A couple of new podcast episodes

For your Holiday enjoyment...





Oil
Chicken
1 cup water chestnuts
2/3 cup mushrooms
3 Tablespoons chopped onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Ice Berg Lettuce

Sauce:
2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
2 Tablespoons Brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar

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Overnight Oatmeal muffins: a recipe worth returning to again and again

1 cup regular oats
2 cups low-fat buttermilk
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup dried blueberries


1. Combine oats and buttermilk in a medium bowl; cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 350

3. Mix flour, buttermilk mixture, and next six ingredients (through eggs) in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Fold in blueberries (or any dried fruit)

4. Spoon 1/4 cup batter into each of 24 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove muffins from pans immediately, place on a wire rack.

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Cake Snowballs

Maybe you've seen this recipe before floating around the internet but oh well. Here it is again. Cam and I made some yesterday and oooooooooo baby. Seriously. I took them to my 12-13 year old Sunday School class along with some peanut butter cup cookies and they ALMOST were more popular than the peanut butter ones. That's a big deal. Especially since they were lemon and most 12 year olds prefer chocolate. According to scientists. I'm just saying.

Here's what you need:
A cake
Some frosting
Some dipping chocolate.
Don't be mad if this feels like the other fat free recipe I posted a week ago.

Here's what you need to do:
Make the cake (from a box, from scratch, whateva). I whipped up a lemon cake from Mrs. Duncan Hines. The best part is the cake can look horrible because the next step is to
Let the cake cool and the crumble the puppy up. Just smash it to pieces. Then you
Add 1/2 a thing of frosting (if you buy it from the store. if you make your own, just add until the concoction gets gooey enough to form into balls). I used a cream cheese frosting container and it was quite cream cheesy. Yum. After that,
Form the cake frosting mixture into balls. Whatever size you like but I think average would be like a quarter size or maybe the size you'd use when making regular cookies. Next,
Put the balls in a container and then freeze them for a couple of hours.This step is sort of important if you don't want to get cake floaties in your chocolate.
When that's through, get them out, melt some chocolate chips or almond bark or white dipping chocolate, etc. and dip them.

Cam (my dear husband who I boss around) did all the dipping of the cake balls. We used a fondue pot and some awesome white chocolate melting thingies. We were so proud of ourselves afterward because they were BEAUTIFUL (like soft, delicate snowballs on a winter's day) and delicious and looked like we knew what we were doing. Always important.
You can obviously use any combo you like. Lemon/cream cheese/white chocolate, Red velvet/buttercream/dark chocolate, etc. etc. And you can also get super fancy and decorate them even more after they've been dipped. We didn't do that because maybe we didn't feel like it, okay?
Okay.
The End.

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Soup, soup, all the time

Follow these links to four of my favorite:

Creamy Tomato Soup with Dill

Garlic Stracciatella

Potato Leek Soup

Soy Ginger Soup with Tofu and Noodles

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file under "eggplant"

I don't like eggplant. It's slimy! But this week I tried ordering the box of organic produce from Winder with our dairy order, and what did my eyes behold when I opened the box? An eggplant. And I paid good money for that thing so I was determined to eat it. I've read in many cookbooks about roasting vegetables and kind of making them into a room-temp sauce for pasta. This seemed like a good time to try that.

After determining via Google that it's okay to eat eggplant skin (lots of people do), I just chopped it into chunks, and chopped a small organic onion that also came in the order. I tossed the eggplant and onion with about 1.5 T. of olive oil, a generous pinch of kosher salt, a few grinds of pepper, and a few splashes of balsamic vinegar. I put that in an 8x8 Pryrex dish and stuck it in the toaster oven at 400 for about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, I put water onto boil and also discovered half a can of chopped tomatoes in the fridge. While the whole wheat spaghetti cooked, I put the eggplant mixture in a bowl with the tomatoes, a spoonful of capers, and a little bit of fresh grated Parmesan. When the pasta was done, tossed that all together, and served. It was yummy! Even the slimy eggplant was good. It helped that I was starving to death.


P.S. The medium eggplant and 5.5 oz. of pasta was perfect for two people.

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Perfect For That Holiday Party You're Hosting

Peppercorn Buttermilk Dip

1 C sour cream
2 T buttermilk (I like mine a bit runnier so I add more)
1 t ground pepper
2 t minced chives (or scallions )
1/2 t chopped freesh thyme (or dry)
1 large shallot, minced
1/2 t kosher salt
It is good for 48 hours.

