Lily's Delicious Salmon Rub

This is one of our favourite ways to season salmon........

1 Tblsp brown sugar

1 tsp each garlic powder, oregano, chili powder, paprika

Salt to taste

1/4 tsp thyme

Mix all together and sprinkle on salmon...Grill....Serve....Ummm, ummm, good!

Irish Soda Bread---with Raisins

This recipe was in the latest [Feb/Mar.2010] issue of Cooking Club.com,in preparation, I'm sure, for St. Patrick's Day. I've made it twice in one week, so I think that means it's a keeper! Here it is, so I won't be fumbling through a stack of the magazines, trying to remember which issue it was in, and also for Pauline, my good blog friend.

Rustic Irish Soda Bread

1/2 cup dried currants or raisins

1/2 cup hot brewed black tea

2 tsps caraway seeds [I'm just quoting the recipe here. I hate caraway seeds which are a common ingredient in soda bread, so I always leave them out!]

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup buttermilk

2 Tblsps packed brown sugar

1 Tblsp melted butter

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a pie pan or small cookie sheet. I sometimes just sprinkle the pan with flour, no grease. Pour the hot tea over the raisins in a small bowl and let sit for ten minutes. Drain well.

Crush caraway seeds, if using, to release nauseating smell---oops! I mean fragrance!

Whisk flours, soda and salt together in a large bowl. Stir in raisins and, if you must, caraway seeds.

Combine buttermilk, melted butter and brown sugar. Gradually stir into dry ingredients just until they are moistened.

Knead dough a few times dusting with a little flour to keep it from sticking. Form the dough into a ball and place in pan. Flatten slightly to a thickness of 1 1/2 to 2 inches.

Dust lightly with flour and, with a sharp knife, cut a 1/2 deep cross on top of the bread. Legend has it, according to the magazine, that this allows the fairies or the devil to escape........sounds like a lot of mullarky to me!

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the bread is golden brown, sounds hollow when the bottom is tapped and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool slightly on a wire rack before slicing. Try not to eat the whole thing at one sitting.....or maybe that's just a problem for me!

Note to Pauline: My favourite recipe for Brown Soda bread is in the post titled "Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread." You might also like my recipe for Tea Scones.

Cioppino---Fisherman's Stew

Today started out so gray and rainy, I decided it would be the perfect day to finally make some stock from all the fiddly little bags of shrimp shells I had saved over the past six months and stuck in the freezer. Besides, the natives were getting restless. Complaining that there were so many of those little bags in there that there was no room for important items, like ice cream!

So I dug through and found them all and chucked them in a pot and poured some water over them [about six cups] and set the heat on medium. Meanwhile, I chopped some onions, carrots and celery and added them to the pot, along with a few bay leaves, some peppercorns, some chopped garlic and some leftover tomato paste [about two tablespoons]I had in the fridge. Then I sliced half a lemon into the mixture, stirred it all together and simmered it for about an hour. Half an hour would work, but I had all day!

I turned off the heat, let the mixture cool for a while, then strained it through a sieve and discarded all but the liquid. While it was cooling, I googled "seafood soup" and found this great recipe for Fisherman's Stew, or, if you want to sound very fancy, Cioppino! It was on a site called New Italian Recipes, by a couple of characters calling themselves Aunt Aletha and Dear Old Dave.



Cioppino Ingredients:

1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
8-10 canned or bottled oil cured anchovies, diced
4-6 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup diced celery
1 medium to large onion, diced
1 roasted red bell pepper, diced
1 cup good rose or red wine
3 T red wine vinegar
1 quart homemade fish or shrimp soup stock
2 cups or more, (depending on how thick and how tomato-y you like it) homemade tomato sauce or a 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped or 2-3 T dried (add to seasoning mix if dried)
Dash or two of Tabasco Sauce
2 T Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup fresh Italian Parsley
2-3 T fresh lemon juice

Seasoning Mix:

1 T salt
1 T black or mixed whole pepper
2 T dried oregano
1 T fennel seeds [since I hate fennel, I left this out!]
1 T fresh or dried rosemary leave

Seafood:

Just about everything works in Cioppino and Italian fish Stew or Soup recipes, but here are our recommendations:
1/2 lb. medium shrimp (save shells for making seafood stock)
1/2 lb. scallops
24 fresh mussels
1 lb. firm white fish, chopped in 1 inch pieces (cod, catfish, halibut, orange roughy, etc.)
16 fresh clams (optional)
(Fresh or canned oysters can be added if you like them)


Fresh bread of your choice, garlic baked if desired, and lots of it. (The juice is incredible)

Prepare the Cioppino:
Heat olive oil to medium and add anchovies. Add garlic after about 3 minutes.

