Dutch Oven Cooking

As I said in my previous post, I went camping last weekend and used my dutch oven to make some yummy food!!!


My first recipe of brilliance was to make what I call "baked pancakes".  You see.....as I mentioned in my previous post, I am taking two of Muffin's kids camping (15 & 17yo boys), and hopefully Wolf will be joining us.  Ever try cooking pancakes for four people in a frying pan that cooks ONE pancake at a time???  Yeah....not so fun when it's for four people.  So I brilliantly thought of baking the entire pancake recipe and see what I would get.  I did some research online and found that this is actually a way to cook pancakes that lots of people do!  The recipes I found were to be baked at 425 for about 10-15 minutes.  Yay!  Not a long time!!  I also found that people were saying the recipes were a little dry and adding some oil might help.

So, I had the brilliant idea to fry half a pound of bacon (chopped at home) in the dutch oven, and then try baking the pancake batter.  I use Bisquick because that's what I like.  So, I heated the dutch oven to somewhere between 425 and 450 or so.  I don't remember how many briquettes I used, but it was approx 4 per 100 degrees.  I let it preheat for about 15min or so.

Then I dumped the bacon in:

 

Somewhere around 20-30min later (I really have no idea as I didn't keep track) the bacon was fried!!!!

Have you EVER seen anything look so good?????

While the bacon was frying I mixed up the bisquick pancake recipe (2c bisquick, 1 egg, 1c milk).  I added 6oz of chocolate chips because Wolf and I like chocolate chip pancakes.  I then added most of the fried bacon and most of the bacon fat to the mix (who doesn't love bacon fat???).

I then poured everything into the dutch oven and covered it.  At some point I lit new briquettes and replaced the first set.  I think I baked the pancake for about 20min or so....basically until it looked done.

Here's what it looked like after we took our portions:

 

Oh My Goodness.....was it FANTASTIC!!!!!!

It might not look pretty on the plate, but it sure tasted awesome!!!

The other meal I cooked in the Dutch Oven was for dinner the same night as the day I cooked the pancake for breakfast.  This meal I had tried to cook in my Dutch Oven at Wolf's house and we ended up finishing it on the stove in the kitchen because the rice was crunchy and we were starving.

The recipe is called "Creamy Rice and Chicken" except this time I used kielbasa instead of chicken.  The ingredients are simple: three cans of cream of [something] soup (I used cream of chicken, cream of celery and cheddar cheese), a packet of onion soup mix, 1.5c of rice (I used jasmine rice), 1.5c of water and whatever meat you want.  It is supposed to bake for 1h 15min at 350 or so.  Because of my previous experience with it, I used more briquettes and I think it cooked in about an hour and a half.  I also put a piece of foil under the dutch oven and wrapped it up the sides to keep the heat of the briquettes contained, as well as making a foil 'cover' over the dutch oven lid to also keep the heat in.  I think it helped a lot with cooking times because the heat isn't being wasted.

Part way through cooking!

We got a fire started while dinner cooked!

It was yummy!!!

I'm not sure if this picture was taken while breakfast was cooking, or dinner.  It is the dutch oven along with the chimney starter and the bag of briquettes.  It might have been breakfast cooking (the bacon frying) since there are no coals on the lid of the Dutch Oven.

I can't wait to make lots more yummy stuff in it!!!


~Chelle *o*

Pancakes.....glorious pancakes!!!!

Have I mentioned that I like breakfast....no matter the time of day? Well....like might not be a strong enough word.  I LOVE breakfast!

The other day I decided I wanted pancakes for dinner.  Only problem was that we were out of Bisquick (which is my preferred pancake mix)...and I also wanted to ride my bike after work.  So, like I did last week, I combined the two and rode my bike to the store again after work.  I got Bisquick, blueberries, grapes (on sale!), maple syrup (left my open one at Wolf's over the weekend - oops) and a few other things (that I don't remember right now, lol).  

The chain, once again, came off the front gear-set while riding home.  Thanks to the guy on Saturday, I knew exactly how to put it back!

Got home, and decided blueberry pancakes would be awesome.  So I mixed them up and cooked them in the frying pan with some olive oil.  Alas, I ate them so fast there were no pics taken of them!  Believe me though, they were out of this world!!!!!

~Chelle

A new baking adventure............macarons!

So, I am always on the look-out for new things to bake/make.  I'm not sure how I happened upon them, but I found link for a recipe for chocolate French macarons.  No, not macaroons (the coconut ones), but macarons (the meringue-like ones).  I've been getting adventurous lately with my baking.

