Breakfast

Coffee, Don Francisco Butterscotch (can't find it in Texas so we either stock up when we are in California or order it online) and a Pain Au Chocolate.
Reading my Charcuterie book, plotting my next adventure in the art of curing meat.

Sopapillia Cheesecake, oh YUM!

I was introduced to Sopapillia Cheesecake a couple weeks back at the teacher appreciation luncheon at my son's school. We do them every other month for the teachers. A bunch of PTA volunteers all pitch in and make lunch for the teachers and staff. We love our teachers and take great pride in spoiling them.
So at the last luncheon my friend Stefanie made this Spoapillia Cheesecake. It was gone in less than 10 minutes. So good. So yummy. Sinful. Rich & Creamy. I BEGGED her for the recipe and she was happy to pass it along.
I've had the ingredients in my fridge ever since then & never had the time to make it. Not that it takes a lot of time to make (it really doesn't). I've just been so engulfed in everything else going on around here. But tonight turned out to be the night. The night that I would make a pan of Sopapillia Cheesecake & have to seriously restrain myself from eating half the pan.

Today. Sigh.... Today has been a day. Well I've had quite a few "Days" the past few weeks. First it was getting through Cole's homecoming for football.
(Me & my Bear Isn't he cute with his garter? GO REGULATORS!)
2 days before homecoming my friend and I made I think 28 mums & garters in 1 afternoon. My finger tips had second degree burns the hot glue gun. And that day I worked the concession stand (and helped decorate the field for homecoming) from 7 am till about 4pm taking 1 hour break to watch the Bear play. I had been up since 5am that day. Yeah, mom was tired.
Lots of things are colliding this week, PTA functions, Alec's orthodontic appointments, & the usual suspects of course.
Derek had a particularly rough day at work as well. We deserved this tonight. Put the kids to bed and we had a piece while we watched "Family Guy". (Days like this require carb-loading and belly laughs)

The ingredients:

• 2 cans Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
• 2 packages Cream Cheese 8oz Pkg.
• 1-½ cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 stick Salted Butter
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Spread 1 can of crescent rolls into a 9×13 pan. Mix together cream cheese, vanilla extract and 1 cup sugar. Spread over the rolls you pressed into the pan. Cover with the other can of rolls. Melt butter and in rest of sugar and the teaspoon of cinnamon. Pour butter/sugar mixture over the top and bake for 30 minutes. Serve warm or at room temp.
Oh yum. This was my piece. (I'm a corner girl) It was so good. Now to see how long it lasts in the house before getting eaten.

Braised Short Ribs Part 2

So Monday, early afternoon I begin the second half of this recipe. (which btw, came from last year's Food & Wine best new chef's edition.)
The first step is to pull it out of the fridge, remove the ribs and strain the liquid.

I toss these veggies, into the compost pile they go. I place the ribs into an enameled cast iron pot. If you are lucky to have some Le Cruset then yay for you. I have the ghetto Rachel Ray version. :) Then I prep my next batch of ingredients...
Chicken stock (I get this brand by the case at Costco. It's actually pretty good as far as boxed Chicken stock goes) a few more carrots and some onion. These onions are fresh from our garden. They are on the small side (we had to pick them early, it's along story) so I used 4 of them. If you had regular sized onions 1 would do just fine.
Peel the carrots and cut them into chunks
You want to keep the carrots somewhat big because they will braise along with the beef and if they are too small they will get mushy quick. Nothing worse than mushy carrots.

Toss the carrots and onions on top of the beef in your pot

Like my ghetto Le Cruset? LOL I shouldn't joke. My kids got it for me for mother's day.
Then combine the wine liquid you strained from the veggies with the chicken stock (entire box) and pour over the beef and veggies. Cover and place in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 2 hours. then remove the lid and let it cook un-covered for another 45 minutes. Mmmmm. The house smells WONDERFUL

Remove the pot from the oven, pull out the ribs and place them on a baking sheet, pull the bones apart, and pull the meat apart with your hands. (let it cook a bit before you do this). And this is where the the type of short ribs come in. These ribs I got are what you find most often in the stores. The origional recipe called for "Flanken Style" short ribs, which have a fair amount of fat on them (you want that) but lots of meat. These ones I got had more fat than meat on them so there wasn't a whole lot of meat to work with. Spread the meat out in the baking sheet and toss the carrots on them. Strain the onions from the liquid and put the remaining liquid into a fat seperator. Just to seperate the fat from the good stuff. Pour a little liquid over the meat and carrots.

