Sugar Free Sugar Cookies

Dough
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup Splenda Granular
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/4 cup water
3/4 teaspoon vinegar (white or cider)
3 Cups Flower
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Garnish
1/3 cup no sugar raspberry jam
3 oz sugar-free chocolate, melted

Blend together butter, Splenda, and vanilla in a medium sized mixing bowl. Blend until butter is softened. Add eggs, water and vinegar. Mix briefly. Add flour, salt and baking powder. Mix with electric mixer on low speed (or by hand) until dough is formed. Do not over-mix.

Remove dough from bowl and place on a floured work surfave. ivide dough in half. Pat each half into a circle. Cover with plastic wrap and refigerate at least 1 hour, allowing dough to chill.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a baking pan or cookie sheet. set aside.

Remove dough from refrigerator and roll out on a floured work surface to approx. 1/8 inch thick. Cut with large heart shaped cookie cutters. Cut small heart shapes out of the center of half of the cookies (these will be the tops of the finished cookies). Place cookies on a lightly oiled cookie sheet.

Bake in preheated 350 degrees oven 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned on the bottom. Cool on a wire rack.

Lightly drizzle melted chocolate over cookies with the heart cut-outs. Spread 2 tsp. raspberry jam on the remaining cookies. Place the cookies with the heart shaped cut-outs on top of the cookies spread with raspberry jam

Makes approx. 16 loarge cookies and 18 maller cookies or 4 doz. standard sized cookies

Secret Donut Recipe

We have tried several donut recipes in the past, but so far this has been the favorite. You can find the full recipe and pictures at http://www.secretdonutrecipe.com/recipe1.html. This is a copy of that site. This recipe should make a dozen. The theory is that you can make this recipe in less time and loads less cost then it would take to drive to the store to buy some. They taste better too!

Microwave 1 cup of milk so that it is warm (not hot) add the 5 teaspoons of yeast (2 packets) and a pinch of sugar and stir. Let stand for about 5 minutes.

In a bowl combine:

2 cups of all purpose flour

1/2 cup of warm mashed potatoes

The potato is the most important part of the recipe, take one medium sized potato and poke some holes in it with a fork. Put it in the microwave for a few minutes until it is done (soft when you squeeze it). Scoop out a half a cup of potatoes for the recipe

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 cup of sugar

Then in the bowl add:

The milk mixture and 2 Tablespoons of oil

Mix the dough well by hand or in a mixer with a dough hook for 3 minutes. Prepare your kneading surface by spreading a few tablespoons of flour on a smooth surface. Put the dough in the middle of the flour and sprinkle a little flour on top and on your hands. Knead the dough a few times. Once the dough has been kneaded, spread it out to be a half inch thick with your hands or with a rolling pin. Now it is time to cut out the donuts, you can use a donut cutter or just use something about the same size and then find something to make the hole with. Place the donuts on a floured pan to let rise as you get the oil ready. Let them rise for a total of ten minutes (it takes about five minutes for the oil to heat up).

Pour about a half inch of oil (vegetable oil) into a cast iron pan. An electric fry pan works great also. The oil needs to be about 360 degrees which on my stove is about Medium to Medium High. If the oil starts to smoke it is way too hot. Test the oil with some of the scraps of dough and when it is ready cook the donuts until golden brown on each side. Allow the donuts to cool on a rack or on some paper so that the oil soaks off. 

Vanilla Glaze

In a mug, microwave half of cup of milk with a teaspoon of butter (you'll use this later)

In a bowl mix:

1 cup of powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons of the milk mixture

1/4 teaspoon of lemon

1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

If you a really thin glaze, just add a little more of the milk mixture.

Chocolate Glaze

Use the milk mixture from above.

In a bowl mix:

1 cup of powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons of Hershey Cocoa

3 Tablespoons of the milk mixture from above.

Put a slightly warm donut face down in the chocolate glaze, turn slightly and remove. Perfect! Now you are ready to enjoy your dozen donuts.

Chickpeas, Chickpeas, Rolly Polly Chickpeas.

Now, we've all seen these beans in the super market. They are small, look like brains, and say garbonzo on the bag. But like most peas and beans, what do we do with them. With these ugly little things, there's only one thing that we should do with them. HUMMUS!!! This simple, semi easy treat can be done within minutes (after the hours it takes to cook the dried chickpeas), and it's pretty tasty. All it is, is spiced, cooked garbonzo beans (chick peas) in a food processor or blender, ground as smooth as possible. That's all it is. Then to make it even more delicious, add spices, tahini (olive oil and sesame seeds), garlic, and some lemon juice and you have a vegi dip and a bread/cracker dip for all you dips out there.

