Meatless Monday Twisted Peas and Rice

I'm starting something new this week, " Meatless Monday" Recipes. I will still share recipes with meat in them though. Just thought this would be fun for a while.
What You’ll Need
1 1/2 Cups Edamame ( it’s okay to use frozen just thaw first)
4 1/2 Cups vegetable broth
1 medium white onion
2 Tbsp olive oil (not extra virgin)
2 Cups white rice (uncooked *not instant)
1 Lemon (washed and zested)
1 Tbsp tarragon (chopped)
1 Cup Parmesan cheese (grated)
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Black pepper
Large saucepan with lid
Lemon zester ( or grater)
Before You Start remove edamame beans  from pods

Let’s Make It! Place olive oil in saucepan, add onion and cook over medium heat until soft (about 4 to 5 minutes), stir in the vegetable broth, slowly add the rice stirring well, reduce heat to medium and cover with the lid , cook on low for about 25 minutes ( or until the rice absorbs all of the broth). Remove from heat and add, Edamame, lemon zest, tarragon, 3/4 cup of parmesan ( reserve the rest for topping) salt and pepper and toss together well. Sprinkle with remaining parmesan. cheese when you serve it.
Serves 4

Slow Cooker Corn and Shrimp Chowder

Yesterday's recipe had a rather luke warm reception. This slow cooker recipe is sure to be a hit!

What You Need

     4 cups   chicken broth

     4 cups corn (fresh or frozen kernels)

     1 medium onion (finely chopped)

     1 red bell pepper (seeded and diced)

     1/2 cup carrots (sliced thinly)

     2 russet potatoes (peeled and diced)

     1 bay leaf

     salt and pepper

     1 Lb.  Medium shrimp (peeled and de-veined)

     1/4 cup fresh parsley (chopped)

     slow Cooker

     blender  or food processor

Lets  Make It! In your slow cooker  combine chicken broth, corn, onion, bell pepper, carrots, potatoes, bay leaf, 1 cup water and 1 tsp. salt . Cover and cook on low until vegetables are tender, about 6 hours. Puree 3 cups of soup in a blender and return to slow cooker. Stir in shrimp. Cover and cook until shrimp are pink and firm about 10 to 15 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with parsley and serve.

Serves-4-6

Katie’s Tid Bits* for a creamy soup add ½ a cup of heavy cream during the last five minutes the shrimp are cooking.

Basil and Corn Tart Recipe

Basil is still happily growing in the windowsill and there's still corn in the freezer from summer.  I thought I'd share this veggie recipe with you today. This recipe makes a nice addition to a brunch menu or serve for a light lunch.

What You Need

1/3 cup butter, softened

 2 Tbsp  Sugar

 1/2 tsp Salt

 3 Eggs

 2/3 Cup Yellow Cornmeal

 2/3 Cup All-purpose flour

 1 Cup half-and-half (or light cream)

 1-1/2 Cups Corn kernels (fresh or thawed if using frozen)

 1/2 Cup coarsely chopped fresh basil (plus a few small leaves for garnish, optional)

 1/2 tsp Salt

1/4 tsp Black Pepper

Electric Mixer

9 inch Tart Pan (or round cake pan )

Aluminum Foil

Plastic Wrap

Tomato ( chopped for garnish, optional)

Before You Start: This recipe requires refrigeration of the crust prior to completion. Make the crust (see below) preheat oven to 350® after removing crust from the refrigerator.

 Lets Make It! In medium bowl, beat butter with electric mixer on medium speed to blend (about 30 seconds). Add sugar and 1/2 tsp salt. Beat until combined. Beat in 1 egg until combined. Add in cornmeal and as much of the flour as you can with the mixer; stir in any remaining flour. Form dough into a Frisbee looking disc and wrap in plastic. Chill for about an hour (until it’s easy to handle).

After dough has cooled, press and pat dough evenly into bottom and sides of tart pan. Cover pastry with double thickness of foil and bake 10 minutes; remove foil. Bake 4 to 6 minutes more.

