Slow Cooker Brunswick Stew

Slow Cooker Brunswick Stew

I’d be lying if I didn’t say the past two weeks have been a bit of a challenge. It all started out with me taking a spill while ice skating with my daughter. I truly thought I just jammed my shoulder, but an x-ray two days later confirmed a break. Broke the neck of the humerus clean through, I did. The next day, my husband went in for hernia surgery (a double!) then a week after that Mohs surgery to remove cancer from his nose. Thank God for generous friends to donate their time (and cooking!) while we got back on our feet, so to speak.

I’m just in a sling (no surgery required) but I’m basically one-armed (again). Once I felt stable enough to heft out the crock pot with one hand, I was able to throw this meal together. Many thanks to my friend Mollie at The Frugal Hausfrau for the inspiration! Since I have no ability to chop anything fresh, much of this came from cans or frozen bags, but feel free to substitute with fresh. The Trader Joe’s potatoes were seasoned with oregano and thyme, so if you add fresh potatoes, add in about a 1/2 teaspoon of each of those with them.

Slow Cooker Brunswick Stew

1 pound boneless skinless chicken (breast or thighs)
1 14.5 ounce can stewed tomatoes with liquid
1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes with liquid
1 cup frozen lima beans
1/2 cup frozen corn
1 cup frozen roasted potatoes with bell pepper and onion (I used Trader Joe’s)
2 cups homemade or low sodium chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 or 4 shakes Tobasco sauce
Ground black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons spicy barbecue sauce (I used Stubb’s Spicy)

Add all ingredients to a slow cooker, and stir to combine. Cook on low 8 hours or high 4 to 6, depending on your cooker. When done, shred chicken with a fork in the pot, then serve.

p.s. This is my third fracture of the body in as many years. My friends are recommending a body bubble wrap. 😉

p.s.s. We are headed to Austin and thereabouts for a 10-day vacation for a visit with family and friends, and heading smack dab into South by Southwest (SXSW), the county’s largest film and music festival. What better way to spend time while recuperating?

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Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole

Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole

I made a soup with similar ingredients to this many moons ago with a mile-long ingredients list, so this time around I decided to simplify it a bit more plus turn it into a casserole. As much as I love soup, sometimes I crave a bit more heft in the bite.

I ALMOST made this inedible, as I had the Hungarian sweet paprika and cayenne pepper sitting side by side in identical containers during prep. I actually poured ONE TABLESPOON of cayenne pepper on top of the tomatoes, but praise be I immediately noticed my mistake and was able to scoop most of it out before stirring it in. The end result was still a tad spicier than I intended, but overall a great comforting meal for a cold night. It sure warmed my husband up, lol! And even though this is over an hour in the oven, I guarantee this is way less time than the traditional stuffed method!

Unstuffed Cabbage Roll Casserole

1 tablespoon olive oil
1  pound ground beef, pork, or turkey (I used half beef/half pork)
1 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
Ground black pepper and salt, to taste
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 8-ounce can no-salt tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Hungarian sweet paprika
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons rice wine or white vinegar
1/2 cup white rice, uncooked
1 3/4 cups homemade or low sodium beef broth
1 small head cabbage (about 1 pound), quartered and sliced thin
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella

Ground Beef and Pork Mixture

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a skillet, brown the ground ground meat and chopped onions in the olive oil over medium heat until meat is cooked through, about 10 minutes. Add the minced garlic and cook a minute or two more. Drain the grease, if any. Grind a bunch of black pepper over it and add salt, to taste. Set aside.

In a bowl, mix in the next 7 ingredients (diced tomatoes through the rice).

Tomato Rice Mixture

Lightly spray an 8 x 8 casserole dish with oil, then layer half the cabbage on the bottom.

Cabbage and Beef Layer

Top with half the ground meat mixture, then half the tomato sauce mixture. Repeat. Last, pour the beef broth over all.

Layers Complete

Cover dish tightly with foil, and cook in oven for 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove foil, sprinkle cheese over top and broil for just a few minutes to melt cheese. Remove and let rest for 5 minutes, then serve.

p.s. We had to say goodbye to our beloved Hannah Banana last week. Our rescue dog of 14 years is deeply missed.

Hannah Banana

Hannah Banana

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Good Ol’ Shrimp Boil Potato Salad

Good Ol’ Shrimp Boil Potato Salad ~ We decimated more than half this meal before I remembered to take a photo!!!

