Author: Cathy Horst

Egg Omelet Sandwich with Grilled Bread

 
Gather the ingredients for your omelet. You will need a large or jumbo egg, butter, salt and whatever else you desire such as cheese, chopped onion, and cut up precooked chicken. Left over meats and veggies from other meals are great for omelets. It will give your omelets lots of variety. Do not use any pork, unless if you want to feel grumpy for the next five or six days.


Beat the egg with a fork.

Put a teaspoon or two of butter into a small skillet. Pour your egg into the skillet.

Add chopped onions, leftover pieces of chicken breast, cheese, etc.

When the omelet is cooked enough to flip, carefully flip with a spatula to brown the underside a bit.

Butter two pieces of bread. When the omelet is cooked through, remove it from the skillet and place the bread in the skillet butter side down. Grill it until it’s brown.  Make into a sandwich, adding tomato slices and mayonnaise. For an eat-as-you-drive breakfast, slide the sandwich into a sandwich bag to contain the crumbs and any drips. Enjoy your gourmet quick and easy breakfast!

Fried Egg with Salsa and Cheese


Fry your egg in a small amount of butter in your pan. As soon as you can, flip the egg and top with salsa and cheese.

Cover with a lid until the egg is cooked and the cheese is melted.

This is delicious with toast or grits.

Recipe: Baked Stuffed Eggs

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10 hard-cooked eggs
3 tablespoons sour cream
2 teaspoons mustard
4 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon salt

Sauce:

1/2 cup chopped onion
6 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup flour
2 cups milk
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Salt to taste
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Paprika

Slice eggs in half lengthwise. Remove yolks and set whites aside. In a bowl, mash yolks with a fork. Add sour cream, mustard, mayonnaise and salt. Mix well. Fill the egg whites and set aside. In a saucepan over medium heat, saute onion in butter until tender. Stir in flour. Whisk in milk. Add Worcestershire sauce and salt. Heat until thick and bubbly, stirring constantly. Add sour cream and mix well. Pour half of the sauce into an 11" X 8" baking pan. Arrange stuffed eggs over the sauce. Spoon remaining sauce on top. Sprinkle with cheese and paprika. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until heated through. (If you want to bake these eggs upon preparing them, reduce the oven time to 20 minutes.)

Turkey Recipes

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There are different ways to roast a turkey. My favorite method, though, is long and slow. It is a no fail method in which the meat doesn’t dry out, but is moist and tender and delicious. However, you can’t carve the turkey at the table with this method as it falls off the bone. I always carve it before the meal and place the succulent slices on a platter.

To roast a turkey slowly:

Sprinkle turkey with salt on all sides. Place it in the roaster, breast side up. Drizzle turkey with 1/4 to 1/2 cup butter. Sprinkle your favorite herbs and spices such as basil, oregano, thyme, sage, coriander, onion or garlic powder over the turkey. If you want lots of broth, add a quart or two of water. Just the turkey alone will provide quite a bit of wonderful broth. Cover the turkey and bake for 1 hour at 400 degrees. Then reduce the heat to 200 or 250 degrees. For a 20 pound turkey I put it in the oven before I go to bed and then serve it at noontime the next day.

If you want to roast a turkey quickly, prepare the turkey in the roasting pan the same as in the above recipe. Don’t add water. Baste the turkey occasionally with the juices. Following are the approximate roasting times  baked at 325 degrees:

8 to 10 pounds – 4 to 5 hours
10 to 16 pounds – 5 to 6 hours
18 to 25 pounds – 6 to 8 hours
(If the turkey is stuffed, add 5 minutes per pound to cooking time.)

Approximate amount of turkey needed per serving:
Small turkey – 3/4 pound per person
Turkey over 15 pounds – 1/2 pound per person

How about some cornbread stuffing to go with the turkey? It is wonderful smothered in rich turkey gravy. You can put it in the turkey to bake, but it is also wonderful baked in a pan.

Cornbread Stuffing
12 cups cornbread crumbled
3 c. chicken broth
2 c. half-and-half
4 large eggs, beaten slightly
1/4 c. butter
1 1/2 lbs. bulk sausage (I prefer beef)
2 medium onions, chopped fine (about 2 cups)
3 ribs celery, chopped fine (about 1 1/2 cups)
2 tsp. thyme (optional)
2 tsp. sage (optional)
1 Tbsp. salt

Fry sausage in skillet. Saute onions and celery in butter until soft.  Place cornbread in large bowl. Add broth, half-and-half and eggs. Toss gently. Add all other ingredients and mix. Pour into a large baking dish (two 9 X 9 pans or one 11 X 17 pan). Bake in a 350 degree oven till golden, approximately 30 to 45 minutes.

Chicken Recipes

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Baking whole chickens makes such an easy, carefree meal. The flavor, however, tastes like you put a lot of work into the meal. You can put your whole meal in one roaster by adding vegetables to the chicken. The vegetables then absorb the flavor of the broth and any other ingredients. If you cut up your chicken, just put the desired chicken pieces in the roaster over the vegetables. Yum!!! Are you hungry yet? 🙂

Oriental Hot and Spicy Chicken
1-4 lb. chicken
4 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. toasted sesame oil
2 Tbsp. cider vinegar
3 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. hot sauce
1 Tbsp. mustard
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp. five spice powder

In a small saucepan, mix every ingredient except the chicken. Cook over medium heat until the butter is melted and the garlic is fragrant. Brush the chicken with the sauce. Bake a whole chicken in a covered roaster at 350 degrees till the chicken is tender. Plan on two hours or till the leg is loose in the joint.

Butter Chicken and Potatoes
1 whole chicken
4-6 potatoes
4 Tbsp. butter (no substitutes), melted
Salt to taste

Brush the whole chicken with butter. Sprinkle with salt. Place chicken in roaster. Pour any extra butter over the top of the chicken. Place potatoes around the chicken or under it. Cover and bake at 350 degrees 2 to 3 hours till tender.

