How to make Salt Dough Ornaments

Posted on December 2, 2014 by lazygirldinners

Salt Dough Ornaments

My daughter and I are doing a hand print ornament today, so rather than give you guys the recipe I was going to post, I’m re-blogging this. I love how her ornament turned out last year, so we are making another one this year. The difference in her hand size from last year to this year is big. I can’t wait to look back on these, and remember once she’s older. It makes my heart leap just thinking of it. I’ll post a picture at the bottom of her hand print ornament from last year. She picked the color of the glitter–it’s very Michael Jackson-like. Enjoy!

I have a confession, I have a borderline ornament addiction. Okay it’s an all out addiction! I love ornaments! The holiday season and purchasing our tree and decorating it is a big deal in our house. Even before I had my…

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Thanksgiving Recipe Roundup-All the Thanksgiving Recipes you need in one post!

Posted on November 18, 2014 by lazygirldinners

Thanksgiving is just a week away. I’ve been preparing my household and making lists for the big day. What would this blog be without a post with my most useful recipes to get you ready for the big day. The below is a list of must haves for almost any Thanksgiving meal.

Chicken stock

No Thanksgiving meal is complete without a good chicken stock on hand. Nothing beats a homemade stock, especially if you plan on making homemade gravy to go along with your Thanksgiving meal. Using home made stock to make your gravy could mean the difference between good gravy, and fantastic not a drop left in the gravy bowl, gravy! One of my favorite chicken stocks to make is the one from Modernist Cuisine. It requires the use of one pound of ground chicken and one pound of chicken wings, so it’s a bit more expensive to make, because the soul purpose of the meat used int he recipe is to extract flavor, so you can’t eat it, but it’s totally worth it! You will not find a better chicken stock. If you prefer not to splurge on the modernist version of chicken stock, try this one–I’ve made both and they both out perform the store bought stuff.

Poultry Seasoning

What’s better than a do-it-yourself seasoning for your bird? Not much short of finding every single ingredient already in your cupboard–then nothing is better! This poultry seasoning tastes identical to the store bought stuff, only it has no fillers.

Potatoes

What’s a Thanksgiving meal without potatoes? In my family potatoes are as synonomous to Thanksgiving dinner, as turkey is to Thanksgiving. They are a must have! In the mean time, this recipe for smashed potatoes is one of my favorite ways to eat potatoes and is the perfect addition to any Thanksgiving meal. My cauliflower mash is also fantastic! I’ve had it with and without potatoes and either way the mash is devine!

Smashed Potaoes

Roasted Garlic Cauliflower Mash

Roasted Garlic

Let’s face it, roasted garlic makes everything better–especially a Thanksgiving meal–so here’s how to roast garlic

How to Roast Garlic

Creamed Corn

What is it about corn that screams Thanksgiving? I don’t know but my no cream creamed corn recipe is definitely a brillant addition to any Thanksgiving meal

Dessert

Finally while I don’t profess to be a dessert wizard, I do have a great recipe for diy condensed milk. My grandmother would always have a couple of cans of condensed milk out for her baking, and I’m quite sure that she would approve of my do it yourself version. It can be made with dairy and nondairy milks.

One of my favorite desserts is Chocolate Pots de Creme my recipe for them is AMAZING!! If you manage to save any of these for more than 3 members of your family to enjoy, then you’re doing much better than me!

So tell me are you ready for the big day? What are you making?

How to roast chicken-Steps to making the perfect roast chicken everytime!

Posted on November 17, 2014 by lazygirldinners

Lazy Girl Dinners

Lemon and Garlic Roast Chicken

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Roasted chicken is universal. Almost every culture has some version of roasted chicken in their culinary history. However, as universal as roast chicken is, many still have a hard time making it. Just yesterday someone I follow posted a before and after picture of a roast chicken on Instagram. The bird was pasty before it went in the oven, and the bird was still pasty after it came out of the oven. I felt bad for this Instagramer because I’ve been there. The truth is that roasting a bird perfectly begins with steps that are made long before the bird goes in the oven. If you master these steps, I guarantee you that your roast chickens will come out of the oven, perfectly marinated, juicy and with a skin that is crackling and golden brown.

