Pork Roast, Acorn Squash, and Cheddar Biscuits

I knew I wanted to make a pork roast for dinner tonight so that I could have leftovers tomorrow night.  I’m going on a field trip with my daughter’s class and I know that I will be too exhausted to think about dinner when it’s all over.  I searched around on my favorite sites and found this one for a pork roast and roasted garlic vinaigrette that sounded perfect and didn’t require a trip to the store.  I halved the vinaigrette and still had plenty left over-Belle dipped her pork in it, but the younger two stuck with ketchup.  I also avoided the clean-up of the blender by making the sauce by hand, with a whisk.  I suppose it would have been smoother had I used the blender, but I’ve never had much trouble with small piece of roasted garlic on my meat.
For the acorn squash, I tried this one by Pioneer Woman.  It was good, but not quite sweet enough for my taste.  That is easily remedied by adding some brown sugar in a small bowl on the table, which is what I usually do when I make acorn squash. It’s sort like a baked potato, once you eat that top layer, you need a little more topping to make the rest taste good!
The Cheddar Biscuits were by far the best part of the meal.  I actually got the recipe out of the Food Network Magazine, but I see now that it is available on the website.  I picked an issue up randomly at Kohls one day, and it’s definitely one to grab now and then.  The biscuits are meant to be a copy of Red Lobster’s Cheddar Biscuits.  I only remember going there a few times growing up, and I can’t say I was ever that impressed.  But these biscuits, they are something else!
The final element of our meal was dessert.  I saw Ina Garten make these shortbread cookies the other night and knew I had to make them this week.  They are, indeed, quite delicious.  Unfortunately, my did not keep their cute turkey shape.  I had intended to dip the feather portion of the cookies in chocolate, but they were so misshaped that I decided to drizzle them with chocolate instead.  In the end,  they still tasted fantastic, but I would have liked them to keep their shape.  The odd part is, the one batch that kept their shape the best was a second rolling of scraps.  I’ve always heard that cookies will spread less if they are kept cooler, but that was not the case today!
In the end, much butter was consumed today.  Thank goodness I found them at $2 a box yesterday.  I picked up 4 boxes, just to be on the safe side.

Recipe Resources

I’d say a vast majority of the recipes I use come from online-either from blogs, food network, or sites like all recipes.   I especially like sites with reviews of recipes so I can see what tweeks other people have made.  I love watching shows on Food Network for the extra info you get on why the chef/cook decided to use that ingredient or what you could substitute if something isn’t available to you.  That’s something that I find is missing in cookbooks.  Some give you a back story to the recipe, but rarely do you get that much info.  

Except for Cook’s Illustrated.  If you are the type that likes to know the theories behind the recipe, the best brand of noodles to use, illustrations for techniques and such, then this magazine is for you.  I suppose I should say they did not pay me or give me anything for my endorsement (HA!) though I certainly wouldn’t turn it down!  The website is tremendous as well, but you have to buy a subscription to view all the details within it.  You can get a short-term free trial, but you have to cancel it or they’ll charge you.  Ask me how I know about this…In his defense, he was out of town with minimal internet service when time was up.

Anyhow, we made the beef tacos tonight from the Fall Entertaining Issue.  They were fabulous!  The only change I made was using 2 teaspoons of Chipotle Chili Powder instead of 2 Tablespoons (yikes!).  J fried up the tortillas, as suggested, for the taco shells.  They were indeed far better than any we’ve bought off the shelf.  I love little more than having J in the kitchen with me cooking.  We make a pretty good pair, I say!  I’ve been spoiled this week with him home, but it’s back to reality tomorrow.  I have big meal plans for this week-chili, a revised coq au vin, waffles, and a simple pasta with brie and spinach-so I’ll try to get back here with some details.

Heartfelt Dining

Much as I know that Valentine’s can easily be tossed aside as a Hallmark Holiday, I choose to make it a special day for all of us.  The way I see it, what can be wrong with spending a day celebrating love in all its forms?  

I took special care this year to incorporate that love into each meal that day.  My husband was on call, so we couldn’t depend on having him home to cook.  For breakfast, I made heart shaped pancakes.  I’ve tried molds in the past with little luck.  I suppose if you like a thick batter they’d work better.  What I did this time worked quite well.  I spooned the batter into a glass measuring cup with a pouring spout.  Then I poured a small dot onto the pan, dragging the batter downwards.  I lifted the cup, poured another small dot and dragged the batter down again to form a point.  The kids were super excited with them!

