Low Fat Cranberry Orange Muffins

Portions
12 servings

Ingredients
1-1/4 cups flour 
1 Tbsp. Baking Powder 
1/4 tsp. salt 
2 cups Cranberry Almond Crunch Cereal (Not sure of the brand)
1 cup fat free milk
1 egg , slightly beaten
1/2 cup applesauce 
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar 
2 Tbsp. margarine , melted
1 tsp. grated orange peel

Preparation
Mix flour, baking powder and salt in large bowl. 
Mix cereal and milk in medium bowl; let stand 3 minutes. 
Stir in egg, applesauce, sugar, margarine and orange peel. 
Add to flour mixture; stir just until moistened. (Batter will be lumpy.) 
Spoon batter into muffin pan which has been sprayed with cooking spray (or use cupcake paper liners), filling each cup 2/3 full. 
Bake at 400°F for 20 minutes or until golden brown. 
Serve warm.

Chicken Liver Pâté

Dried herbs can be substituted for fresh, but use only 1/4 teaspoon of each.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
3 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
3 bay leaves
fine sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 kg chicken livers
4 tablespoons Cognac/brandy

Melt half the butter with the Olive Oil in a skillet set over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic; sauté until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add herbs, allspice, and season with salt and pepper. Add chicken livers and cook until just pink on the inside, about 8 minutes. Add Cognac and allow alcohol to evaporate for a few minutes. Add mixture to the bowl of a food processor and purée until smooth. Transfer to a terrine or crock and smooth top.

Melt remaining butter in a saucepan set over low heat. Let stand to separate butter fat from milk solids. Skim foam from the top. Lay additional herb sprigs over pâté for decoration. 
Pour over clarified butter, leaving behind the white milk solids at the bottom. Chill until firm, then cover with plastic wrap. Leave for 1 week for the flavours to mature.

Xmas Cake recipe.

Ingredients
Ideally make this cake at leat minimum time, of 3 weeks before Xmas. It is not a eat straight away cake too crumbly. The longer it is left the better it is
Orange juice or apple juice can be subsituted for the alcohol. Likewise nuts can be omitted or other varieties used. This is heavy on the fruit hence moist cake.

Cake un-iced keeps longer and keep topped up with alcohol of choice.

175g raisins
350g glace cherries, rinsed, thoroughly dried and quartered
500g currants
350g sultanas
150/200 ml sherry, plus extra for feeding or juice
Finely grated zest of 2 oranges
250g butter, softened
250g light muscovado sugar
4 eggs room temperature.
1 tbsp black treacle
75g blanched almonds, chopped omit or change to walnuts or pecans,
75g self-raising flour
175g plain flour
1½ tsp mixed spice

To finish and decorate:
About 3 tbsp apricot jam, sieved and warmed
Icing sugar
675g shop-bought almond paste
Packet royal icing mix to cover 23cm/9in cake

Method

Put all the dried fruit in a container, pour over the sherry and stir in the orange zest. Cover with a lid, and leave to soak for 3 days, stirring daily, 5 days maximum soaking only, or fuit goes mushy

Grease and line a 23cm (9in) deep round tin with a double/Treble layer of greased greaseproof paper If your oven likes to burn thing, mine does, then use plenty of greaseproof paper or thicker greasproof paper to prevent it catching. Burnt cake like this tastes vile. I know I burnt mine first time round after forgetting to put the timer back on.

Preheat the oven to 140ºC/Fan 120ºC/Gas Mark 1.

Measure the butter, sugar, eggs, treacle and almonds into a very large bowl and beat well. Add the flours and mixed spice and mix thoroughly until blended. Stir in the soaked fruit. 

Spoon into the prepared cake tin and level the surface.

Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 4-4½ hours or until the cake feels firm to the touch and is a rich golden brown. Check after 2 hours, ESSENTIAL CHECK AFTER 2 hours. Can take the full time to cook. and, if the cake is a perfect colour, cover with foil to prevetn burning. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out clean. Don't rely on that as the fruit is so packed in you can stab it instead of the cake. It should feel firm to the touch. 

Leave the cake to cool in the tin.

When cool, pierce the cake at intervals with a fine skewer and feed with a little extra sherry. 

