Citrus Grilled Pork Tenderloin ~ page 178

Carissa has served me this grilled pork loin a few times, but this was my first time to make it myself.  It was hard to believe it would cook as fast as she says in the recipe, but actually, it cooked even faster! It was past the recommended temperature before I noticed. But I guess it was not too far gone, as it was still tender and delicious.

 I put the pork tenderloin in the marinade before I went out the door to go shopping for several hours.

The marinade was fast and easy to put together, because I have a HUGE rosemary bush at the edge of my patio. It is so nice to have fresh herbs always available. I highly recommend planting a rosemary bush. (And don't worry--it is very easy to grow and needs no special care at all.) Many of our recipes use fresh rosemary.

When I got home from shopping, I just heated the grill, and put my tenderloin on. Oh, I did have a surprise in that after it marinaded, it split--seems I had 2 tenderloins in one--which is probably why it cooked so fast. So we ate one, and put the other in the freezer to save for the Pork Curry in a Hurry (pg 182).

Chicken Focaccia Sandwiches ~ page 64

My family is temporarily living in a small 2 bedroom apartment for 5 months while my husband is stationed in a different city for "temporary duty". We brought the minimum when it came to everything, so we're working with all kitchen supplies that were available from the family services loan locker on base. My main concern with lacking kitchen supplies was that I wanted to make sure I was still able to make most of the recipes in this cookbook, since it is the ONLY cookbook I brought with me. I am pleased to announced that it hasn't hindered me yet.

This recipe was great! I actually modified it just by toasting it in the the (borrowed) George Foreman grill to make it into a panini. I was very pleased with the results. I also added avacado the 2nd time I made it and I loved it even more, but I've yet to find a recipe that avacado doesn't improve. :-)

I will miss my kitchen aid mixer (among many other things), but I did manage to fit my fancy blender into the back of the van. I'm so glad I did! I knew I would need it to make baby food and many of your delicious sauces and dressings in the cookbook.

Here is what my red pepper sauce looked like:

New Recipe: Swedish Oven Pancake ~ Ugnspannkaka

I flipped through the cookbook the other day to make my Swedish Oven Pancake--and to my dismay, I realized it is not in the cookbook! I couldn't believe I forgot such a beloved recipe. Swedish Oven Pancake is my favorite easy company breakfast. This will go in the next cookbook for sure, but for now, you can find the instructions and lots of pictures under the New Recipe tab at the top of the blog. I guarantee you will love this recipe! ~Janice

Kolaches from Homemade Bread Bowls for Soup Recipe ~ page 281

Just recently, we discovered that our recipe for Bread Bowls, is also a good bread recipe for Kalaches. I make these every time my grandkids come to my house, because they all love to either help, watch, or eat them. And, it is a tidy breakfast or snack for them--and grandmother likes tidy food!

Evelyn tested the dough after we got it mixed up and ready to rise for an hour. 

I use the little smokies sausages, also called cocktail sausage. They are not greasy, and it is a nice small size for kids. Either the beef or the turkey smokies work well. I have also tried adding chopped jalapeños and a little hunk of cheddar cheese along with the sausage. It is slightly harder to roll up, but the men sure like the spicy, cheesy ones. 

Evelyn was my helper for this batch made with turkey smokies.

She did taste a few.

It kind of became a play-dough situation...

What you want to do though, is roll up large walnut size balls of dough, then flatten them a bit, add a sausage, then pull the sides up over the sausage and pinch them to seal the little guy inside. 

Kalaches are wonderful right out of the oven or refrigerated and heated up later. They freeze just fine. 

Chicken Spaghetti ~ page 125

I made this recipe last week. I don't normally use the word "yummy"...but it is the best word to describe this dish! Ummm...it really is very yummy! There are a few steps in preparation, but overall, this is very simple to prepare.

I used American cheese rather than Velveeta. It works pretty much the same...nice and creamy when melted.

A whole grain pasta works well in this recipe--you won't notice the difference. I didn't have a bell pepper as called for, but I had fresh mushrooms, so used those instead.

Rotisserie chicken makes this dish so easy. I buy them two at a time, and keep some deboned meat in my freezer all the time.

Just dump everything together, after sauteeing the vegetables.

The mixing gets a bit difficult once you add the spaghetti. I even broke my wooden spatula trying to mix this...so I changed to a stronger hard plastic spatula.

