So, here’s my problem with store bought salad dressings…..THEY CANNOT IN ANY WAY COMPARE TO THOSE THAT ARE MADE AT HOME! Why is this? I’ve realized homemade dressings taste more like restaurant dressings than store bought….watered down? Maybe, but really, the truth is that if you turn your label around on store bought dressings, you may find that there’s only about 3 ingredients that you can actually pronounce. What does this have to do with the taste? …EVERYTHING!!! Now, while sometimes these ingredients can add flavor, in my opinion, they actually end up ruining your food, not to mention your body and your health!
Also, it’s important to remember that while restaurants purchase dressings and foods with hard to pronounce ingredients, the bottom line to them is to buy cheap, cheap, cheap….and when you buy cheap, cheap, cheap, that means the amount of ingredients in your items will be reduced greatly!
Back to the task at hand….
So, I’ve searched and I’ve searched and I’ve searched to find a good ranch dressing! No luck! I DON’T LIKE HIDDEN VALLEY OR ANY OTHER BOUGHT RANCH….it’s thick and tastes more like you’ve just stuck a block of cream in your mouth! YUCK! I also hate ranch dressing that are homemade with sour cream, which I think may quite possibly be a base in these store bought dressing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll use it for dipping if I’m at your house, it’s just that in my home, if I have a choice, I choose a different route.
I have to tell you that one of my favorite things about eating out at restaurants like Red Lobster and the Outback is THEIR RANCH DRESSING! Oh, it’s wonderful! It’s not thick and a little bit goes a long way! It’s perfection in my opinion. So I set out a few months ago to find a great ‘Outback’ type of ranch dressing! This wasn’t a super easy task because it meant researching different recipes, then making, adding and taking out ingredients to match the taste I wanted!
After making and testing a few times….FINALLY I HAVE IT!!!!
I call it…..
MY CHIPOTLE RANCH DRESSING!
Now, if you don’t like chipotle, don’t use it in the dressing. It doesn’t make it hot, but really gives it a neat smoky flavor! It spices it up a bit! Also, if you like a different spice that you think may work well, as in cumin or taco seasoning (same thing, by the way), go for it!!
I must also tell you that you can choose the consistency of your dressing. I don’t like my dressings super thick. I like them to have more of a liquid consistency than a paste-type consistency.
I MUST ALSO TELL YOU THAT IF YOU ARE LIKE ME, THEN IF YOUR DRESSING SITS OVER NIGHT OR FOR A DAY OR SO AND BECOMES LESS ‘LIQUIDY’, FEEL FREE TO ADD SOME MILK, SHAKE, ADD MORE, SHAKE AGAIN, UNTIL YOU ARE BACK WITH YOUR CONSISTENCY.
Also, check the date on your milk label and write that date on a piece of tape and put it on your dressing so you know when you don’t want to use that dressing anymore. I don’t even normally come close to this date, as I eat salad everyday and much on veggies all day long. This is great as a dip and I always serve this with my veggies to company or during the holidays!
HERE’S THE RECIPE:
1 CUP OF MAYO (The real deal. If you use low cal mayo the taste isn’t as great….and forget about miracle whip!)
½-1cup of milk (this depends on how thick you like your dressing, I normally lean more toward 1 cup of milk…..but you can add and shake as you go till you get to where you want to be! And don’t be afraid to add more later if your dressing hardens a bit
1 tbs garlic
Dash of salt
1-3 tsp pepper
1 tsp of chipotle (but really I just shake to taste…but remember, your dressing will sit and the flavors will get bolder as it sits, so you may want to stick with the directions for now)
1 TBS Ranch dressing mix (powder)
COMBINE ALL INGREDIENTS IN A COVERED DISH AND SHAKE THE CRAP OUT OF IT….LET IT SIT IN THE FRIG FOR ABOUT AN HOUR. CHECK YOUR CONSISTENCY AND ADD MORE MILK IF YOU CHOOSE! LABEL YOUR DATE!!
