Grilled venison chops with blue cheese and caraway butter (p. 529)

After knocking out a game recipe with Rachel on Saturday night, it seemed smart to make a second dish for lunch on Sunday using the rest of the venison loin. We decided that Grilled venison chops with blue cheese and caraway butter (p. 529) looked promising.

I mixed butter with blue cheese, caraway seeds, Worcestershire sauce, and a little salt and pepper. We used Rachel's new immersion blender which turns into a little chopper (I have the same blender and I LOVE it).

Before:



After:



I cut the venison into chops:



The chops were quickly cooked and topped with butter:



This was a seriously delicious dish. The slight gaminess of the venison was offset by the strong flavors of blue cheese and caraway. I always associate caraway with bread or cabbage, so it was interesting to use it to spice meat. Jon and I both thought this was the superior dish of the two while Rachel liked the steaks with tomato sauce. Both of these meals were good enough to convince me that maybe I was too hasty with my dislike of venison. And I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on some more of the deer meat the next time I'm in town--I have five more recipes to make!

Sauteed venison steaks (p. 528)

One of my best friends got married Saturday and after an arduous journey that kept me on tarmacs for more than seven hours and caused me to get into Des Moines at 1 AM (making me miss both the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner) I was even more happy to be there. Congrats Rachel and Jon! Rachel has been one of my biggest supporters since the very beginning of TJOTJOC and regular readers will remember her from my birthday, New Year's Eve, and the wedding.

I don't have many wedding pictures but here is my mom, Rachel, and me (not the most flattering picture of any of us but the only one I have):



Since the happy couple wasn't leaving for their amazing honeymoon (Prague and Italy!) for a couple of weeks, Rachel recommended that I come up to Ames and cook dinner. I thought it was a great idea and then she pointed out that I could cook venison and make progress on the woefully neglected "Game" chapter, which was a marvelous idea!

For dinner we thought Sauteed venison steaks (p. 528) looked good. Neither Rachel or I are venison fans so we weren't particularly excited.

TJOC says to brown four garlic cloves in olive oil. This is what Rachel thought was about four cloves:



Forty cloves maybe. I was fine with it though--I love garlic! No vampires would attack us. There was no way I was discarding the garlic like TJOC recommended. Almost anything is better with more garlic!


I pounded six venison steaks into submission:



They were cooked in the skillet at high heat, which was terrifying. Oil was leaping out at us. The steaks cooked REALLY fast.

We then added two pounds of tomatoes, oregano, and crushed red pepper to the pot and simmered:



When it was reduced, I added black olives and a little white wine and poured it over the steaks:



It was good! This was the least gamey venison I've ever eaten. I swear it's because Iowa game tends to graze the corn and soybeans so they "finish" themselves on grain. This sauce would be really good on beef or buffalo, too. The sauce kept extremely well and was even better the next day.

Crostini (p. 642) and Apple or fruit crisp (p. 692)

One of my favorite dishes in the summer is one of the most simple--I slice a tomato, sprinkle it with plenty of feta cheese, and then douse it in balsamic vinegar and olive oil. This combination is best over crusty bread. I thought that Crostini (p. 642) would be perfect.

I cut a loaf of french bread into slices and brushed them with olive oil



And popped them in the oven to toast:



Incredibly simple and really good. I think the crostini would be even better sprinkled with garlic powder and shredded Parmesan cheese.

I've really been trying to make progress on the under-represented chapters of TJOC. I'm almost at 50% on some chapters while I haven't made a single recipe out of other chapters. And the dessert chapters are easily some of the chapters in which I'm most behind.

One of the benefits of living in Colroado is the cheap peaches. I picked up a few pounds of them at the grocery store and looked for a good recipe. Apple or fruit crisp (p. 692) looked promising.

I really hate peeling peaches. I'm sure there is is a trick to it but I don't know what it is. I peeled 2.5 pounds of peaches, cut them into chunks and spread them in the baking dish.



I combined flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl and then added cold butter:



I used my pastry blender on it until it resembled crumbs. How do you make pastry in a food processor? Is it easier? I always do mine by hand.

