Recipes | Maria Zannini

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This Week’s Menu, September 18, 2016

By Maria Zannini • September 18, 2016 Food

Menu for the week of September 18, 2016

Sunday
Breakfast: Pancakes
Lunch: Veggie platter with pimento cheese spread
Dinner: Burgers

Monday
Breakfast: Leftover pancakes
Lunch: Corndogs
Dinner: Enchilada supper (Freezer meal. All I have to do is pop it in the oven.)

Tuesday
Breakfast: Bagels with cream cheese
Lunch: Burritos
Dinner: Sausage and peppers sandwiches (Another freezer meal.)

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Toast
Lunch: Egg rolls
Dinner: Lasagna (Premade freezer meal)

Thursday
Breakfast: Orange Danish
Lunch: skip
Dinner: Pizza (Frozen, not homemade this time.)

Friday
Breakfast: English muffins
Lunch: skip
Dinner: Chicken take out

Saturday
Breakfast: Kolaches
Lunch: Cold sandwiches
Dinner: Chinese take out

This week features an atypical menu. My new cabinets have arrived, and we’ll be kicked out of the kitchen starting Monday. I’m told they’ll need at least 5-7 days to get the job done. Our stove will be out of commission, and of course, I still don’t have a microwave, so I’m left to make what meals I can with my toaster oven.

Dinners won’t be too bad. I have a lot of frozen meals already made up. All I have to do is stick them in the oven. But side dishes will be a bit trickier. Breakfasts will be mostly toast or breakfast sandwiches I can cook in the toaster oven.

I’ll have a makeshift kitchen in my studio since I already have a sink there, but I’ll have no access to my real kitchen for a whole week. With a work crew in my house it also means someone needs to stay at home at all times. I might send Greg out for burgers or chicken if things get too chaotic.

It’ll be like home camping, but with more inconvenience. 🙂 I’ll have a better idea of how long I’ll be without my kitchen once the work crew gets here. Things would be a lot easier if I had a microwave or even a hot plate, but we’ll make do.

***

Red Snapper Ponchartrain
I made this dish last Sunday. I wish I had taken a picture of the finished meal but it was so labor intensive, all we wanted to do was eat! But I can report that this fish was absolutely scrumptious. The fish was flake-tender and the light and flavorful sauce was the perfect complement. You just wanted to savor every bite.

It was a lot of work because I had to make a shrimp stock to make the Madeira sauce for the fish, but you couldn’t ask for a more elegant and sublime meal. At one point I think I was using five of the six burners on the stove!

Fortunately, we didn’t use up all the sauce for the fish. I froze what was left over so we can have it again at some later date.

If you ever want to try a really delicious and fancy fish dinner, I highly recommend this recipe.

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Totally Bad, but oh so Good! Caramel Nirvana

By Maria Zannini • June 29, 2016 Food

If you’re on a diet, can’t eat sugar, or hate any kind of happiness, turn away now.

Fair warning. I’m serious. This is evil stuff.

I mean it! This is so delicious, it’s sinful.

Okay. That should’ve scared off all the weenies.

Years ago, before the age of microwaves, my mother used to boil a can of sweetened condensed milk in a big pot of water. You had to let it boil for a couple of hours. (To little children, it felt like DAYS!) Afterward, you couldn’t open the can for many more hours until it had cooled off.

Once cooled, she’d punch a hole in the can with one of those old fashioned can openers that looked like it could take out an eye. With the first tiny hole, a mini lava of caramel spewed from the opening. Our mouths would water and we’d gather like urchins around the most decadent candy the world of man had ever created.

We called it leche quemada. Greg calls it Cow. Don’t ask me why. (It’s an in-family joke.)

Since the Stone Age of my childhood, I’d seen many other ways of cooking it either on a stove top or a slow cooker. But the easiest and quickest way of cooking this is in the microwave.

All hail the MICROWAVE.

Cook time: 2 minutes 30 seconds

Take a can of sweetened condensed milk. Any brand will do.

Open the can.

Pour the contents into a tall, preferably glass bowl.

You are allowed to lick off the leftover milk inside the can. When you finish, toss the used spoon in the sink and get a new one.

Okay, now to work.

• Center the bowl of sweetened condensed milk in the microwave. Hopefully you have one with a turntable. Microwave for 1 minute, 10 seconds. Keep watching it to make sure it doesn’t breach the top of the bowl.

