Julie & Julia

Yesterday, after successfully reorganizing my closet, I rewarded myself by watching 'Julie & Julia'. It was awesome. I know that there are many people that have issues with books being made into movies, and as a sorta-librarian I suppose I should weigh in on that. Here's what I normally do: If the movie comes out before I read the book, and the previews appeal to me, then I watch the movie, then read the book. If I have already read the book when the film comes out, I usually skip the movie.

Anyway, Julie & Julia was great and inspired me as both a writer and a cook. The film tells the stories of both Julie Powell and her attempt to cook all of Julia Child's recipes in one year, as well as telling the story of Julia Child moving to Paris and learning to cook French food to have something to do during the day, then spending years working on her cookbook.

I recommend it highly.

Upsidedown Chili dog Nachos

In preparation for the annual chili cook-off (more on that in a future post) B practiced his chili. It was yummy. With the leftovers we made what has perhaps been one of my best creations.

lay some tortilla chips (we like blue ones) in a casserole dish. And cheese, leftover chili, and hot dog/brat pieces, and salsa. Then. top it with another layer of chips, and top that layer with cheese. Bake in the over for 5 - 10 mins

While in the oven, put salsa, sour cream, avocado, etc. in the bottom of a wide bowl.

When the cheese has melted over the chips in the oven, pull out the casserole dish and scoop the chips & etc. into the bowls. This way, you can use the chips as a scoop for the toppings (bottomings?) and you wont end up with plain chips on the bottom of the bowl.

Sassy Water

B and I are on a diet and are attempting to fight off flu, cold, infection, etc.

We are drinking this water, called Sassy Water which has come from the Flat Belly Diet Cookbook. Bob does not like the term 'sassy' so we have just started calling this 'flavored' water.

Take 1 cucumber and 1 lemon, wash the outsides, and thinly slice them. Toss them in a pitcher.
Toss in one or two sprigs of fresh mint leaves. Then, grate some fresh ginger into the pitcher. Fill pitcher with water, refrigerate, and enjoy.

It's really good, but ruins your life because plain water is just so boring after having 'sassy' water.

White Chocolate & Macadamia nut cookies

Bob went back to school this week, and to make it a little easier for him, I made him these lovely cookies.

 

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup melted butter

¼ cup brown sugar

¾ cup white sugar

2 large eggs

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups white chocolate chips

1 cup chopped macadamia nuts

 

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

 

In one bowl, whisk  together the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Add the eggs, and vanilla and whisk again. Whisk in the flour, then the baking soda, then the salt. Toss in the white chocolate chips and the macadamia nuts, and fold them into the dough so that they are distributed throughout.

 

Take an ice cream scoop and place equal spoonfuls of dough about an inch or two apart on a cookie sheet. Place the cookie sheets in the over for 10-15mins. Take out of the oven, and let them cool a minute or two on the cookie sheet. 

Pear & Apple Pie with crumb topping

My fridge is full of apples, pears, and peaches fresh from the farms of the Western Slope.  We have more fruit than we know what to do with! B & I had an end of the season picnic this past Friday with our softball team. I got up early Friday morning to make a pie to take, but after getting a look at it, B decided that it was not for sharing. I grew up in a family that believes that pie is an acceptable breakfast food, so this is what B & I had all weekend.

 

*Important note: Fruits give off gases, and the gases given off by apples do not mesh well with the gases given off by pears. Store them separately. We keep our peaches and apples in a basket on the bottom shelf of the fridge, and then the pears in a bowl on the top shelf of the fridge. If you keep pears and apples together, they ripen too fast.

 

Crumb topping:

½ cup flour

¼ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 tablespoons cold butter chopped into tiny pieces

 

Pie Filing:

I frozen pie crust

4 apples of any kind, peeled & cored, and sliced into bite-sized pieces

4 pears of any kind (feel free to mix types) peeled & cored, and sliced into bite sized pieces

½ cup brown sugar

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 tablespoon cold butter chopped into tiny pieces

 

Make the topping by mixing all of the topping ingredients together in a Tupperware dish or covered bowl.  Cover the dish and shake the mixture. Set aside.

 

Put the apple and pear pieces in a bowl with the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter. Give it a good stir with a spoon so that all the fruit pieces are covered.  Put the pie filling into a frozen piecrust. Top evenly with the crumb topping.

