Ugh. It was so bland! First, I needed parsnips but couldn’t find them, and I didn’t know what they were anyway. So I’m on my phone at Publix looking up pictures of the elusive veggie, only to find out it’s an uptight carrot. I’m not a huge fan of carrots, so I opted for mushrooms instead.

And maybe that was the problem? Do parsnips have an incredible taste that I missed out on? Who knows. But all was not lost…

I was able to get 3 separate meals from this brisket. THREE! I was determined, because I just cooked 3 pounds of meat and wasn’t about to let that money go to waste. But I also wasn’t about to eat flavorless crap either. Read on for the recipes…

• Slow-cooker beef brisket with beer (bleh)
• Brisket fajitas (yum!)
• Philly cheesesteak sandwiches (easy! fast! good!)

Dinner #1: Slow-Cooker Beef Brisket with Beer

If your slow cooker includes a removable insert, you can brown the brisket and onion mixture a day ahead, place all of the ingredients in the insert, and refrigerate. The next morning, place the insert in the slow cooker, and when you arrive home from work, a tasty entrée will await you. The onion and parsnips function as flavorings, and so you’ll want to serve a vegetable side dish. Try Spinach and Kale Turnovers or mashed potatoes.
from Cooking Light

1 (3-pound) beef brisket, trimmed
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray
1/4 cup water
2 cups vertically sliced onion (about 1 large)
1 1/2 cups chopped parsnip (about 2) [Carrots will work too]
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 bay leaf
1 (12-ounce) bottle light beer

Rub brisket with salt and pepper. Heat a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add brisket to pan; cook 10 minutes, browning on all sides. Remove brisket from the pan. Add 1/4 cup water to pan, stirring to loosen browned bits. Add onion and parsnip; sauté 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Place onion mixture, vinegar, bay leaf, and beer in a large electric slow cooker. Place brisket on top of onion mixture. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Discard bay leaf. Cut brisket diagonally across the grain into thin slices. Serve with sauce.

Yield: 12 servings (serving size: about 3 ounces brisket and 1/3 cup sauce)

CALORIES 160 (28% from fat); FAT 5g (sat 1.9g,mono 2.1g,poly 0.2g); IRON 1.9mg; CHOLESTEROL 49mg; CALCIUM 20mg; CARBOHYDRATE 5.6g; SODIUM 232mg; PROTEIN 20.5g; FIBER 1.1g

Dinner #2: Brisket Fajitas

Use the directions on a fajita kit (like Old El Paso), but throw the meat in towards the end since it’s already cooked. Shred the meat before serving.

Dinner #3: Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches

onion, sliced
any other veggie you want (I used mushrooms)
cooked brisket meat
provolone cheese
hoagie or Italian rolls
sweet peppers (optional)

Saute onions (and whatever other veggies you want) over medium heat. Add the brisket meat and cook over the medium heat for a few minutes. Shred the meat.

Put the meat and veggies onto a hoagie roll and top with a slice of provolone cheese. Broil for 2-3 minutes to melt the cheese and toast the bread.

(Optional) Top with sweet peppers such as banana peppers.

So instead, I’ll share a story… Recently my local grocery store Publix rearranged their aisles. I thought I had mastered the new order fairly well until last night.

That’s when I learned that while spaghetti and Velveeta cheese are considered “Ethnic Foods,” tacos and related Mexican treats are not. And on top of that, they were placed on aisle 0, which faces the bakery (what?!?) and has no sign. NO SIGN!

Now if I managed a grocery store and was forced to have an aisle with no sign, do you know what I’d put on that aisle? Random crap that few people buy. Not tacos – possibly the easiest quick fix meal on the planet! I live in the land of soccer moms. I’m thinking tacos (and hot dogs, frozen pizzas, chips, soda, and juice) are hot ticket items.

A conversation

Me: Excuse me, where are the tacos and that kind of stuff?

Stocker: On aisle 0, facing the bakery.

Me: (confusion on my face) Oh. How does THAT make sense? (I flashed my sweetest smile to soften my sarcasm.)

Stocker: (blank stare) …

Me: I mean, spaghetti is on the ethnic foods aisle. So how is Mexican food not ethnic?

Stocker: Well we moved the organic foods so they are on the shelves with everything else instead of their own section. So now the tacos are on that aisle.

Me: (blank stare) … … … OK. Thanks for your help!

This is what it’s like to be a technical writer. The table of contents at Publix makes no dang sense, and I’m apparently the only who notices or cares. Ah well, at least the recipe was good!

Chicken Tamale Casserole

(Image and recipe are from Cooking Light.)

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

• 1  cup  (4 ounces) preshredded 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese, divided
• 1/3  cup  fat-free milk
• 1/4  cup  egg substitute
• 1  teaspoon  ground cumin
• 1/8  teaspoon  ground red pepper
• 1  (14 3/4-ounce) can cream-style corn
• 1  (8.5-ounce) box corn muffin mix (such as Martha White)
• 1  (4-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained
• Cooking spray
• 1  (10-ounce) can red enchilada sauce (such as Old El Paso)
• 2  cups  shredded cooked chicken breast
• 1/2  cup  fat-free sour cream

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°.

