Sauteed Mushrooms with Garlic, Parmesan, and Bread Crumbs

Ingredients
* 2 slices hearty white sandwich bread, torn into quarters
* 3 tbs unsalted butter
* 1 tbs vegetable oil
* 1.5 pounds white mushrooms, trimmed and quartered
* 2 garlic cloves, minced
* salt and pepper
* 1 oz Parmesan cheese, grated (1/2 cup)
* 2 tbs minced fresh parsley

Directions
1. Pulse the white bread (torn into quarters) in a food processor until coarsley ground. Heat 2 of the tablespoons of butter in a 12” skillet over medium- high heat. Add bread crumbs and cook, stirring often, until dark brown, about 3 minutes. Transfer crumbs to a small bowl and set aside.
2. In the now empty skillet heat oil over a medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms release their liquid, about 5 minutes. Increase heat to high and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has evaporated, about 8 minutes longer. Turn heat down to medium, add the rest of the butter and brown the mushrooms, about 8 minutes longer.
3. Add the minced garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Season with salt and pepper to taste and transfer to a medium bowl. Toss with the Parmesan until the cheese melts. Add the bread crumbs and parsley. Serve.

Notes
It is amazing to me how so many mushrooms can cook down so much and become so small. But talk about flavor! The cooking method turned ordinary inexpensive button mushrooms into a fabulous side dish! I am even thinking of making these again this weekend because they were so good.

Spicy Cumcumber Relish

Ingredients
* 1 cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, cut into 1/4 inch dice
* 1 serrano chile, stemmed, seeded and minced
* 2 tbs chopped fresh parsley
* 1/2 small shallot, minced
* 1-2 tbs fresh lime juice
* salt

Directions
Combine cucumber, chile, parsley, shallot, 1 tbs lime juice and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl. Let stand at room temperature to blend flavors for 15 minutes. Adjust seasoning with additional lime juice and salt to taste after 15 minutes. Serve with the cooked fish of your choice.

Notes
Wow! The adults at the dinner table LOVED this over salmon! Talk about delicious! The flavors were bold and fresh, and added such brightness to the salmon. This is definitely my new favorite way to have salmon.

March 31, 2012

Whoops! I woke up this morning and the first think I thought was "Oh man, I forgot to publish the blog!" It has been spring break around here, and while we didn't go anywhere, we did have a lot of fun and I guess I was distracted last night. This break we didn't try out quite as many recipes as we did during last year's school vacation, but we did try about 4 new dishes. Unfortunately, only one was voted a keeper. Sauteed zucchini with garlic and lemon was a huge hit...all the kids had at least 2 helpings, and Liam just loved it!!! Any time I can find a new vegetable, or a new preparation for a vegetable, that the kids devour I am sold! We will be making this again soon for sure!

The week coming up looks a bit busy again, so I don't know how many new recipes I will be trying out, but keep your fingers crossed that we will find at least one keeper. And I hope to get the blog published on time!

Happy Cooking!

New Recipes
Zucchini with Garlic and Lemon

Zucchini with Garlic and Lemon

Ingredients
* 2 slices white sandwich bread , torn into quarters
* 2 tbs unsalted butter
* 5 zucchini, halved lengthwise, seeded and shredded
* salt and pepper
* 1 small clove garlic , minced(about 1/2 tsp)
* 1 tbs extra-virgin olive oil , plus 1 teaspoon
* 1 - 2 tsp fresh lemon juice

Directions
1. Make the bread crumbs: Pulse bread in food processor until coarsely ground.
2. Heat butter in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until melted. Add bread crumbs and cook, stirring frequently with heatproof rubber
spatula, until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Transfer to small bowl and set aside.
3. Toss shredded zucchini with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and place in colander set in medium bowl; let drain 5 to 10 minutes. Wrap zucchini in kitchen towel, in batches if necessary, and wring out excess moisture.
4. Place zucchini in medium bowl and break up any large clumps.
5. Combine garlic with 2 teaspoons oil in small bowl; add mixture to zucchini and toss to combine thoroughly.
6. Heat remaining 2 teaspoons oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over high heat just until smoking. Add zucchini and spread evenly in pan with tongs; cook without stirring until bottom layer browns, about 2 minutes; stir well, breaking up any clumps with tongs, then cook until "new" bottom layer browns, about additional 2 minutes. Off heat, stir in lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with bread crumb topping and serve immediately.

