Busy Mommy Media » Holiday Recipes

Sherried Beef

Courtney — Mon, 24 May 2010 05:05:19 +0000

This dish is one of my mom’s go-to party recipes and it’s always a hit. We had it from time to time for special occasions at home as well and were always happy to eat it for days afterward if she was willing to make enough to have leftovers. Most recently it was a smash hit at my father’s retirement party and she received many requests for the recipe and decided to share it with us here on the site as well. This is one that will definitely stay in your recipe box for years to come.

Sherried Beef
serves 8+

Ingredients:
3 pounds stew beef or beef roast, cut into 1 inch cubes and trimmed of fat
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 envelope dried onion soup mix (Lipton preferred)
1/2 to 3/4 cup sherry
8 oz sliced fresh mushrooms or 6 oz canned

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a large casserole dish or small roaster. Cover tightly with lid or foil and bake at 325 degrees for 3 to 3 1/2 hours until beef is cooked through. Serve over potatoes, rice or egg noodles.

Notes:
-I usually double the mushrooms, if not triple them, but that’s because I love mushrooms. My mother recommends not using fresh mushrooms if you’re planning on freezing leftovers as.
-This dish freezes very well and is very easy to make in large quantities for a crowd or for freezing for future meals.
-The most important thing is to use a decent sherry–no “cooking wine” here. Use one you’d be willing to drink as it is a primary flavor that permeates this whole dish, and using a bad one or the swill labeled “cooking wine” will ruin it by making it bitter.
-My mother also adds that this can be made in a crockpot set on low.

Mushroom Almond Pate

Courtney — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:32:16 +0000

This amazing Mushroom Almond Pate is a vegetarian answer to the rich flavors and textures of liver-based pate. The depth of flavor and richness of this spread belies it’s vegetarian (or vegan) roots. This is a great alternative to the more common party offerings such as onion dip and cheese balls or a fantastic treat just because. It doesn’t take much work beyond chopping the onion and mushrooms and the willpower to leave it alone in the fridge (though I won’t tell if you eat it straight out of the processor bowl–it’s pretty amazing before it’s ripened too). Have it with crackers or toast points for parties, or with chunks of french baguettes, apples and brie for a simple dinner with a glass of wine. Once you’ve made this pate it will earn a permanent spot in your repetoire and I can guarantee that you’ll be passing out the recipe afterward.

Mushroom Almond Pate

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. unsalted butter or margarine
1 onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 lb fresh mushrooms, chopped
1 c. whole almonds
2 tbsp. olive, flax or nut oil of your choice
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
1 tsp. mushroom flavored soy sauce, regular soy sauce or tamari
1/2 tsp. coarse ground pepper

Directions:
Saute onion, garlic and mushrooms in butter until onions are caramelized golden brown and mushrooms are cooked through and set aside. Process almonds, oil and vinegar together in a blender or food processor until smooth. Add the mushroom/onion mixture, soy sauce and pepper to the bowl of the processor and process together until smooth. Taste for seasoning, adjust if neccessary and scrape out of the processor into a bowl, cover, and refridgerate for a couple of hours to allow flavors to meld.

Notes:
-Now, I do say to process until smooth, but don’t stress if you can’t quite get it there. The texture of the ground almonds when it’s not quite smooth isn’t a bad thing. If you need to, you can add a couple of tablespoons of water to the mix to help it blend to a smoother texture, but don’t let it get too thin–the end texture should still be more of a paste/spread and less runny than a dip.
-To make this gluten free, seek out gluten free brewed soy sauce (tamari) and balsamic vinegar. To make it vegan, try making it with just oil or a vegan margarine.
-This is a richer dish than you want to eat all the time, but if you use all flax oil instead of butter or margarine you can amp up the good fats and pretend that the whole thing is really good for you. Which it is, despite it’s rich nature. If nothing else, it’s cholesterol free, which is more than you can say for any of the liver pates.

Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Cookies

Courtney — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:56:09 +0000

These cookies are a healthier take on the flavors that make the winter holidays great–pumpkin, cinnamon and cranberry. Chock full of pumpkin, flax, walnuts and cranberries (all things that are good for you) and lacking oil, dairy or eggs, they are a nice treat to indulge in post-Thanksgiving. These are lightly sweet, crunchy with walnuts and excellent with a glass of milk or cup of tea or coffee.

