Tonight we were totally at a loss for anything to make. We were going to do pancakes, but at the last minute I threw out crepes as an alternative. I had made them once before in high school and remembered them being good. We found a recipe on all recipes.com and ran with it. Aly sliced some strawberries, and we added powdered sugar on top. They were pretty good and a lot more filling than I remember or would expect. Not quite pancake stuffed, but not hungry. It took all of 15 minutes to make which was also a nice plus. One thing I'd note for next time would be to try getting the crepes thinner. These seemed too thick based off what I remember, and I think that made them almost pancake like.I think the batter worked fine, and we should find some way to physically spread them thinner on the pan.
Our strawberries were a little grody, and I spent like 20 minutes at the store today picking the freshest they had. I don't know seasons, and I guess they are out of season? We got enough good ones it wasn't a total waste, but we did throw some away, which was a shame.
-Jeff
Recipe from All recipes.com
Note from Aly: Though it makes me sound like a nagging bitch, I'm going to enter this little sub-entry anyway. When I first came into the kitchen and saw Jeff working on dinner, I noticed that the butter was in a block in the middle of the bowl (pictured in the slideshow) and that the recipe listed "2 Tbsp butter, melted." I mentioned it to Jeff, but he declared that "it'll melt... when it gets warm... from the room," and I realized that we'd hit that point where I couldn't say or do anything that would result in him removing the butter to melt it. Luckily, apparently when he started trying to mix the batter he realized the problem because I noticed not long afterwards that he fished it out of the bowl and put it in a little dish in the microwave. So, it's important to follow the recipe. Just saying.
-Aly
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Sloppy Joe Casserole
A coworker gave me this recipe when I told her that we didn't have a lot of dinner ideas, and I hesitated to make it because it sounded so undeniably white trash, but then I remembered that white trash people eat the tastiest food (like carnival food, which is sent by the delicious calorie gods, may they be praised).
Anyway, I finally made the recipe and it was all at once a monumental achievement in the culinary world and an abomination to the gourmet. It's just crescent rolls, sloppy joe, and cheese. I will let you recover from that sentence because I know your mind has been blown and you may need a drool cloth.
The first time I made the Sloppy Joe Casserole, I followed the recipe given by my coworker and it only called for 1 lb of ground beef (and one can of sloppy joe mix). The final product was unarguably amazing, but it seemed lacking and Jeff and I both agreed to use more sloppy joe next time. Having doubled it this time, I think that was a great improvement because it made it thicker and heartier. However, this did leave us with too little cheese since we stuck with the initial measurement, and next time I would at least do half another bag more if not two.
We did run into a hiccup early on when I was getting out the ingredients. I didn't notice that Jeff put my cans of crescent rolls in the freezer instead of the fridge when we got home from the store, so they were frozen when I started cooking. This hurt the meal in a few ways:
1.) Opening the cans was worse than usual because they were frozen shut and unwilling to pop
2.) Unrolling crescent roll dough that is frozen both to itself and in its current shape is next to impossible
3.) Cook times were thrown off in ways I did not correctly predict so the rolls were not cooked through
In the end, it was still delicious, but had room for improvements. Like I said, the rolls did not cook thoroughly, so the top crust was nicely browned and crispy, and the bottom one was still Pillsbury squish. This probably also happened because I'd recently been experimenting with where the oven rack sits and I'd shifted it up one position. I've since moved it back down. Also, I would add another half or whole bag of shredded cheese since it was a little off without it. This is still one of my favorites and I see it being a staple in the house when we're in a hurry and there's kids to feed.
-Aly
Recipe (ideal version)
Ingredients
-2 cans crescent rolls
-2 lbs ground beef
-2 can Manwich mix
-3-4 cups shredded cheese (I prefer the Mexican mix)
Directions
-Preheat oven to 375
-Brown ground beef and drain well when finished
-Unroll one can of crescent rolls and lay in the bottom of a 13" x 9" pan, pressing the seams together
-Add Manwich mix to beef and cook on medium-high heat for 5 min
-Place sloppy joe mix in pan on top of crescent rolls
-Top with shredded cheese
-Unroll second can of crescent rolls and lay across top of cheese, pressing seams together as possible
-Bake for 20-30 min until top crust is lightly browned
Anyway, I finally made the recipe and it was all at once a monumental achievement in the culinary world and an abomination to the gourmet. It's just crescent rolls, sloppy joe, and cheese. I will let you recover from that sentence because I know your mind has been blown and you may need a drool cloth.
