31 Beautiful Things, Day 15: Comfort Food

When my oldest comes home from college, I always build the menu around his requests. This time he requested, among other things, chicken and dumplings. Chicken and dumplings is not on my On the Menu list. My only experience with the dish is not a pleasant one. My mother was an excellent cook, but her chicken and dumplings were truly dreadful. Oh, just horrid: big, pulpy balls of greasy dough in a greasy stew. Wow.

But Randy and Jesse once ordered chicken and dumplings at Cracker Barrel and told me how the dish should be, so I have it a whirl. And YUM! I used this recipe at Back to the Cutting Board. I already had shredded chicken and homemade broth, so I was ahead of the game. The dumplings turned out perfectly. My only change was that I had to keep adding more broth/water because we ended up having 3 extra guests for dinner.

Chicken and Dumplings is going on my menu list and will be on my own personal list of comfort foods, those beautiful foods that make you feel truly nourished, warm, and loved: macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, chicken and rice soup, baked potato soup, and pumpkin bread.

What's on your list of comfort foods?

Day 1
Day 2: Morning Coffee
Day 3: It's OK to Break for Bugs 
Day 4: Supper and Cards 
Day 5: Running with Randy
Day 6: At Cataloochee 
Day 7: A Brand New Thing
Day 8: Alma Mater 
Day 9: Writing Group 
Day 10: Big Brother, Baby Nephew 
Day 11: Little Girls
Day 12: Boy Home 
Day 13: Quiet 
Day 14: Family Legends 
Day 15: Comfort Food

On the Menu

We've tried a couple of tasty new recipes around here lately.
• Best Burgers Ever: These were really incredibly delicious. I'm not great at grilling burgers and these did burn a little when the sauce dripped, but YUM.

• Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Lemon Pasta: This was extraordinary. I grilled a couple of chicken breasts to add to it, and we ate it al fresco at this little table. It was pure delight!

I'm trying to get back into creative meal planning. We have fallen back into the same old meals time after time, and I'm ready for some variation. Pinterest is, of course, an amazing resource for food ideas.

This week we'll be trying:
• Tuscan White Beans with Spinach, Shrimp and Feta
• Foccacia Sandwich with Roasted Veggies
• Grilled Chicken Pitas

Besides that, we'll just have a big fat salad with grilled chicken. We have a faculty awards banquet to go to tonight and another night or two that will involve a thoughtless dinner (i.e., pizza or pasta), so that's it for this week.

What amazing recipes have you tried lately?

Linked up with Menu Plan Monday

On the Menu (with Oven Chicken Stew recipe)

The past two weeks have been very delicious. Pinterest provides a treasure trove of new and fresh recipe links, and I've added a few new favorites to my On the Menu list:

• Spicy Asian Lettuce Wraps: these are phenomenal. Oh my goodness. I wish I had some leftovers right now. My one word of advice: the recipe calls for 2 tsp of red pepper flakes. We like spicy in our house, and I cut this down to 1/4 tsp. That was plenty, although a little more than that would have been OK.
• Best Muffins Ever: They really are. Our favorite combo is white chocolate and raspberries. Unbelievable and totally addictive!
• Pork Roast with Apples and Onions: I also added fresh cranberries in toward the end of the cooking time, and it was beautiful as well as delicious.
• French Dip: This is a fantastic crockpot recipe and serves 8-10 people. I add cheese (provolone, swiss or pepperjack) to the bread after lightly toasting it, and then put the bread in the oven for a couple more minutes to slightly melt the cheese. The meat will melt it the rest of the way.
• Slow Cooker Carnitas: Another slow cooker recipe that is fabulous. I didn't serve these on tortillas, as the recipe suggests, but just plopped on the plate with a side of homemade applesauce. Yum.

I've also tried a few recipes that weren't terribly exciting. Why is it always the ones that promise "Better than PF Changs!" or "The best I've ever had!" that are the failures?

One I just made a couple of nights ago and will be having again soon is a version of Shove-It-in-the-Oven Chicken Stew. I made several changes from the original recipe, so here is my version. this was a big hit in my family:

Oven Chicken Stew

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into large pieces
2 pounds red or yellow potatoes, quartered*
1 large onion, cut into large chunks
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes
4 large cloves garlic, sliced
8-10 mushrooms, sliced
2-3 carrots, cut into chunks
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1/2-1 tsp sea salt (adjust)
1/2-1 tsp black pepper (adjust)
1/2-1 cup chicken broth

Adjust oven rack to near bottom position and heat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix everything except the chicken broth in a large roasting pan or cast-iron skillet. Cover, set pan in oven and roast about 30 minutes. Remove cover, add enough broth to form a stew, stir, and put in oven for another 15 minutes. Serve with warm, crusty bread.
*You may wish to leave the potatoes out and serve this with a side of mashed potatoes.

