comfort food Archives - Page 5 of 8

Apricot Glazed Wings

I made these wings for dinner last week (waffles and wings, a spin on chicken and waffles) and I could not wait to share it! I let my kids lick their fingers and I may even have too 😉 Many of you are watching football or basketball games over the next couple of weeks. I like to watch. I don’t really understand football and much to my husband’s dismay, I don’t really want to try to understand it. I’m happy to create yummy treats for those who enjoy watching it. Try these for your next game day party! You will not have leftovers! Just remember, lots and lots of napkins 🙂

Apricot Glazed Wings

Ingredients

About 2 pounds of chicken wings

3 Tablespoons of apricot preserves

1 Tablespoon soy sauce

1 Tablespoon rice vinegar

1 teaspoon garlic, minced

1 teaspoon ginger, minced

1 teaspoon onion powder

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix all the ingredients, except the wings, together in a large bowl. Microwave for 10 seconds. Whisk the sauce together and pour about ½ of it into another large bowl. Toss wings with ½ of the mixture and place on a cooling rack that is over a baking sheet. Bake for 40 minutes. Toss with the remaining sauce (that was kept in a separate bowl) and serve!

If you like buffalo wings follow the same recipe but melt a little butter into your favorite wing sauce (I discovered Wegman’s Buffalo Hot Sauce this week and it is delicious and gluten free!). Separate the sauce into 2 bowls. Toss the wings in one bowl and place on rack over baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes. Toss with remaining sauce and serve with some ranch dressing or blue cheese (just check that it is gluten-free!)

Put these out on a platter alongside a bowl of Doritos, pot of chili, fruit plate and a veggie platter or some meatballs. Later in the in the week, I’ll have my barbecue ribs recipe for you too! What is your favorite game day snack?

Swedish Meatballs

Over the past couple of months I have written about Bahn Mi Meatballs, Taco Meatballs, Sweet and Sour Meatballs, Stuffed Italian Meatballs, Greek Meatballs and even Simple and Plain Meatballs waiting for your own favorite sauce.

One of the favorites in our family is Swedish Meatballs. This is a perfect, stick to your ribs kind of meal perfect comfort food for this weekend while you are watching football, warming up after a day on the slopes or just coming home after a day of carting your kids around to all their different activities.

Swedish meatballs

Ingredients

About 2 pounds of meatballs, thawed (You can use these Plain and Simple Meatballs)

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

½ of a medium sweet onion diced

1 clove of garlic minced

6 Tablespoons of butter

6 Tablespoons of flour (I like to use Gluten Free Cup4Cup)

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1/8 teaspoon of fresh ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon of ground cloves, optional

1 teaspoon of salt

½ teaspoon of pepper

3 cups of chicken or beef stock

1 Tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice

½ cup of heavy cream

Directions

In a large sauce pan, heat olive oil and cook onions and garlic until translucent. Add butter, flour and spices. Whisk until butter is melted and flour is cooked through, about 3-4 minutes. Whisk in stock, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice until thickened. Add heavy cream. Stir to combine. Add meatballs and heat them through.

Serve with your favorite noodles or mashed potatoes. I even had the leftovers on top of gluten-free buttermilk biscuits the next morning (a play on biscuits and gravy) to fuel up to shovel the foot of snow we got the night before. I’m testing the biscuit recipes and will share them with you soon!

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French Onion Soup

Every time I go to a new restaurant and they have French Onion Soup on the menu, I try it. I have made many, many batches of my own and finally wrote down the recipe! I make it at home now for my family, so that I can use gluten-free bread to make the toasted cheese crouton on top. It is perfect for a cold winter night.

French Onion Soup

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons of olive oil

6 to 8 small sweet onions

5 cloves of garlic

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

5 sprigs of thyme

2 sprig of rosemary

2 Tablespoons of balsamic vinegar

4 cups of broth (I like to use 3 cups of beef and 1 cup of chicken broth)

Bread (I used gluten-free bread)

About 2 cups of shredded mozzarella

Directions

Heat olive oil in pan over medium heat. Add onions, herbs and spices. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Stir and add balsamic vinegar. Stir for a minute or two then cover and cook covered for another 5 minutes. Repeat until onions are soft and fragrant (about 20 to 30 minutes). Add the broth and stir. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Toast bread with cheese and place on top of each mug or bowl of soup or place soup in oven safe bowls and add toast with cheese and put under broiler for a minute or two.

Serve this up on a snowy day with some mussels or a salad, then you have a very easy fancy dinner.

