Veteran's Day

Happy Monday!  I know, I know, nobody likes Mondays.  Well, with today being Veteran's Day, I won't be cooking.  My husband is an Army Vet so he likes to go out and get his free meal.  That means tonight is like a date night!  We decided to go to Olive Garden which is one of my favorite restaurants.  I get to eat great Italian dishes that I've yet to learn how to cook.  And finish it off with a slice of tiramisu my all time favorite dessert!  My husband called ahead, so we wouldn't have to wait for a table because restaurants get very busy when they offer free meals.  The waiter came and took our drink orders.  My husband chose a blackberry blood orange tea and I opted for water because I knew I'd like a special coffee with my dessert.  Once they picked the tea leaves from China and the waiter brought it to him, he was parched!  But it was worth the wait.  His tea was to die for I tell ya!  Throw a little vodka in that and you've got yourself a cocktail!  It was so delicious and full of flavor!  I'm sorry I didn't order one myself.  We decided to try a new appetizer.  I'm partial to their fried calimari and stuffed mushrooms, but Brian wants nothing to do with those items.  We settled on a flatbread something or another topped with beautiful red tomatoes, roasted red peppers, and fresh basil.  Is there anything they serve that doesn't make me feel like I'm in Italy?  For our entrees, I ordered the same thing I do 90% of the time:  the ravioli di portabello, which is my favorite item from their menu.  Hubby ordered from a "special" veteran's menu and got the sausage and peppers with macaroni.  He liked it alot, but it was just okay to me.  I much more prefer the rich, smokey flavor of the mushroom ravioli in that divine cream sauce!  We both saved room (or so we thought) for dessert.  We both ordered the tiramisu and I ordered a cafe latte.  I like the way the bitterness offsets the sweet of the tiramisu.  As with his tea, I thought they had to go pick the coffee beans for my coffee.  By the time the waiter decided to tell us that their machine was down, I was already two-thirds through my dessert and quite perturbed. 

After our meal, we decided to go to Bed Bath & Beyond to walk off a couple of courses.  They have a nice roasting pan with a rack, that I've had my eye on for a few weeks.  I'm tired of aluminum pans at Thanksgiving.  Especially since we cook two every year.  One for at Brian's grandma's house and one for church potluck the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  So we got the pan and we also got a set of lifting forks.  And because he is a veteran, we also got a 20% discount!  How great is that!  I'm seriously looking forward to using that pan next week because I have a Barefoot Contessa roast chicken recipe I want to try. 

So, I'll be back in the kitchen tomorrow and I can't wait!  It's the recipe I've been dying to cook since I bought 2 cans of rather pricey tomatoes at the grocery store last week.

See Ya in the Kitchen!

Sunday Potluck

Happy Sunday y'all!  Hope you had a great weekend filled with lots of yummy stories to share with me!  Sunday is my favorite day of the week.  Why?  Because I get to spend the day in the kitchen at church with family and friends.  See, at our church, we have potluck EVERY SUNDAY.  Sometimes we have folks to bring a dish, but most of the time we have them bring the ingredients and me and a handful of teens to 50 somethings get busy in the kitchen creating a feast for the rest of the congregation.  It can get quite interesting back there, especially if we have folks who may have forgotten to bring their ingredient or happen to miss church for some reason.  We have had many a triumph, mishap, and complete tragedy back there.  But it's always fun and it always comes together!  A time or two we have even pulled off a fish and loaves miracle.  However that was not the case today.  Today we had well more than enough to go around.  This week, a big ol' down home country breakfast was on the menu.  We must have had 20 dozen eggs, 20 pounds of sausage, and about 35 cans of biscuits.  Oh and let's not forget the gravy made from scratch!  At first we weren't sure if we were gonna have enough to go around.  I had to throw out quite a few farm fresh eggs that had turned green, P.U.!  And for a moment I thought I was going to have to make biscuits from scratch and let me tell ya, that's NOT my greatest kitchen accomplishment for sure, LOL!  But as the time passed people kept bringing their promised ingredients.  I even had a spare 3 lb roll of sausage that i browned and threw into the eggs we beat.  When the scrambled egg and sausage mixture hit that flat top grill, woo wee, did that smell good!  Everything was ready at just the right time to take out to the buffet table and breakfast was a hit!  One nice lady even brought in some packages of flour tortillas.  It's Mexican next sunday! 

