Breakfast Burritos

I bought a bunch of eggs to make fried rice, but it has been too hot for me to want to make any. This puts my eggs close to their (well actually past) best by date. I've heard that eggs aren't really supposed to go bad, but a brief online search still recommended use between 3-5 weeks after their package date. Thus, after checking to make sure that the eggs still sunk when placed in water, I decided to make breakfast burritos.

8 eggs
9 link sausages
1/2 bag frozen hash browns (about 1 lb)
butter, salt, pepper
5 tortillas
1 cup shredded cheese

1. Scramble eggs with butter, salt, pepper.
2. Brown sausage.
3. Cook hash browns according to directions.
4. Heat tortillas.
5. Divide ingredients evenly between tortillas and wrap.


I only have one skillet right now, and it's really too hot to stand in front of for long periods of time, so I did my preparation in stages, putting things aside in the fridge until I was ready for them. The amounts here come from what was in my fridge. I had eight eggs and the package of sausages came with nine. I used half a bag of cube hash browns because I hope to use more later as a substitute for cubed potatoes in forgiving recipes.

This was my first time cooking sausage that was not not come browned. I put them in a skillet and cooked on medium-high until they were brown. I checked online and it is recommended to cook on lower heat so that the skins don't burst and the sausage stays juicy. The skin did burst some when I cooked them, but hopefully this won't be too much of an issue. I wanted some of the sausage grease to cook the hash browns in, so I was happy to get that. It was also kinda interesting to hear the sausages whistle as they cooked.

From past experience these should reheat well in the microwave and freeze well if desired. I'm planning on having them for lunch this week, so I wrapped them individually in plastic wrap and stuck them in the fridge.

Edit: These have reheated well, but they are pretty bland. Most of the flavor comes from the sausage and I think they are suffering a bit from having their skins burst. This should have been obvious, but I'm not always great at thinking ahead. For more flavor, I would recommend adding spices/onion/garlic to the scrambled eggs, or ketchup/salsa to the mix for more flavor. 

Turkey Chilli

So I've been wanting to try ground turkey for a while and I had a half can of diced tomatoes so I decided to try making chilli. Yesterday I got Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook. It contains a bunch of chili recipes, which I used to get an idea of proportions of the spices and cooking times. Most of the amounts for ingredients varied by a factor of two and so did the cooking times, so I decided to wing it.

1 lb ground turkey
2 cans kidney beans
1/2 a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 medium sweet onion
1 large clove garlic
2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
dash paprika

1. Brown ground turkey, then drain. Chop onion. Dice garlic.
2. Combine all ingredients including liquid from cans in slow cooker (2 quart). Stir gently.
3. Cook on low for 7 hours.

While the recipes in the book mostly don't contain cumin or paprika, several online recipes I looked at did and I liked the idea. I also tasted the chili powder to see how spicy it was. It has fairly good flavor (its the local store brand) and not much heat so I went with the high side of amounts. I almost forgot garlic and didn't want to fuss with pealing it, which is why I only used one clove. In addition, when adding ingredients my slow cooker was mostly full before I added the second can of kidney beans, but I wanted a larger proportion of beans than one can could provide.

Kidney beans contain a toxin that requires they be brought to a full boil in the cooking process. They can be used in a slow cooker, but they need to be boiled for ten minutes first, so I decided it would be simpler to go with cans. This also means that everything but the onions and garlic was already cooked which gives a lot of leniency in the cook time. However, if adjusting the cook time, keep in mind that vegetables do take a long time to cook in the slow cooker. On the other hand, my slow cooker was filled more than 3/4 of the way full (2/3 full is recommended) which increases the cook time, so I was already went with the longer side. I also lifted the lid a few times to stir the chili and make sure the onions were mixed through. Lifting the lid is supposed to increase the cooking time by about 30 minutes per time when cooking on low, so its something else to keep in mind.

I had some of the chili with some shredded cheese on top. It decent, but not particularly flavorful. There goes my theory about intensifying the flavors too much. And this time I did mix things fairly well, so that most of the spice was in the liquid. Since I took from the top to eat, it's possible that there will be more flavor in later bowls. As it was, most of what I could taste was the cheese. Not that I really object to the taste of cheese, but if the future bowls are similar, I will probably double the amount of spices when I make this again.

Edit: This has been much better in subsequent bowls. The turkey is still kinda bland, but the spices are a lot more reasonable. I will still likely increase the amount in the future, but not by as much as I originally thought. I will also almost certainly use hamburger instead of ground turkey.

Lentil Soup

I have heard a lot of good things about lentils, so I decided to make lentil soup. I used the recipe from here: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Recipes/story?id=7039586

When I was first reading the ingredient list I was really excited. I thought that everything would easily fit into my crock pot. Then I realized that the amount of liquid alone would fill mine without the other stuff. I thus went with roughly halving the recipe.

Thus I used:
2 chopped carrots
2 chopped ribs of celery
1 small chopped onion
1 large and 1 small clove of garlic
1/2 of a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
3/2 tsp. balsamic vinegar

In addition I halved the amount of liquid and used half vegetable stock and half water. I also used half the amount of salt, pepper, thyme, and lentils.

I knew that I didn't want to spend a lot of time on this in the morning, so I cut the celery, onions, and carrots the night before. I also coarsely cut the garlic and then crushed it with the flat side of a knife. I then put these together in gladware overnight.

In the morning I added the first six ingredients to my crock pot. I then rinsed the lentils and added them and the thyme. I set the crock pot to low and left it alone for 10 hours. I then added the salt pepper and balsamic vinegar and waited 10 more minutes before eating. (I forgot to halve the balsamic vinegar from the original recipe, but it isn't something I really mind).

