Snack Food Edition: Ranch Oysterettes

This is a pretty short and sweet post.
After all, I am on vacation at the beach for my 5th wedding anniversary...and I have XBOX 360 to be playing.

...what?  You thought I was going to say something else?  I'm a geek, remember?  Of course we brought the XBOX 360 on vacation.  Normal people bring swimsuits, geeks bring gaming consoles.  That's how it goes.

Speaking of gaming...we have occasional game nights at our house for our friends.  Everyone knows that gaming and snacks go together like Bert & Ernie, so the wine starts to flow and the snacks follow suit. One of my favorite things to fix (and the most dangerously addictive!) is ranch oysterette crackers. These things are sooo yummy.

You may want to make a double batch if you are having a big group come over, because these little crackers move fast. I set out bowls of these on the table, and I'm hopping up to refill them every few minutes until people realize how many they have eaten and beg me to stop.  That's how game night goes at our place...we'll feed you snacks until you beg us for the safety of your waistline.  There's no shame in my game: my mother taught me to feed guests well, and that's what I do.

Without further adieu, I give you the recipe written in my chicken scratch.  Enjoy!

(My friend Kelia has a serious addiction to these!)

Poor Man's Pad Thai

Hubby and I are on vacation at the beach this week to celebrate our 5th anniversary.

I love North Carolina.  I really feel that they are one of the few states that are really passionate about food they are known for, like BBQ.

Being born and bred in Eastern North Carolina, I grew up on Ralph's BBQ off of I-95.  It still might be one of the holy grails of N.C. BBQ for me...but I did happen to find a close second:  Smithfield's Chicken 'n' BBQ.  There is nothing like having that bite of pepper and vinegar assault your palate and make your tongue do the happy dance!

Every now and then, if you are really lucky, you can catch bags of freshly fried pork skins at the register of either one of these places.  In fact, it's been such a rare sighting for me when I walk in that it's almost like seeing Big Foot when I do.

I had a Big Foot sighting yesterday at Smithfield's.  I tried to remain calm, so as not to create a stampede.  In fact, I waited until hubby and I finished ordering until I nonchalantly added, "And one of these," indicating one of the two bags left to the guy taking our order, trying not to break it down into a touchdown dance.  Man, I was smooth. James Bond has nothing on me.

My parents love Smithfield's, so being a good daughter, of course I sort of took a picture and rubbed their noses in it a little bit.  (don't worry, karma being the bitch that it is, got me good later that night but that's a story for later this week...trust me you'll love this one.)  The conversation with my dad absolutely makes me crack up. Pork fat rules.  LOL!

Have you ever eaten Pad Thai?  It's really delicious!  There are a few places in Northern Virginia that make a really delicious version, and one of them was featured on the Food Network during an episode of "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" a few years ago.  I have tried to make it exactly twice, and have gotten pretty decent results both times.  Neither one has been the classic version, but the most recent one is really easy, not expensive, and pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

The best part?  This version utilizes a staple that might bring back fond memories of being a broke college student: ramen noodles!

Okay so here are the tools of the trade:

• One package of ramen noodles
• one egg
• 2 tablespoons lime juice (not pictured)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onion
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
• red pepper flakes or Siracha, optional

It's really important to have all of your ingredients measured and ready to use, because this recipe moves fast.  

You know that flavoring packet that comes with the noodles?  Take it out, you won't need it.  Keep it for later...I am sure I can come up with something to use it in.  So if you remember my post about saving money, this will make sense:  use two packets of soy.  I used three and it was a bit too much. Stir your soy sauce and lime juice into your brown sugar for a bit until it dissolves.

I also find that while green onions aren't very expensive, I never use them all before they get all slimy and nasty.  So I chop them all, and I put them in a container and throw them into the freezer.  That way I can grab them and throw them into dishes as needed.  

Can you use regular oil instead of sesame?  Absolutely.  I just like the added flavor of it.

Start by throwing your noodles into some water. Let them cook for maybe 4 minutes, enough for them to break apart and get a little soft.  Drain them and set them aside until later.  

While you wait for the noodles to cook, crack the egg into a small bowl or cup, take a fork and beat it. Spray your pan with some nonstick spray and toss in the garlic and green onions.  Saute them over medium heat for 1-2 minutes, then add in your egg. Scramble it gently until it's just about done, and then set it aside.

