Cooking

Roast Chicken... so much easier than you think.

2009-06-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

At least that was my impression the first time I pulled it off, I was all "It will be dry or still bleeding or have no flavor..." I was just plain intimidated by making a perfect roasted chicken. Little did I know it's as easy as the buttons on a good thermometer.

The Cast: A good baking dish, I really like using this pyrex 9x13 baking dish, it's substantial feeling in my hands and super easy to clean, for our family of 5 to get 2 dinners out of it I use about a 5lb young chicken, I really like to catch them on sale for 99 cents a pound or less, kosher salt, fresh pepper, yup a whole stick of butter or margarine, you really can't tell at the end what was used so the cheap stuff it is, and the most important, a good thermometer with a probe and the option to beep when temperature is reached.

First step: Not only wash your hands, cause we will be handling the bird, but clean out all the guts they pack into the cavity, throw them out, keep them for gravy whichever you like, they go straight into the garbage around here cause organs just creep me out. Next rinse the bird good with cold water inside and out, most come packaged in a saline solution to keep germs in check but it's not particularly appetizing. I use paper towels to not only dry my hands, wet bird = slippery but to go ahead and dry the bird off too. Butter just does not cooperate with water.

Since our tripod has absconded to the garage somewhere and I didn't want chicken goo on the camera I enlisted Dad's help in taking these shots. After tucking the wings under (your preference) pull the skin away from the breast meat, don't remove it just loosen it with your fingers.

Now for the butter, I'm originally from the south, we call it all butter. Just use your hands and break off about a 1/5 of the stick or 2 tablespoons, yup gotta use your hands, they will get messing and gooey before this is all over best to get it over with now. Place the butter between the chicken breast and it's skin and use your fingers to just smooth it out, you want a nice coating but it does not have to be perfect just well covered. Repeat this for the other side of the breast as well.

This is what you get. Disclaimer: NO this is not the healthiest way to eat chicken, but mmmmm it sure does taste good. Here is also where my camera decided to eat the picures I would take, so of course I had to wait until the next time I made chicken to finish.

The rest of the butter! Yup the truly gooey part, spread the rest of the stick of butter or about 4 tablespoons, all over the bird, try to catch all the surfaces so the skin is well coated. Now go wash your hands and use all the soap you want to! Oh and preheat the oven to 350.

Salt and pepper, I don't measure but just sprinkle heavily all over, somewhere in the neighborhood of a tablespoon and a half if I had to say of salt, and a good teaspoon of pepper. Remember all that butter we slathered on? This is what it's for, to hold the salt and pepper in place so sprinkle away.

The important part, at least in making the chicken edible and not a biohazard is the thermometer. This isn't some fancy $50 one either, I picked it up at Target for around $15, but it has all the functions I need, a probe, a standard timer, and a temperature timer.

I try to put the probe into the thigh meat by going through the leg, on bigger birds say the Thanksgiving turkey, the dark meat needs to reach about 10 degrees higher than the white meat to be done, I've found these smaller chickens don't have that problem.

I set the temperature timer to go off when it reaches 175 degrees, it needs to get to 180, but will do that sitting on the counter waiting to be sliced. Place the chicken in the oven just like it is now, I've found that to fit the thing in the oven the rack has to be down far enough that the skin browns quite nicely but the bird is small enough it isn't in there long enough to burn.

Notice how I don't list any times for cooking? Well that's because I really have no idea how long it might take, I've had them take anywhere between 1 and a 1/2 to 3 hours to cook and can't really explain the difference. But I can tell you I never start this dish before 5 with plans to eat somewhere after 6, also when using a thermometer to cook you notice it takes forever to get going then it's done, so I usually estimate I've got 30-45 minutes to get my sides done when the temp. reads 145-150.

TA DA! The roasted chicken is done. The meat is tender and juicy, the skin is crispy and not for anyone watching any kind of healthy diet, and see all that glorious chicken flavored butter in the dish? Don't ever throw it away. I have more than one use for that which will be another post.

Let it sit here in the dish until the temp reads 180, should be all of 5-10 minutes after you pull it out of the oven, and just long enough to finish the sides and fight with the kids to wash up and get ready.

Here we go ready to slice and serve, nope no pics of that, cause really I just cannot cut a chicken without it looking hacked into. Plus by the time I've cut out servings for everyone, Dad has eaten all the crispy skin, he says it's the best part.

So there you have it, really pretty simple but man does it make an impact.

Happy Birthday!

2009-05-27T21:47:00.000-07:00

So my baby turned 8 this past Sunday. We usually do a big party with a store bought cake decorated with her current favorite character. This year since we called off the big party I figured I'd make the cake since really Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker taste just as good as the grocery store bakery cakes.

