No Flour No Sugar New Year

As so many people do, we’ve resolved to eat healthier in the new year. Again. I will admit that the resolve has lasted well into the month, which is a good start. My husband was told by our family doctor that if he wanted to get serious about losing weight he should avoid flour and sugar. That sounds simple enough until you start thinking about everything that contains flour and/or sugar. We won’t completely abandon all of those delicious things, but we are making an effort to reduce our consumption. We are both in weight loss competitions at work. Kevin is in the Chub Club I I am in The Biggest Loser challenge. May the odds be ever in our favor!

Kevin’s favorite go-to breakfast during the work week is the breakfast sandwich. I got him to stop going through the drive-thru and have been making sandwiches at home for him to heat and eat. I got a recipe from a friend last weekend (thanks Karen!) that I thought I’d try. It has no bread and makes enough for the entire week. It does contain flour, but only 2 tablespoons. I think I beat the eggs too long with the wire whip on the mixer because they got exceedingly puffy and resembled a scene on Jakku out of Star Wars The Force Awakens. Next time I will just mix with a whisk!

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Since that was a dozen eggs I took it as a learning point for next time and proceeded with the rest of the recipe.

Ham and Cheese Breakfast Roll

4 ozs. cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 eggs
1 1/2 cups or 8 ozs. ham, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese, mild or sharp – your call, divided use
1/4 cup green onions with tops, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Combine the cream cheese and 1/4 milk and whisk until smooth. Gradually add the rest of the milk, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Add the flour and salt; whisk to combine. In another bowl, whisk the dozen eggs until blended. Add the cream cheese mixture to the eggs and mix well. Line a 10″ x 15 1/2″ x 1″ pan with a piece of parchment paper. The paper should come up the sides. Pinch and pleat the corners. Carefully pour the egg mixture into the pan.

Bake 30-33 minutes or until omelet is puffy and golden. While the eggs are baking chop the ham and thinly slice the green onions. When the eggs are done, remove from the oven and immediately spread the Dijon mustard gently over the surface. Sprinkle with 3/4 cup of the shredded Cheddar and top with the ham and green onions. Sprinkle the remaining 3/4 cup of Cheddar on top. Starting on one short side, lift up the parchment paper and roll up jelly-roll style, removing the paper as you roll. Let stand for 5 minutes to allow the cheese to melt then slice into about 6 wedges. I put these in covered reheat-able containers and refrigerated them until packing lunch for the day. If not eaten immediately, reheat for about 2 minutes, depending on the wattage of your microwave. Start with a short time because you can always heat it for a little longer if it’s not quite warm enough.

Port Wine Poultry

We have some Port Wine on hand and I searched for a recipe that uses Port. This one popped up by Wolfgang Puck. I’ve always admired him so I gave it a try.

Pan-Roasted Chicken with Port and Mustard

It didn’t take long to put together and the Port and mustard are a good flavor combination, I had boneless skinless chicken tenders so I substituted them in place of the whole chicken, I just cooked the tenders long enough in the pan to lightly brown one side then turned the pieces and put them in the oven for 15 minutes to finish cooking them. I cooked a dozen asparagus spears about 3 minutes in boiling salted water, drained them, returned them to the pan and added a tablespoon of butter and a teaspoon of lemon juice to coat them. I seasoned with a little freshly ground pepper and kosher salt and the side vegetable was ready. We reheated some of the Rosemary Potatoes leftover from last week’s furniture moving party and the meal was complete.

Lighter Fare

After all of the celebrations and parties of the past several weeks, we both felt like something lighter for lunch today. I opened the refrigerator and stared at the shelves for a couple of minutes and decided on a Cobb Salad, taken down a notch.

Lighter Cobb Salad for Two

Iceberg and Romaine salad mix
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1/4 of a cucumber, thinly sliced then cut in halves
8 thin slices Deli-style roasted turkey breast
4 thin slices smoked ham
1/2 cup shredded Swiss cheese
Your favorite salad dressing

Cover two dinner-size plates with a generous helping of the Iceberg-Romaine mixed lettuces. Continue this process for each plate, dividing the ingredients evenly. Next place the hard-boiled egg in a row on the diagonal on one side of the lettuce bed. In the next row, layer the cucumber slices, slightly overlapping. I cut the turkey and ham slices into approximately 3/4-inch widths and rolled each slice then added rows of each to the salad bed. Lastly, sprinkle the shredded Swiss for the last row. It really could have used something red for color, but we were out of tomatoes! Serve immediately with your favorite salad dressing. This was delicious and more filling than we expected. You can change up the toppings to use your favorite salad ingredients. This would also be a good lunch to pack for work, bringing the dressing to add just before eating.

