Our family moved to Germany in September, so we have once again found ourselves adjusting to cooking what we can find in a new country.
It feels as though I had just gotten used to the grocery stores in Scotland, but now I am wandering stores where all the packaging is in another language.
I was super excited to find large white beans, because I am a big fan of hearty bean soups. Black Eyed Peas and Petit Jean Ham used to be a regular at our house, as well as French Lentil Soup. But lately we are enjoying a tomato and spinach broth with these butter beans.
I love a good vegetarian dish that is hearty enough to be dinner for a house full of boys!
2 cups of cooked butter beans or 2 cans of any large white beans
2 cans of chopped tomatoes
1-2 large leeks, peeled and sliced
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon tomato puree
12 ounces chopped frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Pour the olive oil into a medium sized frying pan and heat gently. Add the leeks and garlic cloves and fry over a gentle heat for five minutes.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the pan along with about a cup of water. Cook for about 20 minutes. Add more water if needed. Serve hot with a splash of vinegar or tabasco sauce along with some crusty bread.
By Alison Chino
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
We are finding that there is good bread in abundance here in Germany so I have not been making it as often, but here’s a recipe for a simple wheat bread that I have used for years.
Combine flours in a separate bowl and mix loosely with a fork. Then stir into the yeast mixture and mix with a fork and hands until the dough comes together.
Knead for about 5 minutes.
Cover dough in oil and set aside, covered, to rise until doubled, for 45-60 minutes. (less if you set it near your simmering soup pot).
Form dough into one large loaf or if you have a very fast baking tiny oven, form into three very small loaves. Place on parchment lined half sheet pan and allow to sit about 20 minutes.
Cook at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes or until browned on top.
By Alsion Chino
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
Alison Chino is a born and bred Arkansan who recently moved to Germany from Scotland, where she is learning to walk everywhere and to live with tiny appliances. She loves hiking with her husband and kids on the weekends. She blogs at the Chino House and she’s pretty much obsessed with Instagram.
I have only a few memories of my great-grandmother, Granny Mary. I remember sitting on her front screened in porch, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and drinking my first cup of coffee around age six (which meant I was really drinking milk with a little bit of coffee.) I remember walking down the street to the Five and Dime and buying a sun-hat, making sure to leave the tags on like Minnie Pearl, and I remember her Chicken-and-Dumplings. They were legendary. The dumplings thick, the soup silky, the chicken chunky.
I have done my best to recreate her recipe from memory, and my Paw (Granny’s) said I got awfully close, which is good enough for me. This recipe has now become a family favorite and my boys ask for it most in the winter months, when the wind is cold and the nights long. This is a large recipe—enough for twelve adults.
Note: You can use homemade or store-bought chicken stock, or a combination of both.
4 pounds of boneless chicken breast (frozen or thawed)
Dumplings
6 cups of flour
3 tablespoons of baking powder
3 teaspoons of salt
1 cup solid vegetable shortening
all-purpose flour
ice water
Instructions
Broth
Bring 15 cups broth to a boil.
Add in carrots, celery, onion, salt and chicken breasts.
Once the chicken breasts are fully cooked, pull them out, and set them aside to cool.
Reduce broth to simmer and leave simmering while you make the dumplings.
Dumplings
Mix together flour, baking powder and salt.
Next, cut in 1 cup of solid vegetable shortening (use either a pastry cutter or 2 table knives).
Once the shortening has been cut in well, begin adding ice cold water, ½ cup at a time, into the mixture.( I use about 2 ¼ cup of iced water - sometimes I use more, sometimes I use less, depending on the humidity in the air).
Your goal is to create a dough that is soft, smooth, and easy to roll out but is not leathery or mushy or grainy.
Next, roll your dough out. These dumplings are Southern-style flat dumplings like we make in Arkansas, not the round fluffy “drop” dumplings that are common in the North.
Roll out the dough, using a slightly floured rolling pin, to between 1/8-1/4-inch thickness.
Next, using a knife or pizza cutter, cut the dough into strips about 1 inch wide by 3 inches long.
