Recipe: Baked Potato Soup

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I am so tired of cooking the same five dishes over and over and over again. I need to find some more recipes that can be prepared in about 30 minutes, doesn't have a million ingredients, and my family will find appetizing. It is a tall order (ha ha, get it?) but I want to challenge my culinary skills this year. I have flipped through a couple cook books, yet I still feel uninspired. I think I am just one of those people that need to be led by my stomach or my kids' stomachs.

Last week I saw a picture of Potato Leek soup and just had to have it. So I made the following potato soup, a slightly modified version of this recipe from Allrecipes.com. Elysha hated it but everyone else ate it. I thought it was really good.

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups peeled and diced potatoes
1/3 cup diced celery
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped broccoli
3 1/4 cups water
2 squares of vegetable bouillon
5 tablespoons butter
5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
5 strips of cooked chopped bacon

Directions:
1. Combine the potatoes, celery, onion, broccoli, and water in a stockpot. Bring to a boil, then cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the vegetable bouillon.
2. In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour with a fork, and cook, stirring constantly until thick, about 1 minute. Slowly stir in milk as not to allow lumps to form until all of the milk has been added. Continue stirring over medium-low heat until thick, 4 to 5 minutes.
3. Stir the milk mixture into the stockpot, and cook soup until heated through. Serve immediately after adding bacon to each individual serving.

If you want a smoother texture, mash the potatoes slightly before adding milk mixture.

Next week, I am hoping to grill an artichoke. I have been craving Houston's Grilled Artichoke.

Recipe: Rachel Ray's Pretzel-Crusted Chicken Breasts

This is a fun dish for kids. I like to serve it when we have guests with little kids. Slightly modified to make it easier. Taken from 365: No Repeats Cookbook.

4 Medium (quart-size) plastic food storage bags
4 small whole boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 5-oz bag of salted pretzels, any shape
Ground pepper
1 tablespoon dried thyme
2 eggs
Vegetable oil, for frying

Sprinkle a little water into the food storage baggies. Place 1 chicken breast in each bag and seal it up, pushing out excess air. Use a mallet or the bottom of a heavy pot and pound each breast until flat, just shy of busting out of the bag. Repeat with the other 3 chicken breasts.

Place the pretzels in a food processor or blender and grind until fine. Transfer the ground pretzels to a shallow dish and add the thyme and some pepper. Crack and beat 2 eggs in a second shallow dish with a splash of water. Working with 1 pounded chicken breast at a time, coat the breast in the ground pretzels, then in the eggs, then in the pretzels again. Preheat a large skillet with 1/4 inch of vegetable oil; add the pretzel-coated chicken breasts to the hot oil. Cook in a single layer, in 2 batches in necessary, about 3 or 4 minutes on each side, until the cutlets' juices run clear and the breading is evenly browned.

I use the Trader Joe's Whole Grain pretzels. I also like to add course sea salt to the pretzel mix if it doesn't seem salty enough. In place of the thyme, I use Trader Joe's pasta seasoning herb blend. Because I hate the thought of using multiple ziplock bags, I just use one one-gallon bag, put two chicken breasts in at a time, and pound away. The recipe comes with a cheddar-mustard sauce but you can eat this chicken without any additional sauces. It's so delicious and tender.

Recipe: Zucchini Bread

I am posting this more for myself since I make it all the time and it's easier for me to find on my blog than allrecipes.com.

Now that my zucchini is growing in my backyard, I'll probably be make it every week. I have tweaked it from the original recipe so here is my variation to make it healthier but still delicious.

Moms' Zucchini Bread

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour 1/4 cup of ground flax seed 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1 teaspoon ground allspice 1 teaspoon ground cloves 3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil 2 1/4 cups white sugar 3 teaspoons vanilla extract 2 cups grated zucchini

Directions:

1.	Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2.	Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and spices together in a bowl.
3.	Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into 2 prepared pans.
4.	Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

The kids love this bread. Elysha calls it bikini bread--at least that is what it sounds like she's saying. Joey tries to correct her:
J: "No no Elysha. Listen to me: zookeenee bread."
E: "That's what I said. Bikini bread!"

We usually finish one loaf before it has even had a chance to cool down--even Sam gobbles it down. I use my hand power chopper to cut up the zucchini. In less than a minute, I've got really finely chopped zucchini. Cuts down on the prep time a lot. If you don't have one of these babies, go out and buy one. Absolutely worth the money. I use it all the time and the clean up is a cinch.

Request for Recipes--1st Interactive Post

I am asking for your help! I got this idea from Nina.

