Good Noms gets cheesy

It's my birthday this week, and I made myself a cake. It's a really simple recipe.
Cheesecake:
Crust-

• Graham crackers (one of the three individually wrapped packages in a box)
• Butter - 1/2 stick

Cake-

• Cream cheese - 3 packages
• Egg - 1
• Sweetened condensed milk - 1 can
• Vanilla

Blend the graham crackers in a blender or a food processor. Alternately, crush them in a plastic bag. Melt half the stick of butter and mix it with the graham crumbs. Press into the bottom of a round springform or pie pan.

Blend the softened cream cheese with the can of milk. Do this before you add the egg, otherwise the cream cheese will clump and become coated in the egg and you will have trouble blending a homogeneous mixture. Add the egg and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes, checking after about 40. The cake will become firm, the center will be almost set. Let cool almost completely, then refrigerate for several hours, for best results overnight.

Barley Risotto!

I am on what my man calls a "health bender", due to an alarming doctor's appointment in which my weight was revealed as, shall we say, less than ideal. And by less than ideal, I mean that I have become a fatty. So today's recipe is a lovely HEALTHY recipe, one (surprisingly) without butter.

If you have never had barley, you're really missing out! It's so chewy and lovely, and this recipe is full of lemon zest for a nice summery flavor in icky January.

Ingredients:

2 cups pearled barley
4 cups chicken broth (please use low-sodium if you get store-bought)
1/4 cup dry sherry or a little shy of 1 cup dry white wine
juice and zest of 2 lemons
1/8 tsp each of ginger and black pepper
1 tsp each of dried parsley and chives
1 tsp sea salt
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 a large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup parmesan
walnuts for garnish
water

Step 1: Heat the oil in a large pan on medium heat. Saute the onion, garlic, and lemon zest until the onion is on its way to getting soft.

Step 2: Add in the barley and stir constantly for a few minutes. Then put your sherry in a measuring 1 cup measure. Add the lemon juice, and top off with water. If you are using wine, put the lemon juice in the measure and top off with wine. Add this to the barley and stir occasionally until the liquid is almost completely absorbed. This is the part of the process that smells the most delicious!

I wish you could smell this through the screen, because it is AMAZING

Step 3: Now, add one cup of broth, and allow to absorb before adding another cup, and so on. Then add two cups of water in the same fashion. The barley will be plump and chewy; if not, add a little more water and see how it feels.

Step 4: Remove from heat, stir in the dairy, and serve, garnished with nuts.

How to completely suck...

Put dinner in the Crock-Pot, leave town, and come back three and a half hours later so hungry that you forget to take a picture of it before you begin devouring it.
Another day this week, I suppose.

Turkey and Veggi Soup

Here in the frozen area of Upstate New York it's the season for soup! Today I will share with you one of my new favorites. Every time I make this soup it comes out a little different. This is because I am always changing up whats in it depending on what I have around and what looks good to me when I am at the store. Feel free to change this one up as you see fit or to make a smaller or larger batch depending on who you are having over for dinner. I give you Turkey and Veggie Soup!

250g bacon (or smoked pork product) - diced
2 medium onions - diced
3 carrots - diced
2 celery stalks - diced
4 turkey thighs – bite size pieces
4 cloves of garlic - crushed
4 cups turkey stock
400g crushed tomatoes
2 zucchinis - diced
400g (1 can) cannellini beans
2 handfuls baby spinach - chopped
1 handful napa cabbage – chopped
1 container small mushrooms (portabella, or baby brown)
parsley or basil (your choice), salt and pepper

Start off by putting a little olive oil in your pot and cooking the bacon for a few minutes. Then add your onions, carrots, and celery and sauté for about 10 minutes until the veggis have cooked a bit.

Next add your turkey and garlic and sauté until the turkey is cooked. Once this is done you can add a cup of white wine to deglaze the pan and simmer to reduce. I did not have any on hand this time to I omitted this from the ingredients above.

Now add your turkey stock. If you are like me you have a metric ton of the stuff left over from what you made during thanksgiving waiting to be used in your freezer. If not then just go buy some! I recommend getting the low or no sodium kind so you can season to your own taste. Along with the turkey stock add the tomatoes. Give it a stir and bring it to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Now add in your spinach, cabbage, mushrooms, beans, and zucchini. Then season to taste with herbs, salt and pepper. Simmer for about 10 more minutes.
I suggest serving this with a small pasta such as orzo. You can cook the pasta right in the soup if you wish but I suggest cooking separate and then adding it in. This is a fantastic hardy soup that just begs to be changed every time you make it. Also if you end up with too much left over this freezes really well. Simply heat in a pan on low! Helps take the chill of those bones on any chilly night!
Yes, this is what I look like when I cook on a Sunday!

