Beans 'n Greens

I love kale and surprisingly so does Bill. He's not a big fan of turnip greens, etc. but I make him eat some for New Years every year. There was really nice kale for only 99 cents a bunch at the store the other day so I bought some. I intended to make Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana (copycat recipe) but realized when I got home that I forgot the half and half. So I made my other standby which is chicken with canneloni beans and kale. Looking through some similar recipes, I made a few adjustments and came up with this.

1/4 c. flour
salt and pepper
2 chicken breasts (sliced in half lengthwise and pounded flat)
1/4 bunch of kale (rinsed and not dried and torn in pieces)
1 can cannelini beans (rinsed and drained)
1/4 c. flour
3 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon rosemary crushed
2 teaspoons flour
1/2-3/4 c. chicken broth
1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (rooster sauce)

Salt and pepper the chicken. Shake it in a bag to coat. Swirl olive oil in a frying pan and cook chicken till golden brown on both sides. Take chicken out and cover with foil to keep warm.
Using the same pan, add a little more olive oil. Cook onion and garlic until translucent. Add 2 teaspoons of flour and stir to make a paste. Add rosemary. Add 1/2 c. broth and stir until thickened. Add kale in a little bigger than bite size pieces and beans. Continue to cook until kale softens. It should still be bright green. You may want to add some more broth at this time. Stir in a teaspoon of chili garlic sauce.
Ladle beans and kale onto a plate and top with chicken. Enjoy!

Bill's Best BBQ Ribs

When it comes to ribs around here it's a man's world. Every year at the Super Bowl party Rocky brings his ribs. People walk in the door and ask where Rocky's ribs are. It's a source of annoyance to my husband who has been trying to duplicate those ribs forever. Well, last night we had the most incredible ribs ever!

I do the prep work and Weber does the rest but who am I to argue with the king of ribs...

First prep the ribs..

Baby back ribs, 2 slabs to a pkg
Dry rub

Turn the ribs over (so it looks like a boat). Slide a kitchen knife under the silver skin. Grab hold of it and pull it off in one piece. This takes a bit of work but once you get the hang of it you wonder why you were fumbling around with it at first. Generously cover with rib rub and put in a large baggie. Refrigerate at least overnite.

For each slab of ribs take a large sheet of heavy duty foil, lay an ice cube in the center, lay a slab on top with the curve side over the ice cube. Wrap foil tightly around ribs. Cook in your gas grill @ 225 for 3.5 hours on indirect heat.

Take ribs off grill and unwrap. Brush with your favorite bbq sauce and grill just long enough to carmelize sauce. Enjoy!

Recipe for dry rub:

1/4 c. chili powder, 1/4 c. paprika, 2 T. onion powder, 2 T. garlic powder, 1 t. cumin, 1 T. cayenne, 2 T. thyme, 2 T. basil, 2 T. oregano, 2 T. coriander, 1/2 t. white pepper, 1 T. black pepper. The original recipe calls for 1/2 c. kosher salt but I do not add salt to mine. Put this in a large shaker jar and keep in the refrigerator. It can be used as a rub for beef, pork or chicken and also for seasoning cajun recipes.

The Feast of the Two Fishes

For years and years I worked on Christmas Eve and usually got home after 9:00 pm. Sometimes we closed at 6:00 but people just didn't want to leave and then we had to clean up. So now that we can enjoy Christmas Eve I like to cook something special. Bill always cooked Christmas dinner because I was always exhausted and enjoyed being catered to, but Christmas eve I think I just fell asleep.
The Italians have the feast of the Seven Fishes but since there are just two of us we had the feast of the Two Fishes!
This recipe is the result of watching too many cooking videos on You Tube. It seems as though there are as many recipes for mac 'n cheese as there are cooks. For years I have made mac 'n cheese by making a roux with butter and flour and milk. Several Southern cooks I watched skipped this step entirely and mixed everything in a big bowl and then transferred it to a baking dish. They also used eggs and you can go with half and half, fat free half and half or evaporated milk or 2%. It's Christmas...it's half and half!
If we had won the lottery this recipe would be called Lobster Mac 'n Cheese....

"Almost Lobster" Mac 'n Cheese

1/2 lb elbow macaroni or you could use Campanelle (Italian for "little bells" and they soak up lots of sauce)
1/2 stick butter or I can't believe it's not butter
1 8oz. pkg Trans Ocean Lobster Classic
1/2 lb medium cooked shrimp
1 pkg Kraft Italian 5 cheese with added cream cheese (Mozzarella, Provolone, Romano, Asiago and Parmesan)
2 cups half and half with 1 egg whisked in
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
Dash of cayenne
Salt and pepper

Cook macaroni (al dente) and drain. Put in a big mixing bowl and while still hot add the butter cut up in pieces. Stir to melt butter and coat macaroni. Break up lobster into chunks. It will come apart in squares about 1 inch. Add lobster and shrimp to bowl, cheese, half and half, egg and seasonings. Stir all together. Grease a 1.5 quart casserole. Pour in everything. Cover and bake for 30 min. at 325.

Prepare topping.

2 tablespoons of melted butter combined with 1/4 c. Panko bread crumbs.

Uncover and put breadcrumbs on top. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake for 15 more minutes until lightly browned.

Rumble, rumble...Woo Hoo!

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate & wine in one hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out & screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

Yes, I stole that from my famous cooking blogger Laurrie! Words to LIVE by....

Intent on living up to the chocolate part, I submit the following recipe...also not mine but worth adding to your recipe box.

