Cracker Please!

I have to start this post with an apology, I don't remember where this recipe came from. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a Martha Stewart recipe, but I have no idea. What I do know, these are delicious and worth trying. Let's get started.

Cheddar Rosemary Crackers

You need three tablespoons for fresh rosemary, which has been finely chopped. I think that's about 1/2 a cup of unchopped rosemary. I still think rosemary is one of my favorite herbs, based solely on aroma alone.


Delicious butter. Use the best butter you can get. Here we have Kerrygold, unsalted Irish butter. Chilled.


Mix together the flour, butter, cheddar & parm, seasoning (cayenne pepper and this time I tossed in a small bit of chipotle chile as well.) One egg yolk.


Mix together with some cold water, then add the rosemary. The dough will be crumbly and won't pull together. On the counter you will dominate the dough. You will make it do what you want. You must be aggressive and you force. Pushing and kneading, the dough will come together.


Roll the dough into a log shape, wrap with paper or plastic wrap and chill for a couple hours.


Slice the dough into 1/4 inch disks.


Bake until golden brown and delicious. As they come to room temperature, I think the flavors are best. They are tasty fresh from the oven, but I think they are best about an hour or two later.


Ta Da! You don't get too many with one batch. So, don't snack on more than one or two before your guests arrive, or you won't get to share. I think the recipe yields 2 dozen.

Recipe:
Cheddar Rosemary Crackers

Risotto with Butternut Squash and Rosemary

As the weather cools, it's time for some warm comfort food. Perhaps some risotto?!?!?!

For risotto, you need Arborio rice, a short grain rice that is conducive to the creamy delicious rice dish. To make risotto, use this recipe here. The only change I made this time was to stir in some chopped, fresh rosemary in the beginning while I cooked the onions, then another small pinch at the very end. This gives the rosemary a chance to create two layers of flavor, a deep, embedded flavor and a bright, green, piney flavor at the end.


To kick up the risotto, I took a butternut squash, peeled, seeded and diced it, about 1/4 inch pieces. Toss with olive oil; season with salt and pepper. Place on a baking sheet and put into a preheated 450 degree oven until tender and golden. I think it was about 20-30 minutes, I wasn't really paying attention.


Tiny orange jewels. Little pieces of candy really. The flavor was mild, earthy and sweet. Soft and tender. Really delightful. These roasted pieces of butternut squash would be good with any number of dishes. But for this meal, I had plans.


While the risotto was cooking, I seared two seasoned chicken breasts. When they were done cooking, I used some shallots, a bit more risotto, Chardonnay and chicken broth to make a wonderfully rich pan sauce that was spooned over the sliced chicken. Together with the Risotto and Butternut Squash, this was a wonderful, nearly perfect autumnal meal! I choose to spoon the butternut squash over the top of the risotto, instead of stirring it into the risotto. Two reasons; 1) once cooked down, the small squash left us with about a cup of cooked squash, not very much and considering I made probably twice as much risotto as I needed, 2) I wanted to save the second half of risotto for some treats later this week. Do as you wish!

Soup and Bread

In continuing the cheap dinners, I made bread and soup. All with items we had on hand, unplanned! No shopping list for these items. Rosemary from the garden. A squash from the last farmer's market...everything else was here.

Rosemary & Caramelized Onion Focaccia and Butternut Squash & Apple Bisque!

A great fall meal.

My first note...I LOVED the bread. The soup was great, but it was missing something...and I know what it was. Continue.




The bread is super easy. Flour, water, yeast, olive oil. Mix, rise, stretch and dimple! Then you add some rosemary and caramelized onions on top with a little sea salt for flavor and crunch.


Back until golden and delish. I would have liked a little more topping, but as it was, I loved it. We ate half a pan the first night and the next day ate almost the rest of it!


The outside bottom crust gets crispy from the olive oil, almost like a pizza crust. It's amazing and paired perfectly well with the soup...


Butternut Squash & Apple Bisque. This was really good, but I felt something was missing. It wasn't salt or flavor, everything was there. I think I figured it out after the fact. I need a hint of some acid. Next time a little apple cider vinegar, I think that will give the POP I was looking for.




Rosemary & Caramelized Onion Focaccia
Recipe adapted from Epicurious.

