Thursday, April 24, 2008

Monthly menu fave

We're nearing the end of our monthly menu tour, and the latest installment is BBQ chicken, rice, and the oh-so-healthy canned green beans (green is a loosely-applied adjective to describe the beans).

So, I took several chicken breasts and left them to soak all day in their BBQ marinade - cider vinegar, crushed garlic cloves, black pepper, and a few hefty squirts of prepared BBQ sauce.

Before cooking, they must be dried. This is kind of gross looking
Regardless of how well I dry them, they splatter a lot while being cooked. Hence, the lid.
And then slam it with some rice and greenish beans.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Craving quenched

Ok, for some reason yesterday, I started thinking about pies, and then cherry pies in particular, and then a yearning grew within me that had to be fulfilled. In hindsight, I should have just bought a stupid cherry pie, but for some reason, that seemed like cheating, so I made one. Plus, I could use my new Fiestaware pie dish, so bonus.

I went to the store and bought 2 cans of tart cherries in water and a packet of ready-made pie crust - a minor cheat.
I drained the cherries, added 1/2 c of sugar and about 1/4-1/3 c cornstarch (I don't like runny pie). Poured said mixture into the bottom piecrust.
Put on the top crust - dock the top, and seal the edge (VERY classy looking, right?) I clearly needed more cherries, it was a sad, flat pie.
And here is our finished product. A bit sad. A bit pale. And WAY tart. Apparently, 1/2 c of sugar did not suffice. You HAD to put ice cream on it. :) So, I will know for next time - tart cherries require about 3/4 - 1 c sugar. And I may add a drop or two of red food coloring to the filling, it is a rather pinkish shade. But, it had a nice cherry flavor and seemed to do the trick. I will say, however, that this pie crust just can't compare to homemade, or at least, a more premium pre-made crust. It has a weird aftertaste, I can't quite put my finger on it. Next time I have a crazy craving, I must take the extra bit of time to just make a crust. Duly noted to self.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Lunchlady dinner

Mmm. Sloppy Joes. Nothing screams childhood lunchroom quite like an SJ. So, off we go...

Cook up some onions until they are soft.
Then add in some ground beef.
Once the beef is browned, I added my top secret sauce. Not really. R and I cannot agree on SJ making, so we compromise. Half a can of sloppy joe sauce, half a jar of chili sauce.
Serve it up with a heapin' helping of juvenile tots and corn. CORN! And some fake cheese.
Mr. R likes his SJs open faced. V. classy.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Thai-ish stir fry(ish)

Another monthly menu item, a chicken stir fry. I decided to add some flair, so I made it a peanut butter based sauce (hence, the Thai reference). Here are the original set of ingredients: soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic, and of course peanut butter.

Hmm. It didn't taste quite right - the proportions were off. I added some brown sugar. And more vinegar. Then it was too sweet. More soy. Etc. Etc. so I ended up with a large batch of sauce. I ended up freezing half of it.

Later on, I got the chicken cooked and chopped.
And cooked up a skillet o' vegetables - onions, red bell pepper, mushrooms, green beans, snap peas, water chestnuts, regular peas....
Then, I forgot to take more pics...I added the chicken back in, added about 3/4 c of the sauce I made, served over rice...blah blah blah. My mom arrived and I got distracted from my culinary blogging work. We ate it. It was good. The end.

Pillsbury Bake-Off Cookies

A cookie recipe worth a million dollars? I dunno. So I decided to make this year's winning cookie, Double-Delight Peanut Butter cookies. I stuck to the recipe, even using refrigerated cookie dough, something of which I am not normally a fan.

So first, I chopped up some peanuts
Then mixed said peanuts with sugar and some cinnamon (I was out of cinnamon so I actually had to grate a cinnamon stick with my microplane - it seemed to work, once you pick out the big shards of cinnamon).
Meanwhile, over in the bowl, mix the peanut butter and powdered sugar
Then you form the cookies. I took one photo of this, but it was just a closeup of my cookie-greased hand, so it was kind of gross. I am omitting said photo. You take a small ball of the peanut butter/sugar mix and encase it in some peanut butter cookie dough. Roll said dough in the peanut/sugar/cinnamon mix and put on the baking sheet.
Then FLATTEN them with the bottom of a glass.
9 minutes later, we had pretty darn good peanut butter cookies, with a slightly gooey center. Think Reese's Cup center.
I'm still not sure this is a $1,000,000 recipe, but what do I know? They were good cookies, fairly easy to make from a short list of ingredients. I will likely make them again when I'm in the mood for peanut butter cookies.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

GLORY OF GLORIES!

The pot rack is hung! Hallelujah! Now my beaten up pans can be displayed for all our guests!

Stroganoff Magic

Prior entries regarding this lovely Crockpot stroganoff recipe are hereby updated in stunning detail (ha!)

First, we must mix key ingredients - mushrooms, onions, meat, and the always-present-in-a-Crockpot, cream of whatever soups. Here is it cream of onion AND the lovely cylindrical can of cream of mushroom.
Everything goes into the trusty red Crockpot. I heart you red Crockpot.
Here is the mixture prior to a day of slowly simmering...
And here we are after, a glimmer of fat on top.
Standing by are the dairy products - not for the faint-g.i.-tracted.
Blobs of cream cheese go in to melt...
Then the smooth sour cream goes in too...
Serve over some lovely noodles. A blah, brown dinner, but a tasty one.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Snack time

I happened to turn on an episode of Good Eats regarding popcorn, and after about 3 minutes, decided I wanted some. 20 minutes later, I had a bowl of it. My kernels were a bit old, I think that's why it took FOREVER.

Pork 'n' Potatoes

Another monthly menu favorite, kielbasa and potatoes. I've spoken of the gloriousness of the mustard-roasted potatoes on several occasions, here they are in action.

Here we have about 2 1/2 lbs of potato hunks - mostly Yukon golds, but some russet action as well. Salt and pepper.
Add a sliced onion.
And a blob of whole grain mustard and some olive oil.
Spread in a single layer on a baking sheet and put into a 400 degree oven (I kept cranking it up towards the end to get dinner moving)
Meanwhile, I sliced up my kielbasa into chunks. It goes into the oven for the last 25 minutes or so.
About 50 minutes later, golden browness.
And a meal to inhale. Yum.
This really is a lovely way to make potatoes. The mustard and onions become almost sweet amidst the potatoes - the potatoes get a lot of flavor and crunch.

Monday, April 14, 2008

An in-depth look at chowder

Cheddar Corn Chowder, that is. And yes, I know I've blogged of it before. But it is good. And this is another meal from my monthly meal chart, so away we go!

Cook bacon. Away from dog.
Chop onions. Lots.
Cook onions in bacon fat and a bit o' butter.
Chop potatoes. Lots.
Meanwhile, add seasonings to onions - salt, pepper, and the much-needed tumeric, which adds a lovely color and scent.
Then flour - give the flour time to cook up.
Then we add chicken broth (from a box, as you can see)
Then we add back in the chopped bacon - the recipe says to leave it as a garnish at the end, but I like the bacony flavor.
Meanwhile, get the corn ready.
And the dairy products.
Add the corn and let the soup return to a bubble.
Add cheese in batches, let it melt. Then add in half 'n' half.
Let it bubble, then serve with some crusty bread. Boo..ya....