This also shows what happens when you use buttercream frosting in 75 degree weather, felt really nice to us but was a bit warm for the frosting which I could have poured out of the jar and kept up a steady slide down the sides of the cake. But you know what? It was a lot easier to get a smooth finish with my lacking decorating skills and it tasted just fine.

Schnitzel

2009-05-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

I'd heard of schnitzel before but never had it to my knowledge, maybe because it is often served with cabbage or sauerkraut neither of which I am a fan.

Even though reading the recipe it seems to have no flavor, the lemon is a surprisingly big factor.

What we need: boneless pork chops, preferably about 1/2 inch thick, panko bread crumbs, a couple eggs and a few tablspoons flour. We'll also need some vegetable oil for the pan and a couple lemons.

Using some parchment paper to keep the flinging bits of pork to a minimum, pound out the chops til 1/4 inch thick or so.

Dredge in the flour.

Next the egg.

Finally the panko crumbs.

Heat a skillet on medium with about 4 tbsp of vegetable oil and fry the pork chops for about 4 minutes per side. Check the first batch and make sure this is long enough, it depends on how thick they are.

Drain on a paper towel. Squeeze a little lemon juice of the top of the schnitzel and serve with a slice of lemon and some oven roasted potatoes.

Recipe:
4 boneless pork chops
1 cup panko bread crumbs
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
lemon
vegetable oil for frying

Pound the pork chops to a even thickness, dredge in flour, egg then crumbs. Fry approx. 4 minutes per side on medium. Drain on paper towels. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the top and serve with lemon slices.

Easy Macaroni Salad

2009-05-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

So my faithfulness to glomming Tastespotting in my reader led me to this post here, BLT Macaroni Salad. It looked really good and I had all the ingredients on hand. But of course I had to change it up a bit.

Cooked elbow macaroni, chopped tomato, cooked bacon pieces and fresh from our garden green onions.

Since there is only the 5 of us I used a half pound of pasta, two smallish tomatoes, half a pound of bacon and about 6 green onions.

Here's where I made a big change to the original recipe: mayo (1/2 cup), red wine vinegar (a good tbsp.) salt and pepper.

I have a thing for red wine vinegar and it just has more flavor to me than plain white.

Mix your dressing up in a large bowl and add the other stuff, you can save some onions to make it look pretty or try to hide them in the sauce to get the kids to eat them without the "what's the green things" whine that I listen to.

Stir it all together and you're done.

This makes a great macaroni salad for people who don't like a lot of weird and or unidentifiable ingredients in theirs. We've had it with panko coated baken chicken and ribs and it was great with both.

Recipe:
For 5 with a bit leftover
1/2 lb cooked elbow macaroni
1/2 lb cooked and crumbled bacon
2 smallish or 1 medium tomato
1/2 bunch green onions
1/2 cup real mayo
1 to 1 1/2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together and serve or chill until ready to serve.

Classic Banana Bread

2009-05-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

Several years ago I found a really easy looking banana bread recipe in a magazine. Eventually I ended up making changes to the recipe usually due to not having enough of an ingredient or figuring more can't hurt.

Here's what it's become today.

It's also a great recipe for splitting into smaller loaves, I either break it into half or quarters, these are really perfect for giving to teachers as gifts. You just need to drop the cooking time down to between 35 and 45 minutes.

This is a really adaptable recipe, you can add just about anything you like to the batter and it'll come out great each time. Chocolate chips and many varieties of nuts would be good.

3 bananas
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tea baking soda
dash of salt
1/4 cup butter melted, I put it in a bowl and set it on the stove as it's preheating

Preheat oven to 325.

In a large bowl smash bananas (as much or as little as you like), add sugar and egg.

Combine dry ingredients then add to wet.

Add melted butter until just combined.

Pour into greased loaf pan and bake 70 minutes. Or for individual loaves, pour into greased mini pans and bake 35 to 45 minutes.

Custard Pie and one with Coconut

2009-04-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

My mom loves coconut custard pie, or really any dessert with coconut. For Easter this year I figured a egg custard pie was appropriate and this recipe is easily adaptable to add coconut.

To be able to make my mom her coconut and the rest of us plain custard pies I used: a package of 6 pot pie pans with lids (easier storage, I don't have to fight the plastic wrap), 2 9 inch premade pie crusts because I haven't figured out how to make a good one from scratch yet, 4 eggs, sugar, milk, whipping cream, vanilla extract, salt and sweetened flake coconut. And of course I forgot the ground nutmeg when taking the photo, and it is optional or you can add cinnamon.

I probably could have gotten the pie crust into the sixth pan but the filling wouldn't have stretched that far.

