My Lime Green Kitchen

Archive for January, 2010

One night on TV I saw this dish being made but there was no recipe.  I’ve searched and tried a couple of versions and came up with this one that we loved.  Feel free to add more or less of the spices — build it to suit your own tastes.  Many of the recipes I found showed serving this over noodles so if you don’t want to make the potato dumplings, just boil a package of noodles!

This recipe looks a lot harder than it is. It was harder for me to take all the pictures and write all these words than it is to make the darned recipe!

Chicken Preparation:

1 whole chicken, cut up
1 small onion, sliced

The night before you plan to serve:
Season chicken with salt, pepper, garlic powder (anything else you want to add). Pour 1/4 cup oil over the chicken. Refrigerate overnight.

The day of serving:
Slice onion and place in 9″ x 13″ baking pan. Place chicken on top of onions.

Bake uncovered at 350° for 1 hour.

Ingredients for Potato Dumplings:

1-1/2 c. mashed potatoes – make sure there are no lumps or use instant mashed potatoes
2 eggs
1/2 c. sour cream
Flour
2 cups bread crumbs
1/2 stick butter

Directions for Potato Dumplings

Make the mashed potatoes and season them with salt and pepper. You may want to add just a little more salt than you would for regular mashed potatoes. By the time you add in the flour, they end up needing a bit more salt.

Stir in the eggs and sour cream. Turn out onto a floured surface, adding flour and kneading til the dough is just a bit sticky but can be worked with.

Pinch off little marble sized balls. Roll in the palm of your hand almost like a tootsie roll. Drop into boiling salted water and gently boil until the float. Remove from water as soon as they float. Drain on paper towels. Place in buttered casserole dish.

Melt the butter. Stir in bread crumbs. Spread over dumplings. Set aside for now.

Ingredients for Sauce:

¼ c. olive oil
1 chopped onion
1 chopped green pepper
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 can tomato paste (I used about 1/2 cup of double strength tomato paste in a tube)
2 cans chicken broth (I used one quart of home canned smoked chicken broth)
1 tsp. black pepper
½ tsp. marjoram
1 tsp. paprika
½ tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 T. beef boullion granules
1 T. chicken boullion granules
2 bay leaves
3 T. flour
1 c. sour cream

Directions for Sauce:

Saute onion, garlic and bell pepper in olive oil. Add tomato paste, chicken broth, boullion and spices.

Simmer slowly for about  an hour. If too much of your liquid cooks out, add 1 cup (or more if needed) of water.

NOTE:  Stick the potato dumplings in the oven at 350º for 30 minutes.

Add cooked chicken to sauce and simmer for another half an hour.

Remove chicken.

Mix flour with 1 cup cold water. Stir into sauce and continue simmering and stirring til sauce thickens.  Stir in sour cream and continue stirring til dissolved.  Return chicken to sauce. Serve immediately or keep warm til time to serve.

To serve, place potato dumplings in bowl. Spoon meat and sauce over dumplings.

My great grandma was Grandma Stroud . . not Grandma Himel.  She always had tea cakes.  I have tried every tea cake recipe I find hoping to duplicate my great grandma’s tea cakes.  I probably don’t even remember at this point what they tasted like but I have this thought in my head about them.  My lovely friend from south Louisiana, Nita, shared a recipe from one of her neighbors from their Grandma Himel.  I immediately made them and they’re very, very close to my great grandma’s . . as close as I’ve come.

When I made them, I halved the recipe.  For three eggs, use either 1 very large or 2 very small eggs and it works.  The recipe calls for vanilla butternut extract.  I’d never heard of that and used clear vanilla.   Nita said she ordered the vanilla butternut extract from Amazon.

Ingredients:

6 cups flour
6 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups sugar
2 sticks butter or margarine
1 cup milk
3 eggs
1 oz. vanilla butternut extract

Directions:

Melt butter.  Add extract, eggs, sugar, and milk. Mix well.  Stir in flour and baking powder.  Roll out, cut with cookie cutter.  Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 350° for 13 – 15 minutes.  They will not be brown but a light yellow.

