Comments appreciated

Hey guys. I, as all bloggers tend to do , sometimes wonder who (if anyone) is reading my musings. I appreciate comments of all kinds, so let me know what you think. Feedback about the recipes in particular is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Dinner and Bill's

Catch-up time!  I haven't posted in awhile, but I'm back with Tuesday night's dinner and the weekly small group dish. Recipes are at the bottom of the page.

After an extended stretch of "whatever" eating, I decided to try to get back to the healthier foods that helped me lose 20lbs at the beginning of the year. I opted for a chicken-based dish. Chicken is one of the mainstays of lean cooking, and for good reason. It's relatively low in fat and bad stuff, and it's versatile enough to work in multiple dishes. I went the Italian route Tuesday night and made chicken farfalle with fresh mint, basil, and arugula.

Chicken, even more so than most meats, has a very small window with which to work. If you don't cook it long enough, bacteria will make sure you don't have another dinner guest for a long time. Cook it too long and it turns into an leathery, barely edible hunk of meat.  Therefore, your best friend when cooking chicken is a meat thermometer. Chicken has to be cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees in order to kill off any salmonella-carrying bacteria that might be floating around inside. If (like me) you don't have a good thermometer, cook over med-high heat for 3-4 minutes on each side. This will get the chicken to the desired internal temperature while not overcooking the meat.

After I cooked up my chicken, I cooked the farfalle pasta to al dente and drained it. I sauteed some onions and garlic for a few minutes then combined everything in the skillet and cooked over low heat until the arugula was nicely wilted. I topped everything with some shredded Parmesan cheese and served it up. This dish was nice and light but definitely full of flavor. An added bonus is that it tastes just as good when cold, so it made a great lunch the next day. I'm enjoying it as we speak....err...type.

For small group I made a quasi-casserole dish called upside-down pizza. I got the recipe from a lady at church a few years ago, made it a few times at home, then forgot about it,  probably because it has a massive amount of calories. Since my conscience concerning these types of things gets muted when multiple people are eating, I dusted the recipe off and made it again. And really, this dish is perfect for large gatherings. Everybody can have a small portion and enjoy it without overloading too much.

This dish comes about as close to "out of the box" cooking as I like to do.  It uses store bought pasta sauce, crescent rolls, pre-shredded mozzarella, and packaged pepperoni. In this application, those ingredients work well - thats the beauty of casseroles.  It assembles pretty easily and is done in about 30 or 40 minutes. The meat sauce in the bottom keeps the dish surprisingly warm for an hour or more. As for meats, I go with the "supreme"combo - sausage, hamburger, and pepperoni, but any traditional pizza ingredients will work just as well. I think this is really a fun dish - it has all the familiar pizza flavors in a new, group-friendly package. Try it out at your next gathering, party, or potluck.

Recipes

Chicken Farfalle with arugula, basil, and lemon dressing

Ingredients:

• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast or tenderloin
• 1 pgk whole wheat farfalle pasta
• 1 cup arugula, tough stems removed
  
• 1/4 fresh basil, chopped
• 2 tbsp mint, chopped
  
• 1/2 cup onions, diced
• 2 tomatoes, diced 
  
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 tbsp EVOO
• 8 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Coat chicken with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Cook chicken on skillet or grill over med-high heat for 3-4 minutes on each side. Cover and set aside.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Sprinkle water with salt and add pasta. Cook pasta for 13 minutes, remove, and drain. In a large bowl, mix together the remaining 6 tbsp olive oil with lemon juice, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper. Set aside. 

 In a large skillet, heat 2 tbsp oil over medium heat and sautee onions until translucent. Add garlic and sautee for 1 minute. Add in tomatoes, basil, mint, chicken, pasta, and arugula and cook until arugula wilts. Cover with lemon dressing and stir to coat. Top with parmesan cheese and serve.

