blogs Archives - Mamma's Cooking

Comfort Food and a Cookbook!

As the weather gets colder I really start to crave comfort food. My kids love french fries. Who doesn’t? I’ve been testing recipes and came up with these Baked Shoestring Sweet Potatoes. To cut them I use my OXO mandolin or julienne peeler (see picture below) or you can use a spiralizer and then just cut to desired length of fries.

Baked Shoestring Sweet Potato fries
Ingredients

1 large sweet potato, julienned

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon of pepper

1 teaspoon of onion powder

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut up the sweet potato and soak in water for 15 minutes. Dry between towels for 5 minutes. Toss with olive oil and spices, then spread out on cookie sheet. Cover with foil and cook for 10 minutes. Uncover and cook for 15-25 minutes, depending on your oven and how crispy you want them.

These sweet potato fries pair very well with the grilled pork chop recipe below or even just hot dogs or sausage. Whatever works for your timing or tastes.You can also also substitute chicken for the pork and it will be delicious! Too much food for your family? Cut this recipe in half.

Grilled pork with Peach Sauce

Ingredients

3 pounds of pork chops or chicken breasts/thighs

1 Tablespoon of onion powder

1 teaspoon of ground coriander

1 teaspoon of salt

½ teaspoon of cumin

¼ teaspoon of pepper

¼ teaspoon of paprika

6 Tablespoons peach preserves, I like to use Bon Maman.

3 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar

Directions

Combine spices in a small bowl with a fork. Rub spice mixture on the meat and let sit about 10-15 minutes, while you prepare the sauce. In another bowl mix the peach preserves (apricot would also be good) and apple cider vinegar. Grill the pork chops 5 to 7 minutes on each side. Top with the sauce and let rest for 5 minutes. Serve.

Some of my favorite comfort foods are appetizers or small bites. A great new cookbook is coming out at the end of this month from Nicole Hunn of Gluten Free On A Shoestring called “Gluten Free Small Bites: Sweet and Savory Hand Held Treats for On-The-Go Lifestyles and Entertaining.” I have had a chance to preview the book and it is amazing! If you pre-order the book, you can also get a sneak peek of some of the recipes and some other goodies, like a GF flour calculator, shopping list and menu plan! I have made a couple of recipes from the book and they are amazing! Cannot wait to try more. Share with anyone you know will be interested!

I made the cheese puffs from the cookbook for the kids as a snack after school one day and plan on making the crab rangoon today! The two trays of cheese puffs disappeared in about 15 minutes. Amazing! Very addicting. Keep an eye to my Instagram this week for more photos and reviews of recipes from the Small Bite’s Cookbook!

If you haven’t made anything from Gluten Free on a Shoestring before, you definitely need to visit the website and check out Nicole’s other cookbooks! I have made so many of her recipes: puff pastry, wonton wrappers, pretzel rolls and most recently chocolate cake donuts!

What are your favorite comfort foods? What are your favorite comfort food cookbooks? We learn from sharing with each other, so let me know!

Cooking Bucket List and Spring Cooking!

In the spirit of trying new cooking techniques and foods each month, I decided to create a Cooking Bucket list. The foods I plan to try making this year. I already made bread from scratch in January and gnocchi from scratch in February, so this month I am going to make Meringues for the first time! Anyone with a good recipe, let me know! Here is my list:

Gnocchi and homemade bread!

Cooking bucket list 2012

Bread – January, Done

Gnocchi – February, Done

Meringues

Calamari

Flan

Lobster

Koeksisters

Oysters

Mozzarella

Pork Belly

Short ribs

Chocolate truffles

I found some great inspiration by googling “Cooking Bucket List.” Here are some great ones I found:

Mostly Food and Crafts

Way More Homemade

Christie’s Corner

The Orgasmic Chef

As the weather gets warmer seafood (especially during Lent) and salads tend to make a larger appearance on our dinner tables. My recent favorite lunch I made as a treat for myself while the boys were napping and I was doing lots of laundry, was Scallop Caesar Salad. I had bought fresh scallops for Valentines day and only made 1/2 the amount I bought, so I froze the scallops. I know some of you are crying sacrilege! but they were still great even once defrosted in the microwave.

