Cooking at Home: January 2011

Monday, January 31, 2011

Weight Lose Recipes

Atkins Best Recipes: Lose Weight with More Than 175 Low Carb Dishes

You want to lose weight, but you have to eat. Here are some recommended recipes to do both: eat and lose weight. Isn't that what we all want to happen?
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Fay Maxson

2011/01/26

There is a lot of attention on losing weight and a lot of it has to do with how we view ourselves. Please don't be manipulated by weight loss companies and their advertisements. Frankly, no matter how much they brainwash you into believing your worth is based on your clothes size, don't believe it. It's not true. You are so much more than your body. You can lose weight rapidly and in a healthy way! Let me give you some recipes for losing weight fast. They are delicious and will help you with your waistline.

Homemade Apple Sauce
Core and peel 6 apples. Add a handful of raisins and 115ml apple juice. Bring to a boil and simmer until cooked. Add spoonful of lemon juice to enhance flavor. Spice up with cinnamon.

Pesto Pea Soup
Simmer chopped onion, sliced carrot, sliced celery, and 1 3/4 cups of low sodium chicken broth and 2 cups of water in a covered pot for 6 minutes, then add a 10oz bag of frozen peas and cook for 3 minutes.

Stir of 1 tbsp of pesto and puree soup in blender until smooth. Season with lemon juice, and serve.

Fish of Pork with Fresh Salsa
Choose your favorite fish/pork or chicken , cook (bake or steam) and then top with fresh tomato, mango, strawberry etc salsa. Place meat with salsa on a bed of spinach or other salad greens and serve.

Spicy Peanuts
For a on the go snack, sprinkle cayenne pepper on top of one ounce of dry-roasted peanuts and enjoy.

Jeanette Jenkins: Hollywood Trainer 21 Day Total Body Circuit

Grilled Chicken and Spinach Salad
Grilled Chicken and spinach salad with cherry tomatoes, feta, and olive oil or a vinaigrette.

Chicken Stuffed Pepper
Cook chicken, then let cool.

Cut top of bell pepper off and stuff with chicken and low fat cottage cheese, then top with salsa and serve.

Tuna Salad
Mix tuna with low fat Italian salad dressing, mix in chopped celery and chives and enjoy.

Quick & Easy Low-Sugar Recipes: Lose Weight*Boost Energy*Fight Fatigue (Simply Healthy)

Veggie Patty with Mushroom
Use a low fat veggie patty (like Amy's or California Brand) or make your own. Cook burger patty and a full portobello mushroom, then stack and serve.

Fruity French Toast
Whisk a large egg with a spoonful of milk. Dip piece of break into mixture and covering both sides. Cook on frying pan until golden brown. Top with fresh fruit.

Coleslaw With Dried Cranberries And Apples
Chop red and green cabbage, then mix with balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, low fat plain yogurt and pepper to taste. Stir in dried cranberries and sliced apple.

Salsa Wrap
Mix fresh salsa (make sure it is not high in sugar or fat-the best choice is home made!) with your choice of lean meat (tuna, chicken, lean beef, turkey, pork) and wrap up in a whole wheat wrap, or even better, make it a lettuce wrap! You can use regular tomato salsa or switch it up and use a mango or other fruit salsa.

Chicken, Walnut and Mango Salad
Cook chicken and toss with salad greens, mango slices, walnuts. Squeeze lime (lemon or orange) juice on top and season with pepper to taste.

If you need more recipes for losing weight fast or more information on secrets the weight loss industry don't want you to know, click here!

Start Eating Healthy! Subliminal CD with (NLP) Neurolinguistic Programming imbedded in soothing music and calming sounds of ocean waves

Article Source: http://health.ezinemark.com/recipes-for-losing-weight-fast-7d2d14170074.html

Read more: http://health.ezinemark.com/recipes-for-losing-weight-fast-7d2d14170074.html#ixzz1CfTYCikZ
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

Zero-calorie wafers?

