VACATION!!!

The cook crook is on vacation! Already spent day 1 enjoying an authentic and tasty meatball grinder...hoping for more culinary deliciousness, maybe do some cooking for my husbands family and just enjoy not being at my day job!


Happy Independence Day and see you on the other side of the holiday!

Steal of the Week: Meatball Lasagna (Neapoliton Style!)

Remember how I made French Toast for Father's Day? I also made a special dinner for dear hubby that night. He loves Italian food and I recently received a free copy of a Sorrento Cheese mini-cookbook of different lasagna recipes. (Thanks to A Frugal Chick for the original link to get the cookbook!) I asked him to pick a recipe and he went straight for the Meatball Lasagna (Neapoliton Style). So I went to work!

The recipe in the book calls for 4 cups of  basic tomato sauce and it provides the recipe:

2 cups sweet onion, chopped fine
4 cloves of garlic minced
1 medium carrot, chopped fine
3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
28 oz. of crushed tomatoes
10 basil leaves, thinly sliced



I used my food processor to finely chop the carrot, garlic and onion. These were then sweated in the olive oil on low heat until sweet and very tender, about 30 minutes.

Next step was to add the tomatoes, raise heat to medium, bring to a simmer and cook for additional 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, add basil and remove from heat. Voila!

Now the recipe for the lasagna also calls for you to make your own meatballs! But they are easy and delicious and I think I will make again to use in something else! In fact, as a joke I made my husband his own little "amuse bouche" of one meatball, a dollop of the tomato sauce and a basil leaf! By the way, the basil was from my still thriving herb garden. Yep, I'm proud.

The building part of lasagna has always been my challenge. Dealing with those cooked noodles can be a pain, but this time now only did I use non-stick tongs, I did not make the mistake of draining the noodles and setting them aside to stick to one another as I have in the past! This is after the first layer:

And I know what you are thinking! The recipe was not a misprint...it actually calls for sliced hard-boiled eggs! Now before topping with cheese:

The other thing the recipe mentions is after topping with the cheese (I used 2% mozzarella by the way), to top the lasagna with parchment and then aluminium foil. Somehow I was out of parchment but knowing I needed something to prevent the cheese from sticking to the foil, I lightly sprayed it with Olive Oil Pam! This is what it looked like out of the oven:

Umm, yeah...I think I drooled a bit when I pulled it out. Actually I think I sang a song about how awesome I was! The final plate was amazing and it was loved most importantly by the Daddy and of course by the kids. It also made the "special for company" list so if I ever invite you over for dinner make sure you give me FOUR hours notice if you want it!

Viva la French Toast

I love ALL holidays…even the so-called Hallmark made up ones, and most of that love comes from how much I enjoy making food for special occasions. Well, for this past Father’s Day I decided not only would I make my husband the dinner of his choice (the Neapolitan style meatball lasagna you’ll see soon in another post) but start off the morning with a special breakfast. Since one of his favorite foods is French Toast, I set out to make the most delicious one I could.

I think most everyone has made French Toast once or at least knows the basic components: egg, milk, bread and optional flavors like cinnamon and/or nutmeg or other flavors. What I have found with French Toast is that while leftover, stale bread is the basic requirement, a QUALITY stale bread makes the best. This time around I had sliced sourdough in the house from the bakery in our local grocery store. We keep out bread in the refrigerator (I know, I think that is minus 1 million culinary cool points) so the first step was to make the bread French Toast ready.

I put out the slices on a baking rack and put them into a 375 degree oven. This dries out the bread and gives it the consistency of a stale bread. Naturally you can use this same method with whatever bread you choose to use. It only takes about 10 minutes and while the bread cools you can prepare your dipping mixture.

I will reveal my secret to delicious French toast: half and half. I have yet to make a French toast mixture that turns out better than one with half and half. For every ¼ cup of liquid I use, I also use 1 egg, and the rule of thumb is usually 1 egg per person and per 4 slices of bread. I add about 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1 tablespoon of vanilla and whisk it all together.

At this point, there are varying opinions of how long you soak the bread. My method is to dredge the bread through the liquid on both sides and then submerge the bread in the liquid, allowing to soak for about a 1 minute. Frankly, I think the time soaked is a personal preference….the longer you soak, the more liquid seeps into the bread and makes it soft in the middle. It also depends on the bread you are using too. I have seen recipes that use challah bread or French bread so make a determination based on the texture of the bread and your desire for the consistency of the finished product.

Another tip, use unsalted butter to cook the battered bread in. I have tried non-stick cooking spray and the flavor and color is not the same. On my griddle pan I used about ½ a stick and it was enough to do my entire batch. 

Also, keep your oven on 250 degrees and keep the finished French toast warm until you are done cooking all of the bread. Remember you are looking for a good brown color on both sides, so be patient in letting the bread cook and try only to flip once.

For the finish, I dust with powdered sugar and serve with warmed syrup on the side.

According to my step-daughter, I should make these EVERY morning. Nice try kid, how about once a month?

Pork 2 Days!

If you follow me on Twitter, you saw a flurry of activity when I arrived home one day and found a box on my porch. Since I had not recently ordered anything, I was especially curious. I opened it to find this:

My obsession with all things Top Chef paid off (even this piece's title is an homage to Top Chefness and the "Protein" 2 ways!) and I had been selected in a sweepstakes I had entered to win all the stuff I needed to throw my own Top Chef Masters finale party. Sponsored by PFChangs at Home Meals, there was clearly an Asian theme so I invited some girlfriends over for some food and fun.

