Crash Hot Potatoes
Via Bridge, from http://thepioneerwoman.com/

Ingredients
about 12 medium/small sized new potatoes
3 tbsp olive oil
Coarse salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
Rosemary, finely diced, to taste.

Directions
Preheat oven to 450
Boil potatoes in salted water until very well cooked.
Drizzle a pan with olive oil, place them on a pan leaving plenty of room between them. Using a potato masher press down on the potatoes until they split and their innards show. Turn masher 90 degrees and mash again. Drizzle with olive oil. Season with salt, pepper, and rosemary.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.

Woolerburgers

Wooler is a very good cook. Sometimes she denies it, but I know the truth. When she was little we made her make Woolercookies so often she cut us off and refused to make them ever again. So I'm lucky to have this recipe - now I can make it myself instead of harassing her to her breaking point due to my love of good eats.

Lizzy's Hamburgers

Via Wooler

Ingredients
1 package of extra lean ground beef

1 tbsp montreal steak spice

0.5 tsp onion powder

2 eggs

0.25 c apple sauce.

Directions

Mix all ingredients together, form into patties and fry on medium heat until brown all the way through.
Serve on the bun of your choice.
NOTE: you may think that apple sauce is really weird, but it doesn’t actually make the burgers taste like apples, it just makes them incredibly moist.

Apricot Ginger Bars

So many variations are possible with this recipe, and because of all the oats I can nearly convince myself they're healthy. It's easy to switch up the flavours, maybe you're not into ginger but love raspberry. Cut out the ginger, add raspberry jam instead of apricot. I've also heard of wonderful things happening if you use dulce du leche as the filling. Mix it up and see what happens! So exciting (perhaps?).

Apricot Ginger Bars
Via Bridge, slightly adapted from http://thepioneerwoman.com/

Ingredients
1.5 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1.5 c oats
0.5 c packed brown sugar
0.5 c honey
1 c butter, cut into pieces
1 jar (10-12 oz) apricot jam
1 tbsp ground ginger
2 to 4 tsp grated fresh ginger, depending on how much you love ginger

Directions
Preheat oven to 350
Mix all ingredients except for jam and fresh ginger. In a separate bowl add fresh ginger to jam according to your ginger preference.
Press half of the oat mix into a greased 8 inch square pan and pat down. Spread jam on top, then squeeze the remaining oat mix into small clumps and lightly pat onto jam.
Bake for 30 to 40 min, or until golden brown.

Peanut Butter and Jam Squares

These are a wonderful square, like thick moist peanut butter cookies wraped around a jammy center. The recipe makes a large batch, great for sharing.

Peanut butter and Jelly Bars
Via Bridge, slightly adapted from http://www.marthastewart.com/

Ingredients
1 c butter or margarine
3 c flour
2 eggs
2.5 c smooth peanut butter
1 tbsp vanilla
1.5 c raspberry jam (and a squirt of lemon if your jam’s really sweet)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 9x13 pan.
beat butter and sugar until fluffy, or you loose patience with it. add eggs, vanilla, and peanut butter, mix well. Add flour a cup at a time and stir to incorporate. It will be crazy spoon-breakingly thick, but work careful or use a stand mixer.
spread ½ to 2/3 of the mix in the pan, top with jam, then use 2 spoons to dollop the remaining peanut butter on top.
bake until set and golden, about 45 minutes according to Martha Stewart. Transfer to a wire rack to cool and cut into pieces.,

Soft Ginger Cake (Gingerbread)

This recipe is a true family classic, taken from the white house cookbook (1917 edition) that belonged to my moms granny. We serve it with thick cream (aka clotted cream) but it's also good with sweetened yogurt or just on its own. It's a large, moist, dark, rich cake, not too sweet and wonderfully spicy. Best eaten warm after playing in the snow.

Soft Ginger Cake
Very slightly adapted from the White House Cookbook, which can be found on line at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13923

Ingredients
1 c butter
0.5 c brown sugar
2 c cooking molasses
1 c milk
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
4 c flour
1 tsp baking soda

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.
Mix lemon juice and milk, set aside to sour. Cream butter and sugar, add molasses, sour milk, ginger, and cinnamon, beat thoroughly. Mix in eggs, half the flour, then the baking soda dissolved in a little water, and finally the rest of the flour.
Pour into a greased and floured 9 by 13 pan and bake for 40-60 minutes. Be careful, it goes from liquid in the center to done very quickly at the end.

Thai Green Curry with Seafood

I love curry! All curry. I love it more than chocolate, more than fresh baked bread. There's just something about curry that really speaks to me. Although I haven't made this one personally, it's certainly on my to do list! It's quick and flavourful, and the more exotic ingredients can be found in asian markets or often in the superstore (if you're in Canada).

