Since we did the turkey number before my son flew to NYC for T-Day with his dad (long standing tradition), tomorrow will be a smoked picnic ham with sweet potatoes and fresh asparagus from shops. The butter for the sweet potatoes and asparagus from a shop. I have decided to adapt a pumpkin cheesecake recipe to become a sweet potato cheesecake and all ingredients are from shops. In fact there is darn little in my refrigerator or pantry that is not from shops

Several coups this week. We love Marzetti blue cheese salad dressings. They were BOGO this week with coupons on top of the bottles good for $1 off. These are a refrigerated dressing and there are now close to 20 bottles tucked away into the back of the back refrigerator with expiration dates 7/10. They had 8oz pkg of Philadelphia Cream Cheese at $1.29 and the flyers in the front of the store had $1 off coupons on a package. Lots of cream cheese in the back of the back refrigerator at 29 cents per 'brick'. I refilled my supply of Wishbone salad dressings on a BOGO at $2.79 for the two bottles with 2 $1 off coupons honored on each 'deal'. Sweet potatoes at 37 per lb, fresh asparagus at 1.69, smoked picnic at 99/lb. Broke my heart that I couldn't find coupons or sales on either graham crackers or graham cracker crusts to make cheesecakes

And then Friday will be shrimp & grits using the about 2 1/2# of sale shrimp bought 6 at a time (1/4#) as a seafood purchase requirement.

$100 worth of groceries purchased in the past 3 days that will be reimbursed plus my Discover Card will pay 5% on them as cashback. Vendor coupons used of over $100 on items attractive already at sale prices.

Hope you have lots of uses for for the blue cheese dressing! Do you plan menus around items only if on sale?

Dee, center store here is the non-perishables. The freezer cases are the last two-three aisles next to dairy.

We do a lot of salads all year round. They are a most frequent lunch. I just hardboiled some eggs because lunch tomorrow is likely to be a chef's salad with sliced deli meat (required purchase), cheese, hard boileds and blue cheese dressing. I'll check the garden in the morning and see if a tomato is ripe to throw in but we were a little too overcast today for any to be really ready. But I will probably snag a couple of young onions for a little green onion in the salad and the other half of the bell pepper from today's lunch will go in.

Sales, shops and menus certainly are related. If seafood had had scallops on sale this week we would be likely to be doing a scallop bake on Friday. It was shrimp, so our most frequent responses are scampi or shrimp & grits. There are two refrigerators in the house--the 'old' one in the garage and the 'new' one in the kitchen. Both freezers are reasonably stocked with the convergence of shop and sale so there is a nice variety of meats, poultry and seafood to choose amongst on any particular night for dinner. I am perfectly happy to restock the freezer and pantry with their 'loss leader' sales and not every series of shops has good 'loss leaders' in the meat department. And then there is the other balancing to do--we usually have dinner shops to be done about 10-12 nights per month.

Sweet Potato Cheesecake

3 pkg cream cheese (8 oz ea) at room temperature
2 small sweet potatoes
4 eggs
¼ c sour cream
1 ½ c Splenda or regular white sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 tablespoons all purpose four
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 off-the-shelf graham cracker crust pie shells

Preheat oven to 350

Cut several slits in the skin of the sweet potatoes so they won’t explode, wrap in a paper towel and microwave until soft. When cool enough to handle, strip off skin and puree. You should have around 12-15 oz of pulp. Add just enough water or milk for the potato to come together as a paste.

Beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sweet potato, eggs, sour cream, sugar and spices and blend to smooth. Add flour and vanilla and beat together until well combined. The mix will be fairly thick. Divide it evenly between the two crusts, smooth out evenly and bake. I found that at 50 minutes the filling was puffy and set and was just beginning to brown. It will settle as it cools.

Cool the cheesecakes on racks for 30-45 minutes, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least a few hours. Serve cool but not cold. There is a nice sweet potato flavor and the spices are definitely noticeable, so if you prefer, try ginger or allspice or cloves and of course adjust the amount of spices according to the freshness of your spices. I am thinking next time I will use a little rum extract instead of vanilla. But then again, I am one of those cooks who rarely fixes a dish the same way twice. There is always the, “Hmmm, I wonder how it would be with ___?”

Flash - your baked scallop recipe was yummy. So easy to put together. Except for the scallops, the ingredients are always in my kitchen. My husband enjoyed it. He typically wants seafood breaded and fried, and he doesn't like lemon with seafood. So it can be a challenge with him. This recipe hit the spot!

