weight watchers

Well, Doug and I have decided to do weight watchers.  I'll try to put our update, lower calorie versions of recipes on here too...and let you know how they compare.  Wish us luck!

Miscellaneous recipes

I've been cooking quite a bit lately and I have some recipes that I don't want to lose track of.

The first one is something that Doug and the kids loved.  I'm not a big ham eater so I didn't really care much one way or the other.  I will say that anything that I can put in the crock pot and have done when I get home is a winner with me.

This recipe is from allrecipes.com

Slow Cooker Ham

2 c packed brown sugar
1 cured (8 pound) bone-in picnic ham

Spread about 1 1/2 c brown sugar on the bottom of the slow cooker crock.  Place the ham, flat side down, into the slow cooker.  (You may have to trim it a little to make it fit).

Use your hands to rub the remaining brown sugar onto the ham.

Cover and cook on Low for 8 hours.


Cream Tarragon Chicken

2 T butter
4 boneless, skinless chicken (about 1 1/3 pounds in all)
3/4 t salt
1/4 t fresh ground pepper
2 T chopped onion
1 c mushrooms, sliced
1 T flour
1 c dry white wine
1/2 t dried tarragon or 1 1/2 t fresh tarragon
1/2  c heavy cream

In medium frying pan, heat the butter over moderate heat.  Season chicken  with 1/4 t of the sat and the pepper.  Add it to the pan and cook the chicken until brown  about five minutes.  Turn over and cook just unitl done, about five minutes longer.  Remove chicken from pan and keep warm.

Reduce the heat to moderatly low.  Stir in the onion and cook until starting to soften, about 2 minutes.

Add mushrooms and cook until done.

Sprinkle flour over the onion and stir to combine.

Increase heat to moderate. Whisk in wine and the tarragon and cook until sauce starts to thicken.

Stir in the ream, the remaining 1/2 t salt and any accumulated chicken juices.

Serve the sauce over the chicken.

French Onion Soup

One of the Christmas presents that I received from my wonderful husband and sons is a copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  The first recipe I tackled was something I'd been wanting to make anyway -- French Onion Soup.

Today is January 2.  The boys got home from visiting their dad yesterday.  Doug and I have been sick the whole time they've been gone.  And Doug got considerably worse yesterday.  And it's about 15 degrees here.  So today seemed like a good day for soup.

The instructions for this recipe are from Julia Child.   I've put the exact ingredients that I looked.

5 medium onions, sliced (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 stick butter
2 T oil  (I used peanut oil because it was sitting next to the stove)
1 t salt
1/4 t sugar (helps onions to brown)\
3T flour
4 cans beef broth
4 cubes beef bouillon dissolved in 1 cup water
1/2 c dry white wine ( I used Chenin Blanc)

Cook onions slowly with butter and oil in covered saucepan for 15 minutes.

Uncover, raise heat to moderate, and stir in salt and sugar.  Cook for 30 to 40 minutes stirring frequently until the onions have turned and even, deep, golden borwn.

Sprinkle with flour and stir for 3 minutes.

While onions are cooking, heat broth/bouillon to boiling.

off heat, add onions to boiling liquid.  add the wine and season to taste.  Simmer partially covered for 30 to 40 minutes.

Serve in soup crocks, covered with a piece of crusty bread and cheese.

(I used the combination of cheeses that we used for fondue -- Gruyere, Jarlsberg, Emmental and smoked gouda.)

Christmas Recipes

Elfin Shortbread

Source: www.ellesnewenglandkitchen.com

http://www.ellesnewenglandkitchen.com/blog/2008/9/29/holiday-baking-elfin-shortbread-cookies-first-in-a-series.html


Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups flour
3 TB sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 TB red and green sprinkles
Directions:
Mix the flour and sugar in a medium bowl.

Cut in the butter until you get fine crumbs.

Stir in the sprinkles and knead until smooth.

Pat the dough out into an 8x5 inch rectangle on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Cut the dough into 1/2 inch squares, and separate them on the baking sheet. (A bench scraper works really well for cutting them.)

Bake at 325 for 12-14 minutes, and then transfer the cookies on the parchment to a cooling rack.

Store in a tightly covered container at room temp for up to three days or in the freezer for up to three months.



APPLE PIE


Next up, I wanted to make a really good apple pie.  This started out as Grandma Olpe's apple pie on allrecipes.com.  So many people claimed it was their grandma's recipe, I just decided to make my changes and call it apple pie.



Ingredients:
Two pie crusts (I use the Pillsbury premade kind)
1 egg white
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 t vanilla
2 t cinammon
1/2 t nutmeg
8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer. Add vanilla.
2. Place the bottom crust in your pan. Brush bottom crust with beaten egg white. Fill with apples, mounded slightly.

3. Pour about 2/3 of sugar mixutre over the apples.

4. Cover with a lattice work crust. Gently pour remainder of sugar mixture over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
3. Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.

Rene's Chicken Kurma

 Decided to repost the Chicken Kurma recipe.  We fixed it again last night, just like this and it was pretty awesome.

2 lbs chicken, cut up in small pieces
3-4 medium onions
Butter
Garlic
1 T ginger/garlic paste
1 T coriander
2 T garam masala 
1 ½ T turmeric
1 t Indian hot chili powder (or 2T cayenne pepper and 2T red chili powder)
6oz plain yogurt
½ cup cashews, ½ of them ground
2 c cream
½ can stewed tomatoes
SALT!
Cut onions up and sauté ¾ of them in butter with garlic. Remove from pan. Add more butter, chicken, ginger paste and remaining onions. Cook until done but not brown. Remove chicken from pan.

Add onions back to pan and add yogurt and combined spices. Stir well until warm. Add chicken,1 c cream, tomatoes and cashews. Stir frequently. Simmer about 30 minutes (long enough to cook rice).

