Garlic Mushy Pea Panzanella

Garlic Mushy Pea Panzanella
1/2 head of garlic (normally I’d roast it, but I didn’t have time or the inclination)
1 lb frozen peas
bread cubes (not sure how much, I used the top halves of an entire batch of pop can biscuits, maybe 10 I think, that we burned to death over the weekend…and I precut them days before to let them dry out)

Boil the cloves in about 1 c salted water for around 5 min. Remove and add peas for a few minutes.  Toss peeled garlic, peas and (Here’s where I’d normally have added some olive oil, if the fat content of the ziti hadn’t been so insane) some of the liquid in the blender. Blitz and add s/p to taste if needed and pour over and toss with the bread or croutons. And again if I weren’t chintzing on fat, I’d have garnished with a fair amount of parm.

Michael Chiarello makes a more involved pea panzanella if you want something more exciting and it’s good…but this night I wanted easy and needed to cut out all the good stuff to accomodate for the truckload of calories in the entree. I think he has another one as I thought I remembered eating two of his, but maybe not…as I’m not easily finding it.

Meatball and Marscapone Baked Ziti

The kids thought these looked like cookie dough, and once they said it I did too.

This was my first ever Deb Mele flop, normally she rockas my socks, I so wanted to cry over the meatballs. They were a bit of extra work and ingredients and yet I found them a bit bland and dissappointing, turns out I should have just used hubby standard meatball recipe but I will toy with this (Had I not been baking them I would have made one and tasted it and known to adjust the seasoning and not had such a huge problem so I fell down on the job too) as the kids were very excited to see them looking like cookie dough before I cooked them, see pic.

Futhermore, they were way too soft for this application–even with the extra egg white–and some fell apart as I was stirring in the cheese…but that’s kinda what I was expecting anyway. So next time I make these, hopefully modified into deliciousness worthy of the labor, they will be appearing as Spaghetti and Meatballs or Meatball Sandwiches. But on to the recipe:

Meatball and Marscapone Baked Ziti
Deb Mele’s meatballs (I added the extra egg white from the prev alfredo, since I thought this sounded like it might be too soft)
1.5 qts red sauce (I used 2 jars of Classico Spicy Tomato Basil instead)
1 lb ziti
1 tub marscapone, seasoned generously but to taste with s/p, garlic, parm
8 oz shredded mozzarella

Shape into meatballs and brown on all sides (I shaped into 62 meatballs about 1T size and I actually baked mine, flipping part way, but I couldn’t tell you how long as I didn’t pay attention). Simmer meatballs in sauce. Simmer pasta in salted water, but pull a bit before it’s al dente while still a little chewy and add to meatballs with marscapone. Put in baking dishes (I made an 8×8 and two loaf pans) and top with mozz, bake until cheese is melty and a little golden.

Oh and for the record this wasn’t considered a flop by everyone else, as Bill and the kids just love having baked ziti…so they probably wouldn’t have complained if the whole thing had been bad since it’s one of their favorite meals. But I felt it was a lot of extra work for not much pay off, sometimes simple really is best.

Orange Juice Glazed Carrots

OJ Glazed Carrots
1 bag of baby carrots
1/4 c orange juice
1T sugar

Cover the carrots with water and add a little salt, and boil until you can spear with a fork. Drain off the water and add the juice and sugar, cook over MED stirring now and then until they make a glaze.

Crockpot Deer Roast

This was soooo good, and absolutely couldn’t have been easier. And the Hubs even said “That roast was really good. No seriously, I think it’s one of the best I’ve ever had.” So gloaty, gloat, gloat. I mean, I personally didn’t think it was the best thing I’ve ever tasted or anything but it was pretty good w/o really doing anything–so that was awesome.

Crockpot Deer Roast
3 lb deer roast (mine was 3 lbs, but cut in two pieces) **
1/2 c ea: worchestershire, water
about 2T spicy brown mustard
1 lg onion, sliced

Layer sliced onion in bottom of crockpot and preheat it. Season your meat liberally (I used s/p, garlic powder) and in a hot skillet sear all sides in a bit of olive oil and butter. Lay meat on top of onions and whisk the others together until entirely incorporated and pour over the top. Cover and cook on low pretty much all day. [You of course could add your veggies to the pot if you wish…I often do just not this time.]

** If you are lazily-inclined, and not motivated to remove the silver skin, you can soak the meat in milk for an hour before searing. I did (per the Pops suggestion) and it worked great. And you certainly can just use regular beef but you’ll have to drain off fat so either add the cooking liquid after it’s cooked a couple hrs and you’ve drained it or plan on using one of those nifty gravy seperators–I don’t have one, so I loved using nice lean deer meat and skipping the hassle of gloving up to drain off the grease.

