Where have I been?

It's been too long since I've posted. 

I'm still cooking, still creating, still playing, but with 3 kids and their super busy schedules, I often forget about building the images and have time to blog anymore.  They're also still extremely picky so we don't go much past their "this is the only thing I will eat" menu, so it's rare I get all that creative lately.  That said, I have a second project I'm starting, but will continue to write here when I can.

Brie Will Have a Good Time

This holiday season has been one of "what's in my pantry" toss stuff together food. Because with three kids, a full time job, and the holidays, who has time for much else?  As it is, my 10 year old made the Christmas cookies this year. Two amazing batches of chocolate chip!  But every so often I get a craving for something particular.  A friend of mine recently brought Brie and pears on toothpicks to a party. I swear I ate half the tray. I love Brie... Love it.  So of course I've been craving more.  And as I wandered around the over crowded grocery store the other day, it dawned on me I should do a baked Brie for a Christmas meal we attended last night.

Now, baked Brie is pretty basic. It's Brie. Baked until gooey.  And after much searching of the Internet, I found recipes to be fairly basic. Bake the Brie, drizzle honey, maybe some nuts.  But I was looking for more. So I wandered around the jammed grocery store looking for inspiration. Besides, the more time I wasted maybe the lines would get shorter? (Did not happen)

Roaming from aisle to aisle, throwing more things into my cart than I came in for to begin with, I rounded he dried fruit section and saw dates.  I haven't had dates in many years. I love dates. Dates are sweet. Dates have a great reference to one of my favorite movies Indian Jones. Dates... Yes dates! And other dried fruit! And that's how this recipe came to be. All the dried fruit I could think, and of course that "drizzle" of honey. Oh this was gonna be great. Let's play!

Ingredients

• Small wheel Brie
• Dried sweet dates
• Dried apricots
• Craisins
• Dried pomegranates
• Golden raisins
• Honey (I chose a Brazilian raw honey, only because I did not have a local honey in stock)
• Green apples

Steps

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Unwrap the Brie and place into oven safe bake wear or parchment lined baking sheet 
3. Cut four slices in top of Brie
4. Set aside until oven is warmed to temp 
5. Meanwhile...
6. Chop the dates, and apricots to be the same size as raisins, craisins, pomegranates.
7. How many of them Jenn?? - how much fruit do you want to serve over top? Little or lot? I had enough that when combined was about a cup and half
8. Put all chopped fruit into small sauce pan
9. Pour in honey, Enright to cover all fruit. I probably used 1/4 to 1/2 cup.
10. Bring to simmer and let the honey bubble around the fruit for 5-10 minutes so that fruit reconstituted a bit and absorbs the honey.

1. Once the oven is at 350, put the Brie in.
2. Let heat in the oven until soft and pliable. If you press down on top of cheese and it gives way easy, or starts to ooze out of the cuts you made.
3. Remove Brie from oven
4. If you baked in a bakeware dish, just pour the fruit and honey chutney right over the top, serve hot
5. If you baked on a cookie sheet, carefully remove Brie and place on plate, pour chutney over top, serve hot.

Slice green apples and serve as chips to dip. Don't bother serving this with actual crackers, the green apple tartness with the sweet fruit chutney and the bite of the Brie will be an explosion of flavor in your mouth.

Enjoy!!!

Ooey gooey amazingness going on right here.

Get Sauced for Turkey Day

It's Thanksgiving!  That means cooking!  And that means more blog entries!  Yay!!!

Also, I hadn't thought about blogging my dishes for Thanksgiving until a coworker mentioned it today, so lucky for all you out there reading this that he reminded me.  So thanks SZ!

So let's talk Cranberry sauce.  What's a sauce?  According to various sources around the internet, and my dictionary, sauce is defined as a thick liquid served with food.  When someone says sauce, what comes to your mind?  Mine, tomato sauce.  Oh how I love tomato sauce.  I never, ever get it, because my children have decided it's the food of the devil (not really) and won't eat it, ever.  My oldest gags and pretends she's dying even if I ask her to take the tiniest taste, and this includes pizza.

But, back to cranberries.  I couldn't find why it's called Cranberry sauce (in the short span of me writing this) as most cranberry "sauce" recipes are actually a jam, or jelly, or relish.  If I had to categorize today's recipe, I would say mine is a Cranberry Jam just based off it's consistency and ingredients, and the definition in the link I provided.