Thank you. Yes, it is one of those super simple concepts for seafood that can be taken a number of different directions. A number of years ago we went to Alaska on vacation and gave ourselves a couple of days before our small boat cruise started to go fishing. We were supposed to do a half day salmon fishing and a half day hailbut, but the salmon weren't 'running' so we just did halibut, pulling up medium size (40#) and monsters (180-200#) from about 400 foot depths. There was a limit of 2 per person to keep and the captain insisted that we keep the 40# ones, indicating that the fish over about 150# were not good eats. The fish were processed and shipped to us frozen so suddenly I was dealing with my freezer full of about 80# of Halibut. We quickly latched onto the Halibut Olympia recipe in its simplest form as absolutely the best way to do halibut, and if halibut was good that way, what else might work with similar treatment?

Dee, You asked "Does anyone have any killer Xmas cookie recipes that they wouldn't mind sharing? Tomorrow is baking day for me..."

Here's a link to cookie recipes with pictures and reviews. From 2009, I made Ina's Rugelachs. From 2008, I made Paula's Snowflake Cookies (fun to decorate) and Alton's Macaroons. I've made the Snowflake Cookies two years in a row. The three recipes I made are good, and the Snowflakes and Rugelachs can be changed up to your family's tastes.

[www.foodnetwork.com]

Your mention of Alton and foodnetwork reminds me of a spectacular recipe I got from him [www.foodnetwork.com] That will make at least one appearance on the table during the holidays

Edited to add: My killer cookies are oatmeal mincemeat bars that need at least two weeks to 'cure' and mellow before serving so wouldn't help for Christmas.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/2009 03:27AM by Flash.

Sound delish. Moist with levels of flavor? Mince isn't my favorite pie, but maybe in an oatmeal cookie. . .

They are good. They start off as layers and are not so good as the oatmeal is crumbly and the mincemeat a bit gooey when first baked. You wrap them individually in waxed paper and give them time for the moisture to distribute through. The oats become softened by the moisture of the mincemeat and the texture becomes a uniform bar.

Thanks for the recipes! :-)

I just bought my food for Christmas dinner today:
Fillet roast, sea scallops, manilla clams, green bean casserole, shallot scalloped potatoes, and fresh blueberry pie.

I guess it is just as well, for me, that I asked late, as we are a chocolate loving fam. Mincemeat reminds me of things I had to eat as a chld, and have never eaten since. But I thank you for sharing. Mert, I had already gone to the FN and many other urls and blogs, I was really looking for people's personal family recipes to add to my own collection. In the end, I decided to make what I usually make, as this is the ingredients I nave on hand, and nothing stirred me to run to the store. Yet. There is still time.

This evening I had the kids help me make Alton Brown's Pork Wellington from foodnetwork.com [www.foodnetwork.com] It is probably the best new-to-me recipe I have tried this year. Although the recipe looks long and convoluted, it really is quite fast and easy to prepare and is one of those knock your socks off meals.

Basic Egg Pasta
4 large eggs
1 T water
3 1/2 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt

You can work it together on a counter top but I usually fork mix the eggs and water in the mixing bowl, put in the flour and salt and use the dough hook for a couple of minutes to get it all mixed together and kneaded for a few minutes. The 'dough' should be crumbly but resist the temptation to add more water. Let it rest at room temperature for about 20 minutes (for the flour to hydrate) and then start working it. I have a pasta sheeter for my mixer so run chunks that have been pressed together and flattened slightly through that at its widest width several times until the dough turns into a pliable, uniform product. Then I keep narrowing the space between the rollers for a few passes through each width until I am down to the thin sheet I need. Although I have the angel hair and linguini cutter attachments, I don't bother making up pasta for those since I can get good dried ones from the store, cheap, often on sale and often with additional coupons.

I make a very thin sheet for tortellini and a somewhat thicker sheet for ravioli, lasagna etc. The recipe makes more than a pound of pasta so I usually cut it in half. For tortellini I use a biscuit cutter to make rounds from the pasta sheet (and can run the unused portions of the sheet back through the rollers for reuse).
Put a tiny bit of filling on each round as a mini lump. Dampen the edge half way around with a finger dipped in water and fold in half, pressing down on the edges to seal. With the little lump facing you, dampen one of the 'tips' of the half moon and pulling both tips forward over the lump, seal one tip to the other in a small overlap. Push the rounded sealed edge a little backwards and then it is decision time. These can be dried a little bit on wire racks and frozen or put on a lightly floured plate that is covered and refrigerated until meal time cooking.

Boil up a generous amount of salted water because you don't want to crowd them and pop in the tortellini. Fresh pasta cooks al dente in 2-5 minutes depending on thickness. A key is that when it is about done it floats. I usually leave even thin pasta for a minute or so after it is floating.

I assume you could get the same effect as pasta rollers with a rolling pin but I am too lazy to do that. I picked up my pasta rollers on a shop so had an initial 'subsidy' and there was a 20% mail in rebate offered by KitchenAid, which also helped subsidize it to less than I would have paid for a manual roller.

