Breakfast Casserole

As I have mentioned in previous blog entries, I love to cook and basically make up my own recipes.  Of all the meals, my family enjoys breakfast the most.  Weekends when we can sleep a little later than 5:00 a.m. is always a gift but then to have a big breakfast just makes our day.

I recently have perfected the breakfast casserole or as they call it at our local cafe “the breakfast mess.”

This dish consists of basically every form of breakfast ingredient:  eggs, hash browns, sausage or bacon, yellow and red peppers, onions, and cheese.  I either put it in the oven or on the stove top, it depends on whether or not I want to clean up a baking dish afterward.

Even if I cook it on the stove top, I always remember to heat up three Dining Stones while cooking the meal.  That way there is a hot stone for each of us to perch our plates!  Each bite is warm and tasty and allows us to eat slower.  There are digestive benefits to eating slower as well as eating less since we will hit that “full” feeling.

Order your Dining Stone today!  It will help you eat slower while enjoying your warm meals.

Deb's Chili Recipe

Mmmmm…warm food!

The following two recipes will warm your family’s spirit on a cold winter evening.  The chili is my own recipe which I have perfected over the years.

Each winter I would try varying ingredients a little to fit my signature flavor profile of pablano, red, and yellow peppers.  This last winter my family said I made the best chili ever!  So I am sharing it with you, my blog visitors.

Chili

Pablano, red, and yellow peppers

Ingredients

1 pound lean ground beef (2 lbs if you prefer a lot of beef)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 pablano pepper, seeded and finely chopped (or green pepper)

1 red pepper, seeded and finely chopped

1 yellow pepper, seeded and finely chopped

Chili beans, red kidney beans, and black beans

1 can of chili beans

1 can of red kidney beans

1 can of black beans

1 can of diced tomatoes with green chilis

1 can of tomato paste

1 large can of tomato sauce

1 packet of Tex Mex chili seasoning (or 1/4 cup chili powder and 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper)

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions

Cook ground beef over medium-high heat until the meat is crumbly, evenly browned, and no longer pink. Drain and discard any excess grease.

Cook onions and all three peppers in olive oil

Meanwhile, cook onions and all three peppers together in olive oil until they caramelize.  Stir the drained meat into the onion and pepper mixture along with the diced tomatoes with chilis, tomato paste, and tomato sauce then season with the Tex Mex packet or substitute with chili powder and cayenne pepper.

Place stones in toaster oven or standard oven

At this point, place your Dining Stones in the toaster oven, or standard oven, at 350 degrees.

Bring the chili mixture to a simmer over medium heat, and then reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer at least 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Lastly, gently fold in the 3 cans of drained beans and heat another 5 full minutes.

Chili on hot Dining Stone

Top the individual servings of chili with shredded cheese and accent with crackers.  Set your warm bowl of chili right on a hot Dining Stone at your table so you can take your time eating every bite.

Best New Dessert Recipe

Over the weekend, I invented a Twix candy shortcake, by adjusting a strawberry shortcake recipe which was a huge hit during the football game.  The original shortcake recipe came from a friend of mine who is a talented photographer and cook, Tina Starnes.  I think she will like my adjustment to her recipe.

Twix Candy Shortcake

After all, we are women and we like chocolate!

Twix Candy Shortcake

Ingredients

1 prepared angel food cake

10 – 12 Twix bars (depending on packaging; family pack has 11 bars)

Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup (low fat will reduce calories but not change the flavor)

Hershey's Chocolate Syrup

Custard ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese, softened (low fat will reduce calories but not change the flavor)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

12 oz. cool whip, softened (low fat will reduce calories but not change the flavor)

Directions

Carefully cut all Twix bars into chunks and set aside.  Blend together the softened cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk until smooth.  Fold in the entire contents of softened cool whip and chunks of Twix bars.  Pull the angel food cake apart into bite sized chunks and layer half in the bottom of a cake pan or casserole dish.  Pour half of the custard evenly over the top.  Drizzle chocolate syrup evenly over those layers.  Add the rest of the cake evenly, cover with the remaining custard.  Tapping into the artist within you, create an appealing design on top with chocolate syrup.

Zig Zag Design

(Example: continuous circles, zig zag lines, etc.)

Dessert Leftovers

Any remaining dessert can be frozen for later.  Simply thaw in the refrigerator for six hours and set out on the counter for another three hours before serving.

Best regards,

Deb Chance

I consider myself a “foodie” and recently re-awakened my love for cooking.  I have always created my own recipes because I’m a rebel without a measuring cup – that is my definition of a foodie.  Like Rachael Ray, I just want to do it myself with a dash of this and a pinch of that.  When I didn’t have the time to cook, it always seemed like more work than I could give it.  I let those thoughts go a few months ago, and completely embraced cooking as often as the budget would allow.

