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Category Archives: Holidays

Romance in the Air and On the Plate, Part 1 – Roasted Beet Salad

Even though the weather around here has been absolutely atrocious this week, I had planned Valentine’s Day dinner late last week, of the ingredients I needed last week or early in the week and I was completely prepared to make everything. I even put extra hours of work in so I could be sure I had enough time to cook everything and spent the better part of the afternoon preparing everything. We had a nice, elegant meal for the three of us, something we do not do too often and it tasted great and was fun. I’ll be sharing the recipes I made over the next several days, so we may as well start off with the salad. The original thought for the recipe comes from Williams-Sonoma, but I actually ended up changing quite a bit of it because Michelle is not a big fan of a couple of the ingredients, so I did switch some things around for this roasted beet salad. I’ll give you the original recipe and then let you know what I did to change it around.

Roasted Beet Salad

3 golden beets, trimmed and washed

6 red beets, trimmed and washed

1/2 cup olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

5 tablespoons creme fraiche

1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

2 teaspoons minced shallots

4 cups baby watercress

4 ounces goat cheese, crumbled

1/3 cup toasted chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the golden and red beets on a baking sheet. Coat the beets with 3 tablespoons of the olive oil and season them well with the kosher salt and black pepper. Cover the baking sheet with aluminum foil and roast until the beets are fork tender, about 1 hour. When the beets are cool enough to handle, peel the beets and cut them into 1-inch wedges.

Meanwhile, combine the lemon juice, creme fraiche, the remaining 5 tablespoons of olive oil, the dill and the shallots in the blended or food processor. Blend or emulsify the ingredients until they are well mixed and season the vinaigrette with kosher salt and pepper to taste.

Arrange the beet wedges in a layer on a platter and top them with the watercress. Garnish with the goat cheese and toasted walnuts. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad and serve.

Okay, looking back at this I made quite a few changes to the recipe. First, I could only find red beets in my area so that is what I used. I would have loved to have the golden ones too, but it just wasn’t happening this time. Next, I omitted the goat cheese and the toasted walnuts. Michelle doesn’t like either one of them so they both went out. I also couldn’t locate any creme fraiche in the area so I had to make my own using equal parts of sour cream and heavy cream and mixing them together. It turned out just fine and was perfect to use. Finally, I hated to waste the beet greens so I decided to use them in the salad with the watercress. One thing to not about beet greens – they are very dirty and need extensive washing and spinning in the salad spinner if you have one. Also, they can be quite bitter when they are raw so if you don’t like the bitter flavor you can try blanching them or even wilting them a little in a saute pan for a few minutes. They are too tasty to waste though and make a nice addition to the meal if you can use them. We all loved the beets and always forget how great roasted beets can taste. I really need to buy them more often to make them. I really enjoyed the dressing as well with the shallots and dill adding some great flavor and I can see how the goat cheese and walnuts would add a lot to this salad. It was good as we had it, but the additions would make it even better. The picture I took does not have the dressing on it yet and you can really only see the beets and beet greens so it doesn’t do it justice.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for the next part of the dinner menu. I’ll be going over the two sides we had with the meal – sautéed spinach with garlic and garlic-thyme smashed potatoes. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

2 Comments

Posted by MikeG on February 15, 2014 in Cooking, Dinner, Dressings, Holidays, Salad

Tags: creme fraiche, creme fraiche vinaigrette, roasted beet salad, roasted beets, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day meal, Valentine's Day menu, williams-sonoma

Another Soup (Sans Picture) – French Onion Soup

20 Jan

It really bothers me now when I make something and forget to take a picture of it. It doesn’t happen nearly as often as it did when I first started the blog, but it still happens on occasion. It’s easy when you caught up in cooking and trying to get the meal on the table and you’re talking about homework, what happened at school, work or anything else going on and sometimes by the time I remember there is nothing left to take a picture of. Such is the case when I made French onion soup not that long ago. French onion soup is a personal favorite of Michelle’s and there are lots of recipes out there for it, but this one from America’s Test Kitchen is our personal favorite. It takes longer to cook, but it is so worth it to get the deep, rich onion flavor that you get from cooking the onions this way.

