HAMBURGER MACARONI

 We had some dear friends move back into the neighborhood and as a welcome back I made hamburger macaroni for them.  It was an easy meal for them to reheat and it was a huge hit with all five kids (yes I said FIVE! kids!).  I love it because it is a wiz to put together and it tastes yummy!

I start by boiling the noodles just shy of al dente as they will bake in the oven with the sauce for a bit.  I then dice one onion, one green pepper and a couple of cloves of garlic.  I saute them over medium to medium high heat in a little olive oil.

After they have softened up I add the ground beef and kick up the heat to be able to brown the ground beef, for this big batch I used 2 pounds of beef.

I did take advantage of a large 28 oz of tomatoes with herbs already included.

You may have to add a second can if the mixture isn't moist enough, which I did.  

Next add in the macaroni and stir together.

 

Once mixed I put it all in a large disposable lasagne pan. And topped with a lot of grated cheddar cheese.

Bake it at 350 for about 30-40 minutes or until hot and bubbly.  Coming up tomorrow will be French onion soup and rabbit.  Eat Well Friends!

 

PARMESAN CRUSTED FLOUNDER WITH RICE

 

I was able to find a nice flounder filet and decided to crust it in Parmesan and potato flakes.  Now for a side dish I always have trouble because the hubs does not like a lot of veggies!  ARGH!!  I opted for rice and pieces of mushroom big enough that he could pick them out.  First up is the rice...

I got the rice started in my rice cooker and moved on to the enhancements.  First I sauteed some shallots until soft and slightly caramelized.

Next went in the mushrooms...and then it was a matter of mixing the three together, super easy.

The flounder was just as easy as the rice.  I started with my dredging station.

  

I dredged from right to left, first is flour, salt and pepper, next is eggs and some Dijon mustard and lastly is the Parmesan and potato flakes.  I must have been in a bit of a funk that night as I have no pictures of the flounder being pan seared.  Any hoo, take you flounder filet and cut it into portions, dredge in the flour, the egg and then the mixed together potato mix.  Pan sear for 4-5 minutes on each side and dinner is served.

I did add a butter and herb sauce on top after I seared the fish.  A little garlic, lemon zest, basil and parsley.  Again I was in a funk and didn't get a good picture of the sauce.

See, told ya so!  haha  Eat Well Friends!

I HAVE RETURNED

 

It is time to catch up on some of the cooking and a bit of baking since I was last here.  I have been having a blast going through my new cookbook.  We've also made an improvement to the kitchen, a new sink and faucet, who in their infinite wisdom decided that black was a good color for kitchen appliances?  Here is the new baby...

I've also signed up for a Culinary box from Quarterly and my first box was from Andrew Zimmern.  It's been fun experimenting with the different foods.

 I've gotten the garden in and will post pics of that on the garden page later.  Now for all the food I have made since I was here last...I will be putting a couple a day up so as not to bombard you with everything, plus I need to remember what the actual recipe was that I used! LOL  Enjoy the updates. Eat well friends.

WILD BOAR ROAST

 Okay, this was not as good as I had hoped for but that is my fault for not going with my gut on this one.  The flavor was great but it was tough.  I put it in the oven at 400 degrees and I thought that was too hot - it was!  I would have been better off low and slow on this one.  On a positive note, the leftover meat went back in the dutch oven and simmered for another two hours...tender and ready for stew on another night.

Okay here is where we start, first up is putting garlic cloves in the roast.  I take a paring knife and put a slit in the roast and stuff a lovely garlic clove in the pocket.  Repeat until you have 12 pieces of garlic studding your roast.

You can see some of garlic cloves sticking out of the roast.  Salt and pepper the roast and put in a dutch oven with olive oil that has been heated to smoking hot.

I did take the liberty to chop the carrots and celery earlier in the afternoon.  I now chopped the onions into large 1" chunks and peeled and sliced the apple.  After browning the roast I take it out and throw all the veg and apples in and turn down the heat a bit so it doesn't burn.  

While the veg sweats, I added two sprigs of rosemary to the roast.