Now as luck would have it, I had already planned on making crock pot pork on Monday as I had purchased some pork roasts at the beginning of the month when they were on sale. So having leftovers to make my fried rice were a definite! The Wednesday of the finale was a cook only for me night since hubby would be out on volunteer Rescue Squad duty so the stars were aligned to create both meals!

For the pork, I had been wanting to use the Trader Joes Sweet Chili Sauce in a recipe, and I thought it might work really well in the crock pot. I sliced an onion and put it in the bottom of my slow cooker. To it I added my 2.5 pound pork roast and 1 cup of warm water that had been mixed with 2 tablespoons of chili sauce, 2 tablespoons of ketchup, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, salt, pepper and garlic salt (probably about 1 tablespoon) This is what it looked like when done:

And when put in a pretty serving dish.

 I decided to serve with hot buttered egg noodles (the ONLY noodle we ever use is No Yolks!)

 A huge hit!

The next night, was the fried rice night. Here is my prep:

 And then the various stages of fried rice:

It turned out delicious

 and we had a great time!






Another example of planning two meals with one original dish!

Competition!

I had a blast competing in the Cooking with Passion, Top Home Chef of Hampton Roads Competition! Here's me, my fabulous sous-chef Ingrid is on the left and my competitor Joe and his sous. 

 Ingrid and I in the "heat" of battle!

It was an awesome day and I look forward to when the first episode airs! In the meantime, I got more cooking to do just for my family and this blog!!

Links to Love: Get in the Kitchen!

One of the best thing about blogging is the opportunity to connect with people I would never talk to, know about or meet if I didn't have an online presence. I decided months ago to start using Twitter a lot more and link it to what I am trying to share here with this page. It has been a lot of fun following and being followed by foodies and recipe enthusiasts and I am continuously amazed at the number of great recipes, tips and food sites I get to know about simply by having the twitter account.

So, when I got a mention by @GetIntheKitchen who specifically commented on the importance of a site like mine that encourages you to cook, I of course checked out there website. What an awesome surprise that Get in the Kitchen was an irreverent, hysterical and yummy sounding collection of recipes and kitchen ideas! I can't wait to order the books and see what they have in store!

Steal of the Week: Crock-Pot Pepperoncini Beef

Remember crock-pot cooking is not just for the winter and in a lot of ways, cooking in a slow-cooker during the warm months minimizes use of the oven and prevents the "wow it's hot in the house why don't we order out" reaction.

One of my new favorites is something I stumbled upon in my daily blog/Twitter reading. Someone tweeted about a very easy and delicious spicy beef recipe that created yummy meat for sandwiches. The claim was that all it took was a big piece of chuck roast and one 16oz jar of pepperoncinis. Since that person didn't cite a source or provide a link, to AllRecipes.com I went and found this recipe for Pepperoncini Beef.

Can I just say how easy this was? I mean really, a package of meat, a jar of pepperocinis and some garlic? This is what it looked like after I shredded it up in preparation to make the sandwiches.

Next I decided to put the sandwiches under the broiler to melt the cheese and nicely toast the buns. I decided on provolone while hubby went with American.

In the end it makes a very flavorful and very juicy sandwich. I see no reason why you couldn't add more spice, add onions or other things. But again, for a meal you don't have to think about all day....what a tasty easy result!

PS. Then I found this recipe for Drip Beef on one of my new favorite sites, ThePioneerWoman.com LOVE, LOVE and can't wait to try!!

Link to Love: Freezer Cooking 101 Courtesy of Money Saving Mom

I am such a huge fan of cooking ahead of time to save time AND money. One of my favorite money saving blogs http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ has an entire section devoted to freezer cooking which I finally took the time to review. Her Freezer Cooking 101 is a step-by-step of how to plan, prep and prepare meals for the freezer.

I am so excited for my first freezer cooking day (which I hope to have this motnh) and of course to share the results with you!

Thanks again moneysavingmom.com!

Steal of the Week: Quick and Easy (And tasty!) Alfredo Sauce

Inspiration can come from the strangest places. I was sitting in the courthouse for jury duty..yep, Jury Duty-the reason your Cook Crook has been so quiet lately! Combine an ENTIRE WEEK of jury duty with a holiday weekend that included a party I threw for my husband’s 40th birthday and returning to work after said time off and the result is absolutely no blogging, and frankly very little cooking! But, I did stumble across a little reader submitted recipe idea in a woman’s magazine (and if I could tell you which one I would) that mentioned creating a quick alfredo sauce from cream cheese, milk and parmesan! When I got home, and couldn’t remember the magazine I saw it in (and was scared to rip out said page from the magazine WHILE IN A COURTHOUSE) I decided to go to my very trusty online recipe reference: AllRecipes.com

And there it was, Quick and Easy Alfredo Sauce a very easy I-have-every-ingredient-in-my-house-already recipe. The changes I made were to use the Neufchatel cheese, skim milk and light butter. 

The question was what to go with it?

I started with my new favorite prepared meat: Al Fresco sausage. These chicken sausages are so delicious and come in some great flavors. I had a package of the spinach and feta sausages on hand! And my herbs are doing grand so I picked some fresh Italian basil and parsley and made a little herb blend.

I sliced the sausages and added them to a cooked bag of another favorite Wacky Mac pasta! 

Tossed with the finished alfredo sauce and sprinkled with the fresh herbs, a delicious meal!

This is going on my list of company meals. It makes a ton, it's delicious and I don't believe anyone would ever know how lighter on calories it really was. This sauce recipe is a keeper for sure!