GoA Recipe Book

The Sandbox General
82

Wife wanted to use up the Christmas ham…and wanted a chowder…so I made this: Easy Ham and Corn Chowder • Salt & Lavender

The author is from :canada:, eh.

Ingredients
4 strips bacon
1/2 medium onion chopped
2 sticks celery chopped
1/4 cup flour
2 cloves garlic minced
4 cups chicken broth or stock
1 cup heavy/whipping cream
2 cups frozen corn
1 pound smoked ham chopped
2 large Russet potatoes peeled & diced
1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 pinch cayenne pepper optional
Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions
Prep your bacon (I use kitchen shears to make cutting it up easy) and add it to a large pot over medium-high heat. Cook until crispy (about 10 minutes).
Meanwhile, prep your onion, celery, ham, and potatoes.
Once the bacon is crispy, transfer it to a paper towel lined plate. Leave the bacon fat in the pot.
Add the onion and celery to the pot and sauté for 5 minutes.
Stir in the flour and garlic and cook for about a minute, stirring nearly constantly.
Stir in the chicken broth, and ensure the flour has dissolved and the flavorful brown bits are scraped up from the bottom of the pot.
Add in the cream, corn, ham, potatoes, Italian seasoning, cayenne pepper, and most of the bacon (I save the rest for garnishing the bowls later on). Increase the heat to high and bring the soup to a boil. Once it’s boiling, reduce the heat to a rapid simmer so it’s gently boiling.
Cook with the lid slightly open until the potatoes are tender (about 15-20 minutes). Stir every so often. The soup will get thicker the longer you cook it.
Season the soup with salt & pepper if needed. Garnish with the rest of the bacon.

83

Mushrooms! This is more of a technique than a recipe, but it gets a great turnout.

Most mushrooms are full of air and water. That creates 2 problems cooking them: they can soak up a massive amount of oil making them greasy, and they can water down your dish. This method is designed to avoid both. I learned it from a cooking show, maybe Americas test kitchen.

First, we’ll break two rules: pile the mushrooms in a cold pan. You want it full/crowded. It will dramatically reduce. Add some tap water, approximately 1/4c per package of mushrooms. Exact proportion not important. You just need a little water to get the process started.

Put heat on medium to medium high. Stir occasionally. Eventually the shrooms will start shedding their water and it will look like mushroom soup. Great. Let it it cook down. Once the moisture is almost gone, pay closer attention and stir frequently. When almost dry, move on to next step.

Now the shrooms have dumped their air and water. Throw some fat in the pan. I typically use olive oil, but anything will do. The mushrooms will brown and carmelize nicely in any fat now as you saute them. Stop here if you want to use them in something as is naked.

However now is usually the time I add other flavors. I make a well/ space in the center of the pan, add a little oil, and saute some aromatics. Shallot or garlic are great here, onion is good, do whatever. Add fresh or dried herbs now too. Stir it together when your aromatics are ready.

You could stop now, but there’s a lot of mushroom goodness stuck to that pan after the water evaporated. I recommend deglazing the pan with some liquid. I typically go with chicken stock or wine, but you could go with milk/cream, beer, whatever. Scrape the pan after adding liquid. Let it reduce until it looks like you want it to (usually very quick), remove from heat, and add a couple of pats of butter to thicken the sauce.

1 Like
84

I’ll do something similar for my mushroom pizzas…I usually start with sautéing some onions in a medium sized pot, and add about a pound of slices mushrooms on top. This usually fills up the pot but it all reduces down after a few minutes. The steam coming off the onions gets the mushrooms going, no need to add any water.

85

Tonight I did this chicken piccata again. It is great and not too hard.

86

We are making this again tonight, I’m a huge fan. I usually serve it in a bowl with hummus lining the edges/sides, whatever works.

If I’m feeling saucy I’ll make something like a zhug for it, but since nobody else at my house eats spicy, usually not. I got the Sabra ‘supremely spicy’ hummus for me this time, good enough.

87

I have done a hawaij rub before, but cooked the chicken on the smoker. Like your house, I am on an island for spicy.

1 Like
88

Trying a meatloaf tomorrow from an old Men’s Health i found in the garage.
Will post results.

89

My wife hates most meatloaf, but she likes this one that I make sometimes:

I have sometimes skipped the sauce. Also works well on the smoker.

90

My roma tomatoes are off the rails. I’ve made about 15-20 jars of spaghetti sauce, brushcetta bread a couple of times, and a batch of my grandmother’s chili sauce recipe, about 10 jars.

We are having my sons gf over for supper tomorrow night so I put the most recent batch of tomatoes into chili. I’m not a fan of chili, but this stuff tastes pretty good!

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1 Like
91

Heresy.

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92

When the weather gets cooler, Daddy gonna make a yuuuuuuuge pot of chili!! That’s some good eatin’ right there!!!

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93

Possibly I’ve never had decent chili. Given the status of chef-i-ness of both my mother and my spouse, it’s probable. This might be the first time I’ve had decent chili.

2 Likes
94

Come on down to Kansas and I’ll hook you up!

95

Chili has so many different styles, you are bound to find one you like.

I made a pot of chili this week. Sometimes I follow recipes, but I often just throw whatever I feel like in there which is what I did this week. When I do that, I’m usually using a variety of whole dried chiles as the base: toast the chiles however you like (oven, pan, or microwave), remove seeds/stems, then bring them to a boil in a pot with stock. Throw a tomato in there too if you feel like it. After it simmers 10 minutes or so, throw it in a blender and puree. That’s your base. Saute your meat and veggies, and add to the base. Add beans if you like. Add your favorite spices. Let it reduce a while for the flavors to meld.

IIRC this time my simmered base included ancho, pasilla, guajillo, and Chile de arbol. I added some chipotle in adobo with them in the blender, and a fresh jalapeno in the sauteed ingredients. I used no chili powder at all in this batch. Turnout was good.

Some weird things to throw in the pot that work well with red chilis: chocolate or cocoa powder, coffee or espresso, beer…

I’ve got a white chicken chili recipe that is the complete opposite of this one that is also tasty.

1 Like
96

oh that’s not how my spouse makes it. I think there’s cans and packages involved. there’s nothing fresh or prepared.

yeah, they make crappy chili.

1 Like
97

Yeah, the only thing that came out of a can here was the chipotle in adobo.

I forgot to add that for me the sauteed veggies component should always add lots of onion and garlic.

98

lol, we don’t have any of that stuff here.

I went to three different grocery stores before I concluded they don’t sell chili beans here. nevermind any of that stuff!

99

You can probably buy dried chiles on Amazon for 3x the price I pay at latino markets here. Still likely a relatively cheap ingredient.

100

I’m not all hi klass and :poop: like youze, so I use cannned beans and tomatos with powdered chili spice, but I do add in fresh chopped onion, garlic and peppers. I add some hot sauce on serving just for a kick.

i just might try some dried chilis next time. :+1:

101

Adding the fresh veggies is perhaps the most important step.

1 Like