1 T. cornstarch
2 tsp. sugar
1-1/2 c. broth (vegetable or chicken)
3 tsp. sliced ginger root (I slice it so I can find it and get it out.  I love the flavor but don’t like to bite into it.)
4 T. butter
1 lb. fresh asparagus, cut into 1″ pieces
1 yellow squash, sliced
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1 package extra firm tofu, drained and cut into small cubes
1 c. fresh basil leaves
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. red pepper
Cooked brown rice
Sliced or slivered almonds, toasted

Directions:

1.  Combine cornstarch, sugar, broth and soy sauce.  Set aside.

2.  In a non-stick skillet, add 1 T. butter.  Stir fry ginger for 1 minute.  Add asparagus, green onions and squash.  Continue to stir fry for 3 or 4 minutes.  Remove from pan.

3.  Add 2 T. butter and heat til almost brown.  Add tofu and stir fry.  Add salt and peppers and continue to stir fry til tofu is brown on the outside. Remove from pan.

4.  Stir the cornstarch mixture til smooth, pour into pan and stir til thickened.  Add asparagus mixture, tofu and basil.  Stir til everything is hot.

Serve over brown rice and sprinkle with toasted almonds.

4 – 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
8 oz. cream cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 package Ranch dressing mix

Pound the chicken breasts so they’re thin.  Place them in the bottom of the crockpot.  Cut the cream cheese up into chunks and toss in on top of the chicken.  Sprinkle the Ranch dressing mix over the chicken.  Spoon the soup over the mixture (no additional liquid needs to be added).

Cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 6 – 7 hours.  Once it’s done, remove the chicken, whisk the sauce and then pour over the chicken and serve over noodles.

This combination of flavors isn’t one we have often and it was very tasty!  This can be made in one pot and since it has potatoes, meat and green peas, add a salad and bread and you have a meal!  We had a bottle of homemade blueberry/fig wine and it was a great combination!

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin
1 cup plain yogurt
1 tsp. ground turmeric
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. powdered mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. fresh ground pepper
2-3 large Russet potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced
1-1/2 cups frozen green peas
1/3 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
olive oil or butter

Directions:

Mix the yogurt, turmeric, cumin, mustard, salt and pepper.

Spread the yogurt mixture on both sides of the chicken breasts.  Refrigerate at least 2 hours.

Heat the oil or butter.  Brown the potatoes, cooking them til they’re completely done.

Remove the potatoes.  Add more oil if needed.  Without removing any of the yogurt mixture, add the chicken pieces to the hot oil and cook til done.

Add the peas and return the potatoes to the pot.  Continue to cook until the peas are hot.

Add the cilantro, continuing to cook for another 2 or 3 minutes, til everything is completely heated.

This is an easy meat dish that tastes like something found in a nice restaurant.  If you don’t like artichokes or just don’t want to pay the price for them, it hardly affects this dish at all to leave them out.  When I don’t use the artichokes, I had a tablespoon of lemon juice just to give it a different flavor.

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Seasoned Salt (I use Slap Ya Mama or Ball’s Cajun Seasoning)
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/4 c. olive oil
1 can artichoke hearts (or bottoms)
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1/3 c. brandy or sherry
1 c. chicken broth
3 T. flour

Directions:

Pound chicken breasts to about half their original thickness.  Sprinkle chicken with seasoned salt.

Melt butter, along with olive oil.  Brown chicken.

Transfer chicken to baking dish.

Drain artichokes and spread on top of chicken breasts.

Saute mushrooms in oil and butter left in pan.

Sprinkle flour over mushrooms.  Stir til blended, breaking up any lumps.

Gradually add chicken broth and brandy or sherry, stirring and simmering about 5 minutes.

Pour over chicken, bake uncovered at 375° for 45 minutes.

Serve over buttered pasta.

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.

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.

