The Other Woman Cooks

It all started with an impulse purchase of a Southern Living Almost Homemade magazine. Pictured on the cover was Lemonade Pie and the promise of the recipe on page 77 was too irresistable. Up to now, I balked at the temptation to create an “almost homemade” recipe of my own and hate to admit giving in. Once you try my Berry Streusel Ginger Muffins I think you’ll agree, there might be something to this lazy cooking style rage. No berries on hand? No problem. Substitute dried cranberries instead of fresh raspberries in the recipe. If you are a ginger fan, these are the best muffins ever. By the way, I haven’t tried Lemonade Pie yet. But on page 15 -- OMG! There’s a heavenly recipe for Blackberry Mojito Punch. The issue is on sale until July 13, 2012. BERRY STREUSEL GINGER MUFFINS Batter: One 14 ounce boxed gingerbread mix 1 cup orange or apple juice 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon baking powder Topping: 1 tablespoon unsalted butter or margarine 2 tablespoons biscuit mix 2 tablesp...

I've done my share of being treated to brunch at a crowded eatery, standing in a long line waiting for a table with the sounds of my family's grumbling stomachs all in the name of a Mother's Day treat. Restaurants are just too damned busy on Mother’s Day and I love to cook.  Best deal of the century is that I cook, we all eat and they clean up while I sip a second cup of tea and post this recipe, adapted from last month's issue of Food Network Magazine.   Mom's Day Brunch Puff 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed 4 tablespoons chevre (goat cheese crumbles) 2 tablespoons grated swiss cheese 4 eggs 3 strips crispy crumbled bacon 2 crisp steamed asparagus spears cut into one inch pieces Fresh ground sea salt and course ground black pepper Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Cut the pastry sheet into four equal squares. Scrunch the corners to form 4 rounds. Place on parchment lined sheet and prick entire pas...

Weekend mornings are for lazing around in jammies, sipping a fresh cup of tea and reading the paper while something yummy bakes up in the oven. Especially when the something yummy uses local berries and syrup and was prepared the night before. Another plus: this recipe requires little attention but to wait for the timer's buzz! We're at the end of strawberry season here in western Massachusetts. This recipe works well with any fresh berry and jam ... try blueberries, raspberries, even blackberries work well. Once the apples are ripe, apple slices and apple jelly make for tasty seasonal substitutes. Hint: Use raisin challah and add a dash of cinnamon to the egg mixture when using apples.   BAKED STUFFED BERRY FRENCH TOAST 1/2 loaf of Challah bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (approx. 3 cups) 1-4 oz. package of cream cheese, cut into 1-inch cubes 1/4 cup fresh sliced strawberries 2 tablespoons strawberry jam 4 large eggs, slightly beaten 1/4 cup maple syrup  3/4 cup milk STRAWBER...

Whether planning a lazy Sunday morning family brunch or a bridal breakfast for your BFF, this is the perfect recipe. Add a platter of fresh fruit, bacon or sausage, juice and coffee (or maybe Mimosas and Bloody Marys). And the best part?  These pretty little pastry quiche cups can be baked ahead, refrigerated and re-warmed about 10 minutes at 350 degree F before serving. QUICHE PUFFS 3 eggs ¼ cup low fat milk dash salt 1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper 1/2 cup broccoli crowns, chopped cooked ½ cup crumbled goat cheese 1 sheet ready made puff pastry, thawed Unfold the thawed pastry and roll lightly with a rolling pin to smooth it out. Cut into 6 squares per sheet. Lightly spray a muffin pan with nonstick spray. Fit a piece of dough into each cup, pushing into the cup but leaving the edges sticking up. Mix together broccoli and goat cheese crumbles. Divide equally among each muffin cup lined with puff pastry. Whisk together eggs, milk, salt, pepper...