Bring your stock back to a rolling boil, and tear the cooked chicken breast into bite-size pieces (or shred using a stand-mixer,) then add the meat back to the liquid.
Once that is done, begin adding the strips of dumpling dough into the stock.
Once all the strips have been added, give the pot a good stir, and cover.
Reduce the heat to a simmer. Check every few minutes, stirring gently, until the dumplings are tender and cooked through, about 15–20 minutes.
Serve hot!
Enjoy.
Notes
My good friend and baking mentor Lynn taught me this great kitchen tip: When rolling out dough, spread out a smooth kitchen towel on your counter (I prefer the flour sack variety) and cover it with a good dusting of flour. This will be your rolling surface, and after you are done, you can simply fold the towel up and take it outside to shake off the excess.
Jerusalem Jackson Greer is a writer, blogger, speaker and Minister to Children, Youth, and Families at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Conway, Her first book A Homemade Year: The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting and Coming Together was published in 2013, and her second book, At Home in this Life, will be released spring of 2017. Jerusalem, her husband Nathan, and their two boys Wylie and Miles live in rural Arkansas where they are attempting to live a slower version of modern life. She blogs about all of this and more at jerusalemgreer.com.
We’d been invited to a carry-in dinner. I love those. We were each giving the other the gift of a fine meal amidst gentle company, everyone contributing some, and all receiving a lot.
Cheery aromas met us when we arrived. I quickly popped my food offering into a warm oven.
The tables were decorated. The company—carefully chosen to be compatible—was chatting with small laughter and anticipation. There was even entertainment.
How irritating, that someone had merely grabbed some southern-fried, pretend chicken and shrugged it off to the luck of the draw! I was shocked.
These friends may think they were invited to a pot luck, but it was a dinner. I mean, we were going to dine. Each of us had brought a carefully planned special dish to complete this meal, to gift each other.
Into this amiable atmosphere, someone had inserted the harsh fragrance of overused grease and overbrowned double coating.
Somewhere there is a disconnect. People sometimes don’t get it. Just because it looks pretty on the package and the label has food words, does not mean it really is food. Not all that glitters is gold.
However, not all of us have the Midas touch. Fine food can be expensive, time-consuming, right?
Nope. Just because it would do in a pinch does not mean you have to be in a pinch.
Here’s how I made a marvelously rich and fork-tender roast, just for my friends, with only about $5.00 and maybe fifteen minutes effort. You can do this, or something like it, instead of letting the discount store make your apologies.
In addition, I’m gifting you with a recipe requested more than once, last week, to go with the fruitcake recipe: That is, the cranberry/cream cheese sauce I mentioned and pictured with it.
1 cup whole-berry cranberry sauce, made according to instructions on package of cranberries.
Grated zest from one lemon
Instructions
In small bowl of mixer, beat cream cheese and butter until light.
With slotted spoon, scoop berries from sauce to make ½ cup, and add to cream cheese
Add grated lemon zest. Beat well, scraping beaters and bottom and sides of bowl, at least once.
Add juice from cranberries to sweeten to taste. It should not be too sweet.
For gifting, spoon into small jelly jar, leaving about an inch at the top of the jar.
Cap and refrigerate.
Once spread is cool, spoon additional berries into jar to cover the spread, leaving about ¼” at the top.
Add a lid, decorate, and return to refrigerator, until time to gift it.
Notes
Variations include adding orange instead of lemon zest, powdered cayenne, cocoa, cinnamon, or chopped pecans, to taste. Children love it best with marshmallow bits stirred in.
This sauce keeps 2 weeks in the refrigerator if you hide it well.
By Katharine Trauger
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
And, yes, I actually also did bring the fruitcake to the dinner. The sauce can make a good gift for the hostess at holiday time. It can also be served refrigerated as a spread, elevating anything whether fruitcake or a lowly bagel and looks appropriately festive.
What’s not to love?
Especially when you experiment with add-ins.
You’ll want to sample these two foods until they are gone, so it might be wise to make one round just for the family and to become confident with the procedure. This will allow you to nail your preferences as to the variations. It might also ensure you will have some to carry to that dinner.
