ALL THE WHINE

Who Likes Free Stuff? THIS GIRL.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:26:00 +0000

I may not be new to the blogging world, but this is my first venture in cultivating an audience wider than my city. So for that I turned to my wonderful friend Angela from Hairspray and High Heels for guidance, advice, to be a sounding board, to write code for me, to make my sidebar and buttons and the whole thing pretty much. So I owe her much more than a thank you!!

But to celebrate my launch and to say HI! to all my new readers, I stowed away on a SUPER AWESOME giveaway that she and some other bloggy blogs are hosting that you can enter, too!

The ladies are giving away a $250 gift card to Sephora (WHAT $250 THAT'S AMAZING) and the contest is running through February 4 at midnight - just in time for Valentine's Day if you want something pretty fab to give your significant other or just to pamper yourself with. I'm kind of jealous I can't enter, to be frank. Good luck!!

One lucky winner will receive a $250 Sephora Gift Card! Good luck & be sure to visit the lovely ladies participating in the giveaway!!

Hairspray and Highheels // Helene In Between // Venus Trapped In Mars

Beauty 101 // All The Whine // Sparkles & A Stove

Beauty Info Zone // Inspiration For Moms // Pretty Squared

It's Me DebC // A Sorta Fairytale // Beauty Fiends

Blush And Beakers // Adna Cristina // Betzy's Makeup

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Feta & Spinach Stuffed Chicken

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 03:45:00 +0000

I'm a total sucker for stuffed stuffs. Stuffed chicken, stuffed fish, stuffed peppers, you name it. Last week I tried my hand at a feta and spinach stuffed chicken breast and I'm pretty sure it's going on the list of Top 10 Stuffed Chicken Recipes. It's basically spanakopita in chicken form and therefore insanely perfect. It's probably perfect because it's yet another gem from SkinnyTaste.com who I love and you should go check out immediately.

I kind of cooked my chicken a little while I was defrosting in the microwave. Move along, please.

The ingredients are very traditional to a spanakopita. In fact the only thing different here is that we're rolling it up in a piece of chicken rather than throwing some phyllo down on top and calling it a day. Spinach, dill, parsley, scallions, onion, garlic, feta and ricotta all shine in their own specially little way in this dish.

It smelled amazing in my kitchen while the onions, garlic and greens all married together and did their thing. I probably ate half of this while I was stirring it around being impatient for the actual meal yet to come.

Adding cheese to anything makes it automatically better.

It didn't look like a ton of filling at first but I actually had quite a bit leftover. Probably because I didn't start with the same amount of chicken as the original recipe called for. Minor details.

THE FUNNEST PART OF ALL is always getting to pound out some chicken. What better way to work out some of the frustrations that even the yummiest of wines can't seem to dissipate at the end of a long day of whines. The original recipe calls for thinly sliced chicken breasts that you can buy pre-packaged. And that's totally cool! I usually just buy boneless, skinless breasts in bulk and freeze them so I get to butterfly them and SMASH THEM ALL UP when it's time to cook. You can either put them in a zip-top bag or under some plastic wrap and pound away with a mallet or a heavy frying pan that you're comfortable throwing around until they're about a half-inch thick. Go ahead, get your Rapunzel on.

I HAVE SMALL CHILDREN. AND VLADIMIR COLLECTS CERAMIC UNICORNS.

I'll be honest I really haven't figured out the secret to the stuffing of the chicken. This time I spread it about 3/4 of the way up the bird hoping that I would be able to easily secure it and it would stay together. It kind of worked.

After rolling up and securing with a toothpick or two (don't forget where you put them or how many you used. Otherwise YOU get the rollup with the needle in the haystack. Have fun!), dip the whole thing in an eggwash and roll around again in seasoned breadcrumbs. I like that this recipe didn't call for flour and yet the breading still worked. I didn't have seasoned breadcrumbs so I threw whatever spices I felt like would normally be in the pre-mixed stuff into a cup of plain crumbs. I think I used garlic powder, onion powder, parsley, salt, pepper, and paprika. But you do you. Lay the chicken seam side down on a non-stick pan of some variety (I used my stoneware pan but you could line a cookie sheet with parchment and it would work fine) and bake!

Noms.

Nothing is more terrifying yet satisfying than cutting open a piece of stuffed stuff and seeing if it's cooked all the way through. This is something you're going to have to experiment with in YOUR oven because everyone is different. I cut mine open and saw it needed another 7 minutes, give or take. Usually the piece I cut up every which way checking for doneness goes to Maddie because she's just going to pick out every piece of cheese she can find and shove the rest to the side anyway so who cares. I suppose the smart thing to do would be to use a meat thermometer and make sure it's at least 165 degrees before consuming. Do that when you make yours. Be smarter than me.

What variations of stuffed stuff do you like? Do you stick to chicken or do have you branched out to fish, steaks and beyond?

Feta & Spinach Stuffed Chicken

Original recipe from SkinnyTaste.com

Ingredients:

cooking spray (I use Organic Pam)
1 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 scallions, chopped
10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and juice squeezed out
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 tbsp fresh dill
1/2 cup (2.5 oz) crumbled Feta cheese
1/3 cup ricotta cheese
pepper and kosher salt, to taste
8 thin skinless chicken breast cutlets (1.5 lbs total)
1 large egg
1 tbsp water
1/2 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350
Heat olive oil in a pan and cook the onions until they're clear, about 3-5 minutes.
Add garlic, being careful not to burn it, and cook until fragrant, about a minute.
Add spinach, dill, parsley, scallions, salt and pepper and saute until cooked through, about another minute or so.
Remove from heat and add mixture to a bowl with the feta and ricotta.
Rinse and pat dry your chicken breasts, seasoning with salt and pepper. Add about two tablespoons of the mixture to the chicken and roll, securing with toothpicks.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, water, and a dash of salt.
Roll the chicken breasts in the egg mixture, and next in the breadcrumbs.
Place the chicken breasts seam side down on a non-stick pan.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until cooked through. Internal temperature should be 165.

