Quote:
Originally Posted by Nature  NOS, could you perhaps write a cookbook for me EXACTLY like how you just wrote that recipe? Because I tell ya... that IS how I cook! And it was so easy for me to follow along!  |
I TOLD you not to get me started!
These are just copy 'n pastes from the forum I moderate on that I posted about a year ago when a member didn't listen either; most of the women there are from the UK, so I was trying to write in a manner that wasn't too Americanized and was only semisucessful.
Quick 'n Easy Apple Pie
For each pie:
Enough of your favourite pastry recipe for a double crust
6 apples, sliced
a dash of cinnamon
Just slice the apples, sprinkle a touch of cinnamon on them before you put on the top crust, and bake for half an hour at 425 degrees fahrenheit.
That's it; you really don't need any sugar if you have good apples and try to avoid the mass-produced "supermarket" varieties like Red Delicious.
Easy Apple Butter
6-7 lbs applesauce or a #10 sized can
6 cups (48 oz) of sugar
1 2/3 cups vinegar mixed with 1/2 cup water
5 teaspoons cinnamon
1 Tablespoon ground cloves
Stir all the ingredients together in a turkey roaster or large baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours, stirring occaisionally. Can. Makes five pints. Boil for ten minutes.
Green Tomato Pies and Pickles
You need to pick ALL your tomatoes before frost, or they will be black and inedible.
Green Tomato Pie:
For each pie:
3 Cups sliced green tomatoes
1 cup honey
3 Tbsp. flour
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
4 teaspoons grated lemon rind
1 recipe for plain pastry (top and bottom crust)
3 Tablespoons butter
Combine tomatoes with other ingredients except pastry. Line pie pan with pastry. Pour in filling. Dot with butter. Cover with top crust. Bake at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for ten minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes longer or until tomatoes are tender.
Green Tomato Pickles
for four pints:
3 lbs Green Tomatoes
2 Tbsp salt
3 Tbsp. pickling spice'
2 cups cider vinegar
Wash tomatoes well and divide them into six equal groups. Slice tomatoes crosswise about 1/4 inch thick, and arrange in a layer covering the bottom of a large pot. Sprinkle with a teaspoon of salt and 1 1/2 teaspoons of pickling spice. Repeat until you have six layers. Pour vinegar and two cups water slowly without disturbing layers until it has reached the top layer. Add more if needed to achieve this. Reduce heat, simmer for 15 minutes or until a slice will cut easily with a fork. Process pints for ten minutes.
Of course I also do Fried Green Tomatoes, but they're best on movie night.
I don't really use a recipe, just roll the tomato slices in cornmeal and fry them in a small bit of oil in the frying pan.
Pumpkin Pies and Pumpkin Bread
Take a strong (butcher) knife and cut a round hole around the stem on the top of your pumpkin.
Remove the "hat" and scoop out the seeds and stringy "stuff" inside the pumpkin. Wash the seeds, place on a cookie sheet with a few spoonfuls of oil and/or tamari (soy sauce) and/or a sprinkling of salt. Toast the seeds under the broiler until they turn golden brown and yummy looking. Call the kiddos in for a treat. wink.gif
Throw the stringy stuff in the compost bin.
You can carve a Jack O'Lantern now if you want. Mom always put a candle in and lit it just for Hallow'een night and the pumpkin was just fine.
When you're done with your Jack O'Lantern, fill the cavity of the pumpkin with water, place it in a 9" by whatever the width of 9" long cake pans is, and put it in an oven heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit overnight.
In the morning, drain the water out of the pumpkin before the kiddos wake up; it can be kind of disturbing for the littlest ones to see the Jack O'Lantern looking like he's been through Hiroshima. Cut the pumpkin in manageable sized strips, remove the rind, and cut the flesh into chunks. Mash the pumpkin with a blender, food processor, or potato masher. Measure out what you will be using today: 2 cups (16 oz) of pumpkin for each pie and 1 cup (8 oz) for each loaf of pumpkin bread.
Freeze the rest in suitable portions for easily making a single pie or loaf as desired over the winter.
For each pie, combine:
2 cups (16 oz) of pumpkin
2 eggs or their equivalent (we use Ener-Bee Egg Substitute, but I'm sure you could use regular arrowroot or cornstarch)
1/3 cup honey or sugar
2 Tablespoons of Molasses if you have it
1 teaspoon of ground Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves
1 cup cream, milk, or soy drink
1/2 teaspoon vanilla if you have it.
Pour into pie crusts (I use foil pie pans for easy freezing) and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour. The kiddos should be excited enough about the way the pies make the house smell that they won't even notice you making the Holiday Pumpkin Bread, which Mom always froze and saved for Xmas morning.
I have no self control, so I made an extra one for breakfast the morning after Pumpkin Day. wink.gif
Of course you can always scale this recipe down and leave out the more expensive ingredients for Everyday Pumpkin Bread or for leaner years.
