Penney’s Palate

Sloppy Joes are something that I never think of to make, but I absolutely love to eat. It is probably best that I only eat these once every few months, because I might tire of eating them and then I wouldn’t be excited to make or eat them, and that would just be sad. I have made them enough times to be able to tweak recipes until they have satisfied both mine and Tommy’s food-snobbery. I took this recipe and ended up with just a few changes to make what I would consider the tastiest sloppy joe.

I like using ground turkey because, for some reason, it makes me feel like I’m making the recipe healthier than by using ground beef. Also, whenever Tommy sees ground beef cooking in a pan, he gets grossed out. I think that ground turkey cooking in a pan looks the same, but somehow the turkey doesn’t gross him out. At some point (I think it was an accident), Tommy and I realized that we really like the addition of beans in our sloppy joes (kidney and pinto work best). And I also use the same amount of vegetables in the recipe, but only use about half of the amount of ground turkey (because you can only buy them in ~1.25-lb packages at the store). I like having more vegetables than meat. So here’s the Vernieri Family sloppy Joe recipe. We eat them on hamburger buns, with a thick slice of cheddar.

Sloppy Joes, Vernieri-style

Ingredients
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 carrot, diced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 lb ground turkey
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 (14-oz) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup ketchup
2 Tbsp molasses
2 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Preparation
1. Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat until hot, then sauté onion, carrot, bell pepper, and garlic, stirring occasionally, until golden, 10 to 12 minutes.

2. Add turkey and sauté, stirring occasionally and breaking up large lumps with a wooden spoon, until meat is no longer pink, about 5 minutes. Stir in salt and pepper.

3. Purée tomatoes with juice, ketchup, molasses, vinegar, and Worcestershire sauce in a blender until smooth.

4. Add the tomato mixture and beans to the turkey and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until sauce is thickened, 25 to 30 minutes.

5. Serve with hamburger buns and a thick slice of cheddar.

I’ve only had one other savory bread pudding that I can remember, and I loved every bite of it. That was a few years ago, and Tommy made it. I’m not sure why I don’t make them more often, but it isn’t something that I think of when looking for dinner options. Tonight I needed to use up some aging Swiss Chard from the Farmer’s Market. I was looking for a simple but flavorful and quick sauteing of some sort, because we already have plenty of leftovers in the house for lunch and dinner over the next few days.

I came across this recipe and realized that I had everything already except for 3 eggs instead of 4, and cheddar cheese instead of Swiss cheese. I also realized that this wasn’t the quick side dish that I was looking for, but the night was young and Tommy was working late and it was raining outside and I was bored. My loaf of bread that was going stale was a rosemary-something-loaf that we used for paninis this weekend, so I felt this was a perfect match. And I’m happy to have had some dried porcini mushrooms in the pantry. Since the bread already had plenty of rosemary flavor, I did not add the rosemary that the recipe called for. It came together in about 30 minutes, then took 50 minutes to bake.

I also drank (and enjoyed) some left over Verdicchio both while making and eating the bread pudding. And now we have leftovers to last through Friday.

I think that chili is one food that Tommy and I take pretty seriously.  We know what we like (and don’t like) about it, and seem to gravitate towards using our same favorite recipe rather than venture out and find new recipes that we might like even more.

In an attempt to convince some of our vegetarian friends to come to our wine/football party last weekend, we advertised hamburgers AND vegetarian chili.  I thought this was a good idea, until I realized that my favorite chili recipe just couldn’t be converted into a vegetarian version by simply removing the beef and beef stock.  Having never made a vegetarian chili, I started to get nervous as party day approached.

Knowing what I already like in chili, I set out to find a recipe that would be acceptable to Tommy and I as well as our vegetarian friends.  I combined a few recipes to come up with a final version.

The final result was a very good first-vegetarian-chili.  Of course, my tastings had my mind spinning with the minor tweaks that I should use next time to make it even better.  It was lacking a serious kick (which I normally enjoy in my chili), but it still held up very well.