Polish gastronomic specialties are presented by women in traditional dresses at a Trade Fair in Berlin in 2009.(AFP File photo Michael Gottschalk)

WARSAW : You can eat all you want and not gain a gram, Polish academic Joanna Harasym promises of her freshly patented zero-calorie buckwheat hull wafers which are also gluten-free and rich in antioxidants.

"Because our bodies can't absorb the cellulose in buckwheat hull, the wafers are effectively calorie free, but still provide several antioxidants" which support cell health, Harasym told AFP Tuesday via telephone.

Aside from helping in weight management, Harasym explained her invention is also advantageous to diabetics and gluten-intolerant individuals as the chocolate-coloured and nutty-tasting wafers "are gluten-free and don't raise blood-sugar levels."

A researcher at the Economic University in the south-western Polish city of Wroclaw, Harasym says she is also looking into making buckwheat beer which, however, will not be calorie-free.

Native to North America and Asia, buckwheat is three-sided in shape, resembling a grain but is classified as a fruit-seed and regarded by many as a "super food" rich in minerals, antioxidants such as flavonoids and essential amino acids, key to good health but which the body cannot synthesize.

Buckwheat groats are a popular side-dish in Poland, served as an alternative to potatoes or rice.

- AFP/sh

Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Polish researcher patents zero-calorie wafers

Monday, January 24, 2011

Chicken fried rice recipe

Image by patrickwoodward via Flickr"I have created a version that comes very close to the original chicken fried rice."

By Ken Hom, 19 Jan 2011

The best chicken fried rice I have ever had was from a street food stall in China. Instead of tough, over-cooked chicken, with the fried rice as an afterthought, the dish was cooked fresh from scratch. The cooking time was literally minutes and the result was delicious. I have created a version that comes very close to the original. It is quick and easy and makes a meal in itself. The rice to be fried is cooked beforehand.

Chicken fried rice recipe
Serves four

Ingredients

long-grain white rice measured to the 400ml level in
a measuring jug
100g fresh or frozen peas
3 tbsp groundnut or vegetable oil
3 tbsp finely chopped shallots
2 tbsp finely chopped garlic
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger
3 tbsp finely chopped spring onions, white part only
225g boneless, skinless chicken thighs,
coarsely chopped
4 eggs, beaten
2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp chilli bean sauce or paste
2 tsp shrimp paste or sauce
3 tbsp finely chopped green spring onion tops

Procedure

Put the rice into a large bowl and wash it in several changes of water until the water becomes clear.
Drain and put it into a heavy pan with 600ml of water and bring it to the boil.
Continue boiling until most of the surface liquid has evaporated. The surface of the rice should have lots of small indentations.
Then cover with a lid, turn the heat as low as possible, and let the rice cook undisturbed for 15 minutes.

Taken from The Telegraph; source article is below:
Chicken fried rice recipe

Teach a child to cook, and he will eat for life

various potato dishes: potato chips, hashbrown...

Image via WikipediaI wouldn't have copied this article, but the message it is conveying is worth a million times repeating.

Read on...
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By Kim Painter, USA TODAY

Elizabeth Pivonka's son, 17, and daughter, 15, have told her that some of their friends "don't know how to boil water."

They are not kidding, she says: "They say their friends will stand in front of the pot and say 'How do you know when it's ready?'"

Pivonka has saved her own children from such a fate. The president of the Produce for Better Health Foundation had her kids peeling the tubers for their own beloved mashed potatoes by age 6 and using the stove independently by 13 or so.

But it's no surprise that many teens and young adults are clueless in the kitchen. "A lot of them grew up in really busy households, with people relying on frozen and fast foods and not doing a lot of cooking," says Maris Callahan, 26, a writer whose website, ingoodtasteblog.net, features recipes for novices.

Too many otherwise well-educated young people end up like many of her friends, she says, with refrigerators "that are empty except for some beer and takeout leftovers."

It doesn't have to be that way. If you are the parent of a teen or a young adult living at home, you still have time to pass on one of life's most useful and rewarding skills. Teaching your kids to cook is like teaching them to balance a checkbook or keep enough gas in the car, says Sandy Smith, a food writer and pastry chef in Saugerties, N.Y. "It's a survival skill."

