Call for Holiday Recipes!

So, I guess this is a little bit late, with Thanksgiving here in about 2 days, but I would still like to request that you share some of your favorite holiday recipes! Thanks!

Breakfast Strata with Spinach and Gruyere Cheese

I had this quiche-like dish at an Enrichment meeting. It was the perfect texture (not gooey or watery) and so flavorful. The sample dish disappeared in a flash.


Ingredients:
10 (1/2-inch thick) slices supermarket French or Italian bread
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
4 medium shallots, minced
1 package (10-ounce size) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
Salt and ground black pepper
1/2 cup medium-dry white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc
1 1/2 cup grated Gruyère cheese
6 large eggs
1 3/4 cup half-and-half

Directions:

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 225 degrees F. Arrange bread in single layer on large baking sheet and bake until dry and crisp, about 40 minutes, turning slices over halfway through drying time. (Alternatively, leave slices out overnight to dry.) When cooled, butter slices on one side with 2 tablespoons butter; set aside.

Heat 2 tablespoons butter in medium nonstick skillet over medium heat. Saute shallots until fragrant and translucent, about 3 minutes; add spinach and salt and pepper to taste and cook, stirring occasionally, until combined, about 2 minutes. Transfer to medium bowl; set aside. Add wine to skillet, increase heat to medium-high, and simmer until reduced to 1/4 cup, 2 to 3 minutes; set aside.

Butter 8-inch square baking dish with remaining 1 tablespoon butter; arrange half of buttered bread slices, buttered-side up, in single layer in dish. Sprinkle half of spinach mixture, then 1/2 cup grated cheese evenly over bread slices. Arrange remaining bread slices in single layer over cheese; sprinkle remaining spinach mixture and another 1/2 cup cheese evenly over bread. Whisk eggs in medium bowl until combined; whisk in reduced wine, half-and-half, 1 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste. Pour egg mixture evenly over bread layers; cover surface flush with plastic wrap, weigh down (see note), and refrigerate at least 1 hour or up to overnight.

Remove dish from refrigerator and let stand at room temperature 20 minutes. Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees F. Uncover strata and sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup cheese evenly over surface; bake until both edges and center are puffed and edges have pulled away slightly from sides of dish, 50 to 55 minutes (or about 60 minutes for doubled recipe). Cool on wire rack 5 minutes; serve.

Note: To weigh down the assembled strata, use two 1-pound boxes of brown or powdered sugar, laid side by side over the plastic-covered surface. To double this recipe or those that follow, use a 9 by 13-inch baking dish greased with only 1 1/2 tablespoons butter and increase baking times as suggested in each recipe.

Chicken and pasta with peanut sauce

This is another one from the ward recipe blog. We tried it and it was good. One piece of advice is don't be alrmed if your sauce looks more like paste before you mix it in; it should still mix up nicely! Oh yea, for the veggies I used broccoli and bell pepper. I would like to tr it with pea pods!

Almost every time I ask Jon what he wants for dinner (this doesn't happen very often--usually I just make whatever sounds good) he says, "That peanut butter pasta with chicken!" Invariably his eyes light up when he says this and he asks me about ten times when dinner will be ready while I'm making it. If you don't like peanut butter, don't make this, but if you do--give it a try! I got this recipe from my trusty Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. The original recipe is quite a lot different from the way I make it, but the important part is the sauce.

6 oz. spaghetti or fettucine
1 cup cooked chicken, cut in strips
Vegetable of choice, in quantity of choice (I usually use broccoli or cauliflower or both)
1/4 cup chicken broth
2 tlbs. peanut butter
1 tlbs. soy sauce
1 tlbs. lemon or lime juice
1/4 tsp. crushed red peppers
1 clove garlic, minced

Cook pasta, adding vegetables for last 5-7 minutes. Cook chicken in pan with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper. Drain pasta and vegetables, and mix with chicken. For sauce, stir chicken broth into peanut butter in small saucepan. Heat and stir with a whisk until peanut butter melts. Stir in soy sauce, lemon/lime juice, red pepper, and garlic; heat through. Add sauce to the pasta mixture. Gently stir to coat pasta with sauce.

Broccoli or Zucchini soup

We had this at Enrichment a few weeks ago, and it was delicious. A warning: If you put it in the food processor, it comes out textured sort of like baby food. If you don't want it that fine, I would suggest mashing it.

Broccoli or Zucchini Soup (at enrichment, Emma made Zucchini Soup)

From: Emma Calvert

3 Cups chopped or sliced broccoli or zucchini
1 medium onion chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1/4 C butter

Saute in pot until very tender then mash or pure in blender/food processor.
Add vegetables to-

1 Can of Cream of Chicken Soup
2 cups of milk (can be canned)
1/2 C water
1-2 Tlbs chicken boullion
2-3 Tlbs Corn starch

Simmer until thickened. (Do not boil). Add 4-6 slices of American cheese or 1 1/4 Cups of shredded cheese. Stir until melted. I usually double this recipe.

Cream Puffs

I made these Sunday as a sugar free dessert. I made sugar free pudding to put in them, we could choose from butterscotch or chocolate. They were delicious! Yes, they are from a cookbook, but sometimes we don't notice what our cookbooks contain. Hope you all enjoy!

Cream Puffs
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup butter (I used margarine, and some recipes call for shortening instead)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs

1. In a medium saucepan combine water, butter, and salt. Bring to boiling. Add flour all at once, stirring vigorously. Cook and stir until mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat. Cool for ten minutes. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well with a wooden spoon after each addition.

2. Drop 12 heaping tablespoons (large tablespoons, not teaspoons, and definitely heaping)onto greased baking sheet. (I used parchment paper instead of greasing my baking sheet.) Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes until golden. Transfer cream puffs to a wire rack; cool.

3. Cut tops from puffs; remove soft dough from inside. Fill with pudding (and/or whipped cream, if you are not going for sugar free). If desired, sift powdered sugar over tops.

ENJOY!

Tortellini Soup

I got this recipe off of a recipe blog from my ward and made it this week. Trent and I thought it was tasty. And I felt good about eating it, since it has all those tomatoes and spinach in it!

Tortellini Soup

2-15 oz. cans of diced tomatoes
2 cups frozen spinach

8-10 cups chicken broth

1-13 oz. bag tortellini

Combine tomatoes, spinach, and chicken broth in large pot. Bring to boil. Add tortellini, bring back to a boil, and simmer about 10 minutes, until tortellini are cooked.

Pineapple Upside-Down Muffins

Ok, so these aren't really upside-down muffins, but they sure do the trick if you ever catch yourself craving pineapple upside-down cake. You can make this with a box of yellow cake mix, and I'm sure that it works with any other yellow cake from scratch.

1 box of yellow cake mix
can of pineapple (we did crushed, I'm sure tidbits would work, too)
jar of maraschino cherries
butter
brown sugar

Mix the cake up as directed, BUT instead of using just water, mix pineapple juice from the can with water until you have the directed ammount and use that in the mix. Mix in pineapple and cherries (we sliced them in half). You can really use however much you want, but we used about half the can of crushed pineapple and a little over half the jar of cherries. Bake into cupcakes.

Melt a stick of butter and mix brown sugar in. It should not form a paste--that's too much brown sugar. Drizzle brown sugar/butter mixture on top of cupcakes (this is to make up for the fact that you did not bake the cupcakes upside down soaking in a similar brownsugar/butter mixture). Viola! Easy to make, and they go fast!