Recipe Wednesday: Rhubarb crunch

It's been far too long since my last post, so this well overdue!  Tis the season for rhubarb and one of my favorite recipes is rhubarb crunch:

Rhubarb Crunch

 

For the filling:

4 cups of cut up rhubarb

1 cup white sugar

1 cup water mixed with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch

Cook together until clear

And

1 tablespoon vanilla- added after you remove from the stove top

For the crust:

1 cup flour

3/4 cup oatmeal

1 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon (I prefer the Chinese Cassia Cinnamon)

1/2 cup melted butter or margarine

Mix all of the above together until well blended and place 1/2 of the mixture in the bottom of the pan (I spray the pan first with some cooking spray so the crust will release easier)

And save the rest for the topping

(This recipe works for an 8x8 or a 9x9 pan)

 

When the rhubarb has cooked to a clear consistency and you add the vanilla, carefully pour over the bottom crust.  Then crumble the remaining mixture over the hot rhubarb.  

Bake 20-30 minutes until golden brown.  Take care because if baked too long, the crust can get burnt.  Let cool for 10-15 so the filling will set up, and then dish out for your enjoyment!

This would go great with some homemade vanilla ice cream (or Jeni's), but we didn't have any.

I hope everyone enjoys this as much as we do! 

Recipe Wednesday - Acorn squash

Lynette is out for a couple of hours at a bible study so I thought I would partake in my acorn squash that we received from our Green Grocer bag a couple of weeks ago.  Lynette doesn't like squash (at least not yet) so I figured I would be nice and wait and have it on a night she'd be gone.  Tonight was that night!

This was actually a recipe that was included in our weekly email about the contents of the bag. I've never eaten squash like this before.  Come to think of it, I really haven't had that much squash in my life.  It was delicious and was complimented perfectly with some fresh apple cider from Hirsch Fruit Farm that we just picked up today in this weeks bag.  We like it so much, we no sooner go out of the North Market parking lot, then Lynette opened in and started drinking (note to any visitors to our house: usually drinking containers in our house are free from germs, but you might want to start avoiding the apple cider).

Back to the acorn squash.  I cut it in half, with the ridges

Scooped out the seeds 

They kinda look like hearts and it's not even Valentine's Day yet!

I brushed on some melted butter (made in house of course) and seasoned them.

The left one is seasoned with kosher salt and cayenne pepper.  The one on the right is seasoned with kosher salt, cumin, and garlic powder.  I also put some brown sugar on both too, but remembered after they had been in the oven for a couple of minutes and didn't bother to get a picture after I added it.  Just put these in a preheated 400 degree oven for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on size, and bake till soft and caramelized on the top. These were in for 47ish minutes.

The seeds were washed and set aside to dry for toasting after the acorn squash was finished baking.

I just tossed them with some olive oil and kosher salt, put them on a baking sheet at 275 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  They came out great!

I had the cumin and garlic powder half tonight for dinner, and saved the cayenne pepper one for lunch tomorrow.  I just scooped all the yumminess out into a dish.  I think it'll reheat pretty well.  Just the one half filled me up really well!  I didn't know if it would, but all that fiber really pulled through!  The squash seems to be pretty much a blank slate to add any kind of seasoning.  I'll probably play around with the seasoning some more and see what I can come up with, but for tonight, it was just right!

Recipe Wednesday - Cincinnati Chili

So Eric didn't feel like blogging tonight, and I get to take over "Recipe Wednesday." I figured I'd take the opportunity to share one of my all-time favorite recipes - the one my mom made when we were growing up, the one she made special when I was home from OSU.

Cincinnati Chili

1 quart water

2 lbs lean ground beef

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 clove garlic

2 Tbsp chili powder

1 tsp black pepper

1 Tbsp salt

½ tsp ground allspice

1 can tomato paste

1.5 tbsp cider vinegar

3 large whole bay leaves

Add all ingredients, stir, bring to boil, then simmer 2-3 hours. Remove garlic and bay leaves.

I recommend it served in true three-way style, over spaghetti and with lots of mild cheddar cheese. While this is not the Skyline recipe, I actually prefer this because it is much thicker and does not have chocolate. Don't get me wrong. I crave Skyline every once in a while like every good Cincinnati girl should, but this is my mom's.

