First Attempt: Ribs (Method #3 - Slow-cooker)

So awhile ago, I was shopping, and I saw ribs on sale. I have never made ribs, so I bought some.  I posted on Facebook and tagged a few foodie friends rib-masters to give me some pointers.  One, a friend I have known since fifth grade, gave me no response.  The second didn't want to share his secrets at first.  I promised I didn't need secrets, just a bit of technique & strategy coaching. (I am still working on getting him to share his meatball recipe). He then replied so no one else could see his post with his overall method. He has cooked his ribs for our family twice before. I do not blame him at all for being secretive.   Method #1

Unexpectedly, a friend of a friend (the non-responsive one) whom I've just met posted and said she was a ribs fanatic and posted her favorite ribs recipe.Method #2

Even more unexpectedly, one of the youth from church that recently went away to college proceeded to post his favorite ribs recipe.  The bonus...it was a slow-cooker recipe! Method #3

So, the day after Thanksgiving I am trying to deep clean the house and parent three children while The Man of the House gives us a new bathroom floor with our male-good-friend/god-parent of Cashew.  Female-good-friend-godparent was coming over after work for food and dominoes.  With all the busy going on in the house the last thing I wanted to do was mess up the whole kitchen and need to clean it up again with a big cooking project, so I went for  the slow cooker ribs.

OMG, they were good. I would recommend them for even the most novice cook. Easy and delicious.

Season the ribs with salt & pepper. Brown your ribs under the broiler for fifteen minutes.  Flip. Repeat. (I put mine in my roasting pan).

In the slow-cooker mix two cups ketchup, one cup chili sauce (I used Franks hot barbecue), some oregano, smoked paprika, & thyme, 1/4 cup cider vinegar, & a 1/2 cup brown sugar. Oh, the recipe called for a table spoon of hot sauce, but FGFGP and they boys dont like spicy food, so I didn't want to overdo it.  Some Tobasco, Blazin' wing sauce from BWW's or some cayenne might be good.  You could totally mix & match the sauces and spices for different flavors. The recipe didn't call for the thyme & paprika, but I thought they sounded good.

After you are done browning and the sauce has come together, put the ribs into the slow cooker & cover with the sauce. Set on low and let 'em sit for 6-8 hours.

You might consider cutting the ribs into segments so they are submerged in the sauce and get a good braise, but because I was home all day, I kept bathing the ribs in the sauce with my giant silicone basting brush. I think they would be fine if you didn't.  This could totally be a middle of the week meal.

The friends brought over a head of leaf lettuce. We had beer for the grown-ups, a green salad, and left over sweet potatoes from the day before. There were NO leftovers. You have to try this technique.  They were so good, I might not even need to try technique #1or #2. Might not, but I probably will anyway, but seriously, NO leftovers.

Holiday: Rachael Ray 2-4-6-8 Family Supper

This year's Thanksgiving we stayed put.  Siblings and grandparents in one city...my sister/sister-in-law are nurses and both work the day after Thanksgiving.  Mom and in-laws all work retail, so they aren't free the Friday after.  I was on the fence until our worship & music coordinator at church asked our brass ensemble, for which I play trumpet, if we could play at the Thanksgiving Eve service.

I said to our Man of the House, "Let's just stay home," to which he quickly agreed.  I have a tendency to  go overboard when I start to do menu planning for any sort of festive occasion, so I mentally committed myself to NOT doing that and keeping the spirit of simplicity and not traveling in mind.  I remembered seeing a couple of "Thanksgiving everyday" recipes/menus in my cookbooks, so I forwent (yes, that's a word) my beloved Epicurious Thanksgiving menu planner and went hunting.  I found a few options, but settled on the "Family Supper" menu from Rachael Ray's 2-4-6-8 cookbook.  It consists of herbed turkey cutlets with a creamy pan sauce, green beans with pearl onions in a balsamic sauce, and garlic chip smashed potatoes. We also added a sweet-potato casserole (that could've just as easily been dessert) because we love sweet potatoes in pretty much any incarnation, and the Man saw the picture over my shoulder when I was perusing a cookbook from the library.  

I am not a pumpkin pie eater, but the Man LOVES the stuff, so I put him in charge of the pumpkin pie with just a little help and guidance.  We had leftover filling, so I suggested we pour it into the mini-muffin pans and make little custards out of the rest of it.  The Man had a moment of inspiration and crumbled up some graham crackers and put it in the bottom of each cup with some cinnamon and sugar.  I actually liked these better than I like actual pumpkin pie. Much less overwhelming with the same repeated mush texture. I even enjoyed the Cool Whip, which I usually pass on.  Because I don't cook pumpkin pie much, I'd forgotten how long it takes to cook & cool, so the pumpkin pie itself is sitting on the counter ready for consumption. It won't last the weekend.

