Tuscan (Inspired) Lamb Chop Skillet

This is one of my family's favorite "one dish wonder" type meals that I got out of one of those little cookbooks in the checkout line at the grocery store.  I have since put my own methods and spin on it.

Ingredients:
4-8 lamb loin chops
Olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 19 ounce can white kidney (cannellini) beans; rinsed & drained
1 8 ounce can Italian style stewed tomatoes
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons snipped fresh rosemary

You will also need:
Large skillet with lid
Crusty bread for soppin' up the awesome sauce!!!

Method:
Trim a minimal amount of fat from chops and season with salt and pepper. Heat oil in large skillet. Cook chops in hot oil over medium heat until well seared and browned on all sides. Transfer to plate.

Pour the tomatoes out of the can into a separate bowl and cut them up if they are not diced. But do NOT drain them. Reserve all juice use in the dish.

Stir garlic into drippings in skillet & cook for just 30 seconds – 1 minute.

Pour in balsamic vinegar to deglaze the pan, scraping up the browned bits off the bottom of the pan.  (Add less balsamic vinegar if it is too strong of a taste for you. I up the amount of balsamic because we really like the flavor of it in our house.)

Add cut up tomatoes and juice, beans and simmer briefly.

Reduce heat to low and add chops back in, coating them with the sauce. Sprinkle in the snipped rosemary on top of the chops and sauce. 

Cover and simmer for about 5 minutes.  The internal temperature of the lamb chops should read about 140F when they are done.  If you want to thicken up the sauce, remove the chops back over to a plate and turn up the heat  while pushing all the tomatoes and beans to the sides of the pan and allow the sauce in the middle to reduce just a little.  Return the chops to the skillet to serve.

 

Ribs

Want great and tender ribs but don’t have a smoker?  No problem.  This oven method for cooking ribs, while long, is wonderfully easy and turns out perfectly tender baby back ribs every time.

 

Ingredients:

Rub
Baby back ribs (I usually do 1 rack cut in half to feed my family of 4 + 1 guest.  Plan for 2-3 ribs per person.)
Barbeque sauce (optional)

You will also need:

Broiler pan (or sheet pan + cooling rack)
Aluminum foil
Grill (optional)

 

Method:

Cut the racks in half so that they more easily fit on the pan.

Use a spoon to dip into the rub and place it on the ribs.  With your fingers, rub the spice mixture into all sides of the ribs. 

You can cook immediately, but for maximum flavor, wrap in foil or cover and refrigerate overnight. 

Preheat oven to 300º F.

Place the ribs on the broiler pan with the “cup side” up.  Bake, uncovered, for 1 1/2 hours. (If you had the ribs wrapped in foil overnight in the fridge, save the foil as you’ll use it later.)

Remove the ribs from the oven and lower the temperature to 200º F.  Wrap each 1/2 rack of ribs individually in aluminum foil.  Return the ribs to the oven and bake (still at 200º F) for 3 hours.

Remove from oven and unwrap each foil packet of ribs.

You may serve as is, or, if desired, lightly brush with your favorite barbeque sauce and grill over high heat to caramelize on the sauce.  The ribs should be completely tender, but still grip the bone enough to make grilling on the barbeque sauce easy. 

If you like your ribs literally falling off the bone, bump up the low heat baking time to 4 hours or so.

We prefer to not have a lot of sauce as the rub we use gives so much flavor and has such a nice finish with the brown sugar that is in it. 

Simple Chocolate Cake

from Cook’s Illustrated (March/April 2009, pg. 25)

This is a surprising little cake.  The surprising ingredient is mayonnaise.  NOT “salad dressing,” mind you.  No.  The real stuff.  Mayonnaise.  It was a method used in war-times when butter and eggs were scarce so the mayonnaise served as a substitute for those ingredients.  It is definitely simple enough for a week-night dessert.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (7 1/2 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1/2 cup (2 ounces) Dutch-processed cocoa powder (or “Special Dark”)
2 ounces dark, bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (chopped fine)
1 cup hot coffee (or equivalent mixture of hot water and espresso powder)
2/3 cup mayonnaise
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

You will also need:

8 inch square cake pan
Non-stick cooking spray
1 large mixing bowl
1 small-medium mixing bowl
Confectioners’ (powdered) sugar for garnish

 

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare cake pan by spraying with non-stick cooking spray.

In large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.  In smaller bowl, combine cocoa powder and chopped chocolate; pour hot coffee over cocoa/chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth.  Let this mixture cool for several minutes then whisk in mayonnaise, egg and vanilla.  Pour mayonnaise/chocolate mixture into flour mixture and stir until combined.

Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth it all around.  Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out with few crumbs attached after being inserted into the center of the cake.  Note:  the cake will have a nice rounded domed middle and cracks on the top.  This is normal.

Allow cake to cool in pan on wire rack for 1-2 hours.  Turn cake out  onto serving platter and dust with confectioners’ sugar to serve.

Cranberry Orange Oatmeal Cookies

adapted from the Quaker Oats recipe found here

  

Ingredients:

1-1/2  cups all-purpose flour
1  teaspoon baking soda
1  teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2  teaspoon salt
1/2  cup (1 stick) plus 6 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4  cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2  cup granulated sugar
2  eggs
1  teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon orange extract
1 teaspoon molasses
3  cups old fashioned oats (uncooked)
1  cup dried cranberries

 

You will also need:

Stand mixer
Cookie sheets
Parchment paper

 

Method:

Heat oven to 350°F.

In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and mix together using a whisk.

