~ Sunday Dinner ~ Roast Beef

Can I tell you a secret?  I…  I hate roast beef.  It’s true!  I do.  And mostly that’s because I really love my beef to be medium rare.  This is hard to accomplish with a roast beef.  Well, at least in my experience.  Nana used to start her roasts like, 6 hours before dinner and they were always really well done.  In my own kitchen I have not had a lot of success in making a roast that I liked.  My family is always happy, but I am left feeling completely underwhelmed.

Until tonight.

Now, I admit that it might have something to do with the cuts of meat that I use for roast beef dinners.  I tend to favour leaner cuts of meat, and in beef this often means “tough”.  My go-to cut has been eye of the round.  This is in part because it’s leaner, but too, it’s cheap.  And the Scot in me likes a deal.  :)  I have been hunting for as long as I can remember for a recipe that delivers taste, tenderness and the perfect amount of “doneness” to satisfy my medium-rare preference.

Tonight, I found that recipe.  Well, I found a recipe and followed a lot of different advice from several different commenters.  The original recipe can be found here.  So here’s what I did:

Ingredients

1 eye of the round roast, mine was about 3lbs.
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp thyme
for the gravy:
drippings from the pan
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp cocoa
1 tsp ketchup

Method

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Once the oven comes to temperature, set the timer for 20 minutes.  You want to make sure the oven is good and hot before the meat goes in.
2. While the oven is heating, mix all the spices together and set them aside.
3. Put the meat into a pan that fits perfectly, and sprinkle with the spices.  Rub the spices all over the meat, and make sure that the piece of meat with the most fat on it is on the top.  This will “baste” the roast as it cooks.  Do NOT cover the roast.  Leave it uncovered.  This allows the meat to sear so your outside edges are crispy and the meat inside is really tender, considering it’s a cheap cut of meat.  :)
4. Once your 20 minutes have passed, put the roast in the oven.  Reduce the heat to 475, and then cook it for 7 mins/pound.  So my roast cooked for 21 minutes because it was about a 3lb roast.  You did not misread that — cook it at 475 for 7 mins/pound.
5. When the time is up, turn the oven off.  DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR.  At all.  Keep that sucker closed, you got me???  You are going to leave it closed for 20 mins/pound.  So my 3lb roast needed 60 mins, but I actually left is shut tight until 1 hour 20 minutes.
6. Once the time is up, bring the roast out and allow it to rest.  I covered my roast with tin foil, lifted an edge of the foil and drained the drippings into a small sauce pan to make gravy with.  Seal the foil around your roasting pan and set the roast aside to rest.
7. While the roast rests, you’re going to make a gravy.  This works best if you have a 2-cup measuring cup.  To that 2-cup measure, add your cornstarch & flour.  Next, add some warm water.  Using the back of a spoon mush the flour & cornstarch into the water.  The goal is to get all the lumps out and make a smooth paste.  Once this is accomplished, add some more water and mix again.  You’ll keep doing this until you have about 1 1/2 of the mixture in your cup.
8. Place the sauce pan with the drippings in it on your stove over medium-low heat.  Once the drippings start to boil, pour in some of the water mixture – maybe 1/2-3/4 of a cup.  Whisk it in to the drippings, not stopping because if it reaches the boil without whisking your gravy may have lumps.  At this point, I started to worry that I had too much thickening in the drippings.  So I add about 1/3 cup of straight-up water, whisking that in too.  Next, add the cocoa and the ketchup — trust me!  It gives great depth to the gravy, not just in colour but also in texture and flavour.  The cocoa makes the flavours come together and adds an interesting complexity to the flavour.  If you’re unsure though, use 1/2 tsp.  Just don’t skip it all together, ok? (Shout-out to Jill for teaching me this secret.  Love you Jill!)  Whisk it all together.  Your gravy should be boiled by now — this means it will be thicker.  If you are not happy with the thickness of the gravy, add more water to thin it out or more of the cornstarch/flour/water mix to thicken it further.

Slice your roast and serve with garlic mashed potatoes, steamed carrots and broccoli.  And the gravy, of course.  :)

Enjoy!