In medium bowl whisk together 2 eggs and half-and-half. Stir in corn, basil, 1/2 tsp salt and the pepper. Pour into corn crust. Bake 35 to 40 minutes (or until set, no jiggling). Let stand 10 minutes. Sprinkle with tomato and additional basil. To garnish before serving

Serves 6-8

Comfort Food Spicy Tomato Soup

What You Need
1 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion (chopped)
2 garlic cloves (crushed)
coarse salt and ground pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
4 cups roasted tomatoes (canned, jarred or made by you see recipe below)
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 cup cream ( half n half or milk is fine too)
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
Fine mesh sieve or food mill
Blender
Additional, your choice of one or all :Fresh cilantro leaves, croutons and red-pepper flakes, for serving

Let’s Make It! In a saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft (about 12 minutes). Add cumin and coriander; cook, stirring, until fragrant. Add tomatoes, sugar, and 1/2 cup of cream and 1/2 cup of water water, stir well and  cook until warmed through. In batches, puree soup in a blender until smooth (use caution when blending hot liquids). Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Stir in butter and season with salt and pepper. Serve soup with crusty croutons, chopped cilantro (or cilantro leaves) and red-pepper flakes.
Serves 4

Roasted Tomatoes
2 cans (28 oz. each) whole peeled tomatoes
3 garlic cloves (crushed)
3 Tbsp olive oil
Large roasting pan

Before You start: Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Let’s Make it! Place tomatoes in a large roasting pan. With your hands or a large fork, roughly tear each tomato into 1-inch strips. Add garlic and drizzle oil over top. Roast until mixture thickens and holds a trail when you run a knife through it60-90 minutes) rotate the roasting pan halfway through the cooking time. Use immediately, or let cool, then refrigerate in an airtight container, up to 1 week.

Semi Wordless Wednesday Happy Thanksgiving

 

Today I want to send a special thanks to All of You for filling my blog with your smiling faces, your generosity, and your lovely comments. 

You bring me joy and  you share your friendship and I am sincerely grateful.

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving filled with the love of friends and family and joy filled memory making.

For those not living in the US please replace Happy Thanksgiving with Happy week, giggle.

Yummy Coconut Cake Recipe

What You Need


* Cake
12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter ( at room temperature)
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs( at room temperature, separated)
2 cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla or coconut extract
1 tsp grated lemon zest
* Frosting:
2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 large egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
2- 9 inch round cake pans
Electric mixer
Parchment paper
Large mixing bowl
Medium mixing bowl
Sifter
Wire cooling racks
Candy thermometer

Before You Start: Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans. Cut 2 circles of parchment paper to fit pans and place in bottoms. Butter paper and sprinkle pans with flour. Turn and shake pans to coat surface evenly. Tap out excess flour.

Make cake: In a large mixing bowl beat butter until light and fluffy using an electric mixer. Gradually add sugar, beating constantly until well incorporated. Add yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift flour with baking powder and salt onto a sheet of parchment or waxed paper. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with buttermilk. Beat in vanilla and lemon zest.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until medium-firm peaks form, but don't allow whites to become dry. Fold about a third of whites into batter to lighten, fold in remaining whites. Divide batter between pans and bake on middle rack of oven until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool in pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes; turn out onto racks to cool completely.

Make frosting: Combine sugar, 1/2 cup water and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring only until sugar dissolves. Cook syrup until it reaches soft-ball stage, 234°F on a candy thermometer. Cool slightly. In a clean, dry bowl, using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until frothy. With beaters running, slowly pour in warm syrup. Beat in vanilla, and continue beating until cool and thickened.

Assemble cake: Arrange one cake layer on a serving platter. Spread top evenly with about 1/2 cup frosting. Set second cake layer on top. Spread top and sides of cake with remaining frosting. Gently pat shredded coconut onto frosting around sides and sprinkle coconut generously over top.

Serves 12

find more recipes at my website Go Ask Katie

Wordless Wednesday Summers End

Abundance

Summer is slowly coming to an end and the temperatures will hopefully be cooling down soon. We have been enjoying the abundance of fresh vegetables from our garden and strawberries too. There is nothing tastier than biting into a fresh tomato warmed by the sun. Our zucchini, green beans, scallions and brightly colored bell peppers fill our plates every day.
It is my prayer for you that each of you will always have a full plate of good things to eat.

#1 Burpless Cucumber, Hybrid Cucumber, Zucchini Bell Peppers
#2 Tomato, Purple Bell Pepper, Green Bell Pepper,
#3 Green Beans
#4 Lemon Cucumber in my husband’s hand
#5 Armenian Cucumber

Wordless Wednesday Tea with Honey

Vegetable Rainbow ( repost)

There’s a rainbow of color in your vegetable aisle! Have you noticed that bright white cauliflower now has a purple friend? Or that green peppers aren’t always green? I don’t mean yellow, or red, I mean purple!

