So you all know I live in Florida…

I love living in Florida and part of the reason is for the incredible diversity that you find throughout the state. One of my favorite places to go is to Kissimmee in the Orlando area. There is so much to do and I mean beyond the Theme Parks.

What about checking into your hotel and going on a beautiful hike through one of the nature parks scattered throughout the area? Did you know that Osceola County has the largest population of nesting bald eagles in the continental U.S. It’s also one of the country's few re-introduction sites for the endangered Whooping Crane. You can spot some of these awe-inspiring birds at Lake Lizzie Nature Preserve and the Osceola County Environmental Center, just to name a few. My youngest daughter has a huge fascination with birds in the wild so we have actually done this!

Another one of my absolute favorite things to do in Kissimmee though is to just hang out. Most of the hotels have resort like pool areas and the kids love just being there. Nothing like going away and just staying in!

So you see it is possible to go to the Orlando area and not go to the Theme Park but if you must SeaWorld is a blast!!!

Now you have a chance to live your perfect Kissimmee vacation! Enter the Kissimmee Freedom Sweepstakes to win your next Kissimmee getaway!

Tourtiere or French Canadian Pork Pie

The other day T. and I were running errands and talking about food and things that I haven’t made in a while. He mentioned Pork Pie. This has to be one of our favorite meals. Funny though, it’s been well over a year since i have made it. Don’t you hate when that happens???

This is one of those incredibly fast and simple meals that really comes together in no time at all.

I usually make my own pie crust but this time I was kind of tired so I used store bought. Should have made my own…it was just a little too sweet to go with the savory pie. Lesson learned!

Tourtiere (This recipe is from - Janet is Hungry)

Double 9" Pie Crust:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup vegetable shortening and butter mixed
5-6 Tbsp cold water

Meat Filling:
1 1/2 lbs ground pork
1 onion, chopped fine
1/4 cup celery, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground summer savory
1/3 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp allspice
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup water
1 small potato, boiled and mashed
1 egg yolk
1 Tbsp milk

Directions:

1. Prepare pastry: Cut cold shortening into cubes. Place butter/shortening in food processor with flour and salt. Pulse a few times.
2. Dump flour mixture out into a bowl and start adding water a tbsp at a time until mixture forms a dough that will hold together. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
3. Make filling: In a non-stick skillet with a cover, cook pork, breaking up the larger chunks.
4. Add onion, celery, garlic and cook until the onions are tender.
5. Add salt, savory, pepper, allspice, bay leaf and water. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove lid and simmer 5 more minutes until most of the water is gone (it should still be quite moist).
6. Add mashed potato and remove bay leaf.
7. Roll out pastry (TIP: I roll my pastry out between two sheets of plastic wrap, when it is the right size, peel one sheet away and use the other to pick up the pastry and flip it over into the pie plate). Fill with meat mixture, cover with second half of pastry and seal edges. Cut a few vents in the top.
8. Brush top with a mixture of egg yolk and milk.
9. Bake at 425F for 30-40 minutes until golden brown.

Youngest daughter was in a skating recital over the weekend. She absolutely nailed it...clever little girl!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Finest Foodies Friday - March 27, 2009

Jenn, The Leftover Queen has asked me to step in and help her out for a couple of weeks by posting the FFF so without further ado…

As always here is what the FFF is all about. Finest Foodies Friday! FFF is a weekly Friday post featuring favorites from The Foodie Blogroll! We do this so we can share in the rich diversity of what The Foodie Blogroll has to offer by featuring some of our favorites and yours!
What is the Foodie Blogroll? It is the first and fastest growing free membership blogroll for food bloggers and has become a wonderful community to share ideas about all things food related. With a membership of over 3000 food blogs, I am sure you can find much inspiration and new friends!

The only requirement to be featured here on FFF is to be a member of The Foodie Blogroll and be displaying The Foodie Blogroll widget on your blog. If you are not yet a member, but you have a food blog and would like to join us, please click here!

If you have a favorite foodblog on The Foodie Blogroll, that you would like to be featured here on FFF, please join us over on The Leftover Queen/Foodie Blogroll Forum, and post your favorite Foodie Blogroll foodblogs here.

