Showing posts with label broccoli. Show all posts
Showing posts with label broccoli. Show all posts
How to Freeze Broccoli - The Long Awaited Video
Hi there! No news from me since July. Gosh! Sabbath Supper just kept on being pushed down to the end of my to-do lists. Maybe there will be a change soon with my posting schedule. I do hope so!
In October (yeah, way back then), I had the chance to freeze some of our broccoli and thought it may be a good topic to do a how-to video on. Broccoli is not the easiest vegetable to do namely because of three things: how to remove the bugs, if any, how to cut the broccoli so everything cooks at the same rate, and lastly, the blanch timing. I covered all of those questions in the video and I do hope you enjoy it! See the video here.
Have an upcoming post in the works that has something to do with a local bakery. Will share the details soon.
Everything But the Kitchen Sink -- Creamy Chicken Pot Pie
5/2/10: Creamy Chicken Pot Pie
Meal details: I made a casserole that had traditional pot pie flavors, such as carrots, broccoli, potatoes, and chicken. And the casserole was topped with a biscuit layer, something like a cobbler.
Defining moments: First time using potatoes, carrots, broccoli, peas, and parsnips in one dish. Wow! What a line up of ingredients, huh?
Recipe sources: I was having an incredibly hard time choosing what to make this week. I wanted to select a Robert Irvine recipe (in order to continue with the FNCCC), but nothing jumped out at me and I was running out of time. So Annemarie gave me her recipe binder to browse through. Her binder is not your typical recipe book, it is huge and has the thickness of an encyclopedia set. :D Within five minutes, I found the recipe I wanted. It was a pot pie recipe from Sam's Club and here it is for those who are interested. . .
What you need
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 lb. cooked Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed (about 3 cups)
16 oz. frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose baking mix
Make it
Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Cook cream cheese and broth in large saucepan on low heat until cream cheese is completely melted and mixture is well blended, stirring frequently with whisk. Stir in chicken, vegetables and garlic salt.
Spoon into 9-inch pie plate. Beat egg and milk in medium bowl with whisk until well blended; stir in baking mix just until moistened. Spoon over chicken mixture. Place pie plate on baking sheet.
Bake 25 to 30 min. or until golden brown.
What I learned: One thing stands out clear to me and it's this: I need to parboil (precook) all vegetables. I parboiled all my vegetables except for the carrots and they didn't cook all the way through when in the oven; they were still firm in areas. I should either precook the carrots or really dice them.
Any modifications? Yes. Instead of using a pie plate, I used our 6 quart casserole dish and a smaller dish for three times the recipe. It is a whole lot easier than trying to maneuver three pie plates in the oven!
And instead of purchasing a bag of frozen vegetables from the store, I used veggies from the previous farming season. They're considered free now, so why not? The parsnips and carrots were kept in a makeshift root cellar (a long box of sand) and I was very happy to see that they were nice and crisp!
How it tasted? When I first chose this recipe I thought, "It looks simple, we have all the ingredients. . . So why not?" Yeah, I wasn't overly enthused about it to tell you the truth! So you can understand why I was amazed by all the good feedback I got from the family. Everyone didn't just like it, they loved it. :D
How about a 2nd time? Definitely!
Meal details: I made a casserole that had traditional pot pie flavors, such as carrots, broccoli, potatoes, and chicken. And the casserole was topped with a biscuit layer, something like a cobbler.
Defining moments: First time using potatoes, carrots, broccoli, peas, and parsnips in one dish. Wow! What a line up of ingredients, huh?
Recipe sources: I was having an incredibly hard time choosing what to make this week. I wanted to select a Robert Irvine recipe (in order to continue with the FNCCC), but nothing jumped out at me and I was running out of time. So Annemarie gave me her recipe binder to browse through. Her binder is not your typical recipe book, it is huge and has the thickness of an encyclopedia set. :D Within five minutes, I found the recipe I wanted. It was a pot pie recipe from Sam's Club and here it is for those who are interested. . .
Creamy Chicken Pot Pie
Prep. 10 min. Total 40 min. Makes 8 servings Cost per serving = $0.90
What you need
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 lb. cooked Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed (about 3 cups)
16 oz. frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose baking mix
Make it
Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Cook cream cheese and broth in large saucepan on low heat until cream cheese is completely melted and mixture is well blended, stirring frequently with whisk. Stir in chicken, vegetables and garlic salt.
