Working Woman Turns To Crock Pot For Help
It was my niece’s husband who posted on Facebook a dish he wanted her to cook some day. I don’t know the origin but as I clicked on the link I found this recipe for a slow cooked pork tenderloin he posted to her rather intriguing.
Having a nine to five job now, I’m always on the look out for those meals that can be ready soon after you get home. Using a crock
pot, meals are ready WHEN you get home. That was the case today as all the ingredients were already lined up in the fridge and pantry this morning without even having to go shopping. We were somehow destined to eat well tonight. This wonderful and incredibly easy recipe consisted of the following seven ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3-4 lb. pork loin
- 2 tablespoons dried or minced onions
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1 heaping tablespoon whole grain mustard
Put the olive oil in the bottom of a 5 quart crock pot and place the tenderloin fat side up on top of the oil. In a bowl combine the 
next five ingredients and stir them together. Pour this mixture on top of the 
tenderloin, set the heat on LOW, put the lid on and go about your business for the next 8 or 9 hours. When you get back home the house will smell like someone has been slaving away in the kitchen for hours when really it’ was only the crock pot working hard all day for you.
Pork is not for every one but for us it sure was tender and tasty. I hope to try this 
method on a nice chuck roast or bottom round roast some day. Either way the crock pot is soon to become my new go-to buddy for meals that are ready when I get home. 
Smouldered And Stuffed Poblano Peppers
Spring has been slow to warm this year which leaves me craving heat. But it has been a double blessing that I can have the best of both worlds this time of year: enjoying cool evenings on the patio grilling, and having these satisfyingly hot stuffed peppers for dinner. There are always more blessings if you look for them. This one’s extra blessings are that it is a meal in itself…meat and five vegetables, there are no pots and pans to wash …just one bowl and the plates from which you eat, and the taste is outstanding!
Poblano peppers are interesting…they are often in different degrees of spiciness. Some are almost as hot as a jalapeno while others are nearly as mild as a bell pepper. They have thinner skin than a bell pepper but boy are they packed with pepper flavor! I like that the heat level is rather a surprise…especially when I get one that’s good and hot.
To make this scintillating supper you will need:
- 4 Poblano peppers washed and seeds removed through a slit up the side
- 1 medium onion finely diced
2 medium stalks of celery also finely diced- 1 carrot peeled and very thinly sliced or shredded
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced leek
- 1 egg slightly beaten
- 1 or 2 tbsp steak sauce
- 1tbsp soy sauce
- a dash each salt, pepper, garlic powder, parsley, thyme
- a pinch of red pepper flakes
- 1 lb lean ground beef
- 5 crushed saltine crackers
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
First, slit each washed pepper up the side, open the slit, and remove the pith and seeds as best you can through it without tearing the pepper (I 
gently squeeze the top and bottom and it easily opens like those rubber coin purses you get as souvenirs). Set them to the side and dice all the veggies, place them in a mixing bowl, add the egg, sauces, and seasonings and mix well. Next, crumble up the meat and crackers onto the veggie mixture, add the oats and stir everything together. I end up using my hands to incorporate all the ingredients sometimes. A fork worked well for me this time but which ever tool you choose to employ, use it to stuff the peppers with as much of the filling as they can possibly hold.
Now it’s time to go out to the grill. Set up the grill for indirect cooking, that is to say, either the burners under left and right sides of the grill lit, or place hot coals to the far left and right with a space in the middle where there is no heat source under it. Arrange the stuffed peppers in that middle space, shut the lid and let it alone for at least 20 minutes or until the meat is cooked through. You can tell with the press test…press on the meat to see if it has any give…it should not have much.
This is the time to shut off the fire in a gas grill and leave the lid closed for another 10 minutes. For charcoal grillers, remove the peppers to a warm plate and cover tightly in foil for ten minutes
When it’s time to serve, drizzle a teaspoon of olive oil or dot with butter to gloss the top a bit. Make sure you have plenty to drink! Be it beer or chocolate milk, either will balance out the heat of the poblanos nicely. Using a large amount of finely diced vegetables in combination with that off-set heat while cooking really helps the meat stay nice and moist. I hope you will try this and have a lovely weekend! 
Spring Has Me Springing
Springtime brings such a flurry of events. With graduations, weddings, proms, school year ending, travels, Barbecues…you name it, we’ve done it. It doesn’t mean that this diva hasn’t been cooking up a storm. My cooking lately has been repeats of things I’ve already posted.
