Week of New Things

This past week my parents went on a cruise to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. This left me and the boys (my husband and my brother) alone and me responsible for dinners. Feeling a little ambitious, I chose a menu comprised entirely of dishes I had never made before (except for pizza but that ended up not working so we had pasta.)

Some of these dishes came out better than others. Here are the dishes and my thoughts on each:

Stuffed Potato Pancakes-Great idea in theory but I must have done something wrong because they weren't that great. Aside from the fact that shredded potato oxidizes really quickly and turns kinda pink and then black after a while, this dish didn't really have any flavor. Also, the potato cakes soaked up all the oil used to fry them so they turned grey. I plan to try this again in the future, maybe asking some questions of the person who posted this dish first. No photos because they were too ugly.

Chocolate Chip Dream Bars-These were amazing! I accidentally over-baked them a little and they were still delicious. These have great flavor because, unlike a standard cookie bar, they have a crust and this crust was basically brown sugar and butter (and of course, my ever-present Pumpkin Pie Spice.) All in all, very delicious and a recipe I will keep and most certainly make again. Here are some photos:



You can see how crispy the top got; do not over-bake!
I actually made these twice within one week, they were so good I had to make them again! The second time I used less chocolate because it was all I had left and I was careful not to over bake them. This resulted in a much chewier texture that was similar to pecan pie filling. I thought this was very interesting and delicious!


Marinated Tofu and Vegetable Stir Fry-I wasn't too impressed with this when I first made it, but after I was done eating I decided it was really good. The vegetables I used were bell peppers (red and yellow), broccoli, bok choy (yum!) and white onion. The only problem I really had with this dish is it needed something to go with it, probably rice. A nice bowl of sticky rice with the stir fry on top would have been awesome. No photos, I forgot. I made this twice as well. When my parents came home I made them dinner for their anniversary and this was part of their dinner. They both enjoyed it.

Crab and Cream Cheese Stuffed Wontons-This is possibly my favorite dish this week! This recipe is very easy although extremely time consuming, an assembly line would have been nice. The original recipe called for imitation lobster but I though crab would be good since I had eaten Crab Ragoon (basically the same thing only fried) before. I also left out the green onion because I don't like it. The original recipe called for 1/2 a teaspoon of sriracha in the filling, you can see in the original step-by-step photos that her cream cheese is still white. I added at least 1 whole teaspoon, if not more and my cream cheese was pink! We like spicy food though so it was good. We ate this for lunch because we were running out of days on our own and I really wanted to make it. Supposedly this should have made about 32 wontons but I ended up using the whole package of wrappers (42!) and still had filling left! I could have easily served my whole family this dish (with some rice and veggies) and my parents would have enjoyed it. Photos:



Serve with some soy and sriracha sauce. Mmmmm.

Roasted Chicken and Vegetables-Yours truly has never roasted a chicken before. I know that sounds ridiculous since roast chicken is incredibly easy and very popular but somehow I have always ended up using my slow cooker instead. This week I was determined to roast a chicken like everyone else has. It came out very tasty! For my veggies I used leftover bok choy, leftover red and yellow bell peppers, new potatoes and zucchini. For my spices I chopped some rosemary and thyme, added some salt, black pepper, white pepper and garlic powder. After sprinkling the veggies with the spices I added the remainder to some soft butter and spread it over the chicken. The result was super crispy skin and slightly too oily veggies, but the chicken was very tender. The bok choy was my favorite veggie. Hooray for first tries!

To go along with the tofu stir fry I made for my parents I also made these Pork and Ginger Pot Stickers. I changed the recipe a bit. I did not want cabbage and other veggies inside so I made them with ground pork and ground beef. I did not have any sesame oil on hand and omitted the bouillon. They were superb! The recipe says to cook them for seven minutes but I found they did not need that long. I would say four minutes was plenty of time, all of the meat was thoroughly cooked by then. I had a bit of the filling left over and I cooked it up and added it to the left over stir fry for lunch the next day. It was yummy! Again, no photos but they looked pretty much the same as the other ones. I am now not afraid of making won tons and can't wait to make more!

Please check out these links and consider making some of them for your dinner.

Sam

The Fajitas, They Mock You

This recipe is for something that I randomly decided to try at some point last year. I thought it would be really good to braise meat in taco sauce.

Not just any sauce, mind you. Sauce from fast food taco restaurants (Taco Bell, Del Taco, those places.)

People at Seth's would always go to Taco Bell because it was just down the street and I started asking for their leftover sauce. I made it with chicken and it was quite good. I made it with chicken again, but this time, used the crock pot. Good, but not as good.

Right now Del Taco has regular crunchy or soft tacos for $0.39. Each. How awesome is that? I knew it was time to start stocking up on sauce. (don't tell Del Taco, but I took a lot of extra sauce each time I went. Shhhh...) Brandon and I both love the medium sauce at Del Taco. Del Scorcho, it's called.

I wanted to make a fajita-like dish, with peppers and onions. This dish came out really tasty and I will definitely be making it again. They are not traditional fajitas but they are awesome none-the-less.

