The Talked About Recipe Thread and Fun in the Kitchen

[Huntn]

Welsh Cookies (Family recipe)
Simple but delicious.

• 4 Cups White Flour
• 1 Cup Shortening
• 2 Cups White Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1/8-1/4 cup Milk or Water
• 10 Oz Currents
• 1 Teaspoon Nutmeg
• 3 Teaspoon Baking Powder (not baking soda)
• Nutmeg for sprinkling.
• small bowl of sugar for dipping

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix ingredients except (except flour, milk or water) together. I start with the shortening and sugar first, eggs, seasoning, then add flour and currents last. This mixture will be on the verge of being crumbly to being crumbly. Then add just enough milk or water to moisten the mix so it holds together, don't over do it. If you add more than the recommended quantity of liquid, the dough will become sticky when you are handling it. I take a large tablespoon dallop, shape into a ball, flatten the dough a little, then dip the top in white sugar. Place a dozen on a greased cooking sheet. Sprinkle them lightly with nutmeg. Bake for 15 minutes. Makes approximately 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

3Jan Updated Recipe to make corrections, length of time to cook, amount of liquid specified, suggestions on the order to mix ingredients, my photo.

My cookies, mm. ​

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Great idea for a thread.

 

[Huntn]

Gingerbread Cutouts

1 Cup Butter
1 Cup white granular sugar
1 Egg
1 Cup Dark Molasses
2 TBS Vinegar
5 Cups All Purpose Flour
1.5 TSP Baking Soda
2 TSP ginger
1 TSP Cinnamon
1 TSP Cloves

Cream butter. Add sugar, beat in egg, molasses, and vinegar. Blend in dry ingredients. The original recipe says to sift ingredients, but I never do. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill.

Then take out of the refrigerator, allow to warm enough to roll out at 1/8”-1/4” thick on a flourerd surface. Cut into desired shapes, ideally with cookie cutter cutouts. Place on greased baking sheet. Bake at 375, 5-15 minutes depending on thickness. Allow to cool on sheets of paper towels. Then after they have cooled, apply icing and sugar sprinkles if desired. Should make several dozen up to 5 dozen, cookies depending on how large they are.

Here are my masterpieces. My favorite is the road kill reindeer and the Christmas headstones, somehow Mickey Mouse showed up.

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[Huntn]

Brandy-Buttered Cornish Hens (Southern Living Cookbook 1987, page 406)
Bake 1-1.5 hours @350°F
Yield: 4 servings.

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• 4- 1.5 Lb Cornish Hens
• Salt and Pepper
• Pecan Stuffing
• 1/3 Cup butter melted
• 3 Tbs Aricot, Peach, or Plum flavored Brandy
• Fresh Parsley sprigs
• Apple Slices
• Green Grapes

Instructions

• Remove any giblets found in hens, reserve for other uses if desired. Rinse with cold water, and pat dry. Sprinkle cavity with salt and pepper.
• Stuff hens with Pecan stuffing and close cavities with wooden picks or truss. (or heat the Pecan stuffing separately your preference).
• Brush hens with butter and sprinkle generously with pepper. Combine remaining butter with brandy.
• Place hens, breast side up, in a shallow pan. Bake 1-1.5 hours @ 350°F or until juices run clear when thigh is pierced with a fork, basting frequently with the brandy/butter mix.
• Garnish with parsley, apple slices, and grapes.

Microwave Cooking Direction
Place hens breast side down on a microwave roasting rack, placed in a 12x8x2 inch baking dish. Cover hens with a tent of wax paper. Microwave High for 15 minutes. Flip hens breast side up then rotate 1/2 turn on rack. Brush with brandy mixture. Cover with wax paper, and microwave at High for 16-20 minutes or until juices run clear when thigh is pierced with a fork.
Baste with brandy mixture, and turn uncooked portions to outside every 5 minutes.* After cooking let stand 4-6 minutes before serving. Garnish with fruit as above.
*I'm not actually sure what "uncooked portions to outside" means. I assume this means to baste the birds and rotate them on the rack every 5 minus.


Pecan Stuffing- This is delicious.
Yield: Enough stuffing for 4 Cornish Hens.

• 1 cup apple juice
• 1/4 cup apricot, peach, or plum flavored brandy
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1- 8oz package of cornbread stuffing mix.
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans.

Combine first 3 ingredients in a saucepan; cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until butter melts. Add stuffing mix and pecans; stir lightly.

 

[Huntn]

I won’t explain why I’m posting this link.

