Teasing Begets Innovation...

...which is another way of saying that I used the interwebs to do something useful (for once - curse you, Chrome, for giving me Angry Birds) and found an easy recipe to make for dinner tonight. And that leads me here...back in front of the computer. It's what I do.

The teasing came in the form of my sister letting me know that I've been slacking on the blogging. Thanks, sis. :) She's right, though, so I'm going to try to keep up with it more regularly than I have been. How's that for a commitment? In any case, I finally cooked an actual meal again tonight, and, considering I pretty much just glanced at the recipe and did my own thing, it turned out pretty well.

I found out recently that my husband of six years likes pot pies. Who knew? I've never made one before, so I found an easy recipe and gave it a go...it was stupid-simple, really, and it needed some jazzing up. That, or I just like making my own life a little bit difficult. Anyway, on to the details.

While the author called for an onion, a cup of "mixed vegetables" and two cups of chicken, I went a little too far and added a cup each of chopped celery and carrots, a big onion, three big cloves of garlic (mmmmm), a pound of chicken and half a bag of frozen corn. I doubled the liquids (give or take...I didn't really measure) and set it to simmer to thicken up. When that was done, it looked sort of like a really thick soup. I think that's what it's supposed to look like, right?

So that's the most important part, I guess...I took the shortcut route and used frozen puff pastries to do the crust, so there's really not much to say about that step. Instead of doing a big ol' pot pie that would sit in the fridge until fuzzy, I thought it'd be a good idea to use our fancy-pants soup crocks for individual servings tonight, saving a little for dinner tomorrow with the rest going in the freezer. As I think I've written in the past, we are notorious for letting food go to waste; I'm really trying to curb that habit, so the easier something is to freeze and keep for a lazy dinner day, the better.

Before the oven: 

And post-baking:

Yummers. Of course, it was like liquid hot magma when we first tried to dig in, but after letting it cool for what felt like 14 hours, we finally devoured them. And I still have room for dessert...

Not my picture - it's theirs: Kemp's

So there you have it...tonight I discovered that I can make a mean pot pie without a recipe (don't worry, I took notes during the process so I can replicate it in the future). 

Thanks for reading!

Carrie

Soul Food...Upper Midwest Style

Hi there! Well, it has certainly been a while since I last wrote…well…anything. I could come up with some great excuse like I have in the past, but I’ll just pretend we’re all okay with the lapse and move right along.

I’m writing this lovely (and HOT) evening because I made a delicious meal today. Not just a “hey, that tastes pretty yummy” dinner, but a “…happy…soul…ahhhhh” sort of meal. The best part is that it wasn’t even anything difficult or exotic – it was a simple roasted chicken with mashed potatoes, gravy, and green bean casserole on the side. You see, green bean casserole is a weakness of mine, and I do love a good made-from-scratch gravy. However, it was stupid hot today (for our neck of the woods, anyway), with the temp hovering around 95 (or more, with humidity), so it probably wasn’t the best time to roast a five pound bird. But the way I see it, the body wants what it wants!

I’ve been craving this, what I consider the ultimate in comfort food, for a few weeks and decided today was the day it had to happen. It’s been a tough couple weeks at the new job, and I had to work this weekend (first time in years), so my soul needed a pick-me-up. I prepped the roasting pan with a few glugs of olive oil tossed with chunks of celery, carrots and onions, and popped a few bits inside the chicken for extra flavor. Oh, and true to form, I threw in four cloves of garlic…mmmmm. Then I – get this – TRUSSED the chicken. I’ve never done it before, at least not correctly, so this was a momentous evening. :) Anyway, I placed the bird on the bed of veggies in the pan to prevent sticking and got ready to roast. Oh, and I should mention I went all Julia Child on that poor chicken…I slathered it with butter before putting it in the oven to crisp up the lovely skin. Wait, I’m drooling…

Sorry, I’m back! I baked it like my mama taught me, and prepped the baby red potatoes and green bean casserole. About an hour and a half later, we had mashed potatoes (with still more butter and sour cream) with homemade gravy (made from the pan drippings), and green bean casserole (with half n half instead of milk because that’s all we had). Oh my. So. So. Tasty. See?

