A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Broiling the Perfect Steak in Five Easy Steps

Going out to dinner for a nice steak can be just the thing after a long day, but doing the same thing at home, only in t-shirt, shorts, and no shoes, can be just the ticket as well.  Steaks are one of those things that seemed intimidating to me years ago, but it only took a little practice to gain confidence quickly.

Lots of folks are very accomplished on the grill. To be honest, I'm not so much simply because with only me and Gene in our small family, it feels like way too much work to drag out the grill for two steaks.  The answer? Broiling.

 With four simple ingredients and five simple steps, the process is painless.

Appetizers with Style: Christmas Tree Veggie Plate

My friend, Jennifer, sent me a pic of the appetizer plate she made for a Christmas work party. I LOVE this!  What a great way to turn a simple veggie tray into a festive wrok of art!

It's as straight-forward as it looks: She halved one broccoli spear, leaving about 3 inches of "trunk" and then laid in bite-sized floret bites to form the tree itself.  Next she decorated with yellow pepper slices for garland and then added cherry tomato ornaments. The final touch is a treetop star cut out of yellow pepper using a small cookie/hors d'oeuvre cutter.

Thanks for sharing, Jenn!

 

 

 

Last Minute Food Gifts: Cookie Dippin'

I'm down to the wire. After making two huge batches of Ghirardelli/French vanilla cocoa mix and pomegranate winter comfort tea and I-forget-how-many batches of chai-spiced pretzels and curried almonds and cashews....I'm almost out of goodies and there are still so many people I wanted to share with! Sigh.  But since I have to work the next three nights, sleep during the days, and take the nieces and nephew's presents over to my sister's house Friday afternoon but wanted to take goodies there too... What's a girl to do?  Improvise! 

This blog's not called "A Fridge Full of Food...and nothing to eat" for naught. I grew up at my mother's side in the kitchen and she was the Queen of pulling something good to eat out of her....cupboards!  I had some Wilton candy chips, a few dark chocolate chips, and a bag of leftover caramel chips (from Halloween for caramel apples).  Gene found a box of 'Nilla wafers in the back of the pantry and ran to the store for a few packages of sandwich cookies.

It's Not That Complicated: Julia Child's Croques Monsieur/Croques Madame

 

While watching the movie "It's Complicated" on cable recently I found myself salivating at Meryl Streep's character's chocolate croissants, roasted chicken dinner, and something I'd never heard of before: Croques Monsieur.  In the movie she serves it to Steve Martin's character on a business-ish date while "hilarity ensues" from Alec Baldwin's character as he window peeps on them.  The dish, that they ate with knife and fork, appeared to have been baked and looked creamy and cheesy melty.  She makes reference to having learned to make this dish while in France studying pastry and the reference is repeated by Alec's character talking about how much he misses this dish and how special it was to him.

I thought to myself "Self, you need to investigate, create, and blog this wonderful cheesy thing they're spreading Dijon mustard on and eating with a knife and fork."  As myself often listens to me, I did, and I found that, like my polenta adventure, I was pretty familiar with the dish and remembered how much I liked it:  Grilled Ham & Cheese Sandwich.  That's the basic form and I've included that stripped down bare bones version as Julia Child made it.  There are gussied up versions that include baking in the oven rather than grilling in a pan, and added vegetables, eggs, and sauces, but the basic idea of the Croque Monsieur, or "Crispy Mister" is a Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwich that was originally served in France in casual bistros around 1910 and has survived ever since. Why? Because it's yummy!  The key difference between a Croque and it's American cousin would be quality of ingredients.  It eschews Wonder Bread for a nice homemade loaf, Kraft American Slices for gruyere or Havarti or Swiss, and a nice ham slice. 

Crispy, hot, and cheesy, it's yummy comfort food with an exotic name.

