French Onion Soup

Chef: John

So there is no special dinner this went with, but I wanted to share the recipe

French Onion Soup
1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 bay leaves
2 fresh thyme sprigs
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup red wine, about 1/2 bottle
3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 quarts beef broth
1 baguette, sliced
1/2 pound grated cheese (swiss, grueyere, or jarlsberg)

Directions:

Melt the stick of butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and salt and pepper and cook until the onions are very soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes. Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the wine has evaporated and the onions are dry, about 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. Dust the onions with the flour and give them a stir. Turn the heat down to medium low so the flour doesn't burn, and cook for 10 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Now add the beef broth, bring the soup back to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Ladle the soup into bowls, top each with 2 slices of bread and top with cheese. Put the bowls into the oven to toast the bread and melt the cheese.

(You can use the no-knead bread from earlier)

10/15/11

Chef: John
Reused ingredient: Turkey/Shallots
Meal: Grilled turkey and cheese with caramelized shallots

No knead Bread:

3 cups bread flour
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon fine table salt (or 3/4 tablespoon of kosher salt)
1 1/2 cups warm waterCovered pot (five-quart or larger cast iron, Pyrex, ceramic, enamel...something that can go into a 450F oven.)

Directions:

1. Mix dough: The night before, combine all ingredients in a big bowl with a wooden spoon until the dough just comes together. It will be a shaggy, doughy mess. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit 12-20 hours on countertop.

2. Shape & preheat: The dough will now be wet, sticky and bubbly. With a wet spatula, dump the dough on a floured surface. Fold ends of dough over a few times with the spatula and nudge it into a ball shape. You can use your hands if you like, just keep your hands wet so that the dough does not stick. Generously dust a cotton towel (not terrycloth) with flour. Set dough seam side down on top of towel. Fold towel over the dough. Let it nap for 2 hours. When you've got about a half hour left, slip your covered pot into the oven and preheat to 450F.

3. Bake: Your dough should have doubled in size. Remove pot from oven. Holding towel, turn over and dump wobbly dough into pot, using your hands to get the dough off the towel. Doesn't matter which way it lands. Shake to even dough out. Cover. Bake 30 minutes. Uncover, bake another 15-20 minutes or until the crust is beautifully golden and middle of loaf is 210F. Remove and let cool on wired rack. If not eating right away, you can re-crisp crust in 350F oven for 10 minutes. Best way to eat it? Smear a warm slice with some good butter (Kerrygold and Lurpac are both found in your grocery stores, usually on top shelf)

From there I am pretty sure you can make a grilled cheese.

Carmalized Shallots:
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
2 pounds fresh shallots, peeled, with roots intact
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons good red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Directions:

Melt the butter in a 12-inch ovenproof saute pan, add the shallots and sugar, and toss to coat. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, tossing occasionally, until the shallots start to brown. Add the vinegar, salt, and pepper and toss well.

Place the saute pan in the oven and roast for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the shallots, until they are tender. Season to taste, sprinkle with parsley, and serve hot.

10/8/11 Dinner Review

Turkey Pie as I would call it. This was a wonderful dish, somewhat like Shepard's Pie, slightly better for you though :). Plus it was easy to remember as I am writing this post 1 month late.

This dinner can be rated on the following criteria:
1) Use of ingredients
2) Awesomeness of comfort food level
3) Presentation

First off this dish reused the Red Potatoes. You can neve
r go wrong with Red Mashed Potatoes in my book. The flavor, texture, etc... does not even compare to regular potatoes at all.

Rating: Pi + 1 stars (for non-math people, thats ~4.14)

Shepard's pie is one of my all time comfort foods. Lets consider that I was on the road for most of 2011, the first thing I want when I get home is a nice home cooked meal. You can't get any more home-cooked than meat and potatoes. So for that, this excelled.

Rating: A+

The presentation was a little difficult though. This dish looked like a melted container of icecream left on your counter. Not much you can do, but it is not the prettiest of dishes, unless you cooked it in an individual container (which we didn't get until next week).

Rating: Functional

Overall, I would definitely make this dish again, but using individual bowls would make this the ultimate to come home to from a road trip.

At least I know one of us had fun:

10/8/11

Chef: Wyetta
Reused ingredient: Red Potatoes
Meal: Turkey and Mashed Potato Casserole, Asparagus, and Baked Apples

Turkey and Mashed Potato Casserole: 
Ingredients: 
Ground Turkey
Ground Red Pepper and Italian Seasoning
2 cans of diced tomatoes
Shallots
Some basil and parsley
Fennel Seeds
Oregano
Garlic
Red Potatoes
Italian Seasoning
Milk
Italian 4 cheese blend

Directions: 
Cook the turkey with garlic, red pepper and Italian seasoning, when it's almost done drain then add the tomatoes, shallots, basil, parsley, and other spices.  In the meantime, boil the potatoes.  Let the meat mixture simmer and mash the potatoes with the milk, seasoning and cheese.  Place the meat mixture in a casserole dish and top with the mashed potatoes.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Asparagus:
Ingredients: 
Olive Oil
Asparagus
Shallots
Salt
Pepper
Italian dressing

Directions: 
Cook everything in a pan on the stove.


Baked Apples: 
Ingredients: 
Fuji apples
Butter
Dried Cranberries
Almonds
Brown sugar

Directions: 
Chop the apples, mix the rest together and bake at 350.

9/24 Dinner Review

This week, we'll look at the following categories:

• Reused Ingredient
• Pre-dinner Activity
• Flavor combination
• Dessert

Reused Ingredient: 4 stars

John made a creamy lemon dressing.  It was a great dressing for a wedge salad, but we put it on a little thick. And once it was on there, it was stuck.  I would definitely make it again.

