Lamb with horseradish panko crust

And this is why I love cooks.com... I had a recipe idea in my head and search, click, there it is! So, tonight is lamb chops with a horseradish and panko crust. The recipe can be found here. I have learned to be wary when I get a 'good idea!' for what to make, so I double check my flavour combinations on the internet. I'm right 90% of the time, but it's that other 10% that one can not live down. Tomorrow though, I'm going all out with my awesome eggplant idea -and I'm not even going to check resources I'm so convinced it will work. I'll let you know in my next post!

Wow! Almost 6pm, and the chickens have barely gone to roost for the night.... It's nice having longer daylight hours again -even if we did get an inch of snow today.
Sundays bring another good brunch; buttermilk pancakes = yum! After grazing on snacks during the race, the pulled pork sandwiches cooking [in the crockpot] since yesterday morning are a perfect serve-yourself-dinner. Otherwise, a pretty slow day all around... However, after a cup of late afternoon coffee I'm ready to start taking down my February decorations, and start putting up my March/ St. Patrick's stuff tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow. I'm tired of looking at pink every where -pink is best served as a hair colour, not home dec!

Brunch Quiche (Frittata?)

This is a great brunch quiche. Well, it's like a quiche... or maybe it's a frittata. I kinda made it up, but I promise it's yummy! I am going to list the ingredients for a one person serving, and leave the multiplying up to you for how ever many servings you need.

2 small Red Potatoes, skin on, cubed
3 slices of Bacon
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1 egg
2 tbsp. Milk or cream
1/4 cup Cheddar cheese, grated
1 tbsp. Parsley, fresh
1 tsp. Chives, fresh
salt, pepper
butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Boil potatoes in a pot until just before tender.
While potatoes are boiling, fry up the bacon slices in a pan. Remove bacon when crisp, set aside.
Add strained potatoes and onion to bacon fat in pan to brown them. Salt and pepper to taste.
Butter a small baking dish (a souffle crock is perfect).
Place browned potatoes/onions in crock.
Crumble 2 pieces of the bacon on top of the potato/onion.
In a small bowl beat egg and milk together.
Pour egg mixture over ingredients in crock.
Sprinkle parsley and cheese on top.
Bake in oven for 15-20 min.
Let cool 10 min before serving.
Top with chives and the last piece of bacon, crumbled.

Also tastes fantastic with a little hot sauce. If you really want this to kick: add dried red pepper flakes with the salt and pepper.

A whirlwind weekend!

Phew! What a crazy weekend! It felt nice after a long lull of nothing going on, but I don't know where to begin... Pampered Chef party, taking in a new kitty, Polish-American Club dinner, shopping, a documentary interview, Daytona 500.... I guess I'll just give a quick overview.

At the Pampered Chef party on Friday night, the [awesome] representative made Artichoke cups that were divine, and super chocolaty gooey caramel brownies. I made a wonderful warm spiced Sangria that was a huge hit (recipe here), served the usual finger/snack foods, and had BBQ and Buffalo wings in the crock pots. I ordered some new nifty kitchen ware I can't wait to use... I have their garlic peeler/mincer and use it constantly as it is, so I can't wait to try out the new stuff.
That morning I was interviewed for a documentary on one of my friends seizure disorder. We'll wait and see what happens with that, but it was a good interview -even if I wasn't thrilled with the camera angle I was filmed at.

The next night we went out (after a fun time shopping in JoAnn Fabrics) to a Spaghetti dinner that the local Polish-American Club sponsored, having a wonderful time. I even won the Polish flag blanket I wanted so badly in the raffle! As you may have implied from the dinner name: spaghetti, red sauce, and meatballs were served. They also had a garden salad, garlic bread, and different types of cakes for dessert. It was all quite yummy, and hit the spot.

Next up: Daytona 500. I just made a veggie platter and beer bread with different dips to snack on while watching the race. We stayed in to watch it (Holy crashes, huh?!?) as our good friends came by with their kitty for us to adopt him. The two girl kitties we already have are making the slow adjustment to having a boy kitty in the house; though he seems utterly nonchalant, happy, and at home already.
The morning of Daytona we had a decent brunch. It's something I used to make while living on my own quite often -usually for dinner. It's kind of a personal quiche I made up. Check out my next post for the recipe and pictures.

Happy Valentine's Day!

My attempt at a pretty cake... I said 'attempt'. It tastes good at least! Chocolate 2 layer cake with my mom's recipe for confection sugar frosting.

For dinner we had rib eye steaks that we aged, sauteed shiitake mushrooms with scallions and butter, and red potatoes done in the skillet with garlic, rosemary, and butter. The wine was a Pinot Noir by Cavit.

Aging steaks is easy, but I don't know how much it really adds to the meat. I think 4 days was too long this time, and we do better with just the overnight age. The ultimate goal of aging meat is for better flavour. To achieve this, the meat must loose excess moisture and should end up weighing about 1/2 of what it did when you purchased it. I prefer my meat nice and juicy, so an overnight age tastes better to me personally. The biggest thing to remember when aging is to replace the paper towel under the meat every day, and allow plenty of air flow. 

The steaks as we bought them

Aging the steaks in the fridge day 2

Day 3 of aging 
(I flipped the lower right steak bottom side up for the picture to show the difference better)

Day 4 of aging

By day 4 (the day we cooked them) you can really see the difference. They did end up weighing almost 1/2 of what they did when we first bought them (due to the diminished moisture content). We also salted the bottoms of the steaks on day 2 in order to help wick out moisture. It's important to always keep the same side down while aging.