The first time I made the Sloppy Joe Casserole, I followed the recipe given by my coworker and it only called for 1 lb of ground beef (and one can of sloppy joe mix). The final product was unarguably amazing, but it seemed lacking and Jeff and I both agreed to use more sloppy joe next time. Having doubled it this time, I think that was a great improvement because it made it thicker and heartier. However, this did leave us with too little cheese since we stuck with the initial measurement, and next time I would at least do half another bag more if not two.
We did run into a hiccup early on when I was getting out the ingredients. I didn't notice that Jeff put my cans of crescent rolls in the freezer instead of the fridge when we got home from the store, so they were frozen when I started cooking. This hurt the meal in a few ways:
1.) Opening the cans was worse than usual because they were frozen shut and unwilling to pop
2.) Unrolling crescent roll dough that is frozen both to itself and in its current shape is next to impossible
3.) Cook times were thrown off in ways I did not correctly predict so the rolls were not cooked through
In the end, it was still delicious, but had room for improvements. Like I said, the rolls did not cook thoroughly, so the top crust was nicely browned and crispy, and the bottom one was still Pillsbury squish. This probably also happened because I'd recently been experimenting with where the oven rack sits and I'd shifted it up one position. I've since moved it back down. Also, I would add another half or whole bag of shredded cheese since it was a little off without it. This is still one of my favorites and I see it being a staple in the house when we're in a hurry and there's kids to feed.
-Aly
Recipe (ideal version)
Ingredients
-2 cans crescent rolls
-2 lbs ground beef
-2 can Manwich mix
-3-4 cups shredded cheese (I prefer the Mexican mix)
Directions
-Preheat oven to 375
-Brown ground beef and drain well when finished
-Unroll one can of crescent rolls and lay in the bottom of a 13" x 9" pan, pressing the seams together
-Add Manwich mix to beef and cook on medium-high heat for 5 min
-Place sloppy joe mix in pan on top of crescent rolls
-Top with shredded cheese
-Unroll second can of crescent rolls and lay across top of cheese, pressing seams together as possible
-Bake for 20-30 min until top crust is lightly browned
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Omelette du Fromage
Tonight we made omelettes. Pretty basic, quick and tastes great. I did a lot of egg cooking when I worked nights, and had mornings to myself, and discovered the easiest way for omelettes (and probably official way) is to scramble the eggs in a bowl. While doing that, get the pan heating on the highest temp. You want it very hot. Pour some olive oil even if its non stick, so there is little to no chance. Pour the egg on, and let it sit until it cooks the one side. Add ingredients, and fold in half. Let that sit a min, and then flip over. Total cook time is about 5 min, at the most.
Ingredient wise, I like mushrooms and swiss, this time I added turkey as well. I also enjoy doing a Mexican blend with it, but not this time. Aly went with Brie and turkey.
-Jeff
Ingredient wise, I like mushrooms and swiss, this time I added turkey as well. I also enjoy doing a Mexican blend with it, but not this time. Aly went with Brie and turkey.
-Jeff
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Baking Feature: Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars
Since we had company coming over, I decided to make a dessert that would work with our Mexican feast we'd planned. I first thought of Flan, but frankly, the Flan I've eaten was unspectacular, so I didn't want to force it on my guests simply in the name of authenticity. Therefore, I had to come up with another option.
A year or so ago a coworker of mine who lives in Texas (whom I therefore take to be an authority on at least Tex-Mex desserts) gave me a recipe for Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars saying that they were her favorite and I would LOVE them. The recipe never made it out of my inbox and I kind of forgot about it until I sat down this past week and really racked my brain trying to come up with a Mexican-style dessert that was within my skill level and worked with my time constraints. If possible, I wanted to make it after I got home from work and before our guests came on the day of, because I really don't like making baked goodies 24+ hours in advance if I can avoid it. I don't know if it's a justified quirk, but it is a quirk I must live with nonetheless.
These cheesecake bars sounded really tasty, and the dough crusted with cinnamon sugar sounded like the Mexican flair I was looking for. I looked the recipe over and it seemed really easy, so I decided I had a winner.