Place this under the broiler in your oven for a few minutes. The meat and carrot will sizzle and get nice little brown bits. YUM. When I have made this in the past I serve it over buttered egg noodles. Tonight the husband and kids want rice so I oblige.

The beef is tender, flavorful, just plain yummy. And while the beef is the star here, I LOVE the carrots. You really can't beat veggies braised in wine with beef. This is one of Alec's favorite meals. He scarfs the beef down and asks for more.

Braised Short Ribs Part 1

I will warn you, this one is what I consider to be a "cold weather" recipe. It is one of my favorite comfort foods, and a cheap one to make at that. I just had a craving yesterday (despite the 102 degree weather outside) while shopping at my local meat market. Short ribs were on sale so I grabbed some.

This is a 2 part recipe, it takes 2 days to make it, but it is oh so worth it. The recipe I came across in a food magazine last year. I get so many, I can't remember if it was Food & Wine, Savuer, etc. It was from Tom Colicchio who I love to watch on Top Chef. I did make a few changes to the origional recipe (I'm just not a fan of celery) here is my take on it.

Part 1:

ingredients:
6 flanken style short ribs with bones (my butcher didn't have the flanken style so I am using the regular ones that are seen the most in meat cases)
1 large onion chopped
2 carrots sliced (I threw another in there cuz the one was kinda skinny)
3 garlic cloves peeled and thickly sliced (or just give them a good bash with your knife)
1 750 ml. bottle dry red wine, Cabernet Sauvignon
4 sprigs fresh thyme
small amount of veggie oil

Method:
Season ribs with salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat and add a little oil to the pan. Sear the ribs on all sides.
So yummy. As they are seared place them in a shallow baking dish. Don't crowd the pan, just take your time and do just a few at a time. While those are working take care of your veggies.
When your ribs are all done toss your veggies in the pan and saute till they are just tender. Don't forget to toss in your thyme sprigs.
This....
smells wonderful.

Then add your wine. This weekend I am using:
It's pretty tasty. I took a little sip while I was cooking.
It was on sale this week at my local grocery store, $6 a bottle. Now the last couple times I have made this I have used the Fish Eye Cab. and it was really good too.

The whole bottle to the pan, and bring it to a boil.




Now this REALLY smells good. I let it boil for a few minutes & the veggies start to turn purple from the wine.
I forgot to mention too that the thyme came from my cute little herb garden out in the back yard. The heat has really taken it's toll on the oregano, basil and tarragon, but the thyme and rosemary is doing ok. ( I am so ready for some cold weather!)
Ribs in the pan...

Add the veggie and wine mixture to the ribs. Allow it to cool completely then cover and place in the fridge over night. You can also keep this in the fridge for up to 2 days before going to the next step.


I have prepped this today (Saturday) for Monday night's dinner so check back to see Part 2!

Comfort food: Chili

Oh, it has taken me a LOOONG time to find an honest to goodness chili recipe. For so many years my chili recipe was one handed down from my step-mom, which came from her mom. It wasn't bad by any means. It was a recipe that perfectly fit my step-mom. An "open and dump" recipe. (open the cans and dump them in the pot) The only actual cooking consisted of browning the ground beef. It did contain beans, and it wasn't till we moved to Texas that I learned, REAL chili doesn't have beans.

So the recipe came from Alton Brown with a few minor tweaks. I use my pressure cooker and the meat is fall apart tender.

