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This dish is also known as a puff pancake. The recipe is based upon one by recipegirl. I was recently gifted a non-stick cast iron Dutch oven. The lid is multi-use and may be used as a skillet. If you do not have a cast-iron skillet, or one that is bake-proof, then a 9×13″ baking dish should work fine.
- Ingredients
- 4 eggs (I use extra large)
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp. lemon zest
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 2 Tbsp. butter
- 1 to 1-1/2 cups fresh berries
- Syrup or powdered sugar (optional)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put your skillet into oven as it’s heating.
In a blender or food processor, mix together eggs, milk, flour, sugar, lemon zest, and salt.
Remove the skillet from oven and place butter into it. Return to oven until butter has melted.
Pour batter over melted butter. Sprinkle berries over the top of the batter. Place the skillet back into the oven for 18-22 minutes. Remove from oven and serve sprinkled with powdered sugar or with syrup, however you like it.
Serves 4
I’ve been making my own ricotta lately because it’s easy and has so few ingredients. I also like the taste very much better than store bought. Why is it different? I do not know. I’ve used it in lasagne, cake, and as a condiment for pancakes and crackers.
- Ingredients: Yield apx. 2 cups ricotta cheese
- 1 quart whole milk
- 1-1/4 cups heavy cream
- 1/8 cup cider vinegar
Stir the milk and cream together in a saucepan. Set over medium heat and bring almost to boiling. This is very important, it has to be hot enough. Remove from heat and pour in the vinegar. Give two swirls through the pan with a spoon and then let it sit until cooled to room temperature. The milk will curdle–that’s good.
Using cheesecloth or a jelly bag or some type of fine-mesh strainer, pour the mixture through. This will mostly be whey. I save the whey to feed my sourdough, but you can discard it or search Google to find more uses. Once the remaining cheese is a dryness that seems good (overnight), either use it or place it into a covered dish and pop into the refrigerator for later. I don’t know how long it will last. Seems like the longest I’ve kept it is around ten days.
Notes: You can read a lot about this not working with pasteurized milk, but I’ve had no problem. I didn’t let it get hot enough one time and I stirred it too much, so it didn’t separate into milk solids and whey properly. I re-heated the whey the next day and as soon as it got hot it separated before my eyes. So, that was a learning experience.
People joke about holiday fruit cakes and I get that. But there are people who genuinely enjoy them, my father, my husband, and myself being three of them. I inherited my mother-in-law’s recipe box when she passed away on Good Friday 1991. I think I had actually started making these fruit cakes prior to that, but I really didn’t get into the swing of it, realizing that the brandy was key, until just a few years ago. In 2019 I made two batches and sent my dad a couple different loaves, soaked in brandy. Soaked. My husband and I took a loaf out of the freezer last month, and oh my, it was the best ever! So, here we go, this is what you do . . .
- Ingredients
- 3 oz. candied diced lemon peel
- 3 oz. candied diced orange peel
- 1/4 # candied chopped pineapple
- 1/4 # candied diced citron
- 1/2 # chopped pitted dates
- 1/2 # candied cherries, halved
- 1/2 # raisins
- 1/4 # rough chopped walnuts
- 1/4 # rough chopped pecans
- 1/4 cup flour, for dredging
- 1 cup shortening
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup honey
- 5 eggs, well beaten
- 1-1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. allspice
- 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
- 1/4 cup orange or grape juice
- Apx. 3 cups brandy
In a very large bowl (mine is 32 cups), dredge fruit and nuts in 1/4 cup flour and set aside.
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Prepare three 3-1/2 x 7-1/2″ loaf pans by spraying with non-stick spray and lining with parchment paper, allowing at least a 1/2″ overhang on all sides of pans. Heat 2 cups water to boiling in another pan.
In a separate bowl (I use a stand mixer) cream sugar and shortening. Add honey, then eggs, and beat well. Sift remaining dry ingredients and stir in alternately with fruit juice — beat thoroughly. Pour batter over floured fruit in the very large bowl and mix well.
Dollop the batter evenly into the pans, but do not flatten the batter down. Place pan with boiling water in the oven and also place loaves into oven. If you have the shelf space, put the boiling water pan on a rack beneath the loaves. Mine gets all crowded in there together on the same rack. No problem. The loaves do NOT go into the water. Bake at 250 degrees F for 3 to 4 hours.
Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Wrap each loaf in a cloth. Place the loaves into a shallow pan with sides (9 X 13″ Pyrex baking dish works great). Pour apx. 3 cups brandy (half of a 1.75 L bottle) evenly over the loaves in the baking pan, a bit at a time. Let sit, uncovered, for a couple days. Unwrap, slice and serve, or place into plastic freezer bags, cloth and all, and pop into the freezer. Thaw, unwrap, slice and serve. My, oh, my is that ever a rich dessert!
Yield: 3 Loaves
I ate this for the first time at a local German restaurant a few years ago. I’ve made it myself several times since then. The recipe I was using online ceased to exist, so I switched to this one from Kimberly Killebrew. I think I like it better anyway. Thinking about making this the first couple times seems a rather daunting prospect, but it’s much easier to do than you would think. I believe you could use wild game instead of beef steak, as long as the piece was sliced thin enough. You’re going to need toothpicks, lots of toothpicks. This is easily a gluten-free dinner if you use a corn-starch thickener instead of flour and serve it over something like polenta or potatoes.
