1-2-3 Mexican Dip

 first off lets start this post with my insane craving I had last nite.  I was really in the mood for biscuits from Popeye's.  you know the ones I'm talking about...  I thought I could manage to make some and found a recipe on www.foodnetwork.com.  one thing I realized about myself last nite: I am NOT a midnight baker.  other things that are really important: it's critical to measure out ingredients when baking.  it's also probably critical to not forget certain ingredients (as I later found out there's a "science" to baking, you need the right acidity to make a balanced biscuit, so when I forget an ingredient like say, LEMON JUICE, they're probably going to taste like shit.)  the biscuits rose just fine, and browned on the top like they were supposed to.  however, they were hard as hockey pucks and only a morsel of each one was edible.

some cravings need to be satisfied by the original creator.

for tonight's recipe I decided that I would go to one of my survival foods.  yes folks, I'm pretty sure I could survive on chips and salsa.  this recipe seemed easy enough (boy was that a joke, there's a lot of steps and measuring out the ingredients you already had measured out- what's that about?!).  anyway, lets get on with it.

the ingredients:

1 can Refried Beans

1 1/2 c. medium Salsa

1 tsp. Chili Powder

 1 tsp. Ground Cumin

3/4 tsp. dried Oregano

1/2 c. Mayonaise

1/4 c. finely chopped Red Onion

1/3 c. chopped fresh Cilantro

1 tsp. Onion Powder

1 small Red Bell Pepper, chopped

1 c. grated Extra-Sharp Cheddar Cheese

1 fresh Japapeno chile

Tortilla chips for serving

1-2-3 layers, no?

this recipe was a chore to make.  there is a lot of "divide this" and mix that".  in the end I used 3 different spoons, one spatula and 3 bowls (not including the one it was served in) just to make this dish.  I liked it.  I mean, I ate half the bowl for dinner...  so it wasn't a total loss.  or total mess for that matter.  I'm just not sure it's any better than any 7-layer dip you could find in the grocery store.

the recipe didn't call for black olives, but I couldn't resist.

as a treat to myself, I decided to try Erin's Salted Brown Butter Rice Crispy Treats!  OMG.

the best Rice Crispy Treat EVER.

~pam

French Toast with Hot Buttered Rum-Maple Syrup

I got to use the loaf of Challah bread I trudged all over Seattle looking for!  this was delicious- but I'm already a big fan of french toast, so I'm biased.  I will say this much, Challah will be the bread I use henceforth when making this dish!

the ingredients:

1/2 c. Half & Half*

2 Eggs

1 tbsp. Granulated Sugar

2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

1/4 tsp. Kosher Salt

1/8 tsp. Ground Cinnamon

2 tbsp. Unsalted Butter

4 slices Challah bread

1/3 c. Maple Syrup

1 tbsp. Light Rum

*I substituted with heavy cream and milk because its what I had on hand.

when I made the egg mixture I thought it was very watery and was afraid it wasn't going to do it's job, but the Challah bread sucked it right up and it worked very well.  I would prefer more cinnamon in my mix (a very important ingredient in french toast, in my opinion). 

the syrup was quite good and in general I'm not a fan of warmed syrup, I find it gets too runny for my liking.  my only complaint would be that I could taste the rum in it.  there could be two things that went wrong here, 1. I didn't cook it long enough or 2. I didn't use "light" rum.  that said, it was still good, and felt "warm" going down!

I'm so happy this recipe came thru for me, after last nite with the olives...

Jake and I will be revisiting this recipe in the future!!!

~pam

Marinated Olives and Feta Cheese

the ingredients:

1/2 c. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

2 tsp. grated Lemon Zest

2 tsp. fresh Lemon Juice

5 medium cloves Garlic, sliced

1/4 c. chopped fresh Flat Leaf Parsley

1 tbsp. Herbes de Provence

3/4 tsp. Dried Chili Flakes

1 c. Kalamata or Black Olives

1 c. Green Olives

10 oz. Feta Cheese

French Bread slices

UNIMPRESSED.

well ladies & gents, I think we have finally hit a recipe low.   it was...  oily, dare I say?  I don't even know how to improve upon it, since so many things seem to go wrong with it.  maybe if it wasn't marinated and you just mixed everything together on the spot it would taste better.  at least the consistency would be better and the olives would seem less slimy.

