Category: OKK MEMES & PRIOR CONTRIBUTORS

Prime Rib Artichoke Bean Soup & Beer Bread


Those of you that know me, know that nothing goes to waste around our house – EVER! So in the spirit of cleaning out the fridge this soup recipe was born. You’ll remember that I recently purchase Navy beans, Great Northern Beans and black eyed peas for recipes this month. I made the Navy Bean and Ham Soup which was a HUGE success and then the Texas Caviar aka Cowboy Caviar for New Year’s which was also a HUGE success so I had high hopes for this soup. It was good, but I think it will be better next time with the change to the Navy bean which I found to be more tender and flavorful.

The small, white navy bean, also called pea bean or haricot, is particularly popular in Britain and the US, featured in such dishes as baked beans and even pies, as well as in various soups such as the famous Senate Bean Soup.

Navy bean varieties include:
* Great Northern beans
* Rainy River
* Robust
* Michelite
* Sanilac

Other white beans include Cannellini, a quite popular variety in Central and Southern Italy which is related to the kidney bean and like the kidney bean has higher levels of the toxin lectin (Phytohaemagglutinin).

PRIME RIB ARTICHOKE BEAN SOUP
2 cups prime rib pieces or any other meat of your choice
8 cups stock – I used the stock from last week’s ham bone
1 1/2 cups Au Jus – left over fro the prime rib, but any stock would do
1 pound Great Northern beans – next time I’ll use Navy beans
3 cloves garlic
1 bunch green onions, sliced
3 large carrots, sliced
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 cup marinated artichoke hearts, chopped
Handful parsley, chopped

Beer Bread

Granola Bars – Simple Saturday

When Kristen chose “Oatmeal” as our Mystery Ingredient for this month I just groaned. I have never liked oatmeal or anything with oatmeal – until now!

I know how good oatmeal is for us and since I am on my health and fitness mission I decided to create something that was nice and healthy – and even if I didn’t really like it I would eat it for the health benefits. Well, boy did I surprise myself! I love them, hubby loves them and the boys love them!


Ingredients:

  • 3 cups oats
  • 1 can condensed milk
  • 1/4 cup craisins
  • 1/4 cup raisins
  • 1/4 cup chocolate chips
  • 1/4 cup flax seeds
  • 1/2 cup sliced almonds
  • 1/2 cup shelled sunflower seeds
  • 2 teaspoons melted butter
  • 2 teaspoons honey

Spray 9×13 pan with Pam, mix all ingredients well and pour into pan, press flat and bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until lightly browned around edges. Flip upside down on parchment paper, let cool for 5 minutes, cut. That’s it, ready to eat!

For anyone who is a calorie counter, I calculated the recipe above to be about 140 calories per bar. Not bad at all for a quick, healthy breakfast or snack on the go!

I’ve made several batches this month. For one batch I omitted the butter, honey and chocolate chips – and added 2 scoops of protein powder (all for the health and fitness mission). They came out just as good in my opinion!

The next batch I made for the boys omitting the raisins and craisins and added a little extra on the chocolate chips -The main ingredients are the oats and condensed milk, everything else can be mixed, matched or substituted to your liking.

All versions taste more like a dessert than something healthy!

Thanks so much for choosing oatmeal for our Mystery Ingredient Kristen! You’ve turned my whole family into oatmeal lovers!

Don’t forget to link up your oatmeal recipes on Kristen’s post on Friday, January 29th right here at Our Krazy Kitchen!

Link up your Simple Saturday recipes here today! 🙂

Banana Cake: What Did You Bake Today?

When I was a little girl, my mom never made banana bread with ripe bananas, she always made this cake.  She’d make a couple of them up in 8 X 8 pans, frost them with 1/2 inch or more of cream cheese frosting and freeze them for future use.  When she finally brought them out, we rarely waited for them to thaw completely.  This was the only banana product I could ever bring myself to eat.  Nowadays,  The Thinker, my son and fellow banana hater eats this like crazy.  This super moist cake is a big hit with everyone in the family.
 
