February 25th, 2010

In high school one of my favorite hot lunches they served was baked potatoes.  They had tons of toppings and you got to pick 2 for your potato, which was a drawback because I wanted them all!  I also like twice baked potatoes, but never make them because I’d rather stay ignorant of the butter/cheese/cream amounts that make them so delicious.  So I decided to try making a healthier version of a twice baked potato with the works (and no lunch lady to limit me to 2 toppings!).  

I baked the potatoes whole in a 350 degree oven for an hour, let cool, cut in half, and scooped them.

I blanched and shocked (put in ice water) broccoli and green beans (which are for a side salad).

I keep my bacon in the freezer and then whenever I want to add some to a recipe, I just cut off strips from the frozen bacon.  I figure one strip is about equal to an actual strip of bacon and then they’re already diced for me when they heat up and I can drain the grease.

 

Then it looks like this and you only had to cut it 4 times for 4 strips.  Apparently the French call this bacon “Lardons.”  But I call it bacon because I can’t pull off fancy speak in the kitchen without giggling.

 

 

So into the mixer goes whatever sounds good to you.  Yesterday for me it was broccoli, chives, melted cheese, and diced bacon.  I then added a good amount of salt, pepper, and a couple splashes of chicken stock.

 

Then after a minute or two it looks like this

Scoop the potato mixture into the shells and bake until heated through.  You can easily make ahead of time and wait to bake them off too, I made them in the afternoon during naptime and put them in the oven 20 minutes before dinner.  I also made a spinach and green bean salad with egg, lemon juice, and olive oil.

I now have the Adam Sandler “Lunch Lady” song in my head….sloppy joe, slooopy sloooopy joe!

February 22nd, 2010

I have a huge confession to make.  I rarely follow recipes.  It’s not a good habit, but it’s what I do.  I blame my Grandma Coco, who viewed a recipe as a suggestion.  Unlike me, her results were always delicious.  When I cook, I’m have no qualms about swerving off the path.  But it’s downright risky behavior when baking and I’ve got the stories and oven messes to prove it.  I’m trying to get better about it, really I am. 

I make spaghetti sauce at least 3 times a month and don’t think I’ve ever made the same one.  It depends what meat was on sale, what herbs I’ve got around, if there’s a bottle of red wine open to put in the sauce, what type of pasta I’m using, or if tomatoes are in season.  So Monday I made a basic sauce with no bells and whistles.  You’re welcome to try it and encouraged to change it.

Heat up your sauce pan and add ground beef to brown (anywhere from 3/4 to 1 pound).  Sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper and break it up as you brown it.  Once it’s caramelized, add one big diced onion, 4 cloves minced garlic, and 2 finely diced carrots.  Once veggies soften (5 minutes), add one big can of crushed tomatoes.  Stir it all together and add more salt and pepper to taste and a teaspoon of sugar.  Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer on the stove for 30 minutes to all afternoon.  It’s the perfect amount of sauce for a pound of your favorite pasta, which serves 4 adults.  Generously sprinkle with parmesan cheese and pour yourself a big glass of wine!

February 21st, 2010

I’m officially in a rut.  My go to is oven roasted meals and I think it’s the long winter that has made me this way.  There was a sale on fish at Sappington Farmer’s Market for 4 oz filets of salmon, tilapia, mahi mahi, and grouper for $1.  I bought an assortment of them and roasted the filets with lemon and garlic.  Roasted broccoli and made herbed brown rice.  In the fall, it’s comfort food, but now the outdoor grill is just sitting there mocking me.  I can’t wait to break that baby out for the season and cook outside while the kids play in the backyard.

See!  It’s just sitting there patiently waiting for love!  However, 3 feet away is this:

Daffodils peaking out!!  Ah, we’re getting close!

February 20th, 2010

It was Elizabeth’s 9th birthday party in KC.  It was also a forecasted snow/sleet/ice situation.  The dumb weather situation won and we decided to stay in St. Louis for the weekend.  When Markham heard the news, there was a quick invitation for dinner.  She had me at dinner.  She made meatball sandwiches that looked alot like this:

and yes, they tasted as good as they looked.  Even the girls finished most of their plates in the midst of someone else’s toys taunting them…which is a big feat.

February 17th, 2010

Ash Wednesday.  Trent’s first Ash Wednesday as a Catholic too.  And wouldn’t you know it, I completely forgot about the whole no meat thing until the day of.  We were supposed to have roasted chicken.  So I looked in the frig for inspiration (and called Trent telling him I packed him a salami sandwich for lunch that was considered contraband – oops).  There was a big container of an assortment of olives from my mom’s birthday party, now there was a good start.  Then I saw a thing of capers leftover from my mom’s party.  I knew we had tuna, crushed tomatoes, and pasta in the pantry.  Viola – pasta puttanesca!

Here’s a good recipe that was close to what I did:

Tuna Puttanesca

Let the fish fries begin!

February 14th, 2010

I really, really dislike February.  It’s the last hurdle to spring and if it’s a cold and snowy February, I get big time cabin fever.  However, the one thing in February I look forward to is Valentine’s Day and I look forward to it even more since having kids.  I love the school shoe box craft, the little character valentines, and getting or receiving cards in the mail and the girl’s general excitement about it all.

For Lauren’s school party I brought heart shaped Krispy Kreme donuts.  So, so good! 

For Valentine’s Day dinner I decided to make the girls favorite favorites.  Homemade chicken finger and macaroni and cheese with frozen french fries.  Thankfully all those things are on Trent’s favorite list as well.  Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

February 12th, 2010

Tonight is the night we’re hosting my mom’s surprise birthday party!  It’s a cocktail and appetizer party, but here’s the thing…she thinks it’s a dinner party for our immediate family. Then shortly after she arrives, it’s an open house.  So I had to make the house look like nothing crazy going on when indeed we were to have 25 hungry and thirsty people coming within a half an hour of my mom’s arrival.

