On our drive home from the office one crisp September evening a few years back, Hubby and I had a long discussion as to what to do for dinner. I knew we had some beautiful Beef Medallions waiting for us and I had a new recipe I was dying to try – Beef Medallions with a Rosemary Sauce.
Continue reading “Sensational Beef Medallions with Rosemary Sauce”
On a recent Costco run, Hubby and I picked up an Eye of Round roast. It was a large roast, about 5 pounds. That was much too large for just the three of us, so we cut the roast in half, wrapped each half in plastic wrap, then sealed in bags for the freezer.
Continue reading “President Ford’s Braised Eye of Round Steak”If you aren’t familiar with Chermoula, it’s a condiment or marinade of sorts that hails from North Africa. It is a delicious blend of fresh herbs, rich spices and a kiss of lemon.
Continue reading “Pan-Roasted Halibut with African Chermoula”
It occurred to me as I posted my recipe for Slow Simmered Creamy Potato and Bacon Soup that I’ve featured my “cheaters” Buttery-Chive Crescent Rolls in the photo along with the soup. These are the same wonderful, buttery rolls I like to serve with just about any light or creamy soup, opting for warm French Bread when serving a more hardy, dense soup such as Vegetable Beef. These flaky rolls are also excellent with light pasta dishes such as Fettuccine Carbonara. The yummy rolls are so easy to make – especially when you “cheat” a little and use crescent roll dough from your market’s refrigerated section. Personally, I like Pillsbury Crescent Rolls for their flaky exterior and light, soft interior, but you can use your favorite refrigerated Crescent Rolls. During the holidays, I like to keep several cans on hand as they are so versatile, especially when making all sorts of warm appetizers – be it planned or when people pop over to say Merry Christmas.
Buttery-Chive Crescent Rolls
1 can refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1 tablespoon butter, melted
¼ cup chopped fresh chives
Butter-Flavored Pam
Heat oven to 375-degrees (350 for darker pans or well-seasoned baking stone). Lightly spray baking sheet with butter flavored Pam and set aside.
On a flat surface such as a cutting board, unroll dough. Leave as one sheet and brush with butter. Sprinkle generously with chives. Separate rolls along perforated lines. (Use a pizza cutter and follow along the perforated lines for an easy way to separate the rolls without over-stretching the dough). Roll each into crescent shape.
Place on baking sheet and pop into the oven. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove from baking sheet to prevent bottom from over-cooking. Serve warm. Makes 8 rolls; double for more.
Looking for something to serve with an Italian influence: Add some roasted garlic to the butter and sprinkle with a little Italian seasoning. Yum!
Throughout my postings, you will get to know my family a little better. The main characters are Hubby, my soul mate of thirty plus years, and Kiddo, our now grown grandson. We have raised Kiddo since birth, and although an adult, he still lives with us. We are the Three Musketeers.
I was fortunate in that during Kiddo’s formative years, I was a stay-at-home mom (or Mema, as he calls me). When I returned to the workforce, dinnertime became a challenge, until I realized that I had a teenager at home who was capable of preparing even the most complicated of dishes with proper instructions. After all, he had been at my side in the kitchen for years, eager to learn and lend a helping hand.
While it wasn’t easy to “let go” of the responsibilities of the family meal, it was good for both of us. It allowed him to be able to mature, to feel confident and independent. It gave me a less stressful work day. All around it was a win-win situation.
And so it was that I set about creating recipes with timetables and step-by-step instructions for Kiddo to follow all on his own. I knew we needed dinner on the table by 6:30 each night, so I worked out a timetable that would end with the meal on the table at the appointed time. Since my guy was a novice in the kitchen all on his own (great with grilled cheese sandwiches but lacking in speed with a knife), I allowed ample time for chopping and such. In no time at all, my young man was a whiz in the kitchen, although to this day he continues to move at a snail’s pace.
This recipe is one such meal he was able to execute without my hovering over him every step of the way.
Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Red Grapes and White Wine
3 Tablespoons garlic, chopped
3 tablespoons fresh sage leaves, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
3 lbs center-cut pork loin
1 cup dry white wine, divided
1 lb red grapes
2 tablespoons butter
Preheat oven to 375-degrees. Butterfly Pork Sirloin or Tenderloin roast. Set aside.
