Home Fries

Salty, crunchy, golden brown, garlic-ky, and slightly sweet= HOME FRIES. I cooked up a batch this morning for breakfast after seeing the recipe on the Cook's Country DVD I rented from Netflix. As soon as I saw the recipe I knew that these would be perfect to make for my hubby. While they take awhile to cook (about 35 minutes), the time is well worth it.

This recipe makes four "normal" sized servings. Between the two of us (who had worked up an appetite on a run in the morning) we got about three servings out of it.

The recipe also calls for 1/2 stick of butter. Now, I'm the total opposite of Paula Deen when it comes to butter-- I try and use as little as possible, but today  I figured I'd better follow the recipe to a "t", just since it was the first time making it. (And yes, the 1/2 stick of butter is totally worth it!)

You begin by cutting up the potatoes and nuking them and 1 tablespoon of butter in the microwave for about 7 minutes.

In the meantime, you saute an onion (in this case, half of a very LARGE onion) in 1 tablespoon of butter in a nonstick skillet until it turns golden brown.

Then, remove the onion to a bowl and melt 2 tablespoons of butter in the skillet and then put the potatoes in the skillet, and pack them down. Leave them alone for 7 minutes, then flip and pack 'em down again. Don't touch 'em for another 7 minutes.

In the meantime, mince up 3 cloves of garlic and some herbs to add to the potatoes (I used thyme, parsley, and sage). And if I were you, I'd start getting some eggs together so you can scramble them.

After the potatoes have browned on side 2 for 7 minutes, then you can stir them around, and let them cook for another 10 minutes, just to get all the sides browned and crisp. With 5 minutes left in the cooking time, I added the garlic, salt, pepper, and herbs.

These were fantastic on their own, but I added a squirt of ketchup. I served these with herb scrambled eggs.

MMM mmm mmm!

Here's the ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 3/4 inch pieces
4 Tbsp. of unsalted butter
1/2 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of minced garlic
salt & pepper to taste
1 Tbsp. of chopped fresh thyme, sage, and parsley

Here's the process:
Microwave the potatoes with a tablespoon of butter in a microwave safe dish covered in plastic wrap for 3 minutes. Give the potatoes a shake (don't remove the wrap), and nuke for another 3 1/3 minutes.
While the potatoes are in the microwave, saute an onion in 1 Tbsp. of butter over medium heat. Once that's golden brown, transfer it to a bowl.

Put the potatoes in the same skillet you used to saute the onion-- pack them down and don't move them for 7 minutes (it's tough, but you can do it). Flip the potatoes, pack them down, and cook for another 7 minutes. Then, cook the potatoes for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. With 5 minutes left on the cooking time, add the minced garlic, salt, pepper, and herbs.

Baked Brown Rice

Since this week is going to be REALLY busy, I cooked a big batch of brown rice to eat this week. It's great with stir-fry, or mixed into soup.

I am rice-challenged (if I cook it on the stove top it's either too mush or burned). Fortunately, Good Eats came to my rescue with a recipe for baked brown rice. It couldn't be any easier.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x9 baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. Then bring 2 1/2 cups of stock to a boil (don't use water-stock is so much tastier).

In the meantime, measure 1 1/2 cups of rice and pour it into the baking dish.

Wait for the stock to boil (don't watch it or it won't boil ;-)).

Once it's boiling, kill the heat, and pour the stock into the baking dish. Stir the stock and rice together.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour.

See, perfectly cooked rice!

 

 

Be sure to fluff it with a fork before serving (or storing).

This recipe makes 4-6 servings (depending on how hungry you are).

Baked Brown Rice
1 1/2 cups of brown rice
2 1/2 cups of stock

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x9 oven-proof baking dish with non-stick spray. Bring the stock to a boil. Once stock in boiling, pour into baking dish and stir in brown rice. Cover dish with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour. Remove from oven and fluff with a fork before serving.

Baked Potato Soup

My department at work had a get together a couple of nights ago, catered by Fatz Cafe, which featured salad, rolls, chicken fingers, baked potatoes, and ice cream. Since I helped organize it, I got to take home some of the leftovers. I decided to take home 4 potatoes with the intention of making baked potato soup. My poor dutch oven has been getting lonely in the cabinet, gathering dust, so I pulled it out in its blazing red glory to whip up a batch of soup.

