The Food Lab

Kai's Soccer Ball Birthday Cake

2009-10-12T07:37:00.001-07:00

Its time for another cake! I still owe this blog one entry on a baby shower cake we did in September. I don't have any pictures of it in part because the shower was at 4pm on the day that Michigan played Notre Dame at 3:30pm. So I was mainly concerned with getting the cake out of the house so I could watch football. Pictures were taken, but I don't have them yet.

This cake was for Kyle and Tricia's son Kai, who turned 1 year old on Saturday. The cake seemed to take us a long time, but that was mostly because it takes a long time to cook a 12" x 18" cake, it takes almost equally as long for the cake to cool and it takes a lot of space to make all of that possible (which means lots of stopping to clear space and clean). Other than that there isn't a whole lot of setup that you need to know. Enjoy the photos:

Here are the two halves of the soccer ball. Rice Krispy Treats were the base and a funfetti cake on the top. Both halves were formed using a soccer ball cake by Wilton.
We used buttercream to stick the two halves together, then draped it in white fondant.
Once the fondant was down Lauren lightly pressed the lines for the paneling and then used her stitching tool to complete the look.This was our original idea for the cake, but there was no good way to cover the 1 in a solid color. Fondant would have left ugly seams all over the place and nothing else would have been as smooth as fondant. I am sure we could have figured something out eventually, but we ended up abandoning the #1 in favor of a Happy Birthday placard.

The base cake is three layers. The first and third were a white buttermilk cake and the middle layer was a pumpkin spice cake. The layers were filled with a cream cheese frosting and the exterior was covered in buttercream. Everything was made from scratch, except for the half a soccer ball made from Funfetti.

A closeup of the finished soccer ball. Lauren did an awesome job making the Puma logo out of black fondant. The K is for Kai. It does not indicate that the cake is kosher.

The birthday boy and his cake.

From left to right: Kyle, Tricia, Lauren and I posing with the cake. You might notice the section of mostly missing cake to the right of the soccer ball. That plus most of the unseen back cake half of the soccer ball managed to feed everyone at the party. Lauren and I kind of eyeballed how much cake we needed. 13 x 9 seemed small, especially given the size of the soccer ball. So we got a 12" x 18" pan, but when we baked the first layer it seemed really thin. So we decided three layers would be better than two. It was only time constraints that stopped it from being 4 layers. Of course when we stacked it up the cake ended up being enormous. A catering website I looked up after the fact informed us that a 2 layer 12" x 18"cake serves 54 dessert sized portions. So I'm thinking this cake served roughly 81 from the bottom cake alone, plus another 10 or so out of the soccer ball.

Tricia, let me know how many new best friends you make from being the cake fairy this week.

Chicken, Pesto & Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza

2009-10-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

This recipe ought to look familiar. Its essentially the same as the Margherita Pizza, with the obvious changes with the toppings and the use of bread flour instead of all purpose flour. The flour change wasn't special to this pizza, I just happened to be out of flour and decided I'd give the bread flour a shot since its higher gluten content is supposed to create a chewier crust.

Chicken, Pesto, Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza:

1/4 cup pesto + 1 clove minced garlic (or to taste)
1-2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 lb diced, cooked chicken
1 pkg sun-dried tomatoes
Shredded parmesan (optional)
Feta cheese crumbles(optional)

You'll want to get the toppings ready before the dough, or at the very least while you're making the dough. So before you do anything else, do this:

Preheat the oven with your pizza stone/baking sheet inside to 500 degrees.
Cook your chicken. I typically dice it raw, marinate it in Italian dressing for 5 mins then saute it until cooked through (5 mins). If not that I'll use 1/4 - 1/2 cup chicken broth and poach the diced chicken and season it will salt & pepper. Either way make sure to strain or pat your chicken dry with paper towel before putting it on your pizza.

Thin Crust Pizza Dough:

.25 oz. pkt. active dry yeast
1/4 tsp. granulated sugar
3/4 cup warm (105-115 degrees) water, temperature measured with a thermometer
1 3/4 cups bread flour (AP works too, but bread flour tastes better)
1/2 tsp. salt

Dissolve yeast and sugar in water; let the yeast sit for 5-10 minutes or until frothy. Combine flour and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer (with the dough hook attachment). Pour yeast mixture into the flour mixture and turn the mixer on medium speed until your dough ball forms (2-3 minutes).

At this point you can either let the dough rise for 1-2 hours for a normal pizza crust or you can use it immediately for a thin crust pizza.

Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead by hand for 2 minutes. Stretch or roll your dough into a 12" or 14" circle on a flour, parchment or corn meal covered surface. Brush the top surface of the dough with olive oil.

Remove your preheated pizza stone or baking sheet from the oven.Transfer your dough to the baking sheet/pizza stone, and quickly spread your pesto. Add your 1-2 cups of mozzarella cheese and top with the chicken and sun-dried tomatoes.
Sprinkle feta and/or parmesan cheese (optional).
Bake at 500 for 8-10 minutes. Let cool 2-5 minutes. Enjoy.
This recipe (plus a little extra mozzarella) is enough to make two 12" pizzas. We will typically make both pizzas, eat one and save the other for lunch or leftovers.

While we were eating Lauren said "I could eat pizza 3-4 times a week if we made it like this and mixed up the toppings". Do you know how long I've been waiting to hear something like that? Right now we might eat pizza once a week and thats typically because we've got something going on after work and don't get a chance to think about dinner until after 8pm, at which point neither one of us wants to cook for 30 minutes or an hour.

Margherita Pizza

2009-09-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, its been a long, long time since I've posted anything here. I am back in school full time this semester and working when I don't have class, so that doesn't really leave me much time to throw caution to the wind and tackle new recipes consistently enough to entertain the people that may or may not read this blog.

However last night Lauren and I had a chance to try our have at wood fired/brick oven style pizza. There are very few ways that homemade pizza can be cheaper than delivery pizza and practically none that are cheaper than frozen pizza. Except this one. Just a couple weeks ago Lauren and I got this same pizza at downtown restaurant and it cost us $12.95.

Margherita Pizza:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 lb. Roma tomatoes, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed and finely chopped
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper (or to taste)
6 oz. (1.5 cups) mozzarella cheese, shredded
6 fresh basil leaves
Extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh shredded parmesan cheese

You'll want to get the toppings ready before the dough, or at the very least while you're making the dough. So before you do anything else, do this:

Preheat the oven with your pizza stone/baking sheet inside to 500 degrees.
Combine 2 tablespoons olive oil, chopped tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper in a bowl.

Thin Crust Pizza Dough:

.25 oz. pkt. active dry yeast
1/4 tsp. granulated sugar
3/4 cup warm (105-115 degrees) water, temperature measured with a thermometer
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt

Dissolve yeast and sugar in water; let the yeast sit for 5-10 minutes or until frothy.

Combine flour and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer (with the dough hook attachment).

Pour yeast mixture into the flour mixture and turn the mixer on medium speed until your dough ball forms (2-3 minutes).

At this point you can either let the dough rise for 1-2 hours for a normal pizza crust or you can use it immediately for a thin crust pizza.

Remove your preheated pizza stone or baking sheet from the oven .
Transfer your dough to the baking sheet/pizza stone, and quickly add your 1.5 cups of mozzarella cheese and top with the chopped tomatoes.
Drizzle lightly with olive oil and stick the baking sheet/pizza stone back in the oven for 8-10 minutes.
Top with basil and parmesan (if you want), let the pizza cool for 2-5 minutes and enjoy.

You could also use fresh mozzarella instead of the shredded kind, but the grocery store was out when we stopped by, and I get the feeling it would probably cost $8 in cheese alone to cover the pizza that way.

For this pizza we only had to buy 4 Roma tomatoes (0.75 lbs at $1.59/lb so about $1.30) and shredded mozzarella ($2/8oz). Sure at some point we also had to buy the flour, olive oil, yeast, garlic and sugar, but those are all staple ingredients that are in the kitchen cabinets regardless of what we're making.

You can also improve the quality of your pizza by using bread flour instead of all purpose flour, fresh mozzarella instead of shredded and fresh basil instead of dried. Those are things we'll try at some point with this recipe. Of course with pizza the toppings are mostly irrelevant, its figuring out how to make a decent dough and cook it properly that makes or breaks the home made pizza experience. Now that we've established those two things its time to begin the experiments.

So I just can't imagine myself paying $12-$18 for a "gourmet" pizza any time in the near future.

By the way, that is not my pizza in the picture. That one clearly used fresh mozzarella. It was cut and I was eating it before I even thought about taking a picture. It was delicious. If I had my way I'd make it again tonight and then again next weekend while I watched football.

Madeira Cake w/ Strawberry Chocolate Ganache

2009-08-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

As part of expanding our (her) cake repetoire, Lauren and I have sort of committed to abandoning boxed cake mixes and using straight from scratch recipes. With the assistance of a cake decorating book that Rachel got for us, we took our first step in that direction last night. I don't have recipes for this entry because I don't have the book in front of me, and on top of that I didn't actually do any of the baking last night because I was busy doing the cooking (chicken salad and potato salad) and the dish washing so we didn't get in each other's way.What Lauren made was a Madeira cake filled with strawberries and chocolate ganache and covered with buttercream icing. No fondant this time around. The results were mixed. First off our biggest problem is that we aren't cooking by weight. So next on our list of ways to expand our culinary arsenal is a digital weight scale. Its way too much of a hassle to try to figure how many cups or tablespoons 310 grams of butter is, and if that number of cups/tbsp is the same for 310 grams of sugar (which it isn't).

The second problem was the icing. We added some almond extract for flavoring, but it easily overpowered the icing and made it way too sweet. Not only that but the recipe we used gave us a very dry consistency. We should have stuck with the recipe we used for the Dr. Seuss cake.

As for the Madeira cake, it was okay. Nothing too special. From what I remember of the recipe it didn't call for any lemon, vanilla or any other type of flavoring. It was simply various amounts of self rising flour, butter, sugar and eggs. So it turned out to be essentially a pound cake. Good for carving, stacking and building, but nothing to really talk about.

The ganache was fantastic. Lauren has a block of expensive chocolate that she uses for these sorts of desserts, and it never ceases to amaze me how different that stuff tastes than candy bar/milk chocolate.

The three flavors together (icing, cake, ganache) didn't really complement each other either. That was more of a result of mad science than it was a mistake. We wanted to try a few new recipes/methods and just sort of Frankensteined them together rather than plan it out and make a true presentation out of it. In fact the icing was supposed to be white, but it didn't spread very well while she was trying to cover the sides and ended up turning brownish as the ganache oozed out the sides. So Lauren fixed that.

The Lady & Sons Restaurant

2009-08-17T08:28:00.001-07:00

I just realized I never actually posted anything about our vacation. The vacation was great, and I'll return to share some words and pictures about crabbing and fresh seafood. But I'm going to use this post to focus on Savannah, Georgia and our trip to The Lady & Sons restaurant, owned by Paula Deen of the Food Network.

We got in late on Tuesday night and walked the city. Great city. A little dark and forested for a downtown but I suppose if you live there that starts to seem normal. I was a little on edge about catching whooping cough or the bubonic plague in some kind of freak accident, but that was a testament to historic look of Savannah at night, not its hygiene.

So late Tuesday night after we checked in we decided to walk over to The Lady & Sons to get an idea of how far away it was, where the line would form and what the restaurant looked like.

The following morning I woke up at 8am with the understanding that the restaurant started taking reservations (in person only) at 8:30am. When I got there I was 10th in line, behind 3 groups of 2-4 people. I let Lauren sleep in since it seemed like a stupid idea for both of us to get dressed and stand in line for a half hour. Not only that but it would have meant an hour less sleep as she would have needed to be up by 7am to be out the door by 8. By myself I felt totally comfortable rolling over at 7:55am, washing my face, brushing my teeth and throwing on last nights clothes to go stand in line.

The only problem with that is that the information we got about the restaurant was not correct. The Lady & Sons begins taking reservations at 9:30am. So there I was standing in line for 90 minutes, hoping each half hour in line was my last. By the time front of the line had started moving the back of the line had stretched all the way down the block and must have been a good 150 people long.

We had a lunch reservation for noon. I went back to the hotel, showered up, ate breakfast and then we walked the city again while we waited for lunch to roll around. Sometime later in the morning The Lady & Sons had turned on a mist zone for anyone still standing in line. As we were waiting inside The Paula Deen Store for our reservation, I saw an unsuspecting family (since there was no line outside) walk up to the hostess' booth and ask for a table as anyone would at a normal restaurant. It was 11:30am and hostess told them the earliest they could get a table was 8:30pm. On a Wednesday. In August.

That restaurant must make a killing. As for the atmosphere, it wasn't all that high-end, but I don't think it was trying to be either. The lunch menu is just good Southern cooking. Fried chicken, meatloaf, chicken pot pie, mashed potatoes, those sorts of things. Not too much in the way of cold plates/sandwiches which is kind of disappointing when its 95 degrees outside and you're on foot. But that may just be me. Most of the foods I saw were what I'd associate with winter comfort food in Michigan.

It was a good experience and definitely something worth doing if you're in Savannah, but I'm not sure its type of lunch/dining experience that you're going to talk about for years to come. Which at around $40 (w/ tip) for two people probably shouldn't be expected.

Salley's Birthday Cake

2009-08-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

Last week while on vacation, Lauren and her sister decided to make a fondant cake for their younger sister's birthday. I thought it was borderline insanity given that we were out of Lauren's kitchen, without any of her cake supplies and most importantly without a KitchenAid stand mixer. Bu they were determined to make it happen, so I looked up the fondant recipe, gave them a few pointers and then backed away slowly. Obviously the picture shows that it turned out just fine and here is why: the fondant recipe I was using worked, but it didn't create the most workable fondant.

1 - 16oz pkg mini-marshmallows
3 tbsp water
1 tbsp vanilla
~~6-8 cups~~ 3-4 cups powdered sugar
Vegetable shortening (for greasing everything that touches liquid marshmallow)

You can use about half the amount powdered sugar. The fondant is every bit as sturdy, but 10 times more pliable. Maybe you won't get 3 lbs of fondant out of this recipe (we didn't measure) but what you have will be so much easier to work with.

In other news, Lauren and I may be making a cake this weekend. Rachel dropped off an incredibly awesome and generous thank you gift to us for Sofia's Dr. Seuss cake. The gifts included a variety of cake decorating and fondant working tools. Lauren will be making a baby shower cake in September and wants to test out some ideas we've seen on Cake Boss and Food Network Challenge. On top of that we've also been contacted by an acquaintance of mine about doing a John Deere tractor wedding cake for August of 2010.

So in short order we're going to need to find some solid "from scratch" cake recipes and start fancying up the actual cake and frosting.

We'll see how that goes this weekend.

Black Magic Cupcakes

2009-07-29T07:27:00.000-07:00

Lauren made these last night as a peace offering for her coworkers. We're leaving Saturday morning for Charleston SC. We'll be gone for a week and from what I gather her vacation might hamstring a few people at work. Our agenda on vacation should provide for several food related post when we return:

Saturday (Aug 1) - Drive to Clemson, visit Lauren's sister

Sunday - Drive to Anderson, have lunch with Grandma. Drive to Orangeburg, have second lunch

with Granny. Drive to Charleston to Lauren's parents' house.

Monday - Go crabbing. I'm not sure how this works, but I will probably be acting like a dork, imitating things I see on Deadliest Catch, even though I'm fairly certain we'll be in maybe 10 ft of warm harbor water.

Tuesday - Drive to Savannah, GA (2 hours). Do stuff, hang out with more of Lauren's relatives. Stay at Savannah's oldest hotel, The Marshall House.

Wednesday - Wake up and try to get lunch reservations at Lady & Sons, Paula Deen's restaurant. Do stuff in Savannah, then drive home.

Thursday - TBA?

Friday - Wine Tasting/Agro Tourism?

Saturday - TBA

Sunday (Aug 9) - Drive Home

We'll almost certainly need a vacation from our vacation. By the way, here is the recipe for those cupcakes:

1 3/4 c. flour

2 c. sugar

3/4 c. powdered cocoa (unsweetened)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1 c. strong coffee

1 c. buttermilk/sour milk or 2% milk

1/2 c. vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Mix the dry, mix the wet ingredients separately and then combine. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes in greased and floured pans (or cupcake skirts). When cool frost with Buttercream Frosting.

Macaroni & Cheese Bake

2009-07-28T06:27:00.000-07:00

I haven't had macaroni and cheese in a while, so I decided to make some last night. I wanted to take another run at a baked mac and cheese because our previous attempt turned into an egg souffle. I'll never understand what Delia was thinking in the Mac & Cheese throwdown. 12 eggs? Ridiculous.

The recipe we used came from Alton Brown and Good Eats. Its pretty straight forward, but we made some changes so that it was more of an adult entree:

1/2 pound elbow macaroni
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon powdered mustard
3 cups milk
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 large egg
12 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh black pepper

Topping:

3 tablespoons butter
1 cup panko bread crumbs

Additions:

1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/2 cup corn
1/2 cup peas

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and mustard and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it's free of lumps. Stir in the milk, onion, bay leaf, and paprika. Simmer for ten minutes and remove the bay leaf.

Temper in the egg. Stir in 3/4 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a 2-quart casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.

Melt the butter in a saute pan and toss the bread crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the bread crumbs. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.

Remember to save leftovers for fried Macaroni and Cheese.

We added the additional vegetables when we folded the pasta in the cheese sauce. The recipe is pretty simple. My advice would be once you've gotten past the simmer stage and you're preparing to mix in your cheese, turn the stove off. It will give you a little more leeway with how quickly you need to finish the last few steps. It will also prevent the cheese from getting grainy.

If you're not sure how to temper the egg, you beat an egg in a bowl, then mix in the hot cheese sauce into the bowl 1 tbsp at a time until the egg mixture reaches a temperature close to the temperature of the cheese sauce. If you just beat the egg and toss it in without tempering, the egg will cook immediately and nothing will bind.

Overall this dish was pretty mediocre. The texture was great and I wouldn't change much about any of the preparation, I just felt like the flavor was little bit bland. Maybe adding the extra vegetables necessitated adding more seasoning, which I didn't do, but it wasn't quite as flavorful as I expected. If you follow the instructions I'd recommend you find a spot to mix in some salt.

Grilled Chicken Wings

2009-07-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

Friday night I drew some food inspiration from FoodNetwork.com and a food blog linked to the profile of person on a message board. I wanted something quick and simple, with little or no mess which usually means grilled something or other. The first recipe was Bobby Flay's Grilled Chicken Wings. I'm not going to bother pasting the recipe here because in reality I only followed the cooking instructions. I'm sure the sauces were amazing, but I didn't want to end up with 2 pints of greek yogurt blue cheese dipping sauce in the refrigerator.

So going back to my previous Chicken Wings post you'll need to butcher your wings in the appropriate spots, and then thats it.

No steaming or refrigerating. Get your grill up to 400-500 degrees, take all of your wings put them in a large mixing bowl and toss them with 2-3 tbsp olive oil, some salt, pepper and any other chicken friendly spices you enjoy.

Grill the wings 4-5 minutes per side, then toss them in your favorite sauce (1/2 cup per dozen), plate and serve.

Nearly as good as the oven roasted preparation and light years quicker. The main difference is that when you steam some of the fat out of the wings in the oven method the skin shrinks up and loses much of its elasticity and gains some crispiness. In this grilled method it is just the opposite. Ideally I'd say the best method for homemade wings is to steam them, rest them in the refrigerator, then toss them in olive oil and cook them on the grill.

Wine Tasting In Northern Michigan

2009-07-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday (July 4th) while we were staying in Northport, Lauren and I drove around to some of the local wineries. Leelanau Peninsula is very proud of their wine and a few of the wineries like to point out that they're located along the 45th parallel (north), which is the same parallel as some of the finest wine producing regions of Italy and France. Presumably that implies that they have the ability to grow the same grapes as those regions and thus produce comparable wines. I think there is more to it than that but its not like I would know the differene one way or another.

Our first stop was Leelanau Wine Cellars in Omena. The picture above is not from our trip (I didn't think to take any pictures of any place we stopped) but it is the room we were in. The balding sommelier in the foreground is the same one that guided us through our tasting. Much to our surprise Leelanau Cellars didn't charge for a tasting and didn't have a set number of wines that were available for tasting. We were presented with a split list of wines, one side being wines available in retail stores throughout the state and the other being premium wines available only in Leelanau Cellars tasting rooms/gift shops. I think we tried at least 10-12 wines. It was very fun and with each winery we visit we being to participate in discussions with the sommeliers about what we like or dislike about the wine we're tasting.

But I'll admit that I still don't know if I am supposed to smell the wine before I drink it or if I'm supposed to drink it in two sips or one. So about half the time I probably look like a mix between a polite drunk and a trained monkey counting the seconds until I can push my glass forward for more wine. However thats not because I don't care or that I'm pretending to care for the sake of free alcohol. I just get awkward very easily and knowing how inexperienced I am with wine (I have probably drunk less than a dozen glasses of wine in the last year) I don't feel comfortable voicing my opinion about how this wine "finishes" or that wine "has oaky characteristics". I'd just as well leave it as "I liked that" and "I didn't like that" rather than attempt some profound observation, only to find out that my palate prefers Salisbury steak to New York Strip.

Of the wineries we visited I think Leelanau Cellars benefited the most. Their wines have always been around at local wine/liquor stores and Meijer. If I am remembering correctly our sommelier told us that Leelanau Cellars is the largest winery (in terms of sales) in Michigan. However Lauren and I have always been really unimpressed with their labels. I understand that is probably the worst way to judge a wine, but if you don't know exactly what you're doing with wine the most reassuring decision is to choose the wine that looks most professional. Many of their retail wines look similar to their Winter White label, which in its defense is hugely popular wine that sells at a great price $8-$11 per bottle. So as a result Leelanau Cellars has always been a ways down our list of local wines options.

