Summer salad of Crumbed Tomato Slices

Welcome to Our Sunday Café, we are pleased you stopped by for a visit. Today we are offering another delicious recipe from our kitchen. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did…

This is really not a recipe, and I want to make that perfectly clear, because I don't want to offend anyone with what might appear to be misleading information! A few days ago, I needed a side dish to complete our meal. I prefer at those times to try and come up with a vegetable or at least having a vegetable as part of the ingredient list. And this is what I made.......

Summer Salad of Crumbed Tomato Slices.

Crumbed Tomato Slices
serves 2-3

2 large tomatoes
2 T vinaigrette
1 T mayonnaise
1/3-1/2 c croutons

Remove stem and blossom ends of the tomatoes, slice into 4 slices each, arrange on serving plate.

Combine the vinaigrette and the mayonnaise, blending until smooth. Drizzle over tomato slices.

Crush the croutons.

Sprinkle over the tomato slices, add a sprig of herb for garnish, serve!

I enjoy "recipes" like this one, they are simple, adaptable, and use what you already have on hand. For a larger crowd, just double or triple the ingredients.

Enjoy!

Thank you for visiting Our Sunday Cafe, as always we appreciate your time when you visit and your wonderful comments! 

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5

Homemade Bay Leaf Seasoning, Recipe rewind, because some things are too good to miss!

Recipe rewind, because in the beginning there is a blogger who has no readers. She still posts great food in hopes that the readers will come..........you can also view it here in the archives, Saturday March 7, 2009.

Homemade Bay Leaf Seasoning



I went to my spice drawer this morning and pulled out the empty Bay Leaf Seasoning jar. I was glad I kept it after my adventure to Penzy's brought me back home void of a new jar of the beloved seasoning blend, because the empty jar held the secret list of ingredients.

I had picked up bay leaves, hoping I could re-create the blend. Using the ingredients list I set about putting together my best guess of what should be in this herb blend. When finished I decided to take the full jar as an omen that the homemade mix will be good.

Come on now, how many times have you made something at home and it was a perfectly fit? The label lists the ingredients in order of weight, and I calculated them to be as follows:


1/2 oz bag of fresh bay leaves
2 T thyme leaves
2 T rosemary leaves
1 T basil leaves
1 T dried onion
1 T oregano
1/2 t ground pepper
2 T garlic salt
1 T plain salt

Place the bay leaves in the grinder and process until ground. Add remaining and process until powdery. It looks like the real thing, smells like the real thing, so I am hoping it will taste like the real thing. I guess it is now time to cook something with it...............................

Here are some ways you will enjoy using this herb blend,

Season potatoes when you make fried potatoes.

Mix into butter to create a compound butter for vegetables.

Use the compound butter to spread on the cut side of a loaf of french bread, sprinkle with cheese and broil.

Add to flour, when dredging meat before pan browning.
 
Vegetable Beef Soup, found here.

I am sure you will come up with your own favorites!

As always thanks for taking a moment to stop by,
I appreciate your time and your wonderful comments!

this post is shared with:
full plate thursday @ miz helen's country cottage

key words:  Penzy's Bay Leaf Seasoning, homemade herb blends

4

Motor Oil Chicken

Welcome to Our Sunday Café, we are pleased you stopped by for a visit. Today we are offering another delicious recipe from our kitchen. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did…

We have been busy here, getting the garage re-organized to bring in an upright freezer. I am happier about this than you might imagine. No more lost food. I know it seems silly, but someone in this household can only place new food on top of old food. And then the food is lost, not like lost in space, but lost to ruin. The small chest freezer can now be used to store large purchased items like, rice, flour etc until it is opened and put into the pantry.

Tonight for dinner, we had marinated chicken thighs. With a funny name, they sure tasted good though! This comes from The Friday Friends, and we will make this again. I also think this would be great for ribs too.
You can make the sauce up and "mop" your meat with it and serve some on the side. Or reduce the vinegar and marinade your meat of choice until dinner time and then get grilling!

Motor Oil Chicken

Motor Oil Chicken
adapted from: The Friday Friends

1/2 cup white vinegar - I used cider vinegar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup water

4 cloves garlic--crushed

3 Tbsp packed brown sugar

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp hot sauce -  I will increase this in future batches

1/2 tsp ground mustard seed

salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

1-2 lbs chicken

Combine all marinade ingredients, add chicken (or ribs!) and marinade until  dinner time, about 4-6 hours. You may let the meat marinade longer, however the longer it is in the marinade the stronger the vinegar taste will be. 

