Easy Mini Kolaches

We have a fabulous little doughnut shop in town, Spudos. In addition to delicious doughnuts, they have a whole host of breakfast yummies--including breakfast kolaches. (Technically the singular is kolach and the plural is kolache, according to Wikipedia, but it sounds weird so I do it this way.) Anywho, these are sweet bread on the outside and breakfast foods on the inside at Spudos--and they are fantastic.

I had wondered how I could make something similar at home without having to go through making my own dough. I don't mind making things from scratch, but I'm not in the mood to mess with dough making at a time when I managed to hoist myself from bed and now want all of the food everywhere to be in my belly. If you want to make your own dough, more power to you. I decided that refrigerated dough might be a good option, but only if I didn't have to pay full price. Full price is for desperate people--and I could wait it out for this experiment. Here is how I did it on a morning after a good sale on refrigerated biscuit dough. (Ten tubes for $10 and it was the brand name, too!)

Easy Mini Kolaches
Prep time: 5 minutes       Bake time: 8-11 minutes

1 can Grands, Jr., biscuits (I used the flaky ones.)
5-6 slices of thinly sliced ham (or any other cooked and drained meat)
1/2 cheddar cheese (Again, choose your poison if cheddar isn't your thing.)

Preheat the oven to 400F. On an ungreased baking sheet, plop those biscuits on out of the tube. Spread them out and flatten them with your hand. Tear up the ham and place it on the dough, along with the cheese. (If adding scrambled eggs, put the cooked eggs in here now also.)  This is also an ideal time to drop a couple nibbles of ham for cats who are clearly starving, no matter what their full food dish might suggest. But, I digress... After filling them, begin pinching them closed and smoothing out the pinched areas. This was easier to do in my hands than on the cookie sheet.

 

Because I want my food to look nice, I flipped those babies over so that the seams, even though smoothed, wouldn't look tacky.

 

 

Pop them in the oven to bake for 8-11 minutes.

 

 

 

Mine were ready right at the 8 minute mark. Watch for them to be a beautiful golden brown on the top.

 

 

As you can see, there was one oozer. I ate it first as punishment. (Or because I love slightly burned cheese. That is also a possibility.) That leads us to the final step, which is to devour it. This was a delicious experiment.

 

I am inclined to believe that you could fill these with just about anything you wanted to try with decent results, but it will be up to you to experiment. Peanut butter and jelly, Maid-Rite, sloppy joe, spinach and feta... Dang, I just ate and I'm drooling over the options already! If you try a different filling, comment with it and let us know how it turned out! Or maybe you want to try a different dough--go for it!

 

Enjoy! Guten Appetit!

 



Drunken Shepherd's Pie

I have made this several times for the hubby, and each time it has improved. Phew! This picture is from the third time. As you can see, someone had already begun scooping out test bites ... to ensure safety for all, I am certain.

The first time I made it, I follwed the recipe I found on Cooks.com pretty closely. I have since modified it to suit our tastes and needs.

Ingredients

• 1-2 lbs lean ground beef
• 1 cup frozen corn
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 3/4 cup frozen carrots (crinkle cut have worked great)
• 1 pkg brown gravy mix (reduced sodium)
• dark ale like Killian's or Newcastle (1/3 of the bottle)
• 1 small sweet onion, diced
• 6-7 cups mashed potatoes (instant potato buds are easy, and some brands actually taste pretty good)
• butter, salt, pepper, garlic to taste

Preheat oven to 350°F

Put a little bit of butter in a pan (olive oil works just as well) and drop the onions into it. Cook them on medium-low until you can see through them a bit, and then add the beef. Brown the beef lightly, then add the beer. Remember, only use part of the beer. Keep cooking it on medium heat for a few more minutes, breaking up the beef to keep it crumbly. Drain the meat. (Use a jar or something, do NOT put it down the garbage disposal. Seriously.) Put the beef somewhere safe while working on the other components.

Mix the gravy to the package's specifications. Once mixed, add about 3-4 Tablespoons of cold water, then mix it up with the beef mixture.

Prepare the mashed potatoes to taste. I use much less butter and salt that it says to use for the buds. I HATED the idea of the potato buds, farm girl that I am, until I tried them in this recipe. This is a huge time saver and the Idaho Spud Potato Buds (sorry if the order on the name is mixed up) are not half bad.