If onion soup is not your thing, you can find more of my soup recipes here:

Sweet Potato Coconut Curry Soup and my favorite soups from 2016

Poached Salmon

The first week of the new year is coming to an end. Posting everyday in December was a great challenge and I’m glad I did it and maybe I’ll revive it every once in awhile (shhh, don’t tell my husband), but I am back to posting 2 times a week. You’ll see posts about what to make for dinner, lunch and even breakfast. Comfort food with a twist and of course, always gluten-free because in our house it has to be. To get everyone in my family to eat it, it has to be good. These are recipes that are tested by me, my husband, our 9 year old daughter and twin 6 year old boys.

We had family visiting from other parts of the country (south and the midwest) over the holidays so I made a fair amount of seafood. I made my best clam chowder to date, baked cod, poached salmon and roasted shrimp. Poaching fish is now my new favorite way to cook it! Since it was the holidays I went all out with the butter poaching liquid, but will soon test a recipe with broth so it is healthier and we can eat it more often.

Butter Poached Salmon

Ingredients

About 2 pounds of fresh salmon

4 sticks of butter

1/4 cup of olive oil

zest of one lemon

juice of one lemon

1 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon of pepper

4-5 sprigs of thyme

4-5 basil leaves, torn

Directions

On medium heat, melt the butter and all the ingredients together in a large sauce pan or pot. Do not boil, but allow to simmer. Place the salmon into the butter and cover. If salmon is not fully covered by liquid, spoon it over the top. Cook until desired doneness, about 10 to 15 minutes. Serve.

We enjoyed it with roasted shrimp and tomatoes, polenta and salad.

Looking forward to a year of new recipes, blogging, working on my cookbook and I even hope to start offering cooking lessons! I will need some test subjects, so stay tuned if you are interested!

Cooking Bucket List 2017

Happy New Year! Thank you for coming on this journey with me. Looking forward to a great year ahead full of cooking, family and friends!

I mostly finished my 2015 bucket list, after taking a break in 2016. Poached salmon was one of the last items and it was delicious! I don’t have an official recipe for the poached salmon. I know I used a lot of butter. 4 sticks to be exact. I added some lemon juice, fresh thyme, salt and pepper to the butter and poached the salmon for about 15 minutes. It was AMAZING! Served it with a broccoli risotto.

Coming up with my own proprietary bread and pizza dough mixes was next, but I’ve found others that I love to use and well, honestly, those are easier in my day to day life for now 🙂 My kids love the Goodbye Gluten Gluten-free bread that I found at Wegman’s. My favorite is still the King Arthur’s Gluten-free bread mix, right out of the oven. For pizza, which we usually have on Fridays when we are all tired from the week, it’s Freshcetta frozen gluten-free pizza or I use Against the Grain’s Pizza Shells to make our own.

For 2017, I am back in the swing of things and ready for some new challenges! I am making some family favorites gluten-free and trying some new cooking techniques. Hopefully this will inspire you to make your own cooking bucket list or just pledge to cook at home more in 2017 😉

Gluten-free koeksisters (A South African fried dough, dipped in syrup)
Dragon Ball from Takara (a local sushi restaurant)
Homemade Ginger Beer
Gluten-free Egg Yolk Ravioli
Gluten-free Yorkshire pudding
Gluten-free Croissants
Indian Pudding
Cornish Game Hens
Lamb Mango Korma from scratch
Baked Alaska

Happy New Year everyone! Best wishes that the hope and excitement of a new year lasts more than this day 🙂 What is on your cooking bucket list? Do you have a family favorite that you need help adapting to be gluten free? Let me know!

The Best Recipes of 2016

To celebrate the end of 2016, I’m sharing this list of your favorite recipes from Mamma’s Cooking. Thank you for reading!

1. Appetizer Ideas for Thanksgiving

2. Rainbow Pizza

3. Cooking Your Thanksgiving Turkey

4. Spoon Roast

5. Gingerbread Cookies

6. Gluten-Free Holiday Treats

7. Holiday Mashed Potatoes

8. School Snack and Lunch Ideas

9. Apple or Pear Crisp Recipe

10. What to do with Leftover Cod

This completes my 31 days of posts! I challenged myself with a post a day in December and I did it! Best wishes to you all for a great celebration tonight and an even better 2017. Look tomorrow for my 2017 Cooking Bucket list.

Favorite Meatball Recipes from 2016

Meatballs are a great way to feed a crowd as a main meal or as an appetizer. They are kid friendly and can be made as healthy or as decadent as you like. Any of these recipes would be great for tailgating, watching football on tv with friends or ringing in the new year.

