Polynesian Chicken

This recipe came into my life at a church group for young couples called Ceiling 70 (the name meant that your combined ages as a couple should be 70 or less, although there were exceptions in the latter part of our membership). The lady who brought the recipe to the cooking committee had learned it at Weight Watchers. It's low in fat, but it isn't low in sugar or carbs (since it's served over rice). However, it IS delicious. The first half is the original recipe, and at the end is a version modified for the stove-top or campfire.

Polynesian Chicken (Baked)
Serves 8.
Prep-time: less than 10 minutes; cooking time: 1 hour.

8 boneless skinless chicken breasts, thawed
1 packet onion soup mix
8 oz. Russian dressing
6 oz. peach preserves
1 regular-sized can of pineapple tidbits, mostly drained (a little juice or syrup is okay)
1 medium onion, halved and sliced thin
cooked rice

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Arrange the chicken breasts in a 9x13 casserole. In a mixing bowl, combine the onion soup mix, dressing, preserves, pineapple, and onions thoroughly. Break the onion slices up a little bit.

Pour the mixture over the chicken. There's plenty to cover all of the chicken completely, so take the time to do that.

Bake for 1 hour. There's no skimping on this. If you crank up the heat, you'll burn the sauce before the chicken cooks through.

Serve over rice.

Polynesian Chicken (Stove-top)
Serves 8
Prep-time: less than 10 minutes; cooking time: 15-20 minutes

2 (12.5 oz) cans of white meat chicken, drained
1 packet onion soup mix
8 oz. Russian dressing
6 oz. peach preserves
1 regular-sized can of pineapple tidbits, mostly drained (a little juice or syrup is okay)
1 medium onion, halved and sliced thin
cooked rice

In a saucepan, combine the onion soup mix, dressing, preserves, pineapple, and onions thoroughly. Break the onion slices up a little bit. Heat and cook until the onions turn translucent and limp. Stir in the chicken, and continue heating until everything is hot.  

Serve over rice.

Notes:

The main difference between the two versions: What you save in time, you sacrifice in taste--at least a little. I don't particularly like canned chicken, but it works in this recipe well enough to make it a camp-out possibility. I prefer the portion-controlled whole piece of chicken, but if all I have is a propane stove or a campfire, canned chicken is great. 

I haven't found Russian dressing in less than 16 oz bottles, nor peach preserves in smaller than 18 oz jars, so of course it's half of the dressing and one third of the preserves. 

You can use regular-sized pineapple bits rather than the smaller tidbits (the size of the can is the same), but don't try to use crushed pineapple. 

Chicken Hash

Chicken Hash

from We Make You Kindly Welcome: Recipes from the Trustees’ House Daily Fare, Pleasant Hill, KY

This is one of Grace's favorites. I like it because it is made of things I normally keep in my pantry/freezer, I don't have to shop especially for it, and it can be made from shelf-stable items so I always have something I can make for dinner.

1 and 3/4 cups chicken broth (I often use bouillon cubes, and end up with two cups of liquid. It doesn’t really make that much of a difference, just a little more flour/water at the end)

1/4 cup chopped onion (can be fresh, frozen, or dried; if fresh, chop them fine so they cook through)

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/16 teaspoon red pepper (cayenne)

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon seasoning salt

3 and 1/2 cups cooked chicken, diced or shredded. (This can be a lot of chicken. If you don't have that much, don't worry about it too much. You'll just have more gravy.)

1/2 cup flour shaken with 1/2 cup cold water to make slurry

2 Tablespoons butter

Heat the broth and add the seasonings and the onions; taste before adding the thickening and adjust accordingly.

Bring to boil; whisk in the flour slurry until the consistency of gravy is reached. Remember it will thicken a little as it cooks, so it’s better to add about half of it right off, see how it thickens, and then you can add more. You may not need all your slurry, and if it’s too thick you need to thin it with more broth or water.

Add the chicken pieces and then the butter.

Serve with corn bread or wide chow mein noodles. I usually make corn muffins or hoe cakes. Those Jiffy cornbread mixes are great--six muffins or a mess of hoe cakes, and all you need is an egg and milk.

Gary's Favorite Hamburger Hotdish

In Wisconsin, casseroles are often called hotdish. This is a recipe from Grandma Lorraine Loomans, but its provenance prior to her is unknown. (This is not to say that she invented it; Lorraine does not profess to be especially creative in the kitchen.) It is indeed Gary's favorite, but I have not made it for years because of the carbs. Hans likes it, too.

Hamburger Hotdish
Ingredients
1 lb ground beef
1/2 a medium onion, chopped (optional)
1 lb Velveeta, sliced or cubed
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can of milk
8 oz wide or extra-wide noodles, cooked and drained
garnish (chow mein noodles, sliced almonds, or french-fried onions)

Process
1. Brown and drain the beef and onions (if you want them). Set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Prepare noodles as directed on package and drain.

3. While the noodles are cooking, make the sauce: over medium heat, blend milk and soups together, adding the cheese and stirring constantly until the cheese is melted.

4. Combine all into a large casserole or 9x13 baking dish. Heat in the oven for 20-30 minutes until hot through and bubbly. Sprinkle with garnish. If you go with almonds or fried onions, you can toast these an additional 5-10 minutes.

