Wine Braised Beef with Onions

Growing up I loved having pot roast, it was one of those things you would look forward to having on a sunday evening. Chris bought a Le Cresuet pan the other day and we have been waiting to make a slow cooked meal in it. I love the pan, it is so great, especially the orange color.

Recipe

3 onions
2 shallots
1 (2.5) pound beef chuck roast
1 tablespoon pot roast
1 bay leaf
1/2 bottle of red wine- I say don't cook with it if you wouldn't drink it.
12 small potatoes- cut into pieces
4 carrots- peeled and cut in pieces

First you need to cut up the onions and shallots, which could bring out a few tears. I have heard that running the knife under water can help, but I always seem to shed a few tears. Cut them into about 1/2 inch slices, keep them sort of big. Because they will shrink and dissolve in the cooking process.
Now you want to pat dry the beef and season all over with ground pepper and salt. Heat the oil in your pan until in shimmers. Place the beef into the pan, hot oil may splash up, so be careful. Cook the beef for about 8 minutes on each side. Then you can take it out and set aside on a plate.
Place the onions, shallots and bay leaf into the pan. You can add a little more oil if you feel that you need it. Cook this for about 25 minutes, you will want to scrape up all the little bits from the bottom of the pan, so that the onions get nice and coated.

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the middle. Add the wine to the onions as well as the beef and any juices that are left on the plate. Bring this to a boil. Then put the top on the pan and place in the oven for about 3 hours. After 3 hours, take the pan out of the oven and throw in the carotts and potatoes. This way they won't be over cooked, place the pan back in the oven for about 30 minutes.

Then take it out and you are ready to serve. Scoop out some beef and top it with onions and carrots and a little juice from the bottom of the pan. I know this recipe has a lot of cooking time, but it is well worth it and your house will smell so good.

Fish Tacos & Baja Sauce

Fish tacos are one of our favorites. They are so light, delicious and bursting with flavor. They are really simple to make and it is fun to change up the normal taco routine. It's also great to make up some margaritas to drink along side, soon we will post our fav margarita recipe.

Fish Tacos

1 pound firm white fish, cut up into 1/2 inch pieces - we used catfish this time
1 12 ounce bottle beer - something light (a pilsener would work well)
1 tablespoon taco seasoning
vegetable oil
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup corn meal
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup beer - same type as above
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
fresh corn tortillas- you can heat them up on your stove top
1 lime
1 cup cheese - monterey jack, or whatever you have on hand.
3 cups shredded cabbage
1/2 red onion cut into thin slices

Combine the fish, taco seasoning and beer in a bowl. Stir well and refrigerate for about an hour. If you have more time then even better.


After the fish has chilled, it is time to make the batter for the fish. First combine the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder. Then add in 1 cup of beer and the hot sauce.

Now, take the fish out of the marinade and put into the batter. Make sure that all of the fish gets coated.

Heat up the oil in a pan. You will want about 1 1/2 inches of oil in the pan. Make sure it gets nice and hot....please be careful around hot oil.

Cook the fish in batches, cook it for about 4 minutes at a time. When it is done, place it on paper towels to let it drain.


Heat up your tortillas and then place about 2-3 pieces of fish on each taco, squeeze lime over the fish and top with cheese, cabbage, red onion and then baja sauce (the recipe is below).

Baja Sauce
1/2 cup yogurt- or you can use sour cream
1/2 cup mayo
1 tablespoon taco seasoning
1 small jalapeno seeded and diced
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Combine the yogurt, mayo and seasoning. Stir well and then add in everything else.
Refrigerate until you are ready to use.

Sausage Rolls

Ok, so these things are delicious! Whenever I have a party, people insist that I make them. One time, my friend Margo called to say she was running late, but wanted me to make sure that I saved a few rolls for her. The recipe comes from my sister in-law's mother Peggy. Peggy made these at a christmas party a few years back and I think I ate the entire plate. If you need a quick little something for your guests to nibble on then this is it!

1 sage sausage roll- jimmy dean works fine.
1 white onion- chopped fine
1 8 ounce block of cream cheese
a pinch of thyme- if you have it.
2 packages of crescent rolls

First, brown the sausage with the onion. Once it is cooked through, drain the grease. Now, pour the meat mixture into a bowl. Then add the cream cheese. Stir until everything is incorporated.


When it is all mixed up, place it in the fridge to firm it up. While it is in the refrigerator you can get out the crescent rolls.

Unroll them and then cut them in half, so the sausage rolls are a small little bite. Just cut each triangle into 2 smaller triangles. Now it is time to stuff them. Put a small dollop of mixture into each roll, then fold up the corners.


Once you have stuffed them all, you can either bake them right away, put them in the fridge until your guests come over, or freeze them and use another day. There is usually a little extra meat mixture left over, which you can freeze as well. To cook, pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees and bake them for about 10-15 minutes on the center rack.

