Chili

Tonight's dinner was incredibly easy to fix and can be a great crock pot dinner if you are organized early enough in the day.  Today I was not so organized, so it just simmered on the stove for an hour and a half.

There's not much of a history to this one.  I was just craving chili one day and I'd never made it before so I went hunting for a recipe on allrecipes.com.  The original recipe calls for turkey.  I have used turkey before and it has turned out well, but recently there have been a lot of contaminated ground turkey scares so I haven't bought any ground turkey for a while.  I think it also tastes a bit better with ground beef, so that's what I made tonight.

One of the great things about looking for recipes on recipe websites is that you can look at reviews.  I tweaked the original recipe a lot based on reviews I read from other people who had tried the recipe and I like the upgraded version much better. 

Usually (when I'm organized) I'll make a side of cornbread to go with the chili, but tonight since I was pretty out of it I just threw a bunch of corn into the chili.  I know, definitely not the same, but at least you still get that nice sweetness of the corn in there.  I also tried adding spinach tonight because I'm starting to really like sneaking spinach into things.  It worked well and added another vegetable serving in there!

Here's what I did.

Chili
adapted from Simple Turkey Chili recipe on allrecipes.com

Ingredients
1lb ground beef
1 medium onion diced
3 cloves of garlic minced

1 large carrot diced

2 anaheim chiles diced(I usually use 1 bell pepper, but I had the anaheims in the fridge and didn't want to waste them)
2 cups chicken broth (or beef broth should work well too)
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans, rinsed and partially mashed
2 cups chopped spinach
1cup corn (I used frozen)

2 tblsp chili powder

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp ground cumin

salt and pepper to taste

*the original recipe also had 1/2 tsp cayenne which is nice, but I leave it out now so that it's not spicy for the kiddos.  Jon still adds a dash after it's made.  Don't add the cayenne until the last minute if you're making it in a crock pot though!

Method

1.  Brown the ground beef in a large pot.

2.  Add the onion and saute with the beef until the onion is softened.

3.  Add the garlic, carrot and chiles and saute until the chiles start to soften.

4.  Add the spinach, tomatoes, beans, broth, and spices and mix well.  Bring it up to a boil on med-high heat and then lower the temperature and let it simmer for at least 40 minutes covered or more until all the veggies are tender. 

Spinach

Tomatoes and beans

Broth

Spices

5.  Take the lid off and add the frozen corn and simmer it for another 15 minutes to let some liquid evaporate so it's a thicker chili.

This works well in a crock pot too!  Just throw everything in a crock pot after step 3 and let it go all day.

It's very filling and has a lot of protein and fiber.  It's also nice with a bit of shredded cheddar on top.  Mmmm...

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dear God,

  please bless and protect all those out celebrating All Hallow's Eve tonight.  Keep them safe and help them remember the incredible Feast of All Saints tomorrow.  Amen.

Salmon with Pesto Sauce

I think this blog is good for Friday meals.  I'm getting more creative with the fish!  We had Salmon smothered in Pesto Sauce with Pesto Pasta on Friday night.  I surprised myself, I didn't think it was going to be too fantastic, but the Pesto sauce turned out very well and it paired really well with the salmon.

Usually Pesto sauce is made with pine nuts, but the price of pine nuts prohibits me from using them!  So I went with walnuts and I think they worked really well as a substitute.  I made the sauce in our magic bullet, but I imagine that you could make a larger batch in a food processor.  You might also be able to use an immersion blender for this, but you'd probably have to start with the olive oil, garlic, and nuts, then add the rest of the ingredients slowly. 

Pesto is a great sauce because all of the ingredients are raw (which means more nutrition!) and it's not incredibly rich like white sauces.   The raw garlic cloves are immune boosters, walnuts have lots of omega 3's, extra virgin olive oil has good plant fats, and basil aids in digestion and is a mood booster!  For me personally pasta is a mood booster (ha ha ha!) just because I like it. 