The Difference Between Baking Powder & Baking Soda

Baking powder and baking soda make baked goods rise. Learn the difference between them and how to make ingredient substitutions.

www.thoughtco.com

 

[lizkat]

Hah, my grandma handing me a huge basket when I was a little kid, to go out and fill it up by picking spinach leaves, and me wondering how the heck she managed to turn such a big basket of leaves every single time into this ordinary casserole-sized dish of spinach on the dinner table. I used to think she must have wasted a lot of it or froze the extra or something. And yet somehow she managed to turn just two cups of uncooked rice grains into enough to fill another ordinary sized casserole dish at that table. WTF? I decided that cooking involved magic even back then.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I won’t explain why I’m posting this link.

The Difference Between Baking Powder & Baking Soda

Baking powder and baking soda make baked goods rise. Learn the difference between them and how to make ingredient substitutions.

www.thoughtco.com

That is hilarious.

Hah, my grandma handing me a huge basket when I was a little kid, to go out and fill it up by picking spinach leaves, and me wondering how the heck she managed to turn such a big basket of leaves every single time into this ordinary casserole-sized dish of spinach on the dinner table. I used to think she must have wasted a lot of it or froze the extra or something. And yet somehow she managed to turn just two cups of uncooked rice grains into enough to fill another ordinary sized casserole dish at that table. WTF? I decided that cooking involved magic even back then.

Yes, both pasta and rice expand (though rice expands even more than does pasta) while spinach inexplicably shrinks; no matter how much of it you buy, there is never enough in the finished dish, a fact that never bothered me until I learned that butter, oil and garlic, are seriously intimate friends of spinach, a dish best kept well away from water.

 

[Huntn]

I‘m finished with today’s batch of Welch Cookies, and by virtue of reading baking powder and grabbing baking soda, I have been rewarded with some tasty but flatter than usual cookies. I varied the recipe a bit, going with half white and half wheat flour. Making them appear darker.

Now if you read the link I posted earlier, both of these ingredients do the same thing, help baked goods rise, in fact they are both bicarbonate of soda, but baking powder also includes cream of tartar and starch and the article describes the difference.

missing 2 cookies eaten...​

 

[lizkat]

missing 2 cookies eaten...

I'm certainly familiar with that part of a lot of recipes...

 

[Huntn]

I‘m finished with today’s batch of Welch Cookies, and by virtue of reading baking powder and grabbing baking soda, I have been rewarded with some tasty but flatter than usual cookies. I varied the recipe a bit, going with half white and half wheat flour. Making them appear darker.

Now if you read the link I posted earlier, both of these ingredients do the same thing, help baked goods rise, in fact they are both bicarbonate of soda, but baking powder also includes cream of tartar and starch and the article describes the difference.

View attachment 2277

View attachment 2278
missing 2 cookies eaten...​

Updated post No.1. to make corrections, length of time to cook, amount of liquid specified, suggestions on the order to mix ingredients, my photo. If you look at the new photo, you'll see that these cookies from the second batch are not flat.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

A version of Indonesian rice, or Nasi Goreng; actually it is an adaptation of Gordon Ramsay's Indonesian rice recipe.

Indonesian rice: First,"old rice" (yesterday's left over basmati - I deliberately made extra yestersay when preparing dinner). For this dish, you always use day old rice.

Finely diced onions and carrots (organic) sautéed, to which a cup of peas (from the freezer, but defrosted earlier) are added, and sautéed until soft; Chinese chives - finely chopped - are added to this - the lot seasoned with sea salt and black pepper.

Then, the spices are added: a grated thumb of galangal, and some grated ginger, and a finely diced chilli pepper plus a full head of minced garlic, all sautéed, and a little brown sugar. And finely chopped French onions.

Eggs (free range, organic, three or four) have already been whisked; then, they are added to the pan and scrambled briskly.

This is when the old rice is added, and fried, and sautéed (even toasted); at this point, I made a well in the rice, and added some sambal oelek paste, and some rendang paste into the well, - I tend to have a generous hand in such things - and fried them off, and then stirred the rice through them. Once that has been done, a dessertspoon (or two) of kecap manis, sweet Indonesian soy sauce, is added and fried off, and stirred and mixed through the rice.

