Zucchini noodles

My husband and I are always looking for alternatives for lower carb choices when it comes to eating pasta. I was amazed at how  good the zucchini noodles tasted. I bought a small spiral slicer by Joyce Chen  first and that did cut the zucchini, but it was more like  angel hair. I wanted more substance, so then I got a spiral slicer from World cuisine which comes with 3 different blades. When I attached the larger blade it did what I was looking for. So tonight we are having spiral vegetables covered with a spaghetti meat sauce.


2 zucchini spiraled
2 squash spiraled
1 carrot spiraled or julienned
1 onion
1 red pepper sliced thinly
3 garlic cloves minced
 salt and pepper
crushed red pepper
1 T basil
2 T olive oil

Heat wok up until water sprinkled in pan spatters.  Add olive oil and wait till it glistens. Turn heat down to medium low and add crushed red pepper, salt and  pepper, and garlic and saute for one minute. Add red pepper and saute for 2 minutes. Add zucchini, squash, carrot, and onion.Continue to saute until veggies just start to wilt. Remove from pan and plate. At this point you can eat it alone and top it with  some parmesan or feta cheese.
Other options are to:

•  make a  spaghetti sauce to go over the noodles
• add a  broiled tomatos covered with cheese and basil over the noodles
• .Add meatballs. 

Chipolte Mayo and Crispy Baked fries

To Anne and Josh: remember when we made these after we went to play golf in Mount Dora? That was a great day After playing a round of golf we went back to the house and stuffed ourselves silly.I hope there are many days like that. I hope all is going well with you. 


Chipolte Mayo

4 T mayo
1 Chipotle pepper with sauce diced
Squeeze of lemon
1 garlic clove minced

Mix all ingredients together.  Refrigerate for 2 hours and then ready to serve.

Crispy Baked French Fries

3 russet potatos
1/3 cup olive oil
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2-3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
2 T nutritional yeast flakes

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450F.

The original recipe called for lining a baking sheet with paper towels..this did not work for me as it started to char halfway through the baking process. So, I lined it with non stick tin foil. I then placed a cooling rack  on top of that and sprayed it with cooking oil.

I cut the potatoes in 1/4 strips or wedges.

In a shallow dish, I then combined the oil and seasonings. I placed  the potato slices  in the dish and tossed to coat. Keep the  remaining oil/seasoning for later use.

Spread the fries onto cooling rack on baking sheet.

Cook for 25-35 minutes until done. Every 10 minutes, turn fries to ensure even baking and brush more seasoning/oil onto the fries.

Serve with chipolte mayo..Yum yum...

original recipe found here

http://www.beantownbaker.com/2013/06/crispy-baked-french-fries.html/seasoned-baked-french-fries-2

Passover 2014

     

 To Jessica and Istvan, Josh and Annie, and Jason

Passover is always a special time here at the Machamer house. We have wonderful memories of previous Passovers along with beautiful bonding. We sure missed you last night. Can you tell by the look on our faces.

Josh and Annie Passove 2013

 Last year, Josh and Annie's first date was to come to our house for Passover. It was a very special night and we fell in love with Annie along with Joshua. It was a magical night with good food, and a beautiful seder led  by husband, and lots of laughter.

Joy and Tim 2012 Passover/Rehearsal dinner

IN 2012,  my daughter Joy and her husband Tim had their rehearsal dinner at a beautiful restaurant in Mount Dora. The room that they gave us was enclosed and surrounded by french doors all the way around and was elevated above the restaurant giving it the feeling of an upper room. The passover seder was presented before the rehearsal dinner by  my husband. He did such a beautiful job.

In 2011 my son Jason was the only one with us for Passover and it was our first time doing it ourselves. We did not realize how many glasses of wine you have to drink throughout the seder.I am a lightweight as far as alcohol and can't drink more than 1/4 cup of wine before feeling buzzed. So, needless to say by the end of the dinner and seder which is quite lengthy, I was laughing hysterically at anything. My son, Jason, had never seen me like this and to him it was quite funny.

