Jenny's Favorite Recipes

Garlic Butter

2009-03-07T09:17:00.000-08:00

It is so easy to make this-and it's perfect for making your own garlic bread. All you do is take a stick of room-temperature butter and mix it with minced garlic (to taste). Add some salt and pepper and maybe some dried herbs... and to top it off, mix in some parmesan cheese. Mix all that up and spread it on ANY kind of bread. In the oven/broiler for a few minutes and you've got yourself homemade garlic bread.

Meaty Pasta Sauce

2009-03-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

It really is so easy to make your own red sauce for pasta. I like mine to be a bit chunky with lots of meat (ground turkey, in this case... but you can use beef if you wish). As I've said before, I don't really 'measure' things, so these are approximate and to my taste. You can adjust it too.

(All veggies are diced and cut into small pieces)
2 carrots
2 or 3 celery sticks
1/2 sweet onion (or 1 small one)
2-3 cloves garlic (minced)
1/2 bell pepper

Saute the above ingredients with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. Add a package of the ground meat (probably like a pound or so) and continue to cook. Add these seasonings:

cumin
salt
pepper
dried basil
Italian seasoning

Once the meat is browned and cooked mostly through, you can add the tomato to it. I like to use 1 large can and one small can of tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes. This time around, I had the large crushed, and small sauce. Usually, I try to do it the other way around... so it really doesn't matter. Depends on how thick you want the sauce to be.

Let that come to a bubble (when you see it try to boil) and then reduce the heat to low. Cover it and let it cook together for about 15-20 minutes.

I like to make this much because you can save it in the fridge and use it later in the week. We like it with pasta (whole grain or whole wheat) as well as to use it as a sauce for lasagna or whatever else you'd like.

Because it's chunky, it's also really good by itself. Serve it with some homemade garlic bread, too.

Blueberry Muffins

2008-12-27T09:16:00.000-08:00

Yummy! Carlos picked out a cookbook for George to buy me for Christmas. It was a great pick! Anyway, in this cookbook, there's a recipe for berry muffins. I was determined to make some-but I could not find the right type of berries. So, I made it my own and came up with this:

Blueberry Muffins

3 cups all purpose flour
1 TBS baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 TBS cinnamon
1 1/4 cups milk (any)
2 extra-large eggs (or 3 large), beaten lightly
2 sticks butter, melted
2 cups fresh blueberries
1 1/2 cups sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners (like the Go Diego Go ones? ha!)

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together in a large bowl making sure it's well mixed. In another bowl, melt the butter, and mix with milk and eggs. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ones. Stir just until combined. (NOTE: There will be some lumps, but don't over mix the batter) Add the sugar and incorporate that into the batter carefully. Add the blueberries and mix up gently.

Fill the muffin cups enough to fill the liners. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the tops are golden brown (like me, just kidding! ha ha). It makes about 2 dozen muffins... depends on the size of your tins I guess.

Best Brownies Ever!

2008-10-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

These are my personal favorite. I started making this specific recipe a couple years ago. Since then, I tweaked the original recipe and now I guess I can call it my own.

Ingredients

1 Cup (2 sticks) butter
2 Cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 Eggs
1 cup flour
¾ cup cocoa
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 cup nuts and/or 1/2 cup of chocolate chips

1—heat oven to 350°F. Grease 13x9x2 baking pan*
2—Microwave butter in large bowl at HIGH 2 min. or until it’s melted. Stir in sugar and vanilla
3—Add eggs, one at time, beating well with spoon after each addition. Add flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; beat until well blended. Stir in nuts. Pour in pan
4—Bake brownies 30-35 min. or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely

I don't use nuts because George doesn't like them. So I just add a few more chips.

*Here's a trick: Use the wrapper from the butter to grease the pan. It has leftover butter-so why not use it? It gets the corners really well-you actually end up using less to grease the pan than is necessary.

Asparagus

2008-10-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

My boys (George and Carlos) and I love asparagus. It is such a tasty veggie. The way we like to make ours is FAST, easy, and Delicious! All you need to do is drizzle Extra Virgin Olive Oil on it and add salt and pepper to taste. Put them in the oven at 400 degrees and 10-15 minutes later you have roasted asparagus. Cooking them like this retains all the nutrients and leaves them just crispy enough and so yummy! Try it.

