Three Fast Family Faves—Stuffed Potatoes, Wedding Soup, Macaroons

As much as I love to cook I just don't have as much time to spend on long complicated recipes as I used to in the pre-kids days.  I find myself gravitating toward recipes that are quick, healthy and family friendly. These are two nutritious meals you can throw together easily on a week night that are sure to be a hit with kids. And for dessert some coconut macaroons.


I found the first recipe for Twice Baked Potatoes in Cooking Light  a long while back—actually before having kids, when we were eating vegetarian meals more frequently. I have been pondering lately why we have shifted to meatier meals. I think it is a combination of things. First, we used to have considerable less money so we treated meat more like a luxury. Second, we had lots more vegetarian friends. Last, when I was pregnant and nursing I really craved meat. Given how we had the boys back to back that was about three and half consecutive years, long enough to get a meaty habit well formed. Well, now I am making a more concerted effort to feed the boys vegetarian meals regularly. In truth, they do not always love meat anyway. Meatless is surely healthier as well.

The recipe is a no-brainer, really. You don't really have to measure anything. Just toss in some fillings, taste, stuff, and heat. I generally put in broccoli rather than spinach because I really love it with cheesy things.

The second recipe is for Italian Wedding Soup. My kids love meatballs. My kids love chicken soup. Italian wedding soup is like a combination of the two so what is not to love? Jim found this recipe on the internet during a brief cooking phase he went through a year or two ago. At the time, he was smitten with the pressure cooker so he made the soup in it, although it is entirely unnecessary since the soup cooks up quickly without such measures. It was actually meant to be cooked in a slow cooker, but I do it on the stove. 

You could put whatever vegetables you like in the broth. Spinach, roasted garlic, and roasted red peppers would be a nice combo, I think. Sam and Ethan and their friends like just the carrots and celery.

We went to a pool party at our friends', Curtis and Michele, house over the summer. Other guests, who have a son with several food allergies, brought coconut macaroons to share. I probably could have eaten an entire plate so naturally I asked for the recipe. They are really coconut-y, moist and chewy. And with 4 ingredients, they take only minutes to make. Their two daughters, both under 10, I think, actually made them.

Twice Baked Potatoes
(Cooking Light, October 1998)
6 servings

• 3 large baking potatoes (about 12 ounces each)
• 1/2 cup 1% low-fat milk
• 1/2 cup tub-style light cream cheese (about 4 ounces)
• 1 3/4 cups (7 ounces) shredded reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese, divided
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 (10-ounce) package frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
• Sliced green onions (optional)

• Preheat oven to 400°.
• Pierce potatoes with a fork, and bake at 400° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until tender. Cool. Cut each potato in half lengthwise; scoop out pulp, leaving a 1/4-inch-thick shell. Mash pulp with a potato masher. 
• Combine milk and cream cheese in a large bowl, and stir with a whisk. Add potato pulp, 1 cup cheddar cheese, onion, salt, pepper, and spinach; stir well. Spoon potato mixture into shells; sprinkle each half with 2 tablespoons cheddar cheese. Place stuffed potatoes on a baking sheet; bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Garnish with green onions, if desired.

Easy Italian Wedding Soup
8 Dinner Servings
The recipe is from 30 Day Gourmet—Slow Cooker Freezer Favorites, 2008.


12 cups chicken broth (I generally use a little more than this)

2 cups shredded carrots (about 4 medium)

3 cups sliced celery stalks

2 lbs. ground turkey

2 eggs

1 slice white bread

2 Tbs. milk

1/4 cup grated Romano cheese

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. dried parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

Acini de pepe (or other tiny pasta)

In large pot or slow cooker, add broth, carrots, and celery.  Stir.

In a large bowl, mix eggs, white bread, milk, cheese, herbs, salt and pepper to make a uniform mixture.  Add ground turkey and mix until just combined.  Form into small meatballs (1” or less) and place in pot/cooker carefully so they don’t lump together.  Place lid on and cook in a slow cooker 3-4 hours on high (8-10 on low).  On stove, bring to a boil and simmer about 15-20 minutes until everything is tender and cooked through.

Coconut Macaroons

USA Fire and Rescue video on You Tube. Weird, place to find cookie recipes, huh?

14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk 

14 oz. bag shredded sweetened coconut

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line baking sheets with parchment. Mix together all ingredients thoroughly. Drop by heaping tablespoons (I use a smaller scooper for this) onto parchment. Bake 10-15 minutes until golden. Slide parchment with all cookies from pan to cooling rack. Cool completely.