Combine garlic, sage, salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons of oil in mixing bowl. Rub half of the mixture inside the tenderloin. Close and secure with kitchen twine. Rub remaining mixture over outside of tenderloin.
Coat large baking pan with 2 tablespoons of oil. Place pork loin in baking pan; add about 1/2 cup white wine to pan, cover pan with aluminum foil. Place in oven and roast for approximately 10-15 minutes per pound or until temperature reaches 155-degrees (medium well). Remove foil; roast additional 15 minutes or until well-browned.
Remove pork loin from pan and place on cutting board. Tent with foil to keep warm and let stand for 10 minutes.
In the meantime, place pan used to roast pork on stove top over medium heat. Add remaining 1/2 cup of wine. Using spatula, scrape bottom of pan to release drippings. Add grapes; cook until grapes are warm and wine is bubbling. Remove from heat, stir in 2 tablespoons butter to the wine mixture.
Slice pork loin and place on serving platter. Spoon warm grapes around loin. Pour wine sauce over pork. Serve immediately.
It was one of those rise and shine before the Rooster’s crow mornings. Outside the rain fell and I could hear it softly tapping on the window panes. The air was cold and crisp and clean. I love busy mornings – it gets my heart to pumping. I went through my check list. Lunch packed – check. Breakfast Blend coffee in the French Press – double-check. Creamy Potato and Bacon Soup simmering in the slow cooker – you bet. I could still smell the lingering scent of fried bacon. The whole of the kitchen smelled warm and inviting. I love the smell of bacon cooking, don’t you?
Just a few quick tips before we get into the recipe – white pepper is mild BUT a much finer grain of pepper, so a little quarter teaspoon goes a long way. Be sure to taste and adjust accordingly. Let your bacon crisp a bit before adding the onions – the onions are going to impart some liquid that will hinder the bacon’s ability to crisp if added too soon. Since I knew my soup was going to simmer in the pot for more than the recommended 7 hours, I cut my potatoes a bit larger than “diced” as the original recipe called for. I was afraid that if I cut the potatoes too small, they would fall apart. While you don’t want huge chunks of potato in a soup deemed “Creamy” you DO want some potatoes to be recognized as potatoes and not mushy stiff-stuff. Once the soup is finished, you can always break up any large chunks if you like. I didn’t find it necessary.
The final cooking time of 30 minutes for the soup to thicken is just the right amount of time to bake up some Buttery-Chive Crescent Rolls. It also give you a few minutes of down time to relax, kick off your shoes and settle in for the night. Savor the wonderful smoky aroma floating from your slow cooker, toss a salad and maybe pour a glass of wine. Before you know it, dinner is served.
Hubby isn’t a big soup eater. The fact that he complimented me on dinner and went back for seconds tells me this is one soup he really enjoyed. Besides the convenience of having a stress-free supper waiting at the end of the day is that my guys truly enjoyed this yummy soup. Gotta love cold nights if for no other reason that it brings out the best of soup makers in all of us.
Creamy Potato and Bacon Soup Slow Cooked
6 slices bacon, cut into pieces
1 onion, finely chopped
2 (14.5 ounce) cans Chicken broth
5 large potatoes, cut into 1 inch chunks
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 cup Wondra or all-purpose flour
2 cups half-and-half cream
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder
4 Tablespoons Chopped Red Bell Pepper, garnish
4 Tablespoons Chopped Green Onion, garnish
Lay strips of bacon in a stack, slice into pieces. Place in a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Stir fry bacon until just beginning to brown. Add diced onions to the skillet and increase heat to medium-high. Continue to cook, stirring as needed, until the bacon is evenly browned and the onions are soft. Drain off excess grease.
While the onions and bacon are cooking, peel and dice potatoes. Set aside until ready to use.
Transfer the bacon and onion to a slow cooker. Add potatoes and stir to incorporate bacon-onion mixture with potatoes. Stir in chicken broth, salt, dill weed and white pepper. Cover and cook on LOW for about 7 hours. (Longer is fine, too).
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, Half-and-Half and Evaporated Milk. Stir into the soup along with a teaspoon or so Garlic Powder. Increase slow cooker to HIGH and cook soup another 30 minutes uncovered. This will allow soup to thicken, taking on its creamy characteristics.