This is a tasty, quick and easy meal to prepare, especially when you are about to head out of town for 5 days for another fishing trip to the coast. This time, Halibut Fishing! Many of you might remember my shark adventure from couple of years ago when we tried to catch halibut, and on the same trip my hubby caught a manta ray! Hopefully we’ll get the right species this time around.

Kathryn the Shark Woman

I saw this recipe in my most recent issue of Southern Living magazine, and with lots of shrimp in the freezer, it called my name. This takes very little time to prepare, especially if you use my “secret” Bundt-pan corn trick, shown below from another post. (I do actually stick a corn-cob holder in the top to stabilize the corn when cutting, but I had no helper to take a photo when I shot this. The foibles of food photography!)

Cutting the Corn off the Cob

I couldn’t find Creole mustard at the store that it called for (well, I do live in Oregon) but a quick google search came up with an easy substitute with items I had on hand.

I hope you enjoy this as much as me and my husband did, eating al fresco out on our back deck in glorious sunny weather. This tastes great warm or cold, I had leftovers the next day cold and just WOW! The flavors really intensified. This would be a great potluck or picnic meal, no mayo!

Good Ol’ Shrimp Boil Potato Salad
Adapted from Southern Living

1/4 pound smoked sausage, cut into thin slices
1 1.5-ounce package boil-in-bag shrimp-and-crab boil (I used McCormick’s)
1/2 pound baby red potatoes
1 ear fresh sweet corn, husks removed
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/8 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 tablespoons course-ground Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Several dashes of Tabasco
2 green onions, sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
A few shakes of paprika
1/2 teaspoon horseradish sauce
1 pound peeled and deveined shrimp

Brown the sausage over high heat in a skillet for just a few minutes, remove and set aside. Add the crab boil packet, potatoes, and corn cob with enough water to cover an inch over the veggies over high heat.

Once boiling, cook for about 10 more minutes until potatoes are softened.

Meanwhile, whisk together the rest of the ingredients except the shrimp in a bowl.

Once potatoes are done, add the shrimp and cooked sausage, turn off heat, then cover for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, drain and pour the food into a large serving bowl. Remove the corn and cut the kernels off the cob and add the kernels to the bowl. (I halved the potatoes after they were done but failed to add that to the PDF version recipe.) Pour the seasoned lemon/oil mixture over it, and stir to combine well. Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate up to 24 hours. YUMMMM!

I won’t have a post up again for about a week and a half, don’t miss me too much, lol. 😀

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BBQ Shrimp with Fried Polenta Cakes

BBQ Shrimp with Fried Polenta Cakes

I rarely try to do copycat recipes as they never come up to snuff to what you expect, but this one scored in my house. Now, probably 99.9999% of my readers don’t even live in my small town nor either close to it, so we’ll just leave it at that I was able to surpass the taste of this amazing shrimp appetizer dish at a local trendy restaurant.

It probably doesn’t even taste the same, since I never bought their expensive $16 bottle of the sauce to compare it to. (Who buys a $16 bottle of BBQ sauce, what??) All I know is that it exceeded our expectations of how it would turn out. I’m in LOVE! My husband swooned! (OK he didn’t literally, but he loved it too so I had to say it.)

I tried searching for the copycat recipe from our local restaurant (Zydeco Kitchen and Cocktails), but all it ever came up with was a copycat recipe for Zydeco 5, which is apparently in the Midwest or thereabouts. So, I googled for New Orleans BBQ Shrimp. Whoa! Too much information. However, what I gleaned from it all is that there were two camps in how to prepare it. Either marinating for a long time then oven cooking, or cooking quickly in a cast-iron skillet. I chose the former after my research.

I printed out several of the recipes that went in both camps, then combined all the ingredients into one full recipe. I got a little confuzzled at one point when I scratched out on one and then switched to the other then went back to the other. OY!

Instead of making grits or polenta cakes from scratch (for time reasons), I went with an organic refrigerated garlic and basil polenta tube from a local grocery. Trader Joe’s sells a similar tube of this product.

BBQ Shrimp with Fried Polenta Cakes

Note: I’ve offered to bring this to Super Bowl next week as an appetizer, and THEN make it again a few weeks later as the main course for a dinner party. Am I nuts??? LOL. But will be glad to do it.

Second note: I have a high heat/spice tolerance, so adjust seasoning amounts as needed.

This recipe serves two people, adjust amounts if serving more. On to the recipe!