Upside Down Pizza

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 lb Italian sausage
• 8 oz pepperoni
• 16 oz pasta sauce of choice
• 2 tomatoes, pureed
• 4 oz. tomato sauce
• 1 white onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 oz sour cream
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 2 cans refrigerated crescent rolls
• salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Brown beef and sausage and drain, reserving 2 tbsp of oil. Sautee onions and garlic until onions are translucent.  Stir in pasta sauce, pureed tomatoes, pasta sauce, and meat.  Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Spoon meat sauce into 13X9 pan and top with whole pepperoni slices. Top pepperoni with sour cream.  Cover sour cream with mozzarella cheese. Roll out crescent rolls and place on top of cheese, overlapping so that no cheese is visible. Brush crust with olive oil. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until bubbly and crust is golden brown.

Slow Cooker revisited

As I have said on these pages before, the slow cooker is one of my favorite tools to use in the kitchen. Nothing beats throwing a few ingredients in before I leave for work and coming home to a finished soup or chili for dinner. Monday, I made up a chicken tortilla soup. I threw in some leftover chicken from the night before (precooked rotisserie chickens from Kroger are a cook's best friend) along with an assortment of veggies, spices, chicken stock, and beans. I set the cooker to low and walked away. I returned home later that day to a fragrant house and a delicious batch of chicken tortilla soup. I toasted off some corn tortillas in the oven and topped the bowl with some sour cream, cheese, and cilantro. Presto - warm, delicious, dinner in less than 10 minutes.

  

Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla soup

Ingredients:

• 1lb cooked chicken meat, shredded
• 6 cups chicken broth (pref. low sodium)
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 2 tbsp jalapenos, diced
• 8 oz uncooked black beans
• 1 bag frozen corn
• 1 14.5 oz can diced fire-roasted tomatoes
• 2 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
  
• corn tortillas
• sour cream, cilantro, chopped avocado, or other desired toppings

Combine chicken, stock, vegetables, and spices in slow cooker. Set cooker to low and cook for 6-8 hours. Before serving, coat tortillas with thin layer of vegetable oil, cut into strips, and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or until crisp. Serve alongside tortilla strips and topped with sour cream, cheese, cilantro, and avocado.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

To me, the slow cooker (aka the Crock Pot) is one of the greatest tools in the kitchen. It can transform large cuts of meat or pots of soup into succulent dishes with very little effort. When it gets cold I like making chili, soup, cheese dip, and even oatmeal in my cooker, and I used it Wednesday to prepare some pulled pork for Bill's small group.

This dish really couldn't have been any easier. I bought an 8lb pork shoulder from Kroger, gave it a rub with some Rendezvous seasoning, and tossed it into the slow cooker. I covered about 3/4 of the meat with some beef broth, mixed in a little coffee, hot sauce, and worcestershire for flavor, and closed the lid. I cooked the meat all day on the "low" setting. When I say this couldn't be easier, I'm not kidding - I put everything in before I left for work and came back to a finished pork shoulder. After a quick shredding with a pair of forks I put the meat in a cast iron skillet, covered with some homemade bbq sauce, and cooked it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees to firm the meat up and cook the sauce in a bit. I whipped up some slaw using the leftover chipotle mayo from the Football Feast and served the meat and slaw inside some storebought dinner rolls. Simple and delicious. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the finished product. Trust me though...it was good.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Ingredients:

• 1 8lb pork shoulder 
• 1/4 cup rub of choice
• 1 can beef broth
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp hot sauce
• Neely's Kansas City BBQ sauce:
• 2 cups ketchup
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 5 tbsp light brown sugar
• 5 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/2 tbsp onion powder
• 1/2 tbsp black pepper
• 1/2 tbsp ground mustard seed
• 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• slaw of choice
• Dinner rolls

For meat: Coat all sides liberally with rub, wrap in aluminum foil, and place in refrigerator overnight. Place meat in slow cooker, fatty side down. Cover meat with beef broth, coffee, Worcestershire, and hot sauce and set dial to "low." Cover and cook for 6-8 hours.  Meat will be tender when done. Remove meat from cooker and transfer to tray or cutting board. Using two forks, remove fat and separate meat with the forks using a pulling motion.  Place pulled meat in a cast-iron skillet, cover with BBQ sauce (recipe below) and cook at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes until meat firms and sauce cooks into meat. Serve on dinner rolls or buns topped with extra bbq sauce and slaw.

For sauce: Combine all ingredients in a saucepot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 1 hr 15 minutes.