On Becoming a Foodie

Apple Crisp

2010-11-16T23:09:00.000-05:00

Since I am not a huge fan of pumpkin, I thought I'd spice things up a bit and throw in a little apple dessert for you. This was amazingly easy (other than the cutting and peeling of the apples). I am used to making apple pie, where you add sugar, spices, etc. to the apples, but for this recipe, sliced apples go into the bottom of a baking dish alone, and then are topped with a crumble topping. I thought that this was odd, and that the apples wouldn't taste as good, but surprisingly, this dessert was great. The topping is very sweet and has cinnamon in it, so it balanced out the apples. If you own an apple slicer/peeler/corer, this is a quick and easy dessert to throw together for the fall!

Pumpkin Bread

2010-11-16T22:55:00.000-05:00

So here's another fun pumpkin recipe! I actually made this twice, and if you take a look at the picture, the bread sank down in the middle. It did this both times I made it, and I can't figure out why! Both times it rose like a regular loaf of bread in the oven, but as soon as I took it out and it started to cool, it completely collapsed in the middle. My husband said that it tasted fine, but it doesn't look good. I sliced it into smaller pieces just so that it wouldn't be noticeable that there was "sinkage" in the middle. I will be making this again sometime soon so that I can see if we can make it look like a real loaf of bread... If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to let me know!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

2010-11-10T18:57:00.003-05:00

So it's fall in Indiana, which means pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin everything. I, unfortunately, do not care for pumpkin - pumpkin anything. My husband loves it, as does the rest of the midwest (so it seems) so I will be cooking everything I find in the cookbook that deals with pumpkin - yay fall!! My first pumpkin attempt was a yummy (so I'm told) cheesecake. I have only made one other cheesecake ever and was hoping that this would be a success. For some reason, making an actual REAL cheesecake (and a pumpkin one at that) frightened me, and I thought it would be so difficult. Surprisingly, the cheesecake is not difficult, but it is a bit time consuming, as there are a lot of steps.

The first thing you have to do is make the graham cracker crust (recipe below). I do not have a large food processor, so to crush the graham crackers, I put them into a big ziplock bag, and crushed them with a rolling pin. Once you mix the graham crackers, sugar, and butter together, you press it down into the bottom of a springform pan. I think that if you don't have a springform pan, you can use a regular round cake pan, but I'm not sure how easy it is to then get it out of the pan after it bakes. The crust then either has to bake for a few minutes, or freeze for something like 20 minutes. I chose to bake it.

Once the crust is taken care of, the actual cheesecake part is made. The recipe calls for adding the eggs and egg yolks one at a time, which I normally would ignore and add them all at once, but let's remember that I'm trying to really learn how to cook/bake well, so I followed the instructions. I have heard some cooks advocate breaking the eggs into a separate small bowl before adding them to the mixture, but I always crack them right over the bowl as I add them - I mean, seriously, who takes the time to do that? I now am a more informed cook, and know why the "pre-cracking" is recommended. While adding the last egg, I accidently dropped the shell into the bowl as the mixer was mixing - AAAAGGGHH!!! I turned off the mixer as fast as I could, while simultaneously having a small heart attack. I then had to scrape out all of the broken bits of egg shell, hoping that they actually all got out. I didn't hear any complaints later, so I think all was okay.

The recipe says to put a cake pan with some water in it into the oven to moisten the air before you bake the cheesecake, but do you think I remembered to do that? I did not. If I remember right, I think the reasoning behind actually doing this is that the moisture helps to keep the cheesecake from cracking on the top. Take a good look at my cheesecake and you'll find that there are several cracks on the top. I'll have to try to remember the water next time so that the end result is prettier!

Finally, the last step is to put a sour cream topping on the top and finish the last few minutes of baking. Do you see a sour cream top on my pumpkin cheesecake? No, you do not. Why? Only because my sweet, darling, little daughter decided to rummage through the cabinets while I was cleaning up (something she always does, and I approve of, since it keeps her busy) and she pulled out a piece of dry spaghetti and jabbed it into her ear. Second and much more real heart attack of the day... Yes, boys and girls, we had to make an unexpected immediate trip to the doctor. The cheesecake was ready to come out, but we didn't have time for the topping, so we'll just have to make another one sometime to try again. AND... no, little cute girl did not puncture her ear drum as I feared, but she did scratch it - we were lucky.

Here is a fun new tidbit I found today. The Joy of Cooking can actually be found online, so I'll be adding the recipes right here via the web - yay! Click on the link below for the graham cracker crust and pumpkin cheesecake recipes!

http://books.google.com/books?id=tbyW2LeXIOkC&pg=PA983&lpg=PA983&dq=the+joy+of+cooking+pumpkin+cheesecake&source=bl&ots=fOSJg91CAU&sig=lgPJx-6a5K1qlp4Y0csitIYI5iU&hl=en&ei=fSfbTJXhHMGqlAec5ZSaCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CEAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Chicken Fried Rice

