Bloody Mary Mix

Tomatoes.  Oh my gawd, the tomatoes.  We've canned, dehydrated, canned some more, made soup, had salad, sliced them for BLTs, snacked on them right off the vine, canned some more...  And now this.  This is good.  This is different.  I like this.  I really like this with tequila.  That is called a Bloody Maria, by the way.

If you have loads of little half-pint jars, put this mix up in those...fill them three-quarters full.  This allows exactly the right amount of room for a scant shot of liquor, an ice cube or two, and a ring of pickled jalapeno...put the canning lid/ring back on and shakeshakeshake...instant cocktail in its own serving cup.  Package up two or four of these guys with a 4 oz jar of homemade spicy pickled somethings and a miniature bottle of vodka or three, and it's a darling holiday gift.

The original recipe is here.  I used some jalapenos out of our garden instead of hot sauce and added lemon juice to each jar in the amounts recommended by the Ball Blue book (2 tbsp per quart, 1 tbsp per pint, 1/2 tbsp per half-pint) to insure that the tomato juice was acidified enough.

How much you get out of this recipe depends on how thick or thin you want your final product (i.e. how much water you add).  We like ours fairly thin, so we got about 4 quarts worth.  Your mileage may vary (YMMV)

If you don't want to use this as a cocktail mixer, it would also be an excellent tomato soup.

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Michigan Dogs

This is adapted from Rachael Ray's recipe.  I don't know why she calls them Michigan Dogs...they're chili cheese hot dogs to me, and I suppose some people call this combination of toppings a Coney Dog?  The folks I know from Michigan certainly don't know what Michigan Dogs are.

I like that the cheese sauce and chili sauce can be made ahead (and even frozen), and the kiddos can opt out of toppings and just have plain dogs if they want.  Leftover chili and cheese sauce make excellent breakfast burritos by the way.

There's a lot of liquid that goes into the chili sauce and it needs to boil down to make a nice, thick, rich chili sauce.  Your choice of pot will significantly affect how long it takes for this to happen.  A tall, narrow pot will take longer whereas a shallow, wide pot will allow water to boil off much more quickly.

I used dehydrated (i.e. sun-dried) tomatoes instead of the tomato paste the OR calls for.  I finely minced them and used the same amount called for in Rachael Ray's recipe.

When it comes to the cheese sauce, I recommend using cornstarch instead of flour.  It makes a smoother sauce, it's gluten-free and thickens more strongly than flour.  I also add the mustard after the milk but before the cheese...once the cheese is in there, it's really difficult to mix in the mustard evenly.  Use whatever cheese you want here...I had a chunk of white cheddar and some parmesan leftover from another recipe that used up here.  Sharp cheddar, colby, even American cheese makes delicious cheese sauce.  I do not recommend using Dijon mustard...did that once and it was just too, too much.  If you really want to use Dijon, I'd use 1/4 cup instead of 1/2 cup.  I just stick to plain ol' French's.

One of my favorite tips from Rachael's recipe is to split the hot dogs down the middle before grilling/frying them.  They lay better in your bun (I prefer hot dog-sized lengths of French bread) and make a better "bed" for all the toppings.

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Advanced Prep-ahead: Beef Burgundy and a Cookbook Shout-out

Pressure canning/dehydrating is probably a step beyond what most people are willing to do to prepare and store meals in advance, so I'm going to keep this pretty short.  But I do highly recommend this book, as there are many complete prep-ahead meal recipes that do not involve pressure canning.

I tried a recipe out of a cookbook called Meals in a Jar by Julie Languille for Beef Burgundy.  I dehydrated my own mushrooms (although you can buy dried mushrooms at the store and skip this part) and did a scaled back version of the recipe (hers called for 16 lbs of stew meat and made 16 6-serving portions of finished beef burgundy), leaving out a meal's worth to have for dinner that night.  It was delicious and I'm awfully glad I've put up the 6 quarts I have along with pre-portioned cornmeal and rice for side dishes of polenta and pilaf.

