Lemon-Garlic Roasted Chicken with Dilled Orzo, by sharon

I made this over a month ago for my anniversary dinner, and it was such a hit that I decided to make it again. Originally found in a copy of EveryDay Food, I (as per usual) tweaked it more to my taste.  That means more garlic and more lemon!

Lemon-Garlic Roasted Chicken with Dilled Orzo

Ingredients:
1 chicken, cut into 10 pieces
3 lemons, quartered
8-10 cloves of garlic, smashed
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 cup dried orzo
1/2 teaspoon dried dill

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  If you’ve purchased a chicken already cut into pieces, you’re almost done. Using a large, sharp knife, cut each chicken breast in half horizontally. This makes all the pieces almost equal size, which is what allows them to cook quickly and evenly.

On a rimmed baking sheet, toss chicken, lemon and garlic cloves with a teaspoon (I used a little more) of olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano. Arrange skin side up.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until evenly browned and cooked through.

While the chicken is cooking, bring a pot of water to boil. Add orzo and cook until al dente. Drain and return to pan. Toss with 1 tablespoon olive and dried dill.

Serve chicken pieces arranged over the orzo.  I highly suggest you drizzle some of the pan juices over everything as well.

While the chicken was cooking, I made roasted carrots underneath. Easy peasy: chop some carrots. Toss them on a rimmed baking sheet with a teaspoon of olive oil, salt, pepper, and ground thyme. Roast at 450 degrees for 20-30 minutes, shaking once or twice while cooking.

Creamy Tomato Soup

I love a good tomato soup.  And even though I’ll still crack open a can of Campbell’s and be happy enough, I much prefer a heartier version. In fact, Le Madeline’s sells some in a jar that is pretty good. But you know, that can get expensive. Especially as often as I want soup.

Now that my blender is all fixed, I thought now would be the perfect time to give this a shot. And this recipe from Martha Stewart (shut up) seemed like a winner.

Creamy Tomato Soup

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 onion, coarsely chopped
1-2 cloves garlic (I used 4 because I like garlic)
2 14-ounce cans of whole peeled tomatoes (I got the kind with basil in it, since my store didn’t have fresh basil)
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 heavy cream

Melt butter in a medium pot over medium heat. Cook onion and garlic, stirring constantly, until translucent about 3 minutes.

Add tomatoes and their juices and the chicken stock. Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes.

Working in batches, transfer tomato mixture to blender (put a towel over the lid) and puree until smooth.

Return soup to a clean pot and set over low heat. Whisk in cream and heat through.  I tasted it at this point and added some more salt and pepper, along with a dash of ground thyme. It needed more salt than I expected, but the cream probably had something to do with that.

If you have some leftover and you want to reheat it, do NOT do it in a microwave. This will break the cream and it will be really gross. Heat gently over low or medium low.

I made a grilled cheese sandwich to go with this and it was fantastic!!

Cheater Pulled Pork, by sharon

You know what? One might think that as much as I love barbecue, my living in Texas would make me a really happy, satisfied person. But it doesn’t.  I just don’t like Texas barbecue that much. It’s too smoky, too dependant on beef and brisket and . . . well it’s not my cup of tea (or bottle of sauce, as it were).  And speaking of sauce, I don’t like Texas sauce.

Which I suppose means that I prefer Georgia or Carolina barbecue.  Maybe. What I like is my dad’s barbecue and I don’t have a clue what regional affiliation he might be going for. He’s from Florida, there’s just no telling.

Anyway, the purpose of this is to say that even though I live where I live, I don’t get to eat the kind of barbecue I like. And what I really like, more than anything, is pulled pork. And that is reallly hard to find in super beef-eating Texas.

So it seems obvious that I should make it myself. However, I don’t have a grill and the smoker I was given is sitting at Molly’s house because my porch is way too tiny for something like that. What’s a girl to do?

The answer? CHEAT like it’s going out of style and use a Crock Pot.

