PW: Steak Fingers

I have no idea how I ended up finding this recipe last week.

Pinterest?

Sweet As Pie?

Facebook?

Just plain landing on The Pioneer Woman page and seeing it?

No clue.

I think it came to me in a vision.

But in any event, I bought the chop steak, or finger steak, or whatever it's called near you, and as tends to happen, I didn't get to cook it promptly.  Into the freezer it went -- and then this past Friday, Mick and I grabbed a few things to defrost to cook.  That was kind-of silly, because we knew we were not going to be home on Saturday.  We cooked Sunday and Monday and then, staring at me as it had done a week ago, was the tray of chopped steak, all alone in the fridge, waiting for some attention.

And slowly turning brown while it waited.

I made stuffed pork chops yesterday, and I've got a crazy-busy afternoon and evening ahead of me, so I got home from work just now and thought, "It's now or never."  I despise throwing away food. To me, it's the epitome of wastefulness, and I'm ashamed to say we end up doing it too frequently. I'm working on that. WE are working on that.

But back to today's lunch:  I loooooove country fried steak.  I also love pan gravies.  When I first started blogging and Sweet As Pie started, I made PW Chicken Fried Steak.  I was so excited about it, and it was nothing short of a disaster.  One of the reasons was that the steaks were just unbearably tough.

Today, my friends, I beat the ... bliss ... out of the chopped steak.

These are delicious!

Okay, so the plate doesn't photograph well, not one bit -- and to make it worse, I used my cell phone. But man, it's pretty and delicious in person.

And pretty delicious.

Best of all, from the time I walked in the door to the time I sat down and ate was one hour -- and that included emptying the dishwasher, checking the mail, and prepping and cooking the entire meal.

--Jen

Full disclosure: CAM was my breader-eggwasher-breader.  But still ... this is easy, quick, tasty, and (at least in person!) pretty. Also, the recipe called for two pounds of steak, but I only had slightly over one pound -- and we just about ran out of breading.  I'd do 1.5 times the flour mix if I made the full batch.

PW Catch-Up Post

When I was having trouble posting photos to Blogger, I took a hiatus from posting my recipe results.  Now the photo issue seems to have resolved itself, but I don't have it in me to sit at the computer all night.

So, please accept my apologies for doing this in a combination post, but I wanted to at least make an effort.  And now that I think about it, there will be a few other stand-alone posts coming your way.  But since these go way back (and I foolishly didn't write them as I cooked -- what a dummy!), I don't necessarily remember all the details and I'm not sure these recipes warrant their own posts anymore.

PW Pineapple-Upside Down Cake

Verdict: Oh my goodness!
Cook it again: Yes, but only for a crowd.
Cost Factor: Canned pineapple and maraschino cherries were the only non-pantry items.  $8?

I'd never made one of these before and was a little nervous.  Not because of the difficulty of the recipe, but because I wasn't sure I'd care for it.  Pineapple upside-down cake?  Clueless.  Strange, I know... there are weird pockets of things I've never tried that make people look at me funny. 

It bakes right in a cast iron skillet, and other than the nice burn I got on my arm from accidentally leaning into the skillet when Mick and I tried to flip the cake out of the pan and onto a platter, this recipe was fantastic.  And how cool is it to cook a cake in a skillet?!  It's always fun when you get to do that, right?!  PW says it's best to eat it warm, and boy-oh-boy was she right.  It makes an ENORMOUS amount of cake, though -- best to bake it for a crowd, if you are able to.  For our little family of four, with Mick not super into cakes, we ended up throwing away a lot.  (And it didn't reheat nearly well enough -- it tasted best right out of the oven!)  We used to have home-cooked dinners with Caitlin's godparents a good bit when we were in Georgia, and this recipe would have been the perfect cake for those nights -- you can prep it while you're having cocktails with your guests (it's that easy), and throw it in the oven while you eat dinner.  Then it will be hot and ready just in time for a fresh, delicious dessert.  In fact, even though I have no idea if any of us in that group would have necessarily loved or hated pineapple, this recipe made me especially miss those nights.


PW: Pumpkin Cream Pie

Verdict:  People liked it.  CAM looooooved it.  I didn't try it.

Cook it again:  Probably ... for a big enough crowd where there's a demand.  It was easy enough and a nice change from regular pumpkin pie.
Cost factor:  I have no idea!

Prior to this Thanksgiving endeavor, I'd never made a graham-cracker crust before.  Holy moly are graham crackers expensive!  I don't know what's in grahams, but I need to invest in some stock.  But the crust?  Oh, my goodness... it was two things in equal proportions: ridiculously easy and ridiculously delicious.  I could have stood at the counter and eaten the crust all alone.

(I didn't.)

(Maybe a little.)

As you know, I can't stand pumpkin -- or anything in the squash family, for that matter.  That made this recipe torturous, because it involves pudding and oh!  I soooo wanted to like it when I dipped my finger to taste it ... I mean, it's pudding!  It must be good!  But I didn't like it.  (Point of fact: I liked it when it was just vanilla pudding and nutmeg and whatever else, but once I added the pumpkin, my heart broke a little.)  I just don't like the taste of pumpkin, and although I'd hoped the texture aspect would be overcome by this "cream" cake (more like a cheesecake, really) -- it didn't happen.

The filling on the stove.  Oh, how desperately I wanted to like it!

CAM, on the other hand, LOVED this pie.  I have never seen her enjoy anything more.  That sounds silly, but it's true.  She asked for the pie for every meal, and this pie over all others.  She absolutely, positively, could not get enough.  With the exception of the few slices everyone had Thanksgiving night (that would be four, we had plenty of pies), CAM single-handedly ate this entire pie.

[Pretend I have a photo of the actual finished product here.  I kinda forgot to take one ... you know, with it being Thanksgiving and all!] 

Anyway.  About the recipe.  You make the crust.  You press it down.  You call your husband to help because your pie dish is a little smaller than the amount of crumbs you have, and you need his superman strength to help compress it.  You make some concoction with pudding and other stuff and canned pumpkin, and you pour it all in the pie dish.  It sets up similarly to a no-bake cheesecake, and you serve it the next day after your fabulous Thanksgiving dinner.