Optional: Melt some chocolate chips in the microwave and dip the bottoms of cookies into it. Place on waxed paper. The chocolate will harden upon cooling.

Cranberry-Buttermilk Muffins

I love muffins! Not the overly sweet, dense, and loaded-with-fat kind you can buy premade that everyone thinks are healthy, but are most often worse for you than donuts. I like a good old fashioned muffin (or scone)—not too sweet, warm, with a nice crust on the outside and a light crumb inside. I think they are best eaten warm, sometimes with a little butter, a nice cup of tea, a side of bacon or sausage for a little saltiness, and some fresh fruit. I have cooked many breakfast and brunch items, but that is just my all time favorite morning meal.


I have a few muffin cookbooks, but my favorite by far is The Ultimate Muffin Book by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough. I think I have made more recipes from that book than from most of the others cookbooks I have combined. Graham cracker muffins with a little core of peanut butter or jelly, fresh peach muffins (truly there has not been a peach worthy of making these since moving to VT), carrot and raisin, and peanut butter muffins are the ones we eat time and again. I can't recommend the cookbook more highly if you are a muffin lover like me. 


This recipe for Cranberry-Buttermilk Muffins is not actually in the book but it is of the same muffin genre. I just found it while reading the digital version of Better Homes and Gardens on my iPad. It caught my eye because I had some leftover buttermilk. These muffins are like a cross between a muffin and a scone. They have crunchy tops, tender insides with little bursts of tart cranberries throughout. The orange zest adds a nice touch also.


[BTW, can I just say how much I enjoy reading magazines on my iPad? Some mags have extra features for ipads like videos or other interactives. But even if they don't, I love being able to keep mags without any clutter or worries about environmental impact. You can bookmark recipes, email them, etc. LOVE IT!]

Cranberry Buttermilk Muffins
From Better Homes and Gardens, December 2011

1 cup fresh cranberries
2 Tbs. sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. finely shredded orange peel
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup butter, melted (I used a little less)
coarse sugar for topping


Preheat oven to 400° F. Grease twelve to fourteen 2 1/2-inch muffin cups. In a medium mixing bowl, toss cranberries with 2 Tbs. sugar; set aside.


In a large bowl, combine flour, 1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar, the baking powder, orange peel, and salt; stir well. 


In a small bowl, combine egg, buttermilk, and butter. Make a well in center of flour mixture; add egg mixture and cranberries. Stir just until moistened. 


Spoon into prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle tops with coarse sugar. Bake muffins about 15 minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.

Daring Kitchen Challenge: Moo Shu Pork

So, I finally became a member of The Daring Kitchen and this month participated in my first daring cooks challenges. Every month a member posts a cooking challenge which everyone makes and then simultaneously posts to their blogs.  Kinda cool to think there are other folks all over the world doing the same thing you are.

The October Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Shelley of C Mom Cook and her sister Ruth of The Crafts of Mommyhood. They challenged us to bring a taste of the East into our kitchens by making our own Moo Shu, including thin pancakes, stir fry and sauce. Moo Shu is a Chinese meat and cabbage stir fry topped with hoisin sauces and wrapped in a thin toritlla-like pancake.  The boys—who are quite fond of tortillas, crepes, and anything else you can wrap food in—thought it was both fun and delicious.


This dish is simple to make which was a nice way to start my participation as a daring cook. There are three basic components: the stirfry, the pancakes, and the sauce.  If you buy the pancakes and sauce, this makes quick weekday meal for the family. It has a real homestyle feel to it—Chinese comfort food.


For the stirfry, I marinated narrow strips of pork loin in a Char Siu marinade from Eileen Yin Fei-Lo's cookbook, The Dim Sum Dumpling Book (a fun little cookbook I bought years ago. BTW, her pork bun recipe is amazing). With a hint of Five Spice, it really imparts a wonderful flavor which I was looking for because sometimes Moo Shu can be a little bland. Ethan, whose taste for meat is inconsistent at best, seemed liked he could have eaten a whole bowl of just pork. I found him standing over the wok picking out pieces of meat and had to shoo him away. They have already put an order in for a repeat meal.


In addition to the requisite ingredients of meat, napa cabbage, scallions, mushrooms, and bamboo shoots, I also included sliced onion (the boys are really into sauteed onion lately), a little carrot and green beans to give it a little color, and grated ginger and garlic to boost the flavor.


