Sloppy Joe (p. 530), Chicken Chili Verde (p. 435), and Roasted Garlic and Parmesan Spread (p. 76)

I've been asked how I decide what to make each week (and that's a question that I would like to pose to all the other cook-through bloggers). I don't think I do it in a typical way...I sit down with TJOC and go through the whole thing, eyeing the different recipes and deciding what I think we should make. I make a list of what I would need for these recipes and go grocery shopping. If there are any great deals, we buy them and then I retroactively look for recipes. And I have a list of ideas for the week. It's not a particuarly efficient method

One recipe that has been on my list FOREVER is Sloppy Joe (p. 530). Honestly, this recipe has spent months on my to-make list. Why? First off, it's an easy recipe with ground beef. Second, I like sloppy joes but I don't like them too sloppy. So why haven't I made them? Simply put, Josh dislikes them. So I always figured that I would make them when he wasn't home but whenever I was in the mood for SJ's, we had no buns (and I didn't want loose-meat SJ's). But everything came together and I decided to finally make them!


Easy start--onion, garlic, celery, and thyme, salt and peppered, and fried up in vegetable oil. You then remove it to a bowl. Personally I think that the mix is beautiful! What pretty colors!





Next, the ground beef is cooked up....I have to say, 1.25 lbs of beef is a bizarre amount to call for. A really annoying amount actually :)




Then you add chili sauce or catsup (catsup!), beer or water (beer!), Worcestershire sauce, and some hot pepper sauce (Tabasco!). Then it's simmered until it's thick. So it starts here:










And it ends here (quite a bit more thick!):










So how was it? Really tasty! I was out of buns so I used toast--but it was really good! It wasn't particularly "sloppy" and it had a really good flavor. Plus, it is really easy to customize! Even Josh admitted it was pretty good (and he ate his on hot dog bun).






For some mysterious reason, I also decided this would be the perfect weekend to make a Roasted Garlic and Parmesan Spread (p. 76). Why? No idea. Usually it's nice to have some spread or dip around for lunch, for when I'm hungry and don't have much time--but I was obviously going to have a lot of leftovers from all of the other food I made...I must have been excited about my garlic-roasting success.

This recipe takes a LOT of garlic--four roasted heads. The garlic I had was absolutely tiny so I made six.



All of the roasted garlic, Parmesan cheese, olive oil, basil, and salt and pepper gets mixed together in the tiny food processor. That part is easy enough...





For some reason I chose not to stir in any Kalamata olives...I have them...so I'm not sure why I didn't use them. I guess I forgot until I looked at the picture and read the recipe. Hmmm...

How was the spread?




Eh. Okay. I think it was too strongly Parmesan-y when I would have liked it to be more garlic-y. Strangely, Josh ate it spread all over rice and said it was extremely good...I'm not sure what motivated him to combine those two foods...but he said it was really good. I think it would be really good with three or four other dips at a party.



I used a lot of the chicken stock in the cream of asparagus soup but I still had a ton of boiled chicken left over...what to do with it...hmmm...Chicken Chili Verde (p. 435)! This recipe is a LOT easier if you use cooked chicken because it cuts off quite a bit of time--pretty much the first quarter of the recipe.

You start with onion, celery, and garlic (I spared you a picture of this since there are already about fifty pictures of onion, celery, and garlic cooking in a skillet on this blog already!) and then add chili powder, cumin, oregano, and salt. I'm always worried at this point because it really doesn't take much for the spices to burn.





Tomatillos are then added. I used fresh although canned will work--I have no idea what canned tomatillos are like so I can't compare the two. The recipe then calls for an entire bunch of cilantro separated into leaves and stems.

What?

You have to be kidding! That would take FOREVER. There was no way I was doing that. I separated what I thought was enough cilantro and then called it good. After stock and peppers are added...you have chicken chili verde! Exciting, right?





Apparently I thought that this was a boring recipe because I have no "after" picture--I cooked it down for quite a while and ate it on corn tortillas.


How was it?


Eh. Not bad, but not that good. Pretty boring. I probably won't make it again.

Cream of asparagus soup (p.144)

So what to do with the rest of my chicken stock...(this is actually a question that I have quite a bit since I make chicken stock fairly often)...

Cream of asparagus soup (p.144)! And asparagus was even on sale, always a nice extra!