Cream of Asparagus soup

Hooray! My internet is back! And just in time to post about what I'll be making for Valentine's Day dinner. But first, let's play a little catch up.
This past week I tried a new way to use asparagus -in soup! It seemed pretty straight forward and easy:

Boil coarsely chopped asparagus, and simmer until tender. Reserve 1 cup of the boiling water, and drain the rest of the asparagus. Then put the reserved liquid, 1 1/2 cups chicken stock, 2 tbsp of chopped onion, and the asparagus in a pot and boil for 5 min. When that is done, dump the whole pot into a blender or food processor and blend until fairly smooth. Return blended asparagus mixture to the pot, and add 1 cup of heavy cream over low heat, salt and pepper to taste.

Simple, right? It is... It is also incredibly bland! It had such potential for being a wonderful side course to our meal, but it was sorely lacking in flavour. In the future I will tinker with this recipe, and I think adding butter along with the cream, as well as crumbled bacon pieces should 'fix' the blandness of this dish.

super bowl

sorry. my internet has been down. so please excuse the lack of posts. as well as the punctuation. capitalization. and spelling as it is very limited posting from my phone. its just as well i suppose. because not much has been going on.... except the chickens are back into full egg production. and we had a fabulous superbowl party. superbowl is like a laid back. less formal thanksgiving. our food spread included... spiral cut ham. spanekopeta. mini pigs in a blanket. chili. chips and dips of all varieties such as tortilla chips and regular lays chips with salsa or guacamole or ranch or bacon dip. bakery pizza and bakery cupcakes embellished with little footballs. and of course the obligatory beer. soda. and cocktails.  since the patriots werent playing. little if any. attention was payed to the game so the food was a spectacular hit. the half time show was also incredably dissapointing. i have had the honor of working a show for fergie about 3 years ago. and she was nothing like what i witnessed or heard during that performance with the black eyed peas. thats about it... i cant wait till my internet is back up so i can continue regular posting. i didnt realize until now how much improper punctuation kills me...

Meatloaf! (the food, not the singer)

Mmmm... Meatloaf. Another over looked culinary delight. I too, was once scared of meatloaf.... Until, one day, I was bestowed the Fanny Farmer Cookbook. She provides a savory alternative the wretched pop culture images of sitcom moms (like Roseanne, for instance) angrily crushing Ritz crackers and ground beef together into a loaf pan, while the sitcom family groans and winces at the mere thought of the meal. It simply is not so. It's merely a simple savory weekday meal, as well as a hearty comfort food to help melt away the knowledge of the 3' of snow outside. With only a few modifications to Miss Farmer's original recipe, this is how meatloaf is truly done... Plus, it's great to make ahead and then pop into the oven once everyone gets home for a stress free dinner.

Meatloaf

1 cup Bread crumbs (Italian style)

1 small Onion, chopped fine

1 Egg, beaten

1 lb. Ground beef

1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Black pepper

just over a 1/4 cup Milk 

3 tbsp. Parsley, fresh, minced -or 1 tbsp dried, crumbled

pinch of dried Basil 

Optional:

1 can Tomato Sauce (8oz)

1-2 tbsp butter, unsalted

Preheat over to 350 degrees.

Grease a loaf pan.

Beat egg and milk together in a large bowl. To this add all the ingredients except for the 'optional' ones. 

Using clean hands, thoroughly mix all the ingredients well.

Place mixture into the loaf pan, gently patting it down.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, let rest for 10 minutes.

OPTIONAL: 

Once the meatloaf is resting, take a small saucepan over medium heat and melt butter. To the melted butter, stir in the can of tomato sauce. Serve this over the sliced meatloaf table side.

Early Spring!

Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog didn't see his shadow today, so an early spring is expected! Thank The Lord too, because I'm tired of all this snow!

Fried Chicken is on the menu tonight with steamed broccoli. As I promised a meal review of the past few days, we had Lamp chops with Cognac Cream Sauce (yummy! Recipe below) and baked sweet potatoes, oven baked cod fish -marinated in truffle flavoured oil, salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, and fresh dill- .served along with a garden salad and Spanakopeta. Yes, I finally attempted Spanakopeta (Greek Spinach Pie). A long process, but well worth it! Last night was the beef pie. I made the filling in a pan on the stove top vs. in the crock pot, which actually came out 100 times better.

Cognac Cream Sauce (from Cooks.com)

 

1/2 stick unsalted butter
1 tsp. grated lemon rind
1 tsp. grated orange rind
1/4 c. sweet paprika
1/4 c. olive oil
Bay leaves
4 (2 inch) filet mignon
3 tbsp. cognac
1/2 c. finely chopped onion
1/4 c. dark beer (optional)
1 tbsp. ketchup
1 tsp. Worcestershire
1/4 c. fresh minced parsley
1/4 c. heavy cream
Salt and pepper

 

Blend butter, lemon rind, orange rind, paprika, salt and pepper. In a skillet, heat oil with bay leaf on high heat, discard bay leaf and saute the filets for 12-15 minutes, turning. Take out and keep warm.Pour off oil and deglaze the skillet with cognac. Add butter mixture, onion and cook low until onion cooked. Stir in beer, ketchup, Worcestershire, parsley. Bring to a boil. Stir in cream. Season with salt and pepper and serve over filet mignon with rice. Serves 4.

Beef Stew?

To stew or not to stew; that is the question... Well, since my boyfriend is leaving work early (in order to get home on time) due to the days 8" of snow -now turned to sleet- we're getting, there is not enough time to do even a stove top stew. Thus, tonight will be most likely a beef pot pie. I hope to enjoy a hearty meal and a game of cards tonight by the fire!

Weekend meal updates and recipes are scheduled for the next post. Besides having 1/2 the family home because of school closings, I spent the other half of my day crafting and putting out February decorations instead of posting... Though updates on the February decorations for later as well!