The grand finale…for now.

Mom

There she is. I podcasted my mom. She didn’t really understand the concept at first but in the end she did a really good job. Its also kind of creepy how much we sound alike. My entire life every time I answer the home phone people have thought I was her. They were all right. 

Anyways, I thought that she would be the best person to talk to about cooking because overall she is the person that I have learned the most from in the kitchen AND she is the person that I have bugged the most every time I cook by calling her 10 times with 10 different questions. 

Last night we made a delicious dinner that you can hear all about on the podcast. Even the recipe is included. Listen up!

Oops..

I left a spot open for my how to roast vegetables video on my last post, but for some reason the video didn’t show. Here it is now…

 

Double feature…

Four factors went into the my decision to make dish:

1. School is winding down and I wanted to make something that I already had most of the ingrdients for in order to clean out our pantry.

2. My roommate said she wanted something healthy

3. I’ve been wanting to learn how to roast vegetables

4. I had $4.

I dont have a particular recipe for this one because I made it up as I went (which means that I must be learning something). For some reason I’ve always been intimidated by oven roasting vegetables because they all cook at different rates. So, I consulted youtube for a demonstration. Watch this and you too can learn to roast vegetables.

 

After I roasted the vegetables, I made some spaghetti because for some reason we have about 8 boxes of it. Then I added 1/2 cup of heavy cream and about 3 tablespoons of butter (this is no longer healthy, sorry roomie). I chopped up the vegetables, tossed everything together, and added salt and pepper to taste. I’m proud to say that this was really tasty. AND I have left over vegetables that I think I’m going to use to make panninis tomorrow…we’ll see. Here is the final outcome:

Getting hungry yet?

Visual aids…

I know this seems king of late, but like I said in my last post I’ve been having some technical difficulties with the hook up between my computer and my camera.  Well, I finally got that figured out so I wanted to show some visual displays of my two favorite things that I have made thus far: the Corn Salad and the Enchiladas.

I don’t really think that either of these pictures do the meals justice, so I promise they were both better in real life.

Looks gross, tastes delicious

I know I said in my first post that I would be trying a new recipe every week, but this week I strayed away a bit and decided to make an old favorite. This Corn Salad is my favorite thing to make/eat when it is hot outside.

ALSO, just so you know I have taken pictures of my last few cooking endeavors, but for some reason my camera wont let me put them up. Don’t fret, I’ll figure it out. Anyways, everything else looked edible in the photographs except the corn salad. It looked like…I don’t even know what it looked liked, just completely unappetizing. BUT, it tastes wonderful. I promise. AND, its even better the second day. How about that?

Ah Spring..

I think its so funny how when the season changes people naturally crave different foods. I love rich food, but when it starts to warm up I cant stand the idea of a heavy meal. So, since it has been getting warmer I decided to move away from the pot roast and queso-like foods to something lighter. I found this recipe for Shrimp Sicily in a cookbook called South of the Fork that was compiled by the Junior League of Dallas.  Basically, I chose it because it sounded easy and shrimp aren’t the cheapest thing so I didn’t want to ruin them by attempting a harder recipe.

1 1/2 lbs fresh large shrimp, peeled and deveined

salt and pepper

3 T melted butter

3 T olive oil

2 large cloves garlic

2 t dried oregano

2 T chopped parsley

juice of 1 lemon

Pat shrimp dry on paper towels. In a large skillet heat butter and olive oil with garlic and oregano over medium-high heat. Season shrimp with salt and pepper. Quickly stir-fry shrimp in oil and butter, reducing heat as necessary. Shrimp should begin to become firm and turn pink in 4-5 minutes depending on their size. Immediately before removing shrimp from skillet, stir in parsley and lemon juice. Serve immediately.

This was pretty good, but way way too lemony. I could hardly taste the oregano because the lemon was so overpowering. Other than that though this was filling but not heavy. Try it!