NB: I did not make accordian potatoes to go with it afterall, since the temp got up to 105 here I figured that would have be stupid. So I boiled ’em instead to make mashed (and didn’t mash for the kids)

Artichoke, Mushroom, and Bell Pepper Alfredo Sauce

Artichoke, Mushroom, and Bell Pepper Alfredo Sauce
1 1/3 c cream (I think, it was whatever was left of my qt after making two clafoutis)
1/3-1/2 sm head garlic, minced
1 bag frozen artichokes, thawed and drained
1/2 lb mushrooms
1.5 bell peppers
2 T red pepper flakes (or some hot sauce)
parmesean (I don’t know how much, but a lot maybe 1/3+ lb)
1 egg yolk

Simmer all but last two ingredients, until veg are cooked to desired doneness (We wanted a one dish meal, but you could use half as many veg for a regular pasta if you’re having a side). Add handfuls of parm until the sauce thickens…turn off heat and stir in the egg yolk. Toss with your pasta.

Maui Burgers

“This one’s for the girls…” Martina moment aside, here’s the burgers for my fabulous sisters.

The ones to get: "Savory Seasoned" (look like this, in the freezer)

Maui Burgers (inspired from the back of the burger box when I pulled them out of the freezer)
Jennie-O preseasoned turkey burgers
1 can of pineapple slices, in juice
2-3 Tbsp olive oil or butter (or combo)
1 onion, sliced in half rounds
1 or 2 bell peppers, sliced
sweet and sour sauce (mine leftover from Eli’s takeout)
hot dog or hamburger buns

Thaw the burgers before cooking (especially if you will be grilling them, so as no rare poultry). Then put them on a preheated grill or grill pan (regular pan works fine too), straightforward enough cook them flipping once. Then for the rest: Saute the onions and peppers in a bit of olive oil or butter over MED heat stirring until the onions start to look a bit translucent (maybe about 5 min). Stir in a little salt and pepper and let them hang out over MED LOW stirring occassionally until everything else is done. Drain the pineapple, reserve the juice, and put it on the grill or pan to get a bit of golden or grill marks on it. Set them aside, on a plate if they look juicy enough or in the drained juices if they look dry. You can toast your buns if you like, but I’m a bread burner, and then assemble the burger with sweet and sour on both halves of the bun: bottom bun, pineapple on bottom, burger, onions and pepper another little drizzle of sweet and sour, and top bun–or however, you want really–and eat.

Overdue Recipe: The Stuffed “Not Pastrami” Turkey Breast

So when my little brother was visiting, I don’t know when, he was wanting to learn to cook. I showed him many things but the Hubs showed him how to debone and butterfly the turkey breast. Then we were going to put a saukerkraut stuffing inside and a Pastrami Rub on the outside. Well the pastrami rub we found somewhere on google (which I’d happily cite if I knew where it was so I may edit this later), tasted nothing like a pastrami rub but we decided that was fine because it was delicious and we couldn’t get enough. We even turned this into sandwiches for the papa when he came that afternoon to drive my brother back to his house.

The stuffing (pretty much from The Low Carb Cookbook)
3 oz bacon (we used the bacon from Charlie’s, my fav)
8 oz onion
1-1.5 lb sauerkraut, drained
1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds (you could add more as this wasn’t very noticeable, I’ll probably try 1T next time)
1 lg granny smith (a sweeter one could totally work here though, as long as it was one that kept its shape)
1 c white wine (I think we used )

We chopped the bacon (finely), onions, and apple. Then threw the bacon in a prewarmed pan on MED-LOW (I did this to render as much fat as possible, if you don’t care and don’t mind adding more oil later if needed you can cook at a higher temp but remember if you get it too hot you aren’t actually saving yourself anytime because you’ll just have to cool it before it can go in the bird) and cooked it slowly until it started to crisp. Then turned it up to MED and added the onions, and when they softened the sauerkraut, caraway, and apple. When the apples started to perfume a bit, we added the wine, turned up the heat some more covered and cooked until the wine was absorbed.