So this year, we had Joy and Tim over for Passover.We couldn’t find the booklet that we use to guide us through the seder part of the meal.. So, without the booklet we were kind of left to our interpretation of the meal. It got quite comical at times as everybody threw in their idea of why a certain item was on the table. Tim offered to go get his Ipad out of the car and look up instructions, but Ernest said no. I have to say it was more interesting this way. According to my husband the chicken and gravy were superb. I don't get that compliment very often from him.

So for the dinner we had:
chocolate dipped  matza bread (I'm loving the chocolate version, cause the plain version is you know, plaaaaaaaaaaaain) Jess you would have loved this!


roasted chicken
baked potatoes
carrots
seder part: wine, wine, and some wine, haroset, boiled egg, salt water and lettuce, parsley. We didn't have the horseradish..because I thought we had some but didn't.


 Here is the recipe I used for the chicken

4 garlic cloves finely grated
1 T salt
1/2 T olive oil
1 T paprika
1/2 T smoked paprika
1 6 lb whole chicken
2 T homemade chutney 

Preheat oven to 350

Mix garlic, salt, oil and both paprikas in a small bowl. Mix to blend well. Using your hands, smear paste all over outside of chicken, rubbing to coat the skin.As an  afterthought I added chutney also with my hands on top of the seasoning...it was not very cooperative getting in on the bird..i ended up having to slap the chicken silly with the chutney in order for the chutney to stay on. (I know you're laughing Ree)   I placed a peeled onion inside the cavity, because i was out of apples. Chill, uncovered for at least 4 hours to let flavors ripen. Place the bird  in a roaster with a little bit of broth and cover with lid. By mistake I put the breast side up and oh my goodness when it was done it was so tender.... Bake in oven according to poundage. The chutney made the skin crisp up real nice.

In the past when I have tried to bake cod I have not had great success. To me, cod doesn't have very much taste on its own. I have tried different recipes only to be dissappointed. This time I was impressed. So for this past Shabbat dinner, I made this cod with baked potatoes and asparagus.

It was delicious. I would like to share this recipe that I found.Here is the link for the recipe.


http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/crispy-baked-cod-10000001892146/

Crispy Baked Cod

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup panko or regular bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon reduced-fat mayonnaise $
• 4 skinless 1 1/2-inch thick cod fillets, about 6 oz. each

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. In a small skillet over medium-low heat, melt butter. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add bread crumbs, stir to coat with butter, then cook, stirring frequently, until light golden brown, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in parsley and lemon zest. Let cool. Combine mustard and mayonnaise in a small bowl.
2. Rinse fish and pat dry. Sprinkle each fillet lightly with salt, then place on a rimmed, foil-lined baking sheet and brush with mustard mixture. Press 1/4 of crumbs onto each filet.

1. Transfer baking sheet to oven and bake until fish is no longer translucent (cut to test) and flakes easily, 10 to 15 minutes. If crumbs aren't sufficiently browned, broil fish 2 inches from heating element until crumbs are crisp and dark golden brown (watching carefully to prevent burning), 2 minutes longer. Serve immediately.

 

THE BIRDCAGE CAKE

Joy and the 2nd anniversary cake!

 Isn't she beautiful, my firstborn daughter, Joy. She is pregnant with her first child and its a boy. How exciting! She is the sweetest girl with a heart of gold. She is a physical therapy assistant and it is beautiful thing to watch her with the elderly bringing so much joy and encouragement in their lives. Last October for my birthday she took me to see Michael Buble in Orlando. Now, I love music a lot, but do not love big crowds, so I never go to concerts. As far as still living male singers go, in my opinion, Michael Buble stands alone at the top. There is something about his voice that moves me very deeply . I listened to him on and off for over a year without ever seeing a picture of him. I was surprised to see how young he was. Anyway, my daughter took me to see him and we stayed at a hotel within walking distance of the arena. We had a blast. Thanks so much for that fantastic night. It is one of the musical highlights of this last decade for me.

