Mmmmmm...pasta

Normally, I'm not such a big pasta fan but, as you will see later in this post, I enjoyed a lovely pasta dish this evening. First things first. Breakfast.

Yesterday I really wanted French Toast but no one else did so I waited until today to satisfy my craving. It was well worth the wait.



One beaten egg, a splash of cream, mixed with a generous amount of cinnamon and a sprinkling of vanilla and nutmeg. Add to that three slices of bread and you have breakfast for one mom and one kid. Ryan had cheese and crackers instead. He's not real big on breakfast food!

For lunch today, I had a hot dog with mustard and a handful of chips with a glass of organic lemonade. Yummy!

Dinner. It's always a challenge for me. Sean gets home so, so late and, if he hasn't called me by 7pm, I'm just about ready to give up on cooking at all. However that has been leading to some bad eating habits lately (I'm back up to 192) so I think I need to cook dinner early and just let him eat leftovers when he gets home. Tonight was my first journey down that path and I created a really delicious meal.

First, I took a cup and a half to two cups of penne pasta and boiled it. At the same time, I put 1 Tbs butter and a cup of half and half in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter had melted, I added about 1/2 - 3/4 cup of parmesan cheese, a handful of Monterey Jack cheese, some dried rosemary leaves, freshly ground pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg and left all that to simmer over Low heat. Then I chopped some baby bella mushrooms and cooked them in a Tbs of butter. When they were ready (soft and slightly browned) I added them directly to the sauce. Then I cooked 1/2 of shrimp in 1 Tbs butter with one clove of finely chopped garlic and a splash of vermouth. When the shrimp began to get pink, I added the entire mixture to the sauce as well. I combined the sauce with the pasta (DRAINED) and then put it in a casserole dish, topped it with some Italian breadcrumbs and put it in a 425 degree oven for about 10-15 minutes. Since I was cooking the dish in the oven I didn't cook the shrimp in the pan all the way through. It's better for the shrimp to be slightly underdone in that instance.

When it came out of the oven, it looked like this:



Oh, and like this:



And when I put it on my plate it looked like this:



Like I said, I don't usually like pasta but this was really darn good! There was no recipe, just throwing some stuff together at the spur of the moment.

In other news, I got a new food processor today. My old one called it quits after my mom helped me make bread the other day. My new one is a Wolfgang Puck monster, 900 watts and 12 cups. Hopefully it will last me a long time. Good night sweet cuisinart...you were good to me.

Oh. My. God.

Remember how much I love these from Panera?



Well, after scanning the internet for a recipe, I got lucky and found a message on a board from someone who bakes at Panera and, while they couldn't divulge the actual recipe, they did give a general how-to which I followed today. It's not as pretty as theirs but it was just as tasty!



Forgive the photo, it was taken in my kitchen at night and I was in a hurry to eat the darn thing so I didn't take the usual care in taking a photo.

Here are the general directions I copied from the internet:

Although, the term "souffle" is a misnomer here. They are not made in
any "souffle" style/technique that I know of! The batter is
quiche-like (and I really wish they would all it quiche). Recipes are
strictly confidential, but I can say that the dough is a french
croissant dough richer than the typical American version; ours is
made with European butter--i.e. higher butter fat content). You could
just use your favorite quiche recipe for the batter (ours contains
Romano and asiago cheese, spinach, bacon, red pepper, Tabasco sauce,
artichoke hearts). The "souffles" are not actually baked in the paper
molds (but I wish we could bake them in the molds because the
dishwashers frequently run the pans through the dishwasher (they are
not supposed to do this) which strips them and makes the "souffles"
stick horribly), but we use specially designed "souffle" pans. If you
can find a pecan roll mold, that will work fine, or even a
Texas-sized muffin pan.

The dough is rolled to about 1/4 inch thick, cut into 3.5x 3.5 inch
squares (of course, this step is done for us in a factory, and the
squares come to us frozen) and then it is stretched by hand to 6x6
inches and then fitted into the mold. Each piece of dough is then
filled with about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of batter, and topped with a bit
more asiago cheese before being folded over.

They are baked at 360 degrees in our rotating oven for about 26
minutes with 20 seconds steam. You will need to bake at 400 degrees
for about 20 minutes or so in a home oven (mist the top generously
with water and then egg wash).

I used a croissant recipe out of one of my baking books, which was quite tedious. If you're not feeling particularly picky you could take a shortcut and try Crescent Roll dough in a can. I cannot guarantee the same results but it would be a lot faster than making croissant dough by hand. For the quiche-like batter, I took 7 eggs, 1/2 cup of cream and beat them by hand, adding 1lb of cooked, crumbled breakfast sausage, sauteed peppers 1/2 of a red and 1/2 of a green), 1/2 an onion, a handful of chopped mushrooms, and some parmesan cheese. Baked in the paper molds for about 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees and, damn, they were good!!! I hope someone out there will try this as well and let me know how you tweaked it.

mmmmm...Cornbread Dressing

Well, here it is. If my mother were dead she'd be rolling over in her grave but she's not so she'll just be pissed if she sees this. Thankfully, for me, my parents have little to no interest in either one of my blogs so I'm pretty safe in posting this here without fear.