½ teaspoon Kitchen Bouquet Browning and Seasoning Sauce
2-3 drops liquid smoke
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 medium onion (about the size of a tennis ball) thinly sliced
1 Tablespoon dried Italian herbs (or 3 Tablespoons fresh Italian herbs)
Powdered cayenne to taste, optional
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 3” lengths
Gravy: (optional)
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
½ cup water
Roast
Heat 2 cups, from the 1 gallon of water, with 1 cup salt in it, stirring until all salt is dissolved. Add to rest of 1 gallon of water, in a large non-reactive container you can cover tightly.
Place pork loin roast into salt water. Seal. Refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours.
Remove roast and rinse briefly. Allow to drain briefly.
Into a 7” x 11” x 3” baking pan that has a lid, place 1 ½ cups water, Worcestershire, Kitchen Bouquet, Liquid Smoke, pepper, and bay leaf. Stir to blend.
Cut roast (a filet knife works well for this) making six parallel slits, against the grain, down into the top (fatty) side of the roast, about an inch apart, and long and deep enough to accommodate the onion slices. The slits should be about three inches deep and three inches across. If your onion slices are too large, remove outer rings to fit. Do not slice all the way through the roast; only cut slits into it. Especially do not cut the sides of it.
Insert onion slices into these slits. You may lengthen slits or remove outer rings of onion slices to make them fit.
Place roast in water in pan.
Spread Italian herbs over top (fatty layer) of roast. Sprinkle with scant amount of cayenne powder, or to taste.
Arrange carrots and any remaining parts of the onion around the roast, pressing into the water as much as possible. The pan should be crowded and nearly full.
Cover. Bake at 325 degrees for 2 ½ hours.
IMPORTANT: Allow roast to cool, covered, ½ hour before removing from pan.
Remove roast and vegetables from pan. Slice and arrange on platter with carrots and onions.
Gravy
Pour broth from roast into small sauce pan. Bring to boil.
Mix cornstarch with water and add, a little at a time, to boiling broth, while stirring with a whisk, until desired thickness is achieved.
Serve alongside roast.
Notes
Please do not confuse pork loin roast with pork tenderloin. These two are not the same. You want the cut of boneless pork that is roughly five inches in diameter and can be around two feet long, with a layer of fat over one side. You do not want to buy a piece that is scarcely a foot long and maybe two inches, maximum, across. No. That is the tenderloin. You want a pork loin roast. One-third of it should be about the size you need to feed four to eight people.
You may add one pound of cut-up potatoes to the carrots. You will need a slightly larger pan for it.
!Variations
The variation I’ve given, here, is for spicy Italian flavor. You can alter the flavor by experimenting with the spices and herbs as follows
German -Substitute sage and white pepper for Italian herbs and black pepper. Omit Kitchen Bouquet, Liquid Smoke, cayenne and bay leaf. Do include potatoes with carrots. Also add one celery stalk and one garlic clove to the vegetables, to be removed at serving time.
Springtime – Substitute new potatoes for carrots. Substitute mint, grated lemon peel, fresh rosemary blossoms, and ground white pepper, for Italian herbs, bay leaf, and black pepper. Omit Kitchen Bouquet, Liquid Smoke and cayenne.
By Katharine Trauger
Arkansas Women Bloggers https://arkansaswomenbloggers.com/
Katharine Trauger is a retired educator and a women’s counselor. She has spent 25 years managing a home and school for children who would otherwise have been homeless, and has worked 15 years as contributor and/or columnist for several small professional magazines, with over 60 published articles. She blogs about the rising popularity of “being at home” from a sun room on a wooded hilltop in the Deep South at: Home’s Cool! and The Conquering Mom and tweets at Katharine Trauger (@KathaTrau). She is currently working on a self-help book entitled: Yes, It Hurts, But . .
Trust me. This is one fruitcake you and your Friends Will LIKE!
