Cooking Group Recipe Book

Is there any interest in a cooking group recipe book? One that will include all of the old recipes plus allow for the addition of new ones? Here is what I was thinking... http://www.prudentbaby.com/2010/01/recipe-binder.html let me know what you think.

Grilled Pineapple

Grilled Pineapple

1 Ripe Pineapple

Vanilla Ice Cream or Mascarpone Cheese with vanilla

Optional glaze:

1 C Water

12 T Butter

¼ C Brown Sugar

For the Glaze: Combine the water, butter and sugar in a small saucepan and simmer, whisking often until the sugar has melted and the mixture is slightly thickened, about 10 minutes.

For the Pineapple: Peel and slice the pineapple into ¼” thick rounds. Heat grill to high and grill the pineapple slices about 2-3 minute per side, until browned. If using the glaze brush each side with glaze several times during the cooking. Serve with fresh blueberries, vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of remaining glaze if using.

Spinach Salad

Spinach Salad

Spinach

Cottage Cheese, rinsed and drained

Red Onion, sliced thinly

Bacon Bits

Options:

Mushrooms, fresh sliced

Strawberries, fresh, sliced

Candied nuts

Feta, crumbled

Shredded Mozzarella

Craisins

Dressing:

1/3 C Rice Vinegar

1/3 C Oil

Sugar, to taste

¼ - ½ tsp Mustard

1 T Grated Onion

Poppy Seeds

Rinse spinach and cottage cheese. Slice onions and any other optional ingredients you will be using. Slice bacon before cooking, then cook and drain on paper towels. To make the dressing, mix rice vinegar and oil with a whisk. Add sugar, mustard grated onion and whisk. Add poppy seeds until it looks like enough, about 1 tsp. When ready to eat, toss salad ingredients and dressing, garnish with a few sliced onions and a sprinkle of bacon and cottage cheese.

Spice-Rubbed Chicken with Grilled Bananas

Grilled West Indies Spice-Rubbed Chicken with Grilled Bananas

3 T Curry Powder

3 T Ground Cumin

2 T Allspice

3 T Paprika

2 T Powdered Ginger

1 T Cayenne Pepper

2 T Salt

2 T Freshly Cracked Black Pepper

4 Boneless Chicken Breasts

4 Firm bananas, skin on and halved lengthwise

2 T Vegetable Oil

1 T Soft butter

2 T Molasses

Lime halves for garnish

1. Mix all the spices together well, rub this mixture over both sides of each chicken breast, cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.
2. Over a medium fire, grill the chicken breasts skin side down for 7-8 minutes, until well browned and heavily crusted. Turn them and grill an additional 10 minutes. Check for doneness by nicking the largest breast at the fattest point: The meat should be fully opaque with no traces of red. Remove the chicken from the grill.
3. Rub the banana halves with vegetable oil and place them on the grill, flat side down. Grill them for about 2 minutes, or until the flat sides are slightly golden in color. Flip them and grill for an additional 2 minutes.
4. Remove the banana halves from the grill. Mix the butter and molasses together and brush over the bananas. Serve the chicken breasts and banana halves together, sprinkled with a little lime juice and black bean corn salsa.

Spanish Rice

Spanish Rice

2 T Vegetable Oil

1 C uncooked Rice

1 onion, chopped

½ green bell pepper, chopped

2 C water

1 (10 oz) can diced tomatoes with green chilies

2 tsp chili powder, or to taste

1 tsp salt

Heat oil in deep skillet over medium heat, sauté rice, onion, and bell pepper until rice is browned and onions are tender. Stir in water and tomatoes. Season with chili powder and salt, bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spanish-Rice-II/Detail.aspx

