Monday, January 30, 2006

Peppa What?
Peppadew USA
These are too good...honest. We had some this weekend when Kitty brought some from an Arizona Safeway store. I need to look in the local Safeway...or perhaps I could take a copy of this page to Raley's?

Friday, January 27, 2006

Drunken gluttons order and eat 100-patty hamburger

I had no idea that you could order extra patties...and only $1 apiece. Oh well, two are enough for me.

We ate at the In-n-Out on Truxel Road last night. Enjoyed.

Odd; one of the best parts of a Double-Double is the cheese that spills out and onto the paper wrapping. If you're careful, you can eat that cheese without getting any of the paper...

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Movie Review

Chocolat
What a great movie…one of the best! The plot is predictable, and although I usually find that to be offensive, in this case it was desired. Back in the day…a good review of a movie might include the line, “I laughed and I cried…” and I can say that about this movie. The acting was superb! Johnnie Depp was brilliant as always. Judi Dench; superb. I can’t think of one actor that didn’t give their best for this movie. This is a 5 star movie, no doubt about it.

For more on the movie and some good reviews, click here

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

A good one...I received this one from Jill and we tried it out last night.

Tasty Onion Chicken
½ Cup butter, melted
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tsp. ground mustard
1 Large can French-fried onions, crushed
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

In a shallow bowl, combine butter, Worcestershire sauce and mustard. Place onions in another shallow bowl. Dip chicken in butter mixture, then coat with onions. Place in a greased 11-in.X7-in.X2-in. baking dish; drizzle with remaining butter mixture. Bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until done.


The differences...I used two large chicken breasts and 1/2 can of French Fried onions. Next time I'm using 4 small chicken breasts and the full can. And because I used larger chicken breasts, the 25 minutes weren't quite enough and I had to zap them in the microwave for 2 minutes to get the internal temp past 160 degrees.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Pillsbury

Have you seen those TV ads for Pillsbury® Grands® biscuits where the biscuit is made into a sort of empanada? I have seen them, was intrigued with the possibilities and decided to try it last night. I made up my own filling, chicken and squash. I cooked some boneless chicken thighs with onion and garlic, and then sliced up the chicken into very small pieces. After removing the chicken from the pan, I sautéed the onions along with some cut up bell pepper. The difficult part came next as I tried and failed at making the biscuits conform to a 6” diameter. Laurae did better than I and after some messy experimenting, I was able to close and seal the empanadas; but first I gave them a dollop of salsa over the chicken. They required a full 14 minutes before they were brown enough to call “done”.

Very tasty. But on my next try I will follow Laurae’s advice and brush the tops with egg white to polish them and I will use a food processor to better blend the ingredients into a manageable size. (The zucchini kept trying to escape)

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Since my daughter once looked here (in vain) for a good carrot recipe...I thought I should post this one that I just spotted. Sounds good!

Orange Glazed Carrots
3 cups thinly sliced carrots
3 tbs butter
2 cups water
3 tbs orange marmalade
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbs chopped pecans

Mix carrots water and salt in crock-pot. Cover and cook on high for 2-3 hours, or until carrots are done. Drain well; stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on high for another 30 minutes.
Here's something I found in the Bee on Wednesday... -

"This lentil-chicken sausage combination is a comforting, savory dish of the kind that suggests slow cooking but, happily, demands only 30 minutes of the cook's time.

Lentils With Chicken Sausage
1 cup French green lentils (7 ounces)
4 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth
1 carrot, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 celery rib, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 small onion, quartered, plus 1 large onion, cut through the root end into 8 wedges
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons canola oil
4 thyme sprigs
1 cup baby spinach leaves, coarsely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper
4 precooked chicken sausages ( 3/4 pound)
1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

In a medium heavy soup pot, combine the lentils with the chicken stock. Cover and bring to a boil.

In a food processor, pulse the carrot, celery, quartered onion and the garlic until finely chopped. In a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil. Add the vegetables and the thyme and cook over moderately high heat until softened, 3 minutes; scrape into the lentils, cover and cook over moderate heat until the lentils are tender, 20 minutes. Stir in the spinach; season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in the skillet. Add the onion wedges and sausages and cook over moderate heat, turning occasionally, until the onions are softened, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the balsamic vinegar and cook for 1 minute.

Thickly slice the sausages. Stir the sausages, onions and any accumulated juices into the lentils; discard the thyme sprigs. Spoon the lentils and sausages into bowls and serve.
Makes 4 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 494 cal., 24 g total fat (4.8 g saturated), 39 g carbo., 9 g fiber.
Wine suggestion: a berry-inflected merlot.