I spread the mixture on the peaches:



And baked it:



The crisp made the whole house smell like peaches which was delicious. The crisp was REALLY good and was even better with vanilla ice cream. TJOC mentions that almost any fruit can be used in this recipe but I think peaches are perfect. The recipe was INCREDIBLY easy and only took about 5 minutes of active time (not including peeling the peaches).

Bell peppers with rice (p. 292)

There aren't many TJOC recipes that utterly fail for me but it does occasionally happen. Bell peppers with rice (p. 292) was one of these recipes. I will admit to not 100% following the recipe (I instead followed my mom's bad advice) but that wasn't the only problem.

As most of you know, I don't like bell peppers, so I tend to make the pepper recipes for my mom.

I hollowed out four bell peppers:



Problem 1: TJOC recommends to steam the peppers for ten minutes. That seemed ridiculous and my mother, a seasoned (teehee!) pepper maker thought it seemed like a asinine step, so I didn't do it.

I then mixed the filling. Mom thought that brown rice would be better than white rice and whipped some up. Poor rice-making skills must run in the family because it wasn't nearly done enough. She thought it was fine, so I mixed it with Cheddar cheese, chicken stock, basil, and a little black pepper:



I filled the peppers and noticed problem 2: they were only about 3/4 full and looked ridiculous.



After they were baked they looked even worse:



The peppers didn't seem tender but I figured that was fine because mom was going to have to cook them again when she heated them up in the future. Even that didn't make the peppers tender enough. Mom said they were undercooked and amazingly bland.

Mom's solution to this was to add tomato sauce and more cheese to the peppers. Still didn't help. Has anyone else made this recipe? Did you have more success? Even I knew these didn't look good and I wouldn't know a good stuffed pepper if it hit me in the face.

Green pea soup (p. 130) and Lentil soup with greens (p. 134)

I really like making soup but Josh doesn't love it nearly as much as I do. If I had to pick one type of food to eat for the rest of my life, it would be soup. I really don't like split-pea soup so I didn't have high hopes for Green pea soup (p. 130).

Boston lettuce was one of the required items and I had no idea what it was. Apparently it's a type of butterhead lettuce, like Bibb, and actually was readily available at the grocery store. I sauteed the lettuce (I've never sauteed lettuce before!), an onion, celery, and parsley:



It was go green! I added frozen peas, chicken stock, and a handful of sugar snap peas (mine were from the farmer's market but it would be a perfect use for your garden veggies).



I smashed some of the peas and then added a little more chicken stock and some salt and it was done. This soup is amazing! It was so fresh and healthy tasting! I had never had a pea soup that was made out of fresh peas and it was such a good experience. This would be an absolutely perfect recipe for someone with a lot of peas in their garden. If you like peas, this is the soup for you. Make sure to add plenty of salt, it really enhances the flavor.

Josh doesn't like lentils (and I don't particularly love them either) so I decided to make Lentil soup with greens (p. 134) for mom. Lentil soup with sausage and potato was good and filling, so I was optimistic about this variation.

Essentially, it's exactly like the linked version, except instead of sausage and potato, I added spinach.



It was good! There are a lot more lentils in the dish than the picture would suggest (they all sunk to the bottom). This is a main dish soup and was amazingly cheap to make, so it's perfect for those on a budget. It's also could easily be vegan if you didn't add the bacon (I, of course, added the delicious bacon).

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on the "Stocks and Soups" chapter! Unfortunately, I have chosen not to make most of the soups that are left for various reasons. Either I don't have the equipment (ovenproof bowls for french onion or roasted garlic soups), am not excited about the main ingredient (cream of chestnut soup), or it's a seafood soup (Colorado does not have cheap, quality seafood). Even so, I'm probably at 50%! I'm pretty excited about that. I imagine this will be the first chapter that I actually finish.