The first day of school is coming up fast. The pace picks up when busy mornings get even busier for most families. If you think it takes too much time to whip up a special breakfast on harried weekdays, this recipe will change your mind. Hint: Mix batter the night before and refrigerate - an easy timesaver in getting food on the table and everyone out the door on time. Special thanks to Tinky Weisblat , foodie and blogger extraordinaire, for all her encouragement and caring in pulling together so many of us to celebrate Massachusetts Farmers Market Week last week! RASPBERRY RICOTTA PANCAKES 1 cup biscuit mix 2/3 cup low fat milk 1 rounded tablespoon ricotta cheese 1/4 cup egg sustitute (or 1 small egg) 1/2 cup fresh or frozen raspberries Using a wooden spoon blend biscuit mix, milk, cheese and egg until smooth. (If making the batter the night before, refrigerate before adding raspberries.) Gently fold in raspberries. Set asi...

One of the best things about summer days at my great aunt Nina's dairy farm was her cooking. She made everything from scratch, mostly farm fresh. There are no words to describe the difference between the canned veggies too many of us grew up on and corn on the cob picked fresh from the garden. Or the milk from the cows that same morning. Best of all, one of my favorite foods to this day, was her homemade butter biscuits. F laky , delicious biscuits topped by sweet tart refrigerator jam made with whatever fruit happened to be ready to harvest that week. Sadly, my great aunt has since passed on and the farm sold off as a horse riders haven. But my memories of Auntie Nina's biscuits will last forever. I tried many, many times, often with limited success, to recreate the exact taste of those biscuits. Even if I had her exact recipe, using store bought ingredients will never quite get there. After repeated experimenting, th...

If you've never slathered low fat  pound cake  toast with homemade low sugar  refrigerator jam , or store bought marmalade or peanut butter or even a whisper of butter or margarine, you've been missing out. Sprinkle a teaspoon of sunflower seeds on top and you have an under two hundred calorie  Flat Belly Diet breakfast complete with MUFA. So brew a pot of tea and pull out your toaster -- eating healthier never tasted so yummy.

Jam challenged? I sure am. Just because there's a row of raspberry bushes in the backyard and my husband happens to have a green thumb doesn't make me an expert anything. Some things I struggle with and jam is one of those things. If you have a hard time with fruit jams then this is the recipe for you. It works with crushed strawberries just as well -- has low sugar content and is easy to spread. Next Saturday morning, serve your homemade jam slathered on store bought lo-fat corn muffins (heat them up in a 325 degree F oven for ten minutes or so) with the morning joe. Your house will feel more like a B & B than an average family kitchen. Now that's the way to start a pleasant weekend. RASPBERRY REFRIGERATOR JAM 4 cups washed and drained raspberries 1/2 cup sugar 2 ounces orange liqueur One squeeze of a lemon 1/2 package Ball Fruit Jell No Sugar Needed Pectin 2/3 cup water Add sugar, orange liqueur, and a ...

Forty days penance and sacrifice coming up fast but first, it's party time. Mardi Gras beignets (sweet fried dough). Paczkis (pronounced punch-keys), sugary Polish donuts. Swedish semla, a sweet bun filled with almonds and sweet cream. In the United Kingdom, pancakes became a great way to use the foods that were given up for Lent – milk, butter, sugar and eggs. The humble pancake has been featured in recipe books as far back as 1439. And there have been annual Pancake Day races all over London since 1445 -- the most famous in Olney, Buckinghamshire. The aim of a pancake race is to run as fast as you can while tossing a pancake in a frying pan. Some races have teams doing a relay, some have competitors in fancy dress. All quite silly and great fun to watch. Now that's a tradition worth a good laugh ... let the races begin! FLUFFY PANCAKES 2 cups flour 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 3/4 cups milk 2 large eggs, separated 1 tables...

