Dorito Casserole

Yes, I said "Dorito Casserole!" This is one of those indulgences that you can have once,
maybe twice, a year. Let's just say I'm not going to calculate the calories on this dish. (It's worth it, though!)

I was lucky enough to have my nephew, Charles, stay with us for 11 days. We made Dorito casserole one night, though I really should say he made Dorito casserole one night, after a long day of swimming and slushy drinking.


Dorito Casserole

1 lb ground beef (or ground turkey, but why? You might as well just go all out.)
1 package taco seasoning, or 2 tbsp chili powder, 1 tbsp cumin, 1 tsp garlic powder and onion powder
1 can cheese soup (we used Campbell's Fiesta Nacho Cheese soup )
1 can Rotel (any flavor you want)
1 bag Doritos (any flavor you want)
1/2 cup Cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350.
Brown the meat till cooked thoroughly. Drain the fat, and mix in the seasoning.
Then mix in the cheese soup.
In a casserole dish, crush a layer of Doritos (don't crush them too small). Top with the cheese and beef mixture, then top with a layer of Rotel. Keep layering till you use up everything, finishing off with a layer of Doritos and topping it with cheese.
Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

At an attempt to get some "healthiness" into this casserole, I topped my serving with shredded lettuce and tomatoes. Then I negated the "healthiness" by adding sour cream. Ha! It doesn't matter, though. It was sinfully delicious. And having a 7-year-old around helped me burn those extra calories, so I can't complain.

Chicken & Sausage Bake

Now here's a good idea: throw some chicken quarters and some sausage in a spicy mustard
marinade and bake it till it's ready! That's pretty much what this dish is. Here's the recipe for the marinade I used (from Nigella Feasts):


1 large onion, cut into eighths
1/2 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons English mustard
1 tablespoon dried sage
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 lemon

I put all the ingredients in a bag, mixed them well, and dropped the chicken and sausage (cut into 2 inch pieces) and marinated it for three hours (Nigella suggests overnight).

Then everything went into a roasting pan and cooked at 425F for 1 hr 15 min. To keep the sausage cooking evenly, I turned them occasionally.

Note: This is a great recipe, but it's maybe not something you want to do on a hot day. To run the oven at 425F for over an hour in the middle of a hot day was not the best idea. It was totally worth it, but it obviously wasn't my brightest moment.

Jambalaya

Jambalaya, how I love thee! Versatility, thine tendency to be spicy, and thine acknowledgement of my frugality have fostered my ocean-deep love for thee.

So I'm not a poet. But I do love Jambalaya. What's not to love? Sausage? Check. Tomatoes? Check. Spiciness? Check. And the fact that you can pair jambalaya with rice or pasta or the fact that jambalaya only gets better as a leftover? Come on. I'm not going to say you're crazy if you don't like jambalaya, but I'm also not going to say you're not.

I like (red) Jambalaya with tomatoes - this is considered a Creole version. The Cajun-style (brown) Jambalaya. Here's my recipe:

1 lb spicy smoked sausage, sliced on the bias
1 tbsp canola oil
1 large onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
3-4 stalks celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small can tomato paste
4 cups chicken stock
1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp Tabasco
2 bay leaves
12 oz penne pasta (1 box), cooked

In a large pot or Dutch oven, brown the sausage over med-high heat. Remove the sausage, add the canola oil, and add the onion, bell pepper and celery. Sprinkle a little salt over the vegetables while they are cooking.
Cook till translucent.
Turn heat down to medium or med-lo, add the garlic, and cook for a few minutes (don't burn the garlic).
Add the tomato paste to the pan and heat through.
Add the chicken stock, diced tomatoes, spices, bay leaves, salt, and Tabasco.
Add the cooked sausage, and simmer for about 25 minutes.
Add the cooked pasta, stir to combine and serve.

Note: Seriously, leftovers of Jambalaya are awesome!

(This recipe makes 4 servings.)

Peach Cobbler Cups

Do you ever get the feeling that you share a "psychic" connection with your family members? Ok, so I'm not really psychic, but maybe Nicole (my niece who happens to be a year older than me) might be.

I got a message/request from Nicole yesterday about a peach cobbler we used to make when we lived together. It just so happens that I made that cobbler last week. So now you all know I am a procrastinator and it takes me forever to get recipes posted, but as Garth always says, if you wait till the last minute, it only takes a minute to get it done. But I digress.

This recipe is so simple, especially if you use canned peaches and prepared pie crust. I used fresh peaches and prepared pie crust, but I've included a recipe for pie crust just in case you need one:

Peach Cobblers Cups
8 ripe peaches, poached, peeled and sliced
½ cup sugar
1 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Prepared pie crust (see recipe below, or use store-bought)
Cooking spray
4 10oz souffle cups or soup cups

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Spray cooking spray in 4 souffle or soup cups. Set aside.
In a small pot, bring peaches and sugar to a boil. Once boiling, sprinkle flour and nutmeg in the peach mixture. Cook for about 10 minutes, or until the peaches are tender.
Line the bottom of each up with pie crust. Top with peaches, then top peaches with another layer of pie crust. You should end up with 3 layers of pie crust and 2 layers of peaches.
Bake for 25 minutes.


