Stir Fried Vegetables

Ingredients: oil, garlic, ginger, onion, carrot, celery, snow peas, stock, soy sauce, sesame oil. (No kitty cats were harmed in this recipe)



Heat a large skillet or pan over the stove. First add your smaller stuff like garlic, ginger and onion. Once they are soft add your larger vegetables. Cook until all are tender and then add stock, soy sauce, and sesame oil.

I added chicken to my stir fry. Before any vegetables I cooked my chicken pieces until brown and then tossed with the finished vegetables later.



You could serve your stir fry over the traditional rice, but I decided to make them lettuce wraps and served in large pieces of ice berg lettuce. A fun way to mix up a weeknight meal.

Five-Minute Drizzle Sauce

Five minute drizzle where have you been all my life? If you don’t know about the five minute drizzle, please make notes now. It will change your life.

Ingredients: olive oil or butter, garlic (or onion or ginger or shallot or other stuff), lemon juice or vinegar, salt and pepper.

Here’s the deal: heat your oil or butter (about 4 tablespoons) add your garlic or onion or whatever your preference is, and cook for a minute or so. Then add a bit of water (not much though) and lemon juice, then salt and pepper to taste. Let it bubble for a minute or so. Serve over whatever.



I served it over a pork tenderloin. There are infinite number of things to serve this over. And no matter what you choose to put in your drizzle sauce, it’s amazing and you’ll be so glad you learned this little trick.

Roasted Vegetables p. 241

Ingredients: any kind of veggies (I used sweet potatoes and regular potatoes), olive oil, salt, pepper.

Most home cooks have probably already cooked this or at least something similar. Chop up your veggies, put them on a cookie sheet and roast in the oven. Simple as that.

My mom would put the veggies in a plastic bag with olive oil and whatever spices she felt like and then shake. This is a great method of coating the veggies with oil to prevent sticking. Plus it added more flavor. The basics of roasting your veggies is heating your oven to 425 degrees and cooking anywhere between 15- 60 minutes depending on the veggies you choose.

Served with corn on the cob (with cheese!) and pork tenderloin topped with five minute drizzle sauce.

Braised Potatoes p. 343

Ingredients: potatoes, EVOO, onion, stock, salt and pepper, parsley.

The book, How to Cook Everything, offers ten different ways to braise potatoes. This time around I went with the basic recipe. To be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed with the results, but then again, my potatoes were over cooked and mushy. Bryan liked them, but he also said he could live off only potatoes.

First heat your oil, and then toss in your potatoes for a few minutes stirring so they don’t stick to the pan. Then toss in your minced onion, let them cook for a couple of minutes til they are soft. Then you add in some stock and water if necessary (you want to make sure your potatoes are covered by the liquids). I put on the top and lowered the heat to cook for about 15 to 20 minutes. I think I cooked about 20-25 minutes, which is what the book said, but like I said earlier, mine were mushy, so you’ll want to check the tenderness every so often.

The consistency and taste was like stew, but without any variety. Some of the other options look more appealing and I’ll try them in the future.



Served with Salmon Roasted in butter.

Cooking in Packets

Mark Bittman drops in at the Today Show and shows us how limitless cooking in packets can be:

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Salmon Roasted in Butter p. 583

Ingredients: butter, salmon fillet, salt, pepper, parsley.

This is about one of the easiest recipes ever. Seriously. I feel like I say “this dish is easy” in almost every post, but seriously, it is.

Simply melt some butter in a pan (about half a stick). Then put your salt and peppered salmon in, preferably with the skin still on. Cook six minutes on one side (at about 475 degrees) and three to six minutes on the other. Mine only took three, but they were smaller fillets.

I garnished with a squeeze of lemon juice and fresh parsley. Delish.

Coffee Cake Muffins p. 833

Confession: before I cooked these delightful muffins I had never baked from scratch…. That I can remember…. Or at least for sure not in my married life. There might have been a time when I was much younger and I helped my mom make cookies from scratch or something. But lets just say this was my first time. Okay?

I woke up early and was feeling domestic one morning. It just felt like the day I was going to make muffins from scratch. What’s a girl to do in such a situation, but make muffins for her sweet hubby?