I'm pretty irritated since this recipe has tons of my favorite things to eat: olives, feta, lemon, garlic & bread.

I have no more words.  the only thing that can cure this is an episode of Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood and ice cream.  (and maybe watching Julie & Julia again for some inspiration.)

here's hoping to a better recipe tomorrow,

~pam

Salted Brown Butter Rice Crispie Treats

So, after being told MANY TIMES from my colleague, Violet, I finally decided to give these "most delicious Rice Crispie treats in the world" a try.  I wasn't skeptical - Violet's an expert when it comes to amazing food - but I never make dessert so I never put ingredients on my store list.  I was in one of my "baking moods" but didn't want to spend a large amount of time in the kitchen so I turned to a jazzed up version of an oldie but goodie.

I turned to the ever-wonderful Smitten Kitchen blog and searched out the Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats recipe.  Looking at the recipe, there wasn't much difference between a regular rice crispy treat recipe and this marvelous version except for the addition of a little salt and cooking the butter a little bit longer.  But man, those little tweaks made all the difference in the world.

Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats
Makes 16 2-inch squares or 32 1- x 2-inch small bars

4 ounces (1/4 pound or 1 stick) unsalted butter, plus extra for the pan
1 10-ounce bag marshmallows
Heaping 1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
6 cups Rice Krispies cereal (about half a 12-ounce box)
Butter (or coat with non-stick spray) an 8-inch square cake pan with 2-inch sides.

In a large pot, melt butter over medium-low heat. It will melt, then foam, then turn clear golden and finally start to turn brown and smell nutty. Stir frequently, scraping up any bits from the bottom as you do. Don’t take your eyes off the pot as while you may be impatient for it to start browning, the period between the time the butter begins to take on color and the point where it burns is often less than a minute.

As soon as the butter takes on a nutty color, turn the heat off and stir in the marshmallows. The residual heat from the melted butter should be enough to melt them, but if it is not, turn it back on low until the marshmallows are smooth.

Remove the pot from the stove and stir in the salt and cereal together. Quickly spread into prepared pan. I liked to use a piece of waxed or parchment paper that I’ve sprayed with oil to press it firmly and evenly into the edges and corners, though a silicon spatula works almost as well.

Let cool, cut into squares and get ready to make new friends.


First I had to enlist one of my favorite helpers to test out a key ingredient.

Turns out, the little munchkin was testing out both the marshmallows AND rice crispies behind my back.  Every time I would look at her she would cover her mouth like she was fooling me....

We followed the directions exactly as mentioned and were done in a matter of minutes.  The longest step was making sure the butter was cooked long enough.

The butter turned a brown color as mentioned above and I was worried that it would make the treats turn out an unappetizing brown but I could hardly notice a different when it was all mixed together.

How did they taste?  Let's just say that if Lucky and I weren't already married I would have garnered a marriage proposal right then and there.

Magnifique!

Simmering Tomato Sauce with Butter

I was perusing my cookbooks on Saturday trying to figure out what to make the kids for dinner.  Normally I wouldn't have a problem deciding on one recipe however nothing was sounding good with my current list of recipe requirements.  Mind you, I have a 15-month-old son that will eat anything and everything under the sun - except lately because he's teething and his mouth is sore when he chews.  I also have a 4-year-ol daughter that doesn't like anything she hasn't tried before and apparently doesn't trust dear old Mom and Dad to assure her that whatever we give her will be really good.  We promise.  Isn't she supposed to stop trusting us when she's 16 and finally realizes we've been telling her lies all these years just to see her reactions?

