Looong time...

So, it's been a long time, but I made such a yummy dish the other night I thought I'd do a post again. I found the dish online and it's from Rachael Ray. I know lots of people don't like her, but this was a really good recipe. The recipe was Shepherds Pie with Horseradish Cheddar Potatoes. It actually wasn't that difficult to make, but it definitely took more than 30 minutes. Then again, I wasn't exactly rushing and I was enjoying some wine at the same time. Quite leisurely cooking. Anyways, here's some pics of the process.

Anyways, it was really delicious. Really rich flavors. I would never have thought of putting horseradish in mashed potatoes, but it was so good (then again, I really like horseradish). All in all this was a great, and hearty, winter meal.

P.S. It's a good thing that I liked it because I live alone and will be eating it for the next week:)

Is everything better with bacon?

So, trying to get back to this. For this week from the Food Revolution book we're making bacon wrapped cod and asparagus with a sauce. Sounds pretty good, right? Well, it was. Kind of. First off, I'll say this was a pretty easy recipe and everything is done really fast. Even with prep, it only took about 20-25 minutes. So, here are the results (and I apologize in advance...even for my phone camera this is a terrible picture):

Okay, the good. Even though you cook this at a high heat, with the fish wrapped in the bacon the fish is still nice and tender and not at all overcooked. I used basil instead of Rosemary for the fish and it added a nice flavor.

The iffy. The sauce on the asparagus was very tasty, but very strong. I would totally make this again, but I would go more sparingly on the sauce. As it is, it sort of overwhelms the asparagus (which I actually like the taste of).

The not so good. I even cooked it a little longer than it said and my bacon was still not crispy. Definitely still fatty and kind of gummy. Now, I guess there's a few things I could do differently. One, is that the recipe says to thin out the bacon by running your knife over it, and I didn't do that (oops, my bad). Maybe that would've helped. Another option is to use 3 slices of bacon instead of the 4 it says to use. Lastly, maybe a minute or two under the broiler at the end might have crisped it up. And then, of course, I could have just looked for a thinner cut bacon. Those are my ideas anyways.

In closing, it's a tasty, and easy to cook dish, that I would probably try again. There's just a few things I would do differently.

Claudia? Your turn.

Asian Chicken Noodle Broth

So, this is our first recipe from the "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" book. I got to choose the first recipe, so this is what I picked (mainly because I've been craving pho). I'm putting a pic from the cookbook below because I'm too lazy to transcribe the recipe. Anyways, in the book he says make a recipe and share it with others. So, it's only slightly copyright infringement.

I made a few little tweaks to the recipe. I started the broth a little earlier and let it simmer for a while. I really wanted to make sure the flavors of the ginger and chili pepper was infused (I also added some garlic). The kitchen smelled fantastic when I finally got everything cooking. I couldn't find snow peas or baby carrots (which I don't really care for anyways) so I got totally lazy and bought a frozen bag of "Asian Vegetable Medly" (snap peas, mushrooms, onions and sundry). I also used thin pasta instead of rice sticks. In addition, I decided to use cilantro instead of spinach. This is totally a matter of taste. I love cilantro and the flavor it brings, but I know some people who really don't like it. So, that's totally up to you. Final product?

This soup was really, really (really) good. You could definitely taste the heat of the chili and the five-spice powder (which I've never used before) was such a wonderful aromatic and added so much to the dish. On a side note, I paid $7 for a container of this so I need to find something else to do with it. I think this is going to be a great second day meal as the flavors usually intensify after a day or two (as with most soups and stews). One thing, I totally forgot to add the chopped seeds and nuts at the end. I toasted them and everything. So, even more for my leftovers. All in all this was a delicious start to the cookbook. Can't wait to see what Clussy chooses for next week:)

UPDATE by Claud:
So, since I didn't take any pics of my recipe making for this one, I figured I'd just update what Jems already had in place. 

My take on it in a nutshell is that it was freaking awesome and easy to make actually.  Only thing I did wrong (actually, there were a few snafoos but this one is the biggest) was to dump in 10 oz of noodles into the soup instead of just the 4 it called for, so then I had to add in extra chicken broth but at that point, it diluted it of the other seasonings/condiments which were measured out for half as much broth (like the lemon juice, ginger and chili pepper) so it wasn't as good as it could have been, which is saying a lot because it truly was delicious. Another note, I *did* remember to sprinkle the plated dishes w/the toasted seeds/nuts and they were kind of the highlight for me.  I LOVE texture in that regard so to give me some crunch in a soup and for it to be filled w/this toasted nutty taste was heaven for me.  Winner winner, chicken soup dinner. 
NEXT!

Gardening Update

So, I wanted to give a little update on how this was coming along. Actually had quite a little setback. First my seedlings got a fungus, so I had to transplant them. Then it got realllllly cold for a few nights. And then a squirrel (or other city rodent) decided to eat a bunch of them. After all of that a lot of my seedlings were dead or just gone (all of my cucumber seedlings are dead). So, I've started a few of them again, though, it may be too late in the season. If they're not really taking off in the next week or two then I'll just buy some plants. No biggy. Plus we're supposed to finally have a longer string of warm and sunny days, so I think that should help.

