My church is having our Annual Missionary Conference, July 16 - 20. On the 20th we will have a cover dish. But, this year we would like to have items from the counties they will be going to. We have 6 families coming and they will be headed for Quebec, Canada, France, Turkey, Spain, and England. I know we have some great cooks from all over the world, or at least connections somewhere. Thanks for your great help. Not that I'm dumb or anything, (LOL!) but, please add where your recipe is from. I can identify some but not most of where they originate. Thanks.

 Cherie - IN   †

My SIL makes this and it's very good!  She found the recipe at:

http://www.spain-recipes.com/simple-paella-recipe.html

 

Simple Paella Recipe

If you want an easy-to-do simple paella recipe, just knock on us... This is the easier paella recipe you can find anywhere!

• Serves: 6-8
• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Preparation time: 60-90 minutes

Ingredients

• 1/2 pint of olive oil

• 2 bowls of rice (1lb. 5 oz.  approximately)

• 5 bowls of fish broth

• 1/2 lb. of shrimps

• 2 mid-sized squids

• 2 lb. of mussels or clams

• 1 green pepper

• 1 red pepper

• 1 small can of peas

• 1 small onion

• 2 tomatoes

• Saffron

• 1 clove of garlic (optional)

• Parsley

• Salt

Preparation

Start to heat half of the oil and once warm toss the chopped onion. After 5 minutes, add diced tomatoes, without seeds and peeled. Let it braise about 5 minutes more, mashing the tomatoes with a skimmer. Strain it and throw it in the paella pan.

In a pot, begin to cook in cold water the shells of the shrimps, reserving the tails. In another ladle cook the mussels with little water (well washed before with water and salt). As soon as the shells open up, take them away and take off the half that doesn't have the bug, reserving the other halves and straining for a very fine strainer the broth where they have cooked, as well as that of the waste of the shrimps.

Add the rest of the oil to the paella pan. Throw the green pepper, cut to square pieces of half inch. Add the cut squid to ribbons or in fine hoops and the rice. Keep stirring with a wooden tablespoon, without letting it go brown. Throw salt, and the broth of the remains of fish, hot but not boiling. This is completed with the 5 broth bowls. Shake the paella pan a little taking it by the handles so that it is broth flows all over. All this should be made to medium fire.

Meanwhile, in a mortar mash a little bit of garlic (optional), the parsley and the saffron, with a little bit of salt so that it doesn't slip, and it wet it with a couple of soup spoonfuls of temperate water. Spill this mixture on the rice and shake again the paella pan. Incorporate now the shrimps tails and when the broth has reduced to the half decorate the paella with the red pepper cut to ribbons, the mussels and the peas.

Let it cook about 20 minutes.

Once the rice is cooked and the broth has reduced, retire the paella pan from the fire, on a wet cloth, leaving it rest for about 5 minutes.

Serve it with some big clusters of lemon without peeling like decoration.

 

Thanks Kimsonmerk, this sound very interesting. I'm not sure I could pull it off, but I will also check out the site you refered to.

 

I also need to change France to Scotland.

Come on folks I know you have some good and easy recipes to pull from. Please help me out here.

 Cherie - IN   †

How about a meat pie for your Scottish folks.

 

Scottish Meat Pies

1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef

1 large onion, minced

1/8 teaspoon beef bouillon granules

4 cups water to cover

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 cup water

1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Place the ground beef in a large pot and pour in enough water to cover beef. Boil until beef is cooked through. Drain.

Add water to cover cooked beef, add onions and enough bouillon granules to taste. Cook until the onions are soft. Season with salt and pepper to your taste and make sure the filling has enough bouillon to have a nice beef flavor.

Combine the 1/4 cup water with the cornstarch and stir until smooth. Add to the beef mixture and cook until mixture has thickened.

Pour beef mixture into the pastry crust and cover the top with pastry. Crimp edges and *** top.

Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 30 minutes or until crust is lightly browned.

Here's one for Yorkshire Pudding from England:

 

1 c. flour

3 eggs (room temp)

1 c. milk

Pinch of salt

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix pudding ingredients well until no lumps remain in the batter.  Let batter rest while you prepare the pudding tin(s).  Pour meat drippings (or vegetable oil) to cover the bottom of the pudding tin and heat in oven 20 minutes.  (Heating the pan in the oven is probably the most important part of this recipe.  Some people say you need to let the batter rest, some say you don't.  But, EVERYBODY agrees you MUST get that pan hot!)  Pour the batter into the hot oil and bake 25 minutes or until puffy and golden brown.  Do not open the oven door for the first 20 minutes.

