Vicky's Chicken Soup

1) First you must pick your tunes. Jamming while cooking is essential : ) I"m pretty sure it makes the food taste better.

2) Next you're gonna want to gather your ingredients:

1 32 oz container Swanson Chicken Broth
1 or 2 chicken breasts- thawed
1 bag fresh carrots
1 medium onion
Celery
2 cloves garlic
1 package portabella mushrooms
Fresh Rosemary
Fresh Thyme
1/2 c egg noodles (not pictured)
Olive oil (not pictured)

3) Chop 1 teaspoon of each rosemary and thyme. I put them in separate bowls afterward to avoid mess.

4) Trim the fat and other gross stuff off the chicken breast. Rub a bit of olive oil on the bottom of the pan before you put the chicken in the oven so it doesn’t stick after baking. Lightly salt for flavor and sprinkle w/ some rosemary and thyme. Bake @ 350 for about 35-45 min (until done and the juices run clear when you cut the thickest part w/ a knife {salmonella is bad news bears}). And while the chicken is baking…

5) Finely chop half of the onion (you want about 1/2 cup when all is said and done).

6) Behold! The greatest kitchen invention since the spork: The Garlic Press. You put the clove in the press and SQUISH! Your garlic is finely minced. But, if you don't have one, doing it the old fashioned way works too. I added it to the chopped onion and set it aside in a bowl for future reference.

7) Finely chop about a cup of celery and 1 1/2 cups of carrots. I like the baby carrots because you can chop them into nice small coins. Remember- the thicker you cut the carrots the longer they take to cook.

8) The chicken should be about done! Set it aside to cool.

9) Now its time to start the soup part. You want a 2 Qt sauce pan/pot, the onion, garlic, olive oil, rosemary and thyme.

10) Turn on your burner to about 3 (if you don’t have #’s it’s about the same place on all knobs, like medium-low-ish). Add a splash of olive oil to your pot along with the onion and garlic, a bunch of rosemary and thyme. (It should look like the picture) You are going to cook the onions until they start to get translucent (but not brown!) stirring them a bit for about 3 min once they’ve started to sizzle a little.

11) Next add your celery and carrots to the pot along with the 32 oz of chicken broth and 1 1/2 cups of water. Turn the heat up to bring it to a boil (about 9).

12) While you're waiting for the soup to boil, shred or chop the chicken breast up into cubes and add it to the pot. It should be cool enough to handle by now.

13) Once your soup is good and boiling turn the heat down to about 7 to bring it to a simmer/low boil.

14) I like dumplings in my soup. If you’re brave enough try them! They can be a little…messy... though. (If you don’t want dumplings simmer the soup for 15 min and skip to #20) You will need ½ cup flour, 6 egg yolks, a fork, and a spoon or two. Separate the egg yolks and place them in a bowl. Lightly beat them with the fork and add to the flour. Mix the two together with a fork until the fork stops working. At that point I use my fingers. The dough is sticky so it gets messy. But! Once you have the stuff mixed into a gooey paste it looks like this:

15) Now you’re gonna place spoon fulls like in the picture into the pot until there’s no more goop left in the bowl. Sometimes it doesn’t want to release from the spoon, I use that second spoon to help scrape it off.

16) Now, while all that is cooking, chop up about ½ cup of the baby Portabellas. I like Portas because they have more flavor but regular mushrooms work just the same (and might be a little cheaper). Add them to the pot!

17) You can add noodles instead of dumplings or you can add both! I added both this time. Add about ½ to 1 cup egg noodles (depending on how many noodles you want) and cook for 10 min (or according to the instructions on the package).

18) While the noodles are cooking turn the heat down to about medium. Your pot should look like this with all the dumplings floating to the top.

19) Taste the soup- if its too salty add 1/4 cup water. If its still too salty continue to add water to taste. Be careful not to add too much water or you will have to boil the water off or have watery soup.

20) When the noodles are done your soup is ready!

Leitey's Pot Roast

I like pot roast because it's really easy to make. You just throw it in the crock pot in the morning, and then dinner is made at whatever time you want to eat. Also, you can't burn it, which I learned is a very good thing, after that tapioca incident...

You will need:

A Crock Pot

A Roast

Some Carrots

A Few Potatoes

A Can of "Cream of Mushroom" Soup

Minced Garlic

Onion Soup and Dip Mix


First prepare the meat.
My roast had a bunch of fat on it, so I ripped that off first.














Next, cut some holes into the meat.














Stuff the holes with minced garlic.














I used to use actual garlic cloves for this, but the pieces were just too big, and they were really hard, even after cooking, and not really good for eating.

Now the meat is prepared. Throw the meat, potatoes and carrots into the crock pot.