My introduction to the joys of the candied fruit found in fruitcake came early in my life. My mother made German cookies with chopped, candied citron every winter. Chewy-soft with mysteriously perfumed bits in them and the scant smear of glaze to make them shine, Lebkuchen were an adored part of our heritage from the Old Country.
But fruitcakes are not German.
My dad often received gifts of dried/candied fruits, displayed on decorative platters. These we found interesting and delicious when our dad allowed us samples.
But fruitcakes are not simply fruit.
Sometimes my dad received the gift of a fruitcake.
Like shy maidens with an ugly suitor, we ran and hid when our parents opened fruitcake packages. Our dad, a gleam in his eyes, no doubt reminiscing about fruitcakes of yore, insisted on sharing these tough, repugnant slabs of spiced cardboard.
We whimpered.
Were we alone in not adoring fruitcake? No!
Many, like us, have suffered from gifting of a winter fruitcake! Why, I heard of one family, among which a gift fruitcake passed around from branch to branch, for decades, until it finally had traversed the entire family tree, unopened and unsampled! I get that.
Reality dawns.
I was in my mid-twenties when I encountered a really good fruitcake. I’m not sure what possessed me to try one—maybe memories of my dad? It had such a bizarre name: Rainbow Party Bar. It was small, the length of a loaf pan but half the width, like a squared sausage. When I saw the price, I was shocked, but for some crazy reason, I just wanted it.
I brought it home and unwrapped it.
It smelled good, so I sampled.
It was amazing. I could not stay out of it. I could not even believe it. My heart leapt with happiness every time I snuck yet another slice.
I was addicted.
Before long, I had analyzed the label, looking for some mysterious ingredient. (This thing was really, really good; did I mention that?)
Near the top of the ingredients list lay the secret:
Butter.
Yes, this fruitcake had more butter than it had any one type of fruit, and I think it safe to say, more butter than any other fruitcake I’d ever eaten. As I kept sampling, I knew the butter was one major difference from all the fruitcakes that had gone before.
Nothing would do but to find a recipe for this delicacy.
I tried several (really bad ones) before I devised the perfect recipe. We have become so enamored with this cake that many of us, who did not like fruitcake, have learned to find cheer in the mere thought of it.
Our friends beg for it.
Now, I’m not promising that if you make this fruitcake, your whole family and all your friends will fall into proper love with the idea of eating it. I will say this: It is so good, you will not ever again be sad if some uninitiated child leaves “more for you”.
Place fruits and brandy in a large, non-reactive bowl that can be covered.
Stir well and allow fruit to soak, covered, 24 hours, stirring 6 times.
Pans
Prepare pans before mixing cake. Select pans in the shape you want for your cake. Either a ten-cup tube pan, an 8-cup tube and one 5 1/2-cup x 9 ½-cup loaf, or three loaf pans will do the job, to give you an idea. It rises, but not a lot. I have baked small amounts in mini soufflé pans before, too. Baking times for smaller pans will be shorter.
Cut parchment paper to fit the bottoms and sides of your pans. For a loaf pan, you will need five pieces, for the four sides and the bottom. For a tube pan, you will need one circle with the center removed, for the bottom, and several small pieces, maybe 3”-4” square, to overlap on the sides. You may prefer plain brown paper, as I do. You do not need to place paper on the tube, itself. But do grease it.
Grease the pans generously with butter or olive oil, insert the papers, which should stick pretty cooperatively, then grease the papers, too. A spray-type oil helps with the second greasing. This fat is necessary. You will be sorry if you do not use butter or oil, paper, and more butter or oil. It is a messy job, but important—so important, that if you buy fruitcake, you may notice paper still attached to it.
Cake
Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Arrange one rack in the center.
Cream the butter and sugar.
Blend the eggs in well, one at a time.
Sift together all dry ingredients, except nuts.
Gradually add dry ingredients to egg mixture, beating well after each addition.
With a spoon, stir in nuts, fruit, and all liquid remaining in the fruit. Mix well.
