It Ain't Christmas without Pink Ice Cream!

Sneezy always has to investigate when the ice cream maker is going!

So my hubby's birthday is on Christmas. So dessert usually entails cake and ice cream. This year though we went with Rice Krispy Treats and I made homemade ice cream.

He requested Candy Cane Ice Cream - that's easy to do I figured.

Finally found a recipe on Foodnetwork's site but didn't realize I shouldn't put the candy cane pieces in the maker while it's freezing - the candy all melted and the ice cream became bright pink and VERY pepperminty.


Now I know to add the mix ins at the END of the freezing process.

But overall the ice cream recipe was easy and tasty - and we made it low fat using 1 % milk and light cream instead of whipping cream.

I would totally make it next time with chocolate chips for a mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Mint Ice Cream


From Food Network's site but it's a Cuisinart recipe

1 cup whole milk, well chilled
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups heavy cream, well chilled
1 teaspoon mint extract (or peppermint extract or spearmint extract)
4 to 5 drops green or pink food coloring

Special Equipment: Mix It In Soft-Serve Ice Cream Maker
Place milk and sugar in a medium bowl. Use a hand mixer on low speed for about 1 to 2 minutes or a whisk to mix until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the heavy cream and mint extract. Add food coloring in drops to reach desired color. If not freezing immediately, cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
Turn on ice cream maker and pour in ingredients. Allow to mix and freeze until desired serving consistency is reached. Begin checking consistency after 12 to 15 minutes of freezing. If ice cream is not thick enough, pour back into the freezer bowl and continue mixing/freezing until desired consistency is reached, checking every few minutes.

Cookies without guilt

I adore cookies, I mean absolutely adore cookies! Store bought, bakery, home made, I've never met a cookie I don't like.

I try very hard to keep cookies OUT of the house because they are quite deadly for me. Actually all of my cookie swap cookies I got I gave away to the neighbors so I wouldn't eat them.

But I made this WW recipe for me... But i cheated, I'm WAY too lazy to chill and roll out and cut cookies so I just made balls, rolled them in sprinkles and flattened them out and they came out soft and poofy and nice. And the addition of the nutmeg was wonderful. One point each- how can you go wrong??

Classic Sugar Cookies

From Weight Watchers

3 cup(s) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 cup(s) butter
1/4 cup(s) Neufchatel cheese
1 cup(s) sugar, granulated
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg(s)
1/2 cup(s) fat-free skim milk
1 tsp all-purpose flour, for rolling out dough
1/3 cup(s) sugar, colored (for decorating)

Preheat oven to 350ºF.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and nutmeg; set aside.

Place butter and cheese in a large bowl; cream using an electric mixer. Add sugar and beat until batter is pale yellow; beat in vanilla extract and egg.

Add about 1/3 of flour mixture and 1/3 of milk to cheese mixture; mix batter on low speed until just combined. Repeat 2 more times with remaining flour mixture and milk, until thoroughly combined into cheese mixture.

Shape dough into a ball and loosely cover with plastic wrap. Using your palms, press down on plastic wrap to flatten dough into a hamburger shape; refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 days.

Sprinkle a teaspoon of flour on a flat work surface. Pull off about 1/3 of dough and, using a rolling pin, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Using a 3-inch circular cookie cutter, cut cookies out of dough and place on ungreased baking sheets. Roll up dough scraps and add back to dough ball. Pull off another 1/3 of dough and repeat process until all dough is used — recipe will make approximately 45 cookies.

Sprinkle cookies with colored sugar and bake until edges just start to turn golden, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove cookies to wire racks and cool completely. Yields 1 cookie per serving.

Cookies fit for PMS

I saw these on I think it was Baking Bites and some other blogs and knew I wanted to make these. Made these for my cookie swap at work and they were a hit. Two of my friends have now made them as well and we have renamed them PMS Cookies.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies

Adapted from Sheila Lukins USA Cookbook

Makes 5 dozen good sized cookies.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup solid shortening, at room temperature

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 cup chunky peanut butter

1 cup salted pretzel pieces

chocolate chips and kosher salt for toppings

Heat oven to 350°.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, set aside.

Cream the butter, shortening, sugars, and vanilla in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then mix in the peanut butter.

Add the flour mixture a cup at a time and beat at low speed to mix well.

Add pretzel pieces, and turn mixer on low to mix them in and break up any pieces that are too large.

Shape the dough into 1 inch balls and place on parchment lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart.

Press each cookie twice in each direction with a fork to make the classic pb cookie criss-cross design.

Press about 3 chocolate chips gently into each cookie--no need to squish, be gentle.