See ya in the Kitchen!

I Just Had a Foodgasm!

 Hey y'all!  Hope everyone is having a great week!  I've been keeping myself busy in my kitchen as well as trying to upgrade to a bigger kitchen--in a bakery!  I applied for a job at a local bakery earlier this week, that has a GINORMOUS kitchen that I'd love to get my hands dirty in!  Especially after the success of my cinnamon rolls. 

Today's project, however, is not of the baking sort.  A couple of weeks ago I was watching Rachael Ray's Week in a Day show.  I love that woman.  I could hang out with her even outside the kitchen.  She's so perky!  She showcased two recipes that I wanted to try:  chicken thighs w/spicy Italian sausage and spicy ziti.  I love cooking with fresh veggies especially when I'm cooking Italian.  But I have NEVER cooked chicken thighs in any way, shape, or form.  I'm a drumstick girl at heart or quick and easy frozen breasts.  And very seldom do I fry chicken.  Not like when I was growing up at home and my Granny fried chicken once a week.  Oooooh that smell!  I could always tell what we were having for supper!  I'd be walking home from school and you could smell my Granny's cookin from two doors down!  Her chicken make you wanna slap ya mamma!  But, I digress...

I've never tried to cook one of Rachael Ray's dishes, I usually just drool on myself watching her throw it together on TV.  So I was really excited to try this tonite.  The aroma of the sausage and the veggies were to die for!  So I'm frying the chicken (skin on) in the sausage grease while I'm chopping up the peppers and onions.  I'm really careful too, cooking in over low heat so as not to scorch the outside and leave it raw inside, and I'm checking the temp with my meat thermometer.  After so long, I just got tired of them not coming up to temp as fast as I thought they should.  The veggies were chopped and ready to go in the pan, the dishes I had dirtied were washed, and my chicken thighs were still 20 degrees away from being done.  So I did what any wife with a patient, but hungry man would do...I popped them in the microwave and got to sauteing my veggies!  Once I did that, dinner came together nicely.  I got my peppers and onions tender, threw the sausage back in the pot, and finally my chicken got thoroughly done.  I put the chicken on top of the sausage and let it simmer for about ten more minutes and just like that, supper was done!

OH.  MY.  GOD!  I cannot explain to you the DEPTH of the flavors that were going on in this dish!  It was spicy, sweet, and smokey all at the same time!  The layers of flavor were phenomenal!  This has got to be the best chicken I've ever made!  I encourage you to try this recipe and see for yourself!  Thank you Rachael Ray!

Ingredients

1/2 lb spicy Italian sausage
5 chicken thighs
1 red pepper chopped
1 green pepper chopped
1 red onion chopped
4 cloves of garlic minced
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup chicken stock
paprika to taste
salt & pepper to taste

Directions

Brown sausage, set aside
Sprinkle salt, pepper, and paprika on skin side of chicken.  Fry chicken in sausage grease skin side down first.  Salt and pepper opposite side of chicken before turning over.  When done, cover with aluminum foil and set aside to rest.
Saute peppers, onion, and garlic until tender.  Once tender, deglaze the pan with wine and continue cooking for 2 minutes.
Add chicken stock and continue cooking for 2 minutes.
Place sausage back in pan on top of veggies.
Place chicken thighs skin side up on top of sausage.  Allow to cook for 10 more minutes.
Serve the chicken topped with the sausage, pepper, and onion mixture.

Take a picture, post on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Google....oh wait, that's just me, LMAO!

