Resolute

So far, I'm sticking to my New Year's Resolution of trying new recipes...

...well, sort of.  We had lasagna on Wednesday. I've made lasagna before, but since it's not in my regular rotation (I make it once or twice a year, if even that) I'm counting it as a new recipe. It was delicious, easier to make than I remembered, and a nice change of pace for dinner.

But, I do need to branch out to truly new recipes, and I've been pouring over my cookbooks.  This is the stack on the family room end table that I peruse whenever I have a spare moment.  The tabs sticking out are marking the recipes I want to try:

And here's another shelf of cookbooks in the office:

This shelf is baking cookbooks only:

Of course, I have more cooking/baking books that don't fit on those shelves just laying around the house.  I want to go through all of them, try the recipes that sound good, and get rid of any that don't have something I can use. 

In addition to the usual cookbooks, I have years of back issues of magazines with valuable recipes.  Below are my office shelves dedicated to Martha Stewart publications (plus the Complete Chicken Cookbook which won't fit on the other cookbook shelf).  Some of the Martha Stewart books deal with crafts, organization and business, but I own a few cookbooks from her and I've kept every issue of Martha Stewart Living from 2005 on.  I've also kept every issue I've ever received of Everyday Food, which now amounts to a sizable collection of those. I need to go through each of these again and find recipes and meals that will work for my family. 

As if this weren't enough cookbooks and magazines, I also have 10+ years worth of Taste of Home back issues, as well as 10+ special Taste of Home publications (hardback books, recipe collections, etc.).  There's also two years of back issues of Better Homes and Gardens, and several binders worth of recipes, tips and ideas I've clipped from magazines over the last 14+ years. 

With all material for new dinner and meal ideas, I might need to change my resolution from trying two new dinner recipes a month to trying a new recipe twice a day.  And working out more. That, or investing in several new pairs of sweat pants. 

I'm leaning towards new sweat pants.

Rosemary potatoes

The Little Guy and I made roasted rosemary potatoes for a yummy side dish recently, and it's a recipe I've adapted from one I found years ago in a Taste of Home magazine.  It's a very simple side dish and goes great with just about anything.

Start by peeling and dicing potatoes. Throw them in a bowl.

Pour some olive oil over the potatoes and stir to coat.

Next, let your 3-year-old add the seasoning salt.  Watch him closely lest he add too much. Trust me on this.

Then let your adorable son add the rosemary.  He can go crazy with the rosemary--that's okay.

Stir everything up so the potatoes are coated with the olive oil, seasoning salt and rosemary.

Put it all in a sprayed, foil-lined pan.  You can put the potatoes directly on to your baking sheet, but this way it's much easier to clean.

Bake the potatoes at 350F until they are fork-tender and golden brown (usually 30 minutes or so).

Then, enjoy!  Doesn't this look great? It smells and tastes fabulous.  When done correctly, these potatoes should be slightly crispy on the outside and completely soft on the inside.

This is a very easy comfort-food side dish, and perfect for the next few weeks as we wait for spring to truly arrive.  Give these roasted rosemary potatoes a try!

Salmon glaze

I recently found a recipe for a brown sugar glaze for salmon, and it's delicious.  The recipe is in the 2010 Taste of Home Annual Recipes Cookbook.

The recipe suggests mixing all the ingredients over a saucepan, but I threw everything in a pyrex measuring cup and heated it in the microwave. It turned out fine.

The glaze is intended for salmon cooked in the oven, but at the TMI household, salmon is wrapped in foil and tossed on the grill.  For my purposes, the glaze really served as more of a marinade.

Cooking salmon this way is really quick (only 10 minutes or so on the grill) and a cinch to clean up. This is a real bonus in the summer, when turning on the oven in August in the midwest is never a good idea.

Give this glaze and cooking technique a try. Happy grilling!

Cream of cauliflower soup

The days are getting shorter, the temperatures are dropping, and we're almost to that time of year when all you want to do is eat a bunch and then sleep for four months straight.  That's how you feel, right?  Right?

Am I the only one who wants to be a bear and hibernate every winter?

At any rate, it's time to break out the comfort foods of soups, breads and hearty casseroles to help us all make it through the season.  And recently, I found a new comfort soup to add to my repertiore.  Taste of Home has a wonderful Cream of Cauliflower soup recipe. 

For the most part, simply follow the directions online.  I added more carrots and celery than the recipe called for.  More vegetables are good!

The instructions do not mention how to chop the cauliflower.  I did some of it in the food processor, being careful not to chop too finely.  To make sure I had some good-size bites of cauliflower, I also chopped some by hand. 

My only word of caution regarding the recipe is to be careful when you are mixing the butter, flour, milk and whipping cream mixture.  The directions say to bring the mixture to a boil, stir and cook for two minutes or until thickened.  In my experience, the mixture got extremely thick in about a minute, so be sure to stir the entire time and stop before it turns into cement.

From there, add the creamy mixture to the larger soup mixture.

The recipe states to cook the soup for 10 minutes after adding the cream mixture, for a total of 40 minutes cooking time.  I'm sure I let this simmer for well over an hour, and it was fine. 

This soup was delicious.  I liked it, the Little Guy liked it, and Mom2 liked it, so the recipe was a definite winner.  The recipe makes a large batch, which is great for easy lunches.  It reheats very well.  The TMI household is giving this recipe 4 stars--give it a try!

Rich coffee cake

A good coffee cake is worth it's weight in gold--I truly believe that. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to come across a recipe for a totally delicious coffee cake from Taste of Home. They call it Rich Coffee Cake, and they aren't kidding.


The ingredients are simple: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, etc. The assembly, as listed on ToH, is not. You'll notice that the original recipe calls for a layer of topping, a layer of cake, another layer of topping and another layer of cake, all baked in a tube pan. That seemed a bit much for me, so I modified the recipe a bit.

I made my version in a 9x13 cake pan, and just sprinkled the topping on top. One layer of cake, one layer of topping. This allowed me to decrease the baking time by half, which is always a good thing. I did keep with the original directions to spray the pan, and then sprinkle a layer of cinnamon-sugar on the bottom. Mmmmm...cinnamon-sugar.

As you can see, the rich coffee cake was a hit. This is what the pan looked like within 24 hours of baking it. The Big Guy and I had eaten half, and the Little Guy got a few bites, too.

Make this coffee cake today so it's ready in the morning. And then don't plan on eating anything other than this for tomorrow. Trust me, one bite and this is all you'll want to eat! Enjoy!