Mac and Cheese

Do yourself a favor and go to this website and make this mac and cheese. Alton Brown is right on. I love that it's not made from a roux, so there's not any kind of grittiness to it, just creamy goodness. I will say, it was a little too mustardy for my liking. When I make it again, I will either it just use 1/4 t or cut it completely. And, don't fret about the hot sauce. You probably won't even notice it. I used Frank's Red Hot sauce, because we're (my husband) wing fanatics and we always have some. Enjoy the deliciousness.

Meat and Potatoes

I love my new job. Essentially, on 2-3 days a week I sit at my desk for 8 hours and answer questions about Epic. No, not the film, the medical records system. I went from microbiology to computer software training. Best decision of my life. They paid me to learn the program, teach their doctors, and now answer questions. It's amazing. The only downside is I sometimes work evenings. I know. If this is as bad as it gets, I am quite certain I will survive. So, being a lover of creativity in the kitchen, I have to do some planning ahead. Today, I did so with meatloaf and sweet potatoes. It was so EASY to put this together and then put it in the fridge until later. All I had to do this evening was take it out of the fridge and stick it in the oven.

Like I do with most recipes, I look at a bunch of them and then make my own. My research today focused on recipes that used oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs. It's healthier and works just as well. Most recipes seemed to agree with 1/2c of oats to 1lb of meat. That's really what I needed to know. Meatloaf is one of those meals where you can really be creative. You can throw in whatever spices and sauces you'd like and see how it turns out! For example, today I had an old marinade packet of seasoning. I've done away with most seasoning packets, so to find this in the cabinet was a little surprising. It was a backyard bbq marinade. I looked at the ingredients and decided it could go in my meatloaf. I also added 1 egg and some bbq sauce.

With meatloaf you have to get your hands dirty. Take off your rings ladies, and dig in. You get an even mix when you do it this way. You can also gauge more accurately how much liquid to add. I usually add my dry ingredients first. (SN: most meatloaf recipes call for 2lbs of ground meat. There are just two of us here, so I just use one. It tends to be perfect for dinner and lunch the next day. If you are cooking for more than 2, then definitely use the 2lbs and use 1c of oats and 2 eggs.) I mixed up my seasonings, oats, and ground turkey. Then I added an egg to the mix. You can beat the egg beforehand, I don't and it tends to be fine. After the egg is in I start adding other liquids. You can use bbq sauce, ketchup, really you can use anything you'd like depending on what flavor you're looking for. I opted for bbq sauce today with some Worcestershire as well. Start small, mix it up, and add more as you see fit. I probably added about 1/2c of bbq sauce. You don't want your mix to be soupy, it should still stick together, but you need to have enough moisture so it's not dry.

How do you top your meatloaf? My mom loves ketchup on top. I usually go with bbq. Sometimes, I make a beef gravy and serve it with mashed potatoes. Today, I had some bourbon glaze sauce in the fridge and I though, why not? I spread some on top and stuck the whole dish in the fridge. When I was ready to eat this evening I took it out and put it in the oven. Then I turned the oven on 350. I was baking in a glass dish, so this allowed the dish to warm up with the oven, rather than going from cold fridge to hot oven and risk breaking. Let it cook about an hour. Check on it or it may burn...

Since I went with a sweeter sauce for the topping, I went with sweet potatoes as the side. Can I just tell you how delicious this was?  I know you're looking at this picture and thinking, ha, she burned it. You're not wrong but, the bourbon sauce caramelized and it's fantastic. Happy cooking friends.

Beef Stew and Corn bread

It has been a LONG time since I've blogged. A really long time. And not because I haven't been cooking, I've cooked all sorts of new things. I'm just a slacker.

We've cooled down really quickly here in good old Indiana so, with fall rapidly approaching, I've had my slow cooker out often. This evening I made beef stew. I have this habit with vegetable soups and stews of just not following recipes. I tend to read a lot of them for ideas and then throw everything out and do what I want. Luckily, most of the time it turns out just fine.

My stew tonight was very simple. I love to cook but our schedules lately have been hindering the extent of how much time I have to cook. Case in point, I've just started eating dinner and it's 10:53pm. That being said, I like to call most of my cooking semi-homemade. I'm pretty sure there's a food network show that's based on the same concept. This is what went into my crock pot tonight: stew meat, a peeled and chopped sweet potato (honestly, because it's what I had and I've been trying to replace a lot of regular potato dishes with sweet potatoes), 2 cloves of minced garlic, about 3oz of tomato paste, salt, pepper, oregano, and parsley. I used 16 oz of pretty watery chicken broth, because I realized I had 1/2 teaspoon of chicken bouillon powder after I started cooking and I was not about to head to the store. Normally, I would use beef broth, but I didn't have any and frankly, I usually just make do with whatever's in the cupboard. I let all of this cook on high for 6 hours. You could probably leave on low for around 10 hours if you have the time.

When I got home tonight I mixed a 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour with about 3/8 cup of water. Once it was mixed well I added it to the stew mixture to make it thicken up. I also added a bag of frozen mirepoix mixed veggies (celery, carrots, and onion) and about a cup of mixed veggies (corn, carrots, peas, and green beans), hence the semi-homemade aspect. I let that cook for about 30 minutes or so, until the veggies were cooked through and the stew was hot again.

The real homemade aspect came with the corn bread. While the stew was cooking, I mixed up some homemade cornbread. I wish I could remember where I found this recipe. It's probably the best cornbread I've ever made. Sweet enough that you don't have to load it with butter, but you'll want to because delicious.

