Gourmet Mystery Meat!

Look...I know what you're thinking. Salisbury Steak is disgusting. It's a gelatinous patty covered with brown slimy goo that the lunch lady shovels on your plate at school. There is nothing gourmet about it. Never can be. Never will be. Just drop the ground beef and step away from the kitchen with your hands where I can see them.

Well I'm hate to tell you, my friend...but you've been lied to. Despite the best efforts of certain covert, shadowy government people, I know the truth! Salisbury Steak is incredibly delicious if you make it with the proper ingredients. Today...I will impart on you knowledge THEY don't want you to know. How to make Gourmet Salisbury Steak!

First..some ingredients:

•  1 can condensed French onion soup
•  1 pound ground beef
•  1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
•  1 egg
•  A dash of black pepper
•  1 tablespoon flour
•  1/4 cup ketchup
•  1/4 cup water
•  1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
•  4 tablespoons mustard

Do not buy the shitty 80% ground beef.  Spring for the extra buck and buy the fancy 90% ground beef. Do they have 97% ground beef? Buy that! Do they have a living cow? Buy the living cow. Go large or go home! 

To start, put your living cow through a wood chipper or something. In a large bowl, mix together 1/3 cup condensed French onion soup with ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, and black pepper. Shape into 6 oval patties. Why oval? Because you're trying to fool your poor hungry family into thinking they're eating steak. (True historical explanation.)

(High Quality Ground Beef being transformed into High Quality Mystery Meat)

(These are clearly Steaks now.)

In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown both sides of patties in a little oil. Pour off excess fat.

(Fried 'Steaks') 

Meanwhile, in a pot, blend flour and remaining 2/3 cup soup until smooth. Mix in ketchup, water, Worcestershire sauce and mustard.

 (Mysterious Gravy)

Pour this over the meat in the skillet.

Cover, and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

When it's done, pop it on a plate, spoon some gravy over the top and serve with mashed potatoes...just like the lunch lady would have done!

Clearly, it's STEAK..

But honestly, it's a really tasty dish you can make with ease, and you will never rank on Salisbury Steak again! It may look suspiciously like the junk we got at school..but it's not. I swear it's not. The stuff you got at school was only maybe 50% real meat, and they counted ground up cow hearts and stuff. This is Grade A mystery meat here...and your family and friends will LOVE IT! :)

The Absolute Newbie's Guide to Chicken Cacciatore & Pasta

I know what you're thinking. Jodi...how can I possibly make this delicious looking meal myself? I am no gourmet cook. Ah, but you're wrong. You can and you will! Just follow these simple, newbie-friendly instructions!

First, a list of things you will need:

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 
• 1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts 
• 1 3/4 cups Chicken Broth or Chicken Stock
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano 
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder 
• 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes 
• 1 small green pepper, cut into 2-inch-long strips (about 1 cup) 
• 1 medium onion, cut into wedges 
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 
• 2 1/2 cups uncooked medium shell-shaped pasta 

Boneless chicken breasts come in packages in the meat department and vary in size from one to two pounds. There's usually both a generic store brand and a name brand (like Perdue.) The store brand is fine. If you freeze the package, you have to take it out of the freezer and put it into the fridge the morning before you plan to cook it. (as in..it takes at least a full day to thaw.) When you take the chicken out of the package you have to wash it. Just run it under warm water and rub it until it doesn't feel slick or gooey, and pull off any extra fat with your hands. It takes like a minute, tops. (Wash your hands after handling raw chicken, unless you're highly fond of extreme intestinal discomfort and/or food poisoning.) For this recipe, use a sharp knife to cut them into bite-sized chunks. This is about 1 1/2 lbs of chicken. Don't worry if you're a bit over or under what the recipe calls for. (A bit. If you have TWICE as much, double the rest of the recipe, obviously.)