Enjoy!

Meal Plan & Shopping List - Week of January 20, 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 05:57:00 +0000

Oh and it's a good one.

So here's how this will work. Every weekend I'll post my meal plan for the following week and the corresponding shopping list for ALL of the ingredients. Then, I'll show you what I actually had to go out and purchase and we'll see how close I stuck to my budget of $50-$75 a week. As much as I would love to toil over every last ingredient and get you in and out of the store with a $50 bill, I would prefer that you eat better than just those weird Ramen Noodle looking things the extreme couponers always seem to get free by the cart-full.

I'll post the recipes each day (so on Monday I'll be writing about the wonderful world of tilapia) but if you want to take a sneak peek, stop by my new Pinterest page (it's a lot of work moving a few thousand pins from one account to another!), follow me and skim my boards! But, just like grocery shopping, don't going into it hungry and only carry cash so you don't buy $35 sweaters from a specialty shop in Ireland only for it to show up to your house and you think "whoa that looked way better on Polyvore." Not that I have ANY experience with that...

If you watch The Chew on ABC (or even if you don't), they actually talked a little bit today about wasting money on food that gets thrown out and suggested meal planning at the top of the show. How perfect! I keep two food lists throughout the week - one for what we are running low on and I should probably look into getting next time I go to the store and one for the ingredients I need to build recipes around and soon. That way I minimize food waste by using what I already have before it has a chance to expire and I keep my pantry well-stocked at the same time. Like I mentioned in my chicken stock post, when the veggies are looking a little sad, it's probably time to make a stock if for no other reason than to get some use out of them. (You could also make a pot roast when they look sad! I should write that down!) Eventually, the more time you spend in the kitchen the easier it will be to look at a pile of seemingly mismatched ingredients and produce something pretty decent without even thinking. It's kind of like you're on Chopped, except it's every day and no one is forcing you to use circus peanuts in your salad.

So the menu! The foods I planned around this week were primarily shallots, cream cheese and the fact that I needed to make more chicken stock. Here's my thought process behind building the meal plan:

Monday - Panko Crusted Tilapia & Sweet Potato Fries with Steamed Vegetables

I like having at least one meatless meal per week and even more importantly, one lighter meal since I tend to gravitate towards cheesy pasta dishes (not that that's necessarily a bad thing). Tilapia was on sale at my grocery store this week so that's the route I chose. I've been meaning to pick up some panko breadcrumbs since I've been out for so long. I've been a little obsessed with sweet potato fries lately and seeing as pound for pound they have more nutrients than any other potatoes I feel a little bit better about adding this as the starch to my plate. I'll be honest, I added the vegetables because I didn't want you guys to see how horrible I am at preparing side dishes for my family. Normally I'd be like "well, here's your piece of fish and some rice, have a good night!" But now that dinner is on display I need to pretend like I've been doing this all along.

Tuesday - Enchilada Pasta and Steamed Vegetables

When I ran out of chicken stock the first (giddy) thing that came to mind was that I needed to buy a roaster chicken this week! Yay! A quick Pinterest search later and I landed on this twist on the same old enchiladas that I have a habit of making almost weekly anymore. Not that anyone's complaining. I already had the bulk of the ingredients on hand, too, which made it particularly appealing.

Wednesday - Onion Chowder with Cheesy Onion Popovers and Side Salad

My cousin made this the other day and sent me the recipe. I have a bag of onions waiting to be used up and I'll have the chicken stock once I break down the roaster for last night's enchiladas so this is perfect! My husband isn't the biggest soup person and I don't really know how well Maddie is going to take it, but it looked amazing and he's willing to give it a try. Hopefully I'll be able to say the same for Maddie.

Thursday - Feta-Stuffed Turkey Meatloaf with Tzatziki Sauce and Rosemary Mashed Sweet Potatoes

The enchilada pasta recipe calls for heavy cream, but I decided I was going to swap that out for plain greek yogurt. So now that I have a tub of yogurt left it only seems appropriate that I make tzatziki! I already have the turkey in the freezer along with a ton of rosemary. The potatoes specifically call for shallots, of which I have many, and I already have bags upon bags of frozen spinach on hand that I can use in the meatloaf. This was definitely a good pin to have stumbled upon seeing as all I really had to buy was feta, a cucumber, and two potatoes.

Friday - Tuscan Macaroni & Cheese with Side Salad

SPOILER ALERT! (And confession) - I totally made this tonight and it was SO GOOD. Anyway I did have to buy a few things to make this but they were inexpensive and once I saw the recipe online I knew there was no going back. Seriously, so good. Also, I figured it was appropriate for the other meatless meal to be featured on Friday with Lent coming up and all. I may get off easy having been a pregnant and/or nursing mom for the past three Lent seasons, but meatless Friday's are a cinch and this recipe will not leave you feeling like you're missing out on anything!

Now as you can see I only planned five meals for a seven-day week. My husband has a 24-hour shift every fourth day which I usually reserve for "breakfast for dinner" or "just eat the leftovers I don't care that we had them last night" type dinners when I'm left alone with the girls. So in reality I really am only cooking five nights a week. But for normal people with normal schedules and lives, maybe you pick one day for leftovers and another for take-out or going out to eat (ah, memories).

As for the shopping lists, for the five recipes above I needed to purchase 20 items totaling $49.81. Everything else I had on hand. Here is what I had to buy:

Black Beans	$0.75
Broccoli Crowns	$2.71
Cage Free Brown Eggs (18-Count)	$4.39
Cannellini Beans	$0.77
Cheddar Cheese	$1.67
Chives	$2.19
Cucumber	$0.79
Feta Cheese	$2.99
Greek Yogurt (Plain)	$4.45
Kale	$0.22
Organic Salad Mix	$2.69
Panko Breadcrumb	$1.09
Rotisserie Chicken	$6.99
Salsa	$3.99
Shredded Provolone	$1.67
Shredded Tex Mex Cheese	$1.67
Sweet Potatoes	$2.61
Tilapia Filets	$4.29
Tomato Paste (Organic)	$1.19
Vegetable Medley (for Steaming)	$2.69
Total	$49.81

Now I would be lying if I said that's all I spent at the store today. I had to get a few household items and I did find a couple packages on meat that were marked down so I took advantage and got them to freeze for a rainy day. My real grand total today was $112.30 but I had to restock a couple things in my pantry and as I just mentioned, I grabbed some marked-down meat. The biggest "splurges" this week? More juice for Princess Pickle Puss (V8 Fusion, $4.99), bread flour (King Arthur brand, $5.19), toothpaste for Maddie ($3.99), organic milk ($5.77), organic half and half ($3.99), a new hamper ($8.99) and the meat (two packs of sausage and a bottom round roast, $12.14). If I kept my total budget to $50 a week, we would be subsisting on paper towels and the tears of my forefathers.