1. If you think you don’t like lamb . . just try this recipe.  It’s so good . . so very good.  I think we’re going to have it every day in 2010! 
2. If it looks hard . . it’s just because it’s long and I took too many pictures.  It’s not hard.  It’s so easy and it sits in the oven forever while you sew or knit or shop online.  And, while it’s cooking, it makes your house smell so good!

I adapted this recipe from a FoodNetwork recipe.  One thing I changed from the original recipe is their recipe calls for lamb shanks and while I generally prefer shanks for soups and stews, for lamb I prefer chops.  The bone is still in there so you get some added flavor, they’re very tender and they don’t have all that connective tissue and fat that has that kinda strange “lamby” taste.  I love lamb chops but do not like leg of lamb at all so maybe it’s just me.

And, in my picture you’ll see that I have whole cloves and the recipe calls for ground cloves.  I ran out of ground cloves!

Ingredients:

3/4 c. flour
Salt & Pepper to taste
8 or 9 lamb chops, trimmed of all visible fat
Olive oil
5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 pound carrots, sliced about 1/2″ thick
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
3 cups red wine
2 quarts beef stock
1 cup barley
6 large russet potatoes

For Topping

12 – 14 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Salt & Pepper
1-1/2 cups chopped fresh parsley
1 stick butter
2 T. olive oil.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Season flour with salt and pepper . . whatever amount you think you need.  You can adjust seasonings later.  Dredge lamb chops in flour.

Brown the chops in olive oil over medium-high heat.  They do not need to be fully cooked — just nice and brown.

Remove lamb chops to another dish.  If you need a bit more olive oil in the pot, add it.  Add the carrots, onion and 5 cloves chopped garlic.  Cook til onions are clear.

Add thyme, cloves and bay leaf.  Continue to cook for a couple of minutes.  Return lamb chops to pan.  Add wine, beef stock and barley.  Cover and place in oven for 2 hours.

For the Topping:

While the stew is cooking, chop the remaining garlic and parsley.

Melt butter in a pan and add olive oil oil.  Add the garlic and parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and let sit til needed.

After the stew has been cooking for 2 hours, remove from oven.  Peel potatoes and cut into half lengthwise.  Lay on top of stew (like a crust).  You may have to cut some of the potatoes to get all the holes covered and get them to fit.  It doesn’t have to be perfect though.  Put about half of the garlic/parsley mix on top of the potatoes.  Cover the dish and place the dish back in the oven and cook another 45 minutes.

Add the remaining garlic/parsley mix and continue to cook, uncovered for another 15-20 minutes.

Serve, making sure to place a lamb chop or two in every dish.

Place the cutlets on a flat surface.  Salt and pepper.  Place on piece of prosciutto on top of each breast.

Mash spinach between paper towels to drain as much as possible.  Salt and pepper, toss with 2 T. olive oil.

Arrange a thin layer of spinach on top of the prosciutto.  Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top of the spinach. Beginning at the short end of the chicken, roll up, jelly roll fashion.  Secure with toothpick.

Heat the remaining 2 T. oil in a heavy skillet.  Add the chicken and cook til golden brown, about 2 minutes per side.  Add the chicken broth and lemon juice.  Scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any drippings.  Cover and simmer about 10 minutes, until chicken is done.  Remove chicken.  Continue simmering liquid in pan until it’s reduced to about 2/3 cup.

Remove toothpicks from chicken.  Pour juice over chicken.  Serve over hot, buttered pasta.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, bread crumbs, salt, ground black pepper, eggs, and 1/2 of the can of tomato sauce. Mix together well and place into a 5×9 inch loaf pan.

Push the meatloaf down into the pan forming a well for the sauce around all the edges.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the remaining tomato sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, white sugar and mustard. Bring to a boil and remove from heat.

After meatloaf has cooked for 40 minutes, remove from oven and pour sauce over the top of the meatloaf.

Return to oven and bake at 350 degrees for 20 more minutes. Let sit 5 minutes before serving.