It was rather easier. Not as easy as measuring just milk and adding it to a mix, but almost. Just add a few more ingredients. This book offers a variety of ways to vary muffins, but I was leaning towards coffee cake this particular morning.



To make, you mix your wet ingredients in one bowl and dry in another. Then mix both after creating a “well” in the dry ingredients. For the coffee cake variation you mix butter, brown sugar, and pecans and mix half of that in with the muffin batter. Once you’ve filled your muffin tin put the remaining coffee cake mixture on top. Viola! Homemade muffins.



Here’s a peak.



And now I’m officially a domestic goddess… not really.

Simply Cooked Spinach p. 352

There isn’t really an exact recipe, but anyone who’s ever sautéed spinach knows how easy it is. Put it in a pot over the stove with a little olive oil. The leaves will wilt within a few minutes. Mark Bittman offers a list of 14 things that you can mix in with your spinach. I traditionally use a ton of salt (spinach needs a lot of salt, in my opinion) and some Worcestershire sauce. One of the options Bittman gives is compound butter. I still had some Bacon Compound Butter in the freezer, so I whipped it out. It didn’t taste overly bacon-y in the end, but I think the butter added some savoriness (Is that a word?) to the dish.

Simply cooked spinach is a delicious, nutritious, not to mention easy side dish to go along with any meal. I served it along side a Chicken Cacciatore from the Joy of Cooking and sautéed mushrooms.

Vodka Pasta Sauce

So a good friend and I were discussing vodka pasta sauce the other day. We’re both fans. But couldn’t decide between using chopped, pureed, or various other forms of tomatoes. I was torn between cooking the version in How to Cook Everything because of loyalty to this blog, but I also deeply love the Pioneer Woman and her many delightful recipes (I pre-ordered my copy of her cookbook just yesterday!). A side by side comparison was in order.



Ingredients: On the left we have How to Cook Everything, except that it didn't take garlic, please ignore it. Also ignore the labels on the cans, I should really start paying attention to what I put in the cart instead of what the shelf says. On the right we have Pioneer Woman's ingredients.

First you start off with your oil and/or butter and onions. Both recipes called for a whole onion, since Bryan doesn't like any bit of onion, I compromised and put half an onion in each. I'm nice like that.

Then things changed.


HTCE said to add the tomatoes. PW said to add the vodka. I should also mention that the proportions of vodka and cream were vastly different. A fourth of a cup to one full cup. I'd call that vast.

For HTCE I used diced tomatoes, PW calls for a puree. So the textures were different as well.


Another significant difference is that PW calls for a cup of cheese when you toss the sauce with the pasta. But I didn't notice a big difference in taste.



Bryan and I each got a bowl of each. Fortunately for all of you, I documented Bryan tasting each one. (For the record, he's not naked, he had just come back from a run and got out of the shower as dinner was ready.)

How to Cook Everything went first:


Happy Face, that's a good sign.

Next came Pioneer Woman:



He decided after the initial tasting that Pioneer Woman won. But ultimately both were delicious and we couldn't decide on a clear winner. It just depends on what kind of texture you are looking for.

As I am typing this I'm eating them both and they are even better the second day, like most pasta sauces. You cannot lose with a delicious, creamy vodka sauce.

Sauteed Mushrooms p. 313-314

Ingredients: olive oil or butter, 1 lb mushrooms, salt, pepper, white wine, garlic, parsley.



I’ve sauteed mushrooms before. I watched my mom do it once and didn’t think you’d really need a recipe. But I had a hankering (does that make me sound too old?) for mushrooms, so I looked up to see what Bittman said. Pretty much what I was doing, although I wouldn’t have had thought to add in wine or garlic towards the end. Basically you cook your mushrooms for 10-15 minutes and then add wine and let it cook off for a minute or so. Then add garlic and parsley and cook for only a minute or so more. I was uncharacteristically out of garlic, so I substituted shallots (they’re almost the same, right?). The mushrooms were delicious and I ate every last bite. Another nutritious, simple side dish.

Fried Okra p. 320

My brother and grandfather have a large garden and my brother brought me some okra they grew. I had to make fried okra, one of my favorite dishes. Since my last frying experience didn’t go so well, I was a bit nervous, especially since I had guests watching me prepare their dinner.



