2012 February-november challenge

Make A recipe with these Ingredients.or as many as you can. 1 point for most ingredients, but there are more for some.

cheese 1 point

bacon 2 points

salsa 4 points

chicken 1 point

chocolate 5 points

beef/steak 2 points

deli meat 1 point

onion 1 point

candy 2 points

chips 1 point

picture of you eating it 5 points

I don't care what it is, but if you win you get...um...I dunno...a recipe for what I enjoy having for lunch when I can......................................

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Aaron's Sourdough Rye

490 Grams Flour

13 Grams Salt

262 Grams starter

290 Grams Warm Water

1.       Combine/mix.  Cover with plastic wrap (coated with spray oil). Let rest 10 MINUTES.

2.      

Knead for 6-7 minutes, working in a little more Bread Flour or White Flour as necessary to keep your hands from sticking.  Form in to a ball. Place in to a resting pan (such as a pie plate) coated with spray oil. Cover with plastic wrap (coated with spray oil). Let rest 2 TO 6 HOURS.  It will spread and rise, but probably not double in size.

3.       Deflate back in to a ball (pack down) without tearing or kneading. Place on the baking stone or in stoneware that has been dusted with corn meal or lined with parchment paper. Let rest 1 TO 3 HOURS.

4.       Make 3-4 slits in the top of the loaf with a wet knife.  Heat oven to 500 degrees. Bake 45 MINUTES.

5.       Feed starter with 131 Grams of water and 131 Grams of flour.

I use about 80% Bread Flour and 20% Rye.  Wheat flour could also be added to the mix.

.

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Mom's Cornbread, or at least close to it

I used to love it when Mom made cornbread with chili. I tried to make it, too, but it never turned out the same. I remembered Jiffy cornbread mixes in her cupboard, but those were dry and crumbling, and not like Mom's. I tried various homemade recipes that said they were moist, but they weren't like Mom's.

Then, one day, while talking with Amy on the phone, she said, "you know how mom uses yellow cake mix in her cornbread?" What??? I had no idea that was the secret ingredient.

Sure enough, cornbread is now a hit at our house:

2 packages Jiffy cornbread mix
1 package Jiffy yellow cake mix
3 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup water

Really, just make them according to the directions on the package. This fits nicely in a 13x9 pan.

I baked it at 350. One box says 350, one says 400. It did fine at 350. I have no idea how long, because I rarely use timers.

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Garbage Cookies

Enticing, right?

Well this is as seen on one of those Food Network shows where the celebirty chef personality goes around to local shops and talks about how great they are. One of the shops made what they called "garbage cookies". They took their extra cookie doughs and added them to a basic cookie recipe along with all of the leftover fixin's from their kitchen. They were throwing everything from licorice chunks to potato chips into that giant industrial sized mixer. It looked glorious.

And then this morning I was thinking about how I needed to used up the peanut butter cookie dough in my fridge and I wanted to get rid of the coconut that is starting to go stale and I remembered the show and decided to give it a shot.

I started with my own cookie dough base. Its a little like the recipe on the chocolate chip bag, only with my own twists and turns. If you don't have your own cookie recipe, start with the nestle toll house recipe. To make it softer, shift to a little less brown sugar and a little more white. (Only if you trust yourself though. Brown sugar adds a lot of flavor, and since you are going to dump all sorts of extras in there, you might want a little more bland base.)

Ok, when your base is ready, go to town. Clean out your cupboard. I threw in the end of the oatmeal container, the rest of the peanut butter cookie dough from the fridge, the rest of the coconut leftover from the holidays, two half-bags of chocolate chips (one milk chocolate, one semi-sweet) and several handfuls of pretzels that I crunched just a little as I threw them in. Oh. And a couple of chopped up fun sized candy bars.

Guys.

Yum.

I might make pretzels in the chocolate chip cookies my rule from now on.

And all I was doing was cleaning out my cupboards.

Here's the deal. How many times do you want to make cookies but there are no chocolate chips in the house? I know it happens to me more often than I like to admit. (Tangent: I don't know what I'm more ashamed of, the frequency with which I like to make cookies, or the fact that I don't have chocolate chips in my cupboard.)

I don't know why this never occured to me before. We all have stashes of some sort of junk food or another, and its likely there for use in "emergencies" because we don't ever really feel like eating that particular thing. Seriously. Try throwing it in the cookie dough!

That is all the wisdom I have to expound for the day. I need to refill my mug of milk.

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chocolate m'n'm pretzels

These are great for holidays; just put them in a bowl and on the counter top, and you're set. You need:

Pretzels, M&Ms and Hershey's Kisses.

Place the pretzels on a cookie sheet. Then, place one kiss on each of them. Put them in the oven at 325 degrees (long enough to be melted, but maintain their shape). Immediately place the m&m's in the center of the chocolate and press them down a little. Let cool until the chocolate is holding the m&m in place, or about 30 minutes. To store, put in Ziploc bags and freeze.

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Pizza Crust

Since I have a long history of killing yeast breads, I needed something really simple for pizza crusts. Here it is:

Mix together
1 Cup of Warm Water
2 Tsp Sugar (Brown or white)
1 Tsp Salt

Add 1 Tsp Yeast, Let it sit 10 minutes.

Add 2 Tbsp Oil, then 3-1/2 Cups Flour.  Knead until it makes a smooth ball.

Let it rise 1 hour.

Throw the crust and bake 20 minutes with toppings at 450 degrees.

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Crockpot Egg Casserole

I will be trying this one soon. I'll let you know how it goes.

Use your imagination when making this recipe. Try Canadian bacon instead of ham. Use Havarti or Swiss cheese instead of Cheddar. Add some minced jalapeno peppers if you like hot foods. Then enjoy!

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 9 hours

Total Time: 9 hours, 25 minutes

Yield: Serves 12

Ingredients:

• 32 oz. bag frozen hash brown potatoes
• 1 lb. cooked ham, cubed
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1-1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• 12 eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pepper

Preparation:

Spray inside of slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray. In small skillet, cook onion and green pepper in olive oil until crisp tender. Let cool about 10 minutes. Place one third of the frozen hash brown potatoes in the slow cooker. Add one third of the ham, onion, green pepper and cheese. Repeat layers, ending with the cheese. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, milk and seasonings until well mixed. Pour over the ingredients in the slow cooker, cover and turn on low. Cook for 8-10 hours, until casserole is set and eggs are thoroughly cooked. If you want to cook on high, it should take 4-5 hours, or 3-4 hours if you have a newer, hotter cooking crockpot. Check the temperature of the eggs to be sure it's done.
If you have a new hotter cooking crockpot, you'll need to check this after 6 hours. It will probably be done after 7 hours. The eggs should reach a temperature of 160 to 165 degrees F.

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