I would have taken a picture of everything, but, well, we were hungry. It was the best thing I’ve eaten in a while...we've enjoyed some lovely home-cooked meals like chili and beef stew, but something is missing when your whole meal is just in a bowl. Where's the magic? It'll sustain, sure, but I like a little more flair sometimes. When we finished eating, Ben said it reminded him of when he was little…who could ask for a more comforting meal? And that, folks, is why I like to cook.

After indulging in some tasty cocktails and a mini Doctor Who marathon, I went out to our backyard and plucked this pile of raspberries from the bushes that popped up from nowhere last year…YUM.

 I hope you have a meal that makes your soul happy, and that you can enjoy it sometime soon. :)

Catching Up

Hello! How are you today? I realized that I've been terribly neglectful of my little blog for a good long while now, and no, I don't really have an excuse for it. What, you want to know what I've been doing that was so important it took me away from my musings? Well, I guess if you insist...

You see, we have Netflix instant streaming service to our Blu-Ray player, and we found a show we liked (but never knew when it was on) had become available recently...all 100 episodes. Yep. I've been putting off doing something I really enjoy - writing - to watch Numb3rs. I'm not proud of it, but there it is! I also haven't been feeling well, and as a result, I haven't been much in the mood to cook. Since the whole purpose of this thing is to share my adventures in the kitchen, well, it seemed a little disingenuous to write when I'm not cooking. See the logic? No? Look closer - it's totally there. 

In any event, I have done some cooking...I mean, we have to eat once in a while, right? I've made a lot of simple stuff, and a few that were a little more involved. Since no one really cares about the simple ones (I'm talking grilled cheeses, hot dogs, and other unhealthy but delicious nibbles), I'll just write about a couple of the good ones. 

For starters, I have to give Costco a shout-out for the first one. We went in looking for steaks, and in a first for our family, that's exactly what we left with - one package of beef and nothing more. Trust me, this is no small feat. Anyway, we bought a four-pack of rib-eyes with the intent of making a couple that night, and a couple later. However, we are little (not like "little person" little, but just...little) and we don't need that much beef in one sitting; our solution is to just make one and chop it in half after it cooks. By doing that, we got a $25 pack of steak to last through four meals...since we'd spend that much on one meal at a steakhouse, I'm pretty happy with the savings. I'm cheap, ya see? Geez, why am I blathering about the cost? Okay...back on topic. 

So that night when we got home I got out my trusty mortar and pestle to smoosh together some herby seasonings: fresh rosemary, garlic, lemon pepper and a little kosher salt. I rubbed it all up on both sides of the steak and let it sit for a bit while I got the broiler going. Fifteen minutes later (5 minutes per side, with 5 minutes resting time), we were ready to eat. We had simple sides of cottage cheese and homemade bread, and enjoyed a very tasty meal. The meat was awesome - it was perfectly marbled to make it tender, but without much connective tissue. Yum. I love me a good cut of beef cooked to medium rare. :)

Okay...what next? Let's see - I also made a (winner winner) chicken dinner that turned out pretty well. I fried up some thighs in my cast iron skillet, but I tried to jazz it up a little more than just your traditional fried chicken. I tossed a bunch of seasonings in with the flour (I can't remember exactly what I used, but I know there was salt, lemon pepper, maybe some chipotle powder...and other stuff), and finely chopped some garlic to add to the oil for frying. I think my thought process was that the garlic would add another dimension of flavor to the breading, but it doesn't seem like the best idea in retrospect. What I didn't consider when I had that brilliant thought is that the bits of garlic BURN. Duh. 

