Pages, Pucks and Pantry

Hockey - Sharks/Kings Game 2

Guinness-Glazed Lamb Chops

This is one of those recipes, that while the execution might not have been exactly what was intended, the results still turned out pretty dang good.

Being that it was near St. Patricks Day (you probably just realized I'm a bit behind on posting...taking a month or so off of blogging means lots of catching up) I wanted to cook with some Guinness. I originally saw this on various Pinterest boards and found that it came from Epicurious.com. I figured lamb with a Guinness glaze would be a prefect dish to serve pre holiday.

We bought a non-frenched small rack of lamb. Mr. L and I like having a little meat on the bone to chew on since that little bit of meat has such great flavor*. We've found we'd rather get the rack and cut it up ourselves than buy individual lamb chops (of course your butcher can do that for you). We usually have to ask the guy behind the counter for the non-frenched rack of lamb as it's not always out on display.

As I mentioned, this ended up having great flavor...but somewhere along the line I had problems. You see my nice "glaze" that was supposed to be brushed on the lamb before cooking and then drizzled on after? Didn't happen. Instead I had nice solid round discs of what seemed like candy. My glaze seized up on me and became a solid mass and I had no idea how to fix it. We microwaved our little solid discs a bit and tried pouring it on the chops but the glaze immediately became hard again. It looked like we had a disc of caramel candy on each chop! The good thing is that once the lamb was cooked, the disc became a sauce and coated the chops nicely. We ended up just cooking the lamb chops with the little discs on top and not worrying about having sauce to drizzle over after cooking.

Really good flavor. This was super simple to put together and gave the lamb a nice finish even if our sauce was a paste (or not even a paste really...caramel disc is what I'd call it). This recipe is also a great way to use up some leftover Guinness (if there is such a thing) or you can be like me...specifically buy Guinness to cook with so you have leftover to drink. And if you think about it, candy discs of Guinness might not be all that bad.

GUINNESS-GLAZED LAMB CHOPS
(Epicurious)

2 cups (16 ounces) Guinness stout
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons coriander seeds, crushed
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, crushed
16 rib lamb chops (buy separately or buy two 8-rib racks of lamb and cut them yourself into individual chops)

Bring stout, sugar, coriander seeds, peppercorns, and 1/4 teaspoon salt to a boil in a 2-quart nonreactive saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then continue boiling (keep an eye on it and reduce heat to keep it from boiling over) until glaze is syrupy and reduced to about 1/2 cup, 20 to 30 minutes.

Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl and discard solids.

Preheat broiler.

Pat chops dry and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper.

Divide glaze between 2 small bowls and set aside for use later. Brush both sides of chops with glaze (from remaining bowl) and arrange on rack of a broiler pan.

Broil 5 inches from heat, 4 to 5 minutes on each side for medium rare. (Don't hesitate to cut and peek to check on doneness of the meat.)

Transfer chops to a platter and drizzle with reserved glaze.

Note: We cut the recipe in half.

Note: We ended up having much more glaze since it seized before we got down to th 1/2 a cup syrup it says to reduce to. But we liked having lots of the "candy" on each chop.

Note: Obviously we didn't strain our glaze as it's hard to strain a solid mass of candy-type sauce!

Note: We actually did have a bit of Guinness leftover (no worries, many bottles were opened) and Mr. L heated that up, added some butter and such and sauteed some mushrooms that we ate with the chops. Great combo. Just in case you open too many bottles and accidentally really do have a bit of Guinness left.

*Some of you may think that getting non-frenched racks of lamb means lamb bones for the dogs once dinner is over. But we don't have dogs. So we have to gnaw on the bones ourselves because it would really just be wrong to let those little tidbits go to waste. But if you are so inclined, get the non-frenched version and give the bones to your dogs. They will love you. Trust me.

 

Hockey - Sharks/Canucks Game 4

Stanley Cup Playoffs

Crathie Crunch

Not sure what it is about green food that makes it mandatory to think of St. Patrick's Day. If you look at my St. Patrick's Day Pinterest board, it's full of food that isn't Irish at all...it just happens to be the color green. This is one of those dishes that is far from a traditional St. Patrick's Day dish, but none the less, I feel is perfectly suitable for the occasion.