Step 1. Pick the right chicken! Organic, non…

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D.I.Y. Poultry Seasoning

Posted on November 11, 2014 by lazygirldinners

Poultry Seasoning–D.I.Y. Poultry Seasoning

So we are just a few weeks away from Thanksgiving. I don’t know about you, but I have been thinking about and planning what I am going to make since September. We are visiting family out of town, so I doubt that I’ll blog anything once we leave. I always try, but the kitchen gets pretty busy as we cook our Thanksgiving meal, and since this is the one time a year that we see my husbands family, I prefer to be focused on them. My daughter’s birthday is also on Thanksgiving so, we try to make it a special day for her. Poultry seasoning is one of those things that most people pull out just once or twice a year to season their turkey and stuffing/dressing. I used it a few weeks ago for Chicken in Milk Most people buy it only once a year for just that purpose. My mom is one of those people. I remember shopping for Thanksgiving dinner with her when I was little, she always made her way down the dry seasoning aisle to pick up poultry seasoning. If by some chance we got home and she had she forgotten it, she would stop what she was doing in the kitchen, and drive to the store to get it. Besides sage–which I’m blogging about tomorrow–it’s one of the must have’s for most thanksgiving meals. I LOVE making my own dry seasonings so of course I had to give this a try. I must say that this poultry seasoning is spot on to the one my mom loves to use. If you find yourself in a bind on Thanksgiving and desperately need poultry seasoning, pull out these spices and make your own poultry seasoning. If you have these spices but they’re fresh, even better, just chop them up and give your turkey a good rub down with them and some butter.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

1 tablespoon of ground sage

2 teaspoons of dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon of dried rosemary

1 teaspoon of dried marjoram

1/4 teaspoon of black pepper

Directions: Place all of the spices into a spice grinder and grind into a powder. Store in an airtight container until ready to use.

When do you start planning your Thanksgiving meal? Do you make the same thing every year?

Coconut Flour–How to Make Coconut Flour

Posted on November 5, 2014 by lazygirldinners

Coconut Flour- How to Make Coconut Flour

I love the taste and smell of coconut flour, but anyone who has ever cooked or baked with coconut flour knows that it can be a real pita to work with. Mainly because coconut flour is super absorbent. It soaks up every ounce of moisture that you put into it. It’s so absorbent that when I cook with it, I add it to mixtures one tablespoon at a time, and I wait in between tablespoons to see if I need to add more moisture back in. I don’t know of any other alternative flour that requires that much attention. But I’m not really a baker. The issue is not necessarily the coconut flour, it’s the processing of coconut flour, which makes it so absorbent. During processing, the coconut looses much of its fat and oil. Making coconut flour in this way retains most of the oil, which makes it easier to bake and cook with. If you make coconut flour this way, you will not have to add extra moisture, the moisture will already be there in the form of coconut oil. which makes it less drying.

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Ingredients:

The meat from 2 large coconuts (about 1cup)

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 150F. Spread the coconut meat evenly out on bake sheet or a dehydrator sheet.

Place the sheet in the oven and allow to dehydrate for 6 hours or until the coconut is dry and crisp. Transfer dehydrated coconut flakes to a spice grinder or blender and blend until it reaches the consistency that you like.

Transfer the flour to an airtight container until ready to use.

Rice Puffs–How to Make Rice Puff Snacks

Posted on November 4, 2014 by lazygirldinners

Rice Puffs

Today I’m giving you a recipe for ultra crispy, and delicious homemade rice puffs. I’m not a huge fan of rice, but my daughter and my husband are. They are especially fond of Basmati rice. I love the way that Basmati rice smells. It has it’s own unique aroma, no other rice smells as good cooking as Basmati does. I buy Basmati in area close by called Little India. I go there every so often to stock up on Indian spices as well. The only problem with that is that I always leave with a 20 pound bag of GMO free Basmati rice! It’s enough rice to feed my family for a year—we don’t eat rice that often. I almost always end of giving most of it away, it’s just too much, but they don’t sell it in smaller quantities. I have had this recipe for rice puffs in my que for a long while now, just haven’t had the rice to make it. I got the idea from a recipe in Modernist Cuisine, but found a simpler more home cook friendly version of it on Chef Steps. I’ve added my own spin on it with the addition of the lime salt, but if you haven’t gotten around to making my Lime powder, then plain sea salt will do, and these will still be amazing! You don’t have to use Basmati to make these, you can use any rice. Still don’t have a dehydrator? Buy one it will be the best $40 bucks you’ve spent in a long while. The alternative is to put the rice puree in the oven set to the lowest setting 150F leave the oven door just a bit ajar, and check it before it reaches the 2 hour mark. Check at 1.5 hour mark, you don’t want this to crisp up and burn.

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Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time: 10 minutes

Drying time: 2 hrs

Ingredients:

3/4 cup of rice

3 and 1/4 cups of water

1/2 cup 0f safflower oil

3 teaspoons of lime powder

1 teaspoon of sea salt (powdered–just add sea salt to a spice mill and blend until powdered)

Directions: Add the lime powder sea salt to a bowl mix well and set aside. Add rice and water to a pot, cook until rice is tender and falling apart–there will still be water in the pot.

Transfer the cooked rice along with any left over water to a blender and blend until smooth.

Pour the rice puree out onto silpat’s smooth out into thin layers.

Place in the dehydrator on 122F and allow to dehydrate for 2 hours. The dehydrated rice puree should be pliable but also have a snap to it.

