Sullied Josephs

Husband said that he was anxious to read this blog post. He is the reason Sloppy Joes are now known as Sullied Josephs in our home.

Husband loathes Sloppy Joes. Living where we do they are kind of hard to avoid. I get it, they are easy to make, please a crowd and frankly I find them very yummy. Husband cannot stand them. I have seen him avoid them when he can and politely stomach them when there is no other choice. Husband has very good manners and would never insult a host by not eating the provided food.

Because husband is not a fan of this All-American favorite I have avoided making it for years. I get my Sloppy Joe fix at family gatherings and pot lucks. Then, one of my coworkers brought Sloppy Joes in for Warm Up Wednesday. Oh my good lord, they were wonderful. I couldn’t get them out of my mind. To make matters worse, it was a menu planning week so I really wanted to put Sloppy Joes on the menu. I had to talk this out with husband.

Actual g-chat conversation:

g:  you hate sloppy joes right?

husband:  yup.  I hate the sauce

g:  got it

husband:  and I hate them when they are ground beef. I guess it's not a sloppy joe if it doesn't have ground beef? It would be “pulled pork" otherwise, right?

g: yes, or chicken. Basically you don't like ground beef in a manwich sauce

husband:  word

g:  but if I put chicken and bbq sauce in a crock pot and then shredded the chicken and put it on a bun you would be down

husband:  yes.  but depends on the BBQ sauce and coming from you, I expect some sort of artisan bread bun

g: check

husband:  I want a sloppy joe with an ascot

g: so, a sullied joseph?

husband: hahahahha   YES!!!!!

g: i will make sure it happens in February

Enter the Sullied Joseph. “Sullied” was a term that my grandfather would use when we played Canasta (a card game my family likes to play). It’s one of the memories of him that I hold very close to my heart. It was a perfect fit. Then, I came across a Sloppy Joe recipe on Cooking Light. This was definitely not a can of Manwich and a pound of ground beef. It was meant to be!

I was so happy to find that most of the ingredients for the sauce were sitting in my pantry. I ran out of red wine vinegar and used balsamic in its place. This added such a depth of flavor in the sauce that I will make this a permanent change. I had given little one the last of the carrots so I had to leave the carrot out, but I will add it next time I whip these up. I am sad to report that I did not have any artisan bread on hand and I forgot to pick some up from the bakery. We used regular hamburger buns. I served these with tater tots – happy girl! I saved the extra six ounces of ground beef for a pizza topping.

I am happy to report that husband is very happy with Sullied Josephs. He was eating them on tortillas when we ran out of buns. Since this ended up being such an easy meal we may be eating Sullied Josephs a little more often. The recipe would be very easy to double for company or to throw in the freezer for a fast week night meal. I was thinking that the meat sauce would be very tasty on baked potatoes.

Enjoy!

Tomato paste in a tube is amazing!

1 carrot, grated

Click to see savings10 oz. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
Click to see savingsClick to see savings1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. chili powder
¼ tsp. black pepper
¼ cup ketchup
1 T. Dijon
Click to see savings 1 T. Worcestershire
1 T. tomato paste
1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
Click to see savings8 oz. tomato sauce
Click to see savings8 slider hamburger buns

Preheat broiler.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add carrot, beef, and onion to pan. Cook six minutes or until beef is browned and vegetables are tender. Add garlic powder, chili powder, and pepper and cook for one minute.

Combine ketchup, Dijon, Worcestershire, tomato paste, vinegar and tomato sauce in a small bowl. Add ketchup mixture to pan, stirring to evenly coat beef mixture. Simmer for five minutes or until thickened.

While sauce thickens, arrange buns, cut side up, in a single layer on a baking sheet. Broil two minutes or until lightly toasted. Place about ¼ cup beef mixture on bottom half of each of 8 buns; top each slider with top half of bun.

Adapted from Cooking Light – November 2011

Chicken Piccata

Last night I had a date with Amazing Friend. For Christmas I purchased her a ticket to see River North Dance Chicago when the company visited town this week. I bought a ticket for myself as well of course. I knew she would enjoy the show and I was excited to share such a fun night with her. I invited her over for dinner before we went so I knew I had to make something special.  This dish is perfect for special occasions when you want to make something fancy but you don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen doing it.

