Lamb Stew with Green Onions

I've been loving lamb specially lamb stews because they're easy to make and they make my entire house smell good.

I am chronically anemic. It's a real drag and I've been taking iron supplements for years now.  I eat meat but for some reason my body just doesn't absorb all the iron that I need. Any suggestion?

Anyway, I've been trying to eat healthier meats and I think lamb has become my new favorite. The thing about lamb is that they (the huge-o food indurty folks) haven't figured out a way to feed lamb grains and plump them up in inhumane ways so for now all lambs are grass fed. I get my lamb at Costco because it's inexpensive, compared to other places, and the quality is just as good.

If you haven't tried lamb yet or if you're unsure how to cook it I suggest making this stew because all you need to do is throw everything in the crock-pot and it's easy to make variations to this recipe adding ingredients that you like. I made this a couple nights ago after taking care of 2 kids solo all day. So I just added 2 of everything that I had in my fridge. This is what happens when I'm exhausted and can't think complicated things like measurements beyond 2. This is also when I bust out my crock-pot.

Lamb Stew with Green Onions

• 2lbs lamb chopped into cubes
  
• 2 cups diced butternut squash
• 2 large potatoes
• 2 large green onions
• 2 tablespoons butter
  
• 1 large onion chopped
  
• seasonings (use what you like. I used salt, pepper, and ground sumac)

throw everything in the crock-pot and cook on low for 6 hours. Stir after 3 hours just to get some of the juices from the bottom to the top. Serve warm with rice.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

It's that wonderful time of year when we have more pumpkins than we know what to do with. This week I tried adding some pumpkin puree to a classic snickerdoodle recipe and the end result was a success. Earlier in the week it was cold so we had warm pumpkin snickerdoodles with hot apple cider. Yesterday and today was super hot and we had popsicles. Go figure!

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
(printable version 

yields 2 dozen cookies

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar

• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

1. Cream the butter, sugar, and pumpkin puree
2. Add the egg to the creamed mixture and beat until well incorporated.
3. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl.
4. Add half of the sifted ingredients into the egg mixture. Stir with a mixing spoon. Then add the rest of the sifted ingredients and stir until well incorporated.
5. Cover the mixing bowl and put it in the refrigerator for one hour.
6. Preheat oven to 400*.
7. Mix one tablespoon of sugar and one tablespoon of cinnamon on a small plate.
8. Break off a bit of cold dough, about the size of a walnut, and roll it into a ball.
9. Roll the ball around in the dish of cinnamon-sugar.
10. Put it in the cookie sheet and make more balls the same way.
11. Leave a lot of room around each cookie.
12. Bake for 10 minutes. These cookies are really soft when you take them off the cookie sheet. lift them up carefully with a spatula and set them on a wire rack to cool.

Giveaway! 100 Personalized Postcards

Giveaway Prize: 100 Postcards for One Reader
Size:  4x6; Paper:  14pt Cardstock Gloss; Printing: Full color both sides    
Shipping: FREE UPS Ground Shipping in the US (Canadian residents pay shipping and taxes. Offer not available to residents outside of the US and Canada)

I'm thinking these postcards would be great as invitations for Holiday dinner parties. Because I get to host this giveaway I will also be receiving 100 postcards and I will definitely use it as invitations. I love the Holidays and I love hosting parties so these will be great.

For more information about these postcards check out the uprinting site. Uprinting also makes great business cards, as I've already mentioned, and have a series of products. Check out their website to see what they have to offer.

To enter the giveaway

Leave a comment on this  post by October 28th telling me what your favorite Holiday food is. For additional enteries you can

• follow this blog
• folow me on twitter
• tweet this giveaway
• subscribe to this blog

just make sure you you leave me ectra comments for the extra things that you do!

winner will be announced on October 29th. Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you.
good luck

Eggplant Parmigiana (Brazilian Style)

On Friday I opened my fridge and found these lovelies and knew I had to make some eggplant parmigiana. Ever since Maria was born I've been feeling lazy (mostly sleep deprived) and haven't had to cook at all since we received so many meals (over 30, actually).  Christian's aunt and uncle came for the week and left our fridge full of fresh veggies and other treats.

On Saturday Enzo helped me in the kitchen. We cooked together and listened to Car Talk. He's only 3 so he doesn't really get all the jokes but he laughs when I laugh, so basically he's the perfect company.

