Flavagivmas

Every year for what has to be the last decade, Kris and Erica have hosted a Thanksgiving party at their house for all of crew, AKA Flavagiving.  This year, I think time just got away from everyone and there was just so much going on.  So, Teddy and I offered to host this year after Christmas.  Thus, Flavagivmas was born. 

I made beer ham, twice baked potatoes, a salad and Heather brought a pea casserole.  I also had cupcakes for dessert, and Erica brought all the yummy goodies left over from Christmas at her house.  Mostly, we had a great time catching up and playing some games.

Here's almost everyone finishing up dinner.  We lost a few attendees due to the flu, but we all partied on in their absence. 

Jon finally joined the party

Then it was time to break out the games.  I had quite the stack from Christmas.  We ended up playing Pictionary Man, Apples to Apples and Battle of the Sexes.  I have to say that Pictionary Man was a big hit.  It was a great twist on the classic game.

Here's the Lach girls with Kris getting ready to play some games.

I didn't get any other pictures of the night since I was too focused on fun, but I know others took some.  So if you have pictures, please post them on facebook so I can update this post with more pics!

We ended the night with some Lego Rockband and Mario Cart game playing.  I think I ended up going to bed around 4am.  That has to be some sort of record for me at least in a LONG while.  It was great to catch up with friends around the holidays! 

Also, I got a lot of questions on how I made my ham, so here is the recipe for beer ham.

Ingredients:

A Ham (not the spiral cut kind)

A beer

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Put the Ham in a roasting pan on a rack.  Pour the beer over the top.  Seal it up with foil and bake in the oven 20 minutes for each pound.    For the last 15 minutes take off the foil. 

That's all there is to it!  You'll get a juicy, delicious ham that isn't very salty.  The alcohol in the beer pulls the salt out of the ham.  I also recommend getting the butt vs. the shank.  I bought the shank this time and I found it to be more fatty and to have more connective tissue than the butt portions I've bought in the past.  It's super easy and yummy every time.

Quick Chicken and Chorizo Tacos

I haven't posted a recipe in a while, and one of my new favorite ones that I threw together recently was chicken and chorizo tacos.  I thought this would be a good combination, and Teddy and I thought it was my best tacos yet.

Ingredients:

Meat Mixture:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts chopped into bite size pieces
7 - 8 oz of Mexican chorizo
1 sweet onion diced
1 package of taco seasoning (I used McCormick original taco seasoning mix)
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Taco fix'ns:
Corn tortillas
Shredded cheese
diced tomatoes
lettuce
sour cream
salsa

I heated a saute pan with chipotle flavored olive oil and added the onions seasoned with salt and pepper.  Once these started to become transparent I added the chicken.  When the chicken was about fully cooked, I added in the chorizo.  You have to break it up a bit with your spoon when you first add it in so that it is spread evenly in the mixture and coats each piece of chicken.  After the sausage started to brown and spices cooked down a little I added the taco seasoning package according to the directions on the package.  I let this simmer for 3 - 4 minutes and it was ready to go. 

I toasted the tortillas on my stove top for a few seconds and then put together the tacos with whatever our favorite fix'ns were.  Corn tortillas were a good choice with this mixture.  I think the corn flavor really balanced out the spicy richness of the taco meat mixture.

Our favorite salsa as of late is Frontera's medium salsa.  It has a great smokey flavor that complimented the taco seasoning really well. 

Tacos are a great weekday meal as I had them all cooked and ready to go in about 30 minutes including prep time, and you can also get great flavor by letting the grocery store help you a little, like I did with the taco seasoning mix and already shredded cheese. 

The best part was that we had leftovers.  Later in the week I used them to make burrito rice bowls, which was another great way to use the meat mix I created.  And that dinner was on the table even faster with even less effort and just as good the first time around.

Steak Chili

This week I made a new recipe for steak chili.  I found a good recipe in the food network magazine, but as with most recipes I made some changes to make it my own.  It was delicious, with some good spice and heartiness. We ended up with A LOT of leftovers, so I probably should have cut this recipe in half when I made it, but I'm going to try to do something fun with what's left.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 lbs of sirloin steak cut into 2 inch cubes
1 12 oz can of black beans drained and rinsed
1 12 oz can of kidney beans drained and rinsed
1 onion chopped
1-1/2 12 oz cans of diced tomatoes
2 3.5 oz cans of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce chopped
3/4 cup of chili powder
1 tablespoon of cumin
5 cloves of garlic chopped
1 tablespoon of olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
1 green onion sliced
sour cream

Heat a saute pan and the olive oil and add the steak.  Brown on all sides.  Do this in batches so that the pan doesn't get over crowded and transfer the browned meat to a 5 - 6 quart slow cooker.  Once all the meat is browned add the chopped onion to the saute pan and let cook until it starts to get soft about 3 minutes.  (leave a little bite in the onion for some texture in the chili)  Add the garlic, chipolte peppers with any adobo sauce, chili powder, and cumin.  Let this cook together for another 2 - 3 minutes.  Then add 1 1/2 cups of water and the diced tomatoes.  Scrape up any bits off the bottom of the pan and mix all the spices into the liquid and let this cook for another 2- 3 minutes.  Add the mixture to the slow cooker with the meat, pour in the beans and stir to incorporate everything together.  Put the slow cooker on low and let it cook for 6 hours.

