Sauteed Artichokes

I love love articokes. I put them in all kind of recipes, and I love to eat them plain. Steamed artichokes dipped in butter . . . mmmmm. Too bad the little brats are so expensive! Every once and a while you find fresh artichokes at a good sale price (2 for a dollar would be what I consider a good price), and that is a good day. We all know that when we eat artichokes leaf by leaf, we are just paying our dues so we can get to what we really want, the heart! So tonight I said, to heck with it, I am going straight for the heart, it was worth it, and I only felt a little guilty.

So next time you see some cheap artichokes buy them, and instead of steaming them, do what I did. First pull off all the leaves and cut out the choke (the furry part) with a paring knife. Shave off anything green on the outside so what you have left is just beige. Once you have the beautiful round heart, quarter it. Add a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of olive oil to a saute pan. Add the hearts to the heated butter/oil and season with salt and pepper. Just before they are tender enough, add one or two minced garlic cloves. Once you can pierce the hearts with a fork, they are ready.

You will probably feel a lot more guilty than I did when you eat them, they are that good. I have learned to hide my shame . . . .

what to do with that lame fondue pot you got at your wedding

For a little family fun, we busted out the fondue pot for the first time.  I actually really like fondue of all types, not just chocolate fondue. However, I would much rather have my sweet heart take me to the melting pot that make my own. The chocolate fondue was fun, and the kids loved it, and so did mom.

Ingredient list:

3/4 c half and half

1/2 c heavy cream

2 big symphony chocolate bars (about 12-13 oz chocolate)

The first thing you need to do is fine chop or shave your chocolate. I did this by sending the chocolate through the shredder with the food processor. The finer you get the chocolate the easier it will melt.  I have the electric cuisinart  fondue pot, I think a crock pot would work pretty good, but you may need to heat up the cream on the stove first. Heat up the cream and half and half till bubbles start to form on the edges, turn it down and immediately add the shaved chocolate and stir. Wala! you have fondue! 

We dipped graham crackers, marshmallows, strawberries, bananas, apples, and gummy worms. I baked some brownies to dip, but they weren't done in time.

What to do with left over mash potatoes

As a lot of cooks do, I have a fear of not having enough food. Who cares if my fly is down, or my boob falls out of my swimsuit, that I can live with. I can't live with running out of food at a get together.  That being said, I always have leftovers.  This Sunday, I had quite a bit of mashed potatoes left over. So for dinner the next night, I made some potato pancakes with the leftovers, to go with the chili that I made with the left over roast beef. I have never done this before, but they turned out really good. All the amounts that you put in will depend on how much potatoes you have. It doesn't really matter, just do "a little of this, a little of that."

Potato pancakes:

left over mashed potatoes

handful of shredded cheese

1-2 eggs

1/2 c ish flour

4-5 T cream cheese

splash of season salt

pepper

more egg

panko bread crumbs

vegetable oil

Mix together the first 5 ingredients. Add enough flour to make the potatoes fairly stiff.  Form a patty with you hands, dip in egg then dip in the panko bread crumbs. Now I pre-made these and put them in the fridge till it was time to cook them at dinner. I think it was nice to have them chilled because they were more cement. I put about a 1/4 inch of oil in a skillet and fried them on both sides. Then I served them hot with a little ketchup; they would probably go good with a whole host of condiments, ranch dressing, sour cream, salsa . . . .

Carrott cake with buttermilk glaze

As you know, I go to a lot of banquet type dinners, which means I have had a lot of bad carrot cake. This carrot cake is not bad, it is good. One good thing about it is that it has a little twist. This adapted from a recipe I read in a cooking magazine (I think it was gourmet, I love cooking magazines with all my heart). Their recipe called to make regular frosting, but with the glaze, I thought that would be way too sugary, so I changed it to a cream cheese cream. I also added the nutmeg and clove to the glaze.

Ingredient list:

Cake:

2 c flour

2 t baking soda

2 t cinnamon

1/2 t salt

1 1/2 c sugar

3 large eggs

3/4 c buttermilk

3/4 c vegetable oil

1 8 oz can crushed pineapple in juice

2 c carrots shredded

1 c chopped pecans

glaze:

1 stick butter

1/2 c buttermilk

1 c sugar

1 1/2 t baking soda

1 t vanilla

dash nutmeg

dash clove

cream cheese cream:

pint heavy whipping cream

half a block softened cream cheese

1/4 c sugar

1 t vanilla

For the cake, combine the first 4 ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl beat together the eggs, sugar, buttermilk and oil. Slowly add the flour mixture and beat well. Fold in the carrots, pineapple along with the juice, and pecans. Transfer to a greased cake pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Loosely cover with foil, or put a cookie sheet over it (that is what I do) and bake for about 15 more minutes, test it with a tooth pick to make sure its done.

