Cheers

CHEERS! A tiny bit of a delayed celebration. Over the weekend, May 9, Eat With Me turned 5 years old. Yippee.

Sadly the past 6-9 months have really been slow for me. I still enjoy working on the blog, finding new recipes and certainly still love cooking. But I've been soooo tired. I'm going to keep going and see what I can do to improve my production schedule! I need to find my muse; I think she went on vacation and got lost on her way home. If you see her, tell her to get her butt back here!

"Kira? KIRA!!!??? Come Back! Zeus didn't mean to be a jerk."



In other news, last night we kicked it old school with Tater Tot Casserole.


The big difference though??? Instead of using the traditional can of "Cream of ____" soup, I made a my own roux based sauce and it was delicious!

1. Brown ground beef and 1 medium, diced, onion.
2. When cooked, drain off excess fat.
3. Season with salt, pepper and other spices you like. Add 3 TB of butter.
4. Add 3 TB of flour. Stir and cook for one minute.
5. Add one cup of broth (beef, chicken or combo of both). Stir and simmer.
6. Add 1-2 cups of frozen green beans or other veg (carrots, corn, etc.)
7. Dump into a baking dish, top with frozen potato tots.
8. Bake at 400 for 25 minutes. Dump on some shredded cheese, if you like. Bake for an additional 5 minutes.
9. Serve piping hot.

Enjoy!

I have a menu planned for the next 7 out of 8 days. Hopefully that means a good solid weeks worth of blog posts! Thanks for sticking with me for the past five years. It's been a lot of fun and I'm really proud of how far I've come with my cooking skills! And frankly, if I wasn't willing to learn to cook, I'd probably be eating the same five, boring things, instead of branching out and trying new recipes, new ingredients and new processes!

Chicken 'n' Dumplins

WOW...I have a handful of posts that I never finished...this one was started on February 9. So I guess now is better than never.

Chicken 'n' Dumplins
(here's the recipe, if you can call it that.)

Mix the flour and butter together in the food processor until...

the mix looks like corn meal and sticks together a little when pinched. Later you add water and process until it just pulls together, carefully roll out and cut.

The base of these chicken 'n' dumplins is made with a roux...butter and flour cooked together, turning broth or stock into a beautiful texture.

The dough is rolled out and the dumplins are cut. Placed into a gently simmering mix of chicken, carrots, onions, corn and herbs.

The dumplins cook and puff up. So soft and tender. Perfectly comforting.

Potato Soup

Each week I sit down and plan out a menu for home, day by day. I have a spreadsheet to help me! Yes, I know I'm a geek and I embrace it. I plan for when we're home, when we'll be out for a evening. Then I map out the grocery store and get the items categorized. On a good day I can get through the store, with a weeks worth of ingredients in 20-30 minutes. I also save a good deal of money this way. I know what I need and I dilly-dally around looking at stuff I don't need for the week. It's a good plan and works for me!

This week, I didn't do any shopping. I wanted to save us some additional money, so we stuck to the pantry and the freezer. We did pretty good. There was pasta, some leftover butter chicken and some other frozen junk...yes, we make a meal out of tater tots and fish sticks sometimes. What of it?

That got us to Wednesday. I still didn't have a plan for Thursday. More pasta? No!

Yesterday while sitting at work, it hit me. Potato Soup. I have everything I need. It came together easily, quickly and was pretty dang tasty. Even if I went a little overboard on the roasted garlic!

I started with some bacon, for the garnish at the end. In the bacon fat, I sauted some onions and added some fresh thyme, on the stem.

Once the onions were translucent, I added one carrot and five potatoes. Add four cups of broth and simmer until the potatoes are tender.

Whiz the potatoes and vegetables with the broth until smooth. Work in batches and let the last batch be a little more lumpy, for a little texture. Stir in shredded cheddar cheese and some heavy cream for a silky soup.

Serve hot in a large bowl and garnish with some crumbled bacon. The soup was thick, creamy, filling and full of great flavor. The cheese was mellowing out in the background. The bacon brought a nice smoky chewiness to the party. And the potatoes did their job of filling and warming the belly.

Potato-Cheddar Soup

6 strips of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 small onion, finely diced
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch pieces
2lbs potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2 inch pieces (about five medium potatoes)
4 cups chicken stock
4 cloves of roasted garlic
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt & pepper to taste

1) Fry the bacon in a large pot until crispy and the fat has rendered out. Reserve bacon on a paper towel lined plate. Pour out all but one tablespoon of bacon fat.