Notes
*Gary prefers chow mein noodles, and he likes them toasted on the top. I have found, however, that chow mein noodles do not make good leftovers. They get soggy. I have in the past sprinkled them over only half of the surface, since that was as much as I could plan on being eaten in one meal, and if additional cmnoodles were required, they could be added.
*You can use two cans of the same kind of soup. You can use any kind of cream soup, and the variation in flavor will only be slight.
*You can add steamed broccoli or cauliflower in the mix, if you wish to seen vegetables into your family's diet.

Grandma Fish's Barbecue Chips 'n Chicken

This is one of my husband's favorites. To him, this is birthday-dinner stuff. Fancier than Hamburger Hot-dish, and a little healthier. I believe it was a special-occasion dish because the original recipe had a LOT more prep work and pre-cooking before you ever got to mixing up the casserole, and my mother in law was a good cook, but ain't nobody got time for that. I don't think she made up this recipe. I'm pretty sure that it came out of a magazine, or someone brought it to a potluck and she asked for it, or it was one of her sisters' specialties. Anyway, I'm going to write it out (mostly) as I was given it, and in parentheses I'm going to write what I actually DO. It's slightly different because we live in a more convenient world than my mother in law did when she was making this casserole for her hungry teenagers. I have left out ingredients that pertain solely to cooking bone-in chicken breasts. If you want the WHOLE shooting match, leave a comment, and I'll put the rest in.

Ingredients
5 (boneless-skinless) chicken breasts, cooked. (You can substitute canned chicken or the meat from a rotisserie bird. In the original recipe, there's a long and detailed set of directions for cooking and boning the chicken breasts, because it used to be that you couldn't buy boneless chicken. See how far we've come? In any case, you need about 3 or 4 cups, give or take. The vegetables and chips don't take up much space, so you need more chicken, rather than less.)
1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion (if you can find frozen, this makes life really easy here)
1/3 cup finely chopped celery (ditto)
1/4 teaspoon celery salt
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 and 1/2 cups sour cream
3/4 cup crushed cashews
1 cup crushed potato chips
1 cup crushed barbecue potato chips (you can use all bbq if you want. Pringles do not make an acceptable substitute. Just...no. Ew.)

Procedure
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Cook the chicken if you're starting raw. Cut it into 1-inch pieces, or shred it smallish.

Melt butter in a roomy skillet or large-ish saucepan (3- or 4-quart), and cook the onion for 5 minutes, stirring. Add celery and cook until softened but not brown. Mix in the celery salt and the soup.

Add the chicken, seasoned salt, sour cream, nuts, plain chips and half the barbecue chips (reserve a half-cup of BBQ chips for topping), stir to combine. Put it in a sprayed or buttered 9x13 inch casserole dish and top with the remainder of the chips. Heat through at 375, about 20 minutes.

Stout Chili

The original name of this recipe is "Stout Beer Chili," which is a little redundant.

The first time I made this, I doubled it, though I shorted the chili powder because I didn't have an entire cup of chili powder. 8 Tablespoons (1/2 cup, though I don't know why they didn't use that measure) is a lot of spice, and double that... well. It was quite hot enough with the approximately 3/4 cup I had, so much so that Gary got heartburn pretty badly that evening. The next day, it was more bearable, but I don't know if that's because we just put more sour cream in it, or if it toned itself down.  You may want to go light if you don't like a lot of heat, and then taste to adjust.

Ingredients:

Olive oil

1 lb ground beef

2 t salt

2 t pepper

1 large onion, diced

30 oz can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed

28 oz can of crushed tomatoes

2 T cumin

1 T paprika

1 T red pepper flakes

8 T chili powder

1/4 cup water

14.9 oz can of stout

In a dutch oven, brown the beef with salt and pepper in olive oil. Remove the beef with a slotted spoon (I skipped this and browned the beef a little before dumping in the onions to cook with it; saved me a dish to wash), and cook the diced onion in the grease until softened. Return the beef to the pot (if in fact you removed it) and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and cover and simmer for 1 hour.

Serve with grated cheddar and sour cream.

Notes: 

I like using a dutch oven for this. I have a lovely cast-iron dutch oven (thank you again, Grant!) that held the doubled amounts quite well, and I didn't have to stir it during the simmer because I wasn't afraid it would scorch. If your dutch oven isn't thick-bottomed, or if you have to use a regular pot, give it a stir and check the heat periodically (every 10-15 minutes) to avoid burning your soup. 

I am guessing, because the original recipe (which was a Buzz-feed video) didn't mention servings, that this recipe serves 6-8. Since I doubled it, and after dishing out about 10 bowls, I still have at least 4 bowls-full left.

And like many soups and stews, it's better the next day!

Spaghetti Carbonara (II)

This is one of those recipes I don't make very often anymore because of the evil-carb nature of all pasta, but it was requested for a birthday dinner recently, and I thought it would be a good addition to this list.  I found this on allrecipes.com, and I'll post it here with the modifications I normally make noted as such.  Hats off to the original poster, Sabrinatee!

This isn't a difficult dish, but once you have the onions cooked, it goes very quickly, so the mise en place process of getting everything prepared and measured beforehand is your friend. So I chop the onion and beat the eggs, and if I'm lucky enough to have a block of Parmesan, I grate it first. Then I cook the bacon, and about halfway through that process, I put the water on to boil. When the bacon is all done and crumbled, you can move very quickly through the rest of the process.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. spaghetti (I usually only use 1/2 lb.)

