recipe

Family Recipe: Making Your Own Cordials and Liqueurs

Abby H.

I love making cordial and liqueurs. I’ve been making them for over 20 years, and they can take a little time and effort, but I promise you the end result is definitely worth it.

A few weeks ago I posted on Instagram about a cherry cordial that I had just started.

I know a lot of people think of cherry cordial they think of those Queen Anne’s chocolates with the goo in the middle and the maraschino cherry. And I promise you this is not that.

Ingredients/Supplies:

750ml (aka a fifth) bottle of mid-grade vodka or brandy. I like vodka because it usually doesn’t have any flavor of its own or has a very mild flavor. You want mid-grade because you want something that tastes ok on its own, but isn’t too cheap or too expensive.

3lbs. Fresh, Ripe Fruit– I prefer cherries, strawberries, pineapple, chopped into bite-sized pieces. With cherries, poke holes in the cherries with a knife, or if you have a cherry pitter, pit your cherries(not necessary, but it’s cool). You can use most fruit, stone fruits are great! The only two that I’ve made that turned out gross were banana and kiwi.

Sweetener- About 1 cup, but it can vary based on your desired level of sweetness. See below.

A clean jar with a screw-on lid. I washed my mason jar (this size) in the dishwasher.

Directions:

Before you start: It is crucial that you wash and dry the jar and both pieces of the lid (band and flat lid). Everything needs to be clean and free of bacteria- otherwise, this can turn funky.

  1. Pack the fruit into the jar, and pour alcohol over the fruit. The fruit needs to all be covered by the liquor. Why? Otherwise, the fruit will rot. Ewww.
  2. Screw the lid on tightly and place the jar in a cool dry place- I use the cupboard over the fridge. Give it a shake about once a month. After about 6 months, give it a taste. It may need to sit for up to a year to fully develop the full fruit flavor.  Sometimes the alcohol will leech the color from the fruit. This usually happens with strawberries.
  3. Once the fruit flavor is imparted to your liking, strain the solids off, press the excess liquid from the fruit and discard the solids.
  4. Wash and dry the jar and lid. Add the liquid back to the jar and sweeten as desired. I use simple syrup, but you can use honey or straight white sugar. I like simple syrup because it easily incorporates with the liquid. Whereas if you use honey or plain straight white sugar, you can end up with the sweetener sinking to the bottom and not fully incorporating. I start with a 1/4 cup, mix, taste, and adjust as needed.
  5. Allow this mixture to mellow and age at least 6 weeks. At this point, your fruit liqueur/cordial is ready to drink!

How do I drink Cherry Cordial? Usually with coke, but it’s good with all sorts of mixers. It also makes a great gift!

My next liqueur recipe will be for my award-winning Irish Cream. This stuff puts Bailey’s to shame! I’ll post it later this week.

Recipe: Crispy Onion Chicken

Abby H.

This is a delicious, easy recipe. And kids love it too!

Crispy Onion Chicken

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken (your choice, I like breasts or thighs)
  • 2 cups French Fried Onions, crushed
  • 2 T. flour
  • dash freshly ground pepper
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted (You can use coconut oil or margarine if you are dairy free)

 

Directions:

  1. Place onions in a Ziploc bag and crush onions with a rolling pin (or a bottle of wine, whichever is handy)
  2. Pour crushed onions, flour, and pepper in a flat dish, mix thoroughly.
  3. Dip each piece of chicken in melted butter, and rolleach buttery piece in onion/flour mixture.
  4. Place each piece in a greased baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until chicken is cooked throughout.

I like to serve these with mashed potatoes, and a green salad (I really like this one).

 

Family Recipe: Chicken Fajitas Soup!

Abby H.

This Recipe is easy and tasty.