We ended up leaving with two bottles of a Baco Noir Rose (I think). More importantly I didn't want to make the same mistake we did a year ago, when we bought 2-3 bottles of good wine at our first stop and then went to a great winery and regretted only having enough wine budget left to buy 2-3 more.

Our second stop was Black Star Farms in Suttons Bay, which was a huge vineyard/farm/estate just off the main road. They describe it as "an agricultural destination" which I would agree is pretty accurate. They do weddings, events and weekend room reservations.

Again the photo is the room we were in, but definitely not the day we were there. When we went there were decidedly fewer retirees than in this photo. The "tasting club" cost $3 per person at Black Star, which got you a branded tasting glass and five complimentary tastings. The Black Star Farms Arcturos Late Harvest Riesling is one of our favorite white wines. So we elected to skip that one and try more reds. I don't recall everything we had but I think it was two Cabernet Francs, a Pinot Noir, a fruit wine, a Pinot Gris and the semi-dry riesling. Our sommelier was very good at making recommendations and pouring different wines in each of our glasses so that our five tastings stretched much closer to ten. I don't remember what we walked away with from Black Star but I think it was a Pinot Noir and the latest Riesling which has been bottled but will not ship to stores for a few more months.

The last stop we made for the day was at 45 North Winery in Lake Leelanau. I believe this winery is relatively new (less than 10 years old), but they are certainly on their way to becoming an outfit like Black Star Farms. They are in the process of building a tasting room, but for now have things set up on the floor of a bottling building. We tried another 8-10 wines here, but were rushed because of a large crowd and a small bar. In the end we bought three bottles from this winery, but I don't know what they were. It was here that we discovered northern Michigan wineries seem to buy into the idea that corked wine bottles have outlived their usefulness. Everything was a screw top cap. We found that to be very disappointing. I understand the technological argument that says screw caps work as well or better, but it still feels cheap and childish. When we got back in the car we checked out earlier purchases and noticed that all but one or two were also screw tops. Oh well. By the way, 45 North has won awards at some pretty impressive sounding wine competitions, but at the moment they aren't in stores outside of northern Michigan. One of the employees gave me information about how to get in touch with their distributors that have Grand Rapids area connections, but it didn't sound like the type of thing you would go through to get just one bottle or two.

All in all it was a good time. We picked up seven more bottles to go with the four or five we have from wine tasting last summer and we've still got 17 of Leelanau Peninsula's 20 wineries left to visit on any future trips up north.

Vacation Recap In Photos

2009-07-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

When you spend 3 hours a day at the beach, you run out of things to do. But this makes a good cover for this photo album/blog entry, so I'm leaving it in.

We took my parents' minivan this weekend because we really didn't feel like playing tetris in the trunk and backseat with all the stuff we needed to bring. The cottage where we were staying hadn't been opened for the season yet, so it was a bit unclear what we needed in the way of napkins, plates, cups, pots, pans, etc. So we decided to err on the side of caution and bring many of those things with us. That area also runs off of well water, which tastes funky so we brought bottled water and a cooler.

Anyhow, none of that is important. My point is that now that you know why we had a van you'll have a better appreciation for what happens when we drive the van. On the way to any place, if Joss isn't hovering over my shoulder trying to figure out where we're going, then she is down on the floor in between the front seats sniffing the air conditioning vents. It is so weird. It goes on in roughly 15 minutes intervals, in this case for the bulk of a 3.5 hour drive.

These were our accomodations for the weekend, aka The Bat House. From what I remember it is called that because one of the first times my Aunt & Uncle stayed there after they bought it, they encountered a bat. It freaked them out, my aunt didn't want to sleep there for a while and then it became a running joke. It was literally the only time they had a ever seen a bat at that house. As you can see its a pretty densely wooded area. At night you can't see 50 feet into the area surrounding the cottage, which is really nerve wracking when you're with a dog who will stare into the darkness for no particular reason. As you can tell this dense foliage greatly hampered my ability to be friends with Mario Batali. He could have had a 15,000 sq ft mansion on the adjacent lot and we wouldn't have ever known. In addition to that, the road that circles the area that he reportedly lives in was described by my uncle as "drive down that road by invitation only".

The front room of the cottage, just inside the front door.

The kitchen and front door. There is a refrigerator, its a little dorm-sized wood patterned fridge, just in front of the cooler. Not pictured are the back room which is a bedroom with two twin beds and the bathroom.

I didn't take a whole lot of photos while we were out. I'm not sure why, but it just didn't occur to me to take photos of anything we saw while we were out wine tasting except for this. This was in Suttons Bay, outside an art gallery. I don't believe this was for sale, but a similarly constructed pig about 1/6th of the size cost $725.

I'll leave the wine tour to a separate post, but it was a really great time. We only hit three of a possible 9-12 wineries in the area, but I am pretty sure they were three of the best. Although I don't know anything about wine, couldn't tell you which are my favorite styles or why and that I get buyer's remorse every time we leave a winery, wine tasting is still one of my favorite things to do.

The remainder of the weekend was spent with this wet rat on the shores of Lake Michigan. Nothing can satisfy her urge to go swimming. She swam so much that at the end of the first day Lauren threw a ball out, Joss went to get and I though I was going to have to swim out and get her before she went under. She was so tired that she fell asleep standing up on the 5 minute car ride from the beach back to the cottage.

Every day was pretty much 2-3 hours of this:

But it was a great weekend. We also went strawberry picking on the way up, where I also did not take any pictures. Strawberries seem slightly less delicious after seeing the way that they're grown. I always pictured them hanging high off the ground from a majestic bush, not directly on the ground inside of a plant that looks like a lawn weed.

Northport

2009-06-30T07:39:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I went to weddings on back to back nights. Or at least I tried to. I didn't feel so great after a few hours at the second wedding and went home to take a shower and hug an air conditioner. Last week was so disgustingly hot it ruined everything. I didn't really cook anything because the last thing I wanted was the oven heating the house and I didn't want too much time tending to a 500 degree grill outside in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity. So last week was burgers, cold sandwiches, grilled chicken and pizza.

This week the weather is considerably cooler, but its a 4 day week and Lauren and I have plans for the weekend. So cooking is nearer the end of the list of priorities than usual. We're heading north to Northport, Michigan where my mom's side of the family calls home. We'll be staying in a cottage/house owned by my uncle, a couple of hundred yards (but right next door) from my grandma's house.

During the 2000 census the population of Northport was officially registered as 648. But Wikipedia says that one of those 648 is none other than Iron Chef Mario Batali. Not only that but they list the area where he owns a house and it is really, really nearby. No matter how hard I try I can't get this fantasy out of my head where we run into him (flat tire on the side of the road or something) and become good friends, if only for a long weekend.

Also, you shouldn't infer anything about where we're staying by its proximity to Mario Batali's home. My mom's family has owned those two properties for more than 30 or 40 years, long before people started clearing lakefront property up there and building million dollar summer mansions.

So this weekend in addition to hanging out with Mario Batali and swimming in Lake Michigan, we're also going to have the opportunity to go wine tasting. See all these red dots and balloons? Those are all wineries. We're staying just north of the where this map cuts off.

And just to give you an idea of the scale of this map. That natural triangular loop between Northport, Suttons Bay and Leland takes 20 mins per side to drive. So in an hour's drive time we could hit 6 or 7 wineries no problem. Madonna's family has a winery in that area, I think its the B balloon or in that area on this map.

In addition to all these we're hoping to spend some time at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore as well as some time hunting for Petoskey stones on the beach at Peterson Park (a 5 min drive). Anytime you can be within 5 minutes of Lake Michigan you know you're going to have an awesome weekend.

And if all of that gets boring we can always head to the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City. I really want to a 72 hour nap and wake up to find out that its Friday morning.

Pizza Bread? Stromboli?

2009-06-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

I don't know what you call this exactly. My intent was to make pizza bread like my mom makes it, but it really didn't turn out that way. I think it could have, but I made one giant loaf rather than two smaller ones. What she always did when I was younger was make them two at a time, cook one and freeze the other. Hers always fit nicely into a loaf pan, a much more manageable size for freezer storage. Mine did not.

I got the dough recipe from Robert Irvine's Dinner Impossible on the Food Network. However mom's pizza bread was always made with wheat bread, something that I guess helped differentiate it from stromboli or a massive pizza roll. So what I did was use half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat flour.

Pizza Bread Dough

1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 (1/4-ounce) packet fresh fast-acting yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water, between 100 and 115 degrees F, as measured with a thermometer (any hotter will kill the yeast - an organic leavener; too cool and the yeast won't be activated)
4 cups all-purpose flour, plus some extra to knead the dough (I used 2 cups wheat flour and 2 cups all-purpose)
1 tbsp olive oil

Dissolve salt, sugar, and yeast in the warm water and allow the yeast to proof. ("Proofing" the yeast is testing it for viability. It will develop foam which looks like the head of a beer. If it doesn't proof, the yeast is dead and should be discarded.) Proofing takes about 15 minutes.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients in your stand mixer (or by hand) with the dough hook on medium speed for 4-5 minutes or until all the flour is gone and the dough is slapping around

your otherwise cleaning mixing bowl. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and form a ball. Rub the dough ball with a tablespoon of olive oil, put it back in your mixing bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

Allow the dough to rise for 45-60 minutes, so that it roughly doubles in volume (the dough has risen enough if you make an indentation with your finger and it does not spring back.). Then punch the dough down and allow it to rise again. (Allowing the dough to rise a second time gives it a finer texture.) Note: It will not rise as much the second time.

When your dough is ready, turn it out on floured surface and roll it out with a rolling pin into two 14-inch circles (or one massive square like I did).

Filling

8-10 oz tomato sauce (I used Prego Organic Tomato & Basil because of its smooth, thicker texture)
2 cups (1 pkg) Mozzarella cheese
1 red bell pepper (diced)
1 yellow bell pepper (diced)
1 pkg (40?) sliced pepperoni
1 tbsp + 1 tsp olive oil
1 beaten egg

Saute your diced peppers in for about 5 minutes in 1tbsp olive oil. Do the same in a separate pan with your pepperoni until they are slightly crunchy. You don't have to do either of these steps, but the peppers get a little sweeter and the pepperoni just seems better when its crisp around the edges. I considered adding pineapple, but eventually decided against it because of concerns about the added moisture of the pineapple juice.

Spread your sauce and cheese around your dough, leaving a dry 1 inch perimeter around the edges. Add your toppings and then roll the whole thing up like a jelly roll. Seal the edges and put the seam side down on a baking sheet (or a loaf pan if it will fit). Brush the exterior with the beaten egg.

Bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes. Remove and let it rest for 5 minutes so the bread softens.

One thing I found out after the fact was that this super loaf didn't quite cook all the way through the center of the middlemost piece. The centermost curl of dough in that piece was still a little

doughy. So I'd advise you to make this as two smaller loaves regardless of the situation. I don't know if you can tell by the pictures, but this thing is deceptively large. It doesn't seem that way when its all spread out like a pizza. But once you start rolling it up it seems to grow exponentially.

It tasted fantastic. Fresh bread is always much better than I remember. The pizza bread/stromboli makes for great leftovers and you can put pretty much whatever you want inside it. Just make sure the ingredients are cooked to your liking before they go in. Its also a really cheap way to make dinner. In the future I'll make an actual pizza using that same dough. I always though pizza dough was more complicated than that, but I guess all it takes is the right amount of patience.

Moroccan Grilled Salmon

2009-06-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I saw an episode of Good Eats about salmon and the various ways to prepare it. When it comes to salmon Lauren and I pretty regularly (twice a month on average) make the blackened salmon burgers I've posted here before. I'm not a big fish eater, especially when it comes to fishy fish like salmon, but those salmon burgers are unbelievable.

On Friday I was perusing the Summer Grilling section of FoodNetwork.com and found another intriguing (but simple) use for salmon.

1/2 cup plain yogurt
Juice of 1 lemon, plus lemon wedges for garnish
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the grill
2 to 3 cloves garlic, smashed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
4 6-ounce skinless center-cut salmon fillets
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro or parsley, for garnish

Stir together the yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, coriander, cumin, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste in a small bowl. Pour HALF OF THE SAUCE into a large resealable plastic bag; cover and refrigerate the remaining sauce. Add the salmon to the bag and turn to coat with the marinade. Refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the bag over once.

Preheat a grill to medium-high. Remove the salmon from the marinade and blot off excess yogurt with paper towels. Lightly oil the grill and add the salmon; cook, turning once, until browned on the outside and opaque in the center, 4 to 6 minutes per side, depending on the thickness. Serve with the RESERVED YOGURT SAUCE and garnish with the herbs and lemon wedges.

The next thing I need to get is a non-stick fish basket for grilling. Its not a problem with the salmon burgers presumably because of the spices and butter, but with this recipe it is a tricky proposition. Our fish was sticking to the grill like crazy. It also didn't help that I forgot to use the non-stick olive oil spray on the grill beforehand, but by the time it was all said and I done I think we lake at least 1/2 a fillet to sticking.

The fish was excellent, but I did not reserve enough yogurt sauce for the leftovers. I used two cups of 4oz dannon plain yogurt (5/$2 ) rather than buying one of those huge 32 oz plain yogurt containers. After making this recipe I am sure you could also use greek yogurt. The combination of yogurt, garlic and lemon has a very familliar Mediterranean flavor.

We used a 1.7 lb salmon filet cut into six smaller filets, which meant we needed to use slightly more than 1/2 cup yogurt for our sauce. The only thing I didn't have from the recipe was the ground coriander. I'm not sure what else it can be used for, but if you don't have ground cumin it is pretty useful in burgers, chili, white chili and meat loaf recipes.

We served the salmon with grilled corn, grilled asparagus and Zatarain's Rice Pilaf.

Weekends With A Dog

2009-06-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

If things slow down a bit on the blog this summer, its because of Lauren's dog Jocelyn. She is relentless in her desire to play outside, and if you don't play often enough Lauren will come home to find shoes, the garbage can, a remote control (whatever she can reach), strewn about her bedroom. So in order to keep that from happening we take her to the dog park or out into the backyard to as often as possible. Then, while we're outside playing we usually fire up the grill and make simple foods and things I've already blogged about. The video above is from Sunday afternoon in the backyard. Lauren shot the video, while I'm off camera to the right throwing the ball.

The picture below is what Joss looked like around 7pm, giving us the opportunity to make and eat dinner without a hyperactive dog barking orders at us.

Beer Can Chicken

2009-06-15T06:37:00.000-07:00

This weekend was pretty busy for me. Friday night Lauren had a going away party for some friends which made for a late night. Then Saturday we helped them move their stuff on to a truck, which is always longer and more tedious than you mentally prepare for. Saturday night we were scheduled to babysit an infant but that got scrapped at the last minute. Not that I'm doubting the story we were told by the parents, but I get the feeling that fate stepped in and said "Ba is not ready for that just yet. Sure it seems like a good idea to him now, but he's not going to know what do after 25 minutes".

Sunday was good. I watched Spain whip New Zealand 5-0 in the Confederations Cup, played outside, made a meal I've been wanting to try for a while and then watched The Pursuit Of Happyness backwards. The movie was on TNT back to back, but the first time through I only caught the second half of the movie. Then when it restarted I decided to watch the first half. Watching that movie in this manner really takes some emotion of the storyline. Rather than feeling sad about Chris Gardner being homeless you just watch and say "whats that stupid thing he is lugging around with him everywhere?" and "he seems like a smart guy, I wonder how he got homeless". I sort of recommend it.

Anyhow, for dinner Sunday I made beer can chicken. It was quite simple:

1 fresh roaster chicken (4-5 lbs)
5-6 tsp McCormick Grill Mates Chicken Dry Rub
Olive Oil
1 12 oz can of beer

Remove the giblets (they are wrapped in paper, resting inside the chicken cavity). Rinse the chicken, pat it dry with paper towel. Rub the chicken skin and cavity with oil. Then sprinkle/rub with 5 tsp of seasoning (4 on the exterior, 1 inside the cavity). Take a large sip (3-4 oz) of beer. Pour the 6th teaspoon of seasoning in the beer and set it down in a roasting pan.

Slide the chicken on top of your beer can. Amazingly it fits very snugly. Just adjust the rib cage so it gets over the lip of the can and then position the legs for added stability.

Roast at 350 for about 90 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 165 degrees.

It was pretty good. The chicken was very tender and flavorful. The meal was very cheap and simple, I think it cost me $9 total, including the dry rub and a box of rice. But ultimately it suffered from the same issues as any whole/rostisserie chicken meal. How much work do you really want to do to separate skin from chicken and chicken from bone in order make yourself a plate of food? And what do you do with the leftovers?

Curly Fries

2009-06-09T07:02:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon I got the propane tank refilled, and Sunday even grilling promptly resumed. We had been on a 2 week hiatus because mentally I didn't want to have to spend that +$23 just to have grilled chicken. But eventually I talked myself into bringing the tank to U-Haul and getting it refilled rather than doing the Blue Rhino tank swap. That saved me about $8, and according to U-Haul it gave me more propane too.

So yesterday we decided on burgers. I won't waste your time talking about how to make a hamburger. I was walking by the frozen potatoes aisle planning on tater tots when I saw Ore Ida curly fries. I figured it might be possible to Google a recipe for the seasoning used on Arby's Curly fries. Also I really wanted those springy phone cord curly fries. Here is what I found:

Curly Fries Seasoning

2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp onion powder

Cook your fries per the instructions on the package. With 5 minutes left in your bake time, sprinkle the hot fries with seasoning.

I wouldn't say that this makes them taste exactly like Arby's Curly fries. They look the part quite a bitter better than they play it. I think the seasoning could use some salt, and in the future I'd probably cut the cayenne in half or switch it out with another spice altogether. I'm sure not having an industrial fryer also changes the flavor a little bit. Still, the recipe works out as a solid homemade seasoning for French fries. As for the fries themself, those packages don't really contain curly fries, so much as they contain curved french fries. There were a few in there, but in my opinion it takes two curves or at least 270 degrees of curvature to be classified as curly.

Hawaiian Chicken Kebabs

2009-06-08T06:41:00.000-07:00

I spent Saturday afternoon attempting to give Lauren's old bicycle a tuneup. About a month ago she got a brand new hybrid road bike and on weekends she usually takes it out for a ride. Prior to this weekend I had no idea she had an old bike in the basement, so we took it out, dusted it off and planned to take it for a ride. I went to the store, got some CLR (Calcium, Lime, Rust remover), WD-40 and an allen wrench set.

So we used a toothbrush and applied CLR to the chain and gears, washed it off, sprayed some WD-40 and then took the bikes out for a ride. Keep in mind this was a bike Lauren got maybe 8-10 years ago by her estimate. So the bike is a little bit small, and for most of the ride I felt like a bear riding a tricycle. The ride was good, aside from the fact that I couldn't really ever fully extend my legs. Also I think the rear brakes were rubbing the tire a little bit, so it was basically like being on a mobile spin bike.

Which leads me to the tuneup. I was so convinced that the bike was in need of a tuneup (as opposed to just being a bike made 10 years ago) that I brought it outside, grabbed a ratchet set and the WD-40 and began loosening, tightening and lubricating every part I could look at and understand. For the better part of 2 hours I did all of this and it made zero difference. In fact if anything I made the issue with the rear brake even worse. I relaxed some of the tension so that the rear brake handle was easier to press, but in the process I loosened or tightened something to the point that the brake doesn't relax from the wheel when you release the brake handle. It is very frustrating. I think about it multiple times a day and it still bothers me. Bikes aren't that complex. This should be easy. If I don't find a bigger bike on Craigslist in the next few days, I'm going to take another crack at the grease monkey thing and see if I can't figure out that rear brake.

Since most of my energy this weekend was spent being a faux mechanic, not much was spent in the kitchen. Saturday night we made chicken caesar salad, and last night we made Hawaiian Chicken Kebabs:

Lawry's Hawaiian Marinade
1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast (chunked)
1 large vidalia onion (chunked)
1 sweet bell pepper (red/yellow/orange, chunked)
1 pineapple (chunked)
BBQ sauce

Take your chicken chunks, marinate them for 15-30 minutes. Marinate your veggies separate from the chicken for 10 minutes. Proper kebab technique says you compose you skewer by ingredient, cook, then reassemble as a finished product. This ensures even cook times and contact with the grill surface, which leads to even charring. We don't bother. Handling the food more just means a bigger mess and a larger possibility of burning a finger.

Throw your skewers on the grill at medium-high heat for 10-12 minutes total, turning once, maybe twice to get charring on all sides. Just before you turn the skewers, brushing them with a little bit of BBQ sauce for added color.

Along with the skewers we had grilled asparagus (a summertime staple) and yellow rice. Grilled pineapple is obviously great, but the surprise for me was the grilled vidalia onion. It was so good that it made me consider roasting whole vidalia onions as a part of a future dish.

Zucchini Bread

2009-06-03T05:54:00.000-07:00

I happened to find some zucchini at Meijer last night, so I made zucchini bread. Last week when I made banana bread, I made two loaves and three mini-loaves. The two big loaves went with me to jury duty, but only one got eaten. So for the whole weekend I had a delicious breakfast/midnight snack ready and waiting. That was the idea behind making the zucchini bread, but I can already tell its not going to last that long.

You may find the recipe to be very familiar. If this recipe seems really fattening, its partially because this one yields two 9 x 5 loaves, whereas the banana bread recipe yields only one:

1 1/8 cups white sugar
1 1/8 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil (or 2 sticks softened butter)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups chopped zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 325. Cream the butter and sugar (or just mix if you're using oil), add the eggs and vanilla and stir to combine. Add the chopped zucchini (do not dry/drain). Whisk together your dry ingredients, then add them to the wet ingredients, stir until just combined. Top with walnuts, or mix them into the batter.

Pour into two greased 9 x 5 inch pans and bake at 325 for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

For the zucchini I just washed it, diced it and then pulsed it in a food processor. Last year before Lauren had a food processor we just diced the zucchini and mixed it in chunky. There was no difference in taste and I think it may have provided a little extra moisture.

That picture isn't my banana bread. The battery in my camera died last night as I was lining up my photo.

