Goat Cheese Polenta with Ribs

Today I made Polenta for the first time. It was super easy and didn't take long at all.

The ribs on the other hand were very time consuming... I had planned on making them before church and then letting them simmer in the dutch oven while we were gone, but Cambria got some sort of rash... so Cliff said he'd stay home and do them.

Two Main Dishes in a row for him! I'm starting to feel like he should be the one doing this experiment... I'm glad he's into it, because it took a long time, required lots of chopping and preparation, and then turned out to be AWFUL!!!!

We had never eaten ribs before so I'm not sure if this is what one should expect... but they were not great. For one thing, there wasn't much meat. Secondly they were cooked in bacon (polenta) fat and oil which made them really greasy. We don't do much fat and grease.

The ribs were rated separately due to the extreme dislike of the Polenta. The average score of the ribs was a 5. No one hated it, but no one would be heart broken if they never saw it again.

The average score of the Polenta was a different story.... a 2. Cliff's quote was "I would rather barf than eat it." He practically vomited it out after his first bite. I made sure to document their reactions:

I don't know if our family is not cultured enough, or if it's because we don't like goat cheese (I'm going to try Polenta again without it), or maybe we are just such healthy eaters we can't handle greasy food. All I know is I'm going to have to search for a new rib recipe and a side to serve it with. I have a huge package of pork ribs in the freezer, so we will have them again sometime soon...

Any suggestions?

Carbs for the Polenta are 21g in 1/2 Cup. The ribs are (virtually) a free food. I'm not doing the calories because we won't be making it like this again.

I was pretty discouraged that it didn't turn out because I had such high hopes, but Cliff reminded me that this is an experiment and if every recipe turned out wonderful just like the cooking blogs, it wouldn't be real... He's so encouraging! Except when he's threatening to vomit out the food I made... :)

Our backup plan was baby watermelon... It made everyone much happier 

and they greatly enjoyed the fruit while cursing the Polenta...

Dutch Oven Lasagna Attempt #1

Last week I decided to pull out the dutch oven. I scrubbed it with soap, and then followed the instructions for seasoning the pan. Once all the rust was off I put it in the oven and just as it got too hot to hold I put olive oil all over it (a thin coat). Then I put it back in the oven to cook upside down for an hour with the windows open (it's pretty stinky!) After repeating the process 3 times, I figured it was ready.

Lasagna was the first dish. I used another recipe from Allrecipes. It claims it is the "World's Best."

I started it and then realized with all the seasoning of the pan I had run out of time to actually cook it... because I wanted to scrapbook with my neighbor. It takes 3 hours! Cliff volunteered and I accepted :) So while he was slaving away, I was chatting it up and relaxing kid-free. I'm spoiled I know. Anyway, he was not into photographing much of the cooking stuff, so this is all I got out of him:

Yes. He's just that dramatic...

The only thing he did differently was to put spiral noodles in instead of lasagna noodles. I turned out to be more of a lasagna soup... It could have probably used twice the amount of noodles and been pretty good. We all rated it an average of 6, but we'll have to think pretty long and hard about whether or not we want to make this again. It took so long!

There were about 20 grams of carbohydrate per 1 cup serving, but that would change if we ended up adding more noodles.

World's Best Lasagna

Rated: Submitted By: Johnchandler Photo By: Heather Prep Time: 30 Minutes Cook Time: 2 Hours 30 Minutes Ready In: 3 Hours 15 Minutes Servings: 12

"Filling and satisfying lasagna with sausage, ground beef and three types of cheese."

Ingredients:

1 pound sweet Italian sausage 3/4 pound lean ground beef 1/2 cup minced onion 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste 2 (6.5 ounce) cans canned tomato sauce 1/2 cup water 2 tablespoons white sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning 1 tablespoon salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley 12 lasagna noodles 16 ounces ricotta cheese 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1.	In a Dutch oven, cook sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic over medium heat until well browned. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water. Season with sugar, basil, fennel seeds, Italian seasoning, 1 tablespoon salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons parsley. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
2.	Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg, remaining parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.
3.	Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
4.	To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with a third of mozzarella cheese slices. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers, and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil: to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese.
5.	Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil, and bake an additional 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Potato Basil Frittata with Gruyere

I have more cheeses than ever in my fridge! Here is what I'm working with... and believe me, I will use every last bit of these because most of them are so expensive!

Yesterday was Gruyere.