Remember my recipe for Mamaw's Cornbread and how you were supposed to let it sit out for a day to get stale? Well, hopefully you haven't been waiting on my lazy ass to post this recipe, since I've been so slack about it and all. At any rate, late or not, here is Mamaw's Cornbread Dressing Recipe.

1 loaf day old cornbread
6 slices Pepperidge Farm White Bread, torn and toasted in oven (350 degrees, 5-10mins)
1/2 - 1 cup celery chopped
1/2 - 1 cup onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic, choppped
1 stick butter
1 Tbs Poultry Seasoning
1 can cream of chicken OR cream of mushroom soup
(sometimes I mix it up and use some of both)
1 3oz can of evaporated milk
chicken broth to moisten and to taste
2 eggs beaten
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Break up the cornbread and put it in a large bowl with the torn white bread.

Melt the stick of butter in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the chopped celery, onion, and garlic and cook until soft and translucent. Don't brown them!

To the dry ingredients, add the poultry seasoning, soup, evaporated milk, eggs, cooked veggies, and chicken broth until the mixture looks nice and wet, not soupy but really, really moist.

Pour into a deep, rectangular casserole dish and cook in 350 degree oven for 30-45 minutes, until the top is deep, rich brown. Unless you're from up North, I can guarantee that you will love this dressing. If you're from the North, all bets are off. My mother-in-law is from the North and has her own style of stuffing, which I really don't care for at all. She makes many things that I love but stuffing is not one of them. I've been ruined from years and years of cornbread dressing though so it's not her fault.

Please let me know if you make and like it!

I made bread today!

Look! I made bread!! French Bread!



My mom came over this morning and very kindly helped me get the yeast going and put the dough together then I took her home and came back and did the rest. I was really pleased with how it turned out! I haven't eaten a piece yet, just a nibble, but it was good.

I don't have the recipe, it was in my mom's head, or else I'd share it with you.

Speaking of heads, I was puttering around today and an object fell from up high and bonked me on the head causing me to bleed for quite a while. Yeah, it was a lot of fun! Thank goodness I have a wonderful neighbor because she came over and administered first aid, and may have even dyed my hair in the process since she used peroxide to clean my wound. LOL Honestly though she was awesome and I'm so glad she's our neighbor. She rocks!

I'm still feeling a little woozy but I wanted to show off my bread. Tomorrow, I'll post pictures of my recent eats and give you the recipe for my Mamaw's Cornbread Dressing. Just don't tell my mom I gave it to you, okay?

Mamaw's Cornbread

So today I made up a batch of my Mamaw's cornbread. I never had the pleasure of meeting her, she was my mother's grandmother, was 1/2 Native American, and died a long, long, time ago. When my mom would spend summers with her, she had to use an outhouse, ok? Long time ago. Anyway, this recipe is for the cornbread that we have been eating for as long as I can remember and it's what we use at Thanksgiving to make Cornbread Dressing. I'm going to make the dressing tomorrow.

Mamaw's Cornbread

1 cup yellow cornmeal (not self-rising)
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbs Sugar
3 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup of milk or buttermilk
1/2 CUP of butter, melted
2 eggs beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Sift together the first five ingredients. Set aside.

Blend together the milk, butter, eggs, and vanilla then add them to the dry ingredients. Stir until well combined. Pour into a greased 10" iron skillet and then place in the 450 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Here is a photo of the batter:



Doesn't it look pretty? :)

Here it is in the skillet:



You could use a pie pan if you don't have a skillet but keep an eye on it in the oven because I don't know how that would affect the cooking time.

Here it is when it came out of the oven:



Now I will leave it on the counter overnight to dry out in order for me to use it in the dressing tomorrow. If you make it, please let me know how it turns out!

Enjoy!

Back and I have a recipe to share!

My sister and I had a wonderful time in Disney World and it was a much needed vacation. NOw I'm back though, and I'm ready to face my eating head on. Today I'm going to be posting a recipe for my great-grandmother's Southern Cornbread. It's the best cornbread and I'm going to use it later in a Cornbread Dressing that I'm making later today. I'll post the recipe for that as well.

So come back this afternoon for a bonafide southern treat, courtesy of Mamaw!

Off to Disney World

See you on Monday! I'm off to Disney World with my sister for a Girls Vacation Weekend!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Evie