Posts Tagged ‘bread’

Smithwick’s Beef Stew

By Brit

A few days ago, I received an amazing dutch oven from one of my friends and I decided I would use it to make a meal for my valentine. I was going to make beef bourguignon, but I forgot to get bacon. I made beef stew instead. It was the first time I’d made beef stew and I kind of came up with my own recipe. None of the recipes I found online really worked for me, so this is my Smithwick’s Beef Stew.

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Smithwick’s Beef Stew

1 1/4 pound stew beef, cut into chunks
4 cups beef broth
2 bottles Smithwick’s beer (pronounced smit-ick’s, lest you order it at an Irish pub and sound like a complete fool)
1 bag baby carrots, cut in half
1.5 pound small red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into fourths
palmful thyme
palmful parsley
3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup instant mashed potatoes
salt and pepper

Combine flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper in a bowl. Cover the pieces of beef in flour mixture and put into a dutch oven with olives oil, half at a time, on medium-high heat. Brown the pieces and put on a plate. Continue with second half of beef pieces. Once the second half has been browned, place those on the plate as well and pour one bottle of Smithwick’s into the dutch oven to deglaze it. Let simmer for a few minutes.

Pour the four cups of beef broth into a crockpot. Add the browned beef, baby carrots, potatoes, thyme, parsley, and bay leaves to the crockpot.

Once the beer has simmered for a few minutes, pour it into the crockpot. Add one more bottle of beer to the crockpot. Stir and cover.

Cook on low for 7.5 hours. Add the fourth cup of instant mashed potatoes and stir to thicken stew. Cook an additional 30 minutes on high.

Enjoy with homemade french bread.

The first time I had Smithwick’s beer, I called it Smith-wick’s. APPARENTLY, that’s one of the worst things you can do in an Irish pub. It’s pronounced smitt-ick’s. Don’t make my mistake. Smithwick’s is a dark lager, that’s not as heavy as Guinness, but tastes absolutely amazing. I highly recommend it.

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This entry was posted on February 15th, 2010 under Food.

The Shortbread Experiment

By Brit

This morning I woke up and decided I wanted to make some bread. It’s not all that unusual, since over the summer I got really into making bread and it all turned out wonderfully. I had been looking through some of the recipes I had in my MacGourmet, and came across one for Rosemary Cheddar Shortbread. I decided that I’d make that before I even looked at the recipe. The picture was enough for me.

I hadn’t read the directions, so pretty much I fucked the bread up. I also did a good job making the biggest mess my kitchen has ever seen. I’m a very neat person in the kitchen, so when flour and butter started flying out of the mixer? I was freaking out.

There were crumbles EVERYWHERE. The biggest portion ended up on me, and then the floor. Lucy-dog pretty much loved this. She didn’t leave my side until Ginny showed up.

Today was also the first time I had used the mixer Ginny got for me. I’d been meaning to, but with all the healthy eating lately, bread doesn’t fit in so well. Sad day. I love the dough hooks, even though it didn’t work at all for the shortbread. Super suck.

The shortbread finished baking about 20 minutes after Ginny got to our house. It took about 2.5 times as long as it was supposed to cook.

It didn’t turn out too bad. I guess I’d never had a shortbread before, and making one was fairly difficult and I wasn’t in love with the recipe (Ginny went home with the pan of shortbread, she was STOKED), so I’m not going to post it. It does make me want to try this bread thing again tomorrow.

Tomorrow I’ll make something I’ve made before and know turns out amazingly.

Tomorrow also happens to be when The Pioneer Woman announces the winner of her Sunrise/Sunset Photo Assignment. My photo of the Eiffel Tower is one of the finalists, and I’m waiting with bated breath for the announcement. Thank god for sleeping pills or else I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. Check out the rest of the finalists, all of the photographs are seriously amazing.

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This entry was posted on January 24th, 2010 under Food.

