Homemade Croutons

I don't love croutons and usually pick them off...unless they are these homemade ones! Have you ever  made them? They are so easy and taste SO much better than the store bought kind in the bag!

I usually use sliced bread, whatever I have on hand (and if it's sort of old that's a good thing, this is a great way to use up stale bread); remove the crust if you want, depends on the bread - if the crust is too crunchy or I want the croutons to look more uniform I remove it; cube it up into bite sized pieces, toss with melted butter and coarse salt and pepper (and any other spices you want, I usually just do salt and pepper). Bake in the oven at 400' for just a few minutes, turn them over once the bottoms are golden and toasty, and give them a few more minutes...it doesn't take long - watch that they don't burn. I don't like them super crunchy, bake them until they are done as much as you'd like. That's it! So good.

Sometimes I'll make the croutons in really big pieces, or even just do the whole slice of bread without cutting it up - that makes a great base for Caesar salad. Put the large crouton down on a plate and top with dressed Caesar salad and parmesan. 

*UPDATE 1/31/23: I reread this post the other day when I was making croutons and couldn't remember if I had posted how to make them - this old post said to drizzle with olive oil but the picture is melted butter haha!! I don't ever remember drizzling with olive oil, for as long as I can remember I've done melted butter and they are amazing. I'm adding this updated note in case you have followed the original post all this time and use olive oil - if you've bookmarked this page for the recipe and now it say butter instead of oil I figured I'd give you a heads up down here haha! 

Memorial Day

Smashed Red Potatoes and Creamy Summer Slaw

Here are the recipes for the side dishes that we served with the braised short ribs last week.

First up is Smashed Red Potatoes -  Janis was here and did all of the work while I of course forgot to take pictures of her doing it! This was a nice different potato side dish that I will definitely be making often. Click here to see where I found this recipe.

note: I bought a bag of red potatoes and of course there were different sizes in the bag; when I boiled them I didn't check to make sure they were all cooked enough, so a couple of the big ones were a little hard in the center which made smashing difficult. Next time I'll buy bulk potatoes and choose a uniform size!

• 
  
• ingredients:
• 
  
• 12 whole red potatoes
• extra virgin olive oil
• garlic powder to taste
• kosher salt to taste
• freshly ground black pepper to taste
• optional: chopped chives or chopped bacon for garnish
• other: table salt for boiling water
• 
  

directions:

1. Fill a large, heavy pot two-thirds full of water. Generously sprinkle table salt into water, and bring to a boil. Add potatoes and cook just until they are tender when pierced with a fork. Don't overcook them. Remove potatoes and drain.
2. Preheat oven to 450, with rack on upper middle position.
3. Cover a large baking pan with foil. Brush foil with plenty of olive oil (be generous, as this prevents sticking.)
4. When potatoes have cooled enough to handle, gently press down each potato with a potato masher until they are about ½ inch thick. Lay smashed potatoes on prepared pan. Generously brush tops with olive oil, and don't be shy here!
5. Sprinkle tops generously with kosher salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chives/bacon if you are using. Don't be afraid to use enough salt.
6. Bake 20-25 minutes, or just until nicely browned and sizzling!
7. Eat while they're hot.

I also made Creamy Summer Slaw, click here for the recipe from Bon Appetit. I've never made this before and was so pleased with how it turned out - it's a keeper for sure. It's raw broccoli, sugar snap peas, and napa cabbage in a buttermilk dressing, delicious and different - and another great thing is that you can make the salad 6 hours ahead of time, love being able to do the salad earlier in the day. I followed the recipe exactly other than I added some thin apple slices to it - I don't know why, it just sounded like it would be good in this slaw haha...and it was!

I peeled what I could of the broccoli stems so they would be very thin ribbons, then chopped the tops very small

the ingredients before tossing: broccoli, purple napa cabbage, sugar snap peas and apple. 

tossed in a buttermilk dressing - so good!

Both of these are winner recipes - you should try them!

Berry Trifle

Here's a quick, easy, yummy, low calorie dessert that's perfect for any patriotic holidays or summer party - it's a weight watchers recipe that I found here and it's SO good. I make this quite often and everyone loves it. I'm taking this trifle to my sisters for her Memorial Day party along with mini cherry and blueberry pies (I haven't made them yet, will post when I do!). Here is the original recipe, followed by a couple of my notes.