Spoon into 9-inch pie plate. Beat egg and milk in medium bowl with whisk until well blended; stir in baking mix just until moistened. Spoon over chicken mixture. Place pie plate on baking sheet.
Bake 25 to 30 min. or until golden brown.
What I learned: One thing stands out clear to me and it's this: I need to parboil (precook) all vegetables. I parboiled all my vegetables except for the carrots and they didn't cook all the way through when in the oven; they were still firm in areas. I should either precook the carrots or really dice them.
Any modifications? Yes. Instead of using a pie plate, I used our 6 quart casserole dish and a smaller dish for three times the recipe. It is a whole lot easier than trying to maneuver three pie plates in the oven!
And instead of purchasing a bag of frozen vegetables from the store, I used veggies from the previous farming season. They're considered free now, so why not? The parsnips and carrots were kept in a makeshift root cellar (a long box of sand) and I was very happy to see that they were nice and crisp!
How it tasted? When I first chose this recipe I thought, "It looks simple, we have all the ingredients. . . So why not?" Yeah, I wasn't overly enthused about it to tell you the truth! So you can understand why I was amazed by all the good feedback I got from the family. Everyone didn't just like it, they loved it. :D
How about a 2nd time? Definitely!
Linguine Roman Style and Broccoli and Cheddar Buns--Buon Appetito!
1/03/10: Linguine Roman Style and Four-Leaf Clover Broccoli and Cheddar Buns
Meal details: For the main course I made a simple pasta dish that uses ricotta and cheese for the sauce. And I paired the pasta with a whole wheat bun that has broccoli puree added to the dough and sharp cheddar baked on top.
Defining moments: Making a vegetable puree was entirely new to me! I haven't used our blender a whole lot yet so anything done in that machine is a real eye opener to me. :)
Recipe sources: The pasta dish came from a new cookbook that just came out. It is called Ciao Italia, Five Ingredient Favorites and it is written by Mary Ann Esposito, the host of Ciao Italia. The broccoli buns came from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, another newly published book, written by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.
Note to Rebekah: I did one recipe and had enough dough for 26 buns.
What I learned: I began to realize that even though a recipe (like the broccoli buns here), may sound tedious and require a good amount of steps, I shouldn't be intimidated. When I first looked at the bun recipe I thought they would take a long time to do, especially with all that dough dividing and shaping. But the authors of the book knew from the start that their recipes need to be quick for their readers, and so they made certain that their breads take on simple shapes. These buns are just made up of four small pieces of dough put together by pressing in the center. Really easy to put together and I have to say, they were adorable!
The pasta dish was very easy to do. So easy that I can remember exactly what to do next time, I usually need to go back to a recipe again and again. So I'm thinking that I will start feeling like one of those chefs that can whip up a dish without one glance at a recipe card. A dream come true!
Any modifications? Yes, I made one modification and that was to the pasta recipe. Instead of using pecorino cheese, I used parmesan. Why? Couldn't find the former in the grocery store.
How did it tasted? Both recipes were wonderful. The pasta's flavors were simple and very satisfying. And I love to know that not many dollars went into its creation. The buns were so very good! I was hoping to have the buns look like clovers more but the ridges weren't that pronounced when they came out of the oven. However! Because of the unique way you roll and shape these buns, you can easily tear off one "leaf" at a time when you're eating them. Easy eats!
How about a 2nd time? Yes, I would like to do these two recipes again.
Not My Best Showing
11/15/09: Pizza and Apple Pie from Scratch
Meal details: For the main course I made three different types of pizzas: Broccoli and Parmesan, BBQ Chicken, and Traditional. For dessert I made two apple pies, one with Gravenstein apples and the other using apples picked from a wild apple tree growing on our farm.
Defining moments: This would be my first time making apple pie! Can you believe that one?
Recipe sources: I came up with the pizza toppings but I used a recipe created by Cat Cora for the dough. Check it out here. I chose this recipe because I am part of the Food Network Chefs Cooking Challenge that is being hosted by the writer of the I Blame My Mother blog. (Learn more about this fun challenge by visiting this page.)
For the pie now. I made the pie crust using the following recipe that came from The New Antoinette Pope School Cookbook, but I did shorten the instructions significantly.
DOUBLE PIE CRUST
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour -- sifted
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup shortening (we use butter flavored Crisco)
7 tablespoons cold milk (about)
Sift together dry ingredients and with pastry blender, cut in shortening until mixture looks like coarse meal. Add enough milk until dough appears moist but not wet. Try not to use more than 7 tablespoons unless necessary to hold dough together. Turn dough out and knead for a few seconds to hold mixture together. Handle as little as possible. Roll out using your favorite technique.