Sriracha Nuggets & Baked Potato Fries

By Brit

A few weeks ago, I found the website Life Ambrosia.com. I was feeling ridiculously sick when I found it and I still spent hours looking through the recipes when a recent one caught my eye: Sriracha Chicken Nuggets. My two favorite things. The recipe went right into my MacGourmet recipe bank. Last night was the perfect night for it (ok, any night would have been the perfect night for these). I decided to have another go at some baked fries, and they turned out to be the BEST FRIES I’VE EVER HAD, hands down.

Sriracha Nuggets

⅓ cup Sriracha chili sauce
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon ginger, grated
2 large chicken breasts
3 slices bread
1 tablespoon olive oil

Cut bread into pieces and bake at 300 degrees until they’re brown. Let cool and use a food processor to pulverize into breadcrumbs. (You can make extra and freeze in cup size portions for later on use).

In a bowl combine Sriracha, vinegar, olive oil and ginger. Cut chicken into chunks and marinate for 30-45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 415 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray.

Remove chicken from marinade, cover with breadcrumbs and put on baking sheet.

Bake for 20-24 minutes. Turn on broiler for last 4 minutes to brown nuggets.

Baked Potato Fries

4 potatoes
olive oil
Lawry’s Seasoning Salt
pepper

With oven preheated to 415, place a baking sheet in the oven and drizzle with olive oil to preheat pan.

Peel potatoes and slice into wedges. Put a pot on to boil water. Boil wedges for 5 minutes. Drain water and put wedges back into pot and stir until the water has evaporated. Place lid back on pot and carefully shake pot with wedges inside to rough them up.

Carefully put wedges onto baking pan and stir to coat in olive oil. Season with Lawry’s Seasoning Salt and pepper.

Cook for 20 minutes and stir. (At this time, you would put the chicken nuggets in the oven also) Cook for another 20 minutes and broil for the last 4 minutes (along with the nuggets).

If the wedges are too greasy, you can pat them at the end with a paper towel.

Serves 4
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Sriracha Chicken Nuggets recipe modified from Life Ambrosia.
Baked Potato Fries recipe modified from Tasty Kitchen.

Matt loved this dinner. I had him try a nugget before I got to them and I forgot to tell them they were spicy, so there is a kick, but it’s not too bad. You definitely don’t need anything to dip the nuggets in. The fries were crispy (which is the only way I’ll have them), and I’ll never ever use another recipe to make fries. I can’t wait to try this with sweet potatoes!

I’m thinking I might make these again today for lunch. Seriously, it took awhile (a long while … someday I’ll remember to defrost chicken the night before), but it was totally worth it.

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This entry was posted on January 22nd, 2010 under Food.

Pepperoni Cheese Bread

By Brit

Ginny and I got these pepperoni cheese bread from a bakery in Brooklyn, MI. They were pretty amazing, even if there was a ridiculous amount of pepperoni in them.

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This entry was posted on January 21st, 2010 under Food, Photography.

Buffalo Chicken Panini

By Brit

Last night I decided I wanted a panini for lunch today. I don’t know, sometimes I get weird cravings. Somehow a jar of kosher dill pickles disappeared from our refrigerator last night. I really have no comment about that. Anyways, I decided that I wanted a panini, or really, I guess it started as me wanting to make a grilled cheese with the gorgonzola I had bought at Whole Foods a few days ago. I ran out of crackers, so I needed another use for the cheese.

I woke up this morning and spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out what meats went well with gorgonzola. The trick was, I, uh, only had turkey lunch meat in the refrigerator. Then I got pissy. I wanted a panini and I didn’t want to have to leave my house to have it AND! I wanted it with my gorgonzola. And then it came to me, like a shining star in the sky. BUFFALO CHICKEN PANINI! It was a fucking WIN from the first thought, as buffalo wings are my favorite food! They were also amazing paninis, which did not hurt one bit. MMM.