I could eat this once a week at least. Unfortunately, my husband does not share my enthusiasm (or so he insists), and I have not made this recipe since we have been together. I'm hoping for some support here, so comments please!

Recipe Wednesday - Stuffed Peppers

Firstly, I've been a bit sick the last couple of days so there haven't been any posts.  Currently, I'm feeling much better, but this morning my head was pounding and very cloudy feeling and I was pretty achy.  I decided to take the day off and try to get better.  It seems to have worked because I'm feeling pretty good right now.  Good enough even to make some Orange-Spiced Banana Muffins while my wife is off at a Bible study!

Here are the mutts thinking that they'd like to do some preliminary taste tests before they go into the oven.  (Sorry for the blurry picture.  I had batter all over my hands, while taking this one handed, with my phone because the camera is...well, who knows where)



These however will not be the recipe of the week, though they do smell amazing in the oven right now.  Instead, today's recipe will be something I made on Monday night.  Stuffed Peppers!

Ingredients

• 4 large bell peppers that can stand up straight and are pretty wide
• 1lb. ground sausage
• 3 cups of cooked rice
• 1 1/2 cups of sliced fresh button mushrooms 
• 1 cup of tomato, pasta, or pizza sauce. (any will work)
• 3 cloves of chopped garlic
• Anything else you may have extra that you need to get rid of. In our case, we had some diced green pepper  from pizza on Friday so stuff peppers into peppers (something seems so wrong with that.)
• 2 cups of shredded mozzarella

Brown the sausage.  Get the rice cookin'.  Drain the sausage.  Using the same pan, put a few tablespoons of olive oil in to warm up and then add in the mushrooms, garlic, diced peppers (or your misc. veggies), etc.  Get that cooked down a little bit and then put the sausage back in.  Mix it all together and by now the rice is probably done.  Mix in the rice and then the tomato sauce.  You can keep that on a low heat while you cut the tops off the peppers and clean out all the seeds and pulpy stuff.  Once the peppers are cleaned out, start stuffing with the meat and rice mixture.  You can just use a regular spoon to do this as you'll want to make sure that the mixture gets pushed into all the corners of the peppers.  Once it's about 3/4 of the way full, I make a little indentation and then stuff a heaping tablespoon's worth of the shredded mozzarella in and then continue filling up the pepper until it's mounded a little on top.  Repeat until all the peppers are full.

Place peppers in a 8x8 or 9x9 glass pan or whatever you have that they'll fit in.  We have this oval Pyrex dish that's 8x10 and 3 inches high that works perfect for this.  Once you get them in the dish, put about 1/4 inch of water in the bottom of the pan, grind some pepper on the tops of the peppers, drizzle with olive oil, cover them in foil and put them into the middle shelf of a 425 degree, preheated oven.  These will cook for 20-30 minutes and you'll know they are done basically by looking at them.  I had them in at 350 for 20 minutes, but then realized that the oven probably needed to be hotter so I turned it up to 425 for another 20 minutes.  I think you'll be good with 425 for 20-30 though as they were pretty much done when the oven finally preheated up to 425 from 350. Take a look at the peppers and if the water has started to turn a little green and the peppers are starting to get a deeper, browner shade of green then they are done.  Take the foil off, sprinkle the tops of the peppers with the remaining mozzarella and put back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and brown. Yum!

Since I was a little under the weather on Monday, my brain was a cloudy so I didn't think to take any pictures.  I wish I would have because they were beautiful just out of the oven!  The tops were perfectly golden brown with the cheese.  The stuffing was perfect.  It maintain perfect structure inside the peppers once it was cut in half.  It was like opening up a sandwich, with a yummy, melted cheese pocket!  Instead, you get a picture from Tuesday's lunch.  Still looks and tasted amazing, but just not as visually wonderful.

I've made stuffed peppers a few times before, but they were perfect this time, and I very rarely say anything I make is perfect.  I think my wife will agree on both of those points. 

I hope you make them.  I hope you enjoy them.  They are a main course and side dish all in one!

