Recipe of the Week- mmmmm, fries!

This week I'm going to share a recipe for oven fries. I made these several weeks ago and they were wonderful, but then made them again and they were pretty lackluster. I gave it one more try last night and they were back to their golden brown perfection.

Here are a few tips that I think ensures a better fry-

-for some reason "older" potatoes are better. I don't think potatoes have a "ripeness" but the 2nd batch of yucky fries were made from potatoes that were fresh from the store, but batch 1 and 3 were from bags that I had for about a week.

-be sure to weigh your potatoes. The likelihood of picking up 3 8oz potatoes is pretty rare--just make sure your potatoes have a total weight of 24 oz to ensure a proper oil to potato ratio.

The recipe is from The All-Time Best Recipes issue of Cook's Illustrated Magazine. We faithfully watch America's Test Kitchen on PBS every weekend which shows the extensive testing that goes into each of their recipes...this particular article details trying different potatoes, different cooking temperatures, how much oil and salt and how to apply it, etc... Needless to say, their recipes are usually divine (sometimes highly labor intensive, but divine nonetheless.)

So, this isn't your typical leave it and forget it oven fry recipe, but you won't be sorry! Also note this recipe says it serves 4....but Joel and I devour every single fry. Well, we did let Nate have one :-)


Ultimate Oven Fries

3 russet potatoes (8oz each), scrubbed, and each cut lengthwise into 10 to 12 even wedges
1/4 cup plus 1 tsp. vegetable or peanut oil
Table salt and ground pepper

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 475 degrees. Place potatoes in large bowl, cover with hot tap water, and let soak for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, coat 18x12 in heavy-duty rimmed baking sheet with 1/4 cup of oil and sprinkle evenly with 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper.

2. Drain potatoes. Spread potatoes out on triple layer of paper towels and pat dry thoroughly with additional paper towels. In bowl, toss dried potatoes with remaining teaspoon oil.

3. Arrange potatoes in single layer on prepared baking sheet and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 5 minutes, then remove foil and continue to bake until bottoms of potatoes are spotty golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes, rotating baking sheet after 10 minutes.

4. Scrape potatoes loose from pan with metal spatula, then flip over each wedge using tongs, keeping potatoes in single layer. Continue to bake until fries are golden and crisp, 7-10 minutes longer, rotating pan as needed if fries are browning unevenly. Spread potatoes out over paper towels to drain briefly, discarding oil left on baking sheet. Season with additional salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.

Recipe of the week

I haven't been doing so well with cooking lately...but I got back at it this week. Italian Sausage was on sale so I started looking for a recipe to make and came across this recipe for Baked Penne with Italian Sausage.

BAKED PENNE W/ ITALIAN SAUSAGE
www.RecipeGirl.com

1 lb sweet and hot Italian sausages, casings removed
12 ounces whole milk ricotta cheese (about 1½ cups)
4 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil, divided
salt and ground black pepper
12 ounces fresh whole milk mozzarella cheese, shredded (about 3 cups
3 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated (about 1½ cups)
1½ lbs ziti or other short, tubular pasta
4½ cups Marinara Sauce or jarred tomato sauce
¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves (for serving)

1. Bring 6 quarts of water to boil in a large pot over high heat.

2. Meanwhile, cook sausage in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, breaking the meat into small pieces with a wooden spoon, until the sausage loses its raw color, about 5 minutes. Drain the sausage on a paper-towel-lined plate and set aside.

3. Mix ricotta cheese, 2 Tbs. of the olive oil, ½ tsp. salt, and ½ tsp. pepper together; set aside. In a separate bowl, toss the mozzarella and Parmesan together until combined; set aside.

4. Add 1½ Tbs. salt and the pasta to the boiling water and cook, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is just beginning to soften, about 5 minutes. Reserve 1½ cups of the pasta cooking water, then drain the pasta. Return the drained pasta to the pot and stir in the marinara sauce, sausage, remaining 2 Tbs. oil and reserved pasta cooking water.