I looked around online for how to do it and found a few different answers. But the basic answer seemed to be to rub the meat with some spices, let it sit for 2-3 days in the fridge, put it in the Crock Pot for 10 hours, shred, eat. Well, okay. I can do that.

I called my dad for a few pointers. After he was done laughing at me for trying to do something like this without wood chips and/or a fire, he told me two very important things:
1) Throw in a little liquid smoke or you’ll be sorry
2) The meat has to reach an internal temperature of 200 degrees or it won’t shred properly.

So I went to the store and found a 6-pound, bone-in pork butt. I was looking for a boneless pork butt or a pork shoulder, but that’s all the store at the front of my neighborhood had. It’s pork, I figured it would be fine.

I threw together what looked like some good spices: a little brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, and cayenne. I mixed all that in a bowl and then rubbed it into the meat. Then I wrapped the meat securely in plastic wrap (like 3 times around), and let it sit in the refrigerator for 2 days. I could have let it sit another day, but I was getting a little impatient, honestly.

I woke up early one morning and dug out my Crock Pot. I poured 1/4 cup of water and 3 tablespoons of liquid smoke into the bottom of the liner, set the meat inside, turned it on low, and popped the lid on. And then I went right back to bed.

Some time later, I wondered if the pork was done. It hadn’t been 10 hours, but I was curious anyway. So I got my handy meat therometer (the kind with a cord that plugs into an alarm/sensor, I love it so much) and poked the meat. Voila! It was just over 200 degrees!

I took the meat out to cool and contemplated the juices and liquid left behind. I threw them out, but only because I intended to toss the meat with sauce when I reheated it. If I hadn’t, I would have cooled and skimmed the liquid to keep around for moistening the meat.

Once the meat was cool enough to handle, I grabbed my giant cutting board and started pulling hunks off of the . . . bigger hunk. I shredded all the meat with two forks, discarding any fat, and threw it all back into the (cleaned) Crock Pot liner.

Then I grabbed a bowl and mixed a couple of barbecue sauces I had on hand. One was a vinegary sauce, the other was a dark, sweet concoction that almosted tasted like candy. I played around until I got the balance I liked, and poured it over the meat in the Crock Pot. That went back on low while I made my potato salad to go with it.

And it was gooooood. The gf came home from work and pretty much lost her mind at the smell that was wafting through the apartment. We made Pulled Pork sandwiches and ate potato salad and watched stupid tv. And I finally got my barbecue!

Orange-Lace Cookies with Chocolate Drizzle

I once bought some Lace Cookies with dark chocolate from World Market and thought they were amazing.  The large cookies were made into sandwiches held together by the yummy chocolate.  So I went hunting for lace cookie recipes to bring to a Pre-Thanksgiving potluck that I attended last year.  I came across a few versions that included orange zest and hey! I LOVE orange and chocolate together.  And almonds.  So I tweaked a few recipes and came up with the following recipe.

A few notes: I went ahead and invested in a SilPat for this.  I had always wanted one and this seemed like the perfect reason to get one.  After making a few sheets thus far, I’ve gotta tell you . . . SilPat is the coolest thing ever in the world.  These have to be cooked on a greased surface and I HATE greasing the baking sheet between rounds.  This nips that in the bud.  I found a medium-sized one for about $20 at Bed, Bath & Beyond.

Also, most recipes called for either all brown sugar or all white sugar.  I hate that.  Since I was using orange, I thought a little brown sugar would complement that really well, but I also didn’t want to overpower the orange with too deep of a flavor behind it.  Which is why I’m using some of each.

On the nuts, yes, chop them by hand.  It’s not that big a deal and it gives you more control over the final texture of your cookie.  I found small packs of slivered almonds and those were a breeze to chop.  I don’t recommend using a food processor here, it will pulverize the nuts into dust and I think having some identifiable nuts is a good thing.