Spiced rhubarb conserves (p. 940)

Mom has a big rhubarb patch in the backyard and asked me if there were any TJOC recipes that could utilize some. I thumbed through TJOC and noticed Spiced rhubarb conserves (p. 940), out of the jellies and preserves chapter that I had not made a single item from. Mom is a seasoned canner and I thought that she could help me. I don't really like jelly or jam so the chapter hasn't been that interesting to me.

I froze and then sliced an orange and a lemon (freezing makes them easier to slice--and always use a serrated knife, it is so much easier that way). I peeled and cut some ginger into slivers and combined them with apple cider and boiled it until the citrus peel was soft, which took about an hour (it was supposed to take fifteen minutes):




I added rhubarb, golden raisins, cinnamon, mace, and sugar:



And boiled it all until it was thick:



Mom and I sterilized the jars in boiling water:





We poured the conserves into the canning jars (which I don't think were actually the correct size):



And finished the canning process!



It was very exciting and made 3.5 jars. I took two, gave mom one, and gave my dad one. I have absolutely no idea what they taste like because I haven't opened any of them up yet, so I will have to edit this post when I finally taste the finished product. Conserves, apparently, are served with poultry or meat rather than smeared on toast like jelly or jam. Does anyone eat conserves? For some reason, that seems really strange to me.

Pimiento cheese (p. 179) and Sweet-and-sour pork (p. 504)

Pimiento cheese (p. 179) spread is something that I've seen at the grocery counter a thousand times but never actually eaten, likely because I don't like pimientos. Every grocery store from Kroger to Whole Foods has a version of it. So what interested me in making it today? Two things. First, my mom likes spreads and I was pretty sure she would like this one. Second, I had been reading the Jane Jameson (Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs, Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men, and Nice Girls Don't Live Forever) books by Molly Harper and Jane encounters a lot of pimiento spread, which intrigued me. I read a lot and Harper's books are the only really good chick-lit I've ever read--I can't recommend them enough. They were laugh out loud funny and I kept dog-earring pages to read to Josh later.

I thought TJOC would be likely to have a pretty solid pimiento cheese spread and I wanted to know what it tasted like.

I mixed chopped pimientos, mayonnaise, garlic, lemon juice, dry mustard (which I must have bought for my mom before because she actually had it), Worcestershire sauce, and ground red pepper:



I then mixed in finely grated cheddar and colby cheese:



It was really simple and good! I still don't like pimientos, so I doubt I would whip this up for myself, but both Josh and mom liked it and said it was good on crackers or bread. It was nice and creamy with just the right amount of cheese. I think this would make a perfect dish for a potluck. It's funny that I find so many potluck recipes in TJOC when I never go to potlucks...

I don't like green peppers and I'm allergic to pineapple, so I had been holding off on Sweet-and-sour pork (p. 504). My mom always used to tell me that she used to make a really good sweet and sour pork, so I thought she'd be the perfect test subject for the TJOC version.

I mixed pineapple juice, chicken stock, cider vinegar, brown sugar, cornstarch, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. I thought the recipe called for an awful lot of salty ingredients so I looked it over again--I mistook teaspoons for tablespoons and had used way too much Worcestershire sauce. I threw it out and started again. It was a good thing that I had plenty of everything!




I added browned pork and simmered it for an hour:



I then added pineapple chunks, green pepper, and sliced onion:



And cooked it for a little longer. Mom said it was really good, although she would like the pepper cut more into chunks than slices. I wanted it to be that horrible red color it is at Panda Express but it was a boring brown. It didn't have much sugar in it, though, and the pork wasn't deep fried, so I'm guessing it's considerably healthier than the sweet-and-sour pork in most Chinese restaurants.

Au gratin potatoes (p. 297)

I usually adore potatoes in all their forms, so I thought Au gratin potatoes (p. 297) would be a perfect addition to the dinner that my father was making.

I sliced potatoes as thin as I could and cooked them with half-and-half, salt, pepper, and a bit of nutmeg:



I buttered a baking dish and rubbed garlic over it (I doubled this recipe and made two dishes of it):




When the liquid FINALLY started to thicken (which took a really long time), I poured the potato mixture into the dish:



Topped it with cheese:



And popped it into the oven. The liquid oozed! It started oozing all over the oven. Dad was not concerned but I was--it was making a huge mess, so I slid foil under it.



