My next book is rife with food, as with the old book, and so let's get back in the groove and talk about food, real life soul cleansing, heart mending, memory making, love inducing victuals!
Ready?
Okay, so let's heave ourselves out of our armchairs, and hustle to the kitchen and whip up a Sunday dinner. Sunday dinners are important around my house and I try, more Sundays than not, to make sure we gather around the table to share a meal together. Our lives are hectic; everyone's schedule is different during the first six days of the week and many times, we don't see each other until Sunday, therefore, we have Sunday dinner as often as we can.
Here is what we ate today:
Hamburger-Broccoli Pie
Ingredients and instructions follow:
Double crust pie crust
1 pound ground chuck
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 TBSP flour
1 clove garlic, pressed and chopped
3/4 teas. kosher salt
1 1/4 cup milk
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 egg, beaten
1 head of fresh broccoli, chopped, without the stems, cooked and drained
Monterey Jack cheese, sliced
red pepper flakes
black pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown chuck, onion, garlic and red pepper flakes, drain excess fat. Stir in flour, salt, and some pepper. Add the milk and softened cream cheese, cook until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Add a moderate amount of meat mixture to beaten egg; return to mixture in skillet. Cook over medium heat until thickened, stir in cooked, drained broccoli. Spoon mixture into pastry-lined pie pan, Slice Monterey Jack cheese and arrange slices on top of meat mixture. Lay top crust over filling, seal, flute edges, Cut slits on top and brush the top with a little milk if desired, then back for 40 to 45 minutes. Let sit 10 minutes before serving.
I served this with buttered carrots, cooked in chicken stock, salt and pepper. Now, if you want to go farther than broccoli with the green factor, maybe spinach would work in the hamburger pie. That's something to consider for next time, but I think it might work quite well.
But, wait, how about dessert? Never fear. We'll have some. It's Sunday, after all, and Sunday is a day for dessert!
Peach Upside Down Cake
I discovered a can of peach slices in the back of my pantry and I thought about peach upside down cake, similar to pineapple upside down cake but without the traditional pineapple rings and maraschino cherries. I also found some blackberries in the fridge that needed somewhere to go, and so, viola! Peach upside down cake.
1/3 cup butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
Drop this mixture into an 8 x 8 baking pan and shove it in the 350 degree oven to let the butter and brown sugar melt together. In the meantime, in a mixing bowl, beat together the following:
1/4 cup Crisco
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
Combine the following in a separate bowl:
1 cup sifted cake flour (or 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour)
1 1/2 teas. baking powder (unless using all purpose flour, then reduce it to 1/2 teas.)
1/2 teas. salt
Add alternately with 1/3 cup milk and 1/2 teas. vanilla to the creamed mixture and mix well.
Pull brown sugar/butter mixture from the oven; alternate peach slices and blackberries on top and pour cake mixture over. Bake about 45 minutes or until done. Remove cake from pan while warm by inverting over serving plate or platter.
Enjoy!