Everyone likes it, but your daughter really loves it.

The end.




PW: Red Velvet Cake

Verdict: Not bad!
Cook it Again:  Definitely
Cost Factor: Pantry items, plus red food coloring (which is also a pantry item in my house, but I always replace it when I use it, so I count it here).

Our cooking club wasn't clear about whether to use PW's layer cake recipe or the recipe on the blog, which is for a sheet cake.  I compared them, and they were identical -- with the exception that the recipe online called for more red food coloring -- but the recipe online also called for a non-cream-cheese "best frosting you'll ever have," and although that was hardly the point of the recipe, I was intrigued.  (I've got a buttercream down pat, and a cream cheese frosting down pat, and I already have a pretty decent recipe for a red velvet layer cake that, when I don't over bake it and dry it out, is delicious.)  Plus, I was hoping to make this to bring to our extended-family Christmas party and it was easier to do that in sheet cake form.  The combination of the ease of the sheet cake and the claim to be the "best" icing meant the blog recipe won.

If you look carefully, there are little butter flecks in the frosting.  That's because my butter wasn't soft enough and I was impatient when I was mixing it.  It did not affect the taste, but if I'd been more on the ball, it would have looked a little prettier, for sure.

This recipe -- like every red velvet recipe I've seen -- calls for mixing the red and the cocoa separately from the rest of the batter and then mixing it in.  I need to call Alton Brown and ask why red velvet cakes are that way.  (Also, Alton, if you're reading: what's the purpose of the vinegar that's also in so many recipes?)  But it was easy, and just the right balance of sweet versus chocolate.  (If that makes sense?  Hopefully so.)  And although one person said she thought it was a little bland, others raved, and no one complained.  It was a hit, no doubt.  I really liked the frosting, too -- a nice change of pace and apparently, from the countless comments I've since read online, the original way red velvet cake was iced back in the 60s.  Red velvet's having a second heyday now with the cream cheese frosting, but this other recipe was wonderfully sweet and simple, and just a tiny bit off from the expected, because you could taste the fact that it's made with butter.

This recipe was a success, but I'm probably lame-o because I was a bit turned off by its need for a cup of shortening.  Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather use butter than Crisco.  I know, I know ... and from everything I read, red velvet really came to be in the 1960s when Crisco was the rage.  So I have to wonder what would change, or how I could modify this, to get rid of at least some of the Crisco required. On the other hand, I have no idea if it really matters.  It wasn't as if the cake tasted terrible, not by a long shot!  The cake was great!

And check out how pretty:

I cut up a cardboard box, made two layers for strength, and wrapped it in foil.  I didn't have to worry about the cake sliding, and I didn't have any dishes to bring back home!

I did learn, though, that the original red velvet cakes got their "red" from beets or other natural colorings.  Independent of the fact that I like this recipe and will likely make it again, I think I'm also one day going to try a more natural version.  Not because I'm a health nut (I had bbq potato chips for breakfast, my friends), but because that kind of stuff fascinates me.  I love learning more of the science of cooking -- what the color is like, what the flavor is like, how I have to make other accommodations, all that stuff.  Besides, if we're going all "as it was originally" with the frosting, may as well go all in -- at least once.  :)

--Jen

Pioneer Woman: Italian Chicken Soup

PW: Italian Chicken Soup*

*Not Italian Wedding Soup. Clear your mind. Because if you are craving Italian wedding soup, you will not appreciate this quite as much.  Just sayin’.

PW Italian Chicken Soup

Verdict:  Yummy!  It makes a lot, but for a family with kids older than 3 and 5, not an overwhelming amount.  And the leftovers are even better.

Cook it Again:  Yes, but for our family, we’ll halve it.

Cost Factor:  $10ish?  Maybe closer to $15, depending on the price of chicken and tomatoes.

This was another recipe I couldn’t post about when I was having the photo issue.  Since I knew that was going on, I also neglected to take many photos.  I apologize.

The ONLY thing I can say bad about it is that I had it in my head that it would resemble an Italian wedding soup, and it didn’t – and that threw me at first.  Truth is, I still can’t tell WHY mine doesn’t look like the photos, but based on the ingredients it never would have tasted like IWS.  (Also, I have no idea, other than the use of ditalini and tomatoes, what makes this particularly Italian, per se.)

So … boil up some chicken.  The recipe calls for a whole fryer chicken cut up.  I went to our (dwindling, sadly!) freezer stash of bone-in split chicken breasts and boiled them instead … it was easier for me than pulling chicken from thighs, drumsticks, and so forth.

The one moderately negative thing about this recipe is that it is pot-heavy.  I use heavy pots, so for me it was heavy-pot-heavy.  Hah!  (No, really.  Not very funny.  Very labor intensive. Which was nice, because while I was cooking and cleaning, I was working out.  Smaht, huh?!)  Seriously, if that’s the worst of it, you know it was a nice meal.  But I really did think about taking a snapshot of my stove while the soup was cooking, because it was so ... impressive (as long as you didn't know it was all one giant effort for soup)!

In any event, while the chicken is boiling you need to cook up some ditalini.  I left mine al dente, knowing it would simmer again in the soup.  PW mentions in her blog that she doesn’t like to let the macaroni cook entirely in the soup, because she fears it makes it overly starchy. For my money, I’m not sure it mattered, but it was certainly fine to do it this way.

You also need to chop and cook one onion, two bell peppers, two jalapenos, and two celery stalks. They get sautéd in olive oil. And in addition to that, you need to separately quickly wilt some oregano in oil.  Fresh or dry doesn’t matter, but that's another pan there, kids.

Once you have the chicken ready, PW says to use 8 cups of low-sodium broth; I just took 8 cups of the broth I had just created by boiling the chicken.  Then I added the chicken back in, the veggies, and chopped tomatoes from a 28 oz can of whole tomatoes.  (You have to chop them but preserve their juice.)

I'm not getting into too many details here because I didn't take as many photos as I should have... but the short version is that you cook this, add two cups of heavy cream, and there’s your soup.  

Here’s where I don’t understand what happened.  I did not make any alterations to the recipe, but my soup was substantially more tomato-y than the photos in the cookbook AND the photos of other cooking members.