In a medium pot, add 1 cup milk, 1 and 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream and about a 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Bring just to a boil and remember to watch it carefully, milk hates to be boiled and shows it's revenge the minute you turn your back on it. Just try it and see the mess you'll have to clean up.

You can use a hand mixer but not when trying to take photos. Blend 3 whole eggs and 1 egg yolk (save that white!), 3/4 cup granulated white sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon vanilla extract.

When the milk is just to boiling turn it off and stir it around a bit, with a small cup, carefully (it's still hot) and slowly, with the mixer on low, add some of the milk to the eggs. Wait a minute or two and add another cup. Repeat this process until all the milk is added to the eggs.

If you did it slowly and carefully, this is what you get, no scrambled eggs and no 2nd degree burns.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Remember that egg white we saved? Use it to brush the insides and edges of the crusts with.

I added just about a 1/2 cup of the shredded coconut to the center pie crust for mom, then ladled (with a measuring spoon) the custard evenly between the pans.

I tried to get them as even as I could, and carefully put the pan in the oven.

I baked for 30 minutes then checked the crust for browning, mine was fine but if yours is getting too brown, very very carefully cover the edges with aluminum foil.

Turn the oven down to 250 degrees and bake for another 25 minutes.

Ta Da!! After pulling the from the oven go ahead and get them off that hot pan and onto a cooling rack, let cool for 2 hours and you can serve warm or use the nifty lids that came with the pans and stick in the fridge overnight and eat cool the next day.

Mom preferred the coconut, but well I knew she would and since I won't eat processed coconut I can't compare but my plain custard was pretty tasty.

Ingredients

6 inch pot pies pans
2 9 inch pie crusts
3 eggs, 1 separated
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Method

Preheat oven to 400°F

Roll out the pie crusts and shape into pans.

In a saucepan, combine the nutmeg, milk and heavy cream. Heat until just starting to boil - Carefully! You have to watch it.

In a mixer or large bowl with a hand mixer, blend the one egg yolk, the three whole eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla.

Slowly... add in the hot milk mixture using a ladle or small cup, with the mixer on low, continuing to beat so the egg mixture already in the bowl does not scramble.

Place the pie pans on a cookie sheet. Brush the insides with the egg white.

Add 1/2 cup of coconut to each crust.

Carefully pour the custard mixture into the pie crust.

Bake for 30 minutes then check for crust browning, if needed, very very carefully add aluminum foil strips to cover the edges.

Reduce the oven temp to 250°, and bake for about another 25 minutes. It's done when still slightly jiggly but not liquidy.

Remove from oven and cool on rack. Serve at room temperature or chill overnight and serve cold.

Part 3: Tzatziki Sauce and Squash Side Dish

2009-04-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

Here is the conclusion to our Greek/Med Dinner from a couple weeks ago.

Tzatziki is part of an appetizer in Greek or Turkish dishes, it's served as a dip with pita bread.

Here in the US you'll see it listed as Cucumber Sauce a lot of times.

What you need: yogurt (we'll get into specifics in a minute), olive oil, red wine vinegar, a cucumber, fresh mint, garlic and salt and pepper.

The yogurt, if you are lucky enough to live in a area that has a store that carries plain Greek yogurt, buy that, you'll get to skip a step. If you're like me and have never seen plain Greek yogurt in the store, just get whichever brand you like or is cheapest. Important point here, vanilla yogurt is not plain, it's vanilla so read the label carefully, vanilla would just be ick. You'll need 16 oz, usually 2 containers.

Now to get the yogurt ready, we've gotta get all that extra water out, I could be mistaken but I believe this is about half the process of making yogurt into cheese, but anyway, I use coffee filters and a mesh strainer and a bowl to drain the yogurt. (It works better with the basket filters we used to use but the #4 shaped filters are fine for 1 container of yogurt.) This needs to be done preferably the night before you want to mix the sauce, just fill the filters with the yogurt, put those into the strainer and set the strainer over a bowl, you can cover with a paper towel or plastic wrap then stick in the fridge.

This is what ends up in the bowl the next day, and the yogurt has a much firmer texture.

You need about a tablespoon of minced garlic, this is 3 little cloves, minced as fine as I could get without mincing my fingertips. I have no real knife skills but I get by.

I'd call this a good sized cucumber, about 8 inches, peeled and seeded. Then chop into small pieces, not minced but not big chunks either.

Now we have to get rid of as much water in the cucumber as we can. Cukes are mostly water, but really like to keep it so after chopping lay the pieces out onto a kitchen towel and roll them up, now you might need some help but grab each end and twist with everything you've got, preferably over the sink. You don't want to dry the cucumber or give your hands towel burn but you want to get a lot of the water out, more room to put flavor in now.