Using the same pan, add your sesame oil, the cooked noodles and the soy sauce/lime juice/brown sugar mixture.  Toss those around in the sauce and let it cook over low medium for a few minutes until the majority of the sauce is combined into the noodles.  

Here is where you can also throw in some cooked chicken, beef, or even some small salad shrimp.  I left mine as is, but that's because I didn't really have anything to add...but that salad shrimp sounds better and better all of the time.  I suppose you could use tofu as well, but I have not made many recipes where I have been very successful with it.

Oh, and if you want a bit of a bite, you can toss some red pepper flakes in there as well.  Maybe even some Siracha if you like that.

Now take that egg you previously cooked and add it, using a spatula to break it up.  Stir it well and let it all get combined.  Make sure all the sauce has been absorbed and cooked into the noodles.  If it starts to look a bit dry, add a touch more soy, but you don't want the noodles dripping.  Just well seasoned and delicious.

Grab a plate or a bowl and that's it!  

Unless you have some peanuts laying around, because then totally grab a tablespoon and chop them for the top.  It pulls it all together, trust me.

Enjoy!!

Biscuits & Gravy Casserole

I am a Southern girl who likes her comfort food.   The trouble with Northern Virginia is that if you want some good old comfort grub from the South, the only place you can go around here that even smacks of home cookin' is Cracker Barrel.  Don't get me wrong...I love me some Cracker Barrel.  Chicken fried steak, biscuits, country ham, dumplins and fried okra?  Um, yes please!

When I feel the need for some super yummy comfort food, I go to the one dish my husband turned me on to - oddly, after I had moved to Northern Virginia! - biscuits and sausage gravy.  One taste and I was wondering how I had lived without this in my life for so long.  Why had no one made this for me before and forced me to try it? (yeah...okay...not that anyone is going to have to force me to try anything that has the words "biscuits" or "gravy" in it)

But I digress.

Usually he is the master chef behind this dish when we have it, but my poor dude has spent the last 4 days working four - count 'em FOUR - 16 hour shifts.  So I always want to make sure he has something yummy to come home to.  Besides me, of course...bwahaha!

Have I mentioned I like simple cooking?
Yeah.  Lazy cooking.
That's the way this house rolls for the most part.  I still throw in a complicated recipe every now and then just to prove I can do it.  (chocolate Guinness cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream buttercream and chocolate whiskey ganache are no joke to make, but sooo worth it)

In any case, I decided to turn our beloved biscuits and gravy into a casserole, hoping for more more servings than our greedy butts get with the traditional way of cooking it.  In a way I guess it kind of worked.  We got 4 servings out of it, but mainly because I immediately put them in containers and stuck them in the fridge.  Out of sight, out of mind and all that.  Well, usually.

It couldn't be ANY simpler to make this.

For starters, preheat your oven to a toasty 350­°. Now grab an 8x8 pan, and lightly grease it so the bottom of the casserole won't stick.

Take a one pound roll of sausage - any brand or flavor will do - and brown it in a pan.  Drain that and set it aside for later. Try not to nibble on the cooked sausage, even though the smell has to be driving you bananas.

Oh, is that just me?  Alrighty then.

Now you want to make that pepper gravy.  You can get a package and add water, then warm it on the stove.  That's the easy way to go, and nothing wrong with it at all!

I just find it easier - and a lot cheaper - to make my own.  One cup of milk, 3 tablespoons of flour, ¼ teaspoon of salt,  and 1 teaspoon black pepper.  You can be liberal with the pepper. Honestly, I just grabbed my pepper mill and added cracked pepper until I liked the way it looked. Let this simmer on the stove for a while until it thickens into gravy.  Make sure you taste it to make sure you don't need to add more salt or pepper.  Nothing is worse than gravy that tastes like cardboard!

You know that 8x8 pan you prepared?  Let's decorate it.

Grab a can of Grands biscuits. Now flatten four biscuits and smoosh them together in the bottom of the pan so they make a crust or sorts.