I guarantee if you serve these at your next party, you won't have any leftovers.

Pork & Potato Salad

The weather is finally starting to change in Chicago, which means it is grilling time. We love to pull out the grill and cook up some delicious grub. Chris has a small suitcase grill, that we carry up to the roof top when we want to grill. It works really well. It is from Crate and Barrel, I looked on the site but they don't seem to sell them anymore. Any grill will work just fine. Last Sunday, we decided to make pork with potato salad and a side of asparagus. It was so delicious and it was nice to sit outside and eat our meal.

Marinated pork

4 boneless pork chops
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup chopped scallions

a few hours before you are going to grill, combine the maple syrup, soy, molasses and scallions. Mix it up really good and then drop the pork chops into the mixture and coat everything really well. Now you want to place the bowl in the refrigerator for at least a few hours and up to overnight.



When they are done being marinated, place on a hot grill and cook about 4 minutes a side, depending on how hot your grill is. Most pork will be pink in the middle, so don't be scared. You can always use a meat thermometer

Let them rest, and then you are ready to eat.

Now onto the side dish

Dill Potato Salad

This potato salad is slightly tangy and light.

8 smallish potatoes red or yukon gold- we actually used Klondike Goldust.
1 cup yogurt- of course we used our homemade yogurt, see below for instructions.
1 small onion chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
1 lemon squeezed


Boil the potatoes for about 10 minutes or until tender with a fork. While you are boiling them combine the yogurt, dill and lemon. You can put this in the fridge while you are waiting for the potatoes.

Let the potatoes cool before you cut them. Then you can either slice them or cut them more into cubes, whatever you prefer. Then toss them into the yogurt mixture and you have potato salad.

To add the asparagus to the dish, we just tossed them with some olive oil and salt & pepper. When we put the pork on the grill, we just tossed them on there. Make sure to rotate them a little and they will most likely cook faster than the pork.

Just add a beer and you have a delicious summer meal!

Olive Bread

We have dabbled in bread making a little. Once, we made the NY Times "no knead bread" but it came out tasting sort of yeasty or something. A co-worker of Sarah's told her he made olive bread. We had recently purchased a delicious baguette of olive bread from the store, so we thought, sure, why not try and make our own. It seems we are up to the challenge to see what we can make for ourselves. We like to bring sandwiches to work for lunch. If we can master a good bread, that would be very helpful. We were a little nervous about making olive bread. We used all of these really delicious olives. What if it didn't turn out right? We were pleasantly surprised that it turned out great.

Recipe

4 cups flour - We used Ceresota flour this time, it is very soft.
1 packet yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup olives - Measure and then chop, but you can really put in as many as you like.
1 1/4 cups luke-warm water
2 tablespoons olive oil

Mix the flour, yeast and salt together in a bowl.


Now, add in the chopped olives, warm water and olive oil. We didn't use a mixer, but some recipes call for a mixer. We got down and dirty and used our hands. We mixed it up and worked it into a ball. You can knead it in the bowl, just work it around until it forms a ball. Whenever we make bread, it doesn't look perfect, so don't get nervous. Once you have it formed into a ball, pour a little olive oil into the bowl and roll the ball around in it. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for about 30 minutes. It should double in size.

You can decide if you want to make baguettes or just a round loaf. We wanted to make baguettes, but they turned out a little more like small loafs, which worked out great. Once you shape it how you want. Let it sit for another 30 minutes, it will double again in size.

Here comes a little bit of the tricky part. You want to heat your oven to 400 degrees. While it is heating up, place a pan with sides on the bottom rack. Once the oven is heated you will put the bread on the middle rack and then right before you shut the oven door, you will pour 2 cups of water into the pan on the bottom rack. This creates steam for the bread to cook in.

Bake for about 30 minutes. When we took it out it seemed really hard, but it softened as it cooled.

Bread making really isn't that hard, and it makes for a great sandwich. Check out the salami, turkey, lettuce, cheese and mustard sandwich we had for lunch on Sunday. Delicious!

Homemade Yogurt

We have been talking about making our own yogurt for months. We were especially intrigued by the Greek style yogurts that started popping up at all of the big grocery stores. When the Greek style was first introduced at our local store there were regular two for one sales for a time. We haven't seen a sale in while and can't get over the high prices. Just yesterday we saw a quart of yogurt for $6.99. At that point, we decided to buy a gallon of milk and see how hard it was to make ourselves. For our first batch we decided to make a plain non fat yogurt with organic milk. Fortunately, the NY Times had recently written about making yogurt. We will experiment in the future with different styles. Making yogurt is incredibly easy. So, save a little yogurt from your last store bought batch and let's get started!