 

By lunchtime, my husband had been called into work.  I considered heart shaped sandwiches, but settled on quesadillas instead.  When I make quesadillas for the kids, I keep things super simple.  I heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Then I spread 6 corn tortillas on a large cookie sheet.  I top each with grated cheese and top with a second tortilla.  Heat in oven until the cheese melts.  Oh so simple.  To jazz things up a bit, I took my heart cookie cutter and cut a heart out of the center of each quesadilla.  The kids ate both the heart cutout and the leftover circle with the heart cut out.  I didn’t take any pictures, but I think it’s pretty self explanatory.

For dinner, I planned beef burgundy according to the recipe in the Cook’s Illustrated cookbook.  FYI, it is quite delicious but it takes FOREVER to make.  Now that I’ve made it, it wouldn’t be such a big deal to do again.  I thought all day about how I was going to incorporate hearts into beef burgundy.  One of the first steps is to cook bacon in a pan and then set it aside.  You’re supposed to put the bacon back in later, but I decided to cook the bacon in a heart shape (make a V, then fold ends into center-though a simple V for Valentine’s would work too).  I placed the bacon on top of the dish as a garnish.

 

My husband was put in charge of dessert, since he did the grocery shopping on the way back home from work.  He spotted some Nutella and wonton wrappers and a delicious, easy dessert was born!  Place the wonton wrapper on a flat surface.  Put a small dollop of nutella in the center.  Dip your finger in water and wet two sides of the wrapper.  Fold in half to form a triangle using the wet sides to seal the wontons.  Heat oil in a pan with fairly high sides and fry.  These only take a few minutes to cook.  Top with chocolate sauce and powdered sugar.  
One of our traditions is to use our “fancy” plates on special days.  Last year I got the kids some adorable plates, cups, and saucers for Easter.  We use the saucers as dessert plates most often.

 

 

 

I hope you had a lovely Valentine’s with your loved ones.  It really doesn’t take much to make something a little extra special, but it adds so much more fun!

Test

Just doing a quick test to see if the image shows up after I’ve published a new post.  Doubtful, I know…

Back in the kitchen … with stuffed chicken!

We spent last week traveling to and fro-and painting/rearranging our living room in the middle of the traveling-so there hasn’t been much cooking going on in the Depeche Mom household.  While it’s nice to get a break from the cooking and associated cleaning, I’m ready to get going again.

I did skip out on baking Monday for the most part this week.  I made biscuits for dinner that night, so I doubled the recipe and froze the leftovers.  They are easily as good as the Pillsbury frozen ones and homemade!  (I’ve updated the last post with recipes)  Also, with 2 birthdays coming up at the end of the week, I’ll be busy enough making cupcakes and brownies, and I don’t know what all just yet!

Last night I’d finally remembered to get the chicken breasts out of the freezer in time for them to be mostly defrosted by dinner.  I checked out a copy of Martha’s Everyday Food cookbook (LOVE it!) from the library so I thumbed through it to find a good chicken recipe.  I found one for Parmesan stuffed chicken breasts which sounded delicious so I set about making it, with several alterations to make it my own.  I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of the meal, I was too busy stuffing my face!

I used 5 bone-in skin on chicken breasts for this recipe.  I buy the large packages whenever I can-esp when I find them buy one/get one free!!  We eat 2 for dinner that night, I freeze 2 for another night, and I save one out to reinvent into some other meal.  If you don’t have that many, just cut the recipe in half.  It’s clearly not an exact science!

Parmesan Stuffed Chicken Breasts a la Depeche Mom

5 bone-in, skin on chicken breasts
1/2 cup grated parmesan
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbs dried parsley
1 Tbs paprika
salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 450 degrees.  Drizzle a large, sided cookie sheet with olive oil.  
Loosen the skin from the chicken breasts, without removing it completely.  Combine the parmesan, bread crumbs, and seasonings in a bowl.  Place the stuffing up under the skin on each of the breasts and place on pan.  Drizzle each breast with a small amount of olive oil and smush the remaining stuffing on the outside of the breasts.  Bake for 30 minutes, then test for doneness with a thermometer-you want it to reach 165 degrees.  
Should you decide to cook fewer breasts, you can use a 13×9 baking pan.  But don’t cram all 5 into your cake pan.  If you do, it will take FOREVER for them to reach 165 degrees!  Trust me on this one.

