Cooking and Cinema

Short Stories, Film Reviews, and Recipes

Category: good food (Page 1 of 2)

Baked Blackened Chicken and Potatoes

August 30, 2021 /
One-Pot Meal Without an Instant Pot

The idea for this blackened chicken one-pot meal came from the 1997 edition of the Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker.

You can still find it on eBay, but I don’t think the 1997 version is online. The original recipe includes a small section describing how French villagers used to prepare this dish.

Before going to church, the townspeople would bring their potato and chicken casseroles to the baker to cook. The baker reserved space in the bread ovens for the town’s meals every Sunday.

After church, they picked up the casseroles, grabbed a few baguettes, walked next door for 2 cases of Châteauneuf du Pape, and headed home to enjoy lunch, laughter, and intoxication with their loving family.

The original vinaigrette was bland, and it made the potatoes a little greasy. The basil vinaigrette in my recipe does not include salt and pepper, but the teaspoon of blackening seasoning makes up for it. You can experiment with different oil and seasoning mixtures or rely only on olive oil with salt and pepper.

Ingredients

4lbs chicken breasts pounded flat

1 Yellow Bell Pepper

2 Sweet Banana Peppers

½ cup sliced sweet white onion

6-8 Oregon Gold Potatoes

½ cup fresh basil

4 Tbsp+ 1 tsp blackening seasoning

1 Lime Juiced

1 tsp Dijon mustard

⅔ cup + 1Tbsp Olive oil

Blackening Seasoning (Medium Heat)

1Tbsp ground black pepper

1 Tbsp oregano

½ Tbsp onion Powder

½ Tbsp garlic powder

1 Tbsp paprika

2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground mustard

1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

¼ tsp Cayenne

  • This makes ½ cup of blackening seasoning, but you’ll only need around I Tbsp for each chicken breast.

Instructions

  • Coat a large (10.5×14) casserole dish with baking spray. Slice the potatoes, bell peppers, and white onions as thin as possible. Arrange the potato slices evenly and cover with bell peppers and onions.
  • Blend the basil, lime juice, Dijon mustard, and 1 tsp blackening seasoning in a food processor for 30 seconds. Add the olive oil slowly until the mixture emulsifies.
  • Coat the chicken with the blackening seasoning and heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a cast-iron skillet. Sear the breasts for two minutes on each side. Drizzle half of the basil mixture over the spuds and peppers.
  • Place the breasts on top of the vegetables and distribute the banana peppers around evenly. Pour the basil vinaigrette over the chicken.
  • Bake in a preheated oven at 375°F for 70-80 minutes.
  • Set aside on a cooling rack and wait five minutes before eating

The potatoes can overlap each other but try to cut them the same size to cook evenly. You can use Russets, red potatoes, or gold potatoes, but gold potatoes and red potatoes hold their shape, and Russets tend to break apart.

I like the flavor of potatoes with the skin on, but you’re welcome to rip their skin off. This is a meal I try to make quickly, and sometimes laziness gets in the way of my tater prepping duties.

You can use practically any vegetable: tomatoes, zucchini, cauliflower, carrots, or rutabaga (maybe not). The last time I made it I used the red potatoes I grew, but this time, only the banana peppers and basil are homegrown.

Pouring the vinaigrette over the vegetables before adding the chicken ensures even baking and tastier peppers, onions, and potatoes.

Cover the chicken thoroughly with the vinaigrette. A glass pourer helps you estimate how much you use for each breast. I put some banana peppers on top of the chicken and added more dressing, but the peppers get a little crispy on the edges. I like slightly charred peppers (I still cut off the burned spots), but you can spread the pepper rings around and leave them off the chicken.

Several years ago, I interviewed with my left hand for the part of “thing” for the Addams Family movie, but the casting director said I was the worst hand model she had ever seen.

“Too much hair near the wrist, and the hand veins are too prominent and puffy,” she said. “Come back and see me when you‘ve shaved those wrists and flattened those veins. Ok, sweetie?”

That was a disappointment, but my hand had starring roles in a Liquid Plumber commercial, an online Glock handgun ad, a magazine ad for an air freshener that causes impotence, and an online video for a health and wellness supplement that has disturbing and uncomfortable side effects.

Cooking and Gardening for American Slackers Part II: Roasting Garlic and Browning Butter

June 1, 2021 /
I inherited this skillet from my Grandma. It’s older than me and doesn’t require too much oil, since it has over fifty years of seasoning.

