In the Kitchen With Mattie

Archive for December, 2009

I told this story to a few friends on the web and they said it belongs here on the blog so here we go.

My hubby is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet, seriously! He has always been there for me since our first date many years ago and as he says he would give up his life for me……….I and others who know him don’t doubt that. How I ever got so lucky to find someone like him I will never know, what I do know is that he doesn’t belong in my kitchen!

He is a neat nut and I am a slob to put it mildly……seriously I will never be accused of being tidy or organized, but the chaos in my home is all straight in my mind. I can find anything I am looking for in a second if no one else has moved or “put it away” for me. Really, DON’T try to organize me or my house, if you do you will send me over the edge! Come to see me NOT my house and we will get along well, don’t try to convert me to your ways and I won’t try to make you a nut like me.

Now onto hubby and me in the same kitchen.

We had been married about 2 years at the time and we had invited people over to eat. Hubby decided he would help seeing as we also had our first son by then and I was a very busy young working mom. I planned on making a beautiful roast (that we really couldn’t afford at the time) and had everything going along really well. We had a tiny little attic apartment back then and not 2 feet of spare space in it. Hubby, having just come out of the Army was all about organization, he used to scrub the woodwork with an old toothbrush every week back then, he carried it so far that everytime he would change a diaper the baby got a bath, poor Chris he had the driest skin of any baby you ever saw until I made the pediatrician have a talk with hubby.

On the day of the dinner I took the roast out of the oven and set it aside to rest. I poured the drippings from the pan into a fat separator and set it aside while I set about getting the side dishes ready. Then I assembled the rest of what I needed to make the sauce for the meat. Everything was going along great and then I went to reach for the juices, they were gone! Hubby with his Army ways and proficiency had decided to throw that “stuff” in the funny cup away and wash the container and put it away. He was always doing that, he would follow me around and clean up everything that I touched. I would get out a cutting board and put a knife on it then go to the fridge to get whatever it was I was going to cut up and by the time I got everything ready, the cutting board and the knife were washed and put away.

But back to the dinner, it came off great although the guests thought the meat really would have been better with some kind of sauce on it. After they left I almost brained him, really I was chasing him thru the apartment. He thought I was being a little mean to him because after all his family never had any kind of sauce with anything they ate so he couldn’t see the big deal in any of it.

The next time he saw that fat separator on the counter you can bet he didn’t touch it, and over the years he now looks for some kind of sauce or gravy with everything, he doesn’t even remember a time he thought it was something unnessesary. It has taken me years however to break him of the habit of following me around and washing everything in sight before I am done using it………..I think it might be because our kitchen is really too small (with all my clutter) for more than one person to fit in it.

Next time I’ll tell you about his famous turkey dinner!

While grocery shooping on Sunday we ran across a sale on pork roasts so I picked up a large one, I cut it into boneless chops and a nice sized roast for when I cook for the gang and the rest we had tonight as fried cutlets. We had these with applesauce, fresh mashed potatoes and sauteed brussel sprouts, a nice easy meal.

 

                                                        Pork Cutlets

 

Center cut pork roast cut into 1/2 inch slices, pounded thin to about 1/4 inch thick

2 large/jumbo eggs scrambled

2 tablespoons dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 cup flour

3 cups panko bread crumbs

1/4 cup oil

 

Place a large sheet of plastic wrap on the counter and place your cutlets on it, space them well apart, cover them with another large sheet of wrap. With a rubber mallet or meat pounder proceed to beat the life out of them, you want them a little under 1/4 inch thick so they cook quickly, be careful tho that you don’t tear them.

Beat the dijon mustard with 2 tablespoons water, the salt, pepper and the eggs together in a large flat bowl. Place the flour on one plate and the panko crumbs in another. One at a time coat the cutlets in the flour, then coat in the egg mixture, place into the panko and press the crumbs into the meat with the palm of your hand.

Place a large saute pan on the stove and heat it, when it is hot add about 3 tablespoons of the oil and heat that too. When the oil is hot place the cutlets in the pan and cook about 3-4 minutes per side until they are golden brown and crisp, repeat until they are all done, add more oil to the pan as needed.  Serve immediately with applesauce or a squeeze of lemon juice. A really quick cooking meal and leftovers make great panninis tomorrow, place a slice of swiss cheese and a cutlet on some french bread and grill them in a George Foreman type grill for a few minutes, serve it with some soup or a nice salad for a quick tasty meal.

 

 

 

Our weather has been miserable and I wanted something to stick to the old bones. I am a soup lover and could eat it everyday and night, however, Mick is not, he will eat it but he barely tolerates it, so as  I didn’t feel like eating a whole pot of soup myself I decided on making chicken and dumplins. This is another of Micks not too favorite things (damn the man is picky), he mostly doesn’t like it because of the heavy dumplins in most of these type dishes. I make mine differently and he actually likes this dish the way I make it.

