Recipe Thread

[Yuthirin]

So I got bored and decided to put together a recipes thread. Feel free to add something of your own if you think it's awesome! The stew listed here is far from vegetarian, and is something I only prepare in the colder months of the year, as it tends to sit really well in your stomach. It's super easy to reheat and can provide you with several meals-worth of food, or feed a large group of carnivores. I encourage you to modify the recipe to your personal taste or palate.

For the stew itself, you'll want to taste it several times in the final quarter of the cooking process, after the meat is thoroughly cooked, but before the stew is actually done. This way, you'll be able to tell if it needs more seasoning, or is too thick/thin. If too thick, add more stock. You should still have some because it tends to come in 1 quart boxes/cans. If too thin, you can try to brown tome flour in a pan with a drop of oil and add it to the stew. Avoid adding uncooked flour if you can, as it makes the stew taste distinctly flour-y. Lastly, do yourself a favor and don't try to eat the bay leaf. They're not necessarily poisonous, but they don't cook well and are generally tough and unpleasant. They do provide an aromatic flavor to the stew though. After the meal is done, dispose of the bay leaf.

Beef Stew

Utensils:
A 7-quart or greater sized crock pot
Cutting Board
Sharp Knife for cutting vegetables/meat
Fine Grater
Large Bowl
Ingredients:
One large chuck or pot-roast steak, cut in 1"x1" chunks
4-6 large Yukon Gold potatoes, cleaned & diced (peeling optional)
One medium-large white onion, chopped
4 green onion strips, clean & cut stems
4-5 large carrots, peeled & chopped
4-6 sticks of celery, cleaned & cut
3 cloves of garlic, peeled & grated (modify to taste)
1 handful of Shiitake Mushrooms, sliced
1 tsp Marjoram
1 tsp Parsley
1 tsp Thyme
Add salt & pepper to taste, a pinch or two should do.
1 ¾ containers of Beef Stock
1 Bay leaf (do not eat)
1 tsp Lawry's Seasoned Salt

1.   Grease basin of slow cooker with thin covering of olive oil
2.   Clean, peel, & cut vegetables.
3.   Put vegetables into slow cooker
4.   Clean cutting board & knife thoroughly
5.   Cut beef & place in large bowl.
6.   Prepare beef (see below)
7.   Place cooked beef directly into crock pot over vegetables
8.   Add garlic (avoid adding the rough end of the clove)
9.   Add beef stock (all or until stock comes up to ½ inch from the rim)
10.   Add bay leaf to the top
11.   Cook for 12-24 hours on low heat, stirring occasionally. If you're in a hurry, you can cook it in 6 hours on high heat, but the meat won't be as tender. When stirring, remove the bay leaf.


Beef: Dredge in mixture of flour, marjoram, salt, & pepper
Coat skillet in olive oil (use more or less oil by preference)
Brown meat in the skillet
Add more oil if necessary; do not brown meat without oil, it will just burn.

[Brian]

So, I wanted to make my own holiday cookies--  Not just make them from a recipe, but devise my own recipe.  For those who didn't know, I'm an avid baker.  I've spent the last few nights experimenting with my own modifications of various recipes; my goal has been to make an 'eggnog cookie'.

They have those, though; I wanted to try and make my own.  I've come up with a recipe right now that worked fairly good, so I'll share the fruits of my labor with SR.

Chocolate chip eggnog cookies:

You will need:

1 stick butter
1/2 cup eggnog
one egg yolk
1 cup sugar
1 and 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp - to 1 tbsp nutmeg (or skip, according to taste)
3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
a dash of salt


To start, preheat an oven to 325 F (162 C).  Next, take your butter (ideally, softened, not melted), and cream it with the sugar and nutmeg until smooth.  If you have only cold sticks of butter, then microwave it for about 20 seconds; this melts some of it, and softens the rest.  Less than ideal, but sufficient for our purposes.

Add eggnog and egg yolk (if you don't know how to separate out a yolk: crack the eggshell in half, and pass the yolk between the halves, letting the white spill out), and mix until the consistency is even.  Stir in vanilla, salt, baking powder, flour, and chocolate chips.

Moisten/wet hands and form dough into balls.  Place them at least one inch (or around 3 CM) apart and from any edges.  Bnd bake for 14-15 minutes.  Done!

Now for some details that you don't need, but may find interesting: normally, you could just drop tbsp sized glops of cookie dough on the sheet -- technically, this is still an option, but the eggnog changes the consistency slightly, and if you make them that way, you get tasty, but ugly looking cookies:



I found a much better appearance to rolling the dough into balls:



This recipe makes about two dozen cookies.


Final version for this year (officially, revision 6; my GA candidate).  Brown sugar made the cookies too soft in general; more experiments next year.  Enjoy your eggnog-chocolate-chip-cookies~!

[Yuthirin]

Chocolate Chip/Peanut Butter Cookies So Good You'll Go Insane.

They're gluten-free! Yes, really. And still unbelievably tasty. People tell you that gluten-free stuff isn't that bad, and 99% f the time they're lying through their teeth. It usually tastes like unleavened bread made out of paper. Not so here! These cookies get made in big batches in this house and rarely last a day. Even if there's only three of us around. Give this a shot, and you won't be disappointed!