Sprinkle each cookie with a pinch or two of kosher salt.(after a batch, I decided to do the salt when they came out of the oven so the shimmer of the salt was still on top to look pretty)

Bake 10 minutes. Let cool on sheets for about 2 minutes and transfer to cooling racks

How do you Re-purpose Meals?

I had made this a week or so back but my friend and I were sitting around talking the other night about how to re-use meats and other leftovers. Rather than just re-eating the same meal again, what do you do??

I was sharing my ideas with her, and there were some she'd never heard of.

I really got in to re-purposing meals about a year ago. Quite simply I got sick and tired of just re-eating chicken the same way. I got a lot of tips from magazines as I was researching how to re-purpose meals, but mostly I made things up just being creative.

This is one of our favorite re-purposes - and really if I may boast I'm best at reusing pork in our house over chicken!

I like to take leftover pork tenderloin and slice it down thin and heat it up in a skillet with some bbq sauce. We then put it on buns or on top of baked potatoes or even on top of mashed potatoes.

All it takes is some creative thinking and then you won't be throwing so much wasted food down the disposal or in the trash can.

It's All Greek to Me

We love ethnic foods, the flavors, the aromas, the colors, the textures.

Greek, Italian, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican - we really love ethnic flavors more than we enjoy typical American foods.

I was craving the flavors of Greek food when I made this up for dinner one night the other week and it came out so delicious I will have to add this to our regular mix of meals.

We'll call this Greek Shrimp Salad

1 Package(s) couscous

1/2 diced cucumber

1/4 Cup(s) feta cheese

1 Can(s) drained sliced olives

2 Tablespoon(s) divided olive oil

1 tsp. to taste rosemary

1 to taste black pepper

1 Pinch(s) salt

1 to taste lemon juice

40 medium peeled deveined shrimp

1 to taste lemon peel

Directions: Prepare couscous according to package directions. Add cucumber, feta and olives. Combine. Season with 1 tablespoon olive oil, rosemary, pepper, lemon juice and salt. In a large sautee pan heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and cook shrimp that. Season with pepper, rosemary and lemon peel. Put 1 cup couscous on each plate and top with 20 shrimp.

Another foray into figs...

So we enjoyed the figs so much the first time we had them we decided to buy some more. But I had no clue what to do with them.

The other weekend we were kicking around the house and though we'd have figs and some roasted garlic with bread for lunch - so I browsed on the WW site and found this fig recipe - since I had everything in the house we went with it.

It was so tasty and easy and really a nice way to have the figs. Great to put out for a party as well!

Honey and Cheese Stuffed Figs
From Weight Watchers

16 medium fig(s), washed and patted dry, stems removed, each sliced
2/3 oz soft-type goat cheese, such as chevre (about 2 Tbsp)
6 tbsp part-skim ricotta cheese
2 tbsp thyme, fresh, leaves
2 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground, or to taste

Instructions

Place figs on a large serving platter, cut-side up. Combine cheeses and thyme in a small bowl. Spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of cheese mixture over each fig half; drizzle with honey and sprinkle with pepper. Yields 2 fig halves per serving.

Delicious, but needs some tweaks

WOW, that's all I can say about this dish.

I would certainly make some changes for next time but the overall idea and execution of the dish is incredible. And the changes I'd make are simply for a taste preference on our end. The recipe as is is wonderful too.

I'm not a huge Rachel Ray lover but I saw this recipe in her October issue that our recptionist at work had and I thought it was worth a photo copy because it involved our favorites- gnocchi, peas and mushrooms, how bad could it be??

Gnocchi with Braised Mushrooms and Peas

1 1/2 lbs. gnocchi - I used 1 package of dried gnocchi

3 T olive oil

6 oz cremini mushrooms, sliced

1 1/2 cups low sodium beef broth - I used chicken

10 sprigs thyme- I used dried

1 cup frozen peas, thawed

salt and pepper

3 T butter

3 cups corasely chopped radicchi0 - next time I'd swap this out for fennel, spinach, or swiss chard, the raddicchio was too bitter for us.

1. In a large pot of boiling water, salted, cook the gnocchi and according to package directions. drain and transfer to a paper towel lined baking pan.

2. In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 T olive oil over medium high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook until browned. Add the broth and thyme. Bring to a boil. Cook until the broth has reduced to about a 1/4 cup. Transfer to a medium bowl and discard the thyme. Stir in the peas, season with salt and pepper. Wipe out skillet

3. In the skillet, heat the remaining oil and the butter over medium high heat. Add the gnocchi and cok tossing occassionally until golden. Add the radicchio and cook stirring, until wilted. Season with salt and pepper.

