Ethnic dinner of the week

Since before Thanksgiving, I've had little taste for the traditional comfort foods - meatloaf, roast beef, turkey, potatoes. Last night's meal was another attempt to stave off the boringness of late - an "Indian" spiced chicken thigh over garlic rice with toasted almonds and green beans with more toasted almonds. I love toasted almonds.


I marinated the chicken thighs in yogurt seasoned with garam masala, a bit of pre-made curry powder, salt, pepper, cumin, and tumeric. Then the chicken thighs got broiled (I'd have preferred to grill them, but the 60 mph wind gusts prevented outdoor grilling). For the rice, I melted 1 tbsp of butter and a squirt of oil in a stock pot, then cooked a bit of garlic, then added the rice to toast it, then chicken stock/water. At the end, I added the handful of almonds. It was pretty good - the chicken was very moist after almost 2 days in the marinade (oops). The rice could have used a bit more salt but tasted good mixed with the chicken.

Post Thanksgiving items

In addition to portioning out extra Thanksgiving sweet potatoes for baby food, the baby will also be trying a green thing very soon - shockingly green peas:


Meanwhile, back in adult food world, we were watching an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives and learned of a diner that makes fried Thanksgiving balls - blobs of mashed potato, stuffing, and turkey hunks that are floured and pan fried.


We served them in a small pool of turkey gravy with some lovely jellied cranberry sauce. Because what Thanksgiving plate is complete without perfectly circular circles of J.C.S.?

Thanksgiving

It was the food event of the year, 2009. Very traditional Thanksgiving meal - I ask family to bring appetizers and dessert, and I generally provide the rest. This year, it was turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing (both in and out of the bird), the ubiquitous green bean casserole, and dinner rolls. And gravy of course. There always has to be gravy.

The table setting....

Preparing the "bed" for the turkey

Stuffing - Pepperidge Farm bread cubes with onion and celery sauteed in butter. And chicken stock.

The sweet potatoes, with one set aside for the baby's dinner (well, one-quarter of one sweet potato - he may be a hungry baby, but he isn't that hungry). This was eventually topped with a butter/brown sugar/cinnamon/pecan mixture

The turkey, midway through - it got flipped at this point. This poor turkey was put through the wringer - brining, stuffing, roasting upside down....

And the buffet - thanks to my niece for adding a human touch

We can't forget dessert (and a little taste of the appetizers - a cheesy garlic roll) - spectacular pumpkin pie!

Party Party Party!

Several weeks ago, the ladies came over for a mini-ladies weekend slash meet the baby celebration. We feasted on Saturday night

The classic Knorr Veg Soup spinach dip with bread:


Julie's famous dip - cream cheese, cottage cheese, scallions, worcestershire, a touch of mayo (let me know if I'm forgetting something)...

And a roasted red pepper cheesecake, served with toasted pita wedges. This was a surprise hit - Miss M apparently has a taco cheesecake recipe that I also want to try.

Much fun was had by all

Cruncheh Chicken

As I near the end of my maternity leave, I find myself with a random assortment of garden produce (if not my own garden, then my parents'). Time to get my hands dirty and get rid of this stuff.

First off, we have a small butternut squash and a random green squash from my parents' house. I cubed these and coated them with brown sugar (not enough, as it turned out) and melted butter, then roasted them at 400 degrees for about an hour.


For the meat, I coated some boneless, skinless chicken with cornflake crumbs mixed with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and garlic powder. They were ok - I think the smoked paprika was a little overwhelming, but the husband roundly enjoyed them. They were also baked at 400 deg for about 30 minutes.

Served those items up with more zucchini casserole to get rid of a large zucchini from the garden (along with a carrot lingering in the fridge). V. tasty dinner (will add more brown sugar to the squash for round 2 with this meal!)

CORN!

My father sent me a restaurant knock-off recipe (see Side Dishes) that sounded intriguing - corn (check), cream cheese (check), cheddar (check), flour/butter (check).....definitely sounded pretty awesome...

Here's the roux mixed with the cheeses and garlic powder, salt, pepper...

Add in the corn and ham...

Bake off...


Then slam. I sent a bunch home with my grandfather, but will definitely be making again!

PIE!

My grandfather came for lunch, so I had to have an enticing dessert. Coconut cream pie anyone? yes, I think I will.

I made the pastry - yes folks, I made it. But only because I forgot to buy one and couldn't face loading the kid up in his car seat and schlepping back out...here it is prebaked...rustic looking? I use the Barefoot Contessa pastry recipe, with a LOT more water than she uses

Toasted up the coconut while the pie shell baked...


Made the custard filling...1/2 c sugar and 1/4 c cornstarch mixed with 4 egg yolks, 2 c half and half, and vanilla....

Here is the filling in the crust....

Top with whipped cream and voila - coconut cream pie!

Bumper crops

As a lot of people know, home gardens in August and September are busy places - at least in central Ohio. We have HUGE amounts of tomatoes and startlingly high yields of bell peppers this year. It was time to pay the piper and do something with the produce (although, to be fair, I've already put up around 100 lbs of tomatoes).

Ground beef on the stove....


Here are some pepper specimens - these puppies are bigger than what you'd buy in the store



Sauteed up with some onions for tacos


Tomatoes and peppers are being made into chili - although this turned into "kitchen sink" chili - I threw in a handful of lentils I had in the cupboard and grated in about half of a garden zucchini as well.


