Cody's Chocolate Dessert

This has been called a lot of things, like the Robert Redford, but I think that is a silly name so I named it after my son, who always requests it. Most people do this dessert differently than I do, they bake the crust. I prefer a dry crumb-ish crust, so I do the crust in the microwave.

There are four steps to this. Make the pudding layer, make the crumb layer, make the cream cheese layer, then assemble. Doing it in this order helps because the pudding sets up a little while you do the crumb crust, and the crumb crust cools as you do the cream cheese layer, then you put it together.

Also get your butter and cream cheese to room temp, I get them out the night before and have the cool whip in the fridge, not the freezer so I can work with it.

2 bigger boxes Jello Chocolate Pudding Instant (5.9 oz)

2 bigger boxes Jello Vanilla Pudding Instant (5.9 oz)

6 cups Milk

2 cubes butter, room temperature

2 cups flour

4 Tablespoons sugar

2 8 oz packages cream cheese

2 cups sugar

2 cartons Cool Whip12 oz. each

Mix chocolate layer:

the 2 bigger boxes Jello Chocolate Pudding Instant (5.9 oz)

the 2 bigger boxes Jello Vanilla Pudding Instant (5.9 oz)

the 6 cups cold milk (Note that this is exactly half of what the package calls for, don't do package directions!)

Mix well with beaters for two minutes. Set aside to thicken.

Make Crumb Crust Layer:

In food processor combine

2 cubes room temp butter

2 cups flour

4 Tablespoons sugar

Pulse together until crumbly, transfer to a microwave safe bowl. Cook mixture on high, setting the microwave for five minutes. Stop the microwave every minute and stir the mixture vigorously with a fork to crumb it.

Spray a jelly roll pan very lightly with Pam spray. Place the crumb crust in the bottom of the pan and spread to distribute evenly, reserving about a half cup of the crumb mixture to use on the top at the end. Allow it to cool while you make the cream cheese layer.

Make the Cream Cheese Layer:

Combine two 8 oz packages cream cheese with two cups sugar and 1 1/2 (one and a half cartons) Cool Whip.

Assemble. This is a little tricky. Using a big spatula, carefully plop the cream cheese mixture over the crumb crust all over it, getting it distributed as evenly as you can. Carefully spread it with a smaller spatula without disturbing the crumbs very much, this takes a light hand, but is not too tough to do...just be gentle moving it around. I get this cream cheese layer all the way to the edges of the pan so I can use the side of the pan to scrape my spatula off, it helps. Then use a paper towel when you are done with that and clean the sides of the pan off so it looks nice.

Then on top of the cream cheese layer, add the chocolate layer exactly the same way, only I leave a little border of the white layer peeking out, it looks pretty. Be careful not to disturb the cream cheese layer too much.

Use the other half carton of the cool whip that is left and spread it evenly over the top, leaving a little of the chocolate layer peeking out.

Sprinkle the reserved half cup of crumb crust on the top. Chill until ready to serve.

Red Chile Colorado

Chile Colorado

I adapted this recipe from Sauteur website, trying to make Adobada, but it tasted more like my friend Zelma Savage’s red chile, so I decided to make it into that instead. I still have to find a rival to my taco wagon’s spicy pork…it eludes me. I may have to kidnap the owner and hold him ransom. But, anyway, this here is a really good, really HOT Chile Colorado that is a New Mexico style chile, it is like a soup/stew form but you can take the meat from the liquid and make tacos…but I really like the stew liquid and eat it like a bowl of stew or chili.

5 oz. dried New Mexico chiles, stemmed

1 large onion, finely minced

4 cloves garlic, minced

Butter or oil to sauté onion and garlic

2 tbsp. New Mexico chile powder

2 tbsp. honey

1 tbsp. white wine vinegar

1 tbsp. ground cumin

1-1/2 tsp. ground cloves

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Juice of 1 lime

Vegetable or Olive oil for frying pork

3 lb. boneless pork shoulder or loin, cut into 1″ chunk

1 can chicken broth (14 oz)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Warm corn tortillas and garnishments, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS

Heat chiles in a large stew pot over medium-high heat (no oil or butter, just dry), and cook, turning once, until toasted, about 5 minutes; transfer to a large bowl, cover with 8 cups boiling water, and let sit for 20 minutes.

