NomNom: Little Old House Bread Pudding

This Sunday I made bread pudding for breakfast, so I thought I'd share this little special treat with you. It's been a while since I last posted a recipe here at the Little Old House blog, so here we go.

Bread pudding is a really simple thing to make: bread, eggs, butter, brown sugar, a splash of vanilla, and maybe a handful of raisins, for kicks and giggles. Together with some crispy bacon, sweet butter, and maple syrup this is top notch comfort food, especially when the weather is miserable (or to celebrate the sun after a cold and dreary week).

There are plenty of recipes for bread pudding out there, and because I usually wing it and don't have actual measurements for the ingredients I throw into it other than a general list of things that simply belong, this is not what this "recipe" is about.

It's about using the right bread. Traditionally bread pudding calls for stale bread. I have used plain wheat toast, whole wheat toast, Challa bread, but nothing, nothing, NO-THING turns bread pudding into the decadent, "one more spoon!" kind of treat than using croissants.

Croissants.

Use them.
For your bread pudding.
You won't regret it.

Nom Nom Nom: Jamaican Curry Shrimp

Our awesome neighborhood comes with a variety of little social groups including a cooking club, the "Springfield Skillet." Once a month neighbors get together cooking up a storm based on a monthly theme and have a great time, enjoying food and company. While I can't make this month's meeting I did some recipe browsing because it's a beautiful opportunity to discover and add a new favorite to your staple dishes. This month's theme is "Jamaican" brought to you by the letter "J." My neighbor Heather found this great Jamaican cooking website on the internet "Cook Like A Jamaican", and their Curry shrimp dish definitely caught my eye.

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of shrimp (peeled and deveined)
• 1 red pepper, sliced
• 1 green pepper, sliced
• 1 small onion, sliced
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• 1 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 can of coconut milk(unsweetened!)
• pepper, salt, garlic, butter

Saute your peppers, onion and garlic in butter until almost soft. Add tomato paste, diced tomato and deglaze with coconut milk. Add curry powder, then salt and pepper to taste. Add your shrimp and cook in sauce until done. I served it with buttered brown rice, and, boy, was it finger-licking, lip-smacking good!

The husband and I finished the entire pan (Little Man is no big fan of shrimp, so he had his beloved fish stick sandwich), and he agreed that this recipe is definitely a keeper. Yum!

The Only Bread Recipe You'll Ever Need

Thank God for Pinterest! And bread.

Especially bread.

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned it (and I'm clearly missing an "About me/us" tab) but I'm a German mail-order bride Expat living in sunny Florida. While my inner lizard enjoys living far away from cold snow and gloomy rainy days tremendously, there are a couple of German things I do miss almost every day, like my family and good bread.

Bread with a crust.

Bread with a velvety airy soft inside.

Bread with flavor.

Bread with texture.

Bread with a backbone that can't be compressed from a full-sized loaf to the size of a tennisball.

Good bread.

Bakeries that bake this kind of bread I grew up with are far and few inbetween and every single German expat I have met so far has at one point or another gotten into baking their own bread. Baking good bread is an art, but unfortunately we don't always have time to bake us a Van Gogh or a Renoir. Sometimes, that craving for bread needs a quick fix.

Thank God for Pinterest!

This is where I found the link to "Alexandra's Kitchen" and her mother's peasant bread (recipe link here).

It calls for a total of -5- ingredients: flour, salt, sugar, yeast and water, and makes the most amazing bread ever in just about -3- hours.

No kidding.

Since then I/we have sworn off store-bought bread entirely and I bake a batch every two or three days. It's a great tasting neutral bread that can easily be made more fun by adding extra ingredients like

- oats as a sprinkle on top for a great crunch and extra rustic look

- raisins or cranberries mixed into the dough for a sweeter bread without having to add more sugar

- chunks of fresh garlic mixed into the dough and topped off with s sprinkle of Rosemary for a hearty   

  garlic bread

- nuts of any kind mixed into the dough(walnuts, pecan, hazelnuts) or as a crusty topping

So so good!

Thank you, Alexandra, for sharing this terrific recipe! You saved my life!

Starting off with something sweet

 Since it looks like I broke my toe stubbing it against a part of the craptastic wrought iron railing on our front porch (bloody thing needs to go, like -now-), I needed a pick-me-up.
I did.
So I made the bestest comfort dessert I could think of: Coconut Tres Leches Cake.

Coconut Tres Leches

Doesn't get any better than that.