The recipe now asks you to divide the gnocchi mixture and top with the mushroom mixture. We just tossed everything together and it was perfect!

SO YUMMY - again, a little bitter for us, but Oh my gosh the gnocchi was out of this world!! I should have known because we don't like radicchio to begin with!

First Foray into Figs

I've been tempted to try figs for a while now... there are so many nice recipes out there and they just look so exquisite and fancy.

I finally found some nice ones at the market and picked some up to do an appetizer for us for a Saturday night. The hubs had been out of town for a week so I wanted a nice dinner.

These were really easy and really tasty.

French Bread
Goat Cheese
Figs

Spread goat cheese on the bread and top with a slice of fig and enjoy!

Tasty, Easy and wonderful with the sweet and salty together.

I need some Manicotti Help ASAP!l

So I love stuffed pasta, manicotti, shells. LOVE IT!

But I have a heap of trouble with it. I refuse to pre-boil shells cause I think they are a PITA to stuff then. It's more the filling I have trouble with - it is never full and fluffy once done cooking.

Is it because I use raw noodles, maybe.

Is it because I use fat free ricotta most times - possibly.
I did start incorporating eggs into the cheese mixture but still not it.

They do always turn out yummy but just not what I'm longing for.

So all you food bloggers out there, help a girl out!

These were pretty good but again same filling issues.

I can't find the recipe I used but it was a broccoli stuffed manicotti and eh, not as good as the spinach stuffed shells I make - I'll stick with spinach from now on.

At least the caesar salad of ours I always serve with stuffed pasta is ALWAYS reliable and tasty!!

WOW, that's a tasty side!

I always love recipes for side items but it's a rarity that I make them... we're more of a let's put on some rice or couscous kinda family.

But I have this vegetarian cookbook that I adore and for years - and I mean probably like 10 or more years I've wanted to make this side dish.

So I figured I finally wood and well it did not disappoint what so ever.

From the Vegetarian Cookbook, Delicious Recipes for all Occassions

Artichoke Polenta Pie

6 T butter or margarine

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

1/2 cup dry polenta or yellow cornmeal

2 cups broth

1 package, 10 oz. frozen corn kernels

2 large onions, sliced thinly

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 /2 tsp fennel seeds

1 package 10 oz, frozen artichoke hearts, thawed- or use canned

1/8 tsp. paprika

1/2 cup bread crumbs

1 T parsley, chopped

1/4 cup grated parmesan

1. melt 2 T of butter in a 3-4 quart pan over medium heat. Add chopped onion and ook, stirring often, until soft but not browned. Meanwhile in a medium size bowl mix polenta and 1 cup of warmed broth, set aside.

2. add corn and remaining 1 cdup of broth to onion mixture. increase heat to high and bring to a boil. Using a long handled spoon, stir polenta mixture into corn mixture. reduce heat and boil gently, stirring constantly until mixture is the consistency of soft mashed potatoes- 10 minutes

3. pour mixture into a shallow 2 quart casserole dish. using back of spoon press polenta over bottom and about 1 inch up the side of the pan.

4. melt 2 T more butter in a wide frying pan over medium heat. Add sliced onions , half the garlic, and fennel. Cook stirring often until onions are soft and begin to brown. Spoon into polenta crust. Top with artichokes.

5. melt remaining 2 T butter in frying pan and cook on medium heat. add remaining garlic and paprika. cook stirring until garlic begins to brown. mx in bread crumbs. remove from heat and stir in parsley. sprinkle mixture over artichokes, top with cheese, bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

serves 4-6

CHANGES:

I omitted the fennel

I didn't use the butter but used Pam - that removed 6 T of butter from the recipe and a LOT of fat.

I did not put the remaining garlic and paprika in a pan again - I just put all the garlic in the first time and topped with paprika.

SO good - did not disappoint.

A Taste of New England

I found this recipe in Cooking Light and decided I'd try it for dinner last night.

I have to admit I had 2 pounds of pork so I used more maple syrup - actually I used probably a quarter of a cup! I doubled up on everything and I also added so peeled whole garlic cloves. I let this sit in the fridge for about 6 hours. It also did take a little longer to cook but we like our pork more well done.

Very good- will certainly make this one again!

Maple Sage Roasted Pork from Cooking Light Magazine

Yield
4 servings (serving size: 3 ounces)

Ingredients
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 (1-pound) pork tenderloin, trimmed
Cooking spray

Preparation
1. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag; seal and turn to coat. Marinate in refrigerator 30 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 400°.
3. Remove pork from bag. Place pork on a foil-lined baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake at 400° for 25 minutes or until a thermometer registers 155°. Cover loosely with foil. Let stand 10 minutes before slicing.