Aunt Ione's Bloody Mary Mix Recipe

I made a huge batch of this today using some of our latest haul of Green Zebra tomatoes. Initially I thought it'd be a "slimy" mary mix, but the bright green flesh color dulled a bit and the carrot bits darkened it too, so now I'm calling it a zombie marie mix.

It is so good! I can't believe we never considered making this with our tomato hauls. Definitely won't make that mistake again. Yummuy!

update: Here's a picture of the stuff. About 45-55 green zebra tomatoes, plus the amount of vegetables in the recipe, yielded about a gallon of mix. I kept this batch on the thick and chunky side, thinking that the addition of vodka and ice would give it a perfect consistency. But it could also be stretched a little to have more mix. I'm calling it Zombie Mary Mix. ;)


( 2nd update: virgin zombie mary as served )

update re: the chocolate buttercrunch matzo



( a couple pictures of the process )
Yay, I actually cooked something well ahead of time! Now if I can only get myself together for the travel weekend...

Thanks to that secret restaurant recipe cookbook, I unlocked the mystery of cheddar biscuits tonight.

This is about a half batch, measurements are approximate and will vary slightly depending on the relative humidity in your kitchen, as is the case with all doughy things. :)

( the 'secret' recipe )
That's it! Super easy and super tasty. I think it's been a year since I've had the biscuits at Red Lobster, but I *think* these come pretty close. And if they don't, they're pretty yummuy anyway. =) If you make just 8, which is what I did, they're pretty hefty. Next time I'll divide it into 12 lumps of dough and each one will still be sufficiently big. Makes for better portion control too, I wolfed down 3-4 tonight! O_O

We got sunchokes from the farmers' market this weekend; the lovely folks at Veenstra's Vegetables had a recipe box too, so I grabbed a page that had a bunch of ideas for using them. After reading up a bit about them, it sounds like sunchokes are very easy to maintain and propagate, so I'll consider buying extra this week and planting a small bed of them.

The flavor of a sunchoke is earthy but crisp and refreshing. It really brightens the flavor of a rich comforting soup like a chowder.

( recipe for Cheese & Sunchoke Chowder )

We've been drinking this new pizza beer lately and really like it. It's infused with lots of common pizza flavors: garlic, oregano, tomato, etc. and of course tastes awesome with pizza and pasta. Actually, I've found that it tastes good with lots of foods. Give it a try if you see it in the store, it's a local microbrew too, produced for them by Sprecher.

I found a really good flour tortilla Instructable! They're a little more labor intensive than corn tortillas: the dough requires more ingredients, time, and work; and you roll out the tortillas instead of using a tortilla press, which in my experience works very well for corn, but not flour tortilla dough.


( +3 pics and cooking notes )

I saw this on a cooking show this weekend and tried my own version. Lately I'm finding the price of veggie burgers distasteful (har) so I thought it'd be good to get back to basics. I used to make something similar with falafel mix, dry veggie burger mix, and mashed black beans. I think these are a little better, definitely have more of that true veggie burger appeal.

( very rough recipe base )

Overall the patties were good, definitely filling, but need *a lot* more seasoning. I'll try adding a lot more (chipotle) chili powder and maybe a few cloves from a head of roasted garlic. Maybe bringing some falafel mix back in would be good too. Sauteed and chopped portabella mushroom might be nice. These are infinitely customizeable, so just throw whatever in.

I used the leftover bulghur as a side. Toss in a little parmesan and all kinds of spices. The bulghur is pretty plain tasting, so it needs a lot of seasoning, similar to couscous. The consistency is somewhere between couscous and short grain rice.

The patties were fine for reheating the next day. I'll experiment to see how they freeze. If freezing works, these would be a perfect weekend afternoon project to make them just as convenient as the store bought hockey pucks.

I've wanted to try making my own buns for a while. Really happy with the results, though I was skeptical before baking. The dough didn't rise as much as I'm used to (compared to other breadstuff I've baked), but expanded quite a bit in the short baking time.

I used this recipe, but halved it to yield 8 buns.

Baked buns:


Veggie chili cheese dog:

Do some work, bun!

I didn't know about blondies until I saw Flay do a throwdown for them. I found this recipe, which is exactly 2/3 of Flay's recipe on the food network site, except she didn't use baking powder. So, I added 1/2 tsp baking powder during the flour and salt step.

I haven't branched out with the additions, but usually go with walnuts, choc. chips, and shredded coconut. I think about 1 1/2 to 2 cups total add-ins is a good ratio. Next time I'll try lightly toasting the coconut in the oven before mixing it in.