Add another cup of cream and heat until warm.

This was spicy!! The flavor was awesome!!

We eat this with basmati rice.

Cream Tarragon Chicken

I used to make a dish like this a long time ago.  It was the only fancy thing that I made way back then.  I thought of it a couple weeks ago and went in search of a recipe.  I found several (of course) but none exactly right.  So I made my own.

4 T butter
3 lbs boneless chicken thighs
3/4 t salt
1/2 t ground pepper
1 c chopped onion
1 c sliced fresh mushrooms
3 T flour
1 c dry white wine
1 t dried tarragon (or 3 t chopped fresh tarragon)
1 c heavy cream
1 c half and half

Melt butter over moderate heat.  Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add to the pan.

Cook the chicken until brown, about five minutes.  Turn and cook until just done, about five minutes longer.  Remove chicken from skillet and place in baking dish.

Reduce heat.  Stir in onion and cook until starting to soften.  Add mushrooms and cook until done.

Sprinkle flour over the onion/mushroom mixture and stir to combine.

Increase heat to medium.  Whisk in the wine and the tarragon and cook until the sauce starts to thicken.

Stir in the cream, half and half and any accumulated chicken juices.

Pour sauce over chicken.

Keep warm in 250 degree oven until ready to serve.  Cover baking dish with foil if it will be in the oven long.

Spudnut Donut Success!

As many of you may know, I get obsessed on occasion with learning to cook something new.  It happened with Chicken Kurma.  I cooked it over and over and over again until I got it just right.  Same thing happened with Thai Spicy Basil Chicken.
The most recent of these obsessions is donuts.  I tried to make them from scratch a few weeks ago and was not pleased at all with the results.  My husband started talking about a donut shop that used to be here in Utah called Spudnuts.  We looked it up on the internet and discovered a recipe and a local place that sells Spudnut mix.  That seemed the best way to proceed. 
So, this past week my husband stopped by this place and bought a bag (a 25 lb bag!)
Today was the day for my first attempt.  I need to write down the recipe and some important notes.

Original Spudnut Donuts (Makes about 30 donut)
2 1/8 Cups warm water (100-100 degrees)
2 Tablespoons dry instant yeast (that's the rapid rise kind)
pinch of sugar
6 cups Original Sputnut Donut Mix
extra donut mix, as needed
Parchment paper or waxed paper cut into 30 - 4inch squares
Olive oil/and or vegetable oil (I used vegetable oil)

Glaze:
4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup hot water
2 drops vanilla extract


In a large mixing bowl, add water, yeast and a pinch of sugar.  Gently stir.  Cover bowl and let stand 5 to 8 minutes or until foamy.

Add Spudnut mix to the yeast mixture.  Blend together for 5 minutes.  If using an electric mixer, use the dough hooks.  Constantly scrape sides of bowl.  Add extra Donut Mix if needed (1 T at a time).  Blend again for 5 more minutes until smooth and elastic.  (Rene's notes:  I used my Kitchen Aid with the dough hook.  I used a flat wooden spatula to keep pushing the dough off of the sides.  I didn't discover that I needed any "added donut mix" until I took the dough out of the bowl.  It was a little too sticky so I put it back in the bowl, added 1 tablespoon of mix and blended it.)

Turn dough into a light greased bowl.  Cover.  Let rise for 30 minutes.

Punch dough down and let rise again for 30 minutes.  While dough is rising, cut waxed paper into 30 - 4 inch square.

Punch dough down.  Spray counter with cooking oil.  Turn dough onto greased counter.  Divide dough in half.  Roll each half of dough to 1/2" thickness.  Let rolled dough rest for 3 minutes.  Cut with a floured donut cutter.  Press down in the middle of the donut cutter so the center hole makes a clean cut.  Remove dough from center cut.  Flour donut cutter before each new cut.  Gently place donuts on the paper pieces.  Place them on large cookie sheet pans.  Cover.  Let rise until very light and fluffy (45 to 60 minutes.  Rene's note: I think it's actually more like 60 to 90 minutes) 

While donuts are rising, make glaze.  Put powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl.  Add hot water and vanilla extract.  Mix until smooth.  Set aside.

While donuts are rising, prepare oil.  Heat oil to 375 to 380 degrees.  (If oil is smoking, it is too hot!  Use a cooking thermometer.)  Make sure the oil doesnt cool down while you're frying.  Check oil temperature often.  Carefully add 1-2 donuts and fry about 20 to 25 seconds until golden brown.  Use long wooden sticks to turn donuts over and then fry about 20 to 25 seconds on the other side.  Use the long wooden sticks to remove the fried donuts and place on paper towels to cool.

Using the long wooden sticks, gently place each fried donut into the glaze.  Place on cookie sheet.  Serve while fresh and warm.

Rene's notes (and I have a lot):

• I questioned the reason for the individual pieces of waxed paper.  But I did it anyway.  Thank goodness.  Do NOT skip this part.  Having the dough on its own piece of paper allows you to pick it up to fry it without disturbing the other donuts.  The donut dough is pretty fragile after it has been cut into donuts and risen.  The less handling the better.  The way that I got the donuts into the oil was to use the flat scoop that came with my Fry Daddy.  I took one of the donuts on its little piece of waxed paper, and gently placed it paper side up on the scoop/spatula thingy.  I then peeled the wax paper off of the back and slid the donut off of the spatula into the oil.
• I bought the Fry Daddy for this venture.  Smartest $20 that I ever spent.  It was perfect.  After every two or three donuts, I'd stop for just a minute or two to let the oil heat back up.
• Rather than dipping the donuts in the glaze, we painted it on them with a pastry brush.  We did this when they were warm.  My husband wanted them with more glaze, so we let them cool and brushed another layer on them.