2) Add the onions to the pot with the one tablespoon of bacon fat. Saute until tender and translucent. Add the fresh thyme, carrot and potatoes. Pour in the chicken broth and bring to a simmer, until the potatoes are fork tender. Prior to the next step, remove the stems of thyme.

3) Working in batches, puree the soup in a food processor or blender. Add the roasted garlic to the first batch of soup to be pureed. Process until smooth. If you would like some texture to the soup, other than silky smooth, don't process until fully smooth, leave some bits and pieces of potato.

4) Return the pureed soup to the pot and add the cheese and cream. Stir until the cheese is melted and the cream is incorporated. If you wish to thin the soup out, add some additional broth or cream. Season with salt and pepper.

5) Serve hot and garnish with the cooked bacon and if you have them, some fresh snipped chives.

NOTE: If you wish to make this soup vegetarian, skip the bacon. Just cook the onions in olive oil. And instead of chicken broth, use vegetable broth. For some additional flavor you could add about 1/2 a cup of beer. Also, if you don't have a food processor or blender, you can make this soup more rustic by mashing the tender potatoes and vegetables with a potato masher. You will have a hearty, textured soup that is a little less creamy and maybe a little more brothy.


As mentioned, this soup was really good. However there were some things I will do differently next time and those adjustments are reflected in the recipe. One, I used a full head of roasted garlic. It was too much and often overpowered the other mellow flavors. In addition, that much roasted garlic kept coming back for a visit later in the evening. Two, I used a bay leaf in the soup. I added it at the beginning and simmered it in the broth with the thyme. In the end, the bay leaf flavor didn't play well with the rest of the ingredients, so in the future I will skip it.

I'm so excited about lunch today

Last night, while inhaling my dinner (I wanted a second helping, but didn't..I was good), I started thinking about how exciting lunch was going to be tomorrow. I'm a little sad that way. In the middle of one meal I start thinking about the next.

So what did we have? Perhaps one of the best meatloaf recipes I've ever had. As I've said before, this is a big statement and one that elicit many responses, but of the meatloafs I've had, this is by far the best!

The recipe is: 72 Markets Street Meatloaf, which happens to be one of the top Google searches that bring readers to my site.

This recipe isn't hard, but it does take some time to get all the ingredients together. Let's get started!

Melt some butter so you can saute your vegetables. What kind of butter? Kerrygold Butter of course! Again, I'm not paid by them to say that...but I would happily take them as a sponsor!

Finely chopped veggies. Last time I manually diced everything. That can take some time, because you do want them finely diced. This time I whizzed them quickly in the food processor. We have onions, garlic, celery, red and green bell pepper and carrots. Missing--green onions...I used them the night before! Forgot they were for two recipes!

Saute the veg for 10 minutes, to cook out excess moisture and get them tender.

This mixture is blended with beef, pork (or sausage) and a moist mixture of eggs, spices, 1/2 & 1/2 and ketchup. Bake for 45-60 minutes. This is a sloppy mess and doesn't photograph well. Looks like it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

I started when I got home at 6pm and was hoping to have dinner by 730pm...we sat down to eat at 740pm...pretty good timing, but the prep for the meatloaf and later the mashed potatoes had me going virtually the entire time.

Was it worth it. YES!

Meatloaf is best served with mashed potatoes and gravy. The gravy here isn't the same gravy that comes with the original recipe. I sauted some shallots in butter and herbs, added flour to make a roux, added broth and simmered until thick and delicious. If you want further details, let me know and I can get more detailed.

Not Pictured: The green beans I forgot to steam and serve, they are still in the fridge for another day. Oops. Mashed potatoes make me forget things like: eat your vegetables.

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Salchichas!

For Christmas from Terri in WI, I received 1080 Recipes by Simone and Ines Ortega. A giant collection of recipes from Spain's top selling cookbook. Yeah! This week I have four recipes I'm going to make. Here's the first one...

Lentejas con tocino y salchichas
Lentils with Bacon and Sausage

You need good lentils. These are petite green lentils (Le Puy from France).

You cook the lentils until tender with some flava...carrots, onion with whole cloves, garlic and a bay leaf. I added one stalk of celery for fun.