It's a basic health tool, too, says Ed Bruske, a personal chef, kids' cooking teacher and food activist (blogging at theslowcook.com) in Washington, D.C. "When you cook, you learn about real food" that doesn't come in a box or through a take-out window, he says. "Anything you cook is bound to be healthier."

Kids who leave home as cooks also will save money, especially if they've also learned to shop for groceries and stick to a budget, Pivonka says.

MORE: A teen's view

But one of the best reasons for teaching teens to cook may be that it's a fun way to spend time together, Smith says. She says she and her daughter, 14, have always enjoyed baking together. But she got her son, Griffin, 16, in the kitchen just two years ago, after he became a vegetarian and she insisted he learn to make some of his own food.

He took up the challenge, and "it's been a way to connect with him that I wouldn't have had otherwise," Smith says. When friends come over and get drawn into the kitchen, "it's also a way to connect with his friends. And that's not always easy."

A few tips on how to cook up some lessons for your kids:

•Learn together. If your own skills are rusty, or you just want to learn something new, take some classes together.

•Be safe. Whether you are starting with a 6- or 16-year-old, teach safety first. Knife skills are key (and a teen should be ready to use a real chef's knife, Bruske says). So is hand-washing, knowing how to handle raw meat and knowing why real chefs always wear shoes (think of those knives).

•Teach the language of recipes. "Kids may not know what it means to 'sauté spinach' or 'blanch the broccoli ' or even 'peel a potato,' " Pivonka says.

•Arm them with a few crowd-pleasing favorites. "They can dazzle their friends with a real macaroni-and-cheese," Bruske says.

•Teach clean-up skills, too. It will make them better roommates someday. "They don't love it," Smith says, but it reinforces the lesson that cooking isn't just about pleasing yourself, "it's also about doing things for others."

Smith suggests one other practical reason to teach kids to cook: "If you know how to cook, you can always find a job."

Taken from USAToday.com; source article is below:
Parenting, Part II: Teach a child to cook, and he will eat for life

Friday, January 21, 2011

Delicious way to bond with kids

Image via Wikipedia19 JAN 11 BY MICHELLE FRENCH

ANNE Lawrence may be one of the faces of the Noosa Boardroom but behind the business facade in her quiet time, Anne likes to cook.

Her nine-year-old daughter Victoria especially loves to cook and suggested the recipe for apple crumble for this week’s home cook.

‘‘It’s actually my mum’s recipe that she gave to Victoria and taught her how to cook when she’s visited. It’s requested now that we make it when we go to barbecues,’’ Anne says.

‘‘It’s become our recipe, regardless of its lineage. Victoria really enjoys cooking it and enjoys watching us all eat it.’’

Anne says apple crumble is very simple to make. However, she says if children are trying their hands at it, they need to be supervised and helped with cutting up the apples.

She says it takes about 10 minutes to prepare, then 35 minutes in the oven.

Growing up, Anne says she couldn’t help but be exposed to interesting recipes.

‘‘My mum (Diane) is American and grew up in the Midwest and pies were a big hit when I was growing up. We always had apple pie, pumpkin pie and all sorts of pies as well as the American sloppy joes. But then she ended up in Turkey marrying my father, so we ended up doing a lot of Turkish platters and food at home.

She lives in Melbourne, so when she comes up, she does a lot of cooking and we spend time in the kitchen, which is nice,’’ she says.

At home, Anne says her husband Steve often ends up doing a lot of the cooking, which is another opportunity for her to spend time with her children.

‘‘It’s important to juggle because you have to spend time with the kids. It’s finding time in your daily schedule where you talk to them, rather than getting too buried in your work,’’ she says.

‘‘I also do marketing consultancy and sometimes I work from home, and on the road.

‘‘My six-year-old loves licking the bowl. And Victoria has gotten right into Junior MasterChef. She wants to cook all the time now. She’s starting to learn other recipes. She could apply.’’

