Pesto

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1/2 cup pine nuts or walnuts
3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan-Reggiano or Romano cheese
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. If using walnuts, chop into smaller pieces before putting them in the food processor.
2. Place basil and walnuts into the food processor and pulse a few times.
3. Add the garlic, pulse a few more times.
4. Slowly add the olive oil while the food processor is on. After adding about half, scrape down the sides of the food processor to make sure everything is mixing well.
5. Finally, add the cheese, and salt and pepper to taste and pulse a few more times.

This is a recipe that my Dad found originally, and is great for fresh summer basil. I served this over pasta with some sauteed bell peppers, but it can also be used over baked potatoes as the original recipe suggests or over toasted bread. Basically, it is delicious and can be served with almost anything.

Vegetarian Turkey Stuffing

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 onion, finely chopped
1 head of broccoli, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 (4.5 ounce) can mushrooms, drained and chopped
1 can green beans
salt and pepper to taste
3 cups corn flake crumbs
2 cups cream of mushroom soup

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a medium casserole dish.
2. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat, and saute the onion, broccoli, and bell pepper. Season with salt and pepper. Mix in the canned mushrooms and green beans.
3. Transfer to casserole dish and mix in corn flake crumbs and soup.
4. Bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until lightly browned.


This stuffing turned out really good even though it was the first time I made it. The corn flakes give it a nice crunchy texture, and are a nice substitute for bread. It was also really, really easy to make.

Empanadas Reloaded

(chocolate and strawberry dessert empanadas, a Sigrid and Kristina invention)


(Angelica's fried crab and cheese empanadas)

Here is Sigrid's official recipe for empanadas.

Ingredients:
1 kilo (about 2 lbs) flour
4 tsp. Baking powder
6 oz. "Manteca," which is basically crisco or other shortening.
Salt
1/2 cup - 1 cup Water
1/2 cup - 1 cup White cooking wine

1. Mix the flour and baking powder in a large bowl.
2. Dissolve the salt in the water (1 cup) in mixing cup.
3. Add 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup wine and shortening to the flour.
4. Begin to mix and knead dough; if dough is dry, add more water and wine in equal portions. If it gets too sticky, you can always add more flour.
5. Let the dough sit for 30 min.
6. You can either follow the directions for filling the empanadas from the other recipe, or you can also break the dough into balls slightly larger than golf balls, and roll those out and fold them individually.
7. Then either fry them in cooking oil or bake them at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

You can also substitute white flour for whole wheat flour like we did, but we found that the pieces of grain sometimes caused holes in the rolled-out dough, which is fine for baking empanadas, but not for frying them.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup raisin puree (3/4 cup raisins, 2 tsp water)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
3 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking soda
3 1/2 - 4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups chocolate chips
1 cup coconut flakes

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Mix raisin puree, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract to large bowl.
3. Mix baking soda, flour and salt in a smaller bowl, starting with only 3 1/2 cups flour.
4. Slowly mix the dry and wet ingredients together. If the dough looks more like batter, add 1/2 cup more flour.
5. Add in chocolate chips and coconut flakes.
6. Grease cookie sheet and place spoon fulls of dough on.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly brown on the edges.

AKA - One Handed Cookies since you can literally make them with only ONE hand... My post-op stage isn't keeping me from making more delicious treats for my house mates. Its almost become a weekly thing that I do when I get bored. I'm sure they don't mind...
There will most likely be photos of us enjoying them tomorrow when empanadas go re-loaded.