Have you ever been unfortunate enough to find the refrigerator’s freezer door has been left ajar, not all the way, but just enough so that the things in the door started to thaw out?  That happened to me a few weeks ago.  Although the items deep inside the freezer were just fine, the door items got quite mushy.

We had peas for lunch, we thawed the popsicles out all the way and refroze them in ice cube trays, but I really didn’t want three pitchers of orange juice.  So, faced with partially thawed orange juice concentrate, I decided to make special drinks.

I made a couple beverages using pretty simple recipes.  For the first one, I just blended together a couple cups of milk, some vanilla ice cream (which was in the back of the freezer, still frozen), and threw in enough of the frozen orange juice concentrate, actually the slightly frozen orange juice concentrate, to make the mix nice and tangy and orange flavor.

Later on that day, I put together what we now call our Poolside Punch.  We put the thawed orange juice concentrate in a big bowl with lots of ice cubes, courtesy of our big freezer in the garage, and just poured some bubbly clear soda pop on top until everything got fizzy.  Everybody got a big cup and drank it right down.  Because we don’t normally keep a lot of soda pop in the house, this was a nice treat, and I liked serving up a little Vitamin C and not just sugar.

What have you used orange juice concentrate for, other than a pitcher of orange juice?  I managed to use mine up, but thought there might be some enterprising people who have great recipes that call for orange juice.  Perhaps a marinade or stir-fry?  I’d love to hear your ideas!

My Grandma always had ginger ale in the house, which is why I always have it in my house, too!  She said it settled upset stomachs and I think it tastes great.  Whatever reason, ginger ale fills a little corner of my pantry all the time.  So, aside from drinking it, is there any other use for ginger ale?

Of course, one of the best uses for ginger ale is to make punch.  Everyone has at least one favorite party punch recipe, and mine just happens to include ginger ale.  It’s so simple I hate to even let people know how to make it, lest my culinary skills, or lack thereof, become exposed for what they are!  Nonetheless, here is the recipe:

1) Make ice cubes out of orange juice, enough to fill a punch bowl about halfway.
2) Chill punch bowl.
3) Wash fresh mint leaves.
4) Fill chilled punch bowl about halfway with orange ice cubes.
5) Pour in ginger ale over orange ice to top of punch bowl.
6) Float mint leaves on top and serve immediately.

See, it’s super simple, pretty, and delicious. Spike it if you like with a splash of vodka in your cup before you fill with punch, stir and sip.

If you have any other ideas for using ginger ale, I’d love to hear from you!

I don’t know if I really need to make something with white wine because it’s just so nice to sip!  It’s more of a curiosity than anything. I really do wonder if there are any dishes that use a lot of white wine in the ingredients.  It does sound yummy… a hearty, creamy cheese soup, perhaps?  Or a dessert, maybe?

Alcohol cooks out of any wine or beer you use in cooking, so the flavor changes in the end result.  If you simmer wine to reduce it, can you incorporate it into a creamy sauce?  What about adding chocolate?  This is all speculation, but I would love to hear what you think. 

When wine, either white or red, cooks for awhile in a rich, red sauce for spaghetti, it just gives a nice extra layer of flavor that sits very nicely on the tongue.  It’s such a nice addition to the sauce, I can’t imagine there is not a way to use wine as a main ingredient.  What do you think?

If you’ve got kids, you’ve got apple juice in the house.  Have you ever tried to use it in your cooking?  Because it’s so handy, I thought it would be a good “pantry” item to create dishes around.

I have seen quite a few recipes that use apple juice as a marinade for chicken and seafood, normally in Asian-inspired dishes.  Combining apple juice with ginger and soy is a pretty basic blend that packs quite a bit of flavor. 

How about using apple juice in stir fry dishes?  Again, with soy included, I would imagine that a stir fry would really benefit from the impact of apple juice; perhaps replacing all or some of the chicken broth when creating a cornstarch thickened sauce.

Apple juice could also be used as the sweet part of any sweet and sour dish.  Even Szechwan Beef or Chicken wouldn’t hide or minimize the distinctive flavor and sweetness of apple juice.

You see I’m a little stuck on the Asian inspired dishes that would benefit from a splash of apple juice.  Are there any other uses for apple juice?  How about baking?  Have you ever used apple juice to replace other liquids in bread or muffin recipes?  I’d love to hear from you!

Whenever I think of cooking with beer, my recipes always lean toward bratwurst and sausage.  I just naturally equate beer with bratwurst and sausage, and that’s where I get stuck.  I know beer adds a really nice tangy flavor to recipes and a nice extra little background flavor, but what sorts of dishes other than sausage dishes can you use beer as an ingredient?

Of course, if I never found another recipe that uses beer, I could probably live quite happily for the rest of my life with my “Kielbasa and Sauerkraut Skillet” recipe.  Give this a try the next time you have some really hearty appetites to satisfy!

