Recipes & a more complete calendar

The calendar looks so much better!  Anyway,  here are the recipes for the week. 

Curried Beef in Pastry

2 c. all purpose flour

1 t. salt

2/3 c. butter

1 egg yolk, beaten

1/2 c. milk

1 small onion, diced

1-2 T.  oil

1/2 lb. ground beef

Salt & pepper to taste

1 clove garlic, minced

1 1/2 t. curry powder

Dash sugar

1-3 T. Ketchup

1/2 t. cornstarch

1 T. dried breadcrumbs

one egg, beaten

     Combine the flour, salt, butter, egg yolk and milk.  Form into a ball and set aside in the refrigerator.  Cook the onion in the heated oil until limp. Add the beef, salt and pepper; cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until beef is browned (4-5 minutes).  Add the garlic, curry powder, sugar and ketchup.  Cook and stir another minute or two.  In a small bowl, make a paste of the cornstarch and 2 t. water.  Add to the meat mixture; cook 1 minute.  Remove from the heat; stir in the bread crumbs.  Taste and adjust the seasonings; refrigerate covered.  (The filling can be prepared ahead of time and either refrigerated for a few days or frozen.)      

     To assemble, roll out the crust into a long rectangle.  Place the filling using one heaping teaspoon at a time in mounds along one of the long sides of the dough one inch apart and 1 inch from the edge.  Dip a pastry brush in water and moisten a circle of dough around each mound.  Fold the other side of the dough rectangle over lengthwise.  Press down around each mound to seal.  Using a cookie cutter or a glass to cut each mound with a covering of dough.  Place the rounds on a greased cookie sheet and brush the tops lightly with a beaten egg.  Bake in a 325° oven until browned, about 35 minutes.

Makes 16 appetizer servings or 4-6 dinner servings.

It's January and my calendar is naked!

     I just noticed my calendar is naked!  I'll take care of that.  Dinner tomorrow is  Curried Beef in Pastry, Wednesday is Pytti Panna and Friday is Beef Barley Soup.  

     For New Years Day, we had an awesome Standing Rib Roast for dinner. Our good friends C & D joined us as well as our kids, Miss K and Miss M. Also our sister in law, L joined us with our nephew young Master D.  Dinner was so awesome and yummy.  I made Herb & Garlic rolls and had a misstep with my stand mixer.  Well it was a big misstep actually.  It just flat out broke. Fortunately, I still had my old stand mixer and used that to finish the job. ( as Miss M & Miss K pointed out, it was a good thing I had not donated the old mixer like I had wanted to.) The rolls weren't the best attempt and looked fairly rustic, but they still tasted great.

     We rounded out the meal with broccoli, peas, carrots, mashed and gravy. Did I say yum?  We had cookies and coffee or tea depending on who you were for dessert.  I had made more iced lemon cookies and melting moments to complement the pepparkakor that we still had left from my holiday baking earlier.
     That said, the bones from the roast are the base of the meal on Friday. I saved all the drippings from the meat and that's in the fridge waiting for me to make a glorious gelatinous broth from those drippings and the bones on Wednesday night.
     I also have a confession.  I did not make the dusted pork chops.  But tomorrow we have kids stopping by and I'll make dusted chicken for them instead.  It will work, and I'll get a picture of the finished product.  I decided not to cook on Friday because Miss M had been house sitting and baby sat that night.  It's one of the meals I like to make for her so I was going to make it on Saturday as a meal swap instead.  But our Saturday went differently, too.  We ended up going to our friend's house to celebrate New Years Eve, I so had two nights off of cooking!  It felt a little weird.

    DH had a 5K road race this morning.   When we got home the roast went in the oven.  I worked on the rolls, broke my mixer, found my old mixer, finished the rolls and then worked on the rest of the meal.  It was a busy day all in all.  The girls set the table and put things on the table as they were finished. The dishwasher is now humming with the 3rd and last load of dishes of the day.  
     The next post will have my recipes for the week and I'll update the calendar.

Day two...three days late...

