Quick Jambalaya

not yet mind-blowingly hot

Gratuitous amounts of rage and betchiness are a part of my personality that I and anyone I associate with has come to accept. Obviously. Sometimes, when I feel particularly sadistic, I make very, very, very spicy food. Other times, I have to tone it down. This jambalaya recipe is mild, but the flavors are just asking to be taken advantage of by some mind-blowingly hot sauces, spices and combinations of the two. So make this as is, serve to your wussy friends, then add liquid fire.

Sidenote: spicy foods speed up your metabolism. Fast metabolisms burn more calories. You’re welcome.

Ingredients:

• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1 small red onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic (I definitely added 10 … but do what you want)
• 2 14 oz cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 lb chicken breasts, cut into 1-in cubes
• 1-2 links fully cooked andouille sausage, cut into coins
• S + P to taste
• 3-4 tsps Cajun/Creole seasoning (or a combination of salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder, celery salt, oregano, and parsley)

In a bowl, toss chicken in Cajun/Creole seasoning.. In a large deep skillet, cook the sausage and seasoned chicken until golden.  Add onion, peppers, celery and garlic and saute for about 3 minutes until garlic and onions are fragrant. Add undrained tomatoes,  cover and simmer on medium-high heat for about 15 minutes until veggies are soft and chicken is no longer pink. Serve over steamed white or brown rice and sprinkle with fresh thyme or parsley.

This is the part where you serve it to your wussy friends as is. Try not to snicker. Then have your own bowl. Topped with red pepper flakes. And habanero Tabasco sauce. They’ll be in awe of how cool you are. Trust me.

Beef and Barley soup

look at the veggies.

So I totally promised to post this months ago and never got to it. Deal. I’ve been busy getting skinny, not being povo, and buying antiques to furnish my apartment. Life is hard. I honestly have not had time or desire to cook, probably because I’ve just been winning so hard.

But in all honesty, I have to just take this time to say, “wtf, weather.” It has been spring for a few weeks and I think the temperature here in Charlotte has hit 65 twice. TWICE. Global warming is real, and it’s seriously messing with my ability to lay outside by the pool drinking something fancy and objectifying men.

So, in honor of this horrendous, cold, miserable weather, I made beef and barley soup. Completely delicious and comforting, this stew/soup is easy to make and perfect with a few pieces of crusty bread. NOM. Plus, it has vegetables, so I’m assuming it’s good for you.

• 2-3 lbs beef bones with meat (or oxtails, or combination of stew beef and beef bones)
• 1 pkg soup greens (carrots, celery, turnip, parsnip, dill, parsley, onion … if you cannot find a package of soup greens, you will need 2 carrots, 1-2 stalks of celery, 1 turnip, 1 parsnip, a handful of fresh dill, a handful of fresh parsley and 1 medium onion)
• ½ cup barley
• 1 (15 oz) can whole tomatoes, undrained
• 1 bay leaf
• 2-3 beef bouillon cubes
• Salt and pepper to taste

In a large soup pot, cover beef bones with water and add bay leaf and bouillon cubes. Meanwhile, peel the carrots, celery, turnip, parsnip and onion. Simmer 1 ½ hours or until beef is tender. Remove beef bones from pot and take meat off bones. Cut into bite size pieces and add back to pot with veggies, tomatoes, and barley. Simmer for 45 minutes until barley is done and veggies are tender (celery may be done before this so you may have to remove it a little earlier). Remove veggies and cut up into bite-size pieces. Add back into broth, remove bay leaf, add salt and pepper to taste, and heat through. Serve immediately or store chilled. This soup freezes ridiculously well, so don’t feel like you have to eat it all in one sitting. Unless you want to. Fatty.

Moving sucks

it sucks.

So. This isn’t a post about cooking. It’s a post about ranting. Or, well. It’s me ranting. About moving. Moving sucks.

I accepted a position in Charlotte as some sort of social media research analyst. It means I get paid to research things of interest to the company on Facebook and Twitter. I wish Pinterest counted too… Does seeing pictures of gross skanks in hideous outfits count as a threat? It should. So should uploaded pics of sonograms. Stop it.

Anyway, my small 800 sq ft one apartment in Lynchburg has now morphed into a 1300 sq ft two bedroom in Ballantyne. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ballantyne, it’s about 20 minutes outside of Charlotte, NC and is host to at least 5 different country clubs. I’m hoping my dream of becoming a trophy housewife or soccer mom will finally come true. That’s a joke by the way. Also, if one more person asks me, “oh, is it just you living in all that space?” I’m going to beat my head against a wall. I need space, and things, and probably a Great Dane named Geoffrey down the line.