The whole idea of afternoon tea is to slow down. What goes better with a nice hot cuppa than good old fashioned crumpets? Easy to make and very, very yummy -- a cross between a pancake and an English muffin. A pat of butter and a spoonful of sugar-free jam make for a healthier way to recharge those midday batteries than a chocolate bar. And you can make a batch then freeze them for convenience -- just pop them in your toaster until they are warm and crispy. CRUMPETS 1/2 cup warm water (105° - 115°) 2 teaspoons honey 1 tablespoon active dry yeast 2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour or bread flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 1/2 cups warmed milk (warm not hot) In a large bowl, stir the honey into the warm water. Sprinkle the active dry yeast over the top and let it sit until it bubbles, about 5 minutes. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Cover and let it sit for about half an hour in a warm place. Lightly grease a griddle or frying pan and the crumpet rings (I use two eg...

Queen Victoria must have loved Christmas to have declared the following day as yet another holiday. Boxing Day, celebrated on The Feast of St Stephen, is an English tradition -- the one day of the year when household help was given a bonus and a full day off as a reward for providing good service throughout the year. For upper class Victorian families it meant the kitchen help would prepare foods in advance that the mistress of the house could manage without much fuss. For modern Brits, the day of goodwill has evolved into a banker's holiday encouraging the search for post-Christmas shopping bargains. Either way what's needed is a good breakfast, easy to prepare and this amazing brunch treat can be refrigerated up to twenty-four hours before baking. FRENCH TOAST BRUNCH BAKE 3/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup unsalted butter 1/8 cup orange favored liqueur 1 tablespoon maple syrup 8 slices Portugese sweet bread, approx. 3/4 inch thick 2 cups half anf half 3 large eggs, slightly beaten 1...

What we Americans call oatmeal is known as porridge in the rest of the English speaking world. In Germany it's haferbrei, havregrot in Norway, owsiaka in Poland and puder in Estonia. But nowhere is oatmeal mush more beloved than in Scotland, where the art of porridge making is a competition. The Golden Spurtle Award is bestowed to the world's most talented porridge maker at the annual World Porridge Making Championship in Carrbridge, Inverness-shire. The event is held in October and the winner recieves a gold-colored spurtle as a trophy -- the spurtle is a flat wooden spatula-type utensil traditionally used to stir the porridge during cooking. I use a standard issue wooden spoon. Wonder what they would say about my special Christmas porridge recipe? OATMEAL BRULEE 2 cups cooked oatmeal 1 cup of your favorite berries (fresh or frozen are best but canned is okay) 2 tablespoons white sugar Make 2 cups of your favorite oatmeal. I like to use Quaker's quick cooking kind, it take...

It's Halloween and pumpkins are everywhere. So are big bowls of candy. This year we decided to have some individual packages of healthier treats for the younger ghouls and goblins who knock on our door for Halloween. Oh sure, we'll still have a big bowl of the usual teeth-rotting candy bars because dried cranberry and apple treats might get panned by the older Trick or Treaters. But I have a feeling that the parents of the really little ones, parents who worry about too much chocolate and sticky caramel, might like the idea of fruity snacks. Come Sunday morning, when that old pumpkin is ready for tossing, it'll be tossed into a 350 degrees F oven, baked about an hour or until its insides are tender enough to be scooped into a bowl for mashing. An easy pumpkin loaf is the perfect Sunday morning breakfast treat and will go well with a cup of cinnamon coffee. For my friends who know how bad I am at making coffee, it will come as no surprise that while the loaf is in the ov...

Woke up this morning and the tip of my nose was cold, marking the official end of the summer that never was. I asked my Facebook friends if summer had ever shown up in their neck of the woods. "We had summer here in Maine. I think it was a Tuesday," posted Marianne. The best cure for a chilly morning is a pot of tea and a warm breakfast. Scrambled eggs, bacon and made-from-scratch cornbread. Not great for the cholesterol count but an oh so yummy way to start the day. Old-fashioned Corn Bread 2 medium eggs 1-1/4 cups milk 1/4 cup olive oil 1-1/2 cups cornmeal 3/4 cup flour 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons honey Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl. Pour in the milk and the oil. Mix this up until it is blended well. Add in the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt and honey. Use a whisk or a wooden spoon and a strong arm to mix this all up until it is smooth. Turn batter into a round, oiled 9-inch cake pan. You can use a ...