Sunday, January 31, 2010

Breakfast Hash and Bloodies

A hearty breakfast to look forward to! This is a great way to use some leftover steak bits. Just add them at the end so they warm up.
Dice up 3 small potatoes (1/2" cubes) and put in a microwaveable bowl. Cover with water and put a lid on. Microwave on high for 8 minutes. Carefully drain.
Almost brown the bacon then add onions to cook.
Once the bacon and onion has cooked for a little while, use a paper towel to absorb excess grease.
Once the bacon and onions are browned up a bit, add the potatoes. Cook over medium low heat, turning occasionally. It probably takes about 20 minutes to cook.
Perfect amount of time to get started on those bloody marys!
Some inspiration off the back of a magazine.
Bloody action!
Season with pepper (no salt), thyme, and cayenne pepper.
How to know if it's ready? Taste it!
Dad's portion doesn't include ketchup.
Tester approved! He gobbled it all up. His favorite part? Ketchup! Of course.
He requested more "chepsup" twice.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Seared Trout with Braised Fennel

This is a super easy way to enjoy a relatively quick trout dinner.
Unfortunately, my midwestern-raised (in the crucial, formative early eating years) husband does not like fish. This means that I seldom prepare it or even eat it as often as I'd like.
After all, food is love and serving up the love is half the fun! Tonight was a night where I could not imagine eating anything other than fish. Alex ate peanuts for dinner. Boy, did he miss out! My future fish lover Andrew gobbled it up :D
First, thinly slice up a fennel bulb. I used a mandoline which slices it up very thin and quickly.
Heat a large skillet pan on high heat then add a TB of olive oil. Cook the fennel for around 7 minutes. Allow to brown up nicely by turning no more often than once a minute. At the end of that time, salt & pepper. If you have a lid for this pan, add 1/4 cup dry white wine and simmer for 7 more minutes. I started up a smaller (covered) sauce pan with wine and once it was simmering, added the fennel and cooked on low heat.
Chop a tablespoon of parsley and salt & pepper both sides of your trout (Alex did this while I flipped it).
After 7 minutes the fennel is done. Check seasoning, add parsley and toss.
Melt a pat of butter in a nonstick skillet over high heat and once sizzling subsides, add trout skin side down. Cook for 3 minutes. Carefully turn and cook one minute more.
Nicely browned. The skin is tasty (I had some).
The taster has a funny face on here. I realize why: he closed his eyes to taste! Makes sense to eliminate other "senses" when experiencing food, right?

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Chicken Lollipops!

A sneaky hand, going for a forkful of rice!
This is a great casual dinner, even perfect for parties since eating food on skewers keeps your hands clean and is great for presentation.
To make them, you need bamboo skewers (soaking in water for at least a half hour prevents charring), chicken tenders, honey, whole grain mustard and dijon mustard. In place of honey, you could use apricot preserves or any sticky sweet thing that might work well. Our grape jelly was not at all appealing.

Below, the assembly line ready to go: Skewer chicken, roll in ham, bathe in honey mustard, stick in panko crumbs. Repeat.

Make sure the honey-mustard is to your liking!

At first mine was too sweet so I added more whole grain mustard but that still wasn't right. Dijon cured it! Remember (I didn't) to keep some untainted sauce aside for dipping!

Asparagus for a side. It had been so long- Like to make it simply on the grill or in the toaster oven. Make a foil dish, splash olive oil, balsamic, oil and garlic powder, s & p.
Break apart asparagus by hand. First in half then the headless end gets the "tough" part snapped off. Toss around to coat (use your hands) and cook (I use a toaster oven) at 425 for 6 minutes.
Cook the chicken at 450 for 16 minutes (or less), flipping them halfway through.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Wanda's Grandfather's Pickles

Below, pickles made again on 1/30. Made TWO jars (pickles in below recipe were eaten up by day 3)... This time, added carrots, peppers and onion to the pickling jar.
Taste is an incredible flavor memory, turned reality twenty years later.
Impressive, right? More so because it's a pickle and I LOVE things that are treated with vinegar! Try this recipe. It is so easy and rewarding. I am sure it will be a regular in our fridge now.