The Dry Rub (this is someone else’s and is labeled Pastrami Rub somewhere out there)
5T kosher salt
4T paprika
3T ea: coriander seeds and brown sugar
2T ea: black peppercorns and yellow mustard seeds
1T white peppercorns
8 cloves garlic, minced

Grind that which needs it, the seeds and peppercorns, and stir everything together. (We used my coffee grinder that is devoted to spices, to get a nice powder for the rub… and next time I’ll probably do garlic powder in place of the garlic to have a nice smooth rub

Assembling the Turkey Breast
Take the butterflied breast, massage the outside with the rub. Flip over, add filling, roll up and tie off in a few places (you could stuff and then rub, but rubbing first leaves the stings whiter so it’s easier to spot them later when snipping them free–not a big deal either way) and bake.

Ta-dah!! Enjoy my dear Little Hawk, and yes I think you could do just do one portion with a chicken breast (which be easier to butterfly too) but you’d have to trial run it too see how many breasts worth this made up to know how much to cut the stuffing and rubs… Start by halfing them, and ask the Pops to help you eat some if it makes too much (since you’re there anyway). Good Luck

Southwestern Corn Chowder

Southwestern Corn Chowder
2T bacon grease (or whatever oil)
1 lg yellow onion, diced
1/2 small head of garlic, minced
the corn broth, plus water needed to make 3 qts
7 pc leftover fried chicken (how does a big family have this much “leftover,” intentionally buying it in obscene quantity)
7 small potatoes, peeled and diced
2 (15oz) cans diced tomatoes**
1 (4oz) can green chilies**
3.5 c frozen corn (or the reserved corn cut of the 7 cobs from stock works too) ***

Saute the onions until translucent, add the garlic and cook until fragrant. Add stock and chicken and bring to a boil, reduce to med until it just begins to look opaque and thicken a bit. Remove chicken and cool just enough that you can handle it. Meanwhile, add the rest of the ingedients and bring back to a boil, cover and reduce to a simmer. Remove skin (meaning the fatty piece the crunchy bits that remain should go back in the soup to thicken it) and bones from chicken and shred or rough chop it a bit to make more spoon friendly, and add the meat to the pot. Simmer until the potatoes are cooked thru. Top with tortilla chips and grated cheddar if you like…

** fire roasted, good but plain would be just fine
*** I didn’t, but it occured to me that sometime I might like doing part of this corn and part beans

Lazy Lady Mac and Cheese (No Drain)

Lazy Lady Mac and Cheese 
Ok, well this should probably be teen friendly and I’m even throwing in a from the box version for a real bare minimum effort.

From the box
1 7-8 oz box
1/2 stick of butter (or marg, I guess)
1.5-2 c hot tap water
1/2 c milk
1/2 tsp salt
any other desired seasonings to taste

From scratch
2 c elbows
2 T butter (or marg, I guess)
2 c hot tap water
2/3 c milk
1/2 tsp salt
any other desired seasonings to taste (I usually used pepper and dry mustard)
1/2 c grated parm (or romano, or blend of the like)
1-1.5 c shredded cheddar (the sharper the better, but use what you like)

From the box
Put the butter in the pan and melt it (melts quicker if you cut it up), add the dry cheese pouch and stir to coat all the powder with butter. Add the hot water slowly and whisk out any cheese clumps. Add pasta, milk, salt and any other seasonings and bring to a boil (boils faster covered) on HIGH. Once boiling, stir to make sure pasta is distributed well cover (or recover) and turn off the heat but leave on the hot burner. That’s it just leave it alone while you make the rest or dinner and it will absorb the liquid (if you leave it too long it will absorb the milk too and not be creamy nd the pasta might be oversoft but otherwise it can’t burn or anything if you get sidetracked and forget it…hence, it is perfect for this lazy lady.

From scratch
Add pasta, water, butter, milk, salt and seasonings, and parm and bring to a boil on HIGH. Then stir in the cheddar until well scattered (it will finish melting later), cover and cut off the heat but leave on the hot eye. Leave it to absorb most of the liquid usually 30 or less.

Soda Chops (Plus bonus recipe: Pepsi Chicken)

Soda Chops 
Ok, first a brief warning: this isn’t a QUICK meal! I mean it’s not a lot of work or anything, but if you are wanting to come home after work and make dinner you’d probably want to save this until the weekend.

pkg pork chops, I think mine was 10-12 boneless (could also use chicken cutlets)
1 can ea: tomato paste, coke
2 oz wedge onion (est. based on known shopping weight) 
4 lg cloves garlic
2 T ea: worchestershire, Dale’s, cider vinegar
1.5 tsp ea: mustard seed, chili pwd, lemon zest
1 tsp ea: garlic pwd, onion pwd, cayenne
s/p to taste (may not need, so taste)

Brown the chops on each side. Pop onion (cut more if you like), garlic, worchestershire, Dale’s, and vinegar in blender/processor and blend smooth. Preheat your oven to 300-325. Place browned chops on a plate, and add tomato paste, soda, dry spices to the pan and whisk smooth. Mix in blender puree and bring to just the bud of a boil. Put 1/4 to 1/3 of the sauce in the bottom of a glass or ceramic baking dish. Add the chops, cover with the rest of the sauce and bake in a slow oven about 1-1.5 hrs.