Remove meat from marinade, broil or gill until done. 

 (it is not pretty, but this is where the flavor is!)

Serves 4-6

Enjoy!

Thank you for visiting Our Sunday Cafe, as always we appreciate your time when you visit and your wonderful comments! 

If you like what you see here, we would appreciate it if you told your friends (we would love more followers!), if not, tell us. Our goal is to share relevant information that you will use and enjoy. 

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7

Nova Scotia Cream Cake

Welcome to Our Sunday Café, we are pleased you stopped by for a visit. Today we are offering another delicious recipe from our kitchen. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did…

Nove Scotia Cream Cake

When I first spotted this dessert, I knew right away I wanted to make it! Right now we are using up last years  blueberries, getting ready to put away this year's crop. Although the recipe calls for fresh, I thought I would simply use what I had and adapt, this cake was made from freezer stored blueberries and it turned out wonderful!

Nova Scotia Cream Cake
adapted from: Concetta's cafe
375 degrees

Crust ingredients:
1 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 cube (1/2 c) butter, sliced

1 t vanilla
1 egg

Combine sugar, flour, baking powder and butter in food processor, process until "crumbly". In a medium-large bowl, beat egg and vanilla, stir in the crumb mixture. Mix lightly until larger crumbs form. Place mixture into prepared 9-inch spring form pan.  Press gently.

4 c fresh blueberries (I used IQF blueberries)

Spread blueberries evenly over the top of the crumb mixture.

Topping:

2 c sour cream
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1/2 c sugar

Beat egg, vanilla, and sugar until smooth. Stir in the sour cream. Pour mixture over blueberries.

Spread to cover evenly. Bake 45 minutes, check to make sure the top is not over browning. Bake additional 15 - 20 minutes. If using frozen berries, at 45 minutes, reduce heat to 350 and make up to 45 minutes more. The top will be firm and the edges will be golden brown.

The hard part of this recipe? Waiting for this to cool so I can enjoy a slice.......

Enjoy!

Thank you for visiting Our Sunday Cafe, as always we appreciate your time when you visit and your wonderful comments! 

If you like what you see here, we would appreciate it if you told your friends (we would love more followers!), if not, tell us. Our goal is to share relevant information that you will enjoy and use for yourself and your family. 

You can also sign up for Our Sunday Cafe posts by email, thank you for subscribing!

15

Potato Water Yeast Bread, Recipe rewind, because some things are too good to miss!

Recipe rewind, because in the beginning there is a blogger who has no readers. She still posts great food in hopes that the readers will come..........you can also view it here in the archives, Sunday December 28, 2008.


Never Throw out your potato water!

Because it makes the best bread. I just pulled these two from the oven, they look great and smell even better.

We will be having soup, salad and bread for supper.


What I have is a process, there is no hard rules recipe.

When you boil potatoes for mashed potatoes, and drain off
the water, drain it into a small bowl or large glass measure cup;
I usually have approximately 2 cups of potato water (you can add a bit of
water if needed for a full measure).

To the water (after it has cooled) add:

1 T sugar
2 t yeast
1 c flour
Stir and cover with a cloth, let the mixture sit/sour on your counter 24-48 hours. The fermentation process will add wonderful flavor to your finished bread. When you are ready to make bread, empty the potato water mixture into the bread machine pan. Next add

3 c flour
1 1/2 t salt
2 T honey
2 T oil
1 t yeast (You might not need additional yeast, I prefer to bake my finished dough in a standard oven and usually store the dough in the fridge overnight before baking.)

Start the machine using the dough cycle, make sure the mixture has enough flour, if you have made a few loaves before, it is fairly easy to tell that the dough is holding on to itself and kneading properly.

Let the machine run it's full cycle. Punch down and place in the fridge for overnight aging. The next morning (or later) punch down again and shape. You can now let it rise on the counter or return to the fridge and bake it the next day or later that day when you get home from work.

Yum!

This particular batch is flavored with minced dried tomatoes in olive oil (and oil from the jar was used for the needed oil for the bread) diced cheddar cheese (the cheese was kneaded into the dough) and roasted garlic chips (from the spice section at Costco).