When the lentils are cooked, they are tossed with crispy bacon and sausage. I used some sliced up kielbasa. Serve with a cool, crisp salad for a great meal.

I loved these lentils. So warm, earthy, meaty, smoky. We both wanted more! I think I like them more than the Warm French Lentil Salad. Try these lentils.

Lentils with Bacon and Sausages
from 1080 Recipes, slightly altered by me.

1 small onion, peeled
2 whole cloves
2 2/3 cups Puy lentils
1 bay leaf
1 carrot, cut into pieces
2 garlic cloves, peeled, smashed
bacon, sliced into pieces...about 1/2 pound
1/2 smoked kielbasa, cut into bite size pieces
salt/pepper

Insert the cloves into the onion (see photo above). Add the first 6 ingredients into a large pot and cover with ample water. Cover and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until the lentils are tender. I went about 50 minutes and they were almost mushy. I'll check for the proper tenderness at about 40-45 minutes. Reserve about 1/2 cup of cooking liquid. Drain. Discard veggies.

In the same pot, cook the bacon until crispy. Push to the side, add the kielbasa and saute for a minute or two. Remove from heat. Spoon off about 1/2 the fat. Add the lentils, stir and serve. If the lentils are too dry for your liking add some of the cooking liquid back until the lentils moist to your liking. Season with salt and pepper.

The Christmas Miracle

Since last week, J-lo has had the flu...I had the stomach flu last week, and now he has the other flu...the bad flu...

So upon his request I made up a batch of my Grandmother's Chicken Dumpling Soup.

There is just something miraculous about the healing properties of chicken fat!

I went the long way around today and used chicken parts and let them simmer for about and hour and a half to get a richer broth. So worth the entra time!

Makin' Whoopie!

I made these amazing Chocolate Kahlua Whoopie Pies with Vanilla Marscapone Filling about a year ago and the first line of the post was something along the lines of Little Debbie better watch her ass cuz' it's on! I made these tonight and seriously...she better watch it!

I have a big mouth!

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And now we make whoopie!

Perfect ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs, flour, milk, cocoa!

Creaming the Kerrygold Irish Butter and sugar together!
I'm still not sponsored by Kerrygold, hint, hint, wink, wink!??!!!

Eggs and Kalhua added and whipped together.

Prior to adding the milk.

I use a small ice cream scoop to get the batter onto the baking sheets.

Making the cream filling. Sugar RUSH!

I find it easiest to 'pipe' the filling on the pies. I don't have the authentic baker's equiptment, so I go with the large zip top bag and snip off the bottom corner. Works GREAT!

Two halves awaiting their filling.

Happiness is...


And now some pretty pictures.
click on the photos for full impact

Piped Dreams.

Heavenly Clouds of Lusciousness.

Lining up for their caps.

All dressed up and ready for the party.

Chocolate Kahlua Whoopie Pies w/Vanilla Marscapone Cream Filling.

Two Nights

Hey ya'll. I was particularly lazy last night and didn't post our fun dinner. We decided to have a Taco Night this week. Originally we planned that for Thursday night, but due to the extremely ripe avocados, we moved it up to Wednesday.

Again, lazy, so I cheat and use the taco seasoning packet that comes with the shells. Ya know, it works. I also added about 1/2 a cup of jarred salsa to the meat mixture while it cooked. I liked that addition. I have found a recipe for a homemade taco seasoning. I'll have to try to plan that next time.


Of course, the best part about taco night was deciding to make gaucomole! I don't know when I started liking the green dip, but it happened and I've really grown to love it. This serving of guac was pretty spot on...except I forgot to get a tomato! I'll forgive myself this time. I also want to note the taco shells in the photo above. Flat bottoms! It was fun to have the shells actually stand up while filling and plating, but frankly, I didn't like the "taco approach" I had to take with these guys. You know the approach to eat a hard shell taco...you lean in and bite the bottom on the side. With the flat area, I felt like I was choppin into a crunchy box. Nice innovative product, but not really for me, I'm going to stick with the traditional round bottom shell.

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Tonight's dinner took a little advanced planning. We had Buttermilk Fried Chicken, mashed taters and corn. A favorite comfort meal of mine.

The advanced planning involves the buttermilk marinade.

