Cheesy Biscuit Turkey Pot Pie

Here's a really excellent way to use up two types of leftovers...Thanksgiving turkey and last night's Baked Potato Soup.

First off, let me just say that the turkey I used for this dish was from Thanksgiving, but Michael had frozen it on Friday. I did not use turkey that was just hangin' out in the fridge for over a week for this dish!

Secondly, this is one of those double 2DG wins! I used last night's Baked Potato Soup in the filling for this dish.

Here's how it went...
Similarly to last night's soup, I cooked some chopped carrots, onions and celery in 3 T butter for about 10 minutes to soften them.  I added some chopped fresh parsley, rosemary and oregano from the garden while the veggies were cooking. Then I sprinkled about 1/4 c. flour on them and stirring constantly, cooked the mix for about 2 minutes. I gradually stirred in 2 c. chicken/turkey stock combined into a nice gravy. then I added about a cup of last night's soup, and stirred it and let it thicken up. While that was simmering, I chopped up the remaining turkey and got about 3 - 4 cups out of it. This got added to the filling, along with a few handsful of frozen peas. Let the bubble away while the oven preheats and you work on the cheese biscuits.

If you don't have buttermilk on hand, make your own "sour milk" by putting 1 Tblsp vinegar or lemon juice (I used lemon juice) to a cup, and fill the cup with milk. Stir and set aside for about 5 minutes so it can "sour". Meanwhile, combine 2 c. flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper. Add 1 c. shredded cheddar cheese and 1/4 c. parmesan cheese and toss to coat cheese mix with flour mix. Dice 3/4 stick of cold butter and combine with flour/cheese mix, using pastry knife or fingertips until mix is course.

Before you add the sour milk to the flour, get your filling into your baking dishes. I managed to get 3 good sized individual servings and 1 deep dish pie plate out of mine. When that's done and you're ready to put them in the oven, go back and finish the biscuit dough. I recommend this because the acid in the sour milk will activate the leavening power of the baking powder and soda, so I always wait until the last possible second to add the milk to the mix, since I don't want all the rising power of my biscuits to be used up before I even get them in the oven.

To finish the biscuit dough, add the sour milk to the flour/cheese mix and stir until just combined and a loose dough forms. Drop the dough by spoonsful (I use an ice cream scoop) onto the fillings in the dishes.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 35 - 40 minutes until the biscuits are nice and brown. I rotated mine front to back and top to bottom after 20 minutes to ensure even baking.

Mike asked me to make a few individual pies so he could give them to his grandmother and 2 friends, so I did that and also made a bigger one for the two of us. I filled all of the dishes at the same time, using a big ladle, to make sure I'd have them all relatively even. I also did all the biscuits at the same time too, to make sure they were all fairly even.

If you have any leftover cranberry relish, serve it up with this!

Enjoy!

Baked Potato Soup

It's a cold night. I have potatoes, celery, carrots and onions to put to use. So...Baked Potato Soup it is!

"Bake" 4 - 6 medium potatoes,about 1 1/2 pounds, in the microwave oven (pierce them all over with a fork first).

Chop about 1/2 cup each of carrots, onion and celery. Melt 1/2 stick of butter in a large pot over medium low heat. Put in chopped veggies, cover and cook until soft but not brown, about 10 minutes.

When potatoes are cool enough to handle,reserve two, peel the remaining potatoes, or leave some peel on, as desired, add to veggies and mash with a potato masher.

Stir in 1 c. chicken stock and 1 1/2 c. milk to veggies and potatoes, salt and pepper to taste. I also added a pinch of nutmeg. Let simmer for about 20 minutes.

While soup is simmering, cook 4 or 5 pieces of bacon in the microwave, covered with a paper towel, for 1 minute per slice. When cool, drain and crumble. Add about 2/3 of the bacon to the soup, along with about a Tablespoon of chopped fresh rosemary and the reserved baked potatoes, chopped. Continue to simmer until you are ready to eat, which should be fairly soon after smelling all of this! You may need to add about another 1/2 c. of milk prior to serving. (I did.)

Serve topped with a little more crumbled bacon and shredded cheddar.