While waiting for chiles, sauté onion and garlic in oil or butter in a separate skillet until soft and slightly browned, set aside.

Drain chiles, reserving all the soaking liquid.

Transfer chiles to a food processor along with 2 cups of the reserved soaking liquid, chile powder, honey, vinegar, cumin, cloves, cayenne, and lime juice. Add the sautéed onion/garlic to the food processor. Process all and continue incorporating the rest of the soaking liquid, you may have to empty your food processor once or twice during this process into a larger bowl. The goal is to have all the pepper seeds pureed with the sauce mixture Set this aside.

Return the large pot to medium-high heat and add oil and heat until just hot; season pork with salt and pepper, and working in batches, add pork to pot and cook until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes for each batch.

When all the pork is fried and set aside in a bowl, deglaze the pot with about a half cup of chicken broth. The goal is to boil the chicken broth and scrape up all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan that is left over from frying the pork. Boil, scrape, boil, scrape, add more chicken broth if you need to, and get the stuff off the bottom of the pan. Then add the pork pieces and coat with the scraping juice from the pan. Add the rest of the can of chicken broth.

Add all sauce and soaking liquid and bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is thickened and pork is tender, at least one and a half hours, until it is the consistency you want. Serve with warm corn tortillas, garnish with cilantro, sour cream, diced onion and tomatoes, and lime wedges to kill the heat. SO DELICIOUS! You can’t stop eating it even though it’s hot.

Tortillas: I fry mine on my pancake griddle or skillet until just barely crisped, so they still fold but they are warm and a touch flaky. Mmmm!

Chicken Stew

My soup adventures continue...this was SO good.

Chicken Stew

Total prep/cooking time is about 1-1/2 to 2 hours, so this is a good weekend meal.

5 lbs bone in chicken thighs, skin on or off
Salt and pepper
2 Tbsp vegetable oil (can add more if needed)
6 Tbsp butter
1 large onion, finely minced
6 Tbsp flour
¼ cup cooking sherry (or substitute ¼ cup water with ½ tsp vinegar added)
6 cans chicken broth (the 14 oz size cans)
2 cups whole milk
½ tsp powdered thyme or 1 tsp minced fresh thyme
2 tsp dried tarragon
3 bay leaves
2 cups sliced carrots
1 cup frozen peas
1 small box frozen spinach

Pat chicken dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in large stew pot. Fry the chicken in batches for approximately 10 minutes (five minutes per side). Transfer chicken to a plate and remove the skin. Pour off the chicken fat from the pot and scrape any leftover skin from the bottom of the pan. Leave some brown bits, but try and get most of the chicken skin out.

Add the butter to the pan and melt, add the onion and cook about 7 minutes until the onion is soft. Stir in the flour. Whisk in the sherry and stir, scraping up any brown bits from the bottom of the pan into the onions. Add one can of broth slowly while stirring. Add the rest of the chicken broth, milk, thyme, tarragon, bay leaves, and carrots. Nestle the chicken pieces into the stew. Cook until chicken is fully cooked and tender, about one hour. *Add the peas about a half hour into this cooking time. Taste after an hour, season with salt and pepper if needed.

Remove chicken from the pot, take the meat off the bones and discard the bones. Remove the bay leaves, return the chicken meat to the pot. Add the spinach. Heat through, cooking the spinach. If you want the stew thicker (I did) mix three tablespoons corn starch with ½ cup COLD water. Add that mixture to the boiling stew, cook to thicken. Repeat if it’s still not thick enough for you.

Potato Soup with Ham

This was my favorite mistake! Made soup for my dad who's having some problems eating, so I wanted to chop up the ham really small with my food processor, along with the celery and onion. Well, I completely pulverized it and was really mad, it was like baby food. It was two ham steaks so I couldn't waste it! So I just made the soup with the pureed ham. It was so good that way! I will do it again like that, or just cut the ham up into small bite size pieces.

The chicken soup base is from Winco bulk food, it's a powder type base. I use it a lot, very good soup base. While you're at Winco, might as well get the french bread "bombs" to use as bread bowls for this soup, just cut the middle out and fill with soup.