So here's what's on our menu for this week:

• Cassoulet Style Sausages with White Beans
• Pork Chops with Cheese Grits
• Tandoori Chicken with Cucumber Raita
• Taco Soup

Plus, one night my daughter is cooking and one night we are going to a Chinese restaurant celebration of Chinese New Year!

Linked up on Taste This Thursday, Tasty Tuesday and Menu Plan Monday

Double Ambrosia

My nephew came home to Tennessee for Christmas. He works with my 4th brother on his farm, Indian Creek, in Ithaca, New York. Look at those lovelies that he brought for us. This is the kind of stuff I was raised on. I absolutely cannot choke down cider from the local grocery stores. It is so icky. But this..... this is, truly, orchard ambrosia. Unfortunately, we already drank it all.

And have you ever had fresh Brussels sprouts that you pluck off the stem? Amazing. If sprouts intimidate you, or you have only had overcooked, mushy ones, please try again. Even the ones that you get in the fresh food aisle in the grocery store can be made delicious with this recipe below!

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

• 1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts, ends trimmed and yellow leaves removed
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
2. Place trimmed Brussels sprouts, olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper in a large resealable plastic bag. Seal tightly, and shake to coat. Pour onto a baking sheet, and place on center oven rack.
3. Roast in the preheated oven for 30 to 45 minutes, shaking pan every 5 to 7 minutes for even browning. Reduce heat when necessary to prevent burning. Brussels sprouts should be darkest brown, almost black, when done. Adjust seasoning with kosher salt, if necessary. Serve immediately.

Linked up with Tasty Tuesday, Wordless Wednesday, and 5 Minutes for Mom.

On the Menu

I am finding soooo much good stuff to try on Pinterest! I have noticed that the vast majority of recipes that I pin there are, unfortunately, desserts. I really, really love dessert. Fortunately, our college boy is coming home for the holidays beginning this week, so I'll have an excuse to make lots of good desserts, knowing that he and his friends will eat them all quickly.

Here are a few I found that I'm going to make while he's here:
* Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake
* Peppermint Truffle Brownies
* Salted Toffee Pretzel Bark
* Cran-Pistachio Cookies

And of course I'll be making all of my regular Christmas cookies, too, including:
* Chocolate Truffle Cookies, Jam Diagonals, and Never Fail Sugar Cookies
* Russian Tea Cakes
* Snickerdoodles

Randy making his famous fried rice!

But we'll be eating real meals around here, too. This week I'm trying one new and the rest old favorites:
* Randy's Famous Sunday Night Fried Rice
* Stuffed Shells
* Chicken with 40 Garlic Cloves
* Salmon with Spicy Thai Noodles
* Rainy Monday Beef Stew

Are you making Christmas cookies? What are your favorites?

Linked up on Menu Plan Monday

On the Menu (with Chicken and Cheese Sandwich recipe)

Right now I'm roasted a big batch of chicken, enough for probably 5 meals. Yesterday I prepared another 5-6 servings of tomato sauce. I'm ready now for those "I have no idea what we are having for dinner" nights as well as some planned meals.

Here is what we are having this week:

Spicy Red Curry Chicken
Jerk Chicken Nachos and Black Bean Soup
Roast Beef in the crock pot (beef, packet of au jus, packet of onion soup mix, can of broth, carrots, potatoes)
Baked Potato Soup
Chicken Tortilla Soup

Last week at our co-op I needed to make a grocery list and menu, and my friends started spouting off ideas. This one from my friend Sarah is absolutely amazing, which isn't surprising since she is a fabulous cook. This will go into our favorites list:

Pecan Chicken and Cheese Sandwiches

1 loaf of French bread

1/2- 1 stick butter

1 cooked and shredded chicken breast

¾ lb cheddar or Colby

pecans, roasted with butter and brown sugar

mushrooms (sauté)

4-6 bacon slices (cook)

Cut bread in half lengthwise. Butter both sides of the loaf and bake at 350 for 5-10 minutes. Layer with above (I left the mushrooms off half for the kids), put halves together, wrap in foil and bake 350 until cheese melts. Take off foil and slice into sandwich servings. (We think this would be perfect with a subtle honey-mustard sauce spread on before the toppings are added.) Delicious and really easy, especially if you have chicken already cooked and shredded!