First, chop up a bunch of okra. Soak them in buttermilk, then put them in flour/cornmeal mixture til coated.



Fry in 2” of oil. My first batch wasn’t very good because I didn’t wait for the oil to get hot enough. But the next two batches were delicious. Just like fried okra should be.



My guests and Bryan, who frowned when I told them okra was for dinner, even enjoyed it… or at least they said they did.

Finally a successful frying experience!

Shrimp Scampi p. 574

This was our second night’s meal while at the beach. I had purchased the shrimp at the fish market the day before. This area does a lot of shirmping, so I knew it was going to be delicious.



This is yet another simple dish to prepare. Heat some olive oil or butter in a pan over the stove, add the shrimp. Cook for a few minutes until pink on one side and then flip. We added fresh parsley, lemon juice, and white wine.



We served over pasta and with asparagus.

Fish Baked in Foil p. 571

I made this dish our first night at the beach. Bryan and I went down to the fish market which is right at the docks. You can literally watch as the fisherman pull up and bring the freshly caught fish in.

For this dish I purchased some fresh grouper, a locally caught fish.

I laid out tin foil and put a filet on each piece. After rubbing olive oil over the fish, I sprinkled fresh parsley, salt, pepper, and chopped garlic.



Wrap up the packets and cook. The book suggests 15 minutes for cooking, but these filets took twice as long. Once its done, squeeze some lemon juice and serve.



We served with fresh spinach and corn on the cob. It was a fresh, simply cooked meal.

Back to Work

Good news! I got a new laptop and I've gotten back to work! New posts coming soon!

bad blogger

I'm sorry I've been away for so long without an excuse. Vacation was wonderful and I cooked some wonderfully fresh seafood. I even took pictures and notes for you... but its a bit difficult to post when you don't have access to a computer in which you can load your own photos and thoughts. So for now, I'm taking a break from posting until I replace my beloved computer. But that doesn't mean I've stopped cooking... stay tuned for my first successful attempt at frying, fresh fish and shrimp, and more!

Break Time

Hey Friends,

The husband and I leave for vacation today and will not be posting for a few days.

Actually, my laptop crashed last night... no it literally crashed on the ground... so posting might be sparse until I get a new one, hopefully soon though.

Prepare yourselves for some fresh fish and shrimp recipes in the future.

Peas with Bacon and Mint p. 329

In the south we have an amazing treat in the summer: Lady peas. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s Southern thing or everywhere thing. But I think it’s Southern. Normally we boil these in some chicken broth and they are delicious. But since taking on this project, I wanted to see what How to Cook Everything said.

I found this recipe, which isn’t necessarily for these types of peas, but I thought it would be delicious nonetheless.

Make your bacon first and put to the side. Then cook your peas. This took longer than the book said, a good 20-30 minutes. I had to add about a cup of water throughout this cooking process.

Add your bacon back in at the end and garnish with fresh mint leaves. I was skeptical about the mint, but our plant in the back has gotten out of hand, so picking was in order. It added a freshness and zip that really complimented the bacon and peas. Now I’m going to add it to everything.

Bacon Compound Butter p. 32-33

I had never thought of compound butter or doing it at home until this cookbook. It’s something that you get at fancy restaurants. But as I was reading and preparing for a steak meal the other night, Mark Bittman suggested a compound butter to top the steak. So I turned to the page and went through the many various things you can use to make a compound butter.

Another dish I was preparing for this meal called for bacon and I decided it would make a lovely addition to butter and my steak. Especially since I prefer a filet mignon wrapped in bacon.

To make compound butter is probably the simplest thing to do in a kitchen and yields amazing results. This is what you do. Take butter, at room temperature, and mix it with something, in this case crumbled butter. (I also threw in a bit of bacon fat... why not?!)


Then freezer or refrigerate. That’s it.



Make it today and impress your guests.

Pan Grilled/Oven Roasted Steak p. 718

At the beginning of this recipe, Mark Bittman says that a gas grill will not do for grilled steak. This is unfortunate for us since that is all we have at this time. So I began to look at the other 4 ways to prepare a steak.