Note: If you dehydrate for too long, the rice puffs will not puff, if you dehydrate for too short a period, they will not puff either. When you place your rice puffs in the hot oil they should sink to the bottom of the pot and then immediately rise and puff.

Once your puree has been dehydrated, heat the oil to 374F, while the oil is heating break the rice sheet into bite size pieces. When the oil reaches temperature, drop the rice sheet pieces into the oil, they should drop to the bottom and rise and puff up immediately, fry for 2-3 seconds then remove from oil and season with lime salt immediately,

let the rice puff’s cool, then enjoy!

Citrus Powder–How to make Citrus Powder

Posted on October 29, 2014 by lazygirldinners

Lemon and Lime Citrus Powder

Several month’s ago I read an article in Bon Appetite Magazine about how the chef at State Bird Provisions was using sour salts to brighten up dishes, and make use of an ingredients that would otherwise not get used. His approach was simple, dehydrate something as simple as a preserved lemon, grind it into a powder, and boom you’ve created a flavorful salt without even trying. After reading that article, I knew that I wanted to try making a preserved lemon salt. I put it on my list of things to blog about, but never got around to it–it has been almost a year since I read that article! I had almost forgotten about wanting to do a preserved lemon salt until last week, my husband and I went out to eat. I ordered a Caesar salad, and when they brought it out, it looked completely under dressed, almost like they had forgotten to put the salad dressing on it. I took a bite thinking it was going to be a bland salad, but instead got this bright burst of flavor. The chef had dusted the salad with lemon zest. The salad was fantastic! Even better than my Caesar Salad. I knew then that I had to try this at home. It wasn’t until I read a review for the soon to be released cookbook Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipes that I got the idea about exactly how I could do it, but even better. Lemon zest is great but it’s not exactly shelf stable. If you’re going to use it, you definitely have to use it right away. But if you take the peels of a lemon, lime, or even an orange, dry them in the dehydrator, and then blend them into a powder, what you get is something extremely flavorful, and shelf stable. You also have a way to use leftover peels! I don’t know about you, but I hate to waste, so anything that allows me to preserve, rather than waste, I love. So you’re probably wondering, besides a salad, what you use these powders on. The answer is almost anything! You can sprinkle the lemon, or lime powder on chicken, fish, pork or steak to give it a fresh and vibrant twist. You can add these citrus powders to baked goods, rim your tequila glasses with them, add them with some other dry spices to make a citrus rub, (stay tuned for that post), make citrus salts, the list goes on and on. If you make enough of these powders, you can even give them as gifts for Christmas. I for one am doing a lemon pepper for my friends. Bar Tartine: Techniques and Recipes hasn’t been release yet, but I’ve already pre-ordered a copy through Amazon. It’s full of recipes for dehydrating and powdering everything from herbs, to yogurt. Yes you can even dehydrate yogurt! I suppose it’s not such a leap to know that you can dry yogurt, especially given the fact that powdered milk and cheese are products that you can buy in most grocery stores. However, the thought of being able to use my dehydrator to make my own powdered yogurt and herbs excites me!

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Prep time: 10 minutes

Drying time: 1.5 hours-2 hours

Ingredients:

The peels from 2 lbs of organic citrus –I used lemon, lime

Directions: Pre-heat oven to 150F if using an oven. If using a dehydrator set it to 135F. Using a vegetable peeler peel the skin off of the citrus.

Add the citrus to a pot, add enough cold water to cover all of the citrus and bring to a boil—let boil for 1 minute. Drain peels into a sieve and rinse under cold water. Return back to the pot and repeat: boil ,drain, and rinse twice more.

Spread the peels out evenly onto your dehydrator sheets. If using a stove, spread the peels over a wire rack set inside of a bake sheet.

Bake or dehydrate until peels are hard and brittle, it took about 1.5 hours in my dehydrator. Once peels are hard and crisp, transfer to a spice mill

Grind until powdery, transfer the powder to an air tight container.

OMG! The smell of these powders while you are grinding –AMAZING!!!! If you like this recipe you will love my recipe for DIY Ground Ginger–How to make Powdered Ginger

D.I.Y. Ground Ginger-How to Make Powdered Ginger

Posted on October 28, 2014 by lazygirldinners

How to make Powdered Ginger

If you’ve been on the fence about whether or not to purchase a dehydrator, my blogs this week may just get you off of the fence. This week you may find yourself ordering a dehydrator, or at the least adding one to your Christmas wish list. My dehydrator has been in constant use, and I can’t wait to share what I’ve been doing. So let’s get started! I’ve purchased fresh ginger so many times, and only used a fraction of it, the rest goes bad and then in the trash–a total waste! I was reading about drying in one of the books in my Modernist Cuisine set, and then I read a blurb in “Bon Appetite Magazine”about powdering herbs and boom–light bulb–I thought to myself, why not powder your own ginger? So I did. You’re probably asking yourself, “do I really need a dehydrator to do this?” The answer is no! You can do this in the oven set to 150F but you have to stay home to watch it! If you had a dehydrator you could set it and forget it–well not completely, but you wouldn’t have to worry about it burning.

