Safe Hot Chocolate

Where we live, winter gets cold! We have three brands of hot chocolate in our house, and none of them are safe for the whole family to enjoy. Thank goodness there are options to make your own! We tried THIS ONE from Mel's Kitchen Cafe, and it is a winner! Check that link for her notes and instructions.

I'm recording it here, halved, because it makes a lot, and really, it's just one person who 'needs' it. Half is plenty at our house. And I'm recording it halved because the second time I made it, I started with the full ingredient list and panicked at the six cups of milk, ha. 

Ingredients: 

1/3 cup cocoa

2/3 cup sugar

>1/8 salt

1/3 cup water

3 cups milk

1/2 tsp vanilla
half and half

Whisk the cocoa, sugar, salt and water in a sauce pan.
Bring to a simmer for 2 minutes, while stirring constantly.
Add milk and vanilla, and heat to very warm, but without boiling or simmering.
Add a little half and half (or milk) to cool when you serve. Or don't! 

This photo was after it cooled and had started to separate. It is rich and delicious! 

We talked about making whipped cream to top it with, but I also found some safe marshmallows- which amazed me. Marshmallows are made of corn syrup and dusted in cornstarch...and my person can't have corn! but these are okay, so I stocked up! I hope it gets us thru the winter! 

They don't look anything like the packaging which is...cool...but they taste good and they're safe. Fine. ha.

Fried Mashed Potato Patties

No photo of today's dish- we were too hungry and just ate it. 
This is something my dad used to make when I was a kid and I always remember really liking it. I feel like I tried to make it once and it failed miserably and I had to toss it...... but honestly, I'm not THAT bad of a cook so I'm not sure how I would have messed it up so much?

Yesterday (Thanksgiving) when we were making the mashed potatoes (my job) we were discussing the leftovers. One of my kids loves mashed potatoes more than just about anything, but only freshly made. Once they've been refrigerated, this child doesn't want anything to do with it. sigh. 
My dad said "but leftover mashed potatoes are great. You can also make the potato patties." YES. Tell me how!! He said to mix some egg into it and fry it in a little butter. 

Today, after a lot of nibbling on mostly sweet Thanksgiving leftovers, we needed some dinner! I decided to make the potato patties, and have everyone get some left over meat (we had turkey, ham and pork kabobs) and some kind of vegetable and made a potato patty for each of us. 

I googled "how do you make fried mashed potato patties". I got a dozen results and I read four recipes before deciding to proceed. 

Ingredients: 

Leftover (cold) mashed potatoes (mine already have sour cream, salt and veg broth)

1 egg, beaten

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

Heaping handful shredded cheddar

Butter 

I put approximately a serving of mashed potato, per person, into a mixing bowl. I beat an egg with a fork in a small bowl and poured that over it. I added the flour and some cheese. Then I mixed it up like I do with meatballs- with my bare hand. yum.... I shaped it into five patties and then melted some butter, enough to cover the frying pan. I could cook three at a time, in the pan and I added butter as needed. I just cooked them maybe 7 minutes on each side and voila! Dinner! 

They need to cook longer than you think, to get brown and crispy, but everyone seemed to like it a lot! 

Apple Pie Spice + Chex Mix!

In an on-going attempt to have "normal" foods while still avoiding "issue" foods, we've been eating some chex mix! I forgot how much I LIKE sweet chex mixes. Personally, I really don't care for savory mixes...... 

This is a blend of several recipes, and is the faster variety, ha, so here you go: 

Apple Pie Chex Mix!

Ingredients:

9 cups Chex - any variety

1/4 cup melted butter

1 tbsp Apple Cider 
1 tbsp apple pie spice

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Instructions: 

Measure the chex into a large, microwaveable bowl. 

Melt the butter, add the sugars and spices, blend thoroughly. 

Pour butter mixture over cereal, stir to coat as much cereal as possible.

Microwave for five minutes- stirring every minute. 

Spread onto a cookie sheet to cool.

Store in an air tight container.  

*I have thought about adding chopped dried apples, but I forget every time...

To make Apple Pie Spice: 

1/2 cup cinnamon

2tbsp allspice

4 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cardamom (which I don't have, so I just leave that one out.)

Refrigerator Kosher Dill Pickles

This is a keeper. The original recipe can be found here: www.food.com/recipe/refrigerator-kosher-dill-pickles-380632. Of course, I made some slight modifications.