On the Farm
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
ITALIAN MEATLOAF....ITALIAN MEATBALLS
So yesterday I created a 'blunder' that actually turned out to be FANTASTIC!
Growing up, we never ate meatloaf. I've never been able to figure this out since my father loves good'ole southern food. The only reason I can contribute to this is that he was surrounded by three women that have very odd eating habits, which at many times are surrounded by red meat ISSUES! My sister would NEVER eat red meat, I would only eat red meat under specific conditions, and my Mother, well, my Mother would just never eat.
My first experience with meatloaf was tasting it at my Mother-in-Law's house. She's a great cook, but she wasn't the one who had actually made it. Well.....I must say to whoever made this dish....it was absolute heaven in my mouth! It was so moist and tender and when I made a sandwich out of it, a whole new world opened! I was addicted, it became something I would crave in the future. Now, this is a good thing because he have feeder cows, and to 'support the case', we of course eat alot of red meat.
So I was off, in search of a great recipe! And like with any great recipe, I always add and change to make it my own based on what I think would make it good. However, I do have a couple of specific rules prior:
1) I hate reheating meat in the microwave (much less using my microwave period). As a result, my loaf must be moist to withstand the 'eating of leftover' action.
2) I'm very anti using cornflakes in anything but in my cereal!...not to say that it's a horrible idea, and to each their own, I just can't do it!
3) In every dish, it must have to first bite...'oh this is great' factor...since I am one of those people that loves the look on my husbands face when he eats something great I have just made for him.
I have came up with a couple of meatloaf recipes, based on my research, that I really love. These recipes represent good'ole southern style meatleaf....until last night.
Now, before I say this, I have one very big problem in my kitchen. I have a recipe box, I have recipe cards, but I have never had the time to sit down and write all of my recipes and organize them. This is something important to me since I always remember my Grandma Hammye using these recipe cards, and my Mom now has many as well. As a result, many of my recipes are handwritten on whatever piece of paper that was laying closest to my kitchen. And that also goes for my writing utensil, which now seems to be either pencil, marker, and now CRAYON!
Now, back to the task at hand, I found my untitled recipe for meatloaf last night and started assembling it early to throw in the frig and then cook a couple of hours later. I combined all my ingredients from my POST IT note recipe, and then realized that no where in my list of ingredients did it call for adding KETCHUP....and that's when I had realized....
I HAD JUST SUBSTITUED MY WONDERFUL MEATLOAF RECIPE WITH MY ITALIAN MEATBALL RECIPE!!! YIKES!
Now, the one aspect of this that made me rest easy, was that of many women make ITALIAN MEATLOAF....so I added how much ketchup I thought would work, put it in my pan, covered it and forgot about my mistake.
A couple of hours later I popped it in the oven and prayed that my mashed potatoes, corn and yeast rolls would still compliment my loaf. When it was done, my hubby began to eat....after a couple minutes of eating he looked at me, on no!!...this was it, he was going to tell me that it just didn't taste right...However, to my surprise he said,
"THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN ANY REGULAR MEATLOAF I'VE EVER TASTED!!!"
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! He was right, it was perfect!!
So here's the recipe....this one is for MEATLOAF....you will also find below how I leave out the ketshup and make meatballs. (Sorry, I don't have pics at this time but I will add them next time I make this....but really, you don't need them)
ITALIAN MEATLOAF
(these ingredient amounts works great for 2 people to eat that night and then for each to eat leftovers the next day...if you have a large family, I would suggest 'upping' your ingredients by about 1 1/2 - 2 pounds of meat. Of course you also have to 'up' your other ingredients too!) 2 POUNDS WILL MAKE ALOT OF MEATLOAF, enough to feed 4-5 people with leftovers.
1 lb Ground Beef
2 garlic cloves (I use fresh squeezed through my hand mincer, but refrigerated minced works well too!)