I used the recipe provided in the challenge for the pancakes. It is from The Chinese Kitchen by Deh-Ta Hsiung.  A cool trick Shelley included was how to make the pancakes really thin by rolling two pieces of dough together with a little oil in between. After you cook them, you can peel the two pieces apart. It totally worked.


For the sauce I just used Lee Kum Kee bottled hoisin.

Moo Shu Pork
This makes enough to feed 6-8 people

Pancakes
This recipe made about 30 six inch pancakes. We really only needed about half to two-thirds of that for the amount of stirfry I made. I will try freezing the rest.

4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/2 tsp. canola oil

Mix flour, water and oil until incorporated. Add a little more water or flour, if needed. The dough should be firm. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into three parts, keeping the parts you are not working with covered with a damp cloth or cellophane. Roll each into a 10" log then cut into 10 pieces. Form each piece into a ball. Take two balls and flatten them slightly. Brush a little oil (I used a combo of canola and toasted sesame oils) on one side of one disc, then press the two pieces together and roll out to a 6-8" circle on a lightly floured surface.

Cook on a dry griddle over med-high heat until blistered, but not browned, on both sides. Let it cool a little then peel the two pieces apart.

Click here for a video demonstration of the double rolling method.

Pork
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 lbs pork loin, cut into thin strips (I used boneless chops)
3 Tbs. soy sauce
1 1/2 Tbs. honey
1 1/2 Tbs. whiskey
3 1/2 Tbs. hoisin sauce
Pepper
1/2 tsp. Five Spice powder

Mix marinade ingredients thoroughly. Cover and marinate meat in the refrigerator for 4 hours or more.

Stirfry
Peanut or canola oil
6 eggs, beaten
1 medium onion, sliced
1 1/2 tsp. grated ginger root
2 cloves garlic, minced
12 oz. cremini mushrooms, sliced
5-6 cups shredded napa cabbage
one carrot, shredded
1 small can bamboo shoots, sliced lengthwise into matchsticks
1 cup green beans, cut thinly on a diagonal
2 Tbs. soy sauce
1 1/2 Tbs. rice wine
1/2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
6 scallions, sliced

Hoisin Sauce

Heat a wok or large skillet. Add a little oil. When hot, add the eggs and scramble. Remove them from pan and set aside. Add a little more oil and stir fry the veggies. Cook the veggies (onion through green beans) in batches to reduce the amount of juices that accumulate, adding those items that need longer to cook first. When they are all cooked, set the veggies aside.

Wipe your pan out then reheat it with more oil.  Remove meat from the marinade and add to pan. Stirfry in batches until just cooked through, 2-3 minutes. Stir in the veggies and eggs then add the soy, wine, sesame oil, and scallions. Toss to coat evenly.

To eat, spoon some stirfry onto a pancake, drizzle with a little hoisin sauce, and roll up.

New England Fish Chowder

Chowder is a culinary tradition that has been enjoyed in the northeast US for hundreds of years. Like all traditional New England cooking, it is simply prepared, but hearty and loaded with flavor. Growing up in a Catholic family in Vermont, corn chowder was a staple for Friday night dinners during the lenten season. And, of course, anyone who has ever has a good clam chowder can tell you the stuff they make in Manhattan is totally misnamed. 


Unfortunately, a lot of folks only experience chowders at diners or from cans, neither of which are adequate representations of a good New England chowder. They are unusually thick and bland—often devoid of any taste of the sea or earth at all. But a good chowder has many layers of flavor—bacon or salt pork, good stock, a little cream, fresh herbs, big chunks of potatoes, and fresh fish and/or veggies that are not over-cooked. Chowder is a hearty, one-pot supper, closer to a stew than soup. It is a perfect comfort food for a cold Fall or Winter evening's meal.

Here is a recipe I adapted from Jasper White's cookbook, 50 Chowders: One Pot Meals—Clams, Corn, and Beyond. It cooks up in under 30 minutes.







New England Fish Chowder
Serves 6 as a main course

3-4 ounces thick-sliced bacon, cut crosswise into 1/4" pieces
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 cup chopped onion
1 Tbs. chopped fresh rosemary
1 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
3 Tbs. flour
1 lb. baby potatoes, skin-on, cut in 3/4" chunks
3/4 cup dry white wine
3/4 tsp. salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 cups homemade chicken stock
1 cup bottled clam juice (or use broth from 2 sm. cans of clams and toss them in at the end)
1 1/2 pounds tilapia fillets, whole
1 to 1 1/2 cups frozen succotash
1 cup half and half (or light cream)
2 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley for garnish

In a large pot, fry the bacon until crisp and the fat is rendered; remove to paper towels. Add the butter and onion and saute until they start to take on a little color. Add the herbs and flour and stir until completely combined. Slowly whisk in the wine, scrapping up browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Stir in the stock and clam juice then add the salt, pepper, and potatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer 10 minutes or so, until just tender.