2010-10-26T22:42:00.000-04:00

Tonight we had chicken fried rice for dinner. We planted a rather large garden this summer, and it is still producing tomatoes, sweet peppers, and onions. Currently, there are yellow peppers, red peppers, green peppers, and orange peppers ready to be picked, and I want to use them up before it finally frosts here in Indiana! The recipe in TJOC is for "fried rice," but the directions tell you that you can add meat or other vegetables - whatever you have on hand. This is another recipe that is extremely easy to make. This recipe calls for 3-4 cups of cooked, cold rice - great for leftover rice; I actually intend to make extra rice in the future just for this purpose. For tonight's meal, I cooked the rice earlier in the day and let it cool. I also only had about one cup of cooked rice, so I divided the ingredients by 1/3, and with the added chicken and peppers, it was perfect. That said, I'll get on with the recipe.... for the 3-4 cups of rice, the recipe calls for 4 eggs. Those are just scrambled with a bit of salt and put aside. The rice is then cooked for a few minutes in 2T vegetable oil* with 1t minced ginger. You then stir the eggs and 1/2 cup scallions in with the rice, and voila! You've got yourself some fried rice!! I sauteed diced chicken, onions, and peppers in a bit of seseme oil, and added that to the fried rice, and then topped it all off with soy sauce, and it was perfect! I'm sure you can add to the rice whatever you might have in your cabinet, which is another reason this is an easy go-to meal.

*if you are used to using olive oil for cooking rather than vegetable oil, don't try to substitute if a recipe calls for cooking with vegetable oil. Vegetable oil has a higher smoke point than olive oil, so the best bet is to follow the recipe.

The Joy of Cooking, 75th Anniversary Edition

FRIED RICE p.357

Baked Butternut Squash

2010-10-25T20:58:00.000-04:00

Butternut Squash

After taking the summer off, I am now back to baking and cooking like crazy. One side dish that I made the other day was Butternut squash, and it is now my new favorite! I honestly can say that I haven't had squash since I was very little, and was skeptical, thinking that I would hate it. I was so wrong. If you haven't eaten this squash (I don't know if other types taste similar or not), you must try it. The flesh is similar in texture and taste to a sweet potato. This is super easy to make, so if you wander down the produce isle and sometimes wonder if you should pick up a winter squash for a try - you should. All you do for this recipe is to cut the squash in half, put it on a rimmed baking sheet (I actually used a Pyrex dish) that has about 1/4 inch of water in it, and bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes. At 30 minutes in, I brushed the top with melted butter, sprinked on some brown sugar, and baked for the remaining time. This particular squash had to be in 10 minutes or so longer than the recipe called for, because when I first took it out, the flesh wasn't tender enough. Part of the squash didn't get the brown sugar on it, and the taste was still great - good enough that next time I'll try it with just a little butter and salt.

Chicken with a mushroom cream sauce

2010-07-22T22:43:00.000-04:00

This chicken dish is one of the best we've had yet - not low fat, by any means, but so tasty! It was also pretty simple to make. The chicken breasts are sauteed in olive oil and taken out of the pan. In the same pan, you cook shallots for a minute or two, and then add mushrooms cook for another couple of minutes. After that, the pan is deglazed with sherry, heavy cream is added, a pinch of nutmeg, some parsley. That is cooked down until it is thick enough to "coat the back of a spoon!" The end result is a delicious mushroom sauce that goes over the chicken. We had mashed potatoes (it's what I had in the cabinet), but I think if I have this again, I will probably try it with egg noodles. One thing that this cookbook does not do is give suggestions about what to serve things with, so without knowing what some of these dishes will be like in the end, I just have to guess what each dish will be good with. That said, this dish was great - a must-try!

Cobb salad

2010-07-17T13:30:00.000-04:00

As it got warmer, we started grilling more, and I started blogging less and using my cookbook less. As I looked through it recently, I realized that there are a lot of dishes in there that are great for warm weather, so here's the first one (not that it's super hard, or takes a culinary wizard to accomplish) cobb salad. I often order this when we are out, but I have never made it at home, so when I saw the "recipe" in the cookbook, I thought we'd have it for dinner. Of course there are greens on the bottom, which we conveniently picked fresh from our garden - yay! I cooked a couple of chicken breasts in the crockpot for the afternoon, and chopped those on top. Crumbled bacon, boiled eggs, avacado, and tomatoes finished it off. Per cobb salad instructions, we were supposed to have blue cheese on there as well, but as I don't like blue cheese, my husband had to settle with blue cheese dressing on his instead. This is a great salad, but unless everything is cooked beforehand, it is a bit time-consuming to cook the chicken, bacon, and eggs. Maybe next time I will pre-cook that stuff and have it on hand to be able to just throw the salad together.

boiled eggs were added

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

2010-05-09T23:07:00.000-04:00

Yum! That's really all there is to say about this one - my husband and I both loved these. I didn't ever like sweet potatoes until a couple of years ago - amazing, but true. I always thought the idea of a "sweet" potato was gross, but I was wrong! One thing I learned was that when you boil sweet potato, the entire potato boils, and skin peels off afterwards. After that, they just get mashed with some butter and brown sugar - so tasty!

Peppery Dry Rubbed Steak

2010-05-09T22:50:00.000-04:00

I haven't been posting much, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been cooking! I have quite a few pitures that I need to blog about, and steak is the first. I really haven't made many steaks in my time, so every time I make them for this project, I learn more. These had a dry rub that had both black and white peppercorns, coriander, red pepper flakes, brown sugar, and salt. After the rub was made, I coated the steaks and let them sit for about an hour before cooking. The initial idea was to saute them on the stovetop in olive oil (in the book it doesn't tell you how to cook it, so that's how I started), but when the steaks started cooking, the pepper in the rub was so aromatic that my eyes were watering and I felt like I was choking. I ended up putting the steaks into a new pan (and putting the old pan out the back door!), and cooking them the rest of the way in the oven, which worked well. My husband loved the flavor, and said that it was his favorite steak yet!