It is safe to say that I have been making this dish since high school. Not always this recipe, but there really aren’t too many variations. The recipe I used in high school had white wine in it, so I felt very very fancy whenever I would make it. Over the years this became something I would make when I wanted to leave an impression. The flavors are very intense but the dish is very light. While it could easily be paired with pasta I have found that mashed potatoes make a lovely side. The sauce from the chicken is amazing on mashed potatoes.

One of the tricks to making this a good dish is to get the breading on the chicken right. I have ordered this in restaurants and I found myself bitterly disappointed. Many restaurants want to make the breading heavy and that just doesn’t work with such a light sauce. Just a quick dredge in the flour is enough breading. The mix of butter and olive give the light breading a lovely color and just enough of a crunch.

I am not a big fan of capers. I used to love them, but over the years the briny flavor just hasn’t appealed to me. I still leave them in the recipe because I think they add a dash of flavor that I like, but there is always a little pile of capers on the side of my plate at the end of dinner. I haven’t grown out of that “trash pile” habit from when I was little.

In case you were wondering - the show was amazing! If the opportunity ever arises to see them again, I would do it in a heartbeat. They are a jazz/modern dance company. There was a great mix of music, but my favorites were So What by Mile Davis, a selection from Cirque and the Music of Cuba. I had been lucky enough to spend some time with the company while they were in town and I peeked in on part of a rehearsal. Such a talented group of dancers!

Enjoy!

4 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, butterflied and then cut in half

¼ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
¼ cup flour, for dredging
4 T. butter
2 T. olive oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
½ cup chicken stock
¼ cup brined capers, rinsed
 
On a plate, mix together flour, salt and pepper. Dredge chicken in flour and shake off excess.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, melt two tablespoons of butter and the olive oil. When butter and oil start to sizzle, add two pieces of chicken and cook for three minutes. When chicken is browned, flip and cook other side for three minutes. Remove and transfer to plate. Repeat with remaining chicken.

Mix lemon juice, stock and capers in the hot pan and bring to boil, scraping up brown bits from the pan for extra flavor. Check for seasoning. Return all the chicken to the pan and simmer for five minutes. Remove chicken to platter. Add remaining butter to sauce and whisk vigorously. Pour sauce over chicken and garnish with parsley.

Adapted from Everyday Italian – Giada DeLaurentiis

Creamy Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas

I started making this enchilada recipe in college. My first year of college my mom gave me four Campbell’s cookbooks. For a girl just starting to cook on her own, these were perfect. Yummy, easy recipes with ingredients that were easy to find and very affordable. I didn’t use them too much until my third year of college when I moved into an apartment and got busy “being an adult.” Each recipe in the cookbooks stars at least one can of soup. It’s amazing the things you can do with condensed soup! I think I started to not use the cookbooks as much as I got older because adding a can of Cream of _______ Soup isn’t always a healthy recipe. However, I did find a dry/homemade/not-so-bad-for-you Cream of _______Soup recipe on Pinterest that I am planning on trying out in the future. If it actually works, some of those old Campbell’s recipes may start gracing my table again.

Once I found this chicken enchilada recipe, the one from Campbell’s started to fall off my meal planning list. I’m not sure what the reason was, but last week I remembered that husband and I really like this recipe and that I hadn’t made it in a while. So onto the shopping list the ingredients went.

I’m really happy that I went back to my college days for this recipe. Husband told me about four times how much he really likes these enchiladas. Now that I have much more confidence in the kitchen than I did in college, I decided to make a few adjustments to the recipe. I used my dad’s homemade salsa instead of Pace (Campbell’s recipes are packed with their name brand ingredients), cut back on the chicken and added a can of pinto beans to the chicken mixture. I had a bunch of cilantro in the fridge and I’m really wishing that I had added a handful to the chicken mixture as well. Because I like more cheese in my enchiladas I would also consider sprinkling about half a cup of cheese to the top of the enchiladas before putting them in the oven.

Enjoy!

1 can condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

½ cup sour cream
1 cup salsa
2 tsp. chili powder
1 ½ cups cooked chicken, chopped
15 oz. pinto beans
½ cup Monterey Jack, shredded
12 flour tortillas (6")

Stir the soup, sour cream, salsa and chili powder in a medium bowl.

Stir one cup salsa mixture, chicken, beans and cheese in a large bowl.

Using a ¼ cup measuring cup, spread the chicken mixture among the tortillas. Roll up the tortillas and place them seam side up in 11 x 8" shallow baking dish. Pour the remaining salsa mixture over the filled tortillas. Cover the baking dish.

