Archive for the ‘Dish Types’ Category

Best Cheese Grits EVER.

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

>матрациe has been snow here.  A lot of snow.  It’s finally starting to melt, but thanks to the snow, I have been eating a lot of cheese grits this past month.  They soothe the cabin-fevered beast and are a great warmup after shoveling snow.  But today, I had an idea – and it was a spectacular idea.  Instead of making the grits with water, why not chicken stock?  Well, the result was AWESOME.

I wish I had a photo – I took some quick shots, but when I pulled them off the memory card, they were blurry – and I’d already finished the grits by then.  (I’m quite certain I’ll be making this again, so there is hope that I can get a shot.)

Best Cheese Grits Ever:

1/4 c. old fashioned grits (NOT instant)
1 1/8 c. chicken stock or broth
2 ounces shredded chipotle cheddar cheese
salt & pepper

Bring the stock to a boil, add grits, stir well.  Set heat to LOW and cover.  After about 6 minutes I hit it with the salt & pepper.  Then at the 12 minute mark, I stir in the cheese.  I did notice that with the chicken stock, it was still a touch soupy at the 12 minute mark, so I let it go another minute or so.  (In the future I may just cut it back to 1 cup of stock.)

Once the cheese is stirred in, sit back and enjoy!

According to the grits package, 1/4 c of grits is 2 servings.  Maybe if you’re eating it with something else.  Otherwise, it’s one perfect serving on it’s own.

Happy New Year!

Monday, January 4th, 2010

OK, a few days late, but better than never!  Spent Christmas week visiting a relative in Phoenix, got back on the 30th and have been trying to get back to something resembling “normal”.  Unfortunately, the year started off with a big old cooking FAIL.  Yesterday we had our Christmas here at home, and I wanted to make sausage cheese balls.  Just been on my mind for a while and Christmas seemed a good as excuse as any!

Now, I haven’t made these in about 10 years.  I pulled the recipe from the Betty Crocker/Bisquick website.  I thought the proportions seemed quite a bit off – 3 cups of bisquick, 4 cups of cheese?  To just one pound of sausage?  But then I thought, hey, it’s Bisquick’s own recipe!  They of all people should have it right.

I should have trusted my instincts and found another recipe.  They were awful.  Ended up as sort of a cheesy dough with bits of sausage and just terrible.

Next time I’ll be using this recipe from Consumer Web Help – the proportions seem much more reasonable and the sausage isn’t so far outnumbered by the cheese & Bisquick.

Ah well, lesson learned.  Onward and upward!

I so love baked potatoes…

Sunday, December 13th, 2009
i-so-love-baked-potatoes

I really do.  When I gave my brother a choice of baked or fried potatoes with dinner and he chose baked, I certainly couldn’t argue it.

So easy, so simple, so good.  Prep time of a whole 2 minutes of washing them off, poking them a couple times with a fork and tossing in a pan. An hour in the oven at 400 degrees and that’s that.  Even twice baked are easy, another 5 minutes of mashing them up and a couple minutes back under the broiler.

They’re healthy (even with toppings – just don’t use an entire pint of sour cream) and easy and one of my favorite sides.

All hail the lovely baking potato!

Oh, Sweet Pickle, how I love thee…

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
oh-sweet-pickle-how-i-love-thee

Would a gherkin by any other name taste as sweet?  I certainly hope so.

No matter how modern the holiday relish tray may become, you will still sit at centre stage of the crystal tray.

Your sweet crunchiness hits the spot every time, and your tiny diced up bits do lovely things to tuna and ham salads, and my hot dogs would be empty without your relish.

Let us all raise a pickle to the man who first sweet brined a tiny cucumber!

*crunch*

Enjoy your turkeys!

Thursday, November 26th, 2009
enjoy-your-turkeys

Have a wonderful and tasty Thanksgiving everyone.

TurkeyQuest 2009: Success!

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
turkeyquest-2009-success

In my fridge there is a 7.92# Shady Brook Farms turkey breast!  The first market I went to last evening had at least a dozen of them.  Much better than the year I had to go to 3 different stores to find one.

I always get the biggest one I can get my hands on, because the leftovers will NOT go to waste.  I like turkey, but don’t eat it a whole lot.  My brother LOVES turkey.  Last year he had 8 meals in a row of turkey sandwiches after Thanksgiving.  We’ll see if he can break the record this year.