Broccoli Chicken Divan

I know, I know…  when I started this blog it was because I was raging against recipes that were not really recipes, but rather a bunch of prepared ingredients thrown together and called a meal.  I remember…  and yes, it still bothers me that people call that cooking.  My friend Val makes dishes like these from time to time and I love what she calls it.  She says that she “assembled” it.  HA!  Isn’t that perfect?  I love it.

Don’t get me wrong — I too love the convenience of “recipes” like that.  And yeah, I have made dinners of chicken fingers and fries (with cut up veggies so there’s at least some semblance of health to the meal).  It’s not that I don’t do that.  It is that “assembling” as Val calls is, is not a recipe.

But why this ranty-like intro?  Well, because.  Tonight I made something for dinner that involves some prepared foods and – dare I admit it – even a can.  The verdict?  Well, I’m sharing it with you so I bet you can guess…  we loved it.  It was so good!  Now, I’ll admit: this recipe below is a mish-mash of a few recipes I found.  I made this one before, and it was at best, ok.  When I stumbled upon this one, I saw some potential for improvement and so I did some tweaking.  So enough with the preamble – here’s what I did:

Ingredients

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken
6 cups broccoli florets, cut into bite sized pieces
1 can “Cream of Chicken” soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonaise (not salad dressing or Miracle Whip to use a brand name)
1/3 cup water
3/4 tsp lemon juice
1/2 grated cheddar (I used 2-year-old cheddar, but whatever you have is going to be perfect)
2 tbsp butter
1/4 bread crumbs

Method

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Cook your chicken in a frying pan until it’s almost cooked through.  It should be a little pink inside still so that it does not become dry when it goes in the oven for further cooking.  Cut the partially cooked chicken into bite sized pieces and place in your baking dish.  I used my corning-ware 2.8 ltr baking dish; it’s smaller than a 9×13 pan, but bigger than a 9×9.  Whatever you have will be perfect, trust me!
3. Gently steam your broccoli for about 2 minutes.  I did this in a pot on the stove with about 2 cm’s of water on the bottom.  I added the broccoli to the pot right away, turned my element to medium-high and once the water came to a boil, I gave it about 2 minutes.  You’re looking for that bright green colour, and the vegetable should still be very firm.  Drain the water from broccoli and add it to the casserole dish you’re using.
4. Next, in a bowl combine together the can of soup, the sour cream and the mayonaise.  Add the water and lemon juice and mix again.  Pour this sauce over the chicken & broccoli and stir.  Top with the grated cheddar.
5. Melt the butter and mix it with the bread crumbs to make a nice crunchy topping.  Spoon this over the top of the casserole.
6. Put the casserole in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes.  The sauce will be bubbly and thickened.

I served this with rice on the side, and it really was “Divan”.  HA!  See what I did there?!?!  All right…  I’m going away now.

Enjoy!

A Peanut Butter Cookie filled with Jam…

Friends,

I have had a revelation.  And it is in the form of a cookie.

Okay but here’s the back story: a very dear friend recently gave me a new cookbook called, “Milk & Cookies”.  It’s all cookies, all the time!  Love that!!  And one of the recipes is for peanut butter & jam cookies.  Basically you make the peanut butter cookie and stick 2 of them together with jam.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Right!  And everso tasty…  Problem was, I didn’t love the cookie recipe.  There was too much other stuff in it.  Keep it simple, is my motto when it comes to peanut butter cookies…  And so, I used my favourite recipe and sandwiched 2 together with grape jelly.

Mother. Of. GOD.

So good!  And I’m sure it was the breakfast of champions too!  :)  ’k, so here’s what I did:

Ingredients
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups peanut butter
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Your favourite jam or jelly — I used grape jelly

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line cookie sheets with parchment paper
2. Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix until well combined.  Using a teaspoon, scoop out a small amount of dough and roll into a ball.  Place on cookie sheet and press down with a fork.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 8-10 minutes.
4. Allow to cool on cookie sheets for about 5 minutes before removing to cooling racks.
5. Once completely cooled, spoon a small amount of jam or jelly onto one cookie, and place another cookie on top.  Squeeze together and enjoy!

This recipe makes about 48 individual cookies, and 24 sandwiches.  I used smooth peanut butter, but I think crunchy might be great too!

