Pineapple-Sage and Green Onion Cheese Ball

Is there anyone that doesn’t love a good cheese ball? In my family, every New Years Eve found us with a counter full of chips, chocolates, Christmas cookies, pretzels, dips…and a cheese ball. Always a cheese ball. They were those yellow ones, covered in slivered almonds.

 

Those are tasty, of course, and will always hold a special place in my heart, but now that I have made my own a few times…I don’t think there’s any going back.

 

I started out in the garden, where I have a rather robust Pineapple Sage plant. I had never heard of Pineapple Sage before this year, but it’s exactly what it sounds like. A sage plant with emerald leaves…that taste like pineapple.

After that, I took a few hints from a recipe I found in a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Some cream cheese, some butter, handfuls of a shredded cheddar and Monterey mix, plus some green onions from my windowsill.

I wrapped the whole thing in plastic wrap and left it in a round bowl overnight to cure in the refrigerator.

In the morning, it got a good roll around in chopped toasted pecans and more chopped pineapple sage.

It was quite a hit!

   

Aunt LoLo’s Pineapple Sage and Green Onion Cheese Ball

Makes one large cheese ball, appropriate for a large party. Recipe can be adapted to your tastes, and the size of your group.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine:

 

16 oz. cream cheese, softened

4 oz. butter, softened

2 c. mixed shredded cheese

2 T. milk

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. cracked pepper

1/4 cup snipped green onions

1/4 cup chopped pineapple-sage

 

Mix with the paddle attachment until the ingredients are well combined.  Line a bowl with plastic wrap, letting it hang over the edges of the bowl, and press your cheese mixture in. Wrap your overhanging wrap over the cheese and press. Leave the cheese ball in the refrigerator overnight to cure.

 

On the day of the party, unmold your cheese ball and cover with:

 

Toasted, chopped pecans and extra pineapple sage

 

Serve with crackers.

Cold Marinated Artichoke Heart Dip

I made up this recipe for a baby shower recently. I wanted the flavor of marinated artichoke hearts, but didn’t have a way to conveniently fuss with a hot dip. All of the recipes I could find were for hot dip and, although it is one of my favorite things in the world, I just didn’t have a way to do it for this party.

 

Enter…the food processor. Enjoy!

Aunt LoLo’s Cold Marinated Artichoke Heart Dip

In the bowl of a food processor, fitted with a blade, combine:

2 cups mayonnaise

16 marinated artichoke heart quarters

 

Pulse or blend until the artichokes are finely chopped and the mixture looks dip-able. Season with salt and fresh-ground black pepper to taste.

 

Remove the dip to a bowl with a lid (preferably a non-plastic one, so it doesn’t leave its scent behind) and refrigerate overnight for best flavor.

 

Best served ice cold. (It just tastes better. Go figure!)

 

Tastes great with veggies or crackers.

Best Sugar Cookies INTHEWORLD!

These are the best sugar cookies in the world, with a big bowl of cream cheese frosting.

The kidlets like them with sprinkles.

Or you can take the more classical approach.

 

These cookies are soft. They melt in your mouth. They’re delicious. I’m embarrassed to say it, but they taste just like the Lofthouse cookies that you can find in nearly any Pacific Northwest grocery store bakery. (Except, of course, that they aren’t full of preservatives and can’t be kept at room temperature for up to three weeks before they start to suffer.) That, to me, is the highest compliment I can give a sugar cookie. I adore Lofthouse cookies.

When I was in high school, one of my youth leaders at church made incredible cookies. They were so good, in fact, they could even lure my usually shy mother away from her home, and caring for my three younger siblings, and into various church functions.

 

As one particular function was approaching (Young Women in Excellence), this youth leader and I were given charge of organizing an edible favor for the other young women, and their parents. Since Karen, the leader, made such delicious cookies, my mother suggested (begged?) that I suggest those as favors. And that I ought to help with the prep. And take notes.

 

With Karen’s permission, I did take notes. Our baking day still stands out vividly in my mind. It was during our Christmas break, and we had quite a snowstorm. At 11 am, there was still a foot of snow on the ground, and a good six inches of slush in the roads. (If you know Seattle, you know that is odd.)  I carefully picked my way through the slippery slush, walking the four blocks to Karen’s house. I can still remember how impressed I was with her efficient kitchen. She had a pantry in the hall, just outside of the kitchen, with pre-cut sheets of parchment paper. It blew my mind, at the time, seeing a kitchen that was so specialized for one branch of the culinary arts. In fact, it might have been her that first gave me the notion that every kitchen should have  a cookie jar, and every week should find the cookie jar replenished.

