CombODDnation: Pork Bake

Hey guys, I used the chicken rice bake recipe with pork tenderloin boneless cuts this time, and it also turned out delicious.

Using the exact same recipe as the chicken rice, I came out with this:

Pork tenderloin packed into the top, water up to the bottom of the pork.  Rice and vege underneath.  Exactly like the chicken recipe from earlier, check the link for details.

 

Here is is, after I served a couple helpings making sure all was right (90 minutes on 410 degrees) here is the lovely outcome of this endeavor.

Just thought I'd let you know!

CombODDnation: Blackbean brownies re-up

I took these to my mom, who eats normal food all the time, and she declared these were like a semi-sweet fudge.  My brother and his girlfriend agreed on the yumminess verdict.  I think that is a good enough review to warrant posting.  You've probably seen blackbean brownie recipes online here or there, and if you haven't, you easily can.  The idea is easily googleable.  I just overhauled the more common recipe to suit me, and I find it to be better than the original, so here it is.  

Ingredients, to start:

3 cups black beans (I used beans that are cooked from dry-pack to reduce salt content as compared to canned.  After cooking a large batch of black beans, I freeze three cup portions in mason jars.  I do the same with chick peas.  Because canned beans have SO much salt I can feel it.  This is, however, also the same as two 15.5 oz cans of black beans, if that is how you prefer to do this.  If using canned beans, rinse them thoroughly with hot water before using.)
3 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
3tsp baking powder
1/4c baking cocoa powder
1/2 c milled flax
1/8c olive oil
1 c semi sweet chocolate chips
(The tiny red octopus hugging an even tinier ninja is an optional component.)

Preheat to 375

SO, let's get started.  In a large food processor!  Or if you only have a small one, do it in thirds.  This 10 cup food processor is the best $50 I've ever spent, in case you were wondering.

Put 3 cup black beans and 3 eggs and blend together.

 Add 1 cup brown sugar, 3 tsp baking powder, 1/4c backing cocoa powder, 1/2c milled flax, 1/8c olive oil.
Blend together.

Add 1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips (these are mini chips but the size really doesn't matter at all here.)
Blend together.

You will likely need to use a spoon or spatula to get the even texture, since the edges tend to hold some of the dry ingredients in clumps and those need spread in.  You'll get this texture in the end.

Spoon into an 8x8 pan.  Spread to even thickness.

Bake for 40-45 minutes.  At 375 degrees F.  Fork should come out clean from center.

 Let cool a minimum of 5-10 minutes.  Longer if you can stand to wait a bit.  It stays extra melty for a little while, the cake structure doesn't hold up as well to cutting when it's still very hot.  But it's SO yummy when it's that warm and fresh that I couldn't wait for my first bite.  Heh.  So suit yourself.

Cut and serve, and enjoy!

The original recipe from online is copied on yellow.  I'm laying my new recipe over the old one in my photo album recipe book.

CombODDnation: Chicken and Rice Simple Bake

This is so simple, and such old hat to me, I make this every week!  I don't usually even think of these sorts of weekly mundanes as worth posting, until I get to chatting with a friend, and here we go.

You need:

Brown Rice

Any form of vegetable

Any cut of chicken (Yummiest with something bone-in-skin-on)

Water

(Ginger root is a special treat in this, but I was out of that today.)

Preheat oven to 410 degrees Fahrenheit.  

(Re: heat, I would say 425, but I just learned that some of the off-brand glass bakeware can only withstand temperatures to a max of 425, and I don't want to risk that.  So many people have had glass bakeware shatter on them recently.)

Take any size pirex or pan.  Yes, really any size.  Make sure your chicken will fit in it, that's all.  Here I'm using my new bake-able tupperware container, it's pretty deep, but usually I use a 9x11 inch.

Start by covering the bottom of the pan with a thin layer of brown rice like so.  This is about a 1/4 inch deep, that amount or less is good.  

(I have used baby lima beans for this step instead of the rice, and that is also fabulous.)

 Then put your vegetables on top of the rice, it helps to chop them to chunks that are kinda close to bite size.

If you're adding ginger root, this is the time to do it.  Chop the root up to small peices, like the size of a pencil eraser or so, and put that on top.  Not shown, because like I said, I don't have ginger root today.

Put your cut of chicken on top of all of this.  Here we have a half chicken.
Normally I just get the family sized pack of chicken thighs because that lasts me for every lunch for the whole week, allowing me to take lunch in just once on Monday, stick it in the fridge, and have a little every day.  However this week, I'm on winter recess, so packing lunch isn't on my chore list!

Fill water into this until the water just touches the bottom of the chicken cut.