Lastly, I was making these last time and you know what?  I didn’t HAVE 1 1/2 cups of almonds.  After the chopping of 4 ounces of almonds, that gave me about a cup.  What to do?  I didn’t want to go to the store, dammit.  So I found some pecans in my cupboard, chopped those up, and made extra 1/2 cup.  And I really liked them both.  So do what you want!!  This might be good with lots of other kinds of nuts, like walnuts or hazelnuts.  Or with lemon zest.  Or whatever!  Yet again, I encourage mad kitchen experimentation.

Ingredients
1 1/2 sticks of butter (12 tablespoons)
1 1/2 cups chopped almonds
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon flour
zest of two oranges
1 egg, beaten
at least 8 ounces of semisweet or bittersweet chocolate

Method
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Melt the butter in a microwave-safe mixing bowl.  Add the nuts, sugars, flour, and zest; mix well.  Pour in the beaten egg (though honestly, I didn’t beat the stupid egg first because that’s an extra bowl to wash) and mix thoroughly.

Place your handy dandy SilPat (or greased parchment paper) over a cookie sheet.  Drop teaspoonfuls of batter about 2-3 inches apart.  The cookies will spread like you won’t believe, and you don’t want them overlapping.  On a standard cookie sheet, I’ve been able to get 4 across and 3 down without any problem or melding.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and slightly bubbly.  Check them at 10 minutes and see if the middles look brown enough.  For the first couple of batches, check them, close the oven, and count to 30.  It just takes a little patience to determine how they want to cook for you.  My oven took 14 minutes.

Remove the sheet from the oven and place it on a cooling rack.  Let the cookies cool for approximately 2 minutes before attempting to remove them.  Using a butter knife (a spatula is too thick to get under these delicate, girly things), pull up one edge of a cookie to test.  If stays together and wants to bring the rest of the cookie with it but still looks really flexible, you’re good to go.  Quickly transfer all the cookies to another cooling rack, preferably one with rods going in both directions (leaving no slats for cookies to slump through).

By the way, at this point the cookies are still flexible enough to shape into things.  Wrap them around the end of a wooden spoon to make little cookie tubes, or shape loosely into cones.  Hell, wrap them around the bottom of a cup if you want and make little fluted bowls out of them.  Now is the time for sculpting!

When the cookies have cooled, melt the chocolate over a double-boiler.  The chocolate kept cooling on me at the table while I was drizzling, so I stuck a heating pad under the bowl and turned it on high. This worked surprisingly well and it may or may not have been something Alton Brown recommended.  I honestly don’t remember.  I drizzled the chocolate with a spoon.  For the few cookies I shaped, those were strategically dipped in chocolate (tubes had the ends, fluted bowls had the edge).

Why I’m becoming famous, by sharon

I bet you didn’t know that I’m on a steady rise to fame, but I am.  And do you know why? Because I bring bacon wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheese and almonds to parties.

In fact, I was all set to bring something else to a party on Saturday, but the hostess said “Oh . . . well. That’s good. I guess. Or you could bring the bacon date things. PLEASE bring the bacon date things!!”

And so I was at the store today, buying ingredients for the bacon date things.  As I’m checking out,

Cashier: I gotta ask, why do you have this many dried dates? What are you up to?
Me: Oh, I’m making them for a party. You split the dates, remove the pit, stuff it with goat cheese and slivered almonds. Then you wrap bacon around it and cook it.
Cashier: Oh my god.
Me: Yeah . . . it’s kind of amazing. People lose their minds.
Woman behind me in line: What’s this? What are you talking about? You do WHAT do dates?
Cashier: (repeats what I just told her)
Woman: Oh my GOD.
Cashier: Honey, you just got invited to my Thanksgiving dinner. Which is now potluck.
Me: (laughing) They’re so easy, I swear. But they are insaaaanely good.
Woman: You need a card or something. It can say “Bacon-date girl.”
Cashier: But that sounds like she goes on dates and brings bacon.
Woman: I bet that would be just as successful. It’s bacon.
Me: (I’m done checking out at this point and I’m laughing really hard. I turn to leave)
Woman: WAIT! So tell me again, real quick, what do you do?
Me: (repeating the recipe)
Cashier: (hands woman a piece of blank receipt and a pen) Here, if you write it down can you give me a copy?

