Christmas Cookies

Ingredients
1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequila

Steps
Sample the Cuervo to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the Cuervo again, to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.

Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.

Add one peastoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point it's best to make sure the Cuervo is still ok, try another cup just in case.

Turn off the mixerer thingy.

Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.

Pick the fruit off the floor.

Mix on the turner.

If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaters just pry it loose with a drewscriver..

Sample the Cuervo to check for tonsisticity.

Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Who cares. Check the Jose Cuervo . Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.

Add one table.

Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.

Greash the oven..

Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.

Don't forget to beat off the turner.

Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Cose Juervo and make sure to put the stove in the wishdasher.

Cherry Mistmas !

Macadamia Nut and Almond CuppyCakes

The recipe:

Macadamia Nut and Almond CuppyCake batter point your web browser here.

I would make one change to the recipe: use 1/4 cup almonds and a 1/4 cup macadamia nuts or hazelnuts. (I choose not to do the hazelnuts since the ones I picked up smelled musty.) I feel using less nuts will lighten up the batter and cupcakes won't feel so "bottom heavy".

Caramel Buttercream Frosting with Maple Sugar

Recipe 1 - here. It's a bit technical, maybe too involved, I doubt I'll use it again. Use maple sugar with the egg whites. This recipe provides instruction on how to make caramel.

Recipe 2. This recipe comes from one of my classes. It's much easier to do. I've made some changes to it and this is what I'll do the next time I want to make this type of flavoring.

Venison

Getting down to business. Here's the best venison recipe I have found. It comes from my Betty Crocker cookbook. You can find it here on the Internet.



Ingredients

• 1/2 cup dry red wine or nonalcoholic red wine


• 1 T Dijon mustard


• 4 venison tenderloin steaks, about an inch thick


• 1/4 t salt


• 1/4 t course ground pepper


• 1 T olive or vegetable oil


• 1/2 cup beef broth


• 1/2 cup dried cranberries


• 2 T currant or apple jelly


• 1 T butter


• 2 medium green onions, sliced to equal 2 T

1. Mix wine and mustard until will blended. Place venison in a resealable plastic food-storage bag. Pour wine mixture over venison, turn and coat. Seal bag and refrigerate for 2 hour but no longer than 4 hours. Turn occasionally.


2. Remove venison from marinade, reserve marinade. Sprinkle venison with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 12" nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Cook venison for 4 minutes, turning once, until brown.


3. Add broth to skillet and reduce heat to low. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, turning venison once until venison is tender and desired doneness. (Do not overcook or venison will become tough)


4. Remove venison from skillet, keep warm. Stir marinade into skillet. Heat to boiling and scrapping up bottom bits, reduce heat to warm. Cook for 5 minutes until mixture is slightly reduced. Stir in cranberries, jelly, butter and onions. Cook 1 to 2 minutes, stirring occasionally, until butter is melted and mixture is hot. Serve sauce with venison.

I like to serve this dish with garlic mashed potatoes and green beans. A nice red wine, say from the Hudson Chatham Winery, goes well.

Bison on Bicycles

Well, no, not really. I just thought that would be a really cool name for a sandwich shop in Gardiner, Montana. That’s where I have been for the past ten days. Yellowstone National Park. What a wonderful place it is and I am thankful I had the wherewithal to experience it.

I have seen a lot of bison this trip. They're all over the place. They're in the fields, on the side of the roads, in the roads. On the menu and on my plate!

Bison is a lovely meat that is high in protein and iron, yet low in fat, cholesterol and calories. Cook it, as they say, low and slow. Rare to medium rare. Well done is not recommended due to the leanness of the meat, bison has a tendency to become dry when overcooked.

If you travel to Gardiner, MT, you can try a bison tenderloin dinner at Rosie's Cafe, located next door to Red's Blue Goose Saloon. Rosie's is a newer restaurant located on the main strip in town facing Yellowstone National Park with magnificent views if you can imagine. Click here to view the menu. You can also find bison at your local grocer. You may have to ask them to special order it, but I've seen it in stores in upstate New York. You can also order it from online grocers like here.

Here's a recipe that I have found for bison meatloaf. I'm eager to try this when I get back home.

