You are here: Home / Archives for Stretching your dollars

Slow-Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken

February 17, 2012 by 86 Comments

Update: Like a goose, I left the onions out of the ingredients list and instructions. I have fixed and updated the recipe. My apologies to those who might have printed it before seeing the correction. I imagine it will still taste marvelous made sans onion, but with onions, it sings!

Everybody wants a unicorn recipe. It’s the kind of dish we all secretly hopes exists but despair of actually finding.  You try recipe after recipe after recipe trying to find something, ANYTHING that isn’t a burger (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) or a hot dog (Nothing wrong with that, either, but EGADS, give us some variety, please.) that will make everyone happy. All we want is tasty unicorns.

What would you say if I told you that I have a slow-cooker recipe that requires no more work than chopping an onion and a few garlic cloves and a wee bit of ginger, whisking a few liquids together and pouring it over some boneless skinless chicken thighs in the slow cooker? And then if I were to tell you that you didn’t have to do any pre-browning on that chicken? Wait, then I also said that it was easy on the wallet, too.

But what if I followed all that up by saying that four hours after doing that, you would have a dish that (even out of the slow-cooker) was deep and complex, flavourful and beautiful, and made every single person in my family happy. Would you think I was a liar?

Or would you believe me if I told you this is a unicorn?

Normally something that simple doesn’t yield palatable let alone fabulous. This, however, is fabulous.

Sweet, tangy, spicy, garlicky, gingery with a velvety sauce and tender chicken. It’s just so very good. I first saw this over on my friend Amy’s blog and knew I had to try it. True to Amy’s promise of success, we had no leftovers the first time I made it (and I had doubled her recipe!) And as a testament to the taste of this unicorn, I made it again just under a week later, this time with a few changes that I wanted to try. My husband was on (ANOTHER) business trip, and again, I doubled the amount of meat. And again? No leftovers. I repeat. NO LEFTOVERS. My five sons and I polished off a batch of it that was every bit as large as the batch that my adult male husband helped us consume earlier in the week.

Woah.

A.) These guys eat a lot. Okay. I’m no slouch. But still… I weep for my food budget.

B.) I may have to triple the recipe next time.

C.) Help.

When I told my husband later that night what we’d eaten for dinner as we caught up over the phone, he said, “Oh man. I missed it? That stinks.”

He had gone out to a restaurant that night and was jealous of our dinner. I call that a score for me.

Let me tell you one more thing, though… I’ve mentioned my picky pants gruesome-twosome anti-veg contingent before, right? They sucked this up like hoovers. They didn’t slow down to realize there were itty bitty minced onions in the dish.

Saddle up this unicorn and believe!

 

Print
Slow-Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken

Slow-Cooker Honey Sesame Chicken

Sweet, tangy, spicy, garlicky, gingery: You never expect something that is this simple to make to taste this deep and complex. With a maximum of 10 minutes of hands-on time required to put this together, you will be thrilled and so will the rest of your family!

Adapted with big thanks from my dear friend, Amy of Very Culinary

Ingredients

  • 3 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
  • salt and pepper
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce
  • 1/2 cup minced onion
  • 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
  • 1 tablespoon minced or grated fresh ginger
  • 4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
  • 3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
  • 4 teaspoons cornstarch
  • 1/4 cup of water
    • Serve with:
  • Hot cooked rice
  • Sesame seeds
  • Scallions, thinly sliced

Instructions

Very lightly season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and place them in the slow cooker.

Whisk the honey, soy sauce, onion, ketchup, canola and sesame oils, ginger, garlic and pepper flakes together in a mixing bowl and pour over the chicken thighs. Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 4 hours, or until the chicken is tender and cooked through.

Use tongs or a slotted spoon to transfer the chicken to a rimmed plate or bowl and cover lightly with foil, leaving the pan juices in the slow cooker.

Stir the cornstarch into the water with a fork or small whisk until dissolved. Whisk the mixture into the pan juices in the slow cooker. Re-cover the slow-cooker and turn the heat to high. Let it cook and thicken for 15 minutes.

Carefully transfer the chicken back into the slow-cooker. Serve the pieces of chicken over the hot cooked rice, spoon the sauce over the chicken and garnish with sesame seeds and scallions.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/02/17/slow-cooker-honey-sesame-chicken/

 

Filed Under: Comfort Food, Happy Healthy and Wise, kid food, Main Dish, Meat, Rebecca, Recipes, slow-cooker, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , ,

DIY Body Wash and Liquid Hand Soap

February 15, 2012 by 13 Comments

As you can imagine, a home with five sons, an evil genius handyman husband, two dogs, an elderly cat and fifteen chickens can get a little -how to say- malodorous. Don’t misunderstand, I love every one of the aforementioned scent producers, but people… it can be a little hard on the nose around here.

Par example: I sent one of my children (name redacted for the sake of their future pride. We’ll refer to him here as Stanky Hank.) to the shower. Stanky Hank was in the shower for ten minutes. He emerged soaking wet and still covered with dirt. The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: You were in there for ten minutes. Why are your hands, feet, arms, and knees still covered with dirt stains?

Stanky Hank: Oh, I was supposed to get rid of those?

If I told you this was the rule rather than the exception, would you faint? Because I’m feeling a little faint thinking about it. And before anyone offers me smelling salts, remember, I live with a bunch of walking smelling salts.*

*Free social history lesson. Do you know what smelling salts actually were? They were bottles of ammonia solids mixed with aromatic essences. In short? They smelled like cat pee mixed with perfume. Remember, they were designed to wake you up. Now I’m not accusing my kids of smelling of cat pee, I’m just saying they have the potential to wake you up. But I digress.

Foodie With Family Trivia Moment: I’m obsessed with triple-milled French castile soaps. For those not equally obsessed with soap, castile soap is made with olive oil (translation: great for your skin). And the triple-milled soaps? Lush. Lush is the best word. My obsession extends most specifically to my favourite soap brand: Pre de Provence.