I used to absolutely hate asparagus. It was one of the few foods that I refused to eat (tuna, peppers, onions, asparagus, green olives) as a kid. On a whim a few years ago I tried them again--and they were extremely good. Apparently I was wrong! Actually, most of the items on that list are things that I like now--only two of them are still on my hated list :) Unfortunately for my mother, all five of those items are among her favorite foods, and since it was only the two of us, she didn't get to eat them very often!

TJOC has twelve cream soup recipes ranging from common (cream of mushroom) to odd (cream of watercress? Does watercress have much of a taste?) to bizarre (cream of chestnut?? Really?).

The recipe is easy enough--start with butter, celery, and onions, and add in a pound and a half of asparagus. I bought two pounds of asparagus, broke them off at the tough part, and considered it the correct amount.





A tiny bit of flour is then added in, and then in goes the stock:





Eventually the soup looks like this:




I know that looks a little burned but it didn't taste burned...I'm not sure exactly what happened there. I must say, I LOVE my immersion blender. This is the point where you would have to pour boiling hot soup out of a enormous metal pot, into a food processor or blender, while not scalding yourself. Using an immersion blender totally solves the problem while also not making any more dishes. Finally, the heavy cream was added and this is what you get:





Yum! It was incredibly tasty and really good. I'm looking forward to making the next cream soups! And it heated up extremely well--which makes it great for lunch.

Flank Steak with Dressing (p. 482)

This is a double post this week so make sure to read both of them! Especially since the marshmallow's are some of my favorite TJOC successes!

First things first--I found out how awesome homemade marshmallows were in cocoa but how would they be in s'mores? I LOVE s'mores. I LOVE them. I, someone who doesn't really like sweets (and am far more likely to give them all to friends then eat them--something Jennifer, Emily, or Rachel could tell you) but s'mores are one of those things that I would wrestle people over. Obviously, they are best when made over an open flame but I tend to make them in the microwave. I don't tend to make them because I don't like the tough outside of the marshmallows.

So how did the homemade marshmallows stack up?



They were AWESOME. Fluffy and wonderful. Wow were they delicious. I bet I ate fifty of them in a few days. I honestly ate half of the marshmallows this way. You know, maybe you are better off not making these...just go ahead and send them to me....

I picked up some round steak on closeout at the grocery store and then searched TJOC for a recipe to make. Flank Steak with Dressing (p. 482) seemed perfect. By "dressing" TJOC apparently means "stuffing" rather than the dressing that goes on salads. The first step is to sprinkle salt, paprika, mustard, ginger, and Worcestershire sauce on the steak and then pound the heck out of it. The confusing part--by mustard does the recipe mean yellow mustard? Dijon mustard? Mustard powder? I pondered it and decided that I don't like yellow mustard so it was going to be Dijon.

Recipes that required lots of pounding with the meat mallet were some of my mom's favorites when I was growing up (hell, they are probably still her favorites!). She's always said that they are great for getting rid of stress. So I took out all my stress on the round steak.

Before:





After:



I must say, it was rewarding, even though meat juices were spraying everywhere.

The next step was to make the dressing. It was a simple stuffing--onion, breadcrumbs, salt, more paprika, parsley, celery, and some egg--all fried up in butter.






The stuffing was then spread all over the round steak. It seemed like an awful lot of stuffing for the amount of meat...





The round steak is then rolled up. This is not as easy as it sounds...especially with a round steak that's been cut up the middle to remove the bone. Obviously, that slit was leaking stuffing. So I would roll part of it up, tie some butcher's twine tight, roll up another part, tie it tight, and so on. Josh and I couldn't find any twine at the grocery store but the King Sooper's meat counter workers were nice enough to give us some (we heart King Sooper's--they double coupons!).

The rolled steak is then briefly browned. Starting at this:




And ending at this:




The next step was to make the sauce (or dressing? I suppose this could be steak, filled with dressing, covered in dressing). The dressing was chicken stock, tomato juice, and salt. It said to boil until thickened. The sucker refused to thicken! I cooked it and cooked it and cooked it--and it barely thickened. I eventually gave up.





The steak and sauce were supposed to be combined in a roasting pan, dutch oven, or casserole. My roasting pan was enormous and the sauce would have barely coated the bottom. I don't have a overproof dutch oven. And my casserole...could this possibly fit in it?




Yep! Apparently it can. Barely, but it fits.

And into the oven it went. An hour and a half later:



Looks pretty tasty! I cut into the inside...




Pretty!

So what did it taste like?