The recipe came from the Eating Royally cookbook. This was originally to be made for the London Olympics since it called for two ingredients I had picked up for that occasion...McVities Chocolate Digestives and a Peppermint Chocolate Aero Bar (substitutes for these English goodies are listed). The recipe is considered a cheesecake but there is no cheese whatsoever in this dish so I'm not sure if that designation means something different in England than it does here. The dish was supposedly named after the village next to Balmoral Castle in Scotland where the Royals vacation from August until early October.

I'm not really a mint or peppermint person, but most folks that tried this liked it. My concoction didn't look nearly as nice as the photo in the cookbook...my filling didn't seem to be as fluffy as the authors, but it still looked okay.

CRATHIE CRUNCH
(Eating Royally)

1/2 pound (8 ounces) McVities chocolate digestives or 1 cup ground graham cracker crumbs mixed
      with 1/2 cup grated bittersweet chocolate
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
4 eggs, separated
2 tablespoons creme de menthe liqueur
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 packets unflavored gelatin
1 tablespoon water
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 peppermint chocolate Aero Bar or 1/3 cup grated chocolate

Grind the cookies in a food processor until fine crumbs form. Place in a large bowl and stir in the melted butter. Firmly pack the mixture into the bottom of a 9-inch tart pan and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.

Place the egg yolks, creme de menthe, and sugar into a large mixing bowl over a pan of boiling water, and whisk for about 2 minutes. Remove the bowl from the heat, and continue whisking until the mixture is cold.

Soften the gelatin in the 1 tablespoon water in a small pan, and place over low heat to warm and dissolve the gelatin. Whisk the gelatin into the egg mixture.

Whip the egg whites until stiff, and fold into the egg mixture. Spoon this onto the tart crust, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Whip the heavy cream in a large bowl until stiff, and spread onto the top of the now-set egg mix. Chop the mint chocolate bar, and decorate with it or the grated chocolate.

Makes 8 servings.

Note: I found the McVities Chocolate digestive biscuits and the Aero Bar at Cost Plus World Markets. Digestive biscuits is just the British word for thin cookie like crackers. Wonderful things. Buy extra of the McVities. Trust me, more will go in your mouth than in the crust.

Note: I had no idea if packets of unflavored gelatin are the same size in the US as they are in Britain. I just used two of the small ones that come in a Knox Gelatin box. A difference might explain why my filling didn't get as fluffy and set as I'd like. Of course it could just be my cooking technique but I'd like to be able to blame it on someone else.

Note: I slathered the whipped cream on which didn't make for the best presentation. I think next time a piping bag would work out better.

Note: The Aero bar is kind of interesting looking...lots of little holes in the green part of the candy bar (see below).

All in all not a bad dessert, but not sure I'd make it again. Though if I needed something green, this would be kind of cool to show up with. That is if there were actually any McVities Chocolate Digestive Biscuits to actually make the dish since they seem to disappear quite rapidly in my house.

Eating Royally

EATING ROYALLY - Recipes and Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen by Darren McGrady (Private Chef to Princess Diana)

This cookbook has a copyright of 2007. I bought this cookbook from Amazon (last summer for the Olympics). I have never cooked from this cookbook before.

Though I always "read" my cookbooks from cover to cover, checking out each recipe and what little tidbits might be given, this is actually a cookbook you can read. The author, Darren McGrady, started out as a pastry chef for The Royal Family before becoming Diana's personal chef for the last four years of her life. Yes, I'm one of "those people" who got up at a ridiculous hour to watch the royal wedding (er, all of them actually from Diana to Fergie to Sophie to Camilla to Catherine). I also will admit to a slight fascination as to what Catherine wears. I have a Charles and Diana wedding tea towel (my Grandma W. went to England two weeks after the wedding). I may have a British mug commemorating Andrew and Fergies wedding. I am not a fanatic but I do have a healthy appreciation for the British royal family. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. So what I'm trying to say is I loved reading this cookbook.

