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.

Pulled Pork

I made the most amazing pulled pork last night.
 Too bad for you that I failed to get pictures of it.

Crock pot.  Pork Butt.  Various Spices (heavy handed).  Beef broth.
8 hours later, total yummy goodness.
NO SAUCE REQUIRED (shocker right?)

Even my picky eater 7 year old went back for 3rds.  Mom win.

Soup is Easy

I recently signed up for a weight loss challenge at work.  What my actual weight is, is none of your business, but I have to lose 5% in the next 8 weeks.  I had to pony up $20 and all those in the pot who reach the 5% goal get to split the pot.  It's at $460 right now.  I'll take those odds.  Losing weight is not a first for me.  After the birth of my oldest child I joined Weight Watchers (WW) and lost 75lbs on the program in one year and kept it off for 2 years after that until the birth of my second daughter came along.  And I haven't been able to lose the baby fat since.  So I know my limits, I know my pain points and I know what I'm up against.  I can do this.

I dug deep into my memory bank to try and remember how I did it 7 years ago and remember starting in the first month and going WW recipe crazy.  I pulled out all the stops and measured and counted and followed all the rules.  In WW land, today those have all changed.  But one thing I remember that helped me jump start was by making soup.  WW has this soup recipe that's all broth and vegetables and it's REALLY GOOD.  But you think I could find that again?  I remember what was in it so I planned to just wing it.   Although, the grocery store had other plans for me, they didn't have 1/2 the ingredients I needed in the vegetable aisle.  So.  Ok.  I'll change it up and use intuition and play.  And here's what happened.

Ingredients
All amounts are relative to how much soup you want to make!

• Carrot
• Onion (I use vidalia, i like 'em sweet)
• Celery
• Rutabaga/Turnip
• Chicken/Vegetable Stock (low sodium)
• 1-2 cloves Garlic
• 1 Bay Leaf
• Caraway
• Coriander
• Basil
• Salt/Pepper
• Ditalini Pasta (optional)
• Olive Oil

Seriously?  Rutabaga (aka Turnip)?  Yep.  I didn't want to use potato, all that starch.  I recently made boiled dinner which got the flavor of Turnip/Rutabaga in my brain, and I really like that root vegetable.  (See it used with Beef Brisket boiled dinner)  And I started to research it after I bought it.  Granted, you can only trust half of what you read on the Internet, but most of what I found seemed to all corroborate these results.  They are low carb.  And calories in a Rutabega are much less than calories in a Potato.

"Mise en Place" aka Preparation

I heard Chef Anne Burrell use this a lot on Worst Chefs in America on the latest episode and I like it.  Basically, it's "get your stuff ready before you start cooking"

• Carrots - peel, slice down middle lengthwise and chop
• Onion - peel, slice off ends, slice in half, chop into 3rds
• Celery - trim dirty ends, chop
• Rutabaga - peel, slice dice into 1/2" cubes
• Garlic - smashed and finely chopped or pressed in a garlic press

Play

1.  In a large stock pot, drizzle the bottom with olive oil, turn heat to medium, add onions
   
2. Salt and Pepper heavily
3. Keep onions moving and saute until they start to soften and become translucent
4. Add carrots and celery
   
5. Add bay leaf, basil, carraway and coriander
6. Continue to saute until carrots become soft
7. Add garlic and saute long enough for the garlic to soften
8. Add stock, you're going to want at least 4cups, I used 6 as I had more veggies
   
9. Add Rutabaga
   

At this point, you need to decide if you want to add the pasta or not.
And if so, are you going to eat it now, or store it for later?
If you're not going to use pasta, you're done, serve and enjoy!

       10. If you're going to add pasta and eat tonight
             - let stock boil until Rutabaga is almost soft
             - add pasta and serve once pasta is at desire texture.
       11. If you're going to add pasta and eat the soup next day
             - let stock boil until Rutabaga is completely soft
             - add pasta and get soup into your containers.
             - As the pasta sits in the soup as it cools down, it will cook.

And of course, if you find yourself home the next night, alone, after the kids went to bed having had their own dinner, you can always have soup.  With grapes (NOT olives.  Ew)

Stir Fry Fun

It was mentioned to me the other day that I hadn't updated my blog in a while, so of course I ran home and decided to do something interesting for dinner to blog.  And wouldn't you know, about half way through I realized I wasn't taking any pictures.  So, I have a picture of this final product, but no step by step instructions.  But really, you don't need visuals for this, it's super simple and very quick.  I made this meal in under 30 minutes and 1 out of 2 kids enjoyed it, and even the husband took a second helping.

Inspiration for this dish actually came from my three year old.  Walking through the grocery store she finds Chinese Bean Thread, or what some may call Cellophane Noodles.  Any time the kids pick up something in the store that is "out of the ordinary" I jump at the chance to bring it home and try something new, or introduce them to something they normally would not have considered.  So of course I grabbed the bag and tossed it in the cart and banked it for a future dish.  And that dish just happened to be the other night.

Bean thread cooks quickly in a pot of boiling water.  Not 5 minutes and they're done.  So plan the associated dish carefully enough and you have a dinner that can be cooked in 20 minutes.  And I didn't exactly know where I was going with this meal until I started tossing items in the pan and started to play.  It made itself along the way.

