Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

This recipe rocks! A slightly healthier version than what I use. They were loved and I gave this recipe to a lot (and I mean a lot) of people at the baby shower.

Suffed Cherry Tomatoes

2 pt. cherry tomatoes
1 avocado, peeled and diced
1t lemon juice
1/4C mayonnaise
8 cooked bacon slices, crumbled
2 green onions, finely chopped
Salt & pepper to taste

Cut a small slice from the top of each tomato; scoop out pulp with a small spoon or melon baller, and discard pulp. Place tomatoes, cut sides down, on paper towels, and let drain 15 min. Combine avocado and lemon juice in a small bowl, stirring gently; drain. Stir together mayonnaise, bacon, and green onions; add avocado mixture, and stir gently until combined. Spoon avocado mixture evenly into tomato shells. Cover with plastic wrap, and chill 1 hour. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste just before serving.

Chocolate Covered Cherries!

So tonight at my cooking class, I taught how to make Chocolate Covered Cherries. There are several different recipes, but I have only tried this one. They are really easy, and not as sickeningly sweet as store bought cordial cherries.  It was a hands on class, and so we got done quickly. When making them alone, it is a time consuming process, but worth it a few times a year. I usually make them at Christmas. This is my first time to make them for Valentines day. I don't think they will even last until Valentines day, but oh well. It's the thought that counts isn't it?

Here are the ingredients for Chocolate Covered cherries.  I buy the dipping chocolate at Sam's at Christmas time, but you can use Chocolate candy coating, or chocolate chips mixed with paraffin wax if you need to (16 oz chocolate chips, 1 bar paraffin). It just needs to harden after it has been dipped. I  buy the big jar of Cherries at Sam's, it is more cost effective, but there are about 200 cherries, which is a lot! 

 I had already drained the cherries, so I don't have pictures of that process.  

 Drain the liquid off the cherries (we save and pour on ice cream). Place the cherries on several layers of paper towels (on a cookie sheet or baking pan) to dry out. May want to let them dry for an hour or more.

While they are drying,  mix other ingredients.

This is the softened butter and the corn syrup and salt before powdered sugar was added.

Here I have mixed in 1/2 of the sugar with a spoon.

It is most effective to mix the last of the sugar with your hands until it is like play dough.

Here is the completed fondant/dough.

Take about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of the dough and flatten it out.

Wrap around the cherry and set on wax paper on a cookie sheet.  As the fondant warms up, or you get cherry juice on your fingers, the dough gets very sticky. It was much better with gloves, but you may have to wash and dry your hands a few times. Also you can put the dough in the refrigerator if it gets to sticky and warm. It is a little easier do deal with when it is  cooler.

Break up the chocolate into small pieces and melt in microwave according to instructions, or in a double boiler on stove.

I forgot to get pictures while we were dipping, but you just hold the stem of the cherry and dip in chocolate. You can use a spoon to pour over cherry. Place on wax paper and let harden. Make sure the cherries are completely covered in chocolate. Check the bottoms of the cherries after they have hardened, and make sure there is no white showing. Anywhere there is an opening, juice will start to seep out. You may have to add a little more chocolate to the bottoms of the candies.

Here are the finished product.

If you can keep them around long enough - about 2 weeks- the fondant liquefies similar to the store bought candies. Well that is what the recipe says. We haven't made it long enough. It does start to liquefy fairly quickly though.

Chocolate Covered Cherries


60 Maraschino cherries,w/stem
3 tablespoons Butter or margarine,softened
3 tablespoons Light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon Salt
2 cups Confectioner's sugar, sifted
1 1/2 pound Dipping chocolate or white chocolate ( for coating)
Drain maraschino cherries thoroughly, Place on paper toweling. Combine butter or margarine, corn syrup and salt. Stir in sifted confectioner's sugar. Knead sugar mixture until smooth ( chill if mixture is too soft.) Shape 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of the sugar mixture around each cherry. Place on a waxed-paper-lined baking sheet, chill.  Melt chocolate according to package instruction in either microwave or in double boiler. Holding cherries by stems, dip one at a time into chocolate. Spoon chocolate over cherries to coat. Chill until chocolate is hardened. Store candy in a covered container in a cool place. Let candies ripen a week or two.


For a variation, you can also melt a small amount of white candy coating and add some food coloring and drizzle on the chocolates for a fancier look.

Hootenanies

Some days I don't have enough milk for everyone to eat cereal, or I don't have enough eggs to make everyone eggs. Usually when either is the case I make pancakes with powdered milk, and it only takes too eggs. But there are days when I don't want to take the time (or I don't have the time) to make pancakes. That is when I make Hootenanies. You can mix them up and get ready while they are baking.  It is a very yummy and easy breakfast.  My kids love them.

Here they are right out of the oven. The bubbles do fall after a minute.

Here is the way we eat them, with syrup. YUMMY!

Hootenanies

6 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

Dash salt (can add up to 1 tsp, but I don't add that much)

1 stick butter or margarine (I understand you can use 1/2 that, but I haven't tried)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Melt butter in 9 x 13 baking dish in oven (watch it so you don't burn it). While butter is melting mix together the eggs, milk, flour and salt. (I use the blender)

Pour egg mixture in melted butter and return to oven and bake for 20 minutes.    Serve with syrup, or fruit jam.  You can also serve this with meat and cheese for a savory dish, but again I haven't tried this.

