Carrot cake and icing

This is my mother's recipe for carrot cake.

3cups of flour

2cups sugar

1tea spoon cinnamon

1tea spoon of baking soda

1/2 tea spoon of salt

1tea spoon of vanilla extract

1 1/3 cup of oil

1 cup of pineapple

2cups of grated carrots (I did half carrot and half zucchini)

Mix flour, sugar, soda, cinnamon and salt. Then beat the eggs and add everything else.

Then mix the two together (dry and wet ingredients) and pour in a lightly oiled pan. Makes a pretty big cake!

Cook for 35 minutes at 180C/350F and when it's out and still hot put frosting on it.

Here's the youtube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbHFEhMxqWc

The frosting

1cup of powdered sugar

1table spoon of butter

1tea spoon of vanilla extract

1-2 table spoon of water

Mix everything together while adding until it's creamy. May need more water. You'll figure it out =)

The video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuTBGVohZk

How to make croutons

Pretty easy once again.

Just cut you old (or new) bread in the square size you want your croutons to be.

Put in a flat pan and mix with a little oil (just so they don't stick to the pan)

Then cook at low heat (100 F) until the croutons are dry and crunchy

It's better to cook them for longer at low heat then at a higher heat.

Then just let cool and store in a sealed bag in the freezer.

You can use them in a salad, in a soup or a stew. They add a little something different!

My Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LkSrQfE5AY

Pickled sausages

Just the simplest way to pickle sausages

First boil a cup and a half of vinegar. You can add some pickling spices (like hot pepper, bay leaf, whatever you like) and a few diced onions.

While it boils fit your pre-cooked sausages in a pickling glass jar.

Then pour the vinegar over the sausages as close to the top as you can and close the lid.

Let cool and store in the refrigerator. The sausages should be ready in 2-3 days.

As I take a sausage out I like to refill the jar to the top with water. This will prevent the remaining sausages from tasting too vinegary.

This is not ment to be stored a long time and should be eaten whithin a month.

Here's my Youtube video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHLlqarav74

Drying tomatoes (stove)

This is easy but takes time.

and to see how I did it here's my youtube's video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c9dNQYJ4aA

So I cut my tomatoes in two.

Take the insides (middle and seeds) out

this will pevent your tomatoes from tasting bitter.

Then you place them cut side up on a flat pan.

Then at very low temperature you cook for as long as it takes for them to dry.

It may take 4-5 hours. even more if you have bigger tomatoes.

If you have a dehydrator it could work too. Or a solar oven or just on a pan it the sun for a whole day. That's how they used to make them after all.

Once they're done you store them in a sealed plastic bag in the refrigerator.

They add a great taste to spagetti sauce, pizzas, salsa....evrything!

Easy soup !

Everyone loves soup. Even more so when it is easy. So here's my easy soup recipe.

Ingredients:

broth or bone

diced carrots

diced onion

3 garlic cloves

half a cup of Orzo

diced zucchini

For any great tasting soup you need a great broth. Now you can use store bought but in my video I used an old ham bone that I let boil for two hours.

Once the broth was done I took out the bone and added my carrots, onion and garlic.

I won't specify the water content because you can guess how you want it. But if the water evaporated too much when you made the broth, just add some. Maybe wait until you put the carrots in to see how much you should put. You want a little more over the carots once their in.

So after 20 minutes add the zucchini and let boil for another 20 -30 minutes.

And voila the soup is done EASY SOUP!

Here's the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yEaEK3Z3XA

Redneck sandwich

This is a crazy sandwich but it is an experience to be tried!

Take two slices of white bread. Put mayo on both of them. Add some pepper if you like and then a lot of BBQ chips (flatter chips works better), then you close the sandwich and flatten it. Then you're ready for craziness. Here's me making it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxpTMe-KSxo

Ribs!

So ribs are easy and always a hit with everybody (except vegeterians I guess).

I use one rack of ribs.

Cut them in half so it fit my pot and boil them for up to two hours for maximum fall of the boneness.

In the meant time you can prepare your own favorite BBQ sauce or use a store bought.

Mine is...

a cup of ketchup

2 table spoons of brown sugar

Some hot sauce

2 garlic cloves

A little wortestershire sauce

and a big pinch of onion powder......but I change this recipe all the time.

And after an hour or two boiling. I take the ribs out of the water and put them on a pan. Then I spread my BBq sauce on them (both sides) and cook each side for 20 minutes at about 325 F

And that is in a nutshell how to cook awsome ribs!

Here's the link to my youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZplw07Wy80

Some kind of pan dish

This is my simple version of a pan dish. Great for when time is a factor and you have lots of stuff laying around. You can use all kinds of meat, a lot of vegetables and diffrent spices.

I used:

1 haverage sized zucchini

1 hamburger patty's worth of ground meat

1 sweet pepper

Garlic (as much as you want)

hot pepper (as much again)

1 onion (not too big for this small recipe)

grated cheese (like you like it!)

salt & pepper

I started of by frying the onion (diced) with the ground beef.

Once the meat was getting brown I added everything else (diced too) but the cheese.

Let that cook on medium high without letting the mixture get soggy.(I drained the pan once I think as the zucchini was letting too much water out)

about 10 minutes after adding everything I put grated cheese over it all and in the oven on broil it went.

Once the cheese was melted and turning golden I took it out...served it and voila!

Mmmmmmm

Would've been nice in tacos too but I didn't have any at home =) here's the link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSAOlldcKYw

Fried green tomatoes

Here's my quick recipe I tried when worms invaded my tomato patch.

I'm not gonna list quantities because it depends on how much tomatoes you actually have.

And frankly the seasoning you add to the bread crums can vary too.

green tomatoes

bread crums

spices and dried herbs (cayenne, salt, pepper,)

eggs

all purpose flour

oil

First slice your tomatoes in not too thin slices and set to dry on a towel. You can dry both sides for 5 minutes each

Beat eggs and place in a bowl. In another bowl put flour and in another the bread crums and spices. Heat your oil to frying temperature (but not too hot because you want them to fry relatively slowly). Then proceed to dip your tomatoes in flour, then egg, then bread. then you place in your frying pan. Let cook each side until golden brown and voila! Easy as that!

You can have a dipping sauce with them. Again you can try anyone...even store bought.

Here is my link to me cooking them =) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOIkDuuCVFM

My pizza dough recipe

Ingredients:

1 tea spoon of sugar

2 table spoon of active yeast (or one pack)

3/4 tea spoon of salt

1 1/2 tbl spoon of oil(olive oil)

1 cup of all purpose flour

1/2 cup of whole wheat flour

2/3 cup of warm water

Let yeast activate in warm water and the sugar for about 10 minutes.

Mix all the rest of the ingredients and then the yeast and water/sugar mixture.

Mix everything until it forms a ball and knead for 10 minutes.

Let rise in a plastic bag in the refigerator for an hour

Oil you chosen pan.

Then just strech with finger (rolling pin not recomended because it will deflate the dough)

until it fits your pan.

Then you choose all your ingredients....sauce, onions, pepperoni, meat, everything you want go crazy!!!!

Cook in the oven for 20 minutes(average) at 400F in the middle of the oven.

And now just watch this video of me making in on youtube and you're ready to eat because it's been 20 minutes =)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jua_-7HKBSI