Easiest Chicken Salad Ever

As many chicken breasts as will fit your needs, grilled with steak seasoning (leftovers!)

Mayonnaise (however creamy you want it)

Grapes, halved (again, no specific measurements)

Celery seed, to taste

Salt and pepper, to taste

Cut the chicken up into little pieces, mix it all together, and chill. Grilled chicken one day, delicious chicken salad the next. This is the only kind I make- the steak seasoning (I use KC Masterpiece, it's pretty darn good) makes it more savory than sweet, whichi s what chicken salad really needs. Then the grapes....Mmmmm.

He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise. ~Henry David Thoreau

Tomato, Basil, Mozzarella Salad

Small fresh mozzarella balls, sliced in half

Cherry tomatoes, similarly halved

Fresh basil leaves, sliced thinly

Italian dressing (Newman's Own Organic Tuscan Italian is the BEST)

Mix it all together, chill.

Kind of healthy, but mostly just delicious!

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. ~G.K. Chesterton

Kusherie

Lentils & rice

1 1/4 cups lentils

4 cups vegetable stock

2 tbsps olive oil

1 1/2 cups rice

1 tsp salt

Sauce

3/4 cups tomato paste

3 cups crushed tomatoes

1 medium green pepper, chopped

1/2 cups celery leaves, chopped

1 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Onions

3 medium onions, sliced thinly

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 tsbps olive oil

Brown the dried lentils in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Then add 3 cups of boiling veggie stock to it, and let it simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes. Then add the rice and the rest of the stock, and cover and let it simmer for about 30 minutes (you may need to add some more liquid).

Meanwhile, in other saucepans....

Mix all of the sauce ingredients together, simmer for about 30 minutes.

Sautee the onions and garlic until it's goooood and caramelized.

Lentils and rice, sauce, then onions all in a bowl. This is an Egyptian recipe that is delicious and cheap and healthy and quick. Can't really go wrong with that, eh?

If we're not willing to settle for junk living, we certainly shouldn't settle for junk food. ~Sally Edwards

Black Bean Soup

3 cans black beans, mostly drained
32 ounces vegetable broth
1 small red onion, chopped fine
1 carrot, diced fine
3 strips turkey bacon, cut into small pieces
2-3 tbsps olive oil
1/2 tsp cumin
½ tsp turmeric
1 tsp chili powder
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
Salt
Sour cream to top

Sweat the onion, bacon, and carrot in the olive oil until the veggies are fairly soft. Add the spices and garlic. Dump in the black beans, and add about half of the vegetable broth.
Let all of this simmer/low boil for about two hours, stirring occasionally and adding the broth as needed. Less broth makes the beans a delicious side dish or filler for a warm tortilla, more makes it a wonderful soup- top with sour cream or a little bit of shredded cheddar.
This recipe is a mostly original, and I impressed even myself. Black beans have a wonderful flavor all their own, but this soup was wonderfully savory and rich and flavorful. I’ll definitely file it away for another cold evening!

Stuffed cremini

1 package mushrooms
1/3 small onion, finely chopped
2 tbsps butter
1/3 block of cream cheese
1/2 tbsp Worchestershire
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp tarragon
1/2 tsp thyme
1 piece white bread
Parmasan cheese
Olive oil
salt

Wash the mushroom gently, and twise stems to remove.

Chop the mushrooms tems finely, add onion, and sweat in butter over medium heat. Add the garlic. When the stem pieces and onion are nice and soft, remove from heat and add the cream cheese Worchestershire sauce, and some parmasan cheese. Blend it well.

In the meantime, place the caps on some tinfoil, drizzle them with olive oil, and sprink with tarragon and thyme. Place them under a low broiler and keep a close eye on them. You want to pull moisture out of them so that the filling doesn't float off when you stuff them. Wait until the caps are holding little puddles and they've darkened, then remove them and dump out the water inside. Place them upsidedown, and put them back under the broiler for a bit. Don't let them get too dessicated (close eye!)

When the caps are done, remove them and stuff to capacity with the filling. Sprinkle a little more parmasan cheese overtop to create a little crust, and pop them back under the broiler until they look a bit melty and the cheese on top is bubbling.


I eat merely to put food out of my mind. ~N.F. Simpson

Decorating with Fondant

Fondant is a sort of play-doh-ish textured icing of sorts. When you look at a wedding cake and think "wow, how did they get the icing so smooth?" you are probably looking at fondant.

You can purchase-premade fondant at craft stores (or wal mart, I get mine there as it's closer and cheaper- in the cake decorating section). It comes in blocks that are a bit stiff.

Ice your cake well with whatever kind of icing you want- butter cream or stuff that Betty Crocker makes. Use a goodly amount so that you don't end up spreading it out too much and getting it all crumby- you may think that the fondant will cover your mistakes, but you'd be wrong in that assumption. It hides no sins.

Dust the counter well with powdered sugar. Kneed the fondant as you would dough, using powdered sugar to coat your hands as you would flour. Kneed it until it's considerably softer and you could envision rolling it out. That's the next step, to be done with a rolling pin and yet more powdered sugar.

Roll it pretty thin- about 1/4 of an inch. It's difficult and takes a good deal of time. Make sure you've measured your cake- sides and top, and have a large enough piece to cover it. It won't do to be stretching it once it's placed.

Use two hands, or a hand and a rolling pin, to very quikly but gently pick up the fondant sheet and place it on the cake. Do your very best to center it on the first shot so that it doesn't have to go sliding around and messing things up.

Trim the fondant with a razor, but make sure you don't trim too much! You can cut slivers out to shape it around corners or round cakes, but coaxing it to stick to itself again is tricky. Use your fingers and some water.

You can color fondant with food coloring. The gel kind works better than the liquid, so try to find that. Just slip a bit on, then kneed the fondant until the color is completely evenly distributed (or you can easily marble it by stopping early). Fondant cutters are available (although cookie cutters would work well, too). Don't worry about powdered sugar on the colors- it wll come off fine.

To stick various fondant pieces to the cake, brush the backs with water and hold them firmly in place for a few seconds. When you're done, brush the colors with water and the powdered sugar will disappear

Leftover Turkey Chowder

2 cups turkey (or more if you want/have it), shredded

4 cups chicken broth

3/4 cups cream

1 1/2 cups milk

1 medium onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 container of shitake mushrooms, chopped

1/2 tbsp chopped garlic

1/2 cup butter

1 box gnocchi, prepared

3 tbsps flour

salt to taste

thyme to taste

Sweat the carrot and onion in the butter over medium heat. Add flour, then chicken broth. Add cream, milk, turkey, garlic and heat.

Prepare gnocchi according to directions (add to water at a rolling boil, cook for about 5 minutes, until they are floating). Add gnocchi and mushrooms, let it cook until mushrooms are tender. Add spices, feel free to add whatever you feel would be appropriate, the thyme is just a suggestion.

Mmm. This was a delicious was to get rid of leftover turkey!