A Couple of Recipes

Ginger Syrup

3 c. water
2 c. sugar
6 oz. fresh ginger, chopped, unpeeled

Combine and bring to a boil. Simmer 20-30 minutes, till reduced by half. Cool, then strain and refrigerate.

1-2 tsp. in hot tea.
1 Tbsp. + seltzer water = ginger ale.

Mexican Hot Chocolate
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 c. sugar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. chili

To use, combine 2 Tbsp. with 1/4 cup milk. 3/4 cup water, and optionally, stir in some chocolate syrup.

Kristen's Enchiladas

Prep time: 10 min. Cook time: 25 min. Total: 35 min.

INGREDIENTS
1 lb.	lean ground beef
1 can	refried beans
1 large can	enchilada sauce
10pk	8" flour tortillas
1 packet	taco seasoning
1.5 cups	shredded cheese
.5 bunch	green onions

Use Trader Joe’s Enchilada sauce.

STEP 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Brown the ground beef in a large skillet over medium heat until no pink meat remains. Stir the meat well while it is cooking to break up large chunks and make sure all of it is cooked through.

STEP 2: Add the taco seasoning and approx. 2/3 cup water (as directed on seasoning packet). Stir well and let simmer until the liquid evaporates and the mixture is thick and saucy.

STEP 3: Add the refried beans to the meat mixture and stir until it is well combined and heated all the way through. This mixture can get thick and sticky so stir well!

STEP 4: Using spray oil, coat the inside of a large casserole dish. If you skip this step the enchiladas will stick and you'll just have one big mess when you try to dish them out. Warm your stack of tortillas in the microwave for about 30 seconds to make them more flexible.

STEP 5: Take approximately 1/3 cup of the bean and meat mixture and put it inside of a tortilla. Wrap the beans up in the tortilla burrito-style (how to roll a burrito). Place the rolled enchilada in the casserole dish, seam side down. Do the same for the remaining 9 enchiladas and pack them tightly into the casserole dish.

STEP 6: Once all of the rolled enchiladas are in the dish, evenly pour the entire can of enchilada sauce over top. Sprinkle the shredded cheese over the whole dish. Place the dish in the preheated oven (350) and bake for approximately 20 min. or until its all bubbly around the edges.

STEP 7: Sprinkle the chopped green onions all over the top and enjoy!

Spinach Olympia

Cook frozen spinach per package directions, drain. Saute with olive oil and garlic. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Serve, topped with crumbled feta and sliced kalamata olives.

Kristen's Pizza

Top 3 frozen Garlic nans from Trader Joe's with marinara sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella and/or other cheese. Bake on cookie sheet for 10 minutes, till cooked and crispy.

Cream Soup and Spinach dish

I was looking through a book called Vintage Notions, which had images and projects from the 1920s, and among them were two recipes for cream soups. When I went for lunch with Karen in Skowhegan, they had cream of spinach and cream of tomato soup on the menu, and the whole idea just struck me as something good. So last night I adapted the recips a bit and made home-made cream of spinach soup that was quite yummy:

Cream of Spinach Soup

2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp. flour
2 Tbsp (+/-) finely minced onion
2 cups whole milk
1 cup spinach puree (see details below)
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
additional half-and-half cream to taste, or enrich the 2 cups milk by substituting some cream
goat cheese for garnish (or sour cream, or feta, or maybe Parmesan)

The original recipe did not have onion or cheese, but I felt that taste in the 1920s was a bit more bland than today's taste, so I added them.

Melt butter in 2 qt. pan, add onion and saute till just translucent. Sprinkle with flour and cook together. Add milk gradually, stirring the whole time. Stir in spinach and stir well to distribute. Season and garnish.

For the spinach puree, here's what I did. I looked for spinach baby food, but there wasn't any at Albertson's (don't know if there is any anywhere in the world.) The original instructions said to force cooked spinach through a sieve, but that sounded like a mess and maybe a broken strainer. I don't have one of those cone-shaped sieves with a pusher thing. I contemplated the spinach issue for a while and finally did this: Cook a half bag (or whole box) of chopped spinach. Allow to cool, drain out any excess water, but don't squeeze. Place spinach in blender and puree. Yeah, it's a bit of a mess to clean up the blender, but the puree had a lovely texture. About a cup in all.

I had chevre goat cheese in the fridge, so I topped the soup with that.

