Apple Butter 2008

Once again this year, my wife's family has taken a weekend to come together and make home made apple butter. A post talking about last year's endeavor can be read here.

From AppleButter2008

This year's festivities were just as fun and resulted in a TON of great tasting apple butter. The biggest change from last year was that this year we had it at Em's and my new house (in the backyard, under where the fire pit is normally) and that my parent's were able to join in on the fun.

The basic plans/timeline were the same as last year but here they are again (in an abbreviated form).

Fearing that a neighbor, unfamiliar with our family tradition, may call the police/fire dept. upon seeing the smoke and fire, the week before I put in for a bonfire permit with our local government. A couple days later I was in procession of permit #38 and was legally able to build a fire up to 5'x5' (FIRE!)

On Friday (b/c Em and her parents were off work) the pealing/coring/slicing/juicing was done. It took 4 people 2-3 hours to core/slice/peal 3 bushels of apples (~40 lbs each). When that was finished, Em's mom brewed half of the peals in water to create a strong apple juice.

Saturday morning Em had to go into work to give an ACT, so her parent's and I started the fire around 7:30 am and had the apples in the huge copper pot along with some water by 8am.

From AppleButter2008

Over the next 8 hours my parents came by and everyone took turns constantly stirring the kettle. Along with stirring, everyone enjoyed some homemade chili and tons of doughnuts and other misc food items.

After an hour or two the juice was added, after ~3 the seasoning glove was added, and after ~5 the sugar (10 lbs per busshel). After 8 hours the apples had gone from pieces in water, to smaller pieces, to a thin apple sauce, to a thick dark apple sauce and reduced by aprox. 2/3rds in volume.

From AppleButter2008

From AppleButter2008

20 minute of canning later we had ~ 76 pints of apple butter.

From AppleButter2008

Mmmm Mmmm good.

From AppleButter2008

Some family traditions are just tastier than others. :-)
More photos can be seen here

Dill Lamb Shish-Kabobs and expensive brie

Yesterday Em and I took her parents and grandma out to the latest local Whole Foods Market and picked up some items for a "nice" Sunday meal.

First off, as a sort of appetizer, we purchased a small wedge of what can only be described as some of the best cheese I have ever had. I was perusing the cheese area with the intention of picking out a decent brie or Camembert when I began talking with David, the cheese-monger and a random guy with his wife and son who was picking out several cheeses. After a brief chat and finding out that if I wanted a good mellow brie I "just had to try" this one which was "wicked good" I knew what I needed. We ended up with a wedge of Brillat Savarrin Triple Creme Cow's Milk Cheese. So good. Almost like butter smooth. :-) And at only $30.99/lb very affordable ;-) (the wedge was only 0.13 lbs)

Next up was dinner ... Dill Lamb Shish-Kabobs

Ingredients

• 1 lb lamb shoulder cut into cubes
• several sprigs fresh dill, minced
  
• 1 tbs chopped garlic
• 1 container plain yogurt (unsweetened)
• 3 cp chopped veggies (cherry tomoatoes, bell pepper, onions, mushrooms)
• olive oil
  
• salt + pepper

Steps

1. marinate the lamb in the yogurt, garlic, dill, salt and pepepr for 2+ hours
2. chop veggies and coat with olive oil salt and pepper for 30+ minutes
3. thread onto skewers and grill over a medium fire for 12-15 minutes turning occasionally
4. serve over rice
   

Thoughts

I thought the lamb turned out really well considering I don't cook it very often and I wasn't following a specific recipe. Next time I would try some minced mint and lemon juice instead but the dill was very good and not overpowering like I feared it might be. Also, I made a couple yogurt based sauces w/ some leftovers (didn't need as much yogurt as I thought). One had paprika + cumin + cayanne pepper and the other had some more dill, lemon juice and garlic.

