Caesar Salad

 

1 head romaine lettuce

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp kosher salt

1 egg, boiled one minute

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

5-8 grinds fresh black pepper

 

Wash and tear your lettuce.  Place in your large salad bowl.

Get some water boiling for your egg.

In a smaller bowl add your vinegar and oil.  Whisk to an emulsion.  Add in the worcestershire sauce and whisk again.  You want it to come together all thick and creamy, something like this:

Experienced soapers will see ‘trace’ going on here.  See it?  The pattern on top?  Same thing going on here, the vinegar and oil coming together to make an emulsion.

Your water is probably boiling now.  Carefully put in your egg.  Set your timer.  You are going to boil this for ONE minute.  Yep.  That’s it. ONE minute.  Then remove to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking.

Now go ahead and add the garlic and salt to your emulsion and give it another stir.

Your egg will be ready any moment now.  Once you’ve placed it in the cold water for another minute or so, break it into your emulsion and whisk briskly, bringing to emulsion again.

Pour this over your prepared lettuce and give it a good toss.  Hey, if you have some big crunchy croutons to add in there, go right ahead. Yum!  Sprinkle in your parmesan, grind in some pepper and give another toss.  I like to sprinkle on just a wee more cheese and a few grinds of pepper to the top just before serving.

I hope this recipe works for you. I’m still tweaking it but we have enjoyed every attempt and I’ve had some requests so I figured I’d just go ahead and post.

Update

I updated the Crunchy ‘nola Bits recipe.

Lemony Garlic Chicken

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup real butter

6 oz can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

3lbs chicken (whatever you like, boneless/skinless breasts, thighs…)

salt and pepper to taste

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1/2 cup cold water

First, saute your garlic in the butter until just golden.  Remove from heat. Then stir in the lemonade concentrate and set it aside.

Season your chicken with a bit of salt and pepper.  A pinch or two will suffice.

Then let the chicken just sit in that lemonade mixture for a while.  You could marinate overnight if you’d like, but even 15 minutes is good. We’re going to make a sauce so you’ll still get plenty of that wonderful lemony flavor.

Bake your chicken at 350*F for about 40 min. or so.  You know the drill, until juices run clear.  The time will depend on just what cut you’re cooking.  If you cut the boneless, skinless breasts in half (butterfly style, but all the way through) that helps a LOT.

When that’s nearly finished you can start mixing up the sauce.

Mix about a tablespoon of cornstarch into 1/2 COLD water.  Add that to your lemonade mixture.  Cook over medium – medium high heat until bubbly and thickened. 

Once chicken is cooked, remove to a serving platter and generously (and beautifully) drizzle with the warm, thickened, lemony sauce.

We find this recipe to be quite tasty with rice.

Enjoy!

Slow Roasted Sticky Chicken

 

I wanted that nice crispy, yet sticky skin with a moist, juicy meat.  I also wanted to try something a bit ‘different’, perhaps even unexpected in terms of spices used.  The following is what I came up with.  And my crew polished it off, so, I’m guessing that means I did alright.  Because I swear I did not starve them all day. LOL

Ingredients:

Whole roaster chicken, approx. 5#

1 medium onion

1/2 c brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1 tsp ground red pepper

1/2 tsp dry mustard

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

you can throw in a pinch of parsley too if you’d like..I’ve been throwing some of that in just about anything lately

The day before prepare your chicken.  Clean out your bird, you know the neck and whatever innerds.  Then stuff the cavity with the whole onion. No need to cut it at all.  Just peel it then stuff it in there.

Then mix all your spices and sugar in a small bowl.  Rub that all over the bird.  Easy huh? 

Now stuff that in a Ziploc bag.  That’s the fun part.  Kinda tricky to do without smearing all your spices off.  But, it’ll be ok.  You could always make a teeny bit extra ‘rub’ and save it to smear on the next day, to replace any you lost.  Not necessary, but hey, if you’re having a really hard time cleanly getting that bird in the bag..it’s a nice idea.

Close the bag.  Refrigerate overnight.  Heck, it can go another full day if you’d like.  But at least overnight.

 Now remember, this is a ’slow’ one, so allow the extra time.

Heat oven to 275* F.   Yes you read that right.  Low temp + long time = nice bird

Now I like to line a pan with foil, to help with clean up.  Then I place a wire cooling rack within and the bird sits atop that. 

Cook in 275* oven for about 4 hr.  Even better, find one of the birds with a little pop up timer.  A “dummy” bird I call it hehe

Do NOT cover.  Just let ‘er breathe.  It’s all good.

Play Dough

 

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups salt

2 tablespoons cream of tartar

1/4 tsp alum (optional)

3 cups water

3 tablespoons oil

food coloring, liquid

Mix dry ingredients in a large pot on the stove.

If you just want to make this batch all one color, you can add the coloring to the water and oil.  If you want separate colors..hold on..we’ll get there.  Just set the coloring aside for now.