Banana Cake:
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
3 mashed bananas
Cream butter and sugar in a mixer.  Add the eggs, vanilla and sour cream.  Combine the dry ingredients and mix into the butter mixture.  Add the bananas last.  Bake in a greased square baking pan 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.  (Note, this cake always falls a bit…don’t worry if yours does)
When the cake is completely cooled, frost with Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 oz cream cheese
2 Tbsp butter
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
What Did You Bake Today?
McLinky is not working right today…..so leave your links in the comments if you’d like to play along.

Asian Influenced Pork Loin Wellington – an original recipe

Hi everybody… It’s the resident cook in training again, as Dave from MY YEAR ON THE GRILL amazes you all (but mostly myself) as I post again that I CAN COOK THAT !!!

I am hoping that you have been paying attention over the last two weeks. It all seems a natural progression to me…

In week one of my postings, I used store bought puff pastry to see what happens when I follow a recipe for PUFF PASTRY WITH A BLUE CHEESE FILLING. I made a few mistakes, but I gained a bit of knowledge about how puff pastry works, what it does and I pondered what the advantages of using it were. In all humility, I was pretty amazed at the results, and you can read about them by clicking HERE.

It sounds silly to say, but I amazed myself the next week when I made the exact same dish. Two big differences, The recipe came from Julia Child (It was my first, she was very gentle). But the main difference was that I made my own puff pastry. It was a natural progression for my learning curve to go from store bought to home made. Once again, if you will forgive my braggadocio, I was even more amazed at the results, and you can read about them by clicking HERE.

So, to me, the next logical progression to my puff pastry journey would be to create an original recipe, and justify my ingredients for you “real” cooks to critique.

It is always a dangerous thing to claim any recipe as original. I have never seen this combination of ingredients, combined with this cooking method. So, while it is possible (and actually, considering the number of ingredients, probable that somewhere in the world another cook assembled these ingredients and possibly published them, I am raising my virtual right hand and swearing on a stack of Julia Child cookbooks that to me, this is an original recipe. Since it is my original recipe, I get to name it. If I were writing a boring cookbook, I would indeed name this, Asian Influenced Pork Loin Wellington”. But, I am not, so I get to have a little fun with the name… And so, in honor of my favorite Asian American Poker Playing Actress, I give you…

Jennifer Tilly’s
PORK WELLINGTON!

The name is very logical and makes sense to me…

My two hobbies are poker and cooking. The recipe calls for a couple of main ingredients that are hidden by a beautiful protective shell. Jennifer Tilly also has a couple of almost always hidden assets that she uses to her advantage at the poker table. And finally, the recipe, like Jennifer is much better than you think. Jennifer is one of only a hand full of players (and the only actor) who has won not only a World Series of Poker Bracelet, but also is a World Poker Tour championship. The honor of having a recipe named for her is fitting and well earned.

At this point in the recipe and my postings, I always include a photo of the ingredients (Mise en Place). Unfortunately, The photo did not turn out, so live with this…

Here’s what I needed to make my recipe…

1 – 3 pound Pork Loin (one of the hidden ingredients)
1/2 gallon water for brining
1/2 cup of kosher Salt for brining
1/2 cup of Honey for brining

1/2 pound of Spinach (the other hidden ingredient)
1/2 cup finely chopped Pecans
10 cloves of Garlic (minced)
1 Tbs Ginger Molasses (if you can not find ginger molasses, combine 1 Tbs of molasses with 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger… If you do not have molasses, feel free to use honey and ginger. I hate buying ingredients that are rarely used for such a small amount. But once you have ginger molasses, you will use it up, it is that good… but I digress)
1/4 cup Peanut Sauce
2 TBS Chinese 5 Spice
1 Egg for an egg wash

OK… Here’s what I did and why. If any of you real cooks have a comment or critique, I would love to hear it. Before working on this, I did quite a bit of research, and read several recipes. I think I got it right (it tasted and looked as I wanted). But if I lucked into something, and it worked, but for a wrong reason… let me know. I really was making it all up as i went along.

First, Brine your meat. Brining is that little secret that chefs never tell you. It makes pork more succulent and flavorful. Modern pork producers have evolved the pig into a very lean product. If you have ever over cooked a pork chop to the hockey puck stage, you know that there is not much margin for error between cooked and dried out. Brining will increase that margin drastically, while at the same time add flavor.Brining is VERY easy.