This is why you want to make sure you grease the pan.  Stuck on, inedible biscuits are a major cooking violation that should be illegal.  Wasting biscuits??  A good Southerner would beat you for that one. That's like throwing away fatback.  It's just not done, man!
*tsk*

Alrighty, combine that sausage with the gravy and pour it on top of those biscuits in the pan.

Now take the remaining four biscuits and smoosh them as flat as you can get them.  Making a good crust that covers the top as amply as the bottom was hard for me here...but mainly because I was getting hungry and not willing to spend a lot of time on it! That sausage gravy mixture was begging me to eat it by the spoonful, and it was growing harder and harder to resist so I needed to get that in the oven double time.




Drop that in the oven and bake it until those biscuits are golden brown.  Try not to grab a fork and dig in like a puppy.

Now if I were a good wife, I would have made my own biscuit crust instead of buying canned ones. I might Bisquick it one day and see how that turns out, but if I go whole hog and actually make biscuits from scratch, I am definitely not squishing them in a pan to be a crust.  I'm going to smother them in some marmalade or apple butter or just eat them plain.

Because...homemade biscuits.
Yeah.

Make Your Own Taco Mix!

We love tacos in this house. Actually, my husband introduced me to a wonderfully bachelor-iffic dish he calls Fracos (frah-coes).  It's all the beefy goodness of tacos, but instead of shells or tortillas...you put the meat in a bowl with all of the toppings and eat with with Fritos Scoops.
Sooooo good. Not so healthy, because you can tear through a bag of scoops in no time flat...but we still eat it once in a long while.

I knew my husband and I were a perfect match when I found out he likes out-of-the ordinary toppings on his tacos like me. He loves Thousand Island dressing on his, and I like pickle relish. I have no idea where I got the idea for pickles on a taco salad, but I think I recall my mom setting them out as a kid when we would have taco night. In a traditional taco salad, I'll go the full deal with lettuce, cucumbers, onions...and my beloved sweet pickle relish. No cheese. No taco sauce. No sour cream.

Wow, I'm a weirdo.

Unless someone else eats pickles on tacos. Then I'm pretty sure we're related.  Yay!

So when I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, I got worried about taco night.  I started monitoring my sodium intake, and it was scary. Switching out lower sodium options in my everyday life seemed like a good place to start some dietary changes...and sometimes with really nasty replacements. Thankfully I found an excellent - if not better! - substitution for taco seasoning.

First you round up the ingredients, and grab something airtight to store it in.

Here is your ingredient list:

• 1/4 cup tablespoons ground cumin
• 1 tablepoon ground paprika
• 1/2 cup chili powder
• 8 teaspoons corn starch
• 4 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne powder

If you like it spicy, add more cayenne. Sometimes I leave out the cayenne completely and this has enough kick for me, but I'm kind of a sissy when it comes to spicy food, so I wouldn't exactly trust my judgement!  

Drop it all in the jar together and give it a good shake. That is all there is to it!

The jar above gives the breakdown of how much to use per pound of meat, but in case you missed it, it's 1/4 cup of seasoning plus 1/2 cup water. We have used ground beef, ground turkey and ground chicken, and all are awesome...but I am a taco purist at heart and just like my ground beef flavor. You can add more or less for your own personal taste. This is completely customizable, which makes it even more awesome in my eyes.

Give it a try.  It's a delicious and low sodium replacement for taco seasoning, plus if you get the spices for a buck a piece, you're going to be able to save sooooo much money by making it in bulk!

Individual Chicken Pot Pies

It's been years since I have eaten a chicken pot pie. That was no accident, either.

The chicken pot pies that I knew and grew up on were of the frozen Banquet variety that took forever to cook, and always either ended up still cold in the center or the filling resembled molten lava that burned, what my mother always referred to as, the hair off your tongue.  I don't think my tongue actually has hair but I knew what she was trying to say, because I could feel that "hairless spot" every time I tried to eat something for days afterwards.

You ever have that happen to you?  It's creepy.

So I ran across these cans of Progresso Meal Starters in our local Dollar Tree for 50­­¢ a piece.  I grabbed one of each kind:  Fire Roasted Tomato, Basil Parmesan, Roasted Garlic and Three Cheese. (they also have portobello mushroom, but I am NOT a mushroom kind of gal)  Looking at the Roasted Garlic one night, they had a recipe on the side for chicken pot pie.  My brain started thinking back to something I saw on Pinterest once upon a time where people were making things in muffin pans lined with biscuits.  It just so happened that I had a can of Grands in the fridge.