A favor por favor...please post or link some recipes! I am so tired of making the same foods over and over. I experimented with sun-dried tomatoes, shrimp and angel hair pasta the other day with favorable results. But this just got me in the mood to try and expand my repertoire of dinner meals.

If there is a recipe that you like and isn't overly time consuming, I would love to try it out. No fish (sorry, I have a major phobia) but I am open to everything else. I can usually tweak things a little so that the kids will eat it too so don't worry about it being too kid-friendly either.

We can all benefit from the sharing of recipes, so please don't be shy and contribute!

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Recipe: Pumpkin Muffins

I am posting this per request of Hawaii 5-Ohana.

Pumpkin Muffins (slightly tweaked version of a recipe from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
1 3/4 cups white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Put paper cups or grease into muffin pan.
2) In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and white and brown sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into cups until 2/3 full.
3) Bake for about 25 minutes in the preheated oven. Done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

I have made this recipe with applesauce in place of the oil and it turns out okay. But the oil is better (of course). Also, be sure to not overmix once you combine the wet and dry ingredients to ensure light and fluffy muffins. This recipe yields about 28 muffins.

Recipe: Pumpkin Bars

I am glad to hear that some of the recipes I post are used so I thought I would post another.

I LOVE pumpkin. When I was single and making the big bucks (well, more like small to medium bucks), I would buy a pumpkin scone everyday at Peet's coffee. I would buy pans and pans of pumpkin pie and eat it in a matter of days. Ralph's Supermarket here in LA, makes an excellent pumpkin chocolate chip cookie which I buy by the dozen and gobble up by the handfuls.

We had some friends over tonight for dessert so it gave me a reason to make something. I was ambitious and wanted to make the pumpkin bars and a chocolate bundt cake but I had the girls home with me today and a school mate called and made a spontaneous playdate. So my time was limited.

Paul's Pumpkin Bars (from Allrecipes.com)


Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1 2/3 cups white sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, oil, and pumpkin with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir into the pumpkin mixture until thoroughly combined.
3. Spread the batter evenly into an ungreased 10x15 inch jellyroll pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in preheated oven. Cool before frosting.
4. To make the frosting, cream together the cream cheese and butter. Stir in vanilla. Add confectioners' sugar a little at a time, beating until mixture is smooth. Spread evenly on top of the cooled bars. Cut into squares.

I made a few alterations based on the reviews and doubled the pumpkin to 30 oz and reduced the oil to 2/3 cup. I also used one tsp of cinnamon, one tsp of allspice, 1/2 tsp of cloves and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg. I also used a smaller-sized pan (don't know the exact measurements) so I had to let it bake for 35 minutes. I also had some batter left over so I made 8 mini muffins too which were perfect for the girls.

They turned out very moist and the cream cheese frosting was a great compliment. A great dish to bring to a potluck or to Thanksgiving dinner!

Pretty Chicken Marinade

Okay, I know I have been doing a lot of recipes these days but I am tired of making the same seven dishes over and over. I also have a family of picky eaters so it is a tricky combination.

I have always been hesitant to marinade my own meat. You never know how it is going to taste until you make it. I can make a mean steak. Everything else, however, I use self-made marinades. The ones at the korean markets are great for Korean BBQ. Lawry's Steak Marinade (powder packet) is wonderful at tenderizing and the flavor is delicious.

I use All Recipes to find a lot of my recipes. It is a great website because all the recipes are reviewed. This helps me because often times, people will make suggestions or substitutions which helps make the first run at a new recipe successful.

Here is the latest recipe I found which was perfect because I had all the ingredients at home. I paired it with steamed broccoli and Trader Joe's Potatoes Au Gratin (which is awesome).

Pretty Chicken Marinade

Ingredients:
2/3 cup olive oil
2/3 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons liquid smoke flavoring
2 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 teaspoons garlic powder
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Directions:

1) In a large bowl, mix the olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, liquid smoke, mustard, pepper, and garlic powder. Place chicken in the bowl, and coat with the marinade. Cover, and allow chicken to marinate a maximum of 4 hours in the refrigerator.

2) Grill or pan fry.

I didn't have liquid smoke, spicy brown mustard, lemon juice or garlic powder. So I used 2 TB yellow mustard, squeezed the juice out of one whole lemon and 2 tsp lawry's seasoned pepper and 2 tsp Penzeys Spices Florida Seasoned Pepper. I also used regular sodium soy sauce.

