Slam Your Food

Semi-classic Cobb Salad

2010-04-30T10:11:00.002-04:00

I was perusing some of my favorite blogs, and this salad at Smitten Kitchen made me want to race out and make it. Meaty and cheesy salads are, of course, the best kind. I was forced to deviate a bit from the SK recipe due to personal taste and v. fuzzy bleu cheese (note: this fuzziness made the bleu cheese have a Magic Eye quality - I couldn't look directly at it and focus).

First, I made the dressing (of which I took no photos) - about 1/3 c canola oil, about 1/4 c apple cider vinegar, the juice of one lemon, one minced garlic clove, 3/4 tsp dry mustard, 1/2 tsp Worcestershire, 1 1/2 tsp honey, and salt/pepper. Vigorously mix - the dry mustard doesn't serve the emulsifying role that a prepared mustard would.

Then we make our nice bed of lettuce - I used only romaine because I do not like watercress and because that is what I had:

I then added the sliced hard boiled egg, tomato, and some seedless cucumber

And now, the heavy hitters - grilled chicken, cheddar cheese, avocado, and BACON!

I wanted to make a beautiful salad display but didn't think through serving it - it ends up a big mess on the plate, but it was lovely and I want to eat it all the time.

Chicken potstickers

2010-03-01T10:11:00.001-05:00

As part of a new healthier eating lifestyle for 2010, I've been wracking my recipe books and websites for healthy, lower cal, lower fat recipes that still have high flavor and still leave you feeling full. I did some research and discovered that we could each have a plateful of chicken potstickers with some snap peas for less than 425 calories.

First, the potsticker filling: ground chicken, green onion, low sodium soy sauce (which is still terribly salty as it turns out), sesame oil, garlic, honey, worcestershire, and an egg yolk (would had ginger if not for the vociferous objection of the husband). Mix. Chill.

Meanwhile, I made a dipping sauce - soy sauce, garlic, red pepper flakes, honey, a squirt of ketchup, and white wine vinegar. This ultimately turned out to be way too salty, even for a salt lover such as myself. Will consider modifications.

Next, I laid out all the happy won ton wrappers, ready to be filled

There we go...a nice little blobette of filling

I promise, I made a very bad one the first time, and I did take a pic, but it got lost somehow. This one, while not perfect, is much better and actually sealed:

And here we have a plate of 16 - 8 for each of us

Time to cook them - about 2 tsp of veg oil into a very hot pan - 2 minutes of sauteeing to brown the bottoms (or nuclearize them if you have my stove)

Then add a half cup of chicken stock and pop a lid on for 3-5 min to cook the filling

The liquid will be all gone by this point

Plate it up with your sauce and slam it. You can see some of the crusty bottomed ones there too. Which I like, but may be too crusty for some.

As I said, the dipping sauce was out of control salty. The filling was a bit bland. So what I may do is just toss a bit of the sauce into the remaining filling and lose the sauce. It was a very filling and tasty dinner and will DEF be riffing on this idea in the weeks and months of weight loss to come!

Ethnic dinner of the week

2009-12-09T20:29:00.003-05:00

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

2009-11-29T19:54:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-29T11:43:00.005-05:00

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!

2009-11-07T07:44:00.005-05:00

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

2009-09-30T12:01:00.003-04:00

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!

2009-09-10T08:40:00.005-04:00

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!

2009-09-10T08:25:00.007-04:00

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

2009-09-08T18:42:00.008-04:00

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!

2009-07-07T07:59:00.005-04:00

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

2009-06-21T14:37:00.004-04:00

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!

2009-06-21T13:19:00.003-04:00

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

2009-05-31T09:54:00.004-04:00

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

2009-05-12T07:22:00.007-04:00

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...

Baking day

2009-02-02T07:17:00.005-05:00

I had an urge to bake bread this weekend, so I flipped through my Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook, thinking that I'd seen a recipe in there, and lo and behold, a Honey White Bread recipe came up. It was very exciting.

First, I heated up milk, butter, and honey

Meanwhile, the yeast bloomed in warm water with some sugar

2 egg yolks await their turn in the mixer

Along with the flour and salt - I try to use Gold Medal whenever financial possible (if you've not heard the story why and care, let me know)

All ingredients aboard...

Sigh - this page of my book takes it first baking battle wound

More flour is added and the dough hook is a-whirrin'

I kneaded for a few minutes by hand until I had a smooth, even dough

One hour of rising in a warm spot, we have a larger blob of dough

Then an hour rise in their respective pans

40 minutes later, golden brown and ready for eating!

This was pretty good bread - I didn't get as much lift as I expected - so it was still a fairly dense bread - but it is good for toast and would make excellent croutons I imagine. For a sandwich, unless sliced PAPER thin, it would probably be too dense. I may try this, or a similar recipe again, and rely significantly less on the Kitchenaid's dough hook and more on my own hand kneading, but we'll see. It was fun regardless!

Channeling my inner Latina...

2009-01-28T08:05:00.003-05:00

Hahaha...that's a laugh. I'm about as Latina as Tony Blair. Anyways. Mr. R requested that we make Cuban sandwiches, so that we did (with store bought mac salad on the side - v. fancy).

First, we fail to turn our picture around AND put mustard on some hoagie rolls

Then Swiss cheese

Then some grilled pork - well, only on his - I didn't really feel like pork.

Then ham (HAM!)

Then slices of dill pickle

Then onto the panini press

And served so daintily sliced with the mac salad

I really like these sandwiches - I know the mustard will horrify some (you know who you are) - plus the pickle and what not. But I think they are kind of tartly refreshing.

Channeling my inner eastern European...

2009-01-20T17:03:00.006-05:00

Mrs. Elle and I embarked upon an afternoon of pierogi making on Monday. Perhaps to celebrate the presidential inaugural or perhaps because we like to kill our backs. Either way...we made some pierogi(s).

First, Mrs. Elle models her fashionable apron as we begin to make the pasta dough in the lovely Kitchenaid.

Here is said dough - flour, water, eggs, margarine. Fairly straight forward. This blob made about 8 dozen (ish) pierogi. Now it rests.

Meanwhile, we played with the potato filling - 5 lbs of potatoes, 2 bricks of cream cheese, a stick of margarine, salt, and pepper. Very simple. V. not low fat.

I skipped about a billion pics at this point - we had a pasta roller to roll out the dough, which was KEY. Here is Mrs. Elle stuffing the sauerkraut pierogi. They were tart.

Here are some of our creations awaiting their turn in the boiling water.

Post boiling water - dribbling yucky innards onto Elle's kitchen table.

We had to try one - Elle availed herself of melted butter as a dipping sauce. Kind of like lobster I guess.

Meanwhile, back home at my casa (notice the Kroger root beer?), I pan fried some of these puppies up - here are some kraut ones (segregated from Mr. R's portion because he is afraid of the kraut)

And some of the less perfect looking potato pierogi -having been flipped in the frying pan, are now coasting to a light crispy state.

These were pretty good - the kraut, as I said, were a bit tart. Mrs. Elle also made cheese filled pierogi (cottage cheese, egg, onion, salt, pepper) and they weren't my thing as compared to the potato which are the ultimate in pierogi goodness in my book. It was a fun day (apart from the back killing) and I hope the recipients of the pierogi are pleased with our efforts.

Leftover stir fry

2009-01-05T07:55:00.005-05:00

Ok, apparently R and I can't handle a 3 lb roast so there was a lot of leftover beef. I decided to make a stir fry with it, as I heart the vegetables, I do.

First, the sauce - soy, chicken broth, hoisin sauce, sesame oil, garlic (obviously), black pepper, red pepper flakes, a tiny bit of pineapple juice, and some brown sugar.

I wanted to use mushrooms, but sometimes their flavor gets a bit lost in the stir fry, so I roasted them first - single layer on a sheet pan, 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees.

Chopped up the meat...

And got 2 small onions and a bell pepper sizzling in the pan...

Jumping ahead, adding in the meat, about 1/2 c of pineapple tidbits, frozen snap peas, frozen green beans, and for me, broccoli

Sorry about this pan - must add the color changing sauce...

Served with rice - it was really tasty! I liked the cheesy additional of pineapple - not v. classy, but tasty! I did not add an insane amount of broccoli, it just all hung out on the top of my dish for some reason.

A lovely new year meal.

New Year's Dinner

2009-01-01T21:43:00.006-05:00

I decided we needed a mildly flashy New Year's dinner, and since I'm a beef kick, we had a roast beef. I've made this before and have surely blogged about it, so suffer through it again!

First, I lay a nest for the beef - garlic, onion, carrot. I'm using my cast iron skillet because I'm trying to be better about using it.

And then, the 3 lb eye of round roast can be nestled on its nest.

That baked at 325 degrees for about an hour and a half - I pulled it out when it hit 130 degrees. I drained the pan, taking out the veg and random herbs, and put the pan juices back in. I added a hefty pat of butter.

Meanwhile, the beef rests. Hello there Mr. Beef.

I added flour to the fat in the pan, and got a roux working, then added in some beef stock, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. Oh, and a tiny dab of Dijon, because I thought the gravy tasted too fatty.

Then I sliced that beef and served it up with some potatoes, roasted asparagus, and a roll. Because we're fancy like that.

It was quite tasty and Miss Daisy enjoyed licking a lot of pots!

Frozen Christmas Salad

2009-01-01T21:17:00.005-05:00

A family tradition around the holidays is the Frozen Christmas Salad. I'm not sure about the recipes's origins. All I know is that I LOVE it in all its weird glory.

First, here's a cup of whipped cream. Or rather, a cup of whipping cream that has been whipped. Ha-whipped.

And back in the mixer, we have cream cheese (8 oz), mayo (2 tbsp), pineapple juice from the can of pineapple (2 tbsp), 1 large can of pineapple, and 2 c of mini marshmallows. The recipe calls for halved grapes, but I was lazy.

Then we FOLD the whipped cream into the other mixture. Gently!

Then we prepare our pan - in my case, I do not own a jello mold or a sufficient number of custard cups, so I lined a bundt pan with plastic wrap. And then you put maraschino cherries in the bottom (which will be the top). I like a lot of cherries.

Then pour the mixture over, layer over the plastic wrap, and freeze.

Voila. Ignoring the fact that the cherries look like something gross and anatomical, it tasted delicious.

I know, I know

2008-12-31T09:05:00.004-05:00

It's been a long time. And I don't have much to report, but here's a demonstration of this year's cookie baking, displayed on my lovely new Nora Fleming serving dish (complete with Gingerbread mini)

In addition to the usual jam thumbprints, shortbread thumbelinas, sugar cookies, and snowballs of the past, this year we also tried Almond Toffee. People seemed to really enjoy it.