Wrap the completely cold cake in a double layer of greaseproof paper and again in foil and store in a cool place for up to 3 months, feeding at intervals with more sherry. (Don't remove the lining paper when storing as this helps to keep the cake moist.) Store cake undecorated

Decorate on Christmas eve/ Christmas day with almond paste and royal icing. As the decorating will go off before the cake does.

You could also freeze the cake before decorating, for up to 3 months; defrost at room temperature.

A boiled wheat with poppy seeds and honey served on Christmas Eve is a traditional dish Ukrainian, Belarussian, Lithuanian and before of borderland Polish cuisine Version with the rice

Elements:
- 2 glasses of the rice
- 20 dkg of raisins
- 20 dkg of almonds
- 1 glass of the poppy
- 5 spoonfulfuls of honey

Way of preparing:
To cook the rice. To rinse the poppy, to brew. To grind twice in the machine. To chop almonds up (and if necessary nuts). To scald raisins. To add honey, nuts and dried fruit as used in cooking and the poppy to the rice. To mix everything exactly, to cool. To decorate the top nuts and dried fruit as used in cooking.

MANGO FLOAT

Ingredients:
9 Graham crackers
slices of ripe mangoes
2 250 ml packs of All-purpose cream
1 250 ml can of condense milk
crushed graham crackers

Instructions:
1. Mix the All-purpose cream and the Condensed milk.
2. Align the first three graham crackers in a container.
3. Pour 1/3 of the mixture of cream and milk.
4. Layer slices of mango on top of the mixture.
5. Sprinkle crushed graham.
6. Repeat procedures 1-5 until you've used all the ingredients.
7. Refrigerate overnight and enjoy eating.

Cannoli’s with Chocolate Chip-Ricotta Filling

Cannoli Shells: I don’t make them, I buy a package of them pre-made. But if anyone wants the recipe for them, let me know and I’ll put it up

Basic Chocolate Chip/Ricotta Filling:
2 pounds ricotta cheese, well drained
1 1/2 cups unsifted powdered sugar
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips 
1. Beat cheese until smooth. Add vanilla and beat in sugar. Mix in chocolate chips. Cover; chill several hours. 

Fluffy Chocolate Chip/Ricotta Filling: Note: This filling is lighter, but richer.
1 pound ricotta cheese
3/4 cup unsifted powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup heavy cream 
1. Follow directions above for basic chocolate chip filling. Beat the cream until stiff and fold into the chocolate and cheese mixture. 

To serve, use a plain large pastry tube to force Ricotta filling into cannoli shells. Remember fill only the number of cannoli you plan to serve at once.

CREAM OF CHICKEN SOUP 

4 Tbsp. butter
1/3 cup flour 
48 oz. chicken broth 
1 pint light cream
2 or 3 cooked chicken breasts, shredded (all depends on how much you want in it and how big they are).
salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt butter in large pot.
2. Add flour mixing well.
3. Cook for 3-4 minutes to get rid of the raw flour taste.
4. Add broth slowly too mix the broth and butter flour mixture together, then add the cream mixing well.
5. Cook and stir until mixture thickens and comes to a boil.
6. Reduce heat and stir in chicken and remaining seasonings.
7. Adjust seasonings to taste.
8. Cook over low heat about 5 minutes to warm the chicken.

Tips and tricks
1. Perfect soup for leftover chicken or turkey. 
2. You can also use canned chicken as a last resort, I’m not crazy about it myself.
3. Want a little more too it, add some finely diced onions and celery.
4. Add some cooked rice or small pasta (orzo works good)
5. This is a good simple soup that takes all of about 20 minutes to make, start to finish and can be used as is or dressed up depending on what you want.

Christmas pudding

Prep Time: 45 minutes
Cook Time: 8 hours
Marinating Time: 12 hours
Total Time: 20 hours, 45 minutes

Ingredients:
Serves 8 - 10 1lb /450g dried mixed fruit (use golden raisins/sultanas* , raisins, currants)
1 oz /25 g mixed candied peel, finely chopped
1 small cooking apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped Grated zest and juice
½ large orange and
½ lemon
4 tbsp brandy, plus a little extra for soaking at the end
2 oz /55 g self-raising flour, sifted
1 level tsp ground mixed spice
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 oz /110 g shredded suet, beef or vegetarian
4oz /110g soft, dark brown sugar
4 oz /110 g white fresh bread crumbs
1 oz /25 g whole shelled almonds, roughly chopped
2 large, fresh eggs

Preparation:
Lightly butter a 2½ pint/1.4 litre pudding basin.