Roasted Chili Relish and Reviews

I adapted this recipe from one in our Gourmet Magazine from last month:
Roasted Chili Relish

Ingredients

• 0.5 - 1 lb various chilies (as hot as you want)
• 1/2 small head garlic (4-5 cloves)
• 1/3 cp white vinegar
• 2 - 3 tbsp sugar
  
• salt / pepper / thyme
  

Steps

1. Clean peppers and remove stems/seeds
2. Roughly chop peppers
3. Remove top of garlic head
4. Wrap garlic head in foil and place it along with peppers on foil on baking sheet in 350 degree oven for ~30 minutes (I used a toaster oven)
5. Let cool slightly and remove garlic from wrappers/cover
6. Put everything in a food processor with vinegar, sugar, and seasoning and run until chopped fine and semi smooth (<1>
7. Pour mixture into small sauce pan and cook until liquid has reduced by half
8. Pour into jar with lid and refrigerate
   

Thoughts

The original recipe called for actual "pickling" of the chilies but I was too lazy and hungry for that. I put this stuff on everything from my sandwiches to chicken/pork dishes to pasta. It had a great heat plus a nice tang from the vinegar and sugar.

::Reviews::

A couple of weeks ago a couple coworkers and I took a long lunch and went to a local deli/small grocery store in south st. louis and had some great sandwiches. The place is called LeGrands Market and I find it hard to think of a better sandwhich that can be had for less than 5 bucks. The size was good, the meats were good quality, the mixtures were tasty and the toppings were great. I will be going back ... if only it were closer to work ;-) Check out their scan of their sandwich menu and just try and not get hungry!

On another lunch break, we took in what is becoming a downtown highlight. Papy's. At 11:25am the line was 30 minutes long and wrapped throughout the small restaurant (it opens at 11). All in house home made barbeque that is there until they run out each day. Despite the wait, it was well worth it ... some of the best brisket I have had in quite some time.

Em made a Rachel Ray recipe the other night and it was pretty darn good. (I don't know if I was more shocked by the fact that she made one of Ray's or that it was as good as it was) She made her Sloppy Buffalo Joes with ground turkey and extra hot sauce and they were really good.

Finally, a coworker of mine turned us on to a new (to us) local ice cream place called Serendipity which has some really good homemade icecream. No its not Ted Drews, but its closer and very good. Mmmm Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream :)

STUFFED! and Smoked

Kolaches this morning at work (thank you random team that the boss appreciated your work) and a team going-away lunch today at California Pizza Kitchen (yay Thai Chicken Pizza) have left me STUFFED.


Yesterday I found two links that I think will help me greatly on my quest to get a smoker this summer:

National Barbecue News (Forums)

and

Smoking Meat Forums

Roast Whole Chicken

A couple nights ago I attempted to roast a whole chicken for only the second time in my life (the first being with Kev in college) and once again it turned out well with surprisingly little effort or preparation.

The only problem I had was determining when the bird was done. The recipe I followed (for cooking times at least ... I added a cut and juiced lemon to the inside and along with a couple cloves of garlic and a table spoon of rosemary) was from one of my favorite cooks books, The New Best Recipe. The books has tons of recipes along with detailed descriptions of all of the different ways they tried to make the dish before settling on this "best" one. Along with the recipes are lots of side notes about various cooking tools, preparation methods, etc. Its an all around solid cook book, if not a bit heavy.

The book's recipe called for the oven to be preheated to 350 (along with the roasting pan) and then to add the bird, one wing side up on a V-rack in the center of the oven. After 15 minutes, adjust the bird so that the other wing side is up. After another 15 minutes increase the temperature to 450 and turn the bird breast side up. It said to cook until the meat was 160/165 in various areas of the bird (~25 minutes). This was supposed to result in a not-dried-out bird with a good crispy skin.

Well the skin was crispy and a beautiful golden brown .... but the meat was a fair bit cooler and after removing the bird and doing a test cut, was not done all the way through. After 20-30 minutes more at various temperatures, it was done, still not too dry and very tasty.

Other than taking longer than expected, it was great and really simple.

I have decided to take up smoking

of the BBQ variety.

I mentioned to my dad the other day that I was considering getting a smoker this summer, but wasn't sure how often I would use it nor anything really about them. He mentioned that he had thought the same thing for several years but had failed to pull the trigger. So, we decided that this summer, things were gonna change.

Only problem is, we still don't know much about smokers. A very brief google search turned up numerous providers building several different kinds of smokers. We don't need or want something huge (ideally something that could be transported in a car/truck assuming it was semi-clean) but there are many choices along the way (e.g. style, size, fuel, etc). On first glance I am leaning toward an electric or gas model b/c it seems like unless you going to have a large smoker and do logs, the fuel isn't providing any flavor, just heat to the wood chips. And while I don't mind tending a fire, I have other things I would prefer doing.

