Microwave Popcorn

I have made popcorn in the microwave two ways, one using a brown paper bag and the other using a glass pyrex safe for the microwave bowl.

 It is easiest to make popcorn in the microwave using a brown paper bag.

1/2 cup popcorn kernels

1 tsp oil (such as canola) or 1/2 tsp oil and a few thin slivers of butter  Note: fat is OPTIONAL

1 brown paper bag 

Microwave for 2 minutes

Mix the popcorn kernels with the oil. This method also works with NO fat, just the kernels in the bag, in which case I prefer to use only 1/4 cup kernels. I buy whatever kernels are on sale.

If using oil, I mix the oil with the kernels in the measuring cup. Any type of seasoning can be added at this point and mixed into the oil and kernel mixture.  Place the kernel/oil mixture into a paper bag. Fold the top of the paper bag twice, about 1 inch for each fold. Place in microwave for 2 minutes. I have reused the paper bag shown below a few times.

If using "NO fat," I prefer using 1/4 cup kernels and stop my microwave at about 1:45, at which time there are almost no un-popped kernels in the bag.

                    Fold the bag over twice, about 1 inch for each fold.

                         See inside the brown paper bag, fluffy popcorn!

To make popcorn with no oil, no fat and no brown bag, I use a microwave safe Pyrex glass bowl and cover it with parchment paper, place a few slits in the parchment paper for steam to escape, and fasten the paper to the glass bowl using a large rubber band. I have found that using the glass bowl method increases the time in my microwave to almost 4 minutes.

Be cautious in popping the kernels in the glass Pyrex bowl as the bowl gets very hot!

The paper bag method of making popcorn is much easier, takes only 2 minutes in the microwave, and one does not have to handle or clean the very hot glass bowl. I am so pleased I did not have to buy another air popper to make air popped corn as it is very fluffy and fast to pop corn in the microwave!

Pumpkin Butter - Easy Recipe

 

It is hard to believe it is the middle of September already and pumpkin items are in the stores!

During the pandemic, I purchased a case of pumpkin puree and am trying to use it up. Today, I came across a simple recipe for pumpkin butter using pumpkin puree. 

This recipe makes your house smell wonderful too!

I can't wait to add the pumpkin butter to my plain Greek yogurt for that "fall feeling!"

The recipe is simple and includes the following:

1 15 ounce can pumpkin puree

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 Tablespoon honey

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

Stir all the ingredients together in a small saucepan and cook for 10 minutes at medium heat stirring constantly. Pour the hot pumpkin butter into a glass container, let it cool, and place the lid on top. 

Store the pumpkin butter in the refrigerator.

Pumpkin butter is a great substitute for preserves or apple butter!

A Sweet Yeast Dough -- Nondairy

A favorite recipe for a "traditional" yeast dough for bakery treats such as long rolls or shaped into three- cornered pastry called Hamantaschen. 

This yeast dough is fun to make and what is most important, it is easy to handle. It was not the holiday of Purim so I did not make hamantaschen but used the dough to make a prune-filled roll. I used canned prune filling for the dough as had it in my pantry and time to use it. The filling seemed a bit runny so I added a bit of honey, lemon juice, and ground almonds that I keep in the freezer.

This recipe involves letting the dough raise two times, doubling in size each time.

The ingredients I use for the easy- to- handle dough are as follows:

1 1/4 tsp yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1/4 cup sugar (or a bit less)

1/4 cup canola oil

1 egg

2 cups unbleached flour -- plus a few pinches of flour to knead the dough

I mixed the yeast with the warm water and added a bit of the sugar and waited a few minutes until bubbles appeared. then added the remaining sugar, oil, egg and the two cups of flour.

I mixed all the ingredients and kneaded the dough until smooth and no longer sticking to the side of the bowl. I added a couple pinches of flour to keep the dough from sticking. I floured the bowl, covered with a kitchen towel and allowed it to raise for about an hour. 

I love parchment paper and lined a large cookie sheet with the paper. I rolled the dough on the parchment paper and the paper helped me roll the dough in a long roll.

I rolled the dough into a rectangle and added prune filling and some cinnamon to the middle,  rolled it up and put it in a cold oven to rise for another hour or until doubled in bulk.

Bake at 375 F.

A reference to this dough is at:

Reviving a Yeasted Hamantaschen Recipe Nearly Lost to the Soviet Era — Jewish Food Society

Blintz Souffle made with Greek Yogurt

My long term friend, Connie Inukai, made the incredible blintz souffle with sour cream.  Since sour cream is not in our diet, I use nonfat Greek yogurt. The sour cream version is most delicious. Connie put the ingredients in a blender and poured it over the frozen blintzes.  I include 2 blintzes per person and double or triple the recipe for a crowd. For my husband and me, I make the souffle with 6 blintzes and substitute Greek yogurt for the sour cream. We enjoy reheating leftovers in the microwave.

