Posts categorized as Recipes

I love to watch the cooking shows with chefs who refuse to divulge the “secret” to their recipes. It seems kind of snobby. Most people can usually tell the “mystery” ingredients just by tasting, although the amount can be way off. And what’s so sacred about a secret? We all know what’s in the secret sauce on Big Macs — and billions of people still eat there. I have been baking brownies for years. I will make trays of them for birthdays, parties,house-warmings, school events or just a dinner.  With incredible [...]

Here’s another great recipe using bacon fat!  Here we go! Ingredients: 5-6 chicken thighs with skin kosher salt paprika bacon fat (you can use olive oil but I recommend the bacon fat) 2 large onions carrots (optional) Chop up the onions and toss into the pan mixing with the fat until they’re  limp and translucent.  Sprinkle with at least (if not more) two tablespoons of paprika. In other words, a lot of paprika. The onions should be well coated and look orange.  Keeping mixing until the color is burnt orange. [...]

Everyone was raving about these southwestern turkey meatballs with cream sauce I made for Maureen’s Rockaway St. Paddy’s Day Party. I had several requests to post the recipe. I found it on skinnytaste.com. The name of the site implies this is a low-fat recipe and it is (!!) but for the party instead of baking the meatballs, I fried those suckers! Since then, I’ve made more creamy cilantro dipping sauce and used it on chicken cutlets. Total win – my Husband and JUMBO devoured  8 cutlets in one sitting. The [...]

This is one of those recipes that you read and say,”It doesn’t sound so good” but it is – and easy. In fact some people make this a meal by adding some wide noodles to the finished product. It’s very economical for those of you saving for a house, baby, or vacation!  It also goes well with corned beef. This recipe calls for bacon fat, how do you get it? Simple. When you cook bacon save the grease in a jar in the refrigerator.  Use it in place of oil.  [...]

Jambalaya it is for Rockaway St. Paddy’s Day!  It’s a great dish to make if you’re having a lot of big eaters over or if you want to set something up the day before and finish it off the day of.  Add some hearty bread and it’s a meal!  This is also good around the Super Bowl or the weekend before Lent starts since it’s very New Orleans/Mardi-gras-esque. This recipe is based on a cooking.com recipe I tried a while ago. They plug their own Capn Butt Kickin Blacken spice but you can use the store brand of cajun [...]

I learned how to make a mean alla vodka sauce from my sister Maria. It’s tasteful and rich – her special ingredients are sun-dried tomatoes and the DiGioia red sauce. Using a base red sauce isn’t common. Maria adopted this technique for mass production (for big parties). We usually have sauce frozen in the freezer, so it’s also convenient. Note: the taste of your base red will effect the alla vodka dramatically. Make sure it’s a tasty batch or you’ll be starting off on the wrong foot. One uber important tip [...]

I may get a lot of heat for this “recipe”. My mom makes amazing sausage and peppers. I asked her how she made it and she said, you dump a bottled sauce into the crock pot, put in the sausages and put on high for 8 hours. “Bottled sauce?” I thought, this would not get me my own food network show, Mom! So I didn’t listen to my mother and I tried my own way. I put some crushed tomatoes in with garlic and basil, some salt and pepper. I [...]

Time is passing here in Rockaway and we are moving forward. Our neighborhood is not where it was or where we hope it could be, but it is winter and spring will bring renewal. But we need the familiar, the normal, the comforts of before Sandy. In this spirit, after Thanksgiving had come and gone in the cold, I was reminded of what was always normal for me at this time of year — pumpkin bread. Every year I would bake all through November and create delicious, spicy, tasty pumpkin [...]

Two pictured but I actually ate four. I don’t cook with mushrooms much because my husband doesn’t like them. I on the other hand enjoy mushrooms in all forms.  I saw some nice portobellas at the Associated Supermarket on Dekalb and Seneca – I had to pick them up. The Food Bazaar on Gates obviously has an awesome produce section but it’s a bit further from my place and It’s often crowded. While having a smaller selection at Associated, the produce is quality and the prices are good. I wasn’t sure what [...]

I had bought some cherry tomatoes for a salad a few weeks ago and Billy really had no interest in having a salad. It made the plate look pretty bare.In the background, you can see the abandoned cherry tomatoes. Days after I scrambled and thought “what can I do with these cherry tomatoes??” I got the idea to take the left-over french onion soup from the meal above and use it to marinate a steak (I added portobello mushrooms to it as well, also abandoned in the pic above). The [...]