Gramma's Hamburger Barbeque, otherwise known as Sloppy Joes

One of my family's favorite meals is Gramma's hamburger barbeque.  It's basically sloppy joes without the can of Manwich.

I spice them up a little compared to what Gramma makes, but that's because we love all kinds of spices and seasonings at our house.  Even still they're super easy and the recipe scales up well for sitting in a crock pot all afternoon at a party and reheats well the next day or the day after.

1 lb. Ground Beef, Chicken, or whatever
6 oz Tomato Paste
1/3 cup Ketchup
2 Tbsp Yellow Mustard
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
salt and pepper to taste
Chopped Onion (optional)
other seasonings to taste (we like garlic or garlic powder and crushed red pepper)

Brown ground beef.  Add salt and pepper to taste and chopped onion if you're using any.  Depending on the fat content of your ground beef, you may need to add some water along with the rest of the ingredients to help them mix better.

Add Tomato Paste and stir well.  Add a couple tablespoons of water if mixture is too thick.

Add Ketchup and Mustard and stir well.  Add a couple tablespoons of water if too thick.

Add Brown Sugar and other spices.  Allow to simmer for a few minutes before serving.

My family always just served this on hamburger buns, but Dave prefers it open face on Garlic Cheese Toast.

Roasted Garlic Butter

Dave asked for Garlic Butter a couple weeks ago.  So when I roasted the garlic for our garlic jelly, I went ahead and roasted twice as much as I needed.  The other day, Dave picked up a couple of steaks and we thought that the Garlic Butter would make a good finishing butter for them.


8 oz of heavy whipping cream
4 oz of garlic
salt and pepper to taste.

Set cream out on counter for about an hour to allow it to warm to room temperature, or at least close.  (The only really different between whipped cream and butter is temperature and no one wants Garlic Whipped Cream, not even Dave.)

Roast garlic at about 350 for 10 or 15 minutes, or until cooked through.  You don't need to peel the cloves, you can squeeze the garlic out once it roasts, but you need to at least separate them.  I peeled them because I like the crispy, dark flecks you get that way.

Once cream is warm and garlic is cool, pour cream into food processor.  You can either pulse it for 45 seconds or so at a time, or just turn the processor on and keep an eye on it.  It will start to look a lot like whipped cream, but slightly yellower.  As soon as it separates into butter and butter milk (Trust me, you'll know.) stop the food processor and drain off the buttermilk.  Press the butter against the side of the processor bowl to squeeze out as much of the rest of the buttermilk as you can.

If you let the processor go too long, the buttermilk will be whipped back into the butter and is very difficult to separate back out.  It can be done, but it's very time consuming.

Remove butter from processor bowl and give it a quick rinse and wipe to get the remaining buttermilk out, and put the butter back in.  Add garlic and salt and pepper to taste and pulse in the processor until you have an even consistency.  (You'll probably need more salt that you think,)

Enjoy!

Corn and Tomato Salad

So I got, roughly, a quart of small, delicious, red and yellow tomatoes from someone at work.

Then, later, we realized it was 9pm and we hadn't had dinner yet.  I looked in the pantry and in the fridge and came up with this.

1 quart (give or take) assorted tomatoes, chopped

1 15oz can black olives, drained

1 15oz can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 16oz bag frozen corn (I guess you could used drained, canned as well, but this is what we had)

2 Tbsp Lime Juice

3 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

2 Tbsp Arizona Dreaming or other taco seasoning

Salt to taste

Dave says it needs onions, so Optional:

Chopped red onion, or diced garlic

Gently toss Tomatoes, Olives, Beans and Corn (and Onion).  Mix Lime Juice, Oil, Seasoning thoroughly and coat veggies.  Add salt to taste.

Enjoy!

CHEEEESE!!!

http://fhif.wikia.com/wiki/Cheese

CHHEEEESE!

I love cheese.  Making cheese, eating cheese, cooking with cheese, sharing cheese.  But let's talk about making cheese.