Since the potatoes were already baked, all I had to do was peel and mash them. Obviously if you were making this from the start, you'd have to bake potatoes (I bake mine at 375 degrees for 1 hour and 45 minutes-you get a perfect potato every time).

Once you've peeled and mashed the potatoes, set them aside.

Then, put some flour in a dutch oven and whisk in the milk. Once those are combined, turn the heat onto medium for about 10 minutes and wait until it gets thick and starts to bubble.

 

In the meantime, crisp up some bacon!

 Next, add in the mashed potatoes, cheese, salt, and pepper. Keep stirring it until the cheese melts.

Once the cheese is melted, take the pot off of the heat and stir in the sour cream and green onions. Then return the pot to a low burner, and let everything warm through for about 10 minutes.

Since I didn't do a really great job of mashing the potatoes, I used an immersion blender to smooth out the consistency a bit before serving.

Garnish the soup with some green onion, cheddar cheese, and bacon. Yum!

I really like this soup-- it is very filling. The only thing I would change is the kind of cheese I used-- I picked up reduced fat mild cheddar, instead of the extra sharp as the recipe called for. Next time, I'll definitely go for the stronger flavored cheese.

I was actually surprised how few ingredients there were, really, only 5 main ingredients (plus salt and pepper), and bacon for a garnish.

This recipe was from Cooking Light-- click here to view how to make Baked Potato Soup.

Quick Mediterranean Soup

Since I've stopped eating sandwiches at lunch, soup has been my food of choice. I didn't have time to cook any over the weekend, so I decided to try a recipe from the Easy Beans cookbook, Quick Mediterranean Soup. Since I don't have time during my lunch break to cook a whole pot of soup, I put all the ingredients in a crock pot this morning.

 

A chopped onion:

Two chopped potatoes:

A can of chick peas:

Tomato paste:

Chicken stock & spices:

Then, I set the Crock Pot to high and let it cook for 4 hours.

Before serving, I added some freeze-dried parsley (not nearly as good as fresh), several drops of hot sauce, salt, and the juice of one lemon.

I let that simmer for a few minutes before helping myself to a big bowl for lunch.

While this soup seemed a little bland at first, it started to grow on me by the time I was finished. Maybe the leftovers will have a little more cook. On a scale of 1-5, I'd give it a 2.5.

Quick Mediterranean Soup
1 can chickpeas
2 tablespoons of dried parsley
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 1/4 tsp. cumin
1 onion, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
6 cups of chicken broth
8 drops of Tabasco sauce
Juice of one lemon
Salt to taste

Combine the first 10 ingredients (chick peas-stock) in a slow cooker. Cook on high for 4 hours. Remove lid, and add the lemon juice and Tabasco sauce, and season with salt to taste. Simmer a few minutes more and serve.

Rocky Road Whoppers

My mom emailed me this recipe for Rocky Road Whopper cookies a few weeks ago. These are rich with lots of chocolate, walnuts, and marshmallows. I put off trying to bake these since I'm cooking for one, and I didn't think they would freeze well with the marshmallows. Luckily, Valentine's Day is right around the corner and Will (probably) needs some snacks.

This recipe takes a bit of time to put together, but the result is very chocolate and very chewy cookie. The recipe is suppose to make 12 cookies, but I only got 11 1/2 out of the batch.

First, you melt butter and chocolate chips in a bowl set over simmering water.

While that melts, you mix up the sugar, egg, vanilla, and coffee powder. And then combine your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt.

After the chocolate and butter melts, you stir in the egg mixture, and add the flour, walnuts, and even more chocolate chips.

Next, place 1 tablespoon sized scoops of the batter on two parchment lined baking sheets (you should have 12 cookies.)

Then, flatten out each mound and top with 5 mini marshmallows.

Then (and this is the kind of tricky part), you top the marshmallows with another 1 tablespoon mound of cookie dough.

Sorry, the photo is sideways!

Then, bake for 14 minutes at 350 degrees, rotating the pans halfway through.

While a couple of my cookies faintly resembled the photo, a few of them turned out a bit... deformed...

The top of this cookie slid off.

And these two cookies decided to become Siamese twins.

And one cookie ended up topless since I didn't have enough batter (it was still tasty-- I ate this one just to be sure the batch was good).

Here's the link to the recipe for Rocky Road Whoppers.

Fruit Crisp for 1 (or 3)

It is hard to find dessert recipes for 1 or 2 people, so I was thrilled when I found a recipe for a fruit crisp for one. While it's meant to make one dessert, I divided it up since the entire recipe has about 600 calories, and I've been trying to slim down. I baked it in three small ramekins, and the result was three perfectly sized desserts.