3 tbs parsley (optional. but fresh works the best)
5 tbs Romano, Parmesan or Asiago cheese
1 egg
1/2 C of milk
1/2 Italian Seasoned bread crumbs
1 finely chopped medium or small onion (whichever you prefer)
3/4 cup of ketchup
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix'em up well. Set your oven on 375 degrees. Now, I don't use an actual LOAF pan, I just use a glass pyrex pan of whatever size...I like this because I don't like to stuff my loaf into a tight pan, I like to leave room on each side up my loaf between it and the pan.
Spray the pan and squeeze some (extra) ketchup in the bottom where your loaf will lay. This is make a neat 'crust' and will just give it a different dimension of flavor. Once you've done that, put your ingredients in the bottom of the pan and form a loaf. Don't PRESS to ingredients tightly together but more 'form' the loaf, using your best MOM hands. You want you loaf to be one entity but you don't want to pack it down!
Squeeze some (extra) ketchup over the top of the meatloaf (I like to use alot and cover that sucker!!) and pop it in the oven on 375 for about 1 hour. Honestly, you'll know when it's done because you can see it browning on the top where you don't have ketchup (if you don't). You can also separate a portion of the middle and take some out with your fork to check the color...but I'm telling you, IT'S DONE! Cook it good, but don't overcook it, you don't want it to dry out. But I'll tell ya, the MILK is what helps it to be super moist!
NOW, IF YOU DON'T WANT THIS TO BE AN ITALIAN LOAF, Just cut down the cheese by half or leave it out all together, and use REGULAR BREADCRUMBS INSTEAD OF ITALIAN. Now, if you are make italian meatloaf but only have regular breadcrumbs, just add alot of italian spices, oregano and basil....trust me, you can't mess up with these spices.
I make my loaf with mased taters and corn but I gotta tell you that this would also work well along side of pasta or even put it on top of your spaghetti if you want.
MY FAVORITE IS MAKING A SANDWICH OUT OF IT!! You don't need fancy bread, just put it between 2 slices of wheat bread and VIOLA....A WHOLE NEW WORLD!!!
NOW.......LET'S MAKE THE MEATBALLS....
ITALIAN MEATBALLS...
Use all the ingredients, just LEAVE OUT THE KETCHUP!!! Combine ingredients and roll GENTLY into whatever size balls you prefer. Now, I must be honest, I would still add just a touch of ketchup for a tomato-ee taste, but it's really up to you!!!
Cook the meatballs again at 375, but you just want to check them to see if they are browning. This may take about 30-45 minutes. I HAVE TO TELL YA.....THESE ARE AMAZING WITHOUT SAUCE. But you can put them in your sauce and let them simmer....but you really don't need to, they will have this great harder outside and moist heaven on the inside!!!!
Now you can serve these with spaghetti or make a meatball sandwich out of them!!!
Growing up, we never ate meatloaf. I've never been able to figure this out since my father loves good'ole southern food. The only reason I can contribute to this is that he was surrounded by three women that have very odd eating habits, which at many times are surrounded by red meat ISSUES! My sister would NEVER eat red meat, I would only eat red meat under specific conditions, and my Mother, well, my Mother would just never eat.
My first experience with meatloaf was tasting it at my Mother-in-Law's house. She's a great cook, but she wasn't the one who had actually made it. Well.....I must say to whoever made this dish....it was absolute heaven in my mouth! It was so moist and tender and when I made a sandwich out of it, a whole new world opened! I was addicted, it became something I would crave in the future. Now, this is a good thing because he have feeder cows, and to 'support the case', we of course eat alot of red meat.
So I was off, in search of a great recipe! And like with any great recipe, I always add and change to make it my own based on what I think would make it good. However, I do have a couple of specific rules prior:
1) I hate reheating meat in the microwave (much less using my microwave period). As a result, my loaf must be moist to withstand the 'eating of leftover' action.
2) I'm very anti using cornflakes in anything but in my cereal!...not to say that it's a horrible idea, and to each their own, I just can't do it!
3) In every dish, it must have to first bite...'oh this is great' factor...since I am one of those people that loves the look on my husbands face when he eats something great I have just made for him.
