Feeling Corny

You know..for me...it's all about the carbs, man. I can make a meal out of nothing but bread and side salad and be quite happy. Bread makes my heart go pit-a-pat. Bread makes me weak in the knees. Bread is the single most important ingredient to any good meal.

I eat bread...therefore I run.

I made some cornbread to go with the chili the other day, and then realized that I'd need cornbread for the Thanksgiving dressing, if I can remember all the things that go in the dressing that my grandmother makes (I think I can...I think I can...), so I thought I'd share a basic cornbread recipe with you.

Even though everyone already knows how to make cornbread, right?

Well, that's too bad. I don't have anything else ready. We ate at the Talky Beer Place on Thursday, and at Potbelly last night, so I haven't cooked anything in two days.

So, here we go...



Start with a good corn meal. This is self-rising, because I'm too lazy to add the extra steps. But it's better than a box of Jiffy. Although - really...I like Jiffy. But not for dressing.

Add some oil or shortening to a cast iron skillet and heat it up on the stove, or in the preheated 450 degree oven while you mix the rest. This ensures that you get a good crust on the bottom of your bread. DON'T SKIP THIS STEP.



The only cast iron skillet I currently have is this grill pan, but it works just fine.

Dear Mom: See Christmas list suggestion above...

Tangent...My sweet Dr. SmartyPants thinks it's really disgusting that I won't let him wash this pan with soap. It's not. Good hot water and a scrubby are all you need. Please, please, please oil your pan before you put it away...Tangent done.

In a bowl, combine 2 cups of the self-rising corn meal with 1 tablespoon sugar (if you like a little sweetness...leave it out if you are weird don't.)

In another bowl, or large measuring cup, combine 1 1/3 cups milk with one slightly beaten egg. Or if you're like me, drop the egg in and give it a swirl to mix it up with the milk. ***edit...I just remembered...I used about one cup of buttermilk and 1/3 cup sweet milk when I made this...yummmm.



Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until smooth.

Pour the batter into the hot skillet.



I usually let it sit a minute to let the crust get all crunchy. I like crunchy crust.

Say that five times really fast. Ilikecrunchycrust. Ilikecrunchycrust. Ilikecrunchycrust. Ilikecrunchycrust. Ilikecrunchycrust.

Oh, never mind. It wasn't all that hard to say after all.



Pop it into the oven and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until the top is golden brown.

Turn it out onto a cooling rack and guard it with your life, because someone in your house wants to grab it, slather it with butter and call it his.

And if you only have a cast iron grill pan, like me...enjoy the cute little cornbread bottom.



(ilikecrunchycrust)

Well, I'll Be Chard

Have you seen the new nutritional scoring system (NuVal) at the grocery store lately, where the item is scored on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being the very best? Well, I found something beautiful that ranks a full "100".



Swiss Chard.

Gorgeous, huge deep green leaves in thick bundles, with stems of red (or white or yellow or green -- or even mixed) -- how in the world could I resist this stuff? I mean, as an artiste, of course.

As a cook, however, I was stumped. For one thing, I just couldn't find a lot of recipes out there for chard. And then, most of the recipes I did find were absolutely loaded with butter, cream, AND cheese. Finally, I really wanted to make soup.

Where did THAT leave me?
I'll tell you.
I looked up the basics of cooking chard in my old stand-by, Fannie Farmer's Boston School Of Cooking Cookbook, and then just went on from there. In other words, I backed up and punted. I winged it. And it worked.



Begin with a nice fresh bunch of chard. You will want to wash it gently but really well, because, like most greens, there will be some sand hanging out in all those nice little cracks and crevices.

Sand is organic, but not necessarily all that good for you. Just a thought...



Here's the thing about chard. The stems are thick, kind of like celery, and healthy yummy edible -- but they need to cook longer than the leaves. The trick, therefore, is to cut off the stem ends, chop them up fairly thin (I'd say 1/3" to 1/4" thick), and set aside.

Then...


...cut away the center rib (to the trash or compost it goes!) so you can chop up the leafy green bit separately.



I like to gather the greens together and roll them all into a nice tight roll, and then make 1/2" to 1" thick slices with a very sharp knife. Don't be wimpy about this, and the knife needs to be sharp enough to slice, not saw. (Keep your hand far away from the knife. Don't cut yourself, PLEASE.) Then I turn the cutting board, gather the strips together, and slice again so that I have a pile of green rectangles.