I haven't made it yet as I'm still working on leftovers, but I am gathering the ingredients. I found some lentils at Holiday...but not green ones. The sausage can be found at Trader Joe's.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Decadent!

For a new taste; try a Trader Joe’s French Truffle and a banana. At the same time and at 6:30 in the morning! Gives a whole new meaning to health foods!  
Making a Pie Crust
This looks like it has all the info needed to make the perfect crust. I need to get brave enough to just do it! But first I have to find out if we own a "pastry cutter".

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Penna Gourmet Olives
I spotted this in a local newspaper article yesterday. I am hoping for a few of my own olives next year, but if they don't appear...here's my backup source! And they are right here in Orland (Actually a little bit south...)

Eggs!

Marvelous eggs! I read an article in the food section of the Bee yesterday and it intrigued me enough to try out the recipe. Well, it’s more of a technique than it is a recipe. It was all about scrambling eggs…slowly. Very slowly. Here a link to the article (Originally from the LA Times)

I tried it out last night, letting 6 eggs warm up first (30 minutes) and then adding a tablespoon of butter to the frying pan. I beat the eggs lightly with a whip and had the pan temperature at medium-low when I poured them in. I began to stir. And stir some more. You can’t stop, except to add more butter every once in awhile. It takes a long time to see any change in the eggs, but after about 7 minutes, the eggs began to form small curds. Keep stirring. At some point I began to remove the pan from the heat altogether (temporarily) and stir some more, all in an effort to slow things down. After about 15 minutes, the eggs were an unusually rich color of yellow and were soft and moist. Yes, they were cooked. I added them to a few slices of our leftover ham and it was a most delightful meal. The taste of the eggs is more pronounced, “eggy” and very rich tasting!

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Cold and raining...

Speaking of stew…There’s something about winter that always makes me think of lamb. I ran across this recipe and I think I need to make it.

3 lbs of lamb stew meat
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 potatoes, cubed
15 baby carrots
1 turnip chopped
2 bay leaves
3 cups of water with 3 cubes of beef bouillon
1 tsp salt
½ tsp rosemary
½ tsp black pepper
4 tbsp oil
Flour

  1. Heat oil in skillet.

  2. While oil is heating put flour in a paper bag.  Add salt, pepper and garlic powder to the flour mixture. Seasonings to taste.

  3. Put some stew meat in bag and shake to cover.

  4. Put meat in pan and brown on all sides.

  5. When all meat is browned add to crockpot.

  6. Add all other ingredients to crockpot.

  7. Cook 6 to 8 hours, depending on your crockpot.

I’ve never used a turnip in stew and so I think I should give it a try. And the recipe says that it will serve 6.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

More Recipes!

I was taken to task recently because there weren’t enough recipes posted here, and there were no links to sources for recipes. I guess I forgot that this is supposed to be “food” blog. And upon review, it does look like there haven’t been that many recipes posted here recently. OK, I will try to make amends by giving out this link to one of my favorite recipe sites…Allrecipes.com and I promise to add some other links as well.

Critique

Since I have made this blog into more than just an “eats” blog, I want to report on the movie we watched last night, “Million Dollar Baby” with Clint Eastwood. It is a “fight” movie; specifically a movie about a woman who is a professional boxer. That’s not exactly what I would call a compelling story to base a movie on, but Clint Eastwood did a great job with it. I was very conflicted while watching the movie as I reject boxing on an intellectual basis, and at the same time, boxing appeals to some base element within me. I hate that!  

As the story unfolded, I was gripped by the “reality” of it and had to tell myself that it was simply a movie. The acting was that superb. At one point, I had to stand up, walk around and look elsewhere and not at the screen. Also, about halfway through the movie I knew that the ending was not going to make me happy and from then on, it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Scary. But it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

spicy snacks
Peppadews? Where do I find them?

Sunday, January 01, 2006

A new year has arrived and I must have some goals for it...and one is to learn how to make a lemon meringue pie. I have all of the lemons I will ever need; I just need the skill to make the pie.

Here's a site that proclaims to have the BEST pie recipe, but they didn't include the pie shell in the recipe and that has to be excellent as well, or the pie is a flop. I guess I have to start somewhere and I might as well start with this one.

Oops. I looked a little further on that site and spotted a pie shell recipe...so now I'm good to go!