Strawberry Pie

We have strawberries, we have a baked pie crust, we have whipping cream. All need to be used up. So, this is tonight's dessert. It's from Allrecipes

This is from the blurb on Allrecipes:

"Half of this pie 's strawberries are arranged in a baked pastry shell, and the other half are crushed and cooked up with sugar, water and cornstarch until thick and bubbly. This lovely glaze is then poured over the whole berries in the pastry shell. Chill this pie for several hours and serve it with mounds of whipped cream."

Ingredients:
1 (9 inch) pie crust, baked
1 quart fresh strawberries
1 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions:

1. Arrange half of strawberries in baked pastry shell. Mash remaining berries and combine with sugar in a medium saucepan. Place saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and water. Gradually stir cornstarch mixture into boiling strawberry mixture. Reduce heat and simmer mixture until thickened, about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour mixture over berries in pastry shell. Chill for several hours before serving. In a small bowl, whip cream until soft peaks form. Serve each slice of pie with a dollop of whipped cream.

Fruits and Vegetables with the Cool & Serve Tray

Today I went to a picnic with some friends who are with DoTerra, an essential oil company.  Their oils are simply marvelous!  DoTerra In any case, I went to a picnic with their team and friends.  About 30 people were there. A good time was had by all. Burgers/hot dogs, paper plates and condiments were provided. People were to bring a side dish to share.


Byron elected to stay home, he gets few days off and wanted to rest and was feeling a bit under the weather in any case.  So he had cereal for dinner and was eating that and watching a video when I came home from the picnic.

For my contribution to the picnic, I brought sliced strawberries, blackberries, baby carrots, celery, zucchini and green grapes. I brought them in this:


 

The cool and serve tray. The green part is two pieces, egg holders on one side and flat on the other. There are two of the plastic tray inserts, for chips/dips/fruits/veggie, etc.  I filled each compartment with a different form of produce, put the lid in place and off I went.  The green pieces go in the freezer and when they emerge they keep the food cold for up to six hours.  It's a great piece and I love it. I use it all the time. If you'd like more information on it, would like to have one or any questions about any other Pampered Chef products you can go to my Pampered Chef site: here or drop me a line/email me.





So, today was the day for the cool & serve to go on an outing and for us not to cook.  Having pieces like this in the house make bringing food along a snap.  What's your favorite piece to bring to a picnic or potluck?

Bean Soup with Salt Pork

Today Byron woke up on his day off and decided he had a hankering for bean soup. SO..... he made some and it was very yummy! He doesn't use recipes, he cooks as he goes and this is what he wrote down (at my request) after the fact. He looks in the pantry and at our plethora of spices and puts things together.

We served it with Bethany's Grandmother's Cornbread (which I'll post soon, with full credit to Bethany (and her grandmother).  I had the marvelous cornbread. Byron had a slice of soda bread. Both from the freezer.

Bean Soup

1 pound salt pork
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon red pepper
1 tablespoon dried jalapenos
12 cups water
3 cups ham stock (or chicken stock, etc. we happened to have ham stock in the freezer from when we had a big ham a few months ago and made stock out of the bone/scraps)
2 bags beans (today it was small white beans)
4 bay leaves

cook salt pork till crisp
add spices, cook 2 minutes
add water, stock, beans cook a few hours till done. Covered.

makes about 12 servings at about 2 cups per serving.

Jan's Meatloaf

Tonight was one of Anthony's favorite dinners. I use a recipe my brother tells me is the same as my Grandmother's, though I don't recall my grandmother making meatloaf.  My brother has a  memory for stuff like that.  It's not fancy, it's not complicated. It doesn't involve bread crumbs, ketchup or milk.  It is the way our family makes meatloaf.

Jan's Meatloaf

1.5-2 pounds ground beef (we now use very lean, can use 1/2 ground pork if you like)
scant 1 cup oats
8 oz. tomato sauce
1 egg
several dashes of Worcestershire sauce - probably a bit less than a 3/4 teaspoon
pinch of salt
dash of fresh ground pepper
then whatever you fancy for a kick, some garlic powder? A spice blend of your choice? About 1/2 t

mix together with hands (yeah, it's goopy), put in loaf pan and bake at 350 for about 1 hour 15 minutes

tonight we served it with homemade mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli and a big green salad

You can use barbecue sauce in place of part of the tomato sauce.