Here was my fancy schmancy planning tool…my notebook.

 

Then that morning I started prepping…..

Chicken sausages in puff pastry

spanikopita cups in puff pastry (I like love puff pastry)

Julie hooked up the party with all things “The Hill” including Missouri Bakery cookies, salami, cheese, olives, and crusty bread

The garage was the staging area for just about everything (thank you cold weather) ready to bring out once the surprise was realized. 

The birthday girl had a great time and partied until well after midnight with the guests.

There was even live singing with guitar playing!

Happy Birthday Mom!  I love you!

February 11th, 2010

Lauren’s favorite vegetable dish is stuffed artichoke.  When it’s all said and done, little veggie gets in her belly, which is probably why it’s her favorite.  My mom used to make stuffed artichokes all the time and Julie and I always looked forward to them as our appetizer.  It’s easy, let me show you!

That is my herbed bread crumbs I keep in a big container in the freezer.  Whenever I have a little bit of herbs leftover (or I’m lucky enough to be in the middle of summer and the herb garden is in full swing), I pureed them with store bought plain breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, garlic, salt, and pepper.  I use thyme, parsley, rosemary, sage, chives, whatever I have around on its last leg.  I use the herbed breadcrumbs for meatballs, coating chicken or fish, and stuffed artichokes. 

Then I put the breadcrumbs in all the leaves of the artichoke.  After I’ve stuffed the artichoke with breadcrumbs, I sprinkle a little parmesan cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.  Put an inch or two of water in the bottom of a sauce pan, then set the artichokes in heat proof dishes.  Get the water in a slow boil and cook for about 2 hours until the leaves pull away easily.

Then serve!

Once you’ve eaten all the stuffed leaves, you can cut off the bottom and eat the heart too, which is actually the veggie part.

February 9th, 2010

There are few vegetables I don’t like.  I’m a veggie girl.  If I had to pick my favorite veggie to cook with, it would probably be spinach, baby spinach specifically.

I think it goes with everything.  It makes a great salad, adds pretty color, goes great on any sandwich, can be a garnish, pureed as a pesto, works great as a bed for protein, perfect just sautéed as a side dish, or wilts perfectly as an ingredient for almost anything.  I go through two bags of baby spinach a week and probably 4 packages of frozen spinach a month.  And don’t even get me started on Spanikopita…it’s the perfect food.

I didn’t make that….but I did make this for dinner….

I just did tortellini with pesto, but didn’t feel like making a salad, so I wilted almost a whole bag of baby spinach in with the pasta.  It was yummy and good ol’ Popeye would approve. 

February 7th, 2010

SUPERBOWL!  Truth be told, I haven’t watched one football game this year.  Not one.  Oh wait, I take that back.  I did catch a quarter or two of a Giants game in New York at Ainsworth Sports Bar, I was in it for the pitcher of beer on a Sunday afternoon without judgment.  But I was excited for the super bowl commercials.  We had Ryan and Kevin over and I made chip goo for an appetizer.  The name doesn’t do it justice.  It’s a recipe I got from Markham and it’s oh so easy.  On a regular dinner plate spread a package of cream cheese, then your choice of canned chili over the cream cheese, top with shredded Monterey jack cheese, and put in microwave for 3ish minutes until the cheese is bubbling.  Serve with tortilla chips.  I use reduced fat cream cheese and low fat Hormel Turkey chili.  For dinner I made burgers, potato salad, and spinach salad.  In the end I was happy the Saints won….and could Drew Brees’ son be any cuter?  That face!

Jenny's Favorite Superbowl Commercial

February 6th, 2010

It’s the 2nd annual Beef Wellington-a-thon.  Last year Trent came up with this idea that he wanted to make Beef Wellington with my mom.  Not sure of the exact origin of the idea, but hey, I’m not one to turn down a fancy meal cooked by my mom.  This year it was planned on Grandpa Coco’s birthday to make it even more of a festivity.  Trent wanted to do Julia Child’s classic recipe.  I volunteered to make the pate because I’ve never made one before and was curious.  It’s really kinda gross, you cook chicken liver, onions, and seasonings, then puree it with butter, chill it, and there you go.  Not a fan of it as a dip on a cracker, but as an ingredient in the beef wellington….well, it’s still a little off-putting.  The pate ends up melting into the puff pastry (which I find incredibly delicious, I’d eat my shoe if puff pastry was wrapped around it).  The afternoon/evening was alot of fun AND my dad picked up a key lime cheesecake for my Grandpa’s Birthday from

which is a family favorite, they have an incredible selection of cheesecakes.

Here’s the birthday boy getting a little help blowing out the candles.  I really wish there was a reality show scouting the cutest grandpas, he’d totally win.

February 4th, 2010

The girls are both sick, Trent’s in trial, weather is cold and yucky…my mind turns to soup.  Whenever I make soup, I almost always use chicken or beef stock.  I buy beef stock, but make chicken stock and keep it in the freezer.  I save ends of veggies (like carrot tops, asparagus stems, parsley stems, onion skins, broccoli stems, etc) and chicken bones.  Then when I have a couple of gallon bags full, I cook them in water (adding salt and pepper) and viola – stock!

The stocks a’ boilin’!

Then I get this:

Once it’s cooled I put it in freezer containers and then I have it on hand for gravy, cooking polenta or rice, or soups.  Truth be told, it’s not as good as the stock in the box at the store since there’s no raw meat poaching in it, but it’s free and accessible.

I made a chicken meatball, pasta, and kale soup and boy did I make a ton, so I sent Trent to deliver some to Grandpa Coco because he’s the cutest thing in the world.