Banana Bread

2009-05-28T19:31:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow ends my stint in jury duty. It was a short week but strangely enough we members of the jury have bonded in our time together, despite the fact that nobody seems to know anybody else's name. The best way I can describe it is to say that its like an extended field trip in high school.

So I'm taking advantage of one of the permissions we're allowed as jurors and I'm bringing in baked goods to share with the group. Originally I had planned to make an amazing zucchini muffin recipe Lauren and I discovered last summer, but Meijer didn't have any zucchinis. So instead I made a couple loaves of banana bread.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp molasses (rum also works, as does 1 tsp vanilla)
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (3-4 bananas)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 - 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour one 9x5 inch pan.

Cream margarine and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs, molasses/rum/vanilla, then bananas. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add dry ingredients to the wet, stirring just until combined. Pour into prepared pan, top with chopped walnuts and bake at 350 for about 1 hour (or till toothpick comes out clean). Remove from pan and let cool, store in refrigerator or freeze.

I'll let you know tomorrow or perhaps over the weekend how the bread turned out. I'll also give some more details about jury duty, assuming I'm finished and am at liberty to speak about it.

Right now the banana bread smells and looks amazing.

p.s. - I violated the "wet on top of dry (to avoid flour coughing all over the counter)" rule of ingredient mixing because I used the KitchenAid to cream the sugar and butter. It wasn't worth it to me to change out mixing bowls or mix by hand. I just ran the mixer on slow.

Tikki Masala Pork

2009-05-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

This was a play off a dinner we made a few months ago with red curry and pork chops. For that meal we used an Archer Farms meal in a box kit that didn't have near enough rice. For this one we just stuck to the basics:

1 pkg thin cut pork chops (as many as you need)
1 pkg Tasty Bite Tikki Masala simmer sauce
1 tbsp olive oil or butter
White rice
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 350.

Sprinkle salt and pepper (to taste) on your pork chops. Saute the pork chops in 1 tbsp olive oil or butter, high heat for 4 mins per side. Take the almost done pork chops and finish them in the oven for 8-10 mins.

Heat your Tasty Bites sauce packet per the instructions on the back. The grocery store had the option of Tikki Masala, Good Korma and Rogan Josh flavors. The Rogan Josh appeared to be very spicy and the Good Korma had a very vague description of its flavors, so I chose the safest (read: tomato based) option.

Cut you pork chops into chunks, simmer briefly in your hot sauce and pour over the rice.

You could probably skip finishing the pork chops in the oven and simmer them to completion in the simmer sauce, but we elected to err on the side of caution with our cooked meat (we usually do).

It was pretty good. I think with the five chops that we used I'd use two sauce packets. They have a deceptively small amount in them. As it was, we had enough sauce for dinner but after the leftovers go refrigerate and then go through the microwave, those plates might be a little dry.

Stir Fry Success (Finally!) & More

2009-05-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

First off, a quick note: I have jury duty this week, which despite what you might hear from other people, is fascinating stuff. So thats 5-8 hours every day, plus I need to at least tread water at my regular job, which doesn't leave me a whole lot of time to cook or write about cooking. So there is a pretty good chance I'll be making pasta and sandwich staples that you can find on this blog throughout the rest of the week and weekend. Thats too bad.

Late last week I did have the opportunity to try out a new stir-fry recipe from Rachel. It was the perfect stir-fry glaze viscocity that Lauren and I have been searching for. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

2 cups chicken (diced)
1/2 cup chopped broccoli

1/4 cup chopped peas

1 medium onion (chopped)

Additional stir-fry vegetables
1-2 cups cooked white rice
2 tbsp Cashews

Sauce
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp white vinegar
1-2 Tbsp white wine or dry sherry

Directions

Cook diced chicken in saute pan for 5-7 mins, until white all the way through.
Saute vegetables in separate pan until tender and set aside.
Cook rice, set aside
Mix sauce ingredients, stir, set aside
Add chicken to wok (or saute pan) with a little oil
Add chicken and sauce to clean pan, heat thoroughly. Sauce will thicken.
Add vegetables & stir until sauce is thicker veggies are warmed through

Pour over hot rice & serve immediately

Awesome and easy. Makes great leftovers too. I don't know what kind of soy sauce we used, but the next time I'll probably make sure to find a low sodium version if we used this sauce again. I also bought cashews and then completely forgot to put them in, so I feel like I really missed on one of the major ingredients. I can't wait to try adding cornstarch and sugar to my favorite citrus stir-fry sauce to see if if thickens the same way. Eventually I plan to take on the challenge of breading frying and glazing my own version of sesame chicken.

Baked Potato Salad

2009-05-21T06:13:00.000-07:00

Later today, Lauren is going to be participating in an informal potato salad throwdown as part of a potluck lunch at work. The gauntlet was thrown Monday afternoon. I have no idea how, I just got an email saying

"you'd better be ready to make the best potato salad of your life on Wednesday night, because Jaymie said his potato salad was better than ours".

Apparently he makes a sweet potato salad that he is quite proud of. If he actually makes it and I can get the recipe, I'll post that too. But that is all up to Lauren since this is taking place at her work and I will be relying on her to relay feedback and results of the competition.

So we took our favorite potato salad recipe, and amped it up a little bit. The base recipe:

3 pounds red potatoes
Kosher salt
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped red onion

The additions:

Roasted potatoes
1/2 cup chopped green onion
1 cup raw corn (about 1 ear of corn)
Herbs de Provence/Parisien Bonnes Herbes

So what we did was cut out potatoes into eighths, tossed them lightly in olive oil and mixed in the potato seasoning. You don't really need Herbs de Provence or Parisien Bonnes Herbs. Those two just happen to be blends of tasy potato-friendly herbs like rosemary and thyme.

We laid the potatoes in a single layer on a baking sheet and roasted them at 400 degrees for 35 minutes. When they were done we let them cool, scooped them into a bowl, and made potato salad.

Wash one ear of corn, then cut the kernels off with a large knife.

Add the potatoes, corn, celery and green onion to a large mixing bowl.

In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, buttermilk, Dijon mustard, whole grain mustard, dill, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Pour dressing over the potato mixture. Toss well, cover, and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Very simple and very delicious. We considered adding cheese but the salt in the cheese unbalanced the flavors just a bit too much.

Its called baked potato salad because its potato salad mixed in with all the toppings you find on top of or along side of a baked potato. You could take it one step further and use half sour cream and half mayonnaise, but I think you risk weakening the flavor.

The last, most obvious addition is bacon. But Lauren crosses paths with far too many vegetarians for us to actually do it. I'm okay with that. I would feel pretty bad if everyone were talking about the potato salad and the vegetarians couldn't eat it because I tried to turn an A into an A+ with bacon.

Blueberry Space Ship Muffins

2009-05-19T06:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made muffins for Tuesday morning breakfast and a Monday night snack. I used the sour cream muffin recipe, added a tablespoon of lemon juice and a small package of blueberries.

Dry Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Wet Ingredients
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
2/3 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 stick butter (melted)
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tbsp lemon juice

Blueberries to taste

Whisk together dry ingredients, then wisk together wet ingredients. Combine wet and dry with a few quick strokes until the batter is just formed. Bake at 350 or 375 for 10-12 minutes, or until you can stick a fork in the middle and have it come out clean.

The one mistake I made was that I misread the recipe from the cookbook. It actually calls for one half stick of butter in two separate paragraphs. But last night I missed the second half stick and shorted the recipe. So the muffins came out more like blueberry biscuits. They were still very good.

This is supposed to make just 12 muffins, but we had extra. So we had to resort using Lauren and Lisa's backup muffin pan.

I don't know why they have a NASA space shuttle muffin pan, or where they got it from, but it leads to all sorts of inappropriate jokes. Anytime it makes an appearance I feel like I'm watching a live taping of The View. It is a nightmare.

Why do women have to be so immature?

Tempeh Burgers

2009-05-19T05:29:00.000-07:00

Last night Lauren decided she wanted to try something completely different. I can't really explain why because I don't know. She bought some tempeh over the weekend as had convinced herself it was going to taste really good. Lately she has been giving me a hard time about how our meals are always based around meat. Again, why? I don't know. I happen to be good at cooking and eating meat.

So I deferred to her on this meal and last night we had tempeh burgers with corn on the cob and asparagus.

From Wikipedia:

Tempeh, or tempe in Javanese, is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. It is especially popular on the island of Java, where it is a staple source of protein. Like tofu, tempeh is made from soybeans, but tempeh is a whole soybean product with different nutritional characteristics and textural qualities. Tempeh's fermentation process and its retention of the whole bean give it a higher content of protein, dietary fiber and vitamins compared to tofu, as well as firmer texture and stronger flavor. Tofu, by contrast, is said to be more versatile in dishes. Because of its nutritional value, tempeh is used worldwide in vegetarian cuisine; some consider it to be a meat analogue.

Thats a whole bunch of vegan propaganda right there. It is not a meat analogue, though if you were a vegan and deprived yourself of all the meaty goodness of cows, pigs and chickens I could see how you would talk yourself into believing that. From a distance it kind of looks like a burger. That photo isn't ours. I got it from another blog, but we also topped our burgers with caramelized onions and mushrooms.

The best thing about the tempeh burgers is that they were hot. I was actually quite surprised at how well they heated through and how long the heat held. The worst thing about the burgers was the texture, but I'll readily admit that I have food texture issues. I like banana flavored foods (breads, muffins, etc), but I won't eat bananas because of the texture. I'll get about two bites down and my brain will shout

"you feel that? how it mushes like that in your teeth. thats what rotten fruit does. You're eating rotten fruit. Freak out... now!".

The texture was like undercooked beans I guess. Bean like, but really firm. Like a super dry hamburger made of wet packing peanuts. So for 75% of my tempeh burger I ate like a dog. Huge bites, two, maybe three quick chews and a swallow. I washed those bites down with some roasted asparagus. When I ran out of asparagus I stopped eating my burger and ate my piece of corn.

I'm not entirely opposed to eating vegetarian, but I have a principle opposition to the practice of making food to look like something its not and giving the impostor food a name that furthers the deception. And yes, those principles extend beyond the realm of vegan cuisine. I had the same ethical objection to the 9,000 calorie "salads" they advertise on TV. But that is neither here nor there.

In the future, if we're going to eat vegetarian for a night I rather skip the soy bean gymnastics and just stick to combinations of vegetables that I'd be willing to eat a la carte. On the plus side I didn't get any crazy indigestion, so it appears my issues were mostly mental.

Lauren, if you read this I apologize. Tempeh just isn't for me.

Lemon Basil Chicken Salad

2009-05-12T06:23:00.000-07:00

Last night we decided to take something old and make it new. I like to use Mondays and Tuesdays to survey the available refrigerator space and grocery situation and then make a meal plan so that I can have dinner + leftovers for lunch throughout the week, and I like to do it so that I'm not racing to eat the same thing twice a day before it spoils.

So the meal plan for this week is hopefully going to be as follows: Lemon Basil Chicken Salad (done), Stromboli and Burgers. Each should make a solid dinner with leftovers for lunch without occupying a huge amount of space in the refrigerator like a casserole. Not only that but all three are meals that I can easily grab in the morning and make at work.

As I mentioned before, last night Lauren and I made the Lemon Basil Chicken Salad another Paula Deen creation. The recipe is as follows:

4 cups diced cooked chicken
1 rib minced celery
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

In a medium bowl, combine chicken, celery, basil and almonds. In a small bowl, combine sour cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Add to chicken mixture, tossing gently to coat. Cover and chill.

We used dried basil rather than fresh. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup and the fresh basil packages at the grocery store were $2 each and didn't seem like they'd produce that much. So rather than spend $6 on fresh basil I just took the dried basil I already had and used about 2-3 tbsp. Other than that I stuck to the recipe.

We grilled and diced 2 lbs of chicken breast to get our 4 cups, and as a result the chicken salad was a bit warm when we ate it last night. I'll be curious to see if the overnight refrigeration married the flavors a little more and alters the taste. This recipe will probably stick around as our change of pace chicken salad recipe.

Along with our chicken salad we also tried out a new recipe for corn. When summer rolls around the only vegetables I have interest in are the ones that get cheaper and veggies I can roast. So at least twice a week we end up eating sweet corn or asparagus. Last night was a corn night:

Roasted Corn w/ Cilantro-Lime Butter

6 ears corn, shucked
Cilantro Lime Butter, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Coat each ear of corn in 2 tablespoons of the cilantro lime butter and wrap individually in foil. Roast until hot and steaming, about 25 minutes. Serve with extra butter on the side.

Cilantro Lime Butter:

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1 lime, zested and juiced
2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Put the butter in a mixing bowl and, using a rubber spatula, mix in the cilantro, lime zest, lime juice, salt and cayenne. Use immediately or refrigerate.

Once again Food Network went a little overboard with their condiments. Two sticks of butter is ridiculous. Thats like 1/3 stick per ear of corn. I don't know if you've ever tried to put 1/3 of stick of butter on one ear of corn, but it just isn't possible. Not even by accident.

To make just two ears of corn last night, I used about 3 tbsp of butter total. I divided everything else by 3 and mixed it together. Rather than roast the corn for 25 minutes I first boiled the corn for 3-4 minutes, then slathered it with the cilantro lime butter, wrapped it in foil and finished it on the grill next to my chicken for another 5-10 minutes.

It was very good. I realize there are only so many ways to prepare corn and this isn't all that exotic, but it was appreciated nonetheless.

Neither of these pictures are mine. They are both from Food Network. I didn't have my camera out last night. My chicken salad didn't look quite so stupid. The corn is a pretty accurate representation though.

Mexican Lasagna

2009-05-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

Hooray, time for another "what am I looking at? I guess I'll have to take his word for it" casserole pictures.

I really wanted to call this Taco Pie, but we used an 8 x 8 square baking dish so it came out more like lasagna. If you wanted you could easily use a pie dish and a larger tortilla to make it a pie. Here is what you need:

1 medium onion

1 lb. ground beef

3 tbsp. chili powder

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground cumin

1/8 tsp. pepper

1/2 C. water

8 - oz. can refried beans

Taco veggies (corn, diced tomatoes, peppers, green onions, whatever you like, NOT lettuce)

2 - 7 1/2-oz. jars of salsa (divided)

3 - 8 inch (burrito size) flour tortillas

1 cup sour cream

2 cups shredded cheese

Peel and chop onion and saute with in a skillet (2-3 mins). Add ground beef and brown over medium heat; drain. Add chili powder, salt, cumin, pepper and water. Cook, stiring occassionally for 5-10 minutes, or until water has evaporated. Stir in the refried beans. Remove from heat and set aside. Spread half a jar of salsa in a 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 inch baking dish. Place one tortilla on top of the sauce. Spread the meat on top of the tortillas; evenly spread sour cream on top. Pour the other half of the jar of salsa over the top of the meat and sour cream. Place a second tortilla on top. Spoon on another half jar of salsa on top of the tortilla. Add the taco vegetables/topping you've chosen. Sprinkle half the cheese and on the taco veggies and place a tortilla on top. Pour remaining salsa and sprinkle rest of cheese on top. Cover with foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Top with shredded lettuce if you want.

Yield: 6 servings

Very simple, not too expensive and totally delicious. I'd recommend letting it rest for 5 minutes when it comes out of the oven. I am not really sure what makes this any different from a wet burrito or an enchilada, because it seems like every Mexican dish I try ends up basically the same. For the time being, I'm chalking it up to my love for cheesy beef and sour cream soft tacos. Anyhow, chicken would be a good substitute for beef, and I am almost certain that at some point I'll be finding out how this tastes as a vegetarian dish.

Sofia's Dr. Seuss Cake

2009-05-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Lauren and I spent some time constructing our greatest cake yet. The inspiration was Sofia's 4th birthday and her love of Dr. Seuss. Sofia is the daughter of our friends Peter and Rachel. About a year ago Lauren and I made a two-tiered fondant covered birthday cake for Lauren's friend Julie. In the 12 months since that cake we've been seeing all sorts of competive cake building competitions on Food Network Challenge. So back in March I emailed Rachel about doing a Dr. Seuss cake for Sofia's birthday. This weekend Lauren and I created and delivered it.

Now before I go any further I want to explain how our cake building partnership works. Lauren is undoubtedly the designer/architect and builder. At any point in this entry if you see the word "I" or "we", it almost definitely means "she". My role in this is basically engineer/bus boy. Like an engineer I occassionally provide some good advice on the cost, feasability and materials for the project and in exchange for that I don't always correct people when they assume the project was a 50/50 effort between myself and the designer/builder.

Also, I wash dishes and mixing pieces/bowls, clear space on the counter and in the refrigerator and perform accessory preparation (i.e. knead fondant, mixing more icing, etc.) as needed so that we're never forced to bring the project to a screeching halt.

After making the fondant and Rice Krispy treats Friday night, Lauren began the baking on Saturday. She first made a three-tiered funfetti cake using 9-inch round cake pans. Normally the directions would tell you that one box makes two 9-inch cakes, but knowing that she'd be cutting off the dome of the cake to make it flat and stackable, Lauren used one whole box per pan.

She then laid icing between each layer and stacked them up. Once that was stacked, we covered that in icing and covered the icing with yellow fondant.

In order to make the hat, we made 4 separate pieces of Rice Krisy treat, iced them, wrapped them in red and white fondant and then restacked them.

Lauren did an amazing job of shaping the Rice Krispy treat into the wobbly hat. The picture above is a very early, almost uncut version of the hat.

This is the near-finished version.

Next it was time to make our book. Rather than make a ridiculous amount of cake, we decided to make the book base out of fondant-covered styrofoam. The styrofoam also provided some extra support for everything above it. Though it is inedible, that didn't really make the styrofoam any easier to work with.

At this point Lauren started decorating and icing the cake. We obviously chose The Cat In The Hat for the book, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish for the cake.

Lastly, Lauren made the blue fish for the fish bowl. He was constructed out of the remaining blue fondant and some wooden toothpicks.

I feel like I don't yet have the words to describe everything that was done to make this cake. I may do a follow up as we get further removed from it because I feel like the words in this blog entry aren't doing it justice. Perhaps I'll reorganize my thoughts and type the descriptions in the style of a Dr. Seuss book.

If I can convey just one thing with this post, it is that this wasn't as easy it might look.

Marshmallow Fondant

2009-05-04T05:14:00.001-07:00

I wanted to knock out this entry real quick before I get to the main event, so that I can discuss these components more in depth as recipes and leave the cake thread to discussion of the construction.

If you or your children ate any of the cake this weekend, you may want to grab the phone and put your dentist's number on speed dial. Sorry, but there just isn't any other to make these things.

Alright, marshmallow fondant is kind of fun to work with. The thing is I hate buying it (even though we've only used it once before this, and I don't think I paid for it) because it costs about $22 for 5 lbs. The store-bought fondant is also pretty hard and mostly flavorless. So we remedied all of those issues on Friday night by making our own.

Marshmallow Fondant (to make 3 lbs)

1 - 16oz pkg mini-marshmallows
3 tbsp water
1 tbsp vanilla
6-8 cups powdered sugar
Vegetable shortening

First thing you need to do is rub a large bowl with shortening, and then figure out how you're going to melt the marshmallows. Some people do it in 10 second bursts in the microwave, but I felt more comfortable with all the marshmallows being in the same bowl so I chose to use the double boiler method. Put an inch or two of water in the bottom of a stock pot and bring it to a boil. Then cover it with your greased stainless steel mixing bowl. Let the steam provide the heat to melt your marshmallows and water. Stir regularly with a greased spatula until it you see no lumps. If you know what color you need this fondant to be, add the food coloring/coloring concentrate now. Keep in mind that you're going to add a bunch of white (in the form of powdered sugar) to this mixture, so if the color seems a little dark or "off" don't fret. It will change in a few moments. Just keep in mind that you can always knead in more color later, so its better to err on the short side when adding your color.

At this point, you should have your tag team partner dump 6 cups of powdered sugar in the (greased) mixing bowl for your KitchenAid stand mixer. Using the (greased) dough hook attachment, pour your liquid marshmallow into the mixing bowl, add the vanilla and turn the mixer on low (2 or stir). Once the powdered sugar has stopped coughing out the sides, turn the speed to 2 or 4 and let the dough form.

When the dough has formed turn it out on a surface sprinkled with powdered sugar and knead it by hand, checking for desired elasticity. You can add up to 2 more cups of powdered sugar at this point, but we found that anything beyond 6.5 - 7 cups makes the fondant very brittle and frustrating to work with.

When you're satisfied with the consistency, rub the ball of fondant with shortening and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Let it rest overnight. Refrigerated, this fondant will keep for a couple of weeks. If you're going to use it the next day, I'd recommend you refrigerate it for an hour, maybe two hours tops and then let it sit out overnight. Fondant hardens significantly in the refrigerator and takes several hours to soften at room temperature. We made that mistake, and paid for it with our palms and forearms.

Repeat as necessary.

One last thing, no matter what you do, I don't think you'll get it to be as workable as Play-Doh. You could, by adding less powdered sugar, but you'd probably end up with fondant that is too delicate for covering cakes.

The second part of what we we needed for the this endeavor were Rice Krispy treats. In case you've been living under a rock for 15 years, here is a recipe for those:

Rice Krispy Treats

3 tbps butter
1 - 10.5 oz bag of mini marshmallows
vegetable shortening

Heat on low until melted, then turn off heat and add 6 cups of Rice Krispies cereal. Stir thoroughly (with a greased spatula) and turn out into greased baking dish of your choice. Let cool, cut and serve.

For the purposes of making the Dr. Seuss hat we pressed the hot Rice Krispy treats into a high-sided 4-6 quart sauce pan. I think we made 4 batches like this, then Lauren cut them down to and fro until we had a wobbly looking Dr. Seuss hat.

Lastly, we needed buttercream icing. Sugar, sugar and more sugar. I don't know how much this recipe makes. I think its 3 cups, but we made so much of it that it has all blurred together.