Serve over rice.  And throw some vegetable on the plate too, if you like!

[Sidenote:  When Belle was young, she called the kitchen the chicken.  I always thought it was so funny, but now I find myself having to pause to make sure I'm using the correct word.]

Today’s activities-biscuits, pumpkin chocolate chip bread, vanilla ice cream

J is home today for Labor Day, and I couldn’t be happier.  We’ve had a lovely weekend together as a family.  J has just gotten the smoker up and running, and we’ll be devouring pulled pork sandwiches for dinner!  

I’m making a potato salad to go along with it.  Even though it’s a holiday, I’m hoping to keep up my baking Monday tradition with biscuits, pumpkin chocolate chip bread, a loaf of bread, brownies, and vanilla ice cream.  (I only used one vanilla bean instead of two)

On our recent library trip, I checked out the Martha Stewart Everyday Food cookbook.  I’d wanted the Cook’s Illustrated cook book, but I’ll have to go to the other library for that one.  More than likely I’ll have to get it on inter-library loan, but that’s easier to do through our local library versus the one we were at this weekend.  We tried a recipe last night-written for a skirt steak, but we used a flat iron instead-and it was quite delicious.  The flat iron steak was an excellent choice.  Cheaper than the flank steak and oh, so tender!  I’m planning to cut the leftover piece as thinly as possible and making steak sandwiches tomorrow night.  

I’ll come back later (notice how ambiguous I am, that could be later today or later this week!) and update on the recipes and throw in any necessary links.

*****

I’m finally back to update, some two weeks later!  Sorry ’bout that.  I didn’t make the brownies since I ran out of butter and eggs.  Oh well, saved me some calories!

First the biscuits.  So easy and delicious.

Freezer Biscuits

2 cups flour
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs sugar
1/4 cup butter (chilled and cut in small pieces)
3/4 cup milk

Stir the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl.  Cut in the butter, either with a pastry cutter (this funny rainbow shaped wire tool) or your hands.  It’s ok to have a few chunks of butter running about.  Add the milk and stir just to combine.  
Dust a piece of parchment paper, wax paper, or just your counter with flour and kneed the dough a bit until it forms a nice dough.  
Use your hands to flatten the dough to about 1/2″ thick and cut into rounds with a biscuit/cookie cutter.  Place on a cookie sheet that will fit in your freezer.  You can put them fairly close together, but not touching.  Continue flattening the dough and cutting rounds until you’ve used all your dough.  After a few hours of freezing, put them in a ziploc bag.
In the morning, heat your oven to 375 degrees.  Get out as many biscuits as you need and bake them for about 17-20 minutes, depending on how many biscuits you are cooking.

The original recipe says it’s difficult to kneed if you double the recipe, but I’ve done it twice now and have not had any problems.  I say more biscuits is a very good thing, so go ahead and double it!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

1 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 2/3 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
A handful or so of chocolate chips 

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine the ingredients as listed in a medium bowl, stirring as you go.  If you don’t like chocolate chips, throw in some nuts or raisins instead.  Place in a loaf pan (9×5) and bake for about 1 hour.
I doubled this recipe as well, putting half in a loaf pan and half in mini loaf pans.  This way I was able to use one whole can of pumpkin.  We ate the mini loaves that week, and the large loaf is calling my name in the freezer.

Baking Monday: Waffles, Granola, Rolls, and Cookies

In my effort to add some structure to my days as well as provide good food for my family, I’m spending my Mondays in the kitchen.  On today’s list is homemade granola (recipe follows), gingerbread waffles, buttermilk waffles (from Joy of Cooking), buttery rolls, and peanut butter cookies (recipe follows).

I mentioned in my challenge post that I’d like to get more protein in our breakfasts.  One thing that is working well with my 3 and (nearly) 2 year old is yogurt.  They love most any kind I buy.  Belle, on the other hand, is more challenging.  She only likes one kind of yogurt-Danimals drinkable-and it’s a little less wholesome yogurt than I’d like.  I buy it sometimes, but generally try to get them to pick Yo Kids, Breyer’s kids, or Yo Baby drinkables.

