Category Archives: Recipes
Roast Chicken In Green Chile Sauce
This was a beer can style roast chicken that has been kicked up with a can of green enchilada sauce. This one was made with green chilies and tomatillos.
Tidbits
Meatballs! I followed this recipe, mostly. Quantities in the recipe were for 1 lb. of meat – I went with 1 lb. of ground beef and 1 lb. of Italian sausage and scaled the amounts accordingly. I’ve no idea what locatelli cheese is so these were made with Parmesan.
They were browned in the toaster oven before going into the sauce.
I like then over spaghetti with more grated Parmesan and ribbons of basil. I may do some meatball subs today with the rolls I baked the other day:
I had planned to smoke a pork shoulder but when the big chunk of meat was thawed it turned out to be beef. I resorted to the crockpot and made a batch of Italian beef. My recipe is to slice a bunch of onions, mince a lot of garlic, add beef or chicken broth, red wine, bay leaves, dried basil and oregano, more granulated garlic and onion, and salt and ground black pepper. Open a jar of pepperoncini and dump them all in – with the juice. Some red pepper flakes work well but are optional. Put all of that stuff in with the beef and give it 8 hours or so on high. Proper Chicago style Italian beef is made with thin sliced beef but I don’t do it that way because I don’t keep a deli slicer out on the counter. Mine is more like pulled pork:
Here’s a quick lunch we had the other day before I baked the rolls, the little buns are a par-baked item Kroger carries, just pop them into the toaster oven for a few minutes and they made credible slider buns.
Here we go with a full sized sammich. I like them dipped but if you dip the whole sammich it becomes a race to finish it before it falls apart. A little bowl of juice on the side overcomes that problem.
Lest you think it’s all meat and carbs around here, Mrs J cuts up a sweet yellow watermelon.
Summer Menus: July Week Three
JeffreyW’s yummy zucchini and summer squash
A little delayed this weekend. No real excuse, except life, as usual, was a little hectic. Today I went for my first ride in at least a year. Had to test out my bike after the crew that was here to replace my furnace and add energy upgrades, also fixed my bike. Loved those guys.
When I got home, I was startled to find a hawk sitting peacefully in my driveway, awaiting my return. I believe he was a young Cooper’s hawk.
For this week, we are raiding the garden – Zucchini and Summer Squash Saute featured along with a Family BLT on Monday.
One of JeffreyW’s many BLT photos. Now I’m hungry.
You can find all the menus and recipes here: July Menus Week Three
At least someone has fresh tomatoes…mine are a long way from JeffreyW’s crop.
Click here for the PDF of the shopping lists, July Week Three Shopping List. Reminder that they are color-coordinated and you can easily cross out ingredients you won’t be using.
Technically this is my BBQ pulled pork sandwich, but you get the idea.
Friday’s menu features Slowcooker Shredded BBQ Chicken Sandwiches, perfect for those hot mid-summer days when you don’t even want to fire up the grill.
I’ll be out of town next weekend, so next’s recipes could be delayed. I’m a little nervous – first time with the new pet sitter. She seems great and has had Great Danes herself. But I never know if Bixby is going to be a big lovebug or decide to throw his weight around. And fingers crossed Bailey doesn’t decide to eat any more furniture. Crazy dogs.
Sticky Wings
These were a result of two recipes, Alton Brown’s Buffalo Wings for his two step cooking method, and Krista’s Honey Garlic wing recipe for the sauce. The dumplings are from frozen and were steamed.
I steamed the wings in two batches, about ten minutes each, because the basket was small. The steamed wings were allowed to drain and cool on paper towels before baking on parchment paper at 375 until browned, about 40 minutes more. Flip the wings over halfway through.
Switching the paper for foil, the wings were dipped in the honey garlic sauce and baked until the sauce got bubbly, and then were re-dipped and baked again. Two thumbs up!
Taco Pr0n
Bog standard chicken taco, the only thing of note is the color in the tortillas. 
I mixed about a tablespoon of this annatto sauce with the masa, it gave the tortillas an orange/reddish cast. It may have added some flavor but there was so much else going on I couldn’t say for sure. I put some in the last chili I made, it added a note of something different but I’m not sure how to describe it. I’m just happy with the added color.
Tidbits
Pastrami hash has to be right up there with the all time great breakfast anytime dishes. 
I like my hash with eggs on top and a grind of a dry pepper mix.
Chicken pot pie is in the running with the hash. I prefer whichever one I’m eating at the time.
