Bouillabaisse 1/15

So the other day I was inspired by the Wegmans Magazine to do something with mussels.  I saw the Bouillabaisse Sauce that was on sale, and  their mussels looked fresh, so I figured I could make a stew of sorts.  Let me extol Wegmans here... when I asked for a pound of mussels, the guy behind the counter handpicked each and every one making sure it closed properly (ie was alive), and gave me the tip to leave the plastic bag open so that they would breathe.  I don't think I have ever had anyone so careful with mussels before!

I got home and figured I would just kind of make a stew based on the Bouillabaisse recipe I found online. I pulled some salmon out of the freezer, and had bought some fresh calamari and mussels and had some frozen shrimp.

My Bouillabaisse
1 filet of salmon (cubed) white fish
1/2lb calamari pieces (cut heads into rings)
1lb of mussles
20 shrimp
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
4-5 medium carrots
2 potatoes
5-6 stalks of celery
2 bay leaves
4 cups of vegetable stock (or fish stock)
1 can of chopped tomatoes (28oz)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Bag of Wegmans Bouillabaisse 
1 can of Tomato Juice (ie V8)

Heat olive oil in a stock pot.  Saute the Vegetables and potatoes for 5 minutes.  Add the vegetable stock, can of tomatoes, bay leaves, lemon juice and can of Tomato Juice. Cover and cook for ~20 minutes on medium until vegetables are somewhat tender. Add the bag of Bouillabaisse and the salmon cubes.  Cook for about 5 minutes until Salmon pieces become light colored on the outside.  Add in the shrimp and calamari and cook for another 2 minutes.  Add the mussels to the top of the pot (do not stir) and cover.  Cook until all of the mussels have just opened up.  It should be under 5 minutes on medium heat.  Stir up the pot and serve immediately :)

The soup came out excellent, but the salmon flavor tended to overpower the dish.  I think the next time I would use a white fish in its place so that all of the flavors balance well.

Becca's Death by Yummy 1/14

One of our favorite weekend, and sometimes weekday things to do is to get together with our friends Kevin & Becca who now live 5 minutes from us!  We often cook for eachother, and sometimes nothing is better than a home cooked meal that you didn't have to cook yourself!  This weekend, I made the dinner, but Becca brought the dessert.  It was so easy and tasty that I wanted to document it!

Death by Yummy!!
Buy or make a package of soft chocolate chip cookies.  Buy or make a batch of Brownies.  These brownies I just made from a giradelli mix, but I added the small Reese peanut butter cups. Yum! Mix up a batch of chocolate pudding.   Crumble one cookie and one brownie into a dish.  Take a small handful (10-15) pretzel sticks and crumble them over the top.  Dollop a heaping spoonful or two of the pudding, then sprinkle with toffee pieces.  Cover in whipped cream, and decorate with pretzels!  YUM!
Ok so I made up the silly name... don't blame Becca :P

Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts 1/13

Another BJ's thing, I had a giant package of brussels sprouts, and was looking for some creative ways to cook them.  I've found just roasting vegetables in the oven lately with olive oil and salt is a great way to really get a lot of flavor out, but I thought I'd go a little farther this time.

Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts
I started with this recipe.  But I simplified it a bit.  I cut the brussels sprouts in half and roasted them in the oven at 375 for ~20 minutes with some olive oil, salt & pepper.  In the last 10 minutes, I put a half cup of balsamic vinegar and 1/8 cup of brown sugar in a pan on the stove and cooked it down on low heat for about 10 minutes.  I then drizzled the mixture over the sprouts and tossed to coat.  Mmm flavor!

Bon Appetit!

Orange Meal 1/10

Wanted to throw together something quick and tasty.  I've been going to BJ's a lot lately, and found that their giant bags of fresh vegetables are not only a great value, but tend to hold up fairly well as well.  With Wegmans being a good 25minute drive, I don't get there every weekend, so I've started stocking up more often at BJ's. They have a gigantic piece of salmon that is usually around $18, and I bought a huge bag of cubed butternut squash.  Makes for a super fast meal!

 Sage Roasted Butternut Squash
Cube some fresh butternut squash and throw it on a cookie sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Chop up some fresh sage, or in my case, I had some dried sage from Sandy's garden that I crumbled into the mix.  Crack some fresh salt and pepper over it and roast it in the oven at 400 for 20-25 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so.

Orange Tricolor Couscous
I also get the big container of couscous so we can have a fast rice-like side dish as needed.  I follow the package directions, but replace 3/4 of the water with orange juice, and added some thyme into the liquid before it boiled.