Purple, my favorite color! Is making its way onto the produce shelves. Thanks to hybrid farming your dinner plate can look like a rainbow. Now, I don’t mind trying something different so purple cauliflower may be the next new thing on our dinner table.

Our vegetable garden has been thriving this season. We are currently overwhelmed with fresh tomatoes. No complaints, we love them even if they are just a beautiful red color. I wonder if someone will develop purple tomatoes! That would be perfectly fine with me. I’ll plant them alongside the red ones.

Our green peppers are green and that’s just fine too. But next year, I think we’ll try purple ones and maybe purple carrots too. Maybe our grandchildren will eat more vegetables if they resemble candy.
Don’t forget to stop by your local farmer’s market and help support your local farms.

Wordless Wednesday Cupcakes

Father's Day Cherry Pie

This Sunday is Father's Day and that means my husband's favorite pie. I thought you might like to try it for your Father's Day celebration or picnic. Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Father's Day to all of the terrific Dads out there and to those wonderful people who represent Dad to so many who love them.
Cherry Pie
What You Need
     2  Tbsp  uncooked quick-cooking tapioca
     6  Cups  pitted sweet cherries
     3/4  Cup  granulated sugar
     1/4  cup  cornstarch
     1  Tbsp  fresh lemon juice
     1/4  tsp  almond extract
     1/8  tsp  salt
     1  Pre-made refrigerated pie dough (such as Pillsbury)
     Cooking spray
     2  Tbsp  water
     1  Large egg white
     2  Tbsp  turbinado sugar( optional* use granulated sugar if you prefer)
     Spice or coffee grinder
     Rolling Pin
     9 Inch pie dish
     Large bowl
     Small bowl
     Basting brush
     Foil
     Wire cooling rack

Before you start: Preheat oven to 400° spray pie dish with cooking spray.
Let's Make It! Place tapioca in a spice or coffee grinder; process until finely ground.
Combine tapioca, cherries, sugar, lemon, almond extract and salt in a large bowl, combine well.
Let cherry mixture stand 30 minutes; stir to coat well.
 Roll 1 (9-inch) dough portion into an 11-inch circle. Fit dough into pie dish coated , allowing dough to extend over edge of plate.
Spoon cherry mixture and any remaining liquid into dough.
Roll remaining (9-inch) dough portion into a 12-inch circle.
Cut dough into 12 (1-inch-wide) strips; arrange in a lattice pattern over cherry mixture.
Fold edges under; crimp with the back of a fork.
Combine 2 Tbsp water and egg white in a small bowl. Brush the egg white mixture over dough on top of pie,
and sprinkle dough evenly with 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar.
Bake at 400° for 20 minutes.
Loosely cover edges of pie-crust with foil, and bake an additional 40 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling is thick and bubbly.
 Cool pie in pan for 45 minutes on a wire rack.
Serves 8-10

The 2010 Sushi Experiment

The 2010 Sushi Experiment

My husband loves sushi. Me, well, not so much, giggle (yes deliberate poor English here). We decided to make our own. We watched a few youtube videos. You can find most anything you need on google and youtube these days! We needed to learn the art of rolling. Rolling down a hill is easy, so how hard can rolling sushi be?

We gathered all of our sushi making goodies and started rolling.

My husband (God bless him) has hands like baseball mitts. I call him Lenny (from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men) he often doesn’t know his own strength. His first attempt oozed sushi fillings out both ends like toothpaste from a tube.  

A few more tries and he had created what resembled sushi rolls. He ate them before I could take the photo. Sushi rolling is hungry work!

Then it was my turn….drum roll please…………………………

 this is how my first try came out! Yes!!!

 After a little muppet victory dance we sat down and ate the rest of our creations.  Guess what, yep, still don’t like sushi. But I’ll be happy to roll it! I ate mostly fried wontons for dinner. 

Have you tried making your own sushi?