For the last few weeks, I was forced to live out of my refrigerator. Chips and salsa became breakfast a few times. HOWEVER. I did find some frozen beef and barley soup in the back of my freezer. I shall post it soon.

There are a few things I learned while having to live out of boxes. Here’s what I can remember so far:

1. Eat off of paper plates. I don’t care that it isn’t sustainable. Washing dishes is the LAST thing you’ll want to do when all your sh*t is in boxes.

2. Pack quick meals and basically your whole kitchen last. This means food. Keep pasta, rice, dried beans and canned foods out of boxes till the last minute. They come in handy when you just can’t physically eat chips or take out one more time.

3. Prepare one or two one pot meals per week. Split leftovers into individual portions and either freeze or refrigerate them. The microwave will be your best friend during moving time.

4. Keep Nutella and at least one spoon out of boxes until the absolute last minute. You will need this when you start breaking, throwing and destroying things out of spite.

What did I miss? I’m curious what else I could have done to make my move less stressful.

Herbed lemon quinoa cakes

I’ve been on a health kick lately.  I’ve been on a “oh my god please don’t let me get fat I promise I’ll be good” kick lately. After searching extensively, I found a few recipes for quinoa cakes. Finally finding one that assured me that using only 2 eggs would be okay, I set out to make nommy health food treats.

They can be a little bland, so be sure to sorta taste them as you go (NOT once you’ve added the raw eggs please). Further, these are relatively filling in addition to being healthy. So, you can probably PROBABLY fight off the urge to finish that pistachio gelato in the freezer.

Or just have one bite.

Wait what’s the serving size?

No one will know.

It’s fine.

Fatty.

• 3/4 cup dry quinoa
• 1 tsp italian seasoning
• 1 tbsp lemon pepper seasoning
• 1 tsp rosemary
• 1/2 tsp each chopped fresh parsley, mint, basil, sage and thyme
• 1/4 cup goat cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/4 grated parmesan
• 1 tsp each salt and pepper
• 2 tbsps olive oil
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs

Cook quinoa according to package directions. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine all other ingredients except the olive oil. When quinoa has cooled slightly, fold it into the other ingredients. DO NOT DO THIS WHEN IT’S HOT. It will scramble the eggs. Jeez.

Anywho, take a big giant skillet and add the olive oil. Using two spoons or your hands or a spatula or a cup or whatever, drop the batter/mixture/stuff into the oil. Flatten a bit, making a pancake. When one side is golden brown, flip and cook the other side. Be careful with these as they are a little delicate. Also don’t burn yourself. Frying can be scary. When patties or cakes or whatever are done, remove from the oil and drain on paper towels.

If you want to be healthy, top with a squirt of fresh lemon and a sprinkling of herbs. If you’re throwing caution and calories to the wind, put some more cheese on top. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

PS: You could TOTALLY make these a little smaller and serve them as a snooty appetizer at a wine and bitch  cheese party. Yay!

Root veggie and andouille sausage soup

It’s fall and sh*t. Let’s make soup. I was far too lazy to go to the store to buy real soup ingredients and just happened to have all of this here stuff on hand. Therefore, I made it up as I went. It’s extremely easy and doesn’t require any real work aside from chopping, which I’m pretty sure most of you can handle. This is also extremely versatile. Have white onions instead of red? Use them. Don’t want beets? Fine, whatever. You get the idea. Sidenote: If I did have enough kale on hand, I would have added that in here too. As it was allllll the way outside on my patio, however, I opted to leave it out.

• 1 can diced beets packed in water, drained
• 2 andouille sausages
• 1 large red onion, minced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 32 oz chicken stock
• 1 bag baby carrots
• 1 lb baby red skin potatoes, diced (can either peel or not… I didn’t)
• honey
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (evoo)
• 1 tbsp italian seasoning
• 2 bay leaves
• s& p

Sautee minced garlic and onion in olive oil. Once they start to soften, add diced sausage. Let cook for about 5 minutes, then add in chicken stock, potatoes, Italian seasoning and bay leaves. Simmer on medium heat for 20 minutes or until potatoes are easily pierced with a fork.