You’re going to need a large pot in which you can steam the tamales.  They need to be steamed while standing on their end.  I used this basket in a large canning pot.  You will need to be able to put a couple of inches (or more) of water in the pot, without the water touching the tamales.

For the tamales themselves, you will need:

Corn Husks
MaSeCa
Garlic Powder
Cumin Powder
Salt
Black Pepper
Red Pepper

For the meat mixture, you will need

Pork Roast or Butt (8 – 10 pounds, depending on the fat content.)  I used a butt.
Corn Oil
Salt
Black Pepper
Red Pepper
Garlic
Cumin Powder
Chili Powder
Paprika

For the meat, cut the roast into chunks about the size you would serve at a meal.  Put in a pot, cover with water and boil about 2 hours, until the meat is tender.  Keep plenty of water in the pot.  You will need about 2 quarts of broth/liquid to add to the tamales. Do not add salt or pepper or other seasonings.

You could also use the pressure cooker to cook the meat.

Once the meat is tender, remove from the broth.  Save the broth! Put the broth in a bowl or jar and refrigerate so the fat hardens and can be removed.

Shred the meat with your fingers and remove as much fat as possible.

Soak the corn husks in hot water for at least one hour before using them.

To the meat, add:

1/2 cup oil (vegetable or corn)
3 T. chili powder
3 T. cumin powder
3 T. garlic powder
1 T. black pepper
1 T. salt
1 T. paprika (we’re not big paprika fans. If you like it . . add more)
1 tsp. red pepper

Mix the meat/seasonings and oil and make sure it’s shredded as well as you can shred it. Set the meat aside and refrigerate it if it’s going to be a while before you use.

For the Masa mixture:

Start with a 4 pound bag of MaSeCa. Pour about half of it into a mixing bowl. I weighed out 2 pounds.

Into that, add:
1 T. paprika (add more if you like more)
3 T. salt
2 T. ground cumin
2 T. chili powder
2 T. garlic powder

Mix all seasonings into the Masa. Add 2 cups vegetable or corn oil. Mix well. At this point, you may want to taste to adjust the seasonings. It’s going to taste very “grainy” but you can get a feel for the seasonings.

Remove any grease that has hardened from the broth. Heat up the broth til it’s warm . . doesn’t need to be hot but just warm.

Start with 2 cups and add broth as needed to get the mixture to the consistency of a thick peanut butter. If you run out of broth, use warm water.  Do not use storebought brother that has salt added.  You’ve already added salt to the Masa and it will be way too salty if you add salted broth.  I’ve heard that a ball of the Masa mixture should float in ice water when it’s the right consistency but I forgot to check that.

If the Masa mixture is too runny, add more MaSeCa in small amounts til you get it right.  If it’s too dry, add more broth or warm water.

Lay a corn husk out on a flat surface with the skinny end pointing to the left. Spread the mixture from the edge closest to you, to about 1/2″ from the edge fartherest from you. Also, don’t spread the masa on 1/3 of the thin end.  The Masa mixture expands a little during the cooking.  If you like a whole lot of the cornmeal mixture in your tamales, make it thicker.  If you like less, make it thin.  I made mine about as thin as I could spread it.

Then lay a thin later of meat — about 1 or 1-1/2 tablespoons meat per tamale.  I found that if some of the husks were really big, I just tore off a little piece from one edge.  No need to have some really big ones and some really small ones.

Start with the edge closest to you and roll up.  Then fold the left end up.  Lay them into a steamer basket, with the seam side down.  Keep stacking them til the basket is full.

Place the basket in the pot with at least a couple of inches of water but don’t let the water touch the bottom of the tamales.  Bring to a boil, turn the heat down, cover the pot and steam gently for about an hour. Make sure the water doesn’t all boil out of the pot.  Add more water if necessary.

Remove one (or two!).  Let cool and taste to make sure the masa is done (not runny or grainy).  If done, remove from heat and let cool before wrapping for the freezer.