Anyway, I fried them for a short time to get a good crisp on the breading, then I threw the pan into the oven to finish cooking. After the thighs hit the right temp, I drained them on paper towels while I made a sauce from the bits stuck to the pan by adding a couple glugs of red wine and simmering over medium heat. I'll admit that I wasn't terribly impressed with the dish, but Ben said it was really good (bless his heart). At least now I know what not to do next time, right?

Just one more, I promise! I want to get it all out there now - who knows when I'll get on here again, right?? :)

Finally, my mom was going to be staying with us after my nephew's birthday party, and I wanted to make a nice little breakfast the next morning. Of course, it had to be something pretty easy - she wakes up a little earlier than we do, and I wanted something fast but different than the usual bacon and eggs. So, I went to my new breakfast stand-by: French toast bread pudding with spiced pears. Oh my, it's so tasty and so easy! I like it because you prepare the bulk of it the night before so you can just roll out of bed and throw it in the oven - I'm a little fuzzy in the morning, so the less I have to do the better. 

The first step is to rip up a loaf of challah bread and toss the pieces into a casserole dish. Then you whip together eggs, sugar, milk and vanilla extract and pour it over the bread, making sure it's all saturated and lovely.

When it's combined perfectly, you just press some tin foil down over the top of it (with the foil pressed onto the top of the pudding) and throw it in the fridge. The next morning, just pop it in a cold oven, set the temp and pull off the foil halfway through. How easy is that?!? The spiced pears present a little more of a challenge, but only because wielding a knife within a half hour of waking is dangerous for someone like me. Basically, it's just chopped pears sauteed in butter with nutmeg, cinnamon and a pinch of sugar til they're soft, then simmered in maple syrup. Ooohhh, if you like French toast, you'll love this. :) Of course, I never manage to take a picture of the final product given my, oh, let's call it "special" state in the morning, but luckily my good friend Sarah posted a pic in her blog here. Y-U-M. You should try it. Really. 

So I think that's about all I have for now...I have many more recipes I want to try, and hope to spend more quality time in the kitchen soon. Of course, we still have 40 episodes of Numb3rs left, so... :)

Take care!

When Failure is Success in Disguise

Hello! How are you today? I hope it’s spring where ever you are – our local weather teased us with some warmth, then threw a curveball in the form of a little snow storm last week. At least it’s starting to melt, and we can see the grass again!

So, let’s get right to it! One of the things I love about trying new recipes is the fact that sometimes, nothing goes quite right; it’s those times where I get creative and come up with something even better than planned. This past weekend, I tried to make coney sauce for the 5,000 hot dogs I bought at Costco (yes, I went when I was hungry, and no, that’s not a good idea). I thought I would play around with the recipe a little by using half ground beef and half ground bison…no special reason, really, except that the two packages were on display next to each other at the store and it seemed like a good idea. Of course, when we got home I realized I didn’t have all the spices I needed, but figured it was no big deal since I have a pantry full of options.

Turns out it is a big deal! I used the chipotle chile powder instead of regular chili powder (apparently there’s a difference, according to Alton Brown), and fudged some other spices to make up for what I was missing, and it was SPICY! I like a little heat in my food, but only to a certain point; I like to enjoy a meal, not suffer through it. Anyway, I tried to adjust the heat level by taking out a lot of the … I don’t know … broth, I guess, and adding in more water to make up the difference, but it was still crazy hot. So what’s a girl to do? Well, my solution was to add another teaspoon of cinnamon and a few hearty pinches of – wait for iiiit – sugar (I like to use Sugar in the Raw…it reminds me of Europe). That definitely helped the heat factor, and so did the can of tomatoes Ben suggested I throw in to dilute the spice.