 

These massive bars of soap are unparalleled in the world of pretty smelling things. In scents like Coconut, Rose, Linden, Sage, Mint Leaf, Honey Almond Lavender, and my favourite- Green Tea- this soap makes me want to strap a bar to my nose just to get through life a little more happily. Although, upon reflection, walking around with a bar of soap strapped to my head might provide it’s own set of challenges…

…But I’m belabouring the point. I have used these soaps for a long time. The guys, however, didn’t want to use my pretty smelling soaps because they favour body wash over bar soap. They favour liquid hand soap over soap dishes. Sigh. My adorable cretins.

I’ve already told you about my happy, happy, super cheap and mega-effective homemade laundry detergent and my allergy-sufferer friendly unbelievably easy homemade air fresheners. You know I love to make pretty smelling things. Between that and the description I just gave you about my menfolk you can imagine that when I ran into this over on Pinterest, I was ready to make it immediately. STAT. Right away. Now. Time was a-wastin’.

Thanks to a proclivity for collecting lovely smelling soaps and a stash of vegetable glycerine from my previous Grand Marnier making forays, all I needed was to boil a gallon of distilled water.*

*Since even we cannot go through a gallon of soap in a week, I opted to use the boiled distilled water to slow any potential microbial growth in the soap. Distilled water has minerals removed (I used this because our water is hard) but still needs to be brought to a boiling temperature to kill any bacteria in it. I think we can all agree that a petri dish full of soap does not sound appealing, right? “Hi. My name is Rebecca and I’m a germaphobe.”

That’s right. It’s just three ingredients. THREE.

And because it is just three I have three pieces of advice about the choice of soap:

  1. Use one whose smell you love in the bar form because it will intensify a bit in the liquid form. It doesn’t have to be my beloved Pre de Provence. Just choose one that you adore.
  2. Choose a non-lotion soap. The lotion will prevent the soap from setting up well.
  3. Don’t choose a soap based on colour. Whichever colour soap you choose, your liquid soap will pretty much end up the same pearlescent shade of white.
  4. Did you know WordPress doesn’t recognize pearlescent as being spelled correctly? But by the same token WordPress doesn’t recognize itself as being spelled correctly. Yes. I know this is a fourth bullet point, but it’s not advice. So there.

I followed instructions and let the soap set up overnight. This leads me to two very important pieces of advice.

  1. Do not  put a lid that can absorb odours on top of your pan. Mainly because it will.
  2. Don’t panic if you have what looks (and feels, at first) like a solid mass of soap because it will loosen up.

Regarding that second piece of advice, I do not own a hand-mixer. WHAT? Yes. It’s true. I got rid of it because my husband insisted that he make mashed potatoes with them. After I made mashed potatoes with a ricer and a wooden spoon, he agreed, but I decided to remove temptation and thus avoid gluey potatoes from here on in… but again? I digress.

When I removed my now permanently scented lid from my pan, I touched the top of the soap and thought, “Well, that’s nice. I have a giant disc of soap jello.” After I jabbed at it a few times with my whisk, it started breaking down a bit. It was still a little too, er, chunky for our liking.

I found my egg beaters and set my very energetic six year old to mixing up the goo.

Do you have a six year old lying around? They’re dead handy.

Would this be easier using a hand mixer? You betcha… but an eggbeater and a six year old is an equally effective if slightly slower solution. If it had been any thicker, I might’ve heated it back up, added a bit more water and stirred it in then let it cool again to test the viscosity before bottling. As it was, I was happy. The now lovely smelling six year old and I ladled the liquid soap (which has a bit of a stringy consistency that doesn’t effect the overall product but takes a bit of adjustment if you’re using to the usual liquid soaps) into the gallon jug that had held the distilled water and found we needed more containers. We went on to fill an empty liquid hand soap container and an empty mid-sized body wash container. The breakdown on cost is:

  • For a gallon of distilled water ($0.69)
  • A bar of Pre de Provence Green Tea Soap ($6.69)
  • Two tablespoons of vegetable glycerine ($0.75ish)
  • Yield of about a gallon and a quarter, give or take a bit ($8.13).

My guys smell good. Really, really good. As in, “DAD! Mom keeps sniffing me!” good. $8.13 for a giant jug of body wash and hand soap is reason enough to make it, but the way they smell is priceless.

And lest you worry about nostril bombing with perfume, let me reassure you. My husband, as part of his Evil Genius job qualifications, is a super sniffer. His nose is very sensitive indeed. If this was overwhelmingly perfumey you wouldn’t be able to get him near it even with a ten foot pole. Whether it’s the fact that this particular soap -Pre de Provence Green Tea- is just a straight up wonderful and mild manly scent, I can’t say. But I can promise that Mr. Twitchy Nose and the five little urchins love it. And me?

Well, I get to swoon for an entirely different reason now.

Print
DIY Body Wash and Liquid Hand Soap

DIY Body Wash and Liquid Hand Soap

Make your own custom body wash and liquid hand soap with just three easily find-able ingredients for a fraction of the cost of pricey store versions. Be prepared to smell fantastic!

Recipe from and method adapted slightly from The Farmer's Nest

Ingredients

  • 1 (8 ounce) bar of castile soap (Pre de Provence, Dr. Bronner's, etc...)
  • 1 gallon distilled water
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable glycerine

Instructions

Bring the water to a boil in a large non-reactive pot (stainless steel or glass). Grate the bar of soap on a metal box grater. Add the soap shavings and vegetable glycerine to the boiling water, stirring frequently, until the soap shavings are completely dissolved into the water. Remove the pan from the heat, cover tightly, and let rest undisturbed overnight or for at least 8 hours.

After it has rested, break up with an egg beater or with a hand mixer until smooth. If it is too solid, warm over the heat again, add a little distilled water and let cool again to test the consistency. Repeat until you reach the desired viscosity for your soap.

Put a funnel into the now empty distilled water jug and ladle the soap into the jug. Ladle any extra soap into empty hand soap bottles or jars with tight fitting lids.