But actually, what works the best is two forks...

This recipe makes a lot. One casserole was for lunch, and the other went into the freezer. I sprinkled red pepper on my casserole to bump up the spice a little. On the one headed for the freezer, I used paprika on the top, because I had plans to serve that when my grandaughters came to visit. Today, I was happy to be able to pull this out of the freezer after breakfast, then put it in the oven for an hour (still icy) to cook at lunch time with Carissa, Lillian and Evelyn here at my house. I think this chicken spaghetti is even better on the second day, so I know we will enjoy it tomorrow too. And the girls really ate this up! This is a great kid pleasing meal that grown-ups love just as much.

Chicken Cordon Bleu ~ page 113

I actually made this recipe twice, to try an experiment with it. I fixed this special main dish for my sister's birthday lunch last week. The portions came out rather large, and several of us could not finish our serving! The recipe says to pound out the chicken breasts till they are 1/4-inch thick. I found this hard to do with my light weight mallet. Later, Carissa told me she takes her chicken breasts to her driveway and hits it with a cast iron skillet to flatten the chicken!

It is important with this dish, that you gather everything together and lay it all out before you start...even the toothpicks that will hold the roll of chicken, ham and cheese together. The reason is that you are handling the raw chicken breast quite a bit...so you want to have everything you need ready to go, or you will be washing your hands constantly. (Which I was, since I was taking a lot of pictures!)

You can see how huge my rolls became! 

This is the breading station.

After cooking, just pull out the toothpicks before serving. The chicken will stay together on its own after cooked.

Now I am going to show you "take two" on how to flatten your chicken....I tried this the next day...

While still half frozen, slit each breast in half to make 2 thin slabs. 

Put the split breast in a plastic baggie, then just press hard with a heavy pan--no need to even hit it, just the pressing on the thin chicken thins out any left over thick areas. (Well, actually, David was doing the pressing, so if it was me, I would probably have to hit it!)The chicken rolled up so much nicer with the ham and cheese when it was not so thick. And the whole roll was smaller and a better sized portion. Also, David wanted more of the Swiss cheese flavor, so the second time I made these, I laid a slice of Swiss over each portion for the last 5 minutes of the cooking time. And I also sliced the roll in thick slices to serve, as that seemed more attractive than just putting the big hunk on a plate. 

On day 2 of this meal, I served the Chicken Cordon Blue slices (with the melted cheese on top) along with bowtie macaroni in a Swiss cheese sauce (to add to the Swiss cheese theme hubby liked), and the last of the leftover roasted asparagus and brussel sprouts we had the day before! 

Lemon Buttermilk Sheet Cake ~ page 237

This is one of my mom's recipes that I had not had a chance to make before now. It was very yummy! I even messed up several steps and it still came out good. I creamed the sugar with the eggs instead of the butter, and I accidentally doubled the lemon juice, but like I said, it must be a very forgiving recipe, because it still came out delicious! One of my tasters said it reminded them of a coffee cake that you would have at a brunch or baby shower.

Crepes ~ page 316

I was not planning on making crepes today...till my sister-in-law, Karen, challenged my use of baking powder in our crepe recipe--claiming this ingredient is not in the true Johnson Swedish pancakes. I am not sure who invented the "Svenska's," or Swedish pancakes the Johnson's make. I know my father-in-law made them for me when I first spent a weekend at their house when David and I were still dating. I know one of David's brothers makes them a lot for his family. But at my house, I became the Swedish pancake maker...and somehow it evolved that this was the recipe I always used.

But Karen got me to thinking, and I wanted to know if there was a difference in crepes with baking powder, and crepes without....so David and I did a taste test. We made one batch with, and one without. After much tasting back and forth...and after eating a LOT of these crepes...we both decided the baking powder made no difference at all. They both tasted the same. So the moral is: If you happen to forget the baking powder when making this recipe--don't worry about it--it does not seem to matter!

Crepes are so delicious, extremely versatile, and a good group activity in the kitchen. They are tasty any time of the day! Here is how the thin batter looks when it is first poured into a hot skillet...

And then when you turn it over...

It only takes minutes till you are eating them! Thanks, Karen, this was our supper tonight!