These pan biscuits are my goto for pot pies these days, I make a half or third sized batch else the crust is too thick. You’ll be asking “where’s the chicken” if you use the full recipe in this size pan. I make it in the same pan, just take it out, pour the chicken and veggie filling, replace the biscuit, and bake at a lower temp than you would ordinarily to keep from burning the top. You could cut the biscuit and piece it on if you think about it, or, if you break it getting it out of the pan the first time you could break it on up and say you meant to do it that way.
Break for cats and dogs. Homer gets along with dogs just fine, it’s other cats he has trouble with.
I have these pickled red onions I need to use up and these hot dogs seemed a great place. There’s raw onion, jalapeno, sweet relish, and mustard on there, too. Somewhere I heard that Utz potato chips were the world’s finest. I found some at Amazon. 
It seemed a decent price per ounce in the case lot. I’ve been giving bags of them away to UPS drivers and the postman. I don’t know if they are the world’s best but they are very good.
You would think that these tacos were full: Chicken, pico, queso fresco, refried beans…
..there’s always room for pickled red onions!
Summer Menus: July Week Two
JeffreyW is the pizza king.
I’ve been busy in the yard today, so this will be short and sweet. For the menus, click here: July Week Two Menus
Tuesday features Adobo Sirloin and Garlic Roasted potatoes.
JeffreyW grills up some garlic potato wedges and steak.
Wednesday serves up a sweet Oatmeal Apple Cookie, along with an easy Tuna Macaroni Salad.
And Friday offers up two quick pizza dough recipes for a family night of Fresh Pizza built with your favorite toppings.
Shopping list is here: July Week Two Shopping List and remember it’s color coordinated so you can easily skip ingredients from the recipes you’re not using.
As always, you can substitute ingredients to suit your own tastes – skip the tuna in the macaroni salad and add a variety of fresh garden vegetables for a quick and easy vegetarian dinner. Choose your favorite cut of steak or bone-in chicken instead of boneless breasts and substitute favorite vegetables for any of the suggested ones.
And finally, a bonus recipe, since peaches are starting to show up at the local farm stands:
Spicy Peach Dressing
- 2 large peaches, peeled, pitted and quartered
- 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 jalapeño or other hot pepper, halved and seeded
- 1/2 cup olive oil
Purée all of the ingredients, except oil, in a blender or food processor until smooth. Continue to blend, on low, while adding oil slowly. Mix until well blended. Refrigerate.
Spinach Chicken Salad
- 3 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
- 1/2 small sweet yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 1 lb cleaned baby spinach leaves
- 1 cup chopped, toasted walnuts
- 1 peach, peeled, pitted and thinly sliced
- 3 ounces crumbled bleu cheese or chevre
Place the chicken in a plastic zipper bag with ½ cup of dressing. Marinate 2 hours in refrigerator. Remove chicken, discard marinade and grill until cooked through (170 degrees at center).
Toss the spinach, onion, walnuts and cheese with the remaining 3/4 cup dressing. Slice the grilled chicken and arrange on top of the salad.
Serving: 4 to 6
Enjoy! – TaMara
Pennsylvania Dutch Potato Salad
This is my new all time favoite potato salad of the month!
Thanks to Balloon Juice commenter NotMax for the tip and a recipe. I went with another recipe for purely logistical reasons: The Paprika app can strip recipes from a page where there is only one recipe but it struggles with comment sections. We like Paprika, it’s an android app we put on tablets because the larger screen puts the ingredients and directions on the same screen. Here’s a screenshot of the recipe page for this potato salad, the tablet is a Galaxy Tab S2 9.7″:
The app works on phones, too, but you have to swipe and scroll to get the same info. There is a windows desktop app but they want more money for that then we want to spend for very little added utility.
NotMax’s recipe says to refrigerate for at least an hour so I presume the salad is good cold. We opted to reheat it for this tasty lunch.
Sous Vide Ribs
I almost waited too long to put the ribs into the water bath. I was thinking the morning of the 4th would be good for the holiday dinner. The slab was cut into two pieces, rubbed with seasonings, and sealed in vacuum bags well in advance. Then I looked at the recipe over at the Food Lab site the day before: “TOTAL TIME:16 to 50 hours”! I set the bath up and started it up around 2PM on the 3rd with the temp at 155 degrees.
They spent the night at 155, then I boosted the temp to 165 the morning of the 4th. Around 11Am they came out and were placed in an ice water bath to cool. Here they are after blotting with paper towels.
And after brushing with BBQ sauce while the oven was heating to 400. The one on the right was wanting to break in two, all they needed was reheating to seal on the sauce.
The ribs were as tender as any we’ve ever had, the bones sipped out of the slabs cleanly. Two thumbs up!
Got bone?
Happy Independence Day!
I’ll be doing the usual. Watching 1776 right now (and working…just been that kind of few weeks).
Hope you enjoy your day!
