Category Archives: recipes

Easy sweet potato carrot soup

February 21, 2016 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

Today is a soup day. It’s rainy, grey and I just want to stay inside. Plus, after recently having major surgery, I’m on a limited diet of soft foods. When I noticed I had a couple of sweet potatoes in my pantry I decided to use them to make a blended, flavorful soup.

I’m not much of a soup chef. I have my minestrone, but that takes a lot of chopping. When a friend brought me some butternut squash soup last week she said all she did was roast everything and put it in a blender with some stock. Easy peasy.

This soup is sweet, savory and slightly creamy. Perfect for a day like today.

Easy sweet potato carrot soup

Serves 5

Ingredients:

2 sweet potatoes
3 carrots
3 cloves garlic
1/2 onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
8 fresh sage leaves
3 cups chicken stock
4 oz. Neufchâtel cheese (or cream cheese)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Peel the carrots. Place the carrots and the whole sweet potatoes on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for one hour. Remove the carrots and place the whole, peeled garlic cloves in the pan. Roast another 15 minutes or until garlic is golden brown.

Meanwhile, heat the oil and butter in a pan and sauté the onions until translucent, about 7 minutes. Roughly tear up the sage and place in the pan. Sauté for another 2 minutes. Turn off heat and set aside.

After the sweet potatoes have cooled slightly it should be easy to remove the skins. Chop them into rough pieces and place in a blender with the carrots, garlic, onions and sage. Add 2 cups of stock and blend for a few minutes, scraping down the sides if necessary.

Put contents in a soup pot and add remaining cup of stock. Bring to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

A few minutes before serving stir in the cream cheese until melted and well combined. Serve with a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan.

appetizers, Cooking, mexican, recipes, side dishes

Moña’s Fried Cauliflower — A Mexican side dish

February 6, 2016 alaskaknitnat 3 Comments

Our family just came back from a two-week vacation in Nayarit, Mexico. One of the perks of the place we stay in is a housekeeper who cooks for us. Moña used to run a restaurant out of her home and she’s the best Mexican chef I know. I yearn for her chiles rellenos and chilaquiles.

One of her specialties is battered, fried cauliflower. I’m not a cauliflower enthusiast, but when it’s prepared like chiles rellenos, I’m sold.

Florets are coated in a delicate egg batter, pan fried and tossed in a simple tomato sauce. The florets turn out perfectly tender, almost like al dente pasta.

The difficulty with my trying to make Moña’s recipes back home is our lack of delicious produce. Our fresh tomatoes are usually terrible and our onions aren’t nearly as sweet.

Here is my attempt at one of Moña’s signature side dishes. It’s accompanying pulled pork enchiladas and mexican rice. Look for the rice recipe below.

Moña’s fried cauliflower

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower, trimmed into small/medium florets
5 eggs
1, 14.5-oz can of diced tomatoes
about a cup of vegetable oil
1/4 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon chile powder
1/2 teaspoon oregano
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Place the flour, chicken stock, sugar, chile powder and tomatoes in a blender. Blend until smooth. Set aside.

Separate the eggs and whip the whites until stiff. Fold in the yolks.

Pour oil in a small sauté pan. There should be about a half-inch of oil in the pan. Heat over high heat. When hot, dip florets in the egg batter till covered and drop them in the pan. You’ll need to do several batches but they brown pretty quickly. Spoon oil over the florets as they brown on the first side, then turn them all over and brown on the other side.

Drain the florets and place on a paper towel-lined platter. Set aside.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large skillet and sauté the onion and garlic until soft. Add the blended tomato mixture and oregano. Stir until thickened. If too thick, add more chicken stock. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add the cauliflower florets and simmer for 5-10 minutes.

Serve on a platter and sprinkle with cojita or monterey jack cheese.

Mexican rice

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup white rice, uncooked
2 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons butter
2 carrots, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat the butter in a large sauté pan. Toss in the rice and cook, stirring for a few minutes until the rice is lightly toasted. Pour in 1 cup of stock and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for five minutes.

