Pastry Pie Shell

2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening (or mix half butter, half shortening)
1/2 cup ice cold water (ice is in the water after it is measured. Be sure to re-measure before adding it to the recipe.)

1. In a large bowl, combine flour and salt.
2. Cut in shortening. You can either cut in by using two butter knives and criss-cross the fat until you get little pea-sized marbles, or you can dig your hands into it and break apart the shortening, and mixing it together with the flour as you go along.
3. Slowly add the water – stirring and forming a ball.
4. Split into two even halves.
5. Form into discs and place into plastic wrap, securing tightly. Refrigerate for 4 hours.
6. On a floured surface, carefully roll out pastry for the size that you want between two sheets of plastic or wax paper, making sure you don’t overwork the dough.
7. Cook as needed.

This is great pastry for chicken pot pie, sweet pastries, etc.

Dear Abby’s Pecan Pie

1 cup Karo brand light corn syrup (important!)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/3-1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 whole eggs, slightly beaten
1.5  heaping cups of shelled pecans

1. Pre-heat oven to 350*.
2. In a medium bowl, mix well together: corn syrup, sugar, salt, butter and vanilla.
3. Add eggs. Mix well.
4. Pour into 9 inch unbaked pie shell.
5. Sprinkle pecans over filling – or arrange nicely.
6. Bake in 350* oven for approximately 45-50 minutes, or when center is set (no longer jiggly. Check with a toothpick or knife. With altitude and electric ovens, can take longer.).
7. Serve with vanilla ice-cream or whipped cream. Yum!!!!

Roasted Red Potatoes

4-5 Med Red Potatoes-quartered

1 Med onion chopped

Garlic Salt

Rosemary Leaves

Olive oil/ Oil Cooking spray

Pepper

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread potatoes and chopped onion evenly on cookie sheet. Spray lightly with oil. Sprinkle rosemary leaves, garlic salt and pepper to taste preference. Bake for about 45 minutes or until you can skewer potatoes with a fork.

Smoothies

Ok, since I was sick starting in October I’ve started eating (drinking?) a lot more smoothies. My last week on at work I took one with me and stuck it in the freezer until later and I got some questions of what was in it and that sort of thing. So here is my update on smoothies.

First off I studied how Jamba makes theirs. It helps that I have one across the street from me. I looked at their ingredient list and stared as the combined everything. Next I googled smoothies. Smoothieweb is a great website to get ideas of what to put in a smoothie. Then I purchased some of the pre-mixed ready to blend smoothies from the store (Smith’s has e-coupons frequently for these). You just have to add juice. While looking at these I noticed that there were random cubes in the bag that weren’t fruit and it made me wonder. I looked and saw that they had frozen yogurt in them. A few days later Yahoo ran a story about freezing your own homemade baby food in ice cube trays. That got me thinking about freezing my own yogurt. Some more googling lead me to several people who said it works; just scoop and freeze.

Now to the recipe.

1 ½ cups FROZEN fruit (I usually choose strawberries, blueberries and raspberries)

3-6 FROZEN yogurt cubes

½-¾ cup Juice(like apple or grape) or flavored liquid coffee creamer*

Packet of vanilla instant breakfast (optional if you want more calories like me)

 

Combine all in a blender. First pulse on the ice cube setting a couple of times. Then set it to liquefy for 30 sec. Mix with a spoon under the blades and turn back on to liquefy until smooth. Clearing under the blades helps to save your blender motor. If there is no movement add more liquid.

Fruit Ideas:

Yes, I did star coffee creamer. Yes, I am an active Mormon. Why on earth would I buy coffee creamer? To make creamy smoothies. Let me make this clear. There is no coffee in coffee creamer. In the words of a nurse I work with, it is essentially flavored half-and-half cream. That being said I add French vanilla flavor to my smoothies (and occasionally to my hot chocolate too:-). Juice makes it less creamy and more sugary tasting (think Caribbean Passion). I personally like creamier smoothies (think Orange Dream). Disown me if you would like because I buy coffee creamer, but just remember I will be sitting on my couch drinking a yummy Berry French Vanilla smoothie:-).

By now you maybe wondering, when do I add the ice cubes? Remember when I capitalized FROZEN? I decrease the watered down taste in my smoothies by adding FROZEN fruit and yogurt instead of adding ice to make the frozen texture. Pretty nifty eh?

Fruit Ideas:

• strawberries
• blueberries
• raspberries
• blackberries
• bannanas
• peaches

Liquid Ideas:

• French Vanilla Coffee Creamer
• apple juice
• orange juice
• berry juice
• grape juice
• V-8

Yogurt Ideas:

• Vanilla
• Strawberry
• blueberry
• any berry really
  

Cooking for One (or Two)

I’m a lousy cook for myself. I can barely cook for one person. A larger crowd I can easily handle, but just myself is difficult. Here are some of my tips for cooking for one (or two).

