Cooking when you’re Staying home

Today is big instapot of applesauce to go with farmers market brats and sauerkraut. It is cooler and a little dreary here too. Last night was a family favorite chicken a la king with left over rotisserie chicken and the last of farmers market corn caprese salad to go with it.

Last night was seared duck breast with a cherry port wine sauce, mashed potatoes, and asparagus served with a Joseph Phelps Pinot Noir. Dessert was carrot cake (just to show our D that such a thing exists and is, in fact, good).

Tonight I’m doing the Crispy Sour Cream and Onion Chicken only I’m going to try and bake it instead of fry. Roasted potatoes and a tomato feta salad.

I’m moving my Meatless Monday for the first time in 2020 to Meatless Tuesday because S and DIL are coming for dinner and this was the best night.

Thanks @showmom858. I am going to try that Chicken Pot Pie recipe. I love CPP, but am very hesitant after making it once from a different recipe and it was terrible. I need to try again.

I had to look up corn caprese salad and it looks delish. Seems like three very compatible flavors. And I can imagine building on it, adding to it.

Yesterday, I made the lemon-blueberry coffee cake linked on the previous page. It was a hit! Thanks, @abasket!

It’s actually cold here in AZ today. We put up our fall decorations, and I’m making an Instapot bean chili tonight.

For us, the key in CPP is getting the sauce right, taste and thickness. Any basic will do, I’ve done it plain, with a little sour cream or even plain yogurt (an accquired taste in casseroles.) I don’t usually go for some array of spices, though my mother used to make a creamy chicken thing with curry. (Not fun.)

I might make the crust (some uber simple throw it together recipe- as long as there’s enough butter and you don’t overwork it, it’ll be flaky.) Or just buy a crust (the roll out kind, so I can make it thinner or lattice it or decorate the top, whatever,) The recipe only comes in because I always forget what temp and how long.

As for crusts, I find the crust recipe for Jacques Pepin’s apple galette just about the easiest homemade pie crust ever. It is truly about 90 seconds to pull it together in the food processor. I then dump the contents onto a sheet of plastic wrap, smoosh it into a ball and wrap it up and refrigerate until I’m ready to roll it out and use it. I use this basic dough recipe and method for both sweet or savory dishes, I just omit all but the tiniest pinch of sugar if I’m using it for something savory.

https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/country-apple-galette

Marinated boneless leg of lamb, oven roasted sweet potatoes & onions and salad tonight.

I’ve been using up our freezer Covid meat stockpile. And then I’ll replenish just in case as this pandemic isn’t going away.

@abasket Thank you for the blueberry lemon coffee cake recipe. I made it yesterday and it was a huge hit with our afternoon tea! H just had a piece with his coffee and said it was delicious.

l made a sticky apple cake yesterday that turned out great. I used Alison Roman’s recipe (it’s from her newsletter)–I bought her cookbook and love most of her recipes. (She writes for the NY Times cooking section.) Also–the recipe says the cake will take 25-30 minutes–mine took 65 minutes. I’m guessing it’s a problem with my oven, but at 35 minutes the center was not baked through. https://alisoneroman.substack.com/p/a-newsletter-17

@Bromfield2’s post reminded me to post that I had a similar issue with the lemon-blueberry coffee cake. At 45 minutes in my convection oven, the center wasn’t set (at all). It took 60 minutes to fully bake. I found this odd, because the few times I’ve had to adjust baking time in that oven, it’s been less, not more. No big deal, the cake was delicious, but thought I’d mention it.

@ChoatieMom The lemon blueberry cake I baked also took about an hour and not 45 minutes.

Going to ask this question here rather than start a new thread–most of the folks posting here enjoy cooking/food/etc. We’re replacing kitchen appliances in our vacation place. Here’s my question: we bought a new Miele dishwasher, which was a back ordered, but finally arrived. The appliance place has Miele freestanding range (not a cooktop). It’s an induction range, which is something I’ve never used. I’ve always had gas ranges. Does anyone have an induction range? Do you like it? Is it as easy to lower/increase temps as gas? I know you have to use special pans–did you have to replace all our all cookware? Would love to hear people’s opinions.

I started a thread on this not too long ago. Many helpful responses.

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/2169046-induction-cooktop-vs-gas-p1.html

^^^Thanks for reposting. Good information.

With temps in the 30s and intermittent rain/snow, it was a comfort cooking day for me. Started with crock pot beef stew (new recipe that got good reviews from family at dinner), white bean, wheat berry, and kale soup for lunch, scotcharoos for afternoon snack, going to have mulled red wine/apple cider for after dinner drinks.

I made the Korean Beef recipe that was linked o this thread a few pages back. H and I give it 2 thumbs up! Plus it was quick and easy.

^^^ It’s an easy one for the rotation!

Tonight I did a chicken favorite. Brown some thin boneless breasts(salt and peppered) in olive oil in a cast iron- don’t have to cook all the way through. Remove chicken, add more olive oil lots of sliced onion, mushrooms and tonight I added some banana pepper and sunsweet tomatoes (the little orange ones. Cook until everything is browned nicely. Add chicken back in, top with some burrata and pop in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes.

Super tasty!
!

Sipped Manhattans while watching a fiery sunset backlight palms trees on the golf course. Just pizza on the grill tonight. Hunkering down with our favorite bourbons to get through the next few days.