See there? People who’ve never even TASTED this are going crazy.  So here is the recipe. This is for a larger group, but can easily be multiplied or scaled down.

2 pounds of dried dates
8 ounces of fresh goat cheese (chevre)
slivered almonds
a big pack of thick-sliced bacon, 2 pounds?
toothpicks

I get dried dates for a reason. First, fresh dates can be hard to find. Second, I like the sticky texture against the creaminess of the cheese and the crunch of the bacon and almonds. Third, they’re a little sweeter, which plays nicely against the tanginess and saltiness. And this might be way more bacon than necessary, but what’s wrong with having leftover bacon in the house? It’s bacon.

With a small, sharp knife, cut a slit into one side of the date. Make sure you don’t cut it all the way in half. Open it up a little and pull out the pit.  I like to pit all the dates at once before moving on.  Get your goat cheese ready and make a pile of slivered almonds. Take, I don’t know, a teaspoon of goat cheese and stick it into the middle of the date. Poke a couple almond slivers down in there. Again, do this to all of the dates before moving on.

Cut your bacon strips in half. Wrap a half piece of bacon around each date, making sure the slit you cut is covered, and try to spiral around the whole date. Secure with a toothpick and place on a rimmed baking sheet. Once they’re all done (this amount may take 2 sheets) put them in the oven to BROIL, not bake.  Check and turn them every 4-5 minutes or so until the bacon is cooked through.  This might take a total of 15-20 minutes. Also, don’t have your sheet too close to the heating element. When they’re done, place the dates on a paper towel to drain the excess grease. Remove the now charred toothpicks and put them on a plate.

If you are making these ahead of time, you can store them in the fridge once they’re cooked. They’re best warm or at room temperature, so give them 10-15 seconds in the microwave to take the chill off.  Prepare to have random strangers ask if you are God (this happened to me once).  I’ll try to take some pictures of these and post them when I make this on Saturday.

Creamy Dill Pasta Salad

C brought home some really good pasta salad from Whole Foods a couple nights ago. I loved it! Bowtie pasta, chunks of feta, halved cherry tomatoes, and artichoke hearts all wrapped in a creamy dill dressing.

I was looking around for a recipe, and couldn’t find one anywhere. So today I’m trying my best to recreate it.

Ingredients:
1 pound of Bowtie (Farfalle) pasta
7 ounces of plain greek yogurt
2 Tbsp. mayonnaise
juice of one lemon
6 ounces cherry tomatoes, rinsed and halved
14 ounces extra-small artichoke hearts (10-12 count per can), drained, rinsed, and quartered
2 ounces of feta cheese, crumbled
salt
pepper
1-2 Tbsp. fresh dill, chopped (dried can also be used), to taste

Method:
Prepare pasta according to directions. Drain and rinse until cool, then let drain almost completely. Mix yogurt, mayonnaise, lemon juice. Add salt, pepper, and dill to taste.  Add pasta, tomatoes, feta, and artichoke to a large bowl. Toss gently with dressing to coat. Can be served room temperature or chilled.

Print this recipe!

THE potato salad, by sharon

Finally, after many people asking me over the years, “How did you MAKE that?” after tasting my potato salad, I am putting the recipe up.  This is slightly adapted from my father’s recipe, who got it from his friend Janice.  It is legendary, both in my household growing up and to anyone who has ever tried it.

One of the reasons it’s so good, I think, is that it gets rid of the things that most people don’t like about potato salad.  The most common complaints I’ve heard (and given) about standard potato salad is texture (too runny); flavor (too sweet); and the sometimes not appreciated addition of onion or relish.

Well, this recipe gets rid of all those problems and I guarantee that if potato salad isn’t usually your thing, this might change your mind.  Now, this isn’t an exact recipe because I’ve never bothered to measure things.  I know how it should be and I make it so.