I never use to like homemade cranberry sauce.  Growing up, our Thanksgiving dinners had both the cranberry jelly out of a can, and my mom would make her own.  No one ever touched her homemade sauce except her.  It had bits and pieces in it, and no one wants to chew their cranberry sauce.  Back then, as a child, it's a texture thing.  So I don't get offended when my kids won't eat the homemade cranberry sauce on our table tomorrow.  We serve them side by side.  At our family Thanksgiving dinners you will find our perfectly popped out, unblemished jelly form from the can, right next to my homemade cranberry jam.  And for the record, my mom's recipe, straight from Joy of Cooking.  My kitchen Bible.  I can't stress enough if you do not have this book, you must buy it. And the older the version, the better.  Here's some history, and here's why the version is important.  I have the 7th edition and love it.  Would really like to get my hands on the 6th.

Ah yes, but cranberries is what we're talking today.  Now, most cranberry sauces are of the same base recipe.  Cranberries, sugar and water.  And when you search on the internet you get a couple variations and additions.  Most people add oranges and orange juice, a few add cinnamon sticks.  Last year, on a whim, I added an extra flavor, that I personally feel, made this cranberry sauce just POP.  I improved on it again this year, adding yet another layer of awesome.   So now, when you place a spoon of this cranberry sauce in your mouth, you get that initial zing of cranberry, and underlying tones of orange, cloves and almonds.  That's right, you read that correctly... cloves and almond.  You ready?  Let's play.

Ingredients:

• 1 bag cranberries
• 1 navel orange
• 1.5 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 cup fresh squeezed juice from an orange
• 2 teaspoons orange zest

 Prep Time:

Clean and sort the berries!

Remove any berries that are squished or turning into shrivels

Remove stems, search carefully, I have missed a few in the past

Get Sauced:
 

^^^My Young K2 sous chef!

Zest the Orange for 2 teaspoons
Juice the orange for 1/2 cup, strain pulp/seeds
Add to 6qt sauce pan

Add 1.5 cups sugar
Add 1/4 cup honey
Add 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
Add 1/4 teaspoon almost extract

Add the berries, stir well
Put on Med-High heat and bring to boil

Gellin' Time:
As the sauce boils, the berries will start to pop.  This is fun to do with kids, because they can hear and see the berries pop open.  The sauce goes from a light orange, to pink, to red, to maroon.  The science behind how cranberries have a natural pectin is explained real well in this recipe by Scientific American

Below are the three stages I have found when making cranberry sauce.

1. Once the cranberries start to really pop open the sauce is a deep purple you have more of a "mash."  And that's pretty much what I start doing with it.. I mash the cranberries into the side of the pan.  Crush them up using your spoon. 
2. Then, the sauce will really start to thicken.  And as you're stirring, it won't just slide off the spoon or down the side of the pot.  You'll start to see it leave a trail behind.
3. Then it will start to really clump and become heavy.  It's at this point it's ready.
4. Turn off the heat and move to another area to sit and cool.  And as it cools, you'll start to really begin to gel.

 And when this sauce is complete, you'll have a beautiful deep maroon sauce.  I like to this sauce the day before you want to serve it.  Gives it a real good chance to congeal and bring the flavors together.

Having a Ball for Thanksgiving

I've not been cooking much lately to be honest. With three kids constantly on the run between dance, piano and girl scouts, by the time we get home the most I can muster is dialing for take out or telling the kids there is cereal in the cabinet.

And when I do cook, it's pasta, or one of my staples from this blog like "Whatsa Matta..Chicken Picatta" or it's redo "Picatta more better dish" and other quick meals I should be blogging about... But it happened last week. I cooked.

It appears that blogs such as this are a thing of the past and going by the wayside.  Being replaced by short 30 second videos on Facebook or Twitter, or some other popular social media site of the minute.  They're videos by Tasty or a quick article by Buzzfeed regarding the latest Top 10 something or another.  Or maybe it was a Pinterest pin.  And thing is, it's catching on.  People are saving them.  People are trying them.  It's getting people cooking.  It's also to get people to click their stuff, and earn money.  And so I've tried a few Tasty recipes.  They've been complete and utter failures.  I've had to tweak, or change, or cook them often much longer than they say to.  So, when tonight's recipe showed up in my Facebook feed as a Tasty video, I knew I wasn't going by the books.  But do I ever?  And man I'm so glad I changed this recipe.  It's so much better to play.  I present to you, Thanksgiving dinner... meatball style.