Chicken Pot Pie for Ms. J

2008-11-17T11:22:00.008-05:00

Ms. J and I were discussing chicken pot pies last week, and I decided I would demonstrate the making of them (at least, how I do it) to encourage her to experiment in her kitchen.

so here we go - first off, I have here 3 small onions, chopped, 3 carrots, diced, and 3 celery ribs diced with a wee bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper:

Then, because in my mind, you can't have comfort food without butter, drop in a few tablespoons of butter (or just a bit more oil):

Let that cook up and soften the veg for a bit, then add in a large handful of flour and cook for 2-3 minutes to get rid of raw flour taste:

Then start adding liquid - in my case, I added a hefty splash of white wine then chicken stock - start out slowly - you don't want it too liquidy. I probably added 1 1/2 c of liquid total at this point.

R asked for some potatoes in the pot pies, so I obliged. I think I'll leave them out in the future. I also added another 1/2 c or so of stock.

Then herbage - thyme, salt, pepper, some dill. You definitely MUST use thyme - I made a chicken pot pie without it once and it tasted disgusting. I also added some mushrooms at this point. In the future, I will saute them in a hot pan first - they didn't really add a lot of flavor to the party.

Then, because I wanted to, I added about 1-2 tbsp of cream

Then added in my previously cooked chicken and let 'r rip for a bit until the potatoes were soft.

Then, in my messy/rustic way, I lined 3 oven-safe bowls (in this case, little Fiesta pie plates) with some puff pastry and baked that at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes. Roll out the puff pastry first, as thinly as you can. It goes a lot further that way!

Then I ladled in the pie filling and topped them with more puff pastry (very rustic, right?) and gave it an egg wash (egg/water, beat, brush). You CAN, of course, roll the puff pastry out and cover and seal the entire pie, but I find that you end up wasting delicious puff pastry that way - some sticks to the cooking vessel and it is always too hot to peel off. Anyways, that's my two cents on that. I'll take an ugly pot pie over one where I lose puff pastry. Anyways, these also baked at 400 degrees, and took about 25 minutes (I threw on the broiler for a minute to get them really browned). Also, I added broccoli to my pot pie which was delicious. Broccoli is, however, the devil incarnate to Mr. R.

Voila (ignore the nasty baking sheet). My pie filling was a bit dry, I must say. I tend to overthink the runniness factor and then leave things too thick or dry. So, when I make these again, will reheat with more stock.

These were pretty tasty - be sure to taste your filling along the way and adjust for salt and other seasonings.

R's mushroom birthday cake

2008-11-11T10:37:00.002-05:00

Mr. R decided to try a different cake for his birthday this year ( the standby being German Chocolate from a box). We went for the Chocolate/Peanut Butter creation that I found on Smitten Kitchen a while back.

For whatever reason, I didn't think to take pictures until well into the cake creation process. So for example, here's the basic iced cake - a really moist and delicious chocolate cake with a peanut butter frosting. The recipe calls for 3 layers, but I opted for 2 mainly because I didn't have 3 8 inch pans and didn't want to bake in batches. So I made 2 9 inch layers and let them bake slightly longer. The dog really enjoyed licking the frosting bowl. Pay no attention to the cake's precarious position on the counter.

Once chilled, it was ganache time. Peanut butter, chocolate chips, corn syrup...with some 1/2 and 1/2 mixed in at the end.

Problem was, I didn't add enough cream/corn syrup. So 1) it wasn't shiny and 2) it was too thick. Hence, we have a giant chocolate/peanut butter mushroom cake. I should have captured a more aerial shot to show off its mushroominess.

Regardless of how it looked and the strange texture of the ganache, it was a really good cake. The frosting had really good peanut butter flavor without having a gross overly-buttery taste that happens sometimes with frosting. The cake was VERY moist and delicious. I may or may not have eaten two pieces on the birthday night. Next time I make this, I will definitely take more care with the ganache so it behaves as it is supposed to!

R birthday dinner

2008-11-11T10:32:00.003-05:00

Mr. R wanted tacos for his birthday, so tacos he got. He did let me "glam" them up a bit by using a flat-iron steak for the tacos and jazzing up the plate with some beans and spanish (ish) rice. I know I've written of our taco/fajita/burrito love before, but I don't think I've ever covered my loves for flavored rice AND cast iron. So off we go!

First, for our fiesta rice, take a bit of olive oil and a diced bell pepper and onion and let that sizzle away until softened.

The add your rice (I usually let that tan up in the hot oil before adding liquid) and water or water-like products - in my case, half water, half tomato juice and salsa juice

20 minutes later, voila!

Now, onto cast iron. Mrs. Elle has a fine envy-inspiring collection of cast iron now, but for me, I make do with my one large skillet. Hello friend. Here, my friend is heating up.

And gets wicked hot! In you go, friendly flat iron steak - sizzle!

I served the steak very thinly sliced with onions and peppers and the traditional sides of cheese, sour cream, and salsa. It was a very tasty dinner!

Thanksgiving trial run

2008-10-28T11:45:00.005-04:00

I decided I wanted a roasted chicken and fixings for dinner on Sunday so I went to the local grocery store to take advantage of BOGO roasting chickens.

First, I made a stuffing to stuff the chicken - bread cubes, celery, onion, and what turned out to be gross chicken stock (I made it from the chicken neck and other innards, it tasted yucky but I didn't know that until after the fact)

Here is the lovely pale chicken in its too small roasting pan, resting on a bed of onions, garlic, and celery.

A "spice" mix of salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning and the olive oil to baste the chicken

A side dish of asparagus is oiled, salted, peppered and awaiting the oven.

Here's the manhandled carved turkey (there was an incident with the carving). Mashed potatoes in the background, asparagus on the side.

A lovely plate of ok chicken, good potatoes, yucky stuffing, and fine asparagus.

All in all, it was an OK meal. Not great. The chicken tasted a bit weird, the stuffing was gross due to that nasty broth. The veg were fine. The gravy was fine.

Must work on my A game before Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin gooey butter cake!

2008-10-22T13:48:00.002-04:00

Mmm. Fall. Fall means pumpkin stuff, including pumpkin gooey butter cake. I heart Paula Deen and her excessive use of butter.

Mix one box of yellow cake mix, one melted stick of butter, and one egg and press into the bottom of your baking dish:

Then mix a bar of cream cheese, 15 oz or so of pumpkin, 1 POUND of powdered sugar (I opted for slightly less), 3 eggs, some cinnamon, some nutmeg, and guess what? another stick of melted butter. This is an example of why you should really let your cream cheese soften before mixing - it tastes fine, but has little unsightly lumps of cream cheese. Pour over crust.

Bake the lot at 350 degrees for an hour or so. The recipe says 50 minutes, but I'm sorry, I don't like practically raw cake. I probably, all told, let this one got closer to 75 minutes. And it is still pretty gooey.

Decoratively top with squirty whipped cream. I went a bit overboard, but I don't care, it tasted good.

Beef beef and more beef!

2008-10-22T13:47:00.004-04:00

When I went to Buffalo a few weeks ago, Miss M's parents made delicious beef shish-ka-bobs. As in, I couldn't stop eating meat good. I'm not a huge meat fan - I only really make it because Mr. R enjoys it so much. I'd go weeks without meat, probably, if given the choice. But I digress. This marinade was fabulous.

I took a London broil, and put it in said marinade (apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, ketchup, salt, pepper, garlic powder, Worcestershire) and let it sit for 2 days (oops, I didn't plan well) Then Mr. R grilled it.

Sliced it up and served with some mushrooms/peppers that will cooked on a high heat in the oven - roasted, I guess is what you'd say. And rice with green onion. Yum!

Steak and potatoes (sort of)

2008-10-15T14:27:00.003-04:00

So, Mrs. Elle and I ventured to the lovely and strange MR. MEATBALL store on Saturday morning. Along with 5 lbs of meatballs, I bought a package of frozen gnocchi. I was very excited to try it ASAP, so I dug out some old filet from the freezer and decided to serve the gnocchi with a tomato-vodka sauce. Fancy, right?

Here's the meat - salted/peppered/awaiting the grill (sort of strange shapes of filet)

And lovely homemade marinara sauce, warming up

AWAITING THE VODKA! And there we go (classy, eh?)

Meanwhile, I got the gnocchi percolating in salted water

Once tender, I added them to the sauce

Ooops, forgot to add some cream to the sauce - added that in

Then cheese, a big handful

And the steaks are ready, thanks Mr. R.

And there we go - with more carbs in the form of garlic bread (I can eat that morning, noon, and night). The steak looks a little crispy there, it got slightly blackened on the outside, but was fairly red inside.

The gnocchi were lovely. I want more now.

Homemade applesauce

2008-10-02T09:56:00.004-04:00

I went to Buffalo for a no-purpose visit last weekend. As part of our weekend of eating lovely food and drinking lovely beer, we also went apple picking at Becker Farms with Mrs. K and her lovely daughters and Mr. & Mrs. M&A and their lovely baby. I believe a good time was had by all, I particularly enjoying getting to PET GOATS! They were super cute. I loved them. I wanted to take one home. However, I don't think Miss M's mom and dad would have liked that. Oh well.

Anyways, I ended up with a half-bushel of apples, so now I'm finally getting around to doing something with them. I peeled/sliced/froze about 1/3 of the apples I picked, and I took another 8 of them last night and made applesauce. I wanted applesauce that was the same as the applesauce Miss M's mother had made on Saturday night because it was A-MAZ-ING! So, I did my best and it was pretty darn good, I must say.

First, 8 large apples were peeled and chopped and put into a pan with about a half inch of water. I had the heat on around medium to medium-high

Then, because I can't help myself, I added a pinch of salt.

After about 10 minutes, the apples were ROILING in the pan. So I turned it down a bit.

This was after 20 minutes - I decided that was long enough, they were very soft. I probably could have gone with 15 minutes.

Miss M's mother uses a food mill, but I don't have one, so I mashed the apples with a potato masher to get some good texture. I then added about 2/3 c brown sugar and close to 2 tsp cinnamon. I heart cinnamon.

And there you have it. There were still a few big lumps of apple, but they are soft, and I don't mind. It had good texture otherwise. And was VERY tasty - much better than jarred sauce. I cannot wait to serve it with pork this weekend!

Chicken casserole - blast from the past

2008-10-01T10:51:00.004-04:00

I had a sudden craving for my grandmother's chicken casserole this week - so I hopped to it and made it.

As so many recipes start out, I sauteed some celery and onions in a pan - eventually seasoning with salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of poultry seasoning for kicks.

Meanwhile, the crowning glory and glue of all casseroles, cream of whatever soups - in my case a can each of chicken and mushroom. So appetizing to view, right?

