Russian dressing is never anything I actually put on a salad but I do like it on sandwiches periodically, particularly Reuben sandwiches. And I figure lots of folks might be having Reuben sandwiches tomorrow with their leftover corned beef from their St Patrick’s day dinner tonight. I just skipped the whole plain boiled dinner and made Reuben sandwiches tonight, after cooking the corned beef brisket in a Crockpot (affiliate link) all day.

For the corned beef, I put some carrots in the bottom of the Crock Pot , mainly for flavoring. I used the seasoning packet that came with it, put a bottle of beer in and topped it off with water until the brisket was covered and cooked on low all day. Came out great.

This recipe is courtesy of How to Cook Everything, one of my most oft-referred to cookbooks
and makes just under 1 cup of Russian dressing, which should keep in the refrigerator for a week or so if well covered.

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1 Tbs red wine vinegar (or lemon juice)
• 1 dash of dry mustard powder
• 1 Tbs minced fresh onion
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix it all together and voila, there’s your Russian dressing.

I made the Reuben sandwiches on our George Foreman grill with:

• rye bread, 1 piece spread with Dijon mustard and the other with Russian dressing
• thinly sliced corned beef
• sliced Swiss cheese
• sauerkraut

Spread butter on the outside of the bread, then place on the grill or in a skillet and cook until heated through and the cheese is melted and yummy.

CheapHealthyGood has put together a great list of menu planners, price books and grocery lists. I found it because they linked to my old Excel price book.

Lots of good looking stuff over there in addition to the excellent list in that one post.

Hope you enjoy!

I was sent a copy of Saving Dinner: The Menus, Recipes, and Shopping Lists to Bring Your Family Back to the Table to review. The book is a collection of weekly menus, organized seasonally, complete with categorized shopping lists and good clear directions. Each individual recipe is clearly detailed as well, along with serving suggestions and nutritional information. There are six recipes for main dishes each week.   At this point in my life, I would never follow anyone’s  menu for an entire week. Heck, I can barely follow a recipe without tweaking it!  However, when I was first learning to cook, books like this gave me some great ideas on how to plan a week’s worth of meals.  I think even experienced cooks can learn some great new recipes here and get some good menu ideas.

Last night I made some beef kabobs, adding some mushrooms, onions, green pepper and cherry tomatoes to the skewers.

Marinating with Food Saver

I marinated the beef in the recipe from Saving Dinner but used this Food Saver vacuum marinating dish to speed up the process. I also marinated the veggies for an hour or so in some vinaigrette.

• 3/4 cup dry sherry
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 tsps ground ginger
• 1 onion, minced (I left this out)
• 2-3 pound flank steak or top round or chuck, trimmed of fat and cut in 1″ cubes

Mix everything but the steak together in a small bowl. Cut up your beef and put in a shallow dish and cover with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. (The vacuum thing really does seem to help somehow, as I only marinated the meat for about an hour and it was fantastic!)

In a separate bowl, combine:

• onion wedges
• cherry tomatoes
• green and/or red pepper slices
• mushrooms

Beef and Vegetable Kabobs

Marinate in a simple oil and vinegar dressing while the meat marinates.

If you’re using wooden skewers, soak in water at least half an hour before cooking.

Thread the meat and vegetables on the skewers and cook on the grill 8-12 minutes, depending on how well you like your meat done.

Goes great with rice.

Here are the week’s menu suggestions for the week that includes the kabobs.

Restaurant Style Chinese Chicken

Poached Salmon with Creamy Horseradish Sauce

Cincinnati Chili

Great Greek Salad

Beef Kabobs

Lemon Roast Chicken

There are also do-ahead tips, a nice section of side dish recipes at the back, and a section on freezer cooking with four mini-sessions of chicken, beef, pork and shrimp recipes. (The freezer recipes are not casseroles and stuff you just reheat, but dinner “kits” of things like marinated chicken or chicken with artichoke sauce, shrimp creole and pork fajitas. When I used to use my freezer more, that’s exactly what made the most sense to me. I didn’t want to reheat frozen casseroles and call it dinner.)

