d&d april 10th

The first really nice weekend day of the year – time to grill!  I made burgers and potato salad.  Burgers are a nice entry into the assemble-your-own genre; I put out a slew of toppings and let people put their own burgers together.  A good trick for picky eaters.

Brinkley Potato Salad:

The recipe comes from my in-laws, and is more of a set of guidelines than a set recipe.  Make it as you like it.

5 lbs yukon gold potatoes, cut into chunks and boiled until tender, then drained
5 ribs of celery, chopped
5 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon old bay seasoning
salt and pepper

Mix everything together while the potatoes are still warm.  Taste for seasoning; add more of anything you need.  Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve – it takes at least a few hours to cool all the way down, so make it ahead.

weeknight dinner and wipeout

We are big fans of the show ‘Wipeout‘, so on Thursday nights it’s routine for us to be parked in front of the TV.  Our friends, also fans, joined us for the ritual on Thursday, so I used the chicken leftovers to make enchiladas.

If you ask me, enchiladas are pretty much the perfect food.  They are, obviously, delicious, but they’re also infinitely flexible (excellent for using up the dregs of the vegetable drawer), great vehicles for my favorite toppings, and also really, really cheap to make, even in quantity.

My standard enchiladas usually involve a couple of chicken breasts – either leftover from another meal or poached specifically for this one.  I shred them into a giant bowl, and add whatever inspires me.  Usually, it’s onions and bell peppers (whatever color of each I have handy), chopped and sauteed, plus some canned green chiles.   I buy the whole ones, chop them myself, and add them to the onions and peppers for the last few minutes of sauteeing.  Then I add a can of black beans, drained, and about a cup of frozen corn.  The last touch is brown rice, again, either leftover or not.  The rice is what lets you volumize inexpensively – want to stretch out your filling to make a few extra enchiladas? Add more rice.  Finish the mixture off with a handful of grated cheese – whatever you’ve got on hand.  I make Mexican food so often that there is always a bag of shredded ‘Mexican blend’ cheese in my fridge.

Once the filling is made, the rest is just assembly.  For the sauce, I use canned – sorry, do-it-yourselfers – and combine one can of mild and one can of hot to get the balance I like.  Spread a little bit of sauce* on the bottom of a 9×13″ baking dish.  Then fill and wrap your enchiladas.  I buy corn tortillas, as I like the flavor better.  Put a couple of handfuls of filling in the center of the tortilla, squish it into some semblance of a line across the middle, and roll it up.  Place it into the pan, seam side down, and repeat until your pan is full.  Pour the rest of the sauce over the top of the enchiladas, spread it so that every inch has at least seen some sauce, and top with as much cheese as you like.  Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 for about half an hour.

Serve enchiladas with any toppings you like – I love sour cream, guacamole, fresh tomatoes, and scallions.

*Note – some enchilada recipes call for you to dip the tortillas in the sauce before you fill them.  I tried it, and made a huge mess.  It made everything a little too soggy for my taste – plus, I like the flavor of the filling more than I like the flavor of the sauce, so I don’t want the sauce to overpower everything else.

sunday dinner

Sometimes plans go awry.  It’s important to always make food that you actually like, because if something goes wrong and nobody shows up, you’re going to be eating that food for a week.  We had expected our usual D&D gamers to be here on Sunday, but over half the group couldn’t make it, and more left early.  We were left with just the two of us and one other couple, so food for an army got put to use as a simple Sunday dinner, and we have a lot of leftovers.

I salvaged the situation by cutting back on my plans. I didn’t bother with any dessert, and I didn’t worry too much about having a green veggie side dish, which I usually try to do.  I had bought two chickens to roast, and since I didn’t have room in the freezer for a whole chicken, I went ahead and roasted both anyway (here’s how I roast a chicken).  I cut back on the amounts of onions and potatoes I roasted alongside – I have Costco-sized bags of onions and potatoes leftover, but they keep and they’ll get used in other ways; much better than having the cooked version in the fridge sitting around.

We wound up with just enough onions and potatoes to go around, and enough leftover chicken to make a few meals later in the week.  Crisis averted.

d&d, march 27th

What my husband grew up calling “pasta bake” is one of the easiest things in the world to make, and great for entertaining because it can be made ahead and pleases even really picky eaters.  My version is an alfredo version, but it can be done just as easily with red sauce.

This is a recipe for the quantity I usually make, which feeds at least ten people, with leftovers.  I serve it with a green salad and crusty bread.

