The Best Of Leftovers

With the onion loaf from Acme Bread and the leftovers from Walzwerk, it made the perfect little sandwich. Sauerbraten, cabbage and carrot salads, in between toasted onion loaf. Awesome. And colorful too.

Easiest Veggie Stir Fry, Ever!

I had bought a giant bag of green beans the other day. It's not something I normally do, but it was already bagged up and on a super sale. I love green beans so I knew I could do something with them. After remembering that I had these, I bought some broccoli too later in the week. And then I threw together the easiest veggie stir fry, ever. I swear. There's 3 ingredients. That's it.
Ingredient 1 - veggies. Ok, so that can be 1 or as many as you want, but let's just lump it together as one ingredient. For me, I had green beans, broccoli, and onions.
Ingredient 2 - garlic. I chopped up a whole bunch and then I cooked that up for a little bit with the onions. I wanted the onions to be cooked down a bit that's why I threw them in with the garlic. Otherwise, I could have waited until the rest of the veggies. There's some oil in the pan, whatever kind you like, however much you feel like, if you choose.
Ingredient 3 - kecap manis. I don't know what this is exactly, except it's indonesian, and comes in a big bottle. And it's thick and dark and delish. It's a perfect stir fry sauce.
That's it! Throw in the veggies after you cook the garlic and onions a bit, and then cook the veggies a little bit until they're done the way you want. Then throw in some kecap manis. And voila. Done! Delicious, quick, super easy veggie stir fry. Trust me, it's good. It's savory and sweet and lovely. Cooking does not get easier than this. And if you think this is hard, then please step away from the kitchen.

Makin' Egg Salad

I really like egg salad. I've never made it before in my life, but I've eaten plenty. The best egg salad, in my humble opinion, is at Izenberg's. It's got big hunks of egg, without celery, and is zesty and generously portioned. J cooked up some eggs and he wanted egg salad, so I did a little research to see what I could come up with. I came across tons of recipes and just consolidated and made up my own. It's my first time, so it could have been better, but it still turned out quite well for a first try. Next time, I'll experiment a bit more to make it more zesty.

Egg Salad:

6 hard boiled eggs

3 Tbsp mayo

1 Tbsp mustard (used Trader Joe's organic yellow mustard, but suppose any would do)

dash of lemon juice

dash of cider vinegar

black pepper

paprika

I peeled the eggs and separated the yolks from the whites. Then I roughly cut up the whites, leaving them in bigger hunks. I mashed the yolks and mixed in the mayo and mustard and all other ingredients. Then I folded the whites back in. Voila. I knew it wasn't hard to make egg salad, but I just didn't realize how easy it was. I think I'll be doing this much more often. So I hope to have the perfect recipe during one of my future experiments.

Pastaimprovization

I really wanted some pasta the other night. It was a serious craving. So I decided to just throw together a giant vat of pasta so I could eat it for days. I had some bacon, so I took half of a small pack of bacon and chopped it up, along with half an onion. And I fried all this up together. No need to add oil, as the bacon has plenty of fat on its own to help cook the onions. I cooked this enough so that the bacon was thoroughly cooked, and on its way to being crunchy.

Then I dumped in a jar of already prepared vodka sauce and simmered this for awhile. And when I felt it was nearly done, I dumped in some frozen sweet peas. Once the peas were cooked through, I dumped the sauce over a giant pot of rigatoni that I had cooked and drained.

Mix it all together and you have a several-day supply of pasta that will make your tummy happy. The sauce is tangy and the bacon gives it a really nice smoky kick. And I just like peas and it adds a nice pop of color and veg, which always makes me think that I'm being healthy.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

What will they be serving at the Inaugural luncheon? See for yourself. It's modeled after Lincoln. I love how american all the ingredients are. Sniff sniff. And natch, they have recipes so you yourself can feel presidential!

My Chili F'in Rocks

People, people, listen up. I make good chili. It's a fact. And since it's clearly winter, it's just the time to whip up a batch. I've been making this for years, ever since I saw a recipe on Oprah (or something like that) and it was a copykat recipe of Wendy's chili. Then I adulterated it over the years and added things I felt like. But it always turns out well. So fight the cold weather and make yourself some chili.