This is a variation of a Brazilian recipe found in the Dona Benta cookbook (Brazilian equivalent of The Joy of Cooking)

Eggplant Parmigiana

• 10 small eggplants
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon garlic salt
• oil
• tomato sauce
• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 2 cups mozzarella cheese
• Italian seasoning

1. Preheat oven to 350*
   
2. Rinse the eggplants and cut them 1/4 inch
3. On a plate mix the flour and garlic salt
4. Cover the cut eggplants  with the flour mixture and deep fry them in 3 separate batches. 
5. Layer the bottom of a casserole pan with tomato sauce and place one layer of the fried eggplants over the tomatoe sauce.
6. Cut the tomatoes into thin slices and layer over the eggplant. Add another layer of tomato sauce and eggplants and top with cheese.
7. Sprinkle Italian seasoning and salt and pepper to taste.
8. Bake for 30 minutes
   

Enjoy!

Roasted Tomato Sauce

Our garden just gave us the last fruits of summer this past week. Sometimes you can have too many tomatoes lying around and then you feel all bad because you're not eating them quick enough. Tomato sauce is easy to freeze and roasted tomato sauce is easy to make.

Roasted Tomato Sauce

• ripe tomatoes
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
  
• Italian seasoning
• salt and pepper to taste

1. preheat oven to 250*
   
2. Wash the tomatoes and cut them in half.
3. Place them on top of a cookie sheet
4. drizzle with live oil and vinegar
5. season with Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper
6. bake for 2 hours
7. remove the tomatoes from cookie sheet and puree them in a blender or food processor.
8. This refrigerates well for up to a week. What ever you don't use freeze for a cold winter day when you're dreaming of summer tomatoes.

Enjoy!

From the Archives: Pao de Mel (Brazilian Honey Bread)

A friend on facebook asked me for a Pao de Mel recipe. So here it is. The original post is pretty hilarious if you want a good laugh.

Pão de Mel (Honey bread)

• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 tablespoon baking soda
• 1/2 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoon butter
• 1 egg
• 1 cup honey
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup dark or milk chocolate (for topping)
  

1. preheat oven to 350
2. mix all the dry ingredients first (not the chocolate)
3. add the butter, egg, honey, and milk.
4. mix until smooth
5. place mixture in cupcake pans. We filled it up 3/4 full and I think it was too much. I had 2 full pans (24 total). I would only fill it up 1/2 way
6. bake for about 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean
7. when it's ready take out and cool in a wire rack.
   
8. Cool completely before you put the chocolate.
9. melt chocolate and cover the Pão de Mel (traditionally you're supposed to cover the entire Pão de Mel in chocolate. Because they were so big and hard to manage I only did the top).
10. Let the chocolate harden before you put the Pão de Mel away. I made sure to save it in an air tight container or else it gets rock hard.

From The Archives: Pomegranate Mousse

Sorry for the lack of posts. I could easily blame my 2 week old and toddler for the lack of time but the truth is that my friends have been taking good care of me and my family by bringing us meals. I haven't cooked since I had the baby. As much as I love cooking I definitely love eating more and I'm so thankful that I have one less thing to worry about. Anyway, I do miss posting so I decided to re-post some recipes from the archives. This is a mousse I made last year and am currently craving. Enjoy!

I first learned about pomegranates from my husband's family. His grandpa brought some pomegranate cuttings from the family farm in Nevada when he moved to California over 50 years ago. His grandpa lived to be 99 years old and his Grandmother is now in her 90s and still takes good care of the pomegranates that grow strong in her backyard. His family has many good pomegranate recipes and to add to the tradition I decided to create one of my own using fresh pomegranates and POM juice.

POMEGRANATE MOUSSE

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 ounces)
  
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cup POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice
• 1 packet unflavored gelatin
• Enough pomegranate arils for garnish

1. Using a stand-up mixer whip the heavy cream on medium speed for 3 minutes.
2. Add the sweetened condensed milk and 1 cup of POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and mix for an additional minute.
   
3. Dissolve 1 packet of unflavored gelatin in 1/4 cup POM Juice
4. Bring to a boil the remaining 1/4 POM Juice. Once the juice begins to boil add it to the dissolved gelatin and stir for 30 seconds.
5. Pour the dissolved gelatin in to the cream mixture and mix on medium speed for 1 minute
6. Refigerate for 1 hour and garnish with pomegranate arils.
7. Serve chilled.