It’s getting close to Fall. The leaves here in Southeast Michigan started turning last week. Antonia and I noticed this while walking Sarge. While we we’re happy to see this, Sarge didn’t care.
This of course means it’s stew season. Fall is when I move my slow cooker closer to the kitchen. To make it easier to grab and use. Let’s look at a stew my late mom used to make. Well, this Goulash comes from Ingrid Beer. She’s the daughter of Solvak parents but this is the version her grandmother and mother made. I have a cookbook on Hungarian cuisine. The recipes are the same.
First up is meat. Or not! The cookbook I have says to cut the meat or veggies like butternut squash into chunks. You want them to stand up to the cooking time which is about two hours on the stove or in the oven. Yeah! Slow cooker can absolutely used here. Love that.
Next is veggies except for butternut squash. Tomatoes, zucchini, or whatever else you want to use it. My mom used mushrooms sometimes. With all honesty you could use frozen mixed veggies to stretch your Goulash. Onions and carrots are here as well.
Seasonings. Salt and pepper of course. Along with caraway, oregano, garlic and stock or broth. Now if you use tomato paste great. It’s not a must. If you don’t have it, still make Goulash.
What to serve with Goulash? My mom served it with elbow macaroni. Ingrid Beer’s mom made Spaetzle when she had time. Otherwise it was wide egg noodles or mashed potatoes.
Here we go y’all. Have noticed the Gall coffee flavors in the stores this week. I did and a tinge of excitement shot through me. This post will give you recipes with all kinds of Fall and Holiday flavors. Below will be the ones that got my attention.
1. Hot Chocolate Coffee! Oh hell yeah! I can’t wait to try this one right off the bat. I intend on adding whipped cream and shards of chocolate bar.
2. Vietnamese Egg Coffee. This sounds like custard and coffee coming together in one cup. Oh my goodness.
3. Peppermint creamer. With all honesty you could buy store brand cheaper. Maybe. If you can’t don’t worry the recipe is here.
4. Sugar Cookie Coffee. This sounds a little strange. But so did hit shite chocolate and frozen hot chocolate until I tried them. Now I love them.
5. Cardamon Coffee. This sounds delicious. I can’t wait to try it.
Those are the drinks that stood out to me. This article does have recommendations for spiking these drinks. Over the next two months would be perfect time to try new dishes you’d like to try for the holidays.
This site has an app that is as awesome as it’s service. The selection is amazing. Household items including cleaning or cooking is covered. Asian or Hispanic seasonings are here.
There are fresh meats here. When they arrive, they’re packed in an insulated bag within a box with more insulation. They carry pork, lamb, beef, chicken, and seafood.
Seasonings that could rival any store. You can narrow your selection by region. I would recommend that otherwise you could spend all day there. Curry kits or sauces are available. Soy sauces like you wouldn’t believe. God I love the internet!Noodles and rice are here as well. You make your own noodles. No problem they carry flours and starches.
Fruits and veggies. They have a nice variety of produce. I have no reason to think the produce would be delivered any differently.
I didn’t see any cookbooks. However, they do offer a recipe section. There’s web rebates you can get. The prices are comparable to stores like Kroger. Actually, they had lamb cheaper than stores where we are. Types of payment are the basic. Credit or debit cards. Once you spend $50 there’s no shipping. Your package will arrive by FedEx. Everything artived in one box on the time table they said. The glass items were wrapped in bubble wrap. I will be using them in the future.
Alright! The day is done and you hear the notorious call: “We’re home and hungry.” I feel like there should be dramatic music playing. Anyway, fruit and veggies with a dip is always great. Frozen grapes on a hot afternoon is awesome. You don’t want them so full they won’t want dinner. So here’s a few ideas.
While pizza rolls are good they also have a lot of additives. Or do they. Take pizza dough and place in on a cutting board. Fill it with sauce, toppings and cheese. Remember you do have to close this up so don’t go crazy. Close and bake 350Β° until their almost done. Bake till done. Let these little pizza pockets cool and freeze. Place them on a cookie sheet to freeze individual pockets about an hour. Then bag up.
How about chicken wings or boneless wings. For boneless, just take tenders and cut in half. Season them, bread or batter and bake or fry at 350Β° (pull them out and toss in dressing if you’re going to about half way through) until done. Freeze individually on a cookie sheet before storing in bag. Then micrrowave till heated. Get your favorite dip and enjoy. (*By tossing the chicken in dressing like BBQ sauce or Baffulo sauce half way point will create a sticky coating.)
