Cheese Popovers

I remember seeing popovers from an episode of Good Eats a few years ago. I've been wanting to try and make it from. The little printout paper cutout cards squished into a small 3x5 index card box along with a catalogue of other recipes waiting to be tried. Finally the other for some unimaginative reason these little baked goodies pop into my mind. I wasn't in the mood to bake some bread. I wanted something relatively easy. Then in came Alton Brown to the rescue. (In my mind that is) I adapted these little beauties and added some good ol' cheddar into the batter. Who doesn't love cheese in baked goods? Now I don't have a popover pan, I would like one, but I don't think it's necessary. So I used a regular sized muffin pan. I have one that bakes a dozen muffins at a time. The batter is relatively easy to mix together.  I had to adjust the timing as muffin sizes are smaller that the regular popover size. But it's deliciously addicting.

Makes 12 muffin popovers

Cheese Popovers
adapted from good eats

1 Tbsp unsalted butter - melted and cooled
1 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 c whole milk
1/2 c shredded or chopped cheddar

Preheat your oven to 400˚F.

Grease a muffin pan with the a little bit of butter.

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Pour a scoop of batter into the mold 1/2 full. Bake in the middle rack for 15-20 minutes. Remove the popovers to a cooling rack and pierce the top with a knife to let out any steam.

Serve warm.

Stuffed Roasted Bell Peppers

It's nice to be able to cook veggies once again. All the leftovers from the holidays are nearly consumed and I'm more than happy to get back into the kitchen to cook up some roasted veggies. This time choice of veggie is the bell pepper. I roasted them in the oven and while those cooked, I made some paprika rice with fresh tomato as a stuffing. This recipe is perfect if you've got some leftover white rice. I guess if you haven't figured by now that I have a love affair with paprika. It's all good in the hood. It goes well with the sweetness of the bell pepper and the savory flavor of the tomato.

Makes 2 stuffed bell peppers.

Stuffed Roasted Bell Peppers

2 bell pepper
1-2 c cooked white rice
1 medium tomato - deseeded and chopped
1/2 small sweet onion - chopped
1 garlic clove fine chopped
2 Tbsp paprika
1 tsp dry basil
1/4 salt
pepper
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (plus extra)
1/4 c shredded cheese - your choice

(note: you may used leftover rice)

Preheat your oven to 425˚F

Cut the tops off the bell peppers and scoop out the membrane and remove any seeds. Coat the inside and out of the bell peppers with a few drops of olive oil.  and place on a baking sheet. Roast in the oven for 25 minutes.

Saute the chopped garlic for roughly 30 seconds on medium heat, then add the onions. Saute until limp. Add the rice. Stir to combine. Add the tomato, paprika, basil, salt and a pinch of pepper. Stir well to combine everything for roughly 2-3 minutes.

When the bell peppers are done roasting, remove from the oven. Lower the heat to 350˚F. Stuff the rice mixture into the bell peppers. Stuff them well and let it overflow. Top with some of the shredded cheese and place back into the oven for roughly 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Sauteed Cabbage

The only time I ever eat cabbage is if it's in a slaw of some kind. Otherwise, you wouldn't really see me eat it at all. No wait...there is a Filipino stew that uses the stuff. So I take that back. I would eat it outside of the usually slaw. This was a quick little weekend lunch. From all the holiday eating, I'm taking my fill of some much needed veggies and nutrients and still adding some type of protein into the dish. I was planning on using the cabbage for something else, but I was hungry and I didn't wan to go out and buy something. The sauce of this dish is made from vegetable stock slightly thickened by a little cornstarch. In a way, creating a thick soup. It was a lazy Saturday especially with the nice weather we've had here in LA. Somehow it felt like mother nature skipped winter and went into spring.

 

sauteed cabbage

1 head cabbage - chopped
1 garlic clove
1/3 medium onion
1 12oz can vegetable stock
1 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 1 tbsp water
2 c beef, pork, or chicken - sliced - optional
pepper to taste

Heat a little extra virgin olive oil in a pan, saute the garlic clove and onion on medium heat. Add the optional meat and cook them until they are just seared. Roughly 2-3 minutes depending on thickness. Addd the cabbage and saute until slightly cooked. Add the vegetable stock and cornstarch. Bring the mixture to a slight boil stirring occasionally until the stock become thick. Lower the hear and bring to a slight simmer until ready to serve.

Serve warm.

Production Eats - No. 13

I worked Lie To Me this past week. Shot on location. Of course as a goal for myself in the new year was to watch what I eat. As many of you have seen a lot of the food served on the many sets I've been on, catering is just way too tempting not to pass up. I'm still not passing up these opportunities, I'm just serving myself less than what I used to take. Just minimizing the portions and still enjoying the food. That's one thing I've learned over the past couple of years that has helped me in terms of weight. Anyway, on to the meal.

Top clockwise: Bowtie pasta with pesto, corn risotto, Large steamed broccoli, Sauteed squash, Grilled halibut with a spicy red sauce, bread roll.

The halibut was really good compared to other fishes I've had on set. I wasn't expecting the red sauce to spicy at all, but I loved it. Definitely adds a flavor. I wish I had gotten more of the risotto and probably less pasta. Though, I love pasta like a family member. Risotto is definitely one thing I'm going to have to cook up this year -- in my list of ever-growing dishes to cook in 2010. I'm always tempted to buy a box of arborio rice when I pass them in the aisles of the market, but I just never bring myself to do it.

