Salmon Croquettes

Remember the french bread I made? After it started to get stale, I stuck it in the fridge to keep it fresh longer, but ran it through my food processor to make panko bread crumbs first. Panko bread crumbs are basically white bread that has been made into crumbs, and not seasoned. I love that panko can be made with all sorts of bread, so using what I have on hand is perfect!

Since I had some panko to play with, and I also had a can of salmon, I decided to make some yummy salmon croquettes! Mmmm. These are wonderful with a dab of sour cream.

Salmon Croquettes
1 can salmon
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 c panko
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp dill
1 T shredded carrot
1/3 c finely chopped onion
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 c panko for coating
Oil for pan frying

Mix all the ingredients, except for the 1/2 cup of panko and oil, in a bowl. Spread the remaining panko on a plate. Form eight patties carefully with the salmon mixture, and gently coat the patty on both sides with the panko. In a hot frying pan heated on medium-high heat, swirl enough canola oil to lightly coat the bottom of the pan (about a Tbsp worth). When the oil is hot, test with a bread crumb to see if it sizzles. Once it sizzles, gently add four patties , making sure to leave them alone once they hit the pan so they won't break up. Cook for a bout six minutes, or until the bottom is lightly browned, and then flip it over. Cook the other side until lightly golden, then serve warm with a dollap of sour cream.

Be sure to flake your salmon as you mix!

The patty is almost impossible to see here.

Sizzling in the pan! Mmmm

Salmon croquettes...minus one for my daughter.

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Easy French Bread

This technique is great for people who have some experience with baking bread. I have decided to bake all of my bread from scratch, so this technique is perfect for me. To get started, let me give you a list of ingredients:

4 C Flour (I like bread flour)
1 T Yeast
1 T Salt
Very warm (not hot) water
Extra flour for kneading
Water to make steam
Oil to grease cookie sheet

This guy is seriously brilliant. I have to say, for the minimal effort, this bread is pretty tasty. After I bake my bread, a few days later, if there are leftovers, I put them in my food processor to make bread crumbs, and put them in a bag. These are called panko bread crumbs, and they are wonderful to cook with (more posts on that later). Let me know how your bread turns out if you give this a try. Trust me, you'll be glad you did!



By the way, I use the bread to make grilled cheese sandwiches, using cheddar slices, and they are out of this world delicious!

Hamburger and Pepper Pasta

I think my taste buds have changed on me. I find that lately I not only tolerate some spicy food, but I am actually craving it. Now, for me, jalapeno peppers are spicy...or used to be, anyhow. Lately I adore pepper jack cheese, so I bought some to use this week, not having an idea as to how. There were two peppers, one red, one green, in my fridge that needed to be cooked, so I thought a one pan dish would be perfect for dinner.

Hamburger and Pepper Pasta
1 Red bell pepper, chopped
1 Green bell pepper, chopped
1 Small onion, chopped
1 Clove garlic, minced
2 T Extra virgin olive oil
1 Lb ground beef
2 Cups fusili pasta/elbow macaroni
1 Box chicken stock/broth
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Cup pepper jack cheese, cut into cubes
1 Cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Heat the pan to medium-high heat, add olive oil. Saute peppers, onion, and garlic until soft. Crumble ground beef into the pan, and brown. Add the chicken broth and the pasta. Make sure the pasta is under the liquid, and cover with a lid. Cook for about 20 minutes or until pasta is tender. Turn heat to low, and add the pepper jack cheese. Stir until melted, then add the cheddar. Melt the cheddar and remove from heat. Serve hot.

Sauteed peppers, onion, garlic, and browned beef in the oil.

Chicken stock and pasta added.

Keep the lid on to prevent the pasta from drying out.

Adding the pepper jack cheese.

Adding the cheddar cheese.

Mmmm, super cheesy, peppery pasta.

Sour Cherry Preserves

Making jam from scratch is never something I imagined myself doing, but recently I happened upon an amazing blog, called Tigress in a Jam and now I am obessed with trying to make jam at home. My best friend has three amazing cherry trees in her yard, but she told me that they tasted awful and thought they were inedible and probably just for the birds. So when I saw a post from the Tigress on sour cherries, I began to wonder if my friend had sour cherries. The blog had a few recipes to try with sour cherries, so I asked my friend if I could stop by and pick some cherries. I am SO glad we did! I happen to love sour food. When people are running and screaming for water after eating a particularly sour food, I tend to taste that food and grin in appreciation.

I brought home loads of cherries, but the season for them had just barely passed, and I had to sort through many that had burst open. Still, with the amount that was in good shape, I made the most amazing cherry pie (another first for me) and amazing preserves courtesy of this blog post's recipe. I was surprised at how easy it was to make...well, it was after I sorted, washed, and removed the stems and pits. I ended up with just a small amount less cherries than the recipe called for, so I cut down some of the sugar and the lemon juice and decided that I would keep my jam in the fridge for safety's sake. I've heard that jam making is easy, and now that I've done it, I just can't stop myself! The best part is that if the jam doesn't jell properly, the end product is a delightful syrup that can be used on ice cream, yogurt, pancakes, and all sorts of good food! All you do is add the ingredients to a pot on low heat, dissolve the sugar, then raise the heat a tad, stir, and wait till it's ready. Easy!