Fresh Salmon
We often cook this huge thing of salmon all at once.  This time I froze half and cooked half.  We added a seafood rub that my dad gave me for Christmas, and just baked it for around 25 minutes.

And the resulting dish!  I'm still working on the photography part, but everything was very flavorful and complimented well, and best of all it was fast and simple!  Wa-la!

Bon Appetit!

First Breakfast of 2012 1/1

In my typical fashion of going way overboard with food... I made 4 kinds of pancakes on New Years morning with our houseful of people!  Unfortunately I did not take any pictures, so I need to get Cynette to send me some of hers when she gets a chance!

Blueberry Pancakes & Chocolate Chip Pancakes
I just used the bisquick recipe and added blueberries or chocolate chips :)

Pumpkin Pecan Pancakes
Use the Bisquick Recipe, but replace 1 cup of Bisquick with 1 cup of whole wheat flower.  Add 1tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda.  Add about 1 cup of canned pumpkin, and 1/2 cup of chopped pecans.  Whisk together and add a bit more milk if its too thick.

White Chocolate Coconut Pancakes
Again, use the Bisquick Recipe, but replace 1 cup of Bisquick with 1 cup of whole wheat flower.  Add 1tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda.  Add about 1/2 cup of toasted coconut, and 3/4 cup of white chocolate chips.  Whisk together and add a bit more milk if its too thick.

Bon Appetite!

New Years Insanity 12/31

As many of you know, I love to cook and I love to have people over.  Throw a party where I can cook a lot and my cooking addiction goes a little bit crazy!  We had 12 of us for New Years, of which several were staying overnight &/or for the weekend, so I figured left overs wouldnt be a bad thing! Here is the menu I contrived for our New Years.

Pulled Pork Sliders with Vinegar Coleslaw
I combined a few recipes to make this one up... I started a 6lb Pork Butt in the slow cooker the night before. I rubbed the entire thing with a Smokehouse Maple Spice, added a can of gingerale, and about 1/4 cup of brown sugar to the crockpot.  I cooked on low for ~6hrs, then pulled the pork.  It probably needed a bit longer as I had to return the center to the slow cooker for another 2 hours, and pulled it again.  Then I let it sit warming overnight, and in the morning turned it back on low again and added 1/2 bottle of Dinosaur BBQ sauce.  1/2 a bottle won't make it lather in the sauce, so we served with additional sauce, but it gives it a nice flavor.
For the Coleslaw, I just grabbed a bag of coleslaw mix, added 1/8 cup cider vinagre, 2tbsps sugar, salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon, tossed it all and let it sit for an hour before serving.  This will hold for a day or two chilled.


Bloody Mary Soup Shooters

I started with This Recipe and ended up doubling nearly all the flavorings (horseradish, vodka, Worcestershire).  I would suggest starting with their recipe and then after the blending taste the mixture, and add more of any of the items according to your tastes.  I also used vegetable stock in mine in an attempt to make them vegetarian friendly!

You can see some of the spread here... although the paper towels are from the great spill of the bloody mary shooters!! (be careful carrying a tray of them, any little tip will send them all falling into eachother!

My dad bought me a new serving plate for Christmas that I wanted to show off.  The picture didnt come out that great, but it is a chance to mention my prosciutto wrapped asparagus!

Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus

This one can be a tad time intensive, but its so simple & worth it.

Take a bunch of asparagus & wash.  Use a vegetable peeler to peel of the outsides of the thick stalks (a trick I learned for making them less chewy/stringy & more tender!).  Wrap each asparagus in about half a slice of prosciutto.  Place on a cookie sheet and roast in the oven for ~15 minutes until tender.

Bourbon Hot Dogs

Super Simple Crock Pot Recipe I used those proportions, but just put it in a crockpot on high for a couple hours.

Blue Cheese Toasts

This is one of my all time favorite go-to recipes for parties.  I learned it from Holly Buckley!!  Simply mix together roughly 1/3cup margarine to 2/3cup blue cheese crumbles.  Slice a baguette into 1/4in cuts and toast the baguette pieces for 5 minutes.  Cover each slice in a heaping teaspoon of the mixture and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes (until cheese is melty).  Serve hot!

Chex Mix

This one I didnt do exactly to the recipe posted, but I increased a lot of the spices and added some Tabasco and chipotle powder to give it a bit of a kick.  It probably still could have been spicier, but its always a good snack!

