Foodmomiac

Our Favorite Crockpot Meal: Red Beans with Smoked Turkey

We didn't have a good morning. It's day four of the Chicago teachers' strike, so the routine we were so happy to return to last week is shot. Additionally, Michael is oversees on a business trip, Dylan insisted that she had no pants available to wear, Max wouldn't eat breakfast, no one could tell me what they wanted for lunch, and I'm having one of those weeks where I'm just super stressed about having a start-up and all of the uncertainties that entails.

By 8:30am, all three of us were crying hysterically. Not my proudest moment.

I finally got the kids out to their "strike camp" and headed off to my annual dermatology appointment. Now, I pride myself on having crazy low blood pressure. It's so low that when I went in to get Lasik surgery eight years ago, I wasn't allowed to take a valium as it would have made me too loopy. So, anyway, there I am at the doctor, and they pulled out the blood pressure cuff. I was soon informed that my blood pressure was a bit high.

Yeah. A morning like we had can do that to a person.

Once I got back home, I decided I needed to so something to calm myself down a bit prior to jumping into my work day. I needed to do some chopping. That's when I pulled out the crockpot and the smoked turkey legs. I love this dish because it is hearty, and delicious and easy and makes the house smell fabulous. I also love that it uses (cheap) dried beans but doesn't require overnight soaking. I made things a bit more complicated this morning because I added vegetables. As I said, I needed some time with my chefs knife. The food is now happily cooking away and I'm quite sure my blood pressure is back to its freakishly low self.

Red Beans with Smoked Turkey Legs

One large or two smallish smoked turkey legs (the ones I used today were purchased at Whole Foods, but they often have these at our grocery store as well)
One bag red kidney beans, rinsed and picked through
Veggies, chopped (optional) - today I used one onion, three stalks of celery and a few peppers including one jalapeno

Put the turkey legs into your crockpot. Top with the beans and veggies. Cover everything with water and cook on low for 6-8 hours. About an hour before it's done, pull out the turkey legs, remove the meat from them and put them back into the crockpot. (Be careful with the bones -the legs have these really weird spindly needle bones throughout.)

Serve with rice.

Note: we also like to top ours with a healthy sprinkling of Tony Chachere's creole seasoning. 

 

Baba Rice (a weeknight lifesaver)

This is my dear friend Lisa. Our husbands have known each other since Kindergarten (!!) and when we lived in Toledo, Lisa was a constant in my life. I remember calling Lisa and Todd just a couple of days after they brought their oldest son home from the hospital to tell them that we, too were going to have a baby! Now Ty is almost 11, and Dylan is 10, and I feel like an elderly woman, but that's a story for another day.

Lisa is the friend who introduced me to Bunco (which I greatly miss - why don't people play Bunco in Chicago??), and the person who brought over food after Dylie and Max were born. And the one dish that was ALWAYS included with this delivery was Baba Rice. Baba was Todd's grandma, and she was from Bulgaria. I love Baba Rice, but I could never make it properly no matter how many times Lisa walked me through it over the phone.

This has always been a source of frustration for me, so when we visited Todd and Lisa Thanksgiving weekend, I watched her make it and took very detailed notes. I am happy to report that I have now made Baba Rice twice and was successful both times. Woot!

And now I am sharing with you. Enjoy.

Baba Rice
2-1/2 cups Uncle Ben's rice (the brand is important here, so don't try to get all fancy. You need the original Uncle Ben's converted rice)
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 small onions, chopped
5 cups chicken broth
freshly ground black pepper
1 Tb. dill
1 Tb Spike seasoning or summer savory (Chubritza is the Bulgarian word for this)
1 tsp chicken bouillion paste (I use that Better than Bouillion stuff from the supermarket)
1/4 cup canola oil 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Put the rice in a 9x13 Pyrex dish. Add the celery, onion, broth and spices. Break the bouillion paste up into smaller pieces and distribute throughout the dish. Pour in the oil and mix everything well. Cover the pan with foil and place into the oven for an hour. Remove from the oven and mix up a bit with a fork. Enjoy!

FoodKIDiac: Guest post by Dylan - Baked Acorn Squash

My favorite dish lately has been baked Acorn Squash it is SO delicious! It is fun and easy to make! I was able to make it all by myself, actually. Today we had it with chicken and a nice little salad! It is such a great comfort food and it adds a little sweetness to your dinner! I guarantee that you will LOVE this dish! Acorn squash is probably the best fall dish you can ask for! Today my Dad built a fire in the fireplace so it was really nice and cozy in our house.

I could eat acorn squash forever! You HAVE to try this dish!

Here is the link to the recipe I used:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/classic_baked_acorn_squash/

 

 

Outrageously Good Dinner (with very little effort): Osso Bucco

Yesterday, we took a little family trip to our new grocery store, Mariano's Fresh Market. I am a little bit embarrassed by how excited I was to have this new store open up in our neighborhood, but there you go. I was VERY EXCITED! It's a supermarket, so you can get all of your household supplies, but they also have a terrific bakery, deli counter (they sell Creminelli salami - my former client and maker of the best salami ever), and they feature a nice amount of local produce, with the farm called out clearly on the signage. 