Enjoy!
-J

Steak MonaVie

Well, 2DG has spent the last few months settling into our beautiful new kitchen and saying goodbye to the old one. I've been too busy with everything to let you know what's going on! Well today, I tried a meal based on Beef Burgundy, but using a top sirloin steak and MonaVie Essential. I figured since it's fruit based, I could use it in place of the burgundy wine.

First I cubed 1 pound of boneless top sirloin steak and marinated it in 2 oz. of MonaVie Essential juice for about an hour. While that was sitting, I sliced a medium onion, 2 carrots, 2 celery stalks and minced 1 large garlic clove and put that aside with some sliced baby portabella mushrooms.

Next I browned the steak cubes in about 2 T of butter just to sear them on all sides, reserving the marinade, and put them in a casserole dish. Then all the veggies went into the skillet to soften for about 5 minutes, then they went into the casserole dish. Now I deglazed the pan with the reserved marinade and another 2 oz. of MVE. After that bubbled a little bit, I sprinkled in 2 or 3 Tablespoons of flour and stirred til it thickened. Slooowly I added about 2 cups of beef stock, stirring to thicken. Then into the casserole dish with the sauce. The covered casserole dish went into a 350 degree oven for an hour. Then I put in another 2 - 3 oz of MVE and put the dish back into the oven for another hour, uncovered this time.

Served on a bed of mashed potatoes, it was very tasty and the steak was nicely cooked and tender. I was afraid it would be over cooked and dried out, but that wasn't the case at all.

I will be incorporating more MonaVie juice into my meals from time to time, and will let you know how it turns out.

Enjoy!
-J

p.s....now I can hardly wait for some homemade peach/plum pie!

Pasta Primavera with Chicken Sausage

Tuesday I was jonesing for some pasta. I've cut back on carbs since the beginning of the year. Not totally doing the Atkins thing, but cut way back on 'em. So since we were getting another produce delivery from Orlando Organics on Wednesday, I decided to use up all the remnants of our produce and use a half box of whole wheat penne on the shelf. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I went to the grocery store and actually only bought TWO things! I got some of Publix's Greenwise Mild Chicken Italian Sausage and a grated cheese blend with Romano, Parmesan and Asiago.
First, I browned the sausage on all sides in a cast iron skillet. When that was done, I took it out and using the same skillet, browned some chopped onion, garlic, bell pepper, all sprinkled with salt, in olive oil. Put in some chopped carrot and parsnips. When they were somewhat cooked, I sprinkled about a tablespoon of flour over the whole thing and mixed it in to make a little bit of a roux. Then in went some frozen chicken stock. I sliced the cooled sausage, which was mostly cooked, but not quite thoroughly, and put that back in the skillet with the veggies and stock.
While the sausage was cooling, I put on a pot of water for the penne. Salted it. When it boiled, I put in the half box of penne and cooked it for a minute less than the box said. When it's done, save some of the pasta water. You can use it to add a little juice to the sauce if necessary. Drain the pasta and put it back in the pot.
Dump the veggie/sausage/sauce in with the pasta, and toss. Add some of the pasta water if it's too dry. Sprinke on some of the grated cheese blend, salt and pepper to taste, and serve!
Enjoy!
-J

Spinach Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing, Poached Egg and Clam Chowder

