98 Dog-Years

I am grateful, if not a little teary-eyed, to note that today is Mason’s 14^th birthday.  Fourteen years for a Labrador retriever is, quite frankly, impressive.  I remember the life-expectancy poster at the animal hospital where my mom worked for so long stating that a Lab’s life span is usually 10-11 years.  Mason was 9 at the time, and the poster made me blink back tears, hard.

I did not think we would have the gift of 14 years with him. He is definitely the dog that keeps on giving.

Although he is shedding fur by the ton lately, has random difficulty breathing, requires medication twice a day and can barely stay two minutes outside before the humidity threatens to incapacitate him, he still gives enthusiastic hugs and slurpy kisses, he still smiles, and he still wags his tail wildly at the sound of our voices.

The Kiddos and the Monk, 2008

I had worried that Mason wouldn’t survive leaving our old house. I worried that he wouldn’t live to see the new house. I worried that he wouldn’t see his 14th birthday. I don’t know if he will see his 15th. Hell, I don’t know if he’ll see this Christmas. We know we are on borrowed time, and we are grateful for every furry minute of it.

Two Sleepy Puppies, September 2013

Despite that Mason’s favorite foods have always been pizza and French fries, I try to make sure that he eats properly, which I firmly believe has contributed to his life span and overall health. We diagnosed a grain allergy when he was five and had to change his food to some crazy-expensive grain-free brand. When I started evaluating ingredients in our food, I naturally evaluated ingredients in our dogs’ foods and made sure that we only bought treats and foods that met my ingredient standards. I caved recently and allowed Milk Bones back in the house, only to read the ingredients on the box last month and ban them all over again.

What’s a snack-starved pup to do? Well, if you’re my pup, you lay across my pathway in the kitchen and take a snooze while I spend the next hour whipping up some grain-free dog treats.

Monkey Underfoot, September 2013

In honor of Mason, the Best Damn Yella Dog EVER, here’s a treat recipe for the furball in your life.

Grain-Free Dog Biscuits (originally found on More Than Paleo)

1 sweet potato, peeled, cut into chunks and boiled until soft.

¼ c. coconut milk (I was out of coconut milk, so I used almond milk instead)

1 ½ T flaxseed mixed with 2T water to make a paste (I was out of this too, so I used chia seeds)

½ c peanut butter (I think I need to go to the store!)

1 egg

½ c coconut flour (you can use more to thicken if you need to)

Mash up the boiled sweet potato chunks and add remaining ingredients. Blend together and drop by small spoonfuls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I scooped out about a teaspoon at a time and patted it flat in my hand to make a smooth, flat biscuit. (You don’t want rough edges.) They won’t spread out at all, so you can put them as close together as you like on the sheet, without letting them touch.

Bake for 40 minutes. Allow to cool. If these had turned out very crunchy, I would have stored them in the cookie jar where the dogs know their treats live. But since these turned out to still be a little soft in the middle, I followed More Than Paleo’s advice and stored them in the fridge. Now the pups think they’re getting some of our food!

Happy Birthday, Monkasaurus! We love ya to the moon and back!

The Cookie and the Dog

Today we celebrate Mabel’s fifth birthday.  I don’t know whether the miracle is that we’ve survived or that she has.

Over the last month our furry youngster has consumed – among other things – two sticks of butter, three innocent frogs, a Silence-of-the-Lambs-size moth-bug-thing (creepy little dude, he was), a bag of deer jerky and an eighth of a 12” cookie cake (which thankfully didn’t have enough chocolate in it to do her harm).  The final two items earned her a public shaming on Facebook and Instagram.  She didn’t even have the decency to look remorseful.

Mabel gives us plenty of reasons to smile, though.  Every morning she insists on pushing the top of her head into me as I give her kisses on each ear.  If she doesn’t feel she has received enough affection, she firmly nudges my elbow until I acquiesce and pet her for another ten minutes.  It is especially annoying when she nudges the elbow connected to the hand holding a full cup of coffee.  And speaking of coffee, she still likes to sneak drinks from my cup.  In her quieter moments, Mabel suns herself in the backyard or snoozes on the puppy bed we have in the living room.  Her “comfy” positions crack us up.

In honor of the Teeny-Weeny Mabellini, (although after eating cookie cake, she’s not so teeny-weeny anymore)  here is the recipe for the homemade cookie cake I found in August (and which I have subsequently made five times.  Kinda takes away my right to scoff at Mabel’s weight, doesn’t it?)

