Puppy Chow

Puppy chow! Was not already on the blog! How weird is that? Really weird. This is a holiday staple, you guys. We cannot have Christmas without puppy chow. And that's the only time we ever make it , which is also really weird. Puppy chow is an all-occasion wonder snack.

Ingredients:

• 6 oz (and by six I mean seven or eight) milk chocolate chips
• 6 oz (ditto) semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 box Crispix cereal
• 4 cups powdered sugar

Melt together everything meltable. Pour over Crispix. Toss to coat. This is the only hard part of the recipe. Because if you actually toss it, I'm pretty sure you'll end up with a mess. And if you stir it with a giant spoon, you'll crush all the cereal. But that's okay. Crushed puppy chow is good too. When it's all nicely coated, dump it into a large paper bag (or a large tupperware bowl with a lid), add the powdered sugar, and shake shake shake. This is the totally fun part.

Now you should try to let it cool before eating. This is the other hard part. Then you should eat it.

This is the other totally fun part.

Makes enough for one or two really big Christmas parties.

"Southwestern" Hash

This really shouldn't be called a recipe, but I make it (or some variant of it) often enough it's worth mentioning.

1/2 pound sliced mushrooms

1/4 medium onion, sliced

1 bag of Simply Potatoes "Southwestern" hash browns (You could certainly improvise another shredded potato product. I've never used frozen potatoes, but you could probably make it work. You could also, if you're that sort of person, shred your own potatoes, in which case you'd need 4.5 C, plus some chopped peppers.)

about 4 oz cheese (I like swiss), shredded

5-6 slices soy bacon, cooked and crumbled (Or real bacon, if you prefer pork products.)

4 eggs

2 T spicy brown mustard

Salt and pepper to taste

Butter and olive oil for cooking

Heat about 1 T of butter and 1 T of olive oil in a big skillet. Add the sliced mushrooms and onions, and cook until the mushrooms start to brown. Then, add a bit more oil and dump in the potatoes. Stir it all together, then let it rest a minute or so before stirring again. (Do this repeatedly - you don't want actual hashbrowns, so you want to stir, but you don't want to stir too often or things don't brown well.)

While the potatoes cook, combine the eggs, mustard, shredded cheese and bacon in a bowl. Whisk everything together until well combined and slightly foamy (like you're making an omelete).

When the potato shreds are done (meaning they no longer have the taste/texture of raw potato), pour the egg mixture into the skillet and stir, stir, stir! The egg and melted cheese binds everything together. It's ready when you no longer see raw egg. Serve as you see fit - sour cream, salsa, extra cheese, etc.

Spinach Artichoke Lasagna

Ken loves this stuff. And I don't blame him - it's excellent. Allow me to pat myself on the back.

Get these things:

12 lasagna noodles (I use no-cook, because it saves that much time. Obviously, if yours aren't no-cook, you'll need to cook them, or you'll have a very strange lasagna.)

1 medium onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 14.5 oz can vegetable broth

1 can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped (The original recipe called for marinated. I haven't been able to find marinated, so I've just been using plain hearts. There's nothing wrong with that.)

1 t dried rosemary

10 oz fresh spinach (I use bagged baby spinach, you could also prep your own, or use frozen. Make sure you thaw/drain it first, though.)

3 C tomato sauce (I use what we have on hand - usually a jarred sauce with mushrooms.)

1 C ricotta cheese

4 C shredded mozzarella

4 oz feta, crumbled (You can use plain, or one of the herbed varieties.)

Do these things:

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 13x9 dish.

In a big pan over medium heat, sauté the onion in olive oil until it softens a bit. Add the garlic and give it a couple more minutes.

Add the broth and the rosemary, and bring the pot to a boil. Add your artichokes and the spinach. Reduce heat to a simmer, and let it go for about five minutes. (Assuming you're using fresh spinach, you'll want to stir a few times as it wilts.) Stir in the pasta sauce.

Now, um, make it into a lasagna, and then sprinkle the feta all over the top.

HANDY LASAGNA SCHEMATIC
(Key: * = feta, /= mozzarella, - = spinach mix, ~ = noodles, o = ricotta plops)

(top of pan)

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ooooooooooooo
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Cover the pan with foil and bake it for 40 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake it for ten more. THEN flip on the broiler and put it under the broiler for three minutes. (Yes, the broiler makes a difference. Don't you want a delicious cheese crust on your lasagna?)

Eat, and enjoy the admiration.

Mushroom Stew

This recipe is actually titled "Mushroom Bourguignon", and it comes from Smitten Kitchen, one of my favourite blogs. You should head over there first - it's her recipe (I changed very, very little), and she has amazing pictures of it.

When I first saw it, I drooled, but just about moved on - bourguignon = complicated and full of meat, in my mind. The pictures got stuck in my head, though - meaty 'shrooms in dark, rich broth...yeah, I had to try it. I'm very glad I went back for this one. It tastes like you spent hours on it, but it's really quite easy. I was sad, sad, sad when the leftovers were gone.

2 T olive oil

3 T butter

2 pounds mushrooms, sliced about 1/4" thick (I use one pound of portobellos and one pound of cremini.)

2 carrots, diced

1 medium yellow onion, diced

3 cloves minced garlic

1 C red wine (I use Yellow Tail Merlot)

2 C vegetable broth

2 T tomato paste

1/2 t dried thyme

1 1/2 T flour

1 C pearl onions, peeled

salt and pepper

egg noodles and sour cream, for serving

In your biggest sauce pan (I use my 6 quart for this), heat 1 T of the oil and 1 T of the butter on high. Add the mushrooms and cook until they start to sear, but before they get juicy (I set a timer for four minutes, and stir them a lot). Remove them from the pan, and, if possible, put them somewhere where people won't pick at them like I always do. (Also: put them in a bowl. A plate may get messy. And for love of all that's holy, DON'T PUT THEM ON PAPER TOWELS. This will cause major facepalming on my part.)