Belle isn’t much into nuts either-though she thankfully eats peanut butter without much fuss.  I’ve considered doing eggs, but she really only likes scrambled eggs when they’re cooked in the bacon grease.  Come to think of it, so do I.  And well, I surely don’t need to eat bacon that often.  So, yeah, I haven’t ventured into the eggs on school mornings world.  

One thing I have had success with is putting wheat germ into my baked goods.  I actually like it  better than substituting some of the white flour with wheat flour.  I don’t really know how it compares nutritionally, but I feel like it alters the texture less than the wheat flour.  I add about a quarter to a half a cup, depending on the size of the recipe.  We’ll see if anyone notices it in the waffles…

Here are the two original recipes I’m using today.

Homemade Granola

This makes a moderately crunchy granola, something you might use in a trail mix or eat as cereal with milk. I developed this recipe after reading a few online and making it up as I went.  

1 stick butter or marjorine

1/2 cup honey

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

6 cups oatmeal-mix of quick cook and old fashioned

1/2 cup wheat germ

a couple handfuls of sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.  Heat butter, sugar, honey, salt, and cinnamon in a 3 qt. saucepan on medium heat stirring occasionally.  Bring just to a boil.  Remove from heat.  Add granola, stirring carefully.  Place in 13×9 cake pan and bake in oven for 1.5 hours, stirring every 15 minutes.  Remove from oven, add almonds or other nuts.  Some people add raisins or dried cranberries, etc. at this point.  I prefer to leave it plain, except for the almonds, and add what I want as I eat it.  Stir well and place in container.  

I use a mix of quick cook and old fashioned oats because I always wind up with quick cook somehow.  I’ll find it for $.99, forget to check which kind it is, and what do you know?  Quick cook again!  I’m sure you could use all old fashioned, or even fancy steel cut oats, but I don’t think all quick cook would be so good.

One extra yummy way to eat this is to warm it (or take it straight from the oven) with just a few chocolate chips.  Sort of like an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie!

 

Peanut Butter Cookies or 1-1-1-1 Cookies

These are hands down the easiest cookies ever.  The recipe comes from my Aunt Joyce who has held just about every sort of job throughout her life.  She came up with this recipe while she was working in the kitchen of a restaurant.  I’ve seen similar versions on shows like Paula Deen, but never this exact recipe.

 

1 cup peanut butter

1 egg

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

I use a little less sugar than a full cup, but it helps in remembering the recipe.  Double or triple the recipe as needed.  A single batch makes about 15 cookies.  They are strong on peanut butter taste, which is ultimately what I want in a peanut butter cookie.  Serve with a tall glass of milk.

I apologize about all the extra spacing in the recipes.  I wish I could eliminate it, but at this point I haven’t figured that out.  

Refrigerator diving or Potato Cakes with Bacon

You know that phrase, “necessity is the mother of invention”?  Well that fairly accurately describes many of the meals I fix.  Whether we’re low on time, money, food, or all three I often find myself scouring the pantry and fridge for inspiration.  Last night was just that sort of night.

I’m using most of my kitchen time on Mondays baking things for the week. This time it was apple sauce muffins and blueberry muffins-recipes to come in a future post-for breakfast and snacks throughout the week.  I’d put Little Lamb down for nap, but she was protesting.  [She protested for an hour, after which I gave up, then she promptly fell asleep on the sofa.]  That pretty much ate up all the time I had to go to the store.  

I rummaged through the freezer-nothing doin’ there.  I looked in the fridge and found the remainder of a pkg. of bacon.  Not enough to serve alone, but enough to combine in something.  Then I remembered the potatoes in the bowl on the counter.  The wheels, they started turning…

I love me some crispy bacon, and crispy potatoes come in a very close second.  And so we have…

Potato Cakes with Bacon

(makes 8 cakes)

2 large russet potatoes

4-5 pieces of bacon

1 egg

spice rub-a few shakes

Heat oven to 250 degrees.  Place a cooling rack on a cookie sheet and put in oven.