This week I wanted to make my daughter a cake and for her 2 year anniversary. I had made her cakes for her for the wedding and they turned out beautiful. They saved one small cake for there one year anniversary. When they went to go eat it, it was bad, very bad. So I promised them I would make them a cake this year. I didn't want to repeat the same cake I made which was a ruffle cake.

As I was looking through cake pictures on pinterest I came across a beautiful birdcage cake and it reminded me of the birdcages all the bridsemaids carried their flowers in. Joy has all the birdcages in her house displayed up high above her counters.

So, I began by making 3 small cakes all the same size. Now my cakes for whatever reason always come out of my oven dome shaped and I always have to level them off. I hunted around for ideas on how to make the dome part of the bird cage without having to ball a spherical pan. Most sites sad to use a oven proof bowl the same size as the pans. The only thing I could find that was oven proof in my house were small Pyrex bowls. So along with the 3 cakes, i filled 3 pyrex bowls with coconut cake batter from a boxed mix.  All  of the cakes cake out domed, but none of them came out perfect..Most of them were leaning bad to one side. I didn't use any of the Pyrex ones. I chose the best looking one from my tiny spring form pans.

not so pretty right now!

After cooling the cakes on racks,  I leveled two of the cakes and left the 3rd one unleveled for the dome. I stacked the two cakes on top of each other with buttercream icing in between and on top. I then placed the dome on top of that. I tinted my icing ice blue or as close as I could get it, since I started with butter flavoured crisco, which is not white but kind of yellow. I crumb coated the entire cake and let it crust in the fridge because it is very hot here today.

While it was in the fridge I worked on making  fondant decorations. The picture that i was following, showed string like fondant for the cage itself. After many attempts of trying to roll the fondant into skinny pieces, I gave up. I then pulled out my fondant slice and cut edge cutter (kind of like a paper cutter) and cut thin strips of fondant. i measured the circumferance of the cake and divided it by 4 and marked each four inches with a toothpick at the bottom of the cake. I then laid the strips from top to bottom. I made a thicker strip to go around the cake at the bottom. I made a circle topper out of a biscuit cutter and laid them on top of the cake. I rolled fondant into a ball and attached it to the very top. I made several flowers out of white and pink and attached them randomly to the cake. I also made a  couple of birds from my impression mat. It turned out pretty good. Not too bad for first try. My daughter loved the cake.

Making videos with note 3 on a tripod

Sometimes it is necessary to make a video tutorial of something I'm making...sometimes words alone just don't explain it well enough. I know i would rather watch a video to see how its done and then have the written directions alongside that.
It is not easy to make a video tutorial and hold the camera in one hand and show things with your other hands. I need both hands. I hunted around town for a desktop tripod that would sit a note 3. I couldn't find any tripod to fit any phone, only cameras. Hmmm.....what to do. I searched the internet  for ideas and came across one that worked for an iphone and so I kind of adapted it for a note 3.





I bought this flexable stand for my phone from target. I liked it of course because it was hot pink.I rubber banded the middle together to the back so it would stay stable.






     
 I got out my husbands camera tripod and set it up. I then took a paper clip clamp and clamped it to the top of the flat part of the tripod where a camera usually sits.











 I then place my phone stand on the platform and clamped the back of the stand down. My note 3 sits beautifully vertical or horizontal. My piece of advice is always remove the phone from the stand before you move the stand. When its time to shoot video I change the orientation of the camera to front facing. So, now I can see myself in the phone and watch myself as I am filming myself...how cool is that.

Chow chow

Everybody that knows me well knows that i like to eat cultured veggies. Well, my husband is not a big fan of them. Every time I open up the jar to add it to my meal his nose gets out of joint from the pungent smell. He really surprised a while ago when he said he likes chow chow, which is basically veggies chopped up and pickled. So, in order to make him happy, I tried my first batch today.  Below is a recipe that I used but added more spices and cauliflower, just because i had it to use.

