Roasted chicken, pan-roasted potatoes, and creamed spinach.....shut the front door!

So tonight's dinner is all about food that simply makes you feel good.  You take a bite, and all's fine in the world.  I guess it just takes you back to somewhere familiar and comfortable....

The ingredients are simple and basic.  Take one roasting chicken, wash it and dry it off.  In a small bowl, blend together a stick of butter, some chopped up rosemary, the zest of half a lemon, fresh chopped parsley, and salt and pepper.  Try to dry the chicken as well as you can, and rub the butter mixture all over the chicken.  Cook in a 400 degree convection oven, or 425 regular oven for about 1 hour.

Next up, potatoes.  Simple and easy.  Cut up how ever many potatoes you feel like cooking!  Heat up your pan with some olive oil and fresh garlic and saute the potatoes.  Once they start to brown, cover and turn down so that they cook through.










Remove the cover and season with any blend of seasonings close to my Moroccan spice blend.  I think the key ingredients are parsley, mint, onion, a little cinnamon, some marjoram, and salt and pepper.  There is just a hint of cilantro, so if you are adding fresh cilantro, go easy!  This is something you are going to want to keep tasting to see what they need.










The last part of this meal is the creamed spinach.  I was really surprised when my daughter requested it, because I thought I was the only one in my family that liked creamed spinach!  This is so easy to make.  You start by making a roux... 2 tbs of butter and 2 tbs of flour.  Blend into a paste and let it get slightly brown.  Add half of a chopped onion and2 cloves of garlic, chopped.  When they are tender, begin to add some chicken broth.  The only seasoning you need is salt, pepper, and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Don't make the sauce too thin at this time, because when you add the spinach, the sauce will thin out a bit.

Once you have a nice sauce consistency, add your fresh spinach.  I had a large bag to use, but you can use how ever much you need.  The heat of the sauce will wilt the spinach to just the right consistency.
Again, as I always say, you need to take a taste to see if it needs any more salt and pepper.  If the sauce is too thick, feel free to add more chicken broth.  If you want it creamier, add half and half instead of the chicken broth.

Just in case you want to see what the final product looked like, here it is.....





So there you have it.  Very easy..... not many ingredients.... and only about an hour to cook everything!

Have a feel-good night!

Brined Pork Chops.....there's nothing like them!

I know I have blogged about brining before, but the effect it has on pork chops is unbelievable.  Any time I have cooked pork chops, they always seem to come out dry.....no matter how I cook them!  So, for the longest time, I just avoided them!  I would revert to tenderloin or country-style spare ribs, etc... but no chops! 

I was turned on to brining around Thanksgiving time, when all the talk was about brining your bird.  And, I have to tell you, it made such a huge difference in how moist the turkey came out.  So, I decided to look up brining pork chops, and low and behold it is a tried and true practice for chops that melt in your mouth!  Well, there you go..... I went out and bought a package with high hopes!

I had bought a package of brining spices from Colonel De's that consisted of rosemary, cloves, juniper berries, and a few other spices.  If you have never brined before, follow this recipe:  

• Scant 2 cups (15 oz.) water
• 6 tablespoons (3 oz.) kosher salt
• 1 small brown or white onion, sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, whole but peeled
• 4 sprigs thyme (you could also use rosemary or sage)
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns, roughly cracked
• 1 lemon, halved
• 18 ice cubes (15 oz.)
• Pork, chicken or turkey

Instructions

1. In a medium saucepan, combine water, salt, onion, garlic, thyme, bay, peppercorns and lemon. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring until the salt has dissolved. Take mixture off of the heat, cover and let steep for 10 minutes.
2. Add ice to a large bowl. Pour over hot brine and stir until the ice has melted.
3. I’ve depicted the brine above in a baking dish, but I’ll have to admit, this was just for aesthetics. Normally, I use a large freezer bag. Place pork chops (or chicken or turkey) into a large freezer bag. Add brine and seal tightly. Let sit for 3 hours at room temperature.
4. Rinse pork chops under cold, running water, pat dry then set aside. Discard brine. Let pork chops rest for 1 hour before cooking or transfer to the refrigerator to use later.

I mixed some flour, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and pepper, and coated the chops. Now it's time to brown them....