French Onion Soup

3 tablespoons butter, cut into 3 pieces
6 large yellow onions (about 4 pounds), halved and cut pole to pole into 1/4-inch-thick slices
Table salt
2 cups water, plus extra for deglazing
1/2 cup dry sherry
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups beef broth
6 sprigs fresh thyme, tied with kitchen twine
1 bay leaf
Ground black pepper
1 small baguette, cut into 1/2-inch slices
8 ounces shredded Gruyère cheese (about 2 1/2 cups)

Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees. Generously spray the inside of a heavy-bottomed large (at least 7-quart) Dutch oven with nonstick cooking spray. Place the butter in the pot and add the onions and 1 teaspoon of salt. Cook, covered, for 1 hour (the onions will be moist and slightly reduced in volume). Remove the pot from the oven and stir the onions, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot. Return the pot to the oven with the lid slightly ajar and continue to cook until the onions are very soft and golden brown, about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours longer, stirring the onions and scraping the bottom and sides of the pot after 1 hour.

Carefully remove the pot from the oven and place it over medium-high heat. Using oven mitts to handle the pot, cook the onions, stirring frequently and scraping the bottom and the sides of pot, until the liquid evaporates and the onions brown, about 15 to 20 minutes, reducing the heat to medium if the onions are browning too quickly. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the pot bottom is coated with dark crust, about 6 to 8 minutes, adjusting the heat as necessary. Scrape any fond that collects on the spoon back into the onions. Stir in 1/4 cup water, scraping the pot bottom to loosen the crust, and cook until the water evaporates and the pot bottom has formed another dark crust, about 6 to 8 minutes. Repeat the process of deglazing 2 or 3 more times, until the onions are very dark brown. Stir in the sherry and cook, stirring frequently, until the sherry evaporates, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the chicken and beef broths, 2 cups of water, thyme, bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt, scraping up any final bits of browned crust on the bottom and sides of the pot. Increase the heat to high and bring the mixture to simmer. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove and discard the herbs, then season with salt and pepper.

While the soup simmers, arrange the baguette slices in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake in a 400-degree oven until the bread is dry, crisp, and golden at the edges, about 10 minutes. Set the bread aside.

To serve, adjust an oven rack 6 inches from the broiler element and heat the broiler. Set individual broiler-safe crocks on a baking sheet and fill each with about 1 3/4 cups of soup. Top each bowl with 1 or 2 baguette slices (do not overlap slices) and sprinkle evenly with the Gruyère cheese. Broil the soup until the cheese is melted and bubbly around the edges, about 3 to 5 minutes. Let the soup cool for 5 minutes before serving.

Admittedly, making the onions this way is a much longer process than some other recipes but I think the flavor you get out of them is worth it. I have had French onion soup before where you can tell the onions were not cooked long enough and taste bitter. That won’t happen with this recipe. You want to make sure that the crocks you use are safe for the broiler to avoid any broken glass in the oven. You could also do all of this in advance if you want to use the soup for a dinner party. The soup will actually have better flavor if it sits for a day or two. You then just need to put it in the crocks under the broiler with the bread and cheese to finish it off. I used homemade broth in mine because I had some around, but if you want to use store-bought it will work just as well here. The flavor for this one is coming mostly from the onions.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe, and I promise to have a picture of it for sure. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

3 Comments

Posted by MikeG on January 20, 2014 in Appetizers, Cooking, Dinner, Holidays, One Pot Meals, Soups & Stews, Vegetables

Tags: America's Test Kitchen French onion soup, americas test kitchen, french onion soup, French onion soup recipe, Gruyère cheese

Craving Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

14 Jan

This particular recipe actually dates back to just before Christmas when we had a big snowstorm and we decided to make cookies all day. This was one the Michelle and Sean had picked out that Michelle had picked up online from Martha Stewart. It is for chocolate crackle cookies and while they were a great holiday cookie, I think they would be awesome for just about anytime of year and they were not hard to make at all. All you need is a handful of ingredients and the time to put them together and you can be dipping these in your milk or hot chocolate in just a few minutes.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups light-brown sugar, firmly packed
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for rolling

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Chop the bittersweet chocolate into small bits and melt it over medium heat in a heat-proof bowl or the top of a double boiler set over a pan of simmering water. Set it aside to cool. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.

In the bowl of a heavy-duty electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and light-brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat until they are well combined. Add the melted chocolate. With the mixer on low-speed, alternate adding the dry ingredients and the milk until they are just combined. Divide the dough into quarters, wrap it with plastic wrap, and chill it in the refrigerator until it is firm, about 2 hours.

