Leftover Ham

I've been cooking up a storm these past couple days with no time for writing! Let's take a look at what I've been doing shall we?

We had some lovely leftover ham in our fridge, and mom wanted to make ham and eggs for dinner. She likes Breakfast Dinners... I don't. And so I made dinner.

Ingredients:
~2 Cups Ham
2 Packages Uncle Ben's Long Grain and Wild Rice
2 Cans of Pineapple Chunks
A little bit of butter

Cut your ham in to bite size strips.

Throw some butter in a large cooking pan that you have a lid for (Lid is important!)

Once the pan is hot, throw the ham strips in and let 'em sizzle for a while until they are nice and brown. They should have a nice bacony smell going, slightly crunchy on the outside and still nice and tender inside.

While those ham strips are sizzling away, open up your two cans of pineapple chunks and drain that tasty juice in to a large measuring cup (not down the sink!). You'll be using it in a second.

Now go check on those ham strips. Slightly browned and a little crispy on the outside? Perfect. Rip open those packages of Uncle Ben's Long Grain and Wild Rice, and remove the two seasoning packets.

Now not everyone has a 5 cup measuring cup, so, in whatever way is easiest for you, add all of your pineapple juice and enough water so that you have about 4.5 cups of liquid in your pan. Dump in the rice, and the seasonings.

Put it on high heat and bring the contents of the pan to a boil. Once it reaches a boil lower the heat to low, put the lid on and let it simmer for a good 20-25 minutes, until most of the liquid is soaked up.

Once that's done, you'll probably have some extra liquid still in the pan, but if you don't that's fine too. Either way, add the pineapple chunks, bring the heat up to medium/high and stir everything around good until the pineapple chunks are warmed up, excess liquid is steamed out, and everything looks delicious (Your mouth should be watering by this point).

Once everything looks the way you want it, you're good to go. Enjoy a delicious use of leftover ham, and don't forget some veggies with that meal!

Easy Breakfast Smoothie

Alright, Ted - this is just for you. A Smoothie recipe!

Pile (in this order!) into a good blender:

4 inches of strawberries (about 10), frozen
One ripe banana, broken into 3 inch chunks
one carton soft tofu (sold unrefrigerated, for less than a dollar a carton, in any Asian grocery) (These will keep in the pantry for up to a year)
Enough milk to almost cover the strawberries (about 1 cup)
5 tsp sugar
1 tsp Postum

Blend. Makes two. This goes together really fast, because the tofu is already really soft. For dessert, you could add a scoop of ice cream. You could omit the sugar...but I was making these for dessert at the time.

This is super healthy, super fast - a great smoothie! Lots of protein.

Easy Chow Mein with Egg

So, what's a girl to make for lunch when she's starving now, and doesn't want another bowl of cereal or a sandwhich?

Make Top Ramen! Then, of course...there's the problem of Top Ramen being absolutely nasty unless her sweet husband makes it...and he's at work....so.....

she improvises.



I cooked my ramen while I heated a frying pan and cooked an over-medium fried egg. (Cook the egg until the whites are just starting to set, and flip over. For an over-medium, leave it for about 30 seconds.)

When the ramen was al dente, I drained off most of the water, and returned the pan to the heat, drying the noodles out a little it. I added just enough of the seasoning packet to flavor the noodles (about 1/4 tsp.), a little Worcestershire Sauce, a little soy sauce, and a little sesame oil. I threw in some chick peas I had in the fridge, too, for added protein. I continued to "pan fry" ("chow") my ramen ("mein") until the flavors were blended and everything was nice and hot.

I served it in a bowl with my fried egg on top. The noodle texture was surprisingly creamy - I'll definitely make this again! I will probably pan toast the chick peas first, next time, to crisp them up a little bit.

Heartline Cafe's Radiatori with Shrimp, Chive Butter, Butternut Squash, and Wild Mushrooms

As of this week, I LOVE vegetables. Don't show me chocolate, bread, ice cream, or pot roast. I'll look at rice or noodles if they're paired with an inordinate amount of greens or mushrooms. Reading other bloggers, just emerging from the December food-fest I don't think I'm alone in this. So when I saw this recipe in my new cookbook, I had to give it a try! It's remarkably similar to the meal I ate there last week.