Seriously, I've heard of hummus in the past, and I had no idea what it was. So I decided to try it (without tahini, I had no idea what tahini was back then), and it turned out okay. Then last night, we decided to try it again. So I figured out how to make tahini (a complex recipe, I'll post that one first), and add it to 3 different hummus recipes. They ALL turned out great. I'm surprised and impressed. I also made some pita bread, and cut it into wedges to dip. This middle eastern food is actually flavorful, tasty, and a good meal to have while chatting with guests. So, here it is:

Tahini (Be careful, this burns easily)
2 c. sesame seeds (can be purchased at many stores like Sunflower Market)
1/3 c. olive oil

Heat a heavy, wide-bottomed sauté pan over medium-high heat.Add the sesame seeds and toast lightly - about 2 minutes, shaking the pan so they toast evenly. Two tips here: a) I am a messy cook with limited arm strength. I have a great fear that if I toss a pan, food will end up everywhere, therefore, I tend to just vigorously stir rather than toss. b) Keep a careful eye on the sesame seeds as they go from toasted to burnt really quickly. As soon as they start to brown, they are done.Transfer to a bowl and let cool completely.

Original Hummus
2 cups of cooked chickpeas (garbonzo beans)
3-5 tablespoons lemon juice (depending on taste)
1 1/2 tablespoons tahini
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Preparation:
Drain chickpeas. Combine chickpeas, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, salt, and olive oil in blender or food processor. Blend for 3-5 minutes on low until thoroughly mixed and smooth. Place in serving bowl, and create a shallow well in the center of the hummus.Add a small amount (1-2 tablespoons) of olive oil in the well. Garnish with parsley (optional).Serve immediately with fresh, warm or toasted pita bread, or cover and refrigerate.


Spicy, Sweet Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

INGREDIENTS
2 cups cooked chickpeas (garbonzo beans)
1 (4 ounce) jar roasted red peppers (or roast your own red bell peppers http://videos.howstuffworks.com/ming-east-west/4682-roasting-red-peppers-video.htm)
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons tahini
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

DIRECTIONS
In an electric blender or food processor, puree the chickpeas, red peppers, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, cumin, cayenne, and salt. Process, using long pulses, until the mixture is fairly smooth, and slightly fluffy. Make sure to scrape the mixture off the sides of the food processor or blender in between pulses. Transfer to a serving bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (The hummus can be made up to 3 days ahead and refrigerated. Return to room temperature before serving.)
Sprinkle the hummus with the chopped parsley before serving.


Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus
INGREDIENTS
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon and 1-1/2 teaspoons tahini paste
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 cups of chickpeas (garbonzo beans)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained
2 tablespoons finely shredded fresh basil
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/8 teaspoon paprika (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Place garlic, salt, tahini, and lemon juice into a food processor; process until smooth. Pour in the garbanzo beans and 1/4 cup olive oil; process until smooth again, scraping the sides of the bowl occasionally. Once smooth, add the sun-dried tomatoes, and pulse until they have been chopped to very small pieces and are incorporated into the hummus. Finally, add the basil, and pulse a few times until mixed in.
Spread the hummus into a shallow serving dish, and make a few decorative grooves on top. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, then drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil and sprinkle with paprika before serving.

Enjoy!

The (Dave) Woods Clan Ratatouille

Ha Ha (spoken with finality)! Finally, I've come to the point in which I could try my own ratatouille recipe. The original ratatouille recipe, like I said, was just summer vegitables (tomatoes, eggplant, and squashes) diced and saute'd until tender in a lot of olive oil. Now, after watching the movie of the same name, and examining what the rat did, I believed that the rat had a good idea about how to make ratatouille. Like every expiriment, I had to make an original recipe first, which is what the last post was about. But with that done, the diced tomatoes seemed lacking and too squishy for the recipe, but they did provide a great flavor, so I switched it to tomato sauce. Next I relized that the recipe needed some flavor. When a recipe needs flavor there are 3 things you can: sugar, fat, or spices. Guess which one is the healthiest. So I decided I need to come up with a good mixture of spices. After thinking about it, the only thing that seemed to fit, was rosemary, thyme, and basic. I eventually decided to add parsley to even out the spices. Next I had to figure out what vegies. So I went to the market and got whatever was on sale.