Thibeault’s Table
A blogger out of British Columbia, Canada with a wonderful blog that has great pictures, but you really have to check out the BROWNIES!!!!! I can’t stop thinking about them!!!

Pain au Chocolats
Christina is a blogger out of Illinois loves any and everything considered dessert…now this is a girl after my own heart! She certainly has some wonderful sweets on her blog!

lisa is cooking
Poor Lisa is a self admitted addict…to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. LOL! Her blog is beautiful and the recipes are great. I especially loved her rustic bread post!

Cooking Stuff
Bob has a blog that's mostly about food and a little bit about cats, wine and beer. He is based out of Boston and he makes some mean looking chocolate chip buttermilk pancakes! Check him out!

Spryte’s Place
A blogger out of Pittsburgh who love to try new things in the kitchen. Fortunately her family and friends are usually willing guinea pigs! We all need people like that. The post that really caught my eye was the Chicken Fajita Quesadilla’s because that is usually how we eat. Everyone can personalize there own and can make for a great meal!

That’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed this week’s FFF. Remember, if you would like to see a blog featured here, who is part of the FBR please visit the forum and nominate them.
WE NEED NOMINATIONS!!!!!!

Also we all love to know how people came to find our blogs, so please visit all of our featured bloggers today and don’t forget to tell them that you found them via Finest Foodies Friday!

Garbage Nachos

At least that’s what we call them. Sounds funny huh? We pretty much call fully loaded anything “garbage”. We have garbage pizza…when you put everything on it that you can think of that would go with your dough and then we have garbage nachos. These are the best!

To top these nachos I used:

Taco seasoned beef (I make my own-recipe here)
refried beans
sharp cheddar
fresh jalapenos
onions
black olives
sour cream
cilantro (added once cooked)

Directions:

• Heat the refried beans and make your taco meat.
• Start chopping your jalapenos, onions, black olives and cilantro. Also grate your cheese.
• Arrange the chips on parchment paper and preheat your oven to 400 degrees. On top of the chips layer the beans and taco meat. Add the cheese, jalapenos and olives.
• Bake until hot and bubbly.
• Top with cilantro and sour cream.

This is a delicious, casual weekend meal for us. Usually on Saturday when I don’t want to cook or clean up too much. It also works out well for us because everyone can have their favorite toppings on their own!

Please try making your own taco seasoning! Not only will you save money but there is less sodium and unpronounceable additives!

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

A Quick Chocolate Pudding Recipe

T. was starting to feel a little under the weather the other night and I know what that calls for…Chocolate Pudding. He has always called that his medicine and I have a very quick recipe that makes great pudding in a couple of minutes!

Chocolate Pudding (adapted from Better Homes and Garden)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 3 cups free milk
• 4 beaten egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

1. In a medium heavy saucepan combine sugar, cocoa and cornstarch. Stir in milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more. Remove pan from heat. Gradually stir 1 cup of the milk mixture into egg yolks.

2. Add egg mixture to milk mixture in saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil; reduce heat. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more. Remove pan from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Pour pudding into a bowl. Cover surface of pudding with plastic wrap. Serve warm or cold (do not stir during chilling). Makes 4 servings.

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

No Dye Red Velvet Cake? Can it be true?

I get my CSA box on Thursday. Really a perfect day to get it. Yes, I know that I seem to have a love/hate thing going on with my box…

This weeks box had some really beautiful looking beets in it. One of them was huge, about the size of my youngest daughters head! It also came with my weekly newsletter. For their newsletter they always feature 2 recipes, come ingredients and a bit of farm news. One of the recipes caught my eye. It was for a Chocolate Beet Cake and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to make it.

See how moist and delicious it looks? Ummm, nope (see after recipe)!