Taken from Delicious way to bond with kids

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Home Nutrition = School Nutrition

Image by gniliep via FlickrNutrition at Home Is as Important as School Lunches
Jan 16, 2011 Barbara Pytel

School lunches are scrutinized but what care is taken to ensure nutritional food once children reach home? Quality food takes time and planning.

While Americans are living longer than prior generations, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, and cancer rates are rising over the past 20 years. Planning meals carefully at home could be the key to children’s health not only during childhood but into adulthood.

Children Need Nutritional Building Blocks

Convenience is very important but is there a high price to be paid for serving a family convenient foods? Children’s bodies need sound nutrition to build manufacture muscle, tissues and bones. Many convenience foods contain chemicals, dyes, and have been genetically altered. In many cases there are no vitamins or minerals in what children eat and the “food” is useless. Foods that come off a shelf have only a fraction of the nutritional value of foods in the produce and meat departments.

Very little of a meal preparation should comprise of foods from the pantry of freezer since pantry food has preservatives and freezing food causes a loss of vitamins and minerals. Living, whole foods should comprise the bulk of a meal.

To continue, follow the full article below:
Nutrition at Home Is as Important as School Lunches

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Science of Cooking

By Mat Schaffer
Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes

Harold McGee’s new book, “Keys to Good Cooking” (Penguin Press, $35), doesn’t contain a single recipe. But this comprehensive guide on how to purchase, store and prepare foods will revolutionize your time in the kitchen.

A former Somerville resident and author of the 1984 classic “On Food and Cooking,” the San Francisco-based McGee writes a column for the New York Times [NYT] and blogs on curiouscook.com. He is one of the country’s foremost authorities on the science of cooking.

The subject sounds intimidating, but McGee’s book is anything but. It’s an easy-to-read reference that covers everything from which knives to buy (stainless steel) and how to speedily ripen an avocado (in a paper bag with a ripe banana) to how to estimate the age of an egg (old eggs float) and restore stale bread (reheat).

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

“Science shouldn’t be (frightening),” McGee said at his Cambridge hotel on a recent publicity stop in the Hub. “When it comes to the kitchen, thinking like a scientist is really a matter of being curious about what’s going on, skeptical about what people tell you about what’s going on, and being willing to play with your food - to try different things and enjoy the process.”

According to McGee, the more we know about cooking, the better we cook.

“It’s like anything else,” he said. “The more you understand about something that you’re doing, the more control you have over what happens, the less you’re reliant about someone else’s advice, which may or may not be any good, and the more likely you are to get a good result.

“Professionals, because they’re cooking every day, develop an intuitive understanding of what’s going on very quickly,” he said. “The rest of us, who cook a couple of times a week, maybe on weekends, maybe not even that often, don’t have that intuitive understanding because we don’t have all those hours behind the stove. For us, it’s especially important to know a little bit about what’s going on because that can help us fill in the gaps of our experience.”

“Keys to Good Cooking” is a fount of fabulous information:

Searing meat does not seal in juices, and a moist cooking environment does not guarantee moist meat. Chill onions in the refrigerator or ice water beforehand to prevent tears when cutting or chopping. Both plastic and wooden cutting boards can be properly cleaned to eliminate bacteria.

Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food

And don’t boil eggs! Boiling breaks shells, toughens proteins, intensifies the cooked egg flavor and helps turn the yolk surface green. Instead, hard-cook eggs below the boiling point.

McGee hopes his book will find a home next to your stove.

“Recipes are an approximate road map to getting to a particular destination,” he said. “When you are working in your kitchen, you’re using different ingredients, different materials, different tools, different ovens. You have to take that into account and adjust as you go along.

“A question comes up, you’re not quite sure about a step in the recipe or something is going wrong and you’re not sure what to do about it? Pick up my book, find the right page, read a paragraph or two, close it, put it back and keep going.”