Cranberry Walnut Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:
1/2 cup ground flax seeds, divided
1/3 cup warm water
1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin
1/2 Tbs cinnamon
3/4 cup firm packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup dried sweetened cranberries

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine 1/4 cup ground flax seeds with 1/3 cup warm water and set aside to soak. Combine pumpkin, cinnamon, brown sugar, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl. Stir in soaked flax seeds and additional 1/4 cup ground flax and stir. Add flour and stir to make a somewhat sticky and elastic dough. Fold in nuts and cranberries. Drop dough onto silicone lined cookie sheet in teaspoonfuls. If a flat cookie is desired, wet fingers with a little water and tap down dough into rounds, otherwise cookies will not spread on their own. Bake for 7-9 minutes until edges just start to brown and remove to cool on baking wracks or paper.

Chicken Marsala

Courtney — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:24:17 +0000

This chicken marsala recipe is the one I’ve been asked for the most and for the longest time, going on nearly a decade. It’s a deceptively easy chicken dish to make, though time consuming, and very much worth the effort. This is not your cafeteria chicken marsala. For starters, marsala sauce isn’t a cream sauce. It’s a wine sauce with butter and mushrooms that elevates meer chicken breast to something absolutely decadent. This makes for a fabulous dish for entertaining but also one that’s easy enough to make that it is a great Sunday dinner dish as well. Serve this on a platter covered in mushrooms and sauce and no one will even remember that it’s a holiday centered around a different bird.

Chicken Marsala
(serves 4)

Ingredients:
4 boneless/skinless chicken breast halves
flour for dredging
1-2 tablespoons dried Marjoram or Rosemary (preferably fresh or ground if using rosemary, in a pinch, Italian seasoning will do)
1/4 teaspoon Garlic powder
salt and pepper
olive oil for sautéing
12oz fresh mushrooms of nearly any kind, sliced
1/2 a bottle of marsala wine (note–do NOT use marsala “cooking” wine)
2-3 cups chicken broth or bouillon
sugar
1/2 stick butter
1/3 bunch fresh parsley, chopped

Directions:
Put the chicken in an open ziplock and pound to an even thickness of a little less than
half an inch. Use the marsala bottle if you don’t have a meat hammer. Pat chicken dry with paper towels and dredge in flour seasoned heavily (you should be able to taste it if
you taste the flour) with marjoram/rosemary, salt, pepper and garlic or whatever spices you are using. Brown in olive oil over medium low heat until nearly, but not quite done. Remove chicken from pan and set aside. Add mushrooms to the pan and brown over medium heat. Deglaze pan with the mushrooms still in with a good quantity of marsala, scraping up bits with a spoon. Add a few tablespoons of butter, bring up to a simmer and add bouillon or broth. Reduce the sauce to between 2/3s and half of the original volume, taste and adjust seasoning with salt, pepper, sugar (optional–depends on the quality of the marsala you’re using) and more marsala if needed. When thickened enough to stick to the pasta and concentrated to your liking, add chicken back to pan and finish cooking. Remove from heat and transfer chicken to a platter, then pour mushrooms and sauce over top. Alternately, you can drain off a lot of the sauce from the mushrooms before topping the chicken and pass the sauce separately in a gravy boat. Chop a large quantity of fresh parsley and sprinkle generously over platter or plates.

Notes:
-This works equally well with potatoes instead of pasta, but I wouldn’t recommend rice. Serve with bread and a salad or wilted spinach.
-This reheats pretty well, but be warned that the butter will solidify in the fridge and you’ll have to break chunks off if you don’t want to reheat the whole thing.
-This scales up pretty easily–just brown the chicken in batches. You can’t go wrong with too many mushrooms, so just add more as you see fit and adjust the sauce with more wine and broth. I’ve been known to use a whole bottle while making this dish just to have a ton of sauce leftover to add to more chicken or mushrooms another day.
-If the sauce is flavored to your liking but still looks too thin, go ahead and thicken with a little cold water/cornstarch slurry. Start small and add a little at a time, as this sauce can thicken very quickly with just a little starch. The bonus to using starch to thicken the sauce is that it’s less likely to separate if it sits for a bit or goes into the fridge for any period of time, but I’d still stir it before serving or after reheating.

