I like to cook food from all different cultures, because it is fun to try new things. I don’t get to travel much, but at least I can experience food from all over the world. This weekend I wanted to make a dish with pierogies. Pierogies are an eastern European dumpling that is stuffed with mashed potato filling, and I had a box sitting in my freezer just waiting to be used. So when I was asked to create a meal with Hillshire Farm Gourmet Creations Sausage I thought it would be perfect to combine with the pierogies, because sausage and mashed potatoes are a great combination.
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Best Apple Pie Recipe
I love apple pie, and fall seems like the best time to make it. I found this recipe in the The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion
cookbook, and decided I had to try it. It uses rum and cider in the apple pie filling, which intrigued me. It was delicious, and the small amount of rum enhanced the taste. I modified the recipe a little to cut the amount of sugar in the recipe and increase the cinnamon. I think most apple pie recipes use too much sugar, apples are so naturally sweet already they just don’t need much extra. I use very little sugar in my apple pies, and no one has ever complained they aren’t sweet enough.
Apple Stuffed Delicata Squash Recipe
I like delictica squash because of its size – It is the perfect size to for two people. Since it is small it is much easier to cut than a large squash like butternut, and it doesn’t take as long to cook either. I usually just pierce it with a knife, microwave it for 10 minutes and serve. But this weekend I made it a little fancier by adding apples and cinnamon and baking it, and the result was delicious.
Cajun Chicken Pasta Recipe
I’ve used the Philadelphia Cooking Creme a few times lately to make quick recipes. It is perfect for those nights I don’t feel like cooking, because it is a quick and easy sauce. It isn’t a gourmet meal, but it is quick and better than take out. Plus I usually use the cooking creme as part of a pasta dish, and my kids love pasta so I know they will eat it. This is a recipe for Cajun Chicken Pasta I threw together last week. I always have cooked chicken in the freezer, so that is what I used in this dish. But if you don’t have cooked chicken just add it to the frying pan before the veggies.
Guacamole Cheese Omelet Recipe
Today is National Guacamole Day! I love avocados and guacamole, they are amazingly delicious. With football season started it is a great time to serve guacamole and chips as a half time snack, or serve tacos and burritos as an easy meal. One of my favorite ways to have guacamole is with eggs and cheese, so I made a Guacamole Cheese Omelet for breakfast today, and have included the recipe below.
Eggplant Parmesan
I have a lot of eggplant from my garden this year. I only planted one plant, but it is producing like crazy. It is kind of odd, since the green pepper plants right next to it are doing nothing. So I’ve been searching for eggplant recipes. I like this Eggplant Parmesan recipe because it doesn’t involve frying the eggplant, which defeats the health benefits of eating vegetables in the first place. By not frying the eggplant and using just a little cheese this makes a great, nutritious side dish. I made this with my white eggplant and heirloom tomatoes, but I’m sure it would be great with purple eggplant and regular tomatoes too.
Maryland Lump Crab Cakes
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I was born in Baltimore and grew up in Maryland. Although I’ve lived in New York now for longer than I lived in Maryland, when I think of a taste from home I think of Maryland blue crabs. Catching and eating crabs is a fun local tradition, and nothing beats the taste of fresh caught seafood. Although we don’t live near the ocean, my kids love to catch and eat crabs whenever we get a chance to go back to my hometown. When most people go to the ocean they want to go to the beach right away, but my family always wants to go crabbing first. This is a recipe for the classic Maryland Lump Crab cakes, which of course are best with meat from fresh crabs that you have caught and cooked yourself. But if that is not possible they are also good with store bought crab meat.
Maple Chicken and Sweet Potatoes Recipe
This is a great dinner, and the maple flavors goes perfectly with the sweet potatoes and chicken. My husband doesn’t even like sweet potatoes, and he had seconds of this dish. We prefer chicken thighs so that is what I used in this recipe, but I’m sure it would be good with chicken breasts also.
Blueberry and Cherry Cobbler
After we went blueberry picking last week we had enough blueberries left to make cobbler. I combined them with cherries because I had a bunch of those left in the refrigerator. They tasted really good together, I liked using the combination of two different fruits.
Peach Smoothie
On Saturday I stopped by the Regional Market in Syracuse to browse the selection of fresh, local fruits and vegetables. It was amazing to see the mounds of produce, and it was also amazing to see the crowds of people. I went at around 10am, and it was packed, and so crowded it was hard to walk. Clearly many people in the community like the fresh products available.
Tasty Tuesday–Clams Casino
My kids loved this recipe, and what is not to like, it is basically clams with bacon and butter. It is a good thing it is an appetizer and not a main dish, so you only eat a few each. We are going to the ocean for vacation in a few weeks and can’t wait to eat lots of seafood dishes, like this one.
Hot ButterBeer Recipe
No Harry Potter movie celebration is complete without hot Butterbeer to drink! So here is an easy recipe. I like this one because you melt candy to get the butterscotch flavor, so it doesn’t take long to make. It is super sweet though, since you take cream soda and add sugar and candy. It even foams up on top for the authentic Harry Potter “frothing foam”.
Roast Beef Sandwich Roll Recipe
This is a good recipe for using up extra lunch meat. My husband likes me to have lunch meat on hand for weekend sandwiches, but no one but him and my son eat it. So half the time it ends up not getting eaten, and since it is expensive I hate to buy it and then not use it. This recipe will use it up, and with this recipe you can stretch a little bit of meat a long way. You can easily vary the recipe depending on what meats and cheese you have on hand.