My soup.  Actually here it looks even creamier than it really was.

PW's soup.  I stole this from: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/09/italian-chicken-soup/  Point is, hers looks broth-ier.  But maybe it's the blue bowl??

So, let’s get to the point.  In the end, this is a chicken-noodle soup that adds tomatoes and cream.  It’s a nice hybrid – not a tomato cream soup, but a soup with tomatoes and cream.  I also appreciated it because it really got to the heart of what the cooking club was about, at least for me -- I learned something.  It never would have occurred to me to put cream in a broth-based soup. I know that sounds ridiculous -- I've made my share of chowders, after all -- but it's true.  This was a nice way to stumble upon the very pleasant result when you do mix the two. 

I’d recommend it, both for cooking and for eating.  It’s hearty, but not a minestrone; it’s flavorful, but there’s still room for calling out one or two flavors over the others – kick up the jalapeno, kick up the salt/pepper, kick up the broth with some bouillon … whatever you like.  It’s easy to cook, and there are ways to make it even easier.  I came home from work and started prepping and cooking around 3, and we ate at 5:30.  Now, this kind-of is a long time -- but that took into account all of the prep and all the cooking, and I didn’t think it was unreasonable for a soup.  The nice thing is that if you want to make this but don't want to spend that much time on a weeknight, there’s a lot of advanced prep work you can do to make this the kind of recipe where you dump everything in a stock pot and let it simmer for 45 minutes while you're doing other stuff.

I’ll make this again.  It’s not the best soup I ever made or had, but it’s tasty and worth making, and I think now I have a few ideas on how I'll tweak the recipe for whatever audience I might have. 

--Jen

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PW: French Onion Soup

In the spirit of catching up on my posts ... and hoping that these photos will work this time ...

A Tutorial:  How to Make French Onion Soup Completely NOT according to the Recipe

Verdict: Decent.  Not the best ever, but some of that’s my fault.

Cook it again: Tough call.  On the one hand, I want to try to redeem myself, but on the other hand, I have since discovered another recipe I like better.  So, maybe.

Cost Factor: Gruyere and French bread are the only two things not always already in the house, so not bad. The next biggest expenses are onions and broth.

 

First of all, I love French Onion Soup. And then, B, I own an inordinate amount of ramekins.  And yet, I’ve never made French Onion Soup (well, other than pouring Lipton mix into a tub of sour cream, if that counts)*, because I always thought it would be too much work. 

Not quite true … but I did manage to make this recipe more complicated than necessary.  Here’s how to repeat my stellar performance:

 

First of all, when the recipe calls for chopping six onions, try to buy a particularly potent batch. Make sure that these particular onions make you cry so hard, and make your nose run so much, and make it so that all told, you have such trouble breathing from the stinkin’ onions that when your mom calls, she thinks something is dreadfully wrong.

 

Then, punt and chop only three small ones instead of the six the recipe calls for.  (Because you're in agony and can't bear it any longer, of course.) 

 

Next, follow the directions about cooking them on the stovetop, and pause to be pleased with yourself, and eventually put them in the oven for two hours as the recipe says.

 

Open some windows, because you’re still crying and ... oh!  the burning eyes!  The burning eyes!

 

Peek at the onions, which are supposed to be browning in a dutch oven with the lid ajar.  Refer to the PW blog and see that her pot lid is off-center by about an inch, so crack yours about half an inch.   

 

Wait 30 minutes and check on your onions.  Decide that there’s no browning happening and crack the lid a little more.  Proceed to burn the onions to charred little crisps.

 

Decide that you’re working with damn burnt onions because this recipe has a lot of steps and you’re not starting over – especially since that would mean chopping more onions. 

 

Follow the directions to add the wine, and the garlic, and the broths, praying that they "reconstitute" some of the blackened fossilized onions, and add some Worcestershire.  

 

Forget that you don’t really like the underlying taste of Worcestershire in soup and oh, what the hell, add a little extra accidentally.

 

In the meantime, butter the bread for the broiler.  Since you’ve never used a broiler before, be sure to char it within three minutes.  Call your husband and have him cut the edges off and try to salvage the bread for the ramekins because you don’t have any extra bread in the house.

 

Nevermind.

 

Ladle soup into the ramekins, and then layer with the broiled bread and cheese.  Throw them in the broiler again until the cheese bubbles, call it a meal, and eat.

 

 

It’s good.

 

Just a little too …

… Worcestershire-y.

--Jen

* -- point of fact, I've since made other recipes, which is why I say this recipe isn't my favorite.

PW: Beer-Braised Beef with Onions

Oh my goodness.

This was fantastic.

I think it had to do with cooking with a hearty beer and not my usual "whatever-we-have-on-hand-so-probably-Corona-Light" style... thank goodness for Fall Sam Adams brews!

PW: Beer-Braised Beef with Onions

Verdict:  Delicious, delicious, delicious.
Cook it again:  Yes.  Sooner than later.
Cost Factor:  Surprisingly inexpensive, especially if you have beer on hand.

Consider this a heartened-up pot roast.  Don't let that turn you away.  Everyone needs a heartened-up pot roast, and this is a particularly good choice.


Brown a pot-roast steak on all sides with salt and pepper.

While it's cooking, chop some onions and garlic.

Prepare three beers.  Drink one, and have two for the recipe.

Remove the browned steak and brown the onions and garlic. 

Add two bottles of beer, a whole slew of spices (I know the photo looks awful.  Ground thyme is hideous, no?), and some broth.

Cook off the alcohol for a few minutes.

The Rolling Rock bottle in the background is not the drinking beer.  It's a pepper shaker we inherited.  I have no idea how.

Cook low and slow in the oven for as long as you possibly can.

When it's been at least two hours and/or you can no longer stand it, take it out, cut it up (or pull it apart, as the case likely is), and devour.

PW says not to undersalt.  Don't take her too literally.  We over-salted because in the past we've found her recipes to be, in fact, under-salted, so we took her warning as a sign of trouble.  In the future we'll skip the salt other than our usual dose and rely on the saltiness from the broth and the butter.