Healthy and YUMMY turkey burgers

2008-10-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

Most who know me know that I don't eat beef or pork. So, I use a lot of poultry and seafood in my kitchen. George likes to describe this as "she only eats things that fly and swim". I love to make these burgers. Please bear with me because I totally don't use measurements! All of the seasonings are done without measurements... so just be brave and use your best judgement! I've tried to think the measurements and they're in parentheses. They may be altered to your preference! :)

Ingredients:

ground turkey (any meat really works) (like a pound or so)

cilantro (1/4 cup)

onion (1/2 of a medium)

green pepper (about half)

garlic (a couple cloves)

cumin (about 1 tablespoon)

chili powder (just a pinch)

*Adobo seasoning (a few sprinkles)

*Sazon seasoning (1 packet)
Parmesan cheese (a good 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup)

1 egg (for making the patties stay together)

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil (for the pan)

wheat kaiser buns

burger toppings and condiments of your choice

So first you chop the veggies up and the cilantro real small and add that to the ground meat in a bowl. Add the seasonings and the cheese. Followed by the salt and pepper. Use the egg and get your hands dirty! Mix it well and then when it's completely mixed, use a spatula or something similar to it to score the meat in the bowl. This is not necessary, but helpful so that you have evenly sized burgers. Add just enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan. On medium high, cook the burgers. Only turn them once and don't smash them down with the spatula. Once they're completely done (about 20min.) add the cheese and put it on low. The cheese will melt slowly but that should give you enough time to prepare the wheat kaiser buns and the extras that you like on your burger. My personal favorites include a slice of tomato, green leaf lettuce, and mayo/mustard/ketchup.

These are healthy, delicious, and very easy to make. If it's warm enough outside, I would recommend grilling the patties (if you do, add an egg to the mix, as the grill may break apart the burger).

*A note about Goya's products: They are the best products that I know of that are authentic Spanish cooking tools. If you're going to make any of my dishes, you really ought to invest in these two products especially. There is nothing else quite like these two. They are essential. Sometimes hard to find, but they're showing up on shelves all over the place.

Chimole (or Pico de Gallo)

2008-10-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

Most of you know this dish by "Pico de Gallo" but growing up Honduran, I knew it as "Chimole". Not sure why there's a difference in the name, but I do believe this recipe is the best of all. Some of the most important ingredients in any Spanish kitchen include the ones in this recipe. It's so easy, I promise that once you make this once, you will always want to do so. This is especially great with meat. It's a perfect side to a steak or a grilled meat alongside corn tortillas. Here goes!

Ingredients:

Tomato

1/2 Green Pepper

Jalapeno (if you wish)

1/4 Red Onion

handful Cilantro

1/2 Lemon (juice)

1 Lime

Salt and Pepper to taste

Dice the Tomato, Green Pepper, and Onion. Chop cilantro and add to the mix. Squeeze about 1/2 a lemon and most of a lime. Add salt and pepper to taste-and you're done! So easy, right! I would also recommend that you chill it in the refrigerator until it's ready to serve, as it's best when eaten cold (especially alongside warm/hot meat and tortillas).

What to do with old bread

2008-08-05T16:07:00.001-07:00

I'd like to share what I like to do with old bread. I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who's bread goes bad. What I like to do with my bread when it goes bad is make bread crumbs or croutons. My camera is broken so no pics for now-but I'll post pics the next time I make it.

Homemade Bread Crumbs:
Take some of the slices of bread and tear them into smaller pieces and fit them into whatever size food processor you have. Turn it on for a few seconds until you have the size you want and voila! breadcrumbs. Actually, if the bread is still a bit moist and soft, you can put the crumbs on a cookie sheet, add whatever herbs and seasoning you would like and put it in the oven at about 400 degrees for like 10 minutes... they're yummy and 'homemade'!

Homemade Croutons:
Same concept as above-you've got some old bread and/or bagels that are soon to go bad and you are not excited about eating a loaf of bread within 24 hours. So, cut up the bread into bite-sized pieces and put them in a large bowl. Add dried herbs (I like Italian Seasoning and Basil), some chopped garlic (or from a bottle), EVOO (extra virgin olive oil), parmesan cheese, and mix it all up. Once it's well mixed, spread it all out in a cookie sheet and put it in the oven at about 400 degrees for like 20 minutes or so. So much better than store-bought croutons... trust me.