Use like you normally use body wash or liquid hand soap.

Store unused soap in a cool, dark place. If you're a nervous Nelly type, you can store it in the refrigerator.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/02/15/diy-body-wash-and-liquid-hand-soap/

 

Do you want to try out my favourite soap? You can click on the “Books, Gear, and Supplies” tab right below the header, then click on the “Make it Smell Good!” category.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Non-food recipes, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , ,

Make Ahead Meatballs | Baked Meatballs and Polenta (Make Ahead Monday)

February 13, 2012 by 11 Comments

Update: A very astute reader (thank you, Elizabeth!) noticed that I had inserted one of my children’s math problems in the “how to make meatballs without a disher” portion of the recipe. If you had followed the instructions I gave, you’d end having SIX HUNDRED tiny, wee, adorable meatballs and cursing my name. Yeesh.  In case you were wondering, the problem was 30X=600. Solve for x.  Let this be a lesson to you. Don’t write and derive.

I vow not to correct my children’s math homework while finishing a post again. At least until next week.

With a Grandma from Arkansas and a Grandpa from West Virginia and a Mom -their daughter-  who learned to cook from them, I was brought up on good Southern food. The fact that I lived in Kentucky for six years as a child in my formative years helped matters along a little, too… In short, I run on grits.

There are very few things that grits can’t make better. Cold outside? Eat grits. Broken heart? Cheese grits. Nervous about anything? Simple buttered grits with salt and pepper. Feeling celebratory? Shrimp ‘n grits. Hungry? GRITS.

What can’t grits do? Creamy, chewy, soft, and hearty, grits are corn done right. So what does my Ode to Grits have to do with the dish pictured above? That’s polenta. And leaving aside the stoneground cornmeal vs. lye water soaked field corn bit of the discussion, polenta is, as my kids so poetically refer to it, Italian grits. Pronounced, in this case, EYE-tahl-ee-uhn.

We are nothing if we are not classy.

Italian grits bridge an argument that my dear, sweet, deluded husband and I have been having for years. Concisely, he likes his pasta gross. Seriously. He likes fine pastas (angel hair, thin spaghetti, etc…) and he likes it cooked past tender. As in mushy. I like substantial pasta (buccatini, shaped pastas, linguine) and I like it al dente. How have we ever made this work? By chucking most pasta dishes and agreeing on polenta. We both prefer polenta under meatballs and sauce, beef stew, and other various saucy morsels of goodness.

So while other couples make like Lady and the Tramp this Valentine’s Day, my sweetheart and I will be sharing a bowl of Italian grits topped with sumptuous baked meatballs and trying to eat faster so we can get the last spoonful.

In addition to being classy, we’re competitive. This makes us doubly fun on game night.

This meal is a fast one when you use a Make Ahead Monday advantage. I have to say that I’ve tried quite a few meatballs in my day, and these come in at the top for taste, ease and versatility. Yes, this recipe makes a lot (referring to both the frozen meatballs and today’s baked meatball recipe) but the uses are many.

The frozen meatballs can be baked up in a pan full of sauce like I did here, but they’re also divine in sweet and sour meatballs, tossed in barbecue sauce and kept warm in a slow-cooker for a party, or tossed in a cream sauce for a non-traditional (since it lacks pork) but incredibly delicious Swedish meatball dish. And if you find yourself with half a pan of baked meatballs in sauce leftover, you could do much, much, VASTLY worse things than meatball subs or a meatball pizza. When I tell you that those make boys happy, I speak empirical truth. All the minions back me up on this one.

For just one minute, I’m going to do something I don’t often do. I want to address two separate groups of people. First…

To Those Cooking for Three or Fewer People Per Meal:

Don’t panic when you see the quantity of meat called for in this recipe. Once these meatballs are made and “flash-frozen” then stashed in the freezer, you can take out and warm as few as one meatball or as many as you’d like if you’re serving guests. The meatballs are good for eight months, properly wrapped in the freezer. Since the recipe yields sixty meatballs, a person cooking for one would only have to consume approximately three meatballs every other week to go through these in time. That is totally do-able. Yes? In other words, I wouldn’t reduce this recipe. You never know when my family might show up at your door hungry. And what would you do then? Hmmm???

To Those Cooking for Four or More People Per Meal:

Don’t, under any circumstances, reduce this recipe. In fact, you wouldn’t be crazy if you doubled it. And if you’re cooking for six or more people? Triple it. If you have teenage kids? Quadruple it. I think you get my point, right? This is hard-core kid-pleasing food. You might be surprised how often you rely on your stash of meatballs.

~~~

Why not just buy frozen meatballs at the store? Because they’re gross. Every frozen meatball I’ve ever purchased (from store brand to boutique brand) has tasted waterlogged and bland (WHERE, I ask you WHERE are the herbs? Garlic? Spices? Flavours?). And even when they were on sale and I had a coupon, the expense was not justified by the product. My thoughts about commercially available meatballs can be summed up with a resounding, “Blech!”

Homemade frozen meatballs are most emphatically not blech! They great, are a massive convenience, and can be made when meat is on big sale at the store or butcher’s.

This leads me to a final word about the choice of meat in these meatballs. Most recipes for meatballs and meatloaf call for a blend of beef, pork, and veal in order to keep them tender and moist. I buck tradition here and not only call for all beef, but also for lean beef at that. Crazy? Well, it might not be what most recipes call for, but for me, it is the perfect meatball. It holds together, it’s moist, it’s flavourful, it’s like Mary Poppins: practically perfect in every way. If you’d prefer to use a blend, feel free -by all means- but this is my favourite version by far, and after this many years in the kitchen, I no longer feel like I have to do things “the right way” all the time.

 

Print
Make Ahead Meatballs | Baked Meatballs In Sauce and Polenta (Make Ahead Monday)

Make Ahead Meatballs | Baked Meatballs In Sauce and Polenta (Make Ahead Monday)

There is no dish more comforting than a bowl of creamy polenta topped with piping hot perfect meatballs in garlicky red sauce with a generous handful of grated cheese on top.

...And when the meatballs are waiting for you in the freezer, this dinner comes together in mere moments. Make Ahead Mondays save the day! These versatile meatballs are also great in barbecue sauce, in sweet and sour meatballs, in soups and on sandwiches and pizzas.

Ingredients

    For the Make Ahead Meatballs:
  • 4 1/2 pounds of lean ground beef
  • 1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs
  • 1 cup onion, minced super fine (I use the food processor to obliterate them to placate the anti-visible veg crowd)
  • 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and very finely minced or pressed
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped (or substitute 3 tablespoons dried parsley flakes)
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (preferably freshly ground)
    • For the Baked Meatballs in Sauce:
  • 25-30 frozen meatballs, directly from the freezer
  • 5 cups of your favourite red sauce (Marinara, ragu, etc...)
  • 2 anchovy fillets,finely chopped
  • 1/2 cup shredded Romano, Parmesano or Asiago cheese
  • 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
  • nonstick cooking spray or olive oil to grease the pan
    • For the Creamy Polenta:
  • 5 cups chicken stock (or water)
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 cup coarsely ground cornmeal (polenta grains)
  • 1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese (substitute Parmesan cheese if you don't like bleu cheese!)
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • coarsely ground black pepper to taste
    • Additional Optional Garnish:
  • Freshly grated Parmesano, Romano or Asiago cheese
  • Minced fresh parsley

Instructions

To Make the Make Ahead Meatballs:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Line 2 rimmed half-sheet pans (13-inch x18-inch) with parchment paper and set aside.

Combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl and use your hands to mix it gently until all ingredients are evenly distributed. Use a medium sized disher* to scoop equal sized amounts of the meat mixture onto the prepared pans leaving about 1/4-inch of space between the meatballs. If the shapes are shaggy, you can go back through and lightly roll each one between your hands to even out the shape a bit.

*No disher? No problem. Cover your work surface with waxed paper and turn the meat mixture out onto it. Gently pat it out into a large rectangle. Use a pizza cutter or knife to mark the mixture into 10 evenly sized columns on the long side of the rectangle and 6 evenly sized rows on the short side. This will give you 60 equally sized amounts. Roll each one into a meatball, placing them on the parchment lined sheets as directed above.

Bake the meatballs for 30 minutes. Transfer the meatballs to a platter, cover lightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until completely cool. Place the platter in the freezer until the meatballs are frozen through. When they're completely hard, transfer them to a resealable plastic bag, squeezing as much air from the bag as possible before sealing. Label the bag and freezer for up to 8 months.

To Make Baked Meatballs in Sauce:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray a 9-inch by 13-inch pan with non-stick cooking spray or brush with olive oil. Arrange the frozen meatballs evenly in the pan

In a mixing bowl, stir the sauce, chopped anchovy fillets, and shredded Romano, Parmesano or Asiago cheese together. Pour the mixture over the meatballs, then sprinkle the mozzarella cheese over the top.

Bake, uncovered for 30-40 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly, the cheese is slightly browned and the meatballs are heated through.

To Make the Creamy Polenta:

Bring the stock or water to a boil over high heat in a medium, heavy-bottomed pot. Add the salt, lower the heat to medium and then whisk in the cornmeal, a little at a time, until it is all in and the cornmeal begins to swell and stay suspended in the liquid. Drop the heat to low and let simmer, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until the polenta is quite thick, the grains are all swollen and tender and the liquid is absorbed.

Turn off the heat, add in the butter and crumbled or grated cheese, and stir until both are completely melted and incorporated.

To Serve:

Ladle the polenta into serving bowls and top with 3-6 meatballs, depending on how hungry you are! Garnish the bowls with additional grated Parmesano, Romano or Asiago cheese and minced fresh parsley if you'd like.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/02/13/make-ahead-meatballs-baked-meatballs-and-polenta-make-ahead-monday/

 

Filed Under: Component Foods, Main Dish, Meat, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , ,

Soup Dumplings and Irresponsible Wonton Soup (Make Ahead Monday)

February 6, 2012 by 40 Comments

My husband has been doing a lot (A LOT) of business travel lately. As in he’s been gone more than he’s been home, unfortunately.  Before he headed out for a particularly long stretch a couple weeks ago, I ran to the store and bought giant multi-packs of paper towels, toilet paper and saltine crackers. As he helped me unload the back of the car, he threw me a weird look. I said, “If I don’t get all this, it’s a certainty that as soon as you leave everyone is going to start throwing up and I’ll have to go to the store with a fever and five kids in tow looking like death warmed over trying desperately to find toilet paper and paper towels and saltine crackers because no one can keep anything else down. And when I get to the store I’ll find that there’s been a run on crackers for some reason and they only have the one-ply toilet tissue. You wouldn’t want that to happen would you?”