Nieces and Nephew Summer Slumber Party: Easy Cheesy Mac for a Crowd

 

Once a year or so we try to have a big slumber party with all three of our nieces and our nephew.  Two of them live here in town but the other two live about an hour away with their mom. Just because of work, school, life in general, we don't get to see them as much as we would like but we all know how it is, right? But we do try to have an overnighter when we can so that we can do an Aunt Gonnie and Uncle Gene and the kids thing where it's more about hanging out and catching up with what's going on in their lives.

One of the things I've learned over the years is to try to put aside the OCD "party" definition in my brain that tends to make all things including food and house cleaning into a spectacle so big that by the time my guests/friends/family arrive I'm so tired from over-working myself that I didn't use to enjoy the "together" part of getting together as much as I should have.  These guys are my nieces and nephews. They know I'm not a perfect housekeeper and they don't want a meticulously Martha Stewart set table or gourmet food so this family casserole my brothers and sisters and I were raised on is perfect fare for the occasion: quick and easy to make and yummy to eat. I even made it up the day before so that all I had to do was slip it in the oven when I went to pick up the kids at my brother's and then my sister's house.  We grew up with Mom (Karen) calling it "goulash" but it's not the traditional Hungarian dish of chunked meat with vegetables, it's an Americanized version from the 50's, I believe, that's made with hamburger, macaroni, and a tomato sauce.  Gene's mom had a recipe for it in her recipe box called "Chuckwagon Macaroni". The recipes follows the jump, along with lots of fun dorky pics.

Night Shift Birthday Party: Jessica's Cucumber Sandwiches

 

One of the great side effects of work birthday parties is getting to taste new recipes like these pretty open-faced cucumber sandwiches our friend Jessica brought in.  Easy to make, they were delicious, so good Carrianne and I ate almost a container of them by ourselves (luckily, there were three containers so others could indulge too).

By the way, I'm going to start adding Cook's notes to recipes with "use this...or that..." and I've set up a new category to reflect recipes that take substitutions well.   So many times recipes can be equally good using several different ingredients and it can all depend on what you have in the pantry or what you need to use up from the garden.  Not all cooks are adept at making those substitutions the way I was taught growing up in my mother's kitchen.  Quite frankly, we were very poor and running to the grocery store for a $5.00 ingredient was rarely an option so my mother became extremely proficient at still trying new recipes while also still using her pantry items on hand.  For example, most recipes that call for asparagus taste just as great substituting broccoli when asparagus is out of season, zucchini for eggplant, or in this recipe Cavender's Greek Seasoning is a great substitute for fresh dill when you don't happen to have fresh from the garden on hand.

I Heart Summer: Fresh Green Beans

 

In the south, we are traditionally horrible about overcooking our vegetables, particularly our green beans but with summer's fresh produce I've found that there really can be a nice middle between my love of my Nannie's beans with bacon and onion, and a nice tender-crisp bean with lots of color and taste.

This recipe bridges the gap between the love of bacon flavor without all the saturated fat and also between a torturous cooking time and on-the-spot dinner.  I also throw in some walnut pieces for extra crunch and flavor that enhances the bacony goodness.

Quick & Painless Meals: Crockpot Chicken & Dressing

My new favorite meal for a busy day is to throw chicken breasts or thighs and dressing into the crockpot. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.  There's no reason that stuffing has to be baked.  Granted it doesn't look as pretty in the crockpot but it's delicious and hearty and good for you if you take the extra 10 minutes to add veggies and nuts into the dressing mix.

Chilled and Dilled: Cucumber & Fresh Corn Soup

 

The perfect soup for a perfectly hot and humid day here in the Ozarks.  My inspiration was the fresh dill that came with our CSA this week and the heat.  Something about long hot days makes me crave cucumbers. They're like the Tylenol of the vegetable world--they'll reduce that summer day feverishness quickly.

Shredded Chicken Soft Tacos

Needed something quick and easy (and good for us) for dinner the other night and hit upon this great solution:  shredded chicken soft tacos. It's so easy you almost don't need a recipe (but I'll give you one anyway!)