Ingredients:

Ground meat - pick your favorite, a lb or two, or anywhere in between

Chopped up onion

Canned beans - 3 or 4 cans of whatever you choose, typically kidney, white, pink, etc

1 can baked beans

1 can Campbell's french onion soup

1 can v8 or something equivalent

1 can stewed tomatoes, whatever variety you want

1 can tomato paste

Cut up frozen bell peppers, red/yellow/orange, I don't like green so I leave em out

Ketchup - some

BBQ sauce - some

Chili powder - however much you want

Paprika - you decide

Cayenne - you decide

Cumin - a little

Black pepper - however much you want

Garlic powder - you decide

Directions:

In a big pot on highish heat, cook up onions and cook up the meat. Spoon out the grease, if you want. Throw in the soup, stewed tomatoes, tomato paste, v8, and stir it all up while simmering. Add the beans and stir this up too. Add in the bell peppers and then throw in all the spices and condiments, however much you want. Again, It's really up to you. And let this simmer for a long ass time, stirring occasionally, tasting and tweaking to your liking. If you want spice, you could chop up a chili pepper and throw it in. And you'll end up with a vat full of delicious homemade chili.Enjoy!

Holiday Cookie Exchange

M had a cookie exchange party this year. I'd never been to one, she'd never thrown one, so it was all a nice first for us all. In fact, everyone that went to the party had never been to a cookie exchange party. It was a random coincidence. We couldn't just stuff our faces with cookies, so M had a nice spread for us. Cheese with port wine sauce. Candied walnuts. Veggie spread with spinach dip. Hummus and pita. All freakin good, especially the darn walnuts.
Some candy cane cookies, with a hint of peppermint. Peanut butter cup cookies with a whole peanut butter cup smooshed in. One of my favorites from the party.
R made some fudge and peanut with chocolate chip cookies. This from a woman who doesn't cook at all, apparently.
A made these chocolate crinkles which were a huge hit with the kids. They totally cleared her out!
K and the kids made some sugar cookies along with chocolate espresso biscotti. I couldn't even imagine making my own biscotti.
M, the hostest with the mostest, made these chocolate heath bar cookies. Beyond decadent!
I made some chewy gingersnaps from a random recipe I found on a fellow blog. I used fresh spices that I got from the Head Nut, so with every bite of cookie, you got a punch in the mouth with all the spices. They were a hit!

Attempting Comfort Food

I've always liked Cooking Light magazine. I acquired an old issue last week and really wanted to make the chicken pot pie recipe. Who was stopping me? No one! So I did. Here it is!

Chicken and Root Vegetable Potpie

3 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cups frozen peas, thawed

1 cup (1/2 inch) cubed peeled baking potato

1 cup (1/2 inch) cubed peeled sweet potato

1 cup (1/2 inch) cubed peeled celeriac (celery root)

1 cup (1/2 inch thick) sliced parsnip

1 (10 oz) package frozen pearl onions

1 lb skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces

2/3 cup all-purpose flour, divided

1 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

2 Tb chopped fresh thyme

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

Cooking spray

1 sheet frozen puff pastry dough, thawed

1 - preheat oven to 400F

2 - Bring broth to boil in large dutch oven. Add peas and next 5 ingredients (through onions) to pan; cover, reduce heat, simmer for 6 minutes. Add chicken, cook for 5 minutes or until chicken is done. Remove chicken and vegetables from broth with a slotted spoon; place in a large bowl.

3 - Increase heat to medium. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Place all but 1 Tb flour in a medium bowl; gradually add milk to bowl, stirring with a whisk until well blended. Add milk mixture to broth; cook for 5 minutes or until thickened, stirring frequently. Stir in chicken mixture, stirring frequently. Stir in chicken mixture, parsley, thyme, salt, and pepper. Spoon mixture into an 11x7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.

4 - Sprinkle remaining 1 Tb flour on a work surface; roll dough into a 13x9-inch rectangle. Place dough over chicken mixture, pressing to seal at edges of dish. Cut small slits into dough to allow steam to escape; coat dough lightly with cooking spray. Place dish on foil-lined baking sheet. Bake at 400F for 16 minutes or until pastry is browned and filling is bubbly. Yield: 8 servings.