5. Pour half of the sauced pasta into a 13×9-inch baking dish. Drop large spoonfuls of the ricotta mixture evenly over the pasta, then pour the remaining sauced pasta over the ricotta layer. Sprinkle the top of the penne evenly with the mozzarella mixture.

6. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400°F. Cover dish tightly with aluminum foil that has been sprayed with vegetable oil spray (or use nonstick foil). Bake until the sauce bubbled lightly around the edges, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake until pasta is completely heated through, 25 to 30 minutes longer. Sprinkle with basil before serving.

Cooking Tips
*If you’d like to make this dish ahead, wrap the prepared casserole with plastic wrap and then foil, and refrigerate for up to 2 days or freeze for up to one month. (If frozen, the casserole must be thawed completely in the refrigerator, about 24 hours, before baking). Be sure to remove the plastic wrap.
**You can also divide this meal into two 8×8-inch casserole dishes (each will serve 4). Eat one and freeze one!

Recipe Source: The Best Make-Ahead Recipe

Read more: http://www.recipegirl.com/2008/09/21/baked-penne-with-italian-sausage/#ixzz0gTdTcihs

It made A LOT of food...I just saw the note about dividing it into 2 dishes, which I will probably do next time if I'm making it for just us.

Well it turned out to be a memorable day!

The turkey breast turned out well, so I'll share that in a minute.

But the big news of the day is.....

NATE WALKED!

Joel came home from work a bit early and we were playing in the playroom. We've been trying to encourage him to walk from one of us to the other, but he'd never done it. I let him go and he took about 5 steps from me to Joel! I love so much that Nate tends to save these milestones for times when Joel and I can both see it together for the first time and it makes me sooooo happy.

We'll work on trying to get this on video. After dinner he wasn't too happy and didn't want to agree to our numerous attempts to get him to repeat his performance.

Ok, Turkey Breast! It was yummy, easy (I don't know how it could get much easier) and I doubt you could really tell the difference if you had cooked it in the oven and basted multiple times. Once it cooked for a while I was able to replace the corningware with the proper lid.

Crock-pot Turkey Breast
source: Cedar Rapids Gazette, Desperation Dinners column

1 turkey breast (6 to 6-1/2 pounds), frozen (see note)
2 tsp vegetable oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 medium onion
4 garlic cloves

Rinse the turkey and pat it dry with paper towels. Rub the turkey all over with oil. Sprinkle the breast lightly with salt and pepper to personal preference.

Place the breast, meaty side up, into a 5-quart slow cooker.

Peel the onion, cut it into quarters, and place the pieces around the edges of the pot. Peel the garlic cloves and place them around the sides of the cooker. Cover the cooker and cook the breast on low for 9 hours, or until the meat thermometer registers 170 degrees. Remove the breast from the cooker and let the bird stand at least 10 minutes before slicing. (The internal temperature will continue to rise while the bird is standing.) Discard the vegetables in the cooker. Serve the breast sliced, preferably without skin.

Note: If the turkey breast is not frozen, check for doneness (170 degrees) with a meat thermometer after 7-1/2 to 8 hours of cooking on low. Be sure to wash your hands well with soap and water immediately after handling raw poultry. Wash sink and counter surfaces the meat touches with soap and hot water.

If you do not use the entire turkey in the meal you can refrigerate, covered for 24 hours before chopping the meat and freezing. Place the meat in a freezer-weight plastic bag and freeze for up to 2 weeks.

Follow me and recipe of the week!

Whitney reminded me in her recent post that I hadn't checked my analytics lately to see how many people are visiting, from where (apparently searching for "bandages on my fingers," "puppy car seat" or "my baby grew 3 inches in 2 months" will get you to our site), how long they read, etc. It's pretty fun to spy on your account.

That said, since I signed up for the analytics a little over a year ago there have been 813 unique visitors to our blog. Crazy! A little scary too, but I like keeping our blog public and will for the unforeseen future.

Anyway, one way to let us know that you are one of those many visitors (other than comments) is to become a "follower." You can do this by clicking on the follow button in the right hand column. You can login with an existing account from Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID. Or you can make a free account with Google.

