Fresh Food Friday "Hey...This is Pretty Good!" Edition

Still plugging away, working through Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen" cookbook, and I was really skeptical about this one, you guys. It sounded kind of like a mismash of all sorts of stuff, and I just wasn't sure I'd like it. Check out the recipe, and you'll see what I mean. Aren't you a little skeptical? I sure was.

At any rate, I gave it a shot:

I did this a little bit the semi-homemade way, and just bought one of those $5 rotisserie chickens from the store, rather than seperatly prepare a chicken. Mayo, relish, eggs. Bada-bing. The eggs are new to my grocery store, they're called "Grazing Fields" eggs, and they're farm fresh. They're so fresh, a number of them actually still have the stamp on them from what field they came out of! You can purchase them for 40 cents per egg, or $4 for a dozen at any Busch's, if you're in SE Michigan.

Deboned chicken and shelled eggs!

Cut and dice them in to bite sized pieces like so:

Add the mayo and relish, stir, and bingo-bango;

Chicken salad!

I was really skeptical of this one, like I said, it seemed like sort of a mismash of stuff. But this was really good. I was pleasantly surprised! For a wide variety of flavors, none were particularly overwhelming, they work really nicely together. One of the notes in the book is from Trisha's sister, who says she's known to have this in the mornings spread on toast, and I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far with it, but it's really good!

None of the picky eaters in my house have tried this yet, and there's a lot here to trip them up anyway - my son doesn't like pickle, and my husband doesn't like mayo. With a different method of serving, I believe this would be gluten free or darn close to it, but my vegetarian friends would have trouble here - chicken and egg is a lot of substitutions to make! 

Last weeks "Fresh Food Friday" edition - which also included eggs, mayo and pickle relish, is over here!

Fresh Food Friday - "Team Garth Vs. Team Trisha" Edition

Still plugging away through Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in a Oklahoma Kitchen" cookbook, and I found a curious recipe - "His and Hers Deviled Eggs". If you didn't already, you've got my attention now Trisha. What do ya got?

In the notes for the recipe, she explains that she and Garth's moms each made Deviled Eggs differently when they were growing up, and she couldn't really decide which to feature, so she decided to feature them both. Try them both, eat the one you like.

And the "Hers" version is kindly reprinted by Food Network, here.

The merry band of misfits, as they were. The yellow mustard and the mayo get used for both sides, the butter and relish each only make one appearance. As I was making this at 11:00 pm, I literally made myself A deviled egg. That's why you only see the one. The hydrogen peroxide and dum dum pop are photo bombers, they're not included (but they're strangely good luck for me, the only versions of this shot that I liked were versions that they were included in. Pictures. They're weird.)

Team Garth:

Mustard, butter, and mayo. Add yolk. Stir. And I was tinkering with the quantities quite a bit, because the recipes were written for 12, and I was making one. This is a dramatically scaled down version. And I did discover that this mixture grows quite a bit, so if you like this one...apply sparingly. You'll get it everywhere.

Team Trisha:

Basically the same, but the butter has been replaced by pickle relish. Add your yolk, stir. This mixture grows a little not nearly as much as the mixture from Team Garth does though.

Salt. Pepper. Serve.

The "Team Trisha" final product.

The "Team Garth" final product. I wonder if I'd come up on the shrunk down quantities a bit more scientifically than I had, if this growth wouldn't have happened the way that it did, but do you see what I mean by growing? It's everywhere!

So I've sampled both now. And I can tell you that I am unequivocally, no questions asked, Team Garth on this one. I'm not picky, I've got no particular food allergies, but there's just something about the combination of pickle and mustard that I just really don't like. The "Team Garth" egg was much more mild. I don't think anyone can argue that "Team Trisha" makes a much more cosmetically attractive egg, but long live Team Garth!

Since I usually talk some about allergies - unless I've really missed something, there's nothing in here gluten free, but there is - as there seems to be in her recipes - dairy at every turn. So you'd have to work that one out. It seems like the substitution for the mayo would be easy enough, but I don't know how you'd work around that big EGG problem.

Digging these recipe walk throughs? Check out last weeks!

Did you see this recipe here? If so, welcome!

Fresh Food Friday - "Cheese wad" Edition

We're back this week, on another recipe walk through! Still trucking through Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in a Oklahoma Kitchen", working on her Ranch Dressing Cheeseball this week, or as the header notes affectionatly describe it, the "cheese wad". Story goes, her sister made this recipe once, but didn't get the quantities exactly right, which made it more like a "wad" than a spread, and "cheese wad" was what their dad always called it afterwards.

Aaah, dads. Am I right?!

As always, as this recipe isn't legally mine, I can't reproduce it, but Food Network can!

