I am a Dad that stays at home with my two boys and who loves to cook and bake. This blog will chronicle my successes and failures in the kitchen to cook tasty and healthy food, and to try and get my picky-eater kids to eat it all!
I ended up with a whole bunch of radishes left over from a salad I had made, and needed to use them up before the started to go bad. After doing a little searching on the internet, I decided to pickle them.
Mise en place for the pickled radishes
The recipe I found was simple - make a simple vinegar brine and soak the radishes. Not too bad - but it is important to read every recipe start to finish before you shop for any new recipe. Sometimes they throw curveball ingredients at you, and this can get you scrambling. Another thing I absoutely recommend is to start building a mise en place. This is French for "putting in place," and the idea is easy. read your recipe, and get out EVERYTHING you need to complete the dish, and put it in the same place. That way when you need to reach for a little more rice wine because you ended up with a little more radishes than you expected - as I did - you don't have to take time going back and searching the cabinet for it.
Pickled radishes
The pickled radishes came out great. The recipe that I found on Food.com was simple, easy, and tasty. The pungent flavor of the rice wine mixed with the sugar, salt, and radish flavors makes this a great addition to salads, sandwiches, and many other dishes.
Remember to read your recipes, and build your mise en place, and have fun in the kitchen!
Let's just cut through the suspense - we put Cheerios on our ice cream the other night.
Two bowls of ice cream topped with Apple Cinnamon Cheerios.
So my wife and I have a secret life - OK it's probably not that much of a secret or a life, but still. Very often after the boys go to bed, she and I have a bowl of ice cream or some other treat that we have in the house. We don't normally eat in front of the boys, because the 1-year old is still too small to really have treats at all, and the 6-year old will have some but certainly not as much as we serve ourselves. Kind of our treat to ourselves for making it through the day.
Recently we purchased - at the insistence of our oldest boy - Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. When we tried them we were blown away. These were not the Apple Cinnamon Cheerios we grew up with. Gone were the little crunchy bits and the weak flavor. This cereal was bursting with apple and cinnamon flavor, and there were no more little crunchy bits, but they were not missed.
So super tasty!
I don't think this is an isolated phenomenon. There may be many breakfast cereals that - with the proper pairing, can turn into a super-tasty dessert. Our pairing was a salted caramel ice cream with these tasty Cheerios. What are some combinations that you think would taste nice together? Perhaps some rainbow sherbet with Fruit Loops? Cookie dough ice cream with Cocoa Puffs? Let me know in the comments section!
Recently I posted about making iced coffee now that the weather has decided to act like summer is close rather than winter. I also posted about how I wanted to try doing a cold-brewed coffee as well. Well, the wait is over. Recently I did a taste testing of cold-brewed coffee against iced coffee to see which I liked better.
Firstly I wanted the playing field to be level. Cold brewed coffee needs a coarser grind than doing a drip brew, so I needed to grind my own beans. I pulsed some beans in my coffee grinder to make a coarse grind for the cold-brewed coffee, and then ground some other beans normally to use in the drip coffee maker. I used the same coffee for both brewing methods so that I could get a good baseline for the flavor of each method. The recipe for cold-brewed coffee recipe I used can be found HERE on www.food52.com.
Same coffee beans used for both methods
Once the coffees were together, I did add one tablespoon of white sugar to each 32 ounce container, because for me cold coffee needs a little bit of sugar, and this allowed me to keep the amount of sugar controlled. Then it was time to begin the taste-test.
First I tasted both of the brews with no milk added. Here, both coffees were similar tasting. The iced coffee tasted a little more bitter than the cold-brewed, likely because of the heat added to the beans in the brewing process. The cold-brewed coffee was not as bitter, and you got a better sense of the flavor of the beans.
Iced coffee on the left, cold-brewed on the right.
When I added milk to the cups is when the differences really shone bright. Like with the sugar I used a controlled amount of whole milk (one tablespoon per cup) so as to not influence the taste one way or another. The iced coffee tasted a little muddy with the milk added - no flavor really came through, and it felt like it needed some more sugar or another flavor to make the brew seem complete. Not so with the cold-brewed coffee. The addition of the milk added a definitive smoothness to the cup, and did not overpower the coffee flavor - which remained strong despite the addition of the milk.