The milk will be hot but still liquid. Stir once.

• Microwave for another 1 minute, 20 seconds.

Notice the froth on the side of the bowl. It falls quickly back to normal.

• This time you must watch it CAREFULLY. The milk will froth and rise. (This is why it’s better to have a clear bowl.)

• Every time the milk rises to the top, stop the microwave. Stir the bowl once. Let it sit for two seconds then restart the machine.

• As the milk gets hotter you will have to stop the microwave every 8-10 seconds, stir once, then restart again.

• After cooking for 2 minutes and 30 seconds, the milk will feel firmer and saucy.

• Let it cool in the fridge. As it cools, it will firm up into a spreadable caramel.

If you didn’t wait until it cooled, the tip of your tongue is burnt right now. (If this is you, remind me not to leave you alone with matches or scissors.)

You can spread the leche quemada on bread or lace it over ice cream, but I eat a couple of naked spoonfuls and fall into a happy sugar coma.

Yes. It’s terribly bad for you. It’s nothing but sugar and milk.

You’re welcome.

Yes, it’s that good!

Note: If you like a firmer texture like my mom did, you can cook it another minute longer. It’ll have the consistency of soft fudge.

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How to Make Homemade Salsa

By Maria Zannini • June 20, 2016 Uncategorized

Tomatoes are a staple at our house. I dehydrate some tomatoes for use in pizzas and tomato sauce, but I use them au naturale for salsa.

It’s very easy to make salsa and I’ll show you the way my mom and dad taught me.

You’ll need fresh tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro, garlic, onion and salt. Gather your ingredients and have them ready for processing so you can dive into your salsa while it’s still nice and warm.

Step 1: Coarsely chop up a medium onion, a handful of cilantro and 3 bulbs of garlic. I like mine garlicky, but you can skip this if you don’t like garlic.

Step 2: Boil your water

Step 3: make an X on each tomato

Step 4: Drop the tomatoes into the boiling water until the skin starts to come off. It won’t take long. You can roast the tomatoes too if you prefer.

.Step 5: Roast your peppers by blistering the skin of the pepper on an open flame. This is very fast and easy.

Step 6: Get your tomatoes out of hot water and carefully pull off the skin.

Step 7: Do the same with the peppers. I like to scrape the blistered skin off with a sharp knife.

Step 7.5: ALWAYS wear rubber gloves. There’s nothing worse than accidentally touching your eye after you’ve been seeding peppers.

Step 8: Add as many (or as few) pepper seeds as you can handle. Jalapeno is traditional in American recipes, but I think serrano peppers are tastier. It’s also a bit hotter.

Step 9: Toss a handful of each ingredient into your blender or food processor. I like mine kind of chunky, but blend it to the consistency you prefer. Salt to taste.

Step 10: Keep repeating until you’ve finished using up all your ingredients.

Ta Da! Salsa.

Have some chips nearby. Salsa is best while it’s still warm.

Some people like lime juice in their salsa, but that reminds me too much of store-bought salsa. You can always add the lime if you prefer it that way, but try it naked first. (the salsa, not you.)

Have you ever made your own salsa? Do you like it spicy or mild?

Note: Long time readers might remember this post from many years ago on my old blog. You’re not going crazy. I’m just recycling. 🙂

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7 Layer Dip, aka Cold Nacho Plate

By Maria Zannini • June 6, 2016 Uncategorized

Summer means less cooking and more sandwiches, salads, and finger foods. Once a month I might do a session of batch cooking which I then partition into meal-size containers. I’ll usually do 12-15 meals like this, freeze them and then take them out whenever I’m too tired to cook. It’s saved me numerous times.

Yesterday (despite our power outage) we had 7 Layer Dip. (We like to call it ‘cold nacho plate’.) My college friend, Debbie gave me this recipe many years ago. (Thanks, Debbie!) It’s so easy I try to keep the ingredients on hand so I can make this any time.

It’s great for parties, but we love it as a meal. After the initial feasting, I save the leftovers for the next day. The flavors only improve overnight. We can have it again with chips and veggies, or you can melt it in the microwave, then scoop a little into a warm corn tortilla. Heaven!

Here’s the recipe. It’s almost entirely from cans or packages.