On a clean countertop, roll each portion of the dough into a log approximately 16 inches long and 1 inch in diameter, using confectioners’ sugar to prevent it from sticking. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap, and transfer them to a baking sheet. Chill the dough for 30 minutes. Cut each log into 1-inch pieces, and toss each piece in confectioners’ sugar, a few at a time. Using your hands, roll the pieces into a ball shape. If any of the cocoa-colored dough is visible, roll the dough in confectioners’ sugar again to coat it completely. Place the cookies 2 inches apart on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake until the cookies have flattened and the sugar splits, about 12 to 15 minutes.

Transfer the cookies from the oven to a wire rack to let cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

These cookies were delicious with a great chocolate flavor to them. I can tell you that these did not last long around the house and went over pretty well for the holidays. I can see making these again for a party or just as a nice chocolate cookie to have for dessert one night.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another great recipe. There’s still lots of good stuff coming down the road. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

1 Comment

Posted by MikeG on January 14, 2014 in Cookies, Cooking, Dessert, Holidays

Tags: chocolate cookies, chocolate crackle cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies, holiday cookies, Martha Stewart

A Classic Side Dish From a Master – Alton Brown’s Best Ever Green Bean Casserole

02 Jan

You wouldn’t think there would be too much that you can actually do to change up this holiday classic, so when I noticed Alton Brown’s recipe for green bean casserole I had to check out what makes it so different from the classic you see on holiday tables each year. The biggest difference really is that everything is made from scratch. No canned fried onions, no cream of mushroom soup, no canned french green beans. I have nothing against the traditional way many people make this dish, but for me personally if you can use all fresh ingredients without preservatives and such that go into canned products, you are much better off and the taste will be a lot better. I made this dish for our Christmas meal and it was well worth the extra effort to put into it.

Alton Brown’s Best Ever Green Bean Casserole

For the topping:

2 medium onions, thinly sliced

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons panko bread crumbs

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Nonstick cooking spray

For the beans and sauce:

2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided

1 pound fresh green beans, rinsed, trimmed and halved

2 tablespoons butter

12 ounces mushrooms, trimmed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup half-and-half

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Combine the onions, flour, panko bread crumbs, and salt in a large mixing bowl and toss to combine. Coat a sheet pan with nonstick cooking spray and evenly spread the onions on the pan. Place the pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake until they are golden brown, about 30 minutes. Toss the onions 2 or 3 times during the cooking process to ensure they brown evenly. Once they are done, remove the onions from the oven and set them aside so that they are ready to use. Turn the oven down to 400 degrees.

While the onions are cooking, prepare the green beans. Bring a gallon of water and 2 tablespoons of kosher salt to a boil in an 8-quart saucepan. Add the green beans and blanch the beans for 5 minutes. Drain the beans in a colander and immediately plunge the beans into a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain the beans and set them aside.

Melt the butter in a large cast-iron skillet set over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms, 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms begin to release some of their liquid, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and nutmeg and continue to cook for another 1 to 2 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and stir to combine. Cook the mixture for 1 minute. Add the chicken broth and simmer for 1 minute. Decrease the heat to medium-low and add the half-and-half. Cook until the mixture thickens, stirring occasionally, about 6 to 8 minutes.

Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in 1/4 of the onions and all of the green beans. Top with the remaining onions. Place the skillet in the oven and bake until the casserole is bubbly, about 15 minutes. Remove the casserole from the oven and serve.

I have tried different recipes for this casserole before, but I think this one had the freshest taste of any I have made. I have never been a big fan of the canned condensed soups, so I was glad for the fresh mushrooms and half-and-half. I think this recipe had much better flavor than any others i have tried and it was definitely worth a little extra effort. Making your onions was quick and easy and they tasted great. The onions would be ideal just for burgers, let alone this casserole. I will definitely make this again, and not just for holiday meals.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for some more recipes. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

2 Comments

Posted by MikeG on January 2, 2014 in Cooking, Holidays, Side Dishes, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Tags: Alton Brown, alton brown green bean casserole recipe, best ever green bean casserole recipe, fried onions, green bean casserole, green beans

A Great New Year’s Eve Snack – Pulled Pork Nachos

31 Dec

This snack is actually great for all kinds of occasions, but it seemed like a pretty good one to make for New Year’s Eve as well if you want something different for your party guests or for yourself. Ideally, you would want to make the pulled pork well ahead of time so you have it on hand and ready to go. When I made these, I had some leftover pulled pork that I used from the dinner we had and it fit perfectly with the nachos. If you want to try the recipe and find you do not have the time to make the pulled pork yourself, you can always try buying pulled pork that has been pre-made and heating it up for use. It may not taste as good, but it will get the job done. My recommendation is if you have the time, go for it. If you can’t do it for this New Year’s Eve, keep it in mind for football playoff games, Super Bowl parties or they next time you just want a really good snack and what to take your nachos dish to the next level. I got this recipe from Food Republic, but you can certainly do different variations on this, as I did.