1 Tablespoon olive oil

8 slices to 1 lb. bacon, diced (I usually just cook the bacon then chop it up)

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 cup dry white wine (optional)

4 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

2 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 Tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

PREPARATION:

Cook pasta in boiling salted water until al dente, then drain and toss with 1 T olive oil, and set aside.

While waiting for the water to boil, fry the bacon to just crisp and then drain on paper towels. Empty out the rendered grease, reserving some for cooking the onions and garlic (the original recipe says 2 Tablespoons, but I generally use 4 or 5). I just fry the bacon without chopping it up first, and after it's all cooked I give it a rough chop to make it all bite-sized.

Add the remaining olive oil and the reserved bacon grease to the same skillet, and cook the onions over medium to medium-high heat until translucent. (I use an electric food chopper to make the onion bits pretty small, but they can be any size you choose.)  Add the minced garlic (I usually do 3-4 cloves of garlic because we like the flavor) and cook for 1 minute. If you are using the white wine, add it and cook one more minute.

Return the bacon to the pan, and add the cooked and drained spaghetti. Toss well to coat with the oils and to mix the bacon and onion-garlic mixture into the pasta. Add more olive oil and/or bacon grease if the pasta seems too dry or is sticking together.

Working quickly, pour in the beaten eggs and mix, tossing thoroughly, until the eggs are cooked. Quickly add 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese and toss again. Season with salt and pepper, but remember that Parmesan and bacon are very salty in themselves.

Serve immediately with fresh chopped parsley and extra Parmesan.

Moroccan Tagine

I found this recipe at allrecipes.com  before they went all "mobile-app" and were still actually useful.  I had a butternut squash for some reason, which at that point was not something I would have bought on purpose (I think someone gave it to me). So I was on allrecipes.com looking for things with butternut squash in them, and most of them sounded as revolting as I thought squash was at the time, but then I happened on this one, and I liked everything else in it, preparation didn't seem too onerous (silly me!), so I tried it. Everyone else liked it pretty well, and it helped that you serve it over couscous (which, as our friends Aaron and Marcus tell us, is a food so nice they named it twice), and it's pretty much yum.  This recipe serves 6, and I have not tried freezing it, but it would probably do okay.  And the ingredients are verbatim off the allrecipes site, but this is a recipe you can play with proportions a little--maybe your squash isn't small, or you want to feed 8 people and 3 chicken breasts feels a bit skimpy. Be advised it's pretty mild, so you'll probably want to increase the seasonings if you increase one of the main ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon olive oil (or more) for frying
• 2 boneless-skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small butternut squash, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces (this is the onerous part that I hinted at above: peeling the squash and cutting it up)
• 1 (15-ish ounce) can of garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chick peas), drained and rinsed
• 1 carrot, peeled and chopped (I chop up a handful of baby carrots)
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can of diced tomatoes (do not drain them, throw the juice in with the fruit at the right time)
• 1 (14 ounce) can of vegetable broth (or chicken, if you want)
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon salt
• dash or two of cayenne pepper 

Method:
1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet, and cook the chicken and onions until browned, about 15 minutes, adding the garlic a minute or two before the end so you don't scorch it.  (You can cheat a little on the time, cooking it just until the chicken isn't pink anymore, and the onions are translucent. It doesn't hurt the flavor, and if you're rushed for time this is the corner to cut.)

2. Mix everything else in with the chicken mixture, including the seasonings.  Bring it to a boil, and then reduce it to a high simmer and cook 20-30 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.

Serve with couscous.


NOTES:  You can easily make this vegan by leaving out the chicken and making sure you use vegetable broth. Adding tofu is unnecessary (and yucky) (sorry, I'm not a fan).

The hardest part of this recipe is peeling the squash. There is no easy way to do it. Be careful, whether you pare the rind off with a knife or use a potato peeler. The skin is very hard, and the vegetable is very firm. Allow yourself enough time to do this.  I have read that microwaving the squash briefly or blanching it makes it easier to peel, but I haven't tried this yet. Maybe next time.

The prep can be done ahead, but be aware that this squash kind of sweats its juice when cut. No big deal, don't freak out. It isn't gone bad or anything like that.

Easy Basil Chicken

I saw this on Facebook, actually. I'm not proud of it, except it really makes fantastic chicken. There are no amounts, proportions, or ratios listed, so you can make 1 serving or 100.

Ingredients:

• boneless/skinless chicken breasts
• enough basil pesto to put about 1-2 tablespoons on each breast
• sliced tomatoes (I didn't have fresh, so I used canned diced tomatoes, drained)
• mozzarella cheese (I used shredded, but you could also use sliced, just make sure you can cover each piece of chicken)

That's it.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Arrange the chicken in a baking dish (I did spray mine with Pam), spread pesto over each piece, layer on tomatoes, then cover with cheese.

Bake for 20 minutes.

There you have it: a terrific Italian-flavored dish with no pasta. (You can have pasta, but it doesn't need it.) Serve it with garlic bread, tossed salad, and Bellissimo!

White Chicken Chili

I found this on howto-simplify.com. It's really pretty easy, and you can make it hot or mild, however you like it.

