Scarborough Fair Chicken

My dad bought me one of my most prized Christmas gifts - a red dutch oven. I love it so much because it makes me feel like a cook. Oh and it makes good food. But the whole feel like a cook thing is pretty much awesomeness. I've made a lot of things in it - chicken noodle soup, chili, and roast chicken but all of them were from my one cookbook that I always use and to be honest is the greatest thing in the whole world - the good ol' Betty Crocker cookbook. He bought me this book - Glorious One Pot Meals to go along with my new obsession so I wanted to make something easy to start out with since some of the recipes are tricky and very bold flavors and I wanted to slowly get Hubby into the idea of how awesome this pot really is without freaking him out.

Photo from Amazon linked above.

I made Scarborough Fair Chicken p 149 to start with. Now I forgot to take pictures and we ate it up right away so use your imagination here...

Ingredients
Olive Oil Spray
1 cup rice
1 cup plus 1 tbs brother or water
1/2 to 3/4 lbs chicken breasts
Sea Salt and ground pepper
3 to 5 garlic cloves
3 to 5 shallots
1 medium zucchini cut into 1/2 inch slices
1 medium yellow squash cut into 1/2 inch slices
5 fresh parsley sprigs
3 fresh sage leaves
4 fresh thyme sprigs

So here we go - spray the heck out of the top and insides of the dutch oven. Put in the rice as a thin layer and cove with the liquid. Place the chicken, then the garlic and shallots all chopped up on top. Then layer in the zucchini and squash and finally poke in the herbs where you can. Put the lid on top and bake for 45 minutes in 450 degree oven. Serve all mixed up and delish!

Now Hubby was a little scared of this one. He took a bite and then declared "It is much better than I thought it would be!" Gee...thanks. It was really good. Just take my word for it, the herbs and chicken yummers! I used brown rice which was a little more chewy but since I hate rice I was cool with it!

Parmesan Chicken Breasts

While I was on my blog-cation I made a few cookbook recipes and now that Ella is napping I'm going to add them in!

This cookbook is the Favorite Brand Name 4 Ingredient Cookbook. I am going to list the ingredients with the "brands" but I use so many generic brands that I don't think I actually used any of the ones on here...whatev!

Parmesan Chicken Breasts p 96

1/2 Cup KRAFT 100% Parmesan Cheese
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1 tsp each dried oregano leaves and parsley leaves
1/4 each paprika, salt and black pepper
6 boneless skinless chicken brast halves (2lbs)
2 tbs butter or margarine, melted

Mix the cheese, crumbs, and seasoning together. I make my own bread crumbs with toasted wheat bread because that is how I roll.

Dip chicken in butter, coat with cheese misture and place in 15x10x1 inch baking pan sprayed with no stick spray. I usually line with tin foil because I hate cleaning up pans.

Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in center.

My spin - I cut this in half because we are only two solid food eaters in the house right now. It was super good, but a little bland. I think next time I will add more spices. The book recommends ground red pepper flakes, but even a little lemon pepper seasoning would be yummy!

Here is our meal with broccoli and rice (not white rice because I hate rice...this is that whole grain kind that actually has flavor and texture. Did I mention I hate rice?)

Turkey Pot Pie

So the cook book I used today is one of my favorites. I use it for about...oh...two recipes. Ha! Here is one of them - Turkey Pot Pie. Yummers! I make this after the holidays so I can make my own turkey stock with the bones and so we can use up the left over turkey. Brad has a thing about leftovers, he won't eat them two days out, so I have to hide them. Skillfully.

Here is Pioneer Woman's recipe taken from her website:

Leftover Turkey Pot Pie
1 pie crust (1/2 of Perfect Pie Crust recipe)
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup finely diced onion
1/2 cup finely diced carrot
1/2 cup finely diced celery
2 cups leftover turkey, light and dark, diced or shredded (or both!)
1/4 cup flour
2 cups low-sodium chicken or turkey broth
splash of white wine (optional)
1 cup heavy cream
Frozen peas (optional)
Fresh thyme, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Melt butter in a skillet or dutch oven. Add onion, carrots, and celery, and cook until translucent (a couple of minutes.)
Add turkey and stir. Sprinkle flour over mixture and stir. Cook over medium heat for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly.
Pour in chicken or turkey broth, stirring constantly. Splash in wine (you can leave this out if you’d like.) Pour in cream. (May add frozen peas at this point if you’d like.)
Bring to a slow boil and allow mixture to cook and thicken for a few minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste (do not underseason), and fresh or dried thyme to taste. Do one final taste at the end and add what it needs.
Pour mixture into a casserole dish or deep pie pan.
Roll out crust so that it’s about 1 inch larger than the pan you’re using.
Place the crust on top of the pot pie mixture, and press crust into the sides of the dish. Cut vents in the top of the crust.
Bake for 30 minutes or until very golden and bubbly.
Allow to cool for a little bit before serving.

