Gerry's Amish Chicken

Gerry found this recipe online and brought the ingredients up for an easy meal when we traveled to Montreal September 14-19 for our anniversary 2023. He served it with chunky mashed potatoes and butternut squash. We pigged out after a busy day sightseeing. And with plenty of wine!

8 pieces of chicken (called for skin on - but we used boneless breasts and thighs)

1 c of flour mixed with 2 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. onion powder, 2 tsp. paprika and salt and pepper to taste. 

Dredge the chicken well in the flour mixture (next time we will use more chicken in the recipe with the same amount of seasonings and cream). Place in a baking dish and whisk together 1-1/2 c. chicken stock* and 1-1/2 cup heavy cream. Pour it around the chicken in the dish and bake for one or one-and-a-half hours at 350 degrees.

*The recipe called for water. We will change to stock or chicken base broth concentrate.

We will serve it with mashed potatoes and broccoli with the granddaughters tonight for Gerry's birthday!

2023 Nana Papa Camp's Blondies

 We made Blondies several times during Nana Papa Camp this summer. They were yummy. I have a collection of recipe books that tempt you when you are checking out of the grocery store and I had the girls choose recipes that wanted to make that week. This one was Phoebe's choice from Nestle's Toll House Best-Loved Cookies, 1995 edition. I knew the book would come in handy one day!

Maeve chose two recipes for fruit-based popsicles we made with small paper cups and popsicle sticks (a staple in any Nana's home although these came from Papa's stash.)

Blonde Brownies

• 2-1/4 c flour
• 2-1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1-3/4 c. packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups baking chips of any kind

Combine the first three dry ingredients. Beat the sugar and butter until creamy and then add the eggs one at a time. Gradually add the flour and then stir in the morsels. Spread the batter in a jelly-roll pan (I use the 9-13” gold baking sheets lined with parchment.)

Bake 350 for 25 minutes or until golden on top. But don’t over bake! Cool and cut.

Ricotta Braid with Sesame Seeds and Egg Crust

The Ricotta Braid is one adapted from page 58, Ricotta Walnut Herb Bread in Marjie Lambert's The Bread Machine Book. It's a simple seven-ingredient recipe that you can learn by heart.

Update: I made this a different way recently and it makes a flavorful substitute. Caramelize about 2 large chopped onions in oil and butter. Add some salt and dried garlic flakes and cook until fragrant. Add dried rosemary and simmer a few more minutes.  Cool. When the dough is ready, smooth it out on the baking sheet into a rectangle. Smooth on the onion mixture and roll up. Roll that dough in the rest of the onion mixture. Cut the long roll in two. Let them rise about 15 minutes. Brush with whisked raw egg and bake longer than the usual 17-18 minutes. The onion mixture makes the dough more wet.

Place 3 Tbsp. olive oil and 4-1/2 Tbsp. milk in the bread pan of the bread maker. 

Add 1 cup ricotta cheese* and 1 egg plus 1 yolk.

Top with 3 cups of bread flour, 1 Tbsp. of sugar, 1-1/2 tsp. of salt and 2-1/4 tsp. of yeast. (I have a special spoon for the yeast that measures 2-1/4 tsp. exactly.)

Set your bread machine to dough (OR if you do this hours in advance, time it to within 1 hour of baking.**) After it has risen in the machine, take it out, knead it down and shape into the braid or rolls. Let it rise, brush with egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake 25 minutes in a 350 degree conventional oven or 17-18 minutes on convection bake. You can tell if it is done when the areas between the braids are a bit puffed out and baked (not doughy).

Serve with butter mixed with honey or maple syrup. Or just plain.

*Sometimes the ricotta is too thick - I often use 7/8 cup ricotta and 1/8 cup milk for a lighter bread.

**Sometimes it can be a bit confusing if you have a bread machine that does not allow you to delay the start.  If you do, when you are timing your dough and using a bake cycle that includes the baking time Set on a bake cycle. For example, if a bake cycle mixes, rises and cooks in 3-1/2 hours you'll need to get your dough our 1-1/2 hours BEFORE the completion. If you are setting your dough up at 8 am in the morning to be finished rising (ready for the second rise and bake) at 6 pm, you'll want to delay your bread machine two hours more. Not a ten hour delay, but twelve (or two hours more.)

Note: The Breville Bread Machine does let you delay the start of every cycle!  Yay for Breville.

Just for Fun!

Just for fun! A feast in the microwave! From Gastro Obscura. 

Photo: Gastro Obscura

Dark Coffee Ice Cream

Use the regular ice cream base (see Sweet Basil).

Optional Instructions: This is a 2023 update to this recipe - today I used 3 oz. softened Mascarpone cheese as a substitute to the cream cheese in the base recipe. I forgot the salt but I'm not sure it made a difference. I also used a combination of 2% milk, heavy cream and half&half that I had leftover from our birthday celebration and NanaPapaCamp in August. 1 cup heavy cream, 2 cups milk and the rest half&half (a bit over 1 cup.) 