 

[Huntn]

Broccoli Puff Casserole
https://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/207553/broccoli-puff-casserole/
We make this for special occasions, although it could be eaten more often than that. The original is one of my wife's Mom's recipes, but could not find it. This is the closest we've found online.
Ingredients

• 2 bunches broccoli (2 small bags of frozen or 1 large bag of broccoli florets)
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 cup grated cheddar
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup mayo
• 1 beaten egg
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1 tablespoon melted butte

Directions

• Heat oven to 350°F.
• Cut up broccoli into florets, and steam until crisp, drain (Starting with frozen broccoli, place in a microwavable bowl, add a small amount of water, cover bowl with a plastic food wrap, and cook on high 4 min, then jostle them, and cook for another 4 min.)
• Put broccoli in casserole dish.
• Stir soup, cheese, milk and egg together and pour over broccoli. Combine bread crumbs and butter and sprinkle over top.
• Bake for 45 minutes.

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[Huntn]

Grilled Fish Fillets (Southern Living Cookbook 1987)
Used on catfish filets, which are delicious, no fishy taste.




Not my image, but it looks like this, minus the parsley flakes.
Also Cooked on the grill, not in the pan.

• 6 fish fillets (3/4” thick)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 TBS Worcestershire Sauce
• 1/2 TSP Seasoned salt
• 1/2 TSP paprika
• 1/4 TSP red pepper

Place fillets in large shallow dish. Combine ingredients in a saucepan, cook, stirring constantly until butter melts. Pour marinade over fish. Cover, place in refrigerator for 1 hour (but it can sit in the fridge all day if you want).

Drain marinade, saving liquid. Place fillets in fish basket and grill over hot coals for 5 minutes on each side until flakey, basting with marinade.

Note- recipe alterations:

• I don’t use a fish basket or know what that is. I place a piece of aluminum foil on the grill grating and cook the fish on that, placing the skin side up first so it is easier to get a spatula under it to flip before it becomes flakey and tends to fall apart. For catfish the skin has been removed, but you can still identify which side is the skin side.
• I also sprinkle seasoned salt on the fish once it is on the grill.

 

[Huntn]

Coquilles St. Jacques
A delicious scallop recipe from The Southern Living cookbook.

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Ingredients

• 3/4 Cup chopped fresh mushrooms
• 3 Tbs chopped green onions (I use scallions)
• 3 Tbs butter
• 1 Lb of fresh bay scallops
• 1/2 Cup dry white or white cooking wine
• 2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley ( I use dried from a bottle)
• 1 Tbs lemon juice
• 3/4 Tsp salt
• Pinch of red pepper
• 3 Tbs butter
• 1/4 Cup all purpose flour
• 1 Cup Half and Half
• 2 egg yokes
• 1/4 Cup soft breadcrumbs
• 1 Tbs butter melted

Create

• Sauté mushrooms and onions in 3 Tbs butter in a large skillet until tender.

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• Add scallops, wine, parsley, lemon juice, salt, and pepper; cover and cook over medium heat for 3-5 minutes.
• Drain scallop mixture, reserving 3/4 Cup plus 2 Tbs of liquid and set aside.

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• Melt 3 Tbs butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat.
• Add flour, striiring until smooth. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly.
• Gradually add Half and Half; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture is thick and bubbly.
• Beat egg yokes until thick and lemon colored.
• Gradually stir about 1/4 of hot mixture into yokes, then add that back into remaining hot mixture, stirring constantly.
• Gradually stir in the reserved scallop liquid (3/4 Cup plus 2 Tbs), fold in scallop mixture.
• Spoon mixture into 6 greased individual baking shells. (I use a single casserole dish.)
• Combine breadcrumbs with 1 Tbs melted butter; sprinkle evenly over scallop mixture.
• Place shells (or casserole dish) on a large baking sheet.
• Broil 3 to 5 minutes or until top(s) are browned and bubbly.
• Yield 6 servings.

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[Huntn]

Easy Fall Off The Bone Baked Ribs Recipe
It’s easy and worked well. I used baby back pork ribs

• Heat oven to 275 degrees.
• Pull the thin membrane off the bone side of the ribs. Yes, it was there.
• Lay ribs on aluminum foil, enough to wrap them.
• Sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper or your preferred BBQ seasoning (not BBQ sauce). I used Season All.
• Wrap ribs with the aluminum foil, I sealed the edges folding the foil so the juice would remain inside with the ribs.
• Cook in oven 3-4 hour, remove from oven. (I cooked mine for 3 hours, 30 minutes.)
• Optional: After cooking them, apply your favorite BBQ sauce. (I prefer tangy over sweet,)

I ended up with tender, moist, delicious, fall off the bone ribs.We opted for no BBQ sauce this time. Hmm, good!

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Baby Back Ribs

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Pre-cooked, seasoned. Cut in half with 2 packages side by side to fit in pan.

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3 hours, 30 minutes later @ 275 degrees.

