Jambalaya and Red Lobster Biscuits

This is a jambalaya recipe I got from my friend Angie who served it at the Oscar party last year. It has a tremendous amount of flavor - plus it cooks for so long you get to wait and get more hungry!

A few notes - I made half a recipe and we have enough to feed a small mid-sized army. So unless you are the mother of the Duggar children, chef for a high school cafeteria or clinically insane really hungry, just half the recipe and plan on leftovers!

Also, the recipe says to let it cook in the oven. Angie made hers on stovetop just by simmering if I did the same. I think I might have cooked mine a little on the long side because my rice was pretty soft by the end. But still yummy yummy!

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter
1 large onion, diced
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
3 bay leaves
3 tablespoons Creole Seasoning Blend
4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 (28 ounce) cans whole peeled tomatoes, chopped
7 cups chicken stock
3 cups chopped cooked ham
3 cups cooked andouille sausage, sliced (I used chorizo because it was way on sale)
3 cups cooked chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces (I used canned chicken)
3 cups frozen cooked shrimp
4 cups uncooked long-grain white rice

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt butter in large stock pot. Saute onion, green pepper, celery and garlic until tender, being careful not to burn the garlic. Add tomato paste and cook to brown slightly, stirring constantly. Stir in bay leaves, Creole seasoning blend and Worcestershire sauce. Pour into a large roasting pan. Squeeze tomatoes to break up into pieces, and add to mixture in pan. Stir in juice from tomatoes, chicken stock, ham, sausage, chicken, shrimp and rice. Mix well. Cover tightly with aluminum foil.

Bake in preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours, stirring once halfway through baking time. Remove bay leaves before serving.

CREOLE SEASONING

2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons dried basil
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon white pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
5 tablespoons paprika
3 tablespoons salt

Before....



And after 1 1/2 to 2 hours - viola! :)







And now for the Red Lobster Biscuits! I was at a Tastefully Simple party where they had delicious looking mix for these cheddar biscuits. I was pretty sure I could save some $$$, and have an unlimited supply, if I could just figure out my own recipe. Turns out, there is a ton of recipes on google - and BONUS - they are EASY. Like ridiculously easy. They were delish with the jambalaya.



INGREDIENTS

2 cups bisquick
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup grated cheddar
1/2 cup melted butter (What?!?!)
1/4 tsp. garlic salt

DIRECTIONS

Mix bisquick, milk and cheddar till soft ball forms. Beat vigorously for 30 seconds.

Drop by balls onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Mix garlic salt and butter. Brush on rolls while still hot.

Enjoy!

Simple Supper with Linguini & Tomatoes

Just wanted to show you what we had for supper tonight, mostly for my mom to see, since I used her produce!

After being on the road, it was nice to have a fresh, homecooked meal. The shallots and tomatoes were from mom. Thanks!! It was delish!

I just sauteed red and yellow tomatoes, chopped shallots, minced garlic, fresh thyme, salt and pepper in lots of olive oil. (Sam added red pepper flakes to his - another nice touch). Here is the pretty dish!

Homemade Mayonnaise

As you know if you read my other blog, I got to go see Julie and Julia today! This movie was great... take your mom, sister or girlfriends, and go!

It was kind of like when Sam left The Fast and the Furious and drove 80 miles an hour the whole way home - I just wanted to get home and cook! I can't wait to try Julia's Boeuf Bouorguignon, kind of her signature dish, but I didn't have 3+ hours tonight. However, I did want to try something so I thought, how about her homemade mayonnaise? I always see them making stuff like this on food network, and all the talk of how difficult it is to emulsify the mixture scared me away. But, Julia Child inspired me to try! (Another thing I didn't know was that she didn't start cooking till later in life - how cool is that to begin something new, perfect it and be such an authority on the subject? Never too late to learn - what an inspiration!)

Ingredients
Round-bottomed, 2½ to 3-quart glazed pottery, glass or stainless steel mixing bowl. Set it in a heavy casserole or saucepan to keep it from slipping.
3 egg yolks
Large wire whisk
1 tablespoon wine vinegar or lemon juice (more drops as needed)
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon dry or prepared mustard
1½ to 2¼ cups of olive oil, salad oil or a mixture of each. If the oil is cold, heat it to tepid; and if you are a novice, use the minimum amount
2 tablespoons boiling water

Directions
Warm the bowl in hot water; dry it. Add the egg yolks and beat for 1 to 2 minutes until they are thick and sticky.