For a decent party-sized batch (or enough to keep around for a few days), start with 5-6 baking potatoes.  Red potatoes would also work well.  Peel the potatoes (unless they’re red potatoes) and chop them into large cubes.  Rinse and boil with salt, a healthy dash of Tony Chacheres, and a tiny splash of crab boil (if you have any).  Boil the potatoes until they can be pierced with a fork, but no longer.  You want them to keep their shape, not turn into mashed potatoes.

Boil a dozen eggs and peel them.  Cut all the eggs in half and place the yolks into a separate bowl.  Chop the whites roughly and set aside.

While all this is going on, fry up some bacon (about a half pound).  Since it’s all going to be crumbled anyway, I cut the bacon into pieces with some kitchen shears (easier than chopping) and throw it into a pan to cook.  This is easier than standing over a hot stove flipping bacon.  Just stir it around until it’s evenly browned, then remove with a slotted spoon to some paper towels to drain.

Mash the egg yolks with a fork and add 1/2 – 3/4 cups mayonnaise, 1/4 – 1/2 cups sour cream (or plain yogurt), 1-2 tablespoons yellow mustard, and 1-2 tablespoons Dijon mustard.  Mix well.  This incorporates the egg yolks evenly throughout the potato salad and makes for a better tasting dressing.  Season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  You want this to taste a little strong, since it has to cover the potatoes and eggs (which are, for the most part, unseasoned).

I like to mix this up in batches, ensuring even distribution of ingredients without squashing the potatoes to all hell.  Pour a third of the potatoes, egg whites and bacon into your serving bowl, add a third of the dressing, and mix.  Continue to do this until you’ve used all the ingredients.  If you find you want more dressing, just mix more mayonnaise, sour cream, and mustard together with the seasonings and fold that into the salad.

This is good warm or cold, and of course just gets better the next day.  I made this today to serve with my Crock Pot Pulled Pork (another good dish) and it was a total success.

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A cookie update, by sharon

My friend, A, once pointed out that most people are either bakers or cooks—very seldom are they both.  And I think she’s right.  I think I’m a pretty good cook, but I have absolutely no instinct when it comes to baking.  That might completely change if I ever have a kitchen big enough to allow me to work with dough, but until then, thinking about the intricacies of baking is still scary to me.

More experimentation today, this time with the chocolate-orange cookies.  I’m trying to make a healthier version: less fat, less sugar, lower glycemic index kind of a deal.  My thinking is using something other than butter (Smart Balance for today’s trial), baking Splenda, brown sugar Splenda, and half oat flour.

So when I decided to tweak my cookie recipe, I didn’t know what to think! Would the oat flour change the rise of the cookie, does using less brown sugar (because the Splenda blend is much sweeter) change the way it creams with the butter?  What if what if?  And I don’t have enough experience to answer these questions.  A week ago, I tried a version of this cookie using agave nectar instead of sugar, rolled oats, only 2 tablespoons of butter, and some olive oil.

They were tasty, sure, and other people liked them.  But I don’t like chewy cookies, and all that extra liquid made them really chewy and soft.  Glad it wasn’t a total throwaway, but I wanted my favorite cookie, all crisp and dunkable. Hence today’s recipe:

Ingredients
1 1/2 sticks of Smart Balance butter substitute
1/3 cup baking Splenda
1/4 – 1/2 cup brown sugar Splenda blend
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cups oat flour*
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
the zest of 1-2 medium oranges, to taste
1 bag of dark chocolate chips (60% cocoa)
1/4 cup chopped pecans

*oat flour can be made at home by putting rolled oats into a food processor and grinding until it is fine and flour-like in consistency.  Since I am currently without a food processor, I buy Bob’s Red Mill, a brand that offers a lot of different gluten-free alternatives to traditional flour.

Method
Cream butter and sugars together.  Add vanilla and egg and mix thoroughly.  Add orange zest, mix, and let the batter sit for a few minutes so the orange oils really permeate the other ingredients.  Add the baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.  Gradually add in the flour, then stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoon onto a baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for approximately 10-14 minutes, until golden brown.  Allow to cool briefly, then remove cookies to a cooling rack.  Cool completely before storing.

