Party Snacks-Baked Brie and Rice Krispie Treat Genius

I recently had an opportunity to make some party snacks-something I haven't done in a very long time.


When we lived in Virginia, I frequently hosted a game night. I loved making food for these nights and I hope now that we are a bit more settled in Nebraska we can start having people over on a more regular basis.

If you've never made baked brie, it something you have to try!

It is super easy to do and absolutely delicious!

Normally, I'd top a wheel of brie with some sort of jam (apricot/raspberry), and nuts. Then, I'd wrap the brie in crescent rolls and bake for about 20 minutes.

However, I made a savory version this time because I already had a dessert I wanted to make.

Before wrapping the wheel in crescent dough, I put some spicy brown mustard on top of the brie and wrapped it in pancetta.

I was ridiculously excited to pop the tube of crescent rolls because it's been nearly two years since I've used a store bought dough. I love it when the tube pops open!

Side Note:
It is very important to let the dish cool for at least 15 minutes before you cut it. It can be difficult to wait when you know what deliciousness awaits. However, if you cut it too soon all of the brie will run. (For the record, I don't mind when that happens.)

At the end of the night I realized I never ate a bite of this dish but everyone seemed to enjoyed it. Charlie says he didn't care for the mustard, but it didn't stop him from eating it. 

On to the sweet...

It was the first warm weekend so I want to make a Spring-y dessert that wasn't a cake or a pie and I came up with Strawberry Shortcake Rice Krispie Treats!

They are basically rice krispie treats with chunks of Angel Food Cake inside that are topped with whipped cream and strawberries. I wish I could claim credit for this idea but I found the recipe here along with an insane amount of sinful rice krispie treat recipes.

All  rice krispie treats should have cake in them! 

If I make these again I'll use pound cake or an actual short cake. I did buy the Angel Food cake (!) which made this treat very easy to put together.

These rice krispie treats just look like Spring, right?

Homemade Flour Tortillas :)

My tortilla project may have gotten a bit out of hand...

I made tortillas 4 times in 6 days because the perfect tortilla continually seemed just out of reach.

In fact, I'm making a 5th batch right now because I still don't think I have it quite right.

After sifting through about 15 recipes for flour tortillas, this seems to be a basic and reliable place to start:

3 cups of flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup of warm water

1/3 cup oil

Putting the dough together is easy. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add the liquid. Then mix together and knead until you have a smooth dough.



You can use a food processor if you want, but with a recipe this small I think it is easier to use a bowl and your hands.










Divide the dough in to 16 equal portions (a scale is handy here).








If you don't have a scale, divide the dough in half. Then, in half again and again and again until you have 16 portions.








If you use a scale, make sure you weight the dough each time you make the recipe because even if you follow it exactly again and again the weight of the dough will vary slightly.










Roll the portions in to balls and flatten.

Cover with a kitchen towel/proofing bag, and let the dough rest for at least 15 minutes rest. I found 30 minutes worked best for me.

Then, roll out the dough in to a tortilla about 6 inches wide.





Attempting to roll perfectly circular tortillas certainly set off my OCD. I'll not bore you with my bitter thoughts or the
profanity that came out of my mouth. Instead, let's just say tortilla rolling is an area of growth for me!











Immediately cook the tortillas in a pan on medium heat. Flip when they just start to brown (30-45 seconds).









The tortillas will keep in the fridge for a day or in the freezer forever. Store them separated by wax paper or paper towels.









Once frozen, they take maybe 30 seconds to reheat in a pan or a few minutes on a sheet pan in the oven. 
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I did follow the basic recipe above the first time around, but I changed it up each time after the test run.

For all of my other tortilla attempts I used 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of AP flour.

Whole wheat flour is more absorbent that AP flour.

Therefore, I added about 3 extra tablespoons of warm water to make the dough as supple and malleable as I felt it should be.

The use of whole wheat flour produces a somewhat firmer tortilla. I don't mind the texture as a trade off for a bit more nutrition in my tortillas.

After figuring out the whole wheat substitution, I began adding spices. I made one batch with cumin and garlic. Another batch contained ground chipotle powder.

My most recent batch (and the one pictured above) contains 2 teaspoons of chipotle powder, 1 teaspoon of onion powder, and 2 teaspoons of garlic powder. Spicy and delicious! Perfect for carnitas, eggs, and anything else!

At any rate, I can guarantee you that there will never be store bought tortillas in my house again.

Fresh tortillas make EVERY dish better!