New Fun Treat

We found a new treat that is fun to make. Homemade Gummies. I found the recipe on OnePrettyThing.com, and followed the link to the original posting site. These are very easy and fun to make. In fact, Kelly has been making them regularly. They go fast, and all the kids eat them up.

The molds I used are silicone ice cube trays that I found. The yellow bullet shapes are from a regular ice cube tray that makes tiny ice. The were harder to get out of the rigid ice cube tray, but not impossible. I got some silicone trays at Hobby Lobby, and some at Wal Mart. I looked at candy molds, but they were much more expensive. We just put a little of the mixture in the mold, to get more candies.

Homemade Gummy Candies

1 3oz package flavored gelatin

3 envelopes unflavored gelatin

1/3 cup + 1 tbsp water

In a small saucepan, Slowly mix gelatins in water. Let sit for 10 minutes. (It will resemble play dough when it is done). Melt gelatin over double boiler (don't want to cook the gelatin, just melt it). When gelatin is melted pour into molds. Let sit in freezer for 5 minutes or refrigerator for 10 minutes. Pop out of molds, and eat.

Side note: I found other recipes that call for 1 3 oz pkg of flavored, and 7 pkgs of unflavored gelatin. That recipe didn't have the 10 minute wait time. After you mix the gelatins, you cook over LOW heat until melted and then put in molds. I haven't tried this yet, but I will. It will be interesting to see if there is a difference in final product.

Holiday Pies

Well I am finally getting around to posting about my holiday food. I know, it is about time. For Thanksgiving last year (that sounds bad, since it has only been just over a month and a half), I made 3 kinds of pie. Pumpkin, Apple, and pecan. They all turned out fantastic, but I used different recipes than normal.

The Pumpkin Pie Recipe I got off of an add, it used sweetened condensed milk rather than evaporated milk and sugar. It was very easy, and I liked it. Kenna actually helped me mix it all up. It was a great recipe for cooking with kids.

Perfect Pumpkin Pie

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin

1 (14 ounce) can EAGLE BRAND® Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Whisk pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, spices and salt in medium bowl until smooth. Pour into crust. Bake 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue baking 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted 1 inch from crust comes out clean. Cool. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.

The Pecan Pie was the standard recipe that I always use out of the Better Homes and Garden's New Cook Book. (I don't know how new it is, we got it as a wedding gift 15 years ago!)

Erin made these pies for me.

Pecan Pie

3 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

dash salt

1 cup dark corn syrup (I didn't have dark, used light with good results)

1/3 cup butter or margarine melted

1 cup pecan halved

Pastry for single-crust pie

In a mixing bowl beat eggs slightly. Add sugar and salt; stir till dissolved. Stir in corn syrup and butter, mix well. Mix in pecans. Pour into pie shell, and cover edges with foil. Bake at 35o degree oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil; bake about 25 minutes more until a knife inserted off-center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

The Apple Pie was from a recipe on thepioneerwoman.com It is a great recipe that Kelly helped me make. It is very good! Rather than retype the recipe I am just sending you to the site where I got it. That way I make no mistakes. :-)

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/12/scrumptous-and_i_do_mean_scrumptous-apple_pie/

All the pies were a hit. I even made my own crust, also from thepioneerwoman.com They were pretty good too. Cooking for Thanksgiving was a family affair this year. It was great to have all the help.

Smoked Chicken Salad

We had our story telling party a little over a week ago. The kids are ready to move on to an open house for Christmas but my husband still enjoys the story sharing. It is always a lot of fun.

I made 3 different appetizers, 3 types of cookies, 3 different dips, fudge, white chocolate party mix, and there were the fruit, veggie & cheese/cracker trays. We ended up having just under 50 people come. The smoked Chicken Salad and the lemon-spice swirl cookies were new recipes that I tried and they were a hit.

Smoked Chicken Salad

1 (3.5-4 lb.) rotisserie chicken
2 (15 oz.) cans black eyed peas, rinsed and drained
1 pint grape tomatoes, quartered
3/4C chopped chives
1/2C mayonnaise
1/2C sour cream
1/2t salt
1/2t pepper
1/2t liquid smoke
1 (7 oz.) pkg. miniature pita bread, cut in half
2C spring salad mix

Pull meat off of rotisserie chicken and put in work bowl of food processor. Pulse until meat is coarsely chopped, about 10 sec. In a large bowl, combine chicken, peas, tomatoes, and chives. Add mayonnaise, sour cream, salt, pepper and liquid smoke, stirring until well-combined. Line each pita half with a few leaves of salad mix and stuff with chicken salad. Yield: 40 pita halves.

Ground Beef

Ok, so life got crazy and I have not been an active poster and actually there are no guarantees about the coming future but I shared a tip last night with someone at the activity formerly known as Enrichment and thought it would be a good tip to share....

When browning ground beef put some water in the pan with it. (Do you already do this?) I read about this a couple of years ago and I LOVE the results. It creates a much softer meat than just browning it normally. So easy and can be poured off when you dump the grease. You can add up to a cup for a pound and remember you will dump it off, it changes the texture and makes it light and lovely. If you have not tried this, I would highly suggest it! Let me know what you think!

Trisha