There are LOADS of recipes in this book that are made entirely out of store-bought dry ingredients and can be assembled and stored in jars without canning at all, but there are also a lot of recipes for canning things that I don't think freeze very well (pulled pork and mushrooms being two of them).

I'm definitely going to hang onto a few recipes for things that would make great new baby/home from the hospital/get well type casserole gifts but that wouldn't require the recipient to make room in their freezer.

Also I gotta say, if I still lived in Florida (where our big natural disaster threat was hurricanes which will knock out power for days or weeks at a time and you'd lose a big freeze stash if one hit), I'd do more prepping ahead like this.

Some pictures...

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Cheddar Jelly Thumbprints

I've made several variations on this recipe, swapping in and out different cheeses and different jellies, over several years.  My personal favorites are the sharp-cheese/spicy-jelly combinations but a milder, sweeter colby-apple jam version won me a 2nd place ribbon (and 3 lbs of butter) at the State Fair last year.  Feel free to play with flavors here!

I've served these as appetizers and desserts, and they prep ahead (and even freeze) fabulously.  Roll the cookie balls, roll them in nuts and freeze them.  Thaw before baking so that you can make the little indentations for the jelly.  

I also <3 that you make the dough in the food processor...so fast, so easy.

A neato-torpedo trick I picked up from Cooks Illustrated is to use a wine cork to make the "thumbprints"...very tidy, very precise.

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Rice-topped Shepherd's Pie (dialysis diet)

This one is mostly for me. I originally started this blog as an easy way to share the couple dozen recipes I recommended frequently to people who needed to prepare meals in advance, but it's also been useful for me to document how I've changed recipes that I want to make again.

So this is one of those recipes.  It's from a cookbook called Cooking for David that provides recipes for folks on dialysis.  I'm cooking for a loved one who has been experiencing worsening chronic kidney disease (CKD) and is now receiving dialysis treatments.  Side note...Boy, have I learned about food and the kidneys lately.  Lemme tell you, if you've been diagnosed with diabetes (and CKD is likely in your future if you have poorly managed diabetes) and think the diabetic diet is restrictive, that's NOTHING compared to the CKD/dialysis diet.  Keep your kidneys (and pancreas) healthy people...life is not fun when they don't work.

So back to the recipe...you don't futz with dialysis recipes.  This is so hard for me.  There's a pretty strict limit on potassium and phosphorus intake, in addition to sodium, protein and liquid limits and it's different for each patient.  Unfortunately, potassium and phosphorus are nutrients that aren't required to be listed on nutrition labels the way sodium, carbohydrates, protein and fat grams are so it's hard to know just how much you're getting unless you follow a tested recipe very closely or use a renal diet food analyzer like this one: http://www.davita.com/food-analyzer/

Also unfortunately, the foods that are high in potassium and phosphorus are healthy foods...whole grains, many fruits and veggies, nuts and beans, dairy products.  "Low sodium" products are also a minefield as most aren't simply made with less salt, but with a potassium salt substitute (not necessarily a bad thing for those of us with functioning kidneys...in fact here is a report of a study suggesting that more than high sodium intake alone, a combination of high sodium and low potassium puts you at higher risk for cardiac problems... but it's problematic for renal patients. Also a reminder that when buying packaged foods, "low" anything oftens means "substitute" rather than just "less" of whatever the reduced ingredient is).  So again, the takeaway is that you follow the recipe, don't add extra veggies (crazy, right?), don't substitute whole grain products and read labels.

Shepherd's Pie is a family fave here.  I was excited to see a kidney-friendly recipe that substituted low-potassium/phosphorus white rice for the usual high-potassium/phosphorus potato-cheese crust (did you know that a potato has more potassium than a banana...my dance teacher always said that, but I thought she was full of it).  It did use a lot of high-sodium sauce additions though..."no salt added" beef stock, additional beef bouillon granules, Worcestershire sauce, Kitchen Bouquet (who even has this any more anyway?).  I checked the labels on all my stock/bouillon/sauce options and settled on a vegetable base bouillon made without potassium salts and a healthy slug of red wine (which I also checked on the Davita food analyzer) instead of all that other stuff.  I made it with long grain white rice...I might try arborio rice next time for a creamier, more potato-y texture.