The end product was this big simmering pot of meat and juice and onions and canned tomatoes. Sure doesn’t sound like the coney sauce I know and love! However, it was still delicious, so we threw it on some dogs and went to town. It didn’t end up being the meal I expected, but it was still good (and taught me what to do next time!). So where’s the happy ending? Well it’s right here: it didn’t make a very good coney sauce, but it was an AMAZING chili. As it sat in the refrigerator overnight, everything came together and had a little flavor party that wrapped up just in time for dinner. We added some shredded cheddar, a little salsa and sour cream, and enjoyed it a heck of a lot more than we had when it adorned a hot dog. Yum.

But back to the night I was making what I thought was coney sauce…I was being adventurous, so I tried another new recipe (this came out of my cast iron cookbook) for dessert. It’s called Sauteed Bananas in Rum, and involved butter, rum, brown sugar, bananas and ice cream. It’s really easy to burn make – you basically make a rum-caramel sauce in the skillet, add the bananas and cook quickly, then serve it over ice cream. It didn’t take very long, and even though the house smelled like burnt sugar all night, Ben said he loved it. :) I keep him around for a reason.

That’s about it for now – I’ll keep trying to find new things to make (and the time to make them!), but might take a couple days’ break right about now. I was lopping off a hunk of bread dough with a serrated knife so we could have crusty bread with dinner tonight, and cut through the tip of a nail into the nail bed. This is after I nicked myself twice while chopping onions for that ridiculous chili…

Take care, and be safe (especially when using sharp kitchen utensils)!

Adventures in Boule

Hello! How are you today? It was an overcast, rainy day here, but let me tell you a little secret - I loved it! I love this time of year; the snow is starting to melt, the rain starts to fall, and it really starts to smell like spring. Love love love it. Don't you? I did have a nasty migraine today, but I'm lucky enough to have Ben for my wonderful husband. He takes care of me when the headaches hit, and has patience with me when they force me onto the couch, whimpering and whining. If that's not love, I don't know what is!

The reason I'm writing today is to brag a little bit; I like to do that once in a while when I'm really proud of something I've done, and this seems like the right venue. :) As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up seven books for a pretty decent price from Borders during their going-out-of-business sale. Three of those were cookbooks, and I couldn't be happier with my choices, considering I didn't so much as flip through them in-store. They sounded good from the titles, so I took a chance. If nothing else, I liked the covers enough to at least have them on display even if the recipes were terrible.

One of these books was about bread making; it's called Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg MD and Zoe Francois (see their website here). I thought it would be great because not only do I want to learn to make great bread at home, but I also liked that it's local, with both authors living in the Minneapolis area. And so begins my first foray into bread making...

I started the process yesterday, as the book recommends (to give the dough time to chill thoroughly in the fridge, making it easier to handle), and it took maybe 10 minutes, start to finish. I added the four ingredients to my stand mixer, let it combine, and left it on the counter for a couple hours. The result was a very sticky mass of dough; it was enough to make about 4 loaves, depending on the size you choose.

When it had risen enough, I threw it in the fridge with some plastic wrap over the top. After I started to feel a little better after popping some of my migraine pills this afternoon, I decided it was a good time to make some dang bread (munchies and all that). It couldn't have been easier; I lopped a chunk off the big mass, sprinkled it with some flour, and pulled the sides down to make a ball. That only took about two minutes. After that, it was just a matter of letting it rest on a pizza peel with some corn meal (to prevent sticking) for about 40 minutes.

I preheated the oven, made some slashes through the top of the dough, and baked for a half hour. At the end of the 30 minutes, we had a wonderfully scented kitchen and this:

Right? Get. In. My. Belly. I made some honey butter while we waited for it to cool (with Ben hovering with the bread knife all the while), and then we went to town on the little loaf. I would have included pictures of the cut bread to show how beautiful and dense it was on the inside, but it just didn't last long enough. We gobbled it down in an hour (well, I like to think of bread as a nutritious dinner...). Luckily, the way this ... I don't know ... program works is that you make this big batch of really wet dough and leave it in the fridge. Over the course of two weeks you have this great dough at your disposal, and it gets more sourdough-y as the time wears on. So the way I see it, we'll get at least 3 more loaves out of that one batch, and Ben couldn't be happier. :) The best part? The money I spent on the yeast and the flour (it calls for all-purpose non-bleached) was less than I'd spend on one loaf of crusty bread at the store. Sold.