So here is your list of everything you'll need to prepare next week's meals. Print it out, bust out some highlighters or just cross stuff off, whatever helps you get your own personal Monica Geller on, and cook along! Don't worry about leftover ingredients, either. We'll use them up, I promise!

All-Purpose Flour	4 cups
Bacon	1 pound
Black Beans	1 15 oz can
Brocolli Crowns	1 pound
Brown Sugar	1 1/2 teaspoons
Butter	2 sticks
Cannellini Beans	1 15 oz can
Cayenne Pepper
Cheddar Cheese (Block(	2 oz
Chicken Stock	38 oz
Chive	1/4 cup
Coconut Flour (or substitue 1/4 cup seasoned breadcrumbs	1/4 cup
Coconut Oil (Olive Oil Is OK!)	1/2 cup
Cream Cheese	4 oz
Cucumber	1 medium
Dried Parsley
Eggs	One dozen +1
Elbow Pasta	18 oz
Enchilada Sauce	16 oz
Plain Greek Yogurt	3 cups
Feta Cheese	1 cup
Fresh Dill	1 teaspoon
Fresh Rosemary	2 tablespoons
Frozen Spinach	14 oz
Garlic Cloves	5 medium
Garlic Powder
Ground Turkey	2 pouds
Kale	4 leaves
Lemon Juice	1 tablespoons
Milk	3 1/2 cups
Vegetable Medley (For Steaming)	1 bag
Olive Oil	10 1/2 tablespoons
Onions	7 medium
Onion Powder
Panko Breading	1/2 cup
Paprika
Parsley	1/4 cup
Pepper
Shredded Provolone	4 oz
Red Pepper Flakes	to taste
Rotisserie Chicken	1 bird
Salad Mix	1 tub
Salsa	1 tub
Salt	to taste
Sea Salt	to taste
Shallots	2 medium
Sweet Potatoes	5 medium
Tex Mex Shredded Cheese	1 cup
Tilapia Filet	4 large
Worcestershire Sauce	2 tablespoons

I can't wait to get in the kitchen next week! And the week after, and the week after...

Black Bean Burgers with Sriracha Mayo

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 04:30:00 +0000

I just want to eat this picture.

My first meal plan will be posted tomorrow, but I'm itching to share this recipe with you guys now. I made them last weekend for my family and my husband said they were the "best veggie burgers he's ever had."

I didn't even have to pay him to say that!

As you'll see, I tend to favor heavier, more "comfort food" style recipes because that's just how I was raised, but I try to make sure I do at least one meatless meal a week (sometimes on Monday, usually not). This recipe is adapted pretty much word for word from this one here on SkinnyTaste.com (one of my FAVORITE recipe resources) with the only real change being the dressing. And I added cheese. And I didn't get the healthy buns.

My stomach was literally growling as I edited the photos for this post so I'm just going to get right to it.

OH WAIT!! Before you get excited and get everything ready to make this for dinner PLEASE NOTE: You will HAVE to freeze or chill or set these burger patties for at least an hour before you cook them. NO EXCEPTIONS. So please, please don't do what I do and get all jazzed about a recipe only to realize halfway through it that you ARE NOT PREPARED AT ALL.

Moving on.

There was more to this recipe than I would have thought for a black bean burger. By that, I mean I always assumed it was just beans but clearly I was mistaken.

First thing was first, though, and I had to get to mashing some beans. It really set the mood for the whole process.

The next step was much easier on the eyes. Toss the garlic, red pepper, scallions, and cilantro into a food processor and pulse until you have a fairly fine mixture.

Be sure to beautifully arrange your vegetables and take a picture before commencing the processing.

Next, add the oats, egg, salt, cumin and hot sauce and blend it up some more. You don't really want it smooth-smooth, but think about the last time you had a veggie burger and if you had a pepper stuck between your teeth when you were done and whether you appreciated that or not. Use your judgement.

Remember those horrifyingly ugly mushy beans? Add your pretty, pretty mixture from the food processor to the beans and bask in the glory of the feeling that maybe, just maybe, these burgers aren't going to be as gross as you thought they would be when you set out on your journey.

Ahhhh.. that's better.

Next, line a baking sheet with wax paper or parchment or anything non-stick really and freeze for at least an hour. You'll understand why when you have this goop in your hands how you absolutely can not just throw it on the grill. I mean, you can, but you'll be ordering a pizza for dinner.

When they feel hardened, it's time to throw down. Take the frozen patty and cook on a flat surface (I mean, you may be able to use a grill pan, but I haven't experimented with that yet. I'm scared.) for seven minutes per side. Once I flip, I like to put cheese on the burger while it's cooking, add a little water to the pan and cover it to steam the rest of the way, through. It gets the cheese all melty makes me feel like I know what I'm doing.

To build the burger, I added spinach and the sriracha mayo and threw the whole thing on a toasted bun and took a picture and made it the cover image of my Facebook page. CHEERS!

Actually.