Pickles

You can pickle just about any vegetable, but my favorites are cucumbers, English (long) cucumbers, white onions, and purple onions. You will need enough of the vegetable, cut up in whatever chunk you want, to fill the jar up to a 1/2 to 3/4 inch head gap at top of the jar. 

Pictured in this batch are English cucumbers, sliced into 1/4 slices, on a mandolin with a wavy pattern.

Pickling Brine - Per One "1 Quart" Jar

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar

Bring both the water and vinegar to a boil in a saucepan, then take off the heat and let cool completely before using.

Pickling Spices - Per One "1 Quart" Jar

You can put the spices into the jar before adding the vegetables or on top of them. It won't matter once the liquid is dumped in and the you shake it up.

• 1 tbsp salt
• 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp dill seeds
• 1 tsp dill weed
• 1/4 tsp celery seed
• 1/2 tsp mustard seed
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 garlic cloves, smashed and chopped. 
• Use fresh garlic here not the pre-minced stuff in a jar. You want the full strength of the garlic on display. 

Put one batch of spices in each jar of pickles. Add the cooled pickling brine and fill the jar to the top, covering the pickles best you can. Leave at least a 1/2 inch air gap at the top between the liquid and the top of the jar. Screw on your lid on your jar and shake for a few seconds to distribute the salt and spices evenly.

Refrigerate for 7 days, shaking the jar for a few seconds every day. These will last approximately 6 months in the refrigerator. If you can't wait a full 7 days, let the jar sit for at least 24 hours before trying your pickles. I recommend making at least two jars. The first jar can be ready to eat in 24 hours, which, hopefully, will last a full seven days so the second jar will be fully matured. 

"Safe" Cheesy Potato Chowder

This is a version of THIS potato soup that is safe for our entire family now. 
It is lacking corn, chicken bullion, and the canned cheese sauce that uses wheat, corn and soy.

~~~

Soup Ingredients: 
3 slices bacon- all but burned
onion - minced
potatoes - peeled and cubed    (I do 1-2 potatoes per person, depending on size)
carrots - peeled and cut into coins     (I do 3-4 carrots)
1 part milk to 2 parts water
1 tsp Better Than Bullion for each cup water
minced garlic
black pepper
celery flakes
shredded cheddar, or other melty cheese (we used shredded cheddar, swiss, mozzarella and asiago)
chives

Thickening Sauce:

4 tbps heavy cream

2 tbsp tapioca starch

4 tbsp butter    - all mixed together for a gloppy paste

Instructions:

Cook the bacon in the soup pot. Set bacon aside for now. Pour off excess grease.
Put vegetables in pot, cover with liquid. Add spices and allow to boil/simmer til potatoes are soft. Smash a few times with a potato masher for a creamier texture.
Remove from heat and add the thickening "paste", mixing in thoroughly.
Add shredded cheese gradually, stirring and allowing it to melt.
Add chives and crumbled bacon, serve! 

Homemade Ketchup

A member of our house is dealing with some health issues and was advised to completely avoid some standard foods for a time. The list is long and one of the most critical foods to avoid is corn. Sigh. So even when we think of something "safe" we continually discover that actually, it has corn syrup or corn starch or corn fiber or or or or or!

Ketchup is one of those.
Every single bottle of ketchup in my local store had either corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, or both. Barbeque sauce was the same. (altho I think I did find one that was corn free, but it had something else on the list instead. Likely soy....) 

I found a recipe to make our own BBQ sauce, but it calls for ketchup. *face palm. 

Soo my husband found two recipes to make our own ketchup! 

The first one we tried is based on a recipe by America's Test Kitchen, buuut of course my husband changed some things up. That is what I am recording here: 
~~~
Ingredients: 

1 6oz can tomato paste

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

6 tbsp sugar

1/4 cup water 

1 tsp table salt

1/4 tsp dry mustard

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/8 tsp granulated garlic

1/8 tsp paprika

Pinch ground allspice

Whisk all ingredients into a medium saucepan. Bring to low simmer, over medium low heat. Stir & scrape bottom of pan occasionally, about 10 minutes - until mixture thickens and measures about 1 cup.

Strain ketchup through a fine mesh strainer, extracting as much ketchup as possible. Discard solids.
Let cool to room temperature.  

Can be kept in a fridge for up to one week. 
            ...I intend to push that limit. As my husband points out, the only thing that "needs refridgerated" is after you open the can of tomato paste....

Anyway, we used this in the meatball recipe we enjoy, found HERE.
I doubled the batch.