Before we begin, I must caution you that this recipe is currently classified 100% experimental. What this means is that, while it's complete, it has yet to be actually eaten and, therefore, may in fact suck. If you choose to attempt this recipe between now and the time it gets eaten and I report back, we at Food That Tastes Good absolutely disclaim any and all responsibility for any negative effects (vomiting, diarrhea, death of household pets, etc.) you may experience.

That being said...

Rotini Pasta Salad

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb rotini pasta, cooked according to package instructions
  
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
  
• 1 Tbsp. parsley flakes
• 1 - 2 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp pepper
• 1/2 cup salad/olive oil
• Feta cheese crumbles (optional)
  
• Spices/seasonings

Okay, people. I cannot stress enough to you all how vitally important it is to check your cabinets before you start cooking. Once the pasta is actually in the boiling water, it is FAR too late to realize that you do not, in fact, have any Mrs. Dash.

I bet you see where this is going already, don't you?

As I was saying:

• Spices/seasoning, to wit:

1. Italian seasoning
2. Garlic powder
3. Lemon pepper
4. Sage
5. Onion powder
6. Tony Chachere's Spice & Herbs (optional)

So.
Yes, the original recipe I was using called for Mrs. Dash and celery seed. Since I had neither, I decided to make do with what I had. I looked up an ingredient list for Mrs Dash and discovered that most of what's in it is actually Italian seasoning; it apparently also has lemon peel and some other stuff in it, which is where I got really experimental. I actually used 1 tsp. each of the garlic powder (which the original recipe called for) and Italian seasoning (in place of the Mrs. Dash). Then I added (I am not kidding) a few shakes of lemon pepper, onion powder and Tony Chachere's, and a literal pinch (a small pinch) of sage.

You have to be careful with sage; it's got a pretty strong flavor, so if you aren't careful, your pasta salad could end up tasting like Mom's Thanksgiving stuffing.
So.

PREPARATION:

Put your cooked pasta in a big mixing bowl and add everything else to it. Mix really well. Cover and refrigerate. Add feta cheese crumbles before serving.

Wow, that was a hard one. Now, the original recipe I used called for the salad to be refrigerated overnight. I'm going to actually be checking mine in a couple hours when Mom gets home. At that point, I'll let you know how it is. Directly after mixing, the taste of the sugar was VERY strong, but I could also taste that bite (you know what I'm talking about), so I figure with some time to steep, the sugar flavor will probably recede. We shall see.

Ingredients:


Oh, this just looks... delicious. >.<

All stirred up and going into the fridge:

So, yeah, I haven't cooked in awhile. I've been down with a broken leg. For a year. *looks shifty*

Anyway, now that I'm done living off the chip aisle and the frozen-food aisle, here's some actual food that is currently cooking in my oven and smelling up the house all yummy.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, will be to find the pastry cutter we used last year on the fruit cobbler, because you're going to want it. You will also need a basting brush, a whisk, a mixing bowl, a cookie sheet, a large skillet and a saucepan.

Beef and Mushroom Roll

MEAT MIX INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb ground meat (beef or turkey)
  
• 1 small onion, chopped
  
• 1 4-oz can of mushroom stems and pieces, drained
• 1/4 cup dill pickle relish
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. ground mustard
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup water

PASTRY INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning
• 1/4 cup shortening or butter
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 Tbsp. milk (separate from above)

GRAVY INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 2 cups milk

Okay! Are you intimidated yet? Don't be! This was actually very easy to make, despite the fact that we literally screwed it up THREE DIFFERENT WAYS, and it was still delicious.

To begin, preheat your oven to 425. Now put your meat and your chopped onion into the skillet and cook them on medium heat until the meat is no longer pink. Add the mushrooms, relish, salt, mustard and pepper.

Combine the flour and water until smooth - I used a shaker thingummy with a lid for this - and then stir it into the beef mixture. Turn up the heat just a smidge and keep stirring for a couple of minutes; when it starts to get kind of thick, take it off the fire and set it aside.

Now for the pastry! Put the 2 cups of flour, the baking powder, the salt and the poultry seasoning into the mixing bowl and give it a stir. Using your pastry cutter (or a couple of knives if you haven't got one), cut the shortening into the pastry until it's kinda coarse and crumbly in texture. Stir in the 3/4 cup of milk, and stir good, to make the dough.