I get a little panicky when I know I’m going to be flying solo for a long period of time. Call it neuroticism informed by experience, but I’m sure many of you have been down this same path.

The car was pulling out of the driveway when I heard, “Mom… I feel like I’m gonna…” and  you know what came next. It was going to be one of THOSE WEEKS. It was almost inevitable. But hey, I had saltines…

Saltines, however, can only sustain a family so long. So what are you to do when all available grown-ups are either feeling punky or are out of town, the kids are sick and it’s dinner time? That’s when you have a couple options: a.) order out. b.) eat chips c.) take something out of the freezer. If you’re like me, none of that sounds particularly appealing. But I’m being tricky. I have an ulterior motive.

With the casserole and cream-of-whatever-soup centric once a month cooking, food from freezer has taken a bum rap lately. I’ve already talked about my dissatisfaction with OAM cooking, so I won’t belabour the point except to say this; I get really tired of eating things that taste alike day after day. And again? I’m being tricksy and beating around the bush.

This is where I break into my own story to make a quick announcement. I’m adding a new feature here on Foodie with Family (fanfare! Bum-ba-da-DA!) Every Monday we’re going to revamp freezer food’s reputation together. Make Ahead Monday is going to feature one recipe were we do the bulk of the work on a recipe and freeze it properly so we can have fresh, varied, delicious food cooked from frozen on THOSE NIGHTS.

“But wait!” you say, “Isn’t that pretty much the same thing as OAM cooking?” Well, no, and let me explain why. One of the main points of OAM cooking is taking one or two days to cook all of the meals you’ll need for the month. Make Ahead Mondays is -at its essence- making one item every week to stash in your freezer to help you get meals on the table when you’re too busy to think.

And because the quality of food that’s been frozen is largely reliant on the way you freeze it and cook it after freezing it, Make Ahead Mondays will include instructions on the best way to stash and reheat your goodies. Most Make Ahead Mondays will feature a new recipe, but every so often, we’ll go back into the Foodie With Family archives to highlight an older recipe that holds up well to this treatment.

For our inaugural Make Ahead Monday, I’m excited to share one of my favourite soups of all time with you: Wonton Soup. This fast soup is made using fragrant ginger and scallion pork stuffed wontons that you make and freeze ahead of time. With the wontons in the freezer, this soup pulls together with only six essential additional ingredients that you usually have on hand (or nine if you want super tricked out wonton soup.)

This isn’t just my favourite soup here. It holds the distinction of being the one and only soup that absolutely everyone in the household loves madly. We’re all crazy about it. It is the only soup that I don’t have to threaten to withhold dessert in order to get the two youngest to eat. It is just about perfect in every way. Clear, fragrant, and ever-so-slightly garlicky broth with soft, pillowy ginger scallion pork dumplings and matchsticked carrots poured over thinly sliced scallions is a recipe for pleasing everyone in our home. Okay, so I omit the carrot sticks and thinly sliced scallions in the bowls of the two little ankle-biters, but that’s no big shakes. They have no idea how much scallion they’re ingesting in the dumplings. BWAHAHAHAHA!

Speaking of children and wonton soup, the name of our soup requires a little explanation. As I was preparing this very soup the other night, my eldest son entered the room and asked what I was making for dinner. “Wonton soup!” I replied. He got a wry look on his face and said, “Wouldn’t you say that’s irresponsible?” and waited for my reaction. It took me a full minute to get the joke, but when I did, I felt very secure in the knowledge that our vocabulary work has paid dividends. We have changed the name of the soup to Irresponsible Soup.

You can make as many wontons ahead of time as you’d like, just keep in mind that they’re good for up to six months in the freezer when properly frozen and wrapped, so plan accordingly. And like the dumpling recipe itself, the soup recipe lends itself to scaling up beautifully. Just apply the same cooking method and you can make dumpling soup for a crowd as easily as soup for one. If you don’t think this soup beats every container of take-out wonton soup you’ve ever had, I’ll eat my, well, I’ll eat the soup for you. How about that?

I’d love your opinion. Do you think Make Ahead Mondays will be helpful to you or am I going to have to do some real convincing to get you to agree that there’s nothing irresponsible about it? I can’t wait to hear what you all think!

Print
Frozen Soup Dumplings and Irresponsible Wonton Soup (Make Ahead Monday)

Frozen Soup Dumplings and Irresponsible Wonton Soup (Make Ahead Monday)

Clear, fragrant, and ever-so-slightly garlicky broth with soft, pillowy ginger scallion pork dumplings and matchsticked carrots poured over thinly sliced scallions is a recipe for pleasing everyone in our home and is certain to please you and yours, too.

Make a big batch of the soup dumplings (double, triple, shoot for the moon!) to keep on hand in the freezer for busy nights and last minute cravings.

Ingredients

    Frozen Soup Dumpling Ingredients:
  • 1 package wonton wrappers (about 48 3-inch square wrappers)
  • 1 pound ground pork
  • 1 tablespoon fish sauce
  • a 2" piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated or very finely minced
  • 6 scallions, finely minced
  • 2 tablespoons corn starch
  • 2 tablespoons dry sherry or rice wine
  • 1 egg, beaten
    • Additional Ingredients to Make One Serving of Soup:
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 3 cups chicken stock or broth
  • 7 frozen soup dumplings
  • 1/2 of a small carrot, cut into matchsticks
  • 1 clove of garlic, peeled but whole
  • 1 scallion, thinly sliced, green and white parts separated.
    • Optional For Serving With Soup:
  • fish sauce or soy sauce
  • chili garlic sauce or Sriracha
  • fried chow mein or wonton noodles

Instructions

To Make and Freeze Dumplings:

Line a large platter or baking sheet with parchment paper or plastic wrap and set aside.

Add the pork, fish sauce, ginger, scallions, corn starch and sherry or rice wine to a mixing bowl and stir together vigorously until it is evenly combined.

Lay out four wonton wrappers at a time on a cutting board or clean work surface and brush the entire top surface with beaten egg. (This keeps the dumplings from popping open while simmering in the soup.) Scoop a scant teaspoon of the meat mixture into the center of the wonton wrapper. Gather up the edges around the filling, pinch together and give a gentle twist to seal. They will resemble a beggar's purse or little head of garlic or onion. Place each dumpling on the prepared platter with enough room between them so they do not touch. Repeat with remaining meat and wonton wrappers.