Anyone have any experience with smokers,
and would like to share your thoughts?

Quick and Dirty Hummus

The other night I wanted a snack between meals and remembered we had a can of chick peas (garbanzo beans) in the pantry left over from another dish. From this a very rustic, fairly tasty, and moderately quick hummus was born....

After a quick glance at a online hummus recipe to get me in the ballpark I gathered the ingredients I could find and got mixing. First, I had to find a substitute for Tahini paste (which Trader Joe's also doesn't carry). I toasted a few tablespoons of sesame seeds in a dry pan over medium heat and added them to our small food processor along with a couple teaspoons of olive oil, some salt and pepper and a couple drops of toasted sesame oil. After some grinding, the paste was a rough equivalent.

I added to that some more olive oil, a couple tablespoons of lemon juice, the can of drained chick peas, a couple cloves of minced garlic and some seasoning. I attempted to blend this into a nice hummusy paste, but being a very small food processor and there being a lot of ingredients ... this didn't work out so well. I ended up doing it in batches which worked ok, but made it hard to get a real good smooth texture.

In the end, the result was really good for my first try. Pita bread or something similar would have been better than the generic crackers we had on hand, but they weren't bad. The hummus had some decent flavor and was pretty close to the stuff you can get in a good restaurant. If I could have gotten the consistency better, I would have said it was easily better than 90% of store bought stuff and probably better for you.

Fish Fry #2 - A MORE Sacred Heart

This past Friday, Em and I got our weekly fish-fix at the Most Sacred Heart Catholic Church Fish Fry in Eureka (yes, they really are the most ... way more sacred heart than our parish).

My one word review? Wow.

They had their act together. Firstly, there was a line of cars trying to get into the parking lot (usually the sign of good or slow fish fry). The only menu choice was between a small and large plate (small being one server, large being all-you-can eat) but at $6/$9 very reasonable. They made up the plates as you walked up (no side choices) which was great for getting the zillions of people through the line quickly, but left everyone getting the same 3 sides (all good: pasta, coleslaw, and green beans). The fish was tasty, the sides were good, and your dinner included drink, desert and bread.

Me being me, I had to get the all-you-can-eat plate ... but they gave you so much food on your first plate, that I really didn't need a second. I pushed on, however, and got in line for some more fish and coleslaw, but got there in time for them to be in-between fish batches which was drastically slowing up both the eat-in and carry-out lines. I figured I would chalk up my extra $3 dollars as a donation and get back to the table where Em's and my deserts were waiting for me (Em gave up sweets for lent). After a slice of homemade cherry pie and lemon cake ... I was done.

All in all, very good. However, get there early!

(The previous week we ended up going out to a local pub/restaurant for dinner and didn't go to a fish fry)

G&W - Bavarian Style Sausage Company

This small sausage company located in South St. Louis has great sausages, smoked meats, and atmosphere.

This past Saturday morning, my dad and I were in search of some good sausage, and we were not left wanting. The place is a small building sandwiched between old car dealerships on a road that dead ends at some train tracks. But don't let the outside fool you, or the large bull painting frighten you, inside lurks yummy foods worth the drive. Walking in you find yourself in a small room with 3 large meet cases full of assorted fresh and smoked/curred sausages, fresh meats, cured meats, and cheese along with a variety of Germanic focused dry goods. A few guys are working behind the counter, cutting meat, swapping stories, doling out cooking advice, and tossing you a free beer if the line gets too long (meaning > 2 people, I declined given that it was 9am and I hadn't eaten anything yet).

After sampling a few of their homemade delicacies, we ended up getting an assortment of things: shinkenwurst, smoky and spicy landjager, some great jerky, breakfast sausage, garlic bratwurst, another ham bases sausage, some "black forest" ham sliced paper thin ...

Everything was great and reminded me a ton of my grandpa who was a German-American through and through and didn't consider a day done until he had meat+potatoes and probably some kind of sausage. Sauerkraut, a plus.

Random Web Links for 2008-02-22

• Recipe of the Day: Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Garlic - Bitten - Em made something similar to this a while back and they were actually quite good
• Easy Baba Au Rhum - Bitten - food that gets your drunk :-)
• Save Money with an Indoor One-Pot Herb Garden - I am going to try this in the spring
• Spaetzle for Breakfast - I gotta try this
• The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy - and Their Open Source Alternatives - good list of OS alternatives
• Quick Whole Wheat and Molasses Bread - Bitten - i need to try and make more bread

Asian Chicken Wantons

I threw these together at the last minute tonight, trying to use up the leftover wrappers from our Miso soup recipe, and they turned out surprisingly well.

