OK I know what you’re thinking… another chili recipe?!@? Yeah, but this one is really really good. I’m a big chili fan and always keep my eye out for variations. This one has cinnamon and cloves in it along with more traditional chili seasonings and almost has an Indian-esque flavor to it. It also has beer in it 🙂 We both really loved this one. Really.
Posted in Beef
Tagged beer, bon appetit, boneless beef chuck, chile con carne, cinnamon, cloves, cubed, cumin, diced tomatoes, dutch oven, garlic, ground ancho chiles, masa, onion, oregano, recipe
This was a quick and easy soup to prepare that packed some great flavor with very few ingredients. 6 to be exact. It was also the first time I have ever cooked with leeks. I’ve been meaning to for a while and now that I have I don’t know how or why I waited so long! Leeks are like jumbo green onions, but you don’t use the dark green parts. They have an onion flavor that is nice and mild. They are really pretty too.
You see that gravy on the plate there? I have been calling it liquid gold because it was so, so good. You will be licking your plate clean, I can almost guarantee it. We recently received a Staub and this is another recipe from Molly Steven’s All About Braising using the cocotte. This was definitely a dish of a lot of firsts for me. This was the first time I ever cooked a whole chicken before, made stuffing from scratch (cooked inside the bird), and made such a delicious pan sauce. This may have been the best thing I ever made and it really was not too difficult at all. Like the pot roast it entailed many steps and a good few hours, but nothing was too technical or intimidating to take on. Again, this was a time consuming Sunday cooking event. I tried to time it so we ate before the AFC Championship game, but it took a little longer than expected and we ate at half time. Luckily since the Steelers had taken such a big lead my nerves were calm enough that I was able to eat!
Tagged All About Braising, bacon, baked ham, bay leaves, brasied, bread stuffing, carrots, cocette, gizzards, heart, homemade, lemon zest, Molly Stevens, neck, onions, recipe, rendered chicken fat, rosemary, schmaltz, staub, thyme, whole chicken
I found this recipe in the February 2011 issue of Bon Appetit and was instantly intrigued. I think I ended up making it the very next day after first reading it! It was a nice twist on a weekend breakfast and tasted rather gourmet when in reality was a breeze to make.
Posted in Breakfast
Tagged bon appetit, bread crumbs, creamed spinach, dijon mustard, dippy, eggs, mustard, olive oil, recipe, sunny side up eggs, thyme
For the holidays and our first anniversary present my dad gave us a Staub cocotte. My dad is an avid at home chef as well and he did the research for himself and went with a Staub over Le Creuset and thus gifted us with one as well.
It’s a nice big one too!
He also gave us two cookbooks: All About Braising by Molly Stevens and Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook. Â So, needless to say this pot has become quite the superstar in our house lately!
The first recipe I made was courtesy of the Molly Steven’s book: Zinfandel Pot Roast with Glazed Carrots & Fresh Sage. Not only was the recipe easy to follow but she also gives good advice on selecting the right cuts of meat, step by step instructions on how to tie it correctly, and even how to select good parsnips. I found the tips on meat selection to be especially helpful as I was sifting through the meat choices at the supermarket. She suggested some cuts and stressed the importance of not selecting others. It gets really confusing to me so that was really nice.
As she suggested, I went with boneless beef chuck. The cuts at the store were on the smaller side so I bought two of them.
We are big fans of roasted cauliflower so when I saw this recipe for ‘bacon-flower soup‘ on Aarti’s blog I was instantly intrigued. Aarti won the show- “Next Food Network Star” and she is a food blogger in addition to being a TV chef nowadays. Pretty cool. This was the first recipe of her’s I’ve tried. Overall it went well despite having to google what a “rasher of bacon” was. Other than that though it was very easy to follow and the soup was good. Very interesting flavors all around.
Posted in Soups
Tagged aarti, bacon, cauliflower, cauliflower soup, entree soup, rasher of bacon, recipe, roasted cauliflower
Slow cooker meals are great, set them up, stir a few times, and do what you need to until you are ready. The comma in the title is important because this is turkey and bacon chili, not to be confused with turkey bacon. I am always trying to improvise my chili recipes and combined a few favorites into one with this easy slow cooker winter dish.
Posted in Recipes, Slow Cooker
Tagged bacon, beef broth, cayenne, chili, chili seasoning, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, garlic, jalapeno, slow cooker, stewed tomatoes, turkey, vinegar
On New Years Day our friends (and Wisconsin alum) Â invited us over to watch the Rose Bowl. The Badgers didn’t win, but they made an awesome lasagna using Ina Garten’s turkey lasagna recipe. It was so good and we were so impressed that I literally made it for us the very next day… with a twist of course. Instead of using lasagna noodles, I used spaghetti squash. If you are a fan of spaghetti squash and lasagna then you will truly love this recipe! No noodles at all and you won’t even miss ’em. There’s also goat cheese in this recipe. Need I say more? It is a match made in heaven as far as I am concerned!
This was another dish we made for our Christmas feast. I had some leftover marscapone from the stuffed mushrooms I made and thought I’d try to use it to make creamed spinach. As if creamed spinach needs to be more decadent?! It worked out well and everyone loved the spinach.
Posted in Sides, Vegetarian
Tagged creamed spinach, fresh spinach, garlic, leaf spinach, low carb, marscapone cheese, nutmeg, parmesan cheese, recipe, side dish, vegetarian
This is another holiday dish that was a big hit. I have been making mac and cheese for years and it’s my first real dish that inspired all of this. I actually got the original recipe in middle school cooking class. For this occasion, I wanted to switch it up and make it a bit classier so along came Gruyere and broccoli! It was sort of tough to decide what to name this to hit on all of the key parts without saying and, and, and. In the end, I felt there and wasn’t and much and of a choice. And.
Starving Kitten 