Cooking with Braddy (and Rarity, I Guess): Black Bean Burritos

Look, it was either leave them in the picture or clean off my kitchen table, and ain't nobody got time for that!

I'll admit it - I've long disparaged the idea of the "dump and run" dinner, consisting mostly of opening various cans and jars of stuff and throwing it all together into a bowl before putting you face in it. Last night, though, I broke out another recipe from my mom's old Desperation Dinners book and learned just why the "dump and run" dinner is so delightful:

It's FAST.

The most time-consuming part of the preparation was cutting the onion and grating the cheese. As a whole, it took maybe twenty minutes to get dinner on the table. Which, you know, is good, cuz I didn't get to eat until after nine o'clock.

This is a recipe which will call for some fiddling. The core is good and simple - beans, cheese and tortillas are kinda hard to screw up - but the flavor's really missing something. I'll need to add something spicier. Maybe just "hot" salsa.

Cooking with Braddy: Spinach Artichoke Chicken

You know, if I'm going to keep doing this, maybe I should start taking some food photography classes, cuz my pics usually wind up looking kinda disgusting.

I haven't been cooking much recently, which, I think, has been a mistake.  I've been in kind of a sour mood altogether, due to probably a dozen different factors I don't think I could track down without a spreadsheet.  The act of creation, though, always manages to make me feel better, and cooking is one of the best creative acts I can manage at this point.

Found another recipe on Pinterest a couple of months ago that I really wanted to try.  I've never gotten anything with artichoke hearts outside of a restaurant, and I thought it'd be fun to try at home.  For once, I actually halved the recipe (the original serves 8), so I wound up with a manageable amount of food for leftovers.

The real draw for this dish is, of course, the sauce - cheese, spinach, and artichoke hearts.  It's... it's not bad, but it feels very fragmented, like the different flavors (all delicious) aren't really blended quite right.  I have some sort of resistance to using frozen spinach in my cooking.  I wonder if the added moisture from the frozen spinach would have helped...

Eh, I'm nitpicking.  The recipe was a success, and the chicken's really good.  Plus, artichokes.  Artichokes are delicious.

Cooking with Braddy: Pot Roast

Man, I just don't have the budget to splurge on fancy meals anymore. A big chunk of meat is usually well out of my price-range. However, I got a sizable Christmas bonus, a Saturday free of obligations, and my very own copy of the Good Eats cookbook.

Therefore: pot roast.

I suck at groceries. Often, I have trouble finding ingredients called for in recipes just because I don't know where to look in the supermarket. Alton Brown's recipe called for "tomato juice," but I went with a predominately tomato vegetable blend instead. It had a good flavor, and I don't think it hurt anything.

Also, I dropped the bottle of red wine vinegar and busted the cap.

I REALLY hate the little plastic caps that come on these things. They seem to fall to pieces at the slightest bit of pressure, even when the glass bottle stays intact. I think we'd better start calling weakling boxers "Plastic Jaw" instead, cuz that stuff is WEAK.

The meat didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped. It was pretty tough, even after 3 hours of cooking. But it had quite a good flavor, and it gave me leftovers for a few days.

Man, does anything ever taste quite as good as leftover pot roast? I think not.

Cooking with Braddy: Hot and Sour Soup

I'm a new convert to tofu. I've never really cooked with it before, but I find it a pretty satisfying substitute on those days when I try to cut back on meat. And one of my favorite tofu recipes is my dad's hot and sour soup, adapted from a recipe that he pulled from America's Test Kitchen.

I say "adapted," because I got a copy of the recipe, and I'm pretty sure that it's nothing at all like what my dad actually makes. But, then again, I also cribbed a few notes from a crock pot recipe I found on. Pinterest, so it's not like I was working directly with the undiluted recipe directly from my dad's brain. I made a lot of substitutions, cribbed a bit here and there... and I wound up with a dish that was neither "hot" nor "sour."

It was, at least, soup. Hoorah for small victories!

Cooking with Braddy: "Mayan" Hot Chocolate

I don't know who this "Stephen's" guy is, but I think we've all been had.

With the threat of snow this weekend, I thought I'd try a hot chocolate recipe I've been sitting on for nearly two years. One more time, I've gone back to the Mighty Spice Cookbook for a new recipe. It won't be long before I've posted my thoughts on all the recipes in the book.

I wanted to get a good quality chocolate bar for my first attempt at this recipe, but the Smith's by my house had a pretty poor supply of the Lindt bars I usually use. All the 70% dark chocolate bars were several months past the "Best When Used By" date. So Ghirardelli's won out.