Buttercream Icing

1/2 cup (1/2 stick) of vegetable shortening
1/2 cup softened butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
3 tbsp milk

Put the butter and shortening in your stand mixer bowl, and beat on low speed until combined. Add vanilla, continue to beat on low speed and then slowly add the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Once all the sugar is in you should have a very dry paste. Add the milk and beat on low speed until the milk has been worked in.

In the picture above you can see our Rice Krispy hat and 2 quarts(!!) of buttercream icing.

Another Down Week, But With Good Reason

2009-05-01T13:00:00.001-07:00

Sorry, I didn't do much of anything this week in the kitchen. I ate of course, but it was pretty simple stuff like chicken salad, chicken Caesar salad, pizza and leftover pizza, chicken salad and Caesar salad.

Check back either late tomorrow night or Sunday and I am certain you will find your effort to be worthwhile. The entry will be either wildly impressive, or wildly amusing and worthy of a post on CakeWrecks.

That picture is a hint, and I don't know those kids.

Kansas City Style Pork Ribs

2009-04-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

2 out of 3 isn't bad. Friday night I got around to making the ribs I had been eyeing all week. Actually Thursday night I gave them a dry rub and stuck them in the fridge and Friday we cooked them. First off, I can't put enough emphasis on how much the dry rub helps, or how much I think it does. By Friday evening the 13 x 9 dish they were resting in had filled to the top with the excess water that had been pulled out of the meat by the salt in the rub. I'd definitely recommend preparing these ribs at least 6-8 hours in advance, or overnight.

Since the ribs were on sale ($0.88/lb) we got about 7.3 lbs for $6.99.

After making this recipe, I can safely say that the Neelys can be trusted:

2 slabs pork spare ribs, 3 pounds each

Kansas City Barbeque Sauce, recipe follows

Dry Rub:

2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup dry mustard
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Remove the thin white membrane off of the bone-side of the ribs. Mix together the brown sugar, dry mustard, cayenne, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Massage the rub into the ribs and let sit for 1 hour or up to overnight.

If cooking on the grill, place the ribs meat-side down next to medium-hot coals that are about 225 degrees F. The indirect heat will cook them slower, making them tender. Allow to cook for 1 hour. Turn ribs every half hour and baste with the Kansas City Barbeque Sauce. Cook until the ribs are tender, about 3 to 4 hours.

If cooking indoors, place in a roasting pan with a rack. Slather the ribs with the Kansas City Barbeque Sauce and tent a piece of aluminum foil over them. In a preheated 350 degrees F. oven, place the ribs, basting with the sauce every 30 minutes and removing the foil for the last 30 minutes and cooking until fork tender, about 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Kansas City Barbeque Sauce:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 (about 2/3 cup)small onion, finely diced
3 cups water
1 cup (2 (6-ounce) cans) tomato paste
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup molasses
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In a small sauce pot on medium-high heat, heat the oil and add the onion, cooking until translucent.

Add the remaining ingredients in a large bowl and mix together. Add to sauce pan and let simmer for 30 to 45 minutes. Use to baste the pork spare ribs.

Yield: 3 cups

The sauce was phenomenal. A little spicy at first, but once it sat in the fridge overnight the cayenne pepper disippated. However, if I made it again I'd cut the cayenne in half. Same with the dry rub. A whole tablespoon can be a bit strong, I'd reduce it to 2 teaspoons. Also, unlike other sauces I've tried to make from Food Network recipes, this sauce reduced as it was supposed to and made a reasonable quantity relative to the amount you use. I'd recommend making the sauce the night before too. When it cools and thickens I think it will provide a stickier glaze on the ribs.

The one major change I did make was that we used shoulder blade Western style ribs rather than a rack or half rack of spare ribs like you would normally picture when someone says ribs. Western or Country Style ribs are a bit more lean with a great deal more meat per rib. Some pieces are boneless, while others are essentially T-bone rib steaks. Depending on how your ribs look, you may or may not want to trim the fat before you start cooking. Mine were pretty lean, so I left the remaining fat intact for moisture, and cut if off while I was eating.

We cooked these ribs in the oven at 375 for about 2 hours on a baking rack on top of a parchment lined half baking sheet and covered with aluminum foil. After 2 hours the ribs were about 145 degrees, so I pulled them off and finished them with direct heat on the grill at 450 for 15-20 minutes, or until the internal temperature hit 160. Then I let the ribs rest 5-10 minutes and let the carryover take the internal temperature to about 170.

Like I said before, these are more knife and fork rib steaks than finger foods. They were awesome enough that we had the leftovers for dinner on Saturday night.

Chicken Kebabs with Roasted Asparagus

2009-04-24T05:21:00.000-07:00

The credit for this meal goes entirely to Lauren. She was walking by the meat counter at Meijer, saw some kebabs in the display case and thought "I bet we could make those better and cheaper" (I think they were selling for $2.99 per skewer). I'll admit I was initially skeptical, because meat skewers do not look very filling. When I see a plate like ours my first thought is always "awesome, but what is everyone else going to eat?".

No recipe here to speak of just some simple dressings:

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped chunky
1 Red Bell Pepper, chopped chunky
1 Green Bell Pepper, chopped chunky
1 medium/large yellow onion, chopped chunky
Italian dressing
Olive Oil
Lemon Pepper

The first thing you'll want to do is to soak your wooden skewers in water for 15-30 minutes.

Take your chunks of chicken and marinate them in Italian dressing for 10 minutes. Take your peppers and onions, toss them in olive oil and sprinkle with lemon pepper. Fire up the grill, heat it to around 400-450 and grill for 10 minutes, turning three times for even coloring.

As a side dish we made some long grain wild rice, roasted some asparagus (olive oil, pinch of salt under the broiler or on the grill for about 10 minutes) and mixed it together, topped with shredded parmesan.

Lauren made an excellent choice. It was easy and delicious. The chicken was $5, peppers $3, rice $1 and asparagus $3.29, which made 7 skewers and our side dish, which would have probably been around $25 to buy pre-made.

Next time we'll have to cut up a pineapple and include that in the kebabs.

Hamburgers & Potato Salad

2009-04-23T05:18:00.000-07:00

Part one of my meal plan is complete. However I am almost certain parts 2 & 3 will never materialize. Its too late in the week to have them on back to back nights, we've already got plans for dinner Saturday and Lauren specifically said that beer can chicken is of no interest to her when I brought it up. Tonight we're having chicken kebabs.

So last night we had the first burgers of the spring/summer grilling season. I doubt you need a recipe, but here are the ingredients we generally use:

Certified Angus Ground Chuck (it was on sale, otherwise I'd just use regular ground beef)
Onions
Worcestershire Sauce
Montreal Steak Seasoning
Pepper
Egg

Mix it all together to your taste, add one egg for binding, form patties and grill. In my opinion the extra lean (4% fat) ground beef isn't great for burgers. I'd find something with at least 10% fat, or add 1-2 tbsp of olive oil to your ground beef mix.

Anyhow the point of this post isn't the burgers. It is the homemade potato salad. I've always been mildly annoyed that the grocery store deli charges $3-$6 per pound for potato salad. Not enough to do anything about it, but that all ended last night. Never again will I wonder how long that potato salad has been sitting in the display case, subconsciously forcing me to chose the whitest (and typically most bland) variety available so as not to mess with the unknown yellow of the other varieties. Sure, that yellowing might be from mustard, but are you willing to take that chance at $4.99/lb?

The recipe I chose came from Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. It doesn't have a fancy name, just potato salad:

3 pounds small white potatoes
Kosher salt
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped red onion

Directions Place the potatoes and 2 tablespoons of salt in a large pot of water. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, until the potatoes are barely tender when pierced with a knife. Drain the potatoes in a colander, then place the colander with the potatoes over the empty pot and cover with a clean, dry kitchen towel. Allow the potatoes to steam for 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, buttermilk, Dijon mustard, whole grain mustard, dill, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Set aside. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them in quarters or in half, depending on their size. Place the cut potatoes in a large bowl. While the potatoes are still warm, pour enough dressing over them to moisten. Add the celery and red onion, 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Toss well, cover, and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavors to blend. Serve cold or at room temperature.

As for the changes, Lauren and I went in a couple of different directions. First, the potatoes. As I mentioned earlier the whiter the potato salad, the more bland it looks and often tastes. So we skipped the small white (russet) potatoes and went for something with more flavor. When choosing your potatoes here is what you need to know:

While Russets are still by far the most commonly used variety of potato , consider mixing it up a little. There are several high-moisture varieties with a texture that many people refer to as 'waxy'. Among these varieties are Yellow Finns, Yukon Golds, and red potatoes. Their high moisture means that they have a more pleasant texture when they are cold, and their waxier flesh holds up better to chopping and to tossing with dressing than that of the drier, more mealy Russets.

Following that line of reasoning we chose redskin potatoes. I think they may have been some kind of hybrid Yukon Red or at least named in such a way on the packaging. Whatever they are they were on sale for $2.50 for 5 lbs at Meijer this week.

Our second change was that we didn't simmer and steam the potatoes. We placed them in cold water, brought them to a boil and boiled them whole for almost 20 minutes, taking them out when they slid off of our potato stabbing fork (aka fork tender). You could chop the potatoes beforehand, but the smaller the pieces the smaller your margin of error in cooking them. Cook too much and you might as well turn it into mashed potatoes. Once we thought the potatoes were done we dumped them into a colander and tried to stop the cooking process by running them under cold water. As soon as they were cool enough to handle (3-4 mins), we chopped them into potato salad appropriate chunks, layed them out on a baking sheet and stuck them in the fridge for about 20 minutes while we prepared the burgers.

The last two changes in potato salad were the use of green onions instead of red, and dried dill instead of fresh. Drieb herbs are quite a bit more potent than fresh (generally 1 tbsp fresh = 1 tsp dry, so 3:1), so if you make the potato salad this way you're going to want to use about 1/3 of what the recipe calls for. I didn't really measure, but I estimated about 1/8 cup of dried dill.

One thing I forgot was that while I did let the potatoes cool a bit, I in no way came close to waiting hours (or even one hour) to eat the finished potato salad. It might be better today at lunch than it was immediately after we made it last night, but this isn't a recipe you must make the night before.

I am about 90% certain that the next time I'm asked to bring a side dish, this potato salad will be it.

Slow Weekend

2009-04-20T10:16:00.001-07:00

Sorry, there is nothing new from the weekend to post. Friday night we bummed dinner from Lauren's roommate, who was making dinner for her visiting mother and wound up making more food than she had planned for. Free dinner on a Friday night? Yes please.

Saturday I had soccer in the afternoon, followed by beer and BBQ at a friend's house and a birthday party in the evening. So I spent the night grazing on snacks and appetizers.

Sunday I again had soccer (coaching) followed by more soccer (playing) which meant that I left the house around 2pm, stood outside where it was 45 degrees and raining, drove across town, played soccer indoors then got home about 8pm cold, wet, sweaty and not in the mood to get groceries and start cooking.

But I did have a chance to look at the Sunday flyer for the local weekly grocery stores and noticed that the following items were on sale:

Meijer Fresh Grade A Whole Chicken ($0.98/lb)
Ground Beef from Chuck Certified Angus Beef ($2/lb, save $1.40/lb)
Pork Shoulder Bone-In Western Style Ribs ($0.99/lb, save $0.80/lb)

So my plan over the next 7 days is to make beer can chicken, Kansas City style pork ribs and burgers (which probably wouldn't make the blog). Evidently I have subconsciously decided that its time for this blog to give The Neely's their day in court.

Now whether or not Lauren is going to roll with that menu is anybody's guess. I could sneak attack her with it by buying everything, preparing it and then saying "you're more than welcome to go to the grocery store and pick something else out if you don't want to eat this", but that is either going to lead to a few very quiet dinners or me eating a rack of ribs for lunch and dinner every day until it is gone.

If I had to guess I'd say that the ribs get done over the weekend, the beer can chicken gets done on Tuesday or Wednesday and the burgers get done tonight. But in order to do that I'm probably going to have to agree to all green side dishes (which wouldn't be so terrible even though I am badly craving mashed potatoes) or I'm going to have to agree to at least one, if not two vegetarian or fish meals on the "off "days.

We'll see. I'll (obviously) keep you posted on how my meal plan unfolds.

The Kitty Litter Cake

2009-04-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

Lauren and I made this about a year ago for her birthday, or near her birthday. If I recall it was a not so subtle "thanks for making me bring my own birthday treat to the office" for her work. Plus her birthday is April Fool's Day, so some humor was expected.

Anyhow I was going through an online photo album of mine and came across that picture. So I thought I'd share, since a cake like this is usually the kind of thing everyone says they want to make or tells people that a friend of a friend of a co-worker made one time. It may as well be listed on Snopes. Here was our effort to add to the Internet's anthology of Kitty Litter cakes:

1 (18.25 ounce) package German chocolate cake mix
1 (18.25 ounce) package white cake mix
2 (3.5 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
1 (12 ounce) package vanilla sandwich cookies
3 drops green food coloring
1 (12 ounce) package tootsie rolls
1 brand new kitty litter box
1 brand new kitty litter scoop

Directions Prepare cake mixes and bake according to package directions (any size pan).

Prepare pudding according to package directions and chill until ready to assemble.

Crumble sandwich cookies in small batches in a food processor, scraping often.

Set aside all but 1/4 cup. To the 1/4 cup add a few drops of green food coloring and mix. When cakes are cooled to room temperature, crumble them into a large bowl. Toss with 1/2 of the remaining cookie crumbs, and the chilled pudding. You probably won't need all of the pudding, you want the cake to be just moist, not soggy.

Put cake mixture into box. Put half of the unwrapped tootsie rolls in a microwave safe dish and heat until softened. Shape the ends so that they are no longer blunt, and curve the tootsie rolls slightly so that they look like cat turds. Bury tootsie rolls randomly in the cake and sprinkle with half of the remaining cookie crumbs. Sprinkle a small amount of the green colored cookie crumbs lightly over the top.

Heat 3 or 4 of the tootsie rolls in the microwave until almost melted. Scrape them on top of the cake and sprinkle lightly with some of the green cookie crumbs. Heat the remaining tootsie rolls until pliable and shape like cat turds. Spread all but one randomly over top of cake mixture. Sprinkle with any remaining cookie crumbs. Hang the remaining tootsie roll over side of litter box and sprinkle with a few green cookie crumbs. Serve with the pooper scooper for full effect.

The cake is surprisingly good.

Cornflake Chicken Casserole

2009-04-16T05:45:00.000-07:00

Its sickening the way Good Eats seems to influence what I crave. Tuesday night I saw an episode about casseroles, so of course all day Wednesday I sat around thinking about what kind of casserole I should make. So I decided on a corn flake chicken casserole, but sort of made it up as I went along.

3 stalks of celery (diced)
1 medium onion (diced)
1 can (14.5 oz) cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup chicken broth (low sodium)
1 package (10 oz) frozen corn
1 package (10 oz) frozen peas
2 medium potatoes, your choice (I used Yukon Gold, peeled & diced)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1.5 lbs cooked chicken (3 cups?)
4 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbps flour
pinch of salt
3 cups crushed corn flakes

Preheat the oven to 350.

Blanche the potatoes, until fork tender. Then set them aside. Sweat the celery and onion in a skillet (5 mins) with a pinch of salt. Push the vegetables to the outside of the pan and use the middle to make a roux with the buttter and flour. Let the roux cook for 3-5 mins before stirring in the celery and onions. At this point, if you have some lemon pepper seasoning, you can sprinkle it into your roux.

Add 1/2 cup chicken broth and 1/4 cup lemon juice to your roux, bring to a boil for 1 minute. Stir in your frozen vegetables, add your can of cream of chicken soup, followed by the chicken and potatoes. Stir thoroughly to coat, then dump your casserole filling into a 9 x 9 or 13 x 9 baking dish. If it seems thick, don't worry. It will thin out during the bake. Top the casserole with 2-3 cups of crushed corn flakes and bake for 45 minutes.

Once you've finished, I think you're supposed to let the casserole rest for at least half an hour so that it can return to being sliceable. I got a late start on all of this so by that time it was nearly 9pm and I couldn't wait any longer. So I ate pretty much right out of the oven. I also saved an extra cup of crush cornflakes to sprinkle on top of my hot, amoeba-like piece of casserole to give it some extra crunch.

The final product was good. Not great, but solidly good. I debated whether or not I should post it, if thats any indication. I think had this been 2 months ago and I was still in the habit of craving winter comfort food I'd be more excited about this. But since I've mentally transitioned to cooking outdoor with fire, I'll just give it a thumbs up.

The Black & White Gyro

2009-04-13T17:28:00.001-07:00

This turned out to be a hodgepodge of recipes and cooking methods that I found this weekend after Lauren mentioned taking a second run at gyros. The first time I found the meat to be a little bland and the meal to be very lacking compared to what you can buy at your local Middle Eastern deli. Not only that, but we forgot to take the feta out of the fridge and put it on our gyros.

The base recipe was Alton Brown's Gyro Meat with Tzatziki Sauce. Be sure to start the sauce first because it takes the longest. I know what you're thinking because we skipped it the first time, but you definitely want to drain the yogurt (even one hour would do wonders) or you will end up with a really thin sauce of a consistency closer to milk than yogurt. If you're wondering what a tea towel is, it is basically a linen napkin.

Tzatziki Sauce

16 ounces plain yogurt
1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped (or pulsed in a food processor)
Pinch kosher salt
4 cloves garlic, finely minced (I used just two)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
5 to 6 mint leaves, finely minced

Place the yogurt in a tea towel, gather up the edges, suspend over a bowl or large mouth cup, and drain for 2 hours in the refrigerator. Place the chopped cucumber in a tea towel and squeeze to remove the liquid; discard liquid. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the drained yogurt, cucumber, salt, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and mint. Serve as a sauce for gyros.

Lamb Gyros

1 medium onion, finely chopped or shredded
2 pounds ground lamb
1 tablespoon finely minced garlic
1 tablespoon dried marjoram
1 tablespoon dried ground rosemary
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Process the onion in a food processor for 10 to 15 seconds and turn out into the center of a tea towel. Gather up the ends of the towel and squeeze until almost all of the juice is removed. Discard juice.

Return the onion to the food processor and add the lamb, garlic, marjoram, rosemary, salt, and pepper and process until it is a fine paste, approximately 1 minute. Stop the processor as needed to scrape down sides of bowl.

To cook in the oven as a meatloaf, proceed as follows:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

I used 1 lb ground lamb and 1 lb ground chicken, which I think gives me the leeway to call them black and white gyros. Not to mention ground lamb is about $6/lb and ground chicken is just $3.

Rather than mess with the food processor for the lamb I mixed it in the KitchenAid on medium speed, as though I were making a meatloaf. The result was the same as it was when we did it in the food processor last year.

From there I found Tammy's Recipe for Lamb Gyros with Tzatziki Sauce, which use marinated, sauteed lamb steak. So here is the marinade:

Gyro Marinade

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon dried oregano (if using chopped fresh oregano, use 2 tablespoons)
1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary (if using chopped fresh rosemary, use 1 tablespoon)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Understanding that my mixed meatloaf would be unlikely to suck up the moisture of a true marinade I simply added the wet ingredients while mixing it in the KitchenAid, left out the salt and seasonings but kept the pepper. Then I shaped my meatloaf in two parts using a greased glass loaf pan. After pressing the bottom half of the loaf into the pan I cut off a chunk of feta and crumbled it on top, then pressed the second half of the loaf on top for a feta stuffed gyro loaf. I wrapped the finished loaf in parchment and rested it in the fridge for an hour or so (just because I wasn't going to be eating dinner right away).

Half an hour before I was ready to cook I gave the exterior a dry rub with Tammy's seasoning, which I also found listed in several other gyro recipes as the "Greek seasoning" they use at Mediterranean delis:

Gyro Seasoning

2 teaspoons paprika (sweet or regular)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
dash cayenne pepper

I rolled my meatloaf in this dry rub, then seared it on the grill for about 6 minutes total. Then I stuck the seared loaf in my preheated oven on a metal rack for about 1 hour.

Using a meat thermometer I pulled the loaf when it reach 165 degrees and let it rest for 10 minutes to complete the cooking process. During the rest I took 5 whole wheat pitas, wrapped them in a damp tea towel, wrapped that in tin foil and set them on the rack in the oven to warm.

Once that was complete it was just a matter of cutting the gyro loaf into chunks (sorry, it doesn't quite shave like the rotisserie lamb at the deli), spreading some Tzatziki sauce on the pitas and topping with sliced tomato.

The gyros were delicious and made the kitchen smell awesome. Lauren and I each had one gyro which left enough for at least another two person lunch and two person dinner. So I would say it serves about six.

New York Style Cheesecake Done Right

2009-04-13T05:45:00.000-07:00

As usual (and much to our delight), Lauren and I were charged with dessert for Easter dinner. Last year we made this Easter Bunny cake.

This year we went with New York style mini-cheesecakes. Lauren has three sets of mini cheesecake pans for just this sort of thing and generally we used a completely different recipe for the minis than we use for the big ones. A typical mini cheesecake batter uses about 5 blocks of cream cheese and makes about 36 of these bite-sized cheesecakes. 36 and thats it. So the plan was to make 36, give a bunch of them to Lauren's roommate and take the rest to my parents' house for Easter dinner. However we quickly found out that using the New York style batter to make mini cheesecakes was going result in a whole lot more. We made 36 mini cheesecakes and barely put a dent in the batter.

Rather than do any more minis, we took the remaining batter and made a 9 inch cheesecake, which we took to my parents house for Easter. We left a tray of about 18 mini cheesecakes in her refrigerator.

I am so sick of cheesecake. I'm hoping Lauren takes the remaining minis and drops them off at work.

Lauren decorated the big cheesecake with peaches, strawberries and blueberries with picket fences made from white chocolate Candy Kwik. The little one above was also supposed to have its own picket fence Easter basket decoration, but we were so cheesecaked out that we didn't even bother once we decided not to take them to Easter dinner.