It was really good. The sauce was rather boring but the steak was flavorful and the stuffing was really good--perfectly seasoned. I would make this again but make a different sauce--or maybe use wine instead of tomato juice. And it was really attractive--I think it would be a great dish for company. I am more confident with future roulades!

Marshmallows (p. 869) and Quick Hot Cocoa (p. 36)

As I was looking through the book I noticed that I hadn't made a SINGLE recipe out of the candies and confections chapter. Uh oh...so I decided to make a recipe from it and chose...hmm...which one to do...MARSHMALLOWS (p. 869)!


This is the only cooking plus of living in Colorado--there is near zero humidity and that is terrific for candy.


The first step was to sprinkle some gelatin over water. Unflavored gelatin smells absolutely awful and is extremely similar to the smell at a packing plant. I must say, that didn't make me feel very confident about the recipe. At this point you aren't supposed to mix it--just leave it for five minutes to "soften the gelatin".





The bowl is then to be placed over a pot of simmering water for 2-3 minutes or "until the gelatin dissolves". It took FOREVER to get the gelatin dissolved. There were huge chunks that did NOT want to get whisked out. It took at least ten minutes.




I think it's a bad sign when the recipe states that you shouldn't even attempt the recipe if you don't have a heavy-duty mixer. Fortunately (thanks mom!) I do have one.





The next step was to mix sugar, corn syrup, water, and salt. Heat until the sugar dissolves. Easy enough, although it took longer than it was supposed to (likely due to the altitude). At this point, I started to get nervous. I think candy is the most difficult thing to learn from a book. It seems like someone should be standing with me and telling me when things were at the correct point. Alas, that was not possible, so I bravely went on :)





The mixture needed to be heated to 244 degrees without stirring. It is very difficult for me not to stir. It always seems like you should be stirring the mix to make sure that it doesn't burn...



That step took FOREVER. I've noticed that other bloggers have these awesome little remote thermometer that allow them to wander away from the pot--I think that is something that I may have to invest in. I was really nervous because the recipe made it VERY clear that it would be a big mistake to let it overheat.


The corn syrup mix then had to be slowly mixed into the gelatin and beat for ten to fifteen minutes. The recipe than said that the mixture should be beat until it is "thick and fluffy but stillw arm and thin enough to pour". It's directions like this that I HATE. How in the heck will I know when it's the correct texture? Some vanilla is then mixed in--I figure this could be any sort of flavoring (ie mint for Christmas? That would be GREAT in cocoa).

A cool action shot!





I eventually decided it looked fluffy and still seemed warm. I poured the mix into a big pan...and it was NOT easy to pour. It was a lot like pouring marshmallow cream--difficult and sticky.





It's then left for about a day to dry out. I have a feeling that this would be difficult if you were in a more humid climate. I wasn't confident at all in them at this point. Marshmallows are usually puffy! These weren't puffy at all. I was really worried that my marshmallows were going to be tough.

Josh pointed out that the marshmallows in the store say "jet-puffed" and that insinuates that homemade marshmallows are not puffed in the same way...that made me feel better.

When the marshmallows were set, I removed them and cut them into cubes using kitchen shears dusted in cornstarch and then rolled them in a powdered sugar/cornstarch mixture. It's great because you can control the size of the marshmallow--either make big, normal, or tiny marshmallows.





I then packed them up, between layers of parchment paper, in an airtight container.






So how were they? Tasty and tender (not tough at all)! Well, tasty might be an overstatement, they really tasted like sweet nothing, but isn't that what all marshmallows taste like?





So the obvious questions came to mind...how will homemade marshmallows work in cocoa, s'mores, rice crispy treats? Hmmm....

I'll start with the easiest one--Quick Hot Cocoa (p. 36). I'm not usually very interested in cocoa, I'll admit that first. But this recipe is extremely easy--first, you measure out some cocoa syrup (which I made in the last blog). I'll warn you...it doesn't measure easily! Remember to multiply the recipe by however many cups you are making--I made enough for both Josh and me.




Next, you mix in milk and some heavy cream. I LOVE heavy cream so this is obviously a recipe for me! It wasn't as easy to do this as you would expect...the syrup did NOT want to mix with the milk/cream. Eventually, they melded.





Poor it in a cup, top with some mini marshmallows, and it's ready to go!




So how was it? DELICIOUS! Wow--incredibly good. Chocolaty but not overly sweet. The marshmallows were AWESOME in the cocoa. They almost totally melted. One of the things I don't like about store bought marshmallows is that the rubbery edge never seems to totally melt and I don't like that edge. Totally not a problem with these marshmallows--they were soft and delicious.