Of you can just chop them up however is easiest for you, because they are going to cook down by the end and it really doesn't matter all that much.

Now we're cooking.

In your saucepan (and I love to use a good heavy huge pan with curved sides) melt 1 Tablespoon of butter and 1 Tablespoon of olive oil together.

When your fats are nice and bubbly, add your chopped STEMS (not the greens yet!!!) and one chopped onion. Stir them around for a few minutes on medium heat, then add about a cup of chicken broth (and here is where you get to use our now-famous-cheatin'-broth) and 1/2 cup of water, put the lid on the pot, and simmer over medium to medium-low for about 20 minutes, stirring every now and then.



The red stems are a little disconcerting at this point, I think. The green and white stems may make a prettier soup in the end, but the red is perfectly fine.

You will want your stems to become nice and tender.



Pour in 3 1/2 to 4 cups of cheater's broth, bring it up to a simmer, and then...



...add your chopped greens. Stir it all around until the greens wilt down into the soup, add a little wine (or lemon juice!), cover, and simmer for about 15 - 20 minutes on medium to medium-low heat.

See why I love the cheater's broth? The seasonings are already there. Easy peasy. I LIKE easy.



After about 15-20 minutes, when the greens are nice and cooked, you want to add a can of Cannellini beans (white kidney beans) that have been GENTLY rinsed. They are delicate beans, so don't mistreat them. Be gentle. Stir carefully. Be kind to them, and they will repay you in turn. (If you've never tried Cannellini beans, you are in for a real treat. They have become my favorite all around bean, and I keep several cans in the pantry all the time.) Keep the soup on the heat just long enough to get the beans heated through -- just a few minutes should do it.



This is the most difficult part. Prepare to completely panic. You need to taste the soup to adjust the seasonings, but at this point is TASTES TERRIBLE. Well, maybe not terrible, but it just tastes kind of like the juice than runs off greens after cooking, with maybe more seasonings. You will freak out. You will be tempted to call your soup a failure and phone out for pizza instead.

But... Don't Panic.

Dish your soup into the bowls. That's where we're going to let a little thing called "cheese" -- specifically "shaved Parmesan cheese" -- work its magic.

Pile a big pile of shaved parm onto the soup, let it sit for a minute to get nice and soft, and then stir it in.



Magic.

Now -- since this is, um, an evolving recipe, I would love to hear any suggestions any of you might have! I'm open to playing around with it.

Cheatin at Chicken Broth

Have you ever noticed how many soups use chicken broth as the base? With chilly weather and early nights upon us, we're having soup more often for dinner at my house. I DON'T have the time to make homemade chicken broth routinely, and find that what comes out of the can is often a little bit boring. When I found the recipe for "Cheater's Homemade Broth" in the cookbook How To Eat Supper, it was, like, "Aha!!!  this is the answer."

When I first started making this, I followed the above recipe to a tee. Now I just throw in whatever is handy and doctor it up as I see fit, depending on what I have around and what I think I'm going to do with the broth. I tend NOT to put the cloves in, although they add a really nice touch; on the other hand, I DO like to add bits of fresh herbs that I might have in the windowsill.

I also use more broth than the original recipe calls for, and when I make a batch will usually use half of it right away, and put the rest up in the freezer to use later.

So, get ready to get your hands smelling nice and fragrant -- all this chopping will make you smile...



Roughly chop and throw into the bottom of a gigantic stew pot:

• 3 or 4 carrots (scrub thoroughly -- unpeeled if organic -- peel if not. I also like to add the green carrot tops SOMETIMES. They have a very peppery taste and are really good if your soup is going to be very simple, like chicken vegetable and noodle. The taste can fight some flavors, though, so I decided not to use it today.)

• 3 or 4 stalks of celery (we usually cut up a lot of celery for snacks at the beginning of every week, and I will often just use the scraps, including the leafy tops, for this soup.)

• 1 large onion (And I don't care how organic the onion is or how much more flavor the skins might bring, I can't bring myself to throw the skins into the pot. I KNOW what's in organic dirt people, and I don't think it's all that much nicer than non-organic dirt, and I just never feel like I'm getting onion skins all that clean...)

• 4 to 6 cloves of garlic,roughly chopped

• 2 to 3 whole bay leaves

• 3 or 4 big pinches of dried basil

• grated pepper to taste

• extra herbs, like fresh marjoram or thyme are also nice (fresh rosemary or sage would be great if you were going to use this broth to make your turkey dressing with, but are a bit too strong for soup)

• 2 or 3 whole canned tomatoes (NOTE -- I will get a big can of whole tomatoes and freeze the leftover tomatoes in little packages to use the next time I make this soup base)

See how rough chopped this can be? You don't have to be neat or small with your chop (better to not be, actually) and so it is really fast.

