that's what I use)
1 Anaheim chili, chopped
1/4 tsp chili powder
7 cups chicken stock or broth
1 c white sweet corn, fresh or frozen
1 can black beans, rinsed
1/3 c cilantro, chopped
2-3 medium avacadoes, chopped (into small chuncks)
juice of 1 large lime (1/4 cup)
½ c grated low fat jack or chedder cheese
tortilla strips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Place seasoned chicken in one layer on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes for tenders or 25 minutes for chicken breasts, or until jucies run clear. Remove from oven and cool. Then shred or cut into 1-inch pieces and set aside.

Spray a large Dutch oven or stock pot lightly with cooking spray and heat over medium high. Add onion and red jalapeno peppers to pan and sauté until onion is translucent. Add Anaheim pepers and 1/8 tsp. chili powder to onions and continue to sauté for another minute.

Add chicken broth to onion and pepper mixture along with chcken and corn, beans, cilantro, and lime juice. Simmer for 5-10 minutes over medium until all ingredients are heated through. Adjust seasonings if necessary with salt, cumin, extra lime juice and fresh pepper. Add chopped avacadoes.

Pour soup into bowls top with tortilla strips and cheese.

Yeild six 2-cup servings each at approximately 295 calories; 4.5 grams of total fat; 1.4 grams sturated fat; 31 grams total carboydtrate; 4.4 grams dietary fiber; and 33 grams of protien.

Strawberry Shortcake

We checked out this book from the library and my daughter insisted we make the recipe, so we did. It was a fun book with little facts, tips, and explanations about cooking along the sides of each page. I even learned something: strawberry shortcake is called "shortcake" because of the shortening in it (though we used butter). Maybe I'm behind, but it was news to me.So pretty much it's like a gigantic biscuit slathered with whip cream and strawberries. I've always thought real strawberry shortcake (not those little angle food cakes they sell by the strawberries in the store) was rather dry and bland, but this was really good. The only thing I did different from the book was add some sugar to the strawberries and let them sit to bring out the juices while the cake baked.

Birthday Cakes

Here are a couple birthday cakes I made recently. Finally putting that cake decorating class knowledge to use. This one was for my sister who was visiting on her birthday. She loves football and is a big Packer's fan. (I didn't use supports and by the time I took the picture it kind of smooshed down on itself. :P Oh well, you get the picture.) It was fun working with fondant.

Conference Donuts

This conference weekend instead of making cinnamon rolls we tired something new. We made our own donuts! My friend and cooking mentor referred me to this recipe at Allrecipes.com (love that site!). She told me to double the glaze, which I was glad I did; there was just enough for all the donuts. They weren't the most perfectly shaped, but they still tasted great and were a lot cheaper than Krispy Kream!

I think the oil was too hot at first. They were cooking really fast and got too dark. (I had no way to measure if it was the 350 it called for). So I turned it down and waited a few minutes before doing any more. That seemed to do the trick.

I used a spatula to slide them in the oil, but ended up just using a fork to flip them and pull them out.

I had one cookie sheet with cookie rack to place them on right out of the oil. Then I would dip them- still hot- into the glaze and on another cookie sheet w/ rack:

I kept the glaze on the stove. It needed to be reheated often as the surface cooled and started to crust over. When there was a lot of glaze that had dripped off on the cookie sheet I just scrapped it back into the pot on the stove.

Maybe next time I'll try a chocolate glaze. Mmm

Anyone else have have a good recipe or idea for donuts?