Day late again - does this means its leftovers?

Here's our Wednesday night meal. I looked at three or four recipes and borrowed from each of them for this chicken and mushroom enchilada.

I should probably preface this by mentioning that my interest in Mexican food is rather new-found. Where I grew up, in Vermont, we did not have anything resembling Mexican food. To this day, I do not think there is even a Taco Bell in town or in any of the surrounding towns (probably in Rutland or Brattleboro, both 40+ miles away, in different directions). Heck, my town didn't even have a McDonald's until I was almost out of High School!

Therefore, I hadn't even tasted Mexican food until I was away at college, and I didn't like it then. I still find I am not too fond of "Tex-Mex" - at least the kind where it's all about the spice and the heat. But since I've enjoyed Mexican food IN Mexico now, I'm getting rather fond of it. Not that I'm making authentic by anyone's imagination, but I need to start somewhere, and I'm not enough of a culinarian to attempt Rick Bayless' 20-ingredient mole just yet.

First I took the tortillas I was going to use and softened them by wrapping them in a damp paper towel, wrapping them in a tea towel and nuking them for a minute or two. Then I got the pan ready by putting down a couple spoonfuls of the picante sauce I was going to top the dish with. That way the enchiladas don't stick (as bad anyway).

I had roasted a chicken a couple days before and raided the carcass for about 2 cups of meat to dice up. I also thinly sliced a package of baby bella mushrooms and one red pepper that was in the bin marked "jalapeno" at the grocery store. I had to come online to a chile identification table to make sure that's actually what I had, as most of the jalapenos I've seen are green.

The pepper and mushrooms went into a skillet with some olive oil cooking spray and I cooked those down until the mushrooms were soft. I spread a small spoonful of "lite" sour cream on the tortilla, then laid down a handful of chopped up chicken (both white and dark meat) and a spoonful of the mushroom/pepper mixture. Then I added about a tablespoon of a "Mexican" cheese blend and rolled up the tortilla and placed it in the pan. I did this six times, which used up all the ingredients I had prepared.

When all six bundles were lined up in the pan, I poured the rest of the jar of picante sauce over them and added a few more handfuls of the Mexican cheese blend to cover it. Then I baked it at 350 until it was warm and bubbly, which took about 30 minutes.

BTW, the leftover enchilada I had for lunch today was possibly even yummier than it was last night!!

Tuesday, better late than never

Give me a couple of days off from blogging, and it's like I never started! Out of sight, out of mind, I guess!

Anyway, Tuesday's dinner was not late, just this re-telling of it. We've had quite dreary weather, and Tuesday (and Monday before it and Wednesday after it) were without sunshine and much more like March than May. Probably as a result, I've been feeling a little less than inspired and/or motivated. When I get in moods like that, it's comfort food I want to eat.

John cannot eat beef. Well, he can, but at great expense - it causes his gout to flare up painfully. Being as how he's awfully nice to me, I choose not to put him into pain. We don't often eat red meat at all, even though some of it does not affect his gout. The last time we had any red meat, it was a leg of lamb at Easter. His gout is also why we'll never go completely vegetarian. He cannot eat beans either. He shouldn't drink beer... but he's not willing to sacrifice a good microbrew or two. There are limits to what a man (or woman) is willing to do.

Thankfully bison is genetically different enough from beef that it doesn't cause him pain. It's also much leaner! About the only thing bad about boof is that it costs considerably more than beef.

I call beef "boof". Because it sounds funny. And because many people call bison "buffalo", which it is not. From the Italian cheese mozzarella di bufala (which is actually water buffalo, but it's the pronunciation of boof-ah-lah I'm getting at). It has nothing to do with the Red Sox signing a pitcher named Boof Bonser in the off-season. Although I did get quite the chuckle out of that one.

So Tuesday I had some thawed ground bison... thawed ground boof... available to use and boofburgers sounded easy and good. I made us each a 1/4 lb patty and put it on the griddle pan. When they were done, I added a few crumbles of blue cheese to the top. We had a salad to go with it.

For dessert, I made a cake. Yellow, with chocolate frosting. Betty Crocker, mind you, not from scratch. My grocery store had a great sale.

Roasty Goodness

Today was a good day to fire up the oven and make some roasted stuff for dinner. Stuff. Commonly known as roast chicken, roasted potatoes, roasted asparagus. Pretty simple but tasty stuff.

For reasons unknown, my photograph didn't make it to my email, and my phone is currently offline, out of gas. But I'm reasonably confident you all know what a roasted chicken, et al looks like.

No fancy recipe. My "trick" to roast chicken to keep it moist is to spray it with butter-flavored cooking spray. Then just simple salt and pepper.

I threw a couple handfuls of red fingerling potatoes into the roasting pan when there was about 50 minutes of roasting time left. Then with about 35 minutes left, I put in a pan in which I'd put asparagus, olive oil, salt, pepper and just a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. They all finished at the same time.

For dessert, earlier in the day I'd sliced strawberries and let them soak all day in a couple spoonfuls of sugar and a glug (scientific term right?) of chambord. Bisquick can take the credit for the shortcakes.

Sometimes simple is so nice and tasty.

The vote is in

It was close, but tonight's winner is Eggplant Parmesan. Ok, I didn't really count the votes - I ended up with a compelling (to me anyway) reason why Szechuan eggplant wouldn't be the ideal entree today. I'm making salmon tomorrow, and the recipe I found for that would have too many similar Asian tastes to the Szechuan eggplant recipe.

