Moving Day

I've decided to switch to Wordpress for the blog! So exciting.
All recipes, new and old, can now be found at: http://recipedeviant.wordpress.com/

Tastes Like Chicken

I am beyond ready for fall to be here. Maybe in some parts of the country it is, but in Tennessee we've been getting an occasional tease of cooler weather, only to be brought to reality by 90 degree days with 150% humidity. My hair is less than pleased.
I've been spending hours drooling over recipes for soups and other cozy comfort foods, but the fact that it's still hot out and and my tiny little kitchen heats up in about 2 seconds has been keeping me from cooking much at all. Luckily there are people around to cook for me, or I'd starve.
Yesterday though, when looking through recipes, I came across one for roasted chicken, and all of a sudden, that's all I wanted, so I threw on a pair of shorts and got to roasting. If you can't beat the heat, join it, right?
Original recipe is here.

Roasted Chicken and Vegetables

1 cut up chicken
1 pound small potatoes (I used red potatoes and cut them into smaller rounds)
1 large carrot
4 big shallots
5 garlic cloves
1 bell pepper
6 oz bacon
1/2 a cup white wine
1/2 a cup water
2 chicken bouillon cubes
3 tbsp oil
1 tsp Lawry’s seasoned salt
1 tsp sweet paprika powder
1/4 tsp dried thyme
fresh sage
pepper
Preheat oven to 400. Combine oil with seasoned salt, paprika, thyme, lots of pepper, and 1 crushed bouillon cube and mix well. Peel the carrots and shallots. Chop up all of the vegetables into chunks (cut the shallots in half). Place half the vegetables in the bottom of a roasting pan. Place chicken on top and brush the chicken with the oil mixture. Put the rest of the vegetables around the chicken and throw the garlic, skin on, in the pan as well. Dice up the bacon and fry until crispy. Add white wine, water, and crushed bouillon cube to the bacon and let simmer for a few minutes until it thickens slightly. Pour over the vegetables in the roasting pan, making sure to avoid the chicken. I promise you, you don't want any of the oil mix to wash away, because it's magical. Place the sage leaves in the pan and put the pan in the oven for an hour. About 30 minutes into it, pull the pan out and pour juice from the bottom of the pan all over the chicken and vegetables and place back in the oven for another 30 minutes. At 1 hour, mine was perfectly done. The vegetables were soft, the chicken was juicy, and the skin... the skin was worth fighting someone over. Seriously. So crispy and amazing.
This recipe earned a high five and the suggestion to be placed in permanent recipe rotation. Win.

Big Pimpin'...

Trying not to spend G's.
In an effort to cut back on the insane amount of money I've been spending by going out to lunch all of the time, I've started trying to take my lunch to work. On days when there are good leftovers in the fridge, this is easy and typically delicious. The problem that I run into the most is during weeks when I don't have much time to cook. The very thought of a pb&j is enough to make me cringe (elementary school rears its ugly head), so I have to get creative, or starve.
I had planned on cooking dinner last night, thereby providing myself with a few meals worth of leftovers, when a friend who's about to go out on tour reminded me that we had dinner plans to get Indian food. A good friend about to leave town for a month+ethnic food=I'm there.
I had enough time to boil some eggs and make a quick egg salad that will hopefully last for about two lunches. That is, if I don't it it straight from the fridge tonight. No promises.

Egg and Olive Salad

4 hard boiled eggs
1/4 cup mayo
15 kalamata olives
1 Tbsp juice from olives

Roughly chop the eggs and the olives and throw them into a bowl. Add the mayo and the olive juice and stir to combine.
I know. It's pretty much the easiest recipe ever, and it has no seasoning. The olives and olive juice add crazy good flavor though, and for whatever reason, this really made my mouth happy.

Shrimp and Grits

I thought about titling this post "The South will rise again, and flood the nation with heavy cream" but decided to go for a more simple, and less confusing, name.
These were unbelievably good. Seriously. I licked my plate. As did everyone else who ate them. Sweet sister Rainer and I found the base recipe online, and then of course I had to mix it all up. The result was a winner, for sure.