Chicken Picatta

2010-03-12T17:00:00.000-05:00

It's chicken picatta, boys and girls! We had friends over for dinner last night, so I was back to making new recipes. This goes up there as our new favorite, right before chicken marsala - it was so good that we will probably have it again very soon. The chicken starts out the same as in the marsala recipe, and after cooking, instead of adding wine, you deglaze the pan with chicken broth. I added the juice of one lemon, and a few tablespoons of capers, simmered the broth down for a bit, and viola! Pour the sauce over the chicken, and you've got yourself some chicken picatta! Because this was a new recipe, I underestimated the time it would take to finish everything, so our guests had to wait about half an hour longer than expected, but at least the final result was fabulousness!

Peanut Butter Cookies

2010-02-27T21:17:00.000-05:00

I love peanut butter cookies, and so does my husband, so I tried the recipe in "Joy." I never have been overly pleased with the peanut butter cookies that I have made. Don't get me wrong - these tasted good, and we ate them up very quickly, but I just don't get how to make the perfect peanut butter cookie. First of all, unless the cookie is about an inch and a half wide, a fork never quite flattens them out like it should. I feel like you have to flatten them out yourself and then make the indentions "just for show," or they crumble around the edges, get stuck in the fork prongs, don't really flatten, etc. The other thing is that although I would usually like a cookie that is more crisp than super soft, I do really like soft peanut butter cookies, and I have yet to find a good recipe for this. I know I could just cook them less, but cooking is not the only issue - I don't want an undercooked cookie (these tend to fall apart) - I want a recipe that leaves the cookies soft (and maybe chewy?) after fully cooking. This blog is supposed to be about the recipe found in The Joy of Cooking, so I apologize for going on about the lack of a fantastic soft and chewy cookie recipe... If you want to make peanut butter cookies, this recipe is great. You'll get your normal peanut butter cookie, and everyone will eat it up! If you do come across a chewier PB cookie recipe, however, please share!

Pizza with Fresh Tomatoes, Basil, and Feta Cheese

2010-02-23T17:48:00.002-05:00

So again, last night was my first attempt at pizza dough. I made a regular cheese pizza (see previous post), but also made this pizza with tomatoes and feta. Really, the only toppings are tomatos, feta, and basil. The dough is brushed with olive oil, so that it won't get soggy from the toppings, and that's it. I was pretty excited about this pizza until I tasted it... so sad - I wasn't in love. No worries, though, I will try it again, and see if we can perfect the imperfection. Because this was my first attempt at the dough, I didn't know how much olive oil to put on it before layering the toppings. It was kind of hard to "brush" it on, too, without it getting too thick, which I think in this time it may have. The crust wasn't soggy, per se, but not quite right, either. We all still ate it, though, and thought it was decent. Actually, we took the pizzas to my husband's sister's house, and they all said it was good, but they could have been humoring me, too. Next time I would put more toppings on the pizza. At first, I was overlapping the tomato slices, but then I thought that might be overkill, so I spread them out next to one another. This didn't prove to be a brilliant move. The dough expands a bit in the oven, and the tomatoes actually shrink some in the heat, and this left a lot of the dough exposed. I think it would have tasted better with enough tomatoes that they would cover the entire surface of the pizza even after cooking. More feta wouldn't have hurt either. All in all, it was an edible pizza, but I am definitely going to try it again to see if we can get a pizza that we love.

White Pizza with Fresh Tomatoes, Basil, and Feta Cheese p. 191

The Joy of Cooking, 75th edition

Pizza Dough

2010-02-23T17:22:00.004-05:00

I've been wanting to try to make pizza dough for quite awhile (my husband is extremely fond of pizza), but I have been too wary of the whole "put yeast in water that is at just the right temperature, let it rise, punch it down, let it rise again, etc.," thing. Every time I read a recipe for any dough that requires yeast, I squint my eyes, look at it again, contemplate for a moment, and then close the cookbook without making anything. Yesterday, I thought, "what's the harm in trying - if it is as complicated as it sounds, I'll forevermore buy my bread items at the grocery!" So I made the attempt at pizza dough, and lo and behold, it worked! With pizza dough, it only has to rise once, so that makes it easer. It is definitely something that I will have to make a few more times before it seems easy and cooks perfectly, but this time was not bad. I used a candy thermometer to test the water temperature, and the rest was pretty easy. After putting the ingredients in, the dough was pretty sticky, so I added two or three tablespoons of flour (one at a time) until it pulled away from the sides of the mixer. That part was kind of tricky, because I knew that it wasn't supposed to be sticky, but I didn't know how much flour was "too much." I also think that I rolled it a little thin when actually making the pizza, but that's where making it a few more times will get it to the place where it is "just right." I made two pizzas last night and this pizza was a bit thin (that part is my fault), and a bit flimsy, so next time we'll work on getting the crust a bit more crispy and to the right thickness.

Pizza Dough, p. 607

The Joy of Cooking, 75th edition

Hummus

2010-02-23T16:19:00.000-05:00

Hummus! I am so glad that I now know how to make this, because I love hummus! One little tub at the store can be three or four dollars - yikes - and making it at home is easy and very cheap! I used dried chickpeas, and once cooked, it is blended with tahini, garlic, lemon juice, and a little olive oil. I didn't have fresh lemons, so I used bottled lemon juice, and I wouldn't recommend that in the future, as it left an aftertaste. I actually cooked and pureed more chickpeas to add to the first batch because I didn't like the artificial lemon flavor. Other than that, it was great! I added a little cayenne pepper for a little pop of flavor, and it was great! This is a must-try if you like hummus, but hate the high price you pay at the grocery.

