Ethnic Food Appropriation Night?

Not sure with the craziness of the world, but I think that we are still allowed to cook any kind of food we want in the privacy of our kitchen. Being of German heritage from my mother’s side of the family, naturally, I’m making fajitas and homemade tortillas for dinner!

Anyway, I learned a long time ago in my family meal preparation, homemade is better and less expensive. I’ve been making flour tortillas forever and no longer even follow any set recipe. When my husband had to be declared a gluten-free zone, I just switched the flour ingredient in my recipe to a gluten-free blend. Authentic Foods Gluten-Free Bread Flour Blend is currently my favorite although I still enjoy using BetterBatter Gluten-Free flour.

We decided we had a yearning for fajitas for dinner this evening. My husband only has one or two Saturdays a month off so we decided to celebrate this. I spent the afternoon with food prep and he cleaned the house for me. Since I’d rather cook than clean house and he’d rather clean house than eat the mediocre dinner he might venture to prepare, it was a good deal for both sides!

My recipe for flour tortilla? Basically, I put around three or four cups of wheat or gluten-free flour in the bowl, add a teaspoon of baking powder, a teaspoon of salt, combine, and then add hot tap water slowing to the dry ingredients until a workable dough evolves. I use an ice cream scoop to parcel out the amount of dough to roll out for each tortilla. I have a cast iron pan but most any frying pan would work for cooking them on both sides or until some bubbles and browned blisters show up. You want them baked but not crispy!

Hard as I try to roll them out to a beautiful, uniform circle, I usually end up with what looks like various countries removed from the map. I do have a tortilla press (More of that German heritage!) but it only makes small one and, sometimes, you need a larger size.

This is also a fun kitchen activity for mom and the children so they can see what goes into fixing a meal and be proud of the results of their efforts.

And, The Secret Ingredient Is . . .

For quite a few dinner preparations, I had to hide the above fact from my family lest I get early votes on something they weren’t going to try. Cauliflower has actually been the best thing that has happened to our mashed potatoes and once tried, the family doesn’t want to change back. In fact, a few weeks ago, I ran out of cauliflower and made the ‘regular’ mashed potatoes with, well, only potatoes like the normal people do. At the first bite, shocked faces turned to me and demanded, “What happened to the mashed potatoes?” I admitted that there wasn’t any cauliflower to add today.” They finished their dinner but left the table with, “Don’t EVER let that happen, again!”

Secret Agent in the Kitchen

When my firstborn was getting to the age where he could try different foods, he instinctively knew the difference between broccoli and a crispy, deep-friend pork rind . . . he chose the pork rind! From that moment on, I became a secret agent in the kitchen for getting healthy food into my children without letting on that even one vitamin gave it’s life for the meal at hand.

Macaroni and cheese was pretty popular for Fridays as the children would eat it and the budget could afford it. However, the vegetable escorting the mac & cheese to the table was often ignored. Steamed cauliflower to the rescue! No, it wasn’t in plain sight otherwise I wouldn’t have a story to share here. Nope, I steamed it until tender, pureed it, and then mixed it in with the cheese sauce. A two-fold benefit as it reduced the amount (and expense!) of the cheese and added some nutrients and fiber to the dish. Cauliflower also goes nicely undercover mixed into mashed potatoes, too.

Finely-grated and steamed carrots found a home in my meatloaf. The children loved the brown, crusty exterior of the meatloaf and the juicy interior. This manner of vegetable subterfuge went on for a long time until my older son found a suspicious bit of bright orange in his serving and immediately set off the sibling alarm that Mom was trying to poison them with carrots! To this day, however, they never found out that I was browning finely-diced carrots and onions and mixing them into what I called hamburger pizza sauce topping for pizza dinners.

The older they got, the sneakier I had to be. The smoothie fad came to the rescue. They loved a thick, icy smoothie and with the bonus of a straw, they felt I was earning a good mother badge. We used lots of different fruits and, still unbeknownst to them to this day, a few vegetables fell into the mix. Their peach and citrus often included carrot! When I made a very berry strawberry smoothie, a tomato or two often found it’s way into the drink. They loved the idea of a smoothie that was bright green and never quite realized that kale or spinach had come into play.

Perhaps, the infusion of secret vegetables into their growing systems, gave them a grownup disposition towards vegetables. These days, we practically have to fight for a serving of vegetables for ourselves at the dinner table. Eggplant has even become a popular ingredient to the dinner meal. And if you really want to witness a confrontation, watch them descend upon a platter of oven-roasted Kale.

Beer Batter Bread

This is always a fun bread to make especially since it is simple and you can oversee the children in the mixing but keep track of the beer! Actually, a priest gave me this recipe.

Beer Batter Bread

1 12-ounce can of your favorite beer
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 cups self-rising flour

butter

preheat oven to 350 degrees. Vegetable oil spray a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. (You can put this batter into muffin tins, too.) Mix all the ingredients together and put into your prepared pan. Bake for approximately one hour depending on your oven. Every 15 minutes, butter the top of the bread with bits of butter.

Let cool in pan a bit before removing. Great to pull out of the oven about ten minutes before dinner and serve warm with soup or stew.