I chopped up one thawed chicken breast into medium sized chunks and put it into the food processor along with a couple tablespoons of diced green onion, ground ginger, red pepper flakes, sesame seeds, salt/pepper, and a few dashes each of soy sauce and toasted sesame oil. After a few pulses I spooned the mixture onto the wonton wrappers and folder/sealed them over the top. A couple minutes in some oil over medium heat and the chicken was cooked and the wonton wrappers crispy. (make sure the chicken cooks before the wrappers get too dark) Dipped in some tempura dipping sauce or some sweet & sour sauce and they were pretty darn good.

Miso Soup w/ Sweet Potato Dumplings

This past week, Em and I made this soup. While not either of our favorites, it had a lot of interesting stuff going on and was pretty good.

I couldn't find pure miso paste (who would have thought Trader Joe's wouldn't carry it) so we ended up with miso soup mix ... which was a good things since Em saw that several people had commented that the soup portion was a bit bland. Our soup tasted just like the miso soup you get in a Japanese restaurant. The dumplings, arguably the best part, were very good. Em would have preferred less additions to the sweet potatoes but I thought it was a nice balance. The only downside was the extra prep time (compared to the tiny amount of time it took for everything else).

All in all, it was a good recipe that we might try again with some variations (plus we have 3 more packets of miso-soup mix so we can experiment).

Valentine's Day Dinner - Big Sky Cafe

This Valentines Day, Em and went back to an old favorite for the first time since coming back to town. We had dinner at Big Sky Cafe, the same restaurant we got engaged at. Although they have changed much of the decor since we were last there, and the table we sat at that night is gone, the food was still delicious, the atmosphere unique and the wait staff well trained.


We started with drinks; a perfect Manhattan for me, as usual, and a Valentines day special martini for Em.

I had Blue Crab w/ Fresh Avocado small plate and the Duroc Pork Rib Chop. Both were great, but he highlights were how light the Parmesan and sage bread pudding was and how all of the flavors in the crab dish hit you at different times.

Em had Roasted Golden & Red Beet salad and the Steak and Cake. From all accounts both dishes were superb. Its hard to "beet" a really great crab cake and a perfectly cooked piece of beef tenderloin covered toasted walnut blue cheese butter. :)


We will have to go back sometime for desert. We were both too full at the time, but they had some very interesting ones on the menu.

Random Web Links for 2008-02-13

• Cooks.com - Recipe - Chicken Wontons - recipe to try ... need a way to use leftover wonton wraps
• Consumer food labeling suits reinstated - you really can sue for anything :)
• Roasted Walnut Oil - I might just need to pick some of this up at some point
• Recipe of the Day: Falafel (Bitten) - recipe to try ... I need a deep fyer
• Best Wine Racks Kitchen-related design from our network - really cool wine rack design. I loves simple and uniquely designed storage setups like this
• Recipe of the Day: Ginger Beer - Bitten - we had some great homemade "real" ginger-soda up in Chicago which was great
• Recipe of the Day: Italian-Style Vegetable Pancakes - Bitten - like potato pancakes++
• Recipe of the Day: Potato Nik - Bitten - I always wanted to try latke, this is just one big one
• Happy World Nutella Day 2008! (Feb 5th) - they have holidays for everything

Fin Inn and Adams Mark Brunch

I didn't get around to making the Miso soup yet b/c Em and I ended up changing some of our plans this weekend ... but its still on tap for this week.

Instead we ended up dining out last night at a very unique restaurant in Grafton, IL ... The Fin Inn. They are right on the river and are famous for the fact that they have large aquariums next to almost all of the tables with very large fish staring back at you. Em and I both had good fish dishes and enjoyed watching the fish stare back at us while we ate. I would definitely recommend it if your ever in the area.