The bars are very easy to make, particularly because the crust is pre-made crescent roll dough laid in a 13x9" pan. Pillsbury has even made this easier by making a version of the crescent roll dough sheet that doesn't have seams on it for just such occasions. They haven't made the cans any easier to open, though, and I still flinch as I pull at the label waiting for it to pop, and then when it doesn't, jab a spoon into it only enough to break the airtight seal and have depressurizing dough come squirting out of the hole. One of my goals in life is to successfully open a can of these damn things the way Pillsbury intended.
Anyway, back to the recipe. I was perplexed at the start to find that I melt a whole stick of butter, then leave it alone. I laid dough in the pain, I mixed filling, I laid more dough, yet the butter sat there looking at me. Finally, at the last phase before baking, you're supposed to dump an entire liquified stick of butter on top of the crust and then cover it in cinnamon sugar. Try as I might, I couldn't justify the entire stick. I poured more onto the surface than I wanted to and still had about a quarter of the stick left, so I trashed it. In the future I think I could probably use only 1/2 or 2/3 a stick and be quite alright. I also ditched the nuts and fruit from the recipe because they seemed out of place and tacked-on to me, like whoever made this recipe with a Mexican-style dish in mind got confused somewhere. Also, Jeff doesn't like cranberries.
I baked these for 25 minutes (since the cinnamon sugar made it difficult to tell how cooked the dough was) and they turned out great. We let them chill for a few hours and when I cut into them, they were spectacular. Really, there's no reason why gobs of sweetened cream cheese covered in cinnamon sugar dough shouldn't be. In the future, if I put the fruit or nuts back into them, I think I'd probably use pecans because they go really well with cinnamon sugar, and I would probably use apricots or another delicate flavor fruit to mingle with the cream cheese taste. I feel like dried cherries or cranberries would cut into it too harshly.
-Aly
Recipe:
2 cans crescent rolls
2 8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese
1 T vanilla (I used one tsp, not one Tbs. The Tbs just looked so big)
1 stick butter
2 cups sugar, divided
2 t cinnamon
dried cherries or cranberries
chopped pecans or slivered almonds
Preheat oven to 350.
Spray bottom and sides of 9 x 13 baking dish with Pam.
Melt the stick of butter in a separate bowl in microwave. Set aside.
Press first can of rolls into bottom of baking dish. Press seams together.
Mix together one and one half cups sugar, vanilla, and cream cheese. (I added a tsp of cinnamon to this)
Spread mix over crescent rolls
Over cream cheese, sprinkle the dried fruit and nuts.
Smooth out second can of rolls to lay atop that.
Pour melted butter on top of rolls and sprinkle remaining half cup of sugar and cinnamon on top.
Bake for 20-25 mins. and let cool slightly. Stick in fridge and let chill for at least 2 hours before cutting into squares.
A year or so ago a coworker of mine who lives in Texas (whom I therefore take to be an authority on at least Tex-Mex desserts) gave me a recipe for Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars saying that they were her favorite and I would LOVE them. The recipe never made it out of my inbox and I kind of forgot about it until I sat down this past week and really racked my brain trying to come up with a Mexican-style dessert that was within my skill level and worked with my time constraints. If possible, I wanted to make it after I got home from work and before our guests came on the day of, because I really don't like making baked goodies 24+ hours in advance if I can avoid it. I don't know if it's a justified quirk, but it is a quirk I must live with nonetheless.
These cheesecake bars sounded really tasty, and the dough crusted with cinnamon sugar sounded like the Mexican flair I was looking for. I looked the recipe over and it seemed really easy, so I decided I had a winner.
The bars are very easy to make, particularly because the crust is pre-made crescent roll dough laid in a 13x9" pan. Pillsbury has even made this easier by making a version of the crescent roll dough sheet that doesn't have seams on it for just such occasions. They haven't made the cans any easier to open, though, and I still flinch as I pull at the label waiting for it to pop, and then when it doesn't, jab a spoon into it only enough to break the airtight seal and have depressurizing dough come squirting out of the hole. One of my goals in life is to successfully open a can of these damn things the way Pillsbury intended.