Linked up with Menu Plan Monday

On the Menu (with tomato sauce recipe)

Last week I shared the first details of my batch cooking experience: how to cook pulled chicken. I have another 7 lbs of chicken parts (eww) in my freezer ready to roast again, as well as another 5 lbs of ground beef. But yesterday I made another 14 cups or so of tomato sauce. I wasn't entirely thrilled with the first recipe I used, so I tweaked it a bit for our tastes. This one is soooo delicious that I could eat a whole bowl of it like soup. Maybe I did. Oh, and the smell of this while simmering on the stove top is exquisite.

Tomato Sauce

1/4 cup olive oil
8-10 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
6 anchovy fillets (optional but I used them)
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
2 TB brown sugar
1 cup red wine
5 cans (28 oz) peeled whole tomatoes
Salt

In 5-6 quart pot, combine olive oil, garlic, anchovies, and red pepper flakes. Cook over medium 3-4 minutes, stirring constantly, until garlic is golden. Add brown sugar and cook another minute. Add wine and tomatoes. Increase heat to high and bring to boil, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

Reduce heat and cover partially. Simmer for two hours. Take out the whole tomatoes and process in the blender or food processer. Add back into sauce and cook another 30 minutes. Salt to taste. Let the sauce cool completely before putting into freezer bags. I made various bags, with 2, 3, or 4 cups per bag.

This sauce is great for chili (add chili seasonings), lasagna, pizza, and spaghetti (add Italian spices), chicken parmesan, and whatever else you eat with tomato sauce!

So here's what is on our menu this week:

Roast Pork Loin with Garlic and Rosemary
Hamburgers
Spaghetti and meatballs (but with the tomato sauce recipe above)

And I'm not sure what else. My in-laws are coming in town, and there are food allergies to consider. I am thinking about Chicken and Rice Soup. Friday-Sunday we are all getting a cabin in the Smokies together to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday, so I am sure we will have some amazing meals! (Randy's brother is an amazing chef.)

Linked up on Menu Plan Monday

On the Menu

Yes, I know. I've been told that I have been a terrible blogger lately. When I do actually sit down to tell the whole story, you'll understand; I promise.

But for now: food!

So a couple of weeks ago, OK, three weeks ago, I posted about my foray into batch cooking. At the time I bagged up: 5 lbs of roasted pork, 7 lbs of roasted chicken, 5 lbs of ground beef, 4 quarts of chicken stock, and probably 8-10 cups of tomato sauce.

Three weeks later, we are still eating from all that! I think this will be our last week until I need to do it all again. So will I do it all again?

Absolutely! I won't do the pork again for awhile, but I will do the others. I really liked the pork when it was fresh out of the oven, and we liked having pork barbecue, but the rest of the recipes weren't very exciting.

This week we are ending with:
lasagna
spaghetti and meatballs (the sauce and meatballs are already frozen and ready)
Brunswick stew (the last pork recipe)
Chicken with fusilli (the last chicken recipe)
and baked potato soup, which has nothing to do with batch cooking

All of the new recipes I tried with the pork and chicken were from Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine. I probably will not use any of them again except for Mediterranean Chicken Salad Pitas. We weren't crazy about the pork and ginger noodle soup, her pulled pork sandwiches (I added my own sauce since hers was to bland), pork and avocado tacos; I am going to try her Brunswick stew and fusilli with chicken this week. I usually love her recipes, but these weren't very tasty.

That said, I love the process she used for making all the batches of foods. Here is the one for chicken. This will make a bunch of shredded chicken for 4-6 future meals:

Pulled Chicken
4 lbs. skin-on, bone-in chicken breast
4 lbs. skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
2 TB olive oil
2 lemons, cut into wedges
1 tsp paprika (I used Cajun seasoning instead)
1 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper

1. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 400. Line 2 big baking sheets with foil. Place the breasts of one sheet and the thighs on the other. Drizzle all with oil. Squeeze lemon on top, then sprinkle with seasonings. Roast for about 45-50 minutes and cool for 15 minutes. (Turn over about halfway through cooking.)

2. After cooled, remove chicken skin and save for broth. Pull meat off bones and tear into shreds. Put into 1 and 2 cup servings in freezer bags.

3. For broth, use about half of the bones and skin from the chicken. Put in pot with an unpeeled onion (quartered), a carrot cut into 4 pieces, 6 unpeeled cloves of garlic (smashed), some peppercorns. Add water to the nearly the top of a 6-quart pot. Simmer for two hours. Strain and discard solids. Let broth settle so far rises to top, or refrigerate and then scoop off fat. Store in 2-cup servings in freezer bags.