Overall, the victor here was cold-brewed coffee. It takes more time - a good 10-12 hours to get the brew strong enough. But if you are willing to put the time in, your efforts will be handsomely rewarded. The beverage is sufficiently strong to wake you up, but does not need much enhancement to be delicious and smooth.
So I know that my 1-year old loves to eat food purees form pouches. They come in many different flavors and varieties, from many different manufacturers. I never really had any issue with any of the actual products, but the pouches the food comes in are not recyclable. I would buy them because he would eat them, and it was tough to find a way for him to eat fruits and veggies otherwise. So I would bite my tongue and buy them, even though I hated throwing them away all the time.
So I started looking for a produce that I knew must exist - reusable pouches for purees. I found several products that did what I was looking for, but the ones I purchased were from www.squooshi.com (purchased through Amazon.com). They come with some suggested recipes, but I use my own mixes. One that is popular around our house is apple-cauliflower.
Having a Squooshi
Purees are easy enough to make if you have the time to do it every few days. cook the fruit or veggies in a saucepan until they are fork-tender - soft enough that they cut and pull apart easily with a fork. Combine the produce with some water or juice in a blender - just enough to allow the food to blend well - and blend until smooth. You can cook up each part separate, or do it all together, but I tend to cook everything together since it will end up combined in the end.
Parsnip and cauliflower simmering in water
As you can see from this above photo, they wind up a little bigger than the store-bought pouches, but that is because of the zip seal closure on the bottom that allows them to be refillable. They came as a set of 8 pouches, which is enough to hold about 3 cups of puree or so. They clean very easily with a bottle brush, and are very easy to refill. For any of you looking for a way to get their toddler to consume fruits and veggies, I would highly recommend this product.
(This is not a paid advertisement - this is how I really feel about these things. )
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but what words are they? I took a picture on May 25th, and I want to tell you the story behind it. First, let me show you the picture:
Moments before this picture was taken my 1-year old son had come up to me with the jar of peanut butter and this little plastic cup in his hands. He will do this when he wants to eat a spoonful of peanut butter. We keep the peanut butter where he can reach it, as well as the plastic containers. He managed to carry it all the way from the kitchen into the living room, and his tone was desperate. Despite only just finishing lunch, he needed this peanut butter NOW. Since he normally doesn't eat too much straight peanut butter, I was happy to help him. I carried the jar and the container back into the kitchen, got him a spoon, scooped a portion of peanut butter with the spoon and put it in his container. He was happy. So happy he ran out into the dining room ahead of me as I put the peanut butter back in the cabinet. In that short span of time, he had become distracted by his older brother who was playing on the floor, and had decided to join him. So his desperate plea for peanut butter was lost to the toy of the minute, and the container of peanut butter was left lonely on the dining room table. You can see both of my boys in the background, playing on the floor in the living room.
Thank you for letting me share this picture, and the story behind it, and thank you for reading.
Summer is coming. Summer brings long, warm days, baseball games, summer vacations, and grilling season. But for those of us who are used to waking up with a nice cup of java in the morning, summer can be kind of a drag. Who wants to wake up and have a nice piping hot cup of coffee on one of those days where you just breathe and you're sweating? Not this DUDE.
That is when it is time to start making iced coffee. This is a summertime staple in our house, where coffee in the morning is as important as waking up. It fulfills my morning need for caffeine, and when you have boys that are ready to go as soon as they wake up - like I do - you need that little energy boost! Thankfully it is simple to put together and will actually save you time in the morning by being ready to go in the refrigerator.
Brew of the day: Ice Cold
Cold coffee - especially when it has been hot-brewed as iced coffee is normally - can taste a little bitter. When I set the coffee to cool, I usually mix about a tablespoon of sugar into a whole pot of coffee. I like a splash of whole milk too, but I usually add that when I pour myself a cup. This small amount of milk and sugar is enough to offset the bitterness for me, but I know that there are many people who like their sugar with coffee and cream, and that is cool too.