• 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 cups cooked chicken, shredded *(see notes)
• 2 cans Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed *(see notes)
• 1 can corn, drained
• 1 can (4 oz) diced green chiles
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1 box (32 oz) chicken broth
• salt and pepper to taste
• the juice of one lime

1. In a large pot, saute the onion and cook it until it starts to become translucent.
2. Add the chicken shreds, beans, corn, green chiles (with the juice from the can), cumin, and oregano to the large pot. Stir to combine everything, and then add the broth.
3. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20-30 minutes to allow the broth to reduce. Add salt and pepper to taste, and the juice of one lime. (If you like cilantro, you can add 1/2 cup chopped fresh at this time, or you can serve it as a topping on the side.
4. You can simmer the chili until you're ready to serve.
5. Serve with sour cream, shredded cheese, avocado, tortilla chips or corn muffins.

Notes:
*I might have mentioned before that if you use frozen boneless-skinless chicken breasts for your shredded chicken, an easy way to prepare it is to boil them, right out of the freezer, in water to just cover, and a few cubes of chicken bouillon. Boil them until cooked. Remove them from the water and let them rest a couple minutes, and then toss them in the bowl of your stand-mixer, and use the paddle attachment to reduce them to shreds. It only takes less than a minute.
*You can use black beans or pinto beans, as well. It reduces the whiteness of the chili, but it doesn't change the taste.

Very Easy Pork Chops

We haven't been cooking much at our house because of a certain wedding, but the other night I made pork chops. When I say these are easy, I mean these are cheating-easy. But the reason I'm posting this here is to let you know that not all delicious food has to be fiddly or difficult or even terribly original. The only thing about this recipe is that you have to have time to marinate.

• Pork chops. Bone-in, boneless, thin or thick, whatever you like, whatever's on sale. I tend to get the big packs that are discounted, so the other day I made nine boneless, medium-thick.
• a bottle of Lawry's marinade (garlic & herb is my personal preference) [I told you this is cheating-easy]. You can also use an 8-oz bottle of store-brand Italian salad dressing. If you are only doing 4-6 chops, you can just use half the bottle.
• a zippered plastic bag large enough to hold your chops (like a gallon)

It almost seems absurd to write this out.

Place all your chops in the zippered bag, pour in the bottled marinade or dressing, close the bag (really do; I didn't double-check the seal, and ended up wearing a good-sized portion of marinade), give it a good shake or otherwise massage your chops around so they're all covered liberally, and put it in the fridge. It needs at least 30 minutes, but you could leave it in there for several days. Really. Because that's what happened here. I set this up to cook on Thursday, no one came home for dinner, so they waited until MONDAY. And they were still good, and still delicious.

After you finish marinading, spray a baking dish with Pam and pour your chops and marinade in. Arrange the chops to lay flat. (I got nine into a 9x13 casserole dish with no problem.) Bake 20-30 minutes in a pre-heated 350 degree F oven, until the chops are AT LEAST 165 degrees F inside. (I recommend getting the best meat thermometer you can afford. You won't be sorry.) They can be hotter than that, but they should not be cooler. (Note: you can grill the chops, but you should throw away the marinade and not use it to baste. Basting is kind of a pointless exercise unless we're talking about barbecue sauce, and that's a different matter altogether.) Do not over-cook your chops. They'll taste great, but they'll be really tough. (I know, I know--how long is too long? Frankly, I don't know. It's taken me years to get enough of a feel for pork chops that I don't massively overcook them. I just know that for medium-thick chops, 20-30 minutes is long enough.)

Let your chops rest 5 minutes, and serve with mashed potatoes, a big salad, and cinnamon apple sauce.

Pressure Cookers and Pot Roast

Pressure cookers are almost archaic. 

Except.

Even though no one I know owns and uses one, new models are developed all the time, and they are better and better. So SOMEONE is using them. 

If you can afford to buy new, do it. This is a case of do as I say, not as I do, because my pressure cooker is older than I am. I am not exaggerating. It's from the 50s. (I am from the 60s.)  My mother gave it to me, and it is the pressure cooker that inhabits all my memories of delicious dinners.  (It is also gigantic. I have not seen a new one as big.)

The reason I'm urging you to get a new one, rather than something you find at a garage sale or church rummage sale or out of Grandma's basement is because of metal fatigue. Pressure cookers build up a lot of pressure, and metal can only handle so much of that before it fractures. If the metal fractures at full pressure, it results in an explosion. This shrapnel damages your stove and kitchen in profound and expensive ways, and if you are in the room at the time it can kill you. Literally. No joking around.

This is the meat after cooking but before the vegetables are added

The reasons I have not replaced my pressure cooker are manifold. I can't afford it. I can't find one as big that costs less than a used car. I am sentimentally attached to everything my mother gave me.  So I carefully inspect my p.c. every time I use it for signs of stress.

A friend gave me a new electric p.c. that is about half the size of the old one, has a non-stick interior, an attached pressure weight, and a steamer insert. After using it once, I approved it, and I told Libby she could have it when she gets married and moves out. (It isn't that I don't like it. I do. If it turns out that she doesn't want it, I will use it. But my history with electric cookers is... well, they just seem to have a short life for the money. I have worn out three electric skillets and two electric woks, a rice cooker, a kettle, a mini-crock pot and a regular crock pot. This is not counting the hot-pot contraptions I had at college--four of them, in succession. They just don't last as long as a traditional pot, obviously. HOWEVER, if you need to cook and you don't actually have a stove, you should by all means get electric cookers.)

On to the recipe.

