Quarterly book club review of the book, The Chile Queen by Sandra Dallas, was big hit. She has become one of my favorite authors. Our book review is always preceded by our favorite part of the evening, the themed potluck. This time the theme is Southwest and the main dish included four different versions of Chile with cornbread. What to make to compliment chile? I found this recipe from Paula Deen, which I altered to suit my taste, and loved the results. It has made me think there are even more creative ideas for for delicious deviled egg.
12 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled
1/3 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons shredded Cheddar cheese
3 tablespoons salsa (I used home-made Salsa)
1 tablespoon sour cream
1 tablespoon chopped green onion, plus more for garnish, optional
1 teaspoon ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste
Halve eggs lengthwise. Remove yolks and add to a small bowl.
Mash the yolks with a fork and stir in the mayonnaise, cheese, salsa, sour cream, green onion, and cumin.
Add salt and pepper, to taste, and blend well.
Fill the egg whites evenly with yolk mixture and garnish with additional green onions, if desired.
Arrange in a container and store, covered in the refrigerator, until ready to serve.
I was cruising the net for frozen yogurt pops and ran across this yummy recipe for Baileys Poptails. I have a bottle of Baileys in my pantry begging to be used so this was a great solution for a hot summer after dinner treat. I eliminated the coffee from the recipe because I don’t need caffeine at night and just doubled the Baileys to 4 ounces.
Daughter, Megan, suggested that melted chocolate in the milk and cream (and then cooling) would also be a great variation to try next time.
BAILEYS POPTAILS
1/2 cup Heavy Cream
1 1/2 cups 2% Milk
3 tablespoons Instant Coffee (I chose not to add coffee)
2 tablespoons Whole Cane Sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure Vanilla Extract
pinch of Sea Salt
2 ounces Baileys Irish Cream (I doubled the Bailey’s Irish Cream to replace the coffee)
Bring all ingredients (excluding Baileys) to a simmer in a saucepan. Stir, and remove from heat when well combined. Transfer to a container & place in the fridge for about 1 hour or until cool.
Remove from fridge & mix in the Baileys Irish Cream. Pour poptail mixture into pop molds. Add the stick.
Let me send a huge compliment to one of my favorite blogs, Iowa Girls Eats. Not only is she from Iowa but she eats gluten-free and has many great ideas. While browsing for egg recipes I saw that she had tried bacon egg cups and I decided to give my own version a whirl. Most of the recipes on the web show that you use a whole egg in each cup but I decided to scramble the eggs and add ingredients.
Next time, I would either cook the bacon even longer or I would precook the bacon and crumble it in the bottom of each cup. I like my bacon crispy so I’d prefer my bacon slices to be the same. You’ll also see that the bacon was not on the outside of the eggs cups since the bacon shrinks while precooking but they come out beautifully as cups just the same!
BACON EGG CUPS
6 slices of bacon
6 eggs
1/4 cup cheese (I used cheddar)
pinch of Herbs de Provence
salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Wrap a slice of bacon around each of six muffin tins. Bake in oven for 15-20 minutes or until almost done to your liking.
While the baking is cooking, beat eggs and add cheese, herbs and salt and pepper. Set aside.
Remove muffin tins from oven and carefully pour or remove the bacon fat.
Carefully pour egg mixture into each of the six muffin tins.
Bake another 15+ minutes or until eggs are completely cooked through.
Converting grams to ounces and cups is not easy! Somehow it seems that Gooseberries are plentiful in countries that use the metric system. I did my best to convert and, I have to say, the results were excellent.
GOOSEBERRY CRUMBLE CAKE
1 1/2 cups cleaned gooseberries
3/4 cup unsalted, softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
3 ounces ground almonds
1 1/8 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Crumble:
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup unsalted, softened butter
2 tablespoons sugar
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a square cake pan. To make the cake, beat the butter and sugars in a mixer for 8-10 minutes until fluffy. Break the eggs and beat them gently with a fork. Add slowly, with the beater, to the butter and sugar mixture.
Combine the ground almonds into the flour, salt and baking powder. Gradually add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture. Pour the batter into the baking pan. Scatter the gooseberries on the top.
Make the crumble topping by mixing the flour butter and sugar in the food processor. Scatter the crumbs loosely over the top of the gooseberries.