Chocolate and chili go together amazingly well, which should be no surprise, since the two flavors pretty much grew up together. The recipe only calls for a pinch of chili flakes, so there's not really that much heat. Actually, I probably could have added more. The cinnamon, though, was a great flavor to add, and the honey adds that last bit of sweetness to really make this quite the treat.

Cooking with Braddy: Spinach and Feta Omelette

So I get home from work the other day, and I'm like, "I'm going to make me an omelette."

But then my brain's all like, "Dude, do you have a recipe for an omelette?"

And I'm like, "Not really, no."

And then my brain's like, "Have you ever made an omelette by yourself before?"

And I'm like, "Not really, no."

And then my brain's like, "Do you even like omelettes?"

And I'm like, "Not really, no."

And then my brain's like, "Then why on earth do you want to make..."

And then I jump in, and I'm all, like, "AH'MUNNA MAKE A OMELETTE!!!"

So my brain goes, "Sheesh!" and stops talking for the rest of the day.

Anyway, I made an omelette. It had feta and spinach and onions and stuff, and it was delicious.

Cooking with Braddy: Skinny Mac and Alfredo

Healthy eating is a bit of a crock sometimes. The trick isn't to add more veggies and whole grains and whatever else. No, it's just "replace all the dairy with lo-fat dairy!"

If only...

I opted to try this dish from the Skinny Moms Blog because it looked like it'd be quick and easy. Some nights I just don't have a couple hours to cook. I want something I can throw together, pop in the oven, and be done with it. This... wasn't exactly the right dish for that goal set - even if pre-made, bottled pasta sauce is one of the key ingredients. The whole thing still took me about an hour, although I imagine a good chef coulda probably knocked it out in about half the time.

Also - what's the deal with adding a single egg to mac and cheese? This is the second recipe that I've seen that adds an egg from nowhere to the mix. The final product has a good texture, though, so I guess I won't question it much.

I think it's a rule somewhere that casseroles have to look gross. They just have to. Every time I make a casserole, it always tastes good, but, man, if I were a four year old, I wouldn't eat this thing even after picking out all the slimy green things.

Here's to being a grown-up boy with a grown-up palate.

Cooking with Braddy: Gnocchi and Goat Cheese

About ten years ago (ty brdo, I'm old), I served a church mission in the Czech Republic and (more notably for the purposes of this post) Slovakia.  The national dish of Slovakia is called bryndzove halusky.  Whether that's an official title or not, the dish is truly emblematic of the country as a whole.  It's pretty simple - potato gnocchi smothered in a goat cheese called "brynza" and garnished with bacon.  Easy stuff, and totally delicious.

Too bad bryndza isn't for sale in the United States.  And that leaves me with too options:  Either find a replacement, or ship the cheese across the Atlantic Ocean.  The latter option's a bit too expensive for me, so I've experimented with some other flavors.  Feta is a decent substitute, as is the Chevrai goat cheese pictured above.

The recipe is a simple one - peel the potatoes, then grate them into a mush.  Add enough flour to turn the potato mush into a thick dough.  Cut the dough into pieces and add to boiling water.  Cook until they float to the surface, strain, and then add bacon, cheese, and just a little bacon grease (for flavor, of course).  It's heavy, filling, and, sadly, still no match for the real deal with bryndza.  But, to me, it's still comfort food, and I loves it.

I loves it so much, you guys.

Cooking with Braddy: Alleppy Shrimp Curry

Sooo... shrimp. That's something new for me. I've always been a bit reluctant to cook with seafood. Living in a landlocked state may have contributed to that decision. But I mustered the courage to give it a go, and I went back once more to The Mighty Spice Cookbook which has served me so well to find my first shrimp recipe.

I get scared of accidentally inflicting food poisoning on an unsuspecting diner every time I cook with chicken, so you can probably imagine how high the paranoia ratcheted up when I decided to cook with shellfish. Working with shrimp was a bizarre experience - probably the closest I've ever come to living in a horror film. You peel off the skin, rip off the legs, cut open the back and yank out the vein. It's appalling, and it's a lot of work.

I wound up leaving the tails on the shrimp when I cooked them, as I remember hearing once that the tails are where the fishy flavor resides. It made actually eating the dish a bit messy - I got my fingers covered in curry, which means I had turmeric nails for a few days. Which, you know, is fine, because turmeric is awesome.