In case it was unclear, the recipe for this cheesecake is the exact same as the one I previously posted for New York style cheesecake. Only this time we baked it at the correct temperature, so the top didn't get hideously browned.

Grilled Tilapia w/ Peach BBQ Sauce

2009-04-13T05:16:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to make this recipe for a couple of weeks, but had a hard time lining up the fresh tilapia and the opportunity to make this. It seems as though Meijer gets it freshest seafood in preparation for the weekend. I say that because I went there on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (I am a terribly inefficient grocery shopper) and the first two days they had a very limited selection of some very odd types of fish. Then Thursday night rolls around and they've got fresh cod, tilapia, tuna and quite a few other varieties I've actually heard of.

So I think from this point forward I'm only going to buy fresh fish Thursday through Sunday. For this recipe I used a package of frozen tilapia fillets. They worked out pretty well as far as taste was concerned, but they stuck to the grill and had pretty much fallen apart by the time they were cooked through. I'm sure I flipped them too much. I have a habit of doing that on the grill in an attempt to get perfectly brown grill marks on all sides.

One final note. Amazingly this recipe is probably the one Paula Deen recipe that doesn't use butter or heavy cream:

Peach BBQ sauce:

3/4 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons prepared mustard
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
Pinch garlic salt
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons paprika
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon pepper
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup onions, finely chopped
2 cups fresh or canned peaches
4 (7-ounce) tilapia fillets
House seasoning
1 lime, juiced

Directions Mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan, excluding the peaches and simmer over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes. While the sauce is simmering, puree 2 cups of canned or fresh peaches. Once the sauce is cooked, add the pureed peaches to the sauce and stir together. Preheat the grill to medium heat. Season the tilapia with house seasoning. Cook the fish on each side for 3 to 4 minutes. During the last few minutes of cooking, brush the fish with some barbecue sauce. Once cooked and plated, ladle a nice spoonful of the Peach barbecue sauce on top of the fillets.

The sandwiches were very good, but the Food Network really needs to learn how to post better sauce recipes. The flavor was great, but the recipe made more than a quart of sauce. The four sandwiches didn't make a dent in that. So there are about 30 oz of peach bbq sauce in the refrigerator right now. Also, the sauce doesn't reduce during the simmer. I thought it might reduce and turn into a glaze, but that didn't really happen. I think in order to make that happen you'd have to up the brown sugar tremendously. Like upwards of 1/3 cup. But for starters I'd recommend you cut everything in half or more so you end up with a manageable amount of sauce. Lastly, "prepared mustard" = "not dry mustard". It doesn't matter if you use dijon, spicy brown or just yellow mustard. Choose according to your own tastes.

Turkey Cheddar Burgers w/ Sweet Potato Steak Fries

2009-04-10T18:44:00.000-07:00

On Thursday the weather here was wonderful (relative to early April in Michigan, of course), high 50's, clear sky, no wind. Which gave us the opportunity to pull the grill out of the garage and make some burgers. Lauren suggested turkey, so I went to Food Network and found a recipe:

Burgers:

1 large shallot (or medium onion), finely chopped (1/4 cup)
3/4 of one medium red bell pepper, finely chopped (about 1/4 cup)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/2 pounds ground turkey (not labeled "all breast meat")
1 block (5-6 ounces) extra-sharp Cheddar (or your favorite block cheese), cut into 8 (1/2-inch-thick) slices
4 hamburger or Kaiser rolls

Mayonnaise:

1/4 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup mayonnaise

Mix the turkey, salt, pepper, olive oil, onion and pepper in a large mixing bowl. Turn out turkey mixture onto a sheet of waxed paper on a baking sheet and divide into 8 equal mounds. Pat 1 mound into a 4-inch patty and top with 2 pieces of cheese, then put a second mound on top, patting it onto the other patty to seal and shape into a single patty. Stick your wax papered tray of patties in your freezer for 20 minutes while you cook your sweet potato fries.

To make the mayonnaise and assemble the burgers: Puree the tomatoes with water, vinegar and salt in a blender or mini food processor, scraping down the sides as necessary, then blend in the mayonnaise.
For a thicker, more pimento cheese like mayonnaise mixture, add everything at once and blend/pulse on high speed for about 2 minutes, then refrigerate until the last minute. For a thinner, more mayonnaise like mixture fold the mayonnaise in by hand.

I found the sweet potato fries through Google, at the website Sarah's Cucina Bella.

Sweet Potato Fries

1 - 1 1/2 lb sweet potatoes (about 2-3 large sweet potatoes)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil (preferably the easy release kind).

Peal the sweet potatoes. Cut into strips that are about 1/2 inch wide on each side.

Place the sweet potatoes into a sealable plastic bag. Add oil, salt, paprika and cinnamon. Seal the bag and shake well to thoroughly coat the fries. Spread the potatoes out onto the baking sheet in a single layer.

Cook for 30 minutes, turning every 10 minutes. Transfer immediately to a paper towel lined plate and serve warm.

Fire up the grill, and let it heat to about 450 (medium to medium-high). When you flip the potatoes for the last time, throw your freezer firmed patties on the grill for 5-6 minutes on the thicker side (because you probably won't make the two patties even), then flip and cook for an additional 3-4 minutes.

Split some buns, spread your mayonnaise, plate your burgers and enjoy!

The burgers were wonderful, but I erred on the side of thinness with the patties. There just was not enough burger for the bun, which probably had something to do with me only using a single pound of ground turkey, and still trying to make four patties.

The fries could have been crispier, but I don't think they would ever get to French fry crispiness unless I truly fried them. The best bet here is to make sure you give the fries plenty of room to lay flat on your baking sheet.

Cider Brined Pork Loin w/ Dijon-Brown Sugar Glaze and Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

2009-04-01T17:48:00.001-07:00

Meijer has had this Center Cut Half Boneless Pork Loin on sale for $1.79/lb off and on for about a month now. I've been looking for something to do with it because... well, look at it. Its awesome. I'm only like a few steps removed from having hunted and killed the pig myself. Between this and the chicken wings I am on track for certified butcher status.

The word "brined" in the case of this dish is actually a bit of a misnomer. After researching this cut of meat I found that a typical grocery store meat department sells these cuts "enhanced", meaning they were injected with an 8%-12% salt water preservative. In effect the brining process has already been started for you, minus all the flavor of flavorful liquids and spices.

So I did some more research and tried to figure out a way to short brine this pork loin with less salt, which lead me wandering on to some tailgating BBQ forum where I eventually decided my best bet would be a marinade. As it turned out the marinade I found was essentially the same as a few of the brine recipes, minus the salt. So here is what I did:

1 center cut half boneless pork loin (4.5-5.5 lbs)
4 cups apple cider
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup light brown sugar
3 tbsp orange juice concentrate
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp cinnamon

Whisk together the ingredients in a heated sauce pan, then allow the marinade to cool (5 mins). Add some ice cubes if you want to hasten the process. Taste the marinade to make sure the ingredients suit your taste. I found it to taste somewhat like warm apple cider.

If you want to go to a butcher and buy a natural cut of pork and brine it yourself, just add about 1/2 cup of kosher salt and 2 cups of water to the above ingredients and let it sit at least overnight, if not 12-24 hours.

Take a gallon slide lock freezer bag and stick your pork loin inside it. Make sure you can zip it shut before you pour in any liquid. If necessary, cut the pork loin into two parts so that it fits in your freezer bag (or use two). Pour in the liquid, squeeze out the air and zip the bag shut.

For safety's sake place the bag in a dish and put the dish in your refrigerator, in case anything leaks. Leave it there for 2-3 hours.

Take the pork out of the refrigerator, pour out the marinade, pat the exterior dry with a paper towel and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. At this time preheat the oven to 350.

Place the pork loin on a rack, or if you don't really have a roasting rack do what I did and lay a cooling rack over a 13 x 9 inch baking dish and put the pork loin on that. FAT SIDE UP! You want that big layer of fat to drip down into your meat while it cooks. You can cut if off of the individual pork loin medallions when you slice and serve.

A pork loin this size and cut usually has a cook time of about 20 minutes per pound. Given the extra liquid from the marinade it takes roughly 25 minutes per pound. So anywhere from 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes is a safe bet. However you're going to need a meat thermometer to judge its final temperature.

Around the 1:45 to 2 hour mark (or once the temperature hits 140 degrees), glaze the top of the loin (recipe below).

When the thickest part of the loin hits an internal temperature of 155 degrees, pull it out, cover it with foil and let it rest for 10-15 minutes.

Now I don't know if I spilled vinegar somewhere and never saw it, but I'll warn you right now that the first hour of this roast may make your kitchen smell like vinegar. I felt nauseous in part because of the smell and partly because I thought I was going to ruin Lauren's birthday dinner.

As far as the glazing goes here is what you need to do:

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons cider vinegar

Heat the ingredients in a sauce pan and allow to cool (5 mins). Generously brush the top of the roast with the glaze about 30 minutes before its finished cooking.

If you want a sweeter glaze that might be more prone to crusting the exterior of your loin, use the full 1 1/2 cups of sugar. If you want more of a sweet mustard BBQ glaze, use just 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Save any extra to use as dipping sauce for your pork loin.

Lastly, we have the roasted garlic mashed potatoes. These are the ingredients:

6-7 (3 lbs) Yukon gold potatoes
1 whole bulb garlic
1/2 cup buttermilk (room temperature)
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) (room temperature or melted)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste

In order to coordinate everything so that the potatoes and pork loin are ready at the same time, here is what you need to do:

Prior to glazing your pork loin, wash and peel 6-7 Yukon Gold potatoes. Then cut them into large chunks. Cutting the potatoes into small chunks will allow them to cook faster, but they'll also retain more water, making your mashed potatoes more like a paste. So large chunks it is.

Immediately after you glaze the pork loin, cover the potato chunks in cold water, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let cook for 15 minutes or until fork tender. Then cut the top off a bulb of garlic, pour in one tablespoon of olive oil and stick that in a foil covered pan on the rack below your pork loin. Roast at 350 for about 30 minutes or until the garlic cloves have become soft and brown. Remove the garlic from the oven and let cool (5 mins).

Peel the skin off the garlic, drain the potatoes and mash them together. When you're done combine the garlic and potatoes add the milk and butter. DO NOT USE the residual heat of the potatoes to melt the butter or warm the milk. I'm not Alton Brown, but from what I understand the combination of hot potatoes and cold milk/butter makes the potato starch a bit more fragile and will most likely lead to texture issues (paste) in your mashed potatoes.

Once you've added all your ingredients to the mashed potatoes, mix thoroughly. I threw them in the mixing bowl of the Kitchen-Aid and ran it on medium speed for 2 minutes to give it a more whipped potato texture.

Given that I had a hot oven and a few minutes of resting time for my pork loin, I took the resulting mashed potatoes, stuck them in an 8x8 baking dish, topped them with shredded Colby Jack cheese and stuck them back in the oven for about 5 minutes or until the cheese was melted and the potatoes were heated all the way through.

This dinner was awesome. Way too much for two people, but it was definitely worth the experience. In the future we can use half for a roast, cut the other half into uncooked chops and freeze them. The leftovers are at Lauren's house, and I'll be sitting at work all morning hoping that she doesn't eat all the mashed potatoes or take them to work and "accidentally" leave them there.

New York Style Cheesecake

2009-03-31T18:42:00.000-07:00

Today is Lauren's birthday (Happy Birthday!) and the (ridiculous) tradition at her work is that you bring in a treat for the office on your birthday. That seems like a kick in the crotch to me, but whatever. We debated making mini-cheesecakes (Lauren's specialty) but decided against it because of the rather large amounts of cooling and storage space needed to make enough for an office. Instead we settled on one 10 inch New York Style cheesecake. My problem with it is that it is so rich that about 25% of it gets wasted by people whose eyes are bigger than their stomach. It doesn't matter how many times you warn them, at least one person cuts into it like its a slice of pizza.

Its been since Christmas since we've made a cheesecake, a fairly long drought by our standards. So I really want a piece of this one. Lauren has agreed to cut us a slice after she presents it to her office. On to the recipe:

To make a New York Style cheesecake you're going to want to use a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer. Other recipes can be made with a powered hand mixer, but this one is so cream cheese intensive that you'll risk burning out your motor. Trust us, its happened before.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
7 packages cream cheese (8oz, room temperature)
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream (room temperature)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 large egg yolks and whites (separated)
1 stick (4oz) unsalted butter (melted)
1 sleeve graham crackers (crushed)
1 sleeve/row Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies (crushed)
Large sheet, heavy duty aluminum foil
1 disposable turkey roasting pan (or 13 x 9 in glass pan)
1 10 inch spring form pan

Preheat the oven to 350, and boil a large pot of water (approximately 6 quarts). Wrap the exterior bottom of a 10 inch spring form pan with your aluminum foil in a such a way that you believe the seams of your pan are "sealed" from water. Basically you want to wrap one solid layer on the bottom of your pan around the seams, and then 2-3 more sheets half way around the bottom and up the sides so that your flat sheet is insulated from the water. When you get to the water bath step you're going to want your water about halfway up the side of your pan, so wrap your foil above that area. Mix the cookies and graham crackers with the melted butter and press into the bottom of a foil wrapped 9-inch spring form pan. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes-15 minutes. Remove and let cool.

Take your 7 blocks of cream cheese, add them to your mixing bowl and beaten until no lumps remain. The beaten cream cheese will be sticky and firm, like spreadable cream cheese. Whisk together your flour and sugar, then on low speed add the sugar mixture to your beaten cream cheese in a slow steady stream (or multiple installments). As this mixes in, the batter should become softer and smoother. Remove the bowl from the mixer and scrape the sides, checking for any lumps of unmixed cream cheese.

Next add the sour cream and vanilla, mixing on low speed until smooth. Add the egg yolks one at a time on low speed, until just mixed (you see no yellow streaks). Be careful not to overmix at this point, lest your cake become dense, heavy and prone to cracking.

Transfer your cheesecake filling to a large mixing bowl and clean out your stand's mixing bowl. Using the whipping attachment, whip your egg whites on high speed until stiff peaks form. By hand, fold the egg whites into the cheesecake filling.

Transfer your completed cheesecake filling into your spring form pan, leaving a small amount of space (1/8th inch) between the filling and the rim of the pan, so your cake can crown early in the bake without overflowing. Shake the pan side to side a little to remove any large air pockets. If you have extra filling that will not fit, that is ok. Sometimes it all fits, other times it does not. It sort of depends on how much air you leave in the batter. In batter form this cheesecake filling may not taste as sweet as you might expect. That is normal. Your finished cheesecake will not taste exactly that way.

Take your boiling water and pour it into your roasting pan. You'll want the water to rise halfway up your spring form, or at the very least not higher than your aluminum foil. If you are not using a roasting pan or your spring form will not fit, pour the water into a 13 x 9 inch pan and place that pan on the rack below your cheesecake. Should you decide to use a glass pan, make sure the water and the glass are of a similar temperature before you pour the water in. Also worth noting is that if your cheesecake and water bath are separate, make sure you use a little less water so that it still boils off and evaporates. The moisture from the evaporating water will keep the cake moist.

Bake your cheesecake in the center of the oven at 350 for 45 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 325 for an additional 30 minutes. When the top is golden brown and the center is firm but slightly jiggly to the touch, turn the oven off, leave the oven door ajar and let the cheesecake sit for one hour. After one hour remove the cheesecake, let it cool completely (about 2 hours, uncovered). Refrigerate the cake (in the pan) for 4-6 hours or overnight. Before removing the spring form ring, run a knife around the outside of the cake to prevent sticking.

You'll notice the lack of baking soda, baking powder and (relatively speaking) flour. The absence of these things makes cheesecake baking a fairly inexact science. It is entirely possible that your cheesecake may require closer to double the amount of baking time. That is fine. It is pretty difficult to overcook a cheesecake. So long as your top isn't splitting while its baking, you can give or take an extra 20-30 minutes of bake time in lieu of resting it in the oven with the door ajar. If your top starts browning severely, lay some aluminum foil over the top of it. If you notice your cheesecake growing a top hat (aka separation between the crowned filling at the top of the spring form ring exposing the pure interior around the edges, don't worry. As the cake cools, the top will deflate and the "hat" will disappear.

Further proof that cheesecake is an inexact science lies in these pictures. The rich, dark brown top you're seeing is the result of a mistake with the oven. "We" set the temperature to 425 for the first hour, before realizing the temperature should be 325 or 350. The result was an overdone top, but as you can see that didn't affect the lower portions of the cake. The superficial remedy for this mistake was to fill the center of the cake with sauteed/caramelized apple slices and decorate the outer edges with whipped cream (not pictured).

I am sure there are dozens more tips and tricks I could offer, but this is neither the first nor the last cheesecake I'll have on this blog, so for now I'll just leave this post as is.

Tomato & Asparagus Shrimp Scampi

2009-03-30T06:18:00.000-07:00

To make this, we used the same recipe as the Shrimp Scampi with Fettuccine but made some slight alterations (shown in red):

1 pound linguini
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 shallots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Pinch red pepper flakes, optional
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley leaves
1 lb aspargus (thinner stalks, if you can find them)
2 cans diced tomatoes (drained)

Cook pasta in boiling water 6 - 8 min or to desired doneness.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons butter in 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Saute the asparagus, shallots, garlic, and red pepper flakes (if using) until the shallots are translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper; add them to the pan and cook until they have turned pink, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the shrimp from the pan; set aside and keep warm. Add wine and lemon juice and bring to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons oil. When the butter has melted, return the shrimp to the pan along with the tomatoes, parsley and cooked pasta. Stir well and season with salt & pepper, sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.

As an appetizer, Lauren made us a Caprese Salad (mixed greens salad with tomato and fresh mozzarella) with a balsamic vinaigrette. I could have eaten an entire bowl of this. Fresh mozzarella is so good, but I never buy it because I'm scared that I would sit down and eat it like a popcorn ball.

Chicken Parmesan Sandwich

2009-03-30T05:37:00.000-07:00

This was very simple:

Preheat the oven to 350.

Make a simple egg wash from 3 tbsp Italian dressing + 1 beaten egg.

Dip your boneless, skinless chicken in the egg wash, the roll in Italian seasoned bread crumbs. For good measure I added some extra basil, oregano and rosemary to my crumbs.

Take a large skillet, add 2 tbsp olive oil and slowly heat on medium-high (4.5 out of 6 on our burner's dial) until the oil is very lightly (almost imperceptibly) smoking.

Add your chicken and cook for 4 minutes per side.

When the chicken is finished on both sides, stick it in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes.

Take a small sauce pan, and heat (to a simmer) 1/4 cup of your favorite tomato sauce.

Take your favorite artisan bread (we were hoping to use rosemary focaccia, but the grocery store was all out) and "freshen" in the oven for 5 minutes. If you time it right the chicken and the bread should finish at the same time.

Turn your oven to broil. Split the bread, spoon the tomato sauce (not all of it, I was making two sandwiches) on one half, then top with mozzarella cheese. On the other half place your chicken breast, topped with mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

Broil approximately 5 minutes, or until the chese starts to brown.

Enjoy.

The only issue I had with this was that the sandwich was too big to fit in my mouth. What I had to do was cut it into sandwich strips and eat it that way. Ideally I would have liked to pound the chicken breast to thin it out, but I couldn't find a meat mallet. Of course if you decide to make this with thinner chicken breasts you're going to have to adjust your cooking times. Like maybe 3 minutes per side in the skillet and 10-12 minutes in the oven.

Egg Salad

2009-03-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

I've made this quick egg salad a few times, but always forget to include it here. Frankly I find it pretty difficult to trust other people's egg salad. I'm not sure why, but it just seems like one of those things that could spoil without anyone really noticing. So the only way to guarantee that its fresh is to make it yourself. The recipe comes from the Food Network Kitchens:

1/2 medium red onion, chopped
12 large eggs
1-2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
1 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 teaspoons kosher salt

In a small bowl soak the onions in cold water for 15 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, place the eggs and cover with cold water by 1 inch. Bring to a boil and cook for 1 minute. Cover the eggs, remove from the heat, and set aside for 8 minutes. Drain the water from the pan and cool the eggs in the pan under cold running water. Peel the eggs and cut into sixths.

In a large bowl, mix together the onion, celery, mayonnaise, dill, mustard, lemon juice, and salt.

Add the eggs to the mayonnaise mixture and gently mix them together. Season with pepper, to taste. Use in sandwiches, with lettuce and tomatoes, or in a salad.

I don't always use the onion, sometimes I sprinkle in some paprika like a deviled egg and I usually put it on toasted whole wheat bread with some provolone cheese. Generally I'll make it on a Monday or Tuesday night, stick it in a tupperware and have it for lunch a couple of times during the week.

Black Bean Sliders

2009-03-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

The plan for tonight was a broiled chicken parmesan sub. Unfortunately I got overruled. Lauren plays volleyball on Monday nights and when her games start late she usually wants lighter fare for dinner. So when I emailed that idea she countered with Black Bean Croquettes, which sounded totally unappealing given the photos and memories of the failed texture of our previous attempt at making them.

Then we remembered that Rachel also made these and made some slight alterations to give it the crunch we had been looking for and since she was kind enough to email those changes to me, all I had to do was search my gmail to recall what they were. So Rachel, thanks. These are partly your creation.

Base recipe is the same as before:

2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
1/4 cup plus 1/3 cup plain dry breadcrumbs, divided
2 cups finely chopped tomatoes
1 onion, diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 425°F. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.

Mash black beans and cumin with a fork in a large bowl until no whole beans remain. Stir in corn and 1/4 cup breadcrumbs. Combine tomatoes, scallions, cilantro, 1/2 teaspoon chili powder and salt in a medium bowl. Stir 1 cup of the tomato mixture into the black bean mixture.

Mix the remaining 1/3 cup breadcrumbs, oil and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon chili powder in a small bowl until the breadcrumbs are coated with oil. Divide the bean mixture into 8 scant 1/2-cup balls. Lightly press each bean ball into the breadcrumb mixture, turning to coat. Place on the prepared baking sheet.