There is also cold-brewed coffee - which is an entirely different animal than iced coffee. I hope to get a chance to try out this trendy beverage soon, so stay tuned to the blog and to Facebook to see what I think of this iced coffee cousin.
Summer and iced coffee go so well together!
How do you like your iced coffee? Let me know in the comments section below!
Yesterday I tried a new recipe for an egg strata from Rachael Ray. The recipe that I made was in the June 2016 issue of her Rachael Ray Every Day magazine that was given to me by a friend. This recipe caught my eye because of the way it was combining some fairly regular ingredients in a new and interesting way.
This strata recipe combined chunks of onion bagel, onions, eggs, swiss cheese, and pancetta into one single casserole. As I was putting the dish together it reminded me of some kind of combination between a egg bake and a french toast. By far my favorite part of prepping the dish was cooking down the onions. The onions were cooked down in butter and the pan drippings from the pancetta, and any time you get to cook in bacon/pancetta fat it's a fabulous thing. If it weren't so expensive and unhealthy I would eat bacon with every meal.
Onions cooking in butter and bacon fat
Once the dish was all put together, it sat for 10 minutes, and then baked for about 40 minutes. The directions say to bake for about 45 minutes, and since our oven tends to run hot I checked after 40 minutes and everything looked perfect.
Finished onion bagel strata
I did make some changes to the recipe for my household: I didn't want to spend tons of money on pancetta, so I used some thick cut bacon instead, and everything turned out just fine. Similarly, I didn't want to spring for the expensive gruyere, so I used a nice swiss. It ended up being a little sweet, and really full of great onion flavor. Ultimately, the dish came out probably much similar to how it would without the substitutions, and I doubt that unless you were trying to make a REALLY good impression you wouldn't care on a day-to-day basis.
If you would like to try your hand at making Rachael Ray's Onion bagel strata, you can find the recipe on her website HERE. Happy cooking!
Ramen. When most people think of ramen noodles, they think of poor college students heating water in the the tiny microwaves above their micro-fridges and slurping the noodles and broth like it was going out of style. I did too - until I starting thinking about how those noodles act as a perfect blank slate for any number of creative food tastes and pairings. So I started using my imagination and created, and this is what I have come up with: my ramen bowl.
Ramen reconsidered
This is ramen noodles cooked in lightly salted water (none of that super-salty broth) and drained, sprinkled with some sharp cheddar cheese, layered with with minced onions and red peppers, fried egg, and some chopped scallions. A few splashes of hot sauce round out the dish. When you cut into the fried egg, the runny yolk mixes in with the melty cheddar to make a sauce, while the egg white and veggies provide some body to the meal, and the noodles act as a medium for it all to be consumed.
Breaking open the fried egg
This is one of my favorite go-to meals to make for myself anytime I feel like I need something substantial for lunch. The great thing about this dish is that it is highly customizable. The veggies I used here can be swapped out for other veggies, the cheese can be whatever cheese you have on hand, and you can even add meat such as ham or cooked chicken to up the flavor also. If you don;t like eggs, you can omit the egg and just use some of the cooking liquid from the noodles to help make the sauce.
Share in the comments what your "ideal" ramen bowl would contain. Remember - use your imagination, and reconsider this versatile and inexpensive noodle.
Yesterday, we went to my sister's house for a birthday party for my niece. After we had been there a while my sister came up to me and asked "Has my husband talked to you about cooking the hot dogs yet?"
"No..." I replied.
She called him over. "Hey, have you asked Nate about grilling yet?"
"No, I just assumed he would be up for it."
I confirmed that I would indeed be up for it and that it was not a problem. Of course I would cook the hot dogs for my niece on her birthday as I did the year before, and just as I had cooked the BBQ chicken and the hot dogs the year before that. I guess it's one of the things about being a good cook - everyone always expects asks you to cook at parties. The other thing about it is - I really don't mind.
