Beans and yucky cornbread

Sometimes the best laid plans go awry and today mine sure did! I put great northern beans in the slow cooker this morning with a little turkey ham, salt, pepper, garlic, and green onion. They turned out fine, though still slightly firmer than we like. The cornbread, though, was a disaster!

Generally I make cornbread from scratch but tonight I used a mix I've never tried before (someone gave it to us and I didn't want it to go to waste) and although I followed the directions, the resulting product was less than satisfactory. It was very thin and heavy, too sweet, and had a strong and unpleasant powdered milk flavor.





I thought that the flavor of the beans and turkey ham might overshadow it if the cornbread was broken up and put in the bowl of beans, but that didn't happen. Instead, the beans tasted like the yucky cornbread. So, my plan to have leftover cornbread to use in a later meal of chicken and cornbread dressing has to change a little.

We'll still have that meal tomorrow night but I'll get up early in the morning and make cornbread before it gets hot outside. The meal will still be good, I'm sure but I hate having to make another batch of cornbread for it. Oh well, at least I have everything to do it!

Cheese pancakes - a hit!

My other half had his normal eggs, toast, and meat breakfast but I usually don't eat until about 11 AM and even then I don't want breakfast food most of the time. This morning, though, I was hungry much earlier so I made Cheese Pancakes using a recipe from the Hillbilly Housewife site.



I did change the recipe a bit. First, I made half of what was called for since I wasn't sure if I'd like the result. Second, I didn't have mustard (gasp!!) so I just left that out and added some garlic salt to it since I like garlic in almost everything. And third, I only used one egg. Next time I'll try two but one was adequate.

I wasn't sure what to expect but the result was very good. I ate my pancake (my other half scarfed one up) with a small chopped tomato, cucumber, and green onion salad drizzled with lime juice, cumin, and pepper. I'll probably have this for breakfast now and then and I imagine I'll try it as a side, too, with some other dishes. Nope, it doesn't taste like a regular pancake but it doesn't taste like cheese, either.

Since eating the cheese pancake earlier I've had thoughts of ways to change it rolling in my head. I think it would be very good with chopped green onions in it and maybe with small bits of turkey ham or turkey bacon. I can see this dish being easily adapted to use whatever I have on hand.

This may become one of my "not sure what dinner is going to be, oh let me throw this together" standbys...

Avocado, Tomato, and Bacon Salad

This is one of my favorite summer salads. It's easy and quick to make, doesn't heat the kitchen, and doesn't call for any off the wall or hard to find ingredients.

I use turkey bacon in it and if I don't have that on hand, I use small chunks of turkey ham. This makes quite a bit of salad so you might want to make half this amount the first time.

2 avocados, chopped
4 tomatoes, chopped
2 small onions, cut into strips or chopped (I use a combination of red and green onions)
4 or 5 slices of turkey bacon, fried crisp and crumbled

Mix everything together and let chill thirty minutes to an hour before serving with your favorite dressings.

Now and then I cook a small amount of tri-colored vegetable pasta, drain it and add to the salad before adding the dressing. The pasta makes this salad go farther and also gives it a little ummph!

Slow cooker garlic chicken & I heart my slow cookers!

Have I mentioned how much I like slow cookers in the warmer months?

I really appreciate slow cookers and we have several. They all get used to some degree but the ones with a removable crock get the most attention. I like the convenience of them, yes. It doesn't get much better than throwing stuff in a pot, seasoning it, turning it on and walking away to come back to cooked food a few hours later. But really, a slow cooker is just a blessing in the summer time.

Just because it's hot doesn't mean we don't want roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions. And just because it's hot doesn't mean we don't yearn for something with a Tex-Mex flair. But I really don't want to turn on the oven for hours during these Texas summers, even when it's as mild as it has been this year. Slow cookers allow us to enjoy our favorite foods even when the temperatures soar and they allow us to do it relatively inexpensively. Not only can less expensive and tougher cuts of meat be made tender and tasty, the slow cooker doesn't heat the kitchen which is a real boon when it comes to our electric bill.

In light of those reasons and the fact that well...it just tastes good, tonight's dinner was slow cooker garlic chicken (some reserved for later in the week) served with buttered and seasoned Yukon potatoes and cabbage, both from the garden.

The chicken is so easy to make.

1 roasting chicken
Salt
Pepper
Paprika (I omitted this)
5 garlic cloves, mashed (I used minced garlic)
1/4 pound sweet butter (I used less than the called for amount and added a little EVOO)
1/4 to 1/2 cup canned chicken broth (I used broth from boiling a chicken a few days ago)

Sprinkle the chicken, inside and out, with salt, pepper and paprika. Spread half of the garlic in the cavity and spread the remainder on the outside of the chicken. Place the chicken into a slow cooker and place a few pats of butter on its breast. Add the remaining ingredients and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours.