Place the dried fruits, candied peel, apple, orange and lemon juice into a large mixing bowl. Add the brandy and stir well. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave to marinate for a couple of hours, preferably overnight.
Stir together the flour, mixed spice and cinnamon in a very large mixing bowl. Add the suet, sugar, lemon and orange zest, bread crumbs, nuts and stir again until all the ingredients are well mixed. Finally add the marinaded dried fruits and stir again.
Beat the eggs lightly in a small bowl then stir quickly into the dry ingredients. The mixture should have a fairly soft consistency.
Now is the time to gather the family for Christmas Pudding tradition of taking turns in stirring, making a wish and adding a few coins.
Spoon the mixture in to the greased pudding basin, gently pressing the mixture down with the back of a spoon. Cover with a double layer of greaseproof paper or baking parchment, then a layer of aluminum foil and tie securely with string.
Place the pudding in a steamer set over a saucepan of simmering water and steam the pudding for 7 hours. Make sure you check the water level frequently so it never boils dry. The pudding should be a deep brown color when cooked. The pudding is not a light cake but instead is a dark, sticky and dense sponge.
Remove the pudding from the steamer, cool completely. Remove the paper, prick the pudding with a skewer and pour in a little extra brandy. Cover with fresh greaseproof paper and retie with string. Store in a cool dry place until Christmas day. Note: The pudding cannot be eaten immediately, it really does need to be stored and rested then reheated on Christmas Day. Eating the pudding immediately after cooking will cause it to collapse and the flavours will not have had time to mature.
On Christmas day reheat the pudding by steaming again for about an hour. Serve with Brandy or Rum Sauce, Brandy Butter or Custard.

Chicken with Saffron rice

Sweat off one large onion & 3 cloves of garlic in a pan with olive oil.
Add a spoonful of coriander seeds, 3 cloves and a teaspoon of turmeric.

In a bowl cut up your chicken in large pieces, size is up to your own tastes...
Add Salt, Peeper & teaspoon of Paprika, and rub all over chicken.

Then add to the pan skin side down with the onion & garlic...cook for 10 mins on a medium flame to get the skin nice and brown....add a half a glass of Red wine.....cook off the Alcohol and add a handful of Raisins/Sultanas.
After another 5 mins add a tin of tomatoes....and cover & cook on a low flame for 45 mins adding a handful of peas and some sliced chopped fresh tomatoes 15 minutes before the end....When it's done turn off the heat and add a handful of ripped fresh Coriander, save a little bit for garnish the chicken on the plate.

Meanwhile in a large pot drizzle in some Olive oil and a nob of butter and warm up until the butter has melted but not browned...Add 2 cup of Rice (whatever you prefer, basmati work well for this) Stir until all the rice has absolved the oil&butter then add chicken/veg stock to cover the rice and a small pinch of saffron...
Cook until the rice is nice and al'dente, if you like it you can add another nob of butter. 

Plate up the Rice and with a large ladle spoon your Chicken over the rice and add the rest of the coriander.

I sometimes add some Cucumber raita to the plate

Coconut mushrooms

Mushrooms stewed in the coconut milk can in order to with addition to dishes of the Asian kitchen, of grilled meats, but also with tasty independent dish
ELEMENTS:
400 g of small mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
2 red sweet peppers chilli
3 shallots
3 spoonfulfuls of the groundnut oil
100 ml of the coconut milk
2 spoons of leaflets chopped up of the coriander
salt, pepper

PREPARING:
Mushrooms to wash, to drain. In the wok to heat oil up, to throw the garlic finely chopped up and cut in stripes, deprived of stones peper chilli. To fry the minute. To add shallots chopped up and little fried. Next to add mushrooms in one piece (if are small) or halved. To fry 3 consecutive minutes. To add the coconut milk and to bring to upheaval. To cook the sauce to the moment of dropping for the half. To season to the taste with the salt and pepper. Before the application to sprinkle with the fresh coriander.

