Romaine Cashew Cranberry Salad, Recipe

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  This is a salad recipe that I adapted from a salad served at a function where the catering company Urban Mill Cafe was used. Everyone seemed to love this salad (and the rest of their food, too!), and I thought I might be able to recreate it fairly easily. So, while eating, I made a mental note of the ingredients I saw, then later wrote it down. The ingredients were: Lettuce, cashews, cheese, dried cranberries, and green apple, with a poppy seed dressing on the side. Kraft’s Raspberry Vinaigrette is a good substitute, though it is a different flavor from poppy seed dressing. Until I got a hold of their website information, I wasn’t sure which cheese they had used in their salad; it was a shredded, white cheese, more flavorful than mozzarella. I tried Monterey Jack, and loved it. It turns out they used Swiss cheese, but I think any of these are good. I’m sure provolone would also work well. Making the salad is really quite straight forward. Just a couple of things to point out: For cashews, choose raw, unsalted cashews, then roast them. It is very easy to do. I’ve seen roasting recipes that say to roast at 350°, but I roasted at 250° for 30-40 min. as the nuts will burn more easily at 350°. It takes longer at 250° though, so if you’re short on time and don’t mind stirring more often and [...] Read more »

Traditional Norwegian Food: Confectionery Cake / Bar Recipe

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  This gourmet Confectionery Cake is made from a traditional Norwegian recipe, and is probably served in Sweden as well since IKEA sells their own version of the same cake. In Norway, it goes by several different names, though “Suksesskake” (Success Cake) and “Konfektkake” (Confectionery Cake) are the two names I am the most familiar with. It is typically served during Christmas, weddings, on the Norwegian Independence Day (May 17th), or other special occasions. The base, made mostly from ground almonds, is chewy and dense with somewhat of a crunch to it, and not soft and fluffy like other cakes. Really, it is more like a dessert bar than a cake, but cake is still what Norwegians call this heavenly dessert. It is completely gluten free, unless there are traces in the vanilla sugar or other ingredients that I’m not aware of. This dessert is topped with a most delicious butter frosting, which is bright yellow and very flavorful from the egg yolks that it contains. (Don’t let the yellow color trick you; there is no lemon or citrus flavoring added.) If you are looking for something extra, something exclusive, a dessert different from ordinary cakes and desserts, this is it! You won’t have to worry about whether someone else brought the same thing to the party when you bring this wonderful cake! IKEA carries a similar cake in their cafeteria. Last time I was there I decided to try [...] Read more »

Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake Recipe; Pictures Show How

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Soft, moist, and delicate, this cake goes great with a cup of black coffee. Hence the name Coffee Cake. My dear friend Kelly shared this recipe with me, and I’m always excited when I serve it. With a subtle crunch from the streusel topping, it has a clean taste of the fine ingredients added. There is no vanilla; “Whaaat??? No vanilla?” you may ask. Vanilla is heavenly tasting. I’m one of the biggest fans of it, and usually more is better in my opinion. However, if vanilla is added to just about every single dessert you make, it sort of loses its charm a little bit, don’t you think? Or maybe not, but it’s a thought worth considering, at least. I’ll continue on that trail just a little bit: What I have found is that certain recipes are better without vanilla, because it allows you to focus more on the other flavorful ingredients, such as butter. I wouldn’t say that vanilla necessarily masks other flavors, but I think that removing it helps you to take better notice to the other ingredients. If you have to have your vanilla kick, then by all means add some! But I will make this cake without. So the recipe calls for blueberries; does that mean blueberries only? Not as far as I have found. I tried raspberries, and it was great! I can only imagine that other berries or fruits will work wonderfully as [...] Read more »

My Favorite Turkey Noodle Soup Recipe

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  Chicken Noodle Soup is good, of course it is! But Turkey Noodle Soup made from homemade stock, on the other hand, is scrumptious! As I started making homemade turkey stock a few years back, I went on a search for stock based soup recipes. I found a couple of recipes that I adapted into a soup recipe that is quick, easy, but delicious non-the-less, once you have stock and meat leftovers ready made in the freezer.  When cooking up a turkey, I usually cook a much larger bird than we need for our dinner, in order to have lots of leftovers in the freezer for meals like my much-loved soup. This recipe is adapted mostly from Paula Deen’s Chicken Noodle Soup, with a couple of changes. For one thing, I use a bag of frozen soup veggies from the store, to save time. You really can use any vegetables you want, though some vegetables tend to fall apart more easily than others, such as broccoli, so I try to avoid those. Root vegetables often work well. If using potatoes, use white, red-skin or Yukon potatoes as they keep their shape better than baking potatoes. Two important ingredients added toward the very end that I kept in this recipe, as per Paula Deen, are heavy cream and Parmesan cheese. These ingredients make the soup extra luscious. But still, it all starts with rich, homemade turkey stock (here’s a link to [...] Read more »

Turkey or Chicken Stock; Tasty, Healthy, & Money Saving Recipe

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We cook turkeys for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, sometimes for Easter, or whenever we are out of freezer turkey-leftovers. We also eat bone-in chicken throughout the year. I always used to throw away all those precious bones and carcasses, thinking they were worthless now that the meat was eaten. NOT SO!!! I once saw a cooking show on TV (so sorry to not remember which show that was!), where the chef showed us just what can be done with the leftovers that I used to think of as trash. She grabbed all the yucky stuff, everything from the carcass to skin, blubber, even bones off of people’s plates after having company over, and boiled it all for hours on end to make soup stock. She pointed out that YES! it’s safe and fine to do; it’s going to cook “forever”, so germs will not survive anyway. I decided to give it a try, and the stock that I’ve ended up with has been to die for! It makes soups so unbelievably tasty, especially Turkey Noodle Soup, and aside from some herbs and spices, it’s all from stuff I used to throw away. Free food, very nutritious, and simply scrumptious! What could be better than that? I mean, really??? Clean nutrition that tastes like heaven, from trash? What a money saver! Obviously the flavor of the stock will depend much on what you put in it, and also very much on what [...] Read more »