Heat up a good, heavy fry pan with a little olive oil and butter, and brown on each side for about 5 minutes.  When you are done, pop them in a 375 degree oven for about 10-15 more minutes, just to finish them off.

I had a bag of brussel sprouts in the fridge, so I cut them up, doused them with olive oil, a minty seasoning (savory, mint, thyme, marjoram and parsley), salt and pepper, and roasted them for about 15-20 minutes, stirring every once in a while.

That, along with a batch of brown basmati rice, and you have one delicious meal!

A new way to have poached eggs on toast!

I have always loved poached eggs, even though they are not the easiest thing to cook.  We have a local restaurant that created this poached egg breakfast that is so delicious, I decided to see if I could replicate it.

This only works if you have fresh mozerella cheese, tomatoes, and basil, so make sure you shop before trying this!  Otherewise, it is very easy to make.  I make sure I have all the ingredients ready to assemble, before I start poaching the eggs.   I found these really cool silicone "poachpods" that make cooking the eggs a breeze.  You float them in boiling water and cover the pan.  I think they cooked in about 5 minutes!

Toast some nice rustic artisan bread,  butter it and place the mozerella cheese on  first.  Next spoon the eggs over the cheese, followed by the tomatoes and basil.  That's it!   A little salt and pepper and you are good to go.  

I'm telling you, the flavors all together are really delicious.

 

A Great Appetizer...Bacon and Tomato Cups

This is one of those appetizers that not only tastes really good, but you just can't help but say how beautiful they look!  And, anything with bacon in it is always delicious, right?  And just to round things out, they are really easy and cook in 10 minutes.  So, read on....

First, pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.  Chop one medium-sized tomato (I had cherry tomatoes, so I chopped about 10-12 of them.  You can add more less to your liking), 1/2 of a Vidalia onion, and crumble approximately 8 slices of cooked bacon.  Mix in 1/2 cup of mayo and about 3/4 cup of shredded Swiss cheese.  I had Monterrey Jack cheese, so I used that.  I don't think it really matters what type of cheese you use!    The last thing to add is fresh basil.....again, how ever much you would like.

Add some salt and pepper, and you are ready to put everything together.

Get out a muffin pan.  If you have a mini-muffin pan, use that.    The recipe calls for crescent rolls, but I think this would be really delicious with puff pastry dough as well, so maybe try both!  Open the rolls and cut into strips, then cut each strip into fourths.  Press one piece of roll dough into the bottom and sides of the ungreased pan.  Spoon a small amount of the mixture into each dough cup.

Pop them in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the crust is browned.  Let them sit for about 5 minutes and use a rubber spatula to remove.

They really are as good as they look!

 

Feel like a little stir fry tonight...bring on the pork tenderloin!

Tonight is a perfect example of my cooking, when I have no idea what to make!  I was supposed to have dinner with my sister, but plans were cancelled at the last minute.  So, here I am at home at dinner time.  All of my kids are out, so I am the only one here, and am trying to figure out what I feel like eating!  As I have said many times before, when in doubt, you never can go wrong with pork tenderloin.

So, let's see what you think of my creation!

I sliced two tenderloins, and marinaded them in soy sauce, a little olive oil, some chopped ginger, a couple of crushed garlic cloves, a little corn starch,  and sesame oil.  I would have added a little sherry if I had some!

I cut up a Vidalia onion and half of  a green pepper and cooked them.  When done, I placed them in a bowl, so that I could cook the pork.  I added a few cut up mushrooms to the onions, figuring the heat from cooking them would just about take the chill off the mushrooms.

I warm the pan up so that I can now cook the pork,  a small amount at a time.  The whole point is to cook everything hot and quick.

When all the pork is cooked, I add it to the onion and pepper mixture, and dump in a bunch of pine nuts.  You could add peanuts or cashews if you have either of them on hand.  I had a bottle of Oyster Sauce that I added to this, along with the end of a bottle of General Tsao's sauce.  In other words....whatever you have on hand that has an oriental flavor would work!  I worked with the flavors of ginger, garlic, soy sauce,  and then whatever else I could find.  The corn starch you mixed in with the pork will work well at thickening your dish.

The last ingredient I want to add is some ramen noodles.  I cook 3 packages in a separate pan.  I drain off the broth, and mix the noodles into my  creation.