Pulled Pork Nachos

For the Pork Rub:

1/4 cup smoked paprika

1/4 cup kosher or sea salt

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup chili powder

1/4 cup ground cumin

2 teaspoons ground black pepper

For the Pork:

1 4-5 pound pork shoulder or butt

1 bottle of your favorite beer

For the Barbecue Sauce:

2 cups ketchup

1 cup whole-grain mustard

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup bourbon

1/4 cup reserved pork rub

For the Nachos:

1 bag tortilla chips

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

shredded Monterrey jack

red onion, sliced or diced

thinly sliced scallion

thinly sliced Fresno or other mildly hot peppers

For the barbecue sauce: Combine all your ingredients in a small pot, and whisk them for a bit to get everything incorporated together. Put the pot on the stove over medium heat, and wait for the sauce to start bubbling, stirring occasionally.Let it bubble for about a minute (while stirring a little bit), and then pull it off the heat and set aside, or refrigerate if making ahead.

For the pulled pork: Preheat the oven to 300 degrees, and then combine all the dry ingredients for your pork rub, making sure you mix the ingredients well so that everything is evenly distributed. Rub down your pork. There’s a possibility you’ll have more rub than you need depending on how big your pork butt is, but that’s more good news than bad and you can always store it for another use.

Place the pork in a baking dish and pour in the beer. Cover with foil and place it in the oven. Every hour after the first couple of hours you can go in and baste it a little. Depending on your oven and the size of your pork it will take about 5 to seven hours to cook completely.

Pull the pork out of the oven and let it cool off a bit before you start pulling it apart with your fingers and removing any unsavory bits such as any bones or large pieces of fat. Mix the pulled pork with enough barbecue sauce (reheated if made ahead) to coat to your liking.
To assemble the nachos: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then arrange a thick layer of tortilla chips on a foil-wrapped cookie sheet or in a pie plate, spreading the chips out for as close to 100% cookie sheet or pie plate coverage as possible.

Top your nachos in this order, or choose however you like them best:

Pork
Red onion
Beans
Jack cheese
Scallions
Peppers

Once the cheese is fully melted and just starting to crisp the nachos should be done. Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes to achieve a nice, crispy level. Serve with salsa, sour cream and guacamole.

You can use all kinds of cheese when making these nachos; it is really up to you as far as preference. You can also make some changes and add things like tomato or black olives or even try making it with some barbecue baked beans for a really different flavors. They are nachos after all, so it is pretty hard to go wrong with them. The plate I made was on a pie plate so I had layered everything a couple of times before putting it in the oven. Needless to say, there weren’t any left after I put them out; they went pretty quickly.

That’s all I have for today. Check back again for more new recipes. I hope everyone has a safe New Year’s Eve and enjoy wherever you are going to be and whomever you are going to ring in the new year with. Thanks for making 2013 such a great year for my blog. it has blown up to be a lot bigger than I had ever thought it would get and I am so glad so many people enjoy sharing the recipes and fun with me. I am looking forward to an even better and more fun 2014. Enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal! Happy New Year!

1 Comment

Posted by MikeG on December 31, 2013 in Cooking, Holidays, Leftovers, Pork, Snacks

Tags: barbecue sauce, Food Republic, Food Republic pulled pork nachos, nachos, pulled pork, pulled pork nachos

Help Me, I’m Melting (Potatoes)!

29 Dec

When we decided to make the prime rib dinner this past Christmas, the natural inclination would seem to go with mashed potatoes as a standard side dish. I wanted to try something a little different with the starch we were going to serve and try to keep things easy at the same time. I love mashed potatoes, but unless you make them ahead of time and re-heat them they can be a chore during holiday cooking when you have to stop and mash them perfectly. I thought a roasted potato would be just perfect and then I found in the same issue of Cook’s Country that I found the prime rib recipe this wonderfully easy recipe for melting potatoes, which are roasted potatoes that are popular in the United Kingdom and sometimes called fondant potatoes.