Black Bean Burgers with Sriracha Mayo

Ingredients:

3.5 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp sriracha sauce
16 oz can of black beans, drained, rinsed, and dried well
1 medium red bell pepper, roughly chopped
3 scallions
1/4 cup cilantro
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 large egg
1 tbsp cumin
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp hot sauce
1/2 cup quick oats
4 burger buns
1 cup fresh baby spinach
4 slices Muenster cheese

Directions:

Combine the mayonnaise and sriracha and set aside.
Drain and rinse the beans making sure to dry them well. Mash with a fork and set aside.
Pulse pepper, scallions, cilantro, and garlic in a food processor until finely diced.
Add egg, cumin, salt, hot sauce and oats to the mixture and pulse until fairly smooth.
Combine the vegetable mixture and the beans and form into four patties.
Place patties on a baking sheet lined with wax or parchment paper and freeze for at least one hour.
Once patties have hardened, lightly spray a skillet that has been warmed on medium heat with cooking oil and cook for about seven to eight minutes per side.
Build your burger by layer baby spinach, the patty, your sriracha mayo and cheese onto a toasted bun and enjoy!

Kitchen 101 - Easy Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 05:57:00 +0000

If you really want to knock someone's socks off when they come to eat at your home, give them homemade bread. Not from a box mix, not from a terrifying can that pops open, not "take-and-bake," but real, honest to goodness bread. People go NUTS over it. Probably because they don't know how easy it actually is.

I started making our own sandwich bread at least a couple years ago. It's one of the very few recipes I have committed to memory because I use it so frequently. It's a very moderate adaptation of this bread recipe here, so don't let me lie and fool you all into thinking I created it myself. I don't need anyone coming out of the woodwork to sue me for Maddie's Disney Princess dollhouse or Amelia's teething rings or something. I'll even give you a head start and let you know that I get most of my recipes from All Recipes, The Chew, Skinny Taste, and every pin on Pinterest ever in the history of ever. Have fun with that!

The first reason I started making bread was because I wanted to save money. I'm not going to be able to go out and buy a new car or anything with what I save on bread, but a few dollars here and there do add up in the long run and I can at the very least give myself a pat on the back for attempting frugality. When I did the math (... five minutes ago) this particular recipe cost approximately $3.94 to produce. As written, the author states that the dough should yield three loaves, which is $1.31 per loaf. I like bigger loaves so I only split the dough twice, which would make them $1.97 each. The cheapest loaf of honey whole wheat sandwich bread at my local supermarket is $1.99. So again, I'm not buying a private island anytime soon. Compared to actual GOOD bread and not just the store-brand, blah whatever, smaller than my piece of cheese nonsense, the fancy organic brand is almost $5 per loaf. Ain't nobody got time for that!

The last time I had to grab bread off the shelves, though, is what really drove it home for me. I cook from scratch because I like to know what I'm eating and what I'm feeding my family, right? That's like, the whole point of this blog? I'm obsessive about checking labels and what I was reading on the nutrition labels were making me really twitchy. Now, before you come at me, I FULLY UNDERSTAND that processed food is going to have preservatives in it. But if I know that the bread I eat almost every single day has exactly water, yeast, honey, flour, butter, and salt in it and not a lick of anything else, I get a little annoyed when I see this:

Enriched Wheat Flour [Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Reduced Iron, Niacin, Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Folic Acid], Water, Whole White Wheat Flour, Yeast, Honey, Sugar, Wheat Gluten, Salt, Soybean Oil, Enrichment (Calcium Sulfate, Vitamin E Acetate, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D3), Calcium Propionate (Preservative), Datem, Grain Vinegar, Monoglycerides, Soy Lecithin, Citric Acid, Potassium Iodate, Calcium Phosphate.

On every. Damn. Bag.

Irritating.

Anyway so that's why I'm a crazy bread making lady and if you want to be, too, here's how to do it!

This is all you need to start off with: water, honey, yeast, bread flour, and a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Add the warm water (no more than 110 degrees, though, to prevent killing the yeast) to the mixing bowl, then squirt your honey in, and sprinkle the yeast on top. Once the yeast starts to bubble up you're ready to add in the flour.

MMMMM bubbly yeast

Slowly add in the flour without getting it all over yourself and your kitchen and mix until just combined. It won't look like much.

Throw a towel over the whole contraption for a half hour and find something else to do.

When you come back, it's gonna be a little crazy.

Add the butter, salt, and the rest of the honey and mix it just a bit before you add the rest of the flour. The dough will come together fairly quickly. After about seven minutes in the mixer I like to dump it out onto the counter and knead it myself until it gets smooth; usually only another couple of minutes.

Work smarter, not harder. Spray the mixing bowl that you just used with some oil and dump the dough ball back in, turning it to coat. Cover with a towel and let it double in size. I honestly have no idea how long this takes. Less than an hour. I usually go off and do other things while I leave the dough to mind its own business.

Quick (cool!) tip on giving your bread a good place to hang out and get fat: put the covered bowl in a cold oven. AFTER you put it in, turn the oven on and set a timer for one minute. The second the timer goes off, turn off the heat and walk away. It won't get very hot in there at all, but it will be JUST warm enough for the yeast to work it's magic.

After the dough has doubled in size, punch it down and divide into two or three loaves (greasing the pans first), depending on how gigantic or normal-sized you like your bread to be. Repeat the same trick I just told you for the second rise after placing the uncovered bread pans back in the oven. If you want big, obnoxious bread like I make, you want the dough to top the pans by about an inch. Less if you don't want big, obnoxious bread.

Once your bread is as big and obnoxious as possible (or not. Boring.), bake the loaves at 350 for 30 minutes. After taking the bread out, brush some melted butter on top to keep the crust from getting too hard and allow it to cool on a wire rack. Slice and store in the fridge or freezer!

A friend of mine asked me today if I've ever added anything to the dough like cheese or seeds and I AM TOTALLY INTRIGUED BY THIS. I have a few bread recipes that I use for dinners and holidays, but I never thought to really play with this recipe for everyday munching. I forsee a bread baking bonanza weekend in my future for sure.

So don't let baking your own bread intimidate you! It took more effort to write this post about baking the bread than it actually took to bake the bread. Get to it and report back ASAP!

