For the 3 of you who read this blog, you will remember that I have a homemade cookbook, which we will call The Friday Friend Cookbook, complete with recipes sent in by my good friends, far and near. I call them the Friday Friends.
And I am in the process of making every single recipe in that cookbook and blogging about it (See that here) and then talking mostly about my friends, and not so much about the recipe, because, let's face it--I like them a lot!
Anyway, this recipe should have been in that cookbook, but wasn't.
(those recipes which should have been in the Friday Friend Cookbook, but weren't)
Deb E's
Grandma Mildred's Lemon Sherbet
This is the best!
I needed something to go along with the pound cake I made yesterday.
All summer long my good friend Debbie E (she hates that Debbie E! But my name is Debbie too, so?? Isn't that how they did it in elementary school?),talked about her mother-in-law's lemon sherbet recipe.
She made it a lot this summer.
It got in my head like song.
I just had to make it.
It was wonderful!
It's tangy! And it's creamy.
We loved it.
Grandma Mildred's Lemon Sherbet
FF Debbie Engstrom
Winnemucca, NV
2 cups sugar
Juice of 3 lemons (1/2 cup)
Quart of whole milk
1/2 pint whipping cream
Mix sugar, lemon and milk.
Stir in whipping cream
Put in freezer, stir every so often (couple hours) until it's ice cream!
(only takes 6 hours or so)
(if you make it in the morning, you can have it for dessert that night)
This is Debbie's 13th time in the countdown---or the appendix.
For the 3 of you who read this blog, you will remember that I have a homemade cookbook, which we will call The Friday Friend Cookbook, complete with recipes sent in by my good friends, far and near. I call them the Friday Friends.
And I am in the process of making every single recipe in that cookbook and blogging about it (See that here) and then talking mostly about my friends, and not so much about the recipe, because, let's face it--I like them a lot!
Anyway, this recipe should have been in that cookbook, but wasn't.
(those recipes which should have been in the Friday Friend Cookbook, but weren't)
Deb E's Grilled Apple Salad
Those are apples that have been marinated in a balsamic vinegar marinade and then grilled in a grill pan..(they look kind of like peaches in the pictures to me)
It was supposed to be a 'white' balsamic vinegar, but I didn't have that, I only had a red one, so that's what I used, so the apples have a 'tint' to them. But they were really good! Apples combine really well with bleu cheese and walnuts -- grilling them was just a plus!
Grilled Apple Salad
FF Debbie Engstrom
Winnemucca, NV
6 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar (I used red)
1/4 cup minced cilantro
2 tbsp. honey
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chili sauce
1 garlic clove--minced
2 large apples cut in wedges
1 pkg spring mix salad
1 cup walnut halves
1/2 cup bleu cheese, crumbled
Combine the 1st 8 ingredients.
Marinate the apple wedges in 1/4 cup for 10 minutes in the fridge.
Grill apples.
Add to remaining ingredients -- toss with leftover marinade mix.
Food 'n Flixis
a group of bloggers who get together every month to watch a movie, and
then head into the kitchen and mix up something inspired by the flick.
There
is always room for another pillow in front of the tellie, and another
chair around the table. So if you're a blogger who wants to join in the
fun, please feel free to jump in at any moment.
I mean listen to the sound of that crunch!!! Look at how that cheese melt pulls/strings out of the sandwich when he takes a bite! (for some reason I couldn't embed the scene where he makes the grilled cheese. It was AWESOME!!)
I LOVED THIS MOVIE!!
It was a great choice.
I couldn't make up my mind between Cuban Sandwiches (obvious choice, I know) and Lava Cakes (because my good friend Mitzi makes them all the time and they are a great dessert!)
So I decided to do both.
Believe it or not, I had never had a Cuban Sandwich before. They were great. I roasted a small pork roast and I finally got to use my grill press! Which is a big thing since I paid for it about 6 months ago, but have never used it.
As I said-- I just loved this movie!!
It was such a feel good movie-- and if you're a foodie, you are in for a treat.
It's like foodie porn--watching this movie.
In the simplest form, it's about a high end chef who leaves his job and buys a food truck. But it's so much more than that--it's about relationships too, between friends, parents and children, and wives and husbands.
It's good.
And yes, you will want to eat some amazing food after watching this.