We took this out after only about 2 hours because we were starving and it was getting late, and even though it was only just Mick and I doing the bulk of the eating, when I went back up for thirds there was nothing left.

Serve this also with mashed potatoes or possibly the PW crash potatoes -- or heck, even broccoli (which we did) and some other starch.  Just make sure you have some good, crusty bread available to sop up the amazing gravy.  We only used garlic toast but in the future some crusty loaf of bread will be a required ingredient for this recipe.

I'm pretty sure this recipe was enhanced because we used a nice, rich beer.  You can't taste the alcohol, but I somehow don't believe that a lager would have done this justice.

My only suggestion is that you don't rush this recipe.  It's a fabulous weeknight dinner, but if you plan to eat this on a weeknight make sure that the minute you walk in the door in the afternoon/evening, prepping this is the first thing you do.  Then do all your other stuff once this is in the oven.  We ate it sooner than we'd have preferred just because it was encroaching on bath time and bedtime for the kids, but even another hour would have made this even more tender and amazing.  We just ran out of time.

I assure you that if you make this, you won't regret it.  It was delicious.

--Jen

PW: Peach Whiskey Chicken

I'm late to the party on posting this, as it's already November 11, and this was an October recipe.  But we did cook this in October. Or I think we did.  It may have slipped in on November 1.  I don't remember.  (Which is sad in and of itself, that I can't remember 10 days ago.  But that's another worry!)

This was actually my pick, and when I learned it was my month to pick, I flipped through our two Pioneer Woman cookbooks and realized that we've really cooked up a storm this past year!  I wanted to pick an entree rather than a side or dessert, because entrees help me force the issue for me to cook real meals when I really otherwise might want to be lazy and either do something pitiful or something we cook all the time.

But I also realized that I've tended to pick chicken recipes, and this was of course no exception.  Bummer.  I need to branch out to the PW blog more often, I suspect.

In any event, here's the scoop:

PW: Peach Whiskey Chicken

Verdict:  Yummy!  Not earth-shatteringly so, but still a nice step up for a weekday meal.
Cook it again: Probably.  This time, with a side.
Cost factor:  It added up, because of the peach preserves, the whiskey and the unreasonably expensive chicken prices around here lately.  But under normal circumstances, pretty inexpensive.
 
I have to admit a few things:

(1)  I don't know the differences between whiskey, scotch, and bourbon.  I have looked it up and tried to commit it to memory about a million times, but I can't get my brain around it.  Labels that say "bourbon whiskey" don't help me.  Since this was all I could find in our house (that didn't clearly say it was bourbon or scotch, that is), I went with it.  Mick said it was bourbon.  Oh well.

(2) Pioneer Woman has a tendency, I think, to add lots of ingredients that I am not convinced that I can taste.  I had hoped for some awesome flavor here but although the sauce was tasty and I could taste the peach flavor, I really couldn't taste the whiskey.  Maybe that's because I inhaled so much of it (no, I mean literally!  I wasn't drinking.  I poured it into the pot and about choked on the vapors!) that I was scarred?  Mick said he could taste the tones of peach and the bourbon/whiskey.  Maybe if I had this side-by-side with a similar recipe without these ingredients I would be able to tell the difference?

In any event, this recipe is amazingly simple to pull together and could very easily be made in a slow cooker if you wanted.

You brown up some chicken:

I provided Mick with what I thought was a detailed grocery list.  Sometimes my level of detail is actually more confusing to him, but this time I think the confusion was all his own.  I said we needed 10-12 chicken legs.  He came home with thighs.  I said, "I didn't realize I told you thighs... the picture shows drumsticks."  He answered, "No, you didn't.  Your list said chicken legs. I didn't know what part of the leg.  So I went with thighs, because I like them better."

I panicked for a moment, until I re-read the recipe and saw where PW says an excellent and tasty substitution is to use thighs instead of drumsticks.  Phew.

Still, thighs take up more space, so it took me a little longer and a few rounds to get them all browned.  Then I took them out of the pot and added some chopped onions to the hot oil.

Then I added the peach preserves, the bourbon/whiskey, and some barbeque sauce and Worcestershire.  (I didn't specify what I wanted for barbeque sauce and although the recipe says "use your favorite," I don't have one.  So Mick bought the generic stuff.  It worked just fine.)

And that's it.  You let it simmer in the oven for a few hours, take it out, and serve it over mashed potatoes or noodles.  I kind-of forgot to make a side, so we whipped something up quickly -- but I don't even remember what we did.

Oh well.  That's what I get for failing to post this in a timely manner!

Ultimately, this was yummy, flavorful, and easy.  I don't know that I'd cook it for company because I don't tend to cook stuff like this for company.  But there's no other reason not to, and I think it would be a hit.

Just don't forget the mashed potatoes.

--Jen

Pasta with Pancetta and Leeks

Seriously.  I had a little downtime today at work and decided to go to The Pioneer Woman blog, and this is what I came upon.  This isn't a cooking club recipe, but it was easy to make, relatively fast, and absolutely delicious.  That's a triple-win if you ask me.  And it wasn't even expensive!  Home run!

Yes, it's another pasta dish, and yes, it calls for heavy cream again.  So what.  It's worth it.  As Emeril once told me*, you ever have anything to eat and wonder what makes it taste so good?  Butter and cream!  I highly recommend you stop whatever you're doing and get your grocery list ready for this.

Here's what you need:  Leeks.  PW says to use three, but our grocery store only had seriously humongous ones, so we used one and a half and it was more than enough.  Pancetta. (If your grocery store, like mine, doesn't have it behind the deli counter, you can find it over by the deli cheeses and salamis, etc.  You might need to circle the entire grocery store twice and search this same area three times, but it should be there.  It's especially likely to be there if no one in the entire store even seems to know what pancetta is, and the butcher, whom you walk by four times, is one the phone.  Just sayin'.)  Pasta -- we used bowties.  Cream.  The recipe calls for heavy cream but I used up my light cream I bought the other day.  White wine.  Butter.

