2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 27 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

 

Thanks WordPress for the report !

Pete

cornbread stuffing

The stuffing for Orange Glazed Turkey with Cornbread Stuffing

corn bread stuffing for about an 18 lb turkey
Recipe for cornbread

2 1/4  cups corn meal
2 1/4 cups  white flour
1\2 cup sugar, more or less to taste
2 1/4 tablespoons baking powder
2 1/4  teaspoons salt
-———-•—————–

1/2  cup or more  oil
2 1/4 cup milk
2 1/2 eggs beaten

Recipe multiplied from original Indian Head yellow corn meal

Mix dry ingredients
Mix wet ingredients
Combine both mixing with a spoon
Adjust flour and liquids if too thick or thin
Pour onto a parchment papered sheet pan

Bake about 425 degrees 20 or so minutes

Run under broiler if necessary to brown top.

Cool, then with a pizza cutter, cut into cubes.

taste test

Let dry , store in  container till needed.

now that the cornbread is done,

2 lbs sausage

about 4 cups each celery, onion, diced

2 tablespoons diced garlic

oil, for sauteing, about 2 tablespoons

thyme, sage, etc, or Bells seasonings to taste

12 cups cornbread prepared stuffing mix, (or cornbread from above)

2 -3 granny smith apples , cored, peeled and diced

1 cup each dried apricots,and dried cherries (I used diced dried dates)

salt and pepper to taste

1 to 2 cups chicken broth

________________________________________________________________

brown the sausage , breaking them up, 10 to 12 minutes. remove to large bowl

wilt the onions, celery and garlic with the oil over low heat , sprinkle with the thyme and sage.

add to the sausage

(the green glob is the celery onion mixture I prepared a day before and placed in a rectangular container)

toss in the cornbread cubes along with fruit

season with the salt and pepper

 

drizzle in the broth, to desired consistency

toss well

the only shortcut in this recipe was that I used a rotary slicer to chop the onions and celery instead of by hand

Related articles

• Cornbread + Cornbread Stuffing (hummusandjalapenos.wordpress.com)

Breakfast

Baby spinach, eggs, grated Romano , salt pepper.
On a spent grain flatbread.
Mexican coffee

orange glaze

One of the components for Orange Glazed Turkey with Corn Bread Stuffing.

Utilizes Orange Maralade

This is how it looked after baking…..about 5 hours, stepped temp from 325 to 350.

Apply the  glaze last 30 minutes of cooking.

NOTE : Highly advised to use a meat thermometer (not shown here), if you glaze the bird the manufacturers supplied POP UP thermometer, gets glued  stuck by the glaze, and will not correctly indicate. Once the bird was out of the oven, and I cleaned the pop up, it popped up.

The bird was a tad overdone to my taste. but none the less fully cooked for a stuffed bird.

I’ll be posting more of the recipe in another post.  It will cover the cooking technique for the recipe.

Addendum:

looking over the photos, No I didn’t strain it, orange zest and all was used.

White Chocolate Cranberry Clusters

made by Diane S. Metro

2 cups all bran cereal (Kellogg’s)

1 and 1/2 cups sweetened dried cranberries (Craisins)

12 oz white chocolate melting disks , or white chocolate chips

1 cup white chocolate chips

combine cereal and cranberries in a bowl.

in another bowl melt the disks, or chips

pour over the cereal mixture and stir until well combined

stir in white chocolate chips

working quickly form into well packed tablespoon sized balls

place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and refrigerate until set.

Related articles

• White Chocolate, Fruit And Nut Clusters Recipe (kraftrecipes.com)

shopping

last minute Christmas food shopping, having dinner at home for Christmas with guests.

fried chicken lasagne

Something like chicken and noodles or pasta was in my mind to cook, with gravy, so…….

The  chicken cutlets were used to make a lasagne with them.

I’m pretty much at a loss as to what to do with chicken breast.

I would rather have thighs and legs, but a good cook will make the best of what he/she has available.

Usually most packaged chicken breast now a days are very large and thick.

These I sliced horizontally to thin pieces rather than pound them.

I was able to get up to three fillets from a single breast.

Flour mixed with salt and pepper and spent grains was used to coat the breast and then fried in a small amount of oil  as necessary.

Place on a paper towel ready for assembly.

Chopped brocolli, grated cheese, a combo of parmigiana and Romano was used.

Not shown was gravy that I made from the drippings in the fry pan that was used to fry the chicken.

The pre-fab  lasagne noodles were on the shelve, I was going to make fresh pasta wide noodles but these would speed up the process.

They remind me of the corrugated fiberglass panels that you get (or used to get) from the home supply center.

They are thin gauge and don’t require cooking.

basically  layered  chicken, broccoli and cheese, both with gravy added between the noodles.

Three noodle panels per layer fit in the dish

The instructions call for covering the dish with foil and bake at about 350-375 degrees then uncovering the dish and continue baking.

Water was added to the pan because the dish was dry and returned to bake again.

The next time I would used regular lasagne noodles or make my own, the noodles used here are very thin.

Lasagne is always good leftover and provided several meals.

All n’ all, a good use for chicken breast.

Other possibilities would be cubing the breast and combining with elbow macaroni and the broccoli and cheese with gravy and bake in a casserole.

Related articles

• Chicken And Mushroom Lasagne! (mummymakesme.wordpress.com)