This is the yummiest dip in the universe. Seriously, I could drink it. And no mayo, baby. Serving suggestion below:

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Toffee

Try this delicious Toffee recipe. Sorry no picture but if you were at THE party of '08 you probably saw it, and you probably ate it and you hopefully liked it.

Toffee
2 C Sugar
2 C Butter (4 sticks, 1 lb (enjoy the holidays))
4 T Water
2 C Chopped Pecans
2 bags of Milk Chocolate Chips

Spread pecans out evenly on a cookie sheet. In a large pan mix sugar, butter and water. Boil until it's a caramel color (if using a candy thermometer it'll be over 300 degrees (you don't have to have a thermometer.)) Stirring constantly (this process takes a while and you have to continue stirring it so give yourself some time. I'm not talking ALL day. Just maybe 10 min. or so. Be patient, is what I'm trying to say. And look for a caramel color. Think of what color those little (delicious) caramel squares are, and go for that color.) Pour mixture over nuts on cookie sheet. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. (the chips will melt but I usually spread them out with a knife so it looks pretty.) Let it cool completely (short on time? throw it in the fridge for a bit.) And then break it apart by kinda like stabbing a butter knife around breaking it into chunks.
And that's it.
And I've also halved the recipe and just used half of the cookie sheet, works great.

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Oreo Circles

The possibilities are endless.
Plus these are fat free.
And they make great stocking stuffers.
Please add your favorite holiday treat if you even want to. Thanks and goodbye.

Oreo Balls Recipe Ingredients

* 8 ounces softened cream cheese or whipped cream cheese
* 18 ounces package of Oreo cookies, crushed
* 2 cups semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips (or a big block of dipping chocolate that you can get at Maceys or somewhere else like a candy dipping store)
* 1 tablespoon shortening (except I think shortening is sort of sick so I don't use it usually)

Oreo Balls Recipe Instructions

Mix cream cheese with electric mixer until fluffy. Add the crushed Oreos and beat on high until well mixed. Chill for at least 2 hours in the freezer. Then roll Oreo cookie mix into one inch Oreo Balls.

Next, melt the chocolate chips and shortening with a double boiler (why would you use a double boiler if the other option is a microwave?) or in the microwave.

Dip the Oreo balls completely into the melted chocolate using tongs or a toothpick.

Put on wax paper. After the Oreo balls harden, keep them in the refrigerator.

Makes about 3 or 4 dozen Oreo Balls, depending on the size

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Santa Baby

This is Mr. Santa with a little marshmallow and butter and cereal.
Is it weird how marshmallow is spelled? I think it's weird.
Please deliver these to my door.

* 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
* 1 package (10 oz., about 40) regular marshmallows
* - OR -
* 4 cups miniature marshmallows
* 6 cups Rice Krispies®
* Canned frosting or decorating gel
* Assorted candies

1. In large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.

2. Add KELLOGG'S RICE KRISPIES cereal. Stir until well coated.

3. Using buttered spatula or wax paper evenly press mixture into 15 x 10 x 1-inch pan coated with cooking spray. Cool slightly. Using 4-inch cookie cutter coated with cooking spray cut into Santa faces. Decorate wtih frosting and/or candies. Best if served the same day.

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Guacamole

This is for Ann Dee so she will quit bugging me about it.

Mash 2 pitted and peeled avacados with fork. Stir in 1 tablespoon grated onion (or more), 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 teaspoon salt & 1/4 teaspoon chili powder. Spread 1/3 cup mayo over mixture sealing to edges of the bowl; chill. At serving time, blend mayo into mixture.

Makes 1 and 1/2 cups.

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Quick Posole

This is a great remedy for turkey and potato overload. It is good with or without chicken.

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 onion, diced

3 tablespoons oil

1-2 chicken breasts

1 (10 oz) can red or green enchilada sauce

1/2 tsp dried oregano

2 cups (or more) chicken broth

1 can diced green chilies

2 (15 oz) cans white hominy

In a 3 to 4 quart pan, brown the chicken until nearly done in the oil, remove to a plate. Add garlic and onion to pot and saute one minute or less, cube chicken and add to pot. Add enchilada sauce, oregano, and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until chicken is no longer pink in center. Add hominy, reheat to simmer. Add garnishes of choice to serve.

soup garnishes:

iceberg lettuce

lime wedges

sliced radish

queso fresco (or monterey jack)

cilantro

tortilla strips

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