I cannot recommend making these marshmallows enough. It was also really fun giving them to people--the most common comment was "I didn't know you could make marshmallows from scratch".


My question to you--I'm considering making marshmallows as favors for our wedding. Our colors are chocolate and sand with pink flowers and I'm thinking that I could dye marshmallows pink and make chocolate marshmallows....what do you guys think? Would you like getting these as a favor?

Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup (p. 135), Cocoa Syrup (p. 36), Orange-Tomato Juice (p. 37), and Egg Cream (p. 37)

I just added a frequently asked questions section--click on the "FAQ's" in my "about me" section. If you have a question you would like to ask, just comment on one of the blogs or send me an email! And don't forget the contest!

I was hungry and wanted something fast so I went to my favorite section of TJOC--the Stocks and Soups section. I decided to make Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup (p. 135). I had the last of the jalapeno peppers that dad gave me and this seemed the perfect recipe.

Easy start--take some stock (homemade for me--I love homemade poultry stock!) and coconut milk, a few jalapenos, ginger, salt....and fish sauce or soy sauce. Easy choice for me. I HATE fish sauce. It absolutely horrifies me. I swear, when I get it on my hands, it doesn't come off for days...so gross. So my soup absolutely had soy sauce...





Then some thinly sliced chicken breast was added, along with some fresh lime juice. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my enormous stock pot. The soup smelled tasty....mmm...





The soup was great. But I thought it really needed some rice, so I added some. I also thought that the broth was too thin...and I don't know what I could have done wrong to cause that...the soup was good but I don't think I'll bother making it again. There are MUCH tastier recipes in TJOC. That being said--I am FINALLY comfortable using coconut milk :)






I was searching through TJOC for other fast, fun recipes. I decided to make Cocoa Syrup (p. 36). I didn't know quite what to expect but I was really hoping to end up with something like Hershey's syrup. Chocolate syrup is something that we almost never use in our house, so it sits around in the fridge until it almost rots. I would adore a recipe that I could whip up when we needed it instead of having a five year old bottle of Hershey's in the fridge. And I was hoping this could be it.

But I'm not insulting Hershey's--I happily eat their products :) And my syrup was made with delicious Hershey's cocoa....

I have dutch process cocoa, but this didn't seem to require it!



The cocoa and sugar are whisked together:





And then malted milk powder and cold water are added. The mix is brought to a boil and then simmered.

Malted milk powder?



Not something I use very often. But the recipe really wasn't very difficult. Does anyone else really dislike non-stick coating? I think I'm moving away it. I really dislike worrying about scratching it constantly and not being able to put the pots in the dishwasher. I don't think my plastic coated whisk works as well as the metal whisks (or Josh's expensive and beloved "special" whisk).



So how was the finished product? Absolutely delicious. Really really good. I can imagine it on ice cream...yum! Easy and delicious? This recipe is added to the "must make again" category. And I really like that it can go without refrigeration for a while--sometimes we run out of fridge room!



What could I use the syrup in? I decided to make an Egg Cream (p. 37) for Josh (I'm lactose intolerant, so milk drinks aren't super smart for me to drink). Egg creams doesn't have eggs or cream in them. The pharmacy near my house when I was growing up had a soda counter and used to serve these (oddly, this was not that long ago, although the pharmacy is gone and gym is in it's place now).

This is an easy enough recipe. Milk and cocoa syrup need to be "stirred vigorously". I decided to use the Ziploc container shaker method again. I added both to the container, stirred on the lid, and shook shook shook.






Eventually it gets foamy...




That is then poured into a tall glass, seltzer is mixed in, and voila! There it is, an egg cream.



How was it? Josh insisted it was extremely tasty and that the colder the milk, the better. Even if you used store bought syrup, it's still a great drink to make.





I searched TJOC for other recipes that used tomato juice, since I still had homemade tomato juice. I made Orange-Tomato Juice (p. 37). I wasn't very excited about this recipe--I didn't think it sounded that great. Orange and tomato? Ick.

And that's pretty much the recipe. Tomato juice, orange juice, sugar, lime juice, and salt, all poured over ice. Sounds great, right?




So how was it? Eh, all right. It tasted EXACTLY like V-8 Splash, which my mom is a big fan off. I think it's a cheap way (and less processed version) to get a lot of nutrients, if you like the flavor combo. Again--I'm not a huge fan, but I would make it for mom because I think she would like it. And it is rather attractive.