Category Archives: food

The last two Kolacky

February 4, 2020food, Friendssusanmanzke

I just took out the last Kolacky my friend Joyce made for my family last week. Only a few survived but I ate them sparingly.

Since they tasted so good, I looked up a simple recipe I had in a notebook. I’m sharing it here. It probably isn’t as good as Joyce’s, but you have an idea of how these cookies are made.

Kolacky

Ingredients
3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup any flavor fruit jam
1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar for decoration

Directions

Mix cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add flour slowly until well blended. Shape into a ball and chill overnight or for several hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
Roll dough out 1/8 inch thick on a floured pastry board. Cut into 2 1/2 inch squares and place about 1/2 teaspoon jam or preserves in the center. Overlap opposite corners and pinch together. Place on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool on wire racks. Sprinkle kolacky lightly with confectioner’s sugar.

Since I haven’t made this in years, I can’t vouch for their taste. This is very basic and the jam can be replaced with soaked prunes.

These last two are gone now as I ate them.

Let me know if you make Kolacky.

Meringue Kisses

December 7, 2019foodsusanmanzke

I had extra eggs so I made Meringue Kisses today.

3 large egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Pinch of salt

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat room temp. egg whites until frothy; add cream of tartar and salt; beat; add sugar a little at a time while beating to form stiff peaks; add vanilla.

I use silicone baking sheets. Drop a dollop of batter on sheets, leaving a bit of room between. They don’t really spread.

Bake at 275 F for 25 minutes. Cool a bit and remove from the sheets–I pick them up with my fingers and then put on the rack.

Enjoy.

Cheese Blintzes

December 6, 2019foodsusanmanzke

Over the holidays I like to make Polish pierogies like my grandmother used to make. She made all different kinds: plum, kraut, cheese, and more. My favorite was cheese.

I’ve made these a few times but found them to be a lot of work, even with Bob’s help.

I came across a recipe for blintzes while looking at Allrecipes.com. The cheese filling was very close to the pierogies I had eaten in the past so I thought I’d give it a try.

Pierogies have to be boiled before they are fried. Blintzes do not have this step.

This is the recipe I used.

I ended up not putting as much cheese mixture in my crepes so needed to make more crepes, but not more cheese.

They were yummy and ALMOST as good as pierogies. At least it didn’t take me all day to make two pans full.

Trying to eat healthy

November 25, 2019food, reviewsusanmanzke

After talking to our regular doctor, Bob and I are again trying to eat healthy. We have cut some carbs, but not enough. Bread is on the chopping block. Guess it’s oatmeal for breakfast and not toast tomorrow.

Anyway, we bought an assortment of vegetables at the grocery store. When we were in the freezer section I got stirfry packages and peas and some other stuff. Then I saw a new addition to our small-town store.

Next to the cauliflower florets was a package of Buffalo cauliflower. I thought flavored cauliflower would appeal to Bob–he really doesn’t care for ordinary cauliflower.

We bought it and made it as our side dish tonight.

I’m not too fond of spicy food, but I did make an effort to eat my serving. Bob didn’t care for the spicy cauliflower either.

When other food doesn’t meet our tastes, I can usually share it with our chickens, but not this time. Too spicy for our girls.

We ate about half of the buffalo cauliflower and tossed the rest.

Maybe this wouldn’t be spicy enough for some people. It was too spicy for us.

Just a warning for others like us, who take spice on the light side.

Chop suey

October 2, 2019food, Memoriessusanmanzke

Today I used my pressure cooker to tenderize beef bits to use in a batch of stirfry–in reality, it turned out to be chop suey.

I had vegetables from the freezer and some from the fridge. It’s the kind of meal that doesn’t take measuring. I just throw veggies into hot oil to get them cooking, add shredded beef, soy sauce, molasses, and ginger.

I hadn’t made this in quite a while. Bob had seconds.

The trouble was that partway through cooking I had the wish that I had a can of La Choy Chop Suey vegetables. That’s what we used when I was a kid.

I haven’t used this kind of canned vegetables in many years, but just thinking about a meal made by my dad gave me warm feelings.

I doubt if I’ll buy a can of La Choy, but if I do, I’ll make it the way Dad did.

The photo doesn’t do my chop suey justice. My meal was very good. I’m pretty sure, Dad would have approved.

Susan Manzke

Writer, Speaker, All-Around Good Person