Now here is the big thing - Brad hates peas. I leave them out when I make this, sometimes adding in broccoli sometimes not. Eh. I also make double crusts from her recipe in her book and freeze one for the top of this and use the other for a pie for the meal. So basically we have apple pie for our Thanksgiving dinner and then pot pie a few days later. It is heaven in a casserol dish. Try it. Love it. Then become addicted to Pioneer Woman and dream of being her one day.

I don't have a photo of this because we ate it...and then the leftovers Brad stuck in a plastic container before I could get the camera out. Whatever. It was good.

Pulled Pork in a Crock Pot & Bismarcks

I have made this recipe before...but since it is my favorite I decided to use it as this cookbook's contribution to my journey. We usually have this on yummy rolls with baked beans, potatoes, and some sort of veggie. It is yummy and easy!

The book is Favorite Brand Name Best-Loved Recipes

BBQ Pork Sandwiches p 134

Pork stuff
4 lbs boneless pork loin roast (fat trimmed)
1 can beef broth
1/3 cup Worcestershire Sauce
1/3 cup hot sauce

Dump everything on top of the loin in the crock pot and cook on high for 5 hours (or 10 hours on low). I usually do this before leaving the house or in the morning so I do low and then turn it up to high for an hour because I like the juice to really get in the meat. If you don't want it super spicy you don't really need all of that hot sauce. It is a lot and is kind of weird. It doesn't make the meat really spicy or anything so I don't think it really has a purpose...sorry cookbook people.

Sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup mustard
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tbs hot sauce

Okay here is the thing about this sauce - it is really strong flavored. It has a mustardy molasses flavor that my hubby HATES so I usually make it for myself and he just uses his own BBQ sauce from the bottle. If you don't want it to be too strong I usually swap the molasses for brown sugar and then only do a few squirts of mustard. Cook it on the stove top for a few minutes and then put it on the pork that you shred once it is done doing its thing in the pot.

Here is the photo:

Now for dessert I tried something in one of my "old" cookbooks. It is called Better Homes and Gardens Jiffy Cooking. This is from 1967, which means it is kind of weird. I know that you wouldn't think that...but I am having a super hard time finding things that I can make in these older books. A lot of them call for ingredients we no longer have in our basic diet (canned liver? whaaa?). Plus...hubby is picky and I don't think he wants to try some of the gelatin molds which apparently was all the rage in the 1950-1970's. Gross.

So I found this easy idea that I thought I would try.

Quick Bismarcks p 67
"Luscious jelly-filled treats for breakfast or dessert. Coffee is a must-"

So you take canned biscuits and flatten them down to 1/4 inch then put your fave jam on one side, fold over and seal the edges and fry in hot fat for 3 minutes on each side. Drain, roll in powdered sugar, and EAT!

Sounds easy enough...but I think our biscuits are much bigger now a days...and filled with more fluffing layers because I could not get these babies to cook. I fried them and then put the in the oven and the fluffed up so big that the filling ran out. Needless to say...they were DELISH! Hubby was dying eating them. I suggested maybe just baking them to which he got a blank look on his face and said "well...the frying kind of makes them good..." so I think we may have to keep frying them. They taste like donuts, yummy donuts. I wish I had a fryer...frying on the stove top was rough times because I tend to scream when the oil pops and bubbles. I can just imagine ladies having these at an afternoon tea as they complain about their husbands who don't help with the kids and need a martini when they walk in the door from work. Or not...maybe that is just my Mad Men view of that time period. Oh well...make these anyway!

So the photos are of BEFORE I baked them because they are pretty...even if raw in the middle. Pay  no attention to the raw middles...only the pretty little things on the plate. Also, side note, the photo on the cookbook is very weird. I think it is supposed to be hot dogs or something. Odd.

Paula Deen without butter?

So this week I spent about an hour going through different cookbooks to plan out what to make. I then had to go back and cut things out because Brad has work dinners this week and I can't really eat as much as I planned.

