The Voodoo Biker Takes over the Kitchen

Yesterday was the Voodoo Biker's (formerly known as the BF) day off. That meant he was in charge of dinner. Let me tell you, if I had a daughter I would tell her to find a man who can cook. It. Is. Awesome. Voodoo Biker has recipes and tricks up his sleeve that I'd never be able to replicate, so I don't even try. My latest favorite is his oven-fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

Voodoo Biker coats boneless, skinless chicken breasts in egg, then coats them in a mix of bread crumbs and flour.  He browns both sides in the cast-iron skillet on top of the stove, then cooks the chicken in the oven (obviously in the same pan) for 12 minutes at 400 degrees.  It's SO good.

This is all he'll tell me about his mashed potatoes:  Make sure you cook the potatoes long enough.  Add milk, butter, and sour cream.

I was in charge of the asparagus.  After breaking off the tough ends, I coated them with about 1 tbsp olive oil, sprinkled on coarse salt and blue cheese crumbles, and roasted them at 400 for 20 minutes.  Then I added a splash of balsamic viniagrette.  

What an awesome dinner. Sure I had to do the dishes (that's the rule...whoever doesn't cook, does the dishes), but it was SO worth it. Oh, Voodoo Biker serves the chicken with an awesome honey-mayo dip. Trust me, it's fabulous. If you are averse to mayo, honey mustard would be great too ;)

Homemade Popcorn

I'm sitting here at my desk eating my 10:00 a.m. snack.  Today it's homemade popcorn.  I am in love with homemade popcorn.  We started making it again (vs microwaved popcorn) because the BF said store bought microwaved popcorn was too salty.  Here's a pic of the last kernels of my snack today.

Here's how we make it:  In a medium pot that's made of a heavier metal (or really in any sauce pot you have) add 1-2 tbsp oil (enough to eventually cover the bottom).  When I use the 5 quart pan, I use 3 tbsp oil, but never more than that.  Add in 1 kernel of white or yellow corn.  I prefer white.  Don't ask me why because I really couldn't tell you.  Put the heat on medium (around 6 on my stove).  When the one kernel pops, add in enough kernels to cover the bottom of the pan.  Put the lid on.  When everything starts popping, shake occasionally and allow to continue popping until the popping slows way down.  If I can count to 3 without hearing a pop, I take it off the heat.  Add as much salt as you like, parmesan cheese, cinnamon...whatever you like, and enjoy!

Homemade Black Bean Burgers and Green Goddess Dressing

The BF and I are big advocates of vegetarianism.  As long as you continue to get a good amount of protein, we feel like it's healthier than eating meat.  We also aren't fans of large cattle and chicken processing plants and farms; that being said, we do enjoy steaks and grilled chicken...so we haven't fully converted.  If I could always buy locally raised and processed animals products, I might feel differently, but I can't.  So, I try to eat less meat and more veggies.

Tonight I was in the mood for black beans...and I was in the mood for burgers.  So I decided to make black bean burgers.   I've never made them before, but I figured what the heck?  I read a few recipes on my favorite new recipe site, foodily.com.  I came home with a plan...which came unhinged when I remembered I'd used all the mushrooms up the night before.  No matter!  I would persevere.  I DID have a recipe for the Greek Goddess Dressing (which I didn't follow).

Julie's Spring Green Goddess Dressing

In a food processor add the following:  1 tbsp dried (or 2 fresh) chives and the same amount of basil.  Then add 2 tbsp fresh chopped parsely and 2 tbsp fresh chopped tarragon.  (Whichever of the 4 you have fresh, use 2 tbsp, of the dried, use 1).  Add like 1/4 tsp lemon grass puree or 1 tsp lemon juice.  Add 1 shallot or about 3 tbsp or 1/4 cup chopped onion.  Add 1/4 cup mayo.  Blend until well-mixed.  Scrape everything out of the food processor into a bowl and add 3/4 cup sour cream (or, if you're me and don't have that much sour cream on hand, add enough mayo, sour cream, and ricotta cheese to make 3/4 cup).  Refrigerate for 30 min.

The burgers:

Start by chopping 2 tbsp parsley, 1/4 cup onion, and 2-3 tbsp red bell pepper.  If you hate onions or bell pepper, you could substitute mushrooms, corn or maybe even finely chopped beets?  Throw all this in the food processor.  Add 1 egg, 1 tbsp oil.

Along with the above ingredients, add 1 can of drained and rinsed black beans, pepper, 1/4 cup bread crumbs (seasoned).  Leave out the steak seasoning...it's not necessary.  Blend everything slowly - pulse.  Once it's all just mixed into a paste, empty into a mixing bowl.  This should be a scraping-out-of-the-bowl process.

Add another 1/4 cup breadcrumbs and 1 tbsp whole wheat flour.  Mix with your hands.  It's going to be sticky.  Before shaping into patties I recommend spraying your plate with cooking spray; spray your hands too.  Shape into 4 patties.  See how pretty? Grill the burgers over medium-high heat for 5 min on each side.  Add cheese and melt.

