Cauliflower in cheese sauce

When I was a kid, pretty much the only way to get me to eat vegetables was to bury them in some sort of high-fat dairy product. Even our salads had a mound of cheddar cheese on top, which I then covered in Marie's Creamy Italian dressing, which tasted like Ranch but was nearly as thick as mayonnaise. So it's no surprise that smothering cauliflower in cheese sauce was, and still is, one of my favorite ways to get my five a day.

This is a pretty simple recipe which goes very nicely with steak, and is so tasty that even kids will eat it.

Cauliflower in Cheese Sauce

1 cauliflower

1½ cups grated cheddar cheese

1 tablespoon butter

1 heaping tablespoon flour (about 1½ tablespoons)

1/4 cup milk (or more, depending on creamy you want your sauce)

Pinch of dry mustard (like Colman's)

about ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

splash of ketchup (about 2 teaspoons)

Put about ½ inch of water into a large saucepan over high heat. Toss in ½ teaspoon of salt.  Turn heat to high.

 Cut the leaves off the cauliflower and scoop out the stalk.  Put this stuff into the saucepan.  When it boils, put on the lid and turn the heat down to a simmer. (I often skip this step). 

  

15 minutes before you want to serve dinner, put the cauliflower into the pan, put on the lid, and turn up the heat to medium so it boils a little faster.

 Melt butter in a small saucepan. Add flour and stir to make a nice creamy roux. Cook without browning for at least 1 minute.

 Test the cauliflower by puncturing it with a knife. When it is the softness you want, take off the heat and drain enough of the cauliflower water into the roux to make a thick sauce.  Whisk the sauce quickly over high heat until thickened. Add the milk gradually until the sauce is a nice smooth consistency.

 Turn the heat under the sauce to low. Add the cheese, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and ketchup to taste.

  

To serve, put the cauliflower in a bowl and pour the cheese sauce over the top.

Acorn Cookies

Fall is here, so it's time for Acorn Cookies!  This is a favorite recipe in our family because it's pretty easy, the cookies look adorable, and they are highly delicious and addicting.

Acorn Cookies

1 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup pecans + about another 3/4 cup
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking power
about 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Chop all of the pecans into fairly small pieces. A food processor helps.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, stir together the butter, brown sugar, 3/4 cup of pecans and vanilla until well blended. Set aside the rest of the pecans. Add the flour and baking powder and stir until just blended.


If the dough seems very sticky, refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

Make a ball of dough about 1" in diameter, and then roll the ball between your hands into an oval shape. Stand this up on your cookie sheet, and then pinch the dough on the top to make a point. If that sounds confusing, hopefully the photo below will help:

You can put the acorns quite close together on the cookie sheet, because they won't get much bigger.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until the points are golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool. Some of them may have flopped over, but never fear, they will still look great when they're done.

Melt chocolate chips in a microwave and stir until smooth. Carefully pick up the cookies by the point and dip them into the chocolate, and then into some of the remaining nuts. Allow to cool before eating, or else you'll get a lot of nuts falling off.

These are great with semisweet or dark chocolate. Or if you have a crazy child in your family who doesn't like chocolate, you can also use butterscotch chips.










(A final note - Gwyneth did post the recipe once already, but I thought more photographs and details might be helpful!)

Chicken and Dumplings

 

 

Like many people, I'm a fan of the Smitten Kitchen blog, and a number of the most popular recipes at my house have been taken  or adapted from recipes I found on the site. This is one of the recipes I make the most often, as it takes advantage of ingredients I almost always have on hand, it uses inexpensive chicken thighs, and it just tastes yummy. I modified the recipe from the original a bit, replacing leeks with celery, since I usually don't have leeks lying around, omitting a bit of sherry (same reason) and substituting dried herbs for the fresh. I've never made this recipe with tarragon, but it sounds like a great idea, so I left that ingredient in. I did, once, toss in a few fennel seeds instead and it gave the stew a wonderful Eastern European vibe.

 

Chicken and Dumplings

 

Serves 4

 

Chicken

6-8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
Table salt and ground black pepper
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large onion, minced
1-2 stalks celery, chopped

1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
2 bay leaves
1 cup frozen green peas
1 tablespoons dried tarragon leaves (optional) 

Dumplings
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons reserved chicken fat (or unsalted butter)


Heat the oil in a large casserole over medium-high heat. Brown the chicken thighs, about 5-6 minutes per side, then take them out and set aside. Drain off all but about 1 tablespoon of the remaining oil, and save it for the dumplings. Return the pan to the heat, and add the butter. Lower the temperature to medium, and saute the onion and celery until translucent. Season with salt and pepper.

Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Whisk in the chicken broth and bring the mixture up to a simmer. While you wait, remove the skin from the chicken thighs (it should come off pretty easily once it's been cooked, but be warned, it is a greasy, messy job.) Put the chicken thighs and herbs into the pot, and then turn down the heat to medium-low. Cover the pot and let the stew simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, until the chicken is falling off the bone.

Remove the chicken pieces and let cool. Turn the heat off the stew. This is a recipe I usually make on the weekends, so I cook everything up to this point earlier in the day, then let it rest a bit until I'm ready to finish everything off.