You can use ground turkey, chicken, pork, beef or your favorite mixture. Meatballs are a canvas. Make them with Asian flavors, Tex Mex or the classic Italian. Here are some of my favorite meatball recipes from 2016:

Greek Meatballs

Taco Meatballs

Bahn Mi Meatballs

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Italian Stuffed Meatballs

Meatballs, Plain and Simple

What is your favorite meatball?

Butternut Squash Soup

This is my signature soup. When I started cooking a lot, as my stress relief in law school, I made this soup based on a recipe from the Food Network Kitchens. I have adapted it over the years and tried different flavors. This one comes out phenomenally!

Butternut Squash Soup

Adapted from Food Network Kitchens

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 large red onion or sweet onion chopped
1 clove of garlic chopped
1/4 teaspoon dry rubbed sage
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 medium butternut squash peeled and chopped
8 ounces of tomato sauce
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 1/4 cup chicken stock or vegetable stock

Instructions

Heat the olive oil in a stock pot on the stove at medium heat.
Caramelize onions and garlic with the herbs, probably about 15-20 minutes.
Add butternut squash, stir and cook for about 10 minutes.
Add tomato sauce, vinegar and stock. Stir and cook for about 20 minutes, until squash is soft enough to mush with a fork against the side of pot.
Blend with hand blender in the pot or cool and transfer to a blender to blend until smooth.
Check for seasoning and serve.

People will not believe that this soup is dairy free and gluten free and if you use vegetable stock, vegan. Gasp! It is phenomenal, warm, comforting and so good with grilled cheese. Which yes, you can make gluten free. Gluten free bread is best when toasted and covered in melted cheese, in my opinion 🙂

Happy Night before the night before Christmas and the night before the first night of Hanukkah!

Here are some more soup recipes if you are in the mood for a different flavor:

Coconut Curry Sweet Potato Soup

Chicken Noodle Soup

Potato Leek Soup

Greek Meatballs

Anytime of year is good for meatballs, but especially around this festive time of year they are a great choice for your entertaining needs. Want to add a little different flavor for your holiday appetizer? Try Greek meatballs. Serve with a yogurt sauce, like this one from AllRecipes.com. It would a bright start or accompaniment to the main meal for your guests.

Greek Meatballs for a Crowd (makes 55-60 meatballs)

Ingredients

About 5 pounds of ground beef and pork (I usually do about 2/3 beef and 1/3 pork)

1 pound of bacon, minced in the food processor

1/2 of a large sweet onion, grated

1 egg, beaten

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1 Tablespoon of oregano

1/2 teaspoon dried mint

10 ounces of frozen spinach, thawed and drained

8 ounces of feta, crumbled

Directions

Place ground meat and bacon into a large bowl. In a small bowl mix onion, egg, garlic and spices. Pour mixture into the meat. Add the spinach and feta. Dig in and mix it all together. Make a small pattie and cook it through. Taste for seasoning then adjust and repeat if needed.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll meatballs and brown them in a heavy bottomed pan with olive oil. Transfer to cooling rack on top of baking sheet. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve warm.

I know it seems like a lot of meat, but meatballs freeze really well and take some work. If I’m going to do that hard work, might as well make double so you get a couple of meals or appetizers out of it 🙂 If you try to halve the recipe, let me know how it comes out.

Last couple of days before the holidays hit us. Email me or comment with any questions!

Spoon Roast

I cannot say enough good things about a spoon roast. It makes your house smell amazing and it is seriously easy to cook.

Spoon Roast

Ingredients

2 1/2 to 3 pound spoon roast

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. For rare cook at 500 degrees for 5 minutes per pound (medium rare 6-7 minutes per pound, medium 8-9 minutes per pound, medium well 10-11 minutes per pound). Then turn the oven off. Do not open the oven. Set timer for 2 hours. Take out and slice to order!

I don’t make a gravy for this because it’s more work and I’d like to enjoy the meal with my family 🙂 I think a pesto or horseradish cream sauce would be great with it. You can make either sauce the day before.

Horseradish cream sauce

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons of sour cream

1 Tablespoon mascarpone

3 – 4 teaspoons of horseradish

1/2 teaspoon of onion powder

pinch of salt and pepper

Directions

Mix in a small bowl. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

I am serving this on Christmas day with twice baked potatoes, a cauliflower casserole and peas and make your own ice cream sundae’s for dessert! Keeping it simple. I can make the potatoes and casserole the day before and just heat it up after the the roast comes out and saute the peas quickly with some butter, salt, pepper and fresh thyme.

What are your favorite holiday meals? If you are making turkey, below find the link to brining your turkey. It is so good!