RED, WHITE, AND BLUEBERRY TRIFLE
14 (1cup) servings, 169 calories per serving

ingredients:
- 10 oz angel food cake, cut into 1-inch cubes
-2 pints strawberries, sliced
- 2 pints blueberries

for the cream filling:
-6 tablespoons fat-free sweetened condensed milk
-1 1/2 cups cold water
1 package sugar-free white chocolate instant pudding mix
-12 oz fat free frozen whipped topping, thawed

directions:
Whisk the condensed milk and water in a bowl. Whisk in the pudding mix for 2 minutes. Let stand for 2 minutes or until soft set; fold in the whipped topping.

Arrange half of the cake in the bottom of a 14 cup trifle dish. Sprinkle evenly with a layer of blueberries. Spread half of the cream mixture over the blueberries and gently spread. Top with a layer of strawberries. Layer the remaining cake cubes on top of the strawberries, then add more blueberries and top with the remaining cream mixture. Finish with the remaining strawberries and blueberries, arranging them in a pretty pattern. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour.

*notes: I sometimes use low-fat milk instead of the condensed milk/water mixture; and you can change the pudding flavor to whatever you like. Sometimes I get in too big of a hurry and don't cut the angel food cake into small enough bites, you do want them fairly small. I save out a little whipped topping and spread it on the top before adding the top layer of berries in a pattern. One more thing - I put down a little of the pudding first then layer with cake and berries (and sometimes I add raspberries).  Enjoy!

Berry Topping for Cheesecake

Conversation last night with my niece about what dessert her boyfriend wants for his birthday:
Her - how hard is it to make cheesecake?
Me - (showed her a Food Network recipe) look at this recipe, it isn't too hard.
Her - what? 5 hours to make it? Uh, no...
Me - I can make it for you?
Her - No, he actually wants me to just buy a plain cheesecake and make the topping. He would like me to purchase the raspberries and reduce them in sugar. LMAO. He must think I'm fricken Betty Crocker.
Me - (after laughing at her...) well making topping is way easier than making cheesecake. How about you buy the cheesecake and I make the topping?
Her - deal.

So here is what I did for the topping...well, toppings because I also thought blueberry would be nice so I decided to make both :). These are beyond simple - for the raspberry I put 1.5 pints (that's 3 of those little clamshell containers) in a saucepan with 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, cook over medium heat on the stovetop for approx 10 minutes. It was looking very thin so I mixed together 2 teaspoons of cornstarch with enough water to make it pourable, and drizzled a little in with the raspberries (note: I had a little left over and put some in the blueberries too...) to help thicken it up a bit. I then added another half pint of berries for a minute or so hoping they would stay chunkier but they all broke down and became sauce - delicious delicious sauce. I haven't strained it yet, waiting to hear from her if she thinks he wants it seedless or as is - I prefer it with seeds. If he wants the seeds removed I will pour it thru a fine mesh strainer to remove them.

For the blueberry topping I put 1 pint in a saucepan with 2 tablespoons sugar and the zest and juice of one lemon, cook over medium for about 5 minutes.

I zested the lemon right into the pot...

...then cut in half and squeeze cut side up so the
seeds don't fall into the pan. You can put your
other hand under the lemon to catch any falling
seeds if you aren't holding a camera in the other
hand trying to take a picture of how to do this!

Both of these are so good and so easy - mmmm I'm glad I made them, licking the spoons was such a treat!

finished product. I'm not a huge cheesecake lover, but I am a
berry sauce fiend so I'm really looking forward to dessert now!

PS: I just realize I blogged about the same niece 3 days in a row! Rolo cupcakes, pallet garden, and now berry sauce :). We obviously share a lot of the same interests!

Pallet Herb Garden

My niece saw this idea on Pinterest last year and got both of us a small pallet so we could each make one. I love this idea - it's pretty simple to do and works great for planting small things like herbs or flowers. It was a success and I just replanted it for this season - it's propped outside of our kitchen so it's handy to grab herbs when I need them.