Pot Roast in the Pressure Cooker

• a piece of meat (I prefer beef, and pot roast is always beef unless otherwise stated. However, you can cook pork or poultry in a p.c. as well. I have never personally done a bone-in roast, but I remember my mother doing bone-in pork this way. I am writing this for beef, but everything applies to whatever meat you're cooking. FISH PROBABLY WON'T DO WELL HERE.) Get whatever size will feed you and yours. I tend to try to find something around five pounds, at least over 4, even if I have to buy two pieces. There are wonderful leftover recipes for pot roast, so it never goes to waste.
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2-3 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup Crisco vegetable shortening (I have never used any other kind, so I can't advise you. Butter-flavor or regular, doesn't matter. If you have confidence in the store brand, feel free to save a buck.)
• Lipton Onion Soup mix. I use 2 envelopes, the whole box, because I like a lot of gravy, but I have been told that one is enough, and my mother always used only one.
• water
• 2-3 large onions, peeled
• potatoes, peeled and halved, 1 potato per person PLUS at least 1 extra.
• a scant 1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
• flour and water to make gravy at the end (I save the leftover seasoned flour from the beginning and use it here)

Trim excess fat from your roast, but it tastes better if you leave some on. Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a piece of waxed paper (or in a shallow dish, if you have a dish washer). Roll your roast in the flour mixture. Cover all sides.

Melt the shortening in the pan of the cooker. When it's hot, put your meat in and sear it on all sides, or as many sides as you can reasonably do. Some of those irregularly cut roasts are challenging. To sear it, the shortening has to be pretty hot, almost smoking. Flop your beef in there and let it fry for about two minutes. Then change sides. Putting a cold piece of meat lowers the temperature of the shortening, and searing requires the high temperature. You aren't trying to cook more than an eighth of an inch on the surface, but it does take some patience to get a good crust. (That being said, the meat is perfectly tasty without searing it, but it's riskier. It can lose a lot of flavor.)

After searing, sprinkle on the onion soup mix, and add water (carefully! Hot oil + water = steam and splattering). Each packet of soup mix should get two cups of water, but a word of caution: tender cuts of meat become oddly tough when pressure-cooked with too much water. So if you have a rump roast, you're good with 4 cups of water, because a rump roast is tough, and more water will make it more tender. So if you have a really good cut of beef, feel free to short the water here. 

Close and lock the pressure cooker, and if it has a valve weight, put it on 10 or 15. (The electric model I have doesn't have adjustable pressure.) Turn the heat up to high until pressure builds and begins to release, and then lower the temperature to a simmer, so that the pressure releases only a few times a minute. 

Cook time depends on the size of the roast. If it's between 4-5 lbs, and if the cut is flatter (more like a steak than a chunk) I usually cook it for an hour and a half, and two hours for a large lump. It's getting hard to find roast-shaped roasts at my grocery. Usually I have to settle for a slab cut.

After cooking, turn off the heat and let the pressure release. You can hurry this along a little by removing the weight from the vent, and sometimes when I'm really impatient I put the cooker in the sink and run warm water over the outside, turning it gradually cooler. Modern p.c.s will not open without the pressure being completely vented. This saves you from serious burns caused by escaping steam. Use caution.  

Add your vegetables to the liquid. It's pretty critical that the vegetables are in the liquid, even if you have to lift the meat up and lay it on top of them. If you have to add more, you can use a beef bouillon cube per cup of water. You need enough liquid to cover all of the vegetables at least part-way. If you want additional flavoring, like red pepper flakes or Montreal Steak Seasoning, this is the place to add it. Close and lock your cooker again, and return it to the heat. Once pressure builds and rattles the valve, cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and release the pressure.

Remove the meat and vegetables to a platter and bring the remaining liquid to a boil. Mix flour and water (I go for a consistency like cream, pourable and not too thick), and whisk into the boiling liquid slowly (stir fast, pour slow), until the gravy is almost as thick as you want it. The let it cook another minute to thicken completely.

I cannot stress how important it is to make the gravy, here. Like the roasted chicken, it's worth the trouble, but it's more than that. Pot roast without gravy is just...not right.

Single folks, if you master this dish it can win you a spouse. It will ensure your place in the hearts of your children as a great cook. It will wow even the most jaded palate. 

Slow-cooker Beef Burgundy

At our house, Monday dinners are one of the few times we can all be there. Unfortunately, it’s also the day when I’m out of the house all afternoon. I finally figured out I can USE the crock pot to solve the problem of a hot dinner for 8+ on Monday without dinner being put off until 9 p.m. It only requires a little planning.

This recipe was originally from a blogger who had IBS issues, and she used things like white rice flour and special beef broth. These aren’t an issue in our house, though we try to avoid starch and sugars for the diabetic one’s sake. I am writing it out here as I made it.

2 lbs. stew beef, cubed
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 cup dry red wine, divided (I used Marsala because I was out of red wine)
1 cup baby carrots
4 green onions, sliced (or a small onion, diced)
8 mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup fresh parsley, minced (or dry, to taste)
1/2 cup beef broth
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1. In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the flour, salt, pepper, and then add the beef, shaking to coat.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet to shimmering. Add the beef pieces and brown on all sides.
3. Remove beef to slow cooker. Deglaze the skillet with 1/2 of the wine, scraping up any brown bits. Pour this into the slow cooker. Add the remaining wine, baby carrots, onions, mushrooms, parsley, broth, bay leaves, and thyme in the slow cooker and stir to combine.
Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours, or on high for 2-3 hours. Remove bay leaves and serve over pasta, rice, or mashed potatoes.