The onion and pepper will be in your produce department (of course.) You'll see a lot of different onions, but I usually just buy a single, decent-sized Sweet Vidalia Onion. I usually buy one Green Pepper too. Your store probably separates the organic veggies in their own case...they are more expensive than 'regular' veggies, so be aware and don't buy from the organic case if don't care. How do you know if your produce is good? Well...if it's spotty, brown, soft or ugly looking, you should probably take a pass. It should be decently firm, and look like the pictures of produce you see on the walls at your local Subway. Here...are mine:

These are some sexy looking veggies!  To cut up an onion, use a sharp knife to chop off the top and bottom half and peel off that first layer of outer skin. (It just comes right off with your hand.) What you're left with is this:

Then cut this in half down the middle and chop that one half up. Because this recipe calls for 'One Medium Onion' and Vidalia Onions are big, just use half and save the other half in a baggie in the fridge for using in other things. A good sharp knife matters. It should slice through this like butter. If you're sawing at your onion, you're doing it wrong.

To cut up a pepper, cut around the top. Peppers are hollow and there's like this...mother ship of an internal stem attached to the top. When you cut into it, you'll see what I mean. You just cut right around that and throw it away. Then cut the pepper in half length-wise and remove any whitish spine parts and seeds. What you're left with is this, which is easily sliced into the sticks this recipe needs:

The recipe calls for about a cups worth of green peppers...so don't assume you have to use the whole thing. Anything you don't use...stick in a plastic baggy and toss in the fridge. Be sure to make other cool gourmet stuff during the week to use up your leftover pepper and onion!

If you've never done these things before...do them this week. Learn how to do it...it will open an entire new world of recipes to you! And you'll be eating veggies in a cool, tasty way...which is never a bad thing!

Put your veggies on a happy little plate like this one and set them aside for a minute.

Now...let's continue with our recipe!

Heat your tablespoon of oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for ten minutes. Your chicken will create juices while it cooks.

Somewhere around the 7 minute mark, you might want to put the cover on the skillet and tilt it carefully over the sink and drain all those juices out. Takes like five seconds and it will get rid of the excess liquid and some of the oil, which is good. :) Put it immediately back on the heat and move your chicken around the pan for a few more minutes to get the pieces slightly brown.

Good enough. Now, we're gonna add all this stuff:

I buy my chicken broth in these boxes. They're just the right size for this recipe and hey, no tin can sitting in a land fill. You can use store brands. You can use name brands. I care not! Your hungry family cares not! Your Chicken Cacciatore cares not! We're all just that cool and carefree like that!  

I didn't use pasta shells. I had elbows laying around, so I used those, because I don't care!

You may want to drain the extra juice from the diced tomato can. Depends on how much you like tomatoes. No offense to tomatoes, but I drain mine. So yeah, let's stir in the broth, oregano, garlic powder, tomatoes, green peppers, onion and black pepper, and then stir in the pasta. And oh! Look at this! You've already created something that looks extremely PRO!

Reduce the heat to medium-low, put the lid on your skillet and cook for around 15 minutes. Unless you smell something burning, you shouldn't lift the lid to peek. The pasta is both cooking and steaming in there.

Pasta knows how to party! 

After 15 minutes, take off the lid and stir your Chicken Cacciatore up! Dole it into bowls. Wait..wut? Yes! We're done!! You did it!!!!!!! Now you get to eat your delicious food with the added pride of knowing that you did it yourself! Not only that, but you made something that's relatively healthy!! You're amazing! GREAT JOB!!!

Honey Garlic Swai

Fish is healthy and delicious, but it can be really expensive. Swai is a tasty white-flesh fish very similar to Catfish, and it can be prepared just like flounder. Broil it, grill it, coat it with bread crumbs and fry it...Swai loves all those things. Swai is easy. And cheap. (Not gonna make a 'your mom' joke here...even though I could.)

Swai usually comes in an economy pack bag in the freezers of your grocery store's fish section. Here's my bag...so you sort of know what to look for:

Sometimes the Swai is packed in individual plastic bags inside these packs. Just be sure you take them out of the packs to defrost them, or they'll taste very fishy. Here's my defrosted and washed Swai, looking very sexy! Let's preheat the oven to 425...because Swai likes it HOT!

I...should probably give you ingredients. You'll need: 

1/2 cup Cider Vinegar

4 tb Honey

2 tb Soy

4 tb Minced Garlic  

Mix these guys together in a cup and we're ready to party!

Cover a pan with foil, cover with cooking spray, and lay your Swai on top of that. Then, cover your fish with about half of the sauce. We'll be putting more on later. Put this in the oven for 20 minutes. Now's a good time to start your white rice and veggies or whatever you plan on eating with this.  

