My kind of comfort food - Mushroom Round steak

Let me just start out by saying that you do not need to love mushrooms to love this recipe (of course if you do it makes it all the better). Growing up this was my absolute favorite thing my mom made (one of my Dad’s favorites too) and I wouldn’t even eat mushrooms. In any case, this remains one of my ultimate comfort foods and my mouth waters just at the thought of it. This is a great dish when serving a big crowd.

Mushroom Round Steak

My Rating: 5/5 *****
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 90 min

Ingredients
1lb. round steak cut into thin strips
1/2 c. chopped onion
5 T. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 c. chopped green bell pepper
1 small can mushrooms (pieces and stems)
2 cloves garlic (whole)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can water
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper

Directions
Brown steak in large skillet along with peppers, onions and garlic. Add rest
of ingredients, cover and cook on  medium heat (at a simmer) until meat is
tender about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking.
Serve with hot cooked rice or on a bed of pasta if you prefer.

WARNING: This will probably ruin your diet - Chicken Georgia

Yes, this chicken may ruin your diet, but I assure you it’s totally worth it. In fact I accidentally cooked this for someone who was (yes past tense) on a diet. Of course at the time didn’t know and was about to say “this should be pretty healthy” when I realized it was a Paula Dean recipe involving a stick of butter. . . oh yeah and cheese. Whoops. But as Paula Dean says “"I'm your chef not your doctor.”

“Needs more butter y’all!!"

So the recipe is as follows. It is fairly quick and very delicious. This was in fact the first time I had ever cooked with fresh mushrooms. I like many others before me have often been scared of raw vegetables and have gone for the canned stuff, but truthfully it was very easy and inexpensive. I would recommend that everyone give it a try. The final verdict is that I will definitely be making this again.

Make the right choice ;)

 

 

Chicken Georgia

 

TiMy Rating: 5/5 *****
Prep: 5 min
Cook: 35 min

Prep

5 min

Inactive Prep

--

Cook

35 min

Total:

40 min

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
• 4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves
• 1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons minced shallots
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 4 ounces grated mozzarella cheese

Directions

Melt butter over medium heat. Add mushrooms and shallots and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook 10 minutes. Add chicken and cook 10 minutes on each side, or until tender. Transfer chicken to platter and sprinkle with grated cheese. Top with mushroom mixture. Let stand 5 minutes or until cheese melts.

Indian Cooking Series Part 2 - Chicken Vindaloo

Oh yes. Chicken Vindaloo is one of my (and Greg's) favorites, so I was a little nervous attempting to cook it for the first time. But I must say that it turned out to be a very successful experiment. This dish is definitely on the spicier side and is packed with a ton of flavor. The great thing about this dish is that it's an all in one meal, due to the fact that the potatoes are cooked right into the dish. I see this as a big bonus as I can avoid preparing vegetables separately. This is one of the dishes that Greg and I have eaten at  restaurants multiple times and I'm happy to report that this recipe definitely lived up to my expectations. 

Chicken Vindaloo

Ingredients
    * 5 TBS Vindaloo Seasoning - http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeysvindaloo.html (the seasoning can be bought at your local Indian grocery store or you can make your own)
   * 1-2 tsp salt
    * 5 TBS water
    * 5 TBS vinegar
    * 2 medium size onions
    * 3 green chillies seeded and chopped
    * 6-8 cloves garlic
    * 1 bay leaf
    * 4 medium sized potatoes, cut in 6 pieces each
    * 15 ounce can tomato sauce (or crushed tomatoes)
    * 2 lb chicken cut into small pieces
    * 5-6 tbs chopped fresh cilantro
    * 1 cup water
    * 1/4 cup vegetable oil

Directions
    * Blend Vindaloo Seasoning, salt, water (5 TBS) and vinegar – this is your vindaloo paste
    * Slice Onions, Peel and chop garlic
    * Preheat Oil in large skillet
    * Brown the onions, then add the garlic,  bay leaf and vindaloo paste
    * Then add the chicken
    * Once chicken is brazed throw in the tomatoes, potatoes and green chilies then stir for a few minutes
    * Add ½ cup of water and cover
    * Cook on medium for about 30 minutes or until your potatoes are cooked.
    * Stir in the chopped cilantro
    * Serve with hot basmati rice and naan.

