2chow

Member Since:		July 12th 2009
Number Of Recipes:		50

2Chow Kung Pao Chicken

Some ingredients are in both marinade and sauce, so they are listed with separate recipe amounts, the first for the marinade, and the second for the sauce prepared in a separate dish.

Pan Roasted Pork Chops with Cranberry Stilton

I tasted the white Stilton with cranberries at the Giant Eagle cheese counter, and the man working there mentioned that it was great crumbled over pork chops. So I found a nice simple recipe at the Simply Recipes site, and modified it by braising in white wine (to ensure complete cooking and deglaze a terrific pan sauce). Dinner in under 20 min served with a green salad and crusty bread.

Charky's Quiche

A favorite quiche filling since the 1990's has centered on polish sausage, cheddar and broccoli. I used to have my husband make the pastry for it. Recently, when he was out of town, I modified a crust recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook to create a very easy, colorful and tasty spinach crust that only requires 15 min of prebaking (instead of an hour of chilling). For traditional crust - Cut together 1/4 cup butter chunks and 1 cup of flour (can be part whole wheat). Add dash of salt. While stirring to push dough into itself in the center of the bowl, add up to 3 Tbs cold water, milk or buttermilk, 1 Tbs at a time just until the dough sticks to itself. Roll out with flour, press into 9 inch pie plate, and chill.

Spicy Szechuan Noodles

This is a favorite in my family. My 13 year old son makes this for our dinner sometimes. I freeze chicken broth in ice cube trays and one cube works well. For my daughter that is sensitive to spicy foods, I mix the sauce up through the chicken broth, then set a little aside for her before adding the remainder. Serve with 6 oz cooked chicken or ham and cucumber, peeled and sliced thin.

Rosemary Roast Pork

This pepperoni and butter basted pork is delicious with the crisp potato roasted in the pan juices. Leftover sandwiches by griddling pork slices and potatoes and wilting spinach in olive oil - delicious on toast with some peanut sauce. This recipe was inspired by Roast Pork Romana and Albuquerque butter from the New Basics Cookbook, but really bears little resemblance to that.

Aunt Eloise's meatballs

The trick for these meatballs is that they have to be frozen before being cooked, for the best texture. This is delicious as a pot-luck or buffet food, served in a crockpot to keep warm.

Basil Pesto

This makes about 1/2 cup of pesto, which is enough for about 1/2 pound of dry pasta. If you make more, it freezes very well in ice cube trays - about 1 oz or 1 Tbs per ice cube. 1.5-2 cubes is good for each serving of pasta. It can be spread on a baguette, topped with fresh tomato, cooked chicken and cheeses (Asiago or smoked mozzarella) for a sandwich or baked as a french bread pizza.

Jacques Pepin Beef Pot Roast

I never really liked pot roasts or slow cooked beef until I found this recipe. Jacques prefers a piece cut from the flat muscle of the bottom round. The eye round that is attached to the flat looks nice but is more fibrous. An enameled 4-5 quart cast-iron Dutch oven or covered casserole with a heavy bottom and tight-fitting lid is essential. Canned chopped tomatoes or potatoes can be substituted. He suggests adding a split calf's or pig's foot at beginning for flavor and to thicken the juices to a pleasing viscosity.

Green Mango Banana Smoothie

The very best smoothie recipes I have tried use frozen fruit instead of fruit and ice cubes, and often had yogurt or silken tofu to make the creamy texture (bananas help too). After reading a website on green smoothies, I decided to make up my own, based on half a mango I had lying around. This was quickly consumed by my husband, two children and myself. Nobody could taste the spinach and it was a beautiful fresh spring green color.

Chicken Scallopine Piccata with caper berries

This dish is delicious with wilted spinach and either rice or mashed potatoes to soak up the sauce. Last time I made it, it took 40 minutes from start to eating. To save time, I wilted half a pack of baby spinach in the chicken broth and then fished out the spinach to keep it bright green while the sauce thickened. It is delicious even if you don't have the buttery olives and caper berries - I added a tad of horseradish to the capers (the smaller the buds, the better)

Red Spinach Lasagna

Some lasagna recipes are too dry (need more tomato sauce), and while they look nice, the eating is not so luscious. While undoubtedly, my friend Lori's lasagna is the best in the world, I think I have perfected the slightly different blend of flavors in this bacon infused version. As I learned from making tomato soup (for those grilled Colby on sesame semolina sandwiches), the key is to start with a good fresh tasting can of tomatoes. I am liking the Dei Fratelli brand that is readily available to me. Dei Fratelli has 190 mg sodium and 5 g sugar. Cooks Illustrated suggested Progresso tomators with basil packed in juice (they made a special point to say NOT the version with puree). The Fine Cooking Mar 2008 article on tomato soups suggested Muir Glen's organic canned whole plum tomatoes. The second essential tool is an immersion blender. Finally, after almost 30 years of cooking, I finally got a 9 x 13 x 2 baking dish, after making do with two smaller glass dishes or even the broiler tray. Make sure to waste the spinach thoroughly. We stopped making this for many years after serving gritty lasagna to friends. My husband thought he could wash spinach in the salad spinner under running water. Spinach and other greens should washed submerged in a big bowl of water, shake the leaves around and wait for the grit to settle. Repeat if necessary. Then spin dry. We have a new salad spinner from Target (the Vibe collection from chef'n) that is great! It is an enclosed salad spinner so you can submerge lettuce, dump out the outer container, spin it dry, dump out the water and store the washed greens right in the spinner).