I did not make up this recipe, lol, instead I found it here:  Chocolate French Macarons   Apparently there are several methods to making macarons.  This recipe is the French method with egg whites.  I don't know much about the other methods (or really this one either, lol).

Here is the recipe as given in the link above:

Chocolate Macarons
Makes about fifteen cookies
Adapted from The Sweet Life in Paris (Broadway) by David Lebovitz

Macaron Batter

• 1 cup (100 gr) powdered sugar
• ½ cup powdered almonds (about 2 ounces, 50 gr, sliced almonds, pulverized)
• 3 tablespoons (25 gr) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 2 large egg whites, at room temperature
• 5 tablespoons (65 gr) granulated sugar

Here are my almonds, sugar, cocoa mixed together:

Here are my egg whites before they got to the correct consistency:

I had some issues with this.  First, I didn't think there was enough in my bowl, then it turned out my whip attachment was too high.  I eventually got medium-stiff egg whites after a lot of whipping!

Here are the baked cookies, some of which have been filled with the ganache recipe in the link:

Here they are all done!

I learned a few things after making these:  my egg whites needed to be stiffer, I didn't mix/fold my batter enough, and I should probably lower the baking temp a little.  I'm going to make another batch this week, so we'll see how they turn out!

Oh, and they taste awesome!!  Even better after a few days!

Energy bars...activity....nutrition.......

I'm pretty sure I posted about this some time ago (probably last year) when I was looking at energy/nutrition bars for cycling.  What prompted me to write again about it?   A new product I happened to see mentioned in comments on an on-line article.  It was a Yahoo article about energy bars, and someone mentioned a bar by Active Health Foods.  Never one to take someone else's word regarding anything, I went and checked them out myself. 

They are called ActiveX Bars, and they sound and look great.  They come in four flavors: Almond Chocolate Delight, Cashew Berry Dream, Coconut Cocoa Passion, and Peanut Butter Chocolate Joy.  They are also all-natural, non-gmo, soy-free, organic, vegan, kosher, gluten-free and raw.  Some of those attributes matter more to me than others, but wanted to list them all anyway. 

I'm kind of excited about them and am going to order a variety pack from the website linked above.  They don't seem too much different than the other assorted bars that I was eating last season.  And, truthfully...I think I was starting to get a little bored of the same ones over and over last year.

Here are the bars that I was eating last year: ProBar Meal, Bonk Breaker, and That'sIt! Fruit bars.  I used them in a variety of situations as I felt my they met my needs while cycling.  Like everyone, I have my favorite flavors of each brand.  I also read the labels everytime...some of the ProBar's have soy and some don't, so I only buy the ones that don't.  I am also considering keeping them in the refrigerator this summer (or just not buying so many ahead)...towards the end of the riding season I was finding that some were on their way to going bad when I opened the package. 

I'll have to figure out how many a week I'll be eating and tailor my purchasing around that.  To start I'm going to get a small variety of all of them.  I received almost $32 in REI Dividends Bucks so that will go a good way towards the initial purchase.  I am hoping to find stores to buy them all in, in order to avoid ordering them online.  The fruit bars were getting tough to find last fall, but had the best luck with Whole Foods.  I was able to find the ProBars and Bonk bars at REI and Whole Foods.  Hopefully I'll be able to find the ActiveX in stores too.  There are some 'health food' stores around my area that I can call and see if they carry them.

I put a little comparison chart together comparing the different brands and thought I'd share it.  I didn't compare the Fruit bars, because those are basically just pure carbs, and I mostly use them at the beginning of a ride and when I need a carb boost.

	ActiveX	ProBar	Bonk Bar
Calories	240	390	250
Fat (g)	12	22	9
Carbs (g)	24	43	35
Protein (g)	8	10	8

~Chelle

I'm itching!!!!!!

To go camping!!!!!!!!!!  Haha!

For the past many many years, I have sworn I was not going camping over a holiday weekend.  However...I may change my mind this year.  See....4th of July is on a Thursday.  My idea is to go camping a few days before and stay through Sunday.  Even if I can't get the Friday off of work, the campground is only about 40min away from where I work - not bad at all!

The last time I went camping over a holiday weekend I did a cookout and a bunch of people came.  We had more food than I can even remember, but I do know the picnic table was COVERED end to end in food!  It was me, my mom, my dog, Muffin and her family and a few other friends of the family.  I started thinking that I'd like to do that again, and invite anyone who wants to come.  Obviously I'll need to know ahead of time so I have enough food - otherwise they are welcome to bring whatever they want with them!