I used a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa's Family Style cookbook.  She must not cook for many people, because this recipe barely fed my family of 6. I will double it next time for sure... then we'll have leftovers!

This dish takes a little planning (for a breakfast), so it took me a while to get my act together for an early prep breakfast. I got started before anyone woke up with potato calculating, peeling and chopping. By the time I had them frying...

 Cambria woke up and wanted to help :)

Once the potatoes were fried it was no big deal at all. The only things I did differently, were not adding as much basil as the recipe called for (because I didn't want to completely kill our sweet little basil plant that we've miraculously kept alive for months...)

and I didn't have a pan (yet) that could work on both the range and go in the oven. So I just heated up a pyrex pan and put everything in over the potatoes.

It worked great!

The family rated it at an average of 7-8. I would have added more cheese (I LOVE CHEESE!) but Cliff said that would be a critical error, so I guess I'll keep it the same next time even though Cambria liked it only this much...

We are definitely keeping this dish and it will probably make it's camping debut this summer with the cast iron dutch oven I recently got from a friend.

 This will be even more fun with the dutch oven liners I just learned about! Easy cleanup + really good + healthy = good camping dish.

Shallots

Me: "I bought my first shallots today!

Cliff: "Oh good... we can set them on the counter and look at them."

Me: ....

Cliff: "I mean... we can hang them up and put lights on them?"

Me: ...

Cliff: "What are shallots?" :)

I looked it up. They are basically small onions with a narrow neck used interchangeably with onions, but they have a "delicate" flavor that dissolves into liquids better than other onions, therefore shallots are often used in sauces. The info I found said that they should be used whenever possible if a recipe calls for it... that's why I bought them! I'm going to try a few new recipes this week and one them calls for shallots. We'll see if they taste any different...

Tortilla Wraps

The wraps for St. Patrick's Day with the spinach tortillas looked so yummy in the pics. So I tried making them. 

Cliff made the pico de gallo next to it. Mmmm!

Anyway. We had mixed reviews. I loved the cream cheese, but the mayo and sour cream may have been just a bit too much fat for even me. The bacon was awesome. We didn't have frozen spinach, so I just mixed in cut up lettuce.

I didn't love it, but I ate it. 

The kids barely ate it. 

But Cambria detested it.

She's not acting. 

She really sat there scowling. The only reason she ate the rest of it was because of the lure of rainbow sherbet ice cream...

I have a curry chicken salad recipe I'll try sometime soon. I bet that will be good in a wrap!

St. Patrick's Day Food

I really want to try to establish some fun traditions for the kids. This year I bought a bunch of green things: kiwis, avocados, spinach wraps, pistachio pudding, lettuce, green jello, rainbow sherbet, and some green food coloring. But as it turned out, our day got really busy with Zumba class, piano lessons, and getting ready for study, so I only used a few of my ideas... Maybe next year?!

For breakfast we had green eggs and green milk. (I wanted to get Lucky Charms, but Cliff drew the line there :)

For lunch: spinach wraps with lettuce while we watched a little show about St. Patrick and ate our rainbow sherbet.

For snack we frosted and decorated shamrock cookies and ate them.

 

For dinner it was our night off. (We potluck with our Bible study every week.) My friend Ashley made green chocolate chip cookies and layered green jello jigglers. Yum!

So now we might have a bit of food coloring poisoning, but I think it was worth it when I heard Kaiah telling one of her friends tonight all about the green stuff we ate today. Even though it wasn't quite what I had originally planned, they liked it!

Amish Bread - Attempt #1

I found a recipe for Amish bread and have heard that it is delicious. So I tried it. Cliff said that it couldn't really be Amish bread if it's made in the bread machine as the recipe called for and I agreed.

But I did it anyway.

I don't like making bread in the bread machine. Rolls and Pizza dough are great! But the bread crust is too hard and the shape makes it difficult to slice. I will keep searching because I know there must be a way...

We rated the bread at an average of 6. It tasted good inside, but again the crust was too crunchy. The only thing I can tell that makes it different from other breads is that it had a longer period of rising in the machine.

Next time I think I'll try to pull it out after the dough rises and bake it in the oven in some other pan. Or I'll just try a different recipe altogether.

Suggestions?

Fennel Salsa

I made this the other day when a few friends came over for dinner... actually I made most of it and then asked Cliff to finish chopping the fennel bulb and cucumber while I went to a rummage sale. Nice.