Linked up with Menu Plan Monday and Tasty Tuesday

My Foray into Batch Cooking

I have always completely ignored people who say the words "batch cooking" or "once-a-month meals" to me. The thought of spending a whole day cooking and then cramming my tiny freezer full of casseroles always sounded dreadful to me.

But then my latest issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray came loudly promising "1 Month of Make-Ahead Meals." What I liked about this program is that you don't have to assemble casseroles and have a bazillion ingredients. It's just a matter, really, of preparing meat and sauce. So I took the plunge.

I didn't do everything she listed, because I know my family wouldn't eat some of the recipes. I replaced some of her recipes with ones we love, and I haven't yet prepared the chicken.

But today I roasted 5 lbs of pork shoulder (mixed with garlic, rosemary, lemon zest, and white wine), shredded it, and put it into freezer bags for:
• pork and avocado tacos
• Brunswick stew
• pulled pork sandwiches
• pork and ginger noodle soup.

I learned that our knives are badly in need of sharpening and that I really, really don't like cutting big chunks of pig into little chunks of pig. However, the end result was amazing and well worth the sawing and fat removing I had to do. This stuff is delicious, and I can't wait to try one of the recipes.

While the pork was roasting, I made a big pot of tomato sauce that I put into ziplocs, 1-2 cups at a time. This will be used for:
• lasagna
• chili
• spaghetti (twice)
• Brunswick stew (with the pork)
• Fusilli with chicken and tomato sauce

This isn't my favorite sauce ever. Something is not quite right, but I'm not sure yet what it is. Next time I'm going to adjust Rachael Ray's recipe to the one I usually use, although possibly this one just needed basil and oregano to make it perfect.

While all that was cooking, I made, from 5.5 lbs of ground beef, 32 meatballs, five hamburger patties, and three 2-cup ziploc baggies of browned ground beef. This will be used for:
• chili, lasagna, and spaghetti and meatballs (with sauce above)
• tacos
• hamburgers on the grill

Why I picked a 96 degree day to do all this, I don't know. Fortunately, there is air conditioning.

And a couch. I am very, very tired after all of this. Well, plus I put a coat of polyurethane on a table, played tennis, did two loads of laundry, and schooled my kids. If I had anything left of that bottle of wine that I used in the spaghetti sauce, I would slug it right down this minute.

At the end of today, I have the main ingredients for 11 suppers in our freezer. I also have 4 pantry meals in line. Once I do the chicken next week, I'll have four more meals for a total of 19 suppers that just need minimal preparation (boiling pasta, chopping vegetables, grating cheese, etc.).

I'll post the recipes as I get to them. For tonight, we're having French dip sandwiches, roasted cauliflower and corn on the cob. I'm really enjoying the Crock Pot Girls on Facebook. Between the crock pot and the batch cooking, I might have more time for blogging!

Linked up on Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie

On the Menu

I haven't posted a menu in months and months, but we really have been eating at home. I've even been cooking fabulous meals. Jesse inspires me. After eating college cafeteria food for a year, he thinks everything I make is amazing. And he especially likes to try new recipes. I've been using Pinterest to capture recipes I see online, and this has been tremendously successful!

So here's what is coming up this week:

Hamburgers and pasta salad
Meatloaf and mashed potatoes
Homemade pizza
Simple Sesame Chicken from Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Shrimp Scampi from Pioneer Woman
Pesto and Grilled Vegetable Sandwiches from The Cookin' Chemist

I'm also going to send my family into paroxysms of delight with Chocolate Eclair Squares and Raspberry Lemon Bars from Six Sisters' Stuff.

Linked up with Menu Plan Monday

Mozzarella Stuffed Chicken with Vegetable Succotash Recipes

We have a new favorite amazing meal around here. If you are a dinner guest, we will probably serve it to you because it is so pretty and so delicious. We served this to guests last night, and I had leftovers for second breakfast and lunch today. I wish I had more!

Please try this combination. It is so easy, especially if your husband will do the grilling and your daughter will cut up all the vegetables! (The recipes, by the way, are adaptations from Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine.)

Grilled Vegetable Succotash

4 ears corn, husked
1 red bell pepper
2-3 zucchini
1 1/2 cups frozen shelled edamame, thawed
2 TB butter, melted

1. Brush corn with olive oil. Grill the corn for about 10 minutes, then add the red pepper and zucchini (cut in half lengthwise). Continue grilling both until lightly charred on all sides, about 10 more minutes. Season all with salt and pepper.
2. When done, put chicken on the grill. Cut corn off of cob. Remove skin and seeds from red pepper and slice, cutting each slice then into 2-3 squares. Slice zucchini into half-moons. Put all into a clear glass bowl if you have one. (We used a trifle bowl.) Add edamame and butter. Season with salt and butter and serve warm.