Take 1 cup of the water, and get it boiling. Add the honey and salt and stir till dissolved. Add the cold water and remove from heat. Place the pork in a non reactive container, and add the water. If need be, add more water til the pork is completely covered. Place the whole container in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours, but no more than 12. Rinse the pork twice before proceeding to the next step. Pat dry with paper towels.

Next, get your hands dirty. You are adding a wet rub to the pork. The key word… it’s a RUB, not a drizzle. Take the peanut sauce. And rub all over the loin. Next, apply the 5 spice to the loin. Again, rub well, till it is all mixed in with the wet rub.

Next, we combine the pecans, garlic and ginger molasses… Mix well to form a paste. Spread this all over the loin. Keep caking it on as it falls off. Again… USE YOUR HANDS, get dirty. Set this aside, and let it absorb into the meat.

And now it’s time to assemble… While the paste is marinating into the wet rub and the wet rub is spicing the pork, lay out your puffed pastry. roll it out until it is wide enough and long enough to roll around the pork loin. Lay out the raw but washed spinach, and then lay the pork loin on top of the spinach. Push the spinach all up under the loin as much as you can. When you roll up the pastry, you do not want any of the spinach on the top (which will be the bottom when you cook).

Roll the pastry up over the loin and seal as best you can. Everything nice and tight, with a double layer of the pastry on the bottom (actually the top, til you turn it over… make sense???) so that it can soak up the juices and still retain it’s shape and integrity.

Take your egg wash and help keep everything sealed up by painting the egg over the seal. And now, it is time to flip it over, so the smooth side with all the spinach is now on top, and the side with the edges is on the bottom.

It is now time to decorate. When you rollout the pastry, there are always little bits that stick out. I take a pizza cutter and trim the edges square. I used these to cut out shapes. These are supposed to be elephants from a tiny Noah’s Ark cookie cutter set. When i serve these, I am going to serve a one inch slice, so the elephants were placed so that i can cut the loin and each slice will have an elephant. Paint the entire surface of the pastry with the egg wash, then place the decorations down. When you have them where you want them, add another layer of egg wash over the decorations. Take a knife and put a few holes in the pastry to allow steam to escape. If you don’t, your pastry will split.

I bake this on a sheet of parchment paper at 350 degrees for 55 minutes. Actually, I used an instant read meat thermometer, inserted into the niddle to measure the internal temp/ It was 140 degrees… perfect.

I removed from the oven, and put a piece of tin foil over the top, sealed as best I could and worked on a side dish. I made some HARICOT VERT (Green Beans) – Restaurant Quality Vegetable. to serve with them. Those only take 5 minutes, so I made them while the meat was resting. Also, while the meat was cooking, I made a batch of garlic mashed potatoes. when all was ready, I made a presentation plate to take to the table, with the beans on teh bottom and slices of the wellington on top…

It was a HUGE hit. The pork was fork tender, even at the 1 inch thickness. Each bite that contained a bit of the pastry also contained some of the now steamed and cooked spinach! The spinach was flavored with the Asian influenced rub and paste, as was the pork. The crunch of the nuts added a delicious texture, and the peanut sauce/Chinese 5 spice wet rub flavored perfectly. I worked hard on the prep for this recipe. I thought about each ingredient and what it would add to the dish. In the end, it was just as good as I had hoped. Jennifer Tilly should be very proud.

So, all that’s left is to explain what the pastry shell does… First, it makes a dynamite presentation. Very pretty. But as important, it improves the taste of the pork. It forms a shell around the meat so that as the wet rub and the moisture in the paste heats and starts to stem, it acts as a mini pressure cooker to force the aromatic flavors into the meat. Almost every bit of the moisture from the pork and the rub/paste is retained and improves the texture of the pork. Moist, tender and delicious; full of flavors… What pork should be!

And with this post, I am ending my puff pastry recipes for a bit… Kind of, I do have a recipe for a Salmon wellington on my “REAL” site, MY YEAR ON THE GRILL, which you can see by clicking HERE.

