Grated Beets: A Pretty Side Dish for the Holidays

photo by FotoDawg on flickr

Start with some big beautiful beats.



Scrub the beats, drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and roast until nice and tender.



Once the beets have cooled, slip the skin off and grate them.



Add these magical ingredients to the shredded beets. I usually include more sour cream and vinegar than the recipe calls for. I just keep adding and tasting until it's perfect for my taste buds.




Grated Beets

Ingredients:
2 lbs medium beats, trimmed and scrubbed
1 T. olive oil
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
2 T. cider vinegar
1 T. sugar
1/4 c. sour cream 

Directions: Preheat oven to 375 deg. Drizzle beats with oil, season with salt and paper & wrap tightly in aluminum foil. Bake for about 1 hour until fork tender. Remove from oven: let cool. Peel, and grate on the large holes of a box grater into a large bowl. Drizzle with vinegar: sprinkle with sugar. Toss to combine. Fold in sour cream: serve.

Mint Brownies

I'm pretty sure one pan of these babies caused me to gain five pounds last Christmas. Nonetheless, I made them again this year and I think you should too.



Start with unsweetened chocolate baking squares.




Add the shortening



and melt them together.



Add sugar, eggs and vanilla.



No need to use a mixer for this recipe, just stir with a spoon.

 

Stir in the dry ingredients.



The brownie base in this recipe is not very sweet. It's a nice contrast to the next layer which is an intense hit of sugary frosting.



Blend butter, cream and powdered sugar.



Add peppermint extract and a few drops of green food coloring for that festive touch.



Spread frosting over the cooled brownies and put the brownies in the refrigerator until the frosting hardens.



Now for the the third layer, the chocolate glaze: melt semi-sweet chocolate and butter and spread on top of the frosting.



A plateful of these beauties looks great for a holiday party or gathering. I like them best when they're nice and cool from being stored in the refrigerator.


Mint Brownies

Ingredients: Brownies:
4 squares unsweetened chocolate
2/3 c. shortening
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. brown sugar
1 1/4 c. flour
3 eggs
1 tsp. baking powder
dash salt

Peppermint Frosting:
2 c. powdered sugar
2 T. cream
1/2 c. soft butter
3/4 tsp. peppermint extract
green food coloring

Glaze:
3 squares semi-sweet chocolate
3 T. butter

Directions: Brownies: Melt chocolate and shortening. Add sugar, eggs and vanilla. Blend well. Add dry ingredients. Bake in 9X13 pan at 350* for 25 min.

Frosting: Blend all ingredients well. Place on cooled bars. Refrigerate to harden slightly.

Glaze: Melt together and spread over cold frosting.

A Very Nice Potato Salad

You might think of potato salad as being a summer time picnic treat. But here in Brevig, potato salad is on the menu for most special occasions. Potatoes and onions are also a common item at the store making this recipe doable for those of us with limited produce options.



In October we celebrate my son's fourth "Gotchya Day" so I decided to make my mom's recipe for potato salad for his special dinner.



I start with this stuff. I have to say I'm a fan of the tangy zip of Miracle Whip versus mayonnaise.



I don't really follow the recipe when it comes to adding the mustard. I just keep adding it until I'm satisfied with the color it gives to the dressing.



Chop up these beautiful ingredients.




And gently mix.



Now for the star of the show.



Peel, boil, chop. A good job to hand over to the husband. Also a good "do ahead" task so the potatoes aren't hot when you add them to the salad. This way you can have a little bowl immediately. Bonus.



Pour the dressing over the chopped vegetables and eggs. A good job to hand over to a child that has been begging to do something to help.

I suggest not adding all of the dressing at once. I don't like my potato salad too drippy and gooey so I add it a little at a time until it's just the right consistency.



It tastes best if it sits for a few hours or over night before serving.

There you go, I hope you will be open to trying new things and consider eating potato salad year-round.

My Mom's Potato Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

Dressing:
1.5 qts Miracle Whip
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 T. white sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 T. mustard (or more)
1/2 c. milk
10 lbs potatoes
one dozen hard boiled eggs
4 stalks celery
1 medium onion
1/3 c. green pepper 


Directions: Cook potatoes, cool. Mix dressing ingredients. Cube potatoes. Chop eggs, celery, onion & pepper. Mix with dressing. You may not wish to add all of the dressing mixture depending on your taste preference. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Salmon Quiche

Though the time of fresh salmon is long over for the year, we have plenty in the freezer to eat up this winter. And so, the salmon recipes continue.

This is one of my favorite ways to use up any left over salmon or canned salmon I may have on hand.