Put in the oven at 410 degrees.
In a shallower pan, adding 2 more cups of water half way in to the cooking time is helpful.  In a deeper pan like this, that isn't necessary.

Bake for an hour and a half to two hours, skin will be crispy brown and the meat will be firm.  (Other signs of it being done are the juices all running clear when pricked with a fork, and a meet thermometer registering at 175 degrees.)

Crispier than what's shown is okay, too.  If you don't have a meat thermometer, then crispier is recommended.

Let cool enough that you're not going to burn your mouth, and dig in!  The meat will just fall right off the bone.

And now I'll help you go a-wandering to find some other... 

Dinner-type recipes I've posted:

Crock Pot Apple Chicken

Beet Chicken Roast

Sweet Pumpkin Beef

Lamb Stew

Breakfast-type recipes I've posted:

Flip-spice eggs

Sausage foldovers

Baby Tomato Sausage

Oopsie, I'm disorganized, apparently.

I wrote and made a successful carrot cake.  Took all the pictures, served it to rave reviews at a party, AND lost the recipe notes.  Guess I'll have to make it again and see how I do just based on following the pictures!  Being that I was able to make it in just one try on the first effort, it seems very likely that photographs ought to be sufficient for subsequent success.  DERP!

CombODDnation: Lamb stew for remembering Grandmother

I think I actually remember grandma Ruth. And this happened all because the grocery store was selling really cheep lamb breast and I decided to try something new. Last Friday I really heated my house up, it was way too warm for this sort of cooking. But as it started to smell yummy, like it was getting close to done, I started thinking it was a familiar smell. Very distantly familiar.

I made a sort of irish stew. It's made basically by cubing cheep lamb parts (in this case, lamb breast I'd picked up for less than a dollar a pound) and a bunch of vegetables in a tomato stock. I read the "about" section lamb in the joy of cooking, and read all of the braised lamb recipes based on the cut of meat I had.  That usually gives me enough background information to go ahead and invent something different.

Smells are wonderful memory joggers.

It smelled like helping in the kitchen, like a grandmother, but not like the grandmother I grew up with. It was a little confusing at first.

Then, as the stew got closer and closer to done, it started to smell like being shorter than tomato plants, looking up at the bottoms of ripe tomatoes on the vine, like being carried by a woman who was showing me plants, and like standing on a tall bench to be able to reach the counter and then sitting in a booster seat so I could reach the dining room table. It was becoming obvious this was a very early memory.

But could it be?

There are pictures of me on a visit to longisland, with Ruth holding me, and grandfather raking some fallen leaves, when I was not quite two years old. It looks like it was late September, from the pictures, and I have a tiny red jacket.

Maybe it could be.

I tasted the stew, and it tastes like understanding for the very first time that food can come from the ground, like someone taking a lot of time to really show me how plants are in the ground, how good garden dirt crumbles, and how plants can make food, how bits of plants can go in the compost and make more dirt, and then later, how the garden food can be made into something yummy.

In my memory, eating this soup that we made was the very first time I truly understood that what I was eating was something that was grown and cared for in somebody's back yard. I was sitting in my booster seat, I had a little glass of milk off to one side, and I was kicking my chubby little legs, and thinking about how awesome my grandmother was for showing me all of that.

Could that be Ruth? Is it possible I might actually remember her? Her sister thinks it could be, Barbara says Ruth loved showing things to children, and had a vegitable garden on long island, though she can't recall if there was compost. Her daughter thinks it could be, too, Mary says Ruth made amazing stews. I sure hope so, I hope I remember her, even if it's just a few short moments of memory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I didn't take pictures while I made this. I wasn't really thinking it would be worth a share, I expected this to turn out mediocre at best. Turned out fantastic by surprise, so I wrote it all down for you, sorry to be lacking pictures. Here's the recipe for grandmother memory inducing stew.

     With approx 2lbs of lamb breast -
           this will be inexpensive meat when available,
           the breast meat is sometimes discarded as it
           is considered inferior quality with lamb.

Cut any skin away from the lamb breast, and cut  the meat into 1 inch cubes.
Prep a very large and deep skillet (check my out skillet prepping tips).
Brown the meat for 10-15 minutes. Do not drain fats.

Add to the skillet:
     3-4 yellow onions, cut into chunks
     1/2 cup carrot pieces cut to bite size
     Celery - cut half a bundle into bite size peices
Simmer covered for 15-20 minutes on medium low heat.

Add to the skillet:
     16 oz tomato sauce
     2 cups water
     One yellow squash, cut to 1 inch cubes
Simmer covered for additional 30-40 minutes.

Cool, and serve.