After giving it a taste, I only needed to add a little more soy sauce.  I have to say, for having no idea what to make for dinner, this came out pretty darn good!  

Feel free to experiment and add more veggies if you have them~ nothing is set in stone!

I'm thinking Navy Bean Soup is in order!

For some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about Navy Beans yesterday.  I finally heeded to my thoughts, and decided to do a little research on Navy Bean Soup, seeing as I had never made it before.  I must have read through about 20 different recipes until I got a handle on what it is all about.  Now it was time to start creating my own!

Unfortunately, I am starting out with a bag of dried beans.  Thank goodness for Google!  I found out how to  do a quick soak, which means bring them to a hard boil for 5 minutes, then cover, remove from the heat and let sit for one hour.  In the meantime, I could get everything else ready to go.

I put 8 cups of water in my soup pot, along with 2 ham hocks I had in the freezer.   

 

I roughly chop the Vidalia onion, along with about 5 carrots, 4 cloves of garlic, 4 ribs of celery, and add all of this and the beans into the pot with the ham hocks and 8 cups of water.  The recipe calls for fresh sprigs of thyme, rosemary, and  bay leaves. Now, since I don't have fresh herbs, I figure I could use dried herbs, but some how I need to keep them all together.  I grab a coffee filter and put the dried herbs in and tie it with string.   Instant spice bag!

 

I let this pot simmer, covered, for about an hour.  Because the ham hocks really didn't have much in the way of meat on them, and I didn't have any ham left over,  I decided that sweet Italian sausage would be the perfect addition to the soup.  I took the casings off of 6 sausages, broke them up and cooked them.  When done, into the pot it went.  I had a can of petite diced tomatoes that were just dying to take the plunge, so in they went as well.



At this point, it's time to start tasting.  I decided to add more thyme, some garlic powder, and nutmeg, along with salt and pepper.  One recipe I read said to put a few tablespoons of butter in, and I thought that would give it a little bit of richness, so I added that as well.....Once I got the flavors right, I was was one happy camper.

 

So, there you have it.  It's almost impossible for me to follow one particular recipe as you can tell.  I am constantly thinking of what else I could add to make it taste even better.  If I had more time last night, I probably would have added some fresh spinach..  Oh well, that will be the next time.  Hope you like this!

Cooking the New Year's beast...

It's always hard to plan my "Christmas dinner," partially because I have an open house all day on Christmas, so it doesn't happen that day.  I then planned to do it on the following weekend, which was this past weekend, when we all started getting sick, one at a time.... so that didn't happen.  I then had a brilliant idea!  I'll just cook it on New Year's Day....voila!  New Year's Day Dinner 

Beef tenderloin has to be one of the easiest and friendliest of meats to cook.  It takes less than an hour in the oven, the flavor just can't be beat, and you can pretty much cut it with a fork...You just have to do a few things before it goes into the oven.  To begin with, you need to remove as much of the silver skin that is on the outside of the meat as you can.  The easiest way to do this is to take a small sharp knife and get the blade right under the skin.  When you have some of the skin to hold on to, pull up on it as you shave the blade along underneath.  

Sprinkle some Montreal Steak seasoning, onion powder, and garlic powder all over the entire roast, pressing it on to the sides.   The last step is to tie the roast together, to get it as uniform in shape as possible.  The thin end of the roast can be folded under and tied.

I cut a bunch of individual pieces of string and tie the roast every inch or so.  You want it to be just tight enough.

Now it's time to braise the entire outside, getting a nice crispy coating.  The only pan that fit this beast was my griddle, so I pre-heated it to medium high.  Let each side sizzle for at least 5 minutes.  Make sure all sides are nice and brown.   Next stop, a 450 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes.  I want the internal temperature to be about 125 degrees for medium rare.  If you prefer your meat more cooked, adjust the internal temperature up to 130 degrees.   Once it reaches that temperature, I take it out of the oven, tent it with foil and let it sit for about 15 minutes.  Cut the strings off, and enjoy a small slice of heaven!

I served this with my really delicious potato "cookies" (just click on the cookies and it will take you to the recipe) and some sauteed broccoli... all in all a Christmas dinner that was well worth the wait!