Add the whole fish fillets and succotash. Cook over med-high heat for another 5-10 minutes until the fish falls apart into big chunks when you stir it. Add the half and half then taste to adjust seasonings. Serve immediately topped with fresh parsley and reserved bacon pieces. Optional oyster crackers (or plain goldfish) are a traditional accompaniment.

Camping Cuisine Part II: Bananas Foster with Handmade Coconut Ice Cream

There are only so many nights that even the most-avid marshmallow toaster can eat S'mores on a long camping trip. When I was planning the meals for our 6-day Burton Island trip, I wanted to try something new and interesting on at least one night.  For one evening I had planned a simple dinner of red beans and rice, Andouille sausages, and grilled onions, peppers, and zucchini.  Kinda Cajun so why not finish it off with some Banana's Foster? With only a few simple ingredients and my trusty cast iron skillet, it was a snap.


Of course it cries for ice cream, which just doesn't keep well even in the best of Coleman coolers. Fortunately, it is easy to make in baggies; something I had done with the boys when they were in preschool. I decided to make coconut ice cream so our friend, Carmen, who can not eat milk products, could have some. And, well, nature surely intended that bananas and coconuts go together.

Bananas Foster
These are approximate measurements per person

1 banana, peeled and halved lengthwise
2 tsp. unsalted butter
1 Tbs. brown sugar
A sprinkle of cinnamon, optional
A sprinkle of salt
1-2 tsp. dark, spiced rum, optional


Melt the butter in a hot cast iron skillet then add remaining ingredients, except bananas. Stir to dissolve. Cook a minute until bubbly. Add the bananas and cook for a minute or two, basting them with the butter-sugar mixture until they are warmed through and slightly softened.  If you are ambitious you can add a little more liquor and flambe the mixture in true Bananas Foster style. I did not.

NOTE: Individual servings can also be wrapped in heavy foil and cooked over the fire instead of using a skillet. You can eat it right out of the foil.

Serve immediately with vanilla or coconut ice cream.


Coconut Ice Cream: The Baggie Method
Per person

1 ziploc sandwich bag
1 gallon-sized ziploc freezer bag
1/2 cup coconut milk, full fat
2-3 tsp. sugar (taste it and make it a little sweeter than you like; it will taste less sweet when frozen)
Splash of vanilla extract
2 cups ice
2 tablespoons coarse salt (I used canning salt)


Mix the coconut milk, sugar, and vanilla thoroughly and pour into the smaller baggie. Seal tightly. You can also double bag it to make sure none of the salt gets inside.

Put ice in the larger baggie and place the smaller bag inside it. Shake and massage the bag, kneading the cream in the smaller baggie so it freezes evenly. After 5-10 minutes it will be the consistency of soft-serve. It will get harder if you continue beyond this.

Remove the smaller bag. Cut a hole in the corner and squeeze it into a serving bowl.

NOTE: The baggie will have salty water on the outside of it, which you should rinse off (unless you double-bagged) before cutting open to keep the salt water from dripping into your ice cream as you squeeze it out.

Camping Cuisine Part I: Fire-Roasted Falafel with Cucumber Mint Yogurt Dressing

This summer we had fun camping, camping, camping. Our last trip at the end of August was to Burton Island for 5 nights with our friends, the Fisher-Olveras. Burton Island is a great place to camp. It is a beautiful, little island in Lake Champlain near St. Albans Bay. The boys had great fun playing with a whole posse of other young men and, since the island is small and safe, they enjoyed the freedom of being largely unsupervised. It was a little lord-of-the-flies-esque. Lots of running, chasing, and yelling, with sticks and other weapons. To quote my favorite Curious George book, "Luckily, no one was hurt." If you have boys, you know what I mean.


Although, I guess camping should be rustic, I see no need to limit our meals to boring fares like franks and beans. I enjoy the challenge of making some delicious food directly over a wood fire. In the past, I have made homemade pizza dough at home and froze it to take camping. Wood-fire pizzas with fresh tomatoes, sliced mozzarella, pesto, maybe some roasted veggies—rustic, yet still sophisticated. 


