I’m getting some advance reviews of my next book, And I’ll Have a Haint Blue Christmas which I’m determined to get out in time for the holidays this year. My publishers at Hedonistic Hound Press are editing feverishly.
Meanwhile, I’ve had some request for some of the recipes. Someone just asked me for Peggy Sue’s white sauce recipie and I she was kind enough to write it out for me.
It’s got a bit of zing to it, but unless you can’t handle any spice at all, it’s got just enough kick, but not too much. And if you do like spicy you can, of course, go a lot heavier on the cayenne.
I was watching a cooking show recently and got excited to try cabbage rolls. There are some great videos out there on social media too with step-by-step instructions.
It’s a bit time consuming, but well worth the effort. You have to work in stages. If you’ve never attempted this before, don’t be intimidated. It’s not hard, just a little time consuming. If I can do it, you can!
Ingredients:
Cabbage
sausage
hamburger meat
1-2 eggs
spaghetti sauce
chili garlic sauce
mushrooms
yellow onion
garlic
spring onions
grated cheese
butter or olive oil
Sorry I don’t have exact measurements — I’m bad that way. You’ll have to eyeball the meats you select and the size cabbage — you know, if you are just cooking for yourself, you might do a half a package of hamburger and a half a roll of sausage and only use some of the cabbage… If you have room in the freezer, I found that one tube of sausage, a poundish of hamburger and a good-sized cabbage worked out quite well.
Cook the cabbage
Make your filling
Stuff the cabbage leaves
Top with sauce and bake
I went to an Asian market and found a squatty, green cabbage. Wish I’d taken a photo, it had smooth leaves, not a Chinese cabbage, though that would work too, and might be easier to wrap with.
Cooked the cabbage and set it aside to cool while I chopped mushrooms, onions. I sauteed them with garlic powder (because I forgot to buy garlic–grr!) and set that aside.
Secret Ingredient — You should be able to find in an Asian market.
I browned a combination of half sage sausage and hamburger, to which I added a few hefty dollops of chili garlic sauce. Depending on how much meat you have, you might add one or two eggs as a binder. I forgot, and it was okay, but it would have held together a bit better in the cabbage with an egg. When this was evenly browned, I added back in the chopped onion and mushrooms.
When the cabbage was cool, I peeled the leaves off and cut out the thick stemmy part at the base of each leaf. If you have the space, you might set the leaves out on a board or pan to dry–they retain a lot of moisture. I was in a hurry and didn’t have a big board or cookie sheet, so I just patted them dry with paper towels.
I filled a leaf with three spoonfuls of the meat mixture, rolled it into another leaf and set it snug in a glass pan. As the cabbage leaves got smaller, I ended up using three or even four leaves to a bundle. My leaves were able to keep the bundle shape without toothpicks, but you can use toothpicks if you prefer, just remember to remove them later!
Yes, I cheated on the sauce. I used a jar of sauce to cover the rolls. I chopped up some spring onions and scattered them on the top, then sprinkled with grated cheese.
I baked the rolls in the oven at 385 degrees for about 35 minutes. Served with basmati rice on the side. Paired with a red blend wine. Heaven! The chili inside the rolls was a nice contrast to the tomato sauce on the outside, gave it a bit of zing.
So since the chili sauce with garlic was a success, I’m thinking that a vegetarian version would substitute zucchini for the meat, and green chili sauce instead of red chili sauce. Zucchini and corn? lima beans? I’m looking forward to trying this next. I love green chili sauce. Will post the update when I do.
Green and red– perfect comfort food for the winter holiday season!
Like corned beef and cabbage but never tried cooking it yourself? I thought this was some tricky thing — it’s easy-peasy if you have a slow cooker!
And if you don’t have one, why not? They’re so convenient and not expensive. You just put in the ingredients, push a button and walk away! You can keep stuff warming overnight– don’t even need to do cleanup! Finish the leftovers tomorrow. Done!
You will need:
a package of corned beef
a small cabbage
1-2 containers of vegetable stock
a few small potatoes
a few carrots
You’ll have to forive me, but I’m an intuitive cook. I can’t tell you how many carrots or potatoes, but you’ll want to have balance with the size of the meat so each serving will get a nice mix of meaty bits, potato, carrot and cabbage. Know what I mean? It’ll depend on your pot size and the meat size.
Corned beef comes in a sort of a baggie package with a seasoning packet. They come in various sizes, so pick a small one if you have a small crowd or a larger one if you are feeding more people. As long as it will fit in your cooker, you’re fine!
Chop up your veggies–the cabbage, carrots and potatoes into bite size chunks and put them in the cooker.
Open the corned beef package and slide out the meat, placing it over the veggies, FAT SIDE UP. Open the seasoning packet and sprinkle it in the cooker.
Add vegetable stock and/or water until it is touching the meat. Turn the cooker on to HIGH. Cook for about 8 hours* or until the meat will pull apart with a fork. Turn down to warm once it is cooked and tender.
*This will vary depending on the size of your cooker and the size of the meat. Veggies should be soft and meat should pull apart easily.
What is that seasoning flavor?
The basics in the corned beef flavor are:
Mustard Seeds
Peppercorns
Anise Seeds
Whole Cloves
Cardamom Pods
Bay Leaves
Ground Coriander
Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
Ground Ginger
So if for some reason you don’t like or are allergic to any of these, you can make your own spice and omit the one you don’t like. Or, if you really like a spice, you might add a little extra. Like it a little spicy? Add more pepper flakes or some hot sauce.
Sorry if my recipes aren’t exact… I’m an intuitive cook–really bad at measuring amounts!