Before you do anything, get the water going for the bowties.  Bowties always take me FOREVER to cook.  Forever.  So start those puppies first.  Then while that's going, slice up the leeks and throw them in a pan with the pancetta.  The pancetta will render up and the leeks will soften.  Once they are mushy, throw in some butter.  Once it melts, add the wine and when that cooks off, throw in the cream.  Stir the whole sauce into the cooked pasta.  Grate some fresh parmesan over the top.

Eat. 

I didn't take any pictures, so feel free to check out Ree Drummond's post here, and here's a picture from her blog.  

link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/07/pasta-with-pancetta-and-leeks/

My plate looked just as amazing, and I assure you that I am NOT being sarcastic.

--Jen
* Okay, so he didn't tell me personally.  But I promise I saw him say it to his audience one time. 

PW: Pasta with Pesto Cream Sauce

Let's see, a recipe with heavy cream?

Sign me up.

PW: Pasta with Pesto Cream Sauce

Verdict:  Very good, not something I'd usually cook, and a delightful change.
Cook it again: Yes, and I am excited to see how it might taste as a cold "salad," too.
Cost factor:  fresh basil and a small package of pine nuts are the two biggest expenses.

I've said it before, and I'm saying it again now:  I am so incredibly thankful for this cooking club.  Not only have I "met" new people and made new friends, and not only have I been able to have a different an unique peek into the lives of people I was already friends with but maybe not in that pick-up-the-phone-and-chat way, but I've been forced to cook things I might not have otherwise picked.  And it's been wonderful!!!

This recipe was no exception.  I love pesto, but it's not typically something I order or cook.  If it's at a party or a buffet, I will have some and quite enjoy it, but it never made it to my rotation.

Until now.

The recipe is pretty straightforward:  in a food processor mix up pine nuts, parmesan cheese, garlic, and fresh basil.  Add extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper until you're happy with the mix.

I was a little bit bummed because we had a GIANT  (ginormous, if you ask CAM -- that's her new word) bag of pine nuts in the fridge in Georgia, and I was soooo looking forward to seeing that puppy again, but last week we lost power at the house in GA and a friend of ours had to go empty our fridge.  Of course, it was already mostly empty but I sadly lost some things I was quite looking forward to having back in my life in a few weeks, not the least of which were my awesome and amazing (and expensive) HUGE Ball jar that I used for homemade pickles, and my 57-pound bag of pine nuts.  Anyway.  I will not cry over thrown-away pine nuts or mason jars.  I will not.  (Anymore.)

I was apprehensive because pine nuts are notoriously expensive (hence my devastation at losing my 2-ton bag, especially when I can eat pine nuts by the truckload-full), but the recipe only needs 3 tablespoons, so we got by on one of the little snack-sized bags. 

In any case, you mix all that stuff and then in a saucepan melt a few tablespoons of dinner whisk in some heavy cream. (Substitution:  I used light cream, because I made another recipe this weekend that called for light cream and it was in the front of the fridge. By the time I realized what I'd done, it was too late.  I don't know that it mattered.)  When that's melty and perfect, you pour in the pesto, add some more cheese, and let it simmer and thicken up.

All the while, you boil up what was supposed to be 12 ounces of a fun pasta of your choice. I love cavatelli.  I poured in the entire pound, so my sauce had to spread a little farther than if I'd followed directions, but this was an intentional misstep.

I put this photo here in case you've never seen boiling pasta. 

And that's it!  Pour the pesto cream sauce over the drained pasta and mix in some diced roma tomatoes.

We served it with garlic bread and skipped the salad altogether.

It was very good, and while I was eating it I thought it would probably be equally good as a cold salad.  I will find out for sure tomorrow!

--Jen

PW: Crash Hot Potatoes

Let me just say that we liked this so much I have now made it three times since last weekend.  Three.  Judge for yourself how much that screams, "awesome!!"

PW:  Crash Hot Potatotes

Verdict:  Nothing short of fabulous. 
Cook it again:  Already have!
Cost Factor:  New potatoes, and that's it.  Everything else (except fresh rosemary, if you so desire) is probably a pantry item.

I really wanted to make these with a steak recipe that Jennifer blogged about over at Come Rain or Come Shine, but my in-laws were in town this past weekend and they were craving grilled chicken.  They can't use outdoor grills at their condo, and it wasn't as if I was complaining:  my father-in-law makes a pretty mean grilled chicken!  So, we still made the potatoes, but went with his awesome chicken for the main dish.  (That steak is still on my radar.  It's not on this month's cooking club menu, but there's no way I could read that post and NOT make it as soon as possible!)

These are about as easy as anything I have ever made.  Boil up some new red potatoes (make sure they're small -- too big and they won't "crash" as easily).  When they're fork-tender, take them out and set them on a baking sheet.  (I lined my two sheets, one with foil and the other parchment paper.  Either one would work fine.)

Take a potato masher and crush the potato once, then turn the masher 90 degrees and crush again.

Sprinkle with olive oil (we use light, not extra-virgin), salt, pepper, and rosemary -- I did about half with fresh rosemary and half with dried from the pantry.

Bake 'til they're golden brown on top, about 25 minutes.

Try not to eat the whole pan full before you bring them to the table.  They are perfectly seasoned -- the salt and pepper simplicity is all you need, and the rosemary makes it take that step from wonderful to to-die-for, as my mother-in-law kept saying.  They are crispy enough to not taste like boiled potatoes, and honestly, served up on a platter a little prettier than my parchement-paper lined pan, they'd be festive enough to serve at a party!  Best of all, you can make as many or as few as you want and the ingredients are pretty much the same.

Holy cow. The picture doesn't do them justice; these were easy, and one of the tastiest things we've had in a while.   We made these again the next day, and again the next day.

I'm thinking I could have these for dinner on their own one night.

Great pick this month!   Thanks, Kerry!

--Jen

Pioneer Woman: Steakhouse Pizza

By now you all know that I tend to be a pizza traditionalist.  Yes, I will have a white pizza or Hawaiian in my rotation, but when I think pizza, I tend to think of a delicious cheese pie.  Plain and simple. 

Which means that, as strange as this sounds, I was glad to have this recipe among our picks this month, because it was unlikely I'd ever try it otherwise.  And that's not because I'm not adventurous, but because I kind-of think of gourmet pizzas like I do fish on a restaurant menu:  I like them just fine, but there's almost always something else on that menu that I'd rather have.

