Recipes for Easter Dinner

I purchased the April 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living. And while I was waiting in the Chicago airport yesterday made note of two recipes that I want to make for Easter Dinner. First:


Pineapple-Mustard-Glazed Ham (Serves 8-10.)

Ingredients
2 medium pineapples, peeled lengthwise, cored, and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices
3 cups sugar
2 cups water
1/4 cup cup country-style mustard
1 smoked, bone-in ham (10 pounds), trimmed of excess skin and all but a 1/4-inch layer of fat
40 whole cloves
1 cup cup dry white wine
Mustard greens, for garnish (optional)
Directions
1. Bring pineapples, sugar, and water to a boil in a large saucepan. Reduce heat; simmer, skimming foam. Cook until pineapples are translucent and mixture has reduced to 4 cups, 60 to 80 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl; let cool. Stir in mustard. (Glaze will keep, covered and refrigerated, for 3 days.)
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in lowest position. Score ham with a sharp knife in a pattern of 1 1/4-inch diamonds. Press a clove into the center of each diamond. Place ham, cut side down, in a roasting pan; drizzle wine over top. Coat ham with half the glaze. Cover with parchment, then foil, and bake for 1 hour. Remove from oven.
3. Increase oven temperature to 425 degrees. Uncover ham, and coat with remaining glaze (some will fall to the bottom of the pan). Bake, uncovered, basting occasionally, until browned, 40 to 45 minutes. (Tent bone with foil if it becomes too dark.) Transfer ham to a cutting board; let rest for at least 30 minutes before carving. Serve with pan drippings and pineapple. Garnish with mustard greens if desired.

And this recipe:

Hot Cross Buns with Dried Cherries (Makes 30.)

Ingredients
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons whole milk
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 ounce (4 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for bowl and baking sheet
Salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
51/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
4 ounces (3/4 cup) dried cherries, coarsely chopped
4 ounces (3/4 cup) golden raisins, coarsely chopped
1 large egg white
1 tablespoon water
2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Heat 1 cup milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until it registers 110 degrees on a candy thermometer. Pour milk into a mixer bowl, and fit mixer with a dough hook. With mixer on low speed, add granulated sugar, yeast, butter, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, the nutmeg, cinnamon, and eggs. Add flour, 1 cup at a time, and knead until mixture comes together in a soft, sticky dough. Continue kneading, scraping down hook as needed, until dough is smooth, about 4 minutes.
2. Add cherries and raisins, and knead to incorporate. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead to distribute dried fruit. Coat a large bowl with butter. Shape dough into a ball, and place in prepared bowl. Cover with a piece of plastic, and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
3. Generously butter a rimmed baking sheet. Turn dough onto a surface, knead briefly, then divide into 3 pieces. Working with 1 piece at a time, divide each third into 10 pieces, and shape each into a tight ball. (Keep dough covered with plastic.) Place on prepared sheet, spacing 1/2 inch apart. Repeat with remaining dough. Cover with plastic, and let rise in a warm spot until buns have doubled in size and are touching, about 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together egg white and water in a small bowl. Brush tops of buns with egg-white wash. Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until golden brown, 20 to 22 minutes. Let cool on sheet on wire rack for 30 minutes. Whisk together remaining 3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons milk, confectioners' sugar, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Spoon icing into a pastry bag fitted with a plain 1/4-inch round tip, and pipe icing on buns in the shape of a cross. (Alternatively, spoon glaze on buns.) Serve immediately.

Ranger Cookies

Here is the recipe for Mark's all-time favorite cookies. For the first time, Mark and I celebrated Christmas with my family. One night I made tacos for dinner and made brownies and Ranger cookies for dessert. Mark couldn't eat the brownies because they contained butter but I made the Ranger cookies with Earth Balance non-hydrolyzed margarine just for him. There were no takers on the brownies; everyone wanted a Ranger.

Ranger Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
2/3 cup (1 stick plus 2 2/3 TBS) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/2 cup white vegetable shortening
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/3 cups packed light brown sugar
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not Instant or 1-minute or Quick)
2 cups corn flakes
1 1/4 cups (3.5 oz.) flaked sweetened coconuts
10 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Note: When I made these at Christmas time, I made them so that Mark could eat them and used margarine in place of the butter and shortening. When I bake things for people who can and will eat butter, I always use unsalted butter. And even though I have not made this recipe with butter, I am pretty confident that it would work without any problems.