Now, you want to mind when you're doing this; you might even want to get in there and mix it good with your hands, because this makes a very dry dough and if you aren't careful, you'll have bits of crumb all over the counter... because that's where this is going.

Flour your counter a bit so the dough won't stick to it, and then dump the dough onto the counter. Make sure it's good and squished together, and then start flattening it out. The original recipe I used calls for you to make a 12" by 9" rectangle with the dough. Me, I don't keep a ruler in my kitchen (heck, I barely keep food there). Just check out the picture below, you want to make a big oblong, and you want the dough itself to be not-too-thick-but-not-too-thin. Maybe 1/4" or so, if you are the type with a ruler in your kitchen.

Anyway. Meat mix goes on dough now. You want to keep back about 1/4 cup or so of the mix, but spread the rest of it all across the dough, leaving yourself about an inch clear at all the edges, because the next thing is to roll it up and pinch the edges together.

Cover your cookie sheet with aluminum foil or spray it with cooking spray, and then put the roll on the sheet seam-side-down. Take that extra 2 tablespoons of milk and brush it all over the roll with the basting brush. Pop that sucker in the oven and set your timer for about 10 minutes.

Go have a cigarette and check your Twitter stream.

When the timer goes off, it's time to make the gravy. Melt your butter in the saucepan over mediumish heat. Be careful not to scorch it. Take it off the heat and whisk in the flour, salt and pepper (it'll lump up quick), and then slowly mix in the milk. Whisk this until it's smooth, then put it back on the heat and turn it up a smidge.

This part is pretty crucial. You have to keep stirring pretty fast the whole time the gravy is cooking or it will burn to the bottom of the pan quick-like. You want to get that gravy up to a boil and let it get to a good, thick gravy-like (heh, see what I did there?) consistency, and then you take it off the heat and stir in the last of the meat mix that you set aside earlier. Warm that for a second.

By now, your roll should be done. Check and make sure the crust is nicely browned, and when it is, pull it out. Slice it and stick it on a plate and put some gravy on it. Seriously, this is good stuff.

Ingredients (in HUGE PICTURES NOW because I'm using Photobucket):

Meat mix:



Pastry:



Gravy:



Meat mix after adding flour-and-water:


(the meat is white because it's turkey)

Spread-out dough with meat mix in:



Giant slug:



Mmm, gravy:



Deliciousness on a chicken plate:

... Apparently I went on hiatus

Sorry about that. Is anyone still following this blog? If so, I'll be cooking again soon. It's been awhile since I've done anything fancier than scrambled eggs. I got a little busy... I'll be graduating in a few weeks with my bachelor's degree, and then I'm turning right around and starting my Master's in September. I'm very excited. In the meantime, I'm getting back in the kitchen! ...just as soon as I finish this thesis.

~School's out for the sumer! and now that it is, I can get back to cooking! :)

Yesterday my mom and I decided we wanted some of these good stuffed mushrooms. We first had them at a Christmas party at my brother and sister-in-law's house. They're REALLY RICH so if you're going to make them, mind you have people to share with (even though you aren't going to want to share).

Stuffed Mushrooms

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 sweet Italian sausages, casings removed
• 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 8-oz package of cream cheese, warmed to room temperature
• 1 large egg yolk
• olive oil (optional)
• 24 large mushrooms, stems removed
• Dry white cooking wine

*The olive oil is for pouring into the pan prior to cooking the mushrooms so they don't stick; we just pour on a little bit of the wine.

PREPARATION:

Saute sausage and oregano in large skillet over medium-high heat until sausage is cooked through and brown, breaking it into small pieces with the back of a fork.

Drain sausage and put in a large bowl to cool.

Once the sausage is cool, add in the Parmesan cheese, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, cream cheese and egg yolk. Mix well. (This is why the cream cheese needs to be well-softened before you start!!!)

Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Pour small amount of wine or olive oil onto the foil and coat the foil to keep the mushrooms from sticking. Then line the mushrooms up on the cookie sheet with the hole side up. Using a basting brush, brush a little bit of wine into each cap, then fill the cap with the filling.

Heat oven to 350. Bake mushrooms uncovered until they are tender and the filling is brown on top. This takes around 20-25 minutes.

Ingredients:

All lined up on the pan and ready to go in the oven. See how overfull they are? You want lots of the yummy stuff on those mushrooms... :)


Ready to eat!!!