Ingredients:

  • 1 t. avocado oil
  • 2 bell peppers, diced
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 ribs of celery, diced
  • 2 carrots peeled and diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, diced.
  • 1 lb. cooked chicken, cut into bite size pieces (leftover rotisserie chicken is great for this)
  • 8 cups chicken stock
  • 1 can diced tomatoes (about 14.5 ounces)
  • 1 can pinto beans, rinsed and drained (about 14.5 ounces)
  • 1 packet fajitas seasoning
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1/2 c. uncooked rice

Toppings: Crispy Jalepenos, cheddar cheese, avocado

Directions:

  1. In a large stockpot, saute onions in oil until translucent.
  2. Add garlic, stirring often. Cook until fragrant (about 5 minutes).
  3. Add in peppers, celery, carrots, and can of tomatoes. Cook over medium until celery is tender (about 10 minutes).
  4. Add remaining ingredients and cook over low, stirring occasionally for 30-45 minutes, or until rice is cooked.

This recipes serves 8-10. It freezes well.

Substitutions/tips:

  • This can be made with beef instead using cooked chopped beef and beef stock in place of chicken.
  • Or make it vegetarian omitting meat and substituting veggie stock.
  • If you have an abundance of fresh tomatoes, substitute 5 tomatoes (peeled and chopped) in place of the can of tomatoes.

Cookie Recipe Round-up!

Abby H.

I usually make a batch of cookies per week. It’s generally cheaper to make cookies than it is to buy a couple boxes, and this way, I can control what goes into them (less sugar, Substitute Kodiak Flapjack mix in for AP flour, etc.).

I thought I’d share some of our favorite cookie recipes today. There are two no bake cookie recipes as well, just in case you need something sweet, but it’s too hot to turn on the oven!

I am all about using the right tool for the right job, as a result, I have a collection of awesome kitchen tools to help me cook. You can see my list of must-haves in my Amazon Storefront here.  

 

Recipe: Southwestern Chicken Stew

Abby H.

Easy, Quick, Hearty. Onto the recipe!

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb chicken (I used boneless, skinless breasts, but any kind of boneless, skinless cut of chicken will do- thighs are a good option), cut into bite-sized pieces.
  • 1/2 onion, chopped
  • 2 ribs of celery, chopped
  • 1 clove of garlic, diced
  • 2T. avocado oil
  • 28 ounce can of fire-roasted tomatoes
  • 1 15-ish ounce can on salt-free canned corn (drained and rinsed), or 2 cups of frozen corn
  • 1 quart (4 cups) Chicken broth or stock
  • 2T. Arizona Dreaming Spice Blend
  • Salt and Pepper to taste
  • avocado slices and shredded cheese

Directions:

  1. In a stockpot, heat oil.
  2. Add onions and celery, cook until onions are soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.
  3. Add garlic and cook for about 5 minutes, until fragrant.
  4. Add chicken pieces and cook until no longer pink.
  5. Turn heat down to low, pour in tomatoes, corn, chicken broth/stock, Arizona Dreaming. Cover and cook on low for 30-45 minutes. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.
  6. Serve topped with slices of Avocado and shredded cheese.

This soup freezes well and is very inexpensive. You can use any type of chicken. I’ve made this stew with both chicken breast, and with thighs. Both work well, but the thighs are better, as they are fattier, and give the stew a richer mouthfeel that offsets the spice of the Ancho pepper in the Arizona Dreaming Spice Blend.

You can add other veggies if you like a stew with more veg. Zucchini, Italian squash, carrots are all solid choices.

The spice blend is not spicy, but it has a little heat. If you like your food on the mild side, start with 1T. and taste the soup after it has a chance to cook for about 10 minutes. Add more as needed.

5/23/2021 Weekly Meal Plan

Abby H.

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The fridge was fixed on Tuesday and I filed claims for the lost groceries through the warranty, however, the check hasn’t yet arrived yet.

I have yet to shop for groceries this week, but at least I know what’s in our CSA box that arrives tomorrow.

The CSA emails us in advance to give us a heads up as to what may be in our boxes each week, and that really gives me an upper hand when it comes to meal planning for the week.