This recipe didn't let us down, and with just a few tweaks we'll make it again -- and again!

PW: Steakhouse Pizza

Verdict:  YUM!  Makes a lot more than you think, too.
Cook it again: Heck to the yes!  For company, too.
Cost Factor:  Hmm.  Tricky, because of the steak.  $10 per pie, maybe?

Here are the ingredients.  I've complained a lot about things being different in Maine and missing Publix, but one of the great things about going back to the Northeast is the amazing selection of Italian food supplies.  I had my pick of two aisles of stuff, and I am not exaggerating.  Of course, I was reduced to tears in trying to find those aisles, but once I got there, I rejoiced.  More than just two brands of stuff, and to boot it was the real stuff from Italy!  Wahoo!

The wine is in there to remind you that you should be drinking wine while you cook pizza, and while you eat pizza.  Okay?

I haven't made pizza dough in a long time, because somewhere buried in my brain was the notion that it was a huge, time-consuming, pain in the neck.

Wrong!

It was about as easy as anything ever could be.  In fact, although you make this in a stand mixer, you don't even use a dough hook!  So come on, this was easy-peasy.  (And if we were still in Georgia, I'd be forced to say, "buh-bye, Publix pizza dough!"  But since that's been taken care of already, I just won't be saying "hello, Shaw's pizza dough" anytime soon.)

Anyway, some flour, some yeast that's been resting in warm water for ten minutes, some salt, and you let it rest for an hour.  (Careful, you don't use a full envelope of yeast.  If you have it in pourable form instead of the envelopes, that's the way to go.)  I took a "before" picture but forgot to take the "after" picture.  No worries.  It grew nicely, probably just shy of doubling.

While that's happening, you grill up some skirt steak or flank steak.  Now maybe I am crazy, but this confused me.  In Georgia, those cuts of meat are usually very inexpensive.  In Maine, I not only had to ask the butcher to find them for me at all, but I was shocked that they were $10/lb!  TEN DOLLARS A POUND!  Um, no thank you.  (Am I crazy?  We were using this to make a pizza, not a steak dinner.)  So I found sandwich steaks that were super thin, priced way more reasonably, and I went with those instead.  I threw them in a grill pan with a little salt and pepper and was very pleased.  In fact, so pleased that I may have eaten more than I should have as chef's snacks.  Just sayin'.

Note:  cook the steaks to the done-ness you want, because they won't cook any additional time later in the recipe.

 When the steaks are done, you remove them from the heat and start working on the red onion.  It's simply red onions with balsamic vinegar tossed until the onions are soft.  They sweetened very well, of course, so at this point I could have taken my cooked steaks, tossed them in the pan with the onions, and grabbed a fork.  I didn't do that too much though, because I had the dough rising and a family to feed.  Sheesh.

Now, onto the sauce.  The recipe calls for a simple, store-bought, good marinara sauce of your choice.  I bought a simple basic pizza sauce and used it instead for no reason other than the fact that I wanted to try it.  (You can see in the photo the two cans.  I only needed less than one can, so we've now got one on reserve.)  It was delicious.  In my opinion, the sauce shouldn't be what you remember from a pizza unless it is meant to be the point of the pizza, and this was the case - just right in terms of flavor, but not overpowering or overly seasoned.  In any event, the recipe says to just mix in some balsamic vinegar with the sauce and spread it on your dough. I didn't take any pics of the sauce.

Oh.  The dough.  You're supposed to roll it out into a giant oval and put it on a giant baking sheet.  We had two problems, if you will.  First, we're still working out our move and our counter-space issue, so I couldn't roll it as thin as it wanted to go because I just plain ran out of room!  That was fine, really:  it just meant I was able to tuck a crust (as opposed to just not putting sauce to the edges and having a flat crust, that is). 

Second, when the pizza was done the dough wasn't as crispy as we prefer.  In the future, instead of doing a baking sheet I'll use a pizza mesh.  I will be able to get the dough thinner that way, too.

In any event, you roll your dough and put it on your baking sheet, spread the sauce, and then add the onions and then the mozzarella.

Bake it 'til it's golden brown and the cheese is bubbling.

Tell me that doesn't look amazing!

Take it out of the oven, slide (and it slid so easily!) onto a cutting board, and layer with the sliced steak, freshly-grated parmesan, and sprinkle with steak sauce.  (We used A1 because it was all we had.)

Not my best photo ever. I was playing with aperature. 

Holy cow, was this delicious.  The various layers of flavors all stand alone (I could have eaten this as a red-onion pizza!) but together they are amazing.  We had way more steak than we needed, and in the future I'll scale back on that, but it's not as if it hurt the pizza.  We just picked some off and ate the extra steak and the pizza separately.

I am so glad we tried this.  It's wonderful.  Because it's got so much going on, it serves more than it looks like it should.  Two pies like this would easily feed our family and another with a few bites leftover.  And I definitely plan to cook this for friends one night-- it's easy to prep in advance,  inexpensive and simple enough to do for a group, but so tasty that everyone will be impressed!

--Jen

Pioneer Woman: Spinach and Mushroom Quesadillas

This is a recipe from the Pioneer Woman blog.  I've been bad about posting links to her blog recipes, but I'm trying to get better.  You can find this recipe here. 

PW: Spinach and Mushroom Quesadillas

Verdict: Very yummy!  A little salty, but that was my fault.  I may have spilled more than I meant to.
Cook it again: Definitely!
Cost Factor:  Fontina, Goat Cheese, Mushrooms, and a bag of baby spinach were the things we had to shop for.  Not particularly expensive -- maybe $12-$15?

We typically have tortillas on hand in our house.  We make quesadillas a fair amount -- both for quick lunches for all of us, and for simple dinners with the kids.  And since we're salsa fiends, it's not unusual for us to be hungry but not "hungry enough," so we end up whipping up some quesadillas and eating them with salsa and having a nice, not-too-heavy meal.