Triple-Awesome Cookie Cake

I found the original recipe online, but for the life of me cannot get back to it.  You would think I could have bookmarked it, but alas…  If I come across it again I’ll be sure to link back.  At any rate, the original recipe is sufficient for a one-inch thick 12” round cake.  I needed more cookie for Aaron’s birthday party, so I increased the batter by half.  It’s just as easily reduced by half, so I’m listing all the appropriate measurements and sizes for your convenience.   It’s important to note at the beginning that I have changed the amount of chocolate chips in the cake because I thought the original recipe called for too much.  (Too much chocolate? I must be ill.) I have made it with full-on chocolate chips some times and half the allotment at others.  If you want more chocolate, feel free to double the portion of chips listed.

	8-9” pan	12” pan	11×15″ pan
Butter, room temp	1 stick	2 sticks	3 sticks
Sugar	¼ c	½ c	¾ c.
Brown Sugar	1/3 c.	2/3 c.	1 c.
Eggs	1	2	3
Vanilla	½ t.	1 t.	1 ½ t.
Flour, all purpose	1c + 2T	2c + 4T	3c + 6T
Kosher Salt	½ t	1 t	1 ½ t
Cream of Tartar	½ t	1 t	1 ½ t
Baking Soda	½ t	1 t	1 ½ t
Chocolate Chips, semi sweet (I use Ghirardelli baking chips)	½ c	1 c	1 ½ c

1. Cream the butter with both sugars in a mixing bowl (medium speed) until fluffy.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, cream of tartar and baking soda.
3. Gently blend the flour mixture into the egg and sugar mixture.  Once combined, fold in the chocolate chips.
4. Spread the batter into a lightly greased pan. (I used to swear by Baker’s Joy, until I nixed the preservatives BHA and BHT from my life.  Now I use Spectrum Naturals brand Canola Spray with Flour for a quick and easy dusting.)  The batter is very thick, so I have to push it to the sides of the pan and smooth it out the best I can.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 25, 30 or 35 minutes (depending on the size), or until the top is golden and you’re drooling at the lighted oven window.

So, yeah, this picture is totally of Aaron’s sheet-cookie-cake in August, and certainly not intended for Mabel on any day.  I used my regular buttercream icing recipe for the white icing, and whipped powdered sugar into homemade chocolate syrup for the accent icing.  To. Die. For!

Happy 5^th Birthday, Mabel.  Leave the cookie cake alone next time, please.

Renegade Recipes

I’ve been considering moving my recipe site into this one for some time now.  The link in the menu bar will take you to the separate site, but I’m kinda sick of having three separate sites to maintain.  I remember when I had five domains, and was actually entertaining the idea of seven-plus.  I can only blame the recent packing, moving and unpacking for my new attitude of “less is more.”

That being said, this blog is about to absorb all my recipes.  So if you are an email subscriber, and you are suddenly flooded with emails of new posts from me (like 20 or so at a time) please know that I tried to prevent that!!  If things go the way I want them to, then you won’t really be aware of all the posts being imported.  And if you determine that you want recipes, the link will still be in the menu to sort the category.  After that, you’ll just see my random recipe posts as I create them, interspersed with life lessons and the crazy in my head.  🙂

A few things you should know about my recipe categories:

“COOK IT HOW LONG???” recipes are those that simmer for an hour or more.  In other words, don’t plan to work all day and then come home to start this recipe for dinner.

“Time Hogs” don’t necessarily cook long, but the preparation is long and involved.  Save these recipes for the weekend when you’re not already stressed.

“THAT DOESN’T SUCK!!!!” recipes are those which have established themselves as worthy meals in our home, strictly according to Dom.  He is quite complimentary, but he is also a smarty-pants sometimes, and when he knows I’m hoping for a whopping compliment, he’ll often pacify me with an astonished “That doesn’t suck!!!”  It’s his way of saying, “Way to go, honey.  You rival Julia Child, Emeril AND Rachael Ray,” while still keeping me dangling on the hook.  What can I say?  It works.

Well, I’m off to stir things up in the WordPress dashboard now.  Wish me luck.  Oh, and Buon Appetito!!

The Most Fantabulous Shrimp-n-Grits

Tags

cream sauce, grits, recipe, shrimp

(Adapted from AllRecipes.com)

1 cup water

1 pinch salt

6 tablespoons grits

2 tablespoons olive oil (or better, vegetable broth.  I use mushroom broth – yum!)

2 tablespoons diced onion

2 tablespoons diced green bell pepper

20 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/4 cup white wine

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 fistfuls of fresh spinach

salt and ground black pepper to taste

Bring water and a pinch of salt to a boil in a saucepan and slowly mix in the grits, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low and simmer grits until tender and smooth, about 20 minutes.  Recite lines from My Cousin Vinny, i.e.: “No self-respectin’ Southerner uses instant grits!” (For Pete’s sake, don’t tell anybody if you DO use instant grits!) Stir often. Set aside and keep warm.

