Perfect Potato Salad

This is a nice potato salad to have as a side dish. I like to serve it with Calico Beans, or as a side for a sandwich or hotdog or burger. The ultimate lunch is a sandwich with some of this salad, a few potato chips and a coke. Even better if there’s a ballgame on.

Potato Salad

Serving Size:
6
Time:
1 hour
Difficulty:
Easy

Ingredients

  • 6 Potatoes-large
  • 1/2 cup or more Italian dressing
  • 1/2 cup chopped celery
  • 1/2 cup chopped bell pepper (any colour)
  • 1/8 cup chopped sweet pickles
  • 2 Tbsp sweet pickle juice
  • S & P (to taste)
  • Paprika (to taste)
  • 1/4 cup or more Mayonnaise

Directions

  1. Peel and chop your potatoes into similar sized pieces.
  2. Add to a pot of cold water.
  3. Bring to boil, skim off foam. Turn down to a simmer, add a little salt.
  4. Let boil until potatoes are fork-tender.
  5. Drain, and set potatoes in a glass bowl.
  6. Cool for a few minutes, then add Italian dressing and gently toss.
  7. Let sit for a few minutes, then add the remaining ingredients and gently toss.
  8. Refrigerate until ready to eat.
  9. Enjoy!

Peace, Love & Fibre: Over 100 Fiber-Rich Recipes for the Whole Family by Mairlyn Smith

A best friend in book form

This is my new favourite cookbook. It is filled with healthy recipes for mains, sides, breakfast, and treats that you will be excited to try. It also features beautiful photographs and anecdotes by the author, Mairlyn Smith, who is the kind of person you’d love to have as a friend. If I am ever feeling like a little pick me up, I pick this book up and flip through it. It is like a breath of fresh air. Perhaps it’s all the pictures of teacups and greenery and sayings like, “Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. Practice it often”. There are lots of ideas of how to get fibre into your everyday meals, and even into cookies and cakes. I am looking forward to trying the Blueberry Buckle on page 207, as soon as blueberries are in season! The title of this book could not be more perfect, because it’s not just a cookbook, it’s a book that inspires us to sit on our front porches, get more plants, polish our silverware, drink from a teacup, and enjoy life.

Soup Sisters and Broth Brothers Cookbook

This is the best cookbook I have come across in a while. It is all soup, perfect for winter. Two amazing recipes are the Turkey meatball soup (page101), which I would re name Slurpy soup if I could because I couldn’t eat it fast enough, and wanted to eat the bowl. The other soup that I made which was delicious was the Most Excellent Red Lentil Soup (page 37) which is made with warming spices like ginger which will tickle your taste buds and warm your soul.

Meatball Souvlaki

I discovered this recipe years ago in a cookbook by Sandi Richard called The Healthy Family. The book is excellent, and is filled with quick and easy recipes to make on weeknights. This recipe, however, has earned a place of honour in our house. In fact, this meal is so satisfying that after eating it, some people have been known to fall asleep in their seats at the kitchen table.

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Meatball Souvlaki
Author: 
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 4
 
Ingredients
Meatballs
  • 1 lb lean ground beef
  • 1 egg
  • ¼ cup dry breadcrumbs
  • 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
  • ½ tsp Italian seasoning
  • ⅛ tsp or pinch of salt
  • ½ tsp pepper
  • Olive oil to spray the broiler pan
Tzatziki
  • ½ cup English Cucumber (unpeeled)
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 or 2 cloves garlic
  • ½ tsp dry dill weed or 1 tsp fresh
  • pinch of salt and pepper
To Serve
  • Pita pockets
  • green leaf lettuce, washed and torn into bite-sized pieces
  • ripe tomato
  • ½ red onion
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together beef, eggs, breadcrumbs, mustard and spices.
  3. Roll into meatballs (about 20) and place on broiler pan which has been sprayed with olive oil. Place in preheated oven. Set timer for 15 minutes.
  4. Meanwhile, grate the cucumber, sour cream, crushed garlic and spices in a small bowl. Blend together to create tzatziki dip.
  5. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
  6. When timer rings for meatballs, turn oven off, and cover with foil.
  7. Place pita, wrapped in foil, on another rack in the oven until read to serve.
  8. Wash lettuce, cut tomatoes and lettuce into bite-sized pieces. Cut onion into long thin strips.
  9. Serve meatballs in the pita bread with tzatziki dip and toppings.
  10. Enjoy!

Gram’s Brown Sugar Fudge

When I was a kid, my Gram used to always make fudge. She never made cookies, or cakes that I can recall, but she always had fudge around, and it was the way fudge should be–crumbly, sugary, melt-in-your-mouth goodness. I tried for years to get the recipe from her, and I followed her around in the kitchen to see how she did it.

She’d add a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and oh, a bit more of this. Then she’d cook the sugar mixture until it had reached a certain stage, the stage when she would hold the spoon up above the pot, and if it looked like a hair, then it was at the right stage (soft ball).