Homemade Tomato Soup

YUM!!

Sorry, I got sidetracked.  But my God this is a delicious recipe that I just whipped up.  And I’ve got to share it with you.  Because the weather around these parts??  Crazy!  It was warm and lovely yesterday and Saturday; even Friday was a good day.  But today?  Ack…  cold, blustery & raining.  I needed some comfort food, without all the fat that normally accompanies that term!  So I whipped up this cream of tomato soup.  And…  Wow.  Not only am I comforted, I am beyond full!

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 leek, chopped up
1 carrot, chopped up
28 oz can diced tomatoes
14 oz vegetable broth (poured into the tomato can to measure)
1/2 cup fat-free evaporated milk
salt & pepper to taste

Method

1. Heat olive oil in a large sized pot.  Add garlic to oil to soften and then toss in the leeks.  Sautee for about a minute.
2. Next add the carrots and toss to coat in the oil, garlic & leeks.  Add the tomatoes and vegetable broth and bring to a boil.
3. Once boiling, reduce heat low enough to maintain a gentle simmer (you may need to reduce again through the cooking process), stirring frequently.
4. Continue to simmer until the carrots are cooked through.
5. Remove your pot from the heat and pull out your immersion blender (still don’t have one?  Well, puree in batches then using your blender).  Puree the soup.
6. Return to heat, set on low, and add the evaporated milk, salt & pepper (I used 7 turns of my salt mill and 3 grinds of my pepper mill).  Cook on low for another 5 minutes or so, and serve.

This made about 6 cups of soup.  Of which I ate 3.  YUM!!  But I am so full now…  lol…  It’s a really good soup.  I hope you enjoy it too!

Mom’s World Famous Swiss Steak

With the cold weather here in earnest, I am looking for comfort foods.  One of my favourite meals when I was a kid was Swiss Steak.  Why it’s called “Swiss”, I have no idea.  Maybe because it’s red?  Anyway, whatever the reason, I can tell you: this is so tasty and so comforting to me that I just had to make it tonight.  Of course, it helps that I have a freezer full of random meats that I would not typically ever buy (Chambers delivery, remember?).  When I saw the boneless blade steak I thought, “that’ll be good for Swiss steak…” and got on the phone to my Mom.  She said that I could share her recipe with you, dear Reader, as long as I remembered to call it “World Famous”.  And so, here it is:

Ingredients

2 lbs of beef – blade steak, shoulder steak or any cheaper cuts that are marbled. Make it thick cut – 1/2 an inch at least.
pepper, garlic salt, to taste
2 tbsp olive oil
2 can tomato soup
1 cup beef broth
4 potatoes, quartered
1 onion, peeled and quartered
3 carrots, cut into chunks

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
2. Cut your meat into individual pieces so it’s easier come serving time. Season the meat with garlic salt, fresh ground pepper and Worcestershire sauce.  Mom doesn’t add salt because of the salt content in the beef broth. If you find that you need it, you can always add it at the table.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan large enough to brown the meat.  Once the oil is hot, add the meat and and brown on all sides.  Remove browned meat to casserole dish.
4. Arrange the potatoes, carrots and onion on top of the meat.
5. In a bowl mix together the 2 cups of beef broth and 2 cans of tomato soup.  Pour this over the meat and vegetables, and bake covered for 60 – 90 minutes.

This makes a great meal, and will serve 4-6 people, depending on who’s at your table.  My kids, for instance, really only count as 1/2 a person between the both of them.    It also makes a lot of sauce, which is great for pouring over the meat and veg, just like a gravy.  Thanks for sharing, Mom!  I know my dear Readers will love it.

Enjoy!

Beef Stew with Dumplings

Hello, dear Reader!  How have you been?  Long time since we talked, isn’t it?  I know, but you’ve been busy and I’ve been busy, and well, if you forgive me then I too forgive you.  Deal?  Deal.