Pre-dinner Activity: 15-12
John and I watched football on the porch, drank some beer and let the briscit cook in the slow cooker.  We had classic football food and cheered the Irish on to a victory!

Image from urbanmediatoday.com

Flavor Combination: A
Seriously, everything went together very well. I mean, I guess meat, potatoes and salad is pretty standard, but the homemade salad dressing and the special potato topping and everything covered in bacon. It's hard to go wrong covering everything in bacon.

Dessert: B
Believe it or not, the chocolate cake was a little rich.  Yep, I said it.  Without the ice cream, it might have actually been to rich for me to finish (the red wine helped with that too).  Don't worry - ice cream saved the day.

Other fun stuff? This definitely made up for the lamb fire disaster. Oh, and I got to eat dinner with this guy:

9/24 Dinner

Once again we have pushed dinner to Saturday night, this is because it would have been a little heavy to be running on.

Tonights dinner includes:
Brisket, iceberg wedges, healthy margheritas, gluten free chocolate lava cake and smashed potatoes

The ingredient of reuse:
Lemon

The shopping list includes:
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp honey
salt
pepper
1 cup mayonnaise
1 head iceberg lettuce (quartered)

2 -3 lbs fresh beef brisket
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup catsup
1/2 cup chili sauce
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1 bag Red potatoes
2 Chives
1 package Bacon
1 container sour cream
1 packet hidden valley ranch seasoning (mix with sour cream)

3/4 cup Sierra Mist Free (or Diet Sprite Zero, or your other fave no-cal lemon-lime soda)
1.5 oz. tequila
1 packet (two 5-calorie servings) sugar-free powdered drink mix, lemonade (like the one by Crystal Light)
2 tbsp. lime juice
Optional: club soda

2 regular size dark chocolate bars with 75% cocoa
1/2 bag of chocolate chips
2 eggs
2 tsp suar
2 tbs butter shopping
2 medium sized baking containers (we used the nice little white french onion soup sized bowls)
orange Slice ( optional for serving)


How to:

For Brisket
1) Trim fat from brisket. If necessary, cut to fit into crock pot.
2) Sear the brisket in a pan for 2-3 minutes on either side
3) Combine chili powder, garlic powder, celery seed and pepper; rub evenly over meat. Place meat in a 3 1/2-5 quart crock pot.
4) For sauce, combine catsup, chili sauce, brown sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke and dry mustard. Pour over brisket.
5) Cover; cook on low setting for 8 to 10 hours or on high for 4 to 5 hours. Remove meat from cooker. Cut the brisket into thin slices across the grain. Skim fat off juices in cooker; serve juices with meat.

For smashed potatoes:
Combine hidden valley ranch mix and sour cream in a bowl (to taste)
Boil potatoes as you would for mashed potatoes
Take the potatoes out and put them onto a non-stick pan
Take a potatoe masher and push down on them once, just to break them up, but keep them together like a little patty
Put all toppings on top, except sour cream (rosemary, bacon, cheese, etc...)
Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes
Take and top with sour cream

For iceberg wedges:
Cut wedges out of iceberg head
Combine the grated lemon zest, lemon juice, honey, salt, pepper, mayonnaise and top wedges.

For gluten free lava cake:
Melt all chocolate except two squares in a double broiler
When melted add sugar and eggs
Pour mixture into baking dishes
Insert the reamaining 2 squares into the center
Let this cool for 15 minutes
Preheat over to 400 degrees
Bake for 10 minutes
Serve with orange slice

For the Margaritas:
Mix all ingredients together. Pour over 1 cup of crushed ice (these are 100 calories a piece). We actually put a little club soda in place of some of the soda, it cut down on the sweetness and made it a little bit easier to drink a few more :).

Have a great and wonderful time making these recipes

9/17 Dinner Review

This week's dinner will be ranked on the following categories:

• Ingenious ways to make it gluten free
  
• Approach to Appetizers
  
• Presentation
• Taste
  
• Wine
• Romance
  

Wine: :|
The wine we had was a nice, cold, and drinkable. I would not necessarily put it as my favorite white wine.


Approach to Appetizers: Novel to say the least

Much like all past friday night dinners, this one got started a little late. We went to a part before hand (yes, I said it, a party!!!). So we had to have appetizers. Sure enough, we had some, which would later be used for breading (we will get into that). About 1/2 a bag of sweet potato veggie chips. You can see the result of our hunger.

Yes, we were lucky we had enough for the rest of the evening.

Presentation: π of 5 stars

The salmon looked a little rough, the saving grace was the desert. The desert looked like a smorgasbord of fruit delight. The salmon, not so much. It looked a little like an overcooked cheesestick. (Not that it tasted bad).

So as you can see, some more traditional salmon dishes look a little more "palatable".

Ingenious ways to make it gluten free: Perfection

Talk about a great and ingenious breading, veggie chips. The original recipe was with crackers, but I think the veggie chips added a wonderful sweetness tothe salmon. It was very tasty! We will be having the breading again. It may not look good, but it tastes wonderful.

Taste: 4 out of 5
The salmon was a 5 of 5 in terms of taste.
The desert was a 6 out of 5. It is always wonderful to have such a simple, but tasty desert. Refreshing and simple is the best way to describe it.
The brocolli: 3 out of 5. I would say it was a little heavy on the lemon, and it dried out a little in the oven. However, it is a wonderful recipe to use as a starting point. We need to make it our own and start modifying it slightly.

Romance: A dozen roses

Well as you can see, nothing is more cute than the 2 of us, I mean look how happy Wyetta looks.Overall, it was a wonderful Saturday night for dinner and some great lessons were learned.