Over medium heat, stir oil and water (and food coloring if doing all one color) into flour mixture.  Just keep stirring.  Mixing the best you can.  Mashing out lumps.  Just keep stirring, stirring, stirring…

The dough will reach a ‘thick mashed potatoes’ stage and pull away from the sides of the pan.  Niiiiice!  That’s just what you want.

Now, if you added the coloring in with the liquids, viola, you’re finished!  Just knead your dough a bit on a flat surface.  Careful, still a bit warm.  Maybe too much so for *small* hands.

If you wanted a variety of shades of dough…

Divide dough into however many portions you desire.  We got 6 nice sized portions from ours. 

On waxed paper, knead dough around a bit, get it nice and soft.  Then create a little ‘well’ in the center.  Doesn’t have to be huge, just a sizable indentation will work.  Drop in some coloring.  It’s best to work this a little at a time…unless you desire blue, green, pink, whatever hands.  Just about 2-4 drops at a time.  I told my boys to work it like bread. Folding the ends in on top of the ‘well’ and gently smooshing down.  Turn, repeat, that kind of thing.  Then if you need more color, simply repeat…make that little well, add a few drops and fold/knead some more.  Repeat for each dough ball in the color desired.

And there you go! 

Store in airtight container(s).

Note:

I should have researched this more thoroughly BEFOREhand, but, well, I didn’t. Anyway…I have discovered Alum and Cream of Tartar do the *same* thing in home made play dough.  Simply helps preserve it.  So, you can use the two interchangably.  Apparently, Alum *is* Cream of Tartar in Australia.

Anyway, you can completely omit the Alum from my recipe above.  You can completely substitute Alum for Cream of Tarter.  You can do mostly Alum with a hint of Cream of Tartar.  It does NOT matter.  Just put a couple tablespoons of one of ‘em in there and you’re good, k?

Chocolate Raspberry Dream Cake

Yes!!  Another chocolate cake.  And Yes!! This time with raspberries.
Hello?  Could it be more perfect?
It’s like my favorite candy bar.
Only, not crunchy.
Yum!

 

 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup unbleached flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
8 eggs, separated
1/3 cup olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup seedless, all-natural raspberry jam/fruit spread
Chocolate frosting from my Chocolate Madness recipe.

Preheat oven to 350* F and prepare 2 – 9″ cake pans and a few spots in your muffin tin.

Or, you can use 3 – 9″ cake pans.

Shown above is using only two. I decided I might be a nice mom and share, by way of a few cupcakes for the kids. :p

Now, this recipe is ‘process heavy’ as I call it, but, it’s REALLY good, I promise. Do you trust me? Are you willing to endure the pain of separate processes if it yields this fabulous result?
Ok, carry on then.

Directions:

In a medium bowl combine flour, 1/4 cup sugar, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder.

In a large bowl, beat together egg YOLKS, 1/2 cup sugar and oil. Mix until nice and thick. Then beat in vanilla.

Next, clean off your beaters.

In a medium bowl (glass or stainless steel, grease free, no plastic!) beat egg WHITES until foamy. Then gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar. About a tablespoon at a time will do. Beating at medium-high to high speed until stiff peaks form.

Now, sprinkle about one-third of your flour/cocoa mixture over the egg YOLK mixture. Top that with about one-third of your egg whites. Gently fold all that in until combined. Then repeat, 2 more times. Incorporating well, but gently, after each addition.

Divide your batter evenly among the three pans, if going that route. Or, just use the two and you’ll have about 6 cupcakes on the side.

Bake in your preheated 350* F oven for 15-18 minutes. Yep. That’s really all it takes.

Check with a toothpick. You know that drill.

Now here’s something a bit different.

Immediately loosen cake from the sides of pan. Gently run a knife around. Then invert the cake onto cooling racks to cool completely.

Now, while you’re waiting for your cake to cool you’ll be fixing the frosting from my Sinfulicious Ooey Gooey Chocolate Madness recipe.

Once cool, assemble.

Place one layer on your pretty serving plate (don’t forget your waxed paper scraps to keep things looking neat and tidy) then top that with your raspberry jam.

Note: if you’ve opted to do the 2 layer cake with a few cupcakes, 1/2 cup of jam is sufficient. However, if you’re doing the 3 layer option, 3/4 – 1 cup of jam is more ideal. Using half the amount on each middle layer. Ya with me?

Now on top of that luscious jam, smear some of that decadent chocolate frosting. Careful now, don’t knock the jam off!

Top with your second layer, then frost the whole thing in chocolate

OR

Top that second layer with the remaining half of your jam and again, carefully spread with frosting. Then top THAT with your third and final layer and frost all of it with chocolate frosting.

You can carefully remove your waxed paper scraps now.

And refrigerate.
I know, I know, it *sounds* like a lot of work. But it really isn’t THAT bad. It goes so quickly. Just bam, bam, bam and you have this luscious, dreamy cake in front of you!!

 

 

Mmmm, caaaake…

Update

I updated the Cashew(less) Chicken recipe.

You GOTTA try it with Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar in place of the red wine vinegar.  Oh man oh man oh man oh MAN!!

I like it even BETTER this way.