Plain Old Lentil Soup

When my daughter was away at college, she soon found the cafeteria fare to be lacking in things like taste, fiber, and nutrition unless all could be found in fries. She started doing more cooking in the dorm kitchen and a favorite that caught on with her friends was Lentil Soup over a bowl of rice. Her friends weren’t sure about it not being familiar with lentils but after a few bites, they said they somehow felt healthier!

Plain Old Lentil Soup

3 cloves of garlic, peeled, crushed, and diced
1 ½ cups dried lentils (They should be rinsed under cold water before cooking)
1 cup of diced ham
1 large onion, peeled and diced
2 stalks of celery, chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and sliced
7 cups of chicken broth (canned or homemade)
2 teaspoons of chicken bouillon
2 teaspoons dried oregano
3 dried bay leaves
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon chili flakes

Freshly-made rice
Enough freshly-grated sharp cheddar to top each bowl of rice and soup

In a soup pot, add a few drops of olive oil and saute the garlic until it softens. Add the rest of the ingredients to the pot (EXCEPT for the rice and cheese!), bring to a boil and the cover and simmer for approximately 40 minutes or until the lentils are soft. Remove and discard the bay leaves.

To make a thicker version of the soup, put two cups of the soup including some of the solids to a blender and carefully blend until smooth. Stir back into the soup and stir until you bring it back to hot.

Refrigerator Cookies – An Easy Recipe

Refrigerator cookies are a favorite of mine. You can make a batch of cookies and put them in the refrigerator for later use. The time comes that you need a sweet snack, you preheat your oven, slice some cookie dough into rounds and bake. You can have your kitchen smelling amazing within minutes and thoroughly impressing your family.

This is a favorite recipe of mine. Often I will double the recipe to have some emergency dessert/snacks at the ready!

Slightly Citrus Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons of finely grated orange zest

Cream the butter until soft and fluffy. Beat in the sugar until well incorporated then add the eggs and vanilla, beating until smooth.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and zest together in a separate bowl. Now, add it to the butter mixture until well-mixed but don’t over beat it!

On a sheet of waxed paper, form your dough into a long log about two or three inches in diameter. Wrap it into the waxed paper and refrigerate for four hours to overnight.

Now you have two choices. You can cut slices of cookie rounds for baking or you can roll out your dough and use cookie cutters!

Anyway, put your cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes. Let rest on the baking sheet for a few minutes before removing them to a cooling rack. You will have approximately four dozen cookies.

For a fancier cookies, you can brush the tops of your cookies with slightly beaten egg white and sprinkle with finely chopped nuts, colored sugar, or other cookie decorations before baking. A simple icing would be good, too. Extra fancy? Cut and bake cookies into rounds and make sandwich cookies filling them with jam, melted chocolate, or peanut butter.

Quick Change Brownies!

My daughter made a batch of brownies for work this week. She went according to directions and went to an expert (not!), my husband! to get an opinion on whether they were adequately baked. At one in the morning, she was cutting her brownies and discovered she needed another expert but what to do now. I found her sad note on the counter in the morning along with two containers of semi-baked brownie goo. Since she had doubled the batch and used eight eggs, a pound of butter and all of my baking chocolate, I figured there had to be a remedy.

Since I had nothing to lose at this point, I put all the ‘goo’ into the mixing bowl, added a couple more eggs and a bit of baking powder and blended it until smooth and could hold it’s shape. I dropped balls of dough onto the parchment paper and flattened them down a bit with some Valentine’s Day sprinkles. They rose nicely, had a thin crust and a cake-like interior and retained that intense chocolate taste. Ended up with enough for my husband to take to work, my daughter’s party at work as well as a plate of perimeter brownies in the original form.

Walnut Spice Cookies

Walnut Spice Cookies

2 large eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon milk
½ cup wheat germ
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Grated zest of one orange, finely chopped
2/3 cup roughly chopped walnuts

Beat the eggs and then stir in the oil, milk and wheat germ. Stir in the sugar until it thickens and loses its graininess.

Stir together the flour, baking power, salt, and spices and blend into the wet mixture. Add the vanilla, zest, and walnuts.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet about two inches apart. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for approximately 8-10 minutes or until set and golden brown. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Icing glaze
1 ½ cups confectioners sugar
Enough orange juice to make a thin glaze

Dip the top of each cooking into the glaze and let dry on a cooling rack. Before they dry, you can sprinkle them with colorful decorations, bits of grated chocolate, etc.

Fast Rice Fritata

I like to cook but I also like the evening where the cooking doesn’t keep me in the kitchen for TOO many hours! This was always a favorite growing up and it is a quick standby for those busy days. I like to cook extra rice just to have some on hand for something like this.

Fast Rice Fritata
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon butter
8 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon chili flakes
2 cups cooked rice
4-ounce can chopped green chilies, undrained
1 tomato, chopped
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese

In a large frying pan, brown the onions in the butter until tender.

Beat eggs with milk and seasonings. Stir in Rice, chilies and tomato. Pour into the frying pan with the onions. Turn the heat down low, cover and cook until top is almost set, about 12-15 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese, cover, and remove from heat. Let stand about ten minutes before serving.