Dad's Garlic Bread Seasoning

Folks-

This is an easy one, but I don't want to lose it, and I especially want to save it for the kids. Just mix these together and sprinkle on buttered French or sourdough bread and heat it up to make a good garlic bread. You can also make top notch croutons by cutting slightly stale bread into chunks, brushing them with olive oil or melted butter and then toasting them.

Just go to town with it!

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon nutritional yeast

1 teaspoon parsley flakes 

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

1/2 teaspoon garlic pepper.

Hush Puppies

Folks-

My southern food kick is continuing today with hush puppies. I have no family links to these, we just all agreed that they're good with fried chicken or southern fried fish. This recipe is a variation of one I found at Small Town Woman, but of course, I modified it.

Enjoy!

ingredients:

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar or honey

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon Creole or Cajun seasoning

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 large egg, beaten

2 tablespoons cooking oil

3 tablespoons chopped green onions or onion flowers

Whisk together dry ingredients. Beat together buttermilk, egg, and oil, then add the onions. Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix until combined. Heat 1 1/2 inches (3-4 cm) cooking oil in a cast iron Dutch oven or pan to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit and fry tablespoons of the dough in the oil just until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Place on a cooling rack over paper towels or parchment paper to drain. Eat while hot.

Deep Fried Artichoke Batter

Folks-

This is a work in progress, but it shows promise. My go-to deep-fried artichoke batter has been McCormick beer batter with added Italian seasoning, but I figured it was time to move on and make space in the pantry. So here's what I have so far.

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp Italian Seasoning or Herbs de Province

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp white pepper

1/2 Tsp chili powder

1/2 Tsp black pepper

1 cup milk

1 large egg

Combine dry ingredients. Stir in milk and egg until combined and no dry flour is seen. Batter will be lumpy. Dip fresh/frozen artichoke hearts into batter and deep fry at 350 degrees, flipping once, until golden brown on both sides.

Creole Remoulade

 Folks-

I've been experimenting a lot with Southern cooking lately, and decided to make Fried Catfish and Hushpuppies with Creole Remoulade tonight. So I don't forget the Remoulade recipe, here's my version made using one from Food52.com.

Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons minced celery leaves
  
• 4 tablespoons minced parsley
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 6 scallions, white and light green parts, finely minced
  
• 4 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  
• 1 teaspoon prepared horseradish 
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 3 to 10 drops Tabasco sauce (to taste)
  
• 1/4 cup Creole mustard (i.e., Zatarain's, or you can use any coarse-grained mustard)
  
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 3-5 drops liquid smoke
• 1 tablespoon packed Brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
  
• 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper to taste
• Combine ingredients in a blender and pulse just until combined.

Overnight Sourdough Waffles

Folks-

I'm a couple of years late to the sourdough scene, but I've been experimenting with it the last couple of months. I started with the King Arthur Sourdough Starter recipe, which took a couple of weeks to really get going, but now that it is, I'm having fun with it.

I found a recipe on The Pantry Mama that I was able to modify to my needs, and they came out better than a couple of other recipes. These have an actual sour flavor, so that's a good thing.

Without further ado, here's my version:

Ingredients:

Night before:

100g sourdough starter, fed & bubbly (fed that morning)

360g whole milk

400g all purpose flour

100g sugar

Day of:

30g sugar

100g (about 1 stick) melted butter (cooled until it's just melted)

4 large eggs, beaten

24g baking powder (about 4 tsp)

10g salt (about 1 tsp)

20g sugar

The night before: mix together sourdough starter, whole milk, flour, and sugar. Cover with plastic wrap and leave on the counter overnight, or 12-15 hours.

The next morning, mix together the sugar, baking powder, and salt, and beat together the eggs and melted butter. Whisk ingredients into the batter from the night before, and allow to sit while heating the waffle iron. Use nonstick spray or a high smoke-point oil on the waffle iron, not butter, if you want crispy waffles. Makes about 8-10 waffles in a Belgian waffle iron.

Note: You can use discard if you haven't thought ahead, but fed starter works just a smidge better.

This recipe is easily halved.

Baklava

 Folks-

This is really a work in progress, so I don't yet consider it complete. I created this by cobbling it together from several other recipes.

Ingredients:

Honey Syrup:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp rose water (or orange extract, or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 10 black peppercorns (or 5 whole cloves)

Nut Filling:

• 8 oz shelled raw pistachios
• 8 oz raw walnuts (or almonds, or pecans)
• 2 tsp ground cardamom
• 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/4 Tsp salt

Pastry and Butter:

• 2-3 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 lb frozen phyllo dough, thawed

To make the honey syrup:

Combine all ingredients except rose water in a saucepan, bring to a boil over medium heat, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature before discarding peppercorns and stirring in the rosewater or other flavoring.