Heat broth (of your choosing) in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  (Here’s the Purpose Driven Mom coming out in me:  you don’t want to sauté with olive oil because it cannot withstand high heat and will release harmful free radicals as it cooks.  Okay, rant over…)  As you’re sautéing, add a few more drops of broth as needed if you feel it’s evaporating out too fast.

Stir in onion and green bell pepper and cook until onion is translucent, about 4 minutes. Lightly stir the shrimp with the vegetables and broth until pink; remove shrimp from pan and set aside.

Pour white wine into the skillet and stir, dissolving any browned bits of food in the bottom of the skillet; slowly add the cream and stir gently.  Reduce heat to low and simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper, then add fresh spinach and stir until it’s just a little wilted.

Gently combine the sauce with the grits and ladle onto plates.  Top with shrimp and serve.  Become somebody’s favorite chef ever.

The first time I made this, I didn’t have enough grits on hand and was afraid the meal would be lame.  So I made sweet biscuits and served the shrimp and grits over them.  Oh.  My. Goodness.

(If I can ever figure out why my biscuit recipe is so wonky – and fix it – I’ll share it with you.  Until then, I don’t want you to bake them up and be like, “Um, Lori?…what’s with this freaky biscuit batter??!!”  But they taste incredible, so I promise to share someday…)

I also use the same sauce with pasta (like this delicious organic spinach and cheese ravioli that I found at Target.)  It’s a win!

THE BEST Vanilla Ice Cream

Are y’all ready for this?…

June’s issue of Southern Living magazine had a remarkable page dedicated to guilt-free but seriously delish ice cream.  I couldn’t wait to try it.  I have made the batter three times, and finished the ice cream twice.  Mechanical malfunctions (and my resulting hissy-fit) caused the first batch to go unmade.  But when I did finally borrow an ice-cream maker from Jill in order to make some birthday celebrations at work just a little bit sweeter, I was so incredibly glad that I had this recipe.  It. Is. Tha. Bomb. 

(Confession: I don’t typically go around calling things “tha bomb.”  It’s really not my style.  But the context totally fits here.  I just have to say that typing that phrase makes me think I will somehow end up on the FBI’s watchlist or something.  So, if that ever comes to fruition: Hi, Fellas.  Please enjoy some ice cream. 😉 )

Southern Living calls this “Lightened Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.”  I call it frozen heaven.

1/2 c.  granular sweetener for ice cream*
2 T cornstarch
1/8 t salt
2 c reduced-fat 2% milk
1 c half-and-half
1 egg yolk**
1 1/2 t vanilla bean paste or extract***

Whisk together first 3 ingredients in a large heavy saucepan.  Gradually whisk in milk and half-and-half.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly about 8-10 minutes or until slightly thickened.  Remove from heat.

Whisk egg yolk separately until slightly thickened.  Gradually whisk about 1 cup of the hot cream mixture into the yolk.  This will keep the egg from cooking too fast and creating large lumps.  Add the yolk mixture to remaining cream mixture, whisking constantly.  Whisk in vanilla.

Pour mixture through a fine mesh sieve into a bowl, discarding any solids.  Cool one hour, stirring occasionally.  Place plastic wrap directly on cream mixture and chill 8-24 hours.

Pour mixture into freezer container of 1 1/2 quart electric ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.  Let stand at room temperature 5-10 minutes before serving.****

Calories per 1/2 cup: 92; Fat 5g (Sat 3g); Protein 3g; Carb 18g; Fiber 0g; Cholesterol 42mg; Iron 0mg; Sodium 76mg; Calcium 106mg

*I totaly use my table sugar in this recipe, which happens to be Florida Crystals Organic Cane Sugar.  It works beautifully.

**Two ice-cream batches later I finally realized this said 1 egg yolk.  I had used the whole egg both times.  Sure, “oops!” but it turned out fine.

***Vanilla Bean Paste.  I had no clue what this was, but I found it in the gourmet section of Amazon.com.  I think this adds better flavor than extract would, but I could be wrong.  It does add that nice vanilla bean speckled look.

****I dunno.  I don’t think I would let it sit out for 10 minutes.  Just sayin’.

 

Spinach Watermelon Salad

I found this recipe in a calorie counter app and am dying to try it.  Yes, I am breaking my own rule of ONLY allowing tried-and-true confirmed-AWESOME recipes that I can personally vouch for on this site.  But, I love all the ingredients in this recipe – except the onion – so I think I’m safe.

4 oz feta cheese, crumbled

2 Tbsp mint

1/4 cup balsamic vinaigrette

8 cups watermelon

1  red Onion, medium

1  spinach, baby leaf

Toss all ingredients into a large bowl and serve.