I found this book quite fascinating actually and easy to read (the chef did have some help writing it). Mr. McGrady explains how he became a chef and how he came to work for The Queen. I found the stories he told to be quite fun and informational. Who knew that The Queen ordered Tea Scones to be served every day...which she never ever ate...they were crumbled on the floor for the Corgis! Or that in Buckingham Palace it's a mile and a quarter from the kitchen to the Queens dining rooms. Loved reading about this kind of information. Most of the book is about feeding the royal family in general, it's only the last chapter that really concentrates on Princess Diana. No scandals here (unless you count the fact that The Princess often had two versions of a dish served...a low cal non fat version for her and a full fat tasty version for her guests).

The book is divided into sections per the house (or should I say gigantic castle) that the royal family is in at various times of the year. There is a certain tradition as to where the family might be (Windsor Castle from March to Mid-May; Balmoral Castle from August until early October) and certain foods are only cooked at certain times. There is even a chapter about food served aboard the Britannia (the royal ship that has now been retired). The book explains what might be happening at each residence during that time, the foods that were served and then gives recipes for the foods mentioned. The Chef does give little morsels of information about the royals, which foods they prefer, what happens while the family is there. He includes photos of himself and photos of the foods that would be considered personal snapshots. Not all recipes have photos.

Most of the recipes have information as to maybe how the recipe came about, which royal it was a favorite of or when it was served. Recipes seem pretty straightforward. Measurements are in English equivalents. Most of the ingredients would be easy to find at most well stocked grocery stores, though I found Marmite at Cost Plus.

The one interesting item is that on the front of the cookbook there is a note that says "Featuring Prince William and Catherine Middleton's Wedding Cake Recipe". But nowhere inside does it state which cake that is! You would have to know that the cake in question is a fruit cake (and the recipe really isn't anything close to the kind of fruit cakes that one gets at Christmas here in the states). They also make a big deal about the fact that he was the private chef of Princess Diana but most of the book is of the royal family in general.

When I first got this cookbook and did a cursory glance, there really weren't a lot of recipes I wanted to try. But after reading about each recipe and the traditions and stories behind them, I found quite a few that I want to try: Royal Tea Scones (the ones that get fed to the dogs); Croques Monsieur; Sausage Rolls; Gaelic Steaks (the one with the Marmite); Battenburg Cake; Chocolate Biscuit Cake; Earl Grey Tea Cake; Spring Asparagus Soup with Dill; Beef Wellington; Choux A La Cherbourg (Cabbage in a Creamy Garlic and Bacon Sauce); Brandy Snaps; Chocolate Perfection Pie; Framboises St. George; Lemon Refresher (English lemonade with, get this, Epsom salts); Yogurt Brulee with Mango and Papaya; Cottage Pie; Steak Diane; Tenderloin Steaks Stuffed with Boursin with a Rosemary, Bell Pepper Sauce; Glenfiddich Chocolate Mousse; Summer Pudding; Crathie Crunch; Bread and Butter Pudding (it has Amaretto in it!); Peach Princess; Treacle Tart; Traditional Irish Soda Bread; Christmas Cake (think fruitcake); Traditional English Trifle; Avocado and Hearts of Palm Salad; Peach Panna Cotta; Iced Praline and Amaretto Souffle with Poached Pear.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, the recipes included were just the icing on the cake. Really made me want to go visit England!

Mint Oreos Dipped In White Chocolate

Currently that thing called work is still kicking my butt. I'd also like to point out that Murphy's Law has taken up residence at my job as we've had some of the busiest days on record. So though I'm cooking a bit (or at least providing Mr. L and I with food to eat when it's my turn), I'm still not finding time to try out all the great recipes I seem to be coming across. Or maybe it's just by the time I get home from work it takes all my energy just to push the on button for the television. Huge props go out to Mr. L who has taken up the daunting task of not only cooking every other week, but doing all the meal planning (and that's breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks), shopping and cooking for that week.