The curry sauce wasn't my favorite, here - it was surprisingly mild. Needed more... spices. Which spices, exactly, I don't know. It already had mustard, ginger, and turmeric. I guess I missed my garam masala and cumin. Maybe next time.

Cooking with Braddy: Cambodian Caramelized Ginger Bananas

Guys, I've been wanting to try this recipe since I first started using The Mighty Spice Cookbook last year. I was fascinated by the thought that ginger and banana could go together (a fact that I found out for myself not too long ago). Besides, I don't make desserts too often, and something this exotic just had to be delicious.

Delicious, it definitely is. What I didn't expect, though, is that it's really easy to make. Ten... maybe fifteen minutes.

Okay, the recipe I followed actually called for the chef to make his own ice cream (from the vanilla BEAN rather than vanilla extract), but I got lazy. Store-bought vanilla ice cream tastes pretty good, too, especially when it's topped by what is essentially fresh ginger trapped in rock candy.

The ginger doesn't actually cook in the sugar syrup, though. It just sort of steeps in it, like tea, and that's enough to allow the flavor to permeate the dish. The spicy ginger is tempered by the sweet banana and ice cream, so it's a great and distinctive treat.

Cooking with Braddy: Steak with Black Pepper Dip

I spoiled myself this weekend. I tried two new recipes from The Mighty Spice Cookbook, which by know I've sampled quite a bit from. I'm pretty fond of the book - not only does it offer fairly simple instructions, but it makes recommendations on dishes that pair well together. So I treated myself to a steak and ice cream feast (more on the dessert later).

It doesn't take much to cook a good steak - a little salt and pepper, and you're good to go. I do think my preparation methodology upset my roommate a bit. He asked excitedly if I was going to grill the steak. Wen I told him I'd be frying it, he looked disappointed in me.

The treat here is the dipping sauce for the steak - garlic, lemon, oyster sauce, and, of course, lots of black pepper. It's all got a nice flavor. Definitely a bit more exotic than your usual A-1 sauce.

Cooking with Braddy: Ravioli Skillet Lasagna

Some days you just want to come home after work and cook a nice, simple dish. No fancy ingredients, no crazy techniques... Just a couple of frozen raviolis, plenty of cheese, and some bottled marinara sauce... So why for the love of pesto do I make things so complicated?

See, the above recipe (thank you, Pinterest) is really not that difficult. I thought it wouldn't be "cool" enough to just buy some marinara off the shelf, though, so I decide to go and make my own (roughly based off this Food Network recipe). Trouble is, the recipe for the sauce has a prep time of about an hour, and I just didn't wanna wait that long for my din-dins. Oh, and I replaced all those nice, convenient canned and frozen foods with fresh alternatives without really adjusting the directions at all.

Now, I've been trying to steer clear of a lot of canned foods ever since I finally looked at the nutritional facts on a can of Mandarin oranges (Daily Nutritional Value: None Percent), and, even after last night's failed experiment, that's a practice I plan to continue. Fresh is just better. More expensive, true, and sometimes more time consuming, but better.

All that said, the final result wasn't too bad. True, the tomatoes didn't break down quite like I wanted, so I wound up with a sauce far chunkier (and far less saucy) than I'd hoped for. The cheese mixture worked out pretty nice, though, and the raviolis and spinach cooked just right. If I were to go back and modify the recipe some (allow more time for the sauce to cook, and probably use more tomatoes), I think I'd have a real winner. As is... well, it's REALLY HARD to make frozen ravioli completely inedible, so at least I have some half-palatable leftovers to last me a little while.

Cooking with Braddy: Macaroni and Cheese

Mac and cheese... mac and cheese... It's a simple dish, and a long-time favorite. Ever since I discovered that the traditional blue box, storebought fare could really be jazzed up with a splash of Tabasco sauce, I've considered mac and cheese to be the pinnacle of comfort foods, up there with milk and cookies and homemade bread. Yet I've never before attempted the casserole version of the dish, perhaps remembering back to the few opportunities I had to taste the stuff during my childhood and thinking how bland it always tasted next to what I considered to be the supreme version of the dish.

Well, given the opportunity to take a peak at my mother's cookbookshelf for a tome to borrow, I walked away with the first collection of Alton Brown's Good Eats recipes, and the first thing I've attempted here is the standard casserole of the ages. Now that I've learned to appreciate subtler flavors over the more intensed, processed fare I had grown accustomed to, I thought I'd have a more favorable reaction to the dish.