So how did it turn out? Well, I had several problems. First off, all the root vegetables were crunchy. So if anyone is going ot make this, they need to be cooked in advance, because they will not get cooked during baking. I would also have the onions be defrosted first, or just use regular onions instead. I like pearl onions, but they ended up crunchy too, and the inside was too crunchy and not flavored. Lastly, it was too much thyme. It's way too much thyme and all you taste is thyme. I would half it. It still turned out fine. I was able to cook the innards some more so it didn't end up hard and crunchy and rescue it. I particularly enjoyed the puff pastry part. The chicken was great. Next time it will turn out perfect! And by the way, I didn't make anything light, so if you want to, just be sure to use fat free or light stuff.

What To Do With Leftover Buttermilk

After making the banana bread, I had a whole crap load of buttermilk left over. I didn't want to waste it so I decided to make some buttermilk biscuits instead. I found a simple and straightforward recipe on the food network. And they turned out great! My only issue was that I did not have a pastry blender. I just used two butter knives instead and it still worked fine. Warm buttermilk biscuits with melted butter and honey, it's a meal in itself!

Baking Banana Bread

I found some recipes for banana bread and was itching to bake. I used one I found on a blog which was based on an America’s Test Kitchen recipe and tweaked it to be my own. It turned out quite well, if not a bit on the sweet side due to the sugars I used, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

My Banana Bread

Butter a non-stick bread pan then flour well.

Combine and mix dry ingredients in a bowl:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

In another bowl, coarsely smash 3 extremely ripe bananas (the browner on the outside the better) so that the smashed bananas are somewhat chunky.

To the bananas, add and combine wet ingredients:

2 large eggs, beaten
6 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup buttermilk

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently fold until the flour is thoroughly moistened. Pour into the prepared bread pan and bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 45-50 minutes.

Then stuff your face.

Pizza Bagels!

I was recently informed that J is a freak about pizza bagels. Like he'd make 8 at a time and eat them all. How crazy. And that he'd be crazy about giant bowls of cereal too. But then that got me thinking about pizza bagels. Then I was talking on the phone with K and she talked about how she just made pizza bagels with her kids. And damn, I had to make pizza bagels! I picked up some frozen bagels and some chicken sausages from Trader Joe's. I already had pizza sauce and cheese left over from when I made the hawaiian pizza.
How can anyone not like pizza bagels? Pizza on top of a crispy on the outside, hot and chewy on the inside bagel. The sausage was a nice touch too. I am so doing this again and again.

Little Mini Pizzas

With leftover ham from thanksgiving and a pineapple that J had gotten from his mom, it seemed fitting to make some hawaiian pizzas. I typically like to get the dough in a bag from trader joe's, but since he didn't have a proper cookie sheet, I decided we should make pita pizzas instead.
Got some sauce from trader joe's and got some whole wheat pitas. I actually would have preferred regular white pitas, but they didn't have any. It was weird. But I got regular wheat ones and mini wheat ones for the occasion. I ended up using the regular sized pitas that night.
They turned out quite nice I have to say. It was so super easy and it'd been such a long time since I'd had hawaiian pizza, I wondered why I'd waited so long.
Later that week, I made some veggie hawaiian pizzas with the mini pitas. I missed the ham, but it was still good. Some of the easiest meals I've made in awhile.

My Mom's Famous Spring Rolls

So my mom's been making these spring rolls lately, and yes, I truly believe they're going to make her famous. There isn't one person who's tried them that hasn't fallen absolutely in love with them. And how could you not love them? They're f'in lovely. And delicious. And healthy.
Above are all the ingredients to my mom's version. I make the much more standard vietnamese version with noodles, shrimp, cucumber, carrot, cilantro, and sprouts. Well, my mom hates cilantro so she would never make anything with those. Instead, she incorporates red, orange, and yellow bell peppers, carrots, cucumbers, avocado, spring mix, vermicelli noodles, shrimp, and imitation crab legs. They're a sight to behold. The colors are amazing.
The worst part about making these is really getting all the innard ingredients ready. There's just tons of julienning and slicing and dicing that has to happen. But once that's all done, putting them together is actually a piece of cake. And you don't really have to cook anything, other than the noodles and the shrimp.
The wrappers themselves are dry and once you either run them under hot water or soak them in hot water, they become all rubbery. You lay all the ingredients in the middle and then roll up the little suckers. It's really as easy as that.
And voila, you have a plate full of these gorgeous handfuls of fresh, crisp, healthy goodness.
Gah, I could literally eat a dozen of these at a time. Yes, I know they're supposed to be an appetizer, but seriously, I could make them into a meal, and any meal of the day. For whatever reason, the dipping sauce of choice for these is just straight out of the bottle sweet chili sauce with a little bit of sriracha thrown in there (however spicy you want it). When I make my regular viet version of springn rolls, I stick with the hoisin/peanut variety of sauce, but for the mom version, trust me, sweet chili sauce with the sriracha is all it needs.