Meanwhile, drizzle carrots with honey and evoo, salt and pepper. Roast them at about 425 degrees until they begin to get golden and brown. When they’re done, cut into slivers and throw them into the soup. Add the diced drained beets. Simmer soup an additional 5-10 minutes, and it will take on a lovely pink color. Remove the bay leaves. Season with salt and pepper as needed.

This is seriously good. I don’t know why, it just is. Amen. Oh, and sprinkle it with fresh basil or sage or something. Be fancy.

The worst thing I have ever made

Sometimes I fail and sometimes I am wrong. This happens almost never — especially in the kitchen. I have gotten to a point where I can make up a recipe or adapt one and arrive at a very pleasing, culinary place. However, disaster struck recently. Parker and I decided it was a good night for pasta. It being autumn, we opted for a butternut squash pasta. I feel the need to inject the fact here that 1) this was NOT in ANY WAY my recipe, 2) Nigella Lawson was WRONG 3) Better Homes & Gardens should be ashamed of themselves (this recipe was in their Annual Recipes 2010 cookbook), and 4) this could not be salvaged in any way.

Further, I HATE being wrong and I HATE wasting food. After I tried to choke down this rank-cheese-squash-pasta disaster, I made a pumpkin crisp. It had two sticks of butter. It made me feel a little better. My arteries may have closed.

So here it is. The worst recipe in the world. I challenge anyone reading this to make it and PLEASE tell me what I did wrong. On paper, it seems like it could absolutely work. Is it the brand of rank blue cheese I used? Was it the fact that maybe the butternut squash wasn’t quite at the peak of ripeness? Did it really matter that I opted to use gnocci instead of pappardelle noodles (which I swear to god are NOT available in Lynchburg)? I don’t know. All I know is this sucked. Hard. Make it. Spit in the face of the culinary fates. The recipe below is taken directly from Nigella’s cookbook, which features the same horrible recipe.

• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 large butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons Marsala
• 1/2 cup water
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 6 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped (or 1/2 teaspoon dried sage)
• 8-16 oz  pappardelle or other robust pasta based on preference
• 5 oz  soft blue cheese, crumbled

Fry the onion in the olive oil over a medium heat in a large, heavy-based pan that can accommodate all the pasta later. After about 10 minutes, add the paprika. Add the cubed butternut squash, then add the butter, stirring everything together well in the pan. Add the Marsala and water. Once the mixture starts to simmer, put the lid on, turn down the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the squash is tender but still holds its shape. Season to taste (keeping in mind that the cheese will be salty too), then sprinkle the sage into the squash mixture, reserving some to garnish.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling, salted water according to the packet instructions. Toast the pine nuts in a separate hot, dry pan, tip them into a bowl and set aside.

Before you drain the pasta, reserve a mugful of the cooking water. Add the drained pasta to the squash and slowly stir to combine. Add some of the pasta cooking water to help the sauce emulsify, then add the blue cheese and half the pine nuts. Gently combine, then sprinkle the remaining pine nuts and sage on top and serve.

Beet, carrot and kale super-food salad thing

I didn’t know what to call this (clearly) because I wouldn’t really classify it as a salad. I wouldn’t classify it as a skillet or scramble either, though. Hmmm. Regardless of what it is, it tasted nom-tastic and was ridiculously simple to throw together.

• 1 can beets, no salt added, packed in water — reserving 1 tbsp of the “juice” from the can
• 2-3 carrots, shredded into long “ribbons” with a vegetable peeler
• 1 tbsp dried dill or fresh
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• s&p to taste
• 1 cup kale, chopped
• 1-2 oz. goat cheese

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a skillet, combine 1 tbsp of the olive oil, the carrots, salt and pepper. Saute until the carrots get a little softer — really up to you when you are comfortable with them. Probably no more than 5-8 minutes over medium high heat. Add the kale and wait for it to wilt down. Add the dill. Meanwhile, place the beets on a non-stick pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast in the oven. When the edges begin to darken a bit, they’re ready. Combine the beets with the kale and carrots. Sprinkle with a little more salt and pepper. In a small bowl, combine the vinegar, leftover olive oil, garlic powder, reserved beet “juice,” salt and pepper. Pour over the vegetable mixture. Mix around a bit, then top the whole thing off with some goat cheese, which will, obviously, melt a little. Mmmmmm.

Serve with multigrain bread as a starter course or even as a lunch. I’ve paired this with lentils and had a filling, healthy meal. If you don’t like it, tough.