Ingredients 

• 2lbs Ground Gurkey
• 1 box Turkey Stuffing Mix
• 1-2 Garlic Cloves
• Salt & Pepper
• Parsley
• Basil
• Thyme
• Chives
• 1 Egg
• Splash of Milk

And per usual, you're going to ask, so how much of everything?  And that's really up to you.  How much garlic do YOU like?  Or in my house, how much garlic can I get away with?  Picture to the right shows you how much of everything I dumped in for spices.

So, place all the spices into your bowl, drop in the ground turkey, crack open and put in one egg, then a splash of milk.  If I had to estimate, I would say I put in about 1/4 cup of milk.  The first time I ran this recipe, the meatballs were a tad dry, so I will be considering altering it next time with either more milk, or the original amount of milk plus a splash of chicken stock.  Thing is, turkey is a very wet ground meat, so making meatballs is sticky.
Next up, you have to crush your stuffing down a bit.  I liked having large pieces and crumbs.  So open your bag of stuffing and dump into a plastic bag.  Grab your rolling pin and crush away.




You'll need to add about 1.5 cups of stuffing to your meatball mix.  Go by look and feel as you start mixing your meat.  I prefer to mix by hand, you're able to incorporate all ingredients faster.  If you think you need more stuffing then add more.






Once it's all mixed, start making your meatballs.  I was able to make 20 balls out of the 2 pounds this mixture.  The meatballs were slightly larger than a golf ball.  I wanted something you had to cut into, but also not so large it took forever to bake, and couldn't be considered a meatloaf.








Any leftover stuffing I had, I sprinkled it on top and around the meatballs in the bottom.  Adding additional texture to the plate, not wasting food, and besides the fact that extra stuffing is always a plus.  Into your pre-heated oven they go.  They should bake for about 30-45 minutes on 375 degrees.  I like to turn mine about half way through so that you can an even cook throughout.  If you have any doubt they're not done, you can and should, always take their temperature with a meat thermometer.  Pull them out and let them rest a bit.




While the meatballs are in the oven, it's best to start cooking your sides.  This isn't a blog about how to cooks sides today.  Come back some other time.  So, I made mashed potatoes, peas and gravy.  And honestly, whatever the best looking rolls on sale were that day.  No one has time to bake their own bread anymore, and if you do, I'm all kinds of jealous.  I made real mashed potatoes, not box as these deserved better and I actually had time that day, but I did cheat on the gravy.  What? I never said it was going to be perfect.

I served my kids separate gravy from potatoes from peas from meatballs.  Cause we all know their foods can't touch.  But this was truly plated with the meatballs placed on a mound of potatoes, smothered in gravy.  Peas and roll on the side.

Not the most beautiful plating in the world, I blame the phone and the rush to the table because we were all hungry.  I'd be afraid to send this to Gordon Ramsay's Twitter feed for fear of what he might call it.  But regardless of what it looked like, it tasted AHHHMazing.

Results

• The almost 2 year old picked at it. What's she's two.. and had already snacked all afternoon.
• The 6 year old gobbled it down well enough.  
• The soon to be 10 year old gave me a 9.5/10 points.  When asked why the 1/2 deduction, I was told "just because" although I suspect it was because she doesn't like gravy.  Weirdo.  <3
•  The husband made it disappear pretty damn fast.
• Safe to say, this will be returning to our table.  Kids even had leftover meatballs for the lunches the following days.

Also, what kind of Thanksgiving meal would this had been had I not served cranberry sauce/jelly?  Served correctly, perfectly popped out of the can.


Enjoy!

It's the Chicken and Corn Chowder Bowl

Football. Food. People. Must be the Super Bowl
And the Patriots were playing.  There was no way we weren't having a party.
Cooking for a crowd.  Something I love to do.  No matter how tired, this was going to happen.  It didn't matter that the weekend was full of Girl Scout Cookie booth sales, Sunday School teaching, house cleaning and whatever else my kids threw at me.  I was catering for a crowd and I would rally.

