Showing posts with label cottage pie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cottage pie. Show all posts
Big Update: Cottage Pie and the great Pizzadilla and Mozzarella Stick Experiment!
I don't liked mixed food.
By that I mean, without qualms, most "white" food. Casseroles, potato salads, coleslaw, meatloaf. I won't eat any of it (well, occasional casseroles get a pass for me). This is simply because I didn't grow up eating it. To me, why mix all those ingredients in a dish and melt it together when you could prepare those ingredients separately and come up with a much more pleasant experience?
Of course my marriage to Megan has changed that experience some. By force, mind you, but I have become slightly more open to the idea of these mixi-cated dishes as meals. Plus my adventures in cooking have made me a little more apt to try things I normally would not have. So when AJ suggested we make a cottage pie, my initial reaction was "Ew!" followed by "Hm..." followed by "Why the heck not!"
I'm glad we did it.
All day I had "God, That's Good!" from Sweeney Todd stuck in my head.
Ingredients
Cubed stew beef
Packet beef stock
5 lbs of potatoes? I think it was 5.
Carrots
1 bag frozen peas
2 yellow onions
Soy Milk
Salt/Pepper
Worcestershire Sauce
Herbes de Provence
2 heads of garlic
I'm doing this from memory, and since it was on Friday and it is now Wednesday I may make a mistake. AJ feel free to jump in and correct me and I'll edit the post as needed.
We didn't use a real recipe, but we did have this one on hand as sort of a reference.
Ok, this dish was a lot of work, so it's not a quick and easy weeknight thing by any means.
The best part about this, I think, is its infinite customization. You could add whatever vegetables into the center or remove whatever you don't like. Of course you probably wouldn't want to toss say, a bell pepper in there, but you never know.
First step: Start boiling your potatoes. AJ did not peel them, it's up to you. He also chucked in the potatoes before the water came to a boil, so that's kind of a cool idea. I once again used the Pasta pot with the built in strainer. Also preheat your oven to 350.
Then it's chopping/mincing/julienne time. Mince the garlic, place into a small dish or into a pile somewhere. We julienned the carrots, but you can cut your carrots however you want. Then chop your onions, also place into a pile. AJ also sliced down the size of the beef pieces; the cubes for the stew were just slightly too large to be eaten comfortably within a pie setting.
Brown the beef a bit, then add beef stock and simmer. We overcooked our beef a little bit, but with so many things moving in the kitchen at the same time it was hard to keep track. Add W. Sauce to taste, then add peas and carrots evenly throughout.
For the potatoes, AJ used my...hand mixer? Super slicer? I can't remember what it's called at the moment, actually. In any case, it's a hand thing with a spinning blade. I'll look at the box when I get home to give you a proper name. He used it to blast the potatoes into their final creamy form, forgoing the need for the hand-masher. Then add the onion, garlic, milk (we used soy milk for Rachelle's sake) and then salt and pepper to taste.
OBJECTION!
AJ posted a better potato instruction in the comments. Apparently I really wasn't paying attention while he was doing it. So, I have placed it in the main entry for clarification.
Meanwhile in beef land, strain out the meat and vegetables from the rest of the juice, place into a casserole dish or whatever preferred baking dish you like. Then take the strained juice and place over low heat and thicken it. Ideally one should use corn starch, but I didn't have any and we used about three tablespoons of flour, pre-mixed with water to prevent clumping. It...didn't quite work. At this point you can also season the liquid to taste: I added additional pepper and just a bit of Herbes de Provence. I'm not sure the HdP did anything, but hey, I knew it was there.
In any case: pour thickened liquid over vegetables then layer with potatoes on top. Bake in oven at about 350 for 30 minutes. Remove, cool, eat.
As I said before, our beef was a little chewy; slightly overdone because our attention was divided among a few other things we were working on. But it was still quite good. As you can see, however, our liquid pierced through the top of our potato layer, preventing our potatoes from every really browning and crisping over like in our example recipe. Between the lack of thickening that my failure to provide corn starch created and I think sheer amount of liquid, AJ thinks that it boiled while in the oven and bubbled through the surface. I think a combination of proper thickening and using just a little bit less of the liquid would prevent that.
Still, over all, it was quite a good meal. Filling and satisfying. And it was a fun learning experience for me as AJ was head chef on this venture, showing me his processes and steps. As you can see it involves rather little measuring and quite a bit of guesswork and eyeing out, but I sort of have a fondness for that kind of cooking.