Sure enough, I did. I found Alton Brown's recipe easy to follow, and it clearly directed me on how to make the sause most efficiantly. I... I don't do well with sauces. It's difficult for me to talk about, but the first time I attempted a cheesy sauce, it... Well, it...

Let's just move on.

Now, what's not to love here? A simples, strong cheesy base, some good solid macaroni noodles, and a topping of bread crumbs to add variety to the texture. It's a bit time consuming, sure, and I'll admit the dish lacks the nostalgia punch of the old blue box standby, but, for all the effort, the final product is much more rewarding.

And by that, I mean I had more than enough leftovers to get me through Memorial Day weekend.

Cooking BLENDING with Braddy: "Not Easy Being Green" Smoothies

Ahh... So the great Pinterest rush continues. I found a decent selection of smoothie recipes while browsing the boards one day. Interested in increasing my vegetable intake, I gave a few of them a try. It turns out that red pepper smoothies will always taste like red pepper (which isn't a bad thing, especially if you add a little cinnamon to the mix), but the green smoothie was the one I got most excited for.

I'll admit it: I just now realized that the recipe doesn't actually call for kale, but that's what I've been using. You have to understand - the first time I shopped with these smoothie recipes in mind, I didn't actually have the recipes in front of me. I wound up just grabbing everything that I thought sounded like it went in one of the recipes I'd read and ran with it. So when I made the "Not Easy Being Green" smoothie, I just sorta winged it. Or is it "wang it"?

Ennnh! Scratch that. It's definitely "winged it."

As seen at the link above, the green smoothie didn't do much for me. I mean, it tasted fine, but the overpowering flavor of the ginger made me feel like I was drinking medicine rather than a tasty nutritious beverage. So I did a little experimenting. Actually, I just did ONE experimenting, but it was a good one. I added a banana.

Banana has a really strong flavor that overpowers just about everything. However, ginger ALSO has a really strong flavor that overpowers just about everything. The resulting shake has a really strong, sweet taste followed by a spicy aftertaste. The two flavors complement each other surprisingly well.

With those two taste titans dominating the drink, you could probably put just about ANYTHING in there, and all you'd taste would be the ginger and banana. But that's not a bad thing. Just means you can sneak more greens in.

Cooking with Braddy: Jalapeno Burgers

As I was sitting around on Tuesday, bored with myself, I thought that the one thing that I needed to make my life interesting/complete was a hamburger.  Alas, I have recently become most disillusioned with the fast-food burger - bland bits of meat wedged unceremoniously between hunks of pumice stone that were once bread.  So I opted to make a burger on my own, which was awesome.  However, I soon fell into despondency again, for I didn't think I could find a way to make a burger more interesting than just a hunk of meat fried in a pan.

That's when I realized that I am a MAN, and I can put whatever the heck I want in my burger.  So off I went to the store, where I picked up a couple of jalapeno peppers, some garlic, and some pepperjack cheese.  I half-heartedly grabbed a tomato from the produce section, thinking the color would make the burger more interesting.  Then, yet again, I remembered that I am a MAN, and I don't have to eat no stinkin' tomatoes if I don't want to.

So I cut up the peppers, demolished the garlic with my brand-new garlic press, and smashed 'em together into the raw hamburger meat with my bare hands.  Again, because I am a MAN.

Pictured:  Not tomatoes.

Notice my repeated assertions that I am a MAN nowhere indicate that I am a cook, for I left the burgers on the stovetop a bit too long, resulting in a most unfortunate burnt condition.  The jalapenos contributed little to the overall flavor of the dish, for they were sadly casualties of the great burger burning of 2013.  Many tears were shed over their passing - although I imagine the fumes of burnt peppers in the air may have been the true cause of sorrow, rather than the loss of the peppers themselves.

Still, I ate the burgers, burnt peppers and all, because I am a MAN and I can eat anything with enough barbecue sauce drizzled on it.

Cooking with Braddy: Enchilada Stuffed Mushrooms

I spent Friday night at a cooking class with Gingerstar, which included thai chicken basil stir-fry, shrimp and mushroom soup, and mango sorbet. Good stuff, but a little too exotic for me to reproduce at home. However, the soup put me in the mood for mushrooms, and so I desperately scoured Pinterest for a good stuffed mushroom recipe. And this is what I found.

Okay, there's not a lot to say about these. They're good, and they're cheesy, and their spicy. Oh, and they're super, super easy. Just break the stems out, stuff 'em with cheese and green onions, smother with enchilada sauce (and more cheese), and cook for twenty minutes. Bam.