There are as many ways to make meatballs as there are most anything else you might want to do.

For this recipe, there are no specific amounts.  I never measure for meatballs.  I’m just going to tell you step by step what I do and you can take it from there.

When I make meatballs, I make LOTS of meatballs and freeze them.  In the summer, when tomatoes are plentiful, I make and can my spaghetti sauce.  We have spaghetti and meatballs almost every Sunday.  It’s so simple to open a couple of jars of spaghetti sauce, throw in some meatballs and let it all simmer and with little effort, we have a yummy meal.

For this batch of meatballs, I used two bowls and exactly the same ingredients are in each bowl.  I don’t have a bowl large enough to mix up this size batch so that’s why I used two bowls.

Start with bread crumbs (in the lighter blue bowl).  When I see marked down sour dough bread at Wal-Mart, I buy it.  I either cut it into chunks and freeze it for bread pudding or I put it in the food processor and make bread crumbs and put those in the freezer.  These particular bread crumbs came from the freezer.  Pour milk over the bread crumbs til they’re moist — no milk standing but the crumbs are very moist.

The white bowl in front on the left is onions/garlic.  I put that through the food processor and it’s soupy.  That’s how I want it.

In each dark bowl I have 3 pounds of ground beef and 1 pound of ground pork.

To the meat bowl, dump half of each:

• the soaked bread crumbs
• the onion mixture
• 3 eggs

Chop the parsley and add half to each meat mixture bowl.  Season with salt, pepper, basil and oregano.

Add about 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese to each bowl.  Mix thoroughly.

Start out by browning one little patty in hot oil.

This little patty is for you to taste and make sure the seasonings are correct.  If it needs more of anything, fix it up, then cook another little patty and taste it to be sure it’s right.

Once you’re happy with the seasonings, shape the meatballs and brown them.  I don’t cook mine all the way through but just kinda brown them on the outside so they hold their shape and then drop them into simmering sauce to continue cooking.

When freezing them, my preferred method is to flash freeze them (lay them out on a cookie sheet and freeze them, then place them in ziplock bags.  You can then take out as many as you need without them being all stuck together.) but my freezers are so full, I didn’t have room to flash freeze these.

I put 16 meatballs in a vacuum seal type bag, barely vacuum it (too much vacuuming will smash them all flat), seal the bag and freeze them.

From this batch, I got 7 bags, each with 16 meatballs.  When we have spaghetti and meatballs on Sunday, we have meatball sandwiches for lunch on Monday or Tuesday . . that’s why I put 16 meatballs in each bag.

Chad isn’t much of a carrots fan and he loved these.  He even asked for them another night.

Dilly Sweet Carrots

Ingredients:

3 c. sliced carrots
3 T. butter
3 T. brown sugar
2 tsp. dill weed
1 tsp. black pepper

Directions:

Gently boil carrots in salted water til al dente.  Drain.

Add remaining ingredients, simmering slowly til butter and sugar are melted.

Serve them hot (vs. chilled).

Crunch, sweet, sour . . so good!  This keeps for several days in the fridge.  If you’re making more than you’re going to serve right away, keep the crunchies (ramen noodles, sesame seeds, and slivered almonds) separate and add them right before serving.
1 head napa cabbage
1 bunch minced green onions
1/3 cup butter
1 (3 ounce) package ramen noodles, broken
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup cider vinegar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce

Shred  the head of cabbage. Combine the green onions and cabbage in a large bowl, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Make the crunchies: Melt the butter. Mix the ramen noodles, sesame seeds and almonds into the pot with the melted butter. Spoon the mixture onto a baking sheet and bake the crunchies in the preheated 350 degrees, turning often to make sure they do not burn. When they are browned remove them from the oven.  Cool completely

Make the dressing: In a small saucepan, heat vinegar, oil, sugar, and soy sauce. Bring the mixture to a boil, let boil for 1 minute. Remove the pan from heat and let cool. Combine dressing, crunchies, and cabbage immediately before serving. Serve right away or the crunchies will get soggy.