Salmon with Pesto Sauce
from my own brain (since I know the ingredients that go in pesto I never really looked at a recipe for it)

Ingredients
1/2 salmon filet (about 1 1/2 pounds)
2tbsp butter
1tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper

(pesto sauce)
4 large cloves of garlic
2 handfuls of fresh basil roughly chopped
1/3c extra virgin olive oil
1/4c parmesano reggiano
1/4c walnuts (I've also used pecans and almonds with success too.  Traditionally pine nuts are used.)


Method
1.  Place all the ingredients for the pesto sauce in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.  Add more extra virgin olive oil if it gets too thick. 

2.  Dot the salmon filet with butter, then sprinkle with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

3.  Bake the salmon in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

4.  After 30 minutes take the samon out and pour on some of the pesto sauce so that most of the filet is covered.  Return it to the oven for 2 minutes.

5.  Serve the salmon with pasta tossed with pesto sauce.

Yum! 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Dear God,
  thank you for a relaxing evening with friends on Friday.  Help us all to treasure the people that you put into our lives and always treat them with love and respect.  Amen.

Chili crusted steak with cilantro butter and cheddar mashed potatoes

If you're thinking that you've read this somewhere before, you're not crazy.  This is what Jon had when we went on our date at The Stone House.  The only difference is that Jon had a filet mignon and there was asparagus and red pepper coulis.  Both the asparagus and filet mignon were too expensive at the moment and to be honest I forgot about the red pepper coulis.  Oh well. 

Unfortunately the recipe I got from the food network did not imitate the chili crusted masterpiece at Stone House at all.  It was still pretty tasty, but it was really spicy and didn't really have the same flavors.  Eh, what do you expect?  I am not a very experienced or trained chef with my own restaurant. 

I think if I had tried this on its own, not trying to imitate the best food I've ever tasted I would probably be more satisfied with this dish.  But all in all I think it was a decent attempt. 

We'll see what Jon thinks whenever he gets home from his 14+ hour day.  Darned software ...grrr....


The Recipe for the Chile Crusted Steak is Here.  It's from Bobby Flay.  I didn't use the filet mignons or the chili sauce with mushrooms.  I found some reasonably priced western grillers at the butcher shop on Tuesday so I thought I'd try those.  They were okay, I think if I tried this again I'd probably go with a Top Sirloin.  I might also try a different combination of chiles.  Maybe chipotle?  Hmmm...


I had to grind my own chile de arbol and pasilla chile powder.  Yay for the Magic Bullet.



The spice mixture looked pretty cool.



Dredging the steak in the chile mixture.



Steak in the pan searing on the first side.  I cooked it for 5 minutes on the first side.



I did 7 minutes on the second side, but unfortunately I found out after a few bites that it wasn't enough.  My steak ended up being medium when I was going more for medium well.  I needed to return it to the pan for a few minutes.  This was pretty annoying especially after letting it rest for 10 minutes, but preggos probably shouldn't be eating bloody steaks.



For the cheddar mash I just used russets, butter, salt, and cheddar.  Sorry, no real measurements. 

I washed, cut, then boiled them and mashed with a good old potato masher.  I'm a little scared to use machinery with potatoes since the 3 or 4 times I have they've gone gluey.  Ick.



Cheddar mashed potatoes, sorry for the horrible shot.



For the cilantro butter I took about 5 tbsp of butter and a handful of fresh cilantro and threw them in the magic bullet.  I am not really sure what they did at the Stone House, but it was so much better than this.  Maybe more salt?  Or maybe it was fresh butter that they made at the restaurant.  Who knows.  Maybe someday if I get to be a famous food blogger I can go and pick at the chef's mind.



You may be thinking, geez that looks charred, but it wasn't burnt at all.  That's just what happens to the color of the chile powder after it's been seared.  No burnt taste I promise!



In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dear God,

  thank you for humbling moments.  Help us all to remember that it's not our actions or characteristics that give us value or dignity, but the sheer fact that we are made in your image and likeness and loved infinitely by you.  Amen.

Hummus

Didn't do too much cooking tonight.  Jon suggested that we just have the siopao leftovers for dinner.  What wife can complain when her husband asks for leftovers?  So with my little bit of extra time I decided to make some hummus.

Clare loves hummus and I thought if there's a good amount left over I could serve some at girl's night on Friday. 

