BAH Note: My note in the margin says to “reduce adobo and make a double batch”.
1 large onion, diced
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 can chicken broth
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup peanut butter
3 tablespoons Minute tapioca
2 teaspoons minced chili in adobo sauce
2 pounds chicken thighs, skinned
Combine the onions, vegetable oil, chili powder, cocoa powder, cinnamon and cloves in a microwave safe bowl and heat on high for 5 to 10 minutes, until the onion softens. Transfer the onion spice mixture to the crock pot.
While the onion and spices microwave, season the chicken with salt and pepper.
After transferring the onions to the crock pot, stir in the chicken broth, tomatoes with their juices, peanut butter, tapioca, and chipotle. Add the chicken, cover and cook 4 to 6 hours on low until the chicken is done.
Transfer the chicken to a cutting board to cool slightly then shred it into bite sized pieces.
Allow the juices in the crock pot to settle and skim any fat from the surface before adding the chicken back to the pot.
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (5 to 7 ounces each)
1/2 cup grated parmesan (use the good stuff here)
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons olive oil (a herb infused olive oil is lovely for this)
Heat oven to 450 degrees and line a half sheet pan with foil. Place chicken breasts on the prepared pan. In a medium bowl, combine the parmesan, panko, salt, and olive oil. Pat the panko topping onto the chicken and cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the topping has browned.
Adapted from Cooking Light The Complete Quick Cook
6 to 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
Heat the oven to 475 degrees and line a sheet pan with aluminum foil.
While the oven heats, combine the chili powder, cumin, paprika, and salt in a small bowl. Place the chicken thighs in a large bowl and coat completely with the spice mixture. Transfer the thighs to the prepared baking pan.
Bake for 10 minutes then carefully turn the thighs over and cook on the other side for another to 10 minutes.
While the chicken cooks, combine the honey and vinegar in a small bowl. After the chicken has cooked on both sides, baste with the honey mixture. Cook for 5 minutes before turning the chicken over, basting with the remaining honey mixture and cooking for another 5 minutes
3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and quartered
6 shallots, cut in half
1 tablespoon bourbon (optional)
1 1/2 teaspoons course ground mustard
Bring 3 cups of cider, salt, pepper, and coriander to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from the heat, add the ice, and cool completely. Transfer the brine to a large zip top bag, add the pork loin, and refrigerate for 8 hours.
30 to 45 minutes before you’re ready to cook, remove the pork from the brine, dry with paper towels, and let sit at room temperature.
When ready to cook, heat the oven to 375 degrees and melt the butter and oil over medium heat in a large oven safe frying pan or dutch oven. Add the pork and brown it on all sides. Transfer the pork to a platter and cook the shallots and apples for 5 to 10 minutes until they begin to brown lighly.
Return the pork to the pan, add the remaining 1 cup of apple cider, and cook until an instant read thermometer inserted in the center of the pork registers 155 degrees. Transfer the pork to your serving platter and cover with foil for 10 minutes.
Return the pan to the stove top, add the bourbon (if using), and allow the sauce to reduce slightly. Whisk in the mustard, add salt and pepper to taste, and thin with additional apple cider if desired.
Serve slices of the pork topped with the apple shallot sauce.
BAH Note: Feel free to use just about any vegetable. Pam suggests sliced mushrooms, halved cherry tomatoes, thin asparagus, diced leeks, or even thawed frozen spinach.
Place oven racks in the top and bottom position and heat oven to 400 degrees.
Roll the puff pastry out on a lightly floured surface until it is just larger than a 1/4 sheet pan. Transfer the puff pastry to the sheet pan, trimming off any overhang, and docking the pastry all over with a fork.
Spread the butter braised onions, or vegetable of your choice, into a single layer on the pastry. Bake on the bottom oven rack for 10 to 20 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden brown.
While the puff pastry bakes, heat the evaporated milk until it is just warmed. In a separate bowl, use a fork to beat together the eggs, salt, pepper, thyme, and sour cream. Once the egg mixture is completely combined, stir in some of the warmed evaporated milk, about a tablespoon at a time, to temper the egg mixture. Whisk the rest of the evaporated milk into the egg mixture before pouring the egg and milk mixture into the puff pastry and evenly sprinkling the cheese on top.
Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees and place the sheet pan on the top rack. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes or until the egg filling is just set. Then set the oven to broil and allow the top of the quiche to brown for about 2 minutes.