Easy Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

Ingredients

3 cups warm water
1/2 cup honey, separated
1/2 oz active yeast (2 packets, or 1 tbsp for the jar)
5 cups bread flour
5 tbsp melted butter, separated
1 tbsp salt
4 cups whole wheat flour
Spray oil

Directions

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add 1/4 cup of honey to 3 cups of hot water. Sprinkle yeast on top of the water and let rest for 5-10 minutes until bubbly.
Add bread flour and mix until just combined. Cover with a towel and let rest for 30 minutes until dough is bubby.
Add remaining honey, salt, and 3 tablespoons of melted butter to the dough and stir to combine.
Add remaining flour bit by bit until a dough ball forms, about 7-10 minutes.
Knead dough on countertop until the ball is smooth.
Spray a large bowl with cooking oil and place the dough inside, turning to coat with the oil. Cover and let rest until dough has doubled in size.
Grease your loaf pans, and divide the bread into two or three loaves. Let the dough rise a second time in the loaf pans until the dough tops the rim by about an inch.
In an oven set to 350 degrees, bake the loaves for 30 minutes until they are golden brown.
Remove from oven and brush remaining 2 tablespoons of melted butter on top to prevent the crusts from getting too hard.
Turn out onto wire racks and let cool.

Kitchen 101 - Stocking up on Stock

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 05:26:00 +0000

Every now and again I'm drawn to the mouth-watering smell of the roasted chickens spinning away behind the deli counter at the grocery store. I tell myself that I'm buying them so that I can shred the meat for enchiladas or make a chicken salad but I'm a big fat liar and I really just want to sit and eat the whole thing and not share it with anyone. Emphasis on big and fat.

No matter how I choose to worship the blessed roaster, I always save the carcass (is that not the worst word ever? It's up there with "moist." The food blogger apologizes for ruining all of your appetites.) to make a stock. If I don't have time that day or I already have a batch on hand, I bag it up and throw it in the freezer for later.

Usually if I'm on a mission specifically to make a stock it's because my vegetables are getting ready to turn and I hate to be wasteful. You know, when my celery is looking a little sad, my carrots feel like they've just been standing in the corner by themselves at a party for too long, my bag of onions is crying out for attention, the garlic looks like it's itching to sprout... They're all on their way to a pool party together and they don't even know it yet. It's gonna be a BLAST. Anyway, these are the days where I will look at my veg in their big pile of sad and make sure I plan a chicken dish sometime that week so I can try and be just a little more efficient with my food.

So why a homemade stock over the boxed stuff? Well, for one, you already paid for the chicken. So, use the chicken. Even though the roasters are usually around $6 or less, I don't see why you would want to then immediately turn around and spend another $4 on a box of stock. Don't get me wrong, I keep a box or two on hand in case I need it in a pinch, but before today (when I didn't realize I needed stock until halfway through the cooking process because I read recipes in their entirety before I begin and I'm also quite sarcastic) I don't remember the last time I used the stuff.

Another reason I prefer to make my own is so that I can control what goes into it. You wouldn't think there would be strange ingredients in a box of broth, but check your labels next time you reach for it on the shelves. The one in my pantry right now has added gelatin, tapioca starch, and "natural flavors" (whatever the hell that's supposed to mean) listed after "chicken," "water," and "mirepoix" - WHICH IS ALL YOU NEED TO MAKE A STOCK.

So let's begin.

Ingredients

Bones from one whole cooked chicken
Water
2 Carrots, roughly chopped
2 Celery Ribs, roughly chopped
1 Medium Onion, roughly chopped
4 Garlic Cloves, peeled and smashed
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Directions

Add chicken carcass and vegetables to a stock pot or Crock Pot and add water until just covered.

If cooking stovetop, bring to a boil and reduce to simmer on low heat covered for at least four hours, up to 12 hours. If using a slow cooker, set it to low and leave it for the same amount of time.

For a richer, more condensed stock, cook longer and allow the liquid to reduce. For a lighter stock, add more water to the pot after a few hours just to bring it back to the same level you started at.

Strain through a fine mesh colander and store in airtight containers in the refrigerator for no longer than 3-4 days. Stock may be frozen for up to six months in a standard freezer and up to a year in a deep freezer.

Notes

To make a broth rather than a stock, omit the bones and only use the leftover meat to flavor your water.
You are not limited to just chicken for this recipe. Feel free to use beef, shellfish, pork, anything you like. Or use any number or combination of vegetables and make it vegetarian.

Print this recipe!

Tour My Kitchen: Product Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 13 Jan 2014 05:28:00 +0000

Before I get on with the cooking I want to wrap up my kitchen tour by showing you which tools and products I can't live without. I may sell Pampered Chef but most of my "must-haves" aren't from their product line. Don't get me wrong, I think their stuff is pretty fabulous, and I have way more in my stash then just what I'm going to show you today, but if you're a newbie in the kitchen or you have a budget to adhere to or you don't have a lot of space, this is everything I think you'll need to succeed.

First, stop what you're doing RIGHT NOW and go by a $20 cast iron skillet. Get it on Amazon, get it at Target, whatever. Just get one. I easily use mine virtually every day. I have cooked meat, fish, burgers, apple pie, small batches of stew, chili, tomato gravy, EVERYTHING in this bad boy. Practically indestructible, you can cook with it on gas, on electric stove tops, in the oven, on the grill, anywhere. I'll be featuring it quite a bit and I don't think I'll ever part with it.

I generally hate non-stick coated cookware but I adore my tiny little egg pan. I think I got it for like eight bucks at Target on a whim (just like 99% of every single purchase at Target in the history of ever), and I use it every morning. It wipes clean without fuss and can go in the dishwasher no problem. I use this to make quick grilled sandwiches when I don't feel like using my grill pan.

My wok has been seriously neglected lately. My husband bought this for me (as he is usually the financer of all things kitcheny) at least seven years ago and for almost that long it was the only pan I ever used. These days its niche is exactly what it was intended to be used for: stir fries. Occasionally if I know I'm going to be flipping things around and need to add some air and special effects to my cooking techniques I'll bust it out, but I wouldn't feel right if I didn't include it in my list of best kitchen products EVAH.

