Strawberry Pickin' Time!!

Well it's that time of year again! I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we belong to a CSA farm here in Wisconsin. That being Community Supported Agriculture. From May to October we go to the farm that we are a member of every other week and pick up a box of fresh picked organic veggies!

It's strawberry season! Our farm lets us go pick strawberries! It was the perfect weather for it this year!

We picked about 2 buckets full! We love strawberry jam! And strawberry shortcake..... and strawberry pie... and strawberries and ice cream... you get the picture!

I found a new kind of pectin, Ball Instant Pectin..The recipe they use was so easy. 1 2/3 cups of mashed fruit, 2/3 cups sugar and 2 Tbsp pectin per pint of jam you want to make. So we got to mashing!

It's a no cook recipe and was so easy to make! In about an hour we had 6 jars of jam for the freezer! And boy is it delicious!

Next week I'm going to make peach jam! our second favorite.

What To Do With Leftover Chicken

I love those rotisserie chickens they sell in the deli at the Pig! I know I can make my own, but it's just the idea of picking up a nice juicy chicken all ready to eat! Especially when they are on sale! I never get tired of them but the family does so last time I picked one up for my lunch.. I needed something new to do with the leftovers.

We love lettuce wraps, but haven't been able to find them since we moved. So I decided to make my own! I decided to try this recipe: Food.com PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps. Gathered all my ingrediments:

Chopped everything: Gotta love that handy little chopper!

Threw everything in the pan:

And TaDa!!

I also used half the chicken to make this recipe: Pillsbury Chicken Piadini's. I followed most of the recipe pretty closely, but instead of pizza dough, I used Phyllo sheets, and no cilantro because we are not big cilantro fans.

All in all, it was a big hit!

Next.... what to do with leftover Phyllo sheets!

Not Your Mother's Meatloaf!

So what else do you do when you're having a blizzard? That's right! Cook comfort food!

A friend of mine gave me this recipe ages ago so I'm not sure where it came from. But I've been making it ever since! If you're tired of the same old meatloaf, try this recipe out!

Your favorite Meatloaf mix
6-8 slices of your favorite cheese- I usually use either Swiss or Provolone
About 1 1/2 cups of chopped broccoli- I use frozen
Ketchup
Sheet of Wax paper about 2 feet long

If you don't have a favorite meatloaf recipe, you can find a few to choose from here: Kraft Foods, This is my favorite recipe site. For my meatloaf, I don't measure anything. I just use about 2 lbs hamburger, 1/2 package dry onion soup mix, about 1/2 cup bread crumbs, 1 egg , about 1/4 cup of ketchup, and enough milk to make it all stick together but not too soggy.

meatloaf mix	all mixed up

Mix up your meatloaf. Pour it out onto your sheet of wax paper. Shape your meatloaf mix into a rectangle about the width of your meatloaf pan and approximately 15 inches long. Lay your slices of cheese on top, leaving a little room at both ends. If you use frozen broccoli, I suggest rinsing it in a colander with cold water. This just makes it a bit easier to spread and not all sticking together.

spread out on wax paper	cheese on top

Spread your broccoli evenly on top of the cheese. Now for the rolling. Turn the meatloaf so that the shorter end is toward you. Grab the wax paper and start rolling! As you roll, pull up the wax paper so it is not in your meatloaf.

broccoli on top of cheese	short end towards you

When you get to the end, stop just short of rolling it over the end. Pull the end up to the top of the meatloaf so that your seam is on the top. Press together as much as possible. At least with the seam on the top, nothing will fall out into your pan!

rollin' rollin' rollin'	Voila!

Carefully put the meatloaf into your pan. I have this cool meatloaf pan that has an insert with holes in the bottom to keep the meatloaf out of the grease. Cook for approximately 1 hour at 350 degrees.

in the pan	after an hour

After an hour, I put about a half cup of ketchup over the top of mine and let it cook for another 15 minutes or so to be sure it is done.

ketchup added	finished meatloaf

There you go! Serve with your favorite sides and the leftovers make great sandwiches, even with the broccoli!

Quest for Challah!

We love challah! None of the grocery stores around here carry it and the one bakery we found that makes it just doesn't get it quite right.I was directed to this recipe to try:  Challah! This is the printable version of the recipe. In the regular web page version, there is no "About this Recipe' paragraph.

In that paragraph it says "I don't use all the water called for in the recipe"... Well if you don't use it all... why is it stated as that much in the recipe?  I added 1 1/4 cups and it was still too much. Tell me how much to start with and then I can add! I ended up with sticky dough and had to add flour to fix it.

So I got out my bread machine which hasn't seen any use in oh... 5 or 6 years maybe? It was in the garage, and practically frozen! As you can see I made a mess.

Put all the ingredients in the bread machine. You have to do it in the right order or something bad will happen with the yeast. Not sure what... but I don't want to find out!

The bread machine does it's thing for oh... an hour and a half. Then you  dump it out and try to braid it.

 I tried to braid it into 2 loaves. They look kinda mooshed. It's so cold in my 

house it took longer than the prescribed half hour for them to rise.

Finally get to put them in the oven and here is the finished product!!!

They taste exceptionally yummy! And all in all they weren't that hard to make. And as an added bonus, the house smells really good!! I don't think they're going to last long!

Next I think I'm going to make some sourdough starter and try for sourdough!