Holiday Baking

Usually around Christmas, I do a lot of baking of sweets and breads. This season has been COOKIE-MANIA in my kitchen. I started by creating a chewy CHOCOLATE, BUTTERSCOTCH CHIP COOKIE that my family loved. Next, I wanted to recreate one of my childhood favorites...ARCHWAY LEMON FROSTED SOFT COOKIES. I used a copycat recipe I found online but after adding more lemon, the cookies turned out perfect. Then I had the grand idea to make COOKIE BASKETS for friends and family (...and teachers) as gifts. The baskets included my CHOCO-SCOTCH COOKIES, LEMON COOKIES, OATMEAL-CRAISIN-WHITE CHOCO CHIP COOKIES AND SUGAR COOKIES WITH SPRINKLES. After using my 9 year old's mathematical gifts, we calculated approximately 400 cookies total. The weekend scheduled (two Saturdays before Christmas) for cookie baking was a disaster because 4 out of the 6 inhabitants of my household contracted THE FLU. Thank goodness, my oldest and I were the 33% that remained healthy (moms NEVER get sick...maybe because we wash our hands properly??). It was difficult, but I created a fine product in my quarantined kitchen. I even made a beautiful COOKIE TRAY for my hunny's job.

Sunday Meal

My hunny decided he wanted something special for dinner on Sunday...PORK CHOPS WITH GRAVY, MASHED POTATOES AND ANY VEG. Well, I had some frozen pork loin chops (boneless) in the freezer, a bag of potatoes (and a new masher..yippeee) and some fresh brocolli crowns...sounded like dinner to me. I didn't make traditional SMOTHERED PORK CHOPS which calls for a light coating of flour on the meat. I simply seared the seasoned meat over onion, bell pepper and fresh garlic. From there, I removed everything from the pan and constructed a simple gravy utilizing a roux. After place the meat and onions, etc back into the newly-forming gravy, I covered the pan and cooked on low heat for an hour. The results were delicious.

Turkey Enchiladas

It's pretty much a universal notion, that when the breast meat is gone from a turkey, the other (dark) meat is reserved for TURKEY STEW, TURKEY GUMBO, TURKEY SALAD, etc. I tend to make TURKEY HASH myself (just like daddy used to make); this dish consists of turkey meat, smothered potatoes and peas served with cornbread. However, this year I was inspired by a Facebook friend/former coworker to prepare TURKEY ENCHILADAS served with my famous SPANISH RICE and SPANISH CORN WITH BLACK BEANS. On the day of prepartion, I had about 2 cups of turkey meat left, half an onion, half a bell pepper and a few sliced mushrooms. I paired those sauteed items  with shredded cheese rolled in corn tortillas topped with a sour cream sauce and it was ¡Muy delicioso! It fed my  family of six for 2 nights.

Pizzas

After nearly four days of eating Thanksgiving leftovers, my 9 year old was begging for something different..PIZZA!!! Usually I prepare my pizza using store-bought refrigerated pizza dough; however, I'm transitioning to where almost everything my family consumes is fresh and homemade. With that being said, it was overdue time for me to make my own pizza dough from scratch. I have tasted homemade pizza dough in the past and realized that it's usually BLAND as all get out; so, I tried my best to avoid that. It was a very simple recipe that I added garlic and onion powders to the batter in order to kick up the flavor. Typically, I would omit the pizza sauce when making my pizzas because I tended to make huge "pizza pockets" or calzones instead of the traditional open-face version;but, I was making a traditional pizza and I needed marinara sauce.  The sauce wasn't very involved, just crushed tomatoes and spices simmering for an hour. I had a huge steamer plate attachment for a extremely large stockpot I possess  (the thing is so big that baby Maelena sits in it and plays); so, I used the plate (it had holes for steaming) covered in foil as my pizza pie plate (it made a large 12" pizza). The pizza turned out very yummy the first night; but, the crust was still slightly bland. The next night, I put more of the garlic and onion plus a few additional spices in the dough mixture; but, once I rolled the dough out on the plate I sprinkled garlic, onion and a pinch of salt on the dough before adding the toppings. The result this time around was truly amazing. The crust was perfectly flavored but not over-powering to the sauce, cheese and toppings. This pizza is definitely making the cookbook...so eat your heart out big pizza chain because I'm coming for you!!