Archive for the ‘food’ Category

Friday Recipe: Pennsylvania Dutch Potato Filling

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Ah, here we are in Michigan, just in time for today’s Friday Recipe. In honor of Thanksgiving next week, I am posting three recipes for my favorite Thanksgiving dish– Potato Filling. But, I must confess, that I have only made my own filling a few times, and I can’t remember which recipe I used! I’m not cooking for Thanksgiving, but I will have to make some soon– the problem is, I like it sooooo much that I tend to eat WAY too much. What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish?

This recipe came from Grandmother, via my sister:

Grammom’s Potato Filling Recipe
6 lbs potatoes
3 stalks celery
3 onions (what she had written down. She told me 1 large or 2 med for 5 lbs)
dried parsley (lots — I have written down)
pinch of sage (no more than 1/4 t)
1/4 t onion powder
1 t seasoned salt
1/4 t celery salt
3 slices bread – toast it and cut up
2 eggs

cook celery and onion in 1/4 C butter (she did these separately.. don’t brown)

add seasonings.. parsley can be added now or to the potatoes.

add the bread crumbs.

Can maybe use 1/2 C Milk (depends on potato consistency)

Cook potatoes in salt water. Mash. Add eggs. Then add other stuff.
Grease pan with oil (butter will brown)
Put small pats of butter on top of potatoes stuff
Cook at 350
If you refrigerate let it warm up a bit before cooking

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Here is another recipe that comes from my Grandmother:
Grammom’s Potato Filling Recipe, Version 2
(using 8-10 Med. Potatoes)

Cook in Salted Water 8-10 Med. Potatoes or 6 large potatoes
Cut up 1 large onion and 4 med. ribs of celery
Saute onions in 3 tbs Butter (actually, Grammom said NO, use more like an entire STICK)
Push to back side of pan and Saute Celery
Mix Celery and Onion together
Add:
1 tsp Seasoned Salt (lawry’s)
1/8 tsp. Pepper
1/4 tsp. Onion Salt (well… she ammended this to say POWDER)
1/4 tsp. Celery Salt (again, powder… maybe Garlic Powder)
1 tsp. Parsley
Turn heat to Simmer
Toast a slice of bread, break it up and add to celery/onion mixture
Put aside

Mash Potatoes, add 2 eggs
Add Celery & Onion mixture and a Pinch of Sage

If it seems dry, add a little milk or Potato water
Put in a buttered Casserole Pan
Dot top with Butter
Bake at 350 ° till lightly browned– Approximately 45 minutes.

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And here is a third recipe, this one comes from Joan.

Potato Filling
Serves 6
8 medium to large white potatoes, died in small pieces
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup of celery, diced
1 cup of onion, diced
5 pieces of white bread, crust removed
1-cup warm milk
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1-teaspoon salt
Pinch of pepper

Cook the diced potatoes and while they are boiling melt the butter and add the diced celery and onion. Saute until very tender.

When potatoes are soft, drain bread in cold water and squeeze dry. Break apart bread into pieces and add to potato mixture.

Add warm milk, the mixture of celery, onions and butter, salt and pinch of pepper and vigorously mash the entire mixture for several minutes (use a
hand potato masher if possible) until smooth.
Note: You may have to add a little more milk or butter to make the consistency thinner. You want the mixture to be a little thin, not dry.

Put in buttered casserole and bake at 350 degrees for an hour.
The top should have a light crust, but the filling should be creamy and smooth.

Note: You can prepare this the day before. Keep refrigerated.
The baking time could increase because the mixture is cold.

Note from Joan: I used 1/2 n 1/2 , when I cooked the onions and celery , I let it cool, added eggs to this mixture before adding it to the potatoes. I also used a half can of celery soup.

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Enjoy!

