whipped. and fried.

It’s the final week. I had to go out with a bang. Or at least a deep fry. And why not make one more Chinese food recipe while I’m on a roll? Adrienne had been telling me for some time now that she had the perfect Sesame Chicken recipe, but each time she mentioned it I think I responded with, “That sounds GREAT! When are you making it so that I can come over for dinner?” I’m a good friend that way.

But, there I was, on the last week of the Whip It Up challenge, and in need of a good Homemade Take-Out recipe. Sesame Chicken? Why, yes, I think I shall.
Chinese Sesame Chicken

Ingredients:
Approx. 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Marinade:
2 T. soy sauce
2 T. flour
2 T. cornstarch
3 T. water
¼ t. baking powder
¼ t. baking soda
1 t. vegetable oil

Sauce for chicken:
½ C. water
1 C. chicken broth
1/8 C. vinegar
¼ C. cornstarch
1 C. sugar
2 T. soy sauce
1 t. vegetable oil
½ t. chili powder (or more, if you like it hot)
1 clove garlic minced or equiv. garlic powder

Other:
2 T. toasted sesame seeds
Oil for frying

Directions:
1. Cut the chicken into cubes. Mix the marinade ingredients and marinade the chicken for 20 minutes.
2. To prepare the sauce, mix together all the sauce ingredients. Pour them into a small pot and bring to a boil, stirring continuously. Turn the heat down to low and keep warm while you fry the chicken.
3. Heat oil in saucepan, generous enough to cover chicken completely for frying. Add marinated chicken a few pieces at a time and deep fry until golden brown; drain on paper towels. Repeat for all the chicken. 4. Just before you’re done frying, bring the sauce back up to a boil. Place chicken in a serving dish and pour sauce over. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve with rice.
I learned a couple of things while making this. First, if you are only serving two people you probably only need one pound of chicken. I used only one pound of chicken and still made the full marinade and sauce recipes. Yum. I like lots of sauce. Second, I hate deep frying. ‘Tis messy and can be painful when the oil spatters out and burns your hand. Multiple times during the painfully slow frying process (I was totally following the “add marinated chicken a few pieces at a time” direction and it took me almost half an hour to fry up my one pound of chicken.) I mumbled in frustration, “This is so lame. I hate this recipe. I would never make this again.” And third, I would totally make this again. Yum! It only took one bite before I was eating my words right along with this delicious chicken.

This recipe was very easy to follow and the finished product was scrumptious. I would definitely make this again. And by “I would make this”, I mean “I would ask Somebody to make this.” Obviously.

rocking the chinese wife thing

I don’t have a favorite chef. Is that strange? Do most people? So, for this challenge I used Somebody’s favorite Taiwanese chef (Pei Mei, as I mentioned before) and attempted another Chinese dinner. Behold, the Quick Stir-fried Beef with Green Onion.

Let me just begin my saying that you really need super-de-duper, paper-thin sliced beef for this. We did not have paper-thin beef. It was more like cardboard thin. It worked, but I think thinner would have been better. We attempted to get ours paper-thin. Honestly, we did.

Before you begin here, Somebody read through this post and determined that it was kind of boring. Feel free to skip right to the recipe at the end if you find yourself falling asleep.

Scene One: Saturday night at the meat counter in the grocery store.
Me (to the butcher): If we buy a piece of meat here, can you put it in your freezer until it is more solid and then slice it paper-thin for us?
Butcher #1 (played by a teenager): I have no idea. Let me go ask. (He goes into the back and reappears with an older and apparently much wise butcher.)
Butcher #2: What do you want?
Me: If we buy a piece of meat here, can you put it in your freezer until it is more solid and then slice it paper-thin for us?
Butcher #2: Sure. You just purchase it and then bring it back here with the receipt. We’ll put it in the freezer, then slice it for you, then have it ready for you on Monday.
Me: Wonderful. I love you. I will always shop here for, lo, your customer service, it is awesome.

Scene Two: Monday afternoon at the meat counter in the grocery store.
Me (to the butcher): Hi, do you remember me? I left the meat here on Saturday and you were going to slice it paper-thin for me.
Butcher #1 (played by a teenager): Uh…sure. Hold on. (He goes into the back and reappears with our meat, most certainly frozen to a solid block and NOT already sliced. He begins to unwrap the meat to get going on the slicing. Enter Butcher #3.)
Butcher #3: What are you doing?
Butcher #1: Just slicing this up for her.
Butcher #3. You can’t do that. Our meat slicer won’t slice meat that is frozen.
Me: Actually, it has to be mostly frozen in order to get it as thin as we want it.
Butcher #3: We can’t do that here.
Me: On Saturday, someone here told me you could.
Butcher #3: Well, not this frozen. You’ll have to take it home and thaw it out and then bring it back.
Me: Can you just do that here? Keep it in your refrigerator and then when it reaches the correct thaw/frozen ratio just slice it up paper-thin for me?
Butcher #3: No. There’s, uh, some liability or something, blah blah, and we can’t keep your meat in our freezer. What if we lost it?
Me:
Butcher #3: So, you just take it home and bring it back later when it is more thawed and we’ll slice it up for you.
Me: I hate you. You think I’m going to come back here with my meat? You, mister, have another think coming.