Mediterranean Spinach Sautee

So three nights ago, Dom and I decided we would try our hand at Blackened Salmon (which turned out fine, even if we didn’t know what we were doing.)  I looked around for healthy ingredients to make a quick side dish, and this is what I came up with.

2 T organic chicken broth or vegetable broth
½ cup Organic Kalamata olives, sliced
½ cup Organic sun dried tomatoes in olive oil, chopped
4 cups fresh organic baby spinach

Heat the broth in saucepan and sautee olives with the tomatoes for about 4 minutes.  Add the spinach and sautee just until wilted and serve immediately.  Makes roughly 3 servings.

Chicken, Mushroom, and Wild Rice Soup

This is THE BEST home-cooked chicken and rice soup.  I was amazed at how awesome it is! It makes a lot (14 cups) so plan to share.  😉  You will use a lot of pans in making this, but it is sooooo worth it. 

2 (6-oz) packages long grain and wild rice mix
10 cups chicken broth, divided
3 Tbsp butter
1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms (I use organic baby bella)
1 cup chopped fresh onion
1 cup chopped celery
¼ cup butter
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup half-and-half
2 T dry white wine
2 cups cooked shredded chicken breasts (I used one of the grocery store rotisserie chickens to save time in a pinch)

Bring rice, 4 cups chicken broth, and 1 seasoning packet from rice mix to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat.  Cover, reduce to low and simmer for 20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender. 

Meanwhile, melt 3 T butter in large skillet over meium heat; add mushrooms, onion and celery and cook, stirring often, 10-12 minutes or until tender.

Melt ¼ cup butter in dutch oven over medium heat; whisk in flour, stirring constantly, 1 minute or until thickened and bubbly.  Gradually whisk in remaining 6 cups broth and cook, stirring often, 8-10 minutes or until slightly thinckened.  Whisk in wine and half and half.  Stir in mushroom mixture, chicken and rice.  Cook, stirring occasionally, 5-10 minutes or until thoroughly heated.  (Do not boil.)

Overnight French Toast

This recipe originally came from the first Stoneware Sensations cookbook by The Pampered Chef. It’s one of the recipes I fell in love with a decade ago.  Recently, I added the strawberry sauce and made it even more spectacular.  The ease of making it the night before means it’s a great weekday breakfast too! (This recipe can be easily halved to make just four servings.)

1 loaf french bread
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
4 T granulated sugar, divided
1 t vanilla
1/8 t salt
¼-½  t ground cinnamon (optional, to taste)
1 cup sliced strawberries
2 T granulated sugar
1/2 cup + 2 T heavy whipping cream, divided
1 banana, sliced 

Arrange the French bread slices (cut side down) in a 9×13 baking dish. Combine the eggs and next five ingredients; blend well and pour over the bread slices.  Cover with foil and refrigerate 1 hour or overnight.

Slice fresh strawberries and sprinkle with granulated sugar.  Cover and chill overnight.

The next morning, preheat oven to 400.  Bake the bread uncovered for 30 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove to cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar. 

Put strawberries (with the juice made by the sugar) in a small saucepan and simmer about 3 minutes.  Remove strawberries from the juice and set them aside.  Add ½ cup whipping cream to strawberry juice and whisk until boiling.  Pour into a glass container, add 2T more whipping cream and beat on high about 2 minutes.  It will thicken only slightly, but this is fine.

Arrange a serving of French toast slices on plate and drizzle with strawberry sauce.  Spoon sliced strawberries and sliced bananas on top and enjoy!!

Completely Incredible Fruit-of-Your-Choice Muffins

These are from the March issue of Southern Living magazine.  I tried some variations and have determined that you can use just about any fruit that suits you, and these muffins will still rock!  We like the original peach best, but I made them with blueberries the second time and was just as happy.

Streusel:
½ c chopped pecans or walnuts
1/3 c firmly packed brown sugar
¼ c all-purpose flour
2 T melted butter
1 t ground cinnamon

 Muffins:
1 ½ c allpurpose flour
½ c granulated sugar
2 t baking powder
1 t ground cinnamon
¼ t salt
½ c butter, melted (1 stick)
¼ milk
1 large egg
1 cup frozen sliced peaches, thawed and diced OR blueberries/strawberries/pear/whatever you want!
12 paper baking cups
Vegetable cooking spray

Prepare Streusel by stirring pecans and next 4 ingredients until crumbly; set aside.

Preheat oven to 400.  Combine flour and next 4 ingredients (all dry) in a large bowl.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients.  Stir together the butter, milk and egg; add to dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened.  Gently stir in fruit.

Place paper baking cups in a muffin tin and lightly spray them with the cooking spray.  Spoon batter into the cups, filling about 2/3 full.  Sprinkle the streusel over the tops.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean.  Cool (or not) and enjoy!!