 

Serving suggestions:  If you put slightly cooked sausages on top of the pudding mixture before baking, you will end up with "Toad in the Hole." Yummy!  Another favorite way to serve it is to fill them with beef stew, onions and gravy, etc.  You can either make one big pudding (just put the batter into a 9x13" pan) or into individual muffin tins.

 

Diana

Scones (England)

 

2 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp. sugar

4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/3 c. butter, cold, cut into pieces

3/4 c. whipping cream

2 beaten eggs

1/2 c. dried currants or snipped raisins*

Milk (to brush on top)

 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine whipping cream, beaten eggs and dried fruit.  In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Make a well in center of dry mixture.  Add whipping cream, eggs, and currants or raisins all at once.  Using a fork, stir just until moistened.

 

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  Quickly knead 10-12 times or until dough is nearly smooth.  Pat or lightly flatten dough to approximately 1/2" thick, and cut into squares or circles.  Place scones 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet.  Brush tops of scones with milk.  Bake 12-14 minutes or until golden.  Remove from baking sheet and serve warm.  Makes 16.

 

*  My English neighbors are horrified by the fact I sometimes put in dried cranberries, dried cherries or apricots instead of the currants or raisins.  Traditional scones have currants or raisins.

 

Diana

 

TheFlicker3:

they will be headed for Quebec, Canada, France, Turkey, Spain, and England.

 

 

Sorry, I have to say it - despite what many Quebecois would like, Quebec is still part of Canada, not a country in its own right.

 There are many recipes to choose from at www.letscookfrench.com

 

Financiers (flat almond muffins)

Preparation time: 10 minutes Cooking time: 15-20 minutes Ingredients (serves 1 small cupcake mould, 6 muffins): - 1/2 cup of almond powder - 1/2 cup of flour - 3/4 cup of sugar - 6 tbsps of butter - 4 egg whites - vanilla - salt Method: Preheat oven to 200°C (Gas Mark 6). Butter the cupcake moulds. Mix in a container the almond powder, sugar, the flour, and vanilla. Whip the egg whites in a firm foam with a pinch of salt. Melt the butter in a pan and add it to the preparation. Pour into the moulds and put in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Unmould after taking out of the oven.

 Sorry.....that's supposed to be "vanilla" but it was cut off. 

There are lots of recipes at this site.....they are arranged according to the difficulty of the recipe.  You're sure to find something that suits your needs.  Sounds like fun....good luck with your International Dinner party.

Here is a recipe for Butter Shortbread from my Scottish friend - typed here exactly as she wrote it down for me:

 

Scottish Shortbread

 

100g or 4 oz. plain flour

50g or 2 oz. caster sugar [note - finer grain than granulated sugar]

50g or 2 oz. cornflour [cornstarch]

100g or 4 oz. butter

 

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C, 325 degrees F, or gas mark 3.

Cooking time - 30-35 minutes.

Sieve together the plain flour and cornflour.  Add the sugar and rub in the butter.  (The mixture will become crumbly at first but continue rubbing with your finger tips until it clings together in heavy lumps.)  Turn onto a board lightly dusted with cornflour and knead lightly 4-5 times.  Roll out into an 8-inch (20 cm) circle and place on a greased baking sheet.  *** all over the top with a fork, mark out into portions, and flute the edges.  Bake in a very moderate oven until the shortbread is cooked but not browned.  Leave on the sheet for 10 minutes; transfer to a wire rack with a fish slice to cool.

 

Diana

 

I can definitely help you out but not until Wednesday when I get home. We travel a lot and I always get a cookbook from each country. Keep this bumped and I'll post several on Wednesday. Shannon

Thanks for the good recipes. I'm bumping for more.

 

Cherie - IN   †

Hi.  I live in Finland, where I can view the BBC Food Channel.  One program I enjoy is from the Canadian Food Network.  The chef is Laura Calder, and the program is called French Food at Home.  Her recipes are simple and elegant.    You might want to check out her recipes at www.foodtv.ca.    I suppose Finnish recipes wouldn't be useful to you for this church event, but let me know if you want some anyway.   lusi

Lusi, please post your Finnish recipes.  I, for one, would love to have them even if they can't be used for this particular event.  

 

Thanks!

 

Diana

 Diana, Finnish cuisine is pretty much like most Scandinavian food, but with a few variations.  Some specialties from here are fish dishes (especially salmon), baked goods with berries (wild blueberries,lingonberries, cranberries, cloudberries, brambleberries, black and red currants, strawberries, raspberies), slow cooked stews, reindeer dishes, rye breads and coffee breads.     If you are interested, you can go to www.virtualfinland.fi.   There you will find the pretty standard repertoire in English with American measurements.     If you have any special wishes, let me know, and I will see what I can find.

Finnish rye bread is absolutely delicious, as is the fish soup.   lusi