Add another cup of stock, the carrots, onion and garlic. Cover and cook for 15 minutes.

Check the rice every now and then to see if it needs more liquid. Add more stock if necessary.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

appetizers, Cooking, recipes, salad, seafood, side dishes, snacks

Smoky tuna dip – a healthy snack

February 6, 2016 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

In Alaska we are pretty seafood-centric. Although we have more than 47,000 miles of shoreline my husband doesn’t like seafood so I rarely cook with it.

I have access to Alaska halibut and salmon, but sometimes I just want a good old-fashioned can of tuna. Recently I was in Mexico and a friend served up a dip made with smoked mackerel. I don’t have any smoked fish lying around my freezer so I tried my own tuna dip. With a tiny amount of liquid smoke and just a few other ingredients I came up with a smoky, delicious tuna salad that’s perfect for a mid-afternoon snack — and it’s healthy too!

I love tuna packed in oil, but that can run pretty expensive at our local fancy grocery store. The big grocery store carries the next best thing for about $2.50 a can.

You can use any can of tuna you’d like.

Smoky tuna dip

Ingredients:

1 can of tuna
1 teaspoon of chile in adobo sauce
1.5 teaspoons lime juice
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 tablespoon plain, Greek yogurt
1/8 teaspoon liquid smoke
2 teaspoons capers
salt and pepper to taste

Drain the tuna and place in a small mixing bowl. Combine all the other ingredients. Serve with corn chips or crackers.

alaska, cocktails, Italian, recipes, Tutorials

Sausage 101 — a photo & video tutorial

January 9, 2016 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

The kitchen is the heart of our family. My dad would spend the weekends making vats of marinara sauce and in the late summer my mom would be canning blueberry jam. Back when apples were cheap we’d make gallons of applesauce with the food mill and mix in low-bush cranberries for color. Most of my childhood memories are centered around cooking.

One staple in our family is sausage. I remember waking up early on Saturday morning to the loud humming of my dad’s homemade motorized sausage grinder. I was thrilled to stuff hog intestines with meat — I was the best sausage stuffer in the family thanks to my deft, friendship bracelet-making hands.

Sausage-making 101 | a photo tutorial from alaskaknitnat.com. Learn how to make your own Italian sausage with this step-by-step guide. — Me, age 9, stuffing sausage with some old family friends.

My dad owns one of the most popular sausage-making sites on the Internet, sausagemania.com (yes, that is really the name). People from all over the world come to his site for his detailed recipes and tutorials.

When we decided to make 100 pounds of Italian and breakfast sausage this morning at 7:30 I thought it would be the perfect time to make my own tutorial for my little DIY audience.

Continue reading Sausage 101 — a photo & video tutorial →

appetizers, Cooking, Holiday, recipes, side dishes

Creamed Corn Casserole – A free recipe

November 29, 2015 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

It was the evening before Thanksgiving and I was describing the holiday to my son while driving home from preschool. Jack asked if there would be corn at our dinner.

Our family isn’t a corn family. Occasionally when Costco is selling an eight-pack in the summertime my folks will boil it and serve it on the cob. Creamed corn is definitely not a typical dish on our table.

I looked at several recipes online for creamed corn and most called for either canned corn (gross), or fresh corn. Many recipes listed cream cheese, which I didn’t have. I wasn’t about to brave the grocery store on Thanksgiving eve so I took to my freezer and invented my own creamed corn recipe. I think it’s a hybrid of creamed corn and corn casserole. It’s a little thicker than creamed corn because of the egg, but not as custardy as casserole.

Also, my son had fun helping me make it. I put crackers in a ziploc bag and let him stomp to his heart’s content.

Creamed corn casserole is a simple side dish and is perfect for any holiday table. Bacon grease is the base flavor for this tasty, creamy corn dish. — su-lin via Compfight cc

Ingredients;

2 slices of bacon
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons flour
1/2 cup cream
milk
24 oz. frozen corn
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt and pepper to taste
1 sleeve Ritz crackers, stomped on by a child (food processor works too)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Fry up the bacon in a medium sauté pan over medium-high heat. Set aside to munch on later and reserve the bacon grease. Add 2 tablespoons of butter and sauté the onions until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.