I’ve been up early today baking these danish and pumpkin bread (a variation of banana bread) to beat the heat so I can run out the door again to a little girl party for my friend about to be married. Our little group will be sending her off with our dearest wishes for a happy life with her husband to be, and of course with some sweet treats and Spring flowers.
Elegant Chicken Dish On A Strict Budget
There’s no doubt, chicken is quite an economical way to serve and enjoy good flavor, concentrated protein and essential iron while giving your wallet a little relief. There are so many ways to cook chicken as well. I’ve probably blogged about over three dozen recipes myself. This is one of my favorite ways because it always turns out so elegant and tasty without letting anyone know I’m a huge cheapskate.
Chicken thighs are the new chicken wing. It used to be that the wings were the cheapest cut of chicken because there was no real meat on them. Then the Buffalo wing was born and wing prices went up. I feel guilty for touting the economical benefit of the thigh because it’s one of those same stories where only we cooks know that the thigh is about the tastiest meat on the bird and when it costs five bucks for four pounds of it, most of it meat unlike the wing, we know what a good deal we’re getting…well, you will when you try this dish.
Four thighs was half the package and that is what I cooked for the family this evening. A bit of prep work was in order so here are the steps in the process of making creamy spinach stuffed baked chicken:
- Four thighs with bone removed
- one can spinach well drained
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese- a dash each of black pepper, salt, garlic powder
- 1/2 cup finely diced onion.
- spices for the outer skin (I used a Cajun seasoning)
Preheat the oven to 375°. Mix the spinach, mayo, cheese, and the dash of each seasoning, stir in onion and set aside. Turn the chicken thighs skin side down on a cutting board and look for a vein of fat that runs parallel to the bone. With a very sharp knife cut directly along that vein and the bone will be exposed. cut around and even under that bone and remove it, 
slicing out each end careful not to remove too much meat but all of the joint and its connective matter.
With the bone out, cut a slit in the bigger half and unfold that portion (like a brochure) making a uniformly flat piece of chicken. Spread an even amount of spinach mixture (about 1/3 cup) over the chicken meat and roll it up. Place the roll seam side down in a 9″x 9″ casserole dish. Use a larger casserole for more thighs. The spinach mixture should be enough filling for six or seven thighs. Now bake them for about 50 minutes to one hour, or until the internal temperature reaches 180°.
Remove to a plate and allow these to rest for about ten minutes and serve with a little salad or some rice. Remember there are already two vegetables inside the chicken so they will also be good all by themselves. 
Just A Good Old Fashioned Chicken Dinner
If you’ve got a couple hours some evening to wait for a good old fashioned supper to land on your plate try this easy roasted chicken dinner. One pan is all you need to make it, and if you line it with foil ( I used a previously used and washed foil cake pan), you won’t have anything to clean afterward either. I did splurge though at the last minute and whipped up some potatoes and gravy because, well, I could.
There is no recipe, just a method and you can add the seasonings you like and the vegetables you like too. I used leeks, carrots, and celery to surround the chicken and with a few preps of the bird dinner was soon roasting away while we watched some TV. After this crazy busy weekend, a good easy supper (and easy blog post) is what we needed.
Rinse and pat the chicken dry (Nice birdie!)
Place a few knobs of butter up under the skin of the breasts and legs. You could also add herbs you like. I was just being lazy.
It looks like this when finished
Now, because I’m feeling extra super lazy, I truss the legs together with a tooth pick instead of hunting down some string and tying them together
Just before it goes into a 350° oven I spray everything with olive oil spray and season with salt and pepper and bake for almost two hours
I was aiming for a temp of about 185° but this will do. It took about one hour and fifty minutes. Time for the plate!
That looks nice! Now our chicken must rest 15 minutes. Since I got an hour and fifty minutes rest, I can find it in me to scrape together some gravy with the drippings.
I throw a handful of flour (about two round tablespoons), stir it until smooth, then add salt and pepper, a dash of garlic powder and a pinch of sage powder, then I add about two to two and a half cups water and get it all to a good bubbly boil to thicken it
That rest I took, well I’m tired and lazy again, so I whip up the potatoes from a box of instant ones in the microwave. There are worse things…
…but this gorgeous juicy chicken is not one of them!
Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let this food by you be blessed.
A Lovely Lasagna
This is a dish I make much too infrequently. Partly because of the amount of time it takes to prepare, and the calories per serving, but also because it wouldn’t be as special if I made it all the time. Even so, it is one of those dishes that makes my family go wild. Lasagna night is a night they love so much, that they’ll do the dishes and wipe down the kitchen to the floor while I enjoy the rest of the night upon my pedestal…like I said, much too infrequently.
