Just a simple side to go with all the outdoor fare this holiday week.
Zucchini (you determine amount)
Olive oil
Fresh garlic or garlic powder (as much as I prefer fresh garlic, it does tend to burn when grilling)
Salt and pepper to taste
Slice zucchini lengthwise 1/2-inch thick. Brush or slather with olive oil sprinkle with garlic powder or chop/slice fresh garlic onto zucchini. Place directly on grates, grill until brown, flip over and brown the other side.
Who doesn’t love a good strudel but making a true strudel dough and rolling it out can be extremely labor intensive. Making strudel is such a culinary art form; I put it right up there with the small percentage of bakers who still make their own Phyllo dough. I have actually made strudel the traditional way, it was difficult to say the least but worth every last bite when it was done. I just don’t have the time or enough space in my kitchen to accommodate making strudel the old fashioned way. So here is a recipe for a very simple strudel dough where you make 4 smaller strudels (a little thicker than traditional) from one recipe. This dough is light, buttery and delicious, plus you do not require a huge surface for rolling out the dough. The fillings can be altered to whatever ingredients you prefer. You may also change this from a sweet strudel to a savory one just by adding meat or vegetables instead.
Helpful Tip - If you are really strapped for time just use store bought phyllo dough.
Less stress strudel
1/2 lb. butter
1 sm. carton commercial sour cream
2 cups flour
1 cup jam – any flavor you like. I usually do raspberry or apricot
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts
powdered sugar
Blend together butter and sour cream; mix in flour to make a soft dough. Separate into 4 equal balls. Wrap in saran wrap or waxed paper. Refrigerate 1 hour.
Mix jam, raisins and nuts. Roll each ball of pastry about 1/2 inch thick. Roll up jelly roll fashion and lay on ungreased sheet. Bake in preheated oven, 350 degrees, about 40 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered (confectioners') sugar and slice to serve.
When I worked at a party house this salad was requested most often, especially for weddings. Sometimes we had to make batches of waldorf salad big enough to feed 400 people that was a lot of apple chopping. It really is a delicious salad, especially in the hot weather. It’s nice, cold and crisp. Be very careful if using as a picnic salad, it has to remain cold due to the mayonnaise.
Parsley is much more than a garnish, it is high in vitamins A and C, and contains iron, iodine, and copper. Even though parsley has a very light scent and flavor, it is a terrific breath freshener and is also great for calming your stomach. Parsley is a member of the celery family.
When the nice weather hits there is nothing I enjoy more than going out for an ice cream. Whether it’s a sundae, cone or shake, I’m a happy camper. Well, I do believe I went a bit overboard yesterday. In the afternoon while out and about doing some errands, my friend says;” do you want to go to Starbucks and get a coffee”? I replied; “actually I’d rather have an ice cream”. That sounded good to my friend as well, so we went to a place called Bruster’s. My friend had a brownie sundae and I had a double scoop waffle cone with peach ice cream and blueberry cobbler ice cream, it was heavenly. But wait, it gets better….later that evening a couple friends called and asked if I’d like to go for a drive and maybe a bite to eat, I said sure. Wouldn’t you know it, my friend just happened to hear about a new ice cream place we just had to try…so we did. My friend’s choice was very daring, she ordered a waffle cone with cotton candy ice cream, then had them dunk it in a bright green key lime dip, it looked very pretty. Her husband had a traditional vanilla chocolate twist……now let’s get to me, the person who just had ice cream barely four hours earlier. I cannot believe I am admitting this; I had another double scoop waffle cone. This time with pistachio almond and vanilla cherry ice cream (you had to see all the whole cherries popping out of this thing). Wait, there is more to this gut expanding story. After all this ice cream, guess what we did next? Went out to dinner of course, a nice little Italian place the food was wonderful.
I think today I’ll just have a salad!
Healthy Day After Salad
1/2 to 3/4 head lettuce, shredded (or mixed with Romaine, curly endive, spinach)
I love the fact that sugar snap peas have an edible pod. Other than snapping off the ends and removing that little string they are pretty much ready use. They are terrific eaten raw or served with dip. Sugar snap peas work well in any type of cooking and with an endless variety of ingredients. A great many members of my family, myself included really enjoy spicy foods. Here is a recipe that makes a great side dish to any meal. The natural sweetness of the peas in combination with the spiciness of the ingredients creates a unique and enjoyable flavor experience.
Spicy Sugar Snap Peas
1 lb. fresh sugar snap pea’s
The malted milk shake started in the 50’s. That’s when malt shops were the in place to hang out and be with your friends and listen to your favorite songs playing on the Jukebox. You could grab a burger and some fries wash it down with a malted, shake or float. The best part of the malted was getting to the bottom, where all the malt had settled and try to suck every last bit through the straw. Unfortunately malt shops have become a thing of the past but at least some of their delicious treats don’t have to be. Here’s a little tip try some of those syrups that they use for flavoring coffee; 
I’m a really big fan of blueberries and this recipe is just another easy and delicious way to use this amazing fruit. This is great sliced and toasted with a little or a lot of butter.
Blueberry Loaf Cake
1/4 cup butter
My mother loved to tell me the story of the big ceramic crock that sat on the counter in the kitchen of her childhood home. My mother loved this crock because it became a magic vessel that would hold the ingredients of a special dessert that could only be made once the crock was full. Everyday her mother would put stale bread, cookies, crackers even cake, whatever could no longer be eaten as is but was much to useful to throw away into this crock. Nothing that would rot or breakdown of course. Usually by the end of the week the crock would be full and the magic would begin. Her mother would take all the goodies from the crock and put it in a big bowl, she would add dried fruits if she had them such as raisins or apricots. If she was fortunate enough to have some nuts on hand those would go in as well. In another bowl she would mix some milk, eggs and a little bit of sugar (only because a lot of what was in the crock was already sweet). She would then pour the egg and milk mixture over the stale goodies let that sit in the fridge for an hour to thoroughly soak up all the liquid, place it in a deep baking dish, then into the oven it would go. My mother said she would just stare at the oven with anticipation; it was the longest hour she ever knew. But once the hour was up with bowl in hand she got a nice warm scoop of her mother’s “Stale Goodie Pudding”.