Chicken Broth & Stock

I want to stress at the outset that it is not hard to make chicken broth or chicken stock. All it requires is a stretch of time in which you will actually be doing very little real cooking.

I'm putting this little how-to in here right now because I have a pot of broth making on the stove right now, with the intention of making a Moravian chicken pie later. We ate one in Old Salem, NC, last fall, and it was delicious, and I've been meaning to try it, so I figured now was a good time. In order to make Moravian chicken pie, though, you have to have chicken broth and I didn't have any... but I did have a chicken. As good a place to start as any, right?

If you want to buy chicken broth from the store, you can; the chicken pie would probably be just as good. By the same token, if you want to buy pre-made pastry crusts for the cobbler or the empanadas, you can do that, too. Just because I take the hard road doesn't mean you have to.

That being said, here's how to make chicken broth.

Start with a chicken - a whole one. Check the packaging to see if the giblets are included. If they are, they'll be in a plastic bag that you can just pull out of the chicken's body cavity. (Yes, you're pulling a bag out of the chicken's butt. Yes, it's gross.) Rinse the chicken thoroughly (inside AND out) and check for any stray feathers. Folks, I know people who work at Tyson. Check for feathers.

You're going to need a big, deep pot for this one. Put your chicken in the pot and cover it with water. Ad any cut vegetables you want to add - carrots, celery, bit of onion, what have you. Also add salt - probably a good bit of salt. I didn't measure; I just poured. Use your best judgment. Once you have everything in there, put it on the stove and get it up to a good, solid boil, then cut the heat back down to low and cover it. Now let it simmer for about three hours.

During the first few minutes, you can use a large spoon to skim the gunk off the top of the boil. This is just congealed protein and bits of skin; you won't need it.

After you're done cooking, run the broth through a fine strainer or collander into a bowl. Save the chicken - debone it carefully and put it aside, especially if you're going to make chicken pie with me - discard the vegetables and strained-out stuff, and put the broth in the fridge or to the side if you're cooking with me later.

For chicken stock, use 12 to 15 pounds of chicken bones rather than the whole chicken, and increase the cooking time to six hours.

I'll be back later tonight (or possibly tomorrow) with the recipe for the chicken pie.

So I got this recipe out of the Taste of Home cookbook, and tweaked it a little to my personal preferences. These are really good, and fairly easy to make, too. (Especially compared to the empanadas, LOL.) Also, on the plus side, there's no oven required for this recipe.

Skillet Enchiladas

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb. ground meat (beef or turkey)
• 1 medium onion (finely chopped)
• 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1 can enchilada sauce
• 1/3 cup milk
• Canola oil
• 8 corn tortillas
• 2 1/2 cups shredded cheddar or mexican-style cheese

OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup chopped olives
• 1 to 2 tbsp. finely chopped green chili peppers
• jalapenos (if you like it spicy)

PREPARATION:

You're going to need two skillets for this, a large one and a small one. Start with the large one; cook the meat and onion together over medium heat until the meat is nicely browned. Drain off the grease. Stir in the soup, enchilada sauce, milk, and the peppers if you want peppers. Cover and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes, occasionally stirring to make sure it doesn't cook to the bottom of the pan.

At about the ten-minute mark, put just enough canola oil in the little skillet to cover a tortilla shell, and get it good and hot. Cook each tortilla one at a time for about three seconds, or just until it goes limp. BE CAREFUL because if you cook it too long, it'll go tough. Also be careful taking them out of the oil; use a spatula or something flat like that, because tongs will just tear up a soft tortilla and you need them whole. As you take them out of the oil, set them out flat on a paper towel to drain.

When the meat mix is finished cooking, scoop out a little less than half of it into a bowl. Then put about a quarter cup of cheese (or so) on each tortilla, along with olives if you want them or peppers or whatever. Then roll them up like burritos and lay them in the skillet on top of the meat mix. Once they're all in there, pour the rest of the meat mix back in on top of them, cover, and cook for just a few minutes. Now take the rest of your cheese and sprinkle all over the top of everything, cover again and cook for a couple more minutes just to get the cheese melted. Yummy!

Ingredients


Mixing the soup, sauce and milk into the browned meat/onions.