  Ingredients

Made 2 quarts

• 4 medium green tomatillas
•  1/2 head of good size cabbage
• 1  sweet onion chopped fine.
• 1/4 head of cauliflower chopped up into small chunks
• 1  red  bell peppers chopped coarse 
• 3 tablespoons kosher salt
• 2 cups cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup light white  sugar, 
• 1 tablespoon  mustard seeds
• 1/4 tsp tumeric
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp cardaman
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1/2 teaspoon celery seed

 Instructions

1. Mix all vegetables and salt together.  Cover loosely and let sit in warm spot in your house for  6 hours. 
2. Boil water in a  large pot which will cover the jars by at least 1 inch.
3. Bring to boil water in small saucepan for sterilizing lids and canning rings.
4.  Heat jar seals and sterilize jars (in boiling water for 10 minutes).
5. Drain vegetables.
6. Rinse vegetables very well.
7. Add vinegar, brown sugar, seeds and spices to a boil – stir until the sugar is disolved.
8. Add vegetables to brine, simmer for 10 minutes.
9. Add veggies to jars, then add liquid while leaving 1/4 inch headspace.  
10. Wipe rims, apply seals and rings and place in waterbath and process (boil) for 10 minutes.
11. Remove from waterbath, allow to cool for 24 hours and check lids for proper seal.

Fresh Lasagna Noodles

Today, my husband would like lasagna. I always made lasagna weekly for my family. I had not grown up tasting lasagna until i met my husband. His mom gave me her recipe. I have over the years doctored it up to my liking.

When we left Cape Town last month, we flew to Johannesburg and stayed overnight awaiting a standby flight. We met a great guy named Moe, who helped us get a room at the guest house he was staying at. He was the first American sounding person I had run into in 3 weeks and his Texan drawl was music to my ears. I have a problem hearing people to begin with, and then when you add an Afrikaans accent on top...well, i just about have to sit on a person's lap to understand what they are saying. I could understand and hear  my new friend Moe just fine. Not only was he from Texas, he also loves to cook Italian food. He highly recommended an Italian restaurant a  hop and a skip away from the guest house.We ate there later that evening and was looking forward to trying the lasagna. I am sad to say it was not very good...very little tomato sauce and too much cheese.  I woke up the next morning with bad stomach pains which lasted over a week. I have not been real anxious to try lasagna again. After 6 weeks I think I am ready.

I make my own noodles sometimes, if I have the time. I have tried different versions of noodles and find this one to be the most consistent. It was published by Cuisinart. I find it easy to make. 

1  CUP FLOUR

1  CUP CAKE FLOUR

2 LARGE EGGS

½ TS SALT

3 TBS HEAVY CREAM

TO MAKE THE DOUGH, PROCESS ALL THE INGREDIENTS WITH THE METAL BLADE OF A FOOD PROCESSOR UNTIL THE MIXTURE RESEMBLES COARSE MEAL BUT HOLDS TOGETHER WHEN PINCHED BETWEEN TWO FINGERS, ABOUT 20 SECONDS. IF THE MIXTURE DOES NOT HOLD TOGETHER, ADD MORE HEAVY CREAM BY THE TEASPOON, PULSING 4 TIMES AFTER EACH ADDITION.


To roll and cut the dough by machine
Boil water in a large pot. Keep at a simmer until ready to put noodles in. Press the dough into a compact ball, cut it into 4 pieces and place them in a plastic food storage bag. Flatten one piece of the dough into a 1 inch thick rectangle. Keep the remaining dough in the plastic bag. Adjust the rollers of a pasta machine to the widest setting. Pass the dough through once, then fold it into thirds, rotate it a quarter turn, and pass it through again.
Below is the second video I made today. In the first video everything was going very smoothly until I put the dough in the machine and the attachment decided to flip over and spew the dough everywhere. That was quite a sight. So here is the retake with no mishaps.