The title says it all. Mmmmm!Along with nearly everyone else, I've resolved to drop some pounds this year. I've found that carbs, while they pretend to be my friend because they taste soooo good, are actually the thing that makes me heavier than I want to be. So we're trying to live a reduced carb lifestyle. One of the benefits of that is that we get to use things like bacon! I don't know about you, but I think it's a pretty fair tradeoff...less bread or potatoes or pasta, more bacon! I also love spinach, so I'm sure you see where this is heading.
Mike wanted a nice soup to go with our spinach salad with hot bacon dressing, so he made a delicious red clam chowder. It's not exactly Manhattan Clam Chowder, but it sure is good. He started with cooking some bacon, which we'd use in both dishes. When that was done, he reserved some of the browned bacon and some of the fat for me for the hot bacon dressing, and then he put in some chopped carrot, parsnip to cook them down some. He browned some onion, celery, and green pepper in the same pot. Later he added tomatoes (from our garden!) and his spice blend of thyme, fennel, and all kinds of assorted goodies that he won't tell me and let them simmer for an hour or so in 2 cups of our homemade chicken stock and 2 cups of water. He did reserve some extra chopped carrot, parsnip and tomato to add later so that there would be some "less cooked" veggies in there too. Then he put in 2 cans of whole clams and 1 can of chopped clams and the liquid, reserving a tiny bit for the cats who'd become his best friends when he opened the cans. That all simmered for a while longer, then I added the rest of the chopped veggies about a half hour before we were ready to eat.
After putting the rest of the veggies in, I started on the Spinach Salad. After thoroughly cleaning the beautiful fresh spinach we got in our Orlando Organics delivery, I took some of the leftover bacon drippings, 2 T or so, and heated that in the top of my double boiler. (You don't have to do it in a double boiler, but Mike mentioned that's how the restaurant he worked in had heated up their dressing, so I thought I'd give it a try, and it worked well.)
While that was heating, I mixed together 1 T of flour and 2 T of sugar, and separately mixed together 1/4 c. cider vinegar and 1 c. water. Then I added the flour mixture to the hot bacon fat and whisked it for a minute to make a light roux. Still whisking, very slowly add the water/cider mix in small batches, only adding more when it looked like it was thickening up nicely. Next time, I think I'll add the vinegar and water separately so I can control the thickness and amount of each a little better, but this time it still tasted great.
While that was keeping warm, I put a small skillet with about 1 1/2 inches of water on the burner and added about 1 T of white vinegar to it. While that was heating, I tore up some spinach and put it in salad bowls. Then I thinnly sliced some red onion and added them and some chopped pecans to each salad, along with the remaining crumbled bacon.
Now the water was about to boil, so I turned it down a little to just about a simmer. Break each egg into a small bowl and then carefully add it to the simmering water. Do this one at a time! One egg in the bowl at a time, into the water. Let them simmer for 3 minutes, slightly less for a softer egg, longer for a harder cooked egg. While they're cooking, spoon some of the dressing on the spinach salad and toss to coat. Add a little more as you go if you'd like. When the eggs are done to your liking, fish them out with a slotted spoon and let them drain off all the water for a few seconds, or hold them over a towel for a few seconds. Place them on the salad, and season with a little pepper.
Serve along with the clam chowder and enjoy a reduced carb dinner!
-J

Deep Dish Pizza

Man o man, where has the time gone?? No posts since the beginning of December and here it is the end of the year! My new year's resolution will be...to be more dedicated to 2nddaygourmet!

So...I was cleaning out the fridge, again, and came up with this little beauty...

I picked up a multi-grain pizza dough at Publix bakery. It's the same dough they use for their multi-grain Italian bread, and it's yummy! Oh another resolution...I will make my own pizza dough in 2011.

I got some plain breakfast sausage, some mozzerella and provolone cheese and used stuff from the fridge for the rest of the fillings. I browned the sausage and doctored it with some of Mike's seasoning mix that he makes, added some fennel seeds and some garlic to the sausage as it browns. Then I added the remenants of an onion, some spring onions and some leftover sliced portabella mushrooms to the skillet. Finally I added, a little at a time, a bag of fresh spinach that was in the fridge and let that cook down.

After the dough had risen for an hour or so, I put it in the 10 inch deep dish pie plate that I had coated with olive oil and sprinkled with cornmeal. Then I added provolone slices and mozerrella on top of the dough. The point is to build a pizza backwards from what you would normally do, so you're adding stuff in the reverse order of what you would typically do for a pizza. Next I put in the sausage/spinach/mushroom/onion combo. You can add these one at a time in layers if you want. I found the last time that cooking the sausage and spinach together worked really well, so I add the rest of the stuff this time too.

Next I added a grated carrot and a half zucchini that I'd cubed, and salted and peppered everything. At this point I'd use a can of crushed tomatoes, but I had a bunch of grape tomatoes and some roma tomatoes (Romas from our GARDEN!) so I chopped them up and put them on and sort of crushed them with my hands when adding them. Then I sprinkled some chopped fresh oregano, marjoram, parsley, thyme and basil on top of the tomatoes, and some more salt and pepper.