Get ‘Cooking’

Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work

Some culinary do’s and don’ts from Harold McGee’s “Keys to Good Cooking”:

Do not refrigerate garlic (or tomatoes or basil).
To prevent a wrinkled surface on cooked vegetables (asparagus, green beans, carrots, corn) coat them right after cooking with a little oil or butter.
Cook most frozen vegetables without thawing.
Check early and often if the meat is done (McGee is a big fan of thermometers).
To salvage overdone poultry breast meat, pull it into shreds and bathe it in pan juices.
To minimize fishy cooking smells, cook fish or shellfish in a covered pan or in a wrapper and allow them to cool somewhat before uncovering.
Choose dull metal baking pans and shells for the most even heating.
To preview an apple’s cooked texture, microwave a few slices just until soft or briefly bake them.
Intensify the flavor in cooked cherry dishes by leaving the pits in - but be sure to tell your guests.

La buena cocina / Keys To Good Cooking: Como Preparar Los Mejores Platos Y Recetas / How to Prepare the Best Dishes and Recipes (Spanish Edition)

Have your own kitchen do’s and don’ts? Share it on Fork Lift, the Boston Herald food blog.

- mschaffer@bostonherald.com

Taken from below source:
Kitchen Science

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Borrowed recipes

Image by babe_kl via FlickrThis is an article by Brian Alan Burhoe.

I also 'borrowed' it from his article, indicated at the end of the article.

Read on, and enjoy!
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Top Chefs jealously guard their secret recipes. But — Top Chefs also borrow recipes from their favorite restaurants!

One of the most copied restaurants is Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill and Bar.

Applebee’s, of course, is the largest casual dining chain in the world, with locations throughout the U.S. and many countries worldwide. As they like to say of themselves, “We take pride in having a friendly, welcoming, neighborhood environment for both our staff and guests that makes everyone enjoy their Applebee’s experience.”
Applebee’s continues to set the standards for best practices in the restaurant industry. Here are just a few of their recent awards:

Chain of the Year: Restaurant Hospitality Magazine.

Excellence in Retention Award: Nation’s Restaurant News, People and Performance Award Council.

Heart of the Workplace Award: In recognition of a company that models best people practices in their workplace and makes a difference in the lives of their employees and their communities – People Report.

From delicious appetizers to mouthwatering burgers to tasty salads, they’ve got some of the best meals worth sampling — and cooking home. Give your dinner guests the best — whether family, friends — or that date you just met on WUVING.com

Here are the Top 5 most copied recipes from Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill and Bar:

–Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Salad–

1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup corn flake crumbs
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast half
oil for frying
3 cups chopped romaine lettuce
1 cup red cabbage
1 cup Napa cabbage
1/2 carrot, julienned or shredded
1 green onion, chopped
1 tablespoon sliced almonds
1/3 cup chow mein noodles

Dressing:

3 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Grey Poupon Dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon sesame oil

Prepare dressing ingredients by mixing in a small bowl. Refrigerate while preparing salad.
Cut each chicken breast into 5 strips. In one bowl, beat egg with milk.
In another bowl, combine flour with corn flake crumbs, salt and pepper.
Preheat oil over medium heat.
Dip individual chicken pieces in egg mixture and then roll in the flour mixture. Fry chicken until browned, drain and set aside. Prepare salad by tossing the chopped romaine with the chopped red cabbage, Napa cabbage, and carrots. Sprinkle sliced green onion on top of the lettuce. Sprinkle almonds over the salad, then the chow mein noodles.
Cut the chicken into small chunks. Place the chicken onto the salad forming a pile in the middle. Serve with salad dressing on the side.

–Applebee’s Baby Back Ribs–

3 racks (about 1 lb. each) pork baby back ribs, each cut in half Barbecue sauce:
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup apple cider vinager
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon salt

Put ribs in a large pot with enough water to cover them. Bring water to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 1 hour or until ribs are fork tender.
Mix all sauce ingrediants together in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered, stirring often, for 30 minutes or until slightly thickened.
Heat broiler. Line broiler with foil for easy cleanup. Place ribs, meat side down, on broiler pan, brush with 1/2 the sauce and broil 4-5 inches from heat source for 6 to 7 minutes. turn ribs over, brush with remaining sauce and broil 6 to 7 minutes longer or until edges are slightly charred.