Laying the cheese-filled tortillas into the meat mix


Sprinkling the cheese over the cooked tortillas-and-meat


The finished product! It looks a little messy, but it's really good.

It's unprecedented - two posts in one day from me! But our internet/cable went out earlier due to the storming here in middle Tennessee, so I had nothing to do but cook.

Before we begin, don't start this recipe unless you have a lot of time and maybe a masseuse; by the time I was done with this, my back was killing me from standing over the counter. BUT it was worth it - these things are really good. These would make really good finger foods at the next potluck you get stuck going to, or at a Christmas party or something.

Sour Cream Empanadas

PASTRY INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups flour (sifted)
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup Crisco
  
• 1 cup (8 oz) sour cream
• 1 egg yolk

FILLING INGREDIENTS:

• 3/4 lb ground meat (beef or turkey, thawed)
• 1 large onion, chopped finely
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp water

You're going to make your pastry first. Now, if you were with me for the fruit cobbler, you already have a pastry blender, a rolling pin and a flour sifter. If you weren't, well, you're going to need one of each.

Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl, and add the sugar and the 1 tsp of salt. Use the pastry blender to "cut" the Crisco into this mixture, just until it's kind of crumbly. Now, this won't get as crumbly as the pastry we made for the cobbler, so don't freak. Once the Crisco's all blended in, stir in the cup of sour cream and the egg yolk. Stir this all up and form the pastry into a ball (you'll want to make sure all the pastry is mixed up while you're doing this; I did the last of my mixing with my hands). Put the pastry back in the bowl, cover it with Saran wrap or something like that, and stick it in the fridge for at least two hours.

Once you're ready to begin, put your ground meat and onions in a skillet and brown them together. Then drain off the grease and stir in the 1/2 cup of sour cream, the 1/2 tsp of salt and the oregano. Set this to the side. At this point, preheat your oven to 450.

On a floured surface (just like we did for the cobbler) you want to roll out your pastry to about 1/8 inch thick. You don't want it too thin, but you don't want it too thick either. Cut out 3 inch circles from your pastry, scrunch the leftovers together, roll them out, rinse, lather, repeat until you run out of pastry.

Now, here's where things can get sticky if you aren't careful. You only want to do these a few at a time; I learned with my first batch. You're going to take a spoonful of meat and put on a pastry circle, then fold the pastry over to make a little clamshell. Squish the edges together, and use a floured fork to squinch down the edges a little more. Make a note - if you put meat on too many pastries at once, the pastry will get wet and stick to the counter. You don't want that.

Put the folded empanadas on a greased cookie sheet. Take the last egg and the 2 tsp water and beat them together in a bowl, and then, using a basting brush, brush the tops of the pastries with this mixture. Pop them in the oven and bake them for about 12 minutes. These are very good, and also very filling.

Everything laid out to get started


Mixed up nicely with the pastry blender. Not very crumbly, but crumbly enough.


Adding sour cream, egg, etc.


Ball of pastry, ready to go into the fridge.

Laid out on the pastry circles; some of them folded up.


Ready to go in the oven


Finished product!

Don't make that face, it's good. It's just not good for you.

My mom made this for us when we were kids, because neither my brother nor I would eat plain scrambled eggs (shudder). So she made these instead, which are nommy. Also very simple.

Fritos and Eggs

INGREDIENTS:

• Fritos
• Eggs
• Bacon grease or butter

Not too complicated, see?

Begin by heating up your bacon grease in a skillet. Once it's hot, crunch up your Fritos into the bacon grease. For two eggs, you want to use maybe a couple handfuls of the regular Fritos. Brown the Fritos for a minute or so, then crack your eggs into them and scramble them up with a spatula. Serve. Yum.

Just in case you thought I was kidding

Chips browning in the bacon grease


Put the eggs in with the chips and scramble

May not look like much but you put it in your mouth, you'll see.


And here it is on the plate. Well, two plates - Mom wanted some, too!

How we cook steak at our house

Everybody has their own way of cooking steak, and this one is ours. You may not like it; my brother did this for some friends and they complained that the seasoning "masked the flavor of the meat". Well, whatever, this makes good steaks.

Ordinarily we cook nicely-marbled ribeyes. They're a bit more expensive, but it's worth it to have a quality piece of meat. However when I was digging through the freezer I ran across a package of these bacon-wrapped filet things (you know the ones) and I figured I might as well get them out of the freezer.