A recent conversation at my house about being a foodie:
I made shrimp scampi the other night and I left the shells on the shrimp
(I did it to be ornery to the Handyman, but it does add more flavor)
2 of my sons and 1 daughter-in-law were also having dinner with us.
Handyman is complaining about having to remove the 'easy-peel' shells himself.
I say foodie in a sentence.
One of my kids says "What is a foodie exactly"
I point to the Handyman, who is still complaining ... "he is not a foodie. He'll even eat a cheesecake out of a box"
I point to me... "I'll cook a roast with a bone-in because that's where you get most of the flavor--from the bone" (Handyman hates to carve around a bone too).
Me/mom=foodie
Handyman/dad=non-foodie
Or something like that.
He does like my cooking tho.
And he loved these Cuban Sandwiches!
As did I.
The recipe for these sandwiches is very simple.
Cuban Sandwiches
Compiled from many Googled sites, all are exactly the same, except some have mustard.
I chose the mustard.
1 pork roast (you can Google how to marinade and roast Cuban style if you'd like. This one didn't say much about that, but I noticed in the movie, they did a marinade.)
I used this from Taste of Cuba dot com:
Ingredients: 4 slices of ham 4 slices roast pork 3 slices of Swiss cheese 3 or 4 pickle slices
Yellow mustard (not spicy or dijon) 1/3 cut Cuban bread hard crust (or French bread)
Instructions:
If you can get your hands on fresh, crusty Cuban bread, that would work best. But if not, you can also use a 12 to 16 inch loaf of French Bread, cut in half.
Cut your bread lengthwise into two pieces. Spread mustard on the inside of each half. Layer the ham slices on one piece of bread, then top with the roasted pork. If you don't have sliced pork, "pulled" style roast pork will also work (some restaurants heap it on). Add Swiss cheese on top of the pork, and then add the pickle slices. Place the other piece of bread on top.
You have two options for cooking your sandwich if you are using an electric sandwich press. The first option is to use cooking spray on the press before placing the sandwich inside. The tastier option is to brush soft butter on the outside of both pieces of bread. You will find that it's much easier to spread the butter on the outside of the bread before you actually start adding meat.
Place the sandwich inside of a pre-heated Cuban sandwich press, and press down firmly until the cheese has melted, and the bread is slightly hard to the touch. If you don't have a press, you can place the sandwich in a hot skillet on the stove, and then press the sandwich down with another frying pan. Some people, believe or not, use a brick wrapped in tin foil when nothing else is available.
When finished, the sandwich should be flattened down to less than half the original size. Slice the sandwich diagonally across the middle, so that you have two triangle-shaped wedges. Buen Provecho! Serves 1.
Yummy!!
Moving on to my 2nd choice from the movie--
Chocolate Lava Cakes!
For the 3 of you who read this blog, you will remember that I have a homemade cookbook, which we will call The Friday Friend Cookbook, complete with recipes sent in by my good friends, far and near. I call them the Friday Friends.
And I am in the process of making every single recipe in that cookbook and blogging about it? (See that here) and then talking mostly about my friends, and not so much about the recipe, because, let's face it--I like them a lot!
Anyway, this recipe should have been in that cookbook, but wasn't.
so I am adding it to an appendix.
This is the 5th one that should have been in my cookbook, but wasn't.
Mitzi's Lava Cakes.
I had to laugh, because in the movie, the critic suggested that Lava Cakes were kind of 'hum drum' fare.
I beg to differ!!
These are great.
And easy to make.
I accidentally cooked mine a bit too long.
Mitzi never, EVER cooks her's too long.
She has just the right amount of 'lava'.
FF Appendix #6 (those recipes which should have been in the Friday Friend Cookbook, but weren't)
Mitzi's Chocolate Lava Cakes
inspired by the movie Chef for Food 'n Flix
She has the addition of instant coffee, which I think is a great taste combination, chocolate and coffee.
So these are like little molten mocha cakes.
In Mitzi's own handwriting...
In a weird turn of events --- I noticed that Mitzi says she got this from Taste of Home Cooking School in 2008?
And then you will see that she is an outdoor girl!
I have posts/pictures of her with a snake, with fish, and with birds.
So I thought I'd go back about 9 years to the time we set off to find a waterfall in Northern Nevada! It's hard to do, but we managed.
We went on a hike to Horse Falls.