Cooking with Braddy: Swiss Steak Casserole

I REALLY need to read these recipes more closely before I commit to making them...

Okay, so I did the whole shopping thing on Saturday, thinking that, after a busy day of meetings and church and whatnot on Sunday, I might like to spend a nice, relaxing evening at home cooking. So I pull out this new cookbook my aunt gave me for my birthday and decide I'd give it a shot. I mean, I don't actually have a casserole dish, but I've got a glass baking pan, so I think I can handle it, right?

Well, sort of. See, first of all, I always assume that, because I only cook for one most of the time, everyone ELSE only cooks for one as well. That, of course, is just silly talk. Turns out, the food in the picture above is intended to make casserole enough for EIGHT WHOLE PEOPLE!!! Now, I can eat a lot, but unless I'm secretly pregnant with septuplets, eating the whole thing would be a bit excessive.

Then there's the cooking time - an hour and a half to cook the meat by itself, and then another hour and a half to cook the veg. Good thing I'm a patient man, otherwise... okay, I'm actually not that patient. Did get through quite a few episodes of my stories, though.

Now, there was one ingredient I couldn't quite figure out from the book, so I had to wing it a bit. The directions called for "chile sauce," which, for the life of me, I couldn't find. Eventually, I think I figured out what they were asking for, but by that point I'd already returned from shopping. So, instead of the chile sauce, I decided to go with a small can of ranchera salsa (there are chiles in salsa, right?). I'm not sure it was the flavor the recipe writer was going for, but it WAS delicious.

Plus, I now have leftovers for, like, a week.

Cooking with Braddy: Philly Cheese Steak Stuffed Peppers

Once you fall into the Pinterest hole, you can neve crawl out again...

I was in the mood for a quick and easy recipe, so I decided to dig this gem out from my Pinterest collection and give it a go. It looked pretty easy, and it definitely was... but "quick" maybe not so much. Sautéing onions and mushrooms takes a bit of time. Altogether, prep lasted about an hour, and that's. to too bad.

I used an orange pepper instead of a green pepper simply because the green peppers at the grocery store looked pretty darn awful. Now, I normally like orange peppers, but for this recipe, I think the mild sweetness of the green pepper would be better suited than the stronger orange. Pretty good, though.

Cooking with Braddy: Roasted Red Pepper and Basil Pesto Penne Pasta

I spent Easter Sunday at home by myself - which is no real surprise, since I haven't had a legitimate Easter celebration since my days of chocolate egg gathering. I may have still been in diapers. Ah, to be a teenager again...

Given a free Sunday afternoon, I like to spend some time on a new recipe. I found this one through Pinterst (as you do), and thought I'd give it a whirl. I had a pesto dish once when I was still in diapers, and I remember quite liking it.

Turns out pesto is WEIRD. The foundation of pesto is blended pine nuts... which isn't the first thing to come to mind when I'm making a SAUCE to top pasta with. From there, you add roasted red peppers and some olive oil. And, of course, a whole lot of basil. Gives the sauce a pretty strong flavor.

This dish was REALLY EASY. The most time-consuming step was boiling the water for the pasta. The dish was almost a little TOO strong for my taste... but I think I liked it, overall.

Bonus: It makes good leftovers. That's great, cuz I'll be eating it ALL WEEK.

Cooking with Braddy: Balsamic Roast Beef French Dip Sandwich

I haven't taken advantage of the shiny new crockpot I got for Christmas, which is a crime on the same level as neglecting a fully-functional blender. So, since I had a little disposable income, I decided to try out a roast.

Roasts aren't really all that difficult: put huge chunk of meat in a hot puddle until the meat won't kill you anymore. A traditional Sunday roast was actually one of the first things I ever attempted to make, so this slight variation was a bit of a step up, challenge-wise. Although, really, even here there's not much of a challenge. The puddle was just slightly more decorative than usual.

And, frankly, one might wonder what makes a roast worth prettying up, when nothing you do to the outside of the meat really affects the internal flavor. A roast is a roast, and no matter how zesty the liquid it stews in gets, it tastes just the same. BUT since that flavor is "delicious," there's not really a problem.

Still, it is a shame to let all that delicious liquid go to waste... which is why turning the roast into a French dip sandwich is such a good idea. The leftover cooking liquid makes a flavorful au jus. Balsamic vinegar tends to overwhelm every other flavor in a dish; however, here it provides a sweet foundation for the rest of the roast.

Okay, Pinterest, you win. You have my attention forever.