Serve the hot garlic butter sauce with the chicken.



Here's the chicken, stewing in it's butter sauce.



Slices of the garlic roasted chicken, potatoes with butter, garlic & chives, cabbage cooked in the wok, and carrots. The carrots weren't on the menu but I realized very late in the game that there was no color in this meal! So, I steamed some carrots to go with it.

Apparently color isn't something I consider most of the time when I plan a meal. No one here seems to care much about color (or at least they've never said anything about it) but I do need to work on appearance of meals.

At any rate, there you have it, tonight's meal. Some of the chicken will be saved and used in a few days, probably on Monday night.

Fresh purple hull peas and hot water cornbread

We love gardening, especially when the garden starts producing. It's so satisfying to eat the things we've grown and the purple hull peas are no exception. Unfortunately, the rain we've had over the last six weeks has just about ruined our garden so we aren't getting much from it. However, over a period of several days we've picked enough purple hull peas to have our second small pot of them. So tonight's dinner was fresh peas and hot water cornbread.



I don't do anything special to the peas, just shell and rinse them and put them in a pot with enough water to cover them. I add some onion (one green onion, top and all, this time), a few chunks of turkey ham, a tsp of minced garlic, about 1/2 a tsp of Knorr's Chicken Bouillon, and pepper. Cook til tender and serve hot.

The hot water cornbread is something we don't eat often. It's way too high in carbohydrates and we rarely eat fried foods. But this cornbread is so good and seems made to go with fresh peas so we have it now and then.

Hot water cornbread

2 cups corn meal
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional but I recommend this)
1/4 to 1/2 tsp sugar or other sweetener (optional)
vegetable oil to fry in

Put the corn meal, salt, and sugar in a bowl that can handle boiling water. I use a medium sized glass bowl. Pour the boiling water in slowly, stirring all the while until it makes a thick paste.



Use your hands (yes, it's hot but you get used to it) and form the paste into palm sized patties, slipping them carefully into hot oil (we use canola or EVOO) and fry to golden brown, turning once.



Drain on paper towels and serve hot.



Peas and hot water cornbread..as southern as can be, as thrifty as can be and so very simple and easy to make. I like to sprinkle a little freshly ground pepper on my hot water cornbread right as it's finished cooking. True comfort food...

Menu Archive

These are the menus we've had recently:

June 28-July 12

Bean, rice and chicken wraps

Fresh purple hull peas with hot water cornbread

Crockpot garlic roasted chicken (some reserved for later in the week), buttered parsley new Yukon potatoes and cabbage, both from the garden

Beans and cornbread (some reserved for a later meal)

Crockpot chicken and cornbread dressing made with leftover chicken and served with green beans and butternut squash

Eggs, pan fried turkey ham, and toast

Leftovers and garden veggies that need to be eaten

Beef roast with gravy, rice, turnip greens, and broccoli

Stovetop stroganoff made with ground turkey, tossed salad, and homemade bread sticks

Eggs confetti and chicken, rice and bean tortillas

This morning I wanted something to eat but didn't want anything very heavy. So, I got a couple of eggs ready to scramble and remembered that I had just a little bit of salad leftover from last night. There was very little lettuce in the bowl but plenty of the other salad goodies so while I scrambled the eggs in a bowl, I munched on the lettuce. I sprayed the wok with some vegetable spray, dumped the eggs in, and added the remainder of the leftover salad - halved Sweet 100 tomatoes from the garden, shredded carrot, a little mozzarella cheese, and some green onion. I blended all that well and added a small amount of smoked turkey sausage, stirring it well in the wok to get it all evenly cooked. It was great! And it was so colorful I decided to call it Eggs Confetti. So here you have it, Eggs Confetti.



And supper was something new, also. I had some leftover chicken leg quarters to use so I de-boned two of them, chopped the meat and set it aside. In a good sized casserole I put about a cup of basmati rice, 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth, a can of ranch style beans, and the chopped chicken. I added some spices to it, mainly garlic and pepper with a little gourmet steak seasoning thrown in, put the lid on it and popped it in the oven. About 45 minutes later it needed more liquid and more seasoining so I added about 1/2 cup of water, and a dab each of tomato and chicken bouillon, stirred it well and put it back in the oven. When it was done, it was served with tortillas, chopped tomatoes, chopped onions, and grated cheddar cheese. Everyone made their own bean, rice and chicken wrap/burritos and they were very good! This dish is definitely a keeper and it's easy on the pocketbook, too.