My Grandma gave me a Paula Deen cookbook last year that I haven't opened. It was actually a book my mom gave her, which she never opened, so she regifted it to me! Ha! I was worried about the butter usage in her recipes, but the one I used didn't have any butter. Yes that's right, Paula Dean without butter! It was delish!

Image from Amazon.com - the best place to buy books!

This is the book I have: Paula Deen's Kitchen Classics

Old-Time Beef Stew p. 58

2 lbs stew beef
2 tbsp oil
2 cups water
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 clove peeled garlic
1 or 2 bay leaves
1 medium onion, sliced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
Dash allspice
3 large carrots, sliced
4 red potatoes, quartered
3 ribs celery, chopped
2 tbs cornstarch

Directions (according to me):
Brown the meat in a big pot with the oil (imagine that Paula is saying oil in her accent...hee hee). Add the ingredients up until the carrots. Cook at simmer for 1.5 hours, and check it because apparently my water evaporated super quick. It was weird. I cut up the veggies during that time and added them with ANOTHER 2 cups of water and cooked for a half an hour until tender. Paula says to then remove 2 cups of water, which after 30 mins I had no water...so I put 2 cups of water in a measuring cup and microwaved it until boiling (about 2 mins). To that add a 1/4 cup water mixed with the cornstarch and then added that to the dry stew. Thanks Paula...no idea why it was so dry. I let that cook for about 5-10 mins until it looked like stew and then served it with crusty bread and a side salad. It was super yummy, just apparently needed 4 extra cups of water. Good thing I had extra water...

Here is the photo (pay no attention to my messy counter...and apparently a screwdriver):

I also used the book Put a Lid on It to make crock pot coffee cake. Now when I decided to do this I had grand visions of a lovely cake that I could make overnight, waking up in a dreamland where warm coffee cake is waiting for me. LIES! It was horrible. I'm actually not even going to give you the recipe because it was awful. The thing about this blue berry coffee cake is that a crock pot is not even heat. It heats from the bottom and sides, so basically you have a burnt bottom and sides and a soggy top. Weirdness. Do not attempt this at home. Plus, it says to cook for 3-4 hours. That can't be done overnight! Why would you ever wish to make a baked good in something like a crock pot when it could be done in 20 mins in the oven? Whatever...I'm sticking to meats in that baby! I'll do a round two with that book later. I can't count the gross cake-thing. It was just gross.

Monster Baby vs Monster Mom

Sometimes baby is the sweetest little soul on the planet. Other times she is Monster Baby - screaming, red faced, kicking, punching, and all out evil. I love her, but sometimes Monster Baby meets Monster Mom and BAM all the world falls apart. This has happened on several occasions. The crying baby causes mommy to cry and we both are helpless together. Seriously. Helpless.

 Happy Baby                                       Monster Baby

I did research constantly. Blogs, old wives tales, mom classes, popular books, you name it I was on there trying to combat Monster Baby with a much more calm Monster Mom. Well I found it! The Happiest Baby on the Block is by far the Monster Mom's toolkit to fend off Monster Baby. I love it and actually feel powerful when baby is melting down. Sure it doesn't work all the time. Monster Baby usually erupts in the evening and we have to dance the pasodoble around the bedroom - me loudly shooshing in her ear while lightly bouncing her and she screaming her head off only for Monster Mom to ultimately win when baby stops her fit and gently relaxes her body. It is empowering and exciting.

Image from Amazon.com

I love my Monster Baby so much, but as a mom it is hard to watch her so upset. When I'm going through my 5S's with her I only think that I wish I could swaddle her, side hold her, shoosh her, swing her, and give her a pacifier to suck when all of the world's troubles find her in her life. The first time another child hurts her feelings, her first heartbreak, the first time she fails at something...if only it were that simple. I know that my time being helpless is only beginning in terms of her life, and there won't always be a book to help me find out how to turn my Monster into an angel, or how to turn Monster Mom into Super Mom able to fix all problems in a matter of minutes. That scares me and worries me and sometimes when I'm holding my sleeping child in my arms I can't help but wish she would stay small and simple forever. Slowly she will grow and change and slowly the outside world will enter into her safely guarded world that right now is made up of me and daddy.

So for right now, Monster Baby vs Monster Mom is working out nicely. We are able to overcome what makes her cry and build on what makes her happy. We are a team now, and the more she grows I am hoping we can stay a team against whatever comes down the road.