Add flour and stir frequently for about two minutes. Turn heat down to medium. Add cream and stir until thickened. Add milk if mixture is too thick. You want it the consistency of cream sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste.

In a large mixing bowl combine the corn, béchamel sauce and egg until the corn is well coated. Place in a casserole dish.

Wipe the sauté pan clean with a paper towel and melt 1 tablespoon of butter over medium heat. Add the Ritz cracker crumbs and stir frequently for one minute.

Sprinkle casserole with the cracker crumbs and bake uncovered for 40 minutes or until top is lightly browned.

appetizers, Cooking, recipes, side dishes, snacks

Fried Green Tomatoes

October 5, 2015 alaskaknitnat 3 Comments

In our family, home is where the kitchen is. This week we are visiting family in Pittsburgh. My kid sister just moved into a cavernous brick home in Lawrenceville, coincidentally the neighborhood where my husband was born.

Her kitchen is absolutely Pinterest perfect and I couldn’t wait to cook in there.

This evening we stopped by a farmers market full of squash, zinnia bouquets, goat cheese and apple cider. We picked up some green tomatoes and made them as a light dinner.

Here’s a quick post about how my sister prepares them.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Ingredients:

Serves 4

4 medium green tomatoes, sliced into 1/4 thick slices
1/2 cup cream of wheat
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/8 tsp cayenne powder
Ground pepper
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
Peanut oil

In a shallow bowl, mix together the Cream of Wheat, paprika, chili powder, cayenne, pepper and salt. Whisk the eggs in another shallow bowl.

Add half a fingernail’s depth of oil to a cast iron skillet and turn heat to high.

Dredge the tomatoes in the egg and then in the breading.

When oil is glistening, add tomatoes in one layer in the pan. You may need to fry them in three or four batches.

Fry for a few minutes on each side, till browned. Place on a paper towel-lined plate. Sprinkle lightly with salt.

Serve as-is or with a yogurt dipping sauce. Recipe below:

Yogurt Herb Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/4 cup sour cream
1/8 tsp. smoked paprika
dash of garlic powder
1 tsp. chopped fresh herbs such as oregano, basil or parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Mix together all the ingredients. Serve with fried green tomatoes.

alaska, Cooking, recipes, Tutorials

Harvesting Anchorage: Pickling and Canning Beets

September 16, 2015 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

I’m thrilled to introduce fellow Anchorage blogger, Ashley Taborsky, in this week’s “Harvesting Anchorage.” Ashley is the woman behind Alaska Urban Soil Project where she aims to create an “online community of fellow urban hippies who want to get into Alaskan backyard farming.”

This gal is diving deep into Alaska gardening and I admire her for her tenacity and willingness to try new things.

Throughout the summer I’ve been blogging about how I interact with the wild foods of Anchorage and Alaska, but you’ll notice that I don’t garden. It’s partially due to my hectic working mom/florist/other stuff schedule, part laziness and also that I don’t have an easily accessible water source in my yard (ok, this equates to laziness. I just don’t want to stretch my hose to the other side of my lawn where we actually get sun).

Ashley is obviously more determined than I am to produce her own food and it appears that she is succeeding. This is why I thought she would be a great guest to talk about how she harvests Anchorage in her own back yard.

Check out her site for lots of DIY projects and recipe ideas. Today I’ll be passing the mic to Ashley to let her talk about pickling and canning her homegrown beets.

Continue reading Harvesting Anchorage: Pickling and Canning Beets →

alaska, breakfast, Cooking, recipes

Harvesting Anchorage: Lowbush Cranberry Marmalade

September 9, 2015 alaskaknitnat 2 Comments

I know it’s a superb fall when I close my eyes at night and all I see behind my eyelids are lowbush cranberries.