• Freezer space- This will make sense as I go on if it doesn’t already

• Ice Cube trays- I know what you’re thinking. What the heck?!? I recently purchased a set and they have been a lifesaver. Why? As I explained to Shana yesterday when she came over for dinner, have you ever had an open jar of spaghetti sauce that you couldn’t get rid of fast enough? I froze an entire jar of spaghetti sauce in the ice cube trays. Now I just have to take out 2-3, thaw in a mug briefly and pour over pasta. Really easy for a meal that you take to work. Some other things that I have done/wanted to do:

*   Yogurt (for smoothies, I have both vanilla and strawberry)

*   Baby food (technically this was my inspiration via a yahoo article)

*   Gravy/Cream of (insert type here) Soup

*   Ground beef (so that I can grab one or two cubes to thaw for instant tacos, add to spaghetti, etc. Its easier that a larger tub and you avoid repeated freeze thaw cycles)

Frozen Strawberry Yogurt in the tray

After the cubes are frozen I put them in a freezer ziplock (Tomato Sauce)

• Snack baggies- These are the ones that are a size smaller than a sandwich ziplock. This is again to prevent freeze-thaw cycles in your food. When I buy chicken (usually fresh tenderloins) or ground beef I divide the meat into individual portions and label the outside with the type of meat and date. One plus to these is that the small bags can be crammed anywhere in your freezer.

*   Divide large cheese filled pasta into individual portions. I take a few of these to work along with some pasta sauce cubes and have instant freezer meals that are a lot cheaper than the commercial ones.

*   Other meat dividing ideas include making ranch/parmesan chicken and freezing the precooked meat that’s ready for the oven. Swedish meatballs with gravy cubes, or cooked ground beef (if you prefer not to do cube idea).

* Grated cheese divided. Perfect if you buy the Costco sized Tillamook cheese and having the right amount of cheese ready to throw on a casserole.

Individual serving sized Ground Beef (top) and Chicken (bottom)

•  Extra Tupperware- Anyone who has lived with me knows I can’t stand leftovers. They don’t taste the same. Why on earth would I tell you to buy extra Tupperware? Prepare enough food for four people. Wait didn’t just say I hate leftovers? Yes. I didn’t say COOK all the food. Just prepare it. I will make enough food and freeze half of it in Tupperware. This is more along the lines of homemade TV dinners. Examples:
  * Casseroles cooked w/out the cheese for part of the time. I cook it so that it can easily get in and out of the Tupperware.
  * Enchiladas-these are a classic example. I’ll precook these all the way and freeze beans and rice too
  * Swedish meatballs-I’ll precook these and throw in frozen veggies on the side
  * Parmesan chicken-Frozen with sauce and cheese and ready to be thrown in the oven.
  * Calzone-uncooked
  * Roast- I bought a roast recently, got it all prepared, then cut it in half and froze one half and cooked the other. Later when I wanted a roast again, I just had to thaw dump in a pan and cook.
  * Pacos-uncooked (I think I still need to upload this recipe online)
  * Burritos-make them yourself and freeze them in wax paper. Its cheaper than buying premade froze ones.
  * Chicken haystacks- freeze the rice and chicken mixture. Add toppings when you thaw it.
  * Soups- I’ll put half in glass jars then freeze these.
  * Extra muffins-both unbaked frozen while in paper wrappers in the muffin tin and baked.
  * Lasagna Rolls- two rolls to a bag, prebaked
  * Egg Rolls- both cheese and veggie pre-fried
  * Chicken Crescent Rolls
  *  French Toast/Waffles/Pancakes-Divide into how much you personally eat. I’ll make a whole loaf of French toast then freeze what I don’t eat.

•  Dough- I know there are questions as to what I do with my dough. If I make too much or don’t want to use all of it, I will wrap it up in plastic wrap and freeze it. Just label what type of dough it is. You can accidentally turn pizza dough in to rolls (bread sticks) but dinner rolls don’t always make good pizza dough depending on the recipe. Sometimes I will pre-form the rolls or I will freeze the cinnamon roll logs before I cut them. It is best to freeze these before the second rise so they will actually rise when they thaw. Oh, you can thaw on either the counter or fridge.

• Fresh fruit- For my smoothies I will sometimes buy fresh fruit on sale and freeze it myself. The trick to this is to wash it and freeze it on a cookie sheet then transfer it to baggies after it is fully frozen. You can pre-make single serving smoothie concoctions by adding all the fruit and yogurt cubes to the same bag or keep them separated in larger bags.

These are just a few of the things I have done recently to help myself cook more complete meals when I eat versus just canned soup, that pasta thingy I make or burritos.