First things first:  go ahead and preheat your oven to 350­° so it will be nice and hot when you're ready to put these puppies in there.

Since they were big biscuits, I decided to use my jumbo muffin tin.  (It should go without saying regular sized biscuits would go in a regular muffin tin, but I guess I should say it anyway.)  I didn't want them to stick, so I used my secret weapon to prep the tin.  Being a former cake queen, I found that Wilton's Cake Release is the most awesome thing ever to keep a cake from sticking, so I knew it would release those biscuits like nobody's business.

So after your pan is prepped, roll out the biscuits.  I have a rolling pin that my mom gave me when I moved out.  It's a huge, heavy marble contraption that collects dust on a shelf.

Don't have a rolling pin? Improvise.

I just took a big jar and pressed them flat, then used my hands to stretch them out and push them into the tins.  Make sure you cover the bottoms and the sides, spilling out over the tops of the pan just a little bit.  That will help keep the filling inside and not bubble over, soaking the bottoms of your biscuits. Secret weapon or no secret weapon, if that mixture bubbles over and ends up under the biscuits in the muffin tin...that's gonna stick.  AND be a nightmare to scrub out once it's cooked on.  Trust me.

Now what kind of chicken are we working with? The beauty of this recipe is that it doesn't require a lot of it to make these!

There are a lot of options, and three of them don't require cooking it yourself.  You can use a can of chicken (which would be my least favorite method, but if you're going to use it, hide it in a sauce is what I say).  You can buy a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store.  Eat what you want to make other meals, and then take the remaining chicken and chop it to use in this dish.  That's a cool, economical way to get more than one meal out of a single purchase.  You can also opt to boil your own chicken (save the broth!), and chop it up to add to the sauce for the pot pies.  You can also purchase the frozen, pre-cooked variety, thaw it out and chop it up.

Open your can of meal starter and pour it into a medium sized pot and turn it to medium heat. This might be a good time to mention that if you don't have the meal starter, you can use a can of cream of chicken soup and about 1/4 cup of water - or broth if you cooked your own chicken. I did that last time (hence the pic), and it's just as good.

After it's in the pot, add a can of mixed vegetables and about 1/4 teaspoon of pepper.  Let this heat through for about 5 minutes or so.  It should bubble a little bit but not boil, so adjust your heat as you need to accordingly.  You can actually start doing this before you begin prepping the biscuits in the muffin tins so it can be warming while you cook.  It doesn't really matter on the order, it just depends on your level of expertise in multi-tasking.  ;-)

Start carefully spooning your filling into the biscuits, making sure you leave enough room so that when the mixture bubbles in the oven it doesn't turn into a big mess.  If you think they will bubble over, put a cookie sheet beneath the muffin tin while they are cooking. You will thank me for this later if it happens to you.

Also, I should mention that a can of Grands has 8 biscuits...and my jumbo muffin tin has 6 openings. You can cook a second round after the first is done, or you can be impatient like me:  cut those biscuits in half and put them in a standard sized muffin tin to cook along with the others.  It doesn't affect cooking time, it just makes smaller pot pies. Also if you don't have a jumbo sized tin, you can make 16 smaller sized pot pies, which works out well for kids.  Not so much for hungry husbands, because they kind of look at it like it's a salad, or a "promise of more food to come."  (Thank you John Pinnette for that awesome reference that still makes me laugh to this day!)

Pop those buggers into the pre-heated 350­° oven and cook them exactly as it says on the package - about 15 or so minutes - depending on your oven. The biscuit will be golden brown when it's ready. Take them out and let them sit for about 4-5 minutes in the tins before you remove them from the tins. Try running a mini rubber spatula around the edges to get it to slide out the easiest.

These are so good...they put those bricks of pot pies from my childhood to shame.  Not that the bar was set real high to begin with, mind you.  They are also quick to throw together, easy to do, and freeze well if you are just making these for one person.  (This is Food for the "Single" Dude, after all!)  If you freeze them, try putting them in a single layer so that they don't stick together when you're ready to eat them.  You can either zap them in the microwave, or pop them back in the oven until heated through.  Don't let them thaw first.  The dough will get soggy.  Ew.

