Jumping back on the food wagon

Sorry that this is one of those, “I haven’t blogged in a long time, I’m going to start over” posts…but well, it is. I’m planning a come back tour of sorts. I have lots planned for this blog and lots of potential content to add. I’m in the process of starting another 28 day marathon of cooking, CSA season is almost here, my wife Mollie is almost ready to have our second child, a girl and I’ve vowed to achieve another longstanding goal of mine: to publish a cookbook! Albeit, a self-published cookbook….but still I vow, and thats whats really important right?
If you’ve ever thought of making a similar goal of writing or some other creative literary endeavor…one interesting resource Ive discovered is: http://www.lulu.com/publish/cookbooks/ Check it out sometime, its pretty interesting how we have technology affecting the way people create and communicate these days.

CSA Season has begun!

No, Im not talking about a new crime drama on tv, child support advocacy or the Canadian Space Agency. Im talking about community supported agriculture! I recently joined a local CSA and split a weekly share of fruits and veggies with some friends. A normal size share is supposed to be enough to feed a family of four for a week. Its a great way to get fresh, local produce and also forces you to use them throughout your meals and get creative with your cooking.

Each week on this blog Ill post a picture and list of our half of the haul and maybe even some pictures or recipes of what we decided to make.

CSA Week 1

The box this week contained the following:

1 extremely large head of cabbage

4 spring or Vidalia onions

1 bunch of large long radishes

5 large stalks of Rhubarb

6 pints of Strawberries

1 large head of red leaf lettuce

4 heads of broccoli

1 bag of dried corn kernel snacks

How we’ve used the ingredients so far:

Thursday night being the first night we werent really sure what to expect or even how much to expect. We were pleasantly surprised by the good variety and quality this early in the season. Everything tasted fresh and perfectly ripened from the sweet juicy red strawberries to the crisp crunchy mild radish. We quickly decided on the easiest and most obvious route to take- a green salad. We washed and chopped the lettuce, onion and radish and tossed it in a parmesan vinegarette, finished off with the corn kernel snacks (kind of like a homemade corn nut) on top. It went perfect with the spicy italian smoked sausage I decided to eat with it.

In addition to dinner I wanted to make something sweet with the strawberries and rhubarb. I love cobbler and crisp but I was really in the mood for something more like a cake. I decided on Strawberry Rhubarb Coffee Cake. I was happy with the recipe I tried. Just be forewarned that it makes a ton of coffee cake, so you better have lots of people to share it with.

There’s still a lot of veggies left and even some more strawberries. Im not entirely sure what to make now but I definitely have a direction and a goal, to use everything before next thursday!

Dal-righty Then

Today I decided to make a common household Indian dish called Dal. There are many varieties of Dal, which is kind of like a cross between split pea soup and baked beans. The recipes that I came across used all variety of legumes (beans, peas, lentils, etc) and of course lots of spices. I decided on one kind that used Chick Peas because I had some on hand. Dal is often served with rice and Naan bread. Its almost always vegetarian and its really good for you.

A couple of weeks ago I was reading some information on eating…because in case you haven’t noticed, I enjoy food and cooking (hey we all eat appx 3 times a day so its not like Im alone here). One thing that I’ve made a conscious effort to at least try often is not feeling like I need to eat meat with every meal. A lot of times when I cook I think of a meat and then build a recipe around that. It’s possible to eat something and even get a good amount of protein without adding meat.

So save a little money, some extra calories and fat and get creative with vegetables, fruits or beans. You might even decide to try your hand at making Dal.

___________________________________

Chana Dal

Ingredients

12 oz (about 1 and 1/2 cups) of Chana Dal (or Garbanzo/Chick Peas if you don’t have an Indian market nearby)

1 tsp of Salt

1 tsp of Tumeric

2 tsp of Chili Powder

2 tsp of Cayenne Powder

1 tsp of Celery Salt

2 tsp of Garlic powder or 1 clove of fresh chopped Garlic

1 Tbs of onion flakes or 1/2 chopped onion

Directions

Remove skins from Chick Peas (lay several at a time out on a paper towel and rub with another paper towel to loosen skin)

Smash the Chick Peas with your fingers as you place them in a small sauce pan. Add about 1 cup of water and salt and tumeric.

In a small frying pan drizzle a small amount of olive oil and add the rest of the ingredients. Fry on medium heat until the onions are cooked down.

When the Chick Peas start cooking down add the fried spice mixture and stir.

Serve with or over rice. Goes well with flat bread of Indian Naan bread.

Philly French Steak Sandwich

I like Cheese Steaks. I like French Dips. Seems like a logical next step to combine them in a beautiful marriage of steak, cheese and au jus. About a hundred years ago someone thought it would be a good idea to dip a steak sandwich in beef broth. They actually dip the whole sandwich in before serving it (and some restaurants still do that to this day). Not long after this was invented Philadelphia gave birth to the famous sandwich that bears the city’s moniker.