This part can be a little tricky due to how big your cucumber is but add 1 tablespoons oilve oil, 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar, a healthy pinch of kosher salt and a few turns of fresh pepper, throw in the minced garlic and give a good stir. The cucumber should be nicely coated with everything but not have a puddle in the bottom. If it's not enough liquid to coat everything add another 1/2 tablespoon olive oil and another teaspoon of vinegar.

Finely mince the mint, about 3 leaves and add to the mix, I use my really good Henkels kitchen shears for the mint.

Dump in the drained yogurt and give it a good stir. You can serve it right now but the flavors will intensify after about an hour so I usually cover it with plastic and then cook dinner. Check the seasoning and add and needed salt or pepper.

Serve with pita for dipping or just about any type of meat, beef, lamb, chicken and pork I know all taste good with it, fish I haven't tried.

Ingredients:
16 oz plain yogurt
1 medium cucumber
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tea red wine vinegar
3 fresh mint leaves
kosher salt and fresh pepper to taste

Drain yogurt over night, peel and seed cucumber the chop into small pieces, squeeze to drain excess water. Add cucumber, olive oil, red wine vinegar salt, pepper, mint and garlic. Stir to combine and add yogurt. Let rest for an hour or so and serve.

And onto the easy peesy Squash side dish. Seriously easy.

We've got a yellow crookneck squash and a zucchini here, Mom used a mandolin to slice these, I'm too scared of slicing me to really use it. A teaspoon or so of minced garlic.

Remember the onions that had been marinated with the pork for the Souvlaki? Grab some of those too.

Throw all of it into a skillet with a tablespoon or so of olive oil and let it just hang out on medium heat. Go ahead and stir it occasionally.

About 10 minutes later, here's what you've got. My mom loves this stuff, I have no clue because I won't eat squash. She did say it went good with the meal and gave the kids a veggie to eat but me and my Dad passed on it.

So that's the conclusion of the Greek Med dinner. If anyone tries it please let me know how it turns out.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-11T19:34:00.001-07:00

Have a Happy Easter Everyone!

Souvlaki - Greek Kabobs

2009-04-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

Part 2 of our Greek/Med dinner I started posting last week.

From Wikipedia:
Souvlaki or souvlakia is a popular Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer. It may be served on the skewer for eating out of hand, in a pita sandwich with garnishes and sauces, or on a dinner plate ready for insertion, often with fried potatoes or pilaf. The meat is traditionally pork in Greece and Cyprus, or in modern times increasingly chicken. In other countries and for tourists, souvlaki may be made with other meats such as beef, lamb and sometimes fish (especially swordfish).
The terminology of souvlaki and its variants is confusing and inconsistent. Depending on the context, the term 'souvlaki' by itself may refer to any of the variants. In some regions and some restaurants, the name shish kebab is used to denote a particular variant of souvlaki (e.g. with vegetables on the skewer), but it is essentially a synonym.
The word souvlaki is a diminuative of souvla (skewer), itself ultimately derived from the Latin subula (awl).

To make our souvlaki I used a pork tenderloin, parsley, mint, onion, garlic, oregano, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil. You'll also need some form of skewers and an indoor grill pan or outdoor grill.

The recipe called for marinating in a bowl for 2 hours to overnight, I like using Alton Brown's method of a plastic baggie holding the marinade then set into a bowl just in case, the baggie is thrown away afterward and hopefully I have one less bowl to wash.

Instead of really measuring, I pulled a handful of parsley and gave it a rough chop, I stacked about 8 mint leaves and chopped them a little, and a good heavy sprinkling of dried oregano (I couldn't find fresh in the grocey) all went into the gallon sized baggie.

Then a quartered onion and a couple smashed and peeled garlic cloves joined the herbs.

I poured in about a half cup of olive oil and roughly a 1/3 cup of red wine vinegar.

This is the pork tenderloin I bought, I only used one of the pieces, it comes sliced in about half, so close to one pound of meat to serve 3 adults and 2 kidlets.

I cut the tenderloin into slices more than 1 inch cubes, something like a 2 bite size.

Toss the meat into the baggie with a healthy pinch of salt and a 1/2 tsp or so of fresh pepper and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours, or let go overnight. I did all this part the morning of the day we were going to eat.

These are the skewers I have, I don't like using the wooden skewers because you have to soak them to keep them from catching on fire. I really do like those spiral skewers but have yet to find someplace that doesn't charge $20 for 4 skewers. These are metal and $2 at your nearest Wallyworld, mine get used mostly for roasting marshmallows on the gas cooktop but whatever.

I started the box o' pilaf we were having with this dinner and had the pita and tzatziki made so now it was time to cook the pork. I pulled the marinated meat out of the fridge and skewered it, I used the large pieces of onion to help keep the meat on the skewer and the rest went into the squash (recipe next week). The grill was heated to medium, about 350 degrees.