Cook bacon in skillet.  Drain on paper towel reserving grease in pan.  Meanwhile, peel and grate potatoes.  Place potatoes in a towel and squeeze to drain as much liquid as possible.  Place in medium bowl and combine with egg, spices, and crumbled bacon.

Form patties and place in hot skillet.  Be careful not to overcrowd the pan-I had to do mine in 2 batches.  Place the first batch on the warm cookie sheet in the oven while the others cook.  You may have to add some oil to the pan for the second batch.  

Serve with a salad or whatever vegetable or fruit you can put your hands on.

Welcome and my first challenge!

I’ve been pondering the best way to collect recipes that I’ve posted in the past, new recipes that I’m thinking of trying, and some new challenges I’d like to pose.  I considered just categorizing my original blog-and I know I should really do that too.  But for now, I’m using this new space to collect my food ramblings.  

I firmly believe that we should feed our children’s bellies in the best way we can.  Just as we try to fill their brains and hearts with all the best education and love.  That’s not to say I never open a blue box of mac and cheese or a can of soup, but it means I’m trying to carefully consider what I feed my children each day.  Quite honestly I feel like I do a fairly decent job with dinner, but I’m failing miserably at breakfast and lunch.  

Our breakfasts around here most often consist of dry cereal-some sweet/some not, frozen (purchased) waffles, buttered toast, and a cup (or two or three) of milk.  When we have waffles for dinner, I’ll make a double or triple batch so that we can have them for breakfast.  But, I don’t do this often enough.

As for lunch (and snacks) I don’t even know where to begin.  We typically have peanut butter sandwiches or crackers with peanut butter or cheese, some form of chips/crackers/pretzels, and a fruit or vegetable.  Drinks are usually watered down juice, or water.

Snacks (I usually give 2 things) consist of goldfish, crackers, fruit snacks type product, fruit or a vegetable, and/or cookies or some other homebaked good.  I’d like to say I’ll never buy another fruit snack, roll-up, etc. but I’m not sure I’m that strong yet.  I don’t buy them as often as I have in the past, but Little Bear is seriously addicted to the things.

So for this month, I’m challenging myself to serve healthier breakfasts.  I’m not sure exactly what I’m hoping to accomplish with this challenge.  I guess just a sense of healthier living and eating for myself and my family.  I made some of this dry pancake mix that I’m hoping will work for both pancakes and waffles.  I’ve used other recipes interchangeably, so we’ll see how that goes!  I also made a loaf of bread in the breadmachine today.  We’ll have some for dinner tonight and have the rest for toast.  I’m also planning to make muffins and biscuits to keep in the freezer.  School is starting soon bringing with it early mornings.  I know I’m going to need fast solutions that can travel in the car if need be.  I know many people believe that you should have protein for breakfast-better energy and longer lasting.  But short of bacon or sausage, I’m not sure how I’m going to accomplish that.  Sure I can make whole wheat bread, and I think I’ll look into adding things like flax seed and wheat germ into my baked goods, but beyond that I’m at a loss.

I hope you’ll consider joining me on this journey and please pass along any tips you have!

Mama’s Lasagna, Frozen Lemonade Pie, Fruit Dip, Onion Dip, and Chocolate Chip Pie

‘ve got a few recipes to link to for you guys.  Sort of a hodge-podge, if you will.  But, that’s my life!

 

A small twist on a classic dish: Mama’s Lasagna  I made this in two square pans, one for tonight, one to freeze.

 

A simply dessert: Frozen Lemonade Pie  You have to plan ahead on this one as it has to freeze all day (or overnight).  I’m generally an all chocolate girl, but this is nice for a change of pace.  I’d love to figure out a way to get a similar result without using Cool Whip…ideas anyone??

 

If your kids are like mine, they LOVE to dip.  Here’s a couple of great dips, one sweet (Fruit Dip) and one savory (Onion Dip), that would also be great for a party.  I halved the recipes for our family and still had PLENTY left over.

 

And now for the “pie” Amy mentioned in the comments of my last post.  It’s really just a big chocolate chip cookie, baked in a pie plate.  But, it’s delicious just the same.  We served it with my dad’s homemade ice cream instead of the whipped cream.  Mmmm, I might need to make this again later this week.

 

Ok, that should keep you busy for a few days.  :) I need to go clean up the kitchen.  Yuck.