In the following photos I will reveal the secret method to such honors. First the list of ingredients:
- 9 pieces of lasagna pasta
- a large pot of boiling salted water
1 tbsp. olive oil- 1 lb. lean ground beef
- 1 large carrot sliced very thinly
- 2 ribs of celery also sliced thinly
- 1 large onion finely diced
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- 1/4 cup each sliced black olives and mushrooms (optional)
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1 & 1/2 tsp. dried Italian herbs (parsley, oregano, basil, thyme)
- a 6 oz can of tomato paste
- 1 &1/2 jars (24 oz) of traditional spaghetti sauce
- 1 lb. shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 cup low fat cottage cheese, or ricotta
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
Preheat the oven to 350°. Begin by boiling the noodles keeping them on edge to prevent them from sticking together and allowing them to cook evenly for ten minutes. 
Drain and set aside, reserving a cup or so of the pasta liquid. In the now empty pot saute the vegetables in olive oil, move them to the side when 
the onions are almost clear and put the ground beef directly on the metal of the cleared spot. As the meat browns mix it in with the vegetables, add the diced tomatoes and dried herbs and stir together, Now add the tomato paste and sauce. Let this simmer a while to help marry the many different flavors.
In a 13″ x 9″ baking pan, ladle some of the sauce in to coat the bottom. Place three lasagna noodles 
lengthwise to cover the sauce. Use a bit of the pasta water to loosen the noodles without tearing if they are stuck together. Now for the first layer. Ladle enough sauce to cover the noodles, dollop the cottage/ricotta cheese around using only half. The other half will go in the next layer. sprinkle a generous layer of mozzerella, about a third of the Parmesan, and a pinch or two of parsley flakes all around.
Repeat these steps for the second layer, but for the top layer, ladle on sauce, omit the cottage/ricotta cheese, and only top with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Bake 45 
minutes, or until the cheese on top is golden and bubbly. Allow it to cool slightly before serving. Makes 9 to 12 servings.
Now kick back and enjoy your night on the pedestal. 
…And enjoy
…And enjoy!
How To Cure After School Blues
My youngest daughter came home from school a little down. One of her friends had found another group of friends to hang out with leaving her a little sad and lonely. There was a lot to talk about this evening…important stuff about how to survive the ‘tweens. With issues abound like cyber bullying, sexual predators, unplanned pregnancy, and drug abuse, hanging on to innocence these days seems impossible. When you’re almost ten there’s a lot to take in and everything is such a big deal.
This was just a friend break up (to me, but the world crashing in for her) that had her down, but even so, it wasn’t easy getting her to talk about it. As a mom, a wife, a friend, I’ve learned (and still am learning) that just listening is as much of a skill as baking bread. One must know just how high the thing should rise, when to punch it back down, how to handle things delicately, and how to know when the thing is done. Just like the bread, it took a couple of hours for my girl to let all her feelings rise up, cry it out a bit, and finally start talking about it while helping me with dinner. I just listened while interjecting an occasional “Hey, could you measure a cup of flour?” and, “Stir this for a minute, will you?”
Once she started talking, making dinner became a nice backdrop to the conversation, and eventually a nice diversion from her woes. Julia had never heard the term “surf & turf” before, and when I told her what it meant she wanted to try it right away. I didn’t have any beef tenderloin or lobster just lying around but I had some chicken tenderloins and shrimp in the freezer so we tried our poor man’s version for dinner.
I thawed the chicken in the microwave while I had Julia put flour, salt, pepper and spices in a zip-top plastic bag. I put the chicken in it when it was thawed and she shook everything up to coat it well. I placed this into a skillet with hot 
melted vegetable shortening, and fried it up on both sides until it was golden and crispy while microwaving a couple of potatoes. When the 
chicken was done I let it drain on a paper towel, I threw the shrimp (which was precooked) into the oil, and cooked them until they were nice and hot. For something green, I plopped some romaine, cheese and dressing onto the plate. While I was dealing with the lettuce. I had Julia stir the pan gravy made from the
leftover flour coating, and a couple of tablespoons of the frying oil with all the brown bits at the bottom, made a nice little roux, then added a cup or so of milk. Having the extra hands to stir the gravy made it come out quite smooth. Soon our minds were far from our troubles and a tasty dinner was ready for just the two of us.