Hummus, p. 74

The Joy of Cooking, 75th edition

Mediterranean White Bean Soup

2010-02-22T12:04:00.001-05:00

This soup looks so good, but alas, looks can be deceiving. This was pure sadness to me, as this was another recipe that I never would have thought to make before, and as it simmered all day, smelling so good, I was sure that we had a winner. Basically, it is just a white bean soup (made from dried, not canned, beans), with garlic, rosemary, tomatoes, and parsley. All of that probably would have been rather tasty, but at the end of the simmering, you are supposed to add four teaspoons of red wine vinegar, and 1/4 a cup of olive oil. First of all, the oil just layers the top of the soup, and all you can smell is the olive oil. I tried stirring it, thinking that maybe the oil is supposed to incorporate somehow into the soup, but that didn't work, so we just had a thick layer of oil over the top of the soup - yuck. I eventually skimmed off as much oil as I could, since I didn't even want to eat it with the amount of oil, and the overwhelming smell with each bite. That did help, and I would suggest only adding this to your own bowl, to taste, if you want it in your soup. Also, the taste of the vinegar seemed to overtake the other flavors, so next time I would use quite a bit less. My husband thought it was okay, but definitely not something he would want to have again - he is such a trooper, though, and as we don't waste food (ever), so he took the leftovers to work and ate it all!

Mediterranean White Bean Soup p.133

The Joy of Cooking, 75th edition

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

2010-02-15T17:55:00.002-05:00

Ah, roasted red pepper sauce. I found this recipe in "The Joy of Cooking, 75th ed.," of course, and thought that I just HAD to try it, since it was something that I would previously not have wanted to make or even try. We all know that I am attempting to try new things, and actually LIKE new things, so roasted red pepper sauce it was. The problem with some of the sauces in this book is they tell you that you can put it on "grilled meats, chicken, fish, or pasta." Really? Anything else? What I need to know is what to put it on tonight. Is there something that it goes best with? What should I try first (since by first I mean, possibly the only time I make it!)? I decided on chicken, since I had some, but it turns out that this may not have been the best choice. The sauce was interesting - the ingredients were the red peppers, onions, olive oil, garlic, paprika, cinnamon, and ground red pepper. I think that next time I might use a little less cinnamon than the recipe calls for, as I felt like it really smelled too much of cinnamon. That said, the sauce was actually good - something I might like to order if I was going out to dinner, but I think it would be better over pasta. I think it would be good with chicken and pasta, maybe, too. My husband, who eats and enjoys mostly everything, ate it with a somewhat confused look on his face. He said, "I like the sauce, but I don't know that I like it with chicken." Because of the time it takes to roast peppers and make the sauce, I don't know that I want to make it again, since we're not sure what it would be best with. We'll take any suggestions, if anyone has ever cooked with a roasted red pepper sauce!

"Roasted Red Pepper Sauce" p. 549

Roasted Red Peppers

2010-02-15T17:39:00.002-05:00

I decided last week to make a roasted red pepper sauce, which required me to actually roast red peppers. I guess I could have bought a jar of roasted red peppers, but what fun is that? I lived in Mexico for awhile, and friends of mine roasted poblano peppers frequently, so I had seen this process before. In Mexico, we roasted the peppers either on a grill or directly in the flames on a stove burner, but I had access to neither one of those options, so I roasted my peppers in the oven under the broiler. I thought that this would only take a short time, and kept watching and watching, but it really took 5-6 minutes per side. Once they start to get blackened spots, they need to be turned. After they are roasted, you have to slice them and scrape the skin off. I have seen this done, but didn't realize what a long process this would be! At first, I tried to take the skin off with the pepper still whole and intact, which didn't work very well. When trying to remove it on the whole pepper, the skin gets stuck around the top and bottom where the heat didn't hit directly. Also, while trying to hold the pepper still, it can tear (juices ooze out, making it harder to hold), and the seeds go everywhere and later need to be removed. I ended up cutting the pepper into slices first, and then scraping the skin off from top to bottom, and it was so much easier! Once I realized how to remove the skin better, it went a lot faster. It took probably 45 minutes or so from start to finish, so it is a long process, especially if it is only the first step in another recipe.

"Roasted Red Peppers" p. 574

Corn Chowder

2010-02-09T21:02:00.001-05:00

I love a good corn chowder in the wintry snow!! I have made this soup plenty of times before, but this was a different recipe than I have used. Wait, who am I kidding - I never used recipes before starting the Joy of Cooking!! I always just add basic things like onions, celery, carrots, corn, milk, and chicken. Actually, put salt and pepper with that, and that's all that would generally be in corn chowder that I would make. This recipe was different in that it didn't have carrots or chicken, but did have potatoes and bacon. Seriously - I think that I have had enough bacon/bacon grease during this whole thing to last me the rest of my life. The chowder was also different in that at the end, you take out a cup and a half of the soup, puree it in a food processor, and put it back in. I never puree soups, but I did it this time - why? Because the recipe said so, that's why. I am sure that this last step is in there to thicken the soup, which it did, but I ended up not liking the consistancy. It seemed like the chowder was kind of gritty. I am not sure if I didn't blend it enough, or if that is just how it was supposed to be. I think next time I would leave that last step out.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

