Sunday, July 31, 2011

Salsa

Tomato Season is starting.  I have pepper and tomato plants ready to make a couple batches of this recipe.  We love to use it as a fresh tasty treat all winter.  This is the salsa recipe I got from my mom.   It is turns out sometimes sweet but has never has been too hot for me.  Always tasty in chili, soups, eggs and dips or by itself.  Also nice as a gift.  good luck.

8 halpeno peppers or 4 banana pepper  (omit and increase green peppers for no spice if you wanted)
7  cups peeled chopped tomatoes
2 cups of chopped onion
4 large garlic cloves
1 large green pepper (chopped)
1/4 cup of pasley chopped (dried is fine)
2 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp cumin
3/4 cup of white vinegar
2 cans of tomato paste (5 1/2 oz)
1/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt

Simmer for 30 mins
Seal in hot jars
makes 6 - 500ml jars
also freezes well.

Summer Meals

The summer is unbelieveablely busy.  I'm so surprised by the fact tomorrow is Aug 1st.  I have been planning to sit down and record my amazing discoveries in the kitchen so often but another swim invite or playdate takes me away.  Even getting up early there is so many little things to do.  As I sit here and write this I can see the sun coming up in the backyard and I would love to get the coffee on and enjoy the view from my back deck.
However, I want to tell you about my brilliant summer meals.  A couple weekends ago Gary, the girls and I headed to the cottage for the day.  I got up early and made mini muffins in my new mini muffin pan.  The muffins were pumpkin cranberry (pumpkin frozen from my cow field organic pumpkins:).  They turned out great. While I had the oven on I whipped up a quiche. It was so good. I thought to myself why do we not make more quiches?  They are good hot or cold and you could easily take it to a potluck. You can throw whatever ingredients you have in it, but unfortunately no one else in my family likes it - so i guess that is why they are not often seen.  The week before we had unrelenting heat.  Gary had seen on the weather network that it was coming so on the Tuesday before it got to bad I cooked a big ham dinner.  We had scalloped potatoes and veggies in a cheese sauce and a big salad.  Gary and My dad were doing hay so they needed to eat big meals but I was just trying not to melt so I didn't want to cook.  We ate microwaved ham dinner for 2 nights and ham sandwiches for lunch.  It was awesome, everyone was happy.  Then Friday I cooked a whole chicken on the BBQ.  We had potato salad and cold veggies with that.  Saturday we had leftovers and Sunday morning I cooked the quiche with left over ham in it and we had our big breakfsat cooked at the cottage on the BBQ of egger sandwiches.  For supper I had quiche and Gary wanted a big meal so I BBQ some porkchops and new potatoes I had gotten from the market. Since no one wanted quiche the kids ate that too.
Today is sunday again and this week I didn't cook to much that was exciting.  We were invited out a couple nights and we had our usual speghetti night and fish and chips night.  The girls and I even had sandwiches one night when Gary was at the fair.  I taught my niece Kloe how to make chili and we sent it in the crockpot for the gang working with the cows at the fair.  I also showed her how to make bread in the bread maker.  She entered it in the fair and got 2nd.
OH ya another recipe I tried while the days were so hot was a chicken and dumplings.  It turned out great.  Gary even liked it and I didn't have to turn on the oven.

Chicken and Dumplings in the Crock pot
3 very large chicken breast
1/2 a large onion
1 stalk of celery
6 fresh mushrooms
1 cup of frozen carrots, cauliflower and broccoli mix
1 can of chicken broth
tea bisquit receipe
Put chicken breast in the crock pot with enough water to cover them(about 2 cups) . Cook for 1 1/2 hours or 2.  Remove chicken, set aside and leave water in crock pot.  saute onions, mushrooms and celery til onions are starting to get clear. Throw chopped up frozen vegetables and sauteed veggies into crock pot. Add 1/2 tsp of pepper. Chop up cooked chicken and put back in crock pot. Add 1 can of chicken broth. Bring back to a boil on high and turn down low for 1 hour.
Mix up tea bisquit reciepe and drop from tea spoon about eight clumps in to crock pot. put lid on and let cook for 20 mins.  I tried gently turning them over and leaving it on low again til we ate it.  It would be ready to eat in another 20 mins but I left it for 2 hours and it was still good.  The broth thickened up and it was like a stew, very tasty.

Tea Bisquits 
(this receipe was from a friend to make chicken pot pie but it worked for this too.)
2/3 cup of all purpose flour
1/2 cup of whole wheat flour
1 tbsp of baking powder
1/4 tsp of salt
 2 1/2 tbsp of olive oil or canola oil
1/2 cup of skim milk
Enough of the water from chicken in crock pot to make it wet and sticky
Combine dry ingredients. Stir in oil, milk and chicken water. Mix well and drop from teaspoon into crock pot.

Seriously - try it. eat it for a couple nights, it goes a long way.