Buffalo Chicken Panini

2 cooked chicken breasts, sliced thinly
1/2 cup (or more) Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
3 ounces gorgonzola (or bleu) cheese
6-8 slices of bread
olive oil

Preheat your George Foreman Grill (or, I guess if you’re fancy-shmancy, you COULD use a panini press, but why waste the extra money?).

Brush olive oil on to one side of each of the pieces of bread. On the side that doesn’t have olive oil place a few pieces of chicken. Add Frank’s Red Hot to desired spicyness. Place the gorgonzola cheese on top of the hot sauce and chicken and then add some more Frank’s Red Hot. DUH. Place another piece of bread with the oil side up and put onto the grill.

Close the grill and cook for about 3-5 minutes making sure not to burn the panini. Cut the panini into a triangle. Didn’t you know that’s the way you’re SUPPOSED to cut sandwiches? None of this rectangle crap.

Also, make sure to use the actual piece made for opening the grill. The sides are NOT recommended to open the grill, since, um, they’re actually the grill, and OW.

Makes 3-4 paninis.

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This entry was posted on December 18th, 2009 under Food.

Hot Beef Sammiches

By Brit

After the Shredded Beef BBQ Sammiches a few days ago, I had a hell of a lot of beef left. I was pretty convinced we’d eat it all with the sandwiches, but that didn’t happen. I had to figure out something else to do with the shredded beef. I found a can of gravy (ew, gross, I know) in the cupboard and decided that I’d make some Hot Beef Sammiches with it, and mashed potatoes of course.

They turned out really well, even Matt liked them and he HATES gravy. I like to think of that as an accomplishment.

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Hot Beef Sammiches

Shredded beef
Mashed potatoes
Gravy
Bread

Toast a piece of bread. Top with warmed mashed potatoes, then the shredded meat and finally the warmed gravy. Enjoy.

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This entry was posted on December 18th, 2009 under Food.

Shredded Roast Sammich with Homemade BBQ Sauce

By Brit

Ginny gave me a beef roast that she had made when I was still recovering from my procedure a few weeks ago. I had completely forgot it was in my freezer, so when she mentioned she made another one this weekend, I got excited. I had been planning on making shredded beef (ok, so maybe it’s pork, I can’t ever tell. I know pork is lighter, but this was all pretty light, but it had the beef smell. I DON’T KNOW! I’m just going to call it shredded roast from now on) sammiches since I love them.

I took it out of the freezer last night and tossed it into the refrigerator, so it’d be thawed for this morning. Of course it wasn’t completely thawed so I threw it in the microwave to defrost it the rest of the way and got started on finding ingredients. I was convinced my Grams had sent me home with some Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce (the only BBQ sauce allowed in our family’s houses), but I couldn’t find it in the cupboard or the fridge.

I freaked out for a second and immediately went searching for BBQ sauce recipes online. Everything I found called for about 4 ingredients I didn’t have. I decided to make my own. It couldn’t be that hard right? Right. So I did, and it turned out fantastic.

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Shredded Roast Sammich with Homemade BBQ Sauce

For the sammiches:
1/2 roast (pork or beef, or hell, chicken would work too), shredded
6-8 hamburger buns

For the BBQ sauce:
 1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup ketchup
1 1/2 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons white vinegar
1/2 stick butter
2 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
salt & pepper

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan, bring to a light boil. Add shredded meat and cook until warmed through.

Serves 3-4 (depending on how big the buns are)

I’m still getting used to the camera Ginny’s letting me borrow, it doesn’t have the auto focus that my old crappier one did. I think I’m too close to the food, but it smells so amazing I can’t wait to get it right!

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This entry was posted on December 14th, 2009 under Food.

It’s Never Too Early

By Brit

To think about Christmas, right? I mean, I can always think of things I’d love to get for Christmas. Here’s my list so far.

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Yes, that is an olive tree. Through Nudo, you can adopt an olive tree in their grove for a year. What an awesome idea. The best part? In the spring and in the autumn, they’ll send you the olive oil from the respective harvests. It’s a bit spendy, but you get olive oil, from your own tree! I love everything to do with olives, so this is an obvious choice.