Next I had to think about how to arrange the seasonings and vegies. Do I mix it all together and call it good, or do I layer it. After watching the movie, I decided to try layering it. There's a problem. How do I layer it? So thinking about, I decided to let put the tomato sauce on the bottom. As the liquid starts to leak from the vegitables on top, it will cause the tomato sauce to become runny, this is actually to my advantage. It will cause the spices mixed into the tomato sauce to start traveling from the bottom of the pan to the top, and will bring up all the other spices along the way. This will cause all the flavors to mix together with out all the vegitables mixing together.

Needless to say, it turned out great. It took me and Sara all our effort to not finish off the large pan. I definately recommend it, or....um....I wouldn't have put it on this blog.

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 teaspoon of basil
3/4 teaspoon of thyme
3/4 teaspoon of rosemerry
1 1/4 teaspoon of parsley
2 8-oz cans of tomato sauce
1/4 cup of olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large eggplant, peeled, cut length-way into fourths, and thinly sliced
2 zucchini, peeled and thinly sliced
2 yellow squash, peeled and thinly sliced
2 green peppers, thinly sliced
1 cup of mushrooms (optional
3/4 teaspoon of salt, separated
parmesian cheese (for sprinkling)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the spices (basil, thyme, rosemerry, parsley). Mix 1 Tablespoon of the mixture to the tomato sauce. This should leave about 1/2 teaspoon left for later. lightly saute' the garlic until aromatic, set aside for later.

Grease a 9x13 inch pan with non-stick spray. Spread the tomato sauce on the bottom of the pan. Layer the eggplant on top of the tomato sauce. Spinkle the rest of the spices on top of the eggplant and about 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Layer the zucchini next, then the squash, then the green peppers, and any other vegies that you want. Sprinkle the rest of the salt on top.

Cook for 45 minutes. Sprinkle parmesian cheese on top and cook another 15 minutes. Serve hot with rice, noodles, or cooked potatoes.

Enjoy.

Baked Ratatouille (Basic)

This is a basic Ratatouille. Ratatouille is a basic peasant dish, as the movie suggests. It has tomatoes, eggplant squash, and a few other vegitables and/or funguses (mushrooms), saute'd in a sauce pan with a healthy dose of olive oil. This recipe is my first try at ratatouille, and it was a good base, but was completely lacking in flavor. The parmesan cheese held all the flavors together, which it shouldn't. This is what I've based my own recipe on.

INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
salt to taste
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 zucchini, sliced
1 large onion, sliced into rings
2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
1 green bell pepper, sliced
2 large tomatoes, chopped

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Coat bottom and sides of a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish with 1 tablespoon olive oil.
Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Saute garlic until lightly browned. Mix in parsley and eggplant. Saute until eggplant is soft, about 10 minutes. Season with salt to taste.
Spread eggplant mixture evenly across bottom of prepared casserole dish. Sprinkle with a few tablespoons of Parmesan cheese. Spread zucchini in an even layer over top. Lightly salt and sprinkle with a little more cheese. Continue layering in this fashion, with onion, mushrooms, bell pepper, and tomatoes, covering each layer with a sprinkling of salt and cheese.
Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes.

The (Dave) Woods Clan Speghetti sauce

This was a total mistake. I've been working on my ratatouille recipe (its in the oven right now, if it turns out right, I'll post it), and I was expirimenting flavoring some tomato sauce using spiced and some vinegar, when I finished adding a bunch of stuff, I tried it, and it tasted great. Sara tried it too, and said that this would make a great sauce. So here's what I came up with, it still needs some work, and it needs some vegies, but it should still be good.

INGREDIENTS:

16 ounces of tomato sauce (2 8-oz cans)
1/2 teaspoon of basil
1/2 teaspoon of thyme
1/2 teaspoon of rosemary
1 teaspoon of parsley
3 Tablespoons of rice vinegar
1/4 onion, chopped (optional)
1/4 green pepper, chopped (optional)
1 clove of garlic, crushed and minced (optional)

combine ingredients in a small sauce pan. Heat to boiling (or when it lightly boils), simmer for around 10 minutes. For a stronger, and thicker sauce, simmer up to 40 minutes.

Enjoy.

Lasagna with a secret ingredient!

