strawberry shortcake

so what if it's breakfast on saturday?  it's spring, dammit, and i wanted some freshly made strawberry shortcake!  it's a perfect breakfast food: a combination of warm biscuits and fresh berries.

oh, and sugar.  well, i didn't say it was the perfectly healthy breakfast food...

but yeah, this is how i've had strawberry shortcake since i was a little kid.  i know that some people swear by those little sponge cakes they sell in the grocery store (inevitably next to the strawberries this time of year), but i think the whole crumbly cake texture is unpleasant.  say what you will about store-bought canned biscuits, they're quick and easy...and they taste just fine.  sure, you could probably improve on perfection by making your own biscuits, but that takes planning and more time.

ingredients:
- strawberries
- sugar
- a can of flaky biscuits

preparation:
talk about simple.  bake the biscuits in the oven according to the can instructions.  while they're baking, wash the berries, cut them up, and dust them with sugar to help bring out the juices.  total prep time is about 15 minutes.

butter a biscuit, dump berries on top, and enjoy!

verdict:
how can you not like it?  the juice soaks into the biscuit and softens it up without making it fall completely apart.  it's sweet but not as cloying as you might if the bread portion were also sugared up (like if you used sponge or angel-food cake).  if you were feeling particularly fancy, i suppose you could apply some whipped cream.  if you must.

but me, i like it simple.  just like i grew up eating it.  thank you, mom!

pork and pineapple

this past weekend, i cooked a pork tenderloin and a pineapple casserole.  for whatever reason, i didn't get around to typing it up for documentation purposes on sunday night.  and i was too busy hiding under blankets on my futon for the rest of the week.  it was cold!  but now, on the first day of spring, it is sufficiently mild that i don't have to huddle under covers for warmth.

but yes...when i went to the store in search of a suitable cut of meat for use with a spice rub packet i bought in brevard, i didn't find any beef roasts that looked even halfway decent.  so i settled on a whole pork tenderloin.  it looked good, anyway.

before i go on, i got the spice rub at a little shop called spice it to a tea!  it's a neat little shop in downtown brevard, and they have all sorts of spices, flavored salts, flavored sugars, olive oils and vinegars.  to say the least, it smells nice inside.  this particular roast rub packet contains sea salt, mustard seed, garlic, anise seed, black pepper, onion, fennel seed, coriander, sage, thyme, and rosemary.  quite a bit going on, but again...it smelled nice when i bought it.

preparing and cooking my meal probably took upwards of two hours.  and in total, i expect the pork to last about six brian-sized servings.  the pineapple casserole lasted a little less.  and just so you know, the pork was NOT as red as the picture below makes it appear...try as i might, i couldn't get the camera to show the true color of the meat.  it was sufficiently cooked, but the light just wasn't cooperating with me.  proof: i'm alive and did not suffer from food poisoning!

ingredients (pork):
- pork tenderloin (about three pounds)
- spice rub packet (one ounce)
- olive oil
- apple cider vinegar

preparation:
to start with, i lined a 9" x 13" pan with aluminum foil (for easier cleanup) and placed the tenderloin inside.  i then made a paste with the spice rub, a little olive oil, and a little apple cider vinegar, which i applied to the entire pork.  it mostly stayed on the top, but there was enough to apply some to the edges, as well.  the pork went back in the refrigerator while i started preparation of the pineapple.

ingredients (pineapple):
- 3/4 stick margarine (melted)
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 can (20 ounces) of crushed pineapple

preparation:
grease a dish with the margarine.  i typically use a round pyrex dish and use the microwave to melt the margarine in it, and that seems to work.  mix in the flour, sugar, and eggs, and stir well.  once all the flour and sugar lumps are smoothed out, stir in the pineapple.  for the heck of it, i sprinkled in a little cinnamon this time, too; i've never done that before, but i thought i'd see what happened.

cooking/timing:
heat the oven to 350°F and bake the pineapple casserole for about an hour.  the custardy mixture should be set (stick a fork or toothpick in, and it shouldn't jiggle around all that much).  this was the first time i've cooked the casserole in this oven, so it took a little longer than normal for me (about an hour and 10 minutes).  personally, i prefer the pineapple casserole if it's cooled for a little bit before serving.  and i certainly don't reheat it the next day...cold from the refrigerator is the way to go!

