Grandmother's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Also known as "the best chocolate chip cookies you'll ever eat!"  

And without further ado, here is the recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cups + 4 Tbsp flour
12 oz. (2 cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Cream shortening, sugars, vanilla and eggs.  Add salt, soda, flour, and chocolate chips.  Refirgerate for about an hour and roll into balls about the size of a walnut.  Bake at 375 degrees for 9-10 minutes.  Allow to cool slightly on the pan, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

Pakastini Kima

This is a great "meat & potatoes" kind of meal, with a yummy twist -- curry!  It comes together pretty quickly, only requires one pan (plus one for the rice), and is pantry-friendly, as I almost always have the ingredients on hand.  This meal is on our menu on a very regular rotation.  For the kids, I will pull out a couple scoops of the hamburger & potatoes before I add the curry & tomatoes, and will add beef broth, or just water, for the liquid to cook the potatoes, in a separate small pan... and then I add carrots and/or peas to theirs.

Pakastini Kima
Ingredients:
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. chopped onion
3 Tbsp oil or butter
1 lb ground beef
1 Tbsp curry powder (or 1-2 Tbsp fresh curry paste)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
dash of pepper
dash each cinnamon, ginger, & turmeric
2 c. (1 large can) diced tomatoes, with juice
2-3 white potatoes, diced [I use Yukon Gold, about 4]
2 c. frozen peas or green beans [this is not in my original recipe, but I noticed it in the More-With-Less cookbook, and I plan to add peas next time]

Directions:
Saute butter/ oil, onion & garlic in a large skillet, until onion is soft, but not brown.  Add hamburger, and brown well, breaking up into small bits.  Stir in remaining ingredients.  Cover & simmer for 25 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.  Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.  [Note: I usually add many additional dashes of cinnamon, ginger & tumeric that probably adds up to 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of each.]
Serve over hot rice.
[Note: you can get curry powder in mild, medium or hot, and depending on the preference of your tastebuds, you can tone down the spiciness by pouring a little honey over top after serving.  I usually just put the honey bear on the table and let everyone add as much or as little as they want.  The M-W-L cookbook also suggests that it can be garnished with shredded coconut.  I've never done this, but I imagine it would be a nice compliment too.]

Potato Pancakes

Potato Pancakes can come in many different forms, but in our house, they are very similar to Latkes, except that instead of shredded potatoes, they are coarsely chopped in the blender...  Simple to put together, simple ingredients, and requires very little in the way of pot & pans and clean-up in the kitchen, these are one of my 'go-to' meals, often when I don't have anything else planned.  But they were actually on my menu this time around.  I don't always go to the trouble, but I love to serve these with sauteed onions.  Dab a little butter, a blob of sour cream, and some soft onions on top.  Perfect.  If I have it on hand, I will fry up some Kielbasa or Farmer's sausage to go along with it, and usually, applesauce to round out the meal.  I love to cook the pancakes & the sausage on my electric griddle, because then clean-up is a breeze, and it doesn't heat up my kitchen as much as the stove top does.  

Potato Pancakes
Ingredients:
3 c. cubed raw potatoes, divided [I use Yukon Gold, so I just scrub them and cut them a little finer, but leave the skin on. But tougher skinned potatoes, you'll want to peel them first]
2 eggs
1/2 of a small onion [I'm always quite generous here... I love the onion/ potato combination]
2 Tbsp flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt [again, I'm usually a bit generous here, more like a rounded tsp]

Directions:
Put eggs, onion, salt, flour baking powder and 1/2 c. of the potatoes into a blender.  Cover & process until potatoes have gone through the blades.  Add remaining potatoes and process only until potatoes have passed through the processing blades (you want it to be a bit chunky still, but not huge chunks).  Fry until golden brown on a hot, well-greased griddle, or fry pan.