Recipe

1 Liter Organic No Fat Milk
2 Tablespoons yogurt with live culture

Equipment

1 Large Stock Pot

1 Sauce Pan

1 1 Liter French Terrine

2 Bath Towels

1 Dial Thermometer that measures up to 200 F.

Tongs- these are a handy cooking utensil

We had the terrine in the cupboard waiting to be used for something just like this. It worked great because it is glass and it has a secure flip top lid it and could be sterilized easily.

Measure the amount of milk needed by pouring milk into the terrine and leave about ½” of space at the top. Pour the milk from the terrine into your sauce pan.

Place your terrine on its side in your stockpot and fill the stock pot with water. You can now place your stockpot on the stove and start heating over medium high heat to sterilize the terrine. Bring to a boil and cook the water for about ten minutes to sterilize.


During this time you can start warming the milk over low to medium heat. You want to keep an eye on the temperature of the milk. Place your thermometer in the milk and when the milk gets to 180 – 185 degrees take it off the heat. You could use a double boiler if you have one to keep the milk from scalding. We didn’t have one and so we kept a good eye on it.



Carefully remove the terrine from the hot water, drain, and place it right side up on your work area. You are now ready to pour the hot milk into the terrine.

Again, carefully pour the hot milk into the terrine and place your thermometer into the milk. You want to let the milk cool down to about 115 – 120 degrees.


Allowing the milk to cool takes a while – be patient. We don’t want to shock the glass with cold water which could cause it to break. Find something to do for a bit while the milk cools. You can check the temperature every ten minutes or so.


Once the milk is at the desired temperature you can add two tablespoons of starter yogurt to get your new batch going.

Close the lid on the terrine and give it a good shake to mix the starter yogurt in with the milk.

Now, get your bath towels out and swaddle that terrine up like a baby. Unlike a baby – cover it completely. This is to contain the heat. Place your baby yogurt someplace where it won’t be disturbed. Let it sit for anywhere from 4 – 18 hours or possibly longer.

The longer you let it sit the thicker and more tart it will become. We let ours sit for about twelve hours. We opened up the towels after five hours, took a peek and wrapped it back up to let it sit over night as it didn’t look quite thick enough. The quality of the live cultures in the starter probably has a lot to do with the amount of time needed to turn the milk into yogurt.

When we woke up the next morning we checked the yogurt again – it looked much thicker. It was exciting to see that the process appeared to be working. We opened up the terrine and gave a good sniff – it smelled like yogurt! We closed the terrine and put it in the refrigerator to let it cool down completely.

As we had recently made two more batches of granola after going through our first batch in less than a week - we were ready to try our fresh yogurt with our fresh granola. We put some granola in a bowl, spooned some of the fresh yogurt on top, added fresh strawberries and dug in.

The yogurt was light and slightly tart. It was a success and we know everything that is in it...no sugars, syrups and artificial whatever.

Sesame Chicken

Who doesn't love sesame chicken? The picture above doesn't have sesame seeds in it.... we forgot to take a pic. We must have been super hungry! Actually, when we made this, we forgot to start the rice maker. So, we didn't even eat it with rice. It was still so delicious. We have tried a few recipes for sesame chicken. We even tried one made with pomegranate juice. With this recipe we wanted to cut down on the sugar and changed up the batter that the chicken was marinated in.

Recipe

2 lbs or 4 pcs boneless chicken thigh, or you can use breasts
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
a dash of ground pepper
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon olive oil

For the sauce
3 cloves garlic- minced
1 teaspoon sugar- some recipes that call for 3 tablespoons, which is way too much
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon group ginger powder or try chopping some fresh ginger
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon corn starch dissolved in 1 teaspoon water

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds.

1 cup rice - cook this how you would normally cook white rice- we use a rice cooker, which makes really good fast rice.

In a small bowl beat the eggs and then add in the flour, salt, ground pepper, baking powder and olive oil. Stir and mix well. Cut the chicken into large pieces (1-2 inches long). You can now add the chicken to the marinade. Stir to coat the chicken and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

After the chicken has marinated, you will want to heat up a pan with enough oil to fry the chicken. Make sure the oil gets nice and hot (medium high heat).

Take the pieces of chicken out of the marinade and coat them in flour. Once the chicken is well coated in flour you can drop them into the hot oil. Cook for about 4 minutes. Drain them on paper towels to get rid of excess oil. You can now set the chicken aside.

In a saucepan cook up the garlic with a little oil, just until it becomes fragrant. add in the sugar, cider vinergar, ginger, hoisin sauce, soy sauce and chicken stock. Cook this for about 2-3 minutes. Now you can add in the dissolved corn starch. This will make the sauce nice and thick.


Stir well to and you can now add the chicken to the sauce. Toss the chicken until coated with sauce and lastly add in your sesame seeds! This dish was so delicious, I think Chris had about 3 servings...so no left overs:(