The skewers were placed across the and cooked for 5-6 minutes per side, tongs came in very handy here. I let one set cook for a couple minutes longer per side, Mom has an abject fear of moist pork.

After they were cooked I put the pita on the grill to reheat it. The pork came out very tasty with a slight flavor of the herbs and being tenderloin was very tender.

Next week I'll post the final part of this dinner, the squash side dish and the tzatziki sauce that's really good for just about anything.

Ingredients:
1 lb pork tenderloin, cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic, smashed with a can and peeled
1 medium onion, quartered
1 tbsp oregano, fresh or dried
2 tbsp fresh parsley, roughly chopped
1 tbsp fresh mint, roughly chopped
salt and pepper

Combine all the ingredients and marinate 2 hours to overnight. Skewer the meat (remember to soak wooden skewers) and grill 5-6 minutes per side.

Pita Bread

2009-04-02T19:51:00.000-07:00

I really like trying to make different ethnic foods, Chinese, Latin, Italian and some Mediterranean. We really like Gyros around here, the ground lamb or beef mixed with spices and cooked on a spit, I've found a restaurant that makes that better than I can (they have a spit) so I've given up trying to make Gyros and have moved on to other Med/Greek and some Turkish foods.

This recipe is part 1 of a 3 part series on a dinner we had of Pita, Pork Souvlaki with Tzatziki Sauce and Sauteed Squash. We also had rice pilaf but it was an out of box mix, I have trouble cooking rice that does not come in a mix or minute box.

This is the first pita recipe I came across and I just kept coming back to the easiness of it, it might not be the best one but the flavor was right and if I'd made my dough balls a little smaller they might have puffed up more.

What You Need: AP Flour, Active Dry Yeast, Salt, Honey and Water, the Olive Oil is for coating the bowl for rising.

Add a half cup of warm water and 1 tbsp of honey to the yeast and let it bloom, I like recipes that start with this step so I can make sure my grocery store yeast is still good without throwing an entire recipes' worth of ingredients in the garbage.

Sift 3 cups of flour with 1 tsp salt and add to the yeast mix (in a bigger bowl). Combine and add another cup of flour and 1 cup water. Mix with a spoon then switch to using your hands, if it's still too dry add up to another half cup water. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. It should be a little sticky.

Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to a clean bowl and swirl around to coat the sides, add the dough ball and flip it over to coat it with the oil. Cover with plastic wrap or a towel and let rise to double in size about an hour.

Punch the dough down and with as little kneading as possible divide into at least 10 balls ( I did 8 and they were just too much). Flatten these with your hands to about 1/4 inch thickness (you want a 6 inch or so circle or close to it) and place on a greased pan. Let rise again for about 30 minutes til again doubled in size.

I was in a bit of a hurry at this point so yeah they be ugly.

Bake on the bottom rack of the oven at 450 for 5-6 minutes.

Let them cool on a wire rack, and they are ready to eat.

Since I made these in the afternoon, while grilling the meat for the Souvlaki I threw these on the grill as well to toast the outside a little and reheat them.

Ingredients:
1 packet active dry yeast
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup warm water
1 and 1/2 cups warm water
4 cups all-purpose flour and extra for board
1 tsp salt
Olive oil for the bowl

Instructions:
Combine yeast, honey and half cup water and let stand for 10 minutes. (The blooming part)

Sift 3 cups flour with salt and add to yeast mix.

Add 1 more cup of flour and up to 1 and a half cups water, mix with spoon and then hands.

Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 5 minutes. Dough should be a little sticky.

Lightly oil a clean bowl. Put the dough in the bowl, cover and let rise for about 1 hour.

Divide dough into 10-12 pieces and pat into inch circles, place on greased pan and let rise again for 30 minutes.

Bake for 5-6 minutes on the bottom rack of a 450 degree oven.

Cool on a wire rack, and if you want to add some color, throw on the grill for a few minutes just before serving.

Lovely Creamy Risotto

2009-03-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

I have never ordered risotto in a restaurant. I don't know if I've ever been to one that serves it. But having seen it so many times on tv cooking shows and online recipes and Chef Ramsey's obsession with only serving perfect risotto on Hell's Kitchen I figured I'd try it.

I did not plan to fall in love with the creamy flavor packed rice.

Here's how I make it, I have no idea really if this is how it's supposed to taste but I love it, and eat way too much of it.The basic ingredients: Aborio rice (sometimes called risotto rice like mine up there), butter, garlic, and onion.

You don't have to use anything but the rice, it's special. Aborio rice is a super starchy short grain, it's the starch on the rice that gives risotto it's creaminess, you never want to rinse this type of rice. The butter/margarine can be substituted with olive oil or really any kind of fat. The garlic and onion can be subbed or left out entirely, but I think they make great flavor.