New Year’s Dinner Redux

We had a fair amount of leftovers from our New Year’s Eve Dinner, so we invited some friends over who were out of town that night. It was a déjà vu experience, in a good way. We stated with a cocktail, then had the trio of appetizers and progressed through the menu. This time I remembered to turn off the oven before I put the rolls in the oven to raise. Here are some photos that I didn’t take the other night.

Crab Martini, IKEA Meatballs with Graddsas, and Stuffed Mushrooms

Tomato Bisque

The Ultimate Meatloaf with Tomato Relish, Morton’s Macaroni and Cheese, Creamed Spinach

Cloverleaf Rolls

Junior’s Cheesecake with Fresh Strawberries

Ringing in the New Year

Last night we had a wonderful dinner with good friends to ring in 2016. The theme was a “Kicked-up Retro New Year’s Eve”. Here’s the menu card I typed up to place on each dinner plate.

We started with a cocktail after everyone arrived. My daughter recently attended a cooking class and brought me copies of the recipes to try. She highly recommended this drink made with a ginger liqueur called The Big O . It’s available locally at Friar Tuck’s. Of course, the name piqued my interest. Here’s some background on this O-riginal spirit:

The Big O Liqueur

The cocktail is an homage to the author, Ernest Hemingway, who loved a good drink. A famous quote attributed to him is “I drink to make other people more interesting”.

Hemingway’s Birthday

Brut Champagne
Bourbon (we used Woodford Reserve)
Big O Ginger Liqueuer

Fill a tall champagne flute with champagne. Add a splash of bourbon and Big O Liqueuer. Serve immediately. Makes 1 serving.

With drinks in hand we moved to the dining room. For this special dinner we got out the vintage 1950’s Royal Jackson Margaret Rose china that was Kevin’s parents’ wedding china. The factory burned down years ago, but he’s been able to find serving pieces and additional place settings on eBay.

I’d assembled the appetizers earlier in the day and had poured on the bourbon and popped the half batch of stuffed mushrooms in the oven about 30 minutes before everyone was to arrive. A new Ikea store opened in St. Louis in September and when we went to check it out in November, I picked up some of their famous frozen Swedish meatballs and some packets of their gravy, Graddsas. That fit this menu perfectly. The meatballs only took a few minutes to heat in the microwave and I had the gravy sitting on the stove on the warmer burner, ready to go. The last of the trio of appetizers was a take on Bubba Hiers’ Crab Martini. I bought Uncle Bubba’s Savanna Seafood cookbook several years ago and had always wanted to make this fun appetizer because we found some miniature martini glasses on one of our weekend trips and they would be perfect for a small serving. Crabmeat is at a premium these days, so I cut it down to 1 lb. of lump crabmeat (Sam’s club carries it) and added about half of the mayonnaise, just to moisten the ingredients.

Maker’s Mark Stuffed Mushrooms

12 whole medium size baby Portobello mushrooms
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
1 tbsp. flour
1/4 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
1/2 cup sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
Maker’s Mark Bourbon
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Melt the butter in a medium-size bowl in the microwave on high for 30 to 60 seconds. Remove and chop the mushroom stems and add the to the bowl with the melted butter. Add the onions, garlic and parsley and mix well. Sprinkle the flour evenly over the top of this mixture, then add bread crumbs, sour cream, salt and pepper and stir until well blended. Arrange the mushroom caps, hollow side up, in a shallow baking dish. Drizzle a small amount of bourbon in each cap then fill each generously with the stuffing. Sprinkle the tops with Parmesan cheese. Add just enough Maker’s Mark to cover the bottom of the dish and bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. Serve immediately.

Uncle Bubba’s Crab Martini

12-15 fresh asparagus spears
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp. Dijon mustard
2-3 small tomatoes, diced
juice and grated zest of 1 lemon
1 lb. lump crabmeat, picked clean of shells
1 lb. claw crabmeat, picked clean of shells
lemon pepper and seasoned salt to taste
lemon wedges
Old Bay Seasoning, for garnish
Pimento stuffed olives, for garnish