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A KITCHEN AID MIXER. Duh, it’s on every woman’s wish list. I just can’t decide if I want the cobalt blue or the tangerine. The blue is pretty, the orange is pretty, and it’s Matt’s favorite color – which will give me some bonus points (not that I need any though). I used my dad’s Kitchen-Aid last week when I was home, to make french bread. I couldn’t believe how easy it was! It’s probably the most extravagant thing to have in the kitchen, ok maybe not, but it’s something that I will have, someday.

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091109crockpotA Smart Pot Crockpot. Set it and forget it! I’ve never had one, but I’ve always been intrigued by starting something in the morning and then magically, when it’s dinner time, it’s ready! That’s pretty awesome. Even better that now I’m working and Matt’s at home throughout the day. He doesn’t like to cook much, and well, I don’t like to ask him because I like to do the cooking. This solves all the problems. (It’s also now the correct crock pot, there was one I wanted specifically, but I couldn’t remember. Em helped <3)

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A points card for the Nintendo Wii. Our Beatles Rock Band is coming tomorrow (WE CANNOT WAIT! SERIOUSLY), and we’ve already made a list of the songs we want to download. I think there are like 100 songs already. Awesome. Pat Benetar and No Doubt here we come!!!

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091109greys I love Grey’s Anatomy. LOVE LOVE LOVE. There’s really nothing else to say about it. I don’t have season five though. I used to spend hours every week watching Grey’s. I’m in love with it. I can’t wait to watch the episodes I haven’t seen in awhile again. At least we know that Meredith and Derek are together now and I don’t have to wait to find out what’s going to happen, right?

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091109pwIt’s the fricken Pioneer Woman. I’ve loved her website for years and now she has a cookbook! She makes the most amazing foods, and takes amazing pictures. Ginny and I have decided that there’s probably really like four of her running around that ranch and that it’s really in Utah and Marlbolo Man is  some kind of mormon with fifteen wives … seriously! How else can she keep four kids in homeschool, keep her house clean AND cook and take amazing pictures. Ok, maybe I’m jealous.

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091109bookcaseIKEA’s Expedit shelving unit. I’m in love with this. I’m planning on turning it on it’s side and then using as a quasi side-board. It’s really another thing for storage. We need a lot, a lot, a lot of storage, and this will fit the bill, at least for a little bit of storage. It’s so pretty and it’ll look great with my Fiesta dishes displayed.

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091109boxspringUm, we don’t currently have a box spring for our bed. We tried using the double sized box spring from Matt’s old bed under my queen mattress, you can imagine how well that went. It’d be nice to have one and not worry about ruining the mattress we have. Really, that’s about all I can say about that.

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091109cameraA Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H20. It’s a 10.1 megapixel camera with 10x optical zoom and super steady shot image stabilization. My camera takes shitty pictures. I’m not going to lie, they’re terrible, and grainy, and embarrassing. It wouldn’t hurt to have a 16GB memory stick for it too, right? This is the one thing that I really, really, really want for Christmas this year (hint, hint, MOM – I know you read this).

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091109ringI wouldn’t say no to this either :)

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This entry was posted on November 9th, 2009 under Other.

Fun Day with Aunt Brittany

By Brit

I went on Monday night, with Matt, to get my Lucy-baby. While we were in Muskegon I had to visit a few people, eat at my favorite places, and hang out with my awesome nieces. Unfortunately, we could only come during the week this time so A was at school all day. I felt bad, but I promised next time we come to town, we’ll come on a weekend so she and I can have a fun day.

It started with S waking up at 7am and asking if it was time for us to go to lunch yet. She’s adorable, but 7am is ridiculously early. At 10am we finally left to visit my grandparents because I hadn’t seen them in way longer than I’d like. The internet had been down at my dad’s house due to the winds last week and Matt had to do some work, so it worked out perfectly.