Anyway, it was a very healthy salad with a couple of new ingredients (for me): fennel and banana peppers. It tastes a lot like salsa, but would be good as a salad too. I would chop everything much smaller so it could be used on chips or bread as the recipe suggests.

This is another recipe from Allrecipes.com. I have a few other books/sites/people that I am gathering recipes from, but Allrecipes is nice because they have ratings and are tried and true. Plus people give suggestions on how to change things up in the comment sections.

Fennel Cucumber Salsa

Rated: Submitted By: Jenny Photo By: sueb Prep Time: 20 Minutes Ready In: 40 Minutes Servings: 16

"This is a fresh and unusual salsa. Use it as an appetizer or on grilled meats. The fennel has a surprisingly light flavor. Perfect for summer."

Ingredients:

1 English cucumber, diced 1 large fennel bulb, diced 1 avocado - peeled, pitted, and diced 1/2 red onion, chopped 1/2 cup pickled banana peppers, diced

1 bunch cilantro, chopped 2 tablespoons honey 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1.	Combine the cucumber, fennel, avocado, red onion, banana peppers, cilantro, honey, lemon juice, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Allow mixture to sit 20 minutes before serving.

I didn't calculate the carbs or calories because it's mostly just vegetables. I think the carbs would be close to zero. And it looks pretty healthy calorie wise.

Our friends rated it at a 7 or 8 on average. The kids didn't love it though... We'll work on them :)

Creamy Lemon Chicken

Mmmm. We have a winner! Tonight we made Lemon Cream Pasta with Chicken from Allrecipes. This doesn't mean I can cross out the lemon chicken on the bone from my list, but I don't usually cook with lemon much, so this is still a step in the right direction.

Kaiah helped me this time. She squeezed out the lemons for baking the chicken and she zested the lemon peel as well. I had no idea (because I've never done this...) how long it takes to get just 1 teaspoon of zest. That was a lot of work. But our fingers smelled soooo good!

We squeezed the lemon halves and squeezed cut up lemons for 2 different parts of the recipe. It probably would have been better to have just used the lemon juicer for both parts...

I realized as I was cutting the last bit of lemon that the directions called for cutting them in fourths. I cut mine in eighths, making it much more difficult to squeeze over the chicken...

While Kaiah was stirring the noodles,

and adding the cream, 

I looked up the carbs and calories for each item. For some reason I was having a hard time remembering the equation to get grams of carbs per serving. I figured it out. Did the equation for both the calories (I'm sort of counting mine) and the carbs (for Kaiah's Diabetes).

Now I'll have those calculations every time I make this recipe. Which I think I will! It would be a perfect meal to take to someone who just had a baby, surgery, etc. It was very filling and yummy!

I did make a few changes. We have a family of six so 4 servings would barely be enough. I added an extra chicken breast and put a few more noodles in. Lochlan had seconds, Cambria ate all of hers (which for her at dinner is actually pretty awesome), and the kids rated theirs at a 9 (K) and a 7 (M). I rated mine at an 8. We'll have to see how Cliff likes it when he gets home from work.

Next time I make this I will make a few changes. It definitely needs to be doubled and it could really use some steamed broccoli or some asparagus or something veggie-like to make it more healthy.

Here's the recipe: 

Lemon Cream Pasta with Chicken

Rated: Submitted By: Lisa Ramos Photo By: maimai Prep Time: 1 Hour Cook Time: 10 Minutes Ready In: 1 Hour 10 Minutes Servings: 4

"This deliciously different dish incorporates a classic combination of flavors: lemon, chicken, and garlic. "

Ingredients:

3 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves 1 lemon, quartered 2 teaspoons garlic powder, divided 1 teaspoon ground black pepper, divided

2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice 1 (8 ounce) package rotelle pasta 1 cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place chicken in a lightly greased baking dish. Squeeze lemon over both sides of the chicken breasts and season both sides using 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder and 3/4 teaspoon pepper. Bake for 40 minutes, or until juices run clear and chicken is no longer pink inside.
2.	Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, season the chicken broth with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Bring to a boil and add lemon juice and pasta. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until all liquid is absorbed, about 25 minutes.
3.	Cut cooked chicken into bite-sized pieces and stir into cooked pasta, along with the cream and lemon zest. Cook, stirring, over low heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes. Stir thoroughly before serving.

Calories in the whole dish: 2,937 (734 per serving oh dear! That's a lot when written that way!)
Carbohydrates in the whole dish: 195 (48g per serving)

Average rating: 8/10 (in our family)