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Prep time:5 minutes

drying time: 1.5-2 hours

Ingredients:

1 large bulb of fresh ginger

tools: spice grinder

Directions: remove the skin from the ginger, then slice the ginger thinly.

Place the sliced ginger pieces on a piece of parchment paper, or on the sheets of your dehydrator and place in the dehydrator or oven, then set the temperature to 135 on the dehydrator, or 150F in the oven.

Allow the ginger to dry until it become crisp. Transfer to the spice/coffee grinder

and blend until nice and powdery.

Store in an airtight container, it will be good for 8-12wks. Use this in any recipe that calls for ginger. Add this to your favorite gingersnap recipe, and you will have some of the best gingersnaps that you’ve ever eaten!

Chicken in Milk

Posted on October 22, 2014 by lazygirldinners

Chicken in milk

A few weeks a go I came across a recipe for Chicken and Milk by Jaime Oliver. The recipe used one of my favorite ingredients–a whole chicken. It seemed simple (code:Lazy) enough for me to try. It didn’t require much more than adding the ingredients to a pot and letting it braise for an hour or so. It also featured another one of my favorite ingredients-lemon with the addition of the milk– my taste buds were anticipating chicken stewed in a creamy lemon sauce. The sauce was not as creamy as I had anticipated and hoped for, but it was still a great sauce none the less. While Jaime Oliver’s recipe looked amazing, I did add a few of my own touches to the recipe. I have been reading about the use of lemon leaves, (from a lemon tree), in cooking. The leaves are usually used in the same way that bay leaves are used. You use them to impart flavor, but you never eat them. If you have a lemon tree, pick two of the most beautiful leaves that you can find, wash them, and add them to this dish. Also be grateful that the next time you trim your lemon tree, you will have an alternative way to use the leaves–you can dry them just like bay leaves! If you don’t have a lemon tree call a friend or neighbor who does and ask for a few! Just make sure to ask if they use any pesticides on their tree. If that attempt fails, just cook this without the lemon leaves. I also added poultry seasoning, I didn’t have any fresh sage, which Jaimie’s recipe calls for. The poultry seasoning has sage, so I used it.

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Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 1.5 hours mostly non active

Ingredients:

5 pound Whole Organic Chicken

10 cloves of garlic (whole no need to remove the skin)

Zest of two lemons (1 Tablespoon of lemon zest)

2 Leaves from a Lemon Tree

3-4 Tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon of poultry seasoning

1/2 stick of cinnamon

Sea Salt and Black Pepper to taste

Directions: Pre-heat the oven to 375F Rub the chicken generously with the olive oil, and season with a good amount of sea salt and black pepper.

Then Brown both sides of the chicken over medium high heat. Once brown add in the Lemon zest, garlic, poultry seasoning, cinnamon, and milk.

Cover the pot with a secure lid, then transfer the pot to the oven and cook for 1.5 hours Remove from oven. serve and enjoy!

Lazy Girl Stove-top Lasagna

Posted on October 21, 2014 by lazygirldinners

Lazy Girl Stove Top Lasagna

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind, I have been burning both ends of the candle wick for some time now, and it finally caught up with me. But even when mom is sick, our kiddies still need to eat! I normally use all of these ingredients to make my lasagna, but I make the meat sauce on the stove, then transfer the sauce to a bake pan and layer it over the noodles, top with cheese and finish this in the oven. However, because I was sick, I thought why not just try this on the stove top. Surprisingly it worked! This lasagna is the ultimate in lazy cooking, but it yielded the best lasagna that I’ve ever made, and the easiest!

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Prep time: 2 minutes

Cook time: 25-30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 lb of grass fed ground beef

1 small brown onion (chopped)

3 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1 teaspoon of dried basil

15 ounces of organic tomato sauce

1 cup of organic mozzarella cheese

5 tablespoons of organic whole fat cottage cheese

2 lasagna noodles I used brown rice lasagna noodles

1 tablespoon of olive oil

sea salt to taste

Directions: Heat olive oil in a saute pan, add in onion and garlic and cook until onion turns translucent.

Add in ground meat, season generously with sea salt and cook until brown. Drain any excess fat.

Add basil, cottage cheese and half of the tomato sauce,. stir until all ingredients are combined,

Top with the lasagna noodles–I broke them and spread them out over the the entire pan–

Top with the remaining sauce, making sure that all the noodles are completely covered and submerged in the sauce. Cook on medium low heat until the noodles are cooked through.

Once noodle are done, top with cheese, cover and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes, and the cheese has melted.

Serve and enjoy!