We had our first real, stick-to-the-ground, snowfall here in my ‘hood yesterday.  And wouldn’t you know it, the white stuff was still here, on the ground, when we left the house for the school bus at 7:30 this morning.  As we stood waiting for the bus, I thought to myself, “A day like this calls for stew.  But what kind of stew to have???”  I had some stewing beef in the freezer so I dug that out and started searching for a delicious and different from my normal beef stew.  Boy-o-boy did I find that here…

Ingredients

for the stew:
1/4 cup butter
1.5 lbs stewing beef, cut into cubes
1/4 cup flour
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup red wine, divided (I used a South African syrah which is delicious all on it’s own)
2 cups beef stock (I used a Campbell’s tetra pak, and measured 2 cups)
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 drizzle balsamic vinegar (maybe 1/2 tsp)
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground pepper
3 or 4 potatoes
2 carrots
1 1/2 cups beef stock
1 1/2 tbsp corn starch
1 1/2 tbsp flour
6-8 mushrooms, quartered
for the dumplings:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
3/4 cup milk
1 tsp parsley

Method

1. Melt the butter in a large pot, over medium heat.
2. While butter is melting, add your stewing beef to a bowl and combine with the 1/4 cup flour to coat pieces.  Once butter is melted, add the meat to the pan, browning each side nicely.  Remove meat from pan.
3. Add onion and garlic to the pan and saute until soft.  Remove from the pan (I put mine on top of my meat, which was on a dinner plate on the stove).
4. Measure out 1/2 cup of wine and add to pan.  What you’re doing now is called “deglazing a pan”.  This process is designed to get up all of the bits off of the bottom of the pot, and will add immensely to the flavour of the stew.  Increase your heat to medium-high and scrape the bits up from the bottom of the pan.  Once the wine has reduced by about half, turn the heat down to medium again and return the meat and onions to the pot.
5. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of wine, beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, parsley and bay leaf.  Cover the stew and allow to simmer for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.  When stew comes to a boil, turn the heat down to low.
6. While the stew is simmering, cut your potatoes and carrots into bite sized pieces, and put them into a bowl of water so the potatoes don’t change colour.  Once the 40 minutes has passed, drain the water and add the vegetables to the pot, stirring well.
7. At this point, I decided there was not enough liquid in the stew.  You want your meat and veg to be covered, so they are infused with flavour and cook to a soft consistency.  I also didn’t think the broth was thickening up enough.  So I made a mixture of beef broth, cornstarch and flour.  I mixed these together in a 2-cup measure, making sure there were no lumps before adding it to the stew.  The measurements quoted above are what I used, but I only added enough liquid to the pot to cover my veg.  In the end, that was about 1 1/4 cups.  Use your judgment, you will not be wrong, I promise.  Return the lid to your pot and allow to continue simmering for about 20 minutes.
8. Next, remove the bay leaf and add in the mushrooms.  Simmer until you’re almost ready to serve.
9. Start the dumplings about 20 minutes before you want to eat.  Cut the butter or margarine into the flour using 2 knives or a pastry blender.  Add the milk and parsley and stir with a fork until well combined.
10. Use a tablespoon and drop spoonfuls of the dumpling batter into the stew pot.  Allow them to cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Then place the lid on the pot and continue to cook for 8-10 minutes or until the dumplings are tender.

This makes enough to feed 5-8 people, depending on your appetites.  My kids ate this meal – my 6-year-old ate a fair bit, and my 2-year-old ate the carrots and potatoes, 2 pieces of eat thank you very much.  So this goes a long way in my house lol…

Dear Reader, please let me know what you think of this dish, should you decide to try it for yourself.

Until next time!

Roasted Mushroom Soup

It’s fall, and one of my favourite things about fall is the change in menu.  We go from salads and burgers to soups and stews, and I love it!  I’ve made this soup all ready this fall, and raved about it too.  Tonight though, I had a hankering for something else.