Bierocks or Runzas: Meat Stuffed Bread

I was thumbing through old magazines as I was decluttering and came upon an Old Cooking Light magazine that had a section on Mennonite recipes. I’ve never eaten these bierocks anywhere else, but the recipe reminded me of the piroshkis we used to pick up sometimes for dinner in Sonoma, where I grew up.  These were a bit different somehow in flavor, and also that my dough here was thicker and there less filling.  They are good though and made a nice easy lunch to pack for my daughter, when combined with some fruit.

First start the dough:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 tsp yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, beaten lightly
• 4 cups flour

The recipe called for bread flour but I just used regular unbleached flour and increased the yeast by 1/4 tsp. Seemed to work great.

Whisk together the sugar, yeast and water. Let sit for 5 minutes to “proof” (meaning to check and make sure your yeast is active before you waste any more ingredients!)  (I keep my yeast in the freezer and just keep a small jar in the frig that I replenish from the freezer periodically. This greatly extends the life. And the price of a seemingly endless bag of yeast at the big box store versus buying individual packets makes it well worth trying! If you have a friend to split the bag with, even better!)  The yeast, sugar and water should start to bubble just a bit.

Stir in the milk, oil, 1/4 tsp salt and eggs. I use my KitchenAid mixer with a bread hook to mix up bread so I proofed everything in the mixing bowl, then added the other ingredients.  Put about 3 cups of the flour into the bowl and turn the mixer on to a low setting. (High settings cause lots of flour to explode all over your counters!)  Let the mixer incorporate most of the ingredients together then add the last cup of flour, about 1/4 cup at a time until it pulls away and makes a nice elastic-looking ball. Keep the mixer on for 5 more minutes or so. (You can of course do this by hand.)

Now you want to let the dough rise for about an hour. If your house is warm, you can do this on the counter. If your house is a bit cool, turn your oven onto warm for a few minutes, then turn it off.  Rub a bit of oil in the bottom of a bowl and turn the dough into that bowl, flipping it around and turning it so that all sides are coated very lightly with oil. Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let rise until doubled, about an hour.

In the meantime, make the filling.

• 1 tsp oil
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 1/2 pound ground beef or turkey
• 2 cups thinly sliced cabbage
• salt and pepper to taste (1/4 tsp each does it for us)

In a skillet, heat the oil then add the onion and ground meat. Cook,stirring, until the onion is softened and the meat is no longer pink.  Add the cabbage and cook a few more minutes until the cabbage wilts. Salt and pepper the meat mix and set aside to cool, covered.

When the dough has been rising an hour or so, check that it is ready by poking two fingers into it. If the indentations from your fingers remain in the dough, it’s ready!  Punch the dough down, cover and let rest 5 minutes. Meanwhile, cover a cutting board or counter with a light dusting of flour.

Divide the dough in half and roll one half into a roughly 10 x 7 inch rectangle. Cut this into six squares and place about 1/4 cup of the meat and cabbage mix into the middle of each square. Pull two opposite corners together and pinch together, then do the same with the other two corners. Place seam side down onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Repeat with the other half of the dough.

Preheat the oven to 375 while you cover the bierocks again and let rise about 20 minutes.

Uncover and bake about 15 minutes. Cool a bit  on wire racks then serve.   Goes great with soup!

Folding the dough over the meat

If you want to freeze them, let them cool completely and wrap each bierock individually in foil, then drop them all into a freezer bag.

Bierock

Red Velvet Cupcakes

My youngest baked these heart-shaped red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for her boyfriend for Valentine’s Day. Too cute!  And totally easy!  She shared the extras with a neighbor family and we had a few to nibble on here too.

Here are the recipes for the red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting.

Thanks to Desperation Entertaining! (affiliate link) for this fantastic recipe which has become our go-to dessert when company’s coming!

Crunchy Garlic Chicken

Another fantastic recipe from Jamie’s Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals. I’ve already made half a dozen recipes from this book that have been great.

This came out really good but the crumb texture wasn’t quite what I expected, being a bit thick and globby because of the butter. I’m writing down what I did, as it is in the book, but I think next time I would just leave the butter out of the mix and maybe add a few more crackers. This was just enough for 4 chicken tenders, so served 2 of us plus lunch today for one of us.