Veggies and fruit are delivered each Monday by Yasukochi Family Farms CSA. For $25, it’s a great deal. I don’t have to pick anything, go to the store, or carry it upstairs. I can’t go to the store and get the same amount we get weekly for $25. Seriously. It’s a deal. I spend about an hour on Monday afternoon cleaning and prepping veggies for the rest of the week.

I’ll be hitting up the grocery store this afternoon. Today I’m making a big batch of bolognese sauce today- I’ll be using it a few times this week, and freezing the rest for future use.  Tomorrow once the CSA box arrives I’ll prep the veggies and fruit for the rest of the week.

For those of you that are new to meal planning, I’ve got an easy 101 style post here with super easy tips and steps. After you get that down, here is info about batch or freezer cooking.

I’ve gotten a pretty good inventory of the pantry, freezer, and fridge done (I try to update it after every shopping trip), so I’m able to plan meals and use up what we’ve got with little waste. If you are looking for a kitchen inventory printable, I like the kitchen inventories here. They are great printables.

I only post our dinner plans for the week, because our other meals are usually the same each day.

Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 and 1/2  for me, and pancakes or something along those lines for the kids.  The kids are nuts about pancakes. The Big Kid has been on a protein shake kick in the AM.

Lunch: Kids take lunch to school. I eat leftovers. Everyone rejoices.

Dinner: Usually, I do a crockpot meal on Mondays, but now that we are home all the time, we’ve been having an odd combination of fully home-cooked, scratch meals, and frozen entrees and veggies. I have been posting our meal plans on Instagram too- As well as pics of stuff we are doing to keep busy.

  • Sunday:  Bolognese Sauce, pasta, roasted cauliflower
  • Monday:   BBQ chicken, salad, texas toast
  • Tuesday:   Soup Night: Soup, biscuits, fruit salad
  • Wednesday:  Nugget night (nuggets, fruit, crackers, milk)
  • Thursday:   Baked Ziti (with bolognese sauce, cheese, and veggies: zucchini, carrots, onions, celery)
  • Friday:  Pizza/Takeout Night
  • Saturday: Meal o’ Snacks and /or leftovers

Please stay safe you guys!

Talk Back: What are you cooking for dinner this week?

Today is National Garlic Day!

Abby H.

Hot Damn! I love garlic. I decided to celebrate with a new recipe: Roasted Garlic (below), and a round-up of recipes that feature garlic.

Roasted Garlic is easy to make and is great in recipes that call for garlic. It’s very mellow, rich, dare I say, creamy? It’s also super good on toast or warm, crusty bread.

Roasted Garlic 

Ingredients:

  • 1 or more (I suggest more) heads of garlic
  • Your favorite cooking oil

Directions:

  1. Remove the excess papery skin on the garlic heads, leave the bulb intact.
  2. Slice off the pointy tops (about 1/4-1/2 inch)of the garlic bulbs. You want to expose the garlic.
  3. Brush the heads of garlic with oil and wrap them in foil.
  4. Bake at 400 degrees for 40-50 minutes. The garlic is cooked once it is tender (poke it with a toothpick or knife usually after 40-ish minutes). but you can continue to roast it until all of the sugars caramelize, and it turns a light brown color. This caramelization makes the garlic very mellow and slightly sweet.

You can store the garlic in the fridge for 10-14 days, but it won’t last that long. It’s good in dips (like hummus), on its own, in soups, or any recipe that calls for garlic. Use roasted garlic in recipes where garlic is called for 1:1.

Garlic Recipe Round-up:

New Recipe: Loaded Roasted Cauliflower

Abby H.

I’ve seen this kind of recipe before and I had never made it because it’s really hard to pick decent fresh cauliflower, and honestly, frozen cauliflower is always kinda… soggy (?) when you defrost it and cook it.

We’ve been getting a lot of cauliflower in our  Yasukochi Family Farms CSA box over the past 5 weeks, so I figured it was time to give it a shot.

This recipe is easy. And tasty. It does not duplicate potato skins. I don’t care what any low carb/potato hating website tells you.