Here's a preliminary list of what I have thought of so far:

• Hamburgers/Cheeseburgers
• Hot dogs
• Keilbasa
• BBQ Chicken
• Corn on the Cob
• Pasta Caprese Salad (found on Food Network)
• Roasted Potatoes (yes, this is possible on a Weber grill!)
• Baked Beans
• Chips
• Salsa/Dip
• Homemade cookies/brownies (or both!) for dessert

It might sound like a lot, but I think a fair amount of it can be done ahead of time before I leave home.  My plan is to get a reservation for Tuesday through Monday.  I'll actually be leaving on Sunday, but this way I can have the whole day to pack up and not rush to be out by 11am.  Hey...at $12/nt it's well worth it!  It's nice that the campground is so close to where I work, cause I'll be going after work on Tuesday to set up, and then going to work on Wednesday. 

So....reservations will be made on Monday (when I have the $$ to pay for them, lol)!  Yay!!!!!

I do plan on doing some weekend trips before 4th of July, but haven't planned those yet, lol.  Those may end up spur of the moment anyway, rather than planned out ahead of time.

Happy Camping!

Cooking adventures.....

So, I've tried making some new/different things lately.  Some have turned out good the first time....other's not so much, lol.


Peanut Crusted Chicken:

I got this recipe from my Weight Watchers leader at one of my meetings. Her version was Pecan-Crusted Chicken, but I don't like pecans. I LOVE pistachios and was planning to use those, but had peanuts on hand at home, so used them instead.

The chicken was brushed with a mixture of balsamic vinegar and honey, then coated with crushed Wheat Chex and chopped/crushed peanuts.  I crushed the cereal in a ziplock bag and a glass, and the peanuts I put into a coffee grinder (I use if for everything EXCEPT coffee, haha).  I baked the chicken at 425 for about 15-20 minutes.  I used thin chicken breast cutlets, but if you used regular chicken breasts, you would have to cook it longer I presume.

These were great!  I did eat them the night I made them, but heated them up in the oven the next day (so the coating would be crispy again).  They would be much better eaten the same day they are cooked.  The coating was a bit damp under the chicken after re-heating.  I am going to try it with pistachios next, and I'll try turning them over half way through cooking to see if that helps.



Chocolate Chip Peppermint Cookies:

These were absolutely fantastic!  Then again...I love peppermint!  They were very easy to make also.  I made the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookie recipe and added 1/8th tsp of peppermint oil to the dough before stirring in the chocolate chips.  Baked them according to the recipe.  I use a portion scoop to scoop out the dough and got about 7-8 dozen cookies I think.



Chocolate Peppermint Fudge:

Do you notice a pattern here?  Let's just say it was a very stressful week(s) at work and I wanted chocolate, lol.   The fudge was great. 

I don't remember which recipe I used, but it had milk, sugar, and cocoa powder in it.  I heated it to boiling (stirring constantly), then turned the heat down and let it go to 238 degrees. 
Here it is boiling away on the stove:

 

 

Once it reached the proper temperature, I took it off the heat and stirred in vanilla extract (Neilssen Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla) and 1/4tsp peppermint oil.  Let me tell you.....if you need to clear out your sinuses, put some peppermint oil into hot boiling liquid and stick your face over it. Oh my - they cleared instantly!  I then stirred the mixture until the fudge lost it's sheen.  I'm not sure if I stirred it long enough, the fudge wasn't the consistency I was expecting...although it tasted fantastic!

 

The recipe said to use an 8x8 square pan (buttered so the fudge doesn't stick), but I used a jelly roll pan instead.  I should have used the smaller pan, I would have gotten thicker fudge.

Here is it cooling in the pan:

 

 

I have been spirred on to make my own peppermint hard candies to keep on hand for when my sinuses clog up.  Will post about those when/if I make them.



Chicken Pad Thai:

Not all experiments can be a success, and this one wasn't....at least not at first.

I found this recipe for chicken pad thai the other week and decided to try to make it, but with some substitutions.  First, I used rice noodles instead of linquine.  Second, I used green onions instead of cilantro.  Third, I made a soy-sauce substitute to use (go here to read about my issues with soy).  I also eliminated the fish sauce, for the same reason as the soy and used the substitute in place of that.  Fourth, I omitted the tofu (soy) and added more chicken.