Side salad with fresh mushrooms and balsamic dressing, fresh fruit (canteloupe and pineapple) and a slice of vanilla cake with lemon frosting.

Of course the cake was appeasing my sweet tooth. Sometimes a meal isn't complete without the dessert. Well...for me.

Mini Pecan Pie Tarts

This was a recipe I had originally planned to make for my Thanksgiving meal. But things didn't go as planned and I had to derail this cute little pie tart for another time. Fast forward to new year's and voila. One of my favorite pies in the whole wide world is the old fashioned pecan pie. I'd eat up the whole pie before anyone could get their forks into it. Okay maybe not, but I could eat a slice or two or three in one sitting. Sad isn't it?

Traditional recipes call for corn syrup.  I'm not much a fan of the stuff, but I know it's found in a lot of the things I've eaten. So I scoured the interweb and found a recipe on All Recipes. It's contains ingredients conveniently found in your pantry and without the corn syrup. It still tastes like a pecan pie. Woohoo... It was a good way to cap off a good New Year's night meal. I simply made the filling and baked them in some keebler mini graham cracker crusts. You can make your own if you have some extra time. But the recipe below just takes a bit of a shortcut using the premade stuff.

Serve this warm or cooled along with a side of vanilla ice cream. Mmmmmm... It may be some time  before I make this again, so I enjoyed it as much as I could while it lasted. I guess there's no need for me to go to Marie Calendar's for pie.

Make 12 mini pie tarts or 1 9-inch pie

Mini Pecan Pie Tarts
adapted from All Recipes

12 keebler mini graham cracker tart cups
1 c brown sugar
1/4 c sugar
1/3 c melted unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp milk
2-3 c whole pecans

Preheat your oven to 350˚F

Cream together the butter and sugars. Mix in the melted butter. Then beat in each egg. Mix in the flour, egg, vanilla, milk. Once combine mix in the pecans

Evenly distribute the mixture among the 12 tart cups. Bake for 25 minutes. Let it cool before serving.

 

Spaghetti

This is one tomato filled spaghetti. You can resist the power of spaghetti. As my job was to make the meatball, it was my mom's turn to make the spaghetti. Nothing like a little mother-daughter time in the kitchen. Awe, those precious moments. I do love my mom's cooking. I think if it weren't for her, I wouldn't know how to cook. A lot of the basic and traditional way of cooking I learned from her.

This is a relatively super easy sauce to make since most of the ingredients involve tomatoes and nothing else. Aside from a little onion, herbs, a dash of sugar and a little sweet relish. It helps balance out the sweet and tart flavors. The Filipino way is to mix in the noodles rather than spooning the sauce over. That way you can just pick up the fork and eat up rather than having to spend another minute or two mixing things around. You can add extra sauce, if you want. I added some of the oven steamed meatballs into this and a sprinkle of chopped cheese.

Serve 4-6

Spaghetti


1 box spaghetti

1 15 oz diced tomato
2 12 oz can tomato sauce
1 5 oz can tomato sauce with basil, oregano and garlic (Hunt's brand)
      ( if you can't find this, simple add 1 Tbsp of each -- dry basil, dry and garlic powder)
1 large fresh tomato
1 small onion
3 Tbsp brown sugar
3 Tbsp sweet relish
1 tsp dry oregano
salt and pepper to taste.

saute the onions in a tiny drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Add the diced tomato, tomato sauce, fresh tomato. Stir to combine. Then add the brown sugar, relish, dry oregano. Bring the sauce to a simmer and finally season with salt and pepper. Add more if needed.

Boil some water and cook the pasta to al dente. After draining, add the noodles into the sauce and caefully stir to combine.

Serve warm with a sprinkling of cheese.

Oven Steamed Meatballs

These little rounds balls of meaty deliciousness are really tasty. Perfect alone, in a sandwich or with pasta. A lot of the time most recipes I've seen fry them up in some form or another. For these, I decided to oven-steam them. I placed them in a baking pan, evenly space and added 1/4-inch of water to the pan. It's almost like a water bath. Cover the pan with foil and baked it for 40 minutes. Since the meatballs were covered, it steamed them to deliciousness. Some of the fat renders out of the meat.

It's a mixture of beef and pork. Mmmm... with a mix of finely chopped onion and seasonings you'd find in your pantry.  I mixed these in to a spaghetti that my mom cooked up for New Year's. You'll see that recipe tomorrow.  We split the duties of this dish. I had the meatballs and she made the pasta sauce. The pasta was...well...pasta. I think a meatball sandwich is in order.

Makes roughly 24 balls.

Oven-Steamed Meatballs

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
salt
pepper
2 Tbsp paprika
1 small onion - fine chopped
1 Tbsp worchestershire sauce
lukewarm water


Preheat oven to 350˚F

Combine thoroughly the ground beef, pork, paprika, onion, worchestershire sauce in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

Divide the mixture into 24 balls and place on a 2-4 inch deep oven pan. Pour water 1/4 inch deep into the pan completely covering the bottom. Cover the pan with foil crimping the edges to tightly seal it.

Place the pan in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes.

Remove the balls from the pan and serve with spaghetti or as an appetizer ot in a sandwich.