Author: Sean

Gadabout, flaneur, dandy...
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Grandma Race’s Ginger Cookies

These cookies are hard to stop eating once you’ve started. You’ve been warned!

  • 1.5 c butter/shortening
  • 2 c brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 c molasses
  • 4.5 c flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 4 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp cloves
  • 2 tsp ginger
  • 2 tsp cinnamon

Roll into balls and roll in sugar. 375 for 10 – 12 min.

Avoid over baking!

Yum!

contributed by Katie Sloan

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Joy’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

350°F   12-15 minutes  10-12 dz.
  • 3 cubes, or 1½ cups butter, or margarine
  • 3 cups dark brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 Tbsp. maple extract
  • 2 Tbsp. vanilla extract
  • 6 cups oats, old fashioned
  • 2 cups white flour
  • 2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. soda
  • 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, or 1 large bag
  • 2 cups nuts, pecans and walnuts, in big chunks
Preheat oven. Beat together butter, sugar, eggs, maple and vanilla
until creamy.
Add oats, mix well before adding rest of ingredients. Add flour, salt and soda, mix well. Add chips and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto cookie sheet. Non-stick cookie sheet, don’t grease.
Can also use greased cookie sheet, or parchment paper.
For variety you can make bars, cook longer. Add raisins, or currants, or butterscotch chips, or chocolate chunks, or coconut, or salted peanuts. All of these variations taste good.
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Currant Cookies

Can’t claim this as original, it comes from the Sunmaid site, but I love them just the same!

These buttery-sweet sugar cookies are an old-fashioned treat. Toast the pecans for an extra nutty flavor; add lemon zest for a citrus note.

Ingredients

  • 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup Sun-Maid Zante Currants
  • 1 cup toasted chopped pecans
  • Zest of one lemon (optional)

Directions

PREHEAT oven to 350º F.

BEAT butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat well.

STIR together flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Gradually beat into butter mixture until well blended.

ADD currants, pecans and zest if using. Mix well.

DROP by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on a lightly buttered or parchment lined baking sheet.

BAKE 12-14 minutes until golden brown on edges. Remove with a spatula to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 3 dozen.

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Sweet and Sour Balti Chicken

Balti Chicken
Balti Chicken

This is a great, mildly spicy dish depending upon the close adherence to using LESS chili powder and mild Anaheim chiles. Stray away from this at the risk of your taste buds.

  • 3 tbsp. tomato paste
  • 2 tbsp Greek-style yogurt
  • 1.5 tsp. Garam Masala (a mix your can buy)
  • 1 tsp. chili powder (insane, use ONLY 1/4 tsp.)
  • 1 tsp. garlic pulp
  • 2 tbsp. mango chutney
  • 4 tbsp. oil
  • 1.5 lb. chicken
  • 2/3 cup water
  • 2 fresh green chilies, chopped (use Anaheims, mild enough to eat)
  • 2 tbsp. cilantro
  • 2 tbsp. light cream (use half and half)

Blend together the tomato puree, yogurt, garam masala, chili powder, garlic, mango chutney, salt in a medium mixing bowl.

Heat oil in a deep round bottomed frying pan (we use American wok, teflon w/ handle)

Add chicken pieces stir until coated; add water to thin the sauce slightly; continue cooking for 5 – 7 minutes or until chicken is tender (don’t overcook, undercook and let heat continue to cook, sauce super-retains heat).

Lower heat slightly and pour spice mix in bring to boil for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally (important to cook/meld flavors here)

Finally add the fresh chilies, cilantro and cream for a further 2 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

Serve with Basmati rice and naan if you can find it. Trader Joe’s has a great frozen naan that heats in your toaster oven.

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El Toro Bravo-style Roast Chicken

this is the chicken with the spice mix brushed on, on our vertical roaster the better to simulate the rotisserie at Toro Bravo

This is my experimental attempt to duplicate the recipe of my favorite Mexican-style roast chicken restaurant El Toro Bravo on 19th Street in Costa Mesa.

Latest ingredient list as of 2.3.13:

  • juice of one medium lemon, seeds removed
  • 2 tsp. ground garlic
  • 1 tsp. ground oregano
  • 2 tsp. pasilla chile powder
  • 1 tsp. paprika
  • 3 tsp. Chef Merito Sazonador para Carne
  • 1 tsp. salt

I brushed this on one large chicken and put it in at 350 degrees.

This is the spice paste/sauce that results from mixing all the ingredients.

