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

 

 

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.