Happy Easter!

This year, I went the traditional route and made my own Easter egg dye out of red onion skins.  I used this recipe from the Kitchn, and it worked very well.

I made my dye in the evening and left the onion skins in overnight, then strained the dye in the morning and cooked and colored the eggs.

When the eggs were dry I polished them with a little olive oil, and I'm so pleased with how the color looks.  I used brown eggs, so there's nifty speckles and variations in the color.

Pot Roast

This started with the traditional pot roast recipe in Nourishing Traditions, but after the first few steps I took it in my own direction, since it was mostly seasoning-related.  This takes some planning, since it really needs a couple of days, but it is totally worth it.

Recipe:
3-4 pound pot roast
2 cups buttermilk (or Saco buttermilk powder and water)

1 bottle Guinness
1-2 bulbs garlic
1 onion, sliced
Salt
Black pepper
Seasoning such as English Prime Rib Rub, celery seed, thyme, rosemary

Place the pot roast in a 9" x 13" baking pan, pour the buttermilk over it, cover and  refridgerate it for 2 days, turning at least 3 times.

Heat oven to 350°.  Pour the buttermilk out of the pan, season the roast as desired, cover with garlic and onions, pour Guinness over it, and bake, uncovered, for 1 hour.  Baste with pan juices.

Continue to bake the roast at 250° for another 5 hours.  Check and baste it every 45-60 minutes.  When the meat starts to brown, cover it (for me this was into the second hour of cooking).

About 1 hour before serving, add vegetables to the pan and continue baking.

For gravy: remove the roast and vegetables to a serving dish.  Pour the pan juices into a sauce pan and bring to a low simmer.

Place 1/2 cup of juices and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch in a lidded container and shake until cornstarch is dissolved.  Add to pan of juices, and stir until slightly thickened.  Add seasoning as desired.


Obviously I only had carrots.

This came out so good.  At one point I was basting the roast and I poked it with the spoon to see how it was coming along and it started to fall apart.  A spoon!  So yeah, this was melt-in-your-mouth tender.  The flavor was great too, the earthiness of Guinness really compliments the beef's natural flavor, and herbs like thyme and rosemary are really fantastic with it.  If you need comfort food, here it is.

Cinnamon Roasted Almonds

So, as promised here's the second recipe for roasted almonds (the first being cocoa roasted almonds).

These are more traditional cinnamon roasted almonds, like the delicious smelling ones they make at the mall around Christmas.

Recipe:
2-3 pounds raw almonds
1/2 stick (4 Tbsp.) butter
1 Tbsp. vanilla
2 tsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 cup sugar

Spread almonds in shallow baking pans or rimmed cookie sheets.  Place in the oven, then turn heat to 350° (don't pre-heat) and bake 5 minutes.  Stir almonds and bake an additional 8 minutes.  Remove from oven.

Melt butter, stir in vanilla and 2 teaspoons sugar.  Pour over almonds and stir until coated.

Mix together cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and 1/4 cup sugar.  Sprinkle over the almonds 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring after each addition.

Spread almonds on parchment paper or foil and cool 1 hour.

These are nice and spicy, I used mostly Penzey's Vietnamese Extra Fancy Cinnamon, which is a very bold and spicy cinnamon.  The ginger and nutmeg help round out the flavor, giving these a very warm, comforting spiciness, like pumpkin pie or ginger snaps.




And, again, I'm packing these up into decorative gift bags:

So festive, and a fairly easy homemade gift.  I figure that each of these cost under $4 to make, counting the almonds, other ingredients, bags, decorative paper, et cetera.  So really, these are great gifts - homemade, festive, economical, and edible!

Cranberry Orange Relish

Cranberry orange relish is one of my family's traditional dishes.  It's made around this time of year, and divided into lots of containers, one for Thanksgiving, one for Christmas, a few in the freezer to last through the year.  It's sweet, tangy, and will always remind me of holidays.

