Wednesday, January 6, 2010

A Recreation of sorts/ I'm wingin it!

So a few weeks back Mr. Dave wrote about Utica Greens. I was instantly intrigued. As was the Mr. of the household. So I thought I'd try my hand at them. Here's the catch. I had no prosciutto. Couldn't even substitute in some pancetta. But one thing that we do have in the JoJo kitchen is bacon. There's always bacon. Yummy, delicious, thigh thickening bacon. So that's what I went with.
Oh yeah. I can't stand escarole. So I used a bunch of fresh kale. I'm pretty sure I'm off the "original" recipe by now. But it tasted really really good!

Here's what you need:
1 onion, diced
2 italian sweet peppers, diced
4 strips thick cut bacon, diced

bunch of kale
1 cup chicken stock
bread crumbs (cora)
hot sauce

Steam the heck out of your kale. You want it nice and tender. While that's steaming, saute up your bacon. Remove it from the pan when it's crispy. Get rid of the rest of the bacon fat. In the little bit of fatty residue, saute up your onions and peppers. Add in the steamed kale. If you're using it, mix your hot sauce into your stock. Pour it in. let that simmer for a few. Now's the time to salt and pepper the dish, if that's what you're choosing to do. No pressure though. Ok, so you've simmered. Now it's time to add in your bread crumbs. I just added them a handful at a time, until the was no more liquid on the bottom of the pan.

Now Mr. Dave recommended these on top of a chicken cutlet sandwich. My Mr. and I, we ate them as a side dish to, I think we had Grandpa's chicken. What that you may ask? Well my dears, that is a a recipe for another time. Enjoy!

Monday, January 4, 2010

The perfect side dish

Potatoes go really well with pot roast, don'tcha think? I love the rusticness of the whole meal.

Dill Mashed potatoes.

1/2 cup fresh dill, minced
5 potatoes, cubed, skins on
Milk
butter
sour cream

Boil the taters until they're tender, about 20 minutes or so. Drain em. throw em back into the hot pot. add in your butter, I used 2 tablespoons. Next, take 3/4 cup sour cream, and 1/4 cup warm milk and add those in. DON"T STIR YET!!! Add in the dill, salt, pepper. Now you can mix. Just lightly smash them. Don't work them taters too much or they'll turn to glue! (and they don't even taste good in glue format)

Enjoy with your perfect pot roast.

The Perfect Pot Roast

I love pot roast. Lovelovelovelove it. It's such a comforting food. The smell, a bit of heaven on earth if you want my opinion. So, now I'm drooling as I write because, you guessed it, I'm making a pot roast for dinner tonight. Here's the best part....SLOW COOKER BABY! Oh yeah!!
The Mr. and I really enjoy a good pot roast every now and then. We saw that boneless chuck roast was on sale this week, and thought to ourselves, must do this. I'm going to serve dill mashed potatoes along with the roast. Just a disclaimer, this a modified version of a pot roast I saw on semi-homemade.

The roast
Get a good ole slab of roasting meat. Whatever size you want! Our preference is the boneless chuck.
1 cup of beef stock
1 can cream of celery soup
1 package onion soup mix
1/4 cup steak sauce

1/2 lb. carrot chunks
1/2 mixed mushrooms. I used cremini, shitake, oyster and baby bellas.
Onions. Lots and lots of onions! okay, 2. Slice em up real nice in halfmoons.

The night before.
Take you roast and sear it on all sides in a little bit of olive oil. Put into a container. Next, chop your veggies, throw em in on top of the meat. Now you're going to combine the stock, soups and sauce. Whisk until combined. Store in a separate container.

D-Day
Throw it all in the crock pot. Set your cooker to low for 8 hours. Try not to drool too much.