BAH Note: Leftover risotto can easily be reheated in the microwave. For a single serving, add a tiny bit of butter to the risotto and cook for about 3 minutes on 50% – 60% power.
Place the 7 cups of chicken broth in a pot over low heat to warm.
Heat the olive oil in a dutch oven set over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook for approximately 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is beginning to soften. Stir in the sliced mushrooms and cook for another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the rice to the dutch oven and stir to coat the rice completely in the olive oil before adding 1/2 cup white wine or chicken broth. Cook, stirring constantly, until the liquid has reduced almost completely.
Reduce the flame under the dutch oven to medium low and add the warmed chicken broth in 2/3 cup increments, gently stirring and allowing most of the liquid to cook down in between additions.
After about 30 minutes, start tasting for doneness. You want the rice to become tender but still have a little bit of chew to it. When the rice is chewy-tender, stir in the baby spinach and stir to allow the leaves to wilt and combine with the rice.
Remove the dutch oven from the heat and stir in 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese. Taste for seasoning and add kosher salt and black pepper to taste before serving.
Adapted from a website that my dial up connection took me to back in the early days of the internet. My apologies for not being able to credit an actual source.
BAH Note: IF I recall correctly, this recipe was part of some Cooking For One feature…maybe in the Baltimore Sun or Washington Post. I found it back in my days of when I was cooking for one. But it is beyond easy to scale it up to serve however many mouths you’ve got to feed. The ratios I use below makes enough for The Mistah and I and have leftovers.
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion, chopped (approximately 1 cup)
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup currants
1/4 cup mango chutney
6 pieces bone in chicken thighs, skin removed
1/2 cup basmati rice
1 cup chicken broth, heated
Heat the oven to 325 degrees.
Melt the butter in a dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until it begins to soften, approximately 5 minutes. Add the turmeric, lemon juice, currants, and chutney and stir to thoroughly combine. Place the chicken pieces in the dutch oven and use tongs or your hands to completely coat them in the onion mixture. Add the rice and hot chicken broth to the pot, cover, and place in the oven.
Bake for 60 – 90 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the rice has softened.
The following post appeared on BAH on 10 August 2009.
In the kitchen, timing is everything. Food is done when it’s done. You get a little wiggle room with some dishes. Others are not so forgiving. Worst of all is when you’ve unknowingly overcooked something. Like that time I made baked eggs. I was expecting something along the lines of maybe a soft boiled or poached egg. What I got was tough and rubbery. Seriously, my fork kept bouncing off the whites as I tried to cut into them.
I did not pay attention to a cardinal rule of cooking – timing involves more than watching a clock. Yes, paying attention to how long a recipe says it will take is important. But so is paying attention to how it smells and looks. Every time SFC is cooking, I try and explain not to just go by how many minutes are on the timer but to use all the senses. Clearly, I need to remember my own words.
I scaled the recipe to make two servings. If I can get this to work they way I think it’s supposed to, I bet it would make a great brunch dish or an easy weeknight dinner.
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon crushed dried rosemary
1 can (15 oz) diced tomatoes in juice
1/2 can (15 oz) crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup grated parmesan
4 eggs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set two 12 ounce ovenproof bowls on a large rimmed baking sheet.
In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium flame. Add garlic and rosemary; cook, stirring until garlic is golden, about 2 minutes. Add diced tomatoes with juice, crushed tomatoes, and 2 tablespoons parmesan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally until slightly thickened, 2 to 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Divide tomato sauce between bowls, reserving 1/2 cup. Crack 2 eggs into each bowl and top with reserved sauce and 2 tablespoons parmesan. Bake until egg whites are just opaque, yolks should still be soft, 24 to 28 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through.
if loving this is wrong, i don't want to be right.
Before 2012, the only Sloppy Joe I ever knew came out of a can. It had been years since our last meeting and honestly, I hadn’t given Joe much thought since then. Joe was just a piece of the past…a cheap means to a quick end when dinner had to get on the table. It was survival cooking which I hope I have left far, far behind me. But there’s no reason for me to snub Joe now because our past relationship was not healthy.
In most relationships, you can’t change your partner. All you can change is your own expectations and reactions. My relationship with Joe is one of the exceptions. Joe yielded completely to my wishes. Without argument Joe became exactly what I asked. No longer defined by a list of chemical and preservatives with dubious nutritional value, Joe went natural.
