Showing posts with label potatoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label potatoes. Show all posts
Island Style Barbecue Chicken, "Bitter" Herb Potatoes, Greek Salad?
This is actually from last Monday, I got a little behind on posting it. This was the first foray into trying out Uncle Larry's Collection of Old Recipes [ULCOR? Maybe.] and was one of the more simple offerings. We...didn't like it as well as we might have hoped, but it was still a fun thing to do.
Chicken and Potatoes
Greek Salad: Megan made it!
Island Style Barbecue Chicken
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb boneless, skinned chicken breast
1/4 cup Ketchup
1/4 cup soy sauce
6 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1 small piece of ginger root, crushed
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pretty simple, this one. Preheat your oven to 350. Grease down a 9 x 13 pan, set down the chicken skin-down. Mix all other ingredients together in a bowl to create a barbecue sauce, brush onto chicken. Cook for about 15 minutes, flip and brush the other side, then finish it up for about another 15 minutes. You may have to watch the time, it might take less...and since it was a week ago I'm forgetting how I did it exactly. I think I ended up doing the same amount of time with more odd flips in between.
"Bitter" Herb Potatoes
Ingredients:
Red Potatoes
Olive Oil
4 or 5 cloves of garlic
Basil
Thyme
Salt
I pre-heated a pan with olive oil. Cut red potatoes into slices, the thinner the better (my knife skills are sloppy with ill-practice, so mine were kinda thick.) Throw into pan, add chopped garlic cloves and sautee. As its going along, add Basil and Thyme to taste; it doesn't take much. The bitterness of the Basil and Thyme work in conjunction with the natural buttery-ness of the red potatoes and the kick of the garlic in a very interesting way. It's honestly not one I would've thought of, but my brother happened to be there at the same time and I told him to pick a spice to add. I was hesitant about the thyme, but it worked.
A trick I've found with sauteeing potatoes that are particularly thick is to kill the heat or lower it and then add the lid to the pan. This forces the steam back into the potatoes and softens them up a lot.
Greek Salad?
This is Megan's salad. She just made it out of Feta cheese, bagged salad greens, Basalmic Vinnegrette dressing and cherry tomatoes. Simple but yummy!
Results
The chicken, as one might imagine from 6 tablespoons of sugar, was really sweet. I think to me it was similar to a honey-based barbecue sauce, though there is a distinct sweetness and tangyness to it. It's good, but it's not how we usually like our barbecue sauce, so it wasn't a bad recipe, just didn't match our personal taste. Also, I don't think you need to keep the skin. It didn't crisp up at all, so I didn't see the point in keeping it on there. I suppose one might throw it on a pan to crisp up. If you try it, let me know.
The potatoes were kind of bitter, but still melty and warm tasting. Nothing like a little improvised potatoing to cap off a dinner. Very good call by my brother on the thyme.
And of course, Megan's salad was good.
=====
I think our grill needs some attention this week. I'm gunning for Wednesday.
In case you're wondering tomorrow we'll be eating the Italian soup I posted about a while ago. Just click on "soup" on the tags to check it out.
Chicken and Potatoes
Greek Salad: Megan made it!
Island Style Barbecue Chicken
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb boneless, skinned chicken breast
1/4 cup Ketchup
1/4 cup soy sauce
6 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1 small piece of ginger root, crushed
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pretty simple, this one. Preheat your oven to 350. Grease down a 9 x 13 pan, set down the chicken skin-down. Mix all other ingredients together in a bowl to create a barbecue sauce, brush onto chicken. Cook for about 15 minutes, flip and brush the other side, then finish it up for about another 15 minutes. You may have to watch the time, it might take less...and since it was a week ago I'm forgetting how I did it exactly. I think I ended up doing the same amount of time with more odd flips in between.
"Bitter" Herb Potatoes
Ingredients:
Red Potatoes
Olive Oil
4 or 5 cloves of garlic
Basil
Thyme
Salt
I pre-heated a pan with olive oil. Cut red potatoes into slices, the thinner the better (my knife skills are sloppy with ill-practice, so mine were kinda thick.) Throw into pan, add chopped garlic cloves and sautee. As its going along, add Basil and Thyme to taste; it doesn't take much. The bitterness of the Basil and Thyme work in conjunction with the natural buttery-ness of the red potatoes and the kick of the garlic in a very interesting way. It's honestly not one I would've thought of, but my brother happened to be there at the same time and I told him to pick a spice to add. I was hesitant about the thyme, but it worked.