I recently found out a secret about lasagna... you can give it the flavor of sausage, without actually using sausage, along with all it's extra "bloat". :) I fed this to Mike, who generally doesn't like lasagna without sausage, and he had two large helpings and praised it up and down! Let me know what you think.

9 lasagna noodles
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp olive oil
3/4 lb. lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
2 (15 oz.) containers marinara sauce (make sure it is a thick sauce, or the lasagna will be too runny)
1 1/2 c. ricotta cheese
1/2 c. mozzerella cheese, shredded
1/4 c. grated romano cheese (parmesan works)

Cook lasagna noodles for 10 min, set aside.

In a dry skillet over medium heat, cook the fennel seeds, shaking the pan and stirring constantly until lightly browned and fragrant, 2-3 minutes. Grind to a powder with a coffee grinder, or pound between two clean kitchen towels with a mallet until finely crushed.

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat, add beef, onion, bell pepper, and zucchini. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pan juices evaporate and the beef browns, about 10 minutes. Stir in the marinara sauce and fennel, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until slightly thickened and the flavors blend, about 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 F. In a 9x13 baking dish, spread 1/4 of sauce. Top with 3 noodles, spread with 1/2 cup of ricotta. Repeat the layering twice, ending with the meat sauce.

Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove the foil and sprinkle with mozzerella and romano. Bake until heated through and the cheeses are lightly browned, about 20 minutes longer. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

This is the healthy version, if you like cheese, sprinkle romano and mozzerella after the ricotta on each layer. Mmmmm.

Lion House Dinner Rolls and Honey Butter

Makes 1 to 1 1/2 Dozen Rolls2 cups warm water (110 to 115 degrees F)

2/3 cup non-fat dry milk (instant or non-instant)
2 Tablespoons dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup butter, shortening or margarine (butter is best for flavor)
1 egg
5 to 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, or bread flouroil for bowl

In bowl of stand mixer with flat attachment combine water and milk powder; stir until milk dissolves. Add yeast, then sugar, salt, butter, egg, and 2 cups of the flour. Mix on low speed until ingredients are wet, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. Add 2 more cups of flour; mix on low speed until incorporated, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. (Dough will be getting stiffer so switch to kneading attachment at this point). Work in the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough is soft, not overly sticky, but workable and not stiff. (You probably won’t use all the flour).

Scrape the dough off the sides of the bowl and pour about a tablespoon of vegetable oil down the sides. Rotate the dough ball so that all sides are covered. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm place to rise til double in size (about 45 minutes). Flour a surface for rolling out the dough and turn the dough out. Roll and cut as desired and place in a greased pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and place in a warm place to rise again til double in size, about 1 hour.Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place the rolls in the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden. Brush tops with melted butter immediately when removed from the oven. Serve warm with honey butter.

NOTE: The Lion House cookbook suggests rolling the dough into a rectangle that is 8 inches by 12 inches then cutting that once down the middle the long way, then cutting that into two inch wide strips (to make 12 2 inch by 4 inch strips). Then just roll the strips up from their short end and place into the pan seam side down. It will look like you rolled individual cinnamon rolls and placed them in the pan on their sides.

LION HOUSE HONEY BUTTER

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup honeyWhip softened butter.

Add vanilla and honey gradually. Beat for 20 minutes. Makes 1 cup.

Dark Double Delight Chocolatey Chip Cookies

I'm sorry all, due to personal reasons, I've had to remove the recipe. I've been updating the recipe quite a bit and working out the portions of ingredients and have come up with a better cookie. Unfortunately, my wife wants to sell it at her boutiques. So, to help promote her sales of cookies and confectioneries (we are selling caramel popcorn balls and candies, all home made), I've decided to help promote it by allowing her private use of my recipe. I'm sorry all, but if you'd like to try our final cookie, email me and I'll tell you where she will be selling it in Utah or Washington (depending on the time)

Thanks,

The Glazed Ham the Ate New Hampshire

Yes, I know its a dumb title, but its all I can come up with in my tired, sickened state. Anyway, we had glazed ham last night. I love ham, it was great, or at least the outside of the ham was. I both love and hate glaze. You take the wonderful glaze, slather the outside of a ham with it, and the outside of the ham tastes great. The problem is that it doesn't flavor the inside. So if you have a slightly cheaper piece of meat, that is semi flavorless (don't you love living cheaply), it doesn't have much flavor. So the next time I get ham, I might cut it into thicker pieces and glaze each piece. Treating it sort of as a smothered steak. Mmmm.....steak. Well, here's my recipe I used. I hope you enjoy it.