2010-02-09T20:36:00.002-05:00

This is an excellent example of something that I never would have made before starting this endeavor! I never used to eat peppers at all, and only recently have begun to put them, both raw and cooked, in the things that I eat. I used to think that stuffed peppers would be so gross, so I was very excited to make these and actually like them! My husband liked these, and I did as well, but I would love to try other recipes if anyone has any that they like!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-02-09T13:14:00.000-05:00

When I first started making these cookies, my thought was that the recipe from "Joy" was the same as the one on the back of the bag. Essentially it is, only this recipe uses about 1/2 cup more sugar/brown sugar, and more vanilla - yum. I felt like I was America's Test Kitchen, as the entire baking process was somewhat of an experiment. The recipe said to either line the baking pan, or to grease it, neither of which I have ever done when baking cookies. I do have a silicone pan liner, so I tried that first (on my air baking sheet). The cookies turned out great, although I felt like they had a plastic-y aftertaste, like the liner affected the taste (anyone ever had this happen?). The next time, I tried it on the same kind of baking sheet, only spraying it first. The cookies were fine, but the edges kind of "leaked" out, and were very crispy because of the oil on the pan - not bad, and better than a plastic taste, but still not what I was looking for. The next time, I went back to the first pan and didn't spray it or line it - I never have done it before, right? The cookies were still good, but they did stick to the pan (maybe all that sugar?). I tried the silicone liner again on a different pan, although I'm not sure why, as it made the cookies taste funny, and the other pan made the bottoms too dark. I always have much more success with the baking sheets that have the air in the midde. Anyway, after it was all said and done, the best cookies came from the sprayed "air-bake" sheets. They tasted really good, but I still would go with the recipe on the back of the bag before using this one. Still searching for the best possible chocolate chip cookie recipe...

Beef barley soup

2010-02-07T15:49:00.000-05:00

This recipe was kind of funny - it tells you to cook the beef (stew meat) and then "proceed as you would with mushroom barley soup." Nice. I am not a big fan of mushrooms (I do like the flavor, but not biting into them), but am a huge fan of barley, so I was pretty excited about this recipe. It is super easy - cook the meat, saute shallots, add broth and barley, and viola - you are finished! I have never used shallots before, but bought them because that was what was called for. They are quite a bit pricier than regular onions, and if you've never used them before, you'll find that they look like regular onions, only smaller, and when you cut them, each layer is really thin. If you wanted a really fine mince, it would be easier to do with shallots over onions. I don't know for this soup if I would buy them again, though, as they are more expensive, and I couldn't really seem to tell if they tasted any different than regular onions would have.

The Beer Bread Flop.

2010-02-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

My first inclination was to omit this post, since as the title lets you know, this bread flopped! It looked a lot better than it tasted, that's for sure. I missed a vital step in the recipe as I chatted away with my husband and didn't really pay attention to what I was doing. Not a stellar thing to do when you are baking. This should have been an extremely easy bread to make - all that you have to do is mix the dry ingredients together (flour, oatmeal, baking powder, etc.), fold in a cup and a half of beer, and bake the bread. Well, I put in all of the dry ingredients, and talking away, I added the beer, realizing only then that I didn't mix the dry ingredients together first. I baked it anyway, crossing my fingers... no luck, the bread was terrible!! The slices we had tasted really bitter, like the slices we ate had too much baking powder. We ended up throwing it all away. If you go away with nothing else, remember to mix the dry ingredients first!!

Chicken Etouffe

2010-02-03T22:41:00.001-05:00

Wow. I am delinquent when it comes to posting on the foods I make.... I will get better, I will get better! I made chicken etouffe last Thursday (yes, an entire week ago!) for friends that were coming over. This is one meal that I never would have made before starting the "Joy journey," and one that has made me pleased that I am turning over a new leaf. I have never made anything like this (unless you count red beans and rice, which I don't), and I really surprised myself. The recipe called for all kinds of spices that I rarely use (and didn't think would go together) like paprika, thyme, bay leaves, etc., and the end result was a great flavor the likes of which have never come from my kitchen - and surprise! I thought it was great! For someone who dislikes trying new things, this is a breakthrough! My husband and our friends gave great reviews as well, which was pleasing in itself. I did break a few recipe rules, however, but I don't think that they had much affect on the overall taste of the dish. The chicken was supposed to be sauteed in pieces, and I am so over frying meat in my kitchen right now that I just couldn't do it again, so I put the spice rub on the chicken and let it cook in the crock pot before shredding it and putting it with the sauce. The recipe also said to add sliced Italian sausage or Andouille sausage, and I forgot to get sausage when I went to the store, so I had to omit that part. Next time I will try it with the sausage, and I am sure that it will be even better! If you like Cajun food, this is a must-try. Enjoy!

Black Bean Soup

2010-01-28T22:40:00.000-05:00

Tuesday night we had black bean soup. I feel like we have eaten so much red meat lately that we needed to take a little "meat break." We have literally eaten more red meat in the last month than we did the entire last year - yikes! This brings us back to Tuesday night - black bean soup. I have made called for a lot of spices, many of them spices that I wouldn't think would be good in black beans, so it was surprising that the soup was pretty bland. We still liked it, but usually would like more of a kick. If you use the same recipe, you may want to add peppers, or more onions, or double the spices (unless you like rather bland soup). With the leftovers, we added shredded chicken, more onions and peppers, and put it over rice, and we liked that even better.