Completed Chicken

My second attempt. Looking and tasting good. I feel like I need at minimum 3 attempts to get a recipe down.
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Daily Grill Turkey Meatloaf – made Healthy by Joy

Preheat Oven to 350° Loaf 1 hour, Mini Loafs 45 minutes 6 Servings

  • ½ cup onion, diced
  • ½ cup celery, diced
  • ½ cup carrots, diced
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 2 lbs. lean ground turkey, lean ground beef, or ½ turkey & ½ buffalo
  • Organic turkey and beef are preferable, buffalo is always organic.
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup Ezekiel toasted bread crumbs, or Genesis
  • (or 1 cup spinach, chopped, steamed, & drained)
  • 2 Tbsp. tomato puree
  • 1 tsp. Celtic salt
  • ¼ tsp. black pepper, or to taste
  • 3 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
  • ½ tsp. (1 tsp.) paprika
  • ½ tsp. (2 tsp.) fennel seeds, ground
  • 1 Tbsp. (2 Tbsp.) Worcestershire sauce

Optional:

  • 2 Tbsp. toasted seseme seeds, ground
  • 2 Tbsp. flax Seeds, ground

In a coffee grinder, I grind: fennel seeds, seseme seeds, and flax seeds together.

In a large bowl mix vegetables with the meat, and bread crumbs. Add everything together: Best mixed together in blender: eggs, tomato puree, salt, pepper, mustard, paprika, fennel, (other seeds if adding),

Worcestershire sauce. I put on gloves and mix it by hand, much easier to get a good mixture than with a spoon.

Pack into an 8”-9” Loaf pan, or 3-4 mini loaf pans. Great for putting into freezer for future meals.

Serve with tomato sauce, or organic pasta sauce, heated.

6 servings, each contain about: 300 calories, or less, 10 gm. fat,12 gm. carbohydrate, 36 gm. protein, 2 gm. fiber.

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Organic Kale Salad

Harvest Sensations from Mother’s Market
With the refrigerated salad greens

It already has the kale, red cabbage and carrots in the package

It comes in 8 oz. or 1 lb. packages

Follow recipe on back

Options I used: 3-6 Stevia drops, instead of sugar

Both black and white sesame seeds

¼ – 1/2 cup  Toasted slivered almonds
(depending on size of package you are using)

Directions that aren’t in the recipe: cut the kale in smaller pieces with kitchen shears, add the almonds and sesame seeds in the kale while hot, it helps the kale absorb the dressing better. Do this before adding the dressing.

Mix the olive oil, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil (use the chinese kind),
Stevia (or sugar),  and pepper.

If using seasoned rice wine vinegar, don’t add any salt until you get the dressing mixed, then be very light on salt, or none.

Making the salad a few hours, or a day ahead, is even better.

Options by: Joy Sloan

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Indian Spice Rub for Chicken

Click for larger image!

1-1/2 lbs. fresh chicken, rinsed and dried
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon sugar

  • I wash and dry the chicken so that it is room temperature and the skin is not too wet.
  • I double the recipe because we almost always make more chicken for future meals and it reheats very nicely
  • ***Note: original recipe calls for 1 tsp. cayenne. That amount of cayenne/chili will be WAY TOO MUCH. I use a solid 1/4 tsp. when I double the recipe and DJ can still eat it and he is only just getting used to spicy food.
  • I add a small amount of sugar, like half the amount of a single spice so if you’re double the recipe I would add 1 tsp. of sugar. It makes the spice rub become a little like a glaze and its not too sweet.
  • I start the oven at 400 degrees and then at 20 minutes I turn it down to 350 for the last 10 minutes. I don’t know what I’m doing, actually, but I tell myself that I’m, at first, searing/sealing in the juices and, secondly, then not drying it out by cooking too long.
  • We like to use this recipe on chicken wings: they are cheap and yummy. Enjoy yourselves!

The original recipe/instructions came from here: http://www.indiasnacks.com/recipe/811/Tandoori-Spice-Rub.php

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Transylvanian Goulash or Szekely Gulyas

1” chunks of pork shoulder
brown in bacon fat a few at a time so that they fry and not steam
place cooked pieces in another dish
saute onions, bell peppers, add garlic last
add the meat back in, cover with paprika
add a can of sauerkraut with half the liquid drained out
add ½” of water to bottom of the pan
add 2 bay leaves, pepper corns, pinch caraway (not too much) and dill weed and salt
simmer, place in oven at 350 degrees until meat is tender then it is done
serve with boiled potatoes and a dash of sour cream