If you love garlic in your food but aren’t fond of fresh garlic’s aftertaste, try roasting the garlic. Roasting garlic reduces the power of the pungent bulb, but most recipes require lengthy cooking times.

If you have time to cook it for one or two hours, oven-roasted garlic produces the best texture and flavor to spread on toasted bread or add to an uncooked dip.

Garlic’s flavor and potency can be traced back to its family history; it’s in the same family as onions and lilies. However, elephant garlic varieties are unrelated to garlic and grouped with the leek family.

Quick Garlic Roasting

You can avoid cooking garlic in the oven by toasting it in a cast-iron skillet. Slow-roasted garlic is best if you’re eating it as a spread, but the quicker method is ideal when you’re adding it to sauces, stews, or baked meals. All you need is olive oil, a cast-iron skillet, and one head of garlic.

One head of garlic separated into bulbs (leave the skin on)

1tsp Olive oil

Instructions: Coat the cast-iron pan with olive oil and heat on medium. When the pan is hot, add garlic bulbs and spread out. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes a side until skin is blackened and garlic is soft.

Even vampires can consume roasted garlic.

When the garlic has cooled, peel off the skins and add to your favorite soup, stew, or Italian sauce. I’ve also used the quick roasting method for chicken cacciatore, tomato sauce, beef stew, baked manicotti, and gumbo.

In the summertime, I make basil pesto more frequently with a large crop of sweet basil growing next to my backdoor. I use fresh garlic in pesto when I going to heat the sauce, but for pesto going over fresh mozzarella and tomatoes, or another cold salad, I add roasted garlic.

With roasted garlic in pesto, the parmesan and basil flavors are more apparent.

Oven Roasted Garlic

Preheat the oven to 325°F.

Slice off the top of the Garlic head and place in an oiled casserole dish. Drizzle 1Tbsp of olive oil (you can also use chicken stock or water) over the garlic, cover with foil, and bake for one hour.

Browning Butter

Do you prefer homemade cookies over grocery store cookies? If you have working taste buds, brain activity, and a pulse, you probably said yes. It’s easier to spend three to six dollars for pre-packaged cookies loaded with preservatives and remnants of old peanuts (from making another snack product), but brand-name cookies have as much flavor as distilled water.

They’re expensive for flavorless matter, but they often have an advantage over homemade recipes. They stay soft longer. Homemade cookies taste delicious straight from the oven, but they begin to dry out the next day. To solve the problem, you can brown the butter before adding it to the batter.

Don’t let a small band of elves (Keebler’s indentured servants), working out of a tree, produce a better cookie than you. Why do people feel comforted having elves making their cookies and Christmas presents? Have you seen how easily they can kill an orc with a bow and arrow? They’re too violent to be good bakers.

Heat one stick of butter (sliced butter melts faster- it covers more surface area) over a skillet on medium. When the butter is completely melted, increase the heat to medium-high and stir with a wooden spoon or whisk to avoid sticking.

After 6 to 8 minutes, the butter should start browning and foaming. Remove from the heat and allow to cool before adding to the cookie batter.

Espresso Chip cookies are tasty and fattening. I’m glad I polished my tea kettle for the cookie photo shoot. Man, that thing is shiny!

Espresso Chip Cookies

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup baking cocoa

1 ½ cups brown sugar

¾ cup granulated sugar

½ tsp salt

½ cup vegetable oil

1 stick salted butter browned and cooled

3 large eggs

1 cup Espresso chips

½ cup ground walnuts

1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 325°F

Mix the dry ingredients in a metal bowl: flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda.

Mix the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vegetable oil in a mixer on medium until the mixture resembles clumpy sand. Slow the mixer down to low speed. Add the eggs, one at a time (spaced thirty seconds apart), and the vanilla extract.

Add the flour mixture one cup at a time until the batter is blended. Add the expresso chips and walnut last. Place 2Tbsp blobs of cookie dough on a greased cookie sheet and cook for 10-12 minutes. Cool cookies on a cooling rack.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Grandmother's house needs some pruning.

After the Thanksgiving Feast, Try Enchiladas

November 29, 2020 /

Instead of settling for turkey sandwiches or one of those gut-busting casseroles you’ve seen on a lousy cooking show where they cram turkey, gravy, cranberry relish, green bean casserole, yams, stuffing, and mashed potatoes into a large baking dish, top with bacon, country ham, gouda cheese, balsamic reduction, and Metamucil, you can make enchiladas.