Notes
We all really enjoyed this! I forgot the seed the zucchini before running it through my food processor, and we still enjoyed it. So, seeding it is optional, but it definitely had more moisture than it probably should have because I didn't seed the zucchini first. I will seed them next time. Also, I only used 3 zucchini, but forgot to cut the breadcrumb topping down. The picture looks like there were a lot of breadcrumbs, and there were. If you use only 2 or 3 zucchini, make sure you do divide the breadcrumb ingredients as well! But overall, we all loved this, even with my couple of goofs, and we will definitely make this again!

March 23, 2012

We had a great St. Patrick's Day - did you? We had a traditional dinner with friends and I made a really fun dessert! Have your kids made Leprechaun traps in school? Mine did in the early years of elementary school, and when I saw this cake it reminded me of those traps they made. And of course, if you're Irish (even only on March 17th), then you need to have some Soda Bread.

I did make a few other new recipes this week, but none were "blog-worthy" as we say around the dinner table! Better luck next week!!!

New Recipes
Irish Soda Bread
Leprechaun Trap Cake

Leprechaun Trap Cake

For St. Patrick's Day we had dinner with friends, and I was asked to bring dessert. I saw this really cute cake, and gave it a whirl. Using a white cake box mix and some food coloring I was able to get a rainbow inside the cake! I used a grass tip to frost the cake so it would like a meadow, and butterscotch disks for the gold. The ladder was two pretzel rods with stick pretzel rungs. The pretzels were "glued" together with almond bark. All the kids loved the dessert, and were surprised when we cut into it and the rainbow was revealed!

This is the original post for the cake I saw and used as inspiration for our St. Patrick's Day dessert! Leprechaun Trap Cake

Ingredients
* white box cake mix
* gel food coloring
* white or vanilla frosting
* 2 pretzel stick rods
* 8 stick pretzels
* almond bark for "glue"

Directions
1. Make the cake as directed on the box.
2. Separate the cake into 7 bowls:
6 ounces – dye it red
5 ounces – dye it orange
4 ounces – dye it yellow
3 ounces – dye it green
2 ounces – dye it blue
1 ounce – dye it purple
1 ounce – to be kept white

3. Fill the angel food pan with the remaining white batter that has not been dyed. Then begin to layer with the dyed colors, making each ring successively smaller.
4. Bake it at 325 in an angel food pan for the time directed on the box. This temperature will keep it from rising too much.
5. Let it cool completely, and then slice the top so that it is flat.
6. Place the cake on the serving platter, and then begin to frost. I used vanilla frosting that I dyed greed. I used a grass tip to pipe the frosting to make it look like grass (imagine that!).
7. I made the ladder using the pretzels and melted almond bark.
8. Fill the middle with butterscotch disks for gold.

Notes
I ended up measuring the batter and dying it in Ziploc bags. This made it easy to layer and put in the cake pan.

Irish Soda Bread

Ingredients
* 4 cups flour
* 1 cup sugar
* 1/4 tsp baking soda
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1 1/2 cup buttermilk
* 2 eggs
* 1 stick butter, softened
* 1/2 lb raisins

Directions
1. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.
2. Add butter to flour mixture and blend.
3. Add raisins to the mix.
4. Beat eggs in a separate bowl, then add buttermilk to the eggs.
5. Slowly incorporate the egg and buttermilk mixture a little at a time, and blend will with a spoon.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
6. Cook in a 9 inch greased pan, for about an hour, to an hour and fifteen minutes.

Notes
I doubled the recipe and made it in 3 loaf pans. I cooked the 3 loaves for 65 minutes, and they came out great!

The original recipe calls for 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar, the less sugar the more bread like so it could be served right with dinner. Additionally, if you make it in one round it comes out easily and perfect in a spring form pan. The high sides tend to keep it nice and straight. This recipe has been in the family for a long time... enjoy!