1-31-13

So the other day the wife wasn't feeling good so I offered to make something with the chicken that we had. When I got home life got in the way and I had to run but not before giving her the recipe that I had thought about on the way home. I had her post it on her blog as she was the one that ended up making it but I thought about it and it WAS my idea so you can check it out here.

1-31-13

I got an e-mail today asking if I wanted Tuna something to eat this evening. I took it as a challenge as our boy doesn't like tuna at all. This is what my brain came up with.

You will need
3 cans tuna
1/2 c cheddar cheese
1/2 c mixed Mexican cheese
1/2 c bread crumbs
bread
2 eggs
1 tsp of oregano basil and garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce

Mix together in a small bowl
1/2 c ketchup
1Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2Tbsp Light Mayo

Mix together the tuna, Mexican cheese, bread crumbs, eggs, spices, salt and pepper in a bowl. Form burger patties. Place patties in a pan and use the broil feature on your oven. Bake for 4 minutes on one side and then flip. Cook for 3 minutes and then add the cheddar cheese and back for another minute. Toast your bread and place the done patties on the bread. Add the sauce to the top of the patty and top with another piece of bread.

Tonight we served these with potato smiles that were baked in the oven. It was super easy and pretty fast too. I think it took all of 20 minutes including cook time. The daughter loved it but she loved tuna and though the boy said he didn't like the burger he ended up eating the entire thing.

1-21-13

Well this past weekend was my wives annual post holiday party. It was also her birthday on Saturday so I decided that I should "help" by cooking a few things to lessen the load on her. I don't know if it really does but she doesn't seem to mind when I am in the kitchen so I'll continue to jump in. There were a few things that I wanted to make. I made the mushrooms that I have posted here before. Instead of frying them in oil though I baked them in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes. I had to spray a little pam cooking spray on them to get a little crunch out of them and I did turn them after about 22 minutes so they would cook evenly.

 

I think I would like to do these baked one more time at a slightly higher temp.
 

I also made the deviled eggs. I am not going to post a recipe for these as most people know how to make them but I will say that I used a mixture of honey mustard and mayo and, oh my, where they good.

 

 

 



I had decided to make some mini calzones so I found a great dough recipe that I followed to the letter. The result of the recipe was some of the best feeling dough I have used in a long time. I then mixed some fresh mozzarella and ricotta cheese together at about a 50/50 ratio. Rolling out the dough to little sheets I stuffed with the cheese mix, and added sliced yellow bell pepper, sliced onion, sliced mushroom to all of them. I added pepperoni to half of them for the none vegetarians in the group of visitors that we had. I baked them for about 20 minutes on my pizza stone at 425.

 

 

    I also made some no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies. I remember my mom used to make these when I was a kid but I never really paid attention as to how. Then a few years ago the wife tried to make them and while they tasted fine they never really set up and so I thought I would give it a go. I found this recipe and again, without changing a thing they tasted great, and they set up well. I was pretty darn happy!

The no-bake cookies are to the right. the cookies to the left were something that the wife had made.
 

 

The last none cake thing that I made are called Greek Potatoes. They are an oven roasted potato that my daughter asked when I would make again.  I again followed the recipe with a couple of exceptions. We had run out of oregano so I skipped that and for the lemons, well we didn't have any but we did have some lemon juice which I figure is pretty much the same thing so I used that instead. The flavor of these was wonderful. I made two pans worth of these potatoes and I suggest using foil on the bottom of the pan to help with clean up. I had read that somewhere and was glad that I remembered the advice.

 

 

 

 

And now...  The cake!  It was..  well, it was great.

 

 

 

 

All and all it was a great party with lots of delicious food. More importantly I hope that the wife had a great time and a happy birthday!

 

-Chris

 

 

1-12-13

The other day I mentioned to the wife that the salmon fillets looked really good in the freezer at Walmart. A couple of days later, she came home with them. Good wife huh? Then my son says to us that he is so excited because he "loves salmon".  So being the weekend I decided what a perfect time to make another post here.
I searched the internet and found a nice maple glazed salmon on Food.com. I did make a couple of changes to the recipe listed in the link and I'll post what I did here. While I made the salmon my wife made us a wonderful side dish. It was Baked Parmesan Garlic Risotto with Peas and you can find it here at her blog, lunches fit for a kid.

3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch, dissolved in
1 tablespoon water
4 salmon fillets
1 scallion, sliced thin (white part plus about 2-3 inches of the green)

Directions:
In a small bowl whisk together the syrup through cornstarch solution until smooth.
Place the fillets skin-side-down in a large saute pan.
Pour the syrup mixture over the salmon.
Bake about 7 minutes at medium high heat until the fish flakes easily; baste with glaze halfway through cooking.
Sprinkle with scallion before serving.

