Lazy Day Gourmet

Peeling Tip of the Day

Chef Joe Randall, originally uploaded by darnlucky.

Last weekend, my husband Basil and I went to Savannah to take a Backyard BBQ class with Chef Joe Randall. I can honestly say that I have never eaten so much in my entire life. And the food? Oh yeah, it was amazing!

Chef Joe Peeling Tip: When you're peeling something like carrots, don't peel over the garbage can! If you lose your grip, and lose your carrot, you've just wasted time and ingredients. Or even worse, you might even be tempted to pluck the carrot out of the trash, wash it off, and use it! Yuck!

Instead, wet a paper towel, ring it out, and lie it flat on your countertop or cutting board. Peel into the paper towel. The shavings stick to the wet towel, and you can easily bundle it up and throw it out when you're finished peeling.

And if you slip up and lose your carrot, no harm done.

My 5 Favorite Things To Do With Tongs

Before I met my husband, I had never actually used a pair of cooking tongs. I thought that cooking tongs were only used in industrial cooking settings like high school lunch rooms and prison chow lines.  I had never seen anyone use them in a home kitchen until my husband brought a pair with him when we got married, and we moved into our first apartment.

After watching my new groom in the kitchen, I started to wonder how I had ever gotten along without a set of cooking tongs! And now, I can't imagine not having a set of basic tongs in my bag of cooking tricks. 

Behold! My 5 Favorite Things to Do With Tongs!

1. Toss Your Salad- I love to pre-dress a nice tossed salad with homemade salad dressing, and use my tongs to toss the salad so that every single bite has a smidgen of flavor.
2. Dredge It- Use your tongs for easy and mess free dredging.
3. Plating The Dish- I find my tongs to be essential when plating up dishes of food and making them look neat and tidy. There is really no easier way to plate up spaghetti or long noodles than with a handy set of tongs. 
4. Flip It- Of course you've seen the Paul Bunyan sized grill tongs used on the outdoor bbq, but you can use your regular cooking tongs to flip items on the grill, in the frying pan, or on an indoor grill pan.
5. Sautee- Use your tongs to mix and flip vegetables as you sautee. The tongs help you quickly pluck food away from the heat, and also help to distribute the herbs and spices around the dish.

Freezer Shells

Ingredients
12 Oz Uncooked Jumbo Pasta Shells
4 cups ricotta chesse
3/4 cup shaved Parmesan cheese
2 eggs
1 TBS fresh parsley, chopped
3/4 tsp dried oregano
Coarse salt & pepper to taste
3 cups of your favorite bottled spaghetti sauce (I recommend Emeril’s Marinara...mmm)

Freezer Instructions:

 

• Cook pasta according to package. When fully cooked, drain, and let cool. Separate shells while cooling.
• Take out a nice big bowl, and mix the ricotta cheese, eggs, oregano, parsley, parmesan cheese, and the salt and pepper. This will make your shell stuffing.
• Once your stuffing mixture is well blended, spoon it into a one gallon freezer bag, let out the excess air, twist the bag, making it into a pastry bag. Snip the end of so that you can squeeze your stuffing mixture into the shells easily.
• Stuff each shell with at least 2 TBS of mixture.
• Coat the bottom of a 13 x 9 baking dish with spaghetti sauce. Place the shells in the baking dish, and cover shells with the remaining sauce. Cover with heavy foil for the freezer.
• Place in freezer, and let the dish freeze completely.

Cooking Instructions:

• Thaw completely.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Bake for 40-45 minutes, removing foil during the last 5 minutes and sprinkling with additional Parmesan cheese if desired.
  

Easy Orange Chicken

Ingredients
4 boneless chicken breasts
2 TBS brown sugar
2 TBS soy sauce
3 TBS orange juice conentrate (thawed)
2 teaspoons garlic
1 teaspoon ginger
Coarse salt & Pepper to taste

Freezer Instructions:
Prop open a one gallon freezer bag.  Add the brown sugar, soy sauce, orange juice, garlic, ginger, salt and pepper to the freezer bag, and mix using your hand on the outside of the bag until all ingredients are well blended.  Add the chicken breasts to the bag, and turn inside the bag to coat with marinade.  Squeeze excess air out of the bag, seal, and label the bag with a Sharpie.  Lie bag flat in freezer. Freeze.