Slow-cooker Moroccan Beef Stew

I am always looking for recipes that are low in carbs, and this is a pretty good one. I made it this evening for the first time. You can leave the vegetable pieces a little large for this stew, as they cook very thoroughly, and too-small pieces will turn to mush.

• 3 lbs. stew beef, cubed small-ish
• 2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
• 5-6 carrots, peeled and chopped (or use peeled baby carrots, about 1.5 cup)
• 3 medium onions, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic (or more), chopped or minced
• 1.5 teaspoon yellow curry powder
• 1.5 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 8-oz. can of tomato sauce
• 32 oz. beef broth (I used 4 cups of water and 4 bouillon cubes)
• 1 14.5oz. can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 2 single-serve boxes of raisins
• 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
• 2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro (we passed the tin of dried cilantro at the table, because not everyone likes it, and I didn’t have fresh)
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds (or sliced), toasted if desired

Heat oil in a large saute pan until it’s shimmering. Sear the meat as much as you can, at least two sides. Remove the meat and set it aside. (I found this rendered a lot of liquid, so don’t be shocked.) Add the carrots, onions, and garlic to this. (I tend to add the garlic only a minute or less before the pan-cooking is done, so it doesn’t scorch.) Saute for about 5 minutes. Add the spices and the tomato sauce, stirring to combine.  These steps can all be done the night before, if you are pressed for time in the morning.

Add the beef, vegetables, and broth to the slow cooker. If you are doing all this the same day, you can use part of the broth to deglaze your saute pan, so you can get all the spices and yummy flavors! Cook on low for 6 house, then stir in the chickpeas and the chopped fruit. Cook for one more hour.

Serve with couscous, and pass the cilantro and almonds!

Home-made Chicken Soup

That chicken you roasted? Here’s what you do with the stuff that didn’t land on the table. You’re going to make the stock and meat for the soup, and then make the soup. It will be FABULOUS.

• Leftover chicken, the back and wings and other parts you cooked but didn’t eat- skin, bones, and meat.
• Enough water to cover the chicken as completely as possible (but don’t overdo–Just covered. It’s okay if a few points stick out.)
• 3-4 carrots, scrubbed and cut into 2-3 inch lengths.
• 2-3 ribs of celery (if you have ribs with leaves on them, this is the place to use the leaves!), scrubbed and cut like the carrots
• 1-2 medium to large onions, peeled and quartered.
• a little salt and pepper

Place everything in a large pot and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat so that it’s simmering. Let it simmer until the chicken carcass comes apart. (It doesn’t have to be every bone disjointed from the others, but the major things, like where the wing is attached, or the thigh, those ought to come apart.)  If you’re worried about whether the broth has any flavor, taste it. If it’s too bland, toss in a bouillon cube or two. Just remember that any salt you add now doesn't need to be added later.

Let it cool until you can handle the chicken. (I usually render the carcass after supper the night I roast the chicken, and tackle the boning in the morning. And leaving it at room temperature is fine, because everything in there has been thoroughly cooked.) Using a colander and a big bowl or a stock pot, I pour everything in, letting the stock drain. Don’t pour it down the sink! This is the soup part of your chicken soup, and it is SO much better-tasting that anything that comes out of a can or box or a jar. Now separate the meat from everything else. Since I am making soup, I throw the meat into the pot with the broth. EVERYTHING ELSE gets thrown away: skin, bone, tendon, and all vegetables. This is the time-consuming part, and the main reason hardly anyone makes chicken soup from scratch. But I promise you, this soup is a game-changer, and it is worth digging through the bones and skin and mushy carrots. Being right-handed, I put a garbage bowl on my right and the pot for the meat on my left, and the colander in the middle. And sometimes I wear disposable vinyl gloves, because otherwise I’m fighting the urge to wash my hands the whole time I’m doing it.

Once the meat is separated from the garbage, I heat up the broth again. And I evaluate how much soup I want, versus how much broth and meat I got from this operation. If I need more broth and meat, this is the place to add it. Usually I end up adding at least 2 cups of broth and 2 or 3 frozen boneless-skinless breasts. It’s okay to throw it in there frozen and uncooked. It will cook.  Then I start chopping vegetables.

• 6-8 carrots, peeled and sliced (or you can use 1/2 lb. baby carrots)
• 3 ribs celery, or more, washed and sliced thin (no leaves)
• 2-3 onions, peeled and diced in your favorite size
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced (optional)
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
• herbs of your choice (sage, thyme, rosemary, basil are all favorites)

Once you have chopped your carrots, onions, and celery, put everything in with the chicken. Check the meat, if you put in extra, and if it’s cooked through you can shred it up. Put your herbs in now, too. Cook it at a high simmer-low boil until vegetables are tender. (If you have leftover vegetables that would enhance the soup, put those in when your other veggies are not quite done. I might add leftover cauliflower, leftover rice, or mushrooms, but not broccoli or Brussels sprouts, for example.)  Remove the bay leaves.

You can serve it now, and it will be delicious. You can also put a lid on it and let it cool down, and then reheat it later, and it will taste even better. I grew up eating crackers with soup, but we almost always go with bread now at suppertime. (Crackers are for lunch, apparently.)