I hope to have AJ and Rachelle over again for more adventures in cooking. Next time I'll take the lead though and show AJ something...like...I dunno, the Ing Steak-Thumb method? That's a secret move that's pretty cool.
=====
Ah, the great experiment! No, I'm not talking about our system of government, I'm talking about the most delicious mis-hearing of a word ever: Pizzadilla.
As stated previously, the concept came from a conversation my brother Matt and I had on the phone, by which I told him I was making Quesadillas (with said quesadilla in mouth) and he thought I said Pizzadilla. The great experiment began!
The pizzadilla, as modeled by Matt.
Ingredients
Flour tortillas (We used taco-sized Mission tortillas)
Pizza sauce (We used Boboli pizza sauce packets)
Cheese (We used mixed Pizza cheese)
Pepperoni (We used turkey pepperoni: it crisps up really crunchy)
Italian Sausage (I browned some up)
Parmesan (optional)
Crushed Red Peppers (optional)
Olive Oil
Ok, pretty simple idea and really, you probably don't even need to read the ingredients or the procedure: but we did try it with two different oven settings and two different ingredient combinations. So let's see the results!
Pizzadilla 1
Ingredient Order: Tortilla, Sauce, Cheese, Pepperoni and Sausage, a bit of Cheese, Tortilla, Brushed Olive Oil, Parmesan, Red Pepper.
Oven Setting: Broil
This takes about two minutes. Broil is very hot and applies heat from above, which gives it that crunchy, crispy aspect (the pictured Pizzadilla is Pizzadilla 1). This was a smashing success, though as you can see the crushed pepper got scorched and effectively destroyed its flavor. I think we both ended up brushing ours off, actually. In any case, I really liked the crispiness of it because it felt more pizza-like. Quite delicious!
Pizzadilla 2
Ingredient Order: Tortilla, Cheese, Sauce, Crushed Red Pepper, Pepperoni and Sausage, Cheese, Tortilla, Brushed Olive Oil, Parmesan.
Oven Setting: 450
Ok, I prefer this ingredient order. With cheese on both sides of the tortilla it holds together better (Pizzadilla 1 was a bit slide-y) and putting the red pepper inside the sauce prevented it from being scorched, giving it that extra kick. I do not, however, like that oven setting. It took much longer to bake this way, about 5-10 minutes. This slower cooking made the Pizzadilla much softer and in someways, much more Quesadilla-like. I prefer the crunchy kind myself, but if you like it soft, 450 is the way to go.
I think the ultimate Pizzadilla would probably be Ingredient Order 2 on Broil.
Unofficial Pizzadilla 3
Using the leftover ingredients, I made one on Monday, but this time used the Toaster Oven on Broil. It is equally effective to broil in a toaster oven, but it takes longer. Still, it does save you from having to pre-heat and subsequently heat up your apartment, something you don't want this close to summer here in Los Angeles.
Experiment result: A smashing success! A great lunch-time food or maybe even for a party? I think maybe using the larger burrito tortillas could lend to making an appetizer as well, if you slice it up with a pizza cutter and throw on a plate.
=====
I love mozzarella sticks. So when I saw this recipe, I had to try it. We had these on Pizzadilla day.
Don't be fooled: Italian Goodness waits inside!
Here is the recipe.
Ok, this is pretty simple.
String Cheese
Egg Roll Wrappers
Oil.
Ta-da!
I do want to mention one thing about Egg Roll Wrappers, however. We spent forever trying to find them: looked in Vons, looked in Gelson's, and ultimately went to a Korean market where my brother and I were assaulted with the smell of Kim Chi and fish and were given sidelong looks as to say "What're those guys doing here?" to find them. But the sad truth is you can find them in a regular grocery store! The key thing that I did not know is that Won Ton and Eggroll wrappers are refrigerated. You'd think I'd know that, but I didn't. So if you want to try this, remember that tip.
Ok, heat your oil to 350, wrap the cheese, fry it, dry it, and eat. REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD. Like, it shouldn't be that good type of good, but it is. The cheese melts perfectly, the eggroll wrapper is easier to eat than the normal breading found on Cheese Sticks and it's simple and good. Another good appetizer method for not a lot of work!
=====
Not sure when I'll be posting again: Took Monday off as I was cooked-out from Friday and Saturday. I may make something simple tonight and if it's a recipe I haven't posted I will, but no big projects for this week.
Family Secrets!: Next week, however, my grandparents are coming into town for my brother's college graduation. On Monday my dad and grandpa will be teaching me their secret Korean BBQ Wing/Beef Recipe, a recipe that has to be conducted entirely by taste. I will definitely be writing a post about that once it's concluded: though don't expect me to tell you what's inside :P .