I can't wait to try some of the other recipes included in that book - and when I do I'll definitely share them with you.

Thank you for reading and take care!

The Case of the Moldy Bread

Hello! How are you today? The weather is beautiful in my neck of the woods, so I can’t complain!

I’ve been thinking lately about how much food we waste in our house…it’s a big victory if we actually finish something before it spoils, be it a gallon of milk or a jar of pickles. Sad, right? Since I keep saying that we need to keep better track of our spending, I’ve tried to figure out ways to make food last longer, but it’s a lot harder to do than I thought it would be! Geez, how did my mom do it??

One thing that will ALWAYS go bad around here is banana bread. I use my Gramma’s recipe, and my problem is that I love it so much that I could eat the whole thing right out of the oven (add a knife and some soft butter, and you have the heavenly trifecta), but I don’t want to finish the loaf when we get near the end. I know it’s counter-intuitive, but I can’t help it…I never want it to end, so it gets moldy. D’oh. I mean, look at this bread. Beautiful, right?

I recently made two loaves because I had some bananas going bad on the counter (hmm…anyone else see a pattern here?); one for instant gratification and one for the freezer. The instant gratification loaf was reduced to a butt after just a couple of days, and that’s how it remained until the first spots of mold showed up. Sigh. Then, with high hopes, I pulled out the freezer loaf. Don’t worry, it froze and thawed beautifully – it was like it was fresh out of the oven! Only cold…but you get the idea.

Now here’s the great part: we finished it! I owe it to Ben; he pulled a little prank (I like things just so and he likes to push my buttons) in his rush to leave for work one day, and that little move somehow led to us finishing our first loaf EVER. What did he do, you ask? Well, while we had started slicing off one end of the bread, that morning he decided to lop a big hunk off the other end (the bread was essentially butt-less), so we were left with the lovely moist center part. For some reason, we ended up gobbling up the remainder over the next couple days.

Well, no, I don’t know why that changed anything…I’m just saying it worked, and I’m excited about it. Sheesh! Who knew that his attempt to get under my skin would lead to a banana bread breakthrough? :)

Oh, I wanted you to know that I raided a Borders the other day to take advantage of their going out of business sale, and I picked up three cookbooks. I am VERY excited to try some of these new recipes...it looks like I'll finally be able to get some serious use out of my cast iron skillet! I can't wait to share tales of those adventures!

Take care!

A Basic

Hello! How are you today? I hope you’re warm and comfortable, where ever you are. I spent the weekend with my sister and her family, and her two little boys had just gotten sick with your standard cold. Of course, that didn’t stop me from playing and hugging and kissing cheeks, and now I’ve come down with the same bug. Worth it!

This cold is actually what inspired this entry; what’s better for a cold than home-made stock? When I came home sick from work yesterday, I couldn’t think of a single thing I wanted to eat, and I really didn’t feel like pounding juice and water; however, the thought of sipping some piping hot stock from a big mug sounded like heaven. Not to toot my own horn, but I was quite pleased with myself for having just that in the freezer. It just so happens that I spent a recent weekend making a nice big batch of beef broth, which I’ve never done before. Once again, it was a recipe I found online that sounded like it would work out well, and seemed simple enough. If nothing else, I figured everyone should know how to make stock – it’s easy, and it’s a basic added to so many dishes.

I will likely do some things differently next time (isn’t that always the case?), but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I started out as the author suggested: I roasted the bones and chopped veggies in the oven to give the stock a deeper flavor. However, there was just too much stuff in the roasting pan for anything to really develop a nice color; next time I’m going to either use two pans or just brown in batches. Besides that snag, the process went really smoothly. While I was tending to the simmering stock (I added herbs and spices to what I had roasted, and covered with water), I kept myself entertained by listening to Nerdist podcasts (if you don’t know about this, you SHOULD – www.nerdist.com), nursing a glass of wine and playing with the dog.