So, mushy food and something relatively similar to meals we've had in the past.  And it must be quick.

Awesome.  That makes for an exciting dinner from one of my cookbook recipes.

So I decided to skip dinner for the time being and focus on dessert.  We normally don't have dessert but I was in "a mood" and wanted to cook or bake something sweet.  That reminded me of an amazing recipe at Smitten Kitchen that was recommended to me from Violet, and if my memory served me correctly the recipe was both easy and quick. Perfect!

Now that the dessert is out of the way, back to the main course.  I decided to scroll through some of the other recipes at Smitten Kitchen and I came to a rediculously fast, easy recipe that catered to all of my meal requirements.  Four ingredients with one of them being pasta?  Heck yeah!

Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onions

Serves 4 as a main course; makes enough sauce to lightly coat most of a pound of spaghetti

28 ounces (800 grams) whole peeled tomatoes from a can (San Marzano, if you can find them)
5 tablespoons (70 grams) unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan (it fit just right in a 3-quart) over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of fat float free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, add salt to taste (you might find, as I did, that your tomatoes came salted and that you didn’t need to add more) and keep warm while you prepare your pasta.

Serve with spaghetti, with or without grated parmesan cheese to pass.

 
I followed the directions and it took literally 3 minutes to get everything into a saucepan and the temperature to medium-high.  And then I was done.  I stirred it every once in a while and broke up the tomatoes but that was it.  I actually made my dessert while dinner was cooking because I felt lost just standing there.

When I was done both Kate and Oliver decided that they wanted only buttered noodles instead of having sauce with it but I'm sure it was just because the noodles were so cool to look at.

Overall, I felt it was a good recipe to have when the summer days are long and there are too many tomatoes in the garden to know what to do with.  Although this recipe called for a can of whole tomatoes and the sauce ended up being a tomato-y sweet goodness, I have the idea that fresh tomatoes are going to make it taste even better.  Next time I'll also add italian seasoning and maybe some fresh garlic to cater more towards the family's tastes.  Nevertheless, this recipe was a great, fast, easy addition to my growing collection of "good 'uns."

Lamb Chops with Mint-Mustard Sauce and Sweet Peas with Red Onion & Mint

I'm pretty sure this is the best thing I have EVER made in my life!  Jake would argue and say that it's my beef stew, but he doesn't like lamb, so we can't get his opinion on the matter- now can we?

I would also like to throw out there that as of this moment (I mean, this meal) lamb is my favorite meat.  hands down.  Mom's go-to-meal for Easter was traditionally lamb, I looked forward to it every year.  I think it had something to do with the mint jelly...

the ingredients:

2 tbsp. Mint Jelly

1 tbsp. White Wine Vinegar

1 tbsp. Stone-Ground Mustard

1/4 c. Chicken Stock*

1 tbsp. Vegetable Oil

6 Lamp Chops**

*I used low-sodium

**I used 3, since I'm cooking for one right now.

the first 4 ingredients are for the sauce- it smelled really harsh since vinegar has such a pungent odor to it.  and to be honest, it looks kind of gross seeing green jelly float around with mustard seeds...  but TRUSTMEONTHIS- it's the best-tasting sauce ever, you will never go back to plain mint jelly again!  

lets also point out that I made a reduction!  I actually reduced stuff down to half it's starting size and made a sauce.  hell yeah.

I never cook with vegetable oil, unless its called for in my baking.  the recipe told you to heat the oil on high and cook the chops 3 minutes on each side for medium-well.  I nearly smoked my damn house out!  Vegetable oil gets EXTREMELY HOT!  hotter than Olive Oil can (because it will burn and turn gross), I thought I was going to burn my chops, so I hurriedly flipped them over and started cooking on the other side, while I reduced the heat down to medium-high.  I'm not a medium-well-person, I'm a kill-it-well-person.  I don't want it to look like the meat on my plate will be able to walk off of it because it's bleeding so much; I followed their instructions since I'm not at all familiar with cooking lamb.  the chops weren't cooked to my liking.  they were so red on the inside I didn't think the heat evenly distributed thru.  I placed them back in the pan with the sauce and cooked them for an extra 3 minutes.  let me tell you, the authors need to add this step into their recipe because this actually helped to thicken the sauce a little more and it made a little bit of a glaze on my perfectly browned chops. 

this meal was finger-licking good.  I felt like an animal pulling the meat off the bones.