For playoffs I went with Chili and loaded nachos.  Clearly I had to up my game this time.  The return of loaded nachos was a must and a given, they were requested, by a friendly 7 year old even, so how could I say no?  But what else could I make for the crowd?  It was pot luck so I knew the staples would show up; wings, cupcakes, sliders.  All good.

But I wanted another soup.  And then it hit me.  Corn Chowder.  But not just any corn chowder.  My great grandparents' chicken and corn chowder.  A chowder I didn't have a recipe for.  A chowder I hadn't tasted in over 25 years.  Could it be done?  Called my dad, he certainly didn't have it.  So I dialed up Nana, she longer had the recipe, never wrote it down. "Oh I never liked that" she said.  Remembering that Nana really only eats food smothered in pepper and hamburgers burnt to hockey pucks.    Searching the internet?  Forget it.  Results showed up like "Easy Corn Chowder" and "Quick Chowder" and "Crock Pot Chowder" all including ingredients I knew weren't in it, and in reality should not be in it.  There was no recipe that could even come close to the flavors I knew were in it.  Just a 25 year old memory of the best soup I have ever had.  Challenge accepted.  It was time to play.  It's chicken.  It's corn.  It's soup.  What could go wrong?

Ingredients Pre-Game

Remember, I'm cooking for a crowd of people here, this is going to make a LOT.

• Celery, 1 bunch/heart
• Carrots, 4-6 depending on thickness and length
• Vidalia Onion, medium (i only ever use Vidalia)
• Garlic cloves (i used 3, would probably consider 4 or 5 next time but i LOVE garlic so yeah)
• Olive Oil
• Salt/Pepper
• De-glazing liquid (pick one: water, stock, brandy, Marsala wine -> I used Marsala wine, my absolute new favorite cooking ingredient in the whole world)
• Chicken Stock (64oz)
• 8-10 small red potatoes (mine were little bigger than golf balls)
• 1 Rotisserie Chicken cooked (easy peasy from your local deli)
• 16oz can yellow corn
• 8oz can white corn
• 16oz creamed corn
• Whole Milk or Cream

First Quarter

Step 4, looks like a lot! It cooks down.

1. Dice celery, carrots and onion all the same size.
2. Peel, Smash and finely chop the garlic.
3. Set your stock pot on med-high to high heat and drizzle bottom with olive oil
4. Once heated, toss in your mirepoix (celery, carrots, onion)
5. Salt and pepper
6. Saute on medium heat, continuously stir.  Keep going until onions become translucent and then start to caramelize a bit.
7. While you're doing this, if you can multi-task, dice up your potatoes.

Second Quarter

If you notice the bottom of your pot turning brown.. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING.

• Black, black is bad, but brown is good!  Brown is called "fond" which means flavor!
• Get out your de-glazing liquid at this point and toss a splash or two in, stir around and scrape off the brown from the bottom of the pan.  You may need to do it twice depending on size of splash.



Through the steam, the bottom has "fond"

• If it happens again, de-glaze again.

Half Time

You're going to be tempted to go watch Gaga, don't. You need to stay on top of the mirepoix to make sure it's only browning and turning translucent and not blackening the bottom of your pan.  If it starts to get black and burn, you're going to just taste burning at the end.  Turn the heat down if you're worried about it.  Keep stirring.


Third Quarter

1. When the mirepoix is translucent, add just a touch more olive oil and toss in your garlic.
2. Saute until garlic is soft.
3. Pour in all 64oz of your chicken stock + an additional 32oz of water
4. Add the potatoes.  Cover, turn up heat, and bring to a boil.
5. ... take a breath, the hard part is over.

It's just vegetable soup at this point, with raw potatoes.

Fourth Quarter

1. Open your cans of corn.
2. Shred the chicken into pieces.
3. Once the potatoes have been boiling on high for 10 minutes, add the chicken, add the corn.
4. Return to boil.
5. Use an 8oz can of the creamed corn and fill with whole milk/cream and pour into pot.
6. if you want a creamier chowder, double this to 16oz milk/cream
7. Bring everything back up to a rolling boil, then back off to a simmer.

Overtime

 Ladle it out, grab a spoon, sit back, relax and enjoy.

So my sister asks me "So, how'd it come out, as good as you remember?
Oh yeah, that and better I would say!
Roger That.