This post is my attempt to come up with some sort of repeatable recipe. I hope it works. Here you are:

Ingredients:
1 lb. meat (I used some cut of beef whose name eludes me) sliced or cubed
2 bell peppers
1 med. onion
1 c. taco sauce (mild, med, or hot or any combination thereof)
Olive Oil, for the pan
Spices for the veggies (i used ground cumin, white pepper and salt
Tortillas
Sour Cream, to serve

Heat the oven to 250°. Spray an 8X8 baking dish.
Place the meat in the dish. Pour sauce over the meat. Stir so that all of the meat is coated.
Cover with tin foil and bake for 60-70 minutes. Uncover and bake for about 15 more minutes.
When the meat is almost done, chop the veggies.
Drizzle olive oil into a large pan and heat. Add spices.
When the pan is hot, add the veggies.
Cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp tender, about 5-7 minutes.
Warm tortillas and then pile on the goodness!

As I was cooking the peppers and onion, I knew I had to get some photos of the finished product, the veggies alone were so beautiful! Burrito sized tortillas were all we had so I wrapped up some fajita burritos and man, were they good! Served with a side or two and in smaller tortillas, this dish could easily serve 6 people (I fed three with leftovers. We are going to make breakfast burritos with the rest!)

Dinner was fantastic and for dessert we had these. What a great way to end a crazy day. Here are some lovely photos:


Pre-Sour Cream.


Deliciousness zoom!


Mmmm...look at the sauce!

An Ode to Biscuits From a Tube

Our Albertson's has store-brand biscuits for $0.50. As someone on a serious budget that is a price I could not ignore. Last night I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I had to cook out of the freezer because we have so much food in there it is a waste not to. I thought of the biscuits and remembered that we enjoyed the crescent rolls filled with meat and cheese. I thought, "Perhaps I could make some sort of cup out of biscuit dough and fill it with meat and cheese." Thus the recipe was born.

I started cooking the meat and saw the rosemary I had sitting next to stove in water. Light bulb! I snipped a few springs of the rosemary and added it to the pan while the meat cooked. While cooking I recalled the bag of bell pepper slices that might still be in the freezer. We are big pepper fans so I thought it would be a good way to get some veggies into dinner. Luckily there was about a quarter of the bag left which ended up being just enough. Fresh pepper would work just fine as I defrosted them before use. Here is the recipe:

Rosemary Ground Beef and Bell Pepper Biscuit Cups
Ingredients:
1lb ground beef (I used just under that much)
Two or three 2inch sprigs of rosemary (basically, to taste)
About 1/2 cup of chopped bell peppers, frozen or fresh, any color
Two 10-count tubes of biscuits*
4oz shredded cheddar cheese (maybe 1 1/2 cups?)
BBQ or ketchup for dipping

Heat the oven to 400°. Cook the rosemary and ground beef in a pan until the meat is no longer pink.
Drain the beef and discard the rosemary. Transfer to a plate to cool.
Spray two six-count muffin tins with pan spray.
Open biscuits per directions on packaging. Take each biscuit, one by one, and flatten/stretch to about 2 or 3 inches (do not let them tear!)
Place flattened biscuits into muffin tins, pressing sides of dough up and against sides of the pan.
Place a few pieces (4 or 5 depending on size) of pepper in the bottom of each cup.
Spoon two (regular sized) spoonfulls of ground beef on top.
Place in the oven and bake for 5 minutes.
After 5 minutes, sprinkle them with the cheese and return to the oven for 6 minutes**.
Remove and enjoy!!
Makes 12
*I used Albertson's brand biscuits, this recipe is NOT sized for Pillsbury grands, the store brand are much smaller!
**This is to ensure the biscuits are done, if you use a brand with a different baking time, adjust!

These are super delicious and relatively healthy. If all goes well they should come out looking something like this:

                                                     

You may notice that the recipe called for two 10-count tubes of dough and I only make 12 dinner cups. This is because as I was making them I was also thinking of dessert!

I recently bought some Lemon Curd from Trader Joe's. It is so lemony good I have been looking for excuses to eat it (besides out of the jar!) A while back chocolate chips were on sale and lemon and chocolate are yummy so I improvised a  dessert to go with the improvised dinner.

Chocolate Chip Lemon Dessert Cups
Ingredients:
A handful of mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 teaspoons lemon curd*
8 store brand biscuits
Powdered sugar for dusting**

Preheat oven to 400°. Spray a six-count muffin tin with pan spray.
As before stretch/flatten the biscuit dough into 2-3 inch disks and drop into muffin tin.
You will have 2 biscuits left over. Place them on a tray as per package instructions and push some mini chips on them.
Spoon a teaspoon of lemon curd into 4 of the cups. Sprinkle two of the lemon cups with mini chips.
Add some mini chips to the two remaining cups.
Bake 10-12 minutes rotating halfway.
Remove from the oven and dust with powdered sugar.
Makes 8
*My husband does not like lemon as much as I do so I only made 4 with the lemon curd. Use about 1 teaspoon per cup.
**I wish I had thought of this when I made them. The chocolate chip only ones would have really benefited from this.

Below is a close-up of the lemon and chocolate cup. They were so delicious!



If you do not like lemon these could of course be made with any type of jam (I do not recommend jelly, too fluid) or even a custard. I am considering making another batch of these soon and trying them with melted butter and sugar brushed on before baking. Will it burn? No idea.

I hope you enjoy!

Sam