Now that I'm cooking again, in a decent kitchen, I have to get back to this!

And I have a camera to take pictures too!

1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/3 cup water (more or less)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 medium onion
garlic
salt
pepper

Mix all ingredients together, adding water as needed to keep the meat moist. It should not fall apart.

Shape meatballs to desired size and place on a broiler pan.

Broil until outside is slightly brown on one side and then turn and broil the other side.

When finished, add to spaghetti sauce and simmer a minimum of 20 minutes.

Fresh Fruit Cobbler

2/3 to 1 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 cup water
3 cups fresh fruit with any juice there might be
1 cup flour (Gold Medal)
1 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp shortening
1/2 cup milk

Heat oven to 400 degrees (mod hot). Mix sugar, cornstarch. Gradually stir in water.
Bring to boil and boil 1 minute., stirring constantly. Add fruit and juice.
Pour into 1 1/2 quart baking dish; dot with butter. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
Measure flour by dip-level-pour method or by sifting. Stir flour, sugar, baking powder,
salt in bowl. Cut in shortening until mixture looks like "meal". Stir in milk.
Drop by spoonfuls onto hot fruit. Bake 25 to 30 minutes.
Serve warm with cream. 6 to 8 servings.

For the fruit use cherries, peaches, apricots, or blackberries.

Canned Fruit Cobbler

Make fresh fruit cobbler except use 2 1/2 cups canned fruit or berries and juice in
place of fresh fruit. Use only 1/2 cup sugar with the fruit and omit water.

Another one from Mom's Betty Crocker!

Apple Crisp

4 medium tart cooking apples, sliced (4 cups)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats
1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Cream or Ice cream, if desired


Heat oven to 375ºF. Grease bottom and sides of 8-inch square pan with shortening.

Spread apples in pan. In medium bowl, stir remaining ingredients except cream until well mixed; sprinkle over apples.

Bake about 30 minutes or until topping is golden brown and apples are tender when pierced with a fork. Serve warm with cream.

Yanked from my mom's 1960ish Betty Crocker Cookbook!

http://www.rollybrook.com/chiles_rellenos.htm

I was looking for chile rellenos recipes, and i found this. I just love the photos of spanish/mexican women cooking the dish.

Edit:

My chiles rellenos were the bomb. Even Veikko said they were the #2 best rellenos he's ever had :) this is a big compliment because he's a relleno connoisseur as well. #1 honors goes to one of our favorite mexican restaurants in south atlanta.

I guess i'll go ahead and write out my 'recipe' so I can remember, and in case anyone wants to try their hand at this delicious dish.

( Poblanos RellenosCollapse )
They were effing EXCELLENT. mm. well worth the effort.

People have been asking me to share my recipe for red beans and rice, so i thought i would do this while it is still fresh in my mind. i have been making it pretty much every monday for the last couple of months, and i think i finally have it down to a bit of a science.

the recipe i will be giving you is based loosely on this one:
http://www.realcajunrecipes.com/recipes/cajun/beans-rice/187.rcr
which i found through searching wikipedia for red beans and rice.

i usually double that cause i like to cook alot at once. even at this rate, its astoundingly cheap to make. here is my recipe, which serves 8 - 10 easily:

ingredients and prep:

*2 medium sized cans of red beans
*1 red and 1 green bell pepper (chopped into tiny squares for the occasion)
*1.5 large red onions. i use red ones because they are the most potent and flavorful. if you really hate feeling like your eyes are being stabbed out, just get the white ones. these should also be chopped into tiny squares.
*3-4 cloves of minced garlic
*2.5 cups water
*salt, pepper, cajun seasoning, and hot sauce to taste.
*a fraction of a brown gravy packet
*2-3 cups white medium grain rice (steamed)
*7-8 links of smoked sausage. i get the stuff you find in the boxes or plastic packages around the processed lunch meat/bacon at kroger. usually pretty cheap and quite delicious (beware the kind with beef hearts). these should be sliced in half once each longways and then divided into smallest desirable chunks.
*one large saucepan
*one decent sized skillet

direx:

*rinse and strain the beans thoroughly with cold water.
*place beans, garlic, onions, and peppers into large sauce pan. also add water and a dash or two of salt.
*bring this concoction to a light simmer. i usually leave it between 3 and 4 on our electric stove.
*let simmer for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally.
**alot of things happen at or around the 1.5 hr mark. they are as follows, in the order that i find most convenient:
-start your rice
-using a large plastic or wooden mixing spoon, smash about 1/3 of the beans and vegetables. spend at least a few minutes at this for just the right texture.
-sautee your sliced sausages with butter or oil, some hot sauce, and all your seasonings. this is a trick i learned from tom dechman that has proven handy in many a saucemaking adventure.
-once the sausages are about 3/4 cooked, add the whole soupy mixture into the pot of smooshed beans and veggies. this should thicken the texture a bit as the whole mixture simmers for annother 20 - 30 minutes. this time, stir just a bit more often than you did in the first hour and a half.
*watch your texture closely in the last 5 - 10 minutes of the simmer. if it is too watery, add some sprinkles of brown gravy mix every few minutes until its just right. it takes some stabbing to get this down pat, but even when i made it too thick it was delicious. as i learned this evening, it is best when it soaks up into the rice to make one dish rather than 2 seprate conglomerations.

i hope yall enjoy this one as much as i have! if you want to try it first, i make it almost every monday night now, and theres ALWAYS leftovers.

Basic Vegetable Broth

This broth uses mirepoix as a base, with water, leeks and seasonings added for more taste.

