Memorial Day Cheeseburgers!

It’s officially summer in NYC, time for backyard BBQs, walks in the park and sweating it out in the subway stations.  

It also means that the fleet is in for Fleet Week….well hello sailor!

Photo via NY Daily News

Photo via Gothamist

In honor of Memorial Day this year, I salute our devoted servicemen and women with the most American thing I can think of.....a cheeseburger!  NYC loves you and thanks you for your devoted service. So up kick your feet, grab a beer and enjoy the guilty pleasure of a greasy burger because, baby, you've earned it.

1 lb ground beef

1 tbsp BBQ rub seasoning

1 tbsp Worchestershire Sauce

1 tsp dried parsley

1 avocado, sliced

1 beefsteak tomato, sliced

4 slices pepperjack cheese

4 hamburger buns

cooking spray

Directions

1. Mix together ground beef, BBQ rub, Worchestershire sauce and parsley. Form into 4 flat patties (about 1/4 inch each). Note: try not to overwork the meat because that will result in tough burgers.
2. Heat a frying pan coated with cooking spray over high heat. Add burgers and cook for 3 minutes.
3. Flip burgers and add cheese. Cover and cook for an additional 3 minutes.
4. Assemble burgers on buns with avocado and tomato slices. Enjoy!

Memorial Day Cheeseburgers

Broccoli, Pea and Prosciutto Pasta Bake - recipe help needed!

I have a confession to make….I made a terrible dinner the other night.  It didn’t taste like feet or anything, it was just kind of lame.

I was in the mood for a baked pasta dish but we’ve been trying to eat healthy. I figured it would be easy to whip up something good and low-fat. Wrong. Somehow in my zeal for low-fat deliciousness, I made a very boring dish. What can I say; sometimes the man of the house gets stuck with a big, steaming bowl of bland for dinner. Big bummer though, I was really hoping this one would work out because I wanted to love it.

Photo via tvtropes.org

Now, dear readers, I need your help because I still want this one to work. Take a look and let me know if you have any ideas on where this might have gone so wrong! The person that can tell me how to renovate it into something healthy, lowfat and satisfying gets a big, gold star.

Broccoli, Pea and Prosciutto Pasta Bake

1 10 oz bag frozen broccoli

¼ c frozen peas

8 oz large pasta shells

3 pieces prosciutto, chopped

1 15 oz container non-fat ricotta cheese

2 egg whites

½ c low-fat Italian cheese mix

½ c low-fat milk

¼ c grated parmesan cheese

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried basil

½ tsp dried parsley

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Start a pot of water to boil and cook the pasta per the package directions.

2. Microwave the broccoli on high for 3 minutes, add the peas and microwave an additional 30 seconds.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients. Add the broccoli, peas and cooked pasta.

4. Pour the entire mixture into a 2 quart square baking dish and bake covered for 45 minutes.

Oven Fried Chicken

Recently I’ve been trying to reduce our weekly grocery bill while finding ways to continue making tasty and healthy meals. My goal is to get our bill down to $60/week, but let me tell you folks it’s not so easy in NYC. Especially since I love, love, love shopping at the fancy grocery store. For some ridiculous reason it’s just relaxing to me… there are free samples of fancy cheese and the milk comes in pretty glass bottles. Speaking of which, big PSA for any readers in the NY metro area; I just found out that you can get $1.50 back for returning your Ronnybrook glass bottles to the grocery store. So there you have it, I’ve officially found an excuse to keep on buying fancy milk and sampling expensive cheese. What?! I get money back, it’s cost cutting!

Photo via: Ronnybrook Dairy

But back to the issue at hand, last week I swapped my usual boneless skinless chicken breasts for more budget friendly skin-on chicken legs. Originally I was going to make regular baked chicken, but I was feeling kind of meh about that as a dinner option so I decided to go for some oven fried chicken instead.

I’m not sure that this really classifies as “healthy” per se, but considering that it isn’t fried in three inches of oil, I’m okay with dubbing it a healthy alternative. However, I will caution you that if you are craving traditional fried chicken with a thick crust, this probably won’t do it for you but it is delicious and makes the house smell A-MA-ZING! Also it goes great with a little bourbon spiked iced tea…..go on with your bad self, I won’t tell J

Oven Fried Chicken

2 cups buttermilk
2 tsp  hot sauce
3 tbsp shortening
1 1/2 pounds chicken drumsticks
2/3 cup Bisquick
1 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
cooking spray

1. Place chicken, buttermilk and hot sauce in a large bowl and marinate in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

2. Put the shortening in a glass baking dish, place the dish in the oven and preheat to 425 degrees.

3. Mix together the Bisquick, poultry seasoning, cayenne pepper, salt & pepper. Dredge the chicken in the Bisquick mixture.