We also added some diced red and yellow bell pepper, a half cup of parmesan cheese and used a full can of corn. We were also afraid that our mixture wouldn't bind, so we added an egg. The result was a pretty wet mess. So we added an extra 1/4 cup of bread crumbs to the mixture and an extra half cup to the dredging bowl.

We scooped the mixture in 1/4-1/3 cup balls (making approximately 14), heavily rolled them in bread crumbs (until dry on the exterior) and then flattened them out into patties. We took the patties and cooked/seared them 3 at a time in a skillet with 2 tbsp olive oil (medium-high heat, 3 mins per side). That gave us the crisp exterior we have been hoping for. We took the seared patties and then stuck them in the oven at 400 for 17 minutes.

For buns we took some brown & serve dinner rolls, toasted them in the oven for 6 minutes and then split them in half. Unfortunately my patties were too large to be sliders and we didn't have any other buns. The biggest problem was that even in the end the patties are so delicate that everything outside the bun kind of fell apart as soon as you started eating it. Later I found out that if you let them rest for about 5 minutes after they come out of the oven, the firm up enough to make that problem manageable.

Though they came out bigger than I had intended, the taste and texture were everything I was hoping for.

To top the burgers we had three choices: the cilantro-lime mayonnaise from out blackened salmon, sour cream and salsa or some guacamole with lime. I chose the mayo, while Lauren chose the sour cream and salsa. By all accounts we both made a solid choice.

Dog Treats

2009-03-18T06:54:00.000-07:00

Also on the agenda last night was learning how to make some dog treats for Jocelyn, Lauren's dog. She's usually well-behaved and deserves an occasional treat for having to lay on the kitchen floor, watching us cook all the food you see on this blog and never getting to eat any of it (aside from what might fall off the counter). These treats smell awesome and you'll see from the ingredients that they are edible for humans too, but don't let your nose fool you:

Peanut Butter Puppy Poppers

2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 cup peanut butter (chunky or smooth)
1 cup milk
1 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 375'F. In a bowl, combine flour and baking powder. In another bowl, mix peanut butter, milk and honey, then add to dry ingredients and mix well. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead. Roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness and use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Bake for 20 minutes on a greased baking sheet until lightly brown. Cool on a rack, then store in an airtight container.

We didn't have a bone shaped cookie cutter and the dough was pretty fragile so we rolled it into little balls.

Regarding the taste of these dog treats, as it turns out fat (butter/shortening) and sugar are what make cookies awesome. Leaving them out gives you a chew-activated flour bomb, waiting to absorb every last drop of moisture in your mouth. Joss likes them though. Or at least I think she does. Its hard to tell if she eats it because its food and a human is giving it to her, or if she would steal them off the counter when nobody is looking. Case in point, she eats carrots, celery, apples and tomatoes, but only if you throw them to her.

Later, Lauren made a second batch of treats using a different recipe. They smell better and taste worse. And yes, they are every bit as hard as they look.

Apple Cinnamon Drops

1 large apple
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup of water
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1 cup oatmeal
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/8 cup whole wheat flour

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 ° F (180 ° C).

Core, slice and mince the apple (use a food processor if you have one). In a large bowl, combine the minced apple bits, honey, water, cinnamon, and oatmeal. Gradually blend in the wheat flour, adding enough to form a stiff dough.

In a small bowl, add 1/8 cup wheat flour. Spoon the dough by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches (5cm) apart. Using the bottom of a glass dipped in the wheat flour (to prevent sticking), flatten each spoonful of dough into a circle. Adjust the size of the drops based on how big a treat you like to feed your dog.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and flip each cookie to brown evenly on both sides. Reduce oven temperature to 325 ° F (180 °C). Return to oven and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Let cool overnight.

And once again, Jocelyn loves them.

The Unnamed Chicken Stir-Fry

2009-03-18T06:24:00.000-07:00

Last night we made a chicken stir-fry with the wok set Lauren got for Christmas. It was our second or third time using it. The first attempt was unspectacular and the second was fairly encouraging. This third attempt was extremely encouraging but we seem to be unable to achieve the desired stir-fry glaze. We usually end up with thin liquid that pools at the bottom of the wok in an attempt to avoid coming into contact with the rest of the food. This time around we were on track to avoid that, but the "classic stir-fry" glaze we chose had a very heavy soy sauce flavor. So we had to thin it out with some orange juice and zest, lemon juice and brown sugar to sweeten it. As for the rest of the meal this is what we did:

Saute onions and bell peppers in olive oil until slightly caramelized (6-7 mins)
Cut 1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast into strips.
Add chopped asparagus and mushrooms (5-6 mins)
Prepare one package of Wel Pac Chow Mein stir-fry noodles per instructions
Saute chicken in stir-fry sauce in a separate pan (8-10 mins)
Add cooked noodles to stir-fry.
Add chicken to stir-fry.
Heat thoroughly.

It was very easy and very good. Next time around we're going to have to choose a better sauce though. The noodles were awesome. I am thinking about buying them again so I can figure out some kind of high end Ramen noodle dish.

Alton Brown's Curry Chicken Pot Pie

2009-03-16T06:56:00.001-07:00

Friday night we took the easy way out and ordered a pizza. Lauren was sick, we received a couple of dvds in the mail and decided that was enough. Saturday was a little different. After running a few errands we happened to catch the chicken pot pie episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Knowing that its getting warmer by the day, we decided to take one last run at winter comfort food with chicken pot pie. However, Bobby Flay's chicken pot pie recipe from Throwdown is not available on the Food Network website, because its a recipe he serves at one of his restaurants. So we got online to research what Good Eats had on the topic, which is how we came to the Curry Chicken Pot Pie:

4 cups frozen vegetable mix, peas, carrots
1 to 2 tablespoons canola oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon curry powder
2 tablespoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
2 cups cubed cooked chicken
1 package puff pastry

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Toss frozen vegetables with canola oil and spread evenly onto a sheet pan. Place into oven and cook until golden brown.

In a saute pan heat 1 tablespoon of butter and sweat the onion and celery. In another saucepan, heat the broth and milk. Add 2 more tablespoons of butter to the celery mix and cook out the water. Add the flour and curry and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the hot milk mixture and cook until thickened. Add the parsley, salt and pepper. Toss the browned vegetables and the chicken. Pour into a shallow baking pan, or a large terra cotta pot base, lined with foil, and top with 6 to 8 circles of puff pastry. Place into the oven and cook until puff pastry has browned and the mixture is hot and bubbly, about 25 minutes.

We made two changes to the recipe. First, we didn't roast the vegetables. We used frozen peas and canned corn, fresh carrots and potatoes (blanched, about 1.5 cups of each) and mushrooms. If you're going to do this though, you'll probably really want to consider adding at least 50% more liquid (milk/cream or chicken stock) than the recipe is calling for. Our potatoes sucked up all the extra moisture immediately and made the filling less of a thick soup and more of an actual pie filling. The filling made enough to fill a 13 x 9 pan, so plan on that. For the chicken we just picked up rotisserie chicken from the deli section at Meijer, then shredded it by hand.

Our second alteration was that we didn't use puff pastry because of our experience with the last pot pie. We instead made some sweet potato biscuits from scratch, an idea stolen from Bobby Flay but again not listed on the Food Network website (which makes us think he serves this at one of his restaurants). Luckily Paula Deen bailed us out with a recipe for her own sweet potato biscuits:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 heaping tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) softened butter
2 to 4 tablespoons milk (depending on the moisture of the potatoes)

Directions Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate, large bowl, mix the sweet potatoes and butter. Add the flour mixture to the potato mixture and mix to make a soft dough. Then add milk a tablespoon at a time to mixture and continue to cut in. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and toss lightly until the outside of the dough looks smooth. Roll the dough out to 1/2-inch thick and cut with a biscuit cutter. Place the biscuits on a greased pan and coat tops with melted butter. Bake for about 15 minutes. (Watch your oven: If the biscuits are browning too fast, lower the temperature.)

Rather than lay the sheet of dough flat over the entire casserole we cut the biscuits into rounds and hoped they would expand. They didn't they grew up way more than they grew out, so we ended up with a 12 piece chicken pot pie, each with its own sweet potato biscuit yarmulka. Given that the filling was already cooked, we baked the dish per the biscuit instructions (450 for 15 minutes).

As far as the taste, it was surprising how far a teaspoon of curry powder goes for flavor. I figured that with all the milk, cream/butter and potatoes it would kind of get washed out but it didn't. So definitely don't add any more curry powder than it calls for. The pot pie was very good and a nice contrast to the cream heavy pot pie we made earlier from Paula Deen. The biscuits stole the show though. They were awesome. I can't wait to make something else we can use them in.

By the way, the picture above is not ours. I forgot to take a picture of it. But, it is a picture of the same curry chicken pot pie recipe that another food blog made.

Turkey and Bean Burrito Burgers

2009-03-11T05:46:00.000-07:00

This is another recipe I saw on Food Network during the past weekend. We made it last night. It was very simple and very delicious.

Turkey and Bean Burrito Burgers

1 cup cold leftover white or brown rice
1 pound ground turkey
1 (15-ounce) can pinto beans, rinsed and drained 3 teaspoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons coriander
1 tablespoon grill seasoning, (recommended: Montreal Seasoning by McCormick)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ripe avocado
1 clove garlic, grated or finely chopped
1 lime, zested and juiced
1 jalapeno or serrano pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup sour cream
4 red leaf lettuce leaves
1 ripe tomato, sliced
4 crusty rolls, split

Combine rice, meat and beans with spices and grill seasoning. Form 4 big patties from the meat and bean mixture then heat 1 tablespoon oil, a turn of the pan, in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook patties 7 to 8 minutes on each side.

While burgers cook, combine avocado with garlic, lime zest and juice, jalapeno and red onion. Mash to roughly combine, then stir in the sour cream.

Place burgers on buns with lettuce and tomato and top with sour cream guacamole.

We made quite a few changes. We seasoned it with what we had and what we liked. So we reduced some of the chili powder and went with some cayenne pepper and garlic powder. We didn't have coriander so we used thyme. Those sorts of things. The one significant addition we made was that we added the diced red onion to the turkey mixture rather than the guacamole, figuring it would not overpower the burger the way we figured it could with the guacamole.

For the guacamole we skipped the ripe avocado and just picked up a container of guac from the dairy section. Then we added the sour cream and lime juice. We also left out the serrano/jalapeno pepper, and just used dried cayenne pepper.

The final result came out to be 5 patties rather than 4. Cooking was very simple, 7-8 minutes per side was pretty accurate, even though it doesn't look like it will cook all the way through when you go to flip it.

Lauren left the kaiser buns from the salmon sandwiches at work, so we used some sourdough foccacia rolls instead, which may have been a blessing in disguise.

Blackened Salmon With Cilantro Lime Mayonnaise

2009-03-10T05:21:00.000-07:00

About twice a year I get a craving for a fish sandwich. This weekend I was watching Food Network and was basically forced to have one of them. I don't know if it was related to Lent or what, but every show I watched seemed to be preparing fish or some type of seafood.

Along the way I saw Paula Deen making blackened tilapia with cilantro lime mayonnaise. So I took that recipe to the grocery store and wound up making Blackened Salmon Sandwiches with Cilantro Lime Mayonnaise. Fresh salmon fillet was on sale for $6.49/lb, and much to my surprise 1 lb of salmon goes about twice as far as the same amount of chicken. So for about $9 we got 1.32 lbs salmon and made four blackened fillets, with a side of Zatarain's Yellow Rice and some steamed asparagus. As I recall from the show, Paula said her main reason for choosing tilapia was that it is relatively inexpensive, so we figured salmon we be an acceptable substitution. We also couldn't find fresh tilapia and were wary of defrosting frozen fish.

On to the recipe:

1/4 cup sweet paprika
2 tablespoons ground thyme
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
4 (10-ounce) tilapia (or salmon) fillets
4 Kaiser buns, split, buttered and toasted

Cilantro Lime Mayonnaise
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup freshly chopped cilantro leaves
1 tablespoon fresh lime

In a shallow dish, combine first 6 ingredients.

Pour melted butter into another shallow dish. Dip fish fillets in melted butter and coat with seasoning mixture.

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Cook prepared fish, in batches if necessary, 3 to 4 minutes per side, or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Spread Cilantro Lime Mayonnaise evenly over toasted buns. Place blackened fish on bottom half of bun, top with mango salsa, and cover with top half of bun.

Now I don't know what sweet paprika is, but I couldn't find it at the store so I used paprika. The rest of the recipe is solid. We didn't bother with the mango salsa, though it would have been awesome. My best suggestion is that if you aren't using cast iron, which we weren't, you may want to consider either pouring the seasoning mixture into an empty spice jar and shaking it on your fillets or taking a pastry/basting brush and lightly brushing away any extra spice mixture that isn't adhering to the butter after you dredge it through the seasoning. Dredging the fish as though the seasoning is flour is a bit of overkill, and I don't think a normal skillet has enough heat to completely blacken it without burning the fish.

Chicken Cranberry On Challah Bread

2009-03-09T07:42:00.001-07:00

Saturday night for dinner Lauren and I made an attempt to recreate her favorite sandwich from a local restaurant, Marie Catrib's. The chicken cranberry sandwich on challah bread. Traditional challah bread is a three piece braid eaten mostly as a breakfast bread. Marie Catrib takes that same challah dough and makes it into a loaf.

We basically cheated by using a bread machine. So I won't pretend like I know what I am talking about and tell you exactly how to make it. Here are the basic ingredients. I am drawing a blank on the actual recipe we used because I had to adjust for what I thought the bread machine could handle. Almost everything I found on the internet was for making it by hand:

1/2 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
1 package active dry yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/4 cups wheat flour
1/4 cup olive oil
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Here is a complete recipe that I have not tried. I am not sure what would make this challah bread since we weren't braiding it, because the ingredients are pretty common to wheat bread. But thats what they call it at Marie Catrib. Oh well.

Two and a half hours later we had bread with no mess which I later determined to be dumb luck. I don't know if it was the eggs or the olive oil, but Sunday I tried making a loaf of wheat bread with the same amount of flour, 3 less eggs, honey instead of olive oil and butter instead of sugar, and the loaf blew up on me. It totally overflowed the bread machine and there was a faint smell of smoke because the dough was touching very hot metal. Back to the sandwich.

Next we took a thin cut chicken breast, marinated it in balsamic vinaigrette and sauteed it for 4 minutes per side over medium-high heat in a non-stick skillet. For the cranberry part of the sandwich we took a can of whole berry cranberry sauce, heated in a sauce pan and added a splash of white wine, two tablespoons of brown sugar and the juice of one orange. Once everything was warm and mixed well we poured it into a bowl and stuck it in the freezer so it would thicken.

We then sliced our challah bread, grilled both sides of both pieces in a buttered skillet, added provolone cheese to the top slice and cream cheese to the bottom half. On top of the cream cheese we spread our cranberry sauce, and then laid down our chicken. On top of the provolone we added some baby spinach, then pressed the two sides together and we were done.

The sandwich was easy to make and turned out great. Again, I don't know that what we were calling challah bread made a great deal of difference in how it compares to the real sandwich, because I've never had it. I think the simple fact that we made fresh bread probably made as much a difference as it being this kind of bread instead of that kind.

So if you wanted to make this sandwich with some of your favorite wheat bread I think it would probably turn out fine.

Belgian Waffles

2009-03-07T09:12:00.000-08:00

I finally got around to it. This morning I woke up at 10am, went the store to buy some milk because I didn't have enough and then got on with the recipe.

3 cups warm milk (105 to 115 degrees)
1 envelope active dry yeast
1 1/2 sticks of butter, melted then cooled to lukewarm
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs, yolks and whites separated
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 cups all-purpose flour

Add the yeast to the warm milk and let stand for 5 minutes. I am pretty sure if the milk is too warm it will hamper the yeast's activity. So I used a small thermometer to make sure I was at least near the right range. Unlike a yeast dough recipe you're not going to see the yeast foam after 5 minutes but that is ok. Whisk the milk until smooth. When your melted butter is lukewarm, add that to your milk and whisk.

Add the sugar. When you add the sugar you should be able to hear the yeast crackle in celebration. The sugar is food for them. If that doesn't happen, you might be in big trouble. Add the egg yolks, whisk, then add the salt and vanilla and whisk until smooth.

Then you need to add your 4 cups of flour in three installments. Beat until smooth between each addition. Your final batter should be thicker than waffle batter but still pourable. You'll be able to scrape it away clean from the sides, as it will stick to your beating spoon like a runny dough.

Cover with plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 1- 1 1/2 hours, until the batter has doubled in size. Beat your 3 egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks form (aka really foamy). Remove the plastic wrap from your batter and fold in the egg whites with a large spoon.

Fire up the waffle iron and enjoy. This makes 12 delicious, but pretty heavy waffles. I think you can store the batter, provided you let it come to room temperature before you use it again. The waffles taste similar to a waffle cone. At least that is what Lauren says. I topped mine with strawberry syrup and whipped cream.

Chicken Wings!

2009-03-06T22:30:00.000-08:00

Twice this week and once about three weeks ago I saw an episode of Good Eats about how to make chicken wings. Tonight Lauren and I decided to make it happen. The picture you see here is the finished product. The rest are a photo blog of how the chicken wings came to be. At the bottom of this entry is the chicken wings episode of Good Eats, which we followed pretty much step for step.

In order to create our steaming rack, we bought two flat splatter screens ($4 each) and some U-bolts with nuts ($3).

With some scissors, we made holes in the outer edges of the screens to give them some height and make them stackable.This allowed us to place two trays of wings inside the 5 gallon stock pot I normally use to brew beer. If you aren't in to building anything, you could also use a stainless steel colander provided that the bottom half, where you'd lay the chicken, fits inside of your pot and you're able to cover the top sufficiently. Though as you'll see later the entire process is kind of lengthy, and doing it in small stages will only make you wait longer.
As for the wings, we bought a 5 lb family pack of chicken wings at Meijer. On Good Eats Alton Brown mentions that due to high demand for breast meat in the US, the chicken wing has remained relatively cheap. This is true. Our package of wings cost $8.95 for approximately 15 whole wings, which I "butchered" (a normal person might say cut) into the 30 "wings" you'd be charged for in any bar or restaurant. Here is a quick how-to on that:
Cut off the tip and throw it in the trash. Then squeeze the remaining wing like a pair of pliers. This will reveal the softest point (the joint) between the flat and drummette. Cut through it. There, you're done.5 lbs of chicken wings cut up and ready to go.
Arrange the wings on your steamer tray, bring a couple inches of water to a boil and set the tray inside your steaming pot for 10 minutes. If you're wondering why you have to steam them, the episode explains that it helps remove some of the fats and oil that would otherwise cause major smoke issues in the oven.When 10 minutes is up, remove your steamed chicken wings (the skin will be slightly tacky) from your tray and set them (uncovered) on cooking/drying racks atop a paper towel lined baking sheet. Preferably one with a lip.Place your baking sheets on the bottom shelf of a cold refrigerator (30-35 degrees). Both of these details will help prevent any salmonella issues both with your chicken and anything else in the fridge. As it turned out, our nifty steaming rack also served as a shelf so we could stack our chicken wings in the fridge. Leave the chicken in the refrigerator for 1 hour.The rest is easy. After your hour is up, remove the paper towel from beneath the racks, replace it with parchment paper and bake your chicken wings for 40 minutes at 425 degrees in the center of the oven. At the 20 minute mark flip your wings. If you are cooking two trays at once make sure to rotate the trays at this time.

Once 40 minutes is up grab the biggest bowl you can find and toss your wings (while they're hot!) in your favorite sauce. 1/2 cup of sauce per dozen is a pretty good ratio to use. We used Sweet Baby Ray's Buffalo Wing Sauce on one half and Sweet Baby Ray's Honey BBQ Sauce (+1 tbsp Honey, +1 tbsp brown sugar) on the other.

They were so awesome. A little time consuming, but well worth the effort. Its pretty easy to see that they're quite a bit meatier than what you'd normally get at restaurant, but for what its worth we had 30 wings between us and only finished about 18.

Until tonight, I've always been mildly annoyed that I can't fully enjoy bone-in wings at a restaurant because I'm afraid of making a mess of myself. This took care of that. And I didn't have to mess around with the hazards of in-home frying.

Pork Chops

2009-03-05T07:28:00.000-08:00

I've finally gotten back into the swing of making new meals. This week I picked up two packs of boneless pork chops. For one I had a plan and for the other I decided to improvise. And by improvise I mean "grab boxes of side dishes and 'just add___' meals from my parents' kitchen so that I don't have to go to the grocery store". The first meal I made was Tuesday night. It was ridiculously simple:

Pork & Beans

One 9x9 casserole dish
1 can (28oz) Bush's baked beans
Bacon (how much is up to you)
1 lb boneless pork chops
1 medium onion

Fry the bacon, cut it into pieces. Cut your onion into chunks. Add the baked beans, bacon and onion to the casserole dish. In a skillet, pan fry the pork chops with a couple tablespoons of olive oil for 3 minutes per side over medium-high heat. If you have thick pork chops, you're going to want to reduce heat to medium and increase the cook time to maybe 4-5 minutes per side. Set the pork chops on top of the baked beans and bake at 350 for 16-20 minutes. If the heat isn't conducting well enough to heat the beans *and* finish the pork chops you may need to turn the broiler on for the last 5 minutes or so. Plate and serve.

Red Curry, Rice & Pork Chops

This one is technically cheating, but it really wouldn't be that hard to replicate if you were planning a trip to the grocery store. We used an Archer Farms Indian Inspired Red Curry meal kit and added to it ourselves. However I am going to post the ingredients as if we made it ourselves, because we threw away half the sauces and soups it came with.