This is one of the few times I will actually recommend name-brand products.

You will need:

• Garlic salt
• meat tenderizer
• Lawry's Seasoned Salt
• A-1
• Heinz 57

Start out by thawing your steaks. Do not thaw them in the microwave; they'll get tough. Stick them in a bowl in the fridge and leave them overnight or so.

In the morning, take the steaks out and put them on a cookie sheet or other similar platter (in the pictures I've used a pizza pan). Apply the garlic salt, meat tenderizer and Seasoned Salt. Not too heavy, or the steaks will get salty. Next, pour on some Heinz 57 and then some A-1. Smear these all over the meat with a spoon.

Now flip them over and do the same thing to the other side. Now cover them with aluminum foil and leave them til the early evening. This gives the sauces and such time to kind of soak into the meat.

Fire up your grill and get it nice and hot, then reduce it to about a medium heat. Toss the steaks on and let them cook with the grill shut. For a good, thick ribeye (usually 3/4 to 1 inch thick) you want to give them eight minutes or so on a side, but not all at once. Go about three and a half to four minutes, then flip them, then another 3-4 minutes, then flip, and so forth. If you like your meat rarer, obviously take them off the grill sooner. If you go about eight minutes on medium flame, you should get a nice medium-well slightly-pink business going.

Now, obviously on cooking times your mileage may wildly vary depending on your grill, your flame, etc. etc. So you want to keep a knife and grilling fork on hand. When you think they might be ready, cut them open and look. If they're still too pink for you, let them cook longer. If you're worried about overcooking the outside, turn the flame down. Grilling itself is something of a trial-and-error procedure, but the sauce will never steer you wrong.

Just the steak. Didn't think about taking photos until after I'd done one side, hence the sauce all in the pan.


Here with the garlic salt/tenderizer/seasoned salt on.



Here with the A-1 and Heinz 57.


On the grill! Don't those look good?


And on the plate. Despite the flash, you can see that we had ours this evening with a baked potato and some Really Thin Garlic Toast (recipe previously posted).

My second cousin Sandy gave me this recipe. Actually, she fed it to me first, in her basement in north Georgia. Then she gave me the recipe when I begged. This is good stuff. I could honestly sit and eat this whole thing. She calls it a coffee cake, but we eat it for breakfast or dessert or whenever. You'll love it. Today we're having it for breakfast.

Before you get started, you're going to need a 9 inch cake pan. Sandy uses a springform pan because it's easier to get it out. You can get springform pans at Wal-Mart (that's where I got mine yesterday, LOL.) We have successfully made this in a regular pan, but our regular pan was only 8" so it never came out exactly like it should have. You also want to try and get the little miniature blueberries, like the kind you get in a blueberry muffin mix; they're better for this recipe than the big blueberries. I suggest the Dole brand.

Sandy Grimes's Blueberry Coffee Cake

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 8-ounce package of cream cheese (softened)
• 1 stick of butter (softened)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup flour (sifted)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking powder (not baking soda!)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups frozen blueberries (do not thaw!)

TOPPING INGREDIENTS

• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 4 tbsp sugar
  

PREPARATION:

Preheat your oven to 350.

Beat cream cheese and butter together until fluffy. We have a big KitchenAid mixer that we use for this; you can also use a hand mixer. I don't suggest trying this with a spoon.

Once the cream cheese and butter are nicely mixed, gradually add the sugar, then add the egg. Now add the flour along with the salt and baking powder (you can actually measure the salt and baking powder off into the flour, if you like, when you're getting set up). Last, add the vanilla.

Now set your mixer aside and get a spatula. Gently fold the blueberries into the mix. The batter will be thick, but if you're not careful, you'll smush up your blueberries and then there you'll be, smushed blueberries. The blueberries may not all mix in; don't worry about it. You can cover them up with mix once you put it in the pan.

Now spray your 9 inch pan with cooking spray and dump the mix in. It's going to be very thick, and you'll have to use your spatula to spread it out in the pan. Mix your topping cinnamon-and-sugar and sprinkle it all over the top of the cake. Pop it in the oven for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake (between the berries) comes out clean.

Getting set up; everything except the topping mix.


The mix, before blueberries


In the springform pan, with blueberries. As you can see, I smushed a couple of the blueberries while I was mixing; that's why the mix is so purple. Heh. Oops.