BBQ Shrimp with Fried Polenta Cakes

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chili sauce (found in the ketchup aisle)
3 tablespoons Worcesterhire sauce
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke (I used Stubb’s)
2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon Cajun (Creole) seasoning
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon Sriracha sauce
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried spicy oregano
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
Generous amounts of ground black pepper, to taste
1/2 pound large or jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
Prepared refrigerated polenta
1 tablespoon butter
Chopped parsley and green onion, for garnish

Preparing the BBQ Sauce

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat, then add all the ingredients through to the ground pepper. You may want to add the spicy spices a little at a time until the spice level suits your tastes.

Spicy BBQ Sauce

Bring to a simmer and cook for about 5 minutes until it’s reduced just a tad. Add the shrimp to a casserole dish, then pour the sauce over it, stirring around to coat. Spread the shrimp around so they’re in a single layer.

Marinating the Shrimp

Cover and place in refrigerator for up to 4 hours or overnight.

About a half hour before you are ready to eat, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. When preheated, place shrimp dish uncovered in oven for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the polenta into 1/2-inch or so cakes (I wasn’t very precise in that case). Add butter to a skillet over medium-high heat, then fry the polenta cakes on each side until slightly browned.

Fried Polenta Cakes

Place two polenta cakes in a bowl, then add desired amount of shrimp over the cakes, pouring generous amounts of the BBQ sauce over it. Garnish with additional chopped parsley and green onion. Serve with a crusty bread, for sopping up all the sauce. Try not to fight over who gets to mop up the last of the sauce out of the casserole dish.

BBQ Shrimp with Fried Polenta Cakes

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Old-Fashioned Swiss Steak

Old-Fashioned Swiss Steak

I don’t use my pressure cooker nearly enough, but during my winter staycation I used it twice! Once for this flavorful, tender Swiss steak and another time for a spicy Mexican stew/soup. (Look for that recipe in an upcoming post.)

Have no fear if you don’t own a pressure cooker, as these recipes can also be made in a Dutch oven. The cooking times will be much longer over the stove or in the oven. That is the beauty of a pressure cooker — dinner can be served in about a half hour for something that can typically take up to two hours!

I call this “old-fashioned” because it reminds me of the Swiss steaks my mom used to make for us growing up, and I imagine her mother also made this meal. It was common practice for depression-era cooks to tenderize tough cuts of meat with a heavy meat mallet. Pre-tenderized top or bottom round steak are now widely available, but if you have a good old-fashioned heavy meat mallet, you could certainly tenderize the steaks yourself.

Somehow I failed to get a photo of the actual tenderized steaks without the sauce, but yes, there is a steak under all those vegetables! My family was duly impressed with this old-fashioned meal, and I hope you will be too!

Prepping Swiss Steak Ingredients

Old-Fashioned Swiss Steak
Adapted from Alton Brown/Food Network

1 to 2 pounds tenderized top round steak (or cube steak)
Ground black pepper
Mrs. Dash or salt
Flour to coat the steaks
2 tablespoons grapeseed or vegetable oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1 tablespoon tomato paste (freeze the rest for another use)
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted with garlic)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
1 1/2 cups beef broth, homemade or low-sodium

Cut the tenderized steak into serving size portions. (That would be three in this household.) Season the meat with ground black pepper and Mrs. Dash or salt, to taste. Dredge the steaks through flour and set aside.

Add the oil to the pressure cooker set on medium-high heat, and cook the steaks, one at a time, on both sides until browned. Remove each to a plate and set aside. Add a little more oil, if needed, in between steaks.

Sauteing the Veggies after Browning the Steaks

Add the chopped vegetables and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until combined. Return the steaks to the pot, submerging them in the liquid as best you can.

Tomato Sauce Mixture with Steaks ~ Yes the steaks are under there!

Secure the lid, add the pressure rocker, and turn the heat to high. When the pressure regulator begins to rock, reduce the heat to medium so that it rocks steadily for 15 minutes. At the 15-minute mark, remove from heat. Let the pressure reduce on its own before removing the lid. Serve steaks over cooked rice with a side salad or vegetable.

Note: If you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can make this in a Dutch oven. Follow the same steps, except cover the Dutch oven and cook on the middle rack in a 325-degree oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

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French Onion Soup with Brie Cheese

French Onion Soup with Brie Cheese

First off, Happy New Year 2014! Here I am in my third year of food blogging, and loving it! Yes, I soaked my Black-Eyed Peas last night, and will be cooking them up today for dinner. I cannot start out the New Year without a big mess o’ black-eyed peas. But my recipe today is the classic take on French Onion Soup, with a couple of changes. For one, I didn’t have any Gruyere cheese, but I did have a big hunk of Brie cheese. I had a slight “argument” the other night with a friend of mine who said you can’t shred Brie cheese as it’s too soft, but I have pictures as proof! You just need to have it chilled really good.