I went back for seconds.

the ingredients:

2 c. fresh peas or 10 oz. frozen

1 tsp. Unsalted Butter

1/4 small Red Onion

1/4 tsp. Kosher Salt

1 tbsp. Fresh Mint or 1 tsp. dried

2 tsp. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

you would think hearing "mint" in the title means it would be over bearing in a recipe, but I assure you it isn't.  you sweat the onions down in butter, saute the peas and add the olive oil and mint at the last second.  this method wilts the leaves down, so you just get a hint of the mint in the background of each bite.  very delightful, and despite butter being in the recipe- it didn't taste heavy.

I remembered the last of my ingredients to finish of the marinade for my olives and Feta.  I'll be posting that recipe tomorrow once I get to taste it.  while I was at Borders getting my Regretsy book and Owl mug...  I got side-tracked once again by the cookbooks section and had both the Joy of Cooking and Mastering the Art of French Cooking in my hands.  I nearly bought the damn things!!!  then I brought myself back down to Earth and realized I could get them for less at Barnes & Noble (I have a membership and plus I find Borders to be rather expensive.)  oh, don't mention that I still have 8 cookbooks I haven't opened...

what is with all of the delicious smelling pretzel places in malls?!  gosh.  it took everything in my power to keep walking.  gluttonous.

Peanut Butter Toast with Icy-Cold Banana Milk

breakfast this morning consisted of something I usually make, just not with Challah or Maple Syrup.  it was good- nothing special or worth making when your in-laws come to visit, but I suspect if you have children this would be a nice twist to present to them.

the ingredients:

2 slices of Challah

2 c. Milk

2 small, ripe Bananas

1/4 c. Maple Syrup

2 tsp. Vanilla Extract

3 tbsp. Peanut Butter

Honey for drizzling

Powdered Sugar for dusting

pinch of Nutmeg

now that I write this I realize I left out the Vanilla.  that totally sucks because that's typically my favorite sweetness when it comes to banana milk.  (Nutmeg is my #1 favorite part.)

we'll talk about the toast first: like I said, it's nothing spectacular, but is good to eat.  toasted bread, heated peanut butter and honey is a favorite flavor combination of mine.  I just wouldn't go out of your way to find Challah bread like I did (i.e. go to 4 different grocery stores).  I am more interested in the french toast recipe  that calls for Challah than I am in using it in this recipe!  I didn't use the Powdered Sugar because I think it bears no flavor and just gets messy.

the milk: the authors say they started making this because one of their son's wouldn't drink regular milk.  my milk was super thick so I'd like to meet the child that could suck this stuff through a bottle!  I had to cut mine with about 1/2 c. more milk.  it is really frothy and has a great banana flavor to it.  I didn't notice the Maple Syrup at all...  until I got to the bottom of the glass and found it all sitting there.  if you want to know how I make my banana milk, just ask and I'll share the recipe sometime.

I got these awesome plates from foldedpigs on Etsy.

I couldn't finish.  but I had one bite right about here that really made me want to.  it just got too heavy between the milk, Challah and warmed peanut butter.

I'm off to Borders.  they have some really cute Owl glassware that I've been successfully avoiding for about a month now.  I'm also going to stop by the Humor section and check out Regretsy's new book.

oh!  I also got an awesome vote of confidence from my mother who told me my pictures look like they belong in a magazine.  (I wonder if that means you all really think I'm making this stuff?!)  she's so cute.  she also wants to try the Eggs Benedict recipe- she really loves eggs.  A LOT.

I hope to see you back for dinner!

~pam