I’m against wasting leftovers and feel guilty when I have to throw away food, but if I’d rather feed my trashcan than consume something repulsive created by Chef Cletus.

One enjoyable alternative to throwing away leftovers is to toss the food (or place it in bowls) into your backyard. You’ll attract the local wildlife that will appreciate a late Thanksgiving feast.

Make sure that the food is in a direct line of sight from your windows. Wait for the bunny, fox, deer, or wharf rat to munch on your bait and take a shot with a high-powered rifle or crossbow.

After a little gutting, skinning, and slicing, you’ll have another delicious meal that you can use to fatten your in-laws before they head back to Key West. The circle of life or maybe the food chain is incredible when you take an active role. Now, back to reality and enchiladas.

This recipe is based on one that my Dad uses to make enchiladas the day after Thanksgiving. I don’t remember the name of the fifty-year-old book it comes from, but I call it the brown 1970s Mexican Cookbook with gold lettering and multiple stains.

I’ve tried several homemade and restaurant enchiladas, but this one is my favorite.

Before trying the recipe, here are a few suggestions:

  • After cooking the sauce, don’t add the sour cream until you’ve taken the pot off the heat. The sour cream will curdle if the sauce is too hot.
  • When you fry the corn tortillas, set the burner between medium and medium-high. You don’t want to fry them too long, or they’ll get rigid and difficult to fold.
  • If you have extra corn tortillas, you can cut them into sixths and fry them for 2 minutes for homemade corn chips. Add salt when they’re still hot.
  • You can use chicken, turkey, or scrambled eggs (the original recipe calls for 7 large eggs scrambled), but I’ve only made them with chicken and turkey.
  • Avoid wearing lederhosen or parachute pants when you’re making enchiladas. An unexpected grease fire can be painful if your britches aren’t fireproof.
  • Seize the day, save the whales, smell the roses (they may be dead after last night’s freeze), maximize your potential, take out the garbage, clean the gutters, spot weld that hole in Grandpa Manson’s operating table, and give fleece a chance.

Turkey Enchiladas

12 Corn tortillas

2 cups shredded turkey

1 cup finely diced white onion

2 ½ cups shredded Oaxaca cheese

1 ¾ cups vegetable or peanut oil

Tomato Sauce

2 large cans whole tomatoes (or 10 to 12 fresh tomatoes)

4 cloves fresh garlic

4-8 Jalapeno rings (or 2 fresh jalapenos)

After cooking sauce, stir in ½ tsp salt and ½ cup sour cream.

Instructions

  • Set your oven to broil and cook the tomatoes, peppers, and garlic on a greased cookie sheet for 12-15 minutes. You can also put them on a lined pan on an outdoor grill set to medium-high.
  • Allow the vegetables to cool for five minutes and blend (in a blender- not a food processor) for 2 minutes. Add the diced onions to an oiled skillet and sauté for five minutes. Set aside to cool.
  • Heat oil in a cast-iron skillet and cook tortillas, one at a time, for 10 seconds on each side. Place the tortillas on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb the excess grease.
  • Heat a tbsp of vegetable in a deep skillet, on medium-high, and heat the tomato puree, frequently stirring, until it begins to thicken. Remove from the heat and stir in salt and sour cream.
  • Set up a cutting board on the counter near the stove. Spray a deep casserole dish with cooking spray and set it aside. With a pair of tongs, dip the cooked tortillas into the tomato sauce and place them on the cutting board.
  • Add 2 tbsp turkey, 2 tbsp cheese, and a tsp of cooked onions to the tortilla and roll into a tube. Place the rolls seam-side down in the cooking dish. You should have 2 rows of tortillas with six in each row.
  • Pour the tomato sauce on the rolls. Top with the remaining 1 cup of cheese.
  • Bake the enchiladas for 30 minutes at 350°F.
  • Serve them while they’re piping hot!

Tips for Growing Fresh Basil: Frequent Decapitations

August 24, 2020 /
Enjoy the sun while you can. Soon, you’ll be pulverized into pesto or simmering in marinara sauce.