Did you forget to put your chicken out to thaw?
Bake the frozen chicken in a 400 degree oven for 4 hours.

Recipes: Zucchini Quiche and Smoked Chicken

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Our family loves quiche so I decided to use two abundant vegetables from our garden (zucchini and onions) and make a meatless quiche. It was a hit! So I want to share it with you, too.

Zucchini Quiche
1 pie crust
1 medium to small zucchini, sliced in 1/8" slices
1 medium onion, sliced
2 Tbsp. butter
1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
4 eggs
2 Tbsp. mustard
3/4 tsp. salt
2 cups cream or milk or combination

Saute onion and zucchini slices in butter until they are as you like them. Put in the bottom of the pie crust. Layer cheese on top. Beat the eggs, mustard and salt with a hand blender or in your blender. Add the cream and/or milk and blend. Pour into pie crust. Bake for 15 minutes in a 425 degree oven. Turn oven to 325 degrees and bake 30 more minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Smoked Chicken
This year we bought an electric Brinkman smoker grill. We love it! I brine the meat in salt water overnight (usually 1/2 cup salt to 2 gallons water). The next morning I put the meat in the smoker with apple or cherry wood and then just let it smoke all day. It produces wonderful tasting meat with very little effort.

Two Ways to Roast Turkey

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Number One:
Sprinkle salt all over the turkey. Lay into roaster breast side down. Add 2 inches or more of water. Cover. Roast turkey at 400 degrees for one hour. Turn the heat to 250 degrees and bake till it falls off the bone. I do a large turkey all night. The turkey is so tender and full of flavor. The breast is wonderfully moist. You will need to carve the turkey and put the meat slices on a platter. It is not a picture perfect whole browned turkey, but the flavor is tops! It also produces lots of broth.

Number Two:
Baste turkey with 1/2 cup butter. Sprinkle with salt and herbs if desired. Bake at 325 degrees till tender. This is super delicious! The butter gives the turkey a wonderfully rich flavor.

Cathy’s Cooking Corner: Lamb Chops

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Our family loves lamb chops. My favorite method for preparing them is to bake them till they are fall-off-the-bone tender. I usually sprinkle both sides of the lamb chops with salt, garlic powder and thyme. I put them in a pan and add water about level with the top of the chops but not covering them. Then I bake them, covered, at 350 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. A small amount would would probably take only an hour. I feed eight people here.

Another sauce we love on lamb chops is a fajita sauce recipe:

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup vinegar
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (or 2 cloves garlic, minced)
1/2 teaspoon onion powder (or 1 onion, sliced/chopped)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Put lamb chops in baking pan. Stir together sauce ingredients. Pour over lamb chops. Cover and bake at 350 degrees 1 to 1 1/2 hours till tender. These would also be wonderful baked in a crockpot.

Custard Pie

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For our recipe this month, I’m going to give you a special family recipe that capitalizes on eggs. No, it’s not a favorite breakfast dish, but rather a favorite dessert of mine – custard pie. Whenever I make this custard pie, it reminds me of wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts with my kin. Especially on my father’s side of the family, custard pie was a must! I have always been very picky about custard pie. I never cared much for most recipes. However, this one I love! I hope you enjoy it, too.

Custard Pie
1 9-inch pie crust
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 1/2 cups milk
Note: I don’t use any white sugar. Instead, I just use approx. 3/4 cup brown sugar or sucanat for the total amount of sugar.

Beat the eggs and sugar until frothy. Add the milk. Pour into pie crust. Bake at 400 degrees 10 minutes. Turn down to 250 degrees. Bake 1 hour or until the center of the pie jiggles like jello instead of sloshing like liquid. You can cut the baking time in half by scalding the milk before adding it to the eggs and sugar. (Be sure you don’t overbake this pie. Custard becomes watery when it’s baked too long.)

Do you need a delicious, super easy pie crust? Try this push pastry. You mix it in your pie pan.

Pie Crust
1 cup flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 tablespoons milk

Mix the flour and salt together in your pie pan. Mix the butter and milk together. Add to your flour mixture. Mix it with your hands until all the flour is moist. Form into a pie crust by forming it to the pan. Flute the edge if you desire.

Cathy’s Cooking Tips

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I often roast chickens by adding vegetables and plenty of water to make lots of broth. However, I found out that there’s another great way to roast whole chickens. Add no water, but instead brush plenty of butter all over the birds. Then salt them and roast them as usual. It will still make rich broth, but the skin is crispier. Yes, go ahead and eat that skin. You miss a lot of nutrition from the Omega 3’s of grassfed poultry if you don’t.

The next morning you can take the broth from your roasted chicken and poach some organic grassfed eggs in it. This is definitely a favorite way for our family to eat eggs.

Have you ever hardboiled eggs, but when you went to peel them, the shells came off in little pieces with bits of eggs adhering to them? This happens because your eggs are too fresh. For the shell to come off easily, the eggs should be at least two weeks old. That is unless you cook them a different way than usual. Instead of adding your cold eggs to the water at the beginning and boiling them, bring the water to a boil first and then add your eggs with a slotted spoon. Bring to a boil again. Then proceed as usual by cooking them on lowest heat for 8 to 10 minutes and then cooling them quickly in ice water. Very fresh eggs will come out much better by using this method.

Egg burritos are a great breakfast food. To fill your tortillas, scramble some eggs and add some leftovers such as diced potato, chicken or sausage, rice and beans or any number of vegetables. Top with sautéed onions and sour cream, salsa or mayonnaise. Try mixing a little mustard into your scrambled eggs before they’re cooked. It gives an extra, wonderful little zip.