NB: You really could jazz this up however you like so feel free to change the seasonings, or could you probably even cheat with bottled BBQ sauce although I swear this isn’t hard. Might could speed it up on top of the stove but I don’t know how the sauce would do with direct heat and it’d probably need more tending… This was intentionally a leave alone dish so we could leave the house for scouts though so the stovetop seemed a bad idea. But if you try it I’d love to know how the sauce works outside the oven…

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As a different, easier, version that’s still similar enough you could also do the Pepsi Chicken sauce on the pork or just do the Pepsi Chicken:

Pepsi Chicken (this is from my Bronson cookbook, p 57, but it’s one of those things that is everywhere)

4-6 bnls, skls chicken breasts
2 c pepsi
1 c ketchup

Cut the chicken into bite pieces, cover with soda and ketchup. Cook at MED-LOW for 1.5-2 hrs until thick like BBQ sauce.

I actually never made the PC because I figured it’d just be bland (and maybe it is) but alot of people I know keep talking about it so maybe it’s good…then again maybe it’s just easy, as many people love easy.

Meals/Week in Review: 7/21-25

* Battered FIsh, cheesy onion risotto, lima beans

* TVP Stroganoff Casserole (w/mushrooms), steamed grean beans

* Soda Chops (a BBQ-ish sauce made from cola, or your fav brown soda), Lazy Lady Mac and Cheese, Crowder Peas

* Southwestern Corn Chowder (made w/the corn broth), topped with cheese and tortilla chips

* Breakfast for Dinner: Scrambled Eggs, hashbrowns, sausage, cheesy garlic grits, and fruit

Pork Chop Loaf

Probably sounds more involved than it is, it’s pork chops lined up in a loaf pan with stuffing in between (make sure a chop is on each end) and then I skewered them together in a few places to keep it tight because I probably could have used another chop and/or a bit more stuffing to fill the pan, but ran out of both and just wanted to cook it… Also, I used the nice bone in chops since the bone would be sticking out of the pan and hence roasting nicely for a stock later–just froze them for now.

Pork Chop Loaf (pretty much from my Old BHG I think)
6 pork chops (using next time, but my pkg had 5)
3 T butter
3 cups stale bread cubes (leftover croutons work great for this too)
1.5-2 cups chopped (cooked if need be) stuffing add-ins
1 egg, beaten together with stuffing seasonings

Season the chops as desired, and brown in the butter on both sides. Mix stuffing ing and make sure egg is well distributed. Place chops in the loaf pan alternating with stuffing, making sure to begin and end with chop. Bake 1 hr @ 300-325.

Corn Broth/Stock

Corn Stock
7 cobs (corn no longer on)
3 qts of water

Boil… I mean, if you really want to (and/or haven’t used these cobs already to make creamed corn) you can also grate the cobs and add the resulting little corn grits and corn milk with the cobs and water and then boil, but it works well enough without it if you don’t. After it’s boiled for about 15-20 mins, cover and reduce to a simmer for maybe 1.5 hrs–or until it smells of corn throughout the house and the water is yellow. After it’s done and you’ve removed the cobs you can add s/p to taste.

Meals/Week In Review: 7/14-18

* Maui Burgers, Corn (cut from the cob, saved the cobs and later make corn broth… was gonna try the microwaved cream corn with it but was to lazy to grate the cobs at that particular moment), cheddar potato chips, and snapea crisps (aka, snap pea chips) [technically this meal was actually 7/7–and this is when I used the leftover roasted corn from Donna’s by the way–but I can’t remember all of this weeks meals plus I made the corn broth from these cobs in the designated week so I thought I’d throw it in since it was semi relevant]

* Hubs bought Rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes w/gravy, I made steamed carrots and green beans and garlic rolls (a loaf of pop can french bread cut into little squarish pillow rolls sprayed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and garlic powder)
* Pork Chop Loaf, mac and cheese, raw broccoli with ranch dip
* Creole Chicken and Andouille Rice with Veggies Thingie for Cub Scouts
* Amber’s Spicy Garlic Lime Pasta with quinoa rotini (and spinach instead of broccoli because I forgot and used it earlier)—but I’ve got more changes in mind for this so I’ll post it next time and I’ll be making it with broccoli then…

