Bowl Em' Over

A bowl of yummy in your tummy.  Your family will be bowled over by the dish.  Beef broccoli with mushrooms.  I took a nice cut of sirloin steak and sliced it thin, mixed up a marinade of 2 teaspoons soy sauce, 2 teaspoons rice or white wine, 1 teaspoon cornstarch and some fresh cracked pepper and mixed the beef in the mixture.  I put the steak mixture in a covered dish with a little kosher salt, a sliced green onion and some red pepper flakes and cooked in the oven at 350 degrees for a good hour.  I like the meat to be tender.  I took the meat after it was tender and added it to a pan on the stove top with a can of mushrooms and cooked a bit more.  I added frozen broccoli to the meat and covered so the broccoli could thaw.  I made a sauce of 4 tablespoons oyster sauce, 2 teaspoons rice or white wine, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1/2 cup chicken stock and a tablespoon of cornstarch.  Add this to the meat mixture, heat and stir until thickened.  Serve over white sticky rice and with a side salad dressed with Asian dressing.  Really yummy and healthy.  Your family will love it and so will you.  Give it a try.

Marching To The Beat Of A Different Drummer

Turkey drumsticks, different from the usual chicken drumsticks.  Super scrumbalicious.  You need to cook them a long time, otherwise they are tough.  This is comfort food meal and it's really easy.  Put your legs in a covered roasting pan, take an onion soup packet and mix it with a couple cups of water, dump it over the legs, add some fresh cracked pepper and some kosher salt and cook at 350 degrees for about three hours or until the meat is falling off the bone.  The skin gets caramelized and tasty and the inside meat is tender and juicy.  It really takes on a whole other flavor than what you think of when you think of turkey.  I always serve with mashed potatoes and gravy.  When I make the gravy I use the drippings in the bottom of the roasting pan, mix up a shaker of water, Kitchen Bouquet and 2-3 Tablespoons flour.  Shake and dump in the bubbling meat juice mixture, whisk until thickened and there you go-you've got gravy.  Don't use that packaged stuff or the stuff in the jar.  This is easy to do and very delicious.  You can do it.  I added a side of mixed frozen vegetables and you got yourself a meal.  A balanced, scrumptious meal.  You will crave these after one try.  Nothin' beats a great pair of legs.

Move Over Forrest

Shrimp, I know you guessed it.  I suppose it could have been chocolate, but it was shrimp.  Really tasty shrimp, because it was date night.  We picked up some shrimp at Cash Wise and brought it home to enjoy.  It was raw and I deshelled and I took the tails off before cooking.  I squeezed a half of lemon over the shrimp, added some Carribean seasoning, olive oil, fresh cracked pepper and Kosher salt.  I sauteed the shrimp in olive oil with three cloves of fresh chopped garlic and one green onion.  I boiled some spaghetti noodles and added them to the shrimp with a half a stick of salted butter and tossed.  For our vegetable tonight we had a fruit.  I cut up a whole pineapple and served it along side the shrimp and pasta.  Really great together.  The meal was a hit.  And you never know, because "Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you're gonna get."

Mama Mia

Wow.  Chicken Parmesan tonight.  Really tasty.  I tried a new recipe.  I defrosted six boneless skinless chicken breasts and pounded them flat in a Ziploc bag with kosher salt and Sicilian seasoning.  I made a sauce with 1 quart of homemade spaghetti sauce and 1 large can of whole tomatoes.  To this I added about 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, some roasted garlic chips, about 2 teaspoons Sicilian seasoning and some fire roasted dried tomatoes.  Whip up a couple eggs with a fork and dredge the seasoned chicken breasts through the egg.  In another bowl  mix up 1 cup bread crumbs (I used Japanese Panko) and 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese and a pinch of kosher salt.  Coat your egged chicken breasts with this mixture and brown in a olive oil coated pan, 4 minutes per side.  Coat the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan with the tomato sauce mixture, add the crispy browned chicken breasts, add a good dusting of Parmesan cheese, cover breasts with the rest of the tomato sauce and top with mozzarella cheese.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese starts to brown.  Serve with spaghetti noodles, garlic bread and a colorful garden salad.  Super yummy and you won't know that you weren't at Ciatti's, except you will have a pile of money in your checking account.  This makes me smile...