Nate working the grill
I love cooking, I love when people get to eat my food, and when I can cook for an entire party full of people, I do it. Even if all I am cooking are the hot dogs. Because I will make sure those hot dogs are the best hot dogs I can cook, and that everyone who eats a hot dog has a smile on their face. Because in my mind - I put that smile there. I made that smile happen. That's why I love doing what I do, and why I will always be up for working the grill. Or the griddle. Or the stove.
Tasty hot dogs!
As we were leaving and saying our goodbyes to friends and families, my sister's mother-in-law says to me "We're inviting you to our next party." You can probably guess why - and by now you know my answer.
So you may be reading this and figuring that DUDE just makes sense. I'm a guy, starting a blog, of course I'm going to refer to myself as a dude, right? Well there is more to it than just that. Yes, the term "dude" does bring a certain "cool" factor, but there is also the matter of my employment. I stay at home with my two boys - something that is becoming more and more common these days. They even have a term for these guys: "Stay At Home Dad", and this is often shortened to SAHD. The acronym, while fitting, is rather...well....sahd. No one wants to go around introducing themselves as a "SAHD". We stay-at-home Dads deserve a better acronym.
All of those Dads who are staying home with kids, managing schedules and changing diapers deserve a better acronym than SAHD. The people over at Fatherly.com did some thinking and came up with a list of better acronyms for those men who are also domestic fathers. For some of the options they came up with 15 you can read about here. After reading these and deciding that none of them really fit me all that well, I went on ahead and developed my own.
Daddy
Under Domestic Employment
Now while it might be slightly misleading to think that I actually have some kind of job outside the duties and responsibilities of my Dad-dom, any person who has done this will tell you straight up that raising kids is a job. It just depends on your life situation as to whether that is your ONLY job or not. Based on my business card, my job duties currently include, but are not limited to:
Chauffeur
Nurse
Dragon Rider
Executive Chef
Tech Support
Sanitation Engineer
Life Coach
Handyman
Batting Practice Pitcher
Head Landscaper
Chief Conflict Resolver
Homework Tutor
Entertainment Coordinatior
Jedi Knight
Go ahead and read the article, and leave your thoughts in the comments section. What is the best acronym for those dads who take the primary role in keeping the house and raising their children? And if you're interested in my shirt - which was recently featured on Huffington Post and a number of other websites - it can be purchased in T-shirt (men's and women's sizes) and sweatshirt form, from the National At-Home Dad Network
Tonight I will not post about something I made. However, I will give a huge shout out to one of my favorite places to go out to eat - Iron Hill Brewery.
Iron Hill Media Location
photo from www.ironhillbrewery.com
For those of you who are NOT in the Philadelphia area, I will say that you are absolutely missing out on a treasure. They have twelve locations throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, and boast on-site brewing at each of their locations. Their beers have been awarded medals at the World Beer Cup as well as the Great American Beer Festival. And for good reason - this stuff is GOOD. They have a selection of house beers that will appeal to all tastes that are available at every location, and each location houses a master brewer who will create unique beers at each location.
Not only this, but their food is also outstanding, and their atmosphere is very family friendly. We have enjoyed dinners out with just our family and with friends as well, and have never been disappointed in the food, the beer, or the service. If you live in the area and have NOT dined at one of their locations. Do yourself a favor and make a date. You don't have to be a beer lover to enjoy it I promise you. The food alone is worth the trip.
On top of all of this fabulousness, May at Iron Hill is Burger Month. They spend the entire month giving a new burger each day throughout the month, and pairing it with one of their beers. If you are inspired to try them out before the month is over, you can check out the remaining burger schedule HERE. Check them out!
Grandpa Munster Burger
Today I ordered the specialty burger, the Grandpa Munster burger, and paired it with their Vienna Red Lager. The burger came cooked as I ordered, topped with muenster cheese and loaded with apple smoked bacon, cooked onion, and barbecue sauce.
Special thanks to my cousin, who babysat the kids and made this fabulous evening possible.