 

[Huntn]

Baked Zeti I (found on AllRecipes.com)
Easy tasty recipe. For two people it’s easy to half this recipe.

not my photo​

Ingredients

• 1 pound dry ziti pasta (Any short pasta. I used a gemeli pasta made with chick pea flour.)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 pound lean ground beef (I used ground turkey.)
• 2 (26 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce
• 6 ounces provolone cheese, sliced
• 1 ½ cups sour cream
• 6 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

• Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add ziti pasta, and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes; drain.
• In a large skillet, brown onion and ground beef over medium heat. Add spaghetti sauce, and simmer 15 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. Layer as follows: 1/2 of the ziti, Provolone cheese, sour cream, 1/2 sauce mixture, remaining ziti, mozzarella cheese and remaining sauce mixture. Top with grated Parmesan cheese.
• Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cheeses are melted.

 

[lizkat]

@Huntn Wow, that looks delicious, but for a cooler day than what's on tap for me locally right now.

I'm leaning towards making some quite simple version of cold sesame noodles, garnished with either strips of cooked chicken or else diced cucumber and scallions.

Recipes for that dish abound on the net, here are two pared-down ones that I have used in the past, although it's a simple enough preparation that I pretty much just wing it nowadays. All ingredients are usually in my pantry or fridge.

Cold Sesame Noodles

Even my kids can’t resist this unique salad with a peanut butter dressing. To make it a main dish, stir in some cubed cooked chicken.—Elizabeth Perez, Flower Mound, Texas

www.tasteofhome.com

Cold Sesame Noodles

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

www.epicurious.com

If you do any Asian-themed cooking at all you're likely to have the seasoning ingredients on hand. Aside from the basic "sesame noodle" concoction, you can use any garnish or addition that strikes your fancy.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

@Huntn Wow, that looks delicious, but for a cooler day than what's on tap for me locally right now.

I'm leaning towards making some quite simple version of cold sesame noodles, garnished with either strips of cooked chicken or else diced cucumber and scallions.

Recipes for that dish abound on the net, here are two pared-down ones that I have used in the past, although it's a simple enough preparation that I pretty much just wing it nowadays. All ingredients are usually in my pantry or fridge.

Cold Sesame Noodles

Even my kids can’t resist this unique salad with a peanut butter dressing. To make it a main dish, stir in some cubed cooked chicken.—Elizabeth Perez, Flower Mound, Texas

www.tasteofhome.com

Cold Sesame Noodles

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

www.epicurious.com

If you do any Asian-themed cooking at all you're likely to have the seasoning ingredients on hand. Aside from the basic "sesame noodle" concoction, you can use any garnish or addition that strikes your fancy.

Sounds delicious.

 

[Huntn]

@Huntn Wow, that looks delicious, but for a cooler day than what's on tap for me locally right now.

I'm leaning towards making some quite simple version of cold sesame noodles, garnished with either strips of cooked chicken or else diced cucumber and scallions.

Recipes for that dish abound on the net, here are two pared-down ones that I have used in the past, although it's a simple enough preparation that I pretty much just wing it nowadays. All ingredients are usually in my pantry or fridge.

Cold Sesame Noodles

Even my kids can’t resist this unique salad with a peanut butter dressing. To make it a main dish, stir in some cubed cooked chicken.—Elizabeth Perez, Flower Mound, Texas

www.tasteofhome.com

Cold Sesame Noodles

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

www.epicurious.com

If you do any Asian-themed cooking at all you're likely to have the seasoning ingredients on hand. Aside from the basic "sesame noodle" concoction, you can use any garnish or addition that strikes your fancy.

re: Zeti, it is delicious, simple recipe. Last time I tried making it with a chic pea pasta and that had too strong a flavor. This time stuck to traditional noodles but technically it was penne, could not find any ziti noodles, so I just grabbed any ole short noodle, and penne is practically identical, and they all taste basically the same except different shapes.

 

[Huntn]

How do you squeeze your lemons?*
* for use in the kitchen.

Back in December I purchased a robust looking lemon press, Moocii Brand. During that time I squeezed about 25lb of lemons about 65 lemons before it broke.

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So now I have a decision to make. As a hand press, this one is better than most with long handles providing better leverage, but squeeze enough lemons, and I can feel it in my hand. ($25) With light use I’d expect it to last longer.

I do have an old fashioned dome juicer, cut the lemon in half and twist it on the riged dome to extract the juice. (<$20) I’ve not used it a while for occasional juice extraction, maybe it will suffice.

Option 3 is an electric juicer, which I imagine is easiest but most expensive. ($80ish +).
Is it slow? A Lemmon press is a couple of seconds per lemon half.
Opinions?

Opinions?

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