Anyway, back to the recipe. I was perplexed at the start to find that I melt a whole stick of butter, then leave it alone. I laid dough in the pain, I mixed filling, I laid more dough, yet the butter sat there looking at me. Finally, at the last phase before baking, you're supposed to dump an entire liquified stick of butter on top of the crust and then cover it in cinnamon sugar. Try as I might, I couldn't justify the entire stick. I poured more onto the surface than I wanted to and still had about a quarter of the stick left, so I trashed it. In the future I think I could probably use only 1/2 or 2/3 a stick and be quite alright. I also ditched the nuts and fruit from the recipe because they seemed out of place and tacked-on to me, like whoever made this recipe with a Mexican-style dish in mind got confused somewhere. Also, Jeff doesn't like cranberries.
I baked these for 25 minutes (since the cinnamon sugar made it difficult to tell how cooked the dough was) and they turned out great. We let them chill for a few hours and when I cut into them, they were spectacular. Really, there's no reason why gobs of sweetened cream cheese covered in cinnamon sugar dough shouldn't be. In the future, if I put the fruit or nuts back into them, I think I'd probably use pecans because they go really well with cinnamon sugar, and I would probably use apricots or another delicate flavor fruit to mingle with the cream cheese taste. I feel like dried cherries or cranberries would cut into it too harshly.
-Aly
Recipe:
2 cans crescent rolls
2 8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese
1 T vanilla (I used one tsp, not one Tbs. The Tbs just looked so big)
1 stick butter
2 cups sugar, divided
2 t cinnamon
dried cherries or cranberries
chopped pecans or slivered almonds
Preheat oven to 350.
Spray bottom and sides of 9 x 13 baking dish with Pam.
Melt the stick of butter in a separate bowl in microwave. Set aside.
Press first can of rolls into bottom of baking dish. Press seams together.
Mix together one and one half cups sugar, vanilla, and cream cheese. (I added a tsp of cinnamon to this)
Spread mix over crescent rolls
Over cream cheese, sprinkle the dried fruit and nuts.
Smooth out second can of rolls to lay atop that.
Pour melted butter on top of rolls and sprinkle remaining half cup of sugar and cinnamon on top.
Bake for 20-25 mins. and let cool slightly. Stick in fridge and let chill for at least 2 hours before cutting into squares.
Chicken Tortilla Soup and Cornbread
Since we had friends coming over, I wanted to make a side dish to go with the Chicken Tortilla soup we'd already planned to be sure no one went hungry. I thought cornbread would be a nice choice since the flavors go really well together. I looked up several recipes and at first I wanted to try to stick with a more authentic Mexican style cornbread and possibly use one that still had pieces of corn in it, but I knew I wouldn't have a lot of prep/cook time between getting home from work and people wanting to eat, so I had to opt out of most of these recipes because of time constraints. I instead went for a more southern, country style cornbread recipe from All Recipes.com that had a 5-star rating. It was called "Grandmother's Buttermilik Cornbread." The Buttermilk is what caught my attention as I figured it probably meant a moister, more succulent bread and I definitely wanted that.
Preparation went off without a hitch except that Jeff and I were sharing stovetop space between two large skillets for the first time ever, so we had to be careful to coordinate and not make a huge mess (because we'd JUST cleaned that kitchen!). The bread was basically just mixing the ingredients into the skillet at different stages, then making sure they combined, putting them in an 8x8 pan, and baking it.
I was worried about the cornbread when I first took it out of the oven because, even though I'd used the minimum bake time, the edges were darker brown than I wanted. It turns out my fears were ungrounded, though, as the cornbread turned out perfect and delicious. And yes, it was very moist, so I would definitely recommend this recipe and will probably use it as a default because it was so easy. Jeff and I have already considered using it as a jumping off point and adding cheese or jalapenos.
Recipe from All Recipes.com
-Aly
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Aly filled you in on the background for what we did this time, so I can skip straight to the meal. I made a chicken tortilla soup, and it was pretty good. Black beans, corn, chicken broth, chicken, some spices I don't recall, diced tomatoes and lime juice. You will notice an important ingredient missing, and I caught it the day of. Tortillas. So really it was more of a "Chicken Soup". While cooking, it was fairly straight forward. Cook the chicken, dump everything into the pot and boil for a bit, then simmer.
