Pot Roast

I like meat. I don't need a 10oz steak or a 1 pound chicken breast but 3 or 4 ounces is just right and Beef Roast has to be one of my favorites and this weeks roast was my best roast ever. I seasoned it with salt and pepper, browned it in some oil. I then put it in the oven and covered it with my leftover onion soup, covered and cooked in a 350F oven for about an our and then added the potatoes, carrots, some worcestershire sauce and a few tablespoons of wine and continued to roast until the vegetables were tender. The onion soup made the whole dish just WONDERFUL, thank goodness because the soup itself was too sweet for my taste.

Mother in Law Curry Chicken

This dish comes from my Mother-in-law and it is one of our family favorites, as a matter of fact this is what we had for dinner the night I brought my daughter home from the hospital. The dish can be spicy, as it was that night, and for the next day every time my daughter nursed she would scream and cry, I am guessing the milk was a little spicy but to this day she likes curry, just as long as it is not too spicy.

1 whole chicken cut into 9 pieces (2 breasts halved, 2 legs, 2 thighs, and the back)

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup flour

Salt, pepper, paprika, and curry

put flour and spices in a shallow bowl. Heat the oil in a deep pan. Dredge chicken in flour mixture and fry in oil until all sides are golden brown (add more oil if needed). Remove browned chicken and place on a platter and set aside.

1 onion, chopped

2 stalk celery, chopped

2 medium carrots, chopped

2 Tablespoons mild Curry

2 Tablespoons Paprika

cayenne pepper to taste.

salt and pepper

chicken stock or water

1 cup frozen Corn

in the oil that the chicken was fried in cook the spices to release the flavors. add in the onion, carrot and celery and cook for a few minutes. Add in the stock and the chicken that was set aside. cover and cook until the chicken is done and almost falling off the bone. Add in the corn and heat through. Serve on Rice.

Menu for week 12/7/07-12/13/07

Pot Roast with carrots potatoes and biscuits
Hash made from leftover pot roast
French onion soup
mixed vegetable cheese soup (DD's choice)
Salmon with pesto a veggie and a grain.

out one night and leftovers another.

Berry Birthday Cake with Beautiful Blossoms

DD had picked 2 lollipop cakes for her birthday. Cupcakes to share at school and a cake covered in lollipop flowers for on her birthday to have with family and friends. This is the Story of the lollipop flower cake.

It is so cool when you start to make a cake , get out the pans and my 4 year old daughter pops up on the chair and says "I will butter the pans", only a child that cooks can do that.

DD chose a berry cake for this cake, I am sure she was thinking that carrot cake did not sound all that good. The cake is one that is in my William-Sonoma Outdoors cookbook, and one of my favorites books, and it is called mixed berry bundt cake.

5 eggs

1 2/3 cups sugar

1 1/4 cuos unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 Tablespoons fruit Liqueur

2 1/2 cups all-pourpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups raspberries

1 1/2 cups blueberries

Preheat oven to 325F. Butter and flour a 9" bundt pan.

In a large bowl, blend the eggs and sugar using an electric mixer. Add the butter and liqueur and beat until fluffy. Add all but 2 Tablespoons of the flour, the baking powder and the salt, beat until well incorporated and no lumps remain.

In a another bowl, combine the berries and the reserved 2 tablespoons of four. Toss to coat the berries evenly with the flour. Gently fold the berries into the batter.

pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until a wooden skewer inserted comes out clean, about 60 minutes. Remove for the oven and let cool in the pan for about 30 minutes. Unmold the cake to cool completely.

I baked the cake in 2 9" cake pans instead of a bundt pan to make a layer cake.

I then frosted the cake with cream cheese frosting tinted green with cooked spinach.

2.5 sticks butter at room temperature
24 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
1 bunch cooked spinach that has been pureed in the.

In a large mixing bowl add the butter and cream sugar and blend until combined and light and fluffy. add the vanilla, sugar and enough spinach to give the green color you like. Mix well and set aside.

I put the cake together using Martha's directions Here using lollipops and suckers as flower blossoms.

Lollipops Melt

My Daughter turned 4 on Monday and to celebrate her coming of age at school last Friday we took cupcakes to share with the class. DD picked lollipop cupcakes that we found on the Martha Stewart website and she wanted them to be tangerine flavored.

I found this lemon cake recipe in the Martha Stewart site and replaced anything lemon with tangerine...

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
3 cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted, plus more for pans
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups sugar
5 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Zest of 2 lemons
1 cup buttermilk

I thought that this would be a nice rich cake with buttermilk and 5 eggs but it was just a very eggy cake with a sticky texture and heavy. How disappointing.

For the Frosting I went with the 7 minute Jello Frosting and used orange Jello, the closest I could find to tangerine...

31/2 tbsp. Jello (any flavour)

1/2 cup hot water1

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 egg whites unbeaten

dash of salt

Dissolve Jello in water in top of double boiler. Add sugar, egg whites and salt. Beat mixture for about one minute with rotary or electric beater until well mixed. Place over rapidly boiling water. Beat constantly about 7 minutes or until frosting stands up in peaks. Transfer to another bowl and beat about one minutes or until thick enough to spread.

I the frosting was ok, I make this every march for my Mother's Lemon chiffon cake. but it did not set up as fast I needed for this application.

Finding lollipops like in the picture on Martha's website was impossible (you know how kids are, it has to look the same) so I got the lollipops that are in the picture. They worked ok but they were not as pretty.

Thursday DD and I went to work and made our eggy cake, and runny frosting and stuck the lollipops in the cakes and wrapped them up so that they were all ready to take to school on Friday. Did you know that lollipops melt when enclosed with moist cake, I didn't. So the ugly green in the lollipops melted all over the lollipops making the sugar sprinkles on the frosting to me a slimy green mass/mess what ever one would cal it.

DD's teacher was so nice and said that the cupcakes were wonderful, she is such a sweetheart.

Indian Relish for Dinner

This Dish is so easy, one of the few that is made with almost all canned items and I love it.

This is what you need...

2 T. olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 T. Mild Curry
1 can crushed tomatoes
1 Jar Indian Relish from Trader Joe's
2 cups to a whole head of cauliflower florets
1 can chickpeas, rinsed
salt and pepper

(in the photo I also had added browned chicken thighs; however, I found that this dish does not need meat)

slowly Caramelize the the onion, with the oil, in a nonreactive skillet, it will take about 20 minutes.
Add the garlic and curry and cook for a few more minutes.
Add in the tomatoes and Indian Relish and cauliflower and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the remaining ingredients and continue cooking until the the cauliflower in tender, about another 10 minutes.
Serve with rice.