Blood-red jewels hug the mossy ground in my secret south Anchorage picking spot. It must have been the warm May weather that caused patches of usually dormant cranberry bushes to produce large, pea-sized berries.

What my family calls lowbush cranberries are, in fact, lingonberries. These short plants can be found in most Anchorage forests. They have round, shiny leaves and if there’s enough sunlight during the summer they bear tart, red berries.

I prefer these to highbush cranberries, which are more watery and have a big, oblong seed in each berry. Lowbush cranberries are opaque and have no seeds. They are also firmer than the highbush variety.

Cranberries are my favorite wild berry to pick because they are durable, highly nutritious and they freeze well. They can also be substituted for any recipe that calls for commercial cranberries.

I once again refer to my mama for this segment of “Harvesting Anchorage.” She’s a pro when it comes to cranberry marmalade. The cranberries have so much natural pectin there is no need to add any of the store-bought kind. This simple marmalade is a perfect addition to any breakfast table.

Cranberry Orange Marmalade

Ingredients:

3 oranges (or 2 oranges and 1 lemon)
Water
1/4 tsp. baking soda
8 cups wild lowbush cranberries
4 cups sugar

Directions:

Remove the skins of the oranges in quarters. Cover rinds with water and boil with baking soda for 15 minutes. Shave off as much of the white pith as you can from the rind and slice rind very thin.

An alternative method is to use a vegetable peeler to peel off the rind and slice it. If you choose this method you won’t need to boil the rinds since they are so thin.

Meanwhile remove the membrane from each orange segment and reserve the pulp in a bowl. Take the membranes in your hands and squeeze the remaining pulp and juice into the bowl. Discard the membranes. If you’re really lazy you could probably use a couple of cans of mandarins, drained and rinsed. I’ve never tried it, but it could work.

Combine pulp, rinds with their water, cranberries and sugar in a saucepan. Boil, stirring often, skimming off any foam.

Let the mixture boil down and thicken, about 15-18 minutes. Take a spoonful of the mixture and pour it back into the pot. If there are lots of frequent droplets, the mixture isn’t ready yet. If the drips are slow and turn into one big droplet, then it’s ready (that’s called “sheeting”). Turn off the heat and place a tablespoon of liquid in a bowl and place it in the freezer for about 3 minutes.

Remove sample from freezer and tip it slightly. The sample should stay put. If the jam slides around the bowl it means it’s not ready yet. Bring the jam back to a boil and continue stirring constantly for another 5 minutes.

Ladle jam into sterilized canning jars with brand-new lids. Fill leaving about 1/4 inch of space at the top. Add the lids and let cool. When you hear little pops that means the lids have sealed. If you’d like more details about canning I recommend this thorough tutorial from The Alaska Urban Soil Project.

If you’d like a different lowbush cranberry recipe, I recommend my simple cranberry and lemon muffins.

Here are my other recipes from the “Harvesting Anchorage” series:

Harvesting Anchorage: Mama's Blueberry Jam | A recipe from alaskaknitnat.com — Blueberry Jam

Spaghetti & Chicken in a lemon, thyme mushroom sauce | An original recipe from Alaskaknitnat.com — Spaghetti & Chicken in a Lemon Thyme Mushroom Sauce

Harvesting Alaska: Smoked salmon roe | a simple recipe from Alaskaknitnat.com — Smoked Salmon Roe

Wildflower tea

Harvesting Anchorage: Wild Rose and Rhubarb Cookies | A recipe from Alaskaknitnat.com — Wild rose and rhubarb cookies

Harvesting Anchorage: Spruce tips | Alaskaknitnat.com — Spruce tip gnocch

Birch tree tapping | Make your own birch syrup | Alaskaknitnat.com — Birch Syrup

Harvesting Anchorage: Devil's Club Pesto | A free recipe from AlaskaKnitNat.com — Devil’s Club Pesto

baking, Cooking, recipes

Back to School Recipe: Apple Apricot Bran Mini Muffins

August 30, 2015 alaskaknitnat Leave a comment

Our son starts preschool this week, which means I’ve got to mom up and start making snacks and lunches. I don’t plan on being some sort of super mom who prepares intricate bento boxes with pandas made out of cheese wheels and olives, but I do hope to serve my son healthy foods. Ok, I admit, we did buy fruit snacks and granola bars during our epic Costco run yesterday. I’m not perfect!