We talked and talked some more and decided we should bake a cake and have a good dessert too because to a nine year old cake = happiness. Also, just to add to the fun, we were eager to find out if Grandma Mary’s old Sunbeam mixer from the seventies still worked. My mother gave it to me 
the other day wishing me the best with it because my Black & Decker model had just croaked. We whipped up a boxed mix of white cake, talking about the four generations that have used this mixer. Our minds successfully steered farther and farther from our troubles by this time, and yet even farther once we iced and ate our cake.
Julia is a sweet sensitive girl, as many girls her age are, and I know that this is just the tip of the iceberg of the pressures and social issues she will face. Her own brother and sister are college graduates and it was really hard watching how painful growing up was for them. Heck, I don’t even know how I survived it! Tweensville is one tough town buddy!
Her dad got home from work just before bed time and asked us how our day was. I told him that today being a 4th grader wasn’t easy and shot Julia a furtive look. Jeff caught the tone and with his special ability to cure even a rainy day he said, “Oo Yeah, 4th grade was the toughest three years of my life.” Julia smiled reluctantly. “…but least I learned how to have a sense of humor.”
Julia rolled her eyes still trying to hold back a smile and said, “Now I see why it took three years, Daaaad.” Her quick and clever retort made us laugh out loud.
With a twinkle in his eye, he cupped her face in his hand and said with a proud smile, “That’s my girl…so what did you make me for dinner? It smells good in here!”
Bad mood? What bad mood? Julia’s after-school blues greatly improved with dinner and cake, but Daaaad managed to peg the happiness meter all the way past ten in about five seconds…totally Daddy’s girl. He can’t let her be sad for even a second.
The world is going to continue to throw a lot of hurt at our kids but we’re committed to making home a place where they can check the hurts at the door, come in, and just be loved…and of course well fed.
A Portable Bakery And A Two Year Bloggiversary
While Bill was in college he not only came away with a bachelors in music, he learned how to bake great bread. He’s off to Europe now but while he’d been home for a spell, he showed me the ropes in his new hobby, making sourdough bread. He started about a year ago with a starter he ordered on line. Since he was home a whole week, he made several successive batches, from that starter, each one tasting better than the last, carrying forward more of that distinctive sourdough flavor. By the third batch the bread tasted just like it was fresh from a San Francisco bakery.
Firstly Bill baked this bread with some starter dough that he had dried before he left NY where he spent most of the summer. He dissolved the starter in water, and “fed” it some flour initially to wake up the yeast. Over the course of about 24 hours. this starter dough became extremely bubbly, and Bill would add more flour and water to make the dough. He added salt and let it rise a couple of times, then baked it at a really high temperature…about 450° under a large Pyrex glass mixing bowl inverted. He said that the steam was very important to forming the crust and getting the dough to bake through completely. I believe it! Maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten bread in a while (and yes, I passed the physical with flying colors but that will be another story, in the meantime it’s good to eat delicious bread again) but this bread just keeps getting better!
It was really fun seeing my son. He’d been away for so long. Getting caught up again has been fantastic, and doing it while great sourdough bread is being made puts me over the moon. It’s great when your kids grow up… and teach you things.
I owe my oldest daughter the biggest thanks. She’s a fine cook as well, and taught me how to make perfect pork fried rice. But my thanks goes to her for a different talent at this time. She works on computers all day and knows how to navigate with the best of
them. She showed me how to use WordPress and how to start blogging, and that is really an accomplishment to get this computer illiterate momma using a computer in daily life!
It’s been a fun two years thinking up new things to cook, ways to save money and making new friends. I’ve also been very lucky. I’ve put my little Kodak camera through the ringer but have never had the misfortune to have dropped it in a bowl of something really sloppy…like this batch of sourdough starter Bill left me to play around with.
Please tune in next time to hear about how my first batch of sourdough bread turns out.
A Diva’s Day
I really hit the ground running. There was going to be a lot of activity in this diva’s kitchen today. First order of the day was to feed the cat…Ak! We were out of cat food! At 4:30am the desperate meowls were enough to wake the dead. Jeff was up 
already and he said he could run to the store and get some before he went to work. My(and Kitty’s) hero! He was back soon and Kitty could not keep from nearly scratching the bag open.
Well for the rest of the morning I had a goodly amount of to-do’s before 9:00am: First, since Jeff’s’ clinical save of a starved cat, I thought he deserved a nice breakfast sandwich for on the go… Ham and egg and a kiss goodby. He’s working a double today. Next, I had 
promised my friend I’d make a cherry pie for her boutique’s grand opening out in the west county, so 
I got going on the crust (eeek! the sun’s up!). It was then 6:00am. At 6:30 my cherry pie was in the oven.
