sara's test kitchen

I have seen so many delicious crock-pot recipes popping up all over the blogosphere now that the cold months are here and I want to jump on the bandwagon. The only problem is that I am terrified of burning my house down in the process… I don’t trust it, I guess. Which is ridiculous… I’ll leave the dishwasher or washer/dryer on when I’m not home, but a slow cooker? Nope. Too dangerous. Anyone share my fear? I think it reminds me of Phoebe leaving the curling iron on… or was it Rachel? Ah, it doesn’t matter cute firemen in their little outfits ensued.

So, I weighed the options… burn down house versus warm food, ready when I get home…. Warm food won. It wins every time :)

So, behold, my first away-from-home slow cooked meal. Chili.

I kind of made the recipe up as I went along. And added more stuff at the end for additional flavor.

Into the pot went:

• 1 lb ground turkey; browned
• 2 15 oz cans peeled tomatoes
• 2 15 oz cans beans, drained and rinsed; I chose black and dark red kidney
• 3 cups of chicken stock
• 1 cup celery
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 1/4 cup crushed red peppers
• Cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper

All into the pot on LOW for 6 hours. Then it magically went into ‘warm’ mode… ah, the wonders of technology. I tasted it when I got home and it was still pretty bland, so I threw in an entire jar of salsa… it’s all I had on hand and it beats pasta sauce. It came out amazingly well!

And with dinner… a few vitamins and minerals….

When I was at Whole Foods the other day, I found the most AMAZING thing ever!! Stoneyfield has come out with a line of sweet greek yogurts.  As if the others weren’t delicious enough already. The new flavors: Caramel and Chocolate, with pretty decent stats:

And the packaging:

Of course it’s been opened! I’m blaming it on Meezy, however. If this man swallowed greek yogurt, it has got to be good.

That’s his “You’re cooking what!?” face, which is what I see whenever I cook a vegetable that is not broccolis…..

I’ll have to take an action shot next time I dip in. Look for it on shelves!!

*

First – oatmeal cookies with Pumpkin yogurt in natural light… so purty.

Loose recipe: 1 cup oats, 1/2 cup choco chips, 1/4 cup walnuts, 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut (I had to use sweetened), 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup oil, 1/2 cup maple syrup, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/4 tsp salt.

Mix all together, form into balls. Bake at 350F for 15 minutes.

Now on to more important things… like, the title.

I have a big fault -  I read magazines WAY too fast. I skim them over, look at the pretty pictures, don’t read every word. And then, I just so happen to miss what turns out to be very important info and/or delicious recipes. Either way, bad.

Good:

So when I was cleaning up my magazine pile, I skimmed through Clean Eating and found a recipe for clean fudge. Yes, oxymoron, right? But no, it’s real. I hope you saw this coming, it was necessary…

I didn’t have the correct ingredients on hand, so I improvised. Here is my altered recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup Carob Chips
• 1/4 cup coconut butter (coconut oil in the solid state *snort*)
• 1/3 cup real maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Put the chips and coconut butter in a microwave safe dish, microwave in 15 second intervals, mixing every 15 seconds, until melted and completely mixed together. Mix in the maple syrup and vanilla until well combined. Then refrigerate (or not) until firm.

This is re-Freakin-diculous. It tastes exactly like fudge. Nummy.

Here’s my other beautiful eats that simply cannot compare, but I’ll show them anyways.

Eggs Habanero:

Seriously filling.

Simmer a jar of salsa and a can of rinsed black beans in a skillet. Make little wells and add the eggs. Simmer until egg yolks are firm. With plain chobani on the side for mixing in.

Baked Apple:

Seriously NOT filling.

Stuffed with almond butter, dried cranberries, and oats. Topped with plain chobani mixed with honey and lemon juice.

Baked Mashed Parsnips and Potatoes:

Seriously odd.

I don’t know how I feel about it yet. I added milk, salt, and pepper but it still felt like it was missing something. So, I added ricotta cheese and put it under the broiler. Tasted a little better… still gotta look for a better recipe. Maybe add some LC wedgies next time?

I also feel the need to Biotch about the freezing cold temps we’ve had in New England the past few months days

These are my knuckles. Cracking open under these lovely sub-zero, non-humid conditions. When sweat floats like a butterfly down my hand it stings like a bee.

What really works for chapped skin?

This post is going to be filled with so many twss’s that I canNOT even begin to point them all out. Read at your own risk kiddies!

Meezy loves cookie dough. Not playing.

It’s like the Miller Light commercials when the girl asks her boy if his Miller bottle and her were both thrown off of a cliff, which one would he save?

I think Meezy would have to choose long and hard between me and cookie dough… and the sad part is, I wouldn’t blame him, that stuff is the ‘ish.