Easy Bake Ziti and Italian Garlic Bread

This is another time and budget friendly recipe. In this recipe you certainly have the option to make your own sauce (in this particular case I used the leftovers from my previous blog post - it was delicious), but it will still turn out well with store bought sauce, which is also a major time saver. If you are a fan of cheese, tomato sauce and noddles, which I am, then this recipe will be sure to please. It's also great for a big crowd (a double batch will feed up to 10). I love serving this dish with a scrumptious side of garlic bread (recipe listed below).

Easy Baked Ziti

My Rating: 5/5 *****

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 30-45 mintues
Level: Easy

Ingredients
- Cooking spray

- 3/4 lbs ziti or other short pasta

- 1 (15-ounce) containers whole-milk ricotta cheese

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1 teaspoons garlic powder

- 1 teaspoons dried basil

- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

- Coarsely ground black pepper

- ¼ cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

 - 1 cups shredded mozzarella or Provolone cheese

 - 28-32 oz tomato sauce

Directions

1.       To prepare sauce, heat olive oil in medium saucepan. Add garlic and cook 1 minute. Add tomatoes. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Add salt, sugar and pepper.
2.       Preheat oven to 350F. Coat a 13 x 9-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
3.       Cook ziti about 3 minutes less than the package directions indicate. Drain pasta, reserving ½ cup of cooking water.
4.       Place pasta, ricotta, salt, garlic powder, basil, red pepper flakes, black pepper and half the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese in a large mixing bowl. Stir to mix diluting with a few spoons of pasta cooking water until creamy. Add tomato sauce and mix. Place in baking dish. Sprinkle top with mozzarella and remaining Parmigiano Reggiano. Cover with foil and bake 30 to 45 minutes until thoroughly heated. Remove foil during last 10 minutes of cooking time to brown. Serves 5.

Garlic Bread

Ingredients

 -          1 loaf Italian Bread

-          4 TBLS Butter

-          2 cloves garlic

-          Salt

-          Pepper

-          Italian Seasoning ( I use Private Select Spicy Italian Herb Blend from Kroger – includes rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano, garlic, kosher salt, black pepper)

Directions

Turn the oven broiler to high. Cut the loaf of bread in half and lay both sides open faced on a cookie sheet. Next make your garlic butter. Dice the garlic cloves in a food processor. Then add the softened butter and run the processor until they are evenly combined (add salt and pepper to taste). Spread the butter over the bread and sprinkle the top with a generous amount of seasoning. Broil 3-5 minutes or until the bread is browned around the edges.

Tomato Sauce Challenge

It’s time to issue my next challenge – Tomato sauce. I just can’t accept that a homemade sauce isn’t able to live up to a jar or restaurant sauce. As marinara sauce makes up a large portion of my diet, I have made it my mission to find the perfect recipe for homemade tomato sauce. Once again, if anyone recipes of their own to share I would be extremely grateful. After a few attempts at sauce in the past that were good, but not great, I have a sneaking suspicion that the problem leads back to the quality of tomatoes that I have been using. So if you have any suggestions there, that would also be helpful (I have been told that San Marzano tomatoes are the best, but cannot get them at the regular grocery store).  So here is my latest experiment in the quest to find a great sauce.  

Tomatoes: The source of everything delicious.

The final verdict is that the sauce is tasty, but still lacks in some sweetness. To remedy this next time I would try a different barnd of tomato or use fresh (I used Hunt’s on this occasion). I would probably also add even more carrot and sugar to cut the bitterness. I would probably add even more carrot and sugar to cut the bitterness and possibly a small (8 oz) jar of tomato paste to improve the consistency – if you like your sauce smooth. I did like the flavor that the bay leaf adds and recommend the red pepper flakes if like a little bit of a kick.

 

Tomato Sauce #1

Ingredients

- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

- 1 onion, finely chopped

- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

- ¼ cup carrot, peeled and finely chopped (increase to 1/2 cup)

- 1 teaspoon sea salt

- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

- 1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional for a spicier sauce)

- 1/2 tsp sugar (increase to 1 tsp)

- 1 tsp oregano

- 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, washed (or 1 tsp dried basil)

- 1 dried bay leaf

- 1 (32-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes (try San Marzano)

- 1 8 oz can tomato paste

- 3/4 cup water (or as needed)

Directions

Place the tomatoes in a blender and blend until smooth. In a large pan, heat the oil over a medium-high flame. Add the onions and garlic and saute until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the carrots and saute until about another 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and all remaining spices. Simmer, partially covered, over medium-low heat until the sauce thickens, about 30-45 minutes. Add water as needed. Remove and discard the bay leaf.  I would also recommend using an immersion blender as a last step to create a smoother finish.