Ingredients

• Chicken, diced into small pieces (or Shrimp!)
• Carrots, I used diced frozen
• Peas, I used frozen
• Broccoli, I used frozen
• Mushrooms, fresh if you have them, canned if not
• Bean Thread noodles
• Sesame Oil
• Sesame seeds
• Soy sauce
• Sugar, brown if you have it preferred, White if you're out (like I was)
• Ginger, fresh is best grated 1/4t., I used powdered as I was out of fresh
• Garlic, fresh is best, minced 1t, I used garlic salt as I was out of fresh
• Scallions, 2 or 3 smalls one chopped, I used onion powder as I didn't want to go out in the rain and dark to find mine in the garden

Time to Play

1. Fill pot with water, bring to boil, toss in bean thread.  
2. Let boil for 5 minutes and drain.  
3. Let sit until ready to use.  

Meanwhile, waiting for the pot to boil...

1. Heat your frying pan (12" minimum, needs to be big), or wok to high.  
2. Generously drizzle sesame oil.  
3. Toss in your frozen veggies and saute until no longer frozen, but not yet cooked.  
4. Then toss in the diced chicken.  
5. Keep the food moving so it doesn't burn and all sides get cooked.

Meanwhile, waiting for the veggies to cook, and water to boil...

1. In a small bowl, pour in about 1.5c of soy sauce
2. Add to that 3T (roughly, I don't measure, ever, when making sauces, always TASTE) sesame oil
3. Add the ginger, the garlic, the scallions, the sesame seeds, the sugar
4. whisk together
5. TASTE it.  needs something more, add it

Going back to your frying pan...

1. When the veggies are cooked through and the chicken is done, grab the bean thread and dump into the pan
2. Pour your sauce over the bean thread and start tossing everything together for 2-3 minutes allowing the sauce to permeate the noodles and soak into the chicken.
3. Remove from heat
4. Serve.

Almost Like Green Bean Casserole but not...

School is back in session.  Dance classes have started up.  In another month or so, we will add swim class and Girl Scouts.  No mom has time for dinner after all that, let alone DISHES.  So finding something I can whip up in less than 30 minutes, ideally less than 20 minutes with as few dishes as possible is key.  Talk all you want about crock pot meals.  My family (not me) doesn't like them, they're a waste of food for us, they go uneaten... finding one they all love is rare.  So, if I can whip it up in one pot and make it look like it took all day, even better.

This particular meal is by no means gourmet, it's not "unhealthy" or "healthy" but it's grub, it's devoured, quick and less mess.  Once what took me 3 pots, is now 1.  It almost tastes like green bean casserole.  It almost tastes like tuna noodle casserole.  A good chicken substitute just might be tuna... but that could cause 2 pots since you'd want to toss that in LAST after just barely sauteing it.

Ingredients 

• Egg Noodles
• Frozen Green Beans
• Cream of Mushroom Soup (condensed)
• Milk
• Chicken, diced
• Olive Oil
• Salt/Pepper

Directions

• Bring a large (but not massive) pot of water to boil, toss in egg noodles and cook until tender.  Drain, let sit. 

• Return empty pot to stove, pour in ~2T olive oil and toss in your chicken.
• Heavily salt and pepper the chicken.  If you think it's enough, toss in a bit more, remember we're adding more to this pot later.
• Saute the chicken until all sides are browned.

• Toss in the green beans.

 

• Dump in the can of mushroom soup and one can of milk.

 

• Stir and bring to boil, don't let burn.
• Turn heat down and let simmer for about 5 minutes.
• Get your noodles.  Remove pot from heat, and dump in noodles and stir.
• Serve.

Optional components.. if your family really likes mushrooms, you can toss in some diced ones while you're sauteing the chicken.

The recipe isn't rocket science.  It's not that "original" but it gets the job done.  But who knows, maybe you've never seen it before and now I've added time back into your evening.  And with that, I have a crying child to attend to.

Back to School Apples Made Easy

So much for updating sooner than later. I see my last post is around New Year's.  Well, 2 kids, lots of after school activities, mix in some summer months of being hot and lazy, add a little work and a woman gets busy.  The sad part about that statement is that I haven't been cooking enough "interesting" enough dishes in 8 months to warrant a post.  Don't get me wrong, I've had a few, but I don't think about it until "oh em gee I should have blogged this" as I put said food in my mouth.  And why blog about it if there are no pictures to prove it?

So here I am today and I really don't have a "wow" dish for you.  But as I sit here on the eve of the first day back at school, I felt compelled to share this awesome wisdom with you.  I figured out how to slice apples for school lunch and keep them from browning without using an acid (lemon, lime juice) to keep them from oxidizing.  Wow, right?  You're thinking, "geez Jenn no way!"  But yes, it's true.  Not only that, but the kids actually EAT them, without even having to peel them, they eat the skin.  What is this sorcery??  It's no magic I tell you.  It's just a puzzle!

 

Cut apple with core as square, don't lose track of the order.

Cut each section into 2-4 slices

Put it back together

Rubber band it

Put it in a baggie

2 kids, 2 apples