Once the chicken has cooled enough to handle, remove the meat from the bones. Skim off any fat from the top of the stew and discard. Add the chicken, peas, and milk to the stew and bring to a simmer.

Make the dumplings: Warm up the milk and chicken fat togther in a saucepan or the microwave. In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the milk mixture until the dough comes together. It will be very sticky still. Using two spoons, scrape balls of the dumpling batter into the stew. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, then serve.

Recipe adapted from the Smitten Kitchen: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2007/12/chicken-and-dumplings/

Pecan Pie

My dear husband had his birthday last month, and he had one request: Pecan Pie. Partly, this was the pragmatist in him: the pecans were going to go bad, and he hates to waste anything. But also, the man just loves my pecan pie.

In truth, this is my sister Miriam's recipe. She is the one in the family who is famous for her pies. But I do my best. For one thing, I make my pie crust from scratch:

(Quick style note - please forgive the awkward font formatting. For some reason, when cutting and pasting from some Word documents, blogger doesn't let me change the font style. It is deeply annoying, but I haven't got the time to re-write the whole recipe just to make the fonts match.)

Basic Pie Crust

For a covered pie. Make a half-recipe if you are doing an uncovered pie, like this pecan pie recipe.

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour   

1 tsp. white sugar 

½ cup solid vegetable shortening

8 Tbs (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter

1 tsp. Salt 1/3 cup plus 1 tbs. cold water

1 to 2 tbs. cold water, if needed)

In a large bowl, thoroughly mix together the flour, sugar, and salt.

Break the shortening and the butter into large chunks then add the shortening and butter to the flour mixture.  Cut into the dry ingredients using a pastry cutter or by cutting in opposite directions with 2 knives, one held in each hand. 

Cut the pastry until some pea-size chunks remain in the mixture and the rest is reduced to the consistency of coarse crumbs. 

Drizzle the water over the mixture and work the mixture together with your fingers.  If needed add 1 to 2 tbsp. of water until the pastry forms a ball (do not overdo the water in order to have a flaky crust, but make sure you add enough so that you are able to handle the dough)

Split pastry into two equal balls and roll out on a floured surface. Fill with your favorite pie filling.



Milo was so excited about my pie, he wanted to take a picture with his own camera:

Pecan Pie

9 inch unbaked pie crust     
1/3 cup butter, melted 

1 cup light corn syrup 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup dark brown sugar 

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 eggs, slightly beaten

1 heaping cup pecan halves

Heat oven to 350(F.  In large bowl, combine corn syrup, sugar, eggs, butter, salt and vanilla; mix well.  Pour filling into unbaked pie crust.  Sprinkle with pecan halves.  Bake at 350(F for 45 to 50 minutes or until center is set.  (Toothpick inserted in center will come out clean when pie is done.)  Cool before serving. 

Recipe contributed by Miriam; from a Dear Abby column

Brandied Carrots

In our family, we like to either totally nullify the nutritional value of our vegetables by adding plenty of dairy fat (for example, Continental Vegetables), or spice them up by adding a bunch of booze. And sometimes we do both (dad's recipe for creamed mushrooms with sherry is coming, just as soon as I can take a photo of it that doesn't look totally disgusting. Mushrooms are not very photogenic). This recipe falls in the middle category, and it is a wonderful way to kick up the flavor of plain old steamed carrots.

Brandied Carrots

1/4 cup water

4 cupes sliced carrots

juice of 1/2 lemon

brandy

salt

1 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Bring the water to a boil. Add the carrots, then cover and turn the heat down to medium. Cook until the carrots are tender, about 5 minutes or so. Drain the carrots, then return the pan to the heat, and add the lemon juice, parsley, and a jigger or so of brandy. Toss together, letting a bit of the liquid evaporate. Add salt to taste and serve.

From "The Master in the Kitchen"

Chocolate Chip Bars

I find it hard to decide which I like better - chocolate chip cookies, or chocolate chip bars. These little bites pack a huge punch of brown sugar & chocolate flavor.

Chocolate Chip Bars

3/4 cup butter, softened (1 1/2 sticks)

2 cups packed dark brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (1 bag)

Heat oven to 350° F.  Grease and flour a 13x9 inch baking pan.

Beat together butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add flour, baking powder and salt and stir until just barely combined, then mix in the chocolate chips.

Dump it into the pan and smooth the top as best you can. (It'll be quite thick, so this can be a challenge.)

Bake 20-25 minutes until firm - test by sticking in a toothpick to make sure it comes out with only crumbs.

 

Shortbread Cookies

 

My kids love shortbread, and it's a handy cookie recipe if you know any kids who are allergic to eggs. 

You can make shortbread with nothing but butter, sugar and flour. But a few extra ingredients can make them even more yummy!

Shortbread

1 stick butter, softened

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 cup whole wheat flour (optional; you can substitute all-purpose flour)

1 cup all-purpose flour

Blend together the butter, brown sugar and vanilla, then mix in the cornstarch and flour.

Let the dough rest for 30 minutes in the fridge, while you heat the oven to 350°.

Either roll and cut with cookie cutters, or just press into a round or square pan. I sprinkle turbinado sugar on top, but you could use sanding sugar or colored sprinkles too.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are just starting to turn brown.