Eating my vegetables: Cauliflower with Polonaise Topping

Cauliflower with Polonaise Topping
Moosewood Restaurant New Classics Copyright 2001

8 cups cauliflower florets*
2 tablespoons butter or extra-virgin
olive oil
2 cloves garlic - minced or pressed
2/3 cup bread crumbs - preferably whole
wheat**
1 chopped hard boiled egg -optional I left this out
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley I used dried
1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon or 1 teaspoon dried I used dried
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives I used dried
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
ground black pepper - to taste

* Two pounds of cauliflower = about 8 cups

** Pulverize stale or lightly toasted whole wheat, sourdough, or rye bread
in a blender or food processor.

Steam or blanch the cauliflower florets in salted boiling until tender, 5
to 8 minutes. Drain and set aside

Meanwhile, warm the butter or oil in a large 12-inch skillet and saute the
garlic and bread crumbs for 3 to 4 minutes, until the crumbs are
golden. Mix the hard-boiled egg, if using, into the bread crumbs. Add the
parsley, tarragon, chives, Dijon, and salt and mix well. Add the drained
cauliflower florets to the skillet, toss with the seasoned bread crumbs,
and add pepper to taste. Serve immediately. Serves 4 to 6.
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Cauliflower with breadcrumbs and butter is actually one of my favorite things that I've been making for years. But, left to my own devices, I tend to add a lot of breadcrumbs and a lot of butter. A lot. I followed this recipe faithfully though and enjoyed this healthier more restrained version quite a bit. The herbs and mustard gave it a kick of flavor. Cauliflower isn't going to help my complexion but I love it, it was on sale and it was a huge head of cauliflower (over 4 pounds, I only used about half for this recipe). I am trying to eat more vegetables in general, not just the colorful ones.

I'm enjoying exploring this cookbook once again. It was getting ignored for way too long. Expect to see more recipes from it in the future.

One of my favorite ingredients

Spanakopita Chicken Meatballs with Spicy Cucumber Yogurt Sauce
Rachael Ray’s Book of 10 Copyright 2009

2 10-ounce boxes frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
¾ cup crumbled feta cheese I used a 4 oz container of feta
1 pound ground chicken
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped DIVIDED
1 tablespoon grill seasoning, such as McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasoning
Extra virgin olive oil, for liberal drizzling I left this out and coated them with cooking spray
1 ½ cups Greek-style plain yogurt
1/3 seedless cucumber, peeled and chopped
3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill I used dried dill
½ tablespoon ground cumin I omitted this
½ tablespoon ground coriander
Juice of ½ lemon
Salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Wring out the spinach completely dry. Separate the spinach as you add it to the mixing bowl. Add the feta, chicken, onion, two thirds of the chopped garlic, the grill seasoning and a liberal drizzle of olive oil to the bowl. Mix the meat with the veggies and feta and form 18 1 ½-inch meatballs. Place the meatballs on a rimmed non-stick baking sheet and bake them for 10 to 12 minutes until they are golden and the juices run clear.

While the meatballs bake, place the yogurt, remaining chopped garlic, the cucumbers, dill, cumin, coriander, lemon juice and a little salt in a food processor and process until smooth. Adjust the seasonings and transfer sauce to a serving bowl. Serve the meatballs with a bowl of the sauce and toothpicks for dipping.

6 servings
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I've come late to the Rachael Ray party. Her delivery turned me off at first - the long lists of ingredients, her coupling of main dishes with sides, the way recipe variations are presented in some of her books (switch out this for that, leave out this,add that,etc). Now that I have several of her recipes under my belt, I can look back and say, "Wow!" I have loved all of her recipes.

Of course she has made herself even nearer and dearer to my heart by often utilizing one of my favorite ingredients, ground chicken. I am slowly working my way through all of her ground chicken recipes. I settled on this one next since I didn't need to buy too many ingredients. I was a bit hesitant. I'm not sure why. I think it was the cumin. I don't care for cumin in places I'm not used to it (i.e. I like it in chili and stuff like that but not much else). I decided to just leave it out and I think, for me personally, that was a wise decision. I am learning to listen to my little voice more often.

These are chock full of spinach and feta. The chicken is not the star. In another cookbook, she uses the same basic mix for burgers, but only one box of spinach. So, if you're not into a LOT of spinach, I'm sure you could cut back. Me? I loved them with a lot of spinach. Spinach is one of those vegetables that are supposed to give my complexion that attractive color, so that was a bonus. They didn't need a bonus though, these were just plain delicious. Lots of flavor in the meatballs, the sauce was great (without the cumin). Before Greek yogurt was available, I could never make a tzatziki that I liked. Now, made with the proper Greek yogurt, I love it. I ate these in a whole wheat pita. Ding! Ding! Another Rachael Ray winner.

I'm going to add these to my ground chicken recipe round up.

Using It Up: Raisins and Whole Wheat Flour

Glazed Raisin Bars
King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking Copyright 2006

3 cups packed raisins (18 oz.)
4 cups whole wheat flour (1 lb.)
1 1/3 cups sugar (9 3/8 oz.)
3/4 cup unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks, 6 oz.)
1/4 cup molasses (3 oz.)
1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 large eggs
1/3 cup water

Glaze
1 cup confectioners' sugar (4 oz.)
3 tablespoons milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 10x15-inch jelly roll pan, a 14-inch deep dish pizza pan, or similar size pan.