Recipe:

2 oranges
1 - 1.5 pounds fresh cranberries
2 medium apples
1 - 2 cups sugar (or 3 tablespoons stevia)

Remove the orange peel with a vegetable peeler.  Core the apples and chop into large pieces.
In a food processor, grind orange peel, cranberries, and apples.  Add sugar or stevia and mix well.
Cover and refrigerate.  Can be frozen.

So delicious and festive!

The recipe above is half of what we usually make, but it's still plenty.

Also, to my eternal frustration, fresh cranberries are now sold in 12 ounce packages instead of 1 pound packages.  I ended up using 2 12 ounce packages, and it was fine, but it's still annoying.  What recipe ever calls for 12 ounces of cranberries?

Quick and Dirty Chicken Paprikas

I've been in the mood for comfort food lately.  I think it's the weather - it's chilly out and that makes me want to curl up with a cup of tea and a plate of something familiar and delicious.  Chicken Paprikas (Paprikas Csirke) is an old Hungarian family favorite, so I improvised a single-serving version that's quick and diet friendly.

Recipe:

1 chicken breast
3-4 cloves garlic
3-4 teaspoons paprika (I like Penzey's smoked paprika)
1-2 ounces yogurt
Sea salt

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a skillet, add 1 teaspoon of paprika to water.  Pierce chicken breast in several places and insert garlic cloves into the chicken.  Rub chicken with paprika.
Simmer chicken breast for 10-15 minutes, turning occasionally.  When chicken is done, remove from heat, and take the chicken out of the pan.  There should be 1/2 - 1 cup of liquid left in the skillet, if not, add a little water or chicken broth.  Add yogurt to cooking liquid and stir until smooth, add more paprika if desired, and salt to taste.
Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve.

Delicious!

Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

I found this recipe on Serious Eats.  I love carrot cake, plus I had a bag of beardy looking carrots that I needed to use up, so what better way to do that than with cake?  I modified their recipe a bit, mostly by cutting back on sugar and putting in more carrots and spices.

Recipe:

2 1/2 cups Flour
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1 tablespoon Cinnamon
3/4 cup packed Brown Sugar
3/4 cup Sugar
1 1/2 (3 sticks) Butter, softened
3 Eggs
2 teaspoons Vanilla
4 cups freshly grated Carrots
1 inch piece fresh Ginger, grated (or 2 teaspoons powdered ginger)
1 cup Golden Raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°, grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, brown sugar, and white sugar.
Beat the butter into the flour mixture until well combined, add eggs one at a time and beat until fluffy.  Add vanilla.  Stir in carrots, ginger, and raisins.
Pour batter into greased baking pan.  Bake 40-50 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 ounces Cream Cheese
1 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
1/4 cup Butter, softened
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Cream together butter and cream cheese, add powdered sugar and vanilla.  Beat until smooth.

This cake was surprisingly light, considering how dense the batter looked when I was putting it in the pan.  I also had some misgivings about the recipe because I was adding the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, which is usually the opposite of what one does, but it came out really good.

Instead of using all white flour, I used 2 cups regular flour, 1/4 cup whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup flax seed meal.  Also, since I don't have a box grater or a grater attachment for my Kitchenaid, I used the food processor to shred the carrots and fresh ginger and it worked great!

This cake was very flavorful, light, and not too sweet.

Open Faced Cheese Cakes

So, this is what I did with my homemade cheese.  This recipe is from my family's Hungarian cookbook.

Recipe:

1/2 lb. (2 sticks) Butter
2 (8 oz.) packages Cream Cheese
2 cups Flour
2 tablespoons Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Powder

Cream together butter and cream cheese, add remaining ingredients.  Roll out dough about 1/4 inch thick, cut out rounds, top with filling.  Bake for about 20 minutes at 350° until lightly browned.

Filling:

1 cup dry Cottage Cheese
2 Egg Yolks
1 tablespoon Butter, melted
1/2 cup Sugar
1 tablespoon Lemon zest
2 teaspoons Vanilla

Mix together all ingredients and place a spoonful on each round of dough.

These are the ones I made with my cheese.

 These are made with regular cottage cheese.  Other than a slight difference in texture, the taste was basically the same.

These aren't very sweet, but they're very rich.  And addictive!