So this morning was kind of crazy. I did not sleep well last night - for whatever reason I was up and/or tossing and turning half the night. Then with the kids up early and the alarm going off I was up way too early for how much I slept. But kids do not wait, so up I was getting breakfast cereal in bowls, kids changed out of pajamas and diapers changed. Somewhere between getting my wife out the door to work and dealing with the super-large emotions of a 6-year old boy I forgot to get myself breakfast.
It took me until about 9am to realize this, so thankfully it is a beautiful spring day and I got the kids outside and playing in the yard so I can get myself fed. Messaging back and forth with my wife, she realized she had not eaten either. So when I sent a picture of what I had made myself for breakfast, she was immediately jealous. Her response was "Oooh, are those eggs on onion bagel?" Yes, dear. Yes they are.
Fried eggs on a toasted onion bagel
Sometimes it is the simplest things that are nicest. This is nothing special, but the combination of the fried egg with the onion bagel is very tasty. The egg was seasoned simply with some kosher salt and pepper. I spread a little butter to the toasted bagel before topping with the egg, and then a few splashes of hot sauce on top for a little kick.
The trick to a nice fried egg is to get the pan nice and hot so it doesn't stick. Sometimes we think that more oil or less heat helps food not stick but the opposite is true. High heat creates a very thin layer of steam between the food and the pan, which reduces sticking. Also, you only need a very thin layer of oil - just enough to coat the pan and prevent the initial sticking and add a little flavor to the food.
Have I given YOU egg envy? Go forth and fry eggs! If you break the yolk don't despair. I promise after just a few tries you will get it down. That and they will still taste yummy. Worst case scenario is you end up scrambling the eggs, put the two halves of bagel together with a bit of cheese and you have a sandwich. How bad is that?
Those who are in the know, know. Pixar does a great job making movies. Not just movies for kids, but movies in general. They've taken us inside the secret lives of toys, under the sea, into the closet to where the monsters live, inside the head of a young girl, and into a world populated by automobiles.
But by far my favorite movie from Pixar studios is Ratatouille.
If you're not familiar, it's the story of a rat who figures out how to cook and ends up puppeting a human being. Of course, since rats are not allowed in kitchens, hilarity ensues along with a happy ending for everyone - because it's Disney and it's a kid movie. But the climax of the movie is centered around one final dish, prepared for the primary nemesis - a food critic. That dish is a take on the peasant stew ratatouille, arrayed in a shallow baking dish and cooked en papillote - or under parchment paper.
Recently, I found a recipe for this dish and began making it. It is like bringing a bit of the movie back into real life. The recipe can be found HERE on Allrecipes.com. I do mine in a oval pan, mostly because I like how it looks better.
Ratatouille before cooking
The easy way to keep all of the ingredients in the same order is to use separate tupperware bowls for each of the veggies. Once you have sliced your summer squash, zucchini, eggplant, and red peppers put them in the order you want to have them in the dish, and go from one end to the other. Here is mine in process.
Ratatouille in process
Once you have the dish cooked, I highly recommend serving with some fresh soft bread (this is my homemade oatmeal bread) and some mascarpone cheese. The cheese melts and gives the overall dish some lovely creaminess. It is also fantastic spread directly onto bread. Like butter, it will melt into the bread and add a level of fatty creaminess that pairs wonderfully with a fresh loaf of bread.
Mascarpone on bread
Of course - as difficult as it can be to cook a dish in a professional kitchen, It can be doubly difficult when your kitchen looks like this:
My kitchen "helper" tonight...
Regardless of my "helper", I did manage to end up with a very nice looking plate, once everything came together.
Ratatouille topped with mascarpone quenelle with a slice of fresh bread
If you're not familiar with the term quenelle, its a fancy term for a three sided shape of anything that it soft or moldable, like mascarpone cheese or ice cream. I had my 6-year old act as a cameraman so that you can see just how easy it is to make these fancy-looking toppers.
And just when it couldn't get any better - it does.
What do you think my two boys ate tonight - this fabulous meal with soft fresh bread and creamy mascarpone cheese, or something completely different?
If you went with option two, you'd be correct.
Liam's Plate
Ezra's Plate
Oh well - can't win them all. One day they will be old enough to appreciate the cooking they get. Until then, I just keep cooking like I do and their tastes will catch up sooner or later. Right?
