Beef, Broccoli and Noodles

I get to take full credit for this recipe, unless you don't like it.  I had stew meat in the refrigerator that needed to be used; and its too hot to make a comfort meal like stew so this is what I came up with.  The good thing about this recipe is you can change it up anyway you want and add different veggies, different noodles or meat.  Its flexible.

I started by browning the stew meat in a non-stick skillet until brown on all sides.  I didn't add oil or anything. 

Next I added some flour

Then some beef broth, soy sauce, garlic powder and a little sugar.

Ginger is very important here since that's the ingredient that actually makes this taste Asian.  I put in about a teaspoon to a teaspoon and a half.

I used fresh broccoli but you could add any variety of veggies you like.

Mix the broccoli in with the meat and sauce, stirring to coat.  Let cook until the broccoli reaches the desired tenderness.  You could also cook the veggies beforehand to speed things up.

I used Rice Noodles but any pasta will work.  You could also leave out the pasta and just serve this with rice.  Cook the noodles or rice before adding.

Stir to coat and serve immediately.

Here's what you'll need:
1 lb beef - I used stew meat but you could use steak cut into strips
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups beef broth - this will sort of depend on what kind and how much meat you're using.
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 to 1 1/2 tsp fresh ginger minced
1 tsp garlic powder - more to your taste (or you could use 1 clove of fresh)
2 Tbsp sugar
2 heads of broccoli - cut into bite sized pieces
1 pkg of rice noodles

Brown the beef in a hot skillet until brown on all sides. Add the flour to the beef and stir until the beef is coated.  Add the beef broth, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and sugar and stir until well mixed.  Let cook on medium heat until the sauce thickens.  You will want more sauce then you feel is needed so it can coat the broccoli and noodles.
Once thickened, add the broccoli and cook until the broccoli reaches the desired tenderness.
Add the noodles and serve immediately.

Peach Cobbler

Since I made peach jam this past weekend I have a lot of peaches left.  I thought about making a pie, but a co-worker suggested a cobbler.  Can't argue there, I love cobbler.  I also love that I found this recipe, its a keeper for sure.  The crust is to die for! My mouth is watering just typing about it.

I know I've said it once already, but boy am I glad I live where there are some delicious peaches.  For this recipe you'll need about 8 medium sized peaches.

Peel, pit and thinly slice the peaches.

Add some sugar...

Brown sugar...

Cinnamon, Nutmeg...

Lemon juice

Cornstarch

Mix until well combined.

Pour the peaches into a small oven proof casserole dish and bake for 10 minutes.

While that's baking, get another dish and add the flour, brown sugar, white sugar, baking powder, salt...

Cold butter that's been cut up for easier mixing.

Mix with a pastry blender or two forks until it looks like small pea sized pieces.  Add some boiling water until the dough comes together.

Top the peaches with the dough mixture, breaking it up and spreading it out as much as possible.  It's OK if you don't cover every single inch of the dish.

Sprinkle the top with the brown sugar/cinnamon mixture.

Now put it back in the oven for about 30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.  I was able to take mine out after about 25 minutes.

This is one of those dishes that you really need to let cool slightly before digging in or you'll get a serious mouth burn.  Some nice vanilla ice cream goes perfectly with this. 

Peach Cobbler

Recipe from AllRecipes

Ingredients

• 8 fresh peaches, pitted, peeled and sliced into thin wedges
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
• 1/4 cup boiling water

Mix Together

• 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 425º
2. Mix the peaches, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice and cornstarch together in a bowl until evenly coated. 
3. Bake for 10 minutes. 
4. Meanwhile mix together the 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and then add the cold butter pieces.  Use a pastry cutter to blend it together.  Add the water and combine. 
5. Remove the peaches from the oven and top with the mixture you just created.  Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over the top and bake until golden, about 30 minutes. 

Berries and Sweet Cream

Recently we had some friends over for dinner, and I was looking for something for dessert that would be fairly easy and yet light (since it's so hot outside).  While looking for ideas on one of my favorite websites (www.thepioneerwoman.com) I found this one.  I'm so glad I did, it was perfect.  It did take a little bit of preparation but ended up being exactly what I was looking for. This sweet cream would be perfect with any fruit, but I think next time I'll try some blackberries, or raspberries so they grip even more cream. Yum!