I won’t lie, it wasn’t quick. It took time. And patience. But now Joe is hearty and filling on my terms. With some planning by me to identify a block of time for Joe to do his thing in the crock pot and a little work to clear freezer space for him to chill out in afterwards, I now have a healthy relationship with Joe. Without much more effort required to brown my ground beef and open a can, I still have budget friendly means to an easy meal.
BAH Note: If you don’t have at least a 12 inch frying pan to work with I recommend browning the ground beef in batches. I was going to say scale the recipe down by half but these are too good not to make the whole batch and stash some in the freezer. Really. That good. I promise.
3 pounds ground beef (I used 2 lbs 90/10 and 1 lb 80/20)
1 large onion, chopped
1 large red pepper, diced
2 carrots, peeled and grated
18 ounces tomato paste (that’s 3 cans)
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon hot sauce (optional)
Cook the ground beef in a large frying pan, working in batches if you need to, over medium heat until it is lightly browned (no longer pink). Transfer the ground beef to the insert of your crock pot, straining off and saving the juices and fat from the pan.
Combine the onion, red pepper, carrots, and beef juices in a large microwave safe bowl. Cook on high power for 10 minutes, stirring halfway through.
While the vegetables soften in the microwave, combine the tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, and spices in a bowl. Stir until they are thoroughly combined.
Add the softened vegetables and tomato paste mixture to the crock pot, stir to completely combine all the ingredients, cover, and cook on low for 6 hours.
this is the actual pasta i used. there were no leftovers to document its existence.
Things have been a little weird lately. I feel like I can’t string together a story to save my life. Is it possible that after nearly five years of blogging I’ve finally run out of things to say? Maybe. But there is definitely weirdness to me in not sitting down regularly and writing.
We are knee deep in our adoption home study. Reports are being written, facts are being gathered, referenced are being interviewed. It’s a lot of hurry up and wait to get to the next part of the process. And frankly, there’s not a lot of anything I can actively manage about this part of the experience. I can’t plan, or make, or do anything in a physical sense. So there’s weirdness in the sense that I feel like I “should” be more engaged and excited about this than I am right now.
There’s also been house weirdness. Just in the last few days our doorbell has started ringing at unexpected moments. As a matter of fact, about halfway through the previous paragraph, it rang. I didn’t bother to check and see who was at the door though. That’s because for the last six months or so our doorbell has been sitting in a dish on a bookcase. It’s one of those remote systems that has a battery operated button that sticks to your door frame and a ringer that hides away somewhere inside your house. The adhesive on the button gave out last summer and I kept finding it laying on our front porch. So I brought it inside and dropped it in the dish where we keep our keys, meaning to find some stronger adhesive and reinstall it outside. Over the weekend, the bell just started ringing.
I figured maybe the keys were pressing the button and activating the bell so I moved things around a bit in the dish. The bell rang again. Then I took the button out of the dish and set it face up on the bookcase. That was yesterday. Today the bell has gone off three times. I know the reasonable solution is to take the batteries out of the thing but I kind of like the idea of someone’s energy finding a way to let me know they came by to say hello…as long as they don’t do it in the middle of the night.
What does any of this have to do with pappardelle with mushrooms? Not a damn thing. But like I said, the storytelling is giving me fits.
BAH Note: I am terrible timing my dishes so that they are all done at the same time. So while my water came to a boil, I started on the sauce. When I got to the point where the chicken broth had reduced by half, I turned off the heat and let it sit until the pasta had gone into the water. I then finished off the sauce and kept it on a low flame until it was time to introduce it to the pasta.
8 ounces pappardelle pasta
1 pound mushrooms, thickly sliced
1 teaspoon italian seasoning
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup heavy cream
zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup grated parmesan (optional)
Bring a large pot of well salted water to a boil and cook the pasta according to the package’s direction.
While the water heats and the pasta cooks, combine the olive oil and butter in a large frying pan over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add the sliced mushrooms, italian seasoning, and salt to the pan and cook until they have released their liquid and begin to brown, stirring often. Add the chicken broth to the pan and cook until the liquid has reduced by about half.
Slowly stir a few tablespoons of the reduced pan sauce into the heavy cream to temper it. Then add the tempered cream to the frying pan and whisk to combine. Stir in the lemon zest and taste for seasoning. Add additional kosher salt and black pepper to taste.
Once the pasta has cooked, drain the noodles and add them to the pan with the sauce. Stir to allow the pasta and sauce to combine and then stir in the grated parmesan if using.
Bon Appetit Hon 