For a single good sized serving I use 1/3 of a cup of rice.

About the liquid, I use chicken broth because I usually pair my risotto with roasted chicken, and I don't drink wine so I don't cook with it, but you can use some white wine and whatever broth tickles your fancy, or just go basic and use water. The amount really is up to the rice and how done you want it. If I had to guess I'd say I average about 1 and 1/2 cups of liquid per 1/3 cup rice.

I melt the butter on medium-low heat and cook the onions about 5 minutes, then scoop in the garlic and stir just until I can smell it, then dump in the rice and toss around to coat it in the butter.

Then I start adding liquid, about a 1/3 to a 1/2 cup at a time and make sure you always stir really well after you add the liquid. You want a simmer going pretty steady once you start adding liquid, lots of small bubbles, but not boiling and popping over, raise and lower your heat accordingly.

I use a good nonstick pan to make my risotto so I don't follow the rule of always stirring, but if your pan is on the sticky side I'd say you need to keep right by it because if it sticks it will burn.

After a couple of liquid additions it will get a creaminess going, but it's not done, if you taste the rice now, it will still be crunchy, bleh.

This may look like the same picture but notice the carmelized chicken stock around the pan? That's how I know it's getting close when I start seeing that. Also it tends to stay in mostly a mountain when you scoop it up. Always just check the rice, it's so much easier than guessing.

I never need to add salt to mine because the chicken stock while low sodium is still full of it, but I do add some fresh pepper.

If you want to add anything now is the time, asparagus is a popular choice and just about any kind of cheese or any fresh herb. I like mine plain mostly.

One of my favorite dinners. Just throw in some roasted chicken and have a salad and you're ready to go. In all it took me about 20 minutes for the risotto, the chicken that's another story.

So about that Boston Cream Pie...

2009-03-17T20:41:00.001-07:00

That looks really good... and tastes good too.

I'll put the ingredient list up here then break down the recipe into the steps taken.

Cake flour, sugar, corn starch, baking powder, salt, light corn syrup, vanilla extract, bittersweet chocolate(more on this later), unslated butter, heavy cream, milk and eggs.

The Cake:
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Creamed together in a mixer or with a hand mixer, man I love my KitchenAid.

2 large eggs

Beaten in one at a time.

2 cups cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Sifted together, then added to mixer until incorporated.

3/4 cup milk

Mixed in to make it really look like cake batter.

A 9 and a half inch spring form pan (I have no clue what size mine is I just used it), buttered and floured.

Bake at 350 for 50 minutes.

Cry for your momma.

And break out the 9 inch Wilton cake pans, that happen to belong to momma and are older than you.

Do the happy dance!!!! Of course after having made the cake batter a second time and the baked for 40 minutes in the two 9 inch pans, I was just cussing a blue streak at the spring form abomination.

The Custard (otherwise known as that creamy stuff in the middle):
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Put into a largeish sauce pan (you want high sides cause this stuff is like napalm, it sticks and burns), whisked like crazy until smooth and brought up to boiling.

3 large eggs, beaten silly

Tempered into the milk mixture, look that part up online cause a video is so much better than pics. Whisk like crazy and pray you don't end up with really sweet soupy scrambled eggs.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

Whisked into the custard in pieces. Then keep whisking, no your arm will not really fall off until the mix has cooled enough you can touch it and not scream. Technical aren't I?

The Glaze:
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt

So I would have really liked this part to be sweeter since the cake itself and the custard aren't.
I probably will go with a semi-sweet chocolate next time or up the corn syrup another half tablespoon.

Put all that into a double boiler and slowly stir and melt. Eventually (which is always good when heating chocolate) you'll get a lovely smooth chocolate sauce, ganache whatever.

Now we get to the fun part.

Lay the first cake layer onto your cake plate. Using a spatula, the plastic kind works just as good as the metal ones, spread the custard around to almost the edge of the cake. Then top with the last layer of cake.

Now for the chocolate, make sure it's still pretty warm so it pours easy, dump it onto the center of the cake. You can take a butter knife or metal spatula and force it to spread all even and pretty to the sides, or you can pick the plate up and tilt it around until it does the same thing.

That's it! Let the chocolate cool, or not and slice and serve.

Irish Stew and Boston Cream Pie

2009-03-17T20:25:00.001-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Being Irish, at least in part, somewhere along the way to get an Irish family name, I like trying to make Irish food for St. Patrick's Day. Honestly, corned beef hash is gross. I just could not eat it last year. So this year I did a little more research and found that Irish stew is basically what I've been making as stew for years. Then I just had to make a dessert, something I like but have never made before Boston Cream Pie.