The following recipe produces a fudge that is very close to what my Gram used to make, and actually, when I eat it I feel like I’m back at her house, sitting on her couch waiting for the Christmas presents to be passed around. This recipe uses actual measurements and a candy thermometre. If you don’t have a candy thermometre you can find them at kitchen stores.

2 cups light brown sugar (packed)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla

Combine sugars, evaporated milk, and butter.
Cook on medium-high heat, stirring constantly till soft ball stage is reached (238 degrees F on a candy thermometre).
Remove from heat, and vanilla, and let cool a little.
Beat with a wooden spoon till it loses its gloss.
If desired at this point you can add in chopped pecans, however I never do this, neither did my Gram.
Pour into a buttered 8″ pan.
Cool till almost firm, then cut into squares while you still can, as it hardens quickly.

Store in refrigerator.

Best Banana Loaf in the World

This is my Nana’s recipe, and the original recipe card that is in my mom’s recipe box is in my Nana’s handwriting, and we treasure it. It is splattered with a couple stains, probably tea. She was always baking, always making things, from cookies, to loaves, to knitted blankets and Barbie clothes. This loaf is one of my favourite things.

1/2 cup butter (softened and whipped with a fork)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs (beaten till foamy)
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (3 bananas)
1 tsp lemon juice
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup toasted walnuts (chopped fine)

Mix in the order given, turn into large loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees F for one hour.
If you prefer to make two small loaves, then just adjust your baking time to about 30 minutes or so, just check for doneness by sticking a butter knife deep in the centre to see if it comes out clean.

Ultimate Chocolate Cake (and it’s easy to make)

This is the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had, it’s dense, fudgey and moist. The ultimate birthday cake, because it’s substantial, and wholesome, and so much better than what you’d get from a box.

1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Combine the dry ingredients. Combine wet ingredients except the boiling water, and mix in with dry ingredients. Stir in boiling water. The batter will be thin. Pour into a greased and floured cake pan (I use a 9 x 11). Bake at 350 degrees F until a knife inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean (about 35 minutes).

When the cake has cooled completely, top it with this creamy and cool butter icing:

2 1/4 cups Confectioners’ Sugar
3/4 cup butter
3 Tbsp milk
Splash of vanilla

Mix all together till smooth. If you want to colour your icing, just add a few drops of food colouring at this point. Then spread on your cooled cake.

Note: This icing does not harden, it stays soft. If you prefer an icing that hardens, try making an icing with less butter (try my other icing recipes in the birthday section).

Belgian Cookies

Around this time of year I love to make Belgian cookies. These are not an easy cookie to make, and there are many steps involved, but really, once you get the actual cookie part made, the rest is very easy, just time consuming. I used to make these cookies when I was a child, and so I am accustomed to the way the cookie dough should feel as you prepare it to roll out, and you’ll get to know that, too.

You want to mix the dough with your hands until it is smooth and glossy. If it is still crumbly, it is not ready to roll yet, so keep squeezing the dough. When you have finally reached the glossy, smooth stage, then you’ll want to find a nice big area on your clean countertop, and sprinkle it with flour. Then put half of the dough in a ball ontop of the flour (put the other half aside, under a bowl so that it won’t dry out). Then you will cover your rolling pin with flour and roll out your dough until it is thin, about 1/8th of an inch thick.

You want it to be very thin, but not too thin. (You don’t want to be able to see through it, as that will be too thin). The only other tricky part is knowing how long to bake them so that they will not turn brown. I bake mine for 9 minutes on parchment paper, not a second longer. But you should do a test with one cookie, just to see how long it takes for it to be baked, but not brown. Cool them on a baking rack for a few minutes. Then use the rest of the dough that you’ve set aside, and roll out the way you did for the first ball.

Belgian Cookies

1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder

Cream the butter by mashing it in a large bowl with a fork. Add sugar, and cream well. Beat in the egg and then the vanilla.

In a seperate medium bowl mix the flour and baking powder with another fork, then add it gradually to your butter mixture with a fork, and then with your hands until smooth and glossy.

On a lightly floured surface, roll half of your dough out while keeping the other half under a bowl to keep it from drying out. Then roll out to a 1/8? thickness. Cut into rounds or heart shapes using a cookie cutter, and place on a parchment-paper-lined cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 9 minutes, or till very lightly browned at edges. Cool thoroughly.

Now roll out the second half of the dough and cut out more cookies.

When completely cool, spread half of the cookies with jam, and top with remaining cookies.

Icing
Combine 1 cup of Confectioners’ sugar with enough milk to make a thin icing. Ice the tops of cookies, being careful not to let it run over the edge, and then top with a tiny piece of marachino cherry.

Alternative Icing
You can also use 1 cup of Confectioners’ sugar with a 1/4 tsp of almond extract, and 1 Tbsp of hot water, if you like the taste of almond.

Tip
The thing about these cookies is that you have to let them sit overnight without eating them (I know!) Just leave them on a platter in the cupboard overnight (in a single layer). The cookie has to have time to become soft from the jam and the icing, that’s when the magic happens!

Note
These cookies are often referred to as Empire Cookies.