Shrimp and Grits

- 4 servings cooked grits (add 1/4 cup Velveeta and 3 Tbsp. cream from dish)
- 3 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 1/2 cups pre-cooked cubed ham (add to that 1/2 Tbsp. Tony's seasoning)
- 1 cup diced leeks
- 3 Tbsp. diced onions
- 4 Tbsp. diced green peppers
- 20-30 large shrimp (peeled and de-veined)
- 5 Tbsp. white wine
- 2 cups heavy cream
- salt and pepper
Cook grits according to directions; add velveeta and set aside and keep warm. Heat oil in a large pot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add ham and seasoning and saute until crisp. Add diced vegetables and saute until onions are translucent. Add shrimp and saute for 30-45 seconds or until pink. Remove from the pan and set aside. Turn heat up slightly and wait for the pan to start smoking slightly. Deglaze the pan with a white wine. Slowly add the cream and let reduce until thickened. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Take 3 Tbsp of the cream sauce and stir it into the prepared grits. Pour shrimp mixture back into large pot and stir to combine. To serve place grits on plate and spoon shrimp mixture over it. The sauce will soak through the grits and pool on the plate. Inhale.
Now go run a mile. I didn't, but it would probably be a good idea.

House Party!

Well, La and I made the big move. Downstairs. Whew. Who knew that making approximately 200 billion trips up and down a flight of stairs could be so exhausting?!
In honor of the move, we had a few girls over for dinner, mainly so that I could officially break in our (still) tiny kitchen.
The original recipe is here, and yes, I know it's another one from PW, BUT it's actually from a guest blogger! So... yay! Variety!

Spicy Orange Garlic Shrimp

24 pieces (26-30 per pound) deveined shrimp
2 cloves (to 4 Cloves) garlic
3/4 cups orange juice (I use Simply Orange, because it's simply the best! Better than all the rest...)
1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
3 Tablespoons salted butter, divided
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon sugar
 
Thaw and peel the shrimp (I actually used fresh). 
Thinly slice your garlic cloves. Add the garlic to ¾ cup of orange juice.  Measure out and add all of the spices to the orange juice as well.
Okay, confession time: the original recipe didn't have cinnamon or sugar in it. The reason this changed is because, well, I wasn't paying attention, and grabbed my bottle of what I thought was cayenne pepper, but turned out to be cinnamon. Oops. Luckily I realized this before I had stirred it all up, so I was able to scoop most of the cinnamon back out, but I thought that a little bit wouldn't hurt. I was right. I love what the cinnamon brought to the sauce. Feel free to leave it out though. I also threw the sugar in because it just seemed the thing to do.
In a large skillet over high heat melt 2 tablespoons butter. Once butter has melted add your shrimp. Cook them for about 30-60 seconds and begin flipping them over starting with the ones you placed in the pan first so they don’t get overdone. Cook for another 30-60 seconds. Remove the cooked shrimp from the pan, leaving the heat on high.
Once the butter and drippings begin to smoke ever so slightly add the spicy orange garlic mixture to the pan and give it a good stir. Add the last tablespoon of butter to the sauce and after a few minutes of cooking and occasional stirring your sauce should be slightly thicker.
Return the shrimp to the pan and give them a nice toss to coat them in the sauce for just a few seconds, then pour into a serving dish.

I wound up making extra sauce and serving the shrimp over wild rice, and it was delicious. We had it with our favorite salad and some white sangria. Perfect way to grace a new home.

June!

Tax season is O-V-E-R!
Hear that? It's the angelic choir singing the Hallelujah chorus for all accountants, everywhere.
I pretty much stopped cooking through it all. There's something about working late, six days a week, that just removes all motivation, energy, and time to go to the grocery store.
This is the perfect spring/summer recipe. My wonderful sister found it, and I tweaked it tonight.

Miss Daisy's Tomato-Artichoke Salad

4 large tomatoes cut into wedges or 1 pint cherry tomatoes, cut into halves
3 c canned, drained artichoke hearts, sliced
1 small red onion, thinly sliced *(or use half)

Dressing:
2 T Balsamic vinegar
1 T Dijon mustard
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions: In a bowl, whisk together vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper. Gradually, whisk in the oil. Toss with vegetables and transfer to a serving platter.

Yield: 4-5 servings

Soup!

This past weekend, while I was dreaming of a weekend getaway, the weather said no, and promptly dropped 3-4 inches snow, followed by about an inch of ice all over middle Tennessee. Charming. Needless to say, my getaway didn't happen.
Instead, I spent a great weekend curled up in my apartment with friends, cooking and eating and drinking and playing in the snow. Not a shabby trade.
I decided to make this soup. I've been meaning to try it for a long time, and for whatever reason just haven't gotten around to it, which makes me want to kick myself since this soup was INCREDIBLY delicious and, oh yeah, totally easy.