Meat & Potato Quiche

This is a lovely, different, wheat-free alternative to traditional crust for quiche.  Shredded potatoes!!  What complexity it adds to what can very easily become a run-of-the-mill sort of meal.  I think this will be my new "normal" way of preparing quiche.  So much easier, too, than rolling out a crust, and much more economical than using gluten-free flour.  Make this.  You won't regret it!


Meat & Potato Quiche
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp oil [I use avocado oil]
3-4 c. coarsely shredded raw potatoes [I use Yukon Gold, skin scrubbed, but left on]
1 c. grated Swiss or cheddar cheese [I used Colby]
3/4 c. cooked diced chicken, ham or browned sausage or hamburger [I used ham this time]
1/4 c. onion, finely diced
1 c. evaporated or rich milk (part cream) [I used 3/4 c. whole milk, 1/4 c. heavy cream]
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
dash onion powder
1 Tbsp parsley flakes

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees [I used convection].  In a 9" pie pan, stir together oil & potatoes.  Press evenly into pie crust shape.  Bake for 15 minutes until just beginning to brown.  Remove from oven.
Layer on: cheese, meat & onion.  In a separate bowl, beat together the milk, eggs, salt, pepper & onion powder.  Pour over other ingredients.  Sprinkle with parsley flakes.
Return to oven and bake at 425 degrees about 30 minutes, or until lightly browned, and knife inserted 1" from edge comes out clean.  Allow to cool 5 minutes before cutting into wedges.

Split Pea Soup

We invited some friends over for lunch after our Good Friday service, and I decided to keep it simple with build-your-own grilled cheese sandwiches and some soup.  I wanted to do something that could be cooking in the slow cooker while we were gone, and bought all the stuff for split pea soup, only to read the directions and realize that this is not a "dump everything in and go" sort of soup!  But, in More-With-Less fashion, I determined to make it work, and use the ingredients I already had on hand, rather than buying stuff for a different soup.  The nice thing about split pea soup is really, the longer it cooks the mushier and thicker it gets, which is really what you want.  Adapting it for the slow cooker was a little extra work, but in the end, it actually worked quite well!  This is my grandmother's recipe, and I will post it as is, but I will add some notes in the directions section for what I did to use the slow cooker.  

Split Pea Soup
Ingredients:
2 1/4 c. (1 lb.) dried green peas, rinsed well
8 c. (2 qts) cold water
Ham bone or just chopped ham
1 1/2 c. chopped onions
1 c. diced celery
1 c. diced carrots
1/4 tsp marjoram (optional) [I didn't have any, so I omitted it]
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 c. cream, half & half, or milk [optional]

Directions:
In a large, heavy bottomed pot, cover peas with cold water -- bring to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes.  Remove from heat & let stand for one hour.
*Slow Cooker addendum: Boil the peas on the stove in a large pot.  While it is heating/ boiling, "charge" your slow cooker pot with hot water (fill it with very hot water and let it sit).  When ready to "remove from heat", dump hot water out of slow cooker pot, dry off the outside and pour the peas/ water into the slow cooker pot (I did this over the sink, in case it made a mess), and put the pot into the cooker.  Put on the lid and let the peas sit for one hour (cooker turned off).
After one hour, add the remaining ingredients, except the cream. Cook for 1 1/2 hours.  Then remove the bone and cook for another 30-40 minutes or until soup is thick.   *Slow Cooker addendum: Add ingredients & replace the lid, cook on high for 2-3 hours (or low if you need it to be a longer time frame, like 5-6 hours).  
If using, stir in cream right at the end, reheat and enjoy.  *Slow Cooker addendum: Turn cooker to low, add cream and reheat (covered) for about 15 minutes.

Creamy Egg & Noodle Bake

I served this with shredded zucchini,
steamed with chopped onions.