Cooking Instructions:
Thaw.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Coat a baking dish with light cooking spray. Remove chicken from freezer bag, and DO NOT discard the bag  & remaining marinade. Place chicken in baking dish, and place in the oven for roasting for 25 minutes. Baste occassionally with the remaining marinade. Once the chicken is cooked through, turn the oven to broil and broil the chicken for a minute or so, until it is nice and brown on top.

Serving Suggestions: Jasmine Rice and Garden Salad with ginger dressing.

Stock Your Pantry for Lazy Day Gourmet OAMC

Having a pantry stocked with your most commonly used oils, vinegars, spices, mustards, and cooking sauces makes Once a Month Cooking or Lazy Day Gourmet cooking easy, whether you are going to do an all day marathon cooking session or you just find a great deal on sirloin steaks at the grocery store, and want to throw a couple of recipes into the freezer at a time.

I use the same ingredients to make up the majority of my marinades and recipes. These are the items I try to keep stocked at all times. If I have most of these ingredients on hand, I can whip up a Lazy Day Gourmet meal on the fly.

Lazy Day Gourmet Pantry
Soy Sauce
Minced garlic- I use Spice World prepared minced garlic in a jar.
Ginger- I use Gourmet Garden ginger in a easy squeeze tube. I LOVE this product. 
Dijon Mustard
Olive Oil
Red Wine Vinegar
Honey - I try to use local honey when it's available. It's good for fighting local allergies.
Brown Sugar
Sesame Oil
Worcestershire Sauce
Chili Powder
Dried Thyme
Dried Oregano
Lemon Juice - Most of the time I keep fresh lemons, but also use the lemon juice concentrate.
Lime Juice
Capers
Pine Nuts
Onion Powder
Shaved Parmesean Cheese- in the fridge, of course!
Frozen Orange Juice Concentrate
Cumin
Kalamata Olives

Seoul Food Korean BBQ

Ingredients
1 pound sirloin steak
3 TBS brown sugar
3 TBS soy sauce
1 TBS rice wine (If you don't have it, skip it!)
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp sesame oil
3 cloves chopped garlic
Bamboo skewers

Freezer Instructions: Prop open a one gallon freezer bag. Add the soy sauce, brown sugar, rice wine, ginger, garlic, and sesame oil. Mix with your hand until well blended. Slice the sirloin across the grain into strips around a quarter inch thick. Once completely coated, let out the excess air in the bag, seal, and label the bag.  Tape skewers to the outside of the bag. Lie flat in the freezer*. Freeze.

* The freezer bag, that is. Not you. You do not have to lie in the freezer. But you can lie to yourself near the freezer that this recipe is calorie free.

Cooking Instructions:
Thaw.
Remove bamboo skewers from outside of the freezer bag, and soak in water for at least one half hour.

Pull the steak from the marinade, and throw away the remaining marinade and the bag. Thread the steak onto the soaked bamboo skewers.

Lightly coat your grill with cooking spray BEFORE you preheat to high.  Once the grill is nice and hot, grill the bbq skewers for 3 on each side. Remove the skewers and serve right away. Korean BBQ is best when served hot.

Serving Suggestion: Basmati rice and grilled vegetables.

Twisted Chicken

Ingredients
4 Boneless chicken breasts, cut into strips
2 cups of coarsely crushed up pretzels (See, I told you it was Twisted!)
1/3 canola oil
1/2 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 cup water
3 TBS red wine vinegar
Coarse Salt and Pepper

Cooking Instructions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Take the pretzels, and pour them into a freezer bag. Using a rubber mallet, rolling pin, or can of soup, crush the pretzels into bits until you have a nice coarse consistency of crushed pretzel. You will have both coarse and fine pretzel crumbs when you are done, which is perfect.

Pour the pretzels from the bag onto a large plate, and set aside.

In a small mixing bowl, combine the Dijon mustard, the oil, water, and vinegar.  Mix with a fork or whisk until smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

On a large plate, pour HALF of the mustard mixture over the chicken strips to coat completely. After coated, dredge the chicken through the pretzel crumbs, and then put them into a greased baking pan or a baking sheet with a rim.

Once all of the strips are coated and crumbed, bake for 25 minutes or until cooked through.

Serve with the remaining mustard dressing as a dipping sauce!

Serving Suggestions:
Buttered lima beans and Mixed Green Salad.