Start with a pint of heavy cream in a medium sauce pot.

To the cream, add 1/2 cup of sugar. Heat the cream and sugar up to just before the boiling stage (do not let it boil).

Get familiar with a carton of eggs, you'll need 10 yolks.

Add the yolks to the bowl of your stand mixer with the whisk attachment.

More sugar here please, this is sweet cream after all.

Take the hot cream and slowly add it to the eggs.  I'm not sure if you can tell, but I'm letting the cream drip down the side of the bowl so it cools slightly before hitting the egg.  We don't want cooked eggs here, yuck. Put your mixer on low for this and keep going until all the cream has been added.

Pour the cream mixture into a double boiler (or a heat safe dish over a pot of simmering water) and stir constantly until it's thickened slightly.  You're going for a consistency much like melted ice cream, or a slightly runny pudding.

Once it begins to thicken, remove from the heat.

Put the bowl in an ice bath being careful not to let any of the ice or water in the cream mixture.  If you need to serve this quickly, you'll want to keep stirring this until its chilled.  If you can, it's best to refrigerate the mixture for a couple of hours or even overnight.

Serve with any fruit, be generous with the cream.

You can find this recipe here:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/06/blackberries-with-sweet-cream/

Here are the ingredients you'll need:
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 cup sugar, divided
10 whole egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
fresh berries

Combine the cream and the sugar in a medium sauce pan over medium heat and heat to the point just before boiling.  Do not boil this mixture.

Put 10 egg yolks in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer (or do by hand) with a whisk attachment, or hand held whisk. Add the other half of the sugar and the vanilla and mix until blended.

Pour the hot cream mixture into the egg mixture making sure to go very slowly so the eggs don't heat up too quickly.

Once the cream is incorporated, pour the mixture through a strainer (I didn't have one so I skipped this step) into the top of a double boiler or a heat safe bowl over a pot of simmering water. Stir frequently until the mixture begins to thicken.  Do not let the mixture get too thick, you want this to be pourable.

Place the bowl with the mixture into an ice bath being careful not to let the ice or water get in the cream mixture.  Stir until it begins to cool.  Ideally you'll want to refrigerate this for at least 2 hours, but if you're in a time crunch you can just keep stirring it in the ice bath until it's cooled completely.

Enjoy!

Peach Jam

Peach jam, tis the season ya know.  Peaches are at their best right now and we're lucky enough to live in some great peach country.  In an effort to try not to miss out on all their yumminess, my friend Amanda and I decided it was peach jam time. 

Another friend of mine asked me not long ago to make my next jam post geared toward someone who has never tried to make jam before and who might be intimidated by it.  I have to admit, I was intimidated by it the first time too.  There are a lot of steps to follow, its very helpful to have the specialized tools to make it easier and a friend to help you.  I hope that this post will make you feel better about giving it a try.  There's nothing better than eating your own homemade jam.

Here we go, I'm going to start with some of the basics that you will need to start with. These items are helpful to have but not necessary.  You can certainly beg, steal, or borrow some items if you don't have any sitting around that would work. 

One thing you'll want to do before you even begin making the jam is run your jars through an empty dishwasher with the heat cycle on.  You want your jars to be HOT and sterile.

First: go get some peaches! We used the recipe in the "Ball Pectin" box.  This required 4 cups of finely chopped peaches.  That's about 7-9 medium peaches and it yields about 6 - half pint jars.

Second: You'll need a very large pot of boiling water - large enough to hold your 6 - half pint jars and cover the tops with water.

Third: You'll need enough rings and lids for the amount of jars you're planning to fill.  These can be purchased along with the jars, or they can be bought separately if you've already got jars at home that you are using. They'll need to go in a pot of hot water so they are both sterile and hot when your jars are filled and ready for tops.

 Fourth: This canning kit is pretty inexpensive and can be purchased at your local Wal-Mart. This is not a requirement, but it's sure handy.