So I'm a bit late.  But if you think about it, we've traveled pretty far.  The Pastichio was tremendous.  We had another pan left and I served it to some of our runners today.  One of our kids is of Greek heritage and she told me it smelled like her house when her Mom makes it!  (Great compliment and I'll take it!)  She settled in to a plate of familiarity and then said, " Coach, this is better than my Mom's.  Her's is much creamier and this is much better.  More cheesy!"  So glad everyone liked it!

I made Spaghetti as well today, so we had quite the Adriatic tour.  Tonight we were supposed to have Dusted Pork Chops, but we'll have them tomorrow.  We helped at a track meet and ate lunch late.  We were still full when it came time to think about dinner. I'm not complaining, we just need to shift my cooking to tomorrow.

Dusted Pork Chops come from a really yummy recipe that was an epic fail for DH.  The part he liked was the seasoning on the meat.  I mixed some up in a jar and use it from time to time to season our pork chops and chicken. And yes we do call it Chicken Dust.

The recipe comes from The Gluten-Free Bible, Publications International, Ltd., Lincolnwood, IL, 2010.  I used to work down the street from there. Talk about a small world.   The recipe is actually South American Chicken and Quinoa.  The first 3 ingredients mixed with the last 2 make our Dust.

South American Chicken and Quinoa
1 t. ground turmeric
1 t. dried thyme
3/4 t. salt, divided
1 lb. boneless chicken breast, cut into 1" pieces
2 T. olive oil, divided
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 c. uncooked quinoa
1 c. chicken broth
1 c. unsweetened coconut milk
1 t. curry powder
1/4 t. ground ginger

Combine the turmeric, thyme and 1/4 t. salt in a shallow dish.  Dip the chicken pieces into the spice mixture coating all sides; set aside.
Heat 1 T. of the oil over medium high heat.  Add the bell pepper and onion. Cook and stir 2 minutes or until the vegetables are crisp-tender.  Remove from the skillet with a slotted spoon; set aside.  Add the remaining oil and the chicken to the skillet.  Cook and stir 5 minutes or until browned and cooked through.  Rinse the quinoa in  a fine-mesh strainer under cold running water; drain well.  Combine the quinoa, chicken broth, coconut milk, curry powder, ginger and the remaining 1/2 t. salt in a large saucepan.  Bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce the heat to low; simmer covered, 10 minutes. Stir chicken and pepper mixture; cook for 5 minutes or until the liquid is absorbed.  Serves 4.  

So for my version, I dust the chicken like it says in the recipe and end up with cool chicken nuggets and follow the cooking instructions for the chicken part of the recipe above.  I've also used it on chicken legs and baked them in the oven for 50 minutes at 350 degrees.
Until tomorrow... or maybe it's just later since it's already tomorrow...

Day one of the World Tour...Singapore noodles. Day two's recipe Pastichio

 

Dinner was so yummy!  There is an incredible amount of prep that goes into Singapore Noodles, but it is so worth it.  I spent my afternoon as my own Sous Chef.  Once everything was prepped (mind you I had no idea how many guests would show so I prepped enough for 3 recipes), I relaxed for a bit, waited for the guests to arrive and find out if there were any allergies I needed to be aware of.  There were no allergies and I only had to make 1 recipe's worth of dinner.  I boxed up 2 bonus dinners and served the rest.

Speaking of Sous Chef, one shortcut I can think of is for the julienned carrots.  I always make carrot sticks every week for DH to take in his lunch that he brings to work.  I used carrot sticks that I had left from Friday for the julienned carrots.  It was easy to just chop the sticks into 6 smaller pieces.  I'm sure commercial carrot sticks would work the same way, and it would save a step in your dinner prep.

Wednesday is Pastichio.  Miss M was asking me tonight what it was, but I do remember her liking this the last time I made it. This was one the whole family loved.  Again it's another labor intensive dinner, but so worth it when you have time.  It's break and so I have that kind of time now.  I also know I will really appreciate the bonus dinner on January 12th! :) 

This could be put in two different dishes and baked at the same time and one could be frozen intact for another day, reheated in the oven for 30-40 minutes at 350° making it two 6 serving dinners.  That was me when I had a fuller house.  Now I'm content to serve this to company first and then portion out bonus dinners for later.

