Snap Peas on Sunday

It's potluck Sunday again! My favorite place to try out new recipes. My favorite place to cook recipes too big for our little two-person family. And my favorite place to make things my Man doesn't like to eat. Today was a day for the latter. Onion Pie, and from my dearly loved friend of Good Cookie fame, Sugar Snap Peas:

3 slices of bacon in 1/2" pieces
1 small onion, chopped
1 lb sugar snap peas
1/2 c. water

Cook bacon until crisp, remove from pan. Cook onion 3 minutes, or until just tender. Add peas and water to the pan. Cover and cook 5 minutes. Uncover and allow liquid to cook away. Add bacon back to pan and remove from heat.

Simple, and another YUM-YES!

A Juneuary Day, Sausage and Vegetable Linguini, and Good Cookies

I love those few-and-far-between stay-at-home days. They are oh-so-rare in the busy running of a life with no margin...!

We have been in winter's icy hand the last week or so...well, the Texas version, anyway...but today it took a break and we had a perfect spring day. June in January. It was a bit windy, no big deal for this Azore-raised girl, and a generally lovely day, even if one's tastes run to autumn.

D is here, along with the little girls, which always makes the most mundane the most exciting, as in "By myself it I would manage to get this done in 30 minutes, but with your help I can do it in three hours!" Cooking for instance. We did a lot of it today, crockpots, stovetop, and oven, all of which kept the kitchen nice and warm. A little too warm at times for this Juneuary day.
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For lunch we had one of our all-time favorites, Sausage and Vegetable Linguini:

l lb. sausage, sliced
5 bell peppers, cut into strips
1 3-oz can of black olives, sliced
1 small bag of frozen peas
4-5 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 8-oz pkg linguini
1 c. Italian salad dressing
pinch of garlic
pinch of oregano

Cook pasta in one pot. In another pan saute sausage and veggies. Mix everything together. Serve hot or cold.

That's how the recipe reads. As usual, we change whatever we want. Fewer bell peppers, leave out the peas, more olives, spaghetti instead of linguini (are they really any different?!), whatever looks right that day.

Plain and simple, and GOOD! Eat it now, eat it later, hot, cold, part of a meal, or all by itself...YUM-YES!!!
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And a recipe from my sorely missed bff Jo, Good Cookies:

2 chocolate cake mixes
1 brownie mix
3 eggs
3/4 c. oil
3/4 c. water
lots of options: chocolate chips, peppermint chips, crushed peppermint candy...

Mix everything together. This will be STIFF! You may want to get the he-man in your life to stir it up for you. Drop on the cookie sheet and bake at 350 till done (you're on your own for how long). You can refrigerate or freeze some of the dough for later, or, if you are cooking for the Army, as we were today, go ahead and cook the whole thing.

This isn't exactly a healthy recipe, but it makes a TON, and they are tasty, if you don't eat too many. You will have enough to pack up a box for the cadets at West Point, take to the neighbors, share with a friend, and still have some left for the little girls to smear all over their faces (and possibly other places). Nothing shabby about that!

Pie Party!

My friend Li had this great idea for a Pie Party! So tomorrow it is. Everyone is bringing their favorite pie, or at least a pie of some kind. I usually like to experiment on groups of friends, but I am afraid of too many desserts, so I am bringing an old family favorite:
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Chicken Pie
chicken~whatever looks right
onions~little pearl onions are wonderful, but any kind will do
2 julienned carrots
1 c. peas
1 c. white wine
2 c. water or chicken broth
1/4 c. butter
1/3 c. flour
salt
pie crust

Cook chicken, onions, carrots, and peas in 2 c. simmering salted water or broth and wine until tender. Drain and set aside.

In large skillet, melt butter. Blend in flour and salt to taste. Add broth all at once. Cook and stir till thick and bubbly. Stir in chicken and veggies, and pour into casserole dish. Put pie crust on top, and you can put one on the bottom, too. If you want to make your own pie crust, you're on your own. Otherwise, use one of those pre-made ones, and if you're like me, not so crazy about those, well, forget about the crust. This stuff is perfectly good without it! Bake in 375 oven for 30 minutes.
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P.S. A whisk is wonderful for that "cook and stir" part. I don't know why, but my mom never had one when I was growing up, so I never made its acquaintance until I had my own kitchen. My advice: If you don't have one, get one!

TA-DA! Another YUM-YES!