Cornstarch added and mixed with water. Make sure to stir while adding to water or it will clump.

 

 

Basting ingredients all mixed together. Looks pretty good already.

 

Nothing looks better then fish cooking in a pan. Beautiful.

 

Fine sliced scallions. Working on the knife skills.

 

 

Fish has been flipped and basting process has been done

 

 

Added scallions while fish was still in the pan.

Removed fish from the plate to get ready to be served



Final plating. There is a second part of this meal but I didn't make it. The wife did.

 So that was the main course. It turned out pretty darn good. I dare say almost restaurant ready. My son ended up not liking the salmon after all but my daughter loved it! After we all got done eating our kids went down for a sleep over at my parents so I decided..  it's time for dessert! What would it be? What would make the wife happy...  Oh wait..  let's try this...

Chocolate Volcano Cakes! After watching a couple of videos on youtube I didn't think it would be all that bad. Again, I turned to food.com for the recipe. While watching the videos and reading the recipe I must have messed a couple of things up in my mind though. When it was all done it wasn't really a volcano it was more of a dried up puddle. Still the taste was wonderful and it really was asking for a scoop of ice cream. To bad we didn't have any.

4 tablespoons butter unsalted.

2 ounces chocolate (We used 90% unsweetened)
1 large egg yolk separated from egg white 
1 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour (we used king Arthur flour)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
Powdered Sugar

 Preheat oven to 350
Melt butter and unsweetened chocolate together. You can use a double broiler or the microwave. Do this slow so you don't burn the chocolate.
Mix egg, yolk, and sugar together. No lumps. I did it all by hand. It didn't take too much work.
Butter the ramekins very well including the bottom and sides, all the way up and dust with some cocoa powder.
Sift the flour and cocoa into the egg and sugar mixture very slowly. Make sure to keep all the lumps out of it.
Add the melted butter and unsweetened to the mixture again stirring to smooth.
Pour mixture into a piping bag so that you don't make a big mess getting it into the ramekin and so that there is no air space. After about 3/4 full tap the ramekin on the counter to settle it.
Put ramekins in another dish and bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes. Remove them from the oven and let them sit for 5 minutes. Cut around the edges and place a plate over top. Turn the plate and ramekin over at the same time and dust the top with powdered sugar.

From what I understand you kind of have to play around with the time here. If you make them and they flow too much you didn't cook them long enough. If they don't flow at all you have to cook them less. It's too bad that this time we cooked them a little too long so we didn't get any flow when we cut into them but they were delish! I fully intend on making them again and possibly adding a little peppermint extract to the batter.

Mixing egg and sugar. Watch for the color change

looking good

Butter and unsweetened chocolate melted perfectly

Dusted and ready to go

Added the two mixes together.

Fresh out of the oven

First cut! No lava. Oh well, maybe next time!

 Over all, both of these recipes were pretty easy and quick.  The Salmon took less then 30 minutes and the cake was about an hour. Both were yummy.

-Chris

 

Fried mushrooms with spinach crescent rolls

How interesting is it that on the very day I decided to create this blog the wife decided that she was too tired to make dinner. She has been doing meatless Mondays as part of her blog for some time so she was going to make a mushroom soup that she had made in the past. It was a very good soup however, tonight became mine. With open mushrooms ready to go I had to use those. What to have with it? We had some frozen spinach in the freezer and we had some Pillsbury crescent rolls. The wheels started to turn and this is what I came up with.

1 container frozen spinach
1/2 cup feta cheese
crescent rolls
salt to taste
pepper to taste

First, I took the frozen spinach out and put it in a saute pan. I got the spinach separated and then added about 1/2 a cup of feta cheese, a pinch of salt and some fresh ground pepper to taste. I let it cook in the saute pan over a medium low heat. I popped open the crescent rolls and lay them flat on a sheet pan and put about a Tbsp and a half of my spinach feta mix in the crescent triangles and wrapped them up normally and baked using normal instructions. 375 degrees for 12 minutes and that part of the meal was done. It was like an ultra cheap Spanakopita without anything other then spinach and feta, salt and pepper. Still, it was pretty good and very easy. Best of all, there was enough left over in the pan to make some delicious lunch leftovers. :)

Crescent Rolls all cooked and ready to be served

about 8oz or 1 container mushrooms
1.5c flour
2-3 eggs
1.5-2cups breadcrumbs
salt to taste
pepper to taste
3/4 Tbsp garlic powder 
cooking oil