Meanwhile prepare the glaze: Combine everything but the baking soda in a sauce pan on the stove. Bring to a boil and allow it to boil for about a minute. Turn off the heat a add the baking soda (this will make it grow, so do it in a big pot). When the cake is done, poke holes in it all over and pour the glaze over it so it goes down into the holes (I use a chop stick or a bamboo skewer).

When you are ready to serve it, combine the cream cheese cream ingredients and beat them until they become stiff (not too stiff, that is butter!) and serve with the cake.

My daughter loves boys and she is 5

Alta gets into the car after school and says;

"Mom the funniest thing happened today! Brock didn't even know that I was his girlfriend, so I had to tell him!"

This is not suprising to me because I have known for awhile that she loves boys. Before Brock, it was Seth. Both innocent blond haired blue eyed boys. We have had many discussions about not trying to kiss her boyfriends after I found her chasing poor Seth, trying to pin him down for a smooch;

"Alta, you can't kiss boys until you are a grown up, you can only kiss your mom and dad."

She relentlessly agrees.

She makes Brock a card professing her undying love. It says "kiss me" on it. I make her scratch it out. She draws hearts over the words.

People! She is only five! What am I going to do? HELP!

Beef Curry

This dish is another one of my top 20 favorite things to cook. Many of you will think it doesn't sound that good and probably won't try it, but you will sorely be mistaken. If that is your feeling, email me and I will invite you up next time I make it and you will love it!  Have it with a cold can of your favorite pop (mine is coke zero or diet dr pepper) and it is heaven. I think this is considered "Hawaiian food" I only say that because if anyone lived in the Provo area when back in the day there was the "Bamboo Hut"(not the same place as the current Bamboo Hut, which tries their best but is not even CLOSE to the old Bamboo Hut) they had beef curry on the menu. 

This is another one of those recipes where I use left over Sunday roast beef which is very convenient. If you don't have left over roast beef, buy stew beef and follow the Sunday roast beef recipe first, or follow the pot roast recipe but add the curry and a can of green beans.

I also need to say something about curry. Curries can very greatly, and it makes a big difference. There is Indian curry in many varieties (gag me with a spoon!) and there is Persian curry, or middle eastern curry.  The problem is, they are not labeled as such. They both will say  CURRY.   I have been rationing a big bottle of curry that I stole from my mom that she bought in Turkey.  I have been sweating over how I was going to get good curry like this again. My mother bought some curry online and cooked like five meals in one day with it, when I tasted it , I had no choice but to spit it out, Indian curry! Alright, Alright I could go on forever with this incredibly boring story. To sum a very long saga that I will not pleasure you with, I bought some curry in the Mexican spices section (I know it makes no sense) at wall-mart, and it was good curry. I was so happy! So get it at wall mart, enough said. So now that you have scrolled down for about a mile, here is the recipe.

Left over roast beef and gravy of a reasonable amount

1 onion chopped

baby carrots, about 2 big handfuls

diced potatoes of any variety, about 2 big handfuls

1 can canned green beans or fresh or frozen beans

1 can beef broth

1-2 T curry

2-3 bay leaves

Heat your sauce pan up and saute your onions to allow them to release their fragrance, you don't have to cook them through (as long as it takes to prep the rest of the veggies) Add the potatoes and carrots and beef broth. Cook until potatoes and carrots begin to get tender.  If you are using fresh beans add them next, if you are using canned beans add them closer to the end. Add your leftover roast beef and gravy. Add the curry and stir. Cook on med-low until potatoes and carrots are very tender. Serve over rice.

Then eat it for lunch the next day because it is good leftovers!

Encounters with white chocolate macadamia cookies

In the last two days, I have had two good encounters with white chocolate macadamia cookies. The first one was at the Jazz game last night and the second one was a Sundance today.  I thought to myself, I never in my life have made a a white chocolate macadamia cookies! So today I did. These cookies are inspired by the rookie cookies chocolate chip cookies, that I have been meaning to try for weeks but haven't gotten around to. Her recipe intrigued me because it calls for a vanilla pudding mix. I didn't change anything from her recipe aside from substituting the chocolate chips for white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts, and I made them into huge cookies.  

Ingredient list:
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
¾ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup sugar
1 (3.4 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

half bag white chocolate chips

1 c macadamia nuts

Now you can cook these just the regular way, golf ball size dough, 375 degrees for 9-10 min. I decided to make ginormous size cookies. I used my big ice cream scoop rather than my mini scoop, (probably about 2 1/2 tablespoons) I baked them for 14 minutes at 375.  I also chilled the dough before I  baked them (heavens sake just TRY chilling your dough first!)

So now that I have made my first white chocolate macadamia cookies I can say,suck it Energy Solutions Arena and Sundance, my cookies were gooood!