Salsa!!!

I love chips and salsa, but I’ve never been able to find a store bought salsa that I like. I’ve tried nearly every brand out there, and none of them taste authentic. Finally I just gave up and treated myself to salsa and chips when I went to a Mexican restaurant. By the way, I care very little for authentic Mexican food, but I do love chips with salsa and cheese dip. I usually make that my meal on the rare occasion I go to a Mexican restaurant. So I hit the internet on a quest to find a salsa recipe that I like. I finally found one that I LOVE, although it needed some tweaking for my taste. You have to do that with recipes like salsa. Some like it hot, some like it mild. I like it medium myself, so this is how I make it.

First and foremost, I should tell you that you are going to need a good food processor. I love my nice, big KitchenAid that my bff gave me for my birthday.

Ingredients:

* 1 - 28 ounce can whole tomatoes with juice
* 2 - 10 ounce cans Rotel (diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies)
* ¼ cup chopped onion
* 1 clove garlic, minced
* 1 whole Jalapeno (a half if you‘re like me), quartered and thinly sliced
* ¼ teaspoon sugar
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* ¼ teaspoon ground Cumin (I omit this, cause I don’t care for Cumin)
* ½ cup Cilantro (or more, depending on your taste)
* ½ of a Lime (this is also one of those things that depends on your taste)

Preparation:

Combine whole tomatoes, Rotel, onion, jalapeno, garlic, sugar, salt, cumin, lime juice, and cilantro in a blender or food processor. Pulse until you get the salsa to the consistency you’d like — I do about 8 pulses. Taste and adjust to your preference. It’s a good idea to make this several hours ahead of time, or even a day before you’re going to serve it. Trust me, it’s even better.

Note: be sure you get WHOLE tomatoes or you’ll have soup after you put them through the processor. I learned this the hard way. Also, you’ll want to use the “large” bowl. I learned that the hard way, too.

Oh, one more very important thing! Use disposable food gloves when you are slicing the Jalapeno peppers! (Yes, that’s another thing I learned the hard way) I scoop out the seeds as well, because I’m kinda wimpy and have stomach ulcers, so I can’t take the heat.
I have another Jalapeno Pepper hint for you: If you didn’t read all of my instructions before you sliced and deseeded the pepper, your hands are probably on fire! Don’t touch your face!!! If you’re a man, don’t pee! (lol, I just thought of that!) The only thing that stopped my hands from burning like H-E-double-hockey-sticks was Dawn dish washing liquid. The original (blue) kind. You’ll have to lather, rinse, repeat until the burning stops. Dawn cuts the grease! The pepper seeds and membranes are apparently oily. =/

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this stuff, it’s the best salsa I’ve ever made.

Fig Cake

My parents have a huge fig tree in the back yard and this time it's loaded with gigantic figs. As a kid, I loved eating them raw, fresh off the tree. Now, not so much. So I have been trying to find recipes for them. Here's one that I modified and made my own. My next experiment will be using fig preserves in the place of fresh figs.

Fig Cake

This is sort of like a coffee cake or quick bread.
You'll need the following ingredients:

2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (too much nutmeg for me. Next time, 1/2 teaspoon)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup butter flavored crisco, melted
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped figs
1 cup toasted chopped pecans (optional)


Stir together the dry ingredients; stir in egg, oils, and buttermilk. Stir in vanilla. Fold in figs and pecans. Pour into a greased and floured 13- x 9-inch pan.

Bake at 325° for 35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. I sifted a little bit of confectioners sugar over the top of it.

This is a re-post from a few years back. I am trying to collect and copy all of my recipe posts from the past in this blog. (wish me luck with that) ;)

My Mama's Chicken And Dumplings

(click on the photo to enlarge. Photos above taken last year when mama was making her famous chicken and dumpling recipe for Stephen and my brother, Randy - their favorite dish!)

Homemade Chicken Broth
* A large stockpot
* Bone-in chicken (this is healthier because of the bone marrow, and I'm sorry if that statement grosses you out.)
* Two or three stalks of celery (With the leaves; they're full of flavor)
* A whole onion, quartered
* Sometimes I add some carrots
* Add enough water to the stockpot to cover everything.

Cook the chicken and vegetables for a couple of hours or so (if you're adding carrots, wait until the last 30 minutes to add them) and let the broth cool enough for you to touch the chicken without burning yourself. Remove the chicken from the broth and set aside.
While the Chicken is cooling, make your dough. You can either roll it out on a floured surface and cut into strips or you can make drop biscuits. Depends on your preference. For me, it depends on how much time I have.