Once done ladle into bowls, sprinkle with the green onion and a tablespoon of sour cream, and it is ready for eating!

This was a nice recipe to do on Sunday.  I was able to get everything in the slow cooker in the morning and could run around working on different things all day knowing that dinner was already taken care of. 

Stuffed Banana Peppers

In my last blog I said I'd post a recipe for some stuffed banana peppers.  A while back I was at a restaurant with my family and we ordered these as an appetizer, and they were AMAZING!  So, I figured I'd try a quick version of these at home.  The farmers market had some nice looking banana peppers and I had some left over Italian sausage from making stuffed zucchini the week before, so I was ready to experiment.

Ingredients

4 banana peppers
1/2 lb of bulk mild Italian sausage
1 1/2 cups of marinara sauce
1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Then cut the tops off the banana peppers and with a small spoon scoop out the seeds.  Then I took small amounts of the sausage and pushed it into the pepper trying to get it all the way down to the bottom.  After the peppers were stuffed I placed them in a small casserole dish and covered them with marinara sauce, covered the dish and put it in the oven for 45 minutes.  After 45 minutes I removed the cover, sprinkled on the cheese and put it back in the oven for 10 more minutes.  It will then be ready to enjoy.

These were so delicious.  The heat from the pepper becomes more mild as you cook it, and tastes great with the Italian sausage.  It tasted pretty close the the restaurant version that was basing it off of.  Next time I think I might mix it up a little bit with the filling by using hot Italian sausage and some breadcrumbs and seasoning, but I thought for never making it before it turned out pretty great.

Stuffed Zucchini with a side of Roasted Tomatoes

This week I had a gigantic zucchini from my garden that I had to use, so I decided to make stuffed zucchini.  It's something that I haven't made in a really long time, but is a yummy way to use more veggies in our dinner.  I again didn't take any pictures while I was cooking, so sorry about that!  I made some roasted tomatoes with it as I have SO many tomatoes from my garden and am always looking for new ways to use them.  So, on to the recipe.

Stuffed Zucchini

Ingredients:

1 large zucchini
1 cup mushrooms sliced
1/2 lb of mild Italian sausage bulk
1 tablespoon of fresh basil minced
1 tablespoon of fresh oregano minced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/4 cup of Italian bread crumbs
1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Heat a saute pan and put the olive oil in.  Then add the sausage and saute until browned (break the sausage up with a wooden spoon as it's cooking)  While the sausage is browning slice the zucchini in half.  Using a melon-baller scoop out the center of the zucchini to make small boats to put the stuffing in.  Place these on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Chop the scooped out zucchini into bite size pieces.  After the sausage is done remove it from the pan and set it aside in a bowl.  Then add the basil and oregano to the pan.  After about 30 seconds you should start to smell the herbs cooking, then add the chopped zucchini, season with salt and pepper, and saute for 2 minutes.  Then add the mushrooms.  Saute these together for another 2 minutes until they are almost fully cooked.  Then mix in the browned Italian sausage.  Turn off the heat and stir in half of the grated cheese.  The mixture is now ready to add to your zucchini boat.  Fill as much of the mixture in that you can, top with a sprinkling of breadcrumbs and the rest of the cheese.  Put in the oven for 20 minutes or until zucchini boats are tender. Enjoy!

Roasted Tomatoes

Ingredients:

2 large tomatoes quartered (any variety - I used big boys)
1 tablespoon of fresh rosemary minced
1 tablespoon of fresh thyme minced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place the tomatoes on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Sprinkle the tomatoes with the oil, then add salt and pepper.  Sprinkle each tomato with the rosemary and thyme, and then add the balsamic vinegar.  Pop these in the oven for 10 minutes and enjoy!

Both recipes turned out great and was a great way to use some of our fresh veggies for dinner.

Eggplant Parmesan

Well, to start off, I can't believe that I have posted 50 times on my blog.  When I started this in January it really was just for Teddy and I to keep a record of what was going on in our lives since time seems to strip us of our memories.  Now I'm 8 months in, blogging on average once per week, enjoying writing, and taking  a lot more pictures. (Although this post won't have pictures because I do lapse into forgetfulness from time to time)  It even seems that some of our family and friends are actually reading the blog, which I never expected.  It is a nice surprise when someone comments to me on what they read in my blog recently.  I am happy to say that this is one new years resolution that I've actually kept up with. 

