Category Archives: Food

dressings, Food

Home made dressing: blue cheese

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When you live out here in Buffalo, you learn to love blue cheese dressing: on carrot and celery sticks, on wings, on cold pizza. And what is sent with your pizza and wings is normally decent quality stuff. The stuff in the bottle in the store, not so much. Instead of buying the decent quality dressing some supermarkets keep in their fridge section, and hope you use it before it goes bad, it’s simpler to purchase a pack of crumbles which stays good for months, and make it when you need it.

Which for us is now, for lunch. Last night’s wings got hotter, like they do, and our son is going to learn to make the dressing. So I may as well post it.

Except for the cheese, I bet you have everything in your pantry right now. Put 1 cup mayo in a 2 cup measuring cup (or any mixing bowl, this just saves me washing).

Add 3 tablespoons of buttermilk (regular milk is fine, it’s there to keep it pouring well), 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1 tablespoon of minced onion, 2tsp sugar, 1/4 teaspoon each salt, dry mustard and Worcestershire and 4 ounces blue cheese crumbles. I am adding 5 because that’s what Aldi’s sells. Well, minus the bits I ate. With a pear.

Obviously, the benefit of taking five minutes to make your own dressing is that you get to alter the recipe to your taste. Soon, you’ll have a ‘house blue cheese’ that is perfect for you.

That’s it. And that is one of the most complicated ones I make.

I’ll be making wings and fingers soon to finish it up. If the teenager doesn’t eat it all before then.

Food

Shrimp de Jonghe

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I don’t know about you, but shrimp is a favorite protein here, at least for our son (it doesn’t sit well with me). On my ‘to make’ pile is a generic recipe for an old favorite we’ve never tried, which is basically shrimp in a butter bread crumbs topping. So, here I go.

Instead of getting raw shrimp and cooking it, I bought pre cooked frozen shrimp. I was in a rush, so I didn’t thaw them or remove the tails- I will next time to both reduce the water and make it easier to eat.

But here is 12 ounces of shrimp divided in six cute little oven ramekins we bought when we got married, but just started using.

Now to the topping, a buttery boozy stuffing. Half a cup of melted butter was the perfect amount. I added three sliced garlic cloves and two sliced scallions, which was more than the recipes called for and I will be doubling those and adding some garlic powder as well. I used all the dry Sherry in the house, 1/4 cup. Then two tablespoons parsley and 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper. And 1 and 1/2 cups plain breadcrumbs.

And topped with about 2 tablespoons of the basically boozy stuffing to be baked until warmed through.

Baking.

Served, with buttered pasta and buttered spinach. A lot of butter in this meal. 🙂 I can’t remember how long they baked for, but it wasn’t more than 20 minutes.

They were a hit. I certainly think they need a little more flavor, but they did feel very festive and elegant. I would be happy to throw these together for a dinner party.

And I’d probably throw just a bit of Worchestershire sauce in the butter. Just a bit. But this was a keeper.

Food, Uncategorized

‘homemade peanut brittle’

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Recently, relatively speaking, this peanut brittle recipe made the rounds on Facebook. I have never had any luck making peanut brittle, and Hex likes it, so since this one looks a little different, I will give it a try. I have a pound of peanuts on hand in the cabinet (well, 15.5 ounces). I am hoping I can get dinner on and clean the kitchen and supervise the boy who is working on math while working on it. Wish me luck!

So, everything is prepped. The buttered pans are in the oven that I heated to 200 to just take the chill out. In the past, cold pans have been an issue, chilling the syrup too soon. I did all this after starting the sugar because there is plenty of time waiting for it to come to temperature. Plenty of time.

This is my current candy thermometer. As you can see, it’s losing it’s numbers, but hey, it’s cheap. And I have used it for deep frying as well.
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The pot was a present from my mom. I <3 you mom.

Post adding peanuts:

Well, so far, so good. Not burned, not clumpy. After they cool, we’ll see how it is.

And success. Not only the best I have ever made, but a really good brittle. Hex is happy, which is good, because he deserves to be happy.
We agree, it needs to be more salty. So I will add probably 1/4 tsp of salt to that vanilla, water, soda blend at the end and try that out.
Certainly a keeper!

And if you have been scared of making candy, don’t be. People have been making candy long before we had all these tools to help. Just do it! 🙂 Even just to say you have.