Combine 1/4 cup cheese and next 7 ingredients (through chiles) in a large bowl, stirring just until moist. Pour mixture into a 13 x 9–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until set. Pierce entire surface liberally with a fork; pour enchilada sauce over top. Top with chicken; sprinkle with remaining 3/4 cup cheese. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes or until cheese melts. Remove from oven; let stand 5 minutes. Cut into 8 pieces; top each serving with 1 tablespoon sour cream.

Nutritional Information

Calories: 354 (36% from fat)
Fat: 14.1g (sat 7.1g,mono 3.3g,poly 1.2g)
Protein: 18.9g
Carbohydrate: 36.3g
Fiber: 2.5g
Cholesterol: 58mg
Iron: 1.7mg
Sodium: 620mg
Calcium: 179mg

Why should you make this dish? Sure, it’s delicious and somewhat healthy. But let’s get serious. Here are the real reasons to make it:

• watching 1 cup of Arborio rice soak up 3 cups of liquid is better than watching old reruns of Mr. Wizard’s World
• all the stirring and chopping builds up your arm muscles
• your mom never let you throw a pile of leaves into a pot and cook them
• it’s meat, veggies, and carbs in one dish (who needs sides?)
• saying “risotto” makes you feel like a real chef
• nothing fills you up quicker than rice so this meal can go a long ways

This is yet another great recipe from Martha Stewart. It was really easy to make, and I found all the ingredients at my local Publix. Click the link to view the recipe. Enjoy!

Tomato and Sausage Risotto

Prep: 10 minutes Total: 55 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, in juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3/4 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage, casings removed
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 cup Arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1 bunch flat-leaf spinach, (10 to 14 ounces), washed well, tough stems removed, chopped (about 7 Cups)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving (optional)
• 2 tablespoons butter

Directions

• In a small saucepan, combine tomatoes (with their juice) and 3 cups water. Bring just to a simmer; keep warm over low heat.
• In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium. Add sausage and onion; season with salt and pepper. Cook, breaking up sausage with a spoon, until sausage is opaque and onion has softened, 3 to 5 minutes.
• Add rice; cook, stirring until well coated, 1 to 2 minutes. Add wine; cook, stirring until absorbed, about 1 minute.
• Add about 2 cups hot tomato mixture to rice; simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until absorbed, 4 to 5 minutes. Continue adding tomato mixture, 1 cup at a time, waiting for one cup to be absorbed before adding the next, stirring occasionally, until rice is creamy and just tender, about 25 minutes total (you may not have to use all the liquid).
• Remove pan from heat. Stir in spinach, Parmesan, and butter; season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately (risotto will thicken as it cools), and sprinkle with additional Parmesan, if desired.

Source for recipe and image

Since football season is upon us, I have started making one of my all time favorite snacks – Velveeta and Rotel cheese dip (do I hear angels singing?). There’s nothing like watching SEC football while chowing down on corn chips and cheese. This stuff is so good it makes me cheer for Bama. Well, as long as they aren’t playing LSU or Auburn. It’s not good enough to make me cheer for Tennessee, but I digress.

Anywho, so when I saw a recipe that started with the word VELVEETA (seriously, do you hear angels singing?), I had to try it. It’s super easy to make, the ingredients are cheap, and it tastes good. And kids can easily help with this recipe (oh yes, I went there – straight to the baby train).

As usual, I made a few notes to make my cooking experience easier next time:

• Buy a pre-chopped onion – Yes, it’s more expensive than buying an onion and chopping it myself, but it’s still cheaper than Roger hauling my hiny to the hospital after I slightly nick my finger with a knife and then pass out from the sliver of blood that appears, trip over a cat on the way down, and hit my head on the counter. Plus, I’m pretty sure blood doesn’t go with anything – even Velveeta. Pre-chopped onions – another reason I love Publix, and until I actually attend one of their knife skills classes, I’ll continue to buy these. It’s not that I can’t chop veggies. I just have a bad history with onions. OK? Stop judging me.
• Velveeta is fun for everyone! – If your kid is old enough to use a knife, let them cut up the Velveeta. It’s soft enough to use a butter knife, so it’s pretty kid friendly. If they’re too young to use a knife, then they can throw carefully place the chunks of cheese into the pot for you. Now, where is my mommy blog license?
• Brand names are for suckers – Because this recipe is from Kraft’s magazine, they pimp all of their products in the ingredients. Hey, it’s just good ol fashioned marketing. But I used grocery store brands for all of it (except the Velveeta – there is NO SUBSTITUTE – angels don’t sing for regular old “cheese product”), and it tasted fine.
• Take your aggression out on the taters – Frozen hashbrowns are frozen. Yes, I see how obvious that is now, but I wasn’t thinking about that before. And the taters don’t come in a bag of just 4 cups, so I had to break them up somehow. I threw them in the microwave for 1 minute and then took my knife to them like an ice pick. It was like experiencing a whole new kind of frozen treat. The taters broke apart with ease, and I had a strange sense to smile and say muhahahah. But moving on.
• Sour cream could add some flavor – Nothing exciting about this statement. But I think adding a dollup of sour cream to each serving could be quite tasty. (Did I just say “dollup”? I’m delirious from the Velveeta.)