I was looking for a lemon chicken flavor and it turned out nicely. When I cooked the chicken in the pan, I poured in the olive oil from the mixture. I would also recommend reducing the soy sauce to 1/2 cup as it was just a little saltier than I prefer but Chang and the kids thought it was just fine. Obviously I made a lot of alterations but I think as long as you have olive oil, soy sauce and lemon juice, you can get creative with the other ingredients.

Baked Ziti

This is my staple for new mommies! It is great for guests, the kids love it, reheats well, and I prefer it to lasagna. It is easy to make in bulk too.

Ingredients:

1 pound dry ziti pasta
1 onion, chopped
1 pound lean ground beef
2 (26 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce
6 ounces provolone cheese, sliced
1 1/2 cups sour cream
6 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1) Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add ziti pasta, and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes; drain.
2) In a large skillet, brown onion and ground beef over medium heat. Add spaghetti sauce, and simmer 15 minutes.
3) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. Layer as follows: 1/2 of the ziti, Provolone cheese, sour cream, 1/2 sauce mixture, remaining ziti, mozzarella cheese and remaining sauce mixture. Top with grated Parmesan cheese.
4) Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cheeses are melted.

Once I went crazy with the sour cream and it didn't taste very good, so definitely go easy on the sour cream. I usually make it with the Trader Joe's multigrain penne and it still tastes great.

Korean Beef Stew (kalbi jjim)

It is so dangerous to go to the grocery store when you are hungry, isn't it? I always get so ambitious about the things I can make during the week. I already had stuff for dinner tonight but I ended up buying short ribs because I was really craving kalbi jjim. The problem is, I have no idea how to make a lot of korean food because when I ask my mom how to make something, she usually says, "Oh you just add some soy sauce and sugar and sesame oil and garlic and just taste it to make sure it tastes okay." Ummm, I'm looking for exact measurements Mom! Anything Korean I make that tastes okay is by sheer luck that I got the correct ratio of ingredients together. Once I made dduk boki for small group and this guy ate the whole pot because he said it was the best he ever ate. I have no idea how I made it and have never tried to replicate it again. Too much pressure.


Anyhow, I found a recipe from someone I am guessing is a woman and filipino. Go figure. But it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. Plus it was super easy so I think I'll be making it again soon. And if I am feeling healthy, maybe I'll make it with chicken.

1 lb of short ribs
1 onion
1 potato
handful of mushrooms
splash of sesame oil
1 TB minced garlic
3/4 cup soy sauce
3/4 cup sugar
salt

I modified the original recipe because I didn't have ginger (and I'm not crazy about it anyhow), I love potatoes and my kids love mushrooms in my stew so I added that, and I'm not into presentation so I didn't care about the sesame seeds and onion leaves. I boiled the meat once and threw out the water to make the broth less fatty. Then I covered the meat in water, added all the other ingredients (except the salt) and let it boil again. I added some salt to taste and then I let it simmer for two hours until the meat fell off the bone.

Very little leftovers so I am happy and consider it a success.

Oven-Fried Chicken

From Martha Stewart's Living magazine, August 2008. I made it on Friday for some guests and it was so good (if I do say so myself). The skin was crispy and the meat was juicy. Just because it is oven-fried, it is definitely not low-fat.


Ingredients
Serves 4
3 large eggs, beaten
3 tablespoons Tabasco sauce
1 medium onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
1 whole chicken (3 to 4 pounds), cut into 8 pieces
1/4 cup Wondra flour
1/4 cup fine yellow cornmeal
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, for brushing

Directions

1) Mix eggs, Tabasco, onion, and garlic in a large bowl. Add chicken, and toss to coat well. Cover, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (or up to 8 hours).
2) Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place a rimmed baking sheet on center rack. Whisk flour, cornmeal, salt, paprika, and cayenne in a medium bowl. Remove chicken from marinade, and roll each piece in flour mixture, shaking off excess.
3) Place chicken on preheated baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes. Lightly brush top of each piece with oil, and bake, brushing tops every 10 minutes, until chicken is dark golden brown, 30 to 40 minutes more.
4) Transfer chicken to a wire rack, and let cool slightly. Serve immediately, or let cool to room temperature.

Helpful Hint
Wondra is a very light, finely ground flour that prevents the crust of fried chicken from becoming thick or clumpy. Sifted all-purpose flour will work in a pinch.

I did buy Wondra and you can definitely see the difference. I think it would work well when trying to thicken up a sauce too in place of corn starch.

Secondly, I had to make the batter mixture three times to coat 10 pieces of chicken. But I would make it in small batches because with each piece of chicken you place into the batter mixture, it gets lumpy.

Next I want to try the lobster and corn chowder from the August issue (but I think I will use shrimp for convenience's sake).