Buffalo Meat Loaf

2 Ibs ground buffalo
1 cup fine dry bread crumbs
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp seasoned salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 eggs
1/2 cup Hickory flavored BBQ Sauce
1 cup milk
1 cup shredded carrots 1 cup minced celery
1 cup minced onion

Beat eggs and milk together. add bread crumbs and seasonings. Mix well and let stand a few minutes. Add the meat and vegetables, blend thoroughly. Spread evenly in a 9 x 1 3 inch pan. Spread BBQ sauce over meat mixture. Bake at 350 F for 1 hr. Let stand 5 minutes before cuttinq.

Now, back to my bison on bicycles. I hope they can better share the road with motorists than their human counterparts on two wheeled vehicles!

Orange me HAPPY

This a delightful orange curry that is best with pork loin, chicken or scallops. It's thin and light.

Recipe:

1 tablespoon ghee
3 or 4 cloves
½ inch piece cinnamon stick
¼ teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
¼ mustard seed
1 tablespoon green ginger, ground
2 cardamom pods (seeded and crushed)
3 cups freshly squeezed orange juice, strained

Heat the ghee. Add the spices. When all spits and sputters, pour in the orange juice. Cook slowly. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add no thickener. Add no yogurt. This is a thin, clear curry.

I've made this a couple of times, I'll freeze the leftover curry in icecube trays for later use. ENJOY :)

Scrapping Recipes :)

Love is in the air!

A couple I know, Mel and Jason, are getting married in August in beautiful Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. They'll be moving to Pakistan and are limited to what they can bring with them overseas. Since they love to cook they asked the only gifts they recieve would be recipes.

So I decided to take a collection of my favorite Indian recipes and try my hand at scrapbooking. I decided to make recipe cards. From Joann's, I purchased some very pretty, pretty scrapbook paper that I cut down to 8 1/2 x 6 inches. Recipes were printed on good stock paper, cut to 4 x 6 inches that were glued to each page. I added some flare by framing the recipes with some odd pieces of paper.

The cost of this gift was under $30.00, time and effort was about a half day total. Tools I used include scissors, cutting board and stick glue. I'm hoping they will enjoy it as much as did putting it together for them.

If you are interested, I can create one for you. Provide me some recipes and your thoughts and I'll see what I can come up with for you.

Spinach Chickpea with Garlic

Lately I have been experimenting with vegetarian recipes that I have been grabbing off the Internet and many of my Indian cookbooks.

Following is a nice dish with spinach and chickpeas. It makes a nice side dish or lunch on its own. (I found this on a blogsite, so I cannot take credit for it as my own.)

1 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained
8 oz baby spinach, chopped
2 teaspoons olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 lemon, juiced

Heat olive oil in a large saute pan. Add garlic. Saute until fragant and lightly colored.

Add spinach and saute till spinach begins to wilt.

Add chickpeas and saute until all the spinach is wilted.

Add the remaining spices, mix thoroughly. Continue cooking for a few minutes to allow flavors to blend. Stir.

Remove from heat. Add lemon juice. Stir.

Serve either hot or at room temperature.

Hot Spicy Curry with Muscles

Yummy. Once again my FAVORITE Indian cookbook in the whole wide world , A Taste of India, provided a kick-ass recipe.

Last weekend I made a hot, spicy curry to steam muscles in.

The recipe included fried onions, tumeric, corriander, garlic, cayenne pepper, shredded coconut, lemon juice and water. Once the curry simmered down a bit, FRESH muscles from our local Price Chopper were added and steamed. Wow. What a wonderful dish. Aromatic, tasty, pleasant to view. A success!

Recipe:

2 T vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 T ground coriander
1 t cumin
1.5 t cayennne pepper
.5 t mustard seeds, crushed
1/8 t black pepper, crushed
1 bay leaf crumbled
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2/3 cup grated unsweetened coconum
1/4 cup lemon juice
1.5 t salt
1 cup water
2 pounds muscles, cleaned and debearded

Heat oil and fry onion, coriander, cumin, cayenne pepper, mustard seed, black pepper, bay leaf and garlic for 2 or 3 minutes. Put in coconut and fry another minute or two. Add lemon juice, salt and water. Simmer 10 minutes. Add muscles and cook until done.

Yum :-)