Smoke In A Bowl

So, I ran across this great little recipe in Better Homes and Gardens magazine a few months ago.  Sausage and White Bean Stew with Kale.  I have made it a few times now, and have adapted it some-to make it a "one pot wonder".  The Orange Pot reports to duty on this recipe.  It's the perfect candidate.  I soaked one pound of white great northern beans in really hot water this morning before work.  Tonight when I got home, I browned about 1 1/2 pounds of Pep's smoked pork sausage in the Orange Pot.  I took it out of the pot, when it was nice a brown and let it drain on some paper towels.  To the Orange Pot, now laced with pork fat and browned goodness bits, I added a couple cups of chopped onions, three chopped large carrots, three chopped ribs of celery, 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh garlic, 1/2 teaspoon thyme leaves, a little kosher salt and some fresh cracked pepper.  I saute them a bit and then remove to the bowl I soaked the beans in, because now the beans are in a colander in the sink draining.  Add the drained beans to the Orange Pot along with 4 cups chicken stock and 4 cups vegetable stock.  Let the beans cook in the mixture covered for 45 minutes.  Bring a large pot of salted water to boil, add about 8 cups of stemmed kale and cook for 5 minutes, drain and let cool.  After the kale has cooled, rough chop and add to the Orange Pot of beans and stock.  Add back the smoked sausage and the sauteed vegetables and one large can of whole tomatoes (kinda cut them up).  Simmer a bit to let the flavors combine.  What you get is a smokey, flavorful, soupy, stewy, healthy concoction.  Kale is super food.  Super healthy for you and your kids won't even know it's to their benefit.  Go ahead and serve up a smokey bowl of goodness-your family will say "wow"-dude.

This Little Piggy

Went to a wood fire.  Too bad for the piggy that stayed home.  Nobody likes him anyway.  Everyone liked the wood fired piggy.  Delish.  Wood fired pork chops with Caribbean Grill Rub.  We picked the rub up just yesterday, at TJ Maxx (love that store).  Scott picked the rub out, and out of the three he picked, this would have been the one I might have put back on the shelf.  I would have been wrong.  It was delicious in this venue and will be great with fish in the future (I will get back to you on that).  In addition to the rub, I added fresh cracked pepper, kosher salt and a little extra virgin olive oil. We grilled them up over a wood fire stoked with hard wood maple.  Served with red potatoes slathered in Vidalia onions, fresh cut chives, kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper, we cook them in a tin foil pan on the gas grill.  For our vegetable (because I am all about balance) we had a pretty romaine lettuce salad with orange peppers, Vidalia onions, apples, strawberries, avocado, tomatoes and a dressing made of lemon juice, cracked pepper, thick rind orange marmalade and olive oil.  I made bread in the black pot (cracked wheat, sesame, flax seed and sunflower).  Yummy.  Really yummy.  I didn't know if I should talk about the chops, potatoes, salad or bread.  Each could hold it's own in a fight.  Trust me.  With a meal like this, no one will be crying wee wee wee, all the way home.

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

Today was Henry's birthday party with our families.  The big 03.  That age deserves a great cake.  A cake that won't soon be forgotten.  A "hey Mom, remember when you made that monster cake for me" kinda cake.  Yeah, a monster cake.  I green monster cake with three googly eyes and a bright red tongue.  Memorable?  I think so.  It also gave me another shot at the Cold Spring Bakery white cake recipe.  Fail.  The cake was fine, but not what I was going for and a little on the dry side.  I will keep you posted on that, because the quest is not over-in fact it appears that it has just begun.  This cake was all about the outside, deception.  With an outside like that, you expect more from the inside.  Don't judge the book by the cover, I guess.  If at first, or second or third or fifty, you don't succeed-try, try again.  Well, happy birthday Henry, from all of us to you, I wish your cake was better, but what's a girl to do?