i put the pork in the oven (also at 350°F) when there was about 20 minutes left on the casserole timer.  total cooking time was about 40 minutes.  take the meat out of the oven and let it rest a few minutes before cutting.

verdict:
the cinnamon looked a little weird in the pineapple, and i think it may be because the top of the casserole didn't brown nearly as much as i normally expect.  possibly my oven runs a little cool, or possibly having the pork cooking simultaneously stole some heat from the pineapple dish.  regardless of appearances, though, the pineapple was (as always) delicious.  still, i don't think the cinnamon really added much, so i may not bother with it in the future.

the pork was an interesting experiment.  that first day (last sunday), the spice didn't seem like it worked with the pork harmoniously.  although the pork was tender and was well-seasoned, some of the flavors were slightly out of whack.  after being in the refrigerator overnight and being reheated, though, the flavors seemed to have melded a little better.  still, though, i don't know that i'd use this particular spice rub with pork again; it seems like it might work better with beef.  also, i'm not really sure i like the occasional crunches of anise seasoning...licorice flavor just seems odd with meat.

overall, i was relatively pleased with it.  especially when serving the dishes with some steamed broccoli.  yum!

ham and vegetable soup

you know how you always want soup when it's cold and you're sick?  and how you never want to cook homemade soup when you have that runny nose?  astonishingly, i made some soup about a week or so ago -- just days before i came down with a cold.

it wasn't a terrible cold as colds go (i've fought much, much worse viruses before), but i was very glad that i had some pre-made soup.  even if it wasn't chicken, it was still pretty darn tasty.  i really don't know why my mom gave me the ham stock (i figure it was the remnants of a honeybaked ham), but i certainly won't complain!

ingredients:
- one container of ham stock, with ham bits (i'd guess a couple quarts)
- one can cannellini beans
- one can black beans
- one can corn
- one can stewed tomatoes (i use the kind with basil and garlic)
- carrots (i used about three)
- garlic (i used about four cloves)
- kale (i used about 1/4 pound)
- celery seed
- seasonings (sage, thyme, rosemary, pepper, basil)

preparation:
i put the ham stock in my big soup pot and added the beans, carrots, tomatoes, celery seed, and seasonings.  as i brought the pot up to a simmer, i peeled and chopped the carrots, and i smashed and chopped the garlic.  those ingredients also went in the pot.

while the soup is simmering (covered, stirring occasionally), i washed the kale and pulled the leafy bits off the stems.  maybe the stems are edible, but i treated it like the thick parts of lettuce that i always pull off.

after the soup simmered about an hour (my metric for doneness was when the carrots began to get tender), i added the kale.  at this point, i simmered/stirred the soup for another five minutes, after which i served and enjoyed.

verdict:
not that i mind, but i'm mildly surprised that the ham stock wasn't saltier.  maybe all the other vegetables sort of watered it out (i try to stick with vegetables with low sodium content), and maybe i just added the right mixture of seasonings.  either way, it seemed like an unexpectedly light soup.  the kale works, though it's better after reheating; i think it may take a little longer than five minutes to cook the kale all the way...but with five minutes, it doesn't make the kale overcooked on subsequent nights.

i'm undecided whether i like this soup better than the roasted vegetable and chicken soup, but it's certainly worth maintaining in the recipe bin!

scotch eggs

my sister gave me a copy of the joy of cooking for christmas...and it has been sitting on my coffee table where it can be thumbed through at night and on weekends.  because who knows when inspiration might strike for a new culinary experiment!  in this case, i somehow wondered whether the book contained knowledge of scotch eggs (possibly because one of my friends had been talking about frying brussels sprouts).  lo and behold, it did!

now, until a few years ago, i didn't even know what a scotch egg was.  but then i tried one at the renaissance festival (wonderful institution), and i decided that they were quite wonderful.  so for the similarly uninitiated and deprived, scotch eggs are hard-boiled eggs that have been encapsuled in sausage and fried.  delicious!

i fully expected my first attempt to be less than completely successful, so i didn't want to go for a full batch.  for my initial experiment, i kept the batch size to four.  total time (prep and cook) for this was about 30 minutes.  four eggs is probably enough for two sittings.  i'll also speculate that they would work quite well as superb owl party appetizers.  astonishingly, though, i forgot it was superb owl sunday until this afternoon.  go figure.
 