Bake for about an hour, checking to assure the cake it done. Remove the cake from the oven and cool before serving.
My daughter, Megan, told me this was a great recipe. As mentioned in my Roasted Fennel post of last Friday, we garnished the soup with bits of the fennel and loved it. From now on, it will be a traditional side served with the soup, and a slice of hearty Italian bread.
The original recipe called for heavy cream, but we liked the soup without the cream and without the extra fat. Next time I would add chopped carrots and celery.
ZUPPA TOSCANA…COPYCAT OF OLIVE GARDEN RECIPE
1 lb. Italian sausage
2 large russet baking potatoes, peeled and diced
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 cup bacon, chopped (optional)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups kale or 2 cups swiss chard, chopped
2 (8 ounce) cans chicken broth
1 quart water
1 cup heavy whipping cream (I omitted)
Chop or slice uncooked sausage into small pieces.
Brown sausage in your soup pot.
Add chicken broth and water to pot and stir.
Place onions, potatoes, and garlic in the pot.
Cook on medium heat until potatoes are done.
Add bacon.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Simmer for another 10 minutes.
Turn to low heat.
Add cream (optional) and heat.
Tear pieces of kale into bowl and pour steaming soup over the top.
Fennel was a target buy at Trader Joe’s for daughter Megan and I this week. My husband, Karl, used to love to cook Fennel as was prepared for him on business trips to Italy. It’s been years since I’ve prepared it. Megan suggested we roast it and it was fantastic. I have to say that eating it raw was delicious, too.
The fennel was prepared the same evening as the Zuppa Tuscana (recipe to post next week). We decided to put some of the fennel in our soup and loved the addition. I even added cold roasted fennel to a roast pork and goat cheese sandwich…love it!
Next time I’ll try roasting the fennel with other vegetable, perhaps white and sweet potatoes and a bit of rosemary?
ROASTED FENNEL
2 heads fresh fennel
olive oil
salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Rinse fennel. Slightly trim bottom and top of fennel bulb.
Cut each bulb in half lengthwise. Cut out core and set aside.
Slice fennel thinly and place on baking sheet. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.
Roast for 15-20 or until brown on edges and tender.
Baked Avocado…a new adventure for me and I loved it. The idea of using avocado as the binding ingredient for quinoa, tomato, cheese was great and included all ingredients I love. This recipe is worth experimenting with and can easily be adapted for a vegan or vegetarian diet.
BAKED STUFFED AVOCADOS
2 large ripe avocados
2 cups cooked quinoa (I used a mix of plain and Tri-Colored Quinoa from Trader Joe’s)
1 medium-sized tomato, diced
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Slice avocados lengthwise and remove the pit by gently tapping it with a large sturdy knife.
Scoop the avocado from the shell with a spoon and place in a mixing bowl. Add quinoa, tomatoes, feta, salt and pepper. Mix to combine, but leaving hunks of avocado.
Place the hollow avocado shells on a baking sheet and carefully fill each with the mixture. (I found that I had more filling that the shells would hold and baked the remainder in a small greased casserole dish).
Bake for 10-12 minutes until cheese is sufficiently melted.
Peanut Stew is featured today thanks to this great recipe prepared by fellow Grandma-in-law (grandson Evan’s other Grandma), Chris, for our potluck last week as mentioned in Tuesday’s post.
She adapted the recipe per her notes below and it was absolutely delicious! The original recipe serves six and is easily adaptable to vegan, omitting the chicken and using vegetable broth. I will add this recipe to my favorites.
WEST AFRICAN PEANUT STEW
“A hearty stew that’s super-easy to make and great for peanut butter lovers. Can be made vegetarian or with chicken. In a pinch, feel free to use vegetable or corn oil for peanut oil, powdered ginger for fresh, water for stock, etc. Kale works well in place of collard greens.”