 

Place the pie (in pan) on a cookie sheet (to prevent messy overflow situations) and place the pie in the oven @ 375 degrees for 40mins.

What I've ate today

I'm having a tought time at work this evening, so in my head I'm planning out the meals for the week - which is very easy, since we are going out of town on Thursday and I wont have to worry.

So far, here's what I have had today:

Breakfast/Brunch/Lunch @ 11:00

Bob goes to work at noon on Mondays so we have a late breakfast/early lunch. Today we had Bufflao Chicken Mac - inspired by a Rachael Ray recipe (which I will now call 'RRRs')

Take 1lb of chicken and hack it up into bite size pieces. Cut up an onion, some celery, and some carrots while you're at it. I make Bob do these tasks becaus chicken is gross and slimy and onions make me cry :( Toss the chicken pieces in a skillet w/ some oil and brown them. Then add the carrots, celery, onion, some paprika (for color) and a bay leaf (to add flavor) Cook these all together, then add 2 cups chicken stocks. Let simmer for 10 mins.

Take some cooked macaroni, and mix it in to the chicken mixture. Then, put all of it into a baking dish, top with blue cheese and bake @ 400 for 5mins.

I had 2 bowls of this with a large glass of milk.


Around 4pm I ate:
Pastrami sandwhich
Green Olives

I take whole grain bread, top it with herb mustard, and slap on some beef pastrami and gouda. yum. I had about 15 green olives on the side.

Beets

Our CSA has forced us to cook with beets and we have learned that Bob likes beets. Here's how I make them.

Cut off the greens. The CSA says you can use them, but I tossed then in a salad a few weeks back and they were gross. Then, wrap each beet individually in foil so you have a bunch of little foil balls. Roast in the oven for about an hour to an hour and a half depending on the size of the beet. unwrap. let them cool for about 15mins, and then the skins just fall right off.

B likes the beets sliced and in salads. I like them sliced and on a cracker with a herb-goat cheese spead.

Jalapeno Poppers (but better)

This past week B made me some of his famous Fish Tacos (see April 2008) We went to the store to stock up on supplies, and this recipe calls for 3 jalapenos - but Sunflower Market only sells Jalapenos in packages of 10.....whatever. So with the leftovers I made poppers.

Cut the jalapenos in half, and de-seed them. In our house this is a job for Bob because my delicate skin cant take the heat and I sometimes end up with a seed in my eye.....moving on.....

Mix together some herb flavored goat cheese (or any kind of soft cheese) with some blackberry Habanero jam (see October 2008) If you would like to cut down on the heat you can substitute regular fruit jam for pepper infused jam.

Fill the jalapeno halves with the cheese/jam mixture, then top with parmasean cheese. Bake @ 400 for 15 mins, then let cool for 5mins.

Enjoy.....perhaps with a glass of milk.

I am a lazy blogger.....but enjoy this curry recipe :)

I know. I havent posted anything in awhile. And I know I type this in every other post, but I've been busy and I'm sorry. To make excuses: I had to plan a wedding, be in that wedding, be a wife, and a bunch of other things that go along with that.

On the brightside - I have a new work schedule. My sister-in-law and mother-in-law agree that my new schedule sucks....which it kinda does...but finding the lemonade in the whole thing, I am now home for dinner 6 nights a week! OMG!

Inspiration has also come to me from a few places. 1) being home 4 days a week has given me lots of time to watch the Food Network. Most of the time, I watch it while folding laundry or cooking or cleaning or other domestic housewife projects. I also like having it on in the background because it seems to calm our dogs. 2) B (I call Bob "B" because Bob is sometimes just too long to write out...jk) and I joined a CSA, which stands for Community Suported Agruculture. Each week B goes to a neighbors house and pick up a box of fresh from the farm, organic veggies, a bag of fruit straight from the orchard, and a half dozen eggs. We never know what were going to get or how to use what we get........more about that in future posts.

But here, as promised, a curry salad recipe.