By that I mean, without qualms, most "white" food. Casseroles, potato salads, coleslaw, meatloaf. I won't eat any of it (well, occasional casseroles get a pass for me). This is simply because I didn't grow up eating it. To me, why mix all those ingredients in a dish and melt it together when you could prepare those ingredients separately and come up with a much more pleasant experience?
Of course my marriage to Megan has changed that experience some. By force, mind you, but I have become slightly more open to the idea of these mixi-cated dishes as meals. Plus my adventures in cooking have made me a little more apt to try things I normally would not have. So when AJ suggested we make a cottage pie, my initial reaction was "Ew!" followed by "Hm..." followed by "Why the heck not!"
I'm glad we did it.
All day I had "God, That's Good!" from Sweeney Todd stuck in my head.
Ingredients
Cubed stew beef
Packet beef stock
5 lbs of potatoes? I think it was 5.
Carrots
1 bag frozen peas
2 yellow onions
Soy Milk
Salt/Pepper
Worcestershire Sauce
Herbes de Provence
2 heads of garlic
I'm doing this from memory, and since it was on Friday and it is now Wednesday I may make a mistake. AJ feel free to jump in and correct me and I'll edit the post as needed.
We didn't use a real recipe, but we did have this one on hand as sort of a reference.
Ok, this dish was a lot of work, so it's not a quick and easy weeknight thing by any means.
The best part about this, I think, is its infinite customization. You could add whatever vegetables into the center or remove whatever you don't like. Of course you probably wouldn't want to toss say, a bell pepper in there, but you never know.
First step: Start boiling your potatoes. AJ did not peel them, it's up to you. He also chucked in the potatoes before the water came to a boil, so that's kind of a cool idea. I once again used the Pasta pot with the built in strainer. Also preheat your oven to 350.
Then it's chopping/mincing/julienne time. Mince the garlic, place into a small dish or into a pile somewhere. We julienned the carrots, but you can cut your carrots however you want. Then chop your onions, also place into a pile. AJ also sliced down the size of the beef pieces; the cubes for the stew were just slightly too large to be eaten comfortably within a pie setting.
Brown the beef a bit, then add beef stock and simmer. We overcooked our beef a little bit, but with so many things moving in the kitchen at the same time it was hard to keep track. Add W. Sauce to taste, then add peas and carrots evenly throughout.
For the potatoes, AJ used my...hand mixer? Super slicer? I can't remember what it's called at the moment, actually. In any case, it's a hand thing with a spinning blade. I'll look at the box when I get home to give you a proper name. He used it to blast the potatoes into their final creamy form, forgoing the need for the hand-masher. Then add the onion, garlic, milk (we used soy milk for Rachelle's sake) and then salt and pepper to taste.
OBJECTION!
AJ posted a better potato instruction in the comments. Apparently I really wasn't paying attention while he was doing it. So, I have placed it in the main entry for clarification.
Corrected Potato Procedure
Put water on heat to boil. Chop up
potatoes into about .75 inch chunks. Throw chunks into water. If you
wait for the water to boil you will just be wasting time and
electricity/gas. The small chunk size will cook them evenly. When you
can stick a fork through them with moderate ease take them of and drain
them.
Put the pot back on the stove and pour in a good amount of
olive oil. This will be the only fat used, so don't be too frugal with
it. Once heated, throw in a respectable amount of chopped onions and
garlic. These should be measured in heads and bulbs, not cloves and...
um... whatever a small unit of onion is. Saute!
Then add milk.
Go ahead, add too much! We don't want dry potatoes. Then dump on
potatoes and blend, with an IMMERSION BLENDER, until creamy. Too dry?
Well, you didn't add too much milk. Too wet? Thats fine. Just let it
sit on heat until the desired consistency is reached. The excess now
evaporated milk will just help with the creaminess. Salt and pepper to
taste.
Eat out of pot while making the rest of your food.
Serve with entree.
Go back for seconds... and thirds.
Place extra in container in fridge for another time.
Eat any stuck to the spoon and pot while cleaning.
Go back to fridge in an hour and eat leftovers.
Repeat same cleaning method with leftover container.
Repeat.