Come back next Thursday to see what I amaze myself with next!

Save Room for Dessert even if you are on a diet!

Remember to Save Room for Dessert!

At Joy of Desserts, I posted an article on why — even at the Biggest Loser Resort — dessert is encouraged! That’s right, that Biggest Loser, the one from television! I rarely send you to my own blog, but I know you won’t want to miss that post, there’s a Biggest Loser dessert recipe, plus weight loss and healthy eating tips too.

By the way, I’m also having a giveaway at Joy of Desserts later in the week so don’t miss out on Corked either. There will be 5 winners.

Pick your favorite badge!

Sweet and Spicy Salmon

I usually make salmon on Fridays and this past Friday, was no different. I want to make a new recipe each week and this is a new recipe but it didn’t end up they way I had planned.

It was supposed to be grilled. I baked it. It was to have chili sauce. I used chili powder. Otherwise, I stayed true to this recipe from All Recipes.
We love salmon and it could be plain but the additions, each week, are a surprise and it has become fun to see what salmon comes out of the kitchen, this Friday.

If you have any good salmon recipes, please link them up. If you don’t, link whatever recipe you would like. We love new recipes.

Sweet and Spicy Salmon

Ingredients:

2 pieces of salmon

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 scallions, chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place salmon in a baking pan to fit.
In medium size bowl, mix soy sauce, chili powder, ginger and garlic.
Pour sauce over salmon.
Sprinkle chopped scallions over salmon.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Serve, spooning juice over salmon.
I added about a quarter of inch of water to the bottom of the pan to avoid it drying out and burning.

FUN, FUN, FUN…

Earlier this month Kristen issued us a monthly challenge of oatmeal in her What Did you bake today? post. She’ll be announcing the winner on January 29th and will be featuring them the following week both here at OUR KraZy kitchen and on her personal blog, Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker. Everyone seems to be enjoying this so much that we thought we would expand this theme to include a different Mystery Ingredient or challenge each month.
You’ll notice a new section on the side bar that will tell you what the current month’s challenge is as well as past challenges. There are seven of us and 12 months so we thought we would also include in these challenges the parties for Valentines, Easter/Passover, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas/Chanuka.

The Valentine Party will be hosted by Chris of Nibble Me This. Now that we have a “MAN” on the staff of OUR KrAzY kitchen, we thought getting another to host the most romantic holiday of the year would be fun. Be sure to come back and link up with Chris on Saturday, February 13 and on Sunday, February 14th!

Navy Bean & Ham Soup with Garlic Cheese Biscuits

I guess I’ll be the bad guy that breaks the chain of puff pastry recipes, but I have to. Soup is one of my favorite foods and well of course I also love the breads that we eat with soups! I went to buy some black eyed peas to make for the new year and was confronted with a bean dilemma if you will. In front of me were not only the black eyed peas, but also Navy beans and great northern beans which also intrigued me. More about those later though. I bought all 3, started with the Black Eyed Peas for Texas Caviar or Cowboy Caviar and now on with the Navy beans.

According to Wisegeek, Navy beans are pea sized white beans which can be used in a variety of dishes. These very common beans are known by a variety of alternate names, including haricot beans, Boston beans, pea beans, and Yankee beans, and they are closely related to larger white beans such as Great Northern and cannelloni beans. Most markets carry navy beans, typically in both dried and canned form, and they are also very easy to grow in the garden, if you have a little bit of room.

The flavor of navy beans is fairly mild, and the texture of the beans tends to be fairly dense. The common name “navy bean” is a reference to the fact that the beans were once widely included among the staple supplies of the United States Navy, since dried beans do not go bad, and they provide an excellent source of nutrition. Many classic American bean dishes call for navy beans as a result, since they were so widespread and well known; Boston baked beans, for example, are made with navy beans. So of course I am now researching these recipes to replace my current BBQ bean recipe and get away from using canned products.

My recipe was developed from what I had on hand along with childhood memories of navy beans and ham hocks cooking on the stove. Min from the Bad Girl’s Kitchen recently ran a recipe for Ham & Bean soup that is most similar to what my family cooked when I was young. I developed this biscuit recipe after I fell in love with the Red Lobster’s cheddar biscuits.


