The Teacher Cooks

February 21, 2013 · 10:54 am

Greek Chicken and Barley Salad

Chicken salad and Greek salad are two of my favorites. I knew I had a winner when I saw this recipe on my Cooking Light calendar. I was not sure if everyone in my house would love it, but to my surprise everyone did. So here you are a quick, easy, flavorful, and healthy salad that your family will enjoy. Don’t be leery of the barley if you have never used it before. It is so similar to pasta or rice in texture. Barley is also an excellent source of soluble fiber that is good for digestion and a great source of potassium which helps to lower blood pressure. Hope that all of you are enjoying your week. I’m off this week for a winter break. While some of my friends are enjoying Disney World, I’m just enjoying Villa Rica!

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Filed under Salad

Tagged as Barley, Chicken, Cooking Light, dinner, feta cheese, Greek, Greek Chicken and Barley Salad, Greek Salad, Kalamata olives, red wine vinegar, Salad

February 19, 2013 · 8:38 am

Pink and Chocolate Heart Cookies from Martha

I know that Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but I just had to post these gorgeous cookies! In preparation for Valentine’s Day I spent a Saturday afternoon in the kitchen making these beautiful heart sandwich cookies which caught my eye sitting there on the front cover of Martha Stewart’s Living Magazine. I have made a couple of Martha’s recipes. One of them was a great success in my classroom two years ago at Christmas. Even though it took us four days to make them it was worth it. What I am leading up to is the fact that the cookie recipes of Martha’s seem to be so time-consuming! I know that she has lots of helpers in her kitchen, but there is just one of me. The active time given for completing this recipe was 3 hours and 25 minutes. I spent five hours. If you have ever spent five hours doing one recipe you know that when you are finished you don’t even want to eat what you have prepared or it just doesn’t live up to all that time spent in the kitchen. In other words, I could not be the judge of these cookies. I took them to school and let 60 of my students judge them.
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42 Comments

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as cream filling, Dessert, Heart cookies, Living Magazine, Martha Stewart, rolled cookies, sandwich cookies, valentine s day, Valentine's Day

February 10, 2013 · 6:20 pm

Oatmeal Cookies with White or Semi-sweet Chocolate and Pecans

Oatmeal cookies

Last week my students made oatmeal cookies and I will have to say they were fantastic! If you have ever made cookies from scratch you know it is so easy to mess them up! It makes it doubly hard to keep everything straight when there are five to six students working on the same recipe. As the instructor, I step back and watch. I’m not the type to get in the kitchen with them. Mistakes are great tools for learning! Questions like these will be floating through the classroom as they are busy in their kitchens:

Did you measure the soda?
How much sugar do we add?
Do we use all purpose flour or self rising?
Hey, I don’t think you packed the brown sugar!
Do we cook these at 325?

Of course they all have a recipe in front of them and a planning sheet that should have their specific jobs listed. Plus two days before I have shown them how to make the cookies and use all of the equipment. How did they do? Out of 24 kitchens only 2 groups made some kind of mistake with their recipe which resulted in very flat cookies and another group had pale clumps that did not spread at all. For me, that is a very good baking day!

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54 Comments

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as Cookies, oatmeal cookies, pecans, Quacker Oats, semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate

February 4, 2013 · 8:05 pm

Chocolate Chip Rum Cake and Pot Lifters

I have the best cake recipe for you today. It is going to knock your socks off! Don’t look at me sideways, but it’s made with a cake mix. Yes, it is true. I didn’t believe it myself when I tasted it. I just knew my friend Marilyn was lying, but no she doesn’t lie! It is like a big chewy brownie with a hint of rum, chocolate chips and nuts. Now who is not going to love it? When you take a bite you are going to think that you have died and gone to heaven – chocolate heaven that is.

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5 Comments

Filed under Desserts

Tagged as Cake, Cake Mix, Dessert, easy, Pot Lifters, Rum, Rum Chocolate Chip Cake

January 26, 2013 · 4:52 pm

Hershey’s Chocolate Pudding made in the Microwave !

Chocolate Pudding in the Microwave

I think that I have found the perfect pudding for you! There will be no more instant pudding nor will there be the yucky pudding that is ready made in those plastic tubs. This is put together in less than 10 minutes from start to finish. It is a really rich chocolate pudding that no one will believe you made in the microwave.

When I posted the recipe on my Promethean board one of my students said, ” Beginner skill? Mrs. Lupo you know that we are way beyond beginners now!” That being a true fact we still have only 45 minutes to get the job done. This recipe was just the perfect fit! So here are my tips for the pudding after making it twice at home, 4 times for my students, and 24 groups of students making it. Now yours will be perfect!

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88 Comments

Filed under Desserts

Tagged as Beginner Skill, chocolate pudding, Cocoa, Dessert, easy, Hershey's, Microwave, Milk, Pudding, Snack

January 10, 2013 · 7:51 pm

Blue Cheese Dressing

After doing as little shopping one of my favorite places to have lunch is Prime at Lenox Square. I just love their Cobb Salad with blue cheese dressing. I am happy to say that I have found the recipe so now all of us can enjoy it at home. It packs a lot of flavor and you’ll find you only need a small amount so guess what – a reduction in the amount of calories. I can go for that! I just put together a chopped salad including chopped romaine, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, and hearts of palm. I placed all the vegetables in a container with a top and added about a heaping teaspoon of dressing. I put the top on it and gave it a good shake. Oh my Gosh! So help yourself to the greatest salad dressing and it is just a shame that it is so easy to make.

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Filed under Salad, salad dressing

Tagged as blue cheese, blue cheese dressing, Boar's Head, Dressing, easy, Hellmann's, Prime, quick, Salad, Southern Living, Vegetarian

January 7, 2013 · 4:05 pm

Easy Danish Kringle

I found one of the easiest brunch recipes today. Your’re going to either hate me or love me. Especially when we’ve all made our New Year’s resolutions to be more healthy. It won’t hurt to indulge in just one small piece, though. The recipe is from one of my favorite recipe sources Pillsbury. It is a bake-off winner from 1998 and so simple that if will leave you wondering if you have done something wrong. I just bet that you have all the ingredients right there in your kitchen to get this started at your earliest convenience. You’ll need a Pillsbury pie crust, light brown sugar, softened butter, chopped pecans, and powdered sugar. While to pastry is coming to room temperature you can measure all your ingredients. In a mere 30 minutes you will have one of the best pastries that you could buy anywhere.

Now here’s how to put it together.

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46 Comments

Filed under Breakfast, Brunch, Desserts

Tagged as Breakfast, Brunch, Danish Kringle, Dessert, easy, Fast, pastry, Pillsbury bake-off

January 3, 2013 · 9:41 am

Slice-and-Bake Cheese Straws

Last month I served these to my book club. Now they are here for you to pull out for your next get together. They are so easy to make. In fact you can prepare the dough ahead of time and freeze so it will be sitting there ready when you are ready. A hundred years ago I made these cheese straws using a manual cookie gun and I found them quite difficult to push through. Now Paula Deen has saved all of us some manual labor. How much easier can you get than slice and bake?

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2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Teacher Cooks

Greek Chicken and Barley Salad

Pink and Chocolate Heart Cookies from Martha

Oatmeal Cookies with White or Semi-sweet Chocolate and Pecans

Chocolate Chip Rum Cake and Pot Lifters

Hershey’s Chocolate Pudding made in the Microwave !

Blue Cheese Dressing

Easy Danish Kringle

Slice-and-Bake Cheese Straws

2012 in review

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