Smells delicious…

Technically this post is referring to the same meal as the last, but its a different recipe so I thought it would be best to separate them. I hadn’t made a dessert in a while so I though I’d try one.  I love love love any kind of dessert that involves fruit so when I came across apple crisp in the same kids cookbook that I used for the spaghetti I thought I’d try it.

1 T unsalted butter for greasing the basking dish

5 large apples

1/2 a lemon

1/2 cup apple juice

1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 t allspice

3/4 c sugar

3/4 c all-purpose flour

1/2 c unsalted butter, cut in to small pieces.

(And while your at the store, buy vanilla ice cream. Its worth it.)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a 2 1/2 quart rectangular baking dish.

2. Peel the apples and slice them into 8 moon-shaped wedges. Place them in the baking dish.

3. squeeze the lemon juice over the apples to keep them from browning. (I didn’t really think that this was necessary since they are going to be brown after you bake them anyway)

4. Pour the apple juice over the apples and sprinkle the cinnamon and allspice on. Then, toss the apples to mix the ingredients.

5. Mix the sugar and flour together in a bowl. Add the pieces of butter. Rub the ingredients together between your fingertips until the mixture looks and feels like fine crumbs. Then, sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the apples in the dish. (This is really fun)

6. Bake until the apples are tender and bubbly and the topping is light golden brown, about 1 hour.

I think I cooked my crisp a little too long because it was more like apple sauce than apple crisp. The flavor was quite tasty though and it was still delicious, just a little mushy. I’d definitely cook it again, just not for the full hour.

Now this is at my level…

School has taken over my life for the past couple weeks so there has been little time for cooking.  But, now that I’ve finished my last test for a while, I made quite the feast last night thanks to my new KIDS cookbook. All of the recipes are supposed to be easy enough for a child to make it and apparently I do at least have the cooking abilities of a child (age 8 & up). By the way, my favorite part about the book is the first 5 pages that have pictures and explain the different uses for every kitchen utensil and pan size imaginable. Perrrrfect.

Anyways, I made spaghetti with marinara sauce which may seem simple until I mention that I made it from SCRATCH. (The sauce, not the pasta. duh.)  Here’s how you too can be Chef Boyardee:

2 medium onions

3 garlic cloves

3 T olive oil

1 can (28 oz.) crushed tomatoes

1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste

About 1 can water

1 bay leaf

1 t dried basil

1 t dried oregano

1 t sugar

Salt and pepper

(Authors Note: I’m going to write out the full directions as they appear in the cookbook just so that you can see how detailed they are for beginner cooks, aka children, or in this case me.)

1. Put the onions on the cutting board. With the knife, cut each onion in half from the pointed end to the root end. Pull off the papery skin. Place the onion halves flat-side down on the cutting board and cut off the root ends. Chop the onion halves into coarse pieces.

(OK, now I’m going to paraphrase a little to shorten things up, but can you believe how detailed that was?? WONDERFUL…I can’t mess up)

2. Mince the garlic

3. Heat the oil in a sauce pan (it actually tells you to put the pan on the burner of your stove and turn the stove on. Ha.) Add the onions and cook until translucent: about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and stir for about 1 minute.

4. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered for about 1 hour. Stir often. If the sauce gets too thick you may add more water.

This was really good, but then again I’ve never had bad tomato sauce per say. HOWEVER, it tasted exactly like every jar of sauce that I have ever bought at a grocery store so I probably wouldn’t make it again unless I was in the mood to cook.

 

Ole!