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

Black Bean & Corn Salsa

2 C Black Beans, cooked and drained OR canned rinsed & drained

2 C Sweet Corn, lightly steamed and drained OR canned rinsed and drained

¼ C Fresh Cilantro, finely chopped

½ C Fresh Green Pepper, chopped

6 C Fresh Tomatoes, seeded and chopped

1 T Fresh Lime Juice

1 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Salt

6-8 Fresh Jalapeños, seeded and diced

Chop, chop, mix, mix. Chill for at least an hour to allow ingredients to develop. This is good with chips and the usual dippers.

http://andreaswwrecipes.blogspot.com/2006/09/fresh-black-bean-and-corn-salsa-1-pt.html

Whole Wheat Bread

Whole Wheat Bread

6 C Warm Water

2 T Yeast

2/3 C Sugar

2/3 C Oil

2 T Salt

2 T Gluten Flour (for each cup of wheat flour OR if you are only using white flour use 1 T for each cup)

3 T Dough Enhancer

4 eggs, optional

12-14 C Flour (you can use any split of wheat and white flour, I usually do about 50/50)

Place water and yeast along with 1 T sugar into the mixing bowl, let bubble and ferment for about 5 minutes. Add sugar, oil, salt and eggs if using. Mix lightly and add flour 1 C at a time starting with wheat flour (if using). Add gluten flour before completely mixed. Knead for a few minutes and then add dough enhancer. Finish kneading for about 3-4 minutes. Place in an oiled bowl and let rise until doubled. Punch Down. Shape into loaves and place in pans (you may need to grease and flour pans), let rise again until doubled. Bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes or until bread is cooked through (about 190 with an instant read thermometer).

Cooking Group Backlog

We've been doing cooking group for over 2 years now, but we've only got the last few months worth of recipes up on the blog. I will be slowly updating all of the recipes. I will start from the oldest and come to the newest. With my move it will be a little touch and go, but I'll try to do at least one month of recipes per week. Let me know if I have missed any!

Playgroup for June

It's June, and if there is any snow this month I may just cry. Since there are five Tuesdays in this month we'll make one a travel day. I was thinking Pirate Island again, but I understand if people don't want to spend money on lunch. There won't be story time on Tuesday (they still have theirs on Wednesdays) so it would be just playtime and lunch unless we switch the day to Wed that week to incorporate story time. For those of you who didn't come last time we went, we ordered a gigantic pizza and spend about $7 per family on it, feeding at least 6 adults and twice that many children. If we decide not to spend the money, we can meet up at the Bean Museum since that's free and within a reasonable walking distance. Let me know if you would be willing to volunteer and/or contribute water slides, pools or other equipment to the water games day at the end of June. If it snows on that day, then summer will officially never be here and we should just accept it.

So, to sum up, please email me back about the outing and about the water games contributions. I hope to see you all there for a lovely start of summer!

Geneen

Playgroup Schedule for June--playgroup is Tuesday at 11:00 and runs about an hour
1: Harmon Park (850 E 150 S)
8: Boys and Girls Club (150 N 1080 E)
15: New park on 400 N 400 E
22: Pirate Island?? Or bean Museum??
29: Water fun! Place to be announced, but most likely my house.

Playgroup for May 25th

Ha ha finally!! We will have one day in May that we can play outside! The snow thought it was being tricky by coming one more time, but it came one day early for once, and we will be spending our time outside at the park! So the plan is to meet at Memorial Park at 11:00 to spend some quality outdoors time. Bring your lunch if you would like to picnic (we probably will) and enjoy the sunny weather! Hopefully the approach of June will make our outdoor excursions more frequent. See you all tomorrow!

Girls night!

Hey this is late notice, but tonight all are welcome to a girls night at Lydia Taylor's 7:30 pm. If you need to get out of the house then head over for some treats and a chance to talk and relax.

On a more random note: if anyone has any desire to read the Lightning Thief books series, you can borrow them from me! I just read them and thought they were really fun (if you have seen the film, do not judge the books by it---it was terrible!)