Garlic Bread

Courtney — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:17:09 +0000

This is simply the best garlic bread I’ve ever made. It’s a little involved, but those that love garlic, butter and crusty bread will swoon over it. Dusted with cheese and golden with garlicky goodness, it’s definitely one for the arsenal and can help make even a dinner of spaghetti and sauce straight from a jar a truly memorable experience.
The recipe calls for you to make a compound butter to spread over your loave before toasting. You may well have more butter than you need, and if so, it works very well to use in other dishes, most notably finishing steaks and wilted spinach. It is intense if not cooked, so do keep that in mind when using leftover compound butter in other dishes.

The Best Garlic Bread

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter, softened
1/2 head of garlic
1 teaspoon salt
grated or shredded parmesan or romano cheese, for sprinkling
dried basil
1 loaf artisan french or italian bread

Directions:
First, make sure your butter is softened. If not, set it out for a bit at room temperature, as rock hard butter is not your friend here. Peel the garlic cloves and smash them with the flat of your knife. Cut butter into cubes and place into bowl of a small food processor or blender and add the garlic and salt. Pulse until well combined and the garlic is chopped fine, scraping down sides as necessary. Scrape butter out of the bowl and into a small mixing bowl and stir in a tablespoon of dried basil. Allow butter to sit for at least 15 minutes while you do something else. Split your loave down the middle like you would for a giant sandwich. Butter generously with the compound butter and sprinkle with a light layer of cheese and a little extra basil if desired. Pop into a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes, then finish with a minute or two under the broiler to brown the top a bit. Remove from oven and allow to cool a few minutes before sliceing and piling into a basket to serve.

Pumpkin Cake

Courtney — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:12:23 +0000

This pumpkin cake is one of my absolute must-make recipes for most of fall and winter, no matter what the occasion. It’s a great dessert to have on hand during the holidays, and is a way to get your pumpkin fix if you’re not a huge fan of pumpkin pie as well. The cake itself is super moist and can be enjoyed simply topped with powdered sugar, plain, or dressed up with a cream cheese icing. Make it early, make it often and it will always get eaten.

Pumpkin Cake
9×13 pan or jelly roll pan

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 cup oil
2 cups (1 small can) pumpkin
4 eggs

Directions:
Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl and stir. Add all the wet ingredients and beat for one minute with a mixer at medium speed. Pour into greased jelly roll or 9×13 baking pan and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees until the top pops back up when pressed with your thumb. Allow to cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar or ice as desired.

Notes-
-If you’ve ever had a pumpkin whoopie pie, this is pretty much exactly that same kind of taste and texture, minus the cream cheese filling. So if you are craving pumpkin whoopie pies, ice a piece of this with cream cheese icing and you’ll be set.
-I’ve not yet tried making this with applesauce instead of oil, but I think it would still hold up just fine. I’ll update it when I do to confirm whether or not that works. I can’t see why it wouldn’t since there’s also the pumpkin in it to keep it on the moist side. In the meantime, it may not be healthy, but it’s really, really good.

Wilted Spinach

Courtney — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:58:56 +0000

Wilted spinach is an awkward name for a perfectly lovely dish. Spinach has scared off so many people, but this method of cooking yields a tender but not mushy green flavored with whatever you choose to add to it. It makes an excellent side to all sorts of dishes, but is also good stirred into others to add a pop of color as well as up the nutritional profile a bit. In this version I use a little butter to gild the leaves, but feel free to substitute olive oil or the cooking fat of your choice. It does need just a little fat of some kind to help aid in the absorbtion of nutrients, but it also helps carry the flavor of whatever aromatics you’re using to the rest of the dish. Garlic butter is a classic topping, and one I very much recommend.

Wilted Spinach

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced fine
16oz baby spinach leaves

Directions:
Melt the butter in a large pan with high sides. Add the garlic and increase heat to medium. When the garlic is just starting to turn golden add the spinach to the pan and toss around with a pair of tongs to distribute the butter. Keep moving the spinach around every minute or so to wilt evenly. Spinach is done when leaves are bright green all the way through, usually about 5 minutes or less. Spinach will give off a lot of water when cooked, so tilt the pan to one side to drain most of the water off before you move to a serving dish.

Notes:
-Use a big pan, but don’t worry if the spinach looks like it’s going to sit in a mound six inches above the top of your pan. The spinach cooks very quickly and the volume will reduce to a more manageable one in a minute or two if you keep moving it around.
-Toss leftover spinach with orzo, chopped tomatoes, lemon juice and feta for a super simple lunch or stir a scoop into your favorite vegetable soup. There are a ton of uses for cooked spinach, be creative and you’ll be rewarded.