Separate batter into prepared pans and bake at 275 degrees, for two to three hours. Yes. It takes a while. It’s worth it. Doneness will be hard to determine, but it will begin to brown around the edges before it is actually done. Brown all over is better. Gooey in the middle is not the goal for this cake. The toothpick test will not work, nor will the touch test with a finger; it should be a bit darker over the top than you thought.
Once it is cool, but still in the pan, you may choose to sprinkle about 1/8 cup more brandy over it, to soak the cake. The traditional purpose was to sort of pickle it so it would keep well. I do not do this, because I often feed it to children.
Remove from pans when cool enough to handle. Remove paper from sides, but not from bottom. Allow to cool completely. If you want party bars, with a long, sharp knife, carefully press to cut loaves in half, lengthwise, cutting through the bottom paper (the only exception about the paper.) Do not remove the bottom paper from these halves. Many people also cut a tube cake into halves. I do, because it is easier to wrap for the freezer that
Wrap in waxed paper. Then tightly wrap in foil. In addition to that, add a zipper bag, to protect the foil from tearing. Freeze.
Notes
The best time to slice is after freezing. It slices more neatly when frozen or even when frozen and then thawed. Otherwise, expect wasteful crumbs and broken slices. For gifts, I pre-slice it (to the paper, not through the paper) since few people realize it should be frozen first.
Traditionally, we do not remove or slice through the bottom paper until serving. Even when you buy it, you’ll often find it pre-sliced with the bottom paper remaining. This is because this cake is nearly equally batter and fruit, and will fall apart easily. The paper just holds the cake together so you can better manage it.
This fruitcake is amazing with fresh, black coffee. For the sugar-immune, it is also amazing with eggnog. I’ve enjoyed it with a cranberry/cream cheese topping. The recommended wine pairing is a tawny port, but we like something drier, such as our own semi-sec apple wine.
Katharine Trauger is a retired educator and a women’s counselor. She has spent 25 years managing a home and school for children who would otherwise have been homeless, and has worked 15 years as contributor and/or columnist for several small professional magazines, with over 60 published articles. She blogs about the rising popularity of “being at home” from a sun room on a wooded hilltop in the Deep South at: Home’s Cool! and The Conquering Mom and tweets at Katharine Trauger (@KathaTrau). She is currently working on a self-help book entitled: Yes, It Hurts, But . . .
These cold wintery days always give me a craving for comfort food. Usually my inspiration for a recipe comes from ingredients that are seasonal or on-hand available, and this recipe is no different. Our local grocery store was having a sale on whole brisket so I thought, ” Let’s see what comfort food I could create using this it of meat.”
Unwrapping the whole brisket, my first challenge was the realization that this was a huge hunk of untrimmed meat. I wasn’t sure where to begin so I stared at it and decided to call on Paul to trim the brisket. He does such a good job cleaning our deer I figured the principles for the cow couldn’t be much different.
Here is what the piece of meat looked like….yours will be a lot like this if you choose to buy a whole brisket. If I was preparing this again I would buy an already trimmed one because so much fat came off. That was a lot of weight that I paid for to just throw away. I also think I might have trimmed a little too much off. Here’s a picture of the whole brisket. That top part is called the fat cap. It is usually at least 1/2″ thick and I removed most of the cap.
When Paul finished with the brisket we ended up with two pieces. The A or “flat” piece is used for corned beef, pastrami and meat-market trimmed brisket. The B or “point” is much thinner and the grain runs in a different direction. I saved it for a later recipe.
Paul and I went to New Orleans for the New Year in 2015 and enjoyed the most amazing Tuscan pork rib recipe prepared by our brother-in-law, Mike. That recipe was my inspiration for this brisket.
After the meat was trimmed, I combined all the ingredients below to make a dry rub. I then place the brisket in a zip lock bag for about 24 hours.
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, preferably one aged for at least 5 years
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
If you have a convection oven use that setting for approximately 20 min. You want the top to sear. You can also accomplish that task with a cast iron skillet.
I used our fantastic real Portuguese porcelain deep platter serve ware to bake the brisket. Our entire family loves to cook and entertain but have always found it hard to find the large size bakeware and serving pieces it takes when we all get together. On a buying trip to Europe we found this company that were the manufacturers of this real porcelain. It bakes beautifully and I love the way my recipes just look so professionally presented in them. Check out all the styles in our stores.