I took about 1.2 lbs of chicken and roasted it with a bit of salt and pepper, then cubed it for the casserole. The softened celery and onion went in the bowl as well.

And a VERY generous gloop of Miracle Whip - the tangy zip makes the casserole. Even if you hate Miracle Whip, you shouldn't shy away from a recipe like this, it adds good flavor.

I added in some frozen peas then dished the mixture between two casserole dishes.

Do not, repeat, do NOT omit the crunchy topping - cornflakes and sliced almonds mixed with some melted butter.

Bake at 375 degrees until browned and bubbly. I put foil over the top for the last 15 minutes or so to prevent the top from overbrowning.

Mmm. A childhood (and adulthood) favorite. I'm done with summer - onto the season of soups, stews, and warming casseroles. I may try my hand at the much-maligned tater tot casserole in the future - there's something very appealing to be about using tots in a meal...

14 layer bars! Ridiculous!

2008-09-29T11:53:00.005-04:00

I was out of work a day last week because I felt quite yucky, but by afternoon, I felt a baking urge coming on. I had little in the house to work with - some oatmeal, some chocolate, some nuts, some butter. I went to the Food Network site and started browsing around...and found a recipe for 14 layer bars - much more grand than the standard 7 layer bar. I was intrigued as to whether it would be good or not, so I plowed ahead and made them.

I split these between two 8-inch baking dishes - one would stay behind with Mr. R and one would go with me to B-lo.

At its base - butter, graham cracker crumbs, vanilla wafer crumbs, chocolate graham cracker crumbs:

Then coconut and oats:

Then the chips - butterscotch, peanut butter, and chocolate:

Nuts! In my case, pecans, walnuts, and sliced almonds:

And finally, blobs of cream cheese and a light coating of sweetened condensed milk:

Bake in the oven until golden and voila - 14 layer bars.

I have to admit, I did not actually try them. I was too full to try them in B-lo, and by the time I got back to Cbus, Mr. R had eaten them all. They were VERY easy to make and may make a reappearance at a football party in the future - throw together baking is the way to go, I think.

Quick bread

2008-09-29T11:46:00.003-04:00

After a lovely weekend in B-lo, I got home and was flipping through the newest Southern Living and found an article on quick breads - breads that don't require yeast to rise - and the recipe for Southern Soda Bread jumped out at me for some reason. I realized I had all the ingredients, so set about making it, and within 50 minutes of seeing the article, the bread was cooling on the counter.

Even better, I didn't need the big mixer. In my lovely Nigella mixing bowl, I mixed the flour, sugar, salt, powder, soda, and eventually egg, butter, and buttermilk.

Then baked...it took quite a bit longer than the recipe's required 30-35 minutes - mine was more like 45-48 minutes. I ended up buttering the top to get it a bit browner.

I had some for breakfast this morning, just lightly toasted and buttered. It was pretty good. I'm not sure why anyone thinks this has anything to do with Irish soda bread (which contains raisins - yuck - and caraway seeds) but it was a nice, very easy bread to whip together on a whim and have for morning breakfasts.

The pie of shepherds

2008-09-24T10:00:00.006-04:00

So, I got this month's Everyday Food, which featured a variety of one-pot comfort dinners, including a version of shepherd's pie. I didn't really LOVE everything about that recipe, nor any other recipes I tracked down, so with the help of Miss M, I Macguyver'ed up a recipe that was pretty darn tasty.

First, my mirepoix plus garlic. I did have more onions, but I'd already put them in the pan before I took the picture.

Then, as so many of my recipes start, saute onions in a little olive oil. Plus a random carrot and some celery accidentally.

Meanwhile, I got 2 pounds of peeled, chopped Russet potatoes going in some salted water.

After 10 minutes, I added in the carrots and celery along with some salt and pepper.

Then two cloves of chopped garlic and a little over a pound of ground beef - this was actually a coarsely-ground chuck. When the beef was about halfway browned, I added some dried thyme and rosemary.

Once the beef is browned, I added in a heaping teaspoonful of tomato paste - I didn't want this tasting too "Italian-y" so I didn't want to overdo it on tomato flavor. And some lovely Worcestershire sauce - several good squirts. Then, I added about 1/4 c of flour, and let that cook for a bit. Then I poured in a cup of beef broth and let that simmer until thickened.

Meanwhile, the potatoes were done - time to mash with some butter, milk and grated cheddar.

Back in the other pan, I added in several handfuls of frozen peas and got those warmed through. Then it was time to assemble - ladle the stew into a casserole dish...

And top with mashed potatoes - I dragged a fork through the top of the potatoes for a decorative flair.

Then I threw on some more cheese and put it in a 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes - put the broiler on for the last 4-5 minutes. Mmm...crispy top.

This tasted really good, even if it didn't look very pretty.

My only changes in the future - let the carrots and vegetables saute for a lot longer - they were a bit crunchy; add more peas (my mother was visiting, I didn't want to overdo it with green veggies); the ground beef was fine, but I know it would be super delicious with some leftover brisket or chuck roast; definitely let the potatoes get crispier on top BEFORE adding the cheese. This was a very good dinner though, and I look forward to making it again through the winter.

More canning fun

2008-09-24T09:43:00.003-04:00

This past weekend, I did more canning. We have tomatoes coming out of our ears, and a fair number of jalapenos, too.

I made an unsuccessful pepper jelly - it didn't gel, so it is now in the fridge awaiting a future fate - but here is a picture from when I was still hopeful.

And of course, tomatoes.

Satisfying lunch

2008-09-08T10:11:00.002-04:00

Soft, yet not airy buns...Schmidt's bahama mama...sauerkraut....mustard....a v. tasty lunch.

More canning fun

2008-09-08T10:01:00.003-04:00

And the weekend brought with it the arrival of my Mom's pressure canner and thus, more tomato canning.

First, I spent about 45 minutes peeling and semi-deseeding a lot of tomatoes, here is about 1/4 of the tomatoes:

And then Mr. R took over so I could sterilize the needed jars, rings, and lids (after a trip to the WalMart):

Then I got the tomatoes heating up so they could be "hot packed" My books all debated the merit of hot packing vs. cold vs. raw packing, so I opted for the safest.

And then began filling the jars - a bit of a messy proposition. I could have used a funnel-like device, but it wasn't a big deal - I was only dealing with 10 jars. I also added a squirt of bottled lemon juice to each jar, just to be extra sure that the acidity levels were up.

And into the canner they go - about 10 minutes to vent the release valve then 15 minutes of actual pressurized canning. Then an hour cool down.

In the interim, I strained the pulpy, seedy juice that was left behind (and not used in the jars) to make a tomato juice-like substance - I can use this when I make homemade marinara sauce or to flavor rice.

And here are the cans - the tomatoes lost a little bit of their red color and separated from the water a bit, but all the cans sealed - a success!

Paltry performance of pasta

2008-09-05T08:45:00.003-04:00

So, I had mushrooms that were going to go off in short order and decided that the Thursday night meal would be some sort of mushroom pasta. R could get over the lack of meat. It only sort of worked out.

So, here's the star - my almost overripe (do mushrooms "ripen?") mushrooms - crimini in this case:

And some more of the lovely pasta Miss S sent us - mushrooms should go with wild mushroom pasta right?

My accoutrements for the pasta were garlic and thyme:

I put a small amount of oil in the pan and let the mushrooms sizzle away on fairly high heat

Then added the garlic and thyme and a knob of butter (yeah, I said it, KNOB):

Meanwhile, I cooked the pasta for about 5 minutes - and made sure to reserve some pasta water:

Into the pan with the pasta and pasta water and I stirred a LOT:

Parmesan cheese anyone?

And there we have it (ignore the giant garlic hunks on top) - it looks pretty and appetizing right?

Well, it smelled really good. But the taste was just off - I think maybe I just wasn't in the mood and the powerful mushroom taste of the pasta mixed with the seared mushroom taste from the mushrooms may have been a bit too much. There was a lot of woodsiness going on. I will not abandon this idea, but perhaps with a lighter pasta - and a more open mind towards the meal itself.

Roasted pork

2008-09-02T08:40:00.004-04:00

Mmm. Roasted pork. Super delicious. That's about all the intro I need, I think...

First, I made a marinade/rub for the pork - garlic, olive oil, rosemary, and poultry seasoning (I couldn't find any sage in the cupboard) No salt, at least, not yet.

I lightly scored the pork roast, then rubbed in the flavorful mixture and let it sit for several hours

Hello my friends. You will make me a delicious gravy. If you see this stuff, buy it up - it is v. hard to find. Chicken, beef, even ham stock are easy enough - but pork stock is gold.

I apparently failed to take anymore prep pictures - here is our lovely food tableau.

Mmm....

Daisy is sad that she's missing out (don't worry, she got a nibble later on)

Eggs benedict

2008-09-02T08:31:00.004-04:00

So, Mr. R roundly enjoys eggs benedict. Since we had a long weekend, I decided to try my hand at this dish, even though Hollandaise does little for me and I have egg issues anyway. I made the Hollandaise first (well, and by "made" I mean, failed at making).

First, I melted a stick of butter on the stove. Easy enough.

Meanwhile, I mixed what I thought was 1 1/2 egg yolks, some salt and pepper, in the blender. Gave it a little whirl. Then poured in the hot butter in a thin stream while blending. Then added a squirt of lemon.

The whole measuring eggs things came back to bite me - the sauce was too thin, too lemony, and just plain gross. Mr. R tried some on his eggs and didn't have a great report. Oh well.

Meanwhile, these are my first-ever poached eggs. Not too shabby?

I could only handle one egg at a time, maybe two, so the eggs that were cooked earlier went back into the water to heat up a tiny bit.

And the Canadian bacon and English muffins toasted in the oven (wow, a very international breakfast, no?)

Buttered muffin topped with bacon

and there's the eggs on top (with potatoes on the side). This was really quite tasty. Not my favorite breakfast ever (apart from the potatoes, those are always a favorite) but not too bad for a first effort.

OSU season opener

2008-09-02T08:27:00.002-04:00

So we ended up hosting a fairly impromptu gathering for the first OSU football game of the season.

Chips and Penzey's dip, store bought cookies (the shame), Knorr soup spinach dip.

Chex mix, and of course, a gourmet tomato salad featuring Cherokee Purple tomatoes and home grown basil. Really, what football party is complete without that?

Putting up tomatoes

2008-09-02T08:09:00.005-04:00

So, as stated early, we have a burgeoning problem in the form of too many garden items.

