Ro-tel Salsa

Love spicy food? Love easy recipes?  Have I got just the thing for you! This salsa has been a big hit in my home for several years now.  The recipe is super simple and can easily be adjusted to suit your family’s tastebuds.  Be prepared though, it’s gobbled up quickly and they will want more.

2 cans original Ro-tel tomatoes (10 oz)
1 fresh medium jalapeno pepper, finely chopped1 medium onion, finely chopped
Juice from 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons dried cilantro or 2 tablespoons of fresh, chopped fine

I dump all the ingredients into the blender, set to pulse, and puree until desired consistency.  If you like a more chunky texture, omit the blender, mix together and you’re done. Refrigerate.

This can be eaten right away but the longer the flavors meld, the better it tastes.

Spring Fruit Salad

Whenever I hear the words fruit salad my mind automatically sings yummy, yummy. If you are a mom of children who love or have loved The Wiggles you know exactly what I’m talking about.

This recipe is one that is worthy of singing Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy any day of the week. It is perfect to make for a spring get-together, whether it is brunch or dinner.

Spring Fruit Salad

1 (29 ounce) can sliced peaches in water
1 (20 ounce) can pineapple chunks
1 (3 1/8 ounce) vanilla instant pudding mix
1/2 pint blueberries
1 bunch of red grapes
1 carton strawberries, sliced

Into a large bowl pour peaches and pineapple chunks, including juice from cans.
Stir in vanilla pudding mix until well mixed.
Toss in fresh fruit.
Chill in refrigerator until ready to serve. Serves 18.

 

Kale Chips

I’ve been hearing a lot about kale as a marvelous snack food lately. At a $1.69 a bunch, they are much cheaper than a bag of potato chips these days.  Health wise, kale is a super veggie filled with vitamins A, C, and K, a great source of minerals, and antioxidants. It even helps lower cholesterol! Check out WebMD for all the details.

As a snack food, it is cheap, easy to make, and delicious to munch on. In full disclosure, this was not a snack everyone in my family of six enjoyed. Everyone tried it, but only my 7-year-old and I actually liked it.

Kale Chips
Bunch of kale
Sea salt
Olive oil

Wash and dry kale leaves and tear into the size of chips. Spread on a baking sheet, toss with olive oil, and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

 

Heather’s Chicken Noodle Soup

Cold and flu season is here again and  for some reason nothing seems to taste as good as homemade or at least semi-homemade chicken noodle soup.  This is the one I make when the sniffles start in our house, I got it from a friend when we lived in Hartselle, Alabama several years ago. Here’s a little secret, it’s so good  I sometimes make it even when we’re not sick.

Chicken Noodle Soup
1 pound cooked chicken, shredded
8 cups chicken broth
2 medium carrots, cut in small pieces
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 stalk celery chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1 12 ounce package wide egg noodles
1 tablespoon  dried parsley
2 teaspoons dried dill weed
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter in heated large stock pot add chopped vegetables and sauté until slightly tender (about 2 minutes).  In a separate pot, cook noodles according to package directions.  Drain and cool.

In your large stock pot add broth, chicken, herbs and seasoning to vegetables simmer for 30 minutes then add cooked noodles.  Heat thoroughly, remove bay leaf and serve. If you like a more brothy soup you can add additional water.

You can make this even easier by purchasing a precooked rotisserie chicken from the supermarket deli. Another change I sometimes make (because my kids don’t enjoy the thought of onions they can see) is using onion powder rather than the chopped onion, it should be added along with the broth.

 

Favorite Valentine’s Day Desserts

Are you still thinking about what to make for a special family Valentine’s Day dessert? My criteria is simple: chocolate and easy to make.  Here are my top picks from MMCW’s Recipe Box for favorite Valentine’s Day Desserts.

Angela’s Caramel Mocha Truffle Cupcakes. Nothing sounds yummier than a truffle cupcake! Angela gives step-by-step instructions in photos to make this an easy dessert to make for Valentine’s Day.

 

Molly’s authentic Black Forest Cake is one of her family’s favorite desserts.  Using a basic boxed cake mix to save time, Molly also shares step-by-step instructions.

 

Any cake that includes candy bars is a winner in my book any day. Katharine’s Dream Cake combines angel food cake, candy bars, and whipped topping for a delicious dessert.