1 lb boneless pork chops
3 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
Salt & Pepper
1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs (seasoned to taste)
1 egg + 1 tablespoon water (beaten)
1 cup uncooked white rice

Curry Sauce
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 lime, juiced

Rub the pork chops with salt and pepper to taste. Add 3tbsp Worcestershire sauce and let stand for 10 minutes. Dip the pork chops in your egg wash, followed by bread crumbs. We mixed in some Penzey's Bavarian Seasoning with our bread crumbs, though I am not sure if it made much of a difference. Pan fry the breaded pork chops with 3 tbsp olive oil over medium high heat for 3-4 minutes per side, then finish in the oven at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Cook the rice per the instructions on the package. For the curry sauce, place a small pot over medium heat and coat with the oil. Stir the red curry paste into the pan and fry that up until aromatic. Slowly pour in the coconut milk and continue to stir to incorporate. Add the lime juice (and 1 of the squeezed out halves for added flavor) and cook for 5 to 10 minutes to thicken. Plate the rice, top with curry and serve with pork chops on top or on the side.

We also made a box of couscous because the rice portion included in our meal box was very small. The couscous was ok, but it didn't really fit.

An alternate approach to making this meal would be to cut the uncooked pork chops into strips, saute them for approximately 5 minutes total and then finish them off in a 5-10 minute high simmer of curry.

Waffles

2009-03-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I had hoped to be posting about Belgian Waffles right now but my weekend didn't really work out like that. Lauren had to go into work Saturday morning and I had soccer at 12:30 so there was no opportunity for an elaborate breakfast.

Sunday brunch was the next plan, so I made sure to pick up eggs, flour, syrup and toppings from Meijer. But when I opened my cook book I realized I had already made a terrible error. Belgian waffles, true Belgian waffles, use yeast. Which means the batter needs time to proof. The recipe is something like this:

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 egg yolks
2 3/4 cups warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled to lukewarm
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
3 egg whites
Activate the yeast in the warm milk, set aside for 5 minutes. Then combine only the wet ingredients, followed by only the dry ingredients, then add the ingredients together and let sit for an 60-90 minutes until doubled in size.

But we were hungry now, so we scrapped the Belgian waffle idea and just made regular waffles from scratch:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon fine salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups milk, at room temperature
2 large eggs, at room temperature, separated
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted, plus more for brushing the iron
1 large egg white, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar

We mixed a mashed banana and chocolate chips into our batter. The result was great. It was also cool to be able to use a waffle iron in the comfort of my own kitchen and not the breakfast area of a hotel lobby with a hundred kids in soccer gear wreaking havoc in every direction.

I am going to try to talk Lauren into Belgian Waffles for dinner later this week, but I suspect I'll have to wait for Saturday morning. What I really want is to try chicken and waffles.

I'm Making A Concerted Effort This Weekend

2009-02-26T07:30:00.000-08:00

I'm going to make a concerted effort this weekend to cook something new. The last two weeks or so were busy because of Valentine's Day and some nights out with friends on the weekends. Last weekend in particular was a minor league hockey game on Friday night and then an ordeal that ended in a $100+ (split between two people) trip to the grocery store and a good but bland dinner menu for the week.

Sunday we made white (chicken) chili for dinner as well as both chicken salad and egg salad for lunches during the week. Monday we were busy so some of the pre-made food/leftovers. Tuesday we had coconut crusted tilapia with asparagus and Kashi rice. Last night we have baked garlic and herb salmon with wild rice and a balsamic vinaigrette salad with tomato and fresh mozzarella. Tonight the dinner menu is looking like whole wheat pasta, something I am none too pleased about.

Meanwhile the last two nights at 7pm I've watched Food Network Challenge "Build A Better Burger". Its killing me. Healthy food is great sometimes, but a lot of times it just sucks. This weekend I am going to make something, I don't know what, but it will be great and filling and as unhealthy as it needs to be so that it tastes right. None of this whole wheat pasta business.

Omelets (or Omelettes, both spellings are correct)

2009-02-18T07:15:00.000-08:00

I haven't been doing a whole lot of cooking this past week. At least not new cooking. We did French Toast and Macaroni & Cheese for some easily stored on the go meals but that was about it. Part of our Valentine's Day weekend was to avoid cooking. So we went out for dinner Friday and Saturday night, but Saturday morning I managed to squeeze in a MacGyver breakfast in part because Lauren never brought her waffle iron back from work.

The result was cheese omelets:

2 eggs
1 tbsp butter
1 8 or 10 inch non-stick skillet
salt & pepper

Add butter to the skillet and heat until slightly brown. crack 2 eggs, beat with a fork, add salt & pepper to taste, then add to skillet. While the egg begins to form to take your fork and stir the eggs without scraping the bottom of the skillet. With your other hand shake the pan back and forth. It is somewhat like patting your head and rubbing your stomach. To get comfortable with this you may need to remove the skillet from the heat. Thats not problem just periodically put it back on to keep the egg cooking. After about a minute, take your fork and run it around the edge of your egg to set the boundary. After another 30 seconds, lift one edge of the egg and tilt the pan towards the opening to let some excess egg run off. Why? I don't really know. I'll let Alton Brown explain below. But once you've run off some of the excess egg, let it cook on medium heat for 10-20 seconds (depending on your preference), then add your toppings, cook for and additional 10-20 seconds, fold and serve.

For my omelette I used Mozzarrella, Parmesan and Provolone. Thats the cheese we had on hand from the lasagna. Lauren didn't care for her because of the Parmesan, so I got to eat mine plus a half of hers.

As far as how you cook them, if the instructions were not clear enough, here is the Good Eats episode that will show you how it's done. For what its worth I didn't bother with warming the eggs before I started, so my omelet may not have been as delicate as Alton Browns, but it wasn't scrambled eggs either. I also didn't bother with all the nonsense about what kind of spatula is best. I used a fork for everything. To see the important omelet related stuff for Alton Brown, skip to about the 9 minute mark of the video above.

Garlic Chicken Alfredo Lasagna

2009-02-11T05:26:00.000-08:00

Last night I made a Garlic Chicken Alfredo Lasagna, my first lasagna ever. It seemed straight forward enough but there were some rookie mistakes. First, I tried to make it convenient by purchasing oven-ready lasagna noodles. You buy them in the regular pasta section. The dry noodles are scored in such a way that they manage to absorb liquid from the lasagna ingredients. They seem easy enough, because you just lay them down like a brick mason, layering ingredients and sauce in between. However its a little unclear how much liquid is enough to get them to cook all the way through. So you might build your lasagna in 15 minutes, but you spend 45 minutes wondering if its going to be crunchy. Unfortunately that is exactly what happened to the top layer of noodles. They didn't quite cook all the way through. I don't know if that was because of the cheese on top or because liquid drained toward the bottom, but I have an idea of what it was.

My second mistake was in layering the lasagna. It had occurred to me that I should probably stack the noodles perpendicularly by layer but abandoned the idea quickly when I saw the size of the noodles. My pan was 13 x 9, but the noodles were about 10 inches long. So the noodles wouldn't fit across the pan without cutting them first, and when you cut dry pasta it cracks like glass. Yet another reason to take the time to get regular lasagna noodles and boil them before you lay them down. Much easier to manage odd lengths at that point. So I stacked the lasagna in the same fashion in all three layers. In retrospect I think what may have happened was that the liquid that should have remained at the top layer probably drained straight down the seam to the bottom. Or perhaps it was the order that I chose to layer my ingredients. Just for the sake of safety, I'm going to recommend that you use regular lasagna noodles if you attempt to follow this recipe just because I can't pinpoint exactly what I did wrong.

On to the recipe:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (approx. 2 lbs) diced, cooked
1 box no boil lasagna noodles (or regular lasagna noodles)
2 15 oz containers ricotta cheese
1 box frozen chopped spinach (defrosted, squeezed dry)
4 roma tomatoes, chopped fine
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2 jars alfredo sauce
1 cup milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic

Preheat the oven to 400. Mix ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese and spinach in a large mixing bowl and set aside. As far as the garlic goes you can either add it to the chicken or add it to the sauce. Whisk milk and alfredo sauce together until smooth. Spoon a thin layer of the alfredo mixture on to the bottom of your pan. Put your first layer of lasagna noodles on top of it. Then spread your ricotta cheese mixture on top of the noodles, followed by your tomatoes and pepper. Cover with alfredo sauce. Add second layer of noodles. Repeat ricotta cheese, followed by chicken and mushrooms, covered with alfredo. Add third layer of noodles, cover with remaining ricotta and alfredo, top with mozzarella cheese. Bake at 400 for 45 minutes.

The MacGyver Breakfast

2009-02-10T05:41:00.000-08:00

Borne primarily out of laziness and the hatred of single digit temperatures I have begun a weekend tradition I'm calling The MacGyver Breakfast. It consists of me waking up, wandering aimlessly around the kitchen opening and closing the refrigerator door several times, taking note of what I do and do not have to work with.

When I've keyed in on at least one bountiful ingredient I open up my Joy of Cooking cookbook and check the back pages for recipes utilizing that ingredient. When I opened the fridge last Saturday I couldn't get my mind off the bottle of lemon juice I had purchased the week before when I made chicken salad. I wanted pancakes, I wanted them to have flavor but all I had was lemon. That is when I discovered

Lemon Pancakes:

Dry Ingredients
1 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients
3/4 cup sour cream
1/3 cup milk
lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons butter (melted)
1 egg 1
1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients with a wisk, in a separate bowl mix all the wet ingredients until it becomes a milk-like consistency. By hand quickly mix the wet ingredients with the dry for 15-20 seconds. The batter will be light and airy. Do not overmix the batter or the pancakes will be dense and not nearly as good. Heat a skillet and make pancakes.

These pancakes are awesome on their own, but the next time I plan on making them I'm going to throw in some blueberries. I didn't bother with the lemon zest since I was using bottled lemon juice.

This post isn't done yet. A couple weeks ago I had a similar, but far less spectacular, experience with sour cream. The night before Lauren and I had made some white chicken chili and as a result had most of a 16 oz container of sour cream left in the fridge. So when I went rummaging through it the next morning looking for potential breakfast items I couldn't get my mind off of the sour cream. It might be weeks before we do anything else with sour cream and I just don't trust expiration dates, especially when the container in question costs about $1.50.

So once again I opened up The Joy of Cooking and discovered an excellent use for the ingredients I had on hand.

Sour Cream Muffins:

Dry Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Wet Ingredients
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
2/3 cup brown sugar (packed)
1/2 stick butter (melted)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Bake at 350 or 375 for 10-12 minutes, or until you can stick a fork in the middle and have it come out clean.

This is an excellent base muffin recipe. The sour cream and brown sugar keep the middle and muffin top nice and moist. They are pretty good on their own but a bit less sweet than you might expect. My suggestion here would be to add either lemon and blueberries or banana and walnuts to the muffin batter to round out the taste.

Other sour cream muffin addition possibilities include Snickerdoodle (pictured), cherry & peach, apple cinnamon and chocolate.

Sour cream is pretty awesome.

Soft-Baked Pretzels

2009-02-09T05:39:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago when Lauren and I were messing around with yeast and dough for cinnamon rolls I mentioned to her that I really wanted to make soft-baked pretzels. Just this month I happened to catch an episode of Good Eats that explained exactly how to do just that. Unfortunately I don't see how you get this done without an electric mixer unless you've got some seriously muscular forearms. There is a lot of kneading required to get the smooth consistency required for the pretzels to have awesome chewiness.

* 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* 2 teaspoons kosher salt
* 1 package active dry yeast
* 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
* 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
* Vegetable oil, for pan
* 10 cups water
* 2/3 cup baking soda
* 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
* Pretzel salt

Directions Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam. Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside. Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan. In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan. Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 by 1, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula.

Return to the half sheet pan, brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes, rotating the pans(s) half way through. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

These pretzels are excellent. You can use coarse sea salt instead of pretzel salt if you have a sea salt grinder at home. On the episode, Alton Brown said the primary benefit of pretzel salt was that it gives you the classic pretzel look. Table salt gives you a little too much coverage on the pretzel.

Aside from the one hour proofing time, the recipe was quick and easy. Once the dough was ready it took about 10 minutes to roll them out, shape them and get them ready to bake.

Stovetop Mac & Cheese

2009-02-03T05:57:00.000-08:00

Last week I came across an episode of Good Eats on macaroni and cheese. More than half the episode was spent on your typical fancy baked macaroni and cheese casserole, which is wonderful but ultimately not very practical for someone that typical cooks for one or two.

But just before the episode ended, Alton Brown talked about how to make a quick homemade stove top mac and cheese to compete with the powdered Kraft Mac N Cheese and Velveeta Shells N Cheese. It is ridiculously simple and really only requires one or two oddball ingredients, but you can buy and store those ingredients at room temperature almost indefinitely.

Alton Brown's Stove Top Macaroni and Cheese:

1/2 pound elbow macaroni (2 cups dry)
4 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
6 ounces evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Fresh black pepper
3/4 teaspoon dry mustard
10 ounces sharp cheddar, shredded

In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente (6 minutes) and drain, then rinse with cold water. Return to the pot and melt in the butter. Toss to coat.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, hot sauce, salt, pepper, and mustard. Stir into the pasta and add the cheese in 3-4 separate handfuls. Over low heat continue to stir for 3-5 minutes or until creamy.

I used mild cheddar rather sharp and I just bought bag of shredded Meijer brand. I didn't feel the need to be fancy by buying a block of cheese and shredding it myself, and some of the reviews I had read weren't so keen on the sharp cheddar flavor. I tried to limit my ingredients to whole containers (where possible) so I could get a read on how easy everything would be to buy, store and then make on demand, similar to the boxed macaroni and cheese. Evaporated milk comes in 5 oz containers (not 6 oz) and shredded cheese is sold in 8 oz bags (not 10 oz) so those were the amounts I used. I also skipped the hot sauce because all we had was habanero hot sauce and I didn't feel like taking that risk.

As far as the ingredients are concerned if you are in the habit of weekly grocery shopping, butter and eggs should be staple ingredients that you'll have on hand for your other needs. Here is a complete price break down. A "serving" in this case means the amount of ingredients you'll need to make one batch of mac and cheese.

Elbow macaroni - $0.46 per serving (servings per box)
Butter - $0.25 per serving (2 servings per stick)
Evaporated milk - $0.69 per 5 oz
Shredded cheese - $2 per 8 oz
Eggs - $1-$3 per dozen ($0.10-$0.25 per egg)
Dry mustard - $0.35 per serving ($2.35 per oz, 6 teaspoons in one oz)

Give or take some sale prices this comes out around $4 per batch. The difference is that when its all said and done this 8 0z of mac and cheese can easily feed four adults. My experience with the 7.25 oz Kraft mac and cheese and the 12 oz Velveeta shells n cheese is that you're looking at feeding about 1.5-2.5 people if you're lucky. So in the end when you weigh all the pros and cons of the various macaroni and cheese preparations, they all come out pretty close to even in price per meal. Which means the winner should be decided on taste, and nothing comes close to the home made stove top macaroni and cheese.

In my opinion this is the kind of mac and cheese you're going to want to put out at family gatherings/work parties/potluck dinners as a side dish. A little bit goes a long way, people will love the taste and then you can impress them by telling them how simple it is to make.

Lastly, I didn't take a picture of my mac and cheese because its hard for a picture to capture how it tastes any different than any other mac and cheese.

Also worth noting is that if you refrigerate it and heat it up later (like I did for lunch today) the cheese doesn't get all clumpy and oily and the noodles don't get weird and rubbery. I'll stop short the hyperbole of saying "I'll never buy mac and cheese again" and just say that I don't see any reason why I shouldn't make a habit of keeping all the ingredients on hand so I can have it on demand.

I Am Dense

2009-01-26T10:04:00.000-08:00

You know these Rubbermaid/Gladware kitchen storage containers? I recently, as in just a few minutes ago, discovered they were microwave safe. For at least two years now I've been using these to save all sorts of leftovers and every time I would empty the food onto a plate before I reheated it in the microwave.

Some years ago there was a disaster at my parents house with a bowl from the old, expensive kind of tupperware. It melted, the whole house stunk and the microwave was nearly ruined. I think ever since then I've assume that plastic + microwave = bad.

However today I had some leftover Shepherd's Pie that Lauren and I made last night. This morning I put some into a Rubbermaid container and (as I tend to do with food items in the winter) rather than take it home and stick it in the refrigerator I figured I'd just throw it in my car, leave it there (since its 10 degrees outside) and eat it when I drove home for lunch. By the time noon rolled around the thought of braving the cold walk to the car and cold drive home (its barely far enough for my car to warm up completely) just wasn't doing anything for me. So it finally dawned on me that the Rubbermaid container I had packed my food in might be microwave safe. I looked it up online and then checked the container, both of which said "microwave reheatable".

And thats the story of how I ate a warm lunch in my warm office today.

The more I think about it I am pretty sure I've seen Lauren put those things in the microwave, but I always assumed she was just extremely foolish and willing to risk a plastic in the microwave meltdown for the sake of convenience.

Beer Lab Revisited

2009-01-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

Back in November I posted about some beer that I had brewed as Christmas gifts. Each batch got its own custom label, personalized for its recipient. However I got a late start on two of the beers because it takes about 6 weeks to really get from start to "this would pass as a beer you could buy in a store". Well, its been at least 8 weeks since then, so this weekend I'll be giving them a taste test.

The first beer was an American Amber Ale that went to Debbie's in-laws. I don't have a picture of the label we created, so I am instead going to use the Red Dragon Ale bottle from the beer that Peter & Rachel gave to Peter's dad for Christmas. Both beers used the same ingredients so the end result should be the same, though I must admit I'd be a lot more comfortable if I had a bottle of Debbie's beer so I could be sure nothing went wrong.

Peter and Rachel gave me the idea for what they wanted on the label, that being the Welsh lion and the traditional Sheldon family crest. It was a good idea. So good in fact, that I kind of ripped it off for a Christmas beer I was giving.

American Amber Ale (Brewed Saturday Nov. 22)
6.3 lbs - Liquid Amber Malt Extract
1 lb - Crystal 10L
1oz - Amarillo Hops (60 min to boil)
1oz - Cascade Hops (15 mins to boil)
White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001)

The second beer I brewed was called Murphy's Irish Ale and was given to Lauren (Murphy)'s dad. This time I used the Murphy crest, with some slight alterations. Being that they're from South Carolina I used a Palmetto moon for the I in Irish. I also cut out the apples on the apple tree and replaced them with Clemson Tiger paws, since Lauren's dad is a proud graduate of Clemson University.

The beer is an Irish Red and used the following ingredients:

Irish Red Ale (Brewed Nov. 21)
6 lbs - Liquid Pale Malt Extract
1 lb - Raw Honey
0.5 - Cara-pils
3 oz - Roasted Barley 300L
1oz - Amarillo Hops (60 min to boil)
1oz - Amarillo Hops (15 min to boil)
White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004)

The entire process was really fun, and if the other beer recipients appreciated it as much as Lauren's dad did, it was well worth the time and effort. Ideally it would be cool to start a business with this sort of thing, in the mold of Vermont Teddy Bear setup. But up to this point it appears as though I'd need a $100,000 commercial brewer's license to make it happen.

Later tonight or tomorrow morning I'll attach an update at the bottom of this post and provide a comparison for what each beer tasted like.

Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo

2009-01-22T05:40:00.000-08:00

Last night I took the fresh pasta that we didn't give away and made some chicken fettuccine alfredo. Unfortunately we had some issues with the sun dried tomato fettuccine. It refused to unravel from the coils we rolled for freezer storage. I think it was because ours were at the bottom of a bag full of noodles, and they simply got packed a little more tightly than we intended. I hope the bags we gave away didn't have the same problems. If they did, I apologize.

Anyhow, fettuccine alfredo isn't exactly the type of thing you post a recipe for (all we did was add sauteed mushrooms, onion and broccoli to the jar of sauce) but it looked to good to just ignore, so instead I'll tell you what I did with the chicken:

two fresh/thawed boneless skinless chicken breasts
rub with salt & pepper
roll in flour (shaking off any excess)
dip them in egg wash
roll in 1/4 cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 350. Then heat 3-4 tbsp olive oil in a skillet until it just barely starts smoking (not burning). Saute (pan fry is probably more accurate) the chicken breasts for 4 minutes per side in the skillet. This will give the chicken a nice crispy breaded crust. When finished, place the chicken breasts in a glass baking dish, cover with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes.

Also, I don't know if I've mentioned this before but if you're wondering why my pictures are often up close and crooked its because that is how I turn things from a simple picture into art. Zoom in real tight, and tilt the camera towards 45 degrees.

Yeah, I'm on to you professional photographers. Your secret is now on the internet for everyone to see.

Good Job Moms

2009-01-19T05:33:00.001-08:00

Sunday has become pasta day over at Lauren's house. After brunch we usually get out the eggs and flour and make a pound of pasta for quick dinners later in the week. Yesterday I made some to give to a friend for letting me commandeer his computer Saturday afternoon. The use of semolina flour made things go so quick and smooth that we finished up without any bickering and decided we wanted to make more. So I went to the grocery store and got more flour and eggs so we could make tri-color fettucine gift bags for our friends with children. I hope nobody takes it the wrong way, we were just thinking it might be nice to give some friends an easy dinner starter for some night when things get a little hectic.

The green pasta is spinach fettucine. The red is sun-dried tomato fettucine and the light-colored pasta is basil & oregano herb fettucine. The pasta will keep for about a month in the freezer. When you're ready to cook it just boil some water, add salt and cook the noodles for about 4 minutes. I think its just under a pound of fettucine, so it should be good for 2-3 servings, but to be honest I haven't quite figured out how to do the conversions between the weight of the pasta dough (1.5-2 lbs), the weight of the rolled and cut noodles (presumably 1.5-2lbs), the lighter weight of the dried/frozen coils and the number of cups of pasta when its cooked.

I'll be making deliveries tonight after work.

Breakfast On The Go

2009-01-19T05:19:00.000-08:00

Here is a recipe for some awesome French Toast. It freezes extremely well, so you can make it on Sunday, freeze it and then pop it in the toaster in the morning before work. I do this about once a month but the French Toast only lasts about 3 days. I didn't think to take a picture of the fresh product, so this is a picture of the freezer bag. It looks like it has freezer burn, but thats just some moisture from the French Toast. I put it in while it was still warm.