2 tablespoons peanut oil (I used coconut oil)
one half onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger (I prefer to slice them thick so you can fish it out)
a pinch of sugar to caramelize onion
1 pound chicken, cut into chunks (optional)
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper, or to taste (which for me was none)
I added about a tsp of cinnamon
salt and ground black pepper to taste
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
3 small sweet potatoes, cut into chunks
1 (16 ounce) can chopped tomatoes, with liquid
1/4 pound collard greens, roughly chopped
1 cup chunky peanut butter
Heat the peanut oil in a large pot over medium-high heat; cook and stir the onion, garlic, and ginger in the hot oil until softened, about 5 minutes. (I used Costco rotisserie shredded chicken, so I didn’t add it until the last step, since it was already cooked)
Add the chicken; cook and stir until completely browned. Season with the crushed red pepper, salt, and black pepper. Pour the chicken stock over the mixture. Stir the sweet potatoes into the liquid and bring the mixture to a boil; reduce heat to low, cover the pot partially with a lid, and cook at a simmer for 15 minutes.
Stir the tomatoes, collard greens, and peanut butter into the soup. Partially cover the pot again and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, another 20 minutes. (Mine simmered for about 30 minutes longer than that. I used a potato masher and crushed up the sweet potatoes and tomatoes a little after the recipe’s 20 minute simmer, so it would be thicker rather than chunky.)
I had extra collard greens and one review suggested to sauté them as garnish along with chopped peanuts.
Poisonwood Bible (1998) was our recent Book Club read. I remember trying to read this great book in the late ’90s but work, teenagers and life interrupted my reading experience. I was delighted when our Book Club added the book to our 2014 list. While the book is long, the time flew by as I read this marvelous book by Barbara Kingsolver.
The book was originally suggested to me by my sister-in-law, Betty, when they were living in Malawi, Africa on a medical and education mission. During their time in Africa, Betty wrote many emails to family and friends capturing the many wonderful and tragic moments there. Poinsonwood Bible brought back a flood of memories from her stories.
Our book club always begins the evening with a potluck dinner with a theme from the book, so African recipes it is! Betty was kind enough to mail me her cookbook, The Malawi Cookbook:
Malawi Cookbook
The cookbook was originally published in 1972 by the Malawi Ministry of Health to raise money for children’s vaccinations and the Save the Children fund. Malnutrition is one of the leading causes of morbidity in young children in developing countries.
The recipes are fascinating and I will keep a few for my future cooking experiences, although I doubt I will ever serve Bee Larvae, Flying Ants, Grasshoppers, Crickets and Locusts. Instead, I decided to use the eggplant recipe that Betty shared directly with me. I love eggplant, made any which way, so this was a perfect choice. As Betty shared, Mashed Eggplant is served everywhere during harvest season.
Other wonderful dishes shared at our dinner were Ingera (sponge bread), Chicken and Peanut Stew (recipe to appear in Friday’s post), Fried Plantains, and an array of Ethiopian dishes from a local restaurant.
I took several wonderful pictures of the Eggplant and Peanut Spread, to later discover I didn’t have my memory card in my camera. My apologies but let me assure you the dish was a big hit, even for those that confess to not liking Eggplant. Serve this spread with wedges of pita bread or, for those eating gluten-free, a gluten free cracker.
The only change I would make the next time I make it, would be to roast the eggplant in the oven to decrease the amount of fat in the dish.
MASHED EGGPLANT & PEANUT SPREAD
2 pounds eggplant, peeled and sliced
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter (in Malawi, they would use local made groundnut butter)
salt and red pepper flakes, to taste
Prepare the eggplant in the usual way of slicing, salting, weighing down the eggplant during the two hours you are extracting the liquid and bitterness.
Pat dry, then fry eggplant slices for about five minutes in the olive oil, turning once.
Mix and pour remaining ingredients over the fried slices, mash with fork, then serve with pita wedges. (I admit to having used a food processor which made the finished product a bit smoother).
Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Soup, with only 5 ingredients, sounded too easy to be good. I was wrong.
It was full of flavor and, depending on your taste buds, could be enhanced with additional vegetables and spices. I think I will add a bit of curry next time.
What would you add?
SWEET POTATO AND CAULIFLOWER SOUP
1 head cauliflower
3 sweet potatoes
1 sweet onion
Olive oil
2 cloves garlic
7 cups water
Salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 400F.
Cut up cauliflower and lay out on a cookie sheet, drizzle with oil, and bake for 25 minutes.
In a large pot bring water, sweet potato, onion and garlic to boil. Cook until sweet potatoes are tender.
Remove half of soup and puree in food processor. Return to soup pot.
Garnish with green onion, salt and pepper, parsley.
Fork Lore 