A shameless plug..

My other half has started a pro-Macintosh blog. You really should sneak a peek at it, even if you aren't into Macs. It won't take long and you might like it. No, really! It won't take long and you might find something interesting or useful or even amusing! Go on, you know you want to!

Sausage and Pasta - what a great combination!

The oncoming deluge of rain (and the fact that we may very well be stuck in our house for a day or two and were out of a couple of necessities) drove us to the grocery today and while there, I picked up a recipe in the meat section. It's called Sausage and Pasta and it looked so easy and quick I decided to make it for dinner. The recipe called for a couple of items I didn't have but I knew I had decent substitutes for them. So, I made it for dinner and it was a hit! Well, the man person isn't wild about it but he did eat it. He isn't wild about pasta and tomato anything but he doesn't gripe about eating it as long as I don't serve it very often.

So here's the original recipe with the substitutions in parentheses.

Sausage and Pasta - a Brookshire's Best Recipe

1/2 lb pasta, such as rotini, uncooked (I used whole wheat rotini)
3/4 lb Honeysuckle Italian sausage, outer casing removed (I used sliced smoked turkey sausage)
1 onion, chopped
1 28 oz can tomato puree (I used a can of store brand roasted garlic diced tomatoes)
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano or 1 1/2 tsp dried
3 Tbsp chopped fresh basil or 1 1/2 tsp dried
1/2 cup shredded reduced fat mozzarella cheese (I didn't measure this but was close)

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
Heat a large nonstick skillet. Saute the sausage for 5-8 minutes, stirring constantly and breaking apart into bite-sized pieces, and then add onion. Allow to brown well. Drain any excess grease. Stir in tomato puree and pepper. Simmer 10 minutes and then add the cooked pasta, oregano and basil. Heat completely and then top with shredded cheese. Cover 5 minutes to melt cheese. (I didn't do this as the cheese melted almost as soon as it hit the pasta)

We had this with a tossed salad just loaded with goodies from the garden. And while this dish was good, it isn't something we'll eat weekly or even bi-weekly though I imagine it will grace our table once every few weeks.

Homemade chicken pot pie

I don't feel too good tonight. I'm not sure why but I feel queasy and kind of weak. There's a virus going around with high fever, nausea, etc. and I hope that's not what this is. If it is, I'll manage.

Regardless, I still had hungry folks to feed so I made homemade chicken pot pie.



Ehhh, it isn't the prettiest pot pie to come from our kitchen but apparently it was good - there isn't much left! My other half made up the dough for the crust and rolled and placed it. He's very good with biscuit dough which is pretty much what the recipe uses.

Anyway, here's the recipe.

In a bowl, mix:

2-3 cups mixed vegetables (I use whatever's on hand - leftovers, garden stuff, canned, frozen, etc)
1 cup cut up chicken, raw (I use a boiled chicken leg quarter)
2 cans cream of whatever soup (I make a homemade white sauce instead and use mushroom, onion, chicken broth, whatever I have on hand)
Liquid (I use a little milk or chicken broth)

The soup/sauce mixture should be pretty wet but not soppy. It's going to be sandwiched between dough (or at least under or over dough) that will absorb some of the liquid so while you don't want it to be runny, you definitely do want it to be moist. If it turns out too moist, enjoy it with a spoon like we've done and if it turns out too dry, serve it with big glasses of milk. ;)

I use Rod's biscuit recipe (1.5 to 2 cups flour, 1/3 cup oil, 1 cup milk, 2 heaping tsp baking powder, 1/3 tsp salt - add a bit more flour if you need to) to make the crust. If you like the crust thick and fluffy like biscuits or if you just want fluffy biscuit like topping and no bottom crust, use the 2 tsp baking powder. If you want it flatter like a pie crust, leave it out or just use 1/2 a tsp. He used less than a teaspoon of baking powder tonight and said he should have reduced that further as it was still a tad too fluffy for his taste.

If you're making a pie type crust, just mix the ingredients and pat or roll the dough out to roughly the size of the pan you're going to use. Put it in the pan and gently stretch/pull it so it covers (or almost covers) the bottom of the pan. We usually make a double batch of all this and put it in a 9 x 13. Put the soup/sauce mixture on top of the crust and put another crust on top of that if you like.

Or you can put the soup/sauce mixture in first and then top with the fluffy biscuit recipe or you can dump the soup/sauce mix in an ungreased 9" pie plate and put the biscuit dough on top.

Bake 30 minutes at 400 or until golden brown.

If you try this chicken pot pie recipe, please let me know how you like it.