Tips in the Kitchen

The kitchen is the busiest room in the house. Here are a few tips to help out with your cooking.

Reduce Potato Foam - Cooking potatoes? Spray a bit of Pam (or add a little oil) on the water to keep the foam at bay.

Rinsing Dishes - Use cold water to rinse egg, potato starches, dairy, and other difficult foods from dishes instead of hot, as hot water will set them. Hot water is best used for greasy foods.

Glassware - When using glass cookwear in your oven, decrease the oven temperature by 25F.

Clean your Counters - I hate cooking in a messy kitchen, so while things are going and I have little to do, I clean up the counter tops. Means less work after supper when I don't feel like doing anything. Another great thing to try to do is make sure the kitchen is cleaned up before bed... do the dishes, start the dishwasher, wipe out your sink and your counters/table... this will make cooking and doing anything in your kitchen a lot less stressful.

Soften Brown Sugar - Brown sugar tends to harden if it's not in a properly sealed container (Tupperware, oh how I love thee...). To soften it again, take a bun and place it into the container. Voila!

There you have it! Five tips for the kitchen!

Spritz Cookies

For St.Patty's day I decided to make some themed cookies... however I didn't have a cookie cutter that would work. I suddenly remembered the cookie press I got for Christmas and decided to give it a go! There was a disc that looked like a shamrock, so I started to get baking.

Classic Spritz Cookies

makes 7-8 dozen (although I made closer to 10)

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 375F. Cream butter and sugar, add egg, milk, vanilla, and almond extract. Beat well. Stir together flour and baking powder. Gradually add to creamed mixture, mixing to make a smooth dough. DO NOT CHILL. Place dough into cookie press (I rolled out a 'tube' of it and plopped as much as would fit into the press) and press cookies onto un-greased cookie sheet (you'll need a LOT of these). Bake 10-12 minutes (I did mine for 10) or until lightly browned around the edges. Remove cookies from sheet and cool on rack.

These were SO much fun to make! I love that cookie press! It is SUCH fun to use! Now I wanna have fun making all sorts of cookie shapes... Easter is coming up...

Carrot Ginger Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese

So, I wanted to make something a bit different for Thursday Night Dinners. I found this recipe online, and since I had a spice cake mix, I thought it perfect to use it!

Carrot Ginger Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese

Ingredients
1 pkg spice cake mix
3/4 cup shredded carrot
1 Tbsp ground ginger (do less if not fresh... I did 1 tsp)
1 tsp ground cinnamon, divided
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted (I omitted these since I don't have them)
1 pkg cream cheese
2 cups cool whip, thawed.

Heat oven 350F. Prepare cake batter as directed on the package. Stir in the carrots, ginger, and 3/4 tsp of the cinnamon, and walnuts.

Spoon batter into either 9x13 pan, or muffin tins, etc. Bake less than directed on the package... 15 minutes if 24 muffins, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool completely.

Beat cream cheese in a medium bowl with a wire whisk, or a fork, until smooth. Gently add whipped topping. Spread over the cake or cupcakes. Sprinkle with the reserved 1/4 tsp of cinnamon.

Refrigerate the cake before eating. It tastes best when it's been in the fridge awhile.

Apple Crisp

So, for dessert today I decided to make something with fruit since I hadn't had any fruit yet today... apple crisp seemed the best idea. I got this recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook and adapted it for 2 single serving dishes instead of an 8x8 pan.

Apple Crisp

For one person (double or triple as necessary)
Ingredients
1 small apple
1 Tbsp (15mL) flour
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp quick rolled oats
dash each of cinnamon and nutmeg
2 tsp (10 mL) butter, softened

Peel, core and chop the apple and place in a small single serving dish (each should hold approximately 1 cup or more). Mix all the other ingredients together and place on top of the apple. Bake at 375F for 25 minutes or until the apples are tender. You can do it in the microwave for about 3-5 minutes (better for single servings... once you get to 6-8 servings though, go for the oven)

Tuna Noodle Casserole

I got this recipe from Kraft as well. It's quite tasty! Perfect for when you need a little fish on the cheap.