Thank you to Lynnie Sedgwick! She provided this recipe years ago, during a junior high fellowship (church) group meeting where we made these pickles individually, as a large group. What a fun activity!
I requested this recipe from her years later, and she still has it!
By the way, we do not know who Wanda is, other than her grandfather owning an incredibly easy and delicious refrigerator pickle recipe ;D.
Wanda's Grandfather's Pickles
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup vinegar
1 Tablespoon salt
3/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. dill seed
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 cucumbers, thickly sliced

Add everything to a mason jar except
garlic and cucumbers. Shake.
Add cukes, mixing in garlic slices.
Cover and refrigerate.
Ready to eat in 3 days!
Make sure to select "pickling" cucumbers and that they are firm and in great condition (not dried out or wrinkly).
Easy way to pour into the jar: use a funnel!

I used an "antique" canning jar with a glass lid. (Missing rubber gaskets to fit it!)
Any old jar is fine, even recycled old pickle jars. I used 3 pickling cukes in this large jar and had around 1" of extra space which I filled with vinegar. No Prob!
These taste so good, they will not last long in your fridge!

Chicken Pot Pie

In a pinch, I bought these disposable pans. This is an ideal size for 2 and 1/5. The next culinary purchase/quest is for a glass or ceramic dish this size: 8" x 5" x 1 1/2"!
When cleaning out the fridge earlier in the day I came across an unused pie crust. Inspiration!
There was even a pot pie recipe on the inside of the box. I used that as my guide.
We almost always have frozen chicken breasts on hand. Thaw in the microwave on a low setting and check every so often to make sure the ends/tips aren't turning white and cooking. However you thaw it, NEVER leave it out on the counter to thaw. That's asking for some serious bacteria growth. I propped the baggie open and seasoned with s & p right into it. Zip back up and mush around to spread it.
Heat a pan (preferably with a lid to prevent stink exposure) on medium high. After a couple minutes add a splash of olive oil, see that it shimmers (turn down heat if smoking) and drop the breast in, put the cover on. Time for 3 minutes. In my experience, if the breast sticks to the pan, it is not ready to be flipped. Use tongs. After 3 minutes, grasp on the sides and it should "budge" easily to turn. Cover and sizzle 3 minutes more.
Give it the poke test! If you are not familiar with this, test the edges and get a feel for the "give" of something cooked. If it's "smooshy" then you need to cook it longer. Keep in mind it continues to cook (and temperature inside rises) after it's removed from the heat.
This breast was still a tad frozen in the center when I went to cook it. It required an additional two minutes. I turned the heat on very low for the first, flipped it, then turned the heat off for the remainder minute. Remove your somewhat firm breast to a plate and cover with foil or a bowl. Let sit 5 minutes (meanwhile, prep the rest and get back to it).

Use chicken saute pan again. Rinse it out and wipe, proceed with 2 TB butter inside. Once melted over medium low heat, add a 1/2 inch slice of onion, chopped up and saute until soft. Add around a TB of flour, whisk and let bubble away, then gently pour in, while whisking, 1 cup of chicken broth and 1/4 cup milk. Stir and let this cook until thickened. My addition: a dash of garlic powder and some dried thyme (if dried leaves, crush them up with your hands before adding).
Meanwhile, chop up the chicken and resist eating it.
Pour in thawed 1 cup of mixed vegetables and chicken and let sit on super low heat while you make the crust.
I had one pie crust to work with. You can certainly go with a bigger pie and require 2 crusts.
This size just barely worked out. Make pan imprints so you can see where to cut it. Keep the edges, up to 1/2" larger, wherever possible.
You can see here, the filling almost goes over the edges and my hope for integrating both crusts with crimping was lost. (In the end, it could not be noticed and did not matter.)
This is where you can make it look pretty! Use your dominant hand thumb and pointer finger on the outside and other hand's pointer finger in between those to form the crimp.
Stab some designs in the top to let steam escape.
I baked in the toaster oven at 400 for 30 minutes and that was the perfect time for me. Maybe not for your oven? Keep an eye on it! Put foil on crust edges to protect them if they are browning too fast.
Tester approved.
This is all we had left!

Monday, January 25, 2010

Breakfast Burritos