I forget a lot of what we ate so if I mentioned something before that isn’t here that’s why it’s in the land of the missing… sorry I skimped on recipes here if you need/want one in particular I’ll type it up but I really made nothing too unusual this week… and a lot of do little recipes, watch for that trend to follow in this current week’s post…

Overdue Recipe: RV Chick & Accoutrements

Rosemary Vanilla Chicken
MS’s version: http://www.foodtv.ca/recipes/recipedetails.aspx?dishid=5737

I did pretty much this, definitely technique-wise, but I seasoned the meat with salt and pepper before browning (as per my always) and I did just a small amt of wine maybe 1/2 c and added it when deglazing the pan after the veggies softened and cooked it until it evaporated and added the meat/bones back with about 3 cups of chicken stock. That way I don’t worry about the tots and the Hubs and I have a bottle we “have” to finish off with dinner…

The Salad Accoutrements
And when you were here, the complementary dressing I made for the mixed greens was like this: 1/4 c balsamic; 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, s/p; about 3/4 c extra virgin olive oil…shake until well mixed. But you could just add a splash of vanilla to any balsamic vinaigrette and it’d probably be just fine. The candied walnuts again you can buy, or find countless recipes for, but was: 1 egg white, a heaping 1/4 c unpacked brown sugar, small pinch of salt, 2-3 c walnuts (pretty much whatever it takes to get the coating thinned out how you like)… in the bottom of the bowl beat the white until frothy, dump in the sugar and nuts and mix well; spray a sheet pan or skillet with oil and toast them (at 325-350 in the oven or med on the stove) until they smell nutty and look slightly golden. But please quit worrying so much honey, it was just a salad which makes it too impossible to be hard…just eat.

Overdue Recipe: The Simmered Chops

The Simmered Pork Chops (i like to use thick pork steaks with a bone)
pork chops or pork steaks
apple cider* or orange juice
amounts I don’t really measure as I generally have both on hand in generous supply, plus it varies depending on the size of your pan and the thickeness of the meat sorry…

Season the pork liberally with s/p and garlic/onion powder (or whatever you like on your pork, sometimes I add a bit of cinnamon or allspice and thyme if I’ve got cider going in or tarragon or another herb with the oj but usually I make this on vacay so I keep it simple to not have to bring/buy too many spices). Brown both sides of meat quickly in a hot pan with a little bit of oil or bacon grease, drain off any excess fat or don’t bother if it’s not much. Pour in a bit of the juice and scrape the browned bits free put the meat back in a nice arrangement and add juice until the meat covered. Bring to boil, cover and reduce to simmer and walk away and let the juice reduce by half or so to become a sauce. That’s all, I tried telling you there wasn’t a recipe…but since you wanted one I hope this helps.

Overdue Recipe: Margarita Ice Cream

Margarita Ice Cream
Nigella’s is at food network or in Nigella Express (and she has another in Forever Summer with eggs and such if you want to fuss with making that, we have not machine so I like this as I don’t have many steps)
I changed it up after making it the first time and I think I did it like this but I can’t find where I wrote down, so I’ll keep looking and either update this later or get a quart of heavy cream and make another batch to see…and then update.

1/2 c lime juice (juice and zest of 4 limes plus some squirts of bottled to top it off)
1/4 c tequila
2 T  triple sec
1 1/4 c powdered sugar
2 c heavy cream

Stir the first 4 together until the sugar dissolves. Add the cream and beat until you get soft peaks (I regretably did this until just thinkened like she did/said and got this strange texture like little ice crystals wrapped in fat but if you take it futher to a soft peak stage–really no extra work if you use a hand mixer–it’s still not firm but you get a smoother nicer texture). Pack in the freezer container and pop in the freezer. Then go do whatever you can/must to leave it alone to set.

Well, I have a blog!

It’s been long awaited by a couple of handfuls of people and now it is here… I’m sorry it isn’t likely to  be terribly involved. I will try to work toward doing the recipe reviews and custom requests as I find time so those of you who asked about that go ahead and email me about that again or post here and I’ll see which ones may work for the family. Or in some cases me and the Hubs, and work on that…

Sorry it’s nothing exciting or terribly personal, but as this is the result of compromise upon compromise, I stand reasonably certain that those it is created for will appreciate it even if the masses by and large may not. So enjoy, good friends and family…and savor my acquiescence and the fruits it brings forth.