Cassoulet

This is the perfect Winnie-the-Pooh blustery day recipe! Looks like a lot of work, but what it is is a lot of ingredients. Really, hardly any work at all. Well, if you have a decent can opener, that is.
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Cassoulet
1 lb Polish or smoked sausage, diagonally sliced into 1-inch pieces
1 15-oz can great northern beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can tomato sauce
2 med carrots, cut lengthwise in half, then sliced thin
2 small parsnips, cut lengthwise in half, then sliced thin
1 rib celery, sliced on the diagonal
1 med onion, sliced and separated into rings
1 T honey
1 c broth
1/2 c wine
2 T fresh thyme OR 1 t dried leaves
2-4 garlic cloves, pressed

Put everything in the crockpot. Cook all day. How much easier can it be?
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A couple of observations:

• It makes enough for the Army. However, it freezes very well, and if you aren't feeding the Army and are so inclined, you can freeze it in one-serving portions. That way you will have to cook only once all winter, and there's a lot to be said for that.
  
• It is ok to experiment! Use what you have in your hand. *Somebody* invented this recipe. Might as well be you.
• If you don't have carrots, try a sweet potato. If parsnips are unfindable at your store, use a turnip. You could probably even use white potatoes, although I'm not sure I would go that far. Ssshhhh, don't tell anyone, but...I am about tired of potatoes. That is practically sacrilegious in this family.
• This recipe is actually my tweaked version. The original calls for 1 15-oz can of crushed tomatoes and 2 T of tomato paste. I can't stand chunky tomatoes floating around in my soup, and what do I do with the rest of the can of tomato paste besides wait for it to spoil in my refrigerator so I can throw it away? So...tomato sauce. The whole can.
• I'm not a big fan of refined sugar, so the 1 T honey is my response to the 2 T packed brown sugar in the original. There are those who believe that honey = sugar, but I am not one of them. I figure that as the only food for one of the hardest-working creatures in nature, honey has to have something better going for it.
• Broth? Use chicken or beef, or even veggie. Whatever you have on hand.
• Wine? Red, white, burgundy. Your choice.
• Don't be afraid to add last night's leftover roast chicken along with the sausage. Or instead of the sausage.
  
• And when it comes to garlic, go for the max. Or more!
• One more thing: the recipe really says: Mix all ingredients in a large, heavy, lidded pot. Bring stew up to a simmer on top of the stove; cover and transfer to 375-degree oven for one hour. Forget the heck out of that. Give me my good old crockpot any day!
• Oh, and serve with crusty French bread.
  

This stuff is soooo good, even those who shall remain nameless like it, and that is definitely a compliment.

YUM-YES, as the Princess would say. This is just GOOD. Try it!

Eggplant Casserole

Fresh from the farm:
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Eggplant Casserole
eggplants (I used the skinny little Japanese ones)
flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
olive oil
some onion, sliced
some bell pepper, sliced
more olive oil
salt/pepper to taste
minced garlic (recipe says optional, but I say garlic a must)
bread crumbs
Parmesan cheese
butter

Slice the eggplant about 1/2" thick. Dip slices into flour and saute in some olive oil until almost tender. Arrange half of the eggplant in a greased casserole dish. Then add half of the onion and half of the pepper on top. Season with salt and pepper and garlic and then drizzle with olive oil. Repeat the layers. Mix the bread crumbs and the Parmesan cheese together and sprinkle this over the top. Dot with butter. Bake at 350 till done. Original recipe says 4 minutes, but I'm thinking more like 40...
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Voila'! Another potluck hit!

Onion Pie

YUM! I think onions might be my very favorite food, and Onion Pie is one of my very favorite recipes.

I love pot luck dinner after church on Sundays. It is the all-around perfect opportunity to try out a dubious recipe on a crowd of willing tasters. The tasters get to try something new, and if it isn't any good, the cook (and her family) aren't committed to eating it for the rest of the week. So it's my big chance to try out a recipe I'm not too sure about, without any repercussions.
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Onion Pie
onions, sliced, lots
cheese, grated, some
pepper, as you like it
1/4 c. milk
double pie crust

Preheat oven to 400. Put one crust in deep dish pie plate. Fill pie crust halfway with sliced onions. Top with a layer of grated cheese. Sprinkle pepper to taste. Fill up crust to the top. Top with more grated cheese. Pour milk all over pie filling. Put other crust on pie. Pinch edges closed and poke holes in the top. Bake 40-45 minutes. That's it.
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This definitely fell in the category of "recipes I might not be too sure about," but...it's easy, and it has lots of onions, and in my book, that's enough to make it good. Not everyone around here subscribes to that philosophy though, and lots of them wouldn't even want to try it. Well, to be honest none of them would try it.

So I made it for potluck one Sunday, and it was the Belle of the Ball! I had the happiest of surprises to discover how many closet onion-lovers are out there. I took my dish home empty of every last crumb, and it is now a staple on the monthly pot luck menu.

And did I mention, the first time I brought it, in addition to being just plain GOOD, it provided some seriously funny moments masquerading as an apple pie on the dessert table!