For your fridge have stuff ready for the kiddies to come in and eat. This could a salad bar kind of setup. Rollups are usually a hit snd expensive at the store. Get your tortilla pack, cream cheese, cold meat and cheese. Get the kiddies involved. Let them choose the meat and cheese they like. Hint: before you put anything like mustard on the tortilla. Spread cream cheese on it. Just a light layer to keep the tortilla from getting soggy.
This video is going to piss you off. Why? We will see what happened with the baby formula while moms were desperately hunting it down. You’re going to be disgusted at the idea that we destroyed a perfectly usable formula, for no good reason. However, there were a lot of lies given to excuse it way and shut us up. Thereβs a clip link below I hope you will watch of a trucker who witnessed the destruction of edible formula. Sheβs also a grandma. So I will leave a link to homemade baby formula. Itβs got to be better than the gmo or bioengineered garbage on the store shelves.
Letβs talk egg prices. I had been seeing videos of people showing the box of eggs I get at Walmart at $14.98. Well, ours finally got there. Yep! Walmart in Frenchtown Michigan has raised the price of sixty eggs to $14.98. My jaw almost dropped when I saw it. Milk today at Kroger is $3.19 for a gallon. This is insane. Rudy at Alaska Prepper shared a video Thursday that stated beef could hit $50 a pound. WHAT!!!! Hereβs why this is such a mind-blower. If beef goes up to that what will chicken, pork, lamb, bison, and seafood be? When one goes up the others go up. Have yβall found alternate sources to get your meat? If so please share.
This video is going to piss you off. Why? We will see what happened with the baby formula while moms were desperately hunting it down. You’re going to be disgusted at the idea that we destroyed a perfectly usable formula, for no good reason. However, there were a lot of lies given to excuse it way and shut us up. Thereβs a clip link below I hope you will watch of a trucker who witnessed the destruction of edible formula. Sheβs also a grandma. So I will leave a link to homemade baby formula. Itβs got to be better than the gmo or bioengineered garbage on the store shelves.Β
Letβs talk egg prices. I had been seeing videos of people showing the box of eggs I get at Walmart at $14.98. Well, ours finally got there. Yep! Walmart in Frenchtown Michigan has raised the price of sixty eggs to $14.98. My jaw almost dropped when I saw it. Milk today at Kroger is $3.19 for a gallon. This is insane. Rudy at Alaska Prepper shared a video Thursday that stated beef could hit $50 a pound. WHAT!!!! Hereβs why this is such a mind-blower. If beef goes up to that what will chicken, pork, lamb, bison, and seafood be? When one goes up the others go up. Have yβall found alternate sources to get your meat? If so please share.Β
RANCHERS WARN OF $50 PER POUND BEEF – CATASTROPHIC CROP LOSSES IN 2022 WILL LEAD TO FAMINE. (2022, August 18). YouTube. Retrieved August 19, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ns7XxppiQQ
Now that school is in moms or dads have to think about how to feed a crowd of kids. Rather it’s sports or after school activities. No! You don’t have to do everything. Parents often share the expense of buying a case of water and sharing it.
Food can be a tricky thing. Laying out food you have to consider dietary restrictions like allergies or diabetes. Also there’s religious restrictions. Jews and Muslims tend to avoid pork and anything else with a split hooves. Jewish kids often have a strick Kosher diet. Muslims use Halal which also prohibits pork.
Here’s some ideas to get around that.
Cold cuts tray. Stick with chicken and turkey. They are popular and kids tend to love them. You could use turkey pepperoni.
Cheese tray. This can consist of sliced cheese for sandwiches, cut for crackers or cubes.
Veggie tray. Tomates are usually popular. English or kirby cucumbers are perfect for slicing and dipping.
Fruit tray. Cut fruit is always a hit. It’s sweet without being sugar filled. Any of these trays would be great.
Yep! You read that right. Christmas Tea post in August. That’s how fast this year is going by. I have already go my daughter’s Christmas gifts done. I just want to get her a couple of books and a sweatshirt from her college.
We don’t really do a Christmas Tea but after the way this year has started, I’m thinking why not. What is a Afternoon Tea? It’s tea with fancy little treats and sandwiches. In a nutshell. By they way if you do decide to have a tea, remember to be mindful of food allergies. Alright now that we have that out of the way, let’s move on.