Copyright ©Bobskatie Enterprises-all rights reserved

Popcorn A Blog Without Butter

Popcorn is the one snack I can’t live without. Air pop it, microwave it, or make it in a pan. I’m a fan. At the movies I’m the one holding the ridiculously sized and absurdly expensive “bucket o’ popcorn” yes, that’s me. I’m the person you see and say” I can’t believe she’s buying that!” I always fill it up again on my way out of the theater too (I have no shame), it helps justify the expense. I drive with it strapped in securely where I can continue munching. Evidence of this often repeated journey is present under the seats of my car.


I don’t add butter, nope no butter, just good old fashioned popcorn. It’s a guilt free nutrient packed snack. Now, I know a bucket of popcorn is ridiculous and I don’t eat it like that often. But, oh how I love to indulge when I go to the theatre. Did you know that popcorn ranked highest in favorite snack foods in a recent poll (yes they take polls for these things). So I’m not alone. How do you eat your popcorn? (Don’t say with your hands, giggle)

How to make inexpensive microwave popcorn at home.

1/4 cup of popping corn (generally $0.99 for a pound bag.

1 Teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Popcorn salt, you decide how much (use popcorn  salt,it has finer granules than table salt with the same taste)

Other seasonings (get creative)optional

A stapler

A teaspoon

A measuring cup

A brown paper bag

A microwave

Open the paper bag and pour the popping corn in. Carefully add your seasonings and salt. Shake gently. Now add the teaspoon of olive oil. Fold the bag over once at the end and staple twice. No, the staples will not spark in the microwave. Gently shake the contents to mix and press out the air. Lay flat in the microwave and cook until the pops get about 3 to 5 seconds apart. Open the bag carefully as steam will be escaping and you can get scalded. Pour into a bowl, serve and enjoy the taste and the knowledge that this heaping bag of microwave popcorn cost less than $0.10!
Copyright ©Bobskatie Enterprises-all rights reserved

Candy Canes

Candy Canes

The candy cane, it’s one of Christmas’s “fun foods” you can eat it, decorate with it , put pipe cleaner antlers on it, and lick it until your tongue turns red. It’s one of the “sweetest Symbols, of the holidays.

Candy canes came from the creative minds of European choirmasters, who bent candy sticks into the shape of shepherd hooks to present to children attending the Crèche ceremonies. Candy canes came to America in the 1900’s and a few red stripes were added to the peppermint sticks. I’ve often heard that the three red stripes represent the Holy Trinity. What have you heard? I’ve also heard that the hard candy represents the solid foundation of the church and the peppermint flavor represents the hyssop used by Jesus for purification.

So now you know a little something about the candy cane. It’s not just a fresh breath making treat, or a delicious holiday decoration, it’s symbolic too!

Remember the reason for the season.

Copyright ©Bobskatie Enterprises-all rights reserved

The Dirty Dozen

The 'Dirty Dozen' of Fruits and Vegetables

Eating healthy always includes lots of fruits and vegetables, right? Well, did you know there are 12 fruits and vegetables that are actually higher than others in pesticide residue? They can have as many as 9 different pesticides on them! Apples -Bell peppers -Celery -Cherries -Nectarines -Strawberries -Kale -Lettuce -Imported grapes -Carrots and Pears .

Actually it's not just pesticides we need to watch out for. All fruits and vegetables go through a lot of hands from harvest to your local market. They were picked, handled by several different hands in the fields, and the orchards. Handled again by several different hands at the warehouses, and handled again in your local market. Not just by the people who stock the aisles, but also by all the people who come through the market and touch them.

To avoid pesticides you can buy your fruits and vegetables in the organic section at your market. I think it’s important to also list the “Clean 15” they are : Onion- Avocado - Sweet Corn - Pineapple - Mango - Asparagus - Sweet Peas - Kiwi - Cabbage - Eggplant - Papaya - Watermelon -Broccoli - Tomato - Sweet Potato .

No matter where you get your fruits and vegetables they all need to be washed well before peeling, cutting, or cooking. Unless you have grown the produce yourself and know it is chemical free. Cold running water and scrubbing with a vegetable brush is usually sufficient. Peel the outer layer of lettuce, leeks, etc. and discard before washing. If you are still in doubt, wash then peel the fruit or vegetable, or wash with a soapy mixture under running water and rinse well. Or you can use a premade vegetable wash. Even pre-packaged, pre-washed vegetables should be washed under a cold running water rinse before using.

Stay healthy and yes, it’s still very important to eat your fruits and vegetables!

Copyright ©Bobskatie Enterprises-all rights reserved