Mix the following in the blender on high speed until airy looking:

1 cup of nonfat Greek yogurt (or sour cream)

4 eggs

1/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup sugar

2 Tablespoons melted butter

2 Tablespoons vanilla extract

We eat about 2 blintzes plus batter per person and love any leftovers.

After blending, pour the batter over the frozen blintzes into a baking dish.

Bake at 350 F for 45 minutes.

Served immediately from the oven, the souffle is puffy and has a beautiful color. This recipe is linked to many wonderful memories of friends and family!

Cake in a Cup

I saw Lee Drummond bake a single serving cake in a mug and had to try her recipe. I modified the recipe and increased the time as our microwave is 700 watt. My sister was surprised to learn that the cake rises and she suggested it would be great torn up in a triffle or strawberry shortcake.

The link to Lee Drummond's chocolate recipe is

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/chocolate-cake-in-a-mug-3158576

I modified the recipe for a vanilla cake in a mug as follows:

1/4 cup flour
3 Tablespoons sugar (I used only 1 Tablespoon)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 Tablespoons of Milk
2 Tablespoons of oil (I used only 1 Tablespoon of canola oil)
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 strawberry or equivalent fruit (optional)

Using a fork, mix the dry ingredients in a microwave proof cup (flour, sugar, baking powder). Add the liquid ingredients and mix with the same fork.

Microwave for 90 seconds (110 seconds for a 700 watt microwave.)

Enjoy

Easy, lower fat, delicious Brownies

One box of family-sized brownie mix 1 or 2 eggs 1 cup of nonfat or low fat, plain Greek Yogurt Mix all together in a bowl, spread in 9x9 or 9x13 pan that has been sprayed on the bottom. Adding a bit more yogurt makes the brownies creamier. The eggs may be omitted, but I prefer the brownies with at least one egg or one whole egg and one egg white.

Farfel, Farfalle, Egg Barley, Egg Drop Barley

For about six months now I have been trying to find traditional farfel, egg barley, the kind that is toasted or one toasts slightly in a sautee pan before adding onion, mushrooms, some liquid, and baking it in the oven.

This was much harder than I imagined. The product I was looking for is called EGG DROP BARLEY, not just EGG BARLEY. I went to every grocery store I could think of and found it close to home (in Highland Heights, Ohio) in the Kosher food section.

I purchased every farfel type product. They are all made with duram flour and egg. The only exception is what is called bow-tie pasta, used in Kasha with bow-ties, for example. The dried Italian Farfalla, bow-tie pasta, includes no eggs, just duram flour and water. I have been to several events where the word "farfel" caused much confusion, some expecting what I call "traditonal farfel" and others expecting and Italian pasta.

I wanted to try every product marked Egg Barley (there is no barley in the product, the "barley" describes the look of the product.) The product I wanted reminds me of the German Spaeztle, which is a 15 minute pasta so easy to make it is not worth buying the dried Spaeztle in a grocery store.

Tonight I made a side dish of Egg Barley, not the product I wanted, but I had to try it. I added peas, onion, herbs, as the pasta product is tasty but plain. The photo shows left over egg barley made as directed on the package (boiled in 4 cups water). Some bits of salmon are in the photo of leftovers, as I served the egg barley as a side dish with Alaskan, freshly caught salmon as we do not eat beef, and very little poultry.

The Egg Barley from Gelfen, tastes delicious, but it is not the traditional farfel that I remember, often eaten with beef. It looks machine made, while what I term the "traditional" looks more hand made, irregular in shape, and has the word, "Drop" in it. Such as how one "drops" Spaetzle dough into boiling water using a knife to move tiny amounts of dough from the cutting board to the boiling water. My best friend in Cincinnati, Marion, taught me the traditional way to make "spaetzle' which I later saw my aunt in Germany prepare for us. My mother would use a spaetzle maker (looks like a ricer through which she dropped the dough into the boiling water, I never saw my Mom make spaetzle the traditional way.) Spaetzle taste best made the traditional way (sorry, Mommy, I know how busy you were working and cooking for us all.)

You may have guessed my German, Jewish background by now. I grew up with "Spaetzle" as a beloved staple, farfel was a special treat!