So I hope at least a few of you will join me as a follower. And especially if you have a blog...I love to read other blogs!

Ok, on to recipe of the week. I was planning to make fish tacos tonight, but I am feeling under the weather and spent the afternoon on the couch. So I will share an awesome Bread Pudding recipe that I made yesterday. It is REALLY good and will definitely not last a whole week in the house.

Ingredients:

• 12 slices day-old baguette, cut into 3/4-inch
  cubes
• 4 eggs, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
• 4 cups milk
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries or raisins
• Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Directions:

Lightly butter an 8-inch square baking dish. Spread the bread cubes in it.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt until well blended. Pour in the milk and whisk until combined. Pour the mixture over the bread cubes. Let stand, pressing down on the bread occasionally, until it is evenly soaked, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat an oven to 350°F.

Scatter the cranberries evenly over the surface of the soaked bread and press to submerge the fruit. Set the baking dish in a large, shallow roasting pan. Add very hot tap water to the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the baking dish.

Bake the pudding until a knife inserted near the center comes out almost clean, 45 to 55 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Generously dust the top of each slice with confectioners' sugar. Serves 8.

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Collection Series, Dessert, by Abigail Johnson Dodge (Simon & Schuster, 2002).

Recipe of the week- Taco Soup

I know you were all waiting for this...

Taco Soup

And this will be the shortest blog post ever! Lots to do!

Recipe of the week

So I decided to take it easy this week after my fiasco last week...and upon Sharla's recommendation there is now a frozen pizza waiting in my freezer for such days. :-)

I needed to make a meal for one of Joel's coworkers who recently had a baby, so I made a double batch of my favorite Baked Ziti recipe.

Baked Ziti (from Publix Apron's Simple Meals)
16 oz ziti pasta
1 lb ground beef
1 cup diced onions
1 4oz. can diced green chilies
1 26oz. jar pasta sauce
1 14.5 oz can stewed tomatoes
1 tb Italian seasoning
1/2 tb basil pesto
cooking spray
2 cups shredded Italian blend cheese

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cook ziti according to package instructions.

Place ground beef, onions and chilies in large saute pan; cook over medium-high heat for 5-7 minutes until meat is brown and no pink remains. Stir frequently and break up meat as it cooks.

Stir pasta sauce, tomatoes, Italian seasoning, and pesto into meat. Reduce heat to medium; simmer 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until hot and bubbly.

Coat 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray. Pour ziti into baking dish. Stir in meat sauce; top with cheese. Bake 12-15 minutes until thoroughly heated.

Enjoy!

Lots to catch up on!

Well, I definitely don't know where to start. It's been a whirlwind couple of months for us! We are happy that it is 2010 and we have barely any plans (so far!)

I have uploaded ALL of our pics from 2009 onto our SmugMug site. I'm going to be much better about this going forward, since it is our "backup" for all of our picture files!

**WARNING: I really ramble in this post...you may want to grab a snack**

The new house is starting to feel more like home...our new furniture came in after Christmas and we have begun organizing and arranging the rooms. Here is a little loving/not loving list about the new house!

Loving: SPACE! 3 "living" spaces, a playroom for Nate, a "spare" bedroom, etc....

Not loving: STAIRS! Our wonderful space is spread out over 3 levels. This means you NEVER go up or down a level without looking around to see if anything needs to be taken with you...unless, of course, you have the pleasure of carrying 24 lb. Nate up or down with you!

Loving: Fantastic kitchen with granite and double ovens!

Not loving: The sad dishwasher. It is much more picky about needing dishes to be pre-washed or you're stuck with yucky bits. It is also pretty small and will not accomodate all the dishes if you have a big cooking day. I'm also really missing a garbage disposal...but we hope to start composting in the spring, so that will make it seem worth the trouble.

Loving: The nice, wooded lot!

Not loving: The lack of a fence and use of Sammy's doggie door. Thankfully Sammy has been good about signaling that he needs to go out. But it is COLD!

No house is perfect, but we are really loving this one and hope to feel really settled soon! And I'll be working on a little photo tour.