Oh and when I say loves hummus, I mean she eats it alone.  I'll give her stuff to eat it with or spread it on, but those all end up being used as spoons.  I can't blame her.  This stuff is pretty darned good.  I'm not sure if it's the recipe or if it's just because it's so fresh, but I've never had better.  Instead of giving myself all the credit for that I'll thank David Lebovitz.  It's his recipe.

Check it out.  I think the pictures he took are much better than any of the ones I would have taken, so it's a much nicer blog post to look at.

Cabbagetown Hummus

One thing I did differently today than I normally do is that I made my own tahini!  The last time I sent Jon to the grocery for some tahini I almost cried when he told me the organic tahini cost like $13.  What the heck?  So after I learned that the lovely food processor that I got for my birthday (Thanks Ma!!) could make nut butters, I figured it must be able to make tahini too right?  Yes!  It was super easy too. 

All I did was dump a cup of sesame seeds in and let the food processor do it's thing for like 5 minutes or slightly more.  I had to scrape down the sides a few times.  After a little processing it was nice and smooth just like my $13 bottle.  Ugh, $13?!?!  So crazy.  Needless to say I will continue to frequent the bulk section for sesame seeds instead of emptying my wallet the next time I want to make hummus.  1cup of sesame seeds makes 1/2c of tahini.

You should definitely try this
1) because there's raw garlic in it and that's really good for your immune system
2) because garbanzo beans/chickpeas are good for you  Check it out!  Lots of protein, fiber, B6 and folate
3) because it's so good!!!

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Dear God,
  Thank you for the joy of children.  Thank you for their innocence, curiosity, and excitement.  Help all of us to grow more like them every day.  Amen.

Siopao (Filipino steamed pork buns)

So I think these are known in Vietnamese cooking as Hum Bao(?).  I think people around this area might be more familiar with them by that name, but if you're Filipino you'll know them as siopao (pronounced See-Oh-Pow)

I've been having these things for as long as I can remember.  I don't really remember my mom making them from scratch, maybe once?  I think I might have already been away at college at that point.  Whenever we bought them we would drive down to China town (usually after picking my mom up from work down town) and pick up a box of these and probably an egg tart for me.  We would always go to New Town Bakery.  Sometimes we would stay and eat and dad would have a bowl of soup along with his siopao, but most of the time we just came for the ever beloved steamed buns.  These are not actually my favorite type of steamed buns, I always loved the chinese sausage filled buns, but I can't seem to find chinese sausage that doesn't have either msg or food dyes in it, so these will have to do until some healthy food company works on a natural chinese sausage.

When I moved down south to the states I only ever got siopao when my parents would bring some, or if I was courageous enough to try some frozen variety from the asian section of the grocery store (ick!).  I'm quite picky with my chinese restaurants and I've only found one that meets Vancouver (BC) standards around here so far. 

At some point, after reading a few recipes on the internet and in the Filipino cookbooks my mom got me, I started trying to make my own.  I think I've got it down.  I've made them a few times now and once you get the hang of things you really get a sense of the time it takes and how to do things most efficiently. 

I don't think Jon had ever tried siopao until my mom got some from New Town Bakery while we were dating.  He was hooked instantly.  He said something about them being fun to eat and I think he felt like an anime character chomping into those big fluffy white steamed buns.  Ha ha!  He asks me to make these a lot.  He doesn't usually eat dinner faster than me (or eat more than me) but tonight he was finished with a big satisfied look on his face much faster than I was.  Michael even attacked his.  I think it's safe to say that these are a family favorite for
a) the fluffy white bun part
b) the flavorful pork inside
c) because they're fun to eat.

So try it out.  If you have a bread maker or are at ease with dough you won't have any trouble with this recipe.  If you don't have a bread maker or are freaked out by dough, trust me, these are worth facing your fears.

Siopao (pork filled steamed buns)

(adapted from Let's Cook with Nora by Nora V. Daza)

So I'm going to give the instructions in 2 parts, but you'll want to start making the dough as soon as you get the pork simmering on the stove.