So, these are the usual suspects:

Cheese, cream cheese, and mayo. The holy trinity. Or something.

At any rate, the gist is room temperature cream cheese and cheese, mix them up. So this recipe starts out, as almost all the recipes we've been through together so far have, looking like this:

Cream cheese. Shredded cheese, you know the drill. Now, for this one, I didn't make the entire recipe. Or, I didn't set out to. I basically ended up doing it. At any rate, I didn't use the whole envelope of ranch dressing, I just took a table spoon out of it, and it was still a TON of ranch flavor. Like, a ton.

I didn't show buttermilk in the picture (because pro tip? Use regular milk, whatever you've got in the house, and a splash of vinegar. Performs just like buttermilk in cooking), but after you get the entire mixture put together:

And you mix it:

You wrap in plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer to set. Or, if you're like me, you put it in the freezer to set, eat dinner, watch the entirety of the Bruce Jenner Interview on ABC, and then go "Aww, man! Cheese ball!" In which case, you remove the now frozen cheese mixture from your freezer, allow it to thaw until it's pliable, and then form into balls.

Decorate with the pecans, and serve!

Ta-daaaaah! Cheese ball!

The cheese mixture is actually very good, for as strange as it sounded like it was (I know when I think "cream cheese", my second thought is not typically "Ooh, I could go for mayo!"). But I halved the ranch seasoning, and still ended up with way too much ranch dressing flavoring in this. You need much, much less ranch dressing flavoring than this recipe calls for!

As for the picky eater test, my son had already gone to bed by the time I was done, but I got my husband to try it. He went "Hey, that's pretty good, for all the ranch dressing flavor..." Since it is fresh, I'm hoping that flavor mellows some, but yowza. That's some serious ranch, y'all.

Like these recipe walk throughs? Me too! I've done others!

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Welcome!

Fresh Food Friday - This Time, With Black Eyed Peas!

This week, we're plugging on through Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in a Oklahoma Kitchen", with her Black Eyed Pea Dip. I can't legally print the recipe for you here, but I can't actually find it online either, so we're gonna talk about it. All abstract like.

The police line up:

I jiggered with the quantities a little bit, and in at least one case, the ingredients. The recipe called pickled jalapeno, but knowing that I intended to third the recipe, I didn't want to fuss with procuring pickled jalapeno just to use one, so I went fresh.

The gist is, as the gist typically is...mix together. And at this point, I couldn't help but think that if you just stopped right here, you'd have a great chance at selling black eyed peas to your picky eaters who might not otherwise try them. Cheese. Cheese!

Once you've got the mixture otherwise together, add butter (which I'll spare you pictures of, cause that is not cute). And then for serving, the recipe notes say that she'll commonly serve this like during football parties and that sort of thing, so she'll often just put it in a crock pot, and leave it out with some chips. Or, simplified; heat and eat.

Which I did:

It doesn't come out quite so yellow, the lights in my kitchen are really warm, I guess. :)

I honestly can't make up my mind what I think about this dip! I think I liked it better as a little cold salad! Warm...it's like you lose all the flavors a little bit. It just becomes a buttery, cheesey...thing. Cold, all the ingredients retain their own flavor, and it felt kind of bright and summery. 

I think, if I were to make this again, it'd probably get made as a black eyed pea side dish - I do believe this is a crafty way to sell black eyed peas to people who might not otherwise try them, but if I had to pick one of those special, "I'm only making this cause it's your birthday" type of recipes...this wouldn't be it.

So I don't love it, I don't hate it. It just is what it is. Black eyed peas and cheese.

Like these recipe walk throughs? Me too! I've done more - like this one!

Fresh Food Friday - Meatball Edition!

I had such a blast walking through a recipe with you guys last week - and you guys seemed to enjoy it, it's been one of my best received posts - so I thought we'd do it again!

We're again working out of Trisha Yearwood's cookbook, "Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen", making her "Sausage Hors d'Oeuvres". Which again, legally since the recipe isn't mine, I can't reprint. But Food Network can!

My son rarely takes interest in anything I blog about, but when he found out that these guys:

were all that stood between him and some meaty deliciousness, he wanted in. And kudos to the Easy Cheese for the photo bomb (right side, in the corner), I didn't see that until just now.

At any rate, the recipe is fairly straight forward. Mix the sausage (it actually took two tubes), cheese (it took a little less than this whole package), and Bisquick. Bake. Enjoy. The Bisquick was the real trip - the recipe calls for 3 cups of Bisquick, which is the entire box of the Gluten Free size. By about a cup and a half, I was having trouble continuing to mix the Bisquick in. So just go by feel a little bit. The recipe also suggests spicy sausage. If you have spicy fans, go nuts. I have fussy eaters, so I went with bacon, because even the fussiest eaters I know love bacon and cheese.