Finally I sprinkled some grated parmesan cheese and put it in a 450 degree oven for 20 minutes. I added a little more mozerrella after 20 mins and put it back in for 3 - 5 minutes til it got all nicely melted and gooey.

After sitting for a while, this is what a slice looked like...

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Enjoy!

-J



Chicken stock

If it's Sunday, and I don't have a million other things to do or places to go, and we happen to be out of stock, I love making stock! We've used up all the chicken stock we had in the freezer, and it's a beautiful fall day in central Florida (highs in the low-mid 80s), and I don't have to be anywhere at all, so there is stock on the stove. It makes my little 2nd day gourmetish heart smile to use this stuff up!

OK,  I admit. We use a LOT of stock. I make chicken, vegetable and beef stock. We use it in gravies, sauces, casseroles, rice, prima vera, even egg drop soup! In fact, we're out of veggie stock too, so I'll be making more of that fairly soon too.

Whenever we have chicken, whether it's fried, wings, rotisserie, whatever, I always throw the bones and the "extra bits" in a freezer bag and put them in the freezer. When we're out of frozen stock or I have 1 or 2 full bags of bits, it's time to make more.

Get your biggest pot and a collander. I put the goods in the collander so that when it's time to remove the bits from the stock, it's really easy. No fishing required! Put the collander in your stock pot. Dump most of your chicken bits in the collander. Grab some leftover raw onion and toss that in on top of the chicken. Get those inner stalks of celery you weren't going to use for anything else. Also get the leafy tops or the big tough bottoms you weren't going to use either. Put them in with the chicken and onion. Got baby carrots or regular carrots taking up space in the produce drawer? In they go. Now put in the rest of the chicken bits. Add some salt and pepper.

Pour enough water over the bits and pieces in the collander to come about halfway up the stock pot. You can pick up the collander to see how much water you've got in there. I tend to over fill the pot and then when it comes to a boil it runs over a bit. If that happens to you, no big deal, just wipe it up as best you can and clean it up later.

Turn the burner to high heat until it comes to a boil, then turn it down and simmer for about an hour. I like to stir things around once in a while, turning things up from the bottom just to make sure everybody gets some time in the spa. Enjoy that lovely smell wafting thru the house!!!

We have some great herbs growing in pots out on the patio, so while the stock is cooking, I'm going shopping in our own herb garden! Whoo! I cut some parsley, some thyme, some sage and some rosemary. After giving them a good wash, I tie them together with some kitchen string, making a "bouquet garni" and set them aside. Don't put them in yet!!

After about an hour, remove the collander and place it to drain in a small bowl or pie pan. After it's drained, you can add the stock in the bowl back to the pot. At this point, I like to turn up the heat and vigorously boil the stock for a while to let it cook down and condense some. Use your judgement as to how much you want it to cook down. The longer you let it go, the stronger and richer the flavor but you may need to use some extra water later when you use the stock in your recipes.

When you're satisfied with how condensed your stock is, turn off the heat. Now drop in your bundle of herbs and let the stock sit for a while. You don't want to put the herbs in while you're cooking the stock at high boil or the poor little guys will be destroyed and the flavor won't have a chance to develop. Just let the whole thing cool. The residual heat will be enough for the herbs.

Once it's cool, take out the bouquet garni and set it aside. Strain your stock into a medium sized bowl. Now put your little herb bundle back in and place a paper towel over the top. Put the bowl in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight to really let everything blend together and devlop flavor. When you're ready to use or freeze the stock, remove the paper towel, which will help you to remove the chicken fat that has risen to the top of the stock.

Use the stock as you'd like, either now or put it in the freezer for later. I like to freeze my stock in plastic ice trays so that they're easy to use later. Ladle the stock into your ice trays and put them in the freezer overnight. Label a freezer bag with Chicken Stock the date,put in the frozen stock cubes and stash in the freezer for another day. In this pic, I'm using 2 cups of the stock in the brown rice we're having for dinner. The rest is freezer-bound.

Enjoy!