It was bland.  It was not appetizing at all.  I added some spaghetti sauce to a portion and that didn't help either.  I was dissappointed and put the rest (it made A LOT) in the fridge to figure out later.

The next day at work, I came up with the idea of making some kind of asian-inspired sauce for it.  So when I got home, I combed through the cupboards and fridge and found the following that said 'asian' flavors to me:

Honey, peanut butter, steak sauce, sweet chili sauce, balsamic vinegar

I admit, the steak sauce sounds weird.  I was going to use Worcestershire sauce, but Wolf is allergic to fish and if this turned out good he would be eating it this weekend, and it's made from fermented sardines.  So, I used steak sauce instead.

I can't tell you how much of each I used, cause I didn't really measure it.  I put a dollop of peanut butter (1-2T), about a teaspoon of honey, then just poured a little bit of the rest of the stuff in.  I heated the peanut butter and honey first so it would be liquid-y.  I mixed it all in a measuring cup, and then added enough of the soy-sauce substitute to thin it down.

I then heated the wok, and put some olive oil in it.  I drained the 'old' pad thai (it had gotten watery) in a colander while I made up the sauce and heated the wok.  Then put the pad thai in the hot oil and stirred it around to dry it up and get rid of the moisture.  Then I poured the sauce on it and mixed it up. 

I hesitantly tried a bite and it was GOOD!  Not pad thai, but it was good anyway.  I am bringing it to Wolf's this weekend so I made a little more of the sauce to use when we heat it up.

I admit it doesn't look like much, it doesn't have much color, but it's good.  The sauce is amazing!  I also realized I should have bought the wider egg noodles rather than these kind, but oh well.  Next time!


Stay tuned for more cooking adventures :)

Cooking up a Storm!

I decided the other day that it's about time I cooked some actual food....rather than eating cereal and breakfast foods for dinner every night.  I know....a radical idea!

So, while I was at work, I searched online for some dinner ideas and found some that sounded pretty good.  I printed them out and made a list of what I needed to buy, and went shopping after work.  Bought a TON of food (or so it seemed)...enough for 4 meals!

So, what did I make with what I bought?  Glad you asked!

Citrus Chicken Stir-Fry

This is what was for dinner tonight.  It is based on a recipe for Mandarin Chicken.  There is stir-fry chicken, broccoli, onion, peppers, carrots, and mandarin oranges in the dish.  The recipe called for a Mandarin Stir Fry sauce, but I used a citrus vinaigrette that I marinated the chicken in.  Then I cooked the chicken and all the vegetables with the vinaigrette.  I had it over egg noodles for dinner.  It was good!!!

Beefy Rice Skillet

 Made this last night (along with the next dish).  I actually followed the recipe pretty closely with this one.  I used stir-fry beef (recipe called for ground beef), a bag of Bird's Eye mixed vegetables, a can of diced tomatoes, a couple cans of tomato sauce, 2 cups of beef broth and 2 cups of instant rice.  I had my doubts as to how this would turn out.  It actually turned out pretty good!  I had some for lunch today, and this would make a great filling for a burrito or wrap, especially with some salsa added to it.

Fiesta Beef with Spaghetti

 I haven't tried this yet, but it seemed to be a twist on traditional American Chop Suey.  There is ground beef, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, black beans, and onions.  The recipe calls for spaghetti to be mixed in, but I cooked some elbows to have with it.  

Now, I did say four meals, and there are only three up there.  The fourth was an idea that I stole from someone I know, lol.  It is Easy Chicken Alfredo.  I bought a rotisserie chicken, jar of alfredo sauce (Classico is made with cream instead of soybean oil!), and penne pasta to have it with. 

So those are my cooking adventures from the other day!  Don't expect too many more before next week or the week after, lol!

~Chelle

Superbowlllll Sundayyyyyyy

At the title suggests, this post is about Super Bowl Sunday.   Two days from now.  I did some baking after work tonight and made some cupcakes for Sunday, and well as some food.

Mini Cupcakes for the 49er's and the Raven's:

 Raven's Cupcakes
Black cake, white icing, black sugar sprinkles in purple cupcake papers

49er's Cupcakes
Red cake, white icing, yellow sugar sprinkles in gold cupcake papers

 Southwest Egg Rolls

I used Nasoya brand egg roll wrappers.

Filling consists of ground beef, corn, pinto beans, mexican

cheese and various southwest spices.

Going to pick up some salsa and sour cream to go with them!

~Chelle