So, I was a bit bored on Friday and thought, why not try drying and canning some tomatoes? My first purchase of Ball canning jars. A momentous occasion. I have warm feelings towards Ball canning jars in the manner of Mr. Garrison Keillor who has extolled the virtue of home canning on numerous occasions. If anyone has time and can find the PHC monologue on this topic from the late 90s, please tell me.

I sliced a LOT of tomatoes and laid them out on baking sheets - Romas and cherries alike - with some salt, pepper, olive oil, and garlic.

3-4 hours later (for cherries, more like 5-6 for romas) we have shriveled little tomato blobs.

Then I got my jars going - several minutes in boiling water to sterilize

The tomatoes needed more acid - so they took a bath in some boiling vinegar

Then, into the hot hot jars

The jars, lidded and ringed, then spent a solid 35 minutes in boiling water themselves, in order to encourage the jars to seal (and by jars, I mean one jar - 3 baking sheets of tomatoes yielded a pint of sundried jarred tomatoes) Voila!

Well, at this point, the canning bug had bit me pretty good - so I went and took advantage of $.99/lb peaches and canned some of those as well. This time, I got three jars out of the batch.

Yay for preserving! Here's hoping there's no botulism!

Muffins

2008-09-02T08:06:00.005-04:00

I had frozen berries to use, so I went ahead and made another delicious batch of the Barefoot Contessa Blueberry Coffee Cake muffins. Super delicious. I heart them. Half the batch went to Mr. & Mrs. Elle and half stayed home with me. To devour. A lot of them.

For example, with a large mug of coffee when I was home by myself on Friday morning:

See the berry goodness??

Mac 'n' cheese

2008-09-02T07:55:00.006-04:00

So, this reference on Smitten Kitchen to a Martha Stewart mac 'n' cheese recipe had been haunting me for weeks. Thank you very much for tormenting me. I found a great opportunity to make it though - I wanted to make some food for Mr. & Mrs. Elle as they spend the rest of their lives unpacking in their new home. This, paired with some salad and a rotisserie chicken seemed to help.

First of all, here is how much cheese you'll use - it's a lot. Something like 4 1/2 c of cheddar and 2 of gruyere:

Make a roux - butter and flour

Gather your milk - again, quite a lot - 5 1/2 cups

Slowly add the milk to the roux, stirring constantly

Season the otherwise blah milk mixture - cayenne, nutmeg, salt, pepper

Then the cheese adding begins....lots and lots of cheese...

Meanwhile, cook a pound of elbow macaroni

Then add it to the lovely cheese mixture

Pour into a greased casserole dish (or in my case, two of them). Notice at this point how runny the mixture is - it is like cheesy soup. I resisted the urge to add more noodles.

Top with buttered bread crumbs and bake until golden. At this point, I was amazed - where did all the cheese sauce go?

Into the noodles of course and thickened up - we had this with leftover pork chops and salad in our house.

This was good - I'll admit that - but I think I was a little heavy-handed with the Gruyere. It had a little too much of the nutty taste. That being said, Mr. R hearted it. I think my problem with homemade "adult" mac 'n' cheese is that it doesn't hold a candle in my heart/tastebuds to the Holy Grail of mac 'n' cheese. I think ultimately fancy macaroni might be too much for my plebian tastes. But this was good, don't get me wrong. Just not as amazing as I thought it might be.

Garden update

2008-08-28T10:13:00.003-04:00

We have a tomato problem. I mean, it isn't nearly as bad as some of my dad's gardening yields growing up...but this is just a fraction of what we've got going on...we've already made sauce and just plain peeled/seeded tomatoes already...I'm going to try my hand at drying tomatoes soon too. But we clearly have a problem.

No Bakes

2008-08-28T10:08:00.003-04:00

So, for some reason, no bake cookies popped into my head this week and I knew I wouldn't last more than a few days if I didn't make them. The first time I ever made these cookies was during home ec class in middle school. Way back in the day.

So, for starters, i mixed about 3 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder, 1 stick of butter, 1/2 skim milk, and 1 1/2 c sugar in a sauce pan.

Bring slowly to a boil and let boil for 2 minutes

Mmm. Crunchy peanut butter. I added a heaping half cup to the cocoa mix off the burner, along with 1 tsp vanilla and a tiny pinch of salt.

Then the oats! I ended up using about 3 1/2 c of quick oats.

I dropped them by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a foil lined pan (no parchment in the house for some reason).

They were ready to eat after about a half hour...and eat them I did. My mom asked why I didn't bring them into work, I just looked at her.

Mr. R's dinner time adventures

2008-08-28T10:00:00.003-04:00

So, Mr. R had the day off on Monday, so he decided to cook dinner for me and my mom. He settled on Emeril's Cowboy Chicken Casserole with some modifications (flour tortilla strips instead of corn tortilla chips, added zucchini, and a few other very tiny modifications due to what we had on hand). He didn't realize this was a recipe we'd made before with "eh" results. Actually, re-reading my past entry, we seemed to have liked it then. And R liked it this time, but I was less than enthused. We put Anaheim peppers in, and they ended up not being cooked and were kind of "squeaky" instead of edible. R viewed it as "crunchy" and liked it. There was good flavor, but again, I think I'd opt for salsa AND tomatoes to give MORE flavor. And no anaheim peppers unless they've been sauteed or blanched. There was also a weird carb to casserole ratio - not enough carbs for me.

Isn't it pretty though? Mr. R did a nice job of preparing it.

Here is a "slice" of said casserole...an offensive bit of Anaheim at the top...but delicious garden tomatoes throughout. Yum.

I ended up picking out the peppers and serving it over rice with some salsa on top. Then I was good to go.

Smarty-pants biscuits

2008-08-18T10:49:00.003-04:00

See, I can make biscuits!

Queso! Ole!

2008-08-18T10:44:00.005-04:00

Mr. R and I had a long day in the car driving to/from Cleveland to go see family and a ballgame. It was too much of a pain in the rear to go buy $12 nachos at the stadium, but the whole way home, I had nachos on the brain, so I had to make them once we got home. It was a late-night Olympics snack of sorts.

First, I browned about 1/3 lb zesty breakfast sausage:

Then added in my lovely and oh-so-natural looking Velveeta cheese:

Then some garden cherry tomatoes (see, it's healthy!)

And some sharp cheddar cheese:

It didn't have a lot of zip, so I added LIBERAL amounts of Frank's Hot Sauce:

Meanwhile, Mr. R prepared his latest addiction, the bacon-wrapped pepper poppers:

It was a v. tasty late night snack supper!

Zucchini lasagna - more ways to use garden zucchini

2008-08-18T10:25:00.004-04:00

I have yet more zucchini to use up, so I went to an old family standby - the zucchini lasagna. Luckily, unlike a summer many years ago, I only made ONE lasagna, not years' worth of lasagna.

First, the veggies had to be dealt with - two medium onions and one small green pepper from my dad's garden

Those were added to a pound of ground beef and two links of Italian sausage to brown up:

Then I chopped up our "star" ingredient, the zucchini:

And grated cheese, in this case mozzarella and pecorino romano:

And got the filling together - ricotta, herbs, salt/pepper, and an egg:

Meanwhile, I added in the remaining tomato sauce from last week into the meat/veg sauce:

Then I looked at the filling again and decided it needed to be thinner, hence, another egg:

And prepared the pan with a large ladleful of the sauce:

Then began the layering - sauce, noodles, zucchini, ricotta filling, cheese...

Until I filled the pan

I baked this at 375 degrees for probably close to an hour - I covered it with foil for the first 3/4 and then took it off towards the end (when I failed to photograph it). I also made some breadsticks with the remaining pizza dough - dough, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and some Parmesan cheese.

It was pretty good - I definitely needed more sauce, it was a tiny bit dry. I still have more than half a pack of lasagna noodles, though, so I can probably take another crack at it if I desire...I'm sure we've got more zucchini lurking in the fridge.

Homemade tomato sauce

2008-08-14T09:02:00.003-04:00

So, the tomatoes are coming in. And the basil. And other veg. My father has a ginormous garden, so he sent me up a dozen and a half or so Roma tomatoes. I decided to make a quick marinara sauce to serve on pizza (the lengths I go to in order to avoid the store).

First, we have our Romas. I did not want the skins in the sauce, nor most of the seeds, so some prep was required. I cut a small cross in the bottoms of each tomato, and plunged them into boiling water for about 30 to 60 seconds. Just enough to loosen or start to split the skins. Then, they are placed in an ice bath to stop the cooking and get them to a temperature where they can be easily handled. The skins should easily peel off at this point. I give them a good squeeze into the sink (and all over the wall, myself, the countertop, usually) to get out the bulk of the seeds and what little juice is inside.

Meanwhile, two medium onions are sauteeing in a pot on the stove.

Then some carrots too - three small/medium carrots peeled and roughly chopped.

Then I figured, what the heck, and tossed in one medium chopped zucchini and a few garlic cloves - I also added some salt at this point, along with black pepper and red pepper flakes.

And in go the naked tomatoes - I smash them up a bit with a wooden spoon, but generally allow the heat to do most of the work.

Once the mixture gets rolling, I added some bay leaves, a few sprigs of thyme from the garden, and other Italiany seasonings - oregano, etc. I also added more salt at this point and eventually, a scant teaspoon of sugar to cut the tomato acidity.

Once the tomatoes were broken down and the other veg totally soft, I removed the bay leaves and thyme stems, and put my boat motor to work to make a spreadable sauce. Here the sauce is, in its pizza glory (on a giant pizza - I was very hungry and didn't realize how much dough I grabbed from the fridge)

Topped it with some pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, grated provolone/regular mozzarella, parmesan, fresh basil from the garden and remaining Roma tomatoes. I also forgot to brush the crust with olive oil, oh well.

And here is the giant pizza after about 12 minutes in a 475 degree oven - golden and bubbly.

I didn't eat all this - I split part of it with Mr. R - even we are that greedy. :)

The Business of Blogging

2008-08-11T14:30:00.002-04:00

I fell into blogging very haphazardly - first, I had a somewhat random thoughts journal, then it was food, then a different format on food. Plus other random blogs that will remain nameless. I've always tried to be careful in terms of what published materials I cross reference or name, and I always give credit where credit is due. For example, if I rely on a recipe from Food Network or a cookbook, I try to always give a website link or some other reference to the media on which I relied. I thought that was fair - while it is true that I rarely adhere to a recipe, I felt my inspiration should be note. But perhaps that isn't enough, given Alosha's Kitchen's run-in with the publishing world....

"Light" tiramisu

2008-08-11T10:07:00.005-04:00

So, I love tiramisu. My first experience with tiramisu was my sophomore year of college - a friend had gotten a selection of pastries from Mike's Pastry in Boston's North End. My eyes were opened to the glory that was coffee-soaked ladyfingers and mascarpone cheese.