4 chicken breasts, cooked (I generally poach them)
2 pounds penne pasta
3 jars good alfredo sauce (if you want to make your own, go for it – I am lazy, and look for a really good quality pre-made sauce)
2 cups grated mozzarella cheese, plus 1/2 cup
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  While the oven is heating, cook and drain the pasta to al dente – be sure not to overcook it.  Put the drained pasta back into the pot over very low heat and add the alfredo sauce, 2 cups of mozzarella, and the cheddar.  Chop the cooked and cooled chicken into bite sized pieced and add into the pot, along with salt and pepper to taste.  Stir the whole thing together until well combined – the cheeses should be mostly melted.  It only takes a minute or so.  Pour into two 9×13″ greased baking dishes.  Sprinkle with the remaining mozzarella and parmesan cheese.  Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes, then uncover and bake for another 10.

working lunch

I hosted a lunch meeting with some members of the Baltimore Etsy Street Team to work on our newsletter.  I wanted something healthy but filling, with unusual flavors, and Nigella’s Vietnamese Chicken Salad absolutely fit the bill.  I made a few changes – cilantro instead of mint, extra lime juice and rice wine vinegar – but generally kept to the recipe.  In the past, I’ve used cucumber instead of cabbage, or added thin rice noodles to bulk out the salad. It’s great no matter how you make it.

I also served steamed edamame and an easy ginger limeade.

Ginger Limeade

1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups suger
2-inch knob of ginger, peeled and cut into large chunks
1 1/2 cups lime juice, fresh squeezed (about 12-15 limes)
6-7 cups club soda

Simmer water, sugar, and ginger together over low heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is completely dissolved and liquid is clear, not cloudy.  Turn off the heat, cover, and let ginger steep in the warm syrup for about ten minutes.

Pour ginger syrup and lime juice through a strainer into a pitcher and chill.  When ready to serve, fill the pitcher the rest of the way with club soda and stir.  Serve over ice.

dinner with the seidmans

Our gaming session was cancelled on Sunday, so we wound up having a quiet Sunday dinner with our friends, which was lovely.  I made one of the things I regularly make when it’s just the two of us, pork chops.  Entertaining doesn’t always mean going all out!  A simple homemade meal is just as impressive as something fancy, and usually appeals to a broader range of palates, too.

Pork chops and sauerkraut is a very traditionally Baltimore sort of thing, and it’s one of my husband’s favorites.  It’s also so easy it doesn’t need a recipe.  The trick is in using your kitchen equipment in clever ways.  Set a 9×13 glass baking dish on a baking sheet.  Empty a can of sauerkraut into the dish (or a bag, or a jar, or however you buy your sauerkraut) and spread it relatively evenly to cover the bottom of the dish.  Place a metal cooling rack over the baking dish, and put four bone-in pork chops on it, evenly spaced over the baking dish and sauerkraut therein.  Sprinkle the chops with salt and pepper, and drizzle with a little olive oil.  Bake the whole thing at 375 degrees until the pork chops reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees – usually around half an hour.

I served the pork and sauerkraut with sweet potatoes baked with butter and brown sugar, applesauce, and steamed green beans.  My husband also likes to have hominy (white corn kernels stripped of their skin) with this meal, but I hate it.

d&d – march 13th

I was totally uninspired to cook for D&D, and was flipping through some food magazines in the hopes of finding something that would give me an idea.  I found a recipe for ‘steak and guinness pie‘ in Fine Cooking and decided it was perfect for a pre-Saint Patrick’s dinner.  Bonus – it was a slow cooker recipe, so I could fling everything in in the morning and spend time with my friends while it cooked.

dinner with mom

My mother was here for dinner during a recent visit.  I made my version of Nigella’s chicken cacciatore.  It’s hearty but fast and pretty simple, and paired with a green salad and crusty bread makes a nice dinner.

family birthday brunch

The extended family got together this weekend for a belated birthday brunch for my husband’s younger sister.  As most things are these days, it was a potluck.  Most of the traditional items have a traditional person who brings them – we are the only freewheelers, so I said I’d bring something fruit-related.  I planned on making something more elaborate, but wound up with very little time, so I rushed to the grocery store early in the morning and bought all the fruit I could find and came home and sliced it up and arranged it on a platter.  Not my best effort, but when something is nicely presented people are impressed by it no matter how easy it was!

d&d – february 26th

I’m a little delayed in posting this, obviously. The jewelry business has been keeping me busy lately – not to mention work, home, etc.  Anyway!  Mexican (or, really, Tex-Mex) food is pretty much my favorite thing ever, so I make a lot of it both for just us and when we’re entertaining.

Fajitas are one of my favorite please-everybody meals. I had a few people who were looking forward to red meat this week, one who would only eat chicken, and others who had various dietary restrictions.  So I picked up a flank steak and several boneless chicken breasts.  Both kinds of meat were sprinkled with salt, cumin, oregano, and cayenne pepper* and grilled on my cast-iron grill pan.  While the meat was resting, I sauteed a vast quantity of sliced bell peppers and onions in some olive oil until they were tender but not brown.

Once the meat had been sliced, I set it and the onions/peppers out with warm tortillas and a create-your-own buffet of toppings:

• Shredded cheese
• Guacamole
• Cilantro
• Scallions
• Sour cream
• Diced tomatoes
• Sliced radishes
• Lime wedges

*Note – I often simply sprinkle both meat and veggies with Adobo seasoning, but one of the attendees was allergic to it, so I used these seasonings instead – just as good either way!