Loaded Roasted Cauliflower

Ingredients:

  • 2 heads of cauliflower, leaves and stem removed, cut into bite sized pieces
  • 2 T. Olive oil or your favorite cooking oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 1 cup shredded cheese
  • 1/2 cup bacon crumbles (use real bacon, not baco’s)
  • 4 green onions, chopped
  • Sour Cream (optional, but tasty)
Served with a green salad, rotisserie chicken, and half an avocado. YUM.

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Place cookie sheets lined with foil into oven to heat up with the oven.
  2. While oven/pan is heating, toss cauliflower in oil, salt & pepper.
  3. Once oven is heated to 450, remove pan, spread cauliflower out in a single, well spaced layer.
  4. Bake for 8 minutes, then turn veggies to roast evenly.
  5. Return to oven and bake for another 8 minutes.
  6. Remove from oven. Top with cheese and bacon. Broil for 2-4 minutes, until cheese is melty and bacon is hot.
  7. After removing from broiler, top with green onions and eat up ASAP.
  8. Serve with sour cream, or salsa. Or both.

This serves 2-4 people as a side dish, or be greedy and eat the whole recipe as a main dish. I won’t tell anyone. I make this at least once a week.

This recipe is gluten free. You can make it vegetarian by omitting the bacon.

Easy Recipe: Homemade Pico De Gallo (Fresh Salsa)

Abby H.
Time to Salsa!!

With the massive amount of super tasty local veggies and fruit we’ve been getting, I decided to make Pico de Gallo (fresh salsa) since we had all the ingredients in this week’s box.

This recipe is super simple and takes about 10 minutes from start to finish.

Pico de Gallo (Fresh Salsa)

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups chopped and deseeded tomatoes
  • 1 jalapeno, seeds and white membrane removed, diced
  • 1/2 red/purple onion diced
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 1/2 bunch cilantro, chiffonade (that means cut up into small ribbons)
  • Salt and Pepper

Directions:

  1. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl.
  2. Toss all ingredients until the lime juice coats all of the veggies.
  3. Transfer into a container with an airtight lid.
  4. Store in the fridge for at least 4 hours. This gives the flavors to meld, and the salsa to chill.
  5. This salsa stays good in the fridge for 4-6 days, but it won’t last that long.

I love this salsa with zucchini chips or tortilla chips. Or in an omlet.

 

 

Simple, Frugal Recipe: Coffee Cake!

Abby H.

I love coffee cake. I always have. It’s a quick, easy, frugal food to make for potlucks, or when you have company over for breakfast or brunch. Or because it’s Tuesday.

A few weeks back, Social Nature and Bob’s Red Mill sent us a Blueberry muffin grain-free mix. I don’t have a muffin tin (RIP muffin tin, it served us well for 10+ years), and the kit came with a recipe to use the mix for a coffee cake. HELLS YES.

The kids gobbled the cake up and the big kid asked if there was a way to make a coffee cake without a mix.

A quick glance at my handy dandy 1950 Betty Crocker Cookbook and here is my version of the recipe. I have made found the perfect recipe. I’ve made some changes that are a little healthier, a little more modern, but don’t mess with the flavors at all.

Betty’s Coffee Cake with Streusel Topping

 

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 1/2 cups AP Flour (You can use whole wheat flour if you prefer)
  • 2 tsp. baking POWDER
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
  • 2 Tbsp. AP flour
  • 2 tsp. Cinnamon
  • 1 Tbsp. melted butter
  • (optional, but tasty) 1/2 C. chopped pecans

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
  2. In a large mixing bowl, combine white sugar, softened butter. Mix together until fluffy.
  3. Add egg and blend thoroughly.
  4. Stir in milk, and the dry ingredients. Mix until the batter is smooth.
  5. Pour and spread batter in greased (use spray release) 9×9 glass baking dish.
  6. In a smaller mixing bowl, combine brown sugar, remaining AP flour, cinnamon, melted butter, and pecans (optional). Spread this crumbly mixture over top of the baking dish.
  7. Bake cake for 25-32 minutes.

Serve with coffee (DUH), or a glass of cold milk.