Good Noms makes curry

Anyone that knows me well, will tell you that there are few things I love as much as a bowl of hot, yellow curry over rice. Very few things, indeed.

Yellow curry:

• Carrots - 2 large
• Red potatoes - 3
• Sweet potato - 1 (Not a yam)
• Onion - 1
• Lemongrass - 1 stalk
• Green onion - 1
• Chicken thighs, or any other chicken with bones in it (4 thighs - 1 1/2 pounds)
• Coconut milk - 150mL (a little over 1/2 cup)
• Yellow curry powder - 1/4 cup
• Curry paste - 1 tbsp
• Basil
• Rice

Cook the amount of rice you want according to instructions. Rip the skin off the chicken thighs with your best "Hulk smash" impression. Cut the meat parallel to the bone, set aside. Cut the meat around the bone perpendicular to it, but not through the bone. Take the bones with the meat still on it, put it in the pot on medium high. This is the braising process. If the meat begins to stick to the bottom, do not worry. It will detach with the addition of water, later.

MEANWHILE...
Wash, cut your potatoes, carrots, onions. With the onions, it is easiest to cut them into slivers, as shown below.

By this point, check on the chicken bones. They should be cooked enough to cut through. Take them out (carefully, hot) and cut them up. Put them back into the pot with the rest of the uncooked chicken meat. When it browns on the outside, add in all the vegetables, give it a stir. Once the vegetables begin to look coated with the fats and the onions begin to caramelize, add in all the spices, and it will look like a hot mess. Once the spices are absorbed, add about 4 cups of water, or enough to almost cover the vegetables. Let cook for about 40 on med-hi. Once the veggies get close to fork tender, give it a taste to see if any more spices are needed, turn down to low, then in goes the coconut milk. Give it a good stir.

Stand back and ponder Life, the Universe, and Everything. Turn off the heat and serve over rice.

Breakfast Burrito Bonanza!

Every morning you run out the door and the last thing on your mind is stopping to make breakfast. Maybe you grab a bagel and stuff it in your mouth wishing for something with a little more flavor and perhaps a little healthier for you. Well I have the solution! The home made frozen breakfast burrito! You can put whatever strikes your fancy into these little guys. Just make sure your ingredients are dry or when you reheat your burrito it gets kinda soggy. You can make as many of these as you want at a time. I made a dozen of them this time and for that I used:

1 dozen eggs

12 burrito shells

1 pack lean turkey bacon

1 can black beans

Grated cheddar cheese

Salsa

Rinse and drain your beans well. Chop the bacon and cook well. Cook your eggs, but just before they really start firming up add in the turkey bacon and black beans and mix together. Cook your eggs all the way through (or burrito will be soggy!). Let the egg mixture cool all the way.

Now take your shells (I used whole wheat this time) and put a ½ cup of your egg mix in the middle, top with some salsa and cheese, fold up tight!

The important part to making these is really in how you freeze them. Place them on the freezer shelf, or on your cookie cooling rack, in a single layer with nothing covering them. Freeze them solid (takes maybe 2 hours). Then once they are solid you can store them in a big ziplock bag. When I need to take one with me I just take it out and put in a smaller ziplock in my lunchbox. Now to reheat wrap the burrito in paper towels and microwave for about 2 minutes. Tada! Insta-breakfast!

Crock-Potular success

So...

I received a Crock-Pot for Christmas (thanks Paul and Caterina!!!) and have been ITCHING to try it out. So I present to you a recipe (with a few small modifications) that I found on the Crock-Pot website.


Ingredients
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (halved, as my man doesn't like spice)
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 1/2 to 2 pounds beef brisket, scored with a knife on both sides
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup real maple syrup
1/4 cup Jack Daniel’s, or other whiskey
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Juice of 1 orange (about 1/3 cup)
2 cloves garlic, smashed
4 slices orange peel, 1/2" x 1/2" (careful to avoid bitter white pith when peeling)

Step 1: Rub
Combine cayenne pepper, ginger, salt and black pepper. Rub all over brisket and place in a plastic bag inside of a bowl (to prevent drippage).


Step 2: Marinade
Mix up the rest of the ingredients except the orange peel and garlic. Add in the last two ingredients and pour into the bag. Seal up, and for the love of God, put it on the bottom shelf of the fridge. You do not want the icky meaty greasy stuff all over your fridge if it spills. Let it marinade for 2 hours or overnight. I pulled mine out about halfway through a 3-hour soak and gave it a little massage.



Step 3: Cook
Stick the whole mess in your slow cooker and cook on high for 3½-4 hours on high or 7-9 hours on low, turning once or twice. Take the briskety goodness out of the pot and let it rest for 5 minutes or so before you carve it up with some of the pan juices spooned on top.