Chop Off Their Heads, and the Herbs Will Grow! from Morris Peplo (amateur gardener, jai alai enthusiast, hang glider pilot, and landscape artist focusing on exotic fungi)

Basil Chopping

Basil is an excellent herb to grow in the summertime, but if your plants are growing straight up without forming a broad base, you should consider decapitating them. Pruning is a kinder term, but this is a cooking and cinema site that reviews horror films, and I thought head-chopping was more characteristic of the site’s contents.

It’s best to lop off the heads when the plant is only a few months old, but you can prune basil at any time. If you live in the south, your basil may continue to produce leaves until October. In North Carolina, we usually get the first freeze around Halloween, and the herb won’t survive too many nights that dip below 43°F.

Some gardeners are hesitant to prune plants like herbs or vegetables and would rather have nature run its course. There’s nothing wrong with that method if you like small harvests, but several edible plants like peppers and herbs will produce more if you crop off the lanky stems.

A 6 foot Fuji Apple Tree reduced to a sad-looking nub.

Tree Stunting

On the subject of plant mutilation, I recommend decapitating fruit trees that may be too large for your yard. Some apple varieties can grow 17-20 ft. high and around 6 ft. wide. That’s fine if you have plenty of space in your yard and enjoy picking fruit with a ladder.

For backyards and community gardens, you don’t need to simulate an orchard layout to grow healthy fruit trees. I have Fuji and honey crisp apple trees in my backyard that were cropped before being planted.

My backyard is pretty small, but I have stunted apple trees, a fig tree and paw-paw tree on espalier lines, and seven blueberry bushes. The apple trees look more like shrubs or miniature trees that a Hobbit would be proud to own.

Both of the trees were over six feet tall and 18 months old. I could barely cram them in my Honda Civic for the ride home, and I remember the tip of the Fuji poking into my AC vent on my dashboard.

Yes, I realize that a wise man would chop the trees before shoving them in a compact car, but I like driving with branches scraping the back of my head. I really feel closer to nature.

It was like the trees and I had become one being. No, that’s rubbish. I’m lazy, and I appreciate challenges and suffering. I hope no one left the site when I started sounding like a weirdo, but the longhair music playing in the background was affecting my judgment…

I replaced the love tunes with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. It fits for this post since some of Zappa’s work focuses on food. His early masterpiece, “Call Any Vegetable,” is an excellent selection when you’re shucking corn with your loved ones, peeling spuds, extracting pine nuts, or thrashing wheat.

If you’re making homemade snow cones with the family, “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” is a good choice (and a valuable lesson for young children), and when you’re butchering a pig, cow, chicken, or squirrel, I think “Uncle Meat” is an ideal background song.

Fig espalier with cordon style

Back to Dismembering Fruit Trees

If you buy a fruit tree that’s under two years old, you’ll need to remove ¾ of the trunk. It seems extreme, but the pathetic, nubby, stick in the ground will eventually develop into a miniature tree. Your cropped tree should be about eighteen inches tall.

When you plant the runt, you should also trim the roots. If the root ball is bound in burlap, cut it off. The burlap can hinder the root’s growth. You want the roots to grow freely, but by trimming the roots, you can limit the space that the roots will occupy when the tree is more mature.

You might have to wait for two weeks or more before you see any growth on your Charlie Brown Christmas stick. My trees began to form branches after sixteen days, and it is agonizing to wonder before the tree grows if you made a bad decision.

If you’re patient, the sticks will turn into healthy trees. Fruit trees are not instant gratification plants. My apple trees have another year before they’ll produce fruit, and my paw-paw (a fruit tree native to North Carolina) will not produce for eight or nine more years.

However, my blueberry bushes produced edible berries after two years, and if you want a shrub that grows and flowers quickly, blueberry bushes may be for you. I had a massive harvest from my blueberries this summer.

My family and friends were happy to get baked goods, and I managed to feed a family of comical mockingbirds also.

Basil’s Recipe 8

May 17, 2020 /

Beer and Cheddar Bread

Ingredients

3 cups Flour
1 Tbsp Baking powder
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Garlic powder
2 Tbsp Sugar
12 oz Beer (lager or amber)
2 ¼ cups Cheddar cheese

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350° F.
Mix all ingredients in a metal bowl except beer and cheddar.
Stir in beer and fold in the cheddar.
Form the dough into a log.
Place on a greased cookie sheet.
Bake for 50-55 minutes.
Insert a toothpick. If it’s dry, the bread is done.
Let cool ten minutes before slicing.

This is a quick bread recipe that uses baking powder rather than yeast. As far as I know, there isn’t a baking powder shortage in grocery stores.