This recipe makes 4 to 6 large martini glass portions or at least 8 smaller portions. Blanch the asparagus by placing the spears in boiling salted water for 1 to 2 minutes, then remove immediately to an ice water bath to halt cooking and preserve the fresh green color. Drain the asparagus and pat dry with paper towels. Trim the tough bottoms from the asparagus and discard. Trim the top 2 inches off and reserve for garnish. Finely chop the remaining asparagus. Combine the chopped asparagus with the mayonnaise, mustard, tomatoes, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Gently fold the crabmeat into the asparagus mixture and season to taste with the lemon pepper and seasoned salt. Place a tablespoon or two of the Old Bay Seasoning in a shallow dish. Run a lemon wedge around the rim of a martini glass and dip the rim into the Old Bay. Repeat with the remaining martini glasses. Divide the crab mixture evenly among the glasses.
I used a cocktail pick to spear a lemon wedge, sideways asparagus spear and an olive then laid it across the top of the crab mixture. I plan to have the remainder of the crab tomorrow evening when some friends who could not make it New Year’s Eve because they were out of town are coming over to help us eat the leftovers. I’ll try to remember to take a snapshot to post then. It’s visually appealing and equally tasty.

For the soup I made a recipe from the Pensacola Junior Service League’s cookbook, Some Like it South!

Tomato Bisque

2 15-ounce cans diced tomatoes (may use 2 lbs. fresh tomatoes if you like)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tbsp. butter
1 bay leaf
1 heaping tbsp. brown sugar
2 tsps. finely chopped fresh basil, or 1 tsp. dried basil
2 whole cloves
1 tsp. salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 cups half and half
1 cup milk
chopped fresh chives or whole Italian parsley leaves for garnish (optional)

Sauté the onion in butter and add tomatoes (fresh or canned), bay leaf, sugar, basil, cloves, salt and pepper. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are thoroughly cooked, about 25 minutes for fresh, less for canned. Remove bay leaf and cloves and transfer mixture to a blender or food processor. Puree and strain (I skip the straining part because I like the fuller texture). Alternately, use an immersion blender to carefully puree the hot mixture until smooth. Add the cream and milk and heat thoroughly. Sprinkle with chopped chives or float a single large parsley leaf on top of the soup. Serve immediately. Makes about 6 servings.

For the salad we had a chopped iceberg and romaine mix topped with heirloom cherry tomatoes, sliced hard-boiled eggs, cucumber slices and the homemade croutons. The dressings I made last night were served in a tri-bowl serving dish that we passed at the table. It was easy to sample one or all of the dressings.

The main course had been baking in the oven while we had the appetizer, soup and salad. I prepared the tomato relish earlier in the afternoon and we reheated it in the microwave just before plating the meatloaf. The tomato relish is awesome and really made the dish. I’ve never been a big meatloaf fan, but I definitely would make this again. It was moist and flavorful and very colorful. I could not believe that the grocery store was out of ground pork when we went shopping, but not to be deterred, I used my new meat grinder attachment and ground my own from a nice piece of pork butt. It yielded about two pounds and I only needed one so I made a pound of seasoned pork sausage using a spice blend I picked up at the Dutch Market on our trip in November in anticipation of receiving the grinder in the mail any day.

Tyler Florence’s Dad’s Ultimate Meatloaf

I have the Morton’s Steakhouse cookbook and knew that their Macaroni and Cheese would be the perfect side for the meatloaf. The cavatappi noodles are a elbow macaroni on steroids and add some whimsy to the usual standard pasta used for mac and cheese. The blend of cheeses is delectable and the bread crumbs result in a crunchy topping.
Morton’s Macaroni and Cheese
We needed a vibrant green period-authentic vegetable, so we went with creamed spinach. Here’s Robert Irvine’s recipe which was easy and very flavorful. Rather than steam the spinach, we pan sautéed it in batches, then pressed the excess liquid out in a colander before proceeding with the recipe. We actually refrigerated it in the covered serving bowl until I prepared the sauce then added it back in to reheat. This worked really well and saved some time as we prepared the courses at dinner time. I did not get a picture of the final plating but can recreate it tomorrow night when we do a repeat of this dinner.
Robert Irvine’s Creamed Spinach
I was disappointed with my rolls because I have a habit of preheating the oven to 170 degrees then turning it off then placing the shaped rolls in muffin tins in the oven to rise. I forgot to turn the oven off this time and the rolls dried out and deflated a bit, taking on a bit of a pruney appearance. They tasted just fine, but the texture and look was not up to my usual standard. I apologized but our guests had no concern for appearances and ate them all without hesitation. The bread basket was completely empty at the end of the meal. So much for appearances!

After dinner we paused a bit for conversation and after-dinner liqueurs then had some of the fabulous Junior’s cheesecake topped with some lightly sweetened sliced strawberries. I came out very pretty, even if I say so myself.