I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to enjoy an entire bowl of it.  It was very popular both with the vegetarians and the hamburger-eating folks.    I happened to look over as I was eating my hamburger to realize that there were only a few spoonfuls left of the chili, so I filled a little ramekin and had my few bites before the rest of it disappeared.  There are no pictures because 1) it was consumed very quickly and 2) I was in party-host mode and didn’ think about taking a picture.

Vegetarian Chili

Ingredients

• 1 orange
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 jalepenos
• 4 garlic cloves, smashed then minced
• 3 Tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 15.5-ounce cans seasoned black beans
• 1 15.5-ounce can kidney beans
• 1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
• 2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1-3 cups water
• 4 chipotle chilis in adobo, seeded and finely chopped***
• salt
• pepper

Preparation
Juice orange. Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onions, carrots and jalepenos; sauté 5 minutes. Mix in garlic and spices. Add beans (with juice), tomatoes (with juice), and half of orange juice and vinegar. Add water. Simmer over medium heat until heated through and flavors blend, stirring often, about 2 hours. After 1 hour, mix in remaining orange juice, salt and pepper.

***This is one ingredient that I will add next time.  These chilies give the chili a nice smokey flavor that I love.

As I was browsing the “Quick and Easy” section of Epicurious I came across this recipe. I thought to my self: “What, no way. This sounds like what I had at Fez (Le Club Fez, a local French/Moroccan restaurant). But this looks way too easy. Oh okay, I’ll try it, but I’m sure it is going to turn out bland and whatever else. There is no way that it is THIS easy to make this dish.” I think that it was in the quick and easy section because even though it has to cook for a few hours, there is only about 15 minutes of preparation before hand. I adjusted it based on the fact that the store only had Lamb legs instead of Lamb shoulder. And I didn’t have any ras-el-hanout, so I found this recipe. I have a “smidgen” measuring spoon, which is slightly smaller than 1/8 tsp, so I used that as my base and added the appropriate proportions of each ingredient. I also left out each ingredient that was already included in the lamb recipe, as I didn’t want to double up on any of the spices.

The result was good. So so good.

Ingredients
2 teaspoons ras-el-hanout
2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon crumbled saffron threads
3 cups water
2 lb boneless lamb leg, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 medium onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/4 cups raisins
1 1/4 cups whole blanched almonds
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preparation
Whisk together ras-el-hanout, salt, pepper, ginger, saffron, and 1 cup water in a 5-quart heavy pot. Stir in lamb, remaining 2 cups water, onion, garlic, cinnamon sticks, and butter and simmer, covered, until lamb is just tender, 1 1/2 hours.

Stir in raisins, almonds, honey, and ground cinnamon and simmer, covered, about 30 minutes more. Uncover pot and cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until stew is slightly thickened, about 15 minutes more.

Serve over couscous

For the Roasted Chicken Challenge, Tommy and I started off with a 2.91 pound chicken from somewhere in Piedmont, NC. We decided to do the dry brine as Melanie’s recipe stated. We kept it in the refrigerator for about 7 hours before taking it out. Like Brian’s, it had turned a pinkish color. It looked kind of gross in my opinion, but I forged ahead. We oiled, sugared and peppered the outsides, and added some aromatics to the insides. The aromatics consisted of 1 shallot, 1/4 of a Gala Apple, 1 cinnamon stick, twig of rosemary and a twig of sage. It was baked breast side down for 25 minutes, then breast side up for about 20 minutes (we used our thermometer inserted in the thigh to tell us when the bird was done, which was 175 degrees later).

The end result was a very moist and flavorful chicken. Neither Tommy nor I are big fans of eating small birds from the bone, it just seems like so much effort for so little meat. But it was delicious, and WORLDS better than the rotisserie chickens you can buy from supermarket. I think that the type of chicken that we bought (free range chicken) contributed to its goodness and tastiness. Tommy also made a gravy with the drippings. MMMMMM tasty gravy it was. With only 2.91 pounds of chicken, there wasn’t much left, only about a cup of shredded chicken. We made Paninis with it a week later, which was the wrong choice. It would have been much better used in some chicken salad maybe.

