Picadillo is Cooking in My Kitchen

New favorite recipe is a traditional Cuban or Brazillian dish, Picadillo.  We can at least safely say it is Latin American.  I did not make many changes to this recipe, I  halved the hotter spices like chili and the paprika, thinking my kids might eat it if it wasn't too spicy.  I was wrong.  I also added rice and beans to the mix so that the rice would cook in the juices of the Picadillo. Mmm, mmm, mmm, muy muy delicioso!

Put Everything Into It Dish

If you are anything like Paul and me, by the end of the week, you are looking at a half-empty fridge, with an assortment of things that are about to go bad if you don't use them right away. Well, I used to put these things into a soup or a quiche. However, over my last visit home, my sister introduced me to fritatta. It's almost like a quiche, but with none of the hassle of the crust. My latest fridge clean out special combined eggs, field greens, mushrooms, sheep cheese, sprinkling of Gouda, and my two trusty stand byes onions and garlic. I sauteed the onions and garlic in butter, added the mushrooms to the frying pan, mixed the whole lot together, poured into a glass pie pan and cooked at 200C for about 30 minutes. Scrumptious! I think adding cherry tomatoes would have added a nice touch as well.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Another, yummy, yummy recipe.

I did a test run on these over the weekend for Max's 2nd birthday party next weekend. The cupcakes themselves were fabulous, but I'm going to try a healthier alternative to the recipe by using considerably less sugar, substituting a whole wheat, wheat germ and white flour mix for the white flour, and substituting apple sauce for the vegetable oil. As for the frosting, both my husband and I thought it was too sweet and not cream cheesy enough, so I'm going to double the amount of cream cheese and half the amount of confectioners sugar. I'm going to do another trial run this week. If it turns out well, I'll repeat it for this weekend's party.

Edited: The alternative worked out great. I substituted a equal part mixture of Wheat Germ, Whole Wheat Flour and White Flour for the all purpose flour. I also substituted apple sauce for the oil, and used only half of the called for sugar. For the forsting, I used twice the cream cheese, and only half a cup of the powdered sugar. I didn't use the cream at all. This was also really yummy, and I had to restrain myself from eating the whole bowl of frosting. On a side note, you need less than half of this frosting to cover the cupcakes, so keep that in mind.

Yummy, Yummy Chicken

I have a new favorite recipe to add to the my list. I only made a few changes based on some of the reviews and to satisfy my own tastes. The first change I made was to use veggie stock instead of chicken stock. Next, instead of using Sun Dried tomatoes, I used cherry tomatoes, which I added to the frying pan with the chicken, and then into the broth of the baking pan. I only added 1/2 the stock to the baking pan and a drizzle of balsamic. The 1/2 cup of balsamic, I combined in the frying pan with half the stock. Once it reduced by 1/2, I added 1 tbsp of mustard and 2 tbsp of butter, which I then added to the baking dish in the last 10 minutes. Also, on a side note, it took about 45 minutes for the chicken to cook all the way through, not the 15-20 minutes prescribed in the recipe. I didn't add any salt or pepper for taste.

Borscht

I added a new recipe to my Favorite Recipe Corner (bottom right). I altered the recipe just slightly by using three diced beets which I left in the stew, and I also added some garlic and stew meat. I made this deicision after reading the reviews of the recipe. I was very impressed with how this stew turned out, and I really though the sour cream added the right touch.

ETA: I removed the recipe corner, and am from now on just linking the recipe directly to the post.

New Addition to the Blog

I've decided to add my favorite recipes to the blog. In the bottom right hand corner, you'll find a link to my favorite recipes each week. In last week's veggie delivery, I received a Hokkaidokürbis, or a golden hubbard squash. It is an absolutely beautiful squash, and it made a wonderfully delicious soup. The maple spiced hazelnuts added a really nice touch.

ETA: Instead of a favorite recipe corner, I've decided to link directly to the recipe in my posts.