1 cup chunky peanut butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup choc chips

Preheat oven to 350. Mix the first 5 ingredients in a bowl. Mix in chips. Moisten hands, form generous 1 Tablespon balls. Place on ungreased baking sheet 2 inches apart.  Bake 12 min until golden on bottom, soft in the center.  Cool on cookie sheet 5 minutes, transfer to rack to finish cooling.

EAT - and eat fast or someone else will eat them first!

[Brian]

Egg-free cookies (to please your vegetarian friends, depending on how picky they are).

1 cup butter-flavored shortening
1 cup cream cheese
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar

It just got real.  Mix all of the above, then add:

1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder (mixed separately with 3 tsp hot water)
1 tsp salt

Then add:

3 cups flour

Now, I use this same base recipe for all of my 'chip' recipes, generally.  From here, add two cups of chips of whatever you like -- toffee, peanut butter, butterscotch, the old classic of chocolate chips, whole M&Ms -- its entirely up to you.  Mix in what you like!

Form into balls using tsp as a base; I typically get 2 dozen plus an extra half dozen.  Bake at 350 between 11 and 14 minutes, let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack, put on tray, bring to work, watch co-workers demolish the supply.

[Yuthirin]

Chocolate Chip Raspberries

YOU WILL NEED: Fresh raspberries, chocolate chips, a freezer.

You will thusly take the raspberries and checketh them for mold. If thou findest mold, throweth that shit away. Buyeth thyself another box of raspberries. Repeat until your raspberries are edible.

Take thy chocolate chips and placeth them on a piece of wax paper, which must be placed upon a cooking pan. Heateth thy chips at 200F for about 5 minutes or until they are softer than yon princess' finest silk, but not a melted mess. Carefully placeth chips inside thy raspberries. Put raspberries in a small bowl, and freezeth them for several hours.

Remove and enjoyeth for a quick tasty treat. Eth.

[Music-chan]

This is one of Cy's and my favourite recipes.  My dad has been making it for a long time and I got the recipe from him.

German Potato Soup


4 bacon slices, diced
1 large onion, chopped
4 to 8 potatoes
1 celery stalk
1/2 small leek
1 carrot
3 cups meat stock
salt
dried leaf marjoram
4 frankfurters (or any other type of sausage)
finely chopped parsley



In a medium saucepan, saute bacon briefly.  Add onion; saute 2 to 3 minutes.  Peel potatoes.  Dice potatoes, celery, leek and carrot.  Add vegetables to saucepan.  Pour in stock.  Season with salt and marjoram.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes.  If a thicker soup is desired, crush potatoes with a potato masher.   Before serving, cut frankfurters (or sausage) into small pieces.  Add to soup;  heat through.  Sprinle with parsley.  Makes 4 serverings.


Edits:
We've found that white potatoes work really well with this. You can even leave the skins on as long as you clean them.
I never use celery.
I don't always put a leek in either, as I always feel a little silly buy three leeks and then never using the other two.
Never be afraid to make changes based on your own tastes.  Most of the time I don't really use the measurements involved. I just throw things in until it 'looks right'.

[Brian]

Leftover Breakfast Special

This is very much a bachelor meal.

Needs:

Leftovers (pretty much anything that's not soup, but thick stews will actually work just fine)
Eggs
Tortillas (optional)
Shredded potato/hashed browns (optional)
Salsa/hot sauce (optional)
Shredded cheese (optional)

1.) Cook hashed browns/potatoes in a skillet, to taste (if wanted).
2.) Take the leftovers.  If mostly liquid, add eggs until the entire thing is mixable.  If solid, dice up until the mix is slightly less than half leftovers, slightly more than half eggs.  If it will go with what you're making and you like it, add some hot sauce or salsa here (keeping the ratio in mind).
3.) Pour into skillet over potatoes (if wanted; otherwise just pour into skillet).  Scramble until cooked.
4.) Heat tortillas in microwave.  Serve eggs on tortillas, and add cheese if desired.
5.) Eat.

That's it!

I tried it this morning with curry (no hot sauce, no cheese), and now have delicious curry/egg breakfast wraps.  I've used this or some variant of this for years to work through my leftovers, and now you can too!

[Yuthirin]

Chicken Marsala

Ingredients
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried mediterranean oregano
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4 tablespoons unmelted butter
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups sliced white mushrooms
3/4 cup marsala wine
4 skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into halves and pounded until 1/4 inch thick
1/2 an onion, sliced.

1. In a gallon sized zip-lock bag, mix together flour, salt, oregano, pepper, and chicken. Shake it like a polaroid picture until evenly coated.

2. In a large skillet, melt butter in the olive oil. Mix in the onions and place chicken overtop the mix evenly. Let brown then flip. Let brown then add mushrooms & wine. Stir. Cover skillet and allow to simmer for 10 minutes or until chicken juices run clear.

Serve with oven roasted potatoes and a green vegetable.

[Yuthirin]

Chicken & Stuffing

Ingredients

2 Chicken breasts
1 package of chicken-flavored stuffing
1 can of condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1 cup milk, or enough to balance out the condensed soup mix (just refill the can with the milk)

Instructions

1. Boil chicken breasts for about 1 hour or until ready to shred.
2. Add shredded chicken, soup, milk, and mozzarella. Mix well. Add to a greased baking dish.
3. Make stuffing according to package. Use some of the water from the boiling of the chicken for extra flavor.
4. Top chicken mixture with stuffing, distributing evenly.
5. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

For extra flavor, add french fried onions to the top of the stuffing.