 

I recently threw a baby shower for a friend at church, and made the cookies for the first time in nearly 15 years. I had never attempted to make them myself. Even though I had the recipe, I never found a reason to use it. These are not cookie-jar cookies, and most parties around here call for cupcakes, not decorated cookies.

 

My first attempt (a double batch) was tasty, but my technique was off. Obviously, my note-taking skills were a little off. I didn’t watch the order of the ingredients, or the mixing going on between adding ingredients to the bowl!

 

I tried again, another double batch, and made nearly perfect cookies. (The original cookies included almond flavoring, instead of vanilla. If I can get my hands on some good quality almond flavor, then I’ll be in business!)

 

One more note – most sugar cookie doughs are refrigerated before they can be rolled or cut. This dough does not need to be refrigerated. This is a major plus, since these cookies can go from cupboard to oven in about 15 minutes. They can be frosted as soon as the cookies are cool.

Best Sugar Cookies in the World

Adapted from Karen Palmer’s recipe

If rolled out 1/4” thick, this makes 14 large cookies. The recipe can be doubled, or tripled.

 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Crisco

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla or almond flavoring

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 1/2 cups flour, divided

 

Preheat the oven to 400 and prep two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

 

Cream together:

3/4 cup Crisco

1 cup white sugar

 

With the mixer on medium low, add:

2 eggs, one at a time

1 tsp. vanilla or almond flavoring

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

 

When everything is uniformly mixed in, add :

two cups of flour 

Mix just until flour is incorporated evenly.

 

Place a cup with 1/2 cup flour in it next to your workspace, and then sprinkle your workspace liberally. Turn out the dough and carefully roll it out. You want it thick, 1/4-1/2 inch.  Cut out your cookies and carefully remove to a prepared baking sheet. (I used a flat metal spatula for this, and cut out my cookies with a 3” biscuit cutter.)

 

Bake for 8-9 minutes, but check them often through the glass after 6. As soon as the bottom edges begin to turn golden, you want to take the cookies out of the oven.

 

While the cookies are baking, gently re-form and re-roll the remaining dough. Make sure you sprinkle your workspace with flour again. Cut out cookies and repeat above process. On your second cookie sheet. (It is important that you use at least two cookie sheets, since the sheets need to be COOL when the cookies are placed on them.)

 

(The original recipe indicates that dough should ONLY be rolled out twice. I rolled mine out three or four times. The third time was OK. The fourth time, and the cookie I made from patting together the resulting scraps, were perfect warm out of the oven. They didn’t make it further than that, but I imagine they’d be a bit tougher.)

 

Allow to cool on the baking sheet for one minute, and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

 

Icing: (makes enough to ice 4 dozen cookies)

In an electric mixer, combine:

6 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup corn syrup

3 T. butter, softened

1/2 cup water

1 tsp. vanilla

 

Beat until smooth, and add dye as desired.

 

This makes a thick icing, suitable for spreading with a spatula but perhaps not still enough for intricate piping. It stays quite soft, and so is not really appropriate for individually wrapped cookies, and the cookies should NOT be stacked without waxed paper between them.

Creamed Tuna with Peas

When I was a little girl, I adored something called Tuna Wiggle. (I think it could also be called Tuna Noodle Casserole, but I had my trusty little Klutz cookbook, and they called it Tuna Wiggle. So…Tuna Wiggle it is.)

Tuna Wiggle was one of the first things I learned to cook. It usually came in the form of Creamed Tuna on Toast. This was even easier to make, and the recipe went something like this: In a medium saucepan, combine one can cream of mushroom soup, one drained can of tuna, one 1 lb. bag of frozen peas. Add a little milk if it’s too thick. Serve it on toast, and eat with a knife and fork.

 

As tasty as that was, when I was craving something creamy and warm and tuna-ish the other day, I knew I could do better. (Besides, I had not one can of cream of anything in the pantry.)

 

And I think I’ve done it. It starts with a basic white sauce, using the recipe that my father taught me. He, in turn, learned it from his grandmother. Add to that a can of your favorite tuna, as many frozen peas as you like, and a few generous handfuls of cheese, and you have a delicious and grown-up version of a childhood favorite!