Keep leftovers in the fridge for up to 10 days, or you can freeze it and keep it for up to 3 months.

Brined Roasted Chicken for the Newbie

This is probably one of my favorite entrees to eat. I probably like it a lot more than anyone else in my family.

• Roasting chicken, 4-6 lbs.
• 1/4 cup salt
• cold water to cover
• oil or softened butter (about 1/4 cup)
• salt
• pepper

Mix the salt and the water in a container that is big enough to completely submerge the chicken. It can be glass, plastic, or metal. I usually use a soup pot, but a 2-gallon ziploc will work for most chickens. This is the brine. It can be fancier (this is a great place to put lemon slices, poultry seasoning, bay leaves, sage and thyme, sugar, brown sugar, etc., or you can skip the salt water and go to buttermilk, but it’s kind of expensive to cover a whole chicken in buttermilk, and it’s better to use parts if you’re going that direction), but it can be as simple as salt and water and it will still be tasty.

Remove anything that some butcher stuffed in the cavities of the bird in order to make it weigh more, and throw that stuff away. No, I don’t make giblet gravy or fry the livers (although that is delicious) or anything like that. Rinse the bird inside and out.  Stick it into the brine, making sure that the cavities are all filled with brine, and leave it there for 30-60 minutes. It’s only a chicken. You don’t have to leave it in there for more than an hour. (Yes, I know that a turkey has to be brined for 12-20 hours, but that is a turkey.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the inside of your roasting pan and rack with Pam or something similar.

Remove the chicken from the brine, and discard the brine. Rinse the bird inside and out. Now pat it dry. Inside and out. (If you use a clean dishtowel, do not use it for anything else. Put it directly into the laundry.) Place the chicken on the roasting rack. Whether it’s breast-up or breast-down doesn’t actually matter, according to America’s Test Kitchen. Rub the skin all over with your choice of olive oil or butter. Salt and pepper moderately, both sides. (Because of the salt in the brine, the chicken does not need much salt, but you can go crazy with the pepper.)

Place the roasting pan, covered, in the oven and let it cook 20 minutes per pound plus 15 minutes extra. So if my chicken is around 5 pounds, I would cook it for 115 minutes. I usually uncover the bird for at least 20 minutes at the end to crisp the skin. When the internal temperature (stick a meat thermometer into either the breast or the thigh, not touching the bone) reaches 165 degrees, remove the chicken from the oven and tent it loosely with aluminum foil. (I have made the mistake of putting the lid back on the roaster instead of a foil tent, and this traps the steam in the pan and ruins the lovely crisping of the skin. It was not pretty. Heed my warning.)

Let the chicken rest for 10-15 minutes. This is an important part. Cutting the bird without letting it rest causes all the moistness to leak out immediately, and the meat is the Sahara by the time it gets to the table. Between the brining and resting, this should be a succulent bird, so don’t skip it!  While it rests, you can make gravy from the drippings. (This is a worth-while use of time, because the drippings make FABULOUS gravy.)

• drippings from the roasting pan  (if there isn’t much, you can add 1 cup of chicken broth, or however much you need to make 1/4 cup of gravy per person)
• flour
• water

Put your drippings in a smaller pan, first. It’s just easier to control. Add stock to it if you need to. I try to wind up with at least 2 cups of gravy because my kids really like gravy, and that’s at least 1 1/2 cups of juice.  Bring it to a boil. While it’s coming to a boil, whisk together 1/3 cup flour with 1/2 to 2/3 cup cold water. (If this mix has to wait for a while as the chicken broth gets going, it tends to settle, so give it a stir occasionally to keep the particles suspended.) Whisk the flour/water mixture into the boiling drippings very gradually, a little at a time, and whisk quickly to avoid lumps. Stop adding flour/water when it seems like it’s almost thick enough, and let it boil a minute or two. You can always add more thickener, but you’ll have to add more water if it’s too thick. You can add salt and pepper, but taste if first, because the drippings will be salty from the brine.

After rest period is over, THEN you can cut the chicken. You can look up all sorts of tutorials on how to carve a bird, and they all work. I usually take the legs and thighs off first and then carve the breast, but you can do what you want. (I also ignore the wings and the back, because tomorrow I’m going to make chicken soup.)

Ham and Hash Brown Casserole

This is good for dinner, for breakfast, for cold weather… It is not good for diabetes. Originally, many years ago, I found it at the Better Homes and Gardens website.

• a can of cream of chicken or mushroom soup
• one 16-oz tub of sour cream (you can use reduced fat, but fat-free doesn’t do well here)
• one 30 or 32-oz bag of frozen hashed-brown potatoes (you can use Southern style or shredded, but the southern-style could lengthen your baking time, and it’s really long enough without that). Don’t thaw them out.
• a small onion, diced fine (you can use 2 Tablespoons of dried minced onions)
• 2 cups shredded cheddar (either mild or sharp)
• one or two 8-oz packages of diced ham
• a tube of Ritz Crackers or similar (I have also used Club crackers, but saltines are unsatisfactory), crushed.
• a stick of butter (1/2 cup), melted
• a cup of shredded mozzarella or cheddar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix everything but the crackers and butter and that last cup of cheese in a big bowl, and I mean big. This always takes a lot more time than I think it ought. Spray a 9×13 casserole pan with Pam, and press the food into it. Even it out. Sprinkle the crushed crackers on top, evenly, and then drizzle the melted butter over all. (I think the original recipe called for the crackers and the butter to be mixed together and then spread over the top, but I never remember to melt the butter in a big enough dish to mix the crackers in, so I just do it separately, and it has never seemed to make a difference.)