This couldn't be easier. A pint of buttermilk, several tablespoons of your favorite hot sauce, salt and pepper. Stir. Add your chicken and set in the fridge for 10-24 hours.

When you're ready to make your chicken, get a bowl and fill with two to three cups of all purpose flower. Add some flavor components. Salt. Pepper. Thyme. Cayenne pepper. Some garlic and onion powder if you like. Mrs. Dash if you have it around...I did! Pick a piece of chicken, in my case tonight chicken tenderloins and drop them into the flour. Really dredge those pieces in there. Cover them in flour and maybe give them a little squeeze. This gives the final product a nice crispy coating. Place on a rack and let air dry for about 20-30 minutes. I don't remember where I read this or saw this, but this step also facilitates a nice crispy, crunchy coating.

Since I wanted to serve the chicken steaming hot, I made the potatoes in advance. Knowing I wanted to have some leftover potatoes for a little lunch at work, or maybe to try my mom's fried potato patties later this weekend, I made an extra large batch. A tip I learned a few years ago, give your boiled potatoes a quick mash, then add your butter. I understand that the butter/fat will coat the molecules of the potato so when you add your milk or cream, they will take on a smoother, creamier texture. I've been making my mashed potatoes that way for years and I have to say this method works really well. A note on butter...if you haven't bought a golden brick of Kerrygold Butter, please do yourself a favor and pick one up the next time you see it in your store. I decided tonight I'm about to make this an all Kerrygold Butter house, it's SUPERIOR to most butters I've had. Hey, if anyone out there works for Kerrygold and would like to be my supplier, I'm all ears!!!

Back to the chicken. When you're ready, get a skillet over high heat. Add your choice of vegetable oil, canola oil or peanut oil. When hot and shimmering (I didn't take the temperature), carefully add the chicken. Allow to pan fry for four to five minutes, then flip to the otherside and go another four to five minutes. Take a note from Alton Brown on frying your chicken...listen and watch the food, it will tell you when it's done. The sizzle and bubbles will subside when your food is nearly done. When the sizzle and bubbles slow down, that's when the oil will start to sneak into your food and you don't want greazie chicken!

When the chicken strips are done, remove to a paper towel lined plate to allow the excess oil to drain away. If you have more pan frying to do, place the chicken on an oven safe plate and put in a warm oven until you're ready to serve.

I craved this meal all day. Extra crispy chicken!!! Mashed potatoes!!! And corn...well frozen corn is good, but right now I'm really craving corn on the cob...have to wait a few months for the real deal I guess. Serve with a dippy sauce if you like, or drizzle on a little extra sauce...Mmmmm, hot sauce!

Ok kiddo's, I'm stuffed and tired, talk to you later.

Little Debbie better watch her ass

Cuz it's on!

I am making cookies for my first day of my new job. I know, I know...it's insane and completely 100% dorktastic.

So...I made two cookies.

Here is the first:

Chocolate Kahlua Whoopee Pies
with Vanilla Mascarpone Cream Filling

drooool!

Makes 10 Pies

For Cakes:
8 TB unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp Kahlua
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup milk

For Filling:
4 TB unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, room temperature
Seeds scraped from 1 Vanilla Bean
3 Cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment papper.

2. Using a stand mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar until light in texture. Add egg and liqueur. Beat until blended. On low speed add flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Beat until well blended, and crumbly. Add milk and beat until smooth.

3. Drop batter from a round Tablespoon onto prepared cookie sheet, spacing cookies about 3 inches apart. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until center springs back when lightly pressed. Cool completely before filling.

Make filling:

4. Using a stand mixer on low speed, mix all ingredients until well blended. Whip on high speed 3 to 4 minutes or until fluffy.

5. Using a knife or a small spatula, spread a generous amount of filling on bottom of one cookie. Press bottom of another cookie on top of filling ot form sandwich. Wrap pies in plastic wrap and refrigerate until serving.

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I got this recipe from a magazine I picked up a few two or three weeks ago. I've been dying to try this since then. And they are perfect! And really quite easy. I followed the recipe almost exactly. I only used the 1/2 cup of cocoa I put in the ingredients above. The original called for 3/4 of a cup. I think perhaps, now having tried them, that maybe 2 TB of Kahlua instead of 2 tsp. Oh, and the magazine is called Intermezzo; Fine interludes in Food, Wine, Home & Travel.

UPDATES:
Made these again. Some step by step photos here.