Since it’s August, I so don’t want to be baking when it’s in the 90’s later. I have a dinner to cater later in the day and I needed to bake a second pie…rather, half a dozen mini blueberry pies. Those went in when the cherry pie came out…7:00am
Julia was up for school at 7:15 and since she missed school the last three days (yes, first week of school and already home with a sore throat), I wanted her to have a good breakfast today to give her plenty of energy now that she’s better. Banana 
and peanut butter was her choice. That took a couple of minutes. It was then 7:30. I had already packed her lunch when I made Jeff’s breakfast so 
that was done. The cherry pie was out of the oven and had cooled well enough before it’s delivery at 9:00am. The blueberry ones were just done and I shut off the oven. The Bus came at 8:10, whisked my girl away, I quickly showered, dressed, did the mascara and lip-gloss only make-up job and was 
ready to fly out to Ballwin to see the opening of JudyJo’s Jewelry and Accessories …a thirty minute drive. It was exactly 9:00 when I got there!
Turns out the opening is tomorrow but I’m glad I came today to drop off the pie and to help hang pictures and label
merchandise. She had tons of stuff to do before the big day. I think she really appreciated the help too. So about lunch time I got back to the house and grabbed a bite to eat. Just then the phone rang and it was the nurse who would give the physical wanting to come Saturday morning. I said “Sure”, with my mouth full of crackers and turkey. Great! She calls the moment I crack and have those off the diet, yummy, salty carb filled crackers! Riddled with guilt, the next few hours were dedicated to what? None other than Sumptuous food..none of which I would so much as taste!
Julia would be off the bus soon and she is almost always in a state of crabbiness that only a mid day snack will cure so yogurt, a plum and some raisins were shelled out. Then I had to begin work on the dinner I would be catering. I didn’t take pictures of any of it but the blueberry mini pies because it’s all stuff I’ve gone over before (feel free to peruse). I got the menu put together while Julia played a Zelda game she found in her brother’s closet. We haven’t gotten to the video game stage with her yet but I think we’ve just broken ground. It was a great diversion for her while I was cooking. I shipped all the food off then went to 
work on dinner for Julia and something Jeff could eat when he got home at 11:00. I wasn’t sure if I’d still be awake by then.
So now I have a one day fast to endure, partly because they want you to have fasted before the blood sugar tests they’ll run and partly because I’m caught really off guard. I also hope they have a “nice” scale because I’m really on the line. I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’ll take my vitamins and drink plenty of water… and a day of fasting never hurt anyone …of my size…which is 14… now you know.
Julia ate her quesadilla and sweet potato, and went back to her Zelda game. I gave her an hour to play while I finished cleaning up the absolutely demolished kitchen. Every surface was covered in dirty dishes and slop. I’ve never used so many pans, dishes, and utensils in one day before! Needless to say Julia got another free half hour of Zelda and there were no complaints about it.
Bonnie got home and we chatted about all the weddings she’s been invited to recently while she helped out with the drying and putting away. We discussed the ridiculous amounts of money young brides spend these days and divorce two years later, and I caught my mind drifting trying to calculate what kind of wedding my daughter could have some day. Drifting I was. My brain was just too tired to muster anything but a vapid expression. She caught it too and I suspect she sensed I was getting pretty tired. She said good night and went off to her room. The kitchen was back to normal and Julia who slipped off to shower appeared and had that sleepy look as well. This day was finally coming to a close. While drying and brushing her horribly tangled long hair, we had the chance to talk about school, her new teacher, and responsibility. It was a good talk.
Once Julia was sleeping I slipped back up to the computer to blog and see what was on facebook. Jeff got home looking a bit bedragled, had his little supper, and we both got ready for bed. Once our heads were on the pillows (and it was then midnight) we talked about the nurse coming turned out the lights, and I swear we were asleep in mere seconds. About once a week or so I have days like this. I spend a large portion of it in the kitchen, but the kitchen is where I’m most connected to the family. I’ve had my best heart to heart conversations with the kids there . I’ve put band-aids on countless knees there, I’ve made enough food to feed the Army, Air force, Navy, and Marines there. With God by my side, I’m often found in the kitchen doing hopefully, what He wants me to do…connect, heal, nourish and love. And that’s what a day in the life of this diva is about.
Christy Drake Diva of Delicious 