16 ounce can of refried beans

9 ounce can of hot bean dip

8 ounce container of guacamole dip

8 ounce package of cream cheese

6 ounce can of black olives (I recommend low sodium olives so they won’t overpower the rest of the flavors.)

8 ounce block of pepper jack cheese, grated

16 ounces of Cheddar, finely grated

A few green onions

• Take the refried beans and the bean dip and combine thoroughly. I sometimes add a little more salsa or mild chilis to spice it up even more. We ain’t afraid of no heat at my house!

• Layer the bean mixture smoothly over a large plate.

• Take the cream cheese and leave it out to soften it. Debbie told me she adds a little mayonnaise to make it spread more smoothly, but I beat mine into submission by hand or with a mixer. Debbie is obviously much nicer than I am, but I’m sure you already knew that.

• Smooth the cream cheese over the bean layer.

• Smooth the guacamole dip over the cream cheese. I’ve been asked if fresh guacamole is just as good and I honestly don’t know. Since I sometimes reheat this mixture I’m not sure I’d like to have fresh guacamole nuked, plus you run the risk of it darkening if it’s exposed to oxygen.

• Layer a generous amount of grated cheddar cheese over the guacamole layer. Don’t be stingy. Presentation is everything.

• Layer a thin layer of pepper Jack cheese over the cheddar.

• Decorate with olive halves over the entire plate.

• Sprinkle with green onions rings to finish the dip.

I put mine back in the fridge and let the flavors marry for a couple of hours. It scoops better when it’s nice and chilled.

Serve with corn chips, pita chips, crackers, or any other sturdy chips. I also use mini carrots or celery sticks as dippers too.

You can freeze this. I wouldn’t freeze the green onions and olives but everything else seems to freeze well. It’s not as pretty as when it’s fresh but it’s great as a hot dip or taco filling.

I sometimes bring this to parties and I’ve yet to return home with anything but an empty plate.

Have you ever tried 7 Layer Dip? Do you do anything differently?

***

It’s been a rough few days. Everything has been breaking down! Some we were able to fix but others had to be serviced. My Hyundai SUV stranded us twice. Greg suspected it was something that we’d already had replaced because of a recall. Sure enough, the same part was killing the electrical systems. Thankfully, the dealer didn’t give us any trouble and it’s being fixed on their dollar.

I’ve been trying to put together a nice blog signup incentive, but again life intervened. We lost power for part of Sunday, and then my internet went out. Hopefully, I can get that freebie finished this week.

We are finally drying out. Huzzah! I’m so glad the main garden is set in raised beds. I’m sure it saved my plants from drowning many times. If the weather continues to dry out maybe I can do my garage sale in mid June. Fingers crossed.

18 Comments

Try an Ethnic Grocery Store

By Maria Zannini • June 1, 2016 Food, Saving Money

My friend, Mel has been bugging me to check out a giant Korean grocery store that she frequents. It’s an hour’s drive from me but one day we decided to make a day of it and see what all the fuss was about.

I am no great chef, but I love Asian-inspired food. Occasionally, I get adventurous and try a few recipes. The thing about Asian food though is you really need the special ingredients like fish and oyster sauces, Jasmine and sushi rices, and the wonderful exotic veggies to get the flavor right.

We were totally hooked once we entered the store. It’s called H Mart (who knows why), but it’s got everything you need and all the stuff you didn’t know you needed. They had fresh and dried fish, squid, octopi, and all manner of seafood I never knew existed. There were also some unappetizing items like pork blood and giant live clams that looked like something Godzilla coughed up.

The exotic fruits and vegetables were my favorites. Luckily, they were giving away samples. I tried a small melon with flesh as sweet as an apple but soft as a peach. I forgot the name but I took one home along with the biggest grapes I’ve ever seen.

We bought some hot mustard powder for the next time we have egg rolls, a chili garlic paste that looked promising, and adzuki and mung beans which I hope I can sprout.

It’s a shame H Mart is so far, but at least now I know where to go when I’m hunting for exotic spices, mushrooms, or fish.

A lot of people don’t realize this, but ethnic grocery stores tend to have cheaper prices than the same items bought in a non-ethnic store. The only bad thing about H Mart is that nearly everything was in Korean, though sometimes it had a few words of English so you knew what you were buying.

It was great fun just to stroll the aisles. I know we’ll be going back.