Boeuf Bourguignon

2010-01-27T17:38:00.000-05:00

It's Boeuf Bourguignon, boys and girls! I never knew what the big deal was about this recipe - I mean, it's just beef stew, right? Well, the French onion soup recipe has nothing on this when it comes to being time consuming, I'll tell you that. This recipe calls for stew meat (found at my local grocery store labeled "beef stew meat" - if not, I would have been lost), which you have to trim and cut into pieces. Step 1 = pretty easy. It then marinates in wine with herbs and vegetables for 1-24 hours (This got a couple of hours, since that's all the time I had). I heard once that when cooking with wine, you should use a wine that you would want to drink, and therefore would get a flavor that you like. Problem here is that I really don't like red wine, so I just used the only dry that we had, and it worked fine. Once it marinates, the meat has to drain, and the veggies also are strained, and the strained wine is kept for later. Once all of this had taken place, I realized (to my very true sadness) that I was supposed to use cracked peppercorns in the marinade, not whole peppercorns. This does not sound like a big deal, except for the fact that you end up using (and eating) everything - the peppercorns don't come out - and if you use whole ones, you will chomp down on them later, which is not at all pleasant. That said, I spent 15 minutes (after straining the veggies) picking through the diced onions and vegetables to pick out about a tablespoon of whole peppercorns. Not fun. My goal is to follow recipes completely, so when it said to cook up diced bacon - something I usually wouldn't take the time to do - I did that, and then sauteed the (drained and dried) stew meat in the grease. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong, but the pan around the meat always seems to burn while the meat is cooking, and I feel like it shouldn't do that. I did cook in batches this time (as opposed to the stroganoff foolishness) which worked well, and then cooked the strained veggies after that. When all of the individual cooking is finished, everything is returned to the pan to cook for another hour and a half. I was supposed to add pearl onions at this point, but couldn't find any (Trader Joe's - what's the deal? I was counting on you!!), so quartered regular onions. After the hour and a half, you add mushrooms, and cook that for another 20 minutes before it is finished. It was a pretty good meal, but it was WAY more work than I bargained for, and I probably won't make it again for a long, long time. If ever.

Kneaded butter

2010-01-27T17:08:00.000-05:00

Kneaded butter - who's ever even heard of such a thing? It was something called for in the Boeuf Bourguignon recipe that I made on Monday (blog to follow about that), and is used to thicken a broth, or in this case a stew. All it is, is equal parts butter and flour, kneaded together until crumbly. You then whisk pea sized bits into whatever you are wanting to thicken - amazing! I can't believe that I've never heard of this, as it seems to be something that I will be using often!

French Onion Soup

2010-01-24T22:20:00.001-05:00

Ten down, 90 to go!! French onion soup was the most time consuming recipe that I have made yet, and also one of the tastiest! I had never even tried this soup before making at home. I always thought that "onion soup" sounded gross, and soggy bread on top, even worse. I was wrong - it was so delicious! It does take quite a bit of time, and this is because you have to carmelize five onions, which took almost an hour. I love carmelized onions, and make them often, but I have never made so many at one time! They filled half of my 7 qt. dutch oven when first cut, and they had to cook down to about half an inch . Since the onions have to be consistently stirred, you just stand at the stove the whole time. The rest of the soup is basically just beef broth, and it has to simmer with the onions for 20 minutes, so it ended up taking about an hour and a half from start to finish. The soup is usually then topped with toasted bread and shredded cheese, and then put under the broiler in the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese. I was excited about this part, because it looks so fancy, and I thought I had just the right bowls for this purpose. It turns out that the bowls that I was going to use were not oven safe - so sad - so I had to come up with another way to finish off the soup. I had bought a long, skinny loaf of crusty French bread that I sliced and toasted, and topped each piece with Swiss cheese (I couldn't find shredded Swiss, so I cut up slices of Swiss and used those). I broiled those for a few minutes (I recommend spraying the baking sheet first, as the cheese melts down around the bread sometimes), and then topped the soup with them. I found out that it really is not the "soggy bread" that I thought I would be eating - when toasted, and then covered with cheese and re-toasted, the edges stay crispy in the soup, which was perfect! I found that it was kind of hard to cut through the edges of the bread when it was floating on soup, so the next day as I was eating the leftovers, I cut the bread into smaller pieces (like croutons) before toasting and adding cheese. I could then drop a handful into the soup and each one was bite-sized.

Beef Stroganoff

2010-01-15T11:51:00.001-05:00

Wednesday night's dinner was beef stroganoff. As you all may well know, my previous love was food made with creamed soup, and therefore, by default, any beef stroganoff made in the past was made with cream of mushroom soup. You add beef, some stock, and there you have it. This will work in a pinch, and really does taste good, but Wednesday night's version was the real thing, and a bit more time consuming. I did buy some sort of steak for this (and can't recall what type I used), cut it into slices to saute before making the sauce. The recipe says to brown the meat IN BATCHES - and YES, you need to brown it in SMALL batches, which I failed to do this time. I knew as I was loading up the pan that I really should not be putting it all in at one time, and that I probably was going to regret doing so, but I did not listen to my conscience and went ahead with my tomfoolery. Bad mistake, and here is why - when you brown strips of meat in small batches, they actually brown. When you put everything in at once and overcrowd the pan, the accumulated juices from the meat essentially steam the meat, and none of it browns. You may think - so what? It cooks, right? It does cook, but not evenly, so some meat overcooks and gets tough - well actually, it all was kind of tough. This may be the result of steaming? I'm not sure. If anyone out there knows, feel free to chime in. The point of the matter is to cook in small batches - don't overcrowd the pan! So let's assume that I actually did what was right with the meat and it has been taken out of the pan. 2T of butter is added, and onions and mushrooms are sauteed. You add stock, deglaze the pan, and simmer for 20 minutes before adding sour cream. The meat back to the pan, and then it is served over egg noodles. We really enjoyed this dish, but would have been better had the meat not been as tough. You live and learn.