For St. Patrick's Day this year, Mr. L cooked our traditional Slow Cooker Corned Beef and Cabbage. He also scored some wonderful Irish Soda Bread from the caterer at his work. With this wonderful holiday meal, I figured I needed to come up with a dessert...something that was quick and easy. These White Chocolate Dipped Oreos fit the bill.

I have several "holiday" recipes that are basically the same, it's the color that changes. Cookie Bark and M&M Topped Brownies are two of the ones I've already posted here. Dipping Oreos in white chocolate and topping them with holiday coordinated sprinkles is another quick idea that makes for a festive (easy, quick) dessert. You only need three ingredients....Oreos, white chocolate, and sprinkles. The easy part is that Oreoss usually come out in coordinating colors around the appropriate holidays. Orange for Halloween, Peppermint for Christmas etc. In fact, I've taken the Peppermint Oreos, dipped them in white chocolate and then, instead of sprinkles, topped them with bits of crushed peppermints (you can get bags of the stuff at Trader Joes during the Christmas holidays).

I've had this link from Dandelions and Dust Bunnies pinned for a while. You can find lots of "recipes" out there for dipped Oreos if you look.

Note: You don't need specialty Oreo's, plain old white ones will do. You could even tint the white chocolate to the appropriate holiday color.

Note: To make these look more professional pay attention to the location of the logo on the cookie. I just dunked them in the white chocolate without even looking (or honestly, caring).

Note: You can find holiday sprinkles at Michaels. If you are local, Lunardis bakery area always has tubs of the stuff during holidays. Your local grocery store may do the same thing. I've already picked up Lunardis "Easter" version just in case. I think they'd go well on the Berry Oreos.

Note: I used a couple of mini muffin tins to stand up the dipped Oreos in so that both sides looked good.

Note: You can use sprinkles, colored sugar, Nonpareils, sparkle dust, edible paints, and sugar pearls as toppings on these.

 

Brown Ale-Braised Chicken

I'm a fan of Guinness...some people aren't. I like the flavor it gives to food be it this Brown-Ale Braised Chicken or a Guinness cake. This surprises some people because I don't like beer. I just like Guinness. More specific, I like Black and Tans. Guinness and Bass Ale. With very salty potato chips. I have no clue why. So yeah, pretty much anything cooked with Guinness works for me.

Mr. L and I both really liked this recipe and the flavor the stout gave this dish. I realize they called for "brown-ale" and gave many local beer examples. That's fine for you. I'm using Guinness. The whole thing is pretty simple to put together but took me about 30 minutes or so to prep and then you just have to wait the 40 minute baking time. Which gives you time to sit back and have a Guinness (because you of course bought a full six pack because the grocery store no longer sells the single bottles and you'd hate for Guinness to sit around and go bad). With St. Patrick's Day coming up this weekend, this would be a great dish to serve for dinner.

The recipe for this Brown Ale-Braised Chicken came out of the October 2012 Better Homes and Gardens magazine. As usual the photo of my recipe doesn't look a whole lot like theirs, but at least it tastes really good.

BROWN ALE-BRAISED CHICKEN
(Better Homes and Garden October 2012)

1 Tbsp. packed brown sugar
1/2 Tbsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper
8 skin-on chicken thighs
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 medium onion, sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
8 small whole carrots with tops, peeled and tops trimmed to 1 inch
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 12-oz. bottle brown ale
1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
4 cloves garlic, peeled
Coarsely chopped celery leaves
Fresh Thyme

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl combine brown sugar, chili powder, salt, ground black pepper, and crushed red pepper; rub into chicken thighs. Let stand 10 minutes.

In an extra-large ovenproof skillet heat oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook until well browned on both sides and skin is crispy. Remove chicken from skillet. Drain fat, reserving 1 Tbsp.

In the same skillet cook and stir the onion, celery, and carrots in the reserved fat about 5 minutes or until tender. Stir in flour; cook and stir 1 minute. Stir in beer and broth. Bring to a simmer. Return chicken to skillet. Add garlic. Cover and bake 40 minutes. Sprinkle with celery leaves and thyme.