This was pretty good. I wasn't entirely sure how I would feel about the cooked tomatoes, but I ended up enjoying them. I haven't entirely decided what I think about the taste of the lentils themselves; its not bad, but it is different. Kind of similar to some type of bean, but I can't decide which. I'll have time to do that as I still have more than a quart and a half of soup.

One thing I've noticed about the slow cooker is how intense the spices seem to get, particularly for the first batch. I didn't add that much thyme, but I could definitely taste the spice. One possibility is that the long cook time strengthens the flavor. This explanation is supported by some of my reading. However, the spices float, so it's also possible that I just got a large amount in my portion today. I made red beans and rice (and will again soon), and the first bowl was a lot spicier than the rest. This might be the second effect, and it might be that I got used to the spice, so I'm curious to see how my perception of the level of spice varies in future servings. 

Pulled Pork

Pork roast was on sale this week so I got a 3.25 pound pork roast. On Saturday I started preparing it. The general recipe I used comes from http://genxfinance.com/crock-pot-bbq-pulled-pork-recipe-for-under-15-easy-and-frugal/

I used a
couple of small onions (the ones I have are less than 3" in diameter)
3 cloves of garlic
Weber's Smokey Mesquite Seasoning
3.25 lb pork roast

I haven't yet found liquid smoke and I forgot to add salt and pepper. I do have Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce which I will use on some of the pork.

I assembled the ingredients as per the given recipe. I really like that the onions and garlic are coarsely cut because chopping onions tend to make my eyes burn. I kept in my 2 quart slow cooker for 9 hours. I mostly used low. Because my crock pot was overfull I turned it up to high for about an hour to speed cooking. The recipe comments that a 7lb pork shoulder fits nicely in a 6.5 quart crock pot. It is a tight fit to put about more than 3lbs in my 2 quart crock pot, but the lid fits. I have also made this recipe with a 4lb pork shoulder and it managed to (barely) fit in my crock pot.  When I was done cooking I fished out the meat and put it in a covered bowl in the fridge. The idea was to let it cool and then pull it apart the next day.

Instead I didn't get around to this second step until this evening (Tuesday). As a reward for delaying, the meat had collected a layer of gelatin near the bottom of the bowl.  I used a second bowl and 'trimmed' the meat by pushing off the fat and gelatin before transferring the lean meat to the second bowl. The fat separates readily to a bit of pressure. A couple of forks then made easy work of the meat. I didn't add BBQ sauce yet as I don't want it on all of the meat. I separated it into four portions. One went into the fridge to make in quesadillas for lunches for later this week. The other three portions went into freezer bags for later use.

As I said I have used the recipe before using pork shoulder. I would second the ease of pulling out the bone. It was a bit harder to separate the cartilage from the bone, but it was still pretty easy to do with my hands. I added about half a bottle of BBQ sauce to it and brought it to a potluck. The recipe warns to be careful reheating so that the sauce doesn't burn so I reheated it part way on the oven warm setting. However as people were pretty hungry, we ended up eating it cold.

Although it was a bit more of a hassle to deal with the bone in pork shoulder, when I do this next I will probably use one again. While the pork shoulder I bought still had some skin that I cut off before cooking, the extra work was minimal. The pork roast felt a lot more fatty to the touch and I like leaner meat so I think that it is worth the work.

Hummus

Written Saturday, July 17, 2011

I decided earlier this week that I needed to get a food processor. I had some excellent humus and wanted to make my own. It also is recommended for making black bean soup. Yesterday while walking to my car, I stumbled upon a box with free kitchen supplies. While most of them were in pretty bad shape, I did find colander and a small food processor. So when I went grocery shopping I picked up some dried chickpeas and tahini to make humus. However, when I got back to my apartment and tested the food processor, I found it didn't work. I was a bit sad, but none of the ingredients go bad quickly, so I decided to wait. This morning I went out to look at garage sales. I was luckily able to find a food processor (about five cups with a shredder and slicer thing) for $3!

When I got home I started soaking the chickpeas. A cup dried makes about three cups cooked. From what I found online, a 15oz can is approximately 1.5 cups. Most recipes I found call for one or two such cans. However, one of the recipes said that hummus only really keeps for about 3 days in the fridge, or a month frozen. So I decided to make 3 cups, but then to make a smaller recipe and freeze the other 1.5 cups for later. I let them soak for a bit more than 6 hours and then drained them (in my new colander :)) and the added water to cook them. For this I brought them to a boil then simmered for about an hour. Cooking suggestions vary from 40 minutes to two hours, but I was in a bit of a rush so I stayed on the shorter side.

I mostly followed the recipe found here: http://mideastfood.about.com/od/appetizerssnacks/r/hummusbitahini.htm

Specifically, I used
1.5 cups chickpeas
some liquid from simmering chickpeas
juice from 2 lemons
1.5 tablespoons tahini
3 minced cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt

I simply placed the above ingredients in the food processor (maybe 1/4 cup of the liquid). I ran it for about a minute, then opened it. It was still pretty solid and I thought it needed more liquid, so I added more (to between 1/2 and 1 cup total). I then continued to run the food processor for another couple of minutes.

I ended up with pretty liquidy humus. I didn't have pita bread so I had some with a carrot. Even though it seemed liquidy, it stuck to the carrot pretty well. I then put the rest in gladware and put it in the fridge for later. Also, although it was good, it didn't seem quite right. One possibility is that I may have misread the recipe in not adding olive oil in the hummus as well as in a well when done (which I also didn't do), but I'll likely mix some in over the next couple of days. Another was that the texture of too liquidy with some still larger chunks was strange to me. In the future I will probably run the food processor longer, I hadn't wanted to this time because it was so loud. I also dumped out the rest of the liquid without thinking of the next time I make this (with the now freezing chickpeas), so I'll probably have to use water or or find another recipe that doesn't call for it.