Below are some shots of the finished product. Check the cooking time because depending upon the thickness of the meat it will vary. It was delicious. The leftovers we will turn into BBQ sandwiches for another night.
The holidays are coming up and this is a great time to celebrate the family recipe. We all have special recipes that we bring out once a year. They remind us of holidays gone by and family members that may no longer be with us. Digging into a family recipe can be just like stepping into a time machine. Heirloom recipes have powerful magic like that.
Make this year the year that you document cooking with your family. Pull out your camera (or phone) and take some photos or videos in the kitchen together. There’s something priceless about memories in the kitchen, and yet we often forget to document them.
Grandma’s Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
[stextbox id=”custom” shadow=”false” bwidth=”3″ color=”050505″ ccolor=”050505″ bcolor=”050505″ bgcolor=”F7F7F7″ cbgcolor=”F7F7F7″ bgcolorto=”FFFFFF” cbgcolorto=”FFFFFF” image=”null”]Food is a universal love language. It’s something that brings us all together.[/stextbox]
Share your photos and connect with other family recipe lovers using #ProjectSTIR or joining the Project STIR Facebook group. (Project STIR is an online community that celebrates family recipes from all over the world. We’re passionate about bringing people together through food.)
What’s your family recipe?
Let us know in comments or leave your links with our Family Favorites Linky.
#ARWB member Sarah Shotts is a visual storyteller with a heart for adventure. She blogs at www.lovelettertoadventure.com. Sarah loves finding new local haunts and creating opportunities for bringing adventure into our everyday lives. You can connect via Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Southeast Arkansas is the best place in Arkansas to hunt the big bucks.Even though I grew up in Lake Village, Arkansas, I was unaware of this fact up until three weeks ago when I went on a conservation hunt. What makes this realization even more astounding is the fact that my father, Paul Michael, owned a hunting camp called Georgetown that practiced wildlife management. I went all the time for social purposes; the best meals are made around a campfire but I never went on a hunt.
Three weeks ago, I went on Georgia Pellegrini s Texas Big GameAdventure Getaway. I wasn’t sure I would bite the literal bullet and hunt. I went through all the motions hunter’s safety, bought my hunting license, sighted in my rifle, and practiced – I was actually a good shot! Surrounded by a group of like-minded, supportive women, I decided that yes! I can do it! As Georgia says, in hunting, I learned to pay the karmic price of my meal.
We learned about wildlife management, foraging edible plants, tracking animals, falconry, and, yes, processing and cooking your deer. While I didn’t get my deer that weekend, I went back to my roots and hunted in SoutheastArkansas the very next weekend. My patient brother-in-law took me. We woke up early. Shooting first light. I harvested a doe.
I insisted on processing the deer. Here’s what I learned. You may be wondering what this has to do with the recipe, but it is VERY important for the flavor of your dish. Full disclosure, if you are a vegan,vegetarian or pescatarian
you will probably be disgusted beyond this point (if you haven’t already been.)
In Texas, our deer was aged. Mine was not. When you harvest a deer you must, must, must get as much blood out as possible. I recommend aging it if you can.
I did not have a way to age my deer in Downtown Little Rock. First, I gave the meat an ice bath for about 12 hours, changing out the water and ice about every four hours. Apparently, that was not enough. Also, Georgia warned me not to do the ice bath for too long because I could “waterlog” the meat.
My good friend told me to truly remove the gaminess, soak the meat in milk, preferably buttermilk. I did this for about another four hours.
While I cannot tell you the best method (aging, ice bath, buttermilk), I do know you must do this before you proceed.
Sixty pounds of meat later, we’ve tried tons of different recipes and preparation methods. I ground about 20 pounds of the meat, and have been trying a lot of recipes involving ground venison. This has been our favorite.