Another cast iron piece, my grill pan, is probably going to get an upgrade soon to something larger, but for our little family it works quite well. I can grill four burgers or chicken breasts or fillets on it at once without steaming the food. I've used it for grilled sandwiches when I want to get a little fancy, too. It's a handy little sucker for people like us who have a fabulous grill outside that has been used like... twice.

New to my collection is the Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker. This guy is probably one of the most versatile pieces I've ever encountered. I've baked a mac and cheese with it in the oven and both a Mexican lasagna and a potato gratin IN THE MICROWAVE. Like, I looked at the recipe for the gratin a half hour before I was supposed to be serving Christmas dinner and I was instructed to bake it in the oven for something like two hours or something ridiculous like that. My brain told me "20 minutes in the microwave seems about right" and by George I was DEAD ON. And it was amazing. Apparently (I haven't tried yet) you can bake cakes and bread and make soups and stews and all this crazy stuff in this thing. Anyway it's pretty rad and you should get one.

Not to be outshone is my enamel coated cast iron dutch oven. This can do a lot of the same things the DCB can do, except you can cook with it on the stove top and put it in the dishwasher. I specifically bought this to make blooming herb bread (which I'll share with you one day) but have used it for a good portion of my one-pot soups, stews, chilis, braises, gravies, etc. I got rid of every other big pot I owned (other than the stock pot which I'll talk about in a minute) because I loved this pot so much.

I don't think anything I come up with to say would justly describe the wonder of the Crock Pot, so I won't even try. Just get one. Large or small, you can do it all. (HIRE ME FOR YOUR ADVERTISING AND MARKETING MAGIC WORD MAKING.)

As I mentioned, the only other large pot I kept when I de-stashed a few months ago was my stock pot. This is what I use for pasta and stock, pretty much exclusively. And mashed potatoes. You don't need 8,000 different sized pots and pans in your kitchen. A big one like this for the big stuff and a small one for sauces and a dutch oven to go in the oven is really all you need when it comes to big round open cookware.

Speaking of sauce pots, isn't he a cutie? Enchilada sauce, quick rouxs and single-serving pasta dishes happen in this little dude.

I have every kitchen utensil known to mankind, but these are my favorites. I'll keep this brief: get yourself a REALLY good chef's knife and some wooden spoons and forget like, literally almost everything else. Well, spatulas and scrapers and things like that, slotted spoons and whisks, you need those things a lot of the time. But excellent chef's knife. Wooden spoon. Necessary in every way.

My fun new frou-frou toy is the Pampered Chef Mix 'N Chop. I used to use my potato masher or an old beat up spatula to help me out with my ground beef and things of the like, but this weird looking thing is one of the few unnecessary evils that I kind of can't live without. Literally you just twirl it around in your pan and your ground beef is like, perfect somehow. Everything's all mixed.. and chopped.. The people that come up with the names in the Pampered Chef Toy Factory are geniuses, clearly.

Last are the three gadgets that make my entire life. My Keurig that needs replacing but it gets me through the day until it's socially acceptable to admit to drinking the wine. It really is the biggest workhorse in the house.

My KitchenAid stand mixer is probably in a close second. Except that one time the motor started smoking because I left it mixing my bread dough unattended for too long.

The third little guy there is my Pampered Chef Manual Food Processor. (I promise I actually tried to do this post with as few PC products as possible but I couldn't leave this one off the list.) The MFP holds three cups and is super quiet so it's great for quick prep when I don't want to break out my big, loud electric processor and wake everyone up with my shenanigans. I gave up on doing a nice, clean, professional diced onion years ago and now I don't even have to pretend like I know what I'm doing with this tool. I just dump everything in, pump it a few times, and boom. Done. It keeps my knives sharp by not requiring that I use them so often!

These are the tiny little things that maybe aren't so obvious to talk about but they range from necessary to practically necessary so I'll touch on them briefly:

Silpat mat - This is a silicone mat that you can put in your oven and bake on instead of having to grease your pans or line them with foil or parchment.
Ladle
Small cutting board - this is a bar board that you'll usually see bartenders slicing up lemons and limes and things of the like, but I prefer to use it when I just need to chop AN onion or ONE piece of garlic. It saves space both on my counter and in my dishwasher.
Wine opener
Spoonula - great for mixing and folding
Plastic tipped whisk - gentle on your mixing bowls and non-stick surfaces
Large cutting boards - use wood for fruits and veggies, and plastic for raw meat and seafood.
Measuring spoons
Can opener
Spatula
Measuring cup set OR a multi-cup vessel like a Pyrex bowl
Slotted spoon
Microplane grater - great for garlic, ginger and zesting. There are larger grade ones you can use for cheese, potatoes, zucchini, whatever your style.

There are obviously some things missing from this list and some things that you can very well do without, but this is the core of my kitchen and I hope it helps inspire some of you to either cut back on the clutter or add to your existing collection!

Oh and I almost forgot...

Tomorrow I'll start you off with some basic recipes and samples of what's to come as I get ready to unveil my first meal plan next weekend! Cheers!

Tour My Kitchen: Pantry Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 12 Jan 2014 05:19:00 +0000

Before I start sharing meal plans and shopping lists and gripes about my failures at picking the correct sippy cup for ~~Princess Pickle Puss~~ Maddie, I thought it would be fitting to take a quick tour of my kitchen. I'll do this in two parts - one so you can see what's in my pantry and another so you can take a peek at the products I can't live without. So just for you, I organized my cabinets and cleaned out my freezer so it would be slightly less embarrassing to put my pantry on display. Just. For. You.

The floors are not usually this shiny.
Pretzel dust, spilled orange juice and my tears usually coat it.

One of the ways I'm able to keep our food costs down from week to week is by making sure our pantry and freezer are fairly well-stocked. I find that it makes my life way easier to have the essentials on hand at all time. That way if we're not in the mood for whatever I planned for that night or I hit the grocery store a day late I still have plenty of moves when it comes to figuring out dinner on the fly.