Anyway, I'm also a fan of the meat counter. They have some really great looking stuff, including the insane hunk of meat pictured above. Michael grabbed this while I waited for my number to be called at the deli counter. It is called a volcano veal shank (linked here is a great primer on veal shank cuts) and he asked me to make Osso Bucco. Normally, as you'll see if you click that link, you make Osso Bucco with small slices of the shank, but I figured the recipe would work just as well with the mongo one he bought. I was right - SO good.

The recipe came from Epicurious, and was adapted from Tony Bourdain (link here to naughty picture of Mr. Bourdain for those who appreciate that sort of thing). Osso Bucco is a great meal if you are entertaining, because it can all be made ahead, it tastes amazing, and it is really impressive. We served it with some little roasted potatoes, but I would actually recommend serving it over polenta - I think that would be a much better receptacle for the yummy sauce you'll have.

Osso Bucco

One enormous veal shank or cut up, osso bucco style shanks (one per person if you do the small guys)
flour
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
2 carrots, chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1-1/2 cups dry red wine (we used a pinot noir)
2 cups veal demiglace or chicken stock (i used one cup of each - I found the veal demiglace at the supermarket in the freezer department)
1 28 oz can whole tomatoes, smushed up a bit (i used a quart jar of homemade canned tomatoes from my father-in-law)
1 bay leaf

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Lightly dust the shank(s) with flour and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large dutch oven (I used my trusty Le Creuset), and brown the shank(s) on all sides over medium/high heat. This should take about 10 minutes total. Remove the browned shank and place on a plate. Add the butter. As soon as it melts, add the carrots, celery, onion and garlic. Saute for about 8-10 minutes until the onion softens up. Add the red wine, stirring up any brown bits from the bottom of the pot. Then, add the stock, tomatoes, and bay leaf and place the shank(s) back in the pot. Bring up to a boil, then cover, and place into the oven for 2.5 hours. 

Remove from the oven when done and take the shank out, placing it on a platter to rest (cover it with foil). Place the pot with all of the sauce in it on the stove over low/medium heat and let it reduce for about 15 minutes. If there is a ton of fat, you can skim some off at this time.

Serve the meat with sauce spooned over top. Enjoy!

Buddy's Meatballs

So... my daughter is obsessed with Buddy Valastro from Cake Boss, the baking show on TLC. Lest you think I'm overstating things, she actually thinks that New Jersey is the greatest state in the country because it is home to Hoboken, and Hoboken is home to Buddy.

Now, I also enjoy the show, but not to her level of obsession (she even follows Buddy on Twitter, reading his tweets with the same enthusiasm as those from her beloved Justin Bieber). Anyway, we were both pretty psyched when we learned that Buddy had a new show, Kitchen Boss. And last night we tried his meatballs. They were AMAZING. Super easy, super delicious. The recipe is here.

We didn't do the full on Sunday gravy thing that he does. I just sauteed them and then put them in a pan with a jar of crushed tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, some water, and a finely minced onion that I sauteed in the meatball grease. This is a new family favorite for sure.

 

Yes, we really DID eat a dish called Yummy Balls

I can always count on Stefania (aka City Mama) for great recipes. She has many of the same foodie values that I do, and our families seem to have similar tastes. We love comfort food, ethnic food, things with a ton of flavor and richness. Stefania is now pregnant with her third child, and I have to say that I am LOVING the cravings that this little dude has been imposing on her and her family. I am all for using the very finest ingredients, but sometimes it's nice to go mega comfort and eat a little bit of processed food. Just the other night, we made Stefania's nachos, complete with Tostito brand Queso poured over the top (they were a HUGE hit). And last night, we made Yummy Balls. I kept giggling as I prepared them, because I couldn't get the old SNL "Schweddy Balls" skit out of my head.

I think that might have been part of the charm. I'll let you grab the recipe from Stefania, but I did make one change. We didn't have any tomato soup on hand, so I used a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken. I also decided to take this recipe fully 70s, and I used dehydrated minced onion and garlic powder instead of their fresh counterparts. The results were ridiculously delicious. I served "the balls" alongside some leftover mashed potatoes and halved zucchinis that were stuffed with herbed feta and heated in the oven.

Dylan teaches you how to make the perfect roast chicken

IMG_0943.MOV
Originally uploaded by Foodmomiac

I told Dylan how easy it was to make a roast chicken, and we then decided it would be fun to make a video lesson. Here's my girl, giving you the low-down.

(Chicken is in the oven, and we are also having mashed potatoes and some sort of veggie.)

A New Family Favorite - Chicken Paprikash

My husband is a creature of habit when it comes to dinners. He FREAKS OUT when I change a recipe that he loves, and if he had his way, I'd make many of the same dishes over and over. So, when I made Chicken Paprikash for the first time this past weekend and he loved it, he made a declaration. He decided that we need to do a better job keeping track of our family favorites. The easiest way to do that is by just making that a category on the blog, so here it is. Family favorites.