Scene Three: Tuesday evening at the meat counter in the grocery store.
Somebody (who had been given this chore because I refused to return to the meat counter as my loathing and frustration were still running deep. I had, however, taken the meat out of our freezer at precisely 3pm so that it could reach the perfect thaw/frozen ratio by the time Somebody got home and could go to the grocery store.): Hi, I brought this meat back for you to slice up paper-thin for us.
Butcher #3: What? Why? We can’t do that here. This here meat slicer is only for already cooked meat. We can’t put raw meat on there.
Somebody (eyeing the meat counter with NOT ONE piece of already cooked meat in the display case. All the cooked meat was over on the other side of the store in the deli section. The meat section had ONLY raw meat.): Uh, what? This is the third time we’ve been here.
Butcher #3: (Big sigh.) I GUESS I can use the saw in the back. Hold on. (Goes into the back. Returns a few minutes later with CARDBOARD-THICK slices of meat.) Here you go. Have a great day. Come back and see us again!
Somebody: My wife was right. You guys pretty much suck.

Curtain closes.

Pei Mei’s Chinese Cook Book Volume 2
My notes and observations are in parenthesis. We doubled this recipe because we were feeding more than two people.

Quick Stir-fried Beef with Green Onion
Ingredients:
250 g. sliced beef (Do you love having your meat portioned by grams? We do NOT.)
2 cups shredded green onion (Shredded? We just cut it into 2-inch pieces, then sliced then in half length-wise.)
3 Tbsp sliced garlic (We used minced garlic because that was all we had.)
4 Tbsp oil
To marinate beef:
¼ tsp salt
½ Tbsp wine
1 Tbsp oil
1/6 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp cold water
½ Tbsp cornstarch

Seasonings:
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil

Directions:
1. Prepare the beef marinade in a bowl. Then add the sliced beef (The beef slices should be paper-thin. Good luck with that.) Mix thoroughly with your fingers. Set aside and marinate for at least 10 minutes.
2. Heat oil in a pan. Turn the pan around so that the oil covers the base of the pan.
3. When the oil is smoking hot, put the sliced garlic in. Then add the sliced beef. Stir over high heat for about 10 seconds (10 seconds? Only super paper-thin beef would be cooked in 10 seconds. Just cook it until just barely done.) Splash soy sauce around the sides of the pan. Mix and remove to a bowl. Reserve juice in pan. (We poured out most of the juice because it was WAY too much.) 4. Reheat the juice, then add green onion. Stir fry only for 5 seconds. Turn off the heat. Pour the beef back into the pan. Combine with green onion and add sesame oil. Transfer to a serving plate.

We served this over white rice (of course). This recipe was easy to follow (I felt more confident stir-frying this time) and the meal was delicious. We will make this again. We also had some squid (left over from our calamari adventure last week) that Somebody prepared and served with shrimp in a yummy sauce.
Oh, and because you were all curious, we got our squid at the grocery store at the military post. You could probably find it already cut up, but we were going for squid we could also use in other Chinese recipes. Hence the whole squid. Again, SO not worth making the calamari at home. Make this Beef with Green Onion instead. You won’t be sorry.

fried is the only way to eat them

Let me just begin by saying that we won’t make this appetizer again. The recipe was easy to follow, and it tasted fine, but it was SO not worth it to make calamari at home.
Somebody and I both enjoy calamari as an appetizer at restaurants and have ordered it many times. Our favorites are California Pizza Kitchen (Well, this is one of my favorite places to have it—mostly due to their dipping sauce. But when I went to look for recipes to make at home I tried to find calamari on their online menu and it wasn’t listed anymore. Anyone know anything about that?) and that one restaurant in Boston that we went to with Melissa and James. That was amazing. And yet it is always one of those things where we would say, “I can’t believe we are paying $7.95 for this. We could totally make this at home.” And so we did.

We started with the breading recipe that The Pioneer Woman uses for her Onion Strings (which, by the way, we have made more than once and are just divine). And then I found a for real calamari recipe that was basically the same but had oregano instead of cayenne pepper. We stuck with the cayenne pepper.

Reason number one why we won’t make this again: You start with this:
Reason number two why we won’t make this again: The breading needed more kick to it. Using just a half teaspoon of cayenne worked with the Onion Strings, but the calamari definitely needed more.
Reason number three why we won’t make this again: In the end, our stovetop looked like this:
That’s enough reasons, right? They were fine. We ate some. And then we threw the rest away. It is absolutely worth paying $7.95 to have someone else prep and clean up after this appetizer.

back to my, er, his roots

Somebody was VERY excited when he heard that the challenge category for this week was “spicy.” He loves the spicy. I don’t love it the way he does, and, in fact, before we got married considered mild salsa to be spicy. I have come a long way in my spice tolerance in the past three years, but still am no where near his level. Of course we went with Chinese food, because for him there is no better place to have spice than in Chinese food. Lucky for me, we already own three great Chinese cookbooks. Somebody ordered these a little while ago because he knows that the author is a great chef. Apparently she is the Taiwanese equivalent of Julia Child, or Emeril Lagasse, or Bobby Flay. You know—a cooking superstar.