Lao-lao's Lazy Chicken (Red cooked chicken)

After we were grown, my mother perfected what she calls in Chinese Lazy Person's Chicken (Lan Ren Ji). The chicken is slowly and gently stewed in soy sauce until the meat is tender, separating from the bones and permeated with flavor. The lazy part comes from the fact that she just puts the chicken into the pot with all the seasonings, covers it, and lets it cook. For years I could not replicate the tender, flavor-permeated texture -- I thought I would brown the chicken first, as many cookbooks claim this enhances flavor. Last fall, I finally mastered the lazy style, cooked slowly at the lowest stove setting with no added liquid other than the soy sauce and wine, checking it every 40 minutes or so to turn, and then cooking uncovered at medium heat 10-15 min before serving to cook it dry. Since I love crispy cracklings, I take all the skin and fat that I remove from the chicken and put it into an ungreased stainless frying pan. I then fry it up like bacon and the kids and I snack on the cracklings while the chicken cooks (I used to make it for the dogs, but the humans eat it up too fast). My other adaptation is that I add green or nappa cabbage about 45 min before serving. First it steams on top and then I mix it in to soak up flavor. My mom stir fries baby bok choi, etc, separately.

Daddy's Chow Mein (double-sided)

My father's version of chow mein consists of a large crispy noodle cake, browned in oil on both sides and flipped by tossing it in the air. This is actually not as difficult as it might seem, provided the cake has been allowed to brown undisturbed and has released from the pan, and I quickly learned to do it on a smaller nonstick frying pan when I was in high school. The other secret is the right noodles: Quon Yick Noodle Co Chinese Style Dry Noodle (enriched wheat flour, water, egg white, salt) www.quonyicknoodle.com, El Monte, CA. My dad taught me that when the fried food was ready to be turned, it would automatically release from the pan. A bit of help with a spatula to get things started might be needed, but you should never have to scrape. If you are scraping, the food is not ready to be turned. I think one of the hardest things is to have confidence it this, and not ruin a luscious crust by early, untimely checking. The topping can be any saucy stir fry - we typically had pork. In this case, the stir-fry recipe is my own, based loosely on seasonings my mother used, with Sriracha and cilantro added because we love the freshness of Thai food.

Crab Salad on Endive

This is a delicious, light dressing that lets the flavor of the crab come through. We got the recipe from our grocery store, as they had made up a batch to feature their canned, refrigerated jumbo lump premium pasteurized Great Blue crab meat.

Autumn Vegetable Soup

I tried this recipe to use up some CSA produce, and was pleasantly surprised at how much my whole family, including 9 and 13 year old kids, loved this soup. It is even better leftover, and easily keeps 5 d in the refrigerator. The original recipe indicates it will keep for 2 months in the freezer.

Fruit Smoothie

This is a flexible recipe that uses frozen fruit instead of ice cubes to create the frozen drink. There is no dilution of ingredients and thus no sugar needs to be added, although a little honey is nice. I got the idea from a Cherry Vanilla Smoothie from Family Fun Magazine, April 2005. Two oz of soft silken tofu (1/4 cup) can be substituted for the yogurt along with up to 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

Best New England Clam Chowder

This recipe was modified from Cook's Illustrated magazine, as I thought it needed more flour than the 2 Tbs called for, and my husband wanted chunkier clams than the minced. The main recipe calls for 7 pounds of hard-clams such as small cherrystone or topneck, but I made it in April 09 using the quick pantry shortcut. It makes about 2 quarts and the stock is based in clam juice, for a superb flavor. We learned a trick from Captain Barry in Chincoteague to freeze the fresh clams for making baked clams on the half shell. That makes it easy to open later with a butter knife and to chop the clams while partially frozen.

Campfire Chicken in Foil

This tender, juicy chicken was inspired by a delicious South Beach Diet oven chicken. It cooks in 12-15 min and goes great with foil wrapped potatoes cooked in butter, with Bananas Foster in Foil ala Tim for dessert. It also works well with boneless pork such as inexpensive country ribs (comes boneless) for those that are allergic to chicken. We pack a chef's knife, cutting board and zester, but the prep can also be done at home.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Although this is from the Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate bag, Tim says, the secret is to stay in the kitchen and watch the cookies. Use no more than the minimum time (plus ~20 seconds only for the first batch). When they look fluffy (see photo), they are done. Leave on pan for 1-2 minute after they come out of the oven, until they flatten and chips start protruding. Then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Cook them on parchment paper, and serve with cold milk.

Foil wrapped red potatoes

We got this simple campfire foil packet idea from our friend Lori. Instead of parboiling potatoes at home, we bring raw potatoes, a knife and cutting board to our campsite. Sliced thinly, these potatoes cook up in less than 20 min.