Add to the pot:

• 3 large (32 ounce) boxes of chicken broth -- Okay. I like the boxed broth better than the canned for some reason. There are lots of brands out there that are good, but my favorite is College Inn broth. Use whatever you have available! Whichever way you go, you just want lots of broth.

I'm sorry. I forgot to take pictures of the broth itself.



I did, however, remember to take a picture of the wine.

• Because you add about 1/2 to 1 cup or so of wine, too! And although some people will say you should never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink, I've used white cooking wine from the grocery store with no problem.

So -- now you simmer the whole thing on the stove for about 30 minutes or so. Turn it off, let it cool down at least enough that you don't get burned, and then strain the broth from all the "stuff".



(ooops. I couldn't get a clear photo here no matter what I did! I think my lens was steamed up...)



Use right away while still hot, store in the refrigerator, or cool and then freeze for later use.

Here's the original recipe again:
Cheater's Homemade Broth

And here's another rundown of my ingredients:
3-4 carrots
3-4 stalks of celery
1 large onion
4-6 cloves of garlic
2-3 whole bay leaves
3-4 pinches of dried basil
a good grind of pepper across the top
extra herbs as desired
2-3 whole tomatoes (canned)
3-32 ounce boxes of chicken broth
1/2 - 1 cup of white wine

Remember that I missed a few posts last week because I was out of town? 

Well, since we promised you 30 recipes by the end of the month, I owe you a few make ups,  don't I!  So later on this afternoon I'll post a soup recipe that uses this broth.  And if you think of a great soup recipe YOU have, let us know.

We wanna hear about it.  We really really do.

Zucchini! Woot!

At the farmer's market last Saturday, I found some especially lovely zucchini next to the winter squash, and just couldn't resist it.

Apparently, I could resist taking a photo of it, but you can just use your imagination, okay?

So I bought some, and decided to make a Baked Zucchini de Provence...sort of.

This is a super easy dish. I made it for Thanksgiving at my mom's house a couple of years ago, and my uncle Mark proclaimed it to be the best Thanksgiving dish ever.

My mom said, "Thank you."

Yep. It's so good, my mom totally took the credit for it. Thanks, Mom.

Here's what you need...

• 3 zucchini, sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
• 1 tablespoon herbes de Provence
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

And here's why I say I sort of made it...I didn't have any herbes de Provence.

So I used Mrs. Dash. Because I'm crazy like that.

So - after you slice the zucchini into rounds, layer them in a lightly oiled pie plate, brushing a little olive oil and sprinkling some seasonings on each round.



Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Then, pull it out and top it with a mixture made from the breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and the remaining olive oil.



Pop it back in the oven for another 10 minutes, until the topping is nicely browned and a little crunchy.



Mmmm...so good...

I served it up with a salad and a slice of pumpkin bread. (You could use Linda's pumpkin muffins, too!) I'll probably post the recipe for that pumpkin bread in another week or so - because it's amazing and I love it more than chocolate candy.



Pay no attention to my lovely china. It's paper. Have I mentioned that we're moving in two weeks? There's a whole lot of packing going on...

I Made These Just For You

I owe you all an apology.

I've been away and haven't been able to post for the past week.

I had to go visit somebody...

I'm sure you can understand why it was important. (You do, don't you? I thought you would. I mean, just look at that face.)

Still, since I am so behind on things, as a contrite gesture, I made these just for you all.


Yep. I spent all afternoon ABSOLUTELY SLAVING over these fabulous pumpkin spice muffins.

Okay. THAT'S the story you're supposed to tell people. I am going to reveal to you, dear reader(s?), a most secretive secret.

Here goes...

These pumpkin spice muffins are EASY. But don't let on to anyone! If anybody asks how you made them, you have to say something like, "Oh, you really don't even want to know. I'm simply EXHAUSTED. But here, enjoy them -- I made them just for you."

How easy are they, you ask?

Well, they have two ingredients.
You heard me right. TWO.



Any kind of boxed spice cake mix, and



15 ounces of canned pumpkin***

***Very Important Note: Do NOT use canned pumpkin pie filling, but canned pumpkin. I couldn't find a 15 ounce can of pumpkin, so I got a 29 ounce can and used about half of it. I didn't even bother to measure, because that's just the type of reckless daredevil I am. Livin' on the edge, people, livin' on the edge...