 

                                             Chicken and Dumplins

 

4 large boneless chicken breasts cut into large pieces

1 medium onion diced fine

1/2 teaspoon thyme

salt and pepper

2 tablespoons oil

6-7 cups strong chicken broth

Pasta dough, made fresh

 

In a 4 quart covered saucepan heat the oil, season the chicken with the salt and pepper. When the oil is hot add the chicken in batches and saute it until it takes on a little color, remove it to a plate as it colors and add the rest of the chicken until it is all sauteed. Next add the onions and saute them until they soften, sprinkle on the thyme and saute a little more.  Add the chicken pieces back to the pan and mix everything together, add 6 cups of the broth, lower the stove and cover the pan, simmer for about an hour over a low flame while you make the dumplins.

                                                        Dumplins

 

I use one of my pasta machines to roll these out usually, you can also use a rolling pin if you don’t have a pasta machine. Into the food processor place 3 cups of all purpose flour, add 1/2 teaspoon salt and pulse to mix with the flour.  With the machine running add 3 jumbo eggs that have been scrambled together, when the dough comes together check the consistancy of it, you may need to add a bit of water if it is too dry or a bit more flour if it is too wet, you don’t want a sticky dough but you also don’t want a crumbily dry dough. Remove the dough from the machine and wrap it in plastic wrap and let it sit 1/2 hour. When you are ready place about a cup of flour on the counter and cut the dough into 4 or more portions, cover them with a towel and keep one out to work with. Set your pasta machine to the widest setting, coat the dough in the flour on the counter and run it thru the machine, fold it in half and send it thru again, coat it with flour again if it feels sticky, keep folding and sending it thru the machine until it feels smooth and no longer sticky. Turn the machine down to a thinner setting and send the dough thru again, you shouldn’t have to flour it anymore and don’t fold it anymore. Now decide how thick you would like your dumplins and stop sending the dough thru the machine when you reach that number. Set the rolled out portion to the side to rest while you work on the rest of the portions you have covered. When you are finished with all of them, take the first one you rolled out and cut it into the width of dumplin you would like, use a sharp knife or a pizza wheel for the cutting. After they are all done, turn the heat up a little on the chicken mixture and add the last cup of broth. When it returns to a boil add the dumplins one at a time so they don’t stick together and stir them up once or twice while you are adding them. They should be covered with liquid while they cook, add some water or more broth if you need to. Turn the heat down so they are at a low boil and cover the pan again, cook for about 15 minutes. Add some parsley and serve. If you make your dumplins thick they will take longer than if you like them very thin…………like the picky hubby here does. We had this with some fresh carrots in rosemary/honey butter and some fresh sourdough bread I baked.

 

Tonight for some reason I didn’t feel like doing a really big meal that usually finds me doing lots of prep work. Prep is something I normally love to do but not tonight. Using what I had on hand without having to go out to the grocery store I put this simple dinner together for us.  The whole meal took maybe 5 minutes active prep time and while it wasn’t up to the labor intensive things I usually make for us it was a simple good meal.

I had one pork tenderloin wrapped in the freezer and I took it out about an hour before we ate. I put two large baking potaotes into the small side oven and seasoned the tenderloin with salt, pepper and fresh rosemary and let it sit out while the potatoes cooked. Frozen green beans were put into a microwave bowl and seasoned with a pat of butter and a grind of pepper to be cooked in the microwave when the meat was almost finished. About 20 minutes before the potatoes were done I heated 2 teaspoons of olive oil in a saute pan and placed the tenderloin in it when the oil was hot, I let it cook until it had seared nicely then turned it on another side to do the same, turn it to all sides until it has a nice crust on it. Check the temp on it with an instant read thermometer and when interior registers around 155 degrees remove it from the pan to a plate and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. You can deglaze the pan with a little wine or stock and when all the browned bits are disolved add a nice chunk of butter and whisk it in to the pan juice. Slice the pork on an angle after it has rested and pour the pan juice over it. It was, like I said a really simple dinner and yet very satisfying.

It is cold and rainy out and I am a big lover of fresh home made soup of all kinds, but chicken noodle is probably one of my all time favorites. I make it often because it is so quick to do in the digital pressure cooker.

 

                                      Chicken Noodle Soup

 

5 pounds of bony chicken parts, wings, thighs, backs

 

2 onions, 1 left whole and one diced

 

3 carrots, washed and broken in half

 

3 stalks celery, washed and broken in half

 

3-4 sprigs fresh parsley

 

2 whole cloves garlic peeled

 

1 sprig thyme, or a big pinch of dried

 

2 teaspoons salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper

These ingredients go into the pressure cooker for the broth, later you will add to it. Put everything in the PC and cover with cold water, close the PC and bring to high pressure, if using a digital model set the timer for 60 minutes, if using a stove top model maintain pressure for 60 minutes. When it is finished release the pressure and strain the contents thru a fine strainer lined with cheesecloth. Discard the solids or pick thru the meat for your pets at this point.

 

Place the broth back in the PC and to it add:

 

3-4 carrots peeled and chopped

 

3-4 stalks celery chopped

 

1 onion diced small

 

2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley

 

2 cups raw thick noodles

 

Place the top on the cooker and bring to high pressure for 5 minutes, let pressure release naturally for 5  minutes then release the rest using the rapid release feature, taste and adjust the seasoning.  Serve the soup with a salad and some fresh crusty bread, it will warm those old bones on a cold damp day. You can also add some leftover roast or grilled chicken breast to it to make it heartier.