To make the nut filling:

Pulse the nuts together in a food processor until very finely chopped. Set aside about 1 tbsp before you add in sugar, salt, and ground cardamom and pulse together to combine.

To assemble and bake:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Brush a 9x13 inch pan with butter then layer a half-sheet of Phyllo in the bottom and brush with butter, layering 6- 10 more half sheets on top, brushing each with butter. Layer 1/3 of the nut filling on top, and place a half-sheet of Phyllo on the filling, and dab with butter (brushing will slide it off.) Layer 6-10 more half sheets, another 1/3 of the filling, another 7-10 sheets of dough & butter, the rest of the filling, the rest of the dough and butter. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough and filling into squares or diamonds. Place in the oven for 45 minutes, turn it 180 degrees, and bake another 45 minutes or until golden in color. Remove from the oven to a cooling rack then immediately pour the honey syrup through the cuts, leaving the last couple of tablespoons to cover the top of the baklava. Decorate the tops with the saved nut mixture.

Allow to cool for at least three hours, than wrap in aluminum foil and allow to sit for 12 hours before serving.

Notes: Aaron strongly recommends sitting down while assembling the baklava in the baking dish. It takes quite a while with all of the layering, dabbing, and covering with nut filling, and, yeah, I wish I had done it sitting at the table that first time.

Also, this is much better the day after it's baked. Like, a lot. I strongly recommend fixing it a day ahead if you have a party or gathering planned.

And this recipe is great for sharing. One full recipe is too much for my family of six to finish in a reasonable amount of time.

Freezer Jams and Jellies

 My family has been making freezer jams at least since I was a child. It is distinctly different than cooked jams in that it tastes more like the fresh fruit. Freezer jams also have the advantage over cooked jams of being very quick to make.

The disadvantage is that you need freezer space to store them, since they are not sterilized in preparation the way cooked jams are.

My family has always used boxes of dry pectin from Sure -Jell or Ball. These can usually be found near boxes of flavored gelatin in the supermarket, even though they are not at all the same thing. Gelatin is a hydrated colagen that comes from boiling animal skin and hooves, and pectin comes from boiling fruit. Don't get them confused. One is not a replacement for the other in this recipe.

In the past my family always used the "Quick and Easy Freezer Jam" recipe that came in the box of pectin. Sure-Jell recently stopped including it, and instead is directing you to their website. Considering how ephemeral corporate websites can be, and how they've changed their recipes in the past, I tend not to trust them. Hence this blog in the first place.

So, today I am including their recipes, as well as some variations of my own, just to make sure I don't lose my recipes if the last enclosed instruction packet I have of theirs disappears or gets damaged.

Please note that these recipes are for the full-sugar version of Sure-Jell and similar pectins, not the Reduced Sugar or Sugar-Free variants.

Ingredients for All Jams and Jellies

3/4 Cup Water

1 Box Pectin (full-sugar variety)

Specific Ingredients

Apricot Jam:

2 1/2 to 3 1/2 Cups Finely Chopped Apricots, pitted but unpeeled (start at 2 1/2 and stir-in a bit at a time if sugar doesn't dissolve and you've already added all of the lemon juice)

2-4 Tbsp Lemon Juice

5 1/2 Cups Sugar

Blackberry Jam:

3 Cups Crushed or Pureed Blackberries

5 1/4 Cups Sugar

Blueberry Jam:

3 Cups Chopped Blueberries

5 1/4 Cups Sugar

Sour Cherry Jam:

2 Cups Finely Chopped or Pureed Cherries

4 Cups Sugar

Peach Jam:

3 Cups Finely Chopped or Pureed Peaches

2 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice

4 1/2 Cups Sugar

Peach Vanilla Bean Jam:

Same as peach, but add1 tbsp Vanilla Bean Paste

Homestyle Peach Jam:

Same as peach, but add:

2 Tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp Ground Allspice

Mango Jam:

3 Cups Mashed Mangoes

1/4 Cup Fresh Lemon Juice

5 Cups Sugar

Raspberry Jam:

3 Cups mashed or pureed Raspberries

5 1/4 Cups sugar

Raspberry-Peach Jam:

2 Cups mashed or pureed Raspberries

1 1/2 Cups finely chopped or pureed Peaches

7 Cups sugar (yes, 7 cups!)

Strawberry Jam:

2 Cups crushed or pureed Strawberries

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

4 Cups sugar

Spiced or Christmas Strawberry Jam:

Same as Strawberry, but add:

1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon

1 Tsp Ground Ginger

2 Tsp Ground Allspice

Strawberry-Blueberry Jam:

1 1/2 Cups crushed or pureed Strawberries

1 Cup chopped or crushed blueberries

4 1/2 Cups sugar

Apple Jelly:

3 Cups bottled or refrigerated apple juice

2 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice

5 Cups sugar

Apple Pie Jam:

2 Cups bottles or refrigerated apple juice

1 Cup unsweetened apple sauce

2 Tsp ground cinnamon

5 Cups sugar

Grape Jelly (may take 1 week to set):

3 Cups bottled or refrigerated Grape Juice

5 1/4 Cups sugar

Grapefruit (WHY?!?) Jelly:

2 Cups of that horrid bottled or refrigerated Grapefruit Juice (Evil Fruit!)

4 1/2 Cups poor, innocent sugar for the sacrifice

Hot Pepper Jelly (may take 1 week to set):

NOTE: Protect hands with rubber gloves while preparing!

2/3 Cup pickled jalapeno peppers, seeded and finely chopped (from 1 10-1/4 oz jar)

2 1/2 cups bottled or refrigerated apple juice

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1-2 drops green food color (optional)

5 1/2 Cups Sugar

Instructions:

Prepare the fruit as called for in the list of ingredients. Stir in lemon juice, if called for. Measure out exact amount of sugar and mix in spices, if called for, then slowly stir into prepared fruit. Allow to sit for up to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to break down sugar crystals.

While fruit is sitting, measure out water and place in a small saucepan. Add pectin to water. After fruit has sat for 10 minutes, turna stovetop burner to high and place the saucepan over high heat, stirring constantly. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add to fruit and sugar mixture and stir for 3 minutes constantly until sugar crystals are mostly dissolved (some may remain.)

Immediately ladle into clean jars or plastic containers with lids leaving at least 1/4 inch (5mm) space at the top of the container for expansion in the freezer. Cover and allow to sit at room temperature for 24 hours. Keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks, or 1 year in the freezer.

NOTES:

Apricot Jam is especially hard to get to jell correctly. You can't puree the fruit, or you end up with syrup, not jam. Either chop it by hand or use a food processor to get a fine chop on it. If the fruit is too dry, you need to add a bit of water or lemon juice. If you don't, then the sugar won't dissolve. If you want a harder set, you have to add lemon juice. I have messed up apricot jam more times than I've made is successfully. It's very finicky.

I strongly recommend mixing any dry spices into the sugar if the recipe calls for it, as Homestyle Peach, Christmas Strawberry, and Apple Pie do. It keeps the spices from clumping.

Apple Pie Jam has a shorter shelf-life than the other jams. It lasts about 2 weeks in the refrigerator or up to 6 months in the freezer. After that it tends to turn into a syrup, but it's still good on pancakes or waffles.

All of the jams listed above are good in plain yogurt to give it a fruit flavor. Just mix in a roughly 3:1 ratio of yogurt to jam if making yogurt pops in the freezer, or 4:1 if you plan to just eat fruit-flavored yogurt. Adjust to taste.

I have not tested Hot Pepper, Grape, or Grapefruit jellies, mostly because I hate grapefruit, and really don't see the point of making a grape jelly that is likely to taste exactly like a jar I can buy in the store. And my stepmom makes a good pepper jelly, so I'm never in need of one. Let me know if they come out for you.

Spiced Strawberry or Christmas Jam adapted from a recipe from Spices and Flavors. It has been said it tastes like Guava.

6/29/2025: You can use granulated pectins besides Sure-Jell, Certo, or Ball, but may have to increase the amount of pectin. Tonight I made Strawberry, Homestyle Peach, and Apricot, but increased the amount of bulk pectin used for the first two to 55g, and 60g for the Apricot. All three jelled, but the Apricot is still a bit soft-set (I'll take it!!!)

Onion Flower and Lentil Soup

My dad used to try to grow onions in his garden from seed, but he had a problem: before growing a good bulb, they would flower, and when an onion flowers, the bulb becomes fibrous and inedible.

His solution was to make onion flower salsa.

I'd forgotten about this until recently. My mother-in-law planted some onions that had sprouted, and they were flowering in my backyard. Around this time, someone on Reddit posted a question on a gardening thread about what to do if their onions flowered. I told them to eat them. They asked how they tasted, and, well, I decided to find out that night. I fixed a baked potato with Icelandic yogurt instead of sour cream, and used scissors to sprinkle the top with onion blossoms.

It was freaking fantastic. Best potato ever. I shared with my family and ended up making several more!

Onion flowers taste strongly of onions, but are also sweet. You can sautee them and used them as a garnish on steaks, mix them raw into salads, or dang near anything you would put sliced or green onions into.

I got curious about recipes out there, and didn't find many. I guess not many people know about onion flowers being edible. One I decided to try was an Onion Flower and Lentil Soup. Really, I hated the recipe the minute I read it, so I changed it a lot before even making it. There are elements of it still in here, but this is functionally a new recipe.