-J

Homemade Pasta Carbonara

So the cake I made on Friday used 6 egg whites...which meant I had 6 egg yolks just sitting there in the fridge looking for meaning in their lives. Their collective destiny was fulfilled in a marvelous way on Sunday. I used them in the homemade pasta I was making to use in Pasta Carbonara.

It was a collective effort between Mike and me. I made the pasta in the afternoon, very similarly to how I made the Peanut Butter Pasta, but without the peanut butter. I used the rest of the whole wheat flour I had on hand. It rolled out beautifully, and I hung them to dry on the tented cooling racks as before.

Michael browned some pancetta perfectly, and then added some mushrooms and onions to the same pan after removing the pancetta. When they were softened and yummy looking, he added some halved baby carrots and let them blend. I heated up some frozen homemade chicken stock, and added some herbage to the pot. While that was warming, I beat the remaining egg yolks and set them aside.

Mike boiled a big pot of water and added some salt. I tossed in the dry noodles. At the same time, I put some chopped tomatoes in with the veggies in the pan. Five quick minutes later, the pasta was happily floating on the top of the water, so I checked, and it was done. After reserving some of the cooking water, I drained it.

Just because I didn't feel like dragging out my enourmous pasta serving bowl, I put the veggies in the now empty pasta pot over low heat. The noodles went in next and I tossed them to combine. I whisked some of the hot stock into the beaten eggs to temper them, then tossed them in with the noodles. Tossing them about 2 or 3 minutes made sure the noodles were well coated and the eggs were cooked. I added the rest of the stock, a little bit at a time, tossing and turning the pasta with tongs the whole time. They soaked up the sauce and got really well coated. I tossed in the pancetta, and sprinkled on some Parmasan cheese. 

This got placed in some serving bowls and that's it!

Success!

My Thai?

This entry isn't about using  up leftovers, really, but I just had to write about it. I mean, all those leftovers have to start from some first creation, don't they? Here's the story of one...

I don't know how I came to be so obsessed with the idea of Peanut Butter Pasta, but I did. I did some web research but didn't see anything from anyone about actually making pasta with peanut butter in the dough. I found lots of recipes for noodles in peanut sauce, which sounds good, but not what I was after. I've had several varieties of flavored pasta from Papardelle's, so I thought if anyone has done it, they would've...but no, they only sold some peanut sauce, no PB pasta. So I became even more intrigued, and I decided I HAD to try it. The way I saw it, there were only two possible outcomes...

1) It would be really good and I'd finally have my own truly unique food creation...

or, more likely...

2) It would be so heinous that it would be completely inedible and I would deny ever even THINKING of it, and would try to erase it from my consciousness.

So last Saturday, I decided to try it. I consulted my Italian cooking book, and came up with a plan of attack. Then I got to work. I'll detail the specifics below, but I don't want to keep you in suspense. Which way do YOU think it went???


Hmm?
Hmm?


Huh?
Want me to tell you?


Ok.


IT WAS FANTASTIC!

Here's how it went.

1. Beat 2 eggs with 2 Tbsp. of homemade peanut butter. Add to mixing bowl.

2. In separate bowl, combine 1 c. of unbleached all purpose flour with 1 c. whole wheat flour.

3. Slowly add the flour to the egg/pb mixture. I didn't add quite all of the flour. Probably had about 10% left in the bowl when the dough looked to have enough.

Right about here, I decided it was too dry and I added one more egg mixed with one more Tbsp. of peanut butter. It still seemed a little dry, but I didn't want to add any more than that.

4. Put dough hook on mixer and mix away.

5. Check dough. Let it mix some more.

6. Check dough again. Fret that it's resembling PB cookie dough. See if patting dough together by hand helps. It does. Draw encouragement from that and try dough hook again.

7. Heave one large, dramatic sigh.

8. Turn off mixer, take dough out of bowl and release on lightly floured counter.

9. Knead dough by hand for a few minutes. Fret more that it resembles cookie dough. Try not to dwell. Add a teeny tiny bit of peanut oil to the dough and resume kneading. All told, I kneaded it for about 8 minutes.

10. Form the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and let rest on counter for about 45 - 60 mins. Let it go. Try not to worry what will happen next.