This morning the whole family went out to celebrate my mom's birthday a week early with a very nice brunch at the Adam's Mark downtown. After 4 plates of food, including such yummy things as: eggs Benedict, French toast, potato pancakes, fruits, bagels w/ lox, seafood salad, pasta salad, pork tenderloin, stuffed chicken, more potato pancakes, peach tore and apple strudel ... I was quite full. :-)

Beef Short Ribs Two Ways

This recipe is loosely based on one by Alton Brown that I saw the other day on Good Eats. I prepared two variations of the ribs at the same time so that I could try out different sets of similar flavors.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs beef short ribs (aprox. 6 ribs, cross cut, bone-in)
  
• Alton Brown-esque Method
• Night Before Rub
  
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 2 tsp paprika
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp thyme
• Braising Paste
• 1/4 cp apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cp tomato paste
• 1 tsp ground herbs (thyme, rosemary, etc)
  
• Traditional Pot-Roast-y Method
• Night Before Rub
• 1 tsp thyme
• 2 tsp rosemary
• 1 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• Braising liquid / vegetables
  
• 1 carrot diced
• 1/2 stalk celery diced
• 1 large slice onion, diced
• 1/4 cp apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cp chicken stock
  

Steps

1. Separate ribs into 2 large plastic zip-lock bags (1 for Alton Brown-esque method, 1 for Pot-Roast-y method)
   
2. Grind/crush night before rub herbs and seasonings for each method and add to respective bags. Toss. Keep in refrigerator overnight.
3. The next day, remove ribs and pat dry on paper towels. Sear ribs on all sides quickly in a hot skillet and remove to separate bowls.
4. Add respective braising ingredients to bowls and toss.
5. Create two large double-layered aluminum fowl pouches and add ribs along with the braising ingredients. Seal tightly and place on a baking sheet to catch any drippings.
6. Add ribs in pouches to a cold oven and bake at 250 degrees for 4 hours.
7. Remove and drain liquid from pouches. Let stand a few minutes before serving.
   

Thoughts

Next time I will play around with the seasoning and preparation just a bit, but for the most part this dish came out perfect. The meat was literally falling off the bone and juicy. I liked doing two variations at the same time; it was nice having the two different but similar flavors at the same time. The "Pot-Roast-y" method ribs tasted just like a great pot roast and some great beef flavor. The "Alton Brown-esque" method ribs had a good tomatoe and almost barbecue flavor, but it wasn't overpowering. We served the ribs with mashed potatoes and veggies. This recipe makes two good servings based on the amount of meat.

Pot-Roast-y Method still in the foil
(I wanted to put some of the veggies in first, but I forgot, so most ended up on top)


Alton Brown-esque Method still in the foil
(only one was left at this point,
the bone for the second one fell out in the foil when I tried to put it on my plate)

First Fish Fry, Funny Pictures, and the Future

Last night Em and I took in our first fish fry of the season at Sacred Heart Church and it was a great kickoff. $8.50 got you the platter:

• 2 Pieces of fish (any mix of breaded cod, baked telapia, or jack salmon)
• 3 shrimp
• 2 sides (green beans, spaghetti, coleslaw, or fries)
• bread
• drink (water, tea, coffee, lemonade)
• desert (homemade cakes, pies, brownies, etc)

A great deal, good food, and since we got there just after 5 (and took the back way) we didn't have to wait long at all. The only thing missing was mac-n-cheese, but given the quantities I won't hold it against them. They also had numerous other combinations of dishes (sandwiches, all shrimp plates, etc) which was nice. All in all, a great start to the Fish Fry season.

----------------

Truth in advertising?
A poorly laid out sign at our local supermarket.
I believe the brand was "Never Ever"....

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Between tonight and tomorrow I am going to try and make two new dishes. First will be the Miso Soup with Sweet Potato Dumplings recipe I linked to a few posts ago. It sounds and looks great. Second, I am going to try and make braised beef short-ribs in a vareitty of ways. I was thinking to get a few pounds of English-cut ribs and try doing a couple Alton Brown's way, a few with a BBQ inspired rub, and maybe a few in a more traditional pot-roast way. It will really depend on how many I get and how motivated I stay. Wish me luck.

Buffalo Chicken Wing Dip

Adapted from numerous found online and originally tried at a relative's house, this dip is great and oh so unhealthy. Warning: do not make unless you are going to share it with several other people ... dip is addictive. I made this for the trivia night a few weeks ago and this past weekend for the SuperBowl.