Sherried Tomato Soup

6 Tbsp butter
1 onion, diced
1 can (46 oz.) tomato juice
2 cans (14 oz. cans) diced tomatoes
3 chicken boullion cubes
4 Tbsp sugar (to taste really)
1 c. cooking herry
1½ cups heavy cream
Chopped fresh basil
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions in the butter in a large soup pot til translucent. Add the cans of diced tomatoes (undrained), then the tomato juice. Add everything but the sherry and cream and stir well, bringing to a light boil. Turn off the heat and add the sherry, cream, and basil.
So, I didn't have any fresh basil since ghetto Kroger was out somehow (apparently snow makes people buy basil?!), but luckily Trader Joe's sells fresh frozen chopped herb cube things (not the official name), so I threw a few cubes in for some very tasty results. Also, the recipe calls for fresh parsely. Once upon a time, I made this recipe, which called for lots of fresh parsley. Turns out, I hate fresh parsley. I'll have to tackle that dish again one of these days, but it means I don't touch the stuff. Feel free to throw some in though.
We served this with grilled cheese sandwiches and were very, very, happy girls.

Lazy Tomato Sauce

Lazy doesn't mean bad. Also, I'm realizing how much my definition of lazy has changed. A couple of years or so ago, lazy tomato sauce would have been me opening a jar of Bertolli. Fancy tomato sauce would have been me dumping a few spices into that jar. Classy.
This sauce is definitely going into frequent rotation though. It is so simple and sweet, and extremely easy. I could see myself eating it on our balcony in the summer. Mmm... summer.
The hardest part was letting it simmer for 45 minutes. I was hungry.

Note: The quality of the tomatoes you use makes all the difference. This is not the time to get the cheap brand. Also, make sure that they don't contain basil, which was much more prevalent than I would have thought.

Lazy Tomato Sauce

1 28 oz can of whole, peeled tomatoes
5 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 onion, peeled and cut in half
Salt to taste (I barely added a pinch, and only at the very end)

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, then throw in the contents of the can and the onion halves. Bring to a boil over medium, then reduce and let it simmer for about 45 minutes. Every so often I would stir it around and smash the tomatoes. Which was fun. When the time is up, remove the onion and discard. Serve with your favorite pasta and salad. Oh, and wine and garlic bread too, of course.

Man Dip

It's been a rainy day. A curl up on the couch day. An eat copious amounts of fatty foods day. Plus Target. Always Target.
La requested Man Dip the other day, so I'm finally obliging. I'm so nice!

Man Dip

1 can original Rotel, drained
1 box cream cheese
1 lb breakfast sausage, cooked and crumbled

Mix together. I put it in my little crockpot for an hour or so for the flavors to get acquainted, but I'm sure it'd work well on the stove top for a little while too. Serve with chips (I love Fritos!).

Trader Joe's

I wish I could express exactly how I feel about Trader Joe's, but words don't even begin to do it justice. The first time I walked through the store I had to keep reminding myself to stop grinning like an idiot. It's my happy place. If I have a bad day, take me there and let me wander. I'll be better in no time, I promise.
I thought I might start highlighting some of my favorite products occasionally, the foods that always wind up taking all of my very limited freezer space.

Mandarin Orange Chicken. Oooooh my goodness. Better than any orange chicken I've ever had, hands down. Perfect sauce. Perfect crunch. Perfect everything. We always follow the oven directions, because there's no way the microwave could do this justice. We also always serve it in a bowl mixed with corn, because they go perfectly together. Plus, corn counts as a vegetable. Even when smothered in cream and butter.
And we eat it with pink chopsticks. Because we can.

Cheesy Spaghetti Bake

When La and I became roommates, and discovered our shared love of food, I soon came to learn that she had something that I didn't: loads of family recipe comfort foods. I'm in the process of tasting as many of these as possible, since I seem to have missed a certain part of my southern heritage in this department. Like the fact that, until a few months ago, I had never had the classic green bean casserole. GASP.
This is one of our absolute favorites. So much so that we had it for Roommate Christmas this year (along with St. Germaine and vodka gimlets. Heavenly). It's the perfect comfort food, and we think that it might even be better the next day. Always a good thing.
Since I finally got a copy of the recipe, I thought it best to post it here, so I'll never have to worry about accidentally deleting the email.