Since that time, I've made the lovely dessert many times. Regular, chocolate - I like it almost anyway. THE PROBLEM, however, is that no matter how you cut it, (well, unless you cut it v. v. small, and that's no fun), it isn't a low calorie food. And I'm tryyyying to keep a bit of a lid on the calorie intake - I am not opposed to having some fun, just not having so much of it that I have to walk the poor dog for hours or ride to nowhere on our elliptical for days.

So, bearing this in mind, I set about making a lightened version of the tiramisu - the core flavors of mascarpone and coffee still had to be there, but I tinkered with some of the elements.

I started off making a zabaglione - in this case, 4 egg yolks, a few tablespoons of sugar, and some Amaretto. Whisk over a pan of simmering water until the mixture becomes pale and frothy.

Like this - then chill.

Meanwhile, I brewed some very strong dark coffee and mixed that with some sweetener and Amaretto:

I took 8 oz of mascarpone and about 2 oz of cream cheese and blended those together (I was NOT giving up my mascarpone)

To that, I added the chilled zabaglione:

And separately beat up some whipping cream with sweetener:

Then folded the cream/mascarpone cheese/zabalione mixture gently into the whipped cream:

Then, I took hunks of sugar free angel food cake, and started dunking them in coffee and layering them in a trifle dish

And added layers of the cheese filling - then topped the mess with shavings of bittersweet chocolate.

Not the world's prettiest dessert, but I managed to shave around 150 calories off per large serving by cutting some corners - and it tasted good! Next time, I'll take the coffee dunking more seriously - the angel food can take it!

More bacon apps

2008-08-11T10:03:00.004-04:00

We have a glut of Anaheim peppers in the garden. I wasn't quite sure what to do with them, and we had about 12 of them ready to go, so I needed to move quickly. Rather than wait for the tomatoes to slowly arrive, we opted to use the Anaheims like Mrs. Elle had used jalapenos - with the cream cheese wrapped in bacon.

Mr. R prepared the pepper poppers. Admire his handiwork.

Here they are after 25 minutes or so in a 400 degree oven

These were very tasty - I really think bacon solves the world's problems, right? If we use the Anaheims for this again, we may have to cut them a bit differently - they aren't as round as jalapenos, so the cream cheese was kind of oozy, but we'll work on it. Mr. R informed me this will definitely be a football party priority food.

Breakfast for dinner

2008-08-08T08:59:00.003-04:00

Mr. R was in a decidedly cranky mood this week, so I decided to lighten his spirits with a lovely breakfast for dinner night - and an excellent one at that. No namby-pamby pancakes for us! Only sausage gravy and potatoes will do! Puts hair on your chest!

First, I baked off several red potatoes while I was baking zucchini bread. Meanwhile, I got the sausage going:

Here are the 90% cooked potatoes, all chopped up and ready for a skillet:

Once the sausage was just shy of being fully browned, I added in 1/4 flour (this was too much for a "small" batch of gravy, just fyi - will use a bit less next time):

And stirred and stirred until the flour was cooked, then added in a hefty splash of milk:

Then Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper:

And then the thickening occurred...

Meanwhile, I'd sauteed some onions in a bit of olive oil, and tossed the potatoes in to crisp up a bit:

Mr. R prepared some eggs for himself, and then fixed his plate of glory - potatoes, biscuits, sausage gravy, and eggs. It was a fab dinner.

Zucchini bread

2008-08-08T08:56:00.005-04:00

I must admit to being a bit gunshy about baking after the previous adventures, but I have a fair bit of zucchini to use up, so zucchini bread it had to be. I was motivated by this Martha Stewart recipe, but ended up diverging from the recipe significantly. 1) I don't really like ALL those spices - I stuck with cinnamon and fresh nutmeg. 2) I didn't want all the oil, so I used a half-cup of unsweetened applesauce and only 1/3 c oil. This made for a VERY moist batter and it took slightly longer to cook. 3) To make up for a bit of the moisture, I probably increased the flour by 2-3 tbsp. It came out very moist and tasty - slightly less sweet than I'd have liked, so if I employ this recipe again, I'll probably up the sugar just a tiny bit. Or add some banana, something to add sweetness. But it was pretty good for just whipping it together on a whim.

Baking disaster!

2008-08-07T11:15:00.003-04:00

In an effort to convey the everyday cook's life, I feel morally obligated to include the bad with the good. Yesterday afternoon's baking was definitely a low point.

I've been sorta/kinda watching what I eat a bit - portion control at the very least. So, I wanted a new dessert option, something incorporated berries. Pavlova! It is fairly healthy - egg whites and sugar with berries and cream on top (I was opted for light Cool Whip to cut some calories there). I bought the berries and the Whip, and set about making mini pavlovas based on a random recipe I found.*

So, here are the egg whites, vinegar, vanilla, sugar, and eventually cornstarch whipping around:

There were problems from the start. I was out of sugar (I KEEP FORGETTING!) and used powdered sugar. I figured, no problem, it is finely milled sugar with some cornstarch right? So I reduced the cornstarch a bit. And I kept hitting the whipper in my mixer with whatever I was pouring in, so it would go flying around the kitchen. I had to wipe cornstarch off of about 3 square feet of wall.

So finally, the meringues are made. Into a low oven they go:

I turned off the heat about 35 minutes later. They weren't v. crispy, but I thought, maybe they'll set up after an hour in the cooling oven. Well, they didn't. And while I was making dinner, I decided, hey, why not flip the oven on for a bit and see if that helps. Well, it didn't. Mainly because I forgot I'd turned the oven on until I smelled burning sugar....

Oops. So, dessert was in the bin. I just ate the berries and Cool Whip and felt fine about it. Sigh.

*the recipe was not in any way at fault. Definitely user error.

Pasta - MacGuyver style

2008-08-07T11:05:00.002-04:00

We had leftover asparagus from Ladies Night. I had pasta I'd been dying to use from Miss S. We had ever-present bacon and summer basil on hand. A pasta dish was in the making.

First, I cooked up some bacon in my trusty pasta dish pan.

Here's the pasta in question - very exciting.

And a pile of summer basil. I'd have added more, but there were two very territorial bees on the basil plants and were ticked off when I started to pluck leaves. I left them be. Get it, I let the bee be? Am so witty.

I cooked up three chicken breasts in the lovely bacon fat.

And onions and garlic as well. In goes the leftover asparagus!

Then back in goes the chicken and the cooked pasta. I added 6 tbsp of half and half and about 2/3 c of pasta water.

Here's a misty picture of the pasta - I added in a handful of pecorino romano cheese at the end as well. Yay!

The dish was a bit salty - I imagine I was heavy handed at various stages. It had good flavor, though the bacon was a bit overwhelming. I may add some frozen peas when we eat the leftovers. The sweetness of the asparagus and peas will cut through the salt.

Ladies Night

2008-08-06T11:03:00.003-04:00

While our husbands were away (Mr. R in Alabama, Mr. Elle in Cleveland), Mrs. Elle and I opted to have a Ladies Night with finger foods and fun. Fun included Jeopardy, DAIRY QUEEN, and some Guitar Hero. Finger food included the following:

Some lovely baking mix/cheese/sausage balls:

Some fun biscuity crab swiss cheesy things:

Some fried zucchini (seasoned breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese to coat):

A veritable cornucopia of snacky-goodness (we had more veg too, note the prosciutto wrapped asparagus)

Pancake goodness

2008-08-04T08:10:00.002-04:00

After seeing this post on Smitten Kitchen, I'd been craving blueberry pancakes. I knew that they would be my Sunday breakfast treat. I must confess, however, to NOT making a batter from scratch. I know it is super easy and better than mixed, but we have a backlog of various pancake mixes to use up, so I cheated. Flog me, if you must. That being said, I really kind of like this Krusteaz buttermilk mix. It has a lot of good flavor.

Anyways, here's the mix. Very boring in a shockingly matchy-matchy bowl.

1/4 c pancakes onto the griddle, then frozen blueberries were added on top (making them this way prevents the blueberries from getting smooshed)

Flip!

And serve - I opted for some powdered sugar (which got a little messy) and Mr. R had syrup. They were super tasty - like having little pockets of hot blueberry jam right inside the pancake!

A shout-out to Mrs. A

2008-08-04T08:03:00.003-04:00

So, during Ladies Weekend, Miss A told us how her mother made killer grilled cheese sandwiches and that her secret weapon was...dum dum dum...MAYONNAISE! I'd never heard of such a sandwich creature before, and being a huge grilled cheese fan myself, I had to give it a whirl.

The magic ingredient itself (and note, reduced fat mayo has SIGNIFICANTLY fewer calories and fat grams than butter does, so in a way, this was a "light" grilled cheese)

I wasn't sure how thick to go - so, I opted for a light coating of mayo on a whole grain oatmeal bread (more on that later)

Onto the medium griddle (once the cheese was added of course!)

Mmmm....oozing cheese

The child-like lunch was complete with a side of tots

I have to say, I did enjoy this sandwich. The bread I chose, however, was not the best for grilled cheese. For that, you need white bread or very plain wheat bread, in my opinion. This was a bit grainy to be called a classic, and as a result, it didn't crisp up quite the same way. Maybe if I'd used MORE mayo. That isn't to say it wasn't good - just a bit less crunchy than my typical grilled cheese. Will definitely be trying this "method" again!

A new potato recipe!

2008-08-04T07:55:00.004-04:00

We found ourselves with a lot of potatoes - I'd bought some at the store and my father graciously gave us a bag of them from his garden. Getting a bit tired of our normal potato preparations and after Mr. R pointed out that I'd never made him my own personal version of potato salad (he has a family recipe, I have a family recipe, and ne'er the two shall meet), we opted for a German potato salad - a bacon-based dressing, served warm. I'd seen this Mary Nolan recipe the one time I watched her show, "Chic and Easy," and it stuck with me. Definitely not your typical mayo-filled fare.

First, get the potatoes boiling in salted water (HELLO HOME GROWN POTATOES!)

Then, you must cook the bacon - as you can see here, I did not use the half-pound required in the recipe (my pan cannot accommodate that much in one go)

While the bacon cooked, I got the rest of my ingredients ready to go - cider vinegar, sugar, onions, and Dijon mustard

While I was working, Mr. R made hamburgers

Once the bacon is crisp, time for the onions to have their turn in the bacon fat

About 8 minutes later, the onions were ready and it was time for the dressing-making

Add the Dijon, sugar, and vinegar to the hot onions - along with a generous helping of black pepper. Stir until thickened.

Then, slice your potatoes into fairly thick slices (maybe not as thick as mine, those suckers were hot!) and add to the dressing - toss to coat and place into your classy serving bowl. I opted to top it with some green onion (did not have chives on hand).