In addition, I steeped the custard mixture for 5 minutes with 1/3 cup of roughly ground coffee. I placed a sieve lined with fine cheesecloth on top of the pan I use to cool the custard over ice water and let it drip. When cooled, I wrung the cheesecloth out to get all the dark custard. 

I added 1T vanilla bean paste, and 1 tsp coffee extract. When packing the ice cream I sprinkled layers with espresso sugar.

Regular instructions: After the custard is taken off the stove, stir in 1T coffee extract and 1T vanilla bean paste.  Churn and at the very last couple minutes, sprinkle in about 1/8 c. of espresso sugar.

I also added very roughly-ground Red Barn Coffee Roasters American Espresso beans to the latest batch. YUM. ( I Love this coffee which is local in MA.)

I pick up flavorings, sugars, extracts, salts, oils, vinegars etc. when in HomeGoods, any TJX store, or Williams-Sonoma in the clearance section. It's usually an incredible savings. This is how I ended up with these ingredients for the coffee ice cream. I keep the extracts in a thin cupboard that someone made out of an antique washboard (purchased in Texas in the 1990s.)

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Classic Memphis-Style Coleslaw

Coleslaw from the grocery stores seem either hit or miss. Yummy ... or you can take it or leave it. Some restaurants have such delicious coleslaw that I want to take a pound of it home with me.

I've made coleslaw before, but don't know what recipe I used. So I searched online, read reviews, and found this recipe. I changed it up a bit, but knew when I tasted the dressing that it was perfect. Not too saucy - just enough for a 16 ounce bag of coleslaw mix you either chop yourself or buy it at the store. I used a tri-color deli style mix. One reviewer stated that they hate celery so found it non-appealing. I'm so-so about chopped celery in some recipies, but love to add celery seed and celery salt to soups and salads.

Mix 1 cup of mayonnaise with 2 T dijon mustard, 2 T apple cider vinegar, 3 T sugar (I know! but it's good!), 1-2 T of finely grated onion or dried onion or 1 tsp onion powder. (I used the dried because I was in a hurry and the coleslaw will sit for a few hours hydrating the onion.) The recipe calls for 2 tsps of celery seed - I used one tsp of seed plus one tsp. of celery salt (and eliminated any extra salt. I also added a tsp of ground pepper. (Sometimes I don't use freshly ground because the pepper is too coarse for a recipe.)

Stir the sauce in with the coleslaw mix and cover. Toss again before serving.

Thanks to barefeetinthekitchen.com for the original recipe.

Carrot-Ginger-Pecan Scones

I always love scones, but you never know that you are going to get. Cake-y springy scones, tough dried-out scones, or the perfect kind that are soft (but not like cake)  and with a crunch when you bite into them.

These fit the bill. I did change the recipe. See below. I had a cup or so of leftover cream cheese frosting (from the carrot cake I made last week.) King Arthur uploaded this recipe to Facebook yesterday, so here we are. 

The best part about baking these this morning while we having a downpour all day in Florida, was that I got all the ingredients together last night. I grated sweet Florida carrots and stored them in a plastic container. I mixed the flour, salt, ginger, and baking powder together in a covered bowl. I chopped the butter into tiny squares and put it in the freezer. I measured the cream and refrigerated it with the egg. I measured the 1/2 c. brown sugar and set it aside in a Ziploc. I toasted the pecans and chopped them. 

I slept late this morning because I had been up since 2:15 am yesterday (woke to a circling helicopter and found out it was a manhunt!) When I got downstairs this morning, it was a perfect time to make the scones.

• 2/3 c. pecans
• 1 very large Florida carrot grated or 1-1/4 cups 
• 1/2 - 1 cut up candied ginger bits (cut from candied ginger or commercially packaged)
• 1/2 heavy cream
• 6 T unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 2-1/3 flour
• 3/4 t salt
• 1 tsp ginger
• 2-1/4 tsp baking powder

Set oven temp for toasted pecans to 400 degrees. (You will turn this down to 375 degrees right as you place the baking sheet in the oven.

*Original recipe called for 1/2 tsp ginger, and1/2 tsp cinnamon and King Arthur Cinnamon Sweet Bits. I left out the cinnamon and Cinnamon Bits and replaced with more ginger and candied ginger. 

Mix the flour, salt, ginger and baking powder well. Add the butter and mix well with your fingers or with a pastry blender until all butter has been mixed in. I suppose you could do this with a food processor, processing just until the mixture looks like flour but there are no butter chunks visible. 

Whisk the cream, egg and sugar together. Make a well in the flour/butter mixture and then use a

flexible spatula or your buttered hands to mix just until no more flour shows as separate to the dough.

Mold 1/2 the dough on parchment into a round about 4" by 1". Do the same with the other 1/2. Place the rounds in the freezer and freeze for 15 minutes.

Cut the rounds with a large knife into 8 triangles each. Place on parchment on a baking sheet and turn oven temperature down to 350 degrees. Bake 25-30 minutes. Cool off the baking sheet.

Frost with a cream-cheese frosting. If not using a frosting, use a pastry brush and extra cream on the scones and sprinkle with coarse sparkling sugar.