cooking

What’s On My Stovetop

June 18, 2020 by Gindi Leave a Comment

Oh how I love books!

But there is something that rivals my love of books: COOKING! AND BAKING!

I love to be in the kitchen and I’ve had a lot more time to be in the kitchen.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we baked a lot. I also gained a lot of weight. While we tried a number of new recipes, hand’s down my favorite recipe was Ina Garten’s cheesecake. It is fail proof. You do need a springform pan – ours didn’t get a lot of use before because I was terrified of cheesecake. And you do have to do the bit about letting it sit with the oven door open at the end. We didn’t do raspberry though. We made her base and the first time we topped it with fresh strawberries (YUM!) and the second time we topped it with a lemon curd I found through Southern Living (also yum and another new technique, CURD!). Bray never hands out compliments and he said this cheesecake was amazing!

(We also tried out a lot of cake recipes, I have a strawberry lemon cake and a carrot bunny butt cake recipe if you’d like it!)

As temperatures have heated up though, I’ve wanted cool things for dinner. So less of my chicken enchiladas and pot pie (though those still make appearances, it’s just rarer) and more salads and crisp dinner features.

I love gazpacho. So I started with that. You know I’m obsessed with the Pioneer Woman, so I started with her gazpacho recipe, but I also added a couple of adjustments from Ina Garten’s recipe, and I added more cucumber because it’s the freshest, and I added a little red pepper to add some more spice.

On the salad front, I’ve tried several, but nothing beats a cobb salad. They are simple but spectacularly delicious and everyone in my family gobbles them down. They’re all avocado/egg/tomato/bacon enthusiasts. The only adjustment I make for the kids is the blue cheese which Bray and I love. I follow the Pioneer Woman’s suggestion down to the letter except I did not make our own salad dressing (wah-wah, but in the summer you just want to be outside).

To round out my summer cooking list, I’ll highlight my deviled eggs and potato salad.

I never have enough deviled eggs. I sit them out before lunch or dinner and they are gone before we can even fill our plates. We all five LOVE deviled eggs. I use a pretty basic recipe. I boil a half dozen eggs, which makes 12 deviled eggs, but clearly I need to boil an entire dozen instead. However, this base is for a half dozen total eggs. I don’t have exact measurements but I use a little less than ¼ cup of real mayonnaise and a more than a tablespoon of yellow mustard – you’ll see this theme in my potato salad too – I like them more mustard-y than mayo-y. Then I add dill pickle relish to taste, at least a tablespoon. I pour in a splash of dill pickle juice and then salt and pepper and mix together. After filling the eggs, I top with paprika. MMMMMM!

For potato salad, it’s not very exact either. I make big batches when Bray’s family gets together. I use, big surprise here, the Pioneer Woman’s recipe as my template. Except I use more potatoes, less mayo, and more mustard. She calls for 1 ½ cups of mayo and 4 tbsp of yellow mustard. I would say I don’t use more than a cup of mayo, and I use more than 4 tbsp of yellow mustard as well as a splash of Dijon mustard. I absolutely love dumping in a bunch of sliced small dill pickles (never sweet for me) and because I add more potatoes I also add more egg. Further, I only partially peel my potatoes because I like some skin on and I prefer red potatoes to russet. Finally I just cut and mash them after they come out of the pot because I prefer there to be some chunks in my potato salad rather than just having it smooth.

So that’s what I’m cooking right now.

What about you?

I love new recipes!!! Please share what you are baking or cooking over the pandemic and we’ll take some pictures of us making it!

What’s Cooking?

August 9, 2018 by Gindi Leave a Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot about cooking this summer!

One, because I’ve tried cooking an assortment of different things. I love new recipes.

Two, my kids still love cooking and even tried out a cooking camp.

Cooking camp was genius. My kids now have better knife skills than me.

They can, and do, make breakfast on their own (not cereal – pancakes and eggs). They’re always asking to help. And while it can drive me nuts sometimes when I just want to get something done, I love they’ve learned to cook so early on.

Among the things we’re cooking, given their mad knife skills and the fact that it’s 1,000 degrees outside, are salads! Every kind of salad.

I have to recommend this article from Country Living to you – 20+ Summer Salads.

We haven’t made them all, but we’ve made many and they’ve all turned out great.

Among my favorites, I highly recommend their charred corn salad. We grill corn, but typically in foil packets. For this salad, you roast the ears (shucked) directly on the grill. The key is the lime. I juiced more than they recommend because you don’t want the salad too dry. I never measure my salt and pepper either so I typically use more than the recipe calls for. You can sub the red chili for a seeded jalapeno. It’s great on the side, as a dip, or to top chicken or fish.

I don’t have the words to tell you how much I LOVE the honey mustard chicken salad. The marinade is amazing and we used to dress the salad too. (Honey, whole grain mustard, Dijon mustard, olive oil and vinegar!) I made up extra chicken breasts when grilling so I could use them all week long for lunches or even for a protein snack. Delicious. Now, I don’t eat pork so I didn’t add bacon to the salad. But I did add corn (from the grilled corn above) and hard boiled eggs.

We also tried the Peach Salad with Grilled Basil Chicken, the Dill Pickle Potato Salad, the Tomato Cucumber Feta Salad, and the Garbanzo Bean Salad. I can recommend them all. They’re cool and crisp and absolutely perfect for summer. Not to mention they’re healthy and my kids ate them.