After Matt finished his work and we finished visiting with my grandparents, we went to The Station. My absolute favoritest restaurant, EVER. Turns out it’s S’s favorite restaurant too, which was a bonus. I got to introduce her to my favorite drink, shirley temples, which she calls “cherry temples.” Have I mentioned how cute?

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We ordered chicken fingers and some texas fries (best meal, EVER).

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She could NOT figure out why she didn’t get cherries with her shirley temple like I did … so she asked the waitress. Cuuuute overload. Lunch was fun. Uncle Matt was there too, but he stuck to his taco salad and we were too busy playing and coloring.

When we got back to my dad’s house, we got back to the bread we started before leaving for lunch.

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The Wonder Pets helped us, and of course, we had to bring the shirley temple home :)

It was time to deflate the bread that had been rising. S was SO excited to do this because she got to punch it.

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Ok, it wasn’t so much of a punch as it was squishing it with her fingers, but either way, it worked. And the bread turned out amazing with the spaghetti and meatballs my sister in law made. YUM.

A came home from school and play time commenced. They are so cute together!

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They play together so nicely!

091103girls3“What’s on your nose?” “A BOOOGER!” I’m so glad I could capture that one.

091103alexA is VERY intent on coloring on her aqua pad (which are probably the best things ever, also)

091103samShe’s just crazy.

I love my nieces. I wish they lived closer, but it’s nice to be able to go visit, sugar them up and then head back home :). I can’t wait for Christmas! Noisy toys here we come!!!

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This entry was posted on November 4th, 2009 under Other.

Spaghetti and French Bread with Sicilian Butter

By Brit

YUM. That’s all I really need to say about dinner. It was so freaking good!

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I started at about 1:00 pm making the french bread. It’s the bread I previously made, but this time I halved the recipe because the loaves it made were HUGE and we didn’t eat it all, no matter how hard I tried to use it up. If you’ll notice in the picture above (minus the NASTY-ASS grainy-ness), my BRAND SPANKING NEW rolling pin! It was a birthday present from Matt’s parents, whom I adore (THANK YOUUU!)! I finally got to use it today, it’s amazing. Ginny also gave me the piece of marble that’s under the bread, which is ALSO the most amazing thing, ever. Previously, when I made bread, I kind of faked the rolling it out part and when it came to kneading the bread, UGH, it was terrible. I kneaded the bread on my cutting board because I could pick it up and wash it (which I couldn’t do with the counter, plus I was scared it would just be an awful mess). With the wooden cutting board, when I kneaded the bread it would pick up the cutting board and dust flour EVERYWHERE … let’s just say, I’ve made a huge leap in my bread making abilities.

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This is how it turned out. Looks amazing right? Yeah, that’s because IT IS AMAZING. I’m way too proud of myself for making things like this, but I’m ok with it.

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This is the other side of the bread. I’m not sure what the hell happened to it, but it looks pretty freaking coooool (and it tastes just the same, and that’s what REALLY matters).

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I made homemade spaghetti sauce. It was AWESOME. Sausage, green peppers, GARLIC, and sriracha (duh). Oh, and herbs, dried herbs because well, my farming skills didn’t turn out to be as good as I would have hoped they would be. It turns out this year, I was not a mother-fuckin’ farmer. I can always hope for better next year.

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This is dinnah. Yummy, yummy dinnah. The best part? I have 4! bags of spaghetti sauce in the freezer for when I don’t feel like cooking, or (as it is now) we don’t have any food in the house.

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Oh, and I made Sicilian Butter for the french bread! I found it on Cooking Ventures, well, a variant of it. I put it into a food processor because, well, I buy a big ass jar of garlic and I can’t mince it small enough. It turned out good, but was missing a little something, so I added a touch of lemon juice. AMAZING. Matt hated it, and I’m sure a lot of people would, but I LOVE GARLIC … and everything to do with garlic. Yum.

You really do need to check out Vince’s Blog, he’s an awesome cook.

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This entry was posted on October 7th, 2009 under Food.