ingredients:
- eggs
- sausage (i used neese's with extra sage just because it looked interesting)
- flour
- oil (i used canola)

preparation:
hard-boil the eggs.  for those who haven't done it before, put the eggs in a pot of cold water (enough to cover the eggs) and bring to a boil.  remove the pot from the heat, cover, and let sit for 12 minutes.  rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process.  shell the eggs and be sure to leave the egg intact.  i will say that the most tedious part of this process involves deshelling the eggs.  i admit breaking a couple of the egg whites, but it didn't stop me from making use of them for my experiment.

while the eggs are hard-boiling, form patties with the ground sausage.  the book's recipe calls for two ounces of sausage per egg.  once the eggs are ready and shelled, wrap the sausage around each egg.  i found that a long, rectangular patty of sausage was easier to manipulate than a round patty.  dredge each scotch egg in flour to prepare for the frying.

add oil to a shallow pan (i used an eight inch cast iron skillet) and bring up to a medium high heat.  once hot (i.e., a drop of water in the oil starts popping), put two eggs in and begin browning the sausage.  roll the egg around to thoroughly cook all parts of the sausage; i found that it took about 3-4 minutes to fully cook each egg.

remove the cooked eggs, put on a paper towel to absorb excess oil, and repeat with remaining eggs.

verdict and lessons learned:
for an initial experiment, i am quite satisfied with the results.  in fact, i'm glad i ignored the cookbook's recommendation to dunk the flour-dredged sausage in raw egg and breadcrumbs before frying; i think that would have been an unnecessary step that added little value and/or taste to the final product.  that said, there were several things that i will do better and/or differently next time.

1. don't overcook the hard-boiled eggs.  i noticed that the yolks of my scotch eggs were darker yellow, which seems to be indicative of being overcooked.  while 12 minutes seems to be a reasonable time to let eggs cook for normal hard-boiling, i suspect that the frying process continues to cook (and then overcook) the yolks.  next time, i'll try hard-boiling for only 10 minutes.  further refinement may be required.
2. cover the eggs in more sausage.  the two ounces of sausage per egg (as recommended by the cookbook) is clearly insufficient.  during the frying process, the sausage separated from the egg.  i suspect that the direct  contact between egg and oil exacerbated the problem of overcooked yolk.  next time, a little extra sausage should be added to ensure full coverage.
3. use a slotted spoon during the frying process.  today, i used a metal spatula to rotate the eggs in the oil.  a slotted spoon would make removing the fully-cooked scotch eggs easier (using a fork to balance the egg while trying to drain the oil is more difficult than it looks.

greek tacos?

so i had some feta cheese sitting in the back of my fridge, and i decided it was time to use it up.  my initial thought was to get some lamb and play around with that.  but then i realized how expensive lamb was.  so i decided to play with something else.  i got some ground pork and ground chicken (on sale!) and decided to make some stuffed pitas.

unfortunately, the pita bread i got turned out not to be the pocketed variety.  so it turned into tacos.  and given the feta cheese and spinach (not to mention the pita bread), it seemed to be more of a greek version.  which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

this took me maybe 30 minutes total...and it only took that long because i didn't realize at first that i turned on the wrong stove burner.  silly me.  this probably amounts to four "tacos."

ingredients:
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 lb ground pork
- garlic (~3 cloves)
- crumbled feta cheese
- baby spinach
- grape tomatoes
- assorted spices (ground hot pepper, celery seed, basil, sage, rosemary, paprika)

preparation:
mix the ground meat into a large pan, and add the garlic (chopped up).  brown over medium-high heat (with the various herbs and spices) until the meat is cooked.  drain the grease.

add the meat, cheese, spinach, and chopped grape tomatoes to a pita.  enjoy.

results:
the bread wasn't doing what i wanted.  first, it wasn't a pocket pita...something that can be dealt with.  but second, the pita fell apart when i tried to eat it like a taco.  so i ended up using a fork to eat it like a salad.  that said, it all mixed together nicely.  except i really could have used a crunchy element.

i don't necessarily think i used traditional greek flavors, and the meat itself wasn't well-seasoned (i tried a couple pieces alone just to check), but it did work with the saltiness of the feta.  i suspect if i made some sort of sauce, things would've come together even better.  the long and the short is a worthwhile dinner...but my "greek" cooking obviously needs work.