Meanwhile in beef land, strain out the meat and vegetables from the rest of the juice, place into a casserole dish or whatever preferred baking dish you like. Then take the strained juice and place over low heat and thicken it. Ideally one should use corn starch, but I didn't have any and we used about three tablespoons of flour, pre-mixed with water to prevent clumping. It...didn't quite work. At this point you can also season the liquid to taste: I added additional pepper and just a bit of Herbes de Provence. I'm not sure the HdP did anything, but hey, I knew it was there.
In any case: pour thickened liquid over vegetables then layer with potatoes on top. Bake in oven at about 350 for 30 minutes. Remove, cool, eat.
As I said before, our beef was a little chewy; slightly overdone because our attention was divided among a few other things we were working on. But it was still quite good. As you can see, however, our liquid pierced through the top of our potato layer, preventing our potatoes from every really browning and crisping over like in our example recipe. Between the lack of thickening that my failure to provide corn starch created and I think sheer amount of liquid, AJ thinks that it boiled while in the oven and bubbled through the surface. I think a combination of proper thickening and using just a little bit less of the liquid would prevent that.
Still, over all, it was quite a good meal. Filling and satisfying. And it was a fun learning experience for me as AJ was head chef on this venture, showing me his processes and steps. As you can see it involves rather little measuring and quite a bit of guesswork and eyeing out, but I sort of have a fondness for that kind of cooking.
I hope to have AJ and Rachelle over again for more adventures in cooking. Next time I'll take the lead though and show AJ something...like...I dunno, the Ing Steak-Thumb method? That's a secret move that's pretty cool.
=====
Ah, the great experiment! No, I'm not talking about our system of government, I'm talking about the most delicious mis-hearing of a word ever: Pizzadilla.
As stated previously, the concept came from a conversation my brother Matt and I had on the phone, by which I told him I was making Quesadillas (with said quesadilla in mouth) and he thought I said Pizzadilla. The great experiment began!
The pizzadilla, as modeled by Matt.
Ingredients
Flour tortillas (We used taco-sized Mission tortillas)
Pizza sauce (We used Boboli pizza sauce packets)
Cheese (We used mixed Pizza cheese)
Pepperoni (We used turkey pepperoni: it crisps up really crunchy)
Italian Sausage (I browned some up)
Parmesan (optional)
Crushed Red Peppers (optional)
Olive Oil
Ok, pretty simple idea and really, you probably don't even need to read the ingredients or the procedure: but we did try it with two different oven settings and two different ingredient combinations. So let's see the results!
Pizzadilla 1
Ingredient Order: Tortilla, Sauce, Cheese, Pepperoni and Sausage, a bit of Cheese, Tortilla, Brushed Olive Oil, Parmesan, Red Pepper.
Oven Setting: Broil
This takes about two minutes. Broil is very hot and applies heat from above, which gives it that crunchy, crispy aspect (the pictured Pizzadilla is Pizzadilla 1). This was a smashing success, though as you can see the crushed pepper got scorched and effectively destroyed its flavor. I think we both ended up brushing ours off, actually. In any case, I really liked the crispiness of it because it felt more pizza-like. Quite delicious!
Pizzadilla 2
Ingredient Order: Tortilla, Cheese, Sauce, Crushed Red Pepper, Pepperoni and Sausage, Cheese, Tortilla, Brushed Olive Oil, Parmesan.
Oven Setting: 450
Ok, I prefer this ingredient order. With cheese on both sides of the tortilla it holds together better (Pizzadilla 1 was a bit slide-y) and putting the red pepper inside the sauce prevented it from being scorched, giving it that extra kick. I do not, however, like that oven setting. It took much longer to bake this way, about 5-10 minutes. This slower cooking made the Pizzadilla much softer and in someways, much more Quesadilla-like. I prefer the crunchy kind myself, but if you like it soft, 450 is the way to go.
I think the ultimate Pizzadilla would probably be Ingredient Order 2 on Broil.
Unofficial Pizzadilla 3
Using the leftover ingredients, I made one on Monday, but this time used the Toaster Oven on Broil. It is equally effective to broil in a toaster oven, but it takes longer. Still, it does save you from having to pre-heat and subsequently heat up your apartment, something you don't want this close to summer here in Los Angeles.
Experiment result: A smashing success! A great lunch-time food or maybe even for a party? I think maybe using the larger burrito tortillas could lend to making an appetizer as well, if you slice it up with a pizza cutter and throw on a plate.
=====
I love mozzarella sticks. So when I saw this recipe, I had to try it. We had these on Pizzadilla day.
Don't be fooled: Italian Goodness waits inside!
Here is the recipe.
Ok, this is pretty simple.
String Cheese
Egg Roll Wrappers
Oil.
Ta-da!