So… when I saw this recipe, I knew they had to be made. Stat.

Here’s the mixing in progress. (All compiled in my new xmas present from the boy himself… smart man to buy me a device to make him cookie dough 24/7!)

The beauty of these balls (twss) is that they are egg-less, so I don’t have to worry about being poisoned  :)  And they still taste delicious.

The bad part about these balls is that they are highly addictive. Lauren even suggests dipping the balls into more chocolate for heightened enjoyment. Hell yes, I’m game.

Killer. Good.

SO this had to be balanced out at dinner time. Roasted veggies were made with some sweet potato fries.

Mixed wif red pepper, carrots, b.sprouts, fennel, and onions. Topped with balsamic, olive oil, salt, and thyme. 425F for ~40 mins.

It was my first time EVER cooking fennel. I’m not a big licorice fan, and by the smell of it, I was not thinking positively. But I tried it raw and it wasn’t too bad, so I decided to roast it and see what happened. Verdict:  It turned out pretty good. A little strong tasting, but sweeter than a lot of other vegetables. I will definitely cook with it again, maybe in a soup next time….

I also whipped up some oatmeal cookies from the sweet ass new book Clean Food. I’ll post them tomorrow, I have to experiment with them first… eat them with yogurt, ice cream, milk, ginger cookies, etc and see what htey taste best with.

All in the interest of science :)

I just got finished watching some of The Wire… best series ever. It’s addictive, and it’s got me thinking about stashes. Not drug stashes… even though I may be HIGHLY addicted to many of these items…more like cupboard stashes.

Front and center: pumpkin butter :), chicken sausages (for my parents), bars, hommus, pizza sauce (!), pb filled pretzels (!!!) and trail mix. Oh my.

I also tried me some sesame covered almonds for the first time. Mediocre. And some Edamame chips, which are DE-Li-Cious dipped in aforementioned hommus.

I wanted to post my favorite recipes from the past few days.

1. Lunch yesterday: Chicken Salad

Chunks o’ chicken, arugula, red grapes, 1/2 cup plain chobani, and 2 Tbsp BBQ sauce.

2. Dinner tonight: Pizza!

Arnold thins with ricotta shmeared all on top, then chicken strips placed delicately on top followed by… more freakin cheese :) Then melted under the broiler until toasty and gooey !

Ah… it’s tough to eat. I also tried me some faux cookie dough ice cream tonight. No pictures… that mofo moved faster than Snookie doing cartwheels on the dance floor  (yes, bad Jersey Shore reference. Sorry…)

I love trying new concoctions :)

 

Since it’s the first month of a New Year, I’m gonna hit ya hard and heavy with a few firsts around here.

1. The first time Bella the puppy was dressed up for Christmas. (The scarf was a little big for her tiny neck! She looks happy, no?)

2. The first time I have EVER danced to 70’s music…. and almost died from fog machine fumes….. I think ABBA would have been my favorite band if I were a flower child.

3. The first fire EVER in our new house…. it only took us a year … and it may or may not be a Duraflame log… :)  with a fire extinguisher close by.

4. My first attempt at Sloppy Joes.  I tried this amazing sloppy joes recipe last night for dinner.

Instead of tofu crumbles, I used ground turkey, ‘cos I do love me some meat (twss?).

I also added crushed red peppers to give it a little kick, celery, and diced red peppers. Served over the other  1/2 red pepper and 1/2 Arnold thin (toasted). This meal was delicious! Thanks for the great recipe, Jenna.

Those are all the firsts for the new year thus far. Hope you are all keeping up with the resolutions/goals.

Some more firsts that I want to achieve within the next year…

1. Enter a photography contest

2. Try temph (I’m not so sure about this one)

3.Use my new mixer for the first time!!

How ’bout you!?!?

Okay, so I’m a day early, but this is my favorite time of the year, I gosta get pumped up.

I keep staring at all the beautiful presents under the tree and I canNOT wait to open them ALL tomorrow morning!!

We are going to hang with Meezy’s family tonight and then at my family’s house tomorrow. Gotta share. Big Bird taught me right. We’re just lucky that they live close enough that we can be at each in the same day.

Enough Christmas talk, I wanted to post a recipe I made the other night for my man, ready for when he came home from work. I felt oh so Betty Draper.