 

We served this over rice because I’d been craving some creamy, cheesy casserole-type rice, but it would be equally delicious over noodles, toast or quinoa!

 

(Ok, so nothing’s different from the original recipe except that I used a homemade cheese sauce instead of the canned cream of mushroom soup. Still, it’s something that I don’t keep in the pantry anymore. If you do…well, then, follow the recipe above.)

Creamed Tuna with Peas

Ingredients:

2 T. butter

4 T.  flour

2 cup milk

2 cups grated cheese

1 pound frozen peas

1 can tuna, drained

salt and pepper, to taste

 

In a skillet, melt your butter. When it is good and melted, add your flour and stir it up. Cook this for 2-3 minutes to make sure your finished product doesn’t have a Raw Flour Taste. (Not good, my friends!) Pull out your milk jug and add milk, a little at a time, whisking as you go to make sure you don’t get any lumps. Continue to stir in milk, whisking like mad, until you get the consistency that you want. (2 cups is really an approximation. I usually just pull out the jug, and keep adding milk until it looks right.) As the sauce continues to cook, it will thicken, so this whole process will take a few minutes.

 

Once your sauce is to the consistency that you like, it’s time to add your peas and tuna. When the peas are cooked through, then it is time to add the cheese. Make sure it doesn’t boil after this point, because the sauce will revolt and leave you with…something not great. (I’m not sure what will happen. This fact was so drilled into me as a child, I’ve never let it boil! I think the cheese will cook and fall apart, leaving chunky, oily sauce.) Season with salt and pepper, and you’re golden!

Serve over rice, noodles, quinoa, boiled wheat or anything else that would benefit from a creamy, lovely sauce!

Fresh Tomato Sauce

Made a quick tomato sauce for dinner tonight from our blemished tomatoes- it was done by the time the pasta was pulled out of the pot, and killed a big pile of ugly roma and early girl tomaters. PLUS, it was delicious, if a bit runny. My dried spices are getting a bit low- I would have added basil if it were available, but neither cupboard nor garden is abundant in basil right now!

The amounts are approximate.

2 pounds slicing tomatoes (10-15 small tomatoes)
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried oregano

Heat oil in a skillet, and add minced garlic. Cook until fragrant, and add chopped tomatoes. Add remaining ingredients, cover, and let simmer. Taste for seasoning. Smash a bit if you like.

A Birthday Carrot Cake!

 

I have been drawn to the kitchen nearly all my life. When I was 5, my mother (bed-ridden with a pregnancy) would send me downstairs to make her a sandwich for lunch. When I was 9, my father took my twin sister and I into the kitchen and taught us how to read a recipe.

 

There were several years following this momentous occasion where….Interesting Dinners resulted from our novice attempts at cooking. One particular meatloaf stands out in my mind. The recipe called for breadcrumbs, and dehydrated onions. The recipe helpfully suggested that if you did not have any breadcrumbs, you could toast bread and break it up. Having never seen breadcrumbs, per-say, I took the second option. And broke it up into one inch chunks. Then, tackling the onion problem…I looked through the spice cupboard, checking every ingredient label as I went. Finally, I found something that had onions in it – Onion Powder! So I put in three tablespoons of that.

 

The resulting meatloaf looked like brain (from the bread “crumbs”) and tasted like pure onion. It took me a long time to live down that onion loaf….

 

The other thing I could not get right was cake. I tried one, from the same cookbook, and it came out looking (and feeling) like a golden, buttery brick.

 

My father told me to chalk it up to experience…and that I had just re-invented the Pound Cake.

 

Needless to say, with the many other options available to me in the kitchen, it has taken me a long time to return to cake making. If I can get perfect results with Betty Crocker and an egg….who am I to mess with perfection!

 

My friends, it has taken me over 15 years…but I have finally found a few cakes that I can (successfully!) turn out for parties, celebrations and the like. The first is Pioneer Woman’s Chocolate Sheet Cake, with a few modifications. (I like to throw in a few dashes of Saigon Cinnamon now, to kick it up a bit. Mmm.)

 

The other cake I can successfully turn out?