Bake for 50 minutes. Sorry, it just takes that long. Actually it takes longer. Because after 50 minutes, take it out, sprinkle on the additional cup of cheese, and put it back in for 5-10 more minutes until melted and just beginning to brown.

You can’t really cheat on the time. If you try to shorten the time, the middle won’t be done. The potatoes will not be tender. Don’t be tempted to try it. You’ll be sorry.

You CAN make this ahead of time, at least partially. Cook it without the crackers and butter for the 50 minutes, let it come to room temperature, and then refrigerate. Then 40 minutes before you need it, top your casserole with the crackers and butter, bake at 350 for 30 minutes, then add the last cheese for the last 10 minutes.

Comfort-food Spaghetti

Okay, this is SO not home-made. But it is the sauce that my children want when they want spaghetti. So don’t judge me. We all do things when our children are small (i.e. when we have been sleep-deprived for 7 years) that we aren't necessarily proud of.

1 lb. ground beef (the leaner it is, the less you’ll have to drain)
1 jar of Barilla Roasted Garlic Tomato Sauce. (Yes. That specific.)
1 can of LaRosa’s Original Sauce (If you’re not in Cincinnati, you’re out of luck. Sorry. You can skip this post.)
1/2 to 1 lb spaghetti pasta

Fill a 2- or 3-quart pot with hot water, salt it, and bring it to a boil. Break your spaghetti noodles in half and put them in to cook. I usually only make 1/2 lb. or less, because I like a lot of sauce, and because G-man can't eat a lot of pasta anymore. (Read the box for how long this should take. They’re all similar.)

If you're okay with multi-tasking, you can start the beef while the water is coming to a boil and before you add the pasta. Cook the ground beef in a large skillet. Break it up, cook it completely, and remove the pan from the heat to drain off the grease. Get as much as you can. Use paper towels to sop up as much as possible. 

Then dump in both sauces, and mix it up well. Turn the heat back on and bring the sauce to just boiling, then set it to simmer. That is all there is to it. No extra spices, vegetables, nothing. Of course you CAN put those things in, but in general I don’t bother with it. It would be nice to add in sauteed zucchini or mushrooms, extra diced tomatoes, these are yummy. If your kids are fussy, doing this instantly transforms this dish to poison.

When the spaghetti is cooked, drain it well. A colander is great for this, because you can dump the spaghetti in and leave it, the colander can sit on the pan and drain, everyone’s happy. If it sticks to itself, rinse it with hot water. I’ve heard to put olive oil on it (and I’ve tried it, it was okay), which you CAN do, but hot water is free(ish), and olive oil prevents your sauce from sticking to the pasta.

I plate this at the stove, serve it with garlic bread and grated parmesan cheese, and now that G-man has diabetes we also serve a big salad.

Grandma Barn's Beef Stew

I’m going to be frank, here: this is not the way I make beef stew. The reason I don’t is because my family doesn’t appreciate this. But I want to record this recipe because it is the comfort food of my childhood.

• beef, cooked. This can be leftover pot roast, you can get a couple pounds of stew beef and cook overnight in the crockpot on low, or you can get a couple cans of beef in the canned mean aisle at the grocery. The more beef you have, the more people you can feed, but the point here is to make a little meat feed more people than it would on its own. I try to have 1.5 cups of cooked beef. (NOT HAMBURGER. Just stop that nonsense right now.)
• water, 2-3 cups
• Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix. (You can try the store brand if you want, but it won’t taste right.) One packet for 2 cups of water, if you need 3 cups of water, add a beef bouillon cube.
• 3-4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1-2 onions, diced (doesn't have to be small)
• a can of diced tomatoes, juice and all (Not Ro-Tel!)
• other vegetables if you want them (corn, green beans, Veg-All, diced carrots, mushrooms, etc.) When I was still trying to make my family like this, I had the most success with corn, green beans was less-well-received, but carrots were okay.  Mushrooms were right out.
• 1.5 tablespoons pearl barley

You’ll notice that some of the ratios aren’t precise. Soup is, for the most part, very forgiving.

In a 4 quart pot, mix the cooked beef, water, onion soup mix, potatoes, and onions. Bring it to a boil over high heat and then reduce the flame to simmer. Cook uncovered until the potatoes are tender and the onions translucent. Add in the tomatoes and any other vegetables you want, and the barley. Keep cooking until the barley plumps up. Serve with hearty bread or crackers.

Note: if you have gravy from your pot roast or drippings from cooking the stew beef, this makes the stew that much more fantastic. Also, while my mother called this stew, it isn’t really unless you thicken the broth.

To thicken the broth: whisk 1/2 cup all-purpose flour into 1 cup COLD water, and while the soup is boiling, whisk this mixture slowly into the broth. That is, whisk fast and pour slowly. Pouring slowly does two things: it prevents lumps of dough from forming like little miniature and tasteless dumplings, and you can see when to stop adding the thickener. You don’t want this to congeal too much, only enough so that if you had to eat this off a plate instead of out of a bowl, you could.