Roast Beef with Dijon-Caper Sauce

via Epicurious

Ingredients

Roast Beef:

• 3-lb Eye of the round roast, fat trimmed
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Sauce:

• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 2 cups beef broth
• 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• 2 Tbsp capers (I didn’t have any on hand, so they were MIA)

Directions

For Roast Beef:

Sprinkle beef with salt and let it stand for 1/2 hour (mehhh, I let it stand for maybe 15 minutes)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix the basil, thyme, and pepper in a small bowl. Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the beef; let it brown on all sides. Once done browning, sprinkle the beef with the herb mixture and transfer it to a roasting pan. Pop an instant-read thermometer into that bad boy and put ‘er in the oven. Cook until the thermometer reads 130F (approx 40 minutes). [Save the frying pan and all the gunkies on the bottom to make the sauce.]

Transfer it to a cutting board and let rest for about 5 minutes, so it stops cooking and all the lovely juices stay in the beef.

For the sauce:

Place the butter into the frying pan that was used to brown the meat, there should be some lovely juices left over from the browning process stuck to the bottom of the pan.Stir the butter until melted. Then add the flour and whisk into the melted butter. Whisk the beef broth in slowing. Bring the mixture to a boil. Boil until sauce is reduced to about 1 1/4 cups, whisking often. Whisk in mustard (and capers, if you have them I am jealous). Season with black pepper and salt.

Slice the beef and plate it beautifully.  I was going all out, so I added some sides – - – Mixed greens with some dried cranberries and honey-dijon dressing and some sweet potato ‘chips’. These thins are delicious. I’ve always made sweet potato fries, but when I saw everyone and their beautiful mothers making these round instead of ‘frie’ shaped, I wanted in. They definitely get more crispy than the regular french frie shape, I might be converted!

Yummy in my tummy. Enjoy!

It’s been a pretty crazy transition between November & December. At the end of November, Meezy and I drove to Montreal for a long weekend.Shopping, site seeing, and freezing our buns off! Then, this past weekend my parents flew our immediate family out to Las Vegas as our Christmas presents. Again, shopping, site seeing, and freezing! I couldn’t believe that the desert could get below 60F. Ugh. 

Here are my favorite pictures from both vacations…. ah, i love that word… vayyy-cayyy-sshhun.

 

Just to explain a few…

In Montreal, we climbed Mount Royal and randomly saw roses and champagne in the middle of the woods… I’m thinking someone was getting lucky ;) My mom is modeling a pet snake from FAO. And I was unsure whether or not I needed to black out certain parts of Michael, the statue. I decided not to… it’s art, right? My favorite part of all were the bears in the Venetian hotel in Vegas.

 

 

Aren’t they adorable?! Their ‘fur’ is made entirely out of white poinsettias. Te-di-ous.

So now it’s almost 1 week ’til xmas and I’m being shocked into reality. Too many holidays, I’m not prepared for the real holidays this year! There’s only 1 shopping weekend left… 1.

Oh, bother.

Ahh. Stuffed Peppers. They always remind me of a full, balanced meal because you have everything you need all in one little vegetable bowl.

These were stuffed with lentils, sweet Italian turkey sausage, tomato sauce, and feta.

I was super nervous because Meezy does not eat anything that resembles a vegetable. If I can chop it or puree it and sneak it into his meal, he will eat them (except onions… he can smell them, from a mile away!!) SO having a FULL sized green pepper in front of him must have been intimidating. But he ate it… and I wait for the reaction.

Meezy devoured them. I was so happy :)

It meant that I had to post the recipe immediately. SO here it is. Try it on your loved ones that refuse to eat veggies. I think it’s less drastic when there is plenty of stuffing to even out the strong heaping of veggies. It’s all about baby steps… today, the green peppers, tomorrow maybe eggplant??!!

Sausage & Lentil Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

• 1 cup lentils, cooked per instructions below
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 3 turkey sausage links, casing removed (or approximately 3/4 lb bulk)
• 1 large can of crushed tomatoes (approx 30 fl oz)
• 1/2 cup feta cheese
• 4 large bell peppers (I used 3 and had plenty of filling left over. I would also use red peppers next time because they have a sweeter flavor)
• 2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• 2 tsp salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a baking dish with cooking spray.

Fill a medium saucepan with 2 cups of water. Once it is boiling, add the 1 cup of lentils. Let simmer until all of the water is gone and the lentils are soft, but not mushy.

While the lentils are cooking, prepare the peppers. Cut the top off of each pepper and then, with a small, sharp knife, cut the membrane out from inside of the pepper. This can be done easily by making a small cut down the inside length of the pepper where the membrane is attached.  Keep them aside until the stuffing is ready.

The lentils are probably still cooking so you can ALSO… add the oil to a frying pan and let it get nice and hot. Then add the sausage and celery and cook until the meat is almost thoroughly cooked and the celery is translucent. Add the garlic and salt and cook for one more minute. Add the can of crushed tomatoes and mix well. Let the mixture simmer for about 5 minutes. Then add the feta cheese, mixing it into the sauce, and take the pan off of the heat.