Add bay leaves, onions, celery and bell pepper plus 1/2 of the seasoning mix. Sauté for 6-8 minutes.

Add wine, vinegar, Tabasco and Worcestershire and reduce by 1/2. Pour in the quart of shrimp stock, then add tomato sauce, basil and rest of the seasoning mix. Simmer about 5 minutes then add the lemon juice.

Add the fish and shellfish, cover and cook about 7 more minutes. Remove any of the mussels and clams that don't open.

Sprinkle the completed Italian fish stew with parsley. Serve with fresh, Italian bread.

This recipe serves four easily.



The Cioppino turned out delicious! I felt so virtuous using oregano, basil, rosemary and even a lemon from our own garden!

I'm not a big fan of anchovies, but they practically melted into the warm olive oil and just blended with the garlic for great flavour. If I hadn't made it myself I wouldn't have guessed there were anchovies in it.....

I used shrimp, scallops, mussels, and catfish, and since it was my first time making it, I stayed pretty much with the letter of the recipe. Didn't go off on any "creative" tangents!

We polished off an entire loaf of fresh Italian bread with the Cioppino. It was a huge hit with the OC, who is not given to superlatives, but I could tell he loved this one. Even when all the seafood is gone the juice is delicious mopped up with the bread.

The fact that I put it on here the same day I first made it is a testament to how good it was! I'll be making this again. It is a little pricey, but if you consider how much you'd pay for a meal like this at a restaurant, it's worth the splurge once in a while.

Apple Brined Turkey

Apple Brined Turkey


We found this recipe for turkey on the Weber barbeque site several years ago. It was the tastiest turkey we'd ever had, and has become a Thanksgiving stapleh at our house.

For the brine:

2 quarts apple juice

1 lb brown sugar

1 c. kosher salt

2 quarts water

3 oranges, quartered

4 oz. fresh ginger, thinly sliced (mandolin)

15 whole cloves

6 bay leaves

6 large cloves garlic, crushed

1 turkey, 12-14 lbs

Vegetable oil for brushing turkey



In a large saucepan, over high heat, bring the apple juice, brown sugar and salt to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt. Cook for one minute, remove from the heat and skim off the foam. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.


In a 5-gallon plastic bucket (Home Depot bucket works great) or other container large enough to easily hold the turkey, combine the water, oranges, ginger, cloves bay leaves and garlic (use a plastic trash bag inside the bucket to minimize the mess and cleanup). Add the apple juice mixture and stir.

Note: If you are in a warm climate you can use an insulated cooler instead of a bucket.



Remove and discard the fat from the turkey cavity. Reserve the neck and the giblets for another use, or discard. Rinse the turkey inside and out, drain, and submerge the turkey in the brine. If necessary, top with a heavy weight to make sure the turkey is completely immersed. Refrigerate for 24-hours (i.e. leave in your garage overnight).



Remove the turkey from the brine and pat with paper towels until dry. Tie the legs together with cotton string. Lightly brush the turkey with vegetable oil, and place on a roasting rack set inside a heavy gauge foil pan. To collect drippings for making gravy, pour a little water into the foil pan and replenish as needed to keep drippings from burning. Remove pan from under turkey about 30-minutes before bird should be done and make gravy. Continue cooking turkey until done.( we stuff the turkey with 2-3 quartered apples which are discarded when we carve the bird - they keep the inside moist) Grill indirectly over medium heat. When the wings are golden brown, after about 40-minutes, wrap them with aluminum foil to keep them from burning. Brush the rest of the turkey with vegetable oil. When the turkey breast is golden brown (after about 1-hour) cover the turkey with aluminum foil to prevent the skin from getting too brown. The turkey is done when the juices run clear, the internal temperature of the thickest part of the thigh is 180 degrees F, and the internal temperature of the breast is 170 degrees F. Figure about 11 to 13-minutes per pound.