6-8 medium sized potatoes, peeled and diced to 1/2" cubes
3 stalks celery
1 onion
Two ham steaks or equivalent leftover ham (probably 3-4 cups)
7 cups water
1/4 cup chicken soup base or 6 boullion cubes
2 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp flour
4 cups whole milk

Prepare the celery, onion, and ham how you prefer...you can dice it very fine or puree in a food processor. I process the onion and celery very fine, and cut the ham into small pieces. Combine the diced potatoes, celery, onion, ham and water in a soup pot. Boil until potatoes are tender, at least 10-15 minutes and check them. Longer if you like the potatoes very soft. Stir in the chicken base or boullion and the pepper.

In a separate skillet, make a roux (relax, it's easy). Melt the butter over medium low heat and add the flour. Stir constantly with a whisk or fork. Cook about one minute until thick, keep stirring and don't let it burn. Slowly add about a cup of the milk and stir as not to allow lumps to form. keep adding the milk and stir any lumps out. Continue stirring and cooking until the mixture is thick, about 4-5 minutes.

Add the milk mixture (your Roux!) to the soup pot, mix to combine and heat through. Serve soup with bread or crackers. Delicious, easy soup that can be done after work for dinner, it took about an hour including all the vegetable prep time.

Zucchini Bread

This recipe base is from Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook but I added a few things.

NOTE to self, triple this and it makes two big loaves and two small loaf pans (the matching set of small loaf pans, round the allspice, nutmeg and clove up to 1 tsp total if tripling)

Recipe as is makes one loaf, 8x4x2. Or two smaller loaves, or four mini loaves. May be doubled easily for more loaves.

2017 Note to self:  USE CAST IRON LOAF PANS!
Also, after shredding the zucchini in the salad shooter, drape a dishcloth or three layers of paper towel in a large bowl.  Place shredded zucchini in it, sprinkle with a bit of sale, let sit for 30 minutes and squeeze out excess water.  Results in a more uniform bread.

1-1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp clove

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 beaten egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup sugar

1 cup unpeeled zucchini, finely shredded or ground

1/4 cup cooking oil

1/2 cup chopped walnuts if desired (we don't add the nuts)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease the bottom of the pan (s) and up the sides. I use shortening, not cooking spray. In your mixer combine flour, cinnamon, allspice, clove, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir to combine. Make a well in the flour mixture. In a separate mixing bowl stir together egg, vanilla, sugar, zucchini, and oil. Add zucchini mixture all at once to the flour and mix just until moistened, batter will be slightly lumpy. Fold in nuts if desired.

Spoon into loaf pan(s). Bake 50-55 minutes (less for the small mini loaves, watch them carefully! I think they were done in 30 mins). Loaf(s) are done when toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool on racks for 10 minutes. Loosen sides with straight spatula and turn loaves out. Cool before slicing. Unliced bread freezes well in freezer bags (remove as much air as possible from the bags).

***Note: Zucchini can be ground or grated and then frozen, but it the ice crystals in the freezing process damage the pulp a little so it releases more water when it's thawed. This is ok, but the water must be drained off when it's thawed and the zucchini measured after it's thawed and drained. ***

Pull Apart Sticky Buns (Aunt Shirley Asper's)

My kids die for these! Make the night before you want to bake them for breakfast.

18 frozen rhodes rolls (don't try and do more, this is experience talking here...)

One 3 oz. butterscotch pudding mix (the COOKED kind, NOT INSTANT)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Any kind of nuts if desired (we aren't fans of nuts, so we don't)

Before you go to bed, spray a bundt pan with Pam. Layer the rolls and nuts in the bundt pan. Sprinkle them with the butterscotch pudding mix packet, set aside. In a small saucepan, melt the margarine and brown sugar together, add the cinnamon and combine. Drizzle this mixture on the rolls. Cover very loosely with plastic wrap. Let set overnight. Rolls will raise and will fill the pan. Bake in the morning 350 degrees for 30 mins. Cover the top with foil if they start to brown too much or you can turn it down to 325 after 15 mins and keep watching them.