For each loaf, you need:
1/2 cup (4 oz) of oil
2 eggs if you like eggs; skip it or use a handful of flax seed and a bit of extra water if you don't
1 cup (8 oz) of pumpkin
1 2/3 cup (about 12 oz) of whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cup (about 10 oz) of sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
1/2 cup (4 oz) chopped dried pineapple and papaya (Mom used candied Glace Cherries, but when you know better, you do better)
1/2 cup (4 oz) pecans, walnuts, or other nuts
Combine oil, egg stuff, an additional 1/3 cup of water, sugar, and pumpkin. Sift in the dry ingredients. Add the fruit and nuts if you can afford them. Baken in a greased and floured loaf pan at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour.
If the pies aren't done, I just leave it at 400 until they are and then turn it down.
I cover the pies I'm not going to use that day with alluminum foil and put the breads in gallon sized ziplocks for easy freezing.
Biscuits 'n Gravy Revisited
The Gravy:
Heat two Tablespoons ( one ounce) of vegetable oil. Add two Tablespoons of flour to make a roux. When it is thoroughly mixed, slowly add two cups of broth: the water you cooked the beans in, leftover soup, liquid made from boiling the vegetables in the fridge that were about to go bad, a can of vegetable broth if you're lazy and rich that week, etc.
Stir and try to keep it just under boiling temperature while you make the biscuits. Take it off the heat when it's as thick as you want.
The Biscuits (these aren't sweet; we call your biscuits "cookies" over here):
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Put two cups of WHOLE WHEAT flour in a bowl. The white stuff has very little flavour and hardly any food value at all. It will go right through you. The brown stuff may be heavier and not what you're accustomed to, but it is loaded with B vitamins, protein, etc. and the fibre keeps this from being too constipating.
Make a well in the flour. Add two Tablespoons plus one teaspoon fat (oil, margarine, butter, Crisco™, etc.), one tablespoon baking powder, and a half cup of liquid (milk or soy drink if you have it, water if you don't) and mix it with your fingers. You will probably need to add more water to make a stiff dough.
Roll it out to about 1/2" thick and cut the dough in little circles with a small drinking glass or an old sippy cup. Bake for 15 minutes.
Pour the gravy over the biscuits and serve hot.
This is Chris' favourite breakfast. I need to get off the computer and go make him some.
Zucchini Muffins
This is my all time favorite comfort food; I've been making it for my babies for almost as long as they've been eating solid foods. Apologies about the U.S. Measurements. Would somebody please let me know if this recipe is unusable so I can find a converter and fix it?
1 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1/2 cup fat
1/2 cup sweetener (I used frozen concentrated apple juice for tiny tots, honey for older kids and a middle-class budget, sugar when times were too tight for anything else, and now I use Grade B Maple Syrup)
1 Teasp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour (use rice flour for the really little ones to avoid a wheat allergy; Chris had one and they are NOT FUN)
1/2 teasp. baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teasp. cinnamon
1/2 cup Flax Seeds or Soy Flour (I used to use walnuts for preschoolers and up, which may still be affordable in the UK for all I know)
Beat together fat and sweetener. Add Zucchini and vanilla. Mix well. Sift dry ingredients and add to liquid mixture. Add seeds or nuts. Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes.
Black-Eyed Peas
This recipe is from my mother's side of the family, who are rather an odd mix of Irish immigrants from Black 47, powhitetrash Arkies, and relatively "new" money in the Old South. We always had it on New Year's because it is supposed to bring good luck.
2. cups (16 oz) of black-eyed peas (dried, not canned)
6 cups (48 oz) of water
1 1/2 cups (12 oz) of rice
4 1/2 cups (36 oz) more water
2 onions
4 carrots
2 stalks of celary
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. each of basil, oregano, and thyme
Mom and Poppoo (my grandmother) added 1/2 lb of cheddar cheese because they didn't know any better; imagine all that cholesterol and fat! It didn't make the beans taste any better at all. If you like a cheesy taste, you might try adding 1/4 cup or less of a nice tasting nutritional yeast and/or some tahini, but personally I just leave that out.
Boil the black-eyed peas in 6 cups of water for 2 minutes. Turn off the heat and let them soak for an hour. then cook them for another hour. Add the rice and the 4 1/2 cups of water. While the rice cooks, saute the chopped vegetables and cook until just tender. Add the vegetables and spices to the beans and rice. It makes enough for everybody to have as much as they want.
Pumpkin Butter
Pumpkin Butter
2 cups of pumpkin (not pie filling)
1/2 cup apple cider or juice
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
pinch sea salt
In a saucepan, stir all ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower heat, simmer gently and allow to cook down until it's a dark color and 'thick' like apple butter.
I tought I had the old family recipes for Chestnut Stuffing and Cranberry Stuffing on there somewhere, but I can't find them so I'll have to dig out the paper copies and repost them here. They aren't very practical and I won't be making them again for a few years, but I'd LOVE to share them instead of just letting them die and fade away.
Besides, my DDC feels like family now.
will white be okay in place of the wheat where it calls for it?