2 quarts of water 
1 cup diced carrots (baby carrots for a sweeter taste)
1 leek, white and light green parts only, cleaned, quartered, cut into thin slices 
1 cup celery diced (or 1 tbsp celery seed)
2 cups diced onion
1 tsp. sea salt 
1 tsp. ground black pepper
2 bay leaves 
2 tbsp. minced garlic or 2 garlic cloves peeled and minced
1 tsp. parsley
2 tbsp. unsalted butter

1. In a large stock pot, saute butter, onion, carrots, celery over medium heat until onions begin to turn clear. Add salt and pepper.
2. Add leeks and saute until leeks begin to turn clear.
3. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil over high heat.
4. Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

You can add any variety of vegetables to this as it makes an excellent soup starter. I also use it as a base for chicken or beef-based soups. When in a rush, I skip the leeks and use salted butter. If the flavor is too strong, just add more water and bring to a boil again.

This also makes a great base for fondue. It's very mild and will cook meats and vegetables without masking their flavors. When using for fondue, you should slice the onion, carrot, leek and celery into tiny tiny pieces (minced) or strain before putting on the burner.

I like adding mushrooms, green beans, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, diced red potato cubes, eggplant, zucchini and green peas or soybeans and cooking until the potatoes are tender.

To make vegetarian/vegan: Use olive oil instead of butter.

this is a dish i prepared for a pot luck recently. by the end of the night we had all decided to email out the reicpes to each other, so i pasted from that. its the only recipe i have yet written down:

i am sorry i cannot give you exact measurements here, i do not normally use recipes or measure much of anything when i am cooking. i am driven mostly by mad italian instinct when it comes to working in the kitchen, so i have always found recipes to be useless. ie: I CANT BAKE. the following is the story of the pork tenderloin you all ate at the party:

the only tenderloins i could find at the ghetto kroger were pre wraped and already contained some marinade. the one i chose was lemon and herb. when i got it home i laid the meat down in a bowl and sprayed it with some key lime juice, letting it soak in while i prepared the marinade, which contained: 1 jar of "naturally fresh" brand seven pepper marinade, one pouch of injectable cajun marinade (i was intending to inject this whole mixture until i broke the needle while trying to load it) then i added about 1/4 bottle of red wine vinegarette dressing, a few squirts of horseradish mustard, some of that oriental hot sauce with the rooster on it and the green lid, five cloves of minced garlic, and i think thats it.

i whisked everything together in a seprate bowl then i poured it on top of the key lime soaked meat until it was completely covered. i then poked at the meat with a fork numerous times before putting a lid on the bowl and letting it sit in the fridge for about an hour. then i took it out and stuck it in the toaster oven at 350 degrees (as per the directions on the meat package) for about 45 minutes. perfect. delicious. mmmmm.....im sad this dissapeared so fast and not everybody got to try it. if you are planning to make this for any number of people, make sure you roast two of them!

I thought I'd ask what is the worst cooking mishap you've ever had? Mine all involve baking. I just can't bake, for the life of me and betty crocker. 👁 Image

This was a very failed attempt at making brownies from scratch. The sad thing was, a good bit of pot or so was in that, and it went to waste. (no cooking high jokes please, i was not in the least bit). Really, baking powder and baking soda just defy me. Like the time I tried to make oatmeal raisin cookies and ended up with flat raisin-embedded barnacles that tasted faintly like...yarn (note: do not use irish oatmeal for cookies). I attempted to make a cake for veikko's birthday and forgot that one box of mix fills two pans... so i put two boxes of mix in two pans. It was the leaning tower of pisa cake. Even those cookie-dough rolls that you're supposed to just toss on a sheet and bake... I tried to avoid burning them by cooking them for a long time at a low temperature, but just ended up with unburnt, yet unedible hardness. I've told my fiancee veikko to just accept that all of his toast, garlic bread, and other baked items will be most likely burnt, and he said "if you were a real chef you'd call it blackened."

Spinach Stuffed Chicken

Ingredients
3-4 cleaned, skinless, boneless breasts
One package of chopped frozen spinach
Chopped/minced garlic in oil (the lil jars)
One big can of pasta sauce (i really like Muir Glen Organic stuff)
Olive oil
Angel hair pasta
Provolone or Mozzarella
Garlic Bread

PREHEAT OVEN TO 380 F
Unwrap spinach and put in bowl, put in microwave on medium power

Start cleaning chicken of fat and etc. Cut pockets lengthwise on the side of the breast with a good serrated knife. I like to press the breast between my hand and cutting board and use this to steady the breast for the cut.

Dump the spinach into the bowl, there should be some juice, drain it. Put about 1 tablespoon of minced garlic in, sprinkle salt liberally, pepper if you like. Fluff together with fork.

Open the pasta sauce, pour about half an inch in a baking dish with high sides (this is so you can start laying the breasts down in it after you stuff them)

With your hands, grab a bunch of spinach, open the chicken breast, stuff in tightly. Lay down in baking dish.

After all breasts are in the pan, drizzle the tops with olive oil and pour the remaining pasta sauce in pan. If you have a lot of leftover spinach, you can add a few spoonfuls for garnish around the top of dish.

Put in oven and cook for 35-40 minutes or until chicken is 180 in thickest part

Dont forget to put the angel hair on to boil sometime towards the end of cook time.

About 10 mins before baking is done, sprinkle lots of shredded cheese on top, let melt.

Serve on top of pasta with lots of sauce! The garlic bread is essential for mopping up the deeeelicious sauce. Suggested appetizer: cynny's stuffed mushrooms.