In a nutshell: peel and cube one butternut squash, toss with melted butter, and roast at 400 degrees on a baking ban. Mine took about an hour, and that was after being microwaved for 5 minutes to soften the skin.

Saute in 1/2 cup butter (it's necessary!) garlic, shallots, any wild mushrooms (I used fresh oyster and re-hydrated shiitake), fresh thyme, and snipped chives. I didn't have fresh thyme, and the dried made the whole dish bitter, although it smelled amazing. The recipe also calls for shrimp, which I didn't add. When everything is softened and the mushrooms are starting to "sweat" (these wild mushrooms are much hardier than our pansy white button mushrooms), toss in the roasted squash which should be nice caramelized in spots by now. Toss in your boiled pasta, and serve it up. PLEASE don't skimp and leave the butter in the pan! Without it, there's no sauce and dry pasta is a sad thing.

When in Salt Lake City....

eat at Grandma's house! She makes the best chicken ever.

Elsie's Velvet Chicken

Butterfly, rinse and dry one pan-sized fryer chicken. (If it's bigger than your pan when you butterfly it...get a bigger pan! This is worth it.)

Rub the chicken with a generous amount of salt, inside and out. Make sure you give his armpits a good scour with the salt, and massage it thoroughly into his thighs - relaxed chickens are happy chickens!

Next, find your envelopes of Knoors chicken rub (yihm guhk gai fan, if you get it at an Asian market). Rub half of one envelope into the chicken, making sure that you get it evenly distributed, inside and out.

Now, put that chicken on a plate, cover him in plastic, and let him rest overnight in the fridge - he's had a hard day!

When you are ready to eat Mssr. Chicken, heat up a frying pan big enough to hold the chicken. The pan should be hot enough that water will sizzle, but not so hot that water will jump when it hits the pan.

When the pan is heated, place the chicken (skin side down!) inside the pan, cover, and cook for ten minutes.

After ten minutes, turn the chicken over, cover, and cook for another ten minutes.

Test the thigh - poke it with a fork. Does any blood come out? If the juice is at all pink when it comes out, cover and cook for another five minutes.

If you have an electric stove, turn your burner off, leave the chicken covered, and it will be perfectly cooked by dinner time.

If you have a gas stove, turn your burner down to its lowest setting, and let the chicken hang out for another ten minutes or so.

When you are ready to eat, draw and quarter your chicken. Serve with rice and vegetables.

Matts Rotisserie & Oyster Lounge - Redmond Town Center

Tonight, Thursday, January 3, 2007 Sue and I shared a wonderful meal at Matts at RTC. Wow, it was incredible! I had Chilean Sea Bass in an oriental barbeque with oriental slaw and rice. It was the best fish I can remember ever having. It was like a giant and extremely tender scallop. Wow.

Sue had a Thai curry with scallops and prawns with lemmon rice. It too, was amazing. Highly recommend this place! We went early around 5:15 and there was only one other table occupied. Great!

We finished with a freshly made fruit cobbler topped with ice cream. Put this place on the A+ list! :)

Heartline Cafe

Oh my, folks. If you are ever near Sedona, you high tail it over to Heartline Cafe on Highway 89A, just west of the "Y." (Ask a local- there's only one road through town, and then it splits off.) J and I stopped there for lunch today, because our local guide promised fresh, local, organic food. I'm not sure much of anything is "local" in January, but the owners grow the herbs at home, and edible flowers out front. All meat was free-range and organic, and everything was incredible. We started with a basket of fresh homemade rolls served with a tomato-vegetable puree. Very healthy, and VERY good. My meal consisted of a field greens house salad with chili-ranch dressing, followed by a bowl of orrechiette pasta with roasted butternut squash, fresh chives, and marinated shiitake and portobella mushrooms. J had a marinated/grilled chicken sandwich, red cabbage cole slaw, and fresh sweet potato chips. In fact, we had agreed before hand that I would eat the chips since he despises sweet potatoes in all forms, but he LIKED these! They were thin sliced, salted, and oven-baked. The cafe has been in business since 1991, and the owners finally got tired of sending postcards all over the world in response to recipe requests. They published their first cookbook in 2000, and we purchased a copy. Yes, it was THAT good. The only restaurant that has come close is Sea Star, in Bellevue. And doesn't that tell you something?

Oh, and please- go for lunch. The prices are at least half of the dinner menu, and the portions are great. In fact, neither one of us could face dinner tonight!