Take some mayo and mix in a decent amount of curry powder, celery salt, and some fresh ground pepper. Mix it all together well to make a dressing. Then, add some dried cranberries, some chopped celery, and some chopped almonds. This is your salad base and since it has mayo in it it needs to be kept cold. Serve this on a bed of lettuce, mixed with veggies, or mixed with a cold meat. B and I grilled up some chicken sausage, sliced it and stirred it into the curry mixture. Its good.

Broccoli Nachos

Bod and I like to eat junk food. I guess its not really 'junk' food, we don't eat sacks of doritos or hohos, we enjoy bar food. Nachos, potato skins, spinach and artichoke dip, fried things.......yum. We have a few rules in our house (maybe a lot of rules?) and maybe rules is the wrong word, because they are more like guidelines for peaceful living. (I fold the socks the way Bob likes, and he puts the seat down.) One of the rules that we agree on is that we don't fry anything at home. We don't own a deep fryer, nor would we ever like to. We bake our chicken and fries. This is so we can eat the bar food that we love, but not get so fat. or dead.

This is a recipe that I came across and modified.

Take some tortillas. cut them into pieces and throw them on a cookie sheet and bake for 5-10 mins, until they get crispy and brownish. If you like, you can salt them or spice them and use some oil to crisp them more, or you can just buy some chips already crisped. 

In a skillet (or in our case, a wok) put a bag of frozen broccoli. Turn the heat up and watch it steam. When it has defrosted, add in some garlic, cumin, chili powder, and a can of cannellini beans. (they're white kidney beans) Mix it up, warm it up then spread it over you chips. Top with shredded cheese and bake @ 400 for 5mins until cheese gets all melty. Top with salsa, guac, sour cream, or whatever you like.

Eat this in front of the TV while watching baseball.

I recommend you pair this dish with a bottle of Kona beer. I'm enjoying mine right now with the Longboard Lager. And its awesome.

7 Bowls

Trust us - this is good.

You need:
Cooked Brown Rice
Warmed curry sauce (homemade, but we just get ours from a jar)
a jar of chutney
sliced black olives
a jar of pickle relish
a few hard boiled eggs, sliced
some raisins
some roasted spanish peanuts
some shredded coconut
and some mandrin oranges

Take some rice, put it in a bowl. Toss everything on top, and then cover it in curry sauce.

Its so good. Perhaps we should have it tonight........

E's Valentines dinner for Bob

Happy Valentines Day!
I am working today on this day of love, so I cooked dinner for my love last night. He is cooking dinner tonight. We just like Valentines Day because it gives us an excuse to eat decadent food and drink a lot to celebrate our love. We also celebrate our love on Presidents Day, Columbus Day, Thursdays, and pretty much every chance we get.
I love Bob more than anything else in the world, and more than anything else, Bob loves to eat a good Rib Eye. That’s a kind of steak. So I made him a decadent steakhouse dinner…at home.
On the menu - Panchetta-Horseradish Smashed Potatoes, Creamed Spinach(which one of us ate stuffed in a tomato,) Rosemary Rib-eye, and drunken strawberries with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.
And here is a list of what you need –
2 large Idaho potatoes
EVOO
2 or 3 slices of Panchetta
Some sour cream
1tbl spoon prepared horseradish
1pint strawberries
Some orange liqueur
A dark chocolate candy bar
1and ½ cups half-half or cream
Whipped cream
1onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 boxes frozen spinach
Some nutmeg
A tomato (or two if your partner isn’t a sissy)
½ cup blue cheese crumbles
1 rib-eye steak for each person eating steak (or split a giant one)
Fresh Rosemary sprigs or a lot of dried rosemary

1) Get your pots and pans in order. Put a pot of water on to boil. Pre-heat the oven to 375.
2) Defrost your frozen spinach by putting it in the microwave for 10mins.
3) While the spinach is in the microwave, wash and peel your potatoes, and dice them into small chunks. Wash the strawberries and cut off their tops. Wash the tomatoes. Cut off the tops of your tomatoes and hollow out the inside.