Tonight's dish is one I've made before, and it was good enough to make it into "Becky's Book of Yum" - the photo album where I compile all my favored recipes. Here it is: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/eggplant-parmesan-ii/detail.aspx

Now you can make it yummy too! I added a simple salad to go along with it. I was thinking of doing some garlic bread but planned on having leftover bread pudding for dessert and thought it a bit redundant.

Trial and Error

Did some trial and error with the entree and dessert for tonight's dinner.

The barbecue sauce on the chicken thighs was the success part. Well, yeah, so was the corn, but how hard is it to open a can, empty it into a sauce pan and heat it?

The sauce came from a recipe called bakingbites.com, but the last time I tried to navigate to that site my anti-virus software told me it had fended off an attempted attack on my computer, so I won't publish the link.

Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup ketchup

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 1/2 tablespoons chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp salt, or to taste

pinch ground pepper, or to taste

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until very smooth.

I put 4 chicken thighs in a casserole pan I'd sprayed with olive oil spray and poured the bbq sauce over them. Put that in the oven for an hour at 350, and they came out perfectly!

As for the side, it was my executive (chef) decision to have corn... it was what I was in the mood to have!

I attempted a duo of desserts, and this is the "error" part of the trial and error title. I'm not too happy about the way either of them turned out.

Since I've now found a couple sources for the tamarind concentrate (haven't found paste, but figured out how to use the concentrate) I decided to use some of it to make a granita. I thought about a sorbet, but really wanted it light in texture too. Granita sounded right.

I mixed a cup and a third of the concentrate with a quart of water, and added about a half cup of sugar. Froze that, forgetting to stir it every hour to keep it from getting solid. So it was real solid when I went to use it after eating the main course. I "shredded" it with a fork, and scooped up the loose ice crystals.

It was refreshing, but I'm not certain how much a person who's not used to the flavor could eat of it. It's definitely an acquired taste.

The other dessert was to make a vanilla-coconut frozen yogurt. I had just the right amount (3 cups) of vanilla lowfat Greek-style yogurt. I added 3/4 cup of Splenda, 1 tsp vanilla flavoring (if I'd had coconut extract, I'd have used that) and 1/2 cup of toasted coconut to the yogurt and chilled it, then churned it in my ice cream machine.

The consistency is good. The coconut is musted, and I think the Splenda is leaving an aftertaste I don't care for. At least it is definitely soothing (as was the tamarind granita) after that palate-firing barbecue sauce!

Warm is a Must

It's May 11th. Why doesn't the weather reflect that? I'm baking today, mostly so I had a reason to turn on the oven and warm up the kitchen. Warm things are most necessary tonight for supper.

I had made a roasted veggie frittata not long before starting this blog, but since it was prior to its inception, no recipe or description had made it here. That's being corrected tonight.

I had thought about making an eggplant parmesan lasagna for supper, but have NO room in my fridge for leftovers. So, in the spirit of getting rid of some veggies at least, tonight's meal was born.

I roasted a bunch of veggies I have on hand - a small quartered sweet onion, a zucchini and a yellow summer squash, an orange bell pepper and a handful of garlic cloves, on a baking sheet lined with foil and sprayed. They roasted at 425 for about 25 minutes. When I brought them out, the pepper went into a zip lock baggie to make it easier to peel. When everything had cooled down I chopped it up to bite-size and set them aside.

The egg portion was to be 8 eggs, but I used up the Eggbeaters I had thawed, and they amounted to six eggs, and I used 2 "real" eggs for the remainder. I whisked those together, put in the veggies to stir it up and put it into a greased (well, sprayed) cake pan. at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. At the end of that time, I let it sit out for 5 minutes to set up.

Dessert came about from my attempts to make whole grain French baguettes. The baguettes themselves came out ok, I think they could be better. But I had more than enough of them to use up one baton in bread pudding.

I cut up the bread into bite-sized pieces, about 5 cups of it all told. In a seperate bowl I whisked 2 eggs and 2 cups milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract and grated some fresh nutmeg on top. Poured the egg & milk mixture over the bread and let it soak for about an hour. Just before baking, I stirred in about a cup of caramel chips I picked up at a party/cake decorating store.

That baked for 45 minutes at 350. I had done that before supper went in, so when the frittata exited the oven and made its way towards our dinner plates, I shut off the oven and put the dessert back in to warm up. When it came out, I topped it with a spoonful of the Honduran cream I've spoken of in earlier blog postings.

Delicious!!

Thai Curry Shrimp

If any of my readers watch Top Chef, you may remember an episode, I think a couple years back in the year that Stephanie Izard won, in which a chef served a shrimp that was mealy-textured. Tom Colicchio asked if they cooked badly or shopped badly, and the chef's answer was that they shopped badly, meaning that no matter what they did in the kitchen, the shrimp was destined to end up sub-par on the plate.

I shopped badly also, and the shrimp I brought home (frozen, in a bag) were also mealy. I noticed it as soon as I started shelling them. But I didn't think it was such a bad problem as to discard them and re-plan the entire meal, and it was not. It didn't turn out badly, but it could have been better.

Aside from the mealy shrimp, my fiddling with the recipe could have led to some of its less-than-superbness. I got the recipe from Epicurious: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Thai-Shrimp-Curry-109161. I didn't realize until I was into it already that I had no Thai Green Curry Paste. The one I had was Red. So I used the red (about a tablespoon and a half of it, emptying the small jar) and added green to my grocery list. I liked the broth. In addition to the poor texture on the shrimp, I wondered if the addition I made of some shredded Napa cabbage (to up its vegetable quotient) might have led to some bitterness. I did like the crunch the cabbage added however. I also added about a half cup of julienned yellow bell pepper.

For dessert, we had a few crunchy oatmeal-cinnamon chip cookies I made yesterday.