Ingredients:
1 box of yellow cake
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1quart of heavy whipping cream
1 can of coconut milk (not sweetened)
vanilla extract
toasted coconut flakes

Bake your yellow cake according to the instructions on the box. When you take it out of the oven poke it thoroughly with a fork until it looks like a well loved pin cushion without pins.

Mix sweetened condensed milk, coconut milk and half of the whipping cream. Add a splash of vanilla extract (Warning: Please be aware you will need all of your willpower to put the spoon down after mixing and to keep yourself from drinking the whole jug of milk syrup. You have been warned.)

Pour the milk syrup over your yellow cake until covered, then allow the cake to cool in the fridge. It'll soak up the delicious milk syrup and develop an almost creamy texture.

Whip your remaining whipping cream, add a little bit of sugar to sweeten it and cover your Tres Leches Cake. Sprinkle toasted coconut flakes on top. Serve pieces with an extra splash of milk syrup

Optional but so so good are diced banana on top of the slice of wonder :o)

Summer is almost over so it's no big deal if you start ruining your bikini shape now.
Enjoy!

Spicy Garlic Bok Choi

The family and I love to hunt for produce over at the Beaver Street Farmers market, Jacksonville's oldest farmers market according to their webpage which you can find here . The selection and quality is great, the prices are good and it's just fun to browse the market stalls and look at the colorful displays, hear the banter and chatter in not just English and negotiate your dinners for the week.

Last time, we picked up some lovely baby bok choi at my favorite market stall run by a wisp of an Asian lady who rules her minions with an iron hand but has customer service down to an art. She will peek into your bags to determine whether that basket you chose had indeed enough potatoes, beans, okra, mushrooms, tomatoes, whatever - and if it falls short, just toss in another handful. She is also willing to cut you a deal, say, when you are whipping up a medium truckload of broccoli salad for 20+ hungry cub scouts and need more than just one of anything.

So this past weekend, she had some lovely lovely baby bok choi that had to come home with us! All three of us love Asian cuisine and so I whipped up a batch of spicy garlic bok choi with chicken:

Ingredients:
3 baby bok choi, cut into chunks
3-4 cloves of garlic, cut into slices
1/2 tsp (or more, depending on taste) red pepper flakes
1 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs apple cider vinegar
ginger
1 cup soy sauce
vegetable oil
optional: chicken, beef, pork or shrimp (we used chicken)

Add a tablespoon of vegetable oil to a wok or deep pan and heat it up. Add your garlic making sure not to burn it. As soon as it starts to soften, add your chicken/beef/pork/shrimp. Add soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, red pepper flakes, brown sugar and dust lightly with ginger. Toss in the white, chunky parts of your baby bok choi and turn down heat. Don't cover; the bok choi gives off a lot of liquid and covering will just turn it into a soupy mess. Once the chunkier pieces start to soften, add the leaves and cook until wilted. Done!

If you like your sauce a bit thicker, just thicken it with a bit of cornstarch. Serve over rice or noodles. Omnomnom!

Stuffed Pasta Shells

Every once in a while I hit a jackpot with a meatless meal for my family of carnivores. We do love our veggies and carbs, but usually there is some kind of meat involved in our main meal of the day (ranging from cold cuts and bacon to fish, fowl and other fourlegged farm animals). While I try to keep things lean, I know we're rather carniverous und try to sneak in a dish or two a week that uses a different kind of protein.

This week it was stuffed pasta shells and boy, it was homerun time for Mama! Gooey, cheesy goodness with a tangy Vodka tomato sauce (a canned sauce doctored up) and a fresh crispy salad on the side that had both my men stuffing themselves silly with delight.


I didn't follow an exact recipe. I hardly ever. I'm one of those annoying people who can't follow a recipe to the letter if their life depended on it and happily wing it. Ever watched "Chopped" on the Food Network? That's me and my basket ...I mean, fridge! I secretly admire those who whip up weekly, even monthly meal plans, shop accordingly and stick to them, their freezers loaded with prepared meals but that's not how I roll. Nuh-uh.

About an hour before dinner I peek into my fridge and pantry, see what mood strikes me, and then I wing it.

I keep certain staples around, both in freezer and pantry, and that's pretty much it. All our produce (except for lettuce) comes from the local farmers market and on and off from our veggie bed in the backyard.

So, back to the stuffed pasta shells. Here's what I threw together:

Filling:
1 container ricotta cheese
1 cup parmesan cheese
2 eggs
pepper, salt, garlic to taste
parsley

Mix it up and stuff your pre-cooked pasta shells

Cover your pasta shells with your tomatoe sauce (I used a jar of Vodka Tomato Sauce but added a dash of heavy cream and some more spices) and top it off with grated parmesan and mozzarella cheese. Then bake the whole dish for 20-30 minutes in your oven at ...hmm, oh, about 380F.