Anyway, because we're big fans of quesadillas, this recipe was fun to see on our cooking club list.  We don't typically have goat cheese and fontina in the house (let me rephrase: we have them often enough, but they are almost always dedicated to a particular recipe), and it's hit or miss whether we'll have spinach and mushrooms.  So I did have to shop specifically for this recipe, but it wasn't terribly expensive or inconvenient.

Tortillas are not shown.  Whoops!

 Besides, this recipe is insanely easy.  Watch and learn:

You cook up the mushrooms with salt and pepper and butter,

wilt some spinach,

The recipe says to add salt here, and I did -- but there's enough salt in the cheese that you could skip it here altogether.  That's what I will do next time.

and layer the fontina, mushrooms, spinach and goat cheese.

Then you grill your quesadillas.

In the actual recipe, PW says to use a grill pan.  We have one, but for quesadillas we always use our skillet grill pan.  It's essentially a cast-iron comal, and it's amazing.  We -- and by we, I mean Mick -- use it daily.

This particular recipe is reminiscent of a hearty quesadilla I used to eat a LOT on Fridays in Lent.  We had neighbors who were dear friends, and we'd go to the same Mexican restaurant every Friday night for dinner.  This went on for years, and so during Lent, I had to get somewhat creative with what I ate.  Spinach-mushroom quesadillas were a regular selection.  Now that we've got this handy little recipe, we can make them at home on Fridays, too! 

A delicious success, and very filling!

--Jen

 

PW: Corn Casserole with Peppers

This is a quick post, because at the time we made these we'd barely unpacked anything.  We needed to eat (after two nights of eating out, we *really* needed to eat in), and I decided that if we were cooking we might as well cook from our cooking club selections -- but the camera wasn't high on my priority list! 

Anyway.  It's a shame -- not because the casserole was particularly beautiful, but because it really was quite good.

I have to say, Pioneer Woman is pretty great at taking something simple -- corn -- and making a few simple additions to change the whole profile.  This recipe is no different.

PW:  Corn Casserole with Peppers

Verdict:  YUM!  Loved it!
Cook it again:  Yes, absolutely.
Cost factor:  the most expensive parts were the heavy cream and the peppers. 

Some of you already know this about me, but not everyone.  So I'll say it here just in case:  I am a corn-on-the-cob fiend.  Up here in New England, corn's in season right now and we are fortunate enough to have our pick of a number of farm stands and let me tell you, when we cook corn we usually cook at least 2 or 3 extra ears for me.  I looooooove corn on the cob!  Can't get enough.

(CAM has inherited this trait.  She and I can sit and eat corn 'til we explode, no butter, no salt, just good old corn.  WHM, on the other hand, likes to butter and salt the corn, lick it all off, and repeat.  He won't eat a single kernel.  And he'll repeat buttering, salting, licking, until we catch him and take away his corn.  It actually makes me a little fearful for his propensity to do tequila shots when he gets older -- I mean, the steps are so similar.  Lime, shoot, salt, repeat ... butter, salt, lick, repeat -- those skills are a little too close, dontchathink?!)

Anyway.  This recipe is brilliantly easy.  Shave the corn (uncooked), and mix with 1 diced red bell pepper and 2 diced jalapenos.  Add a stick of butter, 1 cup of heavy cream, 1/2 cup of milk, salt and pepper, and bake in a casserole for 20-25 minutes.

See?  Simple!  And oh!  It was so delicious!  Not at all too spicy, but just a nice twist on a favorite.

At the time we made this I hadn't yet unpacked my measuring cups, so I poured and counted.  Our casserole was a touch soupy -- which might have been because I accidentally added a cup of milk instead of half a cup.

But I could have eaten this all week.  It was that good, soupy and all.

--Jen

Pioneer Woman: Calzones

Here's my take on calzones:  99% of the time when I have an opportunity for a calzone, I'll pass in favor of the pizza.  It's not that I don't like calzones, especially if they have some creative fillings -- but it's just that when I'm in a situation to order one, I'm also in a situation to order pizza, and I'm almost always up for a good slice of pie!  

Trivia: difference between a calzone and stromboli?  Generally speaking, calzones are cheese-filled and stromboli are meat-filled.  But that's really up to who makes them and what the place considers their rule, and I've had some delicious meat-filled calzones in my day.  Also, calzones have the sauce on the side, and stromboli have the sauce on the inside, like an inside-out pizza.  The biggest difference, at least in a NY pizzeria, is that stromboli are rolled instead of folded.  Either way, you're talking about a pizza-esque sandwich concoction and you can't really go wrong! The easiest way to decide which one you want is to look at the available fillings and decide which matches your hunger the best!

Anyway, I was excited to try this recipe precisely because I never order calzones, despite the fact that I really do enjoy them!  It was also a perfectly-timed recipe to help us use some of our freezer contents before we move.   We almost always have Italian sausage in the freezer, and that would not go bad on a drive to, say, MAINE, but we also had pizza dough, and that would be a big, proofed, risen-dough mess!  

PW:  Calzones

Verdict:  Not bad!  The filling was very yummy and I kept eating it before I filled the calzones!
Make it again:  Yes, and next time as the recipe describes.
Cost factor:  $10-$15 ish?  We used pantry ingredients, but to start from scratch it would be about $10 for the dough and sausage, and another $5 for the ricotta and other cheeses.

This recipe is probably in the genre of what the Food Network would call semi-homemade.  The real recipe calls for using "whole frozen, unrisen dinner rolls," which is a nice shortcut to making your own dough.    Since we made these only a few days before our cross-country move, though, I took the opportunity to use some freezer items and consequently didn't match the ingredients precisely.  For example, I used the Publix pizza dough we'd had in our freezer.  We let it proof for a few hours, but forgot to take it out of the bag, so we didn't get too much "rise" from it.  Whoops. 

Trouble was, that meant that it was incredibly difficult to roll.  And I'm not sure if that's because it was pizza dough versus the dinner rolls, or because I forgot to take it out of the bag.  In any event, here it is, cut into sections -- if you don't already know this, the more you work with dough, the harder it is to work with until it's effectively trash.  So I took the "not-really-proofed" dough and cut it into sections with one cut per section. It was a fun geometry exercise to get the sections relatively equal.  But the rolling?  Well, not so good, boss.