If you are like me, when you hear the word "scone" you picture some kind of difficult to make tea treat from some stuffy English drawing room that looks like it came right from the set of Downton Abbey, right?
Well you and I couldn't be further from the truth. Scones are a versatile and tasty treat, and they are good for breakfast or for an anytime treat. I was daunted by scones, until I found this recipe from Rachael Ray in a magazine. Her Raspberry Almond Scones are simple to make and are easy to customize. My wife asked me to make a batch of these as a grab-and-go breakfast for her, and she loves them. They are soft, fluffy, and oh so flavorful!
I did find that they spread a bit more than I initially expected which also led to them cooking faster than I had expected also, so keep an eye on these as you bake them. I will try to work on the method and recipe, and will share any tweaks I come up with or additional flavor combinations that turn out to be tasty.
Sometimes kids ask the darndest questions! While eating dinner tonight, my 6-year old asked "Where does fish come from?" So his Mom and I answered, "From fish." He acted shocked, but that didn't seem to deter him from snapping up all of the tastiest bits of the portion that was put in front of him.
Salmon Dinner - arrayed family style
The portion in question, was of my pan-seared salmon that I love to make. It is as easy as it is tasty, and I will give you the secret right now - use your oven. Yes, finish the salmon in the oven using an oven-safe skillet or frying pan. You will not be disappointed. Guaranteed.
Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. Prepping your salmon fillet by checking for rib bones (not every store will get them all out every time, so always check) and sprinkling with some kosher salt and pepper. Top with some herbs like thyme and marjoram, and then coat with some olive oil. Then get your skillet or frying pan nice and hot over high heat, and melt about 1/2 tsp of butter in the pan and coat the bottom of the pan. Carefully lay the fish - flesh side down - into the pan and don't move it for at least 3 minutes. This will give a good sear on the meat and give you those crispy edges that are almost sweet.
Close-up of the crispy edges on the salmon
Once the flesh has a good sear, turn the fillet over and place the skillet in the oven for about 7-8 minutes - depending on how thick the fillet is. Once you have done it a few times (and once you have those crispy edges you will come back for more) you will get a sense for how your oven cooks and how long you need to bake the fish based on how thick it is.
How can you say no?
Do yourself a favor and add fish to your meal plan. It is healthy, low in saturated fats, high in Omega-3 fatty acids, and very tasty on top of all of that. Add some sautéed green beans and some lovely pearl couscous (cooked in stock of course) and you have an extremely tasty meal that is ready in only about 15 minutes start to finish!
Sometimes in life, it's the simple pleasures that are the nicest. And there is nothing more inherently simple than spaghetti and meatballs. You boil water, put in the pasta, cook the pasta, drain the pasta, cover with sauce, add meatballs and serve. Yes, I use jarred pasta sauce - don't judge. You know you do too!
The main course - linguine and meatballs
Last night I made up a really nice, simple pasta dish. Linguine with red sauce, homemade meatballs, and a caprese-style salad. The meatballs I made with meatball mix meat blend, and added in some salt, pepper, basil, oregano, allspice, and parmesan cheese as a binder. These were browned in a skillet until cooked all over, then simmered in a little water to finish them off. Sometimes I finish them in the oven, but this method seems to work out nicely as well.
Caprese Iceberg salad
The salad was made by tossing some iceberg lettuce with baby spinach, halved cherry tomatoes, bits of fresh mozzarella, and a basil chiffonade. A Chiffonade sounds super-fancy, but it is super easy. All you need to do is roll up the leaves into a tight bundle, and slice down the length of the leaves leaving yourself a nice-looking chop on your herbs. This was topped with a lovely robust Italian vinaigrette.
Sometimes life throws you curveballs. You can either shorten your stroke and make contact or you can swing for the fences and hope you hit it out of the park. Last night I was thrown a dinner curveball. We were out looking for a new washer/dryer unit for our place - and since we have some space constraints we had to go to a few places to get the best deal. So we ended up getting home right about 5:30, and I had done nothing for dinner yet. No prep, no pre-cooking, nothing. So I had to grab and go from the fridge and slap something together last minute.