After about 6 hours, I pulled all the big chunks out with tongs, and ran the rest through a fine mesh strainer lined with cheese cloth. The end result was this beautiful dark-golden broth, which I then stuck in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning, I followed an online suggestion and filled jelly jars (you know, the little jars with 2-part tops for canning?) using a funnel for freezing. I wasn’t sure if that would work, but the package said they were freezer safe, so I figured, “Eh, why not?” It worked like a charm! I used 8-oz jars so that I would be able to easily grab, say, two cups without having to thaw a bunch and measure from there. I ended up having a ton of stock, so I filled 12 jars and a gallon-size zip top baggie (I nested it in my 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup to make it easier to fill and freeze).

This project worked out so well! I ended up using the eight cups from the baggie in beef stew just a few days later, and it was easily the best I’ve ever made. I used a couple jars in my failed Beer Cheese Soup adventure, and have a couple other recipes that could use some quality stock. Of course, if this cold runs much longer I may not have any left! It hit the spot yesterday, and I’m planning on having another cup this afternoon. I love it – the steam coming off of it helped my nose, the warmth soothed my chills, the smoothness felt wonderful on my throat, and the homey-ness made my tummy happy. Like I said, it’s basically a cup of heaven. It’s amazing that simple ingredients (beef bones, celery, carrots, onions and seasoning) could make something so delicious.

Mmmm, cheesy

Hello!

Welcome to my humble online abode! I hope you enjoy my blog; my goal is to write about my life, but with the focus pretty well set on the recipes I try out on my unwitting family. You see, I LOVE to cook; I may not be a master chef or a foodie, but I do enjoy spending time in the kitchen and creating something amazing.

This seemed like a good time to start writing because I recently made a cookbook...no, not a professionally published book or anything like that. I actually used one of those photobook creator sites to compile my favorite recipes (and some I've never made before) with photos I found on the web, so the whole thing is a bound, hardcover book with a fancy-pants cover and all. So very cha, I know. Anyway, since getting it printed, I have spent a lot more time in the kitchen, and this is a good way for me to keep track of my own feedback and that of some of the people who received copies of it.

Since it's late, I think I'll just say a few words about the dish I made for dinner this evening and call it a night. So here goes!

One of my favorite comfort foods is Beer Cheese (or Ale & Cheddar, for the hoity-toity) Soup, but I've only ever ordered it at a restaurant (or at the Renaissance Festival, but that hardly counts). Since I love it, I thought it would be pretty safe to include it in my book without first testing the recipe...now I'm questioning that decision! In my search for the perfect version, I settled on one that was simple enough, but included ingredients to give it more depth than, say, the Cheez Whiz-Miller Lite combos (yes, they're out there, and yes, they frighten me as much as they do you).

On the whole, it was a strong recipe, but could use some tweaks to fit our tastes a little better. For example, it calls for a half pound each of Cheddar and Stilton cheeses...I'll be honest and say that, for me, Bleu cheese has its place, and that place is in the dressing on the side with my buffalo wings. However, I thought it would add a nice bit of tang to the soup, so I followed the directions to the T. I quickly discovered that the amount of Stilton could easily be cut in half; I was disappointed that it totally overpowered the delicious Cheddar I picked out especially for the soup. The recipe author also called for parsnips, something I have never purchased before. I'm not sure if these added to or took away from the flavor. I'm on the fence; unfortunately, the Stilton was so stinkin' (ha ha, get it?) overpowering that it was difficult to discern all the other flavors.

This definitely wasn't the greatest thing I ever made, but it sure was pretty with the crusty bread!

I'm planning on revamping it a bit to change out the beer and (obviously) cut out about half of the Stilton; I WILL conquer this recipe!

Until the next adventure...