Beer Brisket

Recipe:
2 1/2 lbs. lean beef brisket
12 oz light beer
1/2 cup ketchup
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp tarragon
1/4 tsp marjoram
1 bay leaf

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Trim any visible fat from meat. Place meat in heavy dutch oven. Mix all remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Pour over meat. Cover pan. Cook 3-5 hours or until meat is very tender. Turn meat occasionally and add water if it gets too dry. Remove bay leaf before serving.
Can also be cooked in a crock pot for longer period of time.

Recipe from Mom's Updated Recipe Box by Donna Weihofen

Changes:
Used top round, sliced thick, instead of brisket. Doubled the recipe. Cooked in a crock pot on high for 7 hours- meat was still slightly frozen before cooking.

Review:
Rating 8 1/2. It was really a good flavor for the beef. The beer taste came through, but not too strong. Very tender. Great with mashed potatoes. Leftovers are great! Meat also makes great tacos.

Next Time:
Good recipe. "Meat is good."-Chad

Poppy Seed Bread

Recipe:
Sponge:
1 1/2 cup milk (scalded and cooled)
2 packages yeast
1/2 cup water
4 cups flour (sifted)
2 teaspoons salt

Dough:
2/3 c melted shortening (Crisco)
1 1/2 c sugar
4 eggs beaten
1 1/2 cups milk (scalded and cooled)
7-8 cups flour

Poppy seed Mixture:
1 c sugar
1/4 c butter,
1/4 c honey
2oz poppy seeds
3/4 cups raisins

Sponge: Scald milk (milk will be scalded over medium heat when you move a spoon over its surface and a film appears on the spoon). Can scald 3 cups and refrigerate half for later use in dough.

Mix yeast in 1/2 c room temp water, (yeast will not dissolve, but will look like running pudding when it's softened)

Add yeast to cooled milk, add flour and salt. Mixture will be sticky, scape bowl often.

Leave in bowl, cover with towel and put sponge in warm place (the dryer) to proof, (until bubbles appear on the surface) about 1 - 2 hours.

Dough: When the sponge has proofed, add dough ingredients to it with as much flour needed to make a sticky dough (7-8 cups). Knead until smooth. Grease (butter) bowl and turn dough once in it so all sides are slightly buttered, cover with towel and let rise 2-3 hours or double in size.

Poppy Seed Mixture: Melt butter, stir in sugar and honey until sugar is dissolved- may need to do on stove top.

When dough has proofed, divide dough into 8 parts, roll out and spread each eighth with poppy seed mixture. Sprinkle allotted amount of poppy seeds on each eighth and sprinkle with raisins (3/4 cup for total recipe). Roll up each loaf like jellyroll, put in buttered pans and let rise, covered, for 2-3 hours- until doubled.

Bake 350 for 15 min and then 325 for 1/2 hour. Watch bread.

Recipe from Chad's maternal Grandma, Ruth Mohr.

Changes:
Used 7 cups flour in dough. Cooked at 340 for 15 minutes then 315 for 22.5 minutes. Made 6 loaves instead of 8.

Review:
Rating 9. Even though it really takes all day to make this bread- the smell alone when it is cooking is worth it, not to mention how it tastes toasted with butter, mmmm. It's like a dream. 6 loaves will not last long!!

Next Time:
Make when Chad is home! Scald all 3 cups milk at beginning- cool 1/2 in freezer 20 minutes before starting anything else, put other 1/2 in fridge until needed.

Pineapple Rice

Recipe:

1 cup rice

2 cups cubed pineapple

6 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup pineapple juice

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Boil rice. Place 1/3 of rice in bottom of buttered baking dish. Cover with half of the pineapple, half the brown sugar, and half of the butter. Repeat with next 1/3 of rice and second half of pineapple, brown sugar and butter. Cover with last 1/3 of rice and pour pineapple juice over . Bake covered for 30 minutes.

Recipe from http://www.recipezaar.com/Pineapple-Rice-11616 .

Changes:

Used 1 1/2 cups rice.

Review:

Rating 6 from Chad- 7 from Ange. Sweet and delicious- probably better as a dessert rather than a side dish for dinner. We ate with teriyaki chicken, the salty sweet combo was good.

Next Time:

Separate the butter, pineapple, and brown sugar in thirds- like the rice so they are the top layer and get baked and browned.

Meat Loaf

Recipe:
1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef
1 cup milk
2/3 cup cracker crumbs
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon sage or poultry seasoning

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 5 x 9 loaf pan. In a large bowl combine beef and milk. Add all remaining ingredients. Mix well. Put int loaf pan. Bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until brown on top and done in middle (165 degrees). Let stand 10- 15 min before serving.