Put a large dollop of Julie's Spring Green Goddess dressing on each side of your bun.  Top with chopped tomatoes. Add your burger patty, sliced avocado, and lettuce.  Enjoy!

 

Chard--who knew?

Until Sunday, I'd never had chard.  Chard?  What's that?  It's a leafy green with over a day's worth of Vitamins A and K in a serving!  It has half a day's worth of Vitamin C.  The flavor is really mild, like spinach, but I think it holds up better to sauteeing than spinach does.  I decided to do a chard saute with caramelized onions and red wine.  Here's basically what I did (you know I don't ever have an exact recipe!)

Cook about 1 cup thinly sliced onions in 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp oil until golden.  About 20 minutes over medium low heat.

Chop chard (or tear) and rinse well.  Allow to drain and dry thoroughly.

Add bunches of chopped chard to the onions, along with 1 chopped garlic clove.  Shuffle around each bunch of chard until slightly wilted, then add more.

At the end, when all chard is added and slightly wilted, add a splash (like 1/2 tbsp) of red wine.  Toss everything and cook a minute or two.  Final product--wilted chard with caramelized onions and red wine.

To go with this, we were having leftover lasagna.  For whatever reason I thought I needed another side dish and I wanted something slightly decadent.  I took small brown button mushrooms, dusted them off with a damp paper towel, and cut off the stems.  Then I came up with these beauties:

Melt 2.5 tbsp butter and 2.5 tbsp olive oil in a sauce pan or shallow pot.  Add 1/4 cup red wine.  DRY wine. Add in a small carton of button mushrooms (brown or white).  Allow mixture to simmer, with a lid, over medium heat for about 10-15 minutes or until mushrooms are super soft.  Turn the heat up to medium high and allow the liquid to reduce until all wine is cooked out.  Serve warm!

Apple Sauce Oatmeal "kitchen sink" cookies

Really, I do actually start things with a recipe.  I just rarely follow it exactly.  Take today for example:  I planned on making "Peanut Butter Oatmeal Ranch Cookies."  Then I had some leftover Thai stuff for lunch with peanut sauce and decided I'd had enough peanutty taste for one day.  So what I ended up with were these:

Getting ready for the oven

Yummy!  Cooling off.

Here is the original recipe, with my substitutions in italics.  

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 cup oats (old fashioned or quick)

1 cup (packed) light brown sugar

1 stick salted butter, softened (Mine was most likely unsalted...I'm not looking at the box so I can't be sure.)

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I substituted 2 tbsp canola oil and enough applesauce to make 1/2 cup total - that's oil + apple sauce combined.  Unsweetened apple sauce.)

1/4 cup honey

2 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla

6 ounces raisins (about 1 cup) (1/2 cup raisins and 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips)

3 ounces sunflower seeds (about 1/2 cup)

Preheat the oven to 300.  Combine the dry ingredients (flours, oats, baking powder) and whisk a bit.  In a medium bowl, mix the sugar, softened butter, apple sauce/oil (or peanut butter), honey, eggs and vanilla at medium speed until everything is blended together.  Add the dry ingredients + sunflower seeds, raisins, and chocolate chips to the wet mix.  Mix just until combined (I do this with a spoon, but you can do it with a mixer as well.) 

Drop by spoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 18-22 minutes or until the bottoms are browned.  These won't spread out a lot, as you can see from the picture above, but they are super good!  If my calculations are close to correct (and they very well may not be), they had somewhere between 75-100 calories each, depending on how many you make.  I made 39.

I think you can probably add anything to these as long as you keep about the same measurements...coconut, pecans, dried fruit...whatever you like!

It's pretty easy cooking green...

I must've been in a green mood today.  Maybe I'm finally ready for Spring?  I'm craving bright tastes, bright colors, and warmth.  Therefore, tonight's menu consisted of: tarragon-pistachio pesto on whole-wheat pizza dough, pasta with spinach and a creamy bechamel sauce, and roasted broccoli.  Here is what was left on my plate when I stopped eating long enough to take a picture:

 

 So, let's get started, shall we?  First I made the pesto because it could easily be refrigerated while everything else was cooking.  If you want the pizza crust recipe, I think I have posted about it before...you can always email me!  For the pesto you will need:  tarragon (2 tbsp fresh or 1 tbsp dried), 1/2 cup chopped, fresh parsley, 1 clove garlic, 2 tbsp shelled pistachios, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 tbsp lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Blend everything except the olive oil in the food processor.  Then add in the olive oil and blend some more.  Add 2 tbsp water.  Blend again.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  That's it!  That simple.  It's a great pasta sauce, a great topping for breads...yummy.