I figured out where I wanted to put the planting areas on the pallet, one side has 4 boards across but the other has 3; I decided to plant in the top and bottom and leave the center open, with the 3 boards being the front so I can access the planting spaces.

landscape fabric

The pallet is open in the middle between the front and back boards with a board running down the center, so to make a box for planting and to keep the dirt in the box I cut a double sized piece of landscape fabric, folded it over so it's double thick, and used my staple gun to attach it to the bottom side of the top boards (I made two different "boxes" on the top on either side of the middle board) to create a planting box. Repeat for the bottom two boxes. I now have 4 small spaces to plant in. I put the staples close together so the fabric wouldn't sag and holds the dirt. There is probably a "better" way to create the planting box, maybe nail pieces of wood between the pallet boards for the box base, but I was winging it and saw this fabric in the garage and thought I'd give it a try. It works!

looking into the top planting box

underside of the top planting space

Then just plant with whatever you want and whatever fits - I bought a couple plants (basil, lemon thyme, pineapple sage ) and also planted some seeds (parsley, arugula, cilantro). Last year I planted some marigolds in one box but this time I'm trying arugula and cilantro instead. My little pallet garden is so cute!

Rolo Cupcakes

My niece Mickey requested cupcakes for her graduation party and sent me what seemed like hundreds of Pinterest ideas for what she would like. I decided to make 2 different flavors -'Rolo' which is a dark chocolate cake with caramel, and 'cookie dough' yellow cake with a ball of cookie dough in the batter ... she was thrilled.

The Rolo cupcakes are filled with homemade caramel, when I first looked at the recipe I was thinking that sounded like a lot of work and I wasn't crazy about that haha, but it was very easy to do and I'm going to be using this caramel recipe for lots of different things in addition to the cupcake filling. Don't let that part scare you off of making these! I followed the recipe exactly even though while I was waiting for the sugar to melt in a dry pan I was second guessing the instructions for sure! You put granulated sugar in a pan over medium heat and stir, and wait, and stir, and wait - it took quite a while before it started to melt and then it got weirdly chunky before it did indeed finally melt. Don't let it cook too long or the sugar will burn.

this is what the sugar did before melting completely. 

I'll admit I cheated on the cake part of the recipe; I planned to make the cake from scratch as instructed but then saw that I had a devils food cake mix in the cupboard and decided to use that as a short cut. I did add a big scoop of sour cream and a handful of mini chocolate chips to the batter to jazz it up a little.

After the cupcakes are baked and cool, scoop out some of the top (I cut a circle with a sharp knife and then scooped it out with a small spoon saving the cake I removed) and fill with a little less than a tablespoon of cooled caramel sauce, replace the piece of cake you removed, then frost with chocolate buttercream and drizzle with a little more caramel. Top with an unwrapped Rolo.

These turned out super good, the only negative I heard was that they are almost too moist - I think the caramel soaks into the cake quite a bit so it gives it a very moist texture, you almost want to eat them with a fork. But really, if the only downside is chocolate cake that is too moist (instead of dry!) then I'm good with that.

Seasoned Breadsticks

I was asked to bring rolls to dinner the other night and of course I can't just bring rolls, that'd be too easy. But I didn't have a lot of time so I doctored store-bought breadstick dough with olive oil and spices and made spiral breadsticks to go with Steven and Candy's goulash dinner - yum.

This is hardly a recipe, more like a tip or trick:

-Open the can.
-Lay the dough in 2 sections on a parchment lined baking sheet. I saved time and didn't separate them until after adding the seasoning.
-Brush with olive oil.
-Liberally sprinkle with spice of your choosing. For one half I did 'herb salad' blend and the other half I used coarse black pepper and coarse salt. They pretty much looked the same after baking. Use whatever you have - I've done poppy seeds, italian spices, garlic salt...all good.
-Turn the dough over and repeat on the other side.
-Separate the breadsticks and twist them a couple of times to make a spiral.
-Place on baking pan, gently press the ends so the curl doesn't come out.
-Bake following the directions on the can.

Pillar, Filler, Spiller - Design a Spring Combo Pot

Candy and I took another Wine and Design class from our local nursery, the last one we did in November (click here to see that post) was so much fun but I failed at making my centerpiece look like the instructors haha...I'm happy to report I did much better this time. Candy's of course looked great, she makes it look easy!