I do want to mention one thing about Egg Roll Wrappers, however. We spent forever trying to find them: looked in Vons, looked in Gelson's, and ultimately went to a Korean market where my brother and I were assaulted with the smell of Kim Chi and fish and were given sidelong looks as to say "What're those guys doing here?" to find them. But the sad truth is you can find them in a regular grocery store! The key thing that I did not know is that Won Ton and Eggroll wrappers are refrigerated. You'd think I'd know that, but I didn't. So if you want to try this, remember that tip.
Ok, heat your oil to 350, wrap the cheese, fry it, dry it, and eat. REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD. Like, it shouldn't be that good type of good, but it is. The cheese melts perfectly, the eggroll wrapper is easier to eat than the normal breading found on Cheese Sticks and it's simple and good. Another good appetizer method for not a lot of work!
=====
Not sure when I'll be posting again: Took Monday off as I was cooked-out from Friday and Saturday. I may make something simple tonight and if it's a recipe I haven't posted I will, but no big projects for this week.
Family Secrets!: Next week, however, my grandparents are coming into town for my brother's college graduation. On Monday my dad and grandpa will be teaching me their secret Korean BBQ Wing/Beef Recipe, a recipe that has to be conducted entirely by taste. I will definitely be writing a post about that once it's concluded: though don't expect me to tell you what's inside :P .
Friday Food Round-up No. 2!
Haha! Well, fellow food fiends, it's that time again! And while I do have some thoughts to relay about how my first ventures into the Law have been, I would be remiss in breaking my own new format this early. So Law thoughts another day. In a word though: Good.
Monday - Pepper Chicken with Lime Sauce, Rice, Roasted Green Beans
Link for the Green Bean Recipe!
Rice just used a Rice Cooker...
Pepper Chicken with Pepper Lime Dip - Cambodian Dish from the "Savoring Meat and Poultry" book by Williams Sonoma.
Ingredients
2 Boneless Chicken Breasts, with skin
1 teaspoon peppercorn
1 teaspoon sea salt (says coarse salt; I suppose you could use regular salt too)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 cloves of garlic, quartered
For the dip: 2 limes, 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, 1 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Ok, I should start out by stating that the recipe is slightly modified from the one in the book. The book recipe called for like, two whole chickens. But since there are but two of us, I nerfed it down to two breasts. Normally we eat boneless/skinless, but the picture in the book had yummy looking skin so I opted for a bit of extra fat and got some with skin still on. Also, the original recipe called for mushroom soy sauce. I looked at Gelson's for mushroom soy sauce, but I haven't a clue what it is or if it's sold; in all my years of growing up in a semi-Asian household I've never heard of mushroom soy sauce. I wondered if maybe it was something you had to make, but there were no instructions. So I just used regular soy sauce.
For this sucker you have to marinade first. Crushing peppercorns without proper tools is not an experience I would recommend; the book said to use a mortar, but I don't have one. So I used a bowl and an ice cream scoop. It worked out, but it was tiring and in someways quite needless since I do have ground pepper. In any case, you take the peppercorns, quarter the garlic and smoosh it together. The book said to make a paste, but I didn't, I just kinda...mixed it up. I added that to the soy sauce, sugar, oil, and salt and threw it with the chicken into a ziploc bag. I tend to do all my marinating in ziploc bags; you can just throw them away when you're done and they seem to get the job done. It's also easier to concentrate the marinade straight on the meat by turning the bag in certain directions, so when you are marinading for a short period of time (I only marinaded it for 45 minutes) it gets a concentrated effect. Time listed in he book was 1 hour to overnight.
While that sucker was marinading I prepared to use my rice cooker for the first time. Now, attention white people: rice cookers are the ONLY way to make good rice. Period. The end. I don't want to hear arguments about it. You also must use white, long-grain rice; I've always eaten Calrose and had good experiences with it. I've seen people try to make rice other ways and it never comes out the same. Besides, why go through the trouble? With a rice cooker it's dump in the rice, dump in the water, push a button, wait twenty minutes. It's super easy and super effective, so don't go and start boiling stuff in a pan.
I'll reserve my comments about putting butter on rice for another day.
Ok, rice now on auto-pilot as well as the marinading chicken, I had an issue about what to do for a vegetable component. I had picked up green beans and broccoli (for me and Megan, respectively) but I didn't feel like steaming them or sauteeing them, and I hate boiled vegetables (not to mention they apparently remove vitamins, so why bother?), so I ran to the internet to do a quick search. I used a new tool I found called the Food Blog Search, which...well, searches food blogs, and came to a recipe for Roasted Green Beans with Onions and Walnuts. Ironically it was from a blog Jeni had previously suggested I check out, so I knew it was probably a good one.