How's that for desert first?

I made the sweet-potatoes first because I wasn't sure how they'd work into the pre-planned Rachael Ray menu. They were, true to Ms. Valladolid's show title, quite easy.  I felt like the 9x13 was too big, so instead of layering long halved bananas and sweet potatoes I cut them all into chunks, but otherwise followed the recipe.  I think I would use a smaller baking dish next time and make it look more like the picture on the web link. 

After the sweet-potatoes started baking, I followed Rachael's itinerary for the meal. Marinate the cutlets, cook the potatoes, finish the cutlets, finish the potatoes, do the beans. I followed the recipes exactly, except for the turkey pan sauce, I felt like it was not thickening at all, so I added a little flour and let it cook for a LONG time.  Oh, and I used red potatoes and left the skins on.

Since I can't find a link that shows the beans or potatoes, I'll give you a quick run down. It's something like this:
 2 1/2 lbs. potatoes
1/3 C cream or 1/2 & 1/2
4 cloves garlic
2 handfuls chopped flat leaf parsley
3 tablespoons of butter

Cook the halved potatoes in boiling water. Drain.  Put a think layer of EVOO in the pan. Slice garlic and cook til golden.  Add cream & parsley.  Add potatoes back in. Mash. The red skins, flecks of golden garlic, & bright green parsley were lovely. It tasted even better than it looked.

The beans.
1lb. beans.
1pkg. frozen pearl onions (I used canned. The Man couldn't find anything else when he ran to the store for me.)
3T balsamic
1/2C chicken broth
2T butter

Trim the beans. Cook the beans in boiling water, about 4 minutes. Drain. 
Put EVOO in pan. Cook onions til they get a little color.  Add balsamic & chicken broth. Reduce by half.
Add beans back. Toss.
Melt butter & serve.

No one complained about any of the food. There's lots of leftovers, but very clean plate.

Cashew could not participate as fully as the rest of us, and has now awakened to eat more with me. I am being summoned and must go.

Soup: Bacon & Crab Chowder

I didn't cook as much as I'd planned for the week.  We kept it simple going into the Thanksgiving holiday.  This chowder popped out at me when I got the little email up-date in my hotmail account that I use for newsletters and commercial email listserv type communication.

I used a combination of vacuum sealed chunk crab and imitation crab. The boys thought the imitation crab was hideous cold, which floored me, because I used to steal that stuff from the counter any chance I got if Mom & Dad were cooking with it, but at least the kiddos thought it was good in the soup.  The Man liked the imitation crab better; I liked the real stuff.  They were not even remotely similar in taste or texture for this application, but both were good.

I also happened to throw in some leftover corn and an overripe tomato to get them used up when we had the meal again a second night, and no one thought it was any worse for the addition.  It served the four table-food eaters for two meals (with a crusty whole grain wheat bread & some butter on the side) plus the Man and I each took some for lunch one day to work and there is a tiny little serving left in the fridge to be finished this weekend. I've noticed that Rachael's portions seems to be pretty generous compared to what we eat, but the boys are little, so we'll see if I keep thinking that.

The second night, before I reheated the chowder on the stove top, I mixed up a light roux to thicken it up a bit. I don't know if it's because I used 2% milk instead of the whole that it called for, but it was thinner than I like my chowders to be, and the roux did the trick.

We didn't have oyster crackers on hand, but The Sassy One had cheese-Ritz Bitz from his Auntie staying the night before, as she always comes bearing treats, so we all munched a few of those.  We also skipped on the chives, only because I hadn't been to the store in a few days to get any.

The Man & I tried several hot sauces and both agreed that Frank's, while usually our favorite, wasn't quite right for this recipe.  I really enjoyed Tobasco and he preferred simple crushed red pepper.  There's lots of room for interpretation in this one.

Enjoy!

Not cooking: A few days of getting by & dinner out

After several nights of scrounging leftovers and whatnot, we had a fancy dinner out for a friend's birthday at Hell's Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis for a good friend's birthday.  The friend has introduced us to some excellent people at a recent dinner, so it was nice to converse with them. We ordered some Barbecue Nachos for the table.  Said Birthday friend is a wine guy, so he paid a corkage fee and had us all covered for the evening.  He even had a thirty-three-year-old wine to share, in honor of his birthday. It wasn't terrible, but the cork pretty much turned to dust, so high-jinks ensued trying to get that baby out. The wine was over-aged, but none of us had ever had a thirty-three-year-old wine before, so that was all part of the experience.
         Good food, good company, good night. (I mean that quite literally, as I convinced the Man of the House cut out early. I fell asleep on the way home, and again when I was nursing the baby.  I woke up around 1am when the Man was dealing with the Sassy One and the Tiny Little Cashew tumbled off the bed onto a pile of dirty laundry. Apparently the Man had fallen asleep in front of UFC when I never came to tell him to go to bed.
          When I got Cashew righted and put safely to her crib, I found Sassy lying on the bathroom mat. I was bleary-eyed, tired, & confused. I took my contacts out, slipped on some pjs, swished my mouth with Listerine, and let the Man deal with whatever it was that I couldn't quite make sense of.

Two nights later, we went to the Zac Brown Band concert with our good friends (Cashew's godparents).  Female-good-friend-godparent wanted to do dinner out before hand. You will NEVER hear me object for a chance to explore the culinary offerings of our fair city. The show was at the Target Center, so we went for something close. I suggested Solera and the other's agreed after we confirmed times and location and all.  I love, love, loved it!  I think the Man & FGFGP liked it almost as much. I'm not so sure about MGFGP as he literally has no sense of taste (I'm sure I'll write more about that some other time), and so the joys of tapas and flavor varieties, etc. may have been a bit lost on him.  We did get to try some amazing food.  If you've never had Spanish-style tapas and you like a variety of good flavors, I'd have to recommend you go for it.  (We actually did a tapas menu for Elizabeth's baptism, and it was a hit...another Rachael Ray hybrid, actually, from her "Greatest Hits" type cookbook).

I had an amAzing glass of red wine that was a tempranillo blended with a Spanish grape that starts with a "c" and I can't remember anymore.  Most expensive glass of wine I've every purchased, but I'd honestly say it was worth it.  ($15/glass, if you care) Michael had a sangria that I don't remember the details of, but suffice to say, it was good.

We ordered some pistachio chicken croquetas, duck liver mousse, jamon iberico (ooh, I'm on a laptop and I don't have my special characters and that's going to drive me nuts...eee), and a Mahon cheese plate for the first round, stuffed piquillo peppers, prawns al ajillo, baby-back ribs, and some bacon-wrapped, goats-cheese-filled dates. The dates were to-die-for. No lie. They were maybe the best thing I've ever eaten. I would make a special trip JUST for those.  Our last round we had some lomo (cured pork, similar to the iberico) and some braised beets (golden and red).  Everything was good.  I know I'm forgetting something. Everything came with things like cracker-crisps, quince jelly, marinated pistachios, bread-and-butter pickles (which I usually hate, but actually kind of liked) and some day-pickles. 

With the alcohol, the tab was a bit spendy. Luckily, unlike Friday we didn't have to pay for a sitter. (Family helping out, thank goodness).  Cannot *wait* to get back!

Slow Cooker: Cheesy Chicken & Potatoes

Tuesday is gymnastics night at our house for The Big Kid and The Sassy One.  It generally ends up being a family affair, as one or both of them usually pleads, "I want everyone to come," in a voice that I really kind of hate, but can't really refuse, because what am I supposed to say? "No, I don't want you to value your family and enjoy having us all do activities together!"  So, on Tuesday, I try to do a plan-ahead or a slow cooker kind of meal.

This Tuesday was especially chaotic.  Immediately after school we had parent teach conferences (3:30).  I picked up The Sassy One to go home and finish dinner, while our Man of the House collected Tiny Little Cashew & The Big Kid. All converged at home to refuel and reset, change clothes, etc.  Gymnastics for Sassy started at 5:15. Tonight Big Kid would skip gymnastics to go to his wrestling camp again at 6:15. I had the privilege of hauling Cashew along for the ride so our Man could help coach Big Kid in his camp. Not a down moment, and even less so than usual.

Tonight's meal was from the Holiday Food & Family: Slow Cooker Cheesy Chicken & Potatoes. I did a quick chop last night of the peppers and used the mandoline to slice the potatoes.  Can I just say that a)I'm getting much better at using that thing, on a very basic level (I still can't handle all the waffle-fries, julienne-crazy masterpieces, but hey I had evenly sliced potatoes!), and b)I really want one of those nifty kevlar glove thingies instead of that awkward food holder. 

I hadn't taken the chicken thighs out of the freezer early enough, so I there was no way I was going to pry them out of the package, let alone get their skins removed (yes, I could've bought skinless-bone-in, but I just get what's on sale and use it later). I was kinda worried that the potatoes would get that gross greyish color that potatoes get sometimes when they aren't used right away, so I poured the cream of chicken soup (if one can pour condensed cream of chicken soup) on the potatoes and peppers and spread it out kind of as a barrier.

I left the potatoes and what-not in the crockery and the chicken on the counter to thaw for the night.

In the morning while the Man of the House was helping the small people get breakfast, I skinned the thighs and plunked them into the cooker.


When I got home tonight, I followed the recipe directions (except I didn't use a slotted spoon....or fresh parsley). It was a hit.  The Man and I decided that the sauce needed a bit of kick. I added smoked paprika, about triple the Worcestershire and some red pepper flakes. It was yum.  The Big Kid ate well. The Sassy One did ok, but we had to  rush him off to gymnastics so he didn't eat as much as I would've liked.

It says to cook for 6-8 hours. By virtue of our schedule today it was more like 8-10.  Dialing back the time would've been good for the potatoes, but overall, it was a great meal. We'll definitely repeat this one, and while the long cooking might make it hard to make it pretty, it was definitely good enough for leftovers tomorrow.

Breakfast for Supper: Caramel-Apple Baked French Toast

I got to work today and thought, "Oh, crap!" The motivation behind the exclamation?  I knew exactly what I'd planned to make for supper, but hadn't taken the meat out of the freezer.  After school/work, we had activities (wrestling camp last night) to go to, so the window for family dinner is pretty small.  I emailed my husband as follows.

OOPS...supper

We forgot to take food out of the freezer for supper tonight. I was planning on doing Chicken Marsala.  

We have options.

A) You go to the store. Buy a bunch of their cheap chicken. Potentially grab other items on shopping list. Also buy fresh mushrooms because I didn’t differentiate on the list when you went last week and we needed both fresh & canned.  I start cooking when I get home. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/chicken-marsala-recipe/index.html Here’s the recipe. It’s easy.

B) Eat out.  ?? We have the BOGO from Pei Wei, I think.

C) You thaw out the sausage from the freezer when you get home & we do breakfast for supper tonight with the French toast/bread pudding & it just doesn’t get as much time to soak in the pan.  

Love yoU!

 He declared -breakfast for supper-.  We had received a bunch of day-old/must-sell-by-x-date stuff from one of the local grocery stores at church. I had a loaf of delicious-looking, but fairly stale, caramel-apple-cinnamon bread. I decided I'd make a baked French toast/bread pudding. I've got a couple of recipes I had worked with before, so I had an idea of how to modify and use up what was in the fridge.

Emeril's blueberry french toast is great, but let's be real, it's a dessert.  Holy cow! And I use this overnight French toast recipe all the time from Real Food for Healthy Kids, but I was making do and using what was on hand.

So, I cut the loaf into chunks, and tossed 'em in a 9x13" baking dish.  Took out a mixing bowl and poured in what was most of a pint of half&half (any sort of dairy-type liquid would work fine) and cracked about seven eggs.  I liberally shook on some ground cinnamon and grated a bunch of fresh nutmeg into the milk & eggs and then beat them with a wire whisk.

I pulled about 4-5 medium apples out of the fridge, quartered & cored them, and then chopped into bite-sized pieces.  I spread all the apples on top of the bread chunks and then poured the milk/egg mix evenly over the pan, pushing down on the bread to get it to soak up as much as I could.  

So, I dropped some little spoonfuls of brown sugar over the mix to enhance the 'caramel-apple' feel.  This baby went in the oven at 350. 

In the meantime, I cooked up some sausage we'd thought out quick in the sink and a fried all for all interested parties. I tried a 1/2 hour on the French toast, but that didn't seem long enough, so I tried the broiler to cook the eggy parts and brown the tops. It helped, but still not done.  We had to leave for wrestling. I was going to watch, as it's the only night I could attend.  

What to do?!  I put the oven as low as it could go (170) and left it in. We all ate our eggs & sausage and loaded up.  We got home and the kitchen smelled AMAZING!!  Everyone had a bowl of our French toast/bread pudding.  The Big Kid had seconds. The Sassy One ate without whining for help.  I even put some apple & bread chunks in a Munchkin food-net thingy and Tiny Little Cashew went to town.  

This was definitely leftovers-lunch for tomorrow. 

Notes:

If you don't have stale bread and you do have the time, leave it out for a day or so (overnight, even). The dryness of it will help soak up the custard (i.e. egg & milk mix) better and you'll have less goo in the pan. -That's a technical term, goo.

Any bread - whole wheat, raisin, cinnamon swirl, will work. Adjust for what you have, what's on sale, or what you like. 

Mix up the fruit topping and/or whatever else you want to throw in.

As in the inspiration recipes, you could absolutely make this ahead and get a more custardy result or have it ready to throw in the oven for any meal.

You don't HAVE to cut up the bread if you want whole slices.