Playgroup tomorrow will be at a new park that is located at 400 N and 400 E. There are picnic tables if you want to bring your lunch. Hopefully the rain will hold off so we can go to the park. If it is raining, We'll meet at the gym once again. See you all tomorrow!

Geneen

Playgroup is Tuesday at 11:00 am and runs about an hour
18: New park on 400 E 400 N (I don't know the name!)
25: Memorial Park (150 N 800 E)

Teaching Sign-Up (follow this website

down to the Building a Strong Family section and find your topic to get the short lesson)
May 18: Holly Moss--Helping Family Members Live the Gospel
May 25: Elisa Simmons--Personal Integrity-The Key to Example
June 1: Geneen Jacobson--Agency-The key to Growth
June 8: Erin Harris--Unconditional Love-The Key to Effective Parenthood

Playgroup for May 11

I think I jinxed us and called the foul weather down on us by wishing you all a happy spring with no snow.... I'm so sorry! Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and cold, so we'll be meeting at the church in the GYM (more room to run!) to play. If you want you can bring toys to share with the other kids. We'll also be starting those short parenting lessons for the moms that Yvonne suggested, and I'm the first teacher. The bishop approved our meetings and so now we can announce the activities in Relief Society, but he also said he needed to call teachers for our lessons, but until that happens, we'll stick to the sign up from last week. I'll post it at the bottom with the corresponding lesson from the church FHE manual. If it turns out you can't do the day you signed up for, just let me know and I'll cover for you. :) Please let me know if you would like to sign up for a time or a specific topic if you visit the website and see one you like. See you all tomorrow!

Playgroup is Tuesday at 11:00 am and runs about an hour
11: At the church in the GYM--bring toys to share!
18: New park on 400 E 400 N (I don't know the name!)
25: Memorial Park (150 N 800 E)

Teaching Sign-Up (follow this website down to the Building a Strong Family section and find your topic to get the short lesson)
May 11: Geneen Jacobson--Building a Strong Family
May 18: Holly Moss--Helping Family Members Live the Gospel
May 25: Elisa Simmons--Personal Integrity-The Key to Example
June 1: Yvonne Russell--Agency-The key to Growth
June 8: Erin Harris--Unconditional Love-The Key to Effective Parenthood

Playgroup for TUESDAY May 4

Happy Spring! I hope I can say that now without too many snowy repercussions. Please note that we are moving Playgroup from Wednesday to TUESDAYS from now on. I hope this works for everyone. I was really encouraged to see so many people last week that I'm hoping the change will be for every one's benefit. The only questions now is if we want to change the time back to 10:00 am or keep it at 11:00 am. What do you guys think? It might be nicer later in the summer to come earlier since it'll get hot, but 11:00 is nice for me because we get all tired out and go straight into naps... Anyway, we'll keep it at 11:00 until next month, and then discuss moving the time frame if we need to. This month we'll still try to play outside a lot, and next month since there are five Tuesdays we'll try and do a travel day one of those weeks. If rain or foul weather hits, we'll move into the church building, but this will only work for the month of May because of the renovations that are going to start, so if something happens after May.... I don't know what we'll do, but I'll think of something! Please email me if you have any suggestions to enrich our playgroup experience. There was some talk last week of having people do rotating educational tidbits for moms about parenting, educations, etc. If we want to do this, I am totally game. I'll bring a sign up sheet tomorrow and you can sign up for a week and a subject and we can just talk things over while our kids play.

Playgroup Schedule for May
4: Harmon Park (150 S 850 E)
11: Boys and Girls Club (150 N 1080 E)
18: New park on 400 E 400 N (I don't know the name!)
25: Memorial Park (150 N 800 E)

Apartment in the ward for rent.

We are trying to sell our contract. It goes until February and you can renew after that if you would like to. If you know of anybody needing a place to live, have them contact us. We are trying to move out mid-May or the beginning of June. Rent is $650. If you or anybody is interested, feel free to email me.
Erin Harris
erinharris824@gmail.com