Now, this one took a little improvising on my part; having not intended to make this side dish I was lacking in a few ingredients; I did happen to have a red onion lying around, but walnuts were a no go and I wasn't sure replacing them with peanuts would be the way to go (not to mention I didn't feel like unshelling said peanuts). I was also out of garlic cloves; I used the last of them in the chicken marinade. So I just used some garlic powder instead with a rough estimate as to how much would be about right. Another super-easy recipe: pre-heat to 450, oil the beans and onions slightly, make the "drizzle" and add at the end.
Cool.
So, oven is now pre-heating, it is now time for me and Mr. Grillpan to go for round three. Taking Matt's previously commented advice, I super-heated the sucker and pounded the chicken as flat as it would go prior to marinading. The beans took about 10 minutes so I put them in right before I threw my chicken on the pan for the suggested "3 and 3" round. Well, six minutes of filling my apartment with smoke later and...
...nope.
Still cooked the outside but not the inside. Inside was as raw as the day they slaughtered that bird. I suppose they're just too thick or that electric stoves and cast iron grillpans are simply not meant to replace a real grill. So, the grillpan and I are on speaking terms only as far as it concerns steaks and hamburgers, the only things it has managed to do correctly.
But! Not all was lost! The outside was beautifully lined and the skin nice and crisp. So, since my oven was already on at 450, I threw it in a 9x13 with a bit of oil and let it cook in there for about 10-12 more minutes. The beans came out in the meantime and the rice was on warm.
The result? Chicken was AMAZING using that process. The center was moist yet thoroughly cooked and the outside was crispy. The flavor was quite unique; the sugar put in a fair amount of sweetness, even enough to cover the usual super-salt intensity soy sauce tends to give recipes I use it with. All in all a success.
What was NOT a success however, was the lime dip. I don't know what Cambodians are like, but if they think that squeezing a lime into a bowl with salt and pepper is a legitimate sauce, then perhaps we shouldn't mix company often. I had a coughing fit the first time I tried it; super potent citrus combined with strong sea salt and added with admittedly too much pepper (I didn't count on the fact that peppercorns take up more volume and that the resulting crushing of those peppercorns would NOT equate to the same amount as using a tablespoon of already ground pepper) was just...gross.
But, since it was a dipping sauce, all was well. The beans were a fascinating mix as the two strongest flavors within it, the balsamic vinegar and the honey, interacted in a way I hadn't thought possible. Megan thought I cut the onions too thick, but other than that a totally successful meal.
I would give it a week-night doability if you're having a leisurely evening. I definitely need to try our public grill though, because this battle against the pan is getting old.
Wednesday - Italian Sausage and Bean Soup
Ingredients
1 lb Italian sausage. Use spicy Italian if you prefer.
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 15oz can of great northern beans (white beans), rinsed and drained
1 15oz can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1-2 cans of beef broth (around 15 oz. We use low-sodium)
1 tbsp fresh basil or 1 teaspoon dried basil
Parmesan cheese for topping
The original recipe also called for a 1 15oz can of undrained tomatoes, but Megan doesn't like them so I took them out.
I also added crushed red pepper flakes...we'll talk about that in a second.
Ok! This is the most amazing recipe ever! It's a super-delicious stew-soup that is cheap to buy ingredients for (after buying bread for dipping, the cans of beans, the broth, and the sausage it was I think like 7 bucks) and takes like no time or skill to make!
Step 1: Brown sausage of choice. You can drain if you want, I didn't.
Step 2: Chop onion and garlic
Step 3: Rinse and drain beans
Step 4: Put all ingredients into pot.
Step 5: Simmer for 10 minutes
Step 6: Serve. Put cheese on top if you want.
Now, a few notes about personal preferences. Megan prefers a more thick stew and less soup, so her favorite is to use only one can of broth. I like more broth though, so I prefer to use two. I split this difference on Wednesday and used 1 1/2, and that seemed to make both of us happy.
In terms of spice, you can use a spicy italian sausage if you want. I decided to add pepper flakes to the sausage as I was browning them and I really liked it, but Megan found it too spicy. The first time I had this soup was during the Ing Annual Gingerbread House Making Extravaganza when my mom made it. At the time I added the pepper flakes in as I was eating it and got the same effect, so if you have different spice preferences you can always add more to your own personal bowl of soup as you go along.