Serve warm with a delicious gorgonzola topped burger, and you're good to go!

Fun at the Fest

2008-08-04T07:53:00.003-04:00

Mr. R and I attended the Dublin Irish Festival over the weekend - our first time back in several years. We saw ponies, dogs, weird people, and a lot of fun stuff we could have bought - but exercised self control and limited our fest purchases to the following:

A very large grape snowcone:

And the ultimate in fair food - the funnel cake - freshly fried, dusted with powdered sugar, burning hot:

Mrs. L's nightmare dinner

2008-07-30T10:08:00.003-04:00

Well, most of it wouldn't be a nightmare. With temps hovering around 90 and the humidity high as well, I decided to forgo the leftover spaghetti/meatballs and make a cool, refreshing pasta salad. Into the mixing bowl went chopped garden cucumber, cherry tomatoes, bell pepper, and green onions. I then added a pound of tri-colored farfalle (which had surprisingly noticeable spinach and/or tomato flavor in the red and green bow ties respectively). Splash on some reduced cal balsamic vinaigrette and you're good to go. Then, to the horror of Mrs. Elle, I threw in a bit of canned tuna to add some protein to the mix. Mr. R opted against tuna, and the tuna tasted really weird, so I might forgo it in the future too. But regardless, it is an easy and tasty summer dinner option.

Fatty McFatterton cookies

2008-07-30T10:04:00.003-04:00

We're having a bake sale at work today and feeling rather uninspired, opted to make the Barefoot Contessa pecan shortbread cookies. They are easy - a fairly traditional shortbread dough - flour, sugar, butter - with flavoring and a bit of salt.

I failed to take pics as I went along - I wasn't in that mode - but I remembered towards the end.

Here's the dough being rolled out and cut - I've no idea why it looks like strawberry ice cream, it was decided NOT pink.

And into the oven with the lovely cookies:

And finally, the platter ready for presentation to the bake sale poobas.

Hopefully they sell - I don't need them at home tempting me!

The Foods of Ladies Weekend

2008-07-28T10:34:00.005-04:00

So, another Ladies Weekend has come and gone. And what did we eat??

Well, first off, a large batch (actually 2) of sangria was made

We also revisited the jalapeno-bacon wraps. Delicious.

Miss K made these delicious English muffin crab cheesy puff things. I want more.

An insane cheeseboard - thanks in part to Grandpa's Cheesebarn.

On Saturday, we hit up the Irish Harp pub in Niagara-on-the-Lake. We had burgers:

Shepherd's pie:

And a steak and Guinness pie:

Oh, and beer and cider:

Then we hit up some local wineries:

Sunday morning, Miss M fed us well - including an asparagus and potato tart:

with fruit and a grapefruit zabaglione

And corned beef, cheese, and rye scones, which were quite tasty

We ate lots of other stuff too....but I don't want us to come across as TOO piggy after all...

In-depth examination of the chicken braid/pocket

2008-07-28T10:25:00.003-04:00

Last week, I returned to the now-favorite chicken braid concept once again. I've fully resorted to creating a chicken pocket rather than a braid for simple ease of preparation.

So, off we go. Saute onion and red bell pepper:

Meanwhile, I decided to make use of my garden bounty - zucchini - and added that along with grated carrot:

And garlic of course:

Once the onion and pepper are well on their way to softening, I added in the zucchini, carrot, and garlic and cooked until slightly softened:

I allowed the veggie mixture to cool a bit, then added in about 7 tbsp of reduced fat mayo, 1 1/2 c of shredded cheddar cheese, dill, salt, and pepper.

Fold into a lovely RF crescent roll pocket and bake until v. browned and bubbly.

And yet again, I forget to take a final picture. Oh well - you've seen the "braid" before.

Sunday roast

2008-07-21T08:40:00.004-04:00

I had a taste for roast chicken or turkey yesterday, so I went ahead and made the chicken (leftovers will be used in a forthcoming BRAID). A nice meal for a 90+ degree day, right? I don't care, it was delicious.

And why was it so delicious? 1) Brining the chicken 2) Making a new side dish that forced tons of veggies into my anti-veggie husband and was super delicious and homey tasting.

Step one - the brine - a ton of salt, a smaller ton of brown sugar, and peppercorns....I added about 6 cups of water, boiled until the salt/sugar were dissolved, then cooled with ice.

The chicken goes to its watery bath - it was brined for about 3 1/2 hours. Overnight would have been better, but this was a somewhat last-minute dinner decision.

And into a very snug roasting pan stuffed with onion and garlic, brushed with butter, salt, and pepper. Followed by a 425 degree oven for about 90 minutes total.

Meanwhile, I got an onion sauteeing for the side dish.

I wanted to use the zucchini we have flying in from the garden. But I wanted something really tasty that would go with the chicken/mashed potato/gravy dinner. And I came across THIS recipe - best of both worlds - full of veggies AND tastes like stuffing. I chopped up 2 small and 1 large zucchini and grated up 3 carrots (I could have done more - you didn't taste them at all). These were sauteed for about 5 minutes after the onions had begun to soften.

Meanwhile, I mixed 2 c of Pepperidge Farm cubed herbed stuffing mix with 1 c of reduced fat soup cream and 1 can of reduced fat cream of chicken soup.

Mix the veggies in and pour into a 9x13 casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for a half hour (or, if like me, you have a roast going at 425 degrees, bake it at 425 for 10 minutes until the chicken comes out to rest, then finish at 350).

The chicken was delicious -the brining really helps. My potatoes were only so-so because I was trying to cut down on the butter/cream and used just a bit of skim milk. But the zucchini casserole MORE than made up for any potato deficiencies. It tasted like really moist stuffing. The end. NO weird veggie taste, certainly no carrot taste. If I thought there wouldn't be a family revolt, it MIGHT become my stuffing side dish with a tiny bit of tweaking.

The gravy really wasn't that blah looking. It had nice flavor from the onions and garlic (and the splash of wine I threw it while thickening didn't hurt either!)

The Bounty of the Garden

2008-07-21T08:39:00.003-04:00

The crops are starting to come in this summer....behold the first of MANY zucchini....

And a v. perverse looking cucumber...

Chocolate chip cookie experiments continue...

2008-07-14T09:12:00.004-04:00

I'm still on a quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Everyone has their opinions, but what I want is a soft, but not too soft, cakey, but not too cakey, crisply-edge cookie with a not-too-sweet chocolate chip inside. I also personally want nuts, but I know a lot of people are anti-nut. So, I am still experimenting. This recipe was pretty good, especially the chocolate, but it still isn't quite what I'm looking for. The hunt continues. In the meantime...

I creamed 2 sticks of butter with a 3/4 c each of brown and white sugar. And some vanilla. Here it is at first:

Then a few minutes later - see the color change:

Now, all the dry ingredients and the lovely chocolate chips and nuts were added:

I used a mini ice cream scooper and baked about half the batch - these took a little less than 9 minutes per batch in my oven:

Now, you may notice, some of the cookies look different. I made about 2/3 of them on insulated baking sheets. Those spread out and became flat and normal looking. However, 1/3 were baked on a regular aluminum non-fancy sheets - and those did not spread and puffed up instead. V. interesting. Here they are in profile - on the left, insulated sheet, on the right, non-insulated sheet:

Even from above, they look different. The non-insulated sheet cookie looks normal, and its brother looks, well, just poofy and weird.

They still tasted good - but I did like the insulated sheet results better. Very interesting.

The power of pork

2008-07-14T09:07:00.002-04:00

We had pork for dinner last night. It wasn't mind blowing, but I think my method was flawed. Also, my photography skills are woefully lacking - apparently there was a gross smudge on the lens all evening, therefore, everything has a somewhat ethereal quality to it. Magic pork.

Tonight's pork featured an apricot coating that was gently sprinkled with bread crumbs. First off, make the apricot coating - Jam, coarse grained mustard, salt, pepper, and cayenne.

The mixture was brushed onto flattened boneless pork chops, then sprinkled with plain bread crumbs

Then, time for some frying. I had intended to pan fry them to crisp them up, then bake them off to finish.

After a quick turn in the skillet, then were put onto a cooling rack on a baking sheet and put in the oven for about 20 min at 350 degrees.

They tasted fine - pretty good actually - and the pork was very moist. Final photos were discarded due to the mysterious smudge. But the bottom sides of the chops got all mushy, despite being on the rack. Next time, I shall just have to fry them all the way, or else bake them all the way. Something to stop the mushiness.

Pizza partay

2008-07-11T09:29:00.008-04:00

We had a pizza party last night. Well, not so much a party as just having delicious homemade pizza for dinner. But using a new dough made it seem more festive somehow. Something had been missing from previous homemade dough attempts - the crust didn't just lend itself to making pizza as well as I'd have liked - not too much flavor, not v. stretchy. So, I broadened my horizons and sought out a new recipe. Tonight's efforts were well worth the moderate additional effort to make this dough. I decided to trust Mr. Batali and give his dough a whirl.

First, you bloom the yeast in a mixture of warm water and wine. Yes, wine. Last night, I used a pinot grigio, but in the future, I may try a red. Then you add honey, salt, and 1 c of flour (oh, this is all by hand - NO MIXER)

Next, you blend in the remaining 2 c of flour until you can no longer stir
Then roll out onto a floured board and hand knead for about 7 minutes - the dough came together amazingly well given the ragged, floury state of it out of the mixing bowl.Then, after a 45 minute rise*, you are ready to make the pizza.

This dough was beautiful to work with - v. stretchy, yet pliable. Not stiff. It easily rolled into whatever abstract form I desired. Then I put a bit of sauce and a bit of pesto on top.

Then some pepperoni and tomatoes, and cheese, of course

10 minutes in a 475 degree oven and we were ready to slam it. This was Mr. R's personal pizza.

And here is mine. I was constrained by the fact that I couldn't find any of my flat normal cookie sheets, so I had to use a short narrow one. Hence, the long rectangle of 'za.

This dough was really good. Easy to make and work and it had more flavor than your standard homemade dough. The thin parts were crackery** yet tender and the thicker parts of the crust had a nice chewy texture. Will DEF be making this again.

*I decided the cold oven wasn't exactly warm enough for the dough to rise, so I turned the oven on, intending to let it run for about 30 seconds, then turn it back off. 10 minutes later the oven beeped to let me know it had reached 350 degrees. I FLEW to the stove to turn it off and rescue my potentially dead dough. It DID get a bit dry on top, but it kept rising in the fridge, so the little yeasties were still alive apparently. Do not do this yourselves.

** The thinner crust was decidedly similar to a certain Barnaby's pizza in South Bend, IN. So a certain father of mine should make it soon.

