Archive for the ‘Karen’s Recipes to Share’ Category
Announcing Cooking with Karen Blog.com!
Announcing Karen Jean Matsko Hood’s new blog – Cooking with Karen Blog.com!
Whether you enjoy preparing and sharing your favorite foods or you just love to eat, you will discover something deliciously fun and new at Cooking with Karen.com!
Karen Jean Matsko Hood has always enjoyed cooking, baking, and experimenting with recipes. Karen regularly entertains large groups of people and especially enjoys designing creative menus with holiday, international, ethnic, and regional themes. As a mother of sixteen children, she has a great deal of experience cooking for others and is excited to share her knowledge. She is the author of the popular Cookbook Delights series and has appeared on Good Morning Northwest on a local Spokane, Washington, television station many times to share her cooking expertise.
Situated in beautiful Spokane Valley, just minutes away from the Washington/Idaho border, Cooking with Karen.com provides cooking classes and all kinds of epicurean delights, including a variety of ethnic dishes, baked goods, fresh farm produce, dried and frozen foods, spices, and teas. Karen Jean Matsko Hood uses these items in her bountiful collection of recipes, many of which she shares in her Cookbook Delights Series and Hood and Matsko Family Favorites series.
In the Cookbook Delights Series, each cookbook emphasizes a different food ingredient or theme. The first cookbook in the series is Apple Delights Cookbook. Karen is also working to complete her other series of cookbooks titled Hood and Matsko Family Favorites, which includes many recipes handed down from her family heritage and others that have emerged from more current family traditions.
Cooking with Karen.com offers a variety of cooking classes for beginners and skilled chefs alike. We also have classes specifically geared for children and welcome family participation. Classes cover holiday themes, traditional home cooked meals, ethnic dishes, and more. Class sizes are small to ensure hands-on learning and a personal touch.
We invite you to join us at CookingWithKarenBlog.com to find great recipes to try and share! Check back often, as Karen will be adding cooking classes soon!
Christmas Holiday Jam Recipes
The Christmas holiday is rapidly approaching. Excitement is in the air. Plans are being made for family dinners and parties. Baking is being done. Why not add special jam recipes to your holiday menu this year. Following are two jam recipes that would add to your holiday breakfasts, meals, or parties. The first takes some work, but the second it quick to make.
Sparkling Holiday Jam
This makes a great holiday red jam full of flavor and texture.
Ingredients:
2½ qt. strawberries, coarsely chopped
1 pkg. cranberries (12 oz.), fresh or frozen, chopped
2 pkg. powdered fruit pectin (2 oz. ea.)
1 tsp. butter
5 lb. sugar
Directions:
- Sterilize jars and lids in boiling water for at least 10 minutes.
- Let simmer while making jam.
- In large saucepan, combine strawberries, cranberries, pectin, and butter.
- Bring to boil; stir in sugar, and return to boil.
- Cook 1 minute; remove from heat.
- Quickly fill jars to within ½-inch from top.
- Wipe rims clean and put on lids; tighten lid firmly onto jar with ring or use single formed lid in place of ring to cover inner lid. Do not tighten down too hard as it may impede sealing.
- Place on protected surface to cool, taking care to not disturb lid and ring. A slight indentation of lid will be apparent when sealed.
- Leave overnight until thoroughly cooled.
- When cooled, wipe jars with damp cloth and then label and date each.
- Store upright on shelf in cool, dark place.
Instant Raspberry Cordial Jam
This is so quick and easy to make, and the flavor is wonderful.
Ingredients:
12 oz. raspberry jam
1-2 Tbs. Chambord or other raspberry liqueur
Directions:
- Stir liqueur into jam and cover.
- Refrigerate at least 1 day to allow flavors to meld.
These and other recipes can be found in Karen’s Christmas Delights Cookbook, Vol. I, A Collection of Christmas Recipes.
Hot Artichoke-Spinach-Cheese Dip Recipe
Christmas parties always have a smorgasbord of wonderful, tasty dishes to enjoy. They include not only sweets, like cookies and candies, and flavorful and aromatic drinks, but they also generally include crackers, cheese balls, and tasty dips. The following dip recipe is so cheesy and fragrant, people will keep coming back for more!
Commercial Parmesan cheeses available in North America differ from Parmigiano-Reggiano, which is produced in Italy in certain provinces. Only cheese produced in these specific provinces can be labeled as Parmigiano-Reggiano. In North America, there is no outside body regulating or supervising the quality of the raw ingredients or of the production process. In North America the cheese is aged for a shorter time and is produced using pasteurized milk. American Parmesan is mechanically pressed to expel excess moisture, whereas the Italian version is not. Parmigiano-Reggiano curds are cut into fragments the size of wheat grains. These smaller curds drain more effectively. Parmigiano-Reggiano on average contains two-thirds less salt than the average Parmes
an.
There are different types of Romano cheese. True Romano cheese is made from sheep’s milk (pecorino romano) or goat’s milk (caprino romano), although mass produced versions, as in the United States, are often made from cow’s milk (vacchino romano). Pecorino Romano is sharp and tangy. Caprino Romano, the goat’s milk version, has an extremely sharp taste. Vacchino Romano is very mild in taste. Most of the Romano cheeses made in the United States are made from cow’s milk or with a mix of cow’s milk and either sheep or goat milk.
