Red Wine Braised Short Ribs

I guess I was making too many meatless meals because Paul was noticing this recipe in a recent Bon Appetit magazine. The deal was clinched when he opened a bottle of wine he brought back from Mexico and it.....just wasn't good. Not a vinegary/bad sort of way but more in a way that we didn't like it. So, he started this on a Sunday and I just put it in the oven on a Monday afternoon when I was home.

He made a few changes to the recipe linked from the title.
After his discovery that short ribs are expensive he decided to change the meat a bit. Instead he used 2 bone-in short ribs, a beef shank, and some stew meat. He did not use the celery called for in the recipe and decreased the onion to one. Instead of those veggies he used one parsnip and one leek. He used dried herbs instead of the fresh parsley, thyme, and oregano. He omitted the rosemary. The funny thing about the vegetables is that he bought a leek, onions, and carrots....all things I had already but not celery. That's the reason for the vegetables used.

Paul did buy some fresh horseradish root and grated that on his stew. I had eaten mine by the time he remembered that he bought that, so I'll have to try it on the leftovers.

I had a large bunch of leeks from the CSA this week, so I cleaned them thoroughly and sliced them. I placed them on a cookie sheet until frozen...then threw them in a plastic bag. I'm sure that they'll come in handy for a recipe sometime over the winter.

Eleanor had a spaghetti dinner the night we had this, so we don't have her vote on it. Paul and I both liked it....but I'm ready to go back to a bit more of a veggie-based meal for the next few nights. Our dog, Miss Dorothy, probably would vote for this again. She's pretty happy with the bone.

Paul bought some hard cider that we thought would go well with this.....but...ugh....it was the fall version so it had a cinnamon-y and nutmeg-y flavor. Hmmmm...that part wasn't so good. I bet he makes the stew again this winter:) That sounds good to me!



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Mustardy Baked Chicken

This is an easy one.

Sauce:

2 T veg oil

1/2 red onion, diced

1/4 c cider vinegar

2 T brown sugar

1/4 c mustard

1/2t allspice

1/2 t curry powder

Saute the onions 3- 5 minutes in the oil. Ad the vinegar and cook until reduced by 1/2 (or so). Add brown sugar. Whisk in remaining ingredients. Bake chicken breasts in this mixture and serve.

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The Crock Pot Week

 I did a lot of cooking over the weekend so we must be heading into fall. The black bean soup was made, a pot roast was made, some cookies, muffins and bread were baked. I pulled out the crock pot and started thinking, would I be able to use the crock pot for dinner every evening this week? It was a challenge I was willing to undergo!

Monday night we used the crock pot to reheat and hold the black bean soup and we had that and homemade bread for dinner.  Tuesday is a swim meet night, so the pot roast will be reheated and in the crock pot for dinner whenever anyone needs or wants to eat. Now the challenge...can I create 4-5 more meals using the crock pot? I decided I would really try to cook the entire meal in the crock pot.  The bean soup was a bit of a cheat because I had actually made that on the stove, but the pot roast had been cooked in the crock pot.

I started my search and the first unique use of the crock pot I found was Lasagne...one down, 3-4 to go. Maybe a chicken dish? Something Vegetarian?

The menu looks like it will be the following...Crockpot Lasagne Wednesday, Roasted Chicken in a Crock Pot Thursday and Crock Pot Jambalya on Friday. That will make a full week of weeknight meals! Since these are all new recipes to me, they will be blogged about individually as I make them, so stay tuned!

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Corn Chex Squares

I got this recipe years ago from a co-worker after she had it at her daughter in law's house. I'm not a huge fan of marshmallows, so I never made these. I don't like the clean up from rice krispie squares, so I don't usually make those either (and the marshmallow thing). I do enjoy rice krispie treats someone else makes and sometimes find just a tiny bit of the marshmallows may be OK. Ah....one of the desserts that makes me think about growing up in the 70s:) However, I am stretching a bit to provide a variety of desserts for the swim team spaghetti dinners.



Although we can drop the dessert at the host house the day of the dinner, that just involves an extra step for me, so I'm trying to send the dessert with Eleanor when she goes to school. It's a bit tricky to find something that transports well and can sit in a school locker all day and still be good by evening. So, I found this card and thought I would give it a try.

I'm glad I saved this recipe since it did work out well.

Here it is:
2 c corn chex
2 1/2 c pretzel sticks, broken into pieces
1 1/2 c m &ms (I used peanut)
Melt:
1/2 c butter
1/3 c peanut butter
bag of mini marshmallows
Stir until melted. Add to above ingredients and spread into 9X13" pan (greased). The note says that it's also good with salted peanuts.

I am so happy Elizabeth's back!

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Roasted Tomato Salsa

 This past week I looked at the counter where I keep tomatoes and thought, wow, what am I going to do with all of those? Then the CSA box came and I got even more tomatoes!  We are a family that likes salsa, but not in abundance so I knew I needed to find a recipe I could freeze. I found Roasted Tomato Salsa at Myrecipes.com. This is an amazingly easy recipe and very quick considering it involves roasting.  I did alter the recipe slightly based on what I had.

I used 3-3.5 pounds of tomatoes, a mixture of grape, plum and regular tomatoes.  I also used a Garden Salsa hot pepper and a Hungarian Yellow hot pepper in place of the jalapeno.  In future batches, I will use less hot pepper, this turned out quite hot! I would also advise against using grape tomatoes, it was a pain to peel them!  In my situation they had to be used, so it was worth the effort not to waste them.

A couple other changes...I didn't add any tomato juice, I think the combination of tomatoes added to the juice content so it wasn't necessary.  I also had just a few sprigs of cilantro, so since we love basil with our tomatoes, I added some fresh basil.  I did use salt and pepper, but omitted the vinegar.

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Black Bean Soup

Last summer I made a batch of Day by Day Vegetable Medley from Myrecipes.com. As I recall, it was an attempt to use CSA produce, including eggplant, peppers and tomatoes.  This recipe makes about 10 cups of the Medley and the recipe has meal ideas attached.  I proceeded to make the shrimp recipe that was listed and it was awful.  Needless to say, I had about 7 cups left of the stuff so I threw it in the freezer in 2 batches.


When digging through the freezer today, I found it...now, what to do with it. I decided to try a black bean soup, but did not make the recommended recipe.  Instead, I just went with what seemed to make sense.

First I put the mixture in the cuisinart food processor and pureed it.  I then set about cooking a bag of dried black beans.  I roasted a jalapeno pepper I had received from the CSA.  I added the roasted and seeded jalapeno to the eggplant mixture and then threw everything together with the beans, adding 1 teaspoon of cumin.  This produced more of a stew, so I thinned the mixture with about 2 cups of chicken broth.


The finished product is delicious...I will serve it with sour cream or Greek yogurt and it will be a fantastic Monday night soup!

Sweet Potato Baked Doughnuts

I saw this recipe in a Food and Wine magazine I was paging through while waiting to get my hair cut a couple months ago. I copied it but later found it online so I could link it to the title. The first time I made these I ended up being a bit short on time and didn't allow them to rise quite as long as I should have. I thought these would be a good thing to make on a lazy Sunday morning when I could let them rise as long as needed.

I did substitute pumpkin for the sweet potato by using on can of pumpkin. I did not add the rum or the vanilla bean but used 2 t vanilla extract as a substitute. Instead of rolling each one in butter and cinnamon and sugar we brushed the tops with butter and used a shaker with cinnamon and sugar.



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