I was clearing off my desk the other day, which led me to another pile of detritus–I ended up sorting through that and found a recipe I’d meant to try that sounded delicious: cold soba and salmon salad. Long story short, I had an incident with a road-rage-filled motorcyclist on the way to the grocery store, so my mind was no longer focused on shopping as I dashed through the store worried that Mr. Rage might be doing harm to my vehicle in the parking lot. A police officer followed me out of the parking lot and partway home to be sure I wasn’t in any danger.
Suffice it to say, my nerves were all jangly as I began to prepare dinner. I hadn’t been able to find soba noodles at all, I forgot the cucumber and was not going to wait to chill the dish as I needed to eat something.
It was just as well that they didn’t have the soba noodles as they are kind of chewy and don’t absorb flavor as well as other noodles in my opinion. I am keen on lo mein, so I was happy, but I’ll put links below for recipes with soba noodles. Also, I couldn’t face waiting for a chunk of salmon from the seafood counter, so I got a package of sliced salmon instead and used the whole package. It was enough for two people but a chunk would have been nicer. The thin slices made for much quicker prep time though.
I got the water boiling for the lo mein noodles while I chopped the peppers — I got an assorted package of multi-colored small peppers–sliced up five of them and two medium sized zucchinis and browned them in a skillet with a generous amount of sesame oil. When they were done, I scooped them out, set them aside in a bowl and popped the sliced salmon into the skillet, breaking up the slices into pieces and essentially warming it thoroughly. By this time, the noodles were done. I drizzled some sesame oil over the noodles in the colander, then tossed them into the skillet with the salmon and added the veggies back in. I sprinkled toasted sesame seeds over it and stirred it all up.
For a quick, healthy, tasty dish–even put together in less than an optimal mind-frame, this came out great! It sure helped to fortify my nerves. It could have used a couple drops of hot sauce or maybe some dill… wish I’d thought to add dill. Maybe a good squeeze of lemon juice.
Links to cold soba recipes I’ve not tried but sound fantastic:
small cabbage (I got the small squatty kind from an Asian market, it has looser leaves than a regular green cabbage but you could use any cabbage)
Sesame oil
currants or raisins, dried cherries, blueberries
Wash and destem the B sprouts, then halve. Wash cabbage and cut roughly the same amount of cabbage as you have sprouts. I used about 1/3 of the small cabbage to one pack of sprouts for one meal for two people. If you are cooking for more people or like leftovers, you may want 2 packages of sprouts and use 2/3 or even all of a squatty cabbage. This is super yummy, so you might want to make a big batch!
Stir fry on a medium heat with a liberal amount of sesame oil. You may want to even add some water to partially steam it. When all the greens seem to be browning up, turn the temp down to low and add in your dried fruit– sorry folks, I don’t measure, I go by eye-ball– a nice visual scattering — I tend to be a bit heavy handed, it’s up to you — if you like fruit, add more. Stir until the fruit has had a chance to mingle with the oil and is well mixed into the greens.
Was in the mood for fish tacos but had some sweet potato leftovers. Breaded tilapia, lime-cilantro rice, black beans and sweet potato was a pretty nifty combo. Also had tomato with green chilies and lime juice. Cooked the tilapia with olive oil and lots of lemon juice. Perhaps the Guinness was a bit strong, but it’s what I had on hand. Mighty tasty dinner.
When I was little, I hated peppers. I could tolerate them chopped really small in spaghetti sauce, but a stuffed pepper? No way. Fortunately, taste buds can change. First it was thin slices on pizza, bits in omelets… and now I’m writing a recipe for roasted peppers.
This is not a vegetarian recipe as I’m (yes, pun intended) hog-wild for Jimmy Dean sausage, especially SAGE. But don’t run off, I’m sure you can substitute just about anything that behaves like sausage.
Preheat the oven to around 385 degrees. Wash the peppers, and with a sharp knife cut the tops off and then cut the stems out so each pepper is a little container with a hat with a hole at the top. Clean out the seeds. Set the peppers into a glass baking pan. They should have some wiggle room but be sitting up straight.
Put a couple pineapple chunks into the bottom of each pepper.
Note: I pulled the sausage out for the photo shoot, it’s still frozen. You’ll want it thawed and soft. For four peppers, I used a little less than half of the sausage–it’ll depend on how many peppers you are cooking and how big they are.
Cut an end off the sausage and squeeze/spoon out sausage into each pepper.
Add another pineapple or two on top of each — you’ll want the peppers to be about 3/4 full–save room to add the couscous later.
Put the tops on the peppers, drizzle with oil enough so they won’t dry out and the bottoms won’t burn. Bake in oven for about 40 minutes or until they look mostly cooked and the tops are a tad brown.
Meanwhile, cook your couscous following the package directions.
When the peppers are done-ish, pull them out, pull the hats off, and spoon in some couscous. You can stir carefully so the sausage and couscous are blended in the pepper. You might add another pineapple on top to peak out of the hat. This’ll keep it from getting dry and adds color.
Option: cover with a sheet of aluminum foil, especially if your oven runs hot. You want the sausage fully cooked but don’t want to burn the peppers. Bake for another 12ish minutes.
Was in the mood for fish tacos but had some sweet potato leftovers. Breaded tilapia, lime-cilantro rice, black beans and sweet potato was a pretty nifty combo. Also had tomato with green chilies and lime juice. Cooked the tilapia with olive oil and lots of lemon juice. Perhaps the Guinness was a bit strong, but it’s what I had on hand. Mighty tasty dinner. 
Haint's Retreat 