Nanny’s Chili Sauce

 4 - 28oz cans of tomatoes (either crushed or diced, depending how chunky you want the chili sauce – I usually use diced)
(OR - you can use 3 - 28oz tins of tomatoes and 1 large tin of tomato juice)
   1 cup Vinegar
   3 tsp salt
   6 cups white sugar
   1 bunch celery cut up
   5 or 6 onions cut up
   1 Tbsp cinnamon
   1 Tbsp cloves
   1 Tbsp ginger
   1 Tbsp cayenne

   Mix all together and simmer until it thickens.

   Pour into small bottles and refrigerate  

I LOVE THIS STUFF :)

CRUSTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH (click link)

Stuffed Chicken

Sooo good! and easy to make. I saw it on the Nate Berkus show, but i added my own twists to it - mainly the cilantro. Worth a try!

Maria's Healthy Stuffed Chicken
Serves: 2
Ingredients
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, flattened
Stuffing
¾ pound low-fat feta cheese, crumbled
½ cup packed, chopped baby spinach
½ cup fresh chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Sauce
2 cups spaghetti sauce
1 diced mango, peeled and seeded (dice into small pieces)
1/2 seeded and diced jalapeno pepper ( very small pieces)
handful or cilantro
1 tablespoon Parmesan 
Salt and pepper, to taste
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Mix all the stuffing ingredients in a bowl. Spoon out half of the mix onto each flattened chicken breast. Wrap the chicken around the stuffing and place in a small baking pan brushed with oil. Bake for 35 minutes.
While the chicken is baking, prepare the sauce: combine all the ingredients in a pot over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, then turn heat down to low and simmer.

Spoon the sauce over the chicken to serve.

* These measurements are not exact but they're about what i did.  feel free mix it up how you would like!

Abi Approved Sweet Tator Soup

Cat said I had to post this one. I have been procrastinating using the massive sweet potato we bought a few weeks back, so here is what we did with it:

• 1 1/2 - 2 Cups Sweet Potato (one big mama sweet potato)
• 1 Big Carrot
• 1 1/2 Cups chicken stock (I used chicken bouillon cubes)
• 1 small onion (finely chopped)
• Couple cloves garlic(finely chopped)
• Small piece of ginger (finely chopped)
• 2 Tablespoon butter
• 1 Tablespoon flour
• 2 Tbs brown sugar

• 1/2 Cup milk
• 1/2 Cup cream (or more milk if you don't have/to keep healthier)
• 1/2 Teaspoon basil
• 1/2 Teaspoon parsley
• salt/pepper to taste

Boiling the sweet potato and carrot together in a big pot. Once soft, drain some water until you have about 1 1/2 Cups left of water and then added the chicken bouillon cube. Let cook one more minute for bouillon to dissolve and then put in blender to puree. (You could avoid the need to use a blender if you have an immersion blender)

Put the butter, onion, garlic and ginger in the same pot you used to cook the sweet potatoes/carrot and cook 5 minutes. Add the flour and stir until clumpy. Now add the milk and stir together in the pot until no longer clumpy!
Add the sweet potato and carrot puree back to the pot. Add whatever else I forgot to mention or is left on the list. Cook for a few more minutes and wammo, you got yourself some sweet tator soup fer dinner.

We ate it with home made rolls and it was quite delectable!  

Dark Chocolate Ganache Torte with Pecan Crust and Caramel Sauce

SO GOOD!!

(I halved the crust and ganache in this recipe to fill one pie dish – makes about 12 servings since it is SO rich)

crust:
3 2/3 cups pecans
1 1/4 cups sugar
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

ganache:
2 2/3c dark chocolate chips
1 egg yolk
2 cups heavy cream

caramel sauce:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
16 whole pecans, toasted lightly

Make the crust: In a food processor (or magic bullet!) blend the pecans and the sugar, and then add the melted butter and blend the mixture until it is combined well. Press the mixture into the bottom of pie dish or springform pan. bake at 325ºF for 30 minutes, or until it is coloured lightly. Let the crust cool in the pan on a rack.

Make the ganache: In the top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, melt the chocolate, yolk, and cream, and whisk until mixture until it is just combined.Let cool for five minutes and then turn the ganache into the crust and chill the torte for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours. (best if you serve it the next day)

Make the caramel sauce: In a heavy skillet melt the butter over moderate heat, stir in the sugar, and cook the mixture, stirring constantly with a fork, until it is a dark golden caramel. Remove the skillet from the heat, add the cream carefully, stirring, and stir the caramel sauce until it is smooth.

Arrange the pecans decoratively on the torte and serve the torte with the caramel sauce.

Stuff your face!!

Asian Crunch Salad

As promised, here is the "noodle salad" that you all wanted at the last Potter family dinner.

Photo and original recipe found here

Salad ingredients:

• 1 (16oz) package of slaw mix or a Napa cabbage chopped or 1/2 head of regular cabbage finely chopped (add shredded carrots if you want)

• 2 (3 oz) packages beef flavored ramen noodle soup mix (I like more noodles so I add an extra package of noodles - I don't use the 3rd flavoring packet)

• 1 Cup Sliced almonds, toasted

• 1 Cup Sunflower kernels

• 1 bunch Green onions, chopped

Dressing:

• ½ Cup Sugar

• ¾ Cup Vegetable oil

• 1/3 Cup Vinegar
• 2 beef flavor packets from ramen noodles

Mix the slaw with almonds, sunflower kernels, green onions.

Whisk together contents of flavor packets, sugar, oil & vinegar….. Pour over slaw mix.

Cover and chill 24 hours (I never chill it this long because I am never plan that far ahead! haha but apparently the flavors are better if chilled longer). Stir before serving……


I added the noodles about an hour before serving, because I like the noodles crunchy. The actual recipe said to crunch the noodles and place them on the bottom of the slaw mix in the very beginning so that they soak up the flavors of the dressing over time. Whatever your preference!

Yields 8 - 10 servings.

Poppa Potter’s Pancakes

First Dad starts with an ordinary pancake recipe like this:
1-1/3 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg1-1/4 cups milk
3 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

and changes it like so:
1 or 2 cups stone ground flour
3 teaspoons baking powder (makes them puffy)
pinch of salt
3 -9 tablespoons maple syrup (never white sugar)
1 or 2 eggs
1 - 2 cups milk
3 tablespoons olive oil (instead of butter)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
chopped apples or frozen blueberries (that we picked in London, Ontario)**
**this is the ingredient that I think makes the pancakes (--Jenn)

However the real secret is:
Dad mixes all the liquid ingredients first and then dumps the mixture into flour.You may have to increase milk to get the right texture for batter. "Fold in" the blueberries when the mixture is right. This means that you just add them and only stir a little to mix through. If you stir too much, the batter will turn blue.

Bon appetit Oh yes, I forgot - whenever the pancakes are ready, to be like your Dad you need to announce: "Something's gone terribly wrong." He says to tell you that you shouldn't expect perfection the first time.

Haha, please comment if someone attempts this.

this is a pretty good site for soup:
http://www.fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com/search/label/Soup
or for other meals:
http://www.fortheloveofcooking-recipes.blogspot.com/

also in France I got pretty used to delicious french dressings.. this comes pretty close:
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2009/11/how-to-make-french-vinaigrette/