I’m sure you aren’t surprised that Somebody is in charge of all the Chinese cooking that goes on in our house. While I consider myself fairly skilled in the kitchen, the cooking methods used in Chinese cooking are still pretty foreign (ha ha) to me, and I’m not confident following his directions. Especially because so much of his cooking is based on the look of the food, or the smell, or feel, or whatever—it takes some practice and up until now I haven’t had any practice. I think that Somebody had probably given up hope that he would ever come home from work and find I had made a Chinese meal, but after tonight he has started saying things like, “Just a few more of these recipes and you’ll be able to prepare the full three dishes.” And, “You make a wonderful Chinese wife.” Both of those statements made me laugh. The full three dishes? What the? One is not enough? Apparently, no. And, yes, with practice and direction I’m turning out to be a lovely Chinese wife. Whatever. I’m pretty much the opposite of a lovely Chinese wife, but that’s why he loves me so much.

Anyway, on to the recipe. The beauty of Pei Mei’s books is that recipe has a photo so you know what the end result should look like, and, more importantly, each recipe is given in English and traditional Chinese characters. While you don’t need to be able to read any Chinese to follow the recipes, more than once Somebody read through the Chinese recipe to get a better understanding of what the English was trying to say. You should totally hire a translator when you make this. I know a good one. I am going to give it to you exactly as it is written, and then my notes and changes are at the end.

Chicken with Gongbao Sauce (you might know it as Kung Pow Sauce)
Ingredients:
2 chicken legs or 300 g. chicken breast
10 pieces dried red chili
½ cup peanuts
1 tsp chopped ginger

Seasonings (1):
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2-3 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp water

Seasonings (2):
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp wine
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp sesame oil

Directions:
1. Remove all bones from chicken, cut into 2.5cm cubes, marinate in Seasonings (1) for 30 minutes.
2. Wipe dried chili, cut into 3 cm long pieces.
3. Fry chicken in heated oil for 40-50 seconds. Remove chicken. 4. Heat 1 Tbsp oil to fry dried chilies until it turns dark red, add ginger and chicken, stir fry quickly, add Seasonings (2), stir until evenly mixed, turn off the heat. Add the peanuts, mix well and serve. We served this over white rice, garnished with cilantro, and ate with chopsticks. Please don’t make this unless you have chopsticks. It’s, like, a crime to cook this authentically and then use a fork.
My notes and tips:

• We used two chicken thighs with the skin and bones removed. This made just enough for the two of us for dinner. Somebody said that we could have doubled the amount of chicken and still used the same amount of sauce, but I kind of liked having a little extra sauce to flavor the rice.
• I did not wipe off or cut the red chili peppers. I didn’t wipe them because Somebody said I didn’t have to. I have no idea why not. But he’s the expert here so I just went along with it. I didn’t chop them because I didn’t want this to be too spicy to eat. I just chose small peppers. Also, and this I didn’t know beforehand, but when the dish is finished you don’t eat the red chili peppers. You just pick them out, sort of like you would a bay leaf. They are just there to add some flavor to the oil and to give a little heat. All the spice/heat in this dish comes from the red chili peppers. Because I didn’t cut them, and so didn’t release any of the seeds, this ended up being not spicy AT ALL. Not at all. I was shocked. Somebody was completely disappointed with how non spicy it was. It was absolutely delicious, but not spicy. If you want heat, just cut open your chili peppers. Oh, and you can find dried red chili peppers in the fresh fruit/veggie section of most grocery stores—they will be in the little section that has ethnic foods.

• All cooking (frying and stir frying) is done on high heat.
• I used ¾ cup oil to fry the chicken because I was using a flat, non-stick pan. If I had been using a wok I would have only needed about 1/3 cup oil.
• The directions say to fry the chicken for 40-50 seconds. I cooked it a little longer—not more than two minutes—just until the chicken was no longer pink and looked completely cooked.
• If using a non-stick pan, which we did, you don’t need to add the extra 1 Tbsp of oil to cook the chilies. I just dumped out the oil that had cooked the chicken, didn’t wipe out the pan completely, and just used the light coating that remained in the pan to cook the chilies. If you are going to use a wok, you would need to add in the extra oil.
• I fried the red chili peppers for about 30 seconds (they didn’t seem to change color, so I just went with when Somebody told me they were done) before adding the ginger and chicken. Also, and consider this your warning, although leaving the peppers whole made it so that EATING this was not spicy, I absolutely felt the heat of the peppers while I was frying them. Seriously. There was much coughing and gagging and not breathing for the 30 seconds the peppers were frying. The fumes killed me. I’m just a ghost writing these great tips for you. The ghost of a good Chinese wife.
• Just in case you don’t have white wine, or cooking wine, or Chinese rice cooking wine like we have… …you can just use a tablespoon of water. Or just take it out of the recipe. Somebody says that the wine is just there to remove the chicken-y smell from the cooking. What huh? Whatever. So, don’t feel the need to put on sunglasses and a baseball cap and go to the grocery story across town just to purchase the wine for this recipe.
• Once the Seasonings (2) was added, I cooked it for about one minute before removing it from the heat and serving it. Chinese food is always served hot, hot, hot, so be ready with your rice so that you can eat as soon as this is done.
• When I make this again we will reduce the amount of soy sauce in Seasonings (2) to 1 ½ Tbsp, and would increase the ginger slightly.

Make this tonight. This recipe is so easy and comes together very quickly. From start to finish I think it only took about 45 minutes, and that included the time it took to de-bone the chicken and marinate it. I am not sure if I would have been as successful making this as it was printed without Somebody watching over my shoulder and giving me tips. Now that I’ve done it once I’m confident that I could do it again without assistance. If you need me to come and watch over your shoulder, just let me know.

since when was pasta healthy?