Trader Joe's Rumble Cakes

1 stick TJ's Unsalted Butter
2 TJ's Eggs
1 box TJ's Truffle Brownie Mix
1/4 cup TJ's Dried Tart Montmorency Cherries
1/4 cup TJ's Walnut Halves and Pieces
1 box TJ's Frozen Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Preheat the oven to 350°. Bring the butter to room temperature and combine the eggs with the butter and whisk/ mix. Slowly add in the brownie mix. Once the mixture is uniform, add in the cherries and walnuts; set aside. Lightly grease a brownie pan and place the chunks of cookie dough sporadically around the bottom of the pan (there may be a few pieces of cookie dough left, do with them what you must). Pour the brownie mix over the top, evenly coating the cookie dough. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes or until you can stick a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean. Enjoy! Serves: 10
Cooking Time: 45 Minutes

If you don't have a Trader Joe's, you could make your own brownie mix (but TJ's Truffle Brownie Mix!!!) and you could make your own cookie dough (but TJ's !!!). With or without TJ's you could use dried cranberries and toasted pecans (which I did) and make it all your own.

There is some question as to what size pan is a "brownie pan". I used a 9x9 pan which took a really long time to cook. Someone said 45 minutes at 325 but it took mine over an hour. It was looking more like cake since it filled the pan to the top when it cooked. I'm thinking it probably meant a 9x13 pan at 350 for 45 minutes. Just watch it and you can tell when it starts to pull away from the sides and the toothpick comes out clean. I'm rather partial to the big, chunky, chocolatey results.

If it gets a little overcooked on the edges there is a remedy. Put chunks in a parfait glass, pour some coffee liqueur over and top with whipped cream!

Woo Hoo !!!!

Sausage and Farfalle

I saw this package of Johnsonville smoked chicken sausages with cheese and chipotle peppers and decided it had to go in the shopping cart. So then last night while surveying the contents of the fridge, I pulled out the last 5 stalks of asparagus and the last of the sliced portobella mushrooms and started cooking. Olive oil in the pan with two smashed garlic cloves. Rinse the asparagus well to get rid of any sand. The secret to asparagus is to hold the bottom of the stalk and then gently snap. The break will come so that the woody part is gone and only the tender part remains. Sometimes just a little comes off and sometimes a lot longer piece.

Growing up, my mother would make us eat the whole thing and I hated asparagus. A child of the depression, she could not bear to throw any food away...woody broccoli stalks came to the table too!

Diagonally cut the asparagus and toss it in the pan. Cook until "crisp tender" (starting to get soft but still bright green). Add the mushrooms. Slice sausages and add to pan. Meanwhile I cooked some mini farfalle. Really cute mini bowties from Barilla. Drain the pasta reserving about 1/4 cup of cooking water. Add pasta to the pan. Then add two tablespoons of homemade pesto which I keep in the freezer. Then add enough of the pasta water to make it "saucy".

Serve with grated parmesan.
Mmmm...there were even leftovers for lunch the next day!

Mellody's Black-eyed Peas

Okay, not those Black Eyed Peas!! This is after all a food blog. But I started thinking about Mellody and her black-eyed peas and when I went online there were all these posts and pictures of THE Black Eyed Peas. This recipe is not mine, but Mellody's, and it's been our traditional New Year's recipe since finding it in the AJC many years ago. I always used to use hog jowels or pork neckbones until I discovered this. Smoked turkey wings provide the meat and flavor and are probably much better for you. It uses fresh garlic and garlic powder which she says is important to get the taste right. Where the original recipe calls for cooking this in a large pot, I use my crockpot. Serve with rice and greens and don't forget my cornbread recipe. Needless to say, it's not just for New Year's and you will find that without a doubt these are the best black-eyed peas you will ever have.

1 lb. dried black-eyed peas

4 c. low sodium chicken broth

2 c. water

2 smoked turkey wings

4 cloves garlic, diced

2 ribs celery, diced

2 carrots, diced

1 large onion, diced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and diced

2 T salt or seasoned salt

1 T black pepper

1 t garlic powder

2 bay leaves

Rinse and sort peas looking for any tiny stones or bad peas. Put peas in crockpot (not turned on) with 6-8 cups of water and let soak overnite or 6-8 hours. Drain water off and rinse peas.

In crockpot, combine peas, broth, water, wings, garlic, celery, carrots, onion, jalapeno, salt, pepper, garlic powder and bay leaves.

Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Remove wings ,shred meat and return to pot.

Fusion Mussells

Hell's Kitchen had a fusion challenge the other night and it was on my mind as I considered what to do with some leftover rice. Of course, this is not just some ordinary rice but Trader Joe's Basmati rice medley which is a delightful combination of aged Indian Basmati and wild rice with garden vegetables.

I cooked 4 slices of bacon until crispy, drained them and crunched them up. Then I sauteed a sliced onion and two chopped cloves of garlic until translucent. Add to that a can of diced tomatoes with juice and one of my 8 oz. freezer bags of sliced zucchini. Okay, if you didn't put up veggies you could resort to the Hunt's zucchini and tomatoes in the can. Then I added a handful of cooked, crumbled sausage from the freezer. Then comes the "season to taste". I added fresh ground salt and pepper, garlic powder, oregano, Old Bay, paprika and a couple of shakes of cayenne. Add the cooked rice.

Next comes one of my favorite things...Kroger Private Selection Mussells. They come in tomato sauce or white wine sauce. You can eat them as is or put them over pasta. They are in the freezer section and are already cooked and then vacuum sealed. Just heat them up.

Put the rice in individual pasta bowls and top with mussells and the tomato broth. Add some shredded Parmesan-Romano cheese and you have a great Indian/Italian/French/Greek meal.

Looking for a picture for this I came across Courgettes and Mussels which is a French dish with zucchini, mussels and rice. Then there was a Greek dish with mussels and rice. Changing the herbs and spices results in a dish eaten in many different countries with many different names.

If you came to my house for dinner, it might even be called "leftovers".