And the verdict?  These aren’t bad! They’re more crumbly than my original recipe, but crumbly the way shortbread or peanut butter cookies are.  Still quite tasty and more to my liking than the last time I tried it.  Success!!

Dad’s Roast Beef, by sharon

I called my father yesterday for this recipe because 1) I love it and 2) it’s another thing that freezes really well. So here it is:

Dad’s Roast Beef

Ingredients:
a roast
salt
pepper
2 packs of brown gravy mix
Italian dressing (optional)

Again, I realize I’m being vague with the ingredients. Dad told me to get sirloin tip roast with the cap off, but then he said that because of the cooking method it wouldn’t really matter. So I got 2 small rump roasts. It’s way cheaper and I just tasted it, it’s perfectly fine.

Method:

If you want, marinate the meat in the Italian dressing overnight. You can do this right in the roasting pan. I did not use the Italian dressing method this time for a couple of reasons. One, I didn’t make it to the store until this morning. Two, it gives the meat a tangy flavor. While I LOVE love this flavor when this recipe is used for sandwiches, I prefer not using it if I’m doing this as a main dish. It’s up to you.

Get one of those big roasting pans with a lid. The kind they sell at WalMart for $12, you know, they’re usually blue with white speckles on them. Put the meat in there. Slap a little salt and pepper all over the meat if you didn’t marinate it. Roast the meat, lid on, at 220 degress for 7-8 hours. And that’s it. I swear. Don’t mess with it, don’t turn it over. Just leave it in there as your house starts smelling good and random dogs start howling.

When it’s done, remove the meat to a plate and let it cool. I poured the drippings into a bowl, stirred in some ice cubes, and let the juice sit in the freezer for about 30 minutes. That allowed the fat to rise to the top so I could skim it off and throw it into the garbage can. Not the sink. I know I gave this warning in the recipe for Chicken and Dumplings, but it bears repeating. Do not put fat down the sink. It will harden and clog your pipes. Okay, I’m done.

Once you’ve skimmed the fat, pour the juice into a large pot. I had a lot of meat, so I made a lot of gravy. I added about 1 1/2 cups of water, a dash of Kitchen Bouquet, and then whisked in the gravy mix. Then I brought the gravy to a boil. It wasn’t getting thick enough, so I made a slurry of cornstarch and water and whisked that in while the gravy was boiling. Then I cut up the meat and added it to the gravy. Okay, I sliced some of the meat and then the rest started falling apart because it’s VERY tender so I just went with it and let it do its thing.

I’m serving this with rice (because I LOVE rice and gravy, especially left over the next day) and peas. And I’m freezing half of the meat and gravy to use in a week or so. This is my new thing — freezing food for future dinners. And I would like to point out my lovely alliteration in the previous sentence.

And here is a picture of the complete meal:

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Cold-brewed coffee, by sharon

After seeing a post on smitten kitchen, I realized yeah! Why am I paying so much for iced coffee all the time?  She’s completely right about the delicious difference between cold brewing and using hot coffee gone cold.  Also, I used to pay quite a bit of money (once it added up) on Cool Brew or N.O. Brew coffee concentrate.  Times are tight and, as our subtitle on this site says, “cook it your damn self.”

Her recipe makes enough for 2 drinks.  But I am impatient and in love with coffee and never do things in a small way.  What if I suddenly want an iced coffee, but there isn’t any cold brewed available?  I’m supposed to wait 12 hours before I can drink it? Pshaw.

The basic recipe is 1/3 cup of coarse-ground coffee mixed with 1 1/2 cups cold water.  Let sit for 12 hours, strain, and refrigerate.

Naturally, I quadrupled that.  I let it sit in a giant mixing bowl all day and that night strained it (paper towel in a fine-mesh sieve) into a big ole pitcher that is now happily living in my fridge.  And let me tell you, it makes a divine iced coffee.  Between my various seasonings and syrups, I can have almost any kind I want.

Life is good.