Melting Potatoes

3 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled

6 tablespoons butter, melted

1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

2 garlic cloves, lightly crushed and peeled

Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 500 degrees. Square off the ends of the potatoes and cut them crosswise into 1-inch thick disks. Toss the potatoes with the melted butter, the thyme salt and pepper. Arrange the potatoes in a single layer in a 13 by 9-inch baking pan.

Roast the potatoes until the bottoms are beginning to brown around the edges, about 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven. Using a flat metal spatula and tongs, loosen the potatoes from the bottom of the pan and flip them. Return the potatoes to the oven and continue to roast them until they are browned on the second side, about 15 minutes longer.

Remove the pan from the oven and flip the potatoes once more. Add the chicken broth and the garlic to the pan. Return the potatoes to the oven and roast until the potatoes are tender and the sauce has reduced slightly, about 15 minutes. Baste the potatoes with some of the sauce before serving.

This is a great side dish not just for the holidays but for anytime you want potatoes. I did alter things slightly. Since I had the roast out resting for an hour and was already roasting vegetables at 425 degrees, I put the potatoes in as well and let them cook for a few minutes longer to make up for the temperature difference. They may not have been the super crispy that is described in the recipe but they were still very crispy and the sauce had thickened nicely around the potatoes. They were a great brown color and the ideal compliment to the prime rib and roasted vegetables. I think they would just as well with any other type of roast or poultry and I plan to give them a try when it is just the three of us for a meal and see how it goes.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe from our holiday meal. There is still lots to come as we had appetizers, sides and desserts galore to choose from and I had made some things just before the holidays that I haven’t even gotten to yet. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

Getting Primed for the Holidays: One-Pan Prime Rib and Roasted Vegetables

27 Dec

When we decided to host Christmas dinner this year, I knew immediately that I wanted to make a classic prime rib dinner. To me, nothing says Christmas better than a prime rib roast, and I had just seen a recipe in December issue of Cook’s Country that seemed perfect to try out and that would save some room in the oven as well. This is a recipe for prime rib and roasted vegetables all in one pan. The vegetables get roasted at a high temperature while the meat is resting so everything can be done at the same time perfectly.

One-Pan Prime Rib and Roasted Vegetables

1 (7-pound) first-cut beef standing rib roast (3 bones), fat trimmed to 1/4-inch

Kosher salt and pepper

Vegetable oil

2 pounds carrots, peeled, cut into 2-inch lengths, halved or quartered lengthwise to create 1/2-inch-diameter pieces

1 pound parsnips, peeled and sliced to 1/2-inch thick on bias

1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved

1 red onion, halved and sliced through the root end into 1/2-inch wedges

2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme

Using a sharp knife, cut through the roast’s fat cap in a 1-inch crosshatch pattern, being careful not to cut into the meat. Rub 2 tablespoons of kosher salt over the entire roast and into the crosshatch. Transfer the roast to a large plate and refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 24 hours and up to 96 hours.

Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 250 degrees. Season the roast with pepper and arrange the roast, fat side up, on a V-rack set inside a large roasting pan. Roast the meat until it registers 115 degrees for rare, 120 degrees for medium-rare or 125 degrees for medium, about 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Transfer the V-rack with the roast to a carving board, tent the roast loosely with aluminum foil and allow it to rest for about 1 hour.

Meanwhile, increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the pan. If there is not enough fat in the pan, add some vegetable oil to equal 2 tablespoons. Toss the carrots, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, onion, thyme 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper with the fat in the pan. Roast the vegetables, stirring halfway through the roasting process, until they are tender and browned, about 45 to 50 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and heat the broiler. Carefully nestle the V-rack with the roast among the vegetables in the pan. Broil the roast until the fat cap is evenly browned, rotating the pan if necessary, about 5 minutes. Transfer the roast to the carving board, carve the meat from the bones and cut the meat into 3/4-inch-thick slices. Season the vegetables with salt and pepper to taste and serve the roast with the vegetables.

This prime rib tasted amazing. It was buttery soft to cut and tasted amazing, as prime should. The vegetables were perfectly roasted as well to get great flavor from them. Don’t forget to save those bones once you cut them away as well. you can go ahead and make some incredible beef stock with those for soups later on.