A.  Pork Asado (filling)

Ingredients

1lb pork country ribs cut into cubes

3/4c (you might need some extra) chicken stock

1/3c soy sauce

1/3c brown sugar

1/2c onion diced

2 cloves of garlic minced

Method

1.  In a saucepan combine all the ingredients except the pork and heat on low for a few minutes until everything combines nicely.



I have no idea why blogger made this picture portrait (it's landscape on my computer) but I can't fix it!



2.  Put the pork into the pan and raise the temp up to med-high.  Bring it to a boil, then lower the temp and let it simmer until the meat is tender.  I let mine go for almost two hours.  Watch out!  If your liquid gets low before your pork is tender add more liquid.  I probably added another 3/4 cup of chicken stock.  When the pork separates like pulled pork then it's done.  When it's done the pork should be tender and the liquid should be almost completely evaporated.  The sauce should be thick and dark.  If you want to prepare this ahead of time I've had it work well in the slow cooker before, just make sure you have it in there for a long time (like 5 or 6 hours at least). 



Same problem with this shot.



3.  Take the pork off the heat, shred all the pork and let it cool.  Mine was so tender after 2 hours I just had to stir it hard with a wooden spoon to get it all shredded nicely.  Set it aside.

B.  Siopao Dough
*scroll to the bottom for instructions without a bread maker

Ingredients

1 1/2c warm water
4tbsp sugar
1/4c coconut oil (the original recipe says lard) + about another 1/4c for kneading
4 1/2c all purpose flour
3 tsp yeast

Method

1.  Put all ingredients in the order listed into the pan of your bread maker and set on dough setting.

2.  When the dough finishes punch it down and knead it for a minute or two on an oiled surface (use more coconut oil).  Separate the dough into 8-12 balls depending on the size you you want.  I should probably make mine smaller because they get so puffy that they stick together in my steamer.  If you don't want that to happen try making 12 smaller siopao instead of my 8 gigantic ones.


C.  Filling and cooking
Materials
parchment paper cut into 3x3 inch squares
steamer

1.  Flatten each ball of dough in your (well oiled) hands and put about 2 rounded tablespoons of pork asado filling in the center.  Gently pull the dough around the meat and pinch the dough together at the top.  Lay the ball on a piece of parchment paper seam side down.  Repeat with the rest of the dough and meat filling.

2.  Steam the buns for 15 minutes.  I don't have a huge steamer (probably like most of you) and I had to steam them in 3 batches.

Serve hot! 



I wish I had gotten a shot of it after I bit into it.  Or better yet of Jon sinking his teeth in.



So again, don't be daunted, it's really easy once you get the hang of it.  Just get the pork simmering, start the dough, then by the time the dough is done the pork should be cool and ready to go.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Dear God,
  Thank you for my husband and my children.  They help me become better every day.  Thank you for the love and laughter in our family, we are truly blessed.  Amen.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

*Non bread maker dough instructions from "Let's cook with Nora".

1.  Dissolve yeast in water.  then add sugar and 2 1/2c flour to make a soft sponge, beat thoroughly with a wooden spoon.

2.  Let dough rise in a warm place covered for 30-40 minutes.

3.  After rising add remaining flour and 1/4c oil and mix well.  Turn onto a greased board and knead until smooth.

4.  Divide dough into 8-12 balls.  Flatten each ball and fill with asado.  Pinch the edges together and seal, lay seam side down on parchment paper.

5.  Let dough rise for 20 minutes before steaming.

Family Dinner

There may be a post later tonight on cheese bagels, but tonight's dinner is a simple breaded chicken, so in lieu of an exciting recipe I'll leave you this awesome read.

Want to fight premarital sex, drug use, suicide?: eat more meals as a family

This is an article from life site news.  It has some compelling statistics for making family meals a priority!! 


UIOGD.

Red Sauced Chicken Enchiladas

On thursday night when I made the Pad Thai I used up the rest of my roasted chicken from a few days earlier and made chicken stock.  I also threw in another carcass from separating some chicken pieces for the chicken breasts I used in the Pad Thai.  After the stock was ready I was left with quite a large amount of chicken meat.  So I thought tonight I'd make enchiladas.