I forgot the basil on Wednesday. I didn't really miss it though, so if you don't have any you can skip it and be fine.
The original recipe also only used 3/4 lb of sausage, but we like more meat.
Like I said, this is an AMAZING recipe. So delicious, reheats well, and take little time and effort. So you readers with babies might want to keep this handy for those particularly crazy nights.
That wraps it up for this week. Still no head way on the To-Try list, but since we were gone at the Young Married's retreat I didn't have time to do my Sunday Store Day (I don't intentionally try to alliterate my life, really I don't). But, I did learn a lot about cooking with alcohol from AJ and this other guy Dave, who apparently went to culinary school. So I think there will definitely be some new experiments coming up, along with delving into the list.
What'd you guys eat this week?
Monday - Pepper Chicken with Lime Sauce, Rice, Roasted Green Beans
Link for the Green Bean Recipe!
Rice just used a Rice Cooker...
Pepper Chicken with Pepper Lime Dip - Cambodian Dish from the "Savoring Meat and Poultry" book by Williams Sonoma.
Ingredients
2 Boneless Chicken Breasts, with skin
1 teaspoon peppercorn
1 teaspoon sea salt (says coarse salt; I suppose you could use regular salt too)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 cloves of garlic, quartered
For the dip: 2 limes, 1 tablespoon ground black pepper, 1 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Ok, I should start out by stating that the recipe is slightly modified from the one in the book. The book recipe called for like, two whole chickens. But since there are but two of us, I nerfed it down to two breasts. Normally we eat boneless/skinless, but the picture in the book had yummy looking skin so I opted for a bit of extra fat and got some with skin still on. Also, the original recipe called for mushroom soy sauce. I looked at Gelson's for mushroom soy sauce, but I haven't a clue what it is or if it's sold; in all my years of growing up in a semi-Asian household I've never heard of mushroom soy sauce. I wondered if maybe it was something you had to make, but there were no instructions. So I just used regular soy sauce.
For this sucker you have to marinade first. Crushing peppercorns without proper tools is not an experience I would recommend; the book said to use a mortar, but I don't have one. So I used a bowl and an ice cream scoop. It worked out, but it was tiring and in someways quite needless since I do have ground pepper. In any case, you take the peppercorns, quarter the garlic and smoosh it together. The book said to make a paste, but I didn't, I just kinda...mixed it up. I added that to the soy sauce, sugar, oil, and salt and threw it with the chicken into a ziploc bag. I tend to do all my marinating in ziploc bags; you can just throw them away when you're done and they seem to get the job done. It's also easier to concentrate the marinade straight on the meat by turning the bag in certain directions, so when you are marinading for a short period of time (I only marinaded it for 45 minutes) it gets a concentrated effect. Time listed in he book was 1 hour to overnight.
While that sucker was marinading I prepared to use my rice cooker for the first time. Now, attention white people: rice cookers are the ONLY way to make good rice. Period. The end. I don't want to hear arguments about it. You also must use white, long-grain rice; I've always eaten Calrose and had good experiences with it. I've seen people try to make rice other ways and it never comes out the same. Besides, why go through the trouble? With a rice cooker it's dump in the rice, dump in the water, push a button, wait twenty minutes. It's super easy and super effective, so don't go and start boiling stuff in a pan.
I'll reserve my comments about putting butter on rice for another day.
Ok, rice now on auto-pilot as well as the marinading chicken, I had an issue about what to do for a vegetable component. I had picked up green beans and broccoli (for me and Megan, respectively) but I didn't feel like steaming them or sauteeing them, and I hate boiled vegetables (not to mention they apparently remove vitamins, so why bother?), so I ran to the internet to do a quick search. I used a new tool I found called the Food Blog Search, which...well, searches food blogs, and came to a recipe for Roasted Green Beans with Onions and Walnuts. Ironically it was from a blog Jeni had previously suggested I check out, so I knew it was probably a good one.
Now, this one took a little improvising on my part; having not intended to make this side dish I was lacking in a few ingredients; I did happen to have a red onion lying around, but walnuts were a no go and I wasn't sure replacing them with peanuts would be the way to go (not to mention I didn't feel like unshelling said peanuts). I was also out of garlic cloves; I used the last of them in the chicken marinade. So I just used some garlic powder instead with a rough estimate as to how much would be about right. Another super-easy recipe: pre-heat to 450, oil the beans and onions slightly, make the "drizzle" and add at the end.
Cool.