NAVY BEAN & HAM SOUP

1 ham bone with meat on it
2 stalks celery, sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large carrots, chopped
1 large shallot, chopped
3-4 fresh thyme sprigs
cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
Frank’s red pepper hot sauce
1/4 cup finely grated cheddar cheese

  • Soak the beans in room temperature water overnight.
  • Cover ham bone with water. Sprinkle generously with cayenne pepper, salt, thyme sprigs and black pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours or ham falls off the bone.
  • Strain the stock and separate into 2 separate 8 cup portions. Freeze 1 portion for your next batch of soup.
  • Return the stock to your pan and add the vegetables.
  • Bring to a boil. Add beans and ham pieces. Lower to a simmer for 2 hours.
  • Sprinkle with a few drops of Frank’s red pepper sauce and some grated cheese.
  • Serve with Garlic Cheddar Biscuits.

GARLIC CHEESE BISCUITS
2 cups biscuit baking mix
1 1/2 cups finely shredded Cheddar cheese
2/3 cup milk
1 clove finely minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons margarine, melted
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon garlic salt
2 tablespoons butter

  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  • Lightly grease a cookie sheet.
  • In a large bowl, combine baking mix, 1 1/4 cups of the Cheddar cheese, minced garlic and garlic powder.
  • Stir in milk.
  • Drop batter by heaping tablespoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheet.
  • Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.
  • Brush biscuits with melted butter, and sprinkle with parsley, garlic salt and remaining cheese.
  • Bake for 5 more minutes, or until lightly browned on the bottom.

Puff Pastry – Simple Saturday

Welcome to Simple Saturday! I don’t want to mess up the unspoken puff pastry and pockets theme here these last couple of days. Besides, we can never have enough puff pastry/pocket ideas can we? Puff pastry is yummy and just plain fun! Since I don’t have any new puff pastry or pocket recipes to share with you today I thought I’d repost a few of the of the recipes I’ve posted here at Our Krazy Kitchen over the past six months. They are all so simple! The links are beneath each photo if you’d like to check them out …

“No way…” Puffy Meatloaf Wraps

I have a question?? – anyone know why my puff pastry puffs up so nicely sometimes, and other times it’s almost flat or somewhere in between? It’s all made with the same brand frozen puff pastry so it couldn’t be something different I’ve done with the recipe, and it all tastes just fine too, just different degrees of puffiness – Any ideas?

If you have a simple puff pastry recipe I’d love for you to share it with us here. If not, any simple recipe will do just fine. I can’t wait to see what you have to show us this week!

Chicken Bundles – What Did You Bake Today?

I did an inventory of the outside fridge and found two rolls of Pillsbury Crescent sheets. I feel ashamed to be using these store bought puffy pastries after Dave’s amazing post about homemade puffed pastries, but I am too frugal not to use what I have…next time, Dave, they will be homemade all the way….just wait.
I digress…Anyway, to use them up, I decided to make the old stand-by, Chicken Bundles. I also ended up creating something new that I will share below.
Chicken Bundles:
3 cups cooked chicken
1 8 ounce package cream cheese
1 small jar pimentos
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 packages crescent rolls or sheets

Mix chicken with cream cheese, pimentos and green onions. Spread out the cresent sheets. If you are using the rolls, pinch them together to form one giant rectangle. Cut each big rectangle into 4 pieces. Place about 1/3 cup of chicken mixture onto one half of each piece. Fold the other half of the crescent piece over the chicken mixture. Using a fork, seal the edges. Bake 400 degrees 15 minutes.
If, like me, you happen to have a lot of chicken mixture left over and you realize that you need more dinner to feed your crew, get out a box of chicken flavored Stove Top and make it up really quick….Place the chicken mixture on the bottom of a microwave safe bowl and top with the Stove Top. Heat for 5 minutes in the microwave and Voila! you have a new and surprisingly delicious main dish.
Don’t forget about the Oatmeal challenge….link up your recipes using Oatmeal on January 29th.
What Did You Bake Today?