Ok, so on to the actual purpose for today's blog.  I have been in a cooking rut, making a lot of the same things over and over again.  I have tried some new recipes that have all been delicious, but my favorite kind of cooking is to just take some ingredients that I have on hand, think might be good, or that I remember from watching some cooking show and throw it together hoping for the best.  At the farmers market there was a ton of eggplant, and it all looked so fresh and delicious.  I had never cooked with eggplant, but thought why not give it a try.  I've been trying to incorporate a meatless meal in our diet every now and then since we tend to eat some form of meat at every meal. 

So, Monday night as I was trying to figure out what to make, I was running through my pantry and fridge contents in my head while I was on the train headed home and thought, why not Eggplant Parmesan.  I've made chicken parm before, so it can't be all that different.  And I actually had all the ingredients.  I made it with some roasted rosemary and thyme potatoes, which was a nice alternative to pasta.  Teddy loved it, so we had a delicious meat free dinner that I'm happy to say I'd definitely try again.  And even better, it was pretty darn easy.  So, here is what I did:

Ingredients:
1 eggplant sliced into half inch rounds
1 egg
1 splash of milk
1 cup of italian seasoned bread crumbs
1 tablespoon olive oil
ground pepper to taste
1 cup marinara sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  I mixed the egg, splash of milk and some ground pepper together in a small bowl.  I then put the bread crumbs in another bowl and dipped the sliced eggplant first in the egg mixture and then coated it with the bread crumbs.  While I was doing this I had my saute pan heating over medium high heat.  I put in about a tablespoon of olive oil (I use flavored oil from a local store called the Olive Tap - this time I used the Tuscan Herb blend) and then added the bread crumb coated egg plant.  I let them brown on each side for 2 - 3 minutes and then put them on a cookie sheet and popped them in the oven for 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes I flipped them over, put about a table spoon of jar marinara sauce on each slice and sprinkled enough cheese to cover the sauce.  They then went back into the oven for about 5 minutes until the cheese melted. 

The eggplant was tender and flavorful with the crispy breadcrumb crust mixed with the tomato sauce and gooey cheese.  It was absolutely delicious!  I have heard the skin of eggplant can be tough, but mine was fork tender and not even noticeable.  I'm sure that is more due to the freshness of the eggplant buying it at the farmers market and less due to how I cooked it.

On to the roasted potatoes.

Ingredients:

6 small fingerling potatoes cut into half inch chunks
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme minced
1 tablespoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Put the potatoes on a cookie sheet, sprinkle them with the rosemary and thyme and then drizzle over the olive oil.  Using your hands mix the potatoes so they all get an even coating of the oil and herbs.  Pop them in the oven for about 25 - 30 minutes. 

The potatoes were crispy/crunchy on the outside, but light and fluffy on the inside.  They were really quite good, and I bet would work well in a foil pan on the grill as well if you don't want your oven on in the house. 

It was a great dinner, and I was happy getting my fix in trying to make something I never had before.  And the biggest payoff was that it actually tasted great, and took no time to get on the table.

Trying new recipies

Teddy and I had a very quiet weekend this week.  It was kind of nice. 

Friday he flew home from a business trip, so I made some steaks on the grill with a yummy mushroom sauce that I'll get to later.

Saturday morning we had breakfast with my mom and dad, so we could pick up Fozzie from their house that morning (they were dog sitting with both Teddy and I traveling last week.).  Saturday was spent running errands and doing chores around the house.  We had our annual visit from our heating and cooling guy to check out the air conditioner.  Our "free" service call resulted in a check for about $400.  *sigh*  At least we shouldn't have to worry about the airconditioner going out on us this summer.

Saturday night we headed up to Erica & Kris's to visit and play some Lego rock band.  Jennifer and Heather were there too and we all had fun hanging out with Emily and Carson.  We took turns reading Emily a bedtime story before she turned in for the night. 

Sunday was a very low key day.  I've been fighting a cold for about a week, so Teddy made me stay in bed most of the day to try to kick it.  It was the first time in a long time we had a weekend with nothing planned.  We savored it since it'll be the last time for a while that will be the case.

So, this weekend I tried a couple of new recipies that I made up just from experience cooking other things.  They turned out pretty good.  The first was the mushroom wine sauce that I put over our steaks on Friday. 

Mushroom wine sauce:

1 package of sliced and cleaned baby portabello mushrooms
1 cup of red wine
1/4 cup of beef stock (or any other kind of stock you have in your pantry)
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

Heat a saute pan, add the olive oil and mushrooms.  Heat until mushrooms are browned.  Then add the red wine.  Let that simmer over a low-medium heat until the wine reduces by half.  Add the beef stock and season with salt and pepper.  Simmer for a few minutes.  When ready to serve, shut off the heat and stir in the sour cream.  Then pour over the steaks & enjoy. 