Here's my fridge. It needs to be cleaned. Not like, throw expired stuff away cleaned. Actually cleaned. But I saw this nifty thing on Pinterest once upon a nesting time about putting a plastic place mat on my shelves so all I have to do is pull them out and wipe them down versus scrubbing down all the glass so when I get around to that... eventually... it'll be easy enough.

This is pretty standard fare for us. We choose organic milk although I can't remember the actually good reason why right now, and our juice selection is usually much more limited but I made a punch to add to my rum over Christmas so there are some leftovers. The tonic in the back corner is not for special occasions. It is for my gin. Mommy might have a drinking problem. I do opt for V8 Fusion on the regular because the ingredient list is actually comprehendible and Maddie isn't the greatest about getting her vegetables. We usually have orange juice on hand as well even though I know darn well I shouldn't even really have juice at all but WHATEVER I HAVE A CRANKY TODDLER.

Probably... because.. of all the sugary juice...

As you can see there's some weird green stuff going on in the next shelf. My husband juices. I don't get it. And I'm not drinking it. The abundance of eggs is actually fairly new. I never used to buy so many at once but we really do eat eggs almost every single day for breakfast. If it can be helped I purchase brown, cage-free eggs. They taste better and I like the way the shells crack. Normally I make my own sandwich bread. The recipe is really simple and I'll have it posted for you guys this week since I need to make some anyway.

Beneath the leftover shelf is the drawer of cheese (I'm not even kidding, there are three bags of shredded cheese, two things of sliced cheese, and two packs of string cheese in there right now. There's lunch meat, too, I promise.), vegetable crisper (always stocked with celery and carrots. This week I needed to restock my scallion stash which is what you see smashed against the front of the drawer) , and butter drawer. Yes. I have a drawer. of. butter. I'm not offering up an explanation because quite frankly I don't have one.

On the door I keep a wedge of Parmesan Reggiano. It's a pricey purchase, but if you store it properly it lasts FOREVER and makes for a really nice addition to meals that the plastic tub of grated parm just can't bring to the party. As for our spreadable butter I like Land 'O Lakes with olive oil. And because I bake bread so often I get the jar of yeast and store it in the fridge.

I always keep lemon and lime juice on hand, and there's an unusually small amount of taco sauce hanging out in there. Both Maddie and my husband could be happy putting taco sauce on anything and I do make a lot of Mexican style dishes so it's generally on hand. I have an amazing recipe for enchilada sauce that I'll be sure to share down the line that I would happily replace the jarred stuff with any day. We try to have waffles or pancakes every Sunday so the syrup is a necessary evil.

I have a container of barbecue sauce along with some chicken stock that I made, and the other normal things like ketchup (usually organic), mayo (always Hellmann's), organic plain Greek yogurt (great substitute if you don't feel like buying the tiny thing of sour cream every time you need a tablespoon or two), unsweetened applesauce (give it a try - I don't miss the added sugar at all.), some leftover ricotta, and cream cheese. My half & half is (yes) organic but this is more because the ingredient list is simply "cream and milk" versus the non-organic version of the same thing. Next time you're at the store take a peek at the labels and see what I mean. I don't normally have soda on hand, that's a holiday leftover, and the jarred pasta sauce was for emergency use. I'll get your my tomato sauce recipe, too. (I promise I'm making a list).

My freezer is a bit of a disaster. I feel like I cram way too much in here and I know my husband would agree. I can't live without bagels, and I keep my herbs in the freezer during the winter when it's harder to just grow them myself. The heartier ones like rosemary keep fairly well. I need to do a better job with the more delicate ones, though. Thawed dill is not your friend.

I have a few casseroles and crock pot meals stashed away for a super lazy day, bones leftover from a roast to make stock, breast milk (not an essential freezer staple for most people but around these parts it is), and some leftover crab meat. I actually prefer back fin - it's cheaper by the pound and tastes just as good as the jumbo lump. If you're making cakes or dips or something where it doesn't need to be as aesthetically pleasing as the big chunks of crab, definitely go back fin.

I keep an emergency bag of ravioli on hand when Maddie isn't having much of anything else for lunch, but even she isn't the biggest fan of these guys. I received a pasta maker for my birthday so I do wonder if she would be more apt to eat it if she helped me make them. Getting kids in the kitchen is so, so important. Gosh, it's important. More on that later.

That picture in the bottom right is where the magic happens. The top shelf is all frozen veggies - spinach, corn, peas, mixed, squash, Brussels, you name it. I love fresh but frozen veg is AWESOME for most recipes and a big money saver. Beneath that is all. the. meat. The bottom drawer is like 20 lbs of chicken. I'm not even kidding. My grocer just had it on sale buy two get three free so I cleaned them out. But the shelf in the middle is my ground beef, turkey and pork, a small turkey breast, bacon (BECAUSE BACON), and the inevitable chicken nuggets (I like the Tyson all-natural ones the best).

Sometimes I just like to look at my pantry. I wish I had one fit for Pinterest, but I love every single thing I have in stock right now. I always have three types of flour on hand - bread, all-purpose, and wheat. I prefer the King Arthur brand because supposedly it's GMO free but it's wheat so who really knows. In my big pantry I keep all of my baking supplies high up so I'm not too tempted to go swimming in a box of confectioner's sugar. But I also keep my brewer's yeast, chia seeds, flax meal, and all that other crunchy nut stuff up there since I don't use it frequently. Fabulous to have on hand, but not necessary. Our snack shelf is usually pretty bare but I do have an Amazon subscription to Annie's snack mix, and we always have raisins on hand. If Maddie could survive on those two things alone, she would be thrilled. I, however...

