Yummy, But Not For The Heart Healthy

Perfect Potatoes Au Gratin!!!  This dish definitely should be listed on the top 10 list of Comfort Foods and on the top 10 list of Unhealthy Foods.  Not something the typical cook may cook on a regular basis, but great if you're having a large group of people over or if you're just craving comfort.  This dish is provided by Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman.  She offers up some really tasty, down home dishes that I think you'll like.  You can find her on the Food Network or you can follow her blog.

I made this dish over the weekend and I served it with several more unhealthy favorites a large New York Strip and a Caesar Salad.  Again, not something we do all the time, but occasionally it's OK.  Perhaps someone out there can lighten it up or make it more healthy, or just give it a try just as it is.  I don't think you will be disappointed.  Buen Appetito!!

Meat & Potatoes

Tonight nothing complicated.  We all grill, we all make baked potatoes and we can all do a salad out of a bag, Right?  If you don't know how, let's get started.  Preheat your oven to 425 for your baked potatoes.  Then take your 10oz russet potatoes that have been scrubbed clean and dried and coat them with EVOO and Kosher Salt, when your oven reaches temp., bake them for 40-45 minutes.  The salt and oil will give the skins a crispy coating.  After my potatoes finished I placed them in my warming drawer and then I preheated my grill to med high heat.  I also made the bruschettta, which is just a crunchy bread toasted and rubbed with a fresh garlic clove, drizzled with EVOO and sprinkled with S&P.  I usually do these in my panini press, but you could do them on the grill or in your toaster.  Your are looking for grill marks or a golden brown appearance.  I had 2 3/4" strip steaks seasoned with Kosher Salt and lotsa fresh ground pepper and a little EVOO to coat both sides of each steak.  Be sure to let them sit out on counter for 10 minutes or so, just to bring them up to room temp.  I then placed my steaks on the grill.  Grilling time is based on thickness of steak and how hot your your grill is.  For these steaks I grilled one side for 3 minutes over med/high heat, turned them over and grilled for an additional 2 minutes I also added a tsp of butter atop each one to finish them off, and I then removed them from grill and let them rest 5-10 minutes.  While those were resting I just opened a Caesar Salad Mix and of course added some more fresh grated parmigiana reggiano cheese, sliced red onions and fresh ground pepper.  Voila!  The steaks were cooked to a perfect medium rare and required no addition seasonings. the potatoes were crunchy outside and fluffy inside and enhanced with some unsalted butter and sour cream, the bruschetta was crunchy and well the salad was "a salad from a bag", but OK.  Tonight just the simple meat & potatoes, but still really good.

Bacon Burgers and Fries

We do burgers fairly regularly, today inspired by Chef Symon. There are some out there that I would love to make, but my honey is a little picky, so I try not push the burger creativity over the top.  Tonight we had bacon burgers and fries.  The first thing I did when I got home was to take 2 large russet potatoes that had been scrubbed and cut them in half lengthwise and cut the halves in to 5 wedges each.  I placed them in a bowl of water and let them sit for about an hour, because I didn't want them browning on me while  me and my honey took little ride thru the country on the bike, since we haven't really been able to get it out with all of this rain, BTW which will back tomorrow evening. When I got home I preheated my Breville oven to 450, drained the water, dried the potatoes and coated them with EVOO and S&P and placed them on baking sheet and popped them into the oven for 35 minutes.  While those were baking I took 1 part 80/20 organic ground beef, 1 part organic ground pork and 1/4 part organic chorizo, mixed them all together, formed into burgers and sprinkled both sides with S&P and put aside.  I took the bacon outside to cook  on the side burner of the grill.  Don't get me wrong I love the smell of bacon, but it permeates the house, and sometimes its just a little much.  Anyway, when there was 15 minutes remaining on the tators I heated my grill- 1 side on med  and 1 side on high.  Once heated I placed the burgers on the med heat side of the grill and let them cook thru, flipping only one time.  I placed the bacon slices and slices of red onion and monterey jack cheese over top, closed the grill and let the cheese melt.  While the burgers were grilling I also took my burger buns and lightly seared them on the grill.  That was it.  No mess, little clean up, easy and yummy.  We served our burgers with a little mayo, and some pickles next to those perfect fries.  Mmm! Mmm!

Chorizo Tortilla

Chorizo Tortilla from the food network was kind of disappointing because of the time involved and well it was kind of boring.  We did a few things differently by cooking the  potatoes in my WMF pressure cooker to speed up the process.  We also thought the dish lacked something, so when it finished baking we added some colby jack cheese over the top and let it melt then we served the wedges with salsa and sour cream.  You know, I really wasn't sure what to expect, but now I know and I won't make this dish again.  Not Good Eats!

Grilled Chicken Thighs Cacciatore w/ Super Smashed Garlic Potatoes

This is a Rachael Ray 30 minute meal, Chicken Thigh Cacciatore.  It took me about 45 minutes to do it, and well worth it.  I thought it was yummy and had alot of complex flavors.

 I loved how the grilled chicken thighs turned out and the marinade...awesome.  I would do definitely make this one again.  Will even like it, especially the potatoes, but said they needed more butter, and I said, "Hello!!! This is not a Paula Deen dish.  Anyway, give it try and let me know what you think.  Good Eats!

Roasted Chicken & Potatoes with Steamed Green Beans

This dish is semi-homemade and semi-healthy.  I'm sorry to say that I steamed my green beans in 2 tbs of bacon fat and 1/4 C chicken broth w/ some S&P for about 25 minutes (that's where the semi-healthy comes in).  FYI,  Unless I'm using green beans in a salad or asian dish, I typically will cook them to the very, very tender stage ( not baby food).  I haven't brined chicken before, so I brined my bone in chicken breast for a day (see previous post for brining).  Not sure I'm totally sold on the brining poultry and roasting, because the chicken had an interesting texture that I didn't hate, but didn't love either.  BTW, I always use organic, free range chicken, so that's not a factor.  Began by preheating my oven to 425 on bake convection mode.  I took 1/2 C panko, 1/2 C italian bread crumbs, 1 pkg of french onion soup dry mix, 8 baby yukon gold potatoes quartered, EVOO, 2 bone in chicken breasts that had been brined. I mixed the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.  I took my potatoes and drizzled them with EVOO and then placed them in the dry mixed and coated the potatoes.  I removed them and placed them on a cooling rack that I placed on a sheet pan (I covered the sheet pan with parchment paper for easy clean up).  I  then drizzled EVOO all over the chicken and placed the breasts in the dry mix and coated them and placed on same cooling rack with potatoes. I put all in the oven and I let them roast for about 30 minutes. After 30 mins I removed from oven and let the food rest for about 5 minutes. At this point my beans are finished steaming and I sprinkled some bacon pieces on top.  That's it.  I personally didn't like the onion soup mix on the chicken, it gave it a sweet flavor, but Will really like it.  I thought that the it worked great on the potatoes.  I love the potatoes and green beans as is, but next time the chicken will done differently.  Do you have any recommendations for the chicken?  Would love to hear from you.