I can't say that I have a lot of experience making cheese, but we use this recipe for Farmer's Cheese to make a boatload of different things.  It's super easy to make, the blogger calls it "Easiest Cheese Recipe" and it really is.

Here's the breakdown:

• Boil a gallon of milk.
• Add 1 cup of cider vinegar.
• Strain out all your curds.
• Add 1 Tablespoon of salt.
• Squeeze out a lot of the liquid.
• Add whatever you want.
• Squeeze out the rest of the liquid.

TADA!  Cheese.

You get about a pound of cheese from your gallon of milk, so unless you add expensive other stuff, this costs about $4.  I happen to think $4 is a pretty good price for delicious cheese.

Usually we add some dried oregano (about a teaspoon) and sundried tomatoes (cut in little pieces, maybe an ounce?) but this weekend we had a whole bunch of stuff we wanted to try, so I divided the pound into 3 more or less equal amounts and made 3 totally different cheeses.

From Left to Right:  Fresh Garlic and Oregano, Brown Sugar Cinnamon, Honey Raisin

The beauty of the Farmer's Cheese recipe is that it makes a savory cheese as easily as a sweet one.

The Garlic has a healthy sprinkling of oregano and 4 cloves of fresh garlic.  We crumbled it into our rice for dinner tonight, and it was delicious.

The Brown Sugar is a little over a half teaspoon of Korintje Cinnamon (which is my new favorite) and a small handful of Brown Sugar.  I'm not gonna lie, we ate the whole container with a fork while we were watching tv 2 nights ago.  It was absolutely lovely.

The Honey Raisin has healthy dollop of honey and a handful of Golden Raisins.  We're really happy with it, and I had to take it from Obes before he ate it all.

So I would call all three a success.  Making tiny amounts of a bunch of different flavors required a little more planning than I usually do ahead of time, but it was worth it to know that if any of it turned out awful, we wouldn't be wasting much.

Creamy Chipotle Tomato Soup

So we made grownup grilled cheeses tonight - multi-grain bread, sharp cheddar, bacon, sliced tomato, and Dave wanted tomato soup to go with it.  I was going to just pick up some tomato soup, but everything was either, you know, Campbell's, or super expensive.  Like $4 a serving.

This is what I came up with.

16 oz. Chicken Broth
32 oz. can of Crushed Tomatoes
1/2 packet of Chipotle Taco Seasoning
dollop of Heavy Cream (less than 1/4 cup)

Heat Chicken Broth and Tomatoes over medium heat until bubbly.  Add Chipotle Seasoning and reduce heat to low.  Add Heavy Cream.  Add more Chipotle Seasoning if desired.

Caprese Ravioli

I love delicious handmade food.  I love delicious food that takes hours to prepare.  But you know what?  I also love delicious food that only looks/tastes like it took hours to prepare.

I made a recipe from some awful talkshow the other day.  (The Chew, maybe?  I don't know, it has Mario Batali and Michael Symon.)  But anyway, it was delicious.  And they used wanton wrappers instead of making pasta from scratch for the ravioli and it worked out really well, except you have to be SUPER careful of them sticking to each other.

What I love best about this recipe is that you can go totally nuts and make everything from scratch, hell, even the pasta if you wanted to, or you can do what I did, and stop by Wegman's on your way home and pick it up already half made.

So, let's get started!

1 package of Wonton Wrappers (approx 1/2 lb, otherwise you'll need 2 packs)

Roasted Tomatoes with Garlic cut in half inch or smaller pieces (about 1/3 cup)

1/4 cup Basil Pesto

8 oz. Whole Milk Ricotta Cheese

1 Egg

1 Tbsp(ish) of Water

Mix Pesto and Ricotta until a uniform brilliant green,  Taste it, if the pesto flavor doesn't come through to your liking, add more.

Beat Egg and Water in a small dish or cup to make an Egg Wash for sealing your ravioli.