We had Italian sausage in our fridge, and although we had the bricks of parmesan, that will keep quite well on our trip, but we also almost always have frozen bags of shredded cheese.  So again, I used a bag of Kraft "Italian Five Cheese Blend" which has mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, romano, and asiago cheeses.  That, red pepper flakes, Italian seasoning, some onions and the sausage all get mixed together and although the photo was pretty icky looking, the filling was delicious enough to eat with a spoon.  Which I did.  A lot.  (Also, because we made ALL the sausage we had in the package, but didn't have a lot of dough to go with it, we had a lot of extra filling.  We saved what we didn't use and then heated it and put it on sandwiches -- holy cheesy sausagey deliciousness, batman.  I would make the filling again just to make sandwiches with it again.  Really.)

They sure look ugly, don't they?  And I even threw one dough section out, it was so over-worked and un-rollable!

In any event, you stuff your calzones, brush them with egg, and bake them about 10 minutes.

And you get these!

OKay, okay, they still look ugly.  I know.

Despite appearances, it really turned out to be not a bad dinner at all.  It was also insanely easy to put together, and the perfect kind of meal for those evenings when your time is either split (so you can make the sausage mix earlier in the day and roll the calzones later), or precious (you know, like when you're packing a house to move across the country and you're dreadfully far behind and staring down a deadline!).

The pizza dough was a little too thick -- which we suspected would happen after our proofing/rolling deal -- but they were tasty served with a simple jar of "emergency" sauce we opened and heated up.  (We typically make our own sauce but always -- ALWAYS -- have jars of sauce on hand for pasta emergencies!)  But they didn't suffer at all for the cheat on the cheese, and I might do the same thing again in the future, just because it was so easy.

 

This was a good pick, and we're definitely going to make it again -- with the correct ingredients and correct technique, next time!

--Jen

Pioneer Woman: Cherry Limeade

Totally not something we'd typically drink, but I was absolutely game for it.  (Actually, I wanted to make the adult version, but had no one to really sit and sip with -- it's packing time over here so there's not much time to sit and sip, and Mick's not a big fruity-drink kinda guy.)

Anyway.

PW Cherry Limeade

Verdict:  Yummy!  Definitely a nice summer treat, and with a little carbonation to differentiate it.
Make it again: Probably.
Cost factor:  Not bad, as drinks go.  A jar of cherries was the biggest expense.  But it did contain stuff we had to shop for specifically.

OKay.  So the other day in the midst of all our moving and packing chaos, Mick and I took the kids with us to the grocery store.  I told him I wanted/needed to go to Publix.  Now, Mick and I disagree on which Publix is best.  When I shop by myself, I go to my Publix.  It's bigger.  It has a better selection.  Most importantly, I know where stuff is, so I can shop efficiently.  But Mick was driving, and he missed the turn to my Publix, so we went to his.  Grrrr.

This recipe calls for one cup of fresh lime juice, and a 2-liter bottle of lemon-lime soda.  We don't typically drink soda -- or at least, at home.  (I know.  I practically have an IV of Pepsi at times.  But I drink only from cans, and only in spurts.  And Mick, despite his ability to drink 8443549235731 cups of Diet Coke whenever we sit down at a restaurant, doesn't keep DC at home.)  So, we're typically soda-less.  I like Sprite and 7-Up, but we just don't drink it.  I know, I know.  We're weird like that.  Trust me, it's not a health thing.  See earlier Pepsi reference and -- if you know me in real life -- the sweet tea that is attached to me at all times!

All that is to say, we didn't have a soda preference.  7-Up was on sale, so we went with The Uncola.  Mmmmm. 

Problem was, the "bad" Publix didn't have much going on by way of limes.  No, really.  This has been a theme of ours lately, entire stores not having what we need!

This was the only lime in the store, according to Mick.

Being ever-brilliant, my sweet husband did the next best thing, and grabbed a "squeezy bottle" of lime.

 BUT ... dum dum dummmmmm, I didn't pay attention to how much juice it yielded, and if you've ever shopped with Mick you know not to make too many vague "please run and get" requests, or he gets frustrated.  (Much like my future brother-in-law, who, one time in Alabama was asked by Courtney to run to Publix to "get potato salad."  Not knowing which flavor to get, he came back with five pounds of potato salad.  One of each. Just in case.  Totally something Mick would do -- and which he's done with other stuff, but not nearly as funnily!)

Well, don'tcha know that instead of getting the full cup of lime juice, we only got 2/3 of a cup!

Aw, no worries. The recipe called for one cup of lime juice, one cup of sugar and one two-liter bottle of soda.  It was easy enough to break out this bad boy to measure the sugar.

I didn't even have to think "fractions," which actually made me sad, because -- well, because I am me, really -- I quite enjoy manipulating recipes and having to work with bizarre fractions!

Back on track.  I approximated the soda, and used the entire jar of cherries minus the two or five that I may have eaten before I put them in the canister.  I won't tell. And then, I may or may not have said, "oh, who cares" and dumped in the rest of the soda, too.  So we might have been low on lime juice, high on soda.  I can't say it seemed to matter.

I didn't have a fancy pitcher or container at the ready, so I broke out this one -- one I purchased on clearance to turn into a bubbles dispenser for the kids.  (We hadn't yet put it to that use, though.)  Anyway, I bought a red bubbles jug, so you can't really see the pretty color of the limeade.

You'd think with all the beers I've poured in my life that I'd have remembered to pour the soda down the side of the jug.  Nope.  Just a modest bit of head on this!

The addition of the cherries and the lime slices toned that foam right down, and I am happy to say that the limeade was yummy!  The kids, who love all things sweet but don't drink soda, didn't really care for it -- CAM drank a few sips and said it was good, but didn't come back for any more.  I'm thinking it was the carbonation that did her in.  

Mmmm.  No fruit made it into my glass, but this was cold and delicious!

(Wow, my glass looks filthy!  I promise it was clean and film-free!)

PW Version:

Note the pretty serving jar!

Our final product:

Ah, much better with the bubbles all gone!

I'd say it was a success, and I'll add this advice:

Next time:  vodka.

--Jen