Okay, this is the most recent Recipe Thread

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Crosspost from another thread. I'm not very much fish people, though I like blackened fish. Most of my ideas of fun seafood seem to center around shellfish and shrimp -- definitely not halibut! But this one looks like fun:

Phyllo-Wrapped Halibut

The recipe:

Phyllo-Wrapped Halibut


I created this easy entree to convince my husband that seafood doesn't have to taste "fishy." He likes the flaky, phyllo wrapping as well as the bright green and red vegetables hidden inside of it. —Carrie Vazzano of Rolling Meadows, Illinois

SERVINGS: 2

CATEGORY: Lower Fat

METHOD: Baked

TIME: Prep: 20 min. Bake: 20 min.
Ingredients:

* 4 cups fresh baby spinach
* 3/4 cup chopped sweet red pepper
* 3/4 teaspoon salt-free lemon-pepper seasoning, divided
* 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
* 6 sheets phyllo dough (14 inches x 9 inches)
* 2 tablespoons reduced-fat butter, melted
* 2 halibut fillets (4 ounces each)
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/8 teaspoon pepper
* 1/4 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Directions:
In a large nonstick skillet lightly coated with cooking spray, saute spinach and red pepper until tender. Add 1/2 teaspoon lemon-pepper and lemon juice. Remove from the heat; cool.
Line a baking sheet with foil and coat the foil with cooking spray; set aside. Place one sheet of phyllo dough on a work surface; brush with butter. (Until ready to use, keep phyllo dough covered with plastic wrap and a damp towel to prevent it from drying out.) Layer remaining phyllo over first sheet, brushing each with butter. Cut stack in half widthwise.
Place a halibut fillet in the center of each square; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Top with cheese and spinach mixture. Fold sides and bottom edge over fillet and roll up to enclose it; trim end of phyllo if necessary. Brush with remaining butter; sprinkle with remaining lemon-pepper.
Place seam side down on prepared baking sheet. Bake at 375° for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Yield: 2 servings.

[Shawnee123]

I'm the opposite: I love fish but hate seafood like shrimp or crab or lobster.

I love halibut, one of my favorites. Haddock. Salmon. Tuna.

I'm hungry.

[Jill]

Thanks for sharing that recipe over here, Urbane Guerrilla. My husband and I had "paper-wrapped" halibut as one of the entrees at our wedding, and it was so delicious I had to try it myself. I made that recipe one night as an experiment, because I had a bunch of leftover stuff I needed to use up, but that weren't enough for full portions of anything by themselves. We loved it, so I can definitely recommend it.

I haven't had a chance to read through this thread thoroughly yet, but I did search through it and didn't find any recipes posted for brisket, so I thought I'd share mine. I adapted it from my step-mother's recipe, which calls for sealing it in aluminum foil, putting it in a glass baking dish surrounded by water, then babysitting it for hours, replenishing the water constantly. Doing it her way and not getting to it soon enough to add water when it dried up, caused my glass baking dish to explode in the oven! This is truly the "set it and forget it" method. . .

Jill's Famous Brisket

The modification at the bottom is also mine (and doesn't have to be used only for the reason I created it - Passover, obviously), and I can tell you it's exactly as delicious as the soup mix version, in fact, maybe even better, as I like the real mushrooms that end up in the gravy, and Better Than Bouillon is to die for yummy.

Off to go read this thread from the beginning. . .

[Jill]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

The best Spinach Pie ever!

Ingredients:

1 lge bunch of spinach (or silverbeet) finely chopped
1 lge Onion finely chopped
1 cup of grated cheddar cheese
2 cups of crumbled fetta cheese
1/2 cup of long grain rice (uncooked)
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

2 sheets of puff pastry

1. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl and then drizzle olive oil in the mixture until it starts to 'cling' together, but not drip.

2. Line a pan with 1 sheet of pastry.

3. Tip the spinach mixture into the pastry lined pan.

4. Make a lid out of the second sheet of pastry. Remember to poke holes in the top so the mixture can breath.

5. Brush melted butter or milk over the top of the pastry.

6. Bake in a moderate oven for 1 hour then turn the heat up to a hot oven for 10 minutes to brown the pastry.

7. Eat with gusto

This sounds incredibly yummy and I will definitely be trying it!

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I have some ground beef+pork+lamb here and will be needing your meatloaf recipes for tomorrow night.

I know it's well beyond the "tomorrow night" referred to in your post, but in the event that you find yourself with ground meats again, especially pork, I can highly recommend my mother-in-law's Danish frikadeller. They're similar to Swedish meatballs, but way, WAY better. Here's the recipe, translated from my husband's Danish cookbook, God Mad, Let at lave (Good food, easy to cook):

Ingredients

1/2 lb ground beef and 1/2 lb of ground pork (you can also use just pork, or pork and veal, whatever combination of ground meat you prefer)
1/2 cup flour
About a cup of liquid, such as milk, water or stock (we use milk)
1 egg
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 finely chopped yellow onion
Butter for frying

(This is an easy recipe to double, which we also usually do.)

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, add all ingredients except liquid, and mix for roughly 3 minutes with a hand mixer on medium speed, adding liquid to get desired consistency, which should be moist but not wet.

Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes

Heat a couple of tbsp of butter in large skillet

Dip a spoon in the hot butter from the pan and use the spoon and your hand to shape meatballs into flattened football shapes.

Drop meatballs in the skillet and fry until crispy on the outside, roughly 4 - 5 minutes on each side.

Continue the process until all the meatballs are cooked (will require several batches, or, if you're good, several pans at one time).

When they're done, they should look like this.

Serve with boiled red potatoes and green beans.

Mmmmm. Enjoy!

[Alluvial]

Originally Posted by Jill

Serve with boiled red potatoes and green beans.

Yanno, I bet those would make good sandwiches too.

[Undertoad]

Pork meatball sammich with provolone and put under the broiler for 3 minutes?

Sign me up! (For cholesterol testing! )

[Jill]

They make good everything, even just pop-in-your-mouth snacks. Frikadeller are my Desert Island food. Whenever we go home to Denmark, my MIL makes a ton of them because she knows I'll inevitably get up in the middle of the night from jet lag and raid the refrigerator, heading straight for the frikadeller. Cold frikadeller -- heaven on earth.

P.S. HI, Alluvial! I'm glad to see you finally made it here!!

[Alluvial]

Originally Posted by Jill

P.S. HI, Alluvial! I'm glad to see you finally made it here!!

Thanks, I'm glad you're here too. We should start a Refugees club.


My family is going to love these Frikadeller. I'm going to try making them this week. Any reason I couldn't use venison for one of the meats?

[Jill]

The more, the merrier, I say!

I've never tried venison meat, so I have no idea how "gamey" it might taste compared to other ground meats, but if it's a flavor you like, I don't see why it wouldn't work. I will admit to preferring pork to beef, so if you're substituting one of them, I'd use pork and venison as opposed to beef and venison.

You'll have to let me know how you like them. Hope you enjoy!

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Venison's only occasionally gamey. It tastes like... well, ungulate. African antelope, deer, cattle... they all taste a little different but a recipe that works for one works for another.

This thread has no organization by theme or anything else. Until Jill, no brisket either. It's just where I throw recipes I either like or think I'd like. We just talk about food here until we get hungry and go raid the refrigerator.

I'm working on getting somebody else's apple-blueberry pie recipe the way the wife likes it -- she doesn't see any point in oversweetening a pie, particularly a fruit pie, and she may have something there. It'll be a bit more my recipe after I jigger with it a bit.

Still getting lots of raves locally with the Lemon Meringue Pie, p.1 in the thread.

[Alluvial]

I mentioned elsewhere that I would post the recipe for the Mexican Casserole. (Photo in this post).

The only essential ingredients are the corn tortillas and the tomato sauce. What else you put in there is up to you.

I usually make this in a 13" x 9" pan. You won't need as big of a pan if you put fewer ingredients in it.

I take a can of diced tomatoes (you can use fresh diced) and a can of tomato sauce and simmer that for a few minutes (10-15) on the stove with some seasonings. If you're in a hurry just put a packet of taco seasoning in there.

Then take your corn tortillas (the small kind), dip them in the sauce, and lay them flat in the pan. Six go on the bottom layer. Ladle a good coating of the tomato sauce on top of these.

Now you're ready to build the other layers. Here are some suggestions for ingredients:

1 can black beans (drained)
1 can cut corn (drained)
1/2 c diced onion
shredded cheese
1 can black olives
1 lb ground meat (beef, venison, or turkey) seasoned with one packet taco seasoning
etc.

You can stretch this further by including 1 cup of cooked rice.

Layer a couple of ingredients, then another layer of tortillas. I usually put the corn and cheese on the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. To keep the cheese from getting too brown, you can wait and add it for the last 15 minutes.

Very good served with a dollop of sour cream and a salad.

[dar512]

Thanks Alluvial. I suspect the darlets will enjoy this.

[Alluvial]

YVW. It's the sort of thing kids like to help make, as well - kind of fun.

[Clodfobble]

Thanks Al!

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Swiped from BrianR's post in "Hollandaise."

I was trained to make all sauces at the Jax Culinary Institute, so this one is a whiz, but it is hard for a beginner to make.

To begin with, the ingredients should be at room temp, as suggested above. start your double-boiler. Whisk in cool water (out of the tap is fine) and egg yolks and a few drops of lemon juice. The lemon juice is important to add flavor!

heat over the boiler (be gentle, this sauce is delicate) until thickened. Then add the butter (clarified, not melted) s l o w l y!
only a few drops at a time until the sauce thickens well. You should be able to drop in the last Tablespoonful at the end but be gentle. If you do too fast, you will break the sauce.

If the sauce gets TOO thick, add in a few drops of HOT water at a time until it is back to where you want it. The sauce will keep for an hour or so, if you keep it warm. You should have turned off the double-boiler earlier. You can hold the sauce over that as long as it doesn't get too hot, warm is the key.

Have the muffins prepared ahead of time and do the eggs at the same time you're building the sauce. quickly heat the ham (I use Canadian Bacon on mine) and build the dish, spread a bit of sauce over the top of the eggs, and garnish with a tiny pinch of parsley or a small slice of lemon.