This recipe was a great reason to use some of this fancy cinnamon from King Arthur flour, and I love ginger!

Start by mixing the coating for the fruit.

Then add a pear and an apple that have been peeled and thinly sliced.

Mix up the topping: butter, sugar, flour, baking powder.

Spoon the fruit into the ramekins, and top with the butter mixture.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes.

Let it cool for a few minutes and enjoy!

This was a pretty good recipe, not as good as some other fruit crisps I've had. But, if you want a dessert that's easy to make and that you can eat in one (or two or three) sittings, this is a great one to try.

Here's a link to the recipe (it's the last recipe on the page).

Baked Chocolate Pudding

Over the holidays, I took to trip to Costco with my parents. I was excited to see an assortment of Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. I'm a big fan of Ina Garten's show on the Food Network, and figured I ought to buy one of her books. The anticipation of looking for new recipes was getting to me, so I began leafing through the pages as soon as we got in the car. The recipes are easy to follow and all of them have a photo of the finished dish. Page 218, with it's full-page photo of a baking dish filled with a baked chocolate pudding caught my eye.

"Ooo, Mama, look at this!" I exclaimed as I passed the book up to her in the front seat.

"You should make that," was her responding statement.

And so I found myself mixing up the ingredients for Mrs. Garten's Baked Chocolate Pudding on New Year's Eve. There were two ingredients in the original recipe that I didn't have: a vanilla bean and framboise. I left out the liquor and substituted 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract for the bean. This dish came together in about 15 minutes, and then baked in the oven for one hour.

This dessert is very good, but very rich--it definitely needs a scoop of ice cream to cut all the chocolateness. Despite its richness, it has a wonderfully light texture.

One more note: the book's instructions call for baking the pudding in a water bath. I failed to note this when I made this dessert, but it came out just fine without a "bath."

Barefoot Contessa's Baked Chocolate Pudding (with my tweaks)
1/2 lb. (2 sticks) unsalted butter (you will need extra to butter the baking dish)
4 eggs at room temperature
2 cups of sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 2 quart shallow oval baking dish. Melt the 2 sticks of butter in the microwave (the butter will need to cool before you add it to the batter).

Beat the eggs and sugar on medium high speed with a mixer for at least 5 minutes. The mixture will be very thick and light yellow.

Sift together the cocoa and flour, and slowly add to the egg/sugar mixture. Then add the vanilla and very slowly add the melted butter, beating until just combined.

Pour the mixture into the baking dish, and tap the dish on the counter a couple of times. Bake for one hour. The center will look very under-baked. The consistency of the dish is between a pudding and a brownie.

Wait at least 20 minutes for the pudding to settle before serving with ice cream.

Goode Bean Soup

It’s been awhile since I posted. Partly because I haven’t been inspired, and partly because I really haven’t been cooking up anything new. But, I did cook a batch of soup last night that was pretty good that I wanted to share. I adapted it from other recipes, so I’m going to call my version “Goode Bean Soup.”

This recipe came about out of my new obsession of using a slow cooker, and the need to use up a pound of Great Northern Beans in the cupboard. It also happened that I have onions, carrots, and celery in the fridge that need to be used, along with several cans of tomatoes. I did venture into unknown territory with this recipe—I used a ham hock! Now, being from the South, I have been eating foods cooked with ham hocks for years, but I have never cooked with them at home. I must say that the flavor is excellent, although I did end up with some piggy ankle bones floating around in the soup ! Fortunately, dear hubby and are were very careful not to swallow them.

This recipe couldn’t be simpler. First, soak the beans overnight. Then drain, rinse, and add them to the slow cooker. Second, add the rest of the ingredients except for the fresh herbs. Cover, cook on low for 8 hours. Third, remove the bay leaf and ham hock. Next, add your chopped, fresh herbs. Then, season with salt and pepper. And finally, serve.

Goode Bean Soup Ingredients
1 lb. of dry Great Northern Beans
6 cups of chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon of dry parsley
1 15-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
1 onion
2 carrots
2 stalks of celery
1 ham hock
2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons of chopped fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, and parsley)*
Salt & Pepper to taste
^ use chopped ham or bacon in place of the ham hock
* substitute dry herbs (just cut the amount by 1/3, but add them to the soup at the beginning or halfway through the cooking process