The latest issue of Saveur is the annual 100 recipe, where they publish 100 fabulous things. This year, the issue was especially interesting because all of the articles were user submitted. It was kind of like reading eGullet or my food blogs but on paper. So enjoyable. And the recipes they included (not enough, by the way) were really enticing.

The Chicken Paprikash was written about towards the end of the issue in an article about a woman's mom and the delicious Paprikash she'd make for the family. This was so, so good. It was filling, and rich, and the chicken was moist. It was just amazing, and we all loved it. We ate this Sunday night, and it was much needed, as I had run 8.5 miles that morning. We will certainly be making this again.

A few notes: I cooked it a lot longer than they said, and it was fine (though I had it on extremely low heat). I also just added the whole pepper to the dish instead of reserving some as garnish. Finally, the dumplings were really yummy, but they were HUGE. I think next time I'll use my spaetzle maker so that they are smaller and more tender.

Foodmomiac's Guide to Chicken Stock

I got this email yesterday from my old friend Kate:

Hi Danielle,

I've got a chicken carcass in my freezer waiting to be made into stock.  And I want to use some of that stock to make chicken soup.  Trouble is I've never done either.  I figure you can do this in your sleep - got any great resources to guide me through the process?  I figure I will get a rotisserie chicken for the dinner tomorrow and use the left over meat for the soup, giving me a second carcass for the stock so I can make a good amount of it and stash some away in the freezer.  If you have any words of advice I'd appreciate it!

-kate

So... I don't really have a set recipe I follow. I kind of just do my thing and it usually works out. I take the carcass(es) and put them in a giant soup pot. Then, I cover them with filtered water. I add a couple of onions cut in quarters, some carrots, some celery (including leaves is GREAT), and some parsnips (this is optional, but makes the resulting stock taste like soup from a Jewish deli). I put the heat on medium, bring it up to a low simmer, turn down the heat to low, and let it all cook for a while. If the water gets low, you can add more. If there is scum on the surface, you can skim it.

When the stock seems "stock-y," I strain it, reserving all of the chunks in a colander. I then start sorting. I discard the onion and celery as they are tapped out, but I slice the carrots and parsnips into coins to be used in my soup. I also take on the ultra messy job of sorting through the carcasses. I pull off all of the good meat and shred it up into bite size pieces. This is also for the soup.

We actually prefer more of a stew with our stock, so I add back in the carrots, parsnips and chicken and then make spaetzle dumplings right into the pot. If this is too fancy for you, you can just dump in some egg noodles (or better yet, get the Hungarian dumplings from a gourmet market). The more noodles you add, the stew-ier the soup with be. You can also not add ANYTHING back into the stock and just use it for cooking.

Hope this helps!

A Great and Healthy Recipe: Butternut Squash and Kale Risotto

I was really excited about tonight's recipe. It's from The Gastrokid Cookbook. The concept of the book is awesome. All of the recipes are created to be kid-friendly, but it's not your usual chicken nuggets and mac n' cheese. This recipe was ideal because it used two of the veggies I bought at Sunday's Farmer's Market - butternut squash and lacinato kale. The original recipe includes pancetta, but we decided not to include it, as part of our effort to be healthier.

Dylan loved the risotto, but Max wouldn't take one bite (even after I removed the kale). One day I'll make a healthy dinner that both kids eat. Oh well - he ate a piece of last night's lasagna (the one that DYLAN hated). I personally thought this dish was fantastic and can't wait to have leftovers for lunch.

The recipe is below, but let me first remind you that I'm posting every day for a month to raise money for Healthy Schools Campaign. Thank you so much to Kim for her generous donation. We're continuing to plug away. If you'd like to help the cause, please click here and choose your donation amount. Every little bit helps.

Butternut Squash and Kale Risotto (adapted from The Gastrokid Cookbook)

6 cups chicken stock
extra virgin olive oil
1 bunch fresh kale, stemmed and chopped (if you use lacinato or dino kale like we did, cook it a bit longer)
1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed (Trader Joe's sells it pre-cubed if you are short on time)
salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 cup Arborio rice
1/4 cup white wine
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Heat the chicken stock in a small saucepan and keep warm on a low burner.

Heat a large pan over medium heat. Add a splash of oil and the kale. Saute for about five minutes (or longer if using lacinato). Remove the kale from the pan and put it aside.

Add another splash of olive oil to the pan and toss in the squash. Season with salt and pepper and saute for about five minutes. Add the rice and saute for another minute. Turn up the heat just a bit and add the wine. Cook, stirring constantly until the wine is absorbed. Add two ladles of stock. Cook, stirring constantly until the stock is absorbed. Add another two ladles of stock and repeat the above. Continue doing this until the squash is softened (but not dissolved) and the rice is al dente. This can take 15-30 minutes. For us, it was a good 25 minutes.

Once the risotto is ready, add one more ladle of stock and the kale. Mix to combine, and add the grated cheese.

Serve in bowls with additional cheese on the side. Enjoy!

(serves 4)