After 20 minutes, remove your fish, cover with a bit MORE sauce. Put this under the BROILER for 2-3 minutes. Don't let it burn! Swai doesn't like to burn.   

It comes out looking nicely browned. Add the rest of your sauce! 

Put it on a plate. Stare at how beautiful it is!  

This would probably be a good time to eat it! 

  

Chili's Type Southwestern Eggrolls

You love them at Chili's...and you can make them at home!

So here's what you'll need:

• 1 Skinless Boneless Chicken Breast, cooked and shredded. 
• 2 tablespoons Minced Green Onion
• 1/3 cup MexiCorn (You know the stuff!)
• 1/4 cup Black Beans, rinsed and drained. 
• 2 tablespoons chopped spinach. 
• 2 tablespoons diced Jalapeno Peppers
• 1/2 tablespoon parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack (or any shredded Taco cheese)
• 5 (6 inch) flour Tortillas
• Oil for Frying

Okay, I'm telling you ahead of time that you have to put these things in the freezer for four hours before you fry them. Don't plan on making this and then immediately eating them. Plan ahead! Four hours ahead. At least. I make double the recipe above when I make this, since you can freeze them and it seems silly to waste half a can of corn and beans.

For starters, we're gonna cook and shred some chicken. For you newbs, to cook chicken breast, simply rinse it off, wrap it in some foil, place it in a baking dish and stick it in the oven at 350 for 50 minutes. Then slice the crap out of it.

(Playing Dexter with Chicken)

Next, we're going to chop up some tasty green onions. Green onions are bought in the produce section of your story and they come in a nice, cheap little bundle that looks like this.

(This is a great recipe for people who like to play with knives!)

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan over medium heat and toss these green onions on in there. Cook /stir them for a few minutes until they are soft. Then add the chicken, corn, black beans, spinach, jalapeno peppers, parsley, cumin, chili powder and salt. (aka 'everything else') Cook and stir 5 minutes until well blended and tender.

(Starting to look very Southwesterny!)

Remove from heat and stir in the Monterey Jack cheese until it melts. I used some generic 'Taco Cheese' because that's what Kroger carries and I was too lazy to go anywhere else. Honestly, as long as the words "Monterey Jack" are somewhere on the package, you're good to go! 

  

The Cheeese...eet eeez melting!

Wrap your tortillas in a clean, lightly moist cloth and stick them in the microwave on high for 1 minute, or until hot and pliable. (There can't be more than like 10 people in the world who don't exclusively use 'high" on their microwave. I'll bet 95% of you don't even know how to change that setting.) 

Tortillas...in a microwave.

(This picture wasn't really necessary, but look how clean the inside of my microwave is!) 

Put about two spoonfuls of mixture onto each tortilla. Like so:

To make your eggroll, fold in the sides of the tortilla in, fold the top over the filling and squeeze it gently a second. The tortilla is soft, it will conform to the shape of your filling. Then tuck the sides in again just a bit and roll it all the way. Squeeze it gently again. It's a bit like play-doh. You'll feel it mold. (Secure with toothpicks if you feel you need to) Put the eggrolls in a baking dish, cover it with plastic, and stick it in the freezer for at least four hours. (This is so they don't fall apart when you fry them.) 

Okay..now it's time to fry these suckers. The key to frying these in a pan is this: You don't want the heat so high that the outside gets too hard and brown before the inside cooks....so you want barely med high heat and watch your eggrolls carefully.  (Put them in carefully, don't splash hot oil on yourself!!!) (Start with the fold side down) Deep fry them for about ten minutes or until golden brown.

Drain on a paper towel before serving, and serve with a tasty ranch dressing!! :) 

Delicious! 

(*Bonus picture : My Noodles, helping me cook.)

Chicken Cordon Bleu for Newbs!

One of the things I love about doing a cooking blog is it forces you to try new and interesting recipes. Chicken Cordon Bleu is one of those things I always thought of as too hard to do, so I never even attempted it. Something about having to roll up ingredients with toothpicks...and hope it will A. Hold its shape and B. Cook all the way through...just seemed impossible given my limited skill set...but all of a sudden, today, I woke up and decided I was gonna try and make this.