Kielbasa and Sauerkraut Skillet

1 ring of Kielbasa
8 medium potatoes (I like Yukon Gold) peeled and cut one lengthwise
1 jar “Barrel” Sauerkraut (Gundelsheim) You can use any brand, but this is tender and sweeter than most
1 12 oz bottle/can of your favorite beer
salt and pepper potatoes to taste
optional: sprinkle or two of caraway seeds

Get out your big, heavy cast iron skillet, put just a bit of oil in, slice Kielbasa into chunks at angles and lightly brown over medium high heat.  When Kielbasa is brown, move to the edges and arrange potatoes in the center and season with a little salt and pepper.  Cover with entire jar of sauerkraut, sprinkle on some caraway seeds if you wish (good for the digestion), and pour the beer carefully over the whole thing.  Cover skillet with tin foil top, poking two or three slots in the top for steam.  Bring up to a boil, and turn down to simmer nice and slow.  You’ll want to let this cook for about 1 hour so all the flavors combine.  Dinner’s on!

That’s a pretty basic beer recipe, but it’s sure yummy!  But if you’ve used beer in other imaginative cooking I’d love to hear about it.

This may seem a strange problem, but I have way too much milk in my refrigerator after every Holiday.  You see, I buy gallons of milk for all the young family members that join us for our meals over the Holidays, and then end up with leftover milk.  I could just buy less, but I hate to run out and disappoint a sweet child who just wants a little more milk to dunk their Christmas cookie.  That would be just too sad.  So, I end up with extra milk.

My husband and I can drink a little in our coffee, and I can make some creamed soups, but I’d like to find a real knock-out recipe that would make me happy I had all that milk leftover. 

My last attempt at Oyster Stew didn’t turn out so good.  That’s really my big “use up the milk” strategy, but the recipe failed me.  There’s probably an old family favorite Oyster Stew recipe that is not in the cookbooks anywhere.  That would be a real find if anyone could share their own family recipe for Oyster Stew or even any other milk-based seafood chowder, soup or stew.

As always, I’d be grateful for any real great recipe you would be willing to share.

Over the Holidays, I stock my cupboards with a lot of tomato juice.  It’s a great mixer for drinks that our family and guests love.  Tomato juice is better than soft drinks, and it actually can be sweetened up a bit for the youngsters with pineapple or apple juice and served as a fancy “punch” for the kids.  They feel so grown-up when they’ve got their little punch glasses just like the adults. 

My problem is that I always have just enough leftover in my house after the Holidays to cause a bit of “Tomato Juice Fatigue”.  I really can’t drink that much tomato juice, but I’m not going to throw it out.

I’ve seen some recipes using tomato juice as marinades and in sauces for grilled fish.  Has anyone successfully used tomato juice in a recipe like that? How about soups and casseroles?  Can tomato juice be substituted for tomato sauce or paste and taste good?  Will the soup end up tasting like tomato juice? 

Does anyone have experience using tomato juice for cooking?  I’d love to hear your success stories.

We have an abundance of apples in our neck of the woods and, therefore, we have an abundance of wonderful, homemade apple cider.  In fact, I’m considering purchasing a cider press one of these years so I can make my own apple cider.  If you have never tried REAL apple cider, you need to treat yourself to a mug full.  The flavor is a great deal shall we say “deeper” than the store bought stuff.  If you get a chance, try it. 

So, here I am with my jugs of apple cider, enjoying it simply by warming it in a pan on top of the stove and sipping it hot out of my favorite mug.  That is certainly a little bit of Heaven, but I’m wondering what else I can make with apple cider. 

One recipe I saw recently, but of course have lost, is using apple cider as a glaze for ham or turkey.  I think it should be simple enough to figure out.  Has anyone tried that sort of apple cider based glaze?  I wonder if you’d have to add any brown sugar or molasses to cut some of the tartness of the cider.  Or how about using apple cider as a marinade?  Interesting, yes?

Then of course there are the spiced cider drinks to try over the Holidays.  I do have one that I like to make and share with my guests.  I’ll share it here:

1 quart of apple cider
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon whole allspice
2 inch stick cinnamon
dash ground nutmeg
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar (optional)

Put everything in a sauce pan and bring to boil slowly, then turn down and simmer for 15 minutes.  Pour through sieve to remove spices, and serve.  I put a half slice of orange on top of the mug for extra color and sweetness.  Some people add brown sugar during the cooking to sweeten up the cider, but I like mine tart.

So, I put it to you dear readers, what have you used apple cider for other than sipping? Or do you have a more unusual Mulled Cider drink that you could share?  I’ve got a lot of apple cider here and am anxiously awaiting some ideas.

I always have a few packets of Kool-Aid laying around. We don’t really fix it too much, since I prefer to give my family water and fruit juices. But it does come in handy when we have a crowd of thirsty kids around. I have been wondering though if there’s a way to use it for something other than making a big pitcher of a brightly colored thirst quencher.

Since it’s been getting pretty warm around here, cool and icy treats have been on my mind. Last week I made slushies for the first time and it turned out wonderful. I’ve had quite a few requests since to “Please make those again”.

They are fast and easy to make. You basically just blend some water, ice, a pack of kool-aid and some sugar in your blender for instant slushies.

Please feel free to share any other recipes you may have that use kool-aid.

So, I’ve heard there are quite a few dishes from cakes to chicken recipes that you can make with diet coke. I enjoy a can of the stuff every now and then, and usually have a few of them sitting in the fridge. Might as well put them to good use and cook some new dishes for my family.

So far there’s only one recipe I’ve ever made with diet coke and that was a brownie like cake. You basically just mix a box of chocolate cake mix with a can of diet coke and bake it according to the box instructions. It turned out really good… like a gooey brownie.

How about you? Do you cook with diet coke (or any soda for that matter). If so, please leave your favorite recipe as a comment below.