So for the stew you need beef stew meat (if you're like me and just can't do lamb) potatoes, carrots, onions, parsley and thyme and parsnips.

Those white carrot looking things, those are parsnips and before my research into Irish food I had seriously never thought to try them. But you know what? They are white carrots, look like them and actually taste more carroty. Why has this been such a secret?

So roughly 3 hours later.... we get stew.

Too bad I didn't like it. Heh. I really should have stuck to my normal stew making method and just thrown in some of the parsnips. I followed an online recipe thinking "It's a well respected site, I've made their stuff before and it was good, I'll try it this way."

I should have known one and a half hours was not long enough to soften that stew meat and being in the pot all together the potatoes would be mush and guess what? I was right. Plus I really don't like that much thyme.

On to the Boston Cream Pie....

Crock Pot Stroganoff

2009-03-09T09:25:00.001-07:00

So I found this recipe some time ago and have altered it a bit and now it's an easy dinner to keep everything on hand for.

What you need: bag of egg noodles ( I only use about half the bag per meal), one cup of sour cream, McCormick's Hearty Beef Stew Slow Cooker mix (yup they have a stroganoff version but it just don't taste right), and some stew meat.

For the stew meat I like to go with the larger chunks since in our store we have a choice between 1 inch or so size pieces and really little pieces that would probably be great for something that doesn't cook so long. They also have 2 different size packages one about a pound and a half and the other roughly 3 lbs, I go with the smaller, we just don't need 3 lbs of meat for 5 people.

The original recipe called for some diced onion (that I could never taste so I just started leaving out) and sliced mushroom which I just cannot eat cooked mushrooms, um no.

I usually start this about 1 in the afternoon while I'm fixing me some lunch before I go get in line to pick the kids up from school.

Just dump the stew meat into your trusty slow cooker/crock pot whatever, and make sure to break it up a little after being all squished together in the package.

Grab a measuring cup and fill with about 1 and a half cups water or beef broth, the broth doesn't add anything that I've noticed but hey it doesn't hurt, mix in your hearty beef stew mix and pour over the meat.

Now get about another half cup of water to get the rest of the mix out of the mesuring cup, no matter what I do I can never get it to all come out at once.

Stir everything around good and crank the cooker up to high, put the lid on and walk away.

Come back about 4 hours later and this is what you'll see. Carefully give it a stir, I say carefully because well the meat just falls to pieces.

Now you need to boil the water for the noodles, they may only take 5 minutes to cook but it seems to take 30 minutes to boil enough water for them.

We now add the sour cream, I only buy those little 1 cup containers when they're on sale for cheaper than the big ones and this just hasn't happened recently, so out comes the little 1/4 cup and I get to make a mess with the sour cream, drop a cup into the meat.

Which will then look like this. Give it a stir and....

Guess what... You're done. Yup that's all there is left to that, now for those noodles whose water finally decided to boil.

My package says 6-7 minutes til done, I say I get soggy noodles after that long then mixing with that really tasty sauce up there, so I go for about 5 minutes cooking time, then drain, duh.

Now here's where things can be debated, some people want the sauce poured over the noodles, not all mixed together. I say when you cook it you can serve it however you like.

I just find it easier to serve and to put away the leftovers when it's all mixed up. This seems to make about 6 good servings, we always have leftovers when it's just the 5 of us eating, but it would be easy enough to double the sauce recipe to use the whole bag of egg noodles to serve roughly 10 adults.

King Cake Trials

2009-02-27T19:22:00.001-08:00

So I tried a king cake recipe that sounded tasty as well as easy since I'm new to the whole baking with yeast thing. Looks pretty huh? Tasty? Not so much, well the flavor is really nice like a cinnamon bread, but boy did something go wrong in the second rise. Can we say dense? and dry?

Oh well I figure I've got all year to perfect my yeast dough skills and I'll start at Epiphany next year and just keep trying recipes til I find one that works or we get to Fat Tuesday first. It was worth it for the experience anyway.

It Worked YAY!!

2009-02-22T14:22:00.001-08:00

So the beignet recipe I tried worked wonderfully, even if we had to give half of them to the neighbors. Oof just couldn't eat them all. I will definitely take pics of the process next time.

Cooking Update

2009-02-21T21:14:00.000-08:00

So I've tried a few new recipes in the past couple weeks.

I don't like taking pics and trying to document a first try cause well, most of my first tries suck.

Anyway the ones that haven't Lemon Bars, Roasted Beef Tenderloin will make it up here soon cause they rocked.

I'm hoping the same goes for the beignets I started tonight and plan to fry up in the morning.