Use cooking spray in the bottom of the casserole dish. You can put butter in each corner if you are a butter fiend, but PAM works just fine. Put in a thin layer of potatoes. Add part of the meat mixture, then a layer of frozen veggies. Then repeat! Add some cheese, then top with the mashed potatoes. The layer of mashed potatoes should be just about half an inch below the lip of the casserole dish. We usually add dashes of the herbs we like during this layering step.

Top the vat of deliciousness with some more cheese and pats of butter and bake it in the oven. Ours is usually done in about an hour, but cooking times will vary.

The amount of vegetables is just an estimation. We use what we have in the amount we have them in. Adding mushrooms to the gravy is a delicious treat, too! You can use canned veggies if you drain them, but this does add to the salt content.

The hubby LOVES it when I make this. It goes well with a fresh loaf of bread, too. I have successfully made this in the CrockPot, but not as much evaporation of the liquids occured as I would have liked.

If you are a purist, this is probably just as tasty with lamb and without the cheese. I do not do lamb, so beef is a great option for me. Also, I am of the camp that cheese is always a good idea. ;-)

Enjoy!

Easy Egg Casserole Bake

My husband is a trucker and so when he's home he often has to leave very early in the morning. This casserole is tasty the next day, too, which comes in handy for those early mornings!

Preheat your oven to about 350F-400F.

Ingredients:
6-8 eggs
1/2 cup shredded cheese (I used cheddar)
4 slices of ham, diced or in strips
1/3 of a bag of frozen potatoes O'Brien
garlic, ground pepper, minced onion, and a dash of cumin (all to taste)
chives and parsley

First, grease your pan if needed and fill it up with the frozen potatoes. Then add the ham and most of the cheese. Next, beat your eggs with the herbs, adding a touch of water to it if desired. Pour the egg mixture over the top of the potatoes, ham, and cheese. Put the last little bit of cheese on the very top, and add a shake of dried minced onions. This is where I usually shake some dried chives and parsley on top, also. Yum!
Bake at 350F-ish for about half an hour (or more if needed). Sometimes it takes less time, sometimes more. (We have a semi-old oven.) After removing it from the oven, let it stand for about five minutes before digging in.

This is a very easy breakfast to toss in the oven to bake while getting ready.

Mediterranean Couscous Salad

Mediterranean Couscous Salad

from Cottage Life’s Summer Weekend Cookbook

What it said:

 

1 ½ cups chicken stock

¼ cup lemon juice

2 T olive oil

4 green onions, finely chopped

½ cups raisins

½ cup dried apricots, chopped

½ cup parsley, finely chopped

½ cup slivered almonds, toasted

Vinaigrette:

½ cup Lemon-Cumin Vinaigrette-combine all ingredients and whisk in oil

¼ t salt

1 clove garlic, crushed

½ t cumin

½ t dried oregano

pinch cayenne

2 T fresh lemon juice

6 T olive oil

Place the couscous in a large bowl and cover with the hot stock. When all the liquid is absorbed (about 5 min), fluff the grains with a fork and liven the flavor with lemon juice and olive oil. Toss with the remaining ingredients and the Lemon-Cumin Vinaigrette.

Cover and refrigerate to allow flavors to blend. Taste and adjust seasoning, add additional lemon juice or a splash of oil as necessary before serving.

Makes 6-8 servings.

What I did:

I followed the recipe pretty well, but had to make some changes based on what I had in my kitchen. First, I used garlic powder and it worked out just fine. Instead of stock, I used reduced sodium chicken broth. I have also added dried cranberries several times which was super tasty. I could not find cayenne pepper ANYWHERE where I live, so I used a pinch of chili powder once in the vinaigrette. It did the trick!

You do not have to buy the almonds toasted (though the ones that were toasted and came with the cranberries--some sort of salad topper bag--were tasty) since toasting them is so easy. I usually make an aluminum foil "boat" for my slivered almonds. I put them in a preheated oven (350F) for a few minutes until they are how I like them. It is important to keep an eye on them so that you do not end up with burned almonds. Check on them every few minutes and you should be fine.

One of these days I want to try the vinaigrette on a romaine salad with some nuts and fruit on it. The dressing itself smelled so refreshing!

Getting started...

It looks like I will have a lot of work cut out for me! ;-) I'll start with some retro-active days of cooking to get started.

I love to cook and hope you'll enjoy reading about my adventures in the kitchen!