Next I worked on the spinach.  I used about 1 lb. fresh spinach.  First, wash it all, obviously.  DON'T dry it.  Put the majority (all but like 2 handfuls) in a large deep pot and cook over medium heat, with the lid on, until it all wilts down.  Then drain it and keep the liquid.  I did this by draining it in a strainer over a bowl.  I left it there for a bit to cool while I did some other prep work and then squeezed all the water out.  All the spinach (the raw and the cooked) needs to be finely chopped.  Once you've done this, put it aside.  

In the mean time, cook 1 lb. pasta.  Whatever shape you like, but not long spaghetti noodles.

The spinach gets added to a Bechamel sauce.  This really isn't difficult.  Melt 4 tbsp butter in that same large pot you cooked the spinach in.  Once the butter melts (medium heat...) add 1/4 cup of flour.  Whisk these together and keep whisking for a full minute or so, so that the flour cooks.  Add 2 cups milk.  When it begins to bubble, (about 5 min later) whisk more and add salt and pepper to taste.  Then add a sprinkle of nutmeg.  Taste.  If you don't taste any difference, add a little more.  At the most, add 1/4 tsp nutmeg.  Trust me, it'll make a difference!  Add in the reserved spinach liquid (about 1/4-1/2 cup) and whisk.  Take it off the heat.  It should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, but not so thick the spoon will stand up in it.  Mix in both kinds of spinach (raw and cooked) and add in 1 lb. cooked pasta.  

Ah, the broccoli.  While all that other stuff is going on,  sort of slice 1 head or 2 of broccoli.  Keep all the florets and stems sort of nice and long.  Spread everything out on a sheet pan, add 2 tbsp oil and shuffle everything around to make sure oil gets on all the broccoli.  Roast at 425 for 10-12 minutes, then kick it up to 475 for another 5-10 until it starts to get brown and crispy around the edges.  

Ta-da!  You're all done!  What a healthy and green meal.  I hope you have someone else to wash the dishes ;)

Rainy Day Soup

Yesterday for dinner I made enchiladas with homemade enchilada sauce.  If you're interested in that recipe, and I suggest you try it, it's here.  Today turned out to be rainy and gross and I really was in the mood for soup.  We still had 4 enchiladas left over, so I wanted something that would go well with that.  I pulled down my gigantic The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking and found a recipe for corn soup (the original is at the end of this blog).   Not having the total amount of corn that I needed, I looked further and found a recipe for avocado soup...what's below is some sort of bizarre combination with some other things thrown in.  It isn't as pretty as I'd like, but it tastes great!

1.  Start by chopping 2 red bell peppers, sprinkling them with salt and 1 tbsp oil, and roasting them at 475 for 15 minutes.

2.  While the peppers are roasting, finely chop 1 onion and 2 cloves garlic.  Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large pot over medium heat, and add the onions and garlic.  Saute for 10 minutes.
3.  Add 1 1/2 cups thawed corn (I used frozen and just microwaved it for 2 minutes first) and about 1/2 cup of roasted green chilis or a 4 oz can of canned green chilis.  Add 1 avocado, chopped. Saute this for a few minutes.  When the peppers are done, add those and mix together.

4.  In small batches, add the soup ingredients to your food processor.  You'll need to use 3 cups of chicken broth TOTAL.  I added 1 cup into the soup mix in the saucepan, then used 2 others while blending everything in the food processor.  Process the soup until smooth (or mostly smooth).  I left a little bit unprocessed just for texture.  Pour everything back in the soup pan. 

5.  Add 2/3 cup 2% milk or light cream.  Add salt and pepper and let everything come back to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.  Grate 1/2 cup pepper jack cheese and stir in until melted. 

Garnish with sour cream and hot sauce.  Like I said, it may not be the prettiest, but it sure is good!

Original Corn Soup Recipe
Milton, Jane.  "Corn Soup" The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking.  London: Hermes House, 2000. 

2 red peppers
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3-4 cups corn niblets, thawed if frozen
3 cups chicken stock
2/3 cup light cream
salt and ground black pepper

1. Dry-fry the peppers in a griddle over medium heaet, turning them frequently until the skins are blistered all over.  Place them in a strong plastic bag and tie the top to keep the steam in.  Set aside for 20 minutes, then remove the peppers from the bag and peel off the skin.
2.  Cut the peppers in half and scoop out the seeds and cores. Set one aside.  Cut the other into 1/2 inch dice.
3.  Heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add the onion and saute over low heat for about 10 minutes, until it is translucent and soft. . Stir in the diced pepper and corn and cook for 5 minutes over medium heat.
4.  Spoon the contents of the pan into a food processor, pour in the chicken stock and process until almost smooth.  This processing can be done in batches if necessary.
5.  Return the soup to the pan and reheat it.  Stir in the cream, with salt and pepper to taste.  Core, seed and cut the reserved pepper into thin strips and add half of these to the pan.  Serve the soup in heated bowls, garnished with the remaining pepper strips.

*Cook's Tip: Look for roasted red peppers in jars.  These come ready-skinned and are useful in all sorts of recipes.  Used here, they make a quick soup even speedier.