It’s been a while since I’ve conquered the kitchen, but over Spring Break I was at home for a whole 48 hours during which I really REALLY wanted to have my mom teach me how to make her chicken enchiladas. You really don’t understand how much I love this meal.  I don’t really have an exciting story to accompany this because my mom helped me do all the hard stuff so I didn’t mess anything up so here is the recipe:

6 whole chicken breasts, skinned and boned

4 tablespoons butter 

 

7 ounces green chilies

2 to 3 canned hot peppers, seeded

2 10-ounce cans tomatillos verdes, drained and liquid reserved

4 to 5 sprigs fesh cilantro

2 cups heavy cream

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon salt

2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened

6 green onions, chopped

Oil for frying tortillas

12 corn tortillas

1 pint sour cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Saute’ the chicken breasts in the butter until tender, cool slightly, and shred meat by hand to make approximately 6 cups. Set aside. In a blender puree chilies, hot peppers, tomatillos and cilantro, adding liquid from tomatillos if puree is thicker than heavy cream. Add cream, eggs, and salt, adjust seasonings, and transfer to a saucepan. Cover and warm over very low heat. Combine cream cheese mixture, chicken, and green onions, and set aside. Heat oil in a heavy skillet and fry the tortillas, one at a time, for just a moment. Drain on paper towels. Spread 1 tablespoon of warm sauce on each tortilla, then 5 tablespoons of the chicken mixture. Roll and place, seam side down, in a buttered large shallow baking dish. Pour remaining sauce over stuffed tortillas and bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Serve immediately and pass sour cream on side.

I did think of something to say. First of all, dont fry the tortillas for too long or they’ll be too crispy to roll. Secondly, use corn tortillas even if you liek flour more. The flour tortillas will get really soggy when they are baked. Third, if you’re anything like me you’ll be grossed out by the fact that there are eggs in the sauce. I agree, it doesn’t make sense. BUT, do it….they emulsify the sauce. Finally, MAKE THIS DISH.

It just had to be done…

Why is it that I never crave healthy food? As I wrote in my last post, sometimes I realize that I SHOULD eat healthily, but in reality I never want to make something healthy over something like say….pot roast.  Again, like I said in my last post, I was at home last weekend. On Sunday, the day I was leaving on a 3:00 flight, my mom decided to make a pot roast in the slow cooker.  Sounds delicious, right? Well I wouldn’t know.  If you don’t know this already, pot roast in a slow cooker takes about 10 hours to cook. Also, around hour 3 it starts to smell like…heaven.  If you haven’t put two and two together by now, I’ll explain: Pot roast went in the crock pot at 7 a.m., pot roast began to smell fantastic around 10 a.m., I left for the airport at 1 p.m., pot roast was done at 5 p.m. Get it?  I didn’t get any. (SIDE NOTE: After smelling the pot roast all morning, I had the pleasure of sitting on my plane in Dallas on the runway for 5 hours waiting for Atlanta to lift the hold on all incoming flights. Remember that storm last Sunday? So, I sat on the plane starving thinking about the pot roast cooking at my house, regretting my decision to wait to eat until I got to Atlanta, and wondering why the hell they wouldn’t let us off the plane while we waited. Luckily, I scored a middle seat between two talkers on a plane with no air conditioning.)  Long story short, after that experience I was craving pot roast all week. So, on Sunday, the one week anniversary of my day from hell, I decided to make it. And mashed potatoes. Here’s the EASIEST recipe ever:

2-3 lb. chuck roast

1 packet dry Lipton’s onion soup

1 yellow onion, sliced

1 can cream of mushroom soup

4 carrots

Slice the onion and carrots and place them in the bottom of a slow cooker. Put the roast on top of the vegetables. Top the roast with the packet of soup and the can of soup. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours.

IT WAS SO GOOD!!!  The only thing I learned was that you can’t open the lid of the crock pot at all until its at least close to being done. Otherwise, you will let out the heat and increase you cooking time. I learned the hard way…it took mine about 2 hours longer to cook than it was supposed to. Also, I learned that the way to know that its done is when you pull at the side of the roast with a fork and it pulls apart easily, basically like a pot roast should. That is, assuming that most people have had pot roast at least once in their life.

I THINK I’m going to make pizza next because I want to learn how to make dough, but I guess it will all depend on how much time my mid terms really take up. Otherwise, it will be a surprise….