Mozzarella Stuffed Chicken

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
6 slices of fresh mozzarella
12 basil leaves
4-6 TBS pesto
salt and pepper

1. (Prepare while veggies are grilling.) Salt and pepper chicken. Cut a pocket in each chicken breast and squish one slice of cheese and 2 basil leaves in each one. If you happen to have toothpicks, you can secure them shut. If not, just stuff it in the best you can. By this time, the veggies will be about done and you can grill the chicken while cutting the veggies.
2. Brush chicken with pesto and grill until done, turning over but not putting pesto on the second side. (Well, unless you really, really like a strong pesto flavor. I think two sides is overwhelming because you have basil inside the chicken as well.) This takes about 20 minutes or so.

Serve with a side of couscous, rice, or pasta.

Listed on Friday Finds and Tasty Tuesday

On the Menu (with spaghetti sauce recipe)

Phew.

What a long, strange trip I've been on. Actually, I haven't been anywhere, but I have a scarcely had a moment to breathe in the past 10 days, much less form many coherent thoughts.

Really, I've just been busy. My oldest was home from college for spring break (10 days), and with him come 2-3 friends, who are here pretty much all the time. Here's how that goes. I spent hours and hours devoted to food, whether in the kitchen or at the grocery store. I feel this compulsion to feed my son when he's home, partly because he's so dang skinny but mostly because he's so very appreciative of home-cooked meals.

We've had some fabulous meals in the past 10 days. Most are tried and true favorites:
Randy's Famous Sunday Night Fried Rice
Penne a la Betsy
Easy Enchiladas
Rainy Monday Beef Stew
Tortellini Chowder
Pot roast

But I did add a few new ones:

• Pioneer Woman's Chicken Cacciatore is one of our new favorites. I use chicken breasts instead of thighs and leave out the green pepper (Dr. H. despises cooked green peppers).

• Korean-Style Fried Fish with Kiwi is another new one. I would never have imagined such a thing, but Jesse read or heard about this somewhere and begged me to try it. Absolutely fantastic! I used tilapia and followed the recipe exactly except for the chives. This is definitely going on our master menu list.

• Pioneer Woman's Stuffed Shells were fantastic and served 8-10 people, including 4 teenage boys. I didn't have romano cheese so I used mozzarella, and they were fabulous.

I also have been making my own spaghetti sauce lately. Making spaghetti sauce always seemed frivolous to me when a jar of Ragu was so easy to open, but I am truly swayed over to the other side now. Also, I like to smell this in the crockpot all day.

Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce with Meatballs

1/2 onion, chopped
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
Sauté onion in about 2 TB butter until soft. Add garlic and sauté for a minute or so.

2-3 cans of chopped or crushed tomatoes
1-2 cans (15 oz) tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste plus 1-2 cans of water
2 TB brown sugar
Italian spices, 1-2 TSP of each: basil, oregano, salt, pepper. Some red pepper flakes (about 1/4 tsp)
About 6 dashes of Tabasco sauce.

Put everything in the crockpot and cook on low all day, or on high for a couple of hours and then on low. Taste after a few hours and adjust spices. You might want to add a bit more water.

Meatballs

1-1/2 lbs. gr. beef
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan
2 eggs
Salt, pepper, and Italian spices (about 1/2 tsp of each)

Mix all together and form into meatballs. Place around the rim of a dinner plate. Cover with wax paper and cook for about 7 minutes on medium-high power. (Adjust for your own microwave.) They should be almost done but still show a little pink. This makes about 2 plates of meatballs. Add to the crockpot for at least the last couple of hours.

Serve it all with your favorite pasta and focaccia or buttery bread. You can freeze whatever leftover meatballs and sauce you have.

I have no idea what we're having to eat this week, besides maybe some chicken on the grill. I am, quite frankly, tired of preparing big meals. But since I have a family to feed, I'll be searching around the internet for more good recipes, and I might even consult a few actual hard-copy cookbooks that I have.

Linked up on Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie and Tasty Tuesdays

On the Menu and Baked Ziti

I really have been doing menus for the past couple of weeks, even though I haven't been posting them. We had two big extended family meals this week, as the family gathered for my Dad's 86th birthday. Saturday I made a huge crockpot of barbecue pulled pork. It was okay. I still haven't found just the right barbecue recipe, although I've tried a half-dozen different ones. Someday I am going to find the absolute perfect recipe. Do you have one? If so, please share! We like ours sweet and spicy.

