Bread recipes

I found a nice site that has a ton of bread recipes....

Cooking Bread

Creative Pizza

While in Germany, I took a train to Fussen on our way to Schloss Neauschwenstein. At the end of the day, the person I was traveling with stopped off at an Italian restaurant for some pizza. The pizza description for the one I chose sounded good; it was called Pizza Cappriosa.

Little did I know the peppers weren't chopped. A tasty pizza, a little heavy on the pepper side....

Chicken Delicious

This was really good and simple to make.

Ingredients

4-6 whole chicken breasts, boned and halved
lemon juice
salt and pepper
celery salt
paprika
1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed cream of celery soup
1/3 cup dry sherry or white wine
grated Parmesan cheese
fluffy rice

Directions

Rinse chicken breasts and pat dry. Season with lemon juice, salt, pepper, celery salt and paprika. Place in Crock-Pot. In medium bowl or pan, mix mushroom and celery soups with sherry. Pour over chicken breasts. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Cover and cok on Low for 8-10 hours or on high 4-5 hours.

Serve chicken and sauce over hot fluffy rice.

Bavarian Pretzel Soup

I was recently in Munich, Germany and at a small restaurant near the HofBrau Haus I had a really good soup called "Pretzel Soup". The pretzel in Germany is more like a bread, very soft and definitely tasty.

I don't have the recipe for the soup, but I will take a wild guess at the ingredients:

Ingredients

Beef Broth
Chopped green onions
Broken up Pretzel

Directions

Heat the broth...throw in the goodies.

Sweet & Sour Chicken in Pineapple Shells

I made this a couple of weeks ago and it came out great...plus it looked really neat. I would use this same recipe to make the Sweet and Sour Chicken without the fresh pineapple if I were in a rush of time.

Ingredients

2 small pineapples, about 3lbs each
Sweet and Sour Sauce (recipe at the end)
3 tbls salad oil
1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
1 3/4lbs chicken breasts, skinned, boned, and cut into 1/2" x 2" strips
1 medium sized onion, thinly sliced
1 medium-size green pepper, seeded and cut into thin strips
About 4 cups hot cooked rice
Fresh cilantro (optional)

Directions

Cut each pineapple in half lengthwise, cutting through crown. With a curved, serrated knife, such as a grapefruit knife, cut fruit from peel, leaving shells intact; turn shells upside down to drain. Trim away core from fruit, then cut fruit into chunks about 1/2" thick. You'll need 3 cups pineapple chunks; reserve any remaining fruit for another use.

Just before cooking, drain the 3 cups pineapple chunks; reserve juice for another use. Also prepare Sweet and Sour sauce and set aside.

Place wok over high heat; when wok is hot, add 1 tbls of the oil. When oil is hot, add garlic and half the chicken and stir fry until chicken is no longer pink in center; cut to test (about 3 minutes). Remove from wok and set aside. Repeat to cook remaining chicken, adding 1 tbls more oil.

Pour remaining 1 tbls oil into wok. When oil is hot, add onion and bell pepper; stir fry until tender-crisp to bite (about 2 minutes). Return chicken to wok. Stir sauce; add to wok with pineapple chunks. Stir until sauce boils and thickens.

Spoon equal portions of the chicken mixture into each pineapple shell, mounding mixture at 1 end. Spoon about 1 cup of the rice alongside chicken in each shell. Garnish with cilantro, if desired. Pour any extract chicken mixture into a serving bowl; offer at the table. Makes 4 servings.

Sweet and Sour Sauce

Stir together 4 tspn cornstarch; 1/4 cup each sugar, wine vinegar, and regular strengh chicken broth; 2tbls minced fresh cilantro or 1 1/2 tspn dry cilantro leaves; 2 tbls catsup; 1 tbls each soy sauce and dry sherry; 1/2 tsp ground ginger; and 1/4 tsp each salt and crushed red pepper.

Baked Scallops and Mushrooms in Garlic Sauce

This is a scallop recipe that we've made many times. Deedy made this for dinner on Valentine's Day.

Ingredients

3/4 lb sea or bay scallops
1/2lb medium mushrooms
3 Tbls olive oil
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup dry white wine
3 Tbls bread crumbs
3 Tbls onion, minced
1 Tbls parsley, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
pinch of dried red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Rinse scallops in cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Remove the stems from the mushrooms and reserve stems and caps. Brush a shallow 9" diameter baking dish with t tablespoon of olive oil; preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Toss the scallops with the flour and arrange them with the mushroom caps, in a single layer in the dish. Pour the wine into the dish along the edge. Finely chop the mushroom stems and mix them with the bread crumbs, onion, parsley, garlic, pepper flakes and salt and pepper. Sprinkle this mixture over the scallops and mushrooms. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil. Bake until the mushrooms are soft and the scallops are cooked through, about 30 minutes. Serve warm, or cover and refrigerate up to 24 hours.

Black Pepper and Parmesan Shrimp

A few years ago, Deedy found a salad dressing called "Black Pepper and Parmesan Dressing". Unfortunately, it's been a long time since we've seen this particular dressing. We like to marinate shrimp with this dressing and throw it on the BBQ. I bought a mixer last year that came with a recipe book and lo-and-behold, a recipe for the dressing. It's not exactly the same, but it's definitely our favorite way to cook shrimp.

Not all shrimp work with this. We always look for the shrimp that is cleaned, uncooked, with the shell on. Some shrimp we get with the shell on, the shell is too soft. Others are just right. The shells, after cooking, are nice and hard and easy to peel off of the shrimp. The other problem is that not all people we've shared this with have had shrimp with the shells on. So they chomp away, make wierd faces, spit out shrimp parts, and wonder what in the world is the deal.

For the shrimp, we've found the best ones at Trader Joes and Safeway in the seafood section.....frozen.

Here's our favorite recipe:

Ingredients

2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns
1 oz Reggiano Parmesan, cut in 1/2" or smaller cubes
1 shallot, about 1oz, peeled, cut in 1/2" or smaller pieces
1 clove garlice, peeled and smashed
1/2 tspn kosher salt
1 tbl Dijon-style mustard
1/4 tsp Wocsestershire sauce
2 tbl light mayonnaise
1/4 cup wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup canola or other flavorless vegetable oil

Directions

Place the whole peppercorns in a blender jar. Blend for 10 seconds. Some peppercorns will be pulverized, some will be cracked and crushed; remove and reserve. Place the Parmesan cubes in the blender jar; blend for 20 seconds; scrape sides of blender jar. Add shallot, garlic and salt. Blend for 10 seconds; scrape sides of blender jar.

Add remaining ingredients in order listed; blend for 10 seconds. Add reserved black pepper; blend for 5 seconds. Transfer dressing to a resealable container and refrigerate for 30 minutes or longer to allow flavors to develop. Keeps for one week in regrigerator.

BBQ Part

This is the part that's not in the book. We cook the shrimp directly over hot coals that has a few pieces of hickory or misquite that's been soaked in water. The shrimps cooks fast, but with the shells on, it protects the meat from burning. So, don't worry if the shrimp gets black. That's only the shell. The shrimp will cook in minutes, turning once or twice. Put the shrimp in a bowl and serve hot.

Make sure you've got wet towels nearby, your hands will be dirty while eating these.