Sourdough Croutons

If you haven't had the pleasure of making your own croutons you are missing out on one of the easiest and most satisfying baking experiences you can have. Everyone will be duly impressed and they are completely simple to make!

Homemade Sourdough Croutons
Recipe from: Rachel Ray

2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
3 cups cubed sourdough bread
1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
1 teaspoon italian seasoning (or just oregano)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme (or 1 1/2 t. dried)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Heat garlic and oil over low heat and melt butter into the oil.
Place the bread in a large bowl and toss with garlic oil and butter.
Season with pepper, Parmesan and thyme.
Spread croutons evenly on baking sheet and bake until crisp and golden. (15 - 25 minutes).

Try to not eat them all before your salad is served. 

Coconut Ice Cream

It was B's birthday yesterday and in honor of the occasion I made my absolute favorite thing: homemade ice cream. One day I sidebusted a facebook conversation between Ralphie and Kinsey and procured this recipe, and my life will never be the same.

Coconut Ice Cream

By: Allrecipes.com via Kinsey, a cute YW from my Texas ward

1 c milk
1 14oz can cream of coconut (I'll save you an hour of your life by telling you to look by the Margarita Mix, and note that it is a different product than coconut milk - which is by the Asian foods. Both products will change your life for the better though).
1 1/2 c heavy cream

Now here's the tricky part: Mix all ingredients together. Put them in the fridge for a spell (10 minutes to a couple of hours, whatever), then put them in your ice cream maker. Ground breaking right?

Thank me later.

Do you like how I gracefully ignored the fact that I've been all MIA for the last six months. Me too. 

Heavenly Halibut

Today was my first experience with halibut, but it most certainly won't be my last. It was brought to my attention that halibut costs upwards of $17/lb. That, my friends, is insanity. The good news for me though is that my dad has a gig where every summer he goes to Alaska, scrubs pots and pans for a week in the day and fishes by night. Then he comes home with a truckload of salmon and halibut and is kind enough to share the spoils!

So I understand if you are a little hesitant to go drop serious cash for halibut. But the thing is...it was divine! And, I am guessing that you could use any white fish in this recipe and have similar results (tilapia is super cheap). So give it a shot and thank me later!

Heavenly Halibut

from: www.allrecipes.com

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup butter, softened
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons chopped green onions
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 dash hot pepper sauce ( I used chaloula - or however you spell it, and I used two and a half dashes)
2 pounds skinless halibut fillets

Directions

1. Preheat the oven broiler. Grease a baking dish.
2. In a bowl, mix the Parmesan cheese, butter, mayonnaise, lemon juice, green onions, salt, and hot pepper sauce.
3. Arrange the halibut fillets in the prepared baking dish.
4. Broil halibut fillets 8 minutes in the prepared oven, or until easily flaked with a fork. Spread with the Parmesan cheese mixture, and continue broiling 2 minutes, or until topping is bubbly and lightly browned.

Miracle Muffins

Blaine has struggled with high cholestrol for a couple of years now, probably more but we didn't bother even having it checked until about 2007. His doctor saw his numbers and immediately prescribed him statin drugs. After doing some research on statins I was scared out of my ever loving mind (memory loss? Nerve damage?) and decided that we would try to get his levels under control ourselves for a few months before giving in to a lifetime of medication.

Part of our cholesterol lowering regime is to have 2-3 of these muffins every day for 8 weeks. Well, more realisticly probably for life. Though I don't struggle with high cholesterol, I still enjoy the muffins each day and so do my kids. It's like eating a nice bowl of oatmeal, but that actually tastes good and that you don't have to douse with sugar to swallow.

So if you are looking for a simple breakfast that is filling, nutritious and could potentially lower your cholesterol, this is it! There are lots of varitations to the muffins, but we just like them plain and simple!

Miracle Muffins

by: The 8- Week Cholesterol Cure

2 1/4 cups oat bran cereal (found in the bulk section of Whole Foods or Good Earth)
1/4 cup chopped nuts of your choice (choose pecans people)
1/4 cup raisins or dried fruit (we leave this out since raisins are vile)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 cup brown sugar, honey or molasses (brown sugar)
1 1/4 cup skim milk (now, here's a big tip! Use vanilla almond milk-- the muffins taste so much better and I think it even has fewer calories!!)
2 egg whites
3 tablespoons canola oil

Preheat the oven to 425dgs. In a large bowl combine the oat bran, nuts, raisins (ew), and baking powder. Stir in the sugar or other sweetening. Mix the milk, eggs, and oil together in a seperate bowl. Once you mix the dry and wet ingredients seperately combine and mix together. Line muffin pan with paper baking cups, and fill with batter. Bake 15-17 miutes. Test for doneness with a toothpick; it shoudl come out moist but not wet.