There’s a yeast shortage, but I’ve taken care of that by growing my own yeast in a large number of sanitary fish tanks. I should have enough yeast to fill a thimble in three months. Just Kidding.

I made this bread nine years ago at Basil’s to compliment a chili recipe developed by Kenneth Fields. It’s perfect with chili but also goes well with creamy soups like potato and cajun stews like gumbo.

Try to use a lager or amber for the beer. A dark stout, gose, or light beer will not work well with this bread. Also, avoid heavily spiced or flavored beers.

Something like pumpkin spice pilsner or artichoke ale should be set aside for your friends who lost their taste buds from a tragic Pop rocks and Pepsi incident.

Basil’s Recipe #5: Cilantro Chicken Soup Over Rice

February 9, 2020 /

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Olive Oil 1 cup Diced Red Onion
4 cloves Roasted Garlic
⅓ cup Fresh Cilantro
½ cup Cold Water
1 tsp Salt
1 ½ tsp Cracked Black Pepper
3 ½ quarts Chicken Stock
4 cups cooked Rice
1 slice of Lemon
1 tbsp Shredded Fresh Parmesan
1 tbsp Sour Cream

Instructions:

Heat olive oil in a skillet and cook onion for 4 minutes- until translucent.

Purée cilantro, roasted garlic, salt, pepper, and ½ cup of water in the processor for 30 seconds.

Combine cilantro mixture, onions, and chicken stock in a large pot and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to simmer and cover. Cook 22 minutes and remove from heat.

Serve over bowls with ½ cup warmed rice.

Top with sour cream and shredded parmesan. Place a lemon slice on the side.

Serves 4-6

I made this soup in 2009 as a soup du jour, and after receiving a lot of positive feedback, I featured it on the monthly chef special.

You can roast the garlic in the oven, or you can toast the garlic, with the skins on, for 10-12 minutes in a skillet on medium-high heat.

Cooking the garlic in the oven makes it tender and creamy, but since you blend it in a processor, its consistency isn’t important.

Leftover chicken is ideal for this recipe, but you could buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store if you don’t have cooked chicken on hand. I don’t recommend using canned chicken for this recipe (or any other) since the flavor’s disturbing, and it resembles cat food.

Since the recipe is inexpensive to make, it was perfect for the recession times of 2009. It’s a great soup for any season, but if you see another economic downturn coming, break out your cilantro chicken recipe. It will ease your financial blues. Enjoy!

Basil’s Recipe # 4: Black Bean Salsa

February 5, 2020 /
In Food Processor, Blend the following:
⅓ can of Black Beans drained
½ cup Corn
1 tsp Cumin
1 tbsp Chili Powder
Juice of 2 Limes
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Pepper
½ cup Chopped Cilantro
After Blending, In a Metal Bowl, Stir in the Following:
⅔ can of Black Bean drained
½ cup Corn
1 cup Tomato diced
½ cup Red Onion diced

In 2010, Basil’s featured the Black Bean Salsa with the Tuna Tacos. It’s a simple recipe that you can make in ten minutes. The recipe uses a 15.25 oz can of black beans.

The instructions mention that you blend ⅓ of a can of black beans, and you mix ⅔ of a can of whole black beans at the end. This measurement doesn’t have to be exact.

After draining the beans, pour them into a clear measuring cup. Grab a little less than half of the beans to blend in the processor. If you want the salsa to have a thicker consistency, use half of the beans.

If you like your salsa hotter, add a quarter cup of diced jalapenos.

Currently, Basil’s uses the salsa in this month’s Chef’s Features. It’s featured with the new Tuna Tacos and the Santa Fe Chicken salad.

This summer, when you’re able to purchase locally-grown tomatoes, try making this recipe again. I really like the salsa, but it’s even better with home-grown( that’s what I use) or farmer’s market tomatoes.

Parmesan & Black Pepper Bread

January 21, 2020 /

Ingredients

½ tbsp Instant Yeast

2 ¼ cups Warm Water

1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1½ tsp Kosher Salt

4 ½ cups Sifted All-Purpose Flour

1 cup Shredded Fresh Parmesan

1 ½ tsp Cracked Black Pepper 

Instructions

1) Mix yeast and warm water in a large metal bowl with a whisk.

2) Add olive oil and 1 tsp salt.