• 1 clove of garlic, peeled
• zest of one lemon
• 6 (or more!) plain crackers or breadcrumbs or saltines, etc.
• 2 Tbs butter
• 4 sprigs fresh parsley (I used a bit more)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 large spoonfuls of flour
• 1 egg
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts or 4 chicken tenders
• olive oil

Use your food process to mix up the breadcrumb mix: crackers, garlic, lemon zest and butter (although I’d leave that out next time),  parsley, salt and pepper.  Run the processor until it’s all mixed up and the crumbs are fine.

Put the flour on one plate or pie pan.  Put the raw egg into another plate or pan and stir together with a fork. Add the breadcrumb mix to a third.

Pound the chicken out until thinned a bit. You can lay a sheet of plastic wrap on the chicken and pound with a plate or the flat side of a meat tenderizer.

Heat a few spoonfuls of olive oil in a skillet.

Coat each side of the chicken with flour, then egg, then breadcrumb mix. Fry about 4-5 minutes on each side. Alternately you can bake in a 475 F oven for about 15 minutes.

Squeeze a bit of lemon over the chicken, then cut the pieces into strips and serve.

Simple Salad with Vinaigrette

I served with a very simple salad of watercress, sliced radishes and sliced cucumbers, plus some boxed stuffing mix, which I rarely use but was quite good.  We also had some really good asparagus, also a recipe from this book. Usually I just barbecue it or roast it but we both really liked this simple vinaigrette he dressed it with.

Barbecued Burgers

The hamburger recipe from Jamie’s Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals is actually pretty darn close to my mom’s old recipe. He uses cream crackers crumbled up instead of bread crumbs and leaves out the Worcestershire, ketchup and horseradish.  I have currently settled on using the crackers, which do seem to provide a nice flavor, but adding the Worcestershire, because everything is better with Worcestershire I think.   But that’ s partly because I had some cream crackers left over from the holidays, which were starting to go stale.  Now that I’ve made these burgers twice in two weeks I’m out of crackers!

• 12 cream crackers, crumbed (or 1 cup bread crumbs or other cracker crumbs)
• 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley (he says 8 sprigs,  I just chop from the ends)
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 egg
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix all this up together, then form into 6 patties. (Yep, I think we don’t all need a 1/4 pound of beef in a burger! Stretch them out thin so they cover the bun and everyone will be happy.)   Pour a bit of olive oil onto them, then refrigerate a bit to firm them up before grilling.  You can cook on an indoor grill or outdoor grill or a good skillet, about 4 minutes per side.

Serve with the condiments of your choice. Ours vary depending on what we have around but might include:

• cooked bacon slices
• sliced avocado
• lettuce
• sliced onion or sauteed onion
• sliced pickles
• ketchup
• cheese

If we use cheese, I like to add it to the burger the last minute of cooking so it melts good. I also pop the split buns on the barbecue to toast them up a bit.  I’ve also found that our grocery store bakery’s Kaiser rolls cost about the same as a pack of really plain white hamburger buns and are much better tasting. Or if you’re feeling up to it, you can bake your own hamburger buns which are to die for!

Chicken Curry and Vegetable Jalfrezi

I made some more great Indian curries the other night. The Patak curry pastes and cooking sauces are great! I used the Pataks Biryani Paste 10oz with this curry last night. Basic genesis of the recipe comes from Jamie’s Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals, one of my favorite new cookbooks. The chicken curry is pictured to the left here.

• 1 pound chicken tenders, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 2 onions, halved and thinly sliced
• 1 fresh green chili (I used a red one)
• a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, minced
• a small bunch of cilantro
• 1 15-oz can of garbanzo beans, drained
• 1-2 Tbs vegetable oil
• 1-2 Tbs butter
• 1/2 cup Pataks Biryani Paste
• 1 14-oz can coconut milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• plain yogurt at the table
• 1 lemon

Separate the cilantro stems from the leaves and mince the stems up. Chop the leaves and set aside for garnish.

Heat the oil and butter in a skillet. Add the onions, chili, ginger and cilantro stalks and cook for 10 minutes or so, stirring often, until golden and softened.

Add the curry paste, coconut milk, garbanzo beans and chicken. Stir well to coat everything, then add a 1/2 can of water and stir.  Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer, cover and simmer 30 minutes or so. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Squeeze some lemon juice on top, sprinkle the fresh cilantro leaves on top and serve with rice. Have a dish of plain yogurt on the table and some lemon wedges.