Fast and Easy Monday Night Meal - Lemon Pepper Baked Tilapia

You can never have too many lemons.

This dish is EXTREMELY fast and easy and great to serve in a pinch. I keep frozen tilapia on hand. I can easily pull the whole dish together in under 30 minutes. It has become one of my standard lazy Monday night meals. But despite the simplicity of the recipe, I must say that the dish turns out absolutely delicious. (No surprise that the main ingredients in this once again involve lemon)

Baked Lemon Pepper Tilapia

 Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Level: Easy

Ingredients 

-          4 Tilapia Filets

-          ½ cup olive oil

-          1 ½ TBLS lemon pepper seasoning

-          2 lemons

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the olive oil and lemon pepper seasoning to create the marinade. Thinly slice one lemon. You’ll need 2 lemon slices per tilapia filet. Cut the remaining lemon in to wedges. Coat the tilapia in marinade and place in a glass casserole dish. Pour the remaining marinade evenly over the fillets. Place two slice of lemon on each fillet and squeeze the juice of approx two lemon wedges over the dish. Place the casserole dish and cook for 15 minutes. The fish should be white throughout when fully cooked. I like to serve this dish with dinner rolls and steamed broccoli.

Holiday Cookie Challenge - Granny's Cookies & Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Here are a few more cookies to add to the holiday cookie challenge! The nutmeg cookie recipe is a Phipps’ tradition passed down from Greg’s grandmother. The recipe was sent to me by his sister (Thanks Leslie!). I have been told that the original recipe was to make them look like yule logs with nutmeg sprinkled on top, but one year their grandmother decided to make them into candy canes and it stuck. I chose to use cookie cutters, but you can also roll them yourselves. These were one of the cookies that I served at a Christmas party we hosted. They became a “decorate your own cookie” project. I made some of the frosting described below, as well as colored tube frosting (for extra color). You could also use a few drops of food color in the homemade frosting, but I didn’t have any on hand. In any case, the cookies were very good. I am a big fan of the flavor the nutmeg and rum adds to the cookie. They are very Christmasy and a great family tradition!

Christmasy.

The next cookie to add to the list is the chocolate peanut butter chip cookie. I guess I was on a chocolate and peanut butter kick this year, but you can’t deny that it’s one tasty combo. To tell you the truth I had forgot of this cookies existence altogether until a couple of weeks ago.  As I began to think of cookies I had previously ate and loved this one came to mind, although I hadn’t eaten one in years. The final outcome was just as delicious as expected. It’s also a great way to shake up your traditional chocolate chip recipe. (As it turns out, peanut butter chips aren’t necessarily easy to find anymore, but I was able to pick some up at Kroger – though the selection is limited)

Granny’s Christmas Cookies - Nutmeg Logs (Candy Cane Cookies)

Next time I will be a pro and they will look like this.

 Ingredients

- 1 cup margarine

- 2 teaspoons vanilla

- 2 teaspoons rum (or rum flavoring)

- 3/4 cup sugar

- 1egg

- 3 cups flour

- 1 tsp nutmeg

Directions:

Cream together the margarine, vanilla, rum, sugar, and egg. Add the nutmeg to the flour and gradually beat in flour mixture. Roll the dough out onto a floured surface. Then use a cookie cutter, roll into candy canes or shape into logs. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Once the cookies have cooled completely, frost as desired.

Cookie Frosting

 Ingredients:

- 3 TBLS margarine or shortening

- ½ tsp vanilla

- 1 tsp rum (or rum flavoring)

- 2 ½ cups confectioner's sugar

- 2 or 3 TBLS milk.

Directions

In a large bowl, cream together the confectioners' sugar and shortening until smooth. Gradually mix in the milk, vanilla and rum with an electric mixer until smooth and stiff, about 5 minutes. Color with food coloring if desired.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Ingredients 
- 1 cup (2 sticks) margarine or butter, softened
- ¾ cup granulated sugar

- ¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar

- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

- 2 ¼ cups flour2/3 natural unsweetened Hershey’s cocoa

-  1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 package (12 ounces) peanut butter chips

Instructions
1. Heat oven to 375 F
2. Beat margarine, sugars, eggs and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy.
3. Mix in flour, cocoa , baking soda and salt. Stir in chips.
4. Drop by teaspoonfuls, 2 inches apart onto un-greased cookie sheets.
5. Bake 10 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheets and cool on wire racks. Makes 6 dozen cookies.