chicken pie

it's been awhile since i've cooked something that hasn't already been posted and/or is worthy of documenting.  and although it got warm again (seriously, what's with the 9°F temperatures one day and 60°F temperatures the next?), i decided i wanted some chicken pie.  this is a recipe that's made its way through the family...i got the basic recipe from my mom, and i'm pretty sure she got it from someone from my dad's side of the family (cynthia).

total prep/cook time was about 2 hours (give or take), and the recipe makes what i will guess is about eight brian-sized servings.

ingredients:
- about 3-4 lbs chicken parts (i got split chicken breasts and some chicken livers)
- 2 cans cream of chicken soup
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup self-rising flour
- 1 cup milk
- 3/4 stick margarine
- celery (2 ribs)
- carrot (1 large)
- 1 small white potato
- 1 medium sweet potato
- green peas
- garlic
- seasonings

prepping the chicken:
put the chicken in a big pot and add enough water to cover.  add a stalk of celery, a couple cloves of garlic, and lemon pepper for seasoning.  simmer over mediumish heat for about 40 minutes.  remove the chicken, pull the meat off the bones, and put it in the bottom of a 9" x 13" pan.

prepping the vegetables:
peel/slice the carrots, slice a rib of celery, cube the white potato, and peel/cube the sweet potato.  spread the vegetables in the pan with the chicken.  sprinkle peas on top; i probably used a half-pound of them.

filling:
put about two cups of the chicken broth (from cooking the chicken) into a separate pot and mix in the soup.  bring the mixture almost to a boil and pour over the chicken.

crust:
mix the flour, milk, and melted margarine and pour over the top of the casserole dish.  i added black pepper to the flour (for taste) and paprika (for color).

bake at 425°F for 35 minutes (or until lightly browned).

results:
this recipe does not originally call for potato (or sweet potato).  i figured potato would work well, and i thought i'd try sweet potato just to see what would happen.  in this case, it adds a touch of sweetness that works well...especially in combination with the carrot.  overall, i am pleased.

i will say, though, that i had a lot of filling in my dish, and some of it bubbled over the top.  fortunately, i had the oven liner on the bottom, so i won't have to deal with cleaning it up later.  also, i decided that freezing the remaining chicken broth was worthwhile.

i have plenty of leftovers for awhile!

Amateur Crockpot Chicken Vindaloo

Guest Entree Entry

This recipe is inspired by a trip to one of my favorite small cities - Brevard, NC.  If you haven't been to Brevard, you need to go, today; seriously, stop what you are doing and head that way!  There are so many awesome little shops, including a new favorite - Spice it to a Tea.  Highly recommended by all the chefs on this blog. ;)

 

Now, the recipe below is a mash up from about 4 recipes I found online.  I picked the ingredients I knew I could attain at a reasonable price as well as the ingredients I was familiar with... This Indian cuisine typically has a lot more steps, but I am somewhat lazy... I mean afterall I used a Crockpot!

2 tbsp extra light olive oil

½ c Swanson’s 99% fat free chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 + ½ onions chopped
2 tbsp garlic minced
6 garlic cloves
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 Vindaloo Curry Powder tester packet from Spice it to a Tea Brevard, NC
1lb skinless boneless chicken breast cut into 1 inch cubes

If possible, marinate all the above ingredients overnight (which I did).  Place everything into a Crockpot and stir around until it’s evenly mixed.  Let it cook for either 4hrs on HIGH or 8hrs on LOW.  I did 4hrs on HIGH.

Serve over Jasmine or Basmati rice (I use the Basmati Uncle Ben’s 90 second rice). 

In case anyone was interested in the calories of this meal, we are looking at ¼ of the Vindaloo concoction at 280 calories (11g Fat, 20g Carbs, and 24g Protein). And half of the pouch of the rice is 220 calories.  Add the two together and you get a well balanced 500 calorie meal (50% Carbs, 25% Protein, 25% Fat).

 

Verdict:  It was OK for "Vindaloo" but I could tell it was very Americanized since I used common American ingredients.  I would tweak this recipe in the future.  With it being cooked in a Crockpot, the original moisture was retained, so I would nix the chicken broth.  It was a little too soupy for what I was expecting.  Also, some of the recipes I looked at said to use tomato paste.  With that being said, I would also incorporate that in the future to make it a little thicker.  But if you are looking for a semi-cultured dish with mild Indian-inspired flavor, this is it.