When I last made this, I only made 4 beef rolls (instead of 8), but the full complement of gravy. That’s to say just make the number of rolls for the number of people you’re serving. After you’ve done this a time or two, you’ll understand what I’m getting at. And the rouladen are SO tender, you don’t even need a knife!
- Rouladen Ingredients
- 8 slices beef steak (like round steak), about 4×6″ size, pounded thin
- Spicy brown mustard or Dijon mustard
- Salt and pepper
- 8 slices bacon
- 8 slices dill pickle
- Sliced onion
- Gravy Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp. butter
- 1 Tbsp. oil
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 large carrot, diced
- 1 large celery stalk, diced
- 1 cup red wine
- 2 cups beef broth
- 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. ground pepper
- Cornstarch or flour to make a slurry
- Cream, optional
Spread each piece of meat with mustard and then sprinkle with salt and pepper. At the smallest end of the meat, lay a slice of bacon, pickle, and onion. Roll the meat up from that smallest end to the largest end. Secure with several toothpicks.
Heat the butter and oil in an oven-proof skillet or Dutch oven and sear the meat rolls on all sides. Remove to a plate. In that same skillet, saute the onions until they are translucent. You may need more butter or oil. Stir in the garlic and saute another thirty seconds or so. Add the carrots and celery and saute another five minutes.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Pour red wine into the skillet with the vegetables, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the beef broth, tomato paste, bay leaf, sugar, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat.
Nestle the meat rolls in the liquid, cover the skillet, and place into the preheated 325 degree F oven for about 90 minutes. Remove the rouladen from the sauce to a plate.
Thicken the gravy by making a slurry of cornstarch (see note below) and water (or broth) OR a slurry of flour and water (or broth). Either way works just fine. Many cooks will either strain out the vegetables or puree them to make a smooth sauce. I don’t care about that, so I don’t bother with it. Vegetable lumps it is! You can stir in cream if you want a creamier gravy.
Once your gravy is done to your liking, pluck the toothpicks from the rouladen. They should stay in place without the picks. Return the rouladen to the gravy, turning so that they’re coated on all sides and heat through.
You can serve with spaetzle, polenta, mashed potatoes, or just use your imagination. This is easily a gluten-free dish.
Note: A slurry is taking a cold liquid and stirring in either corn starch or flour until smooth, then slowly pouring the concoction into a thin gravy and stirring over heat until the gravy thickens. A two-to-one ratio of corn starch (Tablespoons) to cold water-or broth– (cups) is a good way to start. I never measure it anymore, just make sure the corn starch dissolves, then start pouring the mix into the gravy. If it gets too thick, then I add more broth to the gravy. If it doesn’t thicken enough, I add more slurry to the gravy. I do the same with flour.
You can make this dish without using an oven, all on the stovetop. I haven’t tried it, but it would work just fine.
I don’t own a meat mallet so I do the best I can with the edge of a saucer to pound the meat without putting holes in it. Again, once you’ve done this a few times you’ll see how it works any which way, it’s not at all fussy. The flavors here are really rich. Additional info added 10/16/2023 …. I’ve been buying beef milanesa from the grocery store and it is perfect for this dish. The packages of meat come with eight super-thin slices of beef that are easy to roll and that tedious process goes really quick. Yay!
My daughter said she makes this when she’s craving junk food, but wants to eat healthy. It’s a salad after all. Hahaha. This recipe is like many other taco salads, except it uses Catalina Dressing. There is just enough piquant flavor in it to offset the salty-savory taco flavors. This salad is a meal unto itself. Enjoy!
- Ingredients: (amounts depend upon number of people served)
- Ground beef, bison, caribou or moose
- 1 envelope taco seasoning mix (or 3 Tbsp. of recipe found here) per pound of ground meat
- 1/2 cup water per pound of ground meat
- Lettuce (romaine holds up best, but any kind will do)
- Tortilla chips (I use Tostitos Scoops, but be creative!)
- Grated cheese (your favorite taco type)
- Sliced black olives
- Chopped tomatoes
- Chopped avocado (optional)
- Sliced red onion
- Sliced bell pepper or mini sweet peppers
- Additional ideas include: sliced jalapenos, mild chiles, corn kernels, black beans
- Catalina dressing (you may need a good amount of this)
In a frying pan over medium high heat, brown the ground meat. Sprinkle taco seasoning over the meat and stir well. Stir in water. Let the meat simmer until the water has evaporated. Set aside to cool down to room temperature.
In a VERY large bowl layer the vegetable ingredients in proportions that seem good to you. Add the ground meat. Toss the salad with the Catalina Dressing. Serve.
This does not save very well, so it’s best not to overdo it thinking you’ll just finish it off the next day. I mean, we do that, but by then the tortilla chips are soggy and the lettuce is wilted. Don’t be us, be you.
I buy pre-made Catalina Dressing, but you could Google how to make your own and it might be healthier to do so.
Foods Passion 