Making Grammy proud...

I have wonderful memories of cooking with my "Grammy" ( my mom's mother) as a kid. I think it was with her that I learned to enjoy cooking from a young age. She was always so patient and and let me actually try to make things,even though she knew that I wouldn't do it "just right." With her, it didn't matter.I was about 8 years old when my mom went back to school for some graduate work, so my brother and I were with Grammy and Granddad (AKA-Hotdog)two nights a week while my mom was away. My dad had the restaurant at that time so he wasn't able to be with us at night/after school, so my grandparents stepped in those couple nights. I used to LOVE going to Grammy's house during the week. My grandma had this big collection of recipes that she kept in a large binder, and I was allowed to go through it and pick out what I wanted to make for dinner. It gave me a feeling of being so grown up, and being in charge of what we were going to eat that night seemed like this huge deal at the time.

Anyways, one of my absolute favorite meals that Grammy made was chicken paprikash. My Grammy is 100% Hungarian, born to two Hungarian immigrants who came to The States around 1910. Chicken paprikash is the Hungarian version of chicken and dumplings. For me, this is total comfort food. I always requested either chicken paprikash or Hungarian chicken soup for my birthday dinner as a kid. I think the next thing I try to master is going to have to be Hungarian chicken soup...stay tuned for that adventure!

I stumbled across a recipe for chicken paprikash in the latest issue of Real Simple. I was instantly drawn to it and was reminded of how much I love it. It seemed easy enough, so I thought I would try it out and make it for dinner. After I looked at the recipe closer, I realized that this wasn't the paprikash I was used to. For starters, it had green bell peppers in it and fresh dill. While I like both green bell peppers and fresh dill, I just couldn't imagine having it in my paprikash. Later that day, I was over at my mom's house and asked if she had the recipe for Grammy's paprikash. She did, so I made of a copy of it, along with Hungarian dumpling recipe that you serve with it. Originally, I had planned to serve it with egg noodles like the Real Simple recipe suggested, but I thought I would give it a try.
After I read through Grammy's recipe, I realized that it wasn't that hard,and I thought to myself...'I could so do this!' My only concern was the dumplings. I have watched dumplings being made countless times, but to make them on my own, without any guidance or coaching seemed daunting to me. But I decided I would try it, and if they turned out like little dough-bullets I would just cook up the egg noodles as a back up plan.

So, I set out to make my very first chicken paprikash. I started by browning an onion and garlic in some oil. Grammy's recipe calls for bacon grease, but since I didn't have any on hand ( bad girl!), I went with vegetable oil. After that, I added a whole cut up chicken and let that brown a little bit. Then I added 3 tablespoons of tomato paste, 1 can tomato sauce, 1/4 tsp. paprkia, and a dash of S&P. I let this cook down for a good bit, covered over medium heat.

Now, let's get down to business and talk about the dumplings. Dumplings done right are a thing to savor, done wrong, they will sit in your stomach for what seems like days like little lead bullets. At least that's been my experience....
Take 4 cups of flour, 3 eggs, 1/2 cup cold water and a pinch of salt. Make a hollow in the center of the flour and crack the eggs, pour the water and add the salt in the center. Slowly work your wet ingredients into your dry, adding more water as necessary ( but be careful not to put too much water or you will end up with a runny mess) until your dough is in a ball and is a stiff-sticky consistency. Then, drop the dough by small balls ( I prefer mine smaller than bigger) into boiling water. Cook for 10-15 minutes or until tender. Drain, and rinse with cold water.

Now, put your focus back on the bird stewing in that lovely tomato sauce. Remove the chicken from the sauce and set aside. Bring the sauce up to just before a boil, and then remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup sour cream. Don't use the low-fat stuff either. My philosophy is if I just stood at the stove and hand dropped enough dumplings for 5 people, by gosh I'm going to eat real sour cream as a reward!
Once the sour cream is stirred in, add the dumplings to the sauce and coat them with the sauce. At this point, I took a taste and was amazed that it actually tasted what Grammy makes! For some reason I was thinking that no one could make it except for her, and although hers is way better than mine, I think for a first timer I did ok!

It was an event that definitely would of made Grammy proud, so I had to call her and tell her of my success. I'm also sure that Grammy's mom, Mamaw, was looking down on me from heaven as I was dropping those dumplings in the water and smiling. It feels good to be keeping the Hungarian ancestry alive. Grammy was just as pleased as I was, so now I have to have the family over for chicken paprikash so that they will actually believe that I can make it. I bet it will be the first time in a long time that Grammy will have paprikash that wasn't made by her. I am so thankful for my family being so close and still in such good health. What a blessing not only to have such great memories of my family from childhood, but to also be able to create new memories with them everyday!

Cheers and happy cooking,
Rosie

Paula Dean, Y'all!

Who doesn’t love brunch? I mean, really? You get breakfast foods combined with lunch and you can put champagne in your orange juice!

I had a family brunch on labor day and cooked up some tasty things. The menu was, baked French toast casserole, creamy hash browns, sausage soufflé, biscuits, coffee cake, fruit plate, sliced tomatoes, sausage links and patties ( because I’m certain there wasn’t enough fat in this meal) and coffee cake! Whew, I’m full just thinking about it.