For my healthy cooking I chose a recipe from my Cooking Light SuperFast Suppers cookbook that I had been wanting to make for awhile but it had never been at the very top of our list of meals to try. It had, in fact, been on the meal list the last two weeks, but was bumped both times for leftovers or eating out. This seemed like the perfect week to actually keep it on the meal plan.

The recipe comes from the “have it your way” section of the book. The idea is that you start with a “Basic Pasta" recipe and then customize your own sauce. The Basic Pasta makes enough for five servings and then each sauce recipe makes enough for one serving. You can try different sauces, or each person eating can choose their own sauce. I decided to try the Roasted Red Pepper Pasta (because, hello, roasted red peppers and balsamic vinegar in the same recipe? Sign me up) and the Asian-Style Pasta.
I had high hopes to love this meal, but my overall reaction to both sauces was, “Meh.” It was fine. I wanted to love it and it was just fine. (For some reason that sentence makes me think of “I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.” Go figure.) I enjoyed dipping my breadsticks in the Roasted Red Pepper Sauce, if that counts for anything. The Asian-Style Pasta was slightly spicy for my taste, but that could be adjusted by cutting down on the crushed red pepper. Somebody’s response was, “You sure used a lot of dishes to make this.” Which is, I think, code for, “This was SO not worth my having to wash all those dishes.”

The recipe was easy to follow but I don’t think we would make either sauce again. There are too many other delicious pasta sauces out there to waste time and energy (and dirty dishes) on these.

But because I don’t want to leave you without something delicious to eat, here is the recipe for the best breadsticks in the world. I might be slightly biased because this is my mom’s recipe and these are the breadsticks I grew up eating, but I think they are great. My sister does something magic to them when she makes them and they get all toasted buttery on the bottom. I haven’t figured out how she does that…

Bread Sticks

Ingredients:
1 Tbsp. yeast

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 1/2 tsp. salt

3 cups flour (or more if necessary. *You want to add just enough flour that the dough can be handled without sticking to the counter. After your first 3 cups of flour add just a little at a time until you can poke your finger in the dough (about 1/2") and pull it out without any dough sticking to it.)

Directions:

• Place yeast, sugar, and water in your mixing bowl and let set for 5 minutes.
• Add the flour and salt to your mixing bowl with the yeast mixture and knead for 3 minutes. (Don't use your regular kitchen beaters. Use a mixer that can handle bread dough or mix with a wooden spoon and then move the dough to the counter to knead by hand when it becomes too hard to stir.)
• Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. (Covered with the lid of your mixer or a hand towel if already on the counter.)
• Sprinkle out some flour on your counter. Plop the dough down and then flip it over so that both sides have a coating of flour.
• Roll out the dough to about 1/2" thick and then cut into strips with a pizza cutter.
• Melt 6 Tbsp. margarine or butter onto a cookie sheet (12" X 17") and place bread sticks in pan. Flip the bread sticks over to coat both sides with margarine.
• Sprinkle bread sticks with Parmesan cheese, garlic salt and sesame seeds. Another spice I sometimes sprinkle on is Italian Seasoning.
• Let rise 30 minutes to an hour (covered with a hand towel or plastic wrap that has been sprayed with non-stick spray) until the bread sticks have almost doubled in size.
• Bake at 375 for 13 to 18 minutes (middle rack in oven) until lightly browned on top.

kansas city style

Seriously? A Regional Favorite? It’s kind of unfair to ask that of a poor Kansas girl. What do we have here? Wheat? So, I could make bread? Corn? Okay. Oh? The BBQ? That’s right. We’ve got the BBQ. Sadly, I have already perfected the at home BBQ ribs, so I couldn’t use that for this challenge. I opted for a slow-cooker word-of-mouth recipe for country-style pork ribs and then tried a new recipe for baked corn. Yes, I tried two new things. Please send my award as soon as possible.

Slow Cooker County-Style Pork Ribs
Ingredients:
Some county-style pork ribs
Water
BBQ sauce
Let me just save you a little trouble and tell you to get this sauce. ‘Tis awesome.

Directions:
Place all ingredients in slow cooker and cook. Enjoy.

This was pretty much how I got the recipe, and considering it was a word-of-mouth pass along, I guess I should be happy I remembered that much. I shall fill in the details for you now. I used a 2-quart slow cooker, which was the perfect size for the 2 pounds of county-style ribs we used. I put them in the slow cooker thawed, then added about a cup of BBQ sauce and about ¼ cup of water. I brushed the sauce around to coat the ribs, but I don’t think that is absolutely necessary. The ribs should be cooked on high for four hours. If you haven’t really cooked this kind of meat in a slow cooker before, and are used to cooking things on low, and remember that the person who gave you the recipe said it was done in about four hours, and so you cook your ribs for four hours on low, they will not be done in time for dinner. Well, they’ll be cooked enough to be edible, but they won’t be really fall-off-the bone delicious until bedtime. I’m just saying.