 

Diane’s old-fashioned Chocolate Chess Pie  is a perfect finish to any Valentine’s meal.

Are you planning a special dessert for tomorrow?

Mama’s Chocolate Chess Pie

3 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 large eggs
1 stick salted butter, melted
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 refrigerated deep-dish pie crust

Mix cocoa, sugar, flour, and eggs. Beat well with an electric mixer until smooth. Add butter, milk, and vanilla. Mix well and pour into pie crust. Bake at 325 degrees about 50 minutes. After 25 minutes of baking, cover crust with a pie shield. When pie is done the center will be a bit shaky. It must cool completely before slicing or the pie will be runny. Top with whipped topping and enjoy!

Diane Berry has been happily married to her husband Todd for 29 years. They have 2 children, daughter Amelia, 16 and a son Taylor, 20. She’s a stay-at-home Mom who enjoys photography, antiquing, reading and baking with her daughter.

Breakfast: German Puffy Pancake

For those of you with more than one child, you know the feeling of success when all the children pronounce a recipe a keeper. Puffy German Pancake is that recipe in my home. A favorite breakfast request, it is fast, simple, and of course economical to put together.

It’s a favorite recipe across the internet with all kinds of names—and I have no clue whether it is an actual German recipe or not. I did read where it can be made in a muffin pan for individual servings. Something to try one day when there’s time. After all these years, I’m still enjoying the bliss of mixing ingredients in one bowl and dumping it all into a casserole dish.

The children and I enjoy watching the pancake, which is nothing like a pancake at all, puff up like a blow-fish.

The first five minutes in the oven are tricky—the first time we made it, we thought we had used the wrong type of flour. True to its word, puffing action began and did not stop until pulled from the oven. There were more ohhhs and ahhhs as the pancake became flat-as-a-flitter with tall sides.

Sprinkled with powdered sugar, drizzled with syrup, and topped with sliced strawberries, blueberries, or raspberries (my favorite), it is out-of-this-world delicious.

Puffy German Pancake

1/4 cup butter

5 eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Melt butter in 9 x13 pan in the oven while oven is preheating to 425 degrees. Mix eggs, flour, and milk with an electric blender. Add batter to dish and bake for 25 minutes or until center is set and sides are golden brown.

Christmas Petit Fours

When I tasted these delicious petit fours at my sister’s baby shower, I knew I had to make them for my family’s Christmas celebration.  Although mine did not look as perfect as the ones I had eaten at the shower, they were every bit as yummy.  These decadent treats are well worth the extra time and effort they take to make.  I owe a debt of gratitude to Kaaren Rue for giving me this fantastic recipe which will now be an annual Christmas tradition for our family!

1)  Bake this cream cheese pound cake in a jelly roll pan, so that the cake is about 1” thick.  Instructions for making the petit fours are below the cake recipe.

Cream cheese poundcake:

2 sticks margarine (softened to room temperature)

1 stick butter (softened to room temperature)

One 8 oz package cream cheese (softened to room temperature)

3 cups sugar

6 eggs (room temperature)

3 cups sifted cake flour (if cake flour is unavailable, sift all purpose flour twice)

2 tsps vanilla

1)   Cream the margarine, butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer until very fluffy (about 5 minutes). Add sugar and beat for 5 additional minutes. Add eggs two at a time, beating well after each addition. Add sifted flour and vanilla and mix well.

Bake in a 325F oven for 1+ hour in a greased and floured pan.  Start testing for doneness after 1 hour.

2)   Remove cake from pan and allow to cool.  Cool the pound cake thoroughly, wrap well in saran wrap, then a layer of aluminum foil. Freeze the cooled cake solid until you are ready to cut it into squares and glaze it.  This can be done weeks in advance if desired.  The frozen cake is much easier to cut and has less crumbs, so this is an important step even if you are not making it far in advance.

3)      Remove frozen sheet cake from freezer.  With a very sharp serrated knife, trim all edges off frozen cake.  Score cake in 1 x 1” squares.  You can use a ruler so the lines are straight.  Cut the cake into squares and set on cooling racks with cookie sheets placed underneath.  If your cake is more than approximately 1” thick, you may need to trim off the bottom of the squares so that the glaze will cover them evenly.