There really was no actual recipe for this but this is the recipe we follow when we need to indulge in the memory and feed our senses.
6 to 8 large eggs
1/2 gallon of milk
5 to 6 cups of bread cubed (any kind you like) the drier the bread the better the pudding.
1 cup of dried fruit (whatever you like)
1 1/2 cups of sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (optional)
Whisk eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla in a bowl. In another bowl have your cubed bread and dried fruit. Pour the liquid mixture over the bread let it sit in the fridge for at least a half hour to completely absorb all the liquid. Pour mixture into buttered 9 x 13 pan sprinkle cinnamon over top before baking at 350 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes. Great as is but a little vanilla ice cream couldn’t hurt.
I think we have all had that one vegetable in our lives that has taunted us. My father hated squash, my grandmother use to trick him and tell him they were whipped sweet potatoes so he would eat them. When my mother was little she hated lima beans and her mother having a sense of humor would often make her succotash (heavy on the lima beans)! My mother would try to fit them all in her napkin for fear she’d never be allowed to leave the table. For me it was carrots, I didn’t like them raw or cooked. I didn’t even like the smell and wouldn’t you know it, carrots just happened to be my mothers favorite. So guess what I got all the time? Even if buying “Swanson Frozen T.V. Dinners” she always managed to pick out the ones for me that had the little carrot coins as a veggie. Do you know how many Swanson Dinners had corn or peas as a veggie option?….I loved corn and peas.
But time goes by and people change and their taste buds change right along with them. Now my father loves squash, my mother likes, not loves lima beans and I actually like carrots; ‘raw, cooked, in stew and especially glazed”.
Glazed Carrots
1 1/2 lbs. fresh carrots
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. grated orange zest
2 tbsp. butter
Scrape carrots and remove ends. Cut into lengthwise strips. Heat salted water to boiling. Add carrots, bring to a second boil. Boil 18 to 20 minutes. In a 12” skillet put butter, brown sugar, orange zest and salt, add carrots. Cook over low heat until carrots are glazed and caramelized evenly, takes 7 to 10 minutes.
When I was little this was a favorite grandmother, granddaughter lunch. These days it’s not as easy to find the really huge beefsteak tomatoes she use to get but any size or variety will do. The tomatoes she got from the public market when I was growing up were almost as big as the plate she served them on. She would cut them in wedges but not all the way through so she could spread the tomato open like a flower. It looked so pretty, and then she would fill them with; “egg salad, cottage cheese, tuna fish or crabmeat salad. These were really filling so we didn’t really need anything else other than a beverage. I loved those grandmother, granddaughter lunches.
You will need tomatoes, (the bigger the better) if it is a good size tomato one will do for a serving, If they are smaller I would do two or three per person. You can prep your tomatoes anyway you like to hold the stuffing.
It's that time of year again! It’s cherry season, one of my favorite times. Growing up we had a cherry tree in the back yard that had the biggest, plumpest deep burgundy purple cherries. My friends, family and I would just climb the tree, pick a limb to sit on and eat those sweet juicy cherries until our stomachs hurt. We pretty much ate the cherries straight from the tree but the one thing we did like to make with the cherries was a “Clafouti”. Clafouti is a custard like dessert, it is basically a fruit (typically cherries) baked with an almost pancake like batter.
From what I have read apparently the French say you should never remove the pits from the cherries when making a Clafouti, they say leaving the pits imparts more flavor. I couldn’t agree more, I am sure that it does in the same way that bone-in meat imparts more flavor to the meat versus a boneless cut. But, I really like my teeth and would prefer not to crack them on a cherry pit, so I opt to take the pits out before making this recipe. That part is totally up to you.
Cherry Clafouti
1 lb. fresh sweet cherries or 1 can dark sweet cherries
This comes from an old friend of mine whose family has Jamaican and Korean roots. Talk about an interesting blend of cultures and how that translates into some unbelievably delicious recipe combinations. These ribs are just one of many of the great meals that they were gracious enough to share with me. For such a simple recipe there is a lot going on here flavor wise. These will definitely become a family favorite.
Peanut Butter Ribs
4 lbs. ribs (pork or country style)
With all the talk about the benefits of flaxseed, I looked into it a bit and whether or not all the hype is true, it’s so easy to sneak into all types of food with really no effect on the foods taste or texture. I thought why not, it sure can’t hurt anything. Just keep your flaxseed in the refrigerator or freezer because they can go rancid.
Flaxseed seems to have a great deal of benefit in regards to diabetes and breast cancer, which my family has always had a high genetic risk for.
I even sprinkle a little on my veggies or put some in my yogurt, it’s really a very non intrusive way to do a little extra for ourselves.
Raisin Bran Flaxseed Muffins
1 cup quick oatmeal
1 cup flour
1 cup all bran cereal
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. salt
1/3 cup flax seeds
1 tsp. baking soda dissolved in 1 cup of milk
1 cup raisins
1 cup water
Boil raisins in water for approximately 5 minutes; mix all other ingredients together. Add raisins and water to mixture, stir well and pour into greased muffin tin bake for 30 minutes at 350°F.
Makes 12 muffins.