An absolute “must have” item for a lot of the versions of my recipes is fresh peppers.  Red, yellow, and orange are my favorite.  I don’t particularly care for green peppers because their taste overpowers the other flavors in my dishes.  So I substitute it for either jalapenos or pablano peppers.  If you use these types of peppers in your recipes, take care when you work with them.  Be sure to get all the hot seeds out or your meal will be too spicy.  Also, don’t touch your skin while you are gutting the seeds because eventually your fingers will end up on your lips or in your eyes … such pain!  

Jalapeno and Pablano Peppers

I love the jalapenos and pablanos as a substitute because the green skins are mild in flavor.

I know what you are thinking!  For those of us living in the Midwest, what do we do in the winter when the gardens are frozen and pepper prices are out of range?  I have a solution!  When your favorite peppers go on sale, jump on it.  Buy as many as you can afford, because I am about to give you a fantastic foodie tip.  Clean them, cut them, and freeze them!

I start by rinsing them in my colander, then cut them in half and take out the seeds.  Next I cut them into pieces that are about one inch long and pat them dry with a paper towel.  After that, I put them in freezer bags, push all the air out of the bag, and flatten them so they stay on my freezer shelf.

While you are making these bags, keep one in the refrigerator for the recipes you plan to make that week.  Here is another tip on keeping them fresh in the crisper drawer.  Place a folded paper towel in the zipper bag with the peppers to soak up the excess moisture and it will keep them crispy!

Year round, in my freezer or my crisper drawer, you will find a bag of peppers.

Best regards,

Thanksgiving Feast

Testing a new recipe

A number of years ago, I tested out my own new recipe for Thanksgiving Turkey.  I’ve never been afraid of trying new things with food.  Oh sure, I’ve had some experiments taste like dirt or become burned beyond recognition.  But I felt that was part of my “mad scientist” formula for success.

This particular experiment with roasted turkey could not end with a disaster because I had committed to cooking it for a large group of international students attending Grinnell College here in Iowa.

At the time, we lived in Grinnell, and had started volunteering as a “host family” for international students at the college who were unable to return to their country over the term breaks.  This home cooked meal would be their first experience with Thanksgiving in America and it needed to be right.

Trying a new recipe

But I was determined to test the boundaries and try this new twist on the turkey flavor and technique.  I suppose I may have had a backup plan but want to believe that I was fearlessly facing a “do-or-die” venture.

I got it in my head that since a lot of turkey roasting recipes required a brine solution, why couldn’t I use soy sauce and achieve a similar result?

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The Rebel Cook

Turkey Dinner

Also, being the rebellious cook that I tend to be, I wanted the turkey breast down in the soy sauce drippings to soak up the flavor and help it remain tender and moist.  I know there are a lot of “old school” cooks who just gasped while reading this part but go with me on this little adventure.

After thawing the turkey for a few days in the refrigerator, I brought it out for preparation.  I removed the neck and giblets from the body cavity and plopped the whole thing, breast down, in the deep roasting pan.  Then I poured a few cups of purified water into the bottom of the pan (about 1 inch) to help dilute the soy sauce.  Taking my bottle of Kikkoman,

Kikkoman Soy Sauce

I poured it slowly all over the bird and let it trickle down into the water.  I used at least half of the bottle.  Then popped the whole thing in a preheated oven at 325° and let it cook for two hours.  Using my kitchen timer, I would open the oven every 30 minutes, pull the rack out, and ladle the drippings over the bird.

Note: This bird is not breast down!

After the two hour mark, I scooped juice over it again and loosely covered with aluminum foil to keep the turkey from becoming too brown.  Then I cooked another hour, opening it up one more time after 30 minutes to wash the bird in the drippings for the last time.  A little over three hours from the beginning, my thermometer reading was at 180° and I knew it was time to take it out.  I let it sit for 15 minutes before handling it so everything would settle or “rest” as they say.

Cozy Cabin Cooking

Tender Turkey

You can’t believe how tender, moist, and flavorful those slices of turkey were and the drippings became an awesome gravy.  I used this recipe a couple more times after that, but since moving to southeast Iowa, haven’t had much opportunity, as we go to the hubby’s family’s home for Thanksgiving meal.  I suspect someday I will get to cook a turkey on Thanksgiving, maybe for my daughter’s family!

Had I invented Dining Stones at the time I created this recipe, it would have been great to heat the stone and use under my serving plate of warm turkey.  Here is a quote from a new customer:

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“If I had known how wonderful Dining Stones were, and how much I would come to rely on them, I would have been your very first customer.  I am so thankful that I have them on hand for Thanksgiving.  As hostess, my meal usually ended up cold and unappetizing but not this year!”  – Terri P., Grinnell, Iowa

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Best regards,

Wikipedia states that a “Foodie”

I consider myself a “foodie” for a completely different reason – I am a rebel without a measuring cup! I prefer to go my own direction with recipes and follow the Food Network as my official foodie handbook.