The recipe turned out to be a challenge for me because it lacked information vital to my success (cooking temperature and time) but now that I’m armed with that information I will certainly make this again. It is super simple and delicious.
Baked Corn I wanted to do something with corn because we have lots of fresh corn coming out of the garden and Kansas is kind of a corn state. This time of year the corn fields line every highway and everything looks green and lovely. I love the corn fields. Recipes that use fresh corn? Not so easy to come by. I ended up going with this recipe for Baked Corn because the reviews said things like, “This is requested at every holiday meal.” And, “OMG my family LOVES this.” Rave. Rave. Sadly, we must disagree. It’s kind of like a cornbread with whole corn kernels. And, as the recipes states but I didn’t really notice until it was too late, it makes a 9x13 pan, which is way too much for the two of us. We did eat it for dinner, and then a little more at bedtime when the meat was finally yummy, and then for leftovers the next day, and it did not get any better. It probably would have been better if I had eaten it as if it WERE just cornbread—with butter and honey. We try hard not to waste food around here, but we ended up throwing out about half the pan when we both decided we just couldn’t eat anymore. I totally should have just served fresh corn on the cob. The recipe was easy to follow and the result was edible, but we won’t be making this again.

Just in case you want to try some AWESOME BBQ ribs, here you go:

BBQ Ribs (original recipe yields 4 servings)
Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds country style pork ribs
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons salt
1 cup barbeque sauce (but seriously, you'll need more)

Directions:

• Place ribs in a large pot with enough water to cover. Season with garlic powder, black pepper and salt.
• Bring water to a boil, and boil ribs until tender. 45 min-1 hr
• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
• Remove ribs from pot, and place them in a 9x13 inch baking dish.
• Pour barbeque sauce over ribs.
• Cover dish with aluminum foil, and bake in the preheated oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until internal temperature of pork has reached 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).
• Add more sauce to the top about 20 minutes before finished cooking.
• Devour

whipping it up 2009

I decided to participate in the Whip It Up 2009 challenge, and here it is the first week and I already feel behind. I'm blaming most of this on the fact that I spent the first half of this week in Utah and so only had a few days to come up with a recipe, make it, and then post. Lucky for you I saved all of those tasks until this morning. As the theme for this week is holiday food, and as today is a holiday, I figured that anything I made today would qualify as holiday food. And because I was making dessert for a holiday BBQ this evening, I figured adding one more thing was going to be a breeze. I could not have been more incorrect.

First, the mini pies with star tops that I was planning for dessert tonight didn't turn out at all. It could have been because I ignored the advice to use store-bought pie crust and pie filling (hello! My recipe for both pie crust and cherry filling are awesome, so why would I compromise and use something from the store?) and then didn't have the correct size cookie cutter for the cute star pie top. Tragedy. After the first batch went woefully awry, I knew I had to come up with a back-up dessert. One batch of lemon blueberry cheesecake and one batch of cherry cupcakes later, I was all baked out. Actually, somewhere in the middle of these two things I became baked out. And I still didn't have a new-to-me recipe for the challenge!

It was right about lunch time when I decided that I would have to make something that would qualify for the challenge AND lunch, and the Internet didn't disappoint with Brown Sugar Bacon Waffles from Joy the Baker. Why, hello there, holiday brunch!

And here, friends, is where I become one of those annoying Allrecipes.com reviewers who are all, "I substituted orange juice for the milk, cinnamon for the nutmeg, and doubled the eggs, and this recipe was horrible!" My whole goal was to avoid using the oven as it was already busy cooking the cheesecake and cupcakes. So I improvised. I pulled out my Makin Bacon and attempted to get the caramelized brown sugar bacon (clearly the star of this recipe and clearly only attained by baking the bacon in the oven) in the microwave. Fail. Does not work. Evidence below.
I went ahead and put that bacon in the waffle batter anyway, because, well, I had to do SOMETHING. And they turned out okay. For some reason my waffles are much thinner than Joy's, and the bacon really has more of a charred flavor than a caramel flavor, but they were good.Seriously, though. Waffles? With brown sugar? And bacon inside? Served with strawberries? These couldn't go too far wrong. The recipe was very easy to follow (and this would have turned out much more scrumptious if I had followed it exactly), it was pretty quick to make this (which is ALWAYS a good thing, especially for a holiday brunch), and the resulting waffles were yummy to eat. I would make this again.

wonderful girl and boy land

We volunteered to host a little going-away party for a family in our ward (who, sadly, are returning to their home in Argentina after unsuccessfully trying to achieve the "American Dream" for five years) and so I was allowed to make desserts on a non-Sunday. It was better then Christmas. I went with a favorite cookie, and after trying it, you shall declare it one of your favorites, too. Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Ingredients:
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup raisins
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
1 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups rolled oats (grind at least half in a food processor)

Directions:
Combine eggs, vanilla & almond extract, and raisins in a small bowl; cover and let stand for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a large bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, and baking soda; stir into the creamed mixture. Then stir in the raisin mixture, rolled oats, and nuts.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an unprepared cookie sheet. Bake for 9 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Makes about 6 dozen

A word of warning. I love these cookies the day they are made. I enjoy them the next day. I can't bring myself to eat them past day three. I'm not sure what it is, but for me they go all dry and crumbly and inedible. But, I'm a cookie snob. My point: I wouldn't recommend making them in advance of an event--they are definitely "day of" baking.

In related cooking news, I was finally able to make some Cincinnati* Chili, which I have been wanted to make for dinner for about a month, but the whole "simmer for three hours" thing makes it pretty impossible to achieve on a work night. I swapped dinner nights with Somebody and took advantage of the Saturday to cook. Anything that produces a sauce the same bright orange color as my favorite spoon is bound to be delicious.