Some of my tomato plants are actually doing pretty well. The name of this heirloom seed is "West Virginia Hillbilly Tomato". So, clearly that's why I bought it because it's the tomato for my peoples.

My lettuce is actually doing pretty well. Still really small, but getting there.


I bought two blackberry bushes 2 weeks ago and planted them and they're looking purty so far. No berries yet (still way too early), but I've got some pretty blooms.

My beans are starting to sprout and making a go of it.

You can actually see some of the first strawberries in my strawberry plant, too. I didn't start this from seed, just bought it.

I'm still really enjoying this whole process and hope everything keeps going so I can supply all my friends and family with fresh veggies this summer. :)

It's like mussles but different...

Well, mussel fail.  It's confirmed.  After murdering a 5 lb bag of mussels (I really didn't know they were alive when you buy them) by putting them away in fridge for a day in a closed bag, I decided to head over to Harris Teeter, after the gym tonight, to try my shot at finding them again.  Oh, I found them but after tapping at the whole array of mussels that were on ice (in net bags), none of them would even pretend to shut. I realized they were like 90% dead if not more and slimy at that! Ew. The whole area was stinky.  I looked over at the seafood counter and scowled at disapproval.  You see, maybe I didn't murder them afterall. Maybe I naively bought mussel corpses and they (seafood counter folks) framed me of their murder. Why me? Ok, rant over.  Point is, I smartly decided against buying dead mussels and instead opted for shrimp.

I got everything out and proceeded to dive in.  I chopped the onion and garlic as well as some fresh basil (that was my taking liberties) and set aside.  Squeezed the oily chorizo out of the casin, into oiled frying pan and browned, then set aside in bowl and threw in the goodies and let them sizzle. The onions, garlic and basil cooking up in the chorizo infused oil was so yummy smelling that Cowboy came sniffing around in excitement.  Since I was modifying the recipe to just have a pound or so of shrimp instead of all the mussels,  I only used about 2 1/2 cups of white wine to deglaze the pan and it turned out to be a perfect amount.

What I'd suggest in cooking this would be to use angel hair pasta as the carb of the dish and up the amount of wine at that point so that the angel hair pasta can sop it up. Other than that, it was quite possibly a perfect recipe.  Good find, Jems!

Sizzling pan full of goodness, just about done.

Plated and ready to eat. I put a bit of the sauce/broth in a separate bowl to sop up w/the toasted bread which ended up being a really nice side treat to it.

Mussels - Jeremy's Take

So, after much searching I finally found some mussels in the grocery store to make the recipe listed 2 posts ago. I was definitely looking forward to it. Unfortunately, the grocery store didn't have chorizo, so I went with hot italian sausage instead. When I began rinsing off the mussels, a bunch of them didn't close, so I knew they were dead and inedible. I will also admit I was getting slightly grossed out by the mussels themselves. It's one thing to order them and they come out all nice and pretty, it's another when you're tapping them to see if they close so you know they're alive when you cook them. Here's a few pics of the process:

And here's the finished product below. Sorry the pictures are a little blurry. And, yes, I have them in a big frying pan as I realized I don't have any larger serving bowls.

So, thoughts. This was actually pretty tasty. I'm sure it would've been more so if I hadn't been slightly turned off the idea of mussels by the process. If I could change one thing I would let the broth concentrate a little longer with the sausage before adding the mussels. I think that would help it develop a little more flavor. All in all, it was pretty good, though. On a side note, I halfed the recipe and still had WAY too much food. So, my big piece of advice would be, invite some friends over before you make this.

Paris Bistro Steak - Bonus Recipe for last week

Woops, I'm falling behind on posting new recipe results.  So, last week, instead of making the mussels (I finally found some yesterday so I'll be making that tonight), I decided to make the Paris Bistro Steak off of the NoTakeOut website. 

Liberties I took w/recipe were countless.  Notably, instead of capers in the dressing for the steamed cauliflower, I used chopped green manzanilla olives, which made this dressing such a treat! I'll be keeping that as a go-to dressing on them for the future. I also added chopped sage to the steak red wine sauce and it gave it a really nice fragrance and taste.  I couldn't find Bordeaux at the local Safeway (but I *did* find a mouse scurrying in front of my card in cheese section of store) so I used a cab sav instead. Also, I decided to add green peppers and mushrooms in for some more veggies. I'd probably not do that next time because I think all in all, it just distracted from the simplicity of the steak reduction sauce and my measurements suddenly were skewed from eyeing to add in more wine and seasoning to account for extra veggies.

So, all in all, it was a tasty dish but the downsides would be that the cut of steak was not particularly good and pan cooking steak is tough for me (and Sean kept insisting it cook longer) so the steak turned out a bit more over-cooked than I like but then again, I like a good Moo to come out of my steak before I bite in and have red steak juices dribbling off my chin.  The flavors were really good but I'd likely pick a different cut of steak or perhaps grill the steak next time and just pan cook the sauce of course.

Red wine reduction sauce simmering down.

Finished product

Time to flex mussels tonight! Hope I didn't kill the poor buggers. Who knew they were alive when you bought them? ((shrugs))