When you have completed the dumplings, cover with plastic wrap and lay the platter or pan in the freezer. When they are fully frozen, transfer the dumplings to a resealable plastic bag, gently squeeze the air from the bag and keep in the freezer for up to 6 months.

To Prepare the Irresponsible Wonton Soup:

Drizzle the bottom of a heavy-bottomed saucepan with sesame oil and place the frozen dumplings flat side down on top of the oil. Place the garlic clove alongside the dumplings and scatter the matchsticked carrots and the whites of the scallion over the top of the dumplings.

Add one cup of stock and turn the heat to medium high. The stock will only come partway up the dumplings.

Bring the stock to a full boil. then add another cup of the stock. When that reaches a full boil, add the final cup of stock and bring once again to a boil. Allow it to boil fully for 5 minutes.

Add the thinly sliced green parts of the scallions to a serving bowl. Use a deep spoon to transfer the dumplings and carrots to the bowl and then pour the hot broth over top.

If desired, you can serve with a splash of fish sauce or soy sauce, a dollop of chili garlic sauce or Sriracha and a handful of fried chow mein or wonton noodles.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/02/06/soup-dumplings-and-irresponsible-wonton-soup-make-ahead-monday/

Filed Under: Accessible Ethnic, Component Foods, Freezer Pleaser, Happy Healthy and Wise, kid food, Rebecca, Recipes, Soups & Stews, Stretching your dollars

Bubble Pizza (Pizza Monkey Bread)

January 31, 2012 by 16 Comments

Isn’t there some sort of sporting event coming up this weekend? Some big deal? Football something or other?

I’m a little fuzzy on that point, I’m just thinking I’ve heard talk.

Anyway, if you happen to be going somewhere or having lots of people over, you might be expected to have some finger food available. It’s only natural. And if you’re looking for something fast and filling, it doesn’t get much better than this.

We’re talking about Bubble Pizza. What is that, you say?

Pizza dough + pizza sauce + pepperoni + scads of cheese = Bubble Pizza

In other words, it’s a  lip-smacking, comforting, puffy, pizza-goody-packed, cheesy, gooey, easy, crowd-pleaser. If you’re not cooking for a crowd, don’t despair. If you serve this with a nice green salad, you have a complete meal that’ll win over everyone other than the dearly departed Doctor Atkins.

Here’s a bonus… If you keep this dough on hand, Bubble Pizza is never more than an hour away!

Print
Bubble Pizza (Pizza Monkey Bread)

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Bubble Pizza (Pizza Monkey Bread)

Some parts crispy, some tender, but all gooey, cheesy, pizza-y and full of pure comfort, Bubble Pizza is the perfect addition to your big game party food, but it's equally at home served with a big salad for a fast and satisfying weeknight meal.

Ingredients

  • 1 pound pizza dough (like this) , cut into 16 roughly equal sized pieces or storebought
  • 2 cups of your favourite pizza sauce (like this)
  • 3 cups grated part-skim mozzarella, separated
  • 25 thin slices of pepperoni, cut into quarters
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
    • Optional:
  • sliced green onions for serving

Instructions

Drizzle the olive oil into a 9-inch to 12-inch cast iron skillet (or other heavy oven safe skillet.) Use a pastry brush to distribute the oil over the bottom and up the sides of the pan.

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the pizza sauce, 1 cup of the mozzarella and the pepperoni slice quarters until evenly mixed. Drop in one piece of dough at a time, use tongs or two forks to turn it to coat both sides, then transfer to the prepared pan. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough. If any of the sauce mixture remains in the bowl, use a spoon to dollop it in small amounts over the dough that is in the pan. Sprinkle the remaining cheese evenly over the prepared dough and let rise for 10 minutes before preheating your oven to 425°F with a rack positioned in the center third of the oven.

When the oven reaches the correct temperature, slide the pan into the oven (on top of a rimmed baking sheet to catch drips if the dough, cheese and sauce look precariously close to the top of the pan. Remember it will rise higher as it bakes!) Bake for 25-30 minutes (or longer, if necessary) or until the bread is puffy and well-set and the cheese is melted and browned. Remove the pan from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes. Lay a platter or plate that's slightly larger over the top of the pan before carefully inverting.

If desired, you can sprinkle sliced green onions over the Bubble Pizza before serving. Serve warm!

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/01/31/bubble-pizza-pizza-monkey-bread/

 

Filed Under: Bread, Comfort Food, kid food, Party Food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Baked Maple Oatmeal

January 13, 2012 by 27 Comments

I know I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m not a breakfast person. I maintain that with one big exception. See that bowl up there? That’s the exception. That is baked oatmeal.

I had a big time Goldilocks complex about oatmeal, and not being someone who eats until ten-thirty/eleven-ish each day, I never really felt compelled to get serious about perfecting my porridge. I dutifully made oatmeal for my crew in the wee hours most days, went about my morning routine, then came back to the leftovers when my hunger kicked into gear. I repeatedly tried it to see if it was dinging my chimes yet. Not so much. By the time I was ready to eat, the stuff I’d made them in the early morning hours was  a stodgy clump of thick grey goo. Ew.

*Notable exceptions to the oatmeal blahs were my stepmom’s piping hot camping oatmeal chock full of dried fruit and seeds and drizzled with maple syrup and my dad’s peanut butter and dried fruit combos. Somehow, it just never tasted as good when I made it for myself. This is either due to the tastes-better-when-someone-you-love-makes-it-for-you-phenomenon or to the fact that I never got to eating it until about two hours after it was made. Sigh.

Then I saw Erica Berge’s gorgeous baked oatmeal a few months ago and decided to give oatmeal another whirl. Boy am I ever glad I did because it solved every issue I’ve ever had with oatmeal. It is golden and firm and moist where normal oatmeal is grey and mucilaginous and wet. The texture is like a cookie crossed with a cake crossed with granola crossed with oatmeal. Leftovers hold and reheat beautifully where regular oatmeal becomes a weird amorphous mass. See, that? That is the real kicker. It’s the holding over well that sealed the deal for me. My kids were able to have something they loved, LOVED, first thing in the morning for breakfast, and I was able to have something I loved when I was good and ready to start chowing down.