Right now my canned goods are a little low, but I generally keep diced tomatoes, plain sauce, tomato paste, beans (black, garbanzo, pinto, whatever was on sale) and some jarred sauce on hand. My soups and tuna are back there, too. Below that are my grains - rice (white, wheat, arborio), cous cous, red lentils en mass (I like sneaking them into recipes), quinoa, cornmeal, grits, polenta, you name it. It's in there. And it gets USED. The breakfast shelf is below that and has cereal, quick oats, granola and all the k-cups. Maddie will hand me a coffee pod in the morning so proudly. And therefore, I beam. And lastly is ALL THE PASTA. Shells, lasagna noodles, hidden veggie pastas, and elbows are the biggies right now. I hope to get into making my own soon but I'll still be frequenting the pasta aisle for jumbo shells on the regular, I'm sure.

On my counter I usually keep a bag of apples (add that to the list of things Maddie could subsist solely on) and bananas. My garlic hangs out there since I grab it so frequently, and right now I have a TON of shallots leftover from the holidays.

In the next cabinet I have more of my "every day" baking needs - baking soda and powder, vanilla, and raw sugar (I can't do this paleo thing where they don't let you have sugar. The most I'm willing to compromise is with the raw stuff). Beneath that are the sauces - soy, wochestershire, peanut & almond butters, honey, sambal (similar to Sriacha but with a different kind of kick to it), hot sauce, and so on. And on the bottom is my lazy Susan spice spindle. I actually cleaned out quite a few of these not that long ago and was still left with an exorbitant amount. But I use them! I hate store bought spice mixes so I generally will make my own (taco seasoning, Italian, poultry, etc). Chili powder, cumin and paprika seem to disappear the fastest right behind the garlic and onion powders.

I always try to have back up chicken stock for the times I don't have any of the homemade stuff on hand, various salts (table, kosher, sea, and natural), pepper, and my cooking oils (olive, vegetable, canola), vinegars (rice wine, red wine, balsamic), cooking spray, and collection of teas that I rarely sit and enjoy. I should work on that.

And lastly I have my handy dandy food hanger upper basket thing which currently is holding a load of onions and potatoes.

I know it seems like a lot (trust me, I know, this is the severely edited version of this post. I have a lot of food.), but these are the things that keep my kitchen running. Because I have them on hand the majority of the time, it makes it way easier when I do my meal plans and work out my grocery budget for the week. Sure there are things that are always going to break the budget like the $20 bag of dog food or when that brick of Parmesan Reggiano runs out, but it's infrequent enough that it all evens out.

What staples do you have on hand in your kitchen at all times? What did you see here that you think would be helpful to have?

OH! Disclaimer: I am not paid or endorsed by any of the brands shown or mentioned in this post (yet... hint... hint). But feel free to buy them all on my recommendation because they're yummy.

Uncorked

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 18:36:00 +0000

For someone that loves to talk about herself I've never been very good at introductions but I suppose I'll give it the old college try.

Actually, maybe I should try a little harder than I did in college.

My name is Michelle and I've been traipsing about the blogosphere for a few years now. Once upon a time I was writing about baseball, which took a back seat to parenting, which has evolved into a passion for food and a need for all the wine. See how quickly I tied in the name of the blog? BLOGGING.

Originally from the Delaware Valley I now reside in Virginia Beach with my husband and two daughters. I would like to refer to my oldest as Princess Pickle Puss but one day she'll be old enough to Google me and that seems rude. Maddie just turned two last week and Amelia is five months old today. Hence the wine. And the whine.

Well deliver me from L.L. Bean.

I've worked for a major automobile insurance company for the better part of a decade and am also a Pampered Chef independent consultant in the rare fleeting moments I have between the rest of my life. Why direct sales? Beats me; I wasn't very good at indirect sales at my day job so your guess is as good as mine. I just like to cook. Shrug.

My relationship with food has always been complicated. I've struggled with weight my entire life and I'm one of those people that can't finish her breakfast without thinking about what she's going to eat for lunch. When I was pregnant with Maddie I wasn't very careful about my diet. I craved Coca Cola like it was my job and I indulged. Oh boy did I indulge. It wasn't until we started her on solids when she was six months old that it finally dawned on me that I was responsible for another human being's nutrition. I knew that what I ate she ate all throughout my pregnancy and while I exclusively breast fed her, but it wasn't until I physically handed her food from my plate that I felt the high five to the face that I needed. That's when things changed.

I started cooking almost entirely from scratch. Chicken stock was no longer bought by the box, tomato sauce was no longer emptied from a jar, bread was baked weekly, and labels were checked incessantly. I'm not here to preach about nutrition and ERMIGERD!!1! GMO's and Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and all that namaste nonsense. But I do want to show people how it's possible to eat well, stay on a budget, and make sure your kids aren't expecting you to add "short-order cook" to your resume.

My goal with this blog is to provide my family's meal plan every weekend and corresponding shopping list. I generally try to keep our food budget to $50 a week, but sometimes it's closer to $75 depending on what odds and ends I need to stock up on. If you choose to follow along and cook with me, awesome! If not, that's cool. I'm happy to take up space on your Pinterest boards for future reference. What I feel is special about my (flexible) budget is that I don't shy away from whole ingredients and organic foods. Not everything is farm to table, but rarely do I cook from a box or a can. So often you can make it better than you can buy it and it will be cheaper for you in the long run.

Throughout the week I'll share the recipes, how I prepped them or tweaked them to fit my family's needs, what tools I used if I feel like it's something you absolutely can't live without (hint: go do yourself a favor and buy that $20 cast iron skillet you've been passing by at Target. It's worth it's weight in platinum. And it's super heavy.), and how much wine I needed to consume to get through the grocery store with two littles, cooking with two ankle biters at my feet, feeding the clan, and cleaning up what got flung across my kitchen in the process.

As a disclaimer, I don't generally write my own recipes. I have not been to culinary school and I am not a nutritionist. But I make changes where I feel they're necessary or when I'm so inspired, and I try to keep the ingredients as clean and simple as possible. I'm a label reader, fruit sniffer, quinoa dabbler, and cheese connoisseur (actually, the cheese is more Maddie's department). I don't shy from dairy or gluten or whatever else seems to be the trend these days but I will absolutely include GFDF recipes from time to time since some of them are pretty darn amazing.

Thanks for joining me on this adventure and happy eating! Cheers!