I've used them for tacos, breakfast burritos, quesadillas, and simply wrapped around cheese and meat for a quick meal/snack. So easy and delicious!

Carnitas!

!CARNITAS!

 
















My first attempt at carnitas started as an innocent endeavor to make homemade tortillas for a recent batch of breakfast burritos. 

Charlie suggested that since I was making tortillas I should also make a dish to go with them. I guess the breakfast burritos don't count ;)

As with any recipe I make, I scoured the internet and all of my cookbooks to put together a recipe that I thought would turn out well. Of course, that means I took bit and pieces from about 7 different recipes and came up with the one below.

• 8# bone in pork butt
• 1 can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
• enough bacon grease to cover the pork butt
• 2 tablespoon chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons salt, or more, to taste
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 8 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 red onion, quartered 
• 1 jalapeno diced with seeds
• 1 jalapeno chopped and seeded
• 1 large orange, juiced
• 2 limes, juiced

 

 

 

I found a lot of debate over: 

• the proper cooking temperature  
• whether to cook the pork butt whole or cut it up and sear it first  
• whether to cook in lard or stock/juice  
• the proper cooking vessel 

If you really want to read about the intricacies of pork butt cooking, here's the best breakdown I found: Carnitas Food Lab

I massaged the pork butt with bacon grease and then rubbed on the dry spice mix. Then I cooked the pork butt in my dutch oven at 200 degrees for roughly 6 hours. My goal was to catch it right when the thermometer read 155. 

 

However, I didn't get the pork but in the oven until 4pm. 

I was checking the dish at 2 hour intervals since this was an experiment. 

Somewhere around 9:30 I must have fallen asleep and when I pulled the pork but out at 10:30 it temped at 170. 

 
Despite slight overcooking, the meat was miraculously moist. 

I kept all of the cooking liquid/fat in a large pyrex overnight to add back to the pork (once it was shredded) the next day for added flavor and to reincorporate the fat.

 I CAN'T emphasize enough how important it is to keep the cooking liquid! 

The important part is to skim the fat and add it back to the meat. I added a good portion of the liquid back to the portions I put in the freezer as well.

 

I broiled the portions just before eating them to crisp them up a bit.

I divided the meat in to 1.5# portions. I ended up with 3 bags in the freezer and 2 nights of dinner. To be fair, we gorged ourselves the first night because it was so delicious!

 The next time I make this, and there WILL be a next time, I'd cut out one of the limes. Additionally, I'd rub the pork but down with the bacon grease and cover in the spices the night before I plan to cook it. I think doing so would allow the spices to come through more in the finished product.

For those that are interested, I'll share my experiment with homemade tortillas on Monday. 

 

Red Pepper Sammies (No Bread)

I love making bread. I love eating bread. I love the way it smells. I love its versatility. Basically, I love everything about bread.

However, I've been trying out recipes that will reduce the amount of carbohydrates and sugars that we eat. I have a family history of diabetes and recently found out that my blood sugar levels were not where they needed to be. (Not much of a surprise after the last year in culinary school)

Lowering our carbohydrate intake is a dietary change that I hope to make and stick to in 2015.

I don't believe in going cold turkey so I've been slowly reducing bread and grains in our diet over the last few weeks. I've found a few good recipes but I'm having a hard time letting go of sandwiches. I know I'm never going to give bread or grains up entirely but I have been looking for some good sandwich alternatives.

I found the inspiration for Red Pepper Sammies on Pinterest. The original dish I found was for skinny philly cheese steak stuffed peppers. I'll probably make those eventually since they look delicious, but to test the idea out I used what I had at home.

I cut 2 large red peppers in half lengthwise.

After placing them in a baking dish I added a layer of some sweet potato noodles I had left over. Sweet potato noodles are a new favorite.

Next, I added about 3 oz of leftover jerk chicken, a few slices of red onion, and 1/2 an ounce of smoked Gouda.

I baked them in the oven for 25 minutes at 350. Since I wanted to pick the peppers up and eat them like a sandwich the pepper to stay a bit crisp. If you want to eat them with a fork and knife, cook them for 35-40 minutes.

For a side, I made some roasted brussels sprouts. I might be going on a bit of a brussels sprout bender after not having  them for nearly 2 months! I tossed the brussels sprouts in a bit of melted butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I baked them along with the peppers and switched the oven to broil for the last 5 minutes while the peppers cooled.

Is this dish a sandwich replacement? Maybe. Did I enjoy it? Yes!