Add the condensed "cream of mushroom" soup, and 1 packet of the onion dip mix.














In most crock pot recipes, you add some water, do not add water to this, not even to the can of soup. There is more than enough water already in the soup, and in the vegetables.

Cook on "low" for at least 8 hours. Stir, cover, and let cool. Enjoy!














As with any crock pot recipe, do not stir the roast during the actual cooking process.

As you can see, there is more than enough liquid in the finished product. That's why you don't add any water.

I cooked my roast for 11 hours. It's so tender, I could break it with the stirring spoon. I've found that cooking longer is better, but anything more than 14 hours is a bit excessive, and the texture of the vegetables is overly compromised.

Stir-Fried Rice Sticks (耖米粉)

Ingredients

• 1lb package of rice vermicelli
• 1lb (or so) ground beef or other meat
• 1 carrot
• 1 onion
  
• 1/8 cabbage
• 3-4 leaves napa cabbage
• 3 shitake mushrooms, dried
• 1 bag bean sprouts
• salt
• pepper
• soy sauce
• sugar

Pre-Preparation

Soak dried shitake mushrooms in bowl of water about 3-5 hours prior. Dice when hydrated and save the water.
Loosen ground beef and season with salt, pepper, ~1-2 tbsp soy sauce, sugar.
Chop carrots into oblique cross-sections, then cut into strips.
Chop cabbage into slivers.
Stack and cut napa leaves in half down the center. Then, cut crosswise into thin strips.
Chop onion into half-inch pieces.
Soak rice vermicelli in hot water until soft (~5 minutes). Drain.

Cooking

Brown onions, meat, carrots, mushrooms. I like to sautée onions with a little bit of soy sauce and sugar. Absolutely make sure your pan is big enough to hold all the ingredients with room to spare.
Stir-fry in cabbage and napa. Add in some mushroom juice and cover until mostly cooked. Season to taste, then add 1/2 more amount of salt and 1/4 more pepper. Seasoning evenly after this step becomes much harder.

Push everything in the pan to the edges and add in the vermicelli. Make sure there's some water in the pan, as the vermicelli will soak it up. Optionally, drizzle some soy sauce over the vermicelli. Cover and mix/turn occasionally until vermicelli is soft.

Once again, push everything to the edges and bury the bean sprouts. Reduce to medium/medium-low heat and cover until bean sprouts are soft. You did make sure your pan was large enough, right?

Add more mushroom juice or water if the noodles are sticking to the pan. There should not be any standing water at this point.

After bean sprouts are soft, turn off the heat, plate and serve. Leave the pan uncovered or half-covered to allow some moisture to evaporate. If all goes well, you should have something like this:









These steps can be used to create pad thai. Simply substitute wider rice noodles for the rice vermicelli, and add crushed peanuts and lime juice when serving.

Lasagna

INGREDIENTS

* 1 pound sweet Italian sausage
* 3/4 pound lean ground beef
* 1 package of bacon
* 1 cup minced onion
* 3 cloves garlic, crushed
* 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
* 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
* 26 oz of some kind of tomato sauce (we used some kind of spicy spaghetti sauce)
* 1/2 cup water
* 2 tablespoons white sugar
* 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
* 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
* 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
* 1 tablespoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
* 12 lasagna noodles
* 16 ounces ricotta cheese
* 1 egg
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 pound mozzarella cheese, sliced
* 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. In a big pan/skillet, cook sausage, ground beef, bacon, onion, and garlic over medium heat until well browned. Stir in crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water. Season with sugar, basil, fennel seeds, Italian seasoning, 1 tablespoon salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons parsley. Simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.




2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Cook lasagna noodles in boiling water for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain noodles, and rinse with cold water. In a mixing bowl, combine ricotta cheese with egg, remaining parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
4. To assemble, spread 1 1/2 cups of meat sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange 6 noodles lengthwise over meat sauce. Spread with one half of the ricotta cheese mixture. Top with a third of mozzarella cheese slices. Spoon 1 1/2 cups meat sauce over mozzarella, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers, and top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover with foil: to prevent sticking, either spray foil with cooking spray, or make sure the foil does not touch the cheese.




5. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes. Remove foil, and bake an additional 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before serving.

BBQ Pulled Pork-Quick and Good

There are three steps to this recipe

Inject/marinade the roast overnight

Rub overnight

steps 1 and 2 can be combined

Cooking 5 hours on the grill

Start with a pork shoulder roast sometimes called a Boston Butt, usually 7 lbs

Basic Rub

1/4 C brown sugar

1/4 C sweet paprika

3 T black pepper

3 T coarse salt

1 T hickory smoked salt or more coarse salt

2 t garlic powder

2 t onion powder

2 t celery seeds

1 t cayenne pepper

Injection Liquid/Marinade

2 C apple juice

2 C water

1/4 C cider vinegar

1 T rub (above)

Mix the liquid and inject in the roast, all over

It will squirt out, watch your eyes

This is where you can combine steps 1 and 2

Pack the rub all over the roast. I dont' think you can use to much - trust me.