Start by cooking the onions in butter until they are soft.



Add garlic, salt, pepper and parsley to the onions.



Isn't it just so pretty?



Add canned or left over salmon to the mix.



I used my handy Mix n Chop tool from Pampered Chef to break up the meat.



You will need milk, evaporated milk and four eggs.



Beat the eggs and milk together.



Add a pile of cheese and the onion mixture to the eggs and milk.



Pour into a prepared pie crust and bake.



It takes much longer to cook than the recipe says. You know it is done when the crust is golden brown and the egg mixture is cooked in the middle.

Serve with Tabasco, it adds just the right amount of kick.

This recipe was found in the Cooking Alaskan cookbook but can also be found here.

~AnnMarie

Pumpkin Smoothie

Have you noticed I'm crazy about all things pumpkin? So as not to overwhelm those of you who are not quite as obsessed with pumpkin as me, I promise this will be my last pumpkin filled recipe of the season.

I recently found this recipe for Pumpkin Smoothies off of Pioneer Woman's blog. It looked so easy I just had to try it immediately. Both my boys loved it as well. I'm thinking this will become one of our favorite ways to use pumpkin.

I don't usually buy pumpkin pie filling so I made some modifications to the recipe so that I can use my frozen pumpkin puree.



I'll reuse this pumpkin puree photo from the pumpkin pie post.  When you've seen one bag of mushy pumpkin, you've seen them all.



Our two cup bags of pumpkin are frozen already so for this recipe I let it thaw just enough so my handy "Mix N Chop" from pampered chef is able to break it up.



You'll need some yogurt, I used one jar of homemade yogurt.



Add milk to the pumpkin and yogurt. I used 1/2 milk 1/2 evaporated milk in lieu of the whole milk called for in The Pioneer Woman's recipe. Until we have another baby, no whole milk is to be found at our house.



You'll need some vanilla, I'm a fan of the high quality stuff. Life is too short to use mediocre vanilla I say.



I included white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla and cinnamon to the mixture and blended thoroughly.



Pretty huh? I found it goes down pretty easy.



Sprinkle some crushed graham crackers on top for a jazzy effect and you're all set.


My Modified Pumpkin Smoothie Recipe

2 cups of frozen pureed pumpkin (partially thawed)
1 c. evaporated milk
1 c. milk
1/2 c. yogurt (or more)
1/4 c. white sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
crushed graham crackers

~AnnMarie

Mom's Pumpkin Pie

I'm crazy about pumpkin pie. I once ate an entire pie in one sitting at my grandma's house. She spoiled us as children and would let us get by with that sort of thing. Three cheers for grandmas I say!



This one's another recipe from my mother. I have never had another pumpkin pie that even came close to being this good.



Here's more of our cooked pumpkin frozen in two cup bags. We have this season's pumpkins waiting for their turn to be cooked and stocked up the freezer. In the mean time, I have a few more bags from last year that need to be used up. I have been making all my favorite pumpkin recipes and even found a new recipe that is so quick, so easy and so delicious, that it just may cause us to use up our supply in double time. I'll be sharing very soon.



If the holidays came in a spice jar, it would contain all of the above.



White sugar, brown sugar and the spices.



Add evaporated milk and milk and eggs. My friend Charity found a recipe for pumpkin pie that did not have any evaporated milk. She said it was actually quite tasty. So, should you find yourself out of this ingredient one cold dark arctic night as you are craving a piece (or an entire) pumpkin pie, you now have a back up plan.

I use an immersion blender to mix the filling up. Mine is Kitchen Aide brand and I love it. I bought a cheaper version for our cabin in Minnesota and it's just not as sturdy. I'm a fan of blending directly in the bowl rather than transferring back and forth to a blender.



Pour into a prepared pie crust (use half butter and half shortening in this crust recipe).

Bake until a knife comes out fairly clean from the center. I cover the edges in tin foil to avoid burning. I have to bake it much, much longer than the recipe calls for for some reason so covering the edge is what saves this pie from being ruined by a blackened crust.



Good for dessert or breakfast in my opinion.


Mom's Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:
2 c. cooked pumpkin
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. white sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. evaporated milk

Directions: Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Mix all ingredients in a blender. Poor into prepared pie shell. Bake for 15 min. Lower temperature to 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Butter knife should come out (more or less) clean.

*The above cooking directions work for my mom, but for some reason my pie needs to cook for way more time. I cover the edge of the crust in tin foil to avoid burning the edges and bake at 450 degrees for 25 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for about an hour.

~AnnMarie