These store well in the freezer! Enjoy!

Knock Your Socks Off Salsa

Blaine and I have been making our own salsa since the early days of our marriage (where we would make it at 11PM, plop the bowl between us and watch six episodes of the X-Files before crawling in to bed at 4AM, those were the days....). It was always different, we had no written recipe. Sometimes it would be amazing and we wished we could recreate it, and sometimes it was really weird (usually when Blaine would get the grand idea to add things like pickle juice or tuna juice...weird). It has been a fun past time. Yesterday I had the audacity to make salsa from a recipe. Mostly because the dinner I was making (baked southwestern egg rolls) had a salsa recipe linked to it and it looked pretty good. It was good folks...oh it was good. Make a batch and enjoy!

Salsa

by: Annie's Eats

2 fresh jalapeno peppers, seeded and very coarsely chopped

4 cloves garlic, halved

2 large vine-ripened tomatoes

1 (28 0z.) can diced tomatoes (drained or not, depending on how much liquid you want in your salsa - I used two 14 oz cans and drained the juice from one can but not the other)

2 tbsp. red wine vinegar

1 tbsp. cumin

1/2 sweet yellow onion, coarsely chopped

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground cayenne pepper

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

juice of one lime

Directions:

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the jalapenos and garlic. Process until finely chopped. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add all other ingredients to the food processor. Pulse in very brief pulses until the vegetables have reached the size you desire (it does not take many pulses so don’t overdo it). Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving to allow the flavors to blend.

Thai Coconut Curry Soup

It's been a while! I had a little side job blogging recipes for another blogger for the last several months and that kind of sucked up my will to blog. I stopped blogging for her at the end of last year, and now (three months later), I am ready get my toe back in the blogging world. Though I am not entirely sure why as pinterest has completely obliterated any reason at all to have a recipe blog. Well, except I kind of take comfort that if I die or something my kids and husband will have a log of all the recipes I loved. So...there's that I suppose.

Anyway, I made this soup for dinner last night and it knocked my socks off. I will definitely be serving this the next time we have people over for dinner. I can't believe I went the first 28 years of my life thinking I didn't like Thai food. Idiot.

Thai Coconut Curry Soup
by www.sweetspot.ca
The sweet, sour, spicy, salty and savoury flavours of Thailand are one of my favourite ways to fill a bowl. They’re seductively addictive, always well balanced and one of the world’s great cuisines. They’re also easy! This is a very simple dish to make.

Ingredients
Two 14 oz cans of premium coconut milk ( I translate premium to mean FULL fat)
1 heaping tablespoon of Thai curry paste (I used red)
Roots of 1 bunch of cilantro, rinsed well
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced
2 cups of chicken broth
1 carrot, shredded
4 or 5 lime leaves (what the...?)
2 stalks of lemon grass, halved lengthwise, woody leaves removed ( used 2 TBS lemongrass from a little tube I found near the fresh Basil at Smiths)
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
Zest and juice of 2 limes
A small knob of frozen ginger
A handful of bean sprouts
One 8 oz (225 g) package of rice noodles ( could easily use cooked rice instead)
Leaves of 1 bunch of cilantro, rinsed well
2 or 3 green onions, thinly sliced
A sprinkle or two of salt or soy sauce

Directions
1. Scoop the thick coconut cream from the top of just one of the cans into a large stockpot set over a medium-high heat. Melt the cream, add the curry paste and stir for a few minutes until they begin to sizzle.

2. Add the cilantro roots and chicken and sauté until the chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes.

3. Add the coconut juice from the first can and all the contents of the second can along with the chicken broth, carrot, lime leaves, lemon grass, fish sauce and lime zest and juice. Grate the frozen ginger into the broth with a Microplane grater or standard box grater. Simmer for 20 minutes or so.

4. Stir in the bean sprouts. Add the rice noodles, gently pushing them beneath the surface of the broth. Turn off the heat and let stand until the noodles soften, about 5 minutes. Rice noodles don’t need to simmer like pasta to cook; they simply need to rehydrate in the hot liquid.

5. Stir in most of the cilantro leaves. Remove the lemon grass stalks. Taste and season with a touch more salt (or soy sauce) as needed. Ladle into large bowls and garnish with the green onions and remaining cilantro leaves.

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This recipe sat on my menu rotation for weeks because I didn't know where to buy things like lime leaves and lemongrass. But let me assure you, you can modify it to make it less intimidating. For example I found lemongrass in a little squirt tube at smiths (on clearance!), and I used additional lime zest and juice instead of lime leaves.

Also, if I were to do this recipe again I would skip the expensive rice pasta (like three dollars and something a box!) and just simply add rice to the soup. I did spend the big bucks and bought red curry paste and fish sauce but really they were pretty cheap and I will be able to use them in several more recipes. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did!