If you, like me, are doing all you can to get your brain into gear before you’ve caffeinated it, there is an added bonus; you can mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl, and mix/cover/refrigerate the wet ingredients the night before. Then, while still bleary-eyed the next morning,  combine the two mixtures while the butter melts in the preheating oven, pour, bake, and ta-da! You’re a hero! Quite conveniently, a double batch of this takes almost exactly as long to cook as my Pilates routine takes to complete. Admittedly, keeping me going until lunchtime is not such a challenge since my breakfast comes a paltry hour before my noon meal, but my kids are another story and this does the job admirably.

The smell of this baking is one of the easiest ways to get even the hardest-to-wake children out of bed. It has to be one of the most perfect ways to start a blustery, cold day. The comfort factor of golden, maple-kissed baked oatmeal cannot be exaggerated. With the wintery weather we have predicted this weekend, I can promise a pan full of this will be greeting my kids on our breakfast table Saturday morning and I guarantee we’ll be warm enough to face whatever blows our way!

A tasty hint:

While the oatmeal tastes wonderful by itself, when you follow Erica’s advice and serve with a splash of heavy cream on top it becomes dreamy. There is no way I can recommend the addition of heavy cream highly enough. Do. It.

 

Print
Baked Maple Oatmeal

Baked Maple Oatmeal

The comfort factor of this golden brown, maple-kissed, baked oatmeal reminiscent of cookies, granola, and cake cannot be exaggerated. There simply is no better way to wake up on a blustery morning than to a bowl full of this drizzled with cold heavy cream.

Recipe courtesy of Erica Berge of Cooking for Seven with gentle adaptations.

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup (1/2 a stick) of butter
  • 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (do not substitute quick or instant or steel cut oats)
  • 1/2-3/4 cup raw or maple sugar preferably (You can substitute granulated or brown sugar if necessary.)
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tablespoons maple syrup (you can substitute Golden Syrup if you prefer it.)
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or 3/4 teaspoon ground vanilla)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. While the oven is preheating, unwrap the butter and place it in an 8-inch x 8-inch or 9-inch x 9-inch baking pan. Place the pan on the center rack of the oven and let the butter melt as the oven heats. (As soon as the butter is melted remove the pan from the oven or the butter may scorch.)

Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together the milk, eggs and vanilla extract in a separate bowl, pour over the dry ingredients and mix together with a sturdy spoon until everything is evenly combined and wet. Scrape into the pan with the melted butter and stir until most of the butter is incorporated, but there are little pockets of melted butter still visible at the corners.

Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Serve hot with a splash or a good glug of heavy cream.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/01/13/maple-baked-oatmeal/

Filed Under: Breakfast Foods, Comfort Food, kid food, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian

Sticky Garlic Ginger Venison (or Beef) Stir Fry

January 6, 2012 by 21 Comments

 

I was a weird kid. Unlike many teenaged girls that I knew, I hated babysitting.  I only did it a handful of times and each time ended up providing me with a cautionary tale of terror about children. It’s a wonder I decided to procreate.

One time, a couple had me babysit their infant while they went out for dinner and a movie. Being so very rural, that required a drive of no small distance, so the evening was going to be a long one. Their house was decked out with all kinds of deer, elk, and moose heads on the walls and I had an overactive imagination. It wasn’t long before I was convinced those heads were watching me wherever I went in the house. I called my mom who did not laugh at my fears, but instead sent my aunt over to check on me. My aunt helped me drape dishcloths from the antlers so I couldn’t see the eyes on the critters and I was fine. At least until I forgot to take down the towels before the couple returned. They didn’t say anything, but I wasn’t asked back again either.  I didn’t blame them and I was somewhat relieved. I promised myself I would never eat deer, put a deer head on the wall or marry a hunter.

It’s funny how life can change you. Somewhere along the line, I realized how delicious venison is and did a nice about face. In fact, I became a little obsessed with venison.

My husband decided to take up hunting two years ago at my request.  He did it semi-enthusiastically. He liked the idea of cheap meat, but wasn’t thrilled about the whole process of gutting. He was a man who was torn.

I was a little more excited about the whole thing. Okay, let’s be honest. I was a little Lady Macbeth about it. I wanted venison and I wanted it badly. We had hunting friends and neighbors who kindly shared venison with us and one mega-hunting buddy who went so far as to give a couple of deer he had harvested to us in their entirety last year but it just wasn’t enough. I wanted a freezer full of the stuff.

I spent all year talking up the romance of hunting season. I sewed felted wool boot inserts to keep his feet warm. I knitted a toasty scarf. I planted visions of venison salisbury steak with piles of creamy mashed potatoes and buckets of gravy. By the time hunting season opened, my man was ready. And I was hungry.

Day one, he came back in at dusk and told me he had seen a young four pointer but passed it over because he wanted a bigger buck. Here, I became even more Lady Macbeth. I think my speech may have even included, “But screw your courage to the sticking point and we’ll not fail!” along with a reminder that his first buck probably wouldn’t be a trophy, but that all venison was good venison. Sigh. Not one of my prouder moments. At least I said it in a supportive tone. Ahem. Moving on.

We reached the second to the last day of hunting season and the hub wanted to go out hunting one last time.  I had to do some grocery shopping, so I kissed the mighty hunter as he walked out into the back field, left the eldest minion in charge and drove up the hill to our Amish friends’ home to see if they wanted to go to the big grocery store with me. Seeing as it’s a forty five minute drive there and back, they can’t go unless an “English” neighbor or friend takes them along. My friends Ada and Anna grabbed their lists and hopped into my van and we were off. We were in the entry way to Wally World (a.k.a. The Walmart) when I got a cryptic text from my beloved.

“8 pointer”

I responded with a question that reflected the lack of success we’d had even catching a glimpse of any bucks beyond that first four pointer.

“As in you saw one or shot one?”

The next text I got from him was a picture of a big old buck in a very relaxed pose. Super chill. As in dead.

I showed the picture to my friends and there stood I, big fool that I am, hopping up and down yelling excitedly while my Amish friends clapped and whooped.  I’m sure it was quite the scene. For a brief moment, I felt like passing around cigars like dads would in a nineteen-fifties era neonatal waiting room.