1/8 (2T) cup whole cloves
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup honey
1/3 cup butter

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
Score ham, and stud with the whole cloves. Place ham in foil lined pan.
In the top half of a double boiler, heat the brown sugar, honey and butter. Keep glaze warm while baking ham.
Brush glaze over ham, and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Baste ham every 10 to 15 minutes with the honey glaze. During the last 4 to 5 minutes of baking, turn on broiler to caramelize the glaze. Remove from oven, and let sit a few minutes before serving.

Valentines Day, part 2. Raspberry Truffles

So....um....women like chocolate....right? But you know, good chocolate costs a whole heck of a lot of money. But if you get them a 10 lb bar of good chocolate, they don't seem as excited as say getting 10 lbs of truffles or 10 lbs of chocolate cake mix. Its a good thing I told Sara I was going to use that huge bar of chocolate to make raspberry truffles with it. But the thing is, Chocolatiering, or the making of chocolate, is HARD. To make truffles, first you make ganosh. This isn't the 6 armed god of the Hindu people, this is the creamy, buttery, chocolaty goodness often found in the middle of truffles. Then you coat little balls of the ganosh with tempered chocolate. That part is hard. When tempering chocolate, you have to heat it us to a certain temperature, cool it down to a certain temperature, heat is back up to a certain temperature, cool it down to a certain temperature, and so on and so forth, until it become smooth, runny, and shiny. The better you do this, the shinier and harder it will be when the chocolate hardens. The problem is that I didn't temper too well, so my chocolate truffles came out a bit grainy, and not so shiny. But thats why I have 10 lbs of chocolate, so I can learn. Anyway, this recipe was good, but you could hardly taste the raspberries. I think next time, I'm going to use a good quality raspberry syrup, or non-alcoholic liquer. They seem to be stronger in flavor. Like most recipes, you have to have alot of trial and error.

1 1/3 c Chocolate morsels
2 T Heavy cream
1 T Butter
2 T Seedless raspberry jam
In a heavy saucepan, combine morsels, heavy cream and butter. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until smooth. Stir in raspberry jam. Cover with plastic wrap; freeze 20 minutes. Drop mixture by teaspoons onto foil lined cookie sheet. Freeze 15 minutes. Roll into balls; freeze until firm.

Valentines Day!!! Part 1, Red Velvet Cake.

Merry Valentines day.  Well, day after. Since this is the first post, I'll explain everything.  This was suggested by Erin, my sis-in-law.  Me and my brother, Michael, love to cook.  We try everything, and comment on it.  But we don't have very many resources to share food, or comments about how we failed or succeeded in our creations.  Therefore, this was created, not just for us, but for those who love food and want to know what we think about what we create and what we love.  I hope you all can learn and enjoy what we share.  If not, it gives us a chance to at least talk about food.

Anyway, This first post is for my creations for my wife Sara on Valentine's day.  I made her 2 things, Red Velvet Cake and raspberry truffles.  I'll comment first on the red velvet cake.

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 Tablesoons cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 ounces red food coloring
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 8 inch round pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together sugar, oil, cocoa, and eggs. Add food coloring and vinegar to buttermilk. Add baking soda to flour. Add flour mixture and buttermilk mixtures alternately to the sugar mixture. Mix well. Stir 1 teaspoon vanilla into batter. Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until done. Remove from oven, and cool on wire racks.
4. Mix together cream cheese, butter or margarine, confectioners' sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in nuts. Frost cooled cake.

This was hard to make, not just putting it together, but I have always had a hard time with cakes.  I usually over mix it, which makes it stiff and more brownie like.  Luckily, this is not what happened when I made this cake.  The only problem was the frosting.  It way overpowered the flavor of the cake.  Maybe its just me, since I'm more of a brownie person, but the cake was hard to taste. Besides that, it was fine. 

Just to tell you, yes this does say 2 ounces of Red Food coloring.  That is 2-one ounce bottles.   Yes it stains, yes turns your mouth red.  It goes into you red and comes out of you red.  Just to warn you.  But it looks visually appealing, and tastes great.  I'd definitely recommend it.

By the way, If you want to get on the good side of your wife.  MAKE THIS CAKE.  Sara loves this with a passion.  Its the most difficult cake I've made, but its worth it.