–Applebee’s Bourbon Street Steak–

1/2 cup bottled steak sauce
1/4 cup bourbon whiskey
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons prepared mustard
4 beef rib, round, or chuck steaks (10 ounces each)

Combine all the ingredients except the steaks in a baking dish or resealable plastic storage bag; mix well. Add the steaks; cover (or seal) and refrigerate for 2 hours, or overnight. Preheat the grill to medium-high heat. Grill the steaks for 12 to 15 minutes, or until desired doneness, turning them over halfway through the grilling.

–Applebee’s Blonde Brownies–

2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
3 /4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter (10 Tbsp.)
2 cups packed golden brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Flour and butter a 9 x 13 x 2 pan. Sift flour into a bowl. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. Melt butter. In mixing bowl, place melted butter and add sugar, mixing well. Add eggs and vanilla, mixing well. Add flour slowly, blending. Batter will be slightly thick.
Spread in pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips and pecans over all. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes…

–Applebee’s Lemonade–

1 Quart water
1 Cup sugar
1 Cup FRESH lemon juice

Sparkling Water (not tonic water, like Perrier) Mix first three togther. Fill a tall glass 2/3 to 3/4 with Lemon mixture then fill with sparkling water.
An intresting variation is to puree some fruit (raspberries, strawberries, etc) with a little superfine or powdered sugar and put that in the glass before adding the the lemonade and water.

- Brian Alan Burhoe – www.brianalanburhoe.com

Bon Appetit!

Taken from below source:
Applebee's Best Recipes That You Can Do At Home

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Most requested Recipes in 2010

Image via WikipediaHerewith are some recipes that I have never tried, but they seem (read) delicious. And why not? These are the most requested recipes from readers themselves!

If that has whetted your appetite, get your teeth right into it! but first, read on!
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Cook's Exchange: Readers’ most requested recipes in 2010
by Andrea Yeager @ SunHerald.com

The first of each new year is spent with glimpses back to the bests of the old year. Television, newspapers, magazines, websites, even friends discuss favorites from the old year.

Gourmands, food writers, television chefs and plain ol’ foodies weigh in with the bests of 2010. A look at my inbox is proof.

P.F. Chang’s Chicken Lettuce Wraps and Fannie Farmer’s Classic Baked Macaroni and Cheese top www.food.com’s best list for 2010. There must be many mac and cheese fans out there because Food Network’s top comfort dish for several years running is Alton Brown’s Baked Mac and Cheese, followed by Paula Deen’s chicken and dumplings.

Pillsbury, of course, picks its million dollar bake-off winner, Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups, and Betty Crocker, Pink Champagne Cupcakes.

All these bests sent me to my files for some of the readers’ favorites or the recipe requests that brought in the most replies. One thing is for certain down South we do like our sweets, apple dumplings, crumb cakes, caramel cakes and bread puddings were some of the most requested desserts.

Gluten-free recipes were strong in 2010. Readers kept asking for these even through the holidays. The increased interest for locally grown and made foods continued throughout the year with Real Food Farmers’ Markets in three Coast cities and several major Real Food Gulf Coast dinners.

Restaurant dishes always hit the top of the requests. Bang-Bang Shrimp, which is served at Bonefish Grill, was a most popular recipe request with readers in 2010.

No doubt about it, it’s the old-time Coast eateries and recipes that really flood my mailbox. Just mention Klein’s Bakery, Angelo’s or Alamo Fried Chicken, and readers respond. Again in 2010, those long-gone places topped reader requests.

The old 4-H market in downtown Gulfport, run by Genevieve Benevidias and the wonderful cakes she sold there had readers reminiscing and sharing recipes. Caramel cake, anyone?

More favorites

A favorite of mine year in and year out is seafood newburg. It can be shrimp, crab or lobster; it doesn’t matter. They are all good. As a break from New Year’s Day traditional foods, I decided to make lump crab newburg on pastry shells. Yes, those same puff pastry shells that readers’ kept asking for in 2010.