The only change I made to this was I omitted the wine and used an additional 1/2 cup of chicken stock instead.  Next time I will most definitely use the wine because I'm sure it will add even more depth of flavor to this delicious dish!  I hope you try this recipe and love it as much as we did! 

See ya in the Kitchen!

Cookie Jars

I was perusing Pinterest today, looking for some DIY homemade Christmas gifts for our Dirty Santa game that we play every year at my husband's grandma's house.  We all bring a wrapped gift within the confines of the set budget, then draw names out of a hat to see who gets to pick a gift first.  Then the next name drawn can either pick a gift from the gift tabel or steal the gift someone else picked. Lots of fun!  Especially when you throw in the gag gifts such as a huge skull chain "wrapped" in 2x4s!  So we kinda switch it up between gag gifts and normal gifts.  So...back to Pinterest!  I'm doing a search and come across these beauties!  Christmas cookies in mason jars!  I absolutely love this idea!  I'm a Kentucky girl and I love my mason jars!  I also wanted my gift this year to have a certain rustic look to it as I've been leaning that way in the kitchen here recently.  With these mason jars, you can dress them up or dress them down, which is the look I will give them.  I love antiques and rustic country, primitive decor, so that will be the look that my cookie jars will take on.  Set the jar in a pretty Christmas bowl, attach a spatula and recipe card, and VOILA, I've got a thoughtful, unique, culinary gift to take to Christmas this year!  I've noticed these in stores around the holidays and have always thought they were pretty to look at, but they are also pricey.  This year I'll do my own!  I'm so looking forward to buying the mason jars and the fabric to go on top!  Not so much looking forward to googline and figuring out how to fit the recipe on a downloaded recipe card, but it will probably be better than writing it out myself, especially if I make several of them.  After writing out all those Christmas cards, my hand will be ready to fall off!  What traditions do you have around your house at the holidays? 

See ya in the Kitchen!

CIN-fully Delicious

I bought some yeast at the store last week.  I buy it every year with the best of intentions, but I never seem to get around to using it before it goes out of date.  I think I'm just a tad intimidated about making breads because I know that temps have to be just right or the dough won't rise.  But I decided that this was gonna be my year to tackle a recipe I found many years ago for cinnamon rolls.  I haven't worked with yeast since I worked at a steakhouse about 15 years ago making yeast rolls.  But I decided to go ahead and try this recipe today.  I almost didn't and then I found my candy thermometer!  Score!  I could make  sure that my water temp was just right before adding it to the yeast.  After adding the water to the yeast and letting it sit for five agonizing minutes, I prayed to the baking gods that it would do exactly what it was supposed to do in that time.  Hoping it had done its thing, I began adding the other ingredients to Big Mamma.  That's what I've named my red Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  So Big Mamma is doin her thing and then she starts to s-l-o-w down.  I remembered a story my uncle told me about his son in law killing their mixer making a bread, so I turned her off.  Then I remembered...dough hook!  Quickly I swapped out the flat beater attachment for the dough hook and strarted her back up.  Worked like a charm!  So after the dough looked like I thought it should look, I took it from the mixing bowl to my floured surface.  I've got a wonderful friend who recently gave me a pastry placemat that's got all sorts of sizes and rulers on it.  I set the kitchen timer on my microwave to make sure I didn't over work the dough and went to work kneading the dough.  It felt so good to have my hands back in dough!  I can't even explain it to you, it just makes me feel so creative!  After I shaped my dough into the nearly appropriate sized rectangle I smeared the room temp butter on.  I'm sure they make a politically correct utensil for that job, but I just used my hands.  PC is lost on this girl, LOL!  Then on to sprinkling it up with the cinnamon mixture and rolling it up.  Now, I make about 25 roll cakes every year through Thanksgiving and Christmas, and sometimes they roll up just right, and other times....well, not so much.  I'm always careful because my motto is "presentation, presentation, presentation", but working with this raw dough, I was even more gentle. Too gentle on the first roll, and I realized this when I began cutting it and it was falling flat.  So I was a little rougher with the second roll making sure I pinched the seam real good, no matter how loud it squealed.  The first roll turned out great, but the 2nd roll turned out fantastic!  they plumped up so nice in the pan and both rolls tasted scrumptious!  Now that I have my first cinnamon rolls under my belt, my next yeast based project will be Amish bread.  I don't have a bread machine and neither did the good women of this great country 200 years ago and neither do the Amish!  Not sure when I'll attempt Amish bread, but it will be before Christmas I'm sure!  Hope you enjoyed a peek into what's going on in my kitchen today!  What are some techniques, recipes, or utensils that have caused you some trepidation in the kitchen?  Did you attack them?  How did that work out for you?  Share your story with me. 