So, oven is now pre-heating, it is now time for me and Mr. Grillpan to go for round three. Taking Matt's previously commented advice, I super-heated the sucker and pounded the chicken as flat as it would go prior to marinading. The beans took about 10 minutes so I put them in right before I threw my chicken on the pan for the suggested "3 and 3" round. Well, six minutes of filling my apartment with smoke later and...
...nope.
Still cooked the outside but not the inside. Inside was as raw as the day they slaughtered that bird. I suppose they're just too thick or that electric stoves and cast iron grillpans are simply not meant to replace a real grill. So, the grillpan and I are on speaking terms only as far as it concerns steaks and hamburgers, the only things it has managed to do correctly.
But! Not all was lost! The outside was beautifully lined and the skin nice and crisp. So, since my oven was already on at 450, I threw it in a 9x13 with a bit of oil and let it cook in there for about 10-12 more minutes. The beans came out in the meantime and the rice was on warm.
The result? Chicken was AMAZING using that process. The center was moist yet thoroughly cooked and the outside was crispy. The flavor was quite unique; the sugar put in a fair amount of sweetness, even enough to cover the usual super-salt intensity soy sauce tends to give recipes I use it with. All in all a success.
What was NOT a success however, was the lime dip. I don't know what Cambodians are like, but if they think that squeezing a lime into a bowl with salt and pepper is a legitimate sauce, then perhaps we shouldn't mix company often. I had a coughing fit the first time I tried it; super potent citrus combined with strong sea salt and added with admittedly too much pepper (I didn't count on the fact that peppercorns take up more volume and that the resulting crushing of those peppercorns would NOT equate to the same amount as using a tablespoon of already ground pepper) was just...gross.
But, since it was a dipping sauce, all was well. The beans were a fascinating mix as the two strongest flavors within it, the balsamic vinegar and the honey, interacted in a way I hadn't thought possible. Megan thought I cut the onions too thick, but other than that a totally successful meal.
I would give it a week-night doability if you're having a leisurely evening. I definitely need to try our public grill though, because this battle against the pan is getting old.
Wednesday - Italian Sausage and Bean Soup
Ingredients
1 lb Italian sausage. Use spicy Italian if you prefer.
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 15oz can of great northern beans (white beans), rinsed and drained
1 15oz can of black beans, rinsed and drained
1-2 cans of beef broth (around 15 oz. We use low-sodium)
1 tbsp fresh basil or 1 teaspoon dried basil
Parmesan cheese for topping
The original recipe also called for a 1 15oz can of undrained tomatoes, but Megan doesn't like them so I took them out.
I also added crushed red pepper flakes...we'll talk about that in a second.
Ok! This is the most amazing recipe ever! It's a super-delicious stew-soup that is cheap to buy ingredients for (after buying bread for dipping, the cans of beans, the broth, and the sausage it was I think like 7 bucks) and takes like no time or skill to make!
Step 1: Brown sausage of choice. You can drain if you want, I didn't.
Step 2: Chop onion and garlic
Step 3: Rinse and drain beans
Step 4: Put all ingredients into pot.
Step 5: Simmer for 10 minutes
Step 6: Serve. Put cheese on top if you want.
Now, a few notes about personal preferences. Megan prefers a more thick stew and less soup, so her favorite is to use only one can of broth. I like more broth though, so I prefer to use two. I split this difference on Wednesday and used 1 1/2, and that seemed to make both of us happy.
In terms of spice, you can use a spicy italian sausage if you want. I decided to add pepper flakes to the sausage as I was browning them and I really liked it, but Megan found it too spicy. The first time I had this soup was during the Ing Annual Gingerbread House Making Extravaganza when my mom made it. At the time I added the pepper flakes in as I was eating it and got the same effect, so if you have different spice preferences you can always add more to your own personal bowl of soup as you go along.
I forgot the basil on Wednesday. I didn't really miss it though, so if you don't have any you can skip it and be fine.
The original recipe also only used 3/4 lb of sausage, but we like more meat.
Like I said, this is an AMAZING recipe. So delicious, reheats well, and take little time and effort. So you readers with babies might want to keep this handy for those particularly crazy nights.
That wraps it up for this week. Still no head way on the To-Try list, but since we were gone at the Young Married's retreat I didn't have time to do my Sunday Store Day (I don't intentionally try to alliterate my life, really I don't). But, I did learn a lot about cooking with alcohol from AJ and this other guy Dave, who apparently went to culinary school. So I think there will definitely be some new experiments coming up, along with delving into the list.
What'd you guys eat this week?
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