I didn't follow a recipe for the apple pie filling, I just did what Annemarie usually does. Which is...
Apple Pie Filling:
2 tablespoons flour
8 cups of apple slices *
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter
Directions:
Place bottom crust in pan and dust with the flour. Add the apple slices and sprinkle sugar on top, no need to mix. Dot apples with butter. That's all there is to it! No cooking whatsoever.
* I used Gravenstein and a wild apple for my pies this time. For those who are interested in making their own, I suggest using the following varieties: Northern Spy, Idared, Jonathan, and Empire.
What I learned: It was difficult for me to make six, 10" sized pizzas using Cat Cora's pizza dough recipe. There just was not enough dough to work with, and because of this I had to break out a box of pizza dough mix. So if you are going to do this recipe, expect four, 10" sized pizzas or six, 6" sized pizzas. The dough is lovely to work with by the way!
I learned something invaluable this week and that is to bake my apple pies for a longer time! I've only done one type of fruit pie before and that was peach. With a peach pie it is easy to tell when it is done because you just wait until the peach juice bubbles. But this is not so with apple pie. So I was having a hard time deciding when to grab my potholders and I ended up under baking. Oops! :( Next time I will bake them at 350 degrees for 45 minutes and no less.
Any modifications? No, I followed the pizza dough recipe exactly.
How it tasted? The pizza dough was delicious and I liked how thin I rolled it out. Everyone liked the Broccoli and Parmesan pizza the most; the BBQ Chicken came in second.
The pies were just OK namely because of me under baking them. I was really disappointed by that! The wild apple didn't impart enough flavor; won't be using them again.
How about a 2nd time? I will be using the pizza dough recipe again but will double the recipe or just make one large one.
The Broccoli and Parmesan Pizza. I simply brushed the dough with olive oil, pre-baked it for two minutes, added the vegetables and cheese, then placed it back into the oven for 20 minutes at 375.
This is the BBQ Chicken version. I pre-baked the crust for two minutes, added the BBQ sauce, chicken, and mozzarella, then placed it back into the oven.
This is the Traditional Pizza. It is larger than the others and the dough was made using a boxed mix and some of Cat Cora's dough. The toppings are store bought pizza sauce, chicken, and a Monterey Jack/Colby cheese mix.
Mr. Apple Pie, I hope our next meeting shall be more pleasant.
Meal details: For the main course I made three different types of pizzas: Broccoli and Parmesan, BBQ Chicken, and Traditional. For dessert I made two apple pies, one with Gravenstein apples and the other using apples picked from a wild apple tree growing on our farm.
Defining moments: This would be my first time making apple pie! Can you believe that one?
Recipe sources: I came up with the pizza toppings but I used a recipe created by Cat Cora for the dough. Check it out here. I chose this recipe because I am part of the Food Network Chefs Cooking Challenge that is being hosted by the writer of the I Blame My Mother blog. (Learn more about this fun challenge by visiting this page.)
For the pie now. I made the pie crust using the following recipe that came from The New Antoinette Pope School Cookbook, but I did shorten the instructions significantly.
DOUBLE PIE CRUST
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour -- sifted
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup shortening (we use butter flavored Crisco)
7 tablespoons cold milk (about)
Sift together dry ingredients and with pastry blender, cut in shortening until mixture looks like coarse meal. Add enough milk until dough appears moist but not wet. Try not to use more than 7 tablespoons unless necessary to hold dough together. Turn dough out and knead for a few seconds to hold mixture together. Handle as little as possible. Roll out using your favorite technique.
I didn't follow a recipe for the apple pie filling, I just did what Annemarie usually does. Which is...
Apple Pie Filling:
2 tablespoons flour
8 cups of apple slices *
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter
Directions:
Place bottom crust in pan and dust with the flour. Add the apple slices and sprinkle sugar on top, no need to mix. Dot apples with butter. That's all there is to it! No cooking whatsoever.
* I used Gravenstein and a wild apple for my pies this time. For those who are interested in making their own, I suggest using the following varieties: Northern Spy, Idared, Jonathan, and Empire.
What I learned: It was difficult for me to make six, 10" sized pizzas using Cat Cora's pizza dough recipe. There just was not enough dough to work with, and because of this I had to break out a box of pizza dough mix. So if you are going to do this recipe, expect four, 10" sized pizzas or six, 6" sized pizzas. The dough is lovely to work with by the way!