Chocolate Chip-Walnut Scones 

Ingredients: 
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar 
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup semi sweet or milk chocolate chips 
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (Optional) 

Instructions: 
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line sheet with parchment paper.

1. In a large bowl stir together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 
2. Cut the butter into 1/2 inch cubes and distribute them evenly over the flour mixture. 
3. With a pastry blender or two knives cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
4. In a small bowl stir together the buttermilk, egg and vanilla. Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and stir to combine. 
5. Stir in the chocolate chips and hazelnuts. The dough will be sticky. 
6. Using a large serving spoon, make 8 scones and place on the baking sheet or make one big 9 inch circle and cut them into wedges. This is more traditional.
7. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until the top is lightly browned and a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center of a scone comes out clean. 
8. Remove the baking sheet to a wire rack and cool for 5 minutes. Using a spatula transfer the scones to the wire rack to cool.

Serve warm or cool completely and store in an airtight container. 

Tips and tricks:
1. Use the whole 12 oz. bag of chocolate chips (I've been informed by my wife and daughter you can never have enough chocolate chips).

2. Substitute the chocolate chips with white chocolate chips.

3. Substitute the chocolate chips with dried fruits.

4. The nuts are optional, either use none or a different type, toasted hazel nuts work well.

5. I like making them individually, but, you could make one big 9 inch circle and cut them into wedges. This is more traditional.

All recipies are from friends, who have posted it on a forum. Just saving all these up for later use.

HERRINGS

Ingrediants

1 / 2 kg of fillets herrings
4 spoonfulfuls of raisins
100 ml of the white, dry wine

to the pickle:
2 glasses of the wine vinegar
2 teaspoons of mustard seeds
1 / 2 teaspoons grinded of allspice
2 bay leaves
sugar, pepper

to the sauce:
2 / 3 glasses of ketchup
2 / 3 glasses of oil
2 spoonfulfuls of the marinated red pepper very much chopped finely
2 spoonfulfuls of parsley leaves chopped up


preparing: exactly to clean herring fillets. In small potful to prepare the pickle from given elements along with 3 glasses of water. To boil the whole, and then to hold on the small fire for 10 minutes. After cooling to fill herring with the pickle, we are putting back at least on the night, and best for 24 hours.
To pour the wine over raisins and to leave for 20 minutes. To take herring out out of the pickle, to cut up into tight belts and to prepare stoppers from them (see the photograph).
From given elements to prepare the sauce, to pour stoppers with it. This way prepared to put back on 2 hours into the refrigerator. Then herring are already ready to eat.

BOLOGNESE MEAT SAUCE

Serves 4
4-5 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 stalk celery finely chopped 
1 carrot finely chopped 
1 medium onion finely chopped 
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 large bay leaf
1 tablespoon minced fresh sage (see note)
1 tablespoon minced fresh oregano
2 tablespoons minced fresh basil 
2 ounces finely diced pancetta
2 ounces finely diced prosciutto 
1/2 pound (115 g) ground veal (see note)
1/2 pound (115 g) ground lamb 
1/2 pound (l15 g) ground beef 
1/3 cup red wine 
1/2 cup Tomato Sauce 
2 tablespoons tomato paste 
2 cups Beef Stock 
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan set on high heat until sizzling, about 2 minutes.
2. Add diced pancetta and cook till it gets as done as you want, your mainly using it for the flavor, remove from pan
3. Add the red pepper flakes, celery, carrots, onion, garlic, bay leaf, oregano, sage, and basil and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. 
4. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook 10 minutes more, stirring occasionally. Remove from pan.
5. Raise the heat to high, add the prosciutto, veal, lamb and beef and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Once done drain the grease off.
6. Add the wine, reduce the heat to medium and let it cook until almost evaporated, about 5 minutes. 
7. Raise the heat to high, add the tomato sauce, tomato paste and stock and bring to a boil. 
8. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
9. If you like your sauce thicker, remove the cover during the last I5 minutes of cooking. 
10. Add salt and pepper to taste.
11. Serve over any pasta you want, I like Penne. 

Notes
Or use 1 ½ lb. of meatloaf mix, sometimes they call it meatball mix like I do.
If you don’t have the wine or don’t want to use the wine, use a little of the broth
If you can’t get fresh herbs, use dried, but use teaspoons instead of tablespoons.