St Patrick's Day Sugar Cookies

Everybody is Irish on St Patrick's Day!

Using this Five Roses Flour recipe for sugar cookies,

just add some green food colouring to the cookie dough and cut out some lucky shamrocks. (I know, this is a club not a shamrock cookie cutter but it works, right?) 

You can add coloured sugar to the tops or bake them plain.

Once cooled frost the plain ones with your favourite icing.  I just creamed a couple of tbsps of butter along with a splash of vanilla extract. Then added icing sugar and a bit of milk mixing until smooth. No real measurements just mix until you like the consistency.
Spread the icing on the cookies, pipe it on if you want to get fancy, then add your sprinkles.

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Asparagus Buns

I read an article that says eat more asparagus! It will help prevent cancer! Well, I'm not sure of that, but it is good for you, so it got me thinking of ways to use it.

3/4 cup warm water
1/3 cup milk
1  1/2 cups cooked asparagus (or 341 ml can)
4 - 4 1/2 cups flour
2 tbsps olive oil
2 tsps salt
1  1/2 tsps sugar
2  1/2 tsp yeast

Add sugar to the warm water and sprinkle yeast on top.
Sit 5 minutes until yeast activates.

Mash the asparagus, keeping aside a few pieces for garnish.

Combine mashed asparagus, milk and olive oil and warm.

In a large mixer bowl combine flour and salt. Add the yeast mixture, then add the asparagus mixture. The dough should form a ball and come away from the bowl.
Knead about 10 minutes.

Lightly grease a bowl, place the dough in and cover with a damp tea towel.
Rise in a warm place 1  1/2 - 2  1/2 hours.

Before  ....      and after

Scoop the dough out of the bowl and onto a well floured work surface.

Cut and shape the dough into 8 rolls and place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Grease plastic wrap and lightly cover. Set aside until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Place a piece of asparagus on top.

Put a pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven, then bake the buns at 375 F for 20 - 25 minutes.

(If you chose to make a loaf of bread instead, then bake it for 30-35 minutes)

Hope you like it

Deconstructed One Pot Cabbage Rolls

When you feel like having cabbage rolls but do not have the time to fiddle with rolling them up.

2 lbs ground beef
1  1/2 cups chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsps paprika
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

1 cup brown rice
5 cups roughly chopped cabbage
1 cup tomato sauce (more if you want it saucier)
1 cup water
1 - 28 oz can diced tomatoes

In a very large skillet brown beef and onion, then add garlic, paprika, salt and pepper.

Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer until rice is cooked, about 20 - 25 minutes. 

Good Old Peanut Butter Cookies

Nothin' fancy just a good old peanut butter cookie.

Or you could dress them up a bit like this. Either way, always a favourite.

Makes 3 dozen

1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter or marg
1/4 sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tsps vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1  1/2 cups flour
Coarse salt and whole peanuts

In a large mixing bowl blend peanut butter, butter, sugars, egg and vanilla. In another bowl combine the salt, baking soda and flour and gradually combine with the wet ingredients.

Roll into 1" balls and lightly press into a small bowl of coarse salt.

Sit balls 2" apart on a parchment lined baking sheet and, using a fork, press down in the traditional pb cookie criss-cross pattern. Top with a whole peanut.

And bake at 350 F for 8-9 minutes

Using a potato masher instead of a fork works great too!

Slow Cooker Rice Pudding

I like a recipe that you can throw together and forget about. For a couple of hours anyway...

1 cup short or medium grain rice 
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsps butter
6 cups milk
1 tsp cinnamon

I used Calrose rice. Look on the back of your package to see if the rice you have is suggested for rice pudding.

Add all the ingredients to the slow cooker. It doesn't look like much right now.

Cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 4 - 4  1/2, stirring after the first hour.

Add a little more warm milk if necessary.

Note:

Since some of us don't like raisins I leave them out of the pudding. I pour boiling water over a few raisins in a bowl then stir them into the rice pudding when serving. But if everyone is ok with raisins add a couple of handfuls in the last 30-60 minutes of cooking.

And when heating leftovers just add a little milk or cream and heat in the microwave.

Moist Apple Sweet Mincemeat Muffins

The reason I made these.....I found some leftover sweet mincemeat from Christmastime in the back of the fridge!

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 cup sweet mincemeat
1 small apple, unpeeled and chopped

Mix flours, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together. Stir milk, vegetable oil, egg and mincemeat together and add to dry ingredients. Add the chopped apple. You can use store bought mincemeat or here's a very good recipe that uses green tomatoes, really!
http://hotandcoldrunningmom.blogspot.ca/2014/11/green-tomato-sweet-mincemeat.html

Once the batter is mixed together, don't over mix, fill muffin papers...

and bake in a 400 F oven for 25 minutes.

Kong or Bone Filler

When you are left with a bunch of empty marrow soup bones that have been happily devoured by your pooch, fill them with a tasty treat. 

Mix together:

plain mashed potatoes
an egg
some chopped cooked veggies
a little chia seeds
oats

Mix it to a consistency that won't run out the other side of the bone when you're filling it.

Pop them in the freezer. Any leftover filling can be frozen in an ice cube tray.

Just grab one from the freezer when someone deserves a treat. 

Your canine buddy will love you for it!