We got hungry while we were there so we tried out their restaurant. Wow! Aside from the fact that it was complicated to actually get your food–everything was delicious. You ordered from one location but to get your food you had to find it from among several kitchens. (Sorry I didn’t snap a picture, but all thoughts of photography fled when we saw our food.)

Do you like Asian food? What’s your favorite dish? Mongolian beef is the current reigning favorite.

Have you ever tried an ethnic grocery store?

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Lynn’s Pot Roast

By Maria Zannini • April 29, 2016 Food, Recipes

A while back, Lynn Viehl gave me her pot roast recipe and I’d been looking forward to making it for Greg, a pot roast aficionado. I followed her ingredients list but because I didn’t feel like waiting, I decided to see how it would work in the pressure cooker.

Was it ever good!

I seared the meat on the stove top so I’d have a nice brown crust, and then followed the rest of the instructions as they were written. I’d tried pot roast using mushroom soup, and another time using the onion soup mix, but never mushroom, onion soup mix, and beef consomme together.

What sets this pot roast apart from the others is the gravy. It is absolutely delicious. The best I’ve ever had. I didn’t feel it needed to be thickened though you could if you like it thicker. I was sponging it up with bread.

The roast was savory and stick-to-your-ribs good. I included some oven-warmed French bread with Greg’s herb mix, but next time I might do a nice bow-tie pasta. Plain white rice would work too.

It was just good comfort food. I know Greg will ask for this one again. The plate was so clean I almost didn’t have to wash it. 🙂

Lynn got the recipe from an old book but she adapted it by adding the consomme and blending the ingredients beforehand for the gravy. She didn’t have a name for this pot roast, so I renamed it, Lynn’s Pot Roast so I could distinguish it from the others in my recipe file.

Lynn’s Pot Roast

2.5 – 3 lb. pot roast

1 can Campbell’s condensed cream of mushroom soup

1 can Campbell’s condensed beef consume soup

1 envelope dry onion soup mix

1/3 cup dry white wine

1/3 cup water

potatoes (as many as you think you can eat)

baby carrots (I substituted corn because I prefer it in pot roast.)

Oven Method: Pour all the liquid ingredients in a saucepan and heat over medium for five minutes, stirring until they’re combined and smooth. Put roast and carrots in large roasting pan or casserole dish, pour liquid ingredients over them. Cover with foil or lid and bake at 325F for 3-4 hours. Turn the roast over about halfway through the baking to keep the top from drying out. Add your potatoes about an hour before the roast is done. Use the liquid in the pan as gravy; thicken with flour or cornstarch if you prefer a thicker gravy.

Pressure Cooker Method: If you do this in a pressure cooker, cook for 30 minutes, check for texture, then add the potatoes and corn for another 10 minutes.

Extra Tip from Lynn: She makes open-faced sandwiches from the leftovers. I’m going to try this myself today.

Do you like pot roast? What’s your comfort food?

UPDATE: I had planned to do a round-up of deals today, but those posts take a lot more research than a regular post. We spent all of Thursday killing roosters, cooling, cooking, and then packaging them for the freezer. We’ve had some severe weather lately and Thursday was our only dry day, so it was catch as catch can.

Expect to see my Deals post on Monday. I have some great suggestions for Mother’s Day–things I’ve given to my own mom that she absolutely loves and uses every day.

6 Comments

This Week’s Menu, April 17, 2016

By Maria Zannini • April 17, 2016 Food

Menu for the week of April 17, 2016

Sunday
Breakfast: Pancakes
Lunch: Salad and leftovers from last week
Dinner: Mongolian Beef

Monday
Breakfast: Leftover pancakes
Lunch: Lunch out (a friend invited us for a visit)
Dinner: Pork fajitas with guacamole and pico de gallo (I’m pressure cooking a pork shoulder. This is the first use of that meat.)

Tuesday
Breakfast: Bacon and eggs
Lunch: Pulled pork gyro with homemade tzatziki sauce (I’m using this recipe.)
Dinner: Meatloaf

Wednesday
Breakfast: Cheese quesadillas
Lunch: BBQ pork sandwiches (3rd use of pork shoulder.)
Dinner: Shrimp with spinach and orzo

Thursday
Breakfast: Asparagus omelet
Lunch: Tuna fish sandwiches
Dinner: Meatloaf leftovers

Friday
Breakfast: Eggs with the (next to) last of the pulled pork
Lunch: Salad
Dinner: Potluck soup from the garden. (I have lots of greens and asparagus that can go into soup. Any pork leftover can go in too.)