Add the vinegar or lemon juice, salt and mustard. Beat for 30 seconds more.

The egg yolks are now ready to receive the oil. While it goes in, drop by drop, you must not stop beating until the sauce has thickened. A speed of 2 strokes per second is fast enough. You can switch hands or switch directions, as long as you beat constantly.

Add the drops of oil with a teaspoon, or rest the lip of the bottle on the edge of the bowl. Keep your eye on the oil rather than on the sauce. Stop pouring and continue beating every 10 seconds or so, to be sure the egg yolks are absorbing the oil.

After 1/3 to 1/2 cup of oil has been incorporated, the sauce will thicken into a very heavy cream and the crisis of potential curdling is over. The beating arm may rest a moment. Then, beat in the remaining oil by 1 to 2 tablespoon dollops, blending it thoroughly after each addition.

When the sauce becomes too thick and stiff, beat in drops of vinegar or lemon juice to thin it out. Then continue with the oil.
Beat the boiling water into the sauce. This is an anti-curdling insurance. Season to taste.

If the sauce is not used immediately, scrape it into a small bowl and cover it tightly so a skin will not form on its surface.

YAY!! Success - it worked! And it does taste incredible compared to store-bought. (And I always love store bought as well - pass the mayo). Again, this is NOT a health-food blog. :)



Julia Child’s tips for homemade mayonnaise:
Room Temperature: Have all ingredients at room temperature. If they aren’t, warm the mixing bowl in hot water to take the chill off the egg yolks; heat the oil to tepid if it is cold.

Egg Yolks: Always beat the yolks for a minute or two before adding anything to them. When they are thick and sticky, they are ready to absorb the oil.

Adding The Oil: The oil must be added very slowly at first, in droplets, until the emulsion process begins and the sauce thickens into a heavy cream. Then, the oil may be incorporated more rapidly.

Proportions: The maximum amount of oil one large egg yolk can absorb is six ounces, or ¾ cup. When this maximum is exceeded, the binding properties of the egg yolks break down, and the sauce thins out or curdles. If you have never made mayonnaise before, it is safest not to exceed ½ cup of oil per egg yolk



I'm so proud of this!! Look how awesome!!



Making this leads me to a question for my fellow cooks and blog readers... what do you think constitutes "homemade"? Generally, I guess I think anything in a cookbook or on Food Network counts. But I just got done reading an article on how Julia Child-style cooking is gone in place of "30 Minute Meal"-type recipes. Instead of laboring in the kitchen over a truly homemade creation, today's cooks use canned tomatoes and pre-made ravioli when they cook.

I can see both sides. I think with the 40+ hour workweeks many women are engaged in, even a 30 minute meal is an accomplishment. You are still trying to make healthy non-processed food for your family and spending time in the kitchen, around the table, and cleaning up together. That's a lot different than carry-out regardless of if you used canned tomatoes or not.

However, I can see the argument that making bread from dough and butter instead of the frozen pie crusts is an art that could be lost in this generation. Opening a can of crushed tomatoes is NOT the same as picking out (or growing!) fresh tomatoes and simmering them. Using a certain amount of packaged food has become ok - even on Food Network. While I was whisking my homemade mayo (I can barely type my arm is so tired!!), I was thinking about the fact that years ago, women did make every part of their recipe by hand. Am I cheating most of the time?

So, what do you think? What can you get away with and still claim you made it homemade? Or, alternatively, what should we strive for as cooks to truly be an artist in the kitchen? Surely we don't need to churn our own butter?

Or do we?

Melissa d'Aarabian's 4-Step Chicken

Remember how I said my favorite person won "The Next Food Network Star"? Well, today was the first day her show aired! They put it at 11:30am on Sunday (horrible time spot!) so I missed it, but I did want to try her 4-step chicken from the finale when she won. Here's Melissa - isn't she adorable?



And here's her cute girls - what a handful! Her niche is that she's not a trained chef, but a very talented stay at home mom who is really good with tips to help the average cook.