Try as it might, fresh meat doesn't take a great picture. But we put the ingredients into a bowl, and went for it.

Bisquick. See how it just takes everything over? It was everywhere, and that was at half what the recipe called for!

Once you get them well mixed, pat in to balls, and bake.

Fresh and yummy! Mine didn't show up nearly as pretty and food styled as Trisha's did (plus, I'm new to these recipe walk throughs, I'm still working on the whole food styling thing, hah!), but darn it, they are tasty. I tried mine with a little dip of grape jelly, and could see them going well on any brunch buffet. My son thought the grape jelly idea was gross though.

As for the common allergen warning: Great Value Cheese is gluten free, as is the GF Bisquick, but Jimmy Dean does not guarantee that their sausages are gluten free. So you could swap for a guaranteed GF sausage, and be good there. No eggs, tons of dairy.

These little protein bombs are guaranteed to please even the fussiest eaters, I recommend them, for sure!

See you later, lovelies!

Like recipe walk throughs? Me too! I've talked about them before! Like here for example!

Fresh Food Friday!

If anyone reads my blog, you know that I do dearly love to challenge myself. Sometimes the results come out a little fair, sometime stuff isn't quite the challenge I thought it was.

Today, I'm reaching way outside the beauty box, and I'm actually going to try sharing a recipe with you!

I made the Cheese Straws that are on page 21 of Trisha Yearwood's "Georgia Cooking in a Oklahoma Kitchen" cookbook. I have made several recipes out of this book so far, and have greatly enjoyed them. Sometimes the quantities are seemingly a little off, but the recipes are always good. I cook for two pretty picky eaters, and they've even liked everything they've tried from her book so far!

Legally, as the Cheese Straw recipe doesn't belong to me, I can not reprint it. However, Food Network sure can!

Start with 30 ounces of cheese:

When I went shopping to make this recipe, I didn't remember that it called for a specific cheese. Oops. At any rate, two blocks of colby cheese...

...cut in to hunks...

...and fed in to the food processor! It occurred to me after the fact that I could have just bought shredded cheese, and saved myself the yelling at the food processor, but what fun would that have been? And food processor? I got my eye on you, man. I couldn't find any of the attachments. My husband walks in the kitchen, and the attachments practically throw themselves out of the cabinet at the guy. Can't get the thing to lock down. He looks at it, and it practically locks itself. Like I like the guy too, but come on. Why you gotta do me that way, food processor?

I split it in to batches for this next part. Once you've got the grated cheese, instructions call for you to mix it with butter, to the consistency of whipped cream. Which the recipe says will take a half hour. The food processor threw me under the bus before, but did me a solid on this one, because I had the largest, weirdest looking bowl of cool whip I'd ever made, in about ten:

Apparently that's what you get when you mix grated, room temperature cheese with butter. Good to know, right?

So, after you've done that, set that bowl aside, and turn to the dry ingredients.

Big ups to the good people at Bob's Red Mill for this flour, which does perform exactly as regular flour does. I'm not Celiac, but I'm also not supposed to have gluten. This flour seems to perform exactly as regular white flour. It's more expensive, but the convenience is worth it!

The afore mentioned flour was joined by salt, pepper, cayenne pepper and a little garlic powder. I've now got my "dry team" and my "wet team", as Alton Brown used to say.

Slowly add dry to wet, until you get a dough like consistency.

Pro Tip: If you're making a recipe that, like this one, asks for a piping bag, a Ziplock freezer bag with a corner cut off is an excellent substitute.

Piping didn't go super smooth - a couple of the lines broke up, but piped on to the pan, and ready to go.

Guess what I learned? The dough GROWS! So, first batch joins the not at all exclusive "So it tastes good, but doesn't look real pretty" club. In the recipe, it says that if you don't have the piping bag, round them out like a cookie...

...she's probably the professional for a reason, right?

Yes she is. Cause that is one gorgeous cookie. 

The recipe makes easily enough - you'll dirty a few bowls, but you were probably going to do that today anyway. If you round them out like a cookie, they make gorgeous. Light and buttery and cheesey. Might be a good appetizer for those without much of a sweet tooth. Passes the picky eater test, cause I just had to remind my eight year old to stay out of them, because he hadn't actually eaten dinner yet!

Using the Gluten Free flour makes them gluten free, obviously. And there's no egg, so if that's your allergy, you're good there. My dairy free friends will have to play around a bit more, because there's dairy at every turn in this recipe. 

Cooking with you guys is pretty fun, "Fresh Food Friday" may become a more regular event! See you next time, lovelies!