To serve, ladle soup into bowls, garnish with chopped bell pepper and green onion. Serve with crescent rolls, if desired.
Like most Filipino dishes, there is no “right” way to make Pancit. Each family has its own take on the dish, and within any given family, there are variations. The basics are Pancit Noodles, meat, vegetables and hard-boiled eggs. Beyond that, the sky is the limit. You can put just about anything but the kitchen sink into your Pancit, and it would be just fine.
Continue reading “Filipino Pancit with Everything but the Kitchen Sink”
When Hubby and I first got together, he took me to a dive of a Mexican restaurant – a real hole in the wall joint with linoleum floors that slopped toward the kitchen and rickety tables. Hubby insisted they made his all-time-favorite Mexican dish – Chicken Mole. He was right, it was very good. Because I love Hubby with all my heart, and as a blushing bride, I wanted to make his favorite Mexican dish at home. Have you seen the ingredients in authentic Mole sauce?! Oh me, oh my . . . raisins, nuts, chocolate, chilies and on and on . . . hours of simmering. Oh no!
See me in my kitchen, doing a happy dance. I am so thrilled with how the pan-fried chicken came out – a technique I had struggled to master. I remember the first time I attempted to make batter fried chicken for a lemon chicken recipe. To say it was a disaster would be putting it mildly. The recipe called for the chicken to be dipped, then fried in a wok. The problem I had with my wok was that the chicken did not have room to spread out, to be surrounded in hot oil. The result was a big clump of chicken. When I tried to break it apart, most of the batter pulled away from the chicken. It was one hot mess. I gave up and began baking the chicken instead. Baking, while healthier, did not produce that golden puffy goodness you expect with Chinese Chicken dishes. I surrendered to the fact that the only way to get good, crisp fried chicken like the ones you get from a Chinese Restaurant was to order take-out or eat at a Chinese restaurant.
For whatever the reason, I decided to give it one last try at home. I read my recipe, remembered all the different dos and don’ts I have seen on all those cooking shows, and thought about my own failed disasters. Failure isn’t failure unless you learn nothing from the experience. Believe me, I learned. All those lessons have been incorporated and now I am proud to say I’ve got this. While this recipe is for Sweet and Sour Chicken, the cooking technique of the chicken is the same for many dishes – simply by changing up the sauce, you can create perfect Orange Chicken, Lemon Chicken, or a whole host of yummy dishes. This batter could also be used on shrimp or scallops as well.
Sweet and Sour Pan Fried Chicken
Sweet and Sour Sauce
1 (8 oz) can Pineapple Chunks, juices reserved
1 1/2 cups water
3/4 cup White Sugar
1/2 cup Distilled White Vinegar
4 drops Orange Food Coloring
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup Chicken Broth
Place a strainer over a cup or bowl, drain pineapple and reserve the juice. Set pineapple chunks aside.
In a saucepan, combine water, sugar, vinegar, reserved pineapple juice and food coloring.
Place saucepan over medium-high heat and stir until sugar has dissolved. Let liquid come to a full boil.
In a small bowl or measuring cup, blend cornstarch with chicken broth. Set aside until liquid in saucepan comes to a boil.
Remove saucepan from heat. Slowly add cornstarch mixture to the saucepan. Continue to stir until the mixture begins to thicken.
Return to low heat and let sauce simmer, stirring occasionally.
Pan Fried Chicken
2 1/4 cups Self-rising flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups water
3 large Boneless, skinless Chicken Breasts
Vegetable oil for frying
In a large bowl, combine flour, cornstarch, salt and white pepper. Whisk to blend.
In a small bowl, whisk egg with vegetable oil. Pour egg mixture into flour mixture and stir to blend.
Add water, 1/2 cup at a time and blend with a fork to create a thick batter. Set aside and let rest.
Rinse chicken breasts and pat dry with paper towels. Lay breasts on a cutting board and cut into 1-inch chunks.
Place chicken pieces into the batter. Stir to get all the chicken pieces well coated. Set aside while the oil heats.
Heat oil in a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat to 350 degrees. Oil should be about 2 inches deep.