The four-step chicken is a really easy, basic idea. 1) saute the chicken 2) add the vegetable/aromatics 3) add the liquid 4) finish with butter. Its pretty much the base for a ton of great recipes... and you can switch out the vegetables/liquids and make tons of recipes! As you can see, I added orzo to complete the plate. In her original recipe, Melissa has the chicken on top of wilted spinach. (I knew that wouldn't go over well with Sammy!)



Ingredients
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced in half crossways (butterflied, cut all the way through)
1 teaspoon dried thyme, plus 1 small bunch fresh thyme, leaves chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup chicken broth
3 lemons, juiced
1 to 2 tablespoons butter

Directions
Season chicken with dried thyme and salt and pepper. Heat a large saute pan over medium heat and add the oil. Dredge the chicken in flour, add to the hot oil and saute until cooked through. Set chicken aside to rest on plate tented with foil.

In same saute pan, over low heat, add onions and fresh thyme and cook until aromatic.

In a measuring cup, measure out wine, if using, and broth, and add the lemon juice. Turn the heat up to high, and deglaze the pan with the broth mixture until starting to reduce.

Remove the pan from the heat and finish the sauce by whisking in butter. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Plate the chicken. Spoon the sauce over the chicken and serve.

Pasta Carbonara & Frozen Chocolate Mousse Pie

Finished up 2 new recipes tonight! Our good friend Nancy was over to have supper with us and hang out. Being a lovely evening, we ate on the deck. Call me old and boring, but after the work week I really enjoy low-key Fridays. Why leave when you can eat here, anyway?



PASTA CARBONARA

For supper, I made Pasta Carbonara from my Giada De Laurentiis cookbook (again, yes, she is awesome). Another great recipe where I had everything on hand and it was delish!! :) I added the onions as optional because I felt they would have made the dish perfect!

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
about 1 lb. of pancetta or bacon, diced into pieces
1 onion, optional
1 cup frozen peas
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup heavy cream at room temperature
1 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
salt
pepper
box of fettuccine

Directions
In a large saute pan, heat the oil over medium. Add the pancetta/bacon and onions and saute until golden brown and crispy. Add peas and heat them up. Remove pan from heat.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and cream. Stir in 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Drain, reserve about 1 cup of cooking liquid.

While the pasta is still hot, return it to the pot, and quickly toss with the browned pancetta/bacon. Add the cream mixture and work quickly to toss the pasta so that the mixture will cook but not curdle. Toss with remaining Parmesan cheese and serve. Sprinkle with fresh parsley if you want!



FROZEN CHOCOLATE MOUSSE CAKE

This is a Paula Deen recipe - I love that cute southern lady! I really liked this recipe - not a lot of ingredients, and not too hard (just have to be careful folding the chocolate into the whipped cream). I'm glad I like it - I have to make it again because I bought a whole container of chocolate cream liqueur just for this!

Ingredients
2 cups chocolate chips
1 quart + 3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tbs. chocolate cream liqueur
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
1 pie shell

Directions
Heat the oven to 350. Poke holes in the pie crust with a fork and bake the crust about 11 minutes.

In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the chocolate chips, 3 tablespoons heavy cream, chocolate liqueur. Once it is melted, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.

Combine the sugar and 1 quart cream and whip on high speed until stiff. Gently fold in the chocolate mixture. It may not combine completely, that's ok. Put the mixture into the pie crust.

Cover with plastic wrap and put in the freezer for a few hours. Enjoy!!

Chicken Cacciatore

New recipe #3! Bet you didn't think I would live up to my promise, but I did!

Tonight I tried another Giada DeLaurentiis recipe, Chicken Cacciatore. Besides the yummy looking picture in my cookbook, this description caught my eye:

"Cacciatore means cooked in the "hunter's style". In many Italian-American restaurants this can be a greasy, overly sweet sauce with dry, overcooked chicken. But this recipe will make you fall in love with Chicken Cacciatore again; its really the ultimate in hearty, rustic Italian home cooking."

That intrigued me - she's really building it up! And it lived up to it! Yummy!!! The one word I can use to describe it is: Fresh. It just tasted so vibrant and fresh, which is kind of unusual for I stew-type dish. I wish the picture I took looked as good as I thought it tasted. Sadly, Sam was not as big of a fan. "I don't like big tomatoes - I thought it was like Prego sauce." he says. :( Maybe I'll just put his in the blender and put it on some spaghetti next time - that would also be delicious.