Pie Crust

1 ¼ cups AP flour
1/8 tsp salt (not Kosher)
1 tbsp sugar
1/8 c vegetable shortening, chilled
6 tbsp butter, chilled and cubed
1/8 – ¼ cup ice water

In a large mixing bowl, sift flour, salt and sugar. Using your hands, mix in the shortening.
In a food processor, pulse the flour and shortening mix with butter until you get a coarse, crumbly mix. Add a little water and continue to pulse until the dough begins to form a ball.
Form the dough into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and chill for 30 minutes.

For this recipe, you'll only use half of the dough (at most). Freeze the rest for later use.


Notes:
While it is worth it to poach and peel your own fresh peaches (as long as they are ripe), it is also perfectly ok to use one can of sliced peaches (in light syrup). Drain the syrup before cooking with sugar. You won’t have to cook the peaches very long; with canned peaches, you’ll just want to bring the peach mix to a boil so that you can incorporate the flour without getting lumps.

Also, if you don't want to make single-serve portions, use a casserole dish or other large serving vessel, double your amount of peaches (adjust the sugar to taste), and use all of your dough.

You'll notice that this is kind of an adjust-to-your-liking recipe. If you like peach cobbler for the peaches, use more peaches. If you like your peach cobbler more doughy, use less fruit and more dough.

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Can you tell I like baking? I like this recipe because it uses ricotta cheese. I modified this recipe from a basic muffin recipe I found; instead of using sour cream, I used ricotta because that's all I had. The substitution made for a denser muffin, which is ok with me. If you like yours a little fluffier, don't use ricotta or sour cream. Use 2 sticks of butter instead or use plain yogurt (not non-fat):

Lemon Poppy Seed Ricotta Muffins

1 ½ c AP flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp poppy seeds
1 stick (1/2 c) butter, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
Zest of one lemon
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup ricotta cheese

In a small mixing bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and powder, salt and poppy seeds.
In another mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar, egg, lemon zest, and vanilla extract. Once creamed, add fresh lemon juice and ricotta cheese and mix well to blend.
Add the dry ingredients and stir till combined.
Using an ice cream scoop, scoop out the muffin mix into a muffin tin.
Bake for 20 minutes.


Note: these are not very sweet. If you like your muffins sweeter, use a little more sugar, or make a lemon glaze to top your muffin. A glaze can be made with 1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar and 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice.

Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Spring rolls are easy to make and even easier to eat; you just want to make sure you have the proper ingredients. More specifically, you want to make sure you get the right wrapper for your roll. Look for a large plastic package, about the size of a dinner plate, that specifically says "Spring Roll Skin." It's usually made with tapioca flour, so if you're not sure, just look at the ingredient list.


I use zucchini, squash, carrots, shrimp, and mung bean (cellophane) noodles for my spring rolls; this is a recipe I learned from a chef at the Mill Cafe in Birmingham.

The peanut sauce is easy; you just need crunchy peanut butter, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil and lime juice. How you put those ingredients is entirely up to your taste. I had hoisin sauce and chile paste in the fridge so I used those too. I like mine a little sweeter, so I didn't use much soy sauce or sesame oil.


For the spring rolls themselves:
1 small bundle of mung bean noodles, soaked in warm water for about 30 minutes
2 squash, grated
2 zucchini, grated
2 carrots, grated
2 tbsp sesame oil
1/4 lb cooked shrimp; if large, then cut into bite size pieces.
1 package Spring roll skins
water for softening the skins

Preheat oven to 350.
Toss the vegetables in the sesame oil; spread a thin layer on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.
Allow the vegetables to cool in the fridge while you set up for rolling.

You'll want a deep dish that will hold enough water to cover a spring roll skin. You'll need another dish to place your spring rolls and a damp tea towel to cover them.

Now you're ready: In the water dish, submerge one spring roll skin until it feels soft and pliable. Remove the skin carefully; in the middle of the skin, place your filling (vegs, noodles, and shrimp).
Fold up the two ends, then roll the bottom around the filling tightly and roll up.
Set aside and cover, and continue rolling until you've used up all your filling.

Serve with peanut dipping sauce.

If your towel is damp enough, the skins will stay soft for a few hours. This is definitely not something you want to make hours in advance. After a few hours, the skins will become chewy (not delicious).

Strawberry Shortbread

The thought of making my own fruit Newtons got in my head, and once an idea like that gets stuck in that noggin, there's nothing I can do except try to execute the idea before I can think of much else. I don't think these turned out anything like a fruit Newton, but I still consider it a success. By that, I mean that they were delicious and I ate them all and didn't want to give any away.

I froze some strawberries that I picked at Gnismer Farms in Arlington, and this was the base for my cookie filling. The strawberries were cleaned and cooked with sugar until they were mushy and gelatine-y. Then I made the "shortbread" (I put that in quotes because it's not really shortbread because I substituted 1/2 cup of Neufchatel for 1 stick of butter for a chewier cookie):

2 cups AP flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter (room temp)
1/2 cup cream cheese or Neufchatel
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a large bowl, mix the flour and salt.
In another bowl, using an electric mixer, cream the butter, cream cheese. vanilla extract and sugar till fluffly.
Add the flour mixture and mix well. Shape into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and chill for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 350F.
When the dough has chilled, flour your work surface and roll out the dough out to about 1/4" thickness. Spread the strawberry filling (you can use strawberry preserves or any other preserves you want) across the dough. Fold the dough in half and slice into squares.
Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until the tops of the cookies are golden brown.

Note: Mine turned out chewy because I used the Neufchatel in place of half the butter. If you want yours more like shortbread, use all butter. Store in an airtight container for up to a week, or freeze.