A trick I've found with sauteeing potatoes that are particularly thick is to kill the heat or lower it and then add the lid to the pan. This forces the steam back into the potatoes and softens them up a lot.
Greek Salad?
This is Megan's salad. She just made it out of Feta cheese, bagged salad greens, Basalmic Vinnegrette dressing and cherry tomatoes. Simple but yummy!
Results
The chicken, as one might imagine from 6 tablespoons of sugar, was really sweet. I think to me it was similar to a honey-based barbecue sauce, though there is a distinct sweetness and tangyness to it. It's good, but it's not how we usually like our barbecue sauce, so it wasn't a bad recipe, just didn't match our personal taste. Also, I don't think you need to keep the skin. It didn't crisp up at all, so I didn't see the point in keeping it on there. I suppose one might throw it on a pan to crisp up. If you try it, let me know.
The potatoes were kind of bitter, but still melty and warm tasting. Nothing like a little improvised potatoing to cap off a dinner. Very good call by my brother on the thyme.
And of course, Megan's salad was good.
=====
I think our grill needs some attention this week. I'm gunning for Wednesday.
In case you're wondering tomorrow we'll be eating the Italian soup I posted about a while ago. Just click on "soup" on the tags to check it out.
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 Free!-...er, Three!
I'm starting to think that Friday is not the best day for the Food review. But I refuse to relinquish my alliteration, so here it is.
Only one meal was cooked this week, much to my dismay. I had planned on making a cool taco salad on Wednesday with homemade taco seasoning, but I forgot that I had a dentist appointment and it just ended up being too complicated to figure out. So, only food on Monday.
Monday - Barbecue Chicken with Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Barbecue Sauce Ingredients
1 cup ketchup
1 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/2 teaspoons liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 rounded 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
Garlic Mashed Potatoes Ingredients
3 lbs potatoes (recipe is peeled and cubed; I used red potatoes so I just peeled. You can also leave peel on)
1 head of garlic
1/2 handful of salt
4 TBSP butter or margarine
1/4 cup of milk
I made the barbecue sauce on Sunday, after I came home from the store. This barbecue sauce is amazing; my dad has been making it for years. It's supposed to be the secret recipe used at Tony Roma's for their Blue Ridge Smokie sauce. I don't know if it tastes the same or not; it's been a while since I've been to Tony Roma's and I usually get the honey-style sauce. Regardless, it's still a very good barbecue sauce, and once you have all the ingredients super-easy to make. You just dump it all into a pot and bring it to boil, then simmer for 30 minutes. Ten put it into a bottle and refrigerate for future use. It makes about 1 1/2 cups of sauce. Works great on everything; burgers, chicken, ribs.
Now, I made the chicken by simply throwing some olive oil onto it and putting it in a 9 x 13 pan to bake. I don't put sauce on it; it just burns in the oven and it tastes just as good putting the sauce after the chicken is cooked.
Now, for the mashed potatoes. This was my first batch of mashed potatoes I had ever done, and from what I hear of the world of mashed potatoes is that they can be very difficult to do correctly, so I wasn't sure how this was going to work out. Megan felt like helping out this time, so she peeled all of the potatoes while I smashed the garlic head and peeled them. I was sorta grumpy about garlic since I had bought a pack of three heads from the store and they were all sprouted already except for one quarter of one of them. I had some garlic from a previous head and managed to get enough functional cloves, but that'll teach me to buy garlic blindly in the future.
anyway, you put the garlic and potatoes into a pot (my mom (it's her recipe) wrote saucepan, but I used a pasta pot because I thought it would be easier to drain with the built in strainer. I don't think I'd do it again; too much to clean up just to avoid normal draining procedures of the boiling water.) as well as the salt. Don't worry about it being too salty; it's mostly to help the water boil faster and the potatoes didn't soak up much of it; in fact they needed salt afterwards. Boil until they are soft. After you drain, add the butter/margarine and milk and smash together. You can add in ground pepper if you want.