4. Place the chicken skin side down in the melted shortening coated baking dish, spritz with cooking spray and bake for 30 minutes. Flip chicken, spritz with cooking spray and bake for another 30 minutes or until chicken juices run clear. Be sure to let the chicken rest for at least ten minutes so that the skin adheres to the meat.

*note: I didn't have any actual buttermilk at the time so I did the milk & lemon juice trick (1 tbsp lemon juice per cup of milk will give you buttermilk)

**second note: I live in Brooklyn and therefore everything takes forever to cook in my oven. If you have an oven that hasn't been around since the mid 70s, be sure to watch your chicken carefully.

***third note: lots of notes on this one, but a note about Bisquick. I happen to really like the slightly sweet, waffley taste that the Bisquick gives the chicken, but if this isn't your thing and you're more of a purest, feel free to substitute regular old flour.

Hey look! An actual picture of the finished product:

Just um, don’t mind the terrible lighting in our kitchen…..or the huge mayo finger smear in the tomato bowl.

Bourbon Maple Braised Sausage & Pierogies

A few days ago I was really in a cooking mood.  It’s been a stressful few weeks and I was feeling really excited to get in the kitchen and whip up something delicious.  Only one hitch in the plan though….I was too lazy to go to the grocery store.  So instead, I decided to challenge myself to come up with something new and tasty by “shopping” in my kitchen.  Think of it as embracing the freegan lifestyle, but without the part that involves dumpster diving for expired hot dogs.

photo via Bloomberg Business Week

At any rate, I scrounged around for a while and eventually found a package of chicken sausage and frozen pierogies. Score! I love pierogies and had completely forgotten about them….until now.  The resulting dinner was delicious and gave me warm, fuzzy memories of my Pittsburgh days (Hail to Pitt!).

Now I’m feeling really proud of myself for making a new recipe and saving money by using forgotten freezer food.  What do you say readers? Have you ever shopped in your own kitchen for dinner? How did it turn out?

Bourbon Maple Braised Sausage & Pierogies

1 12 oz package chicken and apple sausage, sliced

1 16 oz package pierogies

1 onion, sliced

1/4 cup bourbon

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 14.5 oz. can chicken broth

1 tbsp olive oil

1. Cook pierogies according to package directions.
2. Heat olive oil in a frying pan and saute sausage and onions in a frying pan until the onions soften and the sausage browns (about 2-3 minutes).
3. Turn off heat and add the bourbon to the pan to deglaze. Turn on the heat and cook off the alcohol. Add the maple syrup and chicken broth to the pan and simmer until reduced by half (about 10 minutes).
4. Add the pierogies to the pan and heat through.

Please Pardon my French and Help Kick Some Sweet Auto Immune Disease Ass!

If you've been reading my blog, it should come as no surprise that my cooking style is more meat & potatoes than escargot & foie gras. In fact, we are so into the recent comfort food trend that we are planning to serve some classic favorites during our wedding reception next year (because shoveling mini burgers into my mouth while wearing an expensive, white dress seems like a good idea). 

However, you might not know that I'm also pretty clueless when it comes to wedding planning and have been obsessively reading wedding blogs in a desperate attempt to figure out what the heck I'm doing before the big day. So when a popular wedding blog put out a call for comfort food recipes as part of the Dishing for Dana FUNdraiser, I was on it like white on rice (or more accurately like cheese on mac).

To back up for a second, Dana is the blogger behind the snark and sass of The Broke-Ass Bride, which she developed into the snark and sass of The Broke-Ass Media Inc., which officially makes her a pretty bad-ass businesswoman.  Unfortunately, Dana also suffers from a lame-ass auto immune disease that requires lots of expensive-ass surgeries, which resulted in an ass load of bills that are not covered by Broke-Ass Media's small business insurance policy. Which sucks ass and is a major buzz kill. This Broke-Ass Bride is a tough cookie though so a little setback wasn't enough to kick Dana's ass and send her crawling into hibernation with a pint of Chubby Hubby for a major league pity party. Oh, heck no! Instead, she has decided to fight the power with a sweet-ass FUNdraiser....and this is where you come in.

As part of the Dishing for Dana FUNdraiser, she is asking for donations in an effort to continue her treatment, pay for her 12th surgery and save her eyesight. In return for your donation, you will get access to an awesome database of comfort food recipes contributed by a variety of bloggers (including moi), some awesome perks AND Dana will donate a portion of the proceeds to the American Autoimmune Related Disease Association. To summarize, for a small (or large) donation Dana gets the help she needs, the AARDA gets some money to help fund auto immune disease research and you get heaps of new recipes along with some pretty great extras. Pretty cool, huh?