You can flavor anyway you want, or leave plain.

If you leave plain, you could also increase the sweetness of the dough by adding 2 T of sugar along with the honey and when your dough is done, roll is out and turn the dough into cinnamon rolls.

This is the fun part about baking, it is different each time, and yet it is the same technique.

Bring on the potatoes!

As always, thanks for taking a moment to stop by.
I appreciate your time and your wonderful comments!

key words:  potato water bread, dough cycle, flavored yeast breads

8

Whoopie Pies!

Welcome to Our Sunday Café, we are pleased you stopped by for a visit. Today we are offering another delicious recipe from our kitchen. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did…

I have wanted to make Whoopie Pies for a long time. What a fun name for food! Plus chocolate and marshmallow creme, what could be wrong about that? Let's make whoopie pies, shall we...

Whoopie Pies!

Whoopie Pies
adapted from:  The Marshmallow Fluff Cookbook
350-degree oven
makes 15 (small) pies - I got 8 large pies

1 large egg
1/2 c vegetable oil
1 c sugar
2 c flour
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/4 c milk
1 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare/grease 2 large baking sheets, set aside.

In a large bowl with a mixer on medium speed, beat the egg and vegetable oil until combined. Gradually beat in the sugar and continue beating until pale yellow in color.

In another bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, soda and salt, whisk to combine. In a measuring cup combine the milk and vanilla.

Add the flour and milk mixtures alternately to the egg mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Drop by tablespoons onto the baking sheets. These will spread a lot, so make 6 cakes per sheet, at a time.

Bake for about 5 minutes or until the top springs back when lightly touched with a finger. Let cool on pans for a minute or 2 to prevent the delicate cookie from crumbling. Remove to wire racks for complete cooling.Continue baking until all dough has been baked.

 When completely cool, sandwich the filling between 2 cakes to form the Whoopie Pies.

I stocked up, there are some fun recipes in this book!

Filling:
1/2 c (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
1 c confectioners sugar
1 c Marshmallow Fluff
1 t vanilla

In a medium size bowl, beat butter and sugar together. Add Marshmallow Fluff and vanilla. Beat until fluffy.
(this stuff is delicious, but then again butter, sugar, and marshmallow creme would never taste bad.....)

Enjoy!

Thank you for visiting Our Sunday Cafe, as always we appreciate your time when you visit and your wonderful comments! 

If you like what you see here, we would appreciate it if you told your friends (we would love more followers!), if not, tell us. Our goal is to share relevant information that you will enjoy and use for yourself and your family. 

You can also sign up for Our Sunday Cafe posts by email, thank you for subscribing!

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A Gallery of Favorites December 2011 @ premeditated leftovers
what's cooking wednesday @ the kings court iv
full plate thursday @ miz helen's country cottage
weekend round up @ life and times of the 21 century housewife
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9

Fig and Orange Marmalade, Recipe rewind, because some things are too good to miss!

Orange and Fig Marmalade

Recipe rewind, because in the beginning there is a blogger who has no readers. She still posts great food in hopes that the readers will come..........you can also view it here in the archives, Sunday September 20, 2009


Fig and Orange Marmalade (2 day process)

2 organic oranges
1 c sugar
Chop oranges in a food processor until even and about 1/4 inch, empty out into a bowl, stir in the sugar. Cover and let set over night.

Next day:

31/2-4 c whole figs, washed, drained well, cut in half.

 
Chop figs, again about 1/4 inch.
Combine figs and orange mixture, add 2 c sugar, 1/4 c brown sugar and 1/2 t nutmeg, along with the juice of 1 lemon. Bring to a boil, stir, lower heat to simmer and cook covered for 10 minutes. Remove lid, stir well. Continue to cook on low stirring as needed until mixture thickens and begins to hold it's shape. 45-60 minutes. Prepare jars lids and boiling water bath kettle.

Ladle the marmalade into 6 1/2 pt jars, cap and process for 10 minutes.

This is delicious as marmalade on toast. But shines as a starter served with Gorgonzola cheese on crackers or baguette slices.

this post is shared with:
full plate thursday @ miz helen's country cottage
garden variety wednesday @ ms enplace

As always thanks for taking a moment to stop for a visit.
I appreciate your time and your wonderful comments.

9