Happy Birthday to Me!!

Ok, so it's been a while since I've posted. But this one will be really good, I promise. My birthday was on Tuesday, and we debated whether we should go out or cook at home. We decided that what I make is usually better (better than any place we can actually afford, anyway) so I cooked. If it had been a weekend, Matt would have cooked for me, but since it was a Tuesday he had to work. Below is my menu - everything exactly as I wanted (another benefit to cooking at home!) with recipes following:

Starters

Shrimp Cocktail

Toasted French Bread with Hummus and Peppers

Main

Grilled Salmon

Almond Rice Pilaf

Pecan Parmesan Asparagus

Dessert

Store bought Chocolate Dream Layered Pudding (Custard)

Yes... I bought my desert. Typically I only have enough time and energy to do one or the other. If we had gone out to dinner, I would have made something awesome to come home to. As it was, I was preparing all day, and cooking right up until dinner time. The dessert was just fine, and we were really so full that an exceptional dessert might have been wasted... there's still half of the pudding left.


So... we'll start with the appetizers. These are more like guidelines than recipes.

Shrimp Cocktail

1/2 lb. large, raw in-shell shrimp (for 2 people)
ketchup
horseradish
lemon & fresh parsley (garnish)

Prepare the shrimp - break off the shell at the tail joint, leaving the tail and last section of shell intact. Peel the rest of the shell off. Boil 1/2 pot of water - there should be enough water that the shrimp will float freely. Add 1T. salt. (Shrimp & Crab Boil seasoning is better here, but I can't get that in the UK. If you have it, follow the directions for how much to use)

Boil shrimp for just under 2 min. They should be pink and firm. I usually bite into one to make sure they're done. If you over cook them they'll be rubbery. Drain through a colander and rinse immediately with cold water. Rinse until completely chilled.

Prepare Cocktail Sauce - Homemade Cocktail sauce is way better than the store-bought variety, thought bottled is not too bad. My ratio is about 2/3 ketchup and 1/3 horseradish. Don't buy horseradish sauce, made with mayo and seasonings. Get plain horseradish - it will probably be refrigerated. Mix ketchup and horseradish until well blended, adjust to taste. (my ratio is rather hot, so start smaller and add if you need to)

Assemble. I have a nice dessert bowl on a small pedestal that is about 4" across. All of the shrimp hang nicely on the edge - tails outside. Put the sauce in the dish, hang the shrimp around. Take a thin slice from the center of the lemon (biggest slice). Cut from one edge into the center, twist one 'leg' each direction and place it on the sauce. Tuck a spring of parsley underneath. Wrap loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed.

Toasted French Bread with Hummus and Peppers (really needs a better name!)

French Bread Baguette, unsliced
1/4 C (half a stick) butter
hummus
red & yellow bell pepper
black olives
paprika, thyme, black pepper, fresh parsley

Slice the french bread diagonally into 1/2" slices. Place on a cookie sheet or broiler pan. Melt butter and brush very lightly over the bread. We're not going for garlic bread here, just enough to make the bread toast nicely and seal the moisture out.

Broil about 6" away from the element until lightly browned - mine browned around the edges, but not in the middle. As long as it gets crispy and dry, that's OK - flip and brown the other side.

Mince the red and yellow pepper, and keep them separate. You'll only need about 1/4 of each pepper. Your pieces should be about 1/8". Cut the black olives into quarters.

Place about 1 T. of hummus in the middle of each toast. Don't spreads it out too much - leave it in a nice mound. Sprinkle red pepper on half of your toasts, and yellow on the other half. Place a few olive pieces on top. Sprinkle the yellow pepper with paprika, and the red pepper with thyme - go easy, it's pretty strong. If you're not a fan of thyme use something else green - dried parsley, Italian seasoning, something like that. Or just do freshly cracked black pepper on red & yellow. Garnish with a sprig of parsley. I placed my shrimp dish in the middle of a large platter, and alternated red and yellow toasts around the edges.