In large bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium speed of until creamy with paddle attachment. Beat in eggs one at a time, thoroughly mixing after each addition. Add vanilla, molasses and orange extract; beat well. Add flour mixture; mix well. Add oats and dried cranberries; mix well.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls (or by using an ice cream scoop) onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets.

Bake 10-13 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Cranberry,Oatmeal,Cookies,Baking,Dessert

Cream Cheese Icing

 

Ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 teaspoon vanilla (clear vanilla if available)
1 pound confectioner’s (powdered) sugar (sifted)

 

You will also need:

Stand mixer with paddle attachment

 

Method:

Set out cream cheese and butter and allow them to come close to room temperature.  Beat in stand mixer to soften.  Add vanilla and beat to mix thoroughly.  Scrape down bowl and mixing blade.  Sift about 1/3 of the powdered sugar into the bowl at a time and mix thoroughly between additions until the icing has reached a nice smooth consistency.

Sugar Cookies

This recipe is from my friend Meg and makes a very good yet simple cut sugar cookie.

Ingredients:

3 sticks butter (room temperature)
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
4-5 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

 

Method:

In stand mixer, beat butter to soften.  Add in eggs one at a time, mixing well and scraping the bowl between additions.  Add sugar and vanilla and mix thoroughly. 

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.  Add slowly to mixer and mix just until well combined.

Chill dough for at least 1 hour before rolling out.

Tips on rolling out dough:

• Dust counter with flour and roll out no more than 1/4 of the dough at a time, keeping the remaining portions in the refrigerator. 
• Roll dough to 1/4” – 1/6” thickness.  Not too thin or they will not be soft
• If cut when dough is still cold, the cookies will puff up and lose their shape.  Work dough with your hands to bring to room temperature to roll out and cut and the cookies will hold their shape really well.
• Place cut cookies on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and refrigerate or freeze before baking.

Bake cut cookies at 375 F for 6-8 minutes.  Just before the edges turn light brown; tops will be firm to press.  Allow to cool completely and decorate with royal icing.

  This picture shows the difference between a cookie cut with the dough at room temperature (top) and one that was cut when the dough was cold fresh out of the refrigerator (bottom).  While the dough is easier to work with cold fresh out of the refrigerator, the cookie puffs up and loses some of the definition in the shaped cookie.  The room temperature dough gives a much cleaner and prettier finished product.

 

Once baked, cookies can be frozen until you are ready to decorate them and then they can be frozen once decorated also until ready to serve.  Just allow to thaw at room temperature.

Popcorn Cake

As passed down from my Nana P to my mom to me.

 

Ingredients:

1 pound M&M’s candies *
1 pound dry roasted peanuts
1 gallon popped popcorn (approximately 2 microwave bags) **
1 pound marshmallows
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup margarine ***

* Holiday specific M&M’s make this a special treat for any holiday.
** Get as close to no butter popcorn as you can.
*** I rarely use margarine any more. However, my mom tried butter while living overseas where she couldn’t get margarine and it didn’t work so well.

 

You will also need:

Very large mixing bowl
Medium sauce pan
Heat-proof spoonula
Thermometer with candy setting
2 wooden spoons
Cooking spray (oil)
Angel food cake pan or Bundt pan

 

Method:

Pop popcorn and allow to cool. You may want to shake out the popcorn in a bowl to get all the un-popped seeds out.

In a very large bowl, place M&M’s, peanuts and popcorn in that order with M&M’s on bottom, peanuts on top of the M&M’s and popcorn on top of that.

In saucepan over medium heat, begin melting margarine and add oil and stir. Add in marshmallows and begin stirring while allowing the marshmallows to melt. Stir constantly with a heat-proof spatula/spoonula. Allow to boil until approximately 230ºF. The mixture will be translucent when coating the thermometer or against the bottom of the pan when you tilt it to the side.

You can do all of the above in the microwave. Just be very careful about the marshmallows expanding and overflowing your bowl.

Once the marshmallow mixture is finished cooking, pour it over the popcorn. With two wooden spoons, mix the hot marshmallow mixture into the popcorn and gradually incorporate the peanuts and M&M’s at the bottom of the bowl as the mixture cools a bit. Mix until all the ingredients are evenly distributed. (Or until at least mostly evenly distributed.)

Lightly spray angel food cake pan (or Bundt) and hands with cooking spray. Using hands, press the popcorn mixture down into the pan. This recipe will completely fill an angel food cake pan and fill a Bundt pan with a little left over. Allow the pressed cake to cool in the pan for a while (maybe 30 minutes to an hour) until the cake has set and firmed up.

Turn cake out on platter or cake taker that can be covered. You may have to lightly squeeze the pan to release it or you may use a hair-dryer on the outside of the pan to warm and release it. Continue to allow the cake to sit out and set up in open air at room temperature for another hour or so.

Use a sharp bread knife to slice the cake and eat it with your fingers. And eat some more… and some more… you get the idea.

 

Order of the ingredients is important to protect the M&M’s from getting too hot and melting with the heat of the marshmallow mixture.

Reason #1,253 I dislike using a microwave.  I’ll use a stove-top and sauce pan thankyouverymuch.

Melt the butter, add the oil and marshmallows and mix while the mixture melts together and begins to boil.  Stir constantly.

At about 230ºF the mixture will be translucent on the tip of the thermometer and it’s ready.

Pour the marshmallow mixture over the popcorn and mix with two wooden spoons until ingredients are evenly distributed.  Press into pan until firmly packed and full.

 

It’s a crowd pleaser.  At least it is in my family.