What the Fudge?

Last night I was having a craving for peanut butter cups.  I don’t often have cravings, and if I have one for something I usually just have one square of a Lindt 85% Cacao bar and that takes care of it.  But just smearing P.B. on the chocolate wasn’t doing it for me.

So I decided to see if I could make fudge.  I don’t use sweeteners and sugar substitutes by personal choice (no sugar due to my diabetes and no artificial sweeteners/replacements as I find them horrible – aftertastes, headaches, etc.)

I decided to use 85 & 88% chocolate bars, unsweetened peanut butter, butter and peanuts. Pretty simple.

I had Lindt and Purdy’s chocolate on-hand (a staple in my cupboard!) so broke them up into a microwave safe bowl, added 1/4 cup of butter and nuked on high for 35 seconds, then removed and stirred until the chocolate was almost completely melted.  I had to stick it back in for another 20 seconds to get the last of the lumps melted.  Then I stirred in 3/4 cup of peanut butter and stirred briskly until it was completely blended.  Then tossed in about a cup of roasted peanuts.

I poured in into a parchment lined square pan and put in the fridge overnight.

This morning I took it out and it sliced easily into small squares and tastes great!  I might increase the peanut butter ratio next time.

I can only eat one square at a time as a treat (to avoid blood sugar spikes) so I am storing in a sealed container in the cold part of my fridge.

Shannon’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge

125 grams of dark chocolate (85-88% cacao – or whatever you prefer, any chocolate will work) broken up into small pieces

1/4 cup of butter

3/4 to 1 cup of unsweetened peanut butter

1 cup of roasted peanuts (optional, or use different nuts, or add dried cranberries!  There are lots of options)

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl on high for about 35 seconds, remove from microwave and stir until it is melted – may need to put back in microwave for a few more seconds if the chocolate isn’t completely melted.
2. Stir in the peanut butter.  It needs to be completely blended in.
3. Add the nuts, stir.
4. Pour into a parchment or foil lined square pan, and refrigerate for a couple hours (overnight is good).
5. Remove from pan by lifting out the parchment or foil, and cut into pieces.  Store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Vegetable and Sausage Hash

I really hate it when I buy something that sounds really tasty and it is totally tasteless and the texture is unpleasant.  Even more when I bought the package at Costco and have more of it to deal with!

Case in point:  Sausages.  I bought a pack of three vacuum sealed packages of sausages (brat or smokey sized style) at Costco, and I separated them from each other to put in the freezer, in the process I threw out the cardboard sleeve that was wrapped around them.  The individual packages of four sausages have no label.  So… I can’t remember what they were supposed to be.  I would not have bought something that didn’t sound like it would be good.

Last night I decided to have sausages and salad for dinner.  They were awful.  I baked them in the oven and there was a lot of red oil coming out of them, and they were quite red colour (I suspect “sun-dried tomato” may be involved?)  I cut them up and inside were green bits of something I couldn’t identify.  There was no discernible flavour to any of it.  The stuffing was quite loose and the meat crumbled out of the casing.

I ate part of one and stuck the rest in the fridge to figure out what to do with them.  I hate wasting food.

My sister suggested they might be mild Italian sausage.  Possibly, but I normally don’t buy Italian sausage – so maybe it was a flavoured version?  Whatever it is I hope I NEVER buy it again.  I do remember the packaging at least, so I should be safe.

So, what did I do with it?  I made Hash!

Hash is easy and is a great Sunday brunch.  And seeing as my fridge is full of all sorts of vegetables I had lots to choose from.

I  diced up some celery, green pepper, onion, cauliflower, pattypan squash, mushrooms, and chopped up all the leftover sausage.  I had about a half a cup to a cup of each vegetable and three chopped up sausages – it is hash, the amounts don’t really matter.  This amount made two meals for me.  One this morning and leftovers for tomorrow.

I heated up my pan and added peanut oil then started with the onions, peppers and celery with a teaspoon of diced garlic (I have a big jar of diced garlic in the fridge).

Once they were sweating down I added the sausage meat and cauliflower.  I let that start to brown a bit and put a lid on to get the veggies cooked.

Then I added the mushrooms and squash, and some Montreal Steak Spice and salt, stirred and put the lid back on.

It needed quite a bit of salt actually.  I added it three times!

I topped it off with a fried egg (fried in butter of course.)

It was good.  And thankfully the sausages didn’t ruin it, so I have a way to use up the rest of them

It would be even better with sausages that taste good, or left over roast, chicken, etc!

 

 

Summer Squash & Bison Taco Soup

I had to turn the furnace on yesterday… in August!  Yikes.  Last year August got damp too.  And it has been raining quite a bit this year.  Definitely feels like Fall is here even though there is still a month of Summer left.

They are cute, but these pattypans aka sunburst squash are plentiful right now, and best to use them when still fresh!

I had a package of ground bison thawing in the fridge so when I got home tonight I decided the two could go together to make a nice meal.  I hadn’t intended it to be soup to start with but part way through decided to add some homemade stock and other things.

I am allergic to beef so I use ground bison (which is extremely lean) or pork or lamb when I want ground meat.  I watch for the 50% off stickers at the store and grab the bison and lamb when it is marked down and freeze it.  It is pretty expensive otherwise.

I just grab things and toss them into the pot.  No measuring.  Aside from the squash – I had five of them – I had fresh onions, green onions, green pepper and in the freezer diced celery and homemade stock.  And a can of diced tomatoes from the pantry.  I also used my homemade taco seasoning mix.

Soup is a great way to use up vegetables that are left over or getting a little limp, or just stuff that you need to use before it is time to throw it out.  The green onions were pretty dead looking that I used.