So first, get your mise together.
3 lbs. stew meat. (I get mine from our local butcher shop.)
Kosher salt/black pepper
Veggie oil
2 12oz bottles of beer
1 16oz (approx) container of chunky salsa
2-3 chipotle peppers chopped up with a tablespoon of the adobo sauce reserved
2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
handfull (more or less) corn tortilla chips

First, season the meat lightly with salt and pepper. The meat I usually get from the butcher shop is in rather large pieces so I will usually cut them in half. (more bite size)

Add a little oil to the pressure cooker and heat it up over medium/high heat & brown the meat in batches because THIS Is what you want. Little brown bits of meaty goodness. :) We are going to liberate those little brown bits of meaty goodness from the bottom of the pressure cooker with the good stuff.

Keeping it local with some good Shiner beer from Shiner Texas. This is the Heffenweizen, but the good old origional Shiner Bock works good too. This one just has a nice malt-y flavor. So you are gonna dump in 1 entire bottle and half of the other one. You will need to drink the rest of the bottle you know. It would be sacreligious to let it go to waste....It'll foam up, don't worry. Just get out your wooden spoon and start scraping the pan as it bubbles away. After the bubbling subsides add to the pot your meat, jar of salsa, peppers, adobo, chili, cumin & tomato paste. mix it all up together then take a handful of your tortilla chips and crush them as you add them to the pan. This is what it looks like:

Before your lid goes on. Which brings me to the hardware, ie: your pressure cooker. Make sure you read the instructions before you attempt to use it. Please don't re-paint your kitchen with chili.

Ok, so lid goes on (as per instructions) and you want to raise the heat till the the valve is all the way up (as mine does) or whatever yours does. Then lower the heat just so it maintains the same level, whistle, whatever yours does. Mine looks like this: So it will cook underpressure for about 20 minutes. After which, as per your cooker's instructions release the pressure. (i just push down on the little black button on mine and all the steam escapes. When your pot is de-pressureized you are left with this:
mmmmm..... Chunky, spicy, meaty. yum.

You can adjust the heat level by cutting back on the chipotle peppers. I like spicy chili, my dear husband, the gringo, likes milder chili. So I make it mild for him, them add more pepers for myself later.

Serve alone in a bowl. my family likes cornbread with it. We also do the old Frito Pie with it. This chili will taste better the next day. So make lots and enjoy the left overs. Chili Dogs, Chili burgers, Tamales with Chili.....

Comfort foods...

Well, here in central Texas it is starting to cool down. The crisp-ness is comming back in the air. The leaves and grass are starting to turn brown and crunchy. Whenever it gets cold and windy I want homey food. I tend to do lots of roasts, stews, soups and such.

I have been working recently on some comfort foods. Week before last (when we got the first cold front of the season) I did chili & cornbread. (look for the recipe to be posted soon)

My first comfort food, some may not really consider it a comfort food. Just 1 ingredient. But to me it is a dish, or a snack that really makes me feel safe, and reminds me of home. Well my grandma's home.

My grandma was born and raised in Mayaguez Puerto Rico. Growing up I spent alot of time at her house. My parents divorced when I was pretty young, so my mom, a newly single mom, working full time and going to school full time, left me to stay with my grandma after school was over, till she came to pick me up.

My grandma, was an amazing cook. Beans & rice, Coconut rice pudding, and this my favorite, fried plantains (or Tostones). Tho we never really served them with anything. They were an after school snack, or a side dish with dinner.

I was having a craving last night so I grabbed a green plantain and got busy.

Just the smell of the plantain frying in the hot oil took me right back to her kitchen. The cold tile counter, the heavy cast iron skillet.

There really isn't a "recipe" per-say. All she did was take some veggie oil in a pan and heated it up. Sliced the plantain into a little thicker slices, peeled the slices. Then she got out an old heavy drinking glass and smashed the plantain with the bottom of the glass. sometimes she would take a piece of peeled garlic, smash it with the glass first, then smash the plantain slice. They would then get fried in the hot oil till browned. Out from the oil they came to drain on paper towel. A quick sprinkle of salt and that is it.

So good and so yummy.