Once the lentils are done, add them to the sauce mixture. You are now ready to stuff… Distribute the mixture between the peppers and throw them into a 350F oven for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Oh. My. Gawd. I haven’t put something here in too long. I’ve been photo-ing along the way though, so I can document my last few weeks pretty easily, well food-related at least.

It was my Mommy’s birthday a few weekends ago. I know how much she loves these little fruit tartlets that we buy at a bakery a few towns over, so I tried to duplicate them for her. Not a bad effort. But I didn’t get the glaze the way I wanted to. Maybe next time. I used one of Dorie Greenspan’s recipes from the book “Paris Sweets”. It was her only book that I could find at the library. Yes’um. I went to the library to ‘rent’ books. I’m sick of shelling out globs of cash only to get home and be disappointed by many of the recipes. This one, however, I do not want to return. I am willing to find it on Amazon immediately. (note: I love the other sites that give amazing, in-depth book reviews, it helps so much, keep up the good work ladies!)

I used the sweet tart dough recipe and a vanilla cream filling and topped the tart off with fresh strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. When I finally had the cream filled in, I realized that I have NO idea how to decorate the tart. I can’t draw it out or plan it. I had to wing it. And if it looked horrible, I would eat all the fruit off and start over :)

Hope you enjoyed, Mom!!

The entire tart recipe makes 3 crusts and the possibilities are endless. I used one other crust to make a chocolate and cream tart (no pics, sorry) and there is still one lonely dough round waiting in the freezer….

We stayed up super late one night so that Meezy could play video games on his new projector/screen combo. Here is me standing inside the huddle with his ‘teammates’. I told them to not pass the ball to him… pssh, sucker.

Apparently chow mein is not the same thing all across the country, or even within Massachusetts for that matter. To me ’chow mein’ consists of a very thin noodle with lots of veggies/meat in a thin sauce, stir fried all together. I’ve never been a huge fan, I’ve always leaned towards the lo-mein.  So, when Meezy took me south of Boston, towards his neck of the woods, and we had chow mein for dinner, I was shocked. baffled. intrigued…

Aren’t the noodles beeee-a-U-tiful? Deep frying is a special thing.

I am not going to lie. This is one of the most difficult meals that I have ever cooked, especially if you want everything to come out hot. We have cooked it a total of maybe 10 times (yes, we, get helping hands on this one, trust me. ) and finally have it down to 40 minutes from beginning to end. AND when I am getting all of the ingredients out at the beginning I almost have them all memorized… I always forget the damn soy sauce.

But it’s worth it. All of the time, patience, it’s all worth it for that little taste of home…

Fall River Chow Mein

Adapted from Emeril

I would recommend one person be in charge of the noodles while the other person is in charge of the sauce and chicken. Team work people! Team work.

Person #1: cutting all of the noddles first and getting them prepared for deep frying. Then deep frying.

Person #2: mix sauce together and cook chicken and celery seaparately, then combine.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 teaspoon celery salt

3 cups low-sodium beef broth or beef stock

3 tablespoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons gravy enhancer ( Also known as ‘Gravy Master’ ; only added for color)

1 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons dark corn syrup

1/2 cup sliced celery

2 cups chicken (cubed or ground)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 recipe Fall River Chow Mein Noodles, recipe follows

Directions:

Combine the celery salt and the garlic in a medium sauce pan and heat, stirring the flavors together. Once they get warm, immediately add 2 1/2 cups of the beef broth. Stir together and allow the mixture to come to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix together the remaining 1/2 cup of beef broth, corn starch, soy sauce, and gravy master. Once the broth mixture begins to boil, add the corn starch mixture to the pan and also add the corn syrup. Stir the ingredients together and allow the mixture to come back up to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer the mixture until it thickens.

While the sauce is thickening, cook the chicken in a separate pan. Once it is almost cooked through, add the celery to the pan. Allow the chicken to brown and the sauce to thicken.

Then wait for the noodles to be completed….

Fall River Chow Mein Noodles

Ingredients:

2 cups vegetable oil

4 sheets egg roll wrappers, cut into thin strips (see above photo of Meezy’s beautiful cutting skills)

Directions:

Place the oil in a pot on the stove. Allow the oil to reach 350F and try to maintain this temp. Fry the noodles in the oil until lightly brown. Remove with a slotted spoon; allow excess oil to drain completely from the spoon and place on a paper towel.

Once the noodles are completed and the sauce and chicken have been completed from the previous steps, add the sauce mixture to the noodles. Stri until all of the noodles are smothered in the brown sauce. Then add the chicken and celery mixture to the noodles. Again, completely stir until all of the chicken has been coated.

Enjoy!