Pioneer Woman's Bread Pudding

Both The Pioneer Woman and The Pioneer Woman Cooks are two favorite blogs of mine. Her photographs are unbelievable and she posts great recipes, with true step-by-steps, which require regular ingredients. Nothing fancy here, folks. I got inspired to make her very easy bread pudding recipe, so I did! If I can do it, so can you!


Witness the before cooking shot.

During cooking, it's a bit puffed up.

And last but not least, it's done, and a little bit deflated. This was super easy (and I'm a big fan of easy) and it tastes great. It is extremely sweet, so for those of you that can't handle it, I wish you luck. I didn't bother making the sauce, as it tastes just fine plain and as-is. Go check out her recipes. You'll start cooking them up in no time.

Home cooked meal

Can you believe it, I cooked the other week. And not fish sticks, or ramen noodles, or a can of soup. I actually cooked something involving veggies, and even fish. I had to turn on the oven for goodness sakes!

This is one of the easiest, yet tasty broccoli dishes you will ever make. After boiling or steaming the broccoli and draining, mix 1 Tb each of salad oil, vinegar, soy sauce, and sesame seeds with 4 tsp sugar in a pan and heat to boiling. Pour this over the broccoli and serve. Voila.

I also made some miso glazed cod. There are many different recipes running around for miso glazed cod. I first had this dish at Nobu and there is a Nobu recipe for this. I didn't use it. I used the Ellie Krieger recipe for miso glazed cod, which is a lot easier to make. It doesn't require marinading the fish for 2 days. I basically made the lazyman version. It did turn out fairly well, but I think I will go with the Nobu one next time. Served with some rice and the broccoli, this was actually all fairly easy to make.

Sometimes, she even cooks

Awhile back while randomly perusing recipes on the foodtv website, I found one that looked interesting. So yesterday, on a particularly lazy and snowy Sunday (alot of it spent watching a marathon of "Living with the Kombai Tribe"), I made it. Behold, Panko Crusted Chicken Legs.

I won't write down the recipe here. After all, you're obviously on the internet, so find it yourselves with the link. The ingredients were few and simple, but it definitely involved several steps. I had to remove the skin from the chicken legs. It didn't tell me to do so, but I'm not that into chicken skin, so i painstakingly removed them. They did not want to come off very easily. And honestly, I really don't like handling raw chicken parts very much. And then I had to marinade them for 2 hours. Everything smelled great.

After marinading, I put the panko on them and put them in the oven. It said to cook for 15 minutes on each side on 350, but after the 30 minutes, they still weren't cooked all the way through. So I upped the degrees a bit and cooked them for probably another 20 or so minutes. I even put slits in the chicken to ensure cookedness.

Once ready, I placed over rice and drizzled on the sauce. All in all, very delicious. The chicken was juicy and flavorful. But my stomach did not feel too good afterwards, which I attribute to still possibly underdone chicken. So next time, I think I will either use chicken breast and just flatten them down or use chicken thighs (since I prefer dark meat) and also pound them down more into flatter filets. Then I'll try the recipe. So it could end up similar to tonkatsu, but using chicken instead of pork and a different sauce. It was also just as tasty without the sauce. Thanks Tyler Florence!

Today was not much of a food day for me. Monday is bagel Mondays so that was breakfast. And I ran errands during lunch and did not end up eating a proper lunch. Instead, I finished off some Girl Scout cookies that my boss gave me on Friday (he just gave me a whole box) and ate January birthday cake. It's allowed because I actually had a January birthday!