Check out the recipe below and enjoy!

Ingredients

A few notes about this recipe:

• It has a good flavor, but I can see where some people may think it’s bland. I may try adding a little more soy sauce next time.
• I couldn’t find sesame oil at Publix, so I bought a sesame seed marinade. Seemed to work fine, although it may be the reason the flavors were a little bland.
• The red pepper flakes make this dish a little spicy. I liked it, but if you’re sensitive to hot food, go easy on the flakes.

Recipe: Lighter Sesame Noodles

Lately I’ve been cooking recipes from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food, and almost every recipe I’ve made has been a winner. (Only one recipe was a total failure, but at least Roger and I figured out we don’t like lentils.)  So I turned to their website for a pulled-pork recipe.

This recipe is super easy and delicious! The taste of the pork is good, but it’s subtle enough that you could add barbeque sauce to it if you want. A few notes I made while cooking:

• It calls for a 3-lb., boneless “pork shoulder.” I couldn’t find that at the store, so I got “pork loin roast.” I figured any 3-lb. boneless piece of pork would be fine. I was right.
• In step 2, it says to add the remaining “cup” of ketchup. Note that they mean the remainder of your 3/4 cup you started with. So you only add 1/4 cup of ketchup at the end. Soooo glad I caught that before I doused the pork in a waterfall of tomato goo.
• The recipe calls for red cabbage. Notice they try to dress up the cabbage by calling it “tangy.” I’m not buying it. Roger and I skipped it altogether.
• As far as “crusty rolls” go, Publix didn’t have a great selection. So I went with some fancy sesame-covered hamburger buns. And you know what? It was still good and I didn’t have to slice open any rolls.

I recommend this recipe, because it really is very easy. Actually, I recommend the Everyday Food magazine, book, and website. Their recipes are perfect for cooking during the week, because of several reasons:

• You can find the ingredients at Publix. Don’t get me wrong – I love going to Harry’s just as much as anyone else (who knew there were that many kinds of mushrooms?). But I don’t have time to peruse 50 varieties of cheese on a Tuesday night.
• The ingredients are inexpensive and there’s not many of them. These recipes don’t require you to spend more than you would going out to dinner. I think the fanciest thing I’ve used is cashews (although I’m tackling eggplant later this week – details to come).
• You don’t have to be a chef to figure out the recipe. The steps are easy: cut, chop, saute, blend. This is not a Food Network show after all – it’s my kitchen. I don’t have time to look up hoighty-toighty cooking terms only to find out they mean “chop delicately.”
• Pictures are included. Not sure if your dish came out right? Compare it to the picture in the book. Done!

Sure, it’s fun to try something fancy every once in a while, but I save that stuff for weekends. That way if I screw it up, Roger and I can go out to eat instead. See “spinach lasagna” for reference – that’s a meal that did NOT turn out well. Ugh, it was so bad I wasn’t sure what was wrong – my cooking or the recipe itself!

Recipe and source for the picture (I was running to choir practice so I didn’t have time to take a picture from my own kitchen)

The recipe is from Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food: Great Food Fast. My friend Heather gave me the book, and I’ve already made a few recipes from it. Don’t let Martha scare you, because the recipes in this book are not complicated. And they use ingredients you can find at Publix. Not that I don’t love going to Harry’s but I don’t have time (or money!) for that every week.

The recipe called for Boston lettuce leaves to make the meal into lettuce wraps. I love lettuce wraps so I did just that. I made some brown rice on the side just in case the lettuce didn’t work out. Both were great.

I’m looking forward to these left overs!

So tonight I tried a new recipe for a squash and rice casserole. You can use yellow squash, zucchini, or both. I stuck with the green stuff. It turned out pretty good, and it was easy to make. Maybe one day I’ll try something with Brussels sprouts. But they’re not all that appealing . . . even as an adult.

Keep reading for pictures of the casserole.

Run, run as fast as you can
You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.

I decided to try making gingerbread man cookies, and they were surprisingly easy to make. I’d never worked with gingerbread before, and the dough proved to be the greatest test for my mixer so far. It actually slowed down when trying to mix in the flour. Talk about some thick dough!

By the time the cookies were done I was covered in flour and smelled like molasses. But the tiny, tasty men were worth the effort!

Read on for more pictures.

Here are some pics from my cookie making adventure. There are more pictures on our photo site (if you haven’t had enough already!).

The recipe is from Betty Crocker: Gingerbread Cutouts

I still can’t believe Thanksgiving is just a week away. I haven’t been in a big holiday mood these days, because I’m too focused on finishing school work (only 2 weeks left!). But between previews of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and now my house smelling of broccoli casserole, I’m starting to get more in the spirit.

This time next week I’ll know whether my dressing turned out OK for a second year in a row. At least broccoli casserole is simple enough – I can actually remember the recipe without looking at it. Dressing is always a surprise. But I know it will be great at Christmas time – April makes it then and she’s had a lot more practice!