4) When the water is to a boil, put your potato chunks in and boil them for 15-20mins.
5) Put your strawberries in a dish and pour some liqueur over them. Put them in the fridge until dessert time.
6) In a small pot or sauce pan, put 1 cup of half and half or cream and simmer it on low for 10mins. This is called reduction.
7) Dice up your onion and your garlic. Add the onion and half of the garlic to a medium sized sauce pan with some EVOO. Sautee them for 5mins over medium heat.
8) Heat up a large skillet (with nothing in it) over medium high heat.
9) Drain your spinach by putting the defrosted lump in a clean dish rag, and ring out the liquid over the sink. CAUTION – the spinach lump will be hot on the outside and still frozen on the inside, so be careful.
10) Take your steaks and coat one side with EVOO and either sprinkle with dried rosemary, or lay down one whole sprig of fresh rosemary. Put the steaks seasoned side down in your large heated skillet. Turn in five mins. Before you turn them, dress and season the otherside.
11) Add you defrosted spinach lump to your garlic and onion pan. Stir and mix it up. Heat spinach all the way through.
12) Add reduced cream to spinach pan. Stir.
13) Take a cookie sheet and coat it with a little EVOO and lay the rest of the garlic down on it. Take your steaks out of the pan and put them on the cookie sheet. Stick the cookie sheet in the oven until you are ready to eat. This will cook the steaks the rest of the way through and keep them warm.
14) Add sliced pancetta pieces to the steak pan. Cook for 5 mins or until it is crispy.
15) Drain your potatoes and put them back in the warm pot.
16) Put your spinach mixture inside of your tomatoes and top with blue cheese crumbles. Add the tomatoes to the cookie sheet already in the oven – this will melt the cheese and keep them warm.
17) Mash/smash the potatoes with a potato masher or a large spoon. Mix in the pancetta, the sour cream and the horseradish. Stir well and put in a bowl.
18) Plate your food. Take the steaks and tomatoes out and put them on a plate. Add potatoes and serve.
19) Eat.
20) When you are done with dinner and ready for desert, heat the remaining half and half or cream in a small sauce pan (just use the one you used to reduce the cream for the spinach)
21) Take out your berries and put them in pretty bowls.
22) Chop your chocolate bar into chunks.
23) When your cream is heated, add the chocolate chunks and stir to make a sauce. The chocolate will melt and look yummy.
24) Pour sauce over your berries and top with whipped cream.

Enjoy. Make this meal for someone you love.

Thin Mint Cookie Pizza

Hi. Its me - Elizabeth! yep, I'm posting and trying not to be such a blog bum.

This time of year is Girl Scout Cookie time! I ordered a few boxes from my favorite girl scouts, and ordered a box of thin mints just to make this.

Gather a tube of Chocolate chip cookie dough, a half a box of thin mint cookies, some white chocolate chips, and a pan. The recipe suggests using a pizza pan, but I don't have one (note to self, registry idea) so I used a pie dish, which made my cookie come out thinker and chewyier that the pizza pan one. Its very easy.

1) pre heat the oven to what ever it says to pre heat it to on the dough wrapper.
2)Squish the dough into/onto your pan of choice.
3)Crush up some thing mint cookies and top the dough with them.
4)sprinkle sone white chocolate chips on top.
5) bake for 15mins.
6) take the majority of the large cookie to work to fatten up your co-workers.

The Parisian

I stole this idea from the Smiling Moose Deli because it is a good idea and they execute it about 85% the way I find ideal.

Depending on how often you want to eat this in a week you can adjust your recipe, but it certainly lends itself to multiple sandwiches.

Turn on the oven's broiler to 350 degrees.

Grill 1-2 chicken breasts with your favorite light grill seasoning.  Let them cool to keep this juices from flowing out, and then cut into strips or cubes.

Take your favorite bread, this could be a baguette or a roll and spread pesto on each side.

Cut thin strips of brie or camembert and place on the "top" of the sandwich.  Place grilled chicken on the other end.  Or if you want to open faced sandwiches place some cheese and chicken on both sides.

Broil until the cheese is melty.

That's the base of the sandwich, but it is easy to add some other "toppings."  The Smiling Moose Deli version comes with sun dried tomatoes and avocado.

By the way, my main complaints with how the Moose makes it is that the avocado is slight and not in large slices like I prefer it.  You can barely taste it.  I also find that one pass through their oven roast conveyer belt doesn't heat the sandwich nearly enough.  Brie is delicious when melted, but it takes a little longer than a thin slice of swiss.  If a sandwich is going to be "hot" it damn well better be hot not already cooling when it is received.