Slapdash dinner
So we ended up with a few frozen hamburgers that were hanging around, sautéed zucchini, and some boxed macaroni and cheese. The burgers were especially nice - right when I started cooking them I tossed on a sprinkle of salt, pepper, and a little onion powder on each side to give them all a nice flavor. the zucchini I tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper and cooked up in a frying pan. I had intended to grill the burgers and the zucchini, but my grill was out of propane - just another curveball.
My wife made the suggestion of putting the zucchini on top of the burgers, and along with some ketchup this made the burgers twice as good. It would have been better grilled, but for tonight we ate and ate well, so that is what's most important.
Lunches on the weekends around here are often scattered and disorganized. The 1-year old gets whatever he is eating at the time, normally some yogurt, possibly some leftovers, and fruit. The 6-year old has a grilled cheese, leftover pizza (if there is any), a sandwich, or some kind of pasta. My wife and I often look around for what leftovers we need to use up and try to eat those.
I am known for dressing up leftovers for myself, and often my wife will get leftovers for herself and then see what I made for myself and want me to make that for her instead. Today, I decided to make a double portion of the leftover upgrade for the both of us, and I used the carnitas that we made the other day to make some loaded nachos.
Loaded Carnitas Nachos
I started by putting a good layer of blue corn chips into an oven-safe dish. Then I topped with some shredded cheddar cheese, sliced cherry tomatoes, a healthy dose of leftover carnitas, and finished off with a little more shredded cheddar. This then cooked in the oven at 250 degrees for about 10 minutes or so - just to make sure that everything was warmed through and the cheese was nice and warm. Then I topped the whole dish off with a little of the salsa verde I also had laying around.
Fan. Tas. Tic.
The perfect nacho bite - a bit of everything!
I mean, who can go wrong with a tasty meat smothered in cheese with some fresh veggies and a tasty sauce - especially delivered on a tortilla? No one can.
Friday night in our house is pizza night. Every Friday night I make my homemade pizza dough, throw on some sauce and cheese, put some toppings on one of the pies, and chow down. Except that last night - somehow - I have no mozzarella cheese. None. I searched throughout the fridge for even a partial bag but to no avail. What's a DUDE to do? I could have run out to the store to buy some, but my oldest was throwing a fit about not being allowed to watch a movie tonight, so my options were limited. After reviewing what I had on hand I decided to improvise.
The first pie I made pretty standard, except that I shredded some muenster cheese instead of mozzarella. I figured that since it was a soft, mild cheese it would serve as a decent replacement for the mozzarella. Reviews were positive overall, but it was clear that this was a replacement lineup and the original would have been much better.
The second pie was less divergent. Ricotta cheese made this white pizza easier to manage the loss of the mozzarella, and it was topped with onions, red peppers, olives, and Italian spices to complete the picture.
It's always difficult for me to split my attention in the kitchen, and a humungous tantrum from a 6-year old is a mega-attention hog. The white pizza ended up being a little more crispy than I normally cook my pizza, but we'll forgive the pizza and the kiddo. Dinner is served and it is tasty - and that's the most important thing.
So in making the carnitas yesterday, the recipe called for 2 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk. Sweetened condensed milk comes in 14oz cans. So once I had measured in the appropriate amount into the carnitas, I was left with most of an open can of the stuff. So what do you do with it? Make ice cream.
There is a simple way to make ice cream with just two simple ingredients: sweetened condensed milk and whipped cream. First whip a cup of heavy cream until stiff peaks form, then fold the sweetened condensed milk gently into the whipped cream until everything is combined and freeze overnight.
Vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate chips
Before you freeze you can customize the base to your hearts content. The basic recipe is itself very sweet, so you don't need to add any additional sugar to the mixture, but extracts like mint or vanilla work great. You can also fold in some chunks like chocolate chips, chopped candied ginger, or chopped walnuts. Last night I made two smaller batches. One I made vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate chips and the other I made ginger ice cream with chunks of chopped candied ginger.