Ingredients
1 (1/4-ounce) package active dry yeast
5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus additional for kneading
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 small to medium onion, diced
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

Special equipment: a standing electric mixer with paddle attachment and dough hook
preparation

Stir together 1 2/3 cups lukewarm (105 to 115°F) water and yeast in bowl of mixer and let stand until creamy, about 5 minutes. Add 5 cups flour, 1/4 cup oil, and 2 1/2 teaspoons table salt and beat with paddle attachment at medium speed until a dough forms. Replace paddle with dough hook and knead dough at high speed until soft, smooth, and sticky, 3 to 4 minutes.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in 1 to 2 tablespoons more flour. Knead dough 1 minute (it will still be slightly sticky), then transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and turn dough to coat with oil. Let rise, covered with plastic wrap, at warm room temperature, until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Press dough evenly into a generously oiled 15- by 10- by 1-inch baking pan. Let dough rise, covered completely with a kitchen towel, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Saute onions in 2 tablespoons olive oil until soft and they start to caramelize. Stir in the rosemary with the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil, let cool.

Make shallow indentations all over dough with your fingertips, then sprinkle the onions and rosemary, letting them pool in the indentations. Sprinkle sea salt evenly over focaccia and bake in middle of oven until golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

Immediately invert a rack over pan and flip focaccia onto rack, then turn right side up. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Simple and Fancy

Seared Pork Chops
with Mashed Potatoes
and a Rosemary-Shallot Pan Sauce.

Unlike the previous times I've made this...last night, the pan sauce was started by deglazing with some Maker's Mark. Yum!

Festive Rosemary

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officianalis) was a popular Christmas decoration in the 19th century. St. Thomas More said of it: "tis the herb sacred to remembrance and therefore to friendship.' The choirboys of Ripon carried it on Christmas morning as a sign of redemption. A number of legends link rosemary with Christmas: it is said that the herb's purple hue derives from the robes of the Virgin Mary; that it's aroma comes from the swaddling clothes of Christ; that the plant will never grown taller than Christ; and if a rosemary bush lives longer than Christ's 33 years, it will branch outwards not upwards. Because of these associations with Mary, it is said that rosemary grows best 'where the mistress is master.'

-From Schott's Almanac 2008 Page-A-Day calendar.

Delicious, easy and I've been lazy

Hi all,

Last week seemed virtually non-existent. I was out of town for work for a bit. We went to the beach for our annual planning session. Good times. We got a lot of great work done. But that kept me away from the blog for a few days. Then I'm back and was super lazy, so we had dinner out at The Alamo. A delightful Tex-Mex joint on Kenilworth Avenue. Check it out if you haven't. They recently changed the format of their menu. But the food is the same! And the margaritas...three will knock you out.

Ahhh, the beach.

Last night, Sunday, was the first night I cooked in a week. I made my favorite Rosemary Cream Sauce for some pre-fab fresh pasta I bought at the store. Easy. Super RICH and very delicious.

You need to start with the best butter. IMHO, this is the best. Way back when, I was able to participate in a butter tasting. It's hard to tell what's what, but the Kerrygold ranked right up there at the top.

Then you need some fresh rosemary. This is from my garden. On a side note, my basil, which was looking beautiful, has been devoured by some type of buggies. I'm sad. I love the gardening stuff, but I don't know how to deal with pests. We did buy some stuff to keep squirrels away. You spray where you want to keep them away...it is nasty! Putrified egg whites, vinegar and I think some pepper oil. Ugh!

Melt some onions and butter....yes melt...low and slow...you want to sweat out those onions, until they are very tender and translucent! You don't want color, or your cream sauce will be brownish. When the onions are done. Add some roasted garlic for more richness!

And you need some freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Only the best.

There is also cream in this recipe. But I was having some technical difficulties* at that time, so no photo!

I dressed some tortellinis with the sauce this time. It's great with any fresh pasta. Ravioli, fettucine! All good.

*So, my technical difficulties. It was boiling the pasta. I filled my pot with water and dumped the pasta in. Too much pasta for the amount of water I had. The tortellinis immediately poofed up and were nearly floating out of the pot as water kept pouring out. It was a huge mess and very frustrating. I should have only cooked half the amount of pasta at a time. But again, laziness is the key for the past week, so I didn't want to take the extra time. Lesson learned!

*~*~*~*

Well folks. I'm not sure how productive I will be over the next three days. Hopefully I'll have another one or two posts. Then on Thursday I head out for Sunny San Diego for several days. We were out there for a week about three years ago. I'm sure I'll have a post or two from So.Cal., but no promises.

First Supper

Well, the first meal. And by meal I mean not from a box, not from the freezer and not from drive-thru! But nothing to fancy. We had sauted pork chops with a rosemary sauce and fried potatoes. I couldn't find my boullion, so I used some beer for the base of the sauce. It worked. But there was a slight bitterness when the beer reduced down. While we were eating I realized I could have used a bottle of hard cider instead of beer and I suspect things would have been better.