I wanted to combine these sandwiches because I love their flavors and I think both compliment each other well. I decided on Italian roast beef heated in au jus, sautéed mushrooms and onions, provolone on French bread with a spicy horseradish aioli spread. I serve the au jus on the side as opposed to drenching the entire sandwich, its just more to dip each bite in my opinion.

Enjoy and as always, let me know if you have any good ideas for how to improve this recipe.

______________________________

Philly French Steak Sandwich

Yields 2 sandwiches

Ingredients

1/2 lb sliced Italian Roast Beef

1 to 2 cups of au jus (from mix or made fresh)

½ whole onion, sliced thin

1 cup of white mushrooms, sliced

1 tablespoon prepared horseradish

½ cup olive oil mayonnaise

4 slices of Provolone

1 medium sized loaf of fresh French bread

Directions

Saute onions in a lightly oiled frying pan on medium low until onions begin to caramelize. Add mushrooms and continue to cook.

While vegetables are cooking, add au jus to a small pot on medium high. Add roast beef to heat.

Cut french loaf into two halves and slice lengthwise into a top and bottom piece.

Place under broiler inside up until bread begins to toast. Remove from oven.

Mix together horseradish (if desired) and mayonnaise and spread onto bottom piece of toast. Add meat to bottom piece and add sliced cheese.

On the other half, add onions and mushrooms.

Place all pieces under broiler until cheese is melted.

Remove from oven and serve with au jus on the side.

Your-Kid’s-Won’t-Know-It’s-Not-Fast-Food Chicken Nuggets

Recently I attempted to come up with a recipe for chicken nuggets that resembled the kind you get at McDonalds or other fast food joints. Although these are not my favorite way to eat chicken, I was intrigued by the idea of my “McVestigation”. I was not surprised that many others have attempted this feat before. There are countless food bloggers, home cooks and recipe hounds that have posted their rendition of the popular nugget. The most interesting thing that I found is no matter how successful their attempt to create a recipe there was always someone who posted a comment on their webpage letting everyone know that it didnt taste exactly like McDonalds and that they would continue to eat fast food… Im pretty sure thats not the point. But I digress…

Here is the recipe I finally came up with. I decided to use ground chicken. I hadn’t heard of anyone else do this but Im sure someone has tried it before. I think they taste pretty darn good. They are not identical…but will probably fool your kids into thinking you went to the drive through. All you need to complete the ruse is a fancy bag or box with popular cartoon characters pedaling processed variations food that could be a lot better…if you made it yourself.

_________________________________________

Your-Kid’s-Won’t-Know-It’s-Not-Fast-Food Chicken Nuggets

Ingredients

1 lb Ground Chicken

2 tsp of Salt

2 cups Flour

1 Tbs of Cornstarch

1 tsp of Garlic Powder

1 tsp of Ground Black Pepper

2 eggs

Vegetable or Canola Oil

Directions

Remove ground chicken from package and place in a bowl.

Add 1 tsp of salt (optional) and work into meat.

In a bowl or pie pan mix together 1 cup of the flour with cornstarch and set aside.

In another bowl or pie pan beat eggs and set aside.

In a third bowl or pie pan mix remaining flour, salt, garlic powder and pepper.

Using a spoon form chicken into gumball sized balls and set on a plate.

After plate is full roll each ball in flour/cornstarch combo and set back on tray

After every ball is coated with flour/cornstarch dip and thoroughly coat with egg mixture.

From the egg mixture coat each ball in final flour seasoning mixture and place on parchment or wax paper lined tray.

Using the back of a spoon, flatten the chicken balls until they resemble chicken nuggets (about ¼ inch thick)

Place a large skillet on medium heat and add enough vegetable oil so that there is about ½ inch deep in the pan.

Oil should be hot enough when you add a small amount of flour and bubbles form on the surface.

Once oil is hot, fry nuggets for appx 1-2 minutes on each side. They should end up golden brown.

Test by cooking 1 first and cutting into it to make sure that the chicken is cooked all the way. Adjust heat if necessary.

Place on paper towel lined tray or platter.

Repeat all steps until finished.