Bake at 350 degrees F. for 40 min. or until the enchiladas are hot and bubbling.

Adapted from http://allrecipes.com/recipe/campbells-easy-chicken-and-cheese-enchiladas/

***The recipe found on the website is slightly different from the one in the cookbook so I have adjusted to the cookbook’s recipe. Since the cookbook was published over ten years ago I’m not surprise to see these changes. ***

Little French Fudge Cakes

Apparently I’ve had a bit of a sweet tooth this month. Cookies, brownies, fudge cakes, not to mention the potato chip cookies I have planned. Is it because it’s February (aka Love Month) or because it’s a No Spend Month and I can’t get sweets anywhere else? Whatever it is I like it.

I raided the freezer for Valentine’s Day and managed to come up with a very nice dinner. I defrosted the rest of the tenderloin that I made for Christmas dinner and I found some roasted red potatoes from my visit to Your Secret Kitchen. I paired that with a green salad and some homemade buttermilk bread and voila, a lovely dinner. I really don’t like going out for dinner on Valentine’s Day. EVERYONE goes out for dinner and that just takes away the romance of it for me. Besides, I love cooking and husband knows that a good meal is a gift from me to him.

Valentine's Day at home dinner for three!

I wanted to make a special dessert to take over to my parent’s house to share with them. They invited us over for dinner but I had been planning on eating that tenderloin for a loooong time. I wanted to share some time with my parents though, since Valentine’s Day is, at least for me, about being with the ones you love.

A little over a week ago this pretty recipe showed up in my inbox and wowed me with its simplicity. I did need to buy the chocolate but that was a simple add to the shopping list. Everything else was in the pantry. I can honestly say it took me about five minutes to make the batter. I needed to cook the cakes for 20 minutes, but every oven is different. The recipe makes six cakes and can easily be doubled. USE GOOD CHOCOLATE!

These cakes are insanely rich. I recommend serving them with either ice cream or whipped cream or as Lynne suggests a glass of port! I wouldn’t recommend this sweet treat for kiddos. Keep it to the adults!

Enjoy!

4 oz. bittersweet chocolate

1 ½ oz. unsweetened chocolate, broken up
5 T. unsalted butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs plus 1 yolk (for a double recipe, use 5 eggs)
½ cup plus 2 T. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
3 T. flour
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate bar, broken into bite-sized pieces

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter a dark metal 6-cup cupcake tin.

Combine the bittersweet and unsweetened chocolates with the butter in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl. Melt them for two to three minutes at medium-low power. Check by stirring, as chocolate holds its shape when microwaved. Or melt it in a heatproof bowl over simmering water.

In a medium to large bowl, whisk together the cinnamon, vanilla, eggs and yolk, sugar, and salt until creamy. Stir in the flour to blend thoroughly. Then stir in the chocolate mixture until smooth. Finally, blend in the bite-sized pieces of chocolate. Pour the batter into the cupcake pan, filling each three-quarters full.

Bake the cupcakes for 18 minutes. Insert a knife into the center of a cupcake. It should come out with some streaks of thick batter. If you have any doubt about doneness, press the top of a cupcake to see if it is nearly firm. Remove them from the oven. Cool the cupcakes in the pan on a rack for five to ten minutes to serve warm, or for 20 minutes to serve at room temperature.

Adapted from The Splendid Table's ® How to Eat Supper: Recipes, Stories, and Opinions from Public Radio's Award-Winning Food Show by Lynne Rossetto Kasper and Sally Swift

Baked Brown Rice with Smoked Gouda Cheese and Spinach

I’m not a big side dish type of girl. In my meal planning process I usually forget to plan a side dish but I am trying to change that. I’m not sure why I don’t plan sides, my mom is the side dish queen and we always had sides growing up. My guess is that it started in college where one pot meals (and potatoes) where my go-to. Having everything included in one dish is lovely but it doesn’t always happen. Enter a new cooking goal - plan side dishes for meals during meal planning time!

Saturday I wanted to make something nice for dinner. No Spend Month means not going out for dinner, so something a little traditional for Saturday night’s meal felt right. I baked some chicken and tried out this very yummy side dish. I love all the main ingredients in the recipe separately (rice, spinach, Gouda) but I would have never thought to put them all together like this. Whoever came up with this is wonderful.  Since it was my first time making this dish I halved the recipe. I always mean to do this with a new recipe and I am so proud of myself for following through! The recipe below is with my conversions.  