I do, however, have the most perfect baked ziti. It's way better than my old recipe. We had that last night while the menfolk watched the football playoffs. (Pipe down, people. I'm not saying women can't enjoy football; it's just that my daughter and I don't care one whit about it, other than the food and company that goes along with the whole culture.)

Baked Ziti
(Serves 8-10)

1 box ziti
1/2 container ricotta cheese
1 jar alfredo sauce
1/2 jar spaghetti sauce
about 2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
about 1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 cup parmesan, shredded
Italian spices

Cook the ziti al dente. Drain. Put back in big pot. Add the sauces, ricotta, 1 cup of mozzarella, 1/2 cup of cheddar, and some spices, like dried red pepper flakes, oregano, rosemary, basil, garlic. (I like to use McCormick's Italian Herb Seasoning Grinder.) Mix together and put into a 9 X 13 baking pan. Add more sauce if you like it a bit saucier. Top with the rest of the mozzarella and parmesan. Bake for about 20-30 minutes at 350.

This is so delicious that I could eat it for every single meal. I really could.

Also on the menu this week:
Pioneer Woman's Ranch Style Chicken
Easy Enchiladas
French Onion Soup
Chicken and Rice Soup

And something in the crockpot. I don't know what that will be yet, so tell me if you have a crockpot recipe that absolutely knocks your socks off. We'll give it the SmallWorld test. I made spaghetti sauce and red beans and rice in the crockpot last week, and both were absolutely amazing. I'll post the recipes when I refind them.

Linked up at Tasty Tuesdays and Menu Plan Monday

Two Recipes: Crab Chowder and Pork Chops and Rice

I've been cooking up a storm during the month that our oldest has been home for college. It's fun to cook for someone who has been eating college food for a few months and is desperate for a home-cooked meal.

Last night was his last supper at home until spring break, so I gave him a choice of pork chops and rice or crab chowder. It was a hard choice for him, but eventually he settled on the soup. This was my first attempt, and he said it was the best soup ever.

Crab Chowder

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups half and half
1 lb. crab meat, drained
1 can corn, drained
1-2 potatoes, diced
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. pepper
a few dashes of hot sauce

Melt butter in heavy saucepan over low heat. Add flour and stir until smooth. Cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add broth and cook over medium heat, stirring until thickened. Stir in everything else. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 20 minutes. Adjust seasonings.

And here is the recipe for pork chops and rice, which I'll make later this week and miss him.

Pork Chops and Rice

6 pork chops
3 TB oil
1 large onion, cut into 6 slices
2 tsp. chili powder
1-1/4 c. water
2 tsp. salt
1 c. uncooked rice
1 eight-ounce can tomato sauce

Brown chops well on both sides in skillet. Remove and brown onion slices. Remove, stir in chili powder and cook 1-2 minutes. Add rest of ingredients and heat to boiling. Pour into a 9 X 13 baking dish. Arrange browned chops over rice and place an onion slice on each chop. Cover with foil and bake at 375 for about an hour or until liquid is absorbed.

Linked up on Tasty Tuesday and on favorite soups at Raising Olives, Smockity Frocks, and The Common Room

On the Menu

I'm trying to get back to regular meal planning. Most of our activities are over for the month, so I'm hoping we can enjoy many family meals together while Jesse is home from college. Since he is no longer a vegetarian, he says he wants beef. Hilarious. We don't really eat that much red meat here ourselves, but I found a couple of things to put on the menu for the upcoming week.

Pioneer Woman's Beef with Snow Peas
Meatloaf (I make this up as I go along but it's a lot like Pioneer Woman's without the bacon)
General Tso's Chicken (I double the sauce on this)
Fried Chicken with mashed potatoes
Baked Potato Soup

We're also going to start out baking frenzy this week. We'll be making chocolate truffle cookies, sugar cookies, and oatmeal cranberry-white chocolate cookies. We may get to some others by the end of the week.

I'm going recipe hunting this week. I haven't been in a while, and I'm beginning to tire of our same old menu items.

On the Menu

Such excitement! Our oldest will be coming home from college for nearly a week on Monday, and he isn't a vegetarian anymore! Oh, simmer down, vegetarians. I have nothing against vegetarians; I'm just not one, and I've found it somewhat challenging to cook for one these past few years.

Also, I'd love for him to put on 20 lbs or so, and that's difficult to do when one eats lots of veggie burgers and lettuce. So tomorrow I'm going shopping and stocking up the cabinets with all kinds of stuff to cook.

And of course Thanksgiving is this week, and my third brother and his wife are hosting. All I have to do is make the pies! The bad end of the deal is that we won't have any leftover turkey, but Christmas is only a few weeks away.

