Best Way To Cook Corn on the Cob

I know summer is almost over, but there is still time to enjoy delicious, fresh corn. Corn on the Cob is one of my favorite summer treats, however I never really knew the best method of cooking it until last week. I did a Google search and found the best method for cooking corn on the cob ever from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. I have often been disappointed by different methods of cooking this "easy" dish, but this one made the perfect corn on the cob, not once but twice! Every family has their own way of doing this, but from now on this is the Sean & Joey way! Enjoy!!!

Instructions

Just before cooking, husk the corn, pull off the silky threads, and cut out any blemishes with a pointed knife. Drop the corn into a large pot filled with boiling salted water. Cover the pot and let the water return to a boil again, then turn off the heat and keep the pot covered. After about 5 minutes, remove enough ears for a first serving. You can keep the remaining corn warm in the water for another 10 minutes without its becoming tough. Serve with lots of butter and salt.

Delicious Library

How many times have you ordered a cookbook on Amazon only to get home to find you already have it? If you are like me, more than I care to remember. I didn't even know how many cookbooks I really had. That is until today! I found an amazing way not only to organize your cookbooks but your entire library of books, CDs, movies and much much more! Delicious Library.

This is an amazing tool is so many ways. Delicious Library allows you to scan the bar codes of your books, cds and movies using your built-in iSight camera. (Sorry, folks Mac only.) Once scanned it pulls all the cover art and information about your library right into the application! I scanned my entire cookbook collection today in about 30 minutes! Amazing! What's more you can publish your collection using your MobileMe account! You can check out the start of my library right here. This is just a start of what this amazing program can do! Honestly, this is probably the smartest piece of software I have bought in years! If you have a Mac (and you really should. PCs are so 90s!) check out this software and download the trial. You will be hooked!

Blueberry Peacan Crumble

One must really take advantage of the fresh fruit that's in season during the summer. Now Max, Joey and I LOVE blueberries. (Well, Max likes his one at a time, so I guess we should say, "Max loves a blueberry." See the video below.) Blueberries are truly at their best during the summer and they are much cheaper than other times of the year!

I have tried so many crisp and crumble recipes and always failed. I finally found one courtesy of one of my favorite Food Network stars, Dave Lieberman. Let me tell you, Dave makes some awesome desserts. This is one of my new favorites. It's just delicious. Heat it up and serve with vanilla ice cream or fat free whipped topping!

Ingredients

For the topping:

• 4 ounces pecan pieces (about 1 cup)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 cups rolled (old-fashioned) oats
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• A couple pinches salt
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) butte,r cut into small pieces

For the berries:

• 2 pints fresh blueberries
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. For the topping: Put all topping ingredients in a bowl and rub together with your hands until mixture sticks together in small clumps.
3. Pour the blueberries into a 9 by 13-inch baking dish. Squeeze the lemon juice over the berries, sprinkle the sugar and flour over them and toss until the berries are coated with sugar.
4. Scatter the topping over the berries in an even layer. Bake until the topping is golden brown and the berry juice is bubbling up through the topping, about 45 to 50 minutes.

Now for a special treat, here is a video of Max's first blueberry.

Zucchini Bread

My friends Tom and John have this amazing garden in Sonoma. The other day Tom came into work with a zucchini for me that was the biggest zucchini I have ever seen. If you worked with us you can imagine the jokes about it. :-)

Since I didn't know what to do with this thing the obvious choice was Zucchini Bread. I searched my cookbooks and couldn't find anything that inspired me so I turned to the net. I found this recipe on Recipezaar, one of my very favorite cooking sites. It was submitted by MizzNezz. I made four loaves today and they are amazing! Just thought I would share it with you!

The bread has this crunchy top that I think is from the orange juice and the apple sauce. It's moist, not too sweet and very flavorful. This certainly deserves one big, YUMMO!!!!

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1/3 cup orange juice
• 3 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 cup chopped walnut

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In large bowl, mix sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla.
3. Beat until well blended.
4. Add zucchini, applesauce and orange juice; stir well.
5. Combine flour with next 5 ingredients.
6. Add to zucchini mixture; stir well.
7. Add nuts; stir gently to combine.
8. Pour into 2 greased and floured 9in loaf pans.
9. Bake for 60-70 minutes; till toothpick comes out clean.
10. Let cool in pans 10 minutes.
11. Remove from pans and let cool completely.