Put roast in aluminum pan, fat side up in the frig over night

If you don't have an injector pierce the roast with a fork and place in a bowl with the liquid covering the whole roast. Place in frig overnight.

Next day pull the roast and pack the rub on overnight or 6 hours

I made two on this day

There is usally enough liquid in the roast that will seep out to fill the pan 1/4" or so. If not add some beer, one for you one for the roast

Cooking on the grill

Indirect, coals at the back of the grill, roast under the vent-I am assuming that you are using a Weber kettle grill - the best grill ever made - ask Ed for details on why.

Wood chips-the best are a fruit wood, cherry, apple but hickory works too.

Soak in water overnight

Use a chimney starter to lite your coals

You only need a dozen or so to start and you will need to add 5-6 ever hour

Use the bottom damper to control the temperature, not the top

Add a hand full of wood chips every so often to keep it smokin

Cook 3 hours at 350 F uncovered

Cover pan and roast with tin foil and cook another 2 hours at 350 F

When you cover the roast don't worry about adding more liquid to the pan, you'll find out later.

Let it sit uncovered to cool then start pulling!

I dispose of all the fat and end up with very lean meat

Add your favorite BBQ sauce and your set.

Basic BBQ Ribs

This is our basic and easy ribs.
We used:
2 slabs of pork ribs
italian seasoning
garlic powder
salt
pepper
sweet baby rays bbq sauce (regular and honey bbq)

We defrosted the ribs and started some water with a liberal amount of the seasonings and salt and pepper. Tossed in the ribs (cut in half to fit in the pot) and let it go on high heat for a while haha. It was actually when it started to boil over that we took it off. Prolly only a couple mins past when it actually started to boil.
Put it in a pan with a bunch of the two bbq sauces and some pepper on top. Baked it for...20-25mins?
The change for us on this one was boiling it with all the seasonings and adding pepper on top. Ended up being great actually. We could taste a hint of the italian and garlic even after it was slathered in bbq sauce. The pepper on top added a nice kick as well.

Sweet Mashed Potatoes with cheddar cheese

Courtesy of Ray Ray:

3 lbs of sweet potatoes
a stick or less of Butter
1/2 cup Sour Cream
1/2 cup milk
shredded cheddar cheese
chopped/snipped chives

boil potatoes until soft.
add all the ingredients
mash

pictures later (or now :P lol-eddie-edits)



These potatoes were AMAZING btw. The switch from regular potatoes to sweet was top notch even after the addition of sour cream/cheese/etc.

Apple Cider Beef Stew

Courtesy of Ray Ray:

EVOO & butter
2 lbs of beef, cut doesn't really matter
salt, pepper
1 large onion
2 carrots
1 lb turnips
4 tbsp flour
2 cups apple cider
15 oz beef stock

preheat oven to 425°

chop all the onion, carrots turnips
brown beef + salt + pepper with the EVOO and butter in a big stew pot
add onions, carrots, turnips
sprinkle with flour and stir Stir in apple cider and beef stock
bring to boil. cover and transfer to oven. 45 min. done.

pictures later (or now :P)
cooking pot:























Mixed with mashed sweet potatoes
which Eddie liked but Dwayne wasn't as much a fan of
The difference was that the potatoes get REALLY soft and mostly mixed in.

Okay Ill start this off with something we made 1.5 weeks ago?
I think that was it. The night we brewed our beer also :P
This was just a simple beer chicken. Bought a whole chicken, cleaned it up a bit...put it on a full miller lite can. Also put an ENTIRE package of bacon over the sides haha.
Cooked it at like 400degrees for about 45mins.
It turned out well, but undercooked. Next time it will definitely be more like 1.5 hours I think.

Beer Chicken - mmmmm beer

Frick. I just deleted this post after finishing it. Ghey.
Anyway this is to start it off I guess. This was something Dwayne and I made on a slow friday while we were brewing our beer I think...1.5 weeks ago or so.
Really easy: Required Chicken, package of bacon, 1 beer :P
Basically just cleaned up the chicken, pre-heated oven to 400 stuck the full, opened, beer can inside the chicken and the draped the ENTIRE package of bacon over the top. Cooked it at 400 for about 45mins.
It turned out well, but undercooked. I think next time we'd cook it for something like 1.5 hours actually.

We are awesome.

This is going to be epic.
Very epic.
Be prepared.