I have came up with a couple of meatloaf recipes, based on my research, that I really love. These recipes represent good'ole southern style meatleaf....until last night.
Now, before I say this, I have one very big problem in my kitchen. I have a recipe box, I have recipe cards, but I have never had the time to sit down and write all of my recipes and organize them. This is something important to me since I always remember my Grandma Hammye using these recipe cards, and my Mom now has many as well. As a result, many of my recipes are handwritten on whatever piece of paper that was laying closest to my kitchen. And that also goes for my writing utensil, which now seems to be either pencil, marker, and now CRAYON!
Now, back to the task at hand, I found my untitled recipe for meatloaf last night and started assembling it early to throw in the frig and then cook a couple of hours later. I combined all my ingredients from my POST IT note recipe, and then realized that no where in my list of ingredients did it call for adding KETCHUP....and that's when I had realized....
I HAD JUST SUBSTITUED MY WONDERFUL MEATLOAF RECIPE WITH MY ITALIAN MEATBALL RECIPE!!! YIKES!
Now, the one aspect of this that made me rest easy, was that of many women make ITALIAN MEATLOAF....so I added how much ketchup I thought would work, put it in my pan, covered it and forgot about my mistake.
A couple of hours later I popped it in the oven and prayed that my mashed potatoes, corn and yeast rolls would still compliment my loaf. When it was done, my hubby began to eat....after a couple minutes of eating he looked at me, on no!!...this was it, he was going to tell me that it just didn't taste right...However, to my surprise he said,
"THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN ANY REGULAR MEATLOAF I'VE EVER TASTED!!!"
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! He was right, it was perfect!!
So here's the recipe....this one is for MEATLOAF....you will also find below how I leave out the ketshup and make meatballs. (Sorry, I don't have pics at this time but I will add them next time I make this....but really, you don't need them)
ITALIAN MEATLOAF
(these ingredient amounts works great for 2 people to eat that night and then for each to eat leftovers the next day...if you have a large family, I would suggest 'upping' your ingredients by about 1 1/2 - 2 pounds of meat. Of course you also have to 'up' your other ingredients too!) 2 POUNDS WILL MAKE ALOT OF MEATLOAF, enough to feed 4-5 people with leftovers.
1 lb Ground Beef
2 garlic cloves (I use fresh squeezed through my hand mincer, but refrigerated minced works well too!)
3 tbs parsley (optional. but fresh works the best)
5 tbs Romano, Parmesan or Asiago cheese
1 egg
1/2 C of milk
1/2 Italian Seasoned bread crumbs
1 finely chopped medium or small onion (whichever you prefer)
3/4 cup of ketchup
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix'em up well. Set your oven on 375 degrees. Now, I don't use an actual LOAF pan, I just use a glass pyrex pan of whatever size...I like this because I don't like to stuff my loaf into a tight pan, I like to leave room on each side up my loaf between it and the pan.
Spray the pan and squeeze some (extra) ketchup in the bottom where your loaf will lay. This is make a neat 'crust' and will just give it a different dimension of flavor. Once you've done that, put your ingredients in the bottom of the pan and form a loaf. Don't PRESS to ingredients tightly together but more 'form' the loaf, using your best MOM hands. You want you loaf to be one entity but you don't want to pack it down!
Squeeze some (extra) ketchup over the top of the meatloaf (I like to use alot and cover that sucker!!) and pop it in the oven on 375 for about 1 hour. Honestly, you'll know when it's done because you can see it browning on the top where you don't have ketchup (if you don't). You can also separate a portion of the middle and take some out with your fork to check the color...but I'm telling you, IT'S DONE! Cook it good, but don't overcook it, you don't want it to dry out. But I'll tell ya, the MILK is what helps it to be super moist!
NOW, IF YOU DON'T WANT THIS TO BE AN ITALIAN LOAF, Just cut down the cheese by half or leave it out all together, and use REGULAR BREADCRUMBS INSTEAD OF ITALIAN. Now, if you are make italian meatloaf but only have regular breadcrumbs, just add alot of italian spices, oregano and basil....trust me, you can't mess up with these spices.