I also made a quick chimichurri sauce to go with the beef. This recipe was with the prime rib recipe in Cook’s Country and really gave a nice bold taste to the dish as a whole. It is very easy to put together and would be great to go with any type of steak,

Red Chimichurri Sauce

1 onion, chopped fine

1/2 cup minced fresh parsley

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Whisk all the ingredients together in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature at least 30 minutes. Whisk again before serving.

You can make the sauce up to 3 days in advance and just let it come to room temperature while the meat rests. It is also a great addition to your morning scrambled eggs. One more thing about the roast: don’t skip out on the salting a few days before or at least one day before. It really makes a difference in drawing out the moisture of the beef so that it is nice and dry and browns really nicely at the low cooking temperature and the final 5 minute browning under the broiler really finishes it off.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe as I still have lots to share from my holiday cooking. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

4 Comments

Posted by MikeG on December 27, 2013 in Beef, Cooking, Dinner, Holidays, Sauce, Vegetables

Tags: Cook's Country, Cook's Country prime rib, one-pan prime rib and roasted vegetables, prime rib, prime rib recipe, prime rib roast, prime rib roast recipe, red chimichurri sauce, roasted vegetables

Christmas Cookie Ideas, Part 3: Alton Brown’s Gingersnap Cookies

21 Dec

Okay, so now that we have covered Sean’s cookie and Michelle’s cookie, it is time for the cookie that I made. There are a bunch of cookies I like that we eat fairly often, like chocolate chips, oatmeal raisin cookies and even Heath bar brickle cookies, but there is something about ginger snaps that I really enjoy. I love the deep ginger flavor a good one has, almost tasting spicy with a little bite to it. I can remember eating them out of the box when I was a little kid and just the smell of them alone is enough to get me thinking about them. I have made ginger snaps before, but I came across this recipe from Alton Brown a while back and had been holding back on it so that we could use these for part of our Christmas cookies. The best thing is that they are really easy to make. One thing to note about this recipe is that Alton uses weight measurements for a few of the ingredients instead cup measurements. I don’t have a kitchen scale, but if you do you can make good use of one here. I did some research online to get some conversion rates and they seemed to work out fine, so I have included the conversions here.

Alton Brown’s Ginger Snaps

9 1/2 ounces (2 1/4 cups) all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground clove

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

7 ounces (1 cup) dark brown sugar

5 ounces butter, room temperature

3 ounces (1/4 cup) molasses

1 egg, room temperature

2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger

4 ounces (2/3 cup) finely chopped candied ginger

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, cardamom, clove and kosher salt.

Place the dark brown sugar and the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on low-speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the molasses, egg and fresh ginger and beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Add the crystallized ginger and, using a rubber spatula, stir the mixture to combine. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir the mixture until it is well combined and the dough has formed.

With a 2-teaspoon sized scoop, drop the cookie dough onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet or half sheet pan approximately 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies on the middle rack of the oven for 12 minutes for slightly chewy cookies or for 15 minutes for more crisp cookies. Rotate the pan halfway through the baking process to ensure even cooking and browning.

Remove the pan from the oven and allow the cookies to stay on the sheet pan for 30 seconds before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat the process with the remaining cookie dough. Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to 10 days.

You can even freeze the cookie dough if you want to make it ahead of time and then use it closer to your desired date for the freshest possible cookies. Just scoop and freeze the cookie dough on a sheet pan and once it is frozen place the cookie dough in a resealable bag to store in the freezer. You can then bake the cookies directly from the freezer as the recipe instructions suggest.

One more thing about the recipe. The conversions can be a little confusing if you don’t have a scale and you may question if you have too much or too little of a particular ingredient.This recipe showed me that it is probably a good idea to have a kitchen scale for recipes like this. In any case, when I first mixed the dough it seemed way too loose and dry, as if it had too much flour. After some consideration, I decided to add another egg to help balance things out since that was the only liquid in the recipe other than the molasses. I think I could have added more molasses too and still have gotten good results but the taste might have been a lot stronger than I wanted. The extra egg seemed to even things out and the results were perfect. A very ginger-tasting cookie with just the right texture was what I ended up with.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for some more recipes. I made a nice Cuban pork shoulder and black beans in the slow cooker last night that was a great recipe that I will be sharing. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

2 Comments

Posted by MikeG on December 21, 2013 in Cookies, Cooking, Dessert, Holidays

Tags: Alton Brown, Alton Brown's ginger snaps, Christmas cookie recipes, Christmas cookies, ginger snap cookies, ginger snap recipe, gingersnap cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies

Christmas Cookie Idea, Part Two – The Easiest Peanut Butter Cookie Ever

19 Dec

Continuing along with the Christmas cookie theme when we had made cookies this past weekend, Michelle opted to go for a peanut butter cookie. She and Sean both love these cookies, and even though I am not a big fan, they are always a big favorite whenever they are made. Now there are lots of peanut butter cookie recipes out there and most of them are not very difficult to do anyway, but this one seems to be the easiest one I have ever come across. All you really need to do is put the ingredients together in a bowl, give it a mix, portion out the cookies, bake and you are done. This particular recipe makes use of Bisquick to help it do everything and make it even faster.