Usually at a tea you have sandwiches like egg salad sandwich. It’s cut into a smaller serving to make it easy to eat. And crust removed. Sweets can be little tarts, cskes, and/or cookies. Tea can be anything you like. Common is Earl Grey. Of course, if there’s a theme or holiday you can get special teas for it. Christmas Tea would include peppermint tea or cranberry tea.
Are you considering having an Afternoon Tea? If so what ideas do you have?
I have been looking for directions to feeeze desserts for y’all for about twenty minutes. Seriously! Why is it? Because this year has zipped by so fast. Some states have already started school. Antonia starts her college journey on the twenty-fourth of this month.
Let’s get a jump on holiday desserts. You can make them now and freeze them. Cake is a perfect for example. I would freeze this one I would leave off the frosting. After letting the cake cool place in a freezer for about thirty minutes and then wrapped good. Bag and tag it.
Cookies. Ina Garten doesn’t recommend freezing cookies after they are cooked. My rule of thumb is this. Freeze baked stated for three months well wrapped. No longer than three months. Raw state you could eaily go to six months.
Candy. My late mom used keep fudge in the freezer till time to give it out. I will put fudge in the freezer to cool it off.
Pies. Kimmie from She’s In Her Apron recommends freezing pies raw. I can agree with that. That’s how you get them from the freezer section of the freezer in you store.
Cheesecakes can be dicey. Dorthy gives directions for how she freezes cheesecakes. You can buy cheesecakes from your local store’s freezer section. Personally, this us something I would make two days prior to serving. Rather it’s baked or not I would just feel better about waiting.
Doughnuts and Macrons. These can be frozen in either state. Again, I personally would hold off on the decorations. You can also do that when kiddies are out of school.
This article comes from Umicart.com that I shared on Monday. It details the 13 flavors of Szechuan. The article is by one of the many chefs at Umicart’s kitchen. The chef here shares the flavors of their childhood.
First let’s look at a but of background. Szechuan is in the Southwest corner of China. It sets by four rivers. The staple meats are both land and water based. They also use tofu. Many of the flavors came from the Jing Dynasty. And some have come from other surrounding countries. IE: Mongolia. We are going to look at the base flavor profiles because I don’t want to take too much from the article.
Our usual suspects are these: onion, garlic, ginger, salt, pepper of some kind and a chili of some kind. I have noticed that Mandy from Souped Up Recipes uses white pepper the way Americans use black pepper. The white pepper has a more intense flavor than the black. Chilies in China are small. Like the serrano, they pack a punch. Believe it or not the smaller the pepper the bigger the bite. You would otherwise. That’s something I learned from Antonia’s dad. One year for his birthday I got him a Thai Chili Pepper plant. I had no idea how intense the heat would be. It’s a tiny pepper. WOW!
Now it’s time for you to go and read the article. I promise it’s worth the time.
“What to hell is that?” This was my first thought. After reading this post I know I have found my next must make winter stew/soup. According to Julia, Solyanka is traditionally a soup (ΡΡΠΏ) consistency. However, I have no doubt when winter arrives this soup gets some thickening.Β The origins of name of this Meat Lovers Heaven isn’t so clear.
Meat possibilities. Julia recommends beef roast cut into cubes. π The less expensive cuts are perfect for this stew. Kielbasa sausage smoked is used. Bacon π! Yeah! Now here comes the flexibility of this Meat Lover’s Heaven in a bowel, you don’t have to use expensive cuts for this stew. Yeah! You can use any meat you have on hand.
Veggies. Julia recommends Eastern European marinated mushrooms. You can use pickles and olives ftom this area of Europe as well. Why? Because these will bring the acidic tones you want instead of using wine. Potatoes are next. This isn’t a stew I would use a heavy starchy tater. Perhaps the small Yukon Gold or Baby Reds would work beautifully. Tomatoes are used for the sweet part. Unfortunately, tomatoes in America aren’t what they were when I was growing. So if you can get Cento or any other Italian tomatoes they would yield a better result.
Liquid. Obviously you need a liquid of some kind. As I said above you don’t have to buy wine. You can use store brand or your favorite brand of stock or broth.
Let’s talk about cooking. This rings of a slow cooker stew/soup. My late mom used to make stews in her slow cooker. The whole house smelled fantastic by dinner. I can’t see why this would be any different.
Welcome to Scratch Kitchen! 