It works best if you have one of these. I love mine. LOVE IT. If you don't have one, you can just use a regular hand mixer, but it will take you a while, and you really WILL be tired when you're finished. You want to really get the cake mix and the canned pumpkin mixed together well.

(P.S. If you have to use a hand mixer, the very second you are finished mixing everything together you must sit down and write Santa a letter asking for a stand mixer.)



(Yes, I said Santa. Christmas is getting closer every day!)



When your (TWO) ingredients are mixed together well, spoon the mix into a muffin tin. I like to use paper liners, because they make handling and storing the muffins (not to mention clean up) so much easier. If you don't use the liners, I suppose you need to grease the tin ... hmmmm... just use the liners, okay?

Fill the tins nearly to the top. As they cook, the muffins will rise, but not as much as regular cupcakes. The mix (and muffins) will be nice and dense.

Oh yeah. And here's the other thing. I always get about fifteen muffins from a batch. My muffin tin has space for twelve muffins, so the second batch only has three. Sometimes I will just fill a small loaf pan with the rest of the mix, instead. Maybe one day I'll try frying it like doughnuts. Whichever way you go, have fun with it.

Pop the tin into a pre-heated 350 degree oven and cook for about 20 minutes. If you insert a toothpick into the center of a muffin to test for done-ness, it will come out clean, but just barely. These are much better undercooked than overcooked. No raw eggs -- nothing to worry about. (Lick that spoon with wild abandon!!!)



Let the baked muffins cool in the pan for a few minutes, then move them out onto a baking rack to finish cooling down. Once completely cool, they can be stored in zip lock bags or air tight containers, where they stay good for several days. I'm not sure exactly how long, because they simply don't stay around here for more than a day or two.

Enjoy!!! But REMEMBER.

Don't tell ANYBODY how easy these are. Okay?



Okay.

It's Getting Chili in Here

Chili!

It's like autumn, wrapped up in a crock pot.

My favorite recipe is It's Chili by George!!, and while I don't follow it religiously, I find it's a good starting point for a delicious pot o'chili...

I don't make spicy chili, because if I did I'd be the only one eating it - this is a nice, mild, filling, warming, curled-up-on-the-couch-under-a-quilt kind of chili...so here we go!

George's ingredients are:

• 2 pounds lean ground beef
• 1 (46 fluid ounce) can tomato juice
• 1 (29 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
• 1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/4 cup chili powder

I start messing with it right away by using only one pound of ground meat - and it's usually ground turkey. Start by browning it (or in turkey's case, whiting it...) over medium heat until it is cooked through.



Add that to a crock pot or large dutch oven.

I also don't use canned beans, but like to cook up a mess of kidney and pinto beans beforehand and ladle the equivalent of a couple of cans into the crock pot. Then I add some more beans to make up for the reduced meat. Then I add some more.



I heart beans.

I also skip out on the onions and bell peppers because there are people in this house who don't appreciate such things.

The recipe calls for one whole (46 ounce) can of tomato juice, which is A LOT of tomato juice, people. It really adds a nice tang to the recipe, but unless you really like soupy chili, add it more sparingly. I usually use a half to three quarters of the can, depending on how many extra beans I added.

Throw everything else into the pot, and (if you're cooking it on the stove) bring it to a boil, then turn it down and simmer for a couple of hours. If you've got it in the crock-pot (which is how I usually cook it), let it cook on low all day - the flavors will all meld together and you'll want to kiss the inventor of the slow cooker.

Dish it out into you favorite soup bowls and serve along with some homemade cornbread...



Add some cheese. Because cheese is good. Cheese is your friend. The federal government implores you to eat cheese.



And while you're at it, add a little sour cream. You wouldn't want your cheese to get lonesome.



Now. Pull up a good movie on the Netflix instant queue, light a fire in the hermetically sealed gas log fireplace, snuggle up under a cozy blanket made from recycled soda bottles and enjoy this throwback to time gone by...

Honey, Grab Me a Beer

I love to make bread, but there are days when I don't have time to spend waiting for the bread to rise for an hour or more, to shape it into a loaf and let it rise again - that's a big time commitment, and I don't always have it.

I also love beer. Not in a I-drink-it-everyday kind of way, but in a it's-the-only-alcoholic-beverage-I-really-enjoy kind of way. So, the opportunity to combine beer and bread?