The only thing I would definitely change for my procedure is how I dealt with the red potatoes. I like the flavor of red potatoes better when they're mashed, but because they were naturally smaller I decided not to cube them since they were about the size I would've cubed regular potatoes. However, it took a little extra time to cook some of the larger ones to be really really soft. In the future I would cut down all the potatoes to be about the same size to speed the process along and prevent the smaller potatoes from potentially being over-done (can you overdo a potato? I don't even know.).
The end result was great; the potatoes needed some salt and pepper, but they were smooth and creamy and perfect. The sauce was great as always (I've made it before so there was no trepidation about it) and it was overall a successful dinner.
So that's it for this week. Hopefully next week will be a little bit back to normal in terms of the cooking routine.
What'd you guys eat last week?
Only one meal was cooked this week, much to my dismay. I had planned on making a cool taco salad on Wednesday with homemade taco seasoning, but I forgot that I had a dentist appointment and it just ended up being too complicated to figure out. So, only food on Monday.
Monday - Barbecue Chicken with Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Barbecue Sauce Ingredients
1 cup ketchup
1 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/2 teaspoons liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 rounded 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
Garlic Mashed Potatoes Ingredients
3 lbs potatoes (recipe is peeled and cubed; I used red potatoes so I just peeled. You can also leave peel on)
1 head of garlic
1/2 handful of salt
4 TBSP butter or margarine
1/4 cup of milk
I made the barbecue sauce on Sunday, after I came home from the store. This barbecue sauce is amazing; my dad has been making it for years. It's supposed to be the secret recipe used at Tony Roma's for their Blue Ridge Smokie sauce. I don't know if it tastes the same or not; it's been a while since I've been to Tony Roma's and I usually get the honey-style sauce. Regardless, it's still a very good barbecue sauce, and once you have all the ingredients super-easy to make. You just dump it all into a pot and bring it to boil, then simmer for 30 minutes. Ten put it into a bottle and refrigerate for future use. It makes about 1 1/2 cups of sauce. Works great on everything; burgers, chicken, ribs.
Now, I made the chicken by simply throwing some olive oil onto it and putting it in a 9 x 13 pan to bake. I don't put sauce on it; it just burns in the oven and it tastes just as good putting the sauce after the chicken is cooked.
Now, for the mashed potatoes. This was my first batch of mashed potatoes I had ever done, and from what I hear of the world of mashed potatoes is that they can be very difficult to do correctly, so I wasn't sure how this was going to work out. Megan felt like helping out this time, so she peeled all of the potatoes while I smashed the garlic head and peeled them. I was sorta grumpy about garlic since I had bought a pack of three heads from the store and they were all sprouted already except for one quarter of one of them. I had some garlic from a previous head and managed to get enough functional cloves, but that'll teach me to buy garlic blindly in the future.
anyway, you put the garlic and potatoes into a pot (my mom (it's her recipe) wrote saucepan, but I used a pasta pot because I thought it would be easier to drain with the built in strainer. I don't think I'd do it again; too much to clean up just to avoid normal draining procedures of the boiling water.) as well as the salt. Don't worry about it being too salty; it's mostly to help the water boil faster and the potatoes didn't soak up much of it; in fact they needed salt afterwards. Boil until they are soft. After you drain, add the butter/margarine and milk and smash together. You can add in ground pepper if you want.
The only thing I would definitely change for my procedure is how I dealt with the red potatoes. I like the flavor of red potatoes better when they're mashed, but because they were naturally smaller I decided not to cube them since they were about the size I would've cubed regular potatoes. However, it took a little extra time to cook some of the larger ones to be really really soft. In the future I would cut down all the potatoes to be about the same size to speed the process along and prevent the smaller potatoes from potentially being over-done (can you overdo a potato? I don't even know.).
The end result was great; the potatoes needed some salt and pepper, but they were smooth and creamy and perfect. The sauce was great as always (I've made it before so there was no trepidation about it) and it was overall a successful dinner.
So that's it for this week. Hopefully next week will be a little bit back to normal in terms of the cooking routine.
What'd you guys eat last week?
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