It turned out really good and was a nice compliment to the grilled steak. 

Sunday I created a version of chinese stirfry.  It turned out really good and I'm sure was a lot healthier than take out.

Chinese stirfry:

1 lb of meat (works with beef, pork or chicken - I did it with pork)
4 stalks baby bok choy quartered with cores cut out
1 can water chestnuts drained
1 cup sliced white mushrooms
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
2 tablespoons rice vinigar
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon thai chili and garlic sauce
salt & pepper to taste

In a saute pan or wok brown the meat until nearly cooked.  Remove meat from pan, set aside and pour out any grease.  Add the baby bok choy, water chestnuts, and mushrooms in the saute pan with a 1/4 cup of water, cover and steam for 2 - 4 minutes.  While steaming the veggies, mix in a bowl the ginger, rice vinigar, soy sauce, brown sugar and chili & garlic sauce (add salt and pepper to taste).  Then add to saute pan with the veggies, add in the meat (include any juices that come out of the meat while sitting), mix and let simmer for 3 - 5 minutes.  Serve over white or brown rice. 

The sauce has a nice heat to it from both the ginger and the chili & garlic sauce.  If you don't like spicy food leave out the chili & garlic sauce.

Overall, it was a very nice, low key weekend.  We probably needed that rest as we ramp up for all the activities coming up - Teddy's birthday, Teddy's mom's birthday, mothers day, wedding festivities, etc...
It's going to be a busy couple of months!

Late weekend recap

Well, I of course didn't find time over the weekend to do my typical Sunday post.  Which is surprising, because it was a pretty low key weekend. 

I flew in Friday night from Atlanta for work and got home late.  Saturday was spent running errands and then Saturday night was a family party for Teddy's cousin Casey's birthday.  We spent a lot of the party talking and catching up.  Teddy was of course downstairs playing games with the kids most of the time.  :)  It was good to see the extended family since we hadn't seen them all since Christmas.

Sunday I had lunch with some friends and then came home and made some delicious short rib stew.  I sort of made up the recipe based on one I saw Brian Boitano (yes, that's the ice skater) demo on the Today show Saturday morning. 

I couldn't find his recipe on line, so I took what he said on the show and went off memory to put it together.  You'll have to excuse my lack of exactness with the recipe as this is how I cook, I rarely measure and go more on how it looks and tastes.

Ingredients:

5 short ribs
5 - 6 good size carrots peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 bunch of celery cleaned and chopped into bite size pieces
1 onion (I use vidalia) peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 red bell pepper cleaned and chopped
4 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
4 red potatos peeled and chopped (soak in water until ready to include)
1 container of baby portibello mushrooms cleanned and chopped
1 mini can of tomato paste
1 12 oz can of diced tomatos
1 cup or so of red wine
2 cups or so of chicken stock
1 bay leaf
4 - 5 sprigs of thyme
2 tbl of olive oil
salt & pepper (S&P) to taste

Heat the stew pot and add the olive oil.
Season then brown the short ribs on all sides and then pull out and set aside. 
Add the chopped onions, carrots, celery, red bell pepper and garlic to the pot (season with S&P to taste)
Let those cook to where the onions start to become translucent and the carrots still have some crunch left.
Add the tomato paste, mix it into the veggies and let it cook a little
Add the red wine (make sure you pick up all the tasty bits on the bottom of the pot from cooking the meat and veggies with your spoon at this point to deglaze - lot's of yummy flavor)
Let the red wine cook down for a few minutes to reduce a little and concentrate it's flavor
Then add the diced tomatos and chicken stock
Mix it all in and taste it for any additional S&P needed
Then add back the short ribs, the bay leaf and thyme (I just throw the whole stem and everything from the thyme in - the leaves fall off in the cooking process and you can pick the stem out later)
Let this cook on a low heat for about 60 minutes
After the 60 minutes, add the diced potatoes.
Cook for another 30 minutes
After the 30 minutes add the mushrooms
Cook for another 30 minutes
Then it is ready! 

Don't forget to pull out the bay leaf and the stems from the thyme.  You also may have some bones from the short ribs floating around since the braising got them so tender they just fell right off their bone!  While it was a long cooking process it was well worth it for a yummy Sunday dinner.  And it was pretty easy to put together - just not a 30 minute week day meal.  :) 

We invited Teddy's dad over to try it since Teddy's mom went up North to see his sisters. I think he liked it.  I'm not sure if I got all the components of Brian Boitano's dish, but his demo certainly inspired me to try something new.  It turned out great and we have leftovers to enjoy sometime this week.