Piccata More Better Dish

Since first making this recipe some time ago, I've served it now over rice, over egg noodles, over nothing, with breading and without.  It's become a staple in our dinner menu; something I can now whip out in 30 minutes or less and the family gobbles it down, capers and all. Tonight is just a revisit of this recipe simply because I killed it, it was amazing.

 

Here's a few adjustments I've made over the years:

• Chicken, not always breaded.  This cuts calories, and minutes.  Tastes the same. Been sautéing in olive oil instead of all that butter.
• Sauce, bouillon has been working great! Fresh chives out of my garden instead of scallions. Onion powder when I have neither. Garlic, 2-4 gloves, minced and sautéed first. Oregano, dried, sautéed with the garlic. Butter, not always stocked so margarine has worked just fine. Thickening agent, flour/water or cornstarch/water. Fresh lemon and the entire jar of capers since my kids love them so much!
• Sides, have been over rice, usually, but tonight I served over spaghetti, and it was awesome.

My kids have been watching a lot cooking competition shows lately so I was also being judged.  This has become a nightly routine.  Tonight, I was given a 4/5 stars, with the chicken losing points because I offered dark meat in addition to breast meat. The capers were of course a huge hit and my pasta was cooked "nicely." Overall the 5 and 8 year old voted to let me stay. Phew.

And here's the cool part.  I made extra chicken and doubled the sauce. Freezing it all for a second meal.  It's gonna be great.

Last Minute Easy Spicy Squash Soup

It's been a year since my last update.  So much going on.  New baby (ok not so new at this point, 10.5m old) and two older children taking up all my time.  Husband adding on to the house, me juggling trying to get the kids here, there, and everywhere.  I've had very little time to cook, let alone actually play with any recipes I've found.  There have been a few successes and a few failures.  None of which I have pictures for, but I'll attempt to get you caught up over the coming weeks.

It's my favorite time of year to cook.  It's crisp outside, so heating up the kitchen isn't quite as big a deal as it is in the summer.  I baked an apple pie yesterday.  Middle child is begging for a slice with every single meal.  Always a good thing, and I can validate pie for any meal with a variety of reasons.  Last week we went to the orchards; Russell's Orchards to be exact.  That's where the apples came from for aforementioned pie.

While there, I selected an acorn squash.  Just a small one, knowing full well I would be the only one consuming it.  However, middle child said she'd try it with me.  This is not my first time with an acorn squash, I ADORE acorn squash.  Roasted in the oven, then served with butter, maybe a smidge of maple syrup.  So much yum.  But, it sat all week.  One dinner went by, two, then three, then pizza take out, followed by Chinese take out.  Which got me where I am today.  Knowing I was going out tonight I wanted to make the squash, for myself, for lunch.  So I set the oven at 350 to pre-heat.  Sliced the squash in half, scooped out the guts, gave it a good spray of cooking oil (so it doesn't dry out), and placed them on a middle rack.  45m later out they came.  And that... is when I decided to do more with it.  Remembering back to a Spicy Pumpkin Soup recipe I received from a friend, I started to pull spices from my cabinet and decided to play.

Spicy Squash Soup

1 acorn squash, guts scooped, roasted to tender, cooled
1-2c chicken broth (I keep jars of Better than Bouillon in my cabinets should the need ever arise, I use it in everything)
Onion Powder
Ground Ginger
Curry Powder
Cumin
Coriander
Cinnamon
Salt/Pepper
Cream

1.) Scoop the squash into a blender, add to it 1c chicken broth
2.) Start adding spices, how much?  Come on, you know me better than that by now. If you don't like Curry, add less curry.  Don't want onion, don't add any.  Start with "less is more" and add some later.  But add a little bit of everything.
3.) Whirl it all together on puree setting.  If you like a thick soup, add less broth, if you like a thinner soup, add more broth.  I tend to go about 1.25 to 1.5c of broth.
4.) TASTE, adjust spices
5.) Whirl more, finish with a splash of cream, whirl again.
6.) Pour into pan to warm on stove, bring to simmer.  Let simmer for 15 minutes.  This is where the spices will really come into their own.

Serve.  Enjoy.

And then realize, that, you purchased this for your middle daughter try with you, and now that it's soup, she's not going to touch it.  Thankfully, this made just two servings.  Lunch today, and lunch tomorrow.  Win.