My biggest adjustment is on seasoning. For example, with the garbanzo bean salad, I love the premise. But the carrots need to be super small because they are so crunchy (you could also cook them a couple minutes). And the salad needs a ton more flavor. When you make the dressing, add oodles of salt, pepper, dill and lemon. With all the yummy ingredients you wouldn’t think it would come out bland, but it does so amp up the seasoning.

So, what are you cooking this summer? Please share your favorite recipe. Bonus points if I can make it ahead because the kids go back to school next week. Yikes!

Photo Courtesy of Café Delites.

What I’m Cooking

November 6, 2014 by Gindi 7 Comments

Y’all, do you ever just get SO tired of cooking?

This weekend I thought, how are we needing to eat lunch, we just ate breakfast? And then, I swear, as soon as lunch was cleaned up, it was time to cook dinner! I’m walking through the grocery meat aisle thinking, there is nothing else that can be done to a piece of chicken! (I don’t eat pork or red meat, but I will periodically cook it for my family and just hope it tastes okay…)

So I thought I’d share a few of my recent dishes that weren’t complicated and that tasted yummy enough for two adults and three five year olds to eat (for two days, because y’all, if I’m going to cook, there’d better be some leftovers).

Let me preface my recipes with this: I am a total foodie when I travel and get to eat out, however at home I’m pretty easy. I don’t use fancy ingredients and the only thing I buy organic is milk, chicken, and eggs. These were all cooked after work for dinner except for the roast chicken which is more of a Sunday dish.

1. Hamburger Stew.

If I could fill this whole page with soup and stew recipes I would. But my kids would kill me. At least with the cooling temperatures I can sneak one in every Monday. Most of my soups are crockpot based, but this one was easy enough to do on the fly and we ate it for dinner on Monday and Wednesday (I try to serve an intervening dish).

This recipe is based on Ree Drummond’s hamburger soup with alterations that make it fit our needs:

— Swap the ground beef with ground turkey (I’ll feed them beef, but not in soup because if I make soup I WANT TO EAT IT!). Swap the beef broth out for vegetable broth.

— I used a bigger can of tomatoes, I think it was about double the size of what she recommends. And I probably added a bit of water – I need this a little soupier.

— I dropped the yellow bell pepper. Two were plenty.

— I didn’t use the chili powder (my kids don’t love spicy), but I did use some fresh herbs that I already had handy. I honestly don’t remember what they were but I think it was thyme and sage.

— I added a can of corn and a couple zucchini and dropped one of the potatoes.

It was so yummy and only took about 30 minutes to make after the prep (cut the veggies in advance if you can).

2. Roast Chicken.

I generally have chicken breasts on hand, but sometimes a whole chicken is just what the doctor ordered. My very favorite cookbook, and I love cookbooks, is one I’ve had a ton of years (The Ultimate Southern Living) that has a simple crisped herb chicken with roasted garlic recipe. I make it on Sundays for dinner because of the cook time and serve it with veggies – I think I boiled carrots (a little butter and brown sugar for the kids) and roasted some broccoli. Easy peasy.

The recipe calls for 1/3 cup each of onion, diced carrot, and celery, but I probably use more b/c I stuff that chicken to the brim.
1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
3 tbsp. dry white wine
3+ lb broiler-fryer
1/4 cup butter, melted (um, I’m probably a little closer to 1/2 cup)
2 tsp chopped basil, oregano, thyme
1/2 tsp salt and pepper (but does anyone measure salt & pepper, not me, I just throw it on)

Combine the celery, carrots, onion, parsley and wine and toss (wine is optional, I don’t always include it). Clean and rise the chicken, pat dry. Stuff the body with the vegetable mixture. Can tie the legs together if you wish, and tuck the wingtips under the chicken. Place the chicken, breast side up, on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Combine butter and the herbs/spices. Brush the chicken with the butter mixture (generously). Cut a couple of heads of garlic in half and drizzle with olive oil placing them around the chicken. Roast at 375 for 1 hour or until a meat thermometer registers 180 degrees (for me it always takes longer than an hour, allow for that). If you like bread, serve with good bread to spread that yummy garlic on. The house will smell SO GOOD!

3. Easy Cornbread.

So I am a complete proponent of starting from box mix and adding a dash and smidge to make it special. I do that with Jiffy cornbread.

For my family, I start with two boxes, but if we’re with Bray’s parents I add another box. Follow directions on box and add in one can of cream corn, shredded cheese to your taste (for me it’s a cup-ish), and diced jalapenos (again to taste, we don’t use a ton because of the kids). Bake in a prepared cast iron skillet and serve right from it. When cooking at 350, it takes at least 45 minutes because it’s goopier than most cornbread but everyone inhales it.

4. Twice Baked Potatoes.

I roughly use the basics from the recipe on Taste of Home with a few tweaks.

First, my potatoes never bake in an hour and I am anti-microwave baked potatoes, so allow an hour and 15 minutes. Also, when you cook the broccoli, only cook it for about five or six minutes. It should still be bright and firm. Immediately drain the hot water and fill pot with ice water to keep broccoli bright. Make sure you cut the florets small so they mix well with the potatoes. I also use a bit more sour cream and cheese because these are potatoes, and you should use the snot out of sour cream and cheese when it comes to potatoes. I also blend in garlic salt and pepper to the filling. The tops of the potatoes that I have cut off, I dice and use the next morning for a breakfast skillet.

Y’all these are more than enough as an entrée and my kids adore them even though they’re not huge potato eaters.

What are you cooking? Help – I need some fresh ideas.

Soup photo courtesy of The Pioneer Woman and Potato photo courtesy of Taste of Home.