Ingredients

• 2 large chicken breasts
• 6 oz cream cheese
• 1/3 cp shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/3 cp ranch dressing
• 1/3 cp hot wing sauce
• 1/3 medium onion diced

Steps

1. Sauté chicken until browned and cooked through, shred/dice while doing step 2
   
2. Sauté onion until softened
3. Add all ingredients to bowl and mix thoroughly
4. Spread into 9x9 baking dish
5. Bake in 350 degree preheated oven 15-20 minutes or until heated through and bubbling on edges
   

Thoughts

I have had/seen recipes for similar dips that also contained diced celery and/or blue cheese dressing instead of ranch. I prefer it this way ;-). All of the ingredient amounts are aproximates, I usually just pour until it "looks right". Hard to go wrong with cheese, sauce and chicken.

Hot Peach Ginger Sauce

I made this up the other night when we were having a chicken-version of the Jamaican Jerk Pork Chops and didn't have any mangoes....

Heat a good handful of frozen peach slices (we had leftover from another meal) in your smallest sauce pan with a half cup orange juice, a splash of lemon juice, a squeeze of honey and a few dashes each of dried ground ginger and cayenne pepper. Heat over low/medium heat until peaches begin to break down and sauce starts to thicken. Either leave as is or puree (I used my hand blender) until thick and smooth.

It was a little on the hot side of what I was going for but ended up complementing the chicken really well. The end result was fruity, sweet and hot. Some fresh herbs might have finished it off well but I didn't have any.

Random Web Links for 2008-01-31

• Spicy Chickpea Stew - recipe to try
• Miso Soup with Sweet Potato Dumplings Recipe - recipe to try
• Dried Apricot and Pistachio Scone - recipe to try
• A new reference source - great idea, now if only I had the time to validate its content
• Peppermint Marshmallows - I wanted to make these for Em during the holidays but never got around to them
• Smoked Salmon and Potato Breakfast Casserole - sounded yummy
• Homemade Bread: Cheap, Delicious, Healthy, and Easier Than You Think - hopefully
• Fresh Cranberry Scones - sounded like a great way to use up some left over cranberries, haven't tried yet
• Cranberry Hungarian Pastry - another interesting cranberry recipe
• Spanish Potato Omelet - great ingredients make good food, I need to try this one
• Rustic Pear and Apple Galette - mm fruit pizza

Cambell's Soup At Hand

At this very moment (well the moment I am writing this, not the moment you are reading this ...) I am enjoying a Cambell's Soup at Hand - Italian Style Wedding [soup].

As a person who enjoys making homemade soup and soup in general, whenever they have soup on sale at the store Em and I usually pick up a few to keep in the apt. They work great when I forget to make my lunch or nothing sounds good.

At some point we picked up some of the new "Soup at hand" soups and until today, I hadn't tried one. As a concept, I am undecided. I am for the ease of eating (the small plastic spoons they have here at work are horrible soup spoons), but the image of running out the door and drinking my lunch as I go to a meeting seems like a bit much. From an execution point of view, I found only one flaw: the "Mini Meatballs". The meatballs in the normal can are already pretty mini by my standards being around the size of a dime/nickel. These truly mini meatballs are about the size of a BB. The flavor of the soup is fine (very good actually considering they can sit on a shelf for months and heat up in a minute) but the texture is a little funky as these BBs of meat try to make there way through the can's spout and/or stick to the bottom.

Meatballs aside, the soup is good and does what it says it does.

Balsamic Cranberry Sauce

I really like cranberries, but until recently I had never cooked with fresh ones before. So I wan excited when Em and I decided to make a chicken recipe that called for them. The dish was really good, but the chicken portion wasn't anything really new or exciting. The cranberry sauce/glaze was, so here is what I can remember of how to make it...

Ingredients

• 2 cp fresh cranberries
• 1/4 cp sugar
• 1/4 cp balsamic vinegar
• 3/4 cp water
• dash salt and pepper
  

Steps

1. In the same pan used for the chicken, add all of the liquids plus the cranberries to a boil
2. add sugar and salt/pepper while stirring
   
3. simmer, stirring occasionally, until thicken and reduced by at least half (aprox. 5 minutes)
   

Thoughts

At first I was worried about the cranberries since they were fairly hard to start out with and brightly colored (which looked nothing like the sauce in the picture), but over time the cranberries began to "pop" and cook down turning the whole mess a great deep burgundy color. The smell of balsamic was pretty overpowering at first, but by the time the sauce was done it had mellowed and the whole thing was great over the chicken.