Enjoy!

The Cat Wins

I have been working on an entry for individual chicken pot pies for the past few days.  I tried to finish it up today, but it didn't quite work out.

This is why:

The 12 pound cat who decided to take up residence on my chest won out.  Apparently Wiley believes that snuggles trump recipes.  I'll give in to that sweet little face today.
Tomorrow, no matter how cute he is...that entry is getting finished.

70's Flashback: Beefaroni

Certain foods have the power to take me back to another time. Beefaroni is one of those.  When I make this, I feel like a little kid again.  This was one of those dishes that frequented our dinner plates while growing up, much to my brother's chagrin. He hates this recipe with a passion still to this day, but he will eat fish sticks.  Something is not quite right with that boy.

I have no idea really where this dish came from.  All I do remember is seeing the recipe printed on the side of a box of macaroni and cheese.  My mom cut it out, and for as long as I can remember, it stayed taped to the inside of the cabinet in our kitchen. Once when the cabinets got repainted, the recipe actually got lost for as while.  We tried to recreate it, but something just didn't taste right.  Later when the original was finally located, I realized that missing ingredient was Worcestershire sauce of all things.

So basically the recipe is pretty simple, easily made by even the most novice of cooks.  You will need one pound of ground beef, one box of your favorite brand of macaroni and cheese, 3/4 teaspoon of chili powder, one 16 ounce can of tomato sauce, 1 cup of chopped onion, 1/2 teaspoon of chopped garlic, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 2 1/2 cups of boiling water.

The best part about this recipe is that you can make it and use only one pot!  I don't know about you, but washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen is absolutely NOT my favorite form of recreation!

Grab an onion and chop it.  If you're feeling anal and need to measure it to be exactly one cup, go right ahead.  I'm lazy and just take a small onion and chop the whole thing.  I like the onions in this recipe, so a few extra is fine with me, and it doesn't affect the outcome one iota.

Now grab a sauce pot and use it to brown the ground beef, the chopped onion and the garlic. Once again with the garlic I'm lazy:  I buy the already chopped stuff and keep a jar of it in the fridge.  I find that I use it frequently enough to buy a large jar of it, but not frequently enough buy fresh garlic without it going bad.  Go figure that one.

Once the ground beef has browned, drain it and return it to the pot.  Now add in the salt, the chili powder and Worcestershire sauce.  Stir that together, and then add boiling water and tomato sauce.

Open the box of mac & cheese and remove the cheese packet.  Set that aside for later and pour the macaroni into the pot.  Stir well to combine, turn the heat to medium low and let it simmer for 15-20 minutes.  You're going to have to stir this every few minutes to make sure that the noodles don't stick to the bottom.  Burnt noodles = eww.  No one wants burnt noodles.

Once the macaroni is tender, remove the pot from heat and slowly stir in the contents of the cheese packet.  Let it sit for about 5 minutes before serving. Adding the cheese packet doesn't make it gooey like your traditional mac & cheese, but it sure does make it come together a lot better and tastes yummy!

The finished product is something that makes me think of my own sweet mother, hanging out in the kitchen of my childhood home. That particular room is the heart of that whole house.  It is where the majority of life happens or has happened within my family.  It's hosted parties, game nights, fights, and seen more work in a day than a lot of people see in a week.  That room is where, under the patient tutelage of my mother and father, I learned how to cook. The older I get, the more melancholy those memories seem to make me.

Maybe the recipe for beefaroni brings back bad memories. Maybe it makes you remember the task of opening numerous cans of Chef Boyardee.  Trust me, this is nothing like that stuff.  (I don't have favorable things to say about meat products that come in cans with the exception of tuna fish and salmon.)  So if you are one of those people who abhors the idea of beefaroni, give it another try if you haven't had it this way.
It just might change your mind.

I had this for breakfast the next morning after making it.  Cold.  Because that is just how I am:
Weird.

And yes...that is a Serenity ship sticker on my laptop next to a Firefly sticker.  (Below that is a Serenity sticker.  I'm a Browncoat for life.)
Told you I was a geek.  ♥