*Derpy Edit -- I should probably give you a list of ingredients:

•  6 Boneless Chicken Breast halves
• 6 Slices of Boiled Ham
• 6 Slices of Swiss Cheese
• 3 Tablespoons Flour (pretty sure I used a lot more than that.)
• 6 Tablespoons Butter
• 1/2 Cup White Wine
• 1 Tsp Chicken Bouillon Granules (go easy on this..)
• 1 Tablespoon Cornstarch
• 1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream

For starters, preheat the oven to 350. Now, because Chicken Cordon Bleu needs nice thin slices of chicken, I decided to make a cooked, shredded chicken meal for tomorrow (Southwestern Egg Rolls, fyi,) thus allowing me the luxury of keeping that nice flat top piece while tossing those weird shaped under pieces into something else. Using a nice sharp knife (by the way, nice sharp knives DO matter...it took me a stupid long time to finally understand this.) slice your chicken in half like the illustration below..and just use those pretty top pieces. (Bottom pieces go into a foil hell all their own.)

Each thin slice of chicken now gets a slice of ham and a slice of swiss folded onto the top of it. I literally went to the deli and asked for SIX slices of Ham and SIX slices of Swiss Cheese, and the young woman behind the counter literally rolled her eyes at me. But why get more than you need?!

There are two methods to rolling these things up. The more common is to roll it up thin end to fat end long ways, and the other is to just fold it in half. Being a newb, I tried both ways to try both methods out. Once I rolled them, I secured that thing with a TON of toothpicks...because bitches love toothpicks. Meanwhile, I melt some butter (Did I say 'some?' How about six freaking artery clogging tablespoons worth?) in a pan over med-high heat. (Downs a handful of Simvastatin)

(Picture of butter melting in a pan...because Melted Butter!) 

Dredge the chicken pieces in flour, or...flour mixed with some seasoned bread crumbs. Some people dip them in egg first. I didn't do this..because after using SIX FREAKING ARTERY CLOGGING TABLESPOONS worth of butter, I am going to pretend to be health conscious. That...and this particular recipe didn't actually call for it.

(Dredging the chicken roll in flour)

(Is it me, or does this look pornographic?)

And then, why not just go ahead and toss that chicken on into that sea of butter. 

So the idea is to brown the chicken on all sides, and you would THINK that the cheese would fall out and it would get really messy, but this didn't actually happen. (Well, it did a little, but just a very teeny little.) You want to fry it long enough in the butter so that the sides get nice and brown. I started with the 'non open' sides down and then moved them around, which..requires a little creative work on your part since there are toothpicks fighting you the entire time. I used two forks to turn them...worked like a charm. 

(Chicken getting golden brown.)

(This is when my husband actually come downstairs to ask what I was cooking.)

Now that the chicken is brown, you put it in one of these things and stick it in the 350 oven for 25 minutes.

I'd like to point out, at this time, that the rolled chicken seems to be holding up better than the folded chicken, although in the end, they tasted exactly the same, so...take from that what you will. While this is cooking, we'll make the sauce. Now, I'll be honest...I didn't care for the sauce that came with this recipe. It came out too salty tasting to me. There are a few dozen different recipes for sauce for Chicken Cordon Bleu when I looked on the net, all with varying ingredients, and I'm sure one of them is delicious. But here is the sauce I didn't like...because I took pictures and well, you may as well learn from my mistake. 

You pour a half cup of white wine into the used pan (of butter goodness,) along with a teaspoon of chicken bouillon crystals. (I think the bouillon is what made it taste salty...so maybe try half a teaspoon first. Like, a real half teaspoon, leveled....) (I used one of those haphazard slightly heaping teaspoons...which may have been a bad idea.) Mix the cornstarch and whipping cream in a separate little bowl and then whisk that into the pan, lower the heat and let it simmer for ten minutes. It does thicken up nicely.

 (I...seriously messed up this sauce somehow...)

After twenty five minutes, I checked to make sure the chicken was cooked through nicely, which it was. And here's the finished product! 

(Why yes, that IS a LAKE of butter..but look at my beautiful CHEEEKEN!)

When I cut open the rolls, they were indeed perfect inside, much to my surprise, and they tasted AMAZING, as in a full ten on a scale from one to ten! The folded ones also tasted amazing, and while not as aesthetically pleasing, I found no real difference between the two. Even without my completely messed up sauce, these things were heavenly to eat and now that I've finally got my first Chicken Cordon Bleu under my belt, I plan to make them more often. Hopefully, with a much better sauce. :)