[ADDED] I just found this recipe for Cranberry Chipotle sauce which has a ton more ingredients but also sounds great.

Ben's Chili

This recipe is only an approximation since I don't really follow a given recipe but usually just build off of a few key ingredients ... many of the people who have had this chili outside of my immediate family have stated that the chili they were used to was often much thinner and involved fewer ingredients (namely the vegetables). This recipe is my own adaptation of the chili I grew up with which was even thicker and chunkier than mine (almost stew like). Love it or hate it, this is my favorite and I stand by it. (makes a decent size pot full, however many servings that is)

Ingredients

• Peppers, diced
  
• usually 2-3 bell peppers of varying colors (I like a good mix of colors)
• A good handful of jalapeno/serano/banana/wax peppers (4+)
• Meat
• 1 pound hot pork sausage
• 1 pound ground beef
• Other Vegetables, diced
  
• 1 large onion
• 2 stalks celery
• 2 cans diced tomatoes
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1 can dark red kidney beans
• 1 can red kidney beans
• 2 cloves garlic
  
• Seasoning
• 2+ tbsp chili powder
• several good dashes garlic powder
• 2+ dashes oregano
• dash cayenne pepper
• dash red chili flakes
• 1+ tbsp sugar
• couple glugs white wine
  
• salt and pepper
  

Steps

1. brown all meat in large stock pot; remove and set aside
   
2. sweat vegetables (minus beans and tomatoes) with salt until tender
3. add rest of seasonings; heat until fragrant
   
4. return meat to stock pot with tomatoes and wine; cook for at least 1 hour, 2+ is better
   
5. aprox. 30 minutes prior to serving add beans. stir to combine and leave alone util ready to serve
6. serve in large bowls with a dollop of sour cream and/or shredded cheddar cheese and a square of corn bread on the side
   

Thoughts

I can think of few things better than a cold day, a big bowl of chili and some good football on the TV. I have made the same basic chili with different amounts of veggies and seasoning depending on who I am making it for and it has turned out good each time. Personally I like it fairly thick (enough to hold the spoon up in the middle of the pot) but with a decent amount of "Chili Juice" to keep things sloppy. The peppers and vegetables give the sauce a great taste but if you prefer a smoother chili just dice the vegetables smaller or run them through a food processor.

Jamaican Jerk Pork Chops w/ Creamy Lime Salsa

This past weekend Em and I were standing in our local Schucks and couldn't decide on our last meal for the upcoming week (we normally decide and make a list for our meals before leaving for the store, it makes everything way easier/faster). As we were standing there in the middle of the produce it dawned on me that I was standing right beside a big recipe kiosk. Schnucks has a few of these kiosks in the store (mainly near the front) which I never really paid much attention to.

Obviously they were there to show people recipes that they could make, but I never tried them for some reason. Well, now I have, and I can say that the interface was super easy, they had a surprisingly wide variety of recipes to choose from (including some fairly unusual ones) and a great "print" feature. You click "print" and out pops the recipe on a card listing how to make everything, all of the ingredients, wine pairings, safe cooking warnings, nutritional information and where all of the ingredients are in the store. Pretty slick.

Tonights dinner was from that card ...
Jamaican Jerk Pork Chops with Creamy Lime Salsa and Mangos!

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. Mayo
• 1 Tbsp lime juice
• 1/4 tsp. grated lime peel
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
  
• 1/4 c. red onion, finely chopped
• 1/8 tsp ground black pepper
• 2-3 medium boneless pork chops
• 1+ tbsp. Jamaican Jerk seasoning
• 1 mango, sliced

Steps

1. For salsa, mix mayo, lime juice, onion, garlic, lime peel, and pepper. Set aside.
2. Rub jerk seasoning into pork chops and let marinate for a bit
3. Cook chops (Em broiled them until the thermometer went off at 160 F.)
4. Serve over rice, spoon salsa mixture over pork chop and accompany with a few slices of fresh mango

Thoughts

This meal was super easy and actually really good. I was a bit sceptical of the "Creamy Lime Salsa" since I am not much of a mayo guy (just a smidgen on my sandwich, no more) but ti was really good and we ended up pouring it over pretty much everything. The pork chops were a bit tough, but I don't think it had anything to do with the recipe. All in all, a fast new meal. Plus now we have a whole jar of jerk seasoning to try on other things.