Tuna Noodle Casserole

serves 3

Place a can of drained tuna, 2 cups water, 2 cups macaroni (or other small dry pasta), 1 cup milk and a tablespoon of butter in a large skillet. Cook over medium heat until the pasta is tender, stirring frequently.

Add 2 cups (I usually do much less) shredded cheese (mozzarella, cheddar, or whatever you like) and a few spoons of grated parmesan. Stir until melted, then add 1 cup chopped celery and a dash of italian seasoning.

Food Saving Tips

I don't know about you, but there are various things that I often find we tend to throw out of our kitchens when they aren't necessarily bad and can still be salvaged in some way. So, here I have some tips that will hopefully save our food... and our money! (wink wink)

Homemade Shake n bake
So, I recently found something to do with those crumbs that always appear at the bottom of my cracker bags. I LOVE crackers, so they are a staple in our house. Now, they quite often have lots of crumbs at the bottom... not loving those so much, until now. I recently made some popcorn shrimp and wanted to make my own breading instead of using that shake n bake stuff. So... out come the bottom-of-the-bag crumbs. Just save them all (chips, crackers, you name it)! Put them in a ziplock and use the rolling pin on it. Then add spices as you like for your own homemade shake n bake!

Sour Cream
There are lots of recipes out there that use sour cream, and when you bake it into something it really doesn't matter if it's a bit past the expiry date. So, when getting a bit close to the expiration on the label, try baking it into something... like sour cream coffee cake!

Bananas
I find bananas quickly get overripe for me to eat... so I like to bake them into things. Well, you can freeze them easily for that purpose... I prefer to peel them first and put them into a bag so all I need to do is dump them right into the batter! And to keep the bananas from ripening too quickly, separate them. I don't know why, but it seems that when they aren't in as close contact to each other, they ripen a bit slower.

Bacon
Sometimes we have some bacon that isn't eaten after we've made it... so, turn it into bacon bits! Ready for the next salad... mmmm.

Bread Ends
How many of us really care for those bread crust end pieces (ok, besides me)? Dry them out and use them in recipes that ask for bread crumbs! You can also use them in making shake n bake. I like using them to make meatballs or hamburgers.

Old veggies/fruit
I haven't yet started doing this myself, but it IS in my 101 list. Compost it! Yup, all those veggies and fruits that don't look too edible in your fridge would make some great compost for your garden! Nothing like turning veggies into veggies... or flowers... haha.

Yogurt toppings
I love Shreddies, and they often have crumblies at the bottom that don't go so well with my milk (can you say soggy and gross?). Blech. So, I started saving these and putting them on my yogurt. Great to add a bit of crunch... and fiber.

So, I hope these little tidbits help!

Deep-Fried Breaded Shrimp

So, since we are not having any red meat on Wednesdays or Fridays for Lent, we wanted to still have something fun for our Friday night in, and pizza is always just the way for us. So, we had Margerita pizza, and wanted to have something else with it... but not chicken... something... fish. I thought, why not breaded shrimp!? Boo Yah!

Deep-Fried Breaded Shrimp

I'm not going to list ingredients here, mainly because it's super easy and didn't require a recipe in the first place. So, the meal here is a frozen margarita pizza from Costco, salad, and the shrimp.

To bread the shrimp, crush some crackers (or use bread crumbs) and add some spices to it, whatever you want (we used oregano, pepper, salt,). Put in a bowl. In a seperate bowl, put in some flour. In a third bowl, beat an egg till blended. Take the tail off the shrimp, dab dry, coat in flour, then egg, then the crackers. Deep fry until done! Now they're ready to eat. Make some of your favorite dips for it.

Honey Dill Dip
Mix together some mayo, honey, and dill. Voila!

Milkshake
Mix some icecream and milk in a blender. For various variations (wow... that's some fun with english), try the following...
Berry berry - add strawberries, blueberries, and yogurt of berry flavors
Vanilla - add some vanilla! To taste
Chocolate - chocolate sauce in there... awesome
Chocolate peanutbutter - add some chocolate sauce, and some melted peanutbutter... SOOOO good.