Roasted Potatoes

Courtney — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:37:20 +0000

Roasted potatoes can round out nearly any meal for any occasion, from celebretory to weekday dinner. This is a simplified version of my favorite method to make potatoes as a side to nearly any dish, but it goes particularly well with chicken marsala or roasted meats. The little extra punch of flavor from the garlic and broth help take these a little further than your everyday plain potato side dish but not far enough to abandon its supporting role in your meal.

Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients:
1/4 cup olive oil
3 pounds potatoes, peeled if desired and cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup beef, chicken or vegetable stock or bouillon
2-3 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs of your choice (optional)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Pour the olive oil into a 9×13 pan and add the potatoes, garlic, salt and pepper, tossing to coat with your hands. Bake potatoes for about 15 minutes, then add the stock and toss to coat the potatoes. Bake for 25-35 minutes more, tossing once or twice more to assist even browning, until potatoes are soft. If you want them browned further, put them under the broiler for 2-3 minutes. Toss with your chosen fresh herbs if desired and serve.

Peppered Beef Tenderloin

Courtney — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 06:14:48 +0000

This beef tenderloin is about the easiest entertaining main dish in my repetoire. It always comes out tasting good, the leftovers are smashing and you can work it to satisfy people of almost all done-ness preferences. It goes equally well with an involved spread of multiple dishes or just roasted potatoes and salad and is impressive no matter when you serve it, so add this one to your roster of go-to entertaining recipes.

Peppered Tenderloin

Ingredients:
-2-3 pound beef tenderloin
-4 Tbsp coarse ground black pepper
-olive oil
-kosher salt

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a 9×13 pan or roasting pan in foil (optional, but recommended). Place roast in 9×13 diagonally or in roasting pan’s rack. Rub on olive oil to coat on all sides and cover in black pepper, making sure to get it on all sides as well. Sprinkle with kosher salt. Place in oven uncovered for 45-65 minutes depending on desired doneness. 45 minutes will be medium to medium rare, depending on the size of the roast. Check it with a thermometer if you’re aiming for a specific level. I recommend cooking to medium or medium rare if you’re going to use it for leftovers, as reheating will cook it further. The thin end of the loin will also be further along than the middle, so keep that in mind if you’re cooking for people who prefer differing degrees of done. Remove from oven and allow to rest for at least ten minutes before slicing.

Goat Cheese Endive Appetizer

Courtney — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:56:19 +0000

I started making this appetizer of goat cheese on endive leaves a few years ago at a dinner party I threw and haven’t hosted a party since where they weren’t requested and promptly devoured. They really couldn’t be any easier, but look and taste way better than the sum of two parts. They would be great at cocktail parties as well as just to have as a simple appetizer to hold off the hordes of hungry people before any holiday meal and as they take next to no time to make, are a perfect treat to throw at your family and buy yourself a little more time when needed. The leaves form edible “spoons” to serve a tiny lump of goat cheese, so there is no need for cocktail pics or any other serving utensils.
I use an herbed goat cheese from Trader Joes for this, but any brand will do. If you can’ find goat cheese rolled in fines herbes just add some fresh herbs of your own choosing when you mash the goat cheese–dill, parsley and basil are easy places to start.

Goat Cheese Endive Appetizer

Ingredients:
4oz log herbed goat cheese, or half goat cheese/half cream cheese mix
2 or more heads belgian endive, green or red

Directions:
Mash the goat cheese with a fork to evenly distribute the herb coating and blend in cream cheese if using. Break the leaves off of the head of endive until they get too small to function as edible spoons. Fill the broad end of the leaf with 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of filling, pressing down a bit with the fork so that it doesn’t fall off. Place on a serving platter and serve.

Notes:
-Scale this up as needed. It’s not hard to stretch the cheese by loading less into the leaves, and endive is relatively cheap when served this way. Some places sell both colors in the same package so you can layer the platter with alternating colors if you’re so inclined.
-This is a very easy recipe to have your kids make, as it involves no sharp utensils, nothing hot and a very simple process. Count on as many being eaten as made once they start making them (the same goes of just about any kitchen helpers) and plan accordingly.
-These can sit in the fridge for a few hours, but I wouldn’t make them super far in advance as you might have to deal with wilting endive leaves. Making them the morning of your dinner is about as early as I’d go.