We have probably another 15-20 bell peppers on the way - stuffed peppers are definitely in the future...any other ideas?

Cuppy Cakes!

In order to thank my husband's colleague for all the baby clothes she gave us, I decided to bake something for her and her family. I couldn't just make chocolate chip cookies or something innocuous like that. I tried making a blondie bar recipe, but doubling the recipe seemed to screw it up (way too much butter for the bars to set up in a presentable fashion). So back to the drawing board. Mrs. L convinced me to take a spin through our new favorite inspiration site, Tastespotting to see what there was to see. So many ideas were generated, but given that this family I was baking for includes an elementary school aged kid, the S'mores Cupcakes were the winners.

I deviated a fair bit from the linked recipe mainly due to time constraints and my patience level.

First off, you make a standard graham cracker/butter crust and press it into the bottoms of muffin cups (I had to add in some vanilla wafers because my graham supply was low). After baking off the graham crusts for a few minutes, I added in some chocolate chips and put it back in the oven for about 2 minutes.



Then, using a box chocolate cake mix, I filled the cupcake cups and topped with more graham/wafer crumbs and baked according to package directions.

Here's a foggy shot of the baked cupcakes

Meanwhile, Mr. R helped me make the frosting. Whisk 8 eggs whites, 2 c sugar, and some cream of tartar over a double boiler until the sugar is dissolved. The constant whisking action is in effect in this picture.


Then whip in the stand mixer for 5-7 minutes until fluffy. I added some vanilla and apparently slightly over vanilla'd the mixture.


Then haphazardly frost said cupcakes. Clearly, I do not have the frosting skills of the ladies in Buffalo with Fairy Cakes but it wasn't awful for a Monday night effort. People seem to be enjoying these cupcakes - not being a s'mores person myself, I'm not the ultimate decider on the cupcakeworthiness. Hopefully some recipients of said cupcakes will give me good feedback!

Garden pesto

The basil is finally starting to come in a bit more quickly, so the first round of pesto had to happen.

First, I picked and washed a large pile of basil leaves.


I did not have pine nuts, nor was I going to the store just for pine nuts, so we have walnuts and garlic ready to be blitzed.


And I apparently skipped a few steps - added the basil, added the olive oil, added the Parm cheese...and here we go.


Tossed about 1/2 of this with an insane amount of pasta on Saturday night. Will save the rest in the freezer or for most pesto applications in the near future.

Bagels!

Week 2 of the home bagel bakery. I made a batch last weekend that went pretty well, relying on a recipe linked from Slate. I made a few tweaks this week - some structural tweaking (including changing the sugar/salt mix) - and some palate-aesthetic changes - half plain, half garlic dill.

Here is the kneaded dough ready for its rise

And the trays of formed bagels - still need to work on our technique on this front


Boil for a minute...


And then rest while the others get their turn in the tub


Bake for 30 min and you're good to go.


This batch turned out better than last week's batch - no weird sweet taste on day 2, better consistency. They were a bit smaller and some of that may be attributable to the slightly increased amounts of salt slowing down the yeast. But all in all, still v. good and way cheaper than buying.

Easy Cheese Danish

After thinking about it for a good month or more, I finally got off the fence and made the Barefoot Contessa Easy Cheese Danishes. They were pretty good and certainly easy to make.

First, you cream together cream cheese and sugar...then add in a bit of salt, vanilla, and in my case, a teeny tiny bit of almond extract. The recipe calls for ricotto and lemon. I didn't have ricotta on hand and didn't want to buy a whole tub just for 2 tbsp. And those who know me know my hatred of lemon in places where it doesn't belong - like danishes and cheesecakes.

Then two egg yolks...

Which leave you with a more yellowy filling. Ok, filling done (I said it was easy)


I took two sheets of defrosted puff pastry and rolled them out a bit - mainly enough to get rid of the fold creases. Cut each sheet into four large squares, put a heaping tablespoon blob of filling in the middle, then fold over the corners, sealing with egg wash. Then I brushed the whole top with egg wash.


20 minutes in a 400 degree oven later, voila.


These were quite tasty. Things I might change in the future - add a dusting of powdered sugar to the top or a very simply plain white sweet glaze. I may also add in a tbsp or two of sour cream to bump up the "tangy" factor. But regardless, this was a terrifically easy recipe with tasty results.

Back with a Bang

For those of you who have ever watched an episode on TLC or Discovery channel featuring The Duggar Family of Arkansas, you will know the importance of tater tot casserole. I've been wondering what it would taste like since I saw my first Duggar special several years ago....so last night, I embarked on a mission to find out.

First, I browned off a pound of ground beef and one small onion.


Meanwhile, I got a large bag of tots cooked in the oven - most recipes don't call for this step, but I wanted to attempt to have a wee bit of crunch to the tots - I got them v. brown.


After cooking, the tots were loaded into my casserole dish

Then the meat/onion topping was poured over


Then the creamy casserole goodness - 2 cans of cream of mushroom (the healthy variety), 3/4 c sour cream, a handful of french-fried onions, and some shredded cheese


After an hour in a 350 degree oven, the creamy topping had slightly browned in the oven, but the meat/tot mixture was bubbling beneath.


And here we go - part of a balanced dinner with the ubiquitous pea side dish.

I have to say it was pretty good. I mean, casseroles are rarely the meals you dream about - but after only really experiencing rice or pasta based casseroles, this tot-based variety was kind of tasty. Something to keep in the back pocket of the Midwestern chef is all I'm saying...