We got fed

Smoked chicken with vegetables

Posted on July 11, 2011 by ben

Date: July 10th, 2011

Chicken recipe:

1 whole roasting chicken
1 gallon water
1 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
smoker (I used an electric smoker, but a grill would also work)

Mix the water with the salt and sugar and brine the chicken for 4 hours. Fire up your smoking apparatus and smoke the chicken for 3-4 hours until done.

Vegetables recipe:

1 pack of brussel sprouts
1 potato
4 tablespoons of butter

Dice the potato and brussel sprouts. Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the brussel sprouts and potatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste and sautee until the brusssel sprouts are done (they’ll take longer).

Time to table: 8 hours prep/smoking time, 30 minutes cooking time for vegetables

Servings: 2 adults, 1 toddler with plenty of leftover chicken for two more dinners.

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: I was going to add garlic to the vegetables, but I got lazy and the frying pan was already crowded. The smoking method I used was the following:

electric smoker (Brinkmann 810-7080-k)
hickory wood chips, I had to add more every hour or so
I put the chicken on at 12:45 and took it off at 5:15. It rested while I cooked the veggies.

I ordered some wood chunks (as opposed to chips) on Amazon today so that I won’t need to add them to the smoker as often. My dad just got a new smoker and gave me his old one that needed a new element. The element arrived on Saturday and I smoked salmon this morning and the chicken at night, it was a great day for cooking!

I’m going to look into some vegetarian smoking/grilling options because our meat consumption will go through the roof this summer if my current interest in smoking and grilling continues at its current pace.

Posted in brussel sprouts, chicken, potato | 1 Comment

Smoked salmon

Posted on July 10, 2011 by ben

Date: July 10th, 2011

Recipe:

1/2 pound salmon filet (any size works, just make sure to cook it long enough)
olive oil
salt and pepper
cream cheese
crackers

Slather the salmon in olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste. Fire up your smoking apparatus (I used an electric smoker) and smoke the salmon for 60-90 minutes until done.

Time to table: 5 minutes prep, 60-90 minutes cooking time

Servings: Hard to say, as this is more of an appetizer. Maybe 6 adults?

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Love (might have been the cream cheese and crackers, but who knows??)

Notes: Our friend Scott was coming over for breakfast with his son Simon, my intention was to have this as an appetizer before breakfast was ready but it ended up being done right about the time the meal was finished anyways, oh well.

My dad has made this several times at their house and I was trying to replicate his recipe. When I called to ask what it was, he was reluctant to give me his “special recipe”, then proceeded to tell me it was just olive oil and salt and pepper. Thanks for sharing the family secrets Dad! It didn’t taste the same however, I don’t think I used enough salt. This was my first foray into smoking, with the recently acquired smoker (more details on that in a future post).

UPDATE: My dad now tells me this morning that he forgot to mention that I should also brine the salmon for 12-14 hours, I guess there IS a family secret!

Posted in crackers, cream cheese, salmon | 3 Comments

Chicken stir fry

Posted on July 8, 2011 by ben

Date: June 30th, 2011

Recipe:

4 cups napa cabbage, chopped
3 carrots, sliced on the bias
2 cups snow pea pods, cut in half
1 lb chicken thighs, sliced thin
2 cups rice
stir fry sauce

Sautee the chicken in oil under nearly done and remove to a bowl. Sautee the carrots until soft, 7-10 minutes, add the snow peas and cabbage for a few minutes, until the cabbage is wilted. Add the chicken back in with enough stir fry sauce to cover everything. Cook until the chicken is hot again. Serve over the rice.

Time to table: 1 hour

Servings: 4 adults, 1 toddler

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: I should have put a ton of garlic in here, that was an oversight on my part. I think making your own stir fry sauce would be good as well, we just used the store bought stuff this time.

Posted in cabbage, carrot, chicken, peas, rice | Comments Off

Salmon pesto pasta

Posted on July 7, 2011 by ben

Date: June 28th, 2011

Recipe: http://annies-eats.net/2008/06/23/salmon-pesto-pasta/

Pesto: http://erinkristine.blogspot.com/2008/07/pesto-mmm.html (This batch was probably double that recipe since we had a lot of garlic scapes from the CSA)

Time to table: 30 minutes, we made the pesto ahead of time

Servings: about 4 adult servings

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like (only after she got a fork)

Notes: We’ve made this quite a few times now, Erin blogged about it awhile ago on her blog. I love this dish for how easy it is, especially if the pesto is already made.

Posted in cheese, csa, pasta, pesto, salmon | 1 Comment

Sammich

Posted on July 6, 2011 by ben

My lunch today was too good to not share:

Date: 7/6/2011

Recipe:

bread
red onion slices
cheese
spinach
turkey
mayo
mustard (stone ground)
roasted garlic cloves

Spread the garlic cloves, mayo, and mustard on the bread. Top with cheese, turkey, red onion, and spinach. Cut in half (this is important!). Enjoy

Time to table: 10 minutes

Servings: 1

Ben: LOVE

Notes: Damn, a large homemade sandwich is delicious. I got used to having these everyday at the cabin last week, now we’re out of deli meat 🙁

Posted in bread, cheese, garlic, onion, spinach, turkey | 2 Comments

Vegetable Lasagna

Posted on July 6, 2011 by erin

Date: July 1, 2011

Recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/04/vegetable-lasagna/

Modifications: The veggies I used were: one eggplant, one zucchini, one summer squash, and one red pepper. I realized halfway through that I only got 15oz of ricotta cheese, but it still seemed to be plenty. I used no boil noodles. I didn’t use the wine because there was none up at the cabin.

