I decided to explore slow cooker recipes this year. I bought a new slow cooker and two cook books. This recipe comes from America’s Test Kitchen book Slow Cooker Revolution. The recipe is fairly traditional except for the cooking of the vegetables and adding chard just before serving. So far this our favorite slow cooker recipe.

I prepared this recipe for New Year’s Day with fresh black-eyed peas. It was good. Leftovers were excellent, too!

Serves 8

Small boneless hams are available in the meat case at most supermarkets. An equal weight of ham steak can be used. To ensure that the rice cooks evenly, cover the surface with aluminum foil when cooking. Use low-sodium chicken broth or the dish will be too salty. Serve with hot sauce.

Ingredients

• 6 slices bacon, chopped
• 1 (1- to 1 1/2-pound) boneless ham, cut into 3/4-inch-thick planks (see note)
• 1 onion, chopped fine
• 2 celery ribs, chopped fine
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth (see note)
• 2 (16-ounce) bags frozen black-eyed peas
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 1/2 cups long-grain rice
• 3 scallions, sliced thin

Instructions

1. BROWN PORK Cook bacon in Dutch oven over medium heat until crisp, about 8 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towel-lined plate. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon fat from pot and brown ham, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to plate with bacon.
2. COOK VEGETABLES Add onion and celery to pot and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and thyme and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add broth, peas, bay leaves, and browned ham and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until beans are just tender, about 20 minutes. Transfer ham to cutting board and cut into ½-inch pieces.
3. SIMMER RICE Place rice in fine-mesh strainer set over large bowl. Rinse under running water until water runs clear, about 1 minute. Drain rice well and stir into pot. Place square of aluminum foil directly on surface of simmering liquid. Simmer covered until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender, about 20 minutes, stirring and repositioning foil twice during cooking. Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for 10 minutes. Fluff rice with fork. Stir in scallions, bacon, and ham. Serve.

Hoppin’ John – Recipe | Cook’s Country – Recipes That Work

One of our favorite dishes is flank steak which I marinate in teriyaki sauce for several hours and then broil. I typically serve it with a green vegetable and potatoes. Provencal potatoes adds an abundance of complex flavors to a meat with a lot of flavor, too. It may be too much with this meat but we liked it.

Provencal New Potatoes Recipe

 

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 50 minutes

The garlic cloves are cooked with their peels still on (but crushed) to help keep the garlic from burning or drying out. The peels also help keep the mushy roasted garlic distinct, so that if an individual doesn’t want to eat garlic, it can be avoided. You can either remove the skins before serving, or let the individual remove them once served.

Ingredients

• 2 lb small new potatoes (look for the smallest you can find, the potatoes should be no bigger than 1 1/2 inches, if they are bigger, cut them into 1 to 1 1/2 inch pieces)
• 1 medium onion, sliced in the direction of root to top
• 6 cloves of garlic, crushed with peel on (do not remove peel)
• 2-3 small to medium vine-ripened tomatoes, or plum tomatoes, cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
• 10 pitted olives, green and black (Kalamata and Nicoise)
• 1/2 teaspoon red chile flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp herbes de Provence
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh chives for garnish

Method

1 Preheat oven to 400°F

2 Put all ingredients (except chives) into a bowl, toss with your (clean) hands to coat completely with oil and seasonings.

3 Spread out in an even layer in a roasting pan.

4 Put the potatoes in the oven, cook for fifteen minutes at 400°F. Then reduce the heat to 375° and cook for 30 to 40 minutes more, until the onions and tomatoes are somewhat caramelized and the potatoes are cooked through. Halfway through cooking, stir the potatoes so that they remain well coated with oil and do not get dried out, and the bottom of the pan stays coated with oil.

5 Remove from oven and let sit until cooled to room temperature.

Sprinkle with freshly chopped chives to serve. Excellent served with steak and a side of greens. (You can toss fresh spinach or chard with the oil remaining in the potato roasting pan and put back into the oven for just a few minutes until just wilted.)

Yield: Serves 4 to 6.

