Category: Cooking

Kyllan and I had a busy weekend in Dallas. Saturday included a knife skills cooking class and a formal ball. We spent Sunday doing some shopping and, of course, watching football. A few pictures from the weekend can be found here.

I am sure my lack of cooking post caused many to think I gave up on my one recipe per week, but I am still going.  I have posted the last three weeks of recipes below and on Flickr.  I highly recommend trying the brownie recipe.  It was one of my favorites.

William was in town this weekend, so I was hoping to try a new recipe while he was here, but instead, we just enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with each other and I did not cook until he left.  Kinda funny I guess 🙂

Anyway… after dropping him off at the airport, it was kinda late and I was not up to cooking anything too fancy, so I decided to try a recipe for a side dish/appetizer.  I found a recipe for sweet potato fries on the Food Network’s website.  It gave me the opportunity to use the deep fryer we got as a wedding gift.  I cannot believe we have not used it until know.  I took it out before William left, and he says “I didn’t know we had a deep fryer.”  (Some gifts arrived while he was in Denver, so I probably told him, but it has been a while).  So, the recipe was pretty simple and the fries came out pretty good.  I may have cooked them a bit too long, but I wanted them to be a little crispy.  The seasoning was pretty good also, but I may experiment with others as well.  The recipe is below.

Ok, my recipe for week 5 ended up being on Superbowl weekend, and since I was headed to a Superbowl party, I decided to bring appetizers and desserts.  I saw a recipe for Chocolate Cookie Dough Brownies on Bakerella, a cooking blog I regularly visit.  I LOVE sweets, so I was drooling after seeing her post on these brownies.  The actually use a brownie mix and cookie mix, but the ganache that goes on top is made from scratch and is delicious!  The Neiman Marcus Cookies came from a recipe I saw in a magazine.  There was once an e-mail going around about a woman who unknowingly paid $250 for the recipe, and as a way to get even, gave out the recipe to as many people as she could, but apparently it is not true.  Neiman Marcus has made their recipe public, so I decided that it was worth a try.  I thought they were pretty good, but one of my co-workers was absolutely crazy about them.  I think he ate about half of them.  The cookie dough brownies were more my style.  For the Neiman Marcus Cookie recipe, click here.  For the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownie recipe, click here.

I am a bit behind on cooking posts… so let me try to catch you up.  Since I went to undergrad in North Carolina, I tried to make a Carolina inspired meal.  I made pulled pork in the slow cooker and as a side dish, I made potato salad.  I was not that impressed with the pulled pork.  I went ahead and made a sandwich with a portion of the pork that came out pretty tender, but it was not a recipe to add to the rotation.  The potato salad, on the other hand, came out GREAT!  I was really impressed with myself on this one.  I used a recipe from Patti LaBelle’s cookbook, Recipes to Sing About.  It was so good, that I had potato salad each day for the rest of the week.  I may slightly alter the recipe next time, but I was impressed.  The recipe is below, and as usual, photos are on Flickr.

Patti’s Potato Salad (Courtesy of Patti LaBelle)

Ingredients:

3 pounds red-skinned potatoes (20 potatoes), well scrubbed

6 large eggs, hard cooked

1 medium red onion, finely chopped

1 medium green bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped

2 medium celery ribs, finely chopped

2 teaspoons celery seed

2/3 cups mayonnaise

2 tablespoons yellow mustard

3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Paprika

Place the potatoes in a large pot and add enough salted water to cover by 1 inch. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, but not mushy, about 20 minutes. Be sure they are cooked! Pour out most of the water and place the pot in the sink. Run cold water over the potatoes for about 2 minutes, or until cool enough to handle. Drain Well.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into ½ inch cubes. Place in a large bowl. Chop 4 hard-cooked eggs and add to the potatoes, along with the red onion, green pepper, and celery. Sprinkle with celery seed. Gradually stir in the mayonnaise, mustard, and relish (wear rubber or plastic gloves and use your hands, if you wish), being careful not to smash the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Transfer to a large serving bowl. Slice the 2 remaining hard cooked eggs. Arrange the slices on top of the salad and sprinkle with paprika. Serve immediately, or cool, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours.

Let me first say, sorry we have not posted in a while.  I do not want to turn this into a cooking blog, so we will do a better job of posting more regularly about other things.

Tonight I made Jamaican Jerk Pork Chops (using Pampered Chef’s jerk spice).  I used the spice before to make jerk chicken nachos, which were delicious, so I decided I would use it on grilled pork chops.  It also gave me an opportunity to use the grill we got from William’s cousins as a wedding gift, which I have only used twice, but I plan to use a lot more.  There is no complicated recipe for the pork chops.  I just sprayed with a little bit of oil, seasoned with the spice and threw them on the grill….very easy.  However, it was nothing to write home about, so I think I will have to try another recipe with marinade since William tends to order pork tenderloin or pork chops frequently when we go out to eat.

As a side dish, I made potatoes au gratin using a recipe out of B Smith’s cookbook, Entertaining and Cooking for Friends. It was a supposed to be a more sophisticated version of your traditional potatoes au gratin and I am definitely adding this to the rotation.  It used a combination of Gruyere and Parmesan cheese and was very good.  The only modification I would make is not adding as much butter.

I also made a salad using spinach, strawberries, pecans and Kraft’s Light Done Right Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing.  I really do not care too much for pecans, but they are good in an occasional salad.

As always, more pictures can be found on my flickr page.

Potatoes Au Gratin (courtesy of B. Smith)

Ingredients:

½ cup unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ pounds Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into ¼ inch-thick slices

½ cup grated Gruyère cheese

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon paprika

Preheat the oven to 350? F. Butter a 1 ½ quart baking dish with about 1 tablespoon of the softened butter.

Arrange a layer of potatoes in the baking dish, and sprinkle some of the cheeses over them. Continue layering potatoes and cheeses until you’ve used them all, ending with a layer of potatoes.

In a small bowl, whisk the cream with the salt and pepper; pour this over the potatoes. Dot the remaining butter over the top, and sprinkle with the paprika. Bake for 1 to 1 ¼ hours, or until the potatoes are tender and golden brown on top. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Although I love pasta and could do a pasta dish every week, that is probably not the best route, so I decided to try a casserole this week.  It took me a while to find a casserole that was a bit different than what I was used to.  I found a lot of enchilada casseroles and taco casseroles, etc. (which I will try another time), but then finally I stumbled upon a casserole on myrecipes.com for Cajun Shrimp Pasta.    I love shrimp, but William is allergic to shrimp, so this is not a recipe to add to the regular rotation.  I was thinking I could perhaps use it as a potluck dish or some other occassion.  I was a bit concerened about this dish b/c I wasn’t sure what the consistency was supposed to be like and that it would be spicy enough for my taste, but to my amazement, it actually turned out pretty good.  I was not blown away by it, but enjoyed it yesterday and have enough leftovers for a few days.  I also realized I am going to have to invite my sister or some girlfriends over so I wont waste so much food!  🙂   The recipe is below for those interested.