(Since dinner was so big, I picked the 6 prettiest toasts to eat and put the rest into a Ziploc. I saved the leftover peppers and olives and made a perfect lunch the next day. )

Grilled Salmon

Salmon (whole side or steaks)
balsamic vinegar
2 T. olive oil
1 t. dried basil
1/2 t. parsley
1/2 t. garlic powder
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. black pepper

Stand a 1 qt. Ziploc baggie up in a cup. Add all the seasonings and oil. If you have salmon steaks, add around 1/2 C. balsamic vinegar. Swish and squish until well blended. Place the salmon inside and squeeze all the air out. Gently push the seasonings around until the fish is well covered. If you're almost ready to cook, just leave it out on the counter - turn the bag over every 10 minutes or so. If you've thought ahead and made it the night before, place the bag in the fridge, and flip in the morning.

If you're using a whole salmon side, use a 1 gal Ziploc. Use 1 C. balsamic vinegar. You'll have to fold the thin end of the salmon over - skin to skin, meat side out. You'll have to work harder to distribute the herbs, and get all the air out.

To grill - it's always raining here, so I use the broiler. Salmon steaks are easiest because they're smaller. Heat the broiler - over here, I can control the temp, and I set it to medium. If you only have one temp or just hi and low, you'll have to adjust your oven rack to compensate. I broiled my whole side about 6" away from the element and it took about 25 min. The outside gets really dark - don't worry, it's the sugars in the balsamic caramelizing. If you're using steaks, they'll cook faster. There is no need to turn them - they'll just fall apart. Stick a fork into the fattest part to check - it should flake all the way down to the skin. If it's watery and soft near the skin, it's not done yet. We were impatient, so I took it out when the thin part was fully cooked, and the thick part was almost done. We ate the thin side and the rest is going into salmon patties - which will be cooked further, so no worries.

You can take the marinade and boil it in a small saucepan to make a rich sauce for the salmon. Just don't cook it too long or you'll get a paste. And the whole kitchen will smell of vinegar - watch your eyes! Because the vinegar cooks out, the sauce it actually pretty sweet. Try it!


Almond Rice Pilaf

1.5 C. rice (I use brown)
3 C chicken broth (I use bullion)
1 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped (red is nice)
1/4 C. slivered almonds
1 T. Italian seasoning

Saute onions in oil in a large saucepan. When they are translucent and tender (about 5 minutes) add rice, almonds and Italian seasoning. If you're using lo-sodium broth, add about 3/4 t. salt. Saute stirring constantly and let the rice brown a bit and become covered in oil. When the rice begins to stick and burn, add the broth. Cover and cook on low until the rice has absorbed all the liquid. 20-25 min for white rice, 40-50 min for brown.


Pecan Parmesan Asparagus

2 bunches asparagus, ends trimmed
1 T. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 C sliced mushrooms
1/2 C. chopped pecans
1/2 t. dried basil
fresh Parmesan cheese

In a 12" skillet, steam asparagus until crisp tender (it will continue to soften after removed). Remove to serving platter, cover and keep warm. It's easy to do this with a hot, but turned-off oven. Place a plate upside-down on top so they stay moist.

Drain liquid from skillet, and saute onions and mushrooms in the oil. When they are as tender as you like (about 5-8 minutes) add pecans and basil. Cook until hot. Spread nut mixture over the center of the asparagus and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Crack fresh black pepper over the whole plate, and serve with more Parmesan.

This dish will keep for about 10 minutes in the oven. Leave the asparagus pretty firm when you steam it, then assemble the whole dish and cover and place back in the hot oven again. The added bonus is that your parm will be all nice and melty when you serve!

My First Entry - Chicken Soup

Ok... now that I've decided to begin my career as a food blogger, where do I begin? I don't feel so well right now, so I decided to make a pot of chicken soup for myself. Seemed like the thing to do... Chicken Soup is also a basic staple of cooking - once you know what goes into chicken soup, it is easily converted to veggie soup, chicken stew, chicken noodle, beef stew - anything you like!