Ginger ice cream
Honestly, the base comes out a little TOO sweet for me, so I like to use a little more whipped cream than I was able to last night, but that's a personal preference for me. Overall if you're looking for a way to get rid of some sweetened condensed milk that you had to open, you can do a lot worse than making some ice cream - especially when it's really this easy!
Today's meal was carnitas - which is a slow-cooked pork - served with a salsa verde cruda and homemade tortillas.
I found the carnitas recipe in a gifted Better Homes and Gardens magazine, as well as the recipe for the salsa. The carnitas were tender and pulled apart very easily, and came out full of great flavor. They needed a little splash of color, so I added just a few minced red bell peppers on top to make them look super pretty. The recipe made plenty for all of us here, plus plenty for leftovers the next day - Yum!
The tortillas were easy to make and easier to eat. Fluffy, warm off the skillet, and fresher than any other tortillas I have ever had. Without space to keep a tortilla press, I used a glass pie plate to press my tortillas on a cutting board between two layers of parchment paper. They came out a little smaller than I had expected, but that may have been due to a small edge around the bottom of the plate that kept me from pressing out any further. I will have to perhaps try rolling out some with a rolling pin or maybe some other flat pan next time. Stay tuned!
My wife found that the tortillas didn't even need the carnitas - just a little salsa verde cruda!
This salsa was simple to make and just a perfect condiment to the meal. Tomatillos, avocado, garlic and a jalapeño pepper blended together make this salsa cool but with just the right amount of kick.
My name is Nathan Hill. I started cooking when I first moved out of my parents' house, and at the time I could barely make boxed macaroni and cheese without screwing it up somehow. At the time I didn't have much of a choice, so I started to teach myself to cook. I watched The Food Network CONSTANTLY, and kept trying new things. Slowly, eventually, I developed into a decent cook. Then I became a really good one - at least according to my friends and family. I find that I really enjoy making things from scratch whenever I can, as it often saves money and increases the quality of the food by quite a bit.
I get joy from cooking something new, and from having my friends and family enjoy my cooking. I like seeing their faces when I get a dish just right. For me cooking is an artistic outlet, as much as the finished product as in the process. I use spices like an artist uses splashes of color, not by any recipe but in bits and guesses. No two dishes are ever exactly the same with me, even when I use the same recipe. I am constantly testing and trying new things, and finding ways to create food from scratch.
A lot of the "from scratch" cooking started when I left my corporate job and began staying at home with my two boys, who are 6 and 1. My wife loves coming home from her day of work to find dinner cooking, and she is constantly coming up with new ideas for me to try. She is often the inspiration behind many of my new dishes, mostly because she will say "How about you make this," or "How could you combine this and that. She is my first taste-tester and quality control, and throughout our 11 years of marriage I have been the primary cook in the household.
One of my #lifegoals is to go back to school and take some culinary classes. Not necessarily to work in food service, but just to expand my knowledge and skills. I want to be able to more expertly apply food science and different cooking techniques to my own kitchen and my own meals.
So you may be reading this and figuring that DUDE just makes sense. I'm a guy, starting a blog, of course I'm going to refer to myself as a dude, right? Well there is more to it than just that. Yes, the term "dude" does bring a certain "cool" factor, but there is also the matter of my employment. I stay at home with my two boys - something that is becoming more and more common these days. They even have a term for these guys: "Stay At Home Dad", and this is often shortened to SAHD. The acronym, while fitting, is rather...well....sahd. No one wants to go around introducing themselves as a "SAHD". We stay-at-home Dads deserve a better acronym.
My name is Nathan Hill. I started cooking when I first moved out of my parents' house, and at the time I could barely make boxed macaroni and cheese without screwing it up somehow. At the time I didn't have much of a choice, so I started to teach myself to cook. I watched The Food Network CONSTANTLY, and kept trying new things. Slowly, eventually, I developed into a decent cook. Then I became a really good one - at least according to my friends and family. I find that I really enjoy making things from scratch whenever I can, as it often saves money and increases the quality of the food by quite a bit.