Provencal New Potatoes Recipe | Simply Recipes

I made the Best Ever Taco Seasoning Mix Recipe and the Taco Seasoning I Recipe several times over the last couple of months to season ground beef for taco salad. The only difference between the recipes is the amount of cumin and black pepper. The Best Ever Taco Seasoning has 1/2 teaspoon more cumin and no black pepper. I think I liked it better than the Taco Seasoning I  I was using so I compared the ingredients. I guess I will have to do more testing.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Taco Seasoning I Recipe – Allrecipes.com

One of our favorite mid-week dishes is roast chicken with vegetables. I can pick up a four pound bird at about 99 cents per pound. The recipe is simple. Cut up a bunch of your favorite vegetables and put them in the bottom of your dish with about a half cup of water. I used cauliflower, carrots, red potatoes, and shallots in the picture below. Put a little vegetable oil, salt, and pepper on the bird and stick it on a vertical roaster. I cook the bird for an hour and a half at 350° and then start measuring the temperature with an instant thermometer. I pull it out of the oven when the temperature goes above 160° and let the bird sit on a cutting board for a five minutes while I stir the vegetables with the broth in the dish. We really like the broth and vegetables. I am not sure which part of this meal we like better, the chicken or the vegetables, although we normally do not have leftover vegetables.

Initially I did not like this granola. Eating this granola by itself did not work for me. So I started adding it to my morning cereal and developed quite a fondness for it. It made my cereal interesting. Every bite was a surprise.

This crunchy, sweet granola is studded with toasted almonds, pumpkin seeds, and dried cranberries and peaches. Feel free to substitute any combination of nuts and fruit, or swap the maple syrup for honey. It makes an ideal holiday gift, and will keep for up to two weeks stored in an airtight container at room temperature.

Ingredients

serves 6 cups

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1 cup coarsely chopped almonds
• 1/2 cup green pumpkin seeds
• 1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Pinch of allspice (optional)
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
• 1 cup diced dried peaches

Procedures

1. Position the oven rack in bottom third of oven. Preheat oven to 325°. Combine oats, coconut, almonds, pumpkin seeds, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and allspice (if using) in large bowl. Add canola oil and maple syrup and stir until all ingredients are well combined.

2. Spread mixture on baking sheet and bake, stirring often, for 25 minutes. If nuts or coconut are toasting too quickly, turn oven down to 300°.

3. Remove granola from oven and let cool on pan for 20 minutes. Stir in dried cranberries and dried peaches. Cooled granola will keep for up to 2 weeks in sealed container at room temperature

Holiday Granola | Serious Eats : Recipes

While my mother-in-law has been incapacitated my wife has been shopping at the local farmer’s markets for her. There is an abundance of great, fresh vegetables in the area and good ingredients are the key to great dishes. One of our favorite summer time dishes is Gazpacho. The recipe I used is from the New Best Recipe book by Cook’s Illustrated. A slight variation of the recipe can be found at http://www.jimschrempp.com/recipes/recipe_gazpacho2.htm. I used Beefsteak tomatoes and Red Gold “fresh, squeezed” tomato juice. This is all that we had left and it is going to my mother-in-law.

From Oprah.com we get:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 to 2 scoops vanilla whey powder
• 1 cup strawberries
• Banana
• 1 cup ice
• 1 cup water (substitute milk or yogurt for a thicker, higher calorie drink)

First add ice to blender. Then add strawberries, banana, protein powder and water (or milk or yogurt). Blend all the ingredients until everything has dissolved. This will fill you up faster than you would think! If there is some left over, take it in a “to go” cup or pass it on to a friend or family member.

Protein Fruit Smoothie

My son has started wrestling season and I have decided to help him have a consistently healthy breakfast. A couple of weeks ago his idea of a fast breakfast was a pop tart. I decided a protein smoothie is a much better idea. The key to a great smoothie is great fruit. I found a bag of frozen fruit for smoothie in the frozen food section of the local Kroger that looked interesting. Amazingly the fruit looks great! I decided to substitute a half cup of milk, a quarter cup of low fat yogurt, and a dash of water for the water. If the smoothie is not sweet enough, add more fruit. I guess it is no surprise that my son likes it.

Today is National Salad Day. Would I make that up? Actually I got several emails reminding me about it. I was going to post a vegetable salad when I realized, it was also an all local dish which fits nicely with the One Local Summer event where participants make one meal a week with local ingredients. It’s an early version of a recipe I made for my recipe development client. The vegetables–zucchini, corn, peppers and eggplant all came from Capay Organic, the lemon from Los Gatos and the olive oil from Napa. Voila! One local Summer Vegetable Salad. I served it with Sonoma lamb chops.