Interesting notes from this meal. I forgot tortillas. I also realized like an hour before the guests came over that I should probably cook it. So instead of the 2 hour simmer time, I went with 45 min + however long they hung out before eating. That also meant that the chicken was basically frozen. I broke out my old trick of putting the chicken in a bowl of really hot water to thaw quickly, and it mostly thawed it. Then I diced the semi-frozen chicken and cooked anyway on a skillet. While cooking the chicken I realized the black beans should be cooked (Per the recipe) and that I don't know how. I figured "Microwave it for like 2 min" would work, and it seemed to. The recipe called for 2 cups of cubed chicken, and that's both an awkward measurement and not enough, so I went with 3 breasts. I thought it could still use more in the final product.
The whole time it cooked it smelled great, and it tasted great too so I take that as success. I think if it simmered longer it would bake the flavors into the peppers and stuff a little more. I even had leftovers to take to work for lunch.
-Jeff
Preparation went off without a hitch except that Jeff and I were sharing stovetop space between two large skillets for the first time ever, so we had to be careful to coordinate and not make a huge mess (because we'd JUST cleaned that kitchen!). The bread was basically just mixing the ingredients into the skillet at different stages, then making sure they combined, putting them in an 8x8 pan, and baking it.
I was worried about the cornbread when I first took it out of the oven because, even though I'd used the minimum bake time, the edges were darker brown than I wanted. It turns out my fears were ungrounded, though, as the cornbread turned out perfect and delicious. And yes, it was very moist, so I would definitely recommend this recipe and will probably use it as a default because it was so easy. Jeff and I have already considered using it as a jumping off point and adding cheese or jalapenos.
Recipe from All Recipes.com
-Aly
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Aly filled you in on the background for what we did this time, so I can skip straight to the meal. I made a chicken tortilla soup, and it was pretty good. Black beans, corn, chicken broth, chicken, some spices I don't recall, diced tomatoes and lime juice. You will notice an important ingredient missing, and I caught it the day of. Tortillas. So really it was more of a "Chicken Soup". While cooking, it was fairly straight forward. Cook the chicken, dump everything into the pot and boil for a bit, then simmer.
Interesting notes from this meal. I forgot tortillas. I also realized like an hour before the guests came over that I should probably cook it. So instead of the 2 hour simmer time, I went with 45 min + however long they hung out before eating. That also meant that the chicken was basically frozen. I broke out my old trick of putting the chicken in a bowl of really hot water to thaw quickly, and it mostly thawed it. Then I diced the semi-frozen chicken and cooked anyway on a skillet. While cooking the chicken I realized the black beans should be cooked (Per the recipe) and that I don't know how. I figured "Microwave it for like 2 min" would work, and it seemed to. The recipe called for 2 cups of cubed chicken, and that's both an awkward measurement and not enough, so I went with 3 breasts. I thought it could still use more in the final product.
The whole time it cooked it smelled great, and it tasted great too so I take that as success. I think if it simmered longer it would bake the flavors into the peppers and stuff a little more. I even had leftovers to take to work for lunch.
-Jeff
Friday, April 6, 2012
Burgers Mk II
Another attempt. T came over with some ground beef for burgers last night. He went to a butcher this time for the beef, and we did the patties ourselves. He asked what they recommended and got 92-8 beef. It was nice, and being from a butcher was generally better than what we normally get. We don't have one near us, and do the frozen ground stuff from the grocery store. Just in working with them to make the patties you could tell it was totally different.
Using the grill was good this time. Propane built up and singed the hair off my right arm when it lit. After that, we did the grilling as you'd expect. One thing we tried that was different was putting the rolls on the grill. It worked, and was a neat idea. Next time we might butter them first. We also tried something that didn't do a whole lot. We put a mushroom slice on two of them, just to see what would happen. What happens is that the mushroom gets sort of warm, and the meat underneath stays pink. We will stick to putting them on afterwards.
I also did the thing where I don't cook the burgers long enough on the grill. Most were done, but a few had some pinkish spots.
-Jeff
Using the grill was good this time. Propane built up and singed the hair off my right arm when it lit. After that, we did the grilling as you'd expect. One thing we tried that was different was putting the rolls on the grill. It worked, and was a neat idea. Next time we might butter them first. We also tried something that didn't do a whole lot. We put a mushroom slice on two of them, just to see what would happen. What happens is that the mushroom gets sort of warm, and the meat underneath stays pink. We will stick to putting them on afterwards.
I also did the thing where I don't cook the burgers long enough on the grill. Most were done, but a few had some pinkish spots.
-Jeff
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)