Dinner partay

2008-07-08T09:47:00.003-04:00

So, we had a lovely little dinner avec Mrs. Elle and husband last weekend to celebrate the 4th. The Mrs. was in charge of apps and dessert. I fell a bit behind on picture taking, but in short, she made a fruit dip with watermelon chunks and THESE delicious jalapeno bites (Pioneer Woman scores again!). They were delish:

For dinner, we had burgers with a variety of toppings (gorgonzola, cheddar, bacon, caramelized onions...) and roasted corn (it was rainy, had to oven roast):
And baked beans. About which Mr. Elle was VERY EXCITED AND ATE A LOT! They got a little blistered from having the broiler on while the jalapeno things were going.

Dessert was a dump cake and whipped cream. Yes, that is what it is called. I know PW has a recipe for one, but I'm not sure that is the precise recipe employed by Mrs. Elle. She will have to comment and let me know. It was also quite tasty - and so light, right? With all the fruit? Right?

Favorite vegetable....

2008-07-02T09:25:00.001-04:00

I love broccoli. Mr. R hates broccoli. More for me, I say. I had a huge broccoli craving yesterday, so I went and bought a head of fresh broccoli, steamed it up, and ate about half of this bowl in one go.

So delicious.

Hummingbird Cake

2008-07-01T21:23:00.007-04:00

I've had many a Hummingbird Cake in my life, but hadn't thought about them in forever until this post on Cookie Madness. I had an itching to bake something, so I stopped at the store for relevant ingredients and threw it together at home. Although, I forgot one of the most relevant of relevant ingredients, eggs, so I had to make do with a two-layer cake instead of a three-layer monster cake. Sigh. Silver lining - more frosting for the remaining layers.

Here are the cake ingredients taking a spin - flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, oil, eggs, banana, pineapple, cinnamon...

Into the greased pans and the oven with the batter for 28 minutes:

While they cool, onto the icing! Mmm. Cream cheese and butter.

Frosting time - early stages:

And then heap all the rest of the frosting on top - yes, Virginia, that is an obscene amount of cream cheese frosting:

Tada! Oh wait, it's missing something...it's very rustic looking, no?

There we go....

Mmm...creamy fruity deliciousness....

Vodka Still Works

2008-06-30T09:00:00.006-04:00

So, I saw this recipe on a 30 Minute Meals about 4 months ago (or more) and it struck me then as something I'd probably like, but never got around to making it, even though we always have the 3 ingredients in the house.

Ginger ale, vodka, and bitters. By the way, I'd like to give a pitch for the Smirnoff Triple-Distilled. Smirnoff gets a bad rap among vodkas. But I really have to sing the praises of this triple-distilled version. To me, it is v. smooth, virtually undetectable in a mixed drink. And it is very affordable compared to the heavy hitters of Grey Goose and Ketel One. So, just wanted to throw that out there.
And here's the final drink - I LOVED IT. It wasn't too sweet, wasn't alcohol-y tasting, wasn't too bitter from the bitters. Just a very nice, refreshing drink. I've never come across a cocktail or other adult beverage I could see coming home and kicking back with on a frequent basis - but this one could be it (if I so chose). It was really delicious.

Mmm...dip

2008-06-30T08:42:00.004-04:00

So, Miss M did it again last fall when she shared the amazing recipe for Buffalo Chicken Dip with us. This dip went faster than any other food item at our first OSU-Michigan party (Nov 22, mark your calendars).

As with all my recipes it seems, you start with a creamy base - in this case, cream cheese and chunky blue cheese dressing
Then the magical elixir....real AUTHENTIC Anchor Bar wing sauce
See how orangey the creamy mixture gets?
Meanwhile, over on the other counter, Mr. R was shredding a rotisserie chicken....
Then, most of the non-ick parts of said chicken were added to the base....
Spread into a casserole dish and bake at 400 degrees until hot and very bubbly
Like this
Serve said dip with bread or tortilla chips and a cold beverage of your choice...

Large loaf of meat dinner

2008-06-30T08:30:00.005-04:00

Yeah, so I've been craving hash brown casserole for ages it seems like...so it had to become a part of a weekend meal of food. And what goes with HBC? Meatloaf of course. And what is a great meatloaf - the Meatloaf Cordon Bleu care of Miss M in Buffalo!

I won't tell you how to make meatloaf - every family has their own magical mixture of meat, bread or breadcrumbs, milk, egg, seasonings. Then you press said meat mixture out onto a washable surface and layer lovely ham and swiss on top....
Then roll up and squish into a giant casserole dish and decoratively top with ketchup (sooo classy)
Meanwhile, onto the HBC. Here's the creamy base - butter, cream of chicken soup, sour cream...

Cheddar cheese added...
Then a package of frozen potatoes...and into the baking dish we go...
Crunchy cornflake and butter topping added and an hour in the oven and voila! HBC!
Part of a balanced dinner served with mushy canned green beans...R's favorite! As you can see, the "loaf" tried to break apart as it was wrenched from the overstuffed casserole dish...normally my meatloaves hold together a bit better. But regardless, it was still tasty!

Cheesecake nightmare

2008-06-23T11:06:00.005-04:00

So, again, I had a huge craving for cheesecake on Sunday. I dashed off to the store to get cream cheese and graham crackers to make said cheesecake. It was a wasted effort. This cheesecake was bad news.

Things started off poorly. I had intended to use Ina Garten's cheesecake recipe - a recipe I've made several times in the past with usually good results. HOWEVER, when I got home from the grocery store, I realized I only had two pounds of cream cheese, not two and a half pounds. So, I did some research and came across this Emeril recipe that required only two pounds of cream cheese. Little did I know that using this recipe would put me on a path to horrifying cheesecake.

It started off innocently - butter, sugar, cinnamon, and graham cracker crumbs are baked off to form the crust.
Then our creamy core - 4 packs of cream cheese (the butter went into the crust, but it wanted to pose with its fatty friends):
Blend blend blend the CC with sugar, eggs, vanilla, etc. This is where the recipe started to get weird - I've never made a cheesecake with flour in it.
Pour into crust...bake...
The recipe said 55 to 1 hour 10 min. After 55 min, the cheesecake was slightly less brown than here but was still REALLY jiggly. This is after 65 minutes - it was so burned I knew it had to come out, but it was still fairly jiggly.
My husband cut off the top of the cake, to reveal the mealy grossness underneath.
Here is a slice of this hell-cake. It was NOT good. It did not taste like cream cheesy goodness. It tasted like yuck on a plate.
Sigh. Will go back to my good friend Ina from now on....

While the cat's away....

2008-06-15T12:36:00.005-04:00

Mr. R went out of town this weekend, leaving me by myself to...well, cook my head off basically. Below you will find an outline of my weekend - cooking and baking intermixed with re-reading all the Harry Potter books.

To whet your appetites - the highlights:

Sticky buns
Saffron risotto

When life gives you saffron, make a risotto!

2008-06-15T12:34:00.006-04:00

I love risotto. But for whatever reason, I've not made it in ages. Mr. R gave me saffron threads for my birthday in March and has been after me to use some ever since. So, I decided to make something that would show off the saffron without overwhelming it - a saffron risotto. I did a bit of research and landed on a Mario Batali recipe that didn't require unusual ingredients (beyond saffron) and didn't add in too much other "stuff" to take away from the saffron flavor, a Risotto Milanese.

First, we chop the onions:
And measure out the precious saffron threads:
The onions go into a large saute pan with some olive oil, while the saffron goes into the chicken stock to "infuse" the stock:Once the onions have softened, you add the arborio rice and let that get coated with oniony flavor. Then wine - then you start adding the bright yellow saffron/chicken stock - one ladle at a time. Here we are midway through adding the entire amount of stock:
And at the end. The arborio gives off starch to make a creamy texture.
Then, you add in a few handful of grated Parmesan and some butter at the end. Obviously, I needed more Parm before eating:
This was a tasty, basic risotto. To be honest, the saffron didn't blow me away. I could smell it in the finished product, but it didn't add any flavor. I guess Mr. R and I are used to jazzier risottos - stuff with some pancetta, or else a butternut squash/sage mix. It was a fairly subtle set of flavors. I'll keep my eye out for saffron recipes in the future!

Copycat sticky buns

2008-06-15T12:28:00.014-04:00

So, Miss M called me and asked a question about what type of flour to use for sticky buns. She and Miss K had seem something on Throwdown with Bobby Flay re: sticky buns and were prompted to make them. After talking with her on the phone, I set down my book and turned on the TV, and lo and behold, the same episode of Throwdown was on. I was bored at home (Mr. R being away and all) and decided to make the sticky buns with a few modifications (since I didn't want to go out for any ingredients).

Now - I've blogged about my own cinnamon buns before. And those are pretty good cinnamon buns. But I was interested in trying a true "sticky bun" recipe - a breakfast concoction dripping with sugar and caramely goodness.

Since I didn't have any high-gluten flour on hand, I decided to search for another brioche recipe. That was how Joanne Chang was referring to the bread base for the sticky buns in her recipe. I remembered that Ina Garten included a homemade brioche recipe in Barefoot in Paris, so I modified that recipe slightly (upped the sugar, slightly upped the flour, lowered the salt just a bit). I prepared the brioche dough and let it rise overnight in the fridge.

This dough was interesting - it was very very soft and eggy. Here I am being proper and putting in eggs, one at a time:Knead dough, KNEAD
Hello my good friends - toss, in chunks, two sticks of butter into the dough as it whips around on the dough hook
Prepare a bowl to receive the dough - nothing bad ever came out of a buttered bowl
And our extremely sticky dough mass goes into said buttered bowl for a chilly night in the fridge
Here is the brioche dough after a solid 14 hours of rising in the fridge and coming to room temp
I prepared a very sandy cinnamon/white sugar/brown sugar mixture to fill the dough later on. The recipe calls for only brown sugar - but I decided to be anti-authority and put in a mixture of white and brown.
Now it is time to prepare the GOO - Melt the brown sugar and the butter
Then, off the heat, add the honey, cream, and some water. Hello Mr. Bear - give me your honey
Meanwhile, over on the island, the dough had to be rolled out to 1/4 inch thickness. I was close
And sprinkled with the sandy mixture. It was like playing at the beach.
I sprinkled some nuts over the sandy mixture - a mixture of pecans and walnuts mostly, but also some almonds on about 1/3 of the rolls, just for kicks. And rolled 'r up - a bit tricky given the delicacy of this dough, but I got it. After the rolling, this log of doughy goodness was sliced into 1"/1 1/2" slices.
Prepare the pans with "Goo"
Then nestle the naked buns in said Goo
Put the pans back in a warm place to rise for another 2-3 hours - this was at the 2 hour mark
Then bake at 350 degrees until browned. NOTE - Maybe it is due to using the lower-gluten AP flour, or my oven, or a combination of the two, but these buns were ready WELL ahead of the 45 minute mark in the recipe - more like 30 minutes. So keep an eye on them! As you can see, I need larger baking pans to prevent the evil triangle sticky bun.Let them cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto the serving platter to behold the gooeyness:These were definitely tasty - a departure from my standard cinnamon bun. If I make them again, I will definitely up the cinnamon. The recipe only called for 1 tsp, and I just really wanted more cinnamon flavor. These weren't particularly tricky to make - but you do have to allow a lot of time to make them. It would be a pain to try to make for, say, a gathering of friends at your house at 9 am on a Saturday morning. And I'm not 100% sure the buns would be well served to do a slow rise in the fridge, sitting in the goo, overnight. Will have to experiment more in the future!