Have I spoken to you before, dear Reader, about my love of mushrooms?  It’s true: I absolutely adore them.  So delicious!  Especially with lots of butter!  YUM.  And so, it only stands to reason that one of my favourite soups of all time is a mushroom soup.  Will it shock you to know that – before today – never have I made a mushroom soup?  It’s true!  I hadn’t.  But now I have, and my world is a much brighter place.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

2 lbs mushrooms, chopped (I only had white button on hand, but this would be awesome with cremini, portabello, shitake… any mushroom really)
1/2 an onion, chopped
1 potato, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 generous pinches of kosher salt (probably about 1 tsp)
1/4 butter
1 tsp sage
2 tsp parsley
900 ml (one tetra pack) chicken soup stock
2 tbsp sour cream
4 turns of my pepper mill

Method

1. Turn your oven on to 350, line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and pile the vegetables on it, trying to keep the onion separate.
2. Coat the potato & mushroom pieces in the olive oil, using your hands to stir the pieces up, and then sprinkle them with the salt.
3. Place tray in the oven, on the middle rack, and roast for 30 minutes.
4. Once the veggies are roasted, melt butter in a large pot over medium heat.  Add the vegetable pieces, and toss to coat in the butter.  Add the sage & parsley and toss to coat again.
5. Cover with the soup stock and allow to come to a boil.  Turn element down and simmer pieces for about 5 minutes.
6. Using an emersion blender if you have one (if not, a regular blender works fine too) puree the soup.
7. With your element still turned to low, add the sour cream and the pepper.  Stir to combine.  Allow to simmer for another 10 minutes (at least) and serve with crusty bread.

This soup was really great.  I loved it!  Mitchell loved it!  And Connor – who hates mushrooms – said that it was only a little good.    That said, he still ate the whole bowl.   And of course, Sam ate nothing but the crusty bread.  Next time I make this soup – oh yes, there will be a next time! – I will reduce the amount of sage.  It was fine as it was, but I found the sage a little over-powering.

Let me know what changes you would make, once you’ve tried it.  You know how much I love your feedback!

Enjoy.

Turkey

I cooked a turkey this weekend.  Did you?  I bet you did; and if you didn’t, someone you love cooked one, and chances are very good that you sat at a table where it was served.  Am I right?  I know, I’m psychic. 

We had our dinner early on Monday, at 1:00, so that my niece would be able to join us as we give thanks for all of the abundance in our lives.  Which really sounds lovely, doesn’t it?  Grandparents, parents, children, blood lines and love lines, all sitting at a table, sharing what they are thankful for…  it’s so Rockwellian.  Until, that is, you realize having a turkey at 1PM means you have to get that bird in the oven before most people are up for breakfast!  gahk!  How did I get roped into this again?!  Oh yeah, “Rockwellian”…

In an effort to avoid putting the turkey in the oven at 5:30 in the morning, I decided to look for guidance on cooking the bird at like, 200, over night.  The end result of those google searches culminated in, “Don’t do it.”  I did however, stumble upon a few tables that said my 15lb bird really only needs 4 hours too cook, especially if I take the time to brine my turkey.  “Brine a turkey? What ever could this be?”

In the end, I took a lot of cues from this site here http://www.the-perfect-turkey.com including brining instructions. This site made the process easy to understand, and explained the reasons behind it quite well, so I thought I would try it.

In the end this turkey was cooked completely different from any bird I have ever cooked before.  I brined it and I didn’t stuff it.  You may be wondering why I would decide to not stuff a turkey; good question!  Well dear Reader, my reading on the internet about slow cooking the turkey invariably led to discussions on whether or not to stuff a turkey.  I’m sure you’re familiar with all of the regular arguments for both sides of the debate, so I won’t reiterate them here.  The only argument that resonated with me – so much so that I have abandoned stuffing my Thanksgiving turkey – is this: the turkeys that we buy today are not the turkeys our grandmothers bought.  They are highly processed, raised in dramatically different – many say horrific – conditions than the birds our grandparents bought.  This leads to increased levels of bacteria and higher risk of the people at our table getting sick if we do not stick to recommended food preparation methods.  Bottom line, if you’ve bought a turkey with a big name on the label, don’t stuff it.  If you purchased a heritage turkey, or a free-range or organic turkey, then stuff it.  My turkey had a “Maple Leaf” sticker on it, so I wasn’t going to take any chances.  I made the stuffing on the side, juiced with the drippings from the turkey pan.