4)      Make Petit Four Glaze:

Petit Four Glaze

9 cups sifted powdered sugar (this will take 2 pounds)

½ cup light corn syrup

½ cup water

2 tsps almond extract

4 oz. melted vanilla almond bark

Melt all ingredients together in a double boiler or large melt-proof bowl set over a pot of simmering water.  Melt and stir until the mixture becomes very smooth.  You can add a tiny bit of water, a little at a time, if the mixture is too thick.  Be careful not to overheat.  The glaze should pour easily from a metal ladle.

5)      When the glaze is the consistency you like, begin pouring it gently and slowly over each square of cake.  The cookie sheet underneath the cooling rack will catch all the drips.

6)      It will take multiple layers of glaze to get good coverage.  You may need to double or triple the above glaze recipe if you don’t want to see any cake through the glaze. Be sure to reserve a small amount of glaze for decorating your petit fours.

7)      Let the glaze dry. Tint some of the glaze and put it into a Ziploc bag.  Cut a very tiny hole in the tip of the bag and decorate the cakes with lines, swirls, hearts, etc.

8)      My friend discovered that you can scrape the icing from the cookie sheet and reheat it one time.  After more than one reheating, however, the icing starts to get gloppy.  Also, if you are reheating the icing, make sure there are no cake crumbs in it.

9)      I kept half the sheet cake frozen for later use, and refrigerated half the glaze for about 3 weeks.  This enabled me to serve the petit fours at two different occasions, since this recipe makes a large quantity of this decadent dessert.  I did not notice any major differences in the look or taste of the cakes or glaze the second time around.

German Apple Strudel

This recipe makes about 2 strudels. I usually make this for a crowd, quadruple the recipe (4x) and get about 7 or 8 strudels out of it.
Ingredients:
Strudel pastry: I prefer to purchase Phyllo Dough (sometimes spelled Fillo) from the frozen fruit section of my grocery store. It makes a wonderful flaky pastry, it’s perfect for apple strudel, and it is fast and easy.

Filling: 2 pounds ripe apples, 1/2 stick butter, 1/2 cup raisins (optional), 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, cinnamon to taste (about 1/2 tbsp).

Slice the apples as thin as possible (I use a food processor, but it isn’t necessary). You can choose to peel or not, according to taste. Mix the apples with the sugar and cinnamon to taste. Add raisins if using.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a skillet. Fry the breadcrumbs in the butter until golden brown.

The Phyllo dough box will have two packaged rolls of dough in it. ONE roll of dough makes about 6 to 8 strudels. Keep one frozen for future use. Thaw the other roll at room temperature for about 2 hours, or overnight in the fridge. When it is thawed, open the package and unroll the dough. You’ll have a stack of about 15 sheets. Lay a dishtowl out flat on your work space and place one sheet of phyllo on the towel. Brush about a teaspoon or two of vegetable oil onto the phyllo sheet with a pastry brush or your fingers. Then lay a second sheet on top and brush more vegetable oil onto the sheet. Place a third layer on top (do not brush with oil). Cover the remaining phyllo with a slightly damp dish cloth, as it dries out very quickly.

Scatter the fried breadcrumbs in a line over the top and middle of the pastry (from left to right)…so the pastry should be empty at the bottom, with the entire top and middle covered with a stripe of breadcrumbs about 2 inches wide. Make sure it covers the entire pastry left to right so that the end pieces aren’t “empty” of filling!

Next, scoop up some of the apple/raisin filling and spread it over the breadcrumbs.

Now, this part is easy once you get the hang of it. Roll the strudel together with the help of the cloth so that the bare 1/3 is rolled in last. Place it on a baking tray and brush with butter. Bake in a 350F oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Cherries can be substituted for the apples; omit the cinnamon and raisins.

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Good old-fashioned Christmas cookies are simple to make and can be the perfect gift. I used to make these for the children in our church on Christmas Eve. The icing recipe is included below too.

Christmas Sugar Cookies
3 eggs
2 softened sticks of margarine
1 cup of sugar
2 tsps. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsps. vanilla
3 ½ cups of flour

Chill dough one hour.

Take a small amount of dough and roll out to desired thickness on a floured surface.  Cut with floured cookie cutters.  Bake at 350 degrees 7 minutes or until golden brown.

Icing can be made from 1 lb. powdered sugar, 1 stick of melted butter and 3 to 4 tablespoons of evaporated milk.  You can use food coloring to make colored icing.

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