Also, Byron's been known to put curry in it when making cupcake-sized meatloaves. The kids used to love it when Daddy would make a variety of meatloves in muffin tins, some barbecue, some curry, some chili-spice, etc.

Byron's Beef Curry with Pineapple and Rice

Ok, this is Chef Byron's "recipe" - I have school tonight and it's his day off, and he cooked dinner.  He cooks as he goes, and this is what he told me he did (after the fact). It smells divine and dinner's ready at 3:45!  I don't have to leave till 5:30-ish, so it will simmer till we're ready to eat. He said "Wife, I didn't measure anything." So I told him to take his best guess on measurements.

So, if you cook a lot, you'll be able to follow this. If not, shout out and I'll add further direction.

Rice

2 cups rice
4 cups water
about 2 T mirin (Japanese rice wine/sweet cooking wine - find in Asian section of your grocery store)
saffron (just a pinch, pricey but worth it)
cook as you usually cook rice (we use Pampered Chef microwave rice cooker)

Beef

1.5 pound steaks sliced as for stir fry
1-2 t peanut oil (I do WW so we use minimal oil, use more if you like)
black pepper/salt to taste
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can pineapple drained (reserve juice for sauce)

slice steak, brown in oil, cook as you would for stir fry till desired almost (but not quite) done
add garlic or add with steak, saute with beef slices
add pineapple
When done combine with sauce and vegetables (below)

Sauce 
(mix together and simmer)
pineapple juice (from canned pineapple in beef step)
beef stock (2 14 oz cans)
2-3 T sweet curry powder
black pepper
cornstarch to thicken slightly

vegetables 
(saute together)
1 t peanut oil
1/4 t sesame oil
celery
carrots
green pepper
sugar snap peas
Use whatever vegetables you have on hand and want to put in (clean out the veggie crisper time)

Put sauce, beef and vegetables in a pot and simmer till you want to eat.
Serve with rice

Serves -- well, serves however many you want it to, depending on how many vegetables you put in and how much meat.  In our case it will probably serve us all for dinner and lunch tomorrow and a midnight snack for the 19 year old.

This ended up being a very mild curry. If you like a stronger curry flavor increase the amount of curry powder and/or use hotter curry powder.

Snickerdoodle Muffins

I'm going to make this in a little bit. Chef Byron is making dinner tonight, so I'll post later what he makes (and the recipe).

These muffins come from the Eat At Home blog my SL forum friend Tiffany. The link to her blog is on the right under "other cooking blogs I follow"

So, without further ado, I give you the recipe for:

Snickerdoodle Muffins

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. cream of tartar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 Tbs. sugar + 1 tsp. cinnamon for topping

In a bowl, stir together the flour, salt, cream of tartar and baking soda.
In a mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugar.  Add the eggs.  Add the milk and vanilla and mix until well combined. 

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, just until moistened.  Fill muffin cups 2/3 of the way full of batter.  Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. 

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Breaded Pork Chops

Tonight was a dinner I hadn't made in a couple of years. It's one I used to make all the time when the kids were little. I wanted something easy to fix as I was doing a homework assignment and had to be at church at 6 for service and to assist with communion clean up afterwards.

4 pork chops (or one per person)
bread crumbs, about 1/2 cup
Parmesan cheese, about 2 T
fresh ground pepper, about 1/2 t to or to taste
seasoning of choice, about 1/2 t (today it was Northwoods Seasoning by Penzeys)
2 eggs (1 egg probably would have been fine for number the chops we used tonight). I was so used to cooking this for 5-6+ a few years ago, I started of with the proportions of bread crumbs and eggs I would have used for 6-8 chops)

Preheat oven to 350 or 375
mix bread crumbs and seasonings on a plate
lightly beat eggs on another plate
dip pork chops in egg, then in bread crumbs. Put on pan (I used the large Pampered Chef bar pan). Bake for about 45 minutes, or until done

We served this with scalloped potatoes (from a box, my kids preferred box to scratch scalloped potatoes), I cooked the potatoes at the same time as the pork chops. Also served fresh corn on the cob

dessert: Fresh fruit, graham crackers and nutella