by jphilo | Apr 18, 2012 | Recipes
We celebrated Hiram’s birthday last month with grilled steak (thanks to our unusually warm weather) and strawberry shortcake (thanks to his determination to cut down on sugar due to advancing age). To prove I’m still young, I cut loose. Instead of using the recipe from the old Betty Crocker cookbook, I used my Grandma Josie’s recipe instead. Her recipe was a little sketchy, so below you’ll find her original recipe (submitted to our family cookbook by Cousin Danelle) and then my version of it.
Grandma Josie’s Original Strawberry Shortcake Recipe
1 small cup flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking power
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter
Stir in rich milk until semi-stiff. Bake at 350 degrees until golden and toothpick comes out clean. Top with fresh strawberries. Recipe can be doubled to fit in a 10 inch pan.
Grandma Josie’s Strawberry Shortcake
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup softened butter
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1 quart strawberries, washed, hulled, sliced and mixed with 2 tablespoons sugar
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Cut in butter. Add eggs and milk. Mix with a fork until all ingredients are moistened. Pour into a 9 inch square pan. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Top with fresh strawberries.
by jphilo | Apr 11, 2012 | Recipes
A few days before we went on vacation last month, I cleaned out the fridge and made supper in one fell swoop. How was such a feat of daring and skill accomplished? By using the leftover vegetables and meat in the refrigerator to make fried rice.
Because this dish uses leftovers the recipe is very adaptable. I’ve done my best to create oodles of options in the instructions below. But you can add your own touches, too. Vegetarians can leave out the meat. Onion haters can leave out my favorite vegetable while onion lovers can add more. The only thing you have to include is the rice!
Clean Out the Fridge Fried Rice
1 cup uncooked rice
3 tablespoons olive oil
Any combination of the following vegetables, about 1/2 – 1 cup of each: peas, corn, chopped broccoli, onion, sweet pepper, green beans, cabbage, or carrots
3 eggs
1/2 – 1 cup of one the following cooked, finely chopped meats: ham, bacon, pork, turkey, chicken, or beef
1/4 – 1/3 soy sauce
In medium sauce pan, cook rice according to package directions.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Break eggs into a bowl and beat well. Pour into frying pan and scramble. Transfer cooked eggs back into bowl.
Heat remaining oil in frying pan over medium-high heat. Add veggies, one kind at a time, starting with the carrots and broccoli. Stir fry for half a minute, then add next kind of veggie until all are in pan. Add meat and stir fry for about a minute more.
Add cooked rice. Stir fry and mix well. Pour in soy sauce. Stir fry until rice mixture is evenly coated. Add cooked eggs and mix well. Serve hot. (But the leftovers are delicious cold, too!)
by jphilo | Apr 4, 2012 | Recipes
My daughter Anne loves chai tea. I’ve tried it a few times at my favorite coffee shop. Though I love it’s spicy, mellow flavors, most chai teas are too sweet for my taste. But when USA Weekend Magazine (Jan. 20-22 edition) published Pam Anderson’s recipe for chai tea concentrate, I decided to give it a try.
The biggest challenge presented by the recipe was finding all the spices. Thankfully, we have a bulk food store nearby, and I was able to find everything there. (Did you know cardamom costs $70+ a pound? Thankfully, they sell it by the ounce!) Other than gathering the ingredients, this recipe was easy to follow.
Compared to the cost of specialty drinks at the coffee shop, this recipe is a bargain, even with the price of cardamom. Not only that, Hiram gave the hot chai drink his coveted seal of approval. The ingredient list for the recipe below matches the original one exactly. But, I added more details to some of the directions.
DYI Chai Tea Concentrate
4 teaspoons each ground ginger and cinnamon
4 teaspoons fennel seeds, ground (I ground them in a coffee grinder)
2 teaspoons each ground black pepper, cardamom and corriander
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 cup loose black tea such as Earl Grey
3/4 cup blue agave
2 tablespoons molasses
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Heat spices in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until fragrant and smoke starts to rise, a couple of minutes. (This sounds so weird, but it works!) Add 1 quart of water and tea; bring to a simmer.
Remove from heat, cover and let steep for about 10 minutes. Strain out tea and spices. (I strained out the tea and ground spices by lining the strainer with a cloth.) Stir in agave, molasses, vanilla, and lemon juice.