Working on wax paper or parchment so you don't make a giant mess, layout a single layer of Wonton Wrappers with a bit of space in between.  (I worked with 6 at a time.)  

Place roughly 1/2 tsp of Pesto Ricotta mixture on each Wonton Wrapper.  Top with a small piece of Roasted Tomato.  Brush Egg wash around outside edge of Wonton Wrapper and gently fold in half, pressing lightly on the edges to seal the delicious fillings in.  (I fold mine on a diagonal because I like the shape, you probably only need egg wash on two sides of the Wonton if you do it this way.)

Set finished raviolis to the side in single layers on more wax paper or parchment.

Boil gently in a large pot of water until the raviolis float.

While ravioli are boiling, heat olive oil or more pesto in a skillet.  As raviolis cook, transfer directly into warm oil/pesto and toss lightly to coat.

Garnish with pine nuts, fresh basil, more roasted tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, etc.  

If you're like me, and you went nuts and doubled the recipe, freeze them in single layers for later.

Enjoy!

Tzatziki Salad

So I got a basic Tzatziki recipe a couple of years ago, but instead of making it as a dip, I stirred in all kinds of delicious things and put it inside of mini pitas.  Awesome, absolutely fantastic.  Also delicious if you use cucumber slices as chips and scoop up piles of it.

If you don't know what Tzatziki is, it's a yogurt based sauce with dill and garlic and lemon that you might come across in a Greek Restaurant or pita place.  It's super flavorful and surprising and wonderful.

16 oz Plain Yogurt, Greek Yogurt or Goat's Milk Yogurt
4 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
4 -6 minced Garlic Cloves (trust me, fresh is worth the effort)
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Black Pepper
Fresh or Dried Dill to taste

1 medium Cucumber, chopped
1 handful Sun-Dried Tomatoes, cut in small pieces
6 oz crumbed Feta Cheese
1 cup sliced or chopped Assorted Olives (I like the Olive mix from Wegmans.)

Whole Wheat Mini Pitas, Sliced Cucumbers or other chips or crackers to serve with.

To Make Tzatziki:

Combine Yogurt and Olive oil in food processor or with whisk.  Stir in Lemon Juice and Garlic and mix thoroughly.  Add Salt, Pepper, and Dill and stir again.

To Make Salad

Once Tzatziki is well blended stir in Cucumber, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Feta and Olives and mix well.


Stuff in Pitas, spoon onto Cucumber slices or scoop up with chips or crackers.

Enjoy!


Notes:

• You can use Garlic Powder, but fresh tastes SOOOO much better.  Likewise, fresh Dill is better than dried for this.
• Tonight we tried this with Smoked Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and it was fastastic,  The earthy flavor of the smoke makes a lovely counterpoint to the brightness of the garlic and lemon.
• If you don't have a Wegman's (and you really should, everyone should), you can use an assortment of green, black and kalamata olives.

Sweet and Spicy Bulgar Wheat Salad

2 cups Bulgar Wheat
1 whole Cucumber
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 Fresno Hot Pepper
2 slices of Honeydew
Pomegrate White Balsamic Vinegar
2 Tbsp Butter
Salt, Pepper to taste

Prepare Bulgar Wheat - combine 2 cups Bulgar Wheat, 4 1/2 cups of water, salt, pepper, butter in a saucepot, cook over medium-high heat until water is absorbed and Bulgar Wheat is tender.

While Bulgar Wheat cooks, dice/chop the Veggies and Honeydew.  Finely chop the Hot Pepper.  Cut the Cucumber, Honeydew and Bell Pepper into roughly 3/8" chunks.

Once Bulgar Wheat is cooled at least partially, mix in Honeydew and Veggies, season with Vinegar to taste.  (We used a little over a 1/4 cup.)

Note:  I think you could effectively use any light, sweet vinegar, but believe it or not, Pomegranate is what we had laying around.  Rice Vinegar, Plain White Balsamic, other Fruit Infused Vinegar would work well.