Turn the heat down and add 1 T of oil and 1 T of butter. Dump in the carrots, onions, thyme, and a several pinches of salt and pepper. Let these cook for about 10 minutes, until the onions are started to brown a bit. (Or, if you're me, get distracted and burn the onions. I do it EVERY TIME. Don't worry, still tastes great.) Add the minced garlic and cook for the time it takes you to wrestle open the bottle of wine. (A minute or two, that's all.)

Add your C of wine to the pan, and be sure to scrape all the yummy bits off the bottom. Crank the heat up until it boils, then turn it back down to medium. Pour in the broth and add the tomato paste. Dump that bowl of mushrooms (plus any juices they've left behind) back into the pot. Get everything up to a boil again, then reduce again, and let the whole thing simmer for about 15 minutes.

Add your pearl onions, and simmer for 10 more minutes. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and remaining 1 T of butter. Add that to the stew, and cook for 5-10 more minutes, or until the sauce is the right consistency. Mine's usually ready pretty quickly. Partly because I'm hungry.

Serve it over egg noodles, with lots of sour cream.

Spicy Ginger Soda

Spicy ginger soda! The end product of something that started out as African ginger beer once upon a time for somebody else's school project. African ginger beer takes hours to make and involves a lot of effort and fresh ingredients. Which is wonderful. But you'll have to google that recipe yourself if you want it, because I'm presenting its cheap, fast, and easy incarnation. The most difficult part of this recipe will be hauling off to the nearest Asian market for instant ginger tea. Let me tell you about instant ginger tea.

INSTANT GINGER TEA: is found in Asian markets. This is not leaf tea or tea that you steep in a bag. It is individual packets of weird little orangish pellets that dissolve instantly in hot water. And are very, very strong. You should be keeping this stuff on hand for sick times. It's perfect for stomachaches and even more perfect for sore throats. To sum up: ginger tea = miracle drink. One package costs about three dollars and contains I don't remember how many packets. Unless you want ginger coming out of your pores, you'll only be using about 1/3 of a packet for any given drink, so one package will last you for months. And now, let us move on to:

SPICY GINGER SODA: Dissolve 1/3 - 1/2 of a ginger packet in a small amount of hot water. Stir. Or put it in a cocktail shaker and shake, if you're that kind of fancy. Add ice cubes and cool things down. Add a small splash of almond extract or - and I highly recommend this - a bigger splash of Disaronno. Fill up with ginger ale (7-up could work in a pinch). Garnish with lime. Or don't. I never have, it just sounds like a classy idea. Serve cold.

Green Lentil Loaf

I've been trying to type an introduction to this recipe for almost half an hour. Here's what you really need to know, without all the fluff:

- It's delicious.

Yeah, just try this. Don't be turned off by its vegetarianness. Some people may even tell you it's "healthier". It's moist and loaf-y, and great with mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy. And ketchup. Just like meatloaf.

You will need:

2 C cooked green lentils (They just about double in volume - so I use 1 cup plus a little more, and have more lentils than I need. Make sure your lentils are well cooked, otherwise you have a crumbly loaf - still tasty, but not the same.)

2 T tomato paste

6 slices bread, torn into small pieces (white, wheat, sourdough, whatever...no cinnamon raisin, please)

3 eggs

1 C vegetable broth

1/2 t dried basil

1/4 t garlic powder

1/2 t black pepper

1 t dried parsley

1 T olive oil

1/2 - 1 packet dry onion soup mix (That's right, dry soup mix. More soup mix = more onion flavour, but also more salt. I find that 3/4 is actually about right.)

"Loaf Glaze" (You know, that stuff you put on meatloaf. Take about 1/4 C of ketchup and add vinegar and brown sugar to it. Start with a T of each and go up from there. When it's reached the level of sweet 'n' tangy you like, you're good. Don't like sweet, tangy glazes? What's you problem? Okay, you can skip it, or you can use plain ketchup.)

Now do this stuff:

Preheat your oven to 400F.

Grease up a 9x5 loaf pan. (My grease of choice is butter. Because it's butter.)

In a large bowl, combine the cooked lentils, bread, eggs, broth, tomato paste, basil, garlic powder, black pepper, parsley, olive oil and soup mix. Stir, stir, stir, then dump it into your greasy pan.

Bake the loaf for 40 minutes. Remove loaf, cover top with glaze and bake another 10-15 minutes, or until the top is nice and gooey. Let it sit about 10 minutes before serving, or you wind up with a sloppy plate.

Saucy Chocolate Pudding Cake

Yes!!!! If you need a chocolate fix, this is for you. I thought I had lost this old recipe, but located it recently in my old recipe box, misfiled. It's super delicious!

Cake instructions:

1/4 cup shortening
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
2 oz. melted chocolate, unsweetened
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup milk

Cream the first 4 ingredients, then add melted chocolate. Mix dry ingredients and add to chocolate mixture alternately with 2/3 cup milk. Set aside.

Sauce instructions:

2/3 cup sugar
2 cups water
1 oz. melted chocolate
1/8 teaspoon salt

In medium saucepan, mix all ingredients and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Pour liquid into a greased 1 1/2 or 2 quart casserole. Drop cake batter by tablespoon into hot syrup. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. (or cook on top of stove in a covered saucepan over low heat for 25 minutes.) Makes approximately six servings.