Place the raisins and 2 cups of the flour in a food processor. Process until the raisins are coarsely chopped i.e. each raisin should be chopped into about 4 pieces.

Beat the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until smooth. Add the molasses, baking soda, salt, and spices, beating until well combined.

Beat in the eggs, scraping the bowl, then add the water and the flour-raisin mixture, beating gently until everything is combined. Stir in the remaining 2 cups flour.

Spread the batter into the prepared pan. It will be stiff. Wet your fingers and spread out as smoothly as possible.

Bake until the bars are beginning to brown, 25 minutes. Poke a sharp knife in the middle of the dough. The inside should be very moist but not wet or unbaked looking. Remove the bars form the oven and let cool in the pan.

Glaze: Stir together the powdered sugar and milk or lemon juice. When the bars are cool, use a pastry brush to spread the glaze over the bars. When glaze is hardened, cut bars into 2 inch square pieces. I ended up doubling the glaze recipe because I forgot it was supposed to be brushed on and it didn't seem like enough to spread on.
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When I cleaned out my cupboards recently I came across three partially filled boxes of raisins. I don't use raisins all that regularly and I guess I tend to buy a new box whenever I need them. When I saw this recipe I immediately saw it as a good way to use up most of those raisins. And as a bonus, it used whole wheat flour. I bought a bag of whole wheat flour at Christmas for a recipe I never got around to making.

I thought these were going to be dry at first but they weren't. They got better as they sat. They were addictive. I am funny about raisins There are times I just can't get in the mood for them but when I do use them, I usually love them. I really like the way they are almost ground up in these bars, instead of left whole. It distributes the raisin flavor much better.

On another note, take a peek down at the right side of my blog. I've had over 1 million page hits! And I didn't start using StatCounter until over a year after I started blogging. Pioneer Woman probably has about 1 million hits a day and it took me almost 5 years but hey, it's still pretty cool.

Using It Up: Strawberry Preserves

Strawberry Jam Muffins
McCall's Cook Book Copyright 1963

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil or melted shortening
about 3/4 cup of strawberry preserves or jam (or whatever flavor you prefer)


Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the lemon zest to the dry ingredients. Mix together the milk, egg and oil or shortening. Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients all at once. Stir with fork until just moistened. Batter will be lumpy.

Place 1 tablespoon of batter in each muffin cup. Top with 1 teaspoon of strawberry preserves. Top preserves with batter, filling cups about two-thirds full. Top each muffin with about a teaspoon of Streusel. Bake for about 20-25 minutes (mine were done in about 15 minutes but my oven is wonky). Makes 12 muffins.

Streusel:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter

Mix flour and brown sugar. Cut butter into mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs.
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As you can see, I'm trying to use things up. I cleaned out my cupboards recently and that's always an eye opener. I hate that I waste so much food. It is my goal to use up as much of the stuff that I have on hand. I have a few jars of preserves and jams in the refrigerator, and some in the cupboard. I'm not sure where these strawberry preserves came from - a nice jar of Dickinson's brand preserves. It doesn't look like there was enough missing from the jar to have used them in a recipe.

This cookbook gives a recipe for Perfect Muffins and then they suggest several variations. This was one of the variations but I added the streusel topping since I like a topping on my muffins and from now on, I'm going to take the liberty of adding one because life is too short to make muffins without a topping.

This just might be the Perfect Muffin. Both the texture and flavor were excellent. I almost omitted the lemon zest but I'm glad I added it. The trace of lemon flavor was great with the strawberry. This recipe is definitely a keeper. I could have eaten all 12 muffins. Thank God for my coworkers. And even though I'm sure these are good without the streusel, I thought it was a great touch. Whoever thought of that should really help themselves to another muffin.

I picked this cookbook up in Goodwill for $1.97. It looks like a great all-purpose cookbook. After this excellent recipe, I am anxious to try more recipes from this book.

Using It Up: Candied Cherries

Melting Moments
Reader’s Digest Cookies 1,001 Mouthwatering Recipes From Around The World Copyright 2004

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/ 8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter, softened
½ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups finely chopped candied cherries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two cookie sheets. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla, beating until just blended. Mix in the dry ingredients and cherries. Form the dough into balls the size of walnuts and place 1 inch apart on the prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until just golden, rotating the sheets halfway through for even baking. Cool on the sheets until the cookies firm slightly. Transfer to racks to finish cooling.

Makes 28-30 cookies.
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When I went to buy the candied cherries to make my fruit cake for Christmas, I could only find the large container of the red cherries in the store I was shopping in. I could have gone to another store for the smaller container but it was Christmas time and I was tired of shopping so I bought the bigger container. I wasn't sure what to do with the leftover cherries. I don't see a lot of recipes that call for them in most of my cookbooks but then I realized they appeared more frequently in some of my baking cookbooks that have a European slant. It may be hard to explain what I mean by that but I have a lot of cookbooks that have American measurements but they have clearly not been born and raised in the U.S. This book for instance was 'conceived, edited and designed' in Italy.

Then I was faced with too many choices! I found lots of recipes calling for candied cherries. I went with this recipe since I knew the guys at work would like it. It's a basic cookie. The cherries don't add that much except a different texture and sweetness of course. I don't find candied cherries to be all that flavorful.

I think there are a lot of cookies named Melting Moments and most are probably nothing like this recipe but I just bake 'em, I don't name 'em.