For the salad I just tossed different baby greens from the garden, sliced cucumber, and shredded slaw and added fresh, blanched corn for a crispy mix with a simple vinaigrette made from apple cider vinegar, light olive oil, pepper, salt, garlic, a dash of sugar and a tiny dash of Maggi Sauce. You know, to taste.

It was delish!

Gimme Grapefruit!

In our neighbor's backyard there grows a grapefruit tree producing fruit like there is no tomorrow. It's loaded with tons of big yellow grapefruit, and while the grapefruits aren't the pretty, pristine and uniform looking fruit you can find at your grocery store, they do taste the best.

This is the first time in my life that I will happily eat grapefruit.

These babies are almost as sweet as oranges, maybe a tad tarter than your usual orange and with only the slightest hint of grapefruit bitterness as an aftertaste. Simply delicious!

If you ever needed a reminder that anything that had a chance to ripen where it was growing rather than being picked green to mature in a box in transit, there you have it.

I've been searching the web for ideas on what to do with the bounty our neighbor is sharing so happily with us and aside from just squeezing one into a glass, pure and unadulterated, for a healthy drink to accompany my breakfast here are two winners:

Broiled Grapefruit (link to recipe here)
DELICIOUS!
Then again, how can you go wrong with butter, sugar, cinnamon and oh, fruit? This is a great way of eating even the tartest Grapefruit!

Mulled Grapefruit Punch (link to recipe here)
This one is great for really juicy grapefruit. I managed to get two cups of juice out of 4 bigger ones and it made for a lovely drink to keep me warm on a chilly Florida winter night.

Got any other tried and true recipes using citrus?

Visions of sugar-plums ...

't was the night before Christmas,

when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.

And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap...

It's not quite the night before Christmas yet but I had all kinds of visions dancing in my head when I discovered humongous plums at the local farmers market. That's where I love to shop for our produce - the Farmers Market on Beaver Street - and draw inspiration for our daily meals.

Anyways, plums!
Big, juicy, sweet plums!

They came home with me (along with a metric ton of other produce; we love our veggies and fruit from the farmers market). I'd baked two batches of Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls (Best recipe ever - find it here) for a Christmas gathering on Saturday and had a small bowl of delicious dough left. Perfect for a German treat called "Prume taat" or in english, "plum tarte". Surprisingly similar, hm?

Anyways, here're my plums all cut up into nice and fairly even slivers. I buttered the cookie sheet and rolled the dough onto it, then dusted the top with flour. It'll bind the juices from your plums once they start cooking and keep your tarte from getting all soggy.

Arrange your plum slivers and drizzle some molten butter over the top. Then sprinkle deliberately with sugar and cinnamon. Can't go wrong with sugar, butter and cinnamon. Ever.

Then it's into the oven for about 20 minutes at approximately 390F. Enjoy the aroma filling your kitchen.

Let it cool off ever so lighly and serve with whipped cream (or without).

Yum!

An apple a day

I don't know about you but I believe that apples and cinnamon is a match made in heaven, and fortunately this time of the year it's also the best comfort food to warm your heart on ...ahem, cold days.
Truth be told, it's not really been all that cold here in NE Florida but that's okay in my book. I don't need snow and freezing temperatures to get into the Christmas spirit.

One of my favorite seasonal treats is spiced apple cider caramel from Starbucks. It's sweet and warm and just plain yummy! It's in fact so yummy, that I couldn't stop thinking about recreating it at home for easier access to my treat of the season (without busting the budget).

After some quick experimenting, here's what Little Man and I came up with and have been indulging in ever since. You could almost say it's better than the version from Ye Olde Coffeeshoppe ...

[Oh, baby, watch me stage the ingredients ...]

You'll need apple cider, whipping cream (or whipped cream in a can), cinnamon
and Hershey's Caramel sauce.

[That's my Lucy mug. Little Man chose Linus; and the rest of the
Peanuts gang was in the dishwasher]

Pour some apple cider into your mug and dust with cinnamon.

[This is liquid apple pie ... delicious!]

Nuke your mug with cinnamon-spiced apple cider briefly in your microwave
(or heat it on a stove, without the mug, of course). Depending on how hot you like it
and your settings, 45 seconds is adequate.

Add a splash of caramel sauce (a solid squirt from the bottle - about 2 tbs,
I reckon) and top it off with whipped cream.

Both, the caramel sauce and the cream mellow the acidity of the apple cider
and the cinnamon adds interest and flavor - heaven!

Enjoy!