Second Note: If you are using butter, you can use unsalted butter and than add the salt OR just use salted butter.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease baking sheets or use parchment paper to line baking sheets.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

With a standing mixer, beat the butter until lightened. Add the brown sugar and sugar and beat until fluffy and smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until evenly incorporated. Beat or stir in the flour mixture until evenly incorporated.

Using the standing mixer, mix in the oats and the shredded coconut.

By hand, mix in the corn flakes and the chocolate chips.

Note about Chocolate Chips: First you can use semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips, for this recipe. Milk chocolate is sweeter, of course. Also, I have written the recipe for using only 10 oz. of chips. Most chips are sold in 12 oz. bags, you can use the whole bag, but you will have more chips than dough, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I think I use a 1 TBS. cookie scoop to form the cookies. Err on the side of making them too small, as they do take a long time to bake. Bake for 12 minutes. Will probably be more like 15 to 17 minutes ...just until the centers are beginning to firm up; don't over bake. My trick is to take the cookies out of the oven when they have 'cracked' but the cookie underneath looks moist and underdone and than let them cool on the hot cookie sheet for at least 2 minutes. The cookies finish baking on the sheet.

Enjoy.

Deviled Eggs Ambition

I came home today at 1:30 pm completely starving. I had gotten distracted in Target trying on bathing suits and pushed my hunger level too far. When I got to the safety of my kitchen, I remembered that Mark had boiled eggs this morning, so I set about making myself 2 deviled eggs. Overjoyed at the prospect of a tasty snack but also realizing the effort and mess I was creating to make just 2 deviled eggs, I wished that there was a deli where I could go and buy delicious deviled eggs. Mark and I once ate at a restaurant that had deviled eggs as an appetizer and I thought it was the greatest menu item. Note to Self: If I owned a restaurant, I would have deviled eggs on the menu every day. The menu would read something like "Deviled Eggs -- farm-fresh eggs, mayo, yellow mustard, garlic salt." And something about tossing out one of the egg white halves, because the whole point to eating deviled eggs in my world is the yolk mixture. It is not my original idea -- a famous deli in NY makes its egg salad with the proportion of yolks to white of 2:1.

Mark's Birthday Dinner

Yesterday was Mark's 45th Birthday. We invited his brother over for dinner and some birthday cake. The menu for dinner was 30-minuted Vegetable Lo-Mein and Beef and Broccoli and Chocolate Cake for dessert.

Ingredients for 30-Minuted Vegetable Lo-Mein

2 TBS. Vegetable Oil
10 0z. shitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced thin
1 small head Napa cabbage, sliced crosswise into 1/4-inch-wide shreds
1 red bell pepper, cored and sliced thin
1 TBS. grated fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup vegetable broth
3 TBS. soy sauce
3 TBS. oyster-flavored sauce
1 box, Chinese noodles
1 TBS. toasted sesame oil
4 scallions, sliced thin

Ingredients for Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry

1/2 cup oyster sauce
1/4 cup vegetable or low-sodium chicken broth
2 TBS. sherry
2 TBS. light brown sugar
2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 lb. flank steak
2 TBS. vegetable oil
1 1/2 lbs. broccoli
1 red bell pepper
1/3 cup water
6 garlic cloves
3 scallions
1 TBS. grated ginger

Prep list for Veggie Lo Mein:

1. Stem and slice shitake mushrooms.
2. Shred Napa cabbage into 1/4 inch slices.
3. Stem, seed, and slice thin the red bell pepper.
4. Slice 4 scallions.
5. Mince 2 cloves garlic.
6. Mince 1 TBS. ginger.

Prep list for Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry:

1. Cut broccoli florets into bite-sized pieces and peel broccoli stalks sliced 1/4 inch thick.
2. Stem, seed, and chop the red bell pepper into medium bite-sized pieces.
3. Slice 3 scallions.
4. Mince 6 cloves garlic.
5. Mince 1 TBS. ginger.
6. Freeze flank steaks for 20-30 minutes. Slice meat lengthwise (with the grain) in 2-inch wide strips. Slice each 2-inch strip thin on the bias (across the grain) into 1/8-inch-thick slices.

Mark was the dedicated prep cook for this menu. From start to finish in a less-than-ready kitchen, it took the both us 2-hours to prep these 2 30-minute recipes and make the birthday cake.

This a dinner menu that works for Mark + Meat Eaters.