Chicken Wing Pizza

I love making this pizza for groups!  Buy the premade dough and stretch thin into 1 or 2 rounds.  Boil a chicken breast in just enough water to cover it, plus 1/4 cup tabasco sauce.  Allow chicken to cool for a minute, then shred with two forks. Cover base of pizza crust in tabasco sauce (in place of tomato sauce, but not as thick!).  Sprinkle pizza with chicken and crumbly blue cheese.  Dollup the pizza with your favorite blue cheese dressing, then cover lightly with mozzerella.  Bake for ~20 minutes at 375 or until crust has browned.

BBQ Pork Pizza

Similar to the directions above, but use BBQ sauce for the base, sprinkle with pulled pork, cover in mozzerella.  You could also add some cabbage for some crunch/veggie if you wanted.

Ginger Carrot Soup

Cut up 4-8 large carrots and place in a pot with 6 cups of vegetable broth (broth should cover carrots completely).  Add 6 thin slices of peeled fresh ginger, 1tsp of ginger powder, and 1Tbsp Garlic powder.  Boil mixture until carrots are very tender (~30 minutes). Add salt & pepper and purree with an immersion blender.

Rum Balls

I played with a couple of versions of different recipes and came out with some decent rum balls.  The important thing to note is they WILL be sticky when you roll them.  Coating your hands in powdered sugar before you roll is key!

Nilla Wafer Rum Balls

Coconut Rum Balls - use coconut rum & roll the above ones in toasted coconut

Pecan Rum Balls

And then for my own recipe, I used the Nilla wafer recipe, but used Baileys Irish Cream and Starbucks Liquor to make a kind of Irish Coffee ball.

White Trash

I used this recipe, minus the peanuts and did two batches - one with coconut M&Ms, one with dark chocolate M&Ms.  My favorite is mixing the two together :) Yum!

And I think that about does it for the New Years insanity.  Hopefully some of these recipes come in useful!

O'Toole Christmas 12/29

My schedule has been crazy ever since the holidays, and my New Years Resolution was to really start filling this blog.  Keeping up with it day to day hasn't quite worked yet, so I figured I would start backfilling and see if I can catch up and get back on track.

For the O'Toole Christmas, I decided to do a simple menu.  It was a late dinner and my dad & uncles came up to visit.

The first course was a garlic potato soup!

Garlic Potato Soup

Roast 2-3 bulbs of garlic in a garlic baker for 2-3 hours. Baste a few times with olive oil.

Cool for at least an hour, and remove all garlic from the bulbs. (this can be done 1-2 days ahead)

Peel 2 medium potatoes and chop small.

Boil potatoes in 3-4 cups of vegetable broth (just enough to cover potatoes).

About 10 minutes into boiling, add the garlic & finish when the potatoes are tender.

Add some salt & pepper (~1/2tsp of each)

Puree with an immersion blender.

Slice up some green onions to serve on top.

Potatoes with Rosemary & Lemon

Wash potatoes and cut into ~2in chunks

Place on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil.

Squeeze 1/2 lemon over the potatoes, then chop the lemon into thin slices and place on the pan.

Sprinkle with fresh rosemary, salt and pepper.

Roast potatoes in the oven at 400 for about 30 minutes.

Rotisserie Beef

Unfortunately while the crust on this was amazing, it came out overcooked, so I will suggest an alternate method.

Get a 6lb cut of beef (Round Roast shown here)

Rub thickly with your favorite spice rub I made up a cumin ancho chile rub - cumin powder, ancho chile spice, chipotle mexican spice, instant espresso powder, corriander, salt & pepper.

Let it sit for at least an hour before cooking.

Prepare for the rotisserie & place a pan for the drippings on the grill under the rotisserie.

Set the grill on medium and cook for ~2-3 hours.  You will want to stop the rotisserie every 30 minutes to check the temperature.  You should stop it at 140 for Medium Rare and allow it to rest for 15 minutes (should rise to 145 before cutting).

 And we have arrived at my favorite Whole Lemon Tart!!

Thats right, for this Tart you actually get to use the entire lemon, rind and all!

The recipe I use comes from my favorite cooking blog, Smitten Kitchen.  Her recipe for the Whole Lemon Tart is posted here.  I've served this recipe before with a homemade blackberry sauce, and I imagine a raspberry sauce would go just as well.  But in the effort of keeping this dinner simple, I just served it sprinkled with powdered sugar as shown here.

Bon Appetite!!