Recipe from Mom's Updated Recipe Box by Donna Weihofen

Changes:
Cooked for 1 1/4 hours. Topped with sauce made of roughly 1/4 cup ketchup, 1 tsp mustard and 1 1/2 tbs brown sugar.

Review:
Rating 7. Made this many times- not too wet. not too dry. Really quick to make and tasty to eat.

Next Time:
Same.

Homemade White Bread

Recipe:
1/4 cup milk
5 teaspoons sugar (or 1 2/3 tablespoons)
1 teaspoons salt
5 teaspoons butter (or 1 2/3 tablespoons)
1 package active dry yeast
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups flour (get unbleached white for your first attempt)
Corn starch or nonstick cooking spray

Warm up the bowl. Then, mix up the yeast according to the directions on the packet. Usually, it will say something along the lines of “add a cup of warm water to the yeast and stir.”

Melt the butter in the microwave, then add it, the milk, the sugar, and the salt to the yeast liquid and stir. Add two cups of flour to the mix .

Start stirring, and then add the flour about 1/4 cup at a time every minute or so. Keep stirring and adding flour until the dough is still slightly sticky, but it doesn’t stick to your hands.

Lightly cover working surface in flour. Knead for 10 minutes (punch it flat, then fold it back up into a ball again, and repeat.)

Shape it into a ball. Either coat the inside of a bowl lightly with corn starch or nonstick cooking spray then put the ball of dough inside the bowl. Put a cloth over the bowl and sit it somewhere fairly warm for an hour or until doubled in size.

Punch the dough down. Lay the dough out on the floured area and spread it out in a rectangle shape, with one side being roughly the length of the bread pan and the other side being about a bread pan and a half long. You may need to put a bit more flour on it and on the table to prevent sticking. Roll it up from the short side! The roll should be roughly the same size as the bread pan. Tuck the ends of the roll underneath, with the “under” side being where the seam is. Spray the bread pan down with nonstick cooking spray (or coat it with cornmeal) and put the loaf inside of the pan.

Cover that loaf up with the towel, put it back where it was before, and wait another hour.

Uncover, put that loaf in the oven at 400 for 30 minutes. Immediately remove it from the pan to cool.

Recipe from http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/11/04/homemade-bread-cheap-delicious-healthy-and-easier-than-you-think/ . Link has step by step pictures along with recipe.

Changes:
Used 2 3/4 cups flour. Cooked at 375 for 25 minutes.

Review:
Rating 8 1/2. Much easier and quicker than the directions make it look. It only took maybe 5 minutes to mix, the 10 min to knead and then just a couple minutes in between the two rises. Way easier than I imagined. I have never made homeade bread because it always seemed so hard. No more store bought bread for us-I'm going to start cooking two loaves a week!!- Can't wait to start trying some variations! I really enjoyed making and eating this.

Next Time:
Find out how to make bread a little less dense. Cook 22-23 mins at 375.

Poor Man's Stoganoff

Recipe:
1 1/4 lb. lean ground beef
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 small onion finely chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1/2 lb. mushrooms sliced
2 TBSP flour
1/2 cup chicken broth or water
1 can (10 1/4 oz) cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream

Brown ground beef in large nonstick skillet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add onion and cook until tender. Add garlic and mushrooms, cook until mushrooms are tender. Drain any fat. In a shaker mix flour and chicken broth. Pour into skillet. Add soup, bring to a boil stir constantly until mixture thickens. Add extra water if gravy is too thick. Simmer 10 minutes. Stir in sour cream. Heat through. Serve over noodles or potatoes. Serves 6.

Recipe from Mom's Updated Recipe Box by Donna Weihofen

Changes:
We omitted the mushrooms, used chicken broth instead of water and only used 3/4 cup sour cream. We ate over baked potatoes.

Review:
Rating 6. I liked it, have never tasted anything like it. It was good over the potatoes. Chad had a hard time getting use to the sour cream flavor because he is use to his Dad's hamburger gravy which is similar but without sour cream. Would make again, but not thrilled about eating leftovers.

Next Time:
Maybe not so much sour cream.

Food Blog

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to cook more often and to cook more varieties of food. So I have started, but have no good way to save the recipes I like, nowhere to write down the new things I try and no where to store the recipes to never try again:) ... so I have decided to start this blog just for that reason. I will put recipes we try and ratings we give the food on this site- that way I can stay organized, and hopefully stay motivated to stick with it.