 

See ya in the Kitchen!

 



 

 

My First Disaster

Let's start with my very first kitchen disaster, because after all, we've all had them!  It didn't happen in my kitchen though.  Unfortunately it happened at my very first job.  Back in about 1993 I was around 17 years old and had just started working at The Hungry Pelican, a fast food spot in our local Galleria.  I had only been working as a cashier on the front line for a few days.  We kept a cauldron, similar to the one in the picture above, out in the front so that we cashiers could ladle a hot bowlful as needed.  There was a window between us and the kitchen where the orders came through, and one of the cooks passed a stainless steel pot filled with steaming clam chowder through the window and told me to put it in the pot.  So, I poured the chowder into the pot and passed the now empty stainless steel pot back through the window to the cooks.  They looked extremely puzzled and asked me did we already need more chowder.  I told them no, I just put that chowder that they gave me into the pot like they told me to.  They looked at me like I had just ruined their entire day.  I didn't understand, I just did what they told me to do.  Then my manager came to the window.  She asked me what happened.  I told her that I put the clam chowder in the pot just like the cook asked me to.  It was then that she informed me that the stainless steel pot should have been SET DOWN INTO the pot.  LMAO!!  I didn't realize that the pot was itself just a prop that acted as a warmer that had to be plugged in.  i thought it was a real iron cauldron that you could actually cook in!  Needless to say, I created quite a mess that day and my family still teases me about it to this day over 20 years later.  Thankfully, that's one mistake that I will never make again.  There are many more mistakes and stories to be told however and I will definitely be sharing more disaster stories as well as triumphs very soon!  In the meantime, it's back to the kitchen for me.  I hope you'll share with me some of your kitchen disasters!

See ya in the Kitchen!

Welcome!

Welcome to Jodi's Kitchen!  I'm Jodi!  I'm a born and bred Kentucky girl living in Indiana, hoping to one day move back to God's Country in the Bluegrass State.  I've been married to a wonderful man for nearly seven years, which is why i crossed the mighty Ohio River into southern Indiana.  I'm 39 years young but have only been cooking and baking for about the last twenty years, as my mom wouldn't allow me to cook much more than a boil-in bag of a single salisbury steak or box macaroni and cheese at home.  Or maybe nuke a can of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee ravioli.  However, I come from a long line of awesome country cookin' Grannies and aunts!  I have great memories of my Granny's kitchen being filled with mouth watering aromas and busy bees cooking old fashioned, made from scratch recipes that were, of course, never written down or even measured.  To this day I find myself always calling on one aunt in particular to learn the secrets of Granny's recipes.  She can always help me out because even though she couldn't tell you what she had for breakfast, her long term memory knows no bounds.  What my momma always said about me being in the kitchen is true.  She said, "You're not afraid to try anything, are you?".  The answer is a resounding "No!"  Whether it's a new recipe, technique, or ingredient, I'm not afraid to try new things in the kitchen.  Most of the time I succeed, but sometimes I fail.  What's the worst that could happen?  I'd have to order a pizza?

See ya in the Kitchen!