As for tonight, I think I'll go get a muffin and join Webster as we both wait for Lynette:

Recipe Wednesday

I was going to post a fettuccine with peas and ham recipe from an Emeril cookbook we have, but....there is that whole copyright statement at the beginning.  With our expansive readership, I thought surely it would get back to the "Bam" King himself, and he'd show up at our door waving a heavy skillet at my head.  In light of that, I'll just tell you that it's in this book, on page 46, and is very tasty.  We've made it at least 3 times in the last 6 months or so.  Also, I should mention that if you buy said book from Amazon, from that link, I in no way get any credit from it.  Emeril has not paid me to endorse this for him...though it would be nice if he did.

I instead thought I would enlighten you on my thoughts about mashed potatoes.  I find it hard to imagine that people actually buy that box of dried whatever and make mashed potatoes.  It's soooo easy, and so much better just to make the real thing.  I should clarify that I in no way mean to talk down to anybody or make them feel bad, but instead I want to let you know that YOU CAN DO IT (in my best Rob Schneider voice)!  I know you can!  Let me break it down for you:

Take potato in hand
Peal potato
Cut potato into chunks
Put potato chunks into saucepan
Repeat for desired number of potatoes
Fill pan with water, just covering potato chunks
Boil water till potatoes are soft (15-20 minutes)
Drain potatoes
Use a hand mixer to mash potatoes
Add some milk and butter and mix with mixer
Add a little more milk until desired smoothness.
Done.

Not hard people. Really.  Trust me.  You can come watch me make them sometime.  Very easy, and way tastier than those boxed flakes.  What are those things anyways?

I know this was a sad recipe.  In fact, it was a hardly a recipe at all, but I felt like it needed to be said.  In my opinion, this is a perfect, fundamental example of what the nation has turned into with regards to food.  They've let some processed food with an ingredient list like this:

POTATO FLAKES (SODIUM BISULFITE, BHA AND CITRIC ACID ADDED TO PROTECT COLOR AND FLAVOR), CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: MONOGLYCERIDES, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED COTTONSEED OIL, NATURAL FLAVOR, SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, BUTTEROIL.
CONTAINS MILK INGREDIENTS.

Take the place of something that should have an ingredient list like this:

Potatoes, milk, and butter

Maybe people have reasons for not making real mashed potatoes.  I can't think of any...

Recipe Wednesday - Chicken Pot Pie

This comes from a church cookbook that has been a staple in my mom's kitchen.  This is basically the chicken (or turkey) pot pie we grew up with, but with a few changes.  The first change is fresh veggies instead of mixed, canned veggies.  The second change, this one to accommodate my crust-loving wife, I double the crust.  Other than that, basically the same.  It'll fit a 9x13.  Here we go!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. chicken/turkey breast.  (you could also buy thick sliced turkey or chicken from the deli and cube it, but I like the fresh better)
• 1 can cream of chicken soup (next time around we're making our own cream of chicken)
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 1/2 sticks of margarine
• 3 cups Bisquick
• 3 cups milk
• fresh veggies of your choice in a quantity of your liking. We used 3 fresh carrots, 2 stalks of celery, 3 med. potatoes, and a cup or so of frozen peas.

Boil the chicken breasts until cooked and then shred them. 

Cissy is pretty sure all of this cooked, shredded chicken must be for her.








Peel the potatoes and cube them along with any other fresh veggies.  Make them all about the same size.  Mix the chicken, veggies, cream of chicken soup, and broth together in a bowl.  Melt the margarine and pour a little in the 9x13 and move it around to coat the sides.  Reserve the rest.  Dump the chicken and veggie mixture in the pan and set it aside.

Next, blend together the Bisquick, milk and reserved margarine.  Blend until almost smooth.  It will be pretty soupy, but that's perfect.  Pour it over the chicken and veggies evenly.  Since it's pretty soupy and the crust was doubled, it gets all friendly with the whole dish and it comes out a little more solid than most typical pot pies, but like I said, Lynette loves the crust!  If you don't like the crust as much, just single it (using one stick of margarine) and you'll have a nice layer of crust on the top.

Bake at 350 for an hour or until the crust is nice and golden brown.  Every oven is different, and I think we ended up around 1:20 because of all the crust.  Let it stand for 5 minutes or so and then dig in!

I hope you've enjoyed the first installment of Recipe Wednesday.  Hopefully you'll try this out on your own.  It's really easy and it's way better than all those preservative loaded, artificially flavored frozen pot pies.  Plus, it'll be lunch for the next couple of days for both Lynette and I!