And so to bring it all back to where I started...my husband requested that I make a note of what I did so I can make this recipe again in the future...soon, preferably.  No pictures because I prepped it ahead for my family to cook on my late night at work.

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Prosciutto Jalapeno Poppers

This is the quick'n'easy version of The Pioneer Woman's jalapeno poppers (which is delicious).  I made these guys with half jalapenos and half sweet mini peppers to give my kids a non-spicy option.  Worked very well.

The OR calls for a cheddar-cream cheese-scallion mixture that I circumvent by using herbed cheese such as Boursin or Laughing Cow, or when I ran out of that, sticks of Brie (yes, Brie is my "backup" cheese LOL)

The OR also calls for wrapping the poppers in pieces of uncooked bacon which is scrumptious.  I happened not to have any bacon on hand, but I had prosciutto so I used that (yes, prosciutto is my "backup" pork product LOL).  The nice thing about using the prosciutto is that it's already cooked so the cooking time for the poppers can be (read: needs to be) shortened from the hour originally called for.  I think using long, narrow strips of thin-sliced ham could work too in lieu of prosciutto or bacon.

The OR also calls for brushing the poppers with barbecue sauce or jelly such as apricot jelly.  I think beer jelly or garlic jelly would be OUTSTANDING here, but no sauce/jelly on top is good too (and is what I did this go-round).

I have made these in vast quantities for parties and you can absolutely make them ahead and freeze them.  I dithered about whether to freeze them before cooking or after, and decided that after cooking was less likely to result in a squishy jalapeno shell (since freezing uncooked veggies tends to make them, well, squishy).  I "revived" them for the party by baking them again for about 30 minutes to heat through and crisp the bacon back up.  To make them in advance to freeze, pull them out of the oven about 10 minutes before the final cooking time.  That way, the 2nd round of baking doesn't overbrown or burn them.

You can use toothpicks if you need to get the bacon/prosciutto/ham to stay in place, but it's a lot less time-consuming and easier to eat if you just wrap them so that the ends of the meat slice are on the bottom of the pepper.  Gravity will do the rest to keep them in place.

Lastly, the OR offers a variation wherein you place a thin slice of peach on top of the cheese before wrapping in bacon. This sounds weird, but is ohmygawd good...I highly recommend it.

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Risotto

I used shallots and celery for aromatics, tilapia for protein,
seafood stock, chopped fresh spinach for veggies, savory
for flavoring

I've worked with a delicious seafood risotto recipe for many years.  It's from a fundraiser cookbook called Dewey or Don't We published by the Dubuque Public Library.

I used to follow it to the T, and finally understood that really, it was more like guidelines (as so many recipes truly are).

And then I started being able to use the technique given in that recipe and substitute my own flavors and ingredients, depending on what was in season and available.

No matter what ingredients you use, this is definitely a prep-ahead-friendly recipe.  Chop and measure everything ahead of time, combining ingredients by category.  You can also freeze this as a meal kit...combine ingredients by category, put them in vacuseal bags or ziptop bags, and freeze.  Thaw before cooking.

The use-what-you-have components are:

• fat for sauteing: use butter, olive oil, canola oil, lard, mojo de ajo
• aromatics: use onions, shallots, celery, carrots, leeks or any combo thereof
• stock: chicken, seafood, veggie (not so much beef here)
• protein: fish, chicken, shrimp, scallops, crab (again, not so much beef)
• veggies: chopped bell pepper, snow peas, chopped greens, broccoli, peas, corn kernels, pre-cooked squash cubes
• flavoring: citrus zest, minced herbs

Some favorite combinations are shallots with shrimp, green peas and thyme; celery/onion/carrot with chicken, pepper and savory; crab, leeks, spinach and lemon zest.

Chop, measure, and fridge everything in advance for next-day or same-day cooking.  You can also freeze the components ahead.  To save space with liquids, either freeze wine and stock in ice cube trays beforehand to include in the freezer kit or pour the liquid into a ziptop bag, carefully press air out of the bag, seal and lay flat on a tray to freeze.

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