Here it is! My Onion Flower and Lentil Soup!

Ingredients

4 Tbsp olive oil

4 tsb minced garlic

1 sausage, sliced, bratwurst, Italian sausage, or similar (optional)

1-2 onion flowers, blossoms sheared off, or about 1/2 cup chopped green onion

4 celery stalks, finely sliced

1 cup sliced carrots

1 bell pepper, cored and chopped, reserve half for serving

4 tsp minced garlic

1/2 Tsp ground paprika

1/2 Tsp ground black pepper

1/4 Tsp ground white pepper

1/4 Tsp turmeric

32 oz broth (any)

3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 cup dry lentils, washed

Drizzle the olive oil into the bottom of a medium sized pot and sautee the sausage until cooked through. Add the onion flower, celery, carrots, garlic, and seasoning and stir-fry until tender. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Add the lentils and vinegar and simmer for 20 minutes. Good served with a dollop of sour cream or Greek yogurt, avocado chunks, and/or chopped bell peppers.

Aaron's Banana Cream Pie

My youngest, Aaron, cobbled this recipe together from 3 other recipes that he found on the interwebs one day while he was hungry in class. He came home and made it for us. Cynthia, his older sister, cried when she took her first bite because it tasted so good. I made it for my coworkers and got a very consistent response, which was (paraphrased) "This is great! When can I have the recipe?"

Well, this is it. The crust is from The Spruce Eats, the filling is from Allrecipes, and the whipped topping is from my French Silk Pie recipe.

Here are the crust and filling recipes. I don't recommend making the topping until the crust has been filled and it has cooled, so once you're at that point, head over to that recipe.

Vanilla Wafer Cookie Crust Ingredients

1 1/2 cups fine vanilla wafer cookie crumbs (about 30-35 cookies worth)

2 tbsp granulated sugar (vanilla sugar is good here, but regular is just fine)

5 tbsp softened unsalted butter

Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add vanilla wafer cookies and sugar to a food processor an pulse until crumbs are fine (about the same as commercial bread crumbs.) Add the butter and pulse until combined. Turn out crumb mixture into a 9" pie tin and press into the bottom and sides of the dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes and cool completely before filling (it should be cool by the time the filling is done).

Banana Cream Pie Filling Ingredients

3/4 cup white sugar

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups milk

3 egg yolks, beaten

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract (don't substitute vanilla sugar-it doesn't work)

Up to 4 bananas, sliced (enough to cover the bottom of the pie crust)

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (if not already hot.) Cover the bottom of the pie crust with banana slices. Place egg yolks in a small heat resistant bowl and beat them thoroughly.

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. Stirring constantly with a rubber spatula, cook over medium-low heat until it boils and begins to thicken, then let it simmer for two more minutes while stirring constantly. I mean stirring constantly! This stuff desperately wants to burn to the pan and ruin itself. Do not stop stirring thoroughly while it's on the heat!

Remove the milk mixture from the heat and whisk about 3 tablespoons into the beaten egg yolks, then whisk the egg mixture into the milk mixture. Return to heat for two more minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and mix in vanilla and butter.

Pour over banana slices and level the pudding in the pie pan. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 1 hour before topping with a whipped topping.

It's quite good if you sprinkle toasted almond slices or some toasted reserved cookie crumbs over the whipped topping.

I intend to try making the filling in the top of a double-boiler just to see if it's easier. I'll update this recipe later with the results.

From Scratch Pancakes

 Folks-

You know recipes come in clusters by now!

So, I’d been watching my YouTube feed, and saw a recipe for scratch made pancakes from Epicurious. Since I had today off, and I already had the ingredients, I decided to make this.

My wife said I had to save the recipe, so after writing it down, here it is!

Ingredients:

3c flour

1/4c sugar

1 1/2tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

1 1/2tsp baking soda

2 1/4c milk

1/4c vegetable oil

1tbsp vanilla

1/4c apple cider vinegar

3 eggs

Butter

Chocolate chips (optional)

Mix together dry ingredients. Mix together wet ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and just barely fold together. Batter will be thick and lumpy. Grease skillet or griddle with a fair amount of butter (tablespoons). When griddle is hot and butter is melted, spoon batter onto it, and sprinkle chocolate chips on them. Flip when bubbles pop.

Notes: [9/1/25] I tried to halve the recipe this morning, messed up some of the proportions, and it still came out good. So for future reference, you can double the oil and sugar, and two eggs are fine in a half batch (I reduced the milk to 1 cup to compensate.)

I managed to get everything else right.

I may try to make this adding dried cranberries, cutting the vinegar and milk in half, and substituting orange juice in to make up the difference in wet ingredients.