The combination of Parmesan and Romano cheeses in this Hood Family favorite dip gives it an extra punch. Enjoy adding this dip to your holiday spread!
Hot Artichoke-Spinach-Cheese Dip
Ingredients:
1 pkg. cream cheese (8 oz.), softened
¼ c. mayonnaise
¼ c. grated Parmesan cheese
¼ c. grated Romano cheese
1 clove garlic, peeled, minced
½ tsp. dried basil
¼ tsp. garlic salt
1 can artichoke hearts (14 oz.), drained, chopped
½ c. frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained
¼ c. shredded mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Lightly grease small baking dish.
- In medium bowl mix together cream cheese, mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, Romano cheese, garlic, basil, garlic salt, salt, and pepper.
- Gently stir in artichoke hearts and spinach.
- Transfer mixture to prepared baking dish.
- Top with mozzarella cheese.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until bubbly and lightly browned.
Yields: 12 servings.
Christmas Cookie Making, A Family Tradition
Making Spritz cookies is one of my Christmas memories. It was extremely rare that we made these cookies at any other time of the year, so in my mind they are connected with the Christmas season. We would divide up the dough and color it, generally making some of it green and dark pink, and sometimes leaving some the original color. I liked to put two or three colors in the press to make cookies more than one color. We would decorate the cookies with colored sprinkles or strategically place those little silver BBs on them. (I didn’t learn until a few years ago that these are called dragees, and I’m no Spring chicken!)
My sisters and I usually squabbled over who got to do the pressing – we all wanted to do it! We had the old manual press. I don’t think there were electric ones back then. I remember that making the camels was the most difficult. If you didn’t squeeze out quite enough dough, you could tear off their heads or legs, but if you pressed out too much dough, they got too fat and didn’t really look like camels. The Christmas trees were fun to do, and we put the colored sprinkles mostly on them.
It seemed that we had to watch them like a hawk when they were baking. They just didn’t look right if they got bro
wned on the edges. That ruined their looks. Inevitably, some did get too brown, though. We would sort those out if we were taking the cookies to share with others. Of course, I never minded eating them!
The Spritz cookies I grew up making used shortening, but this recipe, which is a Hood and Matsko Family Favorite, is made with butter. Butter makes a very tasty, creamy cookie. If you haven’t done it already, start a Christmas tradition of making certain types of cookies with your children. They will remember it fondly as they grow older.
Pressed Butter Cookies
Ingredients:
1 c. butter, softened (no substitutions)
1 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 c. all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. salt
colored sugar or sprinkles (optional)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Cream together butter, sugar, and vanilla.
3. Add eggs and beat well.
4. Stir in flour and salt until blended.
5. Using cookie press, press dough into long strips on ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Cut into pieces about 1½ inches long.
7. Sprinkle with colored sugar or sprinkles if desired.
8. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are just slightly browned.
9. Remove from oven, and transfer to wire racks to cool.
Yields: 4 to 6 dozen.
Christmas Memories
It’s that time of year! The Christmas season is upon us. I remember when I was small going to grandma’s house and having dinner with the large extended family. As soon as we walked in the door we could smell the mix of turkey and ham cooking in the kitchen. The apple pies sitting to rest beside the plates of peanut brittle and chocolate fudge looked so scrumptious. Maybe your family shared a different Christmas menu, but the memories are still there to be enjoyed time and time again. Give your family that special time of building memories. — Mistylynn P.
Prepare wonderful, time-tested recipes from Karen Jean Matsko Hood’s Christmas Delights Cookbook, Volume I, available for immediate shipment. Click here to visit us at Whispering Pine Press International’s Bookstore and order your copy today!
In the meantime, try this recipe from the cookbook for delicious Apple Strudel.
Apple Strudel
I have fond memories of my mother making homemade apple strudel when I was young. This is one of the easier recipes and definitely worth making. It is great served warm out of the oven with vanilla ice cream and dusted with fresh-ground cinnamon.
Ingredients:
2 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. shortening
1 Tbs. canola oil
¼ c. water, warm
2 eggs
12 apples, chopped or finely grated
⅓ lb. butter, melted
1 c. sugar
1½ tsp. cinnamon
Directions:
- Sift flour into bowl and form a well.
- Into the well put the salt, shortening, canola oil, warm water, and 2 eggs.
- Work into the flour gradually.
- After thorough mixing, cover with a warm, wet cloth and let stand 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Roll dough very thin, until it covers a circle about 28 to 30 inches in diameter.
- Brush half the melted butter onto the thin stretched dough.
- Sprinkle on the apples.
- Sprinkle on sugar and rest of butter.
- Roll tight as you would a jellyroll.
- Tuck in corners tightly.
- Shape dough into a horseshoe shape.
- Lightly grease a large baking pan with sides.
- Place dough in prepared pan.
- Bake 10 minutes; reduce heat to 350 degrees F.
- Bake 50 minutes, or until done.
- Sprinkle powdered sugar on top or frost after cooling.
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