Crock Pot Chicken, Gravy and Stuffing

Oh, comfort food. You've gotta love it! There are just times you want to put something yummy and familiar in your mouth. Yes, that sounds all sorts of naughty, but when you eat comfort food, don't you kind of feel that way? Naughty! You know this isn't the healthiest thing to do, but when you want it you want it.

I was looking for an easy crockpot recipe for Sunday. We are having brunch and I knew I wouldn't want to cook later in the day. I knew a crockpot meal was the key to us having dinner that night and having lunches for the week. Since we are going back on Weight Watchers I thought we could just splurge and have this meal one last time.

This is a super easy recipe. Honestly, just mix up the soups and the milk and throw it over the chicken and cheese. On top for that throw in the stuffin mix and chicken broth. Now, I pretended to make this more figure friendly by using low-fat soups and low-fat cheese. In my mind that worked and it tasted great, but it was kind of like ordering a burrito supreme with extra cheese and a diet coke.

Ingredients

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• salt
• pepper
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 4-6 slices swiss cheese
• 1 (10 1/2 ounce) can cream of chicken soup
• 1 (10 1/2 ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 cups Pepperidge Farm Herb Stuffing
• 1/2 cup butter, Melted

Instructions

1. Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper and place chicken breasts in crock pot. Pour Chicken broth over breasts.
2. Put one slice of Swiss cheese on each breast. Combine both cans of soup and milk.
3. Cover chicken breasts with soup mixture. Sprinkle stuffing mix over all.
4. Drizzle melted butter on top.
5. Cook on low for 6 hours or high for 3.

Crock Pot Pumpkin Pie Pudding

One of my main tasks this week was to clean out my pantry. (It's really just my big cupboard, but pantry sounds fancier.) My goal is to clean this out and use some of those canned goods that are just taking up space. I had all the fixins to make several pumpkin pies, but was just not motivated to make pie. Not that it's hard, but it's just messy and takes time. While I was cruising Recipzaar I came across this recipe for Pumpkin Pie Pudding and thought I would give it a go. This was one easy recipe and it turned out super yummy! It really is just pumpkin pie without the crust, but a bit creamier. It was so easy I will definitely make it again. To make it a bit more figure friendly I used non-fat evaporated milk. A lot of members on Recipezaar also made it with Spenda, but that's going too far for me. I made a double batch and cooked it for seven hours. YUMMO!

Ingredients

• 1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
• 1 (12 ounce) can evaporated milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup Bisquick
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine (melted)
• 2 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• whipped topping (optional)

Instructions

• In a large bowl mix together the first eight ingredients.
• Transfer to crock pot coated with Pam.
• Cover and cook on low 6-7 hours.
• Serve in bowls with whip cream, if desired.

I'm Back & I Bring My Favorite Cooking Site - Recipezaar.com

It's been a long time since my last post. What oh what have I been doing? Well, all sorts of things that I may reveal, but the main thing tonight is that I want to talk about my favorite "go-to" site for recipes. I have tried them all - Epicurious.com, Cooking.com, but there is one that I always go back to and that is Repicezaar.com.

I have become a loyal fan of this site. When I want a specific recipe this is the place I go. I will tell you why. I want to make enchiladas - I get 334 recipes. I not only get those recipes, I get ratings for each recipe I get valuable comments from Recipezaar members on not only if they liked or didn't like the recipe but on how they modified it to make it ever better. I get a little cooking lesson by just cruising the site! Now doing get me wrong, there is a horn o' plenty of uber-fatty comfort food here, but you know what? I like that sometimes! I like it that when I am in the mood to make macaroni salad, (which honesty is never figure friendly), I get over 250 recipes to choose from. Plus, once again, I get all those great comment from the members.

But wait, there's more!!! For free you can save your favorites to your own cook book! Yes, save them and go back later to retrieve them! As a paid member, which is super cheap, you can keep multiple cookbooks to save your recipes. I have several right now including slow-cooker, desserts, diabetic (for when Aurora acknowledges me), dessert and many more!

Check Recipezaar out. I honestly love this site. In fact I am making a slow-cooker dessert at this moment and if it turns out well you will see it here next week!