Tormented Kitchen

Hello again! It's March and we're nearing St. Patrick's Day. We have a few little family traditions. They are pretty easy to adhere to. We like to eat corned beef and cabbage, wear green, and go visit Grandma Rose for her birthday since it falls the week before.  Sometimes, we even go to the St. Paddy's Fair put on by our hometown church, if we are there the right weekend. One of my newer traditions is making homemade bread to go with dinner. I've tried a few variations on Irish soda bread, and this is by far the easiest. We love quick and easy, especially when it's tasty! There are many, many different recipes for soda bread. I've tried to keep this true to what Irish people would have made historically. No raisins, no sugar, no fancy stuff. Just plain, hearty bread. This is not light and fluffy white bread. It's dense, chewy, and crusty. You will definitely want to load it up with butter and use it to sop up juices on your plate. I lov...

Risotto has reputation, a bad reputation. Have you heard? That reputation put me off for a long time. I imagine others think the same way as I do. Occasionally I concede that I don't have the time or patience to make certain foods at home and resort to eating those things at restaurants. But now, risotto is not one of those things. You can make it at home just fine. Maybe your favorite risotto is a different flavor, but follow the techniques here and get used to them. You'll be whipping up other flavors in no time. One of my dear hubby's favorite things is his grandma's risotto made with her homemade (secret recipe) spaghetti sauce. Believe me, conquering that recipe was tough! In comparison, this risotto is as easy as boiling your stock and waiting for it to soak into the rice. It just takes a little patience. Ingredients about 5 cups vegetable stock 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 1/4 cup finely chopped onion 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 1/2 cups Arb...

Apples. They are a staple fruit for us. They are especially big hits with the kids and their hungry friends. Ages ago, I used to make baked apples with plain granola and brown sugar.  Now, I have found a way to cut out the extra brown sugar. I just don't add it! Of course, the type of apple used makes a huge difference in the finished product.  Tart green apples need the sugar.  Red varieties don't. Since nobody around here likes raisins, I used a raisin-free cereal and added the dried cranberries instead. These apples are fragrant and beautiful.  When you slice them open,  the red skin imparts a rosy glow to the apple's flesh.  They also happen to taste divine! Ingredients 4-6 large apples, I used Red Delicious 3/4 cup granola cereal (I used Quaker Natural Granola cereal) 1/4 cup dried cranberries/ Craisins 2/3 cup cranberry-raspberry juice (or cranberry-apple juice) Method 1. Core the apples. Arrange in your baking dish. ...

What do you do with leftover roasts?  Savory pies are a great way to use leftovers. We eat plenty of French dip sandwiches and salads topped with sliced steak, but I rarely make pot pie. I think with the cold weather coming in, we needed a comfort food meal and a pot pie is definitely comfort food! I had an open bottle of Rex Goliath cabernet, a leftover roast, and a few baked potatoes in the fridge, so no wasting! To make this pot pie a little different and more "gourmet", I added the red wine and some herbs to the gravy. It was delicious! Dear hubby and his brother requested a deer version next time.  That's an awesome idea, especially since we have venison stock and plenty of meat in the freezer. Oh, yes, that plan is already forming. Cabernet and venison are so good together. Also, venison instead of beef? It's a natural substitution in our house. Ingredients about 1 1/2 lbs leftover cooked beef roast or steak, trimmed and diced 2-3 leftover baked po...

Today I'm sharing my authentic French P â te Bris é e recipe.  It's wonderfully light and flaky with that unmistakable flavor that only comes from real buttery goodness. This recipe makes enough for two single-crust (bottom only) pies or one double-crust (top and bottom) pie. Since it's not sweet, it is suitable for sweet or savory pies, especially pot pies for dinner. I used this butter-based crust for my Cabernet Steak Pot Pie recipe and it was fabulous. Ingredients 3 cups unbleached AP flour 1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup cold water (you may not need all of this) additional flour for rolling Method 1. Chop or shred the cold butter. I used a microplane grater to grate the cold butter into a large mixing bowl.  Put it back in the fridge a few minutes to keep it cold. I had commercially salted butter on hand so that is what I used. 2. Add the flour and salt and blend with a pastry blender until evenly crumbly. (If you have unsa...

 Pizza. We eat tons of it. Take-out pizza is the food of choice for most birthday parties we attend for the kids and their friends. You're probably thinking "Gee, Jenny. Don't you get tired of nasty, cardboard-tasting crust from pizza chains?" Why, yes. Yes, we get tired of cheap pizza.  So you know what that means.  We either go to a good pizza place or make some at home. Cuz, that's how I roll. Then, one day this summer, I was chatting with a coworker about homemade pizza. She gave me the low-down on grilled pizza. Here's me, the wanne-be foodie thinking OMG why have I not already tried that? I've done plenty of normal pizza, and even folding it up into a calzone. Being out in the West, with a fancy propane grill and all, I figured I had to try it. So you should, too.  Now if grilling pizza is not your thing, don't freak out.  I have instructions for regular oven-baked pizza, or turning it into calzone, along with grilling details below. ...

Yes, it happened again.  The Nugget Rib Cook-off has come and gone. This year marked the 25th annual cookoff. There were all the usual events, like free concerts with Diego's Umbrella and Bad Company, vendors along the street, the carnival rides, the Rib Village, and Maker's Mark showed up to sell commemorative 25th anniversary silver-wax-dipped bottles of bourbon. The old Silver Club, has re-opened under the new name of Bourbon Square Casino.  They had a beignet stand just outside the doors.  I love donuts and beignets and these were super, super good beignets! The fried pickles from the next stand were pretty good, too. This year, we went to the Rib Village and methodically taste-tested ribs.  We took a plate of ribs with the matching sauce and shared amongst ourselves. The 5 of us, me, the husband, his mother, his brother, and brother's girlfriend did the tasting.  The kids were there, too, just not doing any evaluating. We conclude...