Just as Easy as the Box Mac and Cheese

So, I had been doing really well posting recipes on a pretty regular basis, but as some of you may know, I've been dealing with some health problems - fighting with anemia and recovering from a related surgery.  I'm still a lot more tired than I should be most days, but I"m starting to get my feet back under me and the fact that the weather is starting to turn warm is a huge help.

Tonight I decided to make Dave mac and cheese, which I haven't made except out of a box since before my battle with anemia started.  And I think it's about time I shared the recipe.

I've often thought that a great mac and cheese doesn't need to be super complicated to be delicious.  So many of the recipes I've found online call for eggs and breadcrumbs and flour and so on and so on.  Now, I'm all for a crunchy crust on top or the addition of some bacon, but mac and cheese doesn't need to have 20 ingredients.  Without further delay, here's the recipe, which as I told Julie years ago, works just like the box stuff!

1 lb. of pasta (I like gemelli instead of plain elbows)
1 stick of butter
1 12 oz can of evaporated milk
4 cups of shredded cheese (I like mozzarella or a mix of mozzarella mild cheddar)

Prepare pasta according to directions on package,  Drain thoroughly.

Stir in evaporated milk and butter until noodles are well coated.

Add cheese gradually, stirring well after each cup or so until add cheese is added and mixed throughout.

Salt and Pepper to taste.

* Recipe can be easily halved, or doubled (I've done both.)

* Consider using Extra Sharp Cheddar for some bite with a little Monterrey Jack mixed to help it stay creamy.


If you find any other good combinations, please let me know!

Tomato and Olive Salad

1 quart assorted Tomatoes (I like an heirloom variety, or whatever's handy in my garden)
1 cup sliced Olives (the Greek mix at Wegman's is great, or use kalamata, black and green olives)
1 cup crumbled Feta Cheese
1/4 cup Pine Nuts
1/2 Tbsp whole Coriander
1/2 Tbsp whole Cumin
1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
2 Tbsp Olive Oil

Chop tomatoes.  If using grape or cherry tomatoes, cut them in half so dressing and spices can get inside.  Drop in medium mixing bowl.

Slice olives, if they didn't come that way and add to tomatoes.  Add cheese.

Gently toast pine nuts, coriander and cumin in a dry pan over medium heat until pine nuts are golden.  Allow to cool and add to tomatoes.

Drizzle vinegar and olive oil into bowl and stir gently until mixture is even.

Buffalo Cauliflower Nuggets

I LOVE buffalo wings, but I hate to use them as a side dish, especially with a chicken entree.  So, replacing the chicken with a veggie I love and WHAM!  Awesome side.

Chop a small head of cauliflower into roughly bite sized pieces (or half the head if it's one of the GIANT ones from the grocery store.  or Double the recipe.  whatever.)

Batter:
1 cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Black Pepper
1/2 tsp Cayenne (or ancho or chipotle)
1 1/3 cup water

Topping:
Your favorite wing sauce
Your favorite Blue Cheese or Ranch dressing.
(We like Frank's Red Hot's Wing Sauce and Ken's Steakhouse Chunky Blue Cheese.)


Preheat cooking oil in a frying pan.

Mix dry ingredients in a small mixing bowl.  Stir in water 1/3 cup or so at a time.

Dip cauliflower in batter and drop gently in hot oil.  Cook in batches, so the pieces don't stick together, until golden.

Drain on paper towels and top with wing sauce and dressing.

If you have a favorite hot sauce that's not a wing sauce, add melted butter to it in a roughly 50-50 mix to make a wing sauce out of it!

Blackened Chicken Seasoning

Super easy, super spicy.

Equal parts:

Fine Sea Salt
Ground Black Pepper
Ground Cumin
Ground Cayenne
Garlic Powder

Mix thoroughly.