Chocolate Beet Cake (from About.com)

Ingredients:

• 3 large beets
• 1 tsp. olive oil
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 cups mini chocolate chips

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray.
2. Trim stems off beets, and wash off dirt. Drizzle olive oil over beets. Wrap loosely in foil and place on a sturdy baking sheet. Roast 45-55 minutes, until tender when pierced with a fork.
3. Remove from oven and let beets cool 10-15 minutes. Peel and cut into chunks.
4. Place beet chunks and applesauce in a food processor, fitted with a metal blade. Pulse until smooth.
5. Beat sugar, oil and eggs together in a large mixing bowl. Add cocoa powder and beet mixture. Mix well.
6. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually mix into batter until no clumps of flour show. Do not over mix.
7. Stir in half of the chocolate chips. Pour into prepared pan.
8. Bake 40 minutes. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake another 2-10 minutes until cake is done. (I skipped this as the cake was domed and the chips would have been everywhere so I just sprinkled it with powdered sugar!)

Results: I am so, so very sad. I just did not like this cake! It didn't have the beautiful color that I thought it would have once cooked. Before it was baked the color of it was just gorgeous. A beautiful, deep, rich red but once it was baked it looks like chocolate cake.

I also think that the flavor of it is a little “irony” or “earthy”. That may have been my fault. The recipe does not have a measurement for the beet and apple sauce mixture and that could add up to a big fail right there. The beets I had were very large. I even removed some of the chunks but I guess not enough. I probably had about 2 cups of pureed beets. I expected something like carrot cake or zucchini cake and this was too strong for me.

I am very picky though…my girlfriend Shellie liked it, as did the girls. I think if I used less beet puree it would be perfect but I still would not have the color I was looking for.

Would icing instead of the chocolate chips or powdered sugar help? I don’t think so. I may just save the icing for another really good banana cake!

Will I make this again? I am not sure. Roasting the beets and pureeing them is a pain in the butt and took a while. I was also disappointed by the color so maybe not but I would love to get the flavor right so you never can tell! It will not be my go to cake for sure!

Maybe we should just try these…Double Dark Chocolate Beet Muffins by Pinch My Salt

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Finest Foodies Friday – March 20, 2009

As always here is what the FFF is all about. Finest Foodies Friday! FFF is a weekly Friday post featuring favorites from The Foodie Blogroll! We do this so we can share in the rich diversity of what The Foodie Blogroll has to offer by featuring some of our favorites and yours!

What is the Foodie Blogroll? It is the first and fastest growing free membership blogroll for food bloggers and has become a wonderful community to share ideas about all things food related. With a membership of over 3000 food blogs, I am sure you can find much inspiration and new friends!

The only requirement to be featured here on FFF is to be a member of The Foodie Blogroll and be displaying The Foodie Blogroll widget on your blog. If you are not yet a member, but you have a food blog and would like to join us, please click here!

If you have a favorite foodblog on The Foodie Blogroll, that you would like to be featured here on FFF, please join us over on The Leftover Queen/Foodie Blogroll Forum, and post your favorite Foodie Blogroll foodblogs here.

The Goddess’s Kitchen
Maria is an avid cook and baker who resides in the the UK. I was more than likely drawn to this blog because of the wonderful cookies and cakes that are all over. You need to head over there and check out her Hummingbird Cake – so pretty!

The Gastronomista
Vicki is an avid traveler and cook. Also has a huge fondness for anything local. The pictures on this blog are just beautiful and the collages are stunning. Check out her tour of Anthropolgie. You will feel like you are there with her!

Domestikatie
Katie’s profile is what sucked me in and the posts are what kept me there. Recipes and a little peek into a very happy with her life newlywed! Check it out and I guarantee you will leave with a little grin!

All That Splatters
Lori claims that she has hundreds of cookbooks and you can tell which ones have her favorite recipes by the splatters-hence the name of the blog. Cute huh? The recipes and pictures are good. I especially love the Roast Pork with Sagey Onion recipe!

Junglefrog Cooking
Simone lives in the Netherlands. She loves to cook, to travel and photography. And she is good. I love the recipes and the photos are beautiful. I can’t wait to try the Chicken Mango Salad!

That’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed this week’s FFF. Remember, if you would like to see a blog featured here, who is part of the FBR please visit the forum and nominate them.
WE NEED NOMINATIONS!!!!!!

Also we all love to know how people came to find our blogs, so please visit all of our featured bloggers today and don’t forget to tell them that you found them via Finest Foodies Friday!