I learned something invaluable this week and that is to bake my apple pies for a longer time! I've only done one type of fruit pie before and that was peach. With a peach pie it is easy to tell when it is done because you just wait until the peach juice bubbles. But this is not so with apple pie. So I was having a hard time deciding when to grab my potholders and I ended up under baking. Oops! :( Next time I will bake them at 350 degrees for 45 minutes and no less.
Any modifications? No, I followed the pizza dough recipe exactly.
How it tasted? The pizza dough was delicious and I liked how thin I rolled it out. Everyone liked the Broccoli and Parmesan pizza the most; the BBQ Chicken came in second.
The pies were just OK namely because of me under baking them. I was really disappointed by that! The wild apple didn't impart enough flavor; won't be using them again.
How about a 2nd time? I will be using the pizza dough recipe again but will double the recipe or just make one large one.
The Broccoli and Parmesan Pizza. I simply brushed the dough with olive oil, pre-baked it for two minutes, added the vegetables and cheese, then placed it back into the oven for 20 minutes at 375.
This is the BBQ Chicken version. I pre-baked the crust for two minutes, added the BBQ sauce, chicken, and mozzarella, then placed it back into the oven.
This is the Traditional Pizza. It is larger than the others and the dough was made using a boxed mix and some of Cat Cora's dough. The toppings are store bought pizza sauce, chicken, and a Monterey Jack/Colby cheese mix.
Mr. Apple Pie, I hope our next meeting shall be more pleasant.
A Great Broccoli Dish and a Litttle Sweet Corn Lesson for This Sunday
8/23/09: Broccoli Flan and Mirai Sweet Corn
Meal details: Broccoli flan which consists of swiss cheese, eggs, onions, and broccoli. Yes, this recipe isn't technically a flan (which is a baked custard quite similar to crème caramel), but it has the texture of one and that is why the recipe creators decided to call this dish such. If I was titling this recipe I would call it an egg casserole instead. Alongside the baked flan we had a new variety of sweet corn called Mirai Optimum which I will tell you more about later.
Recipe sources: The flan recipe came from Recipes from America's Small Farms: Fresh Ideas for the Season's Bounty.
Defining moment: First time for me to use broccoli in a recipe.
What I learned: I am happy to say that broccoli isn't that difficult to clean. Yay! I also learned how to steam broccoli with ease and I owe all of this to Annemarie. She told me that I just have to take a large pot, put a 1/2" or an 1" of water on the bottom, put the broccoli in, cover, and put the burner on a low temperature. I stayed around medium heat most of the time and I stirred the broccoli every five minutes until they were tender. It worked out splendidly! I first thought I had to use a double boiler kind of contraption in order to steam, but that isn't the case. One final thing I learned is that leftovers taste great if pan fried, just like we do leftover scrambled eggs.
Any modifications? No, I followed the recipe exactly. And by the way, I multiplied the recipe by 3 and the flan fitted perfectly into the Pyrex casserole dish.
How it tasted: It tasted very good but I do think I should have put more salt and pepper in. Other than that, it was great.
How about a 2nd time? Yes, and I do hope our second patch of broccoli will pull through all the woodchuck and deer nibbling! :(
And before I go I wanted to elaborate on what is Mirai sweet corn. The best way to tell you all is to copy what my father said in our farm market's weekly newsletter. He is a sweet corn guru (has been growing it for many years) so here it is:
Last August I happened to be listening to the Chicago's WGN 720 AM radio (the voice of the Chicago Cubs) and I heard an ad about a place northwest of Chicago that sold sweet corn that they grew on their farm. The announcer made it sound like the corn was really special - I found out that they were selling it for around $7 a dozen which means they must have thought it was special! The type of corn was Mirai corn, whatever that was. Well, I knew there were three types of sweet corn-regular old fashioned type (SU), the supersweet (SH2) type and the enhanced sugar (SE) type, which is the primary type we have grown for over 15 years. Actually we have grown all three types but we have preferred the enhanced sugar type. Well, there is a new type of corn Mirai, which has some of all three genes mixed in. It was claimed in the ad (from Twin Gardens Farm located near Harvard Illinois) that the Mirai type was the best tasting corn around. I had to try it so I planted three bi-color varieties of Mirai corn. (To be honest, two of the varieties have Mirai in their name, with a number like 301 as a suffix, and one is actually named Optimum which is the same type of corn as Mirai but put out by a different seed company so they couldn't use the Mirai name.) Despite the warnings that Mirai corn was hard to grow, it has done fabulously and we have just taste tested it. It is truly a revolutionary corn. About the sweetest corn I ever tasted. If you like it sweet you should try it (by the way we are selling it for the same price as most of our corn, $4 a dozen). To be honest though, my wife and I think it is so sweet it is almost too sweet! While I expect it will be a big hit with most of our customers, not everyone will go for it. However, it is definitely a lot tenderer and more flavorful than the old-time Supersweet, which I personally didn't like at all! The Mirai type is a good corn and if you think it's a bit too sweet let it set in the kitchen a couple of days and it will lose some sweetness. For more information check out Miraicorn.com or Twingardenfarms.com.