Cincinnati Chili
4 cups water
2 lbs hamburger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cumin
2 lg. chopped onions
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
3 garlic cloves (spear with toothpick)
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 tsp black pepper
½ tsp red chili pepper (optional)
1 Tbsp salt
1 ½ tsp ground allspice
1 can kidney beans
6 oz can tomato paste
1 ½ Tbsp cider vinegar
3 lg whole bay leaves

Crumble raw hamburger into water, add all ingredients. Bring to boil, simmer 3 hrs. Remove garlic cloves and bay leaves.
Pile on plate: angel hair pasta noodles, grated cheese, chili, oyster crackers

Notes: I think next time I will just mince the garlic instead of trying to fish it out. I enjoy the garlic flavor and it pretty much melts away anyway. This time I also cooked the ground beef for a little while before adding the water, just to get more of the "browned beef" texture. I think that I would do that again, but add less water because for some reason it ended up very liquidy. Also, don't think that the three hours of simmering is a joke. We tried to get away with 20 minutes of simmering one time and it was just yucky. It really needs that whole time for the flavors to blend. We have found that the flavor is even better the next day and the next day, and this has really become a good recipe to use when you are planning ahead for leftover night.

*For me, one of the side effects of making Cincinnati Chili is that all day I'm singing the Cincinnati song in my head. You know, from the old Babes in Toyland movie with Drew Barrymore and Keanu Reeves? You know that one, right? Where they live in Cincinnati? And they sing, "C-I-N-C-I-N-N-A-T-I Cincinnati. The best town in O-H-I-O, Ohio USA. At first they called it Cinci, but since Cinci is so nati, they named it Cincinnati, so they say?" Everybody sing along with me now! Sadly, IMDB has no photo for this movie. Because it had some great lines, like "He's got trolls! Hundreds of trolls, who ate all the cookies!" Luckily, I own this gem, so if you come to visit we can watch together and sing about Cincinnati.

Oh, I found a picture! The Internet never lets me down.

cake with the pineapples

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 (15 ounce) can sliced pineapple (reserve the juice)
1 (15 ounce) can crushed pineapple (reserve the juice)
10 (ish) maraschino cherries
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix

Directions
Preheat oven as directed on cake mix package. Melt the butter in a 13x9 pan while the oven is preheating. Remove from oven and sprinkle the brown sugar evenly to cover the butter. Next, arrange pineapple rings around the bottom of the pan, one layer deep. Use the crushed pineapple to cover the rest of the pan. Place a maraschino cherry into the center of each pineapple ring, and then scattered around as you please. The more you like the cherries, the more you should use. Prepare the cake mix as directed by the manufacturer, but substitute pineapple juice for all of the liquid in the directions. Pour the batter over the pineapple layer.
Bake as directed by the cake mix directions. Cool for five minutes, then carefully turn out onto a plate. Do not let the cake cool too much or it will be stuck to the pan. Yum. You should make this after you finish the waffles.

waffles with the sugar

Oh, you want to make them, too, do you? Well, you should! Right now.

You have to start with Belgium waffle batter. You can either use a mix or use the recipe below.

Belgium Waffle Recipe
Ingredients
2 egg yolks
5 tablespoons white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups flour
2 3/4 tsp baking powder (combine with flour)
2 cups warm milk
2 egg whites

1 cup sugar cubes, crushed into smallish chunks (don't obliterate them or make them all powder--you definitely want chunks of sugar)

Directions
In a large bowl, beat together egg yolks and sugar. Beat in vanilla extract, butter and salt. Alternately mix in flour (with baking powder) and milk until blended well.
In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until they have formed soft peaks. Fold egg whites into batter and let stand for 40 minutes.
Mix in the chunks of sugar.

Generously spray preheated waffle iron with non-stick cooking spray. Pour mix onto hot waffle iron. Cook until golden brown and fluffy. Be sure to spray the waffle iron between each waffle, because the sugar will stick and burn.

If dessert waffles laced with chunks of sugar aren't sweet enough for you, feel free to top them with whipped cream and strawberries. Enjoy!

another reason i love sweet potatoes

Did you want to join me for lunch tomorrow? Because this is what we are having. The yummiest soup ever. I found the recipe when I was hunting for ways to use up the tons of baked potatoes and sweet potatoes from our ward Christmas party, and loved it so much that I want to eat it every day. I think I did, there, for a while. I ate leftovers for dinner for several nights in a row, even when something new had been prepared for dinner. It wasn’t what I made for dinner tonight, but it was what I made after dinner so that I could eat it for lunch for the rest of the week. I’ll save you some, though, if you’re coming.Don't the pictures make it look appetizing? I know, I'm no food photographer. But it's yummy, trust me.

Spicy Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients
1/4 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 tablespoon butter
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced
4 cups chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger root
1 ½ Tbsp smooth peanut butter
1 can coconut milk
1 lime, juiced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
salt to taste

Directions
In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream and lime zest. Set aside in the refrigerator to allow the flavors to blend.
Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook for about 5 minutes, until softened. Add sweet potatoes, coconut milk, and chicken stock. Season with cumin, chili flakes and ginger. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes, until potatoes are tender.
Puree the soup using an immersion blender or regular blender. If using a counter top blender, puree in small batches, filling the blender just a bit past half way to avoid spillage. Whisk peanut butter into the soup, and heat through. Stir in lime juice, and salt.
Ladle into warm bowls, and top with a dollop of the reserved sour cream and a sprinkle of cilantro. If you have it, adding diced avocado is also wonderful.