The same book had another recipe that I want to try:

Cream of Tomato Soup
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. flour
2 cups whole milk
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes

make the white sauce as above. Add the tomato slowly to avoid curdling.

And also while I was in Maine, I had something called Haddock Olympia at The Last Unicorn, and the accompanying spinach was delicious and would make a lovely side dish on its own with fish or chicken or lamb.

Saute a pound of fresh clean spinach in olive oil and garlic. Add some lemon juice. Top with chopped kalamata olives and crumbled feta cheese.

I also want to try to make a seafood chowder like the one at the Red Barn. But I won't have a lobster claw, sadly. (Unless I cook a lobster....unlikely.) Maybe crab claw? It had sea scallops, white fish, and lobster, in what seemed to be simply milk, cream and butter.

Fonduta

In Chicago, we went to Quartino, where we had a lovely meal that included Fonduta, the Italian version of Fondue. I wanted to try it at home, and found the following recipe online:

8 oz. Fontina cheese
2 cups whole milk
pinch of salt
4 egg yolks
8 oz. butter

I bought a piece of Fontina at Trader Joe's, and I also bought a bag of shredded mixed Italian cheese at Marukai. The mixed cheeses included parmesan, mozzarella, smoked provolone, asiago, romano and fontina. The shredded cheese smelled a lot sharper than the whole fontina, and I was a little torn as to which to use. In the end, I used mostly the mix, with an addition of some cubes of the Fontina.

I set up a small pan over a saucepan as a double boiler to melt the cheese and one cup of the milk. In another pan, I warmed a cup of milk, the butter (yeah, that's a lot of butter!) and the egg yolks. I was a little concerned that the egg would scramble, and there were no details about how to avoid that, and in fact, it did happen somewhat. Next time, I will maybe temper the eggs and add them at the end.



In any case, the finished sauce was not as smooth as it should have been, but the taste was very good. I jerry-rigged a serving mechanism that consisted of a small candle and a rack (from an old toaster over) supported on 4 small cups, to keep the sauce warm. It may not even be necessary, but it added a nice touch. This would be a nice meal on a cold winter night, but it tasted very good out on the patio tonight as well.

We used Spoon House bread cut into 1" cubes and a sliced Fuji apple. In the winter, I might add potatoes, but Papa really wanted to focus on the bread, which was very tasty.

It would be easy to cut this recipe in half, and this amount made too much for 2 people to eat as a dinner. I will see how the leftover sauce keeps and re-heats.

Super Bowl Buffalo Chicken Strips

This is excellent food for the Super Bowl, as proven year after year.

1/3 c. flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 c. milk
1 lb. chicken tenders
corn oil
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/4 cup Franks' Red Hot Original

Dip chicken in milk and then flour. Saute in oil. Turn off heat and cover. Mix hot sauce and butter. Remove chicken to serving plate and drizzle sauce over it. Serve with blue cheese and celery sticks.

Shrimp Curry and Snow Peas

Sorry, no picture--we ate it all up too fast! But here are the instructions for Shrimp Curry. This started out as a recipe in The Key to Chinese Cooking as Fillet of Flounder in Curry Sauce, and has had ingredients crossed out and the flounder changed to shrimp, so by now, the recipe is a little hard to follow in the cookbook!

1/2~1 pound fresh shrimp (medium size)
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 onion, chopped fairly large
3 Tbsp. oil
1 Tbsp. American curry powder
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. cornstarch dissolved in 1 cup water and 2 tsp. sesame oil

Remove shells from shrimp and slice back and remove black "vein." Heat oil in frying pan. Saute onion for a few minutes, then add garlic and continue sauteing. When onion is nearly soft, add shrimp and cook till pink. Stir curry powder into shrimp/onion mix and stir and cook for a bit. Add soy sauce. Stir up cornstarch mixture and pour into pan. Cook and stir for a few moments until sauce thickens up. Turn off heat and let rest while you prepare snow peas, then reheat and serve. To make a single serving, probably .25 to .33 pound of shrimp would be enough, and you might cut the cornstarch/sesame/water and curry powder down.

Snow peas: Pinch off ends of snow peas and pull off any thick strings. Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in pan and drizzle a small amount of sesame oil in as well. Add dry snow peas and sprinkle with salt. Saute on high heat till wilted and slightly browned.