I have a feeling this will be gracing my table a few times a year. Husband kept making little comments about how much he really really liked this. I was impressed myself. I found this to be a pretty easy dish to make, but them again I make lots of homemade mac and cheese. This dish is a lot like making mac and cheese, the only difference really is that you use rice instead of pasta.

Enjoy!

½ onion, diced
1 ½ T. olive oil
Kosher salt
Pepper
2 garlic cloes, minced
2 T. butter
2 T. flour
¼ cup milk
7 oz. chicken broth
1 cup smoked Gouda, shredded
5 oz. frozen spinach, partially thawed
1 ½ cups brown rice, cooked
 
Heat oil in sauce pan over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent, about five minutes. Add garlic and sauté until fragrant, about one minute. Remove from pan and set aside.

Preheat oven to 400 and grease a medium sized casserole dish.

In a the same sauce pan, melt butter and whisk in flour. Cook for two minutes, whishing constantly. Slowly whisk in the milk and chicken broth. Bring to a simmer and whisk until smooth. Whisk in Gouda then the spinach and onion mixture. Remove from heat and stir until smooth.

Stir in cooked rice. Pour mixture into the casserole dish. Bake for 25 minutes or until bubbly. Remove from oven and let stand for ten minutes before serving.

Adapted from http://www.cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.com/2010/04/baked-brown-rice-with-smoked-gouda-cheese-and-spinach.html

White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

This year we watched the Super Bowl at my parent’s house. Little one woke up with pink eye Saturday morning so we decided it would be best to not be around too many people. Besides, it was Sunday and we typically have dinner with my parents on Sundays.

Now, you can’t go over to someone’s house on Super Bowl Sunday without bringing something to munch on. I had worked into our No Spend Month a little cash for Super Bowl Sunday but if I didn’t have to spend it, I didn’t want to. I asked my parents if they would be up to a challenge this year – each of us would need to make two dishes using only ingredients that we had in our houses. Going to the store was only allowed for drinks. They accepted. Oh, the feast that we had!

I racked my brain trying to come up with something AMAZING to take over with what we had at home. I decided on an Oven Baked Spanish Tortilla (with spinach in place of the peppers, three cheeses instead of just one and some pepperoni for a little extra flavor) and White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies. Easy, quick, but oh so tasty.

A few years ago I tweaked an oatmeal raisin cookie recipe that a friend had given me to star cranberries instead of raisins. If you haven’t tried this yet I seriously recommend it. Currants are also a good alternative. While looking through my pantry I found half a bag of white chocolate chips that were left over from Christmas baking. White chocolate makes baked goods uber fancy. I decided to throw those into my cookies just to see how they turned out. I was very pleased with the outcome.

Image from wikipedia

I typically don’t talk about food presentation because with little one running (literally running) around my kitchen I’m much more interested in getting food on a plate and on the table than how pretty it looks when I do so. But these cookies gave me a lovely idea for presentation. In little one’s kitchen toy box there is a John McCann’s Irish Oatmeal tin. It’s metal and makes a “lovely” sound when thrown on the floor. I grabbed that tin, cleaned it up and filled it with oatmeal cookie. So cute! If you like to bake cookies for gifts, try this out as your gift box. I took a tin of cookies to work to share and that tin looked so much more fun than a plate ever could!
Enjoy!

6 T. butter

¾ c. brown sugar
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
2 ½ cups oatmeal
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup white chocolate chips

Beat butter and sugars in a stand mixer on medium speed until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add oats, cranberries and white chocolate chips.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until golden on the bottom.

Slow Cooker Triple Chocolate Brownies

****I’ve been debating whether or not to share this recipe. It turned out ok, but not up to the standards I like to set for my recipes. I’m hoping the reason behind this is the fact that slow cookers cook at different temperatures. After a lot of thought, I decided that this recipe had potential. If you are up to the chocolate investment (lots of chocolate means this could get to be spendy) and are willing to try it out I wish you the best. I may try this recipe again, I may not. I have a killer brownie recipe somewhere in my collection that I think is much better, I just have to remember where the recipe is. ****

Husband and I are in the middle of a “No Spend Month.” I’ve read that the first week is always the hardest, but so far we are doing pretty well.  We’ve cut back on the amount we go out to eat now that little one is getting more of a personality. We never know what to expect out of him so sometimes it’s easier to just stay home so not going out to eat hasn’t really hurt as much as I thought it would. I am trying to liven things up at home in the food department so I decided to scour my pantry for the ingredients I needed to make a tasty treat.