11. Unwrap and pat out a bit on lightly floured counter.

12. Grab rolling pin, dust with flour and apply elbow grease. To my great surprise, it rolled out beautifully!

Keep in mind, I usually have problems rolling out pie dough and cookie dough. They tend to stick no matter what I do. This time, though, I was able to roll, turn, flip, rotate, stretch, whatever, and it just kept responding remarkably.

13. Once I got it thin enough, almost see thru, but not quite, it was time to cut the noodles. I had read somewhere about rolling the dough up and cutting into the desired width, but thought that it'd just stick to itself, so instead, I doubled it over on itself. Then, armed only with a ruler (for a straightedge) and a pizza cutter, I went to work. I wanted them to be about the width of fettucini noodles, so I eyeballed the width to be about 3/8 - 1/2" wide and ran the pizza cutter along side the ruler. Then I carefully picked them up in case they got compressed from the ruler. I did get a little bit of breakage from where I was pressing on the ruler, but nothing too bad.

14. Now...drying. How am I gonna dry these beauties? I propped up two cooling racks long-wise, so they looked a little like a pup tent. Then I draped the long noodles over them so they could get lots of air circulation on both sides.

That's it! Now all I had to do was let them dry until I wanted to cook them up and make a Sesame Shrimp Sauce.  (I took inspiration from Pad Thai to create this dish.)

15. After marinading some 16 - 20 count shrimp in Drew's Sesame Orange Marinade for an hour or so, I stir fried them in a mix of a small amount of sesame oil and a bit more peanut oil. When they were pink, I removed them from the skillet and added some sliced scallions and matchstick carrots. Stir fried them for a few mins and then covered them to let them steam a little bit. Then I added some bean sprouts and stir fried them for a few mins. Next it was time for the shrimp to get back in the mix. I added them back to the pan. Next I threw in a few handsful of rough chopped peanuts and about half of an anaheim pepper that I'd chopped. (I removed about half of the seeds.)

16. While all that was going on, I put the dried noodles in some boiling salted water and let them go for about 5 - 6 mins.

17. When all the noodles were floating on the top, I tasted one to see if it was cooked enough. It was, so I drained them in a collander. I added about a Tbsp of peanut oil to the same pot and put the pasta back in there just to give it a touch more peanut flavor.

18. Now I dumped the noodles in a big pasta serving bowl, and put the sauce on top. After tossing with tongs, I added some uncooked peanuts, a little more chopped pepper and grated some lime zest over the whole bowl.

19. To serve, I put some in each pasta bowl, with some bean sprouts to one side, and a wedge of lime.

I can't tell you how shocked and excited I was when I tasted it and it really was good! I was especially happy with the raw peanuts in the dish, and for some reason found that surprising. I can easily see doing this same thing with chicken or almost any type of protein.

20. Next time you think you can't do something just because you don't think anyone else has...forget that! Do it anyway!

-Enjoy!

Mock Crab Soup

Being from Maryland, blue crabs and crab soup have a special place in my heart, as does Old Bay Seasoning. I've been making "Crab Wings" for years, chicken wings that I season with Old Bay. I also make a wing sauce with lots of Old Bay in it to go with them.

Here's the 2nd Day Gourmet part...

After we're done with the wings, I take any leftover wings and any bones that we have and make a soup, just the same way my mother used to make crab soup after we had steamed crabs. I usually add some chicken thighs to up the meat content a bit, too.

Here's how...

The leftover wings, bones and thighs go in a soup pot with water. I add tomatoes, onions, and whatever fresh or frozen veggies I have on hand, usually peas, corn, carrots, celery, green beans, in any combination I happen to have them. (This time I didn't have any frozen veggies, so it was just tomatoes, onions, peas and carrots, but it was still very tasty! I think it was the best ever this time!)

Then I put some of the leftover wing sauce in there and add Old Bay as needed. Let it go for an hour or so, then remove all the chicken and bones and them them cool. After they've thoroughly cooled, carefully pick all the meat from all the bones and put the meat back in the pot with the soup. Discard the bones, they've served you well at this point!

Enjoy, Hon!