So coming up this week, we'll be having:
Randy's Fettucine Alfredo
Lasagna
Tortellini Chowder
Slow Cooker Cuban Pork
Randy's Chicken Piccata
and, while we're at it, let's add Randy's Famous Sunday Night Fried Rice

It occurred to me, as I was making out the menu, that Dr. H. will be off most of this week. And he does love to cook…

Besides baking pies for Thanksgiving Day, I'll be making cookies and a cake, for sure. I'm thinking about Pioneer Woman's Tres Leches cake. The only problem with this cake is that there is no chocolate or icing—but it's not about me, right? It's really fun to have a grateful college student for whom to cook.

Linked up at Menu Plan Mondays

Cake Is Good Food

I have an obsession with cake. I like to make cake, and I like to eat cake. This past weekend I attended a shower at which there was cake. Right about when I was ready to have my slice, someone put a notebook in my hand and said, "Could you please record all the gifts?" There were so many gifts that I absolutely could not stop for one minute to get cake, and by the time my job was done, the cake was gone. That was so wrong.

The problem with cake is that it so often looks amazing but is actually kind of disappointing. (Thinking like that helps me to cope with cake losses like my most recent one.) This cake, however, will not disappoint. I cut it into slices for transporting purposes, and also because I could snag a few slices for my family before I took it to whatever event I was taking it to.

Triple Chocolate Cake

1 box of devil's food cake mix
4-1/2 oz. package of instant chocolate pudding mix
1-3/4 cup milk
12-oz. pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
powdered sugar for the top

Preheat oven to 350. Combine everything except the powdered sugar in a bowl. Mix by hand until well blended. Pour into a greased and floured Bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes or until it springs back. Cool and then turn out onto serving plate and spring powdered sugar on top.

I made this apple cider cake (above) a few weeks ago when Jesse was home from college. He and his friends actually devoured the entire cake in one night. I did get enough to say that it was, indeed, delicious. I used the recipe here at Eat at Home.

Laurel practiced her cake-decorating skills on this mocha cake. I found this recipe at Life in Grace, and it is truly delicious. Kind of a lot of work to get all those little swirlies on top, but hopefully you have a youngster who enjoys doing such things. I'm more of a gimme-a-knife kind of icing girl.

I have a bunch more cake recipes bookmarked that I want to try. The problem is that I rarely make cakes just to eat at home; I need an event in order to make a cake. The obvious reason for this is that I, like many mothers, will end up eating at least half of the cake if I make it for my family. (Unless Jesse is home from college. I can always depend on him to eat half a cake. But he is 6'1" and weighs like 75 lbs, so he can afford to eat half a cake.)

Here are some more on my list:
Darn Good Chocolate Cake Drizzled in White Chocolate at Simply Sweet Home
Cranberry Cake with Warm Vanilla Butter Sauce at Make It and Love It
Tres Leches Cake at Pioneer Woman
Molten Chocolate Lava Cake at Pioneer Woman

Do you have a cake recipe I need to try? Tell me, please!

Linked up at Tasty Tuesdays

Common Cold Cures

Both Randy and my Dad are already battling terrible colds this year, hacking coughs and dripping noses. Pure cold misery. Last week I made chicken tortilla soup for my Dad, and I swear he was better within a couple of days. Tonight I'm making French onion soup for Randy, and I'm expecting him to be back to normal by tomorrow or so.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 TB. vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, minced, plus a tsp. of the liquid
1/2 to 1 TB. chili powder (the more, the hotter)
2 tsp. salt
8 cups chicken broth
1 cup corn (frozen or canned)
1-2 cups cooked and shredded chicken
1/8 cup lime juice
tortilla chips

If you don't have a store of cooked chicken breasts in your freezer, you'll need to cook about 2 chicken breasts before starting this. You can boil them for 20 minutes or grill them. A rotisserie chicken also works great for this.
Sauté the onion, garlic, chipotle, chili powder, and salt in oil for about 5 minutes. Add the chicken broth, bring to boil, reduce heat slightly, and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Add the corn and cook 5 minutes more. Stir in chicken and lime juice and warm through, for about 15 more minutes.

Ladle into bowls and pass the tortilla chips to crumble on top of the soup.



French Onion Soup
Serves 4

2 TBS. butter
4 large yellow onions, sliced thin
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. mustard
dash of thyme or Italian seasoning
6 cups water
3 TBS. soy sauce
2-3 TBS. dry white wine or red wine (opt.)
few dashes of pepper
******************
Croutons (recipe below)
Grated Mozzerella or thin slices of provolone or swiss cheese

1. Melt butter in a kettle or Dutch oven. Add onions and salt. Cook over medium about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Add mustard and thyme. Cover. Continue to cook very slowly for about 35 minutes. The onions will be so soft and will simmer in their own liquid.
3. Add everything else except the toppings. Simmer 15 minutes more. Dish into overproof bowls and top with croutons* and cheese (in that order). Put under broiler briefly to brown the cheese. Serve with smoked turkey sandwiches or just crusty bread.