For this class we designed a "spring combination pot"; after getting some instruction and advice from the girl leading the class we were sent out into the huge nursery to pick out 7 (4") plants of our choosing - that was hard for me! Normally when I'm going to the nursery I've done planning and research and have a list of exactly what I'm going to get - being sent out to design my pot with no prior planning was stressful. Do I want a pot for the shade? For the sun? Should it be pinks and purples? Red and orange? What was the big center plant going to be - large leaves? Shootie grasses? Oh man I was on the struggle bus - it took me the longest to pick my materials of anyone in class cuz I kept changing my mind. I looked over at Candy and she had a tray full of beautiful plants before I even decided if I was doing shade or sun!

I've taken gardening and flower arranging classes before but I've never heard this "tip" or formula for designing your pot, I even wrote it down so I wouldn't forget and could share it with you. There are 3 types of plants you want to structure your pot correctly - a "pillar" (or "thriller"), a "filler", and a "spiller". For this pot we needed to pick one pillar/thriller, that's the tall or showy plant that goes in the middle of the pot; 4 fillers, those go around the center plant to obviously fill in the pot; and 2 spillers, they are trailing plants to add some interest and dimension to the pot.

For my 14" sun pot I chose a bright green 'Colorblaze Lime Time' Coleus (big leaf plant, not flowering) for my pillar, it will get 18+" tall so will be a nice anchor for the center of the pot once it grows in; 2 bright orange Gerberas will get 10-12" tall, 2 trailing white petunias will get 10" tall and also spill over the sides; one variegated soft leafed plant and one dark green tiny leafed plant for spillers (trailers).

Candy did a shade pot with a very large leaf variegated Coleus as her pillar; begonia and fuchsia for filler; I'm not sure what she used for spiller, looks like an ivy and something else. Pretty!


When choosing plants for container gardening keep in mind you want to use different shapes and textures for leaves and flowers, and also use different colored greens to add interest. You probably don't want the whole pot to be similar leaf shapes and colors, and the same sized flowers - vary it up to add the most interest.

Pillar, Filler, Spiller - this formula is "killer" hahaha!!

Braised Short Ribs with Tomato Barbecue Sauce

I don't usually eat ribs (too messy and too much work!) but I saw a recipe that looked good so I thought I'd try to make them for company coming to Sunday Supper - ran it past Dave and he vetoed pork spareribs (too messy and too much work haha) but requested beef short ribs. Um ok, well then I had to find a recipe that looked good for those since I've never made them before! I found this recipe in a cookbook "American Bistro" and decided to give it a try - like how I experiment on guests haha? 

geez I have a lot on my plate! short ribs,
smashed potatoes, roasted carrots, broccoli
slaw, and a roll. Yum...I'm still full.

So...this is a delicious and pretty easy recipe that everyone loved. I served them with smashed red potatoes and broccoli cole slaw (2 other recipes I've never tried before and turned out SO good - I lucked out that the whole menu turned out so good! I'll post those recipes on another day).

I followed the recipe with a couple tweaks: I increased the meat to 6.35 pounds (to serve 8), only used one onion so Dave wouldn't freak out, added more carrots and 1/2 cup more of the tomatoes, bbq sauce, and beef stock. Forgot to garnish with parsley and it totally didn't matter.

One thing I will do in the future is to cook the ribs and sauce ahead of time and let it cool so I can remove some of the fat, short ribs are a pretty fatty cut of beef. I tried to skim off what I could before serving, it would have been much easier to do when it was cool and the fat rises to the top and hardens. Otherwise this is a great, flavorful recipe.

braise the ribs in a large nonstick skillet, then transfer to a dutch oven. then in the skillet saute the veggies.

after sautéing the veggies and adding the other sauce ingredients pour over the ribs in the dutch oven.

finished ribs in the sauce.