Cheesy Spaghetti Bake
Bake at 350
30 minutes

INGREDIENTS
½ lb. lean ground beef
15 oz. jar of spaghetti sauce
8 oz. spaghetti broken into thirds

Cheese Sauce
1 C milk
2 T flour
2 T butter
1 C grated cheddar
1/3 C grated Parmesan (Or Italian Blend, as we normally do)
Pinch of salt & pepper

- Over medium heat melt butter, stir in flour until smooth paste 
-Slowly add milk while stirring out all lumps
-Continue to cook over medium heat until boiling
-Turn on low heat for 1 minute until sauce coats spoon
-Stir in ½ cup cheddar and all Parmesan
-Stir until melted

-Brown meat, drain, return to pan
-Add spaghetti sauce to meat, cover, let simmer
-Cook spaghetti, drain, return to pan and add meat/sauce mixture
-Stir until mixed well
-Pour half of the spaghetti/meat/sauce mixture into clear 9x13 dish
-Cover with white cheese sauce
-Pour the remaining spaghetti/meat/sauce mixture into dish and cover with remaining grated cheddar
-Bake uncovered for 30 minutes or until bubbly

Serve with lots of garlic bread and red wine. 

Creamy Cauliflower Goodness

In honor of the FRIGID temperatures in TN this week, I decided to make a big pot of soup. Tres domestique, non? Plus, this way I could give my new knives that Santa brought me a test run. (Note to self: these knives are inifinitely sharper than previous sets. Meaning that merely brushing the side of a finger against the edge can/will result in blood loss. Lesson learned).

One of my goals for this new year is to make a new dish at least once a month. Not just any dish, but something I never have come close to making in the past. Cauliflower soup certainly falls into that category.

Here's the recipe, from my beloved Pioneer Woman, who I got to meet last month. Yeah, I'm kind of a big deal.
I don't feel like typing the whole process out, since I should be working at the moment, but for the most part I stuck to the recipe. I wound up using one rather large head of cauliflower and it was perfectly chunky (sounds extremely unappetizing to phrase it that way). I used a little more salt, a little less chicken broth, and threw some freshly ground nutmeg in there for good measure. I think I have unresolved issues with authority that make me incapable of sticking to a recipe completely. Oh well. I can make good soup!

Roasted Sausages and Tomatoes with Balsamic

I crave this dish, possibly because I have a deep love for balsamic vinegar. It's beautiful, delicious, and most importantly, so incredibly easy. I like easy.
Here's the original recipe: Kayotic Kitchen

Roasted Sausages and Tomatoes with Balsamic

6 beef sausages (or 2 big links)
2 small onions (I use one red and one sweet yellow)
1 pound cherry tomatoes
5 tbsp good quality balsamic vinegar
6 garlic cloves
2 tbsp oil
fresh basil
pepper
salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel and thinly slice the garlic. Cut each onion into about 8 wedges. Place the sausages in a large roasting pan with olive oil, onions, and garlic. Season well with salt and pepper, then toss it all around. Bake for about 15 minutes, then add the tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. Place back in the oven and bake til the tomatoes burst and starting falling apart. This typically takes at least 30 minutes for me, but I don't have a great oven. Once it looks done, take it out and rip the basil all over it. Serve with bread and be prepared to go back for seconds. Or thirds.

Brigadeiroooooooo

Sounds better if you picture a hot Brazilian saying it. 
This is one of those recipes that I keep seeing on various sites, and never have quite gotten around to making. Until today, that is. Luckily I had all of the ingredients on hand, so let the good (fattening) times roll!

Brigadeiro

1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tbsp butter

Mix these ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Pour into another container and stick in the fridge to cool.
Then you can pretty much do whatever you want with it. Traditionally it's formed into balls and rolled in sprinkles as a candy. Or... eaten straight out of the container with a spoon. Which I'm pretty sure is what I'm going to be doing. It took every ounce of will power for me to not burn my mouth by eating it right off the stove. It also made my apartment smell delicious. WIN.

What's Better Than Bacon?

Obviously, I love bacon. Always have. Used to tell my mother that any recipe that she made would have been better if she had added bacon. While I love to put in in recipes, wrap things in it, whatever, I didn't think it really got much better than a simple piece of well cooked bacon.
WRONG.
This recipe, in all of its beautiful simplicity, caused so much groaning that I'm surprised our neighbors didn't bang on the wall.
This goes on the crack list, right under crack dressing. Yes, salad and sugared bacon. La and I believe in a well balanced diet.