Lizzy Michael: Venison Bolognese – From Harvest to Table
Ingredients
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup minced onion
1 cup minced carrot
1 cup minced celery
3 pounds ground venison
2 cups of sliced baby bella mushrooms
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
1 cup of broth (venison, beef or chicken)
1 cup of white wine
1 cup of milk or buttermilk
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Salt and black pepper to taste
Worcestershire sauce to taste
Pasta (penne) or sub for brown rice or quinoa
Grated Romano and/or Parmesan cheese for garnish
Instructions
Melt butter over medium-high heat in a big heavy pot. You will not need a lid.
Add the onion, celery and carrots and cook gently, constantly stirring. Sprinkle with salt as they cook and do not over cook. They do not need to be browned.
Stir in the chopped mushrooms, splash of water and tomato paste and allow everything to cook for 3 to 4 minutes while constantly stirring.
When the mixture turns from bright red to a burgundy, add the ground meat, mushrooms and broth. Reduce from to a medium-low heat and allow to simmer, stirring from every once in a while. Continue until the liquid mostly evaporates.
Add the white wine and repeat the process. This is a great excuse to open and drink a bottle of white wine. Continue until the liquid mostly evaporates.
Begin to cook your penne, rice or quinoa. You should probably know how to cook these three things. If you don’t... Google it, or something.
Add the milk, nutmeg and black pepper and stir well. Bring to a simmer and add salt to taste. Let this cook until the liquid evaporates and you are happy with the consistency.
Once the sauce is thick, pour it over your pasta, rice or quinoa. Toss to combine, if desired. I served it family style in a large pasta bowl.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) was born and raised in the Delta, then left “the most southern place on Earth” for Villanova University, near Philadelphia. She then returned home to Arkansas and the family business, the Paul Michael Company. She now work at Arkansas’s best ad agency, CJRW, where she works in the digital department as the director of content and social strategy. In her free time, she plays tennis, cooks and constantly redecorates. She grew up in a big hunting family but had never hunted herself – until now. Her new found love of the hunt is inspired by wildlife management and conservation efforts.
I LOVE scones. I love scones a little too much. I love scones to the point that I have to practice some SERIOUS will power to not eat WAY TOO MANY.
This spring my daughter and I attended a Tea Party at a local venue, and they served blueberry scones. I had to really practice good etiquette in teaching my daughter how to be polite and to just “take one” when at an event like that. I’m sure you can imagine that what I really wanted to do was to smuggle the whole plate out of the party in my purse.
But, it did motivate me to practice my scone making. So since it is starting to look like Fall here in Arkansas, I thought it was only appropriate to share my Pumpkin Scone recipe with you. Scones are meant to be a lightweight, bready, not sweet, and just a mouthful of buttery goodness. They make the perfect companion to a cup of coffee or hot tea. ENJOY!
Be sure to make these and then pour yourself a nice big cup of something hot and go sit outside and sip a little and snack a little.
Amanda Farris is a former teacher/coach who hung up the whistle when she got promoted to mom. She still keeps those competitive juices by running in local races and playing competitive board games with her kids. She is the reigning Jenga champion in her home.
When the first, crisp days of autumn finally arrive in Arkansas, my mind always turns to everything pumpkin especially when it comes to food. Whether it’s roasted for a savory side dish or baked in a pie, pumpkin is definitely a favorite ingredient in an incredible variety of dishes.
This is our last call for 2017 ARWB Foodie Friday Web Post pitches.
We’re looking for proposals for Foodie Friday ARWB web posts. We’re celebrating music through food in 2017. Got an idea? Let us hear from you. Pitch your dish:) No money; just glory. Be creative. Have fun!.
You do not have to be a food blogger to submit a pitch.
Specific dates will be assigned and emailed to those who are selected to participate.
Let me know THE NAME OF YOUR DISH , any necessary details. Please submit only 1 item per category. If you wish to submit 2 per any given category, please complete an additional form. This is to preserve my sanity:)
All Foodie Friday posts have specific writing guidelines and publication dates. Please be willing to observe those. Writing guidelines are posted on the ARWB site.
The number of posts indicates the total needed for the month—-not all from you:)