3) Add flour one cup at a time. Use a whisk for the first two cups, then use a rubber spatula to add remaining flour.

4) Fold in parmesan and cracked black pepper.

5) Form the dough into a ball. Remove dough from the bowl, spray the bowl with baking spray, and return the dough to the bowl.

6) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1 hour.

7) Press dough down and fold into a ball. Return the dough to the bowl with the seam side down.

8) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 30 minutes.

9) Place dough on a lightly-floured counter and fold into a long cylinder. With a sharp knife, score the top of the dough. Sprinkle the remaining ½ tsp salt over the dough. Preheat the oven to 400° F. Allow the dough to rise, uncovered on a greased pan, for 20 minutes.

10) Bake for 20-22 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before slicing.

This bread is perfect for sandwiches and Italian pasta. Most bread recipes require a separate bowl to mix the dough and one for rising.

As long as all of the flour ends up in the dough when you mix it, you don’t have to put the dough in another bowl for rising. Save yourself the trouble of cleaning two bowls and just use one.

I made this bread for my cousin Amy and her husband when they visited last year. They enjoyed it, and I hope you will too.

Pumpkin Bread with Streusel

January 16, 2020 /
The Streusel adds a sweet crunch.

Ingredients & Instructions

4 tbsp Unsalted Butter

15 oz. can Pumpkin Puree

1 tbsp Ground Cinnamon

¾ tsp Nutmeg

1 cup Light Brown Sugar

Stir all of the above ingredients in a small saucepan. Cook on medium heat, frequently stirring, until the mixture begins to boil. Reduce to low, continuing to stir, and simmer for 20 minutes. Set aside to cool. Mix the following in a large measuring cup or bowl:

2 eggs

1 tbsp Half and Half

1 ½ tsp Vanilla Extract

Mix the following in a large metal bowl:

1 cup All-Purpose Flour

½ tsp Salt

2 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Baking Powder

Preheat the oven to 350 ° F. Mix all ingredients in the large metal bowl. Place the mixture in a greased 9-inch bread pan. Mix the following in a bowl to prepare the streusel:

1 tbsp Melted Butter(salted butter)

¼  cup Ground Pecans

2 tbsp Powdered Sugar

1 tbsp Brown Sugar

¼  tsp Cinnamon

2 tsp All-Purpose Flour

Spread streusel evenly over pumpkin mixture and bake 50-52 minutes. Check to make sure the bread is done by inserting a toothpick. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Carefully remove from the pan and place on a cooling rack for 10 minutes before slicing.

I tested this recipe on people, including myself, who dislike pumpkin pie. They loved it.

Be sure to use a pumpkin puree rather than a fresh carving pumpkin. Pumpkin puree is made from sugar pumpkins, which have a much sweeter flesh and are not as stringy as Halloween pumpkins.

Unlike other Pumpkin Bread recipes I’ve made, this one requires cooking the puree. It may seem like a pain and an extra step, but it removes excess moisture from the puree and brings out the sweet pumpkin flavor.

If you’re worried about losing some of the streusel topping when you pop it out of the pan, I have a solution.

First, use a rubber spatula to loosen all four sides of the bread from the pan. Next, place a piece of wax paper over the top of the bread. Last, invert the pan and pop it onto a cutting board.

It is a sweet bread, but it isn’t too sweet to place a scoop of vanilla ice cream beside it. I hope you enjoy it! I did.

Basil’s Recipe #2: Spinach Dip

January 9, 2020 /

Ingredients

2 lbs. Frozen Spinach

1 ½ cups Sour Cream

¾ cup Diced Red Onion

2 ½ cups Mayonnaise

1.4 oz(I packet) Knorr Vegetable Soup Mix

Instructions

1) Place Spinach in a colander and run cold water over it to thaw.

2) Mix Sour Cream, Red Onions, Mayonnaise, and Vegetable Soup Mix in a metal bow.

3) Press Spinach in a colander to remove water. Spinach should be only slightly moist.

4) Mix Spinach with the rest of the ingredients with a rubber spatula. Refrigerate for 2 hours before serving.

5) Serve with Toasted Pita Bread, French Bread, or Crackers.

Spinach Dip, the only dip served chilled, is one of Basil’s oldest recipes. It’s best when you serve it with toasted pita.

If you don’t have pita in your kitchen, you can use any type of toasted bread. French bread, Italian bread, French baguette, and Ciabatta are types of bread I recommend.

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