Thai Green Curry with Seafood
Via Cheeze, from Bon Appetit via http://www.epicurious.com/

Ingredients
2 tbsp unrefined peanut oil
5 green onions finely chopped with the dark green parts separated from the light green and white parts
3 tbsp minced fresh cilantro
3 minced garlic cloves
6 tbsp Thai green curry paste
1.25 c water
13 to 14 oz can of unsweetened coconut milk
2 small fresh red Thai chiles
2 kaffir lime leaves
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 c carrot, peeled and thinly cut on the diagonal (about 1 large carrot)
4 c thinly sliced bok choy
8oz raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
8oz scallops
1 lb mussels, (or more shrimps and scallops)
2 tbsp minced fresh basil
2 c steamed rice

Directions
Heat oil in a large sauce pan over medium heat. add white and light green parts of the green onion, 12 tbsp of the cilantro, and garlic. sauté until tender, about 2 min. Add curry paste and cook about 1 min. Add water, coconut milk, chiles, lime leaves, and fish sauce. Bring to a simmer. Add carrot, cover and cook until carrot is just tender, about 5 min. Layer bok choy and seafood in pan. Cover and simmer until seafood is cooked, about 5 min. Stir in dark green parts of green onion, 2 tbsp cilantro, and basil.
Ladle over rice to serve.

Beet and goat cheese salad

There's a real risk that instead of documenting beloved family recipes and sharing new fabulous recipes this blog will instead document my love affair with goat cheese. I'm going to try not to go overboard, but it's tough. I have a problem. My name is Bridge and I love goat cheese! Well admiting it is the first step, although I'm not sure I want to kick the habit. Try the following recipe at your own risk, you may end up goat cheese obsessed like me!

Beet and Goat Cheese Salad
Via Bridge, adapted from http://www.foodnetwork.com/

Ingredients
1 bag spinach (or salad greens of your choice)
3 thinly sliced green onions
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
3 tbsp Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp minced garlic
1/3 c extra virgin olive oil
1/3 c balsamic vinegar
3 large beets
0.5 c sliced almonds (or nut of your choice)
1 small package of soft goat cheese (about 125g)
1 avocado, diced

Directions
Drizzle beets in olive oil, wrap in tinfoil and bake until very tender. Peel and chop into large chunks. Set aside.
To make the salad dressing blend green onion, honey, oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard, and worcestershire sauce together. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Toss spinach with salad dressing. Add diced avocado, beets, nuts, and crumbled goat cheese on top, toss lightly and serve.

Cream Cheese Icing

I'm not a big icing fan. It's often tasteless and too sweet. Cream cheese icing is the exception. It's tangy and creamy and awesome. I put this icing on the lemon yogurt cake from the previous post, then sprinkle with toasted coconut. Yum!

Cream Cheese Icing
Via Bridge, Adapted from http://simplyrecipes.com/

Ingredients
0.5 c butter, room temperature
8 oz (1 package) cream cheese, room temperature
0.5 to 0.75 a small (125g) package of goat cheese, room temperature
2 to 3 c powdered sugar
1 tbsp vanilla

Directions
With an electric mixer blend butter, cheeses, and vanilla until smooth. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. Slowly add powdered sugar tasting frequently until you’ve reached the desired sweetness. You may not use all the powdered sugar, I never get even close.
Spread with a spatula over your cake, or scoop into a zip lock bag, cut one of the corners and pipe onto your cupcakes.

Lemon Yogurt Cake

I have very few cooking skills. It's purely laziness on my part, there's no reason I can't learn, and since I'm so passionate about food it would be crazy for me not to put in the effort to figure out the basics at least! So when I decided to start practicing my cooking this was one of the first recipes I made. It's a very lemony, tart cake, moist, with a wonderfully tasty batter. I've made it 3 times now. Once as written, once as cupcakes, and once in a double batch. It turned out well every time. Try it and see for yourself!

Lemon Yogurt Cake

Via Bridge, slightly adapted from http://orangette.blogspot.com/

Ingredients
0.5 c plain yogurt
1 c sugar
3 eggs
1.5 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
Zest from 2 lemons
0.5 c extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp vanilla
Juice from 2 lemons, sweetened to taste with sugar

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F
Combine yogurt, sugar, and egg. Blend well. Add flour, baking powder, and zest, mix until barely combined. Pour in vanilla and oil, then stir to incorporate. Pour batter into a greased, floured pan and bake for 30-35 minutes until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool cake in pan, then prick with a fork and pour sweetened lemon juice over the top. Let it soak in then serve.
Depending on the size, and juiciness of your lemons you may not want to use the entire amount of juice. This cake is nice served with cream cheese icing and sprinkled with a combination of lemon zest and toasted coconut, or with a scoop of sweetened yogurt.

Hi!

Merry Christmas! Today is the start of my documentation of family recipes. As I make all our old favorites and try new recipes I'll document the process and share with the world. Get in mah belleh, tasty grubs!