I hope these products do not confuse the reader. My advice is, do not send anyone to the grocery store to buy traditional Egg Drop Farfel, as they will most probably come home with the Italian Farfalle, Egg Barley (the tiny machine-made pasta), Bow-tie pasta, or as one friend recently mentioned ---- "Kasha," which is another product made from buckwheat and often made to include the bow-tie pasta.

The farfel I love is made from a traditional Ashkenazi noodle dough. My sisters and I recently discovered we are much more Ashkenazi than we possibly imagined and could this be why we have been craving Egg Drop Barley? Now, where can I find my cousin's incredibly delicious "wild rice stuffing recipe?"

Easy Turkey Spinach Burgers

If you are not positive that your pan is completely nonstick, spray it with some Pam cooking spray.

I read a recipe about adding frozen spinach to ground white turkey meat to make turkey spinach burgers. The recipe sounded like a good way to use up extra fresh spinach before it has to be thrown out or another way to use chopped frozen spinach. Here is the recipe:

1 pound of ground white turkey breast (ground without the skin)
1 pkg frozen spinach thawed and squeezed to remove the juice or fresh spinach which has been lightly sauteed in water and chopped. In both cases, remove as much liquid from the spinach as possible.
6-9 leaves of fresh basil or your favorite fresh herb cut up (in winter I use my fresh frozen basil or sage)
2 Tablespoons of panko bread crumbs if the mixture seems too thin.
Black pepper (optional)

Mix ground turkey with the chopped cooled sauteed spinach or thawed frozen spinach, basil, pepper and panko bread crumbs.

Notice, mixture may be thinner than for a regular turkey burger.

Use the mixture to make the burgers, I made them thick as wanted them to fit into the pan. I made 6 thick burgers and will reheat leftovers for tomorrow night's dinner when I plan to serve them with microwaved fresh sweet potatoes.

Cook high at first (#9) on my electric cook top and lower the heat (#5) and cover the pan. After about 15 minutes check the underside of a burger, if it is crusty, turn all the burgers to the other side. If you turn them too early, they will stick to the pan rather than have the crust stick to the burger. Continue cooking for another 15 minutes if the burgers are thick (#4). Cut into a thick burger to be certain it is completely cooked.

My husband loves anything roasted or cooked to the max. Just seeing this crust enticed him to want to try one!

Easy Strawberry Salad Dressing

I found a recipe on the internet for an easy strawberry salad dressing and will take photos as soon as I serve it.
The photograph below is double the recipe.

The dressing tastes delicious. It has more oil in it than I would normally use and I will eventually find a nondairy substitute for some of the oil, but for now, I will use it sparingly.

Here are the ingredients

4 large fresh strawberries cut up
2 T white vinegar
2 T honey
1/3 cup canola or other mild tasting oil

Mix the above in a blender until it is a smooth pink. I immediately doubled the recipe once I tasted it.

Enjoy!

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A great, fullcolor cookbook of easy desserts loved in Cleveland, Ohio!

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Cleveland Treats at
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0988414724

Linzer Cookies

Linzer Cookies

My sister's favorite cookie is a Linzer cookie. The cookie is composed of two large round, butter-flavored cookies with raspberry jam in the center. A round hole is cut in the top cookie so one can see the beautiful red layer. The entire double cookie often has a fluted edge. The cookie is sometimes dipped in chocolate and/or powdered sugar. As Linzer cookie purists, we prefer the Linzer cookie without a topping. In addition, like the Linzer torte, ground hazelnuts are preferred in the dough, but almonds are good too. Omitting the ground nuts entirely is possible if one is allergic to nuts, but the ground nuts add aroma and flavor to the dough.

As mentioned in the Introduction of this volume, the Linzer torte (or Linzertorte) is a German-Austrian torte with a lattice design on top of the pastry, named after the city of Linz, Austria. It is believed to be the oldest cake in the world. I can vouch for anyone that had my Mom's Linzer torte, which won the grand prize in any bake sale.

The Linzer cookie is reminiscent of the torte. If the cookie dough does not have some kind of ground nuts, our family does not consider it authentic!

The dough for Linzer Torte includes flour, unsalted butter, egg yolks, lemon zest, cinnamon, lemon juice, and ground nuts, usually hazelnuts. They are ground with the skins on for this holiday classic dessert. The filling is traditionally raspberry jam, but red currant jam is popular in Europe as are other flavors. The torte is covered with small leaves cut from dough to form a lattice design or a more simple version is covered with thin strips of dough also formed into a lattice design. The lattice allows one to see the beautiful layer of red jam. When made with red currant jam, the torte has a bit more of a sour taste as it is very, very sweet when made with raspberry jam.