6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cinnamon, optional
1 loaf Texas Toast sliced white bread

Mix together all ingredients except bread slices. Dip bread in the egg mixture,
coating both sides. Place on heated griddle and cook until golden. Turn and
cook opposite side until golden. Serve immediately with your favorite topping.

Vegetarian Enchiladas

2009-01-18T19:15:00.000-08:00

In between our second and third dates, Lauren invited me over for dinner. It was the middle of the week and was a bit of a return favor for a time when I made her sweet tea and dropped it off in the middle of some remodeling she was doing on the house she lives in now. Her words specifically were "do you want to come over for dinner tomorrow night? We're having enchiladas." So I thought "cool, I love cheesy Mexican food."

Anyways I'm sitting there in the kitchen volunteering to help assemble the food and I'm taking inventory of everything (internally):

"Black beans, refried beans. Alright."

"Corn is good."

"Salsa, cheese, onions, cool. Mushrooms? Um..."

"Bell peppers. Cool, I probably won't taste them but filler is always good."

"Squash!? Zucchini!? WTF? I hate squash and zucchini."

"So, I noticed there isn't any chicken in sight."

"This is going badly. I am pretty sure this is more fiber than I've had in a month."

So we assemble everything without chicken or any meat whatsoever and while its baking I am sitting at the counter thinking "alright, here is how I'll get through this: one enchilada to be polite, with lots of sour cream, large bites and quick swallows, because if I bite into a chunk of cooked squash or zucchini I'm going to feel like vomiting".

The meal gets served, I take two enchiladas and execute my plan with very little spilled filling. Some weeks or months later I finally decided to tell Lauren how devastated I was at the surprise chickenless enchiladas.

Today they are one of my favorite dishes. The squash and zucchini are still bites I try to avoid, but these enchiladas are dynamite.

The Recipe:
1 can enchilada sauce
1 medium squash
1 medium zucchini
4 bell peppers (green, yellow, orange and red)
1/2 pkg sliced mushrooms
1 medium onion
1 can corn
1 can black beans
2 cups shredded cheese
15 - flour tortillas
1 jar salsa
sour cream

Heat the oven to 350. Dice and saute all the fresh vegetables until tender, drain the canned vegetables and add to skillet. Slather a spoonful of refried beans into the tortillas, 2-3 spoons full of filling and a spoonful of salsa. Roll tight and set in a 13 x 9 inch baking dish. The filling and refried beans should fill about 13 tortillas. Pour the enchilada sauce on top of the filled baking dish and spread, covering any exposed tortilla (to prevent drying). Bake for 15 minutes, then top with 2 cups shredded cheese and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Remove and serve with sour cream.

Cornish Pasties

2009-01-17T06:50:00.000-08:00

This was a combination recipe, using Emeril Lagasse's dough and Robert Irvine's filling preparation, minus his seasonings. No real story behind this, we usually get them if we go to Graydon's Crossing and decided we'd figure out if we could make them at home. If you have some rather basic grocery staples like potatoes, onions, eggs and flour, they're really quit simple and inexpensive. We substituted ground turkey for the ground beef. The only issue we had was the crust. The recipe had them coming out somewhere between hot pocket and individual pot pie size. Ours were quite a bit bigger because the dough was not as smooth and stretchy as expected.

Short-crust Pastry:
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons confectioners' sugar
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 3 ounces cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
* 4 ounces lard or vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
* 1 egg yolk
* 6 tablespoons cold water

Sift the flour, confectioners' sugar, and salt into a mixing bowl and add the butter and lard. Using your fingers, 2 knives, or a pastry blender, cut the butter and lard into the dry ingredients until mixture resembles fine crumbs. In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolk and water together and add to the flour mixture. Mix quickly, but thoroughly, until mixture just comes together to form a dough. Knead briefly until pastry is smooth with no cracks; the trick to making this delicate pastry easy to work with is kneading it just enough so that it can be rolled out and manipulated without breaking but yet retains its lovely crumbly texture. Press into a flattened disk shape and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to overnight before proceeding.

Remove the pastry from the refrigerator and unwrap. Allow to soften slightly, then place on a lightly floured work surface and roll the pastry to a thickness of 1/4-inch. Using a small plate or saucer as a guide, cut out 6 (6-inch) rounds. (Scraps may be combined and reformed if you cannot get 6 rounds out of the first batch.) Stack the pastry rounds onto pieces of plastic wrap or parchment paper (with pieces between each round to keep them from sticking together) and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

Filling:
* 1 lb ground turkey
* 1 small onion, very finely chopped
* 1 medium carrot, cut into 1/4-inch dice
* 1 small Idaho potato, cut into 1/4-inch dice
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 1 egg, lightly beaten

Heat oil in a skillet and saute the carrots, onion and potatoes until al dente. Add ground turkey and brown.

Place the pastry circles on a clean work surface and place about 1/2 cup of the filling in the center of 1 side of the pastry. Using the beaten egg, brush the edges of the pastry and then bring the unfilled side over the filled side so that edges meet. Press edges together to seal and then crimp using your fingers or a fork. Repeat with the remaining turnovers and then transfer to a baking sheet. Brush the tops of the turnovers with the remaining egg and then cut several slits into the top of each pastry. Bake for 20 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown around the edges. Reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and continue to bake until the pasties are golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

They were good. A little dry in the middle, but now that we have a baseline method established its easy to see ways to incorporate creams, cheeses or rouxs into the filling to fix that.

Good Eats

2009-01-16T06:27:00.000-08:00

In the new year Food Network has changed their schedule around just a little bit with certain shows in their off-season and other shows, like Ace Of Cakes, starting their new season. That seems to have opened up the 11pm time slot for a new set of reruns, which is currently being filled by Good Eats. I never used to watch it, but lately Good Eats has turned into my nightcap. Of course that makes it a little more difficult not to go to bed hungry or have weird dreams where I'm in charge of preparing dinner for crazy medieval feasts. But Good Eats is so fascinating and informative that I just can't turn it off. I also like that it doesn't really center on recipes, but instead gives you a better understanding of how to make minor procedural adjustments that improve the quality of your food.

This episode (Season 5, Episode 4: Celebrity Roast) is the one that really turned me on to the show.

I am sure I might regret this because I'd never watch or re-watch them (like my Sopranos DVDs), but right now I want the complete set of Good Eats on DVD, just not at that price.

Black Bean Croquettes

2009-01-15T06:16:00.000-08:00

Last night we were looking for something new that made use out of the odds and ends grocery items we've accumulated during the couple of weeks. So I checked Food Network and found a writeup on the 30 Days of Healthy Eating recipes they're promoting. As is the case most of the time, I found and suggested the recipe and Lauren approved. Only this time I got a little bonus because the Black Bean Croquettes can double as a vegetarian entree. Her roommate is vegetarian so I tend to perceive my ravenous desire to cook and eat meat as somewhat of an albatross. I hate to see somebody make a grilled cheese sandwich while I'm in their kitchen making chicken Parmesan. It make me feel guilty.

So this recipe was not only good on its own merit, but it scored brownie points from Lauren and my own conscience.

Black Bean Croquettes
* 2 15-ounce cans black beans, rinsed
* 1 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
* 1/4 cup plus 1/3 cup plain dry breadcrumbs, divided
* 2 cups finely chopped tomatoes
* 2 scallions, sliced
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
* 1 teaspoon chili powder, hot if desired, divided
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 avocado, diced

Preheat oven to 425°F. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.

Mash black beans and cumin with a fork in a large bowl until no whole beans remain. Stir in corn and 1/4 cup breadcrumbs. Combine tomatoes, scallions, cilantro, 1/2 teaspoon chili powder and salt in a medium bowl. Stir 1 cup of the tomato mixture into the black bean mixture.

Mix the remaining 1/3 cup breadcrumbs, oil and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon chili powder in a small bowl until the breadcrumbs are coated with oil. Divide the bean mixture into 8 scant 1/2-cup balls. Lightly press each bean ball into the breadcrumb mixture, turning to coat. Place on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake the croquettes until heated through and the breadcrumbs are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Stir avocado into the remaining tomato mixture. Serve the salsa with the croquettes.

We added shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream on our own. We also elected to cut the recipe in half, make the croquettes in 1/4 cup balls and have them as a side dish with the lemon pepper chicken I made. But I almost made a completely vegetarian meal.

Spaghetti & Meatballs

2009-01-12T05:30:00.001-08:00

Early yesterday I felt a need to revisit fresh pasta, considering how poorly my attempt at ravioli went. Throughout the week I did some minor research and noticed that about half the recipes or people I talked to mentioned the use of semolina flour. Evidently its a coarser flour used in commercial pastas and lends yellow color and stretchiness (less tearing) to the final product. I didn't want to like it because even at a store like Meijer, semolina flour is $3.50 for 24 oz. Essentially a dollar per cup for flour is ridiculous. Not only that but 24oz was the biggest bag they had, so even I am willing to pay that much for flour I'll probably need to go to the grocery store to buy it at least every other time we make pasta. In the end though, it was worth it.

Spaghetti is by far my least favorite pasta. It is not very creative or flexible and I think that as a child I just had a few too many bad spaghetti dinners when it was dad's night to make dinner. But fresh spaghetti is awesome. I can't really explain it because it seemed pretty ordinary while I was eating it. But some hours later I was still thinking about the spaghetti and realized how much better it was than the last time I boiled a box of store bought spaghetti.

In addition to the pasta we had homemade turkey meatballs from Giada DeLaurentis.

Semolina Pasta
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups semolina flour
4 large eggs
2 tbsp olive oil
3tbsp water

Turkey Meatballs
1/4 cup plain dried bread crumbs
2 tablespoons whole milk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup grated Romano
1 pound ground turkey
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
5 cups tomato sauce

In a large bowl add bread crumbs milk and mix until well combined. Mix in eggs and 1/2 cup Romano cheese and mix well. Add turkey and gently combine, being careful not to overwork the meat. Season with salt and pepper. Shape into golf-size balls.

In a large skillet heat the oil over medium high heat. When almost smoking, add meatballs and without moving or turning the meat, allow it to brown for about 3 minutes. Turn meatballs and brown other side. Continue to cook until all sides are golden brown, about 8 minutes total. Add tomato sauce and bring to a boil. Lower heat and allow meatballs to simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and keep warm on stove. Be careful not to overhandle the meatballs since they are soft and fragile.

In a large pot, bring to a boil 6 quarts of salted water. Add pasta and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes. Drain pasta in a colander. Do not rinse pasta with water since you want to retain the pasta natural starches so that the sauce will cling to the pasta.

Remove meatballs from sauce and place in serving bowl. Pour some tomato sauce over meatballs, but leave about 1 cup of sauce in skillet. Place the cooked pasta into the skillet with the remaining sauce and toss well. Pour sauced pasta into a large serving bowl. Serve alongside the meatballs.

I don't have pictures of the meatballs but they turned out very well. If you decide to make them you need to know that during the first three minutes they have the ability to get very brown on the bottom without showing any other signs that they're cooking. So you need to keep on top of them and turn them per the instructions in the recipe. If you do let them get a little crunchy on one side just make sure you let them simmer in the tomato sauce a little longer to soften them up.

Lastly, we made about 1.5 - 2lbs of pasta so we had quite a bit extra. The simplest way to store fresh ribbon pasta is to make coils with a large spoon, and freeze them for 1-2 hours on a baking sheet. After 1-2 hours remove the hardened coils from the baking sheet, place in a freezer safe storage bag and freeze for up to a month.

Spinach & Chicken Ravioli

2009-01-05T05:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I decided to again test the abilities of the KitchenAid pasta set by making my own ravioli. I don't have the ravioli maker attachment so I prepared for a fairly long and tedious process in order to have ravioli with chicken on the inside instead of the outside. As far as recipes go, everything was very simple. I used a basic pasta dough recipe, ricotta cheese, spinach and chicken. To top it we used some store-bought alfredo sauce with sauteed bell peppers.

The first mistake I made was in buying fresh spinach instead of frozen. On Wednesday when we made spinach pasta we used frozen spinach, but even after being thawed and squeezed it still retained enough moisture to make the dough very sticky. In hopes of avoiding that a second time I bought one 10oz bag of fresh spinach. Of course in order to use it for filling I had to trim all the stems, pulse it in a food processor and cook it in a skillet, all of which yielded exactly the same 10 oz of spinach as the frozen package with just as much moisture.

Once I dried the spinach, I mixed it with the ricotta cheese and some diced cooked chicken I had also pulsed in the food processor.
At this point Lauren joined the process and we rolled out some dough. Some very sticky and stretchy dough. But with some patience (and frustrated bickering) we managed to put together about 25 finished ravioli.

We had a ton of leftover filling, but by that point we were both so annoyed with process that we decided to refrigerate it and figure something else out. In my estimation there was enough extra filling to make another 30-40 ravioli.

Once we cooked the ravioli, we ended up losing about four ravioli to leaks and holes in the dough.

So to review, we started this process around 3:30pm. We finished at almost 6pm. And we netted 21 cooked ravioli.

This was so not worth it, regardless of the actual taste of the finished product. I blame the dough. It was too stretchy, which was probably my fault. This dough might have worked for cut noodles, but it was never going to work for ravioli.

In summary, with some refinement (and possibly the ravioli maker) in the assembly process homemade ravioli would be a worthwhile process if your plans were to eat a small portion (25 or less) and freeze the rest (50+) for easy meals later in the week. But at the moment for me it just isn't worth the effort.

Chocolate Scones!!

2009-01-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

For a few days now Lauren and I have been contemplating an attempt at making scones, because I got the 75th Anniversary edition of The Joy of Cooking and it seems to have a recipe for everything you can think of amongst its whopping catalog of 4,500.

So this morning we tried our hand at Chocolate Chip Scones, or at least she did. I mostly watched while I washed dishes. The recipe was as follows:

1 3/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cold butter
2 eggs
1/3 c heavy cream

Sift flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt together into a large bowl. Cut butter into small pea sized cubes. Mix into dry ingredients with pastry blender. Beat eggs in a separate bowl. Reserve 2 Tbsp of egg. Beat cream into the remaining egg. Make a well in the dry ingredients. Pour in the liquid and combine with a few rapid strokes. Handle the dough as little as possible. Place it on a lightly floured board. Flour hands, and pat dough to 3/4 inch thick. Cut into diamonds, squares, or whatever shapes you want. Brush with reserved egg and sprinkle with salt or sugar. Bake 15 minutes at 450.

We added chocolate chips, or rather shavings of bittersweet chocolate from a baker's block because we didn't have chocolate chips.

Warm scones are delicious.

Shrimp Scampi

2009-01-01T08:38:00.001-08:00

Using the KitchenAid pasta attachment set I got Lauren for Christmas we made an awesome Shrimp Scampi with Fettucine. We used a mix between an herb pasta (light) and a spinach pasta (green) for the noodles. The shrimp was caught wild, then frozen by Lauren's dad back in September. All in all the meal took us about 2 hours. Not all that time was active but we had to figure out how to use the pasta attachments, thaw the shrimp, then peel and devein them.

Herba Pasta
2 cups unbleached flour
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil
1/4 cup mild herb (basil)
1/4 cup strong herb (oregano)

Mix the ingredients and knead into a reasonably smooth lump of dough. Cut into 4 pieces, wrap loosely in plastic wrap and let sit for 1 hour before using.

Spinach Pasta
2 cups unbleached flour
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil
1 pkg (10 oz) frozen spinach, thawed, dryed thoroughly

Mix the ingredients and knead into a reasonably smooth lump of dough. Cut into 4 pieces, wrap loosely in plastic wrap and let sit for 1 hour before using.

Shrimp Scampi
1 pound fettucine
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 shallots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Pinch red pepper flakes, optional
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley leaves

Cook pasta in boiling water 6 - 8 min or to desired doneness.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons butter in 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Saute the shallots, garlic, and red pepper flakes (if using) until the shallots are translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper; add them to the pan and cook until they have turned pink, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the shrimp from the pan; set aside and keep warm. Add wine and lemon juice and bring to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons oil. When the butter has melted, return the shrimp to the pan along with the parsley and cooked pasta. Stir well and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle over a bit more olive oil and serve immediately.

Yes, these are the actual pictures of our creation. I got a digital camera for Christmas.

Back From South Carolina

2008-12-30T05:35:00.000-08:00

I spent the past week in South Carolina attending Lauren's various family Christmases. Good times. We left on the 21st in the midst of whiteout. Getting from home to the Battle Creek area was a nightmare, and in retrospect we took a HUGE risk driving that morning. At the same time I understand that the weather got worse the next few days and we never would have made it out had we not left then. All in all the roads were terrible for 90 miles and then dry and windy for the last 900. If you're wondering what kind of toll driving 16 hours and 1,000 miles twice in just over a week takes on your spirit, check out Lauren's dog:

This is essentially a "before" picture, taken Christmas night or sometime between Thursday and Sunday.

Here is a "during" picture, taken in the car during the daylight driving hours:

Later in the drive, after the sun went down:At home, after the car was unpacked:

As you can see Josslyn seems to get the crazy eye in photos when she is happy. And yes, that is a hooded soccer sweatshirt that she is wearing. Its made for dogs and it draws a lot of attention.

We were stopped at a Subway in Jellico TN mid-afternoon and realized we were out of dog food. We packed what we thought would be enough, but ended up being about a half a day short. So we head inside, and as always Joss jumps into the driver's seat for whatever reason. So we order our two subs, and then Lauren says "actually we're going to need a third, make it a six inch oven roasted chicken breast on wheat." and then declines to have it toasted, microwaved or heated in any way by saying "cold is fine, its for my dog". Then during the toppings portion of the sandwich assembly she says "and that one (the dog's sandwich) needs tomatoes and carrots" without any further explanation, at which point our sandwich artist chimed in about things her dog does and doesn't eat, making things slightly less awkward. Finally I explained our situation so that we weren't the yuppie couple that regularly feeds our sweatshirt wearing dog fast food sandwiches, to the local residents of some random town in Tennessee.

Adopt A Class

2008-12-17T12:52:00.000-08:00

This is how I have basically spent the last week of my life. What you see below is the finished product. I was involved in every step but the good parts. Lauren's company adopted an area pre-kindergarten class for Christmas, collected some money and then purchased presents for 31 kids. My role was that of the informal budget consultant. Lauren was in charge of the creative part of the project so I tagged along to chip in the occasional "this is half off" "31 x 5 = $150" "look these markers are $3.49 for 8 and those ones are $2.99 for 10". So we spent last Thursday night at Jo-Ann Fabrics buying enough fleece to make 32 fleece handbags. Lauren was the one with the sewing skills, so after Thursday night I was there primarily to draw straight lines, make cuts and pin fabric. Pretty much every night between Thursday and last night we were marking, cutting or sewing fabric for these bags. The rationale being that when you have 31 kids wrapping paper is going to cost you about $40, which is $40 less you can spend on presents. So by stuffing the presents in these fleece bags (which cost about the same in raw materials) the kids would have something useful to keep afterwards.

Each bag contains: a hat & mitten set, Crayola crayons and markers, construction paper drawing book, a Dr. Seuss book, 2 canisters of Play-Doh and a wooden Christmas ornament with the student's name inside.

So every night in the past 7 days have been spent doing some part of this project. If it wasn't going from Meijer to Costco in search of better pricing it was going to the fabric store to pick up some odds and ends or simply spending 15 hours on the weekend marking, cutting and sewing fabric. Last night however was especially brutal because Lauren and I tried to get Christmas cookies (for a separate project) baked at the same time we were finishing threading the drawstrings on these gift bags.

Long story short, we finally went to sleep about 4am with the bags finally finished and about 150 cookies baked and decorated.

It was worth it though. I may revisit this post in the near future, but I am dead tired right now and I go on vacation to 72 degree Charleston South Carolina in 2 days. My mind and body are limping to the finish line.

Well, That Didn't Last Long

2008-12-11T10:33:00.001-08:00

In my last entry I lamented the new emphasis on healthy foods only that I was being dragged into. Today I am pleased to report that this appears to be over, or least scaled back to an acceptable compromise. A week from Saturday Lauren and I leave for South Carolina, where we'll spend 9 days or so with her family. This means we need to have our own Michigan Christmas responsibilities taken care of by next Friday.

Last night we decided it would be nice to give people some baked goods as a small but thoughtful Christmas present. We were inspired by the Food Network's 12 Days Of Cookies celebration. Lauren's cookies will be going primarily to co-workers and mine will be given to friends. But before any of that can happen we need to choose at least one recipe and give it a trial run. So last night we selected Paula's Loaded Oatmeal Cookies:

* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
* 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
* 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1/2 cup buttermilk
* 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
* 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
* 2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
* 1 cup raisins
* 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* Brown Butter Icing, recipe follows

Using an electric mixer, cream together butter, shortening, and sugar in a bowl until fluffy. Add eggs and beat until mixture is light in color. Add buttermilk. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice; stir into creamed mixture. Fold in oatmeal, raisins, walnuts, and vanilla, blending well. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto cookie sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Drizzle with Brown Butter Icing.

Brown Butter Icing:

* 1/2 cup butter
* 3 cups sifted powdered sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 3 to 4 tablespoons water

In a small saucepan heat the butter over medium heat until golden brown, stirring occasionally. Remove saucepan from heat; stir in 3 cups sifted powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in enough water (3 to 4 tablespoons) to make an icing of drizzling consistency. Drizzle on warm cookies.

The only thing I would change from this recipe is the amount of icing. The recipe makes about 50 cookies. You could hit 60 if you're really anal about your portions. However the icing recipe makes enough to dunk 60 cookies like an Oreo in milk. If you're just drizzling you can cut the icing in half, unless you're big fan of diabetes. We baked them for the full 15 minutes and they still came out very moist. Even Lauren liked them, and she doesn't like Oatmeal Raisin cookies.