One thing happened with the chicken that seemed a little odd. Tommy and I weren’t really sure of the exact location on the thigh to put the thermometer. We didn’t have much luck with thermometer placement when cooking our two Thanksgiving turkeys, so we weren’t sure how much faith to put in this thermometer placement. We were convinced that our chicken was done when it took about 20 minutes (with breast side up) to reach the 175 degrees. We were even happier when we began carving the chicken and saw that it seemed to be done. However, after turning the chicken around to start on the other side, it was revealed that the thigh piece was not done on the second side. Everything else seemed to be done. So we continued with the carving and threw in the un-finished thigh and remaining carcas back in the oven for 10 minutes, and began eating.

I would roast a chicken again. It was pretty easy but a little time consuming since you have to plan out when to brine it and when to be available when it is done brining. Next time I would be interested in roasting it in a pan with lots of vegetables like Will and Maggie suggested. I like roasted vegetables, and just thinking of the flavor that the vegetables will absorb makes me hungry even when I am full.

I was a little sick this week, so Wednesday I stayed home from work and rested up a bit. Since I was sick, of course I wanted soup. I don’t care for canned soup, and Tommy wasn’t available to make soup for me, so I picked an easy soup recipe that didn’t require much preparation. I browsed through my classic Italian cookbook and found a recipe for Lentil Soup. Having had lentils for the first time only last month and loving them, I decided that this soup was definitely the one. It is somewhere between a soup and an entrée though, because it has a lot of pasta in it. In the end, the pasta absorbs all of the liquid, making it not very soupy at all. But still very tasty, and a good hearty soup for someone feeling a bit under the weather. You can also adjust the liquid portion as well. The recipe called for 9 cups of chicken stock, but I felt that would be a little too strong for my tastes, so I used only 7 cups of stock and 2 cups of water. The lentils are very flavorful, so I think that you could even reduce the amount of chicken stock used even more. It depends on what your tastes are I suppose. I ate this for lunch, and then when Tommy came home, we made Paninis and had a bowl of the lentil soup with our Paninis. The original recipe calls for brown lentils, but I already had French green lentils, so that is what I used. I am anxious to use other lentils for cooking with to see how much of a difference each colored lentil is.

Lentil Soup

Ingredients
1 cup dried lentils (brown or green)
6 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 celery stalks
2 small carrots
7 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
1 sage leaf, chopped (or 1/8 tsp dried sage)
1 sprig fresh thyme (or 1/4 tsp dried thyme)
Salt and Pepper
2 1/2 cups small pasta (I used this mini-bow tie pasta, Orzo would work as well. Ditalini or Pastina would work best if you can find it where you live)

Preparation
Put lentils in a bowl and cover with cold water, soak for 2 hours. After lentils are done soaking, heat the oil in large pot. Add the onion and cook until it softens. Add the celery and carrots and cook for 5 more minutes. Add the lentils, chicken stock, water, and herbs. Bring the soup to a boil, then cook over moderate heat (a low boil) for 1 hour. Add salt and pepper if needed. Stir in the pasta and cook until the pasta is done (this is where most of the liquid in the soup will begin to disappear. Eat.

Our refrigerator was getting low on lunch-time leftovers, so last night I made a pan of baked ziti. Instead of my regular recipe, I chose to change it up a bit. I remember reading over a lasagna-style baked ziti in one of my recent Food & Wine magazines, so after a quick search, I had found what I had stored away in my distant memory. Of course, I made some modifications to the recipe based on what Tommy and I like in a baked ziti dish. It turned out to be a nice creamy alternative to the strictly tomato-based ziti that I have made in the past. The creaminess comes from a bechamel (which was pretty plain, I should add more cheese next time, and maybe some salt?).

Lasagna-Style Baked Ziti

Ingredients
3/4 lb ziti
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small to medium yellow onion, diced
1 lb hot Italian Sausage
14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp. dried marjoram
2 tbsp parsley, chopped
Salt and Pepper
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup AP flour
2 cups whole milk
1 egg yolk
1 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and start a large pot of water on the stove (for the pasta). In a large skillet heat the olive oil, then add the onion and cook over medium heat until the onions are soft (about 4 minutes). Add the sausage and cook for 10 minutes or until beginning to brown (break up the clumps as it cooks). Remove from the heat and add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, marjoram, parsley, salt and pepper.