Grated Brie Cheese ~ See, You Can Really Grate Brie Cheese!

The other change I made was to simmer it in my Crock Pot instead of over the stove, because, I’m all about easy! There are a few things I would change about this recipe next time I make it. For one, I would use ALL beef broth instead of a combination of chicken and beef broth. I think I would prefer the richness of all beef broth. Next, I would use a really dry wine instead of the sweet white wine I used (because that is all I had at the time). The caramelization of the onions already adds sweetness, and the sweet white made it a tad too sweet for me. I tempered that by adding some salt to my bowl and topping with some Parmesan cheese in addition to the Brie.

Next time I’d also splurge on some Gruyere cheese. The Brie was nice, but a bit too mellow. And last, the recipe I based this on said to use four to six medium onions. After four onions I deemed I had enough, but I really think I should have used five and maybe even six instead. But still, all in all a decent recipe, and I loved using the oven to caramelize the onions instead of sweating and stirring constantly on the stove. It worked out great!

French Onion Soup with Brie Cheese
Adapted from Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, French Onion Soup

4 to 6 medium yellow onions, sliced thin
1 stick of butter
1 cup of white wine (preferably dry)
4 cups each homemade or low sodium chicken and beef broth (or all beef!)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 splashes of Worcestershire sauce
Thick slices of French baguette bread
Butter for bread
Grated Brie or Gruyere cheese, for topping
Additional Parmesan for topping
Salt to taste, if needed

French Onion Soup Ingredients

I forgot the butter in my ingredients photo! But it’s not hard to forget once you start cooking. Start out by peeling then slicing your onions thin. It helps to have a really sharp knife. I’m not a great slicer of even thicknesses, but it all works out.

Slicing the Onions

Next, add the butter to a large soup pot or dutch oven and melt it. After I took this shot of the elusive butter, doesn’t it look like the butter is melting over the planet earth from space? No? I’m very strange in that way.

Melting the Butter ~ On Planet Earth!

Next, begin preheating your oven to 400 degrees. Meanwhile, add that big mess of sliced onions to the melted butter, stir around to coat, then cover and cook over medium heat, covered, for 20 minutes. Here they are after coated in the butter. It looked like plenty of onions to me at that point!

Pot of Sliced Onions

After giving a good stir after 20 minutes, add the covered pot to the 400-degree oven, cracking the lid a bit to help the browning. Since the lid to my pot was round, I had a hard time getting it to crack properly. After 30 minutes, I deemed cracking the lid was useless so uncovered it completely at that point, so you might want to too, if you have a round pot you are using. I gave them another good stir, then cooked for about 45 minutes more or so, stirring occasionally, until they were nice and brown.

Caramelized Onions

Once your onions are all nice and brown and caramelized, take the pot out of the oven and put it over the stove top over medium heat. Add the cup of wine, then deglaze the pot, including scraping all the brown stuff off from the edges. Cook for about five more minutes until the wine reduces about half. Add the chicken and beef broths (or all beef), plus the two splashes of Worcestershire sauce and garlic.

Pouring in the Broth

At this point you can either simmer it for about 45 minutes on the stove top, or do like me and pour it into your slow cooker and keep it on warm until ready to eat. I made this during the daytime, so opted for the crock pot method, as it was way early to eat at that point. Plus, as I said, I like easy, and getting the main bulk of dinner out of the way early is good in my book!

Soup Simmering in Crock Pot

About 10 minutes before you are ready to eat, slice up the French bread baguette (enough for topping individual ramekins for the amount of people you are feeding), then butter them.

Buttering the Baguette

Put them on a rack in the oven on broil, until browned and crispy. Ooh these look delish!

Toasted Baguette Slices

Now ladle some soup into individual ramekins, top with baguette slices to fit, then top with the cheese(es). Broil for several minutes until melted and browned. Remove (carefully!) from oven, and serve immediately. This is a great basis for a good French Onion Soup with about half the fuss, so if you take my suggestions and prepare this the suggested way, it’s sure to please! For the printable recipe, scroll down below and click on the PDF link image. Happy New Year!

French Onion Soup with Brie Cheese

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