As I was putting this bird in the oven – with a cavity that had nothing in it but an onion cut into quarters and a few sprigs of fresh sage – I admitted to my husband that I was freaking out a little about how different this turkey was being cooked.  “I mean, because I soaked it in brine, they say that I don’t need to even baste it!  I don’t know if I can not baste it!”  His eyes nearly bulged out of his head, “WHA?!  You don’t baste it?!”  “I know,” I said! “But I’m committed to the process though.  It’s going to be great, right?”  Hubby responds very hesitantly, “Yeaaahh…  it’ll be just fine…”

Well guess what?  I am so glad that I did.  “That bird died well,” as my Dad likes to say.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients
for the brine:
3/4 kosher salt
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp pepper corns
1 bunch fresh sage
1 tbsp dried thyme
28 cups water
1 food-grade container that your turkey can fit into, and be submerged in the brine. My soup pot wasn’t big enough, so I used a small cooler.

for the turkey:
1 onion, quartered
2 sprigs fresh sage
1 tsp garlic salt
2 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tsp dried parsley

for the stuffing:
1/4 c butter
1 onion, diced
2 tsp parsley
2 tsp sage
2 tsp thyme
2 tsp poultry seasoning
14 slices of bread, torn into pieces – you should end up with about 12 cups of bread pieces
juices from the turkey pan to soak and coat the bread

Method

1. Thaw out your turkey completely.  Once it’s thawed, remove the giblets & neck are removed from the cavity.
2. In a pot on the stove, over medium heat, warm the kosher salt, brown sugar and 8 cups of water.  You’re not really cooking this, you’re just helping the crystals to dissolve.  Once this happens (you can tell by the feel on the spoon, and the liquid will be clear in the pot as well) turn the heat off and allow the brine to cool.  Add in the sage & pepper corns.
3. Once the brine is cool, put the remainder of water in the container you’re using to brine the turkey.  Add in the brine from the stove and mix until blended.  Add the turkey, cover and leave over night, up to 24 hours.
4. About 45 minutes before you need to have your bird in the oven, remove it from the brine and set on some racks or something like that so the turkey can drain.  A LOT of brine came out of my bird!  Seriously!!  It was like a pool or something…  be prepared.  I had paper towels all around my racks to create sort of a sand bag situation.  And still, it wasn’t quite enough.  So…. consider yourself warned.
5. Preheat your oven to 425.
6. Put your turkey in the roasting pan, and in the cavity place the quarters of onion and the sprigs of sage.  Put the pan, uncovered, in the oven for 20 minutes.  Reduce the temperature to 325 and cook for another 20 minutes.  Cover the turkey and cook for the remainder of the time necessary for the weight of your bird.
7. The stuffing will take about 90 minutes to cook.  So, when you’re about 100 minutes from the finish line, melt the butter in a large frying pan.  Add the diced onion and gently sautee.
8. Once the onions are soft (not browned, just softened) turn off the heat and add the spices.  Stir it up well, and then add the bread.  Stir that up too and transfer everything to a covered baking dish.
9. Remove the turkey from the oven, get out your baster, and take out some of the drippings to cover the stuffing.  I think I did about 3/4 cup; it was about 4 or 5 full basters.  You want to thoroughly soak the stuffing, but you don’t want it drowned.  Otherwise, your stuffing will be soggy.  Replace the cover on the turkey, cover the stuffing and put both back in the oven.

I used 3 different kinds of bread for the stuffing: 12 whole grain bread, Munich style rye and sweet & sour rye.  My Mom always used as many different breads as she could, and her stuffing is the best around, I’m telling you.  And I have to confess: while the turkey was out to get drippings for the stuffing, I did baste it.  What?!  Can you blame me?  I mean, I was standing there with a baster in my hand and a bird that looked cooked!  So I basted it.  But just that once, I swear, and damn if that wasn’t a really tasty turkey. 

Truly, brining the turkey did speed up the cooking process.  It looked done after just 3 hours in the oven and at the 4th hour, I had to remove it for fear that it would be dry and disgusting; we’re talking about a 15lb bird here…  that was some fast cooking!

All in all, a lovely way to share our gratitude for such a full and abundant life.  I hope your Thanksgiving was just as loving as mine.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fish ‘n Chips Fish

Do you understand what this title means?  What I was trying to convey is that here I will be posting a recipe for fish that tastes just like the fish you’d get at a fish ‘n chip place.  I found this recipe in the summer, and posted it then to my facebook page.  But, now that we’re speaking again – not that we ever weren’t speaking, but you know what I mean – I thought I’d share it with you too.