Ok, on to some recipes. I was going to skip this this week, because it was such a disaster...but I guess I should share both my successes and my failures!

So, on Monday, I was starting the new year off right with my new cooking schedule- Monday-new recipe and dessert for the week

Tuesday-Mexican or Italian (rotate weeks)

Wednesday-Dinner at Church

Thursday-Leftovers

Friday-Date Night (dinner after Nate goes to bed)

Saturday-Big Breakfast (in the AM) then Chinese in the afternoon for lunch/dinner (we found a GREAT place near the new house)

Sunday-Crock Pot lunch/dinner

On Sunday nights I'll plan for the Monday/Tuesday meals and shop on Monday and then on Thursday I'll plan for the Fri/Sat/Sun meals and shop on Friday (since the sales are effective Thursday-Wednesday it's most effective for me to shop like this to get the deals and still have fresh food.)

This week sirloin steaks were on sale, so we planned to try Chicken Fried Steak from our Williams Sonoma Steak & Chop Cookbook and I picked out a Potato, Onion and Cheese Gratin recipe from my Junior League cookbook. In an effort to be more healthy (which sounds rediculous after just reading that we were having fried steak and cheesy potatoes, right?) we decided to serve all of our desserts in shot glasses, like many restaurants are doing right now...

I was all hyped up to make a great meal. I even took pictures! Here is the dessert of the week- Peanut Butter Cup Pie in shot glass form.

I used low fat cream cheese and light cool whip to be a little healthier also! Once the desserts were done I went on to arranging the gratin...which needed the use of my mandolin. I rarely drag this out, but it did a really nice job slicing the onions and potatoes.

Ok, on to the tragic part. I'm very bad at paying attention to timing on recipes. I had put together the gratin in the afternoon while Nate was napping, but didn't pay attention to the fact that it had to cook for nearly an hour. And the chicken fried steak had to sit in the batter for 30 minutes before cooking...anyway, it was a big mess and the steaks were done early and we were waiting on the potatoes to get done (past 6:00 which is unheard of in our house.) I gave the potatoes a taste and they were disgusting! So awful that I couldn't even pretend like I could eat them. I was so frustrated! I whipped up some instant mashed potatoes from the pantry and was ready to forget all about this meal!

Thankfully, I do have a good recipe to share. For "Mexican" night this week I made Creamy Chicken Enchiladas, which were wonderful! This recipe is from my Junior League's Cookbook-At Your Service

1 tb butter or margarine
1 medium onion, chopped
1 (4 oz.) can chopped green chilies, drained
8 oz cream cheese, chopped, softened (I used low-fat and it was fine)
3 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken breasts
8 (8 inch) flour tortillas
16 oz shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
2 cups heavy cream (I used 1/2 and 1/2 to lighten it up a bit...you could also use picante sauce instead)

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion. Saute for 5 minutes. Add the green chilies. Saute for 1 minute. Stir in the cream cheese and chicken. Cook until cream cheese melts, stirring constantly. Spoon 2 to 3 tablespoons chicken mixture down the center of each tortilla. Roll up and place seam side down in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Sprinkle with Monterrey Jack cheese. Drizzle with the heavy cream. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Thanks for sticking with me and reading through my tumultuous experience! Cooking really is trial and error...which is rather frustrating for us Type A's!

Recipes of the week!

Well, everything we own is in the house...now we just have to get everything in its place!

And since anything is better than unpacking, I decided I wanted to start my recipes of the week!

I didn't try a new main course recipe, but this is one that we love and don't have that often. It is Real Simple's Pork Scaloppine. AND the leftovers are used for Cuban Sandwiches! So cook once and 2 different meals are done!

For dessert this week, I made Gram's Best Brown Sugar Cake, from the Kraft Food & Family Magazine. This cake is really moist and yummy...and EASY! I have several recipes from the Food & Family Magazine, which used to be free. I received notice a few months ago that it is no longer free (which is disappointing because it was basically just a big advertisement for any and all Kraft products), but you can get all of the recipes from the website.

Happy cooking!