Makes 4 servings. (Each serving 552 cal, 23 g carbs, 4 g fiber)

Note: I couldn't find any small carrots but I did find some smallish organic carrots of different colors. I used them but cut them into half and thirds. Messes a bit with the presentation but still tasted good.

Note: I used Guinness Stout in bottles

Note: I of course had the thyme and stuff to garnish the dish and then completely forgot to put them on. Sometimes cooking when you're really hungry isn't the best for food blogging.

Note: We seemed to have way more "sauce" than pictured in the recipe article. It's pretty good sauce so I kept it and used it to pour over some brown rice and quinoa.

All in all a great dish that we would definitely make again and perfect to serve to company.

 

Two Ingredient Pancakes

This was a complete impulse make for breakfast Saturday morning. I woke up before Mr. L so not wanting to disturb him, I laid in bed checking Twitter on my iPad. I came across a tweet from Recipe Girl about the Two Ingredient Pancake. I'd been reading about this recipe since last summer...it's been showcased on a ton of blogs...but I'd just never really thought much about it. Well that tweet from Lori made me realize that not only did I have eggs in the fridge that we were already planning to use for breakfast, but I had a couple of bananas that were going to be unusable if I didn't use them right away. And for some reason I just had to have these pancakes right away!

Once Mr. L woke up, I let him know that he was going to make Two Ingredient Pancakes for breakfast. Maybe I should have waited a few minutes until he was fully conscious because the look he gave me when I explained that they were only made of bananas and eggs was priceless. But he's a trooper so once I let him get his bearings, he had breakfast on the table in no time.

These couldn't be more simple to make. It really is just bananas and eggs. There are a few tricks (if you aren't careful, they do fall apart) and there are a few additional ingredients you can add but basically you mix bananas and eggs and you get pancakes!

The cool thing about this recipe is that it works for many types of diets. Protein, gluten-free, low-carb, paleo. It would even work for diabetics (just watch the amount of bananas as that is a high glycemic food).

TWO INGREDIENT PANCAKES

1 very ripe banana
2 large eggs

Mash the banana (Mr. L used a hand mixer but most folks just mash them by hand) in a bowl. Add the eggs to the mashed banana and whisk  together.

Cook on a greased griddle or pan on medium low heat. Cook until the pancaked is bubbling all over and the edges are dry. Flip to cook the other side. (You will not get an even color like regular pancakes).

NOTE: Your pancake flavor and size may vary depending on the size of the bananas you have. Lori at Recipe Girl used about 1/3 of a cup of mashed banana per egg. This is approximately what we did (four eggs/two decent sized bananas).

NOTE: Mr. L made a double batch to feed the two of us. This made about 8 small pancakes.

NOTE: These are delicate pancakes so be careful when you flip them. It helps to keep the heat fairly low and to have a decent sized spatula.

NOTE: You can add a few ingredients to change things up a bit. Several of the Paleo versions add almond butter. There are some that add flavored extracts, cinnamon, cocoa powder, pumpkin puree, and peanut butter. But none of these additions are needed.

NOTE: Tons of ways you can top this. Obviously leaving it two ingredients makes the most sense health wise, but you can top these with maple syrup, more bananas, chocolate chips, jam, berries, nut butters, peanut butters, nutella, plain yogurt, nuts, warmed honey, powdered sugar, whipped cream, cinnamon or pretty much any other topping out there you can think of!

It did take Mr. L a few pancakes to get the hang of how long to cook them and how to flip them without them falling apart, but we actually really liked these and I think this is a great way to use up ripe bananas that would otherwise spend a life hiding in the back of the freezer waiting to be set free to make banana milkshakes. Definitely make these again.

The Oscars and Food

I'll be honest with you Marge...there hasn't been a lot of cooking going on in our house. Well...I take that back, meals are being cooked, food is being eaten, but there hasn't been much of trying of new recipes. It's been roasted chicken, shrimp (and crab and tuna and salmon) salads. Crock pots full of mystery meats found in the bowels of the freezer covered with jars of sauce found in the pantry. Leftover roasted veggies tossed together to make a soup. Mortadella (and salami and chicken) sandwiches. It's also been eating out. Food trucks. Restaurants. Grabbing pre-cooked meals from the deli section of our grocery store.