Here’s a recipe I came up with for healthy mini muffins. Apples, dried apricots, wheat bran — who cares what’s in it as long as it’s mini?

Apple Apricot Bran Mini Muffins

Makes about 48 mini muffins or 24 regular muffins

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1.5 cups wheat bran
1.25 teaspoons baking soda
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups of milk + 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
1 cup finely chopped apples, peeled
1/2 cup finely chopped dried apricots

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a mini muffin tin.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flours, bran, baking soda, sugar, salt and cinnamon.

In a one-quart liquid measuring cup combine the milk, vinegar, molasses, honey, egg and coconut oil.

Pour the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl. The mixture should be like thick pancake batter. Stir in the apples and apricots. Spoon batter into muffin tins. Bake for 13 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool on a drying rack.

Store in an airtight container or freeze and defrost as needed.

alaska, Italian, Pasta, recipes

Spaghetti & Chicken with Lemon Thyme Mushroom Sauce

August 10, 2015 alaskaknitnat 1 Comment

Sometimes I just don’t want to plan dinner. Today was the case as I opened my fridge at 5:10 p.m. to figure out what to prepare for my family. I came up with frozen chicken breasts, frozen broccoli, lemon and fresh thyme. I was uninspired, but decided to put the frozen chicken in the pressure cooker and figure it out as I went along.

Then, when my son called me out to the yard to look at the newest addition to his playhouse, the best thing happened: I found two pristine king bolete mushrooms standing proudly under our large spruce trees.

I’ve been waiting all summer for this moment. King boletes are the most delectable of the mushrooms my family gathers and they happen to grow in my yard every summer from late July to early September. For the past three weeks I’ve been checking the areas under the spruce trees for these meaty, delicious fungi. They pop up overnight and you have to pick them when they are fresh otherwise bugs will lay claim to them.

As soon as I cleaned my two treasures I had formed a supper strategy. Lemon, thyme, mushrooms, broccoli, garlic, chicken and pasta — yeah, that’s a good combination. By 6:15 I had a decent meal that was a real crowd pleaser.

Of course you can use store bought mushrooms, but if you happen to have wild porcini, I encourage you to cook them as soon as you can.

Spaghetti & Chicken in a Lemon Thyme Mushroom Sauce

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1-2 cups chicken stock
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 lemon, sliced
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
Salt and pepper
2 cups frozen broccoli florets
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup dry cooking sherry (optional)
2 tablespoons butter
3 garlic cloves, minced
8 oz. spaghetti
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Place 1/2 cup of chicken stock in a pressure cooker. Line the bottom of the cooker with lemon slices. Add the frozen chicken, zest, thyme and salt and pepper. Set the pressure cooker to 35 minutes. When it’s done, slice the chicken into bite-sized pieces. Set aside and reserve the cooking liquid as well.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta until al dente, drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, place broccoli and 1/4 cup chicken stock in a large sauté pan. Cover and steam over high heat for 5 minutes or until broccoli is tender. Set broccoli with stock aside.

In the same sauté pan, add the olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter. Heat on medium-high and add the mushrooms. Sauté until mushrooms have given off their liquid and they begin to brown, about 7 minutes.

Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Pour in the sherry and let it evaporate, about 2 minutes.

Create a slurry with the flour and 1/4 cup chicken stock. Add this to the mushrooms and garlic. Once it’s thickened, add some of the stock from the pressure cooker until it’s a sauce-like consistency. Add some more butter if you want it creamier. Add the drained pasta, broccoli and chicken. Toss until evenly coated. Sprinkle with cheese and serve.