Then came the giddy call from my husband who was now well and truly hooked on hunting. “Hey. The gutting wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be! God bless Youtube. There were so many awesome videos on how to eviscerate deer.” This is not a phrase you hear uttered every day, but it was music to my red-meat loving ears.

Here’s where my heretofore solid analogy to the Scottish Play fails, though. There was no wringing of hands and attempts to rub out spots. There was zero guilt. There was eager anticipation. I got in there with my knife and helped butcher the majestic thing. And the only perfume I needed to sweeten my hands was a little garlic and ginger and soy concoction to go along with the beautiful, beautiful venison filling my frying pan.

For the record, I had some serious crow to eat along with my venison. That buck was a trophy buck. He was huge. And in a little under a year, I’ll do something I swore I never would. I’ll proudly hang an artistically mounted deer head from my wall. Ah, the circle of life.

Print
Sticky Garlic Ginger Venison (or Beef) Stir Fry

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Sticky Garlic Ginger Venison (or Beef) Stir Fry

A sticky, caramelized crust coats this tender and fragrant garlic and ginger laden stir-fry of lean red meat. I prefer venison, but lean beef can be used if venison is not available to you. This healthy Asian-inspired solution to dinner is on the table in under a half hour making it an ideal meal for busy nights.

Adapted with thanks from Hunger and Thirst's Roadkill Elk

Ingredients

  • 1 pound venison (or lean top round beef steak)
  • 3-4 tablespoons lard or canola oil
  • 2-inch knob of fresh ginger root, grated finely
  • 5 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
  • 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon raw sugar (or brown sugar, if necessary)
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce (plus more if needed)
  • Optional for garnish: sliced green onions
    • Serve with hot rice and your favourite greens. I like Spicy Asian Broccoli with it.

Instructions

Slice the venison (or beef) diagonally against the grain into strips that are about 1"x 4" and about 1/8" thick. Set aside.

Place a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over high heat and melt the lard or canola oil until shimmery. Add the grated ginger and garlic cloves and stir constantly until fragrant, about 15-30 seconds. Add the venison to the pan and stir-fry until it is cooked about halfway through. Sprinkle the raw sugar over the meat, then drizzle the soy sauce over the top. Stir to coat well and let it cook, undisturbed, until the liquid becomes thick. At that point, begin stirring until a sticky, deeply caramelized, crusty coating forms around the venison strips. Remove from the heat and serve immediately garnished with sliced green onions.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2012/01/06/sticky-garlic-ginger-venison-or-beef-stir-fry/

 

Filed Under: Accessible Ethnic, Comfort Food, Happy Healthy and Wise, Healthy Foods, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars Tagged With: , , , ,

Spicy Asian Broccoli

December 22, 2011 by 20 Comments

 

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know about my fixation, er, obsession, um, desperate love for Asian food. You may even have been here long enough to read my sob story about my favourite restaurant ever of all time for eternity Amen closing its doors so the proprietor could retire*. If so, you might even get why -after all those years of getting it nearly every time I ate out- I no longer eat Chinese food in restaurants.

It is, in part, because nothing I have ordered compares in any positive way to the garlic broccoli that Kam Wah served: crisp tender, garlicky, spicy, and no sauce in sight, it was perfect by itself but it also made everything else served with it just that much better. In a bid to satisfy my increasing need for both good spicy garlic broccoli and hermit-like living, I decided to make it happen at home.

I was going to be the Lay-T who was choppin’ brocco-lay! This might be a good time to mention another one of my obsessions. I love Dana Carvey. There. I said it. Any other fans out there?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR6y71x3tSY[/youtube]

Holy success, Church Lady! It turned out to be a much simpler process than I ever thought to make the ultimate Chinese style spicy broccoli. The key, surprisingly, was to roast it. Who knew? The advantages of using roasting as a method are many, from not having to tend a wok constantly while stirring to the fact that you can make as massive an amount as you can fit in your oven at once. Believe me when I tell you that making vast quantities of this broccoli is what you want to do because as soon as those pans are out of the oven you are going to start snitching in earnest. A spear here, two there, a fistful now… you’re going to eat through broccoli faster than you ever thought possible. Between sneaking bites and the plate full I had at dinner, I ate an entire pan of this by myself.

One piece of advice… be sure to leave nice long pieces of stem attached to your broccoli florets.  Not only is it prettier, it’s just  a shame to lose all that great broccoli to trimming. As long as you keep the stem pieces thin, it will cook through at the same rate as the florets themselves. It’s awfully nice to have gorgeous food that’s frugal, too, isn’t it?

 

Print
Spicy Asian Broccoli

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Spicy Asian Broccoli

Long spears of broccoli are tossed with Chinese chile-garlic sauce, minced fresh garlic, sesame oil, a bit of raw sugar and this and that then roasted until crisp-tender. This will beat every white cardboard takeout container of Chinese you can get anywhere without exception.

Adapted with thanks from Budget Bytes who in turn adapted it from Cooking Light

Ingredients

  • 4 broccoli crowns
  • 2 ½ tablespoons canola oil
  • 2 tablespoons Chinese chile-garlic sauce (or Sambal Oelek)
  • 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
  • 2 teaspoons raw sugar (or light brown sugar)
  • 2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
  • salt, to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425°F. Lightly spray a large, rimmed baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray (or use a stoneware pan without spray.) Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the canola oil, chile-garlic sauce, sesame oil, raw sugar and minced garlic until even.

Slice the broccoli crowns into long spears, keeping as much of the stem area intact as possible. Do not cut the spears too small or they’ll burn instead of cooking to the desired crisp tender stage. Add all of the broccoli spears to the mixing bowl with the oil mixture and toss until everything is evenly coated. Transfer to the prepared pan, arranging the spears so they are in a single layer and sprinkle with salt to taste.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until there are darkened, black, wilted edges on the cut areas and florets of the broccoli. Remove from the oven and serve immediately with hot, cooked rice or as an accompaniment to a stir fried meats or tofu.

http://www.foodiewithfamily.com/2011/12/22/spicy-asian-broccoli/

Merry Christmas, friends!

Filed Under: Accessible Ethnic, Rebecca, Recipes, Stretching your dollars, Vegetarian Tagged With: , , , ,
«Older Posts
Newer Posts»