I also got out all of the red wine and stock that I needed.

Yes there was a glass of wine for the cook.  I used two cups of Zinfandel and 3/4 cup of both beef stock and chicken stock.

When the veg was cooked down, I added the liquid and then the roast went back in.

It now went into the oven, again it should have been low and slow, 275 for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours not the 400 degree oven for 1 hour.

I added smashed potatoes with butter and parsley on the side.  I don't always succeed but at least I was able to salvage the leftovers and will have a good meal another night.  Eat Well Friends.

PAPPARDELLE WITH TRUFFLE BUTTER AND SHRIMP

 This was our dinner last night.  When I discovered the truffle butter I had to get some so I could adapt Ina Garten's Tagliarelle with Truffle Butter.  Her recipe can be found here:

Tagliarelle with Truffle Butter

First I used my vegetable peeler to get some shavings of Parmesan.

  I put it in the fridge so it wouldn't get too soft.  Next came the shrimp, I took off the shells and then sauteed some garlic and added the shrimp.

I chopped some chives and had sliced a lemon in half when I realized that the lemon and half and half would not be a good combination.  Curdled sauce was not on the menu for the night.  

I took the shrimp out when they were just pink.  I then added 1/2 cup of half and half and half of the container of truffle butter.  While all of this is going on I've got water on the boil for pappardelle.

Once the truffle butter was melted and the pasta cooked I drained the pasta, added it to the sauce and added some of the pasta cooking water to keep the pasta moist.  I then added the shrimp back in and half of the chopped chives.  Once I plated the pasta I added the Parmesan shreds and a sprinkle of chives.  

 

COQ AU VIN

 Time to catch up a little bit.  I made the coq au vin this weekend and a cucumber salad.  I will start with the coq au vin followed by the cucumber salad.  Chicken in wine, coq au vin, is a classic French recipe but I change my up just a bit.  One thing I don't change is using pearl onions but they do take a bit of prepping.

First boil the onions for 1-2 minutes, immediately plunge in ice water.  As soon as you can handle the onions slice off the top of the onion and peel back the skin, then cut off a small portion of the root end to clean it up.  There are some instructions out there that tell you to squeeze the onion at the root base and the onion will pop right out of its skin...don't do it or you will be chasing onion around your kitchen.  These darn things are slippery when wet and hard to get a handle on.

 While the onions were cooling, I took care of chopping up my veggies and the smoked jowls.

Slowly brown the jowls so that you render the fat.

 Once the jowls are a lovely golden brown take out and put on a paper towel lined pan.

Salt and pepper the chicken pieces and brown in the fat in the pan.

 

New it's tie to saute the veg.  I start with the mushrooms and then add the carrots, celery and onions.  I leave the garlic for last so it doesn't burn.  Now I've done some research and most coq au vin have either carrots or celery but not both and very, very few have potatoes.  Since this is traditionally a rustic stew I like to add the potatoes.

Next I deglazed the pan with a 1/4 cup of cognac.  I love using cognac, it adds such a richness and depth of flavor.  I added the chicken back in along with 3 bay leaves and 4-5 sprigs of thyme from my garden.   Next was 1/2 a bottle of a great French Merlot and a container of homemade chicken stock. 

Add the potatoes and pearl onions and bake, covered at 275 degrees for 40-45 minutes. 

Serve with crusty bread or a salad.

And for the light cucumber salad that is a great accompaniment to a rich dinner like the coq au vin.

I started by making the dressing, red wine vinegar, mayonnaise, sour cream, chopped garlic, salt, pepper and dried dill.  Wisk it all together.

Next cut two tomatoes into eights taking out the seeds.  Thinly slice half of a red onion or less if you are not fond of a heavy onion flavor, as you can see from the picture I only used half of the half.  Finally peel two cucumbers, cut in half  and then in half  horizontally.  Take a spoon and scrape out the seeds.  Slice the cucumber and then add all the veggies to the dressing.  

Try to let sit over night in the refrigerator, it will be hard not to dig in but try to resist, it will be worth it.

 

As you can see I couldn't resist a bowl.