The Red Pepper Sammies even received Charlie's highest form of praise-"I'd eat this again."

Approximate Nutritional Info:

Calories: 460
Fat: 17g
Carbs: 31g
Fiber: 9g
Protien: 46g

3rd Week of December

Where did the 3rd week in December go? I'm convinced time moves faster during the holidays.

Meal planning and execution was derailed by my week long battle with a cold/sinus infection. I'm really not sure what Charlie ate for at least 4 days last week. I'm not sure what I ate either. There are some blurry memories of ramen and pudding. I blame that on the fever that I just couldn't shake.

However, this week we've started to get back on track.

I spent $54.11 at the store for everything in the picture above. I don't have a copy of the receipt because Charlie used it for a special price on gas. My Hy-vee had a random special last Friday where you would earn an additional 0.25 saving per gallon if you spent $50 in the store  and showed your receipt at the pump. Yay for saving money on gas!

I know that I am over budget for this month. We ate out a few times because I got behind on prep. We also purchased some convenience foods here and there because I was not feeling well enough to cook. Getting sick really messed up the month.

I also know I'm over budget because I'm using the last month of December as a test run for my January project. I'll share more on that next week.

Here are the highlights from this week's meals:

We continue to have museli for breakfast. To mix things up, we had it with yogurt this week instead of milk.

Bolognese with Zucchini Noodles
I finally used the last container of bolognese that I made back in November. I love make ahead dishes
but generally try to use them within 2 weeks. I hate having stuff hang out in my freezer for months. I used a spiral vegetable slicer to make the zucchini noodles. I went back and forth on the purchase of a spiral slicer for at least 3 months. I am so glad I finally bought it. The noodles were fantastic! Charlie said he liked them better than pasta due to the texture. I can't wait to make a ton of other spiraled vegetable dishes.



 


Beef Tips with Brown Rice and Brussel Sprouts
One day I'll have to devote an entire post to brussel sprouts. They could very well be my favorite food. This beef tip recipe is super simple. I put 1lb of the Omaha Steak beef tips, 1 can of beef broth, 1/2 an onion,  salt, and some pepper in my dutch oven. With the lid on, I cooked the dish at 350 for 45 minutes and then added the sliced mushrooms. After cooking for 10 more minutes, I stirred in 2 tbsps of cornstarch mixed with 1/8 cup water. After 10 more minutes in the oven to let the gravy thicken, the dish was ready! So delicious!





 
Salmon with Sugar Peas and Sauteed Gnocchi
Salmon, and fish in general, is one of the things I've missed the most over the last 2 months. Going forward, I am going to find a way to eat fish at least once a week.

For this dish, I seasoned both sides of the filets with salt, pepper, and chipotle powder. Then I did a quick, somewhat successful quick sear on both sides. (I need more practice with fish in a cast iron pan) Next, I brushed on a mix of soy and honey. I poured the remaining soy/honey in the pan and put it in the oven at 350 for 10 minutes to finish cooking. Then I boiled and sauteed the gnocchi I made and froze last month in butter and steamed the sugar peas. I could eat this everyday for lunch and be happy for the rest of my life!




 


Jerk Chicken with Sweet Potato Noodles
The jerk chicken is the other chicken I prepped and froze last week. I used the spiral slicer on one medium sweet potato and baked the noodles with some olive oil, salt, garlic powder and half a julienned red onion for 20 minutes at 350. I added the sugar peas during the last 7 minutes. This was a
wonderful light dinner.









Southwest Chicken Sandwiches
Since I prepped this chicken and froze it last week, all I had to do was thaw it overnight and pop in on a baking tray in the oven for 15 minutes. I loved the flavor of this seasoning. I used the chicken on sandwiches with homemade garlic wheat bread, pea shoots, tomato slices, avocado, pepper jack cheese, and a little mayo. The side is a spiraled cucumber and red onion salad with a balsamic dressing. We used the other half of the chicken in black bean and veggie bowls.



I've got some super fun dishes in the works for next week since I don't have class. Lots of spiraled veggies dishes on the way. More brussel sprouts. And basil!

Until then, Happy Friday!

Meal Prep and Sauces

The majority of active cooking that I do during the week is either making something out of leftovers or thawing/reheating/jazzing up meals (or parts of meals) that I've already prepped.

To do this, I normally spend anywhere from 2-4 hours in the kitchen over the weekend. For me, this is an excellent trade off because there are always complete meals that can be ready in 15 minutes or less.