Goin’ for a ride in the car car

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

We are headed to Michigan tonight– which means I have to pack! When Joe gets home from work, we’ll hit the road, stopping somewhere in Central or Western PA, and then we’ll finish the journey tomorrow. We’re heading home Monday and plan to make the drive back in one day. I’ve heard a rumor (hopefully not a rumor!) that we will be getting a Christmas tree and having a Thanksgiving dinner while there! Which makes me pretty lucky, since I will also have Thanksgiving dinner at my dad and Joan’s house on actual Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving meal is just about my favorite food of all time. I love it so much, if a diner has a Hot Open Faced Turkey Sandwich on the menu, I have to order it. HAVE TO. Some places are better than others. My recent favorite is at Saville’s Diner in Boyertown. Oh look, that’s actually Joe’s review. I’d probably have given it a 5 star review! I hear that Wawa has something called a Turkey Bowl– I guess like this? I really want to try one. I wonder if we will drive by a Wawa on our trip tonight. Although a turkey meal while we are trying to stay awake to drive might not be a good idea… but then on the other hand… Wawa does have coffee!

Well, like I said, I MUST pack, do dishes, and do my exercises. If I don’t do my exercises before sitting in the car for 600 miles, I will regret it!

Tomorrow… Friday Recipe! Once we make it to Michigan.

Grammom the Chocolate Pusher

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Today is my grandmother’s 88th birthday. We visited on Saturday. She made us dinner for her birthday. And got me hooked on Mini 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate. Just what you need 2 weeks after Halloween (when you still have a huge bag of Halloween candy that you didn’t give out, plus your daughter’s loot)… more candy. But yum, have you tried them? I am normally anti-mint chocolate flavor (which can be traced back to when I was ten years old and had to ingest some kind of mint flavored liquid so I could have a medical test, yuck!), but these are yummy. Actually, I never gave up York Peppermint Patties after that, it was just Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream or Choco-Mint cookies. And I guess these Minty 3 Musketeers taste more like a Peppermint Patty, but with that airy 3 Musketeers texture.

Just look at her… she’s an enabler… getting me hooked on more candy! Happy Birthday, Grammom!

Friday Recipe: Apple Cupcakes

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Don’t Fridays seem like a good day to post a recipe? Maybe I’ll start doing that, and this will be the first installment of Friday Recipe. Might be the first of one, or hopefully the first of many. I don’t have that many recipes though… I’ll have to start adding new things to my small repertoire of meals.

I have made six dozen of these cupcakes in the last few weeks, and they disappear very quickly.

Apple Cupcakes
Makes 2 Dozen
Ingredients
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
* 2 cups sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 4 cups coarsely shredded apples, such as Macintosh (about 1 3/4 pounds)

Directions

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 standard muffin tins with paper liners; set aside.
*Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
*Mix butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Mix in apples. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined.
*Divide batter among lined cups, filling halfway; bake until tops are springy to the touch, 18 to 20 minutes. Remove cupcakes from tins; transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely.

This recipe comes from Martha Stewart. I peeled and shredded the apples in the Cuisinart. I mixed everything with my hand-held mixer– I don’t have a stand mixer. I don’t use the full amount of sugar– I think it’s too much. And I made the Brown-Sugar Buttercream frosting one time, but it was too buttery and my family did not care for it. We eat them plain, but maybe a cream cheese frosting would be good.

Modern Technology

Monday, November 9th, 2009

We had an errand to run Friday evening, and we thought we’d eat dinner while we were out. Lilia’s favorite food is usually burritos, but she said she wanted Mac and Cheese instead. I tried to think of some nice family restaurants or diners, but I was drawing a blank. I turned to Joe’s BlackBerry and used the Yelp application. It knows where you are, and lists nearby restaurants. At first, I was just browsing the restaurants and didn’t come up with anything we were interested in… but then I figured out that I could search for Mac and Cheese. First thing that came up was a brewpub that we would like to check out sometime, but decided Friday night with Lilia probably wasn’t a good idea. It had good reviews for beer selection, but so-so food and service reviews. Next selection was a Caribbean restaurant with good mac and cheese… but one review left the impression that the place was closed. Third choice was a more upscale restaurant with lobster mac and cheese. Lilia hasn’t had shellfish, and fancy wasn’t what we were looking for, so I kept looking…
and there it was.
The ideal place for Friday night Mac and Cheese:

Ikea

We had dinner, shopped a little, and then we all got frozen yogurt cones before they closed the store and booted us out.

And here is a lovely BlackBerry photo taken by Joe. Three cheers for modern technology.
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