Corned beef

I am making corned beef.
1. Because it is on sale
2. Because I want to try it
3. Because my boy is pretend Irish
4. Because people say its delicious
5. Because Publix tempted me with pictures

I looked everywhere on the internetz for recipes. Too many different kinds.

Later when I am being productive I shall post my new creation. Hopefully it will be great, or at least edible.

Ingredients:

• 2.3 ish lbs of corned beef in a bag at Publix
• 5 largely chopped carrots
• 5 stalks of celery
• 1/2 sweet onion
• 2 cups of apple juice
• 4 gloves of garlic
• 3 bay leaves
• Black pepper
• 1 cabbage chopped in 8 pieces
• 8 small red potatoes
• Water
• 3 tablespoons honey dijon
• 1 tablespoon honey
• sprinkle of brown sugar

One. In a large pot place corned beef at the bottom. Add carrots, celery, onion, apple juice, garlic, bay leaves and black pepper. Cover with water, bring to a boil and then turn down to simmer. Cook for about 1 hr per lbs of meat. I cooked mine for 3 hours. 

Two. Preheat oven to 400F.  In a small bowl mix honey dijon and honey. 

Three. Remove corned beef and place on a cookie sheet covered with aluminium foil. Place honey dijon sauce on top of roast, covered all top surfaces. Sprinkle a bit of brown sugar. This will make a lovely glaze for your corned beef. Place in the oven for 20 minutes or until glaze is nice and melted. 

Four. In the meantime take out vegetables from simmering water. Add potatoes and cabbage. Bring to a boil and cook for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender. 

Five. Slice corned beef against the grain, serve with vegetables and enjoy :) 

Honey Lemon Chicken and Chocohotopots

Last couple of days have been busy with school, exams, procrastinating, zip-lining. You know, the usual. Since it's been so long since I've been grocery shopping or real time cooking I figured I should muster up the effort and make something delicious. As always I was looking for some inspiration and tastespotting came to the rescue.

Here is the original recipe I took my inspiration from: Click here!!!
Here is my tweak on the original

- 1 lemon
- 2 tbs of honey
- 1 tbs of soy sauce
- 3 tsp of sugar
- splash of orange juice
- 3 carrots chopped into thin rounds
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 2 cups of chicken broth
- 1 cup of jasmine rice
- 1.34 lbs of chicken breast (chopped into large chunks)
- salt
- pepper

1. Place lemon in microwave for 30 seconds, this helps to juice your lemon later. Grate lemon should have about 1 teaspoon. Slice lemon in half and juice it.
2. To lemon juice add honey, soy sauce, sugar, and splash of orange juice. Mix all together
3. Peel and chop carrots and onion.
4. Add olive oil to a large pot, heat to medium high heat, brown chicken on all sides. Once browned remove chicken from pot.
5. Add more oil if needed, add onions, sauté for 30 seconds, add carrots, rice, honey sauce. Place chicken on top of rice, add chicken broth. Bring to a boil, cover the pot and simmer for about 30 minutes.
6. Serve on a plate and enjoy :)

Chocohotopots- from Nigella Lawson
Recipe here

Macaroni and Cheese

Major headache. Need to study for this week. I want macaroni and cheese.

Tried a new recipe from Elizabeth's Edible Blog
Here's the original link

Recipe:
8oz box of elbow macaroni
3 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese
2 cups of milk
1/4 cup of flour
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
Breadcrumbs(I used Italian)
2 melted tablespoons of butter

Cook macaroni to al dente, still a bit hard since it'll cook even longer in the oven
In a seal able cup combine milk, flour, onion powder and garlic salt in a container. Shake them all up together until everything is well combined.
In a bowl mix milk, cheese and cooked macaroni.
Pour mix into a 13x9 greased baking pan.
Sprinkle breadcrumbs over macaroni, pour melted butter over pan.
Bake at 350F for 40-45 minutes. Macaroni should be golden when cooked.

Pot Roast

Once again checked the Publix ad to pick out my dinner menu. Today I'm attempting my first ever Pot Roast!!! Woooohooooo! I suppose you can't go wrong with a staple American meal for dinner.
After using the web to find a good recipe none of them fit exactly what I was looking for so it looks like I'll be making my own recipe. Still debating the use of slow cooker to stove/oven method. *Decided on oven.