This is the same basic recipe I use for my Slow Cooker Chicken Stew and Thick and Hearty Chicken and Dumplings. I've met with a bit of resistance from people making my recipe, because of all the "wasted" veggies, and here is where I will explain the reasons.

First, we'll start with the chicken. My recipe should really be entitled, "How to make homemade chicken stock into chicken soup". If you have an older cookbook (or one that's based on an older version - like Joy of Cooking) you may have a recipe for 'stock'. Newer cookbooks usually leave that recipe out - since we can use canned broth or bullion. Stock is simply water that has something extracted into it - in our case, chicken and vegetables. This is accomplished by long boiling. Back to the chicken... it is important to use dark meat chicken for 2 reasons.

1. The dark meat of the chicken has more flavor, due to the higher fat content of the meat. People like fattier foods for this very reason. Now before you go all 'health-nut' on me, let me explain. The fat is where the flavor lies, but after we get all that flavor into our stock, the fat is removed by skimming. The same holds true for baking chicken. Even if you don't eat the chicken skin or fat, leave it on during baking. It keeps the chicken moist, and imparts flavor, but then the skin is taken off revealing succulent, tasty meat beneath!

1. The bones. Back to my cookbook reference, your stock recipe will tell you to use chicken bones left over from baked chicken. If you don't have them, the recipe will tell you to cook raw bones in oil to release the flavors before making stock. The bone marrow is considered a delicacy in many cultures and is fought over by the children. All of this flavor is needed to make a rich stock, and again - any fats will be skimmed off at the end. A chicken breast just doesn't have what it takes - no fat, no bones, not much flavor. Especially when you consider how much water we're using.

OK - enough about the chicken, on to the veggies. If you look at my recipe, you'll see that I use 1 batch of veggies to boil at the beginning, throw them all away, and use a second set for the final soup. This looks terribly wasteful - why throw away all those good veggies instead of eating them? Let me give you a real life demonstration. Why do we steam carrots (for instance)? Picture a perfectly steamed carrot - just tender enough to pierce with a fork, still a bit crisp. Most of the nutrients have been retained - that's why we steam, and don't boil - the nutrients and flavors don't leach out into the water and get thrown away. Now picture an over-done carrot. Limp, light colored, squishy, and without flavor. It's all been boiled away.

So... what if it's the carrot water we wanted to save? If you wanted to make carrot-flavored-water, you'd boil the life out of that carrot, then have nicely flavored water. That's exactly what we're going for here. We want to keep the juices... the veggies have nothing left to give after long boiling - if you ate them, they'd be squishy, life-less and vitamin-less. It's all been boiled away - into our stock.

The only other comment I have about veggies, is why I don't peel them. It's amazing how much flavor we peel away to prepare vegetables. Of course, we can't eat onion peels - they're dirty, may contain bacteria, and are tough and gross in our mouths. But the flavor can't be beat, and since we're throwing all the solid vegetables away, and we're trying for a rich bold stock, we want all the concentrated flavor we can get! So, I just cut the initial batch of veggies into chunks without peeling. (At this blog, a different result is had using the same basic techniques - she makes concentrated stock. Note the whole veggies - the same as I've described them here.) You'll see a marked difference if you make 2 batches of stock - for 1, use chicken breast and peeled vegetables, and only cook it long enough to tenderize the veggies then eat them. For the other, follow my methods. You'll never go back.

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Basic Chicken Soup

Just one more comment on the veggies. Every basic soup stock requires onion, celery and carrots. This applies to chicken, beef, fish and vegetable stocks. (Get a hold of a traditional cookbook - it will back me up) Even if you aren't partial to celery, for instance, it isn't the flavor of celery that you will taste. It's the combination of those 3 vegetables that come together to create the well-rounded, over all flavor of a good stock. Now, on to the recipe.