3/4 c whole wheat flour (1c if all-purpose)

1 c corn meal

1/3 c white sugar

1/3 c brown sugar

3 1/2 t baking powder

1 t salt

1 egg 

1 c milk

1/3 c vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 375. Grease a 9x9 baking pan or muffin tin. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add all the rest and mix until incorporated. Pour into pan and cook for 20-30 minutes depending on your oven. Mine are usually done at 20 minutes exactly and my oven runs hot.

You'll thank yourself for trying these out. 

Summer treat

I was perusing Pinterest this afternoon, after coming inside from the heat, and I kept seeing all these posts about refreshing summer drinks. I decided I had enough in my kitchen to make one of my own!

Vanilla ice cream. Left over from Mother's Day when we had apple pie, which is never complete without vanilla ice cream on top. I used three scoops.

Agua de coco aka coconut water. Usually used in my green smoothies, figured it be great for my tropical smoothie. I used the whole can.

Crushed pineapple and a banana. I used about a cup of crushed pineapple and a large banana. It's canned pineapple. I've no doubt it would be divine with fresh but I went with what I had.

I threw it all in my blender with some ice (about 6 cubes from my tray) and it truly was perfect for this very warm, sunny afternoon.

Green Smoothies

About a month ago, I started a green smoothie challenge from simple green smoothies. I've tried store brand smoothies before, so I knew they could be good, but this was the first time I'd made some of my own. They will start another challenge July 1, so if you've ever thought about it sign up! It's free, they will email you a shopping list for each week and recipes. Here are some tips from my experience:
1. By big bags of your greens and freeze them. Then you will have the different kinds you need and will not have to worry about them going bad. I bough spinach, kale, and romaine lettuce the first week and the only one I've had to buy again is spinach (because I tend to use more of it).
2. Frozen fruit is expensive. Buy it fresh, chop it up (if necessary) and freeze it yourself. Make sure the bag isn't overly full, lay it flat for the first 24 hours in the freezer. This will keep you from getting one giant clump of fruit so you'll be able to use what you need rather than the whole bag. This works really well for grapes.
3. Try different liquids for your base. They used almond milk quite a bit. I found I don't really like almond milk unless it's really masked by a stronger flavor. However, coconut milk and coconut water are amazing. If you have a juicer, make your own juice and use that. Oranges also make a lot of their own juice and are great additions to the smoothie.
4. When you get a not so good flavor (and it will happen, trust me), add a banana. They are sweet and will almost always make the smoothie better.
5. Prep in advance. Sunday night I prep all my fruit in separate ziplock bags and write the additions I'll need on the bag. It makes getting the smoothie ready before week a breeze.

My favorite recipe to date is based off a recipe from simple green smoothies with some slight alterations:
2 c Kale
4 bananas
1 c coconut water
1 c pineapple juice

It's the picture posted here and it tastes like a pina colada. Delicious.

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

I should probably say this is semi-homemade. I sort of cheat in one of the steps. I love spaghetti. It's one of those foods I will eat until my stomach hurts it's so full. I started making my own sauce about two years ago when I started my first garden. I can't go back to the store bought kind. It's just not the same. Here's my process.

I usually start with some veggies. Whatever I have in the fridge is pretty much fair game. Today we have diced onions, green pepper, and mushrooms.

 

I let that saute in some olive oil until tender, about 5 minutes, and then I threw in 4 cloves of garlic chopped as fine as my kitchen aid knife is capable. Let it saute another minute, at least until it starts to smell wonderful.

Here's where that semi part comes in. When I grew tomatoes I canned them and used them in this step. Well, this past year we moved during the garden season and I didn't plant anything. So, I used some store bought tomatoes. Usually, I just use one 28oz can of diced tomatoes. My husband came home with this smaller 14.5oz can of diced tomatoes with basil, garlic, and oregano so I threw that one in there as well.

I transferred my cooked veggies to a larger soup pot.

Then dumped both cans of tomatoes on top. I drained both cans prior to combining.

Add some tomato paste.

Mix it up. I let it simmer a good while. Minimum of 30 minutes.

While the sauce simmers, I start on the meat. I vary what I use, sometimes ground beef or turkey. Sometimes sausage. This time I used some hot Italian turkey sausage. I cut the casing off.

And use my spatula to separate it out.

Now, we plate. Noodles first.

Sausage.

Sauce.

Enjoy.

Easy Peasy Enchiladas

For those who don't know, Philadelphia Cream Cheese makes sauces now. I picked up the Santa Fe style and found an easy enchilada recipe on the back (find the original here!) I just made it even simpler by using my slow cooker. This picture is from Kraft's website because my enchiladas are already gone!

This morning I put four bone-in, skin removed chicken thighs in the slow cooker. Add a can of diced tomatoes w/chilies. I actually used a chipotle style that was quite good. Let it cook on low about 8 hours. When you get home the chicken meat falls right off the bone and shreds very easily. Add about 3/4 of the Santa Fe cream cheese sauce and I used an entire cup of shredded cheddar jack cheese. Mix it up until the cream sauce is completely blended. I used my 10x7 pan (spray with cooking oil) and 6" tortillas. I filled 8 tortillas generously with the creamy, tomato, chicken mix and still had some left over. Place the tortillas seam side down in you pan. I just scooped the leftover mix along the sides. Spread the remaining Santa Fe sauce on the top of the tortillas, cover the dish, and bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes. Super simple and super delicious. And, according to my recipe builder, just 507 calories for two enchiladas :)