Saturday
Breakfast: Breakfast out (We almost always have breakfast out if we’re hunting garage sales.)
Lunch: Potluck soup leftovers
Dinner: Pizza

This week we’ll start eating more from the garden. Spinach, Swiss chard, snow peas, carrots, and asparagus are coming in fast and heavy so I want to incorporate them in all our meals. The asparagus bed produces enough spears for an entire meal a day. I freeze them immediately if I don’t plan to use them that day. Asparagus can go limp quickly if it’s not chilled or standing in ice water.

Do you like asparagus? Is there any vegetable you won’t eat? I try beets from time to time but I haven’t liked them yet. I’m not fond of sweet potatoes either. Greg loves sweet potatoes though so I grow them for him and the dogs.

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Vietnamese Spring Rolls for a Light Lunch or Appetizer

By Maria Zannini • April 13, 2016 Food, Recipes

Betty had asked how I make spring rolls so I thought I’d take a photo opp to show you how I make mine.

We love spring rolls because there are no hard and fast rules on what to stuff in the wrapper. You do need the rice skin wrapper. I’m not a purist on this so I buy the wrappers pre-made. Almost any grocery store with an ethnic food aisle will carry them.

There are two things to remember before you start.

• Have your fillings already cooked, cut to size, and cooled.

• Have your dipping sauces already made.

The process goes so fast you won’t have time to do these things later.

Fillings: You can do almost anything, just make sure it’s prepped ahead of time.

Choose your protein
• Shrimp
• Pork
• Chicken
• Tofu

Choose your veggies
• Lettuce
• Cabbage
• Spinach
• Julienne carrots
• Snow peas
• Green onions
• Julienne cucumber
• Avocado

Choose your aromatics
• Mint
• Cilantro
• Thai basil

Choose your starch
• Sticky white rice
• Rice Vermicelli
• Soba noodles

I like mine with rice vermicelli, cilantro, shrimp, lettuce, green onions, cucumber, and avocado.

Line up your fillings in order. In a large bowl of warm water, dunk your wrapper, flipping it to either side. It only takes a couple of seconds. Don’t let it linger too long in water or you’ll end up with a gooey mess.

It should still be firm enough to handle when you lay it out flat. It’ll continue to soften so work quickly, layering your ingredients. I start with the lettuce or spinach as a base, then the vermicelli, the other veggies, then top it with shrimp.

Fold it into a burrito shape. The wrapper, still moist will glue to itself.

That’s it. Eat and enjoy with hoisin sauce, plum sauce, or a fish sauce mixture that I personally love. For detailed instructions on the sauces, I follow this recipe.

Mine are never as pretty as the ones done by professional cooks, but they’re just as tasty. Just remember to have everything prepped before you start building your rolls.

When I made these last, I had run out of cilantro and my avocado wasn’t soft enough yet. I really missed them, so I made up for it with extra shrimp. 😀 Just pick the ingredients you love best already sliced and diced and ready to roll.

Have you ever tried Vietnamese spring rolls?

21 Comments

Homemade Pancakes with an Extra Tip

By Maria Zannini • March 14, 2016 Food

pancakes

I try to make pancakes from scratch once a week. It’s enough for two sittings so that takes care of breakfast later in the week too.

It might sound vain but I like my pancakes better than the ones from any pancake house. They’re light and full of flavor.

I add a half tablespoon more sugar than most recipes, but only because I like to eat them with little or no syrup.

The one thing I’ve changed recently is the way I combine the ingredients. I used to add the wet ingredients to the dry, but I’ve discovered that if you mix the dry to the wet, they come out lighter without any extra ingredients or beating.

We rarely keep whole milk in the house since we don’t drink milk, but whole milk in the batter will make a better tasting pancake than the dry milk I normally use. Recently, our local Aldi put milk at a giveaway price. I saw people carting off 8-10 gallons in each buggy. We picked up one gallon since we needed it for a recipe that day, but we froze the rest in 1/2 cup increments.

Here is the recipe I use. I hope you’ll try it and let me know how it works out for you.

Homemade Pancakes

2 cups flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1/3 cup oil

Beat eggs, add milk, stir in oil in large bowl. Mix well. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Add dry ingredients to wet and beat until smooth.

What’s your favorite breakfast?

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