*Croutons
Cube some old hoagies, hamburger buns, stale bread, or whatever you have handy. Saute in garlic butter and then toast at 300 for a few minutes.

Seriously—this stuff is good for colds. Try making one of these next time someone in your house needs his stuffy nose and sore throat cleared up! Do you have a cure-all soup?

Linked up with Tasty Tuesday

On the Menu

I am ashamed to say it's been nearly a month since my last On the Menu entry. We've been on the El Cheapo Menu Plan for the past few weeks, AKA Life with College Tuition. It seems too short of a time ago that we were paying our own graduate school tuition, and here we are again. (It was only a decade ago, after all!)

Anyway, my mealing planning mostly involved eating out of the pantry and freezer for the last few weeks, but with a paycheck comes groceries. But before I post this week's recipes, I wanted to review a couple from my last menu post. We tried two new recipes from Pioneer Woman: Chicken with Olives and Pasta with Tomato-Blue Cheese Sauce. The first one was completely unexciting and won't be making my On the Menu list. But the Pasta with Tomato-Blue Cheese Sauce was fabulous! I get kind of drooly even thinking about it.

Here's what we'll be eating this week at SmallWorld:

Baked Teriyaki Chicken
Broccoli Cheddar Soup
French Onion Soup with Turkey Sandwiches
Corn and Bacon Chowder
Hamburgers
Country Fried Steak

I'll be checking out Menu Plan Monday and Tasty Tuesday this week, and of course I always see what's happening with Pioneer Woman. I love adding new recipes to my "Recipes to Try" file. Latest ones include, besides all of the above except the French onion soup: Pumpkin Scones and Swirled Pumpkin Yeast Bread. I also made some yummy cakes recently. One of these days I'll get around to posting the recipes!

Linked up with Menu Plan Monday and Tasty Tuesday

On the Menu, with Lemon Bar recipe

I just had a big bowl of leftover Chicken and Rice Soup for lunch, and I'm telling you: if you haven't tried this soup yet, please do not wait any longer! It is sooooo amazingly good and easy, and you absolutely must have it on a chilly, damp autumn day. By the way, I left out the green peppers, celery, and pimentos because we didn't have any of those, and Dr. H. liked it much better.

This week is one of those weird hit-or-miss supper weeks. We have a pack meeting one night, which means Dr. H. won't eat; we're going camping another night, which means camping food; and this weekend is our county's huge fall festival, which means we'll be parking cars at our church. But I'm making out a menu anyway, anticipating that we'll at least have a few normal meals at home.

I'm going to be bold and try this Chicken with Olives on Pioneer Woman Cooks. This will be a bit of a risk in our house because: 1) Dr. H. doesn't like olives; 2) Dr. H. doesn't like chicken on the bone; and 3) Dr. H. doesn't like chunks of cooked tomato. But he did say, "I'll try it," so we'll see how this goes. The good news is that this is served on a bed of linguine, so all picky eaters can just eat linguine. I might be eating a lot of chicken and olives this week.

I found another one at Pioneer Woman that I have to try this week: Pasta with Tomato-Blue Cheese Sauce. If you need more heavy cream and butter in your life, Pioneer Woman is always the best place to go. Serving up a side of PW's Buttery Bread will greatly enrich any pasta experience.

The rest of the week will be old favorites. Our vegetarian college son will be coming home this weekend, and he's requested Lasagna and Baked Potato Soup (sans bacon). I'm also going to be crazy and make a pumpkin pie for him, even though it's not Thanksgiving. I don't know what's come over me.

I made the most delicious lemon bars yesterday. I can hardly stop eating them.

Lemon Bars

Cream together 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup butter, and 1/4 cup powdered sugar. Spread in a greased 8 X 8 inch pan and bake for 20 minutes at 350.

While that's baking, mix together 2 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 3 TB lemon juice, 1/8 tsp. salt, and 2 TB flour. Pour over the crust when it's done baking. Return to oven and bake about 25 minutes at 350. Cool, then sprinkle with powdered sugar and cut into bars.

These are ridiculously delicious and so easy to make, especially if you don't have anything else dessert-ish in your house.

And that's what we'll be eating at SmallWorld this week.

Linked to Menu Plan Monday and Tasty Tuesday