The Handyman fell. He fell onto his thumb. He couldn't do much all day, but he never complained. But if you look in the pictures, you'll see him holding his hand funny.
Oh...this is about Mitzi, NOT the Handyman.
~grins~
Us before the hike
We were empty nesters
The Storms were not
They had two little boys to take along.
I was up for that, because while I do like to hike, I am slower than everyone and I figured with a two 1/2 year old and a baby, I wouldn't be the slowest.
Hiking in Nevada looks like this...
Beautiful!
Both the waterfall in Nevada and Mitzi!
Funky thumb!
I think he has ice on it ---in the hand he's holding the cup in.
And I know -- I KNOW, I should be ashamed to be sharing Jello with you.
But--- I'm not.
I think it's too funny to pass up.
An old mid-western, church cookbook, given to me by a friend, that includes Jell-O recipes.
How to make Jell-O.
This makes me 'fall off my chair laughing' -- directions on how to make the
Jell-O.
In a cookbook.
This is good for Sunday night supper when company drops in?
Who the heck drops in anymore, without calling first?
And -- Jello? Is great for company?
I'm not saying that I'm opposed to Jello, it's just.... funny to me.
This is plain jell-o. Not even pretzel jell-o salad or something.
Here is my copy of Lutheran Church Basement Women.
My friend Debbie E, gave it to me, after she took a train trip to the mid-west.
Why, you might be wondering as to why I want to include this in the FF Appendix?
Well, because it includes the stories of two of my Friday Friends!
I KNOW that Jell-O is not 'their' recipe, although they could have very well written down those directions and added them to any cookbook too.
I figure since my goal as a part-time food blogger is only to
1) make one recipe out of every cookbook I own and to blog about it
2) make every, SINGLE, recipe in a cookbook my friends and I put together, called The Friday Friend Cookbook, I can do whatever I want and I want to include them in this post, and include this story in the FF Appendix.
(which really doesn't exist except in tags on this blog. I just want to make my FF editor Barbara Brown a bit nervous, thinking she has to type a whole new cookbook)
In a nutshell--
It's more about friendship than authentic, original recipes!
So let me tell you how this began--
My favorite Minnesotan Friday Friend, Mitzi, sent me a text a couple of weeks ago.
She said: Look what I found in my grandma Edna's kitchen:
I said/texted:
Too funny! I have one also!
I then asked if her's had the coffee with an egg in it?
Sure enough!
Mine had fruit soup/sweet soup -- and on the same page Mitzi said it would be.
She wrote back:
Yep! Prunes and raisins for craps sakes, doncha know!
(she really said that; doncha know, you betcha. Cuz she's from Minnesota*)
(okay, she didn't really, but -- she might as well have-- she's from Minnesota*)
Minnesotans, at least Mitzi and Larry, do love it when friends 'drop in'.
She was even so gracious one time, when our friend April dropped in a day early for a dinner party.
Mitzi made them stay for the chili she was fixing. At least April arrived with dessert in hand.
That is the ultimate in 'dropping by'.
And Mitzi never (okay, rarely ) says 'doncha know'. I just like writing that.
I have no intention of making the sweet soup any time soon, nor the coffee with egg in it.
Jell-o is good enough for now. It's good enough for company for craps sakes, doncha know!
I actually think the cookbook is funny and unique. There are all kinds of poems and tips and there is even a 'ode' to jell-o.
You know you're a "mid-western" Lutheran Church Basement Woman if:
you have more than five flavors of Jell-O in your pantry.
your church library has three Jell-O cookbooks.
you think the four food groups are coffee, lefse, lutefisk, and Jell-O.
you think lime Jell-O with cottage cheese and pineapple is a gourmet salad.
you think the term "Jell-O salad" is redundant.
and so on...
So...
now I introduce you to Mitzi.
Mitzi and her husband hail from Minnesota, but lived in Nevada for over 20 years, before he retired and they moved back to Minnesota just last summer.
We are all still trying to recover from the rejection of her leaving us.
(sigh) We'll make it thru -- eventually. I'm sure we will.
Mitzi is an outdoor girl!
Every summer for the past 15 years or so, she and her husband would spend the summers in Minnesota fishing (they are school teachers, doncha know)
then they would return to Nevada and have a big fish fry for all of us.
I have blogged about this.
right here...there... right, there...click there below!