Usually, I fix chorizo black-eyed peas and steamed cabbage with cornbread, but I just wasn’t up to that this year.

My favorite Long Beach supermarket had lump crabmeat on special. They also carry Pepperidge Farm’s puff pastry shells. I served the newburg in and spilling over the shells with a fresh spinach salad and wild rice. Yum!

It’s easy, and it’s great-tasting. Newburg is not difficult, but make sure you have all your ingredients ready to go because the sauce moves quickly.

----------

Lump Crab Newburg

Ingredients:

1/2 stick butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups evaporated milk
3 egg yolks, beaten
1/4 cup sherry
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
8 ounces lump crab meat

Procedure:

Melt butter in large skillet. Add flour and whisk rapidly to avoid any lumps. Slowly begin pouring in milk.
Keep whisking. As sauce begins to come together, remove about1/4 cup of sauce and pour slowly into egg yolks, beating all the while. (Adding a small amount of the heated sauce into the yolks tempers the yolks.) Add sauce and egg yolks into the large skillet. Continue whisking.
Add seasonings and sherry. If you like more of a sherry flavor, add more sherry; the same with the seasonings. Add crabmeat. Gently fold in the crab, being careful not to break up the yummy lumps. Heat through, but do not let come to a boil.
Serve over puff pastry shells that are cooked according to package directions. Serves 4 to 6.

Reader’s favorite

Nancy Parrish of Gautier shares her mushroom-stuffed eggplant that is a favorite in her house.

“I always have to make this for my mom when we visit,” said Parrish. “She loves it.”

Mushroom-Stuffed Eggplant

Ingredients:

1 medium eggplant, about 1 1/2 pounds
4-1/2-ounce jar sliced mushrooms, drained
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup margarine or butter
2 tablespoons finely chopped green pepper
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup half n’ half
1 2-ounce jar chopped pimiento, drained
1 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese or 2 tablespoons buttered bread crumbs

Procedure:

Wash eggplant; cut a larger lengthwise slice from eggplant.
Remove and cube enough eggplant from shell to measure 3 cups. Do not pierce shell.
Mix eggplant, mushrooms, flour, margarine, green pepper, onion, garlic, salt and pepper in 10-inch skillet.
Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture is browned.
Remove from heat; stir in half n’ half and pimiento. Fill eggplant shell with mixture.
Sprinkle with cheese. Bake uncovered in 350-degree oven until eggplant is tender, about 40-45 minutes. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

-- Submitted by Nancy Parrish

Another favorite pie

“I am sending you a recipe for your reader Virginia Davis,” said Carol Ryan. “This pie is similar to the one she wants. It is called Concrete Pie.”

Concrete Pie

Ingredients:

3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 cup pecans
16 saltine crackers, crushed fine
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pint whipping cream

Procedure:

Crush saltine crackers fine.
Beat egg whites until stiff; add sugar and beat; add crackers and beat; add pecans that are chopped and vanilla.
Pour into a pie pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Pie will look cracked on top, but this is normal. Refrigerate for eight hours. Then whip the whip cream with sugar enough to your taste, put on top on pie. Refrigerate leftovers, enjoy! This is really good!

-- Submitted by Carol Ryan

What kind of flour?

Gloria Harshbarger e-mailed wanting to know what type of flour is used in the Dromedary Miracle Fruit Cake that appeared in last week’s column. The recipe just said flour.

Use all-purpose flour, not self-rising.

Happy New Year!

Andrea Yeager, can be reached at ayeager51@cableone.net. Send contributions or requests to Cook’s Exchange, P.O. Box 4567, Biloxi MS 39535-4567. If requesting a recipe, include the name or describe it.

This article was taken from SunHerald.com; below is the source:
Cook's Exchange: Readers’ most requested recipes in 2010

Cooking at Home

Monday, January 31, 2011

Weight Lose Recipes

Zero-calorie wafers?

Monday, January 24, 2011

Chicken fried rice recipe

Teach a child to cook, and he will eat for life

Friday, January 21, 2011

Delicious way to bond with kids

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Home Nutrition = School Nutrition

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