For this recipe its very simple. Heat an oven proof skillet over the stove for several minutes so that the pan is hot. Then put some course salt on the bottom of the pan, put on your steaks, and immediately put in a very hot oven.



I cooked my steaks, which were a bit less than 1” thick as the recipe called for, 3 minutes on one side and 4 on the other. They were done medium, they way Bryan likes it.


They were delicious, especially topped with Bacon Compound Butter.

Milk-Steamed Corn on the Cob p. 289

My normal method of cooking fresh corn on the cob (is there un-fresh corn on the cob?) is to boil it. We’ve begun experimenting with corn wrapped in foil on the grill this summer, but we’ve never tried steamed. The idea of steaming the corn with milk sounded good.

As part of our Angel Food box we got milk in the container… you know the kind that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. I can’t remember what its called because I threw the carton away and Bryan took out the trash. Since that is a stabilized milk, so it can stay on the shelf for longer, I decided to try steaming with that.

But since we have never steamed corn before, its hard to give a comparison. Mark Bittman suggests using this method with “less-than-ideal” corn, which is probably a good suggestion. I started off having less-than-ideal corn, but that turned into rotting, mildewed corn, which then found its way to the trash can. Disappointed I couldn’t make the corn, I went to our local produce store to purchase some fresher corn on the cob to make this recipe. I picked the white corn, its my favorite and tends to be sweeter. But I can see the corn that is mixed yellow and white being good using this recipe. I’ll let you know.

Stuffed Flank Steak p. 737

This was probably my second biggest undertaking so far, second only to the tamales. And this round was much more successful than the other. It’s not a difficult dish to make, just a little time consuming. The time estimate given was at least 2 hours and I took about two and a half hours.



Ingredients: Flank steak (obviously), salt, pepper, oregano, cumin, garlic, cilantro (or parsley), carrots, eggs, red or white onion (I used half a red onion), spinach, and EVOO.

The most challenging thing to do was to cut the meat in half. I let Bryan do it and after a few expletives, our meat was cut and ready for stuffing.

Start with your spices and work your way up in consistency.

Here it is with everything but spinach.

Spinach goes on last. Then roll and tie. This was also challenging because I didn’t leave enough room on the edges, so things fell out. The recipe called for three carrots, and I ended up using only two. My steak was very stuffed.

Brown your meat on the stove for a few minutes on each side and then pop in the oven. The cook time is over an hour, which will give you time to clean your kitchen, watch a movie, or do laundry.





Its an impressive dish to serve guests. Prepare, clean up your kitchen, and welcome your guests. They’ll be impressed with the luxurious smell wafting through the house and then you can whip it out oven and they will begin to drool. And you can say, yeah, I cook and excellent meal and hardly even get the kitchen dirty… to their knowledge.

Quick Glazed Carrots, p. 277

Ingredients: carrots, butter or EVOO, salt, pepper, lemon juice.

I had carrots on hand from my last Angel Food package and decided to glaze them as part of an afternoon lunch. I’ve glazed carrots before with whiskey, which is delicious, but a little fattening.

For this recipe Mark Bittman suggests using water, wine or stock to simmer the carrots in. I choose wine since we had some on hand and I love cooking with wine. I used butter as well and those two flavors really worked well together.

Let your carrots cook in the wine, butter, sat and pepper for several minutes and garnish with a little lemon juice. Simple and delicious.

Sauteed Zucchini and Summer Squash p. 355

Ingredients: butter or EVOO, garlic, zucchini (or summer squash), salt, pepper, lemon juice, parsley for garnish.

This isn’t a new dish to me. My mom used to make it all the time in the summer and I learned how to make it later on as well. It was a quick, simple, delish way to enjoy the bounty of summer produce. If only my husband would like it…. Sigh.

Garlic and lemon juice was something new to me, though, and it really adds some zest.

Too cook this dish, simply mince your garlic and cook in your olive oil or butter. (I prefer olive oil for this dish.) Once its heated through add your zucchini. The book recommends cutting it crosswise, but I was cooking a lot and its easier for me to chop it in rounds. Let it sauté for a few minutes until your desired tenderness. I like mine to almost melt in your mouth. Serve garnishing with lemon juice and parsley.