The celery in the freezer was the diced scraps from cleaning stalks of celery – the leafy ends and centres that weren’t “stick” material for my munching.  I have bags of it in there!  I put it in soups, stews, casseroles, in the bottom of the roaster to set the meat on, etc.

I also freeze chicken carcasses and bones from roasts and steaks – I just keep adding to a large Ziploc freezer bag.  When I have a substantial amount I roast them until they are well-browned (much better flavour that way!) and make stock in my crock pot to freeze.

I used my dutch oven for this soup but you could do it in a crock pot if you wanted.  I browned the bison in some peanut oil, then added the chopped onions, green onions, green peppers and the frozen celery and let them sweat down a bit.  Then added the cubed squash.  Even though the squash were still fairly small I needed to remove the seeds before cutting them up.

I stirred it a few times and once the squash was starting cook I added about three to four tablespoons (well, I dumped about a third of what was left in the bottle in actually) of my taco seasoning mix.  Then I added a 12-ounce can of diced tomatoes and approximately two cups of stock (I’m guessing – it was a frozen container that could have been three cups.)

Once the pot was starting to boil, I put the lid on and put in the oven at 350F for about an hour and a half.

I find finishing soups in the oven works really well, and you don’t end up with a splattered stove top.

It turned out great!  A bit spicier than I was expecting due the amount of the taco mix I’d added, but still excellent. I am developing a taste for spicier things lately.

Eat it as is, or garnish with cheese, sour cream, guacamole, etc.  I added shredded cabbage to the bowl and put the soup on top!  It was very good that way.  I’m all about getting in as many vegetables as I can in a meal.

The rest will be frozen in serving sizes for quick meals.  I like having things ready to grab and heat once theatre season starts – which is in less than a month – as I don’t have much of a break between work and call times.

I make my own spice mixes – that way I know I am only getting what I want in them.  Commercial taco seasoning mixes usually contain flour or cornflour and sugar in some form – so I don’t use them.

Shannon’s Taco Seasoning

I make big batches (this makes around 2 cups) and store in recycled spice jars – those industrial sized ones from Costco.  It keeps a very long time.

1/2 cup of chilli powder

1/3 cup of dried minced onion OR you can use 2 tablespoons of onion powder instead

2 tablespoons of garlic powder

2 tablespoons of salt (your choice – table salt, sea salt, etc.)

1.5 tablespoons of ground cumin

1.5 tablespoons of dried oregano

1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons of ground coriander

Combine all of the ingredients either directly into your storage container, or in a bowl.  Shake or mix well.  Put in sealed container and store with your spices in a cool, dry, dark place.

 

 

 

 

Zucchini Pizza Pie

I was inspired by the posts and recipes floating around for “Zucchini Pizza Crust” knowing full well that it would NOT be as described but liking the sound of it.  I mean, what could be bad about zucchini, cheese and eggs with pizza toppings added?  Not a damn thing as it turns out!

I’m calling this a “Pizza Pie” as it does taste like excellent pizza but is not able to be eaten with your hands (unless you really enjoy being messy!) – knife and fork all the way.

So first off… it is zucchini season, and as anyone who has grown them (or has a neighbour, relative or friend who is growing them) knows, finding things to do with them is always a late summer challenge.

I decided to use my biggest one for this.  It was either grate it up for this or stuff it and bake it.  I scooped out the seeds and grated it up while watching Casablanca… damn, that movie makes me cry every time.

So got it all grated and sat it in a sieve in the sink, sprinkled liberally with salt and let it drain for an hour while I grated up some aged cheddar while watching Dark Passage (it was Bogie day on TCM apparently.)

I turned the oven on to 450F to pre-heat.

Yes, I sit on the chesterfield, watching television, while I grate things… so what?

I mixed up the grated zucchini (after squeezing out all the moisture I could) – I didn’t measure it… probably 2-3 cups total; the cheese (maybe 2 cups of grated;) and two eggs.

I then dumped the mixture on a parchment lined baking sheet and spread it out to about half an inch thickness.  I pushed up the sides a bit to make them straight and not touching the edges of the pan.

I put the sheet in the oven on the centre rack.  The recipes I saw said that it should bake for 15 or 20 minutes.  My oven runs hot and it took closer to 40 minutes!  I checked it every 10 minutes, and then reset the timer.  The edges were brown and the top of it was just barely starting to get a hint of brown, and the surface looked dry when I took it out.  Maybe I had it a lot thicker than the recipes intended?

The recipes said to let it cool before turning it into a pizza.  So I slid it onto a clean piece of parchment on a room temp baking sheet to speed that up (I was hungry!)  I trimmed the edges and ate them – YUM!  It was really excellent all by itself – like a soft zucchini fritter.

I increased my oven temp to the highest it would go which was 550F.

I prepped a bunch of veggies by dicing very small – 1/8 to 1/4 inch.  Needed to be very small to cook through quickly.  I used green pepper, green onions, fresh tomatoes, and a small can of chopped black olives. I also had some parmesan salami and mozzarella cheese.

When my zucchini base was cool-ish (it was still pretty warm, but like I said before, I was hungry) I spread leftover spinach/artichoke/cream cheese dip that I’d made the other day over it, then sprinkled all the fresh veggies and olives over that, then laid out the salami, and slices of mozzarella over top of the whole thing.

It then went into the 550F oven for 8 minutes. I kept a close eye on it as I didn’t want it to burn!

It smelled divine!  As you can see in the next photo, it was too sloppy to eat like a pizza.

I think I’ll make a few batches of the zucchini base and freeze to use later on.  It is one way to use up the zucchini and have something on hand to make a quick dinner.  Although, I need to use the food processor not the hand grater next time.

I now have leftovers for a few days, and am looking forward to them!