Don't be frightened by "spicy." It is not hot. Just delicious. So come on over. 'Bout noon? Great. I'll see you here.

bring your good times, and your laughter, too

To celebrate Somebody’s graduation, we hosted a small gathering for his friends. The gorgeous early spring weather held long enough for us to enjoy dinner in the back yard. Thank goodness.

Our practice recipes paid off, our friends seemed to enjoy themselves, no one ate nearly enough food, and good times were had by all.






Shortcake
Yield: 8 Servings

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons shortening
3/4 cup half and half
Melted butter to brush shortcakes
Berries
Ice cream or whipped cream

Heat oven 450 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Cut in butter and shortening. Mix in half-and-half. Drop by large spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15 minutes or until brown. Cool and eat with berries, ice cream and/or whipped cream.


Sweet and Tangy Loose Beef BBQ
Yield: 28 servings

7 pounds beef chuck roast
1 can beef broth
1 sliced onion
3 tablespoons white vinegar
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons dry mustard
4 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1- 455 ml (about 15 ounces) jar chili sauce
2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
6 cloves garlic, minced

Place the roast into a slow cooker along with the beef broth and sliced onion. Cover, and cook on LOW for 8 hours, or until beef can be easily shredded with a fork.

Shred the beef, removing fat as you go. Remove 1/2 cup of the broth from the slow cooker, and reserve for later. Combine all remaining ingredients in sauce pat and heat through to combine flavors. Stir into meat so that the meat is well coated.

Cover, and continue to cook beef in slow cooker on LOW for an additional 4 to 6 hours. Add the reserved broth only if necessary to maintain moisture. Serve on toasted French bread.

We cooked the meat and made the sauce the day before, combined them and stored them in the refrigerator overnight, and then just placed them in slow cooker on the day we were planning to serve. The meat can also be reheated in a pan on the stovetop in about 10 minutes if you don’t have time for it to reheat in the slow cooker. Meat reheated in the slow cooker will be slightly more saucy.

in our effort to be more healthy

My cousin introduced me to Cooking Light magazine and we received our first issue this past month. The first time flipping through the magazine this recipe stood out to me as something to try, and we were not at all disappointed.

Spicy Honey-Brushed Chicken Thighs

2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
8 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
Cooking spray
6 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons cider vinegar

Preheat broiler.

Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl. Add chicken to bowl; toss to coat. Place chicken on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Broil chicken 5 minutes on each side.

Combine honey and vinegar in a small bowl, stirring well. Remove chicken from oven; brush 1/4 cup honey mixture on chicken. Broil 1 minute. Remove chicken from oven and turn over. Brush chicken with remaining honey mixture. Broil 1 additional minute or until chicken is done.

Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 2 chicken thighs)

Changes we made: I misread the recipe (looking at the yield instead of the ingredients) and only used 4 chicken thighs, but Somebody liked having the extra seasoning on the chicken, and 4 pieces was all we needed for dinner, so I would probably do the full seasoning with half the chicken again. Also, we used thighs with bones and skins, because Somebody likes them like that and because they are cheaper to buy. We found we had to broil them almost twice the suggested time to cook all the way through. Also, we used garlic salt because that was what we had on hand, and omitted the salt. Oh, and I coated the chicken with the spices by putting them all in a Ziploc bag and tossing it around. I would also suggest that if your broiler pan is like mine and is two pieces, you put a piece of foil down on the lower half so that all the drippings land on the foil and you don’t have to scrape them off the pan later. It just makes a good dinner better when clean-up only takes three minutes.

We loved this. Seriously, we loved this. It had great flavor but wasn’t “spicy” for me. If you want extra heat I suggest you use some red pepper flakes. It was a super fast dinner (less than half an hour from start to finish) and used ingredients we have on hand all the time. Definitely a keeper.

because I need to eat more fruit

Somebody and I watch a lot of the Food Network. A lot. More than any other channel except maybe TNT, because they know drama. Well, the Food Network knows food, and we find it fascinating. One of our favorite chef's is Ina, who hosts the Barefoot Contessa. I like watching her show and envying her kitchen, but I had never tried one of her recipes until this past weekend. She made this Lemon Yogurt Cake as part of an Asian themed meal, but we tried the other parts of the meal and didn't like them as much as we liked this cake. We call it Lemon Bread because then we don't feel at all guilty that we've been nibbling away at it all week.

Lemon Yogurt Cake Bread

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (We couldn't find any made from whole milk, so we settled on one made with lowfat milk)
1 1/3 cups sugar, divided
3 extra-large eggs 2
teaspoons grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

For the glaze: 1 cup confectioners' sugar 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. With a rubber spatula, fold the vegetable oil into the batter, making sure it's all incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in. (We poked lots of holes with toothpicks to help the "bread" soak up the sugar. It's basically sugar bread. Yum.) Allow to cool.

For the glaze, combine the confectioners' sugar and lemon juice and pour over the cake.

We tried the glaze, but we now prefer the cake without it. Also, not using glaze further advances our plan to pretend this is really healthy. At first I thought it actually was, but then I remembered how much oil we used and, well, you just can't get around an entire half cup of oil.