This was an interesting recipe.  I wasn't sure how it would turn out, when I chose it, but I gave it a try, and it was really tasty.  The hard-boiled egg was an interesting addition, not one I would have thought to use, but it really worked.  I added some cooked, shredded chicken (canned) to it, to boost the protein content a bit more, and save me from adding 8 hard-boiled eggs!  I also added chopped carrots to it, because I've become obsessed with mixing veggies into everything.  My toddler and my somewhat veg-a-phobe husband will both eat them if they are mixed in... they are less enthusiastic when they are a side.  When eating this, I decided that broccoli would have been another nice addition to the carrots.  I've added it to the recipe as an optional add-in even though I didn't when I made it.

Creamy Egg & Noodle Bake
Ingredients:
3 c. noodles, cooked to al dente, drained [I used brown rice & quinoa fusilli from Trader Joe's]
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 c. finely chopped onion [I used 1/2 a large onion, so probably more like 1 c.]
8 hard-cooked eggs, chopped  [I only used 3]
1 can cooked chicken, shredded with fork
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped, steamed to al dente [optional]
1-2 c. broccoli florets, steamed to al dente [optional]
2 c. small-curd cottage cheese
1 c. plain yogurt [I used sour cream, because that's what I had on hand]
1/3 c. Parmesan cheese
2 tsp poppy seed
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp salt
dash pepper
3/4 c. bread crumbs
1 Tbsp melted butter [I used more, probably close to 2 or 3 Tbsp, because I like butter]

Directions:
Cook noodles according to package directions. Rinse & drain, and set aside.
Saute butter & onion until tender.
In a large bowl, combine sauteed onion, noodles, eggs, chicken, and carrots & broccoli (if using).
In a separate bowl, combine cottage cheese, yogurt, Parmesan cheese, poppy seed, Worcestershire sauce, salt & pepper.  Fold into noodle mixture.  Pour into greased casserole dish.  Combine bread crumbs and butter, and sprinkle over top.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Tangy Taco Soup

I forgot to take a picture, so I'm borrowing one from my
original recipe post for now.  The major difference is
I served it over rice, not chips, this time.

This is just a modified version of my original Taco Soup, but I figured I'd go ahead and make a new post for it, since there several differences.  I used my own taco seasoning mix this time, instead of purchased packages, and I added a package of Ranch dressing mix to make it more tangy.  And I cooked it in the slow cooker for about 3 hours, instead of the stove top.  I didn't have quite the variety of beans this time, so it was just kidney beans, and my canned tomatoes were whole, rather than diced, so I chopped them before adding to the pot.  I added fresh carrots & green peppers, and not as much water, so it was more of a 'stew' than a soup.  I served it over brown Jasmine rice instead of chips, and topped it with shredded cheese, salsa, olives, sour cream and avocado.  

Tangy Taco Soup
Ingredients & Directions:
1) Brown 1 lb of meat (ground beef or turkey or a combination) in a large saucepan with onion.  Add taco seasoning + 1/4 c. water, stirring to combine.  Cook until liquid is mostly absorbed, and meat is well coated.
Taco seasoning mix [I used a doubled batch for this amount of soup]

2 tsp. chili powder

1 1/2 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. onion powder

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp black pepper

pinch of cayenne pepper (adjust to your preference)

pinch of crushed red pepper flakes (I grind mine up, so they blend better with everything.  Again, adjusted to preference)
2) Add 1-2 packages of Ranch dressing mix, stir to combine.
3) Dump meat mixture into slow cooker and add:
     2 large cans tomatoes (diced is easiest, or chop them if they are whole)
     1-2 large cans kidney beans, rinsed & drained (can also use a variety of beans: black, pinto, Great Northern, etc)
     2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
     1 bell pepper (your choice of colour), seeded & coarsely chopped
     2 c. frozen corn (or 1-2 cans corn, with or without liquid, your preference)
     Enough water to make it mixable to soupy, depending on your desired effect.  Less soupy is easier to serve (with a slotted spoon) over a salad, more soupy I would recommend serving over rice or tortilla chips. 4) Cook on high for 2-4 hours, or on low for 4-8 hours -- the longer the better, as the flavours meld more.
5) Top with your favourite taco toppings.