See that foam? You just heat the fruit in the pot, and the juice releases along with air bubbles.
The foam can be skimmed off easily with a spoon.

Apple Sauce From Scratch

My good friend had a couple of apple trees with ripe fruit ready to pick, so I packed up my daughter and grabbed some beautiful apples. They were very tart, but now that they've rested a bit, they are much sweeter. The taste is between a yellow and a green apple, so they are very delicious. The only drawback with the apples is that they will not keep as well if left for long periods of time. Since I had two other generous friends who let me pick fruit from their trees, I gave them some of the apples, and decided to try and preserve some of my apples for future use.  Following the advice of another brilliant friend of mine, I decided to make my own applesauce and keep it safely in the freezer. It was surprisingly easy to make, and it tasted like apple pie filling!
Here's all you need:
Apples, sugar, and cinnamon

First, I peeled the apples. Then, I sliced them up into chunks and dumped them into a large pot. I don't mind the natural brown color that cut apples get, so I left mine as is, but if the color is a problem, a bit of lemon juice will stop the color change. On low heat, the chunks became soft enough to release juice and soften up for mashing into a beautiful, chunky applesauce. Then I used my potato masher and carefully mashed the apples, making sure to not burn myself on the steam or rogue bits of apple that shot out of the pan from the movement. To finish the applesauce, I added sugar and cinnamon. I like mine a little tart, so I used a little sugar and a little cinnamon. I just added a little bit at a time, and tasted it until it was just right. Not bad for my first time making applesauce!

This is when I added the chopped apples.

As they heat, the color becomes a gorgeous golden brown.
This is when the apples start to get soft and begin to release juice.

The finished product. Pure bliss!

Homemade Mayonnaise: You Can Make That Yourself?!

This started as mayo, and I tried to save it with some extra flavors.

I can't help myself. The inner Curious George creeps out when I learn that there are things that you can make easily, but that I grew up buying in jar or box form. One such product is mayonnaise. To be honest, we were not a mayo eating family growing up. Our loyalties were with Miracle Whip. But, after growing up, my taste buds replenished themselves enough to change my taste preferences. If you didn't know, your taste buds change every 7 years or so. So now instead of being fiercely loyal to one version of condiment, I can enjoy them both.

I first heard about making mayo from scratch on a Martha Stewart show. She was having a sandwich showdown with some famous guy and started to boast about how her mayonnaise was made from scratch. So I tried to search her site for how to do that. I didn't have any luck. Then, as I was reading Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell, she started to talk about her adventures in mayo making. She mentioned how easy it was, so I got even more curious. Now, I stumbled upon an amazing blog (via Tigress in a Pickle) called From Scratch Club, and saw a post about Aioli. I had no idea what aioli was, so I checked it out. That post drove me to take a deep breath and dive into the world of making mayo.

I had some limes on hand, instead of lemons, so I grabbed a lime, two egg yolks, and ground up some fresh salt and pepper. I didn't have any garlic scrapes to make the aioli, so I just went with plain old mayo, which is what Liz, who wrote the amazing piece, said would work just fine. I had heard that if you use straight olive oil, the mayo will taste just like olive oil; I decided to mix in some vegetable oil because I had some on hand. I figured it wouldn't be a strong flavor, and would tone down the olive oil flavor some. (Do not do this!)

My ingredients were all set up, and I started to pour in my thin stream of oil. Then I panicked in my mind because it sounded like water mixing up for a long time. I was beginning to wonder if I made a catastrophic mistake. But slowly, it thickened, and I felt a little brighter. Once I was finished adding the oil, I switched off the food processor and then I tasted it. It was awful! It tasted like vegetable oil, with a slight tang of lime juice. Trying to rescue my mayo, I grabbed some parsley that I had chopped finely, some onion powder, garlic powder, a touch of cayenne pepper, and folded them in. It tasted really great with the new flavors combined, but the dominant taste was still the nasty oil.
Lesson learned: always use really tasty oil when making mayo. I am going to try this again, once I have awesome oil to use.

I used my organic eggs for this. Lime juice, salt & pepper are ready, too.

My super thin stream of oil going into the processor.
This was a tricky picture to take!

This is when I felt relief because it got thicker.

The finished mayo. After I took out the blade,
some oil was pooled underneath. I just folded it in with the rest.

Added ingredients:
Fresh parsley, chopped fine
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Cayenne pepper (dash)

*I feel that it is important to mention that there are raw eggs used in making mayo. When raw eggs are consumed, you can increase your chances of becoming sick with a food borne illness. If you choose to make your own mayo, refrigerate it, and use it within a few days of making it.*