To serve, combine 1/4 cup concentrate with either 3/4 cup hot or cold milk or water. The rest can be covered and refrigerated up to a couple weeks until ready to use. (The photo shows the concentrate in the background and a cup of tea made with 1/4 cup concentrate and a 3/4 cup mixture of equal amounts of water and milk.)
by jphilo | Mar 28, 2012 | Recipes
Work schedules and morning routines make hot, hearty breakfasts a rarity at our house. So I satiate the hankering for a good, old-fashioned farm breakfast by serving it for supper. One of our breakfast-for-supper faves is this skillet breakfast supper which I don’t make very often because it’s an artery clogger.
I wouldn’t have thought to post on this blog. Except for Hiram. The last time I put the hot skillet on the table, he said, “Aren’t you going to take a picture of it for your blog?” and refused to dig in until I did. So thanks to Hiram, enjoy the photo and the recipe for our favorite breakfast-for-supper dish.
Quite a guy, don’t you think?
Skillet Breakfast…Or Supper
6 medium potatoes
1/4 – 1/2 pound bacon
1 cup chopped onion
6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Peel the potatoes, wash, quarter and boil in water for 15 – 20 minutes until tender. Drain, cool, and slice or grate into hash browns.
While potatoes are cooking, slice bacon into bite-sized pieces. In an iron skillet, fry until crisp over medium-high heat. Put on paper toweling to drain. Pour off bacon grease, leaving 2 tablespoons in the skillet.
Break eggs into bowl. Pour in milk and scramble well.
Saute onion in iron skillet on medium-high heat for about 5 minutes. Turn heat down to medium and add sliced potatoes or shredded hash browns. Fry for 5 minutes, then flip potatoes with spatula. Pour eggs over all, turn heat down to low, and cover. Fry for 10 – 15 minutes, checking now and then to be sure bottom isn’t burning. If bottom is getting brown, flip the potato/onion/egg mixture with spatula.
When eggs are set, sprinkle top with grated cheese and cover skillet until cheese melts. Remove lid, sprinkle bacon on top, and serve.
by jphilo | Mar 21, 2012 | Recipes
One of our favorite foods is ham and scalloped potatoes. Hiram loves it because it tastes good. I love it for its flavor and because it’s a good way to use leftover ham and stretch those food dollars.
This recipe originally came from the Betty Crocker Cookbook Grandma Josie gave me before my wedding in 1977. I’ve mentioned it before. You know, the cookbook with the inscription “May you have many happy hours making delicious meals for a contented husband.” Grandma was an old school kind of gal.
This recipe is kind of old school, too, but it’s mighty tasty old school. Be sure and give it plenty of time to cook so the potatoes are cooked completely. They’ll cook faster in a wide, flat pan than in a casserole bowl.
Creamy Ham and Scalloped Potatoes
2 pounds potatoes (about six medium)
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
3 tablespoons flour
salt and pepper to taste
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1 1/2 – 2 cups cubed ham
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Wash potatoes, pare thinly and remove eyes. Cut potatoes into thin slices. Set aside.
Melt butter in saucepan over low heat. Blend in flour and salt until smooth and bubbly. Add pepper to taste. Remove from heat. Gradually whisk in milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute.
Layer half of the potatoes in a greased 2 quart casserole (or 9 x 13 pan). Sprinkle with 1/2 the ham, half the onion, and half the milk mixture. Repeat with remaining potatoes, ham, onion, and milk.
Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 60 minutes until potatoes are tender. Remove from oven. Let stand 5 – 10 minutes before serving.
by jphilo | Mar 19, 2012 | Recipes
After a wonky weekend with no voice, my inner muse followed suite and clammed up. This morning I couldn’t think of anything to write about except for the blog readership ruining topics of nose-blowing and phlegm colors. Until the nearly finished, free download of family favorite pie recipes came to mind. Now that’s a post blog readers will flock to, even when the introductory paragraph mentions gross stuff like…
Well, you know.
The free download of the Philo Family’s Favorite Pie Recipes includes the instructions for a few vegetarian main dish pies, for a wide variety of fruit pies, and for Grandma Conrad’s Never Fail Pie Crust. The only pie crust in the world this cook can successfully make. If you don’t count Pillsbury Pie Crust from the box. Because it’s a box. Not a recipe. So it doesn’t count.
But I digress.
To download your free copy of the Philo Family Favorite Pie Recipes – all the pie recipes previously featured on this blog – go to the Free Stuff page. The name took days and days to create, so go ahead. Be impressed. And be prepared to be even more impressed in the next few months when more free downloads are added to the page.
The free stuff page.
Free writers’ stuff. Free faith stuff. Free tissue and phlegm analysis stuff. Hmmm, maybe not the last one. Unless a bunch of you leave comments begging for a page like that. Which probably isn’t gonna happen. Because you’re already downloading the recipes and firing up the oven.
Happy pie baking!