And while work has been kicking my butt for weeks I can't blame that on the lack of culinary experimentation in our house. No, the culprit can be described in two words.

The Oscars.

You see, last year was a bit of a trying year and nights out to go watch a movie (or nights in renting one) were few and far between. Mr. L and I suddenly realized come the end of January that we hadn't seen even one movie of the nine Oscar nominated best pictures. I knew this wouldn't do. So we set out to rectify the situation.

One of the first things we realized in our Oscar movie viewing adventure was that only one of the movies nominated was on DVD or available for download on AppleTV/Direct TV. Which meant going out to the movie theaters* and lots of figuring out movie times that fit into our already busy schedule. This also meant quick meals before movie show times (and with lots of these movies being 2 1/2 hours long meant we really did need to eat dinner first. I admit, I think there was one night where a large buttered popcorn was dinner. I also think quite a few movie hot dogs were consumed. But we managed to get a few good sushi dinners in beforehand too). 

We also, along with the best picture movies, tried to see as many other nominated movies that we could. We spent nights watching Looper and Skyfall. The Pirates! Band of Misfits (we were able to catch  Brave in the theater when it originally came out). We even were able to watch all of the Live Action Shorts (our favorite was Death of a Shadow) and three of the animated shorts (Head Over Heals stole our hearts). And just to add to what we ended up calling "The Oscar Movie Death March" we also watched The Kings Speech since we had failed to see that a few years ago (we still need to see The Artist).

It was the morning of the Oscars that I suddenly realized that though I had seen every single nominated best picture and quite a few other movies, I hadn't really thought about what to make or bring to the annual Oscar party. I had a ton of ideas, I'd even started a list of possible contributions months ago, but time just sort of got away from me. So it was a quick trip to the grocery store before heading to the party to pick up the two items you see in the photo above (we even splurged and bought some European butter to go with the French bread). I think the signs helped.

It was interesting to see all the nominated movies in such a short time frame. I think it made it much easier to compare between all of them (though we hopefully will not be doing this compacted watching schedule ever again). My favorite movie? Life of Pi, but I was not disappointed that Argo won. Least favorite? Beasts of the Southern Wild. Most surprising? Django Unchained (which I thought I would hate but really liked). Amour was extremely difficult for me since I had just watched my mom deteriorate like that. Though we liked Les Miserables, the theater we saw it in had the most horrible sound system, the film was full of scratches and I swear there was only a quarter of an inch of padding in the seat. Not the best viewing experience and I'm sure that affected our thoughts on the movie. The one movie I didn't see that I wanted before the Oscars was The Impossible since my Aunt** said Watts performance was wonderful. 

So, honestly, there just hasn't been much time to fulfill one of my favorite hobbies...perusing my cookbooks and picking out recipes to try. Of course two other factors have put a bit of a damper on my cooking...the fact that every Wednesday a food truck shows up down the street from where we live. Hard to resist just being able to walk to the truck once we are both home from work. And I also have to give big props to Mr. L, who, for the past month or so, has taken up the "food" responsibility every other week (that means he plans, shops and cooks breakfast, lunch and dinners for that week). It's giving me a bit of a breather with my current crazy work life.

Which doesn't mean I haven't still been collecting recipes to try. Cookbooks have been bought, dishes have been pinned, recipes have been torn out of magazines and blog foods have been bookmarked. I've had this insane desire for days to hole myself up and do some baking. It's my week to cook so I think it's time to do some cooking! And maybe watch a movie or two....

*Seriously expensive going out to movies these days. Especially if you add on popcorn, soda and a hot dog. Cost of two tickets was from twenty to twenty five bucks. A large popcorn and soda was another twelve to fifteen dollars. Maybe eight bucks for a hot dog. Yikes.

**My Aunt is a movie watching pro. She goes at least once or twice a week to the theater. When she's home she probably watches at least a movie a night on the TV (between Netflix and the movie channels she says there is always something interesting to see).