3 lbs chicken parts (preferably dark meat, frozen or thawed)
10 cups water
7 carrots
5 stalks celery
2 onions
4-8 cloves garlic (depending on how much you like garlic - 4 cloves will just add a touch of flavor)
2 chicken bullion cubes (this adds many various seasonings and salt - i haven't been able to discover exactly which herbs they contain, so I still use them)
1 t. salt
1 T. parsley (dried)
1/2 t. ground pepper

1. Place chicken (frozen or fresh) and water into bottom of a large soup pot. Chunk these vegetables, unpeeled, into about 2" pieces and add - 3 carrots, 2 celery, 1 onion, 4 cloves garlic (cut them in half. No need to peel the onions either, and add extra garlic 'paper' from the outside of your bulb). Add 2 bullion cubes - no need to crush.
2. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer for about 2 hours. The chicken will be done after about 1 hour, but we want to be sure to get all the veggie juices.
3. Pour through a colander over a very large bowl. Remove the chicken, throw away the veggies. Shred chicken when it is cool enough to handle, throw away any fat, skin and bones.
4. Cut remaining carrots into quarters lengthwise, then slice, mince celery, chop onion.
5. Rinse out your pot to remove any veggie skins, then put the stock, veggies and remaining spices over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook just until the veggies are tender - about 10 minutes. Taste and adjust salt and pepper to taste.

This is the basic chicken soup. Use this exact same recipe to make beef soup - just change the meat (be sure it is in small pieces - better with bones!).

Of course, if you're just after the stock, to use in another recipe, it's ready to go after you strain out the veggies and chicken. For my "sick-day-soup" I doubled the garlic and added chunks of un-peeled ginger to the first boil to add helpful nutrients. Refrigerate the stock (before or after finishing the soup) to firm up the fats on top, then skim them off if you like. I don' t usually bother - there's not that much. For Chicken Noodle, just add about 2-3 C. of egg noodles with the veggies once the soup is boiling- they should take 10 minutes to cook.

Thick and Hearty Chicken and Dumplings

Traditional Chicken and Dumplings but made using whole wheat! It really adds a deep, nutty, more filling quality than those old white ones! This is one of my all-time-favorite comfort foods. I guess it must bring back memories, although I don't remember having it more than a few times as a kid. Just something about the parsley, I think. For more information about how I make my chicken stock, visit this posting.

Let me comment on the fat content of this recipe. You may be tempted to reduce the amount of oil called for when making the roux for the stew. Don't do it. In order for the heavy dumplings to float, the stew must by thick enough to support them. A small reduction in the roux will mean a significant reduction in the thickness. The dumplings will sink. Even if they don't completely submerge (which mine did upon experimentation) they will still be gummy inside - they should have the consistency of a well-baked biscuit. Dry and light inside. Just tell yourself that it's "comfort food day" and enjoy a little bit of oil. It's olive oil, after all... Also, whole wheat flour won't make the roux as thick - I tried that as well. The gluten is not available because the flour is not as fine.

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Thick and Hearty Chicken and Dumplings

For Stew:
3 lbs chicken parts (any parts, frozen or thawed)
6 cups water
6 carrots
4 stalks celery
2 onions
2 chicken bullion cubes
1/2 C. olive oil/drippings
1/2 C. white flour
1 t. salt
1 T. parsley (dried)
1/2 t. ground pepper
1/2 t. garlic powder

For Dumplings:
1 C. WW flour
1/2 C. white flour
1 T. parsley (dried)
2 rounded t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
3 T. shortening or butter
3/4 C. milk (a bit over full, but not 1C)

Prepare Stock:

1. Place chicken (frozen or fresh) and water into bottom of a 4 qt. dutch oven. Chunk these vegetables into about 2" pieces and add - 3 carrots, 2 celery, 1 onion (no need to peel). Add 2 bullions cubes - no need to crush.
2. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer for about 2 hours or until chicken is done.
3. Pour through a colander over a very large bowl. Remove the chicken, throw away the veggies. Shred chicken when it is cool enough to handle, throw away any fat, skin and bones.
4. Cut remaining carrots into quarters lengthwise, then slice, mince celery, chop onion.
5. Heat oil (skim stock and use part drippings if you like) in bottom of dutch oven until hot. Add 1/2 C white flour and whisk until no lumps remain. Cook over med. heat for about 2 minutes.
6. Add stock about 2 cups at a time, whisking well after each addition to remove lumps. When all stock has been added, reduce to low simmer. Add chopped veggies, shredded chicken and spices. Stir occasionally, scraping bottom well.