Easy Bisquick Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup smooth peanut butter

1/4 cup butter, softened to room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup boiling water

2 cups Bisquick

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line some cookie sheets with parchment paper and spray the paper with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the peanut butter, butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, water and Bisquick. Mix all of the ingredients on medium-low speed until everything is well combined and dough begins to form, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Using a small cookie scoop or tablespoon, scoop rounded mounds of the cookie dough onto the parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Using the back of a fork, lightly press into the cookie dough mounds to flatten slightly and make a pattern into the cookie dough. Place the cookie trays in the oven and bake the cookies for until they are a lightly golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes, rotating the cookie sheets about halfway through the baking process. Allow the cookies to cool on the cookie sheets for about 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.

This recipe generally makes 2 to 3 dozen cookies in total, depending on how big of a cookie you like to have. Michelle and Sean gobbled these up and loved the rich peanut butter flavor. it turns out to be a rather dense cookie in my opinion, which I attribute to using Bisquick in the recipe, but if you like that kind of cookie than this one is certainly for you. The best part is that the recipe requires very few ingredients, most which people usually have on hand (which was perfect for snowstorm weather) so you can really make them any time. Michelle actually makes these often when she makes cookies.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time when I will feature the cookie recipe that I made that day. It is another easy one and a take on the classic gingersnap cookie, always one of my personal favorites. I also have some other recipes that I have tried recently to share, including a baked ziti, a roasted boneless leg of lamb, some quick biscuits you can make any time in a snap, and more. I also have my Christmas menu planned so I will get to share that with you as well. Until next time, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!

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Posted by MikeG on December 19, 2013 in Cookies, Cooking, Dessert, Holidays

Tags: Bisquick peanut butter cookies, Bisquick peanut butter cookies recipe, Christmas cookies, peanut butter cookie, peanut butter cookie recipe, peanut butter cookies

A Christmas Cookie Idea, Part One: Lemon Crinkle Cookies

17 Dec

After taking a couple of days off while a stomach virus ran rampant through our household, I am back with a new post. This past weekend while we were snowed in on Saturday we each decided we were going to make a Christmas cookie of our own. All three of us scoured recipes to try to find one that we would like to make while using only the ingredients we had in the house already since we were being pelted with snow. The first one to come up with one was Sean, who found this recipe online for lemon crinkle cookies. It’s a very straightforward recipe that produced some very yummy results.

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease light-colored baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray or cover them in sheets of parchment paper and set them aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and the granulated sugar together until the mixture is light and fluffy. Whip in the vanilla, the egg, the lemon zest and the lemon juice. Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix again until everything is well incorporated. Stir in the salt, baking powder, baking soda and flour slowly until it is all just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix everything together again briefly. Pour the confectioners’ sugar onto a separate plate. Roll a heaping tablespoon of the cookie dough into a ball and then roll it in the confectioners’ sugar to coat. Place the cookie on a baking sheet and repeat the process with all of the remaining dough.

Place the cookie sheets in the oven and bake the cookies for 9 to 11 minutes or until the bottoms of the cookies begin to barely brown and the cookies look like they have a matte finish, not melted or shiny. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool for about 3 minutes on the trays before transferring them over to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

This recipes makes about two to three dozen cookies, so you should get plenty from them. I really enjoyed the lemon flavor of these cookies. It is subtle and not overpowering like some lemon cookies can be and it combined nicely with the sweetness of the sugar. Best of all, it was really simple to make and doesn’t require a lot of ingredients. For most people, it may be things you already have on hand all the time so you could easily make these any time of year, not just for the holidays. We were all quite pleased with the results of this one and Sean was very happy that he made such a good cookie himself.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another cookie recipe from our cookie day. Next up will be Michelle’s choice of cookie. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day, and enjoy your meal!