Ingredients:

• 5 pounds lean beef short ribs, cut into 3 to 4" pieces
• salt and pepper
• 3 T. vegetable oil
• 2 onions, thickly sliced into rings
• 4 carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/2" thick slices
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup crushed tomatoes
• 1 cup bottled barbecue sauce
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1 t. Dijon mustard
• 2 T. finely chopped parsley, for garnish

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, season the ribs with salt and pepper. 
2. Preheat the oven to 325'. In a 12" nonstick skillet, heat 2 T. vegetable oil over medium-high heat. In batches, brown the ribs on all sides, using kitchen tongs to turn and brown them evenly, for 7 to 10 minutes. Remove the ribs with a slotted spoon, drain briefly on paper towels, and then place in a large, ovenproof Dutch oven or other heavy pot. 
3. In the same skillet, add the remaining 1 T. oil, increase the heat to medium-high, and brown the onions for 7 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently and watching carefully so that they brown but do not burn. Add the carrot and saute for another 2 to 3 minutes, or until softened. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the tomatoes, bbq sauce, beef stock, and mustard and stir well. Increase the heat to high and simmer for 1 minute to mix the flavors. Pour the tomato sauce mixture over the short ribs and mix to combine.
4. Cover and bake the ribs for about 3 hours, or until the meat is very tender, turning the ribs every 45 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and garnish with the parsley. Serve immediately.

Can be prepared up to 3 days ahead, covered, and refrigerated. Reheat gently on the stove top.

Serves 6

from the American Bistro cookbook

No Boring Appliances!

I have a problem leaving things alone and undecorated - I joke that if it sits still long enough I will jazz it up - in this case it's my standing mixer that caught my eye. Why have a plain old appliance if you can stick things on it to make it prettier? Ha! That's all I did - found some removable wall stickers, cut out the pieces to make it fit, and stuck them on. Look how cute it turned out!

I'll share a secret about another reason I've decorated this -  I asked Dave for a standing mixer for Christmas, and specifically said "any color except for red"...notice what color I got? LOL!  I love the mixer though and with my decorations red is just fine :). 

I've also put removable stickers on the washer and dryer...got any boring appliances standing still that you wish to decorate?

Square Foot Gardening

It's sunny and warm! Time to plant my little garden - hopefully I'm not doing it too early but I can't wait any longer, it's very nice out today and I'm itching to get going :). A couple years ago I discovered square foot gardening in large containers on my deck and have had great success - the idea is to plant in one foot squares instead of in rows, eliminating a lot of wasted space between rows and being able to cram a lot of things in a very small space. Oh, and it certainly makes weeding and picking easier!

 I made grids out of 3' bamboo garden stakes held together with twist ties, you can make it out of whatever you want or don't use a grid at all - I like how organized and orderly it looks with the grid. After preparing the soil (weed and rake smooth) lay one grid in each of your containers - change how many squares you have depending on how big your area is, I have 9 (1' each) squares in each of mine (so I guess they are roughly 3' square containers). That gives me a total of 18 squares to plant in.

both containers ready to be planted with the grids in place

 I made a list of what I wanted to grow and then made a plan of how I wanted to lay them out. I drew it out on paper first before buying plants and seeds to see how much I needed to get - instead of showing you my hand drawn chart though I went online and found a free square foot garden planner so you would see a much prettier garden design - it was fun playing around with the interactive designer playing around with what plants to put where. Click here for the site I used. Anyway...after knowing where I was putting everything I planted it today and it's already so cute!

I bought some fresh seed packets but also used a couple left over from last year - you are supposed to test the old seeds first by seeing if they will germinate before planting in the garden but it takes a few days to do and I have no time or patience for that...I stuck them in the ground and it is what it is, they'll come up or they won't.

can you see how I did the trellis? It's the 2 red
tall tomato cages in the back with sticks
running between them.

I like to make my own trellising for beans and peas using whatever materials I have, it changes every year - this time I used tall tomato cages and ran sticks thru them (attach the sticks to the cage with twist ties) to give the plants climbing support. Sometimes I make teepees out of 3 tall stakes tied together at the top, or put a bunch of sticks in a row and wind twine between them for support...or just buy some trellis's and save yourself the trouble :).

I also LOVE silly garden crap - gnomes, scarecrows, signs, wind chimes, whatever. This is an easy place to put all that tchotchke stuff, no one really sees the garden and it makes me happy.



















If you don't have the space, time, or the inclination to put in a big ol' garden maybe give square foot container gardening a try - I love it and in a very small space I am growing a lot! I have beans, peas, carrots, beets, 6 tomato plants, cukes, summer squash, sweet peppers, lettuces, and some marigolds. Will keep you posted on how it all goes thru the summer - can't wait for harvest time!

PS: farmer Jill says don't forget to water after planting :)