Monkey’s Jumping on the Bed Cake

My son just recently turned 1. To honor the special occasion I decided to make a cake with one of his favorite animals, monkeys. Now this was only my second attempt at making a fondant style cake so cut me a little slack I’ll have to say that even though it took several hours to complete, I had a lot of fun doing it and would probably do it again…

I had to reach way back into my repertoire of skills and pull something I haven’t used since high school art class – modeling. Although this time instead of clay I tried my hand at both gum paste as well as marzipan. The marzipan ending up working the best for what I needed. I think gum paste must be more for 2 dimensional items. Needless to say, I ended up making 2 monkeys and a bed of cake comprised of 4 layers. 2 of the layers were chocolate chip and the other 2 were snickerdoodle. I made vanilla buttercream filling with chocolate buttercream on the outside which was then covered in fondant. I carved rice krispy treats into pillows and covered those with fondant as well.

One thing is for sure, the cake shows on tv make it look easy…Speaking of tv shows, it’s kind of like CSI…there are a lot of steps and a lot of time involved in the process that you dont see on TV. It just means that if you are going to ever get involved with Cake decorating as a hobby, or crime scene investigating for that matter..you’ll need a lot of time and more than a little patience.

Bowls of Goodness

A lot of good things come in bowls. Things like cereal, ice cream, jelly, pasta, rice, soup, chili….some foods were just meant for bowls. My wife and I recently ventured out to Café Yumm were we enjoyed a wonderful Yumm bowl that included rice, beans, chicken, sauce, cheese, olives, tomatoes, avocado and salsa. Needless to say, we very much enjoyed the food and became inspired to make our own bowls.

The potential healthy implications for bowls rest entirely in what you choose to put in them. There are just so many different ideas that you can try. In order to prove my theory about the versatility of food in bowls, I’m going to challenge myself to come up with and cook dinner in bowls throughout the next couple of weeks. I’ll post each night that I make something new, I’ll try to use at least 5 ingredients and I’ll attempt to make it as healthy as possible. That’s it. Sounds simple….because it is…but this has the potential to change the way you think about cooking.

My sister in law has a couple of go to dishes (which work perfectly for bowls) that she uses to wow crowds when she doesn’t have tons of time to cook. One of my favorites is her Chili Verde. Even though its super easy to make, the wonderful flavors that have been allowed to slowly work together for 8 hours are something that even your fanciest foodie friend will fanaticize about for a long time.

I recently made this recipe myself for the first time and loved it. I nearly bought out all of the tomatillos at my local grocery store. It was so much more satisfying to make my own verde sauce then to just buy a jar of sauce, not to mention it tasted better too!

___________________________________________

Chili Verde

1.5 lbs pork tenderloin or chicken breast (cubed)
10 fresh tomatillos
1-4 jalapeno peppers (1 if you want it milder, 4 for extra hot)
2 poblano peppers
1 onion (diced)
3 cloves of garlic
1 T cumin
3-4 t salt
1/4 C chicken broth

Husk tomatillos and place in boiling water for 15 minutes. Strain and set aside to cool.

Put jalapenos and poblanos under the broiler until their skins are charred. Turn and char the other side. When charred, remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Mince garlic and dice onion. Place in crock pot with broth.

Cube meat, add to crock pot and stir.

Sprinkle cumin and salt on meat and veggies.

Carefully peel still-warm tomatillos and peppers. Place in blender and puree until smooth.

Cover meat with tomatillo sauce.

Cook on low for 8 hours.

Serve with rice, cheese and tortillas.

Goldfish cracker encrusted Chicken nuggets

Goldfish!?! On chicken nuggets?!? Were you looking for your keys on the floor of your minivan when you were inspired by the remnants of messy toddlers and their steady supply of spare goldfish combined with month old McNuggets? No I promise. Hear me out on this one and you won’t be disappointed.

Disclaimer: Yes, I do have a (almost) 1 year old. He doesn’t eat Mc-anything yet (hopefully never will want to if I can help it) but he has gobbled up a decent amount of goldfish (at least they were whole grain, right?). He enjoys biting them in half. Hey he’s had 8 teeth since he was like 6 months or something so give the kid a break.

So why would I think about infusing two of the most common kid snacks/meals together into one bite-sized nugget o’ chicken? Good question. The answer is because I had them already. And chances are if this recipe interests you in the least bit its because you probably have these two simple ingredients as well. And you don’t have to be a kid to enjoy these nuggets. The lightly crispy, slightly cheesy coating makes boring chicken pieces more exciting. The coating cooks into something that has all of the tasty benefits of fried chicken skin without the actual skin, so I would venture that it’s better for you as well.

The nuggets themselves are boneless skinless chicken breast pieces cut into small “nugget-sized” portions. My family buys the large bag of frozen chicken breasts from our local wholesale club store (Costco). From there its as easy as making fried chicken (you can also bake them if you wish). I do add some hot sauce but I promise its really not enough to be hot, it just adds a little flavor to the coating. I suppose you could sub something similar (tomato sauce or tomato bullion…maybe even soy sauce). Obviously the real kicker is the crushed up goldfish crackers. We use the regular whole grain ones but you can probably try any variety that you have on hand.