Banana Pudding Parfait

2009-02-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

This is the most often served dessert around my family. So easy to make, really just read the box. But I've taken to making individual servings, mostly so I don't have to find a big bowl to put the whole mess into, just 5 glasses since there are 5 of us.

Stuff: Cook and Serve Vanilla Pudding mix, very important it won't taste right if you use instant and the banana flavored pudding is just wrong, fresh bananas, milk anything over skim, skim milk does not work for puddings, and I used the new mini Nilla wafers but if you can't find them the regular sized ones will work. The glasses I use are I believe 8 oz old fashioned size.

First put a layer of wafers into the bottom of the glasses.

Next go ahead and get your bananas sliced up, I used 3 medium bananas for one box of pudding.

Follow the directions for cooking the vanilla pudding, it's easier to whisk the mix into the milk than the other way around, bring to just a boil. Let the pudding cool down so it's not bubbling anymore.

Then throw in the banana slices. Get those stirred in.

I can't pour and take a picture so pour the pudding into the glasses just a couple spoonfuls each, then top with more wafers.

Add the last of the pudding to each glass and that's it. If you want to cool them down in the fridge take a piece of plastic wrap and cover each glass. These can be eaten still warm or completely chilled.

Baked Beans

2009-02-06T12:33:00.000-08:00

So here are the baked beans we have at BBQs and picnics and just whenever the mood strikes.

Stuff: Canned Pork n Beans, whatever brand you like or is on sale, those 2 big cans are enough to feed say 8 normal adults or 3 of my uncles, BBQ sauce this is actually kinda optional, if I have it I use it but I don't go to the store for it, ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, pancake(maple) syrup, another I don't run to the store for thing, onion powder, garlic powder, and chili powder, and the will run to the store for thing...bacon.

First, open the cans of beans and dump them into a strainer or colander, you want to rinse all that "tomato sauce" they come in off. Then dump the beans into a bowl and then start adding the other stuff (no bacon yet). This recipe really does not have measurements, you have to taste the sauce and make sure it's right, just a nice balance of all the flavors.

I usually put about 3 squirts of ketchup then maybe 2 of mustard and one of bbq sauce. Syrup gets a good squirt and then 2-3 big tablespoons of brown sugar. The onion and garlic get good healthy shakes and the chili powder depends on if I want to fight with my kids about it being too spicy.

Stir it all together and taste, see what you need more of or what you need to balance out, the mustard tends to get strong fast but a little more ketchup and sugar fix that. Oh yeah, heat the oven to 350.

Pour it into an oven safe dish, I think this one holds something like 1.5 quarts and smooth out the top with your spoon. Now for the good stuff.

Bacon. Ok so you can either use completely uncooked bacon, which I do if I'm feeding more than just a few, or you can use some cooked but not crispy bacon. This stuff was leftover from a recipe where I needed it half cooked in a skillet and half in the oven. Just lay it over the top there then pop it into the oven for 30-45 minutes.

You know it's done when the top just starts to look at little dry and the sugar around the edges of the pan gets crunchy(carmelized).

Ok so I was more worried about fixing plates and watching the ending of the superbowl then getting a pic of the finished beans. But this is what they look like when done, top is dry and crunchy, underneath is moist but not dripping like that "tomato sauce" was. You can have these with ribs, hamburgers, hot dogs, anything really. They have that nice bbq type flavor to them.

Slow Cooker Ribs

2009-02-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

Here's how I cook Baby Back Ribs in the slow cooker. I usually start them about 1:30 before I go pick the kids up from school and they are ready and waiting any time after 5.

What you need: Big damn bottle of BBQ Sauce, we just like KC and it comes in the giant bottle, I usually go with 3 racks of ribs, seems just the right amount for 3 adults and 2 kids.

First you need to mix up the BBQ Sauce, half and half water and sauce, just makes it easier to use some kind of pouring bowl. I did this step twice as I needed about 8 cups of liquid to cover the ribs.

It does look really gross before you stir the sauce into the water so I skipped that picture.

Pour all the good sauce into the slow cooker and go ahead and turn it onto high, if you want them done in about 4 hours or low if you have all day.

Get out you cutting board and a really sharp knife, I like to cut the racks down to about serving size. This makes it easier to fill plates and also makes them fit better in the cooker.

Nope it doesn't look like a lot but trust me it's plenty with all the other goodies made.

Dunk all those ribs down into the sauce and make sure they are covered, anything peeking out won't taste as good, that's why there's so much sauce. Put the lid on and go watch a movie, pick the kids up from school, or do laundry.

Yeah so I almost forgot to take this picture seriously it was under the 2 minute warning and I had already tried cutting my finger off getting corn off the cob. Anyway, so using my trusty tongs pulled out a section of ribs, then used the tongs to just grab the bones and pull them off my plate cause well they were taking up room.