This time, I decided to try something new. Last summer, I had good success cooking falafel on the grill, so I made falafel "dough" at home and chilled it for the camping trip. To accompany it, I continued the Middle-Eastern theme with a hearty and healthy Herbed Bulgur and Lentil Salad and a couple bars of Halvah, a delicious sesame candy, for dessert. It was easy, tasty, and better than hot dogs by a long shot.


NOTE: My secret strategy with this is using a grill basket to cook the falafel. It keeps them from burning and sticking and you can pick them up or flip them all at once. 

Of course, I forgot to take a picture.  Here is one from Sophistimom to get your mouth watering.

Grilled Falafel
Adapted from a recipe for “My Favorite Falafel” in The Foods of Israel Today by Joan Nathan found via epicurious.com


2—15 oz. cans of chickpeas

1/2 large onion, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)

4-5 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley

4-5 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro

1 teaspoon salt

1/2-1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper

2-4 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon baking powder

4-6 tablespoons flour (I used oat flour to keep them gluten-free)

Olive oil

Chopped tomato for garnish

Lettuce for garnish

Pita bread

Cucumber Mint yogurt dressing (see below)

Put the drained chickpeas, onions, parsley, cilantro, salt, hot pepper, garlic, and cumin in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process until blended but still a little chunky.

Sprinkle in the baking powder and 4 tablespoons of the flour, and pulse. Add more flour, a little at a time so that the dough forms a small ball and no longer sticks to your hands. Turn into a bowl and refrigerate, covered, for several hours.


Form the chickpea mixture into balls about the size of walnuts, flatten slightly and brush each side with olive oil.  Place in a grilling basket and grill over medium heat until browned on both sides and cooked through.  It is difficult to regulate a wood fire so you have to watch these and adjust grill height and fire as needed. They take about 10-15 minutes to cook.

Serve 3-4 falafel on a pita with tomato, lettuce, and yogurt dressing. Thinly sliced bell peppers would also taste good and add a nice crunch.

Yogurt Dressing
This is actually a recipe for a Persian side-dish called Maast-o-Khiar. I found it several years ago posted on a now-defunct website by Roxana & Farzin Mokhtarian. 


2 cups plain, non-fat Greek yogurt
1/2 cucumber, seeded but peel on
One small onion

2 teaspoons fresh mint, finely chopped

Salt

Black pepper

Grate the onion and cucumber and sprinkle lightly with salt. Let it drain for 10 minutes in a colander then squeeze out the excess moisture. Mix everything together. Taste and adjust seasoning. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Lemony Blueberries with Oatmeal Cobbler

Dessert for breakfast? Hell, yes! Isn't that exactly what so many breakfast favorites are? Pancakes, french toast, muffins, scones. My basic rule with the boys is: if is has fruit and/or other nutritional merit and uses sugar judiciously then last night's dessert is fair game for the morning meal. Yesterday, I made this specifically for breakfast with blueberries I had just picked. The fruit mixture was not-too-sweet and had a nice hint of lemon. The oatmeal in the cobbler topping gave it a hearty, comforting taste and texture. 

I used a go-to recipe for blueberry pie filling (from MarthaStewart.com), adding a little lemon zest. I adapted a cobbler topping from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, a favorite cookbook of mine. I happened to have some left over heavy cream, which I popped into the whip creamer for a last minute splurge.  The boys and I really enjoyed this wonderful late-summer breakfast.


Note: We ate it hot and the filling was a little loose, but it thickened up upon cooling. 

Blueberry filling
8 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 Tbs. lemon juice
Finely grated zest of one lemon
2 Tbs. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Cobbler topping
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole grain flour (I use equal parts oat flour and white wheat in all my baking)
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp/ baking soda
1 tsp. salt
10-12 Tbs. cold butter
3/4 cup old fashioned oats
3/4 cup light sour cream
1/4 cup lowfat milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375° F. Spray a 9 x 13" baking dish with a little oil. Combine the filling ingredients in a large bowl then the pour the mixture into the baking pan, spreading evenly. Dot with butter. Set aside.

Combine flours, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda in a large bowl. Cut in the cold butter using a pastry cutter. Mix together the sour cream, milk and vanilla. Add to flour mixture along with the oats, stirring just enough until all the flour is moistened.

Drop globs of topping of various sizes all over the top of the fruit. It should look like a cobblestone road.

Bake for 35 minutes or so, until the cobbler is lightly browned and cooked through and the fruit is bubbling. Cool 20-30 minutes before serving.