Give this recipe a try. Kids will enjoy having goldfish on their chicken. This is one food that you won’t mind eating either. As always, let me know if there are any good variations that you try or want to try with this recipe.

_________________________________________________________

Ingredients

3 or 4 large boneless skinless chicken breasts trimmed

1 cup of flour

1 Tbs of cornstarch

2 eggs

1 Tbs of hot sauce

Appx 2 cups of regular goldfish crackers

Vegetable oil

Directions

Cut chicken into bite-sized nugget pieces and set aside. Place flour and cornstarch in a medium bowl and mix together (a pie pan works well). In another bowl or pan beat 2 eggs and mix in hot sauce. In another bowl or pan place crushed goldfish. Assemble all three trays/bowls/pans in an assembly line (flour, egg wash, goldfish). You should also have a tray to set them on prior to frying. Using a fork coat chicken thoroughly with flour, then egg wash and then finally goldfish. After you have coated about 6 of them shallow fry them in a large skillet on medium heat (make sure oil is hot before adding chicken. After about 4 or 5 minutes flip chicken over with tongs and continue frying the other side for another 4 or 5 minutes. Coating should be darker in appearance but not overly crispy or burned. When cooked, transport to a paper towel lined plate or tray. Continuing coating and cooking until all chicken nuggets are used.

If the shoe fits, bake a cake

As you may already know just by looking at my blog, I like to cook. I even occasionally enjoy trying to bake. To me, baking is more like science or math class; to use a school analogy. You have to be precise, there are rules to follow, steps to take, ingredients to measure and even calculations. Cooking is similar to art or writing. There’s more freedom to try new things and change portions or throw in a little of that or mix in a little of this to come up with something new and exciting. Don’t get me wrong, in school I liked science and math, that’s the side of me that appreciated order and following instructions to end up with the correct answer (which in the world of baking is like having a cake turn out exactly how you had hoped). The other side of me, the crazier, creative side likes to break the rules and try out new mediums, turn something plain and boring into something fun and exciting (for cooking that might be like a new dish with ingredients that you never would have expected to use).

I used to keep these two sides of me fairly separate and somewhat balanced. But one day I realized that you dont have to be “culinarily” compartmentalized in your cooking and baking. Sometimes its okay to use a recipe exactly how it reads when you’re cooking. And other times its okay to add a new flavor or texture to baking even if you mess up every once in a while.

An example of my new found sense of adventure is evidenced by a chocolate cinnamon cake with butter cream frosting, baked and decorated in the shape of a green Converse high top. “A green converse high top you say?” Yes, that’s just how it turned out…again, like art class fused with science. I had a square pan and a round pan so I thought of a shape that would work for what I already had. It kind of looked like a high top sneaker so I decided to add the other elements and go from there. After that I had an all white shoe staring at me so I did what anyone would do, add color. I also knew that I didn’t want to just eat this whole cake myself, so I decided to make it in the colors of my friends new baby room and give the cake to them.

Now, I know this isn’t super professional and as good as the cakes you might see on TV shows such as Ace of Cakes or Cake Boss, but I think its not too shabby for my first time working with fondant. My son’s first birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I want to try it again…so we’ll see how that turns out.

Until then, kick off your shoes and relax, and try something new in your cooking and baking.

Tortellini Soup with Parmesan Tuiles

One of my absolute favorite soups is a hearty chicken tortellini with lots of vegetables and finished with thin, crispy parmesan tuiles. Cheese tuiles are basically a fancy crispy cheese cracker that you can crumble on top for added texture. My sister in law makes this easy soup often when lots of relatives visit from out of state. Its very simple to throw together but don’t be fooled, this savory soup is far from mundane.

There are lots of different vegetables but don’t be afraid to omit or add other types that you think would be good.

_______________________________

Tortellini Soup

Ingredients

1 lb. chicken breast

2 cloves minced garlic

1 onion (diced).

zucchini

yellow squash

carrots

celery

potato,

artichoke hearts

kidney beans

green beans

2 boxes chicken broth

1 cup white wine

2 tbsp. red wine vinegar

1 package of cheese tortellinis

Directions

Saute garlic and onions in about 1 Tbs of olive oil. After onions begin to caramelize add chicken and cook until done. Chop remaining vegetables into similar bite size pieces and add to large pot. Add stock, wine and vinegar. Boil gently 20-30 min. until everything is tender.

Add tortellini and cook for 10 minutes more.

Parmesan Cheese Tuiles

Ingredients

1 package of shredded Parmesan cheese (about 2 or 3 cups)

Directions

Spread cheese on 9 x 13 in. pan and bake at 350 degrees F for about 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool for 10 minutes. Break into pieces and serve on soup.