With the careful shopping and meal planning that I've been doing  over the last 6 weeks, I find we are making better food choices because there are fewer and fewer moments of "Oh crap, what are we going to eat. I don't feel like cooking/I'm starving...Let's order pizza!"

I also like doing our meals this way because it means Charlie knows that if we are eating meals at different times there are "boxes" he can grab and heat up.

Here's how I used my time last week:

Friday-1 Hour

Grocery shopping based on meals I've planned.
Staples of my list include chicken breast, some type of pork, lots of green veggies (fresh and frozen), beans, and brown rice, or some other whole grain.

Sunday-2.5 Hours

1. Cook a large batch of grain(s)
I cooked 1 cup of brown rice and 1 cup of another grain. (If I've planned a bean dish that week I'll soak them overnight Saturday and also have them on the stove at this time.) Generally it takes me 5 minutes to get these dishes cooking and they cook for 45-60 minutes.

2. Cook or otherwise prep your protein

After I get the grains/beans going, I start on the protein.

This past week I had 5lbs of chicken breast and 10 pork chops to work with. I cubed 2.5lbs of chicken and threw it on a baking pan in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes.

Then, I cut up the remaining 2.5lbs of chicken and divided it evenly between two freezer bags. I put one pair of pork chops in the freezer plain but divided the remaining 8 pork chops between four freezer bags.

3. Make your sauces/seasonings

By the time I cleaned up the "raw meat area," the chicken in the oven was done and I moved it to a cooling rack and began working on the following "rubs": Jerk, Southwest, Blackened.(recipes at the bottom of the page)If I run out of time on the first night of prep I'll go ahead and portion the protein/grains/veggies and make the sauces the next day.

I measured the rubs in to mini containers (pictured above) and will keep the leftovers on my spice rack for future use.

Mango Chicken

After I made the rubs I added about 1 tablespoon each to 2 tablespoons of olive oil and put them in with the bagged protein. I add the olive to help protect the meat since I plan to freeze them after letting them marinate for 24 hours in the fridge. If I was cooking the meat in the next 24 hours I would use the rubs dry. I added the blackened rub to two bags of pork, while the Southwest and Jerk went in the bags of chicken.

4. Double  recipes and freeze half

After the rubs were done, I began simmering the base for a Mango Chicken dish which was dinner on Sunday. I used half the chicken I cooked earlier for dinner with two boxes of leftovers which went in the freezer after dinner.

I used other half of the chicken I cooked earlier for four servings of spicy peanut chicken. once the rice/grain was done I portioned out four boxes with 1/3 cup rice/grain, 4 ounces of chicken, and as much frozen broccoli or green beans that would fit and put them in the fridge. I normally get 4 boxes out of I bag of frozen veggies.

By this point, dinner is done. I portioned the Mango Chicken in to four servings-2 will go in the freezer. The remaining rice/grain goes in a container in the fridge for use with the pork chops or the other 5lbs of chicken during the week.

I know that seems like a crazy amount of work for one night but if I'm already going to be in the kitchen I try to have as many things cooking as possible.

Charlie normally stays out of the kitchen when all of this is happening because I usually have all four burners going, something in the oven, and all of the counter space is in use!

Monday-1 Hour

all the plates were dirty-don't judge

Dinner Monday was Butternut Squash Curry with Cranberry Chutney. While the curry was simmering I made two sauces.

Sauces: Spicy Peanut, Honey/Ginger/Orange

After pouring the spicy peanut sauce over the chicken in the boxes I'd portioned out on Sunday I popped them in the freezer for later in the week.

Then I made a honey/ginger/marinade sauce out of and poured it in one bag of pork chops. I put some store bought bbq sauce in the last bag of pork chops. Then, right before dinner was done I put the pork chops and chicken bags from yesterday in the freezer.

Summary

Peanut Chicken

After 3.5 hours in the kitchen I have:
-4 boxes of spicy peanut chicken meal
-2 boxes of mango chicken meal
-4 servings of jerk chicken
-4 servings of southwest chicken
-10 pork chops (2 plain, 4 blackened, 2 honey/ginger/orange, 2 bbq)
-4 servings of grain

For the rest of the week (2 hours) all I have to do to get meals ready is keep track of what needs to be thawed for the next day, reheat a meal or cook a thawed protein and heat up some grain/veggies.

I will mix in sandwiches with turkey we still have in the freezer from Thanksgiving, egg salad wraps, or other meals I've made in previous weeks like gnocchi.