Reduce the machine setting by one. Pass the dough through unfolded. Repeat, passing dough through unfolded. Repeat, passing the dough through without folding, 3 times on each setting until the pasta is the desired thickness. As the pieces get longer and longer, you will have to stop and cut the pieces of noodles to shorten them. Otherwise they will become unmanageable. Once they are complete, you can decide how you want to cut them to fit your size pan. Lay each piece on a flat surface sprinkled with flour or cornmeal. I use my cupboard doors open. I lay a towel on each cupboard edge and then I drape the noodles over the towel. When you have rolled all of the dough, return water to boil and place the noodles in the water. Only cook for a couple of minutes since they are already soft. Transfer noodles to a colander and drain water. Makes about 3/4 pound. Continue with preparing and layering the lasagna...Directions follow below.

     In the picture below is an example of spinach fettuccine noodles that I made at another time. They are hanging over 2 broom handles suspended by the chairs. You can also see some of the noodles laying over  the chair. My son, Joshua was helping me with this. When we made these noodles I did not have my   kitchen-aid attachment and we were using a hand crank pasta machine. This was very time consuming, but we still had a good time working together. I sure do miss him and his new, lovely, bride, Anne.

You will need a kitchenaid mixer with pasta attachments ( roller attachment)

Following is my recipe for lasagna.

Rita’s Lasagna

1 lb ground beef

½ lb ground turkey

1 onions chopped finely

3-4 garlic cloves chopped

1-2 jars of prego sauce

Fresh Basil and Oregano

8 oz of cottage cheese

Parmesan cheese

16 oz shredded cheese mozzarella and sharp cheddar each

Lasagna noodles

1.    Grease a 9x 13 pan.

2.    If using store bought noodles, boil water and add 9 to 12 lasagna noodles for 10 minutes. Drain and run under cold water to stop the noodles from cooking.

3.    Brown beef and turkey .

4.    Drain grease. Remove meat from pan and set aside

5.    Sauge onion until tender. At least minute add garlic and sauté for one more minute.

6.    Add the meat back into the veggies.

7.    Add prego sauce and fresh basil and oregano, salt and pepper to taste

8.    Cover and cook for 15 minutes on low.

9.    Place a 2 -3 T of sauce on bottom of pan and smear across pan.

10.  Layer 3 noodles side by side on bottom of pan. Pour sauce on top of noodles.

11.  Drop cottage cheese by the tablespoons on top of sauce. 9 T in all.

12.  Spread by handfuls the cheeses  on top.

13.  Repeat the layers again starting with the noodles and ending with cheeses. You will have a total of 3 layers.

14.  Cover with tin foil.  Place lasagna on a cookie sheet and place in oven at 350 for 45  minutes.

15.  Remove from oven and let stand for 20 minutes to let lasagna set.

16.  Serve with garlic bread and salad.

Chutney

One day last month in Cape Town, our new friends Ree and Francois, took us to eat at a restaurant for lunch. They did not have ketchup there. They had chutney..Mrs. Balls to be exact. I tried it and I loved it. As far as I know, you cannot buy it here around here in Florida. My standard answer to that is I will make it myself. After researching many recipes I finally found one that had converted the original recipe from grams to cups.Thank you so much...I could kiss you...smooch, smooch. This is the recipe I started with and added to as I went along.

2.7 C dried peaches 

1 C dried apricots

.8 gallons of malt vinegar

11 C of white sugar

2 1/5 C of minced onions 

2 tsp of salt 

1/4 t of cayenne pepper 

1/4 tsp each of tumeric,chili powder, fresh ginger, cayenne pepper and nutmeg.

·        

       Soak your dried fruit in 3-4 cups of vinegar overnight. 

·        The next day,  cook the fruit and vinegar (same from the soak before) together until soft.  