This summer was crazy hot, wasn’t it?  So our menu around here was lots of salads, and things that could be cooked on the barbecue. One day,  I saw some of the talapia in my freezer and thought, “hmm… what are we going to do with you, little fish fillets?” I searched around the web a bit, and found a couple of recipes at allrecipes.com that I mashed together. And wow. This is absolutely a recipe I’ll make again – the fish comes out crispy! Like it was deep fried! With a delicious and mild flavour… yum.

Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

Hobo Seasoning
3 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon kosher salt

Fish batter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup dried bread crumbs
1 tablespoon “hobo seasoning” (above)
2 egg whites
1 pound tilapia fillets

Method

1. Measure all the ingredients for the hobo spice into a container with a lid. Mix it up, shake it up, and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 450, barbecue to 400 (the first time I made this it was on the barbecue).
3. In a shallow dish, mix together the flour, salt, pepper, bread crumbs & hobo seasoning. Set aside.
4. In another dish, beat the egg whites until they’re fluffy (I think this is the key to the recipe’s success… I used beaters and whipped them until they were almost stiff enough for meringues). Set aside.
5. Line a cookie sheet with tin foil, and spray with cooking spray (Pam or something similar).
6. One at a time, dip the fish into the egg until coated. Transfer to the flour mixture, turning to coat, and then place on the prepared cookie sheet. Repeat until all fillets are prepared.
7. Put the cookie sheet into the oven/barbecue and bake for 10 – 15 minutes.

I served this with fries and cut up veggies. And yes, I did the fries on the grill too! It was interesting… they were a little more crunchy than they get in the oven, but they also seemed somehow less substantial. I was happy though to have made fish & chips all by myself, and super tasty too!

Since that first time, I’ve made this batter again and used it on pork chops.  And holy cow…  again – delicious!  I guess it was like shake & bake, but I don’t remember ever having that.  So I can’t really say.  Anyway.  When you try it, dear Reader, please make sure to let us know what you thought of it!

Until next time,

m

Original recipes can be found at:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Blackened-Tilapia-with-Secret-Hobo-Spices/Detail.aspx
and
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Crunchy-Oven-Fried-Tilapia/Detail.aspx

Enjoy!

Banana Cake with Banana Icing

Dear Readers, it has been so long since we shared.  There are many reasons for this, but really, none of them particularly matter, do they?  The fact of it is, I miss you.  I miss writing, I miss sharing what’s happening in my kitchen, I miss your feedback.  And so, I’m back.

This will not be the same as it once was; I will not be posting regularly, certainly not daily.  I will post as the mood strikes me, and hope that you are willing to visit me from time to time.

I was reading through my blog yesterday, and that was when I was really struck by how much I’ve missed this.  I was funny!  I was witty!  You liked my recipes!  And while I was reading it, I rediscovered my post on Chicken & Dumplings.  I had forgotten about that recipe!  Well I got really excited and decided to make that for dinner tonight.  And I am.  Then I remembered I had all of these bananas in the fridge that had gone over into “good-for-baking-country” and wanted the banana layer cake recipe I made once, a long, long time ago.

I couldn’t find it!

Was it possible that I did not share this with you??  It seems that this indeed is what happened.  And so now, I am remedying that.  Enjoy, dear Reader!

Ingredients

for the cake:
1/2 c unsalted butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
2-1/4 c flour
1/8 tsp baking soda
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 c milk
1 c mashed bananas

for the icing
1/2 cup mashed banana
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp soft butter
4 cups icing sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375°F
2. Cream together the butter and sugar.
3. Add eggs, one at a time and mix until blended.
4. Sifted dry ingredients together, and add half to the wet ingredients.  Once blended, add the milk and blend again.  Add the last of the dry ingredients and blend again.
5. Mix in the mashed bananas and pour into your greased pans (2 round pans or 1 bundt)
6. Bake in two 8-inch layers in oven for 30 minutes, or in a bundt pan for 40 minutes
7. For the icing, combine the butter, lemon juice & bananas until well blended. Add in icing sugar and beat until combined, about 2-3 minutes.