For the mushrooms, I had 3 bowls. In the first I added about 1.5c of flour, in the second I cracked open 3 eggs added about 1/4c of water and whisked together, and in the last, I added breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and about 3/4 Tbsp of garlic powder and mixed the dry ingredients together.
If needed clean the mushrooms and leave whole. Dry them off when your done cleaning them, no extra water will be needed as they will later go into a fry pan with hot oil. Add the mushrooms a few at a time to the flour and shake(with the lid on). Add to the egg and water bowl. Continue this until all mushrooms are coated in flour and in the egg and water bath. When they are all in, cover that bowl and shake to get the egg bath all over the mushrooms. Add mushrooms, only a few at a time to the bowl with the dry ingredient mix.

precooked but ready to go mushrooms

Be sure to coat the mushrooms as even as you can so that there are no bare spots. Place covered mushrooms in a bowl until ready to cook.

In a larger, deep fry pan add enough oil to cover about 1/2 of the mushroom height. Don't worry if you don't get it right, you can add a little at a time later if needed. I set our burner to about 3/4 heat and let the oil heat up so that if you drip a little water it pops a little but then relaxes again. When oil is to the proper heat, add mushrooms and let them sit for about 5 to 7 minutes and then turn over for another 5 to 7 minutes making sure to completely cook them. Take them out of the oil and set them on a paper towel to dry and serve.

This is how they looked after cooking

My wife added a ranch for dipping them into and the meal was complete for tonight. It was in no way a 5 star meal but it did it's job. The kids ate everything up and as I type this, I am pretty full having had 4 of the mushrooms and 2 of the crescent rolls.

Over all this entire meal was done in a little less then 30 minutes prep and cook time and I would rate it as easy.

A recipe to try

Found this recipe here and I wouldn't mind trying it. I can think of a couple of things I wouldn't mind trying with this but I'll be sure to not make it that often ;)

Be sure to use sweetened condensed milk in this recipe, not evaporated milk - that's a common mistake. It is probably the easiest recipe in the world, thus the name!

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 2 minutes

Total Time: 7 minutes

Yield: Makes about 2 pounds candy

Ingredients:

• 1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon cream
• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips, if desired

Preparation:

Place chips and milk in microwave safe bowl. (You can use just the one package of semisweet chocolate chips, or add the milk chocolate chips for a fudge that is slightly sweeter and creamier.) Microwave on medium power for 2-3 minutes, stirring after 2 minutes. Microwave, stirring at 1 minutes intervals, until chips are melted and mixture is smooth and thick. Stir in butter and cream until combined. Pour into greased 8" square pan and cool. You can also melt the chips and milk in a heavy saucepan over low heat. You can add just about anything to this easy recipe. Stir in a cup of chopped nuts, add a cup of marshmallows after the cooking time is done, stir in chopped dried fruit or some white chocolate chips. Have fun with the recipe!

-Chris

Intro

Welcome! Over the time that I have been married I have never really been in a position to do a lot of cooking due to getting home kind of late from work and my wife, who really enjoys cooking. The thing is, so do I. When I was younger I even managed a pizza restaurant. We did a lot more than just pizza there though and it was the basis of everything that I can do in the kitchen to this day. What can I make pretty well? I am pretty good with pasta and I can cook most meats. I know some pretty neat tricks prepping foods. Other than that, it’s odds and ends. I question my knife skills on a good day but know enough to tuck my fingers in. I am not sure what every cut of meat is, how to cut/butcher it. Spices, while I love them, I am not always sure what which ones go with what. Another thing that could prove interesting is that I am kind of fussy. So, here is the deal. If I make it I will have to make it in a way that I will eat it. I may have to cover a taste here and there or cook it down to nothing but if I put it in a pan or pot, I must eat it. That will be a little thing for me to learn to like other foods like the dredded brockoli and many others.

I’ll admit that I do have a bit of an odd timing thing going on here. I have been on a rather successful diet for the last 2 months and now I am looking to learn how to prepare food better then I know how to now. I kind of get a chuckle out of that. I suppose that on the upside, if I start learning to cook more than the classic family style foods I can control what goes into my food and maybe help myself lose some weight.

So, here it is, the purpose of this site. I’ll use it as a place to store my recipes, both copied and made up. I’ll try to post pictures of the process and the end plate. I’ll try and have my wife let me cook more than once a week and more that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the kids. In other words, I don’t know how often I’ll be able to post here but I’ll do all that I can. It could be fun and in my learning something, maybe, just maybe, someone else out there may as well.

Chris