Crustless Parmesan Spinach Quiche ~ page 317

Wow, this is so delicious and so easy. I used a 10 oz. package of fresh spinach (chopped) and sauteed it with the garlic and onion. I used farm fresh eggs from a friend at church. I used low fat cheddar cheese to save calories. Randy and my oldest brother, David, loved it. I also used a 10 inch pan. ~Karen

What We Cook ~ now on Facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=373606747405&ref=ts

We put our cookbook on Facebook this past week. It has been fun to get a larger response all of a sudden!  We also started getting more orders, as we announced our 3rd. and final printing of the cookbook. Some day, down the road, we plan to write another cookbook, and we will be finding another less expensive printing option, but for now we want to make available this book, still sort of in progress, to anyone that would like to cook from it! 

We will be placing our last order in the next week or so. Let us know if you want us to reserve a book for you (or another one!). And let us know any corrections you have noticed, as we will be able to go in and fix any problems we have discovered thus far before we print again.

We have a new tab on the blog: Order a Book....so check out that page to find all the details and ordering info. 

Homemade Creamy Alfredo Sauce ~ page 20

This Alfredo sauce is so quick to make. I made this about an hour before dinner last night and let it just sit in the pan on the counter till the last minute. It kinda stiffened up, but once I put it back on the burner on low for 5 minutes, it was silky and creamy again. My 4 year old ate 4 helpings of the pasta, saying it was the best pasta I had made her!

I had it originally on the pasta, but Adam said he wanted it on his broccoli too! He said it was really good, made me want to try it, but he used the sauce all up on himself.

Asparagus, Potato, and Leek Soup ~ Page 32

I wanted to make this soup even though I was missing 2 main ingredients--the asparagus and the leeks! But I made it work anyway. There is a variation noted at the bottom of the recipe for using broccoli instead of asparagus. And I know that leeks are similar enough to onions that I could substitute. I did try something different though, instead of steaming the broccoli garnish, I decided to try roasting the little sliced broccoli tops...and then I threw in some sliced baby bella mushrooms too, just because I had them. 

I roasted the veggies (drizzled with a bit of olive oil)  for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees while preparing the soup.

When the soup vegetables were soft, I used my immersion blender to puree them. It made a lovely creamy broth in about one minute! An immersion blender is really a wonderful gadget.  But if you don't have one, you can do this step in the blender.

I like that this soup is rich and creamy, yet with only 1/4 cup half and half and some butter, the fat content is within reason.  My roasted broccoli and mushrooms on top were perfect. This is extremely delicious!

Enchiladas with Homemade Sauce ~ page 153

Well, the original recipe is called Beef and Turkey Enchiladas with Homemade Sauce, but I had part of a rotisserie chicken I wanted to use, so I followed the recipe, with a couple of changes: Chicken instead of beef/turkey, cilantro instead of parsley, and all we had was colby jack cheese so that's what I used. I also had to add salt to the enchilada sauce, but I think that's because neither my tomato sauce nor my chili powder had salt (I think most do). I made this with corn tortillas and it gave the dish a sort of casserole-like consistency, but we all loved it!

This is before they went in the oven... we were a little

too hectic by the time we dug in to take another pic!

Hot Cross Buns ~ page 273

This is my Easter tradition: Hot Cross Buns. I love the looks of these buns, the hint of cinnamon and fruit taste, and the symbolism of Easter.  I decided to make them early this year, to share some with my sister, Lorrie, who is coming to visit for her 50th birthday on Friday! These will be part of our lunch, and the rest will stay in the freezer till Easter Sunday. I like these for breakfast, dinner, or any time in between! I did a few deviations this time...mostly because I was out of the required raisins that the recipe calls for.

So I chopped up some apricots instead...

Then I found some golden raisins in the pantry to add...then decided why not add a few cranberries too! It was not quite the same as using dark raisins, but it worked.

After rising, I rolled hunks of the dough to a small golf ball size. 

I used to always cover rising dough with a tea towel, like my grandmothers used to do. But the past few years, I have found that plastic wrap does a better job of keeping bread dough from drying a bit, which inhibits the rise a little.

Next comes the bake-on X.  Blend the writing mix of butter and flour, then put it in a baggie. 

Seal the bag, then barely snip of the end off the bag.

The X's don't have to be perfect--nothing to stress over.

Very delicious--David and I gobbled down 2 of them each right out of the oven!  Have a blessed Easter, and I hope you get to make some Hot Cross Buns!