When making chicken:

Pound chicken breasts flat, about 3/4" - 1" thick.  Cut into 2-3 pieces, depending on size of chicken piece.  Coat chicken and cook in a small amount of oil over medium to high heat.

If you prefer a less spicy dinner, reduce cayenne or season chicken lightly rather than coating.

I used 1/2 Tbsp each and had enough to generously coat 2 large chicken breasts, with a tiny bit left over.

Bacon-wrapped Water Chestnuts

Over the years I have had several coworkers who made variations of this.  When I finally decided that I was going to ask one of them for the recipe, I asked "What kind of sauce do you use for this?"  and I was pretty shocked to receive a rambling list of ingredients, rather than the brand name of the barbeque sauce.  Silly me.

So much easier this way!


2 cans Whole Water Chestnuts
1/2 lb bacon (uncooked)
1/2 bottle Sweet Baby Ray's Sweet and Spicy Barbeque Sauce

Preheat oven to 275 degrees.

Drain waterchestnuts.  Cut bacon slices into shorter pieces that just fit around the water chestnuts (1/4s or 1/3s depending on your bacon).  Wrap one piece of bacon around each water chestnut, skewering with a toothpick to hold it in place.  Arrange wrapped water chestnuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet.

Spread barbeque sauce over water chestnuts and bake 45 mins or until bacon is done.  I put a an extra piece of bacon at one end of the pan to make it easier to tell.

Leave toothpicks in place when you serve, it makes eating these potentially messy little tidbits much easier.

By the way, technically, a single slice of bacon is also called a rasher.  Sort of puts all those scenes in fantasy books where everyone is excited over a crisp rasher of bacon into perspective, doesn't it?

Easy Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

We got a big ol' bunch of rhubarb in our farmshare box last week, so I thought I'd share this recipe!

Super Easy recipe for a SERIOUSLY under-rated piece of produce.

1 recipe of your favorite yellow cake
1 cup chopped rhubarb (5 or 6) stalks
1 stick of butter plus a little
1 bag of marshmallows

Melt stick of butter in a saucepan.  Add half of the marshmallows.  Once marshmallows melt, add remaining.  When second bunch of marshmallows are about half melted, add rhubarb.  Cook over medium low heat until the mixture forms a consistent sauce.

Grease 9x13 cake pan or casserole with a small about of butter.   Pour rhubard mixture into pan.  Top with yellow cake batter and bake according to cake recipe directions.

You could also use the sauce as a pancake or ice cream topping, or pretty much anywhere you're use a fruit topping.

It's June and it's off to a great start!

The garden is coming along nicely, but not nearly fast enough for my liking.

I made 2 amazing gourmet cheesecake recipes this past week.  (Sorry, for those of you who are interested, I'm working on a recipe book for a business plan, they're hush, hush, secret.)

We tried a fantastic new restaurant today, Full of Crepe, in Bethlehem.

We found a dragonfruit at Wegman's.

We had a bunch of people over for movies last night.

And we're going to try making chile rellenos for dinner tonight.

I'll let you know how that goes, and if it works well, I'll post the recipe!

Who Says Good Food has to be Hard?

Super Easy Stuffed Peppers?  Nope.  Not kidding.  Love these things because they're easier than they look and they freeze really well too!

• 2 or cups of cooked rice, bulgar wheat or your other favorite grain (prepare according to package)
• 1 lb.  browned ground beef, loose sausage, Gimme Lean (or equivalent in prepared veggie crumbles)
• 1 jar of your favorite tomato sauce
• optional Cheese/Daiya, breadcrumbs, etc.
• PEPPERS!  6 medium or 4 large.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix the Sauce, beef/sausage/whatever and the rice in a big bowl.  Core and devein the peppers, then cut them in half vertically.

Stuff pepper halves generously with filling.  Bake for 40 minutes or until peppers are tender.  Top with cheese and/or breadcrumbs with about 10 minutes left in the baking time.