So get your rear over to Dishing for Dana, make a donation, and keep your eyes peeled for my recipe for Mom's Simple Mac-n-Cheese Casserole.....unless you are my Mom in which case you already have this recipe (hi Mom! sorry about all the bad language in this post). Mom status aside though, I sincerely hope you will make a donation to contribute to a worthy cause and see some recipes that were not posted by your darling daughter.

So what do you say readers, do you want to get some rockin' new recipes and help kick some auto immune disease ass?

Katie's Home-style Chicken and Egg Noodles

Happy Easter!  I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing day. I know I’ve been enjoying a full day of gorging myself on Peeps and Honeybaked Ham. I’m also super excited that the weather has been a little more reasonable recently.  Feels like it's been a long haul this year and I’m definitely ready to start having picnics in the park and dust off the old grill. Or maybe I’m just excited that I can finally walk to the subway without freezing off my little rear?!

Before I get ahead of myself though, I realized today that I forgot to share this recipe for Home-style Chicken and Egg Noodles…..oops.  This hearty soup is super comfort food, which was a huge hit in our household and is now part of the regular dinner rotation.  Seriously, run don’t walk to your kitchen and make it immediately, I promise you won’t be sorry!

Katie’s Home-style Chicken and Egg Noodles

2 skinless, bone-in chicken breasts

4 skinless, bone-in chicken thighs

2 14.5 oz. cans low fat chicken broth

43.5 oz water (3 chicken broth cans full)

1 chopped onion

2 chopped carrots

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp poultry seasoning

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 10.75 oz can cream of mushroom soup

8 oz home-style egg noodles

Salt & pepper to taste

1. Place first 9 ingredients (through garlic powder) in a dutch oven on the stove.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Carefully remove the chicken from the pot and pull meat from the bones.  Put the pulled chicken back in the pot and stir in the cream of mushroom soup. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Add the egg noodles and cook according to package directions.

Just in case you didn't fully enjoy today's balmy weather, a little flashback below via Gothamist.

Make-Ahead Meal Inspiration

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been stuck sitting around on the couch while recovering from a super fun appendectomy.  Unfortunately, this means I can’t carry anything heavy until Mid-May so regular grocery shopping is out for now. Luckily we have Freshdirect and a bunch of great friends and family that have stepped in to make sure we don’t starve (one friend even threw us a little grilled cheese party last week, awesome).

However, there’s no need to wait for someone to get sick to brighten their day with a delicious, homemade make-ahead meal. To inspire you, I've compiled links to some of my favorite make-ahead meals from the around the web for your cooking pleasure.  Just be sure to include the finishing instructions so that your friends can enjoy a delicious and easy meal!

Casseroles:  to make any casserole into a make-ahead meal, just prepare in advance, place in a disposable casserole dish, label and freeze.  When ready to use, thaw in fridge, and finish according to the recipe direction. Most casseroles can be prepared from frozen as well, just cover with foil, increase the baking time slightly and cook until heated through.

Cooking Light Baked Pasta with Sausage, Tomatoes and Cheese

Disney Family Fun Stuffed Shells

Epicurious Lasagna with Turkey Sausage Bolognese

Kraft Layered Fiesta Casserole

Martha Stewart Chicken Tetrazzini

Martha Stewart Sausage & Bean Casserole

Pioneer Woman Chicken Spaghetti

Taste of Home Cornbread Chicken Bake  

Southern Living King Ranch Chicken Casserole

Freezer Friendly Individual Meals: to make ahead, prepare through assembly, freeze individually on cookie sheets and place in freezer bags.  When you’re ready to cook either thaw the portions you need in the fridge and cook according to the recipe or cook from frozen by increasing the baking time a little until heated through and golden brown.

Martha Stewart Irish Beef Hand Pies

Martha Stewart Bean Burritos

Pillsbury Crescent Pizza Pockets

Pillsbury Buffalo Chicken Crescents

Pepperidge Farm Black Bean Empanadas

Other Ideas: there are tons of other recipes that can adapted into a made ahead meal, here are a few ideas to get you started!

Crockpot Turkey Cheddar Meatballs – freeze individually and reheat in microwave when ready to eat

Crockpot Taco Soup – freeze in containers and reheat in microwave when ready to eat

Martha Stewart Quick Ravioli – freeze individually and reheat in boiling water when ready to eat

Martha Stewart Turkey Dumplings

Rachael Ray Veal Ragu – prepare sauce and freeze until ready to serve over pasta

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