The French toast casserole and the creamy hash browns were a Paula Dean recipe. Both were so good. The thing that I loved about the French toast recipe was that the majority of the prep was done the night before, so in the morning all I had to do was make the praline topping and bake it. I took a nice loaf of French bread from the bakery, sliced into 1 inch thick slices and overlapped them in a buttered baking dish. ( I used my beloved le crueset gratin pan). Then you take 2 cups half and half, 1 cup milk, cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg and pour that mixture over the bread. Let it sit overnight, and then in the morning melt 2 sticks of butter. Yes, I really did just say 2 whole sticks of butter. To the butter combine 1 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla flavoring and 1 cup chopped pecans. Mix that together and pour over your bread. Bake uncovered for 40-45 minutes. One of the best things about making this was how divine it made my house smell. It reminded me of Christmas and this would be a great dish to make Christmas morning. I almost forgot to mention that we served it with real, warm maple syrup drizzled over top. Doesn’t that just sound delightful? Both recipes can be found on food networks website, www.foodnetwork.com if you are interested

The hash brown casserole was a snap. All I did was take one package hash brown potatoes, combined with 1 package shredded cheddar, 1 can cream of mushroom, 1 diced sautéed onion ( in butter of course) and 1 cup milk. Mix that all together and bake for 45 minutes until it gets nice and brown on top. This reminded me of the hash brown casserole at cracker barrel that I adore. So if you’re a fan of that stuff, you will want to make a pan of this. Trust me!

I can’t take any credit for the sausage soufflé or for the coffee cake, because my lovely mom and grandma made those. I’m blessed with a family of great cooks!

To top the whole thing off, Chris set up a Bloody Mary bar and was custom making them! Even though he doesn’t drink he can sure make a mean cocktail. He had the whole shebang, horseradish, worcestershire sauce, Tabasco the whole enchilada. My brother made the comment that it was better than the bloody mary he had a St. George and the Dragon’s so I think that is a compliment.

The ladies drank mimosas. I picked up a couple bottles of inexpensive Spanish champagne called Rondel. Although you’re not supposed to call it champagne unless it was made in France, so I guess I need to refer to it as sparkling wine. It was pretty good for $7.99 a bottle. I mean, as good as you would expect for $7.99 a bottle. The good thing is when you’re mixing it with orange juice you can’t really tell as much that you’re drinking cheap stuff!
All in all, I would say it was a very good meal. The best part was that I got to share it with my family. Nothing brings people together like a good meal!

Cheers and happy cooking,
Rosie

Homemade Lo-Mein

Hi there food lovers!

Sorry my posts have been non-existent lately. I actually have been cooking quite a bit, but have lacked the motivation to get on and blog about it. I don't have any good excuses; I just have felt kind of blah about it lately. But this week I've been making some neat stuff every night, and each night has been something new that I've never made before or haven't made in a really long time. It's been refreshing this week which has given the motivation to get back in the swing of things. I think sometimes you just get stuck in a rut, and that makes it hard to get excited about what your cooking.

I really enjoy Chinese food. For me, it's right up there with pasta and Greek food. Pasta is my all time favorite, second is Greek (which funny enough has a lot of pasta-influence) and lastly would have to be Chinese food. There isn't much food I don't like, except for sushi. I can't touch that stuff…sorry sushi lovers!

I used to eat Chinese food a lot more than I do now, but I've cut back significantly because it's laden with excessive amounts of sodium and MSG and other bad things that make me bloat up like a puffer fish. I've been hankering for some lo-mein, and thought about stopping by my favorite little Chinese whole-in-the-wall restaurant, Jasmine ( by the Berkshire Publix in Naples). Then I thought to myself, why can't I just make some at home? I'd never done it before how hard could it be? Turns out, it's very easy and way healthier than what I would of gotten at Jasmine's.

I found authentic Lo-Mein noodles in the Chinese section at Publix. They came in a peculiar looking box named "China Boy." They were more expensive than regular pasta at about $1.69 a box, but I figured I would try them out and see if they were worth it.

I heated up about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in my pan over high heat. I have a wok that I should of used, but it was easier to use a regular pan than go hunt down the wok. Once the pan was hot, I grated fresh ginger root and garlic directly into the pan. Then I added very thinly sliced chicken breast and let those brown up nicely. After that had browned, I added snow peas, carrots and celery. I would of liked to have added broccoli as well, but I forgot to pick that up at the store. I added very little soy sauce, some Thai-chili sauce (Chris and I both like spicy food so I was pretty liberal with it) and a dash of some bottled stir-fry sauce from Kikkoman. I added the cooked lo-mein noodles, which cooked up very fast in about 4 minutes and combined all the ingredients together. This was one of those things that I knew just by looking at it that it was going to be yummy. One taste was I needed to confirm that fact! This was some great tasting stuff, and it was really easy and a lot healthier than I what I would of eaten had I of caved in and got take-out!

This made a ton of food. Chris and I both ate it for dinner that night, he took it for “pre” dinner with him the next day to school, and I still had enough left over to take for a good size lunch to take to work. Next time that I make it, I’m going to try to use whole-wheat thin spaghetti and see how that is. I’m also going to use pork next time and I think that will give it even more flavor than the chicken. I hope you try it and enjoy it as much as I did!

Cheers and Happy Cooking,

Rosie