Transfer the turkey to a cutting board or platter, cover loosely with aluminum foil, and allow to rest for 20-minutes before carving. Makes 12 to 15 servings.

Perfect Piecrust

I use this recipe and one other [Vinegar Piecrust] whenever I need pastry, whether it's for Apple Pie, Chicken Pot Pie or Meat pies. It never lets me down. The trick is to mix it just until it holds together. Over-mixing makes any pastry tough. I usually have to use a little bit more ice water than called for, but I add it sparingly.....

Flaky Pastry for a Two Crust Pie

Mix 2 cups of flour with 1 tsp salt.

Cut in 3/4 cup shortening [I use Crisco]until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle 5-6 Tblsps cold water, a Tblsp at a time, into the mixture, stirring lightly with a fork until pastry is just moist enough to hold together. Shape into a slightly flattened ball and chill until needed.


For a One Crust Pie use 1 cup of flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 cup plus 2 Tblsps shortening, 2-3 Tblsps ice water and proceed as above.

Cake-n-Cheesecake

This is one of my all time favourite dessert recipes. Got it from a neighbour when we lived in Montana, waaaay back in the mid 1970s. So. Thirty plus years. And I've easily made it a minimum of six times each of those years......Giving us a total somewhere in the 200 cake range? It's simple to make and it's always a hit!

Read the recipe all the way through before you start.

Filling:

1 8 oz. pkg. of cream cheese
2/3 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs

Cream the cheese with the sugar.
Add sour cream and vanilla.
Blend in the eggs.
Mix well and set aside.

Cake

Sift together:

1 cup of flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

In a large bowl cream:

1/2 cup of butter with 2/3 cups of sugar.
Add 2 eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.
Add 1 Tbsp milk and 1 tsp vanilla.

Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture and blend well.

Turn into a greased 10" pie plate [I use Pyrex.]Spread batter evenly over the bottom and up the sides.

Pour the cheese mixture over the batter.
Bake at 325 degrees for 40-45 mins. until no longer jiggly in the center.
Cool on a wire rack. Top with strawberry glaze and chill until ready to serve.
Sometimes I skip the strawberry glaze. It's yummy all by itself! But for company it looks prettier with fruit on top....

Strawberry Glaze

You can keep this as simple as slicing strawberries and arranging them on top, if it's going to be served right away, and if your strawberries are nice and sweet. Or you can make a glaze from

2 cups of crushed or chopped berries
1/2 - 3/4 cup water
2 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch

Stir sugar and cornstarch together. Add water and berries. Cook and stir over medium heat until liquid thickens and becomes clear. Let cool slightly before pouring over the pie. Cool completely. After serving [if there's any left!] cover and refrigerate. As you can see from the picture, I wasn't quite fast enough with the camera....

Tea Scones

My recipe for these scones is on an ancient piece of lined copybook paper. It is worn thin with age, all brown-spotted and tattered, and I'm afraid, if I don't get it on the blog here soon, it may just get thin enough to disappear altogether! Don't count on these scones to make you, or any part of you, disappear though! With fully one and a half sticks of butter there's very little chance they'd help anyone lose weight! But it's okay to indulge once in a while!

3 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter [1 1/2 sticks or 6 oz.]
3/4 cup dark or yellow raisins, or currants, washed and dried
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup light cream


Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, baking soda and salt. Stir with a whisk to blend well.
Cut butter into flour mix with knives until it looks like coarse meal. I switch to a pastry cutter to finish the job.
Add raisins or currants.
Gradually add buttermilk, mixing only enough to wet the dry ingredients. If needed add a little more buttermilk until the ingredients hold together.
Turn out onto a well floured surface and pat gently [or use a rolling pin]to 1/2" thickness.
With a sharp floured knife cut into 2" -2 1/2" strips, then crosswise into squares.
Place on a buttered cookie sheet, leaving a little breathing room between!
Brush tops with cream and sprinkle with a little sugar.
Bake at 450 degrees F for 15-18 minutes, until golden .
Serve warm with more butter, jam, marmalade, cheese, or all by themselves! With a big cup of tea, of course.

Whenever my mother made scones she wouldn't let us eat them 'til they cooled off. "They'll sit like stones in your stomachs," was her rationale. What a waste! They're best eaten warm from the oven, though there's nothing wrong with toasting them next morning for breakfast-if they last that long.