Enjoy!

a lot like chow-dah

Scrumptious Cupcakes gave us a great cookbook for Christmas called Healthy Cooking for Two. Last night we tried our first recipe and liked it enough that I deem it share-able.

Baked Potato Soup with Broccoli & Cheddar

Ingredients:
3 baked russet potatoes
3 cups 1% lowfat milk
2 cups chopped broccoli, cooked
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the potatoes into chunks and combine them with the milk in a blender. Process the mixture until smooth. Add the broccoli and process, pulsing the motor on and off, until the broccoli is coarsely pureed. You should still be able to see tiny broccoli buds.

Transfer the mixture to a heavy 2-quart saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Remove the soup from the heat, then stir in the cheddar, salt and pepper. Serve hot.

We made a few minor, yet I’m sure very healthy, adjustments. First, we reserved one potato and cut it into very small cubes. Then we cooked five pieces of bacon. We crumbled 3 pieces into the soup at the same time we were added the cheese. We then cooked the reserved cubed potato in the bacon grease (I know. Healthy.) and we added them to the soup. The remaining bacon we crumbled over our soup in our individual bowls for visual appeal, and, well, more bacon. Yum. This was a very quick, very easy recipe. We will definitely be making it again. Oh, and we found this made three large portions. By the way, the soup was good before we added the bacon, so don't feel like you have to add that in order to try the recipe.

Oh, also, the cookbook recommended this great way to bake potatoes. Preheat oven to 400. Wash potatoes and place in microwave oven on high power for 6 minutes. Transfer the potatoes to a baking sheet and bake them in the preheated over for 15 minutes, or until they are tender when pierced with a fork. They end up with crunchy skins and fluffy innards in a fraction of the time it would normally take to bake them.

if you were a cupcake, you would definitely be scrumptious

A very HAPPY BIRTHDAY! to one of my best friends, Sarah.

Thank you for introducing me to New York City, theater, yummy cupcakes, good design, jackets, cars with tables for dashboards, and movie snobbery. Also, thank you for breaking up with the band so that we could be friends.

To celebrate the birthday, Sarah and I met Chloe for dinner and then we went to see a movie. Because a birthday isn't a birthday without cake, I had filled my satchel with tupperwares of cake (and one of whipped cream) so that we could enjoy a mid-movie treat. The only thing missing was milk.

Sarah's Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cake
Ingredients:
1 (18.25 ounce) package chocolate cake mix
1 (3.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup hot water
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a Bundt pan.
Combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil, eggs, water, sour cream, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour. Allow to cool.

because life is too short

1. I am grateful for new recipes that end up being as yummy as I had imagined. Last night I tried a recipe that Kathleen had posted on her website. She had called it a "fast and yummy recipe for dinner" and that pretty much sums it up. The prep time was very short and the dinner was tasty. http://kateinkansas.blogspot.com/2006/11/fast-and-yummy-recipe-for-dinner.html

2. I am grateful for warm showers and soft towels.

3. I am grateful for a house-husband who does all the laundry, and remembers my random laundry preferences about what goes in the drier and what doesn't, and who is the best shirt folder I've ever seen.

4. I am grateful for last night when we were just getting ready for bed when Somebody suggested that instead of getting in bed we go to Wendy's and get mini-frostys. So, we did. And then we sat in bed and ate frostys and chatted, and it was a great end to a wonderful day.

5. I am grateful for so many clothing options that picking out what to wear is often a chore.

"The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving."
--H. U. Westermayer



Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina
1 cup pastina pasta (or any small pasta)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup cubed chicken breast (1-inch cubes)
1/2 cup diced onion (about 1/2 a small onion)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
1 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1 tablespoon butter, plus more for buttering the baking dish

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until just tender, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Drain pasta into a large mixing bowl.

Meanwhile, put the olive oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat. Add the chicken and cook for 3 minutes. Add the onions and garlic, stirring to combine, and cook until the onions are soft and the chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes more. Put the chicken mixture into the bowl with the cooked pasta. Add the canned tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, parsley, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine.

Place the mixture in a buttered 8 by 8 by 2-inch baking dish. In a small bowl mix together the bread crumbs and the Parmesan cheese. Sprinkle over the top of the pasta mixture. Dot the top with small bits of butter. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 30 minutes.

i looked out the window and what did i see

1. I am grateful for this weekend of movies projected on the wall. And the best caramel corn recipe in the world. And good friends to share the experience with.

2. I am grateful for fleece blankets. Besides the husband, and possibly a child but I wouldn't know about that one yet, there is nothing softer and more snuggle-worthy than a fleece blanket.

3. I am grateful for my aunt and uncle being willing to make my favorite dessert (even though mangos are not in season) to celebrate my birthday. They always go out of their way to make me feel welcome and loved.

"Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary."
--Margaret Cousins

Caramel Popcorn
2 C. brown sugar
1 C. Karo syrup
1 stick butter
Cook in microwave for about 6 min.; stir.
Add to mixture:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 Tbsp. vanilla
Cook for about 1 more min. in microwave; stir. Pour over popcorn. Stir.
If you use bags of microwave popcorn, use four bags. If you pop on the stove or in a regular popper, it takes about 1 1/3 cup of unpopped kernels to get enough popcorn. This makes a BIG batch.