Chicken Marsala

2010-01-13T10:15:00.002-05:00

Chicken Marsala! What more needs to be said?? My husband and I love Chicken Marsala, and order it frequently when we are out. Because of this, I was a little bit nervous about making it at home, thinking that it could never taste as good at home as it did when it was made by a chef in a restaurant. I was wrong. This Chicken Marsala was so good, and more amazingly, so easy to make!! If you like this dish even a little bit, you must try to make it at home! Again, I am making 100 recipes out of the Joy of Cooking (93 more to go), but if you look there for the recipe, you will not find it. I actually used the Veal Marsala recipe, and substituted chicken instead. This recipe calls for chicken that is pan-fried (in a couple tablespoons of olive oil/butter), but I didn't have to bread it like I did for the Chicken Parm that I made last week. I just dipped it in flour (with a little salt and pepper) and fried it. I have started to dry the chicken before breading or dredging or whatever the recipe may call for, and I think that it really helps. The flour/breading stays on better, and it also browns much better. After cooking the chicken, you put sliced mushrooms in the pan and cook for a few minutes (the book says to use the leftover oil, but I had to add some butter because there wasn't enough left in the pan for the mushrooms). Once the mushrooms are browned, Marsala is added to deglaze the pan, and is cooked down to about half of the original amount added. 2T of butter is added to this, the chicken is put back in the pan to warm, and viola - Chicken Marsala! The recipe called for 2/3 cups of Marsala, but since we had guests, I doubled that. Next time I will probably use the entire bottle because I like to have some extra sauce for everyone's plate. About buying Marsala... I don't know if anyone even reads this, or if you do, if you have ever bought Marsala wine. I hadn't, so I went to a local grocery store with a rather large wine section and asked the man in that section for some Marsala wine. He guessed right off that I was making Chicken Marsala and took me to what he described as "the best Marsala - more expensive than the others, but what you want for your Marsala." He told me that it was a sweeter wine, and one that he would use to make the recipe himself, so I took it, thanked him, and went to make my purchase. I felt like too much of a tool to say, "is there anything cheaper (or bigger) that would work?" I will just look myself next time to try and judge if there is anything else I can use. The wine that I bought was Florio fine Marsala. The bottle holds half what a regular wine bottle will hold, and cost about $7.50. That doesn't seem like a lot, but when you think that I used 1 1/3 cup of Marsala, and that was almost the entire bottle, you realize that for the sauce alone, the cost was almost $7.00. It was very tasty - many compliments, but I can't make it very often at that price, so I will check it out and see if I can find something less expensive next time. I didn't take any more pictures, but we also had angel hair pasta with browned butter and Mizithra cheese on the side, which was also excellent (not in the Joy of Cooking, however).

Banana Bread

2010-01-13T10:00:00.000-05:00

So I know that banana bread is not a fantastic new recipe that anyone is dying to hear about, but I did have some bananas that were getting a bit old, so I decided to make some bread. I didn't have enough bananas to make two loaves, and the dilemma I was having was "nuts or no nuts?" I love walnuts in banana bread, but my husband does not, so I decided to put the nuts on top. That way there would still be nuts, but my husband could easily not eat them. This time I just scattered nuts across the top, but next time I will press them down, as quite a bit fell off after baking. It turns out that our dinner guests last night have quite a love for banana bread, so even though I didn't make it to compliment dinner, that's what happened anyway!

Risotto with peas

2010-01-07T22:14:00.001-05:00

Tonight's dinner plan changed a bit... our friends were not able to make it over tonight, so we will save the Marsala and Mizithra for the next time we can get together. Without making what was originally planned, I had to find a recipe that used ingredients that were in my pantry (if you can call it a pantry). Risotto with peas it was- I know, I know, it doesn't sound all that great, but really - it was! Risotto can be time consuming, since you have to stir the rice on the stove for the 20-30 minutes that it cooks, but it is well worth it (I also think there is something soothing about all that stirring). I didn't used to think so - there was a time that I thought that you could add cream of chicken soup to cooked rice and get the same thing. I was wrong. Wine, chicken stock, butter, and parmesan cheese - no cream soup can stand in for that! For the recipe that is actually in the "Joy" cookbook, you need a few things that I did not have, so I just used the basic risotto recipe and added peas. My husband usually doesn't even like peas, so the fact that he enjoyed dinner was a plus.