 

Dorie Greenspan’s Carrot Cake. I first used it to cater a wedding luncheon this summer, and have since used it to celebrate two birthdays. It’s a hit. Nothing very unique about it…except that it turns out exactly how a carrot cake should be – not too sweet, not too spicy, and never dry. Just…perfect. 

 

Bill’s Big Carrot Cake

(adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan)

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. ground cinnamon (I use Saigon cinnamon. It tastes like red-hots.)

3/4 tsp. salt

3 cups grated carrots (approximately 9 carrots) (a food processor makes this really quick!)

1/2 cup moist raisins, or dried cranberries (both are good!)

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

4 large eggs

(The original recipe also includes nuts and coconut, but we don’t like nuts in cakes, and I never have coconut on hand. So…there ya go.)

 

Preheat your oven to 325 and prepare your pans. I like to use 2 9” pans, or make cupcakes. (Depending on the size of your cupcakes, this can make anywhere from 12-24.) You can also use 3 9” pans for more frosting-space, but I only have two. Spray well with cooking spray, or smear with butter, and flour liberally. Set aside.

 

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a small bowl, stir together the carrots and raisins or cranberries.

 

Using a stand mixer, with your paddle attachment, beat together the sugar and the oil, on medium speed, until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, and keep on beating until the batter is even more smooth. Take the speed down to low and add in the flour mixture until just mixed. Carefully mix in the chunky stuff, and divide the batter into your prepared pans.

 

Bake for 40 minutes, or until the cake just begins to pull back from the edges of the pan and a toothpick stuck into the middle comes out batter-free.

 

Cool the cakes for 5 minutes on a cooling rack, then run a small flexible rubber scraper around the outside and turn the cakes out onto racks to cool.

 

(The cakes can be wrapped up once they’re cool and kept at room temperature overnight, or in the freezer for two months.)

 

Frosting:

(This is a pretty generic Cream Cheese frosting, and easy to dress up)

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese

1 stick (8 Tbsp.) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 pound (3 3/4 cup) powdered sugar, sifted

Flavoring (1 Tbsp. lemon juice, 1/2 tsp. pure extract, 1 tsp. vanilla, etc.)

 

Beat the cream cheese and butter together, in a stand mixer (with the paddle attachment) until creamy. Carefully add the powdered sugar and mix until it is smooth. Gradually add in your flavoring, adjusting to taste.

 

Now go forth and build the Carrot Cake of your dreams! This really does make excellent little cupcakes, or a rather elegant (and easy!) birthday cake.

 

(Another excellent quality of this cake is that, if you were to leave a few cupcakes un-frosted, you now have an excellent dairy-free dessert for any lactose intolerant nieces that might be lurking around your kitchen!)

Review: Mallard Ice Cream, Bellingham WA

(Two scoops of Lavender Chocolate ice cream)

Oh, my friends. I have a problem. A few weeks ago, we took a (very tasty) trip to Richmond, BC. On the way home, my devious Sister in Law and I snatched the GPS away from my husband (the driver) and programmed in a short pit-stop. In Bellingham, WA.

 

Now, there’s nothing in Bellingham, except for Western Washington University…and Mallard Ice Cream.

 

This wouldn’t be a problem, except that now that I’ve tasted the best ice cream in the world…I can’t possibly be expected to ever buy a carton of ice cream from the grocery store again!

 

In a stroke of genius, I sent in the (now thoroughly disgruntled) driver and his sister to pick out two bowls of ice cream for the four adults in the car to share. I volunteered to stay behind with the sleeping babies. (The remaining adult, my Father in Law, quickly abandoned ship when he realized he would be stuck in a warm car with just sleeping babies to look at.)

 

My husband, Lo Gung, came back changed. He was ranting and raving like a man possessed. Basil Raspberry! Vanilla and Black Pepper! Lavender and Coconut!

 

Mallard Ice Cream, supposedly, has over 500 flavors under its belt, but only 30 (or so) are for sale on any given day. They will happily give you a spoonful of this, or of that, for as long as it takes you to make up your mind…and even have a special scoop for “undecideds” – Half this, and half that!

We ended up with two bowls. One Lavender and Chocolate Chunk and the other Coconut Chocolate Chunk.

 

Both? Were out of this world amazing.

 

Which is why I can’t bring myself to buy ice cream anymore. *sigh*

 

If you ever find yourself on I-5, in Northern Washington State, make sure to stop by Mallard Ice Cream! You’ll be glad you did!