Using tongs and working in batches, remove chicken one piece at a time and place in hot oil. DO NOT overcrowd the pan or allow pieces to touch while frying. Fry for about 5 minutes, turn or roll over and continue to fry another 5 minutes, until pieces are golden and puffy.
Remove chicken pieces from skillet using a slotted spoon, drain on paper towel to absorb excess oil. Repeat until all the chicken pieces have been fried.
Garnish
1 Red Bell Pepper, chopped
1 Orange Bell Pepper, chopped
Pineapple Chunks
While chicken is frying, core and cut bell peppers into chunks. Spread out in a microwave safe dish. Place into microwave and heat on high for about 3 minutes. The peppers should be warm yet retain that fresh crispness.
Remove peppers from microwave, add pineapple chunks and toss to combine. Set aside until ready to use.
When ready to serve, pile chicken in the center of a large serving platter. Arrange peppers and pineapple in a circle around the chicken. Drizzle some of the sauce over the chicken, reserve remaining sauce to be added at table side.
Serve chicken with the sauce and enjoy!
The first time I read this recipe, I had my doubts. Alfredo sauce and Spaghetti sauce blended together – really? I like them both, although with cheese filled pastas and seafood filled pastas, I’ve always been partial to a light, creamy sauce such as an Alfredo over the robust, tomato-based Spaghetti sauce. It never occurred to me to marry the two together in one dish. Oh my stars, what a great combination!
Growing up in a mixed culture household, rice often graced our dinner table. While other families dined on mashed potatoes with creamy gravy, we ate a ton of white rice smothered in that same delicious gravy. Oh sure, if there were a roast in the oven, it was a safe bet that our starchy side for the evening were potatoes. However; more often than not those spuds were not mashed but rather quartered and roasted alongside the beef, soaking in all those wonderful flavors of the pan drippings.
Continue reading “Mom’s Basic Fried Rice with a Dash of Tagalog”
Lately, I’ve been in a breakfast frame of mind. I adore weekends – those mornings when there is no need for my guys to rush out the door and skip the most important meal of the day – breakfast. During the holidays, with the long weekends it gave my guys that precious time to savor the mornings. Omelettes, scrambled eggs, piles of buttery pancakes – this breakfast loving gal has been in heaven! It’s always a treat when we can start our mornings together, sitting down to a nice, hot breakfast. Can you tell – I adore spending time with Hubby and Kiddo.
Continue reading “Sunday Morning Scrambled Eggs with Diced Ham”
I love chicken and dumplings, especially on cold, wet winter nights. There’s something so down to earth and simple about sitting down to a big pot of chicken with an incredible broth, chunks of vegetables and steamy dumplings. It warms the soul and conjures up a wave of fond childhood memories. I remember a crowded kitchen bathed in yellow glow and a family gathered around the table. I can see my parents now, making sure there was plenty of cold milk and warm food on the table. It was a simple time, with simple needs. This simple dish brings it all back so vividly for me. Now mind you, my parents broth wasn’t so well seasoned as the one I serve today, and the dumpling recipe they used came from the back of box of Bisquick, but the essence of the meal remains.
It was not my plan to post a recipe this late in the day. It was not my plan to share this recipe at all. It was not my plan to use this recipe for my ribs. I was going to make our usual ribs – slow baked for a few hours, then finished off over an open fire on the grill. Yeah, that was the plan. But Mother Nature had other plans. From out of nowhere, a cold front moved in. The sky turned dark as night. Streaks of lightening lit up an angry sky. Thunder boomed – rattling the windows. In a matter of minutes, the temperature dropped fifteen degrees. The clouds opened up and hail pelted the ground. Hubby and I looked at each other – no firing up the charcoal grill today. The last thing either of us wanted was for Hubby to be standing in a pool of water with long-handled barbecue tongs in his hand. Bad combination with a lightening storm.
How would you like to have dinner on the table in under ten minutes? Mind you, this doesn’t count for the time it takes to peel, devein and remove the tails from your shrimp. If you do that little chore in the morning or the night before, then cook to serve is under ten (count ’em 10) minutes.
Continue reading “Sizzling Chili-Garlic Shrimp on a Bed of Rice”
Welcome to Rosemarie's Kitchen 