Once the sausage is added to the skillet, add the pasta to the boiling water (use cooking time on box), and start the bechamel: In a saucepan, melt the butter. Add the flour and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, whisking constantly. Whisk in the milk (it helps if the milk has been warmed instead of being cold) and cook over medium-high heat until the sauce is very thick and boiling, whisking constantly (about 5-7 minutes). Remove from the heat and whisk in the egg yolk and cheese (and salt if needed). Stir all but 3/4 cup of the bechamel into the sausage/tomato mixture. Stir in the pasta to this mixture.

Pour the mixture (pasta, bechamel, sausage/tomato mixture) into an appropriately sized casserole dish (I used an 8.5 X 11 inch dish). Then spread the remaining bechamel over the top. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, preheat the broiler and broil the pasta for about 2 minutes, until the top has browned and is bubbly. Let rest 5-10 minutes before serving.

Today I made Amy’s Pulled Pork. Like all crock pot meals, it was easy. Pork, onion, garlic, bbq sauce, turn crock pot on, walk away. I took Amy’s recommendation to use a bbq sauce that I liked. That was a slight problem because I don’t really know what kind of bbq sauce I like. I decided just to browse Harris Teeter’s bbq sauce section and was very excited to find a Peppery Vinegar Eastern Carolina BBQ Sauce. I was very excited. Very, very excited.

It turned out pretty good. It wasn’t quite what you could get at Old Time, or Smithfields, but under the current circumstances of living in SC where they only make mustard-based bbq, it was a pretty good substitute. We ate it with corn on the cob and some corn bread. I’m not good at making cornbread, so I can’t write anything good about it. At least it was edible. I am looking forward to having the leftover bbq on a hamburger bun with some coleslaw tomorrow for lunch. Thanks Amy!

Today I made Amy’s Pulled Pork. Like all crock pot meals, it was easy. Pork, onion, garlic, bbq sauce, turn crock pot on, walk away. I took Amy’s recommendation to use a bbq sauce that I liked. That was a slight problem because I don’t really know what kind of bbq sauce I like. I decided just to browse Harris Teeter’s bbq sauce section and was very excited to find a Peppery Vinegar Eastern Carolina BBQ Sauce. I was very excited. Very, very excited.

It turned out pretty good. It wasn’t quite what you could get at Old Time, or Smithfields, but under the current circumstances of living in SC where they only make mustard-based bbq, it was a pretty good substitute. We ate it with corn on the cob and some corn bread. I’m not good at making cornbread, so I can’t write anything good about it. At least it was edible. I am looking forward to having the leftover bbq on a hamburger bun with some coleslaw tomorrow for lunch. Thanks Amy!

This recipe caught my eye because it was labeled as a quick and easy dish. I am always suspicious about quick and easy dishes, and even more so of quick and easy dishes that do not have a lot of ingredients. I am always concerned that it will be boring and bland. However, this dish was not boring or bland at all. It was quick, easy, and the ingredients were kept at a minimum. The hardest part of this recipe was finding pre-prepared gnocchi. The original recipe calls for dried gnocchi, but all I could find was a frozen bag of gnocchi at Whole Foods. It worked just fine. Tommy and I gobbled this up pretty fast. I think that this will be inserted into our weekly pasta/risotto rotation (usually we eat pasta with sauce or risotto at least once a week).

I am also beginning to like peas more and more in foods. I think that I still do not like the idea of eating peas by themselves, but they tasted great in this dish with everything else. My favorite part was the hint of lemon that seemed to be present in every bite.

Creamy Lemon Gnocchi

Ingredients
1 cup frozen baby peas
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon dried hot red-pepper flakes
1 garlic clove, smashed
Pinch of salt
3 cups packed baby spinach
Zest of one lemon
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 pound gnocchi, frozen or dried
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Preparation
Simmer peas with cream, red-pepper flakes, garlic, and salt in a pan, covered, for 5 minutes. Add spinach and cook over medium-low heat, uncovered, stirring, until wilted. Remove from heat and stir in lemon zest and juice.

Meanwhile, cook gnocchi in a pot of boiling salted water (follow directions on package). Drain gnocchi and add to the cream and pea mixture. Add the cheese and stir to coat. Plate and eat.