Happy hour dinner at home

First of all, bad on us for not blogging.  Its a busy time and that means less cooking, but also taking less time to write about cooking.  We'll call this a two weeks into the new year resolution to improve on that front.  Moving on.

The concept of happy hour at home stems from one of our favorite practices of hitting the good happy deals which generally means something in the neighborhood of half of drinks and half off appetizers.  This generally leads to an inexpensive night of having some drinks and eating a variety of good food.  Taking this concept home just means preparing a number of small side dishes and feasting on them while having a little something to drink as well.

Last night we opted for a few different dishes.  The first being roasted brussel sprouts.  Brussel sprouts have often earned themselves a bad reputation because they actually taste like a vegetable.  Oddly enough, we actually like vegetables, so it is a delicious and nutritious add on to a meal.  In the past we've gone the boring route and just boiled them, it works, but it isn't as delicious as it can be.  I had heard Rocco Dispirito extolling the virtue of roasting the sprouts on Adam Carolla's radio show, se decided to give it a try.  Elizabeth took on this task so I'm not entirely clear on the details, but here's what I remember her doing.  Clean and half the sprouts and place them in a casserole dish that has been layered with olive oil cut side down.  Drissel some more oil and a little balsamic vinegar on top of the sprouts.  Throw in a few whole garlic cloves for a little added flavor.  Turn the oven to 450 degrees and cook for about 20 minutes.  Ideally the sprouts should be cooked well on the outside, a little crispy, and tender on the inside.  The garlic adds a nice flavor but also leads to having some tasty roast garlic as well.

While Elizabeth worked on the sprouts I made some sweet potato fries.  This is a nice little addition to a meal because you can spice it anyway you want to go for a particular flavor.  Garlic, rosemary, and even curry powder can work well with this type of potato, but this time I used a bbq rub that I got from a brilliant spice shop in downtown Littleton.  Before all that though I peeled the spuds, chopped them into fry shaped pieces, which is important because big chunks take way longer to cook.  Rubbed some olive oil on the pieces after placing them on a cookie tray and then did my best at covering each fry with the bbq rub.  These went into the oven just a couple minutes after the sprouts, on the bottom rack of the oven, also at 450.  The end result was a tangy fry that was a little mushy, but in the good, melt in your mouth kind of way.  We also got out a little blue cheese to dip the fries in.  If you are more accustomed to a non mushy fry then you'll either need to deep fry the fries, or bake them for a little less time.  I would recommend not doing this because while the fry is more stable, the flavor doesn't quite explode in your mouth the same way.

While all this was cooking we did some quick and easy appetizers.  A little hummus on some bread takes about 3 seconds to prepare and is a good starter.  We also brought out a classic that our friend David put us onto, which is a twist on cheese and crackers.  Take your favorite cracker, or a variety is nice, spread on to it a soft cheese (brie, camembert, goat cheese, etc.) and spread a little habenero jam.  Primo makes some excellent varieties that Whole Foods carries, but the mix of a little sweet, a little spicy, and cheesy goodness on a cracker bed has addictive properties.  This one is good to have with other food so it is taken in moderation.  In other words don't just pull this out on an empty stomach.

Finally I made some dirty martinis.  Unfortunately this did not blend as well with the habenero jam as I would have liked, but we didn't have any wine, which would have been more appropriate.  Anyway, I've been sucking down this martini recipe a lot lately, because it is so delicious, so I could probably drink it and eat cotton candy at the same time.  If you don't have a martini shaker (we just got one) this is the best way to do it.  Throw a couple of ice cubes in a blender, add 3 oz of vodka (use good vodka please, we've been using grey goose), 1 oz of dry vermouth, and 1/2 oz of olive juice.  Blend this until the ice is broken down into small parts, in fact you may want to break the ice down a little before adding the booze.  Pour into a glass and the end result is nice because the little bits of ice keep the martini ice cold for the entire time your drinking it.  The little twist I add, after stealing it from the Cheesecake Factories "Well Mannered Martini" is to pull out the pimento of the olive and stuff it with blue cheese crumbles.  It doesn't get much better than a martini soaked olive, stuffed with blue cheese.  After finishing your drink you will want to make another equally for the martini and the olives.