The Dumpling Dough
This is the really hard part for me. My mama always added egg to her dough, and I just had to omit that because the fact that mine was always too chewy was driving me insane. If anyone knows how to add the egg and allow the dough to be tender at the same time, please let me know! So here goes:
* 2 cups of flour (Mama always used White Lily self rising)
* 1/4 stick of Crisco Shortening (I use butter)
* 1/2 cup of milk, buttermilk, chicken broth, or even water

Put the flour in a large bowl, make a well in the center and cut in the shortening or butter until the mixture is blended into the size of little peas (sort of like when you're making homemade biscuits) you can do this with a pastry blender, a fork or do like I do; roll up your sleeves and do it with your *clean* hands. Make a well in the center of this again and slowly add your 1/2 cup of liquid, pulling the flour down from the sides of the bowl a little at a time. Knead a few times times, making sure you do not over-knead it! Form a dough ball and toss it onto a floured surface to roll out like my mama did in the photo up there, using her "Pampered Chef" dough roller. If you like biscuit-like dumplings, just spoon them into the broth. I prefer my mama's technique of rolling them out about 1/8 inch thick.

At this point, return the broth to a slow boil, slice the dough into strips and pinch a little at a time off of the strips into the broth (work kind of fast). Reduce heat to low. ALL recipes tell you to cover for 15 minutes. Usually when I do this the dumplings cook away, so I like to keep the lid off and guard them! Do not stir, you'll end up with a thick soup. In stead of stirring, shake the stock pot a little to move them around. Don't forget to add the chicken meat before you serve it! ;)

The End!

I really wish I could have figured out a simpler way of writing this recipe, but that's just not possible for me. I don't know about the rest of you, but making dumplings is not easy for me, my mama always told me I just needed more practice. I hope she was right. To this day I haven't succeeded with adding an egg to the dough. I can't help but wonder if just for giggles, my mama took her dumpling secret to Heaven with her?

Ice Cream Cheesecake

Confession: I haven't made this one yet, but I'm planning on making it this weekend. Photos of the pie and reviews coming soon.

Ice Cream Cheesecake

Crust:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
½ teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons margarine, melted

Filling:
2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese
1 quart Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream
1 (12 oz.) jar red raspberry preserves
1 cup whipped cream topping (or ½ cup whipping cream, whipped)
9” butter spring from pan


Combine graham cracker crumbs, cinnamon, sugar and margarine and press over bottom and sides of 9” buttered spring form pan. Chill.

Prepare filling by softening and whipping cream cheese. Be sure to use chilled bowl and beaters and beat ice cream, adding cream cheese. Spoon ¼ of cheese mixture over crust.

Drizzle 1/3 preserves over mixture. Preserves will sink to bottom. Repeat with ice cream layer and preserves. Save last third of preservers for later. Freeze mixture with crust.

Before serving, add whipped cream topping (or whipped whipping cream) and remaining preserves on top.

Sorry friends! We've been SO busy ...

A message to everyone who has been keeping up with A Taste Of Gratitude blog: First of all, thanks for your interest -- that means a lot to me! I apologize for not updating in a long time. So much is going on “offline” these days, I haven’t been able to find the time to update. I do have a few new recipes, stories and photos that I am keeping on file and will be updating ASAP! … When I find the time

Time To Make The Donuts

Last year for Christmas, my mama gave us Paula Deen's, "My First Cookbook" and we finally tried one of the recipes this morning. Whod'a thought canned biscuits could be so good? Checking the pantry, we only had the ingredients for powdered donuts, but Stephen didn't mind. We used an apple corer for Stephen to cut the holes out with, which was perfect because he can grasp it easier. After they were all finished, we each had a donut and split all the donut holes (we each had five). Needless to say, for about an hour we were on an amazing sugar high. I managed to get some laundry done while he chased the cat around the house, but now we've come down from it and are just a couple of lethargic couch potatoes watching the Tom and Jerry hour on the cartoon network. I would advise you to limit yourself to ONE donut if you can, because they are very sweet.

Paula Deen's Canned Biscuit Dough Donuts and Holes
(you'll need the help of an adult for frying the donuts!) ;p

Ingredients:
* Peanut oil, for frying
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/4 cup cocoa powder
* 5 tablespoon milk, divided
* 2 cup confectioners’ sugar, divided
* Chocolate sprinkles
* Colored sprinkles
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 2 cans large buttermilk biscuits

Directions:
Heat 2-inches peanut oil in a large pot or dutch oven to 350 degrees F.

In a shallow bowl, stir together the sugar and ground cinnamon, set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar, 2 tablespoons of milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, set aside. This is the vanilla icing. In another bowl, whisk together 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar, 1/4 cup of cocoa powder and 3 tablespoons of milk, set aside. This is the chocolate icing.

Lay out the biscuits on a cutting board and with a 1-1/2-inch round cookie or biscuit cutter, cut out a hole from the middle of each biscuit. Fry them in the oil until golden and then flip with tongs to fry the other side. You can even fry the donut holes. Drain on paper towels and then toss in the cinnamon-sugar or glaze and sprinkle as desired.

Recipe by Paula Deen
Servings: 16-20 servings
Prep Time: 30 min
Cook Time: 2 min
Difficulty: Easy

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