Chicken Parmagiano

2010-01-05T20:23:00.000-05:00

Last night, my husband's cousin and her husband came over for Chicken Parmigiana. I actually used two recipes for this one, as you have to bread and fry/saute the chicken using one recipe, and then use it in the Chicken Parmigiana recipe. Although I have watched endless amounts of the Food Network over the years, I have to admit that I have never (ever) taken the time to actually flatten chicken, coat it with flour, dip it in egg, then in bread crumbs and finally fry it. Why would I ever do all of those steps? The time it takes! The many dishes to wash! Well, I am making new things, and trying new recipes, so yes, friends, I flattened, coated, smothered, and dipped - all before frying. I will tell you this one thing - it completely works! I have fried things before, and actually have tried to use breadcrumbs, but have refused to do anything else. The result has always been chicken that sticks to the pan with a "crust" that falls off the chicken. By taking all of the steps (as well as using a hot pan with enough oil), the chicken breasts cooked evenly and the crust stayed on. The chicken also did not stick to the pan, which has happened in the past when I have tried to bread and saute meat. I was amazed when I went to turn the chicken and it actually all came up in one piece! The recipe did call for medium-high heat, and the first couple of pieces got too dark very quickly, so I only used medium heat the rest of the time.

For the rest of the Chicken Parmagiana recipe, you just put a bit of tomato sauce (I used Classico spagetti sauce) on the bottom of the pan and line the chicken up in th pan slightly overlapping. The recipe then calls for 1/2c of parmasan cheese on top, covered with a cup of sauce, then mozzerella cheese (I used a fresh ball of it that I sliced - yum), and more parmesan to top it off. You cook (warm) in the oven 20-30 minutes at 350 degrees. The result was tasty, but if you want to put it over spaghetti like we did, you really need quite a bit more tomato sauce, or the pasta is dry.

Thursday night we have friends coming over, and the meal plan is chicken marsala (bought the wine today - bought "the priciest, but best" as the grocer says... I was too embarrassed to ask if there was anything cheaper and "less best"), and angel hair pasta with browned butter and Mizithra cheese. Stay tuned!

There's a first time for everything.

2009-12-30T20:23:00.000-05:00

My husband liked dinner, so I'll consider it a success! Cooking everything was a little more difficult than I imagined, however. I made sauteed steaks, and then deglazed the pan with white wine and made a pan sauce out of that. On the side were mashed potatoes and broccoli sauteed with garlic. It turned out to be too much to do for one dinner, and next time I probably won't make as many side dishes. I didn't think about the fact that I would have things cooking on every burner at the same time. I thought everything was going well, but when everything was almost done, I remembered that I hadn't yet made the mushrooms. I also had never made steaks before (imagine that), and was worried because they were so thick and took much longer than the recipe said that they would. The pan was turning black around them, but they ended up being the perfect red/pink that my husband likes (again, I grew up thinking that pink means "cook it longer," so they weren't quite to my liking - mine had to cook longer). The kitchen was a crazy mess, and I was a bit frazzled by the time dinner was plated and on the table, but it was a great evening. Four recipes down and 96 to go. It looks like I may go through these a bit faster than I thought! On to choosing recipes for the next meal... who's coming for dinner?

My kitchen

2009-12-30T18:01:00.001-05:00

So I thought it might be interesting to show you all how much counter space I have available in my kitchen.... no, this is not a joke. This is what I have to work with. Also, please notice that I have ONE sink (which means you can't fill one side to wash and leave the other to rinse)and no dishwasher. Now you are more interested in how I will accomplish this goal, right?

Tonight's the night.

2009-12-30T17:04:00.001-05:00

Tonight will be the first night of using actual recipes to cook! The menu is steak with pan sauce and sauteed mushrooms, garlic-braised broccoli, and mashed potatoes. Using 4 recipes for this one.... pictures and (hopefully) success stories later.

So it begins...

2009-12-28T20:46:00.000-05:00

Although I love to cook, and also love to eat, I do not consider myself a "foodie." Five years ago, I wouldn't eat anything that included onions or peppers, didn't like avacado (hadn't even tried it), and thought that the best meals were the ones that contained some sort of Campbell's creamed soup and cheese. Hmmm. How far I have already come. I generally consider myself an able cook, and can throw things together to make a decent meal, but I NEVER try new things. I never even want to try new things, because I am already sure that I won't like them. I do, however, want to want to try (and like) new things. I have a beautiful new daughter, and my hope for her is that she will love life with a passion, and will not be afraid to try new things. I want her to travel to other countries, and learn to love the foods (and culture) there. How can I teach my daughter to try (and like) new things, if I won't try them (or cook them in our house??)? I want to teach her from a young age how to cook, bake, and be passionate about food. I want to learn, so that I can teach her. This brings me to my new idea... I saw "Julie and Julia" the other day, and have been inspired. For the girl who still finds it hard to order a steak even medium-well because "it's only cooked when the pink is all gone," I definitely won't be going through Julia Child's French cookbook (way too many things that I would tell myself that I wouldn't like). I did pick up "The Joy of Cooking" the other day, and think this might work. I got this book for Christmas a few years ago, and have never opened it. Why, you might ask? Because it has no pictures. How can I make (and like) a recipe when I don't know what the food will look like in the end? If I can't see what it looks like, how will I know if I actually like it?? So back to picking it up again the other day. I actually started to READ through the book (novel idea), and decided that I should start making some of these recipes, kind of like Julie in the movie. My thought is that I would make at least 100 recipes from the Joy of Cooking in the next year - basically about 2 new recipes a week. My husband asked why I don't just make new recipes out of different books. I think that would defeat the purpose of trying new things. If I used muliple books, I would only pick out things that I thought I might like. This way, I will force myself to occasionally try a recipe that I normally would not try, and my wonderful husband will get to try new things as well (yay for him! He actually likes to try new things.). So begins my journey to possibly becoming a "foodie." I may not ever make it that far, but it's all about journey, right?