I make my loaf with mased taters and corn but I gotta tell you that this would also work well along side of pasta or even put it on top of your spaghetti if you want.
MY FAVORITE IS MAKING A SANDWICH OUT OF IT!! You don't need fancy bread, just put it between 2 slices of wheat bread and VIOLA....A WHOLE NEW WORLD!!!
NOW.......LET'S MAKE THE MEATBALLS....
ITALIAN MEATBALLS...
Use all the ingredients, just LEAVE OUT THE KETCHUP!!! Combine ingredients and roll GENTLY into whatever size balls you prefer. Now, I must be honest, I would still add just a touch of ketchup for a tomato-ee taste, but it's really up to you!!!
Cook the meatballs again at 375, but you just want to check them to see if they are browning. This may take about 30-45 minutes. I HAVE TO TELL YA.....THESE ARE AMAZING WITHOUT SAUCE. But you can put them in your sauce and let them simmer....but you really don't need to, they will have this great harder outside and moist heaven on the inside!!!!
Now you can serve these with spaghetti or make a meatball sandwich out of them!!!
Saturday, November 6, 2010
PUMPKIN PIE FILLING....The Real Deal!
Okay, so this was supposed to be pretty exciting at the house! Noa was finally able to enjoy HALLOWEEN!! Well, kind of, she's 16 months now, she that really means she running around and loving using her hands! We decided that this year would be so much fun to carve our Jack-o-laterns for Halloween, eventhough we knew the dogs would carry them off within a day or two. Well, we got so busy the last couple of weeks before Halloween that we actually didn't get a chance to carve our pumpkins as a family! Of course I wanted to save the seeds so we could grow our pumpkin patch for next year, but I just couldn't bring myself to throw away 3 perfectly good pumpkins! And since I love PUMPKIN PIE.....I decided to do something I never did before! I COOKED AND SAVED MY PUMPKIN INNERDS!!!!
REAL FILLING FOR PUMPKIN PIES!!!
Now, keep in mind this is just the pumpkin, when making your pie, remember you will need to add things like sugar and such for your actual pie filling. This is just to instruct you on how to save your seeds and your filling!!!
Start like you would if you were carving your pumpkins. If you are carving them, you would simply scoop out the slime and seeds with an ice cream scooper.....SAVE THEM IN A BOWL...A BIG'UN)! In this case, since we didn't carve them, I simply sliced my pumpkins in halves and scooped everything out!!
FOR THE SEEDS:
Once you scoop everything out and into a large bowl, fill the bowl (with slime and seeds) with water about 2/3 or so full. (Leave in the sink to reduce mess). I let it sit for about 3 minutes are so. Then you just work the seeds and slime with your hands to separate them. Put the seeds into a smaller bowl and you will again fill with water and work it again to make sure you get all of the slime and small pieces of pie off.
Toss the Slime, Keep the Seeds!
Drain the seeds from the water. Now you want to get alot of the water off the seeds and there's not a super easy way to do it, so here's what I did....1)strain the seeds 2) stir the seeds with a paper towel in your hand 3)take a paper towel or real towel, pour the seeds in the towel and dab. Then put the seeds on a foil or wax paper sheet and let them set over night to dry out. I then transferred them to a pizza pan and let them lay flat for about 5 days to dry out! VOILA....you have seeds ready to plant IN THE SPRING! So throw them in a shoe box or paper bag and put them in the basement or closetf until spring!!!!
TO MAKE THE FILLING!!!
Now, I used 2 large pumkins and 1 small pumpkin!
Supposedly, the smaller the pumpkin, the sweeter. That's yet to be determined in my kitchen, so a good idea is when making your pie, to taste test your filling as you add sugar to decide on the right amount!!