Martha Stewart’s recipe for Slow Cooker Triple Chocolate Brownies has been hanging out on one of my Pinterest boards for a while so I decided to give it a try. The only thing I was missing was eight ounces of bittersweet chocolate, so I substituted with half a cup of Nutella. The brownie batter was very easy to make. The time intensive part came when it was time to cook the brownies. Not what I was expecting out of a slow cooker recipe.

I read a few reviews for the recipe and a majority of them were about the cooking time and the brownies burning on the edges. I checked on the brownies about every half hour and my nose told me that at two and a half hours I needed to take the lid off or risk severely scorched edges. I was a nervous wreck for the next thirty minutes. The middle didn’t look cooked enough (it wasn’t) and the edges still smelled burnt. When I finally took the insert out of the slow cooker and put it on the cooling rack I knew I had to just walk away for the night.

The next day the truth came out. The edges were a little burnt and the middle was still a little gooey.  I did manage to find a silver lining. Husband will eat baked goods if they are burnt, he’s not too terribly picky, and the gooey middle was divine with vanilla ice cream. The part between the middle and edges was wonderful. Just the brownie I was looking for!

In the end, I decided that if you really want to eat brownies in the summer the crock pot is the way to go. Our oven is gas and that means that it warms up our house nicely. I like to bake in the winter because of the extra heat the oven generates. In the summer that extra heat is miserable. So if I get a brownie craving in the summer I may try these again. Or I might just venture to the sweet shop downtown.

Nonstick cooking spray

1 ¼ cups flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon coarse salt
½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup Nutella
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup walnut halves, coarsely chopped
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Lightly coat a 5-quart slow-cooker insert with cooking spray. Line bottom with parchment paper and lightly coat with spray.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.

Place butter and nutella in a medium microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 30 second increments, stirring after each, until chocolate is melted. Add sugar and stir to combine. Stir in eggs. Add flour mixture, walnuts, and chocolate chips and stir just until moistened (do not overmix). Transfer to slow cooker and smooth top.

Cover and cook on low, 2 ½ hours. Uncover and cook 30 minutes. Remove insert from slow cooker and run a knife around edge to loosen brownies. Let cool completely in insert on a wire rack, about 2 hours. Turn out onto a work surface and cut into 14 brownies.

Note from Martha - The center may look undercooked when time is up, but it will be perfect once cooled.

Adapted from http://www.marthastewart.com/341223/slow-cooker-triple-chocolate-brownies?czone=food/comfort-foods-center/comfort-foods-dishes

Green Smoothies

I am a creature of habit when it comes to my weekday breakfasts. I always have my travel mug of hot tea. Husband makes sure that my tea is piping hot before I walk out the door each morning, one of the many reasons l love him. I typically go back and forth between English muffins and smoothies. Both are nice and portable and neither are so filling that I get sluggish before lunch.

I recently stumbled upon a new smoothie recipe. I was skeptical about it at first. I’ve heard from several friends that they have been putting greens in their smoothies for years, but I have been too nervous to try it myself. But I finally gave in once I found this recipe and each morning this week I have been making green smoothies.

Lots of green on my messy desk!

The beauty of this recipe is that I’m using a strong flavored fruit, banana, and a mild tasting green, spinach, so all I can taste is banana! My usual smoothie has yogurt in it so I do need to find a way to get an extra serving of dairy in my day but that is something I am more than willing to do now that I have an extra serving of veggies in my diet.

If the idea of drinking something so very green just does not sit right with you, I’m sure that throwing in a few blueberries or blackberries would change the color. I’m using peaches because they were in the freezer. I have a huge bag of frozen strawberries that I will trying in the future. I’m interested to try this recipe with other greens but I think I will wait for the first crop to come in from our CSA.

Enjoy!

½ cup apple juice

½ cup water
1 cup baby spinach
½ banana
Frozen fruit
 
Pour juice, water and spinach in a blender and blend until the spinach is fully broken down. Add the banana and frozen fruit and blend until smooth.

Adapted from http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2011/02/kristens-green-smoothies.html