Prepare Dumplings:

1. Mix flours, baking powder, salt and parsley in med. bowl. Cut in shortening using pastry blender, 2 knifes, or mashing with your fingers. Stir in milk, and allow to sit for 1-2 minutes - mixture will thicken.
2. Bring stew to a slow boil. When carrots are almost tender (it is difficult to pierce with fork) stir stew well and then drop dumplings by spoon onto meat and veggies - you should get about 10. Be sure there is meat to land on - if they hit just liquid, they'll sink and get mushy.
3. Cook in boiling stew for 10 minutes UNCOVERED. Then cook for 10 minutes COVERED. No Peeking! Dumplings should have risen and be firm and fully cooked inside.
4. Serve 1 or 2 dumplings in a bowl, smothered with stew - enjoy!!

Un-Stuffed Peppers

A casserole twist on an old favorite. Great for when you don't have enough peppers for all your dinner party. For people who don't like brown rice – you don't notice the heavier texture mixed in with the beef. It's a good way to learn to like your whole grains!

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Un-stuffed Peppers

3-4 bell peppers (any colors - one of each is very nice, and the colored ones are sweeter)
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2 C. cooked brown rice (white will do fine)
1 t. salt

appx. 1 t. each of:
basil
ground mustard
cumin
parsley
garlic powder
(these are minimums - I usually just sprinkle and taste...)

½ t. black pepper
¼ t. red pepper
16 oz. tomato sauce, divided
1 C. shredded mozzarella

1. Brown ground beef and onions in medium skillet until beef is done. Drain and pour into a large bowl.
2. Cut peppers into ½” pieces, add to bowl along with cooked rice.
3. Add seasonings and 12 oz. of tomato sauce – mix well.
4. At this point, taste the mixture and adjust the seasonings to your taste. It the tomato flavor is too acidic, add about 1 t. of sugar, mix and taste. It will also lose some acidity as it bakes - don't make it too sweet.
   
5. Pour mixture into 9x13 pan, or 12” round, deep casserole. Spread remaining tomato sauce over top. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, or until mixture is bubbly around edges.
6. Uncover, sprinkle with cheese and bake or broil until cheese is browned.
7. This can be easily covered and refrigerated or frozen - to be baked later.

HINT ABOUT FREEZING: Huge tip here - line your casserole dish with 2 layers of heavy-duty foil. Fill, freeze, then remove the foil. You get your pan back, while the casserole stays wrapped in foil for the freezer - it will fit your pan perfectly when you're ready to bake, and no clean up!

Carrie's Catfish Larue

Finally, something to do with catfish besides frying it! A blend of tomatoes and Italian seasonings make this a mild fish dish. Great if you don't like that sometimes overpowering catfish taste. For a stronger fish flavor, try making the sauce and serving over grilled or broiled fish.

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Carrie's Catfish Larue

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
8 (4 ounce) fillets catfish fillets
salt and black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
garlic powder to taste
1 (14 ounce) can diced Italian tomatoes (undrained)
1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1/2 cup dry white wine

1. Place 1 tablespoon of oil in a heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat. Sautee onion, green pepper, and carrot until golden brown; remove from the pan.
   
2. Using the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil, sear all of the fillets on both sides. Then, lay all of the fillets into the skillet, sprinkle with salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder. Top with the sauteed vegetables, and pour on the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and white wine.
3. Bring to a simmer, and cook gently until the sauce has thickened slightly, and fish flakes easily with a fork, about 10 minutes.