• Here are the tools inside.  The item on the left is for lifting the filled jars in and out of the hot water that you'll use to "process" the jars.
• The item second to the left has a little magnet on the end, this is to get the hot lids and rings out of the hot water when you're ready for them.
• The middle item is obvious and you can use for any purpose you need.  I generally don't need this item much.
• The item second from the right is for tightening the lids to make sure they're sealed before dunking them in the hot water bath.
• The item on the far right is for filling the jars with hot jam.  Makes clean up A LOT easier.

To begin, peel and finely chop 4 cups of peaches.  You can even chop them finer than pictured above.  We made three batches and the second one we made we chopped the peaches even smaller.

Put the chopped peaches into a large pot, much larger than you think is needed as this will boil up and take up a lot of space in your pot.

Next, add the lemon juice - this recipe called for 2 Tablespoons.

I didn't take a picture of me adding the pectin - sorry.  It's in there, trust me. Bring this up to a boil, when it's boiling so much that even stirring it won't cease the boiling, add the next ingredient.

Sugar!!  5 cups in this recipe.  Jam is not for the faint of heart, or diabetics.  That being said, Amanda and I made three total batches of jam and one of them was a sugar free variety that used fruit juice instead of sugar. I didn't take any pictures....I'm sorry.  I'll provide more details about that recipe at the end.

Now that the sugar has been added, you want to bring the mixture up to a full boil.  A full boil is when every part of the mixture is bubbling and can't be stirred down.  The picture above is NOT a full boil, but it's getting there.

Well this picture really doesn't show it very well, but you can see bubbles in the middle and you'll have to trust me that they weren't going away when I stirred them.  Now set a timer for 1 minute and let it boil hard.

Now you're ready to pour the hot jam, into the hot jars from your dishwasher.  Use a funnel to make this not as messy.  Fill the jars almost all the way to the top, leaving only about 1/4 inch.

Put one of the hot lids from the pot you've (hopefully) got simmering away, on top and then add the ring and tighten.

Now tighten the ring on very tight and after you've gotten all of them filled...

Put them in the hot tub and set your timer for 10 minutes. You'll want this water boiling for this part.

After 10 minutes remove the jars....

and place them upside-down on a towel somewhere where they can be left alone for 24 hours.

That's it!  These last for a long time, they're good as gold for at least 6 months and after that you'll want to watch them for any discolorations.  If they stay true to color they're fine, if they start to change color you'll want to dump them - but keep the jars and the rings.  The lids can't be used again.

Here is the Ball recipe we used for the sugar version:
4 cups of finely chopped fresh peaches
5 cups of sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 pkg pectin

Begin by sterilizing your jars (in an empty dishwasher or a boiling pot of water), just keep them hot until ready to use.

Get a very large pot of boiling water ready to process the jars once filled.

Put your lids and rings in another pot of boiling water, then simmer to keep hot.

Peel, remove the pit and finely chop 4 cups of peaches.

Put the peaches, pectin, and lemon juice in a large pot and bring to a boil. Once the mixture is boiling to the point where you cannot stir the boil down, add the sugar and bring back up to a hard boil.  Once at a hard boil, set your timer for 1 minute.

Fill your hot prepared jars and top with the hot lids and rings.  Make sure they are on good and tight, and place them in the boiling water for 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes are up, move the jars to a towel or heat proof surface  - place them upside down where they can stay for 24 hours undisturbed. 

Here is the Ball recipe we used for the no-sugar version:
3 cups peeled, pitted and finely chopped peaches. About 7 medium.
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 3/4 cup unsweetened apple juice
1 pkg no-sugar pectin

The process is pretty much the same as the process above.  The only differences are, the Pectin, apple juice, and lemon juice are all added at one time before you even begin to boil the mixture.  Once it's at a hard boil, you time it for 1 minute.  I noticed that after I had put this mixture in the jars and completed the processing in hot water the mixture didn't look like it was going to "set up".  It appeared very liquidy.  After sitting for 24 hours however, it was completely set.