Time to table: Nearly an hour prep, and an hour to bake on the grill

Servings: probably 10 adults

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Love (yes!! I just love it when she willingly eats something with this many vegetables.

Notes: It was hotter than hot that day, but we had all the ingredients and this was our last night up at the cabin so I still wanted to make this lasagna. My dad offered to try grilling it on the charcoal grill using indirect heat instead of turning the oven on and heating up the already scorching upstairs of the cabin, so we gave it a whirl! I think we did around 40 minutes covered in foil and maybe 20 uncovered, and he rotated it a few times. It worked surprisingly well! (I’m tagging this with CSA, even though we only used our parsley in this because it’d be a great dish to use up a lot of late summer veggies)

Posted in cheese, csa, eggplant, eggs, garlic, one dish meal, onion, parsley, pasta, red pepper, summer squash, tomatoes, vegetarian, zucchini | Comments Off

Mexican Pizza

Posted on July 5, 2011 by erin

Date: June 21, 2011

Recipe: http://annies-eats.net/2010/12/09/mexican-pizza/

Modifications: None

Time to table: About 15 minutes for the pizza dough, and 30 minutes to prep the pizza

Servings: 3 adults, 1 toddler

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like, although the crust was a bit too crunchy for her to eat it easily

Notes: This pizza dough (linked in the recipe, but also found here) is THE BEST pizza dough I’ve made! I feel like I tried it once before and it didn’t work – maybe the key was using actual instant yeast, versus active dry (I found a large container of it at Whole Foods so now we’ll have it for a long time stored in the fridge!). It was perfectly crispy and chewy at the same time. Yum! This pizza was a bit spicy actually, due to the black bean puree “sauce”. I thought it was delicious.

Posted in black beans, cheese, corn, Mexican, one dish meal, onion, pizza, tomatoes, vegetarian | 1 Comment

Warm Potato Salad

Posted on June 22, 2011 by erin

Date: June 19, 2011

Recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/New-York-Potato-Salad-1454 (very loosely based)

about 8 small red potatoes
3 slices bacon
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons stone ground mustard
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup greek yogurt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 yellow onion, diced
3 stems green garlic, chopped
2 celery stalks, diced
Chopped garlic chives
Salt & Pepper

1. Quarter potatoes and boil until fork tender.

2. Fry bacon, when done remove from pan and chop.

3. Add pepper, onion, and celery to bacon grease and saute until soft.

4. Mix vinegar, mustard, mayo, yogurt, sugar and paprika in a medium bowl, season with salt and pepper.

5. Put potatoes, veggies, and bacon in a bowl. Toss with dressing and top with chives. Can be eaten warm or cold.

Modifications: See above. I cut up the potatoes small for Annie. Garlic chives and green garlic were used because we have some from our CSA.

Time to table: 30 minutes

Servings: 4 side dishes

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like

Notes: This was inspired by our recent visit to Black Forest Inn – I found a recipe that sounded vaguely similar on epicurious and just modified it to suit the way we remembered the potato salad there. This was delicious as a side dish to a grilled brat on a summer evening! Annie was not a huge fan of the potato salad but did enjoy her brat.

Posted in bacon, celery, chives, csa, green garlic, green onions, potato, red pepper, yogurt | Comments Off

Thai Curry

Posted on June 21, 2011 by ben

Date: June 16, 2011

Recipe:

15 oz coconut milk
1 cup vegetable broth
1-2 T curry paste
1 T brown sugar
2-3 cloves garlic
1 T fish sauce
1 inch of ginger, peeled and diced
1-2 thai chilies (optional, for heat)
2 c broccoli
2 c sweet potato, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced

Start cooking 1-2 cups rice. I like to make extra and use the leftover rice for fried rice.
Food process the brown sugar, garlic, fish sauce, ginger, and thai chilis. Maybe add some of the broth to make it process easier.
mix the first four ingredients into a saucepan and add the mixture from the food processor.
simmer for 5-10 minutes to let everything cook together and then serve the curry over rice (I like basmati rice).

Modifications: I skip the thai chilies and just add spice to my portion, in deference to Erin and Annie

Time to table: 30 minutes

Servings: 3 adult meals, 1 toddler meal

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: This is really easy to make and versatile as you can use any number of vegetables or meat in the curry. On a side note, rice and Annie don’t seem to mix, as rice is a pain to clean off floors and carpet.

Not feeling the broccoli so much.

Posted in broccoli, coconut milk, csa, garlic, ginger, red pepper, rice, sweet potato | 1 Comment

Mango corn salsa

Posted on June 20, 2011 by ben

Date: June 17, 2011

Recipe: This recipe is from my friend Scott, he made it a few weeks ago and it was awesome:

1 mango
1/2 onion
1 cup of frozen corn
1 habanero pepper with half the seeds
juice of 1 lime

Dice up the mango, onion, and habanero. Add the corn and lime juice. Let sit for awhile for the corn to thaw and then eat with tortilla chips.

Modifications: I skipped the habanero seeds, but I should have left them in because my version was missing the heat that Scotty’s had.

Time to table: 20 minutes

Servings: About 2-3 cups of salsa

Ben: Loved Scotty’s, mine wasn’t hot enough

Notes: This is a really easy salsa to make. The mango I got might not have been ripe yet either, I’ll be trying again though.

Posted in corn, habanero, lime, mango, onion, vegetarian | Comments Off

Smoked chicken with vegetables

Smoked salmon

Chicken stir fry

Salmon pesto pasta

Sammich

Vegetable Lasagna

Mexican Pizza

Warm Potato Salad

Thai Curry

Mango corn salsa

Archives

Tags