***

You don't have to cut the peppers in half.  I usually do if they're GIANT peppers or if I'm planning on freezing the leftovers for lunches.  A whole pepper is nearly impossible to reheat at work without destroying it.

Apple Cranberry Stuffing

On second thought, have a recipe anyway.

1/2 lb Apple Sausage (I think any sweet sausage, like Maple Sage would work)
1 Granny Smith Apple (or other tart apple)
A generous Handful of Dried Cranberries
3/4 cup of chicken stock
8 Slices of hearty Multigrain Bread (we like Arnold's Whole Grain Health Nut Bread)
Vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 300 degrees/

Remove casing (if any) from the sausage, crumble and brown in just a bit of oil - the sugar in the apples tends to make the sausage stick.  Save the drippings.

While sausage is browning, cut bread slices into 3/4 inch squares and apple into 1/2 inch cubes.

When sausage is done, mix all ingredients, including drippings in a baking dish or over safe mixing bowl (I love my PYREX!)  Use more or less stock as needed, just make sure most of the bread is moist.  Bake for about 25 minutes or until apples are tender.

Greek Yogurt Salad

So, a while back on the Daily Health Challenge, there was a recipe for a Greek Dip.  I made it as a salad and I LOVE IT!  Today I made some for Dave.  Can't wait till he gets home to try it, if there's any left.  :-)

16 oz. Goat's Milk Yogurt
4 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
6 Cloves Fresh Garlic
Salt, Pepper, Dill to taste

Combine all in food processor or blender, blend until combined.

Add the following and stir gently.

1 cup Sun-Dried Tomatoes
1 Medium Cucumber, chopped
8 oz Crumbled Feta Cheese
1 cup Chopped, Assorted Greek Olives

I usually buy the Pitted Greek Olive mix at Wegman's and serve this with Mini Whole Wheat Pitas.

Did I mention I LOVE IT!?!?!

Cooking cooking

I'm on an eggplant kick this week.  Too bad I know about 2 ways to prepare it.  No matter.  Fried it is!

Seriously, though, I have really hard time motivating to cook for one.  It's not that I don't still enjoy cooking, I just like cooking for someone, better than I like cooking.

I had Dave over for dinner Monday, and maybe went a little nuts.  But that's ok, it was appreciated.  :-)

Last night I cooked dinner with Michael at his place, and that was fun, if somewhat of a comedy of errors in the way that only Michael and I know how to do!  And, in theory at least, Michael knows how to make fried eggplant now too.

Cooking for myself, I have a tendency to do large batches, and eat the same thing for a week at a time.  Which is easy, but I'm not convinced that I'm eating enough of a variety to actually be as healthy as I'd like my eating to be.

Anybody who's on their own have any ideas for me?

Oh! Gross!

So, I love home canning.  You make have gathered that.  And for tougher/more complicated projects, I won't attempt them without a helper buddy, just in case my kitchen explodes or something.  Which is why I was very pleased to find out when we made Garlic Jelly back in April that Mikey is a pretty good canning buddy.

But, sometimes the canning bug bites and no one's available to help, so I pick an easier project.  Or in this case, the enormous amount of garlic I purchase a while ago, desperately need to be used and everybody had plans already.

I made this really simple Pickled Garlic from Serious Eats a while back, and I really liked it for salad dressing and Dave pretty much ate it straight from the jar.  So, all in all, it was a hit.  And keeping all that in mind, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and pickle at least the bulk of the remaining garlic.

Good news:  It was just as super easy as I remembered and I didn't catch anything on fire or do anything else stupid.
Bad news: I have now had my first, ever, canning jar that didn't seal properly.  In fact, I'm pretty sure it didn't seal at all.  So I only have 5 jars of garlic, instead of 6.
Really Bad news:  Since the jar didn't seal, the garlic was basically fermenting for the last two days, rather than pickling.  You cannot imagine how bad rotten pickled garlic smells, especially after how hot it's been the last few day.  So, nasty!