To be honest, these au gratin potatoes were one of the ugliest dishes I've ever made. They had an almost gray tingue, which was not appetizing.



They were amazingly bland. Incredibly bland. There are so many delicious potato recipes out there, I can't imagine ever wanting to make this particular dish again. I think it was really under-spiced. Has anyone else made these? Did it turn out like this?

Ranch dressing (p. 576) , Creamy macaroni salad for a crowd (p. 172), and Creamy dressing for coleslaw (p. 578)

The week after my PhD "graduation" my brother Sam graduated from high school! Congrats, Sam!

(I will post a picture of Sam and I when Dad sends me one this weekend!)

My dad asked me to help him cook for the large graduation party and dad and I had a lot of fun puttering around the kitchen. Dad made a TON of pulled pork with different sauces and I whipped up some Western South Carolina sauce , along with my delicious blue cheese dressing. Most of the party food wasn't from TJOC but I talked him into letting me make Ranch dressing (p. 576) as a dipping sauce for the carrots/celery/dipping veggies.

I just don't get the love people have for ranch dressing. To me, it's boring and really high in calories. I've known people who dipped EVERYTHING in ranch, which always grossed me out. I understand vegetables or pizza. I don't understand getting an artery-clogging side of ranch with everything you eat.

Did you know that ranch was originally created at the Hidden Valley Guest Ranch? Interesting piece of random trivia.

I combined garlic and salt until smooth, and then added buttermilk, lime juice, parsley, chives, and a little salt and pepper.

It was really, really, really thin. The problem might have been that I quadrupled the recipe but it was a dressing as in 'dressing for cole slaw' and not a dressing as in 'dressing for a salad'. So, like TJOC recommended for thicker sauce, I added sour cream and mayonnaise.



It was still a no-go and was really, really thin. Disappointing! Has anyone else made this recipe? Did it work out for you?

Dad had already planned on making potato salad and had bought bean salad but I thought a pasta salad would really round things out. And I thought it would be the perfect time to make Creamy macaroni salad for a crowd (p. 172).

I chopped what seemed like a ton of peppers, carrots, and an onion--my knife skills are improving--while the pasta boiled away on the stove.



While that was happening, I whipped up some Creamy dressing for coleslaw (p. 578). It was a simple sauce. I mixed mayonnaise, cider vinegar, and sugar:



I mixed it all together:



It was really pretty and inviting. I thought it had the perfect amount of dressing--not much. I made the pasta salad the day before it was eaten and I really recommend doing that because the flavors melded together and improved. I think adding a few cucumbers or cherry tomatoes would make the dish even better. It was a sort of boring pasta salad but was very popular which make it a perfect dish for a potluck. The recipe does make a LOT of pasta salad, so I recommend only making it if you honestly do have a crowd.

Becker sour cream dip (p. 72)

I am so behind in posting (like usual) which means a bunch of the posts that I am writing now are never going to be read (they will get buried behind newer posts). And that's a real shame, because Becker sour cream dip (p. 72) is easily one of the best dips I've ever eaten.

My mom had bought chips but no dip. I am apathetic about chips but I LOVE dip, so I decided to whip up my own. I mixed sour cream, soy sauce, black pepper, garlic, and salt.



That's it!

The dip is very, very heavily peppered, which I loved. Two teaspoons of pepper for two cups of sour cream is a huge amount. And I may have added twice as much garlic as requested (which I almost always do) so it was nice and garlicky. I could not stop eating this dip.

My TJOC mantra is that I only make things from scratch if they are markedly better or cheaper than what I can buy in the store. Red onion dip, for example, failed that test. Becker sour cream dip passes with flying colors--it is soooo much better than anything I've ever bought.

Has anyone else made this? I would love to know what you thought.

**I have made it twice since the original time--it's a dangerous dip. Don't make it if you don't want to eat it all in a day or two**