I usually make white sauced enchiladas with green chiles, sour cream, and monterrey jack cheese, but recently Jon has been talking about how much fun it'd be to learn how to make red enchiladas.  Hint hint....  That means, "Hey wife would you mind looking up a recipe for red enchilada sauce and learning how to make it so I can eat red enchiladas without paying $11 for it?"  Ha ha!  At least I think that's what he means when he says this. 

I had looked through a few recipes before and I thought I had tried making some sort of red Mexican sauce a while ago with dried chiles (which were hiding in a ziplock bag in the back of our pantry/cupboard), so I figured I could just pick up a few ingredients that were pretty common to Mexican food while we were at the grocery after Mass this morning and whip them up for dinner.

After looking through my mexican cookbook, another sheet full of enchilada recipes my mom gave me, and allrecipes.com I found a recipe called, "The Best Red Enchilada Sauce".  I also happened to have most of the ingredients needed and it got great reviews.  So I thought I'd try using the enchilada sauce in the link with the method for making the other type of white cream based enchiladas...sort of.  I didn't dip the tortillas in the red sauce like I do with the creamy casserole type enchiladas.

I honestly didn't know if this was going to work out so well.  I taste tested the sauce before I simmered it and it didn't taste like much besides tomato paste, so I got a little worried.  Usually when I get really worried about trying something new I don't take a lot of pictures because I don't really want to blog about a kitchen fail.  However....after the sauce simmered, the enchiladas were baked, and Jon took his first bite he said, "Wow that's really good."  He took a few more bites and said again (without prompting by me!), "Wow, that's really good."  I usually have to prod my husband with my fork before he says anything about the food, so this was pretty exciting.  I thought they were decent too, so I prodded, "What would you rate this out of 5?"

He replied, "4.9-5 but only because I think it could still be really perfected."  4.9!!!  4.9!!!??!  That's like a gold medal for an ice skater...wait do they go off a scale of 10?  Whatever!  I was pretty darned excited he liked this that much.  But I agree, it could be even better.  I might even try this with shredded beef sometime, I bet that would be fantastic.

One thing I didn't have was beef broth (yeah, yeah, as usual) for the sauce.  I'm sure that would have made the sauce 10 times better.  I used the chicken broth I made when I cooked all that chicken.  I also scaled down the recipe a bit, so the measurements were probably a tad off.  The original recipe said it made 17 servings.  Since I'm not feeding my extended family I decided to scale it down to 4.  (I know, there are only 2 adults in our household, but Clare eats pretty well, I had a lot of shredded chicken, and we like leftovers here!)

So just be warned.  Try to be very careful with your measurements and use beef broth!

Here's what I did.

Red Sauced Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients
1lb cooked shredded chicken
6 flour tortillas (I made mine again the recipe is here and I used coconut oil)
1/2 an onion chopped
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
salt and pepper to taste
1/2c shredded cheese (tonight I used white and regular cheddar, you could probably also use monterrey jack or cotija)

4 servings of Best Enchilada Red Sauce


Method
1.  Saute onions in a medium pot on low heat until soft. 

2.  Add shredded chicken, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper and 1/3 of the enchilada red sauce and continue to saute on medium until everything is well combined and heated through.  Take off the heat.

3.  Preheat oven to 350.

4.  In each tortilla put some chicken and a sprinkling of your shredded cheese and roll up (don't use up all the cheese).  Put all your rolled up enchiladas in a casserole dish and cover with the rest of the red sauce.  Sprinkle with the remainder of the cheese. 

5.  Bake in the 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes until the sauce is nice and bubbly and the cheese is melted.

Yum!  Serve with a side of homemade (I'll have to post that recipe another time) guacamole!

Again, I have no idea if this is an authentic Mexican recipe, because I am not Mexican, so if my Mexican friends (or those married to Mexicans and living in Mexico) want to correct some inauthenticity here, please feel free to leave a comment! 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dear God,

  thank you for successful and surprising discoveries.  Help us to never be bored with life so that we always have a child like sense of awe and excitement, especially for your wonders.  Help us cultivate a virtuous Fear of the Lord, which helps us to understand our own place, your love and mercy, and your majesty all at the same time.  Amen.