3-4 Diver Sea Scallops

2 Tbsp butter

Couple of splashes of White Balsamic Vinegar

Salt

Lemon Pepper

Romaine Lettuce

Parmesan

Croutons

Caesar Dressing

Melt butter in saute pan over medium high heat. Salt and pepper all sides of the scallops and then sear on each side in the melted butter. When almost completely cooked, pour in a couple of splashes of white balsamic vinegar (you can use rice wine, white wine vinegar or lemon juice). Place romaine lettuce, a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and a handful of your favorite croutons in a salad bowl. Toss with your favorite Caesar dressing and then top with scallops. Delicious!

New blogs

I’ve slowly been exploring blogs about food and life in the Boston area and here are a couple I’ve found so far:

http://www.foodiemommy.blogspot.com/ – Some good recipes, info on farmer’s markets and what to do with kids in the Boston area.

http://www.northshoredish.com/ – Giving me some insight into food/restaurants in our new area.

Other’s I’ve just started following:

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ – Made the chicken blackbean soup last week. So good! Karina even helped me make it because you just throw a bunch of cold ingredients into a crockpot and let it cook all day!

http://rollwithjen.com/ – for nostalgia for life and good food in Seattle! This is a must for a Seattle foodie.

http://tracieatsf.blogspot.com/ – Great blog on restaurants in San Fransisco!

I’ll put these on my blog roll to the right, so you can always access them. Anyone have any other suggestions?

I’m also taking suggestions on best restaurant in the Boston area for my 10th wedding anniversary in September. We are not going away anywhere so figured we would splurge on fabulous night out. Thoughts?

Brunch and other ramblings of the week…

As many of us parents know, brunch is often the best time to entertain. The kids are usually ready for snack and are in a good mood (most of the time), so parents can enjoy their coffee (or even a mimosa or bloody mary).

I’ve been practicing a frittata recipe that is super easy and tasty. Kids seem to like it too. Its a potato and cheese frittata I found on allrecipes.com. I like to use those websites to give me an idea on cooking time and amounts, but I have a hard time sticking to the recipe (usually because I don’t have all the ingredients in the house).

For four adults and two toddlers I use: 6 eggs, butter, salt, pepper, diced onions, garlic, fresh thyme (or any other fresh or dried herbs you have), shredded cheese (I used cheddar, mozzarella and parmesan once and substituted smoked gouda for cheddar another time), cream cheese or cottage cheese and potatoes (I used leftover mashed potatoes once and roasted potatoes another time). Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

First, melt about 1Tbs butter in a nonstick skillet that can go in the oven and add potatoes. After potatoes are heated through add onions + garlic. (I found a little tip on one of the comments on allrecipes.com to separate the egg whites and yolks for a fluffier frittata.) Beat the egg whites until soft peak stage. Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl. Add salt, pepper, thyme, a Tbs or two of cream cheese or cottage cheese and some shredded cheese to the yolks. Then slowly add the yolk mixture to the egg whites. Sprinkle top of potatoes with shredded cheese then pour eggs over top and put in the oven for about 10 minutes (until top is light golden brown). I also sprinkled some more shredded cheese on the top. You can never have enough cheese 🙂

I’ve served this with turkey sausage or boerewors (a very tasty South African sausage that you can find at Uli’s in Pike Place Market) and some fruit. Today I also made my mom’s South African pancakes. Basically they are like crepes and then rolled with a cinnamon sugar.

We just got back from a trip to the East Coast. Travelling with toddler is not always easy, especially when there is a time change involved. Karina didn’t sleep much, but was always ready to eat. We even stopped at a Wendy’s one day and she wanted nothing to do with the jr. cheeseburgeer we got her. All she wanted was her turkey wrap (whole wheat tortilla with turkey cold cuts and havarti cheese. I was so proud! I’m sure this won’t last forever 🙂 She loved her Far Far’s grilled cheese sandwiches! Other than that, she basically only wanted to eat Craisins and goldfish.