I was sent the cookbook “All You, Eat Well, Save Big” to review. It is a nice cookbook, with pictures of each meal, nice easy suggestions for side dishes and recipes for the main courses.  They calculate a price per serving for each meal so you can get a rough idea of costs (although your mileage may vary of course and different ingredients can be quite different prices in different areas and at different times of the year).

I’ve got 5 copies of this cookbook to give away. So enter a comment by12pm PST  Friday Feb 19 mentioning the book or this recipe and I’ll select 5 random commenters to win!  For those of you that don’t win, they’re offering a $1 off coupon bringing the price down to $11.

I’ve only tried one recipe so far, but I’ve got several bookmarked to try later. I’ve just been remiss in reviewing this and wanted to get the review out. The publisher also sent me several issues of the All You magazine, which I’d not seen before. My teenager daughter enjoyed several of the articles on makeup and clothing and I saw several recipes in the magazines that I would like to try as well. Both the mgazines and the book have several coupons in them –and for things I actually buy, which is unusual, like Worcestershire sauce and Mahatma rice ($1 off each, as well as 4 other products).    The only drawback to the book and magazine that I can see is that it seems to only be available at Walmart.  But if you’ve got one of those near you, this is worth checking out. Skim through the recipes and see if it’s something you’d like.

Tonight I made the Parmesan Pork Chops.  This is very close to how I make chicken cutlets but I somehow never thought to do it with pork chops before. Even my daughter that “doesn’t like pork much” enjoyed these tonight.  I served with some applesauce, baked potato and green salad.

• 1/2 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 3/4 cup bread crumbs
• 4 thin boneless pork cutlets (or cook longer if thicker)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 Tbs olive oil, divided
• 2 Tbs butter, divided

Put the flour in one shallow dish or pie pan, the eggs in another, and the bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese in a third. Mix up the eggs a bit with a fork or whisk. Stir together the bread crumbs and cheese.

Salt and pepper the pork chops to taste while you heat  1 Tbs of oil and 1 Tbs of butter in a frying pan over medium heat.  When the butter is foaming a bit, dredge a pork chop in the flour, then egg, the bread crumbs and lay in the frying pan.

Cooking Parmesan Pork Cutlets

Cook about 5 minutes total for thin pork chops, turning halfway through. These were delicious with some applesauce, a baked potato and green salad.

Remember: Enter a comment below before noon on Friday February 19  for a chance to win one of 5 copies being given away!

Hey, just a reminder that I’ve moved the blog to its namesake URL, Chronicles of a Curious Cook.  I will periodically post on here as well, but mostly when I take the time to calculate the cost per serving or something else price related.

That said, potatoes are on sale here: .99 for a 10 pound bag!  Haven’t seen them that low in …. maybe ever?    And I just made the most awesome roast potatoes, along with carrots, parsnips and butternut squash. I tried a new technique, essentially par boiling the veggies (other than the squash) for a bit before roasting. They came out fantastic!  Youngest took some for lunch along with some leftover roast chicken and said she wants that again tomorrow for lunch. You can just do potatoes, pictured here. Or combine them with other vegetables, like butternut squash, parsnips and carrots.

• potatoes, peeled and cut in 2-3″ chunks, or just in half
• carrots, scrubbed and ends trimmed off
• parsnips, peeled and cut into wedges at least 1″ thick
• butternut squash, halved, seeded, and cut in wedges

Roasting Vegetables

Bring a pot of water to boil while you preheat the oven to 400 F.  Simmer the potatoes and carrots for 5 minutes, then add the parsnips and cook another 4-5 minutes.

The squash doesn’t need to be parboiled.

Drain in a colander and let sit for a few minutes. Take everything but the potatoes out of the colander then shake the colander around a bit to shake up the potatoes.

Put the vegetables in a shallow pan, along with a few cloves of garlic and some sprigs of fresh parsley if you have some. (Grow some! )  Drizzle some olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste.  Sprinkle some paprika on the squash if you’d like.

Roast at 400 for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the vegetables.

This packs well for a school lunch the next day. My daughter took some vegetables, leftover roast chicken, some ketchup in a small container, and some sliced apples and pears and declared it one of the best lunches ever.