 

Southwest: 1 tbsp each of chili powder and paprika, 1/2 tbsp each of garlic powder, ground coriander, salt, and dried oregano, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp each ground black pepper, crushed red pepper, cayenne pepper.

Jerk: 1/2 tbsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp dried thyme, 1 tsp each of allspice and black pepper, 1/4 tsp each cinnamon, cayenne, and salt.

Blackened: 1/2 tbsp paprika, 1 tsp each salt and black pepper, 1/2 tsp each garlic and onion powder, 1/4 tsp each cayenne, thyme, and oregano.

Spicy Peanut Sauce: 3 tbsp peanut butter, 3 tbsp water, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar, hot sauce to taste. Whisk all ingredients together over low heat until warm. If sauce becomes too dry just add a little more water.

Honey/Orange/Ginger: zest and juice of 1 orange, 1 tbsp honey, 1/2 tbsp fresh grated ginger, 2 tbsp soy sauce, crushed red pepper to taste. Whisk together in a bowl and add to dish. (I let meat marinate in this for 24 hours. If I freeze it in the sauce, I thaw in the fridge and then cook and serve the meat in the sauce. This is fine as long as you make sure the meat is cooked to the appropriate temperature.)

Meals from the First Two Weeks of December

When I said I'd be back Wednesday with recipes and such I really meant Thursday :)

I came down with a terrible cold on Sunday that morphed in to a sinus infection-because I'm awesome like that.

Getting sick really ticked me off this week because I'd gone nearly a year without being ill. That might not sound that impressive to some, but I've basically spent the last 5 years constantly catching any and all colds/strep/flu/general disgustingness that was circulating in my classroom.

Since I'm still playing catch up, the meals below cover the highlights from December 1 through December 10. And, I'll be back tomorrow (for real) with another post that details my basic meal prep plan each week and several sauce recipes since I've been promising a post on those topics for weeks.



Turkey "Salad" Pitas
I mixed some of the leftover Thanksgiving turkey with, well, basically guacamole. Charlie and I both love avocados so this worked for us. The pita also has tomato slices and spinach on it. The sweet potatoes wedges were tossed in bacon grease (why not?) with salt, a little chipotle, and garlic powder. The key to getting them crispy in the oven is high heat-bake them at 450 for about 20 minutes.




 




Egg Salad
This was a perfect wrap for a quick, light lunch. I have a recipe for wheat tortillas I'm excited to test but I did not make the ones in the picture. My egg salad is really simple. For two servings I use 4 hard boiled eggs, 1/2 a tablespoon of mayo, salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, and onion powder. We've eaten egg salad sandwiches at least 4 times in the last 2 weeks because I had to do something with 18 eggs in the fridge. Besides, egg salad is delicious!

Veggie Wrap

I filled a wheat tortilla with 2 tablespoons of cream cheese, a handful of green pea shoots, some leftover brown rice, and half a tomato. I made more sweet potato wedges as a side. Have I mentioned Charlie and I are both obsessed with sweet potatoes? 










 





Black Beans with Brown Rice
I froze half of the black bean soup that I made last week in 2 cup containers. After I thawed one portion it in the fridge, I warmed it up with 1/2 a cup of chicken broth and cooked it until the liquid was gone. The rice was left over from meal prep I did earlier in the week. With everything already made, all I really had to do for this meal was slice the green onion and lime, dress the salad greens, and plop the sour cream on top. Black beans might not be much to look at but this version has great flavor due to all of the spices involved. And, for once, I actually omitted the hot sauce so there's nothing spicy about this dish.








Turkey and Spinach Pot Pie
The week after Thanksgiving I made individual pot pies and then a 9-inch pot pie whose filling mainly consisted of all the spinach I had left in my fridge, the remaining leftover gravy, a turkey thigh, and a few spoonfuls of leftover green beans, carrots, and peas. I made the whole wheat crust as well. I had a tough time getting it out of the pan so the dish isn't very pretty but it tasted great. When given the option between the pot pie and several other dishes, Charlie picked the leftover pot pie twice! I found the inspiration for my pot pie here.







Over the last few weeks we've also had the dishes listed below. I think I've included these dishes in earlier weeks and I didn't want to bore anyone by describing them again.

Mango Chicken with Black Beans and Rice
Butternut Squash Curry with Cranberry Chutney
Turkey Sandwiches
Pork Stir Fry
Peanut Chicken