I really like this recipe because a) the blondies taste awesome b) for me it's faster and easier than cookies—can be done with simply a hand whisk, since you melt the butter c) the blondies are so rich/dense that I'm usually satisfied with just one square, whereas with cookies I usually gobble down several before stopping.

( the recipe for keepsakes )

This Al Roker recipe for Platinum Blondies looks pretty good too.
( platinum blondies to try )

I saw Hake at the store and wanted to see how it worked in tacos. I originally wanted to do a Friday Fish Fry, but after looking up some recipes I figured that I could prepare it the same way as my baked breaded tilapia.



Easy to prepare: cut the fish into sushi sized pieces, dredge in (seasoned) flour, dip to coat in a bowl of beaten egg, roll around in a mound of fish breading (w/ some chipotle chili powder added) until well coated. Spray coat a baking pan well with oil, place fish and spray the tops of the fish pieces. Bake at 425 until flaky, ~10-15 minutes. We were out of Panko, but the regular fish fry breading worked great.

Fresh handmade corn tortillas really bring the whole taco together. I've had a tortilla press for several years, but only made fresh tortillas a couple times before this week. I had problems and got frustrated, leaving the press to collect dust. With renewed interest, and a little research, I finally got the tortilla skillz down.
( more about corn tortilla technique )

I heard that pt's coworker made oatmeal cookies with coconut and got a bag of shredded coconut to try it myself. There was a recipe on the bag for this shrimp so I had to try that first. If you're used to breading things, this recipe is extremely easy. If you're not used to breading things, it will bump up the difficulty level to merely easy. :) Also, this is fast. Pretty healthy, too.

I apologize for giving approximate proportions, but I've found that with this sort of thing it's better to use just as much as you need, and dole out more if you run out. After making it a couple of times you get the feel for how much stuff to use.

-Shrimp, I used half a pound of medium, which was about 20 or so
-flour, 1/3 to 1/2 cup
-salt, 1 tsp
-cayenne pepper, 1 tsp
-3 egg whites
-shredded coconut (I ended up using about 2/3 of a 7 oz. bag)

0. Preheat oven to 500F
1. Peel, devein, rinse shrimp, pat dry on a paper towel
2. Mix flour, salt, and pepper in a shallow bowl
3. Beat egg whites in a small bowl until frothy
4. Lay out some shredded coconut in another shallow bowl
5. Dredge each shrimp in the flour mixture, shake off excess
6. Dip floured shrimp into egg whites until coated
7. Then roll shrimp in coconut to cover, you may have to pat some of it on or work with it a little bit. You'll get the hang of it after a few.
8. Spray a cookie sheet liberally with oil
9. Arrange shrimp on sheet and spray tops of shrimp with oil
10. Cover cookie sheet well with aluminum foil
11. Bake for 5-6 minutes
12. Remove foil and bake uncovered for another 5-6 minutes, or until the coconut breading is lightly browned.

That's it. Easy and fast! And TASTY! I like to eat them with Buffalo sauce or Sriracha.

After all that bento box browsing this morning, I really wanted to make riceballs for lunch. Sadly, the trip to Am-Ko didn't turn up any cute little bento boxes or bunny/kitty riceball molds. But I did pick up some salmon furikake and green tea Pocky (yummuy!). It's unbelievably easy to make these.



( step-by-step, ooh baby... )

I made this from memory last Monday so I forgot to add the garlic. It was still hella good.
--

Maple syrup lends sweetness and chipotle chilies add smoky heat to a terrific glaze for grilled corn on the cob.

1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 teaspoons minced canned chipotle chilies*
1/4 teaspoon salt

6 ears fresh corn, husked
Bring first 5 ingredients to simmer in heavy small saucepan over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer until glaze is reduced to 3/4 cup, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. (Glaze can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Prepare barbecue (medium heat). Brush corn with some of glaze. Grill until lightly charred in spots, turning frequently, about 8 minutes. Transfer corn to platter. Brush corn with remaining glaze. Sprinkle generously with salt and serve.

* Chipotle chilies canned in a spicy tomato sauce, sometimes called adobo, are available at Latin American markets and some supermarkets.

I got this recipe from my brother (who got it from his boss) years ago. I switched to using shrimp back when I stopped eating land-based meat, but now, as you may or may not know, I occasionally hop back on the meatwagon because we have easy access to organic pasture-raised livestock from family-owned local farms. I made this with chicken for the first time in 5-6 years last night.
( Enough about me, on to the wings! )

I made another batch of this for our V-day dinner on Saturday. I've used a few different recipes and have it down to what I feel is the simplest and tastiest version. It's not too different than the basic ones that come up when you google it.

The rest of the dinner was great, even though we didn't actually have the trifle until last night.

( curried ginger carrot soup )


In other orange-type news, Illinois beat Wisconsin tonight. Woo!