Meal details: Broccoli flan which consists of swiss cheese, eggs, onions, and broccoli. Yes, this recipe isn't technically a flan (which is a baked custard quite similar to crème caramel), but it has the texture of one and that is why the recipe creators decided to call this dish such. If I was titling this recipe I would call it an egg casserole instead. Alongside the baked flan we had a new variety of sweet corn called Mirai Optimum which I will tell you more about later.
Recipe sources: The flan recipe came from Recipes from America's Small Farms: Fresh Ideas for the Season's Bounty.
Defining moment: First time for me to use broccoli in a recipe.
What I learned: I am happy to say that broccoli isn't that difficult to clean. Yay! I also learned how to steam broccoli with ease and I owe all of this to Annemarie. She told me that I just have to take a large pot, put a 1/2" or an 1" of water on the bottom, put the broccoli in, cover, and put the burner on a low temperature. I stayed around medium heat most of the time and I stirred the broccoli every five minutes until they were tender. It worked out splendidly! I first thought I had to use a double boiler kind of contraption in order to steam, but that isn't the case. One final thing I learned is that leftovers taste great if pan fried, just like we do leftover scrambled eggs.
Any modifications? No, I followed the recipe exactly. And by the way, I multiplied the recipe by 3 and the flan fitted perfectly into the Pyrex casserole dish.
How it tasted: It tasted very good but I do think I should have put more salt and pepper in. Other than that, it was great.
How about a 2nd time? Yes, and I do hope our second patch of broccoli will pull through all the woodchuck and deer nibbling! :(
So here are a few photos of the broccoli flan I prepared:
And before I go I wanted to elaborate on what is Mirai sweet corn. The best way to tell you all is to copy what my father said in our farm market's weekly newsletter. He is a sweet corn guru (has been growing it for many years) so here it is:
-------
So there you go, everything you want to learn about this really tasty sweet corn! And for those who like the visual, here's a photo of the Mirai before it was boiled:
So there you go, everything you want to learn about this really tasty sweet corn! And for those who like the visual, here's a photo of the Mirai before it was boiled:
Grill Drill
7/12/09: Grilled Dinner Sausage, Red Potatoes, and Beets with Steamed Broccoli and Beet Greens
Meal details: Main course, dinner sausage from Schwan's. Reminds me of a brat.
Side dishes, red potatoes and beets that were grilled along side broccoli and beet greens that were steamed and pan fried, respectively.
Here is the dinner sausage that I first boiled.
Our new Weber grill in its full glory. :)
A close up of the red potatoes that I grilled in a foil package. I place them right on top of the hot coals.
And hail the mighty beets!
Meal details: Main course, dinner sausage from Schwan's. Reminds me of a brat.
Side dishes, red potatoes and beets that were grilled along side broccoli and beet greens that were steamed and pan fried, respectively.
- Recipe sources: Didn't follow a recipe this week either.
- Defining moment: We had some of our own farm grown broccoli! Haven't grown this vegetable for years (I barely can remember it) so this was a mighty big occasion, indeed.
- What I learned: I learned that beets are not easy to clean and prepare! I'm so glad I worked on cleaning them the day before. I also learned how to do beet greens (I simply placed them in a pot with a bit of water and a slab of butter), steam broccoli, and cook three large links of dinner sausage. The broccoli took about 20 minutes to steam.
- Any modifications: Didn't have to use a recipe this week.
- How it tasted: I got good feedback about the broccoli, beets, and I really liked the dinner sausage. We have potatoes almost every week so they are sort of self explanatory. :)
- How about a 2nd time? Everything except the beet greens I would do again.
Here is the dinner sausage that I first boiled.
Our new Weber grill in its full glory. :)
A close up of the red potatoes that I grilled in a foil package. I place them right on top of the hot coals.
And hail the mighty beets!
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