Bread and Butter Pickles

Canning season is coming. For some, it may already be here. For us in the Palouse, harvests are far behind and slim. The university orchard finally opened up cherry picking for 1 day this week. That's nearly 4 weeks behind and just goes to demonstrate how tough it might be this year. My garden is struggling but that doesn't mean everyone's is.
This pickle recipe is wonderful and requires no canning skills. You cook the brine but the cucumbers and onions stay raw. What you get in return is a crisp, sweet and sour pickle chip. We even eat the onions. Save the brine and throw in fresh cucumbers and onions.
The recipe says keep for 1 year. We have batches that are over a year (we make a lot of pickles) and they are perfectly fine. You want to make sure they are well sealed to prevent odd flavors coming from stuff in the fridge. We use glass jars for our pickles which seem to preserve them better than plastic.

Bread and Butter Pickles
3 cup sugar
3 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup salt
1 teas celery seed
1/4 teas turmeric
1 tb mustard seed
a little dill in each jar
mix all ingredients together in saucepan and boil. Let cool. Slice cucumbers and onions into a gallon jar. Pour cooled liquid over veggies until the liquid comes to the top. Refrigerate for 1 week up to a year.

Squirrel on a Stick

Squirrel on a stick is a family favorite for barbequing. It takes a little preparation and goes fast but it's a fun addition to outdoor cooking. I will put your mind at ease and tell you it's not really squirrel, it's chicken. My mother started making these chicken skewers when we were teens and my brothers named them squirrel on a stick (which stuck and has freaked out non-family members for 20 years).

It does take preparation but when that's done they cook rather quickly and are eaten twice as fast.
It's better to soak your bamboo skewers while marinating the chicken and use them wet. Because they are wood they will burn on the grill, soaking reduces this problem. You can use metal skewers but they will be hotter coming off the grill than the wood.

I have included a link to my homemade teriyaki sauce. My mom would buy the powdered mix (in the aisle with the taco seasoning, powdered spaghetti sauce, gravies) and add pineapple juice and whatever the packet called for. Any teriyaki sauce would work here.

Squirrel on a Stick
boneless skinless chicken breasts
teriyaki marinade
bamboo skewers

Cut the chicken into stripes the long way (I use kitchen scissors). Marinate in the teriyaki sauce for several hours (or as long as you can plan ahead). Soak the bamboo skewers for at least an hour. Thread the pieces of chicken onto the skewers the long way so that you have one long piece of chicken on the stick. Cook on hot coals until done. You can also cook these in the oven at 400 if you set them on a grill with a baking pan to catch sauce/fat drips. You want them to come out a little dry to the touch. Eat and enjoy.

Sauerkraut Salad

This is such a fun recipe. I found it in a Tamar Myers book and have been making it for nearly 10 years. It's a great way for me to use up sauerkraut that's been open for awhile. I'm the only one in my family that eats the sauerkraut so it takes a long time for me to go through a jar - this recipe gets the whole family eating it up. It's a sweet and sour sort of recipe and really great cold. Because I use leftover sauerkraut, I don't make a full batch. I often use 1 bell pepper, part of an onion and 1 stalk celery. I do make a full batch of dressing and then use what's needed for the salad and have the rest on other veggies or toss into sweet and sour sauce.

Amish Sauerkraut Salad
Salad:
3 cans (16 oz each) sauerkraut, drained and chopped
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 large red onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
Dressing:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
2/3 cups white vinegar
1/3 cups water
1 teas caraway seed, optional
Combine sauerkraut and diced vegetables
Heat dressing ingredients until sugar is dissolved and the mixture is well blended. Pour over the vegetable mixture and toss to combine. Refrigerate 24 hours before serving. If kept in glass container, the salad will keep in the refrigerate for up to two weeks.

Mediterranean Salad

With the summer heat, salads are a great meal that is cool and doesn't heat up the kitchen. This particular salad I created off of a deli salad I would find now and again. I loved the salad so much I would go in and buy it for lunch but it wasn't always available so one day I asked how they made it. It was so easy that it no longer made sense that I would buy it from the deli (that and it became less and less available). I often omit the onions because I don't like raw onions and I don't measure anything for this salad. It's all about what you like and the balance you want to create. It uses creamy italian dressing which really does taste different from regular Italian dressing. Experiment and see what you like.