In the days before food processors, I remember my Mom grinding the hazelnuts and when visiting Germany, although the tortes are not as good as homemade, the German bakeries made them with ground almonds. I personally prefer the torte made with hazelnuts, but it is wonderful with any ground nut.

Although not traditional, I have seen the Linzer cookie frosted with chocolate. A dust of powder sugar is more traditional, but not necessary for this very sweet treat.

The recipe is based on butter and is one recipe that I have never modified and also rarely make, as I am better off buying two cookies than making a tray of them and eating them all. Here is a recipe, but note that the traditional recipe ingredients are weighed and in grams and this recipe uses cups, which is not as accurate as weighing the ingredients to get a consistent product.


1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup whole almonds -- most cookbooks say to blanch the almonds but I do not
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind
4 large egg yolks
6 tablespoons raspberry or red currant preserves
2 teaspoons powdered sugar (optional)

Grind the almonds with about 1/2 cups flour until fine, add the ground mixture to the remaining flour which has been sifted with the baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Mix. Beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy and add egg yolks. Add the flour mixture gradually to form a soft dough to roll out after chilling for about an hour. Roll out the dough and cut the tops and bottoms of the cookies and bake them at 350 F for about 10-12 minutes, leaving some room for spreading. After baking and cooling, spread the cookie bottoms with raspberry preserves and cover with the window-like cookie tops.

Crusty, French Bread

Here is some background information before I jump into the recipe and directions.

My husband asked me to bake some crusty French bread. I had not made French bread in over 40 years and remember watching Julie Child on television in the late 1960's. I would rush home from college to turn on her TV show. Today I use her videos on YouTube to refresh my memory.

I checked several recipes and decided to combine some things to try to recreate the bread my husband remembers. I keep a jar of yeast in the refrigerator and keep several types of flours on hand. I decided to follow Julie Child's advice and use unbleached flour as she states the unbleached flour creates a crisp crust.

Julie Child also mentions that the addition of salt (besides controlling the yeast's growth) gives color to the inside of the bread. I rarely use salt in any of my recipes, but decided to use half the salt recommended. I used a bit of sugar to feed and "proof" the yeast and used water instead of milk in the bread dough.

A bit of corn flour/cornmeal is used to keep the sticky bread dough from sticking to the pan. To make doubly sure I would not have a sticky problem, I set the dough to raise on my silicon baking sheet.

To insure I would get a crisp, crackly crust, I used an enamel pan on the lowest shelf in my upper oven and added boiling water to it just before placing the bread dough in the oven. The key to the crust is the brushing of the bread dough with a bit of salt water. Since I could not find my pastry brush, I wet a folded paper towel with the salt water and used it as a brush to quickly cover the loaves with the slightly salted water while baking! This bread requires the yeast to be proofed to make sure it is alive and the dough is left to rise 3 times, most recipes I use require that the dough rise only twice.

My ingredients for 3 loaves of French bread include:

1/4 cup lukewarm water (I use cold tap water and microwave it to lukewarm - take care as hot water will kill the yeast)
2 tsp of dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 cups water
1 tsp salt
5 cups unbleached flour plus about 1/2-1 cup extra for kneading
1/2 cup fine corn meal

For brushing the bread I used 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 cup water (I would lower this to 1/4 tsp next time).

Directions to be continued.

Herbs from the Garden

There are no flavors as great as freshly picked herbs. We have a deer issue in our area, so I include herbs that flower. Although they tend to get huge and I rarely use them, I grow leeks in my garden as the deer do not seem to want to cross over the tall leeks. I am planting more and more herbs. My garden has lots of Lemon Thyme forming a carpet and newly planted sage has taken off. I love spearmint and basil too, but keep it in pots in the front of my yard to protect plants eaten by deer.

I have frozen herbs and I also dry some, but even in winter, I can find some fresh Thyme and kale.

Fall Veggie Spaghetti

We love vegetables in our spaghetti instead of meat. I include tomatoes (canned these days as the deer eat anything that I plant but for herbs), a can of no salt kidney or other beans labeled no salt, sliced mushrooms, thin sliced zucchini, garlic, herbs such as fresh lemon thyme and basil, cinnamon, tumeric, and today I added a few tablespoons of a butternut squash that was not as naturally sweet as usual. I included half of a jar of a prepared sauce from the grocery store and the small bit of baked butternut squash gave the sauce some body and a very smooth texture.

I will always add some baked winter squash to future sauces as it thickened the sauce and added a hint of sweetness. Sometimes, I add a bit of honey to the spaghetti sauce.