Candied Salted Bacon

Center cut bacon
Brown sugar
Kosher salt

Lay bacon on whatever you have handy. I used a roasting pan so the fat could drain away a little, but a cookie sheet would work too. You might want to line it with some parchment paper to help with clean up. Anyway, lay the bacon out, making sure the pieces don't overlap, and sprinkle LIBERALLY with brown sugar. Seriously, lay it on. Stick the pan in a cold oven, then turn it on to 350 degrees. The original recipe said to start checking after 18 minutes. I found that with my oven it was more like 26 minutes. When it's cooked to your liking, pull it out, then sprinkle with kosher salt. That's it.
Try not to burn your fingers or your tongue too much whilst inhaling.

Liquid Summer

If our house wine is Bohemian (bought by the case. Yeah...), then our house drink is a lemon drop. Love them. This is the reason why we typically go through a bag of lemons a week.
Note: we like 'em tart. Very tart. If you have more of a sweet tooth, you might want to add some more sugar.

La's Lemon Drops
Makes 1 drink
Juice of 3 lemons
2 oz vodka
2 tbsp sugar

Shake it all together with ice, then strain into a sugar-rimmed martini glass. Garnish with mint leaves, though we rarely have any around.

Deliciously potent, so be careful.

Have Mercy

Mmm... lovely visual image of John Stamos there.
Moving on.
Knowing that I'd be staying in alone tonight (gotta love working from home over the holiday weekend), I decided to spoil myself and bought some organic beef filets at Publix yesterday.
They were on sale, I swear.
I had this recipe in mind to mess around with.  I loooooove Pioneer Woman. Ree, we'd be best friends. Pinky promise.
The result was quite possibly one of my favorite meals. Ever.

Oh Happy Day Steak
Steak (I used little filets, but almost anything would work)
1 large onion
Butter
Salt and pepper
3/4 c heavy cream
Red wine

Grab the steaks and throw them in some sort of container, along with some red wine, to marinate. I probably let them sit for about 5 hours, flipping occasionally. Pull it out of the fridge and let in chill out for a few minutes.
Slice the onion in half, then in pretty good sized slices. Throw it in a skillet with quite a few tbsp of butter, on high heat. Stir once every few minutes. While the onions are going, pull the steak out of the container, salt and pepper both sides, and throw it in a very hot skillet (I used my beloved cast iron) that has a tbsp of butter melted in it. This will produce a LOT of smoke. Proceed to open windows and laugh. Since my filets were small, and I like my steak medium rare, I only cooked them for about three minutes on each side. When the steak is ready, set it on a plate to rest. In the meantime, pour about 1/3 c red wine in the steak skillet to deglaze the pan, then pour all of that goodness in with the onions. Add another 1/4 c wine in there while you're at it and stir. Turn the heat down to medium. Once that's boiled down a little, add the cream, and mix it all together. Add salt and pepper to taste, and let thicken. Serve alongside steak, and be prepared for some serious groaning. This was SO GOOD.
Especially alongside some more wine.

Friday Night Improv

We (roommate (La) and I) had a slight change in plans for dinner tonight, involving mixed up addresses among other things. Long story short: I had to come up with some sort of dinner, without much to work with. The result was delicious, if I do say so myself, and more than enough for us and our friend Mimi.

Spicy Chicken Rotini
3 frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 jar Bertolli tomato and basil sauce
2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp sugar
1 lb rotini pasta

Pour half of the sauce into the bottom of a crockpot, then stir in the pepper flakes and sugar. Place the chicken breasts in, then pour the remaining sauce on top. I stirred it all around as much as I could, placed the cover on, and set it high for about 4-5 hours. When we were hungry, I shredded the chicken in the pot and mixed it together. Serve over rotini.

I also served creamed corn, which is called (creatively enough) Allyn's special corn.

1 package frozen corn
1 tbsp butter
3 tbsp heavy cream
2 tsp salt
10 good shakes of Tony's, or to taste

Throw it all together in a saucepan with a lid, over medium low heat for about twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Once the corn is thoroughly heated, take the lid off and cook until the cream has thickened.

La's homemade lemon drops helped round the evening out.

Crack

I love to cook. Always have. Hopefully always will. My friends and family love it when I cook for them too, only they get angry because I rarely follow the recipe, and that makes it a little harder for them to duplicate the meals on their own. This is for them, so they know how I cook, and for me, so I can hopefully remember. For my own sake.
My current favorite homemade dressing, which I think of as crack:

1/2 c olive oil

Juice of 2-3 lemons
1 clove garlic, minced

3 tsp dijon mustard

2 tsp kosher salt

2 tsp fresh cracked pepper

Shake it all together, and be prepared to get completely addicted. It's made here at least once a week.