Mediterranean Salad
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Onions
Sliced olives
Feta cheese
Creamy Italian dressing

Slice cucumbers and onions. Cube tomatoes. Mix together vegetables in a bowl. Toss in olives and cheese. Pour dressing over salad, mix carefully and refrigerate. Serve cold.

Highrollers

With the summer heat in full swing, cooking becomes an undesirable act. Every Sunday we gather together for a big meal and entertainment. Yesterday, the temperature was the low 90's. We had planned on sandwiches and mac and cheese. Too hot. But we went with highrollers and macaroni salad (we cheated and bought the salad while enjoying the stores air conditioning).
Highrollers are a type of sandwich but they are so much cooler than a normal sandwich (I mean temperature). They are easy to make but look like you spent ages making them. Pop them in the fridge before serving and you have a rather nice summer dinner.

Highrollers
Burrito sized flour tortillas
Deli meat
Cream Cheese, mayo, mustard
cheese
lettuce (or salad mix)
tomato or other sandwich veggies

* You really can make these any way you want which makes a recipe difficult. I love cream cheese and turkey so that's the instructions I will give you. If you use tomatoes, slice as thin as possible because they will inhibit rolling and they will make the roller wetter.

Lay out tortilla. Spread a thin layer of cream cheese over the tortilla. Layer with slices of turkey. Sprinkle on salad mix. be sure to leave a rim of cream cheese around the edge of tortilla without other toppings. Starting at the side nearest you, roll the tortilla into a tube, using the cream cheese to seal the edges. Slice into 1" pieces.
Refrigerate if you want them to be extra cold or serve immediately.
I like to dip my slices in Italian dressing.
The sky is the limit with these sandwiches, just rememeber dry is better and then dip into sauces.

Super Cook

I don't know how I missed posting about this website. I discovered it through the local new station's facebook page. It is the most amazing site I have seen when it comes to finding recipes.
The concept of Supercook is to find recipes with certain ingredients.
For example, in your cupboards you have a can of black beans, a can of corn and a can of diced tomatoes. You list those in super cook and it gives you 2000 recipes. The first one, 5 minute chili, tells me I have everything I need to make it. The remaining recipes list additional ingredients I will need to make the recipe.
Supercook is a database so when I click on the recipe, it will take me out of supercook and to the recipe site. All the recipes, I have looked at, have been on sites I was familiar with - Martha Stewart, All recipes, etc so I know I am getting sent to good sites that I don't have to worry about spam or viruses.
For me, I hope this site will help me use up some of those odds and ends I have collected in my pantry. It should be a great resource to break out of the same old food routine.

Tilapia in Caramel Sauce

My dad had some Tilapia and wanted to make it for us for dinner. The problem was he didn't know how to prepare it. I offered some suggestions but my dad and I are different sort of cooks. I like to just throw things together and recipes are ideas and guidelines (inspiration). For my dad a recipe offers a certain comfort that a dish will be good. He doesn't really like to substitute or vary from the recipe. He has dishes he has cooked most of my life that he still needs the recipes for. It's not a bad thing, it's just different.
So when I began offering suggestions to my dad, he wanted a recipe. We did a quick search and found Braised Tilapia in Caramel Sauce.

My dad had me cook the fish so I didn't quite follow the recipe (does that shock you?). First thing I did was make the sauce in a saucepan. I dipped the raw fish in the sauce and fried it on an oiled griddle (can use a frying pan). I brought the sauce back to boiling so that all the raw fish stuff would be cooked. I served the fish with the sauce drizzled over it. The reason I did this was I was concerned that the sauce would not be good and would ruin the fish. The sauce is great. It's not what I thought it would be but it's still a good sauce. My first sample of the sauce got me laughing because it tastes a lot like teriyaki sauce. It's a little more complicated than my basic teriyaki but it's worth the trouble.
I will share that my family really likes fish sauce in cooking. We're not quite to the point we can use it as a condiment. Fish sauce is always gluten free so it's great for those avoiding gluten. It does have a strong smell but I found that it's flavor is more mild than it feels like it should be. It tastes like soy sauce with a hint of fish but when serving it on fish you don't notice it at all.
Tilapia is a nice, firm white fish. It's often inexpensive (compared to other fish). It has a mild flavor, making it perfect for sauces. It's great just fried in butter with seasoned salt and pepper. Because it's firm, it fries beautifully and could easily be breaded and deep fried.