In other food news, my favorite person won "The Next Food Network Star!" In honor of Melissa and her first show, I will be doing one of her recipes next week. Way to go girl! 4 kids under the age of 4, the only "untrained" chef on the show... this soccer mom beat the other chefs to win her own program on Food Network. I can't wait to watch her show!

Ingredients
Chicken breasts, cut into pieces
salt
pepper
flour for dredging
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano leaves
3/4 cup dry white wine
1 (28 oz) can diced tomatoes with juice
3/4 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
3 tablespoons drained capers
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup coursely chopped fresh basil

Directions
Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge the pieces in flour to coat them lightly.

In a large, heavy saute pan, heat the oil over a medium-high flame. Add the chicken to the pan and saute until golden brown on each side. Transfer the chicken to a plate.

Add the bell pepper, onion, garlic and oregano to the same pan and saute over medium heat until onion is tender, about 5 minutes.

Add the wine and simmer until reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juice, broth and capers. Return the chicken to the pan and turn to coat them in the sauce. Bring the sauce to a simmer. Continue simmering over medium-low heat until the chicken is just cooked through.

Finish the sauce with a little butter. Sprinkle with fresh basil, and enjoy!



Off the hook tomorrow night - we are going to friends' house for pizza! :) And Thursday we are gone as well. I'll be back next night we eat at home!

Pork Milanese

Night #2 of a new recipe this week. Tonight we had Giada DeLaurentiis' recipe, Pork Milanese. Its really like a parmesan chicken, but using pork and more herbs. It was tasty. I made my own breadcrumbs with sliced bread instead of using the pre-made - I find those to be very dry. This was easy and delicious... I recommend it for a weeknight supper for sure. I also made zucchini and home-made mashed potatoes and gravy. Dinner was done and we were cleaned up by 8:00! That tells you how fast it is - usually we are just sitting down to eat at 8!

Ingredients
1/3 cup flour for dredging
2 large eggs, beaten to blend
1 1/4 cups bread crumbs
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoon dried thyme
4 center-cut pork chops
salt
pepper
olive oil

Directions
Place the flour in a large, shallow bowl.
Place the eggs in another bowl.
Mix the bread crumbs, cheese, basil and thyme in a third bowl.

Sprinkle the pork chops with salt and pepper. Dredge a pork chop in flour, then in the egg, then in the breadcrumb mixture, pressing gently to adhere. Set them on a baking sheet/plate.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a saute pan on medium. Place the pork chops in the pan for about 3 minutes per side, or until the coating is golden brown and the inside is done.

If your pork chops won't fit in the pan at once, put the finished ones in an oven at 150 degrees to keep them warm. Then, enjoy!

Redneck Chicken

Ooh - I'm so excited to start a week of new dishes. I'm trying something new every day we eat at home this week!! Today I started with something called Beer Can Chicken, recipe compliments of Guy Fieri. My title? Redneck Chicken. Can you see why?



That's right - this chicken is cooked with beer (still in the can) and covered in bacon! Woo hoo! I wanted to cook Sam a nice meal after he ate fast food all week - and this fit the bill!

INGREDIENTS
2-3 pound chicken
5 cloves garlic
1 can beer
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbs. onion powder
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. dried sage
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tbs. fresh ground pepper

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Wash the bird and pat it dry. Combine all the herbs together. Rub half of them inside the cavity of the chicken and the other half between the flesh and the skin, being careful not to puncture the skin.

Open the can of beer and pour half out (I don't care what you do with it from there!) Into the beer can, drop 5 smashed garlic cloves. Then, (it helps to have extra hands!) put the chicken over the beer can so that it is sitting in the cavity upright in a roasting pan. Then, use strips of back to cover the chicken. Secure it with toothpicks. (You can't see the beer can- but its in there.)



Put it in the oven at 450 for 10 minutes. Then, lower the temperature to 325. Cook for one hour, or until the chicken is cooked to 165 degrees.



It should be moist and flavorful - with the beer aroma permeating the inside and the bacon moistening the outside. Yum-o!!
And that's your redneck chicken!!