Pastichio

1½ c. unsalted butter, divided

6 rounded T. flour

1 qt. milk, heated

2½ c. grated Parmesan, divided

9 eggs, divided

Salt & pepper to taste

1½ lb. elbow macaroni, cooked

2 large onions, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2½ lbs. ground beef

½ 6 oz. can tomato paste

½ c. water or tomato juice

½ t. ground cinnamon

Dash nutmeg

           Melt 1 c. butter in a large saucepan.  Add the flour and stir until golden.  Gradually add the hot milk, stirring constantly over low heat until the sauce is thick and smooth.  Stir in ½ c. of the cheese; cool.  Beat 6 eggs; stir into sauce.  Season to taste.  Melt the remaining butter in a large skillet.  Sauté the onions and garlic until golden.  Add the ground beef, stirring until the meat is browned.  Don’t pour off the fat.  Add the tomato paste, water, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper (to taste).  Stir and simmer for 20 minutes.  To the macaroni, add the remaining 3 eggs and a handful of cheese.  Butter a high sided 9 x 13 or 10 x 15 pan.  Spread with half the macaroni.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Pat the mixture down.  Add the meat, spreading to cover.   Sprinkle with more cheese.  Top with the remaining macaroni and remaining cheese.  Press down.  Spread the cream sauce on top.  Bake at 350° until firm and golden, about 1 hour.  Let stand 10 minutes.  Makes 12 servings.

Our world tour..first Singapore, then Greece and beyond!

 Monday night's dinner, Singapore Noodles, comes in part from the interweb.  I have tweaked it to our family's preference, but it is a huge hit and we have it often.  I cut out the red pepper flakes, water chestnuts and mushrooms but added chili powder, slivered pea pods and use rice noodles instead of the noodle nests.

Singapore Noodles a la Lorri

1 lb medium rice noodles
1/4 c. cooking oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. slivered fresh ginger
1/2 t. chili powder
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/3 c. green onions
2/3 c. julienned carrot
1/2 c. slivered peapods
1/4 c. peanut butter
1/4 c. oyster sauce
3 T. curry powder
2 t. soy sauce

Bring a pot of  lightly-salted water to at rolling boil; add the rice noodles and return to a boil.  Turn off the heat and let stand 5 minutes; drain and let stand for 5 minutes; drain and set aside. Heat the oil in a wok or deep 12" skillet.  Stir in the garlic, ginger and chili powder; cook a few seconds until the garlic begins to turn golden.  Add the chicken, green onions, and carrots.  Cook and stir until the chicken is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Stir in the peapods, peanut butter, oyster sauce, curry powder and soy sauce until the peanut butter has disolved into the sauce.  Stir the noodles into the chicken mixture; cover and reduce heat to warm or very low.  Let stand 10 to 15 minutes so the noodles absorb some more of the sauce.
Serves 6.

I'll post the Pastichio and Dusted Pork Chops recipe tomorrow. I'm looking forward to break...this is gonna be filled with meals at home, grocery shopping field trips, visiting with friends and naps!  :)

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Roasting Chicken & cookie baking

     Tonight's dinner was Roasted Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy.  It was super yummy and now I have a leftover carcass with which to make soup.  I was thinking either chicken rice or chicken barley.  Hmmm. . . a bonus meal on top of our bonus meals!  Can't beat that! :) It was a 5 lb roasting chicken.  I picked it up at Harvestime Sunday.  My back fridge kinda freezes my meat, so I thawed it pretty quickly and roasted tonight.   

     Next week, Monday is Singapore Noodles, Wednesday is Pastichio and Friday is Dusted Pork Chops.  I'll post those recipes over the weekend.  I still have shopping to do for Christmas.  Winter break just started a few hours ago.  I did manage to get all my cookies baked save for half of my melting moments and my pepparkakor.  That will happen in a bit (or maybe tomorrow) so I have them for Sunday.  We are just settling in with coffee for tonight, so after the battery recharge...the baking will begin.

My Week Evaporated!...but the Lime Chicken and Meatloaf were yummy!

Monday and Wednesday got away from me...then again so did Thursday.  We did have the Lime Chicken on Monday, 

our bonus meal of Curried Turkey with Rice, Meatloaf on Wednesday, 

went out with friends yesterday and I baked cookies until 2 AM.  I'm looking forward to our Roast Chicken tonight.  I can start early because there is no practice tonight.