·      

            Drain the fruit (reserving the vinegar) and put the fruit through a mill or food processor.  Process it to the consistency you'd like the fruit to be in the final product. I wanted it to be chunky, so that's what I chopped it to!    

·       Cook your onions until almost clear, and add them (and the sugar) to your vinegar.  Also, add in your fruit at this stage. 

·         You may need to add more vinegar.  I added another bottle of malt vinegar. I was trying to make it like what I remembered Mrs. Balls to be. 

·        Add your spices and cook for an additional one to two hours.  Make sure you stir it occasionally to avoid burning.

·        When you have the color and consistency ready to be bottled (bring the chutney back up to a boil.

·        Place the chutney in your hot, clean jars, leaving 1/2" of head space.

·        Process the jars for 20 minutes in a boiling water bath to help seal the self-sealing vacuum lids.  I made about 3 quart size mason jars. Cool  jars on a clean towel for a couple of days and then refrigerate.

I had a little left over that I did not can. I put it in a small jar and used it later. We made hamburgers and oh my goodness was the chutney sublime on them. I also made homemade fries that were baked in the oven. I served that with my famous chipotle mayo. My friend Claudia gave me earlier in the day some redneck caviar. Never had that before. I will be posting that also soon.

Rita's gadgets: hamburg press

I have made hamburgers for years for my family. I have always made them according to the size of my hands, which are small. One night when we ate at our friends house, Donna and Arthur, they were having hamburgers. I noticed how big her hamburgers were and I couldn't get over it. They looked like the nice patties you get in the supermarket that are perfectly shaped and about a 1/2 inch thick. I watched how she made them and tried to duplicate it at home myself. Mine still came out very small and kind of like a small hockey puck.

 One day, while shopping I came across this gadget. Surely I thought to myself this was the answer to making better shaped hamburgers. So, I tried it according to directions and the meat kept sticking to the plastic and falling apart. Out of frustration, I was inspired to try some wax paper. So, I cut a piece out and laid it on top of the bottom half of the press. I  put the hamburg on top of that and placed another piece of wax paper on top of that. Then I put the top piece of the press over that and pressed down. Viola, no  more sticking. I pulled the top off and the top piece of wax paper. Then I lifted out the pattie by lifting the bottom piece of wax paper. I pulled the wax paper away from the hamburger and there was a perfectly shaped hamburger worthy of my husbands and sons hands. This was something they could sink there teeth into. 

Mediterranean couscous

 

 I love couscous, and I really love it made this way. Jessica, Joy and Annie I think you will like this recipe. I have added other ingredients to my liking. There are 2 kitchen utensils I like to use that i like to use.


 If you like to dice and have everything uniform in size, I like this hand held chopper. I chop the zuchinni into 2 inch sections and place it into the chopper. Press down  and open you will have sliced zuchinni. Take these slices and place in the chopper again..now you will have matchstick size zuchinni...put it in again and now you have diced zuchini...I do this with the onion and tomato.

  Now for the basil and mint, I like to use a mezzaluna knife. Roll the basil leaves together and rock the mezzaluna back and forth, chopping through the layers. Keep on chopping until you have a fine mince of the herbs. Do the same with the mint.

2 roma tomatoes
1  near east box couscous
1/2 zuchhini diced
1/3 diced red onion
3/4 cup feta cheese
2 T fresh lemon juice
3 T olive oil
1/2 cup fresh basil thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves minced
1/4 ts salt and pepper
1/4 finely chopped fresh mint
1/2 sliced olives of your choice(pitted)

Prepare the couscous according to package directions. Cool. Dice zuchhini, onion, tomatoes, olives. Mince garlic, basil and mint. Place the couscous in a medium size bowl with the zuchhini, onion, tomatoes, olives, garlic, feta cheese, basil and mint. Mix together. Add lemon juice, olive oil and seasonings. Refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours. Enjoy alone or with a bed of lettuce.