Google Recipe Search

I admit I often use Google to search for recipes, but I get frustrated when their search results so often show the same old sites over and over. I already know about those sites! And I do use them...but I use Google when I feel like exploring a bit more. Enter Google recipe search. It's a long URL. If the link doesn't work or later you want to get there without coming back here, just enter "recipes" in the Google search bar and they'll offer you the option of their recipe search right at the top.

Once there you can enter keywords, cuisine, main ingredient, course, prep time, meal type, plus limit by servings, calories, cholesterol and--my favorite!--set it to search only individual contributors rather than the top 10 recipes sites you already know about.

I also just learned that you can enter something like "ham bone -beans" in the regular Google search to find things with a ham bone but no beans. (Although really, if you have a ham bone, why would you NOT cook beans? Okay, maybe some greens with ham broth you've made from the bone. (And, by the way, you'll still see recipes with lentils and split peas. I don't think it's smart enough to say -legumes.) Dang, now I want to cook a ham so I have the ham bone.

How do YOU find new recipes?

Round Steak Pepper Steak

I'm on a double challenge the next few days. First, use up some freezer supplies to make room for stuff. B) Cook with as few pans as possible because my dishwasher started leaking! I evidently have bad dishwasher karma. This one is a mere 5 or 6 years old. I guess their repairman are lonely because you can't repair things but have to replace the whole dishwasher?!!

Anyway, browsing through the freezer contents I spotted a bag of round steak cut in strips. This is how I use my freezer. When I buy some large lot of something, I'll prep it in different ways. So some of this was cut in strips, some cubed, some left in steaks. I started it defrosting in the microwave and browsed through cookbooks and Internet sites for ideas. I ended up using this one, basically from Not Just Beans: 50 Years of Frugal Family Favorites

1 pound round steak, cut in strips
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbs soy sauce
1/2 cup chopped celery
pepper to taste
1 cup sliced mushrooms or 1 small can
1 Tbs flour
1 cup chopped onion
1 Tbs oil
1 green pepper, seeded and cut in thin strips
3/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup cherry tomatoes

Mix up the Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, soy sauce and a bit of pepper. Mix in the meat, flour, celery, mushrooms, and onion. Heat the oil in a pot with a lid. Dump the meat and vegetable mix in and cook over medium high heat for 5-10 minutes, letting the meat brown a bit and stirring periodically.

Add the water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Add the green pepper strips and cook another 5-10 minutes, covered. Stir in the cherry tomatoes (or slices of larger tomatoes if that's what you have, or even a can of diced tomatoes!) and cook another 5 minutes.

Serve over rice or noodles. Served 3 of us with leftovers for 1 or 2.

Roasted Garlic and Potato Soup

I used the roast garlic to make some Roasted Garlic and Potato Soup. The original recipe called for peeled and diced raw red potatoes but I used some leftover blue, yellow, and red potatoes instead. The color is, frankly, a bit off-putting but the flavor is fantastic! I'm thinking it would have been prettier without the blue ones.

2 heads roast garlic
2 Tbs olive oil
2 onions, diced
2 pounds potatoes (peeled and diced if raw)
6 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
chopped fresh chives for garnish

Heat the oil and cook the onions until soft, about 5-7 minutes. Squeeze the roast garlic cloves from their skins into the pot and mash the heads with the back of a spoon. Add the potatoes and stir until coated with the oil.

Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer. If your potatoes are raw, simmer about 30 minutes until the potatoes are soft. If your potatoes are already cooked, like mine were, simmer 10 minutes or so to blend the flavors.

Puree the soup with a hand immersion blender like this one if you have one, or in batches in a regular blender if need be. Add the chives and serve.

Roast Garlic with Homegrown Garlic

I grow my own garlic and had the best harvest this year, due in part, I believe, to the lasagna gardening method I tried. Just a few week ago I used up the last of last year's garlic so am now starting to cut the heads off the new braid hanging in the kitchen. Last night I roasted two heads of garlic since I had the oven going for some pork carnitas for tonight's dinner.

Rub the papery skins of a few heads of garlic, but don't remove it all as you want the head to stay together.

Slice 1/2" off the top to expose the garlic cloves. Put them in a small baking dish, cut side up, pour a bit of olive oil on the top and sprinkle with a bit of salt. Add enough hot water to make 1/8" depth in your baking dish. Cover the dish with foil and bake at 350 or 375 for 25 minutes. Take the foil off and bake another 15 minutes or so, until the garlic is very tender and golden.

Goldenrod Eggs - Eggs in White Sauce on Toast

I've seen this recipe called several different things. It is essentially hard boiled eggs in a white sauce on top of toast. We like food on bread, two notables being Welsh Rarebit and tuna melts. This is the plain version, suitable for breakfast or dinner, especially when rounded out by a cup of vegetable soup at dinner. (I served the infamous Frog Eye Soup with it tonight. The little pastas look like frog eyes somehow.) I saw fancier recipes that included brie or curry but I went plain.

6 hard boiled eggs
2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs flour
1 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste
cayenne to taste
buttered toast

Peel the hard boiled eggs and cut them in half. I went to the extra step of separating the yolks from the whites, but will skip it next time. If you want, separate the yolks into a small bowl and mash them up. Chop the whites (or the whites and yolks.)

Melt the butter in a saucepan, then mix in the flour with a whisk, cooking a few minutes until it just lightly browns. Watch it carefully. Slowly whisk in the milk and cook a few minutes, stirring, until thickened. Season with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Mix in the egg (whites or whites and yolks).

Make your toast and butter it. Spoon the sauce over the toast (and sprinkle the yolks over the top if you didn't mix them in with the whites.)

This probably serves 6 as a light supper, especially with soup. I know I've got leftovers from the 3 of us.