Nice! I've bought fresh pasta and it's certainly different from dried. I especially like the fresh fettuccine better - taste and texture. I'd have to put homemade pasta under the category of labor of love, or maybe therapeutic? Filled pasta, tortellini or ravioli, though has endless possibilities if made at home. Spinach and ricotta . . . crab and reggiano . . .

You forgot my fav-homemade potato gnocchi! :-)

But gnocchi is a whole different 'beast'. I was watching them be made on foodnetwork not too long ago. There is minimal kneading involved. The guy mixed together the ingredients, rolled out long snakes of the dough and chopped bite size pieces to throw into boiling water. I've also seen them where they just use spread fingers to form 3 balls at a time zipping down the rope.

And yes, pasta making is therapeutic It is definitely one of those things where you feel you are making 'something from nothing'.

Yes. I was referring to Mert's post rather than yours. It takes a LOT of experience to know the hand feel of the dough to make perfect gnocchi. Most are not even close, even in supposedly great restaurants.

This post was in response to HReid's ridiculous sniper rant. He has been deactivated and had his posts removed. As such, I deleted it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/2010 08:43AM by dee shops.

I make and freeze stock from bones and/or meat, beef or chicken, for soup, stew or gravy. But, how do I make a clear broth? I've strained through cheesecloth - doesn't work. It's still cloudy.

They generally suggest lining a strainer with several thicknesses of wet cheesecloth. I don't worry about it. Broth is generally 'clear enough' just by running it through the strainer and I'm probably going to add more stuff to it anyway.

What NOT to do . . .

The oranges on my trees are beginning to ripen (finally) so I thought tonight to do something with chicken and oranges. I made up a nice tart marinade with fresh squeezed orange juice from slightly under ripe oranges, honey, mustard, salt and pepper. Smelled great, popped in the chicken to marinade for an hour or so. I was going to broil the chicken and make rice. Decided the marinade smelled yummy enough it might make a pleasantly flavored rice, so I strained off most of it to use as the fluid for the rice.

YUCK! The chicken did not get enough flavor from the marinade and the rice got too much.

Mert, I do the following ( not too often but I do):
For every cup of stock use one egg shell and one egg white, beat the egg white slighty and add both the broken shell and the whites to the broth, boil for 5 minutes, remove from heat and let stand 15 minutes, strain through a cheesecloth.
I hope that help.
Isabel
Enjoy Life

Wow, Izzy! Can't wait to try that. Thanks.

You are welcome Mert, your broth will be clean like water, my Italian grandma teached me to do that when I was 6 years old, she was blind and I was her helper in the kitchen, thanks to her I learned how to cook and bake, I make the best cinnamon rolls and pizza in town.
Isabel
Enjoy Life.

Now that you mentioned that Izzy, my grandmother used to do that, too. Live and learn why! Thank you.

So...the grocery chain that I shop quite a few times a month had me purchasing specific produce items throughout January as part of a test. Most of these items are things I would normally buy anyway, but one is just not part of my culinary repertoire:

Cilantro!

Anyone have ideas for what I can make with a lot of cilantro? My perishables drawer is overflowing with it.

I found a recipe for cilantro sauce than can go over pasta/fish/chicken, so I'm going to make some of that today, which will take 2 bunches. That leaves me 6 bunches to find a use for.

Cilantro is generally used in Italian and Mexican cooking but it can be used any time that fresh parsley is called for. We use little of it because my significant other doesn't like the flavor. I would suggest you nibble some cilantro to see if it is a flavor you like before making a sauce because some folks just don't like it. I personally like running my mini food processor with some olive oil, garlic, cilantro, salt & pepper and using it as a salad dressing on fresh sliced tomatoes.

Salsa - peach, citrus, tomato, black bean. Make and freeze. It's also good in a vinaigrette, or piccalilli.

Steve, this recipe is used in my old country (Argentina) and it is served with all kind of BBQ: beef, chicken and fish, you can use it before or after cook the meat, better before because give good flavor to the BBQ. Also I used the sauce on top of bruschettas with sun dry tomatoes and they are good, if you like it you can double the recipe and save in the fridge for several days.

Argentinian Chimichurri sauce:

2 large bunch of fresh cilantro (toss the stems
8 cloves of garlic, peeled
6 tablespoons minced onion
8 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
8 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon coarse salt or regular salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 to 1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil or canola oil

Chop up the cilantro a bit. This will make processing easier. Add cilantro and garlic to food processor and hit the pulse button a few times to mince. Add remaining ingredients and pulse some more. Slowly pour oil through the chute, while taping away on the pulse button. Pulse just enough to where everything is mixed properly.

If you like the fresh crisp flavor of cilantro, use immediately. Letting it rest overnight will balance out the flavors.

Isabel
Enjoy Life