Here are the ingredients:
-2.25 lbs of chuck roast
-10 ish peeled boiler onions
-6 or 7 carrots chopped thickly
-5 celery stalks chopped into large chunks
-8 oz baby bella mushrooms
-4 gloves garlic
-2 teaspoons of sugar
-3 bay leaf
-salt
-pepper
-flour
-thyme
-rosemary
-1 1/2 cups beef stock/broth
-1 cup cooking wine
- water
-olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 350F and make sure to place rack with enough space for your pot.

2. Coat meat in flour, salt and pepper. Coat bottom of your pot(if you have a dutch oven use that) with olive oil brown meat on all sides, then remove from pan.

3. Add and cook vegetables until brown, if needed add a bit of broth to keep brown bits from burning. Add sugar and garlic cook until fragrant about 30 seconds.

4. Place meat back into pot, over a slight layer of vegetables. Add beef stock/wine and remove brown bits from bottom, add meat and spices. Add enough liquid to almost cover the roast adding water if needed.

5. Cover pot with foil, and put into oven. Turn roast ever 30 mins, cooking for a total of 4 hours. Once roast is tender and starts to fall apart, remove from pot with vegetables and keep under a foil tent.

6. Strain out spices and thicken the sauce (if needed) on the stove top. Either use some cornstarch or a beurre manie. For cornstarch place a small amount in a bowl and dilute with cold water or liquid from roast (this prevents clumping). For the beurre manie use about 2 tablespoons of softened butter and mix with 2 tablespoons of flour. Make this into a paste. Then add to the remaining liquid in pot, let boil, sauce should thicken to an almost gravy.

7. Serve roast, vegetables and gravy with mashed potatoes.

8. Tell your friends how amazing this recipe was :p

If using a slow cooker:
1. Brown meat as stated previously, and vegetables (adds extra flavor).

2. Place half the vegetables at the bottom of the slow cooker. Place meat on top, add second half of vegetables.

3. Add 1 cup of beef broth, 1 cup of cooking wine and all spices.

4. Set on Low for 8 to 10 hours, or high 3 to 4. Once meat is tender and vegetables cooked through it's ready to eat. Remove roast and vegetables, if needed strain liquid to remove spices.

5. Place liquid back into slow cooker, set on high. In a small bowl add cornstarch, add liquid to the bowl and mix until well incorporated, add new cornstarch liquid to the slow cooker(this way it won't clump). Or you can make a beurre manie (2 tablespoons of softened butter with 2 tablespoons of flour mixed together into a paste). Add thickening agent to slow cooker, let liquid get to a boil. Once thicken ladle over your roast and vegetables.

6. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Peanut butter, banana, chocolate chip cookies...

We bought bananas at our last trip to Publix, they sat there for a week waiting to be consumed until eventually it was baking time for them. I usually make muffins with them but this time I wanted to try something new.
Peanut putter, banana and chocolate...
I scoured the internet for some ideas and eventually found a couple concepts to work off of but none of them were to my liking so here's my recipe

½ cup softened butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white

1 ½ cups peanut butter (crunchy or creamy)

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons honey

3 mashed bananas

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400F. Using a grease aluminum foil covered cookie sheet. 

In a bowl mix butter and sugars until blended. Add peanut butter, egg, vanilla, honey, mix together. Mash bananas and add to bowl and mix. 

Sift flour and baking soda into wet mix. Add chocolate chips to the batter.

Drop tablespoons unto cookie sheet.

Bake for 10 mins or until toothpick come out clean.

Let cool and enjoy with lactose free milk (or the regular stuff)

Lazy Post for Pork and Potatoes

Busy week. Went home for my first visit to the Florida State Fair. A little chaotic but an overall pleasant experience.

Here's a quick dinner we picked up from Publix.
Rosemary-maple pork tenderloin recipe










Quite delicious, even better the next day. Strained the sauce, added a little cornstarch and cooked until it thickened up.

Those little potatoes were delicious and probably my new favorites.

We served out dinner with some green beans in a box, next time I'll probably just steam some fresh ones.

Home for the weekend- Nectarine and blueberry coffee cake

Mom found this recipe at this blog
She really loves this blog, looks like I'll be giving it a look through soon. The store's peaches were only okie dokie, so we went with nectarines.

Here's our non gluten free version of it:
1 1/2 cups All-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
2 fresh nectarines sliced thin

Topping:
4 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp soft butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp flour

Mix dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl mix sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients.  Mix until smooth. Pour into a buttered pie pan. Place nectarines and blueberries over. Mix topping ingredients until paste like. Place in a 350F oven. Bake for 40 mins, or until toothpick comes out clean.