While the idea is to eat at least one local meal a week, I actually had another meal that was primarily local this week. Ok, the rice and spices weren’t but the Spicy Eggplant and Tomatoes dish had Capay Organic eggplant and Greenbrae backyard-grown tomatoes. Delicious stuff and so fresh tasting. I got the recipe from 5 Spices, 50 Dishes, a terrific book written by local food writer and cooking instructor Ruta Kahate. Last week I posted an interview with Ruta over at Bay Area Bites. This week you can read my review of her book and see a recipe for a scrumptious beef curry.

The recipe for my One Local Summer Vegetable Salad is as easy as it is versatile. Serve it as a salad or a side dish. I could see adding some crumbled cheese to it and calling it a main dish, and any of the vegetables could be swapped out for something you prefer–tomatoes, patty pan squash, red onions, whatever you like. Change up the dressing too if you prefer something different.

Grilled Vegetable Salad
serves 4

2 Japanese eggplants
2 ears of corn
2 zucchini
2 bell peppers
2 Tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper

Dressing
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice

Cut and core the bell peppers into 1 – 2 inch pieces. Cut the zucchini and eggplants lengthwise into three strips then cut each strip into 1 -2 inch chunks. Toss the vegetables with olive oil, salt and pepper and grill for 8 minutes over a charcoal grill or in a cast iron grill pan, turning once. Cook the corn on the grill for 20 minutes (husks will burn) then husk and slice kernels off the cob (or husk the cobs, wrap in foil and bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes) Toss all vegetables with the dressing and warm or at room temperature.

Enjoy!

FOOD

This post and more original content can be found at www.cookingwithamy.com

One Local Summer Vegetable Salad: Recipe

I tried this dish last night and it was a great success. This dish took a lot more time than I normally spend on a side dish but my mother-in-law was bringing a honey baked ham. I had the time since they were going to be kayaking and fishing on the lake while I cooked. Fortunately I had a large grilling basket my wife gave me a few years ago. There are a lot of vegetables to cook. I prepared a hot grill to cook this dish. I combined these dishes with the always popular crispy oven baked potato slices. The combination of flavors was interesting. The garlic I add to the potato slices complemented the flavors in the ham and vegetable dish. I followed the vegetable recipe except I used fresh lime juice and I added a little bit of sun dried tomatoes. Adding those ingredients was a little bit inspiration and a little bit of cupboard cleaning but it worked. One young person proudly proclaimed to their mom that they ate all of the vegetables and she does not eat tomatoes.

Last week on the Epicurious blog Tanya Steel wrote about serving a Proscuitto and Taleggio macaroni and cheese to a friend who it turned out, preferred the blue boxed verson. When I was little I enjoyed that mac and cheese that comes in a box too. But years later when I tried it again, I realized it wasn’t very good. The sauce made from powder was artificial tasting and the macaroni was pasty. As an adult there is no question, my tastes had changed.

The other packaged food I remember liking way back when, was Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza. I still remember how tasty that crunchy pizza was. Of course, if I tried it now I would probably not be as impressed, but as a 13 year old babysitter, it seemed like a very delicious treat.

I’d rather recreate what I loved about those french bread pizzas than be disappointed trying the original version. This recipe took a couple of tries to get right. It’s a little messy but also savory, crisp and cheesy. In other words, delicious! Once you have the technique down, you could probably make other versions too. I developed this recipe to go with an Argentinean Malbec.

Portabello & Sausage French Bread Pizza

4 to 6 Servings

1 loaf French bread
3 Italian sausages, hot or mild
1 Tablespoon flour
1/4 cup red wine (Malbec is perfect)
2 large Portabello mushrooms
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
8 slices Provolone cheese, about 8 ounces

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Slice the bread lengthwise and in half so you have four equal portions. Place on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for about five minutes then remove while preparing the topping. Meanwhile prepare the mushrooms by wiping clean with a paper towel and removing the stem. Thinly slice the mushrooms and set aside.

Remove casing from sausages and crumble into a large skillet. Cook over medium heat until no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Add the flour and continue cooking for another minute or two. Add the wine and stir the mixture then add the mushrooms. Cook, stirring frequently and scraping up the bottom of the pan. Mushrooms will release their juices and turn brown. Cook another few minutes until mushrooms are cooked through. Take skillet off the heat and mix in the Parmesan cheese.

Spread the sausage and mushroom mixture evenly on top of the bread halves. Cut each slice of cheese in half and place on top. Bake for five to ten minutes or until cheese is melted. Cut each piece in thirds to serve.

Enjoy!

FOOD

Link to Portabello & Sausage French Bread Pizza: Recipe