Genius.

My go-to recipe is from BellaDonna at Tasty Kitchen, and I love it, because it can be changed really easily to suit your mood...

So, let's get started...you'll need:

• 3 cups Flour, Sifted
• 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• ¼ cups Sugar
• 1 cup Cheddar Cheese, Grated
• 12 ounces, fluid Beer
• ¼ cups Butter, Melted
• Garlic And Onion Powder To Taste
• Parsley Flakes For Presentation

First up - mix all your dry ingredients together in a large bowl...



Grate your cheese (the sharper the better, in my opinion) and add it to the dry ingredients.



How pretty is that?  Mmm...grated cheese is so yummy!

Now comes the magic...



Make it a good and flavorful beer, folks - this is not the time for Natty Light, okay? This beer has some hints of orange in it, and makes for a really nice finished product. I've used a few different types of beer for this bread, and it's amazing how different they all taste.

Mix it all up until it is loose and kind of ugly.



This isn't wine bread, people. It doesn't have to be pretty.

Pour the melted butter over the top.



BUTTER, people. Not margarine. Not anything else that pretends to be butter. Butter is your friend.

Sprinkle some garlic powder and onion powder over the top. Leave off the parsley, because parsley is fancy and beer bread is not fancy.

Now - this recipe says to bake the bread for an hour, but keep an eye on it. This is mine at 40 minutes (and I don't think I've ever gone over 45 minutes)...



People - this bread is so good, you'll hardly be able to contain yourself from slathering it with extra butter and inhaling it.

For supper last night, I had this bread and a salad. It was perfect.

And for dessert?

I had beer bread.



Make it! (And have a beer while you wait for it to finish up...)

Some Things are Worth Waiting For

This is one of those things that I haven't always done, because I'm a little, well...

...squeamish...

when it comes to meat.

I mean - I enjoy eating meat, you know - once it's been cooked and all...

But dealing with raw meat?

It totally skeeves me out.

So...I've always purchased skinless, boneless chicken breasts - even the tenderloins sometimes, because that was one less step I had to deal with. Because steak is kind of gross, ground turkey is a little icky, but raw chicken?

*shudder*

But...have you seen the price of boneless, skinless chicken breast tenderloins lately? Especially organic ones? Jiminy Christmas, people...I had to do something...I needed to be able to deal with a whole chicken!

I finally found a solution.



I hired a sous chef.

So, let's get started!

Roast Chicken a la Crockus Pottus

You need one whole chicken - but please don't buy one of those grotesquely misshapen ginormous extra meat ones, people. They're just wrong.

Have your sous chef open the nasty package containing the dreadful chicken, and have him/her remove the chicken innards.



After a rinse under cold water, have your sous chef place the chicken, breast-side up, into the sink. Liberally coat the chicken with your seasonings of choice. If you have fresh herbs, stick a few under the skin (well, I mean, have your sous chef do it). Otherwise - lavish the dried stuff on.

Really - you can't overdo it - there's a lot of meat, and a lot of skin in between the seasonings and the meat. I love to put lots of garlic - the whole house smells so fantastic the rest of the day.



I used a pre-mixed blend of seasonings for this bird - because I had it on hand.

Once you get the breast and sides seasoned, have your sous chef lift the chicken and place it breast-side down into the crock-pot (or roasting pan, if you don't have a crock-pot.) Then, season the back of the chicken as well.



Close it up, turn it on, walk away and have a lovely day.

Now - your cooking time will depend on a few things - the size of your chicken, the size of your crock pot or the particular peculiarities of your oven. There are a few guides out there - here is a good one. My experience is that 7-8 hours on low or 6ish on high is plenty of time in a crock pot to cook a chicken. You'll want to use a meat thermometer to make sure it gets up to 180 degrees to be safe.

When your time is up, have your sous chef pull the chicken out of the pot, because even though it is cooked and everything, it's still kind of gross and slimy until he/she pulls the skin off and separates out the bones and stuff.



It won't come out in one piece, people. And that's okay. (It's awesome, actually - so tender...)



Mr. or Ms. Sous Chef should now pull all the meat from the bone, discard the bones and save the deliciously seasoned broth for later. We usually have at least 3 meals from one chicken this way - on the first night, we'll have the chicken with a salad and some bread, and then I can usually make a couple more meals using the chicken in other ways...

...which will have to come later.

My sous chef just went on strike.