Olive goodness

2008-06-15T12:27:00.010-04:00

I know olives are a much maligned food item, but I find them delicious. And so, when I saw the Pioneer Woman recipe for olive cheese bread, I knew I'd be making it at some point in time. I just had to wait for Mr. R to go away for a weekend, so I could gorge myself on olive goodness.

First, I opened and drained one can of regular black olives. My parents can attest to an early love of the olive.
Then, I got a little crazier - some pitted Kalamatas, some Picholine, and some other type of large green Greek olive that was stuffed with a pepper:
Then, I got even NUTTIER and threw in one artichoke heart:
Meanwhile, over at the bowl, I've mixed some mayo (just a bit), some softened butter, and a lot of Monterey Jack cheese. I also, per PW, put in a couple of chopped scallions.
And then, the olives are mixed with the creamy mixture and slathered on top of some French bread.
I had a ridiculously thick layering of the olive mix, so mine baked in at 325 degree oven for around 40 minutes to achieve cheesey, browned goodness.
I'm not sure if a picture can convey the lovely buttery meltiness that occurs with this bread.The mixture begins to meld and melt into the bread as it bakes. This was a delicious treat to have while Mr. R was away. I WILL say though - if I were to make it again - I would be inclined to throw in some canned or fresh chopped and drained tomatoes. Or something like that - I felt like something was needed to counteract the briny saltiness of the olives. But I did enjoy the recipe a lot and will hopefully have reason to make it again soon!

Quick breakfast

2008-06-15T12:27:00.009-04:00

I don't know what got into me, but I was craving oatmeal like you wouldn't believe, so, here's a terribly boring post on my oatmeal.

For my tastes, I always start with a sprinkling of brown sugar at the bottom of my bowl.
Boil oats! Boil!
And the final product - mixed with milk at the end and a drizzle of leftover cream...mmm. I wouldn't have said no to some toasted nuts, but alas, all the nuts went into the sticky buns!

Salami thingees

2008-06-15T12:23:00.003-04:00

This is obviously not a rocket science meal - but it was tasty and quick. First, I took two slices of random Italian bread I found in my pantry and got them toasting in the oven. Then, I gave them a quick rub with some garlic, layered salami and smoked provolone on top, then threw them back in the oven. A lovely, tasty, quick lunch.

Homemade ranch dressing

2008-06-12T14:11:00.005-04:00

Again, I was inspired by Pioneer Woman with her recent post regarding ranch dressing.* While I don't claim ranch to be my favorite dressing of all time, something about the pictures on that post drove me to crave ranch dressing like never before. With a few days off work, I decided to give it a whirl.

First, the herbage. Here we have dill, chives, and a lot of flat-leaf parsleyl. Oh, and a garlic clove that is preparing to meet its Maker, the microplane. Behold the gleaming garlic clove!Next, the creamy goodness. Sour cream and mayo - I opted for an almost equal split - maybe a cup of mayo to 2/3 c sour cream? Something along those lines. I also tossed in a splash of Worcestershire sauce. That stuff goes with everything, I swear. I also added sea salt and ground black pepper. Mmm.Mix mix mix and add splashes of buttermilk as you go - I probably added nearly a half cup when all was said and done. It is still SLIGHTLY thick for a salad, but I'm thinking that most of mine will be used as a dip for strips of bell pepper, carrot sticks, and grape tomatoes.As our friend PW says, you'll want to play with it - taste as you go, etc. Mine took more salt than I'd expected. Once it sat in the fridge for a while, I ended up adding another pinch of salt. And, for my personal tastes, one minced garlic clove was MORE than enough - the dressing was actually spicy just from one. But that's the beauty of homemade salad dressings - they are endlessly customizable to meet your personal tastes!

*A shoutout to my mom - RANCH!

Summery dessert?

2008-06-06T10:06:00.006-04:00

Well, I don't know if these are ENTIRELY summery, but they will be delicious, oh yes, I know they will. Nothing makes me happier than cake with ice cream. I just love it. And I love ice cream cakes. But only the ones that actually have CAKE in them. Rolling some ice cream in cookie crumbs and forming into a cake-like patty is NOT an ice cream cake in my book. No way.

I'm relying on a method I picked up from Baking Bites. But unlike our friend at BB, I'm not making the cake from scratch nor the frosting. Am just too lazy. So, box cake mix and canned frosting, here I come.

First, I had to make the ice cream layers. I made two cakes - one will be chocolate cake/chocolate frosting/vanilla ice cream. The other will be white cake (well, Funfetti) with white frosting and strawberry ice cream. Thus, the molds:
Then, I baked the cakes.
And then I assembled and took a stab at icing them after everything was cool. Here we have our strawberry/funfetti concoction:
And the very ugly, but fairly tasty chocolate version:

Lessons learned - frosting does not want to stick to ice cream. Use a flat plate or a rotating stand. Frost cake better.

New favorite potato

2008-06-06T09:59:00.004-04:00

So, the Pioneer Woman has done it again. This time, I was almost instantaneously compelled to make these crash hot potatoes.

First, you boil:
Next, our fully cooked friends are laid out on a baking sheet
Then, CRUSHED! Take that potato
But don't crush too hard - you get this
Mine were then salted, peppered, olive oiled, and I threw on some garlic powder for fun and because I don't have herbs (besides basil) really going in the garden yet:
25 minutes in a 450 degree oven later....voila - crispy, crunchy, tasty, flavorful potatoes
Now, these were totally delish potatoes. But what I also liked was that unlike mashed, baked, casseroled potatoes - they didn't need any "extras." No sour cream, no butter, nothing. Just a bit of olive oil and salt/pepper/herbage. They were fantastic!

MORE Summer eats

2008-06-03T10:19:00.002-04:00

So, this was basically my dinner last night - sour cream pound cake,* fresh whipped cream, and lightly macerated blueberries and strawberries....

*I do NOT sully my poundcake wtih lemon. Ew. I put vanilla in, and a teeny tiny splash of almond extract. NO VANILLA! NOT EVERY DESSERT NEEDS LEMON ZEST, JUICE, whatever.

Summer eatings

2008-05-28T10:24:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts of late - things were bananas at work and then we had the amazing wedding in D.C.

Nonetheless, there has been a small amount of cooking going on. For example, I sliced a lovely watermelon and devoured the bulk of it in a 2-day time frame.Additionally, I made a macaroni salad (served with grilled sausages and baked beans).
For said mac salad, I made a dressing of 1 c mayo, 1/4 (ish) c cider vinegar, 1/2 c sugar, 2 1/2 tbsp prepared mustard, salt, and pepper. I diced up about 1 c of ham, 1 bell pepper, 4 green onions, and 4 stalks of celery. I also threw in 3 grated carrots and a large handful of frozen peas. I prepared 1 1/2 pounds of elbow macaroni in salted water, tossed that with the dressing and then added the veggies. I gave it about 3 hours to chill before eating. It was quite tasty - and a good way to get some needed veggies into a husband who refuses to eat green things. If/when I make it again, I'll probably drop the pasta amount by about a 1/4 lb. to maximize the veggie impact. You could also probably add some diced hard-boiled egg to up the protein ante.

Stress cookies

2008-05-17T14:51:00.002-04:00

It has been a very busy few weeks at work - with several more busy days to come. I may or may not have polished off 1 "sleeve" of Amaretto Milanos in the car earlier. With a future sleeve to come....

Derby pie

2008-05-08T15:37:00.004-04:00

My aunt and uncle gave me a fun cookbook for my birthday in March, and in it was a recipe for Derby Pie. I decided to bust it out last weekend.

For any pecan pie, you generally make a filling with butter, eggs, corn syrup, and sugar. And pecans, obviously. For this pie, which is a chocolate AND nut pie, you also add chocolate. And I added a splash of vanilla for kicks.

Pour into an unbaked 9 inch pie shell and begin the decorative pecaning. Yes, I said pecaning.
Voila - a while later, you get pie! This guy went about 3 min too long, but the pie still tasted pretty darn good!

Experimental dinner

2008-05-08T15:36:00.006-04:00

I was looking for summery pork recipes and found one for grilled pork with a pineapple salsa. I didn't feel like splurging on tenderloin, so I just used regular thin cut chops and improvised from there.

Here we have our lovely cored and skinned fresh pineapple.

GRILL PINEAPPLE! GRILL!
I had some leftover roasted onions and peppers in the fridge, so that was tossed in with lime juice, salt, pepper, one jalapeno, and some cumin and chili powder.
Meanwhile, I needed to season the pork. Salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, and some chopped garlic...a hefty squirt of lime juice...into the fridge for a few hours.
GRILL PORK! GRILL!
I served up the pork with some wild rice and corn (corn again, jeez - also I have no idea why this is showing up underlined)It was really quite good. Mr. R decided, and I agreed, that the salsa was WAY too pineapple-y, so if I make it again, I'll definitely bump up the savory bits and seasonings. But it was a refreshing change from pork chops and applesauce.

BBQ

2008-05-08T15:34:00.004-04:00

I kicked off the May monthly menu planner with a bang - shredded pork sandwiches.

Here is our lovely pork shoulder. It will soon spend many an hour in the slow cooker.
Here is the base of the spice rub - garlic powder, chili powder, salt, paprika, cumin, and cayenne. I forgot brown sugar, and luckily remembered right before the pork went into the fridge overnight. YOU MUST HAVE BROWN SUGAR! quite a lot of it actually. I rubbed this spice mix onto the pork shoulder and let it sit overnight.
Meanwhile, I concocted a sauce - apple cider vinegar, chili sauce, some ketchup, a few garlic cloves, some Worcestershire...maybe a drop of beer? I don't know. It was on the fly.
After a day in the cooker, the pork was easily shredded by fork.
And served with some macaroni salad, CORN, and some of its own sauce (boiled in a pan until thick).