Outside of that, we bought more stuff today. We have to stop! But we wanted to finish the bed room...at least as far as we can now. We're going brown/blue for the color of the bedroom! It looks good.

On the Fried Hard Drive front, the hard drive is dead. Done. Over. Finished. Kaput! I have to buy a new one and rebuild. There's a chance we might be able to save some things--keep your fingers cross...there is so much photography gone! Word to the wise...back up your data...somehow...I've not done that and I might be s-c-r-e-w-e-d!

Braised and Grilled

Tonight we had braised pork chops and grilled potatoes. Delish.

I started with the thick cut chops. Seared those in the pan on each side. When each side had a nice crust on them, I removed the chops to a plate and added one large onion which had been diced. Giving them a minute to start to release their juices, I then added a few garlic cloves that were minced a a handful of chopped rosemary. I let this cook for a minute when I added 1/2 a cup of beer. This reduced for a minute and I added 1 cup of beef broth. With this simmering over low heat I added the chops back, covered and let sit for 40 minutes, flipping the chops 1/2 way through.

During the last 15 minutes, I took a large russet potato and sliced it into 1/4 inch slices. Each side was drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. I placed these on the hot grill pan and let them go for about 4 minutes, then rotated them a 1/4 turn, so they could get nice grill markings, they went another 4 minutes. Flip and repeat.

By this time the chops were done. I removed them from the braising liquid placed on a plate. I strained out all the solids from the braising liquid and then returned the liquid to the pan and brought to a boil. The sauce reduced for about 5 minutes. I added 1 TB of butter and stirred until melted and incorporated.

Plate up the chops and the taters. Spoon sauce over the chops and potatoes. Garnish with rosemary and serve!



Easy and tasty! The pork was dry and I knew that was happening as I couldn't get the temperature low enough on the stove; what should have been a bare simmer was much more than that. To remedy this, in the future, I will bring the chops and braising liquid to a simmer, cover and place in a 375 oven for an hour. This will slow cook the chops, allowing the braising liquid to penetrate into the meat, making it tender and juicy.

Rosemary! J. Pierpont!

Easy
As
Sin

With a little help from the store we had a great, simple, fast dinner tonight.

Chicken and Roasted Garlic Ravioli
w/Rosemary Cream Sauce

Rosemary Cream Sauce
1 cup heavy cream
2 garlic cloves, smashed
2 TB roughly chopped rosemary

Add the three ingredients into a small saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes. Strain out rosemary and garlic. Reserve infused cream.

1 TB butter
Rosemary infused cream
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Fresh black pepper
Pinch of salt
2 TB finely chopped rosemary

In the small saucepan, over medium heat, melt the butter until it begins to spit and sputter. Pour in the cream and bring to a simmer. Bring to a heavy simmer and whisk in the Parmigiano. Season with salt and pepper. Continue whisking and allow to reduce slightly. About three minutes. Add the chopped rosemary. Simmer for one more minute. Add to pasta and toss to coat. Serve hot and garnish with a sprig of rosemary.


This is the ravioli I picked up at the store. With this sauce, they were delicious! For a pre-made pasta, these little guys were great! I was very satisfied and would happily serve to guests as a first course. This package, 9 oz, is just barely two servings.



**Title of the post...that would be a reference to the musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. Not the best show, but it is fun. I saw it ages ago with Ralph Macchio...the Karate Kid...he could sing! Who knew?

Rosemary Chops

Tonight was one of my favorite dinners using pork chops. And so simple.

Take your pork chops and season with salt and pepper. Toss into a hot pan coated with olive oil. Cook for a few minutes on each side, until cooked through. Remove to a warm plate. Add a drizzle of olive oil if the pan is 'dry.' When sizzling add one or two chopped shallots and saute for a moment. Add about 3/4 cup of stock or broth; beef is preferred. Deglaze the pan. Scrape up the bits on the bottom of the pan. Allow the broth to reduce. Add some fresh chopped rosemary, about 2 tsp. As the sauce continues to reduce add a pat of butter and incorporate into the sauce. Spoon over your finished chops. Serve with potatoes, rice and veg. Tonight was mashed potatoes with melted, stringy mozarella cheese! Plus glazed carrots with fresh oregano. You can find another very similiar version of this recipe here, using red wine with the broth.

I guess the focus of this photo is on the taters, but it was all so good!