Now, you have scooped out the slime and seeds and all I have is the shell of the pumpkin. YOU WANT TO COOK IT! You can microwave it, boil it, bake it, I don't care...just cook it! Now, I am ANTI-MICROWAVE on anything but frozen corn! There's something very wrong about microwaves in my opinion, so I bake my pumpkins.
Take your slices, turn them upside down on a pan, bake for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours on 350 DEGREES, until you can stick a fork in them when they are tender.
When they are tender, take then out, turn them back around, and scoop out everything but the skin with your scooper or spoon or whatever! Toss the skins and save the rest in a bowl.
Puree the insides until smooth (I use a hand puree for liquids, because it's awesome!). When you finish, you filling is ready! Find a HOMEMADE Pie recipe that you like, that will have you use real pumpkins for filling because you will add to your filling! I will post in a couple of weeks my recipe!
NOW....for the time being, I frozen my pureed pumpkin! For a good size pie, it make take up to 3 cups of pureed pumpkin. So, since this is my first year, I froze in bags 4 cup portions just in case. So if you do this and you have an overload, just make a tiny pie to go along with it!!!
ENJOY!
REAL FILLING FOR PUMPKIN PIES!!!
Now, keep in mind this is just the pumpkin, when making your pie, remember you will need to add things like sugar and such for your actual pie filling. This is just to instruct you on how to save your seeds and your filling!!!
Start like you would if you were carving your pumpkins. If you are carving them, you would simply scoop out the slime and seeds with an ice cream scooper.....SAVE THEM IN A BOWL...A BIG'UN)! In this case, since we didn't carve them, I simply sliced my pumpkins in halves and scooped everything out!!
FOR THE SEEDS:
Once you scoop everything out and into a large bowl, fill the bowl (with slime and seeds) with water about 2/3 or so full. (Leave in the sink to reduce mess). I let it sit for about 3 minutes are so. Then you just work the seeds and slime with your hands to separate them. Put the seeds into a smaller bowl and you will again fill with water and work it again to make sure you get all of the slime and small pieces of pie off.
Toss the Slime, Keep the Seeds!
Drain the seeds from the water. Now you want to get alot of the water off the seeds and there's not a super easy way to do it, so here's what I did....1)strain the seeds 2) stir the seeds with a paper towel in your hand 3)take a paper towel or real towel, pour the seeds in the towel and dab. Then put the seeds on a foil or wax paper sheet and let them set over night to dry out. I then transferred them to a pizza pan and let them lay flat for about 5 days to dry out! VOILA....you have seeds ready to plant IN THE SPRING! So throw them in a shoe box or paper bag and put them in the basement or closetf until spring!!!!
TO MAKE THE FILLING!!!
Now, I used 2 large pumkins and 1 small pumpkin!
Supposedly, the smaller the pumpkin, the sweeter. That's yet to be determined in my kitchen, so a good idea is when making your pie, to taste test your filling as you add sugar to decide on the right amount!!
Now, you have scooped out the slime and seeds and all I have is the shell of the pumpkin. YOU WANT TO COOK IT! You can microwave it, boil it, bake it, I don't care...just cook it! Now, I am ANTI-MICROWAVE on anything but frozen corn! There's something very wrong about microwaves in my opinion, so I bake my pumpkins.
Take your slices, turn them upside down on a pan, bake for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours on 350 DEGREES, until you can stick a fork in them when they are tender.
When they are tender, take then out, turn them back around, and scoop out everything but the skin with your scooper or spoon or whatever! Toss the skins and save the rest in a bowl.
Puree the insides until smooth (I use a hand puree for liquids, because it's awesome!). When you finish, you filling is ready! Find a HOMEMADE Pie recipe that you like, that will have you use real pumpkins for filling because you will add to your filling! I will post in a couple of weeks my recipe!
NOW....for the time being, I frozen my pureed pumpkin! For a good size pie, it make take up to 3 cups of pureed pumpkin. So, since this is my first year, I froze in bags 4 cup portions just in case. So if you do this and you have an overload, just make a tiny pie to go along with it!!!
ENJOY!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)