As it stands, we will again have enough food for a small army, even though it’s just my brother & myself.  But I won’t have to cook for at least 3 days afterwards!

The cheese & sausage plate will be a meal in and of itself.  I’ve got summer sausage, hard pepperoni and…  There’s one other thing and I can’t remember what it is off the top of my head but it’s in the fridge.  For cheeses, we have good old sharp cheddar, pepper jack, salsa jack (never heard of it before, but it looked interesting,) smoked gouda and dill havarti.  I also have a roll of Salame Panino.  (Salame rolled in mozzarella!) It just looked really yummy.

Can’t wait!

Gobble Gobble!

Monday, November 23rd, 2009
gobble-gobble

First, Thanksgiving may be weighing too heavily on my mind – I could have sworn I heard a turkey in the neighborhood this morning.  And I don’t live in an area where we have wild turkeys wandering about.

I have just about everything I need for Turkey Day – except the Turkey, and today will kick off that quest.  I usually get a fresh* turkey breast, and it is always a little more challenging than I expect it to be.  You can’t buy it too far ahead of time, or you’ll have to freeze it, which kind of defeats the purpose of getting a fresh one, and if you wait too long, then they’re all gone.  And there have been years where one of the stores I shop at just never got them in!  (The poor butcher that I pestered several days in a row was as perplexed as I was – every day he was told they would be arriving and they never did.)

And I need to do a bit of rearranging of the fridge contents so it has a spot until Thursday morning.

Wish me luck!

*I don’t think that frozen is terrible or anything, I’ve just heard too many horror stories of the turkey refusing to defrost…

The Thanksgiving Relish Tray…I had no idea!

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
the-thanksgiving-relish-tray-i-had-no-idea

Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn did a whole write up on the Turkey Day relish tray last week. I’ll be perfectly honest – I had NO idea this was such a big deal. Apparently there are all sorts of modern variations on the theme being employed across the country!

I really thought it was just one of those odd things my family did. We have a cut glass tray (no partitions) that holds the sweet pickles. (Yes, I have a brand new jar just for next week! Or until I break down and open it in the next couple days.) We also have a cut glass bowl that would old some seriously gawdawful California Black Olives. I never understood the draw on those, and once it was just my brother & I for Thanksgiving, that one went out the window.

But, the post has been rattling around in the back of my head all week, and I got to thinking… I have had olives that I really did like. Perhaps it’s time to hit one of the olive bars at the local markets and pick up a few olives that are actually edible! Maybe some pickled onions?

Perhaps this year we’ll bring a new tradition to the table.

Another for the “To Attempt” list – Oven baked breaded fish

Thursday, November 12th, 2009
another-for-the-to-attempt-list-oven-baked-breaded-fish

From Lobstersquad – looks incredibly easy and I’ll have to give it a whirl sometime. I usually pan-fry or broil fish fillets, so this looks easy and different.

And really, go look at her page, lovely illustrations as always!

A NomTastic breakfast

Monday, April 20th, 2009

What happens when  you take your traditional Easter brunch egg casserole and divide it by 4?

A very yummy little breakfast for one!

Here’s the recipe, thanks to the Virginia Hospitality cookbook (circa 1975…)  (Note: If you cut it down to a 1 egg serving, it takes approximately 35 minutes at 325 degrees.)

2 c. plain croutons (I use the cheese/garlic croutons)
4 oz. shredded cheddar cheese  (I really don’t know what this equates to in cups, I just kept shredding and weighing.)
4 eggs, beaten
2 c. milk
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. mustard
1/8 t. onion powder (optical communicationsI think 1/4 c. diced onions would work fine as well)
dash of ground black pepper
4 slices crumbled bacon

Put croutons & cheese in bottom of greased 10×6x2 casserole dish (my 8×8 worked fine)
Combine everything else, EXCEPT bacon.
Pour egg mix over croutons & cheese.
Top w/crumbled bacon

Bake 1 hour at 325 degrees.  Don’t worry if